The Weekly Wire: This Week's Notable Events

WEDNESDAY 2/25

Music: Past Mastery

Last year I finally "got" Bill Frisell, and I owe it all to History, Mystery. One of two recordings he released in 2008, History, Mystery is soaked in cinematic atmosphere. A two-disc, 30-track behemoth, the first half is haunting, early-20th-century-style jazz from Mysterio Sympatico, a multimedia collaboration he performed with local illustrator Jim Woodring. The second is music he composed to accompany NPR's Stories From the Heart of the Land. As in recent records by ambient metal legends Earth, Frisell uses spare instrumentation to make music that sounds grainy and antique yet clean and skillful. Nearly everything on History, Mystery is played at the tempo of a slo-mo waltz, something you might hear in a movie dream sequence. His playing is rustic and liquid, like listening to a Ry Cooder track played backwards. His concentrated notes seem to lift themselves off his fretboard to dissipate in thin air. What History, Mystery is, essentially, is the best summation of everything Frisell has been doing over the past several years—meditations on the unifying thread of American music genres, all of it somber, intense, and charmingly odd. If Ken Burns ever does a documentary on what Greil Marcus dubbed "the old, weird America," Frisell would be his man for the soundtrack. (With fellow guitarist Russell Malone.) Triple Door, 206 Union St., 838-4333, www.tripledoor.net. $22–$25. 7 and 9:30 p.m. BRIAN J. BARR

Classical: Ear Candy

Playing chamber music outdoors is not a great idea. Playing it outdoors in January is a dreadful idea. Still, it was good to see Itzhak Perlman and three colleagues perform (well, mime to a taped performance, anyway) at the Obama inauguration. A little more visibility for classical music in the broader culture, even if he's already probably the world's most famous violinist, can't hurt. Tonight, with pianist Rohan de Silva, he'll play meat-and-potatoes sonatas by Handel and Beethoven, then Olivier Messiaen's 1932 Thème et variations. It's based on a droopy, heavily perfumed, Baudelaire-stoned-on-absinthe sort of melody; over some 11 minutes, the variations get prickly in the middle, then ecstatic, then dreamy at the end. (Perhaps Baudelaire had a vision and fell asleep?) It'll be an interesting piece to hear from someone renowned for his ingratiating sweetness of style and tone. And after that: "Additional works will be announced from the stage," reads the program, which means a handful of dessert-y pieces. No problem, when they're played by the violin world's supreme confectioner. Benaroya Hall, Third Ave. and Union St., 215-4747, www.seattlesymphony.com. $45–$174. 7:30 p.m. GAVIN BORCHERT

THURSDAY 2/26

Books: Out of Quarantine

A regular contributor to The New Yorker (among other publications), Abraham Verghese is one of those rare doctors who can write, in the process redeeming our faith not only in medicine but in humanity. He burst onto the literary scene a decade ago with My Own Country, which recounted his experience as a young Indian African doctor who found his way to a rural Tennessee town during the onset of the AIDS crisis. His elegant and moving portrait of the families he met there, struggling to cope with a disease that presented both moral and medical challenges, revealed the man behind the doctor. Now he's back with his first novel, Cutting for Stone (Knopf, $26.95). The book travels deeper into personal terrain. It takes place in part in his native Ethiopia, following a medical family who lives there during the violent political turmoil that forced Verghese to leave the country. As the story moves to America, it mixes medicine, immigration, and love in ways that are bound to be more authentic than anything you'll ever see on ER. Elliott Bay Book Co., 101 S. Main St., 624-6600, www.elliottbaybook.com. Free. 7:30 p.m. NINA SHAPIRO

FRIDAY 2/27

Dance: Separate Steps

Amy O'Neal and Daniel Cruz come from different parts of the dance world. O'Neal's avant-garde credentials underlie her work at experimental venues like On the Boards, while Cruz's hip-hop style is based in the heart of popular culture. Tonight, they'll share a stage for two separate performances. O'Neal, who runs the Locust ensemble with longtime musical collaborator Zeke Keeble, will premiere Crushed, a high-energy essay on cause and effect and the distraction of being caught off guard. Cruz, with his group Cruz Control, is bringing Dance of the Dead to the mix, which explores spiritual uncertainty and the human response to death. Both artists are stepping beyond their original turf and finding some common ground. Moore Theatre, 1932 Second Ave., 467-5510, www.themoore.com. $18–$20. 7:30 p.m. SANDRA KURTZ

Books: Foreign Correspondent

We've all been there. You and some guy you're super-into go on a double date with your crazy friend and some dude she met on the Internet. Predictably, her e-date wears too much cologne; his shirt is too unbuttoned; and is that foundation on his face? So you three ditch him the instant he goes to the bathroom. It could be just another zany night in Belltown, only it happens in Honeymoon in Tehran: Two Years of Love and Danger in Iran (Random House, $26), the follow-up memoir to Azadeh Moaveni's Lipstick Jihad. In 2005, Moaveni returns to the land of her heritage (though not of her birth) as a reporter for Time. The guy she meets is named Arash. No spoilers as to how it turns out, though you can probably guess from the title. As for the danger promised by the subtitle, Islamic hard-liners led by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have just won the election when Moaveni arrives, and the economy is falling apart. Soon the authorities are taking down satellite dishes and stopping women in the streets for immodest dress. All the while, journalist Moaveni must check in regularly with the mysterious and possibly sympathetic government agent "Mr. X," who finally tells her she's being investigated on charges of undermining the regime. Sometimes, even when you want to, you just can't go home again. Elliott Bay Book Co., 101 S. Main St., 624-6600, www.elliottbaybook.com. Free. 7:30 p.m. (Also: Third Place Books, Sat., 6:30 p.m.) LAURA ONSTOT