By now, you might have a queue of recurring virtual events whose hosts earn your attention (and donations) every week, which is awesome. But if you're looking for something new, we've rounded up the latest, most exciting stuff popping up on the internet this week on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other platformsâfrom the Capitol Hill Arts District Streaming Festival to SPLIFF 2020 (now on-demand!), and from a Town Hall talk with Casey Schwartz to a chat with food writers and funny ladies Samantha Irby and Alison Roman. Find even more events on our complete streaming events calendar, and check back on Friday for a roundup of the best local virtual events this weekend.
Jump to: Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | All Week
MONDAY
FILM'Never Have I Ever' Netflix Premiere
Mindy Kaling's follow-up to The Mindy Project and the under-seen and under-appreciated Late Night is a new romantic comedy for Netflix named after a classic teen game that very often led to awkward, endearing, cringy, and complicated truths being unearthed. The show absolutely lives up to that promise (and partially explains why it is kids keep playing this mortifying game), centering on a high school sophomore named Devi, still getting over the sudden death of her father, her own paralysis, and less-heavy-but-no-less-important dilemmas like "thick arm hair," "Can I get Paxton the hot jock to like me," and "am I doing kegels right." Never Have I Ever doesn't go for the big joke anywhere near as often as Kaling's previous projects, but what it loses in comedic audacity, it makes up for with an abundance of heart. BOBBY ROBERTS
SAL Presents: Local Voices
Join Writers in the Schools (a rotating group of local writers who work with students) residents Laura Da', Kathleen Flenniken, Shelby Handler, Peter Mountford, Corinne Manning, Jay Thompson, and Jeanine Walker for a virtual edition of Local Voices, where they'll share some of their latest creative works.
TUESDAY
COMMUNITYDeep Dive: A Conversation With Music Director R.J. Tancioco
R.J. Tancioco, the music director for the 5th Avenue Theatre, Village Theatre, Seattle Rep, ArtsWest, and other local playhouses, will join Harry Turpin (the host of the quarantine conversation series Deep Dive) for a chat on the state of musical theatre, audition prep, song interpretation, callback etiquette, and more. You can even ask questions and hear Tancioco's live answers.
Virtual Planetarium: The Sky Tonight
Want to learn a new hobby that's been around for millions of years? Local experts will teach you how to identify constellations and planets in the night skyâand how to use them as navigation. The event won't require you to go outsideâit takes place in the afternoon, so the stars will be invisibleâbut you can mimic the Pacific Science Center's planetarium by drawing your blinds for the YouTube demo.Â
Electric Greg: Film Showing and Q&A with Greg Hill
Pro skier, filmmaker, and environmental activist Greg Hill will present his new short documentary, recently featured at the Banff Mountain Film Festival, about the environmental benefits of electric cars. After the screening, Hill will answer your questions in a live virtual Q&A.
Samantha Irby & Alison Roman
Brooklyn's oldest bookstore will host a livestreamed conversation with food writers and funny ladies Samantha Irby (the progenitor of the hilarious blog bitches gotta eat and the author of Wow, No Thank You.) and Alison Roman (the progenitor of that Instagram-famous shallot pasta you've made at least three times during quarantine and the author of Nothing Fancy and Dining In).
Colin Higgins
Local rock, jazz, and funk guitarist Colin Higgins (Cecil Moses & the SG's, the Golden Road) will bring you an evening of live music online. He'll be giving 50% of donations to the Seattle Artist Trust Relief Fund.
Phish Presents: Dinner and A Movie - an Archival Video Series
Phish, a psych-rock band known for its infamously long jam sessions and its tye-dyed cult of loyal fans, will air a past concert in its entirety every Tuesday for a while. The band will send out a recipe each week that they think pairs well with each performance, and you're encouraged to cook while you dance along.
