THURSDAY 8/17

San Juan County Fair

(FAIR) Sheep, swine, seafood, and scarecrows are featured in the San Juan County Fair in Friday Harbor, WA–but mostly sheep. The four-day, hick-o-riffic event is a small-town dream of dunk tanks, cakewalks, and the always-popular “Sheep to Shawl” event, where teams compete to card, spin, and weave fibers into a finished shawl in the shortest possible amount of time. The shawls are then raffled. Other entertainment includes the Paul de Lay Band and Ranger Lem on Saturday night. Yee-haw. TRACI VOGEL

Friday Harbor, on San Juan Island (take the ferry from Anacortes), 360-378-4310 or www.sanjuancountyfair.org., Wed-Sat noon-midnight; $8 adults, $5 seniors, $4 children.

Cinema of No Escape

(FILMS) For my money, Bob Rafelson’s Five Easy Pieces and The King of Marvin Gardens together represent the unarguable summit of American filmmaking. Most would disagree. In my defense, however, let me cite some specific images, unequaled before or since: the 360-degree pan as Jack Nicholson plays the piano in Five Easy Pieces; Scatman Crothers assaulting Nicholson in The King of Marvin Gardens; the makeup-burning scene in The King of Marvin Gardens; Nicholson hitting his steering wheel in Five Easy Pieces; the Japanese eating lobster in The King of Marvin Gardens–I swear on my mother’s life (and she reads this paper), it doesn’t get any better. See them both, again and again, for they are national treasures. JAMIE HOOK

Five Easy Pieces opens Fri Aug 18 at the Grand Illusion, 1403 NE 50th St, 523-3935; The King of Marvin Gardens plays Thurs-Sun Aug 17-20 at the Little Theatre, 608 19th Ave E, 675-2055. See Movie Times for details.

FRIDAY 8/18

Jimmy Page & the Black Crowes

(LIVE MUSIC) For a preview of this show, listen to Live at the Greek, the recent collaborative project of founding Led Zeppelin guitarist Page and the Black Crowes–who can pull off the Zeppelin tunes if anyone can. Chris Robinson is a howler and a screecher in the Robert Plant mold, but doesn’t come off as one of the many Plant wannabes out there, and the other band members do their parts with style. As for Page, his fingers still fly up and down the fingerboard, and his act is so polished he can play with the audience–knowing full well that they’ll follow him anywhere. KRIS ADAMS

Gorge Amphitheatre, 628-0888, 7:30 pm, $43.85-$137.85.

St. Nicholas

(THEATER) Laurence Ballard is one of Seattle’s most acclaimed actors, with roles ranging from Claudius in Hamlet to Roy Cohn in Intiman’s production of Angels in America. He now takes on the next one-man show in ACT’s series of solo turns, Conor McPherson’s St. Nicholas. McPherson has won a cartload of awards (like Most Promising Playwright from the London Critics Circle, which sounds like something you’d give an eighth-grader); St. Nicholas, though it sounds like a Christmas tale, is actually about a Dublin theater critic who stumbles into a London underworld of vampires. Sure to feature lots of wily Irish wit, which should be safe in Ballard’s capable hands. BRET FETZER

A Contemporary Theatre, 700 Union St, 292-7676. Preview on Thurs Aug 17; opens Fri Aug 18. Wed, Thurs, Sun at 7:30, Fri-Sat at 8, matinee on Sun Sept 3 at 2; $15. Through Sept 10.

SATURDAY 8/19

Twin Peaks Festival

(FILM) SAM programmer (and the most under-appreciated man in Seattle cinema) Greg Olsen has been unable to tell me about this great festival for a good reason–he’s too busy finishing up his forthcoming book on David Lynch. Not that it matters–the annual Twin Peaks festival is one of our most popular film secrets, featuring coffee and cherry pie (Agent Cooper’s favorite), and regularly hosting guests from the show. This year, the dancing midget (Michael Anderson), the log lady (Catherine Coulson), and the evil tycoon (Richard Beymer) are on hand to help us relive the creepiness, as SAM screens the award-winning, gracefully expansive pilot episode. JAMIE HOOK

Seattle Art Museum, 100 University St, 654-3121, 8 pm, $8.

