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2020

Elizabeth Warren Is Surging

by Christopher Frizzelle • Wednesday at 11:05 am

Elizabeth Warren spoke at Washington Square Park in New York City two nights ago, in front of 20,000 people, the largest crowd so far in the Democratic nomination process.
Elizabeth Warren spoke at Washington Square Park in New York City two nights ago, in front of 20,000 people. Drew Angerer/Getty Images

When she was in Seattle a month and a half ago, Elizabeth Warren drew 15,000 people to Seattle Center, which was then her largest crowd on the campaign trail so far. She topped that on Monday night, when she spoke in front of an estimated 20,000 at Washington Square Park in New York City—believed to be the largest crowd yet for any candidate on the Democratic side.

This growing, real-world enthusiasm is matched in the polls. In a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, she has 25 percent support, second only to Joe Biden at 31 percent. She is closer to Biden than Bernie is to her. As Steve Kornacki pointed out on MSNBC last night: "Notably, she's six points behind Biden for first [place], and 11 points ahead of Sanders... closer to Biden for the lead, than she is to Sanders for third place."

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Visual Art • Enviro

Currently Hanging: Hernan Paganini's "El Lujo Aparente" in Recology CleanScape's AIR Program

by Jasmyne Keimig • Wednesday at 10:42 am

I sometimes dream about wearing a chain made of gold. In my dreams, it shines and is pure, the gold arranged in a herringbone pattern all around my neck. The chain I encountered during Pioneer Square Art Walk a week and a half ago, assembled by the Argentina-born, Seattle-based artist Hernan Paganini, is less metallically pure and larger than I'd dreamt, but just as beautiful. And swaggy.

Paganini's gold chain is part of a project done in collaboration with Recology CleanScapes. The company hosts a five-month-long artist-in-residence program (AIR) where King County artists are granted access to go through discarded materials at the company's facility to find materials to make pieces with. This year's artists, Paganini and Susan Robb, currently have their work on display in a Pioneer Square gallery space where their projects—Robb's Luxury Waste and Paganini's Retrato del Mundo Project—are running concurrently with one another.

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Sponsored

Isis Goldberg is Helping LGBTQ+ Asylum Seekers Find a Home

This article is the latest in a series documenting the important work being done at Entre Hermanos, presented by Uncle Ike's Pot Shop.

Everyone who knows about Entre Hermanos knows that it’s the go-to organization for HIV help in the Latinx LGBTQ+ community. What fewer people know is that, in addition to being a safe place to get assistance with HIV care and counseling, the organization is also helping free trans asylum seekers from detention.

Learn more.

Film/TV • Things To Do • EverOut

The Best Movie Releases and Film Festivals in Seattle: Fall 2019

by Stranger EverOut Staff • Wednesday at 10:30 am

Jamie Lee Curtis heads an amazing cast for a good old-fashioned ensemble whodunit in Knives Out.
Jamie Lee Curtis heads an amazing cast for a good old-fashioned ensemble whodunit in Knives Out. Lionsgate

Below, we've rounded up the biggest and best film openings and events you need to know about this season, including festivals like Local Sightings and the Seattle Queer Film Festival, series like an Abbas Kiarostami retrospective, and exciting new releases like Terminator: Dark Fate, Parasite, and Knives Out. Check out movie times and more film events on our EverOut Things To Do calendar, or check out the rest of our critics' picks from Seattle Art and Performance.


FILM FESTIVALS & SERIES

Sept 20–29
Local Sightings Film Festival 2019 This year, the regional film festival will get even more local, partnering with homegrown nonprofits and media production companies like Indigenous Showcase, Sustainable Seattle, Langston, Pr0n 4 Freakz, NFFTY, and more. Once again, the city will become a hub for indie filmmakers who eschew New York or LA for the earnest and eccentric Northwest. Local Sightings acts as a showcase and watering hole for regional filmmakers, VR artists, and others who range from emotional storytellers to nature documentarists to political essayists. Many of them will attend, which makes for an opportunity for local professional and aspiring moviemakers to meet at the screenings, workshops, and parties. JZ (Northwest Film Forum)

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City • Enviro • Animals

Seattle City Council’s Stand Against Oil Drilling in the Arctic Is Meaningless, But I Couldn’t Agree More

by Gregory Scruggs • Wednesday at 9:50 am

Pass the bear spray.
Pass the bear spray. Gregory Scruggs

Sometimes city councils pass laws, and sometimes they pass resolutions. If you watched Schoolhouse Rock as a kid, then you probably know what a law is. Resolutions are more nebulous. Some have practical implications for how a city runs and others are grandiose but otherwise toothless gestures. The former include declarations like sanctuary cities and carbon neutrality. Far from grandstanding, those pronouncements impact how the police operates—like not asking for immigration status at a routine traffic stop—and what kind of energy powers a city.

