Perhaps you are one of those horribly condescending garbage-people who assume that if something is very, very popular, it must logically be very, very terrible. God, shut up. George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series is popular because it is basically what would happen if Bruce Willis were a wizard and he had sex with Sarah Palin and she gave birth to a baby and then they only let it watch Breaking Bad and then Professor McGonagall transfigured that baby into a book. Shit is exciting and stressful and GOOD, and that’s why people like it. (Town Hall, 1119 Eighth Ave, www.townhallseattle.org, 7 pm, $10)

Lindy West was born an unremarkable female baby in Seattle, Washington. The former Stranger writer covered movies, movie stars, exclamation points, lady stuff, large frightening fish, and much, much more....