In the January 16, 2013 issue of The Stranger, we criticized "the FAA's pointless and humiliating security theater." We meant to criticize TSA's pointless and humiliating security theater. We regret the error.
In the March 6 issue of The Stranger, we ran a Stranger Suggest for the film West of Memphis, which hadn't even opened yet. We regret the error.
In our recent winter edition of A&P, the art and performance quarterly produced by The Stranger, we erroneously omitted the entire entry for ACT Theatre from our ostensibly comprehensive performance calendar. We are still not sure how this happened, although we unanimously blame the newest member of our editorial department, Krishanu Ray.
Krishanu Ray, The Stranger's recently hired calendar editor, would like to take a moment to name-check some of ACT's upcoming program, which is delightful and hardly worthy of omission from any arts publication. It includes 14/48: The World's Quickest Theater Festival, in which theater-makers write, rehearse, and perform 14 new short plays in 48 hours (January 10 through 18); Red Tiger Tales, featuring the UMO Ensemble performing Buddhist and Sufi folktales with puppetry and masks (January 31 through February 1); Nirvanov, a mashup between Chekov's Ivanov and the life of Kurt Cobain, presented by Balagan Theater (February 27 through March 16); and Little Shop of Horrors, a coproduction with the 5th Avenue Theatre and, incidentally, Krishanu Ray's favorite musical of all time (March 8 through June 15). If you'd like to see ACT's full schedule, go to acttheatre.org. If you'd like to give Krishanu Ray shit, e-mail him at kray@thestranger.com.
On a related point, Krishanu Ray, calendar editor at The Stranger, regrets that despite his position and its responsibilities, he has never had a terribly good grasp of time, scheduling, cardinal directions, balance, or space-time orientation in any of its many manifestations.
In the July 17 issue of The Stranger, we referred to the band Vitamin Baby Slaughter as Baby Vitamin Slaughter. We regret the error.
In the October 2 issue of The Stranger, we misspelled staff photographer Kelly O's name in a photo credit. Kind of hard to imagine how to fuck up spelling "Kelly O," but we did.
In an October 18 Slog post linking to a description of prehistoric creatures with small braincases, big teeth, and long faces, Dominic Holden, news editor at The Stranger, misspelled a former senator's name by writing "Early Humans Looked a Lot Like Slade Gordon." The correct spelling is Gorton, like the fish sticks. Mr. Holden regrets the error. He also regrets Slade Gorton.
Anna Minard, a Stranger staff writer who currently covers city hall, deeply regrets that she has, on at least two occasions, mentioned city council members' names in bedânot in a dirty way, but still, while she was trying to fall asleepâwhich is just about the saddest and creepiest thing she can think of.
Stranger food critic Bethany Jean Clement deeply regrets the closure of Capitol Hill dive bar/neo-old-English masterpiece the Canterbury. She grew up nine blocks from it, and she has been drawn to its castle-like exterior ever since she can remember, and as a child she was told it was for grown-ups only, which only made her want to go there more, and when she finally could go, it was that rare thing that exceeds hopes in such a dramatic way that the pleasure never goes away, like an old friend you can visit any time who, like you, has a thing for Chaucer but never talks about it. The suit of armor inside, which used to hold a sign that said "Seat thyself!" The beams! The fireplace! The kingly wooden chairs! The shuffleboard! The cheap liquor! The bad-but-good food-service chicken strips! (Did you know that world-famous chef Jerry Traunfeld, formerly of the Herbfarm and now of Poppy, had his first cooking job at the Canterbury? It's true. Also, the Canterbury is supposedly haunted, which is absolutely believable.) Ms. Clement understands that the bar will reopen, and the new owners say it's not really going to change, but it will doubtless be cleaner, and it will never be the same.
The management of the Goodrich Capital 8 movie theater in Jefferson City, Missouri, regrets inviting actors with dark clothes, body armor, and guns to show up to an Iron Man movie as a publicity stunt, just 10 months after a man with dark clothes, body armor, and guns shot 70 people at a Batman movie in Aurora, Colorado, killing 12.
Christopher Frizzelle, editor in chief of The Stranger, regrets publishing a poll on Slog on October 17 about whether staffer Brendan Kiley should be killed and eaten. All the management books unambiguously say you shouldn't leave the murdering of an employee up to a public vote.
