Seattle A&P - Issue No. 3 by Index Newspapers

FALL

ARTS

SEAT TLE ART & PERFOR M ANCE QUARTERLY Vol. 1, No. 3 Fall 2012

THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE TO SEATTLE’S BUSIEST SEASON THE ATTEMPT TO WRITE AN

OPERA WTO ABOUT

ZOE SCOFIELD’S BRAIN

THAT ENDED IN

ANARCHY

NANCY GUPPY’S HAIR GLORIA GRAHAME’S FACE AMY O’NEAL’S BUTT

THE ART OF

JEFFRY MITCHELL AT THE HENRY ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:

HOW WOULD HE REDESIGN THE WATERFRONT?

REBECCA BROWN ON WESTERN BRIDGE IS FALLING

DEA D

JAMES BALDWIN

IN EXILE

WOLVES

JOAQUI N P H O E N I X

PH I L I P S EY MOU R H O F F M A N

AMY ADAMS

The Master written and directed by PAUL T H O M A S A N D E R S O N

T I CK E T S O N S A L E NOW

PROJECTED IN 70MM Only theater in the state projecting this film in 70mm, and only one of a few in the entire nation. Superior Technology - Come see the latest upgrades!

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COVER ART

FALL 2 012

seattleaandp.com

ART Interviews with Mary Ann Peters, Luis Croquer, and NKO Rey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 4 Lego installation in a random window . . . . . p. 7 Farewell to Western Bridge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 9 Thirteen artists redesign the waterfront . . . p. 11 PERFORMANCE Interviews with Amy O’Neal and Zoe Scoﬁeld . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 4 ACT’s very ambitious Ramayana . . . . . . . p. 23 CLASSICAL MUSIC What the inventor of the atom bomb said to the composer of Pines of Rome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 9 TV Nancy Guppy interviews Nancy Guppy . . . . p. 9 PHOTOGRAPHY James Baldwin in exile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 15 POETRY K. Silem Mohammad’s anagrams of Shakespeare sonnets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 17

DINING Should a food critic always be undercover? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 24 FILM Anatomy of Gloria Grahame’s face . . . . . . . . p. 7 David Schmader on queer ﬁlm . . . . . . . . . . p. 29 FICTION “The Girl Who Cried Wolf,” by Rebecca Brown. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 27 FALL CALENDAR Visual Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Performance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Classical & Opera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jazz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Readings & Lectures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Film . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

p. 31 p. 39 p. 43 p. 45 p. 47 p. 49

To get an event listed in the winter calendar, send it by October 31 to calendar@seattle aandp.com. For advertising information, contact adinfo@seattleaandp.com or 206-323-7101.

OPERA Anarchists write an opera about WTO. What could possibly go wrong? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 19

Genius Juice If You Don’t Already Have a Bottle, It’s Too Late

here was going to be an article in this issue all about Genius Juice. This wine is a blend of cabernet (45 percent), syrah (45 percent), and mourvedre (10 percent) made by Sparkman Cellars, a Woodinville winery that has a solid and growing reputation. The first vintage of Genius Juice got five different labels, each telling the story of a different Genius Award winner: the artist Jeffry Mitchell, the writer Rebecca Brown, the musical group Shabazz Palaces, the filmmaker Lynn Shelton, and the performance venue On the Boards. We were planning to tell you to buy some, actually, and not just because that case of Lynn Shelton sure would go great

Editorial

PUBLISHER Tim Keck

EDITOR Christopher Frizzelle

Art & Production

ART DIRECTOR Aaron Huffman SENIOR EDITORS Bethany Jean Clement (dining) Paul Constant (readings and lectures) Jen Graves (art, classical music) Brendan Kiley (performance) Charles Mudede (jazz) David Schmader (ﬁlm) OPERA EDITOR Rebecca Brown POETRY EDITOR Heather McHugh CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Sherman Alexie, Trisha Ready STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Kelly O COPY EDITORS Gillian Anderson, Anna Minard WEB EDITOR Megan Seling SHIPMATES Dominic Holden, Cienna Madrid, Emily Nokes, Dave Segal, Eli Sanders, David “Goldy” Goldstein

Degenerate Art Ensemble Olson Kundig Architects

UNDERBELLY dance / livemusic / animation / subterranean installation

October 5th & 6th @ 8 & 10pm at your Oscar party whenever she becomes the second woman director ever to win best picture. No, we were going to tell you to buy some because the sale of Genius Juice fully funds the $5,000 Genius Award in visual art this year. But it turns out that 25 cases of wine can sell pretty fast. Like, um, all of it was gone by the day after it was bottled. If you are already sad about missing it, get happy—we’ll make some next year. (If you want to ﬁnd out about it before it sells out next year, e-mail geniusjuice@thestranger .com.) And if you weren’t one of the lucky ones who got their hands on some, well, here’s the good news: The Genius Award in visual art this year is fully funded. Join us for the Genius Awards on September 22 at the Moore Theater to see which amazing visual artist wins all that sweet, sweet wine money. Q

PRODUCTION MANAGER Erica Tarrant EDITORIAL DESIGNERS Mike Force, Mary Traverse SENIOR AD DESIGNER Mary Traverse AD DESIGNERS Chelcie Blackmun, Mike Force, Shena Lee, Joel Schomberg

Advertising SALES ADMINISTRATOR / ONLINE ADVERTISING MANAGER Sarah Cortés SENIOR REGIONAL ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE Ben Demar SENIOR ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE/THEATER Juliette Brush Hoover CLUB ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE Alli Steblina ENTERTAINMENT ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE Cheree Best DISPLAY ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES Devin Bannon, Katie Phoenix CLASSIFIEDS ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES Bobby Anderson, Heather Hansen

Promotions EVENTS/PROMOTIONS DIRECTOR Carey Christie

Seattle Art & Performance is published by Index Newspapers LLC and produced by The Stranger

Haruko Nishimura as “Gracie” / photo: Bruce Tom

Seattle Art & Performance Quarterly

Panda with Honey Tree, by Jeffry Mitchell, 2006. His retrospective at Henry Art Gallery, Like a Valentine: The Art of Jeffry Mitchell, runs October 27 through January 27 (see p. 31). He also shows work this season at James Harris Gallery (see p. 35) and SOIL (see p. 37). And he’s mentioned on at least two other pages of this issue of A&P—see if you can ﬁnd them!

underneath the Seattle Center FREE extremely limited # of tickets to be released on 9/10 at: degenerateartensemble.com

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READER INTERACTIVE DIRECTOR Nancy Hartunian EVENTS/PROMOTIONS COORDINATOR Stacia Beer READER PROMOTIONS COORDINATOR Michelle David

Business GENERAL MANAGER Laurie Saito C.F.O. Rob Crocker REGIONAL AR MANAGER Tracey Cataldo BOOKKEEPER Renee Krulich RECEPTIONIST Mike Nipper OFFICE MANAGER Evanne Hall

Technology CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER Anthony Hecht LEAD DEVELOPER Jay Jansheski DEVELOPERS Brenn Berliner, Nick Nelson IS COORDINATOR Erin Resso

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ART/PERFORMANCE Amy O’Neal, choreographer, performing at Velocity Dance Center Oct 12–21

The Lineup Questions by Brendan Kiley, Jen Graves, Sarah Galvin, and Melody Datz Portraits by Kelly O

Zoe Scofield, choreographer, performing at a secret location as part of the City Arts Festival Oct 19–20

How did you come to be a choreographer and not just a dancer in other people’s companies? I always knew that I was going to dance no matter what. I used to sneak out of my parents’ house in Ankara, Turkey, when my dad was stationed there with the Air Force, to go to clubs in the middle of the night. Watching people just dance, with no one telling them what to do or how to do it—I was hooked on that. My development as a choreographer is heavily grounded in exploring why we create what we create and sharing with an audience—not just the ﬁnal outcomes, but also that process. You’ve called your upcoming October show at Velocity a “nonverbal lecture” about your inﬂuences, from ballet to pole dancing. What will that look like? The piece consists of sections I call “exhibits.” They all have titles like “Exhibit A: The Sample,” “Exhibit B: The Imitator,” “The Chair Dance,” “The Booty Dance,” “The Mash-Up,” “The Cover,” and so on. I will perform an example of each of these things… There will be projected text throughout the piece expressing my opinions and experiences with what I am doing and why. You’ve written essays about your ass, and it’s a featured part of the Velocity show—why should we care so much about your ass? Ha! This piece is about the ass—not my ass. There is a lot of ass-dancing in this show, and a lot of different kinds, but the ass represents so much about the human body. The butt is the largest muscle in the body: You have to have a strong ass in order to move. When we get old, if your butt gets weak, you fall apart. The ass means different things to different people. We sit on our asses all day long, and yet we are so removed from it. They’re so overly sexualized, and yet we shit from that area. It’s such a fascinating, complex part of the body, we even use it in everyday language: “Get your ass over here!” Q

A&P: SEATTLE ART & PERFORMANCE

A lot of your work deals with intimate stuff—sex, violence, self-image, eating disorders, compulsion. Do people make weird assumptions about your life based on your work? Oh, yes. Sometimes my family has been like: “What the fuck is going on with you?” People who don’t know me think I’m going to be crazy and mean, or that I’m totally not together. Or that I have all these issues and problems. But I feel a duty to draw things out of myself in my work. And I don’t mean this in some martyrish way—I feel very privileged that it’s my duty—but it can be very hard and very lonely. Sometimes those things make people very, very uncomfortable, but other people feel recognized. I’ve been thinking about why art matters so much to people, and maybe it’s because it can be our best common denominator—it’s inherently nebulous and murky, and there’s the space for everybody to imprint and overlay their own experience on it and feel like they’re not alone. So you feel like you have to do this hard work of exploring some darkness in yourself for the sake of strangers in the audience? Yes. I had a teacher once, and I told her I was ashamed of something. She asked: “Did you do it?” I said yes. She said: “Then other people have done it, too.” You’re not alone, you know? And who are you to not bring that to the work and share that? I talked about that with some students recently: There’s this understood, unspoken contract a performer has with an audience that they came to see this thing and you can’t back down from that—you can’t hide, and you can’t be a pussy about it. You have to be open and vulnerable, almost pushing the boundaries of yourself and your body, so there’s a sort of erasing of the boundaries of skin between the performer and the person watching. Q

Art Must Be Beautiful, Artist Must Be Beautiful, video, playing at Seattle Art Museum Oct 11–Jan 13

Well, you’re not a person. So what are you? I’m a video, made during a performance that took place in front of a large audience in 1975. I show Marina Abramovic brushing and combing her hair. My scalp hurts just looking at her. Is she trying to hurt herself? Her goal is to repeat the actions and the words “until I have destroyed my hair and face,” so yeah. The words she chants are “Art must be beautiful, artist must be beautiful.” By punishing herself and making you watch, she wanted to protest the old idea that art should be pretty enough for the fanciest room in the house. I would look away if I could. Some people watch for a long time, and I always wonder what’s going through their minds. Have you had a chance to see any of her other performances? I just missed the one where—it happened in 1974, a year before I was born—she set up a table with a bunch of objects, including a gun, and invited people to use them on her any way they pleased. She almost got killed; I wouldn’t be here if she had. I loved the stuff with her boyfriend, when they balanced so he held an arrow taut to her heart, and when they broke up by walking the Great Wall of China from opposite ends and saying goodbye in the middle. Two years ago, she installed herself at a table and stared at visitors at the Museum of Modern Art. People loved this; they lined up to sit across from her. She called the exhibition The Artist Is Present. Art must be present, artist must be present. Can I go now? Q

Luis Croquer, new deputy director of art and education at the Henry, curator of Now Here Is Also Nowhere Oct 27–May 5

Your debut at the Henry is a show described as dealing with “intangible concepts or material (or lack thereof).” Is a lot of what’s going to be on display not going to be on display? That’s part of the reﬂection—that we often tend to think in material or in visible terms, and a lot of this work is either completely invisible, or it’s visible through the mark that the artist left. It will be fun to consider how those things can hold a space and how we have a privilege in our culture for the act that is visible. When people think of gesture, we will always think of marks that have physical forms, but a lot of artists make gestures that have the same beauty and potency, it’s just that they live in a separate world. What are three things that inﬂuence you as a curator? Harald Szeemann’s show When Attitudes Become Form from 1969 is really important to me. The work of Alighiero Boetti, in terms of thinking of hybridity and different mediums from photography to carpets that were made in Afghanistan—the articulation of the artist as some sort of wanderer who was able to be more like an anthropologist. And the third one is ongoing: I worked when I was in Detroit with a Belgian artist who was in his 70s, and his name is Jef Geys. He is just a really wonderful philosopher and assassin, friend, and questioner of the art object. He is a real sort of somebody who introduces question marks to everything. He’s a genius. I think he’s one of the most important artists alive today, and he’s under-recognized, particularly in this country. Is there anything else we need to know about you as a new creative person in Seattle? I don’t make music, but I think I’m a pretty good dancer. If not, I wouldn’t be a Latin. I feel terrible now; I may have to prove it. Q

Mary Ann Peters, artist, showing at James Harris Gallery Oct 4–27

Let’s talk about Lebanon. Let’s talk about Lebanon. Wow. My family immigrated here from what is now Lebanon, although at the time it was Syria. My brother, sister, and I finally went back this year for the first time. We went to the four towns where our grandparents are from. At one, we had this wild experience with people coming out of houses holding the unofficial ledger of my grandparents getting married. What’s an image people will see in your show this fall? I got interested in Hama [in Syria], the original site of the current Assad’s father’s power grab. In 1982, he essentially did what his son is doing now, only within closed borders and without people being able to see what happened. Upwards of 20,000 people were killed there in 1982, and it’s a beautiful city known for these waterwheels. There’s a protest that commemorates the original assault on Hama, and what happens is people pour red dye into the river. I made a painting called Painting the River Red. You’ve said this trip made you more confident in using places and events from Syria and Lebanon as source material. How does the confidence actually show up in the paintings and drawings? For me, where I needed the confidence is in what I would say was the ethical confines of it. I really felt like I wanted to understand my own motives for making this work, and that they be respectful and at the same time honest. I think there was a lot of confusion around multicultural discussion in American art culture—a lot of making those artists who were actually given any credibility into poster children or exact storytellers. Well, there is no exact story. I just thought, “I just want to make this work.” Q

NKO Rey, grafﬁti and installation artist, organizing the bike race/scavenger hunt/street-art tour Art Dash 4 Ca$h on Oct 20

You’re a cofounder of the Free Sheep Foundation and art director of Saint Genet. Both of these projects, especially Free Sheep, have invaded abandoned and disused spaces for installation and performance projects. What attracts you to places like that? I think disused spaces’ past lifetimes exist as strange ghosts. The work DK Pan [of Free Sheep] and I do comments on development, urbanization, and the poetry of memory. Abandoned buildings are storehouses of collective memory; layers of history are compressed in the moment when you occupy that space. When you consciously cross a boundary, you move toward transcendental experience. In communicating the experience, you engage collective memory. Your work often lives in a legal gray area—how do you think criminality affects art? Structure, not legality, is the real issue. Art defined by transgression is the most immediate and desperate form of expression. It’s the most fundamental human act, yet can lack subtlety in its rawness. Working within structures like museums or galleries offers an opportunity to expand the scale or scope of the work, but risks being influenced by commercial and social ideologies. While doing street art, have you ever encountered someone doing something more illegal than you? Once I met a man who had replaced all of his teeth with crack. He said, “I’ve got diamonds for teeth!” He had little baggies of crack stuffed in the empty sockets. I hear one of your art collectives, called New Mystics, is organizing a 12-hour bike race and scavenger hunt called “Art Dash 4 Ca$h.” We’re working with City Arts Festival to stage a 12hour, alley cat–style bike scavenger hunt/race that’s a tour of public art and graffiti throughout Seattle and King County. There will be bikes, loose times, and cash prizes. Q FALL 2012

A&P: SEATTLE ART & PERFORMANCE

There’s nothing these eyes haven’t seen. Nothing. Whatever you pull out will not surprise or shock her.

Who can forget the erotic elegance Grahame’s eyebrows achieved in the movie In a Lonely Place, which starred Humphrey Bogart and was directed by her then husband, Nicholas Ray? A year later, Ray found his beautiful wife in bed with his 14-year-old son (her stepson). He divorced her soon after that scandal, and she married his son not long after he became legal.

The best (and possibly only) book about Grahame is Suicide Blonde: The Life of Gloria Grahame by Vincent Curcio. A suicide blond is a woman whose hair is “dyed by her own hand.” The expression is not a compliment.

Grahame produced four children from her four marriages. One, a son, came from her marriage with the director Nicholas Ray (Rebel Without a Cause), and two sons came from Ray’s son Anthony. This made Anthony at once a brother and a stepfather to the same person (Grahame’s son with Nicholas).

In the movie that immortalized Gloria Grahame, The Big Heat, a mob henchman scalds this part of her face with boiling coffee. For the rest of the movie, only the right side of her face is not covered in bandages.

Writers were fond of calling Grahame “the girl with the novocaine lip.” Like her soul, the upper lip was unmoving and unfeeling. Kissing Grahame was like kissing a gorgeous stone.

Out of this mouth came some of the most famous words in the history of noir: “I was born when he kissed me; I died when he left me; I lived a few weeks while he loved me” (In a Lonely Place).

ROB LOWE’S LEGO MUSEUM

One Man, One Window, One Hilarious Obsession

CORE

Who She Is: Gloria Grahame, sexiest femme fatale in the history of ﬁlm noir Who Made Her: Reginald Michael Bloxam Hallward and Jeanne McDougall Where You Can See More of This Face: Seattle Art Museum’s Women in the Shadows: The Film Noir Cycle (Sept 27 to Dec 6)

PROMINENCE

N ZO VEC N TI E VE

Anatomy of an Actual Star

RA D ZO IA N T IV E E

Anatomy of a Film Star by Charles Mudede

CHROMOSPHERE

CORONA

PHOTOSPHERE

And Now for a Few Words from a Miniature Kite

am fierce and I will kill you. I am a samurai. Look at my earrings! And my facial hair! I am also a kite, made of super-light mulberry paper and tiny, slivered bamboo spars. This is my actual size. I fly. I can fly inside buildings, float around cubicles, speed down grocery-store aisles, ride alongside escalators. I can go on trains and planes. Back when, miniature-kite-flying was a hobby of retired samurai. This fall at Paper Hammer, I will be in an art show of kites so small they can fit into the palm of your hand (1400 Second Ave, www.paper-hammer.com, Sept 19–Oct 27). I will be the biggest thing there. My maker is Nobuhiko Yoshizumi. He lives in Kyoto and is a master kite-maker—he holds the Guinness World Record for the smallest kite. By the way, do you know about the Drachen Foundation? It’s the awesomest local thing that nobody has ever heard of. It’s kite central. It has the world’s largest kite collection (you can visit if you make an appointment at www.drachen .org) and exists entirely to tell people about kites, because they appear in pretty much every y human culture.

ob Lowe—not the Rob Lowe—is a night-shift publicsafety officer at Harborview Medical Center. Sometimes he transports injured bodies or witnesses autopsies: “They can be obscene. You just have to have a sense of humor about them.” Sometimes he must forcibly restrain drugged-out perpetrators: to insert catheters, for instance, or to affix spit sock hoods, designed to impede the transfer of saliva when patients begin biting the staff. He has also been a set designer, a cruise-ship receptionist, and a firefighter: “I’ve been in explosions.” Working in hotel security, he’s served as a bodyguard to the stars, including Britney Spears, Aretha Franklin, and Ellen DeGeneres, who was especially “not too friendly.” Outside work, Rob builds intricate Lego sets (they’re like “dollhouses for little boys”) and then carefully displays them in the corner window of his ground-floor apartment unit on Capitol Hill, using empty cottage-cheese and salad-dressing containers to create makeshift levels. There’s a jail, a haunted castle, an ambulance station, a lighthouse, a pet store, a duplex, and an ice cream stand, among other things, and the pedestrian details make the scenes endearing. Watch for: Lego lawn mowers, garbage trucks, chain saws, coffeemakers, swivel chairs, conveyor belts, streetlights, and fridges stocked with tiny plastic hot dogs. There are even a couple Lego trees on Lego fire. Stop by. It’s free. (600 E Denny Way, blinds open daily 2 pm–3 am) MARTI JONJAK

KELLY O

FALL 2012

Oct 12 – Nov 11

WO R L D P R E MI ER E!

One of the world’s most beloved and enduring legends, brought spectacularly to life.

Ramayana Youth Ensemble Sep 15 A fast-paced performance of music, dance, puppetry, and storytelling inspired by the epic Ramayana.

Ramayana From Her Perspective Sep 21-22 Three local dance companies share the stories and perspectives of some of Ramayana’s women’s stories.

The Ramayana Lecture Series Sep 29, Oct 7, Oct 14, and Nov 3 A four-part lecture series on the Ramayana in South and South East Asia. Co-sponsored in partnership with ACT’s new adaptation of the Ramayana and the UW Southeast Asia Center and the South Asia Center at the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies.

acttheatre.org | (206) 292-7676 | 700 Union Street, Seattle See it all with an ACTPass! s!

A&P: SEATTLE ART & PERFORMANCE

Now You Can Die Happy,

Western Bridge

estern Bridge, we know that after October 20, you are closing your great big heavy front door for the last time, sealing shut 10,000 square feet and eight straight years of solid awesome. You gave us enormous videos of the Amazon at dusk. You gave us dancers in total darkness, running at each other at high speeds and just missing, while we watched wearing night-vision goggles like perverted intruders. You gave us Lenny A Morbid Bruce playing on the radio inside a car being Quarterly fake-snowed on inside the gallery. You gave us bouncy houses and rooms tilted at such an Column of angle it made us dizzy. You gave us The Tomb Unbridled of Club Z, made of white paper and white ceramics and sad ejaculatory memories. You Praise made us cry. You gave us a massive blown-up version of a regular apartment window, and for months at a time, it was covered in a curtain that just opened and closed, letting in light and shutting it out again. You gave us a small dog and a large dog, wandering around as art. You gave us silver balloons and lightbulbs pilfered from a faraway cabin on the Washington Coast. You gave us the greatest art parties in the history of the city. You inspired more people than you’ll ever know. We would prefer that you didn’t die at all, Western Bridge. We have begged you not to die. But if you must die, you can sure die happy.

What the Creator of the Atom Bomb Said to the Composer of Pines of Rome

“C

compares how language and music have an you explain the physics of parallel functions in the brain. music?” That’s what Enrico Respighi’s inability to describe music Fermi, a physicist who helped to Fermi through words is funny because create the first nuclear reactor and atomic music itself has been described as our first bomb, allegedly asked of Italian composer language. Some theorists (neuroscientists, Ottorino Respighi in 1928. Respighi wrote ethnomusicologists, biomusicologists, the symphonic poem Pines of Rome, music therapists) have suggested that one of the debut concerts of the Seattle the urge in us to connect through makSymphony’s fall season. Respighi and Fermi were passengers on a ship traveling ing and listening to music is essential to our survival and the basis of between South America and social bonding. Neurobiology Europe. Despite all that Morlot conducts researchers Colwyn Trevtime and space, Respighi Pines of Rome arthen and Beatrice Beebe couldn’t translate music into Benaroya Hall have measured the first musiscientific concepts for one of Sept 20–22 cal conversations between the forefathers of quantum mother and child, and they’ve theory, particle physics, and shown that these dialogues help set in mostatistical mechanics. tion a child’s sense of belonging and being These days, if you want to understand attuned to a significant caregiver. Music the scientific reasoning behind why listenhas also been studied for its benefits in ing to live musical performance is good helping us to express and contain emotionfor your body and brain (unlike nuclear al states like anger or grief, to calm us, to radiation), there are endless avenues of organize us, to increase our ability to learn, exploration. You could turn to psychoand to decrease the intensity of our pain. acoustics, for example, which examines There is some controversy over the psychological and physiological effects whether familiar, beloved music is just of sound on humans. Or you could turn as effective as listening to instrumental to cognitive musicology, which focuses music in terms of positive effects on the on computer modeling of music and

NANCY GUPPY

brain and body. It seems to depend on a person’s history, aesthetics, sensitivity to sound, and capacity to tolerate, cope with, and describe their own emotional states. In other words, if you don’t like to sit and talk with intimates about intense emotions—or any emotions—listening to Beethoven may prove challenging and very irritating at ﬁrst. But from experience and from reading way too many articles and books on the subject, I promise you it is worth the cost

INTERVIEWS NANCY GUPPY ABOUT

of the challenge. For that matter, it’s also worth the cost of a symphony ticket. The music-worshipping philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer described the evocative power of all the “passions and emotions that ﬁnd utterance” in a Beethoven symphony: “Joy, sorrow, love, hatred, terror, hope, etc., in innumerable degrees.” He advocated for listening to live performance as a better way to “ apprehend them in their immediacy and purity.” —Trisha Ready

‘ART ZONE WITH NANCY GUPPY’

(It’s a Weekly Half-Hour TV Show Devoted to Seattle’s Art Scene)

ancy Guppy One: Hi there. You look wonderful today. Nancy Guppy Two: Thanks, so do you. Nancy Guppy One: Let me start by saying that I love Art Zone with Nancy Guppy. Nancy Guppy Two: What do you love about it? Nancy Guppy One: Everything! Nancy Guppy Two: But what specifically? Nancy Guppy One: Well, all the musicians and artists and dancers and writers and filmmakers you feature are fine, of course, but there is absolutely NO ONE ELSE in town who covers local arts like YOU do on Art Zone with Nancy Guppy. Nancy Guppy Two: Uh-huh. Nancy Guppy One: And then there’s VIVACIOUS energy, your WARM and ENGAGING personality, your all-around— Nancy Guppy Two (cutting off): What do you think of my hair? Nancy Guppy One: I love your hair! Nancy Guppy Two: I go to Kenny at Coupe Rokei.

Nancy Guppy One: He’s clearly a genius. Everyone should go to him. Nancy Guppy Two: First and Virginia, 443-4646. Mention my name. Nancy Guppy One: I also like your shoes. Nancy Guppy Two: Well, I don’t have any shoe deal, so let’s not waste ink on that. Nancy Guppy One: You’re not only the host and writer of Art Zone with Nancy Guppy, but you’re the executive producer of Art Zone with Nancy Guppy.

How did you get yourself to be the oncamera talent? I mean, Nancy Guppy is a megastar! She was the funniest cast member on KING-TV’s Almost Live. She is a former Hollywood TV writer. She did the dunk tank at the 1997 West Seattle Summer Fest. She’s the shit! Nancy Guppy Two: Well, I was searching around for a host, and then I remembered all that stuff you just listed, especially the dunk tank, and I was like, “Nancy Guppy would be perfect.” Nancy Guppy One: So you signed her? Nancy Guppy Two: Not that easy! At first, I wouldn’t return my calls, but then I finally agreed to a sit-down. It went well, and then, to be honest, I had a few drinks and ended up sleeping with myself. That pretty much sealed the deal. Nancy Guppy One: Some critics have noted that you relentlessly gush over every act that’s on your show. Everybody is “awesome” and “terrific” and “marvelous.” So my question is, how do you get so many awesome, terrific, and marvelous acts on Art Zone with Nancy Guppy?

Nancy Guppy Two: Well, there is no “team” in “I.” Nancy Guppy One: Wow. Nancy Guppy Two: Think about it. There’s no “T,” there’s no “E,” there’s no “A,” and there’s no “M” in the letter “I.” And that’s why America is the greatest country on earth. Nancy Guppy One: In the solar system! Nancy Guppy Two: Exactly! Art Zone with Nancy Guppy is like a big black hole violently sucking all matter into my gigantic gaping maw. Nancy Guppy One: You are an inspiration. Nancy Guppy Two: I know. Nancy Guppy One: Thank you. Nancy Guppy Two: Thank you. Q Art Zone with Nancy Guppy airs Fridays at 8 p.m. on Seattle Channel 21 and Fridays at 11 p.m. on KCTS 9, and it streams online at www.seattlechannel.org/artzone. The ﬁrst show for the new fall season airs September 14.

FALL 2012

Cornish College of the Arts Presents

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 5 Happy Hour Open House Enjoy a drink and small bites as you tour the Cornish Main Campus Center. Free and open to the public. 5:30–7pm.

