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MONDAY
FOOD & DRINK5 Plates of Pulutan
Try a five-course tasting menu of Filipino pulutan (drinking food) cuisine, with guided beer pairings provided by Three Magnets Brewing Co.
Nancy Rommelmann: To the Bridge
Attn: fans of local true crime. What drove Amanda Stott-Smith to throw her two children into the Willamette River almost a decade ago? Nancy Rommelmann combs through stacks of public records and conducts hours of interviews to get to the bottom of this unimaginable story of infanticide that ultimately led to the death of one child and 35 years in prison for the mother. Nick Flynn, author of Another Bullshit Night in Suck City, called the book a "tour-de-force of both journalism and compassion, in the lineage of such masterpieces as In Cold Blood and The Executioner's Song." That's high praise from another of the master of the genre. RICH SMITH
MONDAY-THURSDAY
ARTIndigenous Stewardship of the Salish Sea
On August 13, after an unprecedented 17-day mourning ritual in which she carried her deceased newborn calf around on her head, the orca known as J35, or Tahlequah, finally laid her offspring to rest. The grieving motherâs ordeal drew international attention to the grave conditions for wildlife that have been allowed to flourish in the Salish SeaâXÌÊ·ÉlÄ in the indigenous Lushootseed language. Curated by Shannon Kopelva and Jennifer Ott, this exhibition at the Seattle Public Library explains the role that the Pacific Northwestâs coastal peoples have had in taking care of the Salish Sea for generations, and what they are doing to help protect it at this critical moment in history. EMILY POTHAST
Closing Thursday
Sound and Vision Film Fest
For the first time, Cinerama will focus on the harmony of sight and sound, with excellently soundtracked movies like The Matrix, The Fifth Element, Arrival, The Man Who Fell to Earth, Stop Making Sense, and Blade Runner 2049.
MONDAY-FRIDAY
ARTBodies + Beings
Get acquainted with a menagerie of bizarre sculpted beingsâhuman, animal, and in-betweenâby Christina Bothwell, Ariel Bowman, Christine Golden, Taylor Robenalt, Kelly Stevenson, Kirsten Stingle, and Tip Toland.
Closing Friday
White-Hot: Summer Group Exhibition
Seattle's Native and Indigenous art gallery presents new acquisitions from superb locals like Qwalsius Shaun Peterson, Preston Singletary, Dennis Allen, and others.
Closing Friday
Yellow Fish Durational Performance Art Festival
Witness art as an expression of enduranceâand no, we're not talking about sitting through an Eli Roth movie or something. Yellow Fish sends performers to various parts of Capitol Hill to say "Fuck you!" to exhaustion, boredom, irritation, pain, and the grinding passage of time in pieces that last from 1 to 48 hours. Think Marina AbramoviÄ fasting and remaining mute for 12 days in front of an audience, or EJ Hill lying in a wooden roller coaster for three months. While Yellow Fish's artists won't be holding poses for quite so long, they'll still mount a challenge to the idea that performance art should be brief and digestible. This edition will ask artists to bring back pieces from the past. JOULE ZELMAN
MONDAY-SATURDAY
ARTAmericans Interned: A Family's Story of Social Injustice
Executive Order 9066 authorized the expulsion of Japanese Americans from the West Coast during the Second World War. Two artists, Chris and Jan Hopkins, tell the stories of some of those harmed by this human rights violation.
Closing Saturday
MONDAY-SUNDAY
ARTNatasha Marin: Black Imagination
I don't say this lightly: Artist and activist Natasha Marin is a tornado of brilliance that consistently leaves thoughtful projects in her wake. Best known as the founder of the conceptual internet project Reparations, which encourages people with privilege to offset it by engaging in acts of generosity, Marin made splash as a curator last year with the astoundingly poignant exhibition Black Imagination: The States of Matter at Core Gallery. Her latest project is Ritual Objects, a celebration of Black joy centered on the power of healers who can transform trauma into beauty. Knowing Marin's past work, it's safe to say that this show will be nothing short of life changing for those who let it. EMILY POTHAST
Closing Sunday
TUESDAY-SATURDAY
ARTClaire Tianyi Sun
Claire Tianyi Sun's diaphanous, ghostly mixed media combinations of symbols and portraits reference "conflicting fragments of various cultures."
Closing Saturday
Lino Tagliapietra: La Poesia Della Forma
The Italian glass artist Tagliapietra is known as "the world's greatest glassblower," and this exhibition is full of asymmetrical patterns (called, for example, Dinosaur and Cayuga) and classic and innovative forms.
