Seattle Twist

Come on down to the Tractor Tavern, August 20 for Sweetpea’s Birthday Shindig! Bring $6 to get in, some money for your favorite beverage, and a buck or two to put in my donation jar for www.purrfectpals.org if you can’t make it but want to donate anyway, please feel free to go to the purrfectpals.org site, or any other animal rescue site of your choice. Hope to see you there!

Frankenocchio returns for its third run in Seattle at the Lee Center for the Arts, August 12th – September 4th

Prepare to be regaled, titillated, and made slightly squeamish by the earthbound stumblings of the mute boy, Frankenocchio, as he seeks to rejoin his nimble head with the rest of his body, wending his way through the dark bellows and performances of a third rate traveling circus.

This is a  story of a stringed puppet made by God, who in a fit of boredom cuts his strings.   The poor puppet plummets to earth, where his head and body pop apart. Searching for its body, Frankenocchio’s head arrives in a dark and rundown circus.   While mad barkers and accident prone clowns attempt to use  his headless body to fulfill their own dreams, Frankenocchio searches for a way to be made whole again and return to his former life as God’s favorite plaything.

Conceived and Created by Brian Kooser, with script by Stephanie Timm, and touted as a “nightmarish world that might have been dreamt by Tim Burton after listening to Tom Waits while dosed up on codeine cough syrup”, this bizarrely delightful story, set aglow with gaudily gorgeous bunraku puppets and scenery, will leave you strangely inspired.

Accompanied by the live, kaleidoscopic, musical barkings of God’s Favorite Beefcake http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vLycseGX5k,

Kooser and his cadre of deft puppeteers bring this sweet, nightmarish saga to life for Seattle audiences.

8pm Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays
August 12th – September 4th
Tickets $18 at the door or BrownPaperTickets.com
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/120745

Lee Center for the Arts, 901 12th Ave, on Seattle University campus:

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/lee_center_for_the_arts/Location?oid=33949

For a sneak peak: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dERwHAQTZeQ

Please note: this puppet show is not suitable for children.

- more info and tickets -

Facebook Page for Hootenanny For A Healthy Gulf

- More info here – South Lake Union Block Party -

-  The Seattle Founders Day Festival website  -

Elvis died on August 16, 1977 in the bathroom at Graceland.

Re-live the glory, the agony and the ecstasy on Monday, August 16th 2010 at Cafe Racer at Elvis Tribute Night, starting at 7pm.

Meet Elvis book author Gillian G. Gaar, author of “Return of the King” Elvis Presley’s Great Comeback. Gillian will be on hand to read from her book and sign copies.

Come and sing Elvis Karaoke or enjoy fabulous ETA’s (Elvis Tribute Artists) perform Elvis favorites.

Elvis Music
Elvis Favorite Food!
Elvis Favorite Drinks!

Come see the Mighty Elvis Mobile and Traveling Elvis Museum. Take a tour of Graceland and renew your wedding vows at the Elvis Chapel of Love.

Party at the Official Bad Art Museum of Art and Cafe Racer at 5828 Roosevelt Way NE in Seattle, August 16th, starting at 7pm.

Georgetown Art Attack 
Saturday August 14th, 6-9pm

Seattle, WA. The tradition of cool art in a hot neighborhood continues with the Georgetown Second Saturday Art Attack on August 14 from 6:00 to 9:00 PM. Fabulous food, fine art, friendly bars and a few surprises are in store at this colorful monthly event in one of Seattle’s most compelling communities.

