Here's gymnast Suzanna Shahbazian competing at the Pan American Gymnastics Championships this weekend. A great skill to cultivate if you're tired of constantly wondering what the bottom of your foot looks like. Buda Mendes / Getty Images Staff

Comments

1

Apparently, the original avalanche post on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/CfyT6xcA27D/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y%3D

2

Nobody will camp at the car charging station.

3

When did they start running bulls in Barcelona? I bet those people with tickets to Pamplona are pissed.

4

So you won't stop to worry about scientific terms, but would you stop to record a video for the internet?

5

“Priscilla” was indeed a far better film. I mean those boyz wuz drag and the script was way better. And it had the verve of being an Australian film. “To Wong Foo” had a cute title, but it was Vaudeville.

I know it’s probably a real challenge to retrofit a building constructed in 1679 for central air, but those Europeans better check that shit out. It was almost 120 degrees F in Palm Springs today (crows at 110 and above find whatever shade they can find, extend their wings, and pant like a dog), and I’m sure there were many people there out by the pool slathered in Bain du Soleil thinking, “This sure is some kind of heaven.” Me? I look for ice and a/c. Whenever I go to the Coachella Valley – which is next to never – all I want to do is paint the windows black and sit in the refrigerator until it’s all over. When I see all those people – not baking, frying – in that hot sun, I think I must be a visitor from Neptune.

Oh, fuck. Here comes the hate mail. You know, if “Funny Girl” wasn’t a biographical musical, if the character was just a Jewish girl trying to get into the Follies, then anyone good could do that part. But Fanny Brice wasn’t a hefty woman, and I find that distracting. Beanie Feldstein is so talented. Her Monica Lewinsky made me salute her gift. I look forward to seeing her in other things. But she was the wrong choice to revive this show – which got pretty bad reviews but not for her performance. The show didn’t have any luster. And you know what, that was pretty much the rag about the show in 1964 except that one had Babs who lifted a mundane book into the stratosphere with her voice. You didn’t go to see “Funny Girl”. You went to see Barbra. Terrible, over-the-top analogy, but think "The Life and Times of Audrey Hepburn" starring Amy Schumer. And I love Amy Schumer. This production also added some, I think, extraneous characters in order to make the musical more diverse, A tap dancer in another show might be just the thing, but in this show, it was annoying, and it broke whatever spell there was.

I’m surprised by the change of cast though. Advance ticket sales made this revival bomb-proof. Maybe they have slowed? Word of mouth? Ryan Murphy had the rights for a while with the intent of producing a revival with Lea (it was also part of the “Glee” storyline), but that fell apart.The last time I saw Lea, though, was on the Tonys. She looked like she’d been on Onassis’ yacht since February. Gonna have to stay out of the sun for a while, girl. Fanny never looked like she wintered on the Riviera. Also, Lea is not Streisand. She has a respectable voice, and she can belt ‘em out, but they need to tame her propensity to squeak in the upper range.

6

So the Times doesn't understand Seattle addressing (505 5th Ave SOUTH is not in Belltown. It's at the Union Station complex) and The Stranger thinks that Union Station is at 23rd and Jackson.

Got it.

7

when the Jetsream becomes
Discombobulated expect
Bizarre Weather with
Deep Freezes in
Texas and Fires
in Alaska the
sincetobe

Great Frozen North

when Fire Season
refuses to Expire
for Any reason

republican Utopia
here She comes

This Week's Cover
by Paul Hoppe
is pretty
Brilliant

my Money's on the
fascist with the Pincers

http://www.paulhoppe.de/

8

Iconic Seattle company closing stores because of crime. Proof Seattle is actually dying.

9

No stores were closing in the 80's because of crime, assaults, and vandalism yet some gaslight us that it was worse back then.

10

dj.jonestown@gmail.com

11

As a Seattle native living in Barcelona, I feel compelled to point out that you've confused Barcelona with Pamplona. Catalunya (Barcelona's region) outlawed bill fighting and running years ago. Our bull fighting ring in Plaça Espanya is a SHOPPING MALL now because progress! And yes it's f**king hot here- 89°F at 9am.

