The Stranger, Seattle's Only Newspaper: Slog

Slog Overnight

Dan Savage — Sat, 18 May 2013 01:47:58 -0700

"I am admittedly very high right now," Slog tipper Taylor wrote at 1:13 AM, "but I think someone at the Stranger will find this video amusing enough to post it on Slog. I don't know if amusing is even the right word. Watch for yourselves."

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Overheard in the Reception Hall After the 50th Annual Theodore Roethke Memorial Reading Last Night

Christopher Frizzelle — Fri, 17 May 2013 17:20:53 -0700

One man was saying to a group of friends: "You'd be amazed what people share with their grocery person." On the other side of the room, a woman was saying to her friends, regarding the reading Kay Ryan had just given: "I hope that I got some of the jokes. I probably didn't." Later I heard someone say: "My main problem with ghosts is there are never dinosaur ghosts."

This was in a room on the second floor of Kane Hall, a high-ceilinged space with old-fashioned cluster lights and a huge organ at one end and a long banquet table down the center, piled with flatbreads and shrimp and tiny cakes. There was also a bar, serving complimentary wine. It had already been such a treat to see an hour-long free reading by the very wonderful Kay Ryan, who'd been introduced by the very wonderful Heather McHugh, that then to step into a room piled with free treats was, well, quite the treatment. Thanks, University of Washington Department of English!

"Thank you for that ridiculous introduction," Kay Ryan whispered to Heather McHugh as they walked into the reception. McHugh's introduction had been so dense with humor—poetry jokes and history jokes and many other kinds of jokes besides, plus some real-deal appreciation of Ryan's gifts—that Ryan's head, a few rows ahead of me, had been bobbing with laughter. And then Ryan got up and was very funny herself, so funny that afterward I felt exactly like that lady I overheard at the reception: I hope that I got some of the jokes. I love how intimidated that statement is.

"You cannot believe the eminences" the UW has invited to give the memorial Roethke reading since the 1960s, McHugh had pointed out onstage, and then looking at the list, she cracked: "They made one or two mistakes." Among the greats: Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Bishop, James Merrill. Ghost dinosaurs all, it occurred to me later.

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SL Letter of the Day: Gonna Boil My Laptop After Answering This One

Dan Savage — Fri, 17 May 2013 16:32:11 -0700

I'm 33, living in Colorado with my partner of a year now. We're happy together and have great sex. We have the best and most healthy relationship I have ever been in.... except for a fetish my partner has. He's into fucking dogs. Large dogs to where the dog isn't hurt or uncomfortable, but dogs nonetheless. It doesn't come up often. Soon after we started dating he confessed this to me and we talked about it. I am okay with him exploring that area of his sexuality, but I don't want to have any part in it. He wants us to both explore it together. This doesn't appeal to me in the least and wasn't an issue until recently. He's been getting more vocal about wanting us to get into that kink together, taking it as far as video bombing me with dog/man porn from his iPhone. What do I do? I made it plainly clear I don't want any part in this but left him open to explore on his own. I feel he wants me to be as into it as he is but I'm not and I know I never will be. Is there a solution to the problem or is there a deeper issue going on here that needs outside help?

Thanks for any advice.

Fretting Into Dog Obsession

My response after the jump...

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

So your partner is great and life is sweet and the sex is awesome... but your partner fucks dogs and the fact that you're willing tolerate the dog-fucking aspect of his personality (!!!) isn't good enough for the dog fucker in your life. And while your partner must know that there aren't a lot of non-zoophiles out there who would partner with an active zoophiles—because most people have pretty strict dudes-that-dick-dogs-will-never-dick-me rule—instead of being thankful that he found the one-in-a-zillion non-zoophile who can put up with his dog fucking, FIDO, this idiot dog fucker is badgering you with man/dog porn in the hopes that you'll take up recreational dog fucking yourself.

Ugh.

Run, FIDO, run.

DTDFA.

And after you've run off and found a new home—maybe on a nice farm in the country somewhere—you should spend a week or two thinking about your standards, FIDO. I'm thinking you might wanna add one or two items to your apparently very short (or non-existent) list of deal breakers. The ability to tolerate sexual interests you do not share is a good relationship skill. No argument there. But "doesn't fuck dogs" isn't setting the bar too high.

P.S. Before anyone accuses me of hypocrisy: While I'm generally pro-kink, and while I have urged people to give their partner's reasonable kinks a chance, there are limits. And dog fucking—like shit eating—exceeds all reasonable limits. Hell, I don't even think dog fucking should be called a "kink." It belongs in its own category.

Please, God, let this one be fake. Please, God, let this one be fake. Please, God, let this one be fake. Please, God, let this one be fake. Please, God, let this one be fake. Please, God, let this one be fake. Please, God, let this one be fake. Please, God, let this one be fake. Please, God, let this one be fake. Please, God, let this one be fake. Please, God, let this one be fake. Please, God, let this one be fake. Please, God, let this one be fake. Please, God, let this one be fake. Please, God, let this one be fake. Please, God, let this one be fake. Please, God, let this one be fake. Please, God, let this one be fake. Please, God, let this one be fake. Please, God, let this one be fake. Please, God, let this one be fake.

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Slog Super Poll: Who Should Be Mayor?

Dominic Holden — Fri, 17 May 2013 16:29:57 -0700

The deadline for candidate filing is mere minutes away, and since our last Slog poll, there's been a new alignment of power in the mayor's race. First, in today's big news, Council Member Tim Burgess is dropping out. Meanwhile, the long-shot, capitalism-smashing socialist Mary Martin recently jumped in. And finally, two completely random people filed this afternoon. The first never-heard-of-'em is named Joey Gray, who is apparently with a group called Cyclistas, and the next is Doug McQuaid (he ran against—and lost against—Susan Owens for the state supreme court last year). Welcome, radicals!

