Weekly Volcano Blogs: Walkie Talkie Blog

Posts made in: November, 2006 (40) Currently Viewing: 1 - 10 of 40

November 2, 2006 at 12:58pm

Joanne Engel and Remote Impact week

Joanne Engel of Remote Impact sings like a delicate flower that has been vastly underestimated by the asphalt jungle it spouted from. I saw her play at Oh! Gallagher’s open mic the other night. When she first began to play her pretty piano driven melodies I wondered if this environment â€" rock club/sports bar â€" would support her style of performance. My concerns were laid quickly to rest when the patrons put down their pool cues and beer glasses to clap and cheer emphatically after she completed her first song. Surely her style will draw comparisons to other piano songwriters, such as Tori Amos and Sarah McLachlan. She also has a very Jewel-esque quality to her voice when she sings her softer whispery parts. She flits between soprano and alto while painting a flowery picture with artful words punctuated by dancing piano keys. Check out Remote Impact at their Web site. â€" Angela Jossy

Remote Impact show this week
[Seven Twenty Bistro, Nov. 2, 6:30 p.m., no cover, 720 East Main Ave., Puyallup,
253.445.8442]
[Oh! Gallagher's, Nov. 5, 8 p.m., no cover, 7304 Lakewood Dr., Tacoma, 253.476.8787]
[Mandolin Café, Nov. 8, 7:30 p.m., no cover, 3923 S. 12th St., Tacoma, 253.535.7219]

Filed under: Angela Jossy, Concert Alert, Music,

November 2, 2006 at 1:24pm

Art at Work kicks off (with cake!)

Jeans and suits, gowns and fishnets, and the most adorable yellow dress, ever shared the Tacoma Art Museum for the 5th Anniversary Celebration of Art at Work, er, celebration.

In typical Tacoma fashion, all types of people came together to celebrate Tacoma’s success in fostering accessible art.

I chatted with James Hume, Claudia Riedener, and Bret Lyon, and then I supped (loosely speaking) with the mayor, Bill Baarsma.  He was dining like a hunted, hungry man; I asked him if this was his first meal of the day, too? And he responded, wryly, “it’s lunch.”

We all congregated in the projection room and the mayor, now fed, handed out the AMOCAT awards. Laura and Matt Eklund received the artist award for their work producing festivals like the Urban Art Festival and two Art in the Park “Under the Trees” festivals.  Laura, with the most delightfully infectious laugh in Tacoma, accepted the award, and in a classy move, invited Linda Honeck and Johanna Gardner to join her on stage.  She gave props to Honeck and Gardner expressing nothing she and Matt do could have happened without their huge efforts.  Classy.

Next, Paul and Josephine Zmolek, who received the Outreach Award, stated that Tacoma hadn’t rated as a place to settle until they almost accidentally made a visit here.  They fell in love â€" who wouldn’t â€" and created Barefoot Studios, with its contemporary dance and fringe theater.

Not quite so fringe were the works of the Sixth Avenue Business District who’ve been aiding in neighborhood accessibility through public art.

Yummy-looking chocolate cake was passed out as I chatted with Amy McBride, wunderkind of the accessible art revolution, and I once again realized why I think Tacoma is so darn groovy: our people rock! â€" Jessica Corey Butler

Filed under: Culture, Tacoma,

November 2, 2006 at 10:27pm

Dia de Los Muertos on Sixth Avenue

Halloween terrified us this year. We cowered behind darkened doors, hoping the pint-size ghosts and goblins didn’t invade when they discover that we’re keeping the candy for ourselves. Time for a change of tradition. So we hit the Sixth Avenue Dia de Los Muertos celebration tonight.  Day of the Dead if you will.  Night of the rain if you will.  Tent. Band.  Puppets. Costumes.  Dead Elvis. Fun.

Sixthavedayofdeadone SixthavedayofdeadtwoSixthdayofthedead3 Sixthdayofthedead4 Sixthdayofthedead5 If you still want to dance with the dead, check out the Tacoma Art Museum festivities Sunday. â€" Suzy Stump

Filed under: Culture, Tacoma,

November 4, 2006 at 3:07pm

DJ Danno spins at Maggie's tonight

Standing in the middle of Maggie O'Toole's on a Saturday night is like trying to keep Bobble Tiki’s footing in a rushing river.  The steady flow of people in and out of the door, back and forth to the dance floor and to and from the bar ensures a new vista with each passing moment. A hand lands on Bobble Tiki’s waist, a face in his neck. Bodies meld under the pressure of a crowded room.  It’s an experience in proximity. It reminds Bobble Tiki of a Tokyo subway â€" not the usual for quaint, sleepy Lakewood. But at this hot spot of the moment, it’s just another weekend.

