The animation bug bit Jerry Seinfeld awhile back, and the result was "Bee Movie," the star's first foray into a realm we'll call 'Toon World. He gives voice of a talkative honey bee named Barry who falls for Renee Zellweger and sues humanity for honey theft. It's a cheery picture, though one with a slightly sharper edge to it than most family-orientated animated offerings, thanks to
Seinfeld's trademark wit.

It was a decent-sized hit when it opened last November, and now it's coming to Tacoma's South End Recreation Area (SERA), 6002 S. Adams, at sunset Saturday. It's the latest offering in Metro Parks' Summer Sounds and Comcast Cinema series that's been going on for weeks now on Saturdays in the city's parks.

Singer-songwriter Jonathan Harris will open the evening's entertainment with a pre-screening concert at 6:30 p.m.

As always with this series, the music and the movie are free.

Martin Blank, left, works with Evan Schauss to create one of several hundred hand-sculpted elements that will comprise "Fluent Steps" in the Museum of Glass's hotshop last April.(Drew Perine/The News Tribune)

There's a huge glass sea-serpent inside the warehouse at 309 Puyallup Ave, but it won't be there for long.

It's Martin Blank's glass installation "Fluent Steps," intended to go up in the Museum of Glass' main plaza pool this fall. Made of mounding hills of 135 crinkly clear glass shapes on supports--looking rather like the humpy back of a sea-serpent--the work is only half-made, says Blank, and won't be in place until next spring. Blank, a Seattle-based glass artist, has been blowing the pieces in the MoG Hot Shop since May, assembling it for measurement in a Puyallup Ave studio rented from artists Rick Semple and Jori Adkins, who own the set of buildings including Mineral art jewelry space and the former Barefoot Studios.

As well as needing to blow more pieces in the Hot Shop (what he's made currently only fills half the pool), Blank says the support structure also needs work. Rather than install the work in lousy weather in a few months' time, MoG has decided to wait til next spring for the long-awaited installation, says MoG's Susan Newsom.

Meanwhile, Semple and Adkins have a new tenant for Blank's studio space--a bicycle shop. (Very handy for all those cyclists heading up the waterway over the new D St. overpass!) So Blank has to disassemble the sculpture piece by piece, label it, and store it in the basement downstairs.

Even squeezed into a warehouse, "Fluent Steps" is already pretty stunning. You can see it through the street windows--but only until next weekend. After that, the sea-serpent will be hiding in the basement til 2009.

Here's a shot of Blank and team assembling a part of the serpent...

Martin Blank and "Fluent Steps." Image courtesy Museum of Glass.