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MONDAY
FOOD & DRINKHsiao-Ching Chou Author Talk: Chinese Soul Food
As the former food editor of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the vice-chair of the James Beard Foundation’s cookbook committee, local writer, cooking instructor, and journalist Hsiao-Ching Chou boasts some seriously impressive food-writing chops. All the more reason to be excited for the release of her debut cookbook, Chinese Soul Food: A Friendly Guide for Homemade Dumplings, Stir-Fries, Soups, and More. Chou provides a straightforward, accessible guide to making soul-soothing, belly-warming comfort food, including dry-fried green beans, braised beef noodle soup, green onion pancakes, and Chou’s famous potstickers, all of it just what you want to eat in the heart of winter. At this event, she’ll demonstrate a recipe, answer questions, and sign books. JULIANNE BELL
Walla Walla Wines
Chat with winemakers, snack on hors d'oeuvres, and try wines from over 40 Walla Walla wineries.
Arlie Hochschild with Christopher Sebastian Parker: Strangers in Their Own Land
By now we're all sick of relitigating the 2016 election, but renowned Berkeley sociologist Arlie Hochschild wrote one of the more considered books on the subject, one that's infinitely more useful than J.D. Vance's hillbilly whatever. To write Strangers in Their Own Land, Hochschild spent five years interviewing white middle-class and lower-middle-class Tea Partiers in Louisiana. And guess what? She discovers they think immigrants, black people, brown people, and women are stealing "their" tax dollars and "cutting ahead" in line. They think the government is way bigger than it is. They're racist, and so they wanted to vote for the racist even though the economic and environmental policies people tell him to advance destroy their own homes and food sources. We know all that, but Hochschild also reveals some surprising and not totally obvious differences between Trump and his voters, which may be of use in 2018. Christopher Sebastian Parker, professor of political science at University of Washington, will join her for a discussion of her findings. RICH SMITH
Box Brown: Is This Guy For Real?
Ignatz Award-winning cartoonist Box Brown (Andre the Giant) will read from a new biographical graphic novel about the incendiary comic Andy Kaufman, known for his occasionally shocking performance-art style of stand-up.
MONDAY-WEDNESDAY
ARTExistential Horror
Jon-Michael Frank, Brandon Vosika, Helen America, and Elaine Lin will anticipate the awful events of the year to come in their respective artistic media.
Closing Wednesday
And the Winner Is...
Cinerama will wrap up its series of Best Motion Picture Oscar nominees this week, offering screenings of Dunkirk, Get Out, and Lady Bird.
MONDAY-SATURDAY
PERFORMANCEFrost/Nixon
There are about 27 reasons to see Strawberry Theatre Workshop's all-female production of Peter Morgan's classic play about the disgraced president reflecting on the Watergate scandal for the first time on television, and Stranger Genius Award winner Amy Thone playing Nixon is like 14 of those reasons. Alexandra Tavares grilling Thone/Nixon as the ever-intrepid Sir David Frost is about 10 of those reasons. The other three have to do with the fact that Trump would never be, in any kind of hell, least of all this one, as forthcoming, as deviously charming, and as disarmingly honest as Nixon was in this absorbing and infinitely fascinating interview. RICH SMITH
No performance on Tuesday or Wednesday
MONDAY-SUNDAY
FOOD & DRINKBurger Month
This month-long collaboration between Li'l Woody's and the culinary luminaries of Seattle features weekly burger specials. Monday will be the last day to try the Osaka Burger, with "Painted Hills grass fed beef, miso aioli, karashi aioli, caramelized onions, shredded cabbage, Calbee chips, aonori seaweed sprinkled on top of a sunny side up egg," from chef Shota Nakajima of Adana. The Oishi Pork Burger, with "kurobuta pork, maitake mushrooms, scallions, yuzu kosho aioli, sesame seeded bun" from Lark's John Sundstrom, will be on the menu for the rest of the week.
TUESDAY
COMMUNITYClimate Policy in Washington State: How Do We Move Forward?
