(Image: Three Dollar Bill Cineman)

The Naked I: Insides Out, a multimedia performance featuring queer and trans monologues, opens the 9th annual Translations:the Seattle Transgender Film Festival on Thursday at Harvard Exit. More than 25 films will screen on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday at Northwest Film Forum as part of this film festival organized by Three Dollar Cinema. See the full schedule of screenings and buy you single show or festival pass here.

At Blindfold

The Capitol Hill Art Walk happens on Thursday. Highlights include a dance performance at 10 degrees, Spring Gear show at Blindfold Gallery, Tripping Balls psych show at True Love, Artists of the El Capitan at Glasswing. See the full list of venues and shows here.

Lost Lake Cafe is celebrating its one year anniversary Thursday with a killer deal: $1 scoops of Cupcake Royale Red Velvet Cake ice cream, $1 draft beers, and $1 well drinks all day long. In one year the 24-hour diner has sold 54,239 pints of beer, 46,768 cups of coffee, 24,784 burgers, 5,678 slices of pie, and 6,036 chicken fried steaks.

Seattle Beer Week starts a 10-day run on Thursday across the city and beyond. Capitol Hill-based tastings and special events are scheduled to take place at Hopvine Pub, Quinn’s, Poquitos, Capitol Cider, Cure, World of Beer, Taylor Shellfish, Elysian, and The Pine Box. Pine Box co-owner Ian Roberts is one of the founders of Seattle Beer Week, so you know there’s a SBW event there nearly every day. We’re particularly looking forward to the annual Pine Box Can Derby on Saturday, 1 – 5pm. Anyone can enter, just be sure to follow the rules for your “car.” Build ahead of time, or at the event.

Capitol Hill’s newest bar, the vinyl-friendly, music-focused Revolver on E Olive Way, officially opens Thursday night.

The Cannabis Freedom March and Rally starts in Volunteer Park at 11am on Saturday with an opening speech.  The march route winds through Capitol Hill to Westlake Center, where there will be additional speeches plus live bands.

Also on Saturday at Volunteer Park: “The Friends of the Conservatory in Volunteer Park are having their annual Spring Plant Sale on Saturday, 10am – 3pm. Located on the lawn across from the Conservatory, the Spring Plant Sale will feature plants featured in the Conservatory as well as specimens from the Conservatory’s own collection.”

Something to add? Let us know on the CHS Calendar — more listings below:

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Birdy 9669 via CHS Flickr group

Take a guided walk or two on Capitol Hill and in the Central District on Sunday as part of the annual Jane’s Walk day organized by Feet First. “Jane’s Walk is a movement of free, locally led walking tours. The walks get people to explore their cities, connect with neighbors, and learn new information about their communities.”
You can meet the trees during the Volunteer Park Tree Walk (10am -12pm ), tour central Seattle‘s hidden gardens (2 -3:30pm) or Explore the Central District (3 – 5pm)

Lorn J Fant via CHS’s Flickr group

You’ve heard of TED talks. Now, there’s JAKE talks. “Inspired by TED Talks, JAKE aims to create a platform for diverse voices in the LGBT community and to spotlight the voices of a wide variety of speakers and thought-leaders. JAKE’s mission is to empower and celebrate our community through dialogue & culture.” JAKE takes place on Saturday at Gay City Health 10am – 3pm and features speakers sharing inspiring talks from a variety of topics of interest to gay men.

Here is an edition of Star Wars we bet even the most dedicated fans have not yet seen: Navajo Star Wars, in which seventy voice actors speaking 5 Navajo dialects enact Star Wars: A New Hope, in the first major theatrical movie to be dubbed into a Native language. Navajo Star Wars screens at Northwest Film Forum on Friday (11pm) and Saturday (8pm and 11pm).

Get free scoops for kids as Molly Moon’s ice cream window opens for business at 19th Ave E’s Hello Robin cookie shop.

Wear a fancy hat and drink mint juleps at Bottleneck Lounge’s 7th Annual Kentucky Derby Party on Sunday.

Margarita mile: run in the Fiesta 5K on Saturday or skip the run and just show up for the taco trucks and the 2pm music set by TacoCaT at Volunteer Park on Saturday.

Something to add? Let us know on the CHS Calendar — more listings below:

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The largest ever Langston Hughes African American Film Festival starts this weekend with programming for all ages and interests. More than 50 films, special events, panels, workshops and mini-fests fill out the nine-day festival.

“The festival kicks off with a fun-filled Family Film Weekend on April 26 and 27 including a Fat Albert mini-fest. (Hey, hey, hey.)  The closing day screening and Seattle premier of Toussaint L’Ouverture ends the film festival on May 4. A special Ladies Night mini-fest features ten shorts on Thursday, May 1 at 7 pm and 9 pm. The LGBTQ–focused screening on Saturday, May 3 will feature the documentary The New Black.”

