WEDNESDAY 5/28
Louis: A Silent Movie with Wynton Marsalis
(FILM/MUSIC) Dan Pritzker's 2010 silent film, Louis, pays homage to jazz icon Louis Armstrong and his life as a young boy in the early 20th century. Filmed in rich sepia tones, the film follows a six-year-old Armstrong as he wanders the streets of New Orleans while yearning for a horn he can’t afford on display in a pawn shop window. As you watch the jazz legend’s story unfold on the big screen, master jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis and his 10-piece ensemble will accompany the film with a live score. (Paramount Theatre, 7:30 pm, all ages) AUDREY VANN
THURSDAY 5/29
Author Talk: The London Plane Flower & Cookbook
(FOOD/BOOKS) Seattle collectively mourned when Pioneer Square's lovely, light-filled bakery, restaurant, and grocer the London Plane closed its doors for good at the beginning of 2023. However, its many devotees can now find solace in the fact that the beloved spot's legacy lives on in a new book compiled by Katherine Anderson. Anderson worked with chefs and creatives who were a part of the London Plane to commemorate the shop's "heart and soul, celebrating its community of cooks, bakers, florists, servers, and beloved customers." The book takes readers through a calendar year in the London Plane's life, along with recipes for popular favorites like chicken pot pie, granola, buttermilk biscuit, and bread. At this talk, Katherine will be joined in conversation by London Plane co-owner Yasuaki Saito, the current owner of Saint Bread and Tivoli. (Book Larder, 6:30 pm, all ages) JULIANNE BELL
FRIDAY 5/30
(BOOKS) There are many reasons you might know the name "Alison Bechdel"—she's the legendary cartoonist who wrote the comic Dykes to Watch Out For from 1987 to 2008, and her graphic memoir Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic has graced bookstore endcaps for almost two decades. The multitalented creator "spins together fine-tuned self-critique and sharp comedic reflection" in her autofiction comic novel Spent, which follows a pygmy goat sanctuary owner (conveniently also named Alison Bechdel) who ruminates on all the things you're stressed about, too—climate change, capitalism, and political panic among them. (Town Hall, 7:30 pm, all ages) LINDSAY COSTELLO
SATURDAY 5/31
(FOOD/COMMUNITY) As far as motivation to cycle around the city goes, doughnuts are a pretty good one. Hop on your wheels for a self-guided tour with stops at Mighty-O Donuts' locations in Ballard, Greenlake, Capitol Hill, and Denny Triangle, with mini doughnuts available at each outpost. Your ticket gets you a complimentary doughnut and drip coffee at the location of your choice, as well as a Tour de Donut T-shirt to flaunt your bragging rights. (Multiple Mighty-O locations, 9:30 am, all ages) JULIANNE BELL
SUNDAY 6/1
(BOOKS) Ocean Vuong made major waves in the literary world in 2019 with On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, an epistolary novel reflecting on loss, memory, and family; he's also an award-winning poet whose collection Night Sky With Exit Wounds won the T. S. Eliot Prize in 2017. The MacArthur Genius, American Book Award winner, and one-time fast food server will discuss his new book, The Emperor of Gladness, with Vietnamese American journalist Thanh Tn during this visit to Seattle. My tip: Before the event, listen to Vuong's tear-inducing March 2020 interview with journalist and podcaster Krista Tippett, in which he casually says things like "I want to take off the shoes of my voice, so that I can enter a place with care, so that I can do the work I need to," and “When the apocalypse comes, what will you put into the vessel for the future?” (Town Hall, 7:30 pm, all ages) LINDSAY COSTELLO
MONDAY 6/2
(FILM/MUSIC) Pavement has always been a band of uneven proportions. Forever on the precipice of the big time, the group never appeared to try hard enough, to want to be understood enough, and their creative output—off-kilter indie rock that sounded both revolutionary and unintentional—was always a little too much. They helped define a decade of independent music, but couldn’t seem to move past fringe notoriety. Part earnest experimenters, actively working against the mainstream, and part saints of slackerdom, to whom fans have built deeply ironic reliquaries, Pavement meant something to many, and everything to some. As Jason Schwartzman says to actors playing the band—in Range Life, the mock biopic that makes up one fourth of Alex Ross Perry’s prismatic new music doc, Pavements—“I know you want to give that 100 percent of that 50 percent you think you might be able to give.” (SIFF Cinema Uptown, various showtimes) DOM SINACOLA
TUESDAY 6/3
Desert Hearts
(FILM) Director Donna Deitch’s landmark 1985 film Desert Hearts is widely known for being the first feature film to present a lesbian romance in a positive light. The sapphic cult classic is set in 1959 and follows the story of Vivian Bell (Helen Shaver), a repressed English professor in her 30s, who comes to stay on a ghost ranch in Reno in order to establish residency and expedite a divorce with her husband. She soon becomes enchanted by the free-spirited Cay Rivvers (Patricia Charbonneau), a younger, tomboyish lesbian sculptor in cowboy boots. The two fall in love but struggle to imagine a future together due to Vivian’s hangups about being with a woman (Alexa, play “Good Luck, Babe”). The movie is astonishingly gorgeous, romantic, intimate, and ascends to a heart-fluttering finale. When I first watched it last spring, I was left nearly speechless and prompted to write the four-word Letterboxd review: “I am very gay.” Whether or not you’ve seen it before, don’t miss this rare chance to catch it on the big screen. (Northwest Film Forum, various showtimes) JULIANNE BELL
