2:00 PM – Donald Margulies: Dinner with Friends
Elliott Bay Book Co.
The Tenth Annual Staged Play Reading Series presents– in conjunction with ReAct Theatre and sponsored by the Mayors Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs– the modern American Pulitzer Prize-winning dramedy, Dinner with Friends.
[LINK]

johnny & the moon, the moondoggies, and fruit bats at seattle centers. photos by me. full photoset. [flickr].

Last night three nocturnally-named, but highly warm evening weather appropriate bands — Johnny & the Moon, the Moondoggies, and Fruit Bats — closed out KEXP’s exceptional Mural concert series at Seattle Center. The lineups and timing of this series and it’s remarkable freeness, with cold beer in close proximity, made it a stellar addition to the summer. Let’s hope that the station does this again next year. Bringing bands that I’d typically see late at night into the Friday cocktail hour during a season where the incentive to go to shows faces tough competition from barbecues, weekend travel, and festivals, was stroke of brilliance that brought together eclectic talents and laid back audiences. Well done!

3:00 PM – Book Swap!
Pilot Books
Come trade books with other bookworms at Capital Hill’s best new bookstore.
[LINK]

4:00 PM – Poets West: Open Mic
SPL Greenlake Branch
[LINK]

6:00 PM – Eroyn Franklin: Another Glorious Day at the Nothing Factory
Fantagraphics Books
“The artist will sign copies of the newly minted graphic novel as well as her equally superb handcrafted mini comic The Here.” – Fantagraphics
[LINK]

flaming lips at sasquatch; tonight at marymoor. photo, by me.

• Twelve Hour Notice presents a Three Dolly Bill Cinema tonight with an outdoor screening in Cal Anderson of secretarial vengeance eighties comedy of 9 to 5. [chs]
• KEXP’s free concerts at the Mural stage concludes tonight. If you missed last night’s show at the Crocodile, this is another chance to catch Fruit Bats and Johnny & the Moon, with the addition of local Moondoggies. $free, 5-8 pm. [kexp]
• Confetti-drenched space rock spectacle lands across the bridge as the Flaming Lips play the increasingly illustrious Marymoor Park, complete with expectations of hamster balls, life-affirming sing-alongs, costumed dancers, and maybe a bit of fake blood. The last time I saw them, it was from the stage in Teletubby attire. The joy of the event took nearly a week to wear off. $41.5, with Stardeath and the White Dwarfs. [concertsatmarymoor]
• Something must be happening on Saturday. Maybe a makeshift ice cream social or a a canoe adventure? Cantwell staffers are flipping burgers for the 43rd Dems in Gasworks Park. Get up early and buy some tickets to see Passion Pit play here in [r]Oc[k]tober (Sunday, the 11th). [showbox]; check out the Sea Navy’s new record at the Sunset; or motor down to the Pacific Industrial Center to hear music on KIA’s dime. [mb]
• On Sunday, Cage the Elephant play the Showbox, bringing tasmanian devil bible belt preach-whooping to the Market. With Thee Emergency, $13. [$]; and Cal Anderson plays host to a bike-in. [mb]

This weekend is an excellent one at NWFF where you can’t go wrong with either of the movies that start a week of screenings on Friday night. Art & Copy is a documentary about the world of advertising–its history, its development, its inner workings and its ineffable impact on modern culture. How did advertising transform from an underrated necessity of doing business to a ubiquitous part of daily life? In Art & Copy you’ll meet the legends of the industry and explore the powerful nexus of art, business and feeling while learning the stories behind the big campaigns that convert advertising taglines into cultural slogans. Friday night’s 7 pm screening is followed by a discussion featuring local advertising experts Pam Fujimoto and Cal McAllister.

Tony Manero, John Travolta’s character in the disco themed 70s epic of frustrated youth, become an inspirational figure for Raul Peralta (Alfredo Castro), a fiftysomething misanthrope living in Pinochet’s brutal Chile of 1978 whose only real joy seems to be in repeated viewings of Saturday Night Fever. A powerful examination of delusion and disorder, Tony Manero is gritty, challenging and utterly absorbing.

Martin Scorsese is best known for his influential works that present an unflinching look at crime, violence, guilt and redemption, films like Taxi Driver and Raging Bull, but his career has been broad enough in range to include a filmed version of the musical New York, New York and the legendary documentary of The Band’s last show, The Last Waltz. The Grand Illusion presents a program of films that illustrate the wide scope of Scorsese’s work from the early days of his career, while he was still working his way up to legend. The five shorts included in Five by Scorsese range from works made in the 60s all the way up to 1978′s American Boy and cover an array of genres and topics.

Speaking of unflinching looks at violence, Midnight at the Egyptian this weekend is Quentin Tarantino’s bloody black comedy crime caper, Resevoir Dogs.