This panel of local scientists and environmental activists will discuss how best to address climate change in Washington State. Panelists include AFL-CIO president Jeff Johnson, Community to Community Development director Rosalinda Guillen, Washington Clean Tech Alliance member Daniel Malarkey, School of Marine and Environmental Affairs associate director Nives Dolsak, and Climate Impacts Group director Heidi Roop.
Kim Fu: The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore
Almost everything about Kim Fu's The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore looks like a young-adult novel, but it's not. It's a gripping survival story about the lives of six diverse women—Nita, Andee, Kayla, Isabel, Dina, Siobhan—who first meet at an all-girls summer camp in the Pacific Northwest. Fu renders the particularities and weird ambiguities of preteen cruelty in ways that will transport you back the fluorescent horrors of your own middle-school cafeteria. After an unexpected tragedy, some Lord of the Flies shit goes down at the camp. The girls find themselves lost and without supervision. There are bears. There are rumors of a cougar. Food supplies are low—peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, some trail mix, and exactly one joint. They're forced to make a lot of tough calls that will end up shaping their lives in unexpected ways. RICH SMITH
The Magic of Horology: Brittany Nicole Cox
Brittany Nico Cox is a certified antiquarian horologist, which means that she works with automata, clocks, and watch mechanisms. At this talk, she'll introduce some topics like "magicians, celestial navigation, holography, and ornamentation" in her specialized field.
Mary Henry and Jacqueline E.A. Lawson: Uncovering the History of Seattle’s Black Community
Historians Mary Henry and Jacqueline E.A. Lawson will share their work documenting the history of Seattle’s black community. Learn about Seattle’s Central District as it was in the mid-20th century, as well as the significant African American leaders who have shaped our region.
Yasha Levine: Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet
Your view of Silicon Valley promises to undergo a seismic shift when Yasha Levine reveals the history of the internet, from its origins as "a Vietnam-era tool for spying on guerrilla fighters and antiwar protesters" to its increased usage by the military to its secret objectives today.
TUESDAY-WEDNESDAY
ARTExes & Ohhhhhs Gallery Hours + Relationship Capsules
Here's a reprise of Timothy Rysdyke's Exes and Ohhhhhs, a "relationship museum," along with an opportunity to create a "relationship capsule" out of your own memorabilia.
The Atomic Bombshells: J'adore
The saucy vixens of the Atomic Bombshells troupe will celebrate 10 years of busty, feathery, glitzy fun in a show featuring Cherdonna, Ernie Von Schmaltz, the Purple Lemonade, and the Haus of Hop.
Safe Space
Where do you go when your safe space is shut down? Two girls, deprived of their group therapy due to Medicaid cuts, decide to continue their healing process at a slumber party that promptly goes wrong. They strive to deal with eating disorders, opioids, and misogyny aimed their way in this drama by Kyleigh Archer.
TUESDAY-SATURDAY
ARTFuturama Redux — Urban Mobility After Cars and Oil
This exhibit, developed by urban mobility think tank Smarter Than Car, explores how a transition to "postcarbon" urban mobility could "foster sustainability, resilience, and security while improving quality of life." The exhibit is both inspired by and a critique of New York's Futurama exhibit from the 1939 World’s Fair.
