THURSDAY 8/31


Mullet

(DANCE) Some describe this titular hairstyle as "incomparable." Others might say, "butt-ugly." Either way, it's inspired an evening of dance from new troupe Dropout Dance, a group dedicated to entertaining people who don't know anything about modern dance. Mullet will include dance performed sitting on a toilet, Wonder Woman battling an enemy to the death (prodigious leaps and fierce fight moves are promised), prom primping behavior, television, and the morning-after pill. Will this prove to be an incisive and amusing celebration of hair and culture, or a pandering gag-fest? I can't wait to find out. BRET FETZER

Dropout Dance at UW Ethnic Cultural Theater, 3940 Brooklyn Ave NE, 325-5399. Thurs-Sat Aug 31-Sept 2, 7:30 pm; $8-$6.


Black Tar Heroin

(FILM) "Out of all the heroins in the world, Mexican heroin is the worst. It looks like shit, and it does your body like shit." The proof of this aphorism, uttered by an anonymous drug dealer at the start of this despairing documentary, constitutes the remainder of the film. There are no statistics or concerned voices of reason in Black Tar Heroin: The Dark End of the Street; the film doesn't drag in social scientists or addiction specialists to spout their soothing, talking-heads mantras. Instead, it just allows a sympathetic forum for five young San Franciscan addicts to speak their minds. Boredom, impatience to get to the next fix, and honest declarations of how hard the drug would be to give up are the dominant topics of conversation. As a result, the many shots of needles poked into veins or young girls nodding out on the kitchen floor never feel exploitative; they're just part of the junkie's dreary rhythm, with the one activity that focus can still be brought to as the garbage piles up and the skin boils with pustules and abscesses. A straightforward and open-hearted film, just distanced enough from its subjects to keep its own horror from showing too much. BRUCE REID

Little Theatre, 608 19th Ave E, 675-2055. Thurs-Sun at 5:45, 7:30, 9:15 pm.


FRIDAY 9/1


Def Leppard

(LIVE MUSIC) It's the year 2000. You were one of the biggest arena rock bands of the '80s. You've released a new album and are touring to support it. Where do you play? Too big for the Ballard Firehouse (that's more for your Great White/White Lions and such), you could be part of one of those "Remember When..." package tours at the Gorge--but then, you don't need a bunch of second-rate rock bands cluttering up the stage and siphoning the merchandise dollars of your fans. You're Def Leppard, man! You pioneered the fully synthesized hard-rock sound, the Union Jack muscle shirt, the one-armed drummer! So you do what has to be done. You take the show out to your fanbase and play the state-fair circuit. And you rock like it's 1987 all over again. DAN PAULUS

Evergreen State Fair, Monroe, WA, 628-0888, 7 pm, $27.50 (includes fair admission).


SATURDAY 9/2


The Stranger Cover Art

(VISUAL ARTS) In 1991, a small sensationalist tabloid started up in Seattle. While the tabloid's content and writing style remained charmingly dubious, the discretionary consumer could always count on one thing: beautiful cover art. Join the paper that has now become a slightly larger but no less sensationalist tabloid in a celebration and exhibit of select covers from the past nine years. Featured artists include James Sturm, Art Chantry, Peter Bagge, Jim Woodring, Carol Moisewitsch, Arthur S. Aubry, and Brian Sendelbach, among others. The exhibit will be up throughout Bumbershoot. TRACI VOGEL

Northwest Court Rooms, Seattle Center, through Sept 4. Free with entry to Bumbershoot.


Souls on Earth

(DANCE) This much-praised work from Japanese troupe the Keiko Hamaguchi Dance Company was originally commissioned by a Buddhist temple; the temple's bamboo grove was cleared, and an outdoor stage was created by packing a mound of earth. Presumably the piece will hold when performed on wooden floors. This mixture of dance and chanting sutra is performed by nine dancers and two musicians from Japan, and nine dancers and two musicians from Seattle--that's a lot of people running and jumping around--and will appear at Velocity Theater as well as a performance at Bumbershoot. BRET FETZER

Velocity Theater, 915 E Pine St, Second Floor, 325-8773 ext 1. Sat-Sun Sept 2-3, 8 pm; $12. (Also appearing Sun Sept 3, 3 pm at Bumbershoot.)


