WEDENSDAY, NOV. 10, 2010 >>>

1. Farrelli's Wood Fire Pizza in Lacey wants wishes the South Sound would turn into a giant snow globe, sealed off and insulated from the rest of the world - but with a whole lotta beer drinking and pizza eating going on. To help prepare for such an event, they'll host a Prepare For Winter Party at 7 p.m. featuring a bunch of Fish Tale Ales, Leavenworth Biers and Alpine Experience, plus ski and snowboard flicks and raffle prizes. We like how they think.

2. While the suits put the final touches on their morning presentations, the kids will head for a mini-wacky-wiki-Waikiki inside The Den at urbanXchange in downtown Tacoma. The Tropical Trio will lay down some kitschy-koo Hawaiian fusion for some mongrel carefree vacation sensation from 4-6 p.m. Humahumunookienookie bitches!

3. The Tacoma Food Co-op and University of Puget Sound Sustainability Advisory Committee presents a special viewing of the documentary King Corn at 6 p.m. in the Rausch Auditorium inside McIntyre Hall on the University of Puget Sound campus in Tacoma. The event is free, however any donations to the Tacoma Food Co-op would be cool.

4. Botanical busybody David Douglas was attacked by millions of stinging nettles as he explored the Pacific Northwest in the 19th century. He didn't care. He discovered hundreds of western plants, most notably the iconic Douglas Fir. Author Jack Nisbet documents his journeys through forests and marshes, up mountains and across rivers in his book The Collector: David Douglas and the Natural History of the Northwest. At 7 p.m. inside Wheelock Library in the Proctor District, Nisbet will discuss and sign the book.

5. Rock the Dock Pub & Grill's Old School College Wednesdays features DJ Contagious spinning '80s dance tunes. It sometimes gets nutty at Old School College Wednesdays. See what we mean here.

LINK: Lots of Art at Work events today

LINK: More arts and entertainment events in the South Sound

GET YOUR GLASS DOWN THERE >>>

Have you seen the TV ad for the Museum of Glass? It's cool.

SUNDAY, NOV. 7, 2010 >>>

1. The Tacoma Cult Movie Club presents a night of giallo films, the Italian horror/mystery genre, beginning at 7 p.m. inside the Acme Grub Cage in Tacoma. Be prepared for black-gloved killers, homicidal maniacs fueled by adolescent sexual traumas and key information just out of reach of a character's conscious memory - as well as trailers, shorts serials and raffles.

2. Art at Work Tacoma: The Proctor Art Walk brings together a whole bunch of artists and a whole bunch of Proctor businesses, all within a three-block area from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Work by the award-winning artists of the Juried Proctor Art Show will be front and center today.

3. Step back in time for a special tea in honor of the suffrage centennial with the American Association of University Women of Washington from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. inside the historic Lord Mansion, the home of the State Capital Museum, just 7 blocks south of the Capitol campus in Olympia. The tea is free and open to the public and includes traditional tea refreshments.

4. Art at Work Tacoma: The artists behind the Spaceworks Tacoma installation, Wait, where am i?, which is part of the Woolworth Windows show at South 11^th and Broadway, will be hanging out from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. to answer questions about how collections play a part in our culture as well as our daily lives.

5. Pierce County citizens will hug it out in the Stadium High School bowl at 1:30 p.m. for "Pierce County Sings," a mass singing of John Legends "If You're Out There" film for a music video – sponsored by the Greater Tacoma Community Foundation's Be the Spark prgoram.

LINK: Dia de Los Muertos today at the Tacoma Art Museum in our Weekend Hustle

LINK: Warren Miller's Wintervention flick in The Prefunk

LINK: Art at Work Studio Tours continues today

LINK: It's Art at Work month in Tacoma!

LINK: More arts and entertainment events in Tacoma

BRING ON THE WEEKEND >>>

Normally, weekends are cool. I mean, for the average Monday-through-Friday, nine-to-five schmo, weekends are all we have - our glimmer of freedom in an otherwise tortuous, cubicle-filled world.

