Photo by Manual W. [flickr] via his goat set [#].

Just above the fold in today’s Seattle PI is a piece about the growing trend of renting goats to clear brush. [pi] Slow news day, I suppose, since the Times ran a similar item last fall [times, mb], but also very cool.

When I was a teen, I used to go to great lengths to avoid what I saw/see as the most odious of chores: mowing the lawn. I developed many methods which included the incredibly lame (but effective!) technique of feigning an inability to start the mower. Of course, this left the lawn mowing to my sister who recognized my shirking for exactly what it was: BS. If only we had had a goat. Sibling hatred would have been averted for sure.

Oh, I know $450 is a LOT more expensive than relying on child labor, especially when it’s your own child, but eventually the market will see a demand for single goats and single lawns, right? And then our nation’s teens will be free of the horror that is lawn mowing. I’m only mostly joking. In this day where we’re all (or we should all be) measuring our impact on the global climate, isn’t eliminating one more potential polluter (gas/electric powered mowers) a very cool idea? Plus, maybe with more goats, there will be more goat cheeeeese. Yum.

On the not so positive side though, did anyone else catch this in the article:

“Accompanied by their border collies, the goatherds are with their critters 24 hours a day when on city jobs. They sleep in their trucks. Madsen has a guard dog to protect his goats from coyotes on rural assignments.

“But when I’m in the city, I worry about people,” he said.

Last month, 15 goats were shot near Oakland while they were clearing land for fire protection.

So far, Madsen and Dunakin have had no such urban problems. After setting up an electric fence to keep the goats from straying, they have little to do but keep watch over the herd and answer questions posed by curious neighbors. “

Who shoots goats and why? People are so weird.

Anyway, in other goat news, did you know there was a local goat rescue group? [pi] Now you do!

• Seattle Shakespeare Company has their pay-what-you-will preview of The School for Scandal at the Seattle Center’s Center House Theater. Zee recommends the play as “a satirical look at a young country girl who marries into nobility and then horrifies her husband by joining a clique of gossipers and backstabbers.” The play’s author, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, may have died in 1816 but still manages to hit a 2007 nerve or two. [seattle shakespeare]
• Sparta spun off from At the Drive-In (and recently added a former member of Jade Tree’s dearly departed Denali) and now tour the country with their mildly pleasant rock music. What’s with all the spinoff coming through Seattle lately anyway? As a bonus, it’s all-ages. [neumos]
• If you notice huge crowds at the Seattle Center tonight, blame should probably lie with the Police. Will Sting bring his mandolin? The magic eight ball is hazy on that one, but Zee wisely advises that if you haven’t gotten your tickets yet but want to go, don’t expect to sit in the good seats. [seattle center]
• You know it, you love it (or at least hopefullly don’t hate it yet): SIFF. [mb, siff]

Photo by benjy [flickr] from our group pool [#]. Bring your floaties and join up!

Seattle seems to be taking a break for the night. Is everyone just staying home and watching American Idol or what? For those looking to get out, here are a few options…

• Superstar violinist Itzhak Perlman plays tonight with the Seattle Symphony at Benaroya Hall. The Symphony says it’s sold out, but it looks like there’s a few expensive seats left. Or hit Craigslist to buy tickets off the one classical music enthusiast who can use the Internet. [Seattle Symphony]
• The Northwest Film Forum is in the midst of a Mizoguchi retrospective, full of new 35mm print goodness. If you’re occupied tomorrow night, then tonight’s your last chance to catch Ugetsu. Arguably the greatest work by the Japanese director, this 1953 ghost story follows a 16th-century potter who abandons his village for the big city. Probably the only chance you’ll ever see this on the big screen, so head over and see if you can grab a single-screening ticket–or better yet, get your $50 series pass and enjoy all 7 films. [NW Film Forum]
• If you’re less of a violin and foreign film type and more into hip hop, lucky you! Lupe Fiasco is playing the HUB tonight. [Myspace]
• Finally, if you’re eager for a night at the keyboard, see if you can dig up a code for tomorrow morning’s pre-sale of the Decemberists’ May appearance at the Paramount. [Ticketmaster]

