FEB. 7 >>>

A whole slew of writers (maybe that should be "cover" or, perhaps, "Whiny passel") were born on Feb. 7: Sinclair Lewis (1885), Charles Dickens (1812), Frederick Douglass (1818) and Gay Talese (1932).

Knowing what he knows about writers, Bobble Tiki wasn't terribly surprised to learn that today is also National Hangover Awareness Day; although one assumes that the harmonious celebration, if any, will be muted.

Seems fitting that Last word Books in Olympia hosts its Drunken Poetry tonight at 7:30 p.m. Here's how they describe their event:

Readings operate on a first-come first-serve sign-up basis. Our time is limited so we're looking for something in the ballpark of three poems of moderate length or one long poem and one short from each reader. You must however submit a piece to be read by the Designated Drunk, who will be chosen at the end of each reading or shortly after and will be informed well before the next reading. We encourage the buying of drinks for the Designated Drunk. Make it good because submissions will be considered for publication on the blogs and anthologized in a chapbook published quarterly by Last Word Press. Hours may vary without meaning or purpose.

• No nature poetry. It's been done and there are a thousand other outlets for it in Olympia.
• No Slam. You're not Saul Williams. That's okay.
• Drunken Poetry is not a public therapy session; don't try to turn it in to one.
• Unless it's extremely well written we don't care about that time you tried to kill yourself when you were sixteen. Try again.

Drink, write, edit, submit, read, drink, repeat. And, conveniently enough, the poetry reading will stagger off stage just in time for everyone to stumble over to Jazz Night at the Royal to tie a few more on, moron!

Drunken Poetry

7:30-9 p.m. first and third Monday
Last Word Books
211 4th Ave. E., Olympia
360.786.9673

LINK: More arts and entertainment events in the South Sound

TUESDAY, FEB. 1, 2011 >>>

1. The Bellydance Superstars shake their bellies at the sleazy culture of pelvic-pumping pop divas and strategic wardrobe malfunctions, bringing a shimmying celebration of the softness and strength that is womanhood to the Washington Center at 8 p.m. OK, they're hot, too.

2. Finally, finally, FINALLY! The butt-sniffing action, the dodging doggie bombs, the pooper scooper malfunctions - reading to your dog at the dog park has been a nightmare. Thankfully, the Graham Pierce County Library will allow you to publically share a book with your furry friend, while improving your reading skills, in a relaxed, serene setting beginning at 6:30 p.m.

3. Guitarist Billy Farmers covers the hits of Neil Diamond beginning at 6:30 p.m. inside the Red Wind Casino. No one should miss this - not even the chair.

4. Comedian Jake Sharon headlines Ha Ha Tuesday! comedy show at 7 p.m. inside Jazzbones. DJ Omar spins around 10 p.m.

5. Rafael Tranquilino rockin' blues jam with Dominique Stone and Glenn Hummel hits Stonegate Pizza around 8:30 p.m.

LINK: More arts and entertainment events in the South Sound

MONDAY, JAN. 3, 2011 >>>

1. The Harmon Tap Room hosts a trivia night from 6-8 p.m. with a whopping $50 cash prize for the winner. First hint: The name the 1973 ABC Afterschool Special that focused on a young boy's struggle to accept his parents' separation was called My Dad Lives in a Downtown Hotel. Second hint: Be sure to order their tasty seasonal IPA.

2. Neil Andersson is a landscape painter whose work has been shown all over the country. He's also a founding member of the jazz group Pearl Django. Andersson has his work hanging at the Rosewood Café in north Tacoma. Check it out, as well as enjoy one of their kick ass sandwiches.

3. You're never too old to learn about Cambodia! The Franke Tobey Jones retirement community hosts Senior University: Cambodia travelogue at 3 p.m. and learn about Molly Daugherty's experiences as a volunteer at an orphanage in rural Cambodia. Afghans not provided.

