THURSDAY 1/4
Oliver Twist
(FILM) If I didn’t know that Oliver Twist was directed by David Lean I would’ve almost been sure that Alfred Hitchcock directed it, because this movie is suspenseful, freaky, and sort of sad. Some parts are so exciting that you really get into it and would be sooooo mad if the TV broke in the middle of the movie! Once I wanted to strangle my one-year-old brother Charlie who loves turning on and off the TV, so, while I was watching Oliver Twist he kept turning it off! I was very angry. The setting of the movie is beautiful! It looks like a great painting. It’s especially beautiful when the pickpockets walk across a cool bridge and in the background you see a pretty view of London. Fagin is played by Alec Guinness, who plays Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars. I had no idea it was him until I got an e-mail from my editor. If you’ve never seen this movie, see it! SAM LACHOW, 10 years old.
Seattle Art Museum, 100 University St, 654-3100, 7:30 pm, series tickets $48 ($40 SAM members).
Harold Hollingsworth
(ART) Hollingsworth’s large-scale paintings recall the games of suburban youth, in the dank, rainy-day cell of the rec room. These works, using the design motifs of croquet balls and racing car decals, share the blown-out aesthetic of Pop Art, but retain a sweetness, a nostalgia for play, without knocking us out with irony. Arthur S. Aubry continues his long look at industrial spaces with color photographs of abandoned sites, including the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. The clarity and detail of his images can induce a kind of creepy feeling, a disconnect between what those tanks and motors are used for and their strange, austere beauty. EMILY HALL
Esther Claypool Gallery, 617 Western Ave, 264-1586, opening reception 6-8 pm. Through Feb 10.
FRIDAY 1/5
14/48
(THEATER FESTIVAL) The gimmick is smashing: Gather a whole bunch of writers, directors, designers, and actors, trap ’em in a room, and force ’em to make theater under a merciless deadline. But beyond the smashing gimmick is the fact that 14/48 (14 plays created in 48 hours, get it?) consistently produces some of the most entertaining and inspired work of the fringe-theater season. Of course, with a setup such as this, it’s always hit or miss, but with the involvement of such hypertalented locals as Charles Smith, Sarah Harlett, Mik Kuhlman, Ian Bell, Susannah Burney, Burton Curtis, John Kaufmann, Heidi Schreck, Dawson Nichols, and Scot Auguston (not to mention The Stranger‘s own Dan Savage, Bret Fetzer, and Tamara Paris), the latest 14/48 should be another blockbuster. Get there early–these suckers always sell out. DAVID SCHMADER
Consolidated Works, 410 Terry Ave N, 381-3218, 8 and 10:30 pm, $8-$10. Also Sat Jan 6, 8 and 10:30 pm.
SATURDAY 1/6
(WEBSITE) Hey, you wondering where I found these badass sneakers? Well, actually I designed them myself! Creating shoes at the coolest commerce site on the web is a blast, and while you’re there you can read fan mail, watch shoe movies, or follow links to urban culture. Or for a guilt-free purchase, you can take a virtual tour of the site’s kinder, gentler factory and donate to charities. The sneakers arrive in 10 days, and they’re remarkably cheap considering how great they look and feel. But if you hate them (for any reason) you can return them within 48 hours. And best of all–with three billion trillion combinations of graphics, logos, and materials–you’re never gonna see your sneakers staring back at you from some other sucker’s feet. TAMARA PARIS
www.customatix.com
Night of the Living Elvis
(CONTEST) With so many flavors of Elvis to choose from (Skinny Elvis! Fat Elvis! G.I. Elvis! Elvis on Pills!) the Elvis Invitationals is the perfect opportunity to find and unleash your inner Elvis–or watch your friends and neighbors do the same. The Crocodile has been hosting this event for several years now, and the word on the street is that it’s a darned fine time all around. Each aspiring Elvis gets the chance to perform with a live band. That comes with a price, though. You have to sign up early if you want to participate, although you can just show up if all you’re looking for is a really good time. BARBARA MITCHELL
Crocodile, 2200 Second Ave, 441-5611, 8:30 pm, $12 adv/$14 door.
