THE BIKE

Ride today

In your garage, behind the unused treadmill, golf clubs and Christmas lights, gathering dust, is your bicycle. Reintroduce yourself to it.  Talk to it.  Love it.

Now jump on it and ride your ass to the Tacoma Farmers Market today on Broadway between Ninth and 11th. Bike to Market Day anchors Bike to Work Week and the opening day of the downtown farmers market.  Representatives at the REI tent will offer those with bikes (or helmets and helmet-head) a chance at prizes from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.

After the market, bike yourself down to the Tacoma Art Museum, 1701 Pacific Ave., to view the one-day-only Zeit Bikes.  Held in conjunction with the Third Thursday Art Walk, The Zeit Bike Contest display will enable five artists to turn their bikes into works of art, but each of these works of art also has to be “a functional bike, on some level,” according to Diane Waitr, Commute Trip Reduction coordinator for the City of Tacoma.

For more information on Bike to Work Week, check out the City of Tacoma web site: http:// cityoftacoma.org. — Jessica Corey-Butler

THE ART

“Inner Limits”

Our planet is going down. Way, way down. To the mat, hard and painful, and with a sad moaning broken-boned crunch.  A diving Al Gore elbow off the top turnbuckle for the finish.  Down, I tell you.

Humans are chewing Mother Earth up, spitting her out, stomping and gobbling and burning and gouging and drilling and sucking her dry. All we want is more and faster and with less consequence, and pretty soon our planet is gonna go, well, there you are, I’m finished, sorry, and boom zing groan, done.

So … celebrate our great planet while it’s still here in the form of “Inner Limits,” a video and sculptural exhibit by New York artist Betsy Alwin, who playfully expresses concepts of distance, time and geography by incorporating video footage of the Pacific and Atlantic oceans with a five-foot kaleidoscope exploring this planet’s changing landscapes.

“The work in this exhibition attempts to convey this overlap through works that portray the immensity of geographical time on human scale,” Alwin states in the exhibition’s press release.

I have time for her time because we don’t have much time. — Suzy Stump

[UW Tacoma Gallery, through June 30, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Friday, or by appt., opening reception May 17 5 p.m., 1742 Pacific Ave., kellej2@u.wahsington.edu]

THE HORSES

Lipizzaner Stallions

I love “Pulp Fiction,” the most celebrated of Quentin Tarantino’s dialogue-driven exercises in big-screen shock and awe. Considering his considerable talents at writing banter, it’s no wonder Taratino was brought in to spruce up the Gene Hackman-Denzel Washington nail-biter “Crimson Tide.” Tarantino’s major contribution: a heated discussion between the film’s white and black stars about the color of Lipizzaner Stallions, adding the issue of race to an already tense situation. (For the record, the horses are black at birth and turn white as they mature.) Speaking of the world famous Lipizzaner Stallions, they are coming to the Tacoma Dome for two nights of equine ballet. That’s right, equine ballet. Stallions will prance. Stallions will run. Stallions will leap. And you will sit there with your jaw in your lap. You can’t say neigh to that. — SS

[Tacoma Dome, May 17-18 7:30 p.m., $22.50-$32.50, 2727 E. D St., Tacoma, www. ticketmaster.com]

THE STAGE

“Talk Radio”

Pierce College’s Theatre Department is staging “Talk Radio” by Eric Bogosian, a play based on the original shock jock story by Tad Savinar. This pulled-from-the-headlines play focuses on a night in the life of Barry Champlain, a Cleveland-based radio talk show host with a lot of things to say. This self-proclaimed ass finds himself insulting the folks who call in the middle of the night looking for friendship, love for just a forum to vent their opinions. He is on the verge of making it big and will go into national syndication the following day. But that day never comes, when the play takes a turn right before the curtain falls. This play contains subject matter and language suitable only for mature audiences.  — Steve Dunkelberger

[Pierce College, 10 a.m. May 17, 7 p.m. May 18-19, 10 a.m. $2-$7, Fort Steilacoom Campus, 9401 Farwest Dr. S.W., Lakewood, 253.564. 6710]

THE DANCE

Take the lead

Run, run I tell you, outside and pluck the most beautiful of your roses, because you’re going to need it Sunday afternoon. You’ll be clutching it between your teeth as you dance the romantic and mysterious tango. Dance Argentine Tango includes free beginners lesson at 3:30 p.m., followed by a dance at 4:30 p.m. with music and food for $5. Adelante!

[Abbey Ballroom, Sunday, May 20, 4:30-7:30 p.m., $5, 1901 Fawcett, Tacoma, 253.222. 0105]