My friend sent me an alarmed text message when she went shopping for jeans for her teenage daughter. Seemed she was struck with a bad case of sticker shock by the prices she was seeing in the boutique where they shopped.

I responded apologetically: sorry, I thought you knew boutique equals money.

And then I thought about that statement.

While it’s true, boutiques can get spendy, it’s also true that you get what you pay for.

What I’ve discovered in my exhaustive research in Tacoma’s boutiques is that shopping culture is a lot like restaurant culture.

I've posted my findings on the Volcano Web site. â€" Jessica Corey Butler

The News Tribune's Biz Buzz blog reports that the Little Holland Drive In will be demolished to make room for a multi-phase development.

New Tribune's John Gillie writes:

• The Mikie burger (or is it Mikey?) has been acclaimed by reviewers and customers alike. CitySearch, for instance, named the Mikie Seattle's best burger two years ago beating such tough competitors as Dick's Drive-In and Red Mill that are actually in Seattle and Tacoma's Frisko Freeze and Frugal's burgers.

Where's the love?  The Weekly Volcano's Best of Tacoma issue this past July stated the Little Holland Drive In serves the Best Burger in Tacoma.  The News Tribune must have ran out of copies of our special section.

USA Today’s Money section focuses on the Tacoma housing market.  Christine Degas reports that Tacoma’s housing market is largely insulated from the collapse of the subprime market and foreclosures due to the two military installations.

True. With guaranteed paychecks, the brigade returning from Iraq, and war pay, the military will help stabilize the housing market in Pierce and Thurston counties. â€" Michael Swan

THE DAILY WORD
Learn it, use it, spell it

Perdurable \pur-DUR-uh-bul; pur-DYUR-\, adjective:
Very durable; lasting; continuing long.

USAGE EXAMPLE: It’s not that Bobble Tiki’s underwear is especially perdurable, or made out of anything different than average BVDs, it’s just that Bobble Tiki doesn’t like change. That’s why he’s still wearing the same six-pack of whitey tightys he got for Christmas in 1998.

THE MORNING NEWS

CASCADES: Missing plane discovered â€" tragic.

SEAHAWKS: Mack Strong out.

TACOMA: To Prop or not to Prop.

OSLO: Good news for crappy lutefisk.

HUSTLER OF CULTURE
You can stand atop the mountain and scream your naked desires to the universe or shed that synapse epilepsy and hug the South Sound today with your fellow man:

MUSIC: Peelander-Z will be at Hell’s Kitchen on Wednesday. Bobble Tiki promises you, cross his bobble heart and hope to bobble die, that Peelander-Z will deliver a performance you’ll kick yourself for missing. Never in Bobble Tiki’s long and inebriated existence has he ever seen a band like Peelander-Z. They’re like cartoons come to life, and their shtick is second to none. Bobble Tiki says don’t be a douche-bag. If you haven’t seen Peelander-Z yet, make Wednesday the day.

MORE MUSIC: What's on tonight.

FILM: Tacoma Film Festival Day Six.

DISH: Eating around The Grand Cinema.

Please be Bobble Tiki’s friend here.

Breakfast with Bobble Tiki runs Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.  Deal with it.

Cans has been teasing me with an announcement they made recently that has my fancy boots stompin’.

The downtown Tacoma joint is now home to an incredible Thursday night that was made for the girls and all of the guys who admire them â€" Ladies Night.

Starting this Thursday, Cans will be slingin’ 50 cent drinks from 9 p.m. to close and no cover charge for the ladies, and I guarantee, this will quickly become the Scene of the Crime for getting your weekend started early.

Also added to their Thursday lineup is high-tech lighting and none other than DJ Pedro, a guy who gets around the South Sound and MySpace just as much as I do. He’ll be offering Live and Loud from 9 p.m. to close â€" spinning top 40 R&B, hip hop and old school rap dance. â€" Natasha

It has been said that if you can remember the ’60s, you weren’t really there. There are various subcategories, including those who can’t remember because they really weren’t there, those who think they may remember something but aren’t really sure what, and those who voted for Nixon â€" but basically, this statement opens up the decade of grooviness to either a lot of nostalgia or a lot of mocking. No one is quite sure what actually occurred. Well, comedian Pat Hazell does.

