Elizabeth Jameson

(ART) It's unclear in Elizabeth Jameson's work if the apocalypse is actually happening or if all her odd characters are waiting for it. In her drawings, the figures wear large protective garments--padded dresses, enormous gloves, hoods resembling an executioner's, with eerie Klan echoes--in defense of some nonspecific horrible event. Shown along with the deft, spare drawings in Fear and Sartorial Isolation are two sculptures, a tiny sweater with long narrow sleeves ending in heavy balls, and an equally tiny knitted dress with even longer sleeves. I wonder what Jameson's vision of the future holds, what kind of mutants we'll be, with our tiny bodies and the necessity of weapons at the ends of our limbs. The implication is also that, out of fear, we separate ourselves aggressively from the world through the sheath of our clothes, which might be the most frightening suggestion of all. EMILY HALL

King County Art Gallery, 506 Second Ave, Room 200, 296-7580. Mon-Fri, 8:30 am-4:30 pm. Through Sept 29.

Buster Keaton

(FILM) If you have never seen Buster Keaton's Steamboat Bill, Jr., you have not seen the best stunt sequence in the Keaton canon--derailing train notwithstanding. The 10-minute cyclone that forms the centerpiece of this flat-out great film is so handsome, so sweet, so ravishing, so outrageous, it simply bowls you over. I still don't know how they did most of this stuff, though legend has it that the stunt that closes the sequence--the one in which the front of a building falls on Buster, only to have the open second-story window spare him--had to be done for real, and was the most dangerous stunt Keaton ever attempted. The film's producer had to be removed from the set and called after the shot was over to be informed that Keaton had survived. With live musical accompaniment on the WurliTzer organ. Plays with the great Keaton short The Electric House. JAMIE HOOK

Hokum Hall, 7904 35th Ave SW, 937-3613, 8 pm, $8-$10. Also showing on Sat 9/23.

A Night Like This

(LIVE MUSIC) Last year's event of the same name and premise was intended as a small gathering of local musician-types, organized to celebrate the birthday of The Stranger's own creature of darkness, Barbara Mitchell. This year's show features, among others, John Auer and Ken Stringfellow (playing both separately and together), as well as members of Death Cab for Cutie, Super Deluxe, and Sky Cries Mary. As the name suggests, all performances will be covers of Cure songs. Last year, to the surprise of everyone involved, the club was sold out, and all went home in a state of ecstatic gothic bliss. JEFF DeROCHE

Crocodile, 2200 Second Ave, 441-5611, 9:30 pm, $8.

Ralph Nader

(RALLY) One of our political parties ignores class distinctions and pretends this country's hierarchies operate on the basis of race and gender; through flattery, the occasional small nature reserve, and scaremongering about threats to abortion rights, they retain the loyalty of the less ignorant half of the electorate. The other party is simply more frank about its allegiance to big business, while it uses xenophobia and counterfeit religion to conjure the very ideas of community that its cartels profit from debilitating. There is no way in hell these sons of privilege will debate Ralph Nader. He has spent 40 years battling corporate attacks on our rights, safety, and environment, and is entirely unbeholden to corporate interests that perpetuate the "lesser of two evils" mindset of Bush vs. Gore. Ralph Nader is not worried about whether people have guns, or what they choose to put into their bodies--what he's worried about is the booming prison industry, a vanished living wage, and the systematic commercialization of our public sphere. Environmentalists, here is the first national candidate to propose a halt to the timber giveaways on our public lands. Give him your vote, your 10 dollars, and your presence at the beginnings of the next major force in American politics. GRANT COGSWELL

Seattle Coliseum (which we own and which, for $4 million, Key Bank gets to put its big red sign on, forever), 7 pm, $10. Call the Nader 2000 office at 329-2441 to buy tickets or for a list of ticketing locations.

¡Muchas Chickens!

(PUPPET THEATER) More and more of you out there have children, and those children deserve to be entertained by more than Elmo's Bedtime Stories or those mushminded afternoon animated TV shows. Thistle Theatre has a show using Japanese puppet techniques to tell a Mexican folktale about a coyote and a fox trying to outwit each other and get all of a farm's plump chickens. Not only does this involve graceful and intricate Bunraku puppets (in which one to three puppeteers use rods to manipulate each puppet) and feature colorful costumes and a mixture of traditional music and original songs, it's also being presented in a mix of Spanish and English. Chances are it will be worth the trip to Bellevue. BRET FETZER

Thistle Theatre at the Moore Theatre in Sacred Heart School, 9450 NE 14th, Bellevue, 524-3388, www.thistletheatre.org. Sat-Sun at 2 and 4 pm; $5-$8. Through Oct 1.

