Five Recommended Art Events This Weekend

In which we slay for thee, fair citizen, the oppressive tyranny of choice that threatens us all in these digitally benighted times. Slay for thee, we say, as if the process were some vile wyrm lately birthed upon the burgeoning ‘scape of Austin, Texas, where you for reasons unfathomed still deign to live.

Wigs, but not, necessarily, Whigs.

We mean, look:

1) Why waste your time arguing with some clueless co-worker about which Jedi would stand the best chance of defeating Thanos? Instead, engage with the real world of artistic creation and science and their consequences in our current milieu – with some actual experts, okay, some people whose work, whose obsession, is to explore the possibilities of theatre and literature and the intricacy of biological systems at the cellular and enzymatic level. We mean, attend Friday night’s Salon … in a Salon symposium with the Rude Mechs’ Madge Darlington and Kirk Lynn, with choreographer Alexa Capareda, geneticist Jennifer Moon, cell biologist Arturo De Lozanne, and science and fiction writer Kyle Davis. It starts at 7pm in the Aveda Institute over there near ACC Highland, and there’ll even be some potent potables with which to wet your whistle amid the wrangling of worldly wonders.

2) Here’s the new year, right? Which means, in scholastic parlance, here’s a new semester. And why the general public might give as much of a damn about that as the students and faculty do, is because, even beyond the local economic impact, UT’s Visual Arts Center is unveiling five new exhibitions. So there’s art! As it’s being freshly made and/or promulgated today! By academic practitioners! And this Friday night is the opening reception! Note: From what we’ve seen, “The Codex Borgia,” a newly invigorated relic of Mesoamerican history, is, all by itself, more than worthy of your attendance – besides the four other collections and all that convivial mingling.

3) If Beat Takeshi were dead, he might spin in his grave because of this thing. On the other hand, the maestro’s still very much alive – only 71 this year, tyvm – and even his corpse might give a gangstery thumbs-up to kt shorb’s newest stagework, 893 | Yakuza, in which a young woman seeks to become the first female member of the infamous Japanese crime syndicate. We reckon there’ll be a lot of thumbs-ups flashed for this thing, in fact, because shorb tends not to fuck around, and similarly inclined Jesus I. Valles is directing the show for Generic Ensemble Company at the Vortex, and who doesn’t enjoy a skewed look at that criminal underground in the country where sushi and bushido come from?

4) Full-scale opera? Not generally our cup of tea, unless it’s done like this … but Richard Buckley’s crew tends to knock every mannered ball of vocalizing right outta the park, too, and when Richard Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos is spiked with a conflict between conservatory-trained classical musicians and a garish rock band? We’re thinking, yeah, this is something we want to see on a Saturday night at the Long Center. And we’re only slightly biased because the Chronicle’s own Robert Faires is part of the action onstage(!) “Not as a singer, though,” the dapper gentleman’s quick to inform us. But still: Faires!

5) Here’s Sunday – O holy and secular day of rest! – and aren’t a fine mess of ocean-sourced edibles exactly what you’re craving this afternoon? Lucky for us all, then, that Quality Seafood is celebrating their 80th year of existence by hosting an open house at their ever-welcoming market-and-restaurant on Airport Boulevard. You know that Valentine’s Day is coming up, right? And that oysters are an aphrodisiac? As if 1) your libido needs any help at all, pallie, and 2) those bivalves aren’t tasty enough without the enhancement of superstition? Head on over for some briny celebration, we say, and be sure to ask everyone you see, “Hey, ah, where’s that fucking Palumbo?”