MONDAY, JULY 18, 2011 >>>

1. The Tacoma Cult Movie Club gets down tonight at the Acme Grub Cage. It promises to be as random, entertaining, ironic and hilarious as ever. Find details here.

2. Apparently a one-man operation, Sam Vicari's themes and vocals have a pungently nerdy air about them, imbuing his full-length, Keep Careful, with the kind of ecstatic, pop-minded, puppy-love-obsessed feeling of bands like Weezer and other late '90s radio punk. His vocals have a slightly sibilant quality that helps soften the music's sometimes jagged edges. Vicari will play Le Voyeur tonight in Olympia.

3. According to the Volcano's extensive South Sound live local music listings, Wally and the Beaves will play the Muckleshoot Casino tonight in Auburn.

4. It's the third Monday of the month. You know what that means! The Tacoma Calligraphy Guild meets tonight!

5. Check out the weekly open mic (open stage) tonight at O'Malley's, hosted by Seven's Revenge.

LINK: More arts and entertainment events in the South Sound

SATURDAY, JULY 16, 2011 >>>

1. Winter. The season is just too damned short to cram in all the necessary slope runs. Thankfully, that wasn't an issue this year. Crystal Mountain ski resort will finally close today after the crazy guy in shorts and a jester hat hits the bottom at around 4:15 p.m. He'll be a little wasted after an official 3 p.m. toast to the record-breaking season at the summit. Fifty-one feet of snow this year people. Fifty-one feet.

2. If you've got a girlfriend, you probably know what season it is: the free outdoor festival season. You've probably hit just about every free music-in-the-park event, free drum circle and free farmers market since April. Well, this weekend prepare for a trip over the bridge, for the annual Gig Harbor Summer Arts Festival, where 135 artists (plus the obligatory vendors), live music and family activities will take over Judson Street in downtown Gig Harbor from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Go ahead, get your face painted.

3. 7 Seas Brewing isn't just the maker of delicious craft beer. It isn't just at the forefront of the "beer in a can is cool again" movement. It's a local business doing things the right way and an entity that knows how to party - as will be proven when 7 Seas throws a two-year anniversary bash in its parking lot from noon to 8 p.m. Expect beer, barbecue and live music by Perry Acker, Shy Boys, China Davis and SweetKiss Momma.

4. The last time Tacoma's energized country bar, Big Whisky Saloon, held a 100.7 FM The Wolf-hosted "Redneck Parking Lot Party" a ton of people showed up to suck up live country music, dance on the outdoor dance floor, drink cold beer, eat barbecue and ride "Bubba the Mechanical Bull." This year, they've dropped the "Redneck" title, added Rock Bot Karaoke and invited hometown heroes Aces Up to whoop things up. Gates open at 5 p.m.

5. A big band at Jazzbones on a Saturday night? Hell yes. Rich Wetzel's Groovin' Higher Jazz Orchestra will cram together on the Sixth Avenue joint's stage beginning at 7:30 p.m. Let's swing, baby!

PLUS: More events in our Weekend Hustle

LINK: More arts and entertainment events in the South Sound

LINK: Wine tastings!

LINK: We're on the Facebook

FRIDAY, JULY 15, 2011 >>>

1. After disbanding the Los Angeles new wave/power pop group the Plimsouls , Peter Case launched a career as an important American singer/songwriter specializing in the flat-pick guitar style and semi-autobiographical stories of drifters delivered in a narrative style. Case performs at 8 p.m. inside Morso Wine Bar.

2. Gastropods in general are believed to have lost half of their original bilateral symmetry somewhere during the evolutionary process; so a snail's intestinal tract twists around and evacuates near its head, where the genitalia are also located. This physiological tidbit was probably not in artist Chris Thompson's mind when he linked his paintings to snails. Thompson's show, Trails - which also includes paintings of slugs - will open at the Telephone Room Gallery from 5-9 p.m.

3. Say you go to the Tacoma Cemetery at 48th and South Tacoma Way at 6 p.m. to do a little thinking and writing in your journal. As you sit there taking hits off a flask in the E.A. Poe-ness of the place, you're joined by a strange bunch of people. Their leader, a former Dungeons and Dragons freak, is decked out in a cape and carries a lantern. He's telling his suburban entourage that the graveyard where you're sitting is full off strange stories from Tacoma's past. You slowly realize that you're smack dab in the middle of the Third Annual Living History Cemetery Tour lead by the The Fort Nisqually Time Travelers, a select group of living history re-enactors. "Cool" you whisper under your breath. Later, after the crowd shuffles off, a homeless man plunks himself down across from you to root through his plastic bag of stuffed animals, and a kid speckled with metal studs and zits and wearing a Dead Boys T-shirt strides by, giving you the old hairy eyeball. Man, Tacoma is so great sometimes.

