Seattle Weekly, August 05, 2015 by Sound Publishing

AUGUST 5-11, 2015 I VOLUME 40 I NUMBER 31

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THE CITY'S MOST INNOVATIVE IDEAS MEET YOUR READER POLL WINNERS

Warming Up ICE

How an RV is granting immigrants a little dignity in Tacoma. By Sara Bernard Page 7

The Fame Game

Jason Segel talks about David Foster Wallace and the bizarre business of celebrity. By Brian Miller Page 59

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inside» August 5-11, 2015 VOLUME 40 | NUMBER 31 » SEATTLEWEEKLY.COM

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ON THE OUTSIDE BY SARA BERNARD | Aiding the

transition out of Tacoma’s Northwest Detention Center. Plus: a 70th anniversary Hiroshima reminiscence, and the rebirth of every protester’s favorite target.

BEST OF SEATTLE 2015

Editor-in-Chief Mark Baumgarten EDITORIAL News Editor Daniel Person Food Editor Nicole Sprinkle Arts Editor Brian Miller

BY SW STAFF | We salute big ideas that

Music Editor Kelton Sears

could—in fact, should—shape Seattle’s future. Also, we reveal your picks, from Best Actor to Best Yoga Studio and more.

Editorial Operations Manager Gavin Borchert

food&drink

51 UPS & DOWNS

BY NICOLE SPRINKLE | Wide swings

in quality at a new Ravenna spot. 51 | FOOD NEWS/THE WEEKLY DISH 52 | THE BAR CODE

arts&culture

53 BACK TO CAMP

BY ROGER DOWNEY | Why is Netflix reviving Wet Hot American Summer? 53 56 57 58

| | | |

THE PICK LIST PERFORMANCE VISUAL ARTS BOOKS

59 FILM

BY BRIAN MILLER | Jason Segel talks

62 | FILM CALENDAR

64 MUSIC

BY TAYLOR DOW | The Olympia

Hardcore Festival in black and white. Plus: La Luz gives back; Pizza Fest comes back. 67 | THE WEEK AHEAD

odds&ends 5 23 68 69

| | | |

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PHOTO OF DAN PRICE BY DANIEL BERMAN ILLUSTRATIONS BY JOSE TRUJILLO

Tuesdays in July and August: 6 - 7 PM

Grab a glass of wine, a small bite and make your summer night count with local musicians in the Art Plaza! August 11 St. Kilda

August 25 A String of Pearls

August 18 Mikey and Matty

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Editorial Interns Alana Al-Hatlani, Jennifer Karami, Daniel Roth Contributing Writers Rick Anderson, Sean Axmaker, James Ballinger, Michael Berry, Roger Downey, Alyssa Dyksterhouse, Jay Friedman, Margaret Friedman, Zach Geballe, Chason Gordon, Dusty Henry, Rhiannon Fionn, Marcus Harrison Green, Robert Horton, Patrick Hutchison, Seth Kolloen, Sandra Kurtz, Dave Lake, Terra Clarke Olsen, Jason Price, Keegan Prosser, Mark Rahner, Tiffany Ran, Michael A. Stusser, Jacob Uitti

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SEATTLE WEEKLY • AU G UST 5 — 11, 2015

about portraying David Foster Wallace. 60 | OPENING THIS WEEK | Genocide in Indonesia, missing cows in Palestine, and Meryl Streep fronts a bar band in the San Fernando Valley.

Staff Writers Sara Bernard, Ellis E. Conklin, Casey Jaywork

SUMMER NIGHTS

SEATTLE WEEKLY • AUGU ST 5 — 11, 2015

“Gang members are just lost youth without purpose or direction but also survivors! Take that energy and power put it to good use and watch things change.”

tomorrow exchange buy * *sell*trade sell*trade

chatterbox the

Ray’s Boathouse has been sourcing local sustainable fish from small family-run boats and serving “trash fish” (black cod, rockfish, etc) for over 43 years. Smart Catch will not change the way we are doing business. No one is asking us to change our ethics or the way we purchase our products. It does however, enlighten the guests to which restaurants are playing their part. Once the program is firmly in place, our hopes are that the combined voices of all the chefs and restaurant owners that are participating in Smart Catch will be a force to help drive change This is wonderful, but we can’t rebuild comin the seafood industry. For instance, there are munities in isolation. The police are a very real, some popular items that are very hard to get in very racist force in our communities, and no a sustainable fashion. Calamari and prawns, for matter how much we fix ourselves, the police example, are staples on most fish-house menus. still exist to break us down over and over again. Both of these are difficult to obtain in quantity And we shouldn’t doubt that white racists or price point from a fishery that is working suswill use the positive force of the United Hood tainably. Hopefully through Smart Catch we can Movement to blame black people and other help change that. people of color for their own racist treatment by If you are already doing a great job at sustainpolice. That’s exactly what Seattle’s white liberability, congratulations. If you know more than als have done. “The police wouldn’t act this way Smart Catch, then you should if black people didn’t act be a resource for Smart Catch, that way.” Send your thoughts on and you should help drive Lonaldo Lopezington, this week’s issue to change for the restaurants and via Facebook letters@seattleweekly.com fisheries that are not. Raise your head up and look at the bigger Gang members are just picture of what Smart Catch can be. Understand lost youth without purpose or direction but also the wider scope and the impact that food tourists survivors! Take that energy and power, put it to and hungry locals have on our restaurants and good use, and watch things change. the future of seafood as we know it. Be patient Tara Lopez, via Facebook and supportive while this gets off the ground. Help Smart Catch become something great. This should be a national news story. Thanks After all, we have to start somewhere. Our guests @seattleweekly for covering it. deserve it. @dearmrpostman, via Twitter Douglas Zellers, Ray’s Boathouse, via e-mail DIVIDED WE FALL

Last week, Marcus Harrison Green introduced readers to the founders of the United Hood Movement, which seeks to end the long-running feud between the Central District and South Seattle in hopes of strengthening the city’s black community. “We have to get past the point that if someone spits on your street sign . . . you’re down to kill them for it,” Dwayne Maxted, a founding member of the movement, told us. Readers responded.

AN OCEAN APART

Chef Sato has it all wrong. Like most things we do in the hospitality industry, it is not about “us.” It’s not about our vision, our ego, our plan, or the hard work we do day in and day out. Hospitality has always been, and will continue to be, about the guests. Smart Catch was born from a desire to help inform our guests about who is doing the right thing from a seafood-sustainability standpoint. Allow guests to vote with their feet and this will provide leverage to the places that are doing the right thing and pressure to those that are not.

CALL ME OLD-FASHIONED

And lastly, turns out our columnist Zach Geballe really knows what he’s talking about. My wife and I would like to pass along our compliments for your educational cocktail columns! We’ve always been happy with the results when we’ve tried your recipes. We’ve played with them a lot, true, but you are a great source of ideas! We have a killer crop of blackberries in the yard, so we followed your directions for this past week’s Blackberry Old Fashioned with fresh berries, which we will certainly do again. Thanks for the inspiration, and have you put together a collection of your recipes? Maggie Nowakowska, via e-mail E Comments have been edited for length and clarity and instances of caps-lock. And no, we haven’t published a recipe book :(

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SEATTLE WEEKLY • AU G UST 5 — 11, 2015

In the food section, Alana Al-Hatlani examined a new sustainable seafood program spearheaded by Paul Allen, and the misgivings some chefs have about it. “I have my own ethics and this is a cookie-cutter thing,” said Hajime Sato, sushi chef at Mashiko, in describing why he doesn’t like the strict prescriptions set forth by Smart Catch. Sato’s comments drew a firm rebuttal from the general manager of Ray’s Boathouse.

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news&comment

A Warm Welcome Awaits

A simple RV has become a compassionate haven for those leaving the immigration detention center in Tacoma. BY SARA BERNARD

CHRISTOPHER ZEUTHEN

eyakumar Ajanth is grinning as he climbs out of the punishing heat into a large, carpeted RV filled with bottled water, granola bars, and fresh fruit. His English is limited, but he’s got the key word in spades. “Happy! Happy, yes, I am really happy! 86 days, I stay,” he says, pointing through the RV door across the razor-wire fence to Tacoma’s Northwest Detention Center, one of the largest Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities in the United States. Ajanth, originally from Sri Lanka, has a brother in Buffalo, N.Y., and he’s pretty sure he has a flight out tonight. But thanks to the PostDetention Welcome Center—a cheery mobile home purchased by Advocates for Immigrants in Detention North West (AID NW) and, starting July 15, parked five days a week just outside the release gate—he’s got someone to shake his hand and check his plane ticket. Good thing, since, it turns out, there is no plane ticket. “We’re basically travel agents,” laughs Peggy Herman, an immigration lawyer and board treasurer for AID NW. She’s been here every weekday from 3 to 7 p.m. for two weeks, getting the Welcome Center up and running and training its volunteers (today there are three). With lots of pantomiming and gesticulat-

“When they can get rid of the plastic bags that ICE gave them for their personal belongings, it’s humanizing.”

A few months ago, AID NW board members all

sat down and decided that a physical Welcome Center—an official welcoming committee, if you will—was what was really needed to support new releases. “It’s a leap of faith for us because we acquired the RV without really having funding for it,” Herman says. “Now we have a $25,000 debt. But we said, ‘No, we’ve been talking about it, and it’s time to do it.’ ” There can be up to 1,575 detainees in the Northwest Detention Center at any one time, and the vast majority end up getting deported. For the past few weeks, ICE guards have been telling the minority who are released, either permanently or temporarily, to stop at the RV on their way out.

Welcome Center volunteers can help those who’ve won their cases get rolling on official paperwork, too, for obtaining Social Security numbers, work authorization permits, and state and federal refugee benefits. For those released on bond, with a long, uncertain process ahead of them, there’s a friendly face, a snack, and, if needed, a travel agent. There are also a whole bunch of donated clothing, toiletries, and backpacks. “When they can get rid of the plastic bags that ICE gave them for their personal belongings,” says Herman, “it’s humanizing.” Another humanizing factor: having an RV big enough to include a separate room with a door for those who could use a space to decompress privately after weeks or months confined with other people. To Herman’s knowledge, there’s nothing like it outside any ICE detention center anywhere else in the country. And so far, so good: “The biggest investment is the actual physical vehicle, and we have it. With the community coming by and providing all the other resources, we will continue to be here as long as the detention center is.”

Jael Balderas Ramirez, 22, stands in the sunshine

eating cookies, enjoying his first 15 minutes as a free man after four months inside pending charges of illegally entering the country. Ramirez arrived in the U.S., undocumented, when he was 3, and all of his family is in Oregon; he doesn’t know anyone in Mexico. His family scrounged for months to put together the bond money, and his court date is still ahead. But right now, he’s ecstatic. “Water and cookies!” he says, laughing. “What else could we ask for?” Without the RV, he says, he’d have just been “standing in the sun, with no water or nothing, waiting for my family, no phone calls or nothing. They just told me to wait here.” When, about 20 minutes later, his family does arrive, Ramirez’ dad runs at him with a choked sob. He clamps his son to his chest and the rest of the family piles on, crying. All the volunteers— Peggy Herman included—start tearing up, too. “Detainees are always worried about what’s going to happen next,” says Herman. “It’s not just the next hour. It’s the next month. It’s the next year. And so having someone immediately assure them that for right now all they need to worry about is getting to their family, getting to their friends—that’s what we’re here for. ‘Don’t worry about what’s going to happen in your case. Right here, right now, refresh yourself, and enjoy the liberty you just received.’ ” E

sbernard@seattleweekly.com

SEATTLE WEEKLY • AU G UST 5 — 11, 2015

ing and several phone calls, she finally gets Ajanth’s brother’s contact and credit-card information so she can put Ajanth on a plane out of Sea-Tac tomorrow. Tonight she’ll offer him one of two apartments that AID NW rents in Tacoma for this purpose: detainees who’ve been released—either on bond, with their cases still pending, like Ajanth, or for good, with permission to stay in the U.S.—and have no connections in Tacoma. “I don’t know how people navigated this before,” Herman says, heaving a sigh and shaking her head, balancing a scribbled notepad in her lap while her thumbs pump a smart phone. Before the Welcome Center existed, released detainees might have arranged for family to pick them up, or for someone from an advocacy organization like AID NW to meet them. But often they’d be waiting outside the fence for an unknown amount of time, in all weathers, with no restroom, no water, no food, and no phone calls. Even if released detainees did have some kind of a plan, “they didn’t have someone here immediately to say, ‘Whatever your plan is, stay safe and comfortable until your plan works out,’ ” she explains. “ ‘And if your plan doesn’t work out, we’re here to give you another safe, secure plan.’ ”

The RV provides phones, water, and shelter to people released from the Northwest Detention Center.

news&comment»

Hiroshima’s Hell

.net

70 years after America dropped the bomb, Seattle Hiroshima Club president Fumiko Groves shares her story. BY ELLIS E. CONKLIN

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EXPERIENCE THE BEST PARTS OF AUGUST

n Aug. 6, 1945, the bomb bay door of the B-29 Enola Gay, which pilot Col. Paul Tibbets named after his mother, sprang open and dropped a 10-foot long, 9,700-pound atomic bomb called “Little Boy” on Hiroshima. The moment of inconceivable devastation arrived at 8:15 a.m. on a clear sunny morning. When the uranium-235 bomb, a product of $2 billion worth of research, exploded 1,900 feet above its intended target, the easy-to-detect T-shaped Aioi Bridge, a mushroom cloud rushed more than six miles into the sky. Staff Sgt. George Caron, the tail gunner aboard the Boeing-made Superfortress, described the scene at ground level this way: “It looked like lava or molasses covering a whole city.” In the city of 318,000, which had been untouched by the ravages of war, 70,000 men, women, and children died within seconds. Seventy thousand more Japanese civilians would perish from radiation within five years. Fumiko Groves was 11 at the time, living with her parents, both of them raised in Hiroshima, and a younger brother in a small house in the Central District, 5,128 miles from the devastated city. She was getting ready to be a sixth-grader at Bailey Gatzert Elementary. In April 1945, four months before two-thirds of Hiroshima was incinerated, Groves and her family had returned to Seattle. They had spent three years incarcerated at Idaho’s Minidoka Relocation Center. Her father, she remembers, had started a gardening business upon their return, packing up his tools in a paper grocery bag and taking a streetcar in search of customers. “We were one of the first families who got to come back,” Groves says over coffee last week at the historic Panama Hotel, a 105-year-old building in the International District where many Japanese-American families left their belongings— furniture, suitcases, clothing—before being herded into internment camps. “There was discrimination. It was not easy for my father to find customers. But then there were always some nice people.” Closing her eyes, Groves tries to recall that terrible summer day 70 years ago. “I think my parents told me. They had relatives there. I lost an aunt, an uncle, some cousins. Most of my relatives were in Hiroshima that day. I didn’t know what it meant. It was very stressful for my parents, trying to find out what had happened to the rest of our family. This was their home.” (It took Groves’s family more than five months to learn about the deaths of their loved ones.) Glancing up at the black-and-white photographs of pre-internment Japantown that line the walls of the Panama Hotel’s elegant lobby, Groves continues, “It makes me mad when people compare 9/11 to Pearl Harbor. No, Pearl Harbor was a military action. 9/11 was more like Hiroshima. Innocent civilians were killed.” Groves is silent for a time, and then begins to laugh. “We used to come to the bathhouse here [at the Panama Hotel]. Yes, I would come with my mother. I looked forward to it. My first-grade teacher would sometimes ask us to draw what we

Fumiko Groves at the Panama Hotel.

did over the weekend, and I would draw pictures of naked people taking a bath. And she would say, ‘Doesn’t anyone wear clothes?’ And I would tell her no, we are taking a bath.” Groves will turn 82 next month. She has spent her whole life in Seattle, working as a librarian for many years. She raised two children and still lives in the Central District. Her second husband died earlier this year. She has traveled widely, including many trips to Hiroshima. “I personally don’t like to think of myself as an American,” she quietly confides, “so I tell some people I am from Hiroshima. Maybe it was because of the discrimination, but I see myself as Japanese. I am proud of my Japanese heritage.” Groves has kept alive her culture connections through the Seattle Hiroshima Club, of which her father was president for 24 years. She became president four years ago, and now oversees the annual atomic bomb victims’ memorial service at Seattle Buddhist Church. The 46th annual service was held this past Sunday, August 2. “We have seven survivors of Hiroshima left in Seattle,” she says. Asked if she harbors any bitterness or resentment for what happened a lifetime ago, Groves says calmly, “What’s done is done. I personally don’t think it was necessary, but what’s done is done. And let it never happen again. No, I do not feel anger. I only hope people will remember. This cannot happen again.” E

econklin@seattleweekly.com

A Requiem for ‘NikeTown’ A vandalism lightning rod gets rebranded. BY DANIEL PERSON NikeTown nonetheless felt like the end of a peculiar era in Seattle that dates back to NikeTown’s 1996 opening. In retrospect, it’s hard to fully comprehend the angst that NikeTown stirred in the soul of Seattle when it opened. But the angst was real. KUOW radio host Bill Radke showed his poetic side in Seattle Weekly when he penned these stanzas just a week before Street got into town: NIKE

Nike looks on the bright side.

ate last week, Seattle bid farewell to a landmark that doesn’t show up on tourist maps, even if it was visited by countless tourists over the years: NikeTown. In February, the two-story shrine to Jordan and the Just Do It trademark at Sixth and Pike closed its doors for major renovations. As Hall of Fame quarterback Warren Moon put it to a group of YMCA campers who’d turned out for the store’s Thursday reopening, “The old store was a very beautiful store. But it needed to be updated, remodeled. Nike is always about being the best.” What Moon didn’t delve into was the store’s name, which was NikeTown when it shut down and Nike Seattle when it reopened. But while unheralded, the retirement of the name

To save our downtown, here’s the fictional plot: We’ll turn the place into a place that it’s not. And we’ll call the Town Nike and import a lot Of celebs whom we don’t really know. When some Seattleites were feeling uneasy about the glitzy new flagship store REI had opened that same year on Yale, the nickname they invented to show their disgust? HikeTown. As the years went on, NikeTown continued to be a whipping post for all things anti-corporate. Consider these excerpts from a Seattle Police Department report on the WTO protests in 1999, when the store became the epicenter of dread-headed rage: “Individuals in this same group became aggressive when they arrived at Niketown.” “A Platoon Commander stated that he would not allow the looting of the Niketown located

on the northeast corner of 6th and Pike (it was under siege at that time and the employees were evacuated).” “The crowd at Niketown presented an ongoing violent threat.” NikeTown just brought out the worst in people. On May Day in recent years, there might as well have been a viewing gallery for TV cameras to get footage of anarchists making menacing approaches at the store. In 2012, Black Bloc protesters smashed some windows (the video of one of the men doing so with a Nike sneaker went viral). It’s become such a routine that last December during the Black Lives Matter protests, police pre-emptively took photos of protesters outside NikeTown anticipating that windows would get smashed. They didn’t, and the photography prompted an official review of police surveillance practices. I felt bad bringing up this tortured history during the grand-reopening ceremony on Thursday. It felt like mentioning a pedophilic uncle at a family reunion. The new name, Nike Seattle, seems to be part of a national rebranding effort, not anything to do with this store’s particular history. NikeTown in San Francisco was recently renamed Nike SF. Still, I was curious if the store managers felt the new store, Nike Seattle, was turning over a new leaf for Nike in Seattle. My otherwise-accommodating media rep grew a bit grave: “We’re not going to have anyone available to address that,” she said. And why should they? This was a time to celebrate Nike.

Two lines formed outside the glass doors before the store opened—one for general customers, the other for men in their late teens and 20s who were in the market for a specific shoe: an orange, white, and black Jordan 1 called “Shattered Backboard” that were sold out in other stores. After word broke on Twitter that the store had the shoes, the line started to form at 9 p.m. the night before. This was the anti-Black Bloc: a thoroughly peaceful mob that quietly validated Nike’s right to downtown retail space. It was also notably racially diverse—certainly more so than your average anarchist coffee shop. At the checkout line, Jacob Lopez, a Gig Harbor teen built like a small forward and a selfdescribed “sneaker head,” talked me through the fuss over the Jordans. “This colorway is very rare,” he said (“colorway” being shoe-speak for color scheme). “The whole point of the Shattered Backboards goes back to when Jordan played an exhibition game in Italy and broke the backboard with a dunk. If you look at the sole, there’s glass everywhere on it. Orange and black were the colors he wore when he played in that game. “It’s a cool history piece, for sure.” Lopez actually didn’t get to the store in time to get a pair of the $160 shoes. But he was arranging a possible trade for the Jordan 1 Shadows he had on at the time. I asked him if he had any thoughts on why the store had been the target of so much vandalism over the years. “Some people are mad because they miss releases?” he wondered in jest. “I don’t know.” E

dperson@seattleweekly.com

SEATTLE WEEKLY • AU G UST 5 — 11, 2015

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CEO Dan Price at the Ballard offices of Gravity Payments.

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ACTIVISM When Dan Price raised the minimum salary at IDEA his business to $70,000 and took a huge pay cut, he disrupted his life . . . and his industry. BEST POLICY IDEA BEST by Patrick Hutchison POLICY IDEA

hen I meet Dan Price in Gravity Payments’ large—and only—conference room, I’m half-expecting cheering employees toasting with Champagne and blowing party favors. It is after all just a week since the 30-year-old CEO announced that he would raise his company’s minimum salary to $70,000 while lowering his own annual compensation from $1 million to $70,000. Instead I’m greeted by a normal office, with busy employees wearing headsets, speaking with customers, grouped into shared work spaces by category: marketing in one room, sales support in another. When the man of the hour rises from his desk, no more extraordinary than the ones that surround it, he looks tired. The sleeves of his buttondown shirt are rolled up to his elbows and look

as if they’ve been there a while. His long hair is covered by a loose-fitting gray beanie, and if not for the gum in his mouth and my constant questions, he might fall asleep in the black leather office chair, exhausted from an onslaught of media attention that he says he never expected. Price isn’t likely to get much rest anytime soon. Just two days after my visit, he will be served with a lawsuit from his older brother, and partner in Gravity, Lucas Price, alleging that the younger Price violated his brother’s shareholder rights and for breach of duties and contract. The suit was drafted well before Price’s highly publicized announcement, and makes no mention of the $70,000 salary floor the CEO had instituted. Instead, it accuses Price, among other things, of paying himself “excessive compensation,” a confounding charge to observers, considering that Price just lowered his salary by 93 percent. These aren’t the only troubles Price will weather in the near future. As detailed in a July 31 New York Times report, Gravity will see a defection of two staff members who felt the pay raises for lower-level employees were unfair, as well as the attrition of customers who viewed Price’s move as political or feared a spike in the cost of the company’s services. The report will also note that Gravity has gained even more customers who do agree with the move. Still, those accounts will not become profitable for at least another year. Price will tell the Times that he is renting out his house to make ends meet. This news will be met with glee by those who view Price’s decision as misguided, a bad idea. Yet the true outcome likely won’t be known for years, and anyone who thinks a plan as radical as Price’s could proceed without tremendous disruption to its originator’s business and personal life would be foolish. Price might be just such a fool. Sitting in the Gravity offices on April 22, the CEO is just emerging from the opening salvo of what will be a life- and perhaps industry-altering battle. And he appears surprised at what he has gotten himself into. “Shocked,” he tells me. “I had zero clue that this was possible. I think that what I’ve realized over the past week is that the conversation that we were having here, or that was in my head, was in everybody else’s head too.” By everyone else, Price means the country, the workers, the average people who in so many ways are just like the employees who show up at Gravity Payments every day, just a stone’s throw from the Ballard Bridge. It all started with an announcement in a room just beyond this conference room, where dozens of employees sat shoulder to shoulder and heard that the minimum salary at the credit-card processing company would be raised, and, to help pay for it, the CEO would be taking a pay cut. Despite the flurry of social media and regular old media attention he received, Price argues that his decision was not motivated by marketing or equity-seeking strategies. As he told the media again and again in the days that followed, his announcement came out of his own personal desire to treat his employees well. Of the company’s 120 workers, he said, 50 made less than the magic $70,000 a year, though 30 of them were earning less than $40,000 a year, meaning their wages were virtually doubled. “When you really care about people and you really care about their development, that’s what gets the best out of them. And when you do that,

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you also want to pay them the most that you can,” Price tells me, in a statement that sounded so absurd coming from a CEO that it nearly seemed like a joke. Yet, the raise in salaries wasn’t the most shocking part of Price’s announcement—it was his willingness to cut his own salary. According to data from the Economic Policy Institute, CEOs in 2013 made, on average, 296 times more money than the average worker in their industry. In 1965, they made only 20 times more. Granted, there are CEOs who draw small salaries. In fact, some of the country’s wealthiest executives have symbolic salaries of only $1 a year. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, and HP CEO Meg Whitman all report annual salaries of 100 shiny pennies. But there’s a catch. Their companies are publicly traded, giving them stock options and shares worth truckloads of cash. At the end of the day, knocking down their salaries may technically net them less money, but it doesn’t stop them from accruing the sorts of mammoth bank accounts that allow them to purchase private jets with the nonchalance most of us reserve for buying toilet paper. By reducing his salary, Price was bucking a deeply entrenched trend toward higher CEO salaries, especially prevalent in the financial industry. According to Jacob Vigdor, a publicaffairs professor at the University of Washington, “The CEOs of the world live in a little bubble economy. It’s like an arms race with salaries instead of weaponry. If the message gets out there that a CEO can pay themselves $70,000 a year and survive, it starts to unravel the whole sweater.” So it is that Price’s most significant idea could be considered accidental—a side effect of his stated goal to better care for his employees. For it is only by lowering his salary that Price is able to invest so much in his staff without straying too far from the average salary in his field. Census data from 2012 shows that the median wage for employees in the financial-intermediaries industry rounds out at just over $67,000 a year. Huge CEO salaries usually balance out the meager incomes of low-paying entry-level positions, customer-service representatives, and clerical staff. And it’s those jobs specifically that Gravity Payments is targeting with its raises. That the average salaries Price will pay after the raises kick in aren’t technically all that unusual is an important point. The financial-services industry is far and away the country’s most profitable. Its low operating costs and high revenues allows it to get the best people for any given job simply by being able to afford to pay them more—not true for most industries. It is because of this, says Vigdor, that the salary that Price has set for his employees will have trouble spreading as effectively as his announcement. “It’s really important to understand that this is a company in the financial industry. They can generate a lot of money without a huge investment and without a lot of capital. This is one of the only possible industries where you can have something like that.” To illustrate his point, Vigdor proposes a hypothetical situation, imagining the highest minimum salary a major company could afford if it returned all its profits to its workers. “Imagine if we allowed McDonald’s to cover its most basic expenses, and gave all the profits back to its employees—we’re left with just over $12 billion to divide 420,000

“If the message gets out that a CEO can pay themselves $70,000 a year and survive, it starts to unravel the whole sweater.”

ways, which comes to about $28,665 a year per employee. To make it to $70,000 per worker, the company would need to increase its revenues by at least $30 billion without raising costs. Think about paying $11 for a Big Mac—that’s a lowball estimate of the sort of price increase that would be necessary,” says Vigdor, who has recently been researching the ongoing impact of Seattle’s recent minimum-wage hike. Vigdor notes, “We have an economy where an increasing share of the profits are being reaped by the financial industry, be it Gravity Payments or Goldman Sachs,” Vigdor says. “One of the reasons other people aren’t being paid more money is simply that the money isn’t there to do that. The glimpse of the world that we get with Gravity Payments is that 999 out of a thousand business owners just can’t follow suit. They would bankrupt themselves in a heartbeat.” It’s not until I ask about his upbringing that Price

The blowback that Price has experienced notwithstanding, his sacrifice is resulting in the kinds of workplace benefits that you would hope any CEO would wish for. Take 24-year-old Hayley Vogt, for example. Vogt moved to Seattle from Minnesota in early 2014 to take a marketing coordinator job. Encouraged by the promise of “a challenging position” and the desire to explore a new part of the U.S., she packed up and moved halfway across the country. Not entirely sure it was the right decision, she was thrilled when she finally arrived. “Coming here, you learn that there’s a lot of responsibility and trust. I realized this was a different place,” she says, pointing to extracurricular activities from organized volunteer parties to simply grabbing a casual drink with fellow employees. Vogt currently makes $45,000 a year, so her impending raise will make a big difference in her life. According to the salary rollout plan, she’ll get an immediate bump to $50,000 a year, hitting $60,000 a year in December and $70,000 by the end of 2016. She plans to not only save money, but to finally make a dent in her student loans and pay off a recent emergency-room bill. Vogt’s excitement is understandable. Harder to grasp is the enthusiasm from someone higher up the ladder. But that enthusiasm is there, trickling down from the modest desk of the CEO. “Honestly, I felt guilty,” says marketing coordinator Pirkle, at 33 one of the older members of a very young work force. He says that, much like his boss, he welcomes the raise even though he won’t benefit monetarily from it. “Other people worked just as hard as I did, but I made a lot more money. Now things feel right.” E

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begins to reveal the origins of his explosive idea. “Neither of my parents had college degrees, but they both worked like crazy,” he says. “I think seeing them work so hard, and wanting to be like them, made me want to work so hard. I had never really thought about it before, but I think that’s where it comes from.” Price grew up on the plains of southwestern Idaho in a big religious family with six siblings and a mother who homeschooled every one of them. His father worked at a health-food company, starting at an entry-level position and eventually working his way up to company president—a move Price says was necessary to provide for their large family. But Price’s dad wasn’t the only one working. When he was only 7, when other young boys were busy watching Transformers and pretending to be Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Price started doing odd jobs around his neighborhood: mowing lawns, weeding gardens, and shoveling snow when cold Idaho winters dumped mountains of the stuff on driveways and sidewalks. By the time he was 12, he was already taking on more responsibility, helping to install air-conditioning units for a friend’s family business. “I was useful because I was small and I could crawl into small spaces and attics,” he recalls. Price started Gravity Payments when he was a sophomore in high school, seeing opportunities in credit-card processing for small businesses. It was a project he worked on through high school and into college, officially launching Gravity Payments with his brother while a freshman at Seattle Pacific University. He hired his first employee in 2004 for an admittedly paltry $24,000 a year, far lower than financial-industry standards dictated at the time. But with a fledgling company, he had no choice. It was all he could afford. “I always felt bad about not being able to pay them more, so I made a decision then to invest in my employees in any way that I could.” In the early days, those investments took the form of extensive training, professional development opportunities, a liberal vacation policy, free company-wide meals, subsidized transit passes, and other perks typically seen at places like Google and Facebook. A year after launch, he had five employees; by 2008, 35. Salaries had gone up to reflect market rates, competitive with similar industries across the nation. But in the back of his mind, Price kept thinking about what else he could do. Then in 2010, Price read about a Princeton study on the relationship between income and emotional well-being. The study did little to prove that having enough money to buy a dozen mansions or build a hot tub on the moon led to complete happiness. In fact, the riches needed to attain

the sort of Grade-A, lab-certified happiness we’re all after didn’t include a lot of zeros. The study showed that people making about $75,000 had life by the coin purse, if you will. As you make less, you slide into a hopeless funk; as you make more, the growing pile of greenbacks does less and less to satisfy your opulent aspirations. According to the study, “Low income exacerbates the emotional pain associated with such misfortunes as divorce, ill health, and being alone. We conclude that high income buys life satisfaction but not happiness, and that low income is associated both with low life evaluation and low emotional well-being.” Price says he’d considered paying his employees more before reading the article, but was never able to come up with the right number, the right level of investment. The Princeton study gave him that number. It was a turning point. In the few years between reading the article and making the decision, Price couldn’t find the right time. The company was experiencing massive growth, and his time was spent bringing in more employees to support his growing client list. From 2010 to 2015, staff numbers jumped from 37 to 116. When things seemed to be plateauing, Price pulled the trigger. At that moment, Gravity went from being merely a financial-service provider to a symbol. Following the announcement, Price and Gravity saw a marked increase in just about every communication possible. More clients were inquiring about services; the usual number of applicants to their job postings was understandably getting a huge uptick; and the company was getting thousands of requests for simple charity. “We’ve received over 6,000 resumes since our announcement, from people all over the world,” marketing coordinator Ryan Pirkle tells me during my visit. “A lot of people aren’t applying to a specific position. Instead they say ‘I will do anything to work for your company.’ ”

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BEST POLICY What if We Used Obamacare IDEA

to Help the Poor Even More? With ORCA Lift, King County uses data for good and overcomes a huge obstacle facing social programs. by Casey Jaywork

Lift’s discount is disarmingly simple: Transit riders who earn less than $23,540 for a single adult—in other words, less than 200 percent of the federal poverty line—are charged only $1.50 to ride Metro buses, Kitsap Transit buses, Link light rail, the water taxi, or the Seattle streetcar, regardless of time or zone. (By comparison, standard adult fares range from $2.50 to $3.25.) The mechanism for the discount is a special ORCA card that lasts two years, even if the rider’s income increases. To avoid stigmatizing users, the county made sure that Lift passes are identical to regular ORCA cards, except for the tiny expiration date printed on the back. “Even the driver can’t tell” whether an ORCA card has the Lift discount, says Lewis. To people whose bus spending is already a minuscule part of their monthly budget, discounted fares don’t mean much. “But if you are [near] the poverty level, that extra 50 dollars is actually a [significant] percentage of your income,” Lewis says. “We had one client when the program first started,” recalls King County Public Health’s Daphne Pie. “He was job-searching, and he was . . . getting interviews, but it was getting expensive to ride the bus to get there. And so when we got him on ORCA Lift, he was so ecstatic. “This is a tangible benefit,” she continues. “He just put an extra 50 dollars back in his pocket that he can use somewhere else. Maybe go to a movie, maybe buy that pair of shoes that he needs or that shirt that he needs to go to an

Discounted fares for poor riders seems like common sense. But there has long been a barrier for support programs like Lift: enrollment. How do you deliver the discount to everyone who qualifies and no one who doesn’t? Bureaucratic piggyback. That’s how. Back in 2013, county officials helped roll out the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, by partnering with agencies and nonprofits who shared the county’s goal of connecting poor people with health insurance. This alliance took shape at the First Friday Forum Network, a longtime monthly meeting group on public-health strategy comprising about 80 different organizations. “We built that network of partners so that we had the bandwidth” to do adequate outreach, says Pie, who helped orchestrate the ACA rollout. “That’s what made it really impactful, is community organizations that came together to do the work.” Someone walking into, say, a public-health clinic for back pain or a neighborhood community center for food stamps would be asked “Do you have insurance? Do you want some?” So when last summer Pie received an e-mail from County Executive Dow Constantine inquiring how Metro might institute Lift, her first thought was, “This has to be layered into the programs that we’re already doing.” Pie realized that Lift enrollment could simply piggyback on those programs’ pre-existing income insurance verification for people getting subsidized food, housing or shelter, health insurance, or energy. “We already have the documentation there,” she recalls thinking. “ORCA Lift should be a natural fit.” This piggyback verification is the really innovative part of Lift—what allows it to work smarter instead of harder. And keeping red tape out of enrollment is essential to the program’s success. As Pie notes, the last thing poor riders need is another pile of forms to fill out. “If we created a program that had a litany of paperwork,” she says, “that really defeats the purpose of the program.” “A program is not effective if it’s not accessible,” adds Lewis. Avoiding paper litanies meant bundling various benefits into a customer-friendly package. Instead of playing phone tag with obscure sub-departments or busing all over Seattle to try to get a bus pass, people who come to the Metro offices for, say, health insurance can get informed about and enrolled in Lift in about 15 minutes, says Pie. Five months in, Lift’s enrollment has surpassed 13,500, most of whom are Seattleites. Pie and Lewis expect enrollment to gather speed as they gradually train more partner organizations to recruit. In the meantime, satisfied customers are lending a hand. “We actually have one guy that brings people in,” says Pie. “He got signed up on ORCA Lift when it first opened, and he actually brings people in so that they can get signed up for ORCA Lift, down to the Metro office. “It’s really kind of cool,” she says, smiling. E

cjaywork@seattleweekly.com

SEATTLE WEEKLY • AU G UST 5 — 11, 2015

us fare is too damn high. This fact, so obvious to many riders, was finally acknowledged by the King County Council in February 2014, when it passed legislation to offer discounted fares to lowincome riders. The program was meant as a lifejacket for poor riders who struggled to pay: Fares for Metro had risen five times in the past six years as the county transit agency struggled to plug holes in its budget, and would rise yet again within a year. But by the time that sixth increase hit, the discount had became a reality in the form of ORCA Lift, and now the county is on track to enroll 40,000 people by the end of the program’s first year. The New York Times reports that that’s more than double the enrollment for San Francisco’s comparable Lifeline pass, which has been around for a decade. “This is what a commitment to building equity looks like,” says county spokesperson Chad Lewis. Studies back him up, some suggesting that access to transit is more helpful to economic mobility than education. Lewis says that other cities, while initially skeptical of adding a rider discount to already-strained budgets, have begun looking at Lift as a potential model for their own policy. Partly that’s due to media buzz: Lift has been featured in high-profile national media, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Meet the Press. Since Lift entered the national spotlight, Lewis says, the reaction from other cities, including New York and Los Angeles, “went from skeptical to curious.”