Closing Saturday
SuttonBeresCuller: Old, New, Borrowed & Blue
Stranger Genius Award winners SuttonBeresCuller—aka John Sutton, Ben Beres, and Zac Culler—have been making trouble since the 1990s, when they blocked off part of a building with a gigantic cinder block as a protest against restrictive policies. Over the years, they've caused stirs by floating around on an artificial island in Lake Washington and creating a joystick-controlled painting viewer module, among other installations and performances. At this new exhibition, they'll show that they've kept their sense of humor. New, deceptively functional-looking sculptures in glass—fragile hammers and mallets, three-stemmed wine glasses, breakable toilet plungers—will be shown alongside bronze versions of neon signs, giant wearable LED arrows, and more. JOULE ZELMAN
Closing Saturday
Whiting Tennis: Drawing Room
In some past exhibitions, Whiting Tennis cleverly introduced abstraction into realistic landscapes by depicting austere architectural structures. His latest show, Drawing Room, is sparer (on monochrome backgrounds) yet more organic. The colors cohabit uneasily, and even the symmetrical designs look unstable. He favors compositions that don't allow the gaze to rest, but jostle it from shape to shape: intestinal tangles, chaotic patchworks, smudgy mazes, indefinable objects in confrontation. But this graphic agitation also appeals to the viewer's sense of play and freedom. Far from severe, the forms he invents are variously insectoid, childlike, flailing, drooping, and prowling. JOULE ZELMAN
Closing Saturday
TUESDAY-SUNDAY
ARTZhi Lin: In Search of the Lost History of Chinese Migrants and the Transcontinental Railroads
Seattle artist and UW professor Zhi Lin's work has drawn on Chinese-American history to explore uncomfortable truths as well as quotidian realities. Christopher Knight at The Los Angeles Times described some of his work in 2009: "At Koplin Del Rio, most of Lin’s landscape drawings are made on sketch-pad-size paper using pencil and thinned Chinese ink. Their modest scale and simple materials yield a sense of the artist sketching on-site, as if taking pictorial rather than written notes of what he sees — a method employed by countless 19th century artists from the American East traveling through the Western frontier. Lin could have used a camera (period photographs of the Chinese laborers at work are not scarce), but drawings connect eye to mind to hand in a powerful and thoughtful way."
Closing Sunday
Hamilton Menu at Carlile Room
Begin or finish your viewing of Lin Manuel Miranda's Founding Father musical sensation (playing at the Paramount from February 6-March 18) at the (Carlile) Room where it happens, with a themed menu that includes the Hamilton Hurricane cocktail, Lafayette-inspired Buns and Nips (pinch buns with mushrooms and pickled turnips), the Battle of Porktown, the Aaron Burr-ger, and Satisfries. Just don't throw away your (Jell-O) shot.
Hamilton Menu at TavolĂ ta
Pre-game for Lin-Manuel Miranda's musical sensation with a three-course prix-fixe dinner down the street before the show.
12 Ophelias (a play with broken songs)
Caridad Svich's one-act re-imagining of Hamlet, set in Appalachia, has made some bold changes to the original setting. Hamlet is redubbed as a Rude Boy, Ophelia likes Pop-Tarts, and everybody rocks 'n' rolls.
No performance on Wednesday
The Gin Game
One of the all-time chestnuts of the legitimate stage comes to Issaquah featuring two of Seattle’s all-time favorites, Kurt Beattie and Marianne Owen, as aging residents of a nursing home who sublimate the dread of death by playing cards and tearing each other apart with words. However familiar the play might be from drama classes and monologue books, The Gin Game has a seemingly infinite capacity for renewal in the hands of the right actors, which is to say that the only way this show can go wrong is if the building floods. SEAN NELSON
Hamilton
Lin-Manuel Miranda is responsible for Hamilton's book, music, and lyrics, and he has squashed a dizzying number of words and concepts into this stunning production. You don't like musicals? Fine. Try Hamilton—its hiphop, jazz, and rap numbers have made people all over the country rethink their rigid anti-musical stance, and offered them juicy, controversial history about one of their Founding Fathers. The wildly popular show will be here for more than four glorious weeks. Joseph Morales and Nik Walker will star as Hamilton and Burr.
Ibsen in Chicago
This is the world premiere of a new play by David Grimm. Through his 2000 production Kit Marlowe, Grimm created a dramatized version of theatrical history that focused on the man surrounded by myth and rumor: Marlowe might have been a spy, or a heretic, or even the person who wrote Shakespeare's best-known works. This new play, Ibsen in Chicago, also deals with history and theatrics—this time, it's about Scandinavian immigrants putting on an Ibsen play in Chicago in 1882. Look forward to direction by Seattle Rep Artistic Director Braden Abraham.
Romeo & Juliet
This cozy speakeasy, tucked under Pike Place Market, specializes in charismatic, cheese-cakey, nearly-nude entertainment (plus more covered-up brunch shows for the young and the prudish). Expect something a little sexier than your typical Shakespeare adaptation at this modernized cabaret show version of the tragic tale, paired with an original soundtrack. Make it a dinner date and order food and cocktails. If you want to go on Valentine's Day proper, be prepared to spend the big florins.
