Mariners pursuing John Lackey? Rumors circulate that the Seattle Mariners are in the hunt for Angels free-agent pitcher John Lackey.

This rumor comes with a clear caveat: The cost to land Lackey will be astronomical, likely requiring a long term deal well over $80 million, way out of the range of a Mariners team that’s trying to trim their bloated payroll (thanks, Bill Bavasi!) and needs to upgrade multiple facets of the squad while finding the cash to extend ace pitcher Felix Hernandez, who is due for free agency in a couple of seasons and remains the subject of trade rumors.

The Lackey rumor, meanwhile, is likely little more than the first of a series of blasts of hot air in the offseason’s Hot Stove League of personnel rumors.

The Dynamo Elimination: Sounders season ends in Houston… The Seattle Sounders’ inaugural season came to a rough and disappointing end yesterday in Houston, TX, falling 1-0 in overtime of the 2nd leg of their playoff series with Houston Dynamo.

Just like their previous meetings, Dynamo’s airtight defense sealed off the Sounders’ passing lanes all match long, preventing Sounders FC from the free-flowing possessions and clear shots on goal they had been accustomed to generating en route to a 12-7-11 record and playoff spot.

As regulation drew to a close, it became clear that the Sounders’ best hope was to finish the 30 minute overtime period with a 0-0 tie (as they had in the 1st leg at Qwest Field) and to try and win the game in the crapshoot-like penalty kick shootout.

But fate intervened: A dubious foul call early in the overtime period against the Sounders on what looked like a clean steal of the ball not far from their own goal gave Houston the ball within striking distance of the goal. Dynamo worked the ball into the penalty box before Brian Ching hammered a drive past a frozen Kasey Keller for the kill-shot goal.

The Sounders futilely turned on the aggression to try and rally, but a vicious slide tackle by James Riley earned him a red-card ejection and nailed the coffin shut on the Sounders’ postseason.

The Sounders exceeded expectations in their first season with an exciting free-flowing brand of soccer that contrasted the plodding continental defensive style that is the mind-numbing norm in Major League Soccer. It’s a shame their season had to end with a whimper instead of a bang, against arguably the best offense-killing trap-and-tackle defense in MLS.

Let’s hope MLS, which enjoyed how Sounders FC engineered a sizable, excited new fanbase in Seattle, takes a good look at their officiating and rules this offseason to encourage more of the Sounders’ style of soccer and less of the plodding trap-and-tackle insomnia curing soccer that has held MLS (and its revenue streams) back during this past decade.

Man oh man! Last night I was fortunate enough to see the last performance of Diane Sniezblum’s piece “Alaska” at On the Boards. At it’s most fervent moments, the piece cast a hypnotic spell over the audience.

In one particularly effective moment, a woman’s naked body was re-arranged by the dancers in different locations on the stage as if she were a puppet. Their movements were purposeful and efficient as they dragged her around, bending her over, lying her down, and eventually tying her body into an elaborate knot.

While the impulse for movement may have been lust, their executions rarely felt sensuous or sexy. As a man sat with his legs in a V shape and his arms tied behind him, a woman attempted to push her head through the nook between his arms and his body. She pushed and pushed until he had to restrain her as she reached manically into the air. In another scene, a woman leaped on to the shoulders of a man, crawling down his chest, and through the space in his legs, pulling his pants down along with her. She leaped three times over him, until she had been disrobed and lay naked beside him.

Most movements were repeated ad nauseum. The movements seemed uncontrollable, as if they were a manifestation of addiction. The dancers moved because they had to move…because something, memory or perhaps emotion, was controlling them.

I’m not sure if everyone in the audience enjoyed the piece as much as I did. It was not an escapist fantasy. It was also not particularly cohesive. But it was confrontational in all the ways you’d hope a performance would be.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPDPseD29Qs[/youtube]

King County is preparing for the possibility that there may be serious flooding this winter.

If you live in the Green River Valley, you really, really don’t need me to tell you this because you’ve been hearing about it for a while. Still, it’s important that you don’t just tune these messages out – floods can be devastating.

