You Might as Well Stay Home the Week of November 22, 2010

Billy Collins needs a new publicity photo.

As everyone who has lived in Seattle for more than one winter knows, when it snows, this city shuts down. Have you looked outside? That's not flour. Not that there is much reason to leave the house, at least on the literary front.

Billy Collins is at Town Hall tonight, which will be fun for those who got tickets before they sold out. Collins is an enthusiastic and entertaining speaker, so his appearances are always a pleasure. Tomorrow, Jared Duval will visit Town Hall to discuss open-sourcing in the context of activism, and if you're in U-Village on Saturday, doing that post-ritual sacrifice shopping thing, stop by the Barnes & Noble to unload your kids onto David, the B&N Assistant Manager who has been scapegoated to keep the wee bairns occupied for an hour or so.

11/22/10 4 p.m. Barnes & Noble U-Village
Carolyn Douglas
Storytime
An anchor-person will "share her favorite stories with you." Hm.

11/22/10 6 p.m. Pilot Books
Writer's Group
"New exercises every week. Come prepared to write and discuss." Aye, Cap'n!

11/22/10 7 p.m. Town Hall Seattle
Billy Collins
Seattle Arts & Lectures
Collins served as Poet Laureate from 2001-2003, has published nine collections of poetry, and is a funny, funny guy. This might be a reason to leave the house, tonight. Alas, tickets sold out a month ago.

11/22/10 7 p.m. Elliott Bay Book Company
Elsie Hulsizer
Glaciers, Bears and Totems: Sailing in Search of the Real Southeast Alaska
The local author and her husband hit the American fjords. There may be a PowerPoint presentation. You've been warned.

11/22/10 7:30 p.m. Town Hall Seattle
Stephen L. Macknik & Susana Martinez-Conde
Sleights of Mind: What the Neuroscience of Magic Reveals about our Everyday Deceptions
The founders of the field of "neuromagic" want to hack your brain.

11/22/10 8 p.m. Pilot Books
Jacqueline Suskin
The Collected
Poetry reading and signing.

11/23/10 6:30 p.m. Elliott Bay Book Company
Donald Margulies
Time Stands Stil
Stages, Elliott Bay's drama book group, reads this play about a photojournalist and a foreign correspondent.

11/23/10 7 p.m. Secret Garden Books
Harriet Baskas
Washington Icons: 50 Classic Views of the Evergreen State
The perfect impersonal gift for someone who doesn't live here.

11/23/10 7:30 p.m. Town Hall Seattle
Jared Duval
Next Generation Democracy: What the Open Source Revolution Means for Power, Politics, and Change
"Jared Duval's book offers a behind-the-scenes tour of the next wave of activism, organizing, inspiration, and change. It will give you cause to hope—and cause to go to work." - Bill McKibben

11/24/10 6 p.m. Richard Hugo House
Write Time
Weekly
Weekly drop-in writing group for teens.

11/24/10 7 p.m. Richard Hugo House
Stage Fright
Weekly
Open mic for teens.

11/26/10 11 a.m. Borders
Katherine C. Cahoon
A Single Girl's Guide To Meeting European Men
Borders says: "A collection of short stories and vignettes from traveling women who've been there and done that... all over the world." I say: "Is this for real? The Onion didn't publish this book, did they? Am I on Candid Camera?"

11/27/10 1 p.m. Barnes & Noble U-Village
The Elf on the Shelf
Children's Event
Story-time and scavenger hunt for kids, while their parents recover.

11/27/10 12 p.m. Richard Hugo House
NaNoWriMo Write-In
Work on your novel at Hugo House, in the company of like-minded lunatics. Every Saturday in November. Are you done, yet?

11/27/10 7 p.m. Elliott Bay Book Company
Ibrahim Muhawi
Journal of an Ordinary Grief, by Mahmoud Darwish
The editor and translator will discuss and read from his new translation.