WEDNESDAY
ARTSpecial Valentine’s Day Tour
Take a "love, lust, and romance" themed tour of the Frye for Valentine's Day. You'll see two very different versions of Venus, "a tragic tale of heavenly thwarted romance," and more heart-fluttering works.
French Truly Salon: Love Street
Travel back to midcentury France with Love Street, Patrice Leconte's gentle tale of a prostitute and the sweet, lovelorn young handyman who tries to boost her singing career. Enjoy the nuanced cinematography and period-piece beauty of the respected director's romance. The screening will be preceded by French wine, cheese, and treats, plus a talk on "Three French Couples Who Changed History." (We imagine some of those are more romantic than others—Marie and Pierre Curie versus Josephine and Napoleon? Just a guess.) You'll leave refreshed, educated, and full of fuzzy feelings.
Solo Soundtrack: Anti-Valentine's Day Edition
How to make rom-coms bearable when you're a Valentine's Day cynic? Let writer/designer/VJ Vivian Hua hijack the soundtrack. Bring your own headphones and watch Down with Love, Peyton Reed's throwback to "no-sex sex comedies" starring Renée Zellweger and Ewan McGregor. Dialogue? Don't need it. The cinema will cut the movie's sound so you can zone out to Hua's hiphop selections.
Valentine's Day Dinner
We've rounded up all of the places to eat out (or order in) a special Valentine's Day dinner, including our critics' picks: Eden Hill, L'Oursin, Lark, Ada's, Maximilien, Mercato Stellina, RN74, and Tilth.
Valentine's Day Dessert Night
For the debut edition of their “Bakeshop Dessert Night,” Coyle’s Bakeshop is transforming their quaint, chandelier-illuminated Greenwood bakery space into a Parisian bistro-slanted “low-key dessert restaurant” for the evening, serving lemon tarts, profiteroles, and ille flotante (“floating island,” a foaming meringue set adrift on a puddle of creme anglaise) alongside coupes of champagne cocktails and a steady flow of sparkling wine. No reservations are necessary, so it’s an ideal last-minute date or additional stop at the end of your night.
Valentine's Day Truffle Making & Flower Arranging Workshop
Feeling crafty? At this hands-on workshop, the artisan chocolatiers of indi chocolate will teach you how to make delectable hand-rolled truffles and customize them with your favorite toppings, and Jessica Helton, founder of Studio Bloom, will show you how to arrange delicate blossoms in a bouquet to take home with you. Nurse your choice of a 72% drinking chocolate, OOLA's whiskey, or a glass of red Wildridge Winery wine while you linger over your creations.
Susanna's Secret: A BDSM Opera
Samantha Gorham's BDSM adaptation of Enrico Golisciani's early-20th-century intermezzo Susanna's Secret is, according to Rich Smith, "one of the most rousing performances on offer this season." It stars Gorham and Darrell J. Jordan of Operamuse, a new collective of local singers who translate operas into contemporary English and perform them in intimate spaces. In the original opera, Susanna's secret is simply that she's cheating on her husband, Gil, with her servant, Sante. In Gorham's version, the setting is present-day Seattle and Susanna is concealing a Dom/sub relationship with Sante, who's been recast as a friend who comes around and smokes a lot of weed on the couple's couch. On Valentine's Day, Barry is offering a special ticket that includes a rose, champagne, and (!) a whipping from a cast member of your choice.
Bob Roth and David Lynch: Strength in Stillness: The Power of Transcendental Meditation
The iconic Pacific Northwest filmmaker and the CEO of the David Lynch Foundation will speak about transcendental meditation, an ageless technique that can help soothe stress. Keep in mind Lynch will only sign the book, not your much-played copy of Wild at Heart.