4. The Graham Pierce County Library's monthly Talk It Up! Book Discussion Group will meet at 3 p.m. to talk about the book Mudbound by Hillary Jordan - the story of racism and well-kept secrets set on a desolate farm in the Mississippi Delta at the end of World War II.

5. Ya ya ya - Rockaraoke at Jazzbones at 9 p.m. But have you actually gone? You'll be surprised at its awesomeness.

LINK: More arts and entertainment events in the South Sound

LINK: Subscribe to our music stories

MONDAY, DEC. 6, 2010 >>>

1. If you're one of the 5.3 percent of South Sounders who is of Scandinavian descent (OK, we made that up) - and if you're not, just pretend - get in touch with your roots and check out the Scandinavian Book Club that meets at 6:30 p.m. inside Garfield Books in Parkland.

2. You know what you want from your kids this Christmas. And it isn't constructed out of Popsicle sticks, or even necessarily edible. How does one ensure these things do not happen? Give the kids a nudge in the right direction with a fun project in Becka's Studio inside Children's Museum of Tacoma. From 2-3 p.m. children can create holiday art to take home. Parent, grandparent or adult may participate with registered student, so insert your own (truly funny, of course) spousal gift joke here. 

3. Summer's long days have come and gone. Darkness abounds. And just think of all the dirty things you can do in the dark - if only you could see. Stupid ineffective night vision. Stupid streetlights that let you be seen as much as they let you see. Wait, I can see the light. Yes.  Pretty, twinkling lights.  Thousands of them. Outside.  Zoolights, the holiday light display at Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium runs from 5-9 p.m. Enjoy your stroll, and be thankful you're not in charge of this holiday light display.

4. Drink, write, edit, submit, read, drink, repeat. That's how Last Word Books' Drunken Poetry night goes down every Monday night from 7:30-9:30 p.m. The public may read three moderate length poems, plus submit a piece to be read by the Designated Drunk, who will be chosen at the end of each reading or shortly after and will be informed well before the next reading. Last Word Books encourages the buying of drinks for the Designated Drunk.

5. It's reggae night beginning at 9 p.m. inside the Gruv Lounge and Nightclub in Tacoma.

LINK: More arts and entertainment events in the South Sound

CITIZENS OF TACOMA: THE WHITE STUFF FALLING FROM THE SKY IS CALLED "SNOW" - HERE ARE SOME THINGS YOU CAN DO WHILE IT'S HERE...>>>

1. Snowball fight in Wright Park.

2. Make delicious things out of snow. Click here for a snow ice cream recipe.

3. Sit inside and stare with melancholy out the window.

4. Dress up as a poor English boy and stare with melancholy into someone else's window.

5. Spiced cider with rum.

6. Look into a mirror and repeat the mantra, "I am a snowflake. I am beautiful and unique. ..."

7. Go cardboard sledding at Pt. Defiance.

8. Try public transportation. Trust me, it's never boring.

9. Protest the snow outside of City Hall. Sign ideas: "Get this snow out of Washington!"; "Stop controlling the weather!"; "NO more ice on my snow balls!"  

10. Dilute food coloring and make snow art.

11. Snowshoe to pub uphill from your house. Drink heavily. Slide back home.

12. While at pub, it's the perfect day to try out this pick-up line: "Baby, you a snow flake, ‘cause you lovely and rare, and when I hold you in my hands.. you melt."

Feel free to add to our list below ...

FRIDAY, NOV. 12, 2010 >>>

1. This one's so big they're literally going to shut down the street in front of the Capitol Theater. Help launch the 27th Annual Olympia Film Festival in style beginning at 5 p.m. at its Opening Night Gala. Acrobats, artists, dancers, freaks, psychics and geeks are promised - along with the unmatchable Romanteek and a showing of Fritz Lang's ultra-classic Metropolis. It's going to rule. Trust us. And it kicks off nine days of Olympia Film Fest magic.