Look Hot. Stay Cool.

interview . . . We’re actually giving the most vulnerable something to put back in their pockets that they’re going to eventually use back in the economy anyway.”

DANIEL BERMAN

Asked to help with Lift, Daphne Pie suggested a little bureaucratic piggybacking.

“This is what a commitment to building equity looks like.”

“We’re disrupting the status quo, because things as they are aren’t working, no matter where you look.”

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HACK the CD takes the hackathon to a ARTS IDEA population that isn’t used to seeing itself in tech. by Daniel Person

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lack people don’t study computer science.” It’s a common refrain when you talk about diversity in the technology industry. It’s also wrong. According to the National Science Foundation, in 2012 just over 10 percent of all computer-science degrees in the United States were earned by African-Americans (who comprise 13.2 percent of the population overall)—a figure that has remained fairly consistent as more and more of the nation’s workforce attends to code. And yet the number of blacks working at some of the most prominent tech companies, including Facebook and Amazon, is notably low. Figures are particularly grim at Facebook, where 1 percent of the company’s tech workforce is black, compared to the 53 percent that is white and 41 percent tht is Asian. Its non-tech workforce is slighty more reflective of society, at 2 percent black. To these firms’ credit, they are being more transparent than most about their racial makeup, and are embarking on seemingly sincere efforts to make it right. But the fact remains that as a new world was being created on microprocessors in our phones, whites had a disproportionate say in what that world looked like: what the rules were, whom it would serve, and how it would do it. Enter HACK the CD, a tech-driven socialinnovator collective based in Seattle’s Central District. For three days in late July, about three dozen people gathered at the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute in the CD for the second “hackathon”—patterned after the gatherings in which coders meet for a few days of intense work on a particular problem—under the fledgling organization’s banner. The goal was to figure out ways technology could better serve the community.

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Over that weekend, a predominantly black crowd discussed new business ideas for their neighborhoods, networked with those who could help them achieve their goals, and provided critical feedback to others about their business models and ideas. The CD has traditionally had a strong African-American presence. But the area is changing rapidly, as older housing stock is bulldozed to make room for new condos. Kitty-corner from the Institute is a development under construction that announces on a large sign that all but one of its units has already been sold. It’s little surprise, then, that the stemming of gentrification is at the forefront of many minds at this Saturday-morning workshop asking how the Black Lives Matter movement can address economic justice. “We talked about coming up with an app that highlights black businesses, like a black Yelp,” one man tells the crowd following a roundtable brainstorm. A woman affirms that she’d use such a product. “I live in Des Moines,” she says. “I don’t know what black businesses exist in my area.” At another table, conversation turns to findings by the U.S. Justice Department that Honda charged minority customers higher rates on their car loans than white customers. Since no one knows how much everyone else is paying on their loans, this kind of discrimination can be difficult to detect. Perhaps they could set up a system that crowd-sources that information, to detect discrepancies more quickly. An app in which people anonymously submit their salaries could serve as a model. In a similar vein, a table of mostly highschool and middle-school students talk about ways they could use technology to track how students of different races are disciplined by

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HACK the CD co-founder David Harris leads a workshop at the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute. Inset: Would-be tech moguls tune-in. teachers. As it is, one boy says, when kids suggest that white students are shown more leniency than black students, “No one believes you. It’s like you’re telling a ghost story.” HACK the CD co-founder David Harris says that while hackathons are attended mostly by people who already have strong tech skill sets, HACK the CD is designed to welcome all comers from the area to foster ideas and solutions that address the needs of the community. “What we’re doing with HACK the CD is disrupting the status quo, because things as they are aren’t working, no matter where you look,” Harris says. Harris’ day job is at the Seattle-based Technology Access Foundation, where he develops “authentic learning experiences for students of color” in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). He says he’s taken students all across the world, and that includes to the tech campuses on the East Side. “The students really tell it like it is, and they comment that no one looks like them when we’re there,” he says. Harris notes that when it comes to diversity in tech, “a lot of the focus has been on percentage of the workforce. But one glaringly obvious thing that doesn’t get talked about is that a lot of these companies are founded by white men. It’s no surprise that they hire white men.” “How do we create more black founders?” he says. It should be noted that no ill will is directed toward Seattle’s large tech companies at the event. It’s sponsored in part by Amazon, and several black Amazon employees are on hand to offer attendees advice and guidance. Last year’s HACK the CD spawned at least three start-ups, and Harris set a goal of seeing five businesses start from this year’s event. There is certainly no shortage of ideas. Amari Garrett, a high-school sophomore, stands before the Saturday crowd to give a compact elevator pitch of his idea for an app that would better explain what can and can’t be recycled and composted in Seattle—with an eye toward a new law that will fine people if they put too much food waste into their trash bins. “We don’t have the most information in our community, and if we get fined, that’s another way they could extract money from our community,” Garrett tells the crowd. He then lists what skills he’ll need to get the app off the ground, at which point those in the crowd with those paticular skills raise their hands. E

dperson@seattleweekly.com

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Collect bridges art and tech by busing BEST potential patrons to the galleries, BUSINESS where they may actually start buying art. IDEA by Brian Miller

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Scenes from Collect’s bus tour of the Seattle Art Fair.

response has been wonderful,” says Getahun. Past stops on the tour, which varies each month, have included SAM Rental Gallery, Photo Center NW, Vermillion (natch), Ghost Gallery, Greg Kucera, the Hedreen Gallery at Seattle U, and some private studio visits. Initially, says Getahun, the tour was mainly promoted by “Facebook, networking, and word-of-mouth. And now we have a website. It’s for people new to Seattle. We want people to get to know each other. We want people

“How do we tear down that wall between the tech world and the arts world? We’ll curate a whole experience for them.” to come away with how connected the Seattle art scene is to their own lives. “We’ve had purchases. That’s our ultimate mission. We believe that the first purchase can make a huge difference. Invest in the local art scene— that’s what we want.” In particular, Getahun says, he and his colleagues were inspired by the two documentaries made about middle-class New York collectors Dorothy and Herbert Vogel (Herb & Dorothy, Herb & Dorothy 50 x 50), both of which played locally, the latter soon before SAM’s 2013 exhibition of its Vogel gifts. The notion, and it’s a good one to emulate when apartments and condos are growing both smaller and more expensive, is to collect small. Unless we’re talking about Paul Allen or Jon and

FRIDAY 9/18 The Crocodile Presents:

Mary Shirley, the age of buying large, expensive works for large walls and gardens may be over. Collect’s customers thus far have mostly been

millennials and Gen-Xers, says Getahun, with pockets that run only so deep. Does accessible art mean affordable art? “Absolutely. We want to make it more affordable.” Hence the price and duration of the bus tour—under three hours with a half-dozen stops. It’s an investment comparable to a movie date, when you factor in the popcorn and parking. Collect’s business model is still evolving. “There is a lot of figuring it out as we go along,” says Getahun. “This is a love opportunity that’s growing into a business. We hope to expand on it. What we wanna do in the long term is have one on Capitol Hill, one downtown, and expand” to Georgetown, Greenwood, and beyond. “There’s a lot to explore here.” I ask about two potential future markets, and Getahun immediately sounds excited: first, tourists who know little about Seattle but have higher cultural standards than the Ride the Duck crowd. And in fact, during last weekend’s Seattle Art Fair, Collect was running bus tours around the clock, both to the fair and nearby galleries. Getahun wants to do more with such visitors, “but we haven’t figured it out yet.” Second, why not do corporate events for Amazon, Facebook, Google, etc.? Many of those new hires, new to Seattle, may have no idea how to find the Frye, SAAM, BAM, or TAM—much less the Tashiro Kaplan Building or the Olympic Sculpture Park. Then, why not finish the tour at some trendy, locally sourced restaurant or artisanal bar? Getahun likes the notion, and answers his own rhetorical question: “How do we tear down that wall between the tech world and the arts world? We’ll curate a whole experience for them.” E bmiller@seattleweekly.com

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SEATTLE WEEKLY • AU G UST 5 — 11, 2015

very gallery owner, museum curator, stage producer, or comedy promoter I know says the same thing: How, in a city teeming with smart young tech workers, many of them well-paid, can we get that crowd to participate in its cultural scene? It’s a constant new postrecession complaint, possibly a good problem to have. But few have taken such a direct and obvious step as the five backers of Collect: rent a party bus. Instead of begging people—potential buyers—to come see art, which entails driving, parking, gallery-finding, etc., why not just make it a one-step process? Launched last fall and presently timed to the monthly Capitol Hill Art Walk, Collect counts among its founders Elisheba Johnson, Yonnas Getahun, Lorrie Cardoso, Liz Hunter-Keller, and Diana Adams (owner of Vermillion, where the next tour will start at 5:45 p.m. Thurs., Sept 10, $25; see collectseattle.com). “We wanted to inspire people to buy art,” says Getahun of his collaborators, most with a finger in the local arts scene. But for newbies in town, like all those smart, young Amazon techies working long hours at the office, Getahun concedes, “A lot of people are intimidated by arts culture.” Indeed, the local museum and gallery circuit can seem awfully cliquish and insidery. Trust me, I know it firsthand—all the air kisses and flattery; the self-validation of hanging with the cool cognoscenti, even if you’re not quite sure what you’re looking at or why. Thus Collect’s mission, says Getahun, is to be “enjoyable and accessible.” If customers don’t know the first thing about art, “Let’s start there. Let’s make it a fun evening.” To that end, champagne and snacks are provided on the bus (a rental, which comes with a professional driver). “It looks like one of those bachelorette party buses,” Getahun laughs—only without the disco music and fog machines. Each tour accommodates about a dozen to 20 customers, plus the Collect host—sometimes a guest curator or artist, sometimes a cultural gadfly like comedian Emmett Montgomery (see “So Surreal,” page 41). Since the first outing last October, “The

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Idle No More Washington director Sweetwater Nannauck. Below: Indengenous Peoples’ Day resolution author Matt Remle.

BEST

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to People? BESTIndigenous POLICY IDEA

Slowly but surely, Seattle’s non-Natives haveBEST started to POLICY acknowledge the stories of the people who lived here before them, and are making exciting new history inIDEA the process. by Kelton Sears

hen I call Matt Remle, he asks me to hold on for a second. “I’m doing homework with my boy; I just have to tell him he gets a free break for a minute,” he says, chuckling. Remle, a Lakota man and the Native American Liaison at Marysville-Pilchuck High School, is often in the midst of homework, whether he’s helping students or his children or doing it for his own edification. As a Seattle correspondent and editor for the indigenous online news outlet Last Real Indians, he often digs deep into history. He aims to make connections to the present day in an attempt to tell stories that span centuries instead of moments, he says. In his mind, learning and telling stories about one’s ancestors is a necessary pursuit. It’s a view he sees slowly trickling into the mainstream here in Seattle. “I think non-Natives are looking for a different voice and a different perspective,” he says. Later today, Remle will visit Seattle City Hall to start planning the 2015 Indigenous Peoples’ Day celebration, a very new Seattle holiday he was instrumental in creating. Last September, Remle wrote the resolution and led the campaign to replace Columbus Day in Seattle with Indigenous Peoples’ Day—a motion unanimously passed in October by the Seattle City Council. During the campaign, Remle weathered personal attacks and phone calls from outraged opponents who claimed replacing Columbus Day was “focusing on the negative” and “preposterous.” The most intense opposition came from local Italian-heritage groups. During one of the initial September committee hearings on the resolution, Sons of Italy member Tony Anderson told the City Council, “I pray you observe the same courage Columbus did in that summer of 1492.” The request was a curious one given the grisly history that Remle soon shared with the Council, which came from Columbus’ own journals. The explorer’s records, along with the writings of the crew and the Spanish friar Bartolomé de las Casas who accompanied Columbus on that fateful voyage, detailed firsthand accounts of their brutal acts. Remle told of the enslavement, rape, torture, and genocide of the Arawak people they encountered in the summer of 1492. Beheadings of young boys “for fun”; lurid blow-by-blow tales of forced sex with 9- and 10-year-old girls, the casual day-to-day dismemberment of dozens of Arawak simply “to test the sharpness of their swords.” The list goes on. By the end of it, 80 percent of the Arawak people had been killed. These clearly were not the stories Anderson had heard. He, like the rest of Americans who go to public school, was likely taught the cute rhyme most of us know: “In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.” The explorer met the “Indians,” “discovered” America, and brought back gold. He was a hero, the father of the great “New World.” As Anderson understood it, Columbus was courageous. During Remle’s recitation of Columbus’ acts, one man at the committee hearing screamed, threw his hands up, and left the room. “That’s insulting! I’ve had it!” As the meeting adjourned, the same man cornered Remle in the council chambers and told him he should “get some education” and that his comments about Columbus were derogatory to Italians.

“When you question the prevailing narrative, people have this angry reaction,” Remle tells me. “For me, personally, when I started learning these histories that are swept under the rug and not taught, I was kind of pissed. I felt lied to. Maybe bringing the Native history in will open peoples’ eyes that there is another narrative out there.” In the past year, people in Seattle, and in Wash-

ington at large, have also started to realize that, maybe, the stories they’ve heard about the places we live and the people that came before us aren’t the whole picture. Seattle’s historic passage of Indigenous Peoples’ Day was a celebrated international victory, making headlines in Europe and Canada—but it was met with some skepticism. A recurring question: Isn’t Columbus Day a trivial holiday anyways? Who cares? If it actually was trivial, the passage of Indigenous Peoples’ Day probably wouldn’t have set off the wave of outraged and openly racist Internet comments, radio talk, and media coverage that it did. According to Tulalip Senator John McCoy, part of America’s difficulty with confronting its colonial history is that it’s ugly. Listening to indigenous stories is hard for non-Natives. “A lot of the things that have happened to tribes, since European contact to today, are not pleasant,” McCoy says. “A lot of history books only talk about how the ‘bad’ Indians fought the settlers trying to tame the Wild West. But the Indians had to protect their land, their resources, because these folks were actually invaders. They weren’t explorers or pioneers, they were invading a country, a territory. Granted, there are some tribes that didn’t do nice things. But I always say that when you teach history, you have to teach the good, the bad, and the ugly.” In 2005, McCoy, a member of the Tulalip tribe and the only Native in the Washington state senate, sponsored a bill mandating that Native history be taught in public schools. To his dismay, at the last minute, the legal language was changed from “mandatory” to “encouraged.” It took him 10 years of educating his fellow senators to muster the votes for a mandatory tribal-history bill—which he finally achieved this March in the landmark SB5433 (passed 42-7), making Washington the only state in the union besides Montana to require such instruction. “I have a fellow Democrat, I won’t say who, that always fought me over tribal sovereignty,” McCoy says. “I got up to give my floor speech, and about a third of the way through, because he didn’t sit far from me, I actually heard him say ‘Oh, now I understand.’ ” In addition to authoring legislation, McCoy also helped develop “Since Time Immemorial,” a free tribal-history curriculum with the help of Denny Hurtado, the now-retired director of Indian Education for the Washington State Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction. Together, McCoy and Hurtado, who is of the Skokomish people, cover everything from the Coast Salish economies and governance systems before European contact and the early Indian boarding schools that forced cultural assimilation on tribal youth, through treaty-making, treaty-breaking, tribal sovereignty, and Indian relocation, all the way up to today’s urban Native issues, including indigenous activists’ increasingly vital role in environmental actions. In teaching Native history, the hope is that students will start to understand and recognize that there is also a Native present, that indigenous people aren’t just mythic figures in a fuzzy “pilgrims and Indians” past, but active participants alongside non-Natives in the crucial stories we are still writing—stories that directly affect everybody.

» CONTINUED ON PAGE 22

SEATTLE WEEKLY • AU G UST 5 — 11, 2015

» FROM PAGE 20 The ShellNo protest on May 16 was one of the

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most visible, widely covered environmental actions in the Pacific Northwest in decades, a feat for an area that’s long characterized itself as an aspiring ecotopia. The vivid pictures of the colorful kayaks rowing out to protest the imposing Shell Polar Pioneer rig set to drill in the Arctic captured the imagination of people from around the world who read headlines about “The Paddle in Seattle.” But it was the juxtaposition of the assembled, mostly white environmental groups with the fleet of traditional wooden canoes of the Lummi and Duwamish that cut the most striking image—a powerful flotilla led by the area’s original inhabitants. “That’s the way it should go,” Duwamish Tribal Chair Cecile Hansen says. “If [environmental activists] are going to involve the Natives, they should be in the forefront.” Idle No More, the indigenous activist organization that led the flotilla, gave the ShellNo action the spiritual weight that made it so resonant. Indigenous involvement reframed the discussion from an abstract issue about climate change to a concrete discussion that indigenous people have been trying to start for 500 years: the ongoing pattern of colonization and destruction committed in the name of resource extraction. To Idle No More’s Washington state director Sweetwater Nannauck, the Tlingit/ Haida/Tsimshian woman who organized the ShellNo action, it’s not a coincidence that Shell’s oil rig perched in the sacred Salish Sea was called “the Polar Pioneer.” “I was like, really?” she says, laughing quietly. “That’s what they named it? It continues the same old thing—another ship has come in. So that’s why I say it’s important for us to heal that, my work is as a healer. We’re both active participants in healing, the colonized and the colonizers too. The thing people are starting to see is, the original colonizers have become colonized— now it’s corporate colonization.” Idle No More has reinvigorated the fight for climate justice in the state by making this very obvious but historically overlooked connection— environmentalists and indigenous activists are essentially fighting the same fight. The problem is that environmentalists have long tokenized Natives in the discussion, painting them as mystical Earth people—archetypal symbols from an imagined past—rather than actively engaging with them as people who exist in the present. Examples abound, from the famous 1970s “Keep America Beautiful” PSA featuring the iconic “crying Indian” (who was portrayed by an Italian actor) to the frequent citation of a moving environmental speech given by Chief Seattle in 1854: a speech that, oddly enough, references trains that wouldn’t be built until years later—perhaps because it was actually written in 1971 by a screenwriter from Texas. “A lot of the times, these organizations think allyship means ‘We’re going to organize everything, and we want you to send a couple of Natives to sing and dance and drum for us,’ ” Nannauck says. “That’s tokenism. I’m about authentically led Native action—we organize it. In the workshops I teach—which a lot of organizers like 350 Seattle, Rising Tide, Greenpeace, and Raging Grannies that participated in ShellNo have taken from me—I teach how to work with Native people, the history of colonization, and how that colonization

continues to affect us today.” “It was always very iffy for tribes to work with environmental organizations because these organizations were arrogant,” says Annette Klapstein, who participated in the ShellNo flotilla as part of the Seattle Raging Grannies. “They would tell tribes what to do, which didn’t go over very well. This new alliance, based on respect and understanding, is so important because these different groups’ goals are much the same, and we are so much more powerful together.” In late October when the state held a hearing in Olympia to discuss the the impact that oil transport through the Northwest might have, Nannauck contacted the Nisqually, whose land would be most impacted, and organized a rally at the Capitol. After taking her Idle No More education workshops, in which Nannauck teaches nonNative activists how to respectfully work alongside Natives, organizers from the local environmental groups knew to contact the tribes first, asking if Idle No More had organized anything and if they could participate, rather than vice versa. The event was lead with Native prayer and drumming that Nannauck and the tribes organized themselves, and Natives made the first testimonies at the rally, which eventually swelled to 350 people. “I told Sweetwater this later,” Remle says. “ShellNo was one of the first actions of that size where I saw mainstream environmentalists take a back seat and let canoes and local tribes take the lead. It was pretty amazing to see.” The most important component of Nannauck’s Idle No More workshops is communicating why indigenous activism differs from non-Native activism. Yes, both are fighting for the same goal, but there is a discernible difference in approach. Nannauck doesn’t even call what she does “activism.” Nor does Remle. They call it “protecting the sacred.” The ShellNo story wasn’t the typical angry diatribe pointed at distant oil corporations. As Nannauck puts it, the story that the ShellNo action told was about humanity’s obligation to protect the sacred Salish Sea. “The work I’m doing is educating both Natives and non-Natives about how the cultural and spiritual work has much more of an impact, not only on the Earth, but because we need to heal ourselves,” Nannauck says. “What people need to understand is that the Earth is just a reflection of us, and that what we do to the Earth, we do to ourselves too. I try to educate them about our traditional ways and how that spiritual foundation is what motivates us.” Nannauck ends her workshops by asking participants about their ancestors. Where did they come from? Did they benefit from the land grabs when they came to America? Were they also oppressed? If you go far back, were they colonized too? These are questions and stories nonNative audiences often haven’t considered. It’s hard to consider stories you didn’t know existed. “A lot of people start crying because they can feel it,” Nannauck says. “Acknowledging that historical trauma, it’s kind of like a spiritual revival. It’s starting in the Northwest. I believe that’s what’s going on right now. I feel like what we’re doing here, what we’re starting here, could be replicated in other places. It’s not all negative—it’s about healing. It’s about the power of our spirit and our connection.” E

“ShellNo was one of the first actions where I saw environmentalists take a back seat and let local tribes take the lead.”

ksears@seattleweekly.com

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This town is crazy for hops. The India Pale Ale (IPA) style, which typically features heavy hops, is the most popular style of craft beer across the country. But here in Seattle, it seems like our love of IPAs is on a whole different level. And why not? After all, 75 percent of the country’s hop production comes from Washington state, out east of the Cascades in Yakima. In addition to a seemingly endless selection of locally brewed IPAs, Seattle is a large enough market to attract amazing IPAs from out-of-state brewers, like

Boneyard Brewing in Bend, Ore. Boneyards RPM IPA has become a favorite of many beer geeks around town (including myself ). There is certainly no shortage of quality Seattle-brewed IPAs, including Lucille IPA from Georgetown Brewing Company. This IPA gets its floral, citrusy quality from a mix of five different types of hops. You are almost certainly familiar with Georgetown’s popular Manny’s Pale Ale, but if you have not tried Lucille, I’d suggest hopping down to the brewery in Georgetown to snag a growler to bring home. Some of the best IPAs in town are brewed at Elysian Brewing. For a long time, the brewery’s Immortal IPA was the only IPA it offered with any regularity. But as the style continued to grow in popularity, Elysian experimented with various IPA recipes, some of which proved to be very popular. Beers like Space Dust IPA and Dayglow IPA feature a mix of modern hop varieties, like Mosaic and Citra, that stress flavor over bitterness. Steve Luke was the brewer at Elysian who came up with the recipes for these two Elysian IPAs, along with just a few others. Luke says, “I counted 52 different IPA recipes I had crafted over the last four-plus years with them (Elysian).

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They are definitely a favorite style of mine to brew and drink, and while some people within the industry have become tired and uninspired by the style, I think there’s always a place for new IPAs when they have a well thought-out flavor profile, and that profile is executed accordingly.” Luke recently left Elysian and has been planning his own brewery for some time now. Later this year, he expects to open Cloudburst Brewing just a few blocks north of Pike Place Market. You can wager a bet that Luke will be brewing just a few new IPAs at Cloudburst. He explains, “IPAs will certainly be a focal style at Cloudburst. However, we won’t have your typical IPA flagship or IPA series; most recipes will be brewed once or twice, then [possibly] never seen again. We hope that consumers will understand and appreciate our enthusiasm for always experimenting and crafting new IPA recipes, and that it will keep them coming back to see what new IPA is on tap.” When it comes to his favorite types of IPAs, Luke has found a winning model. I think the best IPAs in the city certainly have a bright, citrusy and tropical flavor and aroma profile that keeps their harshness or bitterness in check, but still finish crisp and attenuated. I’ll drink to that.

A Neighborhood Institution One thing that makes Seattle unique as a beer city is the number of breweries here that are small and locally focused. Many are draft-only

breweries with small brewing systems that can barely keep up with the demand from the people coming in the door. Sure, breweries like Redhook and Pyramid have distribution footprints across the country. But the overwhelming majority of breweries here don’t distribute very far outside of the Northwest, and some don’t distribute outside a single neighborhood. Every neighborhood in Seattle deserves a small brewery as part of the community, and each year we get closer to filling out the map. Many neighborhoods have multiple breweries, with Ballard currently leading the way with 10 of various sizes for residents to choose from. But consider Beacon Hill, which has never before had a brewery. That will change later this year, as Perihelion Brewery is planning to open sometime this fall. With a location right across from the Beacon Hill Light Rail Station, owner, head brewer and long-time resident Les McAuliffe is excited for Perihelion to become a part of the neighborhood. He says, “To do it here, it just couldn’t be better. It’s really exciting. Having lived here for so many years and seeing the changes, it’s just huge to be a part of what’s going on. People are so supportive and excited about having this here. The interest spans all demographics in this neighborhood.” Standard Brewing in the Central District is another brewery that locals have embraced. Since opening in 2013, the brewery has been so popular that owner Justin Gerardy has struggled to maintain beer flowing out of all of the taps in the tasting room. Gerardy recently announced that

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he would be expanding the brewery in its current location by moving into the rest of the building it already occupies. He had to compromise on size to make it happen, but staying in the neighborhood was his number-one priority.

What’s Next?

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What does the future of Seattle brewing hold? With so much competition and similar breweries around the city, it is going to take some creativity for breweries to get noticed outside of their neighborhoods. Holy Mountain Brewing in Inter-

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SEATTLE WEEKLY • AUGU ST 5 — 11, 2015

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bay is one example of how to get some attention. Holy Mountain doesn’t offer the standard lineup of IPA, Pale Ale, Brown Ale, or Porter that you will find at many breweries. Rather, the brewery offers barrel-aged beers, farmhouse ales, sours, and lagers, setting it apart from the average brewery. Beer drinkers from all around the city are flocking to the taproom to find out what is pouring from the constantly changing selection. Another area that holds room for improvement is lagers. While a few great lagers are being produced in Seattle, like Maritime Old Seattle Lager and Georgetown Roger’s Pilsner, there is only one brewery that you could say focuses on lagers: Gordon Biersch in Pacific Place. Brewmaster Kevin Davey is making the best lagers in Seattle, and lager drinkers are thankful. Luckily, Seattle also has distribution from Chuckanut Brewery in Bellingham and Orlison Brewing in the Spokane area, both of which make fantastic lagers. With a longer production time and less room for error in the brewing process, lagers are a challenge for many breweries to produce. But to take the next step in the evolution of Seattle as a beer city, I hope that consumers and brewers alike will take to lagers as they have IPAs. Geoff Kaiser enjoys researching the Seattle beer scene. You can visit his website at http://seattlebeernews.com.

JOSE TRUJILLO

BEST OF SEATTLE

Reader Poll 2015

The Top Ten

The most votes went to . . . 1. Elliott Bay Book Company (Best Bookstore) s we do every year, Seattle Weekly asked you, our 2. Top Pot Donuts (Best Donut) readers, to tell us what you like for this, our annual 3. Cinerama (Best Cinema) Best of Seattle issue. What’s different this year is 4. Theo Chocolates (Best Chocolatier) that we decided to let your votes determine the subjects of 5. Molly Moon’s (Best Ice Cream) the stories in the pages that follow. Instead of picking their own favorites, our writers took their cues from you. There was 6. Five Point Cafe (Best 24-Hour Eats) risk in embracing this kind of populism, sure, but we decided 7. Seattle International Film Festival to trust you. And after more than 60,000 votes, you came (Best Festival) through. In the pages that follow, you’ll read about the places, 8. REI (Best Outdoor Store) people, and businesses that truly are among the best this city 9. Alki Beach (Best Beach) has to offer. If you disagree—well, there’s always next year. 10. Frye Art Museum (Best Museum)

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BEST NEW RESTAURANT Lark Diners were practically salivating with anticipation as Lark chef John Sundstrom prepared to open his new and expanded location on Capitol Hill last winter. As we wrote back in March, “From the moment you walk into the soaring space . . . you know you’re in for something special.” Indeed Sundstrom’s laser-like focus on every element of a plate is quite extraordinary. The menu is contemporary Pacific Northwest in tone, serving dishes like lamb, beef, sweetbreads, and duck in thoughtful preparations. The pasta here too is exceptional, a favorite the agnolotti with smoked ricotta, rosemary, dates, and brown butter. 952 E. Seneca St., 323-5275, larkseattle.com Runner-Up: Stateside

Food & Drink

by Alana Al-Hatlani, Mark Baumgarten, Gavin Borchert, Zach Geballe, Daniel Person, Nicole Sprinkle, and Jake Uitti

BEST KID-FRIENDLY RESTAURANT Tutta Bella Tutta Bella shows how effortless being kid-friendly can be. Forget kids’ menus (they don’t have them), play areas (who can afford the space in Seattle?), and waiters dressed like pirates or train conductors (we’ve seen it!). All you really need is food the whole family can enjoy, an atmosphere laid-back enough that a crying kid won’t be a huge embarrassment, and a big-ass wood-fired oven to distract the kiddos when they get bored. That the food is actually enjoyable for the people paying the bill is a huge plus. Another bonus? They have Wikki Stix. If you don’t know what those are, we question why you’re even reading this blurb. Multiple locations, tuttabella.com Runner-Up: Skillet Diner

BEST BBQ Jack’s BBQ In a city where barbecue joints don’t tend to stick to regional styles, Jack’s large, no-frills space stands out as a Central Texan tribute, on a lonely strip of Airport Way in Georgetown. The key differentiator is its smoked meats (brisket, pork ribs, sausage, pulled pork, half chicken) with a salt-and-pepper dry rub and no sauce (unless requested). The meats come in a variety of combos, or can be ordered a la carte. Pickles and white bread come with everything, but you’ll want to add sides like Texas Caviar (black-eyed-pea salad), ranch beans, and remoulade cole slaw, among others. Save room for 1996 Texas State Fair Champion Pecan Pie. 3924 Airport Way S., 467-4038; jacksbbq.com Runner-Up: Bitterroot

SEATTLE WEEKLY • AUGU ST 5 — 11, 2015

BEST MEXICAN Poquitos All tile and curly wrought iron, Poquitos does not possess the homey feel one might expect from a restaurant serving the city’s best Mexican food. The best judge, though, of what’s really important about a Mexican restaurant is the food, and on a recent visit with an El Paso native, hugely picky about his cuisine, we put it to the test. Our guest pronounced the pork carnitas “pretty good,” which counts as a manic, ecstatic rave, and we both went ape over the flan: rich, dense, uncommonly creamy, served with pistachio brittle and thick whipped cream. 1000 E. Pike St., 453-4216, vivapoquitos.com Runner-Up: El Camion

BEST ITALIAN The Pink Door Only a bubblegum-pink door marks this restaurant’s entrance. Delivering superb Italian cuisine with dishes like Dungeness crab risotto or housemade lasagna, what The Pink Door has perfected is the art of the meal. Rosy lighting sets a romantic aura for the journey down the steep flight of stairs into the dining room. Inside, a fortune teller predicts diners’ futures while a trapeze act dangles above. Outside, a patio allows diners to eat with Puget Sound as the backdrop—all part of the whimsy that sets this Italian spot apart. 1919 Post Alley, 443-3241, thepinkdoor.net Runner-Up: Machiavelli BEST DIM SUM Din Tai Fung Dim sum was a rather ho-hum affair in the Seattle area until this much-lauded Taiwanese chain came to Bellevue Square Mall in 2010, followed by another outpost at University Village at the very end of 2013. Both locations draw huge weekend crowds, in particular for their xiaolongbao (soup dumplings) that come with a basic pork filling. But dim sum is all about

elegant menu that changes with the seasons (beet gnocchi with pesto and walnut chevre or Vietnamese rice crepes with baby bok choy, marinated tofu, carrot-raisin salad, curry sauce, and peanuts.) The pizzas also get accolades, with toppings like squash blossoms and roasted pineapple. Desserts are surprisingly delicious too. Who would guess that their vegan coconut cake is one of the best in town? 2901 E. Madison St., 325-9100, cafeflora.com Runner-Up: Wayward Vegan Cafe

Jack’s BBQ variety, so no need to stick with just these—they have plenty of other offerings including dumplings, noodles, buns, rice cakes, and soups. And while you’re pining for your table, watch workers make the dumplings through a window. University Village Shopping Center, 2621 N.E. 46th St., 525-0958; Lincoln Square, 700 Bellevue Way N.E. #280, Bellevue, 425-698-1095. dintaifungusa.com Runner-Up: Jade Garden

BEST RAMEN Samurai Noodle This popular ramen house offers a rich menu of superior savory broth and noodle combinations (including pork, chicken, and miso-based soups). Try a dipping ramen here: cold-rinsed noodles with a side of broth or any of dozens of toppings, like “hell-fire” sauce or naruto, a cured fish slice that’s white with a pink swirl in the middle that pays homage to the whirlpools off the coast of Naruto, Japan. Multiple locations, samurainoodle.com Runner-Up: Boom Noodle BEST THAI Araya’s Place We know what you’re thinking. There’s no such thing as a gourmet all-you-can-eat Thai buffet anywhere. Enter Araya’s Place on University Way, which boasts a robust 11:30 a.m.–3 p.m. (vegan) buffet complete with crispy spring rolls, luscious pad thai, a crisp salad bar, and more for $10.99. And this is no sad display. The peanut sauce is free from errant debris, the spring rolls are fresh, and the pad thai is steaming. And if you’re not in the mood for its buffet, Araya’s also has a full menu to choose from. We suggest the rich, brown-gravy rad na with steamed vegetables and toothsome wide rice noodles ($10.95). 5240 University Way N.E., 524-4332, arayasplace.com Runner-Up: Thai Tom

