Inlander 03/06/2025

Sift Through SpIFF

The Spokane International Film Festival is back, full of shorts, docs, international films, the made-in-Spokane Tim Travers and a celebration of Vision Quest at 40 page 20

fter a big Oscars weekend full of surprises and lots of celebrity glamour, it’s time for another weekend dedicated to the art of film: the SPOKANE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL. The subject of this week’s cover, the three-day regional celebration of cinematic creativity is spread across Spokane venues, from the historic Garland and Fox theaters to Gonzaga’s Myrtle Woldson Performing Arts Center.

This year’s SpIFF is full of the usual fare — shorts, features, documentaries and more — but also includes a special tribute to a beloved Spokane-made film, 1985’s Vision Quest. The film’s star Matthew Modine returns to the Lilac City for a special evening at the Fox to celebrate Vision Quest’s lasting legacy. There’s another Spokane-made film on the schedule — this one’s brand new — getting some positive attention, too. As Screen Editor Seth Sommerfeld argues, Tim Travers and the Time Traveler’s Paradox is also worthy of a place among the region’s top cinematic achievements. Read more starting on page 20.

— CHEY SCOTT, Editor

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WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE MOVIE OF ALL TIME, AND WHY?

KAYTLYN BUNTING

Journey to the Center of the Earth. I think it’s so colorful, and the story itself makes you think about what could really be possible. I showed it to my kids because we recently got them the books. It’s a dreamy way of viewing things, I guess.

LORIN GRIFFITTS

The Little Princess. I think it’s because this precious young one overcomes such adversity and makes her life beautiful despite all of the challenges she faces.

MELODY BRADLEY

I think Little Women, the new one. It’s the one I always go back to. It’s a good comfort movie, and it just feels so cozy.

CHRISTOPHER MILLER

The Jungle Book. It’s the nostalgia of childhood and good times. I can watch it over and over again and not get sick of it.

ELAINA BURASHNIKOV

Brokeback Mountain. I love cowboys. And a good Western theme.

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More Schools, More Innovation

Washington’s charter schools are filling gaping holes in the K-12 system; why won’t the Legislature allow for more of them?

BY BILL BRYANT

We are failing a generation of Black and Latino students. In Washington state’s traditional public schools, only about one-third of Black and Latino students are “on track” in English and only about 22% in math. Those statistics should unnerve everyone who cares about racial and social justice, and the root causes of inequity.

Fortunately, there are public schools where Black and Latino students are learning at higher levels. In Washington state’s charter public schools, Black/African American and Latino students achieve 15-17 percentage points higher in English proficiency than their district peers. In math, Black and Latino charter public school students score 19-22 points higher than their peers at traditional public schools.

At charter public school Spokane International Academy (SIA), 43% of Black/African American students and 62% of Hispanic/Latino students achieve English proficiency, whereas

only about a third do statewide. In math, 57% of SIA’s Black/African American students and 54% of its Hispanic/Latino students achieve proficiency; statewide in traditional public schools the percentage for those populations is about 22%.

In charter public schools across our state, both staff and students attribute improved performance to personalized student-teacher relationships. That individual attention fosters a learning environment where students feel heard and safe. Improved performance could also be because achievement is a core value at many of our state’s public charters.

Student-teacher demographics could also be a factor. In Washington’s charter public schools, 65% of students are Black, Indigenous or people of color, while over a third of teachers are, compared with 10% of the teachers in traditional public schools.

Flexibility could be another factor. In Washington’s charter public schools, in exchange for a higher level of accountability, teachers may customize curriculum and the amount of time spent on a subject to meet the learning needs of the students in their class — and they can adjust that throughout the year as students’ learning

Shauna Edwards founded downtown Spokane’s Lumen High School, a Legislature-approved public charter school that opened in fall 2020 with the goal of empowering two generations by serving teen parents’ educational needs. ERICK DOXEY PHOTO

needs change. Charter public school principals can adjust their school’s budget throughout the year to accommodate evolving student needs or to seize an unexpected field trip opportunity or a partnership with a local company.

Some charter public schools focus on unique student needs, such as Spokane’s Lumen High, which largely serves pregnant and parenting teens, along with unaccompanied and homeless minors. There, staff members work with students to integrate social support needs with knowledge skills. At Spokane’s Innovation High, academic programs can be tailored for students interested in fashion, textiles, performance music and production, building trades, and tech design.

Unfortunately, the Legislature treats these charter public schools as separate and less than equal. Charter public schools receive 25% less public money than traditional public schools. They are denied local levy funds and resources to build and maintain facilities. That means the funds they do receive, which are already less than traditional schools, must also cover construction, rent, furniture and utilities. Still, many charter students are outperforming their better-funded peers in traditional schools.

This isn’t going unnoticed. Some legislators recognize a role for different types of public schools within our education system.

Spokane state Sen. Marcus Riccelli acknowledges that “one size doesn’t fit all” and has “supported the way that charters are done in Spokane, under the auspices of the Spokane school board.” He added, “Schools like Lumen High School that provide necessary supports for teen parents do fill a unique need and help ensure all students can pursue their academic endeavor to the fullest, regardless of the challenges they face.”

Nonetheless, the Legislature capped the number of charter public schools at 17, even though the people’s initiative allowed for 40.

A legislator told me there was concern that charter public schools were not taking students with special needs. But like traditional public schools, public charters must accept the students who enroll. And charter public schools on average have a slightly higher enrollment of students qualifying for special education than do traditional schools.

Some legislators are concerned that seven charter public schools have closed. The charter public school community suggests that the lower public funding level contributed to those closures. Providing equal public funding could address that.

Of course, it’s unlikely every charter public school will perform better than every traditional school, just as many traditional public schools struggle to perform adequately. But if the Legislature authorized the number of charter public schools to increase to the voter approved 40, we would have a better understanding of what works. Then we could build on those lessons to create a 21st century public school system that met the needs of an increasingly diverse student body.

One state representative rhetorically asked me, “If we provide that sort of flexibility to charter schools, why wouldn’t we provide that flexibility to all public schools?” Why not indeed!

I mentioned the teacher’s union would oppose that, and the Democratic legislator responded, “Well, times change.”

That legislator was right. Times change. Students’ needs change. And how we think about public education and how we teach students needs to evolve.

There are bills before the Legislature that would increase the number of charter public schools and redress the unequal public funding. Regrettably, they are languishing in committee. Everyone concerned with social justice and equity should encourage the Legislature to pull those bills out of committee, pass them and send them to the governor for his signature. n

Bill Bryant, who served on the Seattle Port Commission from 2008-16, ran against Jay Inslee as the Republican nominee in the 2016 governor’s race. He lives in Winthrop, Washington.

GOVERNMENT

Unexpected Collab

People from across Spokane’s political spectrum are coming together in unusual ways to address homelessness

BY ELIZA BILLINGHAM

At 4:58 am on Friday, 15 people are gathered in front of Spokane City Hall in the dark. Before the sun comes up, two bright spots glow in the group — Gavin Cooley, in his yellow puffer jacket, and Barry Barfield, in a reflective orange and yellow safety vest.

Cooley is the executive director of the Spokane Business Association, a conservative organization founded by developer Larry Stone. Barfield is a longtime community activist and administrator of the Spokane Homeless Coalition.

The two men are leading a daily 5 am “crisis walk” through downtown Spokane. Their goal, they say, is to highlight how urgent the homelessness crisis is and to pressure the mayor into taking quick, measurable steps to decrease the number of people sleeping on the street each night.

“Imagine,” Cooley wrote in an email newsletter on Feb. 6, “if the mayor announced to her cabinet of top city executives that, starting tomorrow, they would meet every morning at 4 am for a one-mile walk through downtown

Spokane. After that first walk, she would make it clear: these walks would continue every single day, weekends included, until they could complete that mile without seeing a single person sleeping on the streets or struggling with addiction.”

Cooley and Barfield started walking on Feb. 17 — at 5 am instead of 4 am, with the hopes that TV news crews would be more willing to show up an hour closer to dawn.

They’ve been walking alongside about a dozen community members every day since. That makes this the 12th one in a row. Mayor Lisa Brown has yet to ask her staff to join, or to join herself. There is healthy regional collaboration happening, she says, and she and everyone on her staff already feels the urgency of the situation.

“They didn’t come and talk to us about [the walks] before they started publicizing them,” Brown says. “There is definitely [regional] communication and I believe, at the staff level, some of the best collaboration occurring that maybe has not been the case in the past.”

‘JUMP START’

The partnership between Cooley and Barfield is itself unique and unexpected.

“I lean left,” Barfield says, “and SBA leans heavy right, which is exactly what I think needs to happen. … I want to bring them together, because that’s the only way a sustainable something is going to happen.”

But as the sun peaks over the horizon, Cooley describes himself as a Democrat.

“As a financial person, the CFO of the city for 18 years — people assume if you’re financial, you’re conservative,” he says. “I think I am left. I’ve always been left, and significantly left. The business association, I think, knew that also when they hired me.”

The thing that Democrats often can’t balance together, he says, is compassion and law enforcement. Cooley says that four of his eight children are in recovery from different types of substance abuse, and their journeys, although different from each other, all color his perspective on addiction treatment and accountability.

“The one group that I found is universally in favor of dealing with this situation as a crisis, and including measures such as involuntary detention, are the parents of children who have struggled with addiction and mental

Spokane Business Association Executive Director Gavin Cooley (yellow jacket) is leading daily walks to bring awareness to what he feels is a lack of action to combat homelessness in Spokane. ERICK DOXEY PHOTO

NEWS | GOVERNMENT

“UNEXPECTED COLLAB,”

CONTINUED...

illness,” Cooley says by email after the walk.

At first, the walkers pass through Riverfront Park, where no one is camping. Cooley points out the success of park rangers keeping the park safe and clean. Then, the group turns onto Browne Street and walks under the viaduct, where a handful of people are camping. A few blocks later, there are about a dozen people sleeping or standing outside the Ridpath apartment building on Sprague Avenue, as well.

“In a lot of ways, you don’t want to conflate homelessness with substance abuse and mental health at all,” Cooley says. “But the population we’re seeing here is chronically homeless — 12 months or more on the streets, [with] co-occurring drug addiction, substance abuse and mental health. So, with that population, by its very definition, you can conflate those.”

