Geek About Town: February
Welcome to February, my fellow geeks! Cliché or not, this month is all about celebrating love in all its forms, whether it be for friends, family, partners, pets, books, movies, games, songs, foods, or, you know, even particularly great gifs.
Here’s looking at you, every image of Gina Rodriguez ever (Image Description: The actress Gina Rodriguez as the character Jane Villanueva from the television show “Jane the Virgin,” looking happy. Source: Giphy)
So, whoever or whatever you find yourself loving this month, consider checking out some of the amazing events coming up, and celebrate your interests, enthusiasms, and passions to their fullest!
Thursday, February 1st: Night Lab: DIY Valentines
- 6:00 – 10:00pm
- The Lab at Ada’s
425 15th Ave E, Seattle, Washington 98112 - Just in time for Valentine’s Day, Ada’s is opening The Lab and bringing in our resident craftaholic, Jen Powers, to help you personalize a paper present for your sweetie (or sweetie-to-be) while enjoying a delicious cocktail.
This Night Lab will feature geeky Valentines making, where you can create cards that say amazing things like, “Yoda One for Me!”, “You Auto-Complete Me,” “I’ve Got My Ion You,” or any other amazing puns you can think of. We’ll supply everything you need – you bring the heartfelt joy. Free. 21+ with ID.
Thursday, February 1st: The Seattle Female Founders Alliance presents Champion Awards
- 6:30 – 10:30pm
- Pacific Science Center
200 2nd Avenue North
Seattle, WA 98109 - We are the Female Founders Alliance, a private network of startup founders born here in Seattle and now expanding nationally. Our mission is to accelerate female founders success, correcting the dramatic gender gap in our industry. In 2016, only 2% of all venture capital was invested in women. We can do better. In a year that has seen huge leaps forward in exposing companies, people and behaviors that affect women negatively, we believe it’s more important than ever to recognize the companies, people and behaviors that affect women positively. We want to shine the spotlight on our allies; to celebrate those who have done right by us; to say thanks where thanks are due. So please join us as we celebrate the champions of the Seattle startup community. It will be a fun and memorable evening, featuring winner announcements from the stage, food and beverages from local women-owned companies, plenty of time for celebrating, and more surprises. It promises to be the biggest gathering of female founders and CEOs Seattle has seen in a long time… if ever. Because individually we are drops of water, but together we are a thunderstorm.
Thursday, February 1st: Bechdel Test presented by Jet City Improv
- Also Friday, February 2nd and Thursday, February 8th
- 8:00pm
- Jet City Improv
5510 University Way NE, Seattle, Washington 98105 - Biting social commentary. Awesome empowering comedy. Bechdel Test is a sharp satirical critique inspired by the Bechdel-Wallace test, which examines gender equality in movies. In order to pass the test, a movie simply needs to feature two named female characters talking to each other about something other than a man. This all-female improvised comedy show invites you to live in a world unlike our own where all movies pass the test. You name a movie. Then we make it pass.
Jet City Improv is partnering with Reel Grrls, a local non-profit organization that empowers young women and gender non-conforming youth from diverse communities to realize their power, talent and influence through media production. Their mission is to support young people to explore, critique and author media through a feminist lens.
We’re collecting old iPads, iPhones, iPads and Macbooks for Reel Grrls, because someone stole their devices. Simply show your donation of a used Apple device to the volunteers in our concessions stand, and enjoy a gift certificate for 2 free tickets to a future show at Jet City Improv as our way of saying thanks. Limit one gift certificate per person per show, but please don’t let that stop you from bringing multiple devices to donate! Reelgrrls.org. Tickets are $12 online to Thursday shows and $17 online to Friday shows. Last minute tickets are $18 at the door (cash or card). Discounts are available for military, seniors (55+), students, Amazon employees and TPS members with ID. Online sales close at 6 pm on the day of the show.
