Our arts critics have already recommended 39 great things to do this week and our music critics have picked the 32 best concerts, but there are still hundreds more events happening. To prevent some of the quirkier and more extraordinary ones from slipping through the cracks, we've compiled them here—from the New Orleans Food & Funk Festival to Piff the Magic Dragon, and from Elysian's Great Pumpkin Weigh-Off to the Stranger Things '80s Film Fest. For even more options this week, check out our complete Things To Do calendar.
Jump to: Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Saturday | Sunday

TUESDAY

1. Diane Thome
Composer Diane Thome—known for pushing boundaries with computer synthesizing, and for her new memoir Palaces of Memory—will speak with composer and UW School of Music director Richard Karpen.

2. Lawrence Matsuda and Tess Gallagher
Listen to excerpts from Boogie-Woogie Crisscross, a collaborative work created by Lawrence Matsuda and Tess Gallagher (developed over e-mail!) that's described as a "poetry jam session."

3. Machine Gun Kelly
Speed rap phenomenon Machine Gun Kelly headlines in his first Seattle performance in three years, promoting his newest album Lace Up.

4. Show Me The Body, GAG
Queens hardcore rippers Show Me The Body take their Latin-twist intensity to Vera, with Olympia punks GAG.

5. Trivia Tuesday: Stranger Things
Don't let things go Upside-Down for your trivia team! Get some cheap drink specials and see how well you know America's new favorite ode to childhood friendship and 1980s-style credit sequences. And give a toast to Barb while you're at it.

TUESDAY-SUNDAY

6. T. rex Skull and Fossils
Jen Graves writes, "There's a new T-Rex in town (meaning a new-to-us, very, very old one that hung out in Montana for millions of years), and this will excite many in the human species. Why are the mighty dinosaurs, and the T. rex in particular, so fascinating to we who believe ourselves to be the most powerful creatures now on earth? Do we want to relate to them or to use them as a departure from every single thing that we know?" Think about this while viewing the T. rex skull that's on view at the Burke until Sunday.

WEDNESDAY

7. Astronomy on Tap: Gravitational Waves
At this edition of Astronomy on Tap, drink beer in Optimism's expansive yet welcoming brewery, and learn about gravitational waves from two experts from the LIGO Hanford Observatory.

8. Bushwick Book Club Seattle: Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell
Local performers will showcase music they've written in response to Sarah Vowell's book Assassination Vacation in an effort to shed light on the importance of literacy and creative expression. Tonight's performers include Kristin Chambers, Jazmarae Beebe, Debbie Miller, Natalie Hall, Mike Votava, Sean Morse, Sam Russell, and Kate Farrell.

9. The Construction Zone
The Construction Zone is a month-long workshop where you have the chance to see new work by contemporary playwrights—and get a preview of what's coming up next at ACT, because they'll choose one play from the series to feature in their 2017 season. Tonight's show is Naming True.

10. Daybreaker SEA // Wake Up Seattle!
Do you know anybody who staggers home at 3 am and wakes up with heartburn at noon, reeking of debauchery and late-night bar snacks? Well, you don't want to be THAT person, you want to do yoga at six and dance wholesomely throughout breakfast! Daybreaker lets you do just that with other like-minded morning daisies. Cleanse your mind and sweat out your cares before most of Seattle reaches blearily for its first coffee. You insufferable healthy person.

11. Icon Tour with Deven Green
Also known as "Betty Bowers, America's Best Christian," Deven Green is not just a YouTube comedy star: she's also worked on RuPaul's Drag Race, written for Goliath magazines, and sung all around the country—accompanying herself on the electric ukelele.

12. Jessica Bennett
Journalist Jessica Bennett will read from Feminist Fight Club: An Office Survival Manual, a book that garnered positive reviews from both Ilana Glazer and Sheryl Sandberg.

13. Lauren Wright: The Changing Role of The First Spouse
Lauren Wright will examine the role, responsibilities, and cultural impact of first ladies over the years (focusing on the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations) and assert that "first ladies have become as influential in American politics as elected officials.
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14. Paula Becker
Paula Becker will read from the biography Looking for Betty MacDonald: The Egg, the Plague, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, and I.

