THURSDAY MAY 10


Ballyhoo

(MUSIC/THEATER) A little bit Brazil, a little bit Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and a little bit King Crimson, Ballyhoo is the brainchild of music/theater duo Player King, also known as Michael McQuilken and John Osebold (also a member of sketch comedy troupe the Habit). The impossible-to-summarize story describes a far-distant future in which the Earth has been transplanted to a new solar system, all culture is advertising, and government agents called Friendly Joes duke it out with renegade terrorists called the Bellboys. Playing dozens of characters, McQuilken and Osebold deliver rapid-fire dialogue and frenzied physicality synchronized with a prerecorded soundtrack. The social commentary never outweighs the biting wit. BRET FETZER

On the Boards, 100 W Roy St, 217-9888, Thurs-Sat at 9, Sun at 8, $10 Thurs/Sun, $12 Fri/Sat. Through May 20.


Racial Profiling

(PUBLIC MEETING) Now that City Hall is actually following state law and opening the Citizen Task Force on racial profiling to the public, we think citizens oughta go. The committee was created to design a study documenting instances of racial profiling by the SPD--a first, important step to help the city write policy to thwart the ugly practice. This study needs to be done right: The "citizen" task force--currently made up of prosecutors, ex-cops, and mayoral and city council staffers--desperately needs to hear from the common rabble. JOSH FEIT

Municipal Building, Fourth and Cherry, 12th Floor, 684-8802, 4 pm.


Russell Banks

(READING) With such diverse novels as The Sweet Hereafter, Rule of the Bone, Affliction, and Cloudsplitter, Russell Banks has charted a uniquely American territory with an uncompromising and unsentimental vision tempered by a tenderness for the mute inhabitants of forgotten history. Cornel West has praised Banks as "a great writer wrestling with the hidden secrets and explosive realities of this country." His latest book, The Angel of the Roof, brings together a career's worth of short stories. Also appearing tonight is critically acclaimed Canadian author Michael Ondaatje (The English Patient), whose latest novel, Anil's Ghost, was recently released in paperback. RICK LEVIN

Bagley Wright Theatre, Seattle Center, 624-6600, 7:30 pm, $5 (tickets available at Elliott Bay Book Company).


FRIDAY MAY 11


The Racket

(THEATER) The original Broadway production of The Racket launched the career of Edward G. Robinson--which should give you a sense of the play itself: a cynical, wisecracking yarn of gangsters, corrupt politicians, and an honest cop, set to the rhythms of Prohibition-era Chicago. The last time A Theater Under the Influence tackled 1920s American drama, it mounted The Petrified Forest, the play that put a spotlight on Humphrey Bogart--and by all accounts its production had the crackle and snap that plays of its day demand. The Racket's promising cast includes 13 men and one woman, a lounge singer/gang moll played by Shannon Kipp, who was breathlessly funny in Influence's last show, The Provok'd Wife. Expect all the pleasures of brash urban melodrama. BRET FETZER

Union Garage, 1416 10th Ave, 720-1942, Thurs-Sat at 8, $12. Through June 9.


Thomas Mapfumo & the Blacks Unlimited

(MUSIC) After AIDS claimed the life of Feli Anikulapo-Kuti in 1997, sub-Saharan Africa had only one superstar musician left, and that was Thomas Mapfumo. Mapfumo began his career performing rock and roll in the '60s, and then--for the sake of the black-liberation wars of the '70s--produced traditional forms of Zimbabwean music. In the '90s, he became globally famous, and now at the start of the 21st century, his heavy face is the very symbol of Africa's boundless sorrow. Despite the weariness that streams through his moody music, Mapfumo is a dynamic performer. In all honesty, I have yet to see one bad show by this man we call the Lion of Zimbabwe. CHARLES MUDEDE

Rainbow, 722 NE 45th St, 634-1761, 9 pm, $20 adv./$22 door.


Dan Clowes & Chris Ware

(COMICS/ART) Chris Ware and Dan Clowes make those comical books that are "not just for kids anymore," using stunning artwork to convey fear, longing, and isolation in ways mere text never could. Ware renders his ACME Novelty Library in a cold, meticulous style--even breaking the stories down into flowchart-style diagrams--that baffles the viewer with its complexity. Clowes' Eightball injects a little more humor into the mix, employing his own obsessive line work to create characters who can be coldly desperate, ridiculously funny-looking, and fundamentally human. Both of these modern-day masters will exhibit their original art--blue lines, white-out, and all--beginning tonight at Roq la Rue. (Tomorrow they'll be signing at Confounded Books in Fremont for all you fetishists out there.) DAN PAULUS

Roq la Rue, 2224 Second Ave, 374-8977. Opening reception 6-10 pm. Through June 2.