Not too long ago, Maggie’s was what one friend of Bobble Tiki’s called “the sausage party.” With its pool tables, myriad and mammoth TV screens broadcasting all the games and decidedly masculine aesthetic, the Irish sports bar just wasn’t that popular with the ladies. But the tide has turned. 

Tonight DJ Danno spins Lakewood’s favorite mixture of Top 40 and R&B during Ladies Night.  Chicks get in free before 11 p.m.  Nice. â€" Bobble Tiki

November 5, 2006 at 11:19am

MOVE! moves, on many levels

The small Tacoma School of the Arts theater was packed, and after "MOVE! Tacoma Contemporary Dance Series" one of the performers apologized for flinging sweat on the audience.  While I didn’t get any fluids flung on my person, I did enjoy a physically and emotionally riveting show of what ballet can look like when a talented and experienced group of choreographers and performers push its boundaries.

Last night's highlights were varied and frequent, from the energy, spirit, and geometry in motion of the Tacoma School of the Art’s Dance Company’s “Birds,” choreographed by Kate Monthy; to Josh Reisberg’s spoken word stylings celebrating dance and Tacoma; to the Maika Misumi Dance Troupe’s use of many, many yards of fabric, and slow, studied steps exploding into vibrant physicality; to Joel Myers’ emotional solo based on experiences dealing with his fathers death, set to Moby’s "Goodbye" and featuring local fashion-wunderkind Daniel Blue’s Loyalty Clothing; to the Tacoma Dance Collective’s “Nightflight,” a black-lit journey through the life of a luna moth and the moths it relates to; to the Zoe Scofield/Juniper Shuey excerpt from "Find Your Way Out," where Kate Monthy and Zoe Scofield showed their stuff in an expressive, impressive feat of footwork.

A few of the dancers returned in danielandsomesuperfriends’ “Out of the Dust,” a trip through the psyche of a young person’s mind.  This marathon of a piece explored the dynamic side of ballet, with many of the groupings of people and physical forms on stage giving props to the formal side of ballet, but with a smattering of break-dance and acrobatic moves set to music that was most definitely not Tchaikovsky. This dance, as combined with the whole evening, seemed to reflect to me the diversity and excitement that MLKBallet will bring to the dance scene, encompassing the formal elements of the dance with stylistic props to T-Town.

Moveone Move2 Move3 Move4 We all headed to Tempest Lounge after the show, where the dancers were finally able to feed themselves â€" they performed at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. and couldn’t eat between shows â€" the physical nature of their dancing would have led to cramps like your mom always warned you about.  Tempest was buzzing with Pappi Swarner in attendance, along with his crew of witty fun people who made me laugh much; Natasha and her fabulous shoes made an appearance with Larry in tow â€" not working â€" and whisked us to the Monsoon Room. â€" Jessica Corey-Butler

Filed under: Culture, Tacoma,

November 5, 2006 at 12:06pm

Shakabrah Java cancels live shows

Has anyone else noticed that Shakabrah Java's Web site Live Music Schedule states:

"ALL LIVE MUSIC SHOWS CANCELLED.  Thank you for 5 years of great music."

Shakabrah booking agent Jerin Falkner says all shows including this weekend's shows are cancelled. Apparently the music was costing them too much money because they had to pay staff to keep the place open plus a sound man and they never asked for any of the door money. From now on they will close at 6 p.m. No more music. â€" Angela Jossy

Filed under: Club News, Tacoma,

November 6, 2006 at 11:00am

Dia de Muerto, TAM-style

A former classmate of mine from the University of Washington-Tacoma, who is involved in the Latin Student Organization, encouraged me to stay in the Tacoma Art Museum’s library space with my daughter yesterday, because a storyteller was coming.  Cool, I thought.  Then said storyteller, Rose Cano, was announced to be starting later than planned.  I still thought, cool, I’ll sit with my kid and read Eric Carle books.  We had just eaten a very tasty Untitled Cafe meal â€" the best tomato soup, ever, with crusty warm bread and stars of grilled cheese sandwich, grapes, and carrots for kidlette, along with an amazing feta and grilled chicken (with cous cous!) salad for me. We had also decorated sugar skulls, and had seen the emotionally moving display of altars, and enjoyed drums, "Trimpin’s Conlan in Purple," and Eric Carle’s amazing art.

Tamdeadone_1 Tamdeadthree Even still, the TAM Dia de Muertos event took on wings and flew as Rose Cano enchanted my daughter and me.  She arrested us, me sitting cross-legged against a table, my kid on a pillow, as she entered and set up.  She entranced us as she played a song on her reed-like flute.  She captivated us as she began her story about a misunderstood woman washing her hair in the river.  As effortless as the flow of the river, Cano moved between Spanish and English, reaching and riveting the entirety of the audience. Fluidly, Cano displayed her familiarity with instruments as diverse as goat’s hooves, seeds, spoons, and flutes as she wove these instruments adroitly into her storytelling.  As she played a box, she taught, as she moved into her next story, she left musical instruments behind for animalia and voices.  Boys in the crowd loved the slingshot end to the Macaw in both languages; girls seemed riveted by it all though my own daughter seemed to like the story of the skunk best.  By this point, she and I were snuggling, with me up against the pillow-cushioned wall, and her burrowing up against me to where her giggles reverberated against my ribs.