In the March 20 issue of The Stranger, books editor Paul Constant accidentally referred to poet Heather Christle as Heather Christie. We regret the error, although, in Mr. Constant's defense, "Christle" is a crazy last name.
Kelly O, staff photographer at The Stranger, regrets that she doesn't own a car, because one of her favorite things to do is drive aimlessly around Seattle on Sunday evenings listening to Larry Mizell Jr.'s weekly Street Sounds show on KEXP.
Cienna Madrid, staff writer at The Stranger, regrets not being able to identify where the Philippines is on a map, but she says give it 10 years and it won't be on any maps.
The world-famous Dan Savage, editorial director of The Stranger, promised Christopher Frizzelle, the relatively unknown editor in chief of The Stranger, that he would write a 2,500-word feature about air travelâsomething Mr. Savage knows a great deal about (there's a melting ice cap in the arctic named after Mr. Savage to call attention to his carbon footprint)âduring a 15-hour flight to Seattle from Sydney, Australia. Mr. Savage did not write that feature. Instead, Mr. Savage ate a pot cookie and watched The Sting, All About Eve, and The Great Gatsby on the in-flight entertainment system, ate a large meal, and promptly fell asleep in his first-class flatbed seat. Mr. Savage does not regret this. Would you? Would anyone?
Emily Nokes, music editor at The Stranger, regrets eating one of Dan Savage's pot cookies and ending up at QFC for two hours. Have you ever really looked at the candle section there? Or the art supplies?
In an August 26 Stranger Suggests item for Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine, Stranger film editor David Schmader mentioned supporting actor Andrew Dice Clay, "who might very well find himself nominated for an Oscar." In fact, Clay's performance is impressive mostly because it's coming from Andrew Dice Clay, a terrible comedian who manages a good film performance, but there's no way Oscar's getting involved in any of this. We regret the error.
Theater editor Brendan Kiley regrets inheriting genes from his mother's side of the family that cause the skin on his fingers to split, especially during colder months, making it painful to do the dishes. Mr. Kiley further suggests that anyone suffering from the same condition try O'Keeffe's Working Hands cream, which can be found in small green tins at most hardware stores. It works even better than Bag Balm and is much less greasy, so you don't have to sit around with your hands in the air for a half an hour, waiting for them to dry.
In a May 24 Slog post, Stranger news writer Goldy celebrated the fact that nobody died when an Interstate 5 highway bridge "plummeted 120 feet" into the Skagit River below. The bridge plummeted only 40 feet. Goldy regrets the error. Though he mostly regrets that Slog commenters dickishly accused him of "sensationalizing" the bridge collapse instead of, you know, just getting a number wrong.
On a related note, the I-5 Skagit River Bridge regrets that everybody remembers it for one little 40-foot collapse rather than its years of faithful service.
In the April 3 installment of Loose Lips, The Stranger's arts gossip column, Jen Graves, who has formal training as a classical music critic, confused a Wagner tuba with a tuba tuba. A Wagner tuba is more like a French horn. We regret the error.
In a July 17 article concerning our endorsements for the August 6 primary election, Stranger news editor Dominic Holden wrote that Goodspaceguy Nelson, a perennial candidate for King County executive, wants to colonize the moon and is "delightfully batshit." Goodspaceguy Nelson did not take issue with "batshit," though he did implore us to stop referring to him as Goodspaceguy Nelson and only and always refer to him as simply Goodspaceguy. Goodspaceguy further elaborated that he does not want to colonize the moon and thinks that colonizing the moon is a stupid idea. "I am an advocate of colonizing orbital space, which would be much more healthy than colonizing the moon," he clarified, adding that "in orbital space, we can rotate the space colony to create one gravity, which humans need for health, but on the moon, the gravity level is one-sixth of the earth's gravity, which is very unhealthy for humans." Got it?
Stranger music writer Dave Segal regrets trying to hold a DJ night devoted to African music on Easter Sunday. He and two other DJs attempted this quixotic mission at Electric Tea Garden (RIP) and attracted exactly zero (0) people. Jesus, what a cold town this can be.
