Drunk Herstory, The Gramma Book Launch, Director's Choice, And More Picks For March 13-19
by Stranger Things To Do Staff
Here are our arts and culture critics' picks in every genre—from the beginning of Moisture Festival and Triple Threat with Kimball Allen to Drunk Herstory and Chocolate For Choice to Ali Wong's stand-up show and a talk featuring the creators of Serial.
MONDAY
READINGS & TALKS
The Next Administration: What's in Store for WA's Lands & Waters
The executive director of Washington Wild, a state environmental organization, will tell you how you can help protect state wild lands and waters during the next four years and discuss the upcoming threats coming from the new Republican-led Congress. $1 from each Naked City beer sold during the event will be donated to the nonprofit.
Melissa Febos: Abandon Me
Melissa Febos will speak about her new memoir, Abandon Me, in which she struggles with reconnecting to her birth father and her Native American lineage even as she maintains her relationship with the loving sea captain who brought her up. In another strand of the story, Febos explores her long-distance but obsessive love affair with another woman. "In visceral, erotic prose," Elliott Bay writes, she depicts "the terror and exhilaration of losing herself in another."
MONDAY-TUESDAY
PERFORMANCE
The Flux Salon XVII: A Small History of Amal by Amal, Age 7
Forward Flux and Pratidhwani present this edition of The Flux Salon, featuring a staged reading of Lindsay Joelle's A Small History of Amal by Amal, Age 7 (as well as live music, Indian food, an appearance by the playwright, and drinks). The play centers around the 2006 Mumbai train bombings—seven pressure cooker bomb blasts that killed more than 200 people and injured more than 700—and their effect on a 7-year-old boy named Amal. Directed by Samip Raval.
MONDAY-THURSDAY, SUNDAY
FOOD & DRINK
Dine Around Seattle
During Dine Around Seattle (not to be confused with Seattle Restaurant Week), restaurants throughout the area are serving three-course dinner menus for just $33 or $44, with some also offering a three-course lunch for $18. Even better: When you make reservations online through dinearoundseattle.org, a donation is made to the Rainier Valley Food Bank, which serves roughly 12,000 people every month from its tiny 1,200-square-foot facility on Rainier Avenue. ANGELA GARBES
TUESDAY
FOOD & DRINK
Pi Day Pie-Eating Contest
“Ten will enter, one will win,” promises the Pi Day Pie-Eating Contest’s Facebook page. So just like Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, but with more contestants and fewer chain saws strapped to the side of a dome-shaped death cage. What do those 10 contestants stand to win, besides an upset stomach? A $25 gift card to Serious Pie, fittingly. The pies they will be stuffing themselves with will also come courtesy of Tommy D, being of the coconut-cream variety that the Dahlia Bakery does so well. Why should you go, since all 10 spots have been filled? Well, because there is no more perfect marriage than a charcuterie and Gruyère baguette from nearby Rain Shadow Meats and an hour spent watching people make asses out of themselves. Schadenfreude, baby. TOBIAS COUGHLIN-BOGUE
READINGS & TALKS
Ask the Oracle: Melissa Febos, Elissa Washuta, and Quenton Baker
Before the show, audience members will write down questions about their futures, and host Johnny Horton (in a velvet tuxedo) will pose them to the "writer-oracles," who will answer by reading a random passage from their own work. The oracles this time are Elissa Washuta (My Body Is a Book of Rules), Melissa Febos (Whip Smart), and Quenton Baker (This Glittering Republic).
At The Inkwell Seattle: Cities
Investigate the meaning and impact of living in a city at this reading featuring Jane Wong (whose debut collection full of "precise and gritty-gorgeous images," Overpour, came out last year), writer and journalist Kelsey K. Larson, Chelsea Bolan (The Good Sister), and Jason Kirk (A Fabulous Hag in Purple on the Moor).
