Seattle Weekly, January 06, 2016

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January 6-12, 2016 I VOLUME 41 I NUMBER 1

YES!

DEVELOPERS DO RUN SEATTLE Nick Licata dishes on 18 years in City Hall.

BY CASEY JAYWORK

PAGE 13

It’s Getting Wild Out There

By Daniel Person Fishers, grizzlies, and the “reverse apocalypse” of Washington’s wildlife.

SCOTT TRAVIS

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long an unnamed creek in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, seven pine crates are lined up in a row, hatch doors pointed toward an anonymous swath of Pacific Northwest pine forest consumed by green. In the misting rain, even the air seems to take on an emerald hue.

One by one the doors on the crates are slid open—an act that, from the inside, must look like an eyelid awakening to a paradise of Douglas fir and fern and cling moss and lichen. This is land that instinct and millennia of evolution has made familiar to the boxes’ freight. It is habitable, for all the dens provided by downed trees in the underbrush; plentiful, for all the mice and squirrels; safe, for all the canopy cover it can provide.

Ancestors to the species in the crate, the fisher, likely first came to North America in the midPleistocene epoch, a million or so years ago, by way of the Bering Ice Bridge. The fisher is a small animal, 12 pounds set so low to the ground that its belly can drag against the forest floor as it hunts for prey.

It is agile as well, and can climb down trees face first. A thick, rich coat means it can hunt and travel in temperatures well below zero and stay warm in soaking winter rain. A highly solitary animal, fishers use a somewhat mysterious system of dark, sticky deposits to communicate for purposes of mating. Vicious, it’s the only preda-

tor known to selectively prey on porcupine.

As Edward McCord, a professor of environmental law at the University of Pittsburgh who has published extensively on wildlife, noted in his 2012 book, The Value of Species: “Every living species represents a dynamic process of the earth that is infinitely astonishing.” That is, in every species, one can see the sum of a million small impressions made on it by its environment— clay sculptures with the sculptor’s thumbprints detectable to the savvy eye, “something that is unique and unrepeatable in the universe.”

Such is the relationship between these fishers in the boxes and these woods.

Each fisher emerges from its captivity in full lunge. For a moment, to the dozens of government officials, school children, biologists, and journalists gathered

» CONTINUED ON PAGE 6

“The film’s collection of atrocities is like a to-do list for the next Cormac McCarthy novel: scalping, neckwound selfcauterizing, arrows through all body parts, horse disemboweling, a breakfast of bison liver tartare.”

The Revenant,

reviewed by

Robert Horton Page 20

MartesPennanti

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hen Nick Licata was first elected to the Seattle City Council in 1997, Amazon was happily headquartered in SoDo, the SuperSonics were happily playing at Seattle Center, and Microsoft was happily taking over the world. Now, after 18 years sitting on a council responsible for governing one of the country’s fastest-changing cities, he’s returned to citizen ranks, ready to dish on how progressives can move the heavy cogs of government with his new book Becoming a Citizen Activist.

“I think the best thing that I can do, and that I try to do in the book, is fight cynicism,” says Licata on his first official day of retirement—Jan. 1, 2016. “One of the great advantages that I believe Ronald Reagan had in promoting a reactionary agenda was he was optimistic. The problem that people who are progressives have is we concentrate so much on what’s wrong and how we want to correct what is wrong and how if we don’t correct it, we’re to end up in horrible shape.

We have to change the way we look at what is around us, and say that we can change things and things are changing for the better.”

Seattle Weekly sat down with Licata to get his take on what makes City Hall tick, and whether little people stand a chance in the new Seattle.

» CONTINUED ON PAGE 4

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SEATTLE WEEKLY • JAN UARY 6 — 12, 2016

Discover Bastyr

editorial

Cowboy Nihilism in Oregon

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resident Theodore Roosevelt wrote once that when he heard of the “destruction of a species,” he “felt just as if all of the works of some great writer had perished.”

Though he was not the first person to feel such despair, few people resolved more fervently than Roosevelt to do something about it. Both a naturalist and politician, Roosevelt recognized with rare insight then what is obvious today—that preservation of wilderness in the industrial age would not come by itself. It would require active management—just as much as does a factory or a logging camp or a ranch.

In his term and a half as president, T.R. introduced big-C Conservation into the political narrative with audacious steps to protect a fraction of the pristine land that remained in the United States through the creation of the National Forest Service and a series of wildlife refuges.

The 19th reserve he created was the Lake Malheur Reservation in eastern Oregon. The reservation encompassed land around three lakes—all of which had previously been made available to homesteaders but none of which had been claimed.

It was to be a “preserve and breeding ground for native birds,” specifically white egrets. It was officially created on August 18, 1908.

The Lake Malheur Reservation is now called the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, and has grown to encompass 187,757 acres of vital wetlands. It may support as much as 66 percent of migrating birds in the Pacific Flyway, a swath of land of incalculable ecological value. Fifty-eight species of mammals make their home there, as do 12 native species of fish.

Thankfully we have a century of evidence to prove what kind of cow product Bundy is trying to sell us. As Daniel Person discusses in this week’s cover story (“It’s Getting Wild Out There,” page 1), an enormous amount of natural wonder was lost in the Pacific Northwest over the course of the 20th century, despite the fledgling environmental movement the century brought on. In Washington, 10 mammals were either entirely removed from the landscape or so diminished that they were no longer considered a viable population. Within our borders, Roosevelt’s writer had lost his work.

Yet the arc of history may be bending toward conservation yet. Thanks to the kinds of land protections and science-based environmental legislation that the Bundys abhor, many of the species lost in our region are now making comebacks.

Wolves, antelope, wolverines, and fishers all live again among us, as they had for millennia before European expansion.

It’s a brilliant affirmation that nature will survive if we allow and encourage it to. And it’s a perfect illustration of how vapid the Oregon occupation’s argument against federal land stewardship is. As Dave Werntz, science and conservation director at Conservation Northwest, told Person: “We’ve made good decisions in how we manage the habitat. . . . This is sort of a natural outcome of that.”

He said this before any would-be cowboys showed up at Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.

But it will be just as true after they pack up and drive back to Nevada. E

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NEWS & COMMENT

How the blind navigate torn-up neighborhoods; infighting over a carbon tax; the similarities between sensory deprivation and dropping acid; and a tantalizing photo of some guy freezing his ass off.

13 COMIX

Cats in the cafe, and chickens in the road.

15 ARTS & CULTURE

A Central District arts renaissance; Leo grins and bears it; mashing up consumerist satire and ancient Egypt.

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Malheur is the perfect backdrop, then, to reveal the small band of anti-government wackos who are now occupying the refuge as the nihilists they are.

Central to this siege by 15 or so men with guns and cowboy hats is a fundamental contempt for the ecological principles and law borne of Roosevelt’s generation and fostered by generations to follow. Trouble began around the refuge in the 1990s when a local ranching family, the Hammonds, started getting in trouble with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for running their cattle on the refuge outside the dates allowed by a special permit. The family’s blatant disregard for the very idea of a refuge has made them poster children for a segment of the Western population that argues we’d all be better off if everyone could stick their cows wherever they damn well pleased. More recently, two Hammond men have served jail time for starting fires that burned thousands of acres of public land, one of which may have been set to cover up a large-scale poaching operation; the

extension of their sentences was what has brought about the most recent protests.

Legitimate arguments may be made that the government has pursued the Hammonds too aggressively, but that shouldn’t cloud what this standoff (done without the permission or participation of the Hammond family) is about: the absurd—and absurdly popular—belief that land like the Malheur Wildlife Refuge should be handed over to local governments and pressed into economic production.

Through environmental regulations, siege leader (and Nevada resident) Ammon Bundy insists, the federal government has made it so people can’t work the land. When people can’t work the land, they become dependent on the government. In this view of the world, seen through the scope of an AR15, something like a wildlife refuge is but a pretense for the government to socially engineer more power for itself. The Bundy gang will only be satisfied, its leader says, when people “can use these lands as free men”—that is, run cattle without giving two shits about species preservation, public access to wildlands, clean air, or clean water.

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WINTER PUBLIC LECTURES

Nick Licata » FROM PAGE 1

AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON SW: There’s a perception that in Seattle, disagreements and conflicts get worked out behind the scenes. If that’s the case, how can voters really know what’s going on at City Hall?

Equity & Difference Keeping The Conversation Going This year-long series of talks exposes and explains transgressions, both systematic and personal, experienced by too many in our communities today.

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RALINA L. JOSEPH DIRECTOR, CCDE; ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNICATION, UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON

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MORE THAN MASCOTS! LESS THAN CITIZENS? American Indians Talk: Why Isn’t The U.S. Listening?

K. TSIANINA LOMAWAIMA PROFESSOR, SCHOOL OF SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION, ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY

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DOING RACE BETTER: Race And The Reform Of Urban Schools CHARLES M. PAYNE PROFESSOR, SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SERVICE ADMINISTRATION, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

Licata: It’s very difficult to stop politics from happening among politicians. It’s gonna happen.

So to a certain extent it’s not the goal of stopping it from happening or just trying to make everything transparent, because you will slow everyIt seems like we tend to apply, and something down, and that may or may not be good. times misapply, categories from national poliJust making everything transparent to the point tics to city politics—liberal versus conservative, of slowing it down could for instance. What’s a stop a lot of progressive set of categories “In affordable housing, good legislation. for thinking about politiThe way citizens can I think the Council has been cal ideology on the city affect process is by worklevel? ing closely with allies or way more conservative than If you go out to the making certain politicommunities and you ask most cities our size who are what measurement they cians their allies, to open the door to the extent use to categorize Counnot ‘progressive.’ ” that they’re at the table. cil members, it’s really [That] didn’t quite happen with affordable housfunny. They don’t use the left/right. They use a very ing, because [the HALA committee] didn’t, for simplistic and in some ways accurate [rubric]: It’s instance, grapple with the idea of out-of-control developer-friendly and not-developer-friendly. If rents. They sidestepped that. you look at business interests in Seattle, developer In the area of providing affordable housing, I interests are by far the primary player. They’re not, think the Council has been way more conservative for the most part, big corporations, but they of all than most cities our size who are not “progressive.” the different kinds of business interests have the most to gain or lose on the direct authority that “Conservative” in the sense of being friendly cities have, which is zoning. to developers.

When the Council moved into the area of Yes. Economic and business conservative. We’re minimum wage and sick leave [and the plastic-bag very socially progressive, so that’s not an issue ban], then we start seeing, for probably one of the in Seattle. But there is this strong concern that first times, national players move in, because then we don’t want to hurt development in Seattle— you were affecting national interests. The plasticalthough it appears that we’re bulletproof, almost, bag ban is a good example: [The plastics lobby] right now. Due to our location, we’re one of the spent $1.5 million defeating that in Seattle. And closest trade routes to China and Asia. Now, that’s then of course with minimum wage you have the not city policy. That’s a result of our location. And fast-food industry. our majestic environment has resulted in many But those are singular issues. The ongoing work CEOs wanting to locate their companies here. of the Council really is spending public money It’s a nice place to be. If you look at business studon public projects, and zoning. E ies, businesses tend to locate where the owner or the founder wants to locate the business, even if cjaywork@seattleweekly.com

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the taxes are higher. Not astronomically higher, but they want to live in a city that has something going for it. They don’t want to live in St. Louis, for instance. Those [other factors] are things that are a given, and we’re playing off of that.

[In] South Lake Union, we could have made, and should have made, much stronger demands.

We really sold ourselves short. We could have gotten five times more the number of affordable units. We upzoned South Lake Union, and we just didn’t ask for enough. We lost an opportunity there.

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LEARN TO

chatterbox

“Yeah, it wasn’t comfortable and it wasn’t Seattle ‘civilized.’ But it got my attention.”

