THURSDAY NOV 15
Tristan Taormino
(READING) I first encountered Tristan Taormino at the 2000 Adult Video News Awards–better known as the porno Oscars–where she was nominated for and won Best Anal Feature for her extravagant and exhaustive Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Women. Accepting her award before an audience (and industry) packed with manicured, coifed, and tan-lined pseudo-lesbians, real-life, full-time dyke Taormino gushed like an adorable prom queen, joyously thanking everyone from her anal sex mentor to her parents, and capturing my heart forever. Tonight, Seattleites can bask in Taormino’s infectious sexual glee as she reads from her new book, Pucker Up: A Hands-On Guide to Ecstatic Sex at Bailey/Coy. If she summons one-fifth of the charm she lavished on the crowd at the porn awards, it should be well worth everyone’s time. DAVID SCHMADER
Bailey/Coy Books, 414 Broadway E, 323-8842, 7 pm, free.
Trilogy
(DANCE) Brit choreographer Wayne MacGregor has a vision: the fusion of dance (that most physically human of art forms) and cybertechnology (which reduces the human body to pixels of light). The result–a combination of athleticism and big-ass screens of computer-generated visuals–has apparently been knocking audiences out in Europe. Is it hype? Depends on your taste for images like the one accompanying this paragraph. MacGregor seems to have a taste for the grotesque, and that, more than the technology, is what interests me. Dance is all too often the realm of beautiful bodies and noble aspirations; it’s time somebody dug into the darker side of flesh. BRET FETZER
On the Boards, 100 W Roy St, 217-9888, Thurs-Sun, 8 pm, $18-$20.
David Rakoff
(READING) David Rakoff, the latest addition to the Brotherhood of Pop-Lit Davids (to join Sedaris, Eggers, and Foster Wallace), is pretty damned funny for a Canadian. I know him as one of those saucy writers at Salon.com, but maybe you know him as that nasal commentator from NPR’s This American Life or as the author of Fraud, a collection of deft, vitriolic essays which are, incidentally, fucking hystellarious. Even if you’ve never heard of Rakoff, David Sedaris himself pushed Fraud at every venue he played when he was in town a few months back. And who are you to go against the word of Sedaris? MEG VAN HUYGEN
Kirkland Performance Center, 350 Kirkland Ave, Kirkland, 425-893-9900, 7:30 pm, free.
FRIDAY NOV 16
Unknown Engagement
(DANCE) I like art to have structure, so I’m not generally inclined to recommend an evening of improvised dance. But Lingo dancetheater can pull it off. It helps that KT Niehoff‘s company forged their chops in her intricate, funny/sexy choreography and know how to work as a team, listening for each other’s unspoken impulses; but basically, whatever ineffable thing it is that makes improvisation work, Lingo has it. Add to this skilled musical improvisers like Amy Denio, Reggie Watts, and NY’s Jaime Fennelly, and you’ve got a damn promising evening. Also appearing will be Amii LeGendre, Rob Kitsos, and Sarah Gamblin, all of whom are fine dancers, though how they’ll mesh into the Lingo improvisational squad remains to be seen. BRET FETZER
Lingo dancetheater at Velocity MainSpace, 915 E Pine St, 2nd floor, 329-6999, Fri-Sun at 8, $12 with reservation, $14 at the door, $10 student rush.
Jeff Kleinsmith
(ART) There ain’t many contemporary artists, especially designers, who can separate their big dumb-assed mouths–that’s “meaning” y’all–from their eyes, BUT… Mr. Kleinsmith does. He crafts his images so thoughtfully, they feel rather painterly. He’s a “graphic” guy, yep, but his work never really panders to the “cute” pop/cartoon-ish… um, “subjects” designers seem to be so fond of… this, even as there are distinct illustrated “objects” included in his pieces. It’s a shame few designers ever successfully bridge that gap… but Kleinsmith has done it for years, designing LP sleeves and band performance advert posters. Which is what this group of paintings consists of: painted versions of his posters without including any text… uh, yeah, like, he went back and painted ’em! MIKE NIPPER
Roq La Rue, 2224 Second Ave, 374-8977, opening reception 6 pm. Through Dec 7.
SATURDAY NOV 17
Les Savy Fav
(MUSIC) Curves are good. And while Brooklyn’s Les Savy Fav remains a strictly all-male band, it’s still one that features many zipping curves–in the musical and structural sense. The band’s just-released Go Forth is a vivacious, constantly percolating jumble of tempos and styles. Singer Tim Harrington rallies between wail and whimper as guitars barrel, twist, and chime with frantic energy and the mood jerkily skips from bemused observation to giggly resolution. Producer Phil Ek‘s artistic handstamp is all over the disc; the same grade of audible sparkle he lent to albums by Built To Spill and Modest Mouse is readily heard on this gleaming collection of songs. KATHLEEN WILSON
Graceland, 109 Eastlake Ave E, 381-3094, 7:30 pm, all ages, $10.