4. In a way the Tacoma Film Festival party never stops at The Grand Cinema. As TFF's founder and continuing planner, the theater's staff and volunteers work throughout the year on each new festival. And in 2011 they've figured out a way to share even more of the festival with us. TFF doesn't officially commence until Oct. 6, but who says we can't have fun now? Not the Grand; its first-ever Tacoma Film Festival Sneak Peek happens at the theater at 6:30 p.m. Let's pre-party! For the party details, click here.

5. DJs dAb, Suga Jones, Mr. Clean, Chris Savenetti and rotating guests spin New Wave, funk, pop, old school hip-hop and club classics from the 1980s as part of Beat Boxxx night at the Tempest Lounge beginning at 9:30 p.m.

LINK: See our Weekend Hustle for more events

LINK: More arts and entertainemtn events in the South Sound

LINK: Movies open!

THE LOWDOWN ON WHAT'S UP THIS WEEKEND >>>

WEATHER REPORT

Friday: Partly sunny, hi 72, lo 57

Saturday: Rain, hi 66, lo 54

Sunday: Overcast, hi 71, lo 54

>>> FRIDAY, JULY 15: Revengers

It's been six months since the Revengers stepped to the stage. Far too long. We may see guitarist Mason Hargrove driving around in that cute, old yellow car of his all the time, but we haven't gotten enough of the Revengers' haunting, hybrid sound and well-chosen lyricism. That all changes Friday, when the Revengers return in a revamped incarnation - one  we hope will pack as much punch as the original.

• The New Frontier, with Prayers for Atheists, Panama Gold, NighTrain, 9 p.m., $5, 301 E. 25th St., Tacoma, 253.572.4020 

>>> SATURDAY, JULY 16: The Missionary Position

Jeff Angell of the Missionary Position is like some sort of rock n' roll prophet. Or yoda. Or yoda with hip bones. Or something. Dude's just really wise when it comes to the rock, music and what it's all about. "The truth is, I love stories and in three verses a song can say as much as a novel with what it leaves to the imagination. I didn't choose music it chose me and as miserable as I have made life on myself at times, I wouldn't have it any other way," he told the Volcano in May. Saturday, catch Angell's Missionary Position in what's rumored to possibly be the last Saturday music booking at Doyle's Public House in a while. Whie that's a rumor we've been unable to succesfully confirm or deny, Angell's rock n roll swager can't be denied. 

• Doyle's Public House, 9:30 p.m., NC, 208 St. Helens Ave., Tacoma, 253.272.7468

>>> SATURDAY, JULY 16: WAKE UP 253 Anniversary

WAKE UP 253, a local music, art and business zine that's just one of the many quirky and vibrant things that makes T-Town so fucking rad celebrates one year Saturday at the New Frontier. Musically, Osama Bin Rockin', South 11th, Not From Brooklyn, Dead Peasants and Milky White will provide the action, while constant kick-ass raffles (yeah, they've got pipes and cupcakes according to Facebook)and pinata swings will make sure things stay lively.

• The New Frontier, 8 p.m., $5, 301 E 25th St., Tacoma

>>> SATURDAY, JULY 16: The Jungle Book (as performed by kids)

The Broadway Center Conservatory's Summer Musical Theatre Camp is all about teaching kids about life, about the boards, and about life on the boards. Saturday, as part of a celebration of the skills the kids have learned all season long, the Summer Musical Theatre Camp will perform The Jungle Book at Broadway Center's Theatre on the Square. Session II of the Broadway Center Conservatory's Summer Musical Theatre Camp will do the same on July 30.