Christopher Ryan: Prehistoric Sex and the Future of Modern Romance
Tonight's Goodship Higher Education event features Christopher Ryan, one of the authors of the important 2010 book Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality. In this work, he and Cacilda Jethá convincingly argued that monogamy is ideological rather than something that’s deeply and biologically human. Our bodies evolved to be sexually open and promiscuous, but we constructed and live in societies that promote the monogamous institution of marriage. This has caused humans a great deal of misery. Our bodies and our cultures do not correspond or communicate. A lot of the science in Ryan’s work was drawn from the great evolutionary anthropologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy. CHARLES MUDEDE
Stephanie Burt
Stephanie (sometimes published as Stephen) Burt is a Harvard professor of English, one of the greatest living literary critics, and a very good transgender poet. RICH SMITH
WEDNESDAY-SUNDAY
FOOD & DRINKPho Kiss for Two
Pho is for lovers: Slurp a giant bowl of Ba Bar noodles for two and enjoy sparkling wine, "happiness dumplings" and chocolate raspberry decadence cake.
The Maltese Falcon
Book-It Repertory Theatre and Cafe Nordo will collaborate on a stage version of the lush and gritty noir classic The Maltese Falcon, adapted by Jane Jones and Kevin McKeon. As private dick Sam Spade seeks the priceless jewel-encrusted falcon for some sketchy clients, you'll tuck into Nordo's special themed menu.
THURSDAY
FILMAwesome, We're F*cking 10! An Oscilloscope Retrospective
Oscilloscope Laboratories is turning 10 years old, and to celebrate they're bringing back some old favorites and some never-before-seen gems from their vault, from Shut Up and Play the Hits to We Need to Talk About Kevin.
Colson Whitehead
Colson Whitehead won about every award an author could possibly win after the publication of The Underground Railroad, an un-put-downable piece of historical science fiction that exceeded even its own extremely high expectations. He pulled in the MacArthur "Genius" Grant, the National Book Award, the Whiting Award, and the Pulitzer Prize—a feat so rare, we don't even have an EGOT-type acronym for it. The story follows Cora, a third-generation slave who is prepared to take exactly zero shit from anyone as she travels through a literal underground railroad in an attempt to escape a life of bondage. It hums along like a potboiler, but it hits with the power of a classic. If you didn't get a chance to read it when everyone was buzzing about it, do yourself a favor and catch up! RICH SMITH
Jeremi Suri with Rajiv Chandrasekaran/ Steve Coll
Jeremi Suri, author of the Impossible Presidency: The Rise and Fall of America's Highest Office, will share his timely account of Trump's presidency alongside journalist Steve Coll, who will offer his explanation of how America became ensnared in an "elaborate and seemingly interminable" conflict in South Asia.
Micheline Aharonian Marcom, Elena Georgiou, and Rebecca Brown
Fiction writers Micheline Aharonian Marcom and Elena Georgiou (who are students of Goddard College's creative writing program) will give readings of their recent work.
THURSDAY-SATURDAY
PERFORMANCEBury Me Under I-5
Playwright Scot Augustson has been running his shadow-puppet show—Sgt. Rigsby & His Amazing Silhouettes—for several years now. Though the stories always change, the ribald humor and witty musical cues remain. Bury Me Under I-5 promises to be a "surreal, tragic, and savagely funny… picture of the folks who are not benefitting from the Puget Sound area economic explosion," starring Chicken Jenny and Minky, a couple of creatures who have fallen on hard times. Bonus points if you bring a data analyst who just cashed in his Amazon stock options. RICH SMITH
Prehistoric Body Theater Workshop/Performance
In collaboration with paleontologists Dr. Greg Wilson and Dr. Dave Evans, Ari Rudenko directs a prehistoric animal dance that combines Japanese butoh theater and Indonesian traditional/contemporary dance influences with "a science-based comparative examination of the anatomy, locomotion, and theoretical behavior of key extinct species featured in the performances." From February 3 to March 8 on Saturdays and Thursdays, take part in free workshops, leading up to the performance audition on March 10. In May, watch Ghosts of Hell Creek, a dance depicting one of the last birdlike dinosaurs in the days before the cataclysm that ended the reign of the "terrible lizards," and one of the first mammals to emerge from the wreckage.