All screenings are at the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center. Tickets may be purchased individually, plus an all access pass is also available. Ticketing links and a detailed schedule are located on the festival website.

Fogon is one of 5 Capitol Hill restaurants donating 50% to Lifelong during Dine Out for Life.

Dining Out for Life on Thursday at one (or more!) of the 54 Capitol Hill eateries participating in the annual fundraiser for Lifelong AIDS Alliance.

Thursday night, get updates on recent gun violence in the area and talk traffic safety at the April meeting of the East Precinct Advisory Council.

Saturday, stop by a charity garage sale or climb a tree in Volunteer Park.

Saturday night brings Dare to Dance 4 — “a professional-quality showcase for original dances created and performed by dance enthusiasts of all ages and skill levels” — the Broadway Performance Hall.

Silly Hilly: Help the city decide upon the northern section of the Central Area Greenway on Saturday by walking/biking the four route options and giving feedback. Meet at Montlake Elementary at 2pm.

Something to add? Let us know on the CHS Calendar — more listings below:

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Happy vernal equinox!
      

The Savoy Swing Jam takes over Century Ballroom Friday and Saturday with free classes, family friendly events, and  competitive dancing.

Friday night check out the Movie-Trivia-Bingo-Cabaret and More Night, with, you know, all the activities in the title. The event is free and all ages. Doors at 7pm. Saturday offers two free 45-minute dance classes, see the event site for the full schedule.

Three community/civic events are scheduled at times you can actually make without skipping your day job. Both topics are near and dear to many Hillites of the Capitol and First varieties: coffee and Metro bus funding… and First Hill:

• On Thursday you can hear from Puget Sound Clean Air Agency Quality reps about the proposed Starbucks coffee roaster facility at Pike and Melrose, and provide feedback and comment to the agency about any related air quality concerns. (Read more here.) The informational meeting on the proposed roaster is at the Seattle First Baptist Church, 7 – 9p.
• On Saturday you can learn about the upcoming Prop 1 transportation improvement funding, up for your vote in April. Prop 1 will preserve current level of bus service, among other things. The Future of King County Transportation: Why Your Vote Matters is at Town Hall, 11:00a – 1:30p.
• Also Saturday, Town Hall hosts a community forum on the future of its neighborhood. The first ever First Hill Forum starts at 10 AM.

Barverseries this weekend: The Pine Box on Thursday celebrates 2 years, and on Saturday The Cuff — the grand leather daddy of Seattle  — celebrates 21 years. Buy it some shots!

Saturday night at Volunteer Park’s Seattle Asian Art Museum, filmmaker Liz Marshall will be on hand to present her new work, The Ghosts in the Machine — a documentary that “illuminates the lives of individual animals living within and rescued from the machine of our modern world.”

Want psychic communication with your cat? Your dog? A wild animal? Head to Rainbow Remedies on Sunday 3pm:

Answer the burning questions of your inner pet psychic as Animal Communicator Karen Cleveland offers a free talk “What Is Animal Communication? Why is it Important?” Karen will discuss the common questions of how animal communication works or who can do it, as well as how it helps all animals whether they’re inside a home, on a farm, or in the wild. Free.

Something to add? Let us know on the CHS Calendar — more listings below:

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comic art at Gay City

Good spring weather — sunny and high near 60F– on Thursday is a perfect reason to walk around the ‘hood and check out the art shows opening for the monthly Capitol Hill Arts Walk, aka your hyper-local affordable art fair. Highlights this month include a queer comic art exhibition at Gay City Health Project; Tales from the Grind at Office Nomads in which six Seattle authors read stories and poems about the jobs they’ve loved, lost, and sometimes, quit in a frenzied rage; humorous photography by Fab Rideti at Paris Eastside; interpretations of the Zodiac signs at True Love. Find many more art walk events via the mobile-friendly blitzcapitolhill.com.

This weekend is the last chance to see “First Dollars to a Name” at Eclectic Theater. This “mature content” play is an homage to the spaghetti western, and marks the 50th anniversary of Sergio Leone’s classic Fistful of Dollars. Queue the whistle + wah-wah-wah song.

Friday, Neighbors hosts Battle of the Bulge, an underwear model contest and benefit for Social Outreach Seattle.

Also Friday, Chop Suey hosts a benefit show to raise funds for the second annual ‘Mo-Wave musical festival. CHS wrote about the first year for the queer music fest here.

St. Patrick’s Day (aka amateur drinking day, aka everyone-is-Irish day) is Monday, but you can start to party green on Saturday at Tommy Gun.

