SPECIALS

Kiki Bakery
This Taiwanese bakery is selling handmade mooncakes, with options for assorted Chinese-style mooncakes or Taiwanese-style mooncakes with sweet red bean paste and a salted egg yolk center.
Haller Lake

It’s a longstanding tradition for tattoo artists and shops to offer $13 tattoos for one day only in honor of Friday the 13th. These days, it’s rare to find anyone sticking to the original price, but many places still celebrate and offer special flash design deals. Whether you’re looking to get your first ink or you need to find space for your latest addition, we’ve compiled a list where you can go get tatted as part of the occasion. Don't forget your photo ID!

Hidden Hand Tattoo
Shop artists will fire up their tattoo guns all day long—noon to 8 pm, to be exact. Tattoos are cash only, priced starting at $130, and are available for arm and leg placements.
Fremont

Minds Eye Tattoo Studio
Minds Eye’s three artists will run flash deals on Friday; time slots are available for booking and walk-ins will be accepted.
Tacoma

Nightshade Tattoo
Seattle’s "mom ‘n’ pop tattoo shop" will start a sign-up sheet for flash specials at 12:30 pm—you will be contacted for a 40-minute time slot once the artist becomes available. If the artist is unable to fulfill a timeslot on the 13th, customers will be allowed to book the following day or on another day of their choosing. All designs are $131, “palm-sized,” black-and-grey, and for arm or leg placement only.
Uptown

WEDNESDAY 9/11  

Art + Culture Week Seattle

(VISUAL ART) Get stoked on Seattle's arts and culture scene all week long at this activation of spaces across the city, which kicked off on September 7. Art + Culture Week Seattle will pop up at a whopping 40 locations across the city, including buzzy faves like Wa Na Wari, Mini Mart City Park, SOIL, Traver Gallery, and Common Area Maintenance, among dozens of other spots. Check out the calendar of offerings for details on what's going down each day—I'm stoked about pretty much everything happening here, but the discounts on SIFF cinema screenings, ambient musical performances, and neon art at Rainier Art Center seem especially exciting. (Various venues, through Sept 14, see the full calendar of events here) LINDSAY COSTELLO

At around 2:30 am on a recent Friday morning, you were riding the northbound Route 49 from Capitol Hill when I boarded the bus across from St. Mark’s Cathedral. As I quickly sat down at the front, I managed to drop my ORCA card twice, and I didn't notice the man across from me who had begun recording me with his phone while he maliciously chuckled at my obvious transness. 

Whether it was K-12 in north Seattle, classes at Shoreline Community College, or preparing for history seminars at the University of Washington, the idea of a new school year brings to memory excitement and anticipation: books and syllabi, the buzz of campus life, and brain waves set ablaze in cavernous lecture halls.

But for too many parents, students, and teachers, heading back to school means confronting the impact of declining public investment in education: ballooning class sizes, rancorous conflicts with district officials over school closures, and stagnating wages and resources for educators.

The root issue is the class war on our classrooms.

In what appeared to be some community college’s second-best auditorium, KING 5 held a Washington State Gubernatorial debate Tuesday night between Democratic Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson and former Republican US Representative Dave Reichert. Neither candidate performed particularly well or particularly badly, but, at the end of the day, voters must choose one of these two charmless politicians to take charge of more than 8 million people and a $70 billion budget, so let’s look at what they said. 

The presidential debate: Following President Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance in June, the nearly successful assassination attempt on Donald Trump, and the ecstatic ascendance of Kamala Harris, I expected a boring debate by comparison. But, like a bullfighter waving a red flag, Harris easily baited Trump on abortion, his crimes, his authoritarian tendencies, his rallies, the insurrection, and his racism. People will probably remember Harris laughing as Trump yelled, and perhaps forget her weak position on Israel’s killing of Palestinians and her commitment not to ban fracking.

Network pundits think she did well with voters: And so did a few voters. A CNN flash poll found that registered voters who watched the debate broadly agreed that Harris beat Trump. The Washington Post talked to 25 swing state voters, and they thought Harris did better, regardless of their voting plans this November. Even Fox News’ voter panel thought Harris won. Trump told Fox & Friends he won “by a lot,” and he won so hard that he was “less inclined” to face her again. These small snapshots are anything but conclusive. It’ll be a few days before we start to see the debate’s impact on polling, which currently shows a very tight race.

On Saturday night, special guests (and the lucky few who snagged tickets) gathered at MoPOP’s Sky Church to honor a local legend: Tacoma’s greatest band, the Sonics. 

The band helped define the sound of punk and garage rock from the beginning. And this weekend, the band had two things to celebrate: a show in honor of their 60th anniversary, and BOOM: A Film About the Sonics, the first definitive documentary on the essential punk rock band. 

Written and directed by Jordan Albertsen, the documentary makes two enormous claims. First, it proposes—with the blunt authority of drummer Bob Bennett's beats—that its subject is one of the most important groups in rock history. And second, it asserts that the Tacoma-based Sonics invented punk about a decade before Ramones or the Sex Pistols. Albertsen spends a tight 77 minutes earnestly attempting to prove those claims.

Not bad: Today, Seattleites can expect mostly cloudy skies with temperatures peaking in the high 60s, maybe 70 degrees if you hold your thermometer just right. That kind of weather should stick around for at least the rest of the week. 