(Image Description: an infographic explaining the Bechdel Test. Source: Giphy)
Friday, February 2nd: Crosscut Festival
- Also Saturday, February 3rd
- 7:00pm (Feb. 2nd), 5:30pm (Feb. 3rd)
- Seattle University
901 12th Avenue
Seattle, WA 98122 - Join us for the first annual Crosscut Festival! You know the issues…but what about the solutions? This February, Crosscut presents the Crosscut Festival: two days of unforgettable conversations featuring the boldest names in politics, business and social justice from across the region and around the nation. 1500 attendees. More than 50 speakers on four stages. One unforgettable event. Spend your weekend with Crosscut and enjoy thought provoking conversation on the most important issues of our time. Mingle with local and national journalists and newsmakers, enjoy food trucks, an after-party and much more!
Saturday, February 3rd: Seattle Video Game Orchestra!
- 7:00 – 8:00pm
- Friday Afternoon
4228 Stone Way N, Seattle, Washington 98103 - Local nonprofit group, Seattle Video Game Orchestra and Choir, will be sharing a string quartet with us for a lively hour of nerd music and tea! All-ages, no cover charge, suggested donation of $15.
Wednesday, February 7th: Nerd Night: Harry Potter
- 7:00 – 9:30pm
- Uncorked Canvas Seattle
2600 SW Barton St., Suite A-8, Seattle, Washington 98126 - Uncork your creativity – no experience necessary! We will guide you through every step of the painting while celebrating a Harry Potter theme.
(Image Description: Dawn French as the Fat Lady painting from the Harry Potter movies. Source: Giphy)
Thursday, February 8th – Saturday, February 10th: Gay City Arts presents: Cupid Ain’t @#%!
- 517 E Pike Street
Seattle, 98122 United States - Cupid Ain’t @#$%!: An Anti-Valentine’s Day Poetry Movement has been entertaining fans for 9 seasons and is coming up on season 10! An international tour started in Philly, it has since reached NYC, DC, London, Oakland, Detroit and Seattle among a host of other cities. Founded by J Mase III and co-curated by the infamous Regie Cabico, it features the bitterest of TQPOC poets talking about failed relationships, love, sex and Cupid that devil himself. Cupid Ain’t @#$% uses humor and a quick witted political edge to create an alternative to Valentine’s day that is funny, sad and just a wee bit arousing. Intentionally multi-racial, intergenerational and laugh out loud raucous, it’s a night everyone can get into.
Thursday, February 8th: Terese Marie Mailhot: Heart Berries
- 7:00 – 9:00pm
- Elliott Bay Book Company
1521 10th Ave, Seattle, Washington 98122 - Presently a postdoctoral fellow at Purdue University in Indiana, Terese Marie Mailhot has written a haunting, beautiful memoir in essays, Heart Berries (Counterpoint Press), limning her coming up north of here in the Seabird Island Indian Reservation. It is a coming of age of great travail – and resilience of equally great measure.
Friday, February 9th: GeekGirlCon Board Game Night at Wayward Coffeehouse!
- 7pm – 10:45pm
- Wayward Coffeehouse
- 6417 Roosevelt Way NE, Seattle, WA 98115
- Do you love board games and enjoy teaching others how to play? Explore the board/card game hobby and meet folks happy to teach you their favorite board games! Come and play with folks who love playing games. And the best part about the GeekGirlCon (http://www.geekgirlcon.com/) game nights with our friends at Wayward (http://www.waywardcoffee.com/)? They are absolutely FREE with no cover charge!
Saturday, February 10th: Tet In Seattle
- Also Sunday, February 11th
- 11:00am
- Seattle Center
305 Harrison St, Seattle, Washington 98109 - Seattle Center Festál presents Tết in Seattle – a Vietnamese Lunar New Year Celebration, February 10-11th. Come join Seattle’s largest Tet celebration! Hosted every year for free at the Seattle Center in Downtown Seattle. We would love for everyone in the community to come join us as we continue our ongoing tradition of preserving and celebrating the Vietnamese Culture. There will tons of food including food truck vendors, live-performances, hands-on activities, and family-oriented events for all to enjoy. We will also be holding a healthcare which will offer free screenings and other services. Tet is a little more than a month away and we hope to see you all there.
