by JACOB H. FRIES

Wild Nights!
by Joyce Carol Oates

In Wild Nights!, Joyce Carol Oates imagines the final days of five literary lions: Poe, Dickinson, Twain, James and Hemingway. Blending fact and fiction — generally, a larger helping of fiction — she tries to assume each writer's voice as she builds stories about the iconic figures. By the title, and its exclamation point, one might assume that Oates set out to create celebratory stories about the adventures of some great, albeit troubled, American carousers. (Picking up the book, I was excited to read about Hemingway having a grand ol' time in Key West, however fictionalized.) Full Story

by MICHAEL BOWEN

Bevy of Bassoonists

These are teens and twentysomethings who want to be in a band — with a difference. At the 63rd annual MusicFest Northwest, more than 1,200 student musicians will perform, sing and dance in works by composers ranging from Beethoven to Vaughn Williams. (Verne Windham will feature the young artists on his late-morning KPBX show all next week.) Adjudicated classes take place on the Gonzaga campus — the public is invited (free!) — and the big events unfold at the Bing on Wednesday and Friday nights at 7:30 pm: arias and concerto movements conducted by Morihiko Nakahara on Wednesday at the Young Artists Concert, and then divisional winners (the best of the best) at Friday night's Festival Highlights Concert. Visit www.musicfestnorthwest.org. Full Story

by ANN M. COLFORD

Along the narrow streets in the oldest part of New Orleans, down along Bourbon Street and Canal Street, music is everywhere, seeping from the sidewalk cracks into the soles of your feet. It's a distinctive brand of music, a truly American art form that merges the city's varied cultural traditions into something with the urgency of footsteps and the heat of a southern summer. Jazz may have multiple ancestors, but many roots of the family tree rest in the muddy earth between Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River. Full Story

by MICHAEL BOWEN

David Mamet's recent pronouncement that he is "no longer a brain-dead liberal" clarifies the imbalance in his 1992 drama about political correctness, Oleanna. Sixteen years ago, the patriarchal professor seemed more condescending, his cowering student more justified in her accusations of sexual harassment. But now it's clear where the play's sympathies lie: It portrays the professor as well-intentioned victim, the student as vengeful harpy. Full Story

by MICHAEL BOWEN

Surrounded by laughing/angry women during performances of The Vagina Monologues, male audience members tend to squirm. CenterStage may be producing a collection of monologues called Talking With (May 8-22), but the men can rest easy: The half-dozen actresses in director Tim Behrens' production aren't obsessively gender-specific. Full Story

by HOWIE STALWICK

Few galleries in the Inland Northwest showcase contemporary ceramics the way the Art Spirit does. For the ninth year running, the Clay Invitational highlights ceramics from the functional to the fanciful. This exhibition showcases the full spectrum of what is possible from this most versatile of media: functional dishes, large-scale sculpture, delicately modeled porcelain figures, works cast in multiples, and every manner of surface decoration you can imagine. Full Story

by HOWIE STALWICK

The Spokane Chiefs, far removed from their glory days, had finished the year in last place. Al Conroy was fired as coach and the Chiefs shocked more than a few outsiders when they opted to replace a former NHL player like Conroy with a former Junior B player/rink manager/hockey school director who had just guided a college team to a (blush) 3-23-2 season. Full Story