• Broadway Center Theatre on the Square, 4 p.m., $18, 901 Broadway, Tacoma 

>>> SATURDAY, JULY 16: SUNDAY, JULY 17: British Colonial Picnic, Tea and Potluck Curry in Wright Park

The hype on FeedTacoma surrouding the annual British Colonial Summer Picnic (which, in case you didn't realize, is co-hosted by von Mausheim's Society of Dastardly Exiles and Tacoma's Steam Town) provides proper instruction: "dust off your pith helmets, press your khakis, don your safari jackets, and fuel up the Land-Rover for a day of friendly assosciation in the park." Hunkering down next to Seymour Botanical Conservatory in Wright Park, this yearly festivity of creative recreation is pretty damn awesome. The action promises, a "'special rules' Croquet match (Kashmiri War Croquet), a competitive strolling event, and a tea cup relay, as well as other games and amusements for attendees." Here's a link.

• Wright Park - next to the Seymour Botanical Observatory, 1-6 p.m., Sixth Ave. and G St., Tacoma

>>> WHERE OUR STAFF IS GOING

REV. ADAM MCKINNEY: Music and Film Writer
The same thing I do every weekend: try to take over the world! (Can this be accomplished exclusively via the consumption of Potter's whiskey? Because otherwise I've been doing it wrong.)

JOANN VARNELL Theater Critic
This weekend will mostly be a whole lot of nothin' other than watching the baby grow. On Sunday, we are going to the Terra Organics farm for some family fun and then to a friend's going away party. 

ALEC CLAYTON Visual Arts Critic

The wife and I are heading out to Puyallup for a dinner theater presentation of "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" at All Saints Theatrical Repertoire Association.

BRETT CIHON Meat Market Correspondent
The Zipper, a Demo Burger and amazing people watching. In other words: Lakefair. All weekend. I'm hyped.

Jennifer Johnson Food and Lifestyles Writer
Getting my first-ever henna (big chest and back piece) by the talented Dagmar Peterson for my gig as DD to Zoobilee Friday. Saturday plant starts (please don't die little guys, mama didn't forget you). Attend birthday party at the Balcony Gallery Saturday night. Teach church scripture lesson Sunday afternoon and then chill.

Steve Dunkelberger Photographer
I actually have a whole lot of nothing going on this weekend other than the Tacoma Youth Chorus concert.

LINK: More arts and entertainment events in the South Sound

THE BEST ARTS COVERAGE IN THE SOUTH SOUND >>>

With the publication of the Volcano's annual Best of Tacoma issue a mere two weeks away, much of my time lately has been spent wading through the best of the best in art of the last year. It never ceases to amaze me just how much amazing stuff happens right here in our neck of the woods.

This week is no different, out on the street, and in the pages of the Weekly Volcano.

Here's a look at the arts coverage waiting for you in print and online.

VISUAL EDGE: TACOMA PHOTOGRAPHY LEGEND VIRNA HAFFER 

("Franz Brasz, the Artist." A Virna Haffer photo from 1937. Collection of the Washington State Historical Society/Gift of the Virna Haffer Estate)

The exhibition of photos by Virna Haffer at Tacoma Art Museum is a marvel. I had no idea what to expect heading into the gallery to see these works by an artist I had never heard of, and it was like wandering into a studio shared by the greatest photographers of the early modern period, including Alfred Stieglitz, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Diane Arbus and Man Ray. Haffer, a self-taught artist from Tacoma whose career began in the 1920s, gained international prominence and then was lost to history. The TAM curatorial team of Margaret Bullock, Christina Henderson and David Martin searched through more than 30,000 of Haffer's negatives, prints and woodblocks to put together this astonishing exhibition. - Alec Clayton

FEATURE: OLY LOVES PLANNED PARENTHOOD

(Photo by Ruby Re-Usable)

When I think of political protest, I don't usually think cute or sweet or quirky. I also don't usually think of art. But Oly Loves Planned Parenthood, a loosely organized network with a high percentage of working artists and art lovers, has made its protests all of those things. Since February, they've carried letter-pressed and hand-painted signs, often decorated with hearts. They've held bake sales. Organizer Sarah Adams, a filmmaker and performance artist, did a comedy piece about the protests as part of Michelle Tea's "Sister Spit" show in Olympia in March. And Friday, July 15, the group is holding an art show and party with music by the Olympia Free Choir, a DJ, pizza and cupcakes (probably the cutest and possibly sweetest of baked goods).  - Molly Gilmore

THEATER REVIEW: CATS

Tacoma Musical Playhouse saved its most visually stunning production to close out the season. Cats opened to a packed house and earned a standing ovation from the majority of the patrons, despite some sound difficulties. - Joann Varnell

THEATER REVIEW: A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

(Photo by Seraphim Fire Photography)

