Somehow it’s already time to throw back a few drinks for the kids. Last year, the citywide drink-a-thon to support the excellent work of the Vera Project fell in October, but who are we to complain about a great excuse for summer cocktails or india pale ales and a Fleet Fox headlining a show?

Beginning Sunday as a perfect closer to your Independence Day baccanalia and continuing through the rest of next week, bars and clubs around town will be donating the proceeds from certain beverages to a good cause as part of A Drink for the Kids. Each night, you’ll find a local music luminary or three haunting the bar to keep the party and chatter rolling. On top of that, the opening and closing nights feature live music. In particular, the week of do-good drinking closes with a grand finale at Neumo’s starring Robin Pecknold of the world-conquering Fleet Foxes performing solo as White Antelope and Throw Me the Statue of the soon-to-be [if the rumors about their forthcoming album, Creaturesque, are true, which they probably are] world-charming Throw Me the Statue.

We’d like at least one of you to have a pair of tickets to this unmissable finale event, if only to preserve dollars in your wallet for purchasing ice cold beverages (or just tossing some cash into the donation buckets). If you want a shot at the tickets, please dash off an e-mail to seattle.metblogs @ gmail.com. Put “ADFTK” in the subject and your full name in the message body. Add in a few fun facts about fireworks for extra credit and we’ll let you know if you’re the winner by Monday.

Don’t want to try your luck? Advance ticket are $15 [neumos]. The rest of the schedule, all 21+ btw (so that you can support the kids without being humbled by their youthful vigor), after the jump.

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12:00 PM - Mike Lawson: House Secrets
Seattle Mystery Bookshop
4th in a series: “When Joe DeMarco is asked by the Speaker of the House to probe the apparent accidental death of a reporter who was trailing presidential hopeful Senator Paul Morelli, dirty secrets and divided loyalties threaten his investigation.”
[LINK]

7:30 PM - Mary Lou Sanelli: Among Friends
Elliott Bay Book Co.
The local (Port Townsend) author presents a book of essays about friendship.
[LINK]

8:00 PM – Cartoonapalooza: An Evening with America’s Top Editorial Cartoonists
Town Hall Seattle, Great Hall
“As part of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists’ annual convention, the group is putting on a show of animation, slides, and discussion featuring leading practitioners of the art, including David Horsey, Mike Peters, Jack Ohman, Ted Rall, Matt Bors, Mark Fiore, and more. There also will be a benefit sale of original cartoons and books, and a reception where the public can meet cartoonists from the United States and Canada.” (THS)
[LINK]

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Oh, what, you still don’t have something to do this weekend? Lucky for you, the Wooden Boat Festival is also happening, at the Center for Wooden Boats in South Lake Union.

This festival really is so much fun. Tons of people with wooden boats tie up to the dock and most of them invite the public to come in and take a look. The kids can build a toy boat or have a treasure hunt, and there will be demonstrations of salty activities like rig tuning and knot tying. People will be building boats and racing boats and the Arthur Foss will be open for exploring.

They also give free boat rides of all kinds around in Lake Union, and it was definitely a highlight of my 4th of July last year to be sailing around among all of the people who had parked their boats to catch a view of the fireworks. Everyone on the water was friendly; it was one big floating party.

If that’s not enough seaworthy excitement for you, there will also be a Chantey Sing happening on the Adventuress from 8:00 to 10:00 on the night of Friday, the 3rd. Chanteys aren’t that hard to learn–you’ll be singing along in no time.

The Chantey Sing is free. So is the Wooden Boat Festival, although the suggested donation is $5/person or $10/family.

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Having too many fun things to do is a nice problem to have; such is the case for this coming weekend. Fireworks, festivals…there’s a lot going on and as an added bonus it’s a three-day weekend for many of us.

I recommend spending at least part of your free time this weekend at the Seattle Center.

Friday, July 3, marks the kick off of the Seattle International Beer Fest. From noon to 10 pm on Friday, noon to 10 pm on Saturday and noon to 7 pm on Sunday, sample beers from all over the world, some well-known, some completely obscure. A mere $20 gets you in the gate with a wristband, a souvenir glass, and 10 drink tickets. Generous samples are served at a cost of 1 - 4 tickets each and should you run out of tickets, you can purchase more at $1 each. (Or you can be like me and the woman I hung out with last festival and just ask departing festgoers if they’ll give you their leftovers. I got to try so many different beers this way, it was a lot of fun.)

