"I know my own needs ... I request nothing beyond the thickly COO-shunned seats available even in soft Corinthian leather."

Goodbye, Ricardo Montalban. The world has just become a lot less sexy.

I know, I know. You've seen the Nutcracker. Everybody and their mother has. But the Pacific Northwest Ballet's production is probably better than the one you saw.

Why? Because PNB's artistic director Kent Stowell enlisted awesome children's illustrator Maurice Sendak (Where the Wild Things Are) to design the entire set. They've transformed McCaw Hall into an acid trip worthy experience, complete with a 27-foot Mouse King. (Can you imagine seeing that thing on drugs? Yikes!)

Anyway. My point isn't that you should take drugs before seeing the show. In fact, you shouldn't. It's annoying enough when people get drunk at the event (I'll get to in a second.) My point is that Seattle's Nutcracker takes the cake from its counterparts. The cast does a fantastic job creating its own gorgeous--and slightly macabre--rendition of the ballet.

Thoe show runs through December 30. Tickets run $24-$130 (with discounts for children 12 and under) and are well worth the price.

That being said, I'd like to offer two bits of advice for future audience members:

1.) If you've got a tiny kid, don't forget to get a booster seat from the coat check lobby. The poor girl behind me spent the entire first half of the show huffing and "whispering" that she couldn't see. This made her unhappy and in turn, made me unhappy. Why? Because I was sitting in front of her and became convinced that I had the biggest fucking head in the world.

2.). Drink in moderation. After intermission a woman who reeked of wine plopped down in the empty seat next to me. Each time she hiccupped, her rancid breath would waft into my nostrils. She stared at me and slurred, "Are you a ballerina?" When I smiled politely and said no, she yelled defensively, "Don't worry, I'm not a lesbian!" She also decided to yell "Whoooooo!" through the rest of the show. I'm not exactly sure why. Seriously--go easy on the wine, folks. It's not a football game.

Our John Longenbaugh was correct in his recent story about the need for popular theater pricing during our present hard times. The Fifth Avenue Theater recently announced a new ticket policy.

SAM just initiated its own discount plan for its S’abadeb—The Gifts: Pacific Coast Salish Art and Artists show. For its duration (through Jan. 11), you can get $2 off museum admission for bringing with you an item of non-perishable food. Those edible donations go to the Chief Seattle Club, which helps indigent members of our Native American population.

Secondly, Seattle Theater Group, which books the Paramount and Moore theaters, just announced a holiday discount program of 50 percent (!) on upcoming shows. It's basically a limited-period sale for tickets purchased online (links above). According to STG: "The sale takes place during a thirty-six hour period beginning Thanksgiving morning, Thursday, November 27 at 10am and ending Friday, November 28 at 10pm." So have your computers logged on before the turkey fest, and prepare to click.

Some of STG's upcoming shows (their list, not our endorsement; other shows may be sold out) are as follows:

• Dan Zanes and Friends Holiday House Party (Dec. 6 & 7)
• Oprah Winfrey Presents The Color Purple (Dec. 24 & Dec. 25)
• Presidents of the United States of America (New Year's Eve)
• Blue Note Records 70th Anniversary on Tour (Jan. 8)
• Musical Adventures of Flat Stanley (Jan. 16-17)
• Silent Movie Mondays (Jan. 5-26)

Not to take anything away from Jesse's feature story this week about Elise Woodward (above), but some of us guys just aren't turned on by a lot of sports talk, bourbon, and hot wings. We're more partial to women who can discuss Pacific Ocean acidification and the anthropology of homelessness. And for us--ok, for me--there's a new babe on the airwaves. I don't even know what she looks like, since there's no photo on the KUOW site. But Ann Dornfeld manages to combine brainy reporting with a sultry voice that just gets me dreaming like Jesse gets dreamy over a woman dropping f-bombs. In fact, forget her stories about foreclosure prevention and invasive tunicates; just hearing Ann give the weather report--"Tonight: chance of showers"--gives me the shivers. C'mon KUOW, we need less from those women you've got who sound like they're teaching kindergarten, and more of Ann! Maybe she could read excerpts from each week's New York Review of Books?

