7:30 PM – Alan Boss: The Crowded Universe: The Search for Living Planets
Town Hall Seattle, Downstairs, $5
Please, Captain, not in front of the Klingons.
[LINK]

7:30 PM – Jacqueline Novogratz: Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World
Elliott Bay Book Co.
Microfinance is a fascinating topic, and Novogratz’s book should be equally fascinating; unfortunately, it’s not. Novogratz can’t make up her mind whether she’s writing a memoir or a primer on eliminating global poverty, so neither end is served. Very sad. I hope she writes another, more focused, book. Or three.
[LINK]

The ground-floor space on the west side of the Anhalt Loveless building has seen its share of tenants come and go. Brunch lovers have special reason to hope that the current occupant, Olivar, stays for a while. A product of chef Philippe Thomelin’s own Franco-Catalan background, Olivar’s menu has recently expanded to include a new brunch menu from 10am to 2pm on Satuday and Sunday. The offerings start with the Mallorcan pastry Ensaïmada:

… and continue on from there to include both hot and cold plates such as Patatas al lo Pobre, Tortilla Francesa and a Spanish-inflected Croque Monsieur with Manchego cheese:

Thomelin is offering the new brunch menu either prix-fixe or à la carte. The offerings add up to a sunny jaunt around the Mediterranean in search of comfort food — a happy coincidence between the core ingredients of his cuisine and what most people want on a weekend morning. Olivar’s location at the head of broadway, together with the warm interior offered by the vintage 1930s murals, offers hope to those who wonder if this part of Capitol Hill will survive the condofication and light-rail-a-ma-zation that’s happening all around it.

2:00 PM – James Morrow: Shambling Towards Hiroshima
UW Bookstore, U-District
It’s WWII and the Navy’s big plan is to dress some guy up in a rubber lizard suit and have him stomp a miniature Japan. The back-up plan is actual giant mutant lizards.
[LINK]

2:00 PM – Woody Tasch: Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money: Investing as if Food, Farms and Fertility Mattered
Elliott Bay Book Co.
Chiming in on the current theme of reforming Wall Street, Tasch presents an alternative, a plan for local stock markets or exchanges, that serve communities. I say again, AMEN!
[LINK]

3:00 PM – Paula Bronte: A Call to Mastery
East West Bookshop Seattle, $15
Rapid Eye Technology : Change Your Life in the Blink of an Eye
[LINK]

1:30 PM – Darren Littlejohn: The 12-Step Buddhist: Connecting Mainstream Recovery to Spirituality
East West Bookshop Seattle, $35 – $40
Sutric Buddhism as it relates to addiction and recovery.
[LINK]

2:00 PM – Meg Wolitzer: The Ten-Year Nap
Elliott Bay Book Co.
The term “mommy track” was coined to describe women who leave the workforce to have children. Wolitzer’s novel focuses on a group of such women, 10 years after making the choice.
[LINK]

5:00 PM – David C. Korten: The Agenda for a New Economy: From Phantom Wealth to Real Wealth
Elliott Bay Book Co.
“[A] book calling for an end to Wall Street and the altar of mammon.” David Korten. Say Amen! AMEN!
[LINK]

6:00 PM – Dame Darcy: Gasoline
Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery
The cartoonist, musician, dollmaker, model, et cetera, will sign copies of her new graphic novel, Gasoline, sing, and pluck some banjo, all for your entertainment.
[LINK]

If you love a parade, get an early start on your St. Patrick’s celebration by heading downtown to catch the 2009 St. Patrick’s Day Parade which starts at 12:30 pm on Saturday, March 14. The parade starts at Jefferson and 4th and continues up 4th, past the reviewing stand at Westlake Park, before ending at the Seattle Center, who’ll be hosting an Irish heritage festival in the Centerhouse.

1:00 PM – Joseph Cornell: Sharing Nature with Children
East West Bookshop Seattle, $15
“[A] dramatic presentation of the life of the great naturalist-philosopher, John Muir, the father of America’s national parks. Joseph Cornell, appearing in 19th-century clothing, tells John Muir’s story as John Muir himself, and as a fellow-mountaineer and friend. The program is designed for adults and for older children and includes a narrated slide show presentation.”
[LINK]

7:30 PM – Jay Leeming: Dynamite on a China Plate
Elliott Bay Book Co.
Rowboat
An oar is a paddle with a home. This arrangement seems awkward at first, as if it were wrong;
the wood knocks in the oarlock, and would much rather be a church steeple, or the propeller of
an old airplane in France. Yet as it bites deep into the wave it settles down, deciding that the axe
and the carpenter were right. And you, too, are supposed to be sitting this way, back turned to
what you want, watching your history unravel across the waves as your legs brush against the
gunnels. Your feet are restless, wanting to be more involved. But your back is what gets you
there, closer to what finally surprises you from behind: waves lapping at the shore, the soft
nuzzle of sand.
[LINK]

NWFF presents Crips and Bloods: Made in America, the new film by director Stacy Peralta. Fond as I am of Peralta’s previous two films, Dogtown & Z-Boys and Riding Giants, when I first heard about this project I considered him an unlikely choice for this topic. It turns out he was the perfect fit: the history of South Central LA and the blend of complicated factors that transformed post-World War II social clubs into post-Vietnam War gangs is presented in a thoughtful, nuanced way with enough passion and energy to prevent “talking head syndrome” without taking away from any of the seriousness of the story. Narrated by Forrest Whitaker, Crips and Bloods features actual street-level video collected by Peralta from a wide variety of sources as well as interviews with key figures in the South Central story and experts of all sorts on the issues of poverty, racism and violent crime. The entire film is engrossing and provocative and all of the people introduced on film, no matter how briefly, are interesting and well spoken, but it’s most specifically during the interviews with current and former gang membes that director Peralta, always sympathetic to the plight of young urban men, truly shines, showing the humanity in people whose life stories and actions are so very often far from humane. Through Sunday.

