Art by Zee

If you like books, you like libraries, too. We’re lucky to have a good library system here in Seattle where you can read and borrow books and magazine and movies, pick up tax forms, get directions, use computers, access the internet and more. The Friends of the SPL invite you to demonstrate your love of the library by joining in flash mob on Friday, October 1, at noon at Westlake Center. Show up a few minutes early with your book – at noon promptly, everyone on hand will pull out their books and sit down on the spot to read.

Can’t make it but still want to show your support? The Friends of the SPL have created a handy reference on ways you can show your support for the library and its important work.

Pacfic Science Center celebrates the important role that educators play in our society by hosting a free science sampler at the science center’s Educator Open House on Saturday, October 2.

That day teachers will receive free admission to the science center which includes access to current exhibits, laser shows, IMAX films, the Willard Smith Planetarium, and the Tropical Butterfly House.

More than 57,000 students, teachers and chaperones visited Pacific Science Center last year and the center hopes to attract even more this year, giving kids a chance to discover and explore and to inspire a life-long love of science.

Educators who take advantage of this offer will get a first look at the newest traveling exhibit, Mindbender Mansion, which features math and problem solving in the form of puzzles, brainteasers, and interactive challenges.

Can’t get enough of chocolate? Love dance music, beer, and wine, too? Make sure you make plans for the Northwest Chocolate Festival coming to the Seattle Center’s Northwest Rooms on October 23 and 24 with demos on chocolate making, cooking, origins of chocolate, along with tastings of exceptional chocolates from around the world plus wine and beer, too.

Tickets are available online in advance for both the Chocolate Festival days and for the Chocolate Masquerade Ball on Saturday, October 23, a fabulous gala for the adults featuring live music, dancing, costumes and, of course, plenty of chocolate.

Northwest Film Forum continues their consistently innovative and engaging series “Live at the Film Forum” with The French Project: The New New Wave. Seattle’s top neo-French all-star music collective (Sara Edwards, Basil Harris, Erin Jorgensen and Charles Smith; with appearances by Kirk Anderson and Sari Breznau & “special secret” musical guests) perform music ranging from Saint-Saëns and Debussy to Francoise Hardy and ZZ Top to accompany screenings of short films by Tania Kupczak, Karn Junkinsmith, Shane Wahlund & Michael Anderson and others.

Also at NWFF: the Seattle premiere of Bunny & the Bull, director Paul King (The Mighty Boosh)’s comedic road trip that takes place entirely within the confines of the apartment and mind of eccentric shut in Stephen Turnbull, played by Edward Hogg.

Daniel Holder hates Japan; his father was killed by Japanese soldiers during World War II and his son dies in a traffic accident while teaching English in Japan. He travels there to retrieve hsi son’s belongings; despite the kind treatment his son’s former colleagues give him, Holder prefers to hang on to his anger and resentment. It’s not until he learns some unexpected details of his son’s life that Holder has to rethink his feelings about both Japan and his own life. The Harimaya Bridge is at The Grand Illusion.

It took John Hughes less than a week to write the screenplay for Ferris Buelle’s Day Off but the film has been a pop culture phenomenon for nearly a quarter of a century now, a film so well-known that even people who’ve never seen it can quote it extensively. At Central Cinema

Midnight at the Egyptian: Daniel Day-Lewis stars in Michael Mann’s Last of the Mohicans.

The Maelstrom International Fantastic Film Festival (MIFFF, for short) is a weekend long event dedicated to discovering and promoting the sort of independent and international genre films appreciated by audiences but often ignored by the film festival circuit. MIFFF films include works in animation, fantasy, horror and science fiction, programmed by a team of experienced organizers who keep an eye on what’s going on in genre filmmaking around the world and here at home in Seattle.