That makes this list—provided no one else files in the next few minutes—the likely lineup on your primary ballot:

1. Joey Gray
2. Seattle City Council member Bruce Harrell
3. Kate Martin
4. Mary Martin
5. Mayor Mike McGinn
6. Doug McQuaid
7. State senator Ed Murray
8. Charlie Staadecker
9. Former city council member Peter Steinbrueck

Why wait till August? Vote now!

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This Weekend at the Movies (SIFF and Beyond)

David Schmader — Fri, 17 May 2013 15:15:05 -0700

This weekend brings a bunch of SIFF stuff that the Stranger SIFF Review Board loved, including the Wikileaks documentary We Steal Secrets, Noah Baumbach's and Greta Gerwig's Manhattan-flavored comedy Frances Ha, the dead pet-fetishizing documentary Furever, the French family farm-fetishizing documentary After Winter, Spring, and the modern-day adaptation of Henry James' What Maisie Knew.

And in the non-SIFF world, there's Francois Ozon's In the House, the highly effective Filipino kidnapping thriller Graceland, and the cliche-ridden mob film The Iceman, plus all them StarTrekIronManGreatGatsbyblockbusters.

Full film info here.

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Short Film Fridays: The SIFF Edition

Charles Mudede — Fri, 17 May 2013 15:01:31 -0700

For the next three weeks, Short Film Fridays will feature work by directors who are participating in the current Seattle International Film Festival. The first film in this series is a music video made in 1994 by the Seattle-based director Josh Taft. The music video is for one of the most important tracks in the history of hiphop, Nas’s “The World Is Yours.” The world premiere of Josh Taft’s first feature, Alive and Well, a documentary about people dealing with Huntington’s disease, happens at SIFF Cinema Uptown on May 22nd (7:00 pm).

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Tim Burgess Quits the Mayor's Race

Dominic Holden — Fri, 17 May 2013 14:43:45 -0700

Originally posted at 1:33 pm and moved up with updates.

Tim Burgess withdrew his bid for mayor today, the last day candidates are eligible to file election campaigns, thereby leaving a wide-open gap for candidates vying for conservative votes and funding.

The Seattle City Council member took a parting shot at Mayor Mike McGinn, naturally. "It is critically important that we elect a new mayor," he said in a statement this afternoon. "However, with so many qualified candidates in the field, my continued candidacy may dilute the chance of achieving the positive change Seattle needs. After much deliberation, I have chosen not to continue as a candidate. Instead, I will continue to serve this city that I love from my position on the City Council, the most rewarding job of my life."

Although the statement sounds altruistic, it seems Burgess knew he couldn't win.

From his botched announcement last November to this abrupt end, Burgess's campaign never caught the tailwind many expected. He was considered a leading challenger last year—a sort of mayor in waiting, after Mayor McGinn's two years of floundering—but McGinn seems to have found sea legs at City Hall, and a pack of heavyweight contenders crowded into the race in January and February. In particular, state senator Ed Murray and to a lesser extent Council Member Bruce Harrell have emerged in the race as safe bets for institutional backers that represent downtown business, and, unlike Burgess, can't be portrayed as conservative outliers (Burgess infamously sponsored a controversial aggressive panhandling bill that failed in 2010).

Burgess has also been unraveling this week.

After the news that the 36th District—Burgess's home district—would split its endorsement between him and Murray, yesterday came the news from PubliCola that Burgess fired his spokesman. And then the 46th District Democrats, who represent the relatively wealthy, white district of northeast Seattle that seems like Burgess's base, didn't endorse him at all. Also the city council's biggest advocate to bring back the Sonics, Burgess took a blow when the NBA nixed the deal Wednesday.

Wednesday night was also a poor, petulant showing for Burgess. I was emceeing a mayoral straw poll at the Phinney Ridge Community Center when I asked Burgess about his divisive actions in the last few years that belie his campaign theme of collaboration. Specifically, Burgess booted the city budget director Beth Goldberg from his finance meetings last fall. I said it appeared unprecedented. Burgess insisted I was wrong; he said he blocked the budget director from only one meeting, and then, apparently flustered after the questioning, he told me to "go fuck yourself." Granted, I had it coming: I was wearing a shirt that said "The NBA can go fuck itself." But he didn't say it like a joke—he seemed pissed. And when I followed up by e-mail to ask if he could prove I was wrong—that kicking out the budget director had precedent and that it was only one meeting—he didn't reply. City records show that Burgess held seven budget meetings without the budget director, not just one. In other words, he was wrong, he was angry, and then he went silent. Not very mayoral.

Burgess had raised more money that anyone else in the race ($232,000, according to the latest election reports), but most of it was already spent, with a $100,250 reported balance. Meanwhile, Murray's fundraising has been frozen through the legislative session, and Murray is widely expected to be a fundraising power house through the summer months leading up to the August primary.

Paradoxically, Burgess quitting could benefit Mayor McGinn more than anyone else in the primary. Although McGinn is generally considered to be on the liberal end of the spectrum of candidates, he got 34 percent of the Republican support in a March SurveyUSA poll. Burgess was second among Republicans with 15 percent. If those fiscally conservative voters flock to McGinn—who's run a tight budget and famously fought the expensive deep-bore tunnel project—it may give him the boost needed to push through to the general election.

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In Which I Do Not Declare My Candidacy for Seattle City Council

Goldy — Fri, 17 May 2013 14:35:51 -0700

Later this afternoon, just before the deadline, I will not file to run against four-term incumbent Seattle City Council member Richard Conlin. And believe it or not, it was a very difficult decision that I've been struggling with for weeks.

Seriously.