Among the many free visual and performing arts events: Georgetown Records and Fantagraphics Bookstore present the book launch party for “Cover Story: Odd, Obscure, and Outrageous Album Art” featuring an exhibition of album art from the book, a book signing, and DJ sets from contributors Aja West and Cheeba; The Georgetown Arts and Cultural Center presents a solo show “Archetypes and Lucky Charms” which combines universal archetypes with individual portraiture by Seattle artist Deborah Scott; the return of the Georgetown Trailer Park Mall featuring a Market of Curiosities – a collective of local artists with hands-on activities – followed by an outdoor screening of highlights from the Georgetown Super 8 Film Festival at dusk; new paintings by Julie Lukes at Calamity Jane’s; photography by Robin Crookall with musical guests presented by the Twilight art collective at the Stables; the grand reopening of Krab Jab Studio, having moved from suite 335 to suite 250 of the Original Rainier Brewery, featuring new member, painter Michael Hoppe, as well as works by Julie Baroh, Kyle Abernethy, and Mark Tedin.

For a map of participants, please see: www.georgetownartattack.com.

Cal Anderson Park hosts MadArt this Thursday August 12th, 7 pm to 10 pm at the kick off event.

Jason Puccinelli – Rocket photo by Liz Potter

Rocket  - Featured Installation for MadArt in the Park

Early one summer morning, a rocket fuselage smashed into earth right in the middle of Cal Anderson Park.   The two-story projectile will no doubt capture the imagination of park visitors, compelling them to draw close.   From what strange place did it come?  Is there any life form aboard?  One can only discover the truth when they walk up and touch a few buttons.

Northwest Puppet Center is honored to become the home to this internationally acclaimed collection.

“The World of Puppetry: Treasures from the Cook/Marks Collection” will be the first opportunity for a portion of this massive collection to be displayed in Seattle.  Don’t miss your chance to see the world through wooden eyes with puppets from Bucharesti, Palermo, Bali, Athens, Osaka, Rio de Janeiro, Bamako, Bursa, and many more points on the globe.

Included on display are stunning examples of Sicilian opera dei pupi, Indonesian wayang and Japanese bunraku (some of the puppet traditions recognized by UNESCO as “Intangible Cultural Assets to Humanity”).  You will even see vaudeville marionettes returning to the limelight after making their original appearances on Seattle stages a century ago!

Northwest Puppet Center presents

The World of Puppetry: Treasures from the Cook/Marks Collection

Location:
Seattle Center Pavilion B (next to the skate park)

On View July 23-Aug. 1, 2010
6pm-9pm on Fri. July 23
11am-4pm on weekends
11am-3pm on weekdays

Admission is FREE but donations to Northwest Puppet Center are welcomed to help continue NWPC’s expanding museum efforts.

Exhibit sponsored by The Jacqueline S. Marks Fund at the California
Community Foundation and Seattle Center.  General support provided by ArtsFund and Washington State Arts Commission.

To learn more about the Cooks/Marks Collection:
http://nwpuppet.org/worldofpuppetry.html

Get a double-dose of puppets by combining your visit with the regional festival, Puppet-O-Rama,
organized by members of Puppeteers of Puget Sound, to be held at Seattle University July 30-Aug. 1.  International Puppetry Museum and Northwest Puppet Center will be hosting a reception at the regional festival on July 30 to celebrate this new collection and would like you to join in their celebration.   Come learn more about puppetry at the festival:  http://www.puppet-o-rama.org

Not a puppeteer and want to see puppet shows all around the area?

Find out where the Northwest Puppet Center will be performing this summer  http://www.nwpuppet.org/summer.html

After this exhibit at Seattle Center, more of the collection will be on display when the 2010-2011 season opens in November. Northwest Puppet Center will feature two exhibits each year and The Cook/Marks Collection will be a major portion of the Puppet Museum at the Northwest Puppet Center for generations to come.

To find out more about the Northwest Puppet Center’s 2010-2011 season performances: http://nwpuppet.org/weekend.html

This is a sweet event featuring cupcakes, kisses and bombshells, both blonde and brunette.