15. Words on Water: Writers in Conversation
This event will feature Pacific Northwest writers alongside writers from India and its diaspora, including Karan Mahaja and Amitava Kumar.

WEDNESDAY-SUNDAY

16. Welcome to Wonderland
Starting this week, Teatro ZinZanni presents their latest dinner theater spectacle, this time featuring whimsical characters and strange plotlines inspired by Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

THURSDAY

17. Adult Movie Theater Day: Private Vices, Public Virtues
MiklĂłs JancsĂł is famous for his intricate, panoramic staging and long, gliding takes, perhaps most famously in the war epic The Red and the White (1967). Here, he turns his mature style to pansexual death orgies in 19th-century Austria. The Seattle Erotic Cinema Society and Mondo Macabro present this long-neglected masterpiece.

18. Colour Out Of Space, Noel Kennon, Yzech Tahar
Enjoy a free concert at Vermillion that promises to delight with "sounds of the city," courtesy of improvisational sound bandits Colour Out Of Space, Noel Kennon, and Yzech Tahar.

19. Ferrett Steinmetz: Fix
Ferrett Steinmetz will read from fantasy novel Fix, which features characters including "videogamemancers, culinomancers, and bureaucromancers."

20. Jessica Tracy: Does the Deadliest Sin Pave the Way for Success?
The negative effects of pride are often discussed—but how can pride help us, motivate us, and make us better people? In this talk, psychologist Jessica Tracy will examine the controversial emotion.

21. Omnivorous 2016
Try bites and drinks from more than two dozen Capitol Hill chefs, restaurateurs, bartenders, distillers and roasters at this event hosted by Capitol Hill Housing.

22. Raising Mixed Race: Multiracial Asian Children in a Post-Racial World
Writer, scholar, and activist Sharon H Chang will read from Raising Mixed Race: Multiracial Asian Children in a Post-Racial World.

23. Tacoma Arts Month Opening Party
Celebrate the beginning of Tacoma Arts Month at this party that will feature arts and entertainment including a life-sized kaleidoscope installation, contemporary dance, poetry from Tacoma Poet Laureate Cathy Nguyen, film screenings, art-making, and aerial performances. There will also be appetizers and a no-host bar, and an award ceremony for the 2016 AMOCAT (that's Tacoma spelled backwards) Arts Award winners.

24. Teton Gravity Research: Tight Loose
Celebrate the drama of winter sports at this winter kick-off event and launch party for ski and snowboard film Tight Loose.

THURSDAY-SATURDAY

25. Alcestis
Irrational Robot Bureau will present a new, original adaptation of "problem play" Alcestis, which is believed to be the oldest surviving work by Euripides, and whose plot deals with grief and cheating death.

26. Burlesco DiVino: Wine In Rome
Lily Verlaine and Jasper McCann's burlesque production Burlesco DiVino: Wine In Rome promises a "spectacle of ecdysiastic pageantry."

27. Trump the King, or POTUS DRUMPH
Ubu Roi is a satirical and often nonsensical play by Alfred Jarry that is sometimes (incorrectly) translated as "King Turd." This adaptation by Nick Edwards crowns Drumph our new King Turd, and offers an irreverent modern take on the state of politics today.

THURSDAY-SUNDAY

28.On Clover Road
This thriller—about a mother trying desperately to be reunited with her daughter—is written by Steven Dietz and directed by Kelly Kitchens.

29. Piff the Magic Dragon
A man in a dragon suit tells jokes while performing magic tricks...and it's way more successful than it sounds. You might have seen him on Penn & Teller, or as a top ten finalist on America's Got Talent.

FRIDAY

30. Adult Swim: Science of Eats
This 21+ event offers drinks and tons of food samples ("molecular gastronomy," and maybe even some insects) as well as explanations for the science behind them.

31. Alyssa Explains It All
Get answers to your questions at Alyssa Explain It All, a show within a show that will strive to find the meaning of life.

