Geek About Town: January
The New Year is (almost) upon us, which means that we can finally bid goodbye to the unfortunate, terrifying mess that characterized most of 2017. The good news is that there is SO MANY incredible and exciting events coming up in January to help beckon in a better and brighter new year!
Source: Giphy. Image Description: The character Rachel Berry from “Glee” wearing a Happy New Year Crown. The image text reads “The countdown begins.”
Tuesday, January 2nd: Kit Build! Adafruit LED Goggles
- 1pm – 4pm
- Living Computers: Museum + Labs
2245 First Ave S, Seattle, WA 98134 - $68
- Kill two ravens with one stone and learn how to solder while you create your newest costume headpiece – a wicked pair of Adafruit LED Goggles – in this 2-hour entry level workshop. Space is limited for this take-home activity.
Wednesday, January 3rd: Reading Through It: Weapons of Math Destruction
- 7pm
- Third Place Books Seward Park
5041 Wilson Ave S, Seattle, WA 98118 - Free event!
- The Seattle Review of Books and Seattle Weekly aim to help you cope with the next three years thanks to Reading Through It, a “monthly book club exploring who we are as Americans, where we’re going, and how to fix it.” Weapons of Math Destruction is a former Wall Street analyst’s warning against “the mathematical models that pervade modern life—and threaten to rip apart our social fabric.”
Source: Giphy. Image Description: The characters Bones and Kirk from Star Trek: The Original Series nod at each other.
Saturday, January 6th: Extraterrestrial Architecture in Space
- 10am – 12pm
- Center for Architecture & Design
1010 Western Ave, Seattle, WA 98104
- Free event!
- All-ages event!
- We’re bored with Earth. What about Mars? Participants will learn about the very different problems architects would face if building for the surface of other planets….and moons…and asteroids? The sky is not even the limit…
Source: Giphy. Image Description: The characters Steve and Nancy from “Stranger Things” dance at a party.
Saturday, January 6th: Laser Stranger Things
- 4 dates – January 6th, 13th, 20th, 27th
- 8:00pm
- Laser Dome at Pacific Science Center
- Follow our Laser artists into The Upside Down with this laser show tribute to the music of Stranger Things. A synth-heavy score and dark 80s soundtrack contribute to the spooky nostalgia of this popular Netflix Original hit. Performed, as always, by our talented laser artists, don’t miss this limited run in January of Laser Stranger Things.
Saturday, January 6th: Children’s Storytime at Elliott Bay Book Company
- Every Saturday of the month
- 11am
- Elliott Bay Book Company
1521 10th Ave, Seattle, Washington 98122 - Free event!
- Join us for this fun hour of readings from picture and storybooks with one of Elliott Bay’s bookfolk. Go to the castle in the children’s section … and the stories begin!
Thursday, January 11th: Gay City Arts presents To Exist Is To Resist
- 4 dates – January 11th, 12th, 20th, 21st
- 7:00pm
- Gay City: Seattle’s LGBTQ Center
517 E Pike St, Seattle, Washington 98122 - General Admission $15, Discounted Tickets $12, Radical Hospitality Tickets free!
- What would Marsha P Johnson, Leslie Feinberg and our sick and disabled queer grandparents have to say about fighting to survive and win? Sick and disabled queer/ trans people have always resisted, from the first colonial invasions to nursing homes to freak shows to street based queer and trans activism. We are heroes, fighters and survivors and we have the medicine we need to survive Trump. In this star-studded sick and disabled QT/POC show, curated by billie rain and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, come witness Seattle based disabled queer/ of color artists performing new work reflecting on the resistance wisdom of our disabled queer ancestors.This performance is also part of a star studded ALL SICK AND DISABLED QTBIPOC ALL THE TIME DOUBLE WEEKEND! Come see us, and then check out Neve Andromeda Bianco Mazique’s one femme show, Betcha Ungodly Things! Support all of us! Come for this living altar of disabled QTBIPOC testimony, genius and love.
Thursday, January 11th: Art Spiegelman, Anita Kunz, & Steve Brodner on Art Young
- 6:30pm – 9:30pm
- Society Of Illustrators
128 E 63rd St, New York, New York 10065 - Non-Member and Member tickets $15, Students and Seniors $7
- Join us for an evening with comics art giant Art Spiegelman and acclaimed illustrator Anita Kunz as they discuss the lasting influence of 20th century political cartoonist Art Young, with master caricaturist Steve Brodner moderating the discussion. The three will examine the historical significance of Young’s work, and its relevance in today’s artistic and political landscape.