Stranger staff writer Anna Minard sorely regrets that a pipe in the ceiling of her apartment building recently burst, pouring water through the walls and turning ceiling light fixtures into giant faucets, which quickly filled the apartment with multiple inches of cold water on a very cold day, destroying countless possessions and leaving her and her roommates slightly traumatized and basically homeless for the holidays.
Stranger staff writer Anna Minard further regrets not having renter's insurance. Whoops.
Most importantly, Stranger staff writer Anna Minard regrets that there is no possible way to adequately thank the Seattle Fire Department for arriving as quickly as they did, making the ceiling stop raining, making the awful alarms stop, making sure everyone was okay, then patiently and kindly squeegeeing and vacuuming up as much water as they could from the floors before going to their next emergency. Ms. Minard and her roommates never knew they could love complete strangers so much or feel that depth of gratitude so instantly. Really: Thank you, guys.
In his review of the Jason Statham movie Homefront, Paul Constant referred to Gary Fleder as a "first-time director." This is ridiculous: Fleder has directed many forgettable films. We regret the error.
Charles Mudede, a realist at The Stranger, regrets that the powerful jets of the Blue Angels did not this year make nonsense of the sky above our dearly treasured liberal illusions.
Bethany Jean Clement, The Stranger's food critic, regrets that while the first 2,047 words of her 2,126-word article on soup in the November 27 issue were typo-free, the 2,048th word was misspelled "boyrfiend." She further regrets that the typo turned what was meant to be a moment of tender recollection into something that seems to be about a fresh and especially awful kind of monster (a "boyrfiend"âno one wants one of those). The typo was introduced by someone else at the layout stage, and yet Ms. Clement still had a chance to catch it before it went to the printer, if only Ms. Clement had not failed to see it. Adding insult to injury, every time Ms. Clement types "boyrfiend," Microsoft Word auto-corrects it, as if to point out yet again what a stupid typo it is.
Stranger theater editor Brendan Kiley regrets that another year has slipped past without him writing a lengthy, sure-to-be-controversial apologia for the oeuvre of Jimmy Buffett.
On a related point, the entire rest of the editorial staff of The Stranger does not regret that Mr. Kiley has yet to write his lengthy, sure-to-be-controversial apologia for the oeuvre of Jimmy Buffett, because shut up already.
In the August 7 issue of The Stranger, we mixed up the band Blooper's records Long Distance and Go Away. We regret the error.
Seattle Times editorial board member Bruce Ramsey regrets that after writing he "burst out laughing" at Chelsea Manning for having undergone a gender transition, worn makeup, and donned a wig, Ramsey had to post a "clarification" responding to accusations he was "a bigoted person." "I was not making fun of transgendered people as such," Ramsey said, even though writing that you "burst out laughing" at someone's sex change is the definition of making fun of a transgender person.
In the August 28 issue of The Stranger, Emily Nokes, music editor at The Stranger, regrets "misspelling" the name Yung Lean as Young Lean in a piece on Kendrick Lamar that required her to interview teens at the Southcenter Mall. Ms. Nokes also regrets the amount of money she spent that day on gummy-bear bracelets, glow-in-the-dark leggings, and food-court chow mein.
During a live broadcast on a nationally televised news program in Australia, Dan Savage, author of American Savage, which was published by Dutton in 2013, mentioned that he gives great blowjobs. Mr. Savage was sitting on a stage in front 3,000 people in the Sydney Opera House when he mentioned this, and millions more were watching at home. In defense of the remarkâwhich is not presented here in its original contextâit was amusing and it has the benefit of being the truth. Mr. Savage does not regret it.
Cienna Madrid, a Stranger staff writer, regrets that she used the word "pedantic" wrong in a review of Katy Perry's new album, Prism. Turns out Ms. Madrid doesn't know what the word "pedantic" means. If she did, Ms. Madrid would know Perry's lyrics are anything but pedantic.
Kale chips regret that they are not more delicious.
Theater editor Brendan Kiley normally considers himself a responsible borrower, but regrets that a handsome copy of An Annotated Christmas Carol, loaned to him by actor Ian Bell (who regularly appears in ACT Theatre's A Christmas Carol) in the winter of 2011, is still sitting on the bookshelf near the front door of Mr. Kiley's apartment. He only notices the book at impractical times (welcoming a guest, for example) and never when he could actually take steps to return it to its owner.
