Arts DEVO

Nudge, nudge …
It’s all autumnal and cozy out. Time to do a bunch of stuff that we have to do. In addition to the activities that go along with your particular traditions, the season ushers in Chico’s regular host of familiar holiday theater productions, local-band holiday parties and various community activities, from The Nutcracker to the lighting of the “holiday” tree. But before you dive into the overstuffed end-of-the-year calendar, let’s find respite in a few less-common activities that might have gone unnoticed in the eclectic margins of Chico’s pre-holiday calendar.

Five things to do that were not on your calendar this week:

Party with Scandinavian folk dancers:
Chico’s Viking Lodge is celebrating 40 years of Norse heritage with an anniversary party featuring a Norwegian lunch and a performance by Sacramento’s El Dorado Scandinavian Dancers. Saturday, Nov. 8, 1:30 p.m., at Eagles Hall. Tickets are $10.

Experience the opera:
KCHO may have dropped the Metropolitan Opera from its programming (though the station does offer a mini opera fix with Opera Attic, Saturdays at 3:30 p.m.), but you can still experience the sounds and the hi-def sights of New York’s Met every few weeks at Tinseltown during the special live transmissions of the opera at the movie theater. Next up: Doctor Atomic Saturday, Nov. 8, 10 a.m. Tickets: $20/adult; $18/senior; $14/child.

Get funky in the sticks:
The 46, that art studio space way out Nord Avenue, is hosting a way-out dance party with quirky Portland garage funksters The Caldonias. It’s not going to be the same sensory overload that will be going down at the other alternative-art-space party the night before at the new TiON venue, but more like a bare-bones dance party to cleanse the over-stimulated palate. Kids With Headlice opens Sunday, Nov. 9, 8 p.m., at The 46 (2961 Highway 32, #46). Cost: $5.

Read a play:
Rogue Theatre has something new for you. Every second Tuesday, at Café Flo, they’ll be hosting free play readings … and the audience is invited to take part! The first one happens Tuesday, Nov. 11, at 7 p.m., with one of the scheduled plays (subject to change) being The Convent of Pleasure, by Margaret Cavendish, duchess of Newcastle. It’s a Restoration comedy from 1668 that “revolves around a young heiress, Lady Happy,” and there are plenty of roles to fill.

Visit a matchmaker:
The Match & Marry documentary delves into the centuries-old history, and current modern practice, of the Orthodox Jewish tradition of matchmaking. Shows Wednesday, Nov. 12, 8 p.m., at Chico State, in Ayres Hall 120. Tickets: $10/general (students free).

One final DEVOtion:
It was about 15 1/2 years ago that I purchased the very first birthday gift I ever gave to my wife—a little, black puffball that came to be known variously as Bear Cat, Honey Bear, or most simply, Bear. It was an extremely windy spring day as I rode my bike home from the Butte Humane Society, and from inside her wildly swinging cardboard carrier, Bear mewed her displeasure like a tiny, squeaking metronome for the entire ride to my apartment.

She actually never stopped mewing, whether running to greet us at the front door with incessant, sustained calls to be immediately fed or with demanding little squawks to have her chin vigorously scratched, Bear never did shut up. In the way pets are for us child-free couples, Bear has been a warm, loving child-like part of our little family for the entirety of our married life. Frisky as a kitten to the very end, on Nov. 1, 2008, our tiny friend Bear succumbed to a brief bout with cancer, and our home has already become much too quiet.