Images for discussion will be drawn from the 2017 retrospective To Laugh That We May Not Weep: The Life & Times of Art Young (Fantagraphics) by Glenn Bray and Frank M. Young. Copies will be available for purchase after the event.
Source: Giphy. Image Description: Characters from the movie “Jumanji” sit down to play the game “Jumanji” together.
Friday, January 12th: GeekGirlCon Board Game Night at Wayward Coffeehouse!
- 7pm – 10:45pm
- Wayward Coffeehouse
- 6417 Roosevelt Way NE, Seattle, WA 98115
- Free event!
- 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!
Monday, January 15th: BlackLivesMatter- Let Black Liberation Ring
- 6pm
- Westlake Park
401 Pine St, Seattle, Washington 98101 - Free event!
- We strive for #BlackLiberation – we strive for freedom to not be treated like animals and for our justice system to treat us equally or be abolished – we strive for fair and equal taxation so that people of color can not only survive but thrive – we strive for a day were we are not discriminated against for our skin color or our culture but treated equally for content of our character – we strive to not be shot and killed by police and then our image be slandered on the news. We ask you join us and say Racism and police brutality and unfair and unequal treatment of Black people has to stop and freedom has to begin because until Black people are free no one is free.
Sunday, January 15th: Cine-City: A Community Exposé
- Seating at 6:30pm, show at 7:00pm
- Naked City Brewery & Taphouse
8564 Greenwood Avenue North, Seattle, Washington 98103 - $8 in advance, $10 at the door
- Cine-City is Seattle’s only consistent film night with bi-monthly (every other month) screenings of local short films. We will fill up a block of films 45 minutes to an 1 hour, at the end of the night the films will be voted on and the most voted film will be announced the next day and will move on to the Best Of in November. All proceeds help the Film Non Profit Ardor Creative Media. http://ardorcreativemedia.com/cine_city/
Monday, January 16th: MLK Seattle Rally & March
- 11am – 4pm
- Garfield High School
400 23rd Avenue, Seattle, Washington 98122 - Free event!
- Educate yourself at workshops from 9:30-10:50am, then at 11:00am, join the pre-march rally in the Garfield Gym to become inspired and informed with speakers, performers, and more. View the full schedule at www.mlkseattle.org/index.php Following the rally (12:00-12:20), the march line-up starts in the Garfield parking lot (across the street from Ezell’s chicken). The march will begin at 12:30, heading to the Federal Building at 2nd & Madison. The Downtown Program is estimated to start at 1:30 p.m. Marchers are welcome to return to Garfield for a late lunch or to join employers and more at the Opportunity & Information Fair at Garfield (1:30-4:00pm).
Wednesday, January 17th: Literary Arts Series: Jesmyn Ward
- 9pm – 2am
- Benaroya Hall
200 University St, Seattle, Washington 98101 - Tickets between $10 and $80
- Jesmyn Ward has been called “fearless and toughly lyrical” by the Library Journal. Her novel Salvage the Bones, the story of four motherless children trying to protect their home in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, won the 2011 National Book Award for Fiction. Her unflinching portrayals of young black men and women struggling to thrive in a South ravaged by poverty and natural disaster have been praised for their “graphic clarity” by the Boston Globe, and for their “hugeness of heart” by O, The Oprah Magazine.
Ward’s follow-up to Salvage was Men We Reaped, a memoir that confronts the five years of Ward’s life in which she lost five young men—to drugs, accidents, suicide, and the bad luck that follows people who live in poverty, particularly black men. Lauded by Kirkus as a “modern rejoinder to Black Like Me [and] Beloved,” Men We Reaped is a homage to Ward’s past, her ghosts, and the haunted yet hopeful place she still calls home. A finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography, it was named one of the Best Books of 2013 by Publishers Weekly, the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, NPR, Kirkus, New York Magazine, and TIME magazine.
Ward is also the editor of the critically acclaimed anthology The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks about Race, which NPR listed as one of the Best Books of 2016. Taking James Baldwin’s 1963 pivotal examination of race in America, The Fire Next Time, is a jumping-off point. The groundbreaking collection features essays and poems about race from the most important voices of Ward’s generation and our time—from Edwidge Danticat, Natasha Trethewey, and Isabel Wilkerson, to Mitchell S. Jackson, Kiese Laymon, and Claudia Rankine.