ALEX GARLAND

INTERPRETING THE INTERRUPTION

In our year-in-review issue, Marcus Harrison Green, executive director of the South Seattle Emerald, profiled Marissa Johnson, one of the two women who interrupted a Bernie Sanders rally in Westlake to demand a moment of silence for black victims of police violence. Green argued the interruption was a turning point for the presidential campaign, a moment when candidates realized they wouldn’t be able to stay silent on Black Lives Matter. Some readers agreed, while others remained skeptical of Johnson’s tactics and achievements.

I was pissed at first. Then my son, who is young and hopeful, tells me, “You must remember, these people are fighting for their lives, they are being shot in the streets, everyday.” Duh, me. If this was my kid that I had to worry about just walking outside, I would be interrupting everyone.

Darby1V, via seattleweekly.com

able and it wasn’t Seattle “civilized.” But it got my attention.

Sue Whitcomb, via Facebook ONE DOES NOT SIMPLY DEFEND AMAZON

Meanwhile, Seth Kolloen penned a comic, illustrated

by Tatiana Gill, envisioning what Seattle would be like if Amazon did disappear, as everyone seems to wish it would. Kolloen had the audacity to suggest Seattle would be the worse for it. People were not pleased by this crossing of the party line.

So because we are now so dependent of Shamazon if they disappeared the city would collapse we should bend over and be thankful they are here? What kind of logic is that? Fuck Amazon.

Kelly A, via seattleweekly.com Amazon, please build a vast flotilla in the midst of the ocean where your law is rule.

Samuel Fletcher, via seattleweekly.com

[Green wrote]: “Around the same time, Sanders hired a young racial-justice activist as his national press Send your thoughts on secretary.” Let’s get the facts out this week’s issue to there, please. Symone Sandletters@seattleweekly.com ers, a volunteer organizer with

I am—to my shame—one of those people who said “All Lives Matter” to “Black Lives Matter” when I first heard it. I didn’t get it. Until those brave women disrupted Bernie Sanders in Seattle and I got curious. Just two women.

Who made me think. Yeah, it wasn’t comfort-

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WHAT’S THAT SMELL?

And lastly, cannabis columnist Michael Stusser noted the annoying stigma that still follows marijuana though it’s perfectly legal here in the Evergreen State. Readers offered their suggestions for how weed can shake the stink.

As far as stigmas go, I think everyone referring to MJ as cannabis now is a good psychological starting point. As well, the more business, sophisticated, educational, and otherwise respectable folks are able to come out of the cannabis closet, the more people will also see how widely accepted it really is. And those who have preconceived notions will learn that many of said stereotypes aren’t always true.

Perry, via seattleweekly.com The positive financial aspects of the cannabis industry—medicines, jobs, clothing, building materials and more—should be enough to convince anyone to drop the sigma discussion and open their eyes to the wealth that is yet to be created.

Curtis, via seattleweekly.com Comments have been edited for length, clarity, and the “r” word. Spread the word to end the word, folks. E

Come visit General Assembly’s Seattle campus and attend one of our free workshops happening January 11th-15th. Level up in 2016 with new skills in tech, business and design.

Check out the workshops and find more information at http://ga.co/backtoschoolsea

SE ATTLE WEEKLY • JAN UARY 6 — 12, 2016

the D.C.-based Coalition for Juvenile Justice, had already been tapped by the Sanders campaign, and the announcement came hours after Johnson’s protest at Bernie’s University of Washington rally. She was in Seattle with him to introduce the candidate.

On the topic of Marissa Johnson, this article doesn’t say much about what she is doing for the community other than talking. Is she doing anything other than talking? I listened to what she had to say in an interview she gave on Blackness.TV after the protest. The whole time I was with her, education reform (appalling in Seattle), police accountability, representation, YES YES YES. Up until she said she doesn’t give a f- about what white people think, which is understandable but naive, and then said she doesn’t believe in any form of government. This woman doesn’t understand what we need to be working for if she thinks everything needs to burn down.

I’ll stand with her if she wants to fix what’s broken, but until that time she needs to sit down.

Brett James, via seattleweekly.com

“Mr. Bezos, what did you do with your wealth?”

“I MADE MASS CONSUMERISM AVAILABLE TO EVERY LIVING BEING ON EARTH. IF I MAKE IT TO SPACE I SHALL DO THE SAME.” Ryan Pat, via Facebook

DANCE

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to witness the scene, each animal is completely conspicuous, a fat streak of brown across a canvas of green. Cameras whir and people aww. Then, with a few more bounds, it disappears. Absorption. A cog setting into a perfectly engineered wheel; even when one of the animals, 100 yards or so out, perches on some deadfall and looks back to see what it is leaving behind, bobbed ears perked to the ape sounds of the humans, it is difficult to see where its body ends and the environment begins.

These seven fishers, several of them pregnant females, are the first of their kind to stalk this ground in nearly a century. Before another fisher reintroduction on the Olympic Peninsula in 2008, the animal had been altogether absent from Washington state for more than 70 years.

Once common, their pelts in the 1920s could fetch hundreds of dollars—thousands in today’s dollars.

The fisher is not alone in its disappearance from the wilds of Washington.

In the blink of an eye, evolutionarily speaking, that the state of Washington has existed, no fewer than 10 mammals have effectively been lost: Bison, woodland caribou, grizzly bears, wolverines, pronghorns, bighorn sheep, sea otters, gray wolves, pygmy rabbits, and the fisher vanished from the landscapes that formed them.

Unlike a clearcut or an open-pit mine, these environmental degradations are almost by definition invisible. Even in thick grizzly-bear country like Glacier and Yellowstone parks, sightings of the greatest predator in North America are rare and special moments. So to remove the griz from the landscape was to remove a phantom, the impossible subtlety of unseen into unseeable.

It’s arguably pointless to talk about what species do and do not exist in “Washington,” as arbitrary as state and international borders are to wildlife.

In 1997, The Nature Conservancy released a study that noted Washington was the only state in the country that hadn’t seen any of its native species go extinct. But that figure wasn’t due to any great legacy of conservation here. It just so happened that most of Washington’s native species also existed elsewhere, where the pressures of modern man had yet to imperil them. Namely, British Columbia. As American Western expansion flooded the Puget Sound region with godlike power, Canada has served as an arboreal Noah’s ark for many of the species that could not survive the onslaught of humanity on this side of the border.

But today, in what’s been a major but piecemeal sea change, it’s not an exaggeration to say that the dove has returned with the olive branch, that the flood is over and it is time for Washington’s creatures to return to land—by sevens if not by twos.

Of the 10 mammals that have at some point been entirely wiped out in Washington, nine have either returned to the state’s landscape or are the subject of active restoration efforts. Bighorns and sea otters were restored with active reintroduction work in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but most of the animals, like the fisher, have only recently seen significant recovery efforts. Consider: • The wolverine, locally extinct since the 1930s due to overtrapping, has naturally repopulated the Cascades. In 2013, astounded biologists determined that wolverines coming down from British Columbia had become residents of the Washington Cascades. Earlier this year, biologists found signs of the species just a few miles north of I-90, the farthest south the North Cascades population had been detected since the recent expansion.

• The state’s population of woodland caribou, a spectacular, spindly animal that finds its

southernmost range in northeastern Washington, was largely wiped out in the mid-20th century by logging and overhunting. The caribou are particularly reliant on old-growth forest for survival. They evade predators by migrating to higher elevations in the winter, staying atop the snow with hooves as wide as dinner plates. As

reintroduction work directly across the border in British Columbia that aims to augment the herd that makes its home in the transnational Selkirk Mountains. Following the animal’s continued population decline, Canadian wildlife officials in 2011 began a captive breeding program in continued efforts to save the herd that provides the best hope for a Washington caribou population.

grams. While wolves were the subject of reintroduction work in central Idaho and Yellowstone, the wolves in Washington may be the result of natural migration from British Columbia.

• The grizzly bear—perhaps the ultimate measure of a thriving ecosystem on account of the massive range the species requires—has in effect been removed from the Washington wilds. One must say “in effect” because the occasional bear is seen on this side of the border with Canada.

However, grizzlies may well return to the North Cascades in coming years, as a coalition of government agencies research the viability of transplanting a handful of bears, likely from British Columbia.

• The pronghorn, often called an antelope, is the fastest land animal in North America; it can reach speeds of 60 miles an hour, an evolutionary response to outrunning prehistoric cats that haven’t existed for 11,000 years. Lewis and Clark noted herds of the animal along the north shore of the Columbia River, as did many other subsequent explorers. However, overhunting and disease from European livestock wiped out the animal in Washington.

• Also since 2011, the state of Washington, in collaboration with several private organizations, has been bringing pygmy rabbits from other states and breeding them in captivity for release in semi-arid regions; 1,200 of the rabbits have been released in central Washington since the program began, and this year it was expanded to new areas.

The sum of all this: Thanks largely to very recent developments and efforts, within the next seven years, the state has a strong opportunity to see a significant portion of its wildlife restored— nine out of 10 of its extirpated mammals.

“We are seeing a renaissance of sorts,” says Dave Werntz, science and conservation director at Conservation Northwest, who personally oversaw the transportation of fishers from the Williams Lake area of British Columbia to Washington. “We are restoring the suite of wildlife that have occurred on these lands for a very long period of time.”

Antilocapra Americana SCOTT TRAVIS

SEATTLE WEEKLY • JAN UARY 6 — 12, 2016

It’s Getting Wild Out There » FROM PAGE 1

snow piles up, they can reach dangling lichen higher and higher on each tree. Logging has so decimated their American habitat that there remain serious doubts as to whether the caribou will ever come back. But in the past five years the species has been given an 11th-hour exoneration from American extinction in the form of habitat protections in north Idaho and

• No gray wolves bred in Washington between the 1930s and 2008, when a new pack was confirmed in western Okanogan County.

It was another year before a second pack was confirmed. Now, seven years on, at least 16 packs totaling 68 wolves live in the state, a striking display of the wolf ’s ability to thrive on the Washington landscape absent targeted hunting pro-

While attempting to make an argument for the gains made in the realm of wildlife recovery, it can be tempting to talk in cold scientific terms— data-driven proofs of improved ecosystems on account of a recovered species.

During the highly controversial wolf recovery in Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming, wolves were billed as a cure-all salve to a gravely sick ecosystem. For example, as for beavers, it was expected that wolves would reduce elk and moose populations to the point that fewer willows would be eaten, thus aiding the wetlands that were necessary for the beavers’ survival. This kind of chain reaction is called a “trophic cascade,” and its role in justifying the reintroduction of the wolf can’t be overstated. Quantified benefits of Canis lupus poured forth in a torrent from conservation organizations hyper-attuned to the perceived costs of the animal’s return.

But this way of thinking about wildlife conservation and restoration can be problematic in a few ways. First, it is almost always too simplistic to prove correct in the chaotic wild. These days, 20 years after a handful of Alberta wolves were airmailed to Yellowstone, conservationists admit that many of the trophic-cascade predictions made early on haven’t panned out.

As wildlife biologist Arthur Middleton wrote in a New York Times op-ed in 2014: “This story— that wolves fixed a broken Yellowstone by killing and frightening elk—is one of ecology’s most famous. It’s the classic example of what’s called a ‘trophic cascade,’ and has appeared in textbooks,

DANIEL PERSON

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the wolf ’s return to Yellowstone distracts from on National Geographic centerfolds, and in this greater ecological problems. “The warmest temnewspaper. Americans may know this story betperatures in 6,000 years are changing forests and ter than any other from ecology, and its grip on grasslands. . . . Natural-gas drilling is affecting our imagination is one of the field’s proudest the winter ranges of migratory wildlife. To procontributions to wildlife conservation. But there tect cattle from disease, our government agencies is a problem with the story: It’s not true.” still kill many bison that migrate out of the park These findings have extended the endless, and in search of food.” endlessly frustrating, debate over wolves in the A skeptic could see December’s fisher release continental United States—if not for the trophic as a token gesture, an empty genuflection toward cascade, why have wolves at all? Which leads to the ideals of conservation. Seven large weasel-like the second problem with justifying a species with creatures do not a restored ecosystem make. And hard statistics: the suggestion that any justificawhat if the media spectacle of the fisher release is tion is needed for reversing mankind’s impact on just distracting from more pressing issues? wildlife beyond the clearly self-evident one.

