On Tuesday, Mayor Bruce Harrell unveiled his proposal for Seattle’s 2023-2024 budget. Despite a $140 million shortfall that forced cuts to most City departments, the Mayor’s Office managed to give more money to the Seattle Police Department (SPD), which fails to meet one of the many demands from the community-drafted Solidarity Budget, a coalition of groups that includes organizers from Defend the Defund, Seattle 350, and House Our Neighbors! 

That coalition presented its budget demands last week, asking for what the organizers characterized, in many cases, as “the bare minimum” needs. In some aspects, such as policing, the Mayor didn’t meet that low bar. But in other areas, like in housing and environmental investments, the Mayor’s proposal overlapped with the Solidarity Budget. Not exactly #OneSeattle. 

Vesper is a superb post-apocalyptic film set in a world that is still technologically advanced but has reverted to a society and economy that resembles Europe's Dark Ages. Its story is centered on a girl, Vesper (Raffiella Chapman), whose father, Darius (Richard Brake), is dying, and whose uncle, Jonas (Eddie Marsan), is just evil. One day, Vesper meets a princess, Camellia (Rosy McEwen), who fell out of the sky—her flying machine crashed in the heart of a dark forest. The princess comes from the Citadel, which is basically a medieval castle. Those who do not live in the Citadel, such as Vesper's family, depend on exchanging types of blood for seeds. This world has little to eat or things to do outside of obtaining enough energy to see the next miserable day.

What's great about this film—which was made by the duo Kristina Buozyte and Bruno Samper who, in 2012, wrote and directed Vanishing Waves, one of the best science-fiction films of the previous decade—is its commitment to the material reality of a beautifully bleak future. This makes the work (or even fairy tale) as visceral as a David Cronenberg film, particularly eXistenZ. The clothes of the remaining, sun-starved humans look like they are rarely washed; the beds they sleep on or are confined to can only offer one nightmare after another. And what's for dinner? A bowl filled with little live monsters in a murky soup. Even the tree trunks in this film are monstrous. Their bark breathes like an animal.

The program for the Pacific Northwest Ballet's season opener sought to communicate one thing: Yes, we've all struggled with the worst shit imaginable lately, and we will continue to struggle, but it's our 50th birthday, god damn it, and we're big and bold and beautiful and bouncing around with more energy than we've ever had in our lives!!!!!!!! 🥳 🥂 

That sentiment found its expression in a spritely rendition of a Modern classic, a mournful and yet exuberant world premiere celebrating the people of Ukraine, and a bawdy epic featuring a one-ton metaphor for fate. Most of the dancers met the energy of the moment, which bodes well for the next few shows, and for the future of the company in the time of COVID. 

Finding relief in the shade from the midday sun, I stood in the crunchy grass of Volunteer Park and read the text engraved on the irregularly-shaped stone bench before me: There’s no way to crystallize a glossary of all we have lost, but if there were, I’d offer it to you.

Of course, reading “all we have lost” my mind instantly went to COVID-19 and how we’re only just beginning to process the incalculable toll of the pandemic. Never have I been left emotionally bereft by a bench. 

The solemn line reflected the thoughtful placement of the bench itself—on the south end of the park, just off the main path in a grove of bushes facing the mansions lining Prospect Street. This particular bench is one of fourteen stone benches sprinkled across Volunteer Park. Collectively, they form Soft Services, a site-specific work by New York-based artist Chloë Bass commissioned by the Henry Art Gallery. Soft Services will remain in Volunteer Park for one year and on Saturday, October 1, Bass will be at the park for a conversation with local author Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore. 

The best short film of the century? Yesterday, NASA slammed its DART spacecraft at hypersonic speeds into a (harmless) asteroid to alter its orbit as a test of our planetary defense system. Reuters reports that the vending machine-sized "impactor" vehicle successfully hit the football stadium-sized space rock, though it'll take us a month to determine if the asteroid's trajectory was affected. NASA livestreamed the event and, I gotta tell you, the footage is incredible. That lumpy hunk of cosmic matter just floating against the pitch black vacuum of space. The NASA team cheering as the spacecraft gets ever closer to the asteroid's craggy surface before—SPLAT. It's sort of like the arc of all human history in a nutshell...

WATCH: the moment NASA's DART spacecraft collides with a 500-foot-wide asteroid at 14,000 miles per hour with the goal of changing its course pic.twitter.com/bUL9c6WnBD

— Ari Drennen (@AriDrennen) September 26, 2022

There is more to this week’s Savage Love. To read the entire column, go to Savage.Love.

42-year-old dad here. I’ve been married for 12 years, and my marriage has been somewhat turbulent. But after some affairs—one where my wife screwed my best friend—and therapy, we reconnected, righted ourselves, and started a wonderful family. We both identify as bisexual now, and we are ethically non-monogamous. My question is this: my wife never seeks out other lovers, but I often do. She thinks looking for sex on apps is gross and won't try it. She did recently suggest we become poly—that we date other couples together—only to shut that down after one date with another couple. She also kind of slut-shames me when I ask permission to hook up or date someone else. She wants to be open in theory, but she seems to be against it in practice. We communicate well and she continues to give me permission (but always after shaming me), and I check in regularly only to have her act annoyed when I inform her of each new adventure. I am not sure what to do.