After nine years of covering Washington state and local politics I've come to the conclusion that Seattle can no longer wait on Olympia to address our problems. Our state's inability to fix its longterm structural revenue deficit dictates a gradual but relentless reduction in the services and infrastructure investments the state can provide. Whatever the result at the polls, unless and until the state finds a way to grow revenue somewhat commensurate with the economy, we will inevitably get the Republican agenda by default. And unable to maintain the transportation, education, and other amenities sufficient to preserve Washington's economic competitiveness, our economy will ultimately sputter and stagnate.

Washington is a state teetering on the edge of decline.

Meanwhile, the "fuck Seattle" attitude that permeates much of the rest of the state, combined with Republicans' knee-jerk opposition to taxes of all kinds for any reason under any circumstances, assures that Olympia cannot be counted on even to grant us the authority to tax ourselves to meet our own needs.

But there is hope. Seattle is a compassionate city, a progressive city, a smart city. But above all, Seattle is an affluent city. And while the revenue options at our disposal may not be the ones we'd prefer, we are wealthy enough to use the options we have to invest in the human and physical infrastructure we need to assure economic growth and prosperity now and in the future. That is, assuming we have political leaders with the vision to embrace a newly self-sufficient Seattle, and the communications skills to sell that vision to voters.

Which we don't.

That is why (besides all the usual narcissistic bullshit that is inherent in politics) I seriously considered challenging Conlin: Because Seattle needs and deserves more than the caretaker council that Conlin has come to epitomize. We need to invest in our children, in our transit, in our roads, and sidewalks, and bikeways now, while we can still afford to, before our economy is dragged down by the rest of the state. If we act proactively while we still have an economy capable of sustaining such investments, we can sustain Seattle's competitiveness, and perhaps even drag the rest of the state kicking and screaming with us.

For example: Seattle desperately needs to invest in the one education reform that everybody agrees works: High quality universal preschool for all three- and four-year-olds.

Despite their stated intentions, lawmakers will never implement universal preschool at the state level because Olympia will never be able to bring itself to raise the tax revenue necessary to pay for it. But we can do it ourselves here in Seattle for approximately $50 to $80 million a year, a bargain considering the extraordinary results and savings it returns. Nothing would do more to close the achievement gap than high quality universal preschool. And had I run for the council, I would have promised to shepherd a Universal Preschool Levy onto the ballot by 2015.

That is the type of proactive investment that Seattle needs its council to champion—on schools, on housing, on transit, and on any number of issues. But time is running out. Boeing is dismantling its presence in our region piece by piece in its inexorable march toward assembling a non-union workforce. The University of Washington—an institution that should serve as a local incubator of technological and economic innovation—is in the process of being defunded by a state that has abandoned its commitment to maintaining an affordable, first rate, public university system. Meanwhile, Seattle is largely pinning its crucial South Lake Union redevelopment plans on the prospects of a single tenant—Amazon—a retailer with tiny margins in a cyclical market. Should Amazon ever hit upon hard times the resulting glut of vacant office space would depress new construction throughout the city, and with it city coffers.

The question is not whether Seattle can afford to invest in things like universal preschool, light rail expansion, and dedicated bikeways. The question is: Can we afford not to make these investments before the window of opportunity closes?

Personally, I've got nothing against Conlin. But over his 16 years on the council he has never displayed the kind of vision that our city needs to take control of its own future, nor frankly, the leadership skills sufficient to justify rewarding him with a fifth four-year term. And that is why I considered challenging Conlin, however quixotic that challenge might have been.

Over the past few days I lined up a consultant and secured almost $8,000 in pledges so that I'd at least have the money to get a campaign up and running out of the gate. I talked with Seattle Ethics & Elections to clear the legality of a working political journalist running a political campaign. And I sought out advice from the local political minds I trust the most. Most urged me to run, though most were bluntly honest that I didn't stand a very good chance. Not no chance—about ten percent seemed to be the consensus. And that was good enough for me.

But while I wasn't afraid of losing, I was afraid of not giving my supporters and contributors their money's worth. A real citywide campaign costs real money—at least $100,000 if not twice that—and raising real money requires several hours a day of call time. I could have run the kind of no-cost campaign where you just show up at forums and endorsement interviews, and make your case. But no matter how serious my message that still would have made my candidacy a joke. And as much as I enjoy a good joke, I didn't want to be one.

Had this been a publicly financed election I would have filed today and run to win. But given the competing demands of fundraising and my already demanding full-time job, I realized that I could not run a serious campaign. And I was unwilling to take money from contributors without giving them a serious campaign in return. While my bosses at The Stranger were fully supportive of my plans to run, we never discussed the prospect of taking a leave of absence, because quite frankly, I couldn't afford to take one. Like many other would be candidates, I was simply too poor to take the plunge.

It's disappointing, because apart from the dreaded call time I think I really would have enjoyed the campaign. And scoff all you want, I honestly believe that I would have made an excellent council member. But it's not like I don't already have a significant platform from which to advocate for a proactively progressive agenda. So for now I'll just have to settle for the privilege of covering the campaign on behalf of Seattle's only newspaper.

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In the UK, Amazon Is a Welfare Queen

Paul Constant — Fri, 17 May 2013 14:01:08 -0700

Zeljka Marosevic at Melville House tells us about a meeting yesterday that was held to discuss Amazon.com's taxes, or lack thereof:

“What people will find particularly galling is that the amount Amazon is paying in tax is actually less than they are taking from UK taxpayers in the form of government grants. Companies like Amazon should pay their fair share of tax based on their economic activity in this country and the profits they make here...

Why is it people get ridiculously upset when someone on the internet sees a young mother of three buying some mildly unhealthy food with food stamps, but when Amazon sucks at the welfare teat on an exponentially larger scale, it's at best considered to be the free hand of the market and at worst just shrugged off as the way it is nowadays?

