The Stranger Suggests
July 1 - July 8
'Women Are Beautiful'
Art
Photographer Alice Wheeler has been the premier chronicler of gorgeous Northwest freakery for the past two decades, and her new solo show at Greg Kucera Gallery is devoted to the most gorgeous freaks of all. For Women Are Beautiful, Wheeler shot an army of females who couldn't give a fuck about "the male gaze," from punk honeys and she-Juggalos at Hempfest to a pregnant woman wandering around Butte, Montana's Evel Knievel festival. (Greg Kucera Gallery, 212 Third Ave S, 624-0770. 5:30 pm artist talk, 6–8 pm, free.)
See what else is happening Thursday »
Dirty Projectors
Music
Dirty Projectors are the rotating-cast project of Dave Longstreth, a prodigious guitarist, acrobatic singer, and adventurous composer. Longstreth's guitar playing is something like Deerhoof relaxing into a Malian safari; his singing is an ideal, airy falsetto; his compositions are difficult to explain but easy to appreciate. Dirty Projectors' latest album, Bitte Orca (the follow-up to the deservedly lauded Black Flag reinventions of Rise Above), includes his stunning collaborators Amber Coffman and Angel Deradoorian, whose voices are like so many butterflies fluttering in Longstreth's nets. (Chop Suey, 1325 E Madison St, 324-8000. 8 pm, $12, 21+.)
See what else is happening Friday »
'Police Beat' and Thomas Sieverts
Film/Talk
The German urban planner Thomas Sieverts is stuck on the in-between. In Where We Live Now (a Sieverts-centric anthology edited by Matthew Stadler), he rejects dividing urban from suburban, local from global, anything from anything: We all apparently live in a dynamic, polycentric built environment now. Sieverts is in town for several days of lectures, interviews, and this screening of Police Beat—a crime movie that is really a hymn to displacement. (MoMA recently acquired Police Beat, written by Charles Mudede based on his Stranger column, for its permanent collection.) After the screening, Sieverts, Stadler, and Mudede will discuss. (Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave, 329-2629. 1 pm, $7.)
See what else is happening Friday »
Drinks on the Links
Summertime
Interbay is the smelly pit between Queen Anne and Magnolia, right? WRONG! Interbay's got beer and mini golf, motherfuckers! For eight bucks, you can roll up to Interbay Golf Center and play 18 holes of fun-as-fuck mini golf while throwing back pitchers of beer from the golf course's cafe. And it's open on the Fourth of July! But watch out for hole 9—the ball goes up the hill and straight back down the other side EVERY TIME. I hate that goddamn hole. (Interbay Golf Center, 2501 15th Ave W, 285-2200. 6 am–11 pm, $8.)
See what else is happening Saturday »
'Target Practice: Painting Under Attack, 1949–78'
Art
If you despise a thing, shoot it. If it doesn't die, you will never be set free. That's what we all learned about painting, anyway. But what invigorating exercise all those tortures and attempted homicides were. Seattle Art Museum curator Michael Darling has put together a major loan exhibition—and published a full hardback catalog—bringing together classic works (Rauschenberg's erased de Kooning drawing, a Warhol piss painting, Lucio Fontana's sliced canvases) with lesser-knowns to create a monumental portrait of 20th-century existential distress. (Seattle Art Museum, 1300 First Ave, 344-5275. 10 am–5 pm, $15 suggested.)
See what else is happening Sunday »
Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound
Music
"All the songs should be a picture you can look at with the aim of screwing with your perspective," Charlie Saufley of Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound told The Stranger last year. At that, these San Franciscans succeed. Like fellow NoCal astral travelers Comets on Fire, Assemble Head unspool serpentine, fuzz-intensive guitar, bass, and keyboard riffs laden with a hallucinogenic payload. Their music doesn't reinvent the psychedelic-rock wheel, but polishes its spokes to a brilliant sheen. (Comet Tavern, 922 E Pike St, 322-9272. 8 pm, $6, 21+.)
See what else is happening Monday »
'Moon'
Film
Moon is a thoughtful sci-fi film that follows a lunar miner (Sam Rockwell) approaching the end of his three-year contract. He's been on the moon all by himself for this time (except for a creepy HAL-like computer voiced by Kevin Spacey), and he's starting to seriously lose his shit: Who's that guy who looks just like him? Does the computer have a malicious agenda? Moon is a shot of pure simmering suspense, and Rockwell turns in the best performance of his already-formidable career. (See Movie Times: thestranger.com/film.)
See what else is happening Tuesday »
The Jim Rose Circus vs. Jake the Snake Roberts
Performance
The first time I ever saw Jake the Snake, I was trying to introduce my first boyfriend to my father. But Dad wasn't having it. He was too busy pounding his fists and screaming at the TV while Jake the Snake shoved his boa constrictor into Ravishing Rick Rude's violently mustachioed face. Boyfriend was terrified. Years later, I saw Jim Rose with the same BF. We walked into the show just as Rose killed the lights and began chasing members of the audience with a flashlight and a chainsaw. Again, boyfriend terrified. I haven't thought of Jake or Jim in years. Most likely both have mellowed with age, though they're both still terrors. I'll be going without that boyfriend. He's still a pussy. Some things just don't change. (Showbox at the Market, 1426 First Ave, 628-0888. 8 pm, $15 adv/$18 DOS, 21+.)
RSS
Facebook
Twitter