10:30 AM – Deb Lund: Monsters on Machines
Queen Anne Books
Meet local author Deb Lund at this read-aloud to support literacy advocates Page Ahead and their annual Book Drive. Deb is the delightful author behind Dinosailors, All Aboard the Dino Train, and Monsters on Machines. Listen to a story, meet Deb, and enjoy some cookies if you do ok with sugar before naptime.
From May 10- May 17, Queen Anne Books will be collecting new books for Page Ahead’s Book Drive (to give to kids), so please consider buying a book for the non-profit while you’re at the store. [Source: Queen Anne Books]
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6:30 PM – Ruth Reichl: Not Becoming My Mother, & Other Things She Taught Me Along the Way
Pan Pacific Hotel, $45
“Words & Wine is an author series created by book event maven, Kim Ricketts, whose vision is to celebrate the written word through dynamic and unique literary events. Words & Wine events take place at the elegant Pan Pacific Hotel Seattle where guests mingle with the author while sipping award-winning wines from the Chateau Ste. Michelle portfolio and enjoying savory nibbles created by John Howie’s Seastar Restaurant & Raw Bar Lake Union. For the highlight of the evening, the engaging Warren Etheredge of The Warren Report leads an intimate on-stage interview and conversation with the author.” [Source: Pan Pacific Hotel]
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7:00 PM – Jack Straw 2009 Writers Program Reading Series
Jack Straw Productions
Lana Ayers, Anna Balint, Rachel Dilworth, Alma Garcia, Laura Hirschfield, Kim-An Lieberman, Priscilla Long, Michael Magee, Angela Martinez Dy, Madeline Ostrander, Kevin Simmonds, & Storme Webber read.
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7:00 PM – Ta-Nehisi Coates & Attica Locke: Readings
SPL Central Library, Level 1, Microsoft Auditorium
Ta-Nehisi Coates reads from The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood (Spiegel & Grau, 2007). Attica Locke reads from Black Water Rising (forthcoming from Harper, June 2008).
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7:00 PM – Youth Poetry Grand Slam Finals
Town Hall Seattle, Great Hall
After a series of preliminary poetry-reading competitions, 12 local finalists will compete for a chance to represent Seattle at a nationally renowned and life-changing event. Each year, more than 500 young poets from 50 cities converge at Brave New Voices, the National Youth Poetry Festival and Slam. Since 2000, Seattle has had a strong presence at this competition, regularly placing among the top 10 teams. Youth Speaks Seattle, a nonprofit literary arts organization that provides creative-writing instruction and performance opportunities for young people in the greater Seattle area, has hosted a series of poetry slams to select the team since 2003. For the past two years, the Slams have been sold-out events. [Source: Town Hall Seattle]
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7:30 PM – Christine Gleason: Almost Home: Stories of Hope and the Human Spirit in the Neonatal ICU
Elliott Bay Book Co.
Dr. Christine Gleason, one of the nation’s leading neonatal pediatric surgeons and, since 1997, the chief of Neonatology and professor of Pediatrics at the University of Washington, shares stories of the resilient infants, their families, and the physicians and nurses who care for them in neonatal intensive care unit. [Source: I forget. May be a clip from a previous reading, or from EBB. I’ve gotta start writing my own copy, again, so I don’t have to remember who to credit. But I got busy, then I got sick, and now I’m busy, because I was sick… oh, la, I think I hear a teeny, tiny violin playing a familiar tune, off in the distance.]
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More than 4,000 Polish prisoners of war were executed in a forest called Katyn near the Soviet Union town of Smolensk back during World War II. When the mass graves were discovered in the early 1940s, the Germans blamed the Soviets and the Soviets blamed the Germans. The issue of who was really to blame remained unresolved for five decades until Russia finally expressed “profound regret” in 1990 that Soviet police had, in fact, been responsible for the killings, murdering any Polish military members who might oppose Soviet expansion into Poland. Director Andrzej Wajda dramatizes this tragic history in his film called Katyn which follows four families whose fates are tied to the massacre. A a finely crafted film, Katyn gives its sad story the proper gravity it deserves. There are no feel-good moments here, no false hopes, no bright fantasies, only a story being told exactly as it should be. At SIFF.