SATURDAY MAY 12


First Annual Motorcycle Spring Season Opener

(MAYHEM) Grease monkeys, high-speed junkies, and pinup girls are celebrating the lure of the open road with an entire day of crazy festivities at the Sunset Tavern. Gnaw on BBQ by Ribmeister while marveling at the home movies and photos of vintage motorcycle clubs. Win a sawbuck for the best tattoo sleeves or the oldest bike, or win a "Custom Biker Flame Recliner" door prize. Gyrate to the dragster sounds of DJ Lyle and the biker rock of Shuggie, Tres Hombres, and the Bastard Sons of the Nuge! Or win the bicycle competition sponsored by the wacked-out punk rock Dead Babies Bicycle Club. For one hilarious day, sleepy little Ballard promises to look like the set of Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! Don't miss the weirdness! TAMARA PARIS

Sunset Tavern, 5433 Ballard Ave NW, 784-4880, 2 pm-2 am, $5.


The Wolves of Kromer

(FILM) The wolves in question are gay men in the sheep's clothing of the well-posh London model. As no less gay a figure than Boy George narrates, they cavort through a nighttime landscape filled with loose sex, loose morals, greed, and hate in this premiere co-presented with the Seattle Lesbian and Gay Film Festival. Also included is Will Gould's short, Jeffrey's Hollywood Screen Trick, which features heroically endowed dolls. SEAN NELSON

Little Theatre, 608 19th Ave E, 675-2055. See Movie Times for details.


SUNDAY MAY 13


Un de r pres s ure

(PARTICIPATORY ART) It sounds like some kind of Orwellian social engineering: You enter a room, alone, and put on an inflatable latex suit, which is then blown up until you're as big and unwieldy as the Michelin Man. Then your eyes are covered with goggles through which your only visual information appears on an LCD screen. And then you're let into an empty room where three other people, similarly encumbered, wait to interact with you for five weird minutes. Only the artist, Sami Ben Larbi, knows who's in there (enemies, lovers, perfect strangers), and only the participants know what happens. It's not a performance, not for public consumption; it's a sensory deprivation experience for the big, blown-up creatures alone. Just try to describe it. EMILY HALL

Sand Point Naval Station, 7400 NE Sand Point Way, Building 11, Daily, 4-7 pm. Through May 24.


MONDAY MAY 14


Once Upon a Time in China

(FILM) For those of you who can't marshal your physics-defying martial arts fetish, feast your eyes on the aerobically heroic Jet Li in this two-part epic tale of Wong Fei-Hung, a 19th-century renaissance man who flies through the air with the greatest of grace, the better to defend his native land from the hostile gwilohs. Since anyone who'd be inclined to see this has very likely seen it a thousand times already, suck on this: An additional 20 minutes of unseen footage is included in part one. These films set the standard for the people-who-can-somehow-miraculously-fly-through-the-air-when-they-fight genre back when Crouching Tiger and Hidden Dragon were but kittens and lizards. SEAN NELSON

Egyptian, 805 E Pine St, 323-4978. See Movie Times for details.


TUESDAY MAY 15


Charles Johnson

(READING) Charles Johnson's career reads like a Renaissance chart of left-brain attributes. Intrigued by race politics early on, he first emerged as a cartoonist; his work was published by the time he was 17 years old. He then found himself in television, writing a series for PBS called Charlie's Pad. While studying for a Ph.D. in phenomenology and literary aesthetics at Stonybrook, Johnson published his first novel, Faith and the Good Thing, acclaimed for its simultaneously philosophical and humorous bent. It was literature that stuck to him, and in 1990 he was awarded the National Book Award for his biting satire Middle Passage. Johnson, who now teaches at the UW, has a new book of short stories based in the history of the slave trade, called Soulcatcher and Other Stories, sure to be remarkable; he reads tonight. TRACI VOGEL

Lee Auditorium, Seattle Public Library, 1000 Fourth Ave, 386-4650, 7 pm, free.


WEDNESDAY MAY 16


Two Films about Woody Guthrie

(FILMS) Paul Allen's Technicolor loogie presents two documentaries about one of the greatest Americans who ever lived, Mr. Woody Guthrie, as part of its ongoing film series curated by the Northwest Film Forum. The first, Roll On, Columbia (a Seattle premiere) tells the story of the time Guthrie was hired to write a song a day for a month to extol the Bonneville Power Administration and its publicly owned hydroelectricity. He never finished the job. Another job he didn't finish is chronicled in the second film, Man in the Sand, which documents the making of Mermaid Avenue, in which lyrics Woody never set to music were duly "finished" by Billy Bragg and Wilco. SEAN NELSON

JBL Theater at EMP, 369-5483. See Movie Times for details.