“I don’t think they’re mutually exclusive— “We messed things up in the past,” Werntz restoring degraded habitat and working to says. “We made mistakes and we caused species restore species that live in that habitat,” says that make their home in Washington to disappear Werntz. “They can all happen simultaneously and or decline to the point they are no longer recovershould happen simultaneously. ing on their own. If we were to do nothing, then “The reason we are able to release the fisher the fisher would not likely come back. We had is because we made 70 to 80 years with no decisions in the past to fisher trapping in the protect habitat. These state, and they didn’t are the key things in come back on their wildlife conservation own. So you’re faced that we need to be with a pretty bright doing simultaneously. line of choice: You We need to be coneither recover the spenecting habitat and cies or you live with we need to be rewildthat wrong. ing it.”

“I think we have That logic will hold an obligation to make true, to a scale an order good, to fix what we of magnitude greater, broke in the past.” with the return of the No doubt, there grizzly to Washingremain purely selfton. The reason the ish—or human—reanorthern Cascades are sons to bring back being studied for reinspecies. By some troduction isn’t simply reasoning, our desire that griz were there to save the fisher is as A tracking device of the type before—that can be much in our nature as used to monitor released fishers. said of almost all westthe fisher’s desire to ern North America. But the northern Cascades hunt a vole. represents one of the only wild areas in the Lower “It’s pretty unique to humans to be capable of 48 large enough to support a viable population. having so much of our perception of the world That is not by accident, but by virtue of deliberate based on learning rather than genes,” McCord, efforts to protect the area from mining, logging, author of The Value of Species, notes in a phone and housing development. The grizzly bear, then, interview. “A bat will never know the wondrous and the fisher, and the pronghorn, can be seen as thing it is. Who could be dismissive of that the fulfillment of work done a generation ago to power and what we’re given in that capacity?” protect habitat, even when the beneficiaries of that “It’s awfully exciting,” offers a beaming Mitch habitat were not around to enjoy it.

Friedman, executive director of Conservation And in a circular way, these species may well Northwest, following the fisher release. “It’s worth encourage more investment in habitat protection it for the emotional value. For us to be having this by re-engaging people with the outdoors. reverse apocalypse, it’s a wonderful story.”

By increasing the biodiversity of a forest, McCord notes, you are “increasing immensely The reverse apocalypse is indeed a wonderful the intellectual excitement” of it. That in turn story, but is it true? may help people re-engage with Seattle’s wild When one stops squinting at the single metric backyard, which can seem a world away from the of restored species in Washington and considers traffic jams of South Lake Union. the wider state of wildlife in the state, things still “Letting people know they might see a wollook pretty grim. Down around Olympia, pocket verine, or there’s a chance to see a wolverine, gophers continue to see declines for the simple that’s going to make the woods and the mounreason that their habitat happens to be flat tains a much more interesting and enticing place lowlands good for housing developments. Lynx to be,” says Werntz. “We’ve made good decisions number under 100 in the state, and are headed in how we manage the habitat in a way that in the wrong direction. For all the effort, many makes room for species like the fisher. This is sort conservationists grumble privately that it’s hard to be too optimistic about the woodland caribou’s of the natural outcome to that.” E long-term fate in Washington, severely comprodperson@seattleweekly.com mised as its habitat stands.

John Fleckenstein, zoologist for the WashingSeattle Weekly News Editor Daniel Person ton Department of Natural Resources, dispenses received a prestigious Sigma Delta Chi award from the cold water: “If you look at sheer numbers, I’m the Society of Professional Journalism for his reportsure there are lots more mammals that are sliping on the return of the gray wolf to Yellowstone ping downhill in Washington than are improving National Park. He’s seen only one grizzly bear in their conservation status.” in his life—a boar in full sprint across a scree field Middleton, in the Times, argued that lionizing in the Scapegoat Wilderness.

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news&comment Getting Hot CONSTRUCTION

Traversing our booming city has not been easy for the disabled community.

BY CASEY JAYWORK

BY DANIEL PERSON

arbon Washington, the group behind the state legislature initiative to institute a supposedly revenue-neutral tax on carbon, last week submitted 350,000 signatures to the Secretary of State— either a bold or reckless decision, depending on whom you talk to. While the Carbon WA campaign has more than enough signatures to reach the legislature, insiders say it’s unlikely to pass there—meaning it will bounce onto the November state ballot, where it could face off against a second carbon initiative in a divided-we-fail scenario that has caused plenty of hand-wringing in the environmental community.

The idea behind I-732 is to discourage a bad thing (emitting carbon) by making it more expensive through taxes, but to offset those new taxes with cuts to the sales tax and business tax and support for low-income tax programs.

The fact that it’s revenue-neutral makes Carbon WA unpopular among the many wellestablished environmental, social-justice, and labor groups who make up the Alliance for Jobs and Clean Energy. They say climate policy must include subsidies for marginalized populations, such as migrant farmworkers, who bear the worst effects of climate change. They also say Carbon WA executive director Yoram Bauman bypassed stakeholders in those communities when he drafted its initiative, which is based on a tax already in place in Vancouver, B.C. “He didn’t bring anyone to the table besides economists, lawyers . . . But he didn’t speak to the community,” says Sarra Tekola, an activist who also works in Councilmember Mike O’Brien’s office. Tekola was part of a small demonstration outside Carbon WA’s office last week protesting the group’s decision to file the initiative. “They went on a limb by themselves, did it by themselves, and they’re wondering now why they are standing by themselves.”

Critics also point to confidential data that shows Carbon WA’s proposal polling significantly lower than an alternative that uses carbon-tax revenue to pay for things like renewable energy subsidies and aid to affected communities. Bauman and his cohort had hoped their proposal’s revenue neutrality would attract bipartisan and business support, but so far they’ve been disappointed.

“Where the momentum for carbon and climate solutions is, [is] on the left,” says Tekola.

“And Yoram thought that he could compromise the left to get the right on board. The right never got on board.”

The resulting proposal, she says, “is not acceptable. We cannot accept the Republican solution to climate change when they don’t believe in climate change.”

While tension between the two groups had been simmering for months, there had been recent signs that a detente was at hand. In a previous Seattle Weekly story [Sara Bernard, “CO² and You,” Oct. 28], both sides emphasized that the division was not as wide as had been reported.

A compromise between the two groups appeared at hand when Carbon WA announced four days

DAN PERSON

Right of Way

Environmentalists are poised for a carbon-tax meltdown in 2016.

J

Jacob Struiksma stands at a construction site in Roosevelt.

boom—expected to be even more pronounced in 2016 than it was in red-hot 2015—has had a particularly acute impact on the thousands of disabled people like him. Signs, cones, and tape all conspire to impede transportation. In particular, rampant sidewalk closures have made the difficult task of getting from point A to point B all the more so, forcing Struiksma to turn around halfway down a long downtown block and find another path—not to mention the makeshift walkways and shoddy barriers to dangerous sites.

“I’ve had construction workers yell at me and push me,” he says. “I’ve run into it all over the city.

It’s a problem on every single block of the city.

“I have to do a lot of zigging and zagging, which adds time I haven’t planned for. There’s such a big discrepancy to how . . . cars [are accommodated around construction sites] compared to people who are walking and taking transit.”

New rules kicked in on Friday that the Seattle Department of Transportation says should tip the scales a little toward pedestrians, including the disabled. They come after years of widespread grumbling that the city was too willing to allow construction sites to take over entire

Meanwhile at the University of Washington, a small team of computer scientists are searching for solutions through technology. Access Map Seattle, a mobile app now in beta testing, may be the first of its kind: a trip planner that gives detailed information about disability access across Seattle.

“As you can agree, for a person with a disability, if they’re attempting to coordinate a route, it is a nontrivial endeavor,” says Anat Caspi, the director of the Taskar Center for Accessible Technology at UW who is overseeing the app development. “My concern is people stick to places they know.”

The app, which grew out of a hackathon hosted by SDOT but is now being developed by students working for credit, takes far more into consideration than construction zones: which sidewalks have curb cuts, for example, and which streets are too steep for easy wheelchair access.

But the app does address construction sites in a way that’s telling for how those sites are viewed by the disabled community: Even where construction permits call for walkways to be provided, the app tells users to avoid them.

There’s just no telling what people will find on the ground. Caspi says that as part of the development process, the students accompanied a group of wheelchair users around some downtown construction sites.

“At one site, the rerouting turned out to be a tarp placed to bridge between the sidewalk and some other mush. [One man] basically got stuck,” she says. “The whole thing was not navigable. To me that’s inexcusable.” E

dperson@seattleweekly.com

C

SE ATTLE WEEKLY • JAN UARY 6 — 12, 2016

acob Struiksma, a youthful 36, stands about 6´3˝ and wears his red beard thin.

He knows the Roosevelt neighborhood intimately—he can find by touch every signpost and tree box and faux-rustic sidewalk bench between Northeast 60th and 66th Streets around Roosevelt Way Northeast. He can act like he owns the place, picking up sandwich boards put out by businesses and placing them elsewhere, where they are not obstructing pedestrians. But sometimes something catches him by surprise, like the “Road Closed Ahead” sign that had been set out by construction workers on the edge of the sidewalk on Northeast 65th Street on a recent Tuesday afternoon. Walking westbound at a good clip, Struiksma’s white cane slips past the sign without hitting its base and his large shoulder barrels into the blaze-orange marker.

“Oh!” he says with surprise, giving the sign a few investigatory taps with his cane. “What the heck is that? This is a problem with construction all over the city, and nothing is happening.”

Struiksma grew up on a dairy farm in Arlington and has been blind his whole life.

He has lived in North Seattle for about 15 years. Though his active urban lifestyle comes with inherent challenges, Seattle’s building

blocks for building. The rule promises to make sidewalk closures a “last resort” when city planners are permitting a construction site.

“Whenever you have more development than in previous years, there will be greater impacts,” says Brian de Place, who manages right-of-way permits for the Department of Transportation.

“You can’t build without some level of impacts.

But my sense is once we’ve set some pretty clear expectations, people will try to work with us to provide pedestrian access. This says ‘Thou shalt keep the sidewalk open.’ ” Exceptions will remain, but de Place says those will usually be confined to places where, for example, taking away a car lane would impede transit.

Nothing in the rule explicitly improves disability access, but de Place says it does put already existing rules in clearer language that should help construction managers make their pedestrian walkways compliant with Americans With Disabilities Act requirements. The City Council also increased the department’s enforcement budget to help ensure site managers are following the rules. The subtext of this is that right now, construction sites are all over the map, so to speak, in terms of how well they accommodate people with impaired mobility.

» CONTINUED ON PAGE 10 9

news&comment Getting Hot » FROM PAGE 9 before Christmas that it was negotiating with the Alliance for a deal in which Carbon WA would not turn in its signatures, and the two groups would work together circulating petitions for a jointly crafted initiative to the people (which has a later deadline for signature submission). However, those negotiations ultimately went nowhere, and Carbon WA decided to forge ahead.

Undaunted though Carbon WA is, the group’s route to victory is fraught. Key legislators say the measure has about a snowball’s chance in hell of getting passed through an increasingly dysfunctional statehouse, and if it gets bounced to the ballot it will likely be heavily opposed by

the fossil-fuel industry. It will also be dogged by a nonpartisan legislative report released last week that found the measure will likely cost the state $675 million over four years—far from revenueneutral. (Bauman disputes the analysis.)

