'Showgirls'

(BRILLIANT DISASTER) Full disclosure: David Schmader is an associate editor at this paper. Even fuller disclosure: He is also a dear friend of mine. That said, even if he didn't work here, and even if I hated him (like I do many people), I would still have to recommend that you check out his hysterical dissection of Paul Verhoeven's spectacularly insipid Showgirls. Even if you've seen the flick before, you haven't seen it like this. (Showbox, 1426 First Ave, 628-3151, 8 pm, $8.) BRADLEY STEINBACHER

Al & Tipper Gore

(READING) In my United States of America, Al Gore is the president, and his wife, Tipper, the first lady. To complicate matters, the America in my head is more real than the America I live in because it's based on actual facts, on truths that somehow failed to translate into real-world terms. I'm not a big fan of Gore, nor his wife, as she has said some mean things about hiphop in the past. But, still, he is the president of the United States of America in my head. (Elliott Bay Book Company, 101 S Main St, 624-6600, 5:30-7:30 pm, free.) CHARLES MUDEDE

Naked Eye Documentary Festival

(FILM) It's about time for this festival, which spotlights the area in which film and video makers are doing the most impressive work the medium has to offer. The excellent opening-night film OT: Our Town investigates a production of the Wilder play in the least likely setting imaginable: a Compton high school. Also of note: the one and only local production in the festival, A Day in the Hype of America, which charts the fizzled hubbub of Y2K around the country. (Fri-Sun Nov 22-24 at Seattle Art Museum, 100 University St, 682-1770, $12 opening/closing night, $8 all other screenings.) SEAN NELSON

The Listening Post

(HIGH-TECH ART) Sometimes a work of art is so groundbreaking and visionary it almost defies explanation. But I'll try. Created by sound artist Ben Rubin and researcher/statistician Mark Hansen, The Listening Post is an absolutely stunning media installation that captures--through visible and audio text collected in real time from tens of thousands of chat rooms, bulletin boards, and other public online forums--the collective voice of the Internet. Truly, it's something that has to be seen and heard to be believed, and only a fool would miss this beguiling, sublime, and TOTALLY FREE installation before it heads to the Whitney Museum in NYC and promptly blows the mind of the international art world. Go, go, go. (On the Boards, 100 W Roy St, 217-9886, Sat-Sun 1 pm-8 pm, Wed-Fri 5 pm-8 pm, free. Through Nov 24.) DAVID SCHMADER

Secret Movie at the Sunset Tavern

(FILM) I can't tell you what amazingly brilliant, band-suppressed rock doc they're screening tonight at Ballard's finest beer box, but suffice it to say that it contains the only known footage of a legendary guitarist/junkie actually nodding off, to say nothing of the groupie who gets molested on the jet while the band watches. Killer and killer! This may be your only chance, so don't be late when the whip comes down. (Sunset Tavern, 5433 Ballard Ave, 8 pm, free! ) SEAN NELSON

Monday Funday Anniversary

(MUSIC) Monday Funday is one of the best cheapie show nights this city has to offer. I've seen everything from costumed keyboard noise acts (Neon Hunk) to sludgy metal (the Whip) to manic two-man rock (25 Suaves) to intense, red-lit hardcore (Himsa)--all at a venue that charges a couple bucks a pop. Tonight is Monday Funday's one-year anniversary, and Graceland is offering four bands (Pretty Girls Make Graves, JR Ewing, Federation X, and Hint Hint) on its two stages (frontroom and showroom). Here's to a second year of giving the outsider freaks and the city darlings alike a great place to rock. (Graceland, 109 Eastlake Ave E, 381-3094, $8.) JENNIFER MAERZ

Push the Button

(ART) It's an installation inside an intercom outside a bar on a busy street; when you do, finally, push the button, a stream of different kinds of instructions flows out, sampled from old public-service announcements, movies, and God-all knows where. Between the exhaust rush of cars careening by, you get snippets of our bossy, bossy, and apparently surreal world. Something, at one point, grows stiff as iron. "You cahn't bend it, you cahn't," an upper-crust Katherine Hepburn-y voice tells you, and then: "Now you can bend it." (Installation by John Bain, samples by Otis F. Odder of the Bran Flakes. Inside the intercom at the Stumbling Monk, 1635 E Olive Way.) EMILY HALL

Meatless Pleasures

(FOOD) When meat-lovers give up meat, all we have left is dairy. I'm obsessed with Alfredo sauce lately: thick and smooth, coating fresh pasta, forming rich puddles to be sopped up with crusty bread. Machiavelli's fettuccine Alfredo ($8.50) hits the spot, with its velvety blend of cream, Parmigiano, fontina, pungent gruyère, and fresh nutmeg. And La Spiga's beautiful tagliatelle with black truffle butter, heavy cream, and Parmigiano ($9.50) gives you fancier flavor and texture--like buttah--with an earthy, truffley finish. Both are delicious. (Both are also obscenely fattening. But who cares.) (Ristorante Machiavelli, 1215 Pine St, 621-7941; Osteria La Spiga, 1401 Broadway, 323-8881.) MIN LIAO