THURSDAY, FEB. 13 2014 >>>

1. Forget Venus, Venice, Paris or any other word ending in -is that conjures up love-ish ideas: there's no better way to woo a would-be - or current - Valentine than with an evening of arts-related culture. And Mad Hat Tea Company has fired up its popular Valentine's Day arts show where poets, musicians, craftspeople and artists take tea drinkers to the furthest point from the half-off Valentine's bin at Rite Aid. Buy one of the local artists' pieces such as Fred Novak's collage works from 7-10 p.m., gift it to your date - along with a cup of Maureen's Mad Aphrodesiac tea - and you might just net a very warm and snuggly Valentine's night, indeed!

2. Local artist and Pierce College art professor Danella Sydow has eight pieces on display - including graphite on paper and reliefs - in the Fine Arts Gallery. Sydow is the recipient of the Mayor's Award from the Olympia Arts Commission. Check out her work from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.

3. In case you've been rightly avoiding entertainment news over the past month, LaBeouf has been embroiled in a controversy that began with him completely plagiarizing a Daniel Clowes comic called Justin M. Damiano for a short film he directed. Predictably, LaBeouf was immediately found out once he put the film online, and what has followed has been an exercise in lame, art-school-failure performance art, and acts of privilege and delusion so mind-boggling they'd make Justin Beiber wince. Interested in seeing a young, preciously untainted Shia LaBeouf? His adaptation of the beloved Louis Sachar novel, Holes, will be screened at the Moore Library at 3 p.m. If you hiss every time his dumb face shows up on screen, though, you'll never make it through the movie.

4. There's not much better than sharing something you love from your childhood with the next generation of kids. There's not much worse than beloved literature being remade into something unrecognizable in the name of "modernization." The House at Pooh Corner currently at Olympia Family Theater allows you to revel in your nostalgia - provided your childhood bears were more "fluff and stuff" than gruesome killing machines. There are a couple elements that are new, a pseudo "who's on first" type of schtick with the characters Early and Late and a Christopher Robin who is more petulant than the sweet boy from Milne's and Disney's classic stories. Additions aside, OFT's production is charming, funny and quite adorable. Read Joann Varnell's review of the show, then catch it at 7 p.m.

5. Rudolph Valentino found his definitive screen image in the 1921 rape romance The Sheik, as a dashing desert vagabond who captures a tempestuous English girl. The film was so popular that a brand of prophylactics was named after it, a rare distinction indeed. Did Rudolph Valentino's silent film The Sheik help shape U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East? You decide as you watch the silent flick backed by vocalists Connie Corrick and Hugh Hastings at 7 p.m. in the Washington Center.

LINK: Thursday, Feb. 13 arts and entertainment events in the greater Tacoma and Olympia area