This week in The Stranger, noted "Theater-Fag" and known masturbator BRENDAN KILEY tries to explain the importance of a shuttered peep show in downtown Seattle. It is heartening, at least, to see Mr. Kiley so completely give up his quest for a Pulitzer (his last feature, which encouraged Seattleites to kill themselves, was a sign that he could not be trusted with press credentials). Instead, he chats with ecdysiasts about the "fine art" of taking off their clothing and encouraging perverts to bring themselves to climax in dank, smelly cages. No doubt Mr. Kiley's crocodile tears about the eradication of this spot of blight on our fair city's downtown are supposed to appeal to the reader's higher sensibilities. But I must ask: Are you truly presenting this place as a bastion of women's liberation and workers' freedoms, Mr. Kiley? How far the foppish dandy has fallen; we all know that you were on this "beat" simply so you could extort a free "Lap Dance" or two. At least you do not tell us whether your little scheme was successful or not. I would like to think that even women who take their clothing off for money have their limits.

Elsewhere, JEN GRAVES makes her annual attempt to convince the reader that her Visual Art section is relevant to anyone other than Miss Graves herself by attempting to relate BP's recent misfortune to the local artistic community. She fails, in spectacular fashion. A responsible corporation has a couple of bad days, Miss Graves—so what? And what does that have to do with "a 16-mm black-and-white film of the feet of her and her son jumping on a trampoline"? And, most importantly, who cares? As always, Graves's desperate attempts at relevancy fail in a morass of highfalutin (but still misused) graduate-school vocabulary and wafer-thin connections that crumple at the first application of critical thought.

In other sections of The Stranger, MAYOR MIKE McGINN pens an article on the viaduct-replacement tunnel—apparently, now the news staff, their arms tired from polishing his apples, are just letting the mayor write the paper himself. PAUL CONSTANT worships at the feet of a privileged white woman who abandoned American Christianism to become—I can barely type the words—a Muslim. Of course, this rebellion against all that we hold dear (even the freedom for a businessman to open a masturbatorium, and the freedom for hacks like Mr. Kiley to whine about decency finally triumphing over vileness) is the kind of idiocy that Mr./Miss Constant would applaud; s/he has made a living out of biting the hand that (over)feeds it. And then the comely ERICA GRANDY "profiles" a "musician" who has managed to perform in public only three times before. As near as I can figure, this is the latest car (hopefully the caboose) in Miss Grandy's Train of Friendship—her blatant favoritism is the least attractive thing about her. I hope to appeal to her better nature sometime soon, in private, perhaps over cocktails. The ball is in your court, Miss Grandy.