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Biden did poorly in big cities (Politico), except those of Detroit (more votes than people!), Philadelphia, Atlanta and Milwaukee, which he had to win. Not surprisingly, they are all located in the most important swing states, and are long known for being politically corrupt!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 27, 2020
A weird food read for the weekend: This guy went on a quest to find the original McDonald's french fry recipe.
Amazon's averaged around 1,400 new hires per day: Terrific reporting from Karen Weise reveals Amazon's "extraordinary hiring binge" this year. Mike Baker breaks down the big bulletpoints in this tweet:
Amazon's hiring binge is unrivaled in the history of corporate America:
• 427,300 people hired around the world this year.
• 1,400 new hires per day.
• A total workforce of 1.2 million people.
• One week, 384,000 people applied for jobs.
By @KYWeisehttps://t.co/DLuwxZ2GY2
— Mike Baker (@ByMikeBaker) November 27, 2020
I guess we can't resist it any longer: It's officially that time of year.
What time is it? It's time for another round of HUMP!'s Greatest Hits! Find yourself thinking about HUMP! festivals from the past, remembering some of your favorites? Just watched your first HUMP! and wonder what past festivals look like? Great news! We’re bringing you another volume of our (and audience) favorite short, dirty movies from 2005-2018. Get ready for HUMP! Greatest Hits, Volume Two!
For years, I’ve held a deep appreciation for a series of old 1970s-era ads in which ghost-pilgrims appear in modern kitchens to marvel at the moistness of Butterball turkeys. The entire premise of the commercials is bananas, from the disembodied chorus that heralds the ghosts’ arrival to their old-timey dialogue peppered incessantly with the word “juicy.”
But the aspect that I love most is how the pilgrim characters, an apparent husband and wife, have a bickering sniping relationship, as though either one is just one dry drumstick away from snapping and slugging the other square in the face—a dynamic replicated in countless commercials of the time, and one curiously absent from early marketing to queers.
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EVENTS
NOVEMBER 28
Highline Celebration of Indigenous Voices & Stories
Join Highline Public Schools Native Education Program, Highline Heritage Museum, and other local organizations for an online discussion with and about the urban Native communities in Highline and South King County.
'Tis the season for one of the most surreal and hysterically funny Christmas shows ever: The Dina Martina Christmas Show! Join "The Second Lady of Entertainment" as she welcomes you into her home & fills you with a distant facsimile of the holiday spirit.
As you experience Dina Martina's wonderfully tragic brand of entertainment, you'll see why Dan Savage calls her "absolutely high-f**king-larious!”
It introduced the brooding young English actor to an American audience as a tuxedoed croupier (card dealer) in a casino in London. Day is hard to come by in this film; most of the action occurs at night or in the windowless, underground casino, which has covered its walls in warped mirrors that resemble molten silver. The felt on the card tables is an unsettlingly purple-blue.
Owen, as Jack, a down-on-his-luck writer with a preternatural gift for dealing, is cool and immutable; a bit misshapen but attractive, observant, and deeply self-involved. He's a Gemini, so he's charming, the type of dude where women just appear naked before him. The seedy punters (gamblers) and a life lived at night are all fodder for the book he's writing, which Owen reads to the film's audience through voiceovers.
My favorite thing about Croupier is the sound of the different games: the chips stacked on the tables, the rattling of the marble ball spinning in the roulette wheel, the clip of the cards dealt in front of players. This movie is perfect for your post-Thanksgiving coma.
Without Trebek, what will Jeopardy be? Will the show be the same without his dry, measured interest in contestants' personal lives? Without the soft, cashmere sweaters he wore in those video clues filmed at one of the Smithsonian museums?
I made this tribute. Plz Enjoy...
"Alex Trebek Expresses Interest in You" pic.twitter.com/u39PGv2ffP
— Zane Golia (@zbgolia) November 12, 2020
Jeopardy! hasn't really changed in the last 34 years. From the retro sets to the contestants' bad clothes, Jeopardy episodes filmed today still look like found footage from the '80s. And that's beautiful. But, change is coming now that Trebek, the show's biggest constant, is gone. Fans will need to embrace it or risk inevitable disappointment.
Ken Jennings, the winningest contestant in the show's history, was already selected as the first interim host for Jeopardy. I'm fine with Ken—he's a safe bet—but I'm hoping to see some other contestants from the show's past try their hand at the host job before anything is set in stone.
Here are the Jeopardy contestants I'd like to see host the show:
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In fact, they’ll transform the way you get around multiple towns, because the new tendrils of the Link extensions will spread across Seattle to the east side and down to Kent and Tacoma, like the tentacles of a giant sexy hentai monster. Please, please, no matter how tempting it may seem, do not attempt to lick the trains.