Casey Schwartz: Attention
In her alarming New York Times feature, "Finding It Hard to Focus? Maybe Itâs Not Your Fault," neuroscientist and journalist Casey Schwartz painted a bleak picture of everyday life for a lot of us idiots who live on the internet: "This is us: eyes glazed, mouth open, neck crooked, trapped in dopamine loops and filter bubbles. Our attention is sold to advertisers, along with our data, and handed back to us tattered and piecemeal." While it hurts to be read to rights so completely, at some point someone had to look up from her smartphone and tell us that the giant corporations who run these addictive little robots in our pockets are juicing our lizard brains and robbing us blind. Schwartz more or less does that in her new book, Attention, which offers an accurate diagnosis of our collective disease, but also, helpfully, a few antidotes. RICH SMITH
Wine + Poetry: Alex Gallo Brown
In a review of local writer Alex Gallo Brown's Variations of Labor, Charles Mudede wrote, "Class tension is found at every level of labor in Gallo-Brown's Seattle. The workers tend to hate the techies, and the techies tend to abuse the workers. In Gallo-Brown's world, workers can't afford to strike or loudly demand higher wages. They instead engage in micro-resistance, like doing some job slowly or slightly wrong. But almost every work in Variations of Labor reads like Gallo-Brown is talking to you in a low voice. Think of someone who is secretly trying to unionize an office or who is criticizing the boss to a fellow worker." Pour yourself a glass of wine and tune into a live evening of poetry with the author.Â
Traditional Tattoo Theatre Tuesdays
Indigenous Pacific Northwest tattoo artists Dion Kazsas (Halifax) and Nahaan (Seattle) will livestream traditional tattoo sessions and answer questions from viewers.
WEDNESDAY
COMMUNITYVirtual Silent Reading Party
The first worldwide silent-reading party was such a huge success that we're making it weekly. Every Wednesday at 6 pm we're going to throw these parties, at least until stay-at-home is over. Attendees at the first Zoom silent-reading party included famous actors, writers, composers, artists, families, teenagers doing their homework, people staring into space listening to the music because it was just so beautiful, cats, and even one household on Orcas Island that was eating dinner and decided to broadcast the reading party as their background music. (What a brilliant idea!) It wasn't just a great party to be at. Behind the scenes, this was a roaring success as well. The Stranger brought in revenue from the reading party for the first time ever, our musician Paul Matthew Moore made ten times more on Venmo tips than he's ever made in the tip jar at the Sorrento (thank you for your generosityâhe deserves it!), and hundreds of people at the party have written us emails, clamoring for more. CHRISTOPHER FRIZZELLE
SIFF Movie Club: 'The Awful Truth'
Deemed "a sterling exhibit of the glories of the Golden Age" by Andrew Wright, The Awful Truth stars Cary Grant and Irene Dunn as a married couple counting down the days to divorce. Things get spicy when romantic competition arrives in the form of "peerless boob" (to borrow more words from Wright) Ralph Bellamy. For this virtual edition of the SIFF Movie Club, watch the film on one of many streaming platforms (including Amazon, VUDU, and YouTube) and then cue up a Zoom roundtable discussion with SIFF's Cinema Programs Manager Nick Bruno, mystery novel writers Rosemarie and Vince Keenan, and SIFF programmer Dan Doody. Â
Staycation Live Stream Festival - Piano Starts Here
Royal Room will kick off its Staycation Live Stream Festival this week with a special edition of Piano Starts Here with Alex Guilbert, Wayne Horvitz, and Chris McCarthy.
Mama'z Muezz Live Stream & Q&A with Monique Franklin
Local artist Monique Franklinâs spoken-word play Mama'z Muezz, which was first presented during Central District Forum's Creation Project in 2014, will be presented live on Facebook Live and Zoom. Check it out and stay on for a live Q&A with the artist.