Smoosh Opening night party featuring original creative mash-up performance by Kate Wallich and Friends, and live set by the band Pollens. DJ, food truck and drinks. Tickets $25, $20 Students & Cornish Alumni. Ages 21+. 7–10pm.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 6 Day of Ideas Features opening conversation with David Shields, author of Reality Hunger: A Manifesto. A day of presentation, conversation and experiences guaranteed to illuminate and inspire. Free and open to the public. Detailed Information and Tickets: WWW.CORNISH.EDU/ CREATIVESOCIETY

A&P: SEATTLE ART & PERFORMANCE

Sponsors:

ART

Seattle Artists Redesign the Waterfront With Glass-Bottomed Pools, Submarine Shuttles, Mini Forests, Lights for Scared Fish, and Arches Made of Viaduct Ruins

JED DUNKERLEY Figure 1

he designer of New York’s popular High Line, James Corner, is heading up the remake of Seattle’s waterfront. For his art team, he selected artist Mark Dion (creator of Neukom Vivarium at the Olympic Sculpture Park), Seattle curator Eric Fredericksen (of Western Bridge), and innovative New York–based public art organizer Creative Time. But their plan is still in its formative stages. No speciﬁc artists or works have been commissioned yet. The early drafts identify only locations for art (Pier 48 in Pioneer Square, for one) and conceptual priorities (artists actually working on the already-working waterfront, in addition to large and permanent pieces). While we wait to see more speciﬁcs, we asked Seattle artists what they would do with the waterfront. Here are the best of their drawings, writings, pragmatic habitat restoration proposals, and wild and poetic ideas.

G EN E G EN T RY M C M AHO N painter

I want to see a mini forest of tall trees. Douglas ﬁr and spruce butting up to that new beach they are proposing on South Washington Street. Perhaps one block square in size, maybe even smaller—a mini replica of what the shoreline was like when that area was home to the Duwamish Tribe. Love the contrast of this chunk of real nature against the backdrop of high-rises and high-end real estate, and if it blocks some views, so be it! It doesn’t “do” anything except clean a little patch of air around it. JO H N BO Y LAN organizer of Art Conversations

A ﬂoating replica of Seattle at anchor offshore, so we can gaze longingly at our mirror image.

JOEY VELT KAMP painter I find the biggest cure for any sadness I have these days is swimming in the water, under the watchful eye of Mount Rainier. I would love to see us pull from Europe and install a long, heated saltwater pool on the waterfront. Not for swimming, just for quiet contemplation and watching the mountains. One that is big, full of perimeter seating, and open till 10 p.m. SARAH BERGMANN artist/naturalist The waterfront should, as the last tier before the water, be the basis for a very, very excellent filtration system for the city core’s runoff. Pollution from runoff contains some of the worst pollutants in Puget Sound. There are lots of methods out there—swales are what come to mind, or at least a mix of materials that can filter water.

Continued on page 13 LAURA HADDAD Figure 2

KEITH TILFORD Figure 3

J ED DUN K E RL E Y drawer/mastermind

My retractable-roof boardwalk idea will now get the serious consideration it has deserved the whole time. The charm of Venice Beach with the convenience of Safeco Field. Heat- and sunlamps, so you CAN go to the beach on a NW winter day. I just know that once they see it (Figure 1), the whole redesign committee and the general public will unite behind it. The devil’s in the details, like how I plan to power the retractable roof using generators attached to the workout machines at the “Muscle Beach” pavilion.

FALL 2012

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A&P: SEATTLE ART & PERFORMANCE

ART

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JACK MACKIE Figure 4

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Continued from page 11 GEORGE RODRIGUEZ ceramic sculptor

I think there should be a large fountain at the waterfront. Something large and decorative that can also be peaceful and enjoyable. I could sit and write on the postcard that I just bought from the man a half block down and tell my family in Texas how wonderful Seattle is. It could also be great to have the water mimic the sound of waves crashing against the beach. LAURA HADDAD artist on the seawall

design team Apparently, fish are afraid of the dark, which limits their migration along the seawall under the piers. We’re hoping for a light artist to work on the project, but it sounds like the Department of Fish & Wildlife doesn’t want anything that wasn’t there naturally, so it may involve using reflections of sunlight and prisms—but we’re not going to give up yet on the powered light. This picture is of aquarium lights (Figure 2). Each one is a different shade to simulate a natural environment, like coral. NATASHA MARIN performance/ installation artist Seattle-style Tweet Flags (a different take on the Tibetan prayer flag): Step one is to establish a Twitter account for the Seattle waterfront where locals can post tweets related to their thoughts and experiences. Step two: Using local companies (mom & pop) and sustainable materials, create brightly colored Tweet Flags that can be strung along the waterfront. Step three: Invite local artists, writers, and performers to take turns curating the submissions that come in from Twitter. Used, old, or outworn flags can be reused, recycled, and reincorporated into other works. Stylistically, these are meant to fade, tatter, and disappear into the wind and rain and be replaced with bright new fresh flags. KEITH TILFORD artist

Take a section of the to-be-demolished viaduct and move it out to the western edge of Pier 48, turning it into an accessible observa-

tion point with a second-level cafe, complete with a garden below containing architectural relics from its demolition (Figure 3). KAT LARSON artist

Permanent moorage of the Kalakala ferry for art performances!! (It could perhaps be dedicated to Princess Angeline.) Floating barge/saltwater pool with glass bottom! Yoko Ono’s light show! Underwater glass tunnels! JEFFRY MITCHELL artist

A glass-bottomed garden. A magniﬁcent public pool. An aboriginal cultural center. A human-powered fountain, bikes rigged to power the water. A band shell dedicated to high-school productions like dance-offs, jazz competitions, and cheerleading exhibitions! Public toilets designed by the winners of a design-student competition. A public bicycle repair and exchange shop. A wishing well— proceeds go to…? A food truck center with picnic tables. Large civic gestures: There should be an opportunity for aboriginal artists, at least, to create civic sculpture. A mix of corporate touristic spectacular and real hometown local modest public stuff.

WE’VE MOVED Visit our new space on September 14 from 6-10pm for the art opening, By The Yard, featuring: Troy Gua, Kellie Talbot, Ryan Molenkamp, Greg Boudreau, Crystal Barbre & more. Oct 12 art opening: ThŝƐ /Ɛ EŽƚ YŽƵr 'raŶdŵŽƚher͛Ɛ ^Ɵůů >ŝĨe Nov 9 & Dec 14 art openings: WŝĐƚƵre WerĨeĐƚ Urban & Contemporary Art Gallery ϯϭϮ E ϴϱtŚ ^treet͕ ^Ƶŝte ϭϬϭ ͮ ^eaƩle tA ϵϴϭϬϯ www.bherdstudios.com Gallery ,ours͗ ted Ͳ &ri Ĩrom ϭϮͲϲpm & ǀery Ϯnd &riday ϲͲϭϬpm

TOWN HALL arts & ideas

Seattle

RODRIGO VALENZUELA artist One: A just-for-tourists restaurant/sushi bar that serves only Duwamish River ﬁsh (caught by local ﬁshermen). Two: A shuttle submarine from Queen Anne to Pioneer Square through storm-water pipes. JACK MACKIE artist

L’Arc d’University Street: For the better part of the last 75 years, Seattle’s Alaskan Way Viaduct has dominated the central waterfront. Now Seattle will simply clear-cut the viaduct from the waterfront in an attempted exorcism from the city’s living memory. Or, we can selectively retain portions of the viaduct as urban sculptural artifacts, as readymade lay relics of the fading industrial revolution (Figure 4). One of these ready-mades stands waiting at the foot of University Street, where a three-inch gap separates adjoining 200-foot-long roadway segments. By carefully demolishing the viaduct north and south of the four gap-abutting columns, a simple double arch is created. Q

townhallseattle.org FALL 2012

INSANE MOUNTAINS INSPIRED FILMMAKING ASTOUNDING ATHLETES

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SEPT.19 Stephen Tobolowsky Oct Oct 13 13 I The The Moore Moore Bill Frisell, The Great Flood March 2 I The Moore

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Seattle Theatre Group 2012 | 2013 Season

Let the world revolve around you!

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Take your seat at our 3 historic theatres for a season of performing arts experiences that revolve around you! The Paramount | The Moore | The Neptune Our 2012-2013 Season brings Seattle contemporary and classical dance rooted in Africa, Chicago, Israel, and Harlem, local, national and international theater, Broadway musicals, comedy, family entertainment, classic silent ﬁlms, local and international music, martial arts, and youth performances. We’ve got a seat for you for 37 performances offered this season, visit STGPresents.org/Season for full listing and information. New shows will be added Sept 9th!

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Photos: Bill Frisell, The Great Flood: Monica Frisell; Seattle Rock Orchestra: Erin Lodi; Paramount: Bob Cerelli; Neptune: Christopher Nelson

A&P: SEATTLE ART & PERFORMANCE

PHOTOGRAPHY

James Baldwin in Istanbul Photographer Sedat Pakay’s Images of a Writer in Exile by Charles Mudede

he great writer is taking a nap on a bed. The great writer is in a kitchen which is in the middle of a massive and often violent social transformation (murders, frying ﬁsh. The silhouette of the great writer is against a tall window with hosing of protesters, dogs attacking protesters, assassinations, burning cities) called a view of a bay, a battleship, a distant city, and a clear sky. The great writer the American civil rights movement. In one of Pakay’s intimate, tranquil, quiet picis visiting a mosque. The great writer is having his shoes shined by a boy. The great tures, Baldwin, his back turned to us, is hugging a woman and a man. She is on one side of him; he is on the other. Smoke rises from the man’s writer is standing next to a pelican. The great writer is cigarette. Bright ﬂowers are in a vase. All three seem to smoking a hookah in a tea garden—his legs are crossed, a Bearing Witness from Another Place be sharing a secret. For this writer and political activist, smile is on the face of the old woman behind him, and the Northwest African American Museum humanism could not be disentangled from eroticism. young man sitting next to him has the lips of a Eurasian Opening reception Sat Oct 20, 6–9 pm, with music, Is what we see in these pictures a stranger in a strange movie star. These are pictures of James Baldwin. He is refreshments, and special presentations, $100. land? Does he look lost, disoriented, displaced? No, these in Istanbul. The year is 1965. The photographer is Sedat Exhibition runs through Sept 29, 2013. images capture the writer in his habitat: The natural Pakay. The images are part of an extraordinary exhibit, place for the writer is exile. It can be spiritual or physical Bearing Witness from Another Place: James Baldwin in Turkey Through the Lens of Sedat Pakay, opening this fall at the Northwest African exile, but they always have to be outside of their society, because writers are outsiders. The writer is out of place when they’re in their place. They need distance. They American Museum. Baldwin visited Istanbul to work on his fourth novel, Tell Me How Long the need to get away to process what it means to be who they are. Think of Jonathan Train’s Been Gone, which is set in New York City and concerns a bisexual actor and Raban, Lesley Hazleton, W. G. Sebald, James Joyce, Richard Wright, and on and his lovers, a white American woman and a black American male, and his country, on—the true home of the writer is always another country. Q

FALL 2012

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A&P: SEATTLE ART & PERFORMANCE

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POETRY

Three Sonnagrams by K. Silem Mohammad

Who? What? When? Where? Why? N-nothing? Then H-hold On…

Introduction by Heather McHugh, Poetry Editor

Diggety-damn it, Hamlet rightly dug The horny thighs of Catherine the Great: Oh, Aristotle, hit that ladybug! Let thirty deathbeds groan beneath her weight!

The axis of orgasmic orange undies Is evil port and starboard, fore and aft: It’s ﬁlled with Dahmers, Gacies, Geins, and Bundies, And pamphlets urging God to vote for Taft. If prostitutes destroy the Matterhorn, And crypto-Buddhist lasers blind our eyes, Will anyone remember Baptist porn? Will someone tell the handsome kittens lies? On foot to NYC the rotters creep: Beyond Phnom Penh, the honky-tonk is cheap. ——— Sonnet 28 (“How can I then return in happy plight”)

Hell Weed (With Def Def High Effect) It’s wrong to hit on yea-tall cute brunettes That mill around in April in Ohio; It’s wrong to think of keeping them as pets, As wrong as mispronouncing brio “bry-o.” It’s weird to feed a Delaware ﬂamingo A regimen of welfare cheese and starch; It’s odd to talk in Ubbi Dubbi lingo, Or get a hysterectomy in March. It blows to visit Washington in June; It’s worse to live in Oregon per se; It’s twee to read the Smothers Brothers Dune (The Smothers Brothers? Who the eff are they?). The damn hot G-men heed my queer behest: They feed me kung fu weed, then shave my chest. ———

BRIAN TAYLOR

he first “sonnagram” I ever saw—a perfectly rhymed and metered anagram of a Shakespeare sonnet—was Kasey Mohammad’s masterful and hilarious reworking of Sonnet 3 (“Look in thy glass, and tell the face thou viewest”). Kasey’s version began: “Go softly to the Disneyland Hotel,/Its simulacral threshold grown sublime:/ The bedrooms all emit that new car smell,/ Like nothing else in bourgie Anaheim.” A fitting introduction to a brilliant new genre, it combined ingenious invention, respect for the sonnet’s formal convention, and utter irreverence for the currencies of our own 21st-century culture. That same sonnagram goes on to read: “Where leftist brownies get our mothers high,/Humanity is poorly led, forsooth—/In Eisenhower’s shadow lies the lie;/In Soviet-run brothels lies the truth.” This poet is no simple party-liner. That’s refreshing in itself. But an anagram as scrupulous as it is full of slang and sass? That’s a real achievement. If I hadn’t attempted a Shakespeare anagram myself, at painful length, by hand— endlessly missing one letter or adding an extra—having to correct—losing count—wasting hours—I’d never have known how thorny a job it is to compose the damned things. K. Silem Kasey’s not only the Mohammad Fri Oct 5, 7 pm, best anagrammarian Hugo House I’ve ever run across, he’s also found an inspired expedient: He fashions the poems to his taste, and then uses leftover letters for the title—the part of a poem that is most conventionally free to bear a floating or flirting relation to its meaning. The result? These amazing, salty, hilarious pieces, as precise as they are surprising. And the guy has a heart! He’s appearing with other iconoclasts at an event on October 5 at 7 p.m. at Hugo House to honor long-term family caregivers of the severely disabled. And there’s a bonus: an auction of a rare signed Samuel Beckett novel, as well as a 1790 edition of Holbein prints and other delicacies. This benefit will raise money to continue the work of Caregifted, an organization I established to provide retreats for caregivers (more details at www.caregifted.org). Donate something (write caregifted@gmail.com). Or just show up. Students admitted for $7; the rest of you get to romp for a slightly larger contribution. Come revel with riffraff and cognoscenti alike, as Kasey Mohammad and assorted other rebels pick a few locks and hold a lot of sway.

Sonnet 45 (“The other two, slight air, and purging ﬁre”)

WTF, WTF, WTF, WTF? Seven GQ Hopfrog Thongs? THC Songs? THC Ghosts? I don’t believe in being nice to cops; I don’t regret the ones I ﬁlled with lead. I wish I had a pet triceratops. The alphabet is sexist. Hell, it’s dead! The three United States where owls can vote Are South Dakota, Maine, and California. The appletinis there’ll slit your throat (Oh Baby Sis, don’t say I didn’t warn ya). Bill Clinton took his secretary swimming And had her take dictation underwater. She thought his memorandum needed trimming; He thought her classic forwards could be tauter. The government’s a very funny show: So funny, so so funny, ho ho ho. ——— Sonnet 60 (“Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore”)

FALL 2012

A&P: SEATTLE ART & PERFORMANCE

OPERA

“Barricade on Fire,” by Chris Williams, 1999 This destroyed Dumpster had been “a barricade for people to hide behind as the police were shooting into the crowd,” the photographer remembers. “At some point, it caught on fire. I don’t know if it was because a gas canister landed on it, which had flame and smoke coming out of it, or someone in the crowd lit it on fire. But there I was, in the middle of the downtown shopping district, in the middle of the intersection of Fourth and Pike, standing in front of a bonfire with the police on one side and tens of thousands of protesters on the other. What could be more surreal?”

By Jen Graves

hat with everyone throwing bombs of ideas, and the police scared and shooty, and the streets of downtown Seattle looking more like Beirut, well, of course the WTO riots of 1999 had to be turned into theater—they were theater. And it wasn’t wrong to think, actually: opera. A mass mess of humanity like that, all gigantic and many-headed? Perfect for opera.

Easy name, too: WTOpera. None of this is fiction. This is what happened. On the 10th anniversary of the WTO riots, leading up to the winter of 2009, a fierce force of Seattle artists was planning to unveil a huge production they’d been working on for almost a year and a half. They wanted it to become part of the canon of American performance—Seattle’s contribution to that canon, much the way WTO had been Seattle’s contribution to world politics in the 1990s—falling somewhere between the Vegas spectacular Blue Man Group and Philip Glass’s revered opera Einstein on the Beach. It was created not by fiat but by the collective, in a creative process deliberately organized to reflect the anarchist spirit of the riots. No single person would wield the power. Democracy would not be just the content, it would also be the form. Eventually, what was nicknamed WTOpera came to be called Anarchist Songbook. Its very first scene featured a female protester named Ivy, Chief Sealth, and a chorus, and the

setting was Eighth Avenue and Olive Way at 10:03 a.m. on November 30, 1999, the ﬁrst day of WTO. The stage directions call for singers, in a “foggy November haze,” to “whisper like pigeons carrying secrets,” then

It called for singers, actors, dancers, a marching band that could switch from anarchistwild to militia-sharp, and 100 thunderous electric guitars. to “fade out like wings ﬂuttering towards Bethlehem.” Everyone involved agreed that this prologue, written by composer Byron Au Yong, was haunting and beautiful. It was just a fragment. Over the many months of the process of creation, there were something like 10 different composers, all writing in different modes—classical, downtown-

experimental, rock opera, musical theater. There were multiple writers, directors, and producers. The score called for singers, actors, dancers, a marching band that could switch from anarchist-wild to militia-sharp (referencing real-life WTO performance troupe Infernal Noise Brigade), and, in the pit below, a thunderous band of 100 electric guitars. A beautiful dance duet was choreographed, with a policewoman and a male anarchist loping around each other in slow motion like confused animals in an uncertain habitat. Its climax was a chain reaction of failed attempts at unveiling each other from behind the bandana and the riot gear, ending in violence. An entirely different scene featured a funny, playful musical-theater number with a cop responding to the escalating rage of an immigrant landlord (based on a real person) who wants the squatters out of his building. A chorus of representatives from all perspectives—protesters, police, property owners—chimes in, all the voices competing to be heard: “How can this happen in America?” They peel FALL 2012

OPERA off into a chant: “How can this how can this how can this…” The creators wanted Anarchist Songbook to add a chapter to Seattle’s history of activism. The show would unite WTO with Chief Sealth’s famous resistance speech, the Wobblies massacre in Everett in 1916, even the vaguely antiauthoritarian folk hero D. B. Cooper. Cooper jumped out of an airplane somewhere over Washington on the eve of Thanksgiving in 1971 with $200,000 of an airline’s money—the only unsolved airjacking in American history. At some point in the action of Anarchist Songbook, Cooper would parachute in, a surrealist figment. At another point, this image-idea would appear: a flaming piano floating off into the Sound. The central story line would turn on a love triangle among anarchists, one of them ending up an FBI informant. The seed of what became Anarchist Songbook was first tossed out at a barbecue at the home of a Seattle composer in the summer of 2008, and it grew quickly, with the easy force of a good idea—and partly because it had to, in order to make the deadline of the 10th anniversary of the riots. Its creators—known Seattle artists tired of doing one-offs, some hoping to realize one Big Idea before getting married or having children—held dozens of meetings that always ran far over their allotted time in underground coffeehouses and each other’s homes. They e-mailed scores and scripts back and forth in a Yahoo group and squatted in available rehearsal halls and university classrooms. Auditions were held, a chorus and soloists and dancers selected. Anarchist Songbook got all the way to a behindthe-scenes tryout at ACT Theater. But Anarchist Songbook went nowhere but wrong. Failure. Total failure. It ended, as luck would have it, in anarchy.

A departure from the expected.

SEPTEMBER 13

TICKETS FROM: $50

DWIGHT YOAKAM S. Mark Taper Foundation Auditorium

Grammy Award winner Dwight Yoakam crafts a strikingly unique sound that is equal parts rock and country.

OCTOBER 9

TICKETS: $39

THE FLATLANDERS Illsley Ball Nordstrom Recital Hall

Forty years into their working friendship, these ‘founding fathers of Americana’ are hitting the road again, still the best of friends.

OCTOBER 24

TICKETS FROM: $30

JAKE SHIMABUKURO S. Mark Taper Foundation Auditorium

“Jake is taking [the ukelele] to a place that I can’t see anybody else catching up with him.” — Eddie Vedder

GUEST ARTIST

KEITH HENNESSY / CIRCO ZERO (SF)

TURBULENCE (A DANCE ABOUT THE ECONOMY)

Jake Shimabukuro’s performance is generously underwritten by Katrina Russell and Jeff Lehman.

PERFORMANCES

OCTOBER 25

TICKETS: $37

SEPT 21+22

CARLOS NÚñEZ Illsley Ball Nordstrom Recital Hall

“If it’s possible to become a popstar playing traditional music on the bagpipes and recorder, Núñez could be the man.” — Los Angeles Times

VELOCITY OPEN FOR(U)M

FAILURE:

CONVERSATIONS AROUND ART + THE ECONOMY

ALSO ON THE BENAROYA HALL STAGE: ,0Oà Ò} č a s 'ħ+ , 0 ħDH= , KAREN LUGO | ,0Oà Ò s % + = &+ħ, %ħ,à ÒÒ a Òč s '0H 0, Pħ ,P= D a DAR WILLIAMS | %ħ,à Òÿ s '0@ '0 0@ ACOUSTIC EN VIVO | %ħ,à čč s +0,D = R JAZZ FESTIVAL ON TOUR | JAN. 28 & 29 s +ħ= 0 , | à s +ħ=& &0U ' & à ÒÆ a čģ s ħħ=0, , O '' | MAR. 7 s 'H @ ħD D =0@@=0ħ @ DPģ| +H R AND THE WOLF

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A&P: SEATTLE ART & PERFORMANCE

SEPT 19 THE ART OF POLITICS + THE POLITICS OF QUEER

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UPCOMING IN OCTOBER: AMY O’NEAL WORLD PREMIERE

t may be the biggest and best failure story in Seattle production history. Every once in a while still, you’ll hear an artist in Seattle ask: Whatever happened to that WTOpera? But no one involved with it is eager to answer. “Oh, the time I almost went to the lunatic asylum?” says Annie Fanning. “You want to talk about that? This whole thing just makes me look like a lunatic!” Fanning was the librettist, meaning she was responsible for the words. Very late in the process, other writers got involved, including Rich Jensen (onetime Sub Pop GM) and Stacey Levine (eventually a Genius Award winner). But for most of the process, it was just Annie Fanning. And she does not want to talk about it. But after several episodes of e-mail begging and pleading, each one earning a response she culled from one of her writings—a piece of a script or a short fictional story intended to convey, metaphorically, her desire not to talk about this ever again—she finally relented to a conversation in her North Seattle backyard. This yard is lovingly overgrown and, at its far end, dotted with many pots containing saplings. “I am a tree ambassador,” Fanning announces. “I have saved these trees from certain death.” This pronouncement makes her sound unstable. Her past reticence begins to seem a wise idea. But when she is finished telling her WTOpera story, she is a completely sympathetic, pleasantly weird character. (And she really is a tree ambassador—it is a real thing, something to do with the city’s tree ordinance.) “I had been a stay-at-home mom, so I was desperate for creative validation, I guess,”

she starts. “Looking back, I think it was totally ridiculous to think I could write an opera in a year. There were problems almost from the beginning.” Cut to Mike Min, the only other person involved in WTOpera who had what seems, in retrospect, like a singular role, despite everyone’s desire to work collectively. Ask the composers and directors the question: “Whatever happened to that WTOpera?” They will tell you: “Talk to Mike and Annie.” They will also tell you: Mike and Annie did not agree on how Anarchist Songbook should turn out. Mike wants to talk as much as Annie does. At some point, it becomes a game: One will talk if the other does. According to Korby Sears, Min’s co-conspirator in the Genius Award–winning group Seattle School, the failure of Anarchist Songbook was “the reason Mike left Art.” Min opened a salad bar in Georgetown called Evergreens. One day, worn down from repeated requests, Mike caves. He agrees to meet at Cherry Street Coffee House in Pioneer Square, a subterranean room where he ends up sitting in a wingback chair in front of a fake fire painted on a real fireplace, like a character in a film. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to try so hard to avoid it,” he says. He also says, “I think Korby mythologizes a lot of things.” But he admits he has steered clear of collaborations since WTOperagate, and adds, “I think I was paralyzed by the size of the things I wanted to do.” He’d considered, for instance, opening a restaurant featuring dumplings made in styles from all over the world. It was, alas, too ambitious. “So I opened a salad restaurant,” he says. “We’re losing money. The salad business is a bloody business.” Like Annie, Mike is a force (and funny). He’s youngish and stylish, wearing glasses that are gleamingly gold and modernist, but he talks directly and with bemusement, like an ancient general. He and Annie will both win you over. That’s the end of their similarities. They did not win over one another. He wanted Anarchist Songbook to be “big and balls-out.” She wanted “this impressionistic, surreal hallucination, things coming out of the mist of tear gas, this ghost story of protest.” He talks about the Blue Man Group and big-box musicals and movies like Three Kings; he wanted to see Anarchist Songbook at national and international venues. It would be a “love letter to Seattle, while at the same time resonating worldwide,” he says. A great thing about opera is that it can be anything. Think about opera plots: What the hell happens? Everything and nothing— either way works, and sometimes it’s both at the same time. Anarchist Songbook had unruly roots all around. Its creators were interested not only in Wagner but also in the modernist American avant-garde composer John Zorn. Cobra, a composition that works like a game with rules that Zorn invented in 1984, was the inspiration for the original group of Seattle composers who worked on Anarchist Songbook. Years before WTOpera was conceived, these composers had weekly gigs playing “Cobra” at I-Spy, the downtown club (it closed New Year’s Eve 2002). They called themselves SIL2K, or the Strategic Improvisation Laboratories, and members included Stuart McLeod, Tim Rhodes, Carl Farrow, James Drage, and Robert Henson and Annie Fanning (who are married)—all of whom were at that original WTOpera-spawning barbecue. It started out as a small production but soon became epic, to fit not only the artists’ ambitions but also the scale of the story—international business ground to a halt, a placid

who wrote the duet with the female cop and the anarchist. “In the end it began to function too well. We “The police had been launching tear gas had so much material that we didn’t and rubber-ball shots into the crowd to little know where we were going next.” effect,” the photographer remembers. “They hadn’t expected us to simply toss it back over When Min describes one version their heads. There was something theatrical of the plot now, it sounds nuts. about them launching the tear gas and us “We worked in some kind of returning it to them.” betrayal and a murder,” he says, remembering slowly. “There may have been a murder. There was, I think, a spy. There was the naive punk girl, a leader in the bloc who was a spy, West Coast city turned police state. “I don’t know how it came to being operatic,” and a third guy who liked the girl who liked Henson recalls. “Nobody really sits down and the leader guy. In the end, there’s a guilt thing writes an opera with a bunch of other writers. with the spy, and then I think the other guy And also, opera wasn’t really in anybody’s skill finds out, and the girl takes someone out— set, which was kind of desirable. I haven’t sat either in a murdering way or in an accidental down and written an opera before, and the writ- death kind of way. So it was like tragedy on ers we had participating weren’t librettists, so tragedy, opera upon opera.” Is he pulling my leg? It is possible, but it seemed really ambitious, and it seemed like it then again, no. was a form that was ripe for exploitation.” “I think the important thing was getting Or as Min puts it: “This was an attempt to break something. Artists are—I mean, it on a worldwide-level audience and then sneaking in the themes of the WTO—like Les there’s no medium anymore.” Civic pride played no small part. And spe- Misérables and Fiddler on the Roof,” Min cifically Seattle pride, the kind with lefty poli- says. “They have political themes but with tics and wilderness tendencies and pioneer sweet and snappy stuff like love and death. And I think there was some resistance to that, punch and… process. “The idea that this would enter the canon but again, we needed to get going.” On top of everything else, Anarchist Songwithout a single author—we thought the show would be about collective power!” Sears says. book would involve the audience somehow. De“Clearly, it was Seattle pride. Like, maybe it tails of the audience-participation component would be ‘By Seattle.’ But then”—he pauses, were also being ironed out. Would the audience sit within the action? Would the audience be asked, in some way, to take sides? Noticing the pileup of ideas, Sears threw out some big-picture suggestions. he furrows his eyebrows, he exhales a huff— What if, rather than a single production, Anar“there’s that Seattle thing, that West Coast chist Songbook became a weeklong festival of shows from all of the various perspectives? “I’ll thing, where everybody gets a vote.” The politics that birthed Anarchist Song- take the cops just because I know no one will want it,” Sears told the group. It could happen book killed Anarchist Songbook. In months of brainstorming, writing, and every year, he added. Or what if, instead of that, rehearsing, the following decisions were nev- Seattle artists went to some faraway city— er finalized: Would the action be narrative or Miami, say—and worked with teenagers, peononlinear? Would it be a love story, a ghost ple who weren’t even alive during the original riots, to create something entirely new? story, or a series of ministories of onlookers? “It might have been naive,” Yong, the “The idea engine functioned very, very well,” says Malia Trick, the choreographer composer of the prologue, says wistfully of

“Return to Sender,” by Chris Williams, 1999

No one involved in the production wanted to talk about it.

the process of creating Anarchist Songbook. “But there was an innocence to the WTO.” (Yong is now in the concept phase with local artists to create an Occupy Orchestra. He once performed with the Infernal Noise Brigade; playing cymbals in someone’s face, he got punched in the nose. That was his last appearance with them. He has an opera opening at the prestigious American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco next year.) In the midst of this tornado of material came a deadline: The day in early 2009 when Anarchist Songbook had its hearing in front of ACT directors Gian-Carlo Scandiuzzi and Kurt Beattie. It was the kind of hearing that, if it goes well, can launch a production into its life cycle, send it out into the world, bestow its chance to become the next Ring cycle or Les Mis or Cobra, or a mad combination of all three.

yrone Brown directed the presentation at ACT. It took place in a second-floor rehearsal room overlooking the very same downtown streets that were choked by the protests in 1999. What the directors saw was a patchwork of songs and dances—including the Chief Sealth prologue “whispered like pigeons carrying secrets,” the cop/anarchist duet dance, and the comedic landlord squabble—that added up to about 45 minutes of material. (Rehearsals had been captured on video, so the material is still watchable.) “It was this great, big idea, and we thought, ‘That is terrific!’” Scandiuzzi says. “Because of the economy, we have a tendency to limit ourselves. When somebody comes to you with something of a scope like that, it’s refreshing to see them just take a chance and do it!” Commendable, yes. Supportable, no. “There were a lot of people in the room,” Beattie remembers. “I’m not sure I knew who was a creator and who was a performer, to tell you the truth… There’s a statement by Thucydides that goes something like, ‘In theory, democracy. In practice, the first citizen.’” Echoing Beattie, Robert Henson says, “Communal art is not that powerful. It’s kind of a funny thing, ultimately, that a communal project for WTO would fail because it was community art.”

