Saturday, Nov. 10
• Tom Hausken’s Oak Hollow Gallery show “A Useful Melancholy” ends Saturday. If you haven’t seen it yet, let me tell you, it is aptly named. Hausken’s abstract paintings are spare but compelling, evoking isolated landscapes and desolation in a way that fits the electrically charged Yakima desert winter perfectly. I mean, just look at one and tell me you don’t hear a cold wind blowing.
Oak Hollow, 5631 Summitview Ave., is open from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays and 9:30 a.m. to 4 Saturdays. For information, visit www.oakhollowframes.blogspot.com or call 509-965-9256
• Veterans Day, celebrating the achievements and mourning the loss of thousands upon thousands of military veterans, can be overwhelming. It’s easy to get lost in the abstract notions of service and sacrifice and forget that every one of those veterans was an actual human being.
Vietnam veteran Grady Myers’ memoir, “Boocoo Dinky Dow: My Short, Crazy Vietnam War,” is a good reminder of that. The book, co-written with journalist Julie Titone, is loaded with the color, horror and humor of one man’s Vietnam experience. Myers died in 2011, but Titone will read from the book at 5 p.m. at Inklings Bookshop, 5629 Summitview Ave. For information, visit www.shortcrazyvietnam.com or www.inklingsbookshop.com or call 509-965-5830.
• The Yakima Symphony Orchestra will celebrate Mozart with a nod to his place in contemporary pop culture at its classical concert “Amadeus: Music From the Motion Picture.” If it seems odd to build a concert of timeless music from one of history’s true masters around a 1984 film, it shouldn’t; “Amadeus” popularized the composer among a whole new audience. It is in itself a classic, and its role in keeping Mozart atop the classical music hierarchy is more than incidental.
So stop overanalyzing it and enjoy some Mozart at the Capitol Theatre, 19 S. Third St. The show starts at 7:30 p.m. Tickets, $15 to $65, are available at www.ticketswest.com or at 509-453-2787.
Thursday, Nov. 15
• You think “Be My Baby,” you think Ronnie Spector or Phil Spector. You think “Good Vibrations,” you think Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys. You think “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” you think Simon and Garfunkel. You’re not wrong, but you’re missing a big part of why those songs (and hundreds of others) were so great. You’re not thinking about The Wrecking Crew, the group of ace session musicians who played the music on all of those numbers.
The crew, including Larry Knechtel, who lived in Yakima during his later years, were the bricks in Phil Spector’s famed Wall of Sound. They’re celebrated in a new documentary, “The Wrecking Crew,” which will be screened at the Princess Theatre, 1228 Meade Ave. in Prosser at 7:30 p.m. Admission is $15, $12 for seniors and students. For information, visit www.wreckingcrewfilm.com or www.theprincesstheatre.net.
Friday, Nov. 16
• In terms of ska, rock-steady and reggae, there are not many more widely renowned acts than Toots and the Maytals. There’s Bob Marley and Peter Tosh and ... that’s about it really. When people talk about seminal reggae artists, it’s a conversation that necessarily must include Toots and the Maytals.
So it’s kind of a big deal that they’re coming to Yakima. They’ve been at it for 50 years, and their shows remain highly acclaimed. You can catch them in a special acoustic set at The Seasons Performance Hall, 101 N. Naches Ave., at 8 p.m. Tickets cost $36. Singer-songwriter Anders Osborne opens. For information, visit www.tootsandthemaytals.com or www.theseasonsyakima.com or call 509-453-1888.
Saturday, Nov. 17
• “Raiders of the Lost Ark” is such a part of our pop-culture fabric now — the rolling boulder, the arrogant swordsman shot down in the street, the melting faces of the Nazis — that it’s easy to forget what a sincerely thrilling film it is. “Raiders” took the devil-may-care attitude that Harrison Ford brought to Han Solo and filled it out, making him one of American cinema’s favorite rakish adventurers. It’s the sort of film for which people stand and cheer during the credits.
You can see it on the big screen at the Princess Theatre, 1228 Meade Ave. in Prosser at 8 p.m. Admission is $5. For information, visit www.theprincesstheatre.net.
Sunday, Nov. 18
• I’ll admit I don’t know reggaeton music at all; it’s a genre that is lost on me. But I do know a Billboard Top 10 album is a big damn deal in any genre, and Tony Dize’s 2008 debut, “La Melodia de la Calle,” hit No. 8 on the Latin albums chart. So, it’s safe to say the man has a big following.
He’s the latest in a long line of high-profile Latin and hip-hop artists to come through town and play El Dos de Oro, 5 Ranch Rite Road. The show starts at 8 p.m. Tickets, $30, are available through www.brownpapertickets.com. For information, visit www.facebook.com/eldosdeoroyakima or call 509-895-4179.
— Pat Muir