SATURDAY, FEB. 8: CHRIS PERONDI'S STUNT DOG EXPERIENCE
OK, dear reader, there's no use in beating around the bush with this one. We'd just be fooling ourselves. The notion of the stunt animal live show is absolutely ridiculous. Dogs being made to dress in silly costumes and perform little sketches is such an old-timey bit of entertainment that has stretched so deeply into utter nerd-dom that it's miraculously come back around into something that I'm surprised has yet to be co-opted by irony.
Chris Perondi's Stunt Dog Experience is such a show. What's made to separate this stunt animal shows from others like it - despite, I suppose, the relative "talent" of the animals on display versus rival stunt animals, which is an argument that I would hate to have but would love to overhear - is that CPSDE (as those in the know like to call it) utilizes the performing abilities of rescue dogs. I imagine their rough-and-tumble upbringings tend to lend a little gravitas and the weight of experience to their performances, just like Danny Trejo.
While we're on the subject, here are some more circus things that hipsters would do well to appropriate: diving board-based physical comedy, unicycles (I mean, appropriate them again), and that thing where you would jump off a high diving board and land in a tiny little kiddie pool. That thing. 3 and 6:30 p.m., $12-$26, Pantages Theater, 901 Broadway, Tacoma, $12-$26, 253.591.5890
THURSDAY, FEB. 13: HOLES AT THE MOORE LIBRARY
I remember seeing Shia LaBeouf years ago on Craig Kilborn's show, talking about how he started his career as a stand-up comedian when he was something like 10 years old. He said that, in order to get the attention of the comedy club crowd, his opener would go like this: "The first time I masturbated, confetti shot out of my penis."
At the time, I was charmed by LaBeouf. Now, I wonder who he stole the joke from.
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.
Apology after apology were released by LaBeouf, each apology eventually being identified as having been plagiarized from other celebrity apologies. Finally, LaBeouf announced his retirement (utilizing stolen retirement speeches, of course), waited a couple weeks, then announced his next project. Daniel Clowes, meanwhile, realized the monster he was dealing with, and has now decided to sue the prick.
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. If you hiss every time his dumb face shows up on screen, though, you'll never make it through the movie. 3 p.m., Moore Public Library, 215 S. 56th St., Tacoma, free admission, 253.341.4848