We don't even know 1621 12th Ave anymore. So much has changed in the building that formerly housed the Capitol Hill Arts Center that it's undertaken a completely new identity. First, there's the obvious: CHAC was kaput as of June 30th (though the un-updated website lives on). Now Velocity is set to move their dancers in, having just signed a ten-year lease, and the news broke last week that Crave would be out of......

We think this counts as "writing on both sides of your brain." Starting tonight and running through June 1 at CHAC is one of the more unusual solo performer shows we've heard of: former Washington State Insurance Commissioner Deborah Senn (a theater major, natch) has written a play about her experience wallowing in the mud of the election politics. Granted, the wallowing was not her idea--the mud was pumped in from out of state--but you......

Along with all the hiphop this weekend and the hella rad Subtle laser show tonight, there's a few more music events of note. First up, tonight State Bird plays an early show (8 p.m.) at the Q Cafe in Ballard. How both the venue and this great group of Ohio tribal-folksters have been under our radar is beyond us. Also tonight: Cat Power plays the Showbox SoDo. We know that Chan Marshall's not half as......

SOCIAL HOUR: Girl Power Hour, we remark without comment, lasts two hours. It's is a "social networking experience for young professional women in Seattle... for meeting other cool women, sharing ideas, inspiring each other and connecting on a personal or business level, over cocktails." Meet up at the W Hotel for spring fashion tips from Closetfly, fitness advice from Sassy Fit, and declutter advice from A Logical Mess. There's also a clothing drive for......

From the real-life inspiration of Seattle-based writer and performer Joanna Horowitz comes 100 Heartbreaks, a story about country singer hopeful Charlane Tucker. Tucker, a self-proclaimed expert at hook-ups, break-ups and hangovers, is a regular girl who desperately wants to "make it" in the country music world. Her genius plan to get to Nashville: Find 100 men who will love and leave her. 100 Heartbreaks is a one-woman country musical, performed by Horowitz, that follows......

Mike Daisey has been in town performing his notorious Monopoly, a controversial monologue exploring the excesses of American capitalism (particularly of the Wal-Mart variety). But this weekend, Daisey turns his withering gaze on the theatre itself, with How Theater Failed America at the Capitol Hill Arts Center. Daisey takes aim at the theater for its manifold failures: its pretentions, its disconnect from the world around it, its self-satisfaction. (Check out a five-minute sample over at......

CHAC's indefatigable Matthew Kwatinetz is organizing trips to Olympia to show support for extending the use of King County's Lodging Tax for culture. Kwatinetz claims that without the extension, arts funding could be "cut from $35 million per year to less than $2 million per year." Thursday morning's caravan leaves from CHAC at 10am. Who knows, maybe you'll run into Josh Feit in the Olympian halls of power. Think about that.HOW: Buses and vans will......

Reliable sources tell us that if you ask Mike Daisey what he does for a living, he replies that he's "a monologist." Daisey may be the only person in America who introduces himself that way. If only those hordes who introduce themselves as "mortgage bankers" or "members of the Bush Administration" were as good at their jobs as Daisey is at his. We saw his Monopoly Saturday night at CHAC--it's smart, funny, and well......

For all those interested, tonight the Capitol Hill Arts Center will be hosting a panel discussion with the Capitol Hill Chamber of Commerce on the topic of "Is there still room for culture on Capitol Hill?" The impetus behind the event is the generally rapacious rate of condo-conversion and construction that's pushed out notable businesses along Pike/Pine, and now finds its apogee in the sale of Oddfellows Hall, which threatens to displace a number of......

Tuning the Air continues their multi-guitar soundscape at the Capitol Hill Arts Center showroom every Monday through 12/17. So you've only got four more chances to see the guitorchestra in action, playing their fusion of the old and new, the classic and the modern, live and in the round. Intrepid reporter MvB has seen them on more than one occasion and had this to say about the CHAC residency: Tuning the Air is guitar-topia,......