July 7, 2010 – Seattle, WA. Multifaceted cartoonist, musician, performance artist, fortune teller and neo-Victorian culture maven appears at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery on July 10 to celebrate the publication of MEAT CAKE, a collection of stories from the first decade of her popular comic book series of the same name. The event features an exhibition of Dame Darcy’s original comic art and other creations, an enchanting music recital and a fortune telling session with each book signed.

MEAT CAKE is like a peek into an imaginative, deranged dollhouse filled with fractured fairy tales. An expanded version of the long out-of-print hardcover book, this new paperback assembles the very best of Darcy’s work from the first 11 issues of the beloved comic (including “Hungry Is the Heart,” the legendary collaboration with Watchmen creator Alan Moore). According to the New York Times, “Darcy’s comics are aesthetic manifestos… Darcy is a star. Meat Cake will prevail, as luxury takes over America. And the world beyond.” The Los Angeles Times observes, “[Darcy] has created a childlike, otherworldly realm, a land that hovers in the twilight space between the whimsical and the macabre. Ghosts and goblins, foul-tempered stepmothers, lovesick mermaids and charmed forests are all rendered in Darcy’s distinctive hand, loose and flowing lines reminiscent of the work of Edward Gorey.”

Dame Darcy’s appearance on Saturday, July 10 from 6:00 to 9:00 PM coincides with the colorful Georgetown Second Saturday Art Attack featuring challenging visual and performing arts presentations throughout the historic industrial arts corridor. Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery is located at 1201 S. Vale Street (at Airport way S.) only minutes south of downtown Seattle. Open daily 11:30 to 8:00 PM, Sundays until 5:00 PM. Phone 206.658.0110.

Commemorate the holiday with a bang at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery on Monday, July 5. Lovely Los Angeles-based UNLOVABLE artist Esther Pearl Watson will appear with her husband and collaborator Mark Todd from 1:00 to 4:00 PM and we’ll be hosting a festive urban barbeque. Best of all, everything in the store is on sale 20% to 50% off for one-day-only! All day long!

What better way to conclude a holiday weekend than with complimentary hot dogs, baked beans, cold beverages, and cheap comic books! Don’t miss this opportunity to meet these accomplished young artists and stock up on essential summer reading at bargain prices.

The store, located at 1201 S. Vale Street in Seattle’s Georgetown district, will be closed on Sunday, July 4, but open regular hours 11:30 to 8:00 PM on Monday for this spectacular event. And mark your calendars for Saturday evening, July 10 with the enchanting Dame Darcy debuting her new MEAT CAKE collection.

June 29, 2010 – Seattle, WA. Summer celebrations continue in Georgetown with the Second Saturday Art Attack on July 10 and the annual Georgetown Garden Walk on Sunday, July 11. These colorful activities accentuate the unique character of Georgetown’s historic business corridor and creative residential neighborhood.

Among the highlights of the July 10 Georgetown Art Attack: Seattle Teen Printmakers (STP) display work from recent workshops at Georgetown Arts and Cultural Center together with Amy Pleasant’s “Family Album” exhibition and open studios with resident artists; “Meat Cake” book launch party featuring original comic art exhibition, book signing and performance by Portland-based artist Dame Darcy at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery; a collection of handcrafted traditional Caribbean masks from Trinidad & Tobago, Puerto Rico, St. Lucia, Dominican Republic, Honduras, and Jamaica by Alyssa Johnson at Calamity Jane’s; the debut of “Seattle Hop” tee shirt and other works designed by Seattle home brewer and digital artist Laura Fletcher at Full Throttle Bottles; “Just Before the Leap” paintings by Mark LaFalce, “Encaustics: the Wave of Wax” by Deborah Stachowic, and “Clay, Baby” works by Pamela Hathaway at 5626 Airport Way S. studios; an exhibition at Indiro artist studio, 5050 First S., featuring Dave Alton, Nicole Appell, Catherine Bailey, Jolie Bergman, Felice Dunn, Darren Emmens, Becky Fitterer, Meredith Jenkins, Brian Kuntz, Gay Seydlitz, Reecca Thayer and Carrie Whitney. Also included in both the Art Attack and Garden Walk is a “Trailer Park Market of Curiosities” featuring local art, vintage clothing, collectibles and more at the newly minted Georgetown Trailer Park Mall.