“Join us for our Third Annual Irish Feast. We’ll start things off with doors at 5pm and dinner will last until our traditional corned beef sandwiches (piled on rye with cabbage, naturally) runs out. You’ll find Guinness on draft and array of Irish whiskeys at the ready. Once again, we’ll feature Irish dancers at 10pm.”

Justin Duffus at Blindfold Gallery.

Da’Daedal celebrates their second anniversary of producing improv nights of music, spoken word, and art on Sunday at Vermillion.

The $15 Now crowd will be rallying — and marching for the cause — at Judkins Park Saturday afternoon.

Something to add? Let us know on the CHS Calendar — more listings below:

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The Comet Part Deux is slated to be open by the end of the month. Thursday night, you can celebrate its past with a photo exhibit featuring the work of Connie Aramaki. Aramaki was invited into the legendary dive last fall to document the bar’s punk patina before its new ownership’s overhaul and construction work began. The show is open from 6 PM to midnight at 10th and Pike’s Sole Repair.

Washington Ensemble Theatre is throwing a bash Saturday to celebrate a decade of productions. WET’s Ten Year Jubilee party and auction is at the gala-friendly DAR Hall on Roy St and starts at 6pm.

photo Larae Lobdell

Enjoy a festive evening of delightful entertainment, delicious bites and drinks, and a fabulous live and silent auction with dazzling prizes, as we raise our glasses to toast and honor the wonderful ten years of new work created in Seattle by the Washington Ensemble Theatre. The evening will feature a fantastic lineup of performances that honor the history of the Ensemble and the ten seasons of innovative new work. Call 206.325.5105 for ticket availability.

Other anniversary parties this weekend include St. John’s 2 Year “Oysterity” Party on Thursday, and the Bottleneck Lounge Turns Lucky 7 on Friday.

Boost your home library from the surplus of books at the Gay City LGBT Library. The surplus sale runs Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Gay City Health Project’s Michael C. Weidemann LGBT Library is pleased to announce our Surplus Used Book sale, featuring surplus LGBT fiction and non-fiction books for sale. It’s a great way to build up your personal library, and the proceeds benefit ours!

Sunday night at Vermillion, support ZAPP in a benefit to help the Zine Archive & Publishing Project forge a new path as an independent nonprofit.

Find more events and happenings on and around the Hill on our community calendar below. Have something to add? Go for it. Anyone can add an event and it doesn’t cost ya a dime. Let us know on the CHS Calendar.

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We’ve already told you about the influx of writers and book nerds to the Hill as part of the AWP convention, and with them an astounding number of free events at some of the most likely–and unlikely–spaces. You can peruse the full list of “off site” events and build your own schedule, follow our highlights culled from the City Arts list, or check out the recommendations from The Sunbreak (most of which are on Capitol Hill). The conference concludes on Saturday, but offsite events continue into Sunday, including this one at Lake View Cemetery at 1 PM:

Celebrating Levertov at her grave
Gather for a one hour celebration of the poetry and life of Denise Levertov, who is buried in Seattle’s beautiful Lake View Cemetery. The event is being organized by the Dead Poets Society of America, and people who attend will be welcome to share short stories and read one or two of her poems. 

Winter is Coming to Ltd Art Gallery on Friday.

This is the last weekend to see the well-reviewed play Black Like Us at Annex Theatre. The new play’s run concludes on Saturday, March 1.

Oscar parties! Watch the red carpet parade and hope for acceptance speech nuttiness at Gay City & 3 Dollar Bill Cinema’s 9th Annual Oscar party at Fred Wildlife Refuge, or the Pretentious and Boozy party at Poco wine + spirits, or the Academy Awards Gala at Neumos. Let us know of more Oscar parties in the comments, or add it to the CHS calendar.

Velocity Dance Center’s Speakeasy Series on Saturday is a gathering for viewing videos of collaborations between poets and dancers from the late 1970s to now, followed by an excerpt of K.J. Holmes‘ new piece with Julie Carr, plus a Q & A. The event is at 10 Degrees (1312 E Union) and begins at 5:30.

photo Tom Marks

Balkan Night Northwest is an annual event in its third year and features a full afternoon and evening of traditional dance and music on Saturday March 1.

The third annual Balkan Night Northwest takes place one music-packed night only this year, at Saint Demetrios Hall in Montlake. This year’s event begins at 3 pm, starting with traditional Balkan mummers, Kukeri and Babouyeri, in a Balkan Mardis Gras festivity to celebrate spring and the awakening of the earth, with bagpipes, zournas and more! Balkan Night Northwest brings together an astonishing array of music and dance from Bulgaria, Macedonia, Albania, Romania, Croatia, Serbia and Greece, along with the raging sounds of Romany (Gypsy) brass.

On Sunday, Balkan Night Northwest brings a Bulgarian Dance Party with Bulgarite! to the Russian Community Center on 19th Ave.