Wednesday, February 14th: Laser Loves Me – Laser Loves Me Not
- 8:00pm and 9:15pm
- Laser Dome at Pacific Science Center
200 2nd Ave N, Seattle, Washington 98109 - For Valentine’s Day, we’ll be performing two different shows, one you’ll want to snuggle with your honey with and the other that will help you re-affirm your hate for the holiday!
Laser Loves Me – 8 p.m.
Love is in the air and our laser artists have put together a heart throbbing playlist for this special day. You’ll be sure to swoon and hold your loved one close during this spectacular laser light show about love! Come with your sweetheart and get two tickets for the price of one.
Laser Loves Me Not – 9:15 p.m.
Love sucks! Thankfully you and your friends have each other’s back. Spend your anti-Valentine’s Day in awesome laser imagery as our laser artists performs a show with music for the strong-willed and independent. You can forget those two-for-one specials around town, your ticket is half-off on us!
Wednesday, February 14th: Cards Against Cupid – An Anti-Valentine Game Night
- 8:00 – 11:00pm
- Capitol Cider
818 E Pike St, Seattle, Washington 98122 - Tired of all the commercialism attached to Valentine’s Day? Tired of swiping left? Too many unsuccessful blind dates set up by your mom? Forget the chocolates, forget the flowers and come try something different! Get to know the crazy side of people by playing a hosted version of Cards Against Humanity this Valentine’s Day at Capitol Cider! In addition to the main event, the evening will include game tables set up throughout the bar to play your favorite board/card games, some hysterical performances by Game Mistress Tipsy Rose Lee and fun way to send messages to other guests that catch your eye. You can send them publicly or privately, and send them anonymously or sign them to break the ice. It’s a great way to meet other fun singles, and who knows, you might even leave with a number or two! Already found that special someone? No problem. Enjoy a romantic dinner upstairs, and then come downstairs to join in on the fun! It’s sure to be a night of laughs, delicious food and drink specials and fabulous prizes. Admission is free so don’t miss out on this unique twist on Valentine’s Day!
(Image Description: Carrie Brownstein shaking her fist with the words “I need things to be weird and freaky” printed across the screen. Source: Giphy)
Thursday, February 15th: Seattle’s Best Damn Happy Hour: Laser Tag Edition
- 5:00 – 8:00pm
- Seattle Center
305 Harrison St, Seattle, Washington 98109 - We’re bringing something new to Best Damn Happy Hour: Laser Tag! That’s right. . . in February, we’ll turn the Armory food court into one giant Laser Tag playing field. Sign up for a game or two, and tag your friends while you enjoy affordable food and beverage options from Armory eateries, and dance to great DJ music by Mike illvester. It’s going to be a crazy fun night. Join us!
Thursday, February 15th: Jennifer Brown: Inclusion
- 11:30am – 12:30pm
- Ada’s Technical Books & Cafe
425 15th Ave E, Seattle, Washington 98112 - Inclusion: Diversity, the New Workplace & the Will to Change stands up and embraces what true diversity and inclusion represent to any organization in any industry-an opportunity. Open your heart and prepare to be inspired as award-winning entrepreneur, dynamic speaker, and respected diversity and inclusion expert Jennifer Brown shares proven strategies to empower members of your entire organization to utilize all of their talents and potential to drive positive organizational change and the future of work.
Saturday, February 17th: Black Panther and Representation in the Marvel Universe
- 1:00 – 3:30pm
- Barnes & Noble Southcenter Mall
300 Andover Park W, Ste 200, Tukwila 98188 - Join us at Barnes & Noble as we celebrate the upcoming movie from Marvel Studios, Black Panther.
1pm – Storytime
1-3:30pm – Crafts and activities
2pm – Panel Discussion led by GeekGirlCon
Cosplay is highly encouraged! Support GeekGirlCon by purchasing instore on Saturday 2/17, or Participate online at www.BN.com/bookfairs with Book Fair Event ID: 12327490 from 2/17 – 2/23. All proceeds will support GeekGirlCon ’18 and our community outreach programs.
