Alison Bechdel will speak at Town Hall on Thursday.
This week, our arts critics have chosen the best events in every discipline—from a live, pop-up magazine to a benefit meal for Syrian refugees to an Alison Bechdel reading—for you. And, if 54 events isn't enough for you, check out our complete Things To Do calendar, or follow us on Facebook or Twitter.
MONDAY
FOOD: Seattle Restaurant Week
All across the city, over 165 restaurants offer a special 3-course dinner meal for only $30, and many will also offer 2-course lunch meals for $15. It's a great way to try out new places, especially those outside your usual price range.
MUSIC: DIIV
Kyle Fleck says, "This is the nice-guy, melodic, Real Estate jangle shit we need from modern indie rock."
FILM: Spaced Invaders
Scarecrow presents this 1990 sci-fi comedy, for free.
FILM: Seattle South Asian Film Festival
The 10th annual film festival is the largest of its kind in the US, and will feature films that cover the theme of "Coming Home." (Through Sun)
TUESDAY
MUSIC: Dungen
Dave Segal says, "While Dungen have always excelled at everything from pastoral idylls to acid-rock flame-outs, they've tempered their youthful extremes and polished their melodies to a golden glow and Moody Blues-like majesty."
MUSIC: NoBunny
Robin Edwards says, "There's something utterly special and delightful and silly about Nobunny that's hard to pinpoint. All I know is that I've always had fun at Nobunny shows."
MUSIC: Subhumans
Travis Ritter says, "Subjecting an angsty teen to Subhumans, Britain’s other crust-loving anarcho-punk group not named Crass or Conflict, is how a parent can properly raise a politically sound, artistically driven individual."
POLITICS: Stranger Voting Party
Because voting is more fun when you can get drunk and vote with your friends.
FILM: Rodrigo Valenzuela: Prole Opening
As part of Genius, the Frye presents Rodrigo Valenzuela's experimental short film Prole.
FILM: The Silence of the Lambs
Scarecrow Video presents this film as part of the month-long SHRIEK: Women of Horror Film & Discussion series.
THEATER: Waterfall
5th Ave's musical that traces the love story of a Thai student and an American diplomat's wife closes this Sunday.
COMEDY: Comedy Womb Open Mic
Rendezvous' weekly pro-lady stand-up night.
WEDNESDAY
READINGS & TALKS: Pop-Up Magazine
The concept is simple: Writers, radio producers, photographers, filmmakers, and illustrators present new, mostly reported stories live on stage using a variety of media. The end result is a mixed bag of poignant, funny, and thought-provoking vignettes that stay with you long after you've left the theater.
FOOD: Craft Beer + Food
The Washington Beer Blog hosts its fifth annual craft beer and food pairing event.
MUSIC: Lawrence English, Loscil, Rafael Anton Irisarri, and Leo Mayberry
Elevator comes through with a great stress-relieving, metabolism-slowing bill tonight.
MUSIC: Wax Idols
Fronted by the captivating Hether Fortune, a Robert Smith in goddess form crooning dark gothic songs about deep tragedy and death and sin, Wax Idols have conjured some more powerful spirits since their debut.
ART: Ayana V Jackson: Archival Impulse
The Mariane Ibrahim Gallery's exhibition of late 19th and early 20th century colonial photographs closes on Saturday.
ART: Object Oriented Apology
This week is your last chance to see this debut exhibition at INCA's new, city center space.
FILM: NT Live: Hamlet
SIFF Cinema Uptown screens this presentation of London's National Theatre's Hamlet, featuring Benedict Cumberbatch.
THURSDAY
ART: Nuclear Family: Photographs by Bootsy Holler
Jen Graves strongly urges you to go to this exhibition that represents Holler's "photographic handle on her connections with where and whom she's from." Holler will give an artist talk before the official exhibition opening.
FOOD: Soup for Syria
Angela Garbes says: "Barbara Abdeni Massaad has just published a cookbook, Soup for Syria, to help raise awareness and alleviate the suffering of Syrian refugees. Here in Seattle, Mamnoon is dedicating tonight’s dinner service to the effort by offering soups and breads made by local chefs at its take-out window and communal table for $35."
FOOD: Creepy-Crawly Cocktails
Face your fear of bugs and snakes. But first down a couple drinks. Check out the Burke's collection of (dead) critters like bats, spiders and snakes.
MUSIC: Stumptown Showcase
Kelly O says: "Wait, ten bands for only an $8 cover?! Something tells me, just like Stumptown’s delicious, hot-toasted bean water, all these bands are gonna be mmm-mmm good!"
QUEER: How to Love This Queer Body of Color: An Unapology
In this spoken word series, queer POCs tell their stories about their bodies, love, and relationships.
READINGS & TALKS: Alison Bechdel
Alison Bechdel is an American cartoonist who wrote the groundbreaking comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For from 1987 to 2008, and won a MacArthur genius grant in 2014. She'll be at Town Hall tonight.
READINGS & TALKS: Lit Crawl
More than 30 readings from local and visiting writers in one night across First Hill and Capitol Hill venues. See the complete schedule, including Rich Smith's recommendations, on our calendar.
THEATER: Listening Glass
One of the more psychologically thrilling things out there this Halloween season is a play called Listening Glass, the latest production from Seattle Immersive Theatre. It will be playing through Sunday.
THEATER: Cafe Nordo Presents Sauced
Sauced is Cafe Nordo's "depression-era, film-noir style cocktail show" about the inhabitants in a secret gin-joint in Pioneer Square in 1937.
