MEET ME IN THE CHAMBER: We don't need to sell the symphony fans on chamber music, but maybe you rock and rollers could use a little primer. Catch six chamber ensembles at Town Hall tonight, and get your chamber music in 15-minute doses. It's like tapas, but with violins. 8 p.m. // Town Hall // Free LOCAL AUTHOR BLOWOUT: TNT sports writer Dave Boling has written a novel. Go Dave! Guernica is set during the......

AUSSIES IN THE HOUSE: The Waifs are so much fun live. There's just something about families that sing together—you can't get that kind of synchronicity from strangers. The Australian sisters and their male guitarist compatriot are one of the most delightful folk-pop bands around, and their live energy is undeniably infectious. Catch them tonight at that swanky joint, the Triple Door. 7 p.m. // The Triple Door // $33 THIS ONE TIME, AT BOOK CLUB:......

DRUNKEN MASTER: Back in college, we had one wild night that involved too much beer, too much tequila, too much KFC, watching Jackie Chan's Drunken Master II, and ended with someone attacking a drug dealer with chicken bones. Craziness! Now you too can have that experience thanks to the good people at Kung Fu Grindhouse. Tonight, they're taking over the Sunset Tavern in Ballard starting at 7 for a marathon showing of three classic kung......

SEATTLEST HAPPY HOUR: What the hell else are you going to do tonight after work besides head down to Moe Bar and join your tweed-wearing Seattlest contributors as we do what comes naturally on a Monday: drinking ourselves into a stupor and making untoward advances on anything that moves. In exchange for hanging out with us, we'll regale you with stories of community development committee meetings, which prominent Seattle chef is faking his/her accent, and......

ACROBATS AT THE MALL: We understand that, when the Southcenter mall opened up a couple weeks ago, there were some aerialists and acrobats there to provide some fanfare. Apparently, Pacific Place got all jealous, because they'll be welcoming aerialists, diablo artists and comediennes from Teatro ZinZanni Thursdays through Sundays for the rest of the month. Head to the mall tonight to get a free show! 6 p.m. // Pacific Place // Free MORE CIRCUS STUFF:......

DRINK WITH CHRIS GREGOIRE: Drinking Liberally gathers each Tuesday to talk politics and drink alcohol. Tonight, they'll be joined by unafraid-to-call-herself-a-Democrat Chris Gregoire, who will no doubt be drinking for the votes of all those in attendance. 8 p.m. // Montlake Ale House // Price of whatever you're drinking SPEAKING OF GETTING SHIT DONE: Elliott Bay Books hosts their Global Issues and Ethics Book Club tonight, where they'll be discussing Paul Hawken's Blessed Unrest: How......

FREE BUSH: Get your mind out of the gutter. We're talking about Gavin Rossdale. He's in town today to put on a free show at everyone's favorite new venue Showbox SODO. Get there early, because we imagine there'll be a line for blocks to get into this thing. We hope he does some solo acoustic versions of all the Bush classics. 8:30 p.m. doors; 9:30 p.m. show // Showbox SoDo // Free! SHOW US WHAT......

HOW MANY BOYS, HOW MANY GIRLS: A Chorus Line opens at the Paramount tonight. It's being sold on the TV commercials as the best Broadway musical EVAR, and we'd have to agree. Seattlest will be the one singing along with every single word (and dancing along with every bit of choreography in our seat). This is the show, at least in part, responsible for our life-long love affair with music and dance. You've got a......

WHAT THE...?: Apparently you shouldn't go to Seattle School's Strikethough #7 Jennifer Zwick's performance of Teddy Roosevelt: The Musical. It's at the Rendezvous Jewelbox Theatre. 8 p.m. // 2322 Second Ave. // no cover; no admittance MUSIC?: It's like everyone's hungover from the Capitol Hill Block Party; there's just nothing going on. Down at the Paramount, you can catch one-hit-wonder Matisyahu reprising his hip-hop/reggae religious rock. You can wander around the audience taking in the......

