September 10, 2008

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The Stranger Genius Awards 2008

Throwing Wads of Cash at Local Artists Since 2003

by Brendan Kiley and Christopher Frizzelle

The Stranger Genius Awards 2008
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Genius Awards

Hello and welcome to the 2008 Stranger Genius Awards. For the sixth year in a row, The Stranger has scoured the city for the most beguiling, brain-tingling, smartest, and best work in theater, literature, film, and visual art, and now we present to you our findings: Seattle's (and indeed, the world's) newest certified Geniuses. Each of these five recipients is rewarded with the only thing that really matters: money. A check for $5,000. And a fucking cool party thrown in their honor. A party the whole city is invited to. Which includes you.

The party is on Saturday, September 13, at the Moore Theatre, that 100-year-old beauty, and we have the whole building. You would like to dance onstage? You may. You would like to wander up to the third balcony with your drink and your date? Now you're talking! There's a VIP party for the Geniuses first—to enter to win a pair of VIP tickets, e-mail your first and last name to lineout@thestranger.com with "VIP Genius" in the subject line by Friday at 5:00 p.m.—and doors open to the public at 9:00 p.m. (Get there promptly! The party will already be under way!) Emerald City Soul Club will be spinning throughout the night, and live entertainment includes the exuberant hiphop of Dyme Def, the court-jester surrealism of Daedelus, and the hot-shit electro soul of James Pants. And it's free.

And now for your questions. Do the Geniuses get to spend their money however they want? They do. There really aren't strings attached? There really aren't. So they can use it to take a trip, put a new floor in their studio, or get a younger and fresher face? Yes, yes, if that's what they want, yes. Is there an application process? Nope. After a year's worth of cramming our eyes and ears with as much new local work as we can—and writing about it in this newspaper and on Slog—our critics (and our readers) have a richer, truer impression of what's happening around us than an arts-grant panelist sitting in a blank room somewhere.

That isn't to say our internal deliberations aren't tense. This year we conducted them in a hot-air balloon careening dangerously toward a melting glacier on Mount Rainier, because Jen Graves can't steer. The conversation in the basket was a prickly, squirmy, don't-you-take-that-tone-with-me near-bloodbath. Every year among The Stranger's arts staff, tears are shed and fingers are pointed, but, eventually, consensus or a reasonable facsimile thereof is reached. Among this year's hot-button issues: Does worldly success knock a would-be Stranger Genius out of the running? Should the award be won for glorious existing work or given to an artist whose brain shows the richest promise? And does a group of theatrical anarchists qualify as an "arts organization"?

Answers to these questions and many more can be found in the following pages, where each of 2008's Stranger Geniuses is profiled in full, alongside shortlists of notable artists in each genre.

See you at the party.

—Paul Constant, Christopher Frizzelle, Jen Graves, Brendan Kiley, Charles Mudede, David Schmader, Annie Wagner, Lindy West

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Comments (10) RSS

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1
Way to go Stranger. I think the Genius awards are the best thing you do. (Well, you do a lot wrong too but this is good.)
Posted by Mindy on September 10, 2008 at 8:14 PM · Report
2
I have seen the end of human resources and it's in Wired Magazine March 2008.
Posted by Daniel on September 11, 2008 at 11:06 AM · Report
3
What is the minimum age for this? It sounds like a great time, but if it's 21+, it sounds like all of us 19-20 year old youngins are left in the dust.

Anyone know?
Posted by squakmix on September 11, 2008 at 12:19 PM · Report
4
note the ad on the top right of this page - it's 21+
Posted by bv on September 12, 2008 at 10:54 PM · Report
5
who cares about youth. go skateboarding or something.
Posted by static invasion on September 13, 2008 at 12:11 PM · Report
6
Has Paul Constant ever read any science fiction? Neal Stephenson has to be the most overrated writer in America, possibly in the English language. Certainly in the history of science fiction.

And Paul Constant, in one short paragraph, makes the two stupidest comments about science fiction I have ever seen or heard (and I go back 50 years as a reader). "The Diamond Age" defined cutting edge for the next ten years? God what an impoverished imagination you must have. Only to be matched, if not topped, by the claim that Space Opera has been long stagnant. This statement is so off the charts I can't even parody it. If by "long" he means that any of at least three writers I can think of off the top of my head haven't published anything this week, I will concede his point.

Please don't demean Sherman Alexie's well deserved award by following it with one to a libertarian blow-hard suffering from terminal prolixity.

I wouldn't have thought it possible, but a few short pages later Paul Constant manages to make a third statement re Neal Stephenson even dumber than the previous two. "The Diamond Age" made science fiction "...matter again." Constant must be dipping his raging hard-on in ink to be writing this stuff. He hasn't the slightest fucking idea what he is talking about.

d
Posted by d on September 13, 2008 at 12:48 PM · Report
7
Not sure why the public is invited, and free.
Lets take it from post-modern.. avant garde elitist.. where "the public isn't invited."

It's a great thing you're doing really, but the party is bullshit.
Posted by christina on September 13, 2008 at 10:51 PM · Report
8
Hmmm... THE STRANGER has never before been known to gently (or not-so-gently) massage the prostate of the capitol hill, pike/pine-consortium... anyone who tells you otherwise must have read that in THE WEEKLY
Posted by matt on September 14, 2008 at 6:27 PM · Report
9
Paul Constant should win a genius award for the best intro!
Posted by Clint on September 16, 2008 at 1:10 PM · Report
10
well i think it was good i went 2 the movie 2 see it iam 13 i was 12 when i went 2 go see it its was hell good
Posted by anna on March 30, 2009 at 11:09 PM · Report

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