Can great art be created by committee? Collective groups in music, theater, and visual art attest to the possibility. But it’s incredibly difficult, and evidently, being intrinsically faithful to the politics of your subject doesn’t necessarily help. (On the flip side, how does that play out in activist organizing? Are leaderless movements better, righter, neither, both? The parallels between the creative process and activist organizing are fascinating to consider.) Another big question raised by Anarchist Songbook: How is artmaking like worldmaking? It’s the old conundrum that comes up when a seemingly terrible person writes something wonderful, or when art with universal appeal issues from a tyrant. Anarchist Songbook is a test case in failure—and a reminder that artists are out there working, hard, all the time, even when nobody gets to see what they make. Failures lead places, even if they’re just thought experiments for the future. That was where it all began with Anarchist Songbook, actually, recalls one of the composers, Carl Farrow. He doesn’t remember this until very late in a relatively long conversation, and it only drifts back to him by chance, because the artists dropped the idea along the way as they were trying to carry and balance so many ideas. “That was one of the core things we started out with—failure,” Farrow says. “The anarchists failed, the police failed, the protesters failed, and in all senses, to different degrees, it was all about failure. I don’t remember who solidified that idea, but I remember sitting at Rob and Annie’s house, and someone saying that failure is a linchpin, and that it’s intriguing to expose everyone’s failure—and I do remember that getting lost pretty quickly. I don’t remember who came up with that idea; it’s probably one of those things where everyone comes up with it at once. Ironic. I had totally forgotten that.” In December 2009, director Tyrone Brown picked up a few pieces from the scattered debris of Anarchist Songbook. One bit he rescued was the dance duet, scored to a driving, haunting piece of electronic music called “Fall River Mills” (referencing a town in Northern California, not Washington) by a Seattle band called Transpacific, made up of a few of the Anarchist Songbook composers. Brown used the dance in a new WTO-inspired production, presented for two nights (and also captured on video) at—perfectly—the Labor Temple. Brown wasn’t satisfied with that version of the piece, but he still wants to make one that will work. He is still chasing the WTO theater dream. He calls his piece The MoveMeant. Annie Fanning is working on the future of trees in the city of Seattle. She pauses to think back at what she wished they could accomplish with Anarchist Songbook. “At the heart of hearts, I’m an anarchist,” she says. “I’m an anarchist in the way that nurse trees are anarchist. You see the straight lines of trees growing up in the forest now because they grew out of the line of the fallen nurse log. The order has to come from entropy. “Anarchy is probably not the right term for it anymore. There’s two things that get the most press in Seattle, and that’s snow and anarchists breaking some windows, but to me, there’s nothing coming out of that. My version was to plant seeds in people’s minds—that this is who we are as Seattleites, we are activists. And the dialectic is broken. Ideally, you would be able to go through the fog and come out on the other side and say, ‘Hey, none of that shit worked.’ But there’s always the hope that somebody is going to figure it out later.” There are 26 months until the 15th anniversary of WTO. Q

FALL 2012

A&P: SEATTLE ART & PERFORMANCE

THEATER

ACT’s Epic Ramayana Two Directors, Two Playwrights, Two Years in the Making by Brendan Kiley

hanks to our national economic crisis and its squeeze on arts organizations, American theatergoers are more familiar than ever with small productions. Tiny casts, shoestring budgets, and solo shows have been our steady diet for the past decade. Mike Daisey, Kevin Kling, and other solo performers are all artistically interesting, of course, but don’t forget that one person with one set and zero costume changes is also economically convenient. But this fall, ACT Theater is going in the opposite direction, attempting something much more ambitious—a world premiere of the anRamayana cient epic poem RaOct 12–Nov 11, ACT Theater, mayana. A quick, www.acttheatre.org stupidly inadequate plot summary of the poem: A god-woman named Sita, the wife of a god-man named Rama, is kidnapped by a bad dude named Ravana. Rama goes on a long rescue mission that involves making friends with an army of monkey-men—who have their own internal troubles—and several epic battles happen plus long philosophical reﬂections about the nature of the cosmos and how people should live their lives. ACT’s adaptation has been incubating for two years with two talented directors (Sheila Daniels and Kurt Beattie), two respected playwright-adapters (Yussef El Guindi and Stephanie Timm), a choreographer (Maureen Whiting), a large cast with some powerhouse actors (Ray Tagavilla, Anne Allgood, Todd Jefferson Moore, many others). And, over that time, dozens of Seattle theater-makers have shepherded the show through workshops, helping the core team ﬁgure out which scenes to scrap and which to keep. Ramayana is enormously deep in its cultural and geographical reach—in some countries, it’s like the Bible plus the Iliad plus the Odyssey plus Mother

Goose bedtime stories wrapped up in one—but alien to many American theatergoers. A few weeks ago, sitting in ACT’s upstairs design studios, three members of the Ramayana production team—Beattie, actor/dancer Tikka Sears, and composer and sound designer Brendan Patrick Hogan—struggled to explain the essence of the epic and why ACT has spent more than two years assembling its version. Beattie has been thinking about a performance cycle of Ramayana to be performed every few years, like Wagner’s Ring at Seattle Opera, since the late 1990s. This fall performance, he hopes, will be the beginning—in his words, “the ur-text”—of a much longer and deeper production. “In the early stages, we thought of trying to do multiple evening-length performances of Ramayana,” he said. “But for us to successfully tell it to a new audience, we had to contain it.” The current version, he said, will probably be around three hours long—too short for his ideal, but a good starting place for a years-long project.

rivers where shrimp would bite their feet. They also described how the story has been leveraged by vastly different political and cultural movements through the years. “It is used to both attack the status quo and support the status quo,” Beattie said. Like the Bible, it can be interpreted in hundreds of ways. During recent political turmoil in Thailand, for example, the king encouraged performances of Ramayana because a traditional Thai interpretation makes it very pro-royalty. But past political parties in Indonesia, Sears added, sponsored shadow-puppet performances with more antiauthoritarian and Communist interpretations. After the 1965 coup, she said, some puppeteers spent years in jail. ACT’s process of building Ramayana has involved dozens of actors, designers, and cultural “ambassadors” from Seattle’s many Asian communities, both to get input and to generate excitement about the theater’s unusual undertaking. It is unusual not only as an attempt to distill and translate a deeply revered epic for a new audience, but also unusual in its scope. Beattie hopes to bring in street vendors to set up food and craft stalls and fill the theater with the colors, smells, and sounds of another world. He wants us to feel as epically about it as he does. He compared the process of working with so many adapters and directors to a bunch of writers for a TV show sitting around a table and hashing out a single script. He also compared it to an actor in a classical play who isn’t just giving his or her individual performance, but channeling thousands of years of accumulated cultural weight (as with Oedipus, Electra, Hamlet, et al.) into one telling of the story. In both examples, he said, the individual is “part of a multivalent tradition”—one of many, many voices. “There isn’t any reason we can’t find a way to do that in this theater.” The official rehearsals begin on September 18. If all goes according to plan, this Ramayana will be a beginning, not a culmination. Q

Shadow puppeteers would prepare for all-night versions of Ramayana by meditating in haunted graveyards or rivers where shrimp would bite their feet. Sears, who has shuttled between Indonesia (speciﬁcally, the island of Java) and the United States since she was a kid, described Ramayana as a “deeply sacred text” for some people and a toweringly important but secular text for others. Beattie called it “a map for many cultures” from India to Myanmar to Cambodia and beyond. Both talked about how traditional shadow puppeteers would prepare for the physical and emotional endurance test of performing all-night versions of Ramayana by meditating in haunted graveyards or

FALL 2012

DINING

The End of Anonymity Should a food critic always be undercover? Is it important—or even possible—anymore? by Bethany Jean Clement

ong ago, in a time before Facebook, anonymous restaurant reviewers roamed the earth. In order to experience restaurants just like anybody else—no special treatment—they telephoned from blocked numbers and made reservations under names that were not their own. They lumbered in as any other diner would, assessing astutely yet nonchalantly the performance of the coat-check girl, the host, the bringers of water, and the offerings of wine; the service was scrutinized while maintaining an entirely pococurante front. Some were rumored to whisper into primitive recording devices hidden in their sleeves. Others relied on memory or on the appearance of a weak bladder, ducking repeatedly into the restroom to scribble notes. And the food appeared on the plate, and it was eaten, and it was paid for in cash or with a credit card under an alias. In the jungle of New York City, where the New York Times reviewer could single-handedly render a restaurant extinct, the burden of remaining unidentified was more serious still. Ruth Reichl famously chronicled her efforts in that role in her 2005 memoir, Garlic and Sapphires. She went to an acting coach, acquired a wardrobe of wigs, and dressed as a number of specific characters. She enjoyed an unlimited budget and never visited a restaurant fewer than three times—generally more— always anonymously. She wrote, “You know what it’s like when I’m not in disguise: The steaks get bigger, the food comes faster, and the seats become more comfortable.” The presence of a known critic could change the very composition of the furniture—this was serious business. If one needed to wear a mustache, so be it. But, as Bill Keller noted in the New York Times in 2009, “despite all her theatrical dress-ups,” Ruth Reichl “was often made by the maître d’hôtel.” (One might also imagine that she was sometimes recognized because of her costumes—e.g., “Who is that lady in the crazy-looking wig on table 12?”) Keller also said that despite subsequent critic Frank Bruni’s less dramatic attempts to stay undercover, he’d dined with Bruni “in places where it was clear—from the trying-too-hard service, or the clusters of whispering waiters, or some other tell—that they were on to us.” People being “made,” the “tell”—it was an undertaking of film noir, and as doomed from the start. When Sam Sifton took the NYT reviewer post in 2009, he’d held other posts at the paper; while his photo was removed from the website, it was way too late. Gawker posted Sifton photoshopped into proposed disguises—Harry Potter, Frank Bruni, “that partying dude from Australia.” Keller said Sifton would arrive unannounced to review, and noted that “a reviewer’s own experience can be cross-checked with intelligence from others. So, while we don’t intend to put Sam’s face on sides of MTA buses, I’m not going to lose a lot of sleep over this.” Here in Seattle, Nancy Leson—the most powerful person in the industry as the reviewer for the Seattle Times for almost a decade—only abdicated her anonymity in 2008, with a “coming out party” revealing her identity on the front page of the food section. The official restaurant-reviewer title was passed on, and Leson became a blogger, excited at the new world open to her “doing in-person interviews with chefs and restaurateurs and getting out to the food and wine events I’ve long shied away from.” But from the start, Leson’s cloak of invisibility had some unavoidable holes. She’d worked waiting tables for 17 years, five of them in Seattle, before she got her journalism degree; as she said in a column in 2000, she was “occasionally ‘outed’ by friends still in the trade.” She was also a freelance writer in the beginning, attending food media events and interviewing chefs in person before anonymity was ever in the offing. She made efforts to stay anonymous, but, she wrote, “many of the city’s high-profile chefs and restaurateurs could pick

A&P: SEATTLE ART & PERFORMANCE

JACK HORNADY

me out of a lineup,” and as she acknowledged in print, she was known at favorite places like Marco’s Supperclub and Le Pichet. During the 2000 Seattle P-I/Times strike, she told me recently, she waited tables at Nell’s in Green Lake for a weekend, just for fun, unpaid. Also working there at the time, in the kitchen: Ethan Stowell, now of his own local restaurant empire.

n 2005, when I was a freelance writer, The Stranger asked me to interview a Seattle chef about (presciently!) street food. I chose Ethan Stowell. He owned a restaurant downtown called Union that was about as far from street food as you could get. From across the counter of the pass in the swanky, palatial space, he told me he had a thing for the mobile snack-stands of Mexico: “Oysters that have been sitting out for three hours in the sun, the tacos made in a big cast iron bucket on wheels— most people don’t eat it, but I do.” I’d written a few restaurant reviews, but it seemed silly to be concerned about anonymity—this guy only owned one restaurant, after all, and The Stranger had already reviewed it, and what was the big deal with restaurant reviewers being anonymous anyway? It didn’t make sense to me, while talking to a chef at his fancy restaurant about his enthusiasm for eating quantities of shrimp from street carts in Mazatlan— that made sense, and that wasn’t something that would be the same over the telephone. Then there was the little problem that Seattle is the size of the head of a pin. Even before everyone’s everything was all over the internet, unless you lived under a rock, you could not hide. In 2006, I happened to be

sitting at the bar at the Hideout with a friend, and I let my attention drift away up among all the weird and marvelous art on the walls, helped along by a nice cold martini. I reentered reality when my friend sitting next to me said, “That’s funny—my friend Bethany writes about restaurants!” Then she leaned back and indicated the man on the next bar stool down: “This is Matt— he just opened a restaurant on Eastlake!” And there was Matt Dillon, the chef/owner of a brand-new place called Sitka & Spruce, before he became one of Food & Wine’s 10 best new chefs (2007), opened the Corson Building (2008), and won a James Beard Award for Best Chef Northwest (2012). He said no offense, but that I wouldn’t be getting any special treatment if I came in— he cooked for people like he was cooking for friends at his house, which sounded good to me. When I went to the original Sitka & Spruce in its tiny strip-mall spot, it was already packed. Matt Dillon said hi, and we waited and waited, standing at the tiny counter, because there were only about six tables. Eventually, he sent us a bowl of clams on the house, which (as I wrote in my review) he probably would’ve done for any group standing at the bar waiting and waiting and basically chewing on their own arms—or as he would’ve done for friends at his house. But there were no bigger steaks, or faster food, or magically more cushiony chairs. There was just the adorable space, and the sharing (and some hoarding) of plates, and his really wonderful—as in, inspiring moments of wonder—food. There’s not a lot a restaurant can do to signiﬁcantly improve a critic’s experience—either they’ve got it together or they don’t. For The Stranger’s reviews, I arrive

sitting next to me at the communal table to confess that her name was not actually Barbara and that she was a restaurant reviewer, too. She joked about borrowing my notes.) At events like Gabriel Claycampâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 2008 â&#x20AC;&#x153;SacriďŹ cioâ&#x20AC;? in Port Orchardâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the sacriďŹ ced one being a pig, killed in front of, then butchered and eaten with the help of, a paying crowdâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;it just seemed bizarre to be all cloak-and-dagger about it. To talk to Claycamp and the other attendees with transparency about my role seemed only respectful. (I am pretty sure that another food writer, seeming awkward and introducing himself as Del, was there.) At Burning Beast, held for the ďŹ fth year this summer, youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve got a dozen or more of Seattleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s best chefs sweating over open ďŹ re pits in an idyllic ďŹ eld; are you going to pretend youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re just an especially curious bystander, one who likes to write things down, and then make up a name when they want to shake your hand? Will they treat you so differently back at their restaurants in Seattle that you will be unable to assess whether the place is any good or not? For a restaurant reviewer to eat whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s on their plate in the shadow of their wig, then hand down a verdict in an airless vacuum seems strange when meeting the people involved gives insight into their ethos, their interconnections, even our city as a whole. I interviewed about a dozen local chefs and food writers and cheese-shop owners between 2009 and 2012 for the magazine Edible Seattleâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;interviews at their homes, in which I documented (among other things) the contents of their refrigerators. Ethan StowSometimes even if a restaurant knows ell had half a sandwich from Subway. (â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a bad sandwichâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m a critic is thereâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;even if they not gonna lie to you,â&#x20AC;? he said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s invited herâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;they ďŹ&#x201A;ounder mightily. not a good sandwich. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s only ďŹ ve bucks, though.â&#x20AC;?) Zephyr Paquette had a bomb-shelterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s worth of home-canned But sometimes even if a restaurant knows goods, a dog that loved carrots, and a slingshot a critic is thereâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;even if they know sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s comshe was using to shoot corks at the squirrels ing ahead of time, if they invited herâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;still, ravaging her vegetable garden. (Having inthey ďŹ&#x201A;ounder mightily. In 2007, I was invited vaded her home, it was not easy to write this to dine at Troiani, a cavernous expensespring that I did not love the food at her new account restaurant downtown. This dinner fell restaurant, Skelly and the Bean, but it did help into the morbid-curiosity category; the place me understand the community that helped her had been there for quite a while, and it was build it, and why people like her so very much.) run by the El Gaucho people, and yet one nevFor another Edible Seattle interview, I viser heard anything about it at all. It was also ited Kim Ricketts, a force of nature whoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d put the kind of place The Stranger would probably Seattle on the map in terms of food-oriented never review, even if it were new, which it very book events, doing 100-plus dinners and parmuch wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t. The restaurant was empty in a ties and readings with the likes of Anthony way that felt windswept; you wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have Bourdain, Michael Pollan, Patricia Wells, been surprised to see tumbleweeds blowing Thomas Keller, Jerry Traunfeld, Greg Atkinbetween the well-spaced tables. Marooned in son, and Langdon Cook. Her home was as if the far reaches of the place, we glimpsed staff Martha Stewart actually had good taste; she occasionally in the distance. They never manmade baked feta rubbed with oregano, and we aged to bring us a bottle of sparkling water we drank a lot of wine, and she called the owner of wanted, and when we ordered a Caesar salad Whole Foods crazy and lightly disparaged the that was to be mixed tableside, there was an University Book Store and said a lot of stuff unnervingly long delay. Finally, a guy wheeled no one else ever would. Her husband and one a cart up to our table, confessed that heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d nevof her kids eventually joined us, sitting around er done this before and that no one else was by the ďŹ re. For yet another of these interviews, there who had, mixed the salad in a way that Christina Choi of Nettletown and I sat out on made you want to get up and help him, and the deck of her Eastlake apartment, talking then said he was going to have a smoke. I wish about growing up in Seattle and her wild-foodI could say that this is completely atypical of gathering days with Foraged & Found and all Seattle restaurantsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; A-game; I cannot. I felt sorts of things. Sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d done a photo shoot for so bad for the salad-mixer and the emptiness, Seattle Metropolitan earlier that day, and she I never wrote anything about it at all. Troiani insisted I stay for dinner to eat the gorgeous closed down in 2009. photo-shoot coho salmon with a motley crew of people she maybe only half-knewâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;an architect whoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d made the most beautiful meringues elďŹ shly, not being anonymous as a food ever seen outside a bakery, a woman who writer has meant doing much more talked about a past job nannying for a very, interesting things. Before Matt Dillon very rich family during which sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d drugged opened the Corson Building, his lovely oasis in the children to calm them down (at which only Georgetown, he let me poke around the propChristina and I looked askance). erty; I got to see the 1910 building when it was Both Kim Ricketts and Christina Choi still dilapidated, before the meat-curing room have since passed away. I was so lucky to get and new kitchen were built, when the foliage to know them, even just a littleâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;they each was rampant and there was a rusty bedstead had the ability to, in one afternoon, make instead of raised beds. (Later, I also jotted you feel like part of their family. How could a few things down during a many-coursed anonymity compare to that? Q dinner there, eventually causing the woman unannounced, visit with a guest (almost always) twice, and am reimbursed by the paper. Are they going to come out and grate trufďŹ&#x201A;es over my head? That would be noticeableâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and so, ultimately, are bigger steaks or better service, which can, in fact, be cross-checked with othersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; experiences. (If online review sites can be useful, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s in gleaning a very general sense of such things from very careful reading.) And restaurants are never going to be able to inject a sense of wonder where there isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t any. Over the years, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve occasionally accepted invitations to media dinners or events out of (sometimes morbid) curiosity, as well as to investigate places that otherwise would tax The Strangerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s deďŹ nitely not-unlimited budget. When I accept such invitations, that is acknowledged in any writing that might come of itâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;e.g., the 2010 article â&#x20AC;&#x153;This Is Not a Review of Sullivanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Steakhouse,â&#x20AC;? describing the absurdly lavish â&#x20AC;&#x153;VIPâ&#x20AC;? party that the Texas chain threw itself when it opened downtown. This party had a red carpet, multiple open bars, multiple live bands, oceans of people as dressed up as they get in Seattle, and mini steak sandwiches and crab legs and itty-bitty quiches and etc.â&#x20AC;&#x201D;all perfectly tasty, if not at all outstanding. The service was as good as giant-party service gets; they forced a glass of bubbly on you at the very threshold, and if you were too lazy to make your way through the crowd, trays with more drinks and piles of hors dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;oeuvres, carried by smiling and attractive people, would ďŹ nd their way to you.

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A&P: SEATTLE ART & PERFORMANCE

ILLUSTRATION BY JUNGYEON ROH

FICTION

The Girl Who Cried Wolf A Short Story By Rebecca Brown

Help! Help! she cried. Wolf! Wolf! The wolf had bitten off her hand. There was a stump. Things hung from it, red, stringy, drippy—dripping like the underside of a tree ripped by its heart. There was purple-black stuff that coursed and would coagulate as if toward “healing” (a favorite word these days). Also, something or things white or whitish in the middle. Help! Help, she cried, Help! Help! Now, now, another said, for she was not alone. Settle down, dear, what is it this time? Wolf, she cried again. Help! Help! Again? another sighed, for this had all been heard before. I don’t see any wolf. The others were there to help. Does anyone else see a wolf? There was the shaking of many heads, the rolling of many eyes, the weary smiles of almost near-affection. Or lions and tigers and bears? (Here there was a little laugh.) Oh my! (Har-har.) Is there something you’re trying to share with us? Now there was another wolf. It had come from behind. Its teeth grabbed her left calf. (The hand that was gone was the right one. Maybe they were going for her kitty-corner this time, a kind of asymmetrical look?) This one felt smaller. She twisted her head to see. It was. Was it the other’s cub? Was the mama wolf trying to teach the baby wolf? Its teeth were sloppy, almost tentative in her calf. This wound would not be clean. Was the baby learning? She hoped so. She hoped it wasn’t doing this sloppily intentionally to prolong this. That wouldn’t be nice. Should she sympathize with its trying to learn but only doing things sloppy and wrong? She tried to be sympathetic. Oh, wolf, she cried again. Wolf! Help! The big one was still there, gnawing on her hand, which was no longer attached to her, as one would gnaw a barbecued rib. (Not me, however—I’m vegetarian.) She was glad she didn’t feel that one anymore. She did feel the other, though. Its teeth were in the skin and then muscle and then against the bone of her calf. (Why “calf ”? How did “the ﬂeshy part at the back of a person’s leg below the knee” [New Oxford American Dictionary] relate to “a young bovine animal, esp., a domestic cow or bull

in its first year” or “the young of some other large mammals, such as elephants, rhinoceroses, large deer, antelopes, and whales,” and/or “a floating piece of ice detached from an iceberg”? The calf being detached from her would not “float”; it was being rent from her by teeth, not global warming. Though iceberg calves might be considered similar in that they too “drip” in a manner of speaking, though whether they are all or mostly these days caused by global warming—excuse me—“climate change” or “natural” phenomena or combinations thereof to whatever degree[s] is/are matter[s] of debate. Are melting ice caps a sign of the world’s impending doom? What is the responsibility of a concerned citizen in the face of such dripping calving?) It pulled the calf apart, almost away, until it hung by a string of a sprig of flesh until that was bitten free, whereupon there was the searing, the gushing of blood, the dizziness, the blacking out almost, the almost falling, etc. It usually happened similarly. Wolf, wolf, she sputtered, help help help wolf. I’m afraid I don’t see any wolf, dear. And I’m afraid (eye-rollingly, head-shakingly) none of the rest of us do, either. Her mouth was a rictus. She was tired of her shenanigans.

The big wolf was gnawing on her hand, which was no longer attached to her, as one would gnaw a barbecued rib. I… I’m… not making this up. She lifted, to show them, her bloody stump. All right… Another pursed her lips, exasperated, and took the hand or not hand or stump to shake as if it were there to shake. The hand went on then around the end of the stump or hand or not-hand or air, ﬁngers gripping heartily where the wolf had bitten it off. It would have felt, if one could feel it, like those old homemade Halloween haunted house bowls of spaghetti with grapes but with the additional ingredients of bitten-off ends of a forearm, carpus, and metacarpus. She shook the stump that was not a hand as if in friendliness. For the others were “friendly”; they were there to “help.” She wanted to scream when the other’s hand went

on and then around and then shook the bloody stump, but she didn’t. She still tried very hard to be polite.

There was another once, who was a friend. He’d seen it, too, and now had a prosthesis where his hand was bitten off. She’d been there when it happened, and she had helped to tear that biting wolf off and away (an act which was not, I assure you, whistling “Dixie”). She asked what he remembered. About what? he asked. The wolf, she said, nodding at his prosthesis. It should be explained here that she did not have such prostheses. She grew her bitten-off things back like a lizard. Her things grew back slightly wrinkled, slightly scarred, it’s true, but darker, the kind of thing looking at her you wouldn’t notice you noticed; she just seemed a little off, uncomfortable to look at though not enough to actually look away from. The burn- and scarlike-ness of the grown-back parts made her look weird, though not much weirder than she already was. Pardon me, he said, like, What was she insinuating? He didn’t like when people looked at it. It made him feel weird. She tried not to see his prosthesis anymore, but that made it hard to look at him. He looked at her like she wasn’t there. She felt like she wasn’t there. She felt like she was standing in a crowd—like Grand Central Terminal at rush hour or some other place she’d never actually been in real life, but it was the only way she could think of—screaming her screaming head off and zillions of people were walking by but nobody heard her or acted like they did, she couldn’t tell, which made her feel crazy, which maybe she was or maybe that was an excuse, but she was past caring. Help, help, she muttered, quietly not to anyone anymore, help help help help help help.

“A cry for help,” they often whispered sadly, tearfully, sorrowfully, after the fact. As if one had not cried for help before. Although one had. One often had. One had cried many, many times. One had cried Help! and Help! and Wolf! and one was told (eye-rollingly, headshakingly) to get oneself together, to not be so selfabsorbed and oversensitive and whiny, to just get the hell over oneself, until one ﬁnally did. Q

FALL 2012

henryart.org

Henry Art Gallery October 27–January 27 Exhibition Opening at the Henry Open House Friday, October 26

Jeﬀry Mitchell. Hand (Christ the Teacher). 2009. Lead-glazed earthenware. Courtesy of Charles and Amanda Kitchings Image courtesy of James Harris Gallery

A&P: SEATTLE ART & PERFORMANCE

FILM

Gay Film in a Post-Gay World The Seattle Lesbian & Gay Film Festival Is (Awesome) Living History By David Schmader

hen the Seattle Lesbian & Gay Film Festival first appeared, “don’t ask, don’t tell” was three years on the books, the Defense of Marriage Act had just been signed into law, and consensual gay sex was still outlawed in many states. The year was 1996—and out of this retrograde political climate, a new era of queer and queer-friendly film was blooming. And 1995 was a banner year, bringing the classic documentary The Celluloid Closet, the charming indie The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love, and the impressively star-packed (and crappy) Hollywood pandering of To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar. The trend toward artfully entertaining gay films and higher-profile pandering carried into 1996, which brought the crowd-pleasing British romance Beautiful Thing, Cheryl Dunye’s historymaking, genre-bending The Watermelon Woman, the Wachowski brothers’ hot-shit lesbian crime thriller Bound, the European trans comedy Different for Girls, and, yes, the impressively star-packed (and crappy) Hollywood pandering of The Birdcage.