This is a tiny part of the homeless population, Cooley says, but one that he believes could be quickly alleviated through law enforcement and mandated, involuntary treatment. He suggests having officers go around offering either time in jail or treatment.

That’s what he says is the point of these walks — the population on the street in the early hours of the morning could be off the street if the mayor simply gave the word.

“I think chronic homelessness could end overnight,” he says. “If suddenly you set zero tolerance, it would jump start all those activities — if the mayor would just say, ‘We’re not going to do this.’”

CUTTING BOARD

Tension between Cooley and Brown arose much earlier than 5 am on Feb. 17.

Cooley was part of Brown’s 100-day transition team when she took office in early 2024. He claims most of the credit for designing her budget. Their first strain, he says, was when she decided not to join his proposed regional board to address homelessness.

In 2023, Cooley and experienced former city staffers Rick Romero and Theresa Sanders tried to start a regional board including the city, county, and nongovernmental experts to address homelessness. It was inspired by a similar para-governmental organization in Houston that was wildly successful, Cooley says.

It was his top priority, and one he expected the mayor to be all in on. Brown, however, was not.

“The original regional homeless proposal was to create another public development authority, like SREC,” Brown says. “The idea was that the city’s homelessness funds would flow to this entity. But there wasn’t a commitment of the county’s behavioral health dollars.”

Brown was concerned that a board of maybe a dozen people would get to decide how to spend Continuum of Care dollars — about $6 million from the federal Housing and Urban Development Department that is given to the city to use on behalf of the region — while the county wasn’t willing to put its mental health funding through the same process.

When Brown took office in 2024, she refused to join the regional homeless authority, and the idea was effectively dead. But that has not killed regional collaboration generally, she says.

“It was premature to set up a separate board to spend taxpayer funds when we had not done what we are doing now, which is this mapping and understanding if there are easy agreements we can reach to collaborate on how we spend some of our funds,” she says.

Right now, Deputy City Administrator Maggie Yates is spearheading a project to map the interactions between behavioral health incidents and the criminal justice system.

“We’ve met with the county, and the county has agreed to essentially take our map and then add their map onto it, so we will have a regionwide intercept map that

we can utilize to judge where we have gaps in the system,” Brown says.

STELLAR STAFF

Elected officials and staff from most nearby municipalities still meet quarterly for the Spokane Regional Collaborative to Address Homelessness, the remnants of Cooley’s proposed board.

Cooley thinks the remaining collaboration is toothless compared to what he envisioned. But from the city of Spokane staff’s perspective, collaboration with the county and surrounding towns has never been better.

George Dahl, Dawn Kinder and Gloria Mantz, staff members working on homelessness initiatives for Spokane County, the city of Spokane, and the city of Spokane Valley respectively, have never been more in sync, they each say. The three meet regularly, share data and track funds together.

“I’ve been with the county now since January 2023, and gosh, in that time, I’ve never seen this level of collaboration between the jurisdictions,” Dahl says. “It’s really, really encouraging, and also I think, just a really positive direction, recognizing we still have an emergent issue with addressing homelessness, but the collaboration and the partnerships that the community is asking for are being worked on.”

They’re working on an interlocal agreement that will ensure this type of collaboration continues even when they’re no longer in these positions.

“This idea that the region doesn’t collaborate is misinformation,” Kinder says. “But we’re certainly excited to have an updated version of [an interlocal agreement] coming now so that we can really give our electeds a tool to hold the region and staff accountable for that ongoing partnership.”

In his weekly Spokane Business Association newsletter, Cooley has critiqued Brown for not meeting with county Commissioner Al French, one of the longest-serving county politicians.

But Brown says her duty is to county Commissioner Mary Kuney, the chair of the Board of County Commissioners, not French.

Brown meets with Kuney at least every month — 15 times, actually, since Brown took office at the beginning of 2024.

“Between the city and the county, it’s always been that the chair of the Board of County Commissioners meets with the mayor on a monthly basis,” Kuney says. “We have been doing those so that we can be talking about the issues that are relevant to both of our entities.”

Plus, Kuney and Spokane City Council President Betsy Wilkerson have been friends for about three decades, far predating election to their respective offices. Though their politics differ, they regularly meet over a glass of wine.

In February, Wilkerson asked if she could present the idea of a joint meeting between the City Council and the county commissioners to address opioid use. Kuney readily agreed. That meeting should be on the books in a matter of weeks, they say.

“I sometimes think of us as the Hatfields and the McCoys — like, does anyone remember what we’re fighting over?” Wilkerson says. “I have an idea. You have an idea. We both want to get to the same goal. We may have a different idea of what path we want to take. So let’s look at it, and really at the end of the day, let’s compromise for the best.”

WEEKS VERSUS YEARS

Still, Cooley and Barfield don’t think the current level of collaboration is powerful or urgent enough. Meetings need to be happening daily, not monthly or quarterly, they say, and stricter measures of success need to be met.

“[Homelessness] is an incredibly, incredibly complex, deep issue,” Barfield says. “It will never be solved in a few weeks.”

Will these walks continue for years, then?

“I would end them if enough leadership — it doesn’t have to just be the mayor or county commissioners, it could be the presidents of all the banks — if they could all get together and say, ‘We’re gonna do it.’ I want to see regional collaboration,” Barfield says.

Isn’t that what the Spokane Regional Collaborative to Address Homelessness is?

“To be blunt, no. It’s in name only. I mean, the people who show up to that are doing good work. I appreciate them. Great, keep doing what you’re doing. But it is this big,” Barfield says, holding his thumb and index finger an inch apart, “and we need this big,” he says, stretching out his arms. n

elizab@inlander.com

Participants in the early morning walks include local contractors, a restaurant owner and community activists. ERICK DOXEY PHOTO

Good Grain

The CDA Tribe gets help restoring the Palouse. Plus, an Idahoan will lead the U.S. Forest Service, and Ferguson proposes higher ed cuts.

BY INLANDER STAFF

In 2022, the first adult salmon in decades swam in Latah Creek, a tributary to the Spokane River also known as Hangman Creek. It was a major celebration for the Coeur d’Alene Tribe, who are dedicated to restoring the upper Hangman Creek watershed from agricultural runoff. Now, the tribe has another cause for celebration: On Feb. 27, the Paul G. Allen Foundation awarded the Coeur d’Alene Tribe more than $935,000 to develop natural climate solutions to restore the Palouse. The work will include creating a seed bank of native grasses, plus testing the potential for Kernza, a name brand perennial grain that could transform wheat farming. Native and perennial grasses can improve soil quality and carbon sequestration, decrease erosion, and promote biodiversity. “The Palouse itself has become a critically endangered ecosystem — basically a 98% loss of biodiversity across the system,” says Laura Laumatia, the tribe’s project lead for the award. “The tribe has the largest remnant piece of Palouse prairie in Idaho, and it has the will to do the long-term restoration work needed for this project.” (ELIZA BILLINGHAM)

TIMBER TOM

There is a new U.S. Forest Service chief, after Randy Moore announced his resignation in an email on Feb. 26. U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins has appointed Idahoan Tom Schultz as the 21st chief of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service. “Tom is the right person to lead the Forest Service right now, and I know he will fight every day to restore America’s national forests,” Rollins said in a press release. Schultz has spent the last seven years as the vice president of resources and government affairs for Idaho Forest Group, one of the nation’s largest lumber producers, which is based in Coeur d’Alene, harvests on private, state and U.S. Forest Service lands, and has five lumber mills in Idaho. Anna Medema, legislative director of the environmental organization Sierra Club, released a statement raising concerns about Schultz. “Naming a corporate lobbyist to run the agency tasked with overseeing the last old growth left in the U.S. makes it clear that the Trump administration’s goal isn’t to preserve our national forests, but to sell them off to billionaires and corporate polluters.” The Forest Service manages 154 national forests and 20 grasslands across 43 states. (VICTOR CORRAL MARTINEZ)

CAMPUS CUTS

Washington is facing down the barrel of a multibillion-dollar budget deficit. Last week, Gov. Bob Ferguson released a proposal that would cut about $4 billion in state spending over the next four years. Ferguson’s proposed budget cuts for the 2025-27 budget biennium include 3% from the state’s funding for all fouryear universities. In the Inland Northwest this includes a $5.4 million reduction at Eastern Washington University and a $23.2 million reduction at Washington State University, according to the state Office of Financial Management. At Eastern, these cuts would reduce funding for central services support, workforce education, and goods and services. At WSU, $2.2 million would be cut from the Native American Scholarship Program while the rest would be cut from the general fund. The Senate and House both plan to release their draft budgets this month, and the final budget may be sent to Ferguson’s desk in April. (COLTON RASANEN) n

BLAST TO THE PAST

Fox Presents and the Spokane International Film Festival Present

SUNDAY MARCH 9 6:00PM

Experience the iconic 80s film Vision Quest , filmed right here in Spokane, on the big screen at The Fox Theater. After the screening, join Spokane native and New York Times bestselling author Jess Walter as he hosts an audience Q&A with Matthew Modine.

A time capsule of 1980s Spokane, this film feature locations such as Mead High School, Rogers High School, Shadle Park High School, The Ridpath, Ferguson’s Café, and the memorable scenes with Madonna performing at Bigfoot Pub and Eatery.

Calling all Stranger Things fans: see Dr. Martin Brenner (aka Papa) in his original 80s role!

THE MUSIC OF BENEFIT CONCERT FOR THE SPOKANE SYMPHONY with Matthew Modine

MORIHIKO NAKAHARA CONDUCTOR

ARMONDO IMAGINES VOCALS

LAKISHA JONES VOCALS

NOVA Y. PAYTON VOCALS TINA TURNER WITH THE SPOKANE SYMPHONY

SATURDAY MAY 17 7:30 PM

Kernza is being studied as a climate-friendly grain. PHOTO COURTESY THE LAND INSTITUTE, SCOTT SEIRER

First Amendment Fight

A woman who heckled Idaho lawmakers at a Coeur d’Alene town hall was dragged out by unidentified men, fueling a First Amendment debate

BY VICTOR CORRAL MARTINEZ

On Saturday, Feb. 22, Laura Tenneson, Teresa Borrenpohl and other progressives attended the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee’s town hall meeting, which was meant to be a mid-session check-in with the county’s state legislators. They went to voice their concerns about bills that would impact school funding and repeal the state’s Medicaid expansion.