And while some political scientists believe mayors should run the world, the latter resolutions are totally outside the purview of what a city can actually accomplish. Witness the rash of “nuclear-free zones” that popped up coast to coast in the 1980s, as if cities were really the ones calling the shots during the Cold War.

The latter category is where Monday’s Seattle City Council resolution pledging not to purchase goods or services from companies that obtain leases to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge falls. The U.S. Department of the Interior is scheduled to start selling those leases in the coming months, although recent investigations suggest there may be far less oil than anticipated under the tundra.

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Music • Inbox Jukebox

Inbox Jukebox Track of the Day: The Supernatural Ambient Wonder "Tanglewood" by Rising Planet Mu Records Star Meemo Comma

by Dave Segal • Wednesday at 8:57 am

Meet Meemo Comma, whose Sleepmoss is one of the best albums of 2019.
Meet Meemo Comma, whose Sleepmoss is one of the best albums of 2019. Eleanor Hardwick

Meemo Comma, "Tanglewood" (Planet Mu)

Hundreds of ambient releases come out annually. Many are perfectly fine works to which you can code, write poetry, update your résumé, get a deep-tissue massage, or eat a quinoa salad. Some are inconsequential. And a handful are truly absorbing. Count Sleepmoss (out October 25), the sophomore album by Meemo Comma (real name: Lara Rix-Martin), among the latter—and, if you're keeping score at home, it will likely nestle into my year-end top 10 list.

Issued by the unfailingly interesting UK label Planet Mu, Sleepmoss seamlessly laces field recordings (birdsong, creakings, rolling metallic spheres and other mysterious non-musical noises) into pieces that haunt and chill with drones of desolate beauty. The tenebrous orchestral title track, though, sounds as if it could've appeared in the unnerving sci-fi film Under the Skin. These 12 tracks are aching to be used in an avant-garde movie about the supernatural aspects of nature, although the press release states that they were "inspired by the shifting landscapes of her daily walks with her dog on the South Downs" in Brighton, England.

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News • Politics • Sports • Crime • Guns

Slog AM: Firefighters Fight Blaze at Bull Semen Facility, Antonio Brown Accused of Farting in Doctor's Face, What's the Deal with These Tiny Earthquakes?

by Nathalie Graham • Wednesday at 8:00 am

Brown also never paid the bill.
Brown also never paid the bill. Michael Reaves/Getty Images

$2 million bail for Westlake shooter: The 20-year-old accused of killing one person and injuring two others in a Friday night shooting at the downtown light rail station has had his bail set. A judge ruled that he was a threat to the community and found probable cause that he was the suspected killer. His bail was set at $2 million. The suspect also had prior offenses including a felony conviction and two misdemeanors.

Mountlake Terrace Elementary School almost had a kidnapping: An 11-year-old girl was contacted by a stranger on Snapchat who claimed to be a 14-year-old boy. Spoiler alert: He was not a 14-year-old boy. The girl found that out when her new friend showed up at her school to meet up with her. He was a man driving a blue sedan. He tried to lure the girl and the friend she brought along for the meet-up into his car. They ran away and called the police. If you know of any suspicious light-blue sedans, the police want your help finding this guy.

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News • Election! • Money • Slog AM/PM • 2020

Slog PM: WeWork Delays IPO, Snowden Gets Sued, Beto Visits Skid Row

by Chase Burns • Tuesday at 5:50 pm

We downloaded this really weird sweaty photo of Beto from Getty and I just wanna run it again before he stops running.
We downloaded this really weird sweaty photo of Beto from Getty and I just wanna run it again before he stops running. CHIP SOMODEVILLA / GETTY

Israel's election results are too close to call: Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is "virtually level" with opponent Benny Gantz. Some exit polls report Gantz being slightly ahead. Gantz is a part of the centrist Blue and White party. "Both PM Netanyahu and challenger Gantz back annexing Palestinian land," writes the Guardian.

The US Justice Department filed a civil lawsuit against Edward Snowden: Because they want all the proceeds of his recently released memoir. I wonder if he'll have to pay them in rubles. (I assume this wouldn't be the first time for Trump.) The memoir is titled Permanent Record and it was released today.