Tamdeadtwo It was a beautiful moment of education, community, family, diversity, and entertainment.  It was the kind of moment I hope will be replicated many more times, because the whole thing â€" the languages, the colors, the dance, the crowd, the old, the young, the in-between, the teens â€" was just gorgeous.

Viva la Dia! â€" Jessica Corey-Butler

Filed under: Culture, Tacoma,

November 6, 2006 at 10:47pm

Spooky Tacoma places

Bobble Tiki doesn’t believe in spooks. He doesn’t, he doesn’t, he doesn’t believe in spooks. And yet … on a rainy November night, when the leaves rattle against the fire escape and the computer crashes again and again for no apparent reason, Bobble Tiki finds himself drawn to supernatural explanations. Get a grip, he tells himself. Those lights going on and off? Nothing more than old wiring. That vase that crashed from the shelf? Vibrations from passing trucks.  That Ted Bundy victim dumped in the foundation of a building being built at the University of Puget Sound who now moans in the halls of the building.  Well?

For others, however, the chance of seeing a resident ghost on a stairway, among a local cemetery’s headstones or waving from a window provides an extra reason to live a Ghostbuster dream. There are a couple Tacoma venues where it's rumored you can get your Halloween on past October.

The Pantages Theater, the centerpiece for Tacoma’s Broadway Center for the Performing Arts,  hosts a carved face that looks out on audiences from the top of the stage proscenium.  Some say that it was modeled after the face of founder Alexander Pantages.  Some also say that if you watch that face very closely, its expression will change.  Witnesses claim that the ghost of Pantages smiles at the shows of which he approves.  And when Mr. Pantages doesn’t like an act, his displeasure is equally plain to see. 

Similarly, Tacoma’s Temple Theatre is a source of stories about the sounds of furniture being dragged across the floors of empty rooms, doors and windows later found open when they were left closed, and of luminous apparitions in the balcony.

Will the new Horatio Theater at 708 Opera Alley end up a ghost?  Doubtful.  Erik Hanberg, former managing director of the Grand Cinema, will open his Tacoma fringe theater sometime in February 2007.  His vision of daring, profound theater will most likely succeed due to the influx of urban downtown denizens and rise of intellectual artists pushing boundaries.  Check out the full story at Exit113. â€" Bobble Tiki


Filed under: Culture, Tacoma,

November 7, 2006 at 7:50am

Vote!

Heavy drinking will begin at 3:30 p.m. today at The Swiss as Bobble Tiki watches the numbers come in. Over the years Bobble Tiki has found the Swiss the largest gathering place for politically astute Tacomans needing to get their drunk on.  Bobble Tiki has planned a vacation day tomorrow. It's key since he could wake up in the holding cell at county.  Get out and vote! â€" Bobble Tiki

Filed under: Politics, Tacoma,

November 8, 2006 at 10:39am

Get your wine on in Tacoma this weekend

Ten years ago the drinking trend du jour was microbrews. It was about the same time this state was peaking as Hipster Relocation Centrale, and regional microbreweries were booming pulling fresh drafts for dudes who looked like they were doing their best to avoid the draft. Well, those dudes have moved onward and upward. Today, wine is once again the libation of the hip hobbyist. Check it. â€" Jake de Paul

  • Pour At Four hosts a string of wine tastings, all 5:30-8:30 p.m.: Spanish sherries Nov. 9, free; wines for Thanksgiving, Nov. 16, free; pinot noirs from around the world, $5; ports for the holidays, Nov. 30, $5.
  • Affairs Café & Bakery presents a Dessert and Dessert Wine Tasting Saturday, Nov.11, that includes six dessert wines and ports and at least as many desserts, including lots of chocolate.  Side note: The Weekly Volcano is digging Affairs’ creamy quiches of the day.
  • Rosewood Café hosts winemaker Don Townsend who drops by to chat wine, showcase his Townsend Cellars and taste bubbly from Domain Chandon Sunday, Nov. 12, 4-6 p.m.
  • Vin Grotto owner Kris Blondin yanks the Barnard Griffin off her retail shelves for a Third Thursday Art Walk wine tasting Thursday, Nov. 16 5-8 p.m.  Blondin just added new wines for your drinking pleasure and updated her personal picks.
Filed under: Food & Drink, Tacoma,

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