There's a slew of new features at Kevin Freitas' FeedTacoma.com today, including a weekly comic by R.R. Anderson of Holistic Forge Works titled Tacomic that will keep tabs on our Gritty City.  Check it here. â€" Suzy Stump

Let’s be logical for a moment.  We are a growing planet with a growing population. We are expanding.  We expand into the mountains, the farmlands, the deserts, South Hill Puyallup.  So, reasonably speaking, the days of wildlife are numbered.  Expansion, you know.  Weekly Volcano art critic Alec Clayton is expanding, too.  Not around his waist but in his studio.  He has new abstract and formalist oil paintings.  Quite good, I say.  And, get this, he captures the essence of movement and struggle as seen in nature.  Wildlife, among others.  Movement and expansion, nature and wildlife â€" I’m the Tarantino of playlist writers.  Discuss movement and nature with Clayton Friday, March 9, 7-9 p.m. at his reception at the Kenneth J. Minnaert Center. â€" Suzy Stump

[Kenneth J. Minnaert Center, through March 31, South Puget Sound Community College, 2011 Mottman Rd., Olympia, 360.596.5508]

Tacoma Actors Guild has closed its doors, failing to finish its first season as a "new" and "restructured" organization.

Tacoma's only professional theater first closed its doors a year ago to restructure itself and pay off a $400,000 debt it had accumulated over a four-year stretch. It then emerged last spring with a series of shows it staged through a partnership with Bellevue Civic Theatre.

TAG's production of "Proof" was the first show it staged on its own this season, and it will apparently be its last. The show closed along with the theater over the weekend despite efforts to raise money through a creative "Hit List" viral donation campaign. The donations weren't apparently enough to sustain the 300-seat theater's $25,000-a-month payroll and expense budget.

Calls to the theater went unanswered, although it's volunteer playwright in residence Bryan Willis confirmed the closure, noting that the closure should not be seen as a indicator that Tacoma won't support theater.

Willis' Northwest Playwrights Alliance performed staged readings at TAG once a month and routinely had more than 100 people in the audience.

"If you get 100 people in for a reading you are doing something right," Willis says. "Our audiences would put any theater in Seattle to shame."

News of the closure was first posted on Exit133.com, where there is an ongoing discussion about theater in the South Sound. â€" Steve Dunkelberger

Congratulations to the following South Sound high school students for nailing their meals grabbing a spot in the 2007 Washington Restaurant Association Education Foundation ProStart Invitational to be held at South Seattle Community College March 24-25: Joann Bushnell (Bothell HS), Janet Divelbiss (Puyallup HS), Dorene Brown (Rogers HS), Barb Rowland (Stadium HS), Jody Snyder (Steilacoom HS), and Margaret Heming (Wilson HS).

Chicks rule! â€" Suzy Stump

The www.myspace.com/coffeeandrhetoric">Coffee & Rhetoric folks posted this message on the Weekly Volcano's MySpace page.  The Urban Arts Festival brain trust will chat up their summer festival held at Fireman's Park this year tonight at Cutters Point Coffee in downtown Tacoma.  Check it. â€" Brad Allen

• Tonight at Coffee & Rhetoric: Showcasing Tacoma's art subculture, the kids from the urban art festival talk about their mission and brainstorm with local artists. If your an artist or musician or you just want to meet some artists and musicians-come hang out with us! 7 PM THUR. CUTTERS POINT 1936 PACIFIC AVE. (next week= OPEN MIC!!! with Kye Hillig from Pistol for Paycheck kicking it off...)

