CNTEST TIME!Sparked by the news that Deputy Editor Jack Shafer is looking for new digs in D.C., Jim Romanesko's website mediagossip.com reported two weeks ago that Slate was moving its offices to the other Washington. The item was removed from the website by last week, for reasons as yet unclear. I'll do some digging around and ferret out the truth (or something like it), but in the meantime, ask yourself this: Do you have any proof that Slate is located in the Seattle area now? Shafer answered the phone once when I called his 425 prefix number, but call forwarding is easy enough to set up. I also once saw Stranger contributor Matthew Stadler wearing a Slate-emblazoned fisherman's hat, which he claimed to have been given to him at a Slate party atop the Sorrento, but he was drunk at the time. Then there's the fact that current and former Seattle Weekly writers occasionally pen "local" articles for the webzine about their difficulties with childbirth and house-buying -- but they could be in on the conspiracy. I hereby offer a free pair of Stranger boxer shorts to anyone who can give me incontrovertible proof that Slate editor Michael Kinsley has ever set foot in the state of Washington. I'm talking about a picture of him standing under the Lusty Lady's marquee, passed out in the Sea Wolf, or debating economic policy at a lunch meeting of the Downtown Seattle Association. Send your entries to me, c/o The Stranger, 1535 11th Ave, 3rd Floor, Seattle, 98122.

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My feet have been held to the fire by Redheaded Stepchild, a four-month-old zine devoted to Seattle's alternative art spaces. ArtSpace director Christian French went back and looked at 26 art reviews I wrote over 44 weeks, and found that my reviews were largely devoted to shows at commercial galleries (44 percent) and museums and arts centers (36 percent), with 15 percent devoted to alternative spaces and 5 percent to festivals.

I'm shocked to see how unproductive I've been this year, but the percentages don't surprise me much. Provided that Seattle's art spaces aren't entirely slaughtered by gentrification, and the trend toward better art and smarter curation at alternative spaces continues, I expect to do a little better in the upcoming year.

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The money train keeps running for the Seattle Art Museum, which last week announced the receipt of a $10 million two-for-one challenge grant from Bill Gates (the treasured stepson of SAM director Mimi Gardner Gates). The money will go into SAM's previously teensy endowment fund, which now stands at $30 million and change. Lest you fear that all this money will just get sucked up into high-tech, Windows-based interactive gallery guides, SAM informs us that 15 percent of the endowment must be used to acquire actual, bona fide art.

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As you read this, I am in New York, where among other things I am checking out Sensation, the naughty art show at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. Watch for my review next week, when I settle, once and for all, the thorniest question in contemporary art: Does old elephant shit stink?

Send gossip and complaints to eric@thestranger.com