This year’s MIFFF takes place once again at SIFF Cinema with a schedule packed full of fantastic shorts and full length-features. The festival kicks off Friday, 9/17, at 8 pm with an introduction to the festival and the opening night film, Blood River, a psychological horror thriller in which a married couple survive a near-fatal car crash in an empty desert where they encounter a sinister drifter whose malevolent agenda strains their relationship to the breaking point.

Saturday at noon begins a series of animated shorts with a variety of stories: Bill Plympton’s The Cow Who Wanted to Be a Hamburger tells the “tragic story of a bovine seduced by advertising led down the path of butchers and carnivores”; Kidnap features a Kung fu master chicken whose journey to school is interrupted by gunmen, aliens, and Jesus; Scottish Ninjas features…well, Scottish ninjas. Nine other shorts round out the program.

The festival continue Saturday at 2:30 with a program of fantasy shorts. The eight films in the program include Billy Baxter and the Mystery of Dr. Amazo, a young boy’s adventures with comic book toys; The Hatter’s Apprentice, a cautionary tale about dabbling with magic; and the choice between love and imaginary friendship, Manual Practico del Amigo Imaginario (abreviado.

Saturday’s 6:00 pm horror feature is Mørke Sjeler, a Norwegian feature film which begins with Johanna’s father receiving a phone call from the police informing him of her death just as she walks in the front door of her house. What’s behind her strange behavior and the continued attacks on others? Accompanied by Irish horror short The Hollow Girl.

See the MIFFF website for details on Saturday night’s feature.

Sunday at noon is the local filmmaker’s showcase featuring Temporal Studios’ tribute to Star Trek, Star Trek: Phoenix, a fan film with serious ambitions to join the official franchise. Taking place 42 years in the future from official Trek film Star Trek: Nemesis, ST:P begins with a major attack on the starship and a rescue team who need to be rescued themselves from the mysterious planet Katrassiii Prime. It’s paired with Matt Vancil’s comedic swords and sorcery spoof Journey Quest.

Three employees in a large bank are trapped in the men’s room with a bank robber in No Escape, which kicks off the Action & Science Fiction shorts program at 2:30 on Sunday. Six other films include Babylon 2084 in which a future Earth has been covered by water and Thy Kill Be Done in which three nuns are out for violent revenge.

At 6 pm there’s another round of Horror shorts: Sam gets to fulfill a lifelong dream when he becomes a vampire’s assistant in The Familiar; two vampire sisters race to save one’s unlife in Dracula’s Daughters vs. the Space Brains. Eight other films round out the program.

The festival closes Sunday night at 8:30 with a short called Flowers for Norma, based on a Stephen King short story and the Northwest premiere of The Presence which stars Oscar winner Mira Sorvino in a supernatural love triangle.

Burn The Floor takes ballroom dancing from the ballroom and moves it into the theater with 20 top caliber dancers showing off their style. The show opens Tuesday at Seattle’s Paramount Theatre on a tour that follows its successful Broadway run. Jason Gilkinson is the show’s choreographer.

How did you get involved in this show?

Jason Gilkinson: Peta, my dance partner and I had just retired from the competitive dance scene after becoming World & British Champions and really felt that we wanted to start working on a project that took the art form of ballroom dancing and deconstruct it.

Harley Medcalf (Producer of Burn the Floor) tracked us down and asked us to be Principal Dancers in the show. This meant coming out of retirement, so at first we were hesitant to commit to this, but we haven’t looked back since.

What specifically made you want to get involved with this project and not another?

JG: This project had exactly the premise that we were trying to create ourselves and we were very impressed with the open minded production team behind it who really saw the beauty, excitement and passion in this timeless art form.

What have been your biggest challenges in putting on the show?

JG: The difference is that ballroom dancing is not usually shown in theatrical form, so it was trial and error to come up with the best way to present it without restricting these dynamic personalities.

What do you find most enjoyable about the show?

JG: What we wanted to achieve was 20 individual personalities all offering something different rather than a chorus of dancers all trying to look exactly the same. In many ways this is why it is my favourite part of the show. To see the energy and spontaneity that these guys create together every night is nothing short of astounding.