During his opening statements, Brent Regan, chairman of the KCRCC, warned that people not maintaining decorum would be escorted out of the building by security. The meeting, held at Coeur d’Alene High School, would ultimately end in chaos and attract national attention.

Tenneson says she and other activists shouted out as the lawmakers spoke, but many people were also cheering or booing because of contentious legislation, like the “school choice” bill to fund private school expenses, which has since been signed into law.

At one point, the event’s emcee, Ed Bejarana, reprimanded Borrenpohl and her group. Video shows Borrenpohl shouted back, “Is this a town hall or a lecture?” Kootenai County Sheriff Bob Norris confronted Borrenpohl in the audience and said, “Get up, or be arrested.”

Video footage shows Norris, wearing

civilian clothing and a hat that says “Kootenai County Sheriff,” attempting to pull Borrenpohl by the arm to leave, but Borrenpohl said that was a bad idea. Norris stopped and directed two men in dark clothes with no identifiable security labeling to remove Borrenpohl.

She repeatedly requested that the two men identify themselves, then shouted to Norris, “This man is assaulting me. Is this your deputy?”

Tenneson says it was never clear who was responsible for security at the event. She believes their group was singled out because they have been vocal at KCRCC meetings and town halls about North Idaho College, which was on probationary standing and at risk of losing its accreditation until recently.

The men, who the videos show did not identify themselves, restrained Borrenpohl and dragged her out of the auditorium. She bit one of the men.

In the parking lot, Coeur d’Alene police officers cited Borrenpohl with misdemeanor battery and released her, but those charges were soon dismissed.

Tenneson says neither she nor Borrenpohl, who ran as a Democrat for the 5th District state representative position against Rep. Tony Wisniewski, expected things to escalate the way they did. (Wisniewski, a

Post Falls Republican, was one of the town hall speakers.)

“I heard Teresa yell out at one point, ‘Am I being abducted?’ and the look of fear on her face, it was apparent that we were in new territory that we had never been in before,” Tenneson says. “I had no idea what was going to happen.”

DUST SETTLES

In an emailed statement, Regan tells the Inlander that the town hall was a private event, and Lear Asset Management staff members volunteered their licensed and insured security services. He says that a credible threat to state Rep. Jordan Redman, R-Coeur d’Alene, necessitated more security, and that the KCRCC notified the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office and Coeur d’Alene Police Department about the threat.

In his statement, Regan says that “Borrenpohl interrupted the speaker at least seven times, shouting insults and preventing 450 attendees from participating — a tactic known as the ‘heckler’s veto,’ where one individual’s actions infringe upon the speaker’s rights and the assembly’s ability to engage.

“The First Amendment does not protect the right to interfere with others’ freedoms, and Borrenpohl’s behavior crossed this line,”

The Kootenai County Republican Central Committee meeting on Feb. 25 was more packed than usual after issues at a town hall just days before made national headlines. VICTOR CORRAL MARTINEZ PHOTO

Regan’s statement argues. “She was warned at least three times to cease her disruptions and was directly asked to leave by the Sheriff — Idaho’s supreme law enforcement authority — at least five times.”

However, the American Civil Liberties Union says there’s a rule against punishing a heckler’s veto: If a person is exercising their First Amendment right to free speech, the government is not allowed to shut down the speech just because other people don’t like the message being conveyed.

Many in Coeur d’Alene disagree with Regan’s assessment of the events, including Ryan Hunter, chief deputy city attorney, who tells the Inlander by email that potential violations of Borrenpohl’s constitutional rights began when she was singled out of a crowd of hundreds for shouting an opposing view. Hunter says the charges against Borrenpohl were dropped because of a strong self-defense claim.

“She was being summarily kicked out of a public town hall event taking place in a public school, was not formally trespassed by anyone with authority to do so, and was not accused of having committed any crime prior to being physically seized by individuals who were not identified as security agents or members of law enforcement, refused to identify themselves at all, and lacked any legal authority to act as security agents or physically aggress and detain Dr. Borrenpohl at that time,” Hunter wrote. “As a result, she had an incredibly strong self-defense claim that made prosecution untenable and, under these egregious circumstances, contrary to the interests of justice.”

Hunter says there’s an active investigation into Lear Asset Management but declined to say whether charges could be filed.

MORE FALLOUT

Sgt. Jared Reneau of the Coeur d’Alene Police Department says two police officers were in the parking lot because of a threat made to an elected official the previous day. Police officers weren’t aware of what transpired inside the building until after Borrenpohl was removed.

Reneau says the KCRCC is a private entity but advertised its event as a public town hall forum. He says that Coeur d’Alene police had jurisdiction over the event, and if someone had called 911, his officers would have responded.

Reneau says the handling of the event is concerning because one group of people was targeted, but if both sides heckled, then the actions by KCRCC needed to be equal and fair to both disruptive groups.

“They can’t just target one group because they don’t like their point of view and remove them because of that,” Reneau says. “It’s important to all of us that the U.S. Constitution affords all citizens the right to free speech.”

The municipal services division at Coeur d’Alene City Hall can suspend a security license. After the event, Coeur d’Alene Police Chief Lee White recommended that municipal services revoke Lear Asset Management’s security license, which they did.

Reneau says Lear violated city code 5.32.050, which states that “Uniforms worn by security agents must be clearly marked with the word ‘Security’ in letters no less than one inch tall on the front of the uniform, and no less than four inches tall on the back of the uniform.”

In a press release, Kootenai County Undersheriff Brett Nelson said that no deputies were present or involved in the incident and that an outside agency would conduct an independent investigation

Alicia Abbott, Borrenpohl’s colleague, set up a GoFundMe that has raised more than $330,000 for the future litigation against those who may have violated Borrenpohl’s First Amendment rights. Tenneson says Borrenpohl, who is not speaking with local media at this time, has hired Wendy Olson from the law firm Stoel Rives as her counsel.

Tenneson says the national, bipartisan support the activists have received underscores the importance of First Amendment rights.

“This event was so blatant and so horrific that we have people on both sides of the aisle stepping up and saying that [Borrenpohl’s] First Amendment rights were absolutely violated,” Tenneson says. “I don’t care if we were saying things they didn’t like, because none of those things justify physical assault, none of those things justify the way they treated Teresa that day.” n

victorc@inlander.com

Escape Velocity

EWU cuts dozens of programs, including physics, as its ‘strategic resource allocation’ process concludes

BY SAMANTHA WOHLFEIL

Last week, Eastern Washington University’s Board of Trustees completed the university’s more than two-year “strategic resource allocation” process, voting unanimously to eliminate five majors and two minors, which joined a list of dozens of cuts already agreed to by various departments.

In total, Eastern cut 45 undergraduate degrees, 10 graduate degrees, and 34 minors or certificates following the strategic process.

During their regular meeting on Friday, Feb. 28, at university President Shari McMahan’s recommendation, the trustees eliminated minors in French and German, as well as majors in technical communication, physics (both general and professional), education studies, and education in physics - secondary. Students currently declared in each program will be able to finish their studies.

The seven programs were among 20 that university leadership and faculty did not reach an agreement on after the strategic resource allocation process sorted all 402 academic programs into five categories: invest, maintain, streamline, transform or disinvest.

McMahan’s recommendation echoed that of university Provost Jonathan Anderson, who told the trustees on Friday that he ultimately reached an agreement with the Faculty Organization on most of the remaining cuts and programmatic changes within the list of 20. They disagreed on two of his proposed cuts: the elimination of the Bachelor of Arts in technical communication and the professional Bachelor of Science in physics.

The Faculty Organization, an academic senate made up of faculty members who get

to weigh in on academic changes, specifically recommended maintaining the BS in physics. A program review committee that assessed the 20 programs specifically noted that “Given EWU’s transition to a polytechnic university, eliminating hard science programs like physics would undermine the institution’s mission and vision.”

However, Anderson and McMahan argued that physics produces few majors — no more than four students per year graduated with physics degrees in any of the last seven years — and said that physics courses will remain on campus as part of the minor, as will the tenured physics faculty.

In a letter to the board, McMahan wrote, “maintaining degrees with consistently low demand diverts valuable resources away from areas with higher potential for student success and workforce impact.”

Anderson told the trustees that he believes there’s a way to integrate the important physics content into other degrees, and dismissed the concerns about cutting a hard science as a polytechnic university.

“Eastern is proud of being the region’s polytechnic,” he said, “which is about integrating applied learning opportunities for our students, and not exclusively focused on STEM.”

The board’s agenda did not include time for the departments on the chopping block to weigh in, other than through the public comment portion of the meeting, when people get two minutes each to speak.

David Syphers, associate professor of physics

at Eastern, argued during his public comment that cutting physics made no sense: The program actually brings in more money than it costs to operate, meaning cutting it will decrease the university’s bottom line. During the comment period, two professors from other programs also argued that physics should remain, as courses in physics are required for various majors, including for those who want to go on to medical school.

As the board prepared to vote, Syphers stood in the back of the room with his back turned to the trustees.

“I think part of how we got here is being demonstrated right now by representatives of the physics department, who are standing up and turning their back towards this conversation,” Trustee Jay Manning said. “That’s how you got here, in part.”

Syphers replied, “You won’t talk to me Jay, you won’t return my emails.”

In an interview, Syphers says that he has reached out to Manning several times over the years, including when he was the president of the Faculty Organization, but he doesn’t feel the board, the provost or the university president meaningfully engaged in any conversation about the cut before the vote.

“They weren’t debating the merits of anything we raised,” Syphers says. “It was the most polite thing I could think of when they were going to flush 11 years of my career down the drain. It was incredibly dismissive.”

Syphers worries that the school won’t be able to retain physics teachers without the major.

“I love teaching introductory courses, but I also love being able to engage in quantum mechanics and more complex ideas,” Syphers says. “Physics is one of the disciplines that builds on itself, it’s kind of like a foreign language. You can’t say, ‘We’re getting rid of everything but Russian 101, and we’re going to have you read War and Peace in the original.’”

He disagrees with McMahan’s sentiment that physics no longer serves students and says that he’s poured an enormous amount of time and energy into his students.

