THE WEEK OF FEB. 7-13, 2013 >>>

In this week's issue of the Weekly Volcano ...

The Weekly Volcano presents six South Sound love stories.

On any given morning, after eating her daily oatmeal, and feeding her several dogs, legendary musician Roberta Flack gets busy in her New York City home - busy rehearsing, busy planning, busy listening to or writing music. "I'm a busy person. I have a busy personality," Flack told Weekly Volcano scribe Nikki McCoy over the phone. "I have ongoing commitments constantly. ... And now with the Internet slapping you in the face, there's really no excuse. You gotta be motivated to move and make something." All this gusto from a woman who has enchanted the jazz, soul and R&B scene with her singing, songwriting and piano skills since the late '60s, earning two consecutive Grammy awards in '73 and '74 with chart-toppers, and drops in on Tacoma Feb. 15. Read Nikki McCoy's interview with Roberta Flack in the Weekly Volcano's Music section.

Stop with the tirade about hating Hallmark holidays. Clearly, it's true that Valentine's Day is an artificial way of forcing you to synchronize your expressions of love, loyalty, and romance with those of the rest of the world, but you have to admit that it's also nice to go out for a top-drawer dinner with someone you really care about. It's a meal fraught with symbolism, so it matters where you go for dinner on Valentine's Day. Jackie Fender poked around the South Sound for special meals served Thursday, Feb. 14.

Every 15 years or so, the American musical veers in a new and unpredictable direction. When it works, it inspires a wave of imitators. Phantom and Les Miz spawned a decade of bombast. Rent added urban flava and moved gay life and issues to the forefront. Weekly Volcano theater critic Christian Carvajal believes Next to Normal, which debuted on Broadway less than four years ago, is the model for the next wave. Read Carvajal's full review of Next to Normal in the Weekly Volcano's Arts section.

Weekly Volcano art critic Alec Clayton attended the opening of "Out of The Silence," an art exhibit in Olympia's Urban Onion lobby. It was a phenomenal event and a phenomenal exhibition. As they say in high society, everyone who is anyone was there: Mayor Stephen Buxbaum, Congressman Denny Heck, a handful of City Council members, school teachers and administrators, and leaders of the gay rights movement. Calligrapher Sally Penley invited calligraphic artists from all over the country to make art based on inspirational quotes related to bullying and youth suicide or quotes of hope such as Harvey Milk's famous and simple quote, "You gotta give 'em hope. Read Alec Clayton's full review of "Out of Silence" in the Weekly Volcano's Arts section.

PLUS: Music critics' picks of the week