Kevin Canty: The Underworld
Kevin Canty (Into the Great Wide Open, Nine Below Zero, and Everything) is known for writing beautiful books about disaster—desolate and marred landscapes, impenetrable grief, and failed relationships. In this one, titled The Underworld, he'll explore a terrible (and true) fire in a small mining town; the loss of life affected each and every member of the community, and Canty will tell stories about the survivors.
Molly Peacock
Molly Peacock is known for writing poems, essays, a biography of Mary Delany, a memoir, and a one-woman show—as well as editing anthologies and acting as the president of the Poetry Society of America. At this event she'll share her latest poetry collection, The Analyst, which focuses on Peacock's former psychoanalyst and the way their relationship has changed and shifted over the decades.
TUESDAY-SUNDAY
PERFORMANCE
Tribes
Nina Raine's Tribes is about a Jewish family that loves to banter and quibble. Their routine consists of lamenting, shouting, complaining, and exclaiming, at and around each other, all day long. Each of the family members has settled into this pattern—even Billy, although the family's style of communication often leaves him isolated. Billy is deaf and reads lips; he doesn't know sign language. That changes when he meets a girl who's losing her hearing...and the family dynamic changes too. The play raises a lot of interesting questions about disability and belonging, while offering seemingly effortless humor and playful intellectualism.
WEDNESDAY
ART
Northwest Nature
In conjunction with the Seeing Nature: Landscape Masterworks from the Paul G. Allen Family Collection exhibit currently hanging at SAM, this smaller (and free) gallery show features visual art that investigates our relationship with nature by artists including Linda Davidson, Elizabeth Gahan, Mary Lamery, Ryan Molenkamp, and Kimberly Trowbridge. This show will close today.
FOOD & DRINK
Chocolate For Choice
As resistance movements across the country ramp up, there are more and more opportunities to support the causes you care about while drinking/eating/enjoying the arts. This event offers the chance to sip on wine and cocktails, nibble on chocolate, meet like-minded Seattleites, and raise money for NARAL Pro-Choice Washington.
Drunk Herstory
The original Derek Waters Drunk History episodes—in which drunk comedians' attempts to narrate important historical events are acted out by the likes of Michael Cera, Zooey Deschanel, Don Cheadle, and Jack Black—are undeniable comedy classics, full of such pearls of besotted wisdom as "Tesla was the electric Jesus!" and "Fuckin' Aaron Burr's not on money. You know who is? Alexander Hamilton. He's on the ten." However, we all know that history is only half the story. Now we have Drunk Herstory, "a classy evening of beer drinking and tipsy storytelling" at Brouwer's Cafe. The storytellers are, obviously, women—specifically women in the beer industry—and the event organizers promise that "this group will have you falling off your chair with laughter!" If that wasn't incentive enough, each brewery that is fielding a funny lady to tell drunken stories will also have two or three of their beers on tap, and the proceeds from those beers will go to Planned Parenthood. I defy you to come up with a more perfect Women's History Month event. TOBIAS COUGHLIN-BOGUE
Marine Hardware Anniversary Wine Dinner with Maso Poli
Vintner Romina Togn of Northern Italy's Maso Poli will be the special guest at this six-course onslaught of tastiness celebrating Marine Hardware's first anniversary. The menu will include sea scallops, strangolapreti (spinach dumplings—or, literally, "priest stranglers," if you want to puzzle that out), and Moulard duck breast. Learn about the Italian wines accompanying each course, like Maso Poli's pinot noir and pinot grigio, as you're delectated through to dessert.
Work Release 8
In Round 8 of Work Release, a dinner series offering cooks and chefs the chance to experiment with cuisines outside of their normal menu confines, Bruce Miyahara and Darryl Duke will collaborate on a kaiseki (Japanese multi-course dinner) influenced by the idea of "reverse-yoshoku" (yoshoku referring to Western-style Japanese food from the Meiji era).
