Streetwise

(FILM) This 1984 docudrama about homeless teens on the streets of Seattle has retained its amazing narrative power all these years. What has changed, however, and what makes the film required viewing for Seattle residents, is the physical reality of downtown Seattle. Seventeen years ago, the Pike Place Market area was a hive of dereliction; the street kids' presence seemed appropriate, symptomatic of a world too fucked up to see its own imminent collapse. Now that the open sore has been transformed into a retail core (itself on the verge of collapse) where the biggest problem is parking the Jetta, we wonder how the sweep of progress managed to miss the people who are still very much there, stuffing up the cracks of the new prosperity with their very lives. SEAN NELSON

Little Theatre, 608 10th Ave E, 675-2055. See Movie Times for details.

Shadowlands

(THEATER) Fat Yeti Theater's 1998 production of Hugh Whitemore's Breaking the Code had meager production values, a slow pace, an uneven cast--and an absolutely remarkable performance by Philip Giesy as Alan Turing, a British mathematician who deciphered a Nazi code during WWII, then was hounded out of academia for being gay. Doing an accent and a stutter would hamstring most actors; Giesy's performance had technical finesse, a subtle and complex emotional core, and a clear grasp of the mathematical and philosophical issues that dominated Turing's life. In other words, Giesy was really, really good. Now he's playing C. S. Lewis (another repressed intellectual Brit) in William Nicholson's Shadowlands, about the author's mid-life relationship with American poet Joy Davidman. This production includes Audrey Freudenberg as Davidman, an actress with a similar gift for portraying a restrained but vivid emotional palette. BRET FETZER

Freehold East Hall Theatre, 1525 10th Ave, Second Floor, 328-9384. Thurs-Sat at 8, Sun at 7; $15 general, $10 students/seniors. Through June 24.

Night of the Heroes

(SUPERHERO CELEBRATION) Despite their unselfish service of keeping our streets safe from Evil, superheroes remain relegated to shadowy background. With the formation of Citizens in Appreciation of Powerful Entities (CAPE), however, all that is about to change. Join CAPE tonight and meet Poetry Man, the world's most poignant superhero/poet; chuckle along with Captain Stand-Up, who uses his amazing powers to tickle your funny bone; thrill to the sounds of the Canadian superhero karaoke duo, Canned Hamm! The festivities are all in honor of Confounded Books and its imminent move to a new space. Superpowers must be checked at the door. TRACI VOGEL

Confounded Books, 3506 Fremont Ave N, 545-0744, 8 pm, $3.

Spaceboat TV

(FILM/MUSIC) Described as an evening of "microcinema, sound, and cyberculture," this installment of Satellites 2001 will incorporate not only undie film and video, but the musical stylings of three great Seattle bands. Climax Golden Twins will be teaming up with the great Kinski for a live musical score, and the pedal-hopping odyssey of Voyager One will also take the stage. Spaceboat TV is a project that explores the "intersection of art and technology," which sounds maybe a little floaty, but look: It's the future. Beer w/ID. SEAN NELSON

EMP, 325 Fifth Ave N, 367-5483, 8 pm, $7.

Win Money!

($$$) The art world offers so few opportunities for good ol' balls-out cash profit--but here are two in the very same day. First, there's the $500 Arbitrary Art Grant, offered by Artists for a Work Free America. All you have to do is show up and either make a film (at the corner of Denny and Westlake) or pretend to make a film. Just dredge up every Tarantinoesque cliché you can think of and throw in a tube of fake blood. And remember, the key word is arbitrary. In Jackpot!, artist Christian French takes the gamble of art and parses it out literally in a field of lottery tickets. For this closing event (dress to the nines, please!), champagne-drinking partygoers will watch the lottery-drawing on TV; the winning ticket will be split three ways--among the ticket-holder, the gallery, and the artist, pretty accurately approximating the risks involved in making, selling, and buying art. EMILY HALL

Arbitrary Art Grant: Southeast corner of Denny and Westlake, 1-2 pm. Jackpot!: Eyre/Moore Gallery, 913 Western Ave, 624-5596, 6 pm (call the gallery to buy lottery tickets before the party).