BEST SUSHI Momiji At first you might miss this spot, marked only with a small Japanese maple leaf on the front, in an inconspicuous building on 12th Avenue, neighboring Eltana. This Capitol Hill favorite has a penchant for James Bond-themed rolls, beautiful kaiseki dishes, and a line out the door at 7 p.m. on any given night, which betrays its secrecy. Its bestkept secret, though, is the Japanese garden in the back. On a drizzly date night with some miso soup and sashimi omakase (chef ’s choice), nuzzled up to the window of the garden, it can’t be beat. 1522 12th Ave., 457-4068, momijiseattle.com Runner-Up: Mashiko BEST SEAFOOD The Walrus and the Carpenter Oddly, Seattle’s oyster-bar culture didn’t really take off until the past few years, and credit frequently goes to Renee Erickson’s The Walrus and the Carpenter for kicking it off in a big way. (Check out our Q&A with Erickson, voted Best Chef, on page 31.) At the tiny Ballard Avenue spot that once housed a marine-supply shop, constantly revolving obscure local oysters on the half-shell marry ingeniously with Erickson’s nofrills, casual interpretation of French food with Pacific Northwest ingredients. Perhaps the first place in town to command two-hour waits, it’s officially become a Seattle institution. 4739 Ballard Ave. N.W., 395-9227, thewalrusbar.com Runner-Up: Salty’s on Alki BEST VEGETARIAN Café Flora As more vegetarian and vegan options populate Seattle’s dining scene, Café Flora in sleepy Madison Valley continues to charm. Regulars tout items like yam fries and avocado toast, as well as an

BEST PIZZA Pagliacci Let’s talk about the Agog Primo. You got your mushrooms from Ostrom’s down by Olympia; you got your artisanal goat cheese up from Sonoma, Calif.; then there are the kalamata olives, the fontina, the mozzarella, the parsley. And the roasted garlic. You can’t forget about the garlic. Garlic makes the Agog Primo. Plus the other stuff. That goat cheese is from the first goat-cheese maker in the U.S. Goat cheese before it was goat cheese. This is perfection in a pizza. 24 locations, with famously amazing delivery. pagliacci.com. Runner-Up: Serious Pie BEST HOT DOG Po Dog So the winner of this category is Po Dog. Which is awkward because Po Dog closed in early July, after our polling opened. No problem, we thought. We’ll just give the award to the runnerup, dear-to-our-heart Cyber Dogs. No dice: It closed on July 1. Well, shit. Where are you supposed to get a hot dog in this town? In our quest for a more precious duck egg or smoother foie gras, did we forget about the humble street meat? Don’t freak out yet. You can still drunk-maul a dog outside Chop Suey, and Occidental by the stadiums is rife with options. Or if you find yourself in Ballard, there’s always Dante’s Inferno Dog, which received our Best of Seattle staff pick in 2012 and which the Reader Poll this year placed third—which is to say, first. Outside King’s Hardware, 5225 Ballard Ave. N.W., 11 p.m.– 2 a.m. Fri.–Sat. 283-DOGS, dantesinfernodogs.com BEST FOOD CART No Bones About It Food trucks with vegan fare feel oxymoronic; we tend to associate the former with pork-filled tacos, heaping plates of barbecue, and other carnivorous delights. But perhaps it should come as no surprise that in Seattle a vegan food truck would take first place among our readers. Based in Ballard, No Bones About It can most often be found parked in front of the neighborhood’s breweries, as well as at places like Chuck’s Hop Shop. Conversely, the truck can be found at Trupanion pet insurance, keeping with the owners’ commitment to animalwelfare groups. A portion of proceeds of its sales for bites like crispy cauliflower wings and coconut

buffalo seitan wraps go to nonprofits such as the Seattle Animal Shelter and the Seattle Humane Society. So hold the cheese and feel good about supporting cuddly critters. Nobonestruck.com Runner-Up: Marination Mobile

BEST ICE CREAM Molly Moon’s While to Molly Moon’s adoring legions of fans, its secret is no secret at all—dishing up consistently fantastic ice cream—the shop has always had an environmental and social ethic that makes it a particularly fitting cornerstone of Seattle commerce. To cite just a few examples: The company sources ingredients locally, and organically if possible. Founder and CEO Molly Moon Neitzel began offering paid sick leave before the city began requiring it. And she has always had an optimistic word to share about Seattle’s minimum-wage increase, committing to upping the company minimum wage to $15 an hour ahead of schedule. There are many reasons to feel guilty about eating ice cream. But Molly Moon’s cuts down on them considerably. Multiple locations, mollymoonicecream.com Runner-Up: Full Tilt BEST PATIO Salty’s on Alki Although Seattle is surrounded by water, there actually aren’t as many restaurants with outdoor seating and a view as one would expect. But over at Alki Beach in West Seattle, Salty’s is a seafood destination to flock to for Elliott Bay and Seattleskyline eye candy, particularly in summer when its waterfront patio comes alive. While it’s a tourist favorite, locals love it too, as evidenced by its win here. From brunch to happy hour to dinner, these coveted seats let you enjoy the full glory of a perfect Seattle August as you dine on items like

blackened-salmon Caesar salad, or Manila clams with hazelnut pesto and crispy pork belly. 1936 Harbor Ave. S.W., 937-1600, saltys.com Runner-Up: Ray’s Boathouse

BEST BRUNCH Wayward Vegan Cafe You might think it’d be hard to get a strong customer base if your restaurant name has the word “vegan” in it, but Wayward Vegan Café has tons of regulars and all the treats to entice diners, including a brunch with dozens of options fit for the choosiest. Your stomach will growl at the sight of Belgian-style waffles ($9.50) with fried “chiggen” (a breaded faux-chicken signature dish) or the biscuit breakfast with “cheezy” Mexicanspiced tofu with hash browns and a side of cilantro-lime sour cream ($9). WVC has all the regular comforts, just with a meatless twist. 801 N.E. 65th St., 524-0204, waywardvegancafe.com Runner-Up: Portage Bay Cafe BEST COFFEE HOUSE & BEST COFFEE ROASTER Caffe Vita When Seattle Weekly moved to Pioneer Square, we became a quick study in what the funky spaces around Occidental Park had to offer, and set about firming up our International District geography. So it took us longer than it should have to discover what’s become one of our favorite near-the-office spot: The Caffe Vita in the no-man’s-land that is Prefontaine and Washington. The coffee is what you expect—fantastic—but the smart beer choices and wood-fired pizza oven operated by Pizza Napolitano make this corner space a gem. Multiple locations, 652-8331, caffevita.com Runners-Up: Vivace (house), Lighthouse Roasters (roaster)

The Walrus and the Carpenter BEST DONUT Top Pot Donuts Top Pot has grown tremendously since its creation in 2002, and while it’s no Voodoo Doughnut, it is Seattle’s most beloved. Bury your face in a soft, fluffy feather boa: a white cake doughnut topped with pink frosting and feathered in coconut shavings. Pair this with a rich, woody cup of cold brew. For best results, come in early and nab a doughnut while it’s still warm and fresh. 2124 Fifth Ave., 728-1966, and other locations, toppotdoughnuts.com Runner-Up: Mighty-O Donuts

BEST BLOODY MARY Sam’s Tavern A bloody mary absolutely qualifies as a meal, and Sam’s “Bakon Bloody Masterpiece” is a meal and a half. It’s never short on accompaniments, with celery, pickles, pickled asparagus, cheese cubes, li’l smokies, and a mini-burger on a stick. Located on the PikePine corridor, Sam’s is a packed, boozy bar by night and a quaint burger spot by day. Bring your brunch cult to worship at its Bloody Mary altar. 1024 E. Pike St., 397-3344, samstavernseattle.com Runner-Up: Hattie’s Hat

» CONTINUED ON PAGE 30

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» FROM PAGE 29 BEST DISTILLERY Sun Liquors Its union of distillery and bar goes a long way in explaining why Sun Liquor earned this honor. While other local distilleries rely on area bars to utilize and promote their spirits, Sun Liquor is able to seamlessly integrate them into their two Capitol Hill locations, putting fan favorites like Hedge Trimmer and Gun Club (both gins) to use in a broad range of cocktails. Seeing the staff at work also inspires legions of would-be home bartenders to play around with their own concoctions. 607 Summit Ave. E, 860-1130; 512 E. Pike St., 720 1600, sunliquor.com Runner-Up: Woodinville Distillery BEST BREWERY Georgetown Brewing Company There are really two Georgetown Brewing Companies, and they’re both great. The first is the ubiquitous one, the one that ensures that even the skimpiest Seattle beer lists have a cool, crisp Manny’s on tap for when all else fails. The other Georgetown is found in the tap room on Denver Avenue South. There you’ll find a full roster of small-batch brews that exemplify Georgetown’s craft-beer bona fides. Among the favorites: the Lovely Reida, an imperial IPA boasting, gulp, 100 IBUs. Georgetown Brewing Company. 5200 Denver Ave. S., 766-8055, georgetownbeer.com. Monday–Friday. Runner-Up: Fremont Brewing BEST BAR Twilight Exit Some of us are old enough to remember when the Twilight was on Madison, with playing cards stuck to the ceiling, pickled eggs behind the bar, and stories of Jimi Hendrix and his family circulating the air. Well, the bar has since moved to Cherry Street and gotten gussied up, and it’s somehow more welcoming. With its darkened wood booths and arcade-style video games, the Central District gem has Seattle history permeating through its refurbished walls. 2514 E. Cherry St., 324-7462, twilightexit.com Runner-Up: Montana BEST NEW BAR Damn the Weather Since its opening, Damn the Weather has put the focus on the bar—and given the prodigious talent behind said bar, that’s proven to be a wise choice. The specialty cocktails, well-chosen and creative, explore a range of spirits not often seen on most lists. Even more, though, Damn the Weather aims to help reclaim Seattle’s oldest neighborhood and move it into the modern day. 116 First Ave. S., 946-1283, damntheweather.com Runner-Up: Hotel Albatross BEST HAPPY HOUR Toulouse Petit If you’re someone who finds a lot of choices overwhelming, the Toulouse Petit happy hour is not for you: Boasting dozens of options, most with a Cajun bent, the menu demands some serious scrutiny. Yet within that menu are a whole host of gems, from excellent charcuterie to fried-chicken gumbo to something as simple as a roasted beet salad. It’s a menu that rewards exploration and return visits, and that’s surely not an accident. 601 Queen Anne Ave. N., 432-9069, toulousepetit.com Runner-Up: The Bridge BEST SPORTS BAR The Westy Nobody likes the loud, in-your-face sports fan who won’t shut up. This is why Westy is great:

There’s something tonally understated about the place; a sense that, yes, sports are great, but deepseated aggression is not. In an era when Seattle sports seem to be more and more important, it’s good to know that Westy has its sports head on straight. Oh, and they have whiskey and pints of local beer too. 7908 35th Ave. S.W., 937-8977, thewestyseattle.com Runner-Up: 95 Slide

BEST LGBTQ BAR Pony Dark, wood-clad, and complete with a stripper pole stuck in the bar top, this place just might have more fun than any other in town. The phrase “If these walls could talk” comes to mind. And if they could, many might blush at their midnight monologues. What’s great, too, is that Pony is more than a bar; it’s a place where people can feel safe in a time when that’s sometimes hard to find. 1221 E. Madison St., 324-2854, ponyseattle.com Runner-Up: Wildrose BEST BARTENDER Jack at Pony An Emerald City DJ and the brain behind many of Pony’s themed events, including Hero Worship—a night honoring pop idols of the underground—this electric-haired bartender with a kind face and a trim beard was, as lore would have it, also an extra in the video for the B-52s’ “Love Shack.” Runner-Up: Brandon at The Bridge BEST MARIJUANA PRODUCT Juju Joint A black cigarette-sized cylinder with silver lettering and a cherry that glows when you take a pull, the Juju Joint is the most fashionable marijuana device on the market. That counts for something as a new, more commercial kind of marijuana lifestyle emerges in the legal markets where the product is sold (usually for around $60 at recreational shops). The no-fuss vaporizer promises 150 pulls—though reports from consumers vary—as well as a more mellow, slow-onset high. Available in Seattle at Uncle Ike’s, Praxa, Ocean Greens, Cannabis City, and Ganja Goddess. Runner-Up: Goodship Cookies BEST RECREATIONAL STORE Uncle Ike’s Pot Shop It’s been a while since a business has been able to hold down the Northeast corner of 23rd Avenue and Union Street in Seattle’s Central District, but Uncle Ike’s Pot Shop appears to be shaking the curse of that particular spot with a robust business in legal marijuana. Since opening last September, Ike’s has delivered a refined buying experience that recalls the Apple store more than the back alley. And they have a rotating daily food-truck schedule. What more could you want? 2310 E. Union St., 844-420-4537, uncleikespotshop.com Runner-Up: Dockside Cannabis BEST STRAIN Girl Scout Cookies The name says sweet and innocent, but this Bay Area strain means business. Originated by the famed Cookie Family, and likely bootlegged by the guy who grew what you’re smoking, Girl Scout Cookies blends OG Kush and Durban Poison to create a high that stimulates the mind and numbs the body. Medicinal users report success in battling depression, while the recreational crowd who can handle it is able to tap into a powerful euphoria. Some say it tastes like Thin Mints. But they’re probably just high. Runner-Up: Blue Dream

enee Erickson is a James Beard Award-winning finalist many times over, and easily one of Seattle’s most inventive pioneering chefs, helping to set an incredibly high standard for her peers. The closure of her Boat Street Cafe caused much hand-wringing earlier this year, but Erickson has promised that her footprint will not diminish. With two perpetually packed restaurants—The Walrus and the Carpenter and The Whale Wins—and Barnacle, an Italian aperitivo bar, she continues to dedicate herself to her particular casual style of French food underpinned by a Pacific Northwest ethos. The Winner of our Reader Poll for Best Chef, Erickson took time out of her busy travels in Europe to talk to us about the state of Seattle dining and what she’s cooking up while abroad.

BEST WINERY BEST CHEF

SW: I still remember seeing the splashy article in The New York Times Food & Dining section on Seattle’s restaurant scene in 2011. The main picture was of a server at The Walrus and the Carpenter. Some might argue that that article was a turning point for Seattle’s restaurant scene—that we were “officially” hot. Do you think that was indeed Seattle’s moment?

Erickson: It was really nice to be mentioned in that article, especially alongside Revel and the Willows Inn, but I am not sure that Seattle is “hot,” at least not in the way other American cities like New York, San Francisco, or Chicago are. Since then, so many new restaurants have opened, and Ethan Stowell and Tom Douglas continue empire-building. Do you see yourself going down that path, now that you’re adding new restaurants to your quartet?

Ethan and Tom have done a really great job of creating diverse and exciting restaurants—pizza

to fish ’n’ chips to burgers to tacos to upscale Italian to New American bistros to Tibetan dumplings and ramen. They are exploring new ideas, expressing themselves, and growing their businesses. More power to them! At the same time, plenty of new chefs have opened great restaurants. Having both room to start new restaurants and to grow existing restaurants feels healthy and vibrant to us. Are we opening too many restaurants for our own good, or do you think the city’s massive expansion can sustain this capacity?

Doing the right thing with the right people at the right time and in the right place is a challenge to restaurant owners everywhere—Seattle is no exception. What about the state of reservations? Many places you need to book at least a week in advance for weekends, and this seems to have happened just over the past six months. Is this a good thing for our restaurant scene?

Our restaurants, like most, have lulls before 6 p.m. and after 9 p.m. A last-minute 7 p.m. reservation or walk-in on a Friday or Saturday night is always going to be tough, especially for larger groups. We reserve about half the dining room at Whale. The other half is held for walk-ins. The seasonal patio is not reserved at all. Reservations between 6 and 8 p.m. have always been popular and continue to be so, especially on Fridays and Saturdays. We still are able to accommodate walk-ins, and we do everything possible to seat our regulars. I don’t imagine restaurants will be rushing folks to accommodate more diners, but in the face of greater demand, perhaps we will see more patios, more satellite bars (like Essex at Delancey or Bar Cotto at Anchovies and Olives), and more restaurants.

View BEST VISUALFrom ARTIST the Kitchen Renee Erickson dishes on the minimum wage, reservations, and her menus. BEST TECH IDEA by Nicole Sprinkle

BEST ARTS IDEA BEST BUSINESS IDEA

You and your partners announced back in the spring that you’d be adding an 18.5 percent surcharge to bills in lieu of tipping servers to help compensate workers, and to make sure that the front and the back of house weren’t paid so unevenly. You also stated that it will help cover benefit costs for your employees. How has that gone over with diners and your staff? Do you feel well-prepared for the hike?

BEST ACTIVISM IDEA BEST POLICY IDEA

OK, let’s get a little less serious. Menu writing: I think there’s a secret menu-writing academy that’s churning out menus for every restaurant. The formula is simple: main ingredient listed first, followed by a rote listing of every other ingredient in the dish, but without an explanation of how the dish is actually built. Where did that trend begin, and why is it the favored way for chefs to present their dishes?

We rarely have room on a menu to spell everything out. Even if we did have room—say a multiple-page menu—we think of a menu as a conversation-starter between our guests and their server or bartender. Along these lines: Is the three-course meal dead (appetizer, entrée, dessert)?

JOSE TRUJILLO

The three-course meal is not dead. What has changed is that diners now have choices beyond this format at many restaurants—which is really great. We are all for more choice. Want a “traditional” three-course meal? Great—we can do

Despite Seattle’s growing restaurant scene and its accolades, we still don’t get as much recognition as Portland. They take home more awards and get more write-ups in national publications. What’s up with that?

We don’t spend a lot of time comparing ourselves to Portland. I have a lot of respect for the cooks that work there, and love all of the great places they’ve created. I am happy with the national press we have received and feel really confident about the food we are creating here in Seattle. The more I travel, the prouder I am of what we do right here at home. Speaking of traveling, let’s talk about where you are right now.

I visited London, Jeremy [Price, business partner] visited Rome, and [we] met up in Cassis [in southern France]. I’ll also be visiting Zurich.

“I feel really confident about the food we are creating in Seattle. The more I travel, the prouder I am of what we do right here at home.” What are you eating?

Currently we are cooking a lot at our rental. It is very warm in Cassis right now, so we are eating a lot of “cool” foods—salads, vegetables, seafood, tartare. Last night we made some pork chops. The other night we ate roast chicken and potatoes. We’re visiting some of our favorite ProvenÇal wine makers too—Clos Ste. Magdeleine here in Cassis and Tempier in Bandol. The wines are beautiful. What’s inspiring you?

Fishermen catching and selling “ugly” fish. It is really great to see people buying and enjoying more uncommon, lower-on-the-food-chain fish. This is something we try to do in our restaurants . . . selling herring or shad instead of yellowfin tuna, for example. All the regional foods—things like bouillabaisse—are really fun. The regional ingredients too. Provence has its own olive oil, salt . . . you name it. Anything you’ve never tasted before?

Dry-cured beef brisket and rump roast from the farmer’s market in Cassis. Really delicious and unique; not quite bresaola, not quite jerky. What’s the best meal you’ve had?

The best dish was ravioli with brown butter stuffed with fresh ricotta and chard at Spring in London. The best meal was at St. John’s in London. We had a mint salad that was ridiculous! So what might we see on your plates soon that is a product of your travels?

We are looking forward to creating our version of the mint salad when we get back to Seattle: mint leaves dressed with mustard vinaigrette, served with grilled bread and fresh chèvre/ricotta. OK, final question! What are you most excited about in the coming year?

I am thrilled about our farm on Whidbey Island. Being able to bring meat, eggs, vegetables, fruits, and nuts from our farm to our restaurants where we can share it with our guests is really exciting. The quality and diversity of the food we will be able to offer is going to improve. E

nsprinkle@seattleweekly.com

SEATTLE WEEKLY • AU G UST 5 — 11, 2015

Nearly all of our customers have been supportive. We were nervous, but the transition has been really smooth. We are proud to have among the best-paid and -supported staffs in the city. We believe that restaurant jobs are incredibly demanding, and that cooks and servers should be cared for like professionals are in other industries. To us this means real health insurance, fair wages, and matching retirement savings accounts. All of our employees now make at least $15 an hour, so we are definitely “well-prepared for the hike.”

that! Want to order a bunch of different things to share? Awesome—we can do that too!

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SEATTLE WEEKLY • AUGU ST 5 — 11, 2015

A MEAL AT THE TIN TABLE + A NIGHT OF DANCING AT CENTURY BALLROOM = THE BEST DATE NIGHT IN SEATTLE!

BEST ACTIVISM Seattle is well IDEA acquainted with Theo, nyone who loves chocolate in

whether you buy the local confectioner’s bars in stores like Metropolitan Market (and even Bartell Drugs) or have taken one of its popular factory tours in Fremont. You might also know that Theo was the first certified organic, fair-trade chocolatier in North America, and that Theo advocates for a better quality of life for cocoa farmers all over the world. What you likely don’t know is that Theo’s owners and founders, Joe Whinney and Debra Music, were formerly married and have a 19-year-old son. In their forthcoming cookbook, Theo Chocolate: Recipes & Sweet Secrets (Sasquatch Books, $24.95), the business partners open up publicly for the first time about their marriage, divorce, and subsequent move from Massachusetts to start Theo. What’s especially interesting about the couple’s personal story is that they moved here together after the divorce, their 1-year-old son in tow. While it might seem puzzling that the business owners would choose to expose themselves so openly, the chapter proves crucial in understanding the underlying ethos of Theo. It was after four years of marriage that Debra and Joe decided to divorce, writing in the book that “they were not meant to be a married couple.” Yet when the opportunity to start Theo—way out in Seattle—was presented to Joe, the first person he called was Debra. He was not going to move unless she too was willing to pack up and head west as well. To the surprise—and in some cases even anger—of her friends and family, she said yes, though it wasn’t, understandably, an easy decision to make as a 41-year-old single mom with a good job in marketing. “There was definitely a mixture of fear and excitement,” she recalls. “But there were reasons why I was ready to move. The thought of a change was important for me in my own life. I’ll never forget this feeling: like the lid had been taken off my life. And I was under this great big Seattle sky and had this entirely new sense of myself. Suddenly there were new possibilities. I didn’t know what they were, but as frightening as that could be, I felt like I could breathe again.”

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One of those possibilities, perhaps even more

shocking than her move with her ex, was Joe’s invitation to join the company—as co-owner no

Joe Whinney and Debra Music now (left) and then. less. She said yes again, though that decision has also come with difficulties. “Our boundaries are very different than a regular working relationship,” she says. “We just aren’t always professional with each other. We work really hard on that, and it’s unbelievably challenging to get that right. The good thing is that there’s this great trust, and a kind of creative friction that comes from it. There are times when he pisses me off because he’s fighting for something I disagree with. One of us will back down. But when it’s really critical for our business, we’ll fight it out until we get to the sweet spot where we agree.” Part of their ability to work things out stems from a mutual understanding of who they are and what their company is born out of. “We both have this North Star and are upstream swimmers. . . . We believe things are possible beyond the path of least resistance.” That bond—as well as the bond of their child—has kept them firmly planted in each other’s lives and helps form the backbone of Theo, a brand that is focused on connecting its customer with the human beings behind the product, farmers in particular. It’s that commitment to transparency that led Debra and Joe to reveal their history. “People are yearning for connections, human stories, whether it’s me or Joe or our head chocolatier or a farmer.” She admits that they are private people by nature, and that in the beginning they wanted to focus on their business vision, not on themselves. “But at the same time we both realized there is a kernel of our story that is emblematic of our idealism. We were two people who loved each other profoundly at one point, so why throw the baby out with the bathwater? What’s salvageable? There’s something about that that is very intrinsic to the business.” Though Debra has been happily remarried for 10 years, she says that she and Joe have an incredibly rich history together—one that each of them details in the intro to the book. Those passages are beautiful, and speak to two incredibly mature and sensitive individuals who rose above the misconceptions of what divorce should look like and instead forged a healthy, vibrant new union as co-parents, business partners, and friends. Knowing what they’ve been through, to my mind, makes their chocolate all the sweeter. E nsprinkle@seattleweekly.com

Theo Chocolate: Recipes & Sweet Secrets goes on sale September 22.

BEST WINERY

Wineline

A short history of Chateau Ste. Michelle, BEST CHEF the winery that put Washington on the map. by Zach Geballe BEST VISUAL ARTIST

n many ways, it’s fitting that Seattle Weekly’s readers chose Chateau Ste. Michelle as our Best Winery. Given Seattle’s influx of newcomers and the Woodinville winery’s prominence in the national and international marketplace, there’s no doubt that for many recent arrivals, it’s the only local winery they’ve heard of. Yet that doesn’t mean they’re wrong: Chateau Ste. Michelle continues to produce both large quantities of everyday wine as well as some of the absolute finest wines made in our state. Also, while it might not be the new darling that somms and snobs are all clamoring to discover, the winery’s influence is vast and indisputable. Would we have the Rhône-focused wines of Cayuse Vineyards or Rotie Cellars if CSM hadn’t already proven that grenache could thrive here, or the explorations of sangiovese by Andrew Will Winery or Leonetti Cellar if not for their Col Solare collaboration? World-class vineyards like Canoe Ridge and Cold Creek and broader sites like the Wahluke Slope and Red Mountain might well be only sparsely planted if not for Chateau Ste. Michelle’s pioneering efforts. Here, a look at some of our winner’s most memorable moments. 1974 The “Judgment of Paris” of 1976 is considered a landmark moment in the history of Napa; it proved that California wine could equal great French wine. Yet Washington wine’s moment came two years earlier, when one of CSM’s rieslings took first prize in a Los Angeles Times blind tasting. That success thrust the winery into the national spotlight and helped create the market for what is now the world’s largest producer of riesling at over two million cases per year. 1976 In addition to putting Washington wine on the national and global stage, Chateau Ste.

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Michelle also helped create the entire Woodinville wine scene. Long before the days of wine tours and a producer tucked into every garage and strip mall, there was CSM, with its immaculately manicured grounds, spacious tasting room, and general epicness. Opened in 1976, the chateau itself has become an iconic part of the wine culture here. 1984 When CSM launched its nowentrenched concert series, it’s doubtful that anyone at the winery knew just how successful it would become. Having hosted Ringo Starr, Tony Bennett, Gladys Knight and the Pips, and dozens more, it’s become a Seattle summer staple and an example of another way in which CSM brings in visitors for much more than wine. 1999 Despite Chateau Ste. Michelle’s deep history with riesling, perhaps its most rewarding moment came in 2001, when the 1999 vintage Cold Creek Chardonnay was named Wine Spectator’s best white wine in the world. Given that the Cold Creek property was one of the earliest plantings under the CSM label, to receive that validation over 25 years later was no doubt a triumph. To date, it’s still the highest honor one of its wines has received in Wine Spectator. 2013 It’s no surprise that CSM wines make a regular appearance at White House dinners. In fact, the 2013 Chardonnay was just poured at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in April. Yet the history of Chateau Ste. Michelle wines in the other Washington goes back quite a bit further: I found menus from Gerald Ford’s presidency in the mid-’70s that included wines from what was then just “Saint Michelle Vintners.” I for one would have loved to try the 1975 Chenin Blanc paired with a “Timbale of Sea Scallops.” E

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Seattle’s Largest Food & Urban Craft Festival Returns Curbside BEST Independent NEW BUILDING

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On Point BEST CHOCOLATIER

Who exactly hangs out at the Five Point at 2 a.m.? BEST WINERY Story and photography by Christopher Zeuthen

he green neon sign facing Cedar Street at the northern reaches of BEST CHEF Belltown sets the scene. “WE CHEAT TOURISTS-N-DRUNKS

SINCE 1929,” it reads, and on this night—or early morning, rather— in late July, tourists and drunks are out in force, along with a healthy allotment of regulars. But the cheating, if there really is any, is out of sight at the Five Point Cafe, voted Best 24-Hour Eats by Seattle Weekly readers. While the vestige of Old Seattle serves drinks and grub any time of day, it is in the witching hour that the true beneficiaries of its 24-hour status fill its booths. So that is when I arrive. I’m almost immediately caught in a whirlwind of conversation with Pamela Kirschle, whose pleasant introduction is cut off mid-sentence by her three daughters, who identify themselves as Big Booty Judy, Big Booty Trudy, and Big Booty Rudy. Nearby, a battalion of Blue Jays fans are all smiles in a booze-fueled postvictory celebration. They’re asking me to wingman and subtly acquaint them with the Big Booty Brigade. Sioux City Pete, the leader of the band Sioux City Pete and the Beggars, sits at the bar, reading a biography of “overrated” band Led Zeppelin. We step outside to talk. He says he isn’t interested in fame or money, and plays for the love of music. He has a distaste for modern DJs and what he views as their lack of musicianship. He points his derision at Capitol Hill, saying “What you end up with is Block Party—three days of non-music.” He extends an invitation to his next show, but warns to bring earplugs. “It’s just feral music,” he says. “It’s not loud just to be loud. It’s loud because it’s what I understand.” Inside, another group of Blue Jays fans sucks me into their booth. They insist that I refer to them as “The Wolfpack,” a homage to the aggressive/blackout style of partying found in The Hangover. They recount for me an earlier encounter with an angry “granola hipster” that resolved with them blockaded on a dead-end street. While The Wolfpack is celebrating, Connor Kowalewski is busy sprinting around the room, the only waiter on staff at the moment. Between pounding Red Bulls and running to-go orders out the door, he takes a break to talk. “What do you like about working here?” I ask him. “I like how fast-paced it is,” he says. “The clientele is edgy, and there’s an unspoken code of conduct that we don’t tolerate bullshit.” “What’s with the bras on the moosehead, then?” “The people who come to The Five Point are willing to make risky decisions.” E

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SEATTLE WEEKLY • AU G UST 5 — 11, 2015

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FRIDAY, AUGUST 14TH | 3pm - 10pm

SSFF 2015 KICK OFF PREVIEW PARTY | 21 + Only

Great State Burger Preview $5 Burger Bar Surprise Musical Performance

All Day Happy Hour in Beer Garden with $ 3 Elysian Supporting the South Lake Union Chamber

SATURDAY, AUGUST 15TH | 12pm - 11pm

SEATTLE’S LARGEST OUTDOOR NIGHT MARKET

3 Blocks of Street Food, Beer Gardens & Local Hand Craft Market

Musical Performances by Manatee Commune, School of Rock, Ryan Caraveo & DJ Set by CUFF LYNX

BEST BOTTLE SHOP

Label BEST 24 HOUR EATERY Envy

These bottles stand out BEST CHOCOLATIER in a land of plenty. by Alana Al-Hatlani

BEST WINERY huck’s Hop Shop calls itself

the “Land of a Thousand Beers” and the Greenwood haunt lives up to that title with hundreds of bottled brews, as well as 30-plus beers on tap. It’s an aficionado’s dream, which is likely why it was voted Best Bottle Shop by our readers. It’s also a great place to behold beer labels that are increasingly as well-crafted as the brews themselves. We asked assistant manager Zach White to share some of the best that the shop has on offer. Elysian’s Dayglow label was a top pick for its eye-catching neon-yellow tiger with laser-beam-shooting eyes. “However you feel about the beer, the bottle catches your eye,” says White. Elysian’s Space Dust IPA label was a favorite too. Who can resist a bottle with an artichokelike green alien sneezing fairy dust? Stone Brewing Company gets high marks for its 2015 w00tstout, feauting the work of comic book artist Dave “The Reverend” Johnson, who rendered the brew’s famed collaborators—Wil Wheaton, Drew Curtis and Greg Koch—as superheroes. “The beer world is tongue and cheek,” said White, pointing to The Brown Note Ale from Against the Grain Brewery as evidence. “Lots of pun, and it gets dirty.” 2001 E. Union St., 538-0743, cd.chucks85th.com E

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SEATTLE WEEKLY • AUGU ST 5 — 11, 2015

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S F

Seattle STREET FOOD Festival

SUNDAY, AUGUST 16TH | 11am - 7pm

URBAN CRAFT MARKET & PERFORMANCES

3 Blocks of Street Food, Beer Gardens & Local Hand Craft Market

Musical Performances by The Maldives, Fauna Shade and Special Guest Performance

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BEST BURGER

Stack Fact So what’s up with BEST BOTTLE SHOP all that bacon? by Alana Al-Hatlani

impossible to visitEATERY Red Mill, our Best BESTt’sBurger HOUR winner, without noticing the

the grill. But exactly how much BESTnearCHOCOLATIER in total is served each day at the burger joint’s

HAPPY HOUR

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leaning towers of bacon stacked high

three locations? Forty to 50 pounds, a spokesperson tells Seattle Weekly. And on some weekends the amount of Daily’s hardwood-smoked, honey-cured pepper bacon cooked for all of your Bacon Deluxes with Cheese reaches 60 pounds. Now you know. 312 N. 67th St., 7836362, and elsewhere, redmillburgers.com E

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This Capitol Hill favorite has an unusual, BEST BURGER seemingly nonsensical name. Here’s what it means. BEST ARTS IDEA by Jason Price

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or some, the proximity of Honey Hole and Babeland, its neighbor two doors down, raises a carnal question. On name alone, it is easy to jump to the conclusions that the block between Boylston and Harvard on Pike Street was some kind of sex-positive strip mall. However, the Honey Hole does not deal in erotic pleasures; instead, it has been bringing us some of the best sandwiches in town for more than 15 years. So, what does “honey hole” mean? A “honey hole” is actually a “hidden gem” or “a really sweet fishing spot”—the meaning that led the original owner, avid fisherman Sean London, to use the name. Honey Hole was to be a sweet spot for Seattleites to have a drink and enjoy some of the best sandwiches in town—and it is. Popular favorites include The Gooch (house-roasted tri-tip, red onions, sharp Cheddar, horseradish mayo, and a side of jus) and the vegetarian Emilio Pestovez (smoked-tomato Field Roast, housemade pesto, goat cheese, sautéed onions, lettuce, and tomato served on a demi-baguette). And if you just want to come in for a drink, you can hang at “the shack,” which is a cross between the tiki bar in my granddad’s basement and that shed in your second cousin’s backyard in Arkansas. And London’s favorite fishing spot? When asked, he simply said, “I’d like to keep that honey hole to myself.” 703 Pike St., 709-1399, thehoneyhole.com E

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Big Ol’ Bowl of: Tots, Fries, O-Rings or Chips

PRIME STEAKS. LEGENDARY SERVICE. Fine Wine • Private Dining • Exceptional Menu

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COURTESY THE HONEY HOLE

BEST ACTIVISM IDEA

Downtown 1511 6th Avenue I Seattle, WA 98101 206.223.0550 mortons.com/seattle

SEATTLE WEEKLY • AU G UST 5 — 11, 2015

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Arts & Culture by Mark Baumgarten, Zach Geballe, Jennifer Karami, Brian Miller, Kelton Sears, Jake Uitti BEST MUSEUM Frye Art Museum I think that the Frye clinched this category— surprisingly, over SAM—last fall, when its #SocialMedium show invited visitors to vote for their favorites among 232 works in its collection. Over 4,000 votes were cast via Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Tumblr; in effect, the audience curated what proved to be a very popular show. The Frye is also free—always a key selling point for younger, social-media-besotted museumgoers—and possesses the commendable determination to package its landscape and figurative works in an accessible and, dare I say, populist way. SAM and others are also fighting the presumption that all museumgoers are grayhaired (or tourists), but the Frye is leading the way. 704 Terry Ave., 622-9250, fryemuseum.org Runner-Up: Seattle Art Museum BEST GALLERY Vermillion Relatively new on the gallery scene, Vermillion enjoys a prime Capitol Hill location—one reason for its popularity. Another point in its favor: It’s a bar (with kitchen) that also hosts regular music events (including a cassette night, which is almost a swap meet). Established by Diana Adams in 2007, Vermillion programs for a younger sort of patron. Recent shows have included a collaboration between young artists Roya Falahi and Wendy Red Star Yadda, a contemporary spin on traditional Mexican folk art, and even a show by legendary animator Bruce Bickford (if not young, then certainly young at heart). And of course there are more events above and beyond standard gallery fare: poetry readings, DJs, and record-release parties. 1508 11th Ave., 709-9797, vermillionseattle.com Runner-Up: Ghost Gallery BEST CINEMA Cinerama God bless Paul Allen’s continued willingness to pour money into the single-screen palace that is the Cinerama. Originally built in 1963 to show films made in the three-projector Cinerama process (which it still does on occasion) and purchased by Allen in 1999, it’s since been renovated several times—most recently with a new digital projector, improved sound, and better seating.

