A triple-shoot: The best of Bumbershoot 2006

The first thing one observes about Bumbershoot 2006 is that it has slimmed down. Seattle's premier music, arts and culture festival has been a four-day event since 1977, but this year the Friday events have been eliminated. We have only three days to get that four-days-of-Bumbershoot feeling, but if there's anything we Seattleites love, it's a challenge. Well, that and funnel cake. Trust me, you'll walk it off.

But how should you make those three days really count for something? Well, everybody's got their own way of tackling Bumbershoot. Here's how the NWsource staff plans to do it.

SATURDAY

After eating a healthy breakfast, we'll head down to Seattle Center around noon. Immediately, one encounters a forked path: You could dive right into KeyArena for the first match of the Bumberbout, a day-long roller derby invitational, or wait until Seattle's Rat City Rollergirls take on the Carolina Rollergirls (at 4 p.m.) and give the noon hour to the One Reel Film Festival (always a sound notion).

There are oodles of bands to see, including but hardly limited to The Gossip / Blondie (Mainstage, 12:45 p.m.), Laura Veirs & The Tortured Souls (More Music Stage, 4:45 p.m.), Daylight Basement (Sky Church, also 4:45 p.m.), Alejandro Escovedo (More Music Stage, 6:30 p.m.) and Lady Sovereign (Bumbrella Stage, 9:30 p.m.). Given the time and the mood, you may choose to see cartoonist Charles Burns and "Fight Club" author Chuck Palahniuk speak on the Performing Arts Stage (2:45 p.m.), to laugh with the Upright Citizens Brigade (Comedy Stage South, 3 p.m.), and to pick up some subversive knitting tips from Knitta! (Conversation & Creation Salon, 6:30 p.m.). That's, like, two days of activity, right there.

SUNDAY

GEOFF CARTER/NWSOURCE

Poster artist Leia Bell at Flatstock, 2004.

Slow down, fast train. Be sure to take in some art today -- the visual arts installations in the Northwest Rooms never fail to impress, and if you can browse through the amazing rock poster art of Flatstock 10 (all day in Fisher Pavilion) without buying anything, we'd like to know how. Musically speaking, today is no less packed. Mon Frere plays the backyard stage at 12:15 p.m. and the New Pornographers take the Mainstage at 1 p.m., followed almost immediately by Spoon at 2:45 p.m. In a bare challenge to the nature of physics, we're going to try to see both Common Market (Bumbrella Stage) and Jeremy Enigk (Backyard Stage) at 5:30 p.m., and if there's anything left of us after that impossible feat, we'll be out just in time to line up for Blue Scholars and Kanye West at 8 p.m. Oh, and Zero 7 plays the Backyard Stage at 9:15 p.m.

Whew! Thank heavens there's all these theater and spoken-word events to edify and bemuse. "Sister Spit" poet Michele Tea performs on the In Context stage at 2 p.m., monologist Mike Daisey takes to the Performing Arts Stage at 6:45 p.m., and there's a round-table discussion of R. Kelly's "Trapped in the Closet" on the Comedy Stage South at 6 p.m. If you've ever doubted Bumbershoot's ability to show you things you can't see anywhere else, the latter event should convince you otherwise.

MONDAY

GEOFF CARTER/NWSOURCE

Kirsten Easthope's painted bowling pins at Bumbershoot 2005.

If at all possible, today should be a day of relaxation. The Steve Miller Band plays the Mainstage at 2 p.m., and if you can't get mellow with the creator of "Abracadabra," you can't get mellow, dad. And for you '80s buffs, Nouvelle Vague reinterprets the music of Joy Division and Heaven 17 as borderline-kitschy lounge, 7:30 p.m. on the Backyard Stage. A Tribe Called Quest rocks the Mainstage at 9:30 p.m., the same time that the English Beat takes to the Bumbrella Stage. The Village Green do their business on the Backyard Stage at 12:30 p.m., The Transmissionary Six is at the Northwest Court Lounge at 2:30 p.m., Breakestra plays Bumbrella at 5:30 p.m. and Kane Hodder invades the Sky Church at 9:30 p.m. -- but, really, what's the rush? It's your day off.

By now, we'll probably be practically loony with agoraphobia, heat prostration and all the sugar from that funnel cake, but by gum, missing a talk by culture critic Greil Marcus (Performing Arts Stage, 3:45 p.m.) and One Reel's Film Noir program (9 p.m.) just isn't an option.

That's three solid days of fun and frolic, though as the weatherman says, your "real feel" will be closer to 10 days. On Tuesday morning, we can return to our jobs and our lives, Seattle's brilliant summer can come to an unofficial end, and Bumbershoot's planners can get started on next year's festival.