Roger Shimomura

(ART) The themes of this exhibition of paintings and assemblages are easy to spot: the politics of identity and the experience of being other in America. Roger Shimomura, in his large-format paintings, pulls images from Japan's visual history (including anime, manga, and Pokémon) to create a kind of map of American perceptions and prejudice. A yellow-complected, buck-toothed, slant-eyed creature makes frequent appearances, a reference to the kind of stereotype created at the height of American fear during WWII. What's more interesting is a set of drawings Shimomura did as a child, which he includes in two assemblages; in text accompanying the work he wonders why he continually drew his mother with blond hair. That people judge and compartmentalize and don't bother to look twice is nothing new; the way that this information is internalized makes art that stings. EMILY HALL

Greg Kucera Gallery, 212 Third Ave S, 624-0770. Through Dec 30.

The Esoterics

(LIVE MUSIC) A celebration of fire in all its protean splendor brings to a close the chorus' yearlong series of ingeniously programmed concerts devoted one apiece to the elements. Of course, such inventiveness regrettably often comes hand in hand with a readiness to lecture, and the introductions to each work have become more long-winded with each show. Small price to pay, though, for such gems as the brief, chilling descent of Stravinsky's Anthem, Britten's shining Hymn to St. Cecilia, Barber's Twelfth Night, and Carter's refreshingly passionate, neoclassical To music, plus world premieres from Seattle composers Donald Skirvin and Byron Au Yong. BRUCE REID

Pilgrim Congregational Church, Broadway and E Republican, 344-3327, Fri-Sat at 8, $17.

Trophies

(ART) What do we have to do to exorcise the past's demons? There are times when no amount of therapy or drugs (prescription or recreational) can dim the sting of memory. Sara St. Onge memorializes the past without giving in to it (or sentimentalizing it) by installing 20 commemorative brass plaques throughout Seattle, then photographing them. The plaques read like indirect haiku of the soul-killing moments that happen in airports and restaurants: "We were slow dancing to boarding calls"; "My ears were hot and I think I said too much"; "The fence cut deep into your side." It's altogether appropriate that these photographs are being shown in a bar, where those haunting moments happen, and are over, before you ever notice. EMILY HALL

Rendezvous, 2320 Second Ave, 441-5823. Through Dec 31.

Mariam Aziza Stephan

(ART) Maybe you're all worn out from pre-holiday prep. Maybe the last thing you want to do is go stand around in an art gallery on your exhausted legs and wonder what it's all about. Here's the doctor's recommendation: A rejuvenating cup of coffee at Zeitgeist, where you can sit down and consider Mariam Aziza Stephan's recent paintings. Stephan plays with color, and there is a feeling of real joy about it--no penitential minimalism here. In her paintings, color bursts and morphs and implodes on itself; these new works are larger and softer than they have been in the past, so that they seem like blurred and slightly pixilated photographs, not quite contained by the canvas but continuing out on all sides. Attention-getting but also dreamy, they suit the harassed frame of mind very well indeed. EMILY HALL

Zeitgeist, 171 S Jackson St, 583-0497. Through Jan 3.

Testamints

(PIOUS CANDY) My father is a theologian; I'm a Marxist. My father believes in an afterlife, in the soul, and that our world is merely a journey that tests the soul; I believe that the world is everything and death is nothing and that our experience on earth is not defined by a test but by our relationship with capital. You can imagine the kinds of fights I get into with my old man. Sometimes our arguments become so heated that we cross the line and enter a dangerous zone--father and son are on the verge of splitting forever! At this moment, I whip out a Testamints, and, as the expression goes, "we cool our horrors." My father relaxes because the mints are inspired by the holy scriptures; I relax because the mints taste damn good. My father thanks God for Testamints, and I thank the workers of the world, because they offer us a meeting point--a point where father and son are finally one. CHARLES MUDEDE

Cool your horrors with Testamints.

Boom!

(VIDEO) Boom! may be the perfect holiday film. If you think your family is fucked up, check out the antics of Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor in this 1968 "lost classic"--not coincidentally, John Waters' favorite film. Taylor plays an incredibly wealthy, dying diva, ensconced on her own sun-drenched island and bored out of her drug-addled skull. Burton, an aging poet, washes ashore, survives the attack dogs, and becomes Taylor's sex toy. Lines as campy as Burton's sing-song "White horses on the sea, a shot of B in me" vie for attention with kitschy '60s costumes, and Noel Coward appears as "The Witch of Capri." The whole production spirals into jaw-dropping melodramatic failure. For years, you could only see Boom! when it screened at film festivals, but now, just in time for Xmas, it's available on video. TRACI VOGEL

Scarecrow Video, 5030 Roosevelt Way NE, 524-8554.

All the Pretty Horses

(FILM) What could possibly have prompted Columbia to invest millions buying the rights to Cormac McCarthy's All the Pretty Horses, picking up a box-office star in Matt Damon and a hot new director in Billy Bob Thornton, then selling off the domestic distribution to Miramax? Why has Miramax in turn decided to slip it into theaters on Christmas Day with minimal fanfare? Could it have anything to do with the year that Thornton spent "fine-tuning" his edit, or the fear on the part of Miramax that most reviews would turn out negative (as have the advance ones)? Whatever the reasons, it might be worthwhile to slip away from the family on Christmas Day and find out; contemplating the obnoxious greed and belligerent, stupefying ignorance that is Hollywood is always more entertaining than being stuck with your family's far more tawdry dysfunctions. BRUCE REID

See Movie Times for details.

Rocky and Bullwinkle Marathon

(CARTOONS) Unarguably Jay Ward's masterpiece (sorry, Super Chicken fans), The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show consistently displayed an anarchic creativeness that the recent live-action movie, entertaining and underrated as it was, never came close to matching. The puns could be groaners and the attempts at wit forced, but it all came so rapid-fire and--when our two heroes were speaking, at least--with such a beguiling innocence that the worse the jokes got the more charming the show became. This three-hour marathon contains eight episodes from 1960 and comes complete with Mr. Know-It-All, Dudley Do-Right, the nonpareil Fractured Fairy Tales, and even the original TV commercials, which should only reinforce the program's cut-and-paste zaniness. BRUCE REID

Grand Illusion, 1403 NE 50th, 523-3935. See Movie Times for details.

Urban Infiltration

(WEBSITE) All places normally off-limits obsess the creators of the pages in the Urban Exploration web ring: abandoned buildings, utility tunnels, old hospitals... even the Paris catacombs become sites of nighttime rendezvous. "Vadding," or urban exploring, involves gaining access to these places, often illegally (which Stranger Suggests does not, we swear, condone); these pages will tell you how to do so, even sometimes providing blueprints. A good place to start is at www.infiltration.org, a web zine "about going places you're not supposed to go." Here you'll find planned expeditions, a FAQ, and the "Infilspeak dictionary"--chock full of code words for recognizing fellow vadders whom you may meet when shimmying on your belly beneath Union Station. TRACI VOGEL

www.infiltration.org

Get Lost

(FOUR-YEAR VACATION) Remember last month, when you swore you would move to Canada or France if "that moron George W. Bush" was elected president? Well, what are you still doing here? The Stranger suggests you get packin'. And don't worry about being homesick. You'll hardly miss boring old America once you're gone, not with Alec Baldwin, Robert Altman, and Cher--all of whom also swore to leave the country if the nightmare of a George W. Bush presidency actually came to pass--keeping you company in your new homeland. We hear Toronto is lovely this time of year, so get a move on, people. JASON PAGANO

Greyhound has three daily departures to Toronto for $167 one way.