“I love academia, I love teaching, I love working with my students. Getting people to understand ideas and the beauty of what we’ve figured out about the natural world is really motivating to me,” Syphers says. “We serve mostly low-income students — getting a financial footing in the world is deeply important to them. Physics can do that. Physics is the highestpaying science major.” n

samanthaw@inlander.com

Eastern Washington University is eliminating various majors, minors and certificates as it finishes strategic planning work that took more than two years.

PHOTO COURTESY EWU

All Inclusive All Inclusive

Spokane’s Chase Gallery raises awareness of National Developmental Disabilities Month with new exhibition

BY CARRIE SCOZZARO

Despite an alarming top-down national trend to the contrary, inclusion is a good thing. An inclusive mindset — where all really means all — does two things, simultaneously acknowledging our differences and our sameness. It also advances the idea that we are stronger when there is more, not less. More connectivity. More empathy. More awareness.

Awareness, empathy and connectivity go hand-inhand at a new Chase Gallery exhibition, titled “Outsider Art: Bridging the Disability Divide Through Art.”

The exhibition runs through the month of March, federally recognized as Developmental Disabilities Awareness Month since 1987. That’s when then-President Ronald Reagan and the National Association of Councils on Developmental Disabilities collaborated to raise “public awareness of the needs and the potential of Ameri-

cans with developmental disabilities,” including autism spectrum disorders, hearing and vision impairment, and cerebral palsy.

“Outsider Art” features works by local and regional artists, including those affiliated with Side by Side, a faithbased organization supporting people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, as well as students from University High School.

James Frye, a Central Valley High School alumnus whom the Inlander featured in 2012 and again in 2016, has eight pieces in the exhibition.

Now 31, Frye is a prolific artist who’s recently exhibited at Chrysalis Gallery in Spokane and Emerge in Coeur d’Alene. His work is instantly recognizable, echoing the kinds of electric colors and graphic stylings that made 1960s-era Bay Area illustrator Peter Max a household name.

Like Max, Frye derives inspiration from music, he says. A piece titled “Strawberry Pyramids Whatsoever,” for example, reflects his love of the Beatles, as well as his research into Egyptian culture.

Frye got into art as a 17-year-old in Sue Mihalic’s pottery class at Central Valley, but his artistic sensibilities go back further, according to his mother, Wendy Frye.

“We asked him once how he puts his colors together, and he said he could hear them,” relays Wendy, who’s also her son’s business manager. “We didn’t know that’s a

thing until a year later.”

Frye, who is on the autism spectrum, is one of the rarified 2 to 4% of all humans who experiences synesthesia, where senses — in his case hearing and vision — blend.

“[James] likes computer work because it’s not tactically annoying,” Wendy says. His dream, she adds, is “to be an experimental animator for adults.”

The prospect of a career in the arts might seem like a long shot for someone with a developmental or intellectual disability, but it’s not, says the Chase exhibition’s co-organizer, Posie Kalin.

“Outsider Art” also features work by professional artists who happen to have disabilities hailing from Portlandbased North Pole Studio and Seattle’s Vibrant Palette.

“[Art] is a career path that is a really vital source of income for these artists,” Kalin says.

Kalin sees her role in the show’s development as more of a facilitator and credits Spokane artist Rolf Goetzinger with its impetus.

Goetzinger, whose daughter Ellie is also participating in “Outsider Art,” is the founder of Art Beyond Limits, a nonprofit that supported people with intellectual and physical disabilities.

Although Beyond Limits became defunct in the chaos of 2020, “its vision never died,” says Goetzinger, who

“Beyond Imagination” by James Frye. COURTESY JAMES FRYE ARTIST

SPARKING CONNECTIONS

Posie Kalin, Spark Central’s new executive director, is an ideal fit to lead the Spokane organization with a mission to ignite “the creativity, innovation, and imagination necessary for people to forge the path to their best future.”

Known for her collaborative and community-based art practice, Kalin’s background spans a wide range of visual and performing arts. Her artist-in-residencies, for example, include a youth mural project in Haiti; printmaking in Guanajuato, Mexico; three years with Los Angeles high school students exploring filmmaking; and most recently, a Spokane Arts grant-funded project with Pratt Academy High School students integrating art and science.

“For me, it’s about the philosophical perspective of what I’m trying to explore and the physical means in which I do that,” Kalin explains.

“I look at where I am today as sort of the aesthetics of creative interdependence,” she says, adding that for her, it’s also about figuring out what that looks like “as an artist, as a leader, as an advocate.” n

patterned the nonprofit after the Creative Growth Art Center. Founded 50 years ago, the Creative Growth Art Center supports more than 140 artists with disabilities, providing materials and a dedicated space to paint, draw, do woodworking, make ceramics and more. Goetzinger visited the center in 2016 while working on a mural in Northern California and was inspired.

“I said, ‘I just really felt like we need something like that here in Spokane,’” he says.

Kalin agrees. She envisions additional collaborations to support artists with disabilities, including one under the auspices of her new gig as executive director of Spark Central, the creative learning center based in Kendall Yards.

“We have a lot of changes that are happening, and we are working on our studio center to offer a place for artists with disabilities to connect,” she says.

In the meantime, Kalin and Goetzinger hope the Chase Gallery exhibition does what its title suggests: bridges the divide.

“It’s really inspiring in how, while there’s so many, maybe, barriers” for people with disabilities, Kalin says, their work is at the same time “limitless in its ability to connect with the viewer in ways that you wouldn’t normally consider.”

For his part, Goetzinger hopes viewers come away from the showcase with a renewed understanding of the artwork and its makers.

“Just to kind of look at art for art’s sake and not label ‘disability art’ or suchand-such art, but art in its very raw form,” Goetzinger says.

As for the artists themselves, he has high hopes for them as well.

“There’s a community out there that often gets unmotivated, and [yet] there’s a place for them in the arts community,” he says. “We just all need to do this together.” n

Outsider Art: Bridging the Disability Divide Through Art • March 7-31; open Mon-Fri from 8 am-5 pm • Chase Gallery at Spokane City Hall • 808 W. Spokane Falls Blvd. •  spokanearts.org • 509-321-9416

Co-curator Posie Kalin YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

MARMOT MILESTONE

Marshall Peterson celebrates 10 years of his Kendall Yards gallery Marmot Art Space

BY COLTON RASANEN

Marshall Peterson has always been enamored with the arts. Throughout his life, he’s thrown himself into tons of artistic endeavors, from music and photography to filmmaking and writing. Yet he says his greatest contribution to the creative field has been operating Marmot Art Space in Spokane for the past decade.

Peterson, 60, grew up in Spokane and graduated from Ferris High School. He then headed west to attend the University of Washington and experience life outside his hometown. After working as an artist and living around the world in places like Guadalajara, Mexico, and Berlin, however, he found himself back in the Inland Northwest in 2012.

At the time, he wasn’t planning to open his own art gallery — he just wanted to be closer to his mom for a couple of years. But a couple years turned into a decade, and now Peterson doesn’t see himself leaving anytime soon.

Initially, Peterson was working to create more spaces for art in Spokane. In 2013, he launched PorchFest West Central, an annual music festival outside of residences in its namesake neighborhood. In 2014, he debuted Spokane 50, a project documenting leaders of Spokane’s arts ecosystem. Then in March 2015, he opened his own white-cube art gallery, Marmot Art Space, to further strengthen the local arts scene.

“I don’t focus that much on my career, because I prefer to focus on other people,” he says. “Part of opening the gallery is just this intense love and respect for visual arts.”

The gallery’s name comes from two places. “Marmot” for the cuddly looking large ground squirrels that roam nearby. “Art Space” nodded to the next-door INK Art Space, a community hub for arts education co-founded by Spokane author Jess Walter, which eventually was folded into what’s now the creative learning hub Spark Central.

from around Washington state, such as ceramicist Patti Warashina, printmaker Keiko Hara and the late painter Alfredo Arreguín.

Out of all the talented artists he’s worked with over the years, Peterson says memories with the late Indigenous artist Ric Gendron, who became a close friend, are his fondest. Gendron, a member of the Arrow Lakes Band of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, is known for his vivid figurative paintings of Native American imagery. In the months before Gendron died in 2023, Peterson hosted a handful of shows featuring his work.

“We sold a lot of work during that time, so as he was dealing with medical bills, he had money in his pocket,” he says. “I know that if you’re supporting others, the [Spokane] community will support you.”

Beyond showing artwork in his gallery, Peterson has also produced art books, such as Ric Gendron: Kwilstn (Sweat Lodge), to ensure these regional artists are remembered long after their death.

Now, as he looks forward to the next 10 years, Peterson hopes to mentor mid-career artists who are looking to take their work to the “next level.”

“That [mentorship] is just not something that Spokane offers. We offer instruction with the finger painters. We offer art classes in junior and high school.

“I know that if you’re supporting others, the [Spokane] community will support you.”

There’s degrees you can get,” he says. “But nobody teaches much about how to actually succeed as a fulltime artist, and that’s the unique thing that I offer to the community.”

THE BUZZ BIN

FARMER’S MARKETPLACE

The days of meandering the booths of local artisans at the Pullman Farmers Market is soon ending as the weekly event transitions under new leadership. For over a decade the farmers market has been run by the Pullman Chamber of Commerce, but starting April 1 will be led by the Pullman Good Food Co-op. Renamed to Pullman Market Monday, it’s also now solely online with a designated weekly pickup. The move is meant to mirror online shopping trends in today’s digital age. Folks can begin their farmers market shopping online at rekohub.com. Any order placed before noon on Friday can be picked up the following Monday from 4-6 pm at Terracotta Pullman. The first pickup day is March 10, and the final in-person farmers market is at Lumberyard Food Hall on March 16 from 11 am-2 pm. (COLTON RASANEN)

TWICE AS N-ICE

The Spokane Chiefs aren’t the only local hockey team having a great season so far, as two local junior hockey teams are headed to the USA Hockey National Championships. The Spokane Junior Chiefs’ Under 14 and Under 16 teams both won their respective Tier II State Championships on March 1. The U14 squad knocked off the Sno-King team from Western Washington 4-0 in the title game, while the U16 Junior Chiefs took the crown with a 6-2 victory over the Seattle Mets. Both National Championships take place the first week in April, and the Junior Chiefs will be raising money to cover travel costs. For more info, visit SpokaneYouthHockey.com. (SETH SOMMERFELD)

THIS WEEK’S PLAYLIST

Noteworthy new music arriving in stores and online on March 7.