THURSDAY-SUNDAY
ARTFiguring History: Robert Colescott, Kerry James Marshall, Mickalene Thomas
Figuring History shows how three generations of African American artists have revived and transformed the large-scale historical tableau to make us rethink pivotal moments in our white-dominated country's history. Robert Colescott (1925–2009) made wonderfully gaudy paintings that appropriated, transformed, and mocked European and American tradition. See pieces like the cartoonish George Washington Carver Crossing the Delaware: Page from an American History Textbook and his exquisite response to Picasso, Les Demoiselles d'Alabama: Vestidas. Kerry James Marshall (born 1955) creates works with a calm, dense feel, depicting ordinary settings like diners, barbershops, parking lots, and yards. Without posturing, the figures in these tableaux seem charged with elegiac gravity. The youngest generation is represented by Mickalene Thomas (born 1971), who approaches the nude from a feminist perspective and incorporates rhinestones, photographs, and collage in her investigation of gender and race dynamics. (Side note: She was also Michelle Obama's portraitist.) These artists have questioned the choke hold of white culture on the imagination of the past, and their collected works promise to compose one of the most exciting exhibitions of the year. JOULE ZELMAN
Opening Thursday
Fourth Annual Black & Brew
Watershed has hoarded a wealth of "rich, strong, insanely complex" black brews over the year and is ready to unleash 15 of them at this event, with hearty food specials to propel you into "dark beer nirvana."
American Hwangap
In East Asia, hwangap marks the completion of the Eastern Zodiac around one's 60th birthday, signifying a "rebirth." In Lloyd Suh's American Hwangap, Min Suk Chun leaves his family in a West Texas suburb to return to his native Korea. On his 60th birthday, he returns to his ex-wife and now-adult children as they struggle to reconcile their broken past with the "mercurial, verbose and often exasperating patriarch now back at the head of the table."
The Journal of Ben Uchida: Citizen 13559
This kid-friendly play deals with some timely and tragic themes. When Japanese planes attack Pearl Harbor, 12-year-old Ben Uchida and his family are rounded up in internment camps. How does a young innocent process the reality of systemic oppression and hate?
FRIDAY
FOOD & DRINKAnderson School Seafood Boil
Roll up your sleeves and tuck into a Fat Tuesday feast of oysters on the half shell, crab, steamer clams, prawns, mussels, kielbasa sausage, corn on the cob, potatoes and more right on the table. As they write, "Le Bonne Temps Rouler!"
Bushwick Book Club: Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower
Local artists and musicians will perform original music inspired by and based on Octavia Butler's critically acclaimed science fiction epic Parable of the Sower. Performers for this edition will include Om Johari, JR Rhodes, Coreena Brown, Reggie Garrett, Tiffany Wilson, Adra Boo, Okanomodé, Nikkita Oliver, Monique Franklin, and Yonnas Getahun.
Dave Eggers and Mokhtar Alkhanshali: The Monk of Mokha
In 2000, Dave Eggers published A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, a memoir that expanded and reinvigorated what memoirs could be. After it became a number-one best seller, its title seemed less tongue-in-cheek (which is what the author intended) and more a straight-up description of the book. Since then, Eggers has focused on writing books about other people, novels based around real people and told from their point of view. The latest is The Monk of Mokha, about the son of Yemeni immigrants who travels back to his land of origin looking for coffee farms and gets caught up in a civil war. CHRISTOPHER FRIZZELLE
FRIDAY-SATURDAY
COMEDYCotton Gin: An Improvised Puppet Show For Grown-Ups
Rowdy, bawdy puppets, worn out from entertaining children, hang out at the Cotton Gin bar and entertain you with songs and jokes in this improv show.
2018 Year of the Dog Chinese New Year Celebration
Ballard’s Lucky Envelope Brewing cofounders Barry Chan and Raymond Kwan named their business for the Chinese tradition of giving out colorful red packets stuffed with paper cash to bring good fortune for occasions such as the Lunar New Year (the color red is associated with energy and prosperity). To usher in the Year of the Dog, they’ve planned an all-out weekend celebration with five special “culturally inspired” beer releases, food trucks with sweet and savory taiyaki from BeanFish on Saturday and teriyaki rice bowls from Byte on Sunday, and—of course—red envelope giveaways with deals tucked inside. JULIANNE BELL
The Future Is 0
This DIY game show (filmed with a live studio audience right here in Seattle) is described as “equal parts Double Dare 2000, nihilist performance art, and sarcastic TV experiment.”