Closing Saturday
M.C. Escher: Transformations
Thereâs a reason Dutch graphic artist Maurits Cornelis Escher has a reputation for being the artist behind countless trippy dorm-room posters. In his 1979 treatise on mathematics, computer science, and consciousness titled Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, cognitive scientist Douglas Hofstadter links the fantastical, mathematically derived images of M.C. Escher to the music of Johann Sebastian Bach and the mathematical theories of Kurt Gödel. Working with vastly different mediums, the visual artist, musician, and mathematician all exemplify Hofstadterâs concept of âstrange loopsâ: recursive hierarchical systems that unexpectedly, through a series of rising or falling actions, spit us out right where we started. This exhibition at Davidson Galleries is a rare opportunity to see Escherâs masterful woodcuts and lithographs face-to-face. EMILY POTHAST
Closing Saturday
Ryohei Tanaka: Etchings
This Japanese artist makes magnificently detailed etchings of trees, rural houses, and other rustic subjects, often in black and white or sepia. His "Persimmon" series combines these palettes with vivid spots of color representing fruits that add the tiniest hint of irreality. His prints breathe peace, mystery, and lush life.
Closing Saturday
Timea Tihanyi, Peter Gross
The eminent ceramicist Timea Tihanyiâformer Stranger critic Jen Graves called her "a structural engineer who puts her forms in the service of history"âwill be joined by painter Peter Gross, whose thickly layered abstract paintings also evoke architectural shapes.
Closing Saturday
WEDNESDAY
READINGS & TALKS'American Chordata' Group Reading
American Chordata is one of the best and best-looking literary magazines out there. I want to rip the front cover off every one of their biannual print issues and stick it on my wall. (Ditto half the art they publish throughout the journal.) And I don't know where they find the poets and fiction writers they publish, but I always find two or three new writers whose work I love in every issue. UW-based contributing editor Matthew Hitchman will present a few of those writers in celebration of the release of the seventh issue, which will also be available for purchase. RICH SMITH
Third Place Book Club with David B. Williams: Too High & Too Steep
Williams discusses his book Too High and Too Steep: Reshaping Seattleâs Topography. There's nothing better than wild and wonderful stories of Seattle's geologic and regrading history.
WEDNESDAY-THURSDAY
ARTBellwether 2018
We keep writing about the mischievous, Stranger Genius Awardâwinning artist trio SuttonBeresCuller for a simple reason: Theyâre a lot of fun. Over the years, John Sutton, Ben Beres, and Zac Culler have caused stirs by floating around on an artificial island in Lake Washington and creating a joystick-controlled painting viewer module, among other installations and happenings. The trio has curated this yearâs annual Northwest arts festival in Bellevue, with exhibitions, installations, and events spreading from the epicenter of the museum to various areas around the city. Theyâll showcase rising Pacific Northwest sculptors in a special pop-up gallery, host performances, and no doubt highlight the creativity and architectural excitement to be found east of Lake Washington. JOULE ZELMAN
Opening Thursday
WEDNESDAY-SUNDAY
PERFORMANCEFemme Fatale
A Prom Queen and Can Can collab!? Yes, please! The Can Can culinary cabaret, which serves up some of the best butts and beignets in town, is partnering with rising music star Prom Queen for their summer show, and it's a safe bet that it will be a hit. That said, the team could have chosen a better subject than Mata Hari, who catapulted to fame using an outsider's vision of Indonesia. Hopefully their adaptation will avoid Hari's pitfalls by doing more than just simply reproducing the Dutch dancer's problematic early-20th-century Orientalist style. Otherwise, this will be a spectacular shitshow. CHASE BURNS
THURSDAY
ART2018 Mayor's Arts Awards Ceremony & Reception
Mayor Jenny Durkan will present the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture's Mayor's Arts Awards honoring four exemplary local artists and organizations who champion racial equity and social justice, show promising leadership and innovation, and "fight for arts in education justice." A rooftop reception will follow the ceremony.