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Browse the Medicare Hospital Charges and Payment Data

Jonathan Golob — Fri, 17 May 2013 13:31:44 -0700

As I wrote about last week, Medicare (for the first time ever) released what hospitals in the United States charged, and what they were paid, for the top 100 diagnoses in 2011.

If you're curious, I've written a simple (and ad-free) web app you can use to browse the data. (I suggest comparing the Las Vegas, NV region to Baltimore, MD.)

Be gentle, but have at it.

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Introducing Yahoomblr?

Paul Constant — Fri, 17 May 2013 13:21:14 -0700

On Monday, Yahoo is holding a press conference, according to TechCrunch. This comes after the company's recent buying spree, and it closely follows rumors that Yahoo is considering spending a billion dollars to buy Tumblr:

On Monday, it seems that we may get a better sense of what Yahoo plans to do with all these new acquisitions, as CNBC is reporting that Yahoo will be holding a “product-related” news event on Monday in New York City. Marissa Mayer will reportedly be speaking at the press conference, but that’s all we know about the contents of the event at this point.

I do get the sense that Tumblr could be a bigger deal than it already is—it's about one-third of a social network and two-thirds of a blogging platform, which seems like a good position to be in—but I'm not sure that Yahoo is the company to bring it to its full potential. But new CEO Marissa Mayer has accomplished what seemed like the impossible a couple years ago: She's got people talking about Yahoo again.

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Kay Ryan Reads Her Poems Twice (Kay Ryan Reads Her Poems Twice)

Molly Morrow — Fri, 17 May 2013 12:57:00 -0700

A year or so ago, Kay Ryan went to Italy, and it made her think about the sometimes-painful, always-disorienting work the mind has to do when it arrives in a new place. Last night at Kane Hall, she read to us a poem that described this problem of being somewhere new, but not knowing how to be new yourself, as if you had put up an “interior tent,” only to find that “the new holes aren't where the windows went.” The poem settled as she leaned into the podium. “I bet you'd like me to read that again,” she said, and the audience fairly moaned yes. Yes, Kay Ryan, read it again. The sheer delight Ryan took from examining her own work—as though it were not her own but the work of some dear, deranged friend—gave the reading a wondrously funny edge, and allowed the audience to see Ryan not as the intimidating literary giant that she is, but as a warm, comic entertainer of the highest sort, able to humble herself through a kind of soft, conscious mocking. (After the first poem of the night, she mused, “I find that a very touching poem, but I'm ready to go on.”)

She began the evening with a set of new, unpublished work on subjects including but not limited to W.G. Sebald, frogs with dual pupils, octopuses, Thelonious Monk, and 17th-century Dutch still-life painting. Much of it she flatly insisted on reading twice, claiming that “if it's a poem, it should bear a second reading,” when in truth Ryan's poems not only bear a second reading, but seem to require it – so dense and rich with these double meanings you could feel the audience leaning in and curling around them, straining to catch every word and every space between words before the moment passed. (More than once I looked around and saw the people on either side of me listening with closed eyes.) Sometimes the second reading seemed to be as much for Ryan herself as for us, and the second reading would inevitably give a second meaning. This twinned reality—what Ryan calls “doubleness”—was the predominant theme of the evening, much moreso than the Northwest theme Ryan half-heartedly attempted, but (gloriously) abandoned. One new poem in particular, a beautifully creepy thing entitled “Ship in a Bottle,” possessed this doubleness in spades. Ryan introduced it by saying that the poem is still a mystery even to her. (Not being able to see the poem on paper, I‘ve inserted line breaks where I sense them, sacrilegious as that feels):

It seems impossible
Not just a ship in a bottle
But wind and sea
The ship starts to struggle
An emergency of the two realized
We realized
We can get it out but not
Without spilling its world
A hammer tap and they're free.
Which death will it be,
Little sailors?

“I'll read it again. It's a mystery to me,” she repeated. “I mean, it all makes sense, but I'm not sure what it's getting at.”

The dark exhilaration of this new work passed naturally into much-loved older work, more familiar, and perhaps safer, but no less moving. (I recommend, before you die, hearing Kay Ryan read her poem “Train-Track Figure” in a semi-dark room with good acoustics. Those three lines toward the end, pronounced with perfect rushing speed, so that the syllables mimic exactly the sound of a train clipping over the tracks: “If it's a person/if it's a person/if it's a person.” Only great poetry can make trains more real than actual trains.

Perhaps the highlight (but there were so many highlights!) of the night came after a reading of the eerie poem “Pentimenti,”—which Ryan says is “much more terrible than you think”—when she did an impromptu literary analysis of the rhyme scheme. Ryan loves rhyme, obviously, but more specifically she loves “homemade rhyme.” In “Pentimenti,” she performs a version of homemade rhyme that she has named wedge rhyme. You can hear it in the lines “through which/who knows what/exiled cat or/extra child/might steal.” Exiled. Extra. Child. Ryan has wedged a neat cluster of syllables into the skinny frame of that word, exiled, to create a longer sister-phrase that doubles it. “Probably not particularly gratifying to you,” she remarked of the analysis, as if by way of apology. But one man toward the back of the auditorium summed up what the rest of us were feeling with a loud, appreciative whoop.

Probably not particularly gratifying, no. Not gratification - something much, much better than that.

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Some Really Good Food-Related Films at SIFF

Bethany Jean Clement — Fri, 17 May 2013 12:45:28 -0700

After Winter, Spring - a film by Judith Lit from Judith Lit on Vimeo.

SIFF has a dozen or so movies about food, or farming, or fruit, or wine, etc. this year, and of the ones that we were able to screen by press time, we REALLY liked four (good job, SIFF!).