(Not that there was anything wrong with the old seats.) And the Cinerama doesn’t show just blockbusters (Mission: Impossible—Rogue Nation now, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. next week); Allen regularly lends the theater to nonprofits, hosts SIFF screenings, and programs regular widescreen mini-festivals for 70mm gems like Lawrence of Arabia. There is no better place in Seattle to see Peter O’Toole in the Sahara. 2100 Fourth Ave., 448-6680, cinerama.com Runner-Up: SIFF Uptown

BEST STORYTELLER Sherman Alexie When Marshawn Lynch got some heat for his attitude following the Super Bowl, who leapt to his defense with a poem? None other than our National Book Award-winning Sherman Alexie, always a staunch defender of misunderstood “others” like himself, a proud Native American. With titles including Reservation Blues, Indian Killer, and The Absolutely True Diary of a PartTime Indian; several volumes of poetry and short stories; plus a movie directing credit (the underrated 2002 The Business of Fancydancing), the fierce, funny 48-year-old writer is perhaps our city’s most prolific and wide-ranging creative force. (His next effort, a picture book for children called Thunder Boy Jr., is due next May.) And he’s on Twitter, of course. Honestly, it’s hard to think of a literary medium he hasn’t mastered—clay tablets, perhaps; or maybe it’s time for him to roll out his own app. fallsapart.com Runner-Up: Sarah Gavin BEST BOOKSTORE Elliott Bay Book Company Popping into Elliott Bay Books on a daytime stroll through Capitol Hill is always a good idea. There’s nothing like the smell of rain, books, coffee, and all that wood to boost your spirits and remind you why you put up with this godforsaken, waterlogged city nine months out of the year. The lighting makes the place feel warm and aesthetically pleasing; all the books you forgot you wanted to read seem to appear magically on the shelves; and there’s ample space to hunker down and actually read them—before buying them, or course. 1521 10th Ave., 624-6600, elliottbaybook.com Runner Up: Twice Sold Tales

BEST COMIC BOOK SHOP Fantagraphics While its role as publisher of high-quality comic work from legends and future legends gives the Fantagraphics name its gravitas, it’s the bookstore and gallery in Georgetown where you can bring out-of-towners to say, “Yup, this is the city where I live—how cool is this!” It has the culture of a traditional comic shop, where you hunt through shelves looking for hidden treasures. Universes of comics can be found on its shelves, but house titles like Fante Bukowski and The Hip Hop Family Tree are the must-reads. And for those traditionalists, Fantagraphics also reprints old comics, bringing back to life what otherwise might have been lost. 1201 S. Vale St., 658-0110, fantagraphics.com Runner-Up: Phoenix Comics & Games

BEST ACTOR Emily Chisholm Seattle has a lot of veteran stage talent, but Emily Chisholm is emphatically a millennial. She

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BEST DANCE COMPANY Pacific Northwest Ballet Like any major Seattle cultural institution, Pacific Northwest Ballet (founded in 1972) can’t afford to rest on its laurels—and it’s not. Though PNB continues to mount classics like Nutcracker (to be revamped this November with the Balanchine choreography; tickets now on sale), there are plenty of new dances being added to the old repertory nuggets. The new season will include recent works by Justin Peck (set to a score by rocker Sufjan Stevens), Christopher Wheeldon, and Alejandro Cerrudo. Outreach and education are also key to reaching younger dancegoers: Artistic director Peter Boal will host four casual Friday previews (and selected Q&As), while Doug Fullington continues his ever-popular preshow lectures. Today’s dance newbie is tomorrow’s season-ticket holder. pnb.org Runner-Up: Velocity Dance Center BEST MUSIC VENUE The Showbox Its classic marquee might’ve tipped you off, but did you know the Showbox is 76 years old? Duke Ellington and Nat King Cole played there. People use the label “institution” pretty liberally in Seattle, but in this instance it’s more than merited for a club that’s stood the test of time and continues to deliver, hosting amazing acts like Swans, the Blood Brothers, even a two-night stint by Prince in 2013. And as La Luz’s upcoming all-ages $5 show there proves, the club is still willing to hold it down for the kids, a rarity in Seattle’s overwhelmingly 21-and-up landscape. 1426 First Ave., 628-3151, showboxpresents.com Runner-Up: Neumos BEST RECORD LABEL Sub Pop No surprise here. Sub Pop has been holding down the Seattle music scene for almost 30 years. And, uh, they also pretty much started the Seattle music scene, thanks to Bruce Pavitt’s dedication to independent regional music, transforming a city known in the ’80s as something of a musical backwater into one of the most recognizable music cities in the world. Although they’ve grown into a global force, Sub Pop still honors its regional roots, showcasing amazing local talent like Rose Windows, Strange Wilds, THEESatisfaction, Porter Ray, and Shabazz Palaces, the latter of which they even signed as an A&R man. Congrats on the win, Losers. subpop.com Runner-Up: Hardly Art BEST FOLK/ROOTS ARTIST Damien Jurado Although Jurado certainly fits the classic acoustic guitar-slinging folk-troubadour mold, his success lies in the moments he breaks outside of it. Take his latest record, Brothers and Sisters of the Eternal Son, which, in addition to the classic ballads

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SEATTLE WEEKLY • AU G UST 5 — 11, 2015

BEST THEATER COMPANY On the Boards Sure, the Rep, ACT, and even Intiman are more established, but On the Boards has youth on its side. Had we harvested Best of Seattle ballots by mail instead of online, the results might be different. But give credit to OTB for scrappy, shortrun programming for which you can generally walk up and buy a ticket on the night of performance. Prices are popular, and the acts come direct from the fringe scenes in Brooklyn and beyond. (Oh, is Brooklyn not trendy enough for you? How about Detroit or Buffalo?) Founded in 1978, OTB found its current home in Lower Queen Anne in 1998 (in ACT’s old digs). Now, by happy coincidence, it’s being surrounded by new apartments full of Amazon workers and other tech-oriented millennials. Its demo is the neighborhood demo; and more of its shows, including the annual NW New Works Festival, include video, interactive, and other tech elements. 100 W Roy St., 217-9886, ontheboards.org Runner-Up: The 5th Avenue Theatre

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BEST COMEDY NIGHT Comedy Womb In a little more than two years, this curated, female-friendly (but not exclusive) open mic has worked its way into the firmament of the Seattle comedy scene despite being the antithesis of the archetypal comedy club where anything goes and no one is safe. And, yes, that means there are rules. No misogynistic, homophobic, or racist jokes are tolerated, and, wouldn’t you know it, there is still plenty of great material left to have the Grotto of the Rendezvous doubled over in laughter every Tuesday night. comedywomb.com Runner-Up: Theater Sports

drew raves this spring as the young slacker projectionist in New Century Theatre Company’s somewhat experimental The Flick, then embraced the traditional romance of the Rep’s two-hander Outside Mullingar only a few months later. You wouldn’t believe the downcast cinéaste and the proud, grudge-nurturing Irishwoman were played by the same performer. Nor does the heroine of last year’s Bethany at ACT, a grim survivor of the mortgage-foreclosure meltdown, have anything in common with Chisholm’s diverse portfolio of roles. But she makes you believe in all these women’s willful determination. Runner-Up: Benjamin McFadden

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BEST COMICS ARTIST Ellen Forney Memoir and music always run through Forney’s work, whether in three-panel comics; graphic novels, including Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, & Me (from 2012); or omnibus collections like I Love Led Zeppelin (2006). Her commercial illustrations have been featured in our pages, those of The Stranger and the P-I, and in books by Sherman Alexie (see below). Forney has a clarity and asperity in her linework that looks back to the newspaper comic strips of her youth (and the record albums, and the gig posters . . . ), but she’s never one to wallow in nostalgia. Her art engages with Seattle as it is now, not as we sometimes remember it. ellenforney.com Runner-Up: Max Clotfelter

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you’d expect, ventures into trippy, pot-tinged psychedelia and shimmering Brazilian grooves, all bolstered by a healthy dose of Beatles-style studio engineering trickery. Jurado is proof that a folk approach to songwriting doesn’t have to be mired in tradition. The stronger your roots, the firmer an anchor you have to grow upward and outward to weirder, woozier heights. damienjurado.com Runner-Up: Blackheart Honeymoon

BEST HIP-HOP ACT Shabazz Palaces

heart-on-sleeve as ever, writing about his highprofile divorce from actress Zooey Deschanel, disillusionment with the trappings of a life briefly lived in L.A., and—a theme that’s tracked through the band’s entire career—the general feeling that things are falling apart. Pretty dark for a pop band. deathcabforcutie.com Runner-Up: La Luz

BEST KARAOKE Bush Garden Any longtime Seattleite worth their salt has at least one Bush Gardens story. Mine involves a lot of cheap tequila, Right Said Fred, and a few additional details that are definitely not fit to print. The appeal of Bush Garden is that any night of the week you meet some fascinating people, see some fantastic (or fantastically bad) karaoke, and create a story for yourself. Hopefully even more ridiculous than mine. 614 Maynard Ave. S., 682-6830, bush garden.net

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The best thing about a Shabazz Palaces’ record is that the more you listen to it, the more mysteries unfold. Ishmael Butler’s brilliantly cryptic rhymes are dense and rich, dripping with cosmic wisdom and a Shakespearean command of the English language. Only Butler could deliver a line like “Farceur, quite simply it is him, it’s black-ephilic, petalistic palistrophic hymns” without blinking. If you want to decipher his lyrics, you’re likely going to learn 20 or 30 new words in the process. On top of the duo’s singular production style, which veers and undulates over percussionist Tendai Maraire’s knotty African rhythms, albums like Lese Majesty and Black Up stand not only at the forefront of Seattle hip-hop, but at the forefront of hip-hop, period. shabazzpalaces.com Runner-Up: THEESatisfaction

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BEST JAZZ GROUP Industrial Revelation It’s not often you see a jazz group pack Neumos or rock a stage at Capitol Hill Block Party, but Industrial Revelation is not your average jazz band. Ahamefule J. Oluo’s trumpeting, Evan FloryBarnes’ upright bass, D’Vonne Lewis’ drumming, and Josh Rawlings’ keys are certainly rooted in the jazz tradition (Lewis studied it in high school, the other three at Cornish with famed saxophonist Hadley Caliman), but they veer all over the place, taking inspiration from hip-hop, punk, funk, and indie rock. industrialrevelation.com Runner-Up: Garfield High School Jazz Band BEST POP BAND Death Cab for Cutie Even though guitarist/producer Chris Walla, the band’s anchor, jumped ship on its newest record Kitsungi, people still can’t get enough of good ol’ Death Cab for Cutie. Maybe that’s because indie-superstar front man Ben Gibbard is still as

BEST LOCAL NONPROFIT KEXP Corporate radio has its moments, but you just can’t trust that your favorite station will be around for your next commute. KEXP, on the other hand, is as consistent as it is good. Their DJs are Seattle sweethearts, their programming is eclectic, and it’s fair to say that the music community around here wouldn’t feel like home without this little radio station with a global reach. Sure, they’ll interrupt a killer afternoon set to pander incessantly for donations, but they’re just trying to move into a new home—which, if all goes as planned, will give listeners a chance to watch in-studios at Seattle Center. So give, and listen. kexp.org Runner-Up: Seattle Children’s Hospital BEST FESTIVAL Seattle International Film Festival (363) Somewhat surprisingly defeating Bumbershoot and Folk Life, the Seattle International Film Festival is so popular in part because it’s now a year-round operation. Sure, its defining aspect continues to be the monthlong cinematic extravaganza beginning in mid-May (the bestattended film festival in the U.S.), but its three locations—Uptown, Egyptian, and Film Center—are also booked during the other 11 pages of the calendar. This gives SIFF’s members and volunteers a constantly shifting buffet of indie, foreign, repertory, and Hollywood offerings. Now serving beer and wine, SIFF has also embraced the live-presentation model of hosting filmmakers (and comics and historians and what have you); other evenings feature Skype and satellite intros; and the ever-popular NT Live series sates the tastes of local theatergoers who can’t afford to fly over to London or New York to catch the latest show. SIFF has always been international, and now it’s edging beyond film. siff.net Runner-Up: Bumbershoot.

BEST GRAFFITTI and makeup done, and that was kind of fun. I learned all about TV magic.” The pace is more relaxed as we sit in the shade

‘So Surreal’

Emmett Montgomery sees himself on the other side of BESTTV SANDWICH the screen—and finds a national audience. by Brian Miller

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Annex Theatre. He’ll also be back at Bumbershoot this year, curating and performing on a stage devoted to long-form comedy—the metier where he truly excels, as opposed to staccato oneliners. He even braved the daylight throngs at Sasquatch! earlier this summer; and last October, in what then seemed his biggest career break to date, he opened for Dave Chappelle during the latter’s four nights at the Neptune. “I’ve been doing this for 10 years,” says Montgomery, who still loves the focused joke-telling necessary to hold a large audience waiting for Chappelle or watching Last Comic Standing. (Variety reports that the opening round on Wednesday, July 22 was seen by six million viewers; many more will stream it later on Hulu and other platforms.) Yet Montgomery is all about the process, the work necessary both to create innovative comedy and get locals to see it. Managing a career is “a real slow burn. I’ve been around enough and am consistent enough that I’m on a list somewhere. But how’d I get on that list? I have no idea.” He auditioned for Last Comic Standing shortly before the Chappelle gig, he explains. “The process was long, such an intensive experience, so surreal and great. I got a call inviting me to go down to L.A. There is something really fun about getting flown to Hollywood and getting picked up by a driver at the airport.” Though he’s used to performing live in a variety of formats, and has ventured into new media here in Seattle, he describes the Hollywood process of doing live TV in HD as a real eyeopener. “It was the first time I’ve ever had hair

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Seattle’s best stage director wants to bring back the BEST SANDWICH Greeks—in a big way. by Brian Miller

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Kitchens in The Taming of the Shrew.

Theater Director in our Best of Seattle BEST WINERY poll, what would she like to stage if o, I ask Kelly Kitchens, voted Best

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cost were no object? And where? “If you gave me a zillion dollars, I’d build our own outdoor amphitheater,” says Kitchens, who came to Seattle in the late ’90s as an actress. Famously designed by the Greeks and Romans with a tiered, concave design, renowned for their perfect acoustics, amphitheaters were well-suited to the Mediterranean climate. Yet here in rainy Seattle, Kitchens concedes that we’d need “a retractable-roof, Greek-style theater”—like Safeco Field. But the site would have to be hilly, not in the SoDo mud. Maybe Magnolia or Beacon Hill? Kitchens has ample experience with outdoor theater. As an actress, she’s currently appearing in Wooden O’s summer production of As You Like It ; in the supporting role of Jacques (here Jacqueline), she’s the one who gets to deliver the famous “All the world’s a stage” speech. “Your asking about it is so timely,” says Kitchens of the blue-sky, hypothetical windfall. “I’ve been drawn to the Greek tragedies. . . . The plays of Sophocles and Euripides have really got me going. The level of human suffering in such a domestic and personal level. Those are plays of scale”— meaning a large chorus and a musical/dancing element that can rival a big-budget Broadway show. “I’ve been working with Seattle Opera, which has turned me onto productions of scale,” says Kitchens, associate artistic director for Seattle Public Theater at the Bathhouse, where she’s directed acclaimed productions of Slowgirl, Arcadia, and Slip/Shot. So busy is her directing schedule that Kitchens had been on hiatus as an actress for two years prior to As You Like It. Other recent directing credits include She’s Come Undone for Book-It, The Tall Girl for Washington Ensemble Theatre, and Black Comedy for Strawberry Theatre Workshop. And she has several directing gigs lined up during the new season. “I have a great fall. I’m directing a Book-It All Over touring show of The Secret Garden. . . . I’m also doing The Art of Bad Men by Vincent Delaney for MAP Theatre at Satori Space” (opening Sept. 25). SPT is also planning to revive her staging of Christmastown during the holidays. Since she is planning to pitch some other small existing theaters on a Greek revival, Kitchens is coy about naming a specific tragedy. And because she’s so connected in the local theater scene, she doesn’t want to do any hypothetical casting. Still, she says, “I would also spend my budget on rehearsal time. I would have a dream collaborative team. This is my town. I love telling stories in my community.” E

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SEATTLE WEEKLY • AU G UST 5 — 11, 2015

hen I arrive last month for my Capitol Hill coffee date with comedian and performer Emmett Montgomery, 15 minutes early, he’s already installed on a bench outside with muffin, java, and cell phone in hand. The hour is uncharacteristically early for a guy who makes his living in late-night comedy clubs and on improvised stages. A dozen years back, not long after moving here from Utah, he might’ve been stapling gig flyers onto telephone poles—like any young Seattle artist/musician/comic/striver. Times have changed. The cell phone is his office, and Montgomery is now studying his Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram feeds—all goosed by his new fame on NBC’s Last Comic Standing. He’s the only Seattle contestant in the ninth season’s initial cut of 100 stand-up performers (from 2,000 who auditioned nationally), but he’s hardly a newbie to such competitions and social media. “NBC advised us to make Facebook fan pages,” says the famously bearded, MormonViking-like performer. The program’s weekly format means he has to keep mum about his progress, and that of his fellow comics, as the Wednesday-night elimination shows proceed toward the series’ September finale. “For me, it’s a very positive experience, but so exhausting,” says Montgomery. “I’m still trying to wrap my head around it. It’s essentially like the Seattle International Comedy Competition, but amplified.” Now a seasoned local performer with a droll, conversational style, Montgomery hosts his Weird and Awesome variety show every first Sunday at

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outside Analog Coffee. A longtime Capitol Hill resident (now with his wife), Montgomery is constantly greeted by passersby. One senses that the TV show has nothing to do with such friendly rapport; he knows everyone’s name—and their dogs’ names, including one he brands “the dog mayor of Capitol Hill.” His beard, which helps him stand out on Last Comic Standing, gets many admiring comments. “It’s like a topiary garden,” he tells one woman. Our chat inevitably turns to rents, real estate, and the cost of living in Seattle. With a dog, he admits, a house with a yard might be nice. Gentrification pressures are felt both on the performance front—where venues are closing—and the residential side, where artists are being displaced. Montgomery has toured enough to know what’s coming. “I’ve seen the changes,” he says. “San Francisco is kind of the dark future of Seattle.” Montgomery also cites the recent closure of the Feedback Lounge. Venues—“That’s our big struggle,” he says. “Is there space for us to tell our jokes?” Even if he’s got more techies at Amazon and beyond now following him on Twitter and Facebook thanks to Last Comic Standing, where can they see him, and his comedy peers, perform? “There’s no arts space down there in SLU.” Even Annex, we glumly decide, probably has a limited future on pricey Capitol Hill. Still, Montgomery says he’s generally upbeat about the diverse local comedy scene. “It’s not just the white 20-somethings anymore. There’s no main producing entity. It’s the wild West. The scene has gotten so big that I don’t know every comic’s name. I used to. It is really easy to do comedy as a hobby.” Yet he’s no hobbyist at this stage in his career. For him the twofold mandate is “First, do something wonderful. Then, how do I survive? How do I get paid?” In this new comedy ecosystem, he also approves of the push into podcasts, laptop video editing, and technology in general. “What I’m very excited about now is that there’s so many tools,” he says. Speaking of tools, is managing Facebook and Twitter now part of his job? “I think so. It’s interesting to see what hits on Twitter and Facebook”—meaning his jokes. “But the real job is to be funny, to create something wonderful and beautiful onstage. The main thing is word of mouth. It’s always been word of mouth. You have to do something to make other people advocates.” What about the downside of tech—people using phones during comedy shows? “It is always a blow when they’re on their phones,” he admits. “But they could be Tweeting how great the comics are.” Like most in his trade, Montgomery has gradually adjusted to social media. Back in the day, he recalls, “I joined MySpace because I have six brothers” and had to keep track of them. Now, “I have Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.” As we talk, he’s contemplating a new app called Periscope, recommended to him by other comics. He was initially opposed to Twitter, but “there’s something about limiting the number of characters. I don’t really do one-liners anymore.” Twitter allows him to keep those muscles sharp. Then there’s Hulu and the shock of seeing himself on Last Comic Standing: “I could push a button—and I could see my beard! And millions of people could, too.” Suddenly he was inside the favorite box from childhood, on the other side of the glowing screen. “It’s both weird and fun,” he concludes. “It’s one more piece of evidence that I have a real job. It’s concrete, tangible. It’s something I’ve been working for for a long time.” E

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Following in Their Steps BEST SKIhistory AREA of the First Thursday A brief Art Walk, as told by its founders. BEST SKI AREA: by Brian Miller baker’s dozen galleries in the city’s

sponsor a peripatetic candlelight celebration. Park free at the Kingdome.” So it began, on February 27, 1980. Having cranked out 10,000 SW calendar blurbs myself, I can understand why Tim Appelo—20 years before he would become my colleague—only gave the event a 20-word listing. The first Pioneer Square gallery walk didn’t sound that promising. Yet by February ’82 my good buddy Tim wrote a positive and very amusing feature on the third annual art walk. Later that year, the art walk became a monthly event that settled upon the name by which we know it today: the First Thursday Art Walk, generally considered the oldest such event in the country, and now voted Best Event Series by our readers. The gallery owners who’d eventually become known as the Seattle Art Dealers Association began by publishing a walking map and guide in ’79, which in the following decade grew into a monthly color publication, now augmented by its website (seattleartdealers.com). The small initial group of galleries that populated the guide and art walk, recalls gallery owner Greg Kucera, “had footsteps painted on the sidewalk, leading from gallery to gallery.” A sense of occasion was necessary to draw visitors to Pioneer Square, recalls Sam Davidson of Davidson Galleries, also one of the core group of gallerists who launched the guide and art walk. “It was a really

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nice event and focused on the art. It gave people a sense that there was something going on. People did take advantage of the bars and restaurants. Parking wasn’t as challenging in them days.” To Kucera, who recalls that “Linda Hodges and I both opened in ’83,” the art walk validated the presence of so many galleries around Pioneer Square, many of them now closed. (Most prominent was perhaps Linda Farris Gallery.) Says Kucera of the art walk, “It became very quickly something that everyone was a part of. All those questions about whether galleries would move out of Pioneer Square stopped being asked.” The SADA guide also grew to include galleries

beyond downtown. “It started out as a Pioneer Square exhibition guide,” says Kucera. “When we started it, it was seven galleries. There were times when there weren’t enough decent galleries to go in it. It’ll be a long time before we go out of print. We have beat time.” Current circulation is about 14,000, down from a peak of 21,000. By the mid-’80s, the SADA guide and First Thursday event were booming. Interlopers began crashing Occidental Square to busk or hawk T-shirts, introducing a different demographic—less concerned with buying art than having a good time. “We were going through, like, 12 cases of wine an evening,” recalls Davidson, “and the same people were standing by the wine table every month.”

Scenes from the 1982 gallery walk.

DAN LAMONT

BEST BIKE mostTRALL densely art-infested district

The wine-and-cheese ambience certainly helped the art walk, but the city’s liquor control board eventually cracked down. Besides Pioneer Square’s homeless population, the past three decades have seen rowdy, drunken sports fans, the Mardi Gras riot and dot-com bust of 2001, the Great Recession, and now the endless Bertha/waterfront rebuild. “We’re just a dumping ground for the city,” says Kucera. Davidson is more sanguine. “People have always been concerned about safety in Pioneer Square,” he says.

Today, since the Tashiro Kaplan Building opened in 2004, the art walk has more demographic variety among galleries. Among the older, founding galleries, Kucera concedes, “We’re an aging demo.” His artists are more established and expensive to own, while the TK Building’s galleries tend toward younger, emerging talents. “I think the whole art scene has changed,” says Davidson, who’s dropped large sculpture in favor of prints and other works that are easier to move and hang in new condos (or, for some of his long-time clients, retirement homes). Kucera is also waiting for a new generation of First Thursday art collectors. “These techies are like unicorns—rarely spied in the forest,” he says ruefully. Davidson meanwhile points to signs of Pioneer Square’s revival: a new apartment complex south of King Street, several new bars, and Matt Dillon’s hip nearby eateries. “That’s an open question,” he says, “whether we can corral those people, to get ’em to crack the door.” If/when the tunnel’s drilled and the viaduct’s down, says Davidson, “Pioneer Square will again be very desirable”—in large part because of the galleries and art walk. But then, he sighs, “That will squeeze us out.” E bmiller@seattleweekly.com

PHOTOGRAPHY BY DANIEL BERMAN / STYLING BY TRISTAN WEHOLT

outlandish life. Each week he’ll work with more than 60 kids. A selfless, demanding job on its own, Ratner and Nyce are baffled by Ramm’s constantly moving social life. They say he’ll often go out to dinner, and sometimes even reps for the band at various local clubs. “I’ll go to shows on weekends, but Dave will go to shows on weekdays,” Nyce says, flabbergasted. Often, though, the three Wimps can be found together at practice or watching Nyce and Ramm’s extensive collection of The Simpsons DVDs, Rainier in hand. On nights they’re not together, Ratner’s typically at home making stir-fry or spaghetti. She says she usually follows it up with a thorough floss, and reads a book before falling asleep. Like a bottle of ’82 Merlot, the band only gets

better with age. They relish their luxuries, living lives most of their contemporaries could only dream of—a topic they aren’t bashful about as our day together comes to a close. “We’re older and a lot of people our age have families and kids and we love playing music and have jobs so we’re, like, ‘adult’ in that we have adult jobs and stuff, but we’re still doing something that younger people do,” Ratner says of the band’s unique punk lifestyle. “At the same time, I want a good night’s sleep and I want to be in decent shape because I’m getting older.” E

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“If you stick to light beers like Rainier, you can drink more of them and your hangovers won’t be as bad” – Ratner

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alking into A-list Ballard hot BEST ELECTRONIC ARTIST spot Hattie’s Hat, it’s not hard

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Ratner’s day typically begins at 7:20 a.m. with an

interesting psychic-stamina exercise. When Ratner’s alarm goes off, she hits snooze. At 7:29 a.m. she hits the snooze again. She repeats this unique morning time-endurance ritual once more before moving on to the final step of the intense regimen. With 10 minutes left to leave for work, she takes five minutes to look at the Internet on her phone. “Usually I check Instagram first and then Facebook and then my e-mail,” she says. “Then I get out of bed, figure out something to wear real quick, hop on my bike, and rush to the light rail, which I take to work.” Fans who only see Ratner strumming her guitar and crooning about eating dog pills might not know about her other life as a business mogul—an integral player in the locally owned, universally beloved online retail giant Amazon. As a web developer, she holds up one side of a powerhouse partnership with the man Harvard Business Review named “the best performing CEO alive,” Jeff Bezos. While he runs the com-

pany, Ratner crafts code with the elegance of Michelangelo painting the Sistine Chapel. “I just sit there in stark silence in my tiny cubicle, coding as quickly as I can so that I can leave by 5 or 5:30 and get all my work done and not work late,” she says. Wimps bassist Matt Nyce has a different rhythm to his day. Not one to adhere to 21stcentury social norms like “employment,” he eases into each day peacefully. “I usually sleep in to about 10, then I sit in bed for another half hour and look at my phone,” Nyce says with a coy smile. After that, he lets out his cat (which he says is a rare breed called “Loud”) and makes himself a fresh pot of coffee. From there his day can go in any number of directions, depending on where the muse takes him. He might eat a yogurt. He might shower. He might go swimming at the beach. He’s a wild card, a classic bad-boy rocker. Currently Nyce spends a lot of his time working on various art projects. He’s busy finishing design work for Wimps’ upcoming album, and just wrapped up the artwork for a friends’ record as well—local punk duo Pony Time’s upcoming album Rumors 2: The Rumors Are True. Drummer Dave Ramm, who works as a speech therapist in Tacoma, lives an even more

“Sometimes I like to have more than two beers.” – Nyce “We had ice cream for dinner tonight.” – Ratner “I like to eat food that’s been in my refrigerator for a week.” – Ratner

SEATTLE WEEKLY • AU G UST 5 — 11, 2015

to spot Wimps’ guitarist and frontwoman Rachel Ratner and bassist Matt Nyce. Drinking Rainier tallboys, one of the band’s favorite brews, these elegant punks light up the dim room with their presence. The only thing missing is drummer Dave Ramm, who is away in Brooklyn but graciously joins Seattle Weekly’s exclusive rendezvous with the superstar punk band via text message. It’s been a whirlwind since the secrecy-shrouded trio signed to prestigious Portland label Kill Rock Stars earlier this year, preparing for their upcoming breakout EP, Super Me (set to hit retailers across the U.S. on August 7). You might think the intense national spotlight would’ve gotten to their heads, but somehow these superstars say they still draw inspiration from their humble hometown roots. “Today I saw someone kind of dry-heaving,” Ratner says thoughtfully. “The guy next to him had this big bowl of oatmeal . . . like a full soup bowl full of oatmeal that he brought on the light rail.” Ratner says she watched as the oatmeal splashed onto the floor, a poetic moment most of us without that special artistic spark might miss. But these seemingly mundane episodes fuel Wimps’ singular, enigmatic creativity. In a rare

agreement, the band has consented to give Seattle Weekly an unfiltered glimpse into their day-today lives so fans can better understand where the inspiration for their timeless tunes comes from.

“Never do cocaine and never do heroin. Stay away from those and you’ll be moderately healthy.” – Nyce

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The sHITbARF BEST DIRECTOR Spew Map Seattle

A cultural-heritage crowdsourced BEST COMEDIAN project brought to you by Seattle Weekly. by Kelton Sears

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become as integral to the psychogeography of Seattle as the Space Needle or Mount Rainier. Like tasting the season’s first salmon or hiking through the Cascades, counting the sHITbARF tags that populate the alleys, street signs, and toilet stalls of our fair city is a Seattle birthright. The biodiversity of sHITbARF is astounding, both in its stunningly wide geographic reach and its dizzying array of variant morphologies. Most Seattleites know the simple “sHITbARF,” a tag noble in its bold brusqueness and primal simplicity. But those of us in the field relish its rarer forms, the lesser-known, more complex offshoots of the sHITbARF evolutionary tree: “THE SHIT IS ALL bARF”; “SHIT some bARF”; “ERUPT SHIT SMOKE bARF”; “sHITbARF THE MOVIE”; or perhaps the rarest of them all: “SUPERCHILL DUPERTHRILL WORDSPILL TURDKILL sHITbARF sHITbARF sHITbARF sHITbARF.” To honor the beauty and diversity of these Seattle treasures, we mapped a small sampling of sHITbARFs—a field guide for the curious and future generations of sHITbARF enthusiasts. In an attempt to preserve and record this distinct part of our city’s cultural heritage, Seattle Weekly is hosting an online map database that will feature an even wider selection of sHITbARFs than you see here. We ask that members of the community with their own sHITbARF photos and locations feel free to add to the map at seattleweekly.com, so that together we may compile the most accurate, living, breathing catalogue of every hidden sHITbARF this town has to offer. Happy hunting. E

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Opti-Glitch BEST TECH IDEA Videosynthesis Live visuals duo Coldbrew BEST ARTS IDEA Collective shows us exactly what the hell they’re doing with all those knobs. BEST BUSINESS IDEA by Kelton Sears

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obby Azarbayejani and Aashish Gadani’s work is anything but background—sometimes the live visuals duo actually steals the whole show. It’s telling that on show posters, Coldbrew Collective, the duo’s alias, is usually billed just as high as the musicians. The two computerscience majors from the University of Maryland moved to Seattle for Amazon jobs in 2013, and in those two short years they’ve become integral fibers in the fabric of the city’s electronic, noise, and DIY music scene. What started as a live visuals residency at Kremwerk’s seminal Motor dance night soon grew into residencies at that club’s Squall noise night and Vermillion’s HISSSSS cassette tape night. Hypnotized by the duo’s eye-popping, glitched-out, deep-web fantasias, all orchestrated live with a suitcase full of video effects units, Seattle bands and bookers started clamoring for the chance to bring the experience-enhancing Coldbrew Collective into their own events. At their peak, says the omnipresent duo, they were doing eight shows a month. The best part of watching Coldbrew Collective whip up its video sorcery is attempting to sleuth out what the hell Azarbayejani and Gadani are doing. The two hunch over a tangled web of wires and boxes, and out of it come insane technodelic dreamscapes. Using a wireframe image of a soda can top as a control variable, we had Coldbrew Collective demonstrate its most prized analog effects unit, the Tachyons+ Opti-Glitch Videosynth, and show us exactly what each knob does. E ksears@seattleweekly.com

BEST POLICY IDEA

SEATTLE WEEKLY • AU G UST 5 — 11, 2015

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BEST NEW BUILDING BEST OF SEATTLE BEST ELECTRONIC ARTIST instagram.com/

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THE ESTUARY / 4651 Diagonal Avenue S – all events are FREE and open to the public –

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Saturday August 8 / 8 pm

TANGYO

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featuring music by Paul Che Oke Ten Wagner

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Aerial performance by Tanya Brno

Opening with a twilight performance by the Duwamish Riverside People’s Chorus

SEATTLE WEEKLY • AUGU ST 5 — 11, 2015

Join the chorus! Rehearsal 2-4 pm

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DUWAMISH REVEALED A creative celebration of Seattle’s only river June 1–September 30, 2015 duwamishrevealed.com facebook.com/duwamishrevealed

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Hallucinogenesis is due out early 2016 on Translation Loss Records

BEST ELECTRONIC ARTIST

Vox Body Mods

Mapping the Seattle music BEST GRAFFITTI maker’s cosmic tattoo universe. by Kelton Sears