READINGS & TALKS
David Williams: Seattle Walks
Author (and sometimes science writer) David B. Williams collected essays and maps to examine nature in the city in his 2005 book The Street-Smart Naturalist, and he wrote about Seattle's redrawn, rebuilt hills and waterways in his 2015 book Too High and Too Steep. Now, he'll visit the Central Library to share his latest work, Seattle Walks, which will help newcomers and residents alike notice and embrace the strange beauty of our city.
A Historical Perspective of Homelessness in Seattle
Learn about the history of homelessness in Seattle and the current problems that homeless people face at this community panel featuring MOHAI's executive director Leonard Garfield, writer and former director of both ROOTS and the Elizabeth Gregory Home Sinan Demirel, Chief Seattle Club executive director Colleen Echohawk, founding director of the Real Change Homeless Empowerment Project Tim Harris, and director of Seattle U's Project on Family Homelessness Catherine Hinrichsen.
Kay Redfield Jamison
Kay Redfield Jamison (clinical psychologist and author of the brilliant, surprising book An Unquiet Mind, which details her own experiences with manic depression—the alluring, invigorating aspects along with the depression and trauma) will share her latest work, Robert Lowell, Setting the River on Fire: A Study of Genius, Mania, and Character. Lowell's tempestuous and debilitating moods are famous, and he wrote a number of poems about their effects, his institutionalization, and his periods of recovery. ("Just twelve months ago, / these flowers were pedigreed / imported Dutchmen; now no one need / distinguish them from weed. / Bushed by the late spring snow, / they cannot meet / another year's snowballing enervation. / I keep no rank nor station / Cured, I am frizzled, stale and small.") This book will expand on a theme that Jamison has explored before: the connection between prolific artistic creation and manic depression.
PERFORMANCE
Triple Threat with Kimball Allen
Kimball Allen's Triple Threat is what would happen if an entire late-night variety show barged into your apartment, shoved you into a chair, and bombarded you with entertainment for an hour and a half. Your intrepid host can always be relied on to assemble a perfect parade of talent, and this time you can look forward to seeing comedian Elicia Sanchez, vocal comedy from Captain Smartypants (ensemble of Seattle Men's Chorus), and alternative soul musician Whitney Mongé. Triple Threat has recently adopted more of an activist streak than it's had in past outings: Proceeds from the performance will benefit Planned Parenthood, and attending it will benefit your soul. MATT BAUME
WEDNESDAY-SUNDAY
PERFORMANCE
French Kiss
French Kiss is a sexy production that features dancers performing original choreography by Fae Pink, elaborate sets and projections, and themed food and cocktails.
THURSDAY
ART
A River of Ink Runs Through It: The Giant Pen in Context
Jim Woodring's The Pig Went Down to the Harbor at Sunrise and Wept (a series of large ink drawings created using a comically oversized fountain pen that Woodring made himself) is on display at the Frye, and in celebration, Woodring himself will visit the museum and speak about his work and influences (including the giant pen). He will be joined by Negarra A. Kudumu, Frye Art Museum Manager of Public Programs.
FILM
Viva Italia! Italian Film from Neorealism to Fellini
Revisit the greatest works of mid-century Italian cinema with works by Monicelli, Rossellini, Fellini, and other masters of postwar Neorealism and the more stylized movements that followed. For the final week of the series, watch the Taviana brothers' Night of the Shooting Stars, featuring Omero Andonutti and Margarita Lozano, which, from the viewpoint of a six-year-old girl, tells the story of a Tuscan farming village that challenges Nazi occupation while American liberating forces approach.
FOOD & DRINK
Guest Chef Night
FareStart is a fantastic organization that empowers disadvantaged and homeless men and women by training them for work in the restaurant industry. Every Thursday, they host a Guest Chef Night, featuring a three-course dinner from a notable Seattle chef for just $29.95. This week, chef Jim Drohman of Le PIchet will cook a menu including a curly endive and frisée salad, stuffed savoy cabbage leaves, and pears poached with vanilla and bay.
