6:00 PM – Dr. Stephen Wangen: Healthier Without Wheat: A New Understanding of Wheat Allergies, Celiac Disease, and Non-Celiac Gluten Intolerance
SPL Central Branch, Level 1, Microsoft Auditorium
Are you plagued by sinusitis, migraines, unexplained inner ear itching, pain in your joints, IBS, and/or abrupt weight gain for no apparent reason? You may have a wheat or gluten intolerance or allergy. It’s not all about celiac disease, you know. Dr. Wangen is based here in Seattle, and is one of the few doctors that not only specializes in wheat intolerance, but suffers from it, as well.
[LINK]

6:30 PM – Steven Galloway: The Cellist of Sarajevo
Queen Anne Books
Queen Anne Books hosts a reading, signing, and reception to celebrate the paperback tour of the store’s staff-favorite book of 2008.
[LINK]

7:00 PM – Anold Lane: Evolutionary Dialogues
East West Bookshop, Seattle, $5
“Anold is the author of two books, Encodings of Light: A Profound System to Empower and Awaken You and The Handbook for Reading the Yearly Astrological Calendar: Celestial Navigation for Seekers of the Heavens.” No comment.
[LINK]

7:00 PM – Eugenia Toledo & Carolyne Wright : The Rain’s Amber Light: Letters from Temuko
Richard Hugo House, Cabaret
The Seattle poets read their own and other’s work. With members of Chilean musical ensemble Sin Fronteras.
[LINK]

7:00 PM – Timothy Kelly & Peter Pereira: Poetry Reading
UW Bookstore, U-District
Two local poets celebrate National Poetry Month with a reading at the UW Bookstore.
[LINK]

7:30 PM – Group Reading: The Modern Girl Around the World: Consumption, Modernity, and Globalization
Elliott Bay Book Co.
The Modern Girl Around the World Research Group, a collective composed of University of Washington professors Alys Eve Weinbaum, Lynn M. Thomas, Priti Ramamurthy, Uta T. Poiger, Madeleine Yue Dong, and Tani E. Barlow, examines the development of the “Modern Girl.”
[LINK]

This Saturday at 8, Yonder Mountain String Band will be playing an all-ages show at Showbox at the Market. Sam Bush will be accompanying the guys for one of only three shows, and to make it even more interesting, Baby Gramps will open.

Yonder Mountain is a progressive alt-bluegrass band who I first stumbled across in college, when I went to a show expecting some mellow old-time music, and wound up in a near mosh-pit made up of folks ranging from dreadlocked patchouli-wearers to preppy frat boys with trucker hats. If nothing else, YMSB manages to attract a diverse audience, in part because their foot-stomping music is like nothing else you’ve ever heard.

And one of you lucky Metblogs readers will be the recipient of a free pair of tickets! The first commenter who can name the town where banjo player Dave Johnston first met mandolin player Jeff Austin and formed the earliest iteration of the band will get ‘em, so hurry up and leave us a comment. (P.S. Don’t forget to include your e-mail address!)

Exactly one week from today (Tuesday, April 21st, 2009), English Indie-folk band, Noah & the Whale will be making an appearance at Chop Suey.  This young band has been  getting mediocre reviews for their new album, “Peaceful the World Lays me Down”  and truthfully, their album doesn’t seem like anything super innovative. This doesn’t change the fact that their music is fun. Okay, so the lyrics are a bit like the philosophical ramblings of a 21-year old’s first heart-break experience. Why take it so seriously? If you’re in the mood to bounce around and be enveloped in the light-hearted Spring sounds of the ukelele, glockenspiel, hand-claps, finger-snaps, strings and warm harmonies then go to this show! You can even do it for free. How? email: seattle.metblogs@gmail.com with the name of the Wes Anderson film which inspired the name of this band. We’ll choose a winner by Thursday, April 16th. Don’t forget to leave your name for the guest list.

Openers: Ferraby Lionheart, Anni Rossi

Chop Suey (On Madison, between 13th and 14th)//All ages// Doors 8pm

Doug Benson, who you may know from NBC’s Last Comic Standing, VH1′s Best Week Ever, and his own movie Super High Me, will be performing at the Moore Theater this Saturday night. A friend told me Doug is the #2 ranked pot comedian in the country. I have no idea who #1 would be though. All I know is he is funny as hell. You can even follow his antics via his Twitter profile.

Show details:
STG Presents
Doug Benson
Special Guest: Graham Ellwood
8:00pm
$23

Like usual, we have 2 tickets to give away for this show. In the spirit of comedy, if you want the tickets you have to tell us a joke. Leave the joke in the comments and I’ll be picking the one that made me laugh the hardest as the winner Doug himself will be picking the winner!! Please limit your joke submissions to 3 and please keep them public friendly. Jokes that I feel cross the line (racist ones, as an example) will be deleted. Ready? Go!