What do you hope audiences will get from the show?

JG: I want audiences to really understand what it is like to be be present in those old dance halls of the 30s and 40s to feel the excitement of past eras and see an art form that has really been a social history – come into its time again.

This company really reinvents peoples’ perception of ballroom dance.

Taproot Theatre invites you to “pour yourself a glass of lemonade and get married all over again” with the regional premiere of Wedding Belles, the final production in their 2010 season, their 34th.

A bedraggled bride gets stranded at a bus station in an East Texas town back in 1942 and the ladies of the Eufala Springs Garden Club are determined to help her out. They’ve got the gown, they’ve got the cake, they’ve got the lemonade…but where’s the groom?

Ima Jean is the 18 year old bride-to-be who stumbles into the Garden Club’s meeting needing help finding her missing groom, who is about to be shipped off to war. Glendine, who is on husband “seven or eight”, Violet, who’s a spinster, Laura Lee, a widow, and happily married Bobrita are the four women determined to give Ima Jean a wedding that is nothing short of spectacular. It’s definitely going to be one that’s memorable with these hands doing sharing the work.

Wedding Belles, nominated or the American Theatre Critics Association Best Play Award, was written by Alan Bailey (creator of the Sanders Family series, including Smoke on the Mountain, a previous Taproot production) and writer/actor Ronnie Claire Edwards. Taproot Theatre’s cast features Charissa Adams, Gretchen Douma, Karen Nelson, Kim Morris and Pat Sibley. The production team includes scenic designer Richard Lorig, costume designer Sarah Burch Gordon, lighting designer Monty Taylor and sound designer Mark Lund. Anne L. Hitt serves as stage manager, Nikki Visel as dialect coach and L. Nicol Cabe as dramaturg.

Wedding Belles runs September 22 through October 23 with Wednesday and Thursday performances at 7:30, Friday and Saturday evening performances at 8:00 and the Saturday matinee at 2:00. Opening night with reception is Friday, September 24. Tickets are $20 – $35; $10 for patrons under 25. Taproot offers a $3 discount for students and seniors and will hold a Pay What You Can performance on September 29.

Purchase tickets online or through the Taproot box office at 206.781.9707.

Sonic Boom is having a street fair Sunday, September 12, up on Capitol Hill. The day kicks off at 10 am and features BBQ with Sitka & Spruce’s head honcho Matt Dillon, along with refreshments, snacks and fresh local products by Homegrown Sustainable Sandwiches, Marigold & Mint flowers and produce, The Calf & Kid cheeses, and Rain Shadow Meats. Bar Ferdinand, Still Liquor, and the outdoor beer garden provide adult beverages – proceeds will benefit Seattle Tilth and their Seattle Youth Garden Works Program.

There’s also a fashion show by Velouria Boutique and live music by New Roman Times at 1 pm, Ghost of Kyle Bradford at 3 pm and Head Like a Kite at 5pm.

The fine folks at Couchfest, the festival of short films viewed in people’s houses want to remind all interested filmmakers that the deadline for submissions is rapidly approaching. Entries must be in no later than October 10th. Sure, that might seem like a lot of time but that’s only because your delaying disaster hasn’t happened yet. Don’t miss out on your chance for fame and fortune (relatively speaking) and a trophy and some brownies – get your films in today.

Saturday, September 11 at 7pm be on hand at the NW Film Forum for an evening of performance and video with live music featuring Jacob Ciocci and David Wightman (Extreme Animals, Paper Rad, You Can’t Do That on Television). Jacob and David present a mash-up of live music, video, and staged theatrics as they “choreograph a disjunctive array of live shredding, extreme feedback, YouTube bombardment, ecstatic dance moves and Sunday morning cartoons. Their newest performance delves into the world of ‘tween’ culture, the vampire fad and the current obsession with the infinite hall of mirrors known as ‘forever young.’”

Check out a preview clip and buy tickets online at NWFF.