Reuven Carlyle, the Democratic chair of the House finance committee who is departing for a state Senate seat, says he’s optimistic about bipartisan support for climate policy in the long term, but that success during 2016’s two-month session is a longshot. “The sentiment of putting a price on carbon is absolutely growing, from the left and the right,” he says. “Whether or not we could muster the votes in an era of divided government, with the Republicans so fiercely protective of the current approach, I think is questionable at best.”

Joe Fitzgibbon, Democratic chair of the House environmental committee, agrees. “It’s very hard for me to see a scenario in which it

passes the legislature. What I’ve told advocates from Carbon WA since early on is, if you can find me a single Republican senator who is willing to say that they support the proposal, then we should have a serious conversation . . . But if there’s not even one Republican senator that’s willing to say that they’d vote for it, then it’s hard for me to imagine the House spending a lot time on something that we know won’t go anywhere in the Senate.”

The House, of course, is held by Democrats, while Republicans control the Senate. Fitzgibbon acknowledges that some Democrats also have misgivings about Carbon WA. Doug Ericksen, the Republican chair of the Senate Energy, Environment, and Telecommunications Committee, suggests he’ll oppose the tax shift. “My basic viewpoint is that if you want to build or manufacture in America, you can do it in

Washington state currently with a lower carbon footprint than pretty much anywhere else, and so we should be encouraging people to come to Washington to create manufacturing jobs. I think that adding a 25 percent tax on energy would discourage businesses from locating in Washington to create good blue-collar, family-wage manufacturing jobs.”

But, Senator, doesn’t the cut to business and sales taxes stimulate business? Ericksen says he has concerns about “the government . . . trying to pick and choose those kinds of things.”

According to the Sightline Institute, Ericksen is the legislature’s third-largest recipient of political contributions from fossil-fuel companies. During a phone interview, Ericksen three times declined to affirm that human-caused climate change is real, replying, “The climate’s always changing.” E

cjaywork@seattleweekly.com

10

JEREMY DWYER-LINDGREN

SEATTLE WEEKLY • JAN UARY 6 — 12, 2016

pic of the week

A man charges into Lake Washington on Friday at the annual Polar Bear Plunge at Matthews Beach.

LIFESTYLE

Float On

Can sitting in a pool of water possibly feel as good as tripping acid?

BY CML

T

“Oh, shit. Was I supposed to get out when the jets came on?”

“Yep. We thought you fell asleep!”

“I don’t think so,” I say. “I thought I was supposed to get out when the music played.”

“There wasn’t any music?”

“Maybe I was asleep,” I say. “Or I’ve drowned and gone to heaven.”

Carmen looks alarmed. “Float tanks are perfectly safe,” she tells me, and I believe her.

I feel sluggish and relaxed—an amazing catnap, forsooth. I head to work, and for the first time in weeks, I enjoy tutoring one of my younger students. All kids act like they’re on acid, the younger the more so—and what are flotation tanks but fiberglass wombs, suspending you in amniotic fluid?

Yet my happiness feels delicate against the realities of traffic and greed, of daily life in today’s Seattle. The expense is far higher, the high more fugitive, than simply eating some stems of shrooms or taking a tab of acid. I get home late and pass out until 12:30 the next day—exactly what I’d wanted.

CASSIE MURPHY

Leo and I are sitting in a coffeeshop on Beacon

my insomnia. I am feeling very, very sleepy.

I rouse myself, take a shower, and get inside the i-sopod.

It takes some time for me to get the settings right. I turn off the lights, which otherwise switch among mellow colorations at regular intervals. I poke out, put in earplugs, and get back in. Finally, I grab the headrest, and at last reach a blissful, deprived equilibrium.

I don’t have many thoughts as I float, but the ones that I do are memorable—it’s a little like being lulled into a dreamlike state, the subconscious bubbling up through the silenced noise of real life. I think about the troubles of my friends, alienated by the harsh and acquisitive new Seattle.

I think about my tutoring business, which provides me with a living and some sense of purpose, but is hopelessly tied up in that new Seattle. I

think about two quotes from Ulysses, in which someone calls the Dead Sea “the grey sunken cunt of the world” and someone else calls his penis his “limp father of thousands.” I think about jerking off and how that would alter the salt saturation, but in the tank, disgust outraces lust—for once.

Sometime during this reverie I begin to feel a jet poking my body toward the walls of the tank.

I spend a while trying to turn it off.

“Christopher?”

The pod bay door opens a crack.

“Christopher,” says Carmen, prying open the i-sopod ever so modestly, like a Victorian bathing machine. “Your session is over!”

“It is?”

I emerge, shower again, and walk out. “How long was I in there for?”

“About 90 minutes.”

Hill; he’s ordered me a double-tall Americano, putting me in a decidedly unmeditative state.

“Floating is popular in Seattle for two reasons,” Leo is telling me. “The first is that we’re on the West Coast, and the West Coast is more open to practices like yoga and meditation. The second is that we have a large percentage of young people that have disposable income. If you’re spending $70, $80, $90, you’ve gotta have some money . . . but we look at it as an investment in yourself.”

Just thinking about South Lake Union and its well-paid techies makes me want to cleanse myself in Epsom-salt water—funny, as working in software is sensory deprivation on an institutional level.

“Corporate people are frequent customers,” Leo adds.

At floating’s inception, this would have been unthinkable.

The first tank was developed by John C. Lilly in the 1950s as a way for him to study conciousness. In the 1960s, Lilly’s contemporaries in the field of altered-state research, including Ram Dass and Timothy Leary, gained widespread recognition from their practices of spirituality and drug use. But floating remained unheard-of— “something where there’d be a tank in someone’s basement,” said Leo—until recently.

Urban Float owner Joe Beaudry describes the rapid expansion of floating in the region: “We have six pods in Renton and Kirkland, and three pods in Fremont. When we started, in 2011, there were no other float centers in the area, and I could count the number of legitimate float centers in the country on two hands. Now there are something like 350. How was your float?”

“It was OK.” “Most people don’t settle into a good float like that their first time,” says Joe. “Usually it takes two or three visits.”

SE ATTLE WEEKLY • JAN UARY 6 — 12, 2016

he architecture of Urban Float Fremont—glassy, tiled, and angular—is very new-Seattle. With its Macs, iPads, and millennials, it looks like a Belltown condo, except somehow salubrious.

Floating is the practice of shutting yourself in a soundproof, lightproof tank and chilling out for an hour. The tanks are filled about knee-high with skin-temperature water super-saturated with Epsom salts. After disrobing and climbing in, you’re suspended in the solution—no sights, no sounds, no (physical) feeling. Proponents say sensory deprivation creates an ideal environment for spiritual and physical healing—“meditation for dummies,” a friend called it.

People in the business say Seattle has the most float centers per capita of any city in the U.S. A cursory search on Google Maps reveals nine from Tacoma to Everett. At up to $89 for a one-hour session, it is also a lucrative and rapidly expanding industry.

What has made floating so big, right here, right now? And what made this New Age vestibule the best place to achieve spiritual transcendence in Seattle?

Days earlier I’d met with Leo Church, business development manager for Urban Float, and asked him exactly this. At Urban Float, he told me, the focus is “exclusively on floating,” unlike some spas that just happen to have tanks; the tanks themselves, of the i-sopod brand, are “the most proven float tanks,” with “motors outside the tank, so the very most you’re going to hear is flowing water”; the ancillary gizmos include a “titanium flow-through heater, to ensure constant temperature, so you don’t get exposed to some kind of electromagnetic field . . . ” “Electromagnetic field?” I say.

“People who are extremely into floating,” he says, “don’t want to be exposed to anything.”

Carmen, Urban Float’s receptionist, is one of these. “I floated before my shift,” she tells me. “The other day I had a really good float where the masculine and feminine were coming together. I felt it was a reflection of the way the Earth is going, and it literally just happened in front of my eyes.”

“Far out,” I say.

As Leo told me earlier, “Some folks experience floating from more of a psychedelic kind of place.”

This is great, because I love psychedelics. My first trips on shrooms and acid, both in college, have been the best experiences of my life, and I make time for at least a microdose at least once a month.

I was firmly convinced I had hallucinated the Seahawks’ NFC Championship victory last year— so if the masculine and feminine were coming together, far be it from me to judge.

Carmen leads me upstairs, to the pre- and post-float room, past a gallery of galaxy prints. She hands me an iPad and I watch a six-minute video.

“Disconnect from an overconnected world,” it exhorts me, as if I’m in an unplugging scene from The Matrix. The feminine voice, rich in ASMR and Britishness, continues: “Floating may seem like magic, but it is backed up by over 30 years of mainstream scientific research.” She murmurs on. Floating lowers blood pressure, lessens jet lag, boosts endorphin production . . . I hope it can help with

» CONTINUED ON PAGE 12 11

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Float On » FROM PAGE 11 This is one way that floating has turned evangeI drive to the bar, meet some old friends, run lism into a business model. By presenting itself into another, and feel much younger. The entire as a “practice,” like yoga or Pilates, floating has evening feels like living in a memory, as effortless both retained a devoted following and sold a lot and timeless as evolving in salt water. of memberships. At Float Seattle (not to be con“Did you find absolution?” asks one friend. fused with Urban Float), the commercial is even “No, just ablution.” more obviously wedded to the revolutionary. A “I’d like to try floating,” he says. promotional video, titled “Get out of the rat race, “You should.” open your own float tank business,” begins: Our companions, who work at a hospital, roll “Life is short. As a couple of disenchanted their eyes. Indeed, Leo, Joe, and Aaron all cited office workers about to hit 30, we decided to floating being “unheard-of ” as its biggest impedishake things up, leave the safety of a paycheck ment to growth. behind, and start a company with the intent of That, and it’s damned expensive. Ten hours on helping as many people as possible.” acid costs me around $8; one hour in the tank is Driving to Float Seattle’s Green Lake locacloser to $60. Of course, you could always comtion, I think of Steve Jobs, who famously cited bine the two . . . dropping acid as a major influence in the We close out at the bar, and the bill is $40 per development of his aestheticized corporate jughead. gernaut.

As I head home, businesses are beginning I arrive and chat with Aaron X. Harris, Float to shut down early for the holiday. Not since Seattle’s general manager.

Tom Robbins dropped acid in Wallingford has “At my peak,” he tells me, “I floated 100 days North Seattle been so placid. It’s as if floating in a row.” has brought back the old Seattle, lazy and serene, “Far out,” I say. that lives in my memory. Drunk and detoxified, I “Exactly,” says Aaron. “Out-of-body experifeel inoculated against the poisonous influences ences, astral projections, and lucid dreams all the long weekend will bring: drugs, alcohol, my rank in my personal top-floating experiences.” paternal grandmother.

I book a session at Float Seattle for 5:30 p.m.

That night, I sleep so soundly I remember my on the day before Thanksgiving. To maximize its dreams. E impact, I go to the bank, deposit some checks, news@seattleweekly.com and open a business account. The ATM eats some of my checks, and the representative has me drive CML, a freelancer in Seattle, has written for to and from my apartment, in rush-hour traffic, Gawker, The Daily Dot, and several other publito pick up a forgotten document. Miserable and cations. He maintains a website at cmlwrites.com stressed out, my plan is working perfectly. and a Twitter at @CMLisawesome.

I walk into Float Seattle at 5:37. The facility is less lavish than Urban Float, resembling the local pool in sight and smell. I like this.

Neal, a guru (all employees here are called gurus), leads me to my room. “This is the classic tank,” he says, “no light, no music.” I like this even more.

I get in and begin to breathe deeply. The tank is darker and quieter than Urban Float’s. Soon I have fallen asleep—except I am still awake. The moment where I pass over feels like an orgasm, a moment of illucidity, and the quality of my thoughts instantly changes.

In everyday life, I try to think myself into happiness.

