Kane Hall's Room 130 was almost full last night, for "The Psychology of Blink: Understanding How Our Minds Work Unconsciously," the last talk in the 2008 Edwards Psychology Lecture Series at the UW. The Blink part comes from a reference to Greenwald's work in chapter three of Gladwell's book. Dr. Anthony Greenwald gave an Implicit Association 101 talk, going back far enough to distinguish it from Freud's free association. The key difference is that he's......

THEATRE: Young Jean Lee's Theater Company presents Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven (A Show about White People in Love), which is an aggressively exotic title for someone raised in Pullman, WA.Writer/director Young Jean Lee's worst nightmare was to make a confessional, ethnic identity play with a flowery Asian-sounding title. So, the young NYC-based artist did just that [...] a character named "Korean-American" navigates increasingly disturbing levels of a pseudo-Korean world intercut with......

Monday 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. 7-8:30pm // Seattle Central Public Library Microsoft Auditorium // FREE PETER BEAGLE SPEAKS: For the Fantastic Fiction Salon, fantasy author Peter Beagle (The Last Unicorn, Tamsin, and The Innkeeper's Song) teaches "Dialogue Says it All." 7pm // Hugo House......

Monday SHERMAN FREAKING ALEXIE: The best-selling author returns with his first novel in ten years. Flight tells the story of an orphaned Indian boy who travels back and forth through time in a violent search for his true identity. Real Change-published poets (that would actually include Alexie, too) read as part of the program. 7:30pm // Town Hall // $5 LOCAL AUTHOR: Maya Sonenberg, the Creative Writing Program Director at the UW, presents a......

Monday 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......

Monday 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!" 7pm // Hugo House // $4 donation ARTS & LECTURES POETRY SERIES: "Poetry is what maintains our capacity for contemplation and difficulty." That's......

Monday 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. 7:30pm // Benaroya Hall // Tickets:......

MUSIC: The Mountain Goats bring their brand of oddball-but-strangely-touching songsmanship to Neumo's. * Sample tracks on MySpace. 8pm // Neumo's // $15 ROBOTS: MIT Media Lab director Cynthia Breazeal was involved in the creation of Cog the humanoid bot (which will not have sex with you) and Kismet the sociable bot (which, also will not have sex with you). Breazeal will speak about her research in "human-robot interaction" without once mentioning artificially intelligent handjobs. 7pm......

Monday AUTHOR, AUTHOR: In Bich Minh Nguyen's memoir, Stealing Buddha's Dinner, a young family escapes from Vietnam shortly before the fall of Saigon and relocates to Grand Rapids, Michigan. "In her recreation of a world populated by family ties, Ritz crackers, and Judy Blume books, she has captured the 1980s with perfection," says Kirkus Reviews. 7:30pm // Elliott Bay // FREE Tuesday ANNE LAMOTT RECOMMENDS: Elizabeth Gilbert talks about her book Eat, Pray, Love:......

Monday A NADER REMEMBERS: Recalling his childhood in Winstead, Connecticut, former presidential candidate and longtime political and social activist Ralph Nader offers 17 values a child should learn to become a conscientious adult. Not helping elect neo-fascists was, unfortunately, #18. 7pm // Third Place Books // FREE Tuesday EROTICA: "One Foot on the Floor: A Reading of Erotica." Jennifer D. Munro (aka Dawn O'Hara) -- whose work has appeared in many collections, including "Best......

Monday AIR SUPPLY: Eric Klinenberg’s new book, Fighting for Air, examines how corporate ownership and control of local media has remade American political and cultural life. Klinenberg, a sociology professor at New York University, is interviewed by Michael Fancher, Seattle Times editor-at-large. 7:30pm // Town Hall // $5 Tuesday PANEL OF POETS: Sherman Alexie, Chelsea Rathburn, Richard Wakefield and Eric McHenry present "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Rhyme": a roundtable discussion......

MUSIC: Deerhoof. Some have dismissed Deerhoof as bland or simply weird. Others praise the complex composition of their songs. We just think they're good. *Sample tracks on MySpace 8:00 pm // Neumo's // $12adv (All ages, bar w/ ID) AUTHOR, AUTHOR: Charles Johnson delivers his talk, "Whole Sight: The Intersection of Culture, Faith, and Imagination." Literary critic, screenwriter, philosopher, and cartoonist, Johnson is the author of Middle Passage (1990), winner of the National Book Award.......

Monday LOCAL AUTHOR, LOCAL AUTHOR: Clear Cut Press presents two of its novelists: Matt Briggs' Shoot The Buffalo is about a boy growing up in Snoqualmie during the '70s. Stacey Levine's Frances Johnson, set in a small town in Florida, details the random choices made by the eponymous Ms. Johnson. 7pm // University Bookstore // FREE SCI-FI SALON: One of the finest authors on the "humanist" wing of American science fiction and fantasy, Paul......