Food that is actually delicious regrets the overuse of the word "delicious." There are other adjectives out there. Also, time regrets the cutesy and ironically ungrammatical use of "times" (happy times, sexy times, sad times, ad nauseam), nouns regret their abandonment in favor of describing everything as "a thing," and conjunctions resent "because" for its recent promotion to the status of preposition (because internet).
David Schmader, associate editor of The Stranger, regrets every time he rejected the phrase "the N-word" as too babyish and coddling and spelled out the actual word. Even in "the proper context," even in a quote, the full word releases a stink that overwhelms all other aspects of communication, making the imperfect "N-word" forever preferable.
Jen Graves, The Stranger's art critic, regrets that people who love art and live outside Seattle still probably don't know the names of any Seattle artists who aren't millionaires or Holocaust revisionists.
In a February Slog post, Dominic Holden, news editor at The Stranger, argued that cyclists who also drive cars should have to pay their fair share of "gay taxes." Mr. Holden meant "gas taxes," of course, because if gay taxes were a thing, Mr. Holden would be broke.
Stranger associate editor Charles Mudede regrets watching 10 minutes of a 20-minute episode of Duck Dynasty. Mr. Mudede would do anything to have that experience erased from his memory.
Staff writer Cienna Madrid regrets that more people haven't read cartoonist Peter Bagge's illustrated biography of pioneer birth-control advocate Margaret Sanger, Woman Rebel, because it is beautiful and fascinating and funny.
Bethany Jean Clement, The Stranger's food critic, regrets that in her October 2 piece "Coffee and Mars Hill: The Story Behind Storyville," she gave the name of the previous occupant of the Storyville Coffee space as "Shea Chez." She knows perfectly well that it is/was Chez Shea; she had a cold and was on a bunch of cracklike Sudafed at the time, but that's no excuse. What Ms. Clement regrets way, way more is that people who didn't read her story might go spend money at Storyville Coffee, and even think it's kind of a nice place, when the owners of Storyville are heavily involved with neo-evangelical, homophobic, misogynist Mars Hill Church.
Dan Savage, author of Savage Love, a widely syndicated sex-advice column, got a letter in March from an 18-year-old college student who indicated that his parents "grew up" reading Mr. Savage's column. The letter writer stated that he "felt weird" about asking "his parents' advice columnist" for oral sex tips. The young man's real name and the name of his college were both included in the e-mail. Mr. Savage had the young man killed. Mr. Savage does not regret this homicide.
Emily Nokes, music editor at The Stranger, regrets to inform musicians and bands that if they really want to GET THEIR SHOW WRITTEN ABOUT, DAMNIT, then it's always a good idea to have literally any other way to access their music online than a MySpace account. No one in the world has enough time to wait for that shit to open.
Krishanu Ray, The Stranger's calendar editor, regrets that it took him so long to learn to use the Oxford comma. Perhaps Mr. Ray thought that a newspaper would be interested in conserving space and was confused, baffled, and perplexed to find articles so liberally seasoned with dots and dashes.
It should be noted, in a related matter, that Krishanu Ray, calendar editor at The Stranger, has consistently scored below the acceptable range in the "Punctuation and Capitalization" portions of most standardized tests.
~ ¡ krishanu ray calendar editor at the stranger regrets that punctuation and capitalization are used at all and considers them a quaint relic of the past which shall soon be wholly discarded and forgotten ¡ ~
In the August 21 issue of The Stranger, we called Ugly Duckling Presse Ugly Ducking Presse. We regret the error.
Staff photographer Kelly O regrets that more people don't show up to be photographed at the Stranger offices like Alex of the band Country Lips didâwearing assless chaps and thong underwear designed to look like a horse's head.
The Stranger regrets the following ill-styled band names, regardless of their musical merit: fun., Sun O))), Ke$ha, Will.i.am, of Montreal, clipping., tUnE-yArDs, !!!, , Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Chvrches, Panic! at the Disco, ? and the Mysterians, Ă ;GRUMH, A$AP Rocky, the (International) Noise Conspiracy, the Go! Team, Portugal. the Man, and AC [lightning bolt] DC.
