THURSDAY, OCT. 2 2014 >>>

1. Have you heard? Tacoma's gargantuan feast of literary, visual and performing arts has moved from November to October. That's right; October is Tacoma Arts Month (formerly Art at Work Month), but the festivities actually start Oct. 2 with an opening party and the AMOCAT Arts Awards presentation at the Tacoma Post Office Building. The annual kick-off party goes gargantuan too with the most "arts" in its 13th year history. The free event offers appetizers, dessert and a no-host bar while Speed Queen and Okinawa Taiko Drums perform, exhibits of work by Jessica Spring and The Greater Tacoma Community Foundation's Foundation of Art Award honorees hangs, exhibits of work by Beautiful Angle, Jeremy Gregory, Isaac Olsen, Alice Di Certo, Kristin Giordano, The C.L.A.W., and Poly Rev "pop up," Tintype photo booth by Kyle Dillehay opens and closes, Working Class Theater performs, Abby Kok, Alana Tamminga and Katlyn Hubner create art live, Tacoma Poet Laureate Lucas Smiraldo recites, Kat Ogden, Nick Butler, Kris Crews and The Grand Cinema screen films and trash fashion hits the runway. Mayor Stickland's presentation of the 2014 AMOCAT Arts Awards and recognition of the 2014 funding recipients begins at 7:45 p.m. Now that's art at work. Read Kristin Kendle's full feature on Tacoma Arts Month in the Music & Culture section.

2. The South Puget Sound Chapter of the Northwest EcoBuilding Guild will be hosting October's Green Drinks outing at 6 p.m. in The Forum in Tacoma. Steve Abercrombie, the South Sound Chapter president, will be providing updates on the new Vision to Action Symposiums and anything and everything that empowers people through education to transform the built environment for long-term sustainability. This could be a three drink night.

3. Tonight's Olympia People's Mic will feature Garfield Hilson, a Washington State University grad who reclaims his "stolen language" and does it well. He is the 2014 Seattle Poetry Individual Word Poetry Champion. Hilson joins the open mic at 7 p.m. in Café Love in downtown Olympia.

4. One of our most notable musical offerings this time around is a movie ... sort of. Y'know how a company called Fathom Events beams one-night-only screenings to movie theaters? In addition to RiffTrax commentaries and Metropolitan Opera productions, that service also transmits the occasional show from London's West End. This week, the play is a musical adaptation of From Here to Eternity - not the movie starring Burt Lancaster macking total PDA on Deborah Kerr, mind you, but the 1951 novel by James Jones. Jones's original draft had its soldiers swearing and talking about gay prostitution. Such content was struck prior to publication, of course, and it wasn't restored till a 2011 rerelease. When composer Stuart Brayson read that new edition, he recommended it to lyricist Tim Rice, and the result was an October 2013 musical extravaganza. So what? Well, Rice had a hand in some of our all-time favorite shows, including Evita, Chess, The Lion King, and Beauty and the Beast. And you can see his new show from a better-than-front-row vantage point at 7 p.m. in the Century Olympia, all for cheap and with nary a passport. Brilliant!

5. Zeahorse is a band that does not stumble blood-crusted out of the outback. They're from Sydney which, one imagines, could not be without at least a couple air-conditioned fast food restaurants. The prospect of losing one's mind in the wasteland of the desert would likely be far from the minds of the members of Zeahorse. Still, the legacy of groundbreaking Australian acts is a heavy load to carry. Zeahorse, being a band that trades in heavy psych-rock, must be particularly aware of how they enter into the conversation of heavy bands that come from down under. Read Rev. Adam McKinney's full feature on Zeahorse in the Music & Culture section, then catch the band with Ex-Gods and Magnetic Rose at 8 p.m. in Northern.

LINK: Thursday, Oct. 2 arts and entertainment events in the greater Tacoma and Olympia area