Northwest New Works

(DANCE/PERFORMANCE) On the Boards' splashiest offerings are the international acts it pulls in, but the event most essential to OTB's soul is Northwest New Works, its annual presentation of the most promising performers in the Puget Sound region. There are 15 different acts spread out over three weekends, including dance (33 Fainting Spells, BetterBiscuitDance, Sheri Cohen, Corrina Befort, Alice de Muizon, Shawn Hove), theater (John Mullen, Maria Glanz & Elizabeth Klobe, John Kaufmann), music (Elizabeth Falconer), and an abundance of multidisciplinary who-knows-what-to-call-it (Peggy Piacenza, Abby Enson & Christopher Overstreet, Lelavision, Lori Goldston & Lynn Shelton, VIA). Few programs in Seattle are as wildly varied and provocative as Northwest New Works. Do not miss it. BRET FETZER

On the Boards, 100 W Roy St, 217-9888. Dates, times, and prices vary; call for details. Through April 21.

Pink Martini, 3 Leg Torso

(MUSIC) Classy, done well, is never boring. Pink Martini faithfully brings out the genteel excitement in classy with a smart combination of French cinema soundtracks, classical chamber music, and non-ironic cocktail culture. Part cabaret, part social club, this large ensemble has been invited to play at gubernatorial balls, Cannes Film Festival soirees, and countless other events requiring musical entertainment that's distinctively highbrow, yet still a roaring good time. And given its rich entertainment history, the Showbox should provide the perfect setting to reflect this amazing act's nostalgic glow. KATHLEEN WILSON

Showbox, 1426 First Ave, 628-3151, 7 pm, $15/$17.

Screenshots

(ART) Jon Haddock's sugar-poppy, low-resolution images are translations of immediately recognizable events: the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., a nameless man facing down a tank in Tiananmen Square, the beating of Rodney King. In this exhibit at Howard House, Haddock chooses images from both the news and film, illustrating the blurry distinction between actual and media events through the visual lexicon of video games. Haddock's drawings, created with Photoshop, are generated as grainy digital C-prints. Landscape is simplified, violence is banal, and the perspective is strangely omniscient. These images are mediated, and their reality is reduced to screen-resolution stop-action. ADRIANA GRANT

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

Dave Eggers

(READING) Dave Eggers, who is probably as close as we have to a literary rock star nowadays, blazes through town again to read from his massively praised A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. Recently released in paperback, AHWOSG has been spiffed up with some 50-odd new pages, mainly consisting of corrections to the previous edition, and presumably this will be some of what he reads from. At any rate, it should be worth the trip, especially since it's a benefit for the Hutch School, an offshoot of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center. BRADLEY STEINBACHER

Elliott Bay Book Company, 101 S Main, 624-6600, 7:30 pm, $5.

The Obscene Bird of Night

(THEATER) Some recent productions may have given magic realism a bad name, but this show promises to boost it back up. The Obscene Bird of Night (adapted from Jose Donoso's novel El Obsceno Pajaro de la Noche) portrays a wealthy family whose only son is born horribly deformed; to protect him--or perhaps themselves--they isolate him with an entourage of other "monsters." A cast of 13 actors play over 37 roles; the course of the play spans nearly 400 years. Central images include a flying, disembodied head with long yellow hair, and the umbunche, a Chilean folk figure who has had every orifice of its body stitched shut. Open Circle Theater's new artistic director, Melanie White, who directed a subtle and affecting production of Our Town at ArtsWest last year, is in charge. Her smart sense of restraint should let this macabre and spectacular material speak for itself. BRET FETZER

Open Circle Theater, 429 Boren Ave N, 382-4250, Thurs-Sat at 8, Sun at 7, $15. Through May 5.

