We have guests in town, and as much as we want to show them a good time, we also don’t want to spend crazy money. So we concocted a bunch of free activities that are free, touristy, not touristy, and maybe even a little fun.

Monday:
Sunset Tavern hosts Kung Fu Grindhouse. Sure, the food and beer aren’t free, but the gory bloodbash is. Happens every Monday, once a month.

Tuesday:
Try to find Bruce Lee’s Grave. I’ve attempted to do this a handful of times with no success. Today is the day!

Wednesday:
Green Lake and Gas Works. Nothing says free like a man-made lake and a park that shares its space with an old refinery.

Thursday: Henry Art Museum is free every Thursday and who doesn’t like trying to find a parking spot in the middle of UW to see something for free?

Friday: Pike Place Market. Duh.

Pike Place Market / Henry Art Museum / Kung Fu Grindhouse / Bruce Lee’s Grave / Green Lake and Gas Works

* 7:00 PM: Christopher Moore takes on Shakespeare’s King Lear (et alia) in Fool, Moore’s latest fictional romp through literature, pop-culture, and religion. U-District UW Bookstore is thrilled to host Moore for a reading and signing. As usual, you gotta buy a book to get in the sign line.
[LINK]

* 7:30 PM: Elliott Bay Book Co. hosts Larry Wilmore, well-known television writer, producer, and The Daily Show “correspondent”, who also happens to have a book or two to his name. His new one is I’d Rather We Got Casinos, and Other Black Thoughts. Wilmore has won an Emmy and a Peabody for his “it’s funny cuz it’s true” television work.
[LINK]

* 2:00 PM: SPL Central Library hosts crime fiction writer Val McDermid in the Microsoft Auditorium, to read from A Darker Domain. With A Darker Domain, McDermid introduces a new heroine, DI Karen Pirie. McDermid is an internationally recognized mystery author, with over two dozen books and a slue of awards. This is a great opportunity to get that well-worn favorite signed by the author; copies of A Darker Domain will also be available to buy for signing. Presented in conjunction with Elliott Bay Book Co.
[LINK]

* 3:00 PM: Celebrate “Come To Your Senses” Day at Elliott Bay Books with Jeanne Romano and various other contributors to What Was I Thinking?: 58 Bad Boyfriend Stories.
[LINK]

* 11:00 AM: Newbery winning author Karen Cushman is at Santoro’s Books to read from The Loud Silence of Francine Green. This latest book explores themes of repression through the lenses of a Catholic girls’ school and McCarthyism. Parents can use this novel as a jumping-off point for discussion of freedom of speech, privacy, and the arts, especially relevant since 9/11 and the Bush years. This event is part of Seattle’s “Kids [heart] Authors” celebration.
[LINK]

* 11:00 AM: The brave fools who took up the 72 Hours: You Can Do It, Too! challenge from Richard Hugo House get to have their 15 minutes of fame. Presented in the Cabaret.
[LINK]

* 12:00 PM: Seattle Mystery Bookshop hosts Joan Opyr, author of Idaho Code, to sign her newest, From Hell to Breakfast. Wilhelmina “Bil” Hardy is still gay, and still in rural Idaho, grappling with corpses, romance, and family.
[LINK]

photo by dave zombie [flickr] via our group pool [#]

• taking sandwich boarding to the next, 3-d valentine level, in which the gooey center is human after all. [seattledailyphoto]
• Next Tuesday the city council will ponder the choice between light rail construction keeping Capitol Hill residents should be kept up all night or dragging on foreverer. [chs]
• Now the Fleet Foxes are phenomenally famous, it’s time for Robin Pecknold to work on his solo project. Here’s a Dylan cover recorded under the White Antelope moniker. [vulture]
• Want to stop prostitution-related human trafficking? Buy a single person at auction. Cute, creepy, effective, or all of the above? [bigblog]
• Pre-paying the envelopes to return ballots now that we’re a mail-only voting system makes so much sense that it’s bound to be doomed. [slog]

Say hello to the Crocodile’s new website [ed: obsessed much? --yes, very much so.] . As of this afternoon, “elitism” has been banished and so has the old site with a long list of shows running in plain text down the right hand side of the page.

Will Hot Buttered Rum really be the opening night band? Stay tuned …

clockwise, from top left: dearboy, love trucker, schoolboy gutbuster, dynojamz. All photos by Chona Kasinger via EMP.

Beyond cred- and nostalgia-building, there’s something awfully nice about seeing a band inbefore they become huge stars. Sure, it might ruin you a bit when they make it to arena shows (e.g., seeing the Shins at Sit & Spin), but it gives you a chance to watch the whole of their trajectory and the ability to be stunned by just how good a new band can be. This last part is even more the case when the new band is actually young, at the beginning of their yet unformed musical careers, and talented beyond their years.

Every spring, the EMP hosts a sort of battle of the bands to crown the best of the best local groups. The Sound Off competition, which has previously helped to launch Schoolyard Heroes, Idiot Pilot, Mon Frere, The Lonely H, Dyme Def, The Lonely Forest, Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head and New Faces, stages its first round tomorrow at Level 3, the crashed spacecraft hangar upstairs at the SFM tomorrow at 8 pm. Following that are two more sets of semi-finals leading up to the final round on 7 March in Sky Church, Seattle’s own majestic temple to LED visualizations. The winner gets a spot at Bumbershoot, on air time at 107.7, studio time, production help, and a bunch of fancy gear.

Friday’s lineup includes Seattle’s Dearboy & Dyno Jamz along with Vancouver’s Love Trucker. and Issaquah’s Schoolboy Gutbuster. Tickets cost $10 for the general public, $7 for students or EMP|SFM members and the doors open at 7 pm. For more about the bands, the rest of the competitors, the list of prizes, check out the Sound Off homepage. [empsfm]