Pinkk

(DANCE/INSTALLATION) Look at this image. Isn't it creepy, yet spectrally pretty? Choreographer Laura Curry says, "When I get a bouquet of flowers, I love them when they're in bloom--but I also love watching them decompose." Curry has a similar attitude toward the travails of the human body; rather than viewing illness and injury as frightening or gross, she sees the body's breakdown as alluring, embracing the mysteries of the flesh at their most delicate and beautiful. The result is a combination dance and art installation called Pinkk, featuring original music by Adam McCollum. The "Pink Room" will be open for an hour before the performance--which Curry describes as a sculpture garden in motion. Feel free to get there early and wander around. BRET FETZER

Richard Hugo House, 1634 11th Ave, 459-0272. Thurs-Sat; $10. Installation opens at 7, performances at 8. Through July 21.

Stranger Guidebook Bash!

(LITERARY CELEBRATION) If there's one bookstore that knows how to throw a kick-ass party, it's Bailey/Coy. For more than 15 years, this beloved Broadway institution has book-bashed the best of local and national literati, and tonight they're doing it for us. According to its extensive subtitle, The Stranger Guide to Seattle is "The City's Smartest, Pickiest, Most Obsessive Urban Manual." Tonight, join book editors Traci Vogel and Paula Gilovich, along with such contributing writers as Dan Savage, Charles Mudede, Adrian Ryan, Ellen Forney, and me for a book-release party that, if we're lucky, will end with Bailey/Coy owner Barbara Bailey singing Elvis songs into a hairbrush. DAVID SCHMADER

Bailey/Coy Books, 414 Broadway E, 323-8842, 7 pm, free.

Local Sightings

(FILM) As WigglyWorld plows along into its sixth year, it's only fitting that our only full-fledged local film studio should stop to show us what's been going on. This weekend brings Local Sightings, a collection of locally produced features and short films of every conceivable stylistic and thematic stripe, from Roger Corman-meets-Dr. Seuss fantasy (Dave Hanagan's Jack Strange, Literary Hero), to socialist-realist propaganda (Michael Chick's WigglyWorld trailer), to harrowing documentary (Queen Ruth E.'s Not Even Ashamed), to romantic comedy (Erik Hammen's talky but beautifully photographed Love My Guts). Ever wonder what those freaks with the movie cameras at your neighborhood cafe are up to? Now's your chance to find out. SEAN NELSON

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

Jim Blanchard

(ART) Jim Blanchard, frequent Stranger illustrator, dedicates his new book "to glamour art enthusiasts everywhere." Blanchard's peculiar vision is aptly titled Glam Warp, as his renderings, not without an allure of their own, often go decidedly against the preconceived notion of glamour. His obsessively detailed black-and-white images offer a searing but humorous look at society's view of modern female beauty. Fallout Records hosts this book-release party that will also showcase many of Blanchard's immaculate originals. If you have enjoyed his work in these pages, treat yourself to an up-close and personal viewing. JOE NEWTON

Fallout Records, 1506 E Olive Way, 323-BOMB, 7 pm.

14/48

(THEATER) Consolidated Works once again hosts the remedy to modernity's lack of leisure time: 14/48, Seattle's quickest theater festival. On Thursday night, seven playwrights assemble to write seven 10-minute plays, which are handed over Friday morning to seven directors, who, with their casts, composers, and set designers, have until that night to produce a work of art. Then, staffs are shuffled and it all happens again on Saturday. The result of this planned chaos is an entertaining mix of inspiration and flub-up, of jury-rigging and Boy Scout-worthy innovation. The writers, directors, composers, and designers are all topnotch, but it's the actors who get my vote for bravery. Who else but the foolishly brave would be willing to put themselves in art's washing machine on the spin cycle? Go this weekend, and give them a well-deserved round of applause. TRACI VOGEL

Consolidated Works, 410 Terry Ave N, 264-1735, 8 & 10 pm, $14.48 (clever!).

Roy Haynes Group

(MUSIC) He's been called "Snap Crackle" by his peers because of his crisp, tight sound. After a string of gigs at New York clubs, he played with Charlie Parker, replacing badass drummer Max Roach. A few years later, Roy Haynes joined Sarah Vaughan's backup band, and faithfully stuck with her for five years. After that long stint, Haynes went on to freelance with Miles Davis, Stan Getz, Kenny Burrell, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, and Chick Corea. If this amazing resume doesn't impress you, then consider that Haynes is 76 years old--and while his performances are as lively as ever, your chances of seeing this jazz legend and hearing his hard swing are sadly dwindling. MIN LIAO

Jazz Alley, 2033 Sixth Ave, 441-9729, 6:30 & 8:30 pm, $14.50-$18.50.