Studio Supper: Donna Moodie of Marjorie
Studio Suppers at On the Boards are Seattle civic treasures that manage to turn the dinner-and-a-show formula into something truly exciting. Before the opening performance of one of OtB’s provocative shows, you join 50 other people at a communal table for a family-style meal prepared by a local chef. There’s lots of wine and, because diners get to pay on a sliding scale ($25–$100), you’ll actually have interesting conversations with a diverse mix of people. This Studio Supper, on the opening night of Jessica Jobaris and General Magic's A Great Hunger, features dinner by Donna Moodie of Marjorie. ANGELA GARBES
READINGS & TALKS
Margin Shift Presents: Leonard Schwartz, d wolach, Katelyn Peters, Kat Seidemann, Molly Tenenbaum
Margin Shift will explore the power of influence by pairing up local poets and their former mentors for readings. Try to hear echoes and cross-pollinations in each duo's work. The readers will be Leonard Schwartz, d wolach, Katelyn Peters, Kat Seidemann, and Molly Tenenbaum. Join them for wine at 6:30 before the readings start at 7.
Word Works: Mary Gaitskill
Mary Gaitskill is a genius who wrote one of the most riveting essays I have ever read. It’s called “Lost Cat,” and it’s about how she loved a recently deceased cat more than the children she was hosting from the Fresh Air Fund, a program that pairs low-income kids with rich people for summer vacations. The piece is a deep examination of race, grief, and the strange chambers of the human heart. If you want to know how to go deep like Gaitskill, check out this lecture on how to make fictional characters seem real. RICH SMITH
THURSDAY-SATURDAY
COMEDY
D.L. Hughley
Actor, political commentator, and television personality D.L. Hughley (known for The Hughleys, CNN's D.L. Hughley Breaks the News, and the afternoon radio show The D.L. Hughley Show) will bring some timely, politically informed stand-up comedy to Bellevue.
FOOD & DRINK
St. Paddy's Feast with Flying Bike Cooperative Brewery
Savor a big meal made with fresh local ingredients paired with Flying Bike beers for St. Paddy's Day. On the menu are leek and potato pancakes, duck confit, coriander-cured beef, and milk chocolate ice cream floating in stout beer.
PERFORMANCE
26 Miles
26 Miles is written by playwright and composer Quiara Aolegria Hudes, who wrote the book for Lin-Manuel Miranda's musical In the Heights and won a Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play Water by the Spoonful. The plot centers on an estranged mother and daughter who take an impromptu road trip to Yellowstone, and deals with themes of Cuban-American identity, broken families, and the American landscape. Directed by Julie Beckman.
Shen Wei Dance Arts
MacArthur fellow Shen Wei's choreography blends the influences of varied artistic lineages, from Chinese tradition to "American high Modernism." His new dance Neither, which is performed to Morton Feldman's "anti-opera"—a work for soprano and orchestra with lyrics by Samuel Beckett—will create "stunning kinetic stagescapes."
Yankee Pickney
This is the Seattle premiere of Yankee Pickney, a one-woman show written and performed by Jehan Osanyin and directed by Jimmy Shields. It's about a young West Indian woman navigating culture and identity—stuck outside both African American and white American communities—and "spinning a tale that stretches back centuries yet is as contemporary as today's headlines."
THURSDAY-SUNDAY
PERFORMANCE
How I Learned to Be a Particular Kind of Lady
The Lady B describes herself as "Seattle’s Première TransFabulous, Femtastic, Draglesquing, Sass-Mouthing Negro.” Using an equally complex and fabulous mélange of storytelling tools (film, modern dance, spoken word, burlesque, “and the sacred art of twerking for social justice”), she’ll tell you the tale of how she emerged into “the Lady Bold, the Lady Beautiful, the Lady B.” RICH SMITH
Jessica Jobaris & General Magic: A Great Hunger
A Great Hunger is a wild and expressive work by Jessica Jobaris and her collaborative dance company General Magic. With elements including exhibitionism, pranksters, ritual, and "a willingness to jump from a hypothetical cliff," expect an honest and brazen inquiry into human nature. They add: "It's a new church for the new millennium." How could we describe art more accurately?