But since first experiencing shrooms, I’ve known the reverse reaction was more powerful—which is why I love psychedelics. Inside the tank I empty my head, and briefly glimpse something clearer and purer.

Then time is up—too soon.

“How was it?” asks Neal.

“Much better than my first float.”

“That’s typical. We always say floating is a practice; it usually takes two or three One floater recently witnessed the masculine and the feminine mate as one. visits . . . ” COURTESY FLOAT SEATTLE

JOIN US FOR JOIN THE US GBFOR NIGHTLIFE! THE GB NIGHTLIFE!

comix

PNW Strips—Weekly

You Are on Indingenous Land By Jeffrey Veregge

Curator

I was on the committee for Indigenous People's Day, and decided to do a project documenting urban indigenous people who helped make that day happen in Seattle.

It occurred to me, the biggest point of pride for a lot of them was just letting people know that

We started brainstorming and realized we could make a whole campaign to remind people we're on indigenous land. And this art show, “YOU ARE ON INDIGENOUS LAND” could kick it off.

I want to show different textures in regards to local artwork that honors this tradition. Like Jeffrey Veregge's work—many people have no idea he's hitting it big with Marvel, and he happens to be native.

Tracy Rector

That's part of the inviting, that people who are not necessarily native can come in and represent native art on their body.

There's an invitation, but maybe also an opportunity to take it further to being an ally and being aware.

Or Nahaan, the tattoo artist, trying to bring to life tattoo work as this ancient traditional art—but here is someone doing it in a contemporary way. It's a way of reclaiming culture, reclaiming identity

Art is a great way to engage people's minds and make that emotional connection to native culture.

...helping people to realize there is

not a separation between indigenous people and the land. It's a core cultural indigenous value to say there is not a separation.”

There's a sense of protection in our philosophy, and that's an inviting force in the native artist and activist community.

That's part of our duty—to be in a relationship with the Earth, protecting it and making up for what has been done.

SE ATTLE WEEKLY • JAN UARY 6 — 12, 2016

VIP at Seattle’s First Cat Café By Nick Shively

With education and commitment, I'd really love to see native aesthetic just be. Not necessarily identified as native aesthetic, but as the expression of, really, the environment…

13

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

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JEREMY PELT POWER QUINTET

WED, JAN 6

One of the preeminent young trumpeters within the world of jazz touring in support of his new release “Tales, Musings and Other Reveries”

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SHEMEKIA COPELAND WITH SPECIAL GUEST OPENER NAOMI WACHIRA THURS, JAN 14 - SUN, JAN 17

“Shemekia’s a ball-of-fire vocalist with a voice that’s part Memphis, part Chicago and all woman...devastatingly powerful. She’s a great singer, period.” — Chicago Sun-Times Opening act Naomi Wachira - Seattle’s favorite folk singer/songwriter —Seattle Weekly

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(1/18) Elie Sternberg Unlocking the ‘Brain’s Hidden Rationale’

14

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Comix » FROM PAGE 13

arts&culture

VISUAL ARTS 19 FILM 20 FOOD 21 PICKLIST 23

O

ne summer during his college days in the late ’70s, Steve Sneed waited in a line that wound around the block to attend a show called Living Black Ain’t Easy, But It Sure Feels Good at the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center.

So when he returned to his lifelong Central Area neighborhood after graduating from the University of Washington in the early ’80s, he was surprised to find Langston Hughes mostly empty.

That was partially due to new white leadership from the Department of Parks and Recreation that didn’t know how to run a black arts center, he says, as well as the imposition of new fees for the previously free classes that had made the space so vital. “I’d grown up performing there in African drum and dance groups in the ’70s, went off to college, and when I came back, it was like ‘Wow, nobody’s using this space?’ ” Sneed says. “Parks and Rec was going to tear it down because they didn’t know what to do with it.”

In 1989, when Sneed started an 11-year career as the executive director of Langston Hughes, he helped save the black arts theater from Parks and Rec’s chopping block by reinvigorating the space with an an anti-drug, anti-gang, hip-hop-infused youth musical called Peer Pressure. The locally written production starred a then-teenaged Derrick Brown, who would grow up to become one of Seattle’s defining hip-hop producers—Vitamin D. “The parks department backed down after Peer Pressure and actually turned around and paid to renovate the theatre,” Sneed says. Out of what could’ve been a major cultural blow came an incredible opportunity for growth.

At the dawn of 2016, Sneed, along with a vast coalition of cultural leaders from the neighborhood, are facing a very similar situation, albeit on a much larger scale. They must figure out how to simultaneously preserve the

The Central Area’s new Arts and Cultural District makeover could mean rebirth for the community.

BY KELTON SEARS KELTON SEARS

The Black Bart mural on 25th and Jackson is one of many public art pieces that dot the neighborhood.

SE ATTLE WEEKLY • JAN UARY 6 — 12, 2016

Bringing Black Back

black cultural identity of the entire Central Area, currently under siege by development and gentrification, while also launching a sustainable, vibrantly black future. This is the charge of the newly ratified Central Area Arts and Cultural District program, signed into law by Mayor Murray on Dec. 17 and endowed with a $50,000 grant from the city.

“We know realistically we’re not going to see the Central Area become 90 percent black again,” says Sneed, the program’s co-chair. “At around 7 to 10 percent black today, that’s not going to happen. But if the neighborhood could at least reflect in living, business, and play an African-American spirit, and my grandchildren can grow up here seeing their reflected presence in the art, even in the new development, that’s really my hope.”

» CONTINUED ON PAGE 16 15

SEATTLE WEEKLY • JAN UARY 6 — 12, 2016

The Central Area is the second Seattle neighborhood to receive the relatively new “Arts and Cultural District” designation, the first being Capitol Hill in late 2014.

“With the Capitol Hill group, it was ‘We need to remind people this is more than a bingedrinking neighborhood,’ ” says City of Seattle Cultural Space Liaison Matthew Richter. “And in the Central District, it’s ‘We need to remind people this is more than a housing neighborhood for tech workers.’ You look at 23rd and Union; it’s just a clustercuss of development now.”

16

In an ironic twist, the neighborhood Seattle’s black population was forced into thanks to racist “redlining” real-estate and loan practices throughout the ’60s has suddenly become one of the hottest markets for majority-white businesses, developers, and homeowners.

Drivers negotiating 23rd Avenue today are met with a sea of reflective orange construction noodles and detour signs. The Central Area’s main thoroughfare, now an obstacle course of development and SDOT street-improvement projects, is even trickier to navigate on foot, turning the average stroll into something closer to an episode of American Ninja Warrior. One of the messiest construction nodes sits at 23rd and Jackson, home to the six-acre Promenade 23 retail cluster, which Paul Allen’s behemoth realestate company Vulcan officially started evaluating for development two days before the Cultural District plan was signed into law.

“I can easily imagine that looking like Allentown in a number of years,” Sneed says, “but if housing goes there, you’ll have activity, which means you could put music on the streets.”

One of the many novel ideas kicking around at the preliminary Central Area Arts and Cultural District meetings has been turning the Jackson Corridor, formerly the heart of the Seattle jazz scene that birthed legends like Ray Charles, Quincy Jones, and Ernestine Anderson, into a city-funded live-music corridor. With financial support from the city, local musicians could be brought in to perform regularly on the streets and sidewalks for the community.

While nothing is confirmed yet, the earliest fruits of the Cultural District designation and the $50,000 “Creative Placemaking Toolkit” grant that comes with it will be physical and aesthetic landmarking—things like official gateways into the neighborhood designed by local artists; murals that tell the neighborhood’s story; wayfinding signage directing people to major venues like Washington Hall or Langston Hughes; community boards displaying ongoing schedules for current neighborhood arts events; and historic markers denoting where significant arts history was made. Already on the to-do list are new, professionally painted red, green, and black Pan-African flag crosswalks around the neighborhood, which zealous neighborhood artists installed themselves (using spray paint) in response to Capitol Hill’s new city-sanctioned rainbow Pride crosswalks before the Central Area Arts and Cultural District was a reality.

The crosswalks represent an interesting intersection of the aims of the new Arts and Cultural District and one of its major partners, the Africatown initiative, driven by community leader Wyking Garrett. In essence, the Africatown concept would apply the Chinatown/International District approach to cultural preservation, which has been successful on a national level in establishing thriving economic and cultural districts for pan-Asian communities, to the Central Area.

“It would offer a place where the best of the black experience, including the African diaspora from Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia, the Caribbean, the South, could grow and add value to all of Seattle,” says Garrett. “It’s about saying this has been the heart of the black American community in Seattle for 130 years.” Using an “asset-based community-development approach,” the concept would explicitly reframe what’s already in the area—thriving black art, black businesses, pan-African and soul-food restaurants—as “Africatown,” a destination for a distinct cultural experience. In the past couple of years, the idea has picked up endorsements from nearly every City Council member and Mayor Murray; but the Cultural District program, which shares a lot of the same language with the Africatown vision, can now serve as a tangible framework on which to grow and provide an even larger brain trust of community leaders to tap into.

“Actually, the timing is very beautiful for us,”

KELTON SEARS

Bringing Black Back » FROM PAGE 15

The 24th and Cherry jazz mosaic.

says Heidi Jackson, a Cultural District partner and the chief operating officer of the Hidmo Cypher program at Washington Hall in 2011.

For the past four years, Hidmo and the other anchor tenants there, including 206 Zulu and Voices Rising, haven’t been able to offer quite as much programming as they would like, mired as they are in a capital campaign to renovate Washington Hall. But the final phase of renovations are slated to finish in July, meaning the Cultural District vision will just start to take shape when Washington Hall and the arts organizations inside fully re-emerge into the community, offering programming and event space again.

“The greatest thing about the Cultural Arts District in terms of my involvement has just been the energy of coming together and sitting at the table, talking with all these organizations and community members with a common purpose,” Jackson says. The District partners, which include the Northwest African American Museum, the Black Heritage Society of Washington State, Pratt Fine Arts Center, and many more, will meet monthly at Langston Hughes, and have their first major planning retreat scheduled for the end of this month. “We’re all coming together with different perspectives and sometimes even different agendas, but we all want to see the same result,” she adds.

While preserving and supporting black arts is the Cultural District’s main goal, everyone on the board agrees that one long-term goal is securing affordable housing where black artists can live.

With City of Seattle muscle and methodology that Richter says the Cultural District program is currently developing, the hope is that the new designation will provide some bargaining leverage in scoring affordable housing and artist space out of future developers, like Vulcan, looking to cash in on the neighborhood.

“The legislation passing and this first phase of activity that will take advantage of the toolkit, that’s really just the beginning piece,” Jackson says. “This is looking to be a much broader movement.” E ksears@seattleweekly.com

electric eye

The Top 5 Parties of 2015

Now that the year is officially over, a look back at the best.

PHOTOS AND TEXT BY BROOKLYN BENJESTORF

1

Paradise Sunset Sessions on the Monkey Loft Rooftop For the second year in a row, this

weekly hurray was a summertime hump-day reprieve, running from 7 to 11 p.m. and featuring resident DJs Xan Lucero and Mikey Mars, who warmed up the decks before a stellar selection of local house DJs would take over just in time for sunset.

2

PHOTOS BY BROOKLYN BENJESTORF

Dirtybird BBQ You might not think you could pack out a parking lot in SoDo the day after the Fourth of July, with temps in the 90s, but nothing stopped fans of San Francisco–based record-label Dirtybird—free water stations and a staff wielding many a water gun made the all-day showcase a riveting and memorable affair.

1

3

Q Nightclub Three-Year Anniversary Capitol Hill hosted an absurd number of massive names last year thanks to the superior booking talent at Q Nightclub, but the anniversary honored some of the club’s favorite residents and a one-night-only headlining act, Polaris, featuring DJ/producers Sean Majors (who’s also the club’s creative director) and Justin Hartinger and vocalist Nikki Wright with support from Justice Calo Reign.

