The Stranger Suggests
July 2 - July 9
Monet vs. Monnoyer
Art
The impressionists are overrated and need some comeuppance; they're getting it at a new exhibit at SAM. Inspiring Impressionism pairs impressionist paintings with older paintings (Sisley vs. Goya, Renoir vs. Greuze), and the impressionists often lose. Take Monet's Still Life with Flowers and Fruit versus the 17th-century French baroque painter Monnoyer's Vase of Flowers on a Marble Table. Monnoyer gives us a feathery white lily too long in the vase: brown, sagging, slimy. Monet gives us overlit dahlias: dumb pom-poms. (Seattle Art Museum, 1300 First Ave, 654-3100. 10 am–5 pm, $20.)
See what else is happening Wednesday »
'My Winnipeg'
Film
A characteristically hyperventilated outing from Guy Maddin, My Winnipeg has the added virtue of being (almost) grounded in reality. It's an ode to Maddin's hometown in which civic history gets tangled up in Oedipal reveries, and the line between fact and fiction is perpetually buried in snow. But it feels more substantial than Maddin's previous fictions: You now have some idea of what it's like to grow up itchy and feverish in a buttoned-up Canadian town. (SIFF Cinema, 321 Mercer St, www.siff.net. 7 and 8:45 pm, $10.)
See what else is happening Thursday »
Naturalists at the Beach
Science
Norwegians, I am told (by the internet), "relish" moon snails. The Seattle Aquarium Beach Naturalists also relish moon snails. This second group is a crew of trained volunteers who spend summer afternoons hanging out on Puget Sound beaches teaching about moon snails, sea stars, barnacles, and the like. On our nation's birthday, they will be at the pocket beach at the edge of the Olympic Sculpture Park. Hey! Moon snails! Something you can touch at the sculpture park! (Olympic Sculpture Park, 2901 Western Ave, 654-3100. 11:30 am–2:30 pm, free.)
See what else is happening Friday »
Big Business, Akimbo
Music
It's been a while since we've had Big Business to kick around—the bombastic stoner-rock duo fled Seattle's pine-scented air for L.A.'s polluted pastures in 2006. Tonight, they return to blow your face off with new material and 33 percent more shredding! (Earlier this year BB, announced the addition of guitarist Toshi Kasai.) Speaking of blowing your face off, Akimbo is releasing a new record in September. No doubt they'll showcase some of that epic material as this evening's openers. With Coconut Coolouts. (El Corazón, 109 Eastlake Ave E, 381-3094. 9 pm, $10 adv/$12 DOS, all ages.)
See what else is happening Saturday »
'WALL•E'
Film
Yeah, Pixar movies are usually good, but this one's unimaginably great. From its little trash-compacting hero (never so cute as when he stands up on tippy-toes—er, jacks up on an expanding lattice—to search for a replacement binocular lens) to its Apple-inspired shiny white pod of a love interest (as bellicose and career-minded as any female character in film history), WALL•E is completely crushworthy. And its storyline, half Little Tramp and half Benito Cereno, is a venerable pastiche. (See movie times.)
See what else is happening Saturday »
'A Streetcar Named Desire'
Theater
We wouldn't normally suggest, sight unseen, a production by out-of-town actors we don't know—but Streetcar is a durable work of genius and Sheila Daniels is one of our favorite directors. A fringe-theater star for nearly a decade (and recently hired as Intiman's associate director), Daniels has a tender, almost maternal approach to directing that coaxes deep, multifaceted performances out of her actors. "This play is Shakespeare," Daniels told me in an interview last week. "Shakespeare with New Orleans accents and 100 props." We have great expectations. (Intiman Theatre, 201 Mercer St, 269-1900. 7:30 pm, $10–$48. Through Aug 2.)
See what else is happening Sunday »
Matmos
Music
Avant-electronic duo Matmos creates high-concept albums from digitally buggered audio samples (in 2001, they made a record based around sounds from cosmetic surgeries). Their latest, Supreme Balloon, was composed entirely without microphones, using only the direct input from an imposing assortment of vintage modular synthesizers. Live, Matmos might process sounds from such sources as a contact mic attached to a balloon, melting ice, or hair clippers as they shave a fan's hair into a Mohawk. Genius. With SF noise makers Wobbly. (The Triple Door, 216 Union St, 838-4333. 8 pm, $20, all ages.)
See what else is happening Monday »
Kode9
Dubstep
Kode9 is a London-based Scotsman, philosophy professor, dubstep/grime producer, and owner of Hyperdub, one of the most innovative record labels in the world. From this label we get the hero of our time, Burial (or Saint Burial), and the madman of our time, the Spaceape—both were discovered by Kode9, the father of hauntology, a kind of thinking and feeling that emerged after the optimism of the '90s crashed against the wall of Bush's '00s. Kode9's beats soundtrack a world that is dead but haunted by the living. (Chop Suey, 1325 E Madison St, 324-8000. 9 pm, $12, 21+.)
See what else is happening Tuesday »
'Alloy of Love'
Art
Dario Robleto's exhibit at the Frye is one of those shows you read as much as see. On display is a simple button-down shirt next to a pile of buttons that—the posted description informs us—were made from melted Billie Holiday records, gathered under the title Sometimes Billie Is All That Holds Me Together. The whole show's a death-and-pop-culture-obsessed mindblower, and you'd be a fool to miss it. (Yes, even you.) (Frye Art Museum, 704 Terry Ave, 622-9250. 10 am–5 pm, free. Through Sept 1.)