David Schmader, associate editor of The Stranger, regrets that there is not yet a sex tape, or at least a hilarious porn parody, featuring those two smart-mouthed guys sitting together in a car in Sonic commercials.
In his review of Rain Shadow Meats Squared, Stranger staffer Paul Constant wrote: "Diners idly chew ham sandwiches even as they watch men with impressive forearms cut into slabs of pork with big butcher knives." Rain Shadow Meats employs both male and female butchers, and this was a chauvinistic case of gender assumption on Mr. Constant's part. You'd think Mr. Constant would be sensitive to gender assumption considering Charles Mudede tells him all the time that he's not a man.
Stranger editor in chief Christopher Frizzelle deeply regrets, more than you will ever know, his erstwhile habit of cleaning wax out of his ears with the long skinny point of the removable cap of a Bic pen (you know, the part that functions as a clip for holding a pen to the edge of a pocket). Mr. Frizzelle used to idly clean his ears with production department pens while signing off on pages as they went to the printer, much to the vexation of managing editor Bethany Jean Clement, who practices perfect hygiene. As Mr. Frizzelle and Ms. Clement were preparing last year's Regrets Issue for the printer, Mr. Frizzelle began to complain of a vague ache in his ear. By New Year's Eve, the pain was such that it felt like an airplane was slamming into that side of Mr. Frizzelle's head every five minutes or so, the hurt radiating sideways across his cranium. In the ensuing year, Mr. Frizzelle has visited no fewer than three ear doctors, each more baffled than the last by the mixed infection just beyond Mr. Frizzelle's perforated eardrum. After five months of treatments solved the bacterial and fungal issues, Mr. Frizzelle underwent skin-graft surgery on his eardrum, a procedure that required (owing to the hole's placement) removing and then reattaching Mr. Frizzelle's ear. For reasons perplexing to the medical community, the graft did not fully take, leaving Mr. Frizzelle a pinhole through which he now hears a constant noise he can only describe as a "glistening" sound, even though writers and doctors alike have pointed out he's using the word incorrectly.
Seattle City Council member Tom Rasmussen regrets that platform shoes were a fad that faded in the 1970s.
Former Seattle Pacific University president Philip W. Eaton should regret an op-ed he wrote this fall for the Seattle Times about "gum spots" turning downtown into a crime-ridden dystopia. With regard to that editorial, Dominic Holden, news editor of The Stranger, called Mr. Eaton an "uninformed blowhard," which an anonymous blog commenter regretted. That anonymous commenter went on to insult Mr. Holden, saying, "You, with your high-school diploma, is calling someone who probably has an IQ much, much higher than you, an 'uniformed blowhard'?" Mr. Holden, in turn, regretted that he doesn't even have a high-school diploma to be so proud of.
In the August 28 issue of The Stranger, we regrettably listed the film Cutie and the Boxer as playing at the Varsity Theatre on one page and at the Seven Gables Theatre on the next. Shockingly, this one wasn't Krishanu Ray's fault, though we blame him anyway.
In a Stranger Suggests blurb from June 21 about the saxophonist Colin Stetson, music staffer Dave Segal implied that the saxophone is a brass instrument; it is in fact a woodwind. Mr. Segal regrets blowing it.
Theater editor Brendan Kiley regrets that it took him more than a month to sit down and transcribe his October 26 interview with Javier Sicilia, the Mexican writer and activist who, after his son was killed by narcos in 2011, galvanized the country with mass marches to Mexico City to protest the drug war, government corruption, money laundering, and the black-market gun trade. Mr. Kiley also regrets that he chickened out of asking Sicilia and his fellow activist Teresa Carmona (whose son was also murdered by narcos) a difficult question about why people often wait until a personal tragedy to take action against some perceived injustice. Asking the question would've suggested that the grieving parents were somehow at fault, which would've been monstrousâbut Mr. Kiley is curious about people's thresholds for action, and who better to talk about that than those two? Still, even thinking about asking the question made Mr. Kiley feel like a sociopath.
In the March 27 issue of The Stranger, we said the (great) restaurant Gastropod is located in Georgetown. In fact, it is in Sodo. We regret the error.
In an article in The Stranger's marijuana guideâof course it was in the marijuana guideâDominic Holden, news editor of The Stranger, referred to "layers" in court. Mr. Holden meant, of course, "lawyers." We regret that proofreading and marijuana don't mix.