4 5

Menagerie Pizza Party at Kremwerk Let’s face it: Pizza is pretty much the best thing ever,

especially for us late-nighters and dance-floor diehards. The November installment of this monthly shindig was an homage to all things ’zaw, and event producers Ben Garrison (Bgeezy) and Shannon Colleen even gave free slices to early arrivers.

2

3

5

SE ATTLE WEEKLY • JAN UARY 6 — 12, 2016

4

Nark Magazine’s Into? Drag Ball The jaw-dropping looks at this rowdy runway competition were the things great acid trips are made of—the concluding showdown between the finalists was like something from a fever dream. Into!

17

EXPERIENCE THE WORLD’S #1 MOVIE AT SEATTLE’S MOST EPIC THEATER

SEATTLE WEEKLY • JAN UARY 6 — 12, 2016

TICKETS AVAILABLE AT CINERAMA.COM

18

reviews

VISUAL ARTS

Artwork Orange Troy Gua calls upon the ancients to skewer the proclivities of the modern West.

BY T.S. FLOCK

The exhibit design is a part of the art.

and pyramids displayed in the gallery’s front windows. The orange plaster pyramids resemble Doritos, while multiple “obesity-sized” sarcophagi made of plastic and sugar appear sinister in their excess.

Ancient Egyptians spent their entire lives anticipating the afterlife, learning mysteries and preparing a proper tomb. Pharaohs often secured loyalty from subjects by promising the latter, while priests controlled the former.

In this culture, the afterlife was a more exquisite version of material life, and both were celebrated, so the preocOrange Dust cupation wasn’t as morbid as it BONFIRE might sound. Like the Egyptians, 603 S Main St., we celebrate the material—in 206.790.1073, the form of cheap goods and and the more ribald, satiric stuff of thisinbonfire.com entertainment—but death is postmodernism, which questions Through January 28 taboo. Of course, our excesses are the accuracy of representations of still regarded as a sign of American past and present alike and therefore supremacy and, some would say, a means the validity of inferences made from them. of assuring complacency by a ruling elite. So While physical artifacts are subject to decay, the social context that surrounds them remains forever little has changed.

Gua’s remix of Egyptian artifacts and concontingent and unsettled. temporary symbolism invites such comparisons That brings us to Gua’s contemporary, hypobetween past and present while subverting thetical spin on Egyptian artifacts. Many delight earlier appropriations of these antiquities. His the eye, but all invert the idealized Egyptian satirical slant is also unique in that it opposes the revival of recent centuries, whose art glorified intent of the original artifacts themselves, which empire at its peak while blithely ignoring its are didactic, decorative, or ritualistic. The only implications of imminent descent. Gua, like known extant satiric artwork from ancient Egypt other critics of Western consumerism, latches is The Satire of the Trades, and we can account onto that descent. for its survival simply because the scribe who Orange Dust is a cultural memento mori from created it was satirizing scribes such as himself. the outset, with dozens of miniature sarcophagi

Anything aimed at the ruling elite was assuredly destroyed, if it ever existed.

Yet Gua’s target appears to be much more contemporary. He is not satirizing individuals, but our vices: junk food, violence, narcissism. The manifesto may be nothing new and a few pieces feel a little ham-handed (saliently, the apple pie filled with bullet shells), but the pieces are always wryly funny and the exceptional exhibit design makes it all coherent. Gua has transformed BONFIRE into something that genuinely feels like a small, sepulchral museum exhibit, even adding “new discoveries” each month as they are “unearthed.” All the show lacks are a few velvet ropes and docents leading crowds of preoccupied schoolchildren.

I especially love the laser-etched cartouches of emojis, which suggest the power of ideography across millennia in a way that feels uncanny.

Meanwhile, Nefertiti’s famous crown has been replaced by the iconic symbol of America’s longest reigning matriarch—the beehive of Marge Simpson.

This exhibit won’t be enjoyed by adherents to the myth of American Exceptionalism, nor those who hold ancient art in untouchable reverence. I could be sympathetic toward the latter group, as ancient arts express the eternal whereas Pop Art is consciously ephemeral, but Gua manages to use Pop Art to more lasting effect by putting the art and the viewer in a much larger continuum.

Among the gilt puns and insinuations of violence is yet a peaceful reminder that this too shall pass, from dust to dust. E

arts@seattleweekly.com

SE ATTLE WEEKLY • JAN UARY 6 — 12, 2016

PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE ARTIST

W

hat might a future civilization think of artifacts from 20th-century America? That is the question at the center of Orange Dust, a series of pseudo-artifacts created by artist Troy Gua. The title of the exhibition— now in the final month of its three-month run at BONFIRE Gallery—alludes to both the sands of Egypt and the coating of Nacho Cheese Doritos, fitting for a collection that mashes American symbolism with ancient Egyptian aesthetics for a smart, satiric look at contemporary values, including how we evaluate our own art and history through a skewed lens.

To understand where Gua is coming from, it’s important to take a look back at ancient Egypt, which stood as the center of the Mediterranean world for nearly 30 centuries. Despite the frequent destruction of its older monuments by later dynasties, a vast artistic legacy remains from those millennia. Under European imperialism in the 18th and 19th centuries, much of that legacy was looted and transformed into displays of global supremacy—the birth of the museum. Then, as the work of artists and historians intersected in these troves, art history was born.

Academic art followed, drawing from both that ancient art and emerging historical narratives as well as abiding Victorian mores. The resulting artwork presented an idealized vision of empire, in which the contemporary iteration was positioned as the rightful successor to the ancients. Other artists dissented, heralding the artistic rebellion of the early 20th century, proceeding into Pop Art

19

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DiCaprio, before the grizzly.

of bison liver tartare. And the bear attack. Let’s he Revenant is a huge whopping consider that grizzly, because it leads directly to spectacle, the likes of which have why The Revenant should be seen—and on a big rarely been seen since Cecil B. screen, absolutely—despite the cabinet of horrors DeMille ordered Charlton Heston on display. In this long sequence, mostly played to part the Red Sea in The Ten Commandments. out in what appears to be an unbroken take, a It’s unlikely that anybody compared Revenant giant grizzly bear mauls not a stuntman, director Alejandro González Iñárritu to but Leonardo DiCaprio. And I realize DeMille back in the days of Amores we’re all wised up about the digital Perros and Babel ; the somber MexiThe Revenant blending of the real and the fake, can filmmaker demonstrated little Rating: R, for violence, language. but that’s really DiCaprio flailing interest in cultivating the gaudier Opening: Friday around on the ground, and the possibilities of cinematic fun, even Jan. 8 bear, or whatever computer-genas his compatriot/friends Alfonso at various erated trickery has come together Cuarón and Guillermo del Toro area theaters to approximate the bear, is really flaunted their showmanship. Iñártearing the hell out of the guy. I don’t ritu’s role was to ponder the deep know how they did it; I don’t want to questions of whether misery has a breakknow. I do know that in this and dozens of other ing point, and how to measure the weight of the moments, The Revenant reaches back to a foundhuman soul. ing reason for movies to exist: to show things 2014’s Birdman signaled a change. Exuberwe never thought (or hoped, in this case) we’d see. ant and funny—while still carving out room for From the fading light across a snowy prairie to lofty ideas, sometimes to the film’s detriment—it an avalanche almost imperceptibly shivering into showed off a new playfulness in Iñárritu’s life in the deep background of a shot, the film is approach. (He took home the Best Director astonishing to look at and listen to.

Oscar as a reward.) Now comes The Revenant, I’m not sure what it’s actually about. Iñárritu and while nobody would tag this movie as “fun,” is too much the serious artist to embrace the the great Hollywood huckster DeMille would revenge story, which becomes practically a sidesurely approve of its incredible scale. This thing is bar. Instead, he concentrates on different ways a lollapalooza. to astound the audience while layering in magiLeonardo DiCaprio, continuing in his cal touches (including a few out-and-out steals acting-as-suicide-attempt mode, plays a realfrom the films of Terrence Malick and Werner life outdoorsman named Hugh Glass. In 1820s Herzog), the better to give the material a sense Wyoming, Glass is a scout for a fur-trapping of the mystic. He lets DiCaprio grunt and groan expedition. In a brutal early sequence, the group in single-note fashion, which means Tom Hardy is ambushed by Native Americans, and the sur(as Glass’ nemesis) gets to weave a much clevvivors straggle off toward safety. We’ve barely erer performance, though he is similarly crusted recovered from the intense violence of the battle with facial hair and frozen snot. The supporting when Glass is attacked by a grizzly bear, a maulcast is a marvelous gallery of distinctive faces: ing that leads to betrayal, murder, and a display Domhnall Gleeson, Tom Poulter, Lukas Haas. of extreme survival skills. Almost all of this takes What they go through seems suspiciously like place in freezing weather, an endurance test one long wallow, a demonstration of how life captured in visionary detail by cinematographer is nasty, brutish, and—at 156 minutes—long, Emmanuel Lubezki (working under dire condiredeemed only by spiritual flourishes that border tions in Canada and Argentina). on cornpone. This is a film of simple ideas and The film’s collection of atrocities is like a to-do overwhelming images—but at the movies, for list for the next Cormac McCarthy novel: scalpbetter or worse, images win. E ing, neck-wound self-cauterizing, arrows through all body parts, horse disemboweling, a breakfast film@seattleweekly.com

food&drink

Thai Food Redux

smashed garlic, fresh chilies, and fermented black-bean sauce. The bright-green, hollow, tubular stems and flat leaves are braised beautifully, allowing for a bit of crunch, and the sauce that pools beneath them is redolent of the garlic and black bean. For $8, you get a huge plate of them, perfect for sharing with a group.

Two decades since its prime, the ubiquitous cuisine is rescued from mediocrity at Capitol Hill’s Soi.

BY NICOLE SPRINKLE

Larger entrées are on point too. Small chunks

of pork collar are rubbed with coriander root, garlic, and pepper, glazed with soy sauce and palm sugar, then grilled and topped with a garlic-cilantro-lime sauce that brings the heat up considerably. It has the fire of authentic Thai food, while allowing the rest of the ingredients their due—a subtle balancing act that many Thai restaurants in the U.S. don’t achieve.

Likewise, from the “specialties” section of the menu, the northern-style noodle curry manages to carry a heft of flavors along with heat. Tender egg noodles sit atop a thick broth of coconut milk with cumin, turmeric, shallot, galangal, and lemongrass as well as a cut-up chicken thigh (mix it all up yourself ). To bring some lightness and crunch, the dish is topped with a bundle of bean sprouts, pickled cabbage, and sliced shallots. Your Soi palate registers the sweetness of the 1400 10th Ave., 556-4853, coconut milk first, but is quickly soicapitolhill.com restrained by the herbal notes of the galangal and lemongrass. Eat this and you may never order the typically treacly pad thai again.

In the past year, Korean and Vietnamese food has reigned, and we’ve also begun to see introductions to regional takes on Chinese cuisine. If Soi is any indication, Thai food may be the Asian food revival of 2016. Its time is certainly due. E

TIA WHITE

food@seattleweekly.com

food from Issan can be funky, pungent, and more fragrant than you may be used to, but it’s because we do it ‘bo lan’—the original way.”

Indeed the soi sai uah was an unexpected treat—a northern-style curry sausage cut into eight oval pieces; stuffed with chili, shallots, kaffir lime leaf, and lemongrass; and served with fresh ginger and Thai bird chilies. The lemongrass and lime leaf are the predominant flavors, and their infusion brings brightness to an otherwise heavy sausage dish. Though it’s an $11 appetizer, I’d easily and happily make a meal out of it.