Harris v. Trump: Presidential nominees Kamala Harris and Donald Trump will face off tonight at 6 pm Pacific Time in the second debate of the election—well, if you count the one that killed Joe Biden’s campaign. Good times! Block out some time afterward to watch the gubernatorial candidates debate at 8 pm. Don’t wanna watch alone? Join a bunch of gays at Massive for Drag the Debate, or stop by Rough & Tumble Pub to watch with the WA State Democrats.

Volunteers wound through the neighborhoods surrounding Aurora Avenue Saturday ahead of a city council committee vote this week on whether to revive Seattle’s prostitution loitering laws and institute a Stay Out of Area Prostitution (SOAP) Zone along seven miles of Aurora. 

I trailed one of the teams and learned that few neighbors knew about the legislation, and that they’d love to learn more, but several of them had urgent matters they needed to attend to at that very moment! So many busy bees live on Aurora! 

But seriously, canvassers managed to persuade more than a few neighbors to hear them out. Over the course of about two hours, the group of 11 volunteers split into five teams, left pamphlets at about 140 doors, and spoke to about 50 neighbors. The door-knockers, who oppose the bill, told residents that the proposal could make it easier for sex traffickers to exploit their victims and result in cops arresting people other than traffickers and johns. They also stressed that if the city council’s public safety committee passes the bill on Tuesday, then the full council could vote on the bill as soon as September 17, leaving opponents very little time to educate the public on the dangers they see in the bill. Given the response we heard at the doors, many people seemed to view the bill as unhelpful and potentially harmful, which contrasted strongly with the neighbors who turned out to support the bill at the last public hearing. 

If you wanna be in the know about all of the top events in Seattle this week, you've come to the right place. Keep scrolling for details on everything from Art + Culture Week Seattle to Seattle Arts & Lectures Presents Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and from Black & Loud Fest to King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard.

MONDAY

READINGS & TALKS

Chelsea Bieker with Danya Kukafka — 'Madwoman'
If authors like Flannery O'Connor, Shirley Jackson, Alissa Nutting, and Melissa Broder are your literary jam, local author Chelsea Bieker should definitely be on your TBR list (that is, if she isn't already). Bieker evokes a unique "California gothic" aesthetic all her own with her 2020 debut novel GODSHOT, an unsettling Ethel Cain-esque story about a young girl trapped in a cult led by a power-hungry pastor, and her 2022 short story collection Heartbroke, a collection of tales about down-on-their-luck dreamers. Her highly anticipated novel Madwoman follows Clove, a wife and mother of two whose dark past threatens to upend her idyllic present-day life in Portland. Bieker will discuss with Seattle-based novelist and lit agent Danya Kukafka. JULIANNE BELL
(Third Place Books, Seward Park)

Last year comedian John Early took his comedy to a new level. His HBO special Now More Than Ever combined his charismatic story-telling with his love of pop classics into a The Last Waltz-inspired concert mockumentary with his band the Lemon Squares. A little comedy, a little music, a little chiding the crowd—and his parents—like an insufferable brat. (Sorry, Charli, but no one does brat better than Early.) 

It wasn’t a surprise to anyone who’d been paying attention. Early has been working his love of music into his work since the beginning. 

“The way that I got into this style of performing was literally someone selling vinyl on a street corner [in New York] and finding the Bette Midler albums The Divine Miss M and Songs for a New Depression,” he says. “And this Barbara Streisand album Butterfly, when she covers David Bowie. Those things were very popular. Sandra Bernhardt charted with her cover of Sylvester, ‘You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real);’ Tracy Ullman did an album in the ‘80s with no jokes whatsoever. There are these weird little artifacts that I have stumbled upon and felt a very spiritual attachment to. I’m just trying to recreate that.”

Hundreds of demonstrators gathered in Westlake Park Saturday afternoon to mourn Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, a Seattle activist and recent University of Washington graduate, after Israeli forces shot and killed her Friday morning at a protest against illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. As politicians, including US Representative Pramila Jayapal and US Senator Maria Cantwell, send their condolences, pro-Palestine organizations, the Rachel Corrie Foundation for Justice and Peace, and Eygi’s family demand action. They want the US government to launch an independent investigation and hold her killers to account. Further, to honor the killing of Eygi and more than 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza, organizers asked supporters to keep up the pressure for an arms embargo, a ceasefire, and ultimately, for a free Palestine. 

Seattle sued by family of slain pedestrian: Last year, SPD cop Kevin Dave struck and killed 23-year-old Jaahnavi Kandula while he was responding to an emergency call and she was crossing the street at a crosswalk. The SPD SUV hit Kandula while going 74 mph in a 25 mph zone and sent her flying 135 feet. She died at the hospital. In the wake of her death, a recording surfaced of a police union official laughing about Kandula's death, saying she had "limited value" and that the City should "just write a check" for "$11,000." Now, Kandula's family is suing the City of Seattle and Dave for wrongful death and negligence. The suit alleges Jaahnavi Kandula “experienced terror, severe emotional distress, and severe pain and suffering before dying." In direct reference to SPD's fucked up comments, Kandula's family is seeking $110 million in damages, plus $11,000. 

A Seattleite killed in the West Bank: On Friday, according to fellow protesters, Israeli soldiers shot and killed Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, 26, a West Seattleite and recent University of Washington graduate. Eygi, a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement, had been participating in what the Associated Press called "a weekly demonstration against settlement expansion" in the West Bank town of Beita. The peaceful protest reportedly devolved into chaos when some protesters threw stones and Israeli troops answered by firing live ammunition. Two doctors said Eygi was shot in the head.