• After reading from the 20th-anniversary edition of her classic Bastard out of Carolina with Sister Spit at Hugo House, Dorothy Allison celebrated her 63rd birthday at the Capitol Hill gay bar Pony. The porn-strewn walls didn't faze the National Book Award winner, whose career started out punker than fuck, then "got respectable so quickly," she wryly bemoaned to an attendee.

• A charming shop called Beats and Bohos is poised to open soon in Ballard. Located in the upstairs of a house inhabited by two Ohio transplants on 15th Avenue Northwest, B&B will sell used records as well as vintage clothing, shoes, accessories, and home decor. A recent visit revealed many excellent rarities of the former and plenty of tantalizing items of the latter.

• Last week, Genius Award–winning Seattle filmmaker Lynn Shelton began principal photography on a new feature film entitled Touchy Feely, which she also wrote. Boldface Hollywood names said to be appearing in the project include Ellen Page, Rosemarie DeWitt, and Allison Janney. Local actors are playing supporting roles, including Alycia Delmore (who starred in Shelton's 2009 film Humpday), Hans Altwies, and Sarah Rudinoff. (Department of Autofellatio: Shelton won a Stranger Genius Award for film in 2008. Rudinoff won a Genius Award in 2004, and Delmore and Altwies have both been shortlisted for the award in the past.)

• Rachel Maddow gave an inspiring thank-you to the event staff at her reading on Saturday. Town Hall and University Book Store staffers, who had gathered in a stairwell to have their picture taken with Ms. Maddow, were rewarded with a short, heartfelt speech in which their work was praised so frankly and eloquently, people choked up. Way to buoy the spirits of the common people, Ms. Maddow.

• According to someone who was there, in person, Maddow "smells like happy things and social justice."

• The "cash mob" trend—in which people agree on the internet to apparate at a particular time and spend $50 or more at a local independent business—is taking off in Seattle. Word on the intertweets is that the latest cash mob will gather at Elliott Bay Book Company on Saturday, April 21, at 10 a.m.