Kelleen Blanchard: Playwright Showcase
You're invited to watch and perform the macabre work of locally famous playwright Kelleen Blanchard (Kittens in a Cage, Blood Countess), who will supply scenes and monologues to the audience. Anybody could end up with any part!
This event will not take place on Friday or Saturday.
Macbett
Macbett is one of French avant-garde playwright Eugene Ionesco's more overlooked plays—get acquainted with it via this Ghost Light Theatricals production. It's a parody spin-off of Shakespeare's Macbeth, loosely inspired by the power-grabs, rebellion, guilt, and murder in the original.
Moisture Festival
The Moisture Festival unites a vast kaleidoscope of burlesque and variété performers at Teatro Zinzanni, Hale's Palladium, and Broadway Performance Hall. Whomever you fancy—clowns, comedians, tightwire artists, aerialists, jugglers, singers—you can find someone who's traveled from regions as far flung as Basque France or Wallingford to perform for you. The festival promises a variety of special performances and workshops, as well as performances of shows including their Varietè spectacular (with matinee as well as late-night editions) and the Libertease Cabaret.
SPORTS & RECREATION
Smash Putt
This is basically the zenith of fun in a dreary Seattle winter. You get wasted, you play bizarro-world mini golf (including a hole featuring a golf ball cannon), and you generally are reminded how fun works. Last time I went, they even had the Infernal Noise Brigade marching around the venue, sowing chaos. TOBIAS COUGHLIN-BOGUE
FRIDAY
COMEDY
An Evening with John Cleese
John Cleese's career began with Monty Python's surrealist skits in the 1960s, where he often embodied snobs, bullies, psychopaths, pedants, and generally irrational, angry men to hilarious perfection. Fans still return to Fawlty Towers and the film A Fish Called Wanda. The British comedian will muse on his work, recount stories, and launch "unprovoked attacks on former colleagues, especially Michael Palin" (his words).
FOOD & DRINK
St. Patrick's Day in the Market
Chef Seattle Joe will evoke the Emerald Isle with Irish-themed ingredients and recipes, like colcannon and lamb and Irish cheddar croquettes, at this four-course dinner. A cocktail will accompany each course.
READINGS & TALKS
Barbara Earl Thomas on Jacob Lawrence's Migration Series
Very deserving Seattle legend and Stranger Genius Barbara Earl Thomas will speak about Jacob Lawrence's 60-panel masterpiece, The Migration Series, which explores the "great migration" of black Americans out of the rural South. Thomas will speak about her artistic perspective on the monumental series, and offer her take on its historical significance.
Dr. Cornel West: Art as Resistance
Spend an evening with the exceedingly influential multi-hyphenate thinker and artist Cornel West, who will be joined by Seattle School alumnus Tom Ryan for a discussion of blues, hip-hop, jazz, R&B, soul, and classical music—and how art forms like those can help in a spirited political resistance.
Gramma Book Launch Reading Bouncehouse Dance Party
Impressive local poetry press Gramma (I'm biased, since I'm one of its editors) is officially launching its first two books into orbit. Ugly Time by Sarah Galvin and Community Garden for Lonely Girls by Christine Shan Shan Hou are hot off the press and ready to be disseminated widely (and wildly). At Canvas (the old Western Bridge space), join the Gramma crowd for an evening of poetry, art, food, drink, live music, and a major dance party soundtracked by DJs Grody Cody and Angel Baby of Shannon and the Clams. Books will be available to purchase, and readings by Stranger books editor Rich Smith, Anastacia-Renee Tolbert, Donald Dunbar, Christine Shan Shan Hou, and Sarah Galvin begin at 8 p.m., with a live set by neo-pop-punk lovers Boyfriends to follow. I'll be in attendance as well, if you'd like to ask me about my conflicts of interest. KIM SELLING
Seattle StorySLAM
At this live amateur storytelling competition, audience members who put their names in a hat are randomly chosen to tell stories on a theme. Local comedians tend to show up, but lots of nonperformers get in on the action as well. The theme of this week's event is "making peace," so expect stories about "the laying down of arms, the olive branch, the surrender to the greater good or the fierce battle for an even playing ground."
