MONDAY, OCT. 13 2014 >>>

1. The Tacoma Film Festival is on, celebrating current independent film from around the globe ... and in our backyard. The 253 represent at this year's TFF. A whole slew of local film shorts will be screened at the Tacoma Community College at 7 p.m.: Lost  byRussell Brooks; Enmity Gauge by Ben Andrews and David S. Hogan; Deadline by Doug Stapleton; Solitude Dawson Doupé and Todd Tapper; Lovesick by Pat Lavigne; Quiet Move by Ronald Lagman; Love-Stuck by Sierra Fein; Fake It ‘Til You Make Believe Kris Crews; and Weeping Willow by Maxwell Swet and Annie Poling.

2. The City of Tacoma's Proposed 2015-2016 Biennial Budget was shared with the City Council Oct. 7. The public is invited to attend a Budget Input Meeting hosted by Mayor Marilyn Strickland to share your thoughts and learn more about how the City is working to prioritize funding between existing services, deferred maintenance, and new and expanded services. It begins at 6 p.m. at The Evergreen State College Tacoma campus.

3. Alison Hawthorne Deming will discuss her new book, Zoologies: On Animals and the Human Spirit at 7 p.m. in Orca Books. In this collection of linked essays, Deming asks, and seeks to answer: what does the disappearance of animals mean for human imagination and existence? Moving from mammoth hunts to dying house cats, she explores profound questions about what it means to be animal. What is inherent in animals that lead us to destroy, and what that leads us toward peace? As human animals, how does art both define us as a species and how does it emerge primarily from our relationship with other species? If this sounds like altogether too much intellectual mumbo-jumbo for you, don't worry. She will have her books on hand, so you can just follow along with the pictures.

4. Portland garage-rock husband-and-wife duo, Justin and Terah Beth Varga, aka Hey Lover, perform at 8 p.m. in Northern in downtown Olympia. Opening will be Needles and Pizza from Portland, Mythological Horses from Alaska and Werecat from Olympia.

5. Life Partnersscreens at 9:45 p.m. in The Grand Cinema as part of the Tacoma Film Festival.Straightlaced and straight Paige (Gillian Jacobs) makes a pact with her best friend, sapphic slacker Sasha (Leighton Meester), that she won't get married until Sasha has the same legal right. When Paige falls for handsome doctor Tim (Adam Brody), the two women struggle to find a place for him in their "womance" in this touching comedy from director Susanna Fogel.

LINK: Monday, Oct. 13 arts and entertainment events in the greater Tacoma and Olympia area