NEW OPENINGS AND RETURNS

El Lugar Bodega Bar
Capitol Hill's perennially popular Mexican bar Fogón, which celebrates its 10th birthday this weekend, has launched this Mexican grocery-inspired spinoff next door. The spot's retail marketplace is now open and selling Tostilocos, Frito nachos, pan dulce, beers, micheladas, paletas, chocoflan, and more, while the full bar portion will open in about a month.
Capitol Hill
Pickup, dine-in

Stop Animal Cruelty

Spotted outside Elysian Brewing. This one has a really fun design, I love how the horse is kind of just prancing. 

Cate Kennan, “Sundial” (Post Present Medium)

It’s an exceptionally rare pleasure when an unknown artist’s music instantly enraptures you. (By “you,” I mean me.) Veteran music critics are used to 90 percent of songs and albums leaving them feeling meh or downright exasperated. So cheers to Cate Kennan, a Los Angeles keyboardist/guitarist/bassist whose debut album The Arbitrary Dimension of Dreams offers 12 concise episodes of a sonic reverie that buffer you from the world’s horrors with utmost subtlety.

The press release from Kennan’s Post Present Medium label compares her music to that of refined synth masters like Cluster and Harmonia’s Hans-Joachim Roedelius, Tonto’s Expanding Head Band’s Malcolm Cecil, and the English eccentrics in Deux Filles. That’s sort of accurate, but more strongly present are serene yet slightly melancholy moods reminiscent of Boards of Canada and Mort Garson circa Plantasia.

Remember anything about last February? Do you remember where you were or what you were doing? I don’t remember much about last February either—everything is a blur for everyone these days—but there is one thing I remember about last February: HUMP! 2022 premiering at On the Boards! It was so great to have HUMP! back in theaters after two years away.

If you didn’t get to see HUMP! 2022 in a theater—maybe you weren’t ready to head back out yet—we’re bringing HUMP! 2022 back for an encore presentation next month.

If you’ve been anywhere on the internet lately, you’ve probably run into Depths of Wikipedia. The gimmick social-media account plunges into the recesses of the community-written online encyclopedia to curate obscure and drily funny articles one might otherwise never run into.

One post highlights rumpology, a pseudoscience that examines people’s asses to assess their character traits. Another focuses on the strange fact that popcorn can be classified into two shapes: “mushroom” and “butterfly.” And did you know Mozart had a scatological obsession which was documented in 39 of the famed composer’s letters? You do now.

The project is run by Annie Rauwerda, a 22-year-old from Grand Rapids, Michigan who has grown Depths of Wikipedia into a vast enterprise spanning Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter, and boasting millions of followers. On Tuesday, August 16, she’s bringing a Depths of Wikipedia live show to the Here-After at the Crocodile, spreading her weird Wiki cheer to our corner of the Pacific Northwest.

There's plenty of local gems to check out during this shiny Emerald City weekend, from Capitol Hill Garage Sale Day to Hai! Japantown and from the Seattle Urban Book Expo to An Evening with Alice Sandahl and Tomo Nakayama.

FRIDAY

FESTIVALS

Seattle Latinx Pride Festival 2022
Show 'em you were born this way at this Latinx-centered festival, complete with musical performances, dancing, food vendors, community resources, and a photo booth.
(Roberto Maestas Festival Street, North Beacon Hill, free)

At Darya Farivar’s primary night party, her mother said her daughter’s run for an open State House seat in northeast Seattle served as a lesson for local progressives. A young woman with the right ideas can win, even if she doesn’t raise the most money.

Farivar, who currently enjoys more than a two-point lead in the 46th Legislative District's contest, faced an uphill battle against big fundraisers. Pediatrician Lelach Rave and treasurer of the King County Democrats Melissa Taylor each raised around $200,000, making them, respectively, the second- and third-highest fundraisers for a state legislative seat in the entire primary. But with less than $70,000 in the bank, Farivar managed to win the primary over the more moderate Seattle Times pick and the better-connected progressive. 

“Maybe it actually isn’t just about money,” Farivar said in a phone interview. “It was just so validating to see that we can actually do this with a lot of hard work and with some people really believing in us.”

In honor of Comedy Bang Bang in town (live at the Moore Saturday night!), here we are in the throes of Auggy-doggy. The rabble rousers are raising rabble, and here I am with some breaking labor babble.

