Can't Miss It: Thursday

RIPPED-OFF: Journalist Pratap Chatterjee has seen the face of the beast, and it is Halliburton. Conniving and connected, the Texas oil company has secured itself a prize position in Washington even as its corruption and incompetence cost tax-payers and soldiers dearly. Chatterjee explains all this in a helpful book called Halliburton's Army, which he's talking about tonight up at Town Hall.

7:30 p.m. // 1119 Eighth Ave. // $5

HARDBOILED PENS: SIFF's "Noir City: Newspaper Noir" series wraps up tonight, with Alias Nick Beale (7 p.m.), which features the devil and his lovely assistant buying a politico's soul on the cheap, and then there's Night Editor (9 p.m.), one of the "raciest and raunchiest "B" noirs of the forties," in which a cop, getting it on with his married, socialite girlfriend, witnesses a murder on lover's lane. And it turns her on! And he's got to investigate the crime! Someone's screwed...

7 & 9 p.m. // 321 Mercer St. // $10 GA

YO OSLO!: Seattle seven-piece Hey Marseilles take the stage at Neumo's tonight. Matt Bishop writes hyper-literate, soul-searching that his motley crew of cellists, violinists, and some odd brass wind players elegantly and/or mournfully accompany. It's supposed to be good. Or it's a horrible Decembrists rip-off. Whichev. With Grand Hallway and Painted Hills.

7 p.m doors // 925 E. Pike St. // $8