• A herd of 250 female goats arrived on the 800 block of Northeast 75th Street to graze on the brush. We can only hope that there’s still time to see them at work. [seattletimes]
• The members of Phoenix grew up listening to American music from the nineteen seventies and eighties, got together in a Versailles garage, and filtered their obsessions into a series of English language albums. Their first two records fused pop, soul, and electro influences; the latest veers toward jangly rock. If you remember the scene in Lost in Translation where Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson spend the evening partying in Tokyo to fend off melancholic angst, you know just how compelling it is to hear these influences run back and forth through a French prism. The band closes their North American tour with two shows tonight — a free in-store performance at Easy Street in Queen Anne [#] and later closing out the evening at the Crocodile. [#]
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• It seems that one time only performances come but once a year. When David Schmader’s legendary real-time commentary for Paul Verhoeven’s Showgirls was added to the 2003 DVD, he threatened to hang up the act for good. Tonight, he resurrects it at the Triple Door. The film, which follows the rise of a potato-chip-loving dancer, is a perfect example of the “So Bad It’s Good” aesthetic; Schmader’s running commentary makes it all the more hilarious. [upcoming]
• Tonight is the first stage in the all-out takeover of Seattle by Editors. If you close your eyes and mentally squint, you could easily confuse them with Interpol, except with legitimate British accents. They play a free in-store session at the Queen Anne Easy Street Records at 6. Tomorrow they join stellastarr* for a sold-out performance at Chop Suey, which they’ll follow with a DJ set. [~easystreet]

arcade fire

Originally uploaded by joshc.

Remember when it used to be funny to make fun of Canadian music? How we’d jingoistically laugh at their rules about having a certain percentage of Canadian artists played on the radio? Clearly, those days are over as any Shuffle Songs / Party Shuffle adventure on iTunes is likely to hit a brilliant Canadian band within three tracks or fewer.

Tomorrow, some of Montreal’s finest make their way to the Paramount [#]. The Arcade Fire, whose late-2004 Funeral[$] quickly secured a place as an album most likely to end up on countless “albums that changed my life” lists, bring their fantastic stage show to Seattle.

And by “fantastic” I mean completely flipping out awesome. That is, if you go for the sort of show filled with performers who switch instruments between songs, turn electric guitars and violins into marching band instruments, transform tambourine playing into a full-body workout, do robot dances while singing, occasionally flip out and/or strangle each other, and create wall of soundish backing vocals.

The internet says that the show is sold out, which makes a lot of sense. However, if you’re as resourceful as I think you are, you will explore your social networks and craigslist to find a spare ticket. Your Wednesday night deserves it.

I saw them last Thursday at the CMJ music marathon performance in Central Park. While I don’t think it’s reasonable for us to expect a repeat surprise David Bowie appearance in Seattle, it’s completely sensible to expect to have an incredibly good time. If you want to do your homework before attending the show, give the recently re-released self-titled EP [$] a spin on your playlist, since the band seems to like using the middle section of their setlist as an opportunity to play some of their older songs which usually sound new to people who have only heard the LP.

Along for the ride are Bell Orchestre a subset of the Arcade Fire who play instrumental music that would be suitable for scoring your next sexy spy film, and are the kind of band to inspire fans to spend the concert sketching Richard Perry playing the stand-up bass. Also on the agenda are up-and-comers Wolf Parade, who are sort of like a sparser fusion-jazzier version of the headliners. Of course, this is a completely unfair comparison, but the point is that if you like the Arcade Fire, it’s really likely that you’ll also enjoy Wolf Parade; so why not show up on time?

related

• You Ain’t No Picasso has a few tracks from Wolf Parade’s CBC Radio 3 appearance online for your listening pleasure [#]
• Matthew Derby’s essay about the Arcade Fire is better than anything I could ever write about them [believer]

Admit it. You sometimes miss elementary school: you, a carpet square, a room full of people, and someone reading a story. Luckily, you need not return to the trauma of childhood to recreate story hour. On a fairly regular basis, authors show up at bookstores to read to anyone who shows up, for free.

Tonight is no exception. Well, the exception is some events are more exciting than others: in particular, Kevin Guilfoile will be at Elliott Bay Company tonight at 7:30 pm reading from his new novel, Cast of Shadows [$]. Kevin is probably best known for his work with McSweeney’s and for being one of the very funny co-authors of My First Presidentiary [$]. Having mastered the art of the faux-autobiography, Guilfoile’s new book is a philosophical thriller about what happens when the teenage daughter of a fertility specialist is brutally murdered and her father uses his professional skills and a bit of DNA extracted from the death scene to create a copy of her killer. The novel has been very well reviewed, and the best part about readings is that you can pick up a copy of your very own to have autographed afterwards (authors are among the more approachable celebrities).

Get there a few minutes early to buy some milk and chocolate-covered graham crackers from the cafe. It’s an ideal fusion of the warm glow of childhood memories with the benefit of feeling literary and sophisticated on a Wednesday evening (don’t worry — Lost is a re-run).