THURSDAY FEB 22

Doolymoog 2001

(SOLO PERFORMANCE) John Paulsen specializes in oddness. Not crazy, not eccentric--odd. Askew. Out of sync. His characters are often people who, were they to sit next to you on the bus, would make you move to a different seat. On stage, though, protected by the implicit performer-audience contract, you get a little window into other worlds, some of them isolated, lonely, and deeply yearning. Doolymoog 2001 (presumably an update of Paulsen's previous Doolymoog) is a collection of vignettes, the theatrical version of a collection of short stories or (Paulsen's own analogy) an album of songs. You can either take each piece as its own little nugget, or let them resonate off each other in your mind. BRET FETZER

Northwest Asian American Theatre, 409 Seventh Ave S, 340-1049, Thurs-Sat at 8, $12. Through March 3.

Mark Kozelek, Danny Pearson

(LIVE MUSIC) Building on the rock music essentials of guitar, bass, and drums, Mark Kozelek has created a subtle, graceful sound full of diminutive but perfectly formed moments. With the Red House Painters, and now on his solo projects, Kozelek seduces with the drift and echoes of his aching voice and understated compositions. His latest album doesn't deliver any shocking departure from his signature style, but it does play to his strengths, displaying a wider expression of his voice and mapping the transfigurations and tenderness of his heart. The earth beneath Kozelek's songs keeps moving, leaving and arriving until time stands still. The unhurried pace can occasionally drag, and on his less-compelling numbers he can seem adrift on a frail skiff swamped with too much emotional baggage. Still, live, Kozelek can dazzle with the spellful sound of his dreamy nocturne. NATE LIPPENS

Crocodile, 2200 Second Ave, 441-5611, 9:30 pm, $10 adv/$12 door.


FRIDAY FEB 23

PEEP

(FILM) Some words sound very funny when you say them over and over: Plop, heave, goulash, and, of course, peep. We love the word "peep." It's one of those words that has a meaning, but really shouldn't. It should exist as just sound, like this: The Stranger's (PEEP!) First Annual Film and Video Festival is going to be really peeping good. We received over 170 entries from right here in Seattle, from which we narrowed it down to 14 peeping great shorts. In fact, we'd wager that PEEP will be one of the best collections of local film on display this year in this one-horse, mother-peeping town. JAMIE HOOK

Little Theatre, 608 19th Ave E, 675-2055. See Movie Times for details.

Natura Abolita

(DANCE) Most dance isn't just dance--though there are exceptions, music is usually an integral part of the performance. Choreographer Mary Sheldon Scott and composer Jarrad Powell have one of the most long-standing collaborations in town, and the result is a fluid fusion of sound, rhythm, and movement. Though my personal taste in dance tends toward work that incorporates theatrical elements, when I saw an unfinished portion of Natura Abolita last year, it knocked me out. Nothing but bodies moving through space, a dynamic cascade of gestures and physical compositions, accompanied by evocative soundscapes and live vocals--the whole room vibrated. The finished work may have gone in any number of new directions, but the talent and intelligence driving it remain the same--don't miss it. BRET FETZER

On the Boards, 100 W Roy, 217-9888, Fri-Sat at 8, $12. One weekend only.

Save the Tender, Flaky Salmon

(BENEFIT) While restoring the Columbia River salmon run would require the politically impossible removal of major dams, the case of the Olympic Peninsula's Elwha River is nearly the reverse: Here two small dams put an end, three-quarters of a century ago, to the richest minor salmon run on the coast. The Elwha's watershed is nearly pure; the Coho there once ran up to two hundred pounds. Robert Lundahl's documentary, Unconquering the Last Frontier, on the hoped-for undamming of the Elwha, will be shown along with a performance by the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribal Dancers, with proceeds to benefit Klallam cultural programs. If you're one of the folks who raised a stink when the Makah exercised their right to hunt whales, you're a damned hypocrite if you don't write a check for this. GRANT COGSWELL

Broadway Performance Hall, 1625 Broadway, 325-6500, 6:30 pm, $20 adv/$25 door. Additional screenings Sat Feb 24, 7:30 and 9:30 pm, $7.

Cheap Art

(ART SALE) As a Marxist and an art lover, I have two enemies in this world: those who are filthy rich and those who sell expensive art. Bringing down the rich is a long-term project. As for expensive art, that is something I can address immediately. Art should be accessible to people who have autumn in their hearts and a few bucks in their pockets, which is why the UW's School of Art sale of graduate and undergraduate art ("At low, low prices!") is of particular interest to the Marxist art lover. Though the sale can't guarantee all-around great art, it does promise that prices will range anywhere from $5 to $150. What this means is that you have to look for great art, not have it handed down to you or have its worth validated by European snobs, as is the case with the filthy, filthy rich. CHARLES MUDEDE

School of Art Building, UW campus, www.net.art.washington.edu, 543-0646, 1-8 pm.