Another appetizer, jumbo chicken wings, are first deep-fried and then stir-fried with garlic, chili paste, and fish sauce, resulting in bold flavor without being too salty or sweet, as is the case with many chicken wings I’ve recently had at new Asian restaurants around town. There are only three, but each is big enough to tear apart for two—again, a steal at $12. Vegetables here are lovely and cooked exactly as you’d get them in Thailand. I went for the fresh morning glory (also known as Chinese spinach), stir-fried with

COURTESY OF SOI

the smaller, hole-in-the-wall Thai spots we’ve grown used to. Featuring wood walls and tables, ceilings with wood beams, exposed ductwork, and concrete floors, the space resembles a brewery, minus the tanks. There are no corny Buddhas or other Southeast Asian tchotchkes.

The food itself also aims—and succeeds—at changing your assumptions about Thai cuisine by focusing on the northeastern region of Issan, with flavors and dishes more similar to those of the bordering countries of Cambodia and Laos. Think sticky rice instead of jasmine rice, sausages, and egg noodles. Forget about Bangkok-style staples like pad thai, red curry, or pad se ew.

The restaurant makes no apologies for the omissions, instead proclaiming that “Soi is a return to Thailand—a departure from your normal expectations of Thai food in Seattle. . . . Food in Thailand varies greatly from region to region, and we will take you on an exploration through these regions to let you know what it’s really like to eat there . . . The

SE ATTLE WEEKLY • JAN UARY 6 — 12, 2016

I

still remember the thrill that captured New York City diners in 1992 when lauded chef and restaurateur Jean-Georges Vongerichten opened Vong, a sexy, modern, upscale restaurant serving—shocker!—Thai cuisine.

Flash forward to 2009 and, while that pioneer has since closed, it holds a place in culinary history for opening the floodgates for Thai restaurants everywhere, with offerings that cost far less and in spaces with far less flair. In the ’90s, no one could get enough of the spicy, fragrant food, and pad thai replaced chow mein as the Asian noodle dish of choice. Thai food, indeed, was the new Chinese, which now felt boring and unsophisticated in comparison.

Unfortunately, its proliferation has followed the pattern of Chinese and sushi restaurants: The food has become depressingly mediocre and foodies rarely seek it out—or admit to it, anyway.

That’s why I was initially weary, but ultimately genuinely excited, to try out Soi on Capitol Hill.

The space on 10th Avenue and Union Street is massive, which alone distinguishes it from

Northern-style noodle curry

Pork collar

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atthew Lisowski knows that in the brewing process, a change in temperature of a mere three degrees can alter a beer’s flavor from sweet to dry. He knows the distinct flavor profiles of Amarillo and Equinox hops. He knows when to change a beer’s recipe and when to leave it alone. This may be why Olympia’s Fish Tale Ales, where he works as general manager, recently won the title of Best Beer in the World, according to the World Beer Awards, a 30-country, 1,000-plus beer competition.

Taking home first place was Fish Tale Ale’s Beyond the Pale, a super-flavorful, floral, big, easy-drinking pale ale, one of the 20-odd beers Fish is churning out in its home in our state capital.

Fish Brewing, which oversees the operations of Fish Tale Ales, Leavenworth Brewing, and Spire Mountain Cider, is the center of Olympia’s thriving beer and bar community, and is currently contemplating a plunge into the distilling business, with a hopped whiskey potentially on the way.

But what other beer gems are tucked away down there? Where should interested beer drinkers go in Olympia to wet their whistles?

The Fish Tale Brew Pub: Across the street from Fish Brewing is their public house, which expanded recently (“We’re in a huge growth phase,” says Lisowski) and is now open to all ages. The pub offers flights of beer, which include standouts like O IPA, a bright, balanced organic IPA, and the Mud Shark Porter, a distinct, earthy concoction that has been brewed since 1993.

The menu is typical bar fare done very well, from

the big plate of cheesy nachos to the textbook hamburger.

Brotherhood: With velvet paintings on the wall, a black-and-white photo booth, and a giant powder-blue guitar hanging from the ceiling, this retro bar is comfortable and unassuming. In its black and red booths is even a touch of the diner in Pulp Fiction. Brotherhood serves an array of draft beers (as well as stiff cocktails), but really it’s the atmosphere that makes it tick.

Rhythm & Rye: The easiest way to describe this joint to Seattleites is to say that it’s Olympia’s Tractor Tavern—an expansive roadhouse bar with a big stage that often hosts roots music, blues, country, and folk. (Fun fact: Seattle’s Industrial Revelation recorded a live record here in 2014.) R&R had one of my favorite beers on tap when I visited, Ninkasi’s Dawn of the Red India Red Ale, and I felt right at home sipping it.

Olympia Brewhouse: One of the most historic breweries on the West Coast, the Olympia Brewhouse was built in 1906 right outside Olympia in Tumwater. Now, though, its expansive set of buildings is partially dilapidated—but local officials have big plans for their redevelopment, hoping amenities on the giant plots will one day include a museum, a farmers market, fermentation classes, and microbrewing studios.

Heidi Behrends Cerniwey, brewery project manager for the city of Tumwater, says she hopes that in three to five years, significant progress will be made. Indeed, looking at the sun-washed red bricks of what remains of the giant brewery that once employed some 900 people, she says, “There’s so much we can do.” E

beerhunting@seattleweekly.com

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PICKLIST spiracies that exist in the airwaves. Collaborating with dance artist Ezra Dickinson, composer Paurl Walsh, and video designer Leo Mayberry, among others, Loven’s world is dark and beautiful—perfect for the middle of winter. 12th Ave

Arts, 1620 12th Ave., brownpapertickets.com. $20. 8 p.m. Thurs.. Jan. 7–Sat., Jan. 9; 2 p.m.

Sat., Jan. 9–Sun., Jan. 10. SANDRA KURTZ

JANUARY 6

Wednesday

0209, centralsaloon.com. Free. 21 and over. 7 p.m–midnight. KELTON SEARS

JANUARY 9

Saturday Local cartoonist Jim Woodring’s wordless Frank comics are already pretty psychedelic. Everything in them is alive and vibrating and constantly spiralling in on itself. The eponymous bucktoothed protagonist merely passes through the bizarre landscape around him trying not to get killed.

So it makes complete sense that after almost 25 years of wandering around trippy landscapes, Woodring decided to take Frank to the next level and do a 3-D book. The result, Frank in the 3rd Dimension, is a dual effort between Woodring and 3-D technician Charles Barnard, who collectively molded 150 layers per drawing to achieve full eye-popping majesty on the page. Both will be present to sign books and give you advice on how to get into the equally esoteric comics and “3-D technician” industries. Fantagraphics Book-

JANUARY 10

Sunday

It’s tough not to fall fast and hard for the sultry stylings of Grace Love, Seattle’s self-dubbed “first lady of soul.” She’s the eponymous star of Grace Love & the True Loves—a heartstringspulling, hip-rocking, soul-jiving, funky-ass ninepiece soul band totally ruled by the velvety voice of their stage-commanding diva. The band has some steady rock power, with a slammin’ horn section and creamy electric-guitar jams, but this kind of thing is all about the vocals, and Love is no exception. She seduces, woos, implores, and bedazzles, riles you up and rocks you to sleep.

Her songs hark back to the funk-tastic beats and throaty songstresses of the ’70s (“Fire”) or to soulful ballads with Motown flair (“Mean to Me”), but all are fresh, contemporary tunes born not long ago in our very own Emerald City. The band has been playing up a storm in the region, from Bumbershoot to Bellingham to Olympia, then out to Leavenworth for the Timbrrr Fest on January 29. They’ll share the Tractor stage tonight with Big World Breaks, a funk and jazz production company that’s celebrating the official release of their single, “Timeless.” All proceeds from tonight’s sales will benefit Washington Middle School’s Drumline and Seattle JazzED.

store & Gallery, 1201 S. Vale St., 658-0110, fantagraphics.com. Free. 6–9 p.m. KELTON SEARS Kyle Loven always makes us look a little bit

closer—as a puppeteer, he creates new worlds and manipulates them as we watch. Retraces, his new work, brings dance, music, and ham radio into the mix as we try to unravel a nest of con-

tle Repertory Theatre, Seattle Center, 443-2222, seattlerep.org. $17 and up. Opens Jan. 8. Runs 7:30 p.m. Wed.–Sun. plus 2 p.m. some Wed., Sat., & Sun. Ends Jan. 31. ALYSSA DYKSTERHOUSE

JANUARY 7

Thursday

Tractor Tavern, 5213 Ballard Ave. N.W., 7893599, tractortavern.com. $10–$12. 21 and over.

8:30 p.m. SARA BERNARD

JANUARY 12

Kyle Loven’s puppetry creates new worlds.

COURTESY OF THE ARTIST

“In the Seattle scene I see a lot of hip-hop that feels like hip-hop that’s been made for a long time,” Ballard rapper DoNormaal told me back in November. “I think it would be cool if we saw more artists create something only they could create because they’re in this time, in this body, in this city.” 69/50 is a relatively new hip-hop collective that DoNormaal and her partner Raven Matthews are at the center of, dedicated to curating and cultivating this kind of artistry in the city—something they’re doing at tonight’s combination show with fellow local collective

925 E. Pike St, 709-9442, neumos.com. $12. 21 and over. 8 p.m. SARA BERNARD

Tuesday Descriptive keyboard pieces are as old as the keyboard itself—battle pieces in the renaissance, pastoral idylls in the baroque. But for vividness

SE ATTLE WEEKLY • JAN UARY 6 — 12, 2016

Conventional wisdom commands never discussing religion or politics in polite, social settings; yet, in Ayad Aktar’s Disgraced, that is exactly what happens. American-born, Muslim-raised, lawyer Amir Kapoor and his Caucasian wife Emily host a party where the conversation verges into controversial territory detonating their dinner and threatening their lifestyle. Exploring themes of identity, religion, and American prejudices, this play proves increasingly pertinent in 2016 as we observe both ISIS intensifying and increasing Islamophobia. Seattle Rep’s production, in association with Goodman Theatre and Berkeley Rep, is directed by Kimberly Senior, who piloted the Chicago premiere and its subsequent transfer to Broadway. It promises to provoke thought and possibly create some cognitive dissonance as we reconcile our own views. Seat-

Stay Happy. Matthews and DoNormaal will be performing alongside the smooth stylings of Wolftone, the down-tempo production of Brakebill, the vibey rap duo Sendai Era, and the inventive surrealism of Roland SP-404 master Diogenes. Central Saloon, 207 First Ave S., 622-

SARA BERNARD

Grace Love won hearts and minds wandering into the crowd at her stunning Bumbershoot performance last year.

Get your freak on this weekend at Neumos’ saucy burlesque bash, featuring Seattle’s unstoppable funk sensation, Eldridge Gravy & The Court Supreme—13 fun(k)-loving musicians who’ve been tearing down the house all over town for at least the past five years. With horns, drums, at least three vocalists, a rapper, and more than a dozen people onstage at a time—usually in costume and with choreography—The Court Supreme is nothing if not a rippingly badass party. Officially headlining Saturday, though, is Good Co, a sassy, brassy, six-piece electro-swing band that combines ’20s speakeasy flourishes with deep, funky electronic beats. Think flapper dresses, jazz hands, stiff drinks, trumpets, honkytonk piano . . . and dubstep. The event is a CD-release party for their new album, Big Time Business, available for purchase onsite as well as online starting Jan. 9. And if all that isn’t enough, you can also catch D20 Brass Band (self-dubbed “Nerd Funk”) and the smart-sexy dance troupe Sinner Saint Burlesque at the show. Neumos,

» CONTINUED ON PAGE 24 23

calendar

Pick List » FROM PAGE 23 and atmosphere, Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, from 1874, was unprecedented.

Inspired by a memorial exhibit of paintings by his friend Viktor Hartmann, Mussorgsky’s 15 movements evoke far-flung scenes from Russian folklore and beyond: the legendary witch Baba Yaga, a medieval castle, scenes of children at play and in ballet costume (the twittering “Ballet of Chicks in Their Shells,” which never fails to raise a chuckle from the audience). The gallerygoer’s stroll from painting to painting is even depicted, by a brief, tuneful chorale titled “Promenade.”

