TUESDAY, NOV. 15 2016: South Sound events + craft beer …
Wheelock Library + Peaks and Pints = Proctor
The Grand Cinema + Pacific Brewing & malting Co. = sci-fi
BOOK CHAT
Who is Bob Stevenson? Is he Archie B. Billingsly, suffering from dissociative identity disorder and subject to brilliant flights of fancy and bizarre, violent fits? Or is he the reincarnation of Robert Louis Stevenson, back to haunt New York as Long John Silver and Mr. Edward Hyde? Dr. Ruby Okada meets a charming man with a Scottish accent in the elevator of her psychiatric hospital. Unaware that he is an escaping patient, she falls under his spell, and her life and his are changed forever by the time they get to the street. With compelling psychological descriptions and terrifying transformations, Bob Stevenson is an ingenious tale featuring a quirky cast of characters drawn together by mutual fascination, need, and finally, love. Hear author Richard Wiley discuss his book at 7 p.m. in the Wheelock Library.
PREFUNK: We don’t know what it is with cereal these days. When we were kids, there were six cereals —we’re not that old, there were six! There was Wheaties, there was Corn Flakes, there was no mutant anything like Batman cereal that features the ubiquitous black-and-yellow logo. Movies become cereal. Of course, this is for the kids — we’re waiting for those Basic Instinct Flakes. Today is National Raisin Bran Cereal Day. No, truly. And Post Raisin Cereal Bran has the slogan, “Post Raisin Cereal Bran — NOW Better Tasting.” So if that’s true, apparently the pervious version tasted like crap. We agree with Urban Family Brewing Co. in Seattle when they say, “Death To Cereal” — although they say it in the most delicious way. The brewery’s Death To Cereal Sweet Stout is a deep, dark and roasty Breakfast Stout fermented with milk sugar and Sumatran coffee beans. It’s freakin’ delicious and sitting in our giant Peaks and Pints beer cooler. Don’t get us started on Mueslix. Has anyone in this country figured out what this stuff is? The official cereal of the American Scrabble Federation? Aren’t these the seven letters you always get stuck with? We never knew we had a word. Peaks and Pints opens at 11 a.m.
AMY ADAMS VS ALIENS
The Grand Cinema screens Arrival at 9:15 p.m. Amy Adams plays a linguist who tries to smooth mankind’s first exposure to aliens from another planet. In other words, it’s like if Noam Chomsky had been the guy playing the big Casio keyboard in Close Encounters. Kind of a bold move for Amy, given that her last experience making first contact with an extraterrestrial involved a guy by the name of Kal-El — and we’ve all seen how that one turned out.
PREFUNK: Pacific Brewing & Malting Co. will screen Conan The Barbarian at 7 p.m. in its downtown Tacoma taproom. Here’s the pertinent info on Conan: The bare-bones plot involves a young boy (Conan) whose entire family is killed by an evil warlord (played, naturally, by James Earl Jones). Conan eventually grows up and goes on a killing spree to avenge his parents’ death. Now that you know the entire plot, beg the Pacific Brewing crew to skip the movie and go right to the commentary on the DVD. Listen to Conan director John Milius and Arnold Schwarzenegger wax philosophical on Conan, the meaning of truth (“steel is truth”) and freedom (“freedom is the wolves”). Schwarzenegger apparently never learned the difference between reality and fiction, and refers to the character of Conan in the first- person throughout the film, as in: “Here is where I get laid by the Wolf Witch, heh heh heh,” and “This is when I am breaking his head.” Talk about a comedy goldmine.