Seattle Lesbian & Gay Film Festival Oct 11–21 www.threedollarbillcinema.org

It was a perfect time to be a lesbian and gay film festival, with the new crop of LGBT films appealing to ever-wider audiences while still proving too hot for mainstream media. (In the gay-acceptance time line, 1996 fell two years after Roseanne’s prime-time kiss with Mariel Hemingway caused a Chick-fil-A-sized shitstorm and two years before the arrival of Will & Grace signaled a new age of mainstream acceptance.) The majority of films in Seattle’s and other cities’ LGBT film festivals couldn’t be seen anywhere else. Now it’s 17 years later. Films like Brokeback Mountain, The Kids Are All Right, Far from Heaven, A Single Man, and Beginners have made movies by and about gays and lesbians the stuff of Cineplexes and Oscar ceremonies. Independent films that would once have been relegated primarily to gay film fests—Keep the Lights On, Weekend, Tarnation, Hedwig and the Angry Inch—now find happy homes at Cannes and Sundance and SIFF. Indeed, a number of films that will be featured in this year’s SLGFF have screened previously in Seattle. I Stand Corrected (a documentary about the brilliant transgender jazz bassist Jennifer Leitham) played the Translations Transgender Film Festival, while Love Free or Die (a doc about the openly gay Anglican bishop Gene Robinson) and Cloudburst (a romantic dramedy starring Oscar winners Olympia Dukakis and Brenda Fricker as an aging lesbian couple on a life-changing road trip) both played at this year’s SIFF. (All are recommended.) With the driving necessity of LGBT-specific film festivals diluted by ever-more-widespread acceptance, it’s fair to ask: What’s the point of a specifically LGBT film festival? Might such fests be a necessary casualty of progress, like the “Best Black Female” category at the American Music Awards? Don’t be stupid. A thousand non-gay film fests could screen a thousand totally gay films, and actual LGBT humans would still crave the pleasures of watching films by and about LGBT folk in an audience full of LGBT folk. It’s the essence of community and the best way to meet the film-loving queer you’ve been dreaming of.

This year’s Seattle Lesbian & Gay Film Festival kicks off October 11, which also happens to be National Coming Out Day. (Spiritual queen of this year’s Coming Out Day: Cheryl Chow.) Here’s a guided tour of fest highlights.

STRUCK BY LIGHTNING This coming-of-age dramedy was written and produced by Glee’s Chris Colfer, who stars as a high-school student who methodically blackmails his classmates into contributing to the school’s literary magazine. Early reviews decried the strained quality of the writing while praising the supporting turns by Allison Janney and Christina Hendricks. Whatever the case, Struck by Lighting is a historical ﬁrst: a young, out gay actor, who’s famous for playing a young, out gay character on network TV, writing, producing, and starring in his own feature ﬁlm. (And getting Allison Motherfucking Janney in his cast.)

casts our lovely Ms. Moon as the Carrie figure in a Seattley spin on Sex and the City. Supporting players include Sarah Rudinoff, Marya Sea Kaminski, Keira McDonald, and many other locals you love, and the whole thing is built on such a charmingly quirky concept that it rolls along funnily for a good stretch. The first cut of the film found director Wes Hurley seemingly paying cast members in screen time, to the detriment of his film’s momentum—while parts of it were super weird and good, the whole thing was at least 30 minutes too long. Happily, SLGFF will be screening the new 30-minutes-shorter version.

YOUNG AND WILD SLGFF’s closing-night ﬁlm is based on a popular blog from Chile, written by the 17-year-old daughter of a highly religious family in Santiago who anonymously rises to fame blogging about her sexual thoughts and actions.

CALL ME KUCHU Gays grown complacent with American acceptance need only to cast their eyes to Uganda for a chilling lesson in how far the rest of the world lags behind. In Uganda, not only is homosexuality illegal, but those found guilty of it have their faces published on the front page of a newspaper, and recent years have seen pushes to make homosexuality a crime punishable by death. Winner of best documentary at the 2012 Berlin International Film Festival, Call Me Kuchu offers a glimpse into the life of LGBT Ugandans with a special focus on the 2011 murder of LGBT activist David Kato.

MOMMY IS COMING Cheryl “Watermelon Woman” Dunye directs and costars in this “self-conﬁdently queer interpretation of a porn scenario,” in which a pair of monogamous lesbians in Berlin branch out into a new world of sexual adventure. (For those who like less postmodernism in their porn, SLGFF also features I Want Your Love, a “sexually explicit relationship drama” produced by the bareback porn company NakedSword.)

JOBRIATH A.D. As glam-rock die-hards know, Jobriath was the ﬂamboyant New York singer-songwriter whom Elektra Records spent millions to promote in the early 1970s as “an authentically gay David Bowie.” Instead, Jobriath smashed into a wall of homophobia that ended his career before his eventual death from AIDS. Kieran Turner’s documentary aims to tell the Jobriath tale in full through archival footage of the man in action and contemporary interviews with such fans as Marc Almond, Jake Shears, Stephin Merritt, and Henry Rollins.

MIA In a gesture of solidarity among overlapping city festivals, the Seattle Latino Film Festival joins forces with SLGFF to present this ﬁlm about an Argentinean transvestite whose discovery of a young woman’s dead body casts her into musical raptures of motherhood.

WAXIE MOON IN FALLEN JEWEL

Mommy Is Coming

MR. WRONG Conflict of interest alert: This commemorative screening of Mr. Wrong, the 1996 romantic comedy starring a still-closeted Ellen DeGeneres as a weddinghungry woman whose quest for a husband goes hideously awry, will be hosted by me, because I am obsessed with Mr. Wrong. At the time of its release, it was a strenuously unfunny comedy about a mannish woman’s high-jinks-packed hunt for a husband. In 2012, it’s a harrowing portrait of life in the 1990s closet, from the psycho-ridden dating pool to oblivious family members forever wondering if their clearly-alesbian daughter/sister/aunt will ever find the right man. It’s a hilariously awful head trip. (In support of its efforts to make sure no other lesbian ever has to marry a man she doesn’t love, this screening will benefit Washington United for Marriage.) Other promising attractions include Yossi, Eytan Fox’s sequel to his 2002 gay-Israeli-soldier romance Yossi & Jagger; the Sundance crowd-pleaser My Best Day; a film version of Matthew Bourne’s Tony Award–winning all-male Swan Lake; and BearCity 2, another sunny blast of gay love, body hair, and casual urethral torture. For the full Seattle Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2012 schedule, see www.threedollarbill cinema.org. Q

Seattle’s and the world’s boylesque sensation Waxie Moon hits the big screen in this locally made ﬁlm that FALL 2012

W: ON VIE ALSO ’S N WOME FROM INGS PAINT D N A L THE A OF SIT

FOLLOW THE STORY OF A BRAVE PRINCE & HIS BEAUTIFUL BRIDE WHO BATTLE A TEN-HEADED DEMON & JOIN FORCES WITH A MONKEY GENERAL MANY ARROWS FROM RAMA’S BOW:

Paintings of the Ramayana SEATTLE ASIAN ART MUSEUM | VOLUNTEER PARK SEPT 1–DEC 2, 2012 The exhibition is co-organized by The San Diego Museum of Art and the Seattle Art Museum.

seattleartmuseum.org

Media Sponsor: Sound Publishing Inc. Image: Rama and Lakshmana in the howdah of a white elephant with Hanuman as mahout (detail), late 18th century. Central India, Madhya Pradesh, Raghogarh, opaque watercolor on paper, 17 x 13 in., The San Diego Museum of Art, Edwin Binney 3rd Collection, 1990.703. Photo: The San Diego Museum of Art.

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A&P: SEATTLE ART & PERFORMANCE

1902 South Main Street, Seattle, WA 98144 | 206.328.2200

FALL CALENDAR

COURTESY OF THE ARTIST

D ISTU R BE D L AN DS C A PES Nathan DiPietro’s local observations, at Woodside/Braseth Gallery.

ART

by Jen Graves

Large Museums SEATTLE ART MUSEUM • 1300 First Ave, 654-3100, www.seattleart museum.org, open Wed–Sun Elles: Women Artists from the Centre Pompidou, Paris (Oct 11–Jan 13) is a groundbreaking collection of 125 works of art by 75 women artists, including Sonia Delaunay, Frida Kahlo, Dora Maar, Diane Arbus, Marina Abramovic, Louise Bourgeois, Atsuko Tanaka, Cindy Sherman, Sophie Calle, Gina Pane, Hannah Wilke, Nan Goldin, and Tania Bruguera. The way it happened is that Paris’s contemporary-art museum applied a simple concept: temporarily remove the men from the collection and see what the 20th century looks like from the perspective of women artists alone. The resulting survey spans from 1909 to 2007 and includes painting, sculpture, drawing, photography, video, and installation—and Seattle is the only city in the US lucky enough to host it. Many, many other Seattle venues are responding with gynocentric exhibitions of their own this season, making Elles easily the most influential thing happening in local art this fall. The show will serve not only as a tribute to female artists, it will also emphasize how sorely their presence is missed in many shows with a similar historical scope. Elles: SAM (Oct 11–Feb 17) Echoing what the Pompidou did in Paris, SAM will reinstall its own modern and contemporary collections using only works by female artists. The unfortunate truth is that if it only used works from its holdings, this would be a slim exhibition, so works from private collections will be added. Elles: SAM will include paintings by Georgia O’Keeffe, photographs and works on paper by Imogen Cunningham, mixed-media works by Yayoi Kusama, and more.

HENRY ART GALLERY • 4100 15th Ave NE, 543-2280, www.henry art.org, open Wed–Sun glossodelic attractors (through Sept 16) is a kookily named, captivating, and sometimes unsettling series of installations by Genius Award–winner Gary Hill, who lives quietly in Belltown but is world-renowned for his pointy-headed, LSD-laced, occasionally paranoid, frequently funny explorations in video,

sound, performance, and installation art. He is a surfer, a nerd, a draft dodger, and a wild man. The Record: Contemporary Art and Vinyl (through Oct 7): It’s almost too easy to make a likable exhibition inspired by vinyl records—what’s not to like? But this show of sculpture, sound, painting, drawing, installation, video, and performance—organized by the Nasher Museum at Duke University (where SAM’s new director comes from)—is more warm than clever, spans the world rather than locating itself chiefly in suburban American living rooms of the ’70s, and is fresh rather than nostalgic. Included: Japanese absurdist videos involving sea creatures and spinning turntables, photographs of mythical Southern traveling singers hanging on the wall while compositions inspired by them play overhead, outsider drawings by legendary fictional rocker Mingering Mike, Christian Marclay’s heartbroken lovesong video, a giant montage of Polaroids of members of the Talking Heads by David Byrne. In addition to the works of art in the galleries, a separate collection of playable records curated by artists could keep you occupied for hours alone. And in the lobby, the Henry added its own supplement to The Record, called The B-Side. It’s a display of oddities and ephemera from the world of vinyl records, including rows and rows of fantastically designed covers from local labels as well as display cases of historical record-related stuff. Occasionally, artists and musicians help you record your own songs in The B-Side room, too (check the schedule for times). A la belle étoile (Oct 6–Mar 24): Swiss artist Pipilotti Rist’s video A la belle étoile (Under the Sky) is not just a projection, it’s meant to be an immersive environment. In a dark room, action appears to rise from beneath the floor, to look up your skirt, to sway you, to swallow you. Its mischievous presence here is in conjunction with the visiting Elles exhibition at SAM. En plein air (Oct 6–Feb 16): A selection of late-19th- and early-20th-century plein air paintings and photographs from the Henry’s permanent collection are coupled with video-involved sculptures by young French Algerian contemporary artist Neïl Beloufa. Laurie Anderson (Oct 18–Nov 18) is the sort of fearless inventor that every discipline wants to claim: music, visual art, theater. Over the years, she’s also created a range of books, and she’ll arrange a selection of them here. If this were anyone else, it might be boring, but since it’s Laurie Anderson, get the hell down there. Laurie Anderson: An Exhibition of Books is happening along with her performance of her solo show Dirtday! at Kane Hall on October 20, which is preceded by her talk about technology, language, art, and her dreams at Kane Hall on October 19. And on October 21, she takes

part in a panel discussion at Seattle Center about how Seattle can become the greatest city that ever was (in conjunction with the Next Fifty World’s Fair extravaganza thingy). Now Here Is Also Nowhere (Oct 27–May 5): The Henry’s new deputy director of art and education, Luis Croquer, arrived in March from Detroit. Because museums are booked years in advance, he won’t have another show up for a couple of turns around the sun. But he was able to squeeze this two-part exhibition into a bald spot on the schedule. It’s a group show about the causes and effects of intangibility, featuring art that’s not all there physically, or that destabilizes itself materially. Disappearing art always brings out the lovers and the crazies. Should be fun. Like a Valentine: The Art of Jeffry Mitchell (Oct 27–Jan 27): Seattle’s most beloved artist, Genius Award–winner Jeffry Mitchell, is also the lovingest of Seattle artists. If his drawings, paintings, ceramics, and installations don’t endow you with increased exuberance, then you need medical help. This 25-year retrospective will be a gift to the city; you’ll probably end up visiting more than once. Jeffry Mitchell Pop-Up Shop (Nov 24–Jan 27): Featuring work, goods, and products made and/or conceived by local artists.

FRYE ART MUSEUM • 704 Terry Ave, 622-9250, www.frye museum.org, open Tues–Sun Frye Collection (Sept 22–Jan 6): Find a new thing to love in the museum’s ever-present (and therefore, maybe, under-looked-at) permanent collection of late-19th- and early-20th-century European and American art, including German paintings from Munich Secession artists. Mw [Moment Magnitude] (Oct 13–Jan 13) is a large-scale exhibition intended to explode the very idea of object-based exhibitions. It includes the broadest range of mediums, from art to performances, readings to concerts, and dance to “arts-engagement programs,” and it’s co-curated by a full-on team of artists and administrators: Jo-Anne Birnie Danzker, Joshua Kohl, Ryan Mitchell, Doug Nufer, and Yoko Ott.

OLYMPIC SCULPTURE PARK • 2901 Western Ave, 654-3100, www.seattle artmuseum.org, park open daily, pavilion open Tues–Sun Encontro das Águas (through April 14) is a silvery-blue pleasure sea that covers the walls of the pavilion at the sculpture park. It’s a drawing-painting made of seemingly infinitely echoing lines created with nothing but humble pens, and it’s gorgeous. The artist is São Paulo–based artist Sandra Cinto. In winter, the whitish sky gives the perma-

nent installation of sculptures in the park an entirely different cast. Alexander Calder’s Eagle is crouching a little, Richard Serra’s abstracted steel ship forms in Wake are pushing a little harder through the air, and the grove of trees loses its leaves where Tony Smith’s Wandering Rocks otherwise hide—these can be displayed at any angle, like dice that have been thrown; feel free to turn them over in your mind (not with your hands, unless you want a fight). Mark Dion’s Neukom Vivarium becomes a break from the wind and rain. Then again, if you only go outdoors in summer, you are a tourist. Be a foul-weathered sculpture visitor, or you drool.

Midsize Museums BELLEVUE ARTS MUSEUM • 510 Bellevue Way NE, Bellevue, 425-5190770, www.bellevuearts.org, open Tues–Sun Bold Expressions: African American Quilts from the Collection of Corrine Riley (through Oct 7) has more than 50 quilts made in the American South between 1910 and the 1970s, using whatever was at hand, from flour sacks to old work clothes. An American folk art form unleashed… Gather Up the Fragments: The Andrews Shaker Collection (through Oct 28) is the most comprehensive collection of Shaker materials ever assembled for exhibition. It includes more than 200 gift drawings, textiles, baskets, and furniture… BAM Biennial 2012: High Fiber Diet (Oct 25–Feb 24) is a group show focusing on fiber as a medium. Tapestries, sculptures, installations—soft, soft, soft. Try not to wrap yourself in any of the art… Nikki McClure: Cutting Her Own Path, 1996–2012 (Nov 13–Feb 3): intricate papercuts created with black paper and an X-ACTO blade.

BURKE MUSEUM • 17th Ave NE and NE 45th St, UW Campus, 543-5590, www.burkemuseum.org, open Mon–Sun 2012 International Conservation Photography Awards Exhibit (through Nov 25) features the 75 winning conservation-focused photographs by amateurs and professionals chosen from a pool of more than 1,500 entries.

CHIHULY GARDEN AND GLASS • 305 Harrison St, 753-4940, www.chihuly gardenandglass.com, open Mon–Sun (Ongoing) A promenade of rooms, an outdoor garden, and a cafe chronicling Dale Chihuly’s series and packages over the years. It’s not the definitive Chihuly experience, but there are highlights, like the cafe, where the artist reveals himself as a master hoarder,

FALL 2012

ART CALENDAR and the Macchia Forest. The Macchia Forest comes closest to being an immersive, transporting environment. It’s a rich and glowing presentation of Chihuly’s big, thin-walled, spotted bowls, each one sitting on its pedestal like a peacock on fire.

EXPERIENCE MUSIC PROJECT • 325 Fifth Ave N, 770-2700, www. empmuseum.org, open Mon–Sun The Rolling Stones 1972 (through Jan 6): intimate and surprising photographs by Jim Marshall, who depicts rock stars we have a hard time imagining up close.

LEMAY—AMERICA’S CAR MUSEUM • 2702 E “D” St, Tacoma, 253-7798490, www.lemaymuseum.org, open Mon–Sun (Ongoing) The newest museum in the Northwest is a nine-acre campus with a four-story facility housing gleaming displays of cars, trucks, and motorcycles, from a red-and-cream 1906 Cadillac Model M buggy to the leafy, nodoor custom sedan used in the 1994 movie The Flintstones.

MUSEUM OF GLASS • 1801 Dock St, Tacoma, 253-2844750, www.museumofglass.org, open Wed–Sun Maestro: Recent Works by Lino Tagliapietra (through Jan 6)… Origins: Early Works by Dale Chihuly (through Oct 21)… Classic Heat: a collection of large-scale glass hood ornaments produced by artist John Miller in a joint project with the Museum of Glass and LeMay—America’s Car Museum (through Jan)… Scapes: four installations by Laura de Santillana and Alessandro Diaz de Santillana based on the Hindu belief that the world is a series of disks made up of wind, water, and earth upon which float four continents (through Jan)… Made at the Museum: The Visiting Artist Collection (ongoing).

TACOMA ART MUSEUM

Eight Seasons in Sápmi, the Land of the Sámi People (through Nov 4) is a series of photographs by Birgitte Aarestrup documenting the Sámi, an indigenous population (reindeer herders!) from northern Europe. Diverse Landscapes of Iceland (Oct 2–Nov 11): photography by Bill Stafford covering Iceland’s waterfalls, fiords, fishing villages, volcanic activity, and urban Reykjavik. Fabulous Iceland: From Sagas to Novels (Oct 12–Nov 11) couples interviews with contemporary Icelandic authors with portraits by Kristinn Ingvarsson.

SEATTLE ASIAN ART MUSEUM • 1400 E Prospect St, Volunteer

A&P: SEATTLE ART & PERFORMANCE

Women’s Paintings from the Land of Sita (through Dec 2): For centuries, women in the villages of the Madhubani district of eastern India made ritual paintings on the walls and floors of their homes. When the region suffered a devastating drought and the community was fighting off starvation in the 1960s, an Indian government aid worker suggested the women translate their paintings onto paper in order to be sold at government shops. All at once, the women became breadwinners and artists well known for their popular, bright, geometric-meets-folk-art “Madhubani paintings.” This exhibition focuses on the works of nine of these women (plus one man!).

NORDIC HERITAGE MUSEUM • 3014 NW 67th St, 789-5707, www.nordicmuseum.org, open Tues–Sun

Many Arrows from Rama’s Bow: Paintings of the Ramayana (through Dec 2) is nearly 40 paintings based on the captivating Sanskrit epic that has inspired works of art all over India. The exhibition is a collaboration with the San Diego Museum of Art.

Bearing Witness from Another Place (opens Oct 20) marks the 25th anniversary of James Baldwin’s death with photographs of his experience in Turkey by Sedat Pakay.

• 2300 S Massachusetts St, 5186000, www.naamnw.org, open Wed–Sun

A WHIRLWIND OF CIRCUS, COMEDY & CABARET SERVED WITH A MULTI-COURSE FEAST Tickets: (206) 802-0015 OR WWW.ZINZANNI.ORG

Where Have They Been? Two Overlooked Chinese Female Artists (through Dec 30) complements SAM’s Elles by featuring work by Chang Ch’ung-ho Frankel, a painter and classically trained calligrapher, and Lu Wujiu, an abstract painter influenced by calligraphy.

Five years ago was the last time SAAM exhibited its 2002 video installation by renowned Iranianborn, New York–based artist Shirin Neshat, called Tooba (through Dec 2)—and at the time, we wished it would just stay up permanently. The piece is a mesmerizing, evocative, two-channel video projected on large facing walls; it creates its own entire theater. (The action was shot near Oaxaca, Mexico, and the piece was first exhibited at Tehran’s Museum of Contemporary Art—not that progressive Neshat herself is welcome back into her homeland.) From Stranger Suggests in 2006: “The narrative, accompanied by a throbbing religious chant, follows a band of men dressed in black who penetrate a desert garden, wordlessly climbing over its walls like a menacing vine, and surrounding a lone tree into which a wrinkled woman has disappeared. Feminism, Islam, international politics, fear, aggression, poetry— what more could you want from contemporary art?”

NORTHWEST AFRICAN AMERICAN MUSEUM

NOW PLAYING THROUGH SEPTEMBER 30

Park, 654-3100, www.seattleart museum.org, open Wed–Sun

• 1701 Pacific Ave, Tacoma, 253-272-4258, www.tacomaart museum.org, open Wed–Sun The Marioni Family: Radical Experimentation in Glass and Jewelry (through Sept 23) Marie Watt: Lodge (through Oct 7) by the Portland artist whose medium is blankets. Memories and Meditations: A Retrospective of Michael Kenna’s Photography (opens Oct 6)… Andy Warhol’s Flowers for Tacoma (Nov 3–Feb 10): An exhibition focusing on the role of flower imagery in Warhol’s career, including his (rejected, sadly) proposal to turn the top of the Tacoma Dome into a giant flower in the early 1980s.

WING LUKE MUSEUM • 719 S King St, 623-5124, www. wingluke.org, open Tues–Sun George Nakashima: A Master’s

Furniture and Philosophy (through Jan 20) is a look at the extraordinary wood creations of a man born in Spokane in 1905 and who died in 1990 after a lifetime of widely admired Japanese-influenced designing and building. Among his nonadmirers: the US government during the Second World War. Nakashima had earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Washington and a master’s from MIT (both in architecture), traveled the world, built in countries including India—and after returning to Seattle in 1940, was imprisoned for his “Japaneseness” at Camp Minidoka. This exhibition displays his objects and delves into his thought process.

Galleries ART/NOT TERMINAL GALLERY • 2045 Westlake Ave, 233-0680, www.antgallery.org, open Mon– Sun Secret Signs & Rebel Angels (through Oct 3): mixed media, paintings, and digital collage by Kree Arvanitas… 8th Annual Exhibition of the Onyx Fine Arts Collective (through Oct 3), featuring artists of African descent… Our American Landscape (Oct 6–Nov 1): photography on our national emblems by Kurt E. Armbruster… Oil paintings by D.ita, photographs by Robin Montero, works by Bradley Reed… Photography by Adrian Ward, work by Seattle Weavers Guild (Nov 3–29)… Art/Not Terminal Members Group Show (Dec 1– Jan 3).

ART ON THE RIDGE • 8005 Greenwood Ave N, 5103421, www.artontheridge.com, open Mon–Thurs and Sat New work from Matthew Scott (Dec 1–31).

ARTXCHANGE • 512 First Ave S, 839-0377, www. artxchange.org, open Tues–Sat Digital Superstitions (through Sept 29): new graffiti/ukiyo-e/ digital-hybrid work by Jonathan Wakuda Fischer… Concerns and Aspirations (Oct 6–Nov 17): paintings by Donald Cole… New carved sculpture by Elaine Hanowell (Nov 27–Jan 19).

ARTS WEST • 4711 California Ave SW, 9380963, www.artswest.org, open Tues–Sat Abstract Observations (through Oct 27): paintings and installations by Lydia Bassis, Maxwell Humphres, Jason Sinclair Astorquia, Diana Sanford, and RobRoy Chalmers… A Feast for the Eyes: Food in Art (Oct 30– Dec 15): photographs and paintings by Christopher Boffoli, Kristen Reitz-Green, and Jere Smith.

BHERD STUDIOS • 312 N 85th Street, Suite 101, 234-8348, www.bherdstudios. com, open Wed–Fri By The Yard… buy the inch (Sept 14–Oct 5) dares a group of artists to create art that’s one yard long by one foot high, then auction it off by the inch… This Is Not Your Grandmother’s Still Life (Oct 12–Nov 2) is an exploration of the modern still life curated by Kate Protage and Chris Sheridan… Picture Perfect (Nov 9–Dec 14) features work by five artists.

More than 60 Programs for Artists of All Levels this Fall COURTESY OF THE ARTIST

‘PEO PLE AR E PEO PLE’ Photography by Sherry Loeser at Core Gallery.

BLINDFOLD GALLERY • 1718 E Olive Way, Suite A, 3285100, www.blindfoldgallery.com, open Wed–Sun New paintings by Shane Walsh (Sept 13–Oct 7)… Solace and Wonder (Oct 11–Nov 4) paintings by Marcus Michels and Todd Podolsky… Janet Fagan: Forest, Sea & Sky (Nov 8–Dec 20).

COCA AT CARKEEK PARK • 950 NW Carkeek Park Rd, 6840877, www.cocaseattle.org, open Mon–Sun Rootbound: Heaven and Earth IV (through Oct 31): a temporary outdoor sculpture exhibition at Carkeek Park.

COCA GEORGETOWN • 5701 Sixth Ave S, 728-1980, www .cocaseattle.org, open Mon–Fri Across the Divide IV: The New Boondocks (through Sept 20): Eight artists living in Montana juxtapose their work with the creations of eight artists from west of the Cascades—does geography matter? How?… CoCA Members’ Show (Sept 27– Oct 26)… Alive, Dead (Nov 1– Dec 21): a group show curated by Lucy Mae Martin.

COLUMBIA CITY GALLERY • 4864 Rainier Ave S, 760-9843, www.columbiacitygallery.com, open Wed–Sun

People are People (through Oct 1): photography by Sherry Loeser… Yesterday, I Thought I Saw… (Oct 3–27): paintings and lithographs by Zanetka Kralova Gawronski… Seeds and Starts (Oct 3–27): sculptures by Steve Gawronski… CORE Holiday Show (Dec 5–22): gallery artists get festive.

CORNISH • 1000 Lenora St, 726-5011, www. cornish.edu/exhibitions, open Mon–Fri Old ghost ranges, sunken rivers, come again (Sept 5–Oct 12) is a group of responses to the forest by contemporary artists, including Vaughn Bell, Gretchen Bennett, Zack Bent, Matt Browning, Stephen Chalmers, Eirik Johnson, Matthew Offenbacher, Whiting Tennis, Kimberly Trowbridge, Allyce Wood, Peter Scherrer, and Claude Zervas… Genius Award–winner Susan Robb (Oct 24–Dec 13).

CULLOM GALLERY • 603 S Main St, 919-8278, www. cullomgallery.com, open Tues–Sat Loaded (Sept 6–Oct 27): Japanese woodblock prints based on US bank notes by satirist Annie Bissett… High Five (Nov 1– Dec 29) celebrates Cullom Gallery’s fifth anniversary by showing five works each by the gallery’s five most popular artists.