This production is adorable. Not every joke's a corker, mind you, but remember that the definition of "comedy" in the early 1600s was that someone gets married at the end. A Shakespearean romp doesn't have to be joke-setup-joke like an episode of How I Met Your Mother. The plot, about mortals and Amazons besotted by magical flowers, is both dorky and disarming, and you can't beat the scenery. Having established due care and dedication, Animal Fire attracts professional-grade actors to its ranks. Jeff Painter, a memorable Lucentio in Harlequin's Taming of the Shrew, is likable here as Demetrius. Brian Hatcher, a fellow Harlequin alumnus, is charming, literally, as Puck (though his delivery of iambic pentameter is often singsong). Jay Minton, a veteran of Animal Fire's Idaho origin, won me over as a stage-struck Nick Bottom. Steven Wells stretches neatly into the role of Lysander, and local comic Morgan Picton is terrific in two roles. ... -- Christian Carvajal

FILM: TACOMA FILM FESTIVAL SNEAK PEEK

In a way the Tacoma Film Festival party never stops at The Grand Cinema. As TFF's founder and continuing planner, the theater's staff and volunteers work throughout the year on each new festival. And in 2011 they've figured out a way to share even more of the festival with us. TFF doesn't officially commence until Oct. 6, but who says we can't have fun now? Not the Grand; its first-ever Tacoma Film Festival Sneak Peek happens at the theater this Friday, July 15. Let's pre-party! - Christopher Wood

PLUS: The South Sound Arts, Entertainment & Events Calendar to end all South Sound Arts, Entertainment & Events Calendars

PLUS: Tap Dancing Hamsters

SALE OF ARTS, CRAFTS, FOOD & MORE AIMS TO MAKE OLYMPIA >>>

At first, I had a little trouble with Make Olympia, the market formerly known as Craft X NW, which starts up for the summer Saturday, July 16.

I kept wanting to think of it as Olympia Made, or Made in Olympia.

It makes more sense if you know that the crafty folk - including artists, performers and those who make food - these days are calling themselves "makers," a name that, to me, conjures up either religious imagery or thoughts of bourbon.

In fact, these makers are artists, crafters, performers and even makers of various foodstuffs, and all of them had enough talent to make it into this juried show. So if you're looking for new clothing upcycled from the old or sauerkraut or jewelry or glass art or soap, Make Olympia could be the place to meet your maker (and, presumably, live to tell the tale).

Make Olympia is open from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on the third Saturday of each month from July to September. It's on Washington Street between Fourth and State.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 13, 2011 >>>

1. Lakewood Pub and Grill has taken the bar term "meat market" literally with a meat raffle every Wednesday at 5:30 p.m., when patrons drop $10 for 15 tickets to win premium cuts courtesy of Stewart's Meat Market ... or a $25 gas card. Choice wins include stacks of deli cut bacon and steaks, although the jerky packs are bonus. To see who likes this meat raffle, click here.

2. Looks like a good day to check out Parenthetically Speaking: It's Only a Figure of Speech - a new collection of work by San Francisco-based artist Mildred Howard comprising more than 40 glass punctuation marks, proofreading symbols and musical notes at the Museum of Glass from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Howard's inspiration for the work came from At the End, a poem by her friend and Peabody Award-winner Quincy Troupe.

3. Arch rival schoolmates discover they had great-great-great grandfathers at the same Civil War battle - on opposite sides - and that link leads them to finally resolve their own "uncivil war" in local author and storyteller Nick Adams's book, The Uncivil War. Adams will discus his book and his great-great-grandfather's life as a soldier and how it relates to his book at 3 p.m. inside the Puyallup Public Library.

4. Wildside Wine in Tacoma will pour South African wines from 4-7 p.m. for $5.

5. We here at the Weekly Volcano love to call Wednesdays hump day.  There's something so titillating, so promising in the name. And since Jazzbones has free live music every Wednesday night starting at 9 p.m., there's even more reason to feel the grand promise of hump day.  Tonight Zero Gravity Circus will entertain you. Along with free entry, Jazzbones also offers specials on Sessions beer and $1 pizzas. Because nothing goes better with some hump than beer and pizza.

LINK: More arts and entertainment events in the South Sound

LINK: Half-priced wine bottles night

ONLINE CHATTER >>>

Today's comment comes from Ray in response to Jennifer Johnson's review of this year's Art on the Ave festival, which happened Sunday.

