FALL.

Fallujah. "Fall on Me." The sky is falling. I've fallen and I can't get up. Freeeee, free fallin'! The Fall by Albert Camus. The Fall the band. The Fall the Irish TV show. Logical fall-acy.  Falafel sandwich with extra baba ghanoush. The Fall-t in Our Stars. Where's Fall-do? Fall-a-la-la-la la-la-la-la. 

Don't fall for it, okay? Don't fall into that "Oh, I live in Seattle, it's about to get sad around here" trap. Because it's not about to get sad. It's about to get fall-king wonderful, and the fall edition of Seattle Arts and Performance is fall about providing you with an indispensible guide to the delights that are about to, um, you know... what is the word, again? Oh, yeah: FALL into your lap.

Let us begin, like the Greeks, with theater. Do you realize that Jinkx Monsoon,

after blowing toupees off the tops of Seattle Rep subscribers' heads last year, will be back with an original holiday show called Unwrapped?

The PERFORMANCE calendar is here.

And speaking of pages, the Fall is full of fantastic readings. (We know you're into readings, because you're reading this, even as we speak.)

Ta-Nahisi Coates, for example, is coming to town on October 29.

Right now you're thinking: Sure, Coates is probably the most important writer alive, but what about Star Wars? Fair point. We all remember the scene in Return of the Jedi, when everyone is about to fall into the sarlacc's pit, there to find a new definition of pain and suffering while being slowly digested for a thousand years, right? Well, the slave bikini Princess Leia wears—and nearly falls out of—in that scene is in Seattle right now.

It is unlikely that Alice B. Toklas ever wore a bikini. (If she had, it would certainly not be displayed at EMP Museum.) Toklas did, however, live in Seattle, on First Hill, before she ever met her future gal pal, Gertrude Stein. As Rebecca Brown reports here, the home Toklas lived in is gone, but it was probably at or near the site of the Sorrento Hotel, which was built in 1909 and is rumored to be haunted by her.

People can surprise you. They can even surprise themselves. Take Rich Smith, an atheist Jew recently hired by The Stranger, an apostate publication, to write about books and politics. He has of late, and wherefore he knows not, fallen in love with liturgical choral music. And Saint Mark's. And marijuana. Put those three elements together, and you get something close to a religious experience—or he does, anyway. He explains here.

People like to say "The show must go on," but what if someone falls ill, or falls out of favor with the director, or gets a better-paying gig? Brendan Kiley writes here about what happens when an actor bails on a theater production.

Every time Charles Mudede walks by the cemetery where Bruce Lee is buried, it's filled with crows. Actual photo:

You may think you know why crows love cemeteries but you're wrong. The answer is here. Speaking of Bruce Lee, there's a show about him at Wing Luke Museum that opens October 3.

The ART calendar is here.

The FESTIVALS calendar, including the Seattle Design Festival, is here.

The CLASSICAL/OPERA calendar is here.

The JAZZ calendar is here.

The FILM calendar is here.

And failing that? All fall long, there's a show at the Frye Art Museum about the very best artists in the city, as chosen by the pickiest people in Seattle—us. The critics at The Stranger didn't curate the show, but the Frye wanted to create a show about the state of art in Seattle in the 21st century, and they decided to use 13 years' worth of Stranger Genius Award winners to represent the multidisciplinary cross section. The crème de la crème, as Miss Jean Brodie would say. The cream of the drawer, as Miss Dina Martina would say. There are more than 60 artists in the show. In addition to the exhibit, which you can wander into any old day you like between September 26 and January 10, there's a boatload of new commissions and performances—a schedule of those is here.

One of those performances involves Dina Martina's accompanist, Chris Jeffries. He and Sarah Rudinoff were the first two winners of Stranger Genius Awards in the theater category. There's an interview with them here. Here's a photo of them shaving:

You know the Frye is always free, right?

It's a free fall.