Borrowing Time
(BENEFIT) Stop-motion animation takes more time than raising a child. Web Crowell is Seattle's pre-eminent stop-motion talent, having produced such gems as the Grand Illusion trailer, the Dina Martina X-mas Special intro, and the Artificial Life trailer. He is, at 24 months, halfway to completion of his perversely ambitious animated feature, Borrowing Time. And, like all filmmakers, he is broke. So he's throwing a party for himself! Come drink beer, eat "simple" food, and enjoy a warehouse full of animation, from the selection of films onscreen in ConWork's cinema (including work by the amazing Ladislaw Starewicz) to the detritus of the stop-motion set surrounding you there to a sneak preview of Crowell's own film. But most of all, enjoy a party in a warehouse for a good cause. JAMIE HOOK
Consolidated Works, 410 Terry Ave N, 860-5245, 8 pm, $10/$8 with a ray gun.
The Wedding Singer
(FILM) Every girl has her soft spot (clean up that dirty mind, I'm speaking on an emotional level here), and mine has to be when Robbie Hart (Adam Sandler) kisses Julia (Drew Barrymore) with that ever-so-sweet "church tongue" in The Wedding Singer. And now, thanks to the West Seattle Walk-In Theater, we have the perfect chance to see that quixotic moment on the big screen. To top off this perfectly nostalgic '80s night, the Used Cars (a Cars cover band... duh) will also be making an appearance to play some of your old favorites. So let the good times roll, and let them knock you around. MEGAN SELING
West Seattle Walk-In, Junction community parking lot (behind Husky Deli at California and Alaska St) in West Seattle, 7 pm, $5.
Rome
(CABARET) CoCA, home to cutting-edge visual art, becomes a performance venue for two nights of food, machines, the state, and sex/death--heady and pretentious, but likely to be decadently entertaining. Featured performers include actress-songster Christina Mastin, restaurant critic Dr. Jim Anderson, and appearing as "the Fascist," artist Friese Undine. The concept and sets sprang from the quirky, fertile mind of Curtis Taylor, who designed the Speakeasy's beautiful Cold Water Waltz and curates the ever-eclectic Vodvil in his own tiny performance space, among many other accomplishments. Admission includes the main gallery show, The Whole World Is Watching: Art, Images, and Literature from the WTO Protests. BRET FETZER
Center on Contemporary Arts, 65 Cedar St, 728-1980, Fri-Sat June 23-24, 9 pm, $10/$7 members.
Robyn Hitchcock, Grant Lee Phillips
(LIVE MUSIC) Here's the God's-honest truth: No amount of hype or hyperbole is going to do justice to the genius of this show. It's rare that you have the opportunity to see two songwriters as gifted as Robyn Hitchcock and Grant Lee Phillips, not to mention two individuals with such a knack for off-the-cuff, out-there storytelling. If you were one of the lucky few who caught the pair's unannounced appearance around Bumbershoot last year, you'll understand. If not, make sure you get to the Croc early so you don't miss it this time. BARBARA MITCHELL
Crocodile, 2200 Second Ave, 441-5611, 9 pm, $15/$18.
Heart & Soul
(DANCE) Ah, undulating bellies and twisting fingers. The press release for this performance only mentions Middle Eastern dance, but a glance at the performers confirms that it's the idiom more commonly known as belly-dancing. This is a tribute to Ibrahim Farrah, known as the "Ballanchine of Middle Eastern dance in America," and founder of the Ibrahim Farrah Near East Dance Group. This one-night event will feature dancers from New York and Seattle, and promises to be a feast of wriggling bodies and navel-exposing costumes. Check it out; it may expand your understanding of what belly-dancing is all about. BRET FETZER
On the Boards, 100 W Roy, 217-9888, 8 pm, $22 advance/$25 at the door.