Destinations' Wedding Chapel and Wig Sales
Have you ever wanted to book the wedding of your dreams, only to get discouraged when you started pricing it out? Destinationsâ Wedding Chapel and Wig Sales has your back. The wildly imaginative dream team of Mount Analogueâs Colleen Louise Barry and Party Hatâs Mary Anne Carter have joined forces to create a very queer-friendly âVegas-style shotgun wedding chapelâ complete with an ordained ceremony officiant, faux-fur-lined walls, silk flowers, and mints. Wedding appointments are now being accepted Thursday to Sunday through August 30. Oh, and they also sell wigs. EMILY POTHAST
Closing Thursday
An Evening with Lantern Brewing
Have you ever seen raclette cheese in action? Itâs a wonderful thing to behold: Itâs heated up in a pan and then scraped off to create a marvelously gooey, melty, ribbony waterfall of cheese over a dish. Fire and Scrape will bring their spectacular fromage magic to tiny, cozy, family-owned Lantern Brewing, where theyâll smother entrĂ©es like crispy baguette sandwiches, warm potatoes, and even apple pie with rivers of raclette. Wash it all down with one of Lanternâs Belgian-style brews, like their Fresh Hop Saison or the eccentric Naughty Gnome (pickled beets and mulberries blended with a light wheat base). JULIANNE BELL
Ladybar Pop-Up
To introduce their forthcoming Seattle-based feminist cocktail bar Ladybar, the team behind New York bar Butter & Scotch (which has a rotating monthly menu with lady-centric themes like "Girl Gangs" and "Boss Bitches") will throw a cocktail soiree with libations created by women from some of Seattle's best-known bars. A ticket includes five signature cocktails, snacks, a collectible Ladybar glass, and a chance to mingle with co-founders Allison Kave and Keavy Landreth, and proceeds benefit a local chapter of Planned Parenthood.
Double d20 Adventure Extravaganza
Just in time for PAX West, the Dames and Dungeons & Drag Queens troupeâwhich consists of local favorites like Brittni Liyanage, Jen Vaughn, Harlotte O'Scara, Arson Nicki, and other fabulous geeksâwill improvise two back-to-back D&D adventures, which they promise will involve "dice rolls, death drops, and drink specials to die for!"
Kate Gavino: Sanpaku
In this coming-of-age, semi-autobiographical comic, a 12-year-old Filipina girl named Marcine becomes obsessed with sanpaku eyes. If you look at your eyes in the mirror and you can see white below or above your iris, then you (and Michael Jackson, and Audrey Hepburn, and John F. Kennedy) have sanpaku eyes. Congratulations. You're a genetic anomaly. Also, according to the Japanese, your eyes are bad omens. When Marcine realizes that she has these eyes, she adopts a strict macrobiotic diet in an attempt to rid herself of the bad juju. During the course of this little adventure, readers get a sense of what life was like growing up among immigrants in Houston, Texas, in the 1990s. Portland Mercury art director Suzette Smith likes the book, which means you will probably like it, too. RICH SMITH
Decolonizing Immigration: Roots & Routes
Trump's string of travel bans and zero tolerance policies seperating immigrant families are inhumane and shocking, but they don't stray far from the xenophobic actions white men in power have been enacting in America since it was first colonized. Join an arts-filled conversation with local community leaders on the recent changes in immigration policy in the U.S., and the actions being taken toward equality. Presenters include David Rue, Enoka Herat, Ellany Kayce, Graciela Nuñez Pargas, Hodan Hassan, Tom Ikeda, and Tuesday Velasquez.
THURSDAY-FRIDAY
ARTDylan Neuwirth: Generations
Dylan Neuwirth's show is centered on a 27-foot "illuminated symbol-clad telecom tower installed in the Oxbow courtyard," which, we're told, emits invisible waves of "strength, energy, union, and transcendence." Why? To act as a "hate jammer" in our nasty world. Over the course of a residency, Neuwirth will add more to his exhibition, "adding to and editing the algorithmic control video, and creating a large telecom tower installation in the gallery space composed from miniature units."
Closing Friday
THURSDAY-SATURDAY
ARTColleen RJC Bratton: Good Mourning
Bratton, a member of the gallery and curator of last year's Tech Support, muses on an unformalized grief over a lost love.
Closing Saturday
D*Face: HOME IS WHERE THE heART IS
London-born street artist D*Face (Dean Stockton) presents new and old work in his first ever Pacific Northwest show. Riffing heavily off Roy Lichtensteinâs pop-art paintings of the 1960s, D*Faceâs comic-book-style paintings of couples locked in a kiss capture a present moment while hinting at their eventual demise. In Love Bites, a fine crack etches across the womanâs forehead and the manâs jawline accentuates the bones underneath. Other works play off Andy Warholâs Marilyn Monroe series and Jamie Reidâs God Save the Queen album cover for the Sex Pistols. The show coincides with the unveiling of a mural by the artist in Belltown. KATIE KURTZ
Closing Saturday
Brett Hamil
Irreverent, political, and Seattle-focused comedian Brett Hamil, host of the Seattle Process, is always worth your time.
Alma (or #nowall)
Benjamin Benne's Alma (or #nowall) follows a Mexican immigrant who has been living in the U.S. for 18 years after fleeing her country for a better life for herself and her daughter. The play takes place in December of 2016, a month before Trump's inauguration, and Alma fears for her citizenship prospects and her daughter's safety.