Worlds in Upheaval, Ethics in Conflict
(SEMINAR) Hey, you know that war thing that’s, like, going on? Today you can learn a shitload more about the history, theory, and potential ramifications of the current international conflict at a six-hour interactive seminar at the Seattle Center. Hosted by Kenya-born author, ethicist, and “independent thinker” El-Azhar, the sprawling seminar will use the Socratic method of dialogue to explore the difficult questions behind the world’s current shitstorm. Do Islamic ethics accept suicide as sacrifice? How bloody are America’s hands in its realpolitik? Will anyone survive this mess? Hear El-Azhar’s answers and offer some of your own today at Seattle Center’s Alki Room. (Afterward, clear your head with a spin on the Seattle Center’s kick-ass Pirate Ship ride.) DAVID SCHMADER
Alki Room at the Seattle Center, 9 am, $10/$15. Call (425) 747-7587 to reserve a seat.
Kinks Tribute Night
(MUSIC) To celebrate the release of Give the People What We Want: Songs of the Kinks, the 19-song cover album featuring some of the Northwest’s best and brightest talent, the Crocodile will be hosting a star-studded Kinks tribute show tonight. Featured dishes at this veritable Northwest rock smorgasbord include members of Mudhoney, Murder City Devils, the Fastbacks, the Minus Five, Young Fresh Fellows, the Makers, Congratulators, Baby Gramps, Heather Duby, Model Rockets, and Larry Barrett, along with the Kwabs (a Kinks cover band already). The event will be hosted by some guy named Matt Olsen, and is meant to include “mystery dancers.” Information on which members of what bands will actually be present tonight is being kept as much a mystery as the dancers, but with that much talent, can they really miss? JEFF DeROCHE
Crocodile, 2200 Second Ave, 441-5611, $10.
SUNDAY NOV 18
Tape
(FILM) After the inspired psychic sprawl of Waking Life, Richard Linklater once again proves his versatility with this taut, spry character study that takes place entirely in one motel room between three friends (former friends, more like), who bait, switch, and manipulate one another into reliving a dark event from their shared past. Despite the spatial confinement, Linklater invests the film, based on a play by Stephen Belber, with visceral liveliness. It’s busy with cuts and inventive angles to cover the conversations, but that busy-ness is no novelty; it mirrors the shifting balance of power and control between the characters themselves–played by Robert Sean Leonard, Ethan Hawke, and Uma Thurman, all three of whom do unusually fine work here. By the time it’s over, Tape has taken its players and viewers for a short, meaningful ride. SEAN NELSON
See Movie Times.
MONDAY NOV 19
The American Astronaut
(FILM) The American Astronaut, Cory McAbee‘s triumphant handmade acid trip of a sci-fi musical epic, has finally splashed back down in Seattle, where it was one of the highlights of SIFF 2001. The story is complicated, incorporating such diverse elements as cloning machines, feline currency, the celibacy of deep space (one character is named “The Boy Who Actually Saw a Woman’s Breast”), and rock and roll. That rock is provided by McAbee’s band, the Billy Nayer Show, which invests the shadowy proceedings with a high-class Dadaist musical vibe; that is, just because it’s low-budget doesn’t mean it’s lo-fi. Though the film is deliriously nonsensical, its central metaphor–the galaxy as a lonely, meretricious chamber of commerce and weird sexuality, where the only free people are renegades and pirates–makes a striking analogue (albeit a brilliantly abstract one) to the plight of the artist… if you’re hung up on meaning, that is. SEAN NELSON
The Grand Illusion, 1403 NE 50th St, 523-3935. See Movie Times for showtimes.
TUESDAY NOV 20
The Laramie Project
(THEATER) Documentary theater–in which the text comes straight from interviews rather than a playwright’s imagination–works for one simple reason: Human beings are fundamentally self-contradictory. You, me, and everyone we know all believe things that just don’t fit together in any logical way, yet these beliefs guide our lives. Around really basic human urges (like, say, sex and violence) it only gets more complicated. Laramie, Wyoming is where a young gay man named Matthew Shepard was viciously beaten to death in 1998; within a month, playwright Moisés Kaufman and the Tectonic Theater Project started interviewing Laramie citizens about the murder. What they have to say is going to be more fascinating than the polemical rants of any pundit, gay or straight. With Northwest Asian American Theatre’s Chay Yew directing and a solid cast of standout local talents, expect an unsentimental and acutely irresolvable evening. BRET FETZER
The Empty Space at the Eve Alvord Theatre in the Seattle Children’s Theatre, Seattle Center, 547-7500, $22-$30 ($10 for anyone 25 and under, seniors half-price). Tues-Thurs at 7:30 pm, Fri-Sat at 8 pm, Sun at 7 pm (2 pm matinees on Dec 2, 9, & 15). Through Dec 15.
WEDNESDAY NOV 21
DJ Krush
(MUSIC) In hiphop all great DJs descend from DJ Premier, whose music is made up of three essential parts: turntable mathematics, poetic loops, and futuristic special effects. DJ Krush is a descendant of DJ Premier, and although he is an excellent turntablist, he has built his brand of Japanese hiphop on the foundation of Premier’s poetic loop. Indeed, very few DJs have Krush’s poetic sensitivity, which, with expert hands, can extract the most beautiful sensations and substances from the rigid rhythms of hiphop. “Shin ki Row,” “If I Could Only Touch Her,” and “Jikan No Hashi” are more like elegant flower arrangements than songs. CHARLES MUDEDE
I-Spy, 1921 Fifth Ave, 10 pm, $15.