Also at NWFF: The Wild Bunch, Sam Peckinpah’s classic film about a group of aging bandits out to make one last stand; make a whole evening of it and see this with Paint Your Wagon, the Lee Marvin, Clint Eastwood and Jean Seberg-starring musical Western.

SIFF Cinema joins the PNWB in a tribute to Broadway by presenting a short series of films based on Broadway shows: On Your Toes (Friday) features a young Eddie Albert as a songwriter (whose compositions are actually by Rodgers and Hart) who falls in love with the prima donna who takes a starring role in the production he’s written for the Russian Ballet. Saturday sees Carousel, the charming story of down-at-the-heels Billy’s last shot at making something of himself and his love Julie and Sunday is West Side Story, perhaps the most classic of all movie musicals.

Midnight at the Egyptian: Bruce Willis tries to save the world while Milla Jovovich wears some seriously awesome costumes in The Fifth Element, a film I’ve always thought contained way more style than substance–but oh, what style!

Sexy Czech Marcela is caught up in all sorts of drama and torn between her husband and her lover, a man she met after her husband was arrested for stealing her car. Sexy and complicated, Beauty in Trouble plays one week only at the Varsity.

Central Cinema screens Carmen Jones, a 1954 retelling of the Bizet opera, set here in an all-black army camp. Sexy, sexy Dorothy Dandridge stars as the lucious title character whose insistence on sinking her claws into good boy Joe (Harry Belafonte) leads to tragedy for them both.

From the same nerd-inspiring comedic genius that brought us Mystery Science Theater 3000, Cinematic Titanic is the newest incarnation of their cult film ball-busting spectacular, only this time they’re bringing the show to us:

CINEMATIC TITANIC is the new feature-length movie riffing show from the creator and original cast of MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000. Like MST3K, the show was created by JOEL HODGSON and features the same team that first brought the Peabody award winning cult-classic series to life: TRACE BEAULIEU (Crow, Dr. Forrester), J. ELVIS WEINSTEIN (Tom Servo, Dr. Erhardt), FRANK CONNIFF (TV’s Frank), and MARY JO PEHL (Pearl Forrester), Cinematic Titanic continues the tradition of riffing on ‘the unfathomable’, ‘the horribly great’, and the just plain ‘cheesy’ movies from the past.

Founded in late 2007, Cinematic Titanic is an artist funded, owned, and operated venture. With a combination of new shows on DVD every 6-8 weeks (available in our STORE) and an ever-growing schedule of LIVE SHOWS, the CT crew hopes to reconnect with “MSTies” around the world as well as bringing new fans to the comedy art form they first brought to TV 20 years ago.

Word is that Friday’s showing will be “Blood of the Vampires” and Saturday is “Frankenstein’s Castle of Freaks,” but I’ve yet to see that confirmed in any of the event listings or press releases making the rounds.  Either way you can count on it offering the same dichotomy of horridly cynical hilarity.  Tickets are still on sale for both Friday and Saturday’s show as of publication of this post, but rest assured they’re not going to last much longer!

What: Cinematic Titanic Live
Where: King Cat Theater
Date: 3/13 & 3/14
Time: 8pm

6:30 PM – Tavis Smiley: Accountable: Making America as Good as its Promise
SPL, Central Branch, Level 1, Microsoft Auditorium
The controversial national television and radio host visits Seattle as part of a series of town-hall-style events, to promote his new book, which asks “how we, as individuals and as a community, can implement national and local solutions to the top ten issues of greatest concern to all Americans. How can we hold our elected officials accountable to those issues?” This past Sunday, I was listening to Tavis’ show, highlights from the 10th State of the Black Union conference, and I was struck by how the conversation has evolved over the past 10 years; tonight’s even should be very interesting. Of course, if Smiley drives you completely insane, which I understand he does some people, then feel free to skip it.
[LINK]

7:00 PM – David Pond: The Pursuit of Happiness
East West Bookshop Seattle, $5
“[H]appiness isn’t something to be sought; rather, it’s something that happens naturally when our lives are working out correctly.”
[LINK]

7:00 PM – Merna Ann Hecht: What We Go Looking For: Stories of Searching for What We’ve Lost, Finding What We Want, and Discovering Surprise Gifts and Treasures Along the Way
Haller Lake Community Hall
The award-winning poet tells stories of love, community, and self-actualization from around the world. Hecht is a 2008-09 Writer-in-the-Schools for McClure Middle School & Secondary Bilingual Orientation Center.
[LINK]

7:30 PM Christina Sunley: The Tricking of Freya
Elliott Bay Book Co.
The description of this debut novel, set partly in Iceland, fascinates me. I’m definitely putting it in my library queue. “This grand coming-of-age novel boasts a dynamic set of characters and a rich bank of cultural and personal lore, making this dark, cold family tale a surprisingly lush experience.” – Publishers Weekly.
[LINK]

7:30 PM – Jane Hirshfield: Poetry Reading
Benaroya Hall, Illsley Ball Nordstrom Recital Hall, $20-$35
Seattle Arts & Lectures welcomes the award-winning poet and translator. Hirshfield is heavily influenced by Zen Buddhism and classical Japanese verse.
[LINK]