FRIDAY-SUNDAY
FILMNoir City 2018
Noir City 2018, presented by Eddie Muller, the “Czar of Noir,” includes three films that are in my top 30 noirs: Howard Hawks’s The Big Sleep, which was written by William Faulkner and stars the image gods Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall; Alfred Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt, which has one of the most humanist faces of Hollywood’s golden age (Joseph Cotten) playing a baddie (Uncle Charlie); and Michael Curtiz’s Mildred Pierce. This last film, which inspired a burning ball of pop-punk by Sonic Youth, is also one of the few great race films in the noir canon. At the heart of Mildred Pierce is a warm relationship between two hardworking American women played by Joan Crawford and Butterfly McQueen—one of black America’s most famous atheists. This relationship forms the work’s paradise, the America that could or ought to be. But this paradise is ultimately destroyed by the America that is obsessed with money. CHARLES MUDEDE
Mark Morris Dance Group: Pepperland
Under normal circumstances, the phrase "a dance performance inspired by Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" is a good reason to run screaming. Pepperland, however, which was commissioned by the city of Liverpool to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the most famous Beatles album, is not a normal circumstance. A creation of the legendary choreographer (and Seattle émigré) Mark Morris and his frequent musical collaborator Ethan Iverson of the Bad Plus, the show is more innovation than commemoration. It sets fascinating movement in stunning costumes to new arrangements of the Beatles’ deathless songs that incorporate trace elements of the pre-rock music that informs Sgt. Pepper's—blues, jazz, music hall, and raga to name a few. Please don’t make me say “a splendid time is guaranteed for all.” SEAN NELSON
Twisted Cabaret: My Twisted Valentine
One-man vaudeville/varieté circus Frank Olivier performs a cabaret based on the premise that he's the only performer who'd shown up and has to do everything himself: juggling, acrobatics, unicycling, fire acts, tongue contortionism, and stuff you've never heard of. Olivier has been performing for decades, from The Johnny Carson Show to Broadway to the BBC, and he's like a clown car of talents—just when you think you've seen him do it all, another bizarro delight comes tumbling out. His specialty is making it look like he's completely losing control when in fact he is a fine-tuned genius.
SATURDAY
ARTTrump's ABC
Ann Telnaes is the Washington Post's editorial cartoonist, and her view of our glorious executive leader is, shall we say, dim. Celebrate her art with the launch of this book "featuring sing-songy rhymes and beguiling watercolor drawings." Supposedly, it's a collection that would hold the attention of the President himself.
More Fats More Femmes 5.0
Celebrate your babely bod while shopping for plus size vintage clothing and accessories at this stacked size-inclusive market hosted by Indian Summer owner Adria Garcia, ex-IS manager (and current Stranger music calendar editor) Kim Selling, and current IS shopgirl Abby Cooke. They'll have pieces from a wide variety of styles, from size 12 to 30, for this Aquarius-Pisces season cusp fashion extravaganza.
Saturday Secret Matinees
Grand Illusion and the Sprocket Society will continue their tradition of pairing an adventure serial with a different secret matinee movie every week. This year, the serial is Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe, and the theme of the feature film will change every fortnight (maybe they stole the idea from the Stranger's new printing schedule. Though probably not). These themes include "Alien Invasion!," "Swashbuckling Heroes!," "Very Bad Deals," "Twisted Intrigues," "Atomic Monsters," and "Widescreen Thrills." The coolest part, from a film buff point of view? Everything will be presented on 16mm.
