Can't Miss It: Thursday

MEMORIES OF MLK: Today isn’t Martin Luther King Jr. Day - that’s celebrated on the third Monday in January. It isn’t his birthday either - that’s January 15th. Yet King County’s (our county is named after MLK Jr…sort of) annual Martin Luther King celebration takes place today at Paramount Theatre. The free, (lunch) hour long event, titled Marching the Dream, features U.S. congressman John Lewis. Lewis, a representative of Georgia, was an important leader of the American Civil Rights movement. He helped lead, among other demonstrations, the Selma to Montgomery marches in 1965. Also speaking will be Dow Constantine, and the Humanitarian Award will be presented to Ron Sims, Washington native and current Deputy Secretary of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. Violinist and music director, Dr. Quinton Morris, will provide music.

12:00 p.m. // Paramount Theatre // Free

DOPE BALL DEAL: One of our New Year resolutions was to shop for deals. While we may be going too far in buying dog food on sale for a dog we don’t have and buying cheap sheets for Grandma that she may or may not like, this deal is just too good to pass up -- $10 to see 5 rap groups and a DJ hit one stage on a Thursday night. Sold. Add the fact that the lineup includes Tash from classic hip-hoppers The Alkoholiks, bay-area party linguists The Bayliens , League 510, Seattle product X-Kid, Idaho’s Oly Ghost, and DJ Pheloneous, and everybody wins.

8:00 p.m. // Chop Suey // $10 adv.

SHE’S ELECTRIC: Poor Electra gets a bad rap for having one of the first and most popular Daddy complexes in literature. Sure she wanted her mother dead, but that’s only because her mother Clymenstra and Cly’s lover murdered Electra’s father King Agamemnon. What would any good ancient Greek daughter do but enlist her brother and join with him to knock off their murdering mother? Kids those days. Of course this isn’t the sai-toting, ninja warrior, Marvel comics, Elektra. This is Sophocles’ Electra. Your father’s Electra. Still with its action, the stage presentation, directed by Sheila Daniels, should be even more packed with raw emotion and complicated justice.

7:30 p.m. // Seattle Shakespeare Company // $30