Often Practicing Ethical Non-monogamy

Honestly, seems like a pretty good deal. Student loan forgiveness will cost the country around $400 billion over 10 years, according to a new report from the Congressional Budget Office. For comparison, we gave banks around $500 billion in 2008, depending on how you do the math, and $80 billion to just two car companies the same year. Trump’s tax cut for the rich in 2017 cost the rest of us $2.3 trillion. So, $40 billion per year for students? Not bad. 

Hurricane Ian’s coming. The storm is growing in intensity, with high winds and extensive flooding anticipated. It will likely hit Cuba tonight, then the west coast of Florida before veering over to the eastern side of Georgia. Live updates here.

Up you go. Various state agencies cooperated to rescue two people whose plane crash-landed in Skagit Valley today. The individuals were exhausted from the ordeal, which included a long walk to the site where they were found and rescued, but seem to be in good shape otherwise.

Sheriff’s Office Helicopter Rescues Occupants After Plane Crash Near Lake Cavanaugh
Full news release: https://t.co/6e2Pxn1vVo pic.twitter.com/jc532OBHXF

— snocosheriff (@SnoCoSheriff) September 26, 2022

I really did not want to believe it. Clearly, people were misreading Danny Westneat's column about how tips had, in recent times, become excessive. There is no way an established, educated, and upper-middle-class Seattle Times writer would ever post such a thing. But I was wrong.

His September 22 column, "Help! Tipping in Seattle has become a psychological minefield," has nothing to say but this: Tipping expectations have lost contact with reality. People working in cafes, restaurants, and even in groceries have become so unreasonable. Some even want a tip without really doing anything. They are just standing around, and yet they expect a big cut of the customer's hard-earned cash. Has this world lost its mind?

Westneat writes:

Looking for things to do this week? You're in the right place. We've rounded up all of the things we think you should know about this week below, from the 18th Annual Great Pumpkin Beer Festival to the Bibliophilia Festival to CHVRCHES.

Jump to: Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Saturday | Sunday | Multi-Day

MONDAY

FILM

Cross-Faded Cinema with DJ Nicfit
You might've heard the urban legend of a strange synchronicity between The Wizard of Oz and Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon from some cool stoner kid growing up. Inspired by the idea, Cross-Faded Cinema (curated by Seattle's own DJ Nicfit) twists the soundtracks of cult films, giving them a spin that the Seattle International Film Festival describes as "mesmerizing." The film screened for this showing hasn't been announced, but it promises a trippy, ultra-sensory time.
(Here-After at the Crocodile, Belltown, $10)

The Creator's Master Plan did not include eternal life for extraordinary jazz saxophonist Pharoah Sanders, who passed away on September 24 at age 81. Amid this sadness, the good news is that said deity's overarching scheme allows for Sanders's music to keep enhancing adventurous music lovers' lives forever.

Sanders's work embraced the extremes of jazz, ranging from apocalyptic noise to utmost tranquility. It united people of myriad races and musical tastes, a phenomenon that one could observe at the man's live performances, of which I caught a couple. Ambient advocates, psych-rock heads, techno and house aficionados, experimental-music nerds, and, of course, jazzers convened to witness the master, who, even at his advanced age, worked his sweet-and-sour magic.

At a press conference this morning, King County Executive Dow Constantine and a coalition of local elected officials and service providers proposed a new property tax levy to generate $1.25 billion to pay for care infrastructure needed to address the region's behavioral health care crisis. 

According to prepared remarks, the plan focuses on four main areas of investment: constructing five new crisis care centers across the County, preserving and restoring King County's limited residential treatment beds, recruiting more people to work in behavioral health care, and standing up mobile or site-based stopgap crisis responders to provide care while the County builds the five permanent facilities.

The Anti-Banality Union (ABU) has been making films for more than a decade, but they’ve never picked up a camera. Instead their work is reminiscent of the Moscow Film School—the world's first film school, where a shortage of film stock meant students repeatedly edited existing works, leading to the montage as we know it. This anonymous collective re-edits Hollywood blockbusters into cinematic collages. 

Their work began in 2011 with Unclear Holocaust, a piece made up of over 50 disaster films, which mostly amounted to watching New York City destroyed over and over again. Then, in 2013, Police Mortality centered on the cinematic identity of police in films spiraling out of control. In 2014, State of Emergence took aim at zombie films—without the shambling undead and instead focusing completely on societal collapse. 

Mike Egan’s creative career began as a kid in Pittsburgh, where cartoons, skateboards, and album covers piqued his interest and started to shape his aesthetic. After studying printmaking at Edinboro University, he took some interesting detours that informed his subject matter, eventually leading him to a distinct style of painting that blends styles of folk art from around the world to express some heavy themes like heartbreak and the inevitability of death. He’s been showing at galleries around the US, as well as Canada, Australia, and the UK.

In our interview, we talk about how unfortunate and difficult events can have surprisingly positive repercussions.

This was a great weekend to visit Mercer Island. Just not by car. As WSDOT has been saying in numerous venues for many weeks, a section of westbound I-90 had to be closed this weekend for the second phase of maintenance on a freeway joint that was installed in 1989. Initially, they left a westbound ramp open on the island, but that caused extensive backups when navigation systems directed drivers to use the island’s surface streets to bypass the construction. In response, WSDOT closed Mercer Island’s westbound onramp altogether. Access for emergency vehicles, transit, and bikes was unimpeded. The project is now complete and traffic is flowing.

Hurricane Ian is about to hit Florida and Cuba. The storm is expected to hit western Cuba this evening, and then proceed north toward the west coast of Florida. Currently a Category 1 storm with 80-mph winds, it may hit Category 4 by mid-week.