Something to add? Let us know on the CHS Calendar — more listings below:

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Gaylaxy Quest: A Celebration of Queer Sci-Fi & Fantasy Fiction will boldly take sci-fi readers where no sci-fi readers have gone before Friday night at E Pike’s Calamus Auditorium:

Gay City, Queer Geek, and Gay Romance Northwest are partnering together for a special Gay City “Meet the Author” event with four Washington State writers who boldly explore star systems and fantasy realms while spotlighting LGBT main characters and relationships.

Thursday night, community advocate Catherine Hillenbrand receives the 2014 Spirit Award at the Capitol Hill Chamber of Commerce State of the Hill event at Fred Wildlife Refuge.

The photographers featured in Blindfold Gallery‘s current show “Magic Nudes” will be at the gallery on Thursday 7 – 8:30pm for an informal talk about their work. Paul Dahlquist’s and Almendra Sandoval’s evocative, black-and-white images of artfully composed nudes complement and elevate each other.

Saturday, a tradition of having a good time for a good cause at Seattle University continues with the annual Seattle U Dance Marathon to benefit Children’s Hospital. Seattle Mayor Ed Murray reportedly will be on hand to do some boogeying down.

Get to know the trees in Volunteer Park on a guided Tree Walk tour by experts on Saturday. To join this free event, meet at the entrance to the Asian Art Museum at 10am and plan for about two hours.  If you can’t make the tour on Saturday, the ents tree people with the City of Seattle have created self-guided maps for our Olmsted-designed park: Master map; NE loop; SE loop; SW loop; NW loop.

A traveling exhibition of films by Czech filmmaker Jan Nemec lands at Northwest Film Forum Friday through Wednesday.The Independent of Reality: Jan Nemec Retrospective features six New Wave films which showcase the director who “not only bucked the formalist conventions of his time, but also directly challenged the state art establishment with an approach he called ‘dreamy realism.’ The political controversy surrounding his subversive and surrealist work resulted in a 15 year exile from his country in the 1970s and ‘80s, making his films difficult to access in the U.S.”  Saturday’s film, Martyrs of Love, was considered most dangerous to the Communist ideology.

Broadway Farmer’s Market is a weekly event every Sunday 11am – 3pm at the intersection of Broadway and Pine. See the Ripe and Ready page for the organizers’ best guesses for what’s in season and available at the market this week, including potatoes, winter squash, and fresh eggs.

Something to add? Let us know on the CHS Calendar — more listings below:

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Seattle U hosts the annual Search for Meaning Book Festival on Saturday. The fest brings together over 40 authors of fiction non-fiction, and poetry for keynotes, presentations, book signings and interactive experiences. The event offers opportunity to listen, learn, interact, and reflect on their own ability to contribute to a more just and humane world. All events are free and open to the public, however a ticket for entry is required. Get yours here.

A slew of art shows are opening on Thursday as part of the Blitz Capitol Hill Art Walk. The show we’re most looking forward to is at Vermillion, titled Touch Me – I Am Violent. Why? Because we are encouraged to touch the artwork. OMG we can has art feels! Other highlights on the art walk  include the dual show at Photo Center NW exploring the Black male community and images from men of African diasporal descent; and the photography of by Paul Dahlquist and Almendra Sandoval at Blindfold Gallery. Get the full list of venues and shows on the art walk website, or pick up a printed map at any of the venues.

Frequent CHS photo contributor Aaron Brethorst will have an exhibition on display at 15th Ave E’s Liberty:

It’s called City in Motion, and it’s a series of long exposure landscape photos of Seattle. The exhibit consists of six really large giclée prints on canvas (like, measured in feet large), and four black and white prints. The exhibit is part of the Capitol Hill Art Walk (or Blitz, or whatever), and runs from 5-8pm at Liberty. There’s more information on my website, including smaller versions of the six canvas giclée prints: http://www.aaronbrethorstphotography.com/.

Are you thinking of adopting a dog? May we suggest Valentina Karpov, a martini-drinking master chess playing dog, or Coach Tracker, a surfing tree surgeon canine. Meet Valentina, Coach, and more dogs at the Expawdition Club event at Creature office on Saturday and Sunday. Seattle Salty Dog Rescue will have dogs available for adoption; these special pets come with backstories and artifacts courtesy of Creature. Mud Bay has donated treats, toys, and accessories to accompany the pooch characters to their new homes.

Continuing theater productions this weekend include Ed, Downloaded at Washington Ensemble Theatre and Black Like Us at Annex Theatre. Oscar-nominated shorts continue screening at Harvard Exit theater, too. 

Our Capitol Hill calendar has much more: dance performances, author readings, Valentine events, comedy, a fun run, plus, plus. What are you waiting for? Get outta the house already.

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