THURSDAY OCTOBER 3
Road Movie

(THEATER) Written by Londoner Godfrey Hamilton and performed by American Mark Pinkosh, Road Movie has been garnering raves and awards around the globe for the past eight years. Now Open Circle Theater brings this "glorious tour-de-force about gay love and loss" to Seattle for a limited two-week run. (Open Circle Theater, 429 Boren Ave N, 382-4250. $15. Thurs-Sun at 8 pm. Through Oct 13.) DAVID SCHMADER

FRIDAY OCTOBER 4
Todd Barry

(RIB TICKLIN') Todd Barry is a funny motherfucker. You may not know about him because he doesn't have a sitcom, and he hasn't been in a bunch of movies (he has a bit part in Pootie Tang, which should tell you something). But he does have a very funny self-released LP (Medium Energy) with the best Fugazi joke you'll ever hear, an indie-rock pedigree (he's opened for Yo La Tengo, Luna, and others), and a bottomed-out deadpan delivery that puts the world of extreme comics to shame. (Fri-Sat Oct 4-5, Giggles Comedy Club, 53rd and Roosevelt, 8 pm and 10:30 pm. Call 526-5653 for reservations.) SEAN NELSON

SATURDAY OCTOBER 5
Collaborators

(ART) Collaborators (co-curated by The Stranger's own Emily Hall, with Fionn Meade) pairs complete strangers on two coasts--nine visual artists from Seattle, and nine writers from New York--in an experiment plotting a fanatical game of pen-pal pursuit, a process running the gamut of relationship woes and concluding in this exhibit at the SOIL Gallery. (Opening reception Sat Oct 5, 7-10 pm. SOIL Gallery, 1317 E Pine St, 264-8061. Through Oct 30.) ZAC PENNINGTON

SUNDAY OCTOBER 6
Isis, Dalek, Thrones, Akimbo

(MUSIC) This show wins the gold star for eclectic lineup of the week. Isis spreads spacy post rock all over sludgy metal riffs, while Akimbo takes hardcore through a metal shredder. Sandwiched between the alternating dynamics of these two acts, though, is one unusual combo. Dalek is a gritty hiphop act that tours with rock bands as well as artists of its own ilk. Thrones is Joe Preston's one-man band, and he programs mechanized drumbeats behind some bowel-shaking guitar work, pushing his unusual experiments through the outer edges of his post-metal workings. For those who complain that both rock and hiphop are getting all too predictable, this bill is an excellent refresher course as to what's been happening under the three-chord, two-turntable surface. (Graceland, 109 Eastlake Ave E, 262-0482, 6 pm, $8.) JENNIFER MAERZ

MONDAY OCTOBER 7
Register to Vote

(PATRIOTIC DUTY) So do you want a monorail in this town, or what? If the answer is yes, then you'd better be ready to vote for it on November 5. Hopefully you're already a registered voter, but if you're not, you've still got time. The mail-in registration (which you can get at the library or a public school) had to be postmarked by October 5--but you have until October 21 to get down to the King County Elections Office and fill one out in person. That's in two weeks. Get moving! (King County Elections Office, 500 Fourth Avenue, Room 553. Open 8:30 am to 4:30 pm Monday through Friday. Call 296-VOTE for more info.) AMY JENNIGES

TUESDAY OCTOBER 8
Camden Joy

(Books) Like Lester Bangs, Camden Joy writes about music by surrounding the art of making noise with the art of storytelling. Not one to take the traditional approach to music criticism, Joy frames musicians like Sinatra, Camper Van Beethoven, Liz Phair, and Son Volt in tangential prose that has nothing to do with a standard Q&A session and more to do with his own life and fictions, mixed in with musings on pop culture. Joy reads from his latest book, Lost Joy, a novel that collects some of the music-related manifestoes the writer has posted on the streets of New York. (Confounded Books & Hypno Video, 2235 Second Ave, 441-1377, 7 pm.) JENNIFER MAERZ

WEDNESDAY OCT 9
Irvine Welsh

(READING) The man who gave us Trainspotting has a new novel called Porno. The music editor of this paper, Jennifer Maerz, read it last week while waiting for a flight to Seattle from New York. She was so engrossed with the novel's easy plot that she missed her flight. Now, if that is not high praise, then what in the world is? As for Welsh's Seattle reading, I hope his Scottish accent is not too thick. (Elliott Bay Book Company, 101 S Main St, 624-6600, 7:30 pm, free.) CHARLES MUDEDE