WEDNESDAY-THURSDAY
FESTIVALSCapitol Hill Arts District Streaming Festival 2020
While quarantine is still in effect, Capitol Hill arts organizations will come together for a 12-block program of free and pay-what-you-can livestreams benefiting the COVID-19 Artist Trust Relief Fund. Participants include AMP: AIDS Memorial Pathway, BeautyBoiz, Capitol Hill Block Party, Central District Forum for Arts & Ideas, Crybaby Studios, Hugo House, Kame Hou$e 206, Velocity Dance Center, and many others. The festival kicks off on Wednesday with visual art and choreographic works by Photographic Center Northwest and CD Forum, respectively. See the full schedule here.
THURSDAY
COMMUNITYOperation Save Abortion
The Abortion Care Network, Abortion Access Front, and Shout Your Abortion present an all-day virtual fundraiser for independent abortion clinics, 90% of which are in danger of having to close amid COVID-19 (and who, according to the organizers, provide 58% of all abortions in the US). Help raise the necessary $5 million in emergency relief by donating and joining celebrity reproductive rights advocates like Elizabeth Banks, Busy Phillips, Martha Plimpton, Jenny Slate, Jinkx Monsoon, Margaret Cho, and many others on Instagram Live.
The Secret of Seattle's Disappearing Hill
Seattle's most famous land alteration project was the removal of an entire downtown hill, the Denny Regrade, where you'll now find Jeff Bezos's balls. On this virtual tour with Atlas Obscura, learn why the project, completed between 1897 and 1930, took place.
Parks and Recreation Reunion Show
Remember a little bit ago, when we suggested one of the very best feel-good binges you could go on while sheltered-in-place was this show? Hope that binge was more like a lightspeed jaunt through sitcom bliss, because tonight at 8pm on NBC, the gang at Pawnee is getting back together for a scripted special reunion show, starring Amy Poehler, Adam Scott, Aubrey Plaza, Rashida Jones, Nick Offerman, Retta, Aziz Ansari, Chris Pratt, and Rob Lowe (as well as unnamed special guest stars... and Jerry, too, I guess, probably) in a story written by series co-creator Michael Schur about Leslie Knope trying to keep in touch with all her favorite people during this coronavirus crisis. Donations made during the show benefit Feeding America. BOBBY ROBERTS
Angela Garbacz: Perfectly Golden
Join Book Larder and Angela Garbacz on Instagram Live for a chat on the pastry shop owner's newest cookbook, Perfectly Golden. You can ask questions in a live Q&A.Â
Salumi and Wine Tasting
Local wine expert Dini Rao will join Pioneer Square cured meat haven Salumi for a virtual tasting on Instagram Live.Â
Virtual Wine and Food Pairing Tasting: Live with A Sommelier
Want to throw yourself a quarantine wine party without making a grocery store run? Sommelier Sarah Tracey will go live on Instagram to pair four Chateau Ste. Michelle wines with common pantry foods you might already have on hand. If you want, you can order those wines ahead of time and drink along.Â
Diet Cig Album Release Virtual Listening Party
The upstate New York twosome Diet Cig, whose songs "tug gently on heartstrings, add measured doses of sugar to them, and console your melancholy ass with aplomb," per Dave Segal, will host a live virtual listening party of their new LP, Do You Wonder About Me? The live performance, which will be followed by a Q&A, comes one day before the official album release.
GROUNDED
BIG BLDG's cozy weekly music series invites local artists to play live on Facebook. This week brings a set from Mike Giacolino (of Hyways).
Sundae + Mr. Goessl
Agile-voiced Sundae and swinging guitarist Mr. Goessl make the musical equivalent of shiny-wrapper candy scattered on a coffee table: light, sweet, glittery, and dangerously inviting to sample before dinner. Join them for a livestreamed performance.
National Theatre Live's 'Frankenstein'
The latest title in National Theatre Live's #NationalTheatreAtHome series is director Danny Boyle's stage adaptation of the Mary Shelley classic, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller. The trick of Boyle's stage show is that both Cumberbatch and Miller couldâand wouldâswap roles on any given night, in keeping with Boyle's desire to tackle the story in a way that amplifies the idea that the doctor and the monster create each other in their own ways. Whatever version airs tonight on the National Theatre YouTube, the other version plays tomorrow. You'll want to watch both, no matter what. BOBBY ROBERTS
One Horse Town
On a post-apocalyptic ranch, three queers defend the last horse on Earthâbut when some starving fugitives show up, the ranchers, like the runaways, must "struggle to remember what makes them human in a world urging them to forget their compassion and their sanity." You can see it streaming via Patreon.