Burlesque is big in Seattle; we have quite a few active troupe who regularly perform in a variety of venues across the city and even a burlesque school. Seattle filmmaker Deirdre Allen Timmons takes a close look at Miss Indigo Blue’s Academy of Burlesque in her film A Wink and a Smile, opening Friday at NWFF which follows a group of students from their first class to final recital, learning not just the moves but also the attitudes that make burlesque such a popular activity.

Grand Illusion presents Macked, Hammered, Slaughtered, and Shafted, a documentary that examines the cultural impact of 1970s black exploitation films, including interviews with key figures in the genre, including notable actors, writers, and directors like Jim Brown, Gloria Hendry, Reginald Hudlin and James Fanaka, to name a few. It’s followed by the short film Black Santa’s Revenge; director David F. Walker will be on hand for Saturday’s screenings for a post-film Q&A.

Also at the Grand Illusion: The Wizard Rockumentary, a documentary about Harry Potter bands plays Saturday and Sunday at 3 and 5pm; late night at the Grand Illusion a repeat of last week’s Black Devil Doll.

Sita Sings the Blues at Central Cinema, an animated movie that pairs a version of the legend of the Ramayana, an ancient Sanskrit epic poem, with a modern storyline from director Nina Paley’s own life.

Midnight at The Egyptian: The Dark Crystal, a “sinister fantasy” about a young hero on a quest to bring peace and balance to a world ruled by cruel lizardy overlord created by Muppets masters Jim Henson and Frank Oz.

I recently mentioned that local comedian Dartanion London was chosen by Ford to represent the Ford Fiesta in a social media campaign designed to draw interest in their new fuel-efficient car. Though the Fiesta won’t be released in the US until next year, Ford’s giving London a European model of the car to use for six months as an “agent” performing “missions” involving the car which will then be put on display in a variety of social media platforms.

Even though Ford only selected 100 people nationwide to take part in this campaign, it turns out that he’s not the only Washingtonian involved: two other Seattle residents and a guy from Bellingham have also been named “Fiesta agents”. Considering how heavily involved in social media most Seattleites are, it makes sense that we’re so well-represented.

Derek Johnson is the 23 year old CEO of a Bellingham-based company called Tatango which allows easy group text-messaging. His planed series of missions to explore Bellingham can be followed on his website.

Kristina Horner from the U District is a musican (she’s in a Harry Potter band called the Parselmouths), a student at the Dub, and a vlogger whose first planned mission is to visit Washington’s biggest waterfall.

Bridget O’Neill is a Seattle resident who has been an actor and a teacher and now runs a Seattle based art and media development and production company called Confluence Creative Media; follow her vlog for her debut mission, a trip from Seattle to San Diego.

Be on the lookout for this lemon!

Tomorrow, do not be surprised if you run into a walking, talking lemon that will be wandering Downtown. This lemon will be promoting Worktank‘s “Embrace the Lemon” campaign, whose goal is to promote pragmatic optimism.

This innovative campaign seeks to leverage the abundance of lemons in the public psyche to “make lemonade” on an unprecedented scale, creating a community of optimism to turn things around and drive positive change.

Pragmatic optimism (link not related to Worktank) promotes the idea that most of the time in life, the good outweighs the bad. A good summary of how this concept came about comes from a comment in that link: “Because many people do not deal with truly bad events on a regular basis, it is easy for them to adopt a false sense that ordinary circumstances or events are somehow bad.”

You can find the Lemon wandering around the metro bus tunnels starting at King Street Station from 7:00 a.m. to10:00 a.m., at Westlake Center and Pike Place Market from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., and outside Safeco Field prior to the Mariner’s game from 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. Stop by and say hi, share some lemons-to-lemonade stories, maybe take photos and drop them in our Flickr pool.

Passive Aggressive Seattlite Rapture by Bad Robot 6

One of the many forms of artistic expression from our Flickr pool.

