The Weekly Wire: This Week's Notable Events

THURSDAY 4/2

Books/True Crime: Drift Wisdom

Here's the guy to find your severed feet. As featured in our recent cover story ("Where the Feet Have No Name," Dec. 9), retired former UW oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeyer is the go-to man for tracking body parts and other flotsam. And now, with former SW stalwart Eric Scigliano, he's written a guide to drifting debris, Flotsametrics and the Floating World (Collins, $26.99). In addition to the mysterious floating feet found off Vancouver Island, Ebbesmeyer is immersed in the sea, specializing in its movements. He tracks surface currents and such watery curiosities as floating garbage patches and container spills to determine flow patterns. His unique research has helped such institutions as oil companies and the City of Seattle's sewage-treatment division chart the fateful drift of their products. He's an environmentalist who says of the ocean's floating clumps of plastic, "The patches are twice the size of Texas. We dump this garbage, and it ends up in the sea. Basically, we're poisoning ourselves." But go ahead and ask him about the feet. Town Hall, 1119 Eighth Ave., 652-4255, www.townhallseattle.org. $5. 7:30 p.m. RICK ANDERSON

Dance: Final Steps

In the best of worlds, Australian choreographer Tanja Liedtke would be onstage with her colleagues for the Seattle premiere of construct, her multiple-exposure view of building "a home, a relationship, a life." But in the world we inhabit, Liedtke has now been dead two years, killed in a Sydney traffic accident at the age of 29. She left behind a small, intriguing body of work. In her choreography, construct included, you can see traces of her dance experience with the theatrically dynamic group DV8 and the big physicality of the Australian Dance Theatre. Tonight's performance (through Saturday) features three dancers in a love triangle, with DJ TR!P supplying the sound and music. On the Boards, 100 W. Roy St., 217-9888, www.ontheboards.org. $24. 8 p.m. SANDRA KURTZ

Classical: Brass Menagerie

One of the warmest ovations I've ever heard for a piece of new music in Benaroya Hall greeted Samuel Jones' 2006 Tuba Concerto, a sweeping, colorful showcase for a neglected, unfairly stereotyped instrument. (A CD of the work, with soloist Chris Olka, has just been released by Naxos.) A horn concerto for John Cerminaro followed last season, and third in the series, to be premiered this weekend by the Seattle Symphony, is Jones' Trombone Concerto. Commissioned by Charles and Benita Staadecker and subtitled Vita accademica, the work evokes Charles' years at Cornell with musical allusions to a college alma mater and marching-band football weekends, and fully exploits the mastery of SSO principal trombonist Ko-ichiro Yamamoto. Jones says, "He has this magnificent, heraldic sound... then in addition, he has the most incredible, beautiful legato trombone tone I've ever heard. I wanted to particularly capitalize on that in the slow movement; he's accompanied entirely by muted strings, and he sounds like one of them! On top of that, he has technique to burn." Brahms' Violin Concerto, with soloist Vadim Repin, and David Diamond's whizbang Rounds for strings fill out the program (through Sunday); Gerard Schwarz conducts. Benaroya Hall, Third Ave. and Union St., 215-4747, www.seattlesymphony.org. $17–$102. 7:30 p.m. GAVIN BORCHERT

FRIDAY 4/3

Music: Don't Fence Them In

Has "freedom" ever fallen out of fashion in America? Short answer: No. But during the past height of Bushmania, there's no question it came dangerously close. That's what makes this pairing of Merle Haggard and Kris Kristofferson so potent. Having served time for armed robbery in San Quentin during the late '50s, Haggard learned to appreciate freedom—meaning its absence—from an early age. Prison is bound to change your perspective, as it surely did Haggard's music. He's a no-bullshit artist whose songbook is quintessentially American: sometimes liberal, sometimes conservative, always confusing. Kristofferson, on the other hand, has never been in prison (instead, he was a Rhodes Scholar). But he's spent his entire musical career exploring what it means to be free in America. His 1969 debut gave us one of the finer lyrics on the matter ("Freedom ain't worth nothin', but it's free," from "Me and Bobby McGee"), and his latest album, This Old Road, maintains that blunt, clear-headed outlook. Most would agree that both men are living legends, but only Haggard is considered a giant of American music. This tour should prove that Kristofferson is at least on his way to being one too. The Paramount, 911 Pine St., 467-5510, www.theparamount.com. $45–$65. 8 p.m. BRIAN J. BARR

Books: Give Her Shelter

What is it about Portland? For the first half of Peter Rock's fifth novel, My Abandonment (Houghton Mifflin, $22), I felt like I was reading a prologue to Kelly Reichardt's acclaimed film Wendy and Lucy. That 2008 movie, like Rock's new book, is set among the homeless down-and-outs you might find sleeping in their cars or in a city park. They're both tales from the New Recession, whose heroines lack proper ID or a fixed address. Both shun the law, but for different reasons. But while Michelle Williams played an older, somewhat savvier woman on screen, My Abandonment—already optioned as a movie—is narrated mostly by a girl of 13. Rock bases her account partly on a real family, father and daughter, discovered five years ago in Portland's Forest Park. (Later in the book, there are traces of other news headlines.) Bookish and curious, Caroline at first appears to be living in a kind of natural idyll—like a wood sprite who wanders barefoot, climbs trees, and grows her own vegetables. She only ventures into downtown Portland with care and deception, disguising herself and her identity, at the behest of her strict guardian. Yet as the novel loops back in time, this seemingly resourceful girl is shown to be just as vulnerable as Wendy. Elliott Bay Book Co., 101 S. Main St., 624-6600, www.elliottbaybook.com. Free. 7:30 p.m. BRIAN MILLER