Stranger associate editor Charles Mudede totally regrets exposing the limits of his knowledge of jazz history by stating in the June 19 issue that the famous jazz tune "But Beautiful" was composed/written by Gregory Porter. It wasn't. It was composed by Jimmy Van Heusen and written by Johnny Burke. Both Heusen and Burke died a long time ago. Porter is still alive and not at all old. We regret Charles Mudede.
In the November 27 issue of The Stranger, we regrettably ran show listings for Sunday, November 31, a date that didn't exist. This resulted in us being off-kilter for the next two days of shows as well.
Cienna Madrid, staff writer at The Stranger, regrets that her column pitches "Cienna's Fucking the Mayor!" and "Burning Bridges with Cienna Madrid/Building Bridges with Anna Minard" were never used.
Emily Nokes, music editor at The Stranger, regrets that freelancer Cate McGehee's last name was misspelled "McGhee" in bold type in Ms. McGehee's very first (and very wonderful) feature in print.
In the November 6 issue of The Stranger, we called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court the Federal International Surveillance Court. Just, like, making shit up there. We regret the error.
Contrary to what you may have read in The Stranger's food issue, Cheftown, on August 7, there never was a time when Ileen's Sports Bar (now Julia's) was the only place on Capitol Hill serving hard liquor. Jen Graves, who has been a professional journalist for nearly two decades, regrets taking the word of bartender/artist Joe Shlichta on this matter in an interview. Ileen's Sports Bar was, rather, "the only place to go that had hard liquor at midnight when you were a twentysomething straight white male looking for a pretty lady," Shlichta later clarified. Never believe a bartender/artist late at night.
Krishanu Ray, calendar editor at The Stranger, regrets that there are so many people making art around town. Mr. Ray urges Seattle to consider the ergonomic simplicity of a city with only 10 artists, each of whom is legally restricted to one or (maybe) two projects a year.
Longtime Stranger critic and reporter Brendan Kiley regrets that he did not follow up more rigorously with the mystery man who, at the beginning of football season, called to say he ran a secret speakeasy-type club for Seahawks players who don't want the hassle of clubbing in public. "They become targets," the man said, for guys who want to seem tough by picking fights with Seahawks and their friends. The better the Seahawks are doing, the mystery man added, the more trouble they attract. The mystery man invited Mr. Kiley to visit the club one night, but Mr. Kiley punted the invitation to another game day, and soon the Seahawks were having an astronomically good season and the mystery man stopped returning calls. Mr. Kiley is still kicking himself for missing a golden opportunity to get to know pro football players outside their canned TV personalities ("We just want to go out there and play good football," etc.), especially during an unexpectedly successful season.
The Stranger regrets that ontogeny does not recapitulate phylogeny.
In the 2013 SIFF Guide, we reported that Annemarie Jacir's When I Saw You was the first feature film directed by a Palestinian woman, when in fact it was Jacir's own Salt of this Sea from 2008. Duh.
Over the course of 2013, Dan Savage, editorial director of The Stranger, managed to attend only two editorial meetings. Mr. Savage does not regret his absence. When confronted by an angry member of the editorial staff, Mr. Savage offered that he is always "with you in spirit" and then sent an e-mail to Laurie Saito, the managing director or something or other of The Stranger, and had that staff member's employment terminated, his desk pulled to the ground, and the earth salted.
Stranger food critic Bethany Jean Clement regrets the failure of Yes on I-522âthe initiative to require labeling of genetically modified foods in Washingtonâto run a candid campaign slamming the GMO agricultural-industrial complex that uses huge amounts of harmful pesticides, forces large-scale farmers to buy creepy GMO seeds that they cannot reuse the next year (contrary to the basis of farming since the dawn of time), forces those same farmers to buy mega-tons of specific name-brand pesticides, and so on and so forth. Everybody knew this was what the Yes on 522 people really wanted to say, but instead they ran a weak campaign about how we all deserve information about our food, which is not exactly a clarion call to action. They also failed to make good use of the many, many local chefs behind the labeling-of-GMOs movement, and further failed to make good use of the incredible sound bite that the corporate giants supporting No on 522 were Monsanto, DuPont Pioneer, Bayer CropScience, and Dow AgroSciencesâthe same companies who gave us DDT, PCBs, Agent Orange, and napalm. The No on 522 campaign was incredibly disingenuous as well, but if the Yes campaign had come out swinging, the damn thing might have passed.