Friday night brings the Firecracker 5000, a 5K Run/Walk celebrating Independence weekend with “Seattle’s only Midnight Run”. The run starts and finishes at Memorial Stadium on a course that takes runners and walkers from the Center to downtown and back again; included in the swag, entrants get a t-shirt that partially glows in the dark.

Saturday, July 4, at the Fisher Pavillion more than 500 people who came from over 70 countries will pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America as brand new citizens. The event starts with a concert at 11:00, followed by the noon time ceremony. I go to this ceremony most years and have now witnessed it many, many times and I still find myself moved by it - okay, sure, the speeches are mostly boring recitations of the same old political superficiality by whomever happens to be in the offices of Mayor and Governor and King County Executive at the time but it is always fun and inspiring to see just how happy people are about becoming American citizens. I highly recommend talking to people who are becoming citizens this day and their families because so many of them have such excellent stories to share.

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If this very special Canada Day and its commemoration of confederacy reminds us of anything, it’s that our country’s anniversary of a brutal break-up is a mere few days away. (This change in calendar in the dark hours of this morning prompted me to hastily purchase non-ideal flights to bolster “Pure Michigan” tourism & not miss an somehow neglected annual family function this weekend.) But for the rest of you who will spend the glorious three-day weekend in Seattle, it’s time to let others wage ridiculous battles over bombs bursting in air [colbertnation] and get to the serious business of planning your picnic and barbecue strategies.

Luckily enough for you, Seattle’s most awesome event planners and lifestyle entrepaneurs, the Adventure School, have you covered for Saturday afternoon. They’ll be staging a spectacular picnic in Cal Anderson park, where Molly Moon’s will be serving up “fireworks in your mouth” sundae-style along with root beer floats, Via Tribunali and Wandering Weiners will be cooking up savory treats, and Caffé Vita will keep you caffeinated. On stage, Recess Monkey, Picoso, Katharine Hepburn’s Voice, and Lady A and the Baby Blues Funk Band will take turns keeping your ears happy. While you’re there, you can join in an All-Park Parade, visit a root beer tasting garden, try your hand at the Spin Art Bike, make yourself something patriotic with tie-dye, demonstrate your pie-eating skills, have an Urban Family Portrait made, and prove that you and your pet were separated at birth.

It sounds like a true extravaganza and more than worth the free cost of admission. (Please don’t tell my family that I’m a bit sad to be missing it on their account.) If you’re intrigued and want to get even more involved, they’re looking for a few good volunteers to make sure that everything runs extra smoothly.

// 7th Annual Capitol Hill Independence Day Community Picnic at Cal Anderson runs from noon to 5 pm on Saturday 4 July. Contact aviva @ theadventureschool.com if you can lend a hand.

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7:00 PM - Lance Reynald: Pop Salvation
UW Bookstore, U District
What would a bildungsroman look like if the protagonist had an Andy Warhol fetish? This book. Quirky and interesting.
[LINK]

7:30 PM - Kate Christensen: Trouble
Elliott Bay Book Co.
Women in their 40s take off to Mexico City to find themselves and/or have a mid-life crisis.
[LINK]

7:30 PM - Thomas Sieverts: Reimagining Urban Spaces
Town Hall Seattle, Downstairs
The author of Where We Live Now returns to Seattle to talk about the transformation of space between urban and rural areas.
[LINK]

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this ‘near infrared’ photo of the international fountain during sunday’s pride festivities comes to us by way of Tom Dobrowolsky [flickr] who was nice enough to add it to our reader-powered group pool [#].

• the Seattle P-I is looking for neighborhood bloggers to help Hearst compete with Seattle’s wealth of neighborhood blogs. No payment, but free training. [bigblog]
• Capitol Hill Seattle counters with a call for volunteer ad reps to help spread the word of the virtues of paid advertising on neighborhood blogs. Oh, snaps. [chs]
• Maria Cantwell supports a public plan for health care reform, but no one managed to ask her if that includes co-ops. [slog]
• Congratulations Seattle, we’ve grown our way past 600,000 residents. [seattletransitblog]
• Some of them even play air guitar competitively. [seattlest]
• For the love of all things modest & musical, though, please keep your clothes on at Doe Bay. [soundonthesound]
• This advertisement inadvertently captures how so many people feel about Internet Explorer. [toomuchnick]

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Besides the obvious Art Walk this Thursday, what free things will you be doing this holiday weekend? The reason I ask is because I’ll be entertaining a guest and I’d like to keep our spending to a minimum. Here are some of my thoughts.