JASON ISBELL, FOXES IN THE SNOW

Toward the beginning of Marmot Art Space’s existence, Peterson hosted shows filled with local artists’ work, yet after some time, he decided to shift the gallery’s focus to prestigious regional artists.

“Sometimes you have a show where you support someone and they’re great, and you lose money on the show,” Peterson explains. “Then you have another show with someone who’s more well-known and more accomplished. People actually buy their art, and you get to eat that month.”

The transition was slow at first, but eventually Peterson began bringing in nationally known artists

And as for Marmot’s 10th anniversary show this March, Peterson says he’s thrilled to show new artwork from at least a dozen artists.

“I hope people who have loved the gallery for the past years visit to see what new stuff I’ve got from the artists,” he says. “I mean, who gets to 10 years? The accomplishment itself is just remarkable, it feels like getting to 100 years or something. I’m just so grateful that I’m able to do something important.” n

Marmot Art Space 10th Anniversary • Fri, March 7 at 5 pm • Free • Marmot Art Space • 1202 W. Summit Pkwy. • marmotartspace.com

One of the most acclaimed modern singer-songwriters strips things down for his first solo album (without The 400 Unit) in a decade. Expect plenty of these new tunes (with the band) when he swings by FIC on May 16.

LADY GAGA, MAYHEM

Bouncing back from almost everyone loathing Joker: Folie à Deux, Mother Monster returns to revel in more dark dance pop.

BOB MOULD, HERE WE GO CRAZY

The former Hüsker Dü frontman and punk/alt hero has never lost his fastball and still rocks harder than kids one-third his age on his 15th studio album. (SETH SOMMERFELD)

ERICK DOXEY PHOTO

Spokane’s Silver Screen

Afilm festival pass isn’t just a ticket to sit in a dark room munching on popcorn for a few days. It’s a passport to worlds of imagination. That’s once again the case with this year’s edition of the Spokane International Film Festival (SpIFF). It’s impractical to travel to the deep Alaskan wilderness, the remote Indigenous lands of Canada, global ultimate frisbee tournaments, and local high school wrestling meets in a single weekend, but you can do all this and more via SpIFF. Or trade the impractical for the impossible and travel through time, erase your painful memories and have one last cosmic goodbye with a departed lover. There are galaxies of imagination on display at SpIFF, so let us help you find your latest under-the-radar cinematic journey.

— SETH SOMMERFELD, Inlander Screen Editor

Spokane International Film Festival

Fri, March 7 through Sun, March 9

The Magic Lantern, 25 W. Main Ave.

The Fox Theater, 1001 W. Sprague Ave. Garland Theater, 924 W. Garland Ave.

Myrtle Woldson Performing Arts Center, 211 E. Desmet Ave. Festival passes: $99 ($75 seniors/veterans; $49 students)

Individual screenings: $10-$12 ($7 seniors/veterans)

Opening Night (Recollection): $25 ($10 student)

Closing Night (Vision Quest): $40-$173 ($23-$173 student) spokanefilmfestival.org

The Vision Remains Clear

Catching up with Vision Quest star Matthew Modine, who’s returning for a screening of the Spokane-set, high school wrestling cult classic BY SETH SOMMERFELD

When it comes to Spokane cinema, it’s hard to top Vision Quest. The 1985 film is one part coming-of-age high school flick, one part amateur wrestling sports movie and one part romantic drama. It centers on Louden Swain (Matthew Modine, in his first starring role), a wildly driven high school wrestler who decides against everyone’s advice that his goal for the year will be to change weight classes and take on the tough-

School] and meeting all the kids from the school. The whole community was kind of involved with the making of Vision Quest. They were background performers. They were people in the audience during the wrestling matches. The other wrestlers in the film were all local kids. So my memories of Vision Quest are just absolutely positive and youthful.

Since you were also young when you made this movie, what were some of the things you learned while making Vision Quest that helped build a foundation for such a prolonged career as an actor?

I’d been in ensemble films, but this was the first real starring role that I had. What was the important thing to realize is that while you’re the star of the film, you’re not — if I can use this as a metaphor — the fabric. The fabric is made up of lots of threads, isn’t it? So even though it appears that I’m the fabric, I’m really a thread in it. And that’s when I really realized that everybody that’s on the set is another thread of the fabric: the sound person, the camera operator, the cinematographer, the director, the other actors that you’re working with, the production designer, the hair and makeup, the grip and electric, the best boy. When you watch a film and you see all those credits — those are all threads. And it only takes one or two threads to be weak, and the whole fabric comes apart.

est, meanest grappler in the state. The only potential distraction is the arrival of Carla (Linda Fiorentino), a gorgeous down-on-her luck artist who Louden convinces his dad to let crash at their home until she’s able to head to San Francisco. Along the journey of Louden’s “vision quest,” mistakes are made, love is found, and shoulders get pinned to the mats.

To celebrate Vision Quest’s 40th anniversary, SpIFF is closing out its festivities with a screening of the film at the Fox on Sunday, March 9, with Modine doing a Q-and-A session with local author Jess Walter; the actor is also set to speak with area film students at Gonzaga on March 7. While Modine went on to such highprofile roles as Pvt. Joker in Full Metal Jacket, Dr. Martin Brenner in Stranger Things, and other roles in Oppenheimer, The Dark Knight Rises, Cutthroat Island and more, Vision Quest still holds a special place in his heart.

Before his visit, we caught up with Modine to go in depth about the lessons learned while shooting Vision Quest and the film’s lasting legacy.

INLANDER: What memories first spring to mind when you think back to the making of Vision Quest?

MODINE: Well, first of all, I love Spokane. I had a great time there. I experienced the city in a way that maybe some of the people from Spokane don’t even experience — just running around the entire city. Running across all the bridges, and going to [Rogers High

And we had an incredible bunch of threads to make this film. Incredibly talented people, from the director Harold Becker to Owen Roizman, who was the cinematographer. You can look up his credits from The Exorcist to The French Connection

Louden is a very unique character in that he’s so relentlessly driven and positive in his belief that he will achieve his goals. As an actor, how did you tap into what makes that character special?

Well, Darryl Ponicsan, another really important thread in that fabric, who wrote The Last Detail amongst other things, he was the person who adapted the book by Terry Davis, who’s a local there in Spokane. He asked me if I’d ever read Catcher in the Rye, because he felt that there was something that was very Holden Caulfield about Louden. And I had never read J.D. Salinger’s book, so I did, and that was a really wonderful psychological background to give texture to who Louden Swain was.

texting, there are none of the pressures that young people are living with today. What you’re seeing is people who, in order to be able to speak to one another, they have to meet one another. They have to go into a room and sit down and talk. They meet in a restaurant and learn about each other without the distraction of a phone, without the distraction like “let me take a picture of that!” I think that people are just desperate to have that kind of human connection again. Life is being so distorted by this device that I’m using right now to speak to you.

What are you looking forward to about coming back to Spokane to celebrate Vision Quest as part of SpIFF?

I’m just super excited about returning to Spokane and presenting the film at the Fox Theater. There’s going to be some exciting surprise guests that are going to be there and participate. If you were in the movie, you know, a background performer, somebody that was in the stands, one of the guys on the wrestling team — however you were involved in the film — we’re encouraging those people to come so that they can stand up and be recognized for their contribution to the film. So I hope there’s a lot of people that worked on the film that come to the Fox Theater, which is a beautiful old girl, isn’t she?

Do you feel like quality movies made in cinematically off-the-beaten-path places like Spokane allow them to resonate longer?

I think it was very important to Harold Becker to get off the beaten path, to immerse the characters into an environment that was different than anything that they may have been subjected to. I was living in New York City and still in acting school when I met Harold Becker the first time. He wanted to get away from that.

I think probably he went on a location scout with Owen Roizman, and they saw the metaphor [in the] bridges — of youth, of coming of age. There are all sorts of mystical and mythological stories about crossing bridges and crossing rivers on epic journeys where characters have to go out in order to be able to discover who they are. And I think that’s why the film opens that way, with Louden crossing so many bridges.

One of the things that’s helped Vision Quest stand the test of time is that it’s still probably the most beloved amateur wrestling movie. It’s a sport where there’s a lot of passion, but while there are a million baseball and football movies, its big-screen representation is minimal.

VISION QUEST WITH MATTHEW MODINE

Sun, March 9 at 6 pm; $23-$173 The Fox Theater, spokanefilmfestival.org

I think what’s really wonderful in this, as opposed to all the other movies that have been written and filmed about coming of age, is that Louden does and says things that are inappropriate. He does and says things today that would get him canceled. But the thing is, that’s what young people do. They make mistakes. Like a child that’s learning to walk, he falls down a lot, maybe thousands of times before he takes those first steps, before he learns to walk, before he learns to run. There’s a lot of falling. And that’s what we get to witness from Louden Swain — his miscues, his misunderstanding, his inappropriateness. And I think that we’re all susceptible to doing and saying things that are inappropriate, but that’s how we learn not to do those things. Today, it’s refreshing to see somebody whose life isn’t destroyed because they make mistakes.

Stranger Things and Vision Quest are the same era. I think that unconsciously, young people today are seeing the film and connecting to it and enjoying it because there is no social media, there’s no phone, there’s no

More than any other movie, even Full Metal Jacket, people stop me to talk about Vision Quest. If I’m walking down the street in New York, people roll down their window and say, “You can’t hold your mud! You’re a bleeder!” “Hey Louden, you think you’re going to make the weight?” They quote the movie, and, I mean, it’s humbling and it gives you joy. But this movie, more than any other film that I’ve worked on, I have been stopped by people in tears and because they said that they were lost, that they had no compass in their life, and Louden was that compass that gave them a direction. That they were alcoholics or drug addicts, and that by following Louden’s — I don’t know what you would call it — positivity and the pursuit of a goal, that it saved their life.

I was walking down the street in Venice Beach, and there’s a guy passing in a car looking really hard at me. And then he got out while the car was still rolling, and it rolled and crashed into another car. And he had clearly just come from Gold’s Gym — he was a huge man. He said, “You! You!” And then tears started running down his face. He said, “You saved my life!” And he gave me a big bear hug. And it was Louden Swain that saved his life. How wonderful is that?” n

Modine’s still winning. MIKE RUIZ PHOTO

SPOKANE’S NEW SCI-FI STANDARD

It’s important to love yourself. But it’s also important to stop short of literally f—ing yourself.

develop their own slightly different personalities.