So, just how close are we to a transformed transit experience? I’m glad you asked—pull up a chair, brew a cup of coffee, and try to keep your tongue in your mouth as we do a little year-end roundup of Sound Transit’s most seductive construction projects.
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SEASONAL
Turn to local businesses for your holiday shopping. The weekend after Thanksgiving squeezes in Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Museum Store Sunday, giving you extra incentive to find deals on all manner of gifts and support Seattle makers during this tough season. If you need somewhere to start, check out our 2020 Holiday Gift Guide for a roundup of our favorite things from Seattle authors, artists, food businesses, and more (like Ijeoma Oluo's new book Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America or subscriptions to local wine clubs). We've also compiled a guide to this season's best holiday markets and shopping events, like Saturday's outdoor market at the Georgetown Trailer Park Mall and Sunday's Handmade Brigade Pop-Up and Holiday Market at Skål Beer Hall, along with a list of branded merch items from places like Dick's Drive-In and Hood Famous Bakeshop. If you plan accordingly, you won't even have to leave your house to check off everyone on your list.
Continue reading »George Rutherford @UCSF is amazing at turning data into insights. @ Friday town hall, he showed results below, from Canada's Thanksgiving (which was on Oct 12). The country has done incredibly well w/ Covid, but note sharp uptick in cases following holiday. Sober warning for U.S. pic.twitter.com/mfA3uTHfy5
— Bob Wachter (@Bob_Wachter) November 22, 2020
Speaking of Thanksgiving: Ahead of what is likely to be one giant, germy Thursday, Joe Biden delivered a somber address to the nation, urging Americans to recommit to fighting the virus this holiday season. In the 18-minute speech, Biden acknowledged that we've "grown weary of the fight," but that this is the moment to "steel our spines, redouble our efforts and recommit to the fight." He pushed us to remember that "we're all in this together." Watch the full speech here:
Anthony Fauci also issued his "final plea," begging people to limit their Thanksgiving festivities this year: “Keep the indoor gatherings as small as you possibly can," he told ABC's Good Morning America in an interview. "We all know how difficult that is because this is such a beautiful, traditional holiday. But by making that sacrifice, you are going to prevent infections.” All we can do now is wait and watch the infection rate skyrocket in two weeks.
OK if you REALLY need convincing: The Seattle P.I. used an Event Risk Assessment Planning Tool developed by the Georgia Institute of Technology to calculate the chances of someone at your Thanksgiving dinner having COVID for every county in the state. Here's King County:
Chance of one person having COVID-19 in a gathering of 10: 26%Continue reading »
Chance of one person having COVID-19 in a gathering of 15: 36%
Chance of one person having COVID-19 in a gathering of 20: 44%
University of Washington residents, the doctors-in-training working on the frontlines, worry about contracting COVID-19 themselves. For the residents I spoke to for this story, however, the biggest worry isn't their own health but rather how their absence might impact the hospital.
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What is not hard to find on the record is the GOP's undemocratic proclivities (gerrymandering, voter suppression, the shameless overrepresentation of white rural votes, and so on). But between November 7 (when the networks declared Biden the president of the United States), and November 24 (when Pennsylvania certified Biden's victory in that commonwealth), there was a moment in the US when it seemed a coup was not just in motion but a real possibility.
On November 10, the Secretary of State Mike Pompeo alarmed a large part of the American public when he told reporters—with no hint of fear, and as world leaders were congratulating Biden for his win—that there would be a "smooth transition to a second Trump administration." Couple that with the silence of most Republicans about the obvious election results, and you had the idea that America was going through a world-historical regressive transformation of its political system.
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This impulse sounds good and noble, but it's dumb for a couple reasons. First off, there is an outside chance Democrats will take control of the U.S. Senate in January, which would dramatically increase the chances of a federal bailout. If the legislature meets tomorrow, however, then lawmakers will have to assume no more money will come from the feds and then start filling budget holes by cutting programs people rely on. While making big cuts is a huge kink for Republicans, 2008 taught us that austerity budgeting will lead to a longer, slower, more painful economic recovery, and we should do everything we can to avoid making the same mistake again.
But a major mechanical issue also troubles the prospect of a special session: lawmakers haven't ironed out the process for passing bills remotely yet. So even if they could meet, the quality of the work they could even accomplish remains an open question.
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Streaming: Local Connection
Becoming Black
What happens when a Black child in a majority-white German town is told that her dark skin is simply a genetic coincidence? She'll invariably find out the truth, and, in director Ines Johnson-Spain's case, she'll make a film about it. See a limited screening of Becoming Black as part of Goethe Pop Up's German Cinema Now series.
Northwest Film Forum
Wednesday only