Tuning the Air has been performing their big guitar orchestra take on all genres, from classical to rock, pop, and ambient, for a couple years now. Think the Beatles back-to-back with Bach, and some improv thrown in for good (huh huh) measure. The show used to be in Ballard, but for the past few months, they've taken up a weekly residency at the Capitol Hill Arts Center, in the CHAC showroom on Mondays through......

Capitol Hill studio Pilates Body Fitness is celebrating their 5th year in the Capitol Hill Arts Center with an open house this Sunday. It's a good chance to stop in to check out the equipment, meet the instructors, and see if you're interested in giving this hippie holistic exercise bullshit a try. (Tongue-in-cheekiness aside, pilates is great, and we'd totally do it every day if we were an independently wealthy ex-trophy wife and/or trust......

What better way to raise money for cancer than a good old-fashioned moustache pageant? Seemingly classy-ass Monsieur Moustache is tonight at the Capitol Hill Arts Center, with the proceeds going to help pay the leukemia treatment bills of local waiter extraordinare Nick Farina. (Proceeds will also be shared with the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance.) Nick's not the only guy out there with over a million dollars in bills (since, you know, our system's fucked),......

Balagan Theatre burst out of the womb of the Capitol Hill Arts Center last week with the opening of their new season in the La Spiga building at the corner of Pike and 12th. "Three weeks ago this was a concrete box," someone said before the performance, "and thanks to the hard work of many people, today it's a concrete box with curtains." It's actually pretty fly for a concrete box with curtains. The......

In anticipation of French house DJs Daft Punk's show at WaMu Theatre this Sunday, head to Lower Level at the Capitol Hill Arts Center tonight for a screening of the first film directed by the electro duo: Electroma, a film made by Daft Punk, is an odyssey of two robots who journey across a mythic American landscape of haunting, surreal beauty on a quest to become human. Their symbolic quest, which takes them from......

RADIO: We don't care if it's passe to think so: Ira Glass is a goddamn genius. Our favorite kind of genius -- the kind who builds an ecosystem in which other geniuses flourish. He's in town tonight to talk about what he learned from making a TV show. 7:30pm // The Paramount // sold out, but apparently people on Craigslist think it's worth $325 a ticket MUSIC: Midlake bring '70s rock and a mess......

CASTING CALL: Local director Garrett Bennett is looking for extras to cast in his independent film The Spy & the Sparrow. 3-8pm // First Church of Christ Scientist [1519 E. Denny Way] // $Whatever minuscule remnants remain of your dreams of an acting career BOOKS: Don't wear sweatpants to this event. Erotica writer Jennifer Munro reads from her award-winning work, as does the winner of Hugo House's erotica writing competition. Keep your fingers crossed for......

BEE: Re-Bar's spelling bee is back after last month's finals. Seattle Weekly writer Gavin Borchert won last time around, spelling words like "festschrift," "cockalorum," and "samadhi" correctly. 7pm // Re-Bar // $5 BOOKS: A train crash sends a poison gas cloud drifiting towards Minot, North Dakota. Someone's got to warn the town, but calls to the offices of all six local radio stations went unanswered by Clear Channel's robot deejays. One died and thousands were......

BASKETBALL: Ex-Garfield High and UW star Will Conroy suits up for a regular season NBA game for the first time tonight as his new team Memphis hosts Dallas. 5pm // Our basement or anywhere else with the NBA package HIP-HOP: Lupe Fiasco hits town along with a number of other hip-hop performers. 7-11pm // HUB Ballroom at the UW // $18 general public, $14 UW students BOOKS: Calvin Trillin reads from About Alice, his fond,......

MUSIC: God help you if you can't appreciate the genius of Stephen Malkmus. Alright, so he's not playing with Pavement (best indie band EVER, pleeeeeease reunite!), but tonight with The Jicks, he'll have one thing that Pavement never had: badass Janet Weiss on drums. Hells yeah! 8pm doors // Neumo's // $15 GOTH: Blacklight hopes to pick up where The Vogue left off in their new home at the Capitol Hill Arts Center. Friday's their......