HIPPIES UNITE: Innovative guitarist/singer/songwriter Keller Williams is a mainstay on the jamfolk scene and, much like Yonder Mountain Stringband (also on the bill tonight), is responsible for inspiring throngs of hippies to bounce and twirl. We've never caught him live, but we understand he puts on quite the show. He'll be at Marymoor tonight, blowing some minds. 7 p.m. // Marymoor Park // $29.50 IT TOOK A LOT OF MONEY TO START MY HEART: If......

ART FORUM: Art critic Rachel Kushner has written a novel, Telex From Cuba. It starts out like a painting, which only makes sense, considering. You can read the first chapter, or just head to Elliott Bay tonight and let her read it to you. 7:30 p.m. // Elliott Bay Books // Free YOU'RE SUCH A TEASE: Wanna get your burlesque on, but don't know how to get started? Join the Open Tease tonight at the......

BASTILLE DAY AT THE MARKET: Seattle's French restaurants are in Francophile overdrive tonight in celebration of French independence. Le Pichet (1933 First Ave.) starts its annual party at 6 p.m. and features Gypsy jazz until 11 p.m., when the d.j. takes over. Maximilien (81A Pike St.) has a special three-course dinner tonight for $35 and an accordion player. And Cafe Campagne (86 Pine St.) tops them all: a street fair is happening in Post Alley......

photo courtesy of Seattlest Flickr user sonek321 With the eyes of the cycling world focused on the mountains of southern France, why would one of the best-known names in the sport be in Seattle today? Well, if you've been kicked out of cycling's top event because of your shady past and you describe your own team as "having come to symbolize cycling's doping scandal," the only obvious solution is to deny everything and go on......

BAND OF BROTHER AUTHORS: Elliott Bay Books is hosting a reading tonight by brother authors Leif and Lin Enger. According to the listing, "Both are home-state Minnesotans, both still live there, and both have the land of 10,000 lakes as the setting for their new books." 7:30 p.m. // Elliott Bay Books // Free GIRLS SINGING NIGHT: From Tucson, Ariz., Courtney Robbins' music calls to mind Erin McKeown and Eilen Jewell. If you're looking for......

LOCAL LIT: Tired of living la vida loca after pride weekend? Sick of the sun and the heat? Want to retreat back into your dark, shade-drawn house and dream of the rain? Of course not, which is why it's so hard to recommend you spend your Monday at a literary reading. Still, local author and medical expert Carol Casella has a reading tonight down at Elliott Bay Books, for her debut novel Oxygen. Casella, a......

READING: We love to eat fish, but have been struggling with the morality of it since A) we don't eat other meat and B) we know commercial fishing is often environmentally unsound. In our research to discover if any fish is okay for a tree-hugging, animal anthropomorphizer to eat, we found Taras Grescoe and his book Bottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood which Salon says tells readers to ask the......

Micheline Aharonian Marcom reads from her new novel tonight at Elliott Bay Books at 7:30 pm, at 101 South Main Street. When we first wandered over to the Seattlest Arts Desk to pick up our review copy of Draining the Sea, we'd never heard of Micheline Aharonian Marcom. Turns out this Saudi-born, LA-raised child of an American and a Lebanese-Armenian is the author of two critically acclaimed earlier novels: Three Apples Fell From Heaven and......

We left it up to Jami Attenberg to pick a spot in a not-so-crowded Bauhaus Coffeehouse this morning, and somehow she managed to find the cavelike area behind and below everything that goes on in a not-so-crowded coffeehouse. Overtired, pre-caffeinated and maybe a little bit getting sick, Attenberg seemed comfortable in the cave. An interview she did with Metblogs on her last book tour indicated that Bauhaus is one of her favorite Seattle haunts,......

MOVIES: There are two kinds of people in this world: those who are attracted to a film program called Monument Recall: Public Memory and Public Spaces, and those who are repelled. If you're the former? Tonight's your night. 7 and 9pm // Central Cinema // $5 BOOKS: New Yorker-approved author Deborah Eisenberg reads from Twilight of the Superheroes. 7:30pm // Elliott Bay Books // free THEATER: SPF 1: No Protection, "Seattle's first solo performance theatre......