King County’s Flood Preparation page has good advice for you. Flood preparation materials are available in seven other languages in addition to English and the site has a lot of useful information, including a list of sandbag distribution sites. (Note to residents of other flood-prone regions of the county – be sure to check for your jurisdiction on the list, too.)

The county also has a Flood Warning Page you can check for updated flood infomration, including real time river gage readings . You can check river levels at the automated King County Flood Information Line at 206-296-8200 or 800-945-9263. Twitter fans can sign up for alerts at twitter.com/kcalerts. And should a flood actually arise, the King County Flood Warning Center will be staffed 24 hours a day during the flood to provide information at 206-296-4535 or 800-768-7932.

For someone who doesn’t watch much TV–and it’s mostly sports or Spongebob when I do-I’ve sure managed to get introduced to a lot of great musicians from watching it. Case in point – Nashville native singer/songwriter Landon Pigg whose sweet, understated “Falling in Love at a Coffee Shop” was featured in a DeBeers commercial. Diamonds don’t interest me much but the song made a big impression on me, introducing me to Pigg’s music. TV’s been good to Landon Pigg–as a child he sang commercial jingles with his siblings and his first appearance in the national spotlight came after one of his songs was featured on “Grey’s Anatomy”. Another of his songs was featured on an episode of “One Tree Hill”. Since then, Pigg has focused on developing his fan base the good, old-fashioned way by releasing albums and touring, although he did take a break from the road to appear as Ellen Page’s love interest in Whip It.

Landon Pigg is back on the road now and will be bringing his poetic pop to Neumos on Monday, November 9, where he will be appearing with Among the Oak and Ash who have brilliantly reworked traditional Appalachian folk songs for a modern audience, and Seattle-born, LA-raised singer-songwriter Alison Sudol who blends alt-folk with creative pop as A Fine Frenzy.

Doors are at 7, all ages with ID. Tickets are $18 in advance via TicketsWest

dirty projectors at neumo’s

The last time Dirty Projectors were in town I felt horrible about missing them, both because parts of their new record, Bitte Orca nearly caused me to trip over myself while listening to it on my morning commute and also because it was clear that the size of the venues they’d be visiting would only get bigger and bigger. Luckily, they saw fit to pay another visit to Seattle this year, upsizing from Chop Suey to the still intimate Neumo’s, which felt especially cozy with the swampy warmth of packed wall-to-not-so-well-ventillated-wall and hanging-over-the-balcony with adoring onlookers.

And for good reason, for all the astoundingness of their recorded material, seeing Dave Longstreth and crew onstage performing is all the more jaw-dropping. Moment by moment, line by line, and note by note, the songs feel like a tenuous and delicate exploration of the limits of what makes a song and how a story can be told musically. The songs tremble and glow, flit and dive around the surface of an idea, rise and fall into big surrendery swells, and challenge the ambitious listeners seeking to take their physical response beyond clapping head bobbing to full on dancing. Despite this rather academic-seeming descriptions, the music remains brainy without becoming coldly cerebral; in fact, with the swirling rhythmic eddies, each member beginning in their own apparent orbit, and eventually coalescing, it feels like future soul, forward-looking yet with a full heart to match its sophistication. From an opening solo performance, to stripped down duets, but especially with the talents of the full group on display, each melodic episode was its own kind of thrilling. While Longstreth is the clear engineer of the operation, he wisely leaves plenty of room for vocalists Amber Coffman, Angel Deeradorean, and Haley Dekle to shine. Until seeing them in person, it somehow never occurred to me that the all of interlocking vocals could exist organically, but the syncopated showstopper brought down the house with the multipart, perfectly coordinated, rollicking vocal gymnastics. It was so amazing that the encore-concluding “Knotty Pine” was hardly necessary, but highly appreciated.

Jesse Jones of King5 News tests Campbell Soup’s claim that there are 32′ of noodles in every can. He lays out a can’s worth of noodles on a football field.

Slow news day? If you want to kill some time at work, watch it here. Way to embarrass us on Consumerist Jesse.