Threshold (through Sept 23) is paintings by Lori Duckstein and Michael Lowe, sculpture by Eric Edgerton, and multimedia works by Kate Harkins… Rooted: Latino/a Artists’ Connection to Native & Adopted Lands (through Sept 23), curated by Seattle artist Juan Alonso, highlights local artists… This year’s 7th Annual Juried Exhibit (Sept 26– Nov 11) will be judged by Sabah Al-Dhaher, Miguel Guillén, and Nancy Guppy… Small Works (Nov 14–Jan 13) is bitty pieces by Kathryn Booze, William Booze, Christian Gollub, Elinor Maroney, Sarah Parent, and Olivia Zapata… NW Designer Craftsmen (Nov 14–Jan 13) show work in clay, wood, glass, metal, and fiber by artists across the region.

DAVIDSON GALLERIES

CORE GALLERY

• 6555 Fifth Ave S, www.equinoxstudios.org, open second Saturdays

• 117 Prefontaine Place S, 4674444, www.coregallery.org, open Wed–Sat

• 313 Occidental Ave S, 624-7684, www.davidsongalleries.com, open Tues–Sat New paintings by Selene Santucci, with various artists’ Portfolios and Artist Books, and Robert Marx: Special Collection (Sept 7–29)… Donald Fels’s recent paintings and prints by Schmid, Barnes, Krueger, Huck (Oct 5–27)… A mysterious exhibition called Three Different Women (it could be the women themselves!), with monumental collagraphs by Jenny Robinson and etchings by John Sloan (Nov 5–27).

EQUINOX STUDIOS Mixed-media paintings and collage by Chuck Smart (Oct 4–30).

FANTAGRAPHICS • 1201 S Vale St, 658-0110, www .fantagraphics.com, open Mon– Sun The Horror (Oct 13–31): selections from the EC Comics Library… Noah Van Sciver and David Lasky (Nov 2–22)… The Last Vispo Anthology, an exhibition by the poet Nico Vassilakis (Nov 24–Dec 6).

FORM/SPACE ATELIER • 2407 First Ave, 349-2509, www. formspaceatelier.com, open Wed–Sat

Fall Classes Begin September 10! Register online at GageAcademy.org

Of Recollection and Collection (through Oct 6) is Allison Hyde’s work on memory, the history of the photograph, and the role of the stairwell… The Money Project (Oct 12–Dec 4) is a solo exhibition by Megan Harmon including sculpture made of money—yup—and a singlechannel video installation.

FOSTER/WHITE GALLERY • 220 Third Ave S, 622-2833, www. fosterwhite.com, open Tues–Sat Media Matters (Sept 6–29) is a show with work by seven artists pushing at the edges of what’s expected in various mediums, from photography to quilting… Bratsa Bonifacho (Oct 4–27): Skalamerija, slang for thingamajig, is a series of paintings characterized by geometric layering of sound bites by the Serbian-born, Vancouver, B.C.-based artist… Architecture/Nature (Nov 1–24): glasswork by David Shwarz… Rhyme or Reason (Nov 1–24): Paul Vexler’s bright, rhythmic wall sculptures made using discarded wood from industrial construction.

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FRIESEN ABMEYER GALLERY • 1210 Second Ave S, 628-9501, www.friesenabmeyer.com, open Tues–Sun Inner Fabric (through Sept 30): a group show exploring fiber and textiles, featuring Trina Perry Carlson, Reilly Jensen, Susan Hall, Jeff Ballard, and more… Mountain (Oct 2–Nov 4): paintings and sculpture by Laura Sharp Wilson.

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A&P: SEATTLE ART & PERFORMANCE

Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery 1201 S. Vale St. Seattle 206.658.0110

ART CALENDAR Drawings by Robert McNown, and paintings by Jill Bullit and Merle Martinson (Sept 14â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Oct 7)â&#x20AC;Ś New work by Pat De Caro and Margaret Watson (Oct 12â&#x20AC;&#x201C;Nov 11)â&#x20AC;Ś Gallery Highlights from 2012/Preview of 2013 (Nov 16â&#x20AC;&#x201C;Dec 23).

G. GIBSON GALLERY â&#x20AC;˘ 300 S Washington St, 587-4033, www.ggibsongallery.com, open Wedâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;Sat Hector Acebes: Africa 1948â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 1952 is the artistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s striking works in black and white, with work by Canh Nguyen (Sept 6â&#x20AC;&#x201C;29)â&#x20AC;Ś Homage to Elles, in conjunction with SAMâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s exhibition from the Pompidou, pays tribute to lady artists (Oct 4â&#x20AC;&#x201C;Nov 10)â&#x20AC;Ś Michael Kenna: In France (Oct 4â&#x20AC;&#x201C;Nov 10).

GALLERY 110 â&#x20AC;˘ 110 Third Ave S, 624-9336, www. gallery110.com, open Wedâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;Sat Digest This: Shu-Ju Wang, Diane Jacobs in the main gallery, and work by Maylee Noah in the small gallery (through Sept 29)â&#x20AC;Ś For Urban Martyrs (Oct 4â&#x20AC;&#x201C;27), Jasmine Iona Brown used a technique practiced by the Orthodox Church, creating a series of â&#x20AC;&#x153;egg tempera portraits of murdered children of color painted in the Byzantine icon style.â&#x20AC;?

GALLERY IMA â&#x20AC;˘ 123 S Jackson St, 625-0055, galleryima.com, open Tuesâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;Sat New work by Rickie Wolfe and Richard Wiegmann (through Sept 29).

GALLERY4CULTURE â&#x20AC;˘ 101 Prefontaine Pl S, 296-7580, galleries.4culture.org, open Monâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;Fri FutureShack: The Next 50 Years of Residential Design by AIA Architects celebrates the 2012 Seattle Design Festival (through Sept 28)â&#x20AC;Ś Lorenzo Moog does presidential portraits on pizza boxes in a show titled The Pizza Presidents: Expansion, Prohibitions, War (Oct 4â&#x20AC;&#x201C;26)â&#x20AC;Ś Painting/installation by Julie Alpert (Nov 1â&#x20AC;&#x201C;30), whoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s liable to turn the entire space into what seems like a theater set for an eventful play you have to guess at for yourselfâ&#x20AC;Ś Photomedia by Mario Lemafa (Dec 7â&#x20AC;&#x201C;28).

GHOST GALLERY â&#x20AC;˘ 504 E Denny Way, 832-6063, www.ghost-gallery.com, open Mon and Wedâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;Sun New and old paintings, drawings, and photography celebrating InvisibleHourâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 20th year of exhibiting in Seattle (Sept 13â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Oct 8)â&#x20AC;Ś Lights & Magic: installations, sculpture, and drawings by Jess Rees (Oct 11â&#x20AC;&#x201C;Nov 5)â&#x20AC;Ś Holiday Miniature Art Extravaganza (Nov 8â&#x20AC;&#x201C;Dec 31): just what it sounds like, cuteness included.

GREG KUCERA GALLERY â&#x20AC;˘ 212 Third Ave S, 624-0770, www. gregkucera.com, open Tuesâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;Sat Dan Webb: Destroyer is new carved-wood sculpturesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the biggest heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ever madeâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;by the Seattle veteran and Genius Award finalist, with the antique-style ambrotype studio portraits of Seattleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Daniel Carrillo (through Sept 29)â&#x20AC;Ś Figurative painter John Sonsini and plein-airabstractionist/paint-explorateur Margie Livingston should be interesting to consider side by

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side (Oct 4â&#x20AC;&#x201C;Nov 10)â&#x20AC;Ś This will be popular (and marvelous): Works on paper by renowned Seattle artist Gregory Blackstock, obsessive list-maker and cataloguer of the everyday (Nov 15â&#x20AC;&#x201C;Dec 29).

GROVER/THURSTON GALLERY â&#x20AC;˘ 319 Third Ave S, 223-0816, www.groverthurston.com, open Tuesâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;Sat Feast (through Sept 6â&#x20AC;&#x201C;29): work by Joe Max Emminger and Julie Paschkisâ&#x20AC;Ś Four Views of Light (Oct 4â&#x20AC;&#x201C;27): John Dempcy, James Lavadour, Holly McKinley, and Marianne Pulferâ&#x20AC;Ś Paintings and sculpture by the utterly lovable folk artist Terry Turrell (Nov 1â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Dec 21).

HEDREEN GALLERY â&#x20AC;˘ Lee Center for the Arts at Seattle University, 901 12th Ave, 296-2244, www.hedreengallery .us, open Wedâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;Sat Lead Bunny (Oct 1â&#x20AC;&#x201C;31): a film installation by Aileen Imperial, involving animation, dance, music, film, light, and costumes, with performances Oct 11â&#x20AC;&#x201C;14 at 9:30 pm.

INTERSTITIAL THEATER â&#x20AC;˘ RustiQue Studios, 1701 First Ave S, www.interstitialtheatre.org, open first Thursdays 8â&#x20AC;&#x201C;11 pm A collection of video art by Dakota Gearhart, Reilly Sinanan, Rylee Stearnes, and Jenisa Ubben (Sept 6)â&#x20AC;Ś Decomposing sculptures under a live video feed by Bojo Lawrence (Oct 4)â&#x20AC;Ś Video, photography, and sculpture by Brooks Dierdorff (Nov 1).

JAMES HARRIS GALLERY â&#x20AC;˘ 312 Second Ave S, 903-6220, www.jamesharrisgallery.com, open Thursâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;Sat Blue or Both (through Sept 29): abstract, delicately layered paintings by Alexander Krollâ&#x20AC;Ś Still-life photography by Sol Hashemi (through Sept 29)â&#x20AC;Ś from a history of ruin (Oct 4â&#x20AC;&#x201C;27): new work by Mary Ann Peters that explores Lebanon through a combination of distant meditation and personal and familial memoryâ&#x20AC;Ś Occupy (Oct 4â&#x20AC;&#x201C;27): photography and sculpture by Tania Kitchell that draws on the taxonomy and classification of invasive plant species found in the Arcticâ&#x20AC;Ś Cut or Uncut by Jeffry Mitchell (Nov 1â&#x20AC;&#x201C;30) focuses on the flower, including paintings, drawings, and three-dimensional works on paper.

JEFFREY MOOSE GALLERY â&#x20AC;˘ 1333 Fifth Ave, Suite 511, 4676951, www.jeffreymoosegallery. com, open Monâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;Sat Landscape paintings by Barbara Benedetti Newton, Randena Walsh, Karen Schroeder, and Neil Andersson (Oct 11â&#x20AC;&#x201C;Jan 5).

KIRKLAND ARTS CENTER â&#x20AC;˘ 620 Market St, Kirkland, 425822-7161, www.kirklandarts center.org, open Monâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;Sat Residue (through Oct 20): a mixed-media exhibition featuring Garth Amundson, Pierre Gour, Therese Buchmiller, and Paul D. McKee.

KRAB JAB STUDIO â&#x20AC;˘ 5628 Airport Way S, Suite 246, 715-8593, www.krabjabstudio

Paintings and drawings by Milo Duke (Sept 8â&#x20AC;&#x201C;Oct 4)â&#x20AC;Ś The Talking Board Group Show (Oct 13â&#x20AC;&#x201C;Nov 1): vintage Ouija boards and artistic interpretations of the contentious spirit invokerâ&#x20AC;Ś Works by Echo Chernik (Nov 10â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Dec 6).

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An electric environment for all ages to share ideas and to thinĹŹ oĆľtside of the condiĆ&#x;oned mindÍ&#x2DC;

New oil painting and collage by Patrick LoCicero (through Sept 29)â&#x20AC;Ś Paintings by Karen Yurkovich (Oct 4â&#x20AC;&#x201C;27)â&#x20AC;Ś Jeremy Manganâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new paintings (Nov 1â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Dec 1)â&#x20AC;Ś Mixed media on carved wood sculpture by Seattle artist David French (Dec 6â&#x20AC;&#x201C;29).

CLASSES PERFORMANCES

Parties & Events

LISA HARRIS GALLERY â&#x20AC;˘ 1922 Pike Place, 443-3315, www.lisaharrisgallery.com, open Monâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;Sun Crossings by Ann Morris includes vessels made with willow, sinew, kelp, and bone (through Sept 30)â&#x20AC;Ś Paintings and prints by Wendy Thon titled African Dreams (through Sept 30)â&#x20AC;Ś Ed Kamudaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new paintings with intricately faceted surfaces (Oct 4â&#x20AC;&#x201C;29)â&#x20AC;Ś Jerry Wingren: Suspended Totems and Other Wood Sculpture and abstract paintings by Victoria Johnson (Nov 1â&#x20AC;&#x201C;Dec 2).

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LTD. ART GALLERY â&#x20AC;˘ 307 E Pike St, 457-2970, www .ltdartgallery.com, open Tuesâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;Sun Press Start (through Sept 26): more than 30 artists from the video-game industryâ&#x20AC;Ś B Horror and Sci Fi Filmed (Oct 5â&#x20AC;&#x201C;Nov 4): a themed group showâ&#x20AC;Ś POP! 2, The Return (Nov 8â&#x20AC;&#x201C;Dec 9): art inspired by the artistsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; favorite pop-culture icons.

M.I.A. GALLERY â&#x20AC;˘ 1203A Second Ave, 467-4927, www.m-i-a-gallery.com, open Tuesâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;Sat Mix & UnMatch (Oct 4â&#x20AC;&#x201C;Nov 16): Puzzles mixing various identities on a single face by Iranian interdisciplinary artist Negar Farajiani.

PAPER HAMMER â&#x20AC;˘ 1400 Second Ave, 682-3820, www.paper-hammer.com, open Monâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;Sat Teeny handmade kites (!) by Nobuhiko Yoshizumi (midSeptâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;Oct 31)â&#x20AC;Ś Truisms (starting in Oct): storefront installation by Jenny Holzerâ&#x20AC;Ś The Seduction of Color: Photographs from the Collection of Robert E. Jackson (Nov 1â&#x20AC;&#x201C;Dec 31)â&#x20AC;Ś Patricia Leavengoodâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fantasy timepieces (Dec 1â&#x20AC;&#x201C;31).

PATRICIA CAMERON GALLERY â&#x20AC;˘ 234 Dexter Ave N, 909-9096, www.patriciacamerongallery.com, open Monâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;Fri Bubbles (Sept 15â&#x20AC;&#x201C;Oct 19): drawings and video by Kloe Kangâ&#x20AC;Ś Gallery Artists Group Exhibit (Oct 27â&#x20AC;&#x201C;Nov 23)â&#x20AC;Ś Mixed media, paintings, and drawings by Milan Heger (Dec 1â&#x20AC;&#x201C;Jan 11).

PHOTOGRAPHIC CENTER NORTHWEST â&#x20AC;˘ 900 12th Ave, 720-7222, www. pcnw.org, open Monâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;Sun Equivalents: 17th Annual Photo Competition Exhibition (through Sept 18): judged by W. M. Hunt. Social Order: Women Photographers from Iran, India and Afghanistan (Oct 26â&#x20AC;&#x201C;Dec 15) will feature

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FALL 2012

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Always Free Leo Saul Berk. Clinkers (detail), 2012. Duratrans, sculptural light box Approx. 75 x 64.5 in. Collection of the artist

PHOTOGRAPHY October 6, 2012–March 2013 Andy Warhol’s Flowers for Tacoma November 3, 2012–February 10, 2013

Drawing Line into Form: Works on Paper by Sculptors from the BNY Mellon Collection February 23–May 26, 2013 Beyond Books: The Independent Art of Eric Carle Opens Spring 2013

1701 Paciﬁc Avenue, Tacoma WA 98402 www.TacomaArtMuseum.org Michael Kenna, Two Piers, Imazu, Honshu, Japan, 2001. Sepia toned silver gelatin, 7¾ × 7¾ inches approximately. Courtesy of the artist and G. Gibson Gallery, Seattle. Memories and Meditations: A Retrospective of Michael Kenna’s Photography is funded by The Greater Tacoma Community Foundation and Tacoma Arts Commission.

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A&P: SEATTLE ART & PERFORMANCE

ART CALENDAR Shadi Ghadirian, Gazelle Samizay, Annu Palakunnathu Matthew, Manjari Sharma, and Priya Kambli. Samizay, of Afghan descent, is the only artist among the five who lives and works in Seattle. Tehran-based Ghadirian, the only one living outside the US, creates unforgettable photographs involving veiled women (with boom boxes and mirrors, say).

PLATFORM GALLERY • 114 Third Ave S, 323-2808, www.platformgallery.com, open Wed–Sat Drogue (through Oct 13): new sculptures and drawings by Eric Eley, who sends shapes into free float, whether in two dimensions or three… Graphite drawings by Michael Schall (Oct 18–Nov 24)… Elles: Platform (Nov 29–Dec 15) features work by Platform lady artists Jaq Chartier, Lauren Grossman, Patte Loper, Kelly Mark, Melissa Pokorny, and Ariana Page Russell.

PRATT GALLERY AT TASHIRO KAPLAN STUDIOS • 312 S Washington St, Studio A1, 328-2200, www.pratt.org, open Wed–Sat A Closer Look (Sept 6–29): works in glass by Paul Cunningham, Chuck Lopez, Janusz Pozniak, Kait Rhoads, and Boyd Sugiki… West Meets East (Nov 1– Dec 1): a print-based installation by Christina Carlyle Reed.

PROGRAPHICA • 3419 E Denny Way, 322-3851, www.prographicadrawings.com, open Wed–Sat The Space Between Things (Sept 22–Oct 27): Marsha Burns, Eric Elliott, Ann Gale, Caroline Kapp, Robert Maki, Jordan Wolfson, and Evelyn Woods… Equine, Bovine, Canine, Feline, & Avian (Nov 3–Dec 8): David Brody, John Fadeff, Moira Hahn, Randy Hayes, Jim Holl, Carolyn Kreig, and Robert Shlegel.

rabble-rousing Ries Niemi (Oct 4–27)… Juried Exhibition (Nov 1–Dec 15).

ROQ LA RUE • 2312 Second Ave, 374-8977, www.roqlarue.com, open Wed– Sat Lush Life Four (through Oct 6): an annual group show… Marco Mazzoni’s colored-pencil drawings, and Joseph Park’s postCubist paintings in his signature “prism-ism” style (Oct 12–Nov 3)… Josh Keyes’s museum diorama– like paintings and John Brophy’s new series of icon paintings (Nov 9–Dec 1).

STONINGTON GALLERY

SEASON • 1222 NE Ravenna Blvd, 679-0706, www.season.cz, open by appt only Happiness Rides Wide (through Sept 30): sculpture and drawings by Mike Simi, an observer of economics, masculinity, and anxiety. His sculptures are characters too ashamed or too absorbed or simply too faceless to look at you directly; they often only offer their backs. The threat of ouch is everywhere in evidence here.

• 119 S Jackson St, 405-4040, www.stoningtongallery.com, open Mon–Sun

SHIFT COLLABORATIVE STUDIO

Far Away, Up Close (through Sept 29): masks, ritual objects in wood, stone sculpture, jewelry, prints, whalebone carvings, and mixed media by contemporary Alaskan artists… Gouache paintings by Thomas Stream (through Sept 29)… A Generation Rises (Oct 4–27): Phil Gray, Alano Edzerza, Shaun Peterson, Sheldon Skillie, and others… Joan Tenenbaum: Mountains, Moons and Mystery and Odyssey, carvings by Hib Sabin (Nov 1–30)… Winter Group Exhibition (Dec 6–31): sculpture, paintings, prints, jewelry, basketry.

• 306 S Washington St, #105, www.shiftstudio.org, open Fri–Sat and first Thursdays

SUYAMA SPACE

Nothing and No Thing (Oct 14– Dec 31): music, photography, and sculpture by three-piece art band Bat Haus.

Hunting Orange Rabbits (through Sept 29): large-scale photographs in which the artist, Ted Hiebert, poses with a wolf skin… Works in print, collage, and mixed media by Romson Regarde Bustillo and Kamla Kakaria (Oct 4–27)… Transformation (Nov 1–Dec 1): works on paper by Paula Stokes, and leaded glass LED light boxes by Eric Mead.

SOIL

PUNCH GALLERY

• 112 Third Ave S, 264-8061, www. soilart.org, open Wed–Sat

• 119 Prefontaine Pl S, 621-1945, www.punchgallery.org, open Thurs–Sat

Beyond the Western Lands (through Sept 29): a group show by Brian Britigan, Adrain Chesser, Steven Miller, and Jeffry Mitchell… I eat my honeycomb with my honey, I drink my

Bill Finger, who photographs scenes based on the dioramas he builds (Sept 6–29)… New work by

wine with my milk (through Sept 29): new paintings by Susanna Bluhm… Teeth (Oct 3–27): Teeth can be so creepy. Work by Nola Avienne, Chris Buening, Alan Bur Johnson, and Jennifer Zwick… Ellen Ziegler: Body Double (Oct 3–27)… Handbound (Oct 31–Dec 1): a group show highlighting comics, zines, and art books (both finished and in progress) by Max Clotfelter, David Nixon, Jason T. Miles, Jess Rees, Martine Workman, Eroyn Franklin, Kelly Froh, and others… Pacific Motel (Dec 5–29): collage, installation, and photography by Maggie Carson Romano and Serrah Russell, after their shared experience at a motel on a weekend away.

• 2324 Second Ave, 256-0809, www.suyamapetersondeguchi. com/art, open Mon–Fri Ruffle (Sept 10–Dec 7): a threedimensional massing of contour line drawings by Gail Grinnell that envelops the entire gallery.

TASTY • 7513 Greenwood Ave N, 7063020, www.shoptastyart.com, open Tues–Sun Erratic Expressions (through Oct 9): a group mixed-media exhibition… Fairy Tales & Fables (Oct 10–Nov 6): paintings and sculptures inspired by storybook characters… Tantrums, Tragedies & Temptations (Nov 7–Dec 11): paintings drawn from Greek myth.

TRAVER GALLERY • 110 Union St, #200, 587-6501, www.travergallery.com, open Tues–Sun Microcosmos (through Sept 29): glasswork by brothers Einar and Jamex de la Torre that puts a fresh spin on Mexican folk-art imagery… Aurorae (Oct 4–Nov 11): tilting, precarious glasswork by John Kiley… Nancy Worden: Smiling Faces, and work by Jen Elek and Jeremy Bert (Nov 15–Dec 23).

TRUE LOVE ART GALLERY • 1525 Summit Ave, 227-3572, www.trueloveart.com, open Tues–Sat We Are Such Faggots (through Sept 11): playful/defiant erotic photography, text, and T-shirts by Steven Miller and Adrain Chesser… For Work and Play (Sept 13–Oct 9): paintings by H. Lee Porter, repurposed plastic bottle dolls by LONGER, and graphic art by Riley Hoonan and Glenn Newcomer… Art That Speaks (Oct 11–Nov 6): art incorporating text and hand-painted typography by 13fngrs, W3 collective, Brian Sanchez, and others… The Future Is Uncertain (Nov 8–Dec 10): art and installation by Christopher Buening and others… Art Is a Gift (Dec 13–Jan 8): artwork, crafts, and prints by artists, all to be sold on a “cash and carry basis.”

• 2101 Ninth Ave, 622-7243, www. woodsidebrasethgallery.com, open Tues–Sat New paintings by Nathan DiPietro (through Oct 20), whose paintings are deadpan documents of regional despair, er, development… New paintings by Jared Rue (Oct 23–Nov 24).

Events SEPT 7, 5:30–7:30 PM

VERA ART GALLERY • 305 Harrison St, Seattle Center, 956-8372, www.theveraproject. org, open Tues–Sat

SEPT 8, 10 AM–3 PM

Diversity in Silkscreen (through Sept 29): expanding beyond the rock poster to explore possibilities in silkscreen.

VERMILLION • 1508 11th Ave, 709-9797, www. vermillionseattle.com, open Tues–Sun Photo show by locals (Sept 13–Oct 6)… Fake taxidermy by Michael Alm and Robin Crookall (Oct 11–Nov 3)… Collaborations in the form of conversation, drawing, painting, and evolving installations by Amanda Manitach and Ryan Molenkamp (Nov 8–Dec 8).

VIGNETTES • Private residence, www. vignettes.us, each show is one night only

WESTERN BRIDGE • 3412 Fourth Ave S, 838-7444, www.westernbridge.org, open Thurs–Sat This is the last show at Western Bridge ever, after eight glorious years, and the title is poignant: I’m thinking how happy I am (Sept 8–Oct 20). Be happy it happened rather than sad it’s ending, or something like that, right? Work will be by Lutz Bacher, Euan Macdonald, and Walead Beshty, including an installation scattering 2,500 baseballs across the floor, a video, and two works relating to Western Bridge and its… ending. We’re thinking how happy we are, we’re thinking how happy we are. Seriously: Don’t miss this. It will be beautiful. And we are happy it happened.

WINSTON WÄCHTER GALLERY EU PH O R I A Bratsa Bonifacho, the artist with the greatest possible name, at Foster/White.

WOODSIDE BRASETH GALLERY

ARCADE 30.4 Launch Party Celebrating the release of the new issue of Seattle’s design magazine, ARCADE, this time titled “Global More=Global Less” and guest-edited by Barbara Swift. Jeffrey Ochsner and Ed Weinstein speak. $30 suggested donation for drinks, snacks, music, and your copy of ARCADE. • The BelRoy Apartments, 703 Bellevue Ave E, www.arcade journal.com)

Listen to the Thunder Shout I Am (Sept 13): raw photography by Doug Newman.

COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND FOSTER/WHITE GALLERY

The Gardens of Archimedes (The Circle of Life Paintings): Michael Schultheis’s imagistic exploration of the geometry of Greek mathematician Archimedes of Syracuse (Sept 12–Oct 27)… Petits Tableaux: A Group Exhibition of Small Works, with new paintings by Chris Pfister, and video animation based on rarely seen footage from the 1962 World’s Fair by Piper O’Neill (Nov 7–Dec 21).

• 203 Dexter Ave N, 652-5855, www.winstonwachter.com, open Mon–Sat

Salmon Return Celebration Earth-friendly artmaking, family tours, live performances, all loving on the pink fish. • Olympic Sculpture Park, 2901 Western Ave, www.seattle artmuseum.org/visit/osp

SEPT 8, 4–10 PM NEPO 5K Don’t Run This 5K encourages hopping, skipping, crawling, jaunting, hobbling, stumbling, and moonwalking over running—but you can also just walk it and enjoy the site-specific performances and installations along the three-mile route. • Starts at NEPO House, 1723 S Lander St; finishes in front of Kobe Terrace Park, S Main St and Maynard Ave S, www.nepohouse .org

SEPT 20–23 Design in Public’s Seattle Design Festival Until last year, Seattle had no annual event for people to get together and officially care about the shapes of the city—its design in the past, present, and future. This is the second year of the very welcome Seattle Design Festival, organized by Design in Public, featuring speakers and panels, tours, exhibits, films, and workshops involving everything from the development of South Lake Union to the next 50 years of residential design to the history of Japanese furniture to the plan for the 520 bridge. Locally made goods for sale, and brainstorming officially taking place. • Various venues, www.seattle designfestival.org

SEPT 22, 5:30–11 PM Genius Awards The 10th annual Genius Awards are happening in a way that they’ve never happened before: Of three finalists in each category, the winners will be announced from the stage. The Art nominees are: naturalist/urban-installation artist Sarah Bergmann (wooot!), sculptor Dan Webb (yeahhh!), and video artist/drawer Amanda

Manitach (yowww!). • Moore Theater, 1932 Second Ave, www.thestranger.com/ genius; VIP only from 5:30– 7:30 pm

OCT 17–20 Heineken City Arts Festival City Arts magazine’s third annual fall festival, spread in various venues across the city, is four days and nights of music and performance—but don’t forget that Seattle’s visual artists are involved, too. The highlight this year has to be the Art Dash 4 Ca$h (Oct 20): “Part public art tour, part alley cat– style bike race, part party.” It’s a 12-hour, countywide bike tour/race to find and photograph art (maps will be provided, or you can also go your own way) featuring bands, unexpected locations, and cash prizes, organized by New Mystics. Art will be scattered throughout the festival’s locations, but there will also be a central Culture Club hub, with exhibitions, an art-anddesign-object mini-market, happy hours “curated” by artists (including the playful crew of Fictilis and the trickster trio PDL), and performances/installations by teams of interdisciplinary artists who’ve never worked together before “genre-bending” for the occasion. • Various venues, www.cityarts fest.com

OCT 20, 10 AM–3 PM Community Day for Elles A celebration of women and art at SAM, including kids’ tours, artmaking, dancing, live music. • Seattle Art Museum, 1300 First Ave, 654-3100, www.seattleart museum.org

NOV 8–11 Affordable Art Fair Novice (and veteran) art buyers, look no further: The Affordable Art Fair has graced New York, London, Milan, and Paris and is now making its first-ever appearance in Seattle. With assistance from local gallery owners, the event will display thousands of works of art for sale at palatable prices. (But we do want to remind you that affordable art is everywhere!) • Seattle Center Exhibition Hall, Seattle Center, www.affordableartfair.com/seattle

NOV 10, 5–9 PM Hiawatha Artist Lofts A possibly autumnal-themed open house featuring music, food, and open studios. • Hiawatha Artist Lofts, 843 Hiawatha Pl S

Art Walks Wallingford, first Wednesday, 6–9 pm; Pioneer Square, first Thursday, 5–8 pm; Fremont, first Friday, 6–9 pm; Capitol Hill, second Thursday, 5–8 pm; West Seattle, second Thursday, 6–9 pm; PhinneyWood, second Friday, 6–9 pm; Belltown, second Friday, 6–9 pm; Central District, second Saturday, 1–5 pm (May–Oct); Georgetown, second Saturday, 6–9 pm; Ballard, second Saturday, 6–9 pm; Pike Hike, third Thursday, 5–8 pm (May–Oct); Columbia City, third Friday, 4– 9 pm (May–Sept); U-District, third Friday, 6–9 pm; International District, third Saturday, 6:30– 9:30 pm (May–Aug). Go to www .seattleartwalks.org for more info.