6:00 PM – Ellen Hopkins: Identical
SPL Central Library
Ellen Hopkins writes gritty young adult fiction in free verse, and masterfully tackles her often-times dark subject matter with honesty and empathy. Her new title features identical twins who struggle with their relationship with their father in the absence of a career politician mother. One girl feels she is losing the battle for her father’s attention, and the other receives inappropriate kinds of attention from the man. [Source: UW Bookstore]
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6:00 PM – It’s About Time: Readings
SPL Ballard Branch
The Ballard Branch welcomes the ongoing program “It’s About Time Writers Reading Series.”
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7:00 PM – Jon Scieszka: Party!
Secret Garden Bookshop
Library of Congress National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, Jon Scieszka is the author of many bestselling children’s titles, including The Stinky Cheese Man, which won a Caldecott Honor medal, The True Story of the Three Little Pigs, which has sold over three million copies and been translated into 14 languages, and the Time Warp Trio, a chapter book series, as well as the new memoir Knucklehead: Tall Tales and Almost True Stories of Growing Up Scieszka, and Guys Write for Guys Read. [Source: Secret Garden Books]
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7:00 PM – Lynda Mapes: Breaking Ground: The Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe and the Unearthing of Tse-whit-zen Village
Burke Museum
Award-winning Seattle Times journalist Lynda Mapes spent over a year interviewing the people involved in the 2003 discovery of the oldest and largest Indian village ever unearthed in the Northwest. It began with a backhoe digging out a space for a massive local dry dock and stumbling upon the long-buried village of Tse-whit-zen, the central city to the Klallam people. The book looks at the history and culture of the Klallam, and the controversy that surrounded the cessation of the dig, which had already cost the state $70 million. [Source: UW Bookstore]
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7:30 PM – Ruth Reichl: Not Becoming My Mother, & Other Things She Taught Me Along the Way
Elliott Bay Book Co.
“The slender size of Reichl’s memoir of her late mother’s life belies its powerful tale of a young woman, Miriam Brudno, who bowed to societal and familial pressure to become a wife and mother over pursuing a fulfilling career. While Reichl is well known for writing about her culinary adventures, this beautifully crafted homage follows a more personal path as she pushes past “Mim Tales”—stories she told about her mother to entertain her readers and friends—to dive deep into her mother’s diaries and letters, paying tribute to a woman who was raised when ‘good women didn’t work if they didn’t have to’ … Reichl has created a masterful portrait of a mother-daughter relationship that will resonate with readers across generations.” – Publishers Weekly.
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7:30 PM – Tamim Ansary: Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes
Town Hall Seattle, Downstairs, $5
In the days after Sept. 11, Afghanistan native Tamim Ansary became a media celebrity, serving as a cultural interpreter with a unique perspective on U.S.-Middle East relations. His sweeping new narrative allows Ansary to interpret even broader swaths of culture, telling the story of world history as the Islamic world sees it, from the time of Mohammed to the fall of the Ottoman Empire and beyond. Through his uniquely qualified analyses of history, education, and modern-day conflicts, Ansary clarifies why Western and Islamic civilizations grew up oblivious to each other, what happened when they intersected, and how the Islamic world was affected by its slow recognition that Europe had somehow “hijacked” destiny. Sponsored by Town Hall and University Book Store. Part of the Town Hall Center for Civic Life. [Source: Town Hall Seattle]
[LINK]

Pink Ribbon by slightlynorth

Two events are coming up to raise money “for the cure“.

First up, Spa For The Cure!
Who: Spa Scotta & Puget Sound Affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure
What: Spa Scotta For a Cure
When: Thursday, May 28, 2009
5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Where: Spa Scotta
4915 25th Ave.N.E., Suite 103W
Seattle, Wash. 98105
(206) 522-5800

Details: Spa Scotta will host a fundraising event for the Puget Sound Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure on Thursday, May 28, 2009 from 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Bamboo Beats will be spinning music as guests are invited to enjoy spa services, henna artistry, cocktails and more. “Check Your Boobies” will be on site to teach women about breast health, cancer prevention and early detection. There will also be an opportunity to enter special drawings to win prizes with all proceeds going toward the Puget Sound Affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

Admission to the event is free, but donations to the Puget Sound Race for the Cure are encouraged. To RSVP email info@spascotta.com.

