A new month clocks in this weekend, and with it a new batch of COVID-safe things to do beyond your four walls. Read our picks below, from ways to celebrate International Workers’ Day (have you been to Left Bank Books lately?) to a county-spanning City Nature Challenge, and from Seattle Bike ‘n’ Brews (a fine way to kick off Bike Everywhere Month) to Black-owned barbecue spots to try (like the award-winning Lil Red’s Takeout and Catering). For even more options, read our guides to the best online events this week, the best movies to watch this week, and our complete guide to in-person things to do in Seattle.
HOLIDAYS
Learn about the labor movement on International Workers’ Day this Saturday. Having nothing to do with the May Day you probably learned about in grade school (which largely consists of dancing around a Maypole Midsommar-style and handing out flowers—more on that later), Workers’ Day began in 1889 as a rally led by the Marxist International Socialist Congress demanding an eight-hour workday and other basic rights for workers. In Seattle, participate by checking out Red May, which offers a monthlong intellectual “vacation from capitalism” in the form of online talks with Marxist and socialist scholars like Naomi Klein, Lisa Adkins, Warren Montag, Asad Haider, Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi, and Michael Heinrich. The Stranger‘s resident philosopher and noted Marxist Charles Mudede calls the annual event “one of the most important radical left festivals in the US.” Off screen, you can pick up some tomes on the workers’ rights movement at Pike Place’s own anarchist bookstore, Left Bank Books, which is open for curbside pickup and in-person shopping from 12-5 pm on Wednesday-Sunday.
