Karen Liebowitz
(ART) This show, called Cycles of Judgment: The Solomon Series, tackles the serious subjects in huge new paintings: religion, sex, family, and where Liebowitz may or may not fit in the scheme of it all. Her canvases are chaotic with images, both fully realized bodies and flat, cartoonish manuscript figures that oscillate from background to foreground, sometimes participating in the action, sometimes seeming to comment. The story this series invokes is the judgment of Solomon--not the famous baby-splitting episode, but the part where the king himself is judged for having a thousand foreign wives. The Torah floats across the scene in multiple, pointing the viewer's way through the crowds of masked women and idolatrous objects. They're just grand, these works, in the sweeping, epic, inner-life way. EMILY HALL
King County Gallery, 506 Second Ave, Room 200, 296-7580, opening reception 6-8 pm. Through Nov 30.
The People of the Forest
(DANCE) San Francisco choreographer Alonzo King and his LINES Ballet have previously collaborated with musicians ranging from jazzman Pharoah Sanders to tabla master Zakir Hussain. For this production they team up with a 16-member ensemble of musicians of the Aka clan of the Mbuti (commonly known as pygmies) from the rainforests of the Central African Republic. What characterizes their music most is a "highly elaborate vocal polyphony"--which means that all at once, they sing a wild variety of different melodies that interweave into a textured tapestry of sound. If the dancing lives up to the soundtrack, this should be a wild and ecstatic evening. BRET FETZER
Meany Hall, UW Campus, 543-4880, tonight through Sat Nov 3, 8 pm, $38.
Michael Collins
(READINGS) Here is a list of the best writers in Seattle: Jonathan Raban, Matthew Stadler (whenever he is in town), Diana George, and Michael Collins (in that order). Having established the order, let's talk about Michael Collins. He is an Irish-born author who lives in Seattle and was short-listed for the Booker Prize. Collins is also a marathon runner. Earlier this year when I read his novel The Keepers of Truth--which he reads and signs tonight--I was amazed by the sheer art of his prose. The man is brilliant. Who in a million years would have thought that a marathon runner could possess so much poetry? Instead of importing goat cheese from Greece, we should import more writers like Collins from Ireland. CHARLES MUDEDE
University Bookstore, 4326 University Way NE, 634-3400, 7 pm, free.
National Deviled Egg Day
(FOOD) While one associates this much-maligned hors d'oeuvres with the aftermath of Easter egg hunting, mysteriously enough, right smack at the beginning of November, is the day when we, as a nation, celebrate the "incredible edible egg" in one of its more racy forms. The "devil" in deviled eggs purportedly refers to the "spicy" mustard that the English (known for stunningly bland cuisine, equating cayenne with "the demon who dwells in hell") originally began assisting eggs with in the late 1700s. But Victorian men knew better and used the pretty picnic fare to demurely express regard for an eligible virgin by presenting her with the overly symbolic, big white ovary split in half. According to the American Egg Board, the average American ate 258 eggs last year, approximately the equivalent of one hen's output. So grab your chicken and get busy with the devil. RACHEL KESSLER
At your local grocer.
Shades of Parkland
(THEATER) Love triangles have driven stories since the beginning of time, and Shades of Parkland follows this tradition. This "murder ballad opera," about a policeman in love with a bride in love with a widow, is pieced together from a mix of folk songs and music from the likes of Samuel Barber, all played by a string-and-horn ensemble (featuring members of the Black Cat Orchestra and Art on Fire). Mixed in is a little magic, a little animation, and some truly gorgeous sets and costumes, all overseen by the watchful eye of Vodvil's master, designer, and impresario Curtis Taylor. Go to the tiniest proscenium in town and steep yourself in what promises to be a lush and intimate experience. Hear the Policeman sing, "My club falls, dear, like rain: in the name of Duty." BRET FETZER
Vodvil Theater, 1408 18th Ave, 329-9198, Fri-Sat, 8 pm, $12 (opening and closing nights are $25). Through Dec 1.
Twyla Tharp Dance
(DANCE) Twyla Tharp broke into a broader pop consciousness in 1983, when she collaborated with then-Talking Head David Byrne on The Catherine Wheel, but Tharp had been mixing classical and pop elements at least since 1973, when she choreographed for the Joffrey Ballet to the Beach Boys' "Little Deuce Coupe." Now 60 years old, Tharp remains one of the most dynamic figures in contemporary dance, and her new troupe will be performing a clutch of short works, including "Westerly Round" (a sort of ballet/square dance hybrid), "Sinatra Suite" (set to a selection of hits by Old Blue Eyes, including "My Way" and "Strangers in the Night"), and "Surfer at the River Styx," which The New York Times called "energy at its most turbulent." Tharp is one of the defining choreographers of our time; don't miss out. BRET FETZER
The Paramount Theatre, Ninth Ave & Pine St, Fri-Sat Nov 2-3, 8 pm, $22-$55.50.