Monday AUTHOR, AUTHOR: Dr. Neal Barnard has his self-promotional finger on America's pulse with his book: Dr. Neal Barnard's Program for Reversing Diabetes: The Scientifically Proven System for Reversing Diabetes Without Drugs. Is a low-fat vegetarian diet in your future? 7pm // University Bookstore, Bellevue // FREE Tuesday SOUND ECOLOGY: John Lombard, senior policy analyst for Steward and Associates, an environmental consulting firm, presents a proposal detailing the legal and political realities necessary for......

Monday AUTHOR, AUTHOR: Barbara Ehrenreich talks about her book Dancing in the Streets, in which she explores the desire for collective joy (see photo), historically expressed in ecstatic revels of feasting, costuming, and dancing. 7:30pm // Town Hall // Tickets $5 Tuesday MANUSCRIPT READING: Frances McCue, former artistic director and co-founder of Richard Hugo House, reads from "Chasing Richard Hugo" and presents a short film shot in Montana with Charles D'Ambrosio, Bill Kittredge and......

Wednesday, November 15 >>>UW iSchool at Kane Hall, 7:00-9:00pm. "Voices in an Empty Room: Five Apologies for the Narrative": Children's author Richard Peck discusses his writing and teaching careers, and his experiences with the kids today. He'll read from On The Wings Of Heroes, his new novel about a World War II childhood. Free with RSVP. Kane Hall, Rm. 220. >>>Third Place Books, 7:00pm. We saw this book talk about adoptive parents and thought......

Wednesday, November 1 >>>Benaroya Hall, 7:30pm. Seattle Arts and Lectures brings prolific big shot and errant van survivor Stephen King by. Maybe you’ve heard of him? For the Constant Reader, it’s an event not to be missed. He'll talk about Lisey’s Story, his latest novel. Tickets $25 and $35. But, like many things in King’s Dark Tower world, they’ve already moved on. >>>University Temple Methodist Church, 7:00pm. Keeping with the All Soul's Day theme,......

Wednesday, October 25 >>>Rendezvous Jewel Box Theater, 7:30-10pm. Are you afraid of the dimmed lights in a theater? A Guide to Visitors presents their annual Ghost Story night. Spooky stories about haunted office buildings and ghost quests, told by people such as the woman who leads a ghost tour of Pike Place Market. The press release says the Jewel Box is haunted, so maybe the dead will chip in a tale or two themselvs.......

Wednesday, October 18 >>>EMP, 6pm. First The Police's Andy Summers gets interviewed by EMP Senior Curator, Jasen Emmons. Then he signs his book, One Train Later: A Memoir. You need tickets to stand in the "Don't Stand So Close To Me" book-signing line, available with purchase of the book from University Book Store. Andy will sign one piece of memorabilia per copy of his book. Did we mention he has a book out? $5......

Wednesday, October 11 >>>University Temple United Methodist Church, 7:30pm. Religious believers can be co-opted, argues distinguished biologist and secular humanist E.O. Wilson in his talk "The Creation: A Meeting of Science and Religion." Blah blah salvation of biodiversity blah glory of nature blah work together. We dislike this automatic Religion-and-Science connection ("Ballet and Groundskeeping: A New Unity"), but he's a smartie. Could be worth it. Suggested donation: $5 at the door. >>>UW Information School, 7:00-9:00pm.......

European travel guru Rick Steves has reefer madness. His best girl is named Mary Jane and every once in while he gets a visit from Puff the Magic Dragon. Face it, people, the man you've relied on to guide you through the historic wonders of the old world is one lost Europass away from becoming this guy. Tonight at Kane Hall, Steves will join Roger Goodman, director of the King County Bar Association's Drug Policy......

Yesterday Seattlest went to Hana on Broadway for lunch. We were meeting an old college friend there. "You know why I love getting lunch here?" he said, as he sat down. "Because I remember when I used to come here for lunch and get steamed rice with some teriyaki sauce on top. That was all I could afford. I only shelled out the $5 for teriyaki chicken if I felt rich." Ah, college days. Which......

Seattlest first heard about the predilection David Lynch has for meditation shortly after 9/11, when he suggested that winning a war against suicidal religious fundamentalists would require us to think happy thoughts and do some breathing excercises. This didnt exactly inspire the requisite confidence to secure a nomination for Secretary of Defense from the neo-cons, but then again, that's not really saying anything. In this msnbc interview from last July, Lynch talks about wanting to......