FALL 2012

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A&P: SEATTLE ART & PERFORMANCE

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A&P FALL CALENDAR

organizations with 32 teams, cold beer, and lots of friendly smack talk.

PERFORMANCE

Theater and Dance by Brendan Kiley

Larger Theaters 5TH AVENUE THEATER • 1308 Fifth Ave, 625-1900, www.5thavenue.org Memphis (Sept 18–Oct 7): A Tony Award– winning musical about the origins of rock ’n’ roll and a romance between a black lady and white guy.

by Crystal Pite (of Kidd Pivot and a favorite at On the Boards). Laurie Anderson (Oct 20): Laurie Anderson is an all-around artist: singer, songwriter, performance artist, storyteller. She will perform Dirtday!, the final installment of the trilogy that includes Happiness and The End of the Moon.

MOORE THEATER

The Addams Family (Oct 24–Nov 11): It came from Broadway.

• 1932 Second Ave, 682-1414, www.stg presents.org

ELF: The Musical: (Nov 20–Dec 31): Based on the film starring Will Ferrell.

Genius Awards (Sept 22): The 10th annual Genius Awards are happening in a way that they’ve never happened before: Of three finalists in each category, the winners will be announced from the stage. The theater nominees are Grady West, Keri Healy, and Zoe Scofield. More info at thestranger.com/genius.

ACT THEATER • 700 Union St, 292-7676, www.acttheatre .org Uncle Ho to Uncle Sam (Sept 7–Oct 7): A solo performance by Trieu Tran about a Vietnamese boy who lives through the fall of Saigon, a Viet Cong reeducation camp, refugee camps, and the confusion and turbulence of moving to the United States, in a “land of snow, hiphop, urban gangs, and clashing cultures.” Directed by Robert Egan. Nuevo y Solo (Sept 7–9): A showcase of new solo work by members of local Latino theater company eSe Teatro. Seattle Confidential (Sept 10, Dec 3): Ian Bell’s quarterly collection of anonymous true stories, submitted by Seattleites, read by actors, and accompanied by charts, graphs, PowerPoint presentations, and other bells and whistles. The September theme is “The Unforgettable Summer.” In December, it’s “Ghost Stories” and the afterlife.

Dance Theater of Harlem (Nov 16–17): The Harlem ballet company founded in 1969.

ON THE BOARDS • 100 W Roy St, 217-9888, www.onthe boards.org Christian Rizzo and Sophie Laly (Sept 14–15): The art/fashion/dance provocateur Christian Rizzo—who sparks robust debates every time he performs here—will partner with video installation artist Sophie Laly to create Néo-Fiction, based on a three-week trek across the Pacific Northwest. Badminton Royale (Sept 18): OtB’s annual badminton tournament for arts

Gob Squad (Sept 27–30): The experimental UK/German company re-creates the Andy Warhol experience of 1965 by remaking his real-time films Kitchen, Kiss, his “screen tests,” and others by using audience members. The result is anthropological, historical, comical, and oddly touching by the end. Mark Morris Dance Group (Oct 4–6): Iconic choreographer Mark Morris presents four works under the umbrella title Back On the Boards. From the On the Boards website, which says it best: “Before Mark Morris became a household name in contemporary dance, he premiered one of his earliest works as part of OtB’s inaugural season. In this spectacular homecoming, Morris and his company return to the intimate confines of the OtB main stage with a special program set to live music performed by the MMDG Music Ensemble.” Kidd Pivot (Oct 23–25): Choreographer Crystal Pite—a favorite at On the Boards for her ability to fuse stirring narrative with aesthetics that tickle your guts like a roller-coaster ride—returns with The Tempest Replica, a meditation on Shakespeare’s The Tempest. 12 Minutes Max (Oct 28–29, Dec 2–3): The cabaret of fresh, half-cooked work curated by Seattle artists. Teatro Línea de Sombra (Nov 8–11): The Mexican theater ensemble brings its story about a man who heads for the border and disappears before he reaches his destination of Amarillo, Texas. A timely piece of experimental theater about one of the world’s most tender and tragic zones. Kyle Loven (Dec 5–9): The local experimental puppeteer—whose work has been described in The Stranger as “a little bit Edward Gorey, a little bit Samuel Beckett, and a little bit Czech surrealism”—performs another one of his expressionistic shows with an intricately rigged set, titled Loss Machine.

PACIFIC NORTHWEST BALLET • McCaw Hall, 321 Mercer St, 441-2424,

www.pnb.org Celebrate Seattle (Sept 16): A party with NASA astronauts, ballet dancers, and the PNB orchestra playing music from Back to the Future, The Pink Panther, Bizet, Stravinsky, and much more. Cinderella (Sept 21–30): Music by Prokofiev, choreography by Kent Stowell, with a performance of Circus Polka by Stravinsky and Jerome Robbins on opening night only. All Premiere (Nov 2–11): Four world premieres with choreography by Mark Morris, Andrew Bartee, Margaret Mullin, and Kiyon Gaines.

PARAMOUNT THEATER • 911 Pine St, 682-1414, www.stgpresents .org Stephanie Miller’s Sexy Liberal Comedy Tour (Sept 29): Stephanie Miller’s dad was Barry Goldwater’s vice presidential choice during his failed attempt to become president in 1964. The lady herself is a comedian and TV/radio pundit. Wicked (Oct 10–Nov 17): The smash-hit Broadway musical based on the 1995 Gregory Maguire novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. Adam Carolla and Dennis Prager (Dec 1): A conversation.

SEATTLE OPERA • McCaw Hall, 321 Mercer St, 389-7676, www.seattleopera.org Fidelio (Oct 13–27): Ludwig van Beethoven wrote one opera in his life, and this is it. The synopsis from Wikipedia: “Two years prior to the opening scene, the nobleman Florestan has exposed or attempted to expose certain crimes of the nobleman Pizarro. In revenge, Pizarro has secretly imprisoned Florestan in the prison over which Pizarro is governor. The jailer of the prison, Rocco, has a daughter, Marzelline, and a servant (or assistant), Jaquino. Florestan’s wife, Leonore, came to Rocco’s door dressed as a boy seeking employment, and Rocco hired her. On

• 155 Mercer St, 443-2222, www.seattle rep.org Pullman Porter Blues (Sept 27–Oct 28): Cheryl L. West’s play set in 1937, directed by Lisa Peterson, about trains, race, the Midwest, and three generations of porters on a choo-choo bound from Chicago to New Orleans. With a live band. The Glass Menagerie (Oct 26–Dec 2): The Tennessee Williams classic about an aging Southern belle, directed by Braden Abraham. Inspecting Carol (Nov 23–Dec 23): In this ensemble-developed play originally spearheaded by Daniel Sullivan in 1991—and now revived by current artistic director Jerry Manning—the curtain rises backstage on a theater’s rattletrap production of A Christmas Carol that is falling the fuck apart. (Is the Rep taking a stab at ACT Theater’s annual holiday hegemony and its Christmas Carol?)

THE TRIPLE DOOR • 216 Union St, 838-4333, www.tripledoor .net Through the Looking Glass: The Burlesque Alice in Wonderland (Sept 12–15): With Lily Verlaine, Waxie Moon, Indigo Blue, Jasper McCann, Ben Delacreme, Lou Henry Hoover (of Cherdonna and Lou, playing Alice), Inga Ingénue, and other familiar burlesque personalities. This Is Halloween (Oct 26–31): A burlesque-inflected dance show by the great crew of the Can Can Cabaret—a bunch of nightclub dancers who are secretly a gateway drug for modern dance—with music by the marvelous Balkan-style brass band Orkestar Zirkonium. Expect heavy aesthetic influence from Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas.

• 303 Front St N, Issaquah, 425-392-2202, www.villagetheatre.org Big River: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Sept 12–Oct 21): Novel by great American writer Mark Twain; lyrics and music by the great American blues, country, and bluegrass songwriter Roger Miller.

Ramayana (Oct 12–Nov 11): See preview, page 23. ACT Theater has been working for more than two years with two directors (Kurt Beattie and Sheila Daniels) and two playwrights (Yussef El Guindi and Stephanie Timm) on this three-hour adaptation of the South Asian epic poem.

Fiddler on the Roof (Nov 7–Dec 30): The famous musical inspired by Marc Chagall’s paintings of Eastern European Jewish life, which often featured a fiddler character.

Smaller Theaters

A Christmas Carol (Nov 23–Dec 24): ACT Theater’s annual performance of the Dickens holiday story as adapted by early Seattle theater pioneer Greg Falls. Falls’s sleek, pared-down script hits all the major notes of the story and trims the unnecessary fat—it may be one of the best stage adaptations of A Christmas Carol ever written.

14/48: THE WORLD’S QUICKEST THEATER FESTIVAL • Seattle Center, www.1448fest.com 14/48 Outdoor Festival (Sept 7–8): The world’s quickest theater festival—which creates, designs, rehearses, and performs 14 new plays in 48 hours—happens outdoors next to the Seattle Rep as part of Seattle Center’s “Next Fifty Celebration” to commemorate the Center’s 50th anniversary.

BROADWAY PERFORMANCE HALL • 1625 Broadway, 934-3052, www.broadwayperfhall.com Men in Dance Festival (Oct 12–14, 19–21): The ninth annual festival for dancing dudes, including local artists (Iyun Harrison, Olivier Wevers, Geoff Johnson, others) and out-of-towners (Mike Esperanza, Bill Wade, others).

ANNEX THEATER • 1100 E Pike St, 728-0933, www.annex theatre.org Weird and Awesome with Emmett Montgomery (Sept 2, Oct 7, Nov 4, Dec 2): A monthly collection of people saying things (oftentimes people doing things outside of their comfort zone: scientists telling jokes, comedians being sincere) curated by longtime Seattle comedy guy Emmett Montgomery.

MEANY HALL • University of Washington Campus, 543-4880, www.uwworldseries.org

Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet (Nov 15–17): The Seattle premiere of this sparkly new company, with choreography

SEATTLE REPERTORY THEATER

VILLAGE THEATER

The Great Soul of Russia (Sept 11, Oct 9): Readings of Russian stories, plays, and poetry by members of the Seagull Project. The September theme is “Fairies and Frights: Lessons Remembered.” The October theme is “They Ate Cabbage and Brown Bread.”

Paul Taylor Dance Company (Oct 4–6): Work by Paul Taylor, who the UW World Series calls “the last living member of the pantheon that created America’s indigenous art of modern dance” and who Martha Graham called the “naughty boy” of modern dance.

orders, Rocco has been giving Florestan diminishing rations until he is nearly starved to death. Place: A Spanish state prison, a few miles from Seville. Time: Late 18th century.” It will be directed by Chris Alexander.

Zoe Scofield and Juniper Shuey’s Kate & Zoe at the Heineken City Arts Fest, Oct 17–20 ZOE|JUNIPER

Spin the Bottle (Sept 7, Oct 5, Nov 2): On the first Friday of every month since 1997, Annex has hosted a cabaret of new stuff that people do in front of other people—music, comedy, dance, film, theater, burlesque, pornography, paper-airplanemaking demonstrations, and stuff you can’t even imagine.

FALL 2012

PERFORMANCE CALENDAR

ARTS CRUSH

HEINEKEN CITY ARTS FEST

• Theaters across Seattle, 770-0370, www.artscrush.org

• Various venues, www.cityarts fest.com

Arts Crush (Oct 1–31): A citywide program, run by Theater Puget Sound, with free shows, workshops, and special events designed to make theater more exciting and accessible to the citizens of our fair city. See the website for more details.

Heineken City Arts Fest (Oct 17–20): This year’s festival has some promising theater and dance artists in its lineup: Zoe Scofield and Juniper Shuey, who will perform some things in semisecret locations (to get the details, you must reserve tickets); the New Mystics, who are putting together a 12-hour bicycle race/scavenger hunt (called “Art Dash 4 Ca$h”) to find and photograph street art and graffiti works in Seattle. Plus stuff by Jose Bold (aka Genius Award–winner John Osebold), moody/rock ’n’ roll marimba siren Erin Jorgensen, Rodrigo Valenzuela, Queen Shmooquan, and other quality oddballs we’ve praised over the years. See the festival’s website for details.

ARTSWEST • 4711 California Ave SW, 938-0963, www.artswest.org Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson (Sept 19–Oct 20): The emo-rock musical that reads the history of American populism— especially the rise of Andrew Jackson—through the emotional and dramatic filter of American teenagehood. The Winter Wonderettes (Nov 23–Dec 30): A holiday show with four-part harmony and late ’60s nostalgia.

BALAGAN THEATER • Erickson Theater Off Broadway, 1524 Harvard Ave, 329-1050, www.balagantheatre.org Avenue Q (Nov 16–Dec 15): Last year’s production of Rent was a big audience success for Balagan Theater, and they’ve got more musicals in the works, including Hedwig and Next to Normal (in 2013). First, they’ll hit up Avenue Q, the puppet musical loosely based on Sesame Street but grown-up and dirty.

BOOK-IT THEATER • Center House Theater, Seattle Center, 216-0833, www.book-it. org Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet (Sept 18–Oct 21): A trip through the life of Henry Lee, a Chinese American man who went to an all-white school in the 1940s and whose alreadycomplicated life was made more complicated by international events—the Japanese invasion of China, WWII, the internment of Japanese Americans, and so on. Owen Meany’s Christmas Pageant (Nov 29–Dec 23): Another installment of Book-It’s popular adaptations of the John Irving novels about a boy, an orphanage, and the physician who watches over them all.

DEGENERATE ART ENSEMBLE • Beneath Seattle Center, 800-8383006, www.degenerateart ensemble.com Underbelly (Oct 5–6): The long-beloved music-theaterdesign collective Degenerate Art Ensemble pairs with Olson Kundig Architects to build an installation and performance in some of the subterraneous regions of Seattle Center, along with fellow artists and performers SuttonBeresCuller, Lilienthal | Zamora, John Osebold, Korby Sears, and several others.

GHOST LIGHT THEATRICALS • Ballard Underground, 2220 NW Market St, 395-5458, www.ghost lighttheatricals.org Scapin (Oct 26–Nov 11): A punkrock adaptation of the Molière farce about a mischievous, deceitful servant and his machinations to help two rich, young men marry two poor, young women despite the objections of rich fathers.

A&P: SEATTLE ART & PERFORMANCE

LANGSTON HUGHES PERFORMING ARTS CENTER • 104 17th Ave S, 684-4758, www.seattle.gov/parks/centers/ langston.htm Moms Mabley (Nov 3–4): An NEA Award–winning, worldpremiere project to “bring artists and intergenerational community members together to create a play based on the life and work of Jackie ‘Moms’ Mabley,” who worked the famous Chitlin’ Circuit as a standup comedian.

MOISTURE FESTIVAL • Hale’s Palladium, 4301 Leary Way NW, www.moisturefestival. com Moulin to Moisture (Oct 5): A performance and fundraiser for Seattle’s neo-vaudeville/cirque festival with entertainers Frank Olivier, Kevin Joyce, Fuchsia Foxx, Charly Castor of Les Castors, and others.

NEW CITY THEATER • 1404 18th Ave, 271-4430 www. newcitytheater.org Tiny Kushner (Sept 13–Oct 6): Five short, thematically linked plays by Tony Kushner with characters such as Queen Geraldine of Albania, Richard Nixon, Laura Bush, and others. Directed by John Kazanjian. A Celebration of the Career of Actor Clayton Corzatte (Oct 22): A party for actor Clayton Corzatte, who has been an actor for more than 60 years and was nominated for a Tony Award in the 1960s for his performance in Richard Sheridan’s A School for Scandal. Dance on Film: Pina Bausch and Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker (Oct 19–Nov 3): New City Theater will show some dance films. How They Attack Us (Nov 15– Dec 8): A world-premier play by Kevin McKeon about the media, politics, and paranoia.

NORTHWEST FILM FORUM • 1515 12th Ave, 329-2629, www. nwfilmforum.org Maldoror (Sept 13–15): Vashon Island’s impressionistic-surrealistic UMO Ensemble performs something with theater, acrobatics, industrial-noise compositions, and video.

RE-BAR • 1114 Howell St, 233-9873, www. rebarseattle.com Ian Bell’s Brown Derby Series: Nightmare on Elm Street (Oct 25–27): The long-running,

hilarious Brown Derby Series—in which actors perform absurd, chaotic, and camped-up versions of popular movie scripts—goes for Hollywood horror with Freddy Krueger and his long, bloody knife-fingers. Brown Derby is one of Seattle’s most consistently entertaining nights out.

RICHARD HUGO HOUSE • 1634 11th Ave, 322-7030, www.hugohouse.org The Second Annual Local Celebrity Spelling Bee (Sept 13): A terrifying/hilarious fundraiser for Hugo House, starring comedians, writers, and artists such as Emmett Montgomery, Nicole Brodeur, Charles Mudede, Ellen Forney, Rachel Flotard, and others.

THE ROYAL ROOM • 5000 Rainier Ave S, 906-9920, www.theroyalroomseattle.com 55: Music and Dance in Concrete (Sept 14): Musician Wayne Horvitz, along with choreographer Yukio Suzuki and other performers, filmmakers, and artists will perform 55 composed pieces and 55 improvised pieces based on a series of works Horvitz created for concrete cisterns and bunkers around Western Washington.

SEATTLE CHILDREN’S THEATER • 201 Thomas St, 443-0807, www.sct.org Dr. Seuss’s the Cat in the Hat (Sept 27–Oct 28): Did you know Senator Harry Reid once read from The Cat in the Hat on the Senate floor to compare American immigration policy to a “mess” that the titular cat made? Washington Post op-ed writer Dana Milbank responded: “Ah, but the Cat in the Hat did not have to contend with cloture.” Danny, King of the Basement (Oct 18–Nov 18): A story about a boy with a hard-knock life who escapes via his imagination. Directed by David S. Craig. The Wizard of Oz (Nov 15– Jan 6): Adapted for the stage by John Kane for the Royal Shakespeare Company.

SEATTLE FRINGE FESTIVAL • Various venues, www.seattle fringefestival.org Seattle Fringe Festival (Sept 19–23): Seattle’s last fringe festival imploded and left a smoking crater almost 10 years ago. Now it has returned with a whole new administrative team and whole new ambitions this September. Stay tuned to The Stranger for more information about what this festival could mean for the city and its theater scene.

SEATTLE MUSICAL THEATER • Magnuson Park Community Center Building, 7120 62nd Ave NE, 363-2809, www.seattle musicaltheatre.org Legally Blonde (Sept 14–Oct 7): A musical comedy about a blond woman who goes to law school. Scrooge (Nov 16–Dec 9): A musical comedy about A Christmas Carol.

SEATTLE PUBLIC THEATER • Bathhouse Theater, 7312 W Green Lake Dr N, 524-1300, www.seattlepublictheater.org Superior Donuts (Sept 28–Oct 21): A 2008 play by Tracy Letts (Bug, August: Osage County) about a doughnut shop in Chicago run by a former 1960s radical and the people who pass into his life: a young would-be

novelist with a problematic past, a beat cop, a local drunk, a loan shark, and others. Directed by Russ Banham.

ring her beloved character Lord Peter Wimsey—about an Oxford University reunion and its concomitant death threats.

The Habit (Nov 16–Dec 1): Back in the 1990s, The Habit was one of Seattle’s favorite sketch comedy groups, starring John Osebold, Mark Siano, Jeff Schell, and others. They reunited last year for a wildly successful show at the Bathhouse—in which God got a performance review, Peter Pan was busted on To Catch a Predator, and astronauts failed to launch the Starship Coriander because none of them could (or would) count properly—and proved they’ve still got it.

THEATER SCHMEATER

SEATTLE SHAKESPEARE COMPANY • Center House Theater, Seattle Center, 733-8222, www.seattle shakespeare.org Antony and Cleopatra (Dates TBA): Directed by the big brains and hot aesthetics of John Langs (who directed Romeo and Juliet for Seattle Shakes in 2010 and many other things since) and starring Hans Altwies and Amy Thone.

SKETCHFEST SEATTLE • Various venues (mostly Theater Off Jackson, 409 Seventh Ave S), www.sketchfest.org Sketchfest (Sept 28–Oct 6): This year’s participants include Charles, the Ubiquitous They, Cody Rivers Show, and Pork-Filled Players, plus a short-film contest at Central Cinema.

SOUND THEATER COMPANY • Ballard Underground, 2220 NW Market St, 856-5520, www.sound theatrecompany.org

• 1500 Summit Ave, 324-5801, www.schmeater.org Is He Dead? (Sept 14–Oct 13): A complicated, sprightly play by Mark Twain, adapted by David Ives, about a Parisian painter— circa 1850—and various machinations to keep him solvent and happy. The Betty Plays (Sept 23–Oct 7): Short plays by Scot Augustson, Paul Mullin, Pamela Hobart Carter, and Jim Lapan/Paul Klein. Fallen Angels (Nov 15–Dec 15): An early play by Noël Coward about wives who drink cocktails— while their husbands are away for a weekend of golf—and are waiting for “an assignation” with another man. Things get weird when they realize they’re waiting for the same man.

THEATER OFF JACKSON • 409 Seventh Ave S, 340-1049, www.theatreoffjackson.org Puu Puu Vii (Sept 25): Theater Off Jackson’s annual fundraising party and auction. I Can Hear You… but I’m Not Listening (Sept 27–29): Longtime Seattle actor Jennifer Jasper reprises her autobiographical solo show that, David Schmader writes, “concerns itself with Jasper’s big, weird, hilarious family, with stories ranging from sweet to sad to filthy.”

UNEXPECTED PRODUCTIONS • 1428 Post Alley, 587-4214, www.unexpectedproductions.org

Disco Pigs (Sept 20–Oct 6): A dark coming-of-age play by Tony Award–winner Enda Walsh, directed by Gianni Truzzi, about teenagers named Pig and Runt.

Improv Happy Hour (ongoing): Improv comedy every Saturday at 7 pm, with “an edgier story based on long-form comedy” instead of their Theatersports specialty.

SPECTRUM DANCE THEATER

UPSTART CROW COLLECTIVE

• 800 Lake Washington Blvd, 3254161, www.spectrumdance.org

• Lee Center for the Arts, 901 12th Ave, www.facebook.com/upstart crowcollective

Fall Studio Series (Nov 30– Dec 9): Three world-premier works by three choreographers: Olivier Wevers, Donald Byrd, and Crispin Spaeth.

STONE SOUP THEATER • DownStage Theater, 4029 Stone Way N, 633-1883, www.stone souptheatre.org Shel Silverstein & David Ives (Oct 19–Nov 11): A collection of eight short plays exploring the juxtaposition of the dark wits of Shel Silverstein and David Ives.

STRAWBERRY THEATER WORKSHOP • Erickson Theater Off Broadway, 1524 Harvard Ave, 427-5207, www.strawshop.org This Land: Woody Guthrie (Sept 6–Oct 6): A play for puppets and actors based around Woody Guthrie. Strawberry Theater Workshop (which won a Genius Award a few years ago) exhumes this celebrated production for Guthrie’s 100th birthday.

TAPROOT THEATER COMPANY • 204 N 85th St, 781-9707, www.taproottheatre.org Gaudy Night (Sept 21–Oct 20): A stage adaptation of the mystery novel by Dorothy Sayers—star-

Titus Andronicus (Sept 6– Oct 7): An all-female version of Shakespeare’s brutal revenge drama starring Genius Award– winner Amy Thone as Titus, as well as Kate Wisniewski, Terri Weagant, Sarah Harlett, Peggy Gannon, Kelly Kitchens, and almost a dozen other premier Seattle actors. Directed by Rosa Joshi, who directed the last Upstart Crow outing—an allfemale 2006 production of King John. That was excellent and starred many of the same actors. Expect Titus to be excellent, too.

VELOCITY DANCE CENTER • 1621 12th Ave, 325-8773, www.velocitydancecenter.org Fall Kickoff/Big Bang! Remix Party (Sept 14–16): A weekend of dance and parties to celebrate Velocity’s new fall season. More than 30 artists will be “filling every nook and cranny with dance, music, film, and visual spectacle.” Keith Hennessy/Circo Zero (Sept 21–22): The award-winning, California-based choreographer Keith Hennessy brings his Turbulence (a dance about the economy)—or, as he calls it, “a collaborative failure”—to Velocity Dance Center one week after he performs it at Portland’s TimeBased Art Festival. Part dance, part improvised “happening,”

Turbulence concerns disaster capitalism, debt, and precariousness. Velocity will also host a series of workshops, dinners, and roundtable conversations in the days surrounding the performance.

OCTOBER 12-14 & 19-21

Amy O’Neal (Oct 12–21): Choreographer Amy O’Neal presents a “non-verbal lecture” audaciously titled The Most Innovative, Daring, and Original Piece of Dance/Performance You Will See This Decade. She says it will explore and deconstruct a variety of her dance influences, including hiphop, ballet, Cyndi Lauper, Ciara, dubstep, Janet Jackson, and others. This project has been developed over a year as part of Velocity’s artist-inresidence program.

PERFORMANCE CALENDAR

Seattle Butoh Festival (Oct 22–28): DAIPANbutoh Collective presents its annual Butoh festival.

OCTOBER 2012

THE 9TH FESTIVAL OF AGAINST THE GRAIN

WASHINGTON ENSEMBLE THEATER • 608 19th Ave E, 325-5105, www.washingtonensemble.org

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YOUNGSTOWN CULTURAL ARTS CENTER • 4408 Delridge Way SW, 800-8383006, www.anunnaki.org The Ghost Game: Beneath a Wing-Darkened Sky (Oct 18–28): The Cabiri group performs a dessert-theater cabaret with aerial and acrobatic versions of stories of folkloric and mythological heroes who had wings.

14&21 SUN 2pm

– Examiner.com

Ballard House Duet (December, exact dates TBA): A new play by Genius Award–winner Paul Mullin about two sisters who meet at their great aunt’s house to save her from her own hoarding. Developed for and starring Hana Lass and Rebecca Olson.

Demon Dreams (Oct 18–Nov 10): Seattle/NYC playwright Tommy Smith, who specializes in people behaving badly in this and previous centuries—White Hot at West of Lenin, Quartet at Washington Ensemble Theater—returns with a new work directed by West of Lenin artistic director AJ Epstein. Starring Susanna Burney (Torso) Carter Rodriquez (Fancy Mud, Cafe Nordo), and several others.

13&20 SAT 8pm

“Diverse” – “a Seattle tradition”

The Fairytale Lives of Russian Girls (Sept 28–Oct 22): A West Coast premiere by Meg Miroshnik about an American who goes to Russia in 2005 and meets bears, prostitutes with axes, and a witch. Directed by Ali el-Gasseir.

Fancy Mud (Sept 7–15): Last year, Paul Constant wrote about this three-person, absurdist sketchcomedy show: “Three actors in pastel outfits and lab coats take the stage. Carter Rodriguez (tall, wild-haired, in yellow) begins explaining black holes and the origins of the universe in a broad, physics-class lecture. Sachie Mikawa (short, peppy, in pink) keeps hijacking the conversation toward a topic more to her liking—cute bunny rabbits. As a gullible, easily excited moron (Ben Burris in blue, finding a mouthbreathing nondescript white-guy median between the two) listens, she explains the makeup of a ‘cuteness molecule’—the four pads of a rabbit’s foot. Soon the whole lecture is derailed and the three are fighting over who gets sacrificed to a volcano god to save the universe. It’s like a well-acted Three Stooges routine, plumped up on pretension and massive amounts of processed sugar.”

