The Stranger Suggests
May 7 - May 14
'Dara alla Luce'
Art
Mandy Greer takes craft as far as it can go—and then much, much further. At Bumbershoot in 2006, she filled a room (and caused a backed-up line of viewers) with a pile of obsessively sewn and crocheted entrails. Now Bellevue Arts Museum is displaying her largest and most intricate installation to date, a new work based on Greer's interpretation of Jacopo Tintoretto's painting The Origin of the Milky Way. "It's about broken me," the artist wrote in an e-mail. (Bellevue Arts Museum, 510 Bellevue Way NE, 425-519-0770. 10 am–5:30 pm, $7.)
See what else is happening Wednesday »
'Big Love'
Theater
If more local theater companies put on shows as exuberant and sexy as Big Love, they wouldn't have to spend so much time whining that nobody cares about theater. Very loosely based on Aeschylus's The Supplicant Women, Big Love features the squashing of tomatoes, the baring of naked flesh, and a final, orgiastic spree of sex and violence that leaves the stage in shambles and the audience in horny, happy awe. (Balagan Theatre, 1117 E Pike St, 718-3245. 8 pm, $12–$15.)
See what else is happening Thursday »
Common Market
Local Hiphop
Common Market's new EP, Black Patch War, contains some of Sabzi's richest productions. Each detail is lovingly made and expressed. (Listening to it puts me in mind of South London's Burial, whose attention to detail is supernatural.) RA Scion, Common Market's rapper, is much more reflective on this effort, his words and thoughts lost in a warm wash of music. Black Patch War stands to be one of the best works of art to come out of Seattle this year. (Vera Project, Seattle Center, 956-8372. 7:30 pm, $7/$8, all ages.)
See what else is happening Friday »
Roman Orgy
Art
Seattle Art Museum says that its 35-hour marathon concluding the Louvre's Roman art show will include gladiators, which sounds like a recipe for lameness that could reach Renaissance faire levels. It could be ironic-good. Or, if you're in the market for regular-good, there's the promise of simply being at the museum with Augustus and double-Elvis at 3:00 a.m.—and admission will be half off during the wee hours. (Seattle Art Museum, 1300 First Ave, 625-8900. Sat 10 am–Sun 9 pm, $20/$10 from 2–7 am.)
See what else is happening Saturday »
Natalie Portman's Shaved Head
Music
Tonight's show is a welcome back after a six-month hiatus for Natalie Portman's Shaved Head, and in advance of their debut album, Glistening Pleasure, due this summer. The young band members are a little older, their moniker is a little more dated, and their frivolous electro-pop candies—imagine an innocuously juvenile LCD Soundsystem—are a little more glistening. Portland keytar wizard Copy opens, along with Port Townsend's hugely promising teenage rock trio New Faces. (Vera Project, Seattle Center, 956-8372. 7:30 pm, $8/$9, all ages.)
See what else is happening Saturday »
'The Apartment'
Film
Presumably to cleanse the palate before a raft of films from around the world arrives, SIFF Cinema is spending the week screening old greats—including, tonight, The Apartment, Billy Wilder's 1960 masterpiece about an insurance company employee constantly having to vacate his New York City apartment so high-class executives can use it to carry on affairs with misty-eyed beauties. It's in black and white and the textures are gorgeous—everything (even Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine) looks to be made of marzipan, pewter, light boxes, and chalk. (SIFF Cinema, 321 Mercer St, 633-7151. 7:30 pm, $10.)
See what else is happening Sunday »
Lunchbox Laboratory
Chow
I've been longing to visit Ballard's "new experiment in premium hamburgers" since Bethany Jean Clement sang its praises in these pages two weeks ago (and I'm a vegetarian). "These are exceptionally good burgers... It's your choice of eight or so different kinds of organic, ground-on-site meat; 15 different cheeses; 15 different house-made sauces; and a half-dozen more toppers (maple bacon, caramelized onions). Milkshakes, no-lumps-style, are apportioned in 400mL lab glassware. Then there are fries, twisty fries, sweet-potato fries, tater tots...." (Lunchbox Laboratory, 7302 15th Ave NW, 706-3092. 11 am–8 pm.)
Check out some reader reviews of Lunchbox Laboratory or write your own »
'Son of Rambow'
Film
During an unspecified summer in the early 1980s, two pale British boys with marginally fucked-up home lives set out to make a sequel to Rambo: First Blood. Lee, the director, is a lonely hellion who conscripts Will—a dreamy, shy kid whose family religion prohibits pretty much everything—to be his lackey and stuntman. Together, they are the most resourceful, reckless, and fraught film duo since Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski. Everything about Son of Rambow, including its misspelled title, is an exercise in adorable. (See movie times for details.)
See what else is happening Tuesday »
'Showgirls'
Boobs for Charity
Tonight's performance of David Schmader's critically acclaimed live commentary on the critically slammed Showgirls is brought to you by local do-gooders Noise for the Needy, a nonprofit that raises money for a new charity each year. Tonight's proceeds go to Urban Rest Stop, which provides free, clean, and safe washing-up facilities for homeless folks. So any bad karma you accrue tonight while ridiculing Elizabeth Berkley's horrific attempts at acting will be canceled out, since the cost of admission goes to a good cause. (Triple Door, 216 Union St, 838-4333. 7:30 pm, $12, all ages.)