SUNDAY 1/7
Ryan McGinness
(ART) Ryan McGinness is relentlessly postmodern, and if you are very cool you can probably keep up with him. Back in New York, he’s as well known for his parties and pranks (which include smuggling postcards of his own art into the gift shops of MoMA and the Whitney) as for his work, which has led more than one writer to dub him the Andy Warhol for our age. Like Warhol, McGinness continues to dodge classification. His graphic design explores the ways we thoughtlessly attach meaning to things that look like signifiers; his art tends toward the humorous side, such as minimalist panels created from skateboard grip tape and skateboards painted to look like Pantone color chips. Most graphic designers I know keep a copy of his book flatnessisgod on their desks, although one, when questioned, admitted, “I liked the gestalt feel of it. But I don’t know what it means.” Check out his work and see what you think–it could be that having an opinion about McGinness will be as de rigueur as complaining about those pesky Impressionists was in 19th-century Paris. EMILY HALL
Houston, 907 E Pike St, 860-7820. Through Jan 27.
MONDAY 1/8
East Precinct Police Station
(PUBLIC ART) In a Capitol Hill police station sits a striking work of public art. Though unidentified (they’ve run out of the accompanying pamphlet), it would seem to be a depiction of Dante’s The Divine Comedy. Murky red ceramic figures writhe in slanted rows, while across the way are the equally crammed-together but blissfully blue inhabitants of a house-shaped paradise. On the floor in between are multicolored figures consigned to purgatory, which twines like a river amid rigid square tiles. (In addition to their decreed punishments, these poor souls must also shoulder the unjust weight of a potted plant.) A curved bench stretches from heaven to hell, on the back of which is a depiction of our terrestrial plane. Go see it yourself, and tell me if you too see the people in paradise engaging in some decidedly earthly activities, or whether that’s the product of my soiled, mortal mind. BRET FETZER
SPD East Precinct, 12th and Pine.
Watjen Concert Organ
(CLASSICAL MUSIC) Every weekday of the year you can take a free tour of Benaroya Hall–a thrilling account of acoustical tiling, raked auditorium seating, and negotiations with city council members, downtown developers, and Dale Chihuly, to be sure. But why not go on the one day of the month when your peek behind the scenes includes a brief performance on the hall’s fine concert organ? Toccatas and Fugues is the title of January’s recital–the loose, pseudo-improvisational former designed to display the performer’s virtuosity; the complex, intricate latter demonstrating how composers have been showing off for hundreds of years. While no particular composers are mentioned, I’d wager Bach and Parry are safe bets. BRUCE REID
Benaroya Hall, 200 University St, 215-4856, noon (recital at 12:30), free.
TUESDAY 1/9
Hugo Talks
(LECTURE) The monthly lecture series on “Seattle and Its Meanings,” a project undertaken by Hugo House writer-in-residence and Stranger senior writer Charles Mudede, kicks off its second season with Diana George, whose writings of late have appeared in Altx.com, 3rd Bed, and The Stranger. George’s perceptive, incisive intelligence can disinter layers of hidden or half-acknowledged significance in the seemingly shallowest of places, a facility that should come in handy for her talk, “Dead Again: The Practice of Everyday Death in Seattle.” BRUCE REID
Hugo House, 1634 11th Ave, 322-7030, 7:30 pm, $7 ($5 upstairs pass holders), series tickets $28.
WEDNESDAY 1/10
Temptation Island
(TV) Prefabricated “reality TV” has sunk to a delightful new low: Fox, the network that brought us World’s Scariest Police Chases, When Animals Attack, Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire?, and Ally McBeal, is now prepared to LITERALLY DESTROY the lives of young and attractive people by plunking them in a tropical paradise and giving them all sorts of booty tests: Four unmarried but deeply committed couples are set up to prove their devotion to each other by vacationing on an island with 30 scantily clad, hot ‘n’ horny singles who are encouraged to stomp on all things monogamous. The producers of the show will then set each committed person up on a bunch of dates with three different singles (including an all-night “fantasy date”–rrrowr…), forcing the couples ultimately to decide between love and lust. “Hey,” you might be thinking, “that’s not fair! How come they get all the fun?” What? Watching people fuck up their love lives and personal integrity isn’t fun? MIN LIAO
FOX, 9 pm.