12

Way to go, Minnesota, on supporting abortion rights!
Suck it and choke, anti-abortion RWNJs! Our bodies, our choice!

@5 Bauhaus I: The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert is a classic!

@7 kristofarian: If only a holocaust would take all RepubliKKKans and their bootlickers....if Nture doesn't wipe us out, the Party of Orange Turd certainly will.

13

@8&9:

Gotta agree with you, 'drop. That place at Westlake was a Seattle Coffee, as I recall, and it was a great place to have a great espresso, relax. and people-watch back before the Nordstrom move when Westlake had no car traffic and was a plaza. Really a nice place for a break.

I called that intersection up on Google Maps and took a street view. Christmastime. Macy's has The Bon's star up. Holy cow what a change. Sort of reminds me of McDonald's on 3rd back in the day. I remember it starting to change in the mid-90s. I was with a dear friend, and we were sitting outside enjoying lunch. A homeless man approached her slurring. "Gee," he said, "that sandwich sure looks good." And my friend, being the sweet person that she was/is, gave him her sandwich and went without lunch that day.

I try to have all kinds of compassion for people on the street because there are many reasons why that ugly, awful fate has fallen upon them. I've been a paycheck away from being there myself at points in my life. (knock wood) But no, I can't abide with people hassling other folk for scraps at restaurants. That is not how to deal with hunger, and having to endure confrontation in public spaces diminishes quality of life.

My friend worked hard - very hard - for her not so big paycheck. She deserved to have lunch in peace.

14

...so to finish my thought instead of nipping it in the bud, now stores are having to close due to criminality thus making life just a little more coarse.

16

@2 whaaat? that's gotta be the best place to camp. open up a car charger, boom free 240v power. talkin bout hittin Craigslist for a free washer/dryer and calling all my tent homies to come build a massive pallet shelter.

17

@8/9 I really don’t like the Seattle is Dying tagline. It’s a bit melodramatic and sensationalistic and gives the gaslighters like Will and Matt an opportunity to minimize what’s going on by being dismissive. Seattle will change and be different as always but at this moment in time it’s disingenuous to pretend Seattle is thriving and everything is good. It will take years to fix the damage done by the council in the summer of 2020 and there are no short cuts or easy fixes.

18

"Tammy Morales is working on creating social housing in Seattle."

So, does this mean I-135 is officially dead? Their last announcement on Twitter said they'd turned in less than 30k signatures on June 22nd.

19

Oh, and continuing on from @18, the late Paul Allen's Vulcan Real Estate continues to work with the Seattle Housing Authority to " ...blend housing at different income levels" at the Yesler Terrace Project (south end of Broadway on First Hill):

"Under an agreement with SHA, a fifth of the units at Wayfarer will be affordable workforce housing for households earning 80% of area median income (AMI). Vulcan intends to participate in Seattle’s multifamily tax exemption program, which will extend affordability to households earning 65% of AMI."

Of course, Vulcan and SHA building more affordable housing at Yesler Terrace is hardly news:

"Batik opened in 2018 and Cypress the following year, and today the combined occupancy rate of the two buildings is in the low-to-mid-90% range."

Perhaps CM Morales just needs to keep up?

20

@17: Point well taken.

21

If you have iHealth at-home COVID tests that are approaching or even past their expiration date, not to worry; the FDA has granted a three month shelf-life extension on these (https://www.fda.gov/media/158007/download). I'm not sure if the new batch will already have that extended expiration, but the older batches seem to have a roughly three-to-six month shelf-life, so just factor that in, and as long as you're using them in date-order and you should be fine.

22

@17 because Seattle isn't dying at all.

It's just that the heavily subsidized "Downtown" isn't growing like 99 percent of the city is. We have construction and new business all over the neighborhoods, but the suburban whiners get free press in the TV media because locals don't bother watching traffic/accident news because it's useless when you walk, bike, bus, or skate to work.

