⢠Local art trio SuttonBeresCullerâwhose recent show at Greg Kucera Gallery included a bronze banana, a bronze spiral fluorescent bulb, and a bronze mopâwere featured in a Wall Street Journal story on cast bronze objets d'art last weekend. If commissioned by, say, a member of the 1 percent who reads the WSJ to make a gold edition of their cast-bronze mopâas a commentary on economic inequality, sayâcould they? Reached for comment, SBC says indeed they could: They would just need a $400,000 deposit for materials.
⢠Best-selling sci-fi novelist Neal Stephenson, a finalist for a 2013 Stranger Genius Award, said at the Frye Art Museum last week that when he watches the Oscars, he's "envious at how good that industry is at promoting itself. Writers have nothing like that except readings. Which is sad." Addressing the curators of the APRIL Festival, which is also in the running for a Genius Award (for its efforts to recontextualize and fuck with the way readings are done), he added, "Congratulations on creating something new in terms of parading literature out in front of people."
⢠In other Genius news, Megan Griffiths's latest film, Lucky Themâstarring Toni Collette and shot in Seattleâpremieres on September 6 at the big and prestigious Toronto International Film Festival.
⢠A rare 16-mm presentation of the original Mighty Joe Young from 1949 ran on August 15 at the Grand Illusion to commemorate the recent death of renowned animator Ray Harryhausen. Everyone went bananas.
⢠A heated debate broke out in The Stranger offices after last week's issue of the paper erroneously called the film Anchorman "the 2004 Will Ferrell comedy that some people claim to enjoy immensely." The debate ended with almost everyone concerned admitting that Anchorman is the best dumb comedy ever made. Those who disagreed have been killed and eaten.
⢠Chef Jim Drohman leads another of his always-packed Yes on 522 meetings at Cafe Presse this coming Monday (with free snacks!). I-522 would require labeling of genetically modified foods in Washington Stateâan issue that riles people up, no matter which way they feel about it. You should come to thisâdon't you like free snacks? See the Chow Calendar on page 30 for details, and for more upcoming great-chef-sponsored Yes-on-522 events, see thestranger.com/chowevents.
⢠Ballard now has its own edition of Capitol Hill's Skillet Diner, which succeeds where many failâthat is, in fancying-up the great American diner formula. And Green Lake's got a brand-new branch of the decade-plus between-Ballard-and-Fremont favorite the Dish, complete with its own version of the Wall of Hot Sauces.
⢠Earlier this week, a man walked into the Monkey Pub and sat down directly below a muted television screen. For 10 minutes, he stared blankly at the baseball recaps of the day, and then slowly rose and walked down the street. He spent the next hour feeding cold pizza to birds on Roosevelt. 