Saturday, February 17th: Night Lab: Sci Fi Trivia
- 6:00 – 11:00pm
- The Lab at Ada’s
425 15th Ave E, Seattle, Washington 98112 - Come test your mastery of metaphor, sci fi and scattegories during our first ever Trivia Night Lab! Trivia whizzes Alex and Veronica have put together a series of questions that are sure to perplex, grab a friend or come and join a team to try your hand (and mind) at winning the game! Winning team will receive total bragging rights and a complementary beer or wine at the end of the session. Rules are below, doors open at 6pm, Trivia starts at 7pm, all are welcome. 21+ w/ID. 1.5 hours of trivia (broken into two parts) with 30 min break in the middle
Saturday, February 17th: Elizabeth Tasker: The Planet Factory
- 4 dates – January 11th, 12th, 20th, 21st
- 7:00 – 10:00pm
- Ada’s Technical Books & Cafe
425 15th Ave E, Seattle, Washington 98112 - We thought the planets of our Solar System were weird worlds, until we began to see the lands harboured by our neighbouring stars. Huge Jupiters snuggle so close to their star that years last days. Planets are resurrected around stars that have long been dead. Other worlds begin their nights with dual sunsets like Star Wars Tatooine or drown in global oceans or seas of tar. “The Planet Factory” is the story of how these worlds were formed, how our own Earth came to be and whether there could be another planet out there that could host life.
(Image Description: Lilly Singh doing a celebratory dance with the word “planets” written on the screen. Source: Giphy)
Tuesday, February 20th: Path of Persistence: A Gender Trailblazer and Platelet Pioneer
- 7:00pm
- Pacific Science Center at the Seattle Center
200 Second Ave N, Seattle, WA 98109 - From M.D. to physician-scientist, Dr. Sherrill Slichter has always been motivated by one constant goal: to make things better for the patient. Over the last 50 years, her revolutionary work in platelets – the clotting cells in blood – has touched countless lives, including the 20,000 patients each year who receive a bone marrow transplant to treat leukemia, lymphoma and other diseases. Join us for a conversation with Sherrill as she shares stories of her pioneering adventures as a woman physician-scientist with her trademark keen intellect, insight, small town humility and humor. Stereotypes, assumptions and conventional thinking will all fall by the wayside as you hear what she learned from people she met, what she learned about herself, and what she discovered about the amazing role of blood in the human body.
Wednesday, February 21st: Sang-Hee Lee: Investigating Our Evolving Species
- 7:30pm
- Greenwood Senior Center
525 N 85th St
Seattle, WA 98103 - What do we truly have in common with the Neanderthals? What can fossilized teeth tell us about the life expectancy of our ancient ancestors? How can simple geometric comparisons of fossils suggest a possible origin to our social nature? Korea’s first paleoanthropologist Sang-Hee Lee explores some of our greatest evolutionary questions from new and unexpected angles. She joins us with excerpts from her book Close Encounters with Humankind, and shares fresh perspectives and surprising conclusions about our first hominin ancestors by combining anthropological insight with exciting, cutting-edge research. Lee shares how our big brains may have set our species apart and spurred our societal development—though perhaps not in the ways we have often assumed—and suggests that our infamous Neanderthal ancestors may not have been the primitive beings portrayed by twentieth-century science. She reveals our species’ history of continuous change, from our first steps on two feet to our first forays into toolmaking and our formations of community. Join Lee for an illuminating discussion on the evolutionary path to the present, and tackle one of our most pressing scientific questions—does humanity continue to evolve?
Wednesday, February 21st: Moviecat: Movie Trivia Night
- 7:00pm
- Central Cinema
- The best movie trivia night in the city! Join us for this interactive movie trivia night, featuring audio clips, cleverly edited movie clips and of course cats drawn into movie scenes! Trivia Night Advance: $6.00. Trivia Night Day-of-Show: $8.00.
Friday, February 23rd: GeekGirlCon Board Game Night at Wayward Coffeehouse!
- 7pm – 10:45pm
- Wayward Coffeehouse
- 6417 Roosevelt Way NE, Seattle, WA 98115
- Do you love board games and enjoy teaching others how to play? Explore the board/card game hobby and meet folks happy to teach you their favorite board games! Come and play with folks who love playing games. And the best part about the GeekGirlCon (http://www.geekgirlcon.com/) game nights with our friends at Wayward (http://www.waywardcoffee.com/)? They are absolutely FREE with no cover charge!
