photo via laser radiohead

By now, true fans have gorged on In Rainbows, the In Rainbows discbox, the In Rainbows webcast, the In Rainbows CD packaging, and all other things Radiohead. But wait … there’s one more was to celebrate your adoration of the most important band in the universe. No, not the archives of the NYE webshow. Yes, Laser Radiohead at the Pacific Science Center’s planetarium, which premieres tonight. I have no idea what this will be like, but I’m hoping that at least one of you is brave enough to check it out to let the rest of us know just how mind-blowing it turns out to be. 9:15 pm, LASER DOME [myspace]

photos via annuals [myspace]

• Twenty-five years after its original release, Ridley Scott has produced a pristine, re-cut, ultra-high definition scan of Blade Runner [nyt]. Most of the world will have to wait until next month to see this “definitive edition” on DVD. Somehow, we’re lucky enough that it is screening at the Cinerama through next Thursday. No matter how fancy your home theater system, I doubt that it rivals their beautiful 68 foot screen and twinkling starlights. [cinerama]
• I know that there are far too many good shows on Saturday, but I’m mostly consumed with making a tough call or sprinting the few blocks between Downtown and Belltown: (1) From that first small deal-making show and four song EP this spring, Grand Archives continue to get better and better, leaving me worrying that our days of seeing them in small venues is numbered. They open for Sub Pop labelmates Helio Sequence and hometown seemingly ever-touring Minus the Bear. (fun Wikipedia fact of the day: The name “Minus the Bear” comes from an inside joke between the band members, referring to the 80s TV show B.J. and the Bear.) $18, 8p [showbox]
• (2) Up the street, boisterous North Carolina six-piece and hype-machine case-study [ox-am] Annuals co-headline with charismatic and moody Atlantan youngsters of Manchester Orchestra. $10, 9pm [crocodile]

“little white doe”, Mandy Greer (Seattle, WA), courtesy McLeod Residence

… still calibrating our recommend-o-trons, but here’s another item for your thursday evening:

Before McLeod Residence welcomes the biomimetic butterflies, laser speckley closet, and Running Plaid video installations to further their mission of making the nerd hangout even nerdier with artistic programming projects, they’re bidding their Seattle–Brooklyn Disconnects [#] a fond farewell. Say goodbye to Mandy Greer’s spectacular technicolor parlor transformation [#] and the rest of the exhibits at tonight’s closing party. While you’re there, check out the Barbarian Group’s amazing interactive video mirrors (the photo below hardly does it justice) for a tiny preview of things to come. 6 pm [mcleodresidence]

“McLeod Mirror”, Barbarian Group, courtesy McLeod Residence

• Brazil’s CSS have been touring like mad lately, and their live shows are purportedly filled with wild antics and silly outfits. Their music, meanwhile, is always filled with fun and sassy dance-punk adorableness. And it’s yet another all-ages show, gasp! [neumos]
• If CSS is a little too client-side for you, the Seattle PHP Meetup hits the South Lake Union Vivace tonight. [upcoming]
• If you haven’t caught Pacific Northwest Ballet’s Stravinsky 125, then why not tonight? Celebrating composer Igor Stravinsky’s 125th birthday, classic choreography by George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins remains engaging and relevant even today. [pac nw ballet]
• The Seattle Symphony’s Bridging the 48th Parallel Festival of Central European music continues tonight with Czech composer Leoš Janáček’s Glagolitic Mass [mp3]. Including both chorus and orchestra, this work is distinctly Czech, thoroughly modern, and full of drama–and something you likely won’t have many chances to see. [seattle symphony]
• Guess what? SIFF! [mb, siff]

Photo by Shawn [flickr] via our group pool [#]. Come on in, the water’s fine!

Happy choosing Seattleities, you really can’t go wrong with tonight’s options.