Fear Train Caravan is dead serious about their CD release party Friday, from left: drummer Ira Garrett, singer/guitarist Ben Fuller, guitarist Ted Fuller, bassist Eric Balcom and keyboardist Rob Anderson.  Photography by Kelly Driscoll

Fear Train Caravan is scheduled to officially release their new album, Shadowdancing, tonight at Jazzbones. They’ll be playing a CD release show with Lazy Bones, Never Quiet Never Still, and Neon Wilderness. Read the full story here. â€" Matt Driscoll

Bluesman Paul deLay died in a Portland hospital Tuesday March 6 from undiagnosed leukemia and liver and kidney failure. He was just 55 years old.  For those who knew the big man, this is a terrible shock and a devastating loss.  He will be missed by all.

“Paul delay was the last true blues player in the Pacific Northwest,” says “Little” Bill Engelhart. 

For nearly two decade the Paul deLay Band offered up some of the hardest hitting blues and R&B on the west coast. With deLay’s flawless chromatic harp playing and soulful vocals, the group was called upon to open for nearly every major blues act that rolled through town. 

If deLay didn’t have the blues before, he surely learned the true meaning of them following a well publicized drug bust in 1990. While spending nearly two years awaiting trial, deLay recorded two highly acclaimed discs, The Other Hand and Paulzilla.  After serving out a 41 month sentence in federal prison, he re-joined his band a new man with a new lease on life.  For the next 12 years the WC Handy Award nominee played nearly every blues festival, roadhouse bar and nightclub from Portland to Seattle with style, grace and authenticity.  â€" Tony Engelhart

Would you believe there will be a dialogue with the Tacoma arts community concerning the future of education in Tacoma/Pierce County?

Ah, the old Get The Tacoma Arts Community Involved trick. 

Get Smart Tacoma will be held Thursday, March 15, 4-6 p.m., at the Northwest Leadership Foundation. The City of Tacoma, Tacoma Public Schools, Metro Parks and Pierce County invites the arts community to discuss the role of education in shaping Tacoma’s future.  RSVP to Ann Brown or Priscilla Lisicich.

I’m loving it! â€" Maxwell Smart

Last night's RAGS Wearable Art Sale and Gala at was the scene of much art.  Most of this art was carried around on moving canvasses, bodies showing off last years’ purchases or modeling items for sale this year. 

The wine flowed freely, loosening purse strings (present company included) while the jazz music from the trio of musicians known as the Kareem Kandi Band added to the ambience of the evening.

The diverse crowd of people wandered around the completely altered Mercedes Benz of Tacoma, oohing, ahhhing, sipping, and buying.

For myself, I blew my paycheck on one of Maureen-Galloegos’ embellished handbags, a couple of pairs of Diane Vermalen’s felted wool ballerina slippers (I love them so much I slept in them!) a Lisa Kinoshita leather necklace, a button bracelet from Theresa Owens and chandelier earrings and a matching fabulous multiple strand pearl bracelet by Jessica Alexander.  Seeing Britt Simone and Marty from Vinosus (and planning future purchases) was good fun, as was running into family friends from long ago.  There’s nothing quite so satisfying as having your childhood best friend’s father grabbing you wine and dropping f-bombs. 

Ahhh, sweet adulthood.

Also satisfying: knowing the large wad of dough I dropped was going to a worthy cause, the YWCA’s domestic violence programs.

You too can get some cool stuff for a worthy cause through Sunday, at the Mercedes Benz of Tacoma. â€" Jessica Corey-Butler

So you wanna be a supermodel?

Possibly your first step toward that might be the event happening at the Tacoma Mall on Thursday and Saturday, the “Rock Your Prom” extravaganza hosted jointly by Seventeen Magazine and JCPenney.

If you’re 13-21 and think you have what it takes to strut your stuff on a catwalk in a prom dress, show up Thursday, March 15, at the JCPenney Court, at 3 p.m. for the Model Call. 
Leave your Zoolander “Blue Steel” face at home, and come prepared to strut, dance, and smile down the runway.  The fashion show and concert will be held Saturday. March 17 at 1 p.m.

This event will culminate on Saturday, March 17, with models chosen performing in the actual “Rock Your Prom” fashion event, which will feature “Over It” playing live. â€" Jessica Corey-Butler