MUSIC: Dancing on the Valentine features wall-to-wall Duran Duran songs covered by local bands, including Say Hi to Your Mom, Valu-Pak, Speaker Speaker, and Peter Parker, all to benefit the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. 8pm // The Crocodile, 2200 2nd Ave // $10 -- to fight disease! MOVIE: Age of Consent, a rare Michael Powell film featuring James Mason (Eddie Izzard's voice of God) slurring his lines and Helen Mirren as an incredible young hottie,......

CASTING CALL: Local director Garrett Bennett is looking for extras to cast in his independent film The Spy & the Sparrow. 3-8pm // First Church of Christ Scientist [1519 E. Denny Way] // $Whatever minuscule remnants remain of your dreams of an acting career BOOKS: Don't wear sweatpants to this event. Erotica writer Jennifer Munro reads from her award-winning work, as does the winner of Hugo House's erotica writing competition. Keep your fingers crossed for......

OPEN MIKE: What can you have in common with John Moe, Charles Frazier, and Jen Marlowe? You, too, can read from your work at Elliott Bay Books. Last Wednesday of the month is always open mike night at Elliott Bay. 7:30pm // Elliott Bay Book Co. [101 S. Main] // free BURGERS: Wednesday always means burgers in Capitol Hill. Take your pick: $5 burgers at the Deluxe, or 2-for-1 burgers at the Satellite. whenever //......

MOVIES: When people say "they don't make movies like they used to," they are speaking specifically of movies like Key Largo, a place where, according to the trailer, "romance smolders in women until it conquers or kills!" Bogart's the lead, Edward G. Robinson's the villain, and Lauren Bacall, the most smoking-hot woman in the history of cinema, plays the romantic interest. RRAWR. 7 & 9pm // Grand Illusion Cinema [1403 NE 50th (Corner of University......

Sports: The Sonics are 6-9, on a two game losing streak, and everybody's fighting. The Orlando Magic are 11-4, have won their last four, feature Dwight Howard, and come from some place very warm! What's not to love? Tip-off is right when the next snowstorm is supposed to hit. Worth risking your life for? Yes! 7:00pm // Key Arena // tickets Books, or something similar: Elliott Bay Books has their monthly open mic night......

When he last graced our fine city, Mr. Jonathan Hodgman was touring for his new book The Areas of My Expertise. He has since then become straightman-comic hawker of Apple computers and Resident Expert on the Daily Show. Seattlest could possibly be more jealous, but we're not certain. He is back on tour because his book has been released in paperback. Is that the literary equivalent of a pop-song/DJ remix mashup? We hope to find......

About an hour ago, after learning of the existence of a new Jonathan Raban novel, we went straight to Elliott Bay Books to pick it up. The Guardian review is not unreservedly positive, but it doesn't really matter. As its title suggests, spying, and being spied upon, is the one of the novel's main themes. Tad puts it squarely: "We're all spooks now. Look at the way people Google their prospective dates. Everybody does it.......

Pauls Toutonghi, a product of the Seattle Public School system who now lives in Brooklyn, is in town to publicize his first novel, Red Weather. Random House is the publisher--and, as our friend Jason McDonald says, don't be fooled by the name--they don't publish just anything. Red Weather is the story of teenage boy, the son of immigrants, who's navigating his first romance, his father's drunkenness, and a house crammed with visitors from the home......

Frank Warren, the Post Secret guy, is coming to Elliott Bay Books tomorrow to talk about his compilation PostSecret: Extraordinary Confessions from Ordinary Lives and sign copies. Before you click through to the Post Secret site remember that this is the site that collects post card shaped artworks with secrets written on them and can easily make a Tuesday afternoon vanish into thin air. Ok, we warned you. Here's the site and here's the......

Ever get the feeling that food is no longer your friend? That while you used to have some laughs with Stouffer’s lasagne and chill out with your best friend Diet Coke, secretly food has been going behind your back, stealing your boyfriend, gunning for your job, and making you fat? Has food got it in for you? Crazy, we noticed it too. Seattlest is just about ready to skip lunch and get an IV......

Love her, hate her, or wish she'd stop looking down her nose at the people she's writing about, Barbara Ehrenreich knows how lance the zeitgeist and get conversations flowing. She's the oil to Ann Coulter's vinegar. And she's got a new book out: Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream, in which she pretends to be someone else and searches for a white-collar corporate job. She fails, and damns the white-collar world......