32. Bierstube Oktoberfest Party
If you haven't already started partying Bavarian-style, Die Bierstube is a nice place to begin, with its excellent German beer menu and tasty wurst sandwiches. The opening of their Oktoberfest features games, singing, music, pretzels and hammer...SCHLAGEN!

33. New Orleans Food & Funk Festival
Celebrate the food and music of New Orleans at this festival featuring "Big Easy" bites from a variety of local restaurants (like Restaurant Roux and Toulouse Petit) as well as musical performances by local and NOLA-based artists, including Jon Cleary & the Absolute Monster Gentlemen, Polyrhythmics, and Ural Thomas & the Pain.

34. The Untuning of the Sky: SassyBlack
Enjoy an evening under the stars at Volunteer Park with the live music of psych-soul and Afro-futurist musician and producer SassyBlack (also known as Catherine Harris-White, previously of THEESatisfaction).

FRIDAY-SATURDAY

35. Fringe Month
Fringe Month at the Pocket Theater promises more than 30 unique shows featuring performances by more than 100 Seattle-based fringe artists. See the complete schedule here.

36. Harvest
This adults-only, immersive Halloween theater experience requires that you sign a waiver before entering, so you know it's going to be freaky. Conceived and directed by Ali el-Gasseir and designed by Paul Thomas.

37. Strange and Unusual
Strange and Unusual is a weird and whimsical burlesque show inspired by the works of Tim Burton.

FRIDAY-SUNDAY

38. Against the Grain/MEN IN DANCE 2016 Festival
This festival offers diverse dance styles including modern, contemporary, ballet, circus acts, and Early Renaissance sword dancing, with a different roster of performers highlighted over each of the two weekends.

39. Leavenworth Oktoberfest
If you like your Oktoberfest with fountains of kitsch, it's worth the trip to Leavenworth's rigorously quaint faux-Bavarian village. This Oktoberfest, complete with a mayoral keg-tapping, oompah bands, and piles and piles of food, is always a destination for out-of-towners. It doesn't hurt that you'll be surrounded by mountains so glorious that, after a few beers, you can pretend you're King Ludwig himself.

SATURDAY

40. 24 Hour Comic Day!
Create a 24-page comic in 24 hours at Push/Pull—they'll provide coffee, tea, pastries, lunch, dinner, and limited supplies. Afterwards, participants will get a prize package and a certificate to commemorate their hard work. Artists pay $30 for food and supplies; watching the art-making is free.

41. Bizzarro 30th Birthday Party
Celebrate the 30th birthday of the charming Bizzarro Italian Cafe at a party featuring a variety of craft vendors, wood-fired pizza, and a beer and wine garden, plus live music from The Witness, El Vez, School of Rock, and Primate 5.

42. Bruce Campbell: Last Fan Standing
Bruce Campbell (from the Evil Dead series) will host a lighthearted, interactive game show called Last Fan Standing.

43. Elysian's Great Pumpkin Weigh-Off
Agricultural monstrosities battle it out in this kick-off to the Great Pumpkin Beer Festival. While you wait for the Pumpkin to Rule Us All to emerge victorious, you can nosh on food truck fare, paint a pumpkin, and drink Elysian beer.

44. GlamCocks Present FOMOHOMO: Ready Player Two
This interdisciplinary celebration of the digital world features special performances, art, and music from Wonder Twins, DJ Spaceotter, and Lucky Shindig within the zone of virtual reality. As the organizers say, "In this realm powered by ones and zeros, you can be whomever you want to be."

45. Magnificent "Magnificats" and Bacon
Sacred choral music by Vivaldi, Bach, Buxtehude, and Byrd is perfectly paired with the profanity of...bacon. Yes, there is a "pre-ception" (for some reason they didn't go with an "Immaculate Reception") featuring wine and bacon. Respect the holy mystery and just go with it, okay? Because Bach is sublime and bacon is bacon.

46. Octo-Beach Dance Party
Before the autumn takes us all, enjoy one last summer blowout with surf rock music from The Mercury Four, and a B-52's tribute by Hot Lava.