In the forthcoming Sing, Unburied, Sing, Ward will return to Mississippi and the themes of her earlier work. Confronting the realities of life in the rural South, Ward gives us a road map through Mississippi’s past and present that explores the bonds of family as tested by racism and poverty. Her work is all set on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi where Ward grew up, and each new publication makes her a fitting heir to the rich literary tradition of the American South.
Source: Giphy. Image Description: Beyoncé and Lady Gaga dance together in a music video.
Thursday, January 18th: BEYONCÉ vs. GAGA vs. BRITNEY vs. MADONNA SING ALONG
- 8pm
- Central Cinema
- $12 General Admission
- Four of music’s finest divas join you for what’s sure to be one of the best nights of your life. The Queen of R&B, The Queen of Pop, the Princess of Pop, the , and the Mother of Monsters team up to get you singing, dancing, and so much more. Telephone on the big screen is worth the price of admission alone.
Sunday, January 20th: 2018 Pantsuit 5k Run/Walk
- 9am – 11am
- Green Lake
- $22.09 entrance fee
- Bring out those pantsuits ladies (& gents, kids, dogs ok too). Fun run/walk around Greenlake. The primary purpose of the event is for the unification of the Pantsuit community and to continue to strive for change. Last year we had over 700 attend, let’s make this event bigger & better. Event is not timed. It is a fun run/walk. No refunds or transfers. Rain or shine. This is a no frills run/walk. 30% of the proceeds go to Planned Parenthood!
Wednesday, January 24th: #MeToo in Tech: How Men Can Help
- 6pm
- Northwest Film Forum
1515 12th Ave, Seattle, WA 98122 - $12 tickets
- This event will be a forum for men who work in the tech industry in Seattle to discuss ways that we can show up for women, trans folks, and other non-cis-male-identified folks who often experience harassment and discrimination in our industry. More details will be posted at this URL as we get closer to the event.
Monday, January 25th: Children’s International Film Festival
- January 25th – February 10th
- Northwest Film Forum
- 1515 12th Ave. Seattle, WA 98122
- $12 General Admission, $9 Students, Seniors, and Children
- Over the past 13 years, Children’s Film Festival Seattle has become the largest and most respected film festival on the West Coast dedicated to children and their families. Each year, Northwest Film Forum selects more than 170 children’s films from 50+ countries, reaching more than 10,000 people during festival screenings in Seattle and a subsequent festival tour of 15-20 U.S. cities. What we stand for: Racial equity and diversity, inclusivity, social justice, global awareness, and the best in age-appropriate, visual storytelling for young people. Produced by Northwest Film Forum, Children’s Film Festival Seattle includes live performances, features, shorts and hands-on workshops, all crafted with care for the next generation of movie lovers.
Friday, January 26th: Lovett or Leave It
- 8pm – 11pm
- Moore Theatre
1932 2nd Ave, Seattle, Washington 98101 - Ticket prices vary, starting at $47
- STG Presents & AEG welcomes Lovett or Leave It to The Moore Theatre on Friday, January 26, 2018. The Lovett or Leave It podcast, as part of Pod Tours America, has announced additional tour dates and will be live on stage January 26, 2018 at 8:00 pm at The Moore Theatre. Former speechwriter for Hillary Clinton and the Obama White House and co-host of the wildly popular podcast Pod Save America, Jon Lovett brings his Lovett or Leave It podcast live to Seattle. Get ready for a night of lively and humorous discussion of politics and top news stories with special guests along with other popular Lovett or Leave It segments.
Friday, January 26th: GeekGirlCon Board Game Night at Wayward Coffeehouse!
- 7pm – 10:45pm
- Wayward Coffeehouse
- 6417 Roosevelt Way NE, Seattle, WA 98115
- Free event!
- 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!
Source: Giphy. Image Description: Ryan Gosling works on on an exercise bike while wearing a onesie on the Ellen DeGeneres Show.
Saturday, January 27th: 2018 Onesie Bar Crawl
- 14pm
- Cowgirls Inc.
421 1st Ave S, Seattle, Washington 98104 - $23.16 General Admission tickets
- Sign up link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2018-seattle-onesie-crawl-tickets-40723393767. The world’s biggest Onesie Crawl returns to Seattle! Thousands of Onesies prowling the town center for the most comfortable outing of the year.
