THURSDAY 7/6

The Transfused

(ROCK OPERA) Olympia’s Nomy Lamm is perhaps best known as the creator of the zine I’m So Fucking Beautiful, but her brand of DIY spirit has transcended place and page in its latest incarnation: a full-length rock opera entitled The Transfused. Described as “the first rock opera of the punk genre,” The Transfused features lyrics by Nomy Lamm and the Need, exploring concepts of gender, addiction, social change, and humanity via “freaky animal-people” living in a future dominated by “the Corporation.” Surprise guest performances by Donna Dresch of Team Dresch, Screaming Trees, Scott Seckington of LLP, and Marisa Anderson of Aunt Flo are promised. It’ll transform, transgress, transfuse. TRACI VOGEL

Capitol Theater, Olympia, 360-786-1515, July 6, 7, 8, 13, 14, 15 at 8 pm; July 9 and 16 at 2 pm, $10-$50.

2.5 Minute Ride

(THEATER) Those lucky enough to have seen the previous Seattle appearances of the stellar New York theater troupe Five Lesbian Brothers understand the magic that is Lisa Kron. Those who missed out, here’s your chance to catch up. As a founding member of the award-winning Brothers, Kron revealed herself to be one of the funniest people on the planet. As a solo performer, she continues to refine and deepen her humor, and with 2.5 Minute Ride, she’s hit pay dirt. Ride is a seriously funny piece of work, simultaneously chronicling a Kron family trip to a Midwest amusement park and Lisa’s grandfather’s pilgrimage to Auschwitz, and critics everywhere have drooled all over it. Go, and take everyone you know. DAVID SCHMADER

A Contemporary Theatre, 700 Union St, 292-7676. Fri-Sat at 8, $42; Thurs and Sun at 7:30, $36; Sun matinees at 2, $27. 25 and under, $10. Through July 30.

Harass Paid Signature Gatherers

(CIVIC ACTION) Sherri Bockwinkle’s Washington Initiatives Now (WIN), which started out as a “good government” group, is now just another money-fueled means of screwing the masses. WIN employees are getting paid $1-$2 per name for aiding the questionable cause of charter schools and the execrable Tim Eyman-sponsored I-745 (which would devote 90% of transportation funds to building roads). WIN exploits the poor and homeless recruited in California as well as addicts, all of whom have little idea that they are being paid to make the world even harder for people like themselves, not to mention the rest of us. Eventually pity must give way to responsibility, and these people are a menace. They’d be much more productive selling crack. Fuck with them–ask lots of questions, tell people just how bad these initiatives are, raise a fuss. Now if someone would file an initiative banning paid signature-gatherers…. Let me check my calendar. GRANT COGSWELL

Hurry! Their deadline is July 8.

FRIDAY 7/7

Muscle-Building Games

(PHYSICAL FITNESS) Yoga? No way. Didn’t have the patience (or the outfits). Tae Bo? Skipped it. Too much yelling, too much sweating. Pilates? Okay, I was just lazy. But then I discovered Muscle-Building Games! Inspired by President John F. Kennedy’s Council on Physical Fitness, this textbook (Sterling Publishing, 1964) provides fun, easy, playfully erotic home exercises designed to tone and strengthen all of our 639 muscles! It’s easy to do stuff from Muscle-Building Games at home–all you need is floor space and basic household furniture. Some of my favorites (you can do all these while watching TV) include these: the Toe to Toe (see fig. 1a), which builds up back, shoulder, arm, thigh, and abdomen muscles; the Body Rise (see fig. 1b), which reinforces your neck, shoulders, abdomen, thighs, and calves; and the challenging Arms Down (see fig. 1c), which tests the endurance of your upper arms and chest, and lower arms and shoulders. MIN LIAO

In the comfort of your own home, anytime, free.

SATURDAY 7/8

Viking Days

(FESTIVAL) Celebrate “The Year of the Viking” at Ballard’s Nordic Heritage Museum during the annual Tivoli/Viking Days festival. Highlights include pancake breakfasts, a barbecued-salmon dinner, the Valhalla Beer Tent, a Viking encampment, ethnic food booths, crafts demonstrations, and a traveling exhibit featuring works from the late Swedish glass artist Erik Höglund. While you’re there, check out Seattle’s most overlooked ethnic museum, set in a three-story 1907 school building. In addition to individual rooms with displays on Danish, Finnish, Icelandic, Norwegian, and Swedish culture, there are large exhibits detailing the Northwest immigrant experience, from Ellis Island all the way to the logging and fishing jobs the newcomers found here–complete with frightening mannequins and re-created boats, houses, and towns. MELODY MOSS

Nordic Heritage Museum, 3014 NW 67th St, 789-5707. Sat July 8, 10 am-6 pm; Sun July 9, noon-5 pm. Free admission.