Poll for Best Electronic Artist, but the musician’s art is just as visual as it is auditory. Porter’s morphing, hallucinogenic music videos and live backing visuals are animated by the man himself, and his album covers are all selfdrawn and designed. The same extends to his array of stunning tattoos—bio-mechanical-looking creatures (or devices?) live all across Vox Mod’s body, each entirely or partially self-drawn and designed based on Porter’s various artistic inspirations or personal interdimensional visions. “They almost become three-dimensional sculptures once they’re on the body,” Porter says. “Even though your skin is flat and you can have a two-dimensional thing drawn on it, it becomes three-dimensional once it’s on your body. It becomes something else.” We asked Vox Mod to guide us through the cosmic landscape of his terrestrial form and clue us in on the origins of these inked obelisks. 1. Vox Mod calls this central piece his “cartouche,” an ancient Egyptian hieroglyph denoting a royal name. “Because it’s got eyes on it—the evil eyes, keeping bad spirits at bay—it’s kind of a buffer zone for my chakra, my heart chakra,” Porter says. The eye resting at the top of the piece is an adaptation of the logo for Geinoh Yamashirogumi, the group who did the soundtrack for Akira, one of Porter’s chief inspirations. 2. In 2009, Vox Mod saw a Burke Museum exhibit entitled “Cruisin’ the Fossil Freeway,” which featured the findings of a paleontologist rendered by a fanciful illustrator. Porter was enraptured by one image of a 250–300 million-year-old Cascadian ammonite with a spiraling fractal shell. “It helped me remember who I was and what my origins were. I was on the bus, riding back from the exhibit, and I was so taken that I drew this on the ride home. As soon as I was done with it, I was like, ‘I wanna get that tattooed.’ ” 3. After playing a show in Myanmar that resulted in a number of personal revelations, Porter found a tattoo artist in the southeast Asian country to tattoo this abstract reminder of the experience. “I like to think of this thing, and what I took away from the experience, as a hyperbolic brain token. Something that’s a mind upgrade.” 4. Vox Mod conceived these pieces in an intense bout of hallucinatory daydreaming he called a “Flight of Fancy,” a title he also used for a track on his 2014 album The Great Oscillator. “I had this strange idea in my head about these things—one of them could potentially be an element, and that the other one was maybe a device of some kind.” 5. “They could be veins, or filaments, or weird tendrils of energy matter.” 6. “I like to call this one a ‘microcosm.’ This was actually one of my very first illustrations like this—something that has become my style, these strange three-dimensional things that a lot of people say kind of look like french fries.The thing that I was really intrigued about was that there was no shade or light source—that these things are strange shapes floating in a lightless sky.” 7. Vox Mod’s personal logo, colored in CMYK, born out of his interest in design. He also got a matching CMYK color registration tattoo—the two are conceptually linked in his mind. 8. This complex piece is one of Vox Mod’s favorites—an ode to a number of his inspirations. The far left panel, which consists of sheet music full of odd shapes and forms instead of notes, is a tribute to musique concrète and experimental composers John Cage, Iannis Xenakis, and Edgard Varèse. The two panels on the right are an ode to SIXSTATION, an illustrator and early Flash animator that inspired Vox Mod’s visual work. 9. This spiraling piece is an homage to street artists 123 Clan and Jean-Michel Basquiat, as well as to Salvador Dalí. 10. Vox Mod’s very first tattoo. “This design has been with me for so long. ... It was originally a drawing, it was used in print and posters and digital design. It was on my website. I tried to do some Flash stuff with it. It became a woodcut carving that I did.” E

BEST COMEDIAN

CHRISTOPHER ZEUTHEN

BEST DIRECTOR es, Vox Mod, also known as Scot Porter, won our Reader

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SEATTLE, WA 98101 206-204-2233

AUGUST 21ST

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THIRD VISION (LA) SIMPLE GRAVITY(SEA)

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SEATTLE

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(All Ages)

8PM

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AUGUST 22ND

BLACK BEAST REVIVAL (PNW)

MAUSIKI (VAN) IAN HALE & THE LEGACY (SEA)

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9PM

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SOUL IN THE CITY SERIES HOSTED BY CHOKLATE & DJ KUN LUV FEATURING MOE CHEEKZ & FRIENDS SEATTLE’S BEST RnB & NEO SOUL

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ksears@seattleweekly.com

Shows 21+ in the Cavern

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SEATTLE WEEKLY • AU G UST 5 — 11, 2015

BEST ACTIVISM IDEA

AUGUST 8TH

BEST CITY TOUR Bill Speidel’s Underground Tour Before 1889, downtown Seattle toilets would un-flush themselves at high tide. But then the Great Fire burned us to the ground, and in a moment of uncommon sense the city decided to rebuild 1) with non-flammable materials and 2) one or two stories higher. During the building, drunks would occasionally plummet off the sides of roads, and afterward the abandoned underground became a den of iniquity. Catch the whole sordid history at Bill Speidel’s 75-minute Underground Tour, which literally walks you through the ruins beneath the Emerald City ($19 for adults, $9 for children). 608 First Ave., 682-4646, undergroundtour.com Runner-Up: Ride the Ducks

Out & About By Alana Al-Hatlani, Mark Baumgarten, Jennifer Karami, Daniel Person, and Jake Uitti

BEST BUS LINE C Line Let’s be honest: The trip from West Seattle to downtown, and vice versa, can be a nightmare. Compared to driving solo, the C Line is a dream, delivering commuters from Westwood Village to Virginia Street in under 40 minutes. Sure, that’s still a hell of a long time, but it comes with a wonderful hands-free view of the skyline and free wi-fi to boot. Runner-Up: The 49

SEATTLE WEEKLY • AUGU ST 5 — 11, 2015

BEST BICYCLE SHOP Gregg’s Cycle In 5,000 B.C., Mesopotamians invented the wheel. In 1905, Paul de Vivie invented the first derailleur. And in 1932, Gregg’s Cycles opened in Greenlake. That’s about all the history any Seattle cycling enthusiast needs to know. Gregg’s has stood as a cornerstone of the community since those prewar days, the knowledgeable staff offering tips on trails and technology as interest in biking has ebbed and flowed and, most recently, exploded. 7007 Woodlawn Ave. N.E., 523-1822; 105 Bellevue Way N.E., Bellevue, 425-462-1900, greggscycles.com Runner-Up: Recycled Cycles

BEST BIKE TRAIL The Burke-Gilman Trail Was there ever any doubt? The Burke-Gilman, which leads to the Sammamish Trail and several connecting arteries, is the gray-bearded great-granddaddy of our urban rails-to-trails movement. Established in sections—though still not complete at Ballard’s notorious and muchlitigated “Missing Link”—beginning in 1978, the BGT stretches some 20 miles from Golden Gardens to Bothell. Not just cyclists, but walkers, runners, roller-skaters, baby-carriage pushers, and even cross-country skiers (during a good winter) make use of it. A recent UW study estimated that about 1,500 users (of all stripes) pass campus on the BGT each afternoon; on a summer weekend, the numbers are surely higher. Some may complain about tree roots or stop signs facing the wrong way, but the glorious new Rainier Vista underpass (near Husky Stadium) shows the future of what a better-funded BGT could be in the future. seattle.gov/parks Runner-Up: Lake Washington Loop BEST PARK Discovery Park Don’t go to Discovery Park. Seriously—it’s not worth the winding drive through Magnolia on a rainy day, where the 538 acres of arrowheadshaped land juts out into the Sound. It’s not worth wandering the myriad of footpaths through the shady forest, over sloping hills, through abandoned vintage military barracks.

Burke-Gilman Trail All paths seem to wind up, eventually, in a grand golden meadow. Don’t bother plucking a dewy stalk of grass to put in your mouth as you twirl through the wildflowers, feeling like Holden Caulfield as you reach an abrupt precipice—a bluff that looks out over the expanse of the Sound. Below is a beach. You shouldn’t take off your shoes to feel the cold sand, nor should you stand amid the driftwood, pristine Mount Rainier to your left, an idyllic white lighthouse to your right, the salty tide calmly receding before you. For a brief moment your skin is warm, and when the sun drifts back behind the clouds, you realize there’s almost no one here—a far cry from Golden Gardens just around the corner. Shhh, says the sea. Don’t tell a soul. 3801 Discovery Park Blvd., 386-4236 Runner-Up: Green Lake Park

BEST BEACH Alki Beach Shaped like a boomerang, Alki Beach is situated on the northern tip of West Seattle. On a clear day, downtown looks swimmably close. Ferries arrive and depart. And all is well. But Alki takes on a different, more alluring vibe as night falls. Veiled in darkness, groups of beachcombers wander the shoreline. Music blasts from the subwoofers of cars cruising through. Couples neck. A bulldog rides a skateboard. And across the harbor, the city is still there: brighter now, reflecting on the water, twinkling mischievously. 1702 Alki Ave. S., 684-4075 Runner-Up: Golden Gardens BEST SWIMMING SPOT Madison Park Beach If ever there were an antidote for the Seattle Freeze, this is it. On hot days, beachgoers can’t help but buddy up on the lush grass lawn between dips in Lake Washington. Conversations happen as naturally as a shared love of this mid-city gem. Sunny weather, friendly strangers. Are we even talking about Seattle here? 7796

43rd Ave. E., 684-4075

Runner-Up: T-Dock at Lake Washington

BEST SKI AREA Crystal Mountain Resort El Niño notwithstanding, when there’s a winter— if there’s a winter—Crystal Mountain is the best place to lug your skis or snowboard. The drive is usually about two hours southeast of Seattle, and the Mount Rainier views are unsurpassed from the 6,872-foot top of the gondola (and restaurant). Almost all the chairlifts are now high-speed detachable models; and the avalanche-destroyed High Campbell lift has been rebuilt—even if it saw little use during last winter’s non-winter. Crystal’s terrain is the real selling point: nicely groomed for families on the lower slopes; plenty of expert couloirs and powder stashes for those willing to hike (or skin) into the north or south back country. And an extra bit of good news: The six-mile cutoff road from 410 is being repaved this summer, meaning no more bone-rattling potholes. 360-663-2265, crystalmountainresort.com Runner-Up: Stevens Pass BEST HIKING TRAIL Rattlesnake Ledge With a trailhead less than an hour’s drive away via roads that wouldn’t challenge even the meekest Zipcar, Rattlesnake Ledge reminds Seattle how close to the wild it truly is. With that proximity comes congestion—the parking lot regularly overflows onto the road, and the trail itself gets clogged with sprawling mobs of hikers sporting their latest REI purchases. However, whatever urban annoyances follow the crowds are put out of mind upon reaching the craggy bluff overlooking the amazingly pristine Cedar River drainage. It’s here that one realizes this is no Disneyland nature walk but the Cascades in their sheerest form—as the occasional hiker falling to their death from the cliffs there attests. wta.org/go-hiking/hikes/rattle-snake-ledge Runner-Up: Mount Si

BEST OUTDOOR STORE REI In many ways, REI has served as a microcosm of the city it was founded in. Like Seattle, the outdoors-gear cooperative developed an identity in the first half of the 20th century marked by quiet Scandinavian socialism. But also like Seattle, REI wasn’t content to remain some provincial outpost in the Pacific Northwest. As it grew it earned hordes of new members, with an undercurrent of unease from those who knew it when. Back in 1996, upon the opening of its flashy new flagship store on Yale, The New York Times’ resident Seattleite Timothy Egan published a piece titled “A Hiker’s Paradise Lost?” Our own archives show similar doubts were being expressed about Seattle in general. But neither REI nor Seattle ever really paused to consider the haters. REI now claims to be the largest consumer cooperative in the country. It has 140 stores—nearly quadruple the 40 Egan counted when he documented customers’ concerns. And its corporate suite is now one step away from the president’s cabinet, as the appointment of former CEO Sally Jewel as Secretary of the Interior displays. If anything, it’s remarkable how much remains right about REI in light of all the growth. That too could be said about Seattle. 222 Yale Ave. N., 2231944, rei.com Runner-Up: Second Ascent Outdoor Gear and Apparel BEST CAMERA SHOP Glazer’s Camera A city as transcendent as Seattle demands to be captured in a picture. The late Ed Glazer couldn’t possibly take credit for the city’s vistas, but he can be credited with providing photographers, amateur and professional, with the tools and knowhow to do them justice. Since opening as a small shop in 1935, Glazer’s has provided the latest in photo technology, equipment rental, and classes for a clientele that has included Art Wolfe, Mary Ellen Mark, Graham Nash, and Randy Johnson. And through scholarships for Seattle Central Creative Academy, it assures a bright future of brilliant photography. 433 Eighth Ave. N., 6241100, glazerscamera.com Runner-Up: Rare Medium BEST FLOWER SHOP Pike Place Flowers If you’re ever feeling blue, head down to Pike Place Flowers, where you can admire just about every other color under the sun. Gazing at the shop’s wares is like seeing candy blooming right before your eyes. Flower after flower with thick, luscious stems, grown by local farmers, seem to pour out of the market’s little nook shop. There it feels like you’re in the early 20th century, America beginning to boom, as you pick up a bouquet for a loved one. Pike Place Market, 1501 First Ave., 682-9797, pikeplaceflowers.com Runner-Up: Ballard Blossom BEST TOY STORE Archie McPhee More a novelty shop than a traditional toy store, Archie McPhee is still jam packed with fun, no matter your age. Some of the tamer finds include Handerpants (underpants for your hands), unicorn masks, and bacon-flavored toothpaste. 1300 N. 45th St., 297-0240, mcphee.com Runner-Up: Top Ten Toys BEST FURNITURE STORE Area 51 It is plenty satisfying to peer into the windows of

BEST CLOTHING RE-SALE Lifelong Thrift Store In the Emerald City we take our thrifting seriously (right, Wans???) and this Capitol Hill shop has taken our admiration even further, because for every gently used pair of boots or pearl inlay button-up you buy, LTS donates cold hard cash to pay for food, housing and health care to people living with illnesses like HIV/ AIDS. (Side note: check out Lifelong’s annual bingo nights! They’re kitsch fun and you are likely to hear someone call out “O-69!”) 312 Broadway E., 329-5792 Runner-Up: Buffalo Exchange

BEST EYEWEAR Eyes on Fremont Sure, you could order your frames off the Internet, but where’s the fun in that? At Eyes on Fremont, the personable staff works with you to find the perfect frames, selecting from a collection that comes directly from international designers; then they might snap a photo of you and put it on their blog, where they will publicly shower you with flattery. And then they might invite you to a eyebrow-shaping event that benefits a homeless shelter. The Internet cannot do that. 4254 Fremont Ave. N., 634-3375, eyesonfremont.com Runner-Up: Broadway Vision BEST BARBERSHOP Rudy’s Where else can you sit and get a haircut or a dye job and look at naked lady pictures on the walls between giant mirrors? Or a picture of Roger— the leather-jacketed, coiffed ruffian from Nickelodeon’s Doug cartoon—with “Macklemore?” written below it? Rudy’s, which has a shop in seemingly every neighborhood, is essential to the lifeblood of Seattle and its subtly stylish citizens. Multiple locations, rudysbarbershop.com Runner-Up: Vain

W E E KLY

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PROMOTIONS

Crystal Mountain Resort BEST HAIR SALON Vain When Victoria Ptak founded Vain in 1996, the idea that a salon could eschew mainstream ideas of beauty and promote a do-it-yourself approach to personal style was novel. Since then, its cuttingedge approach has been copied but never replicated, as Seattleites still count on the stylists at Vain’s original Belltown location and Ballard and West Seattle outposts to help them identify what they already know they really want. 2018 First Ave., 441-3441; 5401 Ballard Ave. N.W., 706-2707; 4513 California Ave. S.W., 535-2595, vain.com Runner-Up: Bang

MUSIC

BEST TATTOO SHOP Slave to the Needle Walking into either of Slave to the Needle’s two Seattle shops will put anyone looking for some new ink at ease. The space is as artful as its many artists, who are led by Aaron Bell, an old Orange County punk who found his way to Seattle, where he opened the Ballard location in 1995. (A Wallingford locale was added in 2005.) The shop will do whatever you like, but specializes in large-scale custom work, 20 pieces of which will be on display at Axis Gallery in Pioneer Square this month to celebrate Slave’s 20th anniversary (the opening reception is Thurs., Aug. 6, 5–9 p.m.). 403 N.E. 45th St., 545-3685; 508 N.W. 65th St., 789-2618, slave totheneedle.com Runner-Up: Valentine’s Tattoo Co.

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BEST NAIL SALON Penelope and the Beauty Bar To be fair, nails are just one among a plethora of treatments available at Penelope and the Beauty Bar, located inside the Fairmont Olympic Hotel in downtown Seattle. You can get European facials, non-surgical facelifts, body wraps, body scrubs, body toning, cranial sacral therapy, hair, makeup, eyelash extensions, waxing, sugaring, and, if you still have the energy, yes, you can get your nails done. 411 University St., 438-1750, penelopeandthebeautybar.com Runner-Up: Hoa Salon

H A P P Y H O UR

scott freutel NEWSLETTER the bart harvey apartments 430 minor avenue nThe inside scoop on seattle wa 98109

VIP events, free tickets, 206-250-7487 and event photos.

PR OMO TIO NS

sfreutel@lihi.org

the bart harvey waiting list, which was reopened last month, will close at 11:59 p.m. Monday, August 10. People whose pre-applications are postmarked or dated after August 10th will not be added to the waitlist.

The Bart Harvey AR T S AND E NTE R TAI NMENT 

SEATTLE WEEKLY • AU G UST 5 — 11, 2015

BEST MEN’S BOUTIQUE Filson Born of the Alaska gold rush, C.C. Filson’s Pioneer Alaska Clothing and Blanket Manufacturers—as the company was then called—aimed to outfit those in search of fortune with durables that could weather the difficult Northwest winters. Today’s fortune-hunters are perhaps more coddled than their forebears, but the clothing manufactured and sold by Filson, made from heavyweight Tin Cloth and warm Mackinaw wool, is still just as durable. 1555 Fourth Ave. S., 622-3147, filson.com Runner-Up: Blackbird

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BEST WOMEN’S BOUTIQUE Pretty Parlor Parasols and petticoats hang from what looks like the inside of Audrey Hepburn’s closet. Vincent, the friendly in-store cat, lounges between racks of clothing from Grandma and Grandpa’s attics, estate sales, and local designers. Owner Anna Banana, whose pink hair matches the walls, handpicks the attire for her store—creating a reliant source for vintage clothing unlike the hit-and-miss of thrift stores (with no musty used-clothing smell either). Plus Goodwills don’t have a cuddly gray cat to pet between trips to the dressing room. 119 Summit Ave. E, 405-2883, prettyparlor.com Runner-Up: Totokaelo

FREE Educational Program for People living with Lymphoma and their loved ones. Lymphoma Workshop: Understanding Lymphoma Basics and–Current Treatment tneserP– –Present – Options

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this Capitol Hill furniture shop to gawk at some beautiful mid-century modern teal leather sofa that, let’s be honest, you probably can’t afford. But to really appreciate this shrine to stunning home decor, you’ve got to go all the way in. There you’ll likely find things you never knew you truly, deeply desired—like a foosball table crafted from reclaimed wood, cast iron, and stone; a spherical end table carved from teak root; or maybe a stool made of twigs. 401 E. Pine St., 568-4782, area51seattle.com Runner-Up: Ballard Consignment

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BEST MASSAGE Hothouse Sorry, guys, but the massages at Hothouse are for women only. Which is too bad for you, because this place is relaxing enough that just walking in will loosen your knots. Whether looking for a full-body massage or help with a nagging problem area, the massage-seeker will find what she’s looking for in the hands of the five staff practitioners who utilize Swedish, hot stone, trigger point, and myriad other practices. 1019 E. Pike St., 568-3240, hothousespa.com Runner-Up: Penelope and the Beauty Bar BEST YOGA STUDIO 8 Limbs Inclusivity is the driving force behind 8 Limbs, which in its 20 years has grown from a modest Capitol Hill studio to a growing yoga empire that invites neophytes and longtime yogis alike to four different locations. Marrying practical advice with spiritual guidance and a fervent dislike for any kind of dogma, the collection of studios are open enough to be inviting and, once you’re there, to allow you to grow. 500 E. Pike St., 325-8221; 6801 Greenwood Ave. N., 432-9609; 7345 35th Ave. N.E., 523-9722; 4546½ California Ave. S.W., 933-9642, 8limbsyoga.com Runner-Up: Seattle Yoga Arts

BEST NEW BUILDING

Affordable Housing? On Capitol Hill?! BEST OF SEATTLE 12th Avenue Arts shows it can be done. by Daniel Person

BEST ELECTRONIC ARTIST he 12th Avenue Arts Building

BEST GRAFFITTI

lies along, well, 12th Avenue in an obtusely angular way—obtuse in the sense that the angles of the building’s facade are greater than 90 degrees. On a lazy Monday afternoon—and if you’re not working, Monday afternoons are the laziest of them all—a scattering of fashionable patrons sit in the pre-happy-hour calm of Rachel’s Ginger Beer, sipping various cocktails concocted with the bar’s delicious namesake drink. (I got a Montana Mule, which is a whiskey ginger.) Next door, the tasty Japanese noodle chain U:Don (see the smiley face?) dishes out bowls to a few late lunchers. Aesthetically, I might gently disagree with our readers who voted my current locale Seattle’s Best New Building. Where one contender, The Wave apartment tower in Pioneer Square, has beautifully asserted itself into the city skyline, 12th Ave Arts is nicely done, but hardly stands apart from the scores of other nicely done low-rise urban developments in Seattle (though it does have a large garish sign to announce its presence). However, at the risk of sounding like a hack self-help guru, a building is not judged simply by its exterior. What goes on inside also counts. And U:Don and Rachel’s are just the beginning for 12th Ave Arts, which was conceived and developed as a bulwark against Capitol Hill’s skyrocketing rents. Funded through a combination of grants, tax incentives, loans, and a $4.6 million capital campaign, the $47 million building includes 88 apartments priced for people earning 60 percent of the

BEST DIRECTOR

SEATTLE WEEKLY • AUGU ST 5 — 11, 2015

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area median income or less (about $37,580 for a single person). It also has two black-box theaters, a 140-seat mainstage and an 80-seat studio, that house three theater companies: New Century Theatre Company, Strawberry Theatre Workshop, and Washington Ensemble Theatre. When those companies aren’t using the spaces, they’re rentable at reasonable rates by other arts groups.

“You know what’s happening in Capitol Hill with rents— even this project is just not enough.”

“The lack of affordable arts space was one of the issues we were trying to resolve with the building,” says Amy Allsopp, spokeswoman for the building’s nonprofit developer Capitol Hill Housing. “Capitol Hill is known for its arts community, but lots of arts organizations were getting pushed out because the rent was too high. The proposal we got from the three theaters, they were renting. They didn’t have their own space. Now they have a home.” Recent theater productions have included absurdist sketch comedy (price: pay what you can) and a production of Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well set “in modern-day France as

if the French Revolution had never happened” (price: pay what you can). With Seattle now embroiled in a sometimes-

bitter debate over creating affordable housing, we may bestow upon 12th Ave Arts another award: Best Politically Relevant Development. As we reported last year before it opened (“A Peek Inside Capitol Hill’s [Almost Finished] 12th Ave Art Project,” August 28, 2014), its housing units cost $883 for a one-bedroom and $1,191 for a two-bedroom. In contrast, at a nearby new market-rate building, a studio was renting for $1,650 a month, according to Capitol Hill Housing. “You know what’s happening in Capitol Hill with rents—even this project is just not enough. This is one of the only crane operations in the neighborhood building something like this,” Capitol Hill Housing’s Michael Seiwerath told us at the time. It’s an open question, however, how replicable 12th Ave Arts is—that is, whether it will be a model for creating lots more affordable housing. Some see the $4.6 million capital campaign— basically a fundraiser—as a barrier others may not be able to overcome. Development lobbyist Roger Valdez noted in our cover story about gentrification and the arts (“Art Vs. Tech Money,” April 29, 2015) that the building required “lots of money for lawyers and consultants and transaction costs—those units are very, very expensive.” But the fact is that 12th Ave Arts is providing cheap space on the Hill, a phenomenal feat. It calls for a drink: Montana Mules all around. E

dperson@seattleweekly.com

BEST CROSSFIT Stone Way Crossfit Over the past six years, Stone Way Crossfit has carved itself a sizable niche in Seattle’s crowded crossfit scene by focusing on community-building with its members. Class sizes are limited to 12 to assure more one-on-one time with coaches, and a leave-no-one-behind mentality means that all athletes stay in the box until the last is finished. As a result, many consider the place a second home. Oh, and they get super-ripped too. 2 Dravus St., 9307169, stonewaycrossfit.com Runner-Up: Northwest Crossfit BEST GYM Evolv Fitness Variety is the name of the game at Evolv Fitness, which offers 12 very different classes. Also, it should be noted, the South Lake Union gym has a way with words. The classes that take place in the Brawl Room are focused on “combat-based training,” with inspiring monikers like Clash, Jolt, Spar, and Sprawl. The Velocity Room might have less combat, but the workouts are no less intense, bearing names like Hardcore, Shock, and Chaos. Chaos, though, is the last thing you will find at this premier gym, where the instructors are knowledgeable and supportive. 1317 Republican St., 294-5884, evolvseattle.com Runner-Up: YMCA BEST RACE Rock ’N’ Roll Marathon In most any other category, readers would be loath to give a Best of Seattle award to a national chain. But there are many reasons to love the Rock ’N’ Roll Marathon, which is put on by San Diego-based Competitors Group Inc. and features bands and cheerleaders along the course to stoke runners. But we’d suggest that one word sums up why the event’s such a hit in Seattle: June, the month it’s held. For reasons unfathomable, the Seattle Marathon takes place in late November, when cold, viscous rain dissuades one from walking half a block for coffee, let alone running 26.2 miles. June is much better. June 18, 2016, runrockroll.com/seattle Runner-Up: Dead Baby Downhill

food&drink

Salare’s Fickle Fare

FoodNews BY JASON PRICE

Ravenna gets its first trendy restaurant, but it’s a roller-coaster ride of quality.

The best little burger joint, hidden in a commercial strip in the heart of SoDo, has just opened its third outlet in Lynnwood. The original Katsu Burger was recently reincarnated after a brief closure in 2014 as new management took over the spot. After quickly opening a second location in Bellevue, they’ve now gone north to share the wealth. The new location opens tomorrow at 3333 184th St. S.W. # B in Lynnwood. Go forth and get your Mt. Fuji burger and skip that Chick-fil-A bullshit.

BY NICOLE SPRINKLE

Mark your calendars for August 10, National S’mores Day. Theo Chocolate is again hosting its annual commemoration at their Fremont factory. On both Monday, August 10 and Tuesday, August 11 from noon to 5 p.m., Theo will sell limited-edition s’mores made from handcrafted Graham crackers, marshmallows, and fresh Theo chocolate. $1 from each s’more sale will go to Food Lifeline to support its mission of ending hunger in western Washington.

PHOTOS BY KYU HAN

The Queen Anne Beerhall will open on Lower Queen Anne in mid-August, bringing 7,000 square feet of drinking space. There you’ll be able to replicate drunken nights in Bavaria with live music, Austro-Hungarian cuisine, and rotating taps with European and local craft beers. The space will occupy the former Cotton Caboodle manufacturing facility at 203 W. Thomas St., and will be open 4 p.m.–2 a.m. daily. Cheers! E

The hamachi crudo (left) was a hit, while the meatball (right) wasn’t enough.

For round two, I returned with my 8-year-old daughter. The restaurant has smartly recognized its place in a neighborhood rife with families. The kids’ menu is sophisticated but not unapproachable, and the bathroom is outfitted with diapers, wipes, and other baby products. This time I skipped drinks altogether and quickly ordered a pickle plate, which came swiftly. Its precious variety—Lilliputian white strawberries, celeriac, sea beans, okra, cherries, carrots, and cauliflower—felt reminiscent of Jordan’s old boss at Bar Sajor, Matt Dillon, though ultimately the pickling liquid rendered everything one-note. But thankfully, things got progressively better from here. A salad with tongue was plentiful, the tongue similar in taste to pastrami and tossed perfectly with greens in a buttermilk-tarragon-based dressing. The hamachi crudo was also a hit, the fish fantastically fresh and accented rather than obliterated by a light pineapple sauce and a guacamole purée beneath it. A moist, medium rare duck breast was the best dish I had. Served with diced collard greens that weren’t overcooked and slathered in grease as is Southern custom, they instead found lushness through the addition of a silky, subtle layer of duck-liver mousse. A beautiful egg yolk–yellow apricot, in full seasonal grandeur, lay braised at the side. Both magnificently sweet and tart, it added necessary acidity to the richness. Quinoa provided a quiet but spot-on vehicle to unify it all.

This was the kind of flair I’d been looking for from Jordan. Though the portion was petite for $25, its perfection was worth every dollar. The “Goat Three Ways,” obviously part of their Caribbean arsenal, came as a small chop with a terrine and pieces of goat surrounding it, served with yams and cauliflower in a very mild curry sauce. It was a solid dish, if slightly on the plain side. Again, though, for $29, it was quite small. Seriously, how much can goat cost? The children’s menu was small but inspired. My daughter went for the beef meatball with tomato sauce served atop corn pudding. That combination sounds strange, but somehow works. But the portion problem is evident here too. That one meatball didn’t satiate her, so we had to order a second child’s entrée: braised chicken over angel hair pasta with Swiss chard and Parmesan. At $9 a pop, it took nearly $20 to fill her tiny belly. She still had room for dessert: this time, a lovely moist sponge cake with strawberry granita, lime curd, and lemon balm and a rich chocolate semifreddo with marshmallow, hazelnuts, and cocoa nibs. If head count is any indication, Ravenna denizens seem thrilled to have an acclaimed chef in their neighborhood—perhaps so much that they won’t mind overpaying for dishes that often misfire. I, however, still need more convincing. I’ve tasted how well this chef can execute, and expect a greater level of consistency. If the pattern I experienced continues, things can only get better. E

nsprinkle@seattleweekly.com

SALARE 2404 N.E. 65th St., 556-2192, salarerestaurant.com. 5 p.m.–close Wed.–Sun.

morningfoodnews@gmail.com

TheWeeklyDish Awarma at Mamnoon. BY ALANA AL-HATLANI

ALANA AL-HATLANI

virtually unsauced, plain and sticky. After a few bites, I put it aside. We ordered a requisite dessert, which ended up being the best dish of the night: a peach yogurt panna cotta with a sweet milk crumble, tiny shards of meringue, the inseason peaches in a light cinnamon syrup.

This may look like pizza, but it’s not. The “crust” is actually wood-fired pita bread. There’s no marinara, but instead preserved ground lamb with allspice, smeared like a sauce across the chewy dough. Almost mimicking spots of mozzarella: cheese with garlic confit, a mild and sweet flavor that makes eating whole cloves palatable. Awarma, a rural Middle Eastern dish of lamb preserved in its own fat, may not sound the most appetizing, but this fresh take, with the addition of the less-than-traditional soft egg and arugula toppings, is a great substitute for your box-standard pizza. E food@seattleweekly.com

SEATTLE WEEKLY • AU G UST 5 — 11, 2015

hen reviewing a new restaurant, it’s very rare that my experience will vary significantly over the two or three times I visit. I may prefer other dishes or get slightly better or worse service, but generally each visit is on par with the others. Not so at Salare, the recently opened and very buzzed-about restaurant from former Bar Sajor sous chef Edouardo Jordan—located, surprisingly, in family-friendly, decidedly unhip Ravenna. At my first dinner there, I’m exaggerating only a little when I say I couldn’t wait to leave. For starters, the exceeding friendliness of the service was matched only by its slowness. A 6 p.m. reservation had us with cocktails in hand (very, very weak ones for $11 each) at 6:10, followed by a small “bite” at 6:48 (by which time the drinks were long gone) and our first appetizer at 6:57 (I’m now officially starving and cranky). I had ample time to take in the interior, though, a simple open space divided in two by a server station. The front half is distinguished by the large bar and a big communal table that seats 14, as well as a few smaller tables. The back side houses the kitchen, with seats at a counter facing it. The most noticeable design element is the sea-green paint bordering the white walls and white porcelain votives inspired by seashells and coral made by a local artist. But back to the food. That first bite, fried okra and burnt lemon-saffron, was served in a too-sweet lemon-saffron sauce, the saffron undetectable, the sweetness bordering on dessert territory. I assume the okra is the restaurant’s nod to the south, as Salare aims to represent Southern, African, European, and Caribbean influences on American food. The cold crab custard that followed, also from the “Bites” portion of the menu, though generously heaped with knuckle-sized chunks of Dungeness, was ruined by too much salt, destroying what should have been a delicate summer delight. An appetizer of about 10 cubes of melon (watermelon and a couple other less-familiar varieties) was served over a smear of smoked-honey ricotta and bee pollen and sprinkled with grains of paradise for $14. I’d just sliced up a watermelon the weekend prior for the Fourth of July, the rosy, thick triangles sweeter and juicier than those here on my plate for a fraction of the price. While I don’t typically have a problem with inflated ingredient costs at restaurants, that’s because they’re usually tastier than what I’d find on my own and elevated by the chef ’s craft. But merely throwing scant exotic elements at a dish doesn’t count. Entrées didn’t fare much better. Orecchiette with oxtail, though robust in flavor with an unexpected but not unwelcome vinegary tang, was overcooked, and the amount of shredded oxtail (a cheap cut of meat) was unapologetically skimpy, especially for $24. Price points, particularly relative to serving size, are problematic in general here. The small mound of fettuccine with mussels, clams, sea beans, lemon, and shishito peppers also delivered overdone pasta, and was

food&drink» Why Aragona Failed

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here’s a certain nobility in grand gestures, even ones that fail. We remember the Titanic not just because it was a great tragedy (or because of Leo), but because it was a grandiose attempt to push limits. Similarly, with Vespolina (née Aragona) shutting BY ZACH GEBALLE its doors recently, I’d like to take a moment to remember just how ambitious it was, and to examine what its failure says about our food and wine scene. For those of you who never visited Aragona, the initial incarnation, it was clear from the outset that here was a restaurant trying to open new frontiers. Sure, RN74 had also boldly focused on wine when it opened a few years earlier, but French wine has always been an easier sell here. Aragona had two of the city’s top sommeliers on hand to curate and promote a wine list that revolved around Spain, a country with few recognizable grapes or regions, even if it’s home to some truly fantastic offerings. The goal was to get guests to take a chance on unfamiliar wines—to trust in the wine team’s skill in a way that is still largely uncomfortable for many diners. Setting aside the more outlandish suggestions, like drinking sherry with entrées, a list that offered few familiar touchstones was always going to challenge the staff and diners alike. Yet I can’t help but appreciate the optimism of such a move, even if in the long run it seemed unlikely to succeed. Indeed, as time passed and the restaurant struggled, the somm team that opened it departed. It was clear that the center could not hold. The transition from Spanish to Italian cuisine (from Aragona to Vespolina) meant giving up on that dream of broadening Seattle’s wine horizons—and for me and those like me, the hope that a vibrant Aragona would embolden other restaurateurs to consider ambitious and audacious wine programs. After all, other fantastic wine-producing countries, like Austria and Greece, have little more than a token presence in Seattle; yet if Spanish wine was a non-starter, it’s hard to imagine Seattleites flocking to zweigelt or agiorgitiko en masse. One thing that’s become clear in the aftermath of all this is that Seattle is still a city that likes its experiments small and contained. I’ve no doubt that much of the Aragona concept could have succeeded on a much smaller scale in a smaller space, tucked into a trendy neighborhood like Capitol Hill or Ballard. Combining the size and cost of a Downtown landmark restaurant with the unusual fare and drinks was in retrospect a real bad idea. Yet even now, after it’s all come crashing down, I can’t help but appreciate the effort. Innovation doesn’t come only from tiny little gems that most Seattleites will only read about and never visit. Sometimes the big, bold gestures are the ones that resonate, even if they fail. While a 300-seat shrine to the glory of Spanish wine might never be in the cards for Seattle, I wouldn’t be surprised if a few future restaurants are willing to explore what had been uncharted territory. Just as long as they watch out for icebergs. E

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arts&culture

A Better Kind of 1981

ThisWeek’s PickList

Why bring back Wet Hot American Summer? So its creators could improve upon it. BY ROGER DOWNEY

WEDNESDAY, AUG. 5

Poehler and Cooper are reunited.