Photo by Sooz via Creative Commons

Couch Fest wants you to know that “watching short films in strangers’ houses = awkwardly awesome”. The second annual Couch Fest is a shorts film festival that takes place in people’s houses. On Saturday, November 7, all the houses taking part in the fest host 30 minute film programs that repeat all day. Fest goers go from house to house checking out the programs that interest them and each program has a built in intermission so people can talk about the movies they’re watching. It’s a fun way to see a lot of cool short films with a group of people who are every bit as dorky about this sort of thing as you are. There are two animation programs, two comedy programs, two experimental programs, a documentary program, a horror program, a mixed program and an “inappropriately awesome” program. It’s a mere $10 for the complete festival, which allows you to see any or all of the programs running throughout the day. The first show starts at 11 am and the final show starts at 7 pm and all programs repeat every hour on the hour. Go to the Couch Fest website for locations and other details.

If you’re looking for a more traditional film festival this weekend, head down south as the 26th annual Olympia Film Festival kicks off Friday, November 6 with an opening night gala, and a program of short films and a feature by American director Tom Schiller who will be in attendance for a post screening Q&A. The festival continues through November 14 with a eclectic collection of films that includes everything from 1920 German Expressionist classic The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari to Seattle filmmaker David Russo’s The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle, a hit at this year’s SIFF. Films on the festival calendar include well-loved classics of a variety of genres (The Muppet Movie, The Third Man, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, part 2) and rarely-screened features and documentaries both old and new well worth seeing.

Speaking of both SIFF and rarely-screened features worth seeing, Le Combat Dans L’île opens Friday, November 6, at SIFF Cinema. Romy Schneider plays Anne, a woman in a difficult marriage who discovers a carefully wrapped anti-tank bazooka in the hall closet. What’s a woman to do? After the bazooka is used in the attempted assassination of a left-wing member of Parliament, Anne ends up turning to her husband’s college friend as a confidante and a lover. Torn between the past and the present, Anne’s complicated path neatly stands in for the political struggles of France in the early 1960s when this film was made.

Austrian director Ulrich Seidl guides two untrained actors into powerful performances in Import Export, a look at “the horror and the beauty of existence” (Keith Uhlich, Time Out New York) that tells the parallel stories of Olga, a Ukrainian nurse who moves to Austria to try and make ends meet and Austrian Pauli, who travels to Ukraine to deliver video game consoles as they struggle with unemployment and existence. Opens at NWFF on Friday.

Also at NWFF: the Seattle premiere of 35 Shots of Rum, a beautifully shot study of human relationships by director Clair Denis that is centered around the complex relationship between Jo, a Parisian university student, and her father, Lionel, a train engineer.

The Grand Illusion hosts the Seattle premiere of a new 35mm print of 1947′s Odd Man Out, a film noir that tells the story of an IRA operative named Johnny McQueen. On the lam after breaking out of jail, Johnny (James Mason) decides to rob a bank to raise funds for the IRA but the robbery goes bad and he is seriously wounded by the police. Johnny meets a series of people who either want to help him or turn him over to the police as he makes his way through Dublin until finally he ends up heading for the waterfront and freedom–but can he make it there before the police?

Central Cinema pays tribute to the recently deceased John Hughes with a special screening of The Breakfast Club, perhaps his most popular work. The pre-show tribute includes a selection of Hughes trailers, classic movie moments, John Hughes trivia, and a sing along to a selection of soundtrack favorites.

Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s sweet and utterly charming comedy of romance, self-discovery and transformation Amelie is this week’s Midnight at the Egyptian film. Audrey Tatou is radiant as the quirky, kind-hearted title character who masterfully manipulates the people around her for both good and bad, depending on what they deserve, but may not have the courage to change her own life.

Ewan McGregor is a reporter in search of his next story when he encounters Geroge Clooney as a man who claims to be part of an experimental US military unit focused on using the paranormal as a new form of combat in The Men Who Stare at Goats, a based on a true story comedy screening at the The Guild 45th.

