The Stranger

Crawl Space's openings are great parties, and Buddy Bunting's great big, stark portraits of remote places—like his minimalist drawing of the Two Rivers Correctional Institution in Umatilla, Oregon, installed on a 32-foot wall built for this show, which is archly titled High Living—are lonely as hell. The party will help to bring you back from the brink of the art. (Crawl Space Gallery, 504 E Denny Way #1, 201-2441. 6–9 pm, free.) by Jen Graves

Link  |  Post Comment (0)

Ramin Bahrani's latest film, Goodbye Solo, is set in Winston-Salem and involves a Senegalese taxi driver and a white American man. The movie is not about the collision of their cultures. What matters in this expertly directed movie is the existential situation of being between hope and despair. The taxi driver is hope; the American is despair. The driver has a good reason to hope (he is young, about to become a father), and the American has a good reason to despair (he is old and alone). From these two positions, Bahrani develops an emotional language for a society that has been totally transformed by the processes of globalization. (See Movie Times: thestranger.com/film.) by Charles Mudede

Link  |  Post Comment (3)

People associate best-selling mysteries and thrillers with the words "guilty pleasure," but it doesn't have to be that way. You just have to find excellent writers who don't condescend, like Iain Pears, the author of An Instance of the Fingerpost. Stone's Fall, his newest, is set in the high-rolling European financial world, just before World War I. Why did John Stone, a financier and arms dealer, fall to his death? The answer involves espionage, intrigue, and global conspiracies. It's a fun, intelligent thriller—minus the guilt. (Third Place Books, 17171 Bothell Way NE, 366-3333. 7 pm, free.) by Paul Constant

Link  |  Post Comment (2)

Flight of the Conchords mine several musical genres for comedy gold—and platinum, when they're really on. The New Zealand duo (Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement) use rap, folk, French pop, and rock 'n' (d)roll as springboards for lyrical satire and cliché inversions that inspire laughs with nearly every verse. Creating humorous songs that can withstand more than a few listens is incredibly difficult. FOTC's hit-to-miss ratio is phenomenal. (Paramount, 911 Pine St, www.theparamount.com. 7:30 pm, $35.50, all ages. May 11–13.) by Dave Segal

Link  |  Post Comment (6)

Old Time Relijun are an anarchic, apocalyptic revel (no coincidence that their frontman's last name is Dionyso), a combustible freak-out of free jazz and primal rock set to lyrics about the always-imminent end times (no coincidence about the band's name, either). Arrington de Dionyso plays strangled guitar and a squawking bass clarinet that sounds like either a traffic jam or an angry flock of geese; he growls and howls and throat-sings in a demonic croak. Through all the chaos, his band churns out some seriously intoxicating and insane grooves. This will be their only Seattle show of 2009. (Comet, 922 E Pike St, 322-9272. 9 pm, $8, 21+.) by Eric Grandy

Link  |  Post Comment (0)