How in the hell is it time for Bumbershoot again? {And I mean that in the best way possible, OBVIOUSLY!} In just a little over a week, Seattle Center is going to be filled with people enjoying music, art, theater, and more – including my precious favorite Words & Ideas programming. This year, the Words & Ideas stage is in the Charlotte Martin Theatre.
Here’s a list of my must-sees for Bumbershoot’s 2014 Words & Ideas happening:
SATURDAY 8/30
Town Hall Presents – Arts & Culture
3:30pm
Oh hi, Stephin Merrit. How you doin’? Oh, you wanna sit down and talk to me about your new book, in which you tell me all about the smallest words admissible in the Scrabble dictionary? SOUNDS AMAZING I WILL BE IN THE FRONT ROW.
Smrt Talk with the Writers of The Simpsons
7pm
!!! Every year these talks with television writers blow me away, so I CANNOT WAIT for this one. Because, Simpsons! Stewart Burns, Kevin Curran, Rob Lazebnik, Carolyn Omine, Michael Price, and Jeff Westbrook will be taking the stage to talk about all things Springfield. Can you guys believe this show has been on for almost 26 years? That’s a lotta funny.
SUNDAY 8/31
Why Bronies? Why Juggalos? Why Now?
12pm
B-shoot continues its popular “WHY” series this year with several entries, but this one stuck out as the most interesting to me … mostly because I find one of these things to be abhorrent, and one of these things to be amazing{guess which one is which!} so I definitely have to listen to two experts on both fields discuss ‘em and tell me why. No seriously – WHY. WHY. WHY?!?!
Tom Robbins
5:15pm
YOU GUYS. TOM. ROBBINS. I’m sad to say that it took me forever to finally read one of Robbins’ amazing books (Thanks, terrible film adaptation of Even Cowgirls Get the Blues), but once I did, I fell fucking face first in love with this guy and his quirky tales. I cannot wait to see this guy “provide a survey, a summation of sorts, of my life — literary and otherwise — in this damp thigh of the woods.” Hell. Yes.
MONDAY 9/1
Needle Party!!! With George Meyer & Ken Jennings
5:15pm
I would never think a “needle party” was a thing I’d want to go to, but apparently this one is just a comedy performance with two BFFs talking about all kinds of funny things so OK! And hold on a second – Ken Jennings is doing comedynow? Where the F have I been that I didn’t know this? Way behind the times I guess; which probably means “needle party” is some well-known term for comedy that I am not quite hip enough to know.
Tu Stultus Es: The Onion Explains Why You Are Stupid
7pm
This is a perfect tie-in for a radio story I was listening to week about how Facebook is going to start marking some news stories as “satire” in people’s feedsbecause too many folks are believing that stories from The Onion are real. Which perfectly illustrates why I love The Onion so goddamn much, and would love a chance to listen to the writers talk about why they do what they do and how.