Next EMP Pop Conference Set for April 16-19, 2015 in Seattle: Organizer Eric Weisbard recently announced on Twitter that next year’s EMP Pop Conference will happen in Seattle's EMP museum April 16-19. Inquiries about this academic gathering at which music critics, authors, thinkers, and enthusiasts deliver presentations about an overarching music-world concept should be directed to PopConference@EMPmuseum.org.

Kang Gets Downbeat? We just heard a rumor that Eyvind Kang, a local musician and composer, who with Jessika Kenney won the Genius Award for music in 2013, has won an award from the prestigious jazz journal Downbeat. Though Kang has some roots in jazz, he has a reputation for making some of the most otherworldly and eclectic music in the Pacific Northwest.

Office of Arts & Culture Wins NEA Grant: This e-mail arrived in our press-release hole today:

The City of Seattle is pleased to announce that the National Endowment for the Arts has selected the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture for an Our Town grant to support cultural space work in 2015 and 2016. The $50,000 grant will be applied to creating a Cultural Space Toolkit, which will be available to neighborhoods across the city by end of 2014. The grant was one of only 66 the NEA awarded this year.

Congratulations to the Office of Arts & Culture. Let's get some more cultural spaces in town, stat.

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Didn't Get to Verse Chapter Verse? Local author Henry Chamberlain published a writeup of Saturday night's Bryan Lee O'Malley/Tacocat team-up at Town Hall.

RIP Thomas Berger: News broke today that the prolific novelist died earlier this month at the age of 89. Stranger books editor Paul Constant suggests the following Berger books for people who'd like to give him a try: Little Big Man, Neighbors, The House Guest, and Adventures of the Artificial Woman.

Good News, Magazine Fans: As part of their brand-new redesign, the New Yorker has made their archives back to 2007 free for everyone. And wonderful magazine The Baffler just released 25 years' worth of archives available to the reading public for free, too. That oughta keep you busy for a while.

San Diego Comic-Con Is This Week: The Nerd High Holy Days are upon us, which is probably why Marvel Studios announced their next five years' worth of superhero movie release dates. Here's a queer guide to Comic-Con.

Get Your Cumberbatch On: After the jump, find a trailer for The Imitation Game, a movie coming out this fall starring Benedict Cumberbatch as Alan Turing.