764-HERO, Love as Laughter, Enon

(LIVE MUSIC) The two top bands on this bill have slowly and seriously ascended the local heap, mantling their wistful, sensitive foundations with blustery layers of noise. Both opened for Modest Mouse’s last return to the Showbox: 764-HERO sounded like orchestrated screams from a musical cement mixer, and LAL cheerfully offered up garage-y power-pop far from their acoustic beginnings, which have been recently highlighted on the re-release of the local mid-’90s compilation …can’t dance, too wet to plow… (Homerecorded Culture). GRANT COGSWELL

Sit & Spin, 2219 Fourth Ave, 441-9484, 9 pm, $7.

Charles Krafft

(ART) Out of the Villa Delirium Delft Works (and fresh from a stay at the Seattle Art Museum as part of 2000 1/2) comes Krafft’s latest project, the already lauded Porcelain War Museum Project, in which we are treated to the weapons of the Balkan war(s) fashioned out of ceramics. Its charm is obviously its unlikeliness, but there’s a lot of real craft (so to speak) in the work; Krafft thoroughly researched the guns and grenades, as well as the techniques used in Dutch Delft factories (a discerning eye might identify both Ming and Meissen styles, too). For those of you less inclined to fetishize objects of war (no matter how cheekily), Krafft’s porcelain skateboards will also be on display. The exhibition is up in a temporary gallery–catch it while you can. EMILY HALL

2316 Second Ave (between Battery and Bell), Tues-Sun, Noon-5 pm. Through Aug 20.

SUNDAY 8/20

Seattle Hempfest 2000

(HIPPIE ALERT) Every year around this time, a familiar refrain can be heard: “Daddy, make the bad hippies go away!” Aw, don’t worry, li’l shaver–sometimes the hippies are okay! Just because a few of Hempfest’s supporters have a somewhat self-serving agenda (“Must… get… stoned….”), don’t go and throw the baby out with the patchouli. Reform of this whole War on Drugs business is a worthy goal, and if Hempfest’s well-meaning petitions, guest speakers, and “Hemposium” (eek!) don’t light your fire, they’ve also got a buttload of bands scheduled for their four stages, including the triumphant return of Gruntruck. Oh yeah, and the keynote speaker is Thomas Jefferson (portrayed by Jefferson scholar Clay Jenkinson), who is much more interesting than you would think, and easily worth the price of admission (admission is free). SCOTT McGEATH

Myrtle Edwards Park, Pier 70, 10 am-8 pm, FREE! (donation of a can of food for area food banks appreciated).

MONDAY 8/21

J. T. Leroy

(READING) J. T. Leroy (who has written for this paper under the pseudonym “Terminator”) has a troubling relationship with celebrity. While the young (20-year-old) author said in a recent interview, “I’m the kind of person who, if you look at me cockeyed, I’m gone,” his authorship of the critically acclaimed novel Sarah forces him beneath the awkward gaze of the public eye. Leroy never appears in public, but a blurry photo of him adorns Dennis Cooper’s last book. Sarah is a harrowing fever talk of a story, about a young prostitute turning tricks in a truck-stop lot. This week, the Rendezvous Reading Series presents published authors and street kids reading from Sarah, in a benefit for the U-District Youth Center. TRACI VOGEL

Little Theatre, 608 19th Ave E, 329-2629, 7:30 pm, $5.

TUESDAY 8/22

Girl on the Bridge

(FILM) Patrice Leconte (Ridicule) has recently been outshined by the directors of the so-called “new new wave,” which is unfortunate, as he is certainly one of the best directors working in France. Girl on the Bridge offers further evidence. A ravishing, breezily paced tale of amour fou, Girl on the Bridge stars Daniel Auteuil as a Svengali-like knife-thrower who meets his perfect foil in Vanessa Paradis’ Adele. What makes the film great, though, is Leconte’s feel for the effect of place on people: The roads are beckoning, Monte Carlo is impulsive, and Istanbul is confusion itself. Auteuil is never less than his dour self, and Paradis–a gap-toothed woman, it’s worth noting–is stunning throughout. JAMIE HOOK

Guild 45th, 2115 N 45th St, 633-3353; see Movie Times for details.

WEDNESDAY 8/23

BushGore for President

(WEBSITE) The empty spectacle of American presidential politics continued this week with the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles, and there’s no better place for perspective on the candidates than billionairesforbushorgore.com. Browse the main points of their political platform (“Free the Forbes 400!”), a thorough assessment of both candidates, and plans for the Million Billionaire March–“Because Inequality Is Not Growing Fast Enough.” And remember, if you’re not a billionaire yet, you’re just not working hard enough. PAT KEARNEY

www.billionairesforbushorgore.com.