What you do have is landlords and investors trying to maximize returns by shutting down unionized shops and replacing small niche shops with giant 40-110 story towers ... hmm, wonder who mentioned that would happen here?

23

@22 -- that damn
Socialist Mudede?

but how on Earth
can one of them
know Anything?

they're
SOCIALISTS

which is very
very Very Bad

as everyone knows.

24

@22, @23: Here's Charles Mudede and soon-to-be-failed Mayoral candidate Cary Moon 'explaining' how nefarious Chinese investors were cruelly driving up Seattle's rents: https://www.thestranger.com/architecture/2017/04/20/24442014/hot-money-and-seattles-growing-housing-crisis-part-one (It was so damned great, the Stranger ran it at least twice!)

In this article, Mudede and Moon 'taught' us how, of the world's majority-white cities, Seattle was not alone in having scary non-white people unjustly imperil white people's divine rights to the good life. One of their 'examples' was this absolute howler: "Nearly the whole Mayfair neighborhood of 19th century mansions lies unused and unoccupied."

I visited London at around this time, staying in a fine old hotel in -- wait for it! -- Mayfair. (It was a sufficiently old hotel that, although I am not by any means a tall gent by modern standards, my room felt tightly cramped.) That walkable neighborhood was in fine form even on weeknights, as locals moved through pubs and shops and home again. It felt like an antique version of then-burgeoning Belltown, where I lived at that time.

Anyone who thinks Belltown is doing better today may well also have swallowed the Stranger's lie about Mayfair, back in that day.

25

Starbucks seems to be going through a contraction of sorts, and has been for quite some time. They closed the store at Oaktree probably five years ago, despite it's constant flow of neighbors and City Light workers (and independent coffee shop came in shortly thereafter, and remains to this day). When Covid hit, they were out of the Seattle Municipal Tower almost immediately - and they took everything with them. That was a high performing store, and would be now if they had held out.

I think that's why they are closing the Union Station store. It was going gangbusters when commuters from the Union Station complex were going by it every day on their way to and from the Sounder platform. But there's not that foot traffic anymore.

Personally, I hope that, like Oaktree, their departure opens up the market for better coffee shops.

26

Very good start on Starbuck's part. Dump the stores in crime ridden Seattle.

Send the message businesses will leave continue to leave...if the city refuses to maintain law and order. If you manage to close the stores with union activists, well that is "sauce for the goose". In my opinion if you don't like working at Starbucks try finding something better.

Sadly, it is a submission of mine, that with the city jacking up the minimum wage annually, there will be far fewer espresso bars to choose from.

I find it incredulous the entire world is abandoning socialism and yet Seattle seems to be embracing it. Do our city leaders live in some type of strange social vacuum?

27

Manolitos dear, day drinking is a terrible habit.

29

Melkor dear, there's no need to be so defensive about Starbucks. Large corporations can take care of themselves. They don't need you to pout for them.I was not expressing a concern for Starbucks. I was saying that, like Nordstrom, perhaps they've figured out that they had too many stores in the downtown Seattle core.

And yes, I do get out of Seattle frequently. We have a second home in central WA. We pass through Ephrata quite frequently where they just opened a new store. And in the midwest there's a Starbucks in every grocery store. They're usually even worse than a regular Starbucks but at the end of the day Starbucks - like Chick-Fil-A and every other fast food chain - is a triumph of marketing over quality. People will eat anything if you make them feel sexy for doing it.

30

Oh dear. I used "frequently" twice in one paragraph. That was terribly middle-class of me.

Mrs. Vel-DuRay regrets the error.

31

"I find it incredulous the entire world is abandoning socialism and yet Seattle seems to be embracing it."
--@manlytoes

I know!
taking Care of one's
Citizens is such a Quaint Idea

let's keep Capitalism

until just One Trillionaire
owns it ALL and whilst
we're trying to figure
out how to Survive
he Hunts us.

who knows
manlytoes
perhaps
it'll be
YOU

say and btw isn't
your name
Bozos?


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