DON'T MISS!
After Winter, Spring
Is there anything cuter than a farmer rubbing the fuzzy face of an hour-old calf, asking, "Is there anything cuter than this?" Yes: when the farmer and the calf and the question are all French, as is the case in this achingly lovely documentary about family farming in the Périgord. Shot over the course of a year, it's so pretty, it's ridiculous, and the people—from the idealistic couple starting a tiny organic operation to the 88-year-old vintner/philosopher—are marvelous. Facing tough times, they love their animals and their land with inspiring hope. Also featured: a famous foie gras farm, cast in a human and arguably humane light. (BETHANY JEAN CLEMENT)
Harvard Exit, Sun, May 19, 4 pm
SIFF Uptown, Mon, May 20, 8:30 pm

STAR!
C.O.G.
Inspired by reading The Grapes of Wrath and wanting to get his hands dirty, an overeducated white East Coast Yale grad heads out to Oregon to work in the apple orchards. Based on a David Sedaris essay from Naked, the story begins on the long-haul bus ride, where "Samuel" (his new identity) is accosted by a parade of weirdos. At the farm, he has trouble connecting with anyone and he is comically unprepared to exist in the real world. Will Samuel find happiness in the simple things instead of overanalyzing and sneering at everything? Or will he run back to his old life? Thanks to the film's wonderful performances and entertaining dialogue, you'll have a perfectly good (if not revelatory) time finding out. (GILLIAN ANDERSON)
Egyptian, Fri, May 24, 4 pm
Egyptian, Sun, May 26, 7 pm
Renton, Mon, May 27, 6 pm

DON'T MISS!
More Than Honey
Filmed in Switzerland, the United States, and China, this lively documentary covers the gamut of the bee world: part beekeeping family reminiscence, part incredible close-up of bee culture and physiology, part modern-day beekeeping in all its variety, part scientific bee study, part philosophical musing on industrial culture. The filmmaker muses, "The plants are rooted to the ground, they can't run across the field and hug each other. They can't have children on their own. What they need is a messenger of love: a bee." This film made me want to drop everything and devote my life to beekeeping. (GILLIAN ANDERSON)
SIFF Uptown, Thu, May 23, 8:30 pm
Egyptian, Tue, June 4, 4:30 pm

STAR!
You Will Be My Son
Faced with the unappetizing prospect of bringing his only child into the family business, a stubborn winemaker (Niels Aretrup) begins looking for other candidates. Director Gilles Legrand veers expertly between grand tragedy and poker-faced comedy, including a moment with a car that should have Vin Diesel hustling for the phone. Aretrup, whose expert ambivalence helps power the fellow SIFF entry Our Children, here relishes the chance to go full Snidely Whiplash, spitting out venom with a hilariously jaded air. He's a sonofabitch of the highest order, and perfectly okay with that. (ANDREW WRIGHT)
SIFF Uptown, Wed, June 5, 7 pm
Kirkland, Fri, June 7, 8:30 pm

I already got my tickets to More Than Honey, which Gillian raves about above, and which Jim Drohman, chef/owner of Le Pichet and Cafe Presse, says farmers in France are ABUZZ about (his terrible pun, not mine). I'd also like to see SOMM, a documentary about four people trying to pass the master sommelier exam. Three more we weren't able to watch before SIFF-guide press time: Drinking Buddies, a "beer-centric romantic comedy"; Haute Cuisine, based on the story of Danièle Delpeuch, chef to former French president François Mitterrand; and Red Obsession, about the how crazy some people in China are for Bordeaux (red obsession, get it?).

As for the remainder of the 2013 SIFF food movies, Andrew Wright did not enjoy Mussels in Love, I did not enjoy The Fruit Hunters, and Goldy did not enjoy The Last Ocean.

More on all these films may be found in our awesome, as-comprehensive-as-humanly-possible searchable online SIFF guide (or in this week's paper).

For tickets, go here.

Lunchtime!

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Dems from 46th District Endorse Murray, Steinbrueck

Dominic Holden — Fri, 17 May 2013 12:10:52 -0700

Last night, the 46th District Democrats—the party's grassroots apparatus in northeast Seattle—handed out a dual endorsement to two of the dudes running for mayor: former Seattle City Council member Peter Steinbrueck and state senator from the 43rd District Ed Murray. The 46th is the first to issue endorsements, but it's a good omen for Murray, who also got a recommendation from the 36th District Democrats' executive board last week (along with Council Member Tim Burgess). In related partisan enthusiasm, the 37th District Democrats are holding an endorsement meeting for their Southeast Seattle constituents on Monday.

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Otherworldly Precision: Man or Astro-Man? Transmit Modern Intergalactic Sonic Wave Forms (Again)

Grant Brissey — Fri, 17 May 2013 12:04:00 -0700

Man or Astro Man? play Neumos tomorrow night with Audacity and Atomic Bride. Tickets are still available here!

MAN OR ASTRO-MAN?: A futuristic surf-rock band from outer space.

Man or Astro-Man? reportedly take their name from the promotional poster for the 1960 film The Human Vapor, known in its origin country of Japan as Gas Human No. 1. Also, Man or Astro-Man? are from outer space, and most definitely not Auburn, Alabama. Around the turn of the century, Alpha and Gamma clone replicas of the band began touring in order to meet popular demand for their highly sought-after intergalactic sonic wave forms. Twelve years after their last documented recordings, and after "years of hibernation," the original lineup of Birdstuff, Coco the Electronic Monkey Wizard, and Star Crunch have returned with their ninth album, Defcon 5...4...3...2...1, which finds their futuristic adaptations of surf rock to be otherworldly in technical precision. The following electronic communications were recorded on May 7, 2013.

Your intergalactic sonic wave forms are often documented by one Steve Albini. Is Steve Albini human?