Milk and Honey

(ART) Howard House celebrates its third anniversary with Milk and Honey, a show featuring Kelsey Fernkopf’s mixed-media sculptures and Robert Yoder’s recombined road-sign paintings. It’s tempting to ask which is milk and which is honey, but it could just as well refer to the constant flow of good work from Billy Howard’s gallery. EMILY HALL

Howard House, 2017 Second Ave, 256-6399. Opening reception 6-8 pm. Through Aug 5.

SUNDAY 7/9

The Rover, The Taming of the Shrew

(OUTDOOR THEATER) God knows why theater troupes think that plays with hard-to-grasp language are the best ones to do outdoors–but they do. All those thees and thous will have to compete with screaming kids, barking dogs, and overhead airplanes as Theater Schmeater presents Aphra Behn’s The Rover at Volunteer Park, and Wooden O presents Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew at Seattle Center this summer. Of course, if all of those distractions do get in the way, you can just lie back on the grass and stare up into that glorious bright blue sky. Aaaaaah. Look, that cloud looks like a bare bodkin. BRET FETZER

See Theater Calendar listings, page 73, for detailed performance information.

MONDAY 7/10

Soup Daddy Soups

(CHOW) Nestled in Pioneer Square lies an unassuming little restaurant–more of a proletariat eatery, really–with the most amazing selection of absolutely delicious soups. Mouth-watering clam chowder, Mediterranean vegetable barley, chicken noodle, vegetable tortellini, spicy Thai peanut chicken, chicken chili, beef barley, and my personal favorite, their scrumptiously spicy chicken and sausage gumbo–and that’s not even a complete list. Every day they present a selection of eight rich and flavorful soups, and the staff (soup evangelists all) are happy to expound on the virtues of each. If you think you’re indifferent to soup, you haven’t had Soup Daddy Soups. Go. Now. BRET FETZER

Soup Daddy Soups, 106 Occidental Ave S, 682-7202, Mon-Fri, 9 am-5 pm.

TUESDAY 7/11

Sister Spit

(READING) Sister Spit, the San Francisco-based girl literary performance group that wet crowds at Bumbershoot last summer, returns. Co-founders Michelle Tea and Sini Anderson head the lineup at the OK Hotel, in a performance to benefit Home Alive. Tea will read from her new book, Valencia, an estrogen fever dream that tells the story of Michelle, a young and wry girl narrator on a vague search for fulfillment via dyke romance, hitchhiking, and some very odd jobs. Tea is one of the best writers to emerge from a group of young women who use linear narrative and un-metaphorical language–traditionally thought of as “male” by feminist theorists–to convey the reality of life as a girl. Tonight’s reading will be hosted by Seattle Poetry Slam hostess Allison Durazzi, and will include performances by local women and the infamous Pink Chihuahua. Michelle Tea also appears Mon July 10 at Bailey/Coy Books on Broadway at 7 pm (323-8842). TRACI VOGEL

OK Hotel, 212 Alaska Way S, 621-7903, 9 pm, $7 (21+).

Riz Rollins

(READING) Seattle’s musical childhood ended prematurely with the peach fuzz of grunge. And what now? Riz Rollins‘ manifesto, “Let’s Get This Party Started Right,” bemoans Seattle’s dearth of good radio stations, discusses the changes in arts cultures occurring now, and urges our city toward a new vision of image and sound. Rollins, a part of Seattle’s music community for more than 20 years, presents his ideas as part of Stranger writer Charles Mudede’s Hugo Talks series. A question-and-answer period will follow the lecture. TRACI VOGEL

Richard Hugo House, 1634 11th Ave, 322-7030, 7 pm, $5.

WEDNESDAY 7/12

Movies about School

(FILMS) The world’s greatest living filmmaker, Iran’s Abbas Kiarostami, has in the course of the past decade added an entirely new dialect to the language of Film, one that finds synonym in fiction and documentary, rediscovers the power of the frame, and believes most admirably that the poetry of the human condition needs no reinforcement. His incredibly rare 1989 documentary Homework comes to Seattle for one night only at the Little Theatre. Profiling the restrictions of the Iranian school system, Kiarostami called this documentary “the most difficult film I ever had to make.” I’m sure it’s wonderful. For a lighter, more American take on school, check out the excellent (and free) program of vintage classroom films at Linda’s Tavern. A full buffet of sex ed, hygiene, acne, and driver’s ed films should make for some nice indigestion. JAMIE HOOK

Little Theatre, 608 19th Ave E, 675-2055, 6:30 & 8:30 pm, $7.50; Linda’s Tavern, 707 E Pine, 325-1220, dusk, free, (21+).