Rally in the Alley

(PROTEST) Chances are, City Attorney Mark Sidran has made your life worse: Do you like free speech, hiphop music, due process, and all-ages shows? If so, the city attorney has written legislation and/or advised the city council to defend or pass legislation that sabotages all of the above. And now he's running for mayor. Show up at his campaign headquarters and let him know what a total shmegegi he is. Join the members of the Sidran Truth Squad this afternoon as they tell it like it is on Sidran's creepy 11-year record as city attorney. JOSH FEIT

Pike Place Market (at the corner of Virginia and Post Alley), noon.

Pixelvision Fest

(FILM) The average TV set shows you pictures comprising 150,000 pixels. The PXL 2000, Fisher Price's archaic toy camera (the analog four-track of cinema), offers only 2,000 pixels, making for a fuzzy, ghostly image, as illusory as the true nature of reality itself. No wonder it didn't catch on with mid-'80s 12-year-olds--though I BEGGED my parents for one.... The 10th Annual PXL-This Festival presents 22 works in this lowest of lo-fi media, made by artists like poet Rich Ferguson (Mistake), Sonic Youth-er Lee Ranaldo (A Trip Through Kerouac's Lowell), and heretofore unknown 10-year-old boy Brady Smith (Dancing Dog). SEAN NELSON

Second Avenue Pizza, 2015 Second Ave, 956-0489, 8 pm, free (donations accepted).

Resident Alien

(SOLO PERFORMANCE) I missed this show called Belle Reprieve, and for years I endured shocked cries of "You didn't see that?!?" It was some kind of deconstructed adaptation of A Streetcar Named Desire with Bette Bourne as Blanche DuBois, and apparently he was heart-wrenching. Eagerly I went to see Bourne's troupe Bloolips when it came to town. But Bloolips was, well, a bit silly, and I was unimpressed--until, in the midst of all this fluff, Bette Bourne turned the mood from camp frivolity to aching sadness and back to light fun in the bat of an eye, with nothing more than a shift in the timbre of his voice. At once I believed everything I'd been told about Belle Reprieve, and I'm not going to miss Resident Alien, in which Bourne plays Quentin Crisp, the gay icon and iconoclast who once described Princess Diana as "trash" who "got what she deserved." Let's hope Bourne is no more soft on Crisp than Crisp was on Diana. BRET FETZER

On the Boards, 100 W Roy St, 217-9888. Fri-Sun at 8 (also Wed-Thurs at 8 in the second week); $18-$20. Through July 22.

Enlightenment Guaranteed

(FILM) Two German brothers--one a kitchen salesman with a runaway family, the other a New-Agey feng shui consultant--alight on a quest to a Japanese Zen monastery. They last about three hours in Tokyo before getting completely lost, spending all their money, losing their credit cards, sleeping in cardboard boxes, and eventually finding work in a touristy German restaurant, replete with lederhosen and gratuitous beer steins. Before they right themselves and find the monastery, the brothers (who carp at each other like a classic comedy duo) must travel to the other side of Zen, where the only way to navigate the constant hell life throws your way is to surrender. This film, by Doris Dörrie (semi-famous for a movie about a talking penis), bathes in a wellspring of human feeling; it's hilarious, moving, and compelling, despite an utter lack of visual flair (hello, again, DV) and manipulative hydraulics. Don't miss it. SEAN NELSON

See Movie Times for details.

Zadie Smith

(READING) White Teeth, Zadie Smith's debut novel, bit into the bored literary core with the shocking suddenness of a shark attack. Everyone wanted to know who this "preternaturally gifted new writer" (The New York Times) was, and how she could have possibly written "the first great novel of the new century" (The San Francisco Chronicle). The book, a careening hallucination set in the multicultural milieu of London, is epic in scope: It covers war, three generations, and, more remarkably, not merely echoes but supersedes the "sweeping" literary style championed by such esteemed (read: old) white male writers as Joyce, Roth, Bellow, etc. Remarkable, because Zadie Smith is, in fact, a 25-year-old woman of Jamaican and English descent. Ha to Roth. TRACI VOGEL

Kane Hall, Walker-Ames Room, UW campus, 624-6600, 7:30 pm, free.

Summer of Sound

(ART) It's kind of rare in these parts to think about sound art--usually it's relegated to background noise for installations. This doesn't mean that it isn't a thriving discipline; it just took us a while to catch on out here in the far reaches of America. To remedy our slowness, we've got Volume: Bed of Sound, an exhibition (which hardly seems like the right word) that comes to us from P.S. 1 in New York. It's a huge futon with 58 listening stations, each of which features audio work from artists all along the sound-art continuum, from Vito Acconci to Laurie Anderson to Sonic Youth. In addition to the big lie-down, there's art from two of my personal favorite local artists, Susan Robb and Jesse Paul Miller, both of whom investigate, in different ways, the sounds that objects we think are inanimate make. But there's more! Rodney Graham's Listening Lounge installation, AND Bill Fontana's Spatial Concept/Sound. Listen up! EMILY HALL

Henry Art Gallery, UW campus, 543-2280. Through Sept 30. NOTE: Opening reception FRI JULY 13, 6-9 pm, $8.