Speaking of food, Jen Graves, The Stranger's art critic, believes that gains in worker productivity over the last 20 years may be attributable to the widespread removal of seeds from fruit. The number of seeds remaining in tangerines is regrettable.
Kelly O regrets writing, in an article about horror films called "Satan, Scarecrows, and Skin," that it was the character Julia running around wearing her dead husband's skin in the movie Hellraiser. It was Frank! Ms. O has seen that damn movie too many times to get that wrong, and yet she got it wrong.
Emily Nokes, music editor at The Stranger, regrets needing to pass two construction sites on her walk to work, and how Ms. Nokes's neon yellow hair regularly causes construction workers to yell "HEY!" and then point to their neon vests of the same color. When did they phase out the orange vests anyway?
As research for a December 11 article on how a $15 minimum wage might impact the price of fast food in Seattle, Stranger news writer Goldy purchased and ate a $1 hamburger at the Madison Street McDonald's. He regrets the error.
Stranger music writer Dave Segal regrets the closing of the Comet Tavern and Electric Tea Garden. These two small, venerable venues offered welcoming environments for local/national/international bands and DJs who messed with convention. They were stalwart champions of the rock and electronic undergrounds in a neighborhood that's been skewing douche-bro-y of late.
Every day, Paul Constant regrets Facebook a little more. If Facebook died in a fire sometime in the coming year, Mr. Constant would not weep one little bit.
Anna Minard, a news reporter at The Stranger, regrets that a paragraph accompanying a piece she wrote on a state initiative said "average" when it should've said "median." Some people argue the word "average" has come to cover mean, median, and/or mode, but deep down, Ms. Minard knows it was wrong. Hey, she didn't caption the graph, but still: deepest apologies to math.
The Stranger regrets the closure of the Queen Anne Easy Street Records.
In a February article about candy, staff writer Cienna Madrid raved about the handmade red- and silver-foiled peppermint patties for sale at Caffe Vita, which she erroneously attributed to Jo's Candies. In fact, they are Judy's Peppermint Patties and they are no longer available at Vita. Big mistake, Vita.
Richard Conlin regrets not bothering to run for city council this year. He also regrets announcing his two-years-hence resignation from the council before he realized that he didn't actually win the council seat he'd announced he would in two years be resigning from.
Stranger staffer Brendan Kiley regrets that he hasn't been more aggressive with the SeaTac Federal Detention Center in trying to figure out who exactly gave the order to send grand-jury refusers Matt Duran, Katherine Olejnik, Maddy Pfeiffer, and Leah-Lynn Plante into solitary confinement, even though they were never accused of committing a crime. Not even the refusers' lawyers could get answers from the FDC, which the lawyers say is unusual. Somebody made that decision, and that somebody still has some questions to answer.
The bucket of stage blood in Balagan's production of Carrie: The Musical regrets that it wasn't fuller every night and only got to splash a few dribbles on the lead actor. The bucket was born to drench and feels like it missed an opportunity to show off its potential.
Christopher Frizzelle, editor in chief of The Stranger and a bizarrely passionate fan of musicals, regrets getting the occupation of Mr. Bumble wrong in his December 11 review of 5th Avenue Theatre's Oliver! Mr. Bumble is a parish beadle and not the headmaster of an orphanage, but Jesus who cares same difference.
In the summer of 2013, Dan Savage, host of the Savage Lovecast, a popular sex-advice podcast, traveled to London to tape Sex Box, a program in which three couples had sex onstage in a large, opaque box while Mr. Savage and two other "sex experts" discussed the issues raised by these couples and their couplings. The show prompted a firestorm of controversy in the United Kingdom. Mr. Savage does not regret appearing on the program, as he felt it was both educational and titillating. For a time, Mr. Savage regretted that he didn't ask to be moved to a better hotel. But Mr. Savage and his entourage had such a good time in the particular hotel room where the producers of Sex Box housed him that he honestly has no regrets.