Something Microsoft can look forward to: I'm going to keep covering WeWork because I love a garbage fire.

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Film/TV

Peter Strickland's In Fabric Is a Wicked Horror-Satire About Consumerism

by Joule Zelman • Tuesday at 4:55 pm

In Fabric
In Fabric

Surreal sensualist director Peter Strickland (The Duke of Burgundy) sets out to satirize consumerism through a hilarious horror device: an evil, sentient (?) red dress.

When a middle-aged woman (a subtle and appealing Marianne Jean-Baptiste) buys the cursed garment at a luxurious shop at the mall, things quickly starting going wrong in her life—the washing machine rebels, a rash develops on her chest, domestic animals turn hostile. With many hauntological flourishes, allusions to Italian giallo horror, and other mischief, Strickland transforms a British shopping center into a demonic temple staffed by robotic women who look like Victorians dressed for mourning and speak like neural-network-fed advertising copy mixed with overwrought poetry. Deliciously retro, nastily funny, but siding with those wrung out by the cycle of labor and consumption, In Fabric deserves a spot next to Sorry to Bother You in the hall of great anti-capitalist comedies.

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News • City • Transportation

King County Council Flirts with Year-Long Scooter Pilot for White Center

by Nathalie Graham • Tuesday at 4:14 pm

Meet me in White Center for a romantic scooter ride this fall.
Meet me in White Center for a romantic scooter ride this fall. PATRICIAENCISO/GETTY IMAGES

Electric scooters are pushing closer and closer to Seattle. Tacoma, Redmond, Bothell, Everett, and Spokane have been zipping around on the e-scooters for months now. Soon, White Center will (fingers crossed) get added to that list.

King County Council Member Joe McDermott put forward legislation Tuesday to get a 12-month scooter pilot rolling in White Center. If McDermott has his way—and he's feeling optimistic that the rest of the KCC will be receptive to getting some scooters on the ground—White Center will be e-scootin' by November, he told The Stranger. His legislation passed the transportation committee today 6-0 and is headed for the full council.

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Things To Do • EverOut

113 Stranger (Than Usual) Things To Do in Seattle This Week: September 17-22, 2019

by Stranger EverOut Staff • Tuesday at 2:43 pm

Play the part of a creepy doll at Cafe Nordos latest interactive dinner-theater production, Violets Attic: A Grand Ball for Wicked Dolls.
Play the part of a creepy doll at Cafe Nordo's latest interactive dinner-theater production, Violet's Attic: A Grand Ball for Wicked Dolls. Bruce Clayton Tom

Our arts critics have already recommended 59 great things to do this week and our music critics have picked the 44 best music shows, but there are still hundreds more events happening. To prevent some of the quirkier and more extraordinary ones from slipping through the cracks, we've compiled them here—from a Sandcastle Competition judged by Charles Mudede to the Storm Area 51 Party, and from the Dick's Drive-In Walkathon to the autumnal equinox celebration Luminata. For even more options this week, check out our complete Things To Do calendar.

Heading to Portland or Tacoma? Check out EverOut to find things to do there and in Seattle, all in one place.

TUESDAY

PERFORMANCE
Book-It's 30th Anniversary Birthday Bash
Quaff beer and cider from a no-host bar and eat snacks with the staff of Book-It Repertory on their 30th birthday.

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Books

Naomi Klein Beckons Us to Look Behind the Burning Climate Curtain

by Suzette Smith • Tuesday at 2:30 pm

Naomi Klein reads Tuesday, September 24, at Town Hall.
Naomi Klein reads Tuesday, September 24, at Town Hall. SIMON AND SCHUSTER / AUTHOR PHOTO BY KOUROSH KESHIRI

It’s easy to get the impression that all Naomi Klein really wanted On Fire to be is its 53-page introduction, which reads like an update to her fairly optimistic 2014 book about climate change, This Changes Everything. Since you can’t sell a 53-page book (something I think discourages reading, frankly), the rest of On Fire is a collection of climate crisis-adjacent essays Klein wrote for various publications of record, beginning with “A Hole in the World” for the Guardian in 2010—about the impact of BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig, which exploded in the Gulf of Mexico—to “The Battle Lines Have Been Drawn” for the Intercept as recently as 2019.

On Fire: the Burning Case for a Green New Deal is Klein’s least readable work yet. Klein’s gift for using a few relatable persons to carry readers through dense writing, which we saw in Shock Doctrine and This Changes Everything, never finds a hold in On Fire. This is doubtlessly due to the book being a collection and not something Klein was able to seamlessly weave together.