Project Grizzly

(DOCUMENTARY) Screened two years ago as the kickoff to the Grand Illusion's "Crackpots and Obsessives Series," Peter Lynch's Project Grizzly relays that old, familiar story of a man and his quest to build a bearproof suit. After being attacked by a grizzly bear while hiking, Troy Hurtubise spent seven years and $150,000 developing the Ursus Mark VI, a do-it-yourself robocop contraption of fireproof rubber, titanium, chain mail, and heavy plastic capable of withstanding close contact. For fans of reckless self-endangerment as a cure for boredom, the pure entertainment value of the many test trials--man in bearproof suit pushed from cliff, man in bearproof suit hit by pickup truck, man in bearproof suit pummeled by bikers in roadhouse parking lot--is reason alone to attend. JASON PAGANO

Grand Illusion, 1403 NE 50th St, 523-3935. See Movie Times for details.

Chris, Rusty, Kurt, & Robb

(MUSIC) Four lead singers prove they don't need no stinking band when they take turns at the mic playing musical nomads. Chris Ballew (Presidents of the United States of America, the Giraffes, Chris and Tad), Rusty Willoughby (Flop, Pure Joy), Kurt Leibert (Bicycle), and Robb Benson (Nevada Bachelors, Great Lakes Northwest) will sing their hearts out all by their lonesomes, then join up for some brotherly collaboration and--with so much talent in the room--lord knows what else. KATHLEEN WILSON

Liquid Lounge at EMP, 325 Fifth Ave, 369-5483, 9 pm, free.

Memento

(FILM) Okay, so last week, we chose to make this film the subject of a rather messy lesson in classic philosophy. This would have been fine, except for one thing: We forgot to tell you whether or not we liked the film. "Where was the review?" you clamor. Ah, to hell with it! Here are the facts: Memento is a great film; Guy Pearce is perfectly cast as a vapid prettyboy whose innocence may or may not be believable; and, contrary to what some other reviewers may think, the subversive open ending is both brilliant and satisfying. By all means, you should go see this film, and then, if you have the time, reread our little lesson in classic philosophy. JAMIE HOOK AND CHARLES MUDEDE

Egyptian, 805 E Pine St, 323-4978. See Movie Times for details.

Adrienne Rich

(READING) With the death of A. R. Ammons, American poetry has only two living giants: John Ashbery and Adrienne Rich. Rich would of course abhor such canonizing. Despite nearly single-handedly launching a poetics of identity that has thinned the soup of our literature of late, she did so with work that was revolutionary, timeless, and excruciatingly beautiful. In her refusal of the National Medal of the Arts from President Clinton, she wrote, "Art... means nothing if it simply decorates the dinner table of the power which holds it hostage." Rich is the most significant lesbian poet since ancient Greece, the great American poet of love and justice, and has managed something almost impossible in writing real poetry that also touches the throttle of history. GRANT COGSWELL

Town Hall, 1119 Eighth Ave (at Seneca), 624-6600, 7:30 pm, $5.

Steven Shaviro

(LECTURE) Steven Shaviro's website (www.dhalgren.com) features so many interesting things it would take several weeks to describe them. Among the elegant detritus there can be found his ongoing project "Stranded in the Jungle," a repository of thoughts on pop culture. A UW professor of English by day, it seems that at any other time Shaviro lives immersed in the virtual: web logs, webcams, MOOs, literary hypertext... so one can assume his Hugo House talk, entitled "Stranded in Seattle," might address many of these elements of our otherwise quite concrete city. How is Seattle defined through its diaspora of pop culture, urban legend, techno-rumor? Do its bits cohere? TRACI VOGEL

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

Hello Gorgeous

(CLOTHING) I hate shopping and I hate fashion and I would be naked right this minute if not for this amazing store. Initially lured in by voodoo dolls and Bettie Page light switches, I quickly saw that the super-foxy threads for sale have turned this tiny shop into a laboratory of sorts, where cutting-edge couture and kitsch exchange vital, life-giving fluids under the amused eye of owner Theresa Clark. She cheerfully mixes vintage pieces, pink wigs, hipster togs from the likes of Paul Frank and Sailor Jerry, body glitter, and a Bedazzler, as well as offerings from hometown designers like Lisa Loeb and Raymond Chapman... all at prices even a bum like me can swing. And honestly, if I hadn't found the red sweater with little devil horns sewn on to the hood--I think I might have died. TAMARA PARIS

Hello Gorgeous, 1539 Post Alley, 621-0702. Open 10 am-6 pm, seven days a week.