This weekend, though, IS EVEN BETTER. Not only are we given the usual two days of freedom - there's an extra hour thrown in for good measure! Day Light Savings kicks so much ass in the fall! Thanks George Vernon Hudson!

With that, it's time for The Prefunk - a weekly weekend guide to fun for you and your liver (with a picture of an alcoholic household pet thrown in for good measure).

Warren Miller Wintervention

Saturday & Sunday at the Pantages Theater

Warren Miller skiing (and now snowboarding) movies have been around since what seems like the beginning. As long as there has been fresh powder, it feels like Warren Miller Entertainment has been documenting it with yearly snow-porn like features, regularly drawing the ski-bums out in hordes to the theaters for a hype stirring start to the ski season.

Though Warren Miller sold his company years ago, and has even been sued by it since, the tradition continues. This weekend Warren Miller Entertainment's newest flick, Wintervention, will show Saturday and Sunday at the Pantages Theater in Tacoma. Narrated by ski legend Jonny Mosley, and capturing on film some of the most out-of-the-way ski heavens on earth, Wintervention promises to follow the tracks Warren Miller Entertainment films have been carving since the company's inception.

If you've already got the itch for the chairlifts to start running, find a way to make it to one of three showings this weekend. Saturday Wintervention will show at 6 and 9 p.m., and on Sunday it'll show at 5 p.m.

PREFUNK: Most skiers and snowboarders, or at least most skiers and snowboarders I'd care to take a few runs with, have a time-tested method of sneaking swigs of bourbon or hits from a Proto-Pipe while bundled on a chair lift or tucked behind a tree on the edge of the slope. It's part of the game. Though the professionals captured on Wintervention surely stay clear-headed while rocketing down untouched bowls of orgasmic powder, the skiers and snowboarders I kick it with stay a little cloudy while maintaining the ability to enjoy Washington's crusty, icy, sometimes even rainy slopes. A flask or sneak-a-toke is often key in this pursuit.

But, why wait until the season opens to unleash your sneak-a-buzz technique? Just like your skis need waxed and your muscles need prepped in advance of the coming season, so does your secret-drinking-and/or-pipe-hitting skill. Prior to Warren Miller Entertainment's Wintervention at the Pantages, take a few minutes do work the rust off.

UPPING THE ANTE IN ITS 27TH YEAR >>>

For now let's forget about ballots and House seats and propositions.

Governor Gregoire, please start us off: "A film festival is such a great tribute to democracy because it features a broad spectrum of voices and perspectives from around the world. ..." She included these words in a letter addressed to our state capitol's 27^th annual film festival, which begins Friday Nov. 12, and stretches for eight movie-packed days until the following Saturday's wee hours.

As calm eye of this cinematic hurricane, first-time Olympia Film Festival Director Sarah Adams packs plenty of passion and experience. She moved to the city from Wyoming in 1998 and soon plugged herself into a bustling arts community. In particular, the Festival "is just one of the things that has made me fall in love with Olympia," Adams says. She's hosted several cabaret acts at the Capitol Theater in recent years, and even found time beyond her duties as director to finish her own film. Her Chapter 11: Valencia plays alongside other shorts on Nov. 17at the We Make It Rad program.         

Adams' incorporation of grander live events into the lineup separates this festival from its predecessors. By merging two disparate forms - the "now" art of stage performance with the "past" art of mechanical cinema - audiences will understand and appreciate both more fully. With an Opening Night Gala of bearded ladies and soaring aerialists, visitors can witness the human form at its most eccentric, then watch that same form recast as robot in an extended cut of Fritz Lang's haunting Metropolis.

"I'm really upping the ante on Opening Night," says Adams, adding jokingly, "I'm trying to squeeze every ounce of majestic I can out of it."

Artists of many disciplines have contributed to the festival. Adams employed local filmmakers to design short videos for the event's many sponsors, which will run before the main screenings. A "mixed medium" presentation on Nov. 20 called "This Ballet Is Making You Smarter and More Attractive" features live dancers and musicians building an on-the-spot soundtrack to projected images. And close to the Capitol stands the Northern space, host to several workshops given by photographers and animators.