Hazell takes baby-boomer Americana that recalls the genuinely funny observations of our collective youth: sugar-highs, milk money, the kid's table, pop rocks, the ice cream truck, and those long distance trips in the wayback of the Country Squire Wagon in his one-man show, “The Wonder Bread Years.”  It will hit the stage Friday night in Olympia and Nov. 2-3 in Tacoma. â€" Suzy Stump

[Washington Center, Friday, Oct. 12, 7:30 p.m., $29.50-$31.50, 512 Washington St. S.E., Olympia, 360.753.8585]
[Theatre on the Square, Nov. 2 7:30 p.m., Nov. 3 3 and 7:30 p.m., $34, 915 Broadway, Tacoma, 253.591.5894]

The Weekly Volcano has nothing against www.myspace.com/firstnighttacoma ">Tacoma's First Night fete â€" except that it's really the Last Night, but what do mere semantics have to do with it?

The New Year’s Eve celebration consuming Broadway in downtown Tacoma needs scads of volunteer rogues in a wide array of functions, such as venue greeters, ushers, festival rovers, parade organizers, and tech heads.

The lovely First Night brain trust will hold a volunteer orientation Sunday, Oct. 14 at King’s Books.  No pre-registration is needed for the 3 p.m. meeting.

For more details, contact sweet pea at King’s Books.  He knows stuff. â€" Suzy Stump

Alters are one way to celebrate one who has died.

Tacoma-based Latino youth and family support organization Centro Latino has joined forces with the Tacoma Art Museum for the third year running to celebrate The Day of the Dead. Local observance of the popular Latin American tradition began Oct. 9, and is set to culminate in a free public community celebration Nov. 4.   

Day of the Dead, a centuries-old tradition, traces its roots to the Aztec, Maya and other ancient Central American societies. In modern times, the tradition is observed in Mexico and other Latin American communities on Nov. 1 and 2 (All Saint’s Day and All Soul’s Day), when the lives of relatives and friends who have died are remembered and honored. Since traditional belief views death as a continuation rather than the end of life, the Day of the Dead is a time of joyful celebration, not of mourning.

A special weekend of live events kicks off Oct. 20 with artist Fulgencio Lazo’s creation of a “tapete” sand painting in the first floor lobby, followed by installation of family and community altars that will extend to Sunday, Oct. 21. The altars will feature a mix of food and drink offerings, flowers and candles, and figurines, as well as examples of Day of the Dead sugar skeletons.   

Visitors to TAM will also be able to view art work representing submissions by local students in grades six through 12 until the end of the celebration, which concludes Nov. 4, noon to 5 p.m., with the TAM-hosted Day of the Dead community festival. During the two-week celebration, museum hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. (Thursdays until 8 p.m.) and Sundays from noon to 5 p.m. Admission $7.50 for adults, $6.50 for students/military/seniors. â€" Bill Timnick

[Tacoma Art Museum, 1701 Pacific Ave., 253.272.4258]

“It’s my season,” confides Karen Luke Fildes. “When the gray days come, I come alive.”

Despite recent trips around Hawaii and other sunny, color-saturated spots, Luke Fildes speaks about the Northwest sky with reverence, using adjectives reserved for people. She explains how the cloud’s personality will take on whatever the wind is doing to it, as if the cloud were a bit like a passive partner in a relationship.

She talks about the immediate clouds outside Gallery Madera as though they were dancers, or actors, creating drama and tension in a day-long show.

Along with Carlos Taylor-Swanson, proprietor of Gallery Madera, Luke Fildes hopes to “create a movement to warm up moody, Washington days,” utilizing Taylor-Swanson’s space to run palette workshops for artists.