Homegrown workers need your support: Homegrown, a sustainable food company that sells products to local cafes such as Caffe Vita and also maintains 10 retail stores in the Seattle area, has been refusing to recognize their workers’ union since June. The dang Seattle City Council called them out for it a month ago! And now, UNITE HERE! Local 8, a service workers union, says Homegrown has installed surveillance cameras in their delivery vans. In response, distribution workers at Homegrown’s production facility in Renton voted to authorize a strike. Want to help out? Homegrown workers are inviting you to click here and tell Caffe Vita you’re concerned about Homegrown’s labor practices.

Back-to-back weekends of climate optimism: I know, I'm not used to this much good news either, but all signs point to the House passing the Inflation Reduction Act today. Assuming no centrists decide to sabotage the effort at the last minute, President Biden should sign the US's first major climate bill in my adult lifetime in the next few days. Here's a breakdown from the New York Times on how you might benefit from the tax credits and rebates in the bill.

Speaking of climate: Advocates for farm workers told KUOW yesterday that the Department of Labor & Industries isn't doing enough to enforce its new emergency rules that are supposed to protect workers in extreme heat. In a quote I had to read three times to make sure I wasn't hallucinating, a spokesperson for L&I said the agency “is definitely on the side of the business.” Very cool.

The West Seattle Bridge will open on the day the lord rested after creating the whole universe and everything in it, the seventh day of the week, that is Sunday—and this particular one falls on September 18. The bridge was closed over two years ago (nearly 900 days) when SDOT found cracks on it. The large and 40-year-old chunk of car infrastructure was crumbling like a cookie. When it reopens, cars will be free to get stuck in traffic again, resume liberating carbon without abandon on it again, and to continue grinding the only world we will ever know and could only exist in into the dust.

This morning, King County Executive Dow Constantine convened a coalition of city, county, and state elected officials to announce their intention to address what they called a "crisis" of insufficient behavioral health care in the region. At the press conference, elected officials and service providers spoke about the urgent need to join forces to fund crisis care centers, residential care facilities for people struggling with mental illness, and to invest in the workforce needed to care for those patients. 

Constantine said those investments were badly needed, pointing out that more than 600 of the 1,530 people currently held in detention at King County's jail were involved in some form of behavioral health treatment. He also connected decades of insufficient funding for behavioral health to the rising homelessness crisis. According to Constantine, many of the 6,000 people the County categorizes as chronically homeless also struggle with untreated or under-treated behavioral health issues. 

Manchester dance-rock quartet The 1975 would love it if you made it to the Seattle date of their At Their Very Best tour. Dance floors will be ignited this fall with famed producers NGHTMRE, Peggy Gou, and SLANDER all dropping tour dates. Plus, college rock outfit The Lemonheads will also hit the road in celebration of their beloved 1992 album It’s a Shame About Ray. Read on for details on those and other newly announced events, plus some news you can use.

Tickets go on sale at 10 am unless otherwise noted.

ON SALE FRIDAY, AUG 12

MUSIC

The 1975: At Their Very Best Tour
WaMu Theater (Fri Dec 2)

“She was just helping,” laments Beau Ohlgren, head of the Jefferson County Transgender Support Group.

He’s referring to an 18-year-old employee of the YMCA’s Mountain View Pool in Port Townsend, a small town that lies northwest of Seattle across Puget Sound.

Three weeks ago, that employee was doing her job of supervising a group of kids when a patron named Julie Jaman began to hurl increasingly aggressive transphobic remarks at her. Other employees told Jaman to leave, but she later returned to picket the facility. Conservative media picked up the story, people started threatening YMCA employees, and now the entire facility has had to temporarily close due to those threatening messages.

The conflict aimed an uncomfortable spotlight on the nautical town of about 10,000 residents, where news headlines tend to focus on art fairs and gardening tips. As local leaders scramble to address the situation, community members have turned out in large numbers to support the YMCA employee, a college student pursuing a career in elementary education.

Charleena Lyles. John T. Williams. Manny Ellis. More than two years after thousands flooded streets across Washington to #SayTheirNames, police accountability advocates are finally seeing the state’s response to their demands for impartial investigations of cops who kill on the job.

Last week, the skeleton crew of employees staffing Washington’s new Office of Independent Investigations (OII) finally moved into their offices. The agency, while off to a slower start than initially projected, represents a first-in-the-nation victory for survivors of police violence. Once the department hires its remaining key staff members and finalizes its operating protocols, it will stand as the only statewide agency in America that investigates cops when they use deadly force, rather than allowing local departments to investigate their own. 

Eventually, the OII will conduct those investigations using entirely civilian teams, ending the practice of police investigating police. The families who have lost loved ones to police violence hope the agency will lead to more killer cops facing criminal charges for that behavior, but some restrictions on the agency’s authority could thwart those hopes.