5 Things To Do Today: Toast to Frank Herbert, Tacoma Film Festival, haikus, Classical Tuesdays and more ...

By Volcano Staff on October 8, 2013

TUESDAY, OCT. 8 2013 >>>

1. Tacoman Erik Hanberg loves parks and books. He's taken both passions to the next level. He's currently a commissioner with Metro Parks Tacoma. He's also penned The Saints Go Dying, The Marinara Murders and within days of releasing his first sci-fi novel,The Lead Cloak. Hanberg is campaigning to create a park out of the waterfront property next to Point Ruston, naming it after the Tacoma author Frank Herbert, author of the Dune series. Hanberg will join Post Defiance, King's Books's Broad Horizons Book Club and Chris Keil, co-owner of Hilltop Kitchen cocktail lounge and Dune fan, toasting Herberttoday  - what would have been Herbert's 93rd birthday - with Keil's exclusive cocktail menu inspired by Herbert's classic six-book science fiction series from 7-10 p.m. Let's hope HK skips the Toto soundtrack from David Lynch's 1984 film version.

2. Commencement Bay Haiku will meet at 6 p.m. in King's Books to read haiku or one page of haibun (prose with haiku), as well as discuss various aspects of haiku, haibun, or haiga (a painting, sketch or photo with haiku). It's not easy to convert the innards of your soul into scrawled words on paper and then wax rhapsodic as judging eyes stare at you. You may use this haiku about King's Books cats: Wanna go outside. Oh, no! Help! I got outside! Let me back inside!

3. What are the current and future human impacts and implications of cell phones, social media, and the Internet? Documentary filmmaker, director, and Pacific Northwest native Dominic H. White asks this question and more in his new eye-opening documentary, DSKNECTD, which screens at 6:30 p.m. as part of the 2013 Tacoma Film Festival. The documentary delves into how mobile devices; virtual worlds, social media and the Internet are reshaping human interactions. Looking at the good, bad, and the ugly, White leaves the viewer in the end pondering their own personal connections to technology.

4. Conventional wisdom dictates that you'd rather spend Tuesday night watching TLC TV and sharing a big bowl of prune whip with your great aunt Martha than venturing out to hear harp music. But in this case, conventional wisdom would be wrong. Tacoma harpist Margaret Shelton explored traditional and contemporary harp music from Asia, Europe and South America while traveling on a grant in 2011. Through performing, interviewing harpists, digging through museum archives and even building a small harp, Shelton discovered the rich variety of this unique instrument around the globe. At 7 p.m., she's going to bring it all home in the Slovonian Hall as part of Classical Tuesdays in Old Town Tacoma.

5. Every Tuesday night at Stonegate Pizza on South Tacoma Way Leanne Trevalyan hosts an acoustic open mic at 8 p.m.

LINK: Tuesday, Oct. 8 arts and entertainment events in the greater Tacoma and Olympia area