Seattle Police officer Timothy Brenton was murdered Halloween night when an unknown assailant pulled up next to his parked patrol car and shot him.

A flag was raised over the Space Needle this morning to recognize his loss and the city is hosting a public memorial tomorrow at 1 pm at Key Arena at the Seattle Center. Doors will open at 11 am.

Prior to the memorial service, there will be a memorial procession departing at 9 am from the E-1 parking lot at UW, just north of Husky Stadium, travelling South on Montlake Boulevard NE to 24th Avenue E, South on 24th Avenue E to 23rd Avenue Em South on 23rd Avenue E to E Madison Street, West on E Madison Street to E Pine Street, West on E Pine Street to Broadway Avenuem North on Broadway Avenue to E Denny Way, -West on E Denny Way to 1st Avenue N, and North on 1st Avenue N to Mercer Street where the Key Arena is located. SDOT has prepared a map of the procession, available here.

There will be about 1,000 to 1,500 vehicles participating in this procession, causing huge delays along the route. Drivers, be prepared in advance for long waits and try to find alternate routes where you can. Parking will be prohibited along the procession route while it is taking place and 1st Ave N between Denny and Mercer, and Mercer between 1st and 5th. Bus riders take note that you’ll have significant delays and reroutes as well. Metro is working on preparing a notice for bus riders that should be up later today at their site.

Tomorrow night kicks off Seattle’s first annual Cabaret Festival, presented by the Can Can and hosted all over the place: shows will be at the Moore, the Triple Door, and at ACT Theatre [Can Can].

As far as I can tell, everyone even sort of cabaret-y is going to be involved–The Tiger Lillies, The Circus Contraption Band, Orkester Zirconium, even Emerald City Soul Club is getting in on the show. Performance art and dancing and drag and comedy and something for pretty much everyone.

We recommend any of it, but particularly Scarlet Room with Vagabond Opera on Wednesday at the Triple Door. There are two shows: one at 7:00, all ages, and one at 10:00 21+. I particularly enjoy the description of Vagabond Opera: “Weaving elements of Kurt Weil, Duke Ellington and Edith Piaf with absurdist flair, theatrics and an old world mood, Vagabond Opera presents the new wave of opera–lusty voices singing in 13 languages and presenting a cabaret of rich musical phrasing, sparkling lyrics and indomitable stage presence, all played with exuberance, skill and a gritty Vagabond edge.”

We’ve talked about Scarlet Room here before, but the last time they played the Triple Door Bonnie Vie had this to say about them: “The band is like a fantastic mechanical doll; churning out a whirl of circus and cabaret melodies, with a stage presence that is larger than life.  With dark music-box-style keys, Alexsandra Weil – the group’s vocalist and pianist – weaves elaborate stories, written by Scarlet Room’s drummer, Eloise Govedare.”

The Triple Door is probably the perfect place for the spell of all of this dark swirling cabaret. You probably don’t want to miss it.

Japanese film director Kenji Mizoguchi was admired by the likes of Orson Welles, Jean-Luc Godard and Akira Kurosawa for his work. He began his career with remakes of German Expressionistic films and adaptations of O’Neill and Tolstoy. Later he moved towards realism, spending much time documenting Japan’s change from feudalism into modernism and he would spend much of his film career exploring social and political issues of the day.

One of his older films, The Downfall of Osen focuses on one of the issues that intrigued Mizoguchi for all of his career, the struggles of a “fallen woman” to cope with the world that imprisons and debases them. Isuzo Yamada portrays the abused mistress of a den of thieves who seeks redemption through her love of a young man who dreams of becoming a doctor.

The silent film is accompanied by a live music and sound score featuring an English language translation of the benshi – the live soundtrack given to Japanese silent films. Seattle’s Aono Jikken Ensemble return from touring with quirky Canadian director Guy Maddin’s film Brand Upon the Brain to lend their talents to The Downfall of Osen.

This special event is one night only, so don’t delay in getting your tickets. It plays SIFF Cinema on Sunday, November 15, 7:00 pm.