For Trailer Park Mall information visit: www.georgetowntrailerpark.com. Maps of the Georgetown Garden Walk can be found at the Bank of America parking lot at 1112 S. Bailey St. on Sunday, July 11. For a map of Art Attack participants see: www.georgetownartattack.com

Don’t miss the Hazard Factory’s fantastic Power Tool Races this Saturday, June 26 -part of the fabulous Artopia arts extravaganza and Georgetown Music Festival from 2:00 to 10:00 PM.

Fantagraphics Bookstore curator Larry Reid created a demonic chainsaw-powered racer fashioned from an autographed 1991 Daniel Clowes-designed Corey O’Brian Santa Cruz skateboard.


Come cheer for racers (just don’t get too close), see dozens of bands (featuring Fantagraphics favorites the Tom Price Desert Classic right outside the bookstore), art exhibitions (including Megan Kelso’s wonderful new work inside the store), carnival games, aerial acts, food, drinks, and a special appearance by demented actor/comedian/filmmaker Bobcat Goldthwait. It’s all FREE!

More info here on the official ARTOPIA site.

The Georgetown Second Saturday Art Attack welcomes several exciting new participants to our colorful celebration of challenging contemporary art. The June 12 installment promises to maintain the ingenuity and creative diversity that has characterized the Art Attack since its inception.

Newly minted enterprises debuting on June 12 include: The grand opening of the Georgetown Trailer Park Mall – a cluster of vintage travel trailers housing galleries, eateries, and boutiques – beginning with the Frida Folk Art Trailer exhibiting Tim Fowler’s paintings of childhood obsessions, bugs and cars, together with a “Trunk Show” by Georgetown metal workers of Steel Toe Studios; the premiere of Yvette Endrijautzki and Jethaniel Peterka’s studio/gallery the Nautilus, featuring an exhibition in the “Steam Room” by the resident artists; the open air Georgetown Marketplace, which in June begins its weekly Saturday appearance, including farm-fresh food, local and imported crafts, antiques, eats and more from over 40 vendors.

Among the regular Art Attack participants: Megan Kelso’s “Artichoke Tales” book launch party and art exhibition at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery; new paintings by Rafael E. Caraballo and Ed Craggs at Calamity Jane’s; figurative paintings by Amy Pleasant at Georgetown Art & Cultural Center; students of the Georgetown Atelier present their work at the “End of the Year Show”; Mark Tedin, Kyle Abernethy and Julie Baroh at Krab Jab Studio; Full Throttle Bottles hosts a display of the Hazard Factory’s legendary Power Tool Racers, one of the feature attractions at Georgetown’s Artopia arts festival on June 26.

For a map and additional information visit: www.georgetownartattack.com

May 26, 2010 – Seattle, WA. Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery hosts an art exhibition and book launch party for Seattle-based cartoonist Megan Kelso’s new graphic novel ARTICHOKE TALES on Saturday, June 12 from 6:00 to 9:00 PM.

A graduate of alternative cartoonist breeding ground The Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA, Megan Kelso burst onto the comics scene in the early 90s with her provocative self-published zine Girlhero. She has since proved herself a master of the cartoon short story with Queen of the Black Black (1998) and The Squirrel Mother (2006), in addition to the weekly serial “Watergate Sue” published in the New York Times Magazine (2007).

ARTICHOKE TALES is a coming of age story about a young girl whose family is caught between the two warring sides of a civil war. Kelso’s visual storytelling, combining delicate line work with rhythmic page compositions, creates a dramatic tension between intimate character studies and the unflinching depiction of the consequences of war, lending cohesion and resonance to a generational epic. The widespread critical acclaim afforded Kelso’s previous work makes Artichoke Tales one of the most eagerly anticipated graphic novels of 2010.

