MONDAY 10/5
(COMMUNITY) The annual Week Without Driving kicked off on October 1 and runs through October 8. Are you participating? Even if you haven’t yet, it’s not too late. It’s a fun challenge: Can you get around your city without a car? You’ll have to rely on the bus, a bike, or your own two feet. How long can you go? It’s a good way to appreciate the services at our fingertips, especially with Seattle Prop. 1 on the ballot next month. That proposition will raise sale tax to renew and expand the Seattle Transit Measure that funds our bus service. You better vote yes. Week Without Driving will show you why. If you’re looking for a specific Week Without Driving event, check out the Nondrivers Alliance’s event with law professor Michael Pollack, the author of Sidewalk Nation: The Life and Law of America’s Most Overlooked Resource, on October 5 at the Husky Union Building on University of Washington’s campus. (Husky Union Building, 6:30–8 pm, free with RSVP) NATHALIE GRAHAM
TUESDAY 10/6
(VISUAL ART) It’s fitting that Surge, an exhibition that pairs visual artists with scientists to make work about climate change, takes place at the Museum of Northwest Art, located in La Conner, Washington. Climate change isn’t just a hypothetical in the Skagit basin, a 3,115-square-mile watershed that extends from the Cascades to the Skagit Bay. It’s experienced firsthand as the sea spills over levees, roads go underwater, and the familiar ways of doing things are swept away. This is the fourth iteration of Surge, curated by Chloé Dye Sherpe, and it’s always fascinating to see what happens when artists spend quality time in the trenches with the climatologists, hydrologists, biologists, and governmental policymakers tracking the changes that directly affect our region. This year’s robust roster includes artists working across media, from neon and glass to painting and assemblage: Holly Ballard Martz, Kelsey Fernkopf and Steve Gilbert, Melinda Hurst Frye, Morgan Madison, Steve Jensen, Sue Danielson, and Niki Keenan, to name but a few. (Museum of Northwest Art) AMANDA MANITACH
WEDNESDAY 10/7
(FILM) John Wilson is a documentarian of the absurd. On his endlessly fascinating HBO comedy docuseries How To with John Wilson, he delves deep into themes as far-reaching as the Mandela effect, scaffolding, and circumcision, pasting together disparate clips of footage into a kind of collage to hilarious effect as he narrates via voiceover. His investigations end up leading him to the most unexpected places and put the dizzying spectrum of humanity on full display. That’s why I’m so excited for his new film, The History of Concrete, in which he attempts to apply a formula for writing and selling a hit Hallmark-style movie to a documentary about, yes, concrete. If anyone can make this topic riveting, it’s him, and I’m willing to bet you’ll never look at a sidewalk the same way again. (SIFF Cinema Uptown & Tasveer Film Center, times vary) JULIANNE BELL
THURSDAY 10/8
(MUSIC) America’s most uncompromising hip-hop group, New Jersey’s Dälek, have been enlightening and blowing minds since 1998. A staunch advocate for POC’s rights, MC Dälek (aka Will Brooks) trenchantly rails against oppression and strife, from now to centuries back, with an authoritative bellow and a conspiratorial sneer while he and producer/instrumentalist Mike Manteca fuse industrial noise, drone, and funk into towers of sonic power. Their newest album, 2026’s Brilliance of a Falling Moon, takes a flamethrower to the fa$cist ruling class. This decade’s awful times have motivated Dälek to rise to even higher heights of lyrical causticity and sonic brutality. After 28 years of public service in the underground-hip-hop trenches, they’ve proved themselves to be the true heirs to Public Enemy’s crown. (Funhouse, 8 pm, 21+) DAVE SEGAL
FRIDAY 10/9
(BOOKS) Last year, Top Chef fan favorite and lesbian heartthrob Melissa King released her James Beard Award-winning debut cookbook Cook Like a King. You may recall that she and the show’s host Padma Lakshmi sent the collective sapphic universe into a gay panic with their flirty Instagram banter while simultaneously promoting their books, plus there was a sultry Gomez and Morticia couple costume that ignited dating rumors. (They’re just friends, or so they claim…) Now, King is back with her memoir The Girl Who Became King. The book shares her story of growing up queer in a Shanghainese and Cantonese family in Los Angeles’s Gabriel Valley, her initiation into the high-stakes world of Michelin-starred restaurants, and her Top Chef journey. She’ll share her story with food writer, photographer, designer, and Little Fat Boy blogger Frankie Gaw at this event, hosted by Charlie’s Queer Books at Ballard Homestead. (Ballard Homestead, 7 pm, all ages) JULIANNE BELL
SATURDAY 10/10
(PARTY) Everyone knows that Halloween is gay Christmas, and this party at Asylum Collective for “lesbians, bisexuals, femmes, butches, trans girls, nonbinary babes, sapphics, spooky little freaks + the people who love themmmmm” is the perfect opportunity to celebrate. You can look forward to DJs, dancing, free candy, tarot reading, and tattoos. Costumes are strongly encouraged and there will be contests for the best dressed—channel your inner Carmilla by dressing up as a hot lesbian vampiress and dance your ass off to “Red Wine Supernova.” (Asylum Collective, 9 pm–1 am, 21+) JULIANNE BELL
SUNDAY 10/11
The Blair Witch Project: Film Screening and Q&A
(FILM) Even if you’re not a horror fan, you undoubtedly know The Blair Witch Project, thanks to its prescient marketing hoax campaign, which leveraged the early internet to blur the boundaries of fact and fiction. The 1999 low-budget sleeper hit, which was primarily shot over the course of eight days, takes the form of a found-footage pseudo-documentary and famously listed its actors as “deceased” or “missing.” It’s not just a stunt, though: The film is genuinely haunting and understands that the unseen is more terrifying than the most gruesome monster special effects could ever conjure. This special screening at the 5th Avenue Theatre is an opportunity to see it in all its unsettling glory on the big screen, followed by a Q&A session with original cast members Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard, and Michael C. Williams (all three alive and well). (5th Avenue Theatre, 7:30 pm, all ages) JULIANNE BELL
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Dracula
The 5th Avenue Theatre, October 25
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