47. Pigs on the Wing
Since you can't see the original line-up of Pink Floyd, check out Pigs on the Wing, an immersive musical Pink Floyd show experience from Portland, who will be performing "Wish You Were Here" in its entirety.

48. PiketoberFest
This annual Harvest Festival allows you to sample the finest local beers, spirits, wines, meats, and cheeses, all while supporting the Pike Place Market Foundation. PNW craft beers will be offered up along with their German counterparts. Food, brew, and live tunes will all be hosted inside Pike Brewing's Microbrewery Museum/Brewery. Don't forget your lederhosen.

49. Rainier Beach Heart & Soul: A Community Fair
Show some love for the Seattle African-American community with dance, gospel, jazz, food, and the EMP's Hip-Hop Artist Residency. Get registered to vote while you're there.

50. Robothon
ROBOT ROLL CALL. Watch robots battle it out in seven competitions, including races, obstacle courses, and sumo bouts. Bring your 'bot, or just go to keep an eye on those tricksy tech folk.

51. Roladex, Youryoungbody, Pleather, Webdriver Torso
KEXP's Audioasis presents a showcase of local electro-weirdos like Youryoungbody, Pleather, and Webdriver Torso, with a headlining stint from Medical Records darling Roladex.

52. Second Chance PROM 2016
Whether you loved prom or you need to face your traumas, take the opportunity for a second go-round. You may be crowned king or queen this time instead of hiding in the girls' bathroom trying to scrub a smear of cake out of your $15 Goodwill dress.

53. Stranger Things Film Festival
Did binge-watching Stranger Things overwhelm you with '80s nostalgia? Get your fix at this screening of Stand By Me and The Goonies that will celebrate "the wonder and terror of childhood."

54. UN-YACHT 5: Willy’s Island
Party so hard people will think you own a boat, which is actually the premise of this evening. UN-YACHT 5 takes on all your aspirations of wealth and mixes them with a night of ridiculous debauchery, all soundtracked by DJs like Amanita, Dot Diggler, David Turner and Exotiqa. Think Gilligan-Gone-Wild for the attire, and go enjoy all the beats and booze.

SATURDAY-SUNDAY

55. Issaquah Salmon Days
Issaquah's salmon fest goes heavy on the fish puns: its "ohfishal" "spawnsors" must be "reel" proud to support the fish parade, music, and carnival. While you're there, chip in a few bucks for Sammy the Salmon of the Findependent Party, who they're nominating to be our next President of the United States.

SUNDAY

56. Brat Trot & Bavarian Fest
Bret the Brat will be loose on the streets of Burien and so will you. Run the 5K that benefits kids in the Burien community and stay for post-race fun for a Bavarian Fest. The party will be Oktoberfest inspired with beer, food, music, and costumes aplenty.

57. CroatiaFest
Experience the wonder that is Eastern Europe with CroatiaFest, a celebration of the people, traditions, and cultural touches of Croatia, with food, dance, music, and a crafts marketplace.

58. Glitterbeast: HOCUS POCUS
In their third iteration as the new haus on campus, Glitterbeast takes over Unicorn with HOCUS POCUS, a show that promises a new take on cult cinema. Hosted by Shelita Potroast, this edition boasts games, trivia, and the performances of Halloween glam trash sex freaks like Cookie Couture and surprise members of the Haus of Glitterbeast.

59. Gloria Koll: Skipping Stones
Author Gloria Koll will speak about her new novel about Scandinavian migration, Skipping Stones: A Story of Finding Home.

60. No Gasoline Day
On No Gasoline Day, this political/environmentalist theatre piece—directed by Alison Ramer—will take the form of "a funeral for our beloved gasoline." Wear black and enjoy music, dance, and eulogies.

61. Spiders of the Duwamish
Learn about spiders of the Duwamish (and the 'Web of Life') at this event featuring a talk by volunteer naturalist Jeff Rahlmann, and a walk through Herring's House Park.

62. Weird and Awesome with Emmett Montgomery
On the first Sunday of each month, comedy, variety, and "a parade of wonder and awkward sharing" are hosted by the self-proclaimed "mustache wizard" Emmett Montgomery.