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A&P: SEATTLE ART & PERFORMANCE

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A&P FALL CALENDAR

www.meany.org Emerson String Quartet (Oct 2)

CLASSICAL MUSIC & OPERA by Jen Graves SEATTLE SYMPHONY • Benaroya Hall unless otherwise noted: 200 University St, 215-4700, www.seattle symphony.org Indigo Girls with the Seattle Symphony (Sept 12): A handful of orchestras across the country, including Seattle’s, got together to create the charts for Indigo Girls’ first full symphonic tour. Yes, “Closer to Fine” will happen.

The Cocktail Hour: Music from the Mad Men Era (Sept 27–30): The Seattle Pops season-opener is ’60s-themed (with Don and Joan well into their epic flirtation) and conducted by Steven Reineke, who led a similar program last year at the New York Pops. Rufus Wainwright (Oct 1): Have you seen the video for Rufus Wainwright’s new album, Out of the Game, the one with Helena Bonham Carter and a library and cross-dressing and desperation and people clawing at each other and a dripping flask? Yeah. Catch it on Vimeo. Then go see Rufus, just Rufus and a piano alone, onstage at Benaroya. Tchaikovsky and Sibelius (Oct 4, 6, 7): Thomas Søndergård conducts new Seattle Symphony principal cello Efe Baltacıgil in Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme, preceded by (FUNTIMES) Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain, and followed by Sibelius’s First Symphony (1898). Bach and Vivaldi (Oct 12–13): With conductor/harpsichordist Rinaldo Alessandrini, five Bach pieces (including the Suite for Orchestra No. 3) and two Vivaldi concerti. Wine-tasting in the lobby before each concert. András Schiff (Oct 15): This recital is a major occasion, one for the books: Tremendous pianist Schiff will perform the tremendous entire Book II of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier—24 Preludes and Fugues—in a single night. Beethoven, Mozart, and Haydn (Oct 18, 20): Morlot conducts a program whose title leaves out an important part, a world premiere by Dai Fujikura commissioned especially for this concert, performed by the International Contemporary Ensemble. (Haydn’s “Drum Roll” Symphony—kicked off by the timpanist—finishes the program and will also be performed in a shorter “Untuxed” concert Oct 19.) [Untitled] Series: 1962 (Oct 19): Are you one of those people who have criticized the Symphony for being staid and set in its ways and old-fashioned? (If you are not, what is the matter with you?) Get this: In conjunction with the closing of The Next Fifty celebration of the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair, the Symphony introduces an entirely new series called [Untitled]—latenight chamber performances of contemporary music in Benaroya’s lobby. This first night, the International Contemporary Ensemble and Symphony musicians will perform music by John Cage, Morton Feldman (For Franz Kline), and Iannis Xenakis, and finally, Morlot will work

Craig Sheppard, piano recital (Oct 23) Seattle Philharmonic Orchestra (Oct 28): Verdi, Vaughn Williams, Bizet. La Catrina Quartet (Oct 30) French Pianist Hélène Grimaud (Nov 1): Mozart, Liszt, Berg, Bartok.

John Adams

Atar Arad and Melia Watras, Viola (Nov 5)

conducts the Seattle Symphony, Nov 8, 10, and 11 at Benaroya Hall

Seattle Center Community Celebration (Oct 21 at Seattle Center Fisher Pavilion): The orchestra participates in the conclusion of Seattle Center’s Next Fifty celebration with a free concert of selections by Gershwin, Cage, Debussy, Berlioz, and Beethoven’s Leonore Overture No. 3, which the orchestra also performed at the 1962 World’s Fair Gala Opening Concert. Gil Shaham Plays Mozart (Oct 25, 27): The famed violinist performs Mozart’s final violin concerto in a concert begun by crowd favorite Eine kleine Nachtmusik. Morlot conducts. Sonic Evolution (Oct 26): Sonic Evolution is not just contemporary and cross-genre music, it’s also local. Last year, it linked artists including Quincy Jones, Hey Marseilles, Cuong Vu, Nirvana, and Jimi Hendrix; this year, music director Morlot has commissioned three composers (Arlene Sierra, Kenneth Hesketh, and Alexandra Gardner) to write new orchestral pieces inspired by Alice in Chains, Blue Scholars, and Yes—and Seattle-based Yes drummer Alan White will perform on the piece inspired by Yes. The second half of the program is alt-country band Star Anna and the Laughing Dogs performing with the orchestra.

Emanuel Ax Plays Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2 (Nov 15, 17, 18): Morlot conducting the many-times-decorated pianist, with works by Dutilleux and Richard Strauss also on the program. Brandi Carlile with the Seattle Symphony (Nov 23–25): Back by popular demand after selling out in 2008 and 2010, with material from the new album Bear Creek. Morlot Conducts Mahler (Nov 29, Dec 1): Symphony No. 4, featuring soprano Donatienne Michel-Dansac, and the Berg Violin Concerto, featuring Veronika Eberle.

Neeme Järvi Conducts Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto (Nov 1–3): An all-Russian program featuring Arabella Steinbacher, violin.

SEATTLE OPERA

Brahms and Medtner (Nov 4): Chamber music by Symphony musicians with pieces by Nikolai Karlovich Medtner (young contemporary of Rachmaninoff and Scriabin), Scriabin, Schnittke, and Brahms (Sextet No. 1).

Fidelio (Oct 13–27): Beethoven’s only opera is an election-season natural. It tells the rousing story of a political prisoner saved by his wife, who masquerades as a prison guard to spring him. There’s gender bending and the pumping of fists about the downfall of oppressors and tyrants. “No relevance to anything contemporary, whether in the Middle East or anywhere else, I’m sure,” quipped Seattle Opera’s Jonathan Dean in a note about the production, which is set in the here and now. It will climax in a big finale involving more than a hundred people onstage, many of them in their own regular contemporary clothes. (This old thing?)

Joseph Adam, Organ Recital (Nov 5): Organ music by three female French composers (in addition to three male composers) in conjunction with Seattle Art Museum’s Elles exhibition of women artists from Paris’s Pompidou museum. John Adams Conducts, and Beethoven (Nov 8, 10, 11): John Adams has come to seem something like the American composer laureate, striking an amiable balance of innovation and convention. In the 1980s, he wrote the historical opera Nixon in China, and in 2005, the opera Doctor Atomic, about the Manhattan

• McCaw Hall, 321 Mercer St, 389-7676, www.seattleopera.org

MEANY HALL • University of Washington campus at 15th Ave NE and NE 40th St, 685-2742,

Chamber Music (Sept 23): Paul Taub (flute), Valerie Muzzolini Gordon (harp), Mara Gearman (viola), Cristina Valdes (piano), and Efe Baltacıgil (cello) perform music by Duruflé, Gubaidulina, Takemitsu, and the Seattle premiere of a new composition by Gabriela Lena Frank.

TOWN HALL

Philip Glass 75th Birthday Concert (Oct 21): His seldom-heard string quartets, performed by the St. Helens String Quartet.

Paul Elie: Reinventing Bach (Oct 1): Georgetown University educator and StoryCorps program director Elie tells the story of Bach in multimedia, with work by Glenn Gould, Pablo Casals, Walt Disney, Yo-Yo Ma, and more.

Project, in addition to many orchestral and chamber pieces along the way following his beginnings in 1970s minimalism. After the terrorist attacks of September 11, the New York Philharmonic commissioned him to write On the Transmigration of Souls, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize. Based in Northern California, he now visits Seattle to conduct his own mid-1980s work Harmonielehre (German for “study of harmony”), inspired by a dream he had of an oil tanker taking off out of the San Francisco Bay like a rocket. The rest of the program is promising, too: Young pianist Jonathan Biss (born in 1980, just a few years before Adams’s takeoff dream)— who, in an unusual move for a classical soloist, released a 19,000-word essay on the art of performing Beethoven’s sonatas in 2011, followed by a recording of them in 2012—performs the Emperor Concerto. We always wonder what the composers really wanted; here’s a concert that tries to get closest.

John Cage 100th Birthday Celebration (Sept 14): John Cage was at Cornish once, in the late 1930s; now the school throws him a centenary.

Maciej Grzybowski (Oct 12): The Polish pianist in recital, contemporary and classical music.

Piano Trios (Sept 11): The young trio of Victor Santiago Asuncion (piano), Dale Barltrop (violin, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra concertmaster), and Joshua Roman (cello, former Seattle Symphony principal cello and TownMusic curator) performs music by Beethoven, Schubert, and contemporary New York composer Patrick Zimmerli.

with the audience in a performance of György Ligeti’s symphonic poem for 100 metronomes, meaning there will be 100 old-fashioned mechanical metronomes on hand. Things start at 9 pm with a performance of Gabriel Prokofiev’s Concerto for Turntables and Orchestra (Gabriel is the grandson of Sergei, and he may make an appearance). YES.

• 710 E Roy St, 726-5151, www.cornish.edu

Opera Workshop: Die Fledermaus (Nov 30–Dec 2)

• 1119 Eighth Ave, 652-4255, www.town hallseattle.org

Opening Night Concert and Gala (Sept 15): Ludovic Morlot’s second opening night as music director is an all-American program featuring Joshua Bell performing Leonard Bernstein’s Serenade and former Washington State governor Daniel J. Evans narrating Aaron Copland’s Lincoln Portrait. (There’s cocktails, concert, and dinner tickets for those who want the full gala treatment, or you can just see the show.) Morlot Conducts Pines of Rome (Sept 20–22): Along with the 1924 symphony poem by Italian composer Ottorino Respighi comes Berlioz’s Roman Carnival Overture, Czech 20th-century composer Bohuslav Martinu’s sixth and final symphony, and Nuages and Fêtes from Debussy’s Nocturnes.

Sretensky Monastery Choir (Oct 21): Visiting Russian group that specializes in Russian music that was banned under the Soviet regime.

CORNISH COLLEGE OF THE ARTS

Simple Measures: Rhythm (Oct 5): Simple Measures is known for interactive chamber performances, and this one explores rhythm with works from Vivaldi to John Cage, with Bartok and Stravinsky in between. Featuring the Pacific Rims Percussion Quartet. Seattle Baroque Orchestra: Bach Violin Concertos (Oct 6): Featuring SBC cofounder Ingrid Matthews. Also on the program: orchestral suites and fantasias by Henry Purcell. Lake Union Civic Orchestra: The Season “Overture” (Oct 19): Rossini’s Overture to William Tell, Kodály’s Dances of Galanta, and Schumann’s Fourth Symphony, conducted by Joseph Bozich. Thalia Symphony Orchestra Season Opener (Oct 28): Mozart, Dvorák, Niels Gade. Bartok Ensemble of Chile (Nov 1): The visiting ensemble, founded in 1981, with a repertoire ranging from new Chilean music to Haydn, Mozart, and Bartok. Igudesman & Joo: A Little Nightmare Music (Nov 5): A YouTube sensation, these two characters are spectacular players of classical music—and perfect parodists of it. A Little Nightmare Music is the first extended show by violinist and singer Aleksey Igudesman and pianist Hyung-ki Joo. They both trained at the prestigious Yehudi Menuhin School in London, and their act is part Victor Borge, part Emanuel Ax. Early Music Guild’s Hesperion XXI: The Golden Age of Consort Viol Music (Nov 10): A tour of 16th- and 17th-century European music for five violas da gamba, lute, and percussion by Spanish ensemble Hesperion XXI.

CHAPEL PERFORMANCE SPACE • Good Shepherd Center, 4649 Sunnyside Ave N, www.chapelspace.blogspot.com John Teske’s Broken Bow Ensemble (Sept 29): New music for chamber orchestra. Lubomyr Melnyk (Oct 23): Canadian composer/pianist Lubomyr Melnyk calls himself an innovator involved with the “protons and electrons of the mind.” Seattle innovative music champion and veteran Steve Peters calls him “incredible.” Twice in one e-mail. We recommend going to this.

Bugallo-Williams Piano Duo (Oct 27): Helena Bugallo and Amy Williams pay a 100th birthday tribute to Conlon Nancarrow, the eccentric late composer known for complex player-piano creations fascinating to see performed by human hands, and John Cage. Venus and Adonis (Nov 8–11): John Blow’s 17th-century opera gets a contemporary staging from director James Darrah with sets by Genius Award winner in art Susie J. Lee, music-directed by local early music master Stephen Stubbs. Neat! Gamelan Pacifica with A.L. Suwardi (Nov 17): The local traditional Indonesian orchestra with one of Indonesia’s most famous composers and performers of both traditional and contemporary music. Mark Robbins and Tom Varner (Nov 30): Geek out on horns. Robbins is Seattle Symphony associate principal French horn, and Varner is a jazz improviser on the instrument. La Voce di Gabriela (Dec 9): Kris Kwapis (baroque trumpet) and Mahan Esfahani (harpsichord) play works by early-17thcentury virtuosi Girolamo Fantini and Girolamo Frescobaldi.

GENIUS AWARDS • Moore Theater, 1932 Second Ave, www. thestranger.com/genius (Sept 22, 5:30–11 pm; VIP only from 5:30–7:30 pm): This year, the Genius Awards will be announced from the stage rather than beforehand: Suspense! The three music finalists are: Lady hiphop pair THEESatisfaction, dude world-music weirdos Master Musicians of Bukkake, and cellist wild-woman Lori Goldston.

KIRKLAND PERFORMANCE CENTER • 350 Kirkland Ave, 425-893-9900, www. kpcenter.org An Evening with Philip Glass and Foday Musa Suso (Oct 25): Glass, the living composer who has inspired artists in so many disciplines, makes a rare Puget Sound appearance with the African kora virtuoso with whom he collaborated on the score to the film Powaqqatsi, as well as percussionist Adam Rudolph. Special VIP tickets get you piano-side seating and a meet-and-greet with Glass.

THE ESOTERICS • Venues vary, 935-7779, www.theesoterics .org CAGE: John Cage Centennial (Sept 7–9): Works from Cage’s Songbook, Four2, Four6, and Five. One of them, a performance-art piece typical of Cagean play, begins a full half hour before the concert starts, so arrive early.

NORTHWEST SINFONIETTA • Benaroya Hall, 200 University St, 2154700, www.northwestsinfonietta.org

Seattle Modern Orchestra (Nov 9): Performing John Cage’s 1950–’51 Concerto for Prepared Piano and Chamber Orchestra, his earliest chance-based composition.

Cuban Exchange (Oct 5): Cuban and American players will perform Beethoven together—a rarity on these shores since the 1959 Cuban Revolution. The historic performance will be followed by live salsa and mojitos to celebrate.

Karen Bentley Pollick (Nov 16): New compositions for violin, viola, and electronics, with video by Sheri Wills.

Cecile Licad, Piano (Nov 9): Stravinsky, Chopin, an as-yet-unnamed American premiere.

FALL 2012

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A&P FALL CALENDAR

SOME OF THAT JAZZ

THU 9/6 - SUN 9/9

SEPT 9

BÉLA FLECK AND THE MARCUS ROBERTS TRIO

What I’m Most Looking Forward to This Season by Charles Mudede Greg Williamson Quartet The Greg Williamson Quartet (sax, drums, piano, bass), who are headlining the Pony Boy Records Jazz Picnic, make jazz inspired by the modern moment of the tradition. As my readers by now know, never get me started on the greatest jazz between 1949 and 1968. Never do that. True, this quartet’s music offers few or no surprises, but surprises can be overrated and one should never surprise people for the sake of surprising people. What you get with GWQ is solid, expert, and beautifully effortless jazz. • Magnuson Park Garden Amphitheater, www.ponyboyrecords .com, noon–5 pm, free

OCT 1 Seattle Conduction Band Seattle Conduction Band is led by Wayne Horvitz (Seattle’s jazz celebrity and part owner of the Royal Room) and composed of local kickass musicians (Beth Fleenor, Samantha Boshnack, Steve Moore, Geoff Harper, Craig Flory, Naomi Seigel, Kate Olson). The music the band makes is large, heady, brassy, experimental, and dense, but it’s often lyrical and seems to float from note to note, like a saturated cloud. You will not be disappointed by this show. • The Royal Room, 5000 Rainier Ave S, 906-9920, www.theroyalroomseattle .com

Eliane Elias

Inventive Grammy-Winning Banjoist Joins Trio of Classic Jazz Tradition

Oct 25–28 at Jazz Alley

THU 9/13 - SUN 9/16

PAT METHENY UNITY BAND featuring Ben Williams, Chris Potter, &

Antonio Sanchez

THU 10/11 - SUN 10/14

LEELA JAMES Raw and Fiery Neo-Soul Singer

THU 11/8 - SUN 11/11

AVERAGE WHITE BAND

OCT 23–24 Bill Charlap Trio Here are the three classes of jazz pianist that dominate my imagination. There are the impressionists (Bill Evans, Erroll Garner, early Herbie Hancock), the geniuses (Art Tatum, Bud Powell, Benny Green), and the perfectionists (Hank Jones, John Lewis, Bill Charlap). Let’s take a quick look at Bill Charlap. He was born in New York City in 1966, studied classical music, and is currently one of the most refined players of jazz piano. What do I mean by refined? I can only put it this way (a way, furthermore, that Hank Jones would appreciate): Refinement is a state of mastery achieved by a profound sense of one’s civilization—its traditions, its schools,

its achievements. A great album to enter Charlap’s growing body of work is Live at the Village Vanguard (2007, Blue Note). • Jazz Alley, 2033 Sixth Ave, 441-9729, www.jazzalley.com

the sun and flower petals are drifting through the shade and patches of light. Her solos capture, hold, and reward your attention. Brazil forever. • Jazz Alley, 2033 Sixth Ave, 441-9729, www.jazzalley.com

OCT 25–28

NOV 3

Eliane Elias Eliane Elias is a pianist, singer, and composer. She was born in São Paulo, has released numerous albums, and has collaborated with several jazz giants, such as Herbie Hancock. I love her voice (it’s heartbreakingly sexy), but her real contribution to the tradition of jazz is as a pianist. She plays not in an orderly or clean way, but nor is it messy or raw. Hers is a sound that’s rich and fecund like some dense forest whose leaves are flickering in

ALL THAT JAZZ amar Lofton is a talented local jazz bassist who was trained at Cornish College of the Arts and Garfield High School. He has been playing professionally for 22 years, and he knows all of the ins and outs of Seattle’s jazz scene. Because there’s almost no jazz venue that Lofton hasn’t performed in, there’s almost no venue that’s free from his opinions.

EGAN’S BALL ARD JAM HOUSE “I like Egan’s. I like the space. It’s small, which is fine. There is not a lot of amplification needed, so it’s really intimate. I also like the way it’s run; its owners are commited to live music. I like playing there. Never had a problem with Egan’s.” • 1707 NW Market St, 789-1621, www.ballardjamhouse.com THE TRIPLE DOOR “I’ve done both rooms there: the Musicquarium lounge and the main stage. The Musicquarium is where the local stuff happens. They have

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played there a year ago, it sounds like they are trying to push the club vibe. I have not played there since that change.” • 6421 Latona Ave NE, 526-1188, www.monasseattle.com

TUL A’S “I have played there, but I think it needs to be more open to common people. People in Belltown don’t go into Tula’s. But we need to get them off the street and into the show. You know. It’s just not for the people. Okay, I’m saying it now. I haven’t worked there for a long time, and now that I said it, everyone knows I have a problem with the place, I won’t be invited there again. There it is.” • 2214 Second Ave, 443-4221, www.tulas.com

Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra with Branford Marsalis Tonight, the oldest son of jazz’s royal family, the Marsalises, will perform with SRJO the music of New Orleans’ early brass bands. Expect the ghosts of Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet, and King Oliver to be present at this important event. • Benaroya Nordstrom Recital Hall, 200 University St, 523-6159, www .srjo.org

Smoldering Brazilian Jazz Pianist, Vocalist and Songwriter

Lamar Lofton a built house. What do I mean by that? I mean this: When you are playing the restaurant circuit, there’s always people there, people eating and drinking—that’s a built house. Why is this great? Because it gives you a chance to connect with new people. The Musicquarium is a big place for local musicians in the circuit. It’s a great listening room. The vibe there is just right, and they pay you and treat you well. Everyone should get a chance to play there.” • 216 Union St, 838-4333, www.thetripledoor.com THE ROYAL ROOM “It’s cool. They have a backline (which means you don’t have to bring your own amplifiers—there is not a lot of stuff you have to bring). I’ve played free jazz and bebop there, so it’s open to that kind of thing… But, when you think about it, the Royal Room is leaning toward the OK Hotel vibe. People who have lived in this city will know what I’m

talking about.” • 5000 Rainier Ave S, 906-9920, www.theroyalroomseattle.com SER AFINA “I love Serafina, always have. I have been playing there since the mid’90s. Back then, I used to play with my original trio, Darrius Willrich and Ryan Taylor. Those were the days. People were making money. People were getting paid. Where did all that money go? But I love, love Serafina. If I was on a restaurant tour or something like that, I would go down and check out a weekend night at the place. You know, it’s about the food, but the music also matters.” • 2043 Eastlake Ave E, 323-0807, www.serafinaseattle.com MONA’S “Mona’s has changed from what it once was. It used to be like Serafina, that kind of vibe. Good food, good music. Now from what I can tell, I

VITO’S “I like Vito’s! I try to go there as much as I can. I like the setup. You walk into the place and you are walking into the ’60s. They also have a wonderful piano. It’s in tune. A place that has a good piano is always a good sign. They’ve got great bartenders, by the way.” • 927 Ninth Ave, 397-4053, www. vitosseattle.com HIROSHI’S “Only played there once. I can’t speak for Hiroshi’s.” • 2501 Eastlake Ave E, 726-4966, www.hiroshis.com LUCID JAZZ LOUNGE “Dave’s place. I dig that place. I’ve played there. I’ve played electric bass and upright bass. True, it’s not the biggest place, but you know, it’s owned by a brother, and he hasn’t caved and brought in a hiphop DJ. That’s impressive. David Pierre-Louis is committed to live music. There is also a pretty good walk-up crowd; people come in from off the street. It used to be a bit more jazz-based, but it has opened some. They like that neo-soul stuff, which is fine. I got nothing but good things to say about Lucid.” • 5241 University Way NE, 402-3042, www.lucidseattle.com BARÇA “I have played there, but it has not been for a while. I need to play there again sometime.” • 1510 11th Ave, 325-8263, www.barcaseattle.com

tHe music al

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A&P FALL CALENDAR

MON 10/1 Sherman Alexie Not many authors could pull a midnight reading off, but Sherman Alexie is the Biggest Damn Writer in Seattle, Period. To celebrate the release of his thick new book of short fiction, Blasphemy, he’ll give a midnight reading as Monday turns to Tuesday. Alexie’s readings are always intimate, hilarious, and offbeat. This one should be even more so; it could be one of those readings Seattle book-lovers will talk about for years to come. • Elliott Bay Book Company, midnight, free

READINGS & LECTURES The Best of the Fall’s Lit Events by Paul Constant

MON 10/8

WED 9/5

Michael Chabon

Gillian Gaar Among many other things, Gillian Gaar has literally written the book on the history of women in rock. And now she takes on the task that just about every local music writer at once desires and fears: Entertain Us: The Rise of Nirvana is an account of how Kurt Cobain and his skanky pals managed to go from a really good local band to Axl Rose’s Worst Nightmare. Tonight, Gaar debuts her book, which features tons of allnew interviews and a fresh take on the Nirvana myth. • University Book Store, 7 pm, free

Fri Sept 28 at Fred Wildlife Refuge

WED 10/10 Colin Meloy and Carson Ellis The Decemberists frontman and his wife return with the second volume in their popular young adult series, Under Wildwood. Here are the first three sentences: “Snow is falling. Snow as white as a swan’s feather, white as a trillium bloom. The whiteness is nearly blinding against the dark green and brown of the surrounding forest, and it lies in downy heaps between the quiet, dormant clutches of ivy and blackberry bushes.” Suck on that, Twilight! • Fremont Abbey, 4272 Fremont Ave N, 7:30 pm, free

FRI 9/7 Molly Ringwald Yep, that Molly Ringwald. Her debut collection of linked short stories is titled When It Happens to You, but you’re probably not going to this reading because you’re into novels told in stories (shout-out to The Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing!). You’re going because you want to gawk at a celebrity. And that’s okay, too. • Elliott Bay Book Company, 7 pm, free

SAT 9/8

MON 10/15 MON 9/17

Gary Panter Gary Panter’s cartoons are ambitious (one of his major projects is a retelling of Dante’s Divine Comedy with slightly cracked versions of popular cartoon characters) and unabashedly punk rock. His comics are huge in scope and slightly alien in feel. Let’s get nerdy: If Robert Crumb is the Steve Ditko of the independent comics scene, Gary Panter is Jack Kirby. His personal appearances are rare and you should savor them like diamonds. • Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery, 6 pm, free

Junot Díaz Traditionally, you’ve had to settle in for a long wait between new Junot Díaz books; he’s kind of like the George R. R. Martin of beautifully written, hilariously honest literary fiction. So the announcement of his new story collection, This Is How You Lose Her, came as a big surprise earlier this year. After the nine-year wait between Díaz’s first story collection and his Pulitzer Prize– winning debut novel, we’ve only had to wait five years for his second collection. I know you’re willing to wait for quality, but let’s not question Díaz’s new, expedited schedule; this is called a gift horse. • Town Hall, 7 pm, free

FRI 9/14

WED 9/19

The Importance of Being Genius The three shortlisters for this year’s Genius Award in literature—Ed Skoog, Kary Wayson, and Ellen Forney—come together for a group reading and Q&A to show off their genius-level work. What kind of weird stuff will two poets and a cartoonist discuss? They have a lot in common; they’ve all made their bones in short work, they’re all beloved members of Seattle’s artistic community, and they’re all obsessed with nonprose communication methods. Plus: booze! Not even the host for this event—Stranger books editor Paul Constant—can manage to fuck this one up. • Hugo House, 7 pm, $10

SAT 9/15 Martin Amis In the 1980s and early ’90s, Martin Amis was one of the most important names on the international literary stage. His work set trends in literature, and his bons mots became legendary the second they left his lips. Then he went away for a while. His new novel, Lionel Asbo: State of England, is Amis’s attempt to reclaim his (and his father, Kingsley’s) throne; it’s a story that shrinks England down to a single small-minded man who named himself after “England’s notorious Anti-Social Behaviour Order.” This is the kind of ambitious book that remakes, or breaks, a reputation. • Central Library, 1000 Fourth Ave, 4 pm, free; also Sun 9/16 at University Book Store, 3 pm, free

A.M. Homes Best known for her portraits of suburban families on the razor’s edge of cracking up, A.M. Homes has been relatively quiet for the last decade. May We Be Forgiven investigates familiar themes for Homes; it’s about two brothers—a Nixon scholar and a violent hothead—in search of forgiveness. • Elliott Bay Book Company, 7 pm, free

Maria Semple and Jonathan Evison Last month, Maria Semple packed the basement reading room of Elliott Bay Book Company for the debut of her very funny second novel, Where’d You Go, Bernadette. This month, she’s helping local author Jonathan Evison introduce his third novel, The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving, to the world. Word on the street is that this is Evison’s finest book yet, and it could be the one to vault him from his current role as nationally known regional author to Big-Time Novelist Who Happens to Be from Seattle. Don’t forget us when you’re famous, Johnny. • University Book Store, 7 pm, free Mark Bittman If you don’t know how to cook, I insist you buy a copy of Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything. It’s the best cookbook ever, because the recipes aren’t just formulas for you to follow, they’re tiny cooking classes. Bittman’s had a great career already—you might also know him as the New York Times’ food correspondent—but Everything on its own merits should be enough to vault him to the food-writing hall of fame. Tonight, Bittman will talk about whatever the hell he wants to talk about. • Benaroya Hall, 7:30 pm, $15–$70

THURS 9/20 Paul Auster Fall is the season to check in with the Important Names of Literature, and they don’t get much importanter than Paul

Auster. In the years since The New York Trilogy blew apart everyone’s heads into itty-bitty clouds of skull particles and gray mist, Auster has regularly produced masterpieces at a rate that must give contemporaries like Don DeLillo indigestion. Now 63, Auster will read from his newest memoir, Winter Journal, about life, language, and aging. • Town Hall, 7:30 pm, $5

FRI 9/22 Genius Awards The 10th annual Genius Awards are happening in a way they’ve never happened before: Of three finalists in each category, the winners will be announced from the stage. The literature nominees are Ellen Forney, Ed Skoog, and Kary Wayson. More info at thestranger.com/genius. • Moore Theater, 1932 Second Ave, 7:30 pm, $12–$50, 21+