-Spend a morning at Wallace Falls
-Stick a piece of gum on the Gum Wall in Pike Place Market
-Go to the 5 spot to see this “glory hole” I’ve been hearing about
-Careek Park
-Ravenna Park
-Discovery Park
-Golden Gardens
-Witness the biggest Zombie walk ever in Fremont, this Friday at 8pm
-Peruse the new Wallingford Archie McPhee’s
-Finally go to the Fisherman Terminal
-Sunday’s Ballard Market
-The Locks
-Walk to Gas Works for fireworks

Anything else? Is there free music, free food, free anything happening this weekend? Holla!

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6:30 PM - Elizabeth Austen: Reading
SPL Northgate Branch
Seattle poet Elizabeth Austen talks about her poetry and the authors who have influenced her work.
[LINK]

7:00 PM - Karen Joy Fowler: Reading
UW Bookstore, U District
Clarion West presents the World Fantasy and two-time Nebula Award winner.
[LINK]

7:00 PM - Ultimate Tuesday!: Reading
Secret Garden Bookshop
Tickle Monster, by Kevin J. Atteberry, winner of a 2009 National Children’s Choice Picture Book award.
[LINK]

7:30 PM - Catherine Whitney: Soldiers Once: My Brother and the Lost Dreams of America’s Veterans
Elliott Bay Book Co.
A moving memoir about why we, as a society, must do better: “Whitney takes her veteran brother’s untimely death—alone at age 53 with just $62 in his bank account—as a starting point for this meditation on what it means to be a veteran in America … Whitney persuasively argues that her brother’s fates is common among veterans of all ages.” -Kirkus Reviews
[LINK]

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photo by william [flickr]; we’d love to see your pride photos in our group pool, too [#]

• Certain people in Wallingford seem to wish that they lived in the placid countryside instead of in the heart of a city where people hold concerts or launch fireworks. [dailyweekly]
• Will you take a look at this beautiful bar? Bastille opened its doors about an hour ago in Ballard. [twitpic]
• Of course Fremont zombie fanatics will include a Thriller re-enactment [bigblog]; it is unlikely to outcharm the one-shot French lipdub. [dailymotion]
• On Saturday, a dance party reclaimed the “people’s parking lot” [ppl], kicking up dust [lineout], and attracting some police officers who shut down the soundsystem and made one arrest. [chs]
• Want to learn how to get rich from the internet for free? Sign-up now for a 9 July seminar in the garden. [pingg]
• Regarding the above, Caveat emptor. Keith Vance calls it quits on his online news experiment for lack of cash. [seattlecourant]

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Do you appreciate a good roasting of American cultural values? Bruno, Sasha Baron Cohen’s new movie about an outrageously gay Austrian fashion designer, is set to land in Seattle theaters on July 10th. There’s been a fair amount of buzz about the movie, and I know a lot of folks in Seattle who are expecting to fall as hard for Bruno as they did for Borat.  But the reviews  trickling in  appear…mixed. From the Hollywood Reporter:

Borat was, despite his cheerful bigotry, somehow a lovable character. His questions sprang from the sweet innocence of a third-world bumpkin wallowing in isolated ignorance. With Bruno, you mostly feel annoyed. A gay Austrian fashionista would be no ignorant rube. He would be sophisticated, savvy and certainly aware of prejudices against gays. Would he really prance semi-naked through Middle Eastern holy sites?

….Consequently, the character’s gayness reads false. Baron Cohen needs to spend more time in certain gay bars if he wants to learn how to do “flamboyant” and “fabulous.” It’s a ghost of the real thing.

Now, I don’t think Sasha needs to go to bars to learn how to ‘act like a gay man’. If Sasha accurately portrayed a gay man in Bruno, it would be a terribly boring movie (gay people, like straight people, can be really boring to watch for an hour and a half). On the other hand, if the portrayal doesn’t contain a germ of truth, it will probably  fall into the trap of being too ridiculous to be funny.

…I guess we’ll all just have to wait until July 10th before passing judgement.

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The Paramount wraps up another Silent Movie Monday series tonight with Seventh Heaven, an epic melodrama that covers ambition, hope, crime, love, war, injury, faithlessness and faithfulness in a story of two lovers in the less glamorous part of Paris. One of the most famous and popular romances of the silent era, Seventh Heaven won Oscars for Best Actress for Janet Gaynor, Best Director for Frank Borzage and Best Screenplay for Benjamin F. Glazer.

Screens tonight at 7:00 pm; as always, co-sponsor Trader Joe’s is on hand with snacks and the chance to win cool prizes.