FILM: 39 Steps
To prepare you for Halloween, Scarecrow Video will play this Hitchcock film about murder and foot fetishes.
FILM: The Decline of Western Civilization Part I
Director Penelope Spheeris surveys the late-1970s Los Angeles punk scene: X, Black Flag, Fear, Germs, Catholic Discipline, Alice Bag Band.
(Plus, check out Part II: The Metal Years on Saturday)
FILM: The Room
Tommy Wiseau's (writer/director/producer/lead actor/distributor) PSA about sleeping with your best friend's girl.
FILM: Shredder Orpheus
This 1989 cult classic is "Seattle's first and only skate rock opera."
FRIDAY
FILM: Campout Cinema: The Return of the Living Dead
Outdoor movies come INSIDE for four nights of horror—this week, The Night of the Living Dead. Bring blankets, pillows, and sleeping bags, and they'll provide the food, themed drinks, and "other surprises."
MUSIC: King Khan & BBQ
Travis Ritter says, "The King Khan & BBQ Show are always terrific live, making soul-dance nights seem boring by comparison."
MUSIC: Alto!
Dave Segal says, "Portland trio Alto! blew me away at this year’s Debacle Fest. I had no familiarity with their music, but they immediately riveted me with their monomaniacal, bare-bones take on motorik rock."
SATURDAY
ART: Mostly the Voice: Writing About Music & Culture Class with Larry Mizell Jr.
Our own Larry Mizell Jr. (My Philosophy) and the host of KEXP's Streetsounds teaches a class on writing about music and culture.
ART: Study of Time and Motion: connect/reposition
The historic Georgetown Steam Plant puts on a performance to encourage people to think about how bodies move us forward.
MUSIC: 2 Chainz
Kyle Fleck says, "There’s a tendency, for some, to enjoy the music of 2 Chainz ironically. It’s a mistake: The more seriously you take the claims of the man Tauheed Epps, the more you are liable to enjoy it."
MUSIC: The Dicks
Mike Nipper says, "This show is actually the first and only Seattle screening of the documentary film The Dicks from Texas, which tells the story of the ’80s Texas punk band the Dicks. The Dicks have quite a legacy—their music and political stance were pointedly threatening to traditional America."
MUSIC: Truly
Kathleen Richards says, "Seattle’s grunge era produced a lot of great bands that, for various reasons, never achieved commercial success. Truly was one of them."
MUSIC: Being John McLaughlin
Dave Segal says: "Local sextet Being John McLaughlin—featuring Tristan Gianola on guitar—strive to harness the virtuosic pyrotechnics of the fusion master’s tenure with Mahavishnu, which is one of the most worthwhile pursuits of sonic homaging I can imagine." This is part of Earshot Jazz Festival.
READINGS & TALKS: Rebecca Brown and Ellen Forney: Why Seattle?
These two authors will read and speak on a panel that asks, "Why Seattle?" They will discuss why someone would want to make this city their home and how it affects an author's writing.
READINGS & TALKS: Jennine Capó Crucet
The author will do a "full" reading of her new novel, Make Your Home Among Strangers.
COMEDY: Elicia Sanchez: Not Too Late
Local favorite Elicia Sanchez puts on this monthly late night show "inspired by 1970s variety shows, ’80s public-access programming, and everything on Nickelodeon in the ’90s."
COMEDY: Margaret Cho: The PsyCHO Tour
Margaret says, "This show is about insanity, and about the anger I feel about everything happening in the world right now, from police brutality to racism to the rising tide of violence against women.”
FILM: Ben Gibbard Presents His Favorite Music Films
The lead singer/guitarist/songwriter of Death Cab for Cutie and Postal Service has selected a two-week series of rock-related films, including the experimental Kurt Cobain doc About a Son and the like-punk-never-happened Decline of Western Civilization Part 2: The Metal Years.
FILM: Trollhunter
Scarecrow Video plays this action-packed monster movie that's entirely silly and wholly suspenseful.
FOOD & DRINK: Tequila & Taco Fest
Sip on a variety of tequila and mezcal, paired with food from restaurants such as Cantina Lena, Poquitos, and Barrio.
QUEER: Cathedral
Catch some cutting-edge drag/cabaret/WTF experimentation at this otherworldly onstage laboratory.
SUNDAY
THEATER: Marya Sea Kaminski: The Mysterious Others
Marya Sea Kaminski is a writer, performer, and director and currently serves as the Associate Artistic Director for Seattle Rep. This solo performance "uses text, video and terrible jokes to conjure and then cast out the demons of her brother's mental illness."
FILM: Scarecrow Video Presents Shock & Awe: A Secret No-Budget Thriller Fest
Scarecrow, Bleeding Skull, and the Grand Illusion present this mystery 5-film marathon of deep cuts straight from the stacks that's "guaranteed to cause permanent brain damage."
MUSIC: YACHT
Kyle Fleck says: "The long-running project of Portland musician Jona Bechtolt, which added Claire L. Evans as a member about two albums ago, traffics in theatrical synthetic disco and plays shows that border on performance art."
FOOD: Sunday Pig Roast
Chef Stew Navarre hosts this ongoing Sunday Pig Roast. A ticket includes several dishes, including of the roasted pig, but also salt baked potatoes, spring asparagus, citrus chili garlic drippings, and housemade Bannock bread.
QUEER: Mimosas with Mama
Drag diva Mama Tits hosts this drag cabaret/brunch buffet, with the titular mimosas to go along, appropriately located at the very festive/in-the-basement Narwhal.