2. The Tacoma Weavers' Guild celebrates its 75 anniversary with a huge textile show opening today inside Handforth Gallery and historical displays in the Northwest Room - both at the Tacoma Public Library Main Branch from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. What originated around campfires hundreds and thousands of years ago lives on as an important art form. And the Tacoma Weavers' Guild's show isn't just for weavers. It's really for anyone that loves fiber. And we're not talking about Wheaties, folks.

3. Poet Jody Zorgdrager will take the spotlight at 7 p.m. for the monthly Distinguished Writer Series gathering inside King's Books. After Zorgdrager demonstrates why she's been published in numerous journals, the floor opens up for everyone to lay some words down.

4. Comedian Geoff Lott performs at 8:30 pm. inside the Big Whisky Saloon as part of the Tacoma Comedy Underground show.

5. Rare Groove, a night of intelligent soul, funk, jazz and rare grooves spun by DJs Bobby Galaxy and dAb every second Friday of the month, kicks off at 9 p.m. inside the Tempest Lounge.

LINK: The Furniture Series dance performance is in The Weekend Hustle

LINK: Tacoma Art at Work events

LINK: Concerts go on sale today

LINK: New movies open today

LINK: More arts and entertainment events in the South Sound

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

WEATHER REPORT

Friday: Mostly cloudy with some sun, hi 51, lo 38

Saturday: Cloudy with a little rain, hi 50, lo 44

Sunday: Mostly cloudy, hi 52, lo 43

>>> FRIDAY, NOV. 12-SATURDAY, NOV. 13: THE FURNITURE SERIES

The dance begins in the eyes of a man, searching from chair to chair. Some of the chairs will seem interested for a second, then break it off. Others don't even acknowledge him. But when his eyes land on the right piece of furniture, there's no confusing the look. He locks eyes with that chair; the two move toward the dance floor and meet there halfway in an embrace, the classic start of the tango. The lights are dim overhead, and the bottoms of his dance shoes caress the wooden floor as he leads his chosen chair into the tango song. While dancing a dime falls from underneath the chair's cushion. There's an awkward moment. He picks up the coin and continues the dance. "I am," he said too no one there. And no one heard it at all, except the chair.

Possibly this dance but certainly many better ones like it will be performed as part of Robin Jaecklein's Furniture Series at the SOTA theater this Friday and Saturday. A total of 11 pieces of furniture will be the muse of dancers Joel Myers, Kate Monthy, Hannah Crowley, Katie Stricker, Mary Tuttle, Danny Boulet, Lynn Wilmot-Stenehjem, Laura Miltner, Brittany Humphrey and SOTA students.

• Tacoma School of the Arts Theatre, 7:30 p.m. Friday-Saturday, also 2 p.m. Saturday, $7-$15, 1118 Commerce St., Tacoma, 253.761.8311

>>> SATURDAY, NO. 13: ROCKET RACES

While most of us relegated our ballistic experiments to childhood - leaving those wimpy baking-soda projectiles and more beefy hairspray potato cannons as distant memories - some people continued their interest in amateur rocket science through adulthood. Many such individuals will spend many enjoyable hours this weekend drinking Pabst and launching powerful, adult-size missiles at each other in East Pierce County. The other rocket enthusiasts - those with rubber band powered, propeller driven rockets - will gather at the Olympic Flight Museum this Saturday and freakin' go nuts. Competitions will include both adult and kids with the kids judged according to their grade.

• Olympic Flight Museum, 1 p.m., 7637-A Old Hwy. 99 SE, Olympia, 360.705.3925

>>> SATURDAY, NOV. 13: TELLABRATION!

There are those among us who can make their trip to a hair stylist the most riveting story you've heard all week. People whose stories never trail off into "it was really cool. ..." Envy them. They are not like you. Not only do they have great success at parties, they have a future with the Mt. Tahoma Storytelling Guild. See what all the storytelling fuss is about with storytelling for grownups, in honor of Tellabration, a national storytelling event sponsored by the National Storytelling Association.  If you can stand a 10-minute hairdo story, just imagine how riveted you'll be by something with an actual plot.  