Renowned animator Hayao Miyazaki, perhaps best known in America for the lyrical Spirited Away, offers up a new tale of wonder with Ponyo, a “Little Mermaid” inspired story of a goldfish who longs to become human; the English version features voices by Noah Cyrus, Cate Blanchett, Matt Damon, Tina Fey, Cloris Leachman, Liam Neeson, Lily Tomlin, Betty White and Frankie Jonas. At Metro Cinemas.

Also at Metro Cinemas: SIFF festival favorite Cold Souls, an odd and entrancing film in which Paul Giamatti plays an anxious, world-weary version of himself struggling to find the perfect pitch for his interpretation of Uncle Vanya. He thinks he’s found the perfect solution when he comes across a company that extracts the soul from the body, but it’s only the beginning of his complex intercontinental quest to find that part of himself that is his self.

Become a competitor on “American Idol” and you might become a pop star; mostly likely, you’ll have a few weeks of madness and then go on to an ordinary life with the worst possible outcome of your experience on the show seeing you become a minor pop culture punchline for a week or two. In Afghanistan, slowly recovering from years of civil war, military invasion and the strictness of Taliban law, working up the nerve to compete on Afghan Idol means taking the chance of risking a lot more than a minor insult to your pride. Music and dancing are still regarded darkly by fundamentalists and conservatives; contestants on the Afghan version of the pop idol producing show aren’t just having a lark–they’re making a political statement that could see them losing everything they have, even their lives. Still, they persist, risking all for the chance of a little fame and a little bit of money. Afghan Star follows four contestants from different backgrounds and with differing motivations as they navigate their way through the complex and even dangerous process of auditioning and competing for their moment in the spotlight. At the Varsity.

7:30 PM – Mary Malloy: The Wandering Heart
Elliott Bay Book Co.
This debut novel is the first in a trilogy, featuring historian Lizzie Manning. Malloy is a historian herself, and the author of Devil on the Deep Blue Sea, a biography of Sam Hill.
[LINK]

photo by Mohini [flickr] via our group pool [#]

• Refresh-o-rama, new counts on the election make a McGinn–Mallahan general mayoral election look even more likely. Let’s all hope that the real election isn’t just about snow plows and tunnels. [kingcounty]
• Have any vintage WTO pics? The Henry is collecting them on flickr as we approach the 10 year protestaversary. Stills from Battle In Seattle don’t count. [hankblog]
• The arrival of fresh new Huskies is still a ways off, but the UW is already teaching them how to Metro, via video. [seattletransitblog]
• Holy abracadabra. Remember that Seattle woman who alleged that David Copperfield disappeared her to his private unsavory island? The FBI investigation is still ongoing and now her case is back in civil court. [gawker]
• Dan Savage is making a television show for HBO, maybe. But not reality. [slog]

cap to the hill, bringing 500 pine to 1000 pike. photo by cap to the hill

• Before he was a Shin and a Vetiverian, Eric Johnson led the Fruit Bats into the hearts of many a fan of major key defiance. Or rather, in addition to being a part of those bands, he’s still true to his Fruit Battiness, so much so that he (or rather they) released a new album called the Ruminant Band early this month. Tonight, they’ll “choogle for you” at the Crocodile. With a pair of other multi-band types, Johnny & the Moon (Dante DeCaro of Wolf Parade) and Palmer Electric Co. (Erik Howk, Lashes, et c.) for $12, at 8 pm. [thecrocodile]
• In late 2007, a rundown block of much-loved bars, somewhat loved retail, and a quickly-forgotten grocery store [requiemforablock] were demolished to make way for condos that downgraded to luxury apartments and finally became a parking lot. Memories of that stretch run deep; so when the kids at Cap to the Hill won $10,000 from a marketing firm to throw a backpack party they chose the rebirth of the 500 block of Pine Street as inspiration. It’s somehow fitting, then, that their aspirations of Brigadooning the stretch back into existence are resulting in a rematerialization a few blocks east and one south, coinciding fairly accurately with the neighborhood’s shifted center of gravity and arriving after lots of hard work with a happy hour, specialty drinks, a taco truck, a skate ramp, and a dance floor in the Havana parking lot. $free, though you need a ticket or list spot and the patience to wait in what might be a long line to enter. [captothehill]

For the fourth year in a row, NW Film Forum and a host of sponsors present the Seattle Bike-In at Cal Anderson Park on Capitol Hill happening this Sunday, August 23. This year’s education fair and community picnic is, as always, all about bringing together bicycle enthusiasts, transportation advocates, environmental groups, artists and community leaders for a celebration of urban sustainability and biking.

Bands begin playing at 7 pm followed by a dusk start time for a screening of Jour de Fete, a charming and ageless 60 year old film comedy featuring a postman named Francoise who brings the slapstick to a day that includes passing by Tour riders, falling into a duck pond, and delivering the mail.