SATURDAY FEB 24

Gao Xingjian

(READING) Someday books may be automated, so that scenes waft across the page in video format and the narrator tells his or her story in audio, plying your ear as well as your eye... oh, wait, that would be a movie. Anyway, until further technological advances, Gao Xingjian's novel Soul Mountain suffices to immerse a reader in imaginative virtual reality, placing vivid detail in the path of the language, suffusing scent, and speaking in various voices in a conversation that leaps from the page at volume. Xingjian, an exile from his native China, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature this year, and it's really, really cool that he's reading here in Seattle, courtesy of Seattle Arts & Lectures. If you want to go, you should get tickets as soon as you can. Gao reads with his translator, Mabel Lee, and will discuss his work with UW professor Charles Johnson. TRACI VOGEL

ACT Theatre, 700 Union St, 621-2230, 7:30 pm, $10.


SUNDAY FEB 25

Wolfgang Laib: A Retrospective

(ART) It looks at first glance like your basic survey of minimalist works: cool, smooth, impeccable marble, color-field paintings, a few small stones grouped in a corner. But wait--the paintings are on the floor! And on closer inspection, the marble is a shallow container of milk, the color field a thin layer of pollen. These are the intensely contemplative works of Wolfgang Laib, a German artist whose art aims at--and achieves--a kind of spirituality through the process. Photos of Laib at work invariably show him crouching over a pile of pollen or a set of vessels, doing an enormous amount of work to create such simple art. The result is not ridiculous, but sublime. There's also an opening on the same afternoon for Performing Photography, an exhibition of photography--both documentary and staged--from the prestigious Monsen Collection. EMILY HALL

Henry Art Gallery, UW campus, 543-2281. Opening reception 3-5 pm; conversation with Wolfgang Laib and chief curator Elizabeth Brown, 2 pm. Through May 6.

Fifth Annual Atari 2600 Championship

(VIDEO GAMES) In these crazy times of PlayStation 2, we must always remember the humble Atari 2600. Nobody understands this more than the folks at Hi*Score Arcade, where today the nimble of thumb and forefinger are invited to wage sweaty-palmed combat for the title of 2001 Atari 2600 Champion. Following a preliminary qualifying round, 16 contestants will advance to head-to-head competition in six classic games, with a super-secret mystery game determining the ultimate champion. Show up to contend for the title or just to watch, but appreciate Atari's mighty 8-bit legacy either way. JASON PAGANO

Hi*Score Arcade, 612 E Pine St, 860-8839, registration begins at 1 pm, $5 ($8 gets you a nifty commemorative T-shirt).


MONDAY FEB 26

Chris McQuarrie

(SCRIPT READING) Last fall, I wrote some quite mean things about Academy Award-winning screenwriter Chris (The Usual Suspects) McQuarrie's latest film, The Way of the Gun, and even went so far as to imply that its creator lacked a soul. He responded by calling me up and offering to take me out for coffee. In the ensuing conversation, he told me about the trials of Hollywood, working the system, and the deviancy of expectations. He also described his supremely ambitious new film, Alexander the Great, and man! Did it--and he--have soul. Now he's staging a reading of the screenplay for Alexander the Great as part of Cinema Seattle's Screenwriters Salon series, and I think you would be a fool to miss it. JAMIE HOOK

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


TUESDAY FEB 27

Trisha Ready

(TALK) I guess I can't possibly write a recommendation concerning Trisha Ready without disclosing several conflicts of interest: (1) I edit her for this paper; (2) I drink with her frequently; and (3) I have a crush on her and love her dearly. But surely hundreds of people can claim number three as well, because to know Trisha Ready is to love her if you have any weakness at all for writing that is socially conscious without sacrificing literary quality, for lesbians with shocking red hair, or for fallen Catholic girls. Ready, who has worked for years with troubled teens, will give a talk tonight on "Lobotomies & Other Tools of Mental Hygiene" as part of Hugo House's "Seattle & Its Meanings" series. The series, which debuted with Diana George's mind-boggling lecture on the practice of photography of the dead, has already shown a propensity for oblique illumination of the city through such topics, and Ready's lecture is sure to continue this trend. TRACI VOGEL

Richard Hugo House, 1634 11th Ave, 323-7030, 7:30 pm, $5 donation.


WEDNESDAY FEB 28

Broken Blossoms

(FILM) Dear citizens of Seattle: Do you realize how lucky you are to live in this film-glutted city? Where else can you see D. W. Griffith's flawed-but-fascinating 1918 apologetic melodrama Broken Blossoms, accompanied by a brand-new, never-before-performed score written by one of only five people in the world who have mastered the art of the glass armonica, a rare, water- and glass-based instrument invented by Benjamin Franklin, who had been inspired by hearing a rendition of Handel's Water Music played on the angelic organ, and who once said, "Of all my inventions, the glass armonica has given me the greatest personal satisfaction." Really, where else? JAMIE HOOK

Little Theatre, 608 19th Ave E, 675-2055, 8 pm, $9 general/$6.50 NWFF members.