• In a magazine blessed with incredible writers, Atul Gawande’s pieces in the New Yorker always manage to be stand-outs. Writing frequently about medicine, the surgeon’s prose is exceptionally crafted. Tonight, you can hear him read at the Central Library. 7 pm, free. [SPL]
• It would be easy to dismiss Arctic Monkeys as a pure phenomenon of an overactive hype machine if the young Sheffield quartet wasn’t so damn good as what they do. With their second album, they avoid a predictable sophomore slump with another collection of tightly-crafted, rhythmically-urgent, and lyrically-engaging tracks. Openers Be Your Own PET threaten to make tonight’s lineup competitive with last night’s in terms of high energy, exhausting, but thrilling musical experiences. 8pm, SOLD OUT, but it’s worth mentioning that the first time I saw Arctic Monkeys was after begging strangers for a spare ticket on a rainy Leidseplein alleyway. I got both a ticket and a swollen lip from a collision with an English girl’s skull in the churning Amsterdam dance pit. So, I’m just saying that it might be worth your time to test your ticket karma. [showbox]
• When it rains, it pours. This week is just thick with choices that are better than we deserve. If you can’t make it to Arctic Monkeys, there’s more brit-punk down the street with the Kooks 8:30p, $12 [crocodile] and insouciant dance-rock that will leave you just as sweaty from !!! just up the hill. 8p, $13adv [neumos].

• The Seattle University chapter of Oxfam is hosting a screening tonight of Black Gold, a 2006 documentary about the coffee trade. Dinner at 6:30, film at 7:30, at New Freeway Hall, 5018 Rainier Ave S. Contact Shasti Conrad at conrads@seattleu.edu or 206.296.2480 for details.
• Northwest Film Forum [site] shows their spiffy new 35mm print of Annie Hall, tonight through next Thursday at 7 and 9 pm weekdays, Saturday and Sunday at 5. I have never understood the appeal of this film, but, then, I’ve never been much of a Woody Allen fan, anyway.
• Midnight at the Egyptian [site] this week is the brilliant Wait Until Dark, a drama about a blind woman who unknowingly brings home an object wanted by some seriously bad guys whose melodramatic plot is saved from silliness by the extraordinary performances of the cast, including the always perfect Audrey Hepburn.
• Hot Fuzz is playing throughout the city, but you should go see this sardonic comedy at the Neptune [site] because it’s a great place to see a film.

image via The Mountain Goats

Ellen Forney will be bringing her badassery to the Wild Rose tonight at 8:00. She’s touring in support of her book “I Love Led Zeppelin,” and in person Forney steps it up a notch or twelve with a whole multimedia extravaganza. There will be animation, there will be drinking, and there will be a whole lot of laughing. Located at 1021 Pike.

But then there are robots, in the UW’s Kane Hall. Well, maybe not actual robots, but Cynthia Breazeal, the director of the Robotic Life Group at the MIT Media Lab, will be talking about human-robot communication and suchlike. The plan is “to develop robots that engage with us as helpful partners that will ultimately play a valuable, rewarding, and unprecedented role in the everyday lives of ordinary people [upcoming].” Free, starts at 7:00, but get there early–folks like robots.

And then of course The Mountain Goats are playing at Neumos. The last album, “Get Lonely” was about loss, and about wandering, and about figuring out what life is like after someone well-loved has left. The Mountain Goats are weird and dreamy and sad, and you know how I love weird and dreamy. Doors are at 8:00, tickets $15 at the door.

• columnist visits NYC, discovers joy of walking, mass transit [times]
• we have reached a day and age where optimizing espresso wait times has become a subject for graduate research [starbucksgossip]
• everything’s coming up rainbows and Jay Allen says, OMG Seattle is, like, SO gay! [zeroboss]
• scenes from the front lines of seattle’s big wait for the next hot game system [spanning_time]
• another take on zune’s “welcome to the social” [boingboing]
• Oprah held a Grey’s Anatomy party [o] (count how many times will she calls the show Grey’s and how many times she calls Dempsey McSteamy!) and we weren’t invited [seattle.lj]
• a review of the pernice brothers show that was omitted from the thursday agenda [seratonein]
• Hummer driver finds a way to make gas guzzling more offensive [seattlest]