Tim Travers & the Time Traveler’s Paradox is comedic romp that deserves a spot in the Spokane cinematic pantheon

BY SETH SOMMERFELD

That is one of many things a person will learn while watching the indie sci-fi time comedy romp Tim Travers and the Time Traveler’s Paradox. Packing a consistent barrage of existential ideas and humor, writer/ director (and Eastern Washington University grad) Stimson Snead’s feature-length directorial debut surpasses most mainstream attempts at sci-fi comedy despite its shoestring budget. Anchored by a stellar performance (or rather, performances) by Samuel Dunning in the titular role, it’s a movie that not only deserves to find a wider cult classic audience, but one that belongs among (and arguably surpasses) the top tier of Spokane-made movies like Vision Quest and Benny & Joon

An adaptation of Snead’s award-winning short film of the same name that played at SpIFF in 2022, the film begins with Dunning’s Tim Travers putting the finishing touches on the time machine he’s built in a remote warehouse. His machine is unique in that it’s basically a one-way entryway that takes the user one minute into the past. While this might seem relatively useless, Travers’ scientific mind sees this as a way to test the theory of “the time traveler’s paradox.” That basically means that if Tim goes back in time and kills his former self before he enters the time machine, he should cease to exist. Only he doesn’t.

Snead’s script crackles with a whip-smart male attitude that feels at times akin to the zeal found in Kevin Smith’s iconic indie debut Clerks The comedic timing (both in delivery and editing) consistently hits despite the fact that in most scenes Dunning is playing opposite versions of himself. Things continue to get gnarly when a hitman (played by Snead), hired to kill Tim for stealing the plutonium needed to power the time machine, starts adding to the body count by picking off Tims, oblivious to how his target keeps “coming back to life.” The hijinks that ensue while Tim tries to solve the scientific riddle he’s created range from tightly written theorizing to meet-cutes among the Tims, and all sorts of other creative gags.

The production design works incredibly well compared to most lowbudget attempts at grand sci-fi in part because of the relative DIY nature of Tim’s endeavors. Nobody will mistake the special effect here with a blockbuster sci-fi feature, but they’re certainly good enough so as to not jolt viewers from the experience.

TIM TRAVERS AND THE TIME TRAVELER’S PARADOX

Not rated (Recommended ages 16+)

So he shoots his former self in the head. And then he repeats the experiment, again… and again… and again. The ever-snarky Travers begins playfully theorizing aloud how this is possible, setting an early tone of gleefully profane and absurd sci-fi intellectualism. He runs off to do a radio interview with a cringy conspiracy-minded, right-wing radio host (played with amusing sleaze by Joel McHale, the first of a few famous faces in supporting roles, which later includes Danny Trejo and Keith David). Tim instantly loathes the host’s anti-experts mindset, and begins belittling him on air, establishing Tim’s extremely know-it-all persona. At the recording studio, he meets Delilah (Felica Day), an extremely jaded employee of the show, who finds in Tim telling off her boss quite alluring. The two decide to go on a date that crashes and burns because Tim is distracted thinking about the paradox he created.

Directed by Stimson Snead

Starring Samuel Dunning, Felicia Day

Screening Sat, March 8 at 8:30 pm ($10)

Garland Theater

That’s in large part because Dunning’s acting is so far beyond most indie comedy lead performances, with the added difficulty of playing so many versions of himself. He far outshines the more famous faces in the film (Day’s performance falls a bit flat, though that’s partially because her role is a bit undeveloped in the script) and is able to convey Tim’s verbosity and humor seamlessly.

In blunt, Reddit-friendly terms, Tim is the asshole. But the script doesn’t absolve him of that fact. Tim Travers is at its core an examination of ego-driven male loneliness. The solitary scientist can’t truly relate to anyone because he doesn’t view anyone up to his intellectual level to the point where he makes more versions of himself for company. When no one else can stand you because you’re a non-tipping jerk who’s only concerned with your own pursuits, what other choice do you have?

As someone who always thinks he’s the smartest guy in the room, Tim figures out how to get the help he needs to crack the case — create more Tims by walking though the Tim machine and not instantly killing himself. Soon the warehouse is filled with an array of Tims — all played by Dunning — who team up to try to crack the paradox and begin to

Even as things ramp up the existential philosophy toward the end of the film, Tim Travers doesn’t feel like it’s reaching beyond its grasp, even when the ideas in question are those none of us will ever fully grasp. Our whole universe is absurd, crass, depressing and lonely in so many ways, and finding ways to warmheartedly cope with that reality is vital to just making it through any day — no matter how crazy it becomes.

As Tim Travers explores through the scientific method, it’s important to love yourself without thinking you’re the center of the goddamn universe. n

Samuel Dunning outshines even the familar faces in Tim Travers.

Selling Yourself Shorts

A guide to some of the standout short films at SpIFF 2025

BY SETH SOMMERFELD AND E.J. IANNELLI

One of the unique treats about any film festival worth its salt is the array of short film showcases. These bite-size cinematic cornucopias showcase up-and-coming filmmakers and finely tuned ideas that get overlooked by most movie consumers. This year’s SpIFF features seven themed collections of shorts over the weekend, highlighting Northwest filmmakers, Indigenous and queer stories, and films from around the globe. To give you a taste of the array of offerings, we highlighted some of the standout selections via recommended if you like (RIYL) suggestions.

Expo ’74Fair to Future

PNW Makers

Courage

Best of the Northwest

RIYL: Homeward Bound, kitties

If you enjoyed the Oscar-nominated animated cat film Flow, then you’re likely to adore this sub-3 minute hit of catnip as a real feline journeys across diverse terrain on an adventurous mission. (SS)

Dandelion

Queer Shorts

RIYL: Comedians making dramatic turns

While Vic Michaelis is an alternative comedy favorite for their work on Dropout and Comedy Bang Bang, they prove their dramatic chops as a social worker trying to find a rebellious queer girl a home after getting kicked out of her Christian group home. As the pair squabble while trying to find a place for the teen to stay, it’s slowly revealed that there’s more to this helping soul than initially meets the eye. (SS)

RIYL: Local history lessons, World’s Fair nostalgia In case you didn’t get enough info last year during the 50th anniversary commemoration of Spokane’s hosting of the 1974 World’s Fair, Expo expert Bill Youngs narrates a short history of the monumental event, bolstered by historic photographs and archival footage. (SS)

Ghariba & Ajeeb

Worlds of Animation

RIYL: Folklore, Middle Eastern jewelry art

Ghariba and Ajeeb are growing up in separate villages that were once united before a river appeared and split it in two. Despite that stretch of water and the ill-tempered giant crocodile that prevents anyone from crossing it, the two manage to strike up a friendship from their respective banks. But then Ajeeb disappears, and Ghariba resolves to find him. True to the spirit of folktales the world over, she leans on her own resourcefulness — and some talking animals — to make the journey. Directed and animated by Algerian-born Boubaker Boukhari, Ghariba & Ajeeb’s foreground stop-motion animation is rendered in an ornate, handcrafted style that showcases Boukhari’s fine arts training as a jeweler. (EJI)

It’s Not About Ketchup

World Shorts I

RIYL: Scenes from a Marriage (ultra-abridged)

“I love this asshole so much,” says Fatima as she surveys the series of sketches she’s drawn from memory of her partner Abdullah’s expressive eyes. That statement says a lot about the tenderness, friction and honesty in director Nasser Saeed’s pithy portrait of a couple who are outwardly unremarkable but extraordinary to each other. Saeed and Ahmed Alnouman’s handheld, fly-on-the-wall camerawork and casual interviews capture the pair bickering in a mix of English and Arabic over condiment spills and suspected flirtations, then cuddling on the couch and making one another laugh. No, it’s not about ketchup. It’s about love — warts and all. (EJI)

The Little Ancestor

Worlds of Animation

RIYL: Historical preservation, HGTV The lifecycle of a house jumps off the screen in the best entry of the Worlds of Animation showcase. It’s as if the home gets built out of thin air piece by piece, with Alexa Tremblay-Francoeur’s gorgeous animation making every detail seem cozy and alive — like how the flowery wallpaper actually blossoms into its full form. As the years pass, the home shifts though renovations and new uses, until the abode truly feels like a living organism. If you’ve ever wondered why people get into historical preservation of old buildings, The Little Ancestor sums it all up in just over 11 minutes. (SS)

Skroll

World of Animation

RIYL: MTV’s Liquid Television (RIP), Adult Swim, Miyazaki films Packaged as bystander footage and social media videos from an alternate animated dimension, Dutch director Marten Visser’s Skroll is a six-minute tribute to the bizarre. In this fast-paced series of wordless vignettes, it’s perfectly natural to find extreme athletes riding the blast from a mushroom cloud, a drunk man’s anthropomorphized vomit cradling him protectively or a giant chickenlegged lamprey enjoying its newfound freedom. If you dig the eerie whimsy of Miyazaki films, you’ll find plenty of similar creatures here. In fact, Miyazaki himself (well, his head at least) even makes a surprise cameo alongside figures like Calcifer from Howl’s Moving Castle. (EJI)

Their Universe

World Shorts II + Queer Shorts

RIYL: Ghost, love after life

SpIFF’s best short is this stunningly tender and beautiful Korean film, which finds a boy who died in an accident suddenly texting his heartbroken lover out of the blue. As their conversation slowly unfolds, the piece becomes a meditation on the type of true love that transcends life and lights up the cosmos with its radiant warmth. (SS)

Wakanyeja Kin Wana Ku Pi (The Children Are Coming Home)

Through Indigenous Eyes

RIYL: National Parks, righting history’s wrongs

Directed by Andy Wakeman and steeped in the evocative visual language of the advertising world where he got his start, Wakanyeja Kin Wana Ku Pi is a mini-doc that takes its name from a 40-acre parcel of land near South Dakota’s Bear Butte (Mato Paha). The tract was purchased by the nonprofit Cheyenne River Youth Project in 2023 as a way to reverse the legacy of federal maneuverings that forcibly separated the Indigenous tribes — in this case, the Lakota Nation — from their ancestral lands. Wakeman’s wistful, 10-minute film showcases a group of teenagers as they travel back to this and other sacred sites like Wind Cave (Washun Niya) and Devil’s Tower (Mathó Thípila) in an effort to reconnect with their culture. (EJI) n

Unsafe Spaces

TThe documentary

A Good Wolf looks at the ugly debate around a breathtaking Alaskan national park

BY E.J. IANNELLI

hrough some quirk of bureaucratic processes, there’s a good-sized rectangular cutout in the current borders of Alaska’s Denali National Park. Known as the Stampede Corridor, this strip of land near its northeast corner exists outside the park’s official purview.