Films themselves borrow liberally from all the other arts; in a way Adams has adopted this strategy, inviting and uniting different talents to bring a festival of film to life. As she sees it, "There's just a really incredible performing arts community in Olympia ... [whose members] don't really have a space for their work." OFF may come closer than other events like it to that egalitarian vision Gregoire had in mind.

Whittling more than 200 film entries - some made across the street, others a continent or two away - down to a few dozen was a task left mainly in Festival Programmer Ivan Peycheff's able hands. He decides the weekly schedule at Seattle's oldest moviehouse, the Grand Illusion Cinema, and has now brought his knowledge south and loves it.

"The funniest thing," Peycheff says, "is just being able to ... go after [the films] I want, what I think would be really great."

Muslim punks and rappin' cowpokes. Live Skype chats with famous directors. Evil nympho mermaids and seriously pissed she-demons.

All this and much more under a single roof.

Ain't democracy grand?

2010 Olympia Film Festival

Friday, Nov. 12-Saturday, Nov. 20
Full schedule here
Capitol Theater, 205 Fifth Ave. E., Olympia
360.754.6670

LINK: Tickets!

MONDAY, NOV. 2, 2010 >>>

1. Lyrics are typically secondary in electronic and dance music, but Melanie Valera's intonations on No Snare, her latest as Tender Forever, are not only emotionally resonant, but a critical part of the listening experience. While the electro-acoustic percussion on No Snare booms, chirps and rattles exultingly, it's Valera's ersatz Carly Simon-isms ("this song is not for you and is meant to be/ just a piece of something nice that you won't get to see") that really stick in the mind. Check her out with Pete Burr and Ghost Feet at 8 p.m. inside the Northern space.

2. Tacoma artist Janet Marcavage will discuss her work - which uses patterned imagery and the repetitive process of printmaking to explore the routines of every life - from 6-7 p.m. inside Ingram Hall at the University Gallery on the Pacific Lutheran University campus on planet earth.

3. Award-winning filmmaker Yolanda Cruz presents her work on immigration and indigenous identity in the global economy at 7 p.m. in Lecture Hall 1 on The Evergreen State College campus.

4. Over the last 42 years more than 3,000 musicians have performed at the Victory Music Open Mics. Check out the granddaddy of all open mics from 7-10 p.m. inside the Antique Sandwich Company.

5. Every Tuesday inside SAX on Sixth, bebop reigns, and the talented jazz musicians play hard and fast in an open jam format. Led by sax sensation Kareem Kandi, talented musicians perform Charlie Parker, Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk and ilk beginning at 9 p.m.

LINK: It's Art at Work Month! Check out today's events.

LINK: More arts and entertainment events in the South Sound

QUIET SHOES, PART XXII >>>

We buy produce from local farmers and handmade gifts from neighborhood merchants; why not support a Tacoma filmmaker as well? Writer-director Isaac Olsen, our city's own (considerably skinnier) Orson Welles, first told me about his feature in the works, Quiet Shoes, two years ago on the Rialto Theater steps. Appropriately, that same theater premiered the film this summer to a huge audience. Now at last it has arrived in a glorious two-disc package, available for $25 on Olsen's production company website, www.schnelluloid.com. The set includes such goodies as commentary, outtakes, and a featurette on the film's many shooting locations. 

Quiet Shoes packs the same virtuosic camerawork, editing, and direction we've come to expect from this talented ensemble's winning shorts at virtually every Grand Cinema 72-Hour Film Competition. Using sophisticated rigs built from scratch, the camera swoops through car windows and over people's heads in ways that make film nerds like me drool. And the intricate story, a tongue-in-cheek homage to film noir, requires multiple viewings. In The Big Lebowski, all The Dude ever wanted was his room-tying rug back. QS hero Rick Savage just needs time to break in his eponymous footwear, but this gangly gumshoe keeps walking into a situation that gets stickier by the minute.

Alluring dames, cyborg criminals, and the occasional corpse populate this mythic Tacoma, while high above the Metropolis-like smokestacks churn out clouds of grime endlessly. Residents will pause the movie more than once and notice literally dozens of well-known haunts.         

"The city," the narrator growls early on, "a pee stain on the crotch of the world." Let that civid pride flow and buy your copy soon. 