SUNDAY 9/3


Robert Ortbal

(DRIVE-BY ART) This is one of the best ways to encounter art: You're driving around in a semi-industrial area at night, and suddenly in front of you is a storefront transformed. The windows are filled with circles and reflected light, strangely familiar objects unfamiliarly positioned. They're simply tin cans, opened at both ends, and arranged in 911's windows by Bay Area artist Robert Ortbal, but sometimes it's the re-seeing of the simplest things that feels most radical. In this case, the forms feel both weightless and solid, the surfaces informed by the lights both inside and outside. Art is nice in galleries, to be sure, but coming upon Ortbal's installation by accident is like getting a present. EMILY HALL

911 Media Arts Center, 117 Yale Ave N, 682-6552. Through Sept 17.


MONDAY 9/4


Grant Cogswell

(READING) Just back from his topsy-turvy adventures covering the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles, Stranger political correspondent and resident lefty versifier Grant Cogswell now takes the smoky, dim-lit stage of the Jewel Box (at the Rendezvous) to recite part two of his serial poem The Dream of the Cold War. "Ode to Congressman Marion Zioncheck" is an epic work inspired by the true story of a congressman from Seattle's First District who went apeshit, and jumped from the fifth floor of the Arctic Building downtown in August of 1936 (Zioncheck left behind a manic suicide note despairing over the monstrous cruelty of the capitalist economic system). Cogswell utilizes this tragic defenestration as a wedge into the reified truths of social and political history; his encyclopedic knowledge of local folklore, coupled with his ability to eke symbolic meaning from forgotten past events, gives his poetry a kind of cumulative force (much in the manner of Whitman's sprawling, meditative odes). In Cogswell's verses, past and present collide, disrupting the amnesiac nap of political apathy--this is exactly how history should be recounted, relived, and remembered. RICK LEVIN

The Rendezvous, 2320 Second Ave, 441-5823, 10 pm, $3.


TUESDAY 9/5


Richard Buckner

(LIVE MUSIC) All too often, singer-songwriters tend to fall into pleasant-but-predictable territory, spitting out endless variations of the same few heartfelt tunes. Richard Buckner is a rare individual who manages to inject that formula with something undeniably real, and the result is genuinely gripping. His voice alone will send shivers down your spine--and the songs pack an emotional wallop that should send you scurrying to the bar in need of a stiff drink. Like most talented people these days, he's currently free from major-label ties, so go on down to the show and support some good independent music. BARBARA MITCHELL

Tractor Tavern, 5213 Ballard Ave NW, 789-3599, 9 pm, $10.


WEDNESDAY 9/6


Bring It On

(FILM) Okay, now we need to make this clear: The people behind this film--that is to say, Universal Studios' marketing goons--have not a goddamn clue what a great movie they've got on their hands. It's so sad--they keep playing it off like it's some nasty jiggle-fest (which in part it is) with no redeeming qualities (which it has out the ass). Certainly, there are lots of movies like this that are awful. Usually it's the fault of a black heart in the breast of those who create them. Bring It On, on the other hand, has a pure, spring-fed heart and a strong, sweet identification with the utterly surreal world of competitive cheerleading. Best of all, the film is funny in a pre-postmodernist way--remember what that was like? When irony was just a brand of humor instead of a cynical philosophy? It was funny! JAMIE HOOK

See Movie Times, p. 95, for theaters and showtimes.


Save the All-Ages Dance Ordinance!

(CIVIC DUTY) After 18 months of hard work and devotion, Seattle's Music and Youth Task Force--the mostly-volunteer group behind the All-Ages Dance Ordinance (AADO)--received a huge "FUCK YOU" from Mayor Paul Schell. The city council passed the AADO in a 7-1 vote on Monday August 21, but the elated Task Force had barely enough time for celebration before Schell vetoed their new legislation and proposed "amendments" similar to the old, poorly written, ridiculously restricting Teen Dance Ordinance. If you're LIVID about yet another sign that our city has an increasingly nasty habit of ignoring the will of its citizenry, then you have to speak up. Bombard Schell's office with e-mails and phone calls to let him know his term is up. But more importantly, contact Council Members Richard McIver and Jim Compton (two iffy swing votes) and convince them to vote to override Schell's veto. A council vote could take place as early as September 11, or Council President Margaret Pageler could fail to even bring it up--so make sure you bug her, too. MIN LIAO

Council Member McIver can be reached at 684-8800 and richard.mciver@ci.seattle.wa.us; Council Member Compton can be reached at 684-8802 and jim.compton@ci.seattle.wa.us; Mayor Paul Schell can be reached at 684-4000 and mayors.office@ci.seattle.wa.us; Council President Pageler can be reached at 684-8807 and margaret.pageler@ci.seattle.wa.us.