OPENING: The McLeod Residence, Seattle's premiere lounge/club/gallery, celebrates their grand opening this evening. So if you weren't invited on New Year's, now's your chance to check out the swank digs and the current exhibits. 5-9pm // 2209 2nd Ave. // Free MUSIC: If there's one genre of music we know nothing about, it's lesbian electro hip hop. Tonight's the night to rectify that with Team Gina's record release at the Wildrose. Just a guess: the......

MUSIC: Blue Scholars and Common Market 8pm // Neumo's // $20. 21+ MUSIC: Harvey Danger with Slender Means and "Awesome." 9pm // Crocodile // $25. 21+ (also an early show at 4pm for all-ages; $5) PARTY: Arcana: New Years Masquerade Ball 9pm // Capitol Hill Arts Center // $30 (or $75 for deluxe pimp action) MUSIC: The Melvins, Big Business, Porn, "Hot Sauce" Butch Darlene 8pm// Showbox // $25 "MYSTICAL" PARTY: There's this weird......

DONATE: For as much as gamers earn their nerdy reputations (and thus our ridicule), Child's Play gives them a chance to both share their geek pride and help the world around them through donations to help kids in hospitals. You want to help too, right? Anytime // Child's Play // However much you can COMICS: Seattlest favorites Ellen Forney and Peter Bagge provide a double-dose of awesome with Comics Rock!, featuring Forney's "I Love......

There's no such thing as a free ride. This week in speaking happenings is bursting with free-for-alls, but beware the "hidden costs" lurking beneath. Wednesday, December 6 >>>DORKBOT, 7:30pm. We love the name, but saying that they plan to "discuss their innovative approach to immersive, participatory entertainment" doesn't hide the fact that this will be geeks talking about videogames. Free, but only if you know the secret code: 'Knock knock, who's there?' 'Um, dorks?' 'Come......

Halloween is such a fantastic mix of death, decay, kitsch, and morbid Catholic ritual that there is just no topping it as far as holidays go. Of course it does present some problems. Often at Halloween what would appear to be limitless possibility in the end boils down to options that are severely limited by your own laziness and the picked-over racks at the costume store, and this is particularly true for the girls.......

Someone walked into a Capitol Hill party at 7am this morning with a number of guns and shot a bunch of people. Six 20-somethings and the gunman are dead. The Seattle Times is reporting that the incident occured at the 2100 block of East Republican - An officer in the area heard shots fired and responded to the address where he confronted a man armed with a shotgun. The man then shot himself. Lots of......

Besides raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, these were a few of our favorite things, at least in terms of live music during the past year. Audrey: Arcade Fire---May 28th @ the Gorge, September 21st @ the Paramount Though I am still kicking myself for missing their KEXP show at Neumo's last December (I chalk that up to "having my head up my ass"), I managed to see this powerfully emotive band twice......

Still hedging your bets about New Year's Eve? For what it's worth, here's what we're doing. Seth and David S. are going to the Capitol Hill Arts Center for their "Greatest Show on Earth" party. Don't look for them upstairs--they will be downstairs with the burlesque dancers and the top indie prog-rock band of 2005, Awesome. Matt is starting 2006 off right--with wallowing. Tomorrow morning he's having breakfast at the Kenwanda golf course to say......

A while back, before we got strep throat from making out with ten-year-olds, we were at the Capitol Hill Arts Center for the opening night performance of Cloud Tectonics, the first play of their 2005-2006 theatre season. This piece has a lot going for it: it's written by José Rivera, who has several other great plays up his sleeve, as well as an Oscar nomination for the screenplay of The Motorcycle Diaries (watch for his......

The set and special effects are more richly rendered than anything Dreamworks has ever produced. The well-designed ensemble cast overshadows your old favorites from the original Star Wars. The story is both more believable and more fantastic than The Matrix. Of course, in RL it’s just one man on a bare stage in the dark cellar of the Capitol Hill Arts Center, but Virtual Solitaire is so fully imagined and so strongly performed that Dawson......