Every so often, I like to clean out my news file and give some credit where credit is due. And since The Stranger declined to send me to Venice, to check out the Biennale and report back on who's snogging whom in the vaporetto (and how the Typing Explosion is doing, what with the 100-degree heat, 100 percent humidity, and those not-quite-cotton uniforms), we will have to be satisfied with local news.

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Artist Trust's GAP awards were announced last week: A total of 36 recipients, mostly from King County, each got up to $1,400 for some specific project or other. (I know that "up to" is slippery sales language and could theoretically include tiny, insignificant amounts of money, but if you ask for $1,400, you get $1,400--the folks at Artist Trust are not stingy.) Some of the excellent visual artists who were granted grants: the trio of Ben Beres, Zac Culler, and John Sutton (I saw them walking down 15th Avenue a few weeks ago, each painted a different color); Saya Moriyasu (of the delicate ceramic serving ladies); and Linda Peschong, Toi Sennhauser, Jason Puccinelli, and good old Jim Woodring of the impenetrable comic strip found in this very paper.

Once again, let us take a moment and thank God for Artist Trust.

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AmericanStyle's yearly ranking of the top 25 arts destinations is out (I know, I know, we can all breathe now), and Seattle has dropped from sixth to 24th. That's behind Cape Cod, Massachusetts; Saugatuck, Michigan; and Asheville, North Carolina. However, it turns out that this is a readers' poll, not a scientific survey (which would have to have creative-class economist Richard Florida attached to it, for cred), so we can definitely skew next year's results by all subscribing to AmericanStyle. And voting for Branson, Missouri.

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The good, weird people at Luscious, who brought you last month's Outlaw, have moved their studio up one floor, and are breaking in the space with a party called 24 Hours to Prove You're an Artist, in which anyone who wants to can spend anywhere from four to 24 hours making any kind of art in public. It all ends with a party the next day. If you're interested in participating, send an e-mail to bluerthanyou@graffiti.net and request the short application.

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And now the following news from Addison DeWitt:

ACT was granted some much-needed good luck this week when New York's Shubert Foundation awarded the theater $70,000 to cover "general operating expenses" for its 2003 mainstage season, featuring such hopeful glimmers as the Seattle premiere of Edward Albee's love-it-or-hate-it bestiality comedy The Goat, and the return of Pamela Gien's solo smash The Syringa Tree. Despite Sean Nelson's impassioned plea for ACT's demise back in March (he took ACT's hammy treatment of Randy Newman very hard), not all of us at The Stranger are anti-ACT (at least not yet). Best of luck to ACT in putting its ass-saving money to good use.