• Antique Sandwich Co., 7:30 p.m., 51st and Pearl, Tacoma, (253) 983-9114

>>> WHERE OUR STAFF IS GOING

MATT DRISCOLL Editor (aka - the guy to blame)
There's talk of a new computer purchase this weekend in the Driscoll household, so that's always exciting. Really, there's nothing more American than the acquisition of shiny new things. Sunday, I plan to coach the single greatest game of fantasy football in the history of man (or at the very least fantasy football itself). 

PAUL SCHRAG Senior Contributor
I'm editing a truckload of U.S Treasury grants for some credit unions that are doing amazing work rebuilding our shattered economy. My play list for this task will include Cee-lo, Jocelyn Montgomery and David Lynch interpreting the cantos of Hildegard von Bingen, and probably some klezmer.

STEPH DEROSA: Columnist
I'm sure to be a gold medalist in the LWPO - Lamest Weekend Plans Olympics.  As a matter of fact, not only do our dear Weekly Volcano editors spank us every time we report to the Weekend Hustle with no plans, there is a possibility they could actually dock my pay for being so extremely boring this weekend. I wish I had a dangerous agenda for the upcoming duo of days off, but alas, I do not. Although, I DO have a hankering punch someone in the face, so don't count me entirely out for a little fun in the next few days.

REV. ADAM MCKINNEY Features Writer
Friday, I'm going to check out Hunter Lea and his new band at The Den. My second all-ages show of the week! That, if anything, calls for Prefunk.

NIKKI TALOTTA Features Writer
I think I'll let Loverboy sum this one up:
Everybody's workin' for the weekend
Everybody wants a new romance;
Everybody's goin' off the deep end
Everybody needs a second chance. ...

JOE IZENMAN Music/Theater Critic
To be honest? I have pretty much no idea what I'm doing. At least in terms of things that anyone else might find interesting. Shopping at IKEA and Fry's? Could happen. Shopping for obscure Indian spices? Hope so. Shopping at the second to last Proctor Farmers Market of the season? There's little doubt of that. But no shows, no plays, no exciting nightlife. Sorry, stalkers!

JOANN VARNELL Theater Critic
This weekend will be spent trying to figure out how to get a 1953 Ford up from Nacogdoches, Texas. When I'm not contemplating that (or why my dad is suddenly giving away his cars), I'll be trying to get my 3-month-old son to laugh.

JENNIFER JOHNSON: Lifestyle/Leisure Writer
I'll be basking in the hopefully warm weather in Utah while visiting family for the entire weekend. Yippee!

CHRISTIAN CARVAJAL: Theater Critic
I'm seeing Grease at SPSCC and Bug at Evergreen, plus trekking to my junior-high haunts in Humboldt County, Calif.  I'm traveling with my mom, though, so Humboldt's most popular cash crop is off the table.

STEVE DUNKELBERGER Meat Market Correspondent
I am going to Harry Potter with the kiddos for Veterans Day and then getting a blooming onion with my pa. This weekend, I'm headed to the opening of Vanity nightclub.

LINK: More arts and entertainment events in the South Sound

THURSDAY, NOV. 11, 2010 >>>

1. If you can't say it in 6 minutes and 40 seconds, don't say it at all. That's the theory behind Pecha Kucha, a sort of mini lecture series that started in 2003 when Tokyo architects invented it to make their PowerPoint presentations less dreadful. Tacoma's version of Pecha Kucha Night - volume 8 - hits the Harmon Taproom at 5:30 p.m. featuring some of PK's favorite past presenters. Michael Sullivan, Derek Lunde, Michael Stoddard, Antonio Edwards, Jeremy Gregory, Kris Crews, Patricia Lecy-Davis and Geoff Weeg.

2. The Tacoma Freedom Fair Patriotic Pizza Party to raise funds for the Fourth of July celebration runs from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. at Round Table Pizza locations in Tacoma and University Place. The Round Table franchises are a big supporter and has committed a large percent of today's sales to support next year's Freedom Fair.