Saturday, February 24th: Board Games and Booze
- 6:00 – 11:00pm
- The Lab at Ada’s
425 15th Ave E, Seattle, Washington 98112 - Are you a dungeon master? A Settler of Catan? If so, you’ll be happy to hear that Board Games and Booze is back for round 5! Join us at The Lab to play games, show your strategic prowess, make friends, and drink booze. Featuring a wide variety of board games, and a series of D&D Adventures! Be sure to arrive early to sign up for the D&D adventures. The adventures will begin at 6:15pm and 8:30pm, each will last ~2 hours. No experience or supplies are needed, each adventure is limited to 6 players. Great news! Since the last Board Games and Booze event was such a success, we are extending our Cafe hours for one night only! Come play with us ‘til 11pm! Free. 21+ with ID.
Saturday, February 24th: Coven! Presented by Jet City Improv
- 10:00am
- Jet City Improv
5510 University Way NE, Seattle, Washington 98105 - Coven is a monthly improv jam open to women of all experience levels. Join us for an afternoon filled with fun, friends and a whole lot of laughter!
In this jam, you will:
Show up by yourself or with friends.
Play fun warm-up games.
Perform open scenes.
Get individualized coaching and notes.
Leave with more friends.
Each month will feature coaching from Mandy Price and/or Natasha Ransom. $20 to sign up.
(Image Description: A gif from the TV show “American Horror Story: Coven,” in which Angela Bassett directly faces the camera and the words “She done messed with the wrong witch” appear below. Source: Giphy)
Tuesday, February 27th: Write On! Eloquent Rage by Brittney Cooper
- 7:00 – 9:00pm
- Northwest African American Museum
2300 S Massachusetts St, Seattle, Washington 98144 - In the tradition of bell hooks, Roxane Gay and Audre Lorde, America’s leading young black feminist celebrates dissent—both personal and public.
So what if it’s true that Black women are mad as hell? They have the right to be. In ELOQUENT RAGE: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower (St. Martin’s Press; On Sale: February 20,2018), Brittney Cooper reminds us that anger is a powerful source of energy that can give us the strength to keep on fighting.
Far too often, Black women’s anger has been caricatured into an ugly and destructive force that threatens the civility and social fabric of American democracy. But Cooper shows us that there is more to the story than that. Black women’s eloquent rage is what makes Serena Williams such a powerful tennis player. It’s what makes Beyoncé’s girl power anthems resonate so hard. It’s what makes Michelle Obama an icon. Eloquent rage keeps us all honest and accountable. It reminds women that they don’t have to settle for less.
ELOQUENT RAGE is about the power of rage to be a clarifying and essential political resource in a shifting political landscape. This anger points us to the ugliest, but perhaps the most powerful and transformative truths about American democracy, and about what it will take to make this place more just for all. Ultimately, feminism, friendship, and faith in one’s own superpowers are all we really need to turn things right side up again.
Wednesday, February 28th: Qomix: Queer Comicon Party
- 9:00pm – 2:00am
- Re-bar Seattle
1114 Howell St, Seattle, Washington 98101 - Emerald City Comic Con presents QOMIX: Queer Comicon Party brought to you by Jetspace Magazine and Geeks OUT!. 21+ / $10. Dust off your best Super Suit and fly on over to our Fortress of Fabulous for QOMIX: Queer Comicon Party, presented by Emerald City Comic Conand brought to you by epic event organizers Jetspace Magazine (Pink Party Prime) and Geeks OUT (FLAME CON). Join your fellow queer geeks, along with your host, legendary cosplayer Abie Ekenezar/Babs Cosplay, and hard-hitting DJs Nome Goldie (Darqness Seattle) and Howin 1000 (Darqness Seattle) for drinks, dancing, and the amazing QOMIX Cosplay Contest, where you could win some fabulous prizes. There’s no better way to kick off your ECCC weekend!
(Image Description: A person shrugs in front of a wall with queer rights slogans written on it, while the caption says “Queerness to me, is freedom.” Source: Giphy)