Shaun the Sheep Movie

SAEED ADYANI/NETFLIX

Fortunately, with four hours of playing time instead of just two, the series has the leisure to set a few plot strands going to vary the constant firecracker-percussion of zany bits. ( Just one example: A shy 14-year-old goes into a toilet stall and emerges a lust-driven woman.) We get to follow Rudd’s moronic but studly swim instructor as he puts his moves on a new counselor (in the movie he lets a few campers drown while he’s busy making out). There’s intense rivalry between Camp Firewood and the preppie camp across the lake, where croquet is the sport of choice. The haunted cabin in the woods exerts its fascination (cue the creepy serial teen-killer music). Oh, and a multinational corporation with ties to the government is dumping toxic sludge nearby. (In the movie it was a piece of Skylab due to crash,

but the toxic sludge is a lot more fun.) The weakest of the continuing situations is the rehearsals for the first-night-of-camp talent show, with Cooper and Poehler as the alternately cheery and fraught couple in charge of entertainment. Poehler showed her ragingbitch side in the 2001 movie, but I’d forgotten just how frightening she can be behind that tense radiant smile. And after Silver Linings Playbook and American Sniper, watching Cooper play a marshmallow in a polo shirt is in itself hilariously funny. Top acting title has to go to Garofalo, who is so deep in her role that you feel real terror in her reactions to utterly stupid impossible threats. You can’t really call Rudd’s impersonation of the swim instructor acting, but what other performer in our time could rivet your attention for 30 seconds repeating the noise we spell “sheesh” in ever more nuanced fashion? I don’t know how Hamm manages to play roles like the Reverend Richard Wayne Gary Wayne (in Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt) or WHASFDC assassin The Falcon completely straight yet crack you up doing so. And reprising the role of the Vietnam-damaged camp cook, Meloni seems almost helium-inflated by relief at escaping from his TV crime-show routine. Bottom line: WHAS redux is better paced, written, and improvised, funnier and altogether better than the movie. It’s too good to bingewatch; take it episode by episode, giving the absurdities time to mellow and release their full bouquet. Goof, granted, is an acquired taste, but it has never been more glorious. E

arts@seattleweekly.com

Opens today at Ark Lodge, Lincoln Square, Meridian, and other theaters. Rated PG. 85 minutes. BRIAN MILLER

Jeff Hobbs

Published soon after the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson, Missouri, Hobbs’ book The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace (Scribner, $16) was one of the more disturbing—and unfortunately topical—nonfiction titles of last year. Hobbs, a privileged white kid, and Peace, from the projects of Newark, somehow ended up as roommates at Yale. The future author’s path was obvious; Peace’s was not. The son of a drug dealer who ventured into his father’s trade as a teen, Peace was also book-smart—earning scholarships first to parochial school, then college, where he studied molecular biophysics and biochemistry, graduating in 2002. Eight years later, Hobbs learned via Facebook, Peace was fatally shot in a drug deal gone wrong. New in paperback, his book chronicles both his friendship with Peace and the latter’s pre- and post-Yale life. It’s both a true-crime tale and a sociological study, a consideration of both beating the odds

SEATTLE WEEKLY • AU G UST 5 — 11, 2015

Richard Schiff, Jon Hamm, and Christopher Meloni, who all provide some peak moments. I can’t specify those moments in Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp, which began streaming on July 31, because the series is, literally, all spoilers. To describe almost any one of its jokes is to take the bloom off. Let me give you a sample of what I mean from the original movie. About 20 minutes in, the camp director (Garofalo) offers to drive any staffers who need a break into town. When they get there, in a montage lasting about 90 seconds, they go to the library, smoke some joints, score some crack, and hit the sidewalk to support their habits. Back in camp, Garofalo remarks, “It’s fun to get away from the camp, even if it’s just for an hour.”

Wallace and Gromit aren’t the only beloved creations from the stop-motion masters at Aardman Animations. Parents will know the ever-silent and long-suffering Shaun the Sheep from his eponymous TV series; and now he’s starring in his own movie—also quite free of dialogue, also quite charming. The sheep of Mossybottom Farm decide they need a holiday from their dull routine, so they trick the farmer—nor does he speak, but eloquently grunts and sighs—with many comic consequences. Pratfalls and physical humor abound as the flock (led by clever Shaun) casts about the city, pursued both by protective sheepdog Bitzer and a nasty animal-control officer. (Meanwhile, back home, the unsupervised pigs behave like, well, pigs.) The farmer gets amnesia and becomes a celebrity; there are many delightful chase sequences; and the flock even performs a musical number! Parents will appreciate the many ’80s references (the decade in which the farmer seems permanently stuck), but writer/ directors Mark Burton and Richard Starzak are savvy enough to include jokes about social media, celebrity shenanigans, and snooty dining customs. (Here’s a pro tip to all escaped sheep: When disguised as a person and offered a menu, don’t eat it.) And of course there are fart jokes, which all good children’s movies must include.

AARDMAN ANIMATIONS

eleased in 2001, Wet Hot American Summer cost $5 million to make, grossed less than $300,000, and polarized those few who saw it as few films manage to do. Viewer ratings on IMDb are basically 10s or 1s (you can’t vote a zero), with reviews like “Why the term instant classic was invented” or “A Dry Cold American Mess.” Nothing in between. Both descriptions are completely correct. Ostensibly a parody of summer-teen movies of the ’80s, WHAS was really the most extreme, extended essay yet in pure goof humor. In comparison, the BBC’s anarchic The Young Ones (1982–84) was a mainstream sitcom, Bob Odenkirk and David Cross’ Mr. Show (1995– 98) bland sketch comedy. WHAS posits an improv situation—counselors versus campers on the last day of the 1981 season at Camp Firewood—and then runs, leaps, stumbles, and falls flat for over two hours. Almost all the adults in the film—Janeane Garofalo and David Hyde Pierce are the exceptions—were played by more or less unknowns, their only common denominator a background in improv. Bit for bit, the success rate is only fair, but the intermittent high points go where few comedians had gone before. So WHAS is a cult-movie fan’s cult movie, the kind of title addicts share with others as a test of worth. The mystery is how, 14 years later, creators Michael Showalter and David Wain managed to persuade Netflix to bring back their deformed love-child as an eightpart series set in a Catskillish summer camp (meticulously recreated in L.A. from the movie’s real Pennsylvania camp location), this time portraying the events of the first day of camp that same summer. One obvious reason Netflix bought the idea is that a number of the then-obscure talents in the 2001 cast are now big names: Bradley Cooper, Paul Rudd, Amy Poehler, and Elizabeth Banks among them. The real question is why such successful performers would take time off to reprise roles so far down their resume. I think the answer depends on the strange nature of improv comedy. Stand-up comics tend to be loners and averse to sharing the spotlight. An improv performer can’t exist alone. The art depends on the cascade of imagination that results when you follow the rules: “Always accept the challenge,” “Always say ‘yes’ to it,” and “Something wonderful right away.” In time, as I know to my sorrow, improv becomes a kind of addiction. You don’t feel fully alive in even a terrifically written role; the jolt of the unknown is absent. Better to die trying than sleepwalk to success. It’s such an intense sensation that in the Netflix series, it has drawn veteran performers not associated with improv, like John Slattery, Chris Pine, Marguerite Moreau, Jason Schwartzman,

» CONTINUED ON PAGE 54 53

arts&culture»

SLUBLOCKPARTY.COM

NOW PLAYING

Revelers at last year’s SLUBP.

» FROM PAGE 53 and succumbing to them. Peace’s life was surely a paradox; he was a guy who both transcended and embraced his dead-end environment. Whether we’re talking about drug-sentencing laws, gun control, early education, black incarceration rates, broken families, mentoring, or the insidiously lasting effects of childhood poverty, Peace’s sad story contains all those elements. Seattle Central Library, 1000 Fourth Ave., 386-4636, spl.org. Free. 7 p.m. BRIAN MILLER

FRIDAY, AUG. 7

Oh, shut up already, Capitol Hill. Your precious block party doesn’t even have a streetcar. Is the light-rail station open yet? I don’t think so. And how many attendees were actual coders, as opposed to dimea-dozen hipsters? Down in shiny new SLU, the Amazon and tech crowd will gather today—first during their lunch break to hear the Foghorns and Massy Ferguson. (Lunch is also a good time to purchase a special $15 food passport to local eateries, and the Brave Horse will open its beer garden.) Come happyhour time, when we hope Grand Exalted Leader Bezos will free his sun-deprived minions early, the bands resume with (in order of appearance): Tomo Nakayama, Blue Thunder, Kithkin (featurng our very own music editor Kelton Sears), Polyrhythmics, and THEESatisfaction (whose Stasia Irons and Catherine Harris-White are regular SW contributors). Also at 4 p.m., food trucks will appear as if by magic, and there’ll be a burger-grilling competition. Family and children’s activities run all day long, including a giant slide and bouncy castle. This year’s fest also includes a “Steamroller Smackdown”: 20 design teams will set their let-

lake Ave. N. & Denny Way, slublockparty.com. Free. 11 a.m.–11 p.m. BRIAN MILLER

Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck

This fascinating documentary portrait has strong appeal in Seattle—even among viewers for whom, like me, Cobaniana seems a completely exhausted subject, two decades after the Nirvana front man’s suicide. It’s a vivid, impressionistic, and often contradictory profile that reaches deep into the Cobain family archives. Director Brett Morgen spent an arduous eight years on the project; the movie’s too long, though never less than engrossing, and you can see why Morgen wrestled so long with the editing. What a short, rich, and troubled life his subject lived. Cobain’s cassette-tape journals from the late ’80s spring

CORBIS/HBO DOCUMENTARY FILMS

SEATTLE WEEKLY • AUGU ST 5 — 11, 2015

South Lake Union Block Party

terpress creations beneath, yes, an actual five-ton steamroller. Did the Capitol Hill Block Party have one of those? Maybe next year . . . West-

into animated vignettes. The most remarkable of them, about trying to lose his virginity with a possibly disabled girl in Aberdeen, reminds me of a Raymond Carver story: concise, unsparing, brutal in its details, yet oddly compassionate toward all thwarted, unhappy parties. The episode ends in shame and a suicide attempt. There’s a mournful self-awareness here that colors the rest of the film. Even as Cobain grasps for success, there’s the parallel feeling that it’s undeserved and fraudulent. Long before heroin entered his life, self-disgust had seeped into his

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veins. (Through Thurs.) SIFF Cinema Uptown, 511 Queen Anne Ave. N., 324-9996. $7–$12. See siff.net for showtimes. BRIAN MILLER

SATURDAY, AUG. 8

Nabucco

GAVIN BORCHERT

Tangyo

Diagonal Ave. S., duwamishrevealed.com. Free. 8 p.m. SANDRA KURTZ

TUESDAY, AUG. 11

William T. Vollmann

When Vollmann writes about something, he really writes about it. And writes. And writes. He tells The New York Times that in researching The Dying Grass—a 1,200-page novel chronicling the Nez Perce War (Viking, $55)—he placed ethnographies, soldier memoirs, and petroglyphs on his nightstand “in hopes of a little sleep learning—which often translated into vivid dreams.” No detail is too small for Vollmann; yet 400 pages into the novel, I’m not fatigued with it at all. The Nez Perce War was as peculiar a military engagement as it was tragic. The U.S. military chased and skirmished with the Nez Perce for some 1,170 miles as the tribe tried to make it to the Medicine Line (the Canadian border) rather than submit to a punitive treaty that greatly reduced the size of their reservation in Oregon. The tribe finally surrendered in 1877 just miles from the border in northern Montana, where Chief Joseph gave his famous “I Will Fight No More Forever” speech. The novel’s action is presented almost entirely in dialogue—in turns battle-heated, bureaucratic, and idle—with the occasional, stunning landscape vignette presented almost like free verse. (“The burning falling lodgepoles for an instant as lovely as the maze of nesting black and white stripes on an Indian basket/and/a broken string of elk teeth, scattered in the grass like cloves of garlic.”) Vollmann’s style immerses you in a fog of war that may approximate what the soldiers and warriors on the ground experienced—and a fog of history like the one that still covers our national reckoning with the Native American genocide. Seattle Central Library. Free. 7 p.m. DANIEL PERSON E

verdi

VERDI’S MONUMENTAL EPIC Ancient Babylon is the backdrop for this timeless tale of a proud king, a deceitful daughter, a nationless people, and a pair of star-crossed lovers. Seattle Opera Premiere! With English Subtitles. Evenings 7:30 p.m. – Sunday 2:00 p.m. Featuring the Seattle Opera Chorus and members of Seattle Symphony Orchestra.

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SEATTLE WEEKLY • AU G UST 5 — 11, 2015

Some aerialists like to show you how hard something is when they perform—they keep your attention through fright. Tanya Brno doesn’t fit in that daredevil category. She’d rather you see magic than danger, feel awe instead of anxiety. In Tangyo, part of this summer’s interdisciplinary Duwamish Revealed festival (through Sept. 30), she’s certainly taking risks—hanging over the river, suspended by a crane at twilight. But as she casts shadows while inside an illuminated moon designed by Yuri Kinoshita, and then emerges like a butterfly hatching to hover above the audience (with music by Coast Salish flautist and narration by Paul Che Oke Ten Wagner), it’s less about daring than it is about delight. (But if you prefer your dancing more earthy, head over to Kirkland, where renowned flamenco artist Maria Bermudez will make the floor sing with her footwork; $40-$45, 8 p.m.) The Estuary, 4651

Brno at Moisture Festival 2013.

Photo © Philip Newton

McCaw Hall, 321 Mercer St. (Seattle Center), 389-7676.seattleopera.org. $25 and up. 7:30 p.m.

August 7 - 9

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Though he melodramatically threatened to stop composing after his likable but awkward comedy Un giorno di regno fell flat, fortunately Verdi (then 27) recanted and followed it up in 1841 with what turned out to be his first success, Nabucco, a love triangle (of course) set against the ancient clash between Babylonians and Hebrews. If you know anything from this opera, it’s likely the bittersweet “Va, pensiero,” essentially an aria for chorus that became one of the composer’s most beloved hits. If you know anything else, it’s probably that the lead soprano role, Abigaille, the power-hungry daughter (supposedly) of the title king, is a killer—requiring, roughly, the force of Aida’s Amneris and the vocal flexibility of Rigoletto’s Gilda. Her scena at the beginning of Act 2, for example, asks for two cliff-diving leaps from high C down two octaves—and few are the sopranos who can resist adding one more high C at the end. (Or, frankly, who can manage the role in the first place.) If you don’t know either of these things, you’re in for a treat. (Through Aug. 22.)

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OPENINGS & EVENTS

EAT CAKE Seth Tankus’ new musical about a chaotic

wedding gets a workshop performance. West of Lenin, 203 N. 36th St., 352-1777, westoflenin.com. Pay what you can. 7 p.m. Tues., Aug. 11. GETTING MARRIED A reading of Shaw’s examination of the institution. ACT, 700 Union St., endangered speciesproject.org. $10–$15. 7 p.m. Mon., Aug. 10. GREAT WALL Part of Village Theatre’s 15th Annual Festival of New Musicals, this one is open to the public: Kevin So and Kevin Merritt wrote this tale of an aspiring Asian-American rocker. Village Theatre, 303 Front St., N., Issaquah, 425-392-2202, villagetheatre.org. $20–$25. 7:30 p.m. Thurs., Aug. 6; 2 p.m. Fri., Aug. 7; 5 p.m. Sat., Aug. 8–Sun., Aug. 9. INTIMAN EMERGING ARTIST SHOWCASE Final projects (three play excerpts) from the actors, directors, and writers in Intiman’s summer program. Center House Theatre, Seattle Center. Free, but RSVP at intiman.org. 7:30 p.m. Wed., Aug. 5–Thurs., Aug 6. INTO THE WOODS Twelfth Night Productions presents Sondheim’s fairy-tale mashup. West Seattle High School, 3000 California Ave. S.W., brownpapertickets. com. $18–$20. Opens Aug. 7. 7:30 p.m. Fri.–Sat., 3 p.m. Sun. plus Sat., Aug 15. Ends Aug. 16. SMITTY & MILES Improv and sketches from Matt Smith and Pattie Miles. West of Lenin, 203 N. 36th St., 352-1777, westoflenin.com. $10–$15. 8 p.m. Fri., Aug. 7–Sat., Aug. 8. WILD & PRECIOUS Steve Cadwell’s solo memoir covers 50 years of personal and gay history. Calamus Auditorium, Gay City, 517 E. Pike St., gaycity.org. $10–$20. 4 p.m. Thurs., Aug. 6.

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Wright chats with five local actresses in a cabaret/ interview hybrid; this week, Laura Griffith. ArtsWest, 4711 California Ave. S.W., 938-0339, artswest.org. Single tickets $25–$75. 7:30 p.m. Mon. Ends Aug. 17. CAFÉ NORDO “Summer Nights at the Culinarium” includes literary and performance events practically every night: Maria Glanz’ solo show Being Naked Mon.; “Out to Eat” on Tues.; “Wine Wednesdays”; “Drinkers & Thinkers” on Thurs.; Chef/Artist dinners Fri.–Sat.; “Readers & Eaters” on Sun.; and more. Nordo’s Culinarium, 109 S. Main St., brownpapertickets.com. Full info at cafenordo.com. DANCE LIKE A MAN In Mahesh Dattani’s play, Lata struggles between tradition and rebellion as her parents are about to meet the man she wants to marry. ACT Theatre, 700 Union St., 292-7676, acttheatre.org. $15–$44. 7:30 p.m. Thurs.–Sat., 2 p.m. Sun. Ends Aug. 9. THE EPIC OF GILGAMESH Schmeater’s family show about the mythical figure and “first superhero.” Volunteer Park, schmeater.org. Free. 5 p.m. Sat.–Sun. Ends Aug. 16. FIDDLER ON THE ROOF Return to Anatevka in this classic musical based on the tales of Sholom Aleichem, presented by Aurora Theatre Company. Shoreline City Hall, 17500 Midvale Ave. N., Shoreline. Free. 8 p.m. Fri.–Sat. Ends Aug. 22. GODSPELL Stephen (Wicked) Schwartz’s gospel musical is reset in Pike Place Market. Taproot Theatre, 204 N. 85th St., 781-9707, taproottheatre.org. $20–$40. 7:30 p.m. Wed.–Thurs., 8 p.m. Fri., 2 & 8 p.m. Sat. Extended through Aug. 22. GREENSTAGE The Two Noble Kinsmen and Much Ado About Nothing are performed in area parks, plus stripped-down versions of Macbeth and The Two Gentlemen of Verona in smaller venues. Runs Thurs.– Sun.; see greenstage.org for complete venue & schedule info. Ends Aug. 15. HOLD THESE TRUTHS Jeanne Sakata’s one-man show shines a light on a shameful chapter of history, the Japanese-American internment during World War II. The one-act monologue presents the life of our homegrown hero Gordon Hirabayashi (well played by Ryan Yu). Armed with an adoration of the Constitution, the UW student openly defied federally mandated curfews and internment. The Supreme Court unanimously ruled against him; 40 years later, that decision was overturned. Sakata’s decades-spanning script explores Hirabayashi’s legal woes and plumbs his experiences after realizing he was something “other than” white. While musing about bathing outdoors or eating sticky rice, the monologue comically capitalizes on Japanese culture—including its stereotypes—while revealing the heartbreaking horror of being arbitrarily hated. Jessica Kubzansky’s adroit direction works in astute tandem with Ben Zamora’s minimalist stage design. ALYSSA DYKSTERHOUSE ACT Theatre, 700 Union St., 292-7676. $15–$44. Runs Tues.–Sat.; see acttheatre.org for exact schedule. Ends Aug. 16.

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IS SHE DEAD YET? Euripides’ Alcestis gets updated as

a savage satire on race by Brandon J. Simmons. Annex Theatre, 1100 E. Pike St., annextheatre.org. $5–$20. 8 p.m. Thurs.–Sat. plus Mon., Aug. 10. Ends Aug. 22. JET CITY IMPROV SUMMER MADNESS Themed shows all summer; on Aug. 8, it’s “Prom Night.” Jet City Improv, 5510 University Way N.E., jetcityimprov.org. $12–$15. 8 & 10:30 Sat. Ends Sept. 19. LOVE SONG John Kolvenbach’s “sexy, subversive rhapsody to the magic and the mayhem of love” is Porcupine and Poet’s debut production. Stone Soup Theatre, 4029 Stone Way N., porcupineandpoet.com. $15. 7:30 p.m. Fri.–Sun. Ends Aug. 8. OUTDOOR TREK No sendup, no camp—Outdoor Trek plays this Star Trek script (Theodore Sturgeon’s “Amok Time”) affectionately straight, though there are plenty of laughs to be had in the genius way they adapt it for al fresco performance on a shoestring budget. (“Wsht. Wsht.” the cast members mutter every time they mime walking through one of the Enterprise’s automatic sliding doors.) The casting is not so much cross-gender as ignore-gender, and Helen Parson as Spock relishes one of the character’s juiciest roles—this is the episode where he gets the seven-year itch and has to return to Vulcan to mate—and she rants and rampages intensely in addition to having fun with Spock’s archetypal unperturbability. (I do wish, though, that Paul Unwin had really committed to the role of Nurse Chapel and donned a miniskirt.) Other impressive subtleties include Patrick Hogan’s high-strung-ness as Bones and the smooth ultra-competence of Uhura; Stephanie Morris plays her as cool as an ice panther from Rigel XII. Blanche Lavizzo Park, 2100 S. Jackson St. Free. 7 p.m. Sat., 2 p.m. Sun. Ends Aug. 9. PUTTING IT TOGETHER Youth Theatre Northwest presents this Sondheim revue. Emmanuel Church, 4400 86th Ave. S.E., Mercer Island, 232-4145 x109, youththeatre. org. 7 p.m. Fri.–Sat., 2 p.m. Sun. Ends Aug. 16. TEATRO ZINZANNI “The Return of Chaos”—glitzy, campy, and definitely chaotic—is a show for the Jem generation: To a soundtrack of mid-’80s glam anthems (“Invincible,” “Holding Out for a Hero”), a clutch of Seattle superheroes battle the Horde of Four, villains in thrall to a robot-puppet-dog who commands them to steal the superheroes’ . . . beer. The cirque acts framed by this nutball premise are as exhilarating as ever, if not more so. Teatro ZinZanni, 222 Mercer St., 802-0015. $99 and up. Runs Thurs.–Sun. plus some Wed.; see zinzanni. com/seattle for exact schedule. Ends Sept. 13. WOODEN O/SHAKESPEARE IN THE PARK Free productions of As You Like It and Henry IV, Part 1 in area parks. Runs Wed.–Sun.; see seattleshakespeare.org for complete venue & schedule info. Ends Aug. 9. ZIG ZAG FESTIVAL New short works by six young female playwrights. Annex Theatre, 1100 E. Pike St., annex theatre.org. $5–$10. 8 p.m. Tues.–Wed. Ends Aug. 19.

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Dance

TANGYO SEE THE PICK LIST, PAGE 55. •SONIDOS GITANOS Flamenco from Jerez, Spain.

Kirkland Performance Center, 350 Kirkland Ave., 425-8939900, kpcenter.org. $45–$55. 8 p.m. Sat., Aug. 8.

Classical, Etc.

SEATTLE OPERA SEE THE PICK LIST, PAGE 55. •AUBURN SYMPHONY CHAMBER MUSIC Villa-Lobos,

Vivaldi, and more from the ASO cellos. Mary Olson Farm, 28728 Green River Rd., Auburn, auburnsymphony.org. $10–$18. 7 p.m. Thurs., Aug. 6. THE ESOTERICS Choral music on texts dealing with, among other topics, the gay civil-rights struggle and the murder of a Russian journalist. At St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, 4805 N.E. 45th St., 8 p.m. Fri, Aug. 7; Holy Rosary Catholic Church, 4210 S.W. Genesee St., 8 p.m. Sat., Aug. 8; Grace Episcopal Church, 8595 N.E. Day Rd., Bainbridge Island, 3 p.m. Sun., Aug. 9. $10–$25. theesoterics.org. STEVEN GREENMAN With pianist Byron Schenkman, Russian-Jewish music for violin and piano. Temple Beth Am, 2632 N.E. 80th St. Free. 7:15 p.m. Fri., Aug. 7. OLYMPIC MUSIC FESTIVAL Chamber music each Sat. & Sun. at 2 p.m. through Sept. 13. This weekend, allBeethoven. 7360 Center Rd., Quilcene, Wash., 360-7324800, olympicmusicfestival.org. $20–$32. ODD PARTIALS From this duo, improvisatory and electronic music for clarinet. Chapel Performance Space, 4649 Sunnyside Ave. N., waywardmusic.org. $5–$15. 8 p.m. Sat., Aug. 8.

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B Y G AV I N B O R C H E R T

Send events to stage@seattleweekly.com, dance@seattleweekly.com, or classical@seattleweekly.com

» visual arts Openings & Events BAINBRIDGE ISLAND STUDIO TOUR Four dozen

artists are featured at five studios covered in a loop requiring a car or bicycle. See bistudiotour.com for venues and map. 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Fri. & Sat. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sun. CHRISTOPHER BUENING HighSchoolHigh has the artist venturing back to his tortured adolescence. To hide his gay identity, he writes, “I went from liking Madonna and Cyndi Lauper to listening to darker music and became the epitome of teen angst.” Also on view: Drive: The Story of My Life, featuring Joshua Bienko, Piper Brett, and Layet Johnson. First Thursday opening reception. SOIL Gallery, 112 Third Ave. S. (Tashiro Kaplan Building), 264-8061, soilart.org. Noon-5 p.m. Thu.-Sun. Ends Aug. 29. LINDA CHRISTENSEN & KENSUKE YAMADA From Snta Cruz, the former specializes in female figure painting; the latter, a local who trained at Evergreen, makes colorful ceramics—also figurative. First Thursday opening reception. Patricia Rovzar, 1225 Second Ave., 223-0273, rovzargallery.com. 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Sun. Ends Aug. 31. EINAR AND JAMEX DE LA TORRE They present colorful new glass work in Hyperkulturemia. First Thursday opening reception. Traver Gallery, 110 Union St., 587-6501, travergallery.com. 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tues.-Fri. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sat. Ends Aug. 29. DUFFYLEG His show Fueled Spirit will feature a deconstructed 1977 Pontiac Trans Am, a meditation on speed, muscle cars, and burnouts (in both senses of the word). First Thursday opening reception. Artifact Gallery 313 First Ave. S., 619-2122, artifact-gallery. com. Noon-8 p.m. Thurs.-Fri. Noon-6 p.m. Sat. Noon-4 p.m. Sun. Ends Aug. 31. GEORGETOWN ART ATTACK All the usual awesomeness, supplemented by Sylvia O’Stayformore and friends at the Trailer Park Mall, a small press show and readings (by Ryan Boudinot and Noah Van Sciver) at Fantagraphics, and a live DJ. Art openings include Allen Gladfelter’s Casino Nation at All City Coffee, Alex Lockwood’s sculpture at Oxbow, and a group show at The Alice, I Come to You in Pieces (featuring Maria Walker, Rachel Meginnes, and Guy Merrill). Downtown Georgetown, georgetownartattack.com. Free. 6-9 p.m. Sat., Aug. 8. JESSICA JORGENSEN A local transplant from California, she paints urban portraits of friends, bartenders, and the like. First Thursday opening reception. Zeitgeist, 171 S. Jackson St., 583-0497, zeitgeistcoffee.com. 6 a.m.-7 p.m. Mon.-Fri. Weekends vary. Ends Sept. 2

•

JOURNEY: PADDLES OF THE NORTHWEST COAST

PATRICK PUCKETT The Louisiana painter creates

bright, humid scenes, full of women and warm colors. First Friday opening reception. Hall|Spassov Gallery, 800 Bellevue Way N.E. (Bellevue), 425-453-3244, hallspassov.com. 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Tues.-Sat. Ends Aug. 31. HIB SABIN The veteran Native American woodcarver, based in Santa Fe, depicts owls, ravens, and the like. First Thursday opening reception. Stonington Gallery, 125 S. Jackson St., 405-4040, stoningtongallery. com. 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon.-Fri. (weekends vary). Ends Aug. 29. SLOW ENHANCERS Atists associated with Season Gallery include Sharon Butler, Calvin Ross Carl, Dawn Cerny, and Seth David Friedman. First Thursday opening reception. Platform Gallery, 114 Third Ave. S. (Tashiro Kaplan Building), 323-2808, platformgallery. com. 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Wed.-Sat. Ends Aug. 29. DON TILLER He paints new maritime scenes in Northwest Waters. First Friday opening reception. Roby King Gallery, 176 Winslow Way E. (Bainbridge), 842-2063, robykinggallery.com. 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Tue.-Sat. Ends Sept. 3.

Ongoing

JULIE ALPERT Come watch the artist direct a crew of

volunteers to create a large assemblage work called Backdrop. MadArt, 325 Westlake Ave., N., 623-1180, madartseattle.com. Free. 11 a.m.–5 p.m. Wed. & Fri.–Sat., 11 a.m.–7 p.m. Thurs. Ends Sept. 3. CHIHO AOSHIMA The contemporary Japanese artist creates candy-colored, personal tableaux of animist cosmology and kawaii characters. She’s a constructor of intricate worlds whose denizens we can see in 35 small preliminary drawings—later translated by computer into a half-dozen large, glossy dreamscapes and one enormous, wall-filling animation. Played on a continuous loop, the 7-minute new Takaamanohara depicts the destruction (by volcano and tsunami) and rebirth of a fanciful coastal city. Mischievous Shinto spirits cause the cycle (one by farting), as ruination leads to regeneration, over and over again. You have to watch it several times, ideally from different vantage points, to appreciate the enveloping detail (animated by Bruce Ferguson). I think kids will love it, too; Takaamanohara is a manageable, almost cheerful way of contemplating mortality. Seattle Asian Art Museum, 1400 E. Prospect St. (Volunteer Park), 654-3100, seattleartmuseum.org. $5-$9. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Wed., Fri.-Sun. 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Thurs. Ends Oct. 4. ANDY BEHRLE He updates and reconstructs old radio cabinets in his sonic sculpture show through static. Method Gallery, 106 Third Ave. S. (Tashiro Kaplan Building), 223-8505, methodgallery.com. Noon-5 p.m. Fri.-Sat. Ends Sept. 12. LEO SAUL BERK From childhood trauma, art? That’s often the way it works, especially for actors and writers, though Berk isn’t re-enacting any primal scenes or revenging himself on his parents for moving the family from England to rural Illinois in 1980. Leo was only 6 then; and as he notes in the wall text to Structure and Ornament, the next six years of living in a leaky, impractical quonset-like cluster of three domed structures (by modernist architect Bruce Goff) ended their marriage. Berk seems haunted by the place, which he revisited in 1999. Goff used odd materials, including cannel coal, rope, and glass cullet, for the round walls of Ford House; and the arched roof rested on trusses, something like a yurt. In his large, titular showpiece sculpture, Berk turns those radial trusses on an axis, rising from the floor like a giant spiky tiara, made of cypress wood and orange fiberglass. The old architectural notion of shelter or protection has been forgotten. Frye Art Museum, 704 Terry Ave., 622-9250, fryemuseum.org. Free. 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Tues.-Sun. (Open to 7 p.m. Thursdays.) Ends Sept. 6. ILSE BING An early user of the 35mm Leica hand-held camera, the German Bing (1889-1998) is known as a pioneering woman in European photography. Henry Art Gallery, 4100 15th Ave. N.E. (UW campus), 5432280, henryart.org. $6-$10. 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Wed., Sat., Sun. 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Thurs.-Fri. Ends Oct. 11. GREGORY BLACKSTOCK One of our favorite local artists, the autistic-savant former dishwasher is a cheerful explainer. His mostly tabular, annotated works are didactic in a sense; he’s teaching us something about flags and dogs and donkeys and hydroplanes, organizing and categorizing them for our edification. They’re like the rare color pages you find in an unabridged dictionary, illustrated not for the sake of art, but instruction. Also on view, work by a dozen fellow outsider artists, called I Taught Myself, including Henry Darger and Grandma Moses. Greg Kucera Gallery, 212 Third Ave., 624-0770, gregkucera.com. 10:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Tues.-Sat. Ends Aug. 29.

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CANOPIES In the forest sense, i.e., the roof of trees

above our heads. New work by Kimberly Clark, Eric Elliott, Tamblyn Gawley, and Evelyn Woods evokes it. Prographica, 3419 E. Denny Way, 322-3851, prographicadrawings.com. 11 a.m-5 p.m. Wed.-Sat. Ends Aug. 22. CANVAS CONSTRUCTIONS This is an archival pairing of two old works from the early ’70s, when young artists were pushing against corny old notions of paint on canvas. Instead: just canvas! Karen Carson’s Four Panel Zipper Piece reads like several triangular sails flopping different in configurations (which will change during the show’s run). Allan McCollum’s Constructed Painting: Rosamund uses dyed fabric to suggest something like stacked masonry or brickwork via a trompe l’oeil effect. Henry Art Gallery. Ends Oct. 4. MARTIN CREED Those who frequented the old Western Bridge gallery, like me, will recognize Work No. 360: Half the air in a given space, though it occupied a much smaller room back in 2010. The English conceptual artist Martin Creed is calling our attention to volume by enclosing it here in 37,000 silver balloons, far more than five years ago. Back then at the cheerful opening reception, half of a small room meant the balloons were only waist-high (or thereabouts); now, in the Henry’s cavernous gallery they’re way over your head. Needless to say, there are certain restrictions on entry. Don’t wear anything spiky or sharp. Even then, expect some popping. And static electricity. And the overpowering smell of latex—like paint drying. It’s a somewhat overwhelming, enveloping immersion in art, more tactile than your average museum show. Kids will probably be delighted to play in it, like the bubble room at McDonald’s Henry Art Gallery. Ends Sept. 27.

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• DISGUISE: MASKS AND GLOBAL AFRICAN ART

Let me immediately stop you from thinking this is a history show, with all the dull anthropology and colonial guilt that implies. Instead, this is a contemporary show featuring 10 emerging artists with roots in Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, and even Japan. (Remember the “global” part, which extends to the U.S., too.) Several of those artists will be on hand for this week’s opening events; and not all of them are strictly mask-makers. Performance and music will be part of some installations on view, and videos document other ceremonies and masquerades of the digital age. The reference points are wide-ranging among this disparate group: contemporary politics, urban planning, Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, modern animation, wandering herds of deer, and the concealment/assumption of identity that always comes with mask-wearing. Seattle Art Museum, 1300 First Ave., 654-3121, seattleartmuseum.org. $19.50. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Wed.-Sun. (Open to 9 p.m. Thurs.) Ends Sept. 7. DWELL This group show features architectureinspired work from Gala Bent, Julie Blackmon, Susanna Bluhm, and Linda Connor, and others. G. Gibson Gallery, 300 S. Washington St., 587-4033, ggibsongallery.com. 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Wed.-Sat. Ends Aug. 15. MICHELLE HANDELMAN The New York artist presents a multiscreen video (and supporting materials) called Irma Vep, The Last Breath, based on the old French silent serial Les Vampires, coincidentally celebrating its centennial. In this modern update, an unhappy cat thief, clad in black leather skinsuit, pours our her problems to her shrink. Henry Art Gallery. Ends Oct. 11. HEAVEN AND EARTH COCA’s annual nature walk/art show usually gets vandalized, so plan your trip early in the run. This year’s theme is “Propagation,” engaged by a dozen artists including Shin Yu Pai, Tori Karpenko, Josh Poehlein, Michelle de la Vega, Sam Trout, and Ulrich Pakker. Materials are usually humble and durable (and, we hope, anchored to the ground). Carkeek Park, 950 N.W. Carkeek Park Rd., heavenandearth. org. 6 a.m.-10 p.m. daily. Ends Oct. 15. CHUCK JONES The legendary animator (1912–2002) was an integral part of the Warner Bros. animation unit, working there for three decades until its 1962 closure. Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd, Daffy Duck, Pepé Le Pew, Wile E. Coyote, and the Road Runner are among the characters he originated or helped create—all of them über-American distillations of our basic appetites and drives. What’s Up, Doc? is a benign and amusing exhibit, irresistible for its nostalgia value. This traveling show features 23 cartoons (alas, many only excerpts), augmented by 136 drawings, sketches, cels, music cue sheets, etc. EMP Museum, 325 5th Ave. N. (Seattle Center), 10 a.m.-7 p.m. daily. $16-$25. Ends Jan. 17.