Hammering Man

(PUBLIC SCULPTURE) Once again, response was sparse to my query for interpretations of Seattle's public art, but there seemed to be a general agreement that the Fremont Troll is some manifestation of the area's dark, repressed emotional energies. Then a reader named Ken wrote in about the previously discussed Occidental Park figures; it turns out this seemingly sexy female figure is actually Tsonoqua, "a mythical forest being who tries to lure children to her attractively furnished house so that she may eat them," according to a handy booklet called Seattle's Totem Poles. Which leads us to this week's subject of contemplation, one of the ugliest, stupidest pieces of public art in all of Seattle: the Seattle Art Museum's Hammering Man. Please write in and defend or condemn this inane, insulting sham. (And if we don't get a larger response this time, this useful, educational series will be laid to rest. Participate now or forever hold your peace.) BRET FETZER

Hammering Man stands in front of the main entrance to the Seattle Art Museum on First and University, across from the Lusty Lady.

Seattle's Favorite Poems

(READINGS) Getting the announcement list for Seattle's second annual "Favorite Poems: A Celebration" was a little like hearing the punch line to a joke that's only been partially articulated. Guess what City Council Member Nick Licata's favorite poem is? Allen Ginsberg's Howl! And ACT Artistic Director Gordon Edelstein's? "What Work Is," by Philip Levine! It turns out that one's favorite poem is a little like the "Beatles or Rolling Stones?" conundrum--revealing, but only superficially. Nevertheless, the poems stand on their own, and the celebration rolls on. Featured poet Tess Gallagher will open the evening by reading Adam's Curse, by W. B. Yeats, and close the program with her own poetry. Novelist Shawn Wong emcees. TRACI VOGEL

Town Hall, 1119 Eighth Ave (at Seneca), 652-4255, 7:30 pm, free.

Smoking Butts

(SOCIAL SKILLS) Face it: You smoke because you want to die. Every deep, delicious drag pulls more poisonous chemicals into the tender, fragile, struggling tissues of your lungs, choking them as surely as hands around your throat. You need that. So don't let that smoke go to waste by tossing your unfinished cigarette butt on the ground and letting it burn there, frittering its glorious toxins--toxins that should be slowly transforming your lung cells into black, cancerous tumors--into the air, for just anyone to breathe. If you're not going to suck in every last insidious vapor, then squelch that burning butt with your foot, or stub it out before you throw it away. Don't let others reap the reward you've worked so hard to achieve for yourself. BRET FETZER

A burning cigarette butt can be easily put out by a twist of the ball of your foot. Don't try to get yourself to worry about the mess--littering is obviously the least of your concerns.

Geoffrey Chadsey

(ART) Geoffrey Chadsey digs back into art history for his subjects, but you might not know it. His subjects are young, callow-seeming men--mostly they loaf and preen and stare indolently back at the artist. These portraits, done in red and blue watercolor pencil, are like contoured anatomy drawings; a set of busts based on the five- and one-dollar bills, you can see the faint outline of Lincoln's sternum and his pecs stretching over his frame (he's a fairly buff president compared to Washington, whose scraggly chest hair looks like a tangle of arteries and veins). The masterpiece of this show is a young man lounging in his boxers on an unmade bed next to what looks like a shroud-wrapped body. His expression--part leer, part inward, self-satisfied gaze--is creepily familiar, and it turns out it's based, quite accurately and quite eerily, on Gustav Klimt's monster Judith. Some things remain frightening no matter how the bright sheen of contemporary culture coats them. EMILY HALL

James Harris Gallery, 309-A Third Ave, 903-6220. Tues-Sat, 10:30 am-5:30 pm. Through Sept 30.

Deflowered in the Attic

(CHEAP, TRASHY THEATER) Lurid, perverse, morally repugnant, and terribly written--it's no surprise that V. C. Andrews' series of teen soft-porn soap opera novels have fascinated adolescents for years and years. Deflowered in the Attic takes all that (with frighteningly little editing) and cranks it up to 11. In the hands of a stellar cast (Kevin Mesher, Imogen Love, Nick Garrison, Gregory Musick, Shane Wahlund, and director Ed Hawkins stepping in for this benefit performance), it's camp comedy at its highest and lowest. BRET FETZER

Re-bar, 1114 Howell St (at Boren), 325-6500. Tues-Wed at 8, $15; Thurs-Sun at 8, $20; pay-what-you-can preview on Mon Sept 25, 8 pm. Through Oct 1.

Passing Through

(FILM) Now, The Stranger can't actually say whether this is a good film or a bad one, because it has proven almost impossible to see. It sounds great, though: Directed in 1977, the film was part of the so-called "L.A. rebellion," a politically charged black filmmakers' movement loosely centered around UCLA. Passing Through tells the tale of Warmack, a saxophonist fresh out of prison and struggling to assert himself in a racist recording industry. The film features music by the Pan-African Arkestra, and director Larry Clark (not to be confused with the one who directed Kids) will be on hand to answer questions. You'll never get to see this film again--take a chance. JAMIE HOOK

JBL Theater at EMP, 325 Fifth Ave N, 367-5483. Plays tonight only at 7 and 9:15 pm, $7.50.