Paula Patton is easily the most beautiful woman in the world. She presumably often has sex with her husband, Robin Thicke. The rest of the world deeply regrets that Ms. Patton's genitals have made this unfortunate decision. But we feel a little better when we look at Ms. Patton's Twitter feed, which is full of shit like this: "Today and every breath I take I'm truly thankful and blessed!!!! XO #Teamsagittarius." On second thought, maybe Mr. Thicke can have her.
Emily Nokes, music editor at The Stranger, regrets that in her interview of Olympia band Behead the Prophet No Lord Shall Live, the photo caption switched two of the bandmate's names. She also regrets how difficult it can be to figure out who is who in band photos, especially the arty ones where some people are turning their heads or slightly out of focus, or the ones where everyone has a beard.
Cienna Madrid, staff writer, regrets the song "Summertime Sadness" by Lana del Rey because she fears its stupidity is infectious.
Kelly O regrets going onstage with Dan Savage at the last Seattle HUMP! screening and trying to take a picture of the audience. Her camera wouldn't work, and it was really embarrassing, and everyone started laughing at her, and she felt a little like Sissy Spacek at a high-school prom.
Deceased "comet of the century" ISON regrets the sun.
Emily Nokes, music editor at The Stranger, regrets mixing up the band Space Trash with the Devo song "Space Junk" in an Up and Coming item pertaining to the band. She also regrets being so high on cold medicine while writing the Up and Coming that she riffed on what actual space trash might be like: "Doritos Extreme bags and tampon wrappers lazily floating out into the final frontier, choking poor space seals..." Good grief.
Theater editor Brendan Kiley regrets he didn't make more time to play the ukulele this year.
Anna Minard regrets Twitter, because now it feels like some fifth limb connected directly to her brain, and she was doing just fine with only the first four, thankyouverymuch.
In a February article about how Catholic hospitals in Washington State could ignore the wishes of patientsâespecially women and the terminally illâand deny them legal medical procedures for religious reasons, staff writer Cienna Madrid incorrectly reported that Washington was the third state in the country to embrace physician-assisted suicide. In fact, it was the second. We regret the error.
Kelly O regrets nothing about punching that guy in the stomach at Bumbershoot and then giving him five bucks to take his photo and then putting that photo on the cover of The Stranger, because that guy RULES.
Stranger staffer Jen Graves regrets that time she got that foot injury while participating in a bit of how's your father. Ms. Graves does not regret that bit of how's your father.
The Stranger regrets the closing of Francine Seders Gallery. Certain art gallery owners should be granted immortality.
Savage Love, the widely syndicated sex-advice column authored by Dan Savage, is due to the copy editors at The Stranger by noon on Thursdays. In the newspaper industryâwhat's left of itâthat is what's known as a "deadline." Mr. Savage failed to get his column to the copy editors at The Stranger by his deadline even once in 2013. Mr. Savage's column did not, in fact, appear in the copy editors' inbox before noon on a Friday ever. Mr. Savage does not have the decency to regret this and doesn't seem the least bit concerned about the terrible example he's setting for the other members of the editorial staff.
On a related note, the copy editors at The Stranger sometimes spit in Mr. Savage's tea when he leaves it unattended at his desk. They also have no regrets.
The Stranger regrets that there may actually be universes out there that have no stars. None at all.
Seattle City Council member Sally Clark regrets that people think, just because she's gay, that she should stand up for gay rights.
Gillian Anderson, copy chief of The Stranger, regrets every typo, factual error, and misuse of grammar that appeared in the paper this year. She feels terrible about it.
The entire staff of The Stranger and all the readers who aren't jerks deeply regret that Megan Seling left us after THIRTEEN YEARS to move to Nashville, Tennessee. We miss her horribly. For good measure, let's all regret the existence of Nashville, Tennessee, shall we?
Everyone at The Stranger who's had the pleasure of working with/admiring the teeth of/being laughed at by Cienna Madrid, a staff writer at The Stranger these last four years, regrets that this is Ms. Madrid's last issue. Even though Ms. Madrid will still contribute freelance features and even though she had a harrowing tendency to get drunk and talk shit very loudly about people who are sitting right next to her at bars, we're going to miss the shit out of her. Except for Paul Constant, who can't wait to see her go because he has dibs on her chair.