Garrick Ohlsson plays it (with Beethoven and a bouquet of Chopin, a renowned specialty of his) at his Meany Hall recital next Tuesday; a pianist who’s mastered extremes of power and lyricism, he’ll be ideal for Pictures’ monumental, clangorous finale, “The Great Gate of Kiev,” which pushes piano sonority to its limit. Meany Hall,

UW campus, uwworldseries.org. $37–$42. 7:30 p.m. GAVIN BORCHERT

Pick Package SEATTLE WEEKLY • JAN UARY 6 — 12, 2016

A BOWIE WEEKEND

24

On Friday, David Bowie will celebrate his 69th birthday by giving a gift to the world in the form of the British icon’s 28th full-length album, Blackstar. Fans who paused their lives long enough to watch the brilliantly strange video for the album’s 10-minute title track—directed by Breaking Bad’s Johan Renck—can’t help but be excited for this release. The video features blindfolded Bowie emitting a wavering croon over a skittering beat as scenes of intense religiosity and a smooth saxophone set the mood. So, yes, the Thin White Duke appears to again be in the firm grip of a kind of messiah complex, which we all know is a good thing. Carve out an hour to explore his new weirdo pop gospel, then dress up as your favorite Bowie (Aladdin Sane if you have facepaint, Jareth from Labyrinth if you have an enormous codpiece handy) and head out to one of two (or maybe both) tributes in Seattle on Friday night.

For Highline’s “Queen Bitch Burlesque: A Bowie Tribute,” seven dancers, including headliner Jacqueline Hyde, will shake it to Bowie

classics played by a live band featuring members of Dreadful Children and Legion Within. Over at Chop Suey, Hero Worship is hosting a Bowie Birthday party with more live music from Dejha (Blackie, The Union Gospel), Teevie Coahran (Gazebos), and more. After communing with your fellow Bowie fanatics, complete your weekend of worship with a dose of humility. Visit What Did David Bowie Do At Your Age? (supbowie.com) and find out what Bowie did at your age (duh). Queen Bitch Burlesque, Highline, 210

Broadway E., 328-7837, highlineseattle.com. $10 adv./$15 DOS. 21 and over. 8:30 p.m.; Hero Worship Presents David Bowie’s Birthday, Chop Suey, 1325 E. Madison St., 538-0556, chopsuey. com. $5 adv./$10 DOS. 21 and over. 9 p.m. MARK BAUMGARTEN

Pick Mix JOYSTICK PICK

I’m so tired of killing everything in video games.

Every year it seems as though 50 new space marine shoot-’em-ups come out where the only goal is to FRAG EVERYTHING THAT MOVES. That’s part of what makes the new Steam-available RPG adventure Undertale such an interesting, well-written game—you don’t actually have to kill anyone if you don’t want to. Your character, a human child who accidentally falls down a hole into a surreal monster-inhabited 8-bit underworld, can simply talk to all the monsters they encounter in battle. Turns out, lots of them don’t really want to hurt you at all, they just have complicated, strange social needs they want fulfilled, just like the rest of us. The sword-wielding dog knights, yeah, you can just murder them—but if you decide to pet them over and over instead, their heads will joyfully extend across the battle screen more and more until you decide to end the encounter, enemy thoroughly appeased. Woshua, a bizarre turtle-like washing-machine monster, straight up just wants to wash you, if you’ll let him. If you time it right, his washing “attacks” will actually heal you. The one-man project from indie developer Toby Fox has scored universally glowing reviews and won the Gamefaqs.com Best. Game.

Ever. user poll two weeks ago, beating out Ocarina of Time. Pretty impressive for a game that’s been out for three months. Mac/PC. Available at store. steampowered.com. $10. KELTON SEARS

TOBY FOX

One of the best parts of Undertale is meditating with this ghost guy in his living room for however long you want.

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FLIX PICK

Somewhere around episode four of the must-binge Netflix documentary Making a Murderer, I realized that I hadn’t gotten this much thrill from a TV show since The Wire. Through perfectly edited court footage, b-roll, and insider access to the family of a man who says he’s been framed, MaM has all the elements of a smart procedural, with the almost unbelievable bonus of being true. Set in rural Wisconsin, interviews are soaked through with dialectical tics, hairstyles are outrageously tacky, government officials are cagey and thick as thieves.

Also like a good drama, some of your favorite characters are the minor ones who show up at just the right moment (love you, Silver Fox!). At the end of episode 10 you may have doubts about whether filmmakers Moira Demos and Laura Ricciardi told a full, unbiased account. Worry not; you have hours of Reddit reading ahead of you if you’re so inclined.

But before you get to that, watch the show so your friends don’t have to leave the room to talk about it.

normally be in a gallery. You can wield nothing but a loose understanding of MS Paint and score a huge following on Tumblr or Facebook if you are a legitimately fascinating freak (search: “Simpsons pictures that I gone and done”). The net artist killing the web-freak game the hardest right now is the mysterious CGI wunderkind known only as Brian, whose new website Cool 3D World is a master class in the potential that Vine and looping art have to offer as a legitimate artistic medium.

His prolific Vine output, full of melting, screaming, disfigured humanoids wallowing their way through insane six-second hallucinatory clips, are disturbing and brilliant. They’re what your Second Life avatar’s nightmares probably look like. While Cool 3D World is Brian’s first foray into looping art with audio, it’s an obvious evolution from his similarly bizarre GIF work, which you should also check out if you can stomach some truly twisted grotesques on infinite repeat. cool3dworld.com OUT IN THE STICKS PICK

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The snowpack is back—with a vengeance! If you haven’t made it out to the Cascades yet this winter, go! Seriously! Feet and feet of snow are blanketing trees and rivers and rocks with a thick, sparkling mantle of wi≠nter wonderland straight out of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Grab your snowshoes, ice axes, and long underwear and get out there for a day or two—it’s the best way to cure these deep-gray Seattle blues. And while camping in the snow might not sound like something most of us would want to do this time of year, if you have a sizzling hot spring near your tent, it’s totally worth it. The storied Goldmyer Hot Springs’ Middle Fork Road, closed all summer for renovations, is officially open for business, and by “business” we definitely mean “very, very high-clearance 4-wheel-drive monster trucks.”

So yes, the “road work” they’ve been speaking of is far from finished, and will continue throughout the 2016 summer season; the potholes are still gigantic and terrifying. But still, if you’ve got a fierce vehicle (or can borrow one), and don’t mind a 4.5-mile winter hike, the magic that awaits you in a steamy cave surrounded by dripping icicles and milk-white snowbanks is unparalleled. Gold-

myer Hot Springs, 789-5631, goldmyer.org, $20 per night for camping, call in advance for reservations. SARA BERNARD

.net SE ATTLE WEEKLY • JAN UARY 6 — 12, 2016

Net art can be a self-reflexive bore sometimes—a lot of people making GIFs of rotating iPhones on a weird background. We get it—your art is on the Internet, how novel! The real beauty of net art isn’t the “Gee whiz, computers make art too!” element—it’s the unfettered, lawless surreality the Internet opens to artists who wouldn’t

COURTESY NETFLIX

CLICK PICK

Seattle International Film Festival May 19 - June 12, 2016

and brianbrianbrianbrian.com KELTON SEARS

Netflix.com DANIEL PERSON

Steven Avery says he didn’t do it.

BRIANBRIANBRIANBRIAN.COM

The mysterious “Brian” has reached the pinnacle of demented net art.

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280945_4.75_x_5.5 4/7/15 11:00 AM Page 1

ow we talk about the world, the words and symbols we use, defines how we think about reality. Advertising has been using this neat trick for decades to talk us into buying everything from Pet Rocks™ to SlapChop™. So it is with the cannabis market in Washington state, as it continues to forge a fresh path into a freemarket future. As the proliferation of recreational shops (and medical dispensaries before them), review apps, and bud brands makes clear, marijuana is not immune from wordplay.

Far before legalization, there had been a war of words surrounding the protean plant. The many names come in handy when, say, writing a 700-word column in which weed is mentioned a couple dozen times.

The names also help us understand the varied role cannabis has played as a textile, building material, fuel, food, medicine, ritual, and intoxicant. Its many names reveal the multifaceted relationship humans have with this interesting plant. And so for my first column, I thought it would be appropriate to explore the history of weed and words.

The name ganja is shared by both Rastafarians and Sadhus, the Hindu priests dedicated to worshipping the god Shiva. Both cultures believe smoking ganja gets them closer to their gods, use the plant as sacrament, and bless themselves and their surroundings. In the Rig Veda, written around 1500 BCE, ganja is described as being created when amrita—the juices of the gods as they made love in the sky—fell to earth.

Hindus call it “The Nectar of Pleasure.”

The term marijuana did not come into common use among Americans until the 1930s, arriving alongside a whole lot of fearmongering. Before that, it was colloquially referred to as Indian hemp. Cannabis usage was all but isolated in the Southwest and Southeast—specifically New Orleans—in the ’20s and ’30s. It was smoked mostly by Latino migrant workers, but recreational usage was gaining popularity with whites.

Harry J. Anslinger, the first commissioner of the U.S. Treasury Department’s Federal Bureau of Narcotics, was a particularly eager beaver on the subject of prohibition. There is much conjecture tying Anslinger to William Hearst and DuPont during the 1930s, suggesting an effort to push nylon out in front of hemp as the go-to material in the upcoming war. What’s more likely is that Anslinger was crazy racist. He had a theory that Latinos—whom he referred to as “rapists and murderers”—had brought their sinful plant with them as they were escaping the

Mexican Revolution, and was convinced there was a secret underground in the jazz (read black) music world that was tied to interstate cannabis trafficking.

Prohibition was an effective way to enforce racist ideas. Whether saving poor white women from “Negroes crazed by devil weed” or Mexicans and Indians “freaked out on marijuana,” the idea was the same: Use race, or an ethnic-sounding name like “marijuana,” to scare whites away from drugs and toward more restrictive laws.

The infamous reefer is another word that came into popular usage in the 1930s. It probably came from a version of a Hispanic word; grifa, which means “cannabis.” But there is a amusing lingual secret here. A reefer is one who reefs, or works on a boat, specifically a midshipman, which brings us to . . .

Hemp, and variations of that word—including the Old Saxon hanap and Old Norse hampr—have been used around the world to indicate textiles made from the plant in question. In nearly every culture that uses hemp, the word used points to the plant’s utility.

In China, where it was used as rope as far back as 4000 BCE, the word for hemp means “rough or durable.” Chinese herbalists included it in their “50 fundamental plants,” and incorporated it in over 120 medicines. It was the Chinese who taught the rest of the world how strong hemp cloth could be, providing European sailors with sails that could get their ships around the world. Ultimately this word descended from the Proto-Germanic hanapiz, which itself is a form of of the word cannabis.

Last but certainly not least, there is cannabis.

The Hebrews had qannabbôs or qěnēh bośem, both phrases meaning “reed of balm” or “aromatic reed.” Not only is it mentioned in the Song of Songs (a chapter in the Old Testament about getting it on), it’s recommended as a key ingredient in the polish for the Ark of the Covenant.

You read that correct: Yahweh directs his followers to polish his “special stash box” with weed oil.

The word itself may come from the Scythians, the wild, nomadic horse tribes that roamed over what is now Central Asia. Their “vapor baths,” famously described by Herodotus in 450 BCE, were created by setting up a few poles, some hemp canvases, and a brazier with hot coals.

They essentially were the first people on record to hotbox. People thought Herodotus was nuts, but recent archaeological digs have discovered graves with tent poles, hemp canvases, and—wait for it—pottery braziers with charred hemp seeds. E

stashbox@seattleweekly.com

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