The Who's Tommy
If you can see only one rock opera, you should probably make it The Whoâs Tommy. Seriously, who canât relate to a deaf and blind pinball wizard? Overcoming physical and mental hardships to succeed at an adolescent game requiring extraordinary hand-eye coordination is⊠a recipe for euphoria. Actually, Who mastermind Pete Townshend used this absurd premise to explore spiritual enlightenment; it was 1969, after all. Helping significantly to achieve that state is the music, which represents some of Townshendâs most melodically and lyrically ambitious workâexpansive, psychedelic rock with hooks to die and cry for. Director Phil Lacey and music director Brandon Peck promise to upgrade Tommy for 21st-century sensibilities. DAVE SEGAL
FRIDAY
COMEDYBook Club: The Holiday Party
This improv performance centers on the story of "a group of well-off mid-thirties adults" who have gathered for monthly book club meeting "in the Nice part of town on a regular night, after their Barre classes and upscale juice crawls." Audience members are asked to bring a book to the performance, which the improvisers will then discuss, with "no self-awareness, an entire bottle of wine, and an absolute lack of critical skills."
Three Dollar Bill Outdoor Cinema
Stretch out on the lawn and watch Wesley Snipes and Patrick Swayze as two elite Manhattan drag queens who agree to take a young novice under their wing in Thanks For Everything, Love Julie Newmar.
Mystery Drag Queen Theater: The Shequel
Amazing drag queens make fun of not-so-amazing B-movies, in this case Double Dragon, about two weirdly cheery teenage boys pursued by a millionaire who wants their magical Chinese talisman.
FRIDAY-SUNDAY
GEEK & GAMINGPAX West
PAX West is an annual convention in Seattle devoted exclusively to gaming of all platforms and genres, and, since it was created in 2004 by Penny Arcade, it has become one of the two largest gaming events in North America, along with its Boston spinoff, PAX East. The convention features dozens of panels with special guests, an exhibit hall, new game demonstrations, and video game-inspired musical performances. Some highlights this year include a storytelling session with World of Warcraft director Ion Hazzikostas; panel discussions on representation and historical accuracy in games and the history of Japanese board gaming; a Mario Kart 64 tournament; and an autograph session with YouTube sensation Markiplier. If you don't have tickets, there are lots of PAX-related events and parties that don't require a badgeâsee them all here.
Bumbershoot 2018
Bumbershoot, Seattle's biggest music, comedy, and arts festival, will take over Seattle Center for Labor Day Weekend 2018 for the 48th year. Musically, this year's fest will be helmed by the likes of J. Cole, the Chainsmokers, Fleet Foxes, Lil Wayne, Portugal. The Man, Ludacris, and Blondie. The "comedy & conversation" portion will be headlined by Eugene Mirman and the Last Podcast on the Left. There will also be an arts and culture component with standbys like the 1 Reel Film Fest and shows at the Laser Dome, along with local artist Dylan Neuwirth. Bumbershoot's culinary offerings, also called B-Eats, will include Bok a Bok Fried Chicken, Little Uncle, and Frankie & Jo's ice cream. Plan your Bumbershoot weekend by checking out the full festival schedule here.
Summer Rewind Film Festival
If you missed some of the best and most blockbusting movies of the yearâfrom the creepily psychedelic Annihilation to the boggle-brained Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom to snarky Deadpool 2 to the absolutely traumatizing Hereditaryâcatch them on an overwhelmingly big screen. Even if you have seen all these films, consider going again.
SATURDAY
COMEDYQuiplash
In this comedy party game, the audience decides which comics will be pitted against each other in a battle of jokes based on prompts, which the comics answer anonymously. When it's time to vote, the audience is shown the answers to both prompts, and the one they find the funniest wins. Here's the twist: The loser in each round will have to do a three-minute improvised stand-up set based on the final answer.
Talkin' Bob Live with Hardly Boys and Maddie Downes
The host of a local podcast/radio show, aptly named Talkin' Bob (he talks!), will appear live with funny and charming comedian Maddie Downes (onetime co-host of Sexual Awake'n Baking) and Hardly Boys, a rock band Stranger contributor Robin Edwards described as a "gleeful" "teen friendship punk band."
Human Behaviour: Drag Does Björk
As the Icelandic singer/songwriter Björk put it, "There's definitely, definitely, definitely no logic to human behavior," especially when it comes to the artist's iconic, artful looks. While DJ Robosex Homosex spins your favorite Björk tracks, local drag artists Americano, Irene Dubois, Miss Texas 1988, Old Witch, and others will pay to the cliff-dwelling genius.
SUNDAY
FILMCine Mexicano: â70s Art House
See very different Mexican art house films from the 1970s, starting with Arturo Ripstein's El Castillo de la Pureza.