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7:00 PM - Jacqueline Carey: Naamah’s Kiss
UW Bookstore, U District
The author signs her much anticipated new novel, featuring a new heroine in the same universe as her previous six Kushiel books. They are all very well done: complex, sexy, layered, with great world building and characterization. I haven’t read Naamah’s Kiss, yet, but I’ve enjoyed the previous books, and I’m looking forward to this one. Only 16 SPL patrons are ahead of me, in queue!
[LINK]

7:30 PM - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie : The Thing Around Your Neck
Elliott Bay Book Co.
Winner of Orange Broadband Prize, the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize, the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, and a MacArthur Foundation fellowship, the novelist debuts her first story collection.
[LINK]

7:30 PM - Roger Thurow & Scott Kilman: Enough: Why the World’s Poorest Starve in an Age of Plenty
Town Hall Seattle, Downstairs
Why are 25,000 people per day dying of hunger, malnutrition, and related diseases, while thousands and thousands of pounds of food are thrown away? How are hunger and famine even possible? If we can ship apples to China and import tomatoes from Argentina, why are people still dying from lack of good food? It’s ridiculous. Learn how to be the change.
[LINK]

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2:00 PM - Jt Stewart, Pesha Joyce Gertler, Felicia Gonzalez & Jourdan Keith: Cultural Collisions: Women Writers & Their Craft
SPL Beacon Hill Branch
“JT Stewart, lead artist of La Jefa, writes poetry, fiction, and plays, and teaches writing at Hugo House and The Seattle Public Library. Pesha Joyce Gertler, 2005 Seattle Poet Populist, teaches writing at North Seattle Community College and the UW Women’s Center. Poet Felicia Gonzalez, born and raised in Cuba, is a Jack Straw Writers program alum, and as received awards from Artist Trust, Washington State Arts Commission, 4Culture, and the City of Seattle Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs. Jourdan Imani Keith, 2006 Seattle Poet Populist and The Seattle Public Library’s first Naturalist-in-Residence, is a playwright, storyteller, and educator.” –EBBC
[LINK]

2:00 PM - Patricia K. Batta: Why Did You Die in the Park?
Seattle Mystery Bookshop
Tea and conversation with the author.
[LINK]

4:30 PM - Mishna Wolff: I’m Down
Elliott Bay Book Co.
“In a memoir that is frequently hilarious, occasionally terrifying, and ultimately bittersweet, Wolff forces readers to consider whether racial identity is the result of nature, derived through nurture, or constructed and reconstructed throughout life. The author was born to white parents and raised into early adolescence mostly by her father, a man who worked harder to remake his own and his children’s identities as black than he did at earning a living…Wolff writes fluidly and offers moments of great insight through story rather than through explanation, making it easy for readers to engage with the child’s questions and growing frustrations. An excellent choice for discussion in ethnic identity curricula, but absorbing reading, too.” –Francisca Goldsmith, School Library Journal
[LINK]

6:00 PM - Todd Shimoda: Oh! A Mystery of Mono No Aware
Panama Hotel
“The event, like another one held on Thursday, June 25, at the Kobo Gallery, also in Seattle, will feature both the author and the artist, as well as display copies of the original artwork used in the book.”
I was sick on Thursday, and thus neglected this column, so didn’t announce Shimoda’s Kobo visit, to my chagrin. Please extend apologies on my behalf, should you have the opportunity, tonight.
[LINK]

7:30 PM - Beth Taylor: The Plain Language of Love and Loss
Elliott Bay Book Co.
“Beth Taylor’s memoir is one of the most tender and moving books I’ve read in a long time. Written with poise and grace, never falling into self-pity, The Plain Language of Love and Loss, will surely touch the heart of anyone who has found the means to salvage a kind of meaning out of great tragedy. This is a book I will not forget.” - Tim O’Brien
[LINK]

NOTE: Third Place Books in Lake Forest Park is technically out of the range of this blog, but Candy Tan, co-owner (with Sarah Wendell) of the snarktastic Romance review blog “Smart Bitches, Trashy Books” is in town, and she is ONLY reading and signing at Third Place Books, 6:30 PM, this evening (Woe! Oh, woe!). Candy and Sarah are the authors of Beyond Heaving Bosoms: The Smart Bitches’ Guide to Romance Novels, the definitive overview of the romance genre. I have the Smart Bitches to thank for a whole lot of really good (and really terrible) reading material over the past few years. The good has been wonderful; the bad has been hysterical. The Bitches have never led me astray. Check out their blog at http://www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com/.
[LINK]

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Tomorrow is the inaugural Seattle Rock-N-Roll marathon and there will be a lot of road closures between 6am and 3pm.

I’ll be running the marathon and have a 3am wakeup call, but before I sign off, here’s a link for road closure information.

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