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Weed

The DEA Insists on Making Cannabis Research as Difficult as Possible

by Josh Jardine • Tuesday at 1:40 pm

1557247222-gettyimages-1039553540.jpg
BOONCHAI WEDMAKAWAND/GETTY IMAGES
Go ahead and mock my Reynolds-Wrap-hat mentality, but I think there may be a government agency working against the interests of legitimate cannabis research.

Is it a conspiracy? Ha ha, no, it’s just the Drug Enforcement Administration, doing what they do best: getting in the way and slowing things down like three drunk frat bros on an escalator at 2 am—an exasperating situation filled with slow people making bad choices.

As we’ve covered here, the feds require researchers to only use cannabis grown by the University of Mississippi. Great football team—Roll Tide, right?—but the worst weed growers ever. What they produce at U of M is closer to hemp than cannabis, which can significantly impact the research they perform with it, as it’s not the product cannabis users are actually consuming.

In 2016, the DEA announced they were opening up the application process to businesses that wanted to produce cannabis to be used by researchers. It’s now 1951, er, 2019, so that’s three years that the DEA has had to process the applications. We’re all busy, sure, but that seems like... a long time.

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Culture

Cancel Culture: What Exactly Is This Thing?

by Katie Herzog • Tuesday at 1:00 pm

Roseanne Barr has largely disappeared from public life after being both literally and metaphorically canceled.
Roseanne Barr has largely disappeared from public life after being both literally and metaphorically canceled. Rachel Luna / Getty Images

What is cancel culture, and is it improving society or making it worse?

The answer to those questions largely depends on who you ask. Some people, particularly those who consider themselves targets or victims of cancelation campaigns, argue that it is a dangerous trend in American culture, one that is actively stifling art, media, science, education, and free thought. Others argue that cancel culture is just another term for accountability, and that invoking the spectre of cancel culture is just a way of dodging responsibility for one’s actions.

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Visual Art • Things To Do • EverOut

The Best Art Shows in Seattle: Fall 2019

by Stranger EverOut Staff • Tuesday at 1:00 pm

Dont miss In Plain Sight, a group exhibit opening in November at Henry Art Gallery that will address communities, histories, and narratives that are hidden or invisible in the public space.
Don't miss In Plain Sight, a group exhibit opening in November at Henry Art Gallery that will address communities, histories, and narratives that are hidden or invisible in the public space. Courtesy of Ebony G. Patterson and Monique Meloche Gallery

Below, we've rounded up the biggest and best art shows you need to know about this season, like a museum-wide exhibition of international contemporary artists, luscious abstracts by Neddy winner Gillian Theobald, and Italian treasures from a Naples museum. You can also find a complete list of art shows in Seattle this fall on our EverOut Things To Do calendar, or check out the rest of our critics' picks from Seattle Art and Performance.


Museums

Bainbridge Island Museum of Art

Departures and Arrivals: Artists in Abstraction BIMA offers an "intense session in art vocabulary" with this group exhibition focusing on the artists' idiosyncratic approaches to abstraction. The roster is intriguing, ranging from textile artist Jono Vaughan to ecologically focused Mary Coss to UW professor and painter Denzil Hurley. (Through Sun Sept 29)

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Savage Love

About That Accidental Dildo Pic

by Dan Savage • Tuesday at 12:30 pm

1548976856-savage-letter-of-the-day-stamp-2019.jpg
I recently was hired to teach a class at a college and I love it. I gave my students my phone number so they could contact me if they needed to. Mistake number one. Later on after the first class after I already put my students’ numbers in my phone. Mistake number two. I was laughing with my friend on the phone about the new nine-inch dildo I got in the mail from Amazon and texted her a picture of it without my glasses on. Mistake number three. However, a student in my class has the same first name as my friend’s name and the pic of the dildo went to her instead. I realized my mistake seconds after the text went through and I panicked, so I immediately texted this student back: “I am so sorry! I didn’t mean to send a picture to you!” Mistake number four. She eventually texted back, “Who’s this?"

I don’t know what to do and I’m mortified and scared that she will report me and I’ll lose my job. Do I admit it was me? Do I change my number? Do I pull her aside after class and explain my totally honest mistake? I am freaking out about this and I have learned my lesson to never give students your number. I'm assuming the student is over 18 and I'm also assuming this student knows that people make mistakes, but I need some guidance. People in send accidental texts that sometimes include dildos, right?

Wrong Text

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