Because it falls under state rather than federal regulations, hunters and trappers have seasonal access to the land and its fauna. Park biologists and wildlife advocates, however, would prefer to see the land assimilated into the park’s 6 million acres, where protections would keep recreational bloodsports at bay.

That’s led to four decades of conflict over how to conduct wildlife management in this exceptional territory, with wolf populations — an existential threat to frontier ranchers, a historic source of income for trappers, a vital apex predator to biologists and ecologists — becoming emblematic of the competing viewpoints.

Director Ramey Newell’s documentary A Good Wolf, one of the eight features at this year’s Spokane International Film Festival, or SpIFF, offers a window onto the stunning natural beauty of the Stampede Corridor and this much uglier battle of human interests in and around it.

The film can partly trace its origins to Wolf Call, a short film that Newell released on the festival circuit in 2018.

During that project, described by Newell as “a portrait of a person who works at a wolf sanctuary in Colorado,” she met Nicole Schmitt, who would go on to become executive director of the Alaska Wildlife Alliance. Schmitt is one of a handful of focal figures and interviewees in A Good Wolf

“She was familiar with my previous film work down in Colorado, and so she called me up after she took over at AWA to ask if I was working on anything and to propose that I look into this issue that’s explored in A Good Wolf,” Newell says. “I was pretty acutely aware from the get-go that it was a contentious issue and that people had very strongly held opinions and feelings about it. One of the first people that I spoke with in doing my research up in the Denali area warned me ‘You’re kicking a hornet’s nest.’”

Among that agitated swarm is Coke Wallace, a trapper, hunter, guide and unapologetic curmudgeon who’s operated in the Stampede Corridor for around 30 years. In 2012, Wallace made headlines in the Lower 48 for using his aging horse as bait and snaring one of two primary breeding female wolves in Denali’s Grant Creek pack. He was featured again in a 2017 National Geographic article on the park’s fraught

history.

As Wallace says in one of the film’s telling exchanges, he agreed to take part in filming because he felt misrepresented by those print articles.

“He’s not a one-dimensional character as he has been portrayed previously in written accounts of this conflict,” Newell says. “I wanted to make sure that he was presented as a multidimensional human being, even if his opinions or attitudes seem pretty diametrically opposed to some other people’s. He’s still a complex human, just like the rest of us.”

Alongside its human participants, A Good Wolf attempts to tell the lupine side of the story through 1202, the scientific ID for a lone female wolf who, at the time of filming, has survived well beyond the average life expectancy but is showing signs of injury.

“We started following 1202’s story from the beginning. She was present in conversations in our very first interviews back in 2019,” Newell explains, “and we just really lucked out that her story was able to be woven through in that way. She was a pretty incredible animal.”

Also present throughout the film are meditative shots of the gorgeous snow-covered (or, depending on the season, rust-colored) landscapes and jagged, cloud-encircled mountains that have made Denali a tourist destination and conservationist grail. Similar to the way she aims to present her human subjects, Newell and her director of photography, Lindsay Taylor Jackson, use the footage to let the park’s rugged beauty speak for itself.

“My goal as a filmmaker is never to be objective. I don’t think that that is even possible. I would say that in place of objectivity, my goal is to be fair and to be honest. So I tried to do both of those things.”

A Good Wolf asks the same of its audience. Newell says her desired outcome is primarily to “challenge people’s priors” and encourage viewers to reflect on whatever preconceptions they might bring to the issue. If they come away with a more “nuanced understanding” of how public lands like Denali are managed, all the better.

“I think we’ve come to a really unsettling place in our culture where we sort ourselves into ideological buckets and refuse to consider or admit or seek any sort of commonality in a lot of ways,” she says. “It’s harder with some people than with others. But I think that if we’re to make any sort of progress or movement on some of these issues that people feel very strongly about, there needs to be some attempt at finding places where there might be compromise.” n

The majestic wolves of Alaska’s Stampede Corridor are the real stars of A Good Wolf.

The Rest of the Fest

A roundup of the other SpIFF 2025 screenings

BY SETH SOMMERFELD

SATURDAY, MARCH 8

FRIDAY, MARCH 7

Recollection

SpIFF kicks off properly with the world premiere of Recollection Crossing the memory-wiping technology of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind with a conspiratorial thriller, Recollection finds a woman who believes she’s erased her painful past suddenly having memory glitches. She soon joins up with a man who believes her memories might be the key to taking down the sinister tech company doing the mind wipes. Myrtle Woldson at 7 pm

I Am Gitxsan + The Deer Divide

The documentary I Am Gitxsan centers on a recent high school graduate in British Columbia who reconnects with his Indigenous heritage by shining a harsh light on the murderous colonization committed by Canadians against the Native people of the land. It’s paired with the short doc The Deer Divide, which follows folks fighting against a plan to kill thousands of deer on Catalina Island (just off the coast from Los Angeles) via sharpshooters in helicopters. Magic Lantern at 11:15 am

La Estrella Que Perdí

In this Argentinian dramedy, a great aging actress takes a role in a play she’s not overly enthused about just as her daughter is planning to get married and move out. But an unexpected incident provides a chance for the long-distant mother and her daughter to have another chance at building a real relationship. Magic Lantern at 1:45 pm

The Birds Who Fear Death

When two greedy brothers find out that their dad left their expected inheritance to the Indigenous people of Bird in northern Canada, they venture to the wilds to try to get the money they think they’re owed. Once they arrive, they begin to bond and learn from the residents, realizing their father’s reasoning for giving away the money was more complex than they knew. Magic Lantern at 3:45 pm

SUNDAY, MARCH 9

Battersea + My Last Martini

The indie drama Battersea finds two distant siblings reconvening for one final weekend at their childhood home after their mother’s death and having conversations about their lives and long withheld secrets. It’s paired with the short My Last Martini, which finds a frustrated writer having one too many martinis with an old woman who has a story to tell. Magic Lantern at 1:45 pm

Ultimate Citizens + 22 + Jan Beauboeuf: The Creative Spirit

The award-winning documentary Ultimate Citizens follows Jamshid Khajavi, an Iranian American public school counselor who helps kids from impoverished and immigrant backgrounds succeed through the sport of ultimate frisbee — even taking a team to the world’s largest youth ultimate tournament. The doc is paired with the short docs 22, about an organization committed to preventing veteran suicides, and Jean Beauboeuf, a portrait of an elderly working artist in Louisiana. Magic Lantern at 4 pm n

SUNDAY, MAY 4

KONALA

Open daily 10 am-9 pm konala.com, 509-816-2286

6740 N. Division St., Spokane

107 E. Seventh Avenue, Post Falls

106 E. Appleway Ave., Coeur d’Alene

OPENING

BOWLS FOR THE SOUL

Post Falls-based Konala brings healthy fast food to North Spokane

BY DORA SCOTT

In Instagram reels, Konala pits its protein-packed rice and salad bowls against familiar fast-food chain meals. When comparing the nutritional values of the local drive-thru franchise’s food — calories, protein, carbs and fat — the winner is clear. So Konala asks its customers: “Which side are you choosing?”

The overwhelming turnout at the eatery’s newest location, 6740 N. Division St. in north Spokane, since opening in late January offers a resounding answer: Spokane diners want healthy fast food options.

“[North Division] has been a fantastic location,” says Trace Miller, who founded Konala with his wife, Jammie. “We served over 1,000 customers on the first day open, and it was 20 degrees out. So it’s been amazing here, and we’ve been just insanely busy, like double what we thought we would be doing here.”

The Millers opened Konala’s first location in Post Falls in May 2023, followed by a Coeur d’Alene store in August 2024.

Konala’s menu is simple. The food is 100% glutenfree and based on Trace Miller’s favorite recipes honed during 14 years of meal prepping.

“One of my favorite sayings is, ‘Simple scales, fancy fails.’ So we’re trying to keep a really small, simple menu — focus on high quality,” he says.

There are six different full-size bowls: teriyaki chicken ($13), burrito ($14.50), Greek ($15.35), honey sriracha chicken ($13), mango blackened shrimp ($14) and poke ($15.35). Next, pick a base of white or brown rice, salad greens or a combination of the two. Served in plastic containers with a lid, the meals are perfect for on-the-go.

Konala’s bowls each pack a flavorful punch. The teriyaki chicken comes with roasted broccoli and shredded carrots, while the burrito bowl has a variety of textures and flavors from chicken, tortilla chips, pepperjack cheese, salsa, avocado and ranch. The honey-sriracha chicken balances a sweet and spicy sauce with fresh pineapple and marinated cucumber. The Greek bowl’s

chimichurri sauce will draw heat-lovers, too, paired with steak, cucumber-tomato salad and feta cheese.

If you’re looking for sized-down portions, Konala also offers six smaller bowls ($9.50-$12) with just a base, protein and sauce.

There’s also air-fried chicken tenders ($8.50-$10.50), which skip the oil and have a spicy seasoning plus various dipping sauce choices. For a sweet treat, try the peanut butter chocolate chip protein balls ($6.50 for two).

Konala’s health-forward mission also extends to its beverage selection. Besides selling Olipop ($3.95), a popular low-sugar probiotic drink, it serves Hayden-based Tractor Beverage’s lemonades and iced teas ($3.15-$3.85) made without artificial sweeteners or ingredients.

Next time you roll through the drive-thru with your pup, ask for a free chicken “pup cup.” Konala is named after the Millers’ dogs, Kona and Nala, and they want pets to have healthy options, too.

On top of healthy nutrition, cleanliness and

Konala’s teriyaki chicken bowl is a customer favorite.

YOUNG KWAK PHOTOS

INLANDER RESTAURANT WEEK CONTINUES!

