CITY WEEK

Music
Tonal hypnosis
Not all music is created equal. Some is made for dancing, some is just right for rocking out alone in your car and some is perfect as the background melody for sweet lovemaking. That said, if you're interested in falling into a mysterious trance whereupon the innermost workings of the cosmos will suddenly be revealed, listen to the Gyuto Monks Tibetan Tantric Choir. Seriously-the range of mesmerizing sounds that come out of these guys' vocal chords must be heard to be believed. Get yourself an earful at 8 p.m. Friday, March 9, at the Birch North Park Theatre, 2891 University Ave. in North Park, 619-239-8836. $25-$35. www.birchnorthparktheatre.net.

Art
In a line
Art featuring women posing in suggestive ways isn't new, but there's something about Deborah Oropallo's female forms that take the genre to a new place. Interested in the concentric worlds of fetishism, fantasy and fashion, she employs just a few simple but significant streaks of color to create twisted yet alluring female versions of familiar characters, from soldiers to Snow White. Kink, a collection of work from her Pinup series, opens at 6 p.m. Friday, March 9, at Scott White Contemporary Art, 2400 Kettner Blvd., Loft 238, in Little Italy. 619-501-5689. www.scottwhiteart.com.

Balboa Park
Picture of a warrior
History comes alive at the Museum of Man's Edward S. Curtis Refocused, an exhibition combining the works of the famed photographer with viewpoints of present-day descendents of the tribes he photographed. Curtis was able to produce more than 40,000 photos from three decades of traveling and living with more than 80 different tribes throughout the world. A sample of his images of elegant warriors and scenes of traditional life and ceremony will be on rotational display, alongside quotes of locally and nationally known Native Americans about Curtis. The exhibition opens Sunday, March 11, with a public lecture presented by George Horse Capture Sr., whose great-grandfather, Horse Capture, was photographed by Curtis in 1909. 619-239-2001 or www.museumofman.org.

Theater
Genius of Green Street
And all this time, you thought TV was a product of mid-20th-century minds, something whipped up out of the technological advances that colored World War II. You need to do some serious reading up, because the first televised broadcast took place in 1927, with 21-year-old inventor Philo Farnsworth calmly operating his creation from his lab on San Francisco's Green Street. Farnsworth died in 1971, largely forgotten in the wake of his project's otherworldly popularity-and with any luck, you'll get a glimpse of all that in The Farnsworth Invention, Des McAnuff's final Page to Stage production as La Jolla Playhouse's artistic director. Farnsworth runs through March 25 at the Sheila and Hughes Potiker Theatre, 2910 La Jolla Village Drive, La Jolla. $29-$32. 858-550-1010.

Film
Sexy '60s cinema
The same experimentation that colored '60s music and art spilled over into the era's films, too. In Michelangelo Antonioni's 1966 film Blowup, for instance, David Hemmings plays a photographer who thinks he may have inadvertently taken snapshots of a corpse. The first U.K. film with full female nudity, Blowup is a serious head-trip and features a guitar-smashing performance by the Yardbirds. Luis Buñuel's Belle de Jour came out a year later and stars Catherine Deneuve as a Parisian housewife who works out the kinks in her marriage in a brothel in the afternoons before returning home to hubby in the evenings. They're both good flicks, but you have to pick just one (they both screen at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 8). Blowup is in Balboa Park at the Museum of Photographic Arts while Belle de Jour will be shown at the Museum of Contemporary Art in La Jolla, 700 Prospect St. www.mopa.org or www.mcasd.org.

Workshops
Make it better
Chick lit has descended like a hot-pink plague of locusts, overtaking entire shelves of classic literature at bookstores everywhere. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. It's been argued that Jane Austen's novels were the chick lit of her time and, hey, there's always the chance to raise the bar. If you bring your superior sense and sensibilities to author Cathy Yardley's How to Write Chick Lit workshop at 2 p.m. Saturday, March 10, you could be the one to single-handedly improve the integrity of the genre. The workshop is happening at the Central Library, 820 E St., Downtown. 619-236-5800.

Spoken Word
Get learned
When UCSD poetry professor Eileen Myles was featured in a CityBeat cover story a few weeks ago, she probably assumed her critique of the local art scene would make a tiny splash. Instead, it created a gigantic wave of backlash from San Diego's artists, poets and writers, who rushed to the city's defense. But with the steady flow of pissed-off letters came a hopeful invite, and now Myles will be making her San Diego debut at 6:30 p.m. Monday, March 12, at Poetry & Art, a quarterly series at the San Diego Art Institute's Museum of the Living Artist in Balboa Park. SDSU professor Mark Freeman's recent documentary, Poetry Live(s), will also be screened. www.eileenmyles.com or 619-236-0011. $5.

Speaker
Brainiac
In the world according to Joseph Chilton Pearce, you have five brains, one of which is located in your heart. The scientist, mystic and self-described iconoclast is the author of many books, including The Crack in the Cosmic Egg, Magical Child and, most recently, The Biology of Transcendence. He's focused on exploring the connection between science and spirituality, so if you've ever wondered how to reconcile the conflicting impulses of your synapses and your soul, check out Chilton at 7 p.m. Friday, March 9, when he speaks at the Waldorf School of San Diego, 3574 Altadena Ave. in Emerald Hills. Call 619-957-9573 to register. $20.

Nightlife
Immortal music
The late, great underground hip-hop head J Dilla (of Slum Village and The Soulquarians) would be stoked to know that his music lives on. At 9 p.m. Friday, March 9, Stones Throw Records presents the J Dilla Ruff Draft listening party, an opportunity to hear the remastered and re-released version of Ruff Draft, an album that includes Dilla's edgier, more experimental tracks that even the most hardcore fans have yet to hear (the original 2003 vinyl is out of print). Local DJs PWC, Artistic and Cleancut, plus Dilla's old friend from Detroit, DJ House Shoes, will help set the mood at the Kava Lounge, 2812 Kettner Blvd. in Midtown. $5. 619-543-0933 or www.kavalounge.com.