Taylor Shellfish Farms Dinner with Logan Cox
Later this year, chef Logan Cox, formerly of Sitka & Spruce, will launch his own spot on Beacon Hill called Homer, which will lack most commonplace components of a commercial kitchen. Instead, he’ll exclusively rely on a wood-fired oven and hearth to cook warm made-to-order pitas and breads and grilled vegetables and proteins, shared family-style. Curious diners craving the smoky char of wood-fired fare can sneak a preview at this dinner, where he’ll give the flame treatment to freshly harvested shellfish straight from the farm and locally sourced meat and produce. JULIANNE BELL
Tavi Gevinson: Rookie on Love
Not to pit two excellent publications against each other, but while Teen Vogue has been "having a moment" lately, editor in chief Tavi Gevinson's Rookie Mag has been an essential periodical for young people who want to be talked to like adults since she founded it in 2011. Now she's touring the country with an anthology about <3 love <3, featuring "exclusive, never-before-seen essays, poems, comics, and interviews" from heavy hitters such as Hilton Als, Janet Mock, and Sarah Manguso. Pieces from the delightfully potty-mouthed Jenny Zhang and the extremely detail-oriented Durga Chew-Bose are well worth your time, too. The event falls a few days after Valentine's Day, so the timing isn't perfect, but neither is the heart. RICH SMITH
Xandria Phillips: 'Reasons for Smoking'
In the 2016 Seattle Review Chapbook Contest, Xandria Phillips's Reasons for Smoking was chosen by Claudia Rankine as the winner. Phillips, an Ohio native, has received Cave Canem and Callaloo fellowships and previously published work in Beloit Poetry Journal, West Branch, Nashville Review, and more. Quenton Baker and Sarah Maria Medina will help fete the release of her chapbook with readings.
SATURDAY-SUNDAY
ARTINTRAGALACTIC SYNKHRA LIBRARY
F.I.B.E.R., like its namesake, is good for you. Feminists Improving Boundless, Eternal Rock'n'Roll—a creation of artist Coley Mixan—will present a "synkhra library" full of femme wonders, art, music, zines, treats, and "soft pink lounging opportunities." Plus, sign up for future anti-patriarchal events with Mixan and co.
Closing Sunday
Chop Shop Dance Festival
This contemporary dance festival has presented performances from troupes and artists around the world, with the goal of reaching diverse audiences and connecting people of all abilities with dance instruction.
SUNDAY
FOOD & DRINKMusang Chinese New Year Pop-Up
This month's edition of Musang, a recurring pop-up brunch, will celebrate Chinese New Year by "honoring the many Chinese influences in Filipino Cuisine."
Protest Fest: Addo Pop-Up Dinner
For the inaugural Protest Fest event, which will take place tomorrow and will benefit Planned Parenthood, Chef Eric Rivera will offer his interpretations of "Trump's favorite foods." One menu item example is "Caul-usion": Caul-fat-wrapped foie dusted with Cheeto powder.
12 Minutes Max
On the Boards’ longest running program is back! Three years ago, they replaced the show, which features 12 (surprisingly quick or unfortunately long) minutes of brand-new work from Pacific Northwest performers, with another program called Open Studio. But artists were clamoring for a return of the format, and OtB clearly heard their cries, so they brought it back in December. The second iteration will be curated by Donald Byrd and Megan Murphy, with a lineup of Seth Sexton, Carl Lawrence, Poisonous Toy Theatre, Jocelyn Beausire, Mike Gebhart, Fenja Abrams and Sierra Hendrix, and Christopher Petersen. RICH SMITH
Atlas Obscura Society Seattle: Urban Arbortechture
Seattle-based artist Susan Robb will lead a walking tour through downtown Seattle. Participants will visit landmarks like Pilgrim Pillars Park, Freeway, the Tree Grate Museum, the Giant Sequoia on Stewart Street, and Anne and Patrick Poirier’s New Archetypes to consider Seattle’s past, present, and future in the areas of economic progress, urban planning, social justice, and public art.
Fran Lebowitz
Humorist Fran Lebowitz stands at a remove from popular culture, much of which she lambastes with sarcastic wit. She's also something of a grump. In a 1993 interview in the Paris Review, she groused, "I wouldn’t say that I dislike the young. I’m simply not a fan of naïveté. I mean, unless you have an erotic interest in them, what other interest could you have?" But she's also an incisive observer and a concentration of New York bluntness in human skin, and she'll be worth seeing.