If you haven’t gotten out yet — or are craving round two, three or more — there’s still time! The 10-day event runs through Saturday, March 8, with more than 100 regional restaurants offering three-course menus for $25, $35 or $45. Here are some 2025 Inlander Restaurant Week menu standouts that our team has enjoyed so far; you can read more at Inlander.com, or check out all the menus at inlanderrestaurantweek.com.

Located inside the downtown DoubleTree hotel, Spencer’s for Steak and Chops lives up to its name and is a great place to get an upscale dining experience with its $45 menu. The Zabuton steak was the star of the three-course meal.

Also don’t miss newcomer Indicana’s MexicanIndian fusion menu ($45). The curry “rip and dip” has become a patron favorite since the South Perry spot

transparency are integral to the Konala brand. The Millers worked with Spokane-based HDG Architecture to reflect that in the franchise’s design. The store is modern with white tables and black chairs, plus greenery and natural wood accents. Industrial elements are incorporated via polished concrete floors and exposed metal features.

“I like a lot of natural light and [an] openkitchen concept to show that we’re not hiding anything from people, that it’s clean, that we don’t have a super greasy back-of-the-house kitchen,” Miller says.

Konala was inspired by Trace Miller’s own lifelong health journey.

“When I was just a couple years old, I got diagnosed with epilepsy; Lennox-Gastaut syndrome epilepsy. I had over 100 seizures a day,” he says.

His doctors said he likely wouldn’t live past 13.

opened last year, and the Kerala shrimp and esquite grits offers a whole new take on the Southern dish.

The long line speaks for itself, and Hogwash Whiskey Den in downtown Spokane has been drawing crowds (reservations aren’t accepted) for its $45 menu. Served as both an appetizer on its regular menu and just for Restaurant Week, the okonomiyaki tater tots (pictured above) are just as good as my imagination made them out to be.

For a global sampler, Feast World Kitchen’s $35 menu offers nine different dishes, each prepared by a different refugee or immigrant chef. The sweet-andspicy Korean fried chicken wings are finger-licking good, and the warbat (similar to baklava but with a scratch-made cream filling) was one of the best desserts I’ve ever had. With just a few days left, what are you waiting for? (DORA SCOTT)

their diet and become more physically fit.

His and Jammie’s first foray into the local food industry was opening the Burger Bunker food truck and adjacent Bunker Bar in Post Falls.

“It is the opposite of healthy food: burgers, fries and alcohol. But my wife always wanted to own a bar,” Miller says. “I wanted to help her realize that it was possible to own the bar. She always thought that it was a pipe dream.”

Originally, the Millers envisioned replacing the food truck with a drive-thru burger joint where their first Konala location now stands. When they decided the burgers and beer didn’t align with their lifestyle, they sold the food truck and the bar (both are still open under those new owners) and hatched the idea of Konala.

“Then my mom found a doctor in Mexico that said she’d cure me, so we started treatment down there. It was a combination of some technology and then a very specific diet. So very early on, nutrition played a big part in my life,” Miller says.

Miller, who was seizure-free by age 7, believes the customized diet, which restricted certain ingredients, played a big role in his overcoming Lennox-Gastaut syndrome. He became a successful athlete, playing sports in college and competing professionally as a snowboarder. He also joined the U.S. Army, where he had the highest fitness scores in his brigade.

While in the military and even after, Miller often volunteered his time to help others improve

“All my mentors that have very large businesses have taught me that you have to solve a problem, and that problem is the lack of accessibility to healthy food,” Miller says. “So our whole mission is based on making healthy food as delicious and convenient as possible.”

The couple hope to open two more Konala locations in the Spokane area, on the South Hill and in Spokane Valley by spring 2026. And through a partnership with the franchise development company Fransmart, they envision expanding by 1,000 units around the U.S. in a 10-year period. Two more outposts are currently slated for western Montana and Salt Lake City, both operated by franchisees.

One location at a time, Konala’s owners hope to bring healthy, accessible and quick meals not just to Inland Northwest diners but to people all across the nation. n

Konala founders Jammie and Trace Miller

I think I’m a clone now, there doesn’t seem to be anyone around...

Dyin’ Ain’t Much of a Livin’

Bong Joon Ho follows up Parasite with the humane sci-fi comedy of Mickey 17

BY CHASE HUTCHINSON

Bong Joon Ho is nothing if not a romantic. He’s a great many things besides that — a stellar filmmaker, an incisive writer and a delightful showman — though his cinema has always held a great love for people. From Parasite, his outstanding film that rightfully ran the tables at the 2019 Oscars, to Okja, Snowpiercer, The Host, Mother, and Memories of Murder, all are bursting with a prevailing sense of compassion for character. While the grim darkness of the fallen worlds he explores threatens to strangle them, Bong carves out slivers of humanity despite it all. Be it in a final letter delivered from a father to his son through code or a rebellion on a train barreling toward catastrophe beginning with someone who must quietly yet courageously stare down oblivion, his films are best when attuned to the small pockets of humanity in life’s agonies.

In Mickey 17, a largely winning sci-fi adaptation that significantly expands on Edward Ashton’s original novel Mickey7, Bong is again interested in these critical slivers and pulling them into something of a grand statement on life, death and capitalism. Even though it’s not his best work, as there’s much that proves fragmented in a way he doesn’t fully get a handle on, it’s a fascinating film that’s darkly funny to an often bit-

ing degree and emotionally resonant when it counts. That it also sees an excellent Robert Pattinson giving not just one, but two of his greatest, most layered performances to date (each of which is right up there with his work in The Lighthouse except here he sounds a lot like Steve Buscemi), makes it into an enthralling, entertaining romp of a time.

This all centers on the tragicomic story of Mickey (Pattinson) who can’t seem to catch a break. To flee a declining Earth as quickly as possible due to some financial troubles he gets caught up in, he volunteers to become an “expendable” on a colonizing mission to another planet. It’s a job nobody wants as it involves dying horribly over and over, only to be “printed out” to do it all over again. He’s a guinea pig to make sure nobody else faces any risk — they can just throw him at things instead, even if he smashes to pieces on impact. He gets asked over and over, “What’s it feel like to die?” — a comically existential weight that hangs over all he does. The one person who ever worries about him is his charmingly chaotic girlfriend, Nasha (played by Naomi Ackie of last year’s so-so Blink Twice in one of her best roles to date), and this is where Bong finds the film’s heart. Though the two care deeply for each other, they must contend with the group’s Trumpian dictator, Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo), and his wacky wife, Ylfa (Toni Collette), who may destroy Mickey and the society of alien beings living on the planet for selfish ends.

Mickey 17

Rated R

Directed by Bong Joon Ho Starring Robert Pattinson, Naomi Ackie, Mark Ruffalo

Mickey, with this serving as the engine of the story and a fun extended gag, it’s Ackie who is just as amazing in how she captures a joyously unhinged silliness crossed with an affecting sense of compassion. One scene where Nasha joins Mickey in isolation right before a painful death is from the novel, but becomes something much more impactful in how Bong lets us just sit with the characters. The film itself is increasingly like Paul Verhoeven’s satire Starship Troopers, both in terms of its alien story and how it executes its ideas with plenty of entertaining flair, though it’s Bong’s prevailing humanism that proves to be the moving emotional core of the experience. When it builds to a clever, well-staged conclusion, you’re invested because of this. There are plenty of shenanigans, but Bong uncovers something surprisingly poignant in the end.

ALSO OPENING

IN THE LOST LANDS

Resident Evil series director Paul W.S. Anderson reunites with Milla Jovovich for this dark apocalyptic fantasy based on a George R.R. Martin short story, where a witch and a hired mercenary (Dave Bautista) must retrieve an artifact from a dangerous land. Rated R

NIGHT OF THE ZOOPOCALYPSE

In this CGI animated horror comedy for kiddos, a meteor crashes into a zoo and starts spreading a space virus that turns the animals into zombie-like creatures. A ragtag group of uninfected critters must band together in a hijinks-filled mission to stop the zombie bunny leader from taking over the world. Rated PG

RULE BREAKERS

Christian production company Angel Studios delivers this story of repressed Afghan girls who enter a robotics competition in the United States. Rated PG

THE RULE OF JENNY PEN

After a judge (Geoffrey Rush) has a stroke and must be placed in a retirement home, he and the other seniors are terrorized by a sociopathic resident (John Lithgow) and his creepy doll. Rated R Read a full review at Inlander.com

While Pattinson rightfully deserves praise for how he delicately distinguishes what becomes two central versions of

Though the film’s overarching reflections on the perils of fascism stumble, with Rufflalo’s more broad performance making Idiocracy’s President Camacho look downright reserved, it fittingly finds its footing in the finale as the characters rise up together. It taps into how solidarity and sacrifice for those we care about can ensure a courageous collective of people will build a better world. Where Verhoeven saw fascism consume his characters, Mickey 17 leans into an earned compassion and the hard work required to protect it. Bong is a romantic, but he’s clear-eyed about the challenges of fighting capitalism’s cruelty. No matter how many Mickeys it takes, he captures how it’s a fight we all must fight in a film worth embracing. Mickey may never fully answer “What’s it like to die?” but Bong discovers what it means to truly live for each other. n

THE HEART OF ROCK & ROLL

Catching up with Nancy Wilson before the legendary Washington rock band Heart plays Spokane Arena

BY SETH SOMMERFELD

Washington state has long punched well above its weight, producing iconic rock musicians who created classic songs and were undeniably influential. Seattle native Jimi Hendrix was an electric guitar virtuoso beyond reproach who dazzled with technical wizardry. The Seattle grunge boom refreshed the rock scene with heavy music carried by an underlying melodicism. The Olympia riot grrrl scene taught generations of young girls to make wonderfully rebellious noise. But there’s only one Washington group that mixes that technical prowess, melodic hard rock and fierce

feminine energy while also displaying a much rarer trait for the rock game: longevity. That band is Heart.

Since the early 1970s, the group led by the Seattle sister duo of singer Ann Wilson and guitarist Nancy Wilson have been blazing a trail all their own. While the band started in more of the folk rock realm, the latter half of the 1970s saw Heart craft massive classic hard rock singles like “Crazy On You” and “Barracuda.” In an era when women hard rockers were beyond unusual, the Wilson sisters were running laps around the boys.

After hitting a commercial rut at the start of the 1