12:00 PM – Robert Dugoni: Wrongful Death
Seattle Mystery Bookshop
What the heck is the Feres Doctrine?
[LINK]

7:00 PM – Leslie Forsbery and Michelle Duffy: Wanderlust and Lipstick
Wide World Books and Maps
Get tips for traveling with kids from authors who travel with kids.
[LINK]

7:30 PM – Gordon Hempton: One Square Inch of Silence
Town Hall Seattle, Downstairs, $5
I had no idea that there was such a thing as an “acoustic ecologist” which only proves the depth, breadth, and height of my own ignorance.
[LINK]

One of the coolest of ideas SIFF has had in the past few years is “Dinner and a Movie”, their quarterly collaboration with Volterra where a small, select group of patrons come together at the Volterra Drawing Room to watch a movie chosen by SIFF artistic director Carl Spence over a meal put Volterra’s award-winning dining staff. The exclusivity of the event means that tickets can be few and far between but it just so happens that a few opened up unexpectedly for this weekend’s screening of Like Water for Chocolate, Sunday, April 19, at 5:00 pm.

Like Water for Chocolate was directed by Alfonso Arau and was nominated for both a Golden Globe and and Independent Spirit Award and tells the story of passionate Tita who throws her heart and her soul into cooking when she is denied the chance to be with the man she loves, a man who instead marries her sister. Tita’s emotions are so strong they affect the very food she cooks and inflame all those who eat it.

Accompanying the film is a multiple-course meal including

Chicken Enchilada Soup
Black Bean and Queso Ranchero Tortas
Rose scented Quail
Chicken Mole
Chorizo and Potatoes
Cheese and Rice stuffed Poblanos with white sauce and pomegranate
Chocolate and Vanilla Cream Puffs
Traditional Sweet Bread

Tickets are $125 each and can be purchased through the SIFF website.

This is the motto at Babeland and they are backing it up with two ways to be rewarded for paying your taxes:

1) The first 100 people to visit the Capitol Hill store on April 15th who inform the staff that they have filed their tax returns will get a free Gold Digger vibrator. Prefer the internets? No problem. The first 100 orders on Babeland.com on the 15th will get a Gold Digger as well, with no minimum purchase.

2) No sales tax for purchases online and in store on the 15th (in the form of a 10% discount).

So get out there on Tax Day and fulfill your patri-erotic duty, Seattle!

Babeland
707 E. Pike St. (on Capitol Hill)
Seattle, WA 98122
206-328-2914
Hours on Tax Day: 11am – 10pm

7:00 PM – Jonathan Goldstein: Ladies and Gentleman, The Bible! Stories
UW Bookstore, U-District
The host of Wiretap, my least favorite NPR show, will discuss and sign his book. I’m sure it’s witty and clever and all that, I just don’t get him. YMMV.
[LINK]

7:30 PM – Sherman Alexie: Face
Town Hall Seattle, Great Hall, $5
One of my very favorite contemporary writers presents his first collection of poetry in nine (9!!!) years. Sponsored by Elliott Bay Books and Town Hall Seattle.
[LINK]

4:00 PM – Group Reading: Short Stories Live: Bloomsbury Group
Town Hall Seattle, Downstairs, $10-15
Chris Sumption directs this program of live readings, featuring professional actors Julie Briskman (reading from “Bliss” by Mansfield), Gretchen Krich (“Tickets, Please!” by Lawrence), and Mark Anders (Waugh’s “On Guard”). Presented with A Contemporary Theatre.
[LINK]

Mike Barthel at Idolator analyzed the music blog reviews of the deluxely-reissued Ten, and he didn’t like what he read, heaping scorn on Pitchfork’s dismissive 6.7 and the revisionism of other critics.

…About five years ago, I purchased it on a whim and blared it from a cheap boombox in the kitchen, and it sounded great. I wouldn’t say it sounded good, necessarily, but that was never the point of Ten. It wasn’t supposed to be something of quality, but something of feeling, something that made you feel like NOBODY GETS YOU and THE WORLD IS HARD and WHY DOESN’T ANYONE LOVE ME. And these things are stupid and adolescent, yes, but they’re feelings a lot of us still have, at least if Tumblr is anything to go by. Ten is, and was, ridiculous, but it is also true, and we critics, and indie-rock listeners in general, increasingly seem to have a hard time understanding how those two things could go together.

As someone who was in college during the early 90s, I completely understand the sentiment. We all want to say we had every single Pavement album up to that point and eschewed “corporate rock” like Pearl Jam and Stone Temple Pilots, but the truth is we spent the summer of ’94 with “Interstate Love Song” blasting out of our car stereos while only knowing Pavement for that “Cut Your Hair” song the local “alternative” station played in between triple shots of Nirvana. That’s something our personal revisionism can’t wipe away as much as we want to insist that we saw Dinosaur Jr at some 50-seat club despite 3000 people claiming the same thing.

Go read the article — and the comments, which are equal parts thoughtful discussion and indie-rock poseurdom.