FRIDAY-SATURDAY
COMEDY
Ali Wong
This performance comes after the release of Ali Wong's Netflix special Ali Wong: Baby Cobra, and before the premiere of her new ABC comedy American Housewife. Catch her between projects, doling out intimate and bizarre laughs.
READINGS & TALKS
An Evening of Speculation
Two Seattle writers will read from innovative works of fiction about the Earth changing: L. Nicol Cabe will perform Tidal Surge, about "three generations of women surviving through climate change," and Elly Bangs will excerpt from her new piece about the world turning upside down.
PERFORMANCE
Director's Choice
Director's Choice is Pacific Northwest Ballet artistic director Peter Boal's spring breeze of ballets, specially selected to show off innovative new work and modern-era classics that could stand another look. This year, the stage will blacken with David Dawson's sharp and agressive Empire Noir, then yield to the slo-mo, geometric entanglements of William Forsythe's duet-heavy New Suite, and then burst into color with Jessica Lang's Her Door to the Sky, which looks like a Georgia O'Keeffe painting come alive. RICH SMITH
Rising Star Project: The Pajama Game
The Seattle run of The Pajama Game has ended, but you have one more chance to soak up the hit numbers from Broadway's Golden Age—this time, the 1950s musical will performed by local high school students.
Yoni Ki Baat: South Asian Version of the Vagina Monologues
Watch South Asian actors present Yoni Ki Baat, a take on The Vagina Monologues, directed by Sudeshna Sathe and Gauri Shringarpure and presented as the spotlight event of Tasveer's 12th annual AAINA, a festival celebrating the artistic work of and about South Asian women.
FRIDAY-SUNDAY
READINGS & TALKS
Friends of The Seattle Public Library's HUGE Book Sale
If past years are any indication, you may come home from the library's book/DVD/CD fundraiser-sale with a massive haul. It's amazing what you can stumble on here: Criterion DVDs, foreign-language graphic novels, strange children's books, and general esoterica can find their way into your bag o' bookish booty. Unless you come every day that weekend—during which all items are $1-$3—you will definitely not have the chance to examine each of the 100,000 potential treasures, but you'll want to do your best.
PERFORMANCE
Dina Martina: Fine Avec Me
The verbal begarblement/drag performance artist Dina Martina will return with video, nonsensical songs, and extraordinarily funny if meandering stories with Fine Avec Me. We're no stranger (:-/) to Dina; our contributor David Schmader called her—admiringly— "a singer who cannot sing, a dancer who cannot dance, and a storyteller who seems to have situational brain damage." She also won a Stranger Genius Award in 2012. And she was on our cover once. Do we have a crush?
Dry Powder
Charles Isherwood's review of Dry Powder for the New York Times begins, "Calling all Bernie Sanders fans," so this was an appropriate choice by the Rep for Seattle audiences. Dry Powder, written by first-time playwright Sarah Burgess, skewers the world of high finance with humor and gusto. Directed by Marya Sea Kaminski.
Made in Seattle: KT Niehoff
This new production from Velocity is titled Before We Flew Like Birds, We Flew Like Clouds, and features the results of longtime choreographer KT Niehoff asking extraordinary people, "What does it feel like to be in your body?" Get a glimpse of the physical and emotional experience of an astronaut, a professional speed skater, a survivor of a near-death experience, and a paraplegic rower, communicated through dance, music (both prerecorded and live), and virtual reality video.