The first Northwest Color Awareness Demonstration workshop, runs Saturday from 11 to 2 p.m. at Gallery Madera, where Luke Fildes currently has work hanging along with artists Rae Belkin, as well as Milo and Christy Mirabelli.

The show, titled “Change,” fits well with the color workshop that Luke Fildes will run, where participants will learn to paint Northwest color.

But Luke Fildes, whose canvasses show unrelenting optimism that verges on the spiritual, says, “It’s not only educational but inspirational.”

In her own artistic world of pursuing nature, she invariably casts a positive light on the darkest situations. She says she’s looking to create a sort of Vespers for people, only not in a church, adding, “It’s not a secret that that’s what it’s all about ... it’s hope.”

More technically, Luke Fildes says, “It’s about color awareness, the temperature of light; becoming aware of the beauty rather than being trapped under the veil.”

The implication is that what you’re looking at as gray and depressing may actually be shades of purple, blue, gold, and silver; her workshop will demystify the actual colors and add some ideas to get participants outside looking up on days when they’d ordinarily closet themselves indoors with a blanket.

In past workshops, Luke Fildes has noted, “It seems to be a comfort to people. Fun, too.”

And along with Taylor-Swanson she’s hoping that Gallery Madera can be ground zero for that inspirational movement toward the appreciation of beauty in new ways.

“He’s doing really great things with this space and the community,” Luke Fildes enthuses about Taylor-Swanson, adding, “It’s just the best space.”

[Gallery Madera, Saturday, Oct. 13, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., free, 2210 Court A Tacoma, 253.572.1218 www.gallerymadera.com]

THE DAILY WORD
Learn it, use it, spell it

Pleonasm \PLEE-uh-naz-uhm\, noun:
1. The use of more words than are necessary to express an idea; as, "I saw it with my own eyes."
2. An instance or example of pleonasm.
3. A superfluous word or expression.

USAGE EXAMPLE: After much discussion, the Weekly Volcano has decided to issue a South Sound Advisory â€" be on the lookout for pleonasm. The Weekly Volcano isn’t sure, but we believe we picked up pleonasm after too many rum and cokes on South Tacoma Way. Unlike other things the Weekly Volcano has contracted on South Tacoma Way, there’s no rash or discharge with pleonasm, only excessive use of words. Beware the spread of pleonasm, and protect yourself.

THE MORNING NEWS

TACOMA: City delays Atlas explosion video.

PIERCE COUNTY: Transit plan.

KAHLOTUS: Washington state town has one old goat.

LONDON: Greetings.  You Are Fat.  Stop Eating.

HUSTLER OF CULTURE
You can stand atop the mountain and scream your naked desires to the universe or shed that synapse epilepsy and hug the South Sound today with your fellow man:

MUSIC: Tonight, on Sixth Avenue, Giant Panda will take control of Jazzbones. Bobble Tiki isn’t talking about the zoo variety here; he’s talking about Giant Panda the New York band making their West Coast debut at the Boneyard, and who are known for their “a unique blend of roots reggae, dub, and afrobeat, with just the right mix of dark and light to keep you on your toes.” Bobble Tiki is not a smart man, but he knows the sound of good show when he hears one.

MORE MUSIC: What's on tonight.

FILM: Tacoma Film Festival’s last day.

DISH: Grab some soup today.

BOBBLE TIKI’S THREATS AND PROMISES COLUMN
When Bobble Tiki saw that War with Saturn â€" who according to their MySpace page are in the metal/metal/metal genre â€" will be playing McCoy’s Saturday, Oct. 13, naturally he was mildly interested. If anywhere in Olympia seems fit for metal it’s McCoy’s, but still, Bobble Tiki had to wonder. When Bobble Tiki found out War with Saturn actually live in Olympia, and consider it the home of the band, he was downright intrigued.

Please be Bobble Tiki’s friend here.

Breakfast with Bobble Tiki runs Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.  Deal with it.