(JUSTICE) Sometime between 5 pm on June 9 and noon on June 10, four paintings by Karen Liebowitz were stolen right off the walls of SOIL Artist Cooperative. It's hard to believe that anyone could be so low as to steal from an artist--most of whom live pretty much at eye-level with the poverty line--but there it is. So here's what to do: Tell everyone you know about this crime. Someone, we hope, will know someone who knows someone who has these four paintings (studies for and variations on Liebowitz's enormous canvas The Giving of the Torah and the Binding of Eris) hanging somewhere. (You'll know the works by the unforgettable central image: a naked woman lying on her belly with her hands and feet tied behind her.) At the very least, everyone will know that stealing from artists is a crappy, crappy thing to do. EMILY HALL
Nab a Thief
If you have any information at all, call SOIL at 264-8061 or e-mail karenjlieb@juno.com.
Thomas Beller
(READING) Writer and Manhattan native Thomas Beller has always had a slight envy for those who arrive in New York City purely by choice, with things to prove and histories to smother and Important Mistakes to make--people embarking on "an act of hope and ambition and escapism and wishful thinking" that only New York City can induce. When reading Beller's work--Seduction Theory (short stories), The Sleep-Over Artist, Open City (of which he is the editor), and essays on his website, mrbellersneighborhood.com--his fervent romance with the borough emerges as a thoughtful, skillfully rendered trademark. "You are born into [New York City], and the velocity of change does weird things to you," he explains. "New York is like a big archeological sight, and if you are born here, the levels are vast and rich. Every street corner has its own memories, associations.... In this way, being from New York seeps into my fiction." In his new novel, The Sleep-Over Artist (W.W. Norton), Alex Fader--lifelong New Yorker, anxious young man, and endearingly awkward single guy with a compulsive need to crash at anyone's place but his own--returns to Beller's fiction, along with the comforting, infuriating, ever-shifting, always-fascinating City that sparks such devoted obsession. MIN LIAO
Elliott Bay Book Company, 101 S Main, 624-6600, 7:30 pm, advance free tickets (recommended) available at store.
Wynton Marsalis
(LIVE MUSIC) Wynton Marsalis has been arguably the most famous jazz musician since the early 1980s, when he spearheaded the "young lions" movement that brought a renewed interest in jazz. He has preferred to stick with acoustic jazz over fusion, funk, and R&B, and accusations of racism and ageism have even stemmed from his choices for the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra's roster. But Wynton Marsalis' talent and his influence on modern jazz is not to be denied, and the trumpeter is heavily steeped in the classics, with Miles Davis, Louis Armstrong, and Duke Ellington among his influences. KRIS ADAMS
Benaroya Hall, 200 University St, 215-4747, 7:30 pm, $20-$40.
Berate Phone Solicitors
(CATHARSIS) There are few greater pleasures afforded to the civilized human animal than yelling obscene, low-minded, puerile epithets at those poor corporate pawns who bother us with their nightly telemarketing drivel. It's especially satisfying to make them cry, though be warned--such peaks are achieved only rarely, by the professionally spiteful. Nevertheless, don't pass on your next opportunity to "go for the gold," so to speak: The Stranger suggests beginning with mild insults, and, as you gain confidence, working your way up to complex curses, alliterative swears, and full-scale, self-righteous spite, including, of course, the inevitable "You are completely pathetic." The sound of whimpering on the other end will be music to your ears. JAMIE HOOK
In the comfort of your own home, anytime, free.
De La Soul
(LIVE MUSIC) It's about time for the return of the anti-Puffys. De La's 1989 3 Feet High and Rising did produce one bona fide MTV hit, "Me Myself and I," which alone could land them a comfortable spot on any nostalgia tour--though that's far from the sum of their parts. Along with contemporaries A Tribe Called Quest, De La achieved a remarkable feat: Theirs was a hiphop smart and aware enough to earn that special kind of college-rock adulation, but bumpin' enough to sound just right booming out of a Jeep on sticky, hot summer days. There's a renaissance of the so-called old school tenets, minus all the Hype Williams candy-coating, and for this, groups like the Roots and Jurassic 5 are to be admired. Still, I'll take the originals any day. LEAH GREENBLATT
Paramount Theatre, 911 E Pine St, 628-0888, 7:30 pm, $24