The reception on Saturday, June 12 coincides with the colorful Georgetown Second Saturday Art Attack featuring visual and performing arts presentations throughout the historic industrial arts district. Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery is located at 1201 S. Vale Street at Airport Way S. in the heart of Georgetown. Open daily 11:30 to 8:00 PM, Sundays until 5:00 PM. Phone 206.658.0110. Please join us on June 12 to celebrate the work is this remarkable artist.

Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery welcomes visionary cartoonist Jim Woodring on Saturday, May 22 from 7:00 to 8:00 PM. He will give a slide presentation focusing on his latest work WEATHERCRAFT and sign copies of the book, which debuts at the event.

Jim Woodring’s idiosyncratic aesthetic has earned him an international following as both a cartoonist and visual artist. He was a recipient of the prestigious United States Artist Fellowship in 2006 (with frequent collaborator Bill Frisell) and was an Artist Trust-Washington State Artist fellow in 2008. His work is published and exhibited worldwide, finding him traveling to exhibitions in France and Australia last year, a residency in Alaska last month, and to Sweden next month.

Though Fantagraphics Books has published several wonderful Woodring comic book series and collections, WEATHERCRAFT represent his first full-length graphic novel. Employing mystical motifs and enigmatic characters, the book continues the artist’s tradition of imaginative narratives allowing subjective responses from the reader. In a recent review in Vice magazine, Nick Gazin observes, “There’s not much point in trying to sum up the story of this comic. There’s no text, the art is beautiful, and you’re totally consumed by the world he’s created and you exist inside it while you’re reading it.”

Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery is located at 1201 S. Vale Street, minutes south of downtown Seattle in the center of the historic Georgetown arts community. Open daily 11:30 to 8:00 PM, Sundays until 5:00 PM. Phone 206.658.0110.

April 26, 2010 – Seattle, WA. Michael Kupperman, creator of the sensational TALES DESIGNED TO THRIZZLE comic books and the animated cartoon characters “Snake ‘n’ Bacon,” appears in Seattle for the first time on Saturday, May 8, from 6:00 to 9:00 PM at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery. The book signing will include an exhibition of Kupperman’s exquisite original art and will mark the debut of the 6th issue of Tales Designed to Thrizzle.

Kupperman’s unique graphic sensibility combines elements of anachronistic pulp detective magazines textured with sophisticated references to contemporary art and popular culture creating a seductive and absurdist aesthetic. The most recent issue of Tales Designed to Thrizzle includes eclectic features like “Cowboy Oscar Wilde,” “Modern Wallpaper,” “Twain & Einstein in ‘Chasin’ the Dream,’” and “Books are Stupid” among many others. The first 4 issues of Tales Designed to Thrizzle were recently collected into a handsome hardcover edition with a laugh-out-loud introduction by comic genius Robert Smigel. Kupperman’s illustrations frequently appear in prestigious periodicals including the New Yorker and McSweeney’s. His signature characters Snake ‘n’ Bacon were produced as a live action and animated pilot episode for Cartoon Network’s “Adult Swim” block, which will be screened at the May 8 reception.

Michael Kupperman’s appearance coincides with the colorful Georgetown Second Saturday Art Attack. In addition to diverse visual and performing arts presentations, the May 8 installment includes the Georgetown Super 8 Film Festival featuring continuous screenings of over 40 three minute films at venues throughout the historic neighborhood.

On Saturday, May 22 at 6:00 PM, Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery hosts a media presentation by Jim Woodring based on his latest graphic novel WEATHERCRAFT.

Fantagraphics Bookstore is located at 1201 S. Vale Street at Airport Way S. only minutes from downtown Seattle. Open daily 11:30 to 8:00 PM, Sundays until 5:00 PM. Phone 206.658.0110.