According to the L.A. Times, viewers of the Metropolitan Opera's simulcast of Strauss' Salome this Saturday will be protected from the sight of leggy blonde soprano Karita Mattila taking it all off in her "Dance of the Seven Veils." Citing the Met's desire to make the HD simulcasts "family-friendly events," the Times reports:

"You'll see the camera pan away from her as she does the dance," a Met spokesman told Culture Monster. "Either it will pan discreetly away to the audience, or it will do a close-up of her face."

Looks like New York is finally ready for the opera that shocked and infuriated the city at its 1906 premiere there--it's just that New York doesn't think the rest of the country is ready. As I recall, when Seattle Opera staged Salome 10 or so years ago, the soprano went nude (it could have been a body stocking, but I don't think so) at the dance's climax but was immediately robed by Salome's attendants.

UPDATE: Whoops, I remembered wrong. This from Seattle Opera's Hilda Cullen: "Seattle Opera’s last production of Salome was done in March 2002. The sopranos in the title role were Nina Warren and Eilana Lappalainen, and they wore nude-colored bodysuits. The dance ended with Salome’s back to the audience."

I'm quite certain I'm not the first person to resort to casual gambling in a social emergency, but yesterday afternoon was my first time. And I loved it. I'm going to do it again. Hopefully soon. Maybe in an hour.

Starring around our pints of Guinness at Kells yesterday, our crew began showing serious signs of Sunday evening fatigue. One of my out-of-town guests even suggested we were getting cranky. So, to lighten the mood and make Kells a little more interesting, I decided to start wagering with my friend Ari. On everything. The first attempted bet went something like this: "I bet you an oyster ($1.50) that when the waitress comes back, the first sentence she utters will be a question. I'll even give you 3-to-1 odds." That particular wager never got off the ground as we couldn't agree on who was taking which side of the bet. We did settle on: "I bet you a oyster the next time the waitress comes back, she'll either ask us if we want the check or another drink. Any other questions or phrases, and you win." I took this bet. And the entire dynamic of the evening changed. We weren't just waiting for our check, we were waiting to see who was paying for the oysters. Stakes meant nothing. (Which is why we kept them mercifully low.)

I came out on top the big winner when the waitress asked, "How are you guys doing?" Best damn oyster I've ever slurped.

The digital world has brought us many benefits, and none more valuable than "keyword advertising," which (in theory at least) delivers ads that are targeted to exactly what you're searching for online. (Or in the case of gmail, more or less targeted to what you're talking about in your email messages.)

Not to be outdone by the New Media upstarts, however, the Turner Entertainment Network has introduced its groundbreaking TVinContext system, which involves cataloging scenes from Turner Entertainment's vast library of programs, and then selling advertising "related" to the content. As Turner executive Linda Yaccarino explained in a recent presentation, described in the New York Times:

After the conclusion of a scene from the movie Anchorman in which Will Ferrell, Paul Rudd and Steve Carell discuss love, the first spot in the next commercial break could be for the eHarmony.com online dating service.
She also described an example of a scene from the movie Hitch in which Will Smith suffers an allergic reaction to his food. That could be followed, Ms. Yaccarino said, by a commercial for the Walgreen drugstore chain for the allergy medicine Zyrtec.

Turner's so right. The possibilities are endless: After a scene in which Jason (Halloween) cuts the head off a terrified babysitter with a chainsaw, the first spot in the next commercial break could be for Stihl. After the shower in Psycho, an ad for Olay Body Wash with Radiance Ribbons. And so on. There's life in the Old Media yet!

Our sister paper's ace celeb chronicler, the Voice's Michael Musto, spoofs Lindsay Lohan's nude NY Mag Marilyn Monroe shoot in this hilarious (and oh so sexy) slideshow. Check it.

Much like Latinos and African-Americans, Caucasian-Americans have their own unique cultural preferences, too, as documented on this hilariously comperehensive website. Is fondness for gentrification, divorce, Mos Def, and Oscar Parties germane to honkeys? Mos def.