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BY B R IA N M I LLE R

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•

PROMOTIONS TICKET GIVEAWAY PIPPIN

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SEATTLE WEEKLY • AU G UST 5 — 11, 2015

Native artists carve the traditional wooden idiom, both decorative and functional (though rarely touching water). First Friday opening reception. Raven’s Nest Gallery, 17508 Vashon Highway S.W. (Vashon Island), 567-5826, vashonravensnest.com. Call for hours. Ends Aug. 31. LUSH LIFE: REVERIE This bright and shiny group show features Adrian Cox, Amanda Manitach, Ashley Eliza Williams, Casey Curran, Casey Weldon, Christian Rex Van Minnen, Eric Wert, Esao Andrews, Helen Bayly, Jeff Soto, Jonathan Viner, Kazuki Takamatsu, Lauren Marx, and others. First Thursday opening reception. Roq La Rue, 532 First Ave S., 374-8977, roqlarue.com. Noon-5 p.m. Wed.-Sat. Ends Aug. 29. MANNERISMS Featured are the prints and lithographs of 20th-century Continental artists Paul Wunderlich and Karin Szekessy (who were married) and the younger Bruno Bruni. Running concurrently is Defining Women. First Thursday opening reception. Davidson Galleries, 313 Occidental Ave. S., 624-6700, davidsongalleries. com. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tues.-Sat. Ends Aug. 29. ROYAL NEBEKER A retrospective for the late Northwest painter, whose figurative works addressed “relationships, identity, and the power of dream and memory.” First Thursday opening reception. Lisa Harris Gallery, 1922 Pike Place, lisaharrisgallery.com, 443-3315. 10 a.m.- 5:30 p.m. Mon.-Sat. Ends Aug. 30. ON THE ROAD That’s the theme for John Armstrong, Sally Cleveland, Joe Max Emminger, Gabe Fernandez, Tim Fowler, Laura Hamje, Andrea Heimer, Terry Leness, Rachel Maxi, Jeff Mihalyo, Michael Paul Miller, Jeff Scott, Jenny Beedon Snow, and Piper Snow. First Thursday opening reception. Linda Hodges Gallery, 316 First Ave. S. 624-3034, lindahodgesgallery. com. 10:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Tues.-Sat. Ends Aug. 29. PETS ON PARADE Who’s a good doggie? Who’s a good boy? Look for works by Andrea Lawson, Don Hazeltine, Woodleigh Hubbard, Sandy Haight, and others. First Friday opening reception. The Island Gallery, 400 Winslow Way E. (Bainbridge), 780-9500, theislandgallery.net. Call for hours. Ends Aug. 30.

SEATTLE WEEKLY

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a&c» literary Author Events DAVID DE SOLA Alice in Chains: The Untold Story gives

the Seattle grunge band its first biography. University Book Store, 4326 University Way N.E., 634-3400, bookstore.washington.edu. 7 p.m. Wed., Aug. 5. JEFF HOBBS SEE THE PICK LIST, PAGE 53. JACK STRAW WRITERS New work from four residents. Elliott Bay Book Co., 1521 10th Ave., 624-6600, elliottbaybook.com., jackstraw.org. 7 p.m. Wed., Aug. 5. DANIEL CHIROT From this UW prof, a talk entitled “Purifying Islam: The Muslim Reaction Against the Western Enlightenment.” Ocean Star, 605 Seventh Ave. S., 623-1670. 11:30 a.m. Thurs., Aug. 6. STEVE STEINBERG & MARK ARMOUR Two baseball historians share their latest: The Colonel and Hug: The Partnership That Transformed the New York Yankees and In Pursuit of Pennants: Baseball Operations From Deadball to Moneyball, respectively. Elliott Bay. 7 p.m. Thurs., Aug. 6. P.F. CHISHOLM Getting to the bottom of rape and murder in the north of England in A Chorus of Innocents. Seattle Mystery Bookshop, 117 Cherry St., 587-5737, seattlemystery.com. Noon, Fri., Aug. 7. SHANNON GROGAN An aspiring baker is beleaguered by her sister’s ghost in From Where I Watch You, Grogan’s debut novel. University Book Store, 4326 University Way N.E., 634-3400, bookstore.washington.edu. 7 p.m. Fri., Aug. 7; University Book Store (Bellevue), 990 102nd Ave. N.E., 425-462-4500. 6 p.m. Thurs., Aug. 13. COLETTE RAUSCH In Speaking Their Peace, people living in war zones tell their stories. Elliott Bay. 7 p.m. Fri., Aug. 7. YA AUTHORS Discussing the latest by Stephanie Oakes, Sharon Huss Roat, and Hilary T. Smith. Eagle Harbor Books, 157 Winslow Way E. (Bainbridge Island), 842-5332, eagleharborbooks.com, 6 p.m. Fri., Aug. 7; University Book Store, 3 p.m. Sat., Aug. 8. POETSWEST John S. Williams, A. Molotkov, and Jeff Whitney read at this monthly open mic. Green Lake Branch Library, 7364 E. Green Lake Dr. N., 684-7547, spl.org. 4 p.m. Sat., Aug. 8. KEVIN ZOBRIST The WSU forestry professor’s new guidebook is Native Trees of Western Washington. King County Library, Bothell Branch, 18215 98th Ave. N.E., 425-486-7811, kcls.org. 2 p.m. Sat., Aug. 8.

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KRIS DINNISON, AMY REED, LISA SCHROEDER, & KRISTIN HALBROOK The authors of You and Me

Come see Ada’s new home at 425 15th Ave E Seattle, WA

and Him; Invincible; All We Have Is Now; and Every Last Promise read and sign. University Book Store. 3 p.m. Sun., Aug. 9. DAVID CHRISTOPHER LEWIS helps you attain true enlightenment and personal transformation with Saint Germain on Advanced Alchemy: HeartStreaming in the Aquarian Age, Volume 1. University Book Store (Bellevue). 6 p.m. Mon., Aug. 10. WILL MCDERMOTT & SCOTT JAMES MAGNER

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Their new fantasy novels are Mage Wars: Nature of the Beast and Seasons of Truth. University Book Store. 7 p.m. Mon., Aug. 10. KATY SIMPSON SMITH Her debut novel, The Story of Land and Sea, covers three generations of a North Carolina family. Elliott Bay. 7 p.m. Mon., Aug. 10. VAL BRELINSKI Her debut novel, The Girl Who Slept With God, explores life in an Idaho evangelical family. Elliott Bay. 7 p.m. Tues., Aug. 11. STACEY R. CAMPBELL Scream is the third novel in her “Lakeview Academy” suspense series. University Book Store (Bellevue). 6 p.m. Tues., Aug. 11. ROBIN HOBB Fool’s Quest continues her “Fitz and the Fool” trilogy. University Book Store. 7 p.m. Tues., Aug. 11. WILLIAM T. VOLLMANN SEE THE PICK LIST, PAGE 55. DEB CALETTI The Secrets She Keeps examines three marriages. Elliott Bay. 7 p.m. Wed., Aug 12. FRIDA CLEMENTS Have a Little Pun is the illustrator’s new book of whimsical wordplay. 1927 Events, 1927 Third Ave. Free, but RSVP at dos23.com. 6 p.m. Wed., Aug. 12. LEE GRANT The veteran actress’ memoir (juicy and name-droppy, we pray) is I Said Yes to Everything. Eagle Harbor Books. 7:30 p.m. Thurs., Aug. 13. DAVID LASKY & JOHN BURGESS Two takes on westward expansion: Lasky illustrated Oregon Trail: The Road to Destiny; by Land is Burgess’ poetry collection. Elliott Bay. 7 p.m. Thurs., Aug 13.

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»film

Ducking the Image Jason Segel talks about David Foster Wallace and the strictures of fame. BYBRIAN MILLER

BY BRIAN MILLER

INVITES YOU AND A GUEST TO AN ADVANCE SCREENING OF

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Wallace’s heroin and alcohol abuse—all the stereotypical trappings of the tortured-genius story template that Lipsky may or may not be writing (a template Wallace despises for being cliché).

IN THEATERS AUGUST 14 ManFromUncle.com

#ManFromUNCLE

Wallace in ’96 is becoming a celebrity who knows

the danger of being stereotyped by his popular image. People like Lipsky, and his readers, are beginning to treat him with awe. There’s a distancing effect that Segel can relate to today, he says. “When people come up and say, ‘Can I take a picture with you?”, my thing is, in today’s world, I don’t know where that picture is going. So I offer what I think is a better alternative. I say, ‘I’d rather not take a picture, but can I shake your hand?’ That is a human connection.” There’s something of the same contest (or negotiation) in the movie. Lipsky wants to be liked and respected by Wallace, who’s only three years older but far more successful. He could be writing a hatchet job, or he might secretly want to be friends. (Eisenberg, as always, is smart about tipping his character’s intentions. And for the record, I saw and recommend the movie, directed by James Ponsoldt of Smashed and The Spectacular Now, written by playwright Donald Margulies.) How press-savvy or press-shy is Wallace here? “I think that Wallace had the benefit, if that’s what you want to call it, of having done Lipsky’s job,” says Segel. “He had done profiles on people, so he was acutely aware of the fact that Lipsky had the ability to go and shape the story any way he chooses. As somebody who is likely the biggest brain in the room, [he’s] able to sniff out that Lipsky has an agenda.” In the movie, the wary Wallace can certainly sense Lipsky’s brew of resentment, envy, and hero worship, says Segel. “I zeroed in on what for me what was a helpful view of the dynamic, which is a guy talking to his younger self. A guy who could see himself 10 years earlier in Lipsky. Because it allowed me . . . to have tremendous empathy for this younger self, but it also gave me some freedom to yell at him. You know, to hate him. Like, man, get your head out of your ass!” E

‘‘ THERE

WILL ALWAYS BE FILMS ABOUT WRITERS AND WRITING AND THIS ONE IS

AS GOOD AS IT GETS I LOVE IT.’’ SEATTLE WEEKLY WED: 8/5 /15 BLACK & WHITE ... 4.83" x 2.69" SS A.O. SCOTT,

“JASON

SEGEL IS A REVELATION AS DAVID FOSTER WALLACE, ALL.MFU-P.0805.SW

FULLY INHABITING HIS CHARACTER: A LUMBERING RECLUSE WITH A PIERCING, LASER-QUICK INTELLECT .” CHRIS LEE,

ONE OF THE YEAR’S ” “A CHAMBER PIECE ”

“

GREAT PERFORMANCES. OF THE PROFOUND. STEVEN ZEITCHIK,

STEVEN MEARS,

HHHHH JOE NEUMAIER,

bmiller@seattleweekly.com

THE END OF THE TOUR Opens Fri., Aug. 7 at SIFF Cinema Egyptian, Sundance, and Lincoln Square. Rated R. 106 minutes.

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t’s fair to say that no film critic wants to assess David Foster Wallace, who died by suicide in 2008. Indeed, his books are so complex and his shadow so long that few literary critics dare to try. Better to take the limited approach of The End of the Tour, based on journalist David Lipsky’s five-day interview with Wallace in 1996, following the publication of Infinite Jest. What does that book mean? The jealous writer Lipsky—played by Jesse Eisenberg in this road movie—is too smart to venture a guess; or rather, he doesn’t want to risk looking foolish by guessing wrong. Sitting in a Seattle hotel bar last month, Jason Segel (cast as Wallace) and I consider Wallace as a movie character. We’re not talking so much about the actual man as about a guarded Midwestern soul facing a pesky New York interrogator trying to peck away at the facade of presumed genius. Even with the Internet relatively new, Wallace is already very protective of his privacy at the movie’s outset in wintry Indiana. Says Segel, “I think that his relation to technology specifically is really interesting, because he could see that these things that are meant to connect us are going to dehumanize things.” In Infinite Jest, Segel cites a prescient passage about video chatting—much like Skype or iChat today. “Everybody is so excited, and then they are confronted with the reality that they could no longer do other things while you had a phone call, because now they could see their face. People could no longer clip their nails or make their dinner. And so people make dioramas of their living rooms with little action figures of themselves looking into the camera to fake attention. And it ends with them putting a piece of tape over the camera and going back to normal phone conversations. And that is a parody of what actually happened. There were a lot of things like that . . . that ended up being dead-on.” The mass-mediated image has a terrible allure for Wallace, a TV junkie who can’t allow a set in his home. “I think it’s like any addiction,” says Segel. “I think it’s relief. I think it serves the same function that touching the doorknob does for someone with OCD. I think it’s a form of checking out.” Is a little escape-from-self a bad thing? “Well, it’s the dosage,” replies Segel. “I don’t see the problem with people having a few beers on Saturday night, but . . . ” He lets the thought trail off, since Lipsky in the movie is investigating rumors of

Does the writer come bearing a knife? Eisenberg (left) and Segel.

arts&culture» film

Jimmy’s Hall OPENS FRI., AUG. 7 AT SUNDANCE CINEMAS. RATED PG-13. 106 MINUTES.

RUNS FRI., AUG. 7–THURS., AUG. 13 AT NORTHWEST FILM FORUM. RATED PG-13. 99 MINUTES.

Joshua Oppenheimer’s 2013 The Act of Killing won the Best Documentary Oscar and a raft of astonished reviews. There were skeptics, however, who questioned the film’s nausea-inducing strategy of encouraging the mass murderers of Indonesia’s mid-1960s genocide to proudly re-enact their atrocities for the camera. That’s a point worth raising, but with the release of The Look of Silence, we glimpse Oppenheimer’s larger canvas. This film—not a sequel, but a complementary project—has an interrogator. Instead of the neutral camera-eye of The Act of Killing, we see the new film from the perspective of Adi Rukun, an optometrist (born in 1968, after the slaughter) whose older brother was tortured and killed during the purge. He and Oppenheimer visit the homes of the now-aged murderers, most of whom have been lavishly compensated for their actions. (Amid political and military instability, an estimated half-million to one million people—on the pretext of being communists—were wiped out in 1965–66.) Adi sits calmly while he asks uncomfortable questions; occasionally, he measures the eyesight of the former murderers, thus providing a “seeing” metaphor that Oppenheimer is not about to understate. As in the first film, the atrocities described are appalling, including casual beheadings and the drinking of blood. Just as troubling is the vision of a society that, 50 years on, shelters the criminals and operates under a system of forgetting. A classroom scene depicts children being taught a distorted history of the massacres, with tales of evil communists who deserved and invited their fate.

Jimmy (Ward) shakes up the old village.

Part of that has to do with the handsome, stiff Ward; but as a character, Gralton is vaguely conceived. The movie’s got its share of fictionalized additions, including Oonagh (Simone Kirby), who loved Jimmy a decade ago but married somebody else in the interim. Loach strains to give this lost romance some wistful resonance, but the idea feels like a screenwriter’s stock situation. The movie looks good, and it comes to life anytime music is playing in the hall. The tensions in Ireland after independence are fascinating

I admired The Act of Killing, but The Look of Silence—officially co-directed by “Anonymous,” an Indonesian filmmaker—is the more penetrating work. It’s transformed by the presence of Rukun, who is not only uncommonly courageous but also a compelling onscreen presence—a dogged questioner and soulful listener. We see him with his elderly parents, a father who can no longer remember and a mother who is doomed to. We also see him speaking with his wife, who is concerned about the wisdom of stirring

Streep brings good-natured gusto to her role (and does her own singing).

up trouble with people who have killed. (One wishes Oppenheimer would provide just a little information about how this project happened and what’s become of Rukun—according to The New York Times, the Rukun family has moved to a different part of Indonesia and will live there in semi-secrecy.) Whether the events of 1965 will ever entirely bend toward justice is hard to predict, but these films, with their bold and unsettling tactics, will have played a role in that process. ROBERT HORTON

Ricki and the Flash OPENS FRI., AUG. 7 AT SUNDANCE, PACIFIC PLACE, MAJESTIC BAY, OAK TREE, LINCOLN SQUARE, BAINBRIDGE, AND OTHERS. RATED PG-13. 100 MINUTES.

JOSS BARRATT/SONY PICTURES CLASSICS

SEATTLE WEEKLY • AUGU ST 5 — 11, 2015

As political filmmakers go, Ken Loach makes the admirably committed John Sayles look like a tenderfoot. Now in his sixth decade of filmmaking, the British director shows no signs of softening his stance, even amid recent rumors of a possible retirement. A dedicated social-concern standardbearer in his films and a strident activist in his life, Loach is capable of balancing his passions when he’s on his game (see My Name Is Joe and Sweet Sixteen, for instance). When he’s not, his films can get talky and obvious—and alas, Jimmy’s Hall finds Loach working with stilted material. Loach and his frequent screenwriter Paul Laverty return to Ireland, the setting for their beautiful The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006). This early-1930s tale is based on the true story of Jimmy Gralton (Barry Ward), a communist and activist who enrages the authorities by building a local hall where classes are taught by day and dances are held by night. Reviewers are fond of finding a hint of Footloose here, but there’s also a nod to John Ford’s classic The Quiet Man: A fellow comes to Ireland after years in America, seeking peace and his roots, but gets dragged into its politics. In fact, the film’s two best characters channel the Ford spirit. Jimmy’s mother (Aileen Henry) is cut from the peat of the land, a living embodiment of Irish feeling for home. And the parish priest, Father Sheridan (the superb Jim Norton), though on the wrong side of history, makes his case with such clear-eyed confidence that he overwhelms the nominal hero at times.

PThe Look of Silence

BOB VERGARA/SONY PICTURES

Opening ThisWeek

but complicated, and Loach and Laverty haven’t found a way to bundle those tensions into a movie that breathes on its own. ROBERT HORTON

Her brand is excellence, as they say, and Meryl Streep doesn’t make many mediocre movies. For that reason, because it’s August—too hot to be critical!—and because she and director Jonathan Demme carry so much career goodwill, Ricki and the Flash is the kind of mediocre movie I can enjoy. It’s written by Diablo Cody, and the script is nowhere near so sharp as her Oscar-winning Juno. In fact, it feels like a sloppy comic paraphrase of Demme’s Rachel Getting Married. The family conflicts here are rote: irresponsible L.A. musician mother Ricki (Streep); her abandoned and remarried husband Pete (Kevin Kline) back in Indianapolis; two grown sons and daughter Julie (Mamie Gummer, Streep’s daughter), who’s in a near-psychotic meltdown after being dumped by her husband. Since one of Ricki’s sons is engaged to be wed, since she leads a grizzled bar band in the San Fernando Valley, you can write the final scenes as well as Cody—and quite possibly better. Reconciliation is inevitable, hugs and forgiveness are inescapable; and the only question is how many encores Ricki and the Flash will play. Streep, channeling both Stevie Nicks and Bonnie Raitt, does all her singing, so respect. And about her band: Demme cast rock veterans on bass, drums, keys (the latter Bernie Worrell, from his Talking Heads concert doc Stop Making Sense), and—get ready for it; drumroll, please—on lead guitar and vocals, Mr. Rick Springfield! The casting is too perfect: Ricki seems stuck in the ’80s, right down to her braids, 10 pounds of mismatched jewelry, and patriotic tramp stamp; and the ’80s are when Springfield hit peak Springfield with “Jessie’s Girl” and General Hospital. Today he’s having a

small-screen revival on Californication and True Detective. And, entirely aware of his stereotypical casting, he’s a warm, age-appropriate, effective love interest for Streep. When was the last time Streep played a woman this dumb? Clearly she relishes the part of an AARP rebel who thinks ALS stands for Alzheimer’s disease. By night she cranks out Tom Petty, U2, and Springsteen covers; by day she’s a supermarket clerk. There’s a bit of class resentment, none too subtly rendered, as she visits Paul’s gated mansionette—where the latter’s trophy wife (Audra McDonald) basically raised Ricki’s three kids. Yet all these tensions, we know, will predictably resolve in an easy major key. Cody and Demme aren’t reaching for art, just trying to craft something as comfortable as an old car-radio song. The only reason it’s hummable is because Streep is doing the singing. BRIAN MILLER

Sundance Film Festival Short Film Tour OPENS FRI., AUG. 7 AT SUNDANCE. NOT RATED. 83 MINUTES.

A half-dozen shorts from January’s festival range from Japan to Ukraine, so generalizations are impossible. (Their narrative-geographic midpoint is probably near Guam.) Don Hertzfeldt’s signature comic/anguished stick-figure animation is well known, but his World of Tomorrow has him venturing into computer graphics—and the future! Little “Emily Prime” is visited by her time-traveling clone (from 237 years hence), who brings dire warnings of a meteor about to obliterate Earth. All those able to afford having their consciousness uploaded to “the Outernet” will survive—in a disembodied state—forever. (The poor will simply perish.) No surprise that Emily’s clone is a little glum. “I am very proud of my sadness,” she says, “because it means I feel more alive.” Hertzfeldt’s once-primitive style is made more plaintive by the sheets of color and whooshing stars; he’s both using new technology here and fretting about its dehumanizing consequences. Animated much differently, in a folk-painterly style suggesting both Marc Chagall and The New Yorker’s Maira Kalman, is the French Storm Hits Jacket, by Paul Cabon. It’s both charming and somewhat incoherent, with all the logic of a dream. Two meteorologists are measuring a storm, then are ambushed by a cheerful ecoterrorist woman with a pistol. There’s a shrieking

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FRIDAY - SUNDAY Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years a Slave) takes the title role in this cornerstone of English drama, presented in an explosive new production.

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OPENS THURSDAY AUGUST 6 Imagine the greatest conversation you’ve ever had... The unforgettable five-day interview between journalist David Lipsky (Jesse Eisenberg) and enigmatic author David Foster Wallace (Jason Segel). “I love it...as good as it gets!” - A.O. Scott, New York Times MIDNIGHT ADRENALINE!

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of Beit Sahour purchased 18 milk cows from a Medusa figure—maybe the embodiment of a sympathetic Israeli farmer. This way, the populafierce Atlantic gale, or maybe its cause—and a tion could produce its own dairy products and vaguely demonic herd of cows flying through the stop relying on Israel for that part of its diet. Not air. (Anyone remember Twister?) How can this being dairy farmers, there was a good deal of daffy 13-minute adventure possibly end? That’s bumbling involved, which makes for some mildly where the disco dancing comes into play—which amusing reminiscences from people who were by then seems entirely logical. there. Then the Israeli authorities decided to stop Since all six of these titles picked up various the project, and a hunt ensued as the Palestinian Sundance prizes, there aren’t any clinkers among milkmen tried to hide the bovines for a couple of them. But my third pick among the batch, The increasingly bizarre weeks. Face of Ukraine: Casting Oksana Baiul, is entirely different and disturbing. Director Kitty Green, an Australian with prior experience filming in that wartorn country, simply trains her camera on girls and teens who worship the 1994 Olympic-champion figure skater. All are attired in the same pink, frilly costume, but are they really auditioning? There’s a tinge of teary desperation The fugitive herd takes hoof. here, not much talent; the notion of being Oksana, of escape, matters more than any biopic. So the concept here is a film that criticizes That the retired skater is today a U.S. resident Israel’s presence in Palestine under the guise who’s had problems with alcohol and the law of a whimsical anecdote. Fair enough; that’s doesn’t enter into consideration; she’s more an one way to make a political argument. Now aspirational totem, almost like a doll. When one about the animated talking animals. The film’s would-be Oksana says, “The paparazzi would co-directors, Canadian Paul Cowan and Palesfollow me everywhere!”, she sounds thrilled by tinian Amer Shomali, have combined talkingthe imaginary prospect. Any form of attention heads interviews and staged re-enactments would be welcome to these vulnerable girls. This with Claymation-style cartoons of the cows. 7-minute short becomes an unsettling footnote The cows have names, like Rivka and Ruth, to Green’s recent feature doc Ukraine Is Not a and they talk in cutesy voices, which range Brothel. Both show how depressingly limited are from Catskills shrillness to youthful vocal fry. the prospects for young women in that dark corThe cows are innocent of the region’s traumatic ner of Eastern Europe. BRIAN MILLER history, but they wonder why these Israeli soldiers keep threatening to take them away, when all they want to do is give milk. If only we would listen to the wisdom of the cows, I suppose, we could all live together in cheese, love, and understanding. Co-director Shomali appears The animated French onscreen, recallStorm Hits Jacket. ing that he first discovered this story while reading a comic book in his youth. We never hear what this The Wanted 18 RUNS FRI., AUG. 7–THURS., AUG. 13 AT comic book was or who deserves credit for it— GRAND ILLUSION. NOT RATED. 75 MINUTES. an omission unfortunately typical of the film’s spotty (no pun intended, cow fans) approach. Taken separately, there is nothing wrong with Although it wants to crystallize an Israeli posipolitical documentaries, animation, or talktion it views as absurd, The Wanted 18 gives ing animals. Put them together, and you have little sense of the Intifada’s reality, except that my kryptonite. So my lack of enthusiasm for it was apparently exciting for those who were The Wanted 18 can be taken with that in mind, young at the time. I understand the satirical especially if you like all of the above. The very pitch the film is aiming for, but the superficial slim 75-minute film is based on an incident that gloss on a violent and tragic situation curdled took place during the First Intifada: In 1988, the humor for me. ROBERT HORTON E as part of a general organized pushback against Israel, some Palestinian inhabitants of the town film@seattleweekly.com

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THE END OF TOUR RICKI AND THE FLASH

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2 or more ladies get $5 ($6.50 for 3D) Admission All Day. Tickets Avail at Box Office Only.

2015 SUNDANCE AWARD WINNING SHORTS

Burgess presents all manner of found footage and VHS oddities. (NR) Grand Illusion, 1403 N.E. 50th St., druidundergroundfilmfestival.com. $9. 9 p.m. Mon. FATEFUL FINDINGS This paranormal cult movie by Neil Breen has a writer (Breen) develop supernatural powers and discover hidden government conspiracies. (NR) Central Cinema, 1411 21st Ave., 686-6684, central-cinema.com. $8-$10. 8 p.m. Thurs. FREMONT OUTDOOR MOVIES Two rude satirical hits from Trey Parker and Matt Stone are screened on Friday: 2004’s Team America: World Police and 1999’s South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut. The politics may be dated, but both are reliably funny and daring in a way that few comedies attempt today. Then note a special Saturday screening of Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, from 2004. Both nights are 21-andover. (R) 3501 Phinney Ave. N., 781-4230, fremontoutdoormovies.com. $5-$10. Movie at dusk. Fridays (generally) through Aug. 29. GIRLS OF SUMMER Godard’s fourth feature, My Life to Live (1959), is a rocket from Pandora’s Box. It’s sectioned into 12 “tableaux,” each chapter opening with an intertitle describing its contents. The framing is carefully indiscriminate; faces are backlit into murk; café clatter swallows conversation. The camera rarely cues on in-scene action, instead turning weird patterns or unmooring from the story at the whim of private authorial logic. Star Anna Karina was in the brutal early rounds of marriage to her director, who was never more doting and egghead-condescending than in this showpiece. She’s Nana, a provincial in Paris who aspires to maybe become a film actress (like Anna Karina!), but settles on making a quick franc horizontally. The suburban streets and jukebox idylls are as banal as her daydreams, though she touches loftier things—a teary commiseration with Joan of Arc, a chance dialogue with philosopher Brice Parain. The purpose of this one-woman show is suggested by a child’s description of essence: “Take away the outside, the inside is left. Take away the inside, and you see a soul.” (NR) NICK PINKERTON Varsity, 4329 University Way N.E., 632-7218, farawayentertainment.com. $10.25. 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Aug. 11. LIVING WATERS Did dolphins and other sea creatures evolve or were they created by the hand of God? Following this creationist documentary screening, you can ask director Lad Allen and others. (NR) McCaw Hall, 321 Mercer St. (Seattle Center), discovery.org. $5-$10. 7:30 p.m. Fri. MADCAP GENIUS To absorb the full effect of Preston Sturges’ breathless 1944 screwball comedy The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek, you must know what a media sensation the Dionne quintuplets caused during the era. Uncertain paternity afflicts our brash heroine (Betty Hutton), whose lovelorn, nebbishy pal (Eddie Bracken) tries to help her out of the jam. Can she get married a second time to save her reputation? Would you want to marry Eddie Bracken? “There are very few dopes like [him],” her sister says of Bracken; true, and his hysterical cowardice suggests both Bob Hope and Woody Allen. (Hutton doesn’t wear too well, either.) Sturges veteran William Demarest plays Hutton’s exasperated father, who takes some pretty thunderous pratfalls trying to kick his daughters’ asses. (NR) B.R.M. Seattle Art Museum, 1300 First Ave., 654-3121, seattleartmuseum.org. $42–$45 series, $8 individual. 7:30 p.m. Thursdays through Aug. 13. MOONLIGHT CINEMA Jennifer Aniston last scored a hit with 2013’s drug-smuggling raunch-com We’re the Millers, with a game cast also including Jason Sudeikis. (R) Redhook Brewery, 14300 N.E. 145th St. (Woodinville), 425-483-3232, redhook.com. $5. 21 and over. Movie at dusk. Thursdays through Aug. 27. MOVIES AT MAGNUSON The Taming of the Shrew is reconfigured into the setting of “Padua High” (actually Tacoma’s Stadium High School) for 10 Things I Hate About You. Julia Stiles plays Kat, a Sylvia Plath-reading feminist who can’t wait to graduate and get away from her restrictive dad and the stupidity that is high school. Her younger sister, Bianca (Larisa Oleynik) is her opposite: a boy-crazy, miniskirt-wearing sophomore who dreams of going to the senior prom. Problem is, Dad says that if Kat doesn’t go, then Bianca doesn’t go. Bianca’s admirer (Andrew Keegan) concocts an elaborate plan to get tough-guy Patrick (Heath Ledger) to ask Kat to the prom. The sharp, fast-paced dialogue makes 10 Things the best teen movie of 1999. And while the film pretends that no teenage guy in his right mind would want to go out with Kat, any viewer can see that she’s all that, and more. (PG-13) SOYON IM 7400 Sand Point Way N.E., moviesatmagnuson.com. $5. Activities begin at 7 p.m., movie at dusk. Thursdays through Aug. 27.

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Cruise stars as the cocksure fighter pilot in Top Gun, a very big hit from 1986. The volleyball scene with Val Kilmer adds camp appeal to its Reaganite muscle. (PG) 6046 W. Lake Sammamish Parkway N.E. (Redmond), moviesatmarymoor.com. $5. Seating at 7 p.m., movie at dusk. Wednesdays through Aug. 26. MOVIES AT THE MURAL The first and best of Michael J. Fox’s star-making trilogy, Back to the Future (1985) has one of the more preposterous plotlines in movie history: Huey Lewis-listening ’80s dude Marty McFly (shown to be a badass for hitching rides on trucks while on his skateboard) has a buddy who’s inventing a time machine. Shit goes haywire and Marty finds himself stuck in 1955, fending off advances from his future mother (Lea Thompson) while coaching his future father (Crispin Glover, not looking a day older or younger than today) to assert his masculinity. The memorable performances kind of make you forget all of that, though, incredibly. (PG) ANDREW BONAZELLI Seattle Center Mural Amphitheatre, 684-7200, seattlecenter.com. Free. Outdoor movie begins at dusk. Saturdays through Aug. 22. MOVIEZ IN THA ‘HOOD Prior to the release of the NWA biopic Straight Outta Compton (opening Aug. 14), the Ark Lodge will be screening nine urban favorites at a youth-friendly ticket price (in daily order, running Friday-Thursday): Friday, a double feature of Boyz in the ’Hood and Training Day, a double feature of House Party and CB4, Juice, Menace II Society, 8 Mile, and Tales From the Hood. (NR) Ark Lodge, 816 Rainier Ave. S., 721-3156. $6. See arklodgecinemas.com for showtimes. SODO OUTDOOR MOVIE NIGHT Author of Jurassic Park, the late writer Michael Crichton infamously tutored President George W. Bush on the supposed fallacy of global warming. He was no scientist, but the doctor-turned-novelist, from The Andromeda Strain forward, knew how to mix popular science into exceptionally good potboiler fiction. He was a master of the in-flight novel, and Jurassic Park is one of his very best works. Steven Spielberg’s 1993 adaptation benefits from equally from the then-new magic of CGI and our old love of dinosaurs running amok. (Long before Godzilla, silent movies were doing the same.) While Crichton warns us about the dangers of genetic engineering—in rather static debates among scientists Sam Neill, Laura Dern, and Jeff Goldblum—Spielberg keeps things moving at a wonderful pace. As in Jaws, whose DNA is strongly felt here, the hunters become the hunted. The thud of the oncoming T. rex rippling in a water cup, the heat of his breath on a car window, the swarming Velociraptors—these ancient terrors trump our high-tech inventions. (PG-13) BRIAN MILLER Pyramid Alehouse, 1201 First Ave. S., 682-3377, pyramidbrew.com. $5. 21 and over. Open at 8:30 p.m., movie at dusk. Fridays through Sept. 11. STAND BY ME Want to see a dead body? Rob Reiner does a good job with his 1986 adaptation of the Stephen King story. The talented young cast includes River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, Jerry O’Connell, and Kiefer Sutherland. (R) Central Cinema, 1411 21st Ave., 686-6684, central-cinema.com. $7-$9. 7 p.m. Fri.Tues. & 3 p.m. Sat.-Sun. TAXI DRIVER Back in 1976, Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver was a powerfully summarizing work. It synthesized noir, neorealist, and New Wave stylistics; it assimilated Hollywood’s recent vigilante cycle, drafting then-declasse blaxploitation in the service of a presumed tell-it-like-it-is naturalism that, predicated on a frank, unrelenting representation of racism, violence, and misogyny, was even more racist, violent, and misogynist than it allowed. Embodied for all eternity by the young Robert De Niro, Travis Bickle all but instantly became a classic character in the American narrative alongside Huck Finn and Holden Caulfield. His cab driver lives by night in a world of myth, populated by a host of supporting archetypes: the astonishing Jodie Foster as Iris, the 12-year-old hooker living the life in the rat’s-ass end of the ’60s, yet dreaming of a commune in Vermont; Harvey Keitel as her affably nauseating pimp; and Cybill Shepherd’s bratty golden girl. (R) J. HOBERMAN Central Cinema, 1411 21st Ave., 6866684, central-cinema.com. $7-$9. 9:30 p.m. Fri.-Tues. THREE DOLLAR BILL OUTDOOR CINEMA : Bring the kids, or not, to test your knowledge of the William Goldman children’s tale The Princess Bride, memorably filmed by Rob Reiner in 1987. Among the cast, as if you didn’t know, are Cary Elwes, Mandy Patinkin, Robin Wright, Wallace Shawn, Peter Falk, Carol Kane, and André the Giant. (PG) Cal Anderson Park, 11th Ave. & E. Pine St., 323-4274, threedollarbillcinema.org. Free. Screens at dusk. Fridays through Aug. 28. WEST SEATTLE MOVIES ON THE WALL The recent kid flick Big Hero 6 is screened. (G) 4410 California Ave. S.W., westseattlemovies.blogspot.com. Free. Screens at dusk. Saturdays through Aug. 22.