Well, what a lot of people don't know is that Steve Albini is actually the inspiration for The Six Million Dollar Man. Last-minute studio changes resulted in the character having "bionic" implants as opposed to the "microphonic" implants Albini employs. Execs felt the world of studio recording was perhaps not as exciting as that of crime-fighting and espionage, so Albini's character was shelved. They then changed Steve's last name to Austin, and Albini became the Pete Best of electrical implants.

How have the years of hibernation affected your ability to manipulate your instruments?

It didn't affect us as much as it affected our instruments. Those things were dusty.

Wedding Crasher: Two Peas on the High Seas

Sarah Galvin — Fri, 17 May 2013 11:53:00 -0700

THE STRANGER
Modern enough for the times, but old-fashioned enough to last forever.

Seventeen years ago, Gary Smith responded to a personal ad Joseph Givins posted in this very publication. The headline was "Two Peas Out of the Pod." On May 5, 2013, the anniversary of the day they met, they were married on the deck of the Skansonia, a historic ferryboat moored on Lake Union near Gas Works Park. The boat was crowded with friends and family sipping gin and tonics and getting their first sunburns of the season.

Two little girls marched solemnly down the aisle with the grooms' rings (Gary's was set with the diamond from Joseph's mother's engagement ring), followed by a crowd of kids who ran all over the deck of the boat waving streamers to Brian Eno's "Needle in the Camel's Eye." Joseph told me the parade of children was inspired by the opening scene of Velvet Goldmine.

The grooms appeared, accompanied by two mysterious figures in black spandex bodysuits and multicolored cummerbunds, who were twirling paper parasols. Under an arbor of white paper flowers, Joseph and Gary unwrapped one of the spandex-wearers to reveal Ed Haymaker, who was ordained just to officiate their wedding.

Invite us to your wedding at weddingcrasher@thestranger.com!

Support the Massive Monkees Studio: Keep the Beacon Lit

Kelly O — Fri, 17 May 2013 11:47:27 -0700

There's only two days left in the fundraising campaign to help the Massive Monkees lock down a long-term lease on The Beacon—their temporary studio located in Seattle's International District. These amazing folks aren't just teaching adults and after-school crews of little kids how to breakdance—they're creating community, and turning people into better and more confident humans.

Check out this short video, and please consider donating a dollar or three. Only two days left! Donate, and read so much more right here.

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From the Mailbag...

Brendan Kiley — Fri, 17 May 2013 11:42:32 -0700

Sometimes, I curse the fact that I am on the email list of 6 bazillion publicists who want to tell me about every comedian coming through Wenatchee, every phony "IT solution" for my "business," and every press conference about who farted at the county parks department meeting last week.

But then I'll get something like this, which helps me remember what a weird and many-splendored world we live in. From the US Attorney's office:

A 25 year-old Vancouver, Washington man pleaded guilty today in U.S. District Court in Tacoma to conspiracy to traffick in counterfeit goods, announced U.S. Attorney Jenny A. Durkan. VY, was arrested April 2, 2013 after being indicted by a grand jury in Seattle. In his plea agreement Y admits that between June 2011 and June 2012, he sold more than 900 counterfeit vehicle airbags he had purchased from a source in China. Under the terms of the plea agreement both sides will recommend a sentence of ten months in prison, but U.S. District Ronald B. Leighton is free to impose any sentence up to the ten year maximum allowed by law. Sentencing is scheduled for August 23, 2013.

According to the statement of facts in the plea agreement, Y operated a business, Vital Auto Parts and Sales, out of his Vancouver home. He allegedly imported counterfeit Honda, Subaru and Toyota airbags from sources in China and elsewhere, and sold them over the internet representing them as the genuine product. Y sold at least 964 of the counterfeit airbags via eBay with a sales total of $137,243. Y sold individual Honda airbags for an asking price of $110. Investigators believe that many of the airbags are sold to independent garages who install them in vehicles believing they have purchased a genuine airbag. Y has agreed to pay restitution of $137,243 to Honda Motors Corporation and Toyota Motors Corporation.

Also, there's this sweet story about a Thai monk who is believed to have been reincarnated as a bird after a little yellow feathered friend flew into the room during his funeral:

After the service, Mr. Anusorn said, the bird flew into the chapel and flew around in circles 2-3 times, then rested on the wall and the top tiers of the Buddha statue, scanning the attendees of the funeral service with its black eyes.

What a wonderful world.

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Tonight: Smoke Signals at the Snoqualmie Casino

David Schmader — Fri, 17 May 2013 11:38:38 -0700

Tonight the Seattle International Film Festival invites you to get out of town, with a free, 15th-anniversary screening of Smoke Signals—the first feature film written, directed, and co-produced by Native Americans, with a script by Stranger columnist/Stranger Genius Award winner Sherman Alexie—tonight at Snoqualmie Casino. (Bonus: cast members Elaine Miles, Evan Adams, and Michelle St. John will be in attendance!)

Full info here.

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Where the Information Hangs Free and Easy in the Wind, Whether You Like It Or Not

Paul Constant — Fri, 17 May 2013 11:24:57 -0700

The most honest piece to be published from Google's I/O Conference this week is a brief, satirical piece of science fiction published in Wired.

“Hello.”

The soft, froggy voice startled me. I turned around to face an approaching figure. It was Larry Page, naked, save for a pair of eyeglasses.

“Welcome to Google Island. I hope my nudity doesn’t bother you. We’re completely committed to openness here. Search history. Health data. Your genetic blueprint. One way to express this is by removing clothes to foster experimentation. It’s something I learned at Burning Man,” he said. “Here, drink this. You’re slightly dehydrated, and your blood sugar is low. This is a blend of water, electrolytes, and glucose.”

Go read the whole thing.

