Its your last week to see the 100+ works from the Studio Museum in Harlem, currently on view at the Frye in Seattle. Heres a piece from Jordan Casteel, one of our favorite artists working right now.
It's your last week to see the 100+ works from the Studio Museum in Harlem, currently on view at the Frye in Seattle. Here's a piece from Jordan Casteel, one of our favorite artists working right now. COURTESY OF THE FRYE

ART ALERT: This is your final week to see all this incredible art at the Frye Art Museum.

Gov. Kate Brown of Oregon will announce a statewide mask mandate for public indoor spaces tomorrow: “This new mask requirement will not last forever, but it is a measure that can save lives right now,” said Brown in a Tuesday press release, previewing the news. Our friends at the Portland Mercury have the details.

Snohomish County also brings back their mask mandate due to a surge in COVID cases: The directive goes into effect on Thursday and applies to everyone five years and older, regardless of vaccination status, while they are visiting public indoor spaces like retail, grocery, and government buildings. In King County, Public Health Officer Dr. Jeff Duchin has stopped short of a mandate, currently just issuing a strong recommendation for indoor masking.

Seattle's parking enforcement will likely get transferred from SPD to SDOT: A full council vote happens next week.

Someone spent over $8 million for an under-construction penthouse in Bellevue: The three-bedroom, three-and-a-half-bath condo's sale set a Pacific Northwest record, with a per-square-foot price of $2,937, according to its project developer. The mixed-use project ("Avenue Bellevue") is currently being built, and people can begin moving in sometime in 2023. IDK about you but if I had $8 million to blow, it definitely wouldn't be on a Bellevue penthouse across from a P. F. Chang's.

The Senate successfully passed a $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill: If passed, what would the bill mean for Washington state? "Both of Washington’s Democratic senators — Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray — are committee chairs, and helped craft the package," writes Hal Bernton at the Seattle Times. "The funding includes some high priority Northwest items, including salmon restoration, forest thinning, prescribed burns and monitoring and cleaning up the toxic legacy of firefighting chemicals that have contaminated drinking water."

Biden poked fun at Trump's "infrastructure week" as the bill moved to the House.

“Today, we proved that democracy can still work,” Biden said, noting even this dick voted for the infrastructure bill.

The bipartisanship won't last long.

The Senate voted along party lines to start debate on the Democrats' $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill: Republicans plan to introduce a lot of amendments. Politico described the upcoming vote-a-rama process as "pre-recess torture." I'd say that sounds kinky but jockeying around with Obamacare extensions and free preschool and community college is more cruel than kink.

It was a good two weeks for NBC's streaming platform Peacock: While NBC's Olympic primetime coverage viewership was down 40% compared to the last summer Olympic Games in Rio, the network's streaming platform Peacock secured "its best two weeks of usage ever," reports The Hollywood Reporter. "Peacock offered no numbers to quantify the audience gains for the streamer as it offered five hours of live event coverage during the mornings and several highlight and recap shows during the 17-day Games."

I was one of those new Peacock viewers—and then I immediately canceled my membership right as the Olympic coverage ended yesterday. ~$10 to watch unlimited Olympic replays was kinda nice.

Who from the PNW won Olympic medals? Sue Bird (basketball - USA) and Nevin Harrison (sprint canoe - USA) were among the Seattleites who won gold. Browse the full list of winning Olympians with PNW ties from KUOW here.

Today in strange sentences: "Grocery giant Kroger could not keep its 15th Ave E store open but is adding a pub to its University Village QFC." I'll pass on the QFC pub.

Feeling sweaty? The region is heating up this Wednesday through Saturday with another heatwave, which could get into the high 90s. Find a map of cooling centers here. And here are some general tips from the city:

  • Stay hydrated. Drink plenty of water before you feel thirsty.
  • Keep your home cooler by shutting blinds or drawing curtains. Use fans or air-conditioners, if you have one.
  • Avoid outdoor activities if possible during the heat of the day, generally from 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM.
  • Never leave children or pets in a vehicle. Temperatures inside of cars can skyrocket to deadly levels quickly during extreme heat.
  • Use life jackets or other flotation devices on the water to prevent drowning.

    • We're not the only ones getting roasted: "More than 150 million people across the United States are under some form of heat alert."

    As Scarecrow Video devotees: We're obligated to share this Seattle Times feature on Seattle's last video store standing. We also want to remind you to donate to Scarecrow's fundraising campaign. No hyperbole: It's one of the most important libraries in the world!



    What a way to die: I'm a constant-catastrophizer, so I worry about dying multiple times every day. Sometimes by accidentally falling out of an open window. Often by getting hit by a car while crossing the street. But never by suffocating underneath 500 gallons of wine.

    A worker at Corus Estates & Vineyards LLC, also known as 12th & Maple Wine Co., was found unresponsive Feb. 1 in an empty 30,000-gallon wine tank, the Statesman Journal reported.

    The 39-year-old man's task was to enter through the bottom and pump out about 500 gallons of wine remnants into another tank.

    Low-pressure nitrogen gas was pumped in to prevent oxidation of the remnants and the man was asphyxiated as a result of the displacement of oxygen due to the nitrogen gas in the tank, according to OSHA.

    The winery was fined $11K in the worker's death.