3. As in conjunction with their Street Botany show, Maria Jost and Bobby Smith will discuss their art and ecology in reference to, and possibly inside, their recently installed geodesic dome interpretive center at 6 p.m. inside Fulcrum Gallery.

4. Chandler O'Leary is kind of infatuated with Mt. Rainier - and this is a good thing. For one, it resulted in Local Conditions, O'Leary's interactive book. With 120 image flats and a viewing box, Local Conditions allows readers to literally create millions of Rainier-related scenes. From 7-9 p.m. O'Leary will chat about her work and love of the mountain in Room 020 in the Collins Memorial Library's basement.

5. DJ Toner spins vintage rock and soul beginning at 8 p.m. inside The Brotherhood Lounge in Olympia.

LINK: It's Art at Work month!

LINK: More arts and entertainment events in the South Sound

TUESDAY, NOV. 9, 2010 >>>

1. Leonard Pitts Jr., the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist whose thoughtful and at times provocative column is syndicated in newspapers across the country, will speak at 7:30 p.m. inside Schneebeck Concert Hall on the University of Puget Sound campus. Expect to hear his thoughts on teacher unions, citizen journalists and "gospel of unadulterated hate."

2. Violinists Maria Sampen and Jennifer Caine, violist Tim Christie and cellist Sally Singer perform Gabriela Frank's six-movement suite for strings "Leyendas: an Andean Walkabout" beginning at 7 p.m. as part of Classical Tuesdays in Old Town inside the Slavonian Hall. This colorful work reflects the composer's Peruvian heritage and travels.

3. Bowling is a game devised for drinkers. You get up, you roll a ball, you sit down. You pound some beers and watch other people do the same. Then you repeat this cycle, all while wearing stupid shoes and knocking stuff down. It's like alcoholic heaven. The Chalet Bowl in Tacoma's Proctor District sweetens the deal every Tuesday night with $2 games, $2 shoe rentals, $2 food items and $2.25 Rolling Rocks.

4. The granddaddy of all open mics - Victory Music Open Mic - runs from 7-10 p.m. inside the Antique Sandwich Company.

5. Comedians Brad Brake, Erick Hurst and host Ralph Porter perform at 8 p.m. as part of Ha Ha Tuesdays at Jazzbones.

LINK: Tacoma Art at Work events!

LINK: More arts and entertainment events in the South Sound

MONDAY, OCT. 11, 2010 >>>

1. Even if electronic music "isn't your thing," you'll no doubt find German über-producer Ulrich Schnauss' tidal waves of sentimental nu-gaze awe-inspiring and profoundly soothing at 9 p.m. inside The New Frontier Lounge.

2. In Kittredge Gallery's Small Gallery is a video work by Portland photographer, filmmaker, and installation artist Vanessa Renwick from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Her video, shot in 35 mm black and white film, both mourns the loss and celebrates the former vitality of The House of Sound - places, stories and histories of Cascadia, with scores by musicians living in the Pacific Northwest.

3. A state income tax specifically designed to take more money from the rich?  That's the idea behind Initiative 1098, which if passed would institute a state income tax on Washington's most wealthy to pay for education and health programs. Rich guys like Bill Gates Sr. are in favor of it. Other rich guys, like former U.S. Sen. Slade Gordon, are against it. At 6 p.m. inside Philip Hall at UW Tacoma, they'll debate the issue.

4. Leave it to liberals to use the economic collapse to point out there might be a better way of doing things than the capitalist orgy and TV dinners we've grown up on. Award-winning political cartoonist Ted Rall is just such a whacko, and his new book, The Anti-American Manifesto, is as pinko and commie as it sounds. Rall will discuss his work at 6 p.m. inside Orca Books in Olympia.

5. The Jake B Band will fill The Swiss with blues beginning at 8 p.m.

LINK: More arts and entertainment events in the South Sound