Hugo House will be hosting Visiting Hours this Friday at 7:30 p.m., featuring Northwest favorites such as Benjamin Parzybok, Elizabeth Austen, Matt Smith, and Molly Rose. Tickets range from $15-25.
Hugo House will be hosting Visiting Hours this Friday at 7:30 p.m., featuring Northwest favorites such as Benjamin Parzybok, Elizabeth Austen, Matt Smith, and Molly Rose. Tickets range from $15-25.
WHAT'S FOR DINNER: If you haven't heard already, Dine Around Seattle is once again happening--but only until November 30th. The deal is that you can go to any restaurant listed Sunday-Thursday for a three-course dinner for only $30. It makes our mouth water just thinking about it.... Earth & Ocean on a Tuesday night for a three-course meal at thirty bucks?! Ahhhhh, happiness. Besides Earth & Ocean, the list includes many greats--such as Spring Hill, Nell's, Campagne, and Chez Shea, along with a handful of Tom Douglas' restaurants. Too bad Lark isn't on the list, but we're sure we'll find a way to manage. Also keep in mind--many of the restaurants listed are additionally offering $15 lunch specials, so take advantage of it while you can! And as a courteous reminder--don't forget to tip!
Hugo House will be officially kicking off its 2009-2010 Literary Series this Friday with well-known Seattle favorites such as Rebecca Brown, Keri Healey, Eric McHenry, and local hip-hop artist Macklemore.
ONE WEEKEND ONLY biome @ Seattle Rep. Capacitor, a San Francisco-based performance group that mixes dance, multimedia, and science, is finally back in town with biome. Originally scheduled for January, the performance was canceled when flooding closed I-5. Now, Capacitor is finally back for two nights with a stunning visual exploration of the micro-habitat of the rain-forest canopy, based on a close collaboration with scientists in the International Canopy Network, including Evergreen College professor Dr. Nalini Nadkarni. (Fri. & Sat., 8 p.m. 155 Mercer St. Tix $15-$25.)
STILL TRUCKIN': Sonic Youth's new album going to try the Block Party again, so this is about as good as it gets for people like us. Three Imaginary Girls co-hosts the event with Hannah Levin, Gainsbourg's co-owner.
In 1941, two of the time's most loved comedy stars, Cary Grant and Irene Dunne, were united in Penny Serenade, a three-hankie picture in which they played a couple who lose their little daughter.
For those of you who didn't know, April is not only about Easter and April Fool's Day; it's also National Poetry Month!
We have to start here by jumping in and saying that this is easily one of the most exciting weekends of theatre we've seen in town in months--two festivals running, genre-breaking opera, ballet crossing over into Broadway show tune territory, two shows that have had their runs extended (, you've lost your bloody mind. It doesn't get better than this!
INFINITE JEST: David Foster Wallace's suicide in September of last year was a major blow to the literary world. While opinions differ on his major work (this writer didn't particularly like ), Wallace was undoubtedly one of the most influential writers of the '90s and the '00s, equally capable of creating a complex multi-layered short story as he was of delivering a deeply insightful analysis of John McCain's 2000 presidential campaign. Tonight, a group of local literary somebodies are getting together to honor Wallace's life and to read from some of his work up at the Hugo House. Featuring the likes of Paul Constant, Cienna Madrid, and David Schmader.
Buried under the avalanche of over-writing that is Island of Misfits (Thurs-Sun through December 21, tickets $10) is a very funny parody of the stop-motion holiday classic Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town. In this case, puppeteer Freddie Douglas Black (Geoffery Simmons, with a Poitier-esque suit and throaty rasp) has been called up for the Vietnam draft, so he heads for the snowy north (Canada) with his cynical, lovelorn photographer Snowflake Jones (Kaitie Warren) and stick-in-the-mud production supervisor Herbie Pickle (Patrick Allcorn)--they've got nothing better to do, since they've all been laid off. Stop-motion is cheaper to do in Japan.