Spa Scotta will donate 10% of all retail sales to Puget Sound Susan G. Komen. For more on Spa Scotta and to join their Race for the Cure team, visit http://www.spascotta.blogspot.com/.

Next up, Bra Fasion Show For The Cure!
Who: Little Black Dress Events and Productions and Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation

What: Save “The Girls” 1st Annual Designer Bra Fashion Show

When: Sunday, May 31, 2009
5 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Where: Spitfire Grill
2219 4th Ave
Seattle, Wash. 98121
(206) 441-7966
info@spitfireseattle.com

Details: Little Black Dress Events and Productions hosts their first annual Save “The Girls” Designer Bra Fashion Show benefiting the Puget Sound Race for the Cure at Spitfire Grill on Sunday, May 31 from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Save “The Girls” will celebrate Seattle style, showcasing fabulous custom designed bras from local businesses, fashionistas and community members. Specialty pink Skyy Vodka cocktails and designer merchandise will be available, with a portion of the proceeds going to support the Puget Sound Affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure. A silent auction and raffle will also be a part of the evening festivities.

The event is $20 for entrance, and $40 for VIP which will include swag bag retailing for more than $300, entrance to the VIP area and much more. A portion of the proceeds will go to the Puget Sound Affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure’s Race for the Cure. For additional information and to purchase tickets, visit www.savethegirlsfashion09.blogspot.com.

If you’ve ever wondered why theaters are built the way they are–or if you’re just looking for an interesting way to pass some time on a Wednesday evening–head down to the The Moore today at 5:30 pm for a lecture presented by Seattle Architecture Foundation entitled “When Sound Takes the Stage”, a discussion of “the dynamics of acoustical design and its impact on theater design”.

Dan Bruck of BRC Acoustics & Technology Design and Michael Yantis of Sparling, two well-known sound engineers, and Gary Fuller, SAF tour guide, will speak on the acoustical design of performance theaters, specifically the Moore Theater, and then the Jazz Underground will follow with a performance to illustrate the lessons learned. Free, with a $10 suggested donation.

Neumos, I find your all-ages show configurations endlessly baffling. You just never know until you walk in the door whether there will be cleverly constructed cages, or if someone is going to be confined to the balcony. I’m sure that there’s some sort of complicated algorithm that drives the whole thing, I just can’t figure out what it is.

Last night had the under 21 set upstairs in the balcony, which was the way to do it given how sparsely populated it seemed to be up there. The Vaselines are mostly the musical property of the Nirvana generation, for better or worse, and the floor was full.

Hallways, who opened the night, do that electrofuzz psychedlic country thing that I can ususally take or leave, but they closed their set with a Pink Floyd cover. I’m still torn about that cover: on the one hand, it’s Pink Floyd, for crying out loud. But on the other hand, it was a really good “Comfortably Numb.” (PS, Hallways: I’m glad it was your tshirts that someone was throwing, and not empty beer cans like I originally thought.)

It’s…pretty much impossible to talk about the Vaselines without getting all giddy and downright gooey, and there are not enough synonyms for ‘adorable’ available in the English language. It must be such a strange thing to become famous like that after you’ve broken up, and because your main superfan is Kurt Cobain, to stay kind of famous forever without actually playing shows. The Vaselines seem to handle the last 20 years with grace and extreme good humor, and put on a show just as hilarious and happy and dirty as it must have been back in the beginning.

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Wicked Witch fans take note: Wicked returns to Seattle in September, playing from Wednesday, September 2 through Sunday, October 4 at The Paramount. While that’s a long way off from now, it’s not too early to start thinking about tickets as the show was very popular the last time it came to town and seats will probably go fast.

To encourage you to get your tickets early the Paramount is holding a special sales event on Friday morning: from 7am to 9am tickets will be on sale exclusively at the theater during a party that includes games, prizes and refreshments. As an added bonus, the first 106 ticket buyers get a reusable Wicked “green bag” from party co-sponsor WARM 106.9. After 9am, tickets can be purchased in all the usual places – online at STG Presents, Broadway Across America or Tickemaster.