The Man Who Wasn't There
(FILM) Billy Bob Thornton plays Humphrey Bogart as the Coen Brothers play with noir in this first-rate black-and-white deadpan tragedy about a barber whose ennui is as coarse as the smoke from his endless cigarettes. Though it appears at first to be an exercise in genre pastiche, which the Coens' films are always accused of being, The Man Who Wasn't There turns all the expertly observed conventions on their heads, yielding a story at once clever-sad and clever-clever, yet spilling over with the cinematic rapture that has made the Coens a veritable font of deconstructed glory and insidious wit and wisdom for almost 20 years now. Jesus. SEAN NELSON
See Movie Times.
The Cazalets
(TELEVISION) Enough with HBO and their unbearably gauche Sopranos and intolerably trashy Sex in the City! In perfect Masterpiece Theater style, the Public Broadcasting System started airing a miniseries this month on KCTS that reestablishes public television as the rightful mecca of drama. Meet the Cazalets, a wealthy British family burdened by marital indiscretions, unwanted pregnancies, unrequited lesbian love, timber barons, and Nazi bombs over London. It's early enough in the five-episode miniseries to get hooked. Catch the latest episode, in which Rachel breaks off with her lesbian lover, Rupert goes missing in the war, and Louise--miserable about her father's incestuous advances toward her and his affair with the sultry Mrs. Macintosh--begins an affair of her own. JOSH FEIT
KCTS Channel 9, 9 pm.
Manic D Press Tour
(READINGS) Nothing is better than poetry in the fall. I mean that with all my heart. What could surpass entering a warm nightclub like the Re-bar from out of the cold and the whirling leaves, and listening to passionate poetry from young men and women who rule the "alterna-lit" San Francisco scene? Heaven is the sum of this sequence: the cold, the club, and then verses from Manic D Press poets Thea Hillman, Justin Chin, and Beth Lisick (pictured above). They say these poets are "invading the Pacific Northwest," but we in the Northwest won't resist them; we will surrender and give them whatever they want. The San Francisco trio will have as their slaves two Seattle poets, Tara Hardy and Fran. CHARLES MUDEDE
Re-bar, 1114 Howell St, 233-9873, 8 pm, $6.
Kelly Hogan
(MUSIC) With her honeyed alto, Kelly Hogan can appropriate the mood of any song she touches with an uncanny and telepathic ability that makes the material her own. On her latest Bloodshot Records release, Because It Feel Good, Hogan bridges such disparate tunes as Randy Newman's "Living Without You" and Smog's "Strayed." Her voice brims with heartache and beauty as she lays into the male narrator's tale on the latter, and without changing a word, utterly transforms the song. Recorded quickly, with rehearsals kept to a minimum, Because It Feel Good has a spontaneity that captures the incendiary power of Hogan's live shows. The two songs she co-authored, "No Bobby Don't" and "Sugarbowl," stand strongly beside the covers. No matter how much heartbreak and loss Hogan takes on in her songs, she can't conceal the natural strength and resilience her voice conveys. NATE LIPPENS
Crocodile Cafe, 2200 Second Ave, 441-5611, $8.
Yo La Tengo
(MUSIC, FILM) Events like this are the only justification Paul Allen (or any billionaire rock groupie) needs for dumping vaults of cash into the clearinghouse of counterintuition that is the EMP: Yo La Tengo--truly one of the finest, most interesting, and most glorious rock bands to emerge in the '90s--performing a live score to the films of the late French director Jean Painlevé, a pioneer in undersea cinematography who worked from the late '20s until the early '60s. Given the band's dalliances with more experimental variations on the indie rock blueprint (the "Danelectro" singles, especially), this could be an evening of strange extrapolation. But who knows, maybe they'll just accompany Painlevé's footage of sea horses and whatnot with renditions of songs like "From a Motel 6" and "Barnaby, Hardly Working." It'll be worth seeing either way, I'll warrant. SEAN NELSON
Cinerama, 2100 Fourth Ave, 8 pm, $10/$12; for tickets call the EMP at 770-2702.
Jane's Addiction
(Live Music) Jane's Addiction hasn't done anything to my knowledge since 1997's Kettle Whistle, a record that was by no means as exciting as 1988's Nothing's Shocking or 1990's Ritual de lo Habitual. But back in the years prior to Nirvana, Jane's Addiction was a band worth the time and drugs you put into it. Up to its usual shenanigans, Jane's Addiction's current live show apparently features a group of dancers coming out from under frontman Perry Farrell's ball gown, playing on a giant see-saw, and hanging upside down from a carousel. Joined by the soul and techno hybrid Stereo MC's, this show should be nothing short of a buck-wild, nostalgic hootenanny. JEFF DeROCHE
Stadium Exhibition Center, 1000 Occidental Ave S, 8 pm, $40.50. Call Ticketmaster at 628-0888, or go to www.ticketmaster.com.