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No Rain for You

Jen Graves — Fri, 17 May 2013 11:09:59 -0700

In the new Rain Room installation at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, there's a room where a big pretend storm is dumping hundreds of gallons of water per minute. None of this water will fall on you as you walk through it because sensors detect human bodies and give each one a 5-foot berth. Unless, that is, you wear a raincoat:

In order for the technology to work most effectively, visitors are discouraged from wearing dark, shiny, reflective fabrics, fabrics made of raincoat material, or skinny high heels.

I don't think I'd be able to go in there without hoping for a malfunction.

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Kay Smith-Blum Won't Seek Second Term on School Board

Dominic Holden — Fri, 17 May 2013 10:42:12 -0700

Kay Smith-Blum was elected to the Seattle School Board in 2009 with the promise of a being hard-nosed progressive—a reformer among a board that was, at the time, dominated by a bunch of Seattle Times lackeys who oversaw a multimillion dollar scandal and controversially shuttered South Seattle Schools—while using her business acumen and political skills to get things done. Smith-Blum beat incumbent Mary Bass, a progressive in her own right, who was nonetheless seen as somewhat ineffective. In the years since, Seattle Schools have tilted toward reformers and been relatively scandal-free.

But after that single term, Smith-Blum says she's ready to move on. "I simply have too much personally and businesswise to campaign this summer and I do not feel I can commit to the same level of focus for another 4 years," the co-owner of Butch Blum wrote in a letter to supporters and friends this morning.

And who can blame her?

Our anemic school district is held together with bubble gum and Popsicle sticks, and the board's low profile means that even high-profile fuck ups rarely get the scrutiny they deserve—or the scrutiny is applied years too late—and major advances in the district pass without a whisper. (WHY ANYONE WOULD WANT TO SERVE A SINGLE GODDAMN TERM ON THAT GODDAMN BOARD IS GODDAMN MYSTERY.)

Smith-Blum, who also recently withdrew her candidacy for the State Board of Education, has given blessing to Stephan Blanford as her successor. He will be running this fall and filed today. The seat on the Seattle School Board represents district 5, encompassing public schools in central Seattle. Smith-Blum's letter follows:

I am telling senior staff today that I will not be seeking reelection. There are multiple personal priorities that will simply disallow me from spending the time I believe necessary to fulfill my duties as a school board director for another 4 years. At the age of 61, I need to prioritize family and livelihood as I move toward retirement. I simply have too much personally and business wise to campaign this summer and I do not feel I can commit to the same level of focus for another 4 years.

I have been working quietly for several months to recruit a couple of stellar constituents in my district to run for my seat and am very pleased that Stephan Blanford is filing today. I am optimistic about the perspective he will bring to the board. I will support his candidacy in any way I can. I also plan to stay engaged in the education conversation, as I believe the highest priority our city, region and state should have is the education of our children.

My focus as a board director has been on equitable access to our best programs, restorative discipline, sustainable buildings and maintenance protocols (the Green Resolution passed 6-1!), a new approach to our budget and formulas for revenue distribution and - most importantly - elevating our teachers to the professional level of respect they deserve. Mastery, not test scores, should drive every conversation. Our focus should be on developing the best quality instructors and teacher leaders who will lead us and our students in acquiring the critical skill sets needed in this century to better our community.

In not having the distraction of a campaign, I will be able to focus on my Presidential duties, and the ever important boundary work, BEX implementation, budget development and program placement that will occur in the next 6 months. This work will set the educational frame for the next several decades. I am incredibly glad I have a seat at the table at this time and to have served on the Seattle School Board. I am also very thankful for all those who have given their time and energy to supporting my service and the numerous legislators, city councilmen, activists and community leaders who have indicated they would have supported me for another term.

Thanks for your service, KSB.

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Free Baguettes for Bikers, Beer Week Continues, and More

Unpaid Intern — Fri, 17 May 2013 10:39:00 -0700

Click to enlarge.

Posted by Emily Klein

• Today, enjoy a free baguette from Columbia City Bakery in honor of Bike to Work Day (if you bike there, of course).

• Tomorrow (and Sunday—last day!), revel in beery goodness at one (or three!) of Seattle Beer Week’s events.

• Sunday, unite your gluttony with your generosity at the Food Truck Roundup in Fremont, or one of this weekend’s other food-focused fundraisers.

Details, plus more events for your eating/drinking pleasure, may be found in our Chow calendar.

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Trolololol

Paul Constant — Fri, 17 May 2013 10:19:11 -0700

(Travis Nichols reads at Elliott Bay Book Company on Sunday, May 19 at 3pm. It's free.)

I saw the weakest minds of my occupation destroyed by blog comments, hate-eating hysterical shivering, dragging themselves through message boards at dawn looking for a troll to fight. I started writing professionally about eight years ago, just as comments became less a curiosity and more a given. But many of the journalists I met who'd been in the business before the arrival of comments could already become flushed with outrage about the very existence of reader feedback. Their faces would get red and they'd scream—and, yes, sometimes sob—about every mean thing someone left in the wide-open space below their stories.

Sure, sometimes a negative comment hooks into the meaty part of you. But it's not like the readership changed, that an imaginary army of cheering, adoring fans disappeared when the comment threads were installed, only to be replaced by a cantankerous mob of cretins. Now you get to instantaneously see how a small-but-vocal portion of your readers reacts to your work. Readers didn't have any unchallenged platform at all before, and now they do. Isn't that, on balance, really kind of cool?

When novelist and poet Travis Nichols worked for the Poetry Foundation, one of his jobs was to oversee a project in which comments were allowed on poetryfoundation.org. Perhaps the foundation expected an Athenian discourse about the nature of poetry and art in the digital age. And I'm sure the comment threads inspired some of that. But they also fomented a slew of bullies, off-topic comments, conspiracy theories, ax-grinding, and treatises on the sad state of American poetry. In an interview with Paul Killebrew, Nichols admitted that the negative comments made him feel "deeply, deeply bonkers for a few months, largely because I took a lot of the rote online bullying personally." The comment section was soon scrapped entirely, which caused several angry commenters to create their own sites accusing Nichols of fascism.