GENUINELY COOL, ARTSY FARTSY NIGHT: Go to the Filter release party at the Richard Hugo House tonight for readings, hobnob opps with writerly folks, and performances by Awesome!. The literary magazine celebrates the release of its second issue, and if you haven't seen this work of art yet, you may not know: this is a beautiful and well-crafted literary magazine, not only in content but in construction.
The setting is the executive suites at a baby formula manufacturer, though that's just gilding the satirical lily--it could be any executive suite. Deranged by the entrance of the breast-feeding temp Gina (a home run performance by Maggie Brothers), Joe De Martini is the executive in question. He's played by Alex Samuels, who looks like Jeff Goldblum's cousin and creates awkward, humiliating situations as effortlessly as Ricky Gervais, with the added bonus of blurting out terrible, soul-bearing "jokes" at high volume. He deals with a breast-feeding employee as if she's a terrorist.
The highlight is you get to live, subsidized, in one of the “Hugo Huts”—Seattle’s historic Belltown Cottages. The rent subsidy doesn't include utilities, jackets with worn corduroy patches on the elbows, or afternoon drinks at Black Bottle.
The Hugo House Literary Series kicks off Friday night with "Lost in Translation," and the program features Seattlest-favorite and monologist Mike Daisey, novelist Randall Keenan and historian Lesley Hazleton.
Musical hyphenate-extraordinaire Shawn Smith has been fronting bands and playing solo in Seattle for about 15 years. As recent, local music history goes, he’s as seminal a figure as Kurt Cobain—and more prolific—though not nearly as high-profile. He should be.
Mom always told me not to talk with my mouth full. But that's just what Leite's Culinaria wants local food writers to do for a project about food writing. Launched last year in New York City, now spreading around the country, "Talking With Your Mouth Full" is a night of reading by food writers "to highlight the versatility of the craft."
BOOK CRUSH: Librarian Nancy Pearl´s latest book is Book Crush, a guide to books you loved when you were growing up. How does she know? Head over to the launch party and find out.
CALL 911! CALL 911!: Political and economic commentator and White House strategist during the Nixon administration, Kevin Phillips talks about his book, American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century. Phillips traces the set of related causes that caused the downfall of historical world powers. That same combination of ills he says -- global over-reach, militant religion, resource problems, and ballooning debt -- is at work in the U.S. today.
PREQUEL TO MCARTNEY'S WINGS: Richie Unterberger, the author of several books on the history of rock, shows some film footage and plays some music recordings of unreleased Beatles material. He´s promoting his latest book, The Unreleased Beatles -- Music and Film. We had no idea they were in jail! (Ha! Because of the "unreleased" -- see how...oh...sure, we can move on.)
THAT STARBUCKS "I WAS A CHILD SOLDIER" GUY: At twelve, Ishmael Beah found himself fleeing rebels, wandering from village to village. At thirteen, he was a soldier in Sierra Leone, hooked on drugs and capable of things he would never have imagined. Now, rehabilitated and living in the U.S., he tells his story in A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, in an attempt to raise awareness of the child soldier phenomenon.
FANTASTIC FICTION SALON: Novelist, nonfiction author, and short story writer Terry Bisson has swept every honor in the science fiction field as well as France's Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire. He joins Hugo House's Writing Fantastic Fiction workshop series, where he will teach "Who Likes Short Shorts? We Like Short Shorts!"
David Mamet must be pretty damn good, because the Strawberry Theatre Workshop is reviving a play of his that's so obscure, it doesn't even have a Wiki page, and yet the thing is fantastic.
LESS IS MORE: In Trance of Scarcity: Stop Holding Your Breath and Start Living Your Life, Victoria Castle asks why we feel that nothing is ever enough. Castle's book shows us how to escape this malaise and become more relaxed and alive. Hopefully it doesn't involve crisscrossing the U.S. on a book tour.
SEATTLE ARTS & LECTURES: Art Spiegelman's 1992 Holocaust tale Maus (based on a true story) won the first Pulitzer Prize awarded to a comic book. Its success paved the way for the graphic novels thriving today and led to Spiegelman's ten years on the staff of the New Yorker. In the Shadow of No Towers (2004) gathers his recent broadsheets of disenchantment with the war on terror.