Pinehurst Kids

(LIVE MUSIC) Portland's Pinehurst Kids are catchier than crabs in a bathhouse, and if you appreciate power-pop buoyancy, songs like "The Onceler" and "Deconstruct" from the band's new album, Bleed It Dry (Barbaric Records), will be stuck in your hum box for days on end. Grinding, amped-up guitar anthems with boyish vocals delivered in a clean shout abound with this band. They're catchy, yes, but the best part is that Pinehurst Kids don't itch. JEFF DeROCHE

The Breakroom, 1325 E Madison, 860-5155, 9:00 pm, $7.

from the hip

(DANCE) Most often, the choreographer is the engine of dance--someone gets an idea and gathers together dancers to fulfill it. Seattle's d9 dance collective turns this on its head: It's composed of dancers who commission choreographers from all over the country. Sometimes the choreographers create work specifically for the troupe, sometimes it's an opportunity to reinvent something old--but either way, the dancers do the choosing, and the result is a particular kind of ownership and self-possession. D9's latest presentation, from the hip, features compositions from Mary Sheldon Scott and Jarrad Powell, Michael Foley, Donna Uchizono, and 33 Fainting Spells--whose 1996 duet, O'er you watch do keep, was the seed for its second evening-length piece, Sorrow's Sister. BRET FETZER

Velocity MainSpace, 915 Pine St, Second Floor, 781-7746. Fri-Sun at 8; $14. Through June 10.

Blue

(DJ) "Downtempo" is a bit of an anomaly these days. To purists, it's a genre with strict lineage to mellow grooves and warm beats. To the uninitiated, its grabbing hands are at wit's end, dropping names of artists that run the gamut of the electronic-music spectrum. Although mostly a night dedicated to light grooves, Blue has touched on a little of everything as of late. Leave it to the open ears of residents Ken Wallace and Dewdrop (and friends at Neverstop), whose fortes are a bit on the smooth-grooves side, but who have a willingness to let others come in and play. This week's guests are Japan's Fantastic Plastic Machine and England's Tim "Love" Lee. A regular Monday night social of sorts, Blue belongs to the residents, who'll always drop some wonderfully eclectic tunes of the downbeat sort and are the main reason why you should go in the first place. F. VENTURA-PENA

Baltic Room, 1207 E Pine St, 625-4444, 9 pm.

Mogwai, Bardo Pond

(LIVE MUSIC) During its last stand in Seattle, Scottish sensation Mogwai demonstrated the limits of the Showbox's impressive new sound system with the employment of multiple guitarists and quiet-then-loud dynamics. Like a symphony, the set eddied and flowed precisely, making for a concert experience most likely unmatched in Seattle indie-rock history. Philadelphia's Bardo Pond also appreciates the aesthetics of rhythmically sculpted songcraft, although stoners will appreciate the group's methods as much as fussy highbrow types. Vocalist Isobel Sollenberger coos or groans more than sings as the band reels out thick snarls of noisy psychedelia and tangles of distortion. KATHLEEN WILSON

Showbox, 1426 First Ave, 628-3151, 9 pm, $14.

Comics Review Revue

(PARTY/PERFORMANCE) Though comic books have gotten lip service from the cultural establishment, the medium is still viewed with a certain condescension. American Book Review is doing its part to correct this: Its latest issue is devoted to "graphic novels"--and though that term is a pandering, euphemistic attempt to appeal to shallow highbrows, focusing on an art form that is as truly American as jazz is all to the good. To celebrate, ABR is hosting a Comics Review Revue featuring the likes of Ellen Forney doing a multimedia performance of I Was 7 in '75; a slide show from Jason "Jar of Fools" Lutes; a two-minute movie called Tit Chat from Ariel Bordeaux; and a poetry reading by David Lasky, creator of a nine-page version of Ulysses. The first 20 people to arrive get free copies of the new issue of American Book Review, so arrive early. BRET FETZER

Little Theatre, 608 19th Ave E, 675-2055, 8 pm, $5.

The Flatlanders

(LONESOME COUNTRY SOUNDS) Much of my childhood was spent in Lubbock, Texas, so I know the combination of boredom and barren poetry that produced the Flatlanders. There is nothing to do in Lubbock, which may be why Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Joe Ely, Butch Hancock, and a few friends put together an absolutely gorgeous album in 1972 that didn't get released until 1990--hence the title More a Legend Than a Band. The West Texas plains (as well as the seeds of the entire alterna-country sound) are on that album, and will doubtless fill the King Cat Theater when these guys come to town. BRET FETZER

King Cat Theater, Sixth & Blanchard, 628-0888, 8 pm, $32.50.