The Taming of the Shrew
Seattle Shakespeare Company presents this bilingual (Spanish and English) production of The Taming of the Shrew, directed by Erin Murray. You know the deal with this play: One sister is terrible, full of opinions and feelings, and the other one is perfect, pretty, and agreeable. Will the awful one become more like her sister? Can a man succeed in breaking her spirit? We're excited to see how Seattle Shakespeare will make it palatable for 2017 audiences.
SATURDAY
ART
Asia Talks: Mohsin Hamid
This edition of "Asia Talks" will feature British Pakistani novelist Mohsin Hamid, author of Moth Smoke, Discontent and Its Civilizations: Dispatches from Lahore, New York and London, and his most famous, The Reluctant Fundamentalist (shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize). Hamid will visit Seattle to share his latest novel, Exit West, about migration from an unnamed country beset by violence.
PERFORMANCE
Sessions of She
This multidisciplinary arts event (with art, comedy, and music) aims to establish a sense of comfort and community between artists and audience members by interspersing performances with on-stage interviews. March's feminist showcase will bring you Naoko Morisawa's art, Summer Azim's comedy, and Holly Ricciardi taking over the tunes.
QUEER
Lunático Ball 2017
Queer ballroom dancers: compete for titles in "Realness, Runway, Fashion, Beauty, Sex Siren, and Vogue performance." In between smashing dance sets, see performance and art by queer people of color. They add this reminder: "Lunático was created with the intention of providing a space centering and celebrating Queer and Trans black and brown individuals. Ball culture is Queer/Trans PoC culture, so we are committed to centering their needs and the needs of the marginalized without reserve."
READINGS & TALKS
Serial: Sarah Koenig & Julie Snyder
Co-creators Sarah Koenig and Julie Snyder will take you behind the scenes of their viral podcast Serial and discuss the "ups and downs of creating a new form of modern storytelling," using tape from the show to narrate their own stories.
SATURDAY-SUNDAY
PERFORMANCE
Mimosas Cabaret
The great protest art of the Donald Trump era is already happening, with the Mimosas crew choosing a daring show to stage as their latest 30ish-minute musical. They're doing the show Cabaret, a song-and-dance extravaganza set in the days of Hitler's rise to power. The allegories to today are chillingly perfect, from nationalist Nazis singing "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" to the gut-wrenching appearance of the Star of David. For 50 years, Cabaret has been a reflection on the past, but now it's a scream of alarm about the future. You won't just cry at this show, you will sob. MATT BAUME
SUNDAY
READINGS & TALKS
Ariel Levy with Claire Dederer
New Yorker staff writer Ariel Levy (author of feminist cultural critique Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture) prided herself on being fearless, the kind of woman who would travel alone, meet new people, interview them, learn quickly, and write boldly. When she was five months pregnant, she travelled to Mongolia to write about the influence of the burgeoning mining industry—and she returned home to a fractured marriage, without a baby. Rules Do Not Apply is a memoir about that experience and others; you can see glimpses of the likely themes in the 2013 New Yorker essay "Thanksgiving in Mongolia," in which she tells a salesperson at a clothing store, “I don’t know what size I am, because I just had a baby. He died, but the good news is, now I’m fat.” She writes with self-deprecating humor and a deep curiosity about what it means to be a woman in this world. At this event, Levy will be joined by Claire Dederer, Hugo House instructor and author of the New York Times best-selling memoir Poser.
Italian Poetry Through Tarot
Self-described "poet and healer" Emily Beyer will draw on Italian poetry and tarot for a unique writing class. Browse Open Books' Italian titles and engage in "tarot writing activities" until 2 pm, when Emily will start the readings ($30 each). The class itself, beginning at 4 pm, is $50.
National Geographic Live: Beauty and the Bizarre
Anand Varma is a science photographer who has created fascinating, gory, and sometimes gross photographs of nature scenes, including many close-ups of bugs living and dying. Hear him speak about his work at this talk presented by National Geographic.