Dahr Jamail: The End of Ice
When journalist and mountaineer Dahr Jamail returned to the States after a decade overseas, he found that the slopes he used to climb had been drastically altered by climate change. That inspired him to travel elsewhere, from Alaska to Australia's Great Barrier Reef to the Amazon rainforest, to see how other places had been impacted. Join him for a livestreamed discussion of his findings, as chronicled in his book The End of Ice: Bearing Witness and Finding Meaning in the Path of Climate Disruption.
Science Mike in the You're a Miracle Book Tour
Mike McHargue, the author of Youâre a Miracle (and a Pain in the Ass)âin which he addresses the question, "why do we do the things we do?"âwill come to your living room on his Youâre a Miracle In-Home Tour, where you can ask him questions. If you want, you can even get a copy of the book with a bookplate bearing a personal inscription.
Wave Virtual Reading
The wonderful local independent poetry press Wave Books, who have collections by the likes of Mary Ruefle and Dorothea Lasky under their belt, will host Matthew Rohrer (The Sky Contains the Plans), Lisa Fishman (Mad World, Mad Kings, Mad Composition), and Chris Nealon (The Shore) for a virtual reading of new works.
ALL WEEK
COMMUNITYVirtual Skagit Valley Tulip Festival
The Skagit Valley Tulip Festival is canceled this year, but the Washington Bulb Co., Roozen Gaarde, and Tulip Townâwho, along with others in the Washington State flower industry, are taking a major financial hit from COVID-19âare bringing the fields of spring blooms to you in a small way by delivering fresh flowers (and merch) to your door. Tulip Town also launched the #ColorforCourage campaign, which allows for purchases of tulip bouquets to be delivered to hospitals, nursing homes, assisted care facilities, and other front-line workers. They also have some virtual tours of the fields on their Facebook page.
SPLIFF 2020 - On Demand
If you didn't get a chance to watch this year's SPLIFF Film Festivalâfeaturing short cannabis-themed films made by stoners just like YOUâin its livestreamed glory on 4/20, you can now see the 22 weed-inspired shorts, hosted by fabulous local drag queens Betty Wetter and Cookie Couture, on-demand. Tune in for funny psychedelic trip-outs, stoned flying cats, side-splitting animation, aggressive dolphins, sexy shenanigans, wandering potatoes, and more wild and crazy stuff.Â
Charles Mudede's 'Police Beat'
Police Beat, a fictional film I made with the director Robinson Devor (we also made Zoo), is also a documentary about a Seattle that's recovering from the dot-com crash of 2000 (a crash that sent Amazon's shares falling from nearly $100 apiece to $6âthey're now around $2,400), and entering its first construction boom of the 21st century (between 2005 and 2008). The hero of my film, the police officer Z (played by the beautiful but sadly late Pape Sidy Niang), could actually afford a little Seattle house on his salary (around $45,000). The median price of houses in 2003 was a lot (about $300,000) but not out of reach for a middle-class immigrant with a stable job. Lastly, the film is a documentary about Seattle's beautiful and virid parks. How I love them all and wanted to film them all: Volunteer Park, Freeway Park, the Washington Park, Madison Park, the parks on either side of the Montlake Cut. So green, so urban, so natural. CHARLES MUDEDE
Jason and Trevor Hunt: Bloodlines
Brothers Trevor and Jason Hunt, who are "part of the famed Hunt family of Fort Rupert on Vancouver Island," continues the legacy of the Kwagiulth artistic style (also known as Kwakwaka'wakw/Kwakiutl, a culture on the north side of Vancouver Island) through woodcarving and more. See this exhibition online.
Closing Thursday