And now, finally, Nichols gets his revenge, in The More You Ignore Me, a novel in the form of one ridiculously long blog comment posted by our narrator, known only as linksys181...

Keep reading >>

America Doesn't Care About Black People

Charles Mudede — Fri, 17 May 2013 09:30:05 -0700

Saying it like it is...

On Sunday, shots were fired into a crowd during a parade in the New Orleans 7th ward. Police said they saw three suspects running from the scene.

This is the largest mass shooting in the United States where the shooters were still at large after the crime was committed. Think about that for a minute. From Columbine to Virginia Tech to Fort Hill to Aurora, all the shooters were either killed or apprehended on site. But the person or people responsible for shooting 19 Americans are still free.

So why am I allowed to go outside? Where's the city quarantine or FBI and Homeland Security presence for this act of "terrorism"?

Because this is an act of domestic terrorism right? Just because the alleged shooter was wearing a white tee and jeans does that suddenly make the shooting a gang-related affair? And we all know how irrelevant gang-related shootings are in America. The Mother's Day shooting is so irrelevant that politicians haven't even bothered to mention it to further their anti-gun agendas. If the shootings aren't even important enough for politicians to spin, then it's truly reached a black hole of irrelevance.

That black hole is black skin.

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Azerbaijan's Contribution to Eurovision

Dan Savage — Fri, 17 May 2013 09:25:03 -0700

That cute Azerbaijani mime does the best "trapped in a glass box" act that I've ever seen.

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What Kind of Cars Do I Like?

Charles Mudede — Fri, 17 May 2013 09:02:22 -0700

Beer can cars...

A note: I think I'm close to convincing my son that not learning how to drive a car is the classy, truly aristocratic thing to do. Wanting to own a car shows poor taste, a lack of good upbringing. Car worship is so middle class. My son is not aristocratic by blood, but he can be so by behavior. And maybe one day someone may even look at him and his airs and say: "So, you're one of those public transportation snobs."

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The Twittering World

Charles Mudede — Fri, 17 May 2013 08:56:35 -0700

The Atlantic Cities on the evolution of Twitter, the nervous system of the emerging global consciousness...

We wrote in late 2011 about some early research suggesting that many Twitter users in fact follow other people located within their same city, evidence, Richard Florida wrote, that the Internet is reinforcing the value of place instead of eliminating it.

But now that Twitter is a few years older – and considerably more global – Leetaru and several colleagues have conducted a massive new analysis of the site that suggests the opposite: "In effect," Leetrau says, "location plays a much lesser role now in terms of who we talk to, what we talk about, and where we get our information."

"In reality on Twitter, even though you may be following a lot of people, you’re probably paying attention more to some than others. But there’s no way of recording that," Leetaru says. "What we can do is say 'well, here are the people you’re talking to. Here are the people you thought were interesting enough to retweet.'"

What it's coming down to is this...

NASA

"Where there’s power, there’s Twitter," Leetaru says. "The more power, the more Twitter. That tells us that quite literally even in the most remote areas of Africa, if there’s power there, chances are there’s Twitter there at a relative density of power."

There are a few exceptions: Iran and China show fewer tweets than we’d expect given the electricity levels there because Twitter is censored. But for the most part, once we realize Twitter is nearly everywhere electricity will allow it to go, that picture allows us to examine how (and if) all of these people, all over the world, are interacting with each other.

The researchers also found that the people you interact with regularly are close to you in space, and those you don't, those who reference or retweet just once, are far away.

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New Gun Enthusiast...

Dan Savage — Fri, 17 May 2013 08:29:05 -0700

...wasn't an enthusiast for long:

Witnesses tell police a Federal Heights woman was killed when the new assault rifle she was showing to friends accidentally fired on Tuesday night. Witnesses and the husband told police the group had been drinking in the garage of the couple's home at 10024 Elliot St. when 22-year-old Anastasia Adair, a new gun enthusiast, went upstairs to a bedroom to get her recently purchased assault rifle at about 10:40 p.m. Anastasia was walking back down the stairs into the garage when she reached out to hand the rifle to her husband, Shane Adair, who was below her on the stairs. The gun fired, striking her in the head.

Via TPM.

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Collective Restraint in Ants

Charles Mudede — Fri, 17 May 2013 08:26:10 -0700

One of my favorite scientists is Deborah Gordon. She teaches at Stanford and studies harvester ants in the desert of southeast Arizona. She has published two excellent books, Ants At Work: How An Insect Society Is Organized and Ant Encounters: Interaction Networks and Colony Behavior. Yesterday, she published a paper in Nature about how ants forage when conditions are ideal and stay put when they are not. The decision to stay or go is made collectively. The Nature paper is summarized in this post on Science Daily:

"Natural selection is not favoring the behavior that sends out the most ants to get the most food, but instead regulating foraging to hold back when conditions are bad," Gordon said. "This is natural selection shaping a collective behavior exhibited by the entire colony."
Gordon's group is still investigating how the ants gauge humidity, but they have determined that the collective response of the colony to conditions is heritable from parent colony to offspring colony. Even though a daughter queen will establish her new colony so far from the parent colony that the two colonies will never interact, the offspring colonies resemble parent colonies in their sensitivity to conditions.

Gordon has also discovered that colonies change their behavior as they age—meaning, young colonies make different collective decisions than older ones. This discovery allows one to see the ant colony as a kind of primitive (or even phantom) form of, say, an individual ant, which itself is an advanced multicellular organism.

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