THE USUAL SUSPECTS

FRI 9/28 Verse Chapter Verse with Michael Chabon The Stranger’s music-and-readings series returns with the most-anticipated book of the fall. Michael Chabon has blown audiences away with Wonder Boys, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Klay, and The Yiddish Policemen’s Union. Tonight, he introduces Seattle to his newest novel, Telegraph Avenue. As I write this, we can’t announce the name of the band, but we promise that they’ll be fantastical, too. Plus: A brief talk on the brilliance of Chabon’s Wonder Boys from Christopher Frizzelle, and Stranger books editor Paul Constant trying not to sound like an idiot, which is always kind of amusing. • Fred Wildlife Refuge, 127 Boylston Ave E, 8 pm, free

everything from a full slate of writing classes to open mics to tiny literary magazine launch parties to big names like Sherman Alexie, Sam Lipsyte, and Pam Houston. • 1634 11th Ave, 322-7030, www.hugohouse.org

ELLIOTT BAY BOOK COMPANY Readings and events (including kids’ story time) happen practically every day; also presents off-site events with Seattle Public Library, Town Hall, Benaroya Hall, and local museums. • 1521 10th Ave, 624-6600, www.elliottbaybook.com

THIRD PL ACE BOOKS Kids’ story time every Saturday morning, “Science on Tap” in the basement pub every last Monday of the month, and other events on occasion. • 6504 20th Ave NE, 525-2347, www.thirdplacebooks.com

UNIVERSIT Y BOOK STORE At nine locations, various kinds of readings and events (including kidfriendly ones) practically every day. • 4326 University Way NE, 634-3400, www.ubookstore.com

SEATTLE MYSTERY BOOKSHOP A local mystery author reads every month, coinciding with First Thursday Art Walk, along with book signings once or twice a month. • 117 Cherry St, 587-5737, www.seattlemystery.com

TOWN HALL Hosts Seattle Arts & Lectures series, as well as a variety of other literary events, once a day or so. • 1119 Eighth Ave, 625-4255, www.townhallseattle.org RICHARD HUGO HOUSE A freewheeling literary nonprofit with a bar, a cabaret, and a more formal readings/theater space, hosting

OPEN BOOKS A poetry-dedicated bookstore with readings at least once a week: Thursday, Friday, or Saturday evenings, or Sunday afternoons. • 2414 N 45th St, 633-0811, www.openpoetrybooks.com LEFT BANK BOOKS Collectively owned nonprofit bookstore

Louise Erdrich Louise Erdrich’s new novel, The Round House, is about a brutal attack on a North Dakota reservation, and what happens after that. Those who are already fans of Erdrich’s writing about the American plains and modern Native American life are already excited for this one; if you haven’t read her before, you’re about to enter a world unlike anything else you’ve ever seen. • Meany Hall, UW Campus, 7:30 pm, $15–$30

FRI 10/19 ¡Viva la Revolucion! It’s time again for the Hugo House’s annual literary series, in which three authors and a musician create and perform new work based on a theme of the House’s choosing. This time around, Candyfreak author Steve Almond, dreamy young literary star Matthew

with an anarchist/leftist/radical focus, hosts readings once or twice a month. • 92 Pike St, 622-0195, www.leftbank books.com EAGLE HARBOR BOOK CO. Readings of various sorts at least once a week, mostly Thursday evenings and Sunday afternoons, often both. • 157 Winslow Way E, Bainbridge Island, 842-5332, www.eagleharbor books.com THE BOOK L ARDER A community cookbook store that offers classes, demos, and signings several times a month. • 4252 Fremont Ave N, 397-4271, www.booklarder.com BENAROYA HALL Hosts Seattle Arts & Lectures one to three times a month. • 200 University St, 621-2230, www.lectures.org FANTAGR APHICS BOOKSTORE & GALLERY Comic-book store and art gallery owned by the best damn funnybook publisher in the United States; hosts readings and art shows once a month or more. • 1201 S Vale St, 658-0110, www.fantagraphics.com

FALL 2012

READINGS & LECTURES

Zapruder, and spoken-word artist Elaina Ellis read new work about revolucion and viva-ing, along with Daniel Spils of Maktub. • Hugo House, 7:30 pm, $25

MON 10/22 Chris Ware, Charles Burns, Chip Kidd Oh, come on. You don’t need me to tell you to go to this. This is like if Jesus Christ, Abraham Lincoln, and Molly Ivins gave a one-night-only joint lecture. Charles Burns and Chris Ware are two of the most influential comics artists of all time, and Chip Kidd is the best book designer who ever lived. Sell your children if you have to—this one isn’t to be missed. • Town Hall, 7:30 pm, $5

TUES 10/23 Cory Doctorow If you’ve ever seen Cory Doctorow read, you know he’s charming, funny, and smart as hell. His readings are always nerdy thrills, and this reading, for The Rapture of the Nerds, promises to be the sci-fi event of the fall. Coauthored with Charles Stross, Nerds imagines the human race at the end of the 21st century, when we as a species are spread across the universe thanks to the infinite advancements of technology—aka The Singularity. But even in a posthuman future, Doctorow and Stross theorize, there’s plenty for us to do. • Elliott Bay Book Company, 7 pm, free

TUES 10/23 Hari Kunzru Resident A&P Hari Kunzru fan Brendan Kiley says of the author’s last two novels, “With My Revolutions, a novel about a British domestic terrorist in the 1960s, Kunzru showed his ability to tell a complicated, politically fraught story in a simple, engaging, unpretentious way. Gods Without Men is more ambitious, it reaches through politics and into metaphysics—and it succeeds.” He also says Kunzru is “of the Orwell school.” What else do you need to know? • Benaroya Hall, 7:30 pm, $15–$70

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SUN 10/28 Mark Z. Danielewski Mark Z. Danielewski, at least, is always doing different things with his work. Sometimes those works are not successful (Only Revolutions was difficult to the point of annoyance), and other times they’re energetic refusals

to accept books as mere collections of black print on paper. This is a reading for The Fifty Year Sword, which is a ghost story that is reportedly disguised as a kids’ book. Sounds like fans of House of Leaves should get their hopes up for this one. • Town Hall, 7:30 pm, $5

TUES 10/30 Timothy Egan Timothy Egan is an underrated local author. His nonfiction is celebrated around the country— especially the brilliant dust-bowl historical narrative The Worst Hard Time—but he’s often left off the lists of Seattle-based literary luminaries. So let’s get our shit together and really celebrate Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher, his new nonfiction account of Edward Curtis, the famous photographer of Native Americans whose 30-volume collection of photographs forever changed the way America looks at itself. • Town Hall, 7:30 pm, $5

SAT 11/10 Ellen Forney Genius Award shortlister Ellen Forney finally debuts her first full-length comic memoir, Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo and Me. You’ve been hearing about this book for months—even years—in the pages of The Stranger, and it’s finally time for you to pick up a copy and be blown away by Forney’s candor and inventiveness, as she breaks open the comics page and finds new ways to make words and pictures work together. • Central Library, 1000 Fourth Ave, 6 pm, free

WED 11/14 Ngugi wa Thiong’o Ngugi wa Thiong’o is a celebrated Kenyan novelist and poet who is quickly becoming best known for his memoirs. In the House of the Interpreter, the second volume of his life story, is his account of his time as a highschool student during the Mau Mau Uprising. British colonial rule in Africa was falling apart just as the author was finding his own independence. If you don’t think that’s fertile grounds for a memoir, you have a very strange idea of what’s interesting. • Town Hall, 7:30 pm, $5

THURS 11/15 Maggie Nelson and Eileen Myles: Poets on Painters Two of the biggest, best names

in poetry come together to talk about painters. Eileen Myles is the missing link between the beats, the punks, and whatever came after; her poems are raw, experiential, and clever on multiple levels. Maggie Nelson’s Bluets is the rare poetry book I recommend to anyone and everyone. As artists, they have nothing in common but their love of words and images; I expect that should make for an unforgettable conversation. Benaroya Hall, 7:30 pm, $15–$50

FRI 11/16 Ya Gotta Believe! The second in Hugo House’s investigatory anthologies of new theme-based work features a couple of huge local names—the estimable novelist Ryan Boudinot and the popular yoga memoirist Claire Dederer—and hot young poet Emily Kendal Frey, along with folk musician Mary Lambert. Expect work about belief, selfdelusion, and possibly show tunes. • Hugo House, 7:30 pm, $20

SAT 11/24 Nico Vassilakis Nico Vassilakis is a local poet whose work challenges the very idea of what a word is; some of his work is made up of stretchedout vowels or words that have been smeared or manipulated in interesting ways. Tonight, he introduces the world to his work as the editor of a new anthology titled The Last Vispo Anthology: Visual Poetry 1998–2008. It’s such an avant-garde work that poetry publishers didn’t touch it, and Vassilakis teamed with local comics publisher Fantagraphics to produce the book. This is the missing link between words as symbols for thoughts and words as works of art in and of themselves. • Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery, 6 pm, free

WED 12/5 Miranda July Every time Miranda July appears in Seattle, magic happens. Sometimes, she’s got a new movie to share with us. Other times, she’s debuting a book. Today, she’s just here to hang out and talk at Benaroya Hall, which is a serious and kind of overwhelming venue in which to speak. Whatever she talks about, she’ll be really great and you’ll be happy that you went. • Benaroya Hall, 7:30 pm, $15–$70

Hari Kunzru Tues Oct 23 at Benaroya Hall

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A&P: SEATTLE ART & PERFORMANCE

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A&P FALL CALENDAR

Awardâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;nominated filmmaker Sam Green tracking the life story of the 20th-century futurist, architect, engineer, inventor, and author R. Buckminster Fuller. Amazing bonus: a score composed and performed live by the one and only Yo La Tengo. â&#x20AC;˘ Moore Theater, 1932 Second Ave, 877-784-4849, www.nwfilmforum.org

SEPT 12

By David Schmader Stop Making Sense Oct 19â&#x20AC;&#x201C;23 at SIFF Cinema at the Uptown

Flickering Genius David Schmader hosts a showcase of the three Seattle filmmakers nominated for the 2012 Genius Awardâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Drew Christie, Megan Griffiths, and Shaun Scottâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;with free wine afterward. â&#x20AC;˘ SIFF Cinema at the Film Center, Seattle Center Northwest Rooms, 324-9996, www.siff.net

SEPT 13

Festivals & Series SEPT 8â&#x20AC;&#x201C;OCT 28 Films4Families: Animal Kingdoms At 1 pm every Saturday and Sunday, SIFF presents a beloved family-friendly film starring an animal or three. Highlights include Babe (Sept 15â&#x20AC;&#x201C;16), Charlotteâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Web (Sept 22â&#x20AC;&#x201C;23), Chicken Run (Oct 20â&#x20AC;&#x201C;21), and Wes Andersonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s The Fantastic Mr. Fox (Oct 13â&#x20AC;&#x201C;14, and 10 times the movie Moonrise Kingdom is). â&#x20AC;˘ SIFF Cinema at the Uptown, 511 Queen Anne Ave N, 324-9996, www.siff.net

SEPT 10â&#x20AC;&#x201C;DEC 3 Monday Movie Nights Every Monday night, Kingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Hardware turns its back patio into a makeshift cinema pub, with full-length movies screened with full food and drink service. Previous themes include Movies on a Boat, Movies Starring Rick Moranis, and Movies Involving Scientologists. â&#x20AC;˘ Kingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Hardware, 5225 Ballard Ave NW, 782-0027, www.kingsballard.com

SEPT 15â&#x20AC;&#x201C;16 Noor Iranian Film Festival Two days packed with Iranian and Iranian American films, from documentary shorts to narrative features. For full schedule, see www.noorfilmfestival.com. â&#x20AC;˘ SIFF Cinema at the Uptown, 511 Queen Anne Ave N, 324-9996, www.siff.net

SEPT 21â&#x20AC;&#x201C;23 Seattle Design Festival: Films on Architecture and Design Three days of â&#x20AC;&#x153;new films featuring biophilic design, letterpress printing, design thinking, the evolution of the modern shopping mall, an infamous St. Louis housing project, and Cubaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s unfinished National Art School project.â&#x20AC;? For full schedule, see www .siff.net.

â&#x20AC;˘ SIFF Cinema at the Film Center, Seattle Center Northwest Rooms, 324-9996, www.siff.net

SEPT 27â&#x20AC;&#x201C;DEC 6 Women in the Shadows: The Film Noir Cycle SAM celebrates the 35th anniversary of the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s longest-running film noir series and its upcoming exhibition Elles: Women Artists from the Centre Pompidou, Paris with this nine-film tribute to the alternately heroic and villainous queens of film noir. Among the highlights: Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity (Sept 27), Joan Crawford in Mildred Pierce (Oct 4), the amazing Gloria Grahame in the amazing In a Lonely Place (Nov 1), and, be still our hearts, Frances McDormand in Fargo (Dec 6). â&#x20AC;˘ Seattle Art Museum, 1300 First Ave, 654-3210, www .seattleartmuseum.org

SEPT 27â&#x20AC;&#x201C;30 New Spanish Cinema Four days of new Spanish films, featuring new work from established masters and innovative upstarts alike. For full schedule, see www.siff. net. â&#x20AC;˘ SIFF Cinema at the Uptown, 511 Queen Anne Ave N, 324-9996, www.siff.net

SEPT 28â&#x20AC;&#x201C;OCT 4 15th Annual Local Sightings Festival Northwest Film Forumâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s annual showcase of contemporary Northwest filmmaking includes everything from shorts and features to performances and installation art. Highlights include Off Label, a documentary about the pharmaceutical industry by Portlandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher, and The International Sign for Choking, a feature film by 2010 Local Sightings winner Zach Weintraub. For full schedule, see www.nwfilm forum.org. â&#x20AC;˘ Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave, 829-7863, www.nwfilmforum.org

OCT 11â&#x20AC;&#x201C;21 The Seattle Gay and Lesbian Film Festival See preview, page 29. â&#x20AC;˘ Various venues, 323-4274, www.threedollarbill cinema.com

OCT 19â&#x20AC;&#x201C;28 Earshot Jazz Film Festival The annual celebration of the intersection of jazz and cinema. Highlights include a new 35 mm print of Shirley Clarkeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s The Connection (the long-banned, jazz-propelled portrait of addicts awaiting a dealer) and the Chuck D narrated FunkJazz Kafe: Diary of a Decade (chronicling the Atlanta arts festival that incubated some the regionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s best funk, jazz, and soul). â&#x20AC;˘ Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave, 829-7863, www.nwfilmforum.org

OCT 24â&#x20AC;&#x201C;28 French Cinema Now Five days of contemporary Francophone cinema. For full schedule, see www.siff.net. â&#x20AC;˘ SIFF Cinema at the Uptown, 511 Queen Anne Ave N, 3249996, www.siff.net

OCT 26â&#x20AC;&#x201C;NOV 16 Woman with a Camera: The Films of AgnĂ¨s Varda In conjunction with the exhibition Elles: Women Artists from the Centre Pompidou, Paris, SAM salutes the pioneering filmmaker AgnĂ¨s Varda, a former philosophy student and still photographer who â&#x20AC;&#x153;crafted visually stunning, intimate portraits imbued with the French New Wave spirit of spontaneous creativity.â&#x20AC;? Featured films include 1962â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ClĂŠo from 5 to 7 (Oct 28), 1965â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Le Bonheur (Nov 2), and 1985â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Vagabond (Nov 16). â&#x20AC;˘ Seattle Art Museum, 1300 First Ave, 654-3210, www.seattleartmuseum.org

NOV 2â&#x20AC;&#x201C;14 Universal Pictures: Celebrating 100 Years Two weeks of classic films from Universal Pictures, in

commemoration of the studioâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 100-year anniversary. Among the highlights: Alfred Hitchcockâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s The Birds (Nov 2), Steven Spielbergâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Jaws (Nov 9), Spike Leeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Do the Right Thing (Nov 12), and Douglas Sirkâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s The Magnificent Obsession (Nov 13). â&#x20AC;˘ Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave, 829-7863, www.nwfilmforum.org

Events SEPT 7â&#x20AC;&#x201C;13 The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye There once were two people who so loved each other who, rather than having a child, had plastic surgery so they looked more alike, until they basically looked the same, despite the fact that one was born a man and one a womanâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and it wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t weird, it was great. This is a true story, the story of Genesis Breyer P-Orridge and Lady Jaye, two performance artists. This is their movie. You will love it. (JEN GRAVES) â&#x20AC;˘ Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave, 829-7863, www.nwfilmforum.org

SEPT 8 Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory The Oscar-nominated final chapter in Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofskyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s documentary trilogy tracks the 18-year fight to prove the innocence of three West Memphis teenagers speciously convicted of three brutal murders. In 2010, the now-grown men were finally released from prison, and tonightâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s film will be followed by a post-screening Q&A with West Memphis 3 member Jason Baldwin. â&#x20AC;˘ SIFF Cinema at the Uptown, 511 Queen Anne Ave N, 324-9996, www.siff.net

SEPT 11 The Love Song of R. Buckminster Fuller Copresented by Northwest Film Forum and Seattle Theater Group, this â&#x20AC;&#x153;live documentaryâ&#x20AC;? finds the Academy

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Deconstructing the Beatles: Sgt. Pepper Beatles scholar Scott Freiman presents his live multimedia journey through the creation of the classic Beatles album Sgt. Pepperâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Lonely Hearts Club Band. â&#x20AC;˘ SIFF Cinema at the Uptown, 511 Queen Anne Ave N, 324-9996, www.siff.net

Batteries and Bands Replaced While You Wait

FILM

SEPT 15 Monsieur Hulotâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Holiday For its third annual fundraiser spectacular, the Grand Illusion screens a gorgeous 35 mm print of Jacques Tatiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s classic comedy, with drinks and light hors dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;oeuvres available before and after each screening. â&#x20AC;˘ Grand Illusion, 1403 NE 50th St, 523-3935, www.grand illusioncinema.org

SEPT 22 Genius Awards The 10th annual Genius Awards are happening in a way that theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve never happened before: Of three finalists in each category, the winners will be announced from the stage. The film nominees are: Shaun Scott, Drew Christie, and Megan Griffiths. â&#x20AC;˘ Moore Theater, 877-7844849, 1932 Second Ave, thestranger.com/genius

SEPT 23

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The Godfather Francis Ford Coppolaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s threehour, star-packed adaptation of Mario Puzoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s The Godfather is one of cinemaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s greatest achievements, and tonight you can enjoy it on the big screen at Central Cinema, where delicious beer and wine (and nothing-special food) is brought right to your table. For extra fun, drink whenever anyone says â&#x20AC;&#x153;Michaelâ&#x20AC;? or Moe Green gets shot in the eye! â&#x20AC;˘ Central Cinema, 1411 21st Ave, 686-6684, www.centralcinema.com

SEPT 27 Star Wars Uncut In 2009, thousands of internet users banded together to create a shot-by-shot re-creation of the original Star Wars, and here is the crowd-pleasing result. Composed of 15-second segments created by 473 volunteers, Star Wars Uncut is a manic crowd-sourced marvel. â&#x20AC;˘ Grand Illusion, 1403 NE 50th St, 523-3935, www.grand illusioncinema.org

SEPT 29 Time of the Robots

M.A.S.T. Mixologist Classes: $19.00 WSLCB approved courses offered 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. 12 & 13 permits & exams for alcohol servers & sellers.

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FALL 2012

UW DRAMA 2012-13 SEASON Tickets: $10-$20 Subscriptions: 4 shows and more $36-$84

PRESENTING | OCTOBER 2, 16, 30 PERFORMING ARTS LECTURE SERIES

‘WHY LIVE’ The Value of Live Performance in a Digital Age

SEASON OPENER | NOVEMBER 7-18 John Guare’s

LANDSCAPE OF THE BODY directed by L. Zane c.1970s: Rosalind dies, run down by a yellow Raleigh bicycle on a NYC sidewalk. Her sister Betty takes over her life while the ghostly Rosalind looks on . . . see the entire season at drama.uw.edu

SEASON ~ SUBSCRIBE ~ TICKETS ~ drama.uw.edu 206-543-4880

An epic space opera created by Seattle filmmaker Erik Hammen, composed of meticulously edited silent and serial film footage. • Grand Illusion, 1403 NE 50th St, 523-3935, www.grandillusion cinema.org

SEPT 30 Images of Women in Film: Otto Preminger’s Laura A screening of the classic noir of 1944, followed by a discussion of the film by critic Robert Horton and psychoanalyst Maxine Nelson. • Frye Art Museum, 704 Terry Ave, 622-9250, www.fryemuseum.org

OCT 15–18 Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Three Colors Trilogy In the early-to-mid-’90s, devoted cinemagoers spent a glorious five hours swimming through Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Three Colors Trilogy, three films named for and thematically linked to the French flag’s symbolic colors for liberty, equality, and fraternity. Blue is the spooky sad one starring Juliette Binoche, White is the wryly comic one starring Julie Delpy, and Red is the ravishing finale starring Irene Jacob. All are excellent. • SIFF Cinema at the Uptown, 511 Queen Anne Ave N, 324-9996, www.siff.net

A&P: SEATTLE ART & PERFORMANCE

Lincoln Opens Nov 16

OCT 29 National Theater Live: The Last of the Haussmans The Last of the Haussmans is an acclaimed new play about a hard-drinking, hard-loving family, and here is the National Theater’s acclaimed production starring Julie Walters, Rory Kinnear, and Helen McCrory. (Repeats Nov 5.) • SIFF Cinema at the Uptown, 511 Queen Anne Ave N, 324-9996, www.siff.net

NOV 3 VHS for President Culled from the bulging VHS archives of Scarecrow Video, this feature-length video montage tosses together the good, the bad, and the stupid of political video, including “made-for-TV movies, pulpy propaganda, hysterical histories, grotesque gasbags, and moronic mysteries.” • Grand Illusion, 1403 NE 50th St, 523-3935, www.grandillusion cinema.org

NOV 9–15

Stop Making Sense The greatest concert film ever made, directed by Jonathan Demme and starring the Talking Heads, the most theatrically adept rock band in history. • SIFF Cinema at the Uptown, 511 Queen Anne Ave N, 324-9996, www.siff.net

Daisies Widely considered one of the great works of feminist cinema, Vera Chytilová’s absurdist farce of 1966 follows two young women who embark on “a series of pranks in which nothing—food, clothes, men, war—is taken seriously.” • Grand Illusion, 1403 NE 50th St, 523-3935, www.grandillusion cinema.org

OCT 26–NOV 1

NOV 16–21

Out Here in the Wilds: The Films of Ben Rivers Over the past decade, English artist/filmmaker Ben Rivers has made 20 short films, all of them shot on a wind-up Bolex camera in 16 mm black and white, and eschewing plot and character development for static portraits of life on the fringes. Previously seen primarily in galleries, Rivers makes his fullscale cinema debut with the feature-length Two Years at Sea, a nearly wordless portrait of a man living alone in a Scottish forest. Along with the new feature, Northwest Film Forum presents an overview of Rivers’s earlier work. • Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave, 829-7863, www.nwfilm forum.org

Bestiare The face of an ostrich is a marvelous thing. So is the fur on certain deer’s behinds. Or the angles of a hyena’s legs. All these things can be fully appreciated in this talkfree documentary shot at a zoo. Some scenes are deeply sad—proud zebras desperately bumping their gorgeous patterns against the edges of a cage, for instance. But this is not a protest, it’s something harder. A taxidermist goes about his cold trade at the heart of the movie, as if to suggest that humanity as a whole has a painfully shallow approach to the rest of the animal world. (JEN GRAVES) • Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave, 829-7863, www.nwfilm forum.org

OCT 27

NOV 16–21

The VCR That Dripped Blood The groovy ghoulies at Scarecrow Video raided their VHS tombs to com-

Sunset Boulevard Billy Wilder’s film noir masterpiece of 1950 is one of the best films ever made about

OCT 19–23

pile this collection of rare horror clips featuring “bad special effects, nudity, gross-outs, and Alice Cooper.” • Grand Illusion, 1403 NE 50th St, 523-3935, www.grandillusion cinema.org

Hollywood, and it features one of the ballsiest film performances ever given (by a woman, no less). Plus, it’s at Central Cinema, so there’s beer and wine. Any time Gloria Swanson makes you squirm and/or wince, drink! • Central Cinema, 1411 21st Ave, 3283230, 686-6684, www .central-cinema.com

NOV 16–22 Ornette: Made in America This classic documentary tracks the evolution of Ornette Coleman as a performer and composer over three decades using documentary footage, dramatic scenes, and pre-MTV music videos. • Grand Illusion, 1403 NE 50th St, 5233935, www.grand illusioncinema.org

Openings SEPT 21 Liberal Arts A dramedy directed by, written by, and starring Josh Radnor, who plays a thirtysomething man who becomes embroiled with a 19-year-old college student (played by Elizabeth Olsen). • Wide release

SEPT 28 The Perks of Being a Wallflower The beloved epistolary novel brought to the big screen by its author, Stephen Chbosky, who also directed and wrote the script. • Wide release

OCT 5 Keep the Lights On The most-talked-about gay film of the year concerns the intense romance between two New York City men riddled with addiction and compulsion. • SIFF Cinema at the Uptown, 511 Queen Anne Ave N, 324-9996, www.siff.net

OCT 12 Wuthering Heights Emily Brontë’s moorbased bodice-ripper returns to the big screen in a stylish, stripped-down adaptation directed by Oscarwinner Andrea Arnold. • SIFF Cinema at the Uptown, 511 Queen Anne Ave N, 324-9996, www.siff.net Argo Ben Affleck, Bryan

Cranston, and Alan Arkin star in this drama about a dramatic rescue during the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis. • Wide release Not Fade Away The feature film debut of David Chase— aka the man who brought the world The Sopranos—centers on the lead singer of a teenage rock band in 1960s New Jersey. • Wide release Seven Psychopaths Martin McDonagh’s latest cinematic explosion involves a struggling screenwriter who gets mixed up with the mob after his friends kidnap a gangster’s shih tzu. Starring Colin Farrell, Woody Harrelson, and Sam Rockwell. • Wide release

OCT 26 Cloud Atlas Written and directed by Lana Wachowski, Tom Tykwer, and Andy Wachowski, Cloud Atlas (based on the 2004 novel of the same name) bills itself as “an epic story of humankind in which the actions and consequences of our lives impact one another throughout the past, present, and future.” Starring Tom Hanks and Halle Berry. • Wide release Chasing Mavericks Curtis Hanson and Michael Apted codirect the movie version of the life of American surfer Jay Moriarity. • Wide release

NOV 16 Lincoln Steven Spielberg’s prestige-ridden take on the Great Emancipator, starring Daniel DayLewis, based on a biography by Doris Kearns Goodwin, and with a screenplay written by Tony Kushner. • Wide release Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy’s epic love story, adapted by Tom Stoppard, directed by Joe Wright, and starring Keira Knightley (and a train). • Wide release

NOV 21 Life of Pi Yann Martel’s 2001 adventure novel hits the big screen in a 3-D adaptation directed by Ang Lee. • Wide release

Rufus Wainwright

F A L L H IG H L IG H T S NO W! 201 2–2 013 SEA SO N – BU Y YO UR TIC KET S

Bill Cosby

October 1

November 15, 17 & 18

RUFUS WAINWRIGHT

EMANUEL AX

Rufus Wainwright has established himself as one of the great male vocalists and songwriters of his generation. Performance does not include the Seattle Symphony.

October 21

BILL COSBY Comedian Bill Cosby returns to Benaroya Hall for special back-to-back performances. Star Anna

Performance does not include the Seattle Symphony.

October 26

SONIC EVOLUTION

PLAYS BRAHMS’ PIANO CONCERTO NO. 2 Ludovic Morlot, conductor Emanuel Ax, piano

Seven-time Grammy Award-winning pianist Emanuel Ax teams up with Ludovic Morlot to perform Brahms’ exquisite Piano Concerto No. 2. Thursday sponsored by Perkins Coie LLP

November 23–25

BRANDI CARLILE WITH THE SEATTLE SYMPHONY

Roots-driven singer-songwriter Brandi Carlile returns to Benaroya Hall to perform her best-loved hits accompanied by the Seattle Symphony, plus solo selections with her band.

Celebrate Seattle’s musical legacy with brand-new symphonic compositions inspired by Alice in Chains, Blue Scholars and Yes. PLUS! Star Anna and the Laughing Dogs and Alan White of Yes perform with the Orchestra. Sponsored by Cell Therapeutics, Inc., and the National Endowment for the Arts Ludovic Morlot

hony! p m y S y M in Jo ? 0 3 to 1 2 u A re yo MySymphony is a new initiative of the Seattle Symphony offering $25 tickets to music lovers ages 21 to 30. For more information email mysymphony@seattlesymphony.org. lile Brandi Car

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OCTOBER 11 , 2012 seattleartmuseum.org/elles

Elles: Women Artists from the Centre Pompidou, Paris is organized by the Seattle Art Museum and the Centre Pompidou, Paris. Image: Letter K (“Knife”) from Semiotics of the Kitchen, 1975, black-and-white video © Martha Rosler.