Arts & Events

With the holiday season in full swing, I wanted to bestow upon you, dear readers, the gift that keeps on giving. With a nod to High Fidelity, I thought that a “Top Five” list would be the perfect choice. However, I was left with the question: top five what? I thought about making a list like “Best Songs to Listen to when Wrapping Gifts” or “Top Five Holiday Jams that Make us Miss ‘The OC’.” But then it dawned on me that as much as you would all like to...

On Oct. 14, Pedro Almodóvar’s latest film La piel que habito was released in U.S. theaters with the translated title The Skin I Live in. The film showed at The Grand Cinema throughout late November, after a limited release and slow distribution. Almodóvar, an internationally acclaimed Spanish filmmaker, is known for his work on such films as Hable con ella (Talk to Her), La mala educación (Bad Education), and Volver (Return). With La piel que habito, he continues to explore themes for which he has garnered a reputation: gender, sexuality,...

Welcome, babes of toyland! This week we’ve worked together to bring you Sex Toyz 101: Happy Trail style. Dildos, vibrators, cock rings and, of course, the ubiquitous and ever-useful lube. Learn some lessons and remember the rules—always play naughty, and don’t always share. This ain’t your happy meal toy, sexy thing. These toys are going places (and in places, and up places, and over places…). (And remember, if you want a sex toy but don’t want to go to a sex shop, try Babeland.com. They ship in nondescript boxes so...

Activision juggernaut Call of Duty has made entertainment history once more with the release of Modern Warfare 3, which sold 6.5 million copies in its first day of release, The Guardian reported. In 24 hours CoD:MW3 made $400 million in the U.S. and UK alone, shaming opening day sales for Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows: Part 2, the July release that set the highest-grossing opening day for the film industry at $91 million. “Other than Call of Duty, there has never been another entertainment franchise that has set opening...

On Wednesday Nov. 9, acclaimed Chinese curator Dr. Gao Shiming delivered a lecture to Puget Sound students, teachers and friends regarding his observations and projects within the modern art community. The lecture, entitled “From Farewell to Rehearsal: Critical Thinking from a Chinese Curator of Contemporary Art,” was co-sponsored by the Puget Sound Art Department and Asian Studies Program. Shiming, hailing from the Chinese Academy of Art, launched the lecture with a short film of his own creation, which reflected on the current state of what he described as a “nightmarish”...

Categorizing the sound on Phantogram’s latest EP, Nightlife, was a blast and a half. In the form of a quick six-track album, duo Sarah Barthel and Josh Carter dance around genres like nobody’s business. So readers, in order to provide a sense of stability, I’ve created a metaphor that will hopefully express the general musical arrangement of this album. Let’s say that The National marries TV On the Radio and they create a musical baby who enjoys raving to triphop and unwinding with dream pop, but is technically called street...

Sci-Fi and fantasy powerhouse Neil Gaiman and musician Amanda Palmer spent the last night of their Kickstarter tour, An Evening With Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer, on the stage of the Moore Theatre in Seattle last Wednesday, Nov. 9. The tour started on Halloween night and went to five west coast locations—Los Angeles; San Francisco; Vancouver, BC; Portland and Seattle. Their show, a unique combination of music, poetry and spoken word, proved to be as much of a hodge-podge of art forms as Gaiman and Palmer—married since 2009—themselves. Gaiman premiered...