•

P R OM O T IONS •

A R T S A N D E NTER TA INM ENT

•

MOVIES AT MARYMOOR Take my breath away. Tom

•

Ongoing • AMY One of the year’s best films, Asif Kapadia’s docu-

mentary makes us cringe at its clickbait horror. Maybe we didn’t chase singer Amy Winehouse (1983–2011) down Camden streets with the paparazzi mob, maybe we didn’t introduce her to crack and heroin, but most of us surely clicked a few times on the lurid headlines about her spectacular fall into bulimia, booze, and drugs. Like Kapadia’s 2011 Senna, Amy is mostly composed of archival montage augmented with new interviews. The early passages are unexpectedly cheerful as we meet a jazz-besotted teen fingering complex chords on her guitar and writing preternaturally sophisticated lyrics. Winehouse is sassy, smart, and shyer than you expect—still a naïve teenager, soon to ink a recording contract. After her rise, however, comes the plunge into fame, addiction, and hounding by the English tabloid press. (R) B.R.M. Sundance, others IRRATIONAL MAN “I love that you order for me.” There are many reasons to dislike Woody Allen’s subpar but not terrible campus murder tale. That line comes from Emma Stone’s undergraduate, during dinner, to Joaquin Phoenix’s visiting professor. That they’re sleeping together goes without saying. But it’s Jill’s surrender not just to her teacher, but to dull genre conventions that makes Irrational Man so underwhelming. Right down to the (expected) twist ending, there simply are no surprises as Phoenix’s alcoholic, existentialist, blocked-at-writing/sex Abe undertakes one of those hoary old “perfect murder” schemes. Abandoning philosophy—where Allen’s curriculum is stuck in the ’60s, like the Ramsey Lewis-dominated soundtrack—Abe decides to commit a near-random murder for the sake of justice. (He even helpfully annotates a copy of Crime and Punishment for Jill to find.) In this way, Irrational Man is hopelessly dated, though few cell phones are actually employed. Jill and her millennial peers all talk like 70-year-olds on the Upper East Side (in a film set in Newport); for topicality, Allen adds an equestrian scene—because that’s what all the kids are into these days. Aside from Parker Posey’s Albee-refugee wife, none of the supporting characters stand out. Yet even with its storytelling flab and dual-narration flub,

Irrational Man is efficiently told. For us it may be a waste of time; but the 79-year-old Allen, already hard at work on an Amazon TV series, isn’t wasting his. (R) B.R.M. Guild 45th, Meridian, Lincoln Square • ME AND EARL AND THE DYING GIRL Said dying girl is Rachel (Olivia Cooke), a Pittsburgh classmate— but not friend—of high school senior Greg (Thomas Mann), a movie obsessive who wants nothing more to be the next Wes Anderson. Greg and Earl (RJ Cyler) are a misfit duo of filmmaking buddies in a chaotic, teeming public school. Director Alfonso GomezRejon helmed several episodes of Glee, and it’s fair to assume that he and screenwriter/source novelist Jesse Andrews still have all the slights and indignities of high school seared into their brains. The movie’s first half is an utterly delightful spin on the usual mopey YA themes. It’s impossible to stop smiling at Greg and Earl’s series of arthouse movie remakes, including My Dinner With Andre the Giant. However, in this unusual two-act structure, following a major misdirection ploy, there must be leukemia, Greg’s growing attachment to Rachel, prom, and finally a college-admissions crisis that the film doesn’t really need. (PG-13) B.R.M. Crest MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - ROGUE NATION Tom Cruise has spent his 30 very willful years of stardom denying age, insisting that he performs his own stunts, and doing action flicks at an age when his relaxed-fit peers are sliding into more comfortable dadcore roles. His initial M:I reboot was 19 years ago, and this fifth installment is full of the action, disguise, and gadgets we expect. Directed by Christopher McQuarrie, it’s fine summer entertainment, with Cruise’s Ethan Hunt predictably put through the wringer. (As for the plot, the whole film boils down to yet another USB drive containing a precious ledger.) By picture’s end, poor Hunt has crashed a motorcycle, crashed a car, suffered a gunshot, taken several beatings, grown a beard, shaved the beard, done some push-ups, shown his hairless chest, clung to the side of a flying aircraft (you saw that bit in the trailer, I know), jumped through several windows, dispatched a dozen baddies, and been deemed a rogue agent by the CIA. The complicated yet familiar script features stock components seemingly ordered from Amazon; best among them is mystery

woman Ilsa (Sweden’s classy Rebecca Ferguson, who’d be right at home in a ’60s-vintage Bond movie). Both the franchise and Cruise seem a little tired, but he’ll never admit it. (PG-13) B.R.M. SIFF Cinema Uptown, Cinebarre, Sundance, Pacific Place, Admiral, Lincoln Square, Kirkland, Bainbridge, Admiral, others MR. HOLMES Now 93 and long retired to the countryside, Sherlock Holmes (Ian McKellen) has a pressing dilemma: His mind is fading. As he loses his memory, he tries to put down in writing what happened in his last case, some 30 years ago. He’s forgotten the details, but he knows that something went terribly wrong. In Bill Condon’s adaptation of Mitch Cullin’s 2005 novel A Slight Trick of the Mind, scenes from the old case reel through Holmes’ mind, as he recalls a mystery woman (Hattie Morahan) he was hired to observe. More recently, the detective’s trip to post-WWII Japan, and his visit with a local admirer (Hiroyuki Sanada), become more significant as the film goes on. Adding to the mix are a plain-talking housekeeper (Laura Linney) and a naïve admirer—in this case, the housekeeper’s young son (Milo Parker), who helps Holmes with beekeeping. There’s a lot of charm in the situation, although the detective story isn’t actually that compelling by itself. (PG) ROBERT HORTON Guild 45th, Pacific Place, Kirkland, Lynwood (Bainbridge), Ark Lodge, others THE NEW RIJKSMUSEUM Process runs amok in the 10-year renovation of Amsterdam’s Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum, built in 1885 and packed full of Rembrandts, as documented in this closely observed film by Oeke Hoogendijk (originally a four-hour Dutch TV series). It’s a process doc, though more focused on the people of the institution than Frederick Wiseman’s recent National Gallery. What we see is the heroic patience and strained smiles of the Rijksmuseum staff as they encounter one obstacle after another. Their Spanish architects are less tolerant of the Cyclists Union (like our Cascade Bicycle Club, only much more powerful). Says one, “It’s a perversion of democracy. I’m tired of this ridiculous story.” This is a long film, at 131 minutes, but worthwhile for any museumgoer, cyclist, or reluctant intermediary between warring municipal factions. (NR) B.R.M. Grand Illusion

• THE STANFORD PRISON EXPERIMENT In 1971

Palo Alto, two dozen college students were recruited into one of the past century’s most notorious psychology experiment. Dr. Phil Zimbardo (Billy Crudup) pays volunteers $15 a day for a planned two-week experiment in which they pretended to be either guards or prisoners, the difference often determined by coin toss. Most all the subjects are like-minded hippies at the start. What Dr. Z and his students want to see, documented on videotape, is how they conform to protocols separating them into controlling bullies and malleable, dehumanized subjects. On multiple video monitors, Dr. Z watches like a deranged movie director—Hearts of Darkness comes to mind—as his cast and concept spin predictably out of control. This Experiment feels like an important film made a decade too late. The real argument here is between 1971 and 2001: World War II and the Holocaust three decades past, Gitmo and Abu Ghraib 30 years ahead. This picture pushes easy buttons just as surely as Dr. Z did, yet that doesn’t detract from its power. (R) B.R.M. Sundance TANGERINE Sean Baker’s Tangerine bristles with zany energy and unexpected humor. He has a fine eye for dynamic, on-the-fly angles in Los Angeles fast-food joints and streets. Transgender prostitute Sin-Dee (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez) shares a donut with her best friend Alexandra (Mya Taylor) on Christmas Eve morning. Alexandra lets slip that Sin-Dee’s boyfriend/ pimp Chester (James Ransone, excellent) has been messing around with someone else during Sin-Dee’s just-completed month in jail. This leads to Sin-Dee’s day-long search for the other woman—nobody can remember her name exactly; it begins with a D. During the following odyssey, if Baker’s goal was to humanize people who aren’t often represented in movies by creating a performance-driven piece of slapstick, he has succeeded. (NR) R.H. SIFF Cinema Uptown

•

BY B R IA N M I LLE R

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THURSDAYS AUG 6 10 THINGS I HATE ABOUT YOU AUG 13 UP AUG 20 GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY AUG 27 THE PRINCESS BRIDE

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SEATTLE WEEKLY • AU G UST 5 — 11, 2015

LI V E AC TS

SEATTLE WEEKLY • AUGU ST 5 — 11, 2015

DOOMTREE LA LUZ with WILL SPROTT + GUANTANAMO BAYWATCH

8/7

DAWES

8:30 PM

10/14

LUNA

SHOWBOX AND KEXP PRESENT

9PM

SHOWBOX AND TRACTOR TAVERN PRESENT

8/16

with

BLAKE MILLS

FAILURE

11/5

9/8

MACHINE GUN KELLY with KING LOS

8:30 PM

THE AP TOUR

MAYDAY PARADE

8:30 PM

SHOWBOX AND KEXP PRESENT

8/28

ASTRONAUTALIS

with

11/7 9PM

8:30 PM

REAL FRIENDS + THIS WILD LIFE + AS IT IS

THE DANDY WARHOLS

12/9

with JOEL GION

7PM

8:30 PM

SHOWBOX SODO CREATURE CARNIVAL TOUR

WILDHEART TOUR

BEATS ANTIQUE

MIGUEL with DOROTHY

8/23

8PM

SHOWBOX AND DECIBEL FESTIVAL PRESENT

THIEVERY CORPORATION with SHAPRECE

9/27

9PM

ALL YOU CAN EAT TOUR

SHOWBOX AND EMPORIUM PRESENT

STURGILL SIMPSON

11/13

with BILLY WAYNE DAVIS

8:30 PM

THE CULT + PRIMAL SCREAM 8PM

NEUMOS

11/14

8PM

THE CROCODILE

MOTHER MOTHER with SLOW BIRD

8/7

9PM

SHOWBOX AND KEXP PRESENT

9/30

SHAMIR

SHOWBOXPRESENTS.COM

9PM

SEATTLE WEEKLY • AU G UST 5 — 11, 2015

10/22

STEEL PANTHER

10/31

tractor TIMES

2033 6th Avenue (206) 441-9729 jazzalley.com

DOORS 30-60 MIN. BEFORE. OPEN

LISTED ARE

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AUG 5 TH 

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BY JAKE UITTI

9PM - $10

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AUG 6

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RADIATION CITY DRAEMHOUSE, PEARLES

9PM - $12

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KEXP RECOMMENDS INDIE/FOLK/BLUES/GOSPEL

THE EAGLE ROCK GOSPEL SINGERS POCKET PANDA

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AMERICAN AQUARIUM THE SWEARENGENS

funky METERS WED, AUG 5

Classic American Funk, Rock and Afro-Beat direct from New Orleans

MACEO PARKER THURS, AUG 6 - SUN, AUG 9

”Parker talks with his sax, chatters away without a seeming care. It’s a musical antidepressant, an antidote to dark days. ....firmed my belief that the world would be a better place if we all funked together.” - San Diego Reader

LYDIA PENSE AND COLD BLOOD TUES, AUG 11 - WED, AUG 12 8PM - $7

9PM - $12

Up & Coming 8/12 FREEDY JOHNSTON 8/13 T SISTERS 8/14 SUNDOG 8/16 BLACKIE 8/18 THE WICKS 8/19 NICK WATERHOUSE 8/20 TANGO ALPHA TANGO 8/21 DANNY NEWCOMB 5213 BALLARD AVE. NW  789-3599

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Rocking blues & the band Tower of Power was born from

MANHATTAN TRANSFER THURS, AUG 13 - SUN, AUG 16

Grammy-winning vocal troupe famed for their crystal clear vocalese style - blending pop, jazz, swing and R&B

OTIS TAYLOR BAND TUES, AUG 18 - WED, AUG 19

Blues singer/guitarist/banjoist and visionary roots musician Otis Taylor and band are touring in support of their new release “Hey Joe Opus/ Red Meat”

all ages | free parking | full schedule at jazzalley.com

El Corazon E orazon www.elcorazonseattle.com

109 Eastlake Ave East • Seattle, WA 98109 Booking and Info: 206.262.0482

THURSDAY AUGUST 6TH FUNHOUSE PIZZA FEST - DAY 1

CHILDBIRTH

w/Heaters, Full Toilet, Donzis, Bod, Pizza Riot, DJ Peter Lowe

Doors 8:30PM / Show 9:00. 21+. $8 ADV / $10 DOS

FRIDAY AUGUST 7TH EL CORAZON

SEATTLE WEEKLY • AUGU ST 5 — 11, 2015

DISTINQUISHER

w/A Shark Among Us, Cornerstone, For What May Come, Ocean Of Obsession Doors 4:30PM / Show 5:00.

ALL AGES/BAR W/ID. $8 ADV / $10 DOS

SUNDAY AUGUST 9TH FUNHOUSE LATE SHOW!

KING RAAM

Doors 7:30PM / Show 8:00. ALL AGES/BAR W/ID. $8 ADV / $10 DOS

Doors at 9:00PM / Show at 9:30. 21+. $10 ADV / $12 DOS

FRIDAY AUGUST 7TH FUNHOUSE BRIAN FOSS PRESENTS:

NO-TALENTS (FRANCE)

w/Cyclops, Head, Primate 5, DJ Tina Boom Boom (of the Trashwomen)

Doors 8:00PM / Show 9:00. 21+. $8 ADV / $10 DOS

SATURDAY AUGUST 8TH EL CORAZON PIZZA FEST - DAY 3

NOBUNNY w/Wimps, White Mystery, Zig Zags, Steal

Shit Do Drugs (SSDD), Baus, Uh Bones, Wolfgang Fuck, DJ Ruben Mendez, DJ Travis Ritter, DJ Jermaine Blair

Doors 6:30PM / Show 7:30. 21+. $12 ADV / $15 DOS

SUNDAY AUGUST 9TH EL CORAZON THE BLACKED OUT TOUR FEATURING: MOONSHINE BANDITS w/Jelly Roll, Crucifix, J. Gamble aka Pruno, King Bishop Bars ft. Reklez, Dan Purser

Doors 7:00PM / Show 8:00. ALL AGES/BAR W/ID+. $15 ADV / $17 DOS

w/Oh Be Clever, Dylan Yuste, Plus Guests

MONDAY AUGUST 10TH EL CORAZON

SEAN DANIELSEN

FROM SMILE EMPTY SOUL w/Glenn Cannon (of Windowpane), Rane Stone, Dylan Jakobsen, Josh Randall, William Perry Moore (from The Adarna)

Doors at 8:00PM / Show at 8:30. 21+. $10 ADV / $12 DOS

MONDAY AUGUST 10TH FUNHOUSE

JEFF ROSENSTOCK

w/Dan Adriano In The Emergency Room, Pet Symmetry, Spraynard

Doors 7:30PM / Show 8:00. ALL AGES/BAR W/ID. $13 ADV / $15 DOS

TUESDAY AUGUST 11TH EL CORAZON

FIREWORKS

w/Souvenirs, Dry Jacket, The Money Pit (feat. members of Gatsbys American Dream), Life As Cinema Doors 7:00PM / Show 7:30.

hen you headline a big venue like Neumos or the Paramount, there’s some risk involved. If a band doesn’t sell enough tickets, its members could end up owing money to the space. This is true even for the über-popular surf-noir band La Luz, which has scheduled a $5 record-release show at the Showbox. The quartet assumed the risk of an inexpensive all-ages show so the gig could be open to as many people as possible, feeling they owed their fans, and the city of Seattle, a debt of gratitude. “Seattle gave us so much after the accident— the city protected us and helped us, so we’ve been trying to give back for a while,” says drummer, Marian Li Pino. “We wanted to do a big show like this to thank everybody.” La Luz’s near-death accident occurred on tour after the 2013 release of their first full-length LP, It’s Alive: The driver of a giant truck hit—and totaled—their van parked on the side of the highway. They lost most of their equipment, and the members were understandably shaken. But their fans came to the rescue and assisted the group, through direct donations and letters of encouragement and support, get a new touring van and buy new equipment, helping the four-piece as they got back on their feet. Since then they’ve flourished, going on long tours undeterred and recording an 11-track sophomore LP, Weirdo Shrine, with famed garage rocker Ty Segall. “We decided, OK, this is happening and we’re OK with taking a loss to be able to do it the way we wanted to do it,” says singer and principal songwriter Shana Cleveland, who says that while going to school in Chicago, there were many bands she wanted to see but couldn’t because she was under 21. “Like Smog,” she says. “I was really into Smog.” The ladies of La Luz have been notifying fans on Facebook and posting up in locations all over Seattle, including Cowen Park and Rancho Bravo, selling tickets face-to-face. “When we’ve been selling tickets on the street, we get reminded of those cool people who come to our shows and read the things we post online,” says Cleveland. “Selling tickets directly to fans means no one has to pay a service charge. We wanted the show to be cheap and allages, making sure everyone could come” (made possible by a

subsidization sponsorship from Molly Moon’s ice cream to pay for the opening acts). People gently nudged the group to reconsider this strategy, but in the end La Luz had it their way. This is true for nearly everything about the band—driving the tour bus, designing merch, figuring out budgets. “We have total freedom,” says Cleveland. “The people we work with—our record label [Hardly Art] and our booking agency [Panache]—are all really supportive. They give us advice, but no one tries to tell us what to do.” This ethic led the band to a California surf shop

where they recorded Weirdo Shrine. “Ty had a recording studio set up in his house,” says Li Pino. “But there was an issue with zoning or something, so at the last minute we had to find a space big enough for us. One of Ty’s friends makes these amazing surfboards, so we went to his shop, cleared stuff out, and we moved in.” The result was a slinky, chorus-rich record with powerful hooks and a type of wise softness that musicians dream of. “Ty was excited to capture our live sound,” says Cleveland. “We never talked about how our style would meet his, it was just understood that he wanted to record us as we were.” Cleveland says she was influenced by Segall’s work in her own writing, and thinks he and La Luz have musical qualities in common. “I feel like he’s really good with dynamics,” she says, “soft moments and moments of great power— that kind of thing is so essential in good music.” Bassist Lena Simon goes as far as to say that the record has a “cinematic” sensibility. “When listening to it, I can create my own narrative,” she says. “It’s like a little movie, a spaghetti Western or a mobster film.” Cleveland shrugs when asked what “weirdo shrine” means. “I don’t want to talk about it too much,” she smirks. “It’s more interesting if it’s whatever you want it to be.” E

music@seattleweekly.com

LA LUZ RECORD RELEASE With Guantanamo Baywatch and Will Sprott. The Showbox, 1426 First Ave., 628-3151, showboxpresents.com. $5. All ages. 8 p.m. Fri., Aug. 7.

ALL AGES/BAR W/ID. $12 ADV / $14 DOS

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COUNTRY DAVE

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THE FUNHOUSE BAR IS OPEN FROM 3:00PM TO 2:00AM DAILY AND HAPPY HOUR IS FROM 3:00PM UNTIL 6:00PM. Tickets now available at cascadetickets.com - No per order fees for online purchases. Our on-site Box Office is open 1pm-5pm weekdays in our office and all nights we are open in the club - $2 service charge per ticket Charge by Phone at 1.800.514.3849. Online at www.cascadetickets.com - Tickets are subject to service charge

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La Luz hawking tickets at Rancho Bravo.

‘Pizza Is Party Food’

Pepperoni playboy Pete Capponi on Seattle’s best punk extravaganza/pizza-eating contest, Pizza Fest.

TheWeekAhead Wednesday, Aug. 5

Washington, D.C.’s GOLDLINK is something of an outsider in the rap game. He sings just as well as he raps, and his beat selection doesn’t just flirt with dance music, it makes out with it in the back of its parents’ car. GoldLink himself waxes nostalgic about the ’90s, pining for the days when danceability was heavily prioritized in hip-hop and R&B. Let’s see if he can get notoriously stiff Seattle crowds moving. With Dave B and Porter Ray. Barboza, 925 E. Pike St., 709-9442, thebarboza.com. 8 p.m. $3 w/RSVP 21 and over. DANIEL ROTH

BY MARTIN DOUGLAS

Capponi: The first one happened in Chicago in 2009, curated by my friend Brian Costello who happens to now play drums in [third-night headliner] Nobunny. He contacted me, Ruben [Mendez], and Lacey [Swain] from Coconut Coolouts and said we should do it in Seattle in 2010. It was really fun and a success on many levels, so we decided to keep doing it for the next few years. What was the impetus to move it to Seattle?

It was originally meant to be a fest that moves from place to place every year. No one took the reins on that front, so we kept it in Seattle.

I want Seattle to be thought of by bands and booking agents as a highlight of their tour. Like, come here on the weekend because people in Seattle will go apeshit and buy all your merch, party with you afterwards, and take you night swimming . . . and to brunch the next day after you crashed at their house. It’s like that at Pizza Fest. I always have bands texting me after leaving Pizza Fest saying they wish they just kicked it in Seattle for the weekend. That speaks to how truly rad our music community is here. So yeah, I want to feature touring bands in that sense. There are way too many truly killer local bands to only think of it as a showcase for touring bands. It’s a blessing and a curse that we’re starting to have more of a national presence. I’m not complaining, though. They’re all great. It’s not as simple as making it take up

Friday, Aug. 7

Besides a beer garden, a giant slide, and a burger-grilling competition, SOUTH LAKE UNION BLOCK PARTY also has a full day of awesome local music planned. Yes, this event is sponsored by Amazon, and many of their employees will no doubt be in attendance. But this is a great chance to hang out with them instead of indiscriminately hating on them. With Kithkin, Tomo Nakayama, THEESatisfaction, and more. Denny Way and Westlake Avenue North, slublockparty.com. 11 a.m. Free. All ages. DR

Saturday, Aug. 8 Jarv Dee

ING

Last year on the first night, a young couple were the first people through the door, and walked up to the merch table. I didn’t recognize them. The dude asks if I’m “the famous Pizza Pete.” I told him, “Well, I guess so. Which bands have you come to see?” He told me he didn’t know any of the bands, but just heard Pizza Fest was really cool and that he should go. On the last night, Elaine [Grabicki, Pizza Fest co-organizer] came up to me at 10 and told me it had sold out already. I was shocked, honestly. Then she said, “You should probably look outside at the steps [the staircase leading to the Highline’s front door].” There were about 100 people standing out there on their phones texting people inside or waiting for people to leave so they could get in. I couldn’t believe it. I actually got choked up!

Is the emphasis on pizza part of a deeper meaning, or is it just that pizza is the greatest thing ever?

Pizza is party food! And it’s easy to eat while you’re holding your beer watching a band! It’s cheap, too. And the Ramones liked it. So, no, there’s no deeper meaning. How many Pizza Fests have you performed in with a band?

I just realized the other day that I am the only person to have played every single Pizza Fest. It’s a point of pride, or maybe a point of shame in 20 years when I look back at this ridiculousness? Or at least when I look at pics from the pizza-eating contest. Who knows? What are some of your favorite memories?

Rich from Golden Pelicans losing his keys in the dumpster and diving in head-first with his legs up in the air to get them probably takes the cake. Current pizza-eating champ and record holder Ty Emsky eating a large cheese pizza in five minutes flat. The downright controversy over the 2011 contest when all the boxes got tossed in the air. E

music@seattleweekly.com

PIZZA FEST VI With Nobunny, Bod, Childbirth, SSDD, Mean Jeans, Full Toilet, and more. El Corazon, 109 Eastlake Ave. E., 262-0482, 8 p.m. Thurs., Aug. 6 & Sat., Aug. 8.; Chop Suey, 1325 E. Madison St., 538-0556, 8 p.m. Fri., Aug. 7. pizzafestseattle.com. 21 and over. $10–$15 each day; three-day pass, $30.

JARV DEE recently killed his set at Capitol Hill Block

Party, playing to a completely packed house. His recorded material just doesn’t do him justice: The general of Moor Gang just knows how to rock a show, period. If his Block Party performance is anything to judge by, expect guest stars, insane energy, and even synchronized dance moves. With Kris Kasanova and Bosco. The Crocodile, 2200 Second Ave., 441-4618, thecrocodile.com. 8 p.m. $10. All ages. DR As front man of Wolf Eyes, NATE YOUNG has become an icon of the U.S.’s post-industrial noise scene. His solo work is intense, sometimes frighteningly heavy, featuring an almost-ever-present undertone of dread. It’s probably what oppressive government leaders would listen to in a dystopian novel. And, yes, as the “post-industry” and “dread” might have suggested, this guy is from Detroit. With Sissy Spacek, Drainolith, #tits, Interracial Sex, and Nordra. The Highline, 210 Broadway Ave. E., highlineseattle.com. 9 p.m. $10. 21 and over. DR

Monday, Aug. 10 Black Messiah, the long-awaited and much-hyped album from D’ANGELO AND THE VANGUARD, dropped all of a sudden last December, and, damn, did it make a huge splash. Besides being phenomenal musically, Black Messiah managed to weave in deep themes on the struggle of being black in modern America. This isn’t one to be missed, especially considering the last time D’Angelo toured the U.S. was 2000. The Showbox, 1426 First Ave., showboxpresents.com. 8:30 p.m. Sold out. 21 and over. DR

Send events to music@seattleweekly.com. See seattleweekly.com for more listings.

SEATTLE WEEKLY • AU G UST 5 — 11, 2015

It seems as though more and more bands playing Pizza Fest have a national presence. Do you think that strips a little away from the homespun DIY feel, or do you see the festival growing as part of a wider national underground network?

Was there a point when you noticed that Pizza Fest was getting bigger?

COURTESY THEY SHOOTIN FILMS

SW: How did the first Pizza Fest come about?

more days or book longer bills. I see lots of small fests get huge and bloated. I want to be smarter than that. Pretty funny thing to say for a punk festival called Pizza Fest, I guess.

ete Capponi is a luminary in Seattle’s garage-punk scene. You may know him as a long-tenured member of local legends Coconut Coolouts and The Intelligence, or as a current member of faux-nihilistic rabble rousers Steal Shit Do Drugs. You may even recognize him from Fancy Lads, Dancer ’n’ Prancer, Stallion, Underworld Scum, The Honey Hush, Du Hexen Hase, Telemesser, Lamborghiniz, and, by his estimation, “many more short-lived bands.” He is also one of the leading lights of Pizza Fest, a Seattle staple since 2010 and, for this contributor’s money, the best summer festival in the Northwest. Seattle Weekly recently had a chance to chat with Capponi about where Pizza Fest has been, where it’s going, and all the flying pizza boxes in its wake.

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Dispensaries and collective gardens are being shut down across Washington, leaving the state’s estimated 175,000 medical patients to wonder how in the hell they’re going to get their medicine. They aren’t likely to find it at recreational stores, which have little incentive to sell medicinal items such as low-THC edibles, transdermal patches, topicals, or cannabis suppositories. King County and the Seattle City Council have voted to begin shutting down “unlicensed” dispensaries, and are sending Cease and Desist orders to collectives. Dispensaries also have been notified that if they continue to operate as unlicensed retail outlets, they’ll face civil and criminal ramifications. Problem is, there are no medicaldispensary licenses under 502, and currently no guidelines for them to apply. The official application period for 502 stores ended in December 2013, and no new applications for medicinal stores will be taken until next July. And until the (Liquor and) Cannabis Board approves these new applications, patients are stuck in the middle of a cannabis clusterfuck. In addition, dozens of counties and towns are banning legal marijuana stores in their jurisdictions, not only ignoring the will of the voters but denying access for those using medical cannabis. Patient “Protection”

As noted previously in this column (“Marijuana Is Medicine,” April 29), Senate Bill 5052, signed into law by Governor Inslee in April, is a draconian piece of crap that will overhaul (aka eliminate) a medical system that was up and running long before recreational marijuana was even a seedling. Last week, part of the bill—which in an Orwellian twist has been deemed the Cannabis Patient Protection Act—went into effect with a slew of regressive rules, tailor-made to force longtime medical users into either taxable retail stores or back underground. The new law drastically cuts the number of plants a patient can have. No more than 15 plants can now be

grown in a single housing unit, regardless of the number of patients or designated providers who reside there. This directly impacts thousands of patients who are unable to grow (or afford) marijuana themselves and belong to collective gardens, which previously allowed up to 45 plants for 10 individuals. Many of these collectives also prepare edibles for patients who cannot smoke, as well as cannabis oils, balms, and tinctures for a wide variety of maladies. No House Calls

Practitioners can no longer go to a patient’s home or set up a location outside of their permanent office to evaluate, assess, or examine for a qualifying condition; this eliminates satellite clinics, which doctors often set up in rural areas where few health professionals were available to write authorizations for medial marijuana. (We’d hate for Grandma to get too comfortable and be evaluated for her Parkinson’s or Crohn’s disease anywhere near her home in Black Diamond.) Feeding the Paranoia

Health-care practitioners can no longer run an office with the sole purpose of authorizing medical recommendations. If a health-care practitioner writes more than 30 authorizations for medical marijuana in a single month, he or she must now report the number to the Washington Department of Health. You don’t have to be paranoid to be nervous about doctors handing over charts and records to various state boards and commissions which point out that their patients are committing felonies at the federal level. And the paranoia won’t stop there. This particularly nerve-wracking requirement will be eliminated a year from now . . . when the new “voluntary” registry takes effect. You don’t sign up—you get no tax break for medical weed. SHIN

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ashington continues to take one step forward and seven steps back in our legalization experiment. With new laws rapidly eroding the voter-approved Medical Use of Marijuana Act of 1998, the cannabis community is deeply divided between the “haves” (recreational retailers, growers, and processors) HIGHERGROUND and the BY MICHAEL A. STUSSER “havenots” (medical-marijuana patients and dispensaries). What does this grave new world look like?

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A final absurd nail: Medical patients, who will now need to get their cannabis from recreational outlets, will not be able to discuss medical solutions to their various ailments and illnesses with store budtenders. It’s strictly against Liquor and Cannabis rules. The Future

More regulations eliminating safe medicalmarijuana access points take effect next July, including shutting down all current medical dispensaries and potentially licensing them as retail stores. Lawsuits and Initiatives to overturn these new laws and stop the closure of medical dispensaries have been filed by the Association of Safe Access Points, Real Legalization, and others. The Legalization Experiment clumsily continues. E For more Higher Ground, visit highergroundtv.com.

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NOTICE OF INDUSTRIAL WASTE DISCHARGE PERMIT APPLICATION NO. 7921-01 TAKE NOTICE:

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Stan’s Mountain View Towing Inc Abandoned Vehicle Auction 9000 Delridge Way SW, Seattle WA Wednesday 08/12/15 Gates Open 9AM, Auction 12 PM 206-767-4848

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There are multiple proposed discharge points along the alignment of the future Sound Transit Northgate Link Extension tunnel running from the Maple Leaf Portal, located at 9560 First Avenue NE to the University of Washington station, located at 3720 Montlake Boulevard NE, Seattle, WA 98115.

Publication dates of this notice are: August 5, 2015 & August 12, 2015

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That Sound Transit - Northgate Link Extension N125 Cross Passage Dewatering located at Maple Leaf Portal To UW Station, Seattle,WA 98115 has filed an application for an industrial waste discharge permit to discharge groundwater into West Point from its construction dewatering operation in the amount of 5.2 million gallons per day following treatment and in-plant control and in compliance with rules and regulations of the King County Department of Natural Resources and Parks; Washington State Department of Ecology; and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Any person desiring to express their view, or to be notified of the King County Department of Natural Resources and Parks’ action on this application, should notify the King County Industrial Waste Program at 201 S. Jackson Street, Suite 513, Seattle, WA 98104-3855, in writing, of their interest within 30 days of the last date of publication of this notice.

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Group Product Marketing Manager (multiple positions) sought by DataSphere Technologies, Inc. for its Bellevue, WA office. Responsibilities include driving product development across our platform, including new products for advertisers as well as new features/tools for internal teams (i.e., sales, ad operations, etc). Requires Bachelor’s degree in Marketing, Economics, Business Administration, or a related and 8 years of progressive, post-baccalaureate experience as a Product Manager, Marketing Manager, or a related occupation. Master’s plus 6 years exp. ok in lieu of Bachelor’s plus 8. Reply to: Job# 072015, Sara Lanis, HR Manager, 3350 161st Ave SE, Bellevue, WA 98008 or at https://datasphere.com/ job-postings

IT/Software Development ServiceNow Inc, provider of enterprise IT cloud software, has opening in Kirkland, WA for Software Development Engineer (3604): Design, test, and deploy scalable and reliable cloud computing applications. Mail resume and reference job code to ServiceNow Inc Attn Global Mobility 3260 Jay St Santa Clara CA 95054 Sr. Software Engineer – Android: Design/implement products for Android framework; develop mobile client API platform engine. Requires Bachelor’s in CS, Math or related or FDE & 5 yrs specific exp in productionlevel software dev of Java applications. Position with Glympse, Inc. in Seattle, WA. For complete description and requirements & to apply, go to: www.glympse.com, Job ID: ENG-CLIENT-ANDROID-050. TECHNOLOGY Salesforce.com, Inc. has openings for the following positions (various levels/types/multiple positions) Seattle, WA. Some positions may allow for telecommuting.

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Software Engineers-Applications: Develop, create, modify and/or test enterprise cloud computing applications focusing on Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Ref# 1132M/SW Software Engineers-Applications: Develop, create, modify and/or test enterprise cloud computing applications focusing on Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Requires travel to various unanticipated sites throughout the U.S. Ref# 1132MT/SW Software Engineers-Systems: Research, design, develop, and/or test operating systemslevel software for enterprise cloud computing applications. Ref# 1133M/SW Salesforce.com, Inc. has openings for the following position (various levels/types/multiple positions) Seattle, WA. All positions require travel to various unanticipated sites throughout the U.S. Some positions may allow for telecommuting. Software Engineers-Systems: Research, design, develop, and/or test operating systemslevel software for enterprise cloud computing applications. Requires travel to various unanticipated sites throughout the U.S. Ref# 1133MT/SW Mail resume to salesforce.com, inc., P.O. Box 192244, San Francisco, CA 94119. Resume must include Ref. #, full name, phone #, email address & mailing address. salesforce is an Equal Employment Opportunity & Affirmative Action Employer.

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Employment Services WANTS TO purchase minerals and other oil & gas interests. Send details to P.O. Box 13557, Denver, Co 80201

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VISITING ANGELS Certified Caregivers needed. Minimum 3 years experience. Must live in Seattle area. Weekend & live-in positions available. Call 206-439-2458 • 877-271-2601

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