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SAT
JUL 19, 2008
'The Violet Hour' VISUAL ART
'The Violet Hour'
Henry Art Gallery

For being so grim, this three-person show is remarkably entertaining: Jen Liu's videos feature Pink Floyd standards sung in Latin plainchant, Black Sabbath's "Iron Man" performed by a community brass band, cannibalism, brutalist architecture, and pretty young men. In David Maljkovic's videos, young people in a postcommunist daze linger under burdensome modernist architecture, loitering around immobilized cars. Matthew Day Jackson has actually immobilized a Corvette, which sits in the middle of the gallery, bringing to mind stoners and bombed-out cathedrals. (Henry Art Gallery, 4100 15th Ave NE, 543-2280. 11 am–5 pm, $10.) by Jen Graves

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14/48 THEATER
Center House Theatre

The world's quickest theater festival (where a pack of artists creates 14 new short plays in 48 hours) rides again. Each 14/48 is equal parts good, bad, and marvelously awful. This year's list of artists is a who's who of the Seattle fringe scene: playwrights such as Elizabeth Heffron (Mitzi's Abortion) and Scot Augustson (master of loopy, perverse comedies), actors Charles Smith (of Greek Active fame) and Ray Tagavilla (criminally underutilized), directors Gillian Jorgensen (artistic director emeritus of Annex Theatre) and Brian Faker (actor, director, and all-around old salt). Bring a flask. (Center House Theater, Seattle Center, 800-838-3006. 8 and 10:30 pm, $15. Through July 27.) by Brendan Kiley

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Also Suggested Today: 'The Violet Hour'14/48
SUN
JUL 20, 2008
Spring Hill FOOD & DRINK
Spring Hill
Spring Hill

What's being produced in the kitchen of chef Mark Fuller's new West Seattle venture gives your mind something to do along with your mouth. The cold cioppino ($12), for example, is a miracle of a summer soup: a crystal-clear tomato broth with a bit of basil oil and half-immersed morsels of Dungeness crab, shrimp, mussel, and halibut. How can something transparent be so flavorful and also so subtle? Why is this the perfect medium for seafood? Think it over; eat it up. (Spring Hill Restaurant and Bar, 4437 California Ave SW, 935-1075. 5:45 pm–midnight.) by Bethany Jean Clement

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MON
JUL 21, 2008
'Alexandra' FILM
'Alexandra'

A friend of mine, a Russian Jew, is of the opinion that a stream of nationalism runs through the center of Alexander Sokurov's Russian Ark (2002), and that nationalism always ends in a state of war, a sea of blood. Alexandra, Sokurov's latest film, comes into war by a nationalist stream—a proud babushka visiting her grandson, a soldier, at his camp in Chechnya—for the purpose of finding a way out of the blood and destruction. The way out is humanistic rather than nationalistic. The film is fucking great. (See movie times, www.thestranger.com, for details.) by Charles Mudede

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TUE
JUL 22, 2008
Zizek Urban Beats Club MUSIC
Zizek Urban Beats Club
Nectar

Zizek Urban Beats Club is a weekly dance party and DJ collective in Buenos Aires, Argentina, that mixes music from around the globe—Berlin techno, Baltimore club, London grime—with South America's world beat du jour, cumbia. But why the name Zizek? DJ Grant C. Dull explains: "One of the resident DJs, a philosophy student, loved how Zizek used elements of contemporary culture and 'mashed them up' with classical thought to create something fresh and new, similar to what we are doing with music." (Nectar Lounge, 412 N 36th St, 632-2020. 9 pm, $10, 21+.) by Eric Grandy

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WED
JUL 23, 2008
Mudhoney, No Age MUSIC
Mudhoney, No Age
KEXP Parking Lot

If you missed Sub Pop's 20th anniversary festivities last weekend, this is your chance to catch up. Labelmates Mudhoney and No Age share a penchant for good guitar fuzz, but that's about it. Where the former make a conventional racket of garage punk and hard rock, the latter dilute punk, psych, and pop rock into a more mercurial, thrilling solution. Mudhoney are titans of Sub Pop's past; No Age are the future. (KEXP parking lot, 113 Dexter Ave N. 8 pm, free with e-ticket at www.freeyrradio.com, all ages.) by Eric Grandy

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THU
JUL 24, 2008
'Leni' THEATER
'Leni'

This electric new play isn't an apologia for Leni Riefenstahl, but you will leave the theater feeling uncomfortable new affection for Hitler's favorite director. The coquettish Leni the Younger (Alexandra Tavares) and the steely, wry Leni the Elder (Stranger Genius Amy Thone) discuss, argue about, and reenact scenes from their life. One of them knows her magnum opus, Triumph of the Will, will define the modern aesthetic of film—and doom her to a life of scorn. The other does not. (Erickson Theater Off Broadway, 1524 Harvard Ave, 800-838-3006. 8:30 pm, $10–$25, Thurs pay what you can. Through Aug 9.) by Brendan Kiley

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Ethan Canin BOOKS / READING

Canin isn't the kind of author who'll be found crushed to death when his mammoth shelf of awards collapses under its own weight. That's fine—book awards are ridiculous, anyway—but people need to pay attention to his body of work; all his novels are well-constructed, entertaining, and satisfying. Canin allegedly decided to become a writer after reading a Saul Bellow novel. That inspiration has never been more obvious or compelling than in his new novel, America America, a study of Nixon-era politics and morality. (Third Place Books, 17171 Bothell Way NE, 366-3333. 7 pm, free.) by Paul Constant

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Also Suggested Today: 'Leni'Ethan Canin
FRI
JUL 25, 2008
'Water Lilies' FILM
'Water Lilies'

Good god! There has not been cinema like this since Esther Williams made her iconic appearance in Bathing Beauty with an extended sequence of her behaving like a porpoise. This movie will be better because this movie involves actual synchronized swimming, not the water ballet of old. With a plot that follows several sapphically oriented girls on the same synchro team, it also involves the French! It is a French film. Please, please let this be the beginning of a beautiful new synchronized-swimming cinema. (See movie times, www.thestranger.com, for details.) by Jen Graves

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