• Before his 11/11/11 show at the Moore, folk-punk accordionist Jason Webley took to his website to announce, "After this concert, I will be taking a long break from performing," and to advise show attendees to "Wear something warm. You never know where the night will take you." During the show, Webley was joined onstage by his frequent collaborator Amanda Palmer and her husband, sci-fi/fantasy novelist Neil Gaiman; the former played music while the latter told stories. After the show, Webley led the entire audience on a walk to the beach at Myrtle Edwards Park, where he tied his signature hat to a bunch of balloons that carried it off into the night sky, then stripped naked and walked into the water.
• Complaints came in early last week about a policy proposed by Vincent Kitch, the relatively new head of the mayor's Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs (OACA)—a policy that would give Kitch discretionary power to control the outside creative activities of artists who work in the office. The city already has an ethics committee that settles conflicts of interest, artists said. And Kitch hasn't been here long enough that folks trust him implicitly. Reached by phone, Kitch said he could not point to a specific reason this policy is necessary now and admitted that "this tool may or probably may not be the right tool to achieve our goals, so we're looking at that... I'm definitely sensitive to the needs of artists." Um, yeah—we need more artistry behind the scenes at OACA, not less.
• On November 14, Intiman announced it would try to relaunch this year with a four-play summer festival and a repertory company of 12 actors. Intiman artistic director Andrew Russell said the theater needs $1 million by mid-February to make the festival happen and that if the necessary funds can't be raised by then, it would close for good.
• At his reading at Elliott Bay Book Company on November 14, Haruki Murakami translator Jay Rubin admitted that 1Q84, the new Murakami novel that he translated two-thirds of, "should've been shorter. I think it could've been tighter."
• Olympia-based singer-songwriter and asset to humanity Kimya Dawson is forming a new band with underground hiphopper extraordinaire Aesop Rock, and this band needs a name. The best options that Loose Lips has come up with are Oxbot, Barfy, Curly's Gold, Dong Chores, and Partial-Birth Aborgnine, all of which are terrible. Send your suggestions to looselips@thestranger.com. 
