The Stranger

“This Land Is Your Land,” by Seattle choreographer Mark Haim, was a hit at the NW New Works Festival in 2010. The piece for 13 dancers had everything you’d want: bright colors, fashion-runway costumes, nudity, wry comedy, and country music. Its choreography was radically minimal: The dancers just walked, but Haim says more with walking than most choreographers can with a whole truckload of elaborate gestures. Tonight’s show, X2, will feature an extended version of “Land,” plus a new collaboration with design team Lilienthal|Zamora. (On the Boards, 100 W Roy St, www.ontheboards.org, 8 pm, $20) by Brendan Kiley

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Here’s why you should care that Kathleen Flenniken is Washington State’s newest poet laureate: She’s an actually good poet. Her latest book, Plume, is a collection of poems that build into a narrative about the Hanford nuclear site, and it’s a bleak, personal account of a local disaster that’s unfolding in slow motion. Flenniken could be talking about radioactive waste when she warns of “our mistakes/which are brutish/which will linger ten thousand years/which may end us altogether,” or she could be talking about heartbreak. But probably she’s talking about both. (Elliott Bay Book Company, 1521 10th Ave, www.elliottbaybook.com, 7 pm, free) by Paul Constant

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Turns out, Will Ferrell had to learn Spanish in order to find his mojo again. After a string of duds, he stars in Casa De Mi Padre, a comedy that casts him as a Mexican rancher on a mission of vengeance. The shift to an unfamiliar language sharpens Ferrell’s focus on what it means to be funny, and his weird physicality is perfect when paired with the graphic violence of an action movie. Padre is less of a typical Ferrell joint like Step Brothers than a sight-gag-laden genre riff like The Naked Gun. (See Movie Times) by Paul Constant

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I’m not gonna lie: Sometimes, Heidi Julavits’s novels can be difficult to read. Her debut novel, The Mineral Palace, ended on one of the darkest images I can recall in modern fiction. But this isn’t some sort of goth bloodletting ritual in book form: Julavits just writes with such beauty that when she goes to a dark place, it leaves you gutted. Her new novel, The Vanishers, is about jealousy and retribution at a school for psychics, and a failed student’s attempt to find a missing person. Expect brilliance, and hope to close the book with your heart intact. (University Book Store, 4326 University Way NE, 634-3400, 7 pm, free) by Paul Constant

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My affection for Marination Station is reaching a near-irrational level, so trying to explain exactly why I love it so is like trying to explain why I love my mom. But here’s a try: They serve Korean/Hawaiian/fusiony food that’s cheap, fast, and fucking delicious, the staff is super-friendly, and the just-right song is almost always playing overhead. What more do you want? Get the kimchi fried rice, which comes with a perfect fried egg on top, and your heart will sing. There’s also a roaming food truck (Marination Mobile) and word of a new location near the West Seattle water taxi dock. More, please! (Marination Station, 1412 Harvard Ave, www.marinationmobile.com, noon–8 pm) by Anna Minard

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