WEDNESDAY 5/12
Tracy Marander
Not at SAM: an undated image from the Weekly archives.
Meike Lindek
The Hobbit gets the German-puppetry treatment.
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Books: Bare-All Tell-All
At 18, Jillian Lauren dropped out of NYU and entered the world of high-class prostitution. Her memoir Some Girls: My Life in a Harem (Plume, $15) details the year-plus she spent in a prince's palace in Brunei, navigating a haze of sex, parties, and expensive gifts. Admittedly, the good-girl-gone-bad-and-back memoir has been published countless times before. But Lauren steers clear of phony sentiment and redemption. She doesn't demonize or glamorize sex work. Instead, she writes like a journalist, making candid and often wry observations. ("Hookers in bare feet and evening gowns playing badminton is a sight to see.") Lauren, who has contributed to Vanity Fair, exudes that same frankness off the page as well. "To tell this story was frightening," she said by phone from Los Angeles, where she's now a married suburbanite. "It feels like my skirt is pulled up over my head; I don't have any secrets anymore." The hardest part about airing her controversial past? "Telling my neighbors! I throw block parties that their children attend! I wanted them to hear it from me before they read it in the book." Ravenna Third Place Books, 6504 20th Ave. N.E., 525-2347, ravennathirdplace.com. Free. 7 p.m. ERIKA HOBART
Festivals: Fun While It Lasts
With the looming demise of the Fun Forest, parents should take advantage of kid-friendly Seattle Center while it lasts. For the 24th year in a row, Giant Magnet, formerly the Seattle International Children's Festival, offers diverse international entertainment for the wee ones. Among a dozen-odd acts, most of which specialize in music and dance, German puppet masters Figurentheater Wilde & Vogel stand out. The duo take puppeteering to a new and somewhat dark level in staging J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit (today in German at 11:30 a.m.; other performances are in English). The production includes magic tricks, actors, music, and of course puppetry. Between performances on several Seattle Center stages, families can also enjoy free craft lessons, like kite making, and interactive activities, including hula-hooping with stuntman Dizzy Hips. (Through Sat.) Seattle Center, 684-7338, giantmagnet.org. $10–$15. 10 a.m.–2 p.m. PARISA SADRZADEH
THURSDAY 5/13
Music: Grunge Epitaph
Hole is back together (well, some part of it, assembled again by Courtney Love, or whatever she's calling herself these days). Krist Novoselic is a must-read blogger for this paper. A Nirvana box set may follow. And now SAM is joining the '90s revival with "Kurt" which celebrates the short life and incendiary musical career of Kurt Cobain, a suicide 16 years ago at age 27. The exhibit—to include photos, videos, and even paintings—opens today as a dark companion to SAM's big Andy Warhol show (see below). Pop Art and grunge belong to two different eras, one celebrating surfaces and the other authenticity. But Cobain, who famously posed on the cover of Rolling Stone wearing his "Corporate Magazines Still Suck" T-shirt, carefully cultivated his iconoclastic image. The 1991 breakthrough of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and Nevermind was aided in no small part by the MTV video, a great album cover, and the marketing might of a major record label. There was huge money to be made from selling indie rock to the anti-corporate masses, and Cobain occupied the uncomfortable—and perhaps untenable—position of mocking that whole apparatus from the inside. (Heavier Than Heaven biographer Charlie Cross delivers a lecture on Cobain tomorrow at 7 p.m.; the exhibit runs through Sept. 6.) Seattle Art Museum, 1300 First Ave., 654-3121, seattleartmuseum.org. $9–$15. 10 a.m.–9 p.m. BRIAN MILLER
Fashion: Gaga for Glamour
When Isaiah Whitmore won the Student Designer Competition in April, he was the audience's clear favorite. Whitmore, an Art Institute of Seattle student, wowed the crowd with his monochromatic skinny pants, ruffled white halter tops, black lace details, and headscarves for men and women. But at tonight's Emerging & Independent Designers Runway Show, part of the ongoing Seattle Fashion Week (through Sat.), he'll have to share the spotlight with eight other newcomers. Among them, we also like Rana Ghezelayagh's silk trench-coat dresses and Andrea Voss' contemporary, eco-friendly jackets and dresses. But perhaps the most anticipated collection of the evening comes from Laotian immigrant Banchong Douangphrachanh. She recently designed a studded, sharp-shouldered cutoff top that was purchased and worn by the biggest music star in the world, Lady Gaga, in her "Poker Face" video. WaMu Theater, 800 Occidental Ave. S., 381-7555, seattlefashionweek.net. $35–$200. 8 p.m. ERIN K. THOMPSON
Visual Arts: 15 Minutes and Counting
"I'd like to be a machine" goes the quote often attributed to Andy Warhol (1928–1987), who scoffed at the notion of an artist's unique signature. He ran a studio to produce images (and movies) that frankly borrowed their imagery from other mass-produced sources (e.g., soup cans, Brillo boxes, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis). And the great thing about a machine is that it can go on producing forever. All you need to keep it running are oil, money, and culture consumers. So indeed, SAM's new monster show "love fear pleasure lust pain glamour death—Andy Warhol Media Works" proves that Warhol has, two decades after his death, cheated death. The Polaroids, prints, screen tests, and other art products on view here attest to the enduring value of his brand. Warhol got his start, after all, as a commercial artist in the '40s and '50s who created ads for department stores and clothiers long shuttered and forgotten. He's outlasted them all, with an inventory reaching forward into our new millennium. How many Fortune 500 companies can say the same? (A companion film series begins next Friday with Chelsea Girls; the exhibit runs through Sept. 6.) Seattle Art Museum, 1300 First Ave., 654-3121, seattleartmuseum.org. $9–$15. 10 a.m.–9 p.m. BRIAN MILLER