Ray writes,

Great article! It was such a great day of great entertainment from one end to the other! The artists were all so great and eclectic...although I wish there were more people in charge of collecting the garbage during the course of the day. Biggest surprise would be the cupcake shop actually being a bath salt company....almost ate some soap it looked so good!

THE VOLCANO'S VISUAL ARTS CRITIC WEIGHS IN >>>

The name of the latest show at Art House Designs in Olympia is "Three old guys and one old lady."

The good thing about old folks is they've been at it long enough to get good. Olympia painters Dale Witherow, Bob Gillis, Ron Hinson and Georgia Munger prove it with this show.

Witherow is a pure abstract expressionist. Young people might think that AE died way back in the '60s, which by now is also ancient history, but I'm one old guy who thinks the Abstract Expressionists were the best painters America ever produced and the movement will never die. Witherow paints light and movement - not angst, which AE is known for, but unbridled joy, with heavily layered and exuberantly brushed impasto and sparkling glazes. I've seen a lot of Witherow's paintings over the years, but there are some in this show unlike any I've seen before, including a painting of a single flower in a long-stemmed vase (imagine a flower as painted by Cy Twombly if you can) and a repetitive pattern of squares with letters reminiscent of some early Jasper Johns paintings.

The best of his work in this show is one called "Faded Glories," which has random blotches or circular marks both painted and scratched into the surface  of a pattern of overlapping white-on-white glazes (actually pink and gray, but it feels like layered sheets of snow and ice) and the mark making is like that of the above-mentioned Twombly, one of the last of the greats who died just last week.

Hinson is represented by a series of highly inventive and humorous illustrations from "Alice in Wonderland" and two powerful charcoal drawings from his series of mythology drawings, "Birth of Adonis" and "Prometheus Bound." These have been shown in other exhibitions, and I've reviewed them before. They are outstanding in both conception and execution.

Gillis is showing a suite of eight pencil and ink drawings titled "One," "Two," "Three"... and so forth up to "Eight."  These are totally unlike anything I've ever seen from him, more like graphic illustrations than the abstract paintings he's known for. They are highly stylized, high-contrast, black and white pictures of fronds, trees, flowers, and one of a flock of birds.

Munger is known around Olympia for her paintings of crows, but there's nary a crow in anyone of her little pastel drawings in this show. There are, however, one of two other birds and a horse, and a lot of abstract paintings with bright colors - some of which are based on landscape and remind me of Wolf Kahn and others which are arrangements of organic and geometric forms on a flat surface. My favorites are the landscapes, although there's something really enjoyable about that silly looking horse.

Art House Designs has expanded and renovated its gallery space in the past year providing a nice venue for some good art from three old guys and one old lady. See them at the corner of Fifth and Franklin in downtown Olympia through July 21.

[Art House Designs, Three old guys and one old lady," 420 Franklin St SE # B, Olympia, 360.943.3377]

TAKING STUDENTS THROUGH SPACE & TIME >>>

Talk about a globetrotter. Hirsh Diamant began life as a Ukrainian in the capital city of Kiev, eventually left as a dissident, at one point studied in Israel, and has acted in New York. Westward he continued from Big Apple to the Evergreen State, in part a desire to escape, in his words, "the crack capital of the world." For the next fifteen years he toiled as a farmer before ultimately going broke.

Fate has drawn Diamant to yet another capital - Olympia, back in academia as a teacher at Evergreen State College. The school's well-known reputation for an educational structure looser than its contemporaries lets this world traveller engage students across multiple disciplines.

"The world is so interesting and so complex," Diamant says. "Teaching so many things allows me to be interested in a lot of different areas."

With a focus on arts and cultural studies, Diamant designs his various courses in unique ways. Visual Literacy (which just wrapped for the summer) looks at the evolution of visual art and technology, commencing with drawing, then progressing to photography and the modern digital revolution. These, for Diamant, explore the three dimensions of space.  When still pictures are linked together in a sequence, the fourth dimension comes into play.

This is the realm of cinema, for "film is a medium of time," Diamant states.

The man has seen his own progression as a filmmaker, from performing in his older brothers' home movies as a child to creating works like the stunningly beautiful NuWa Dreams (still a memorable entry from 2008's Olympia Film Festival). Diamant will keep alive his love for "the most captivating, the most enjoyable medium of the 21^st century" by volunteering again at OFF this autumn.