LINK: Previously on our website

FRIDAY, OCT. 22, 2010 >>>

1. At the end of the month, the University of Puget Sound welcomes the Race and Pedagogy National Conference, which be centered on the theme "Teaching and Learning for Justice: Danger and Opportunity in Our Critical Moment." In conjunction with the conference, The Grand Cinema will kick off their Race and Pedagogy Film Series today running through Oct. 28, a week of films investigating questions of race and education - with facilitated public discussions after most screenings. At 4 and 6 p.m. catch the film Bilal's Stand, the story of a high school senior in Detroit who wins a scholarship to college and must decide whether he will continue in his family's long-owned taxi stand, or take a chance at social mobility.

2. Celebrate the YWCA Pierce County's "Room to Dream" Shelter Showcase from 2-7 p.m. at The Wilsonian, 401 St. Helens. More than 30 interior designers helped outfit the apartments for this new domestic violence shelter.

3. The Tacoma City Ballet hosts its annual production of The Haunted Theatre - a show featuring a spooky backstage tour of the historic Merlino Arts Building and themed Eerie Dances by the TCB company - at 7 p.m. in said building at 508 Sixth Ave. There'll be treats!

4. The Kim Archer Band and the Stacy Jones Band will fill Jazzbones with R&B and blues beginning at 9 p.m.

5. The Dirty Change Up and The Dignitaries rock The New Frontier Lounge beginning at 9:30 p.m.

LINK: More events in our Weekend Hustle

LINK: New movies open today

LINK: More arts and entertainment events in the South Sound

THURSDAY, OCT. 21, 2010 >>>

1. John Purkey, Heather Lum, Patrick Casson, Pat Watson, Gavin Guss – members of The Spins and Good Gravy – play an unplugged show from 6:30-8:30 p.m. inside the Speakeasy Arts Cooperative.

2. The BareFoot Collective will walk inside the Museum of Glass and screen a bunch of films about dance on the MOG big screen from 5-8 p.m. Expect new dance films from Washington, California, Oregon, New York, New Mexico, France and elsewhere.

3. The 253 Collective gallery will host a Dia de los Muertos celebration from 5-8 p.m. featuring works by artist Lynne Farren and the members of 253 Collective.

4. Community Cinema Tacoma presents the film Reel Injun by Neil Diamond, an entertaining trip through the evolution of North American Native people as portrayed in famous Hollywood Movies - from the silent era to today - at 6 p.m. inside the Washington State History Museum. After the film professors from the University of Puget Sound will dive into your brain.

5. Ten Miles Of Bad Road, Sordid Sentinels, J Mac Cadillac and Menace mosey on in to Hell's Kitchen around 9 p.m.

LINK: It's Tacoma Third Thursday ArtWalk tonight!

LINK: More arts and entertainment events in the South Sound

OUR PHOTOGRAPHER DISAPPEARED AFTER ZOMBIE NIGHT >>>

Last night the Tacoma Cult Movie Club screened zombie movies at Tacoma's Acme Grub Cage. The local movie club loves zombie movies. Of all the filmmakers in the world, it's our guess TCMC feels the most kinship with the guys who make zombie movies - obsessive man-children who know how to guiltlessly tell a ripping good yarn and who never got over that visceral thrill of being 13-year-old boys, up past their bedtimes, scaring the crap out of themselves watching the Super Spooky Horror Theater double-bill at home on a Friday night. And of all the monsters out there - vampires, mummies, ghouls, Glenn Beck - the Tacoma Cult Movie Club probably finds that the living dead make the most satisfying stories.

Last night Weekly Volcano photographer Steve Dunkelberger snuck inside the Tacoma Cult Movie Club's Zombie Film Night. He snapped a few grainy shots and sent them to us in the wee hours. We haven't heard form him since. He didn't send copy with the photographs. He didn't leave us a note of any kind. We suspect foul play.

Here are a few shots he sent us. We have no idea what they mean.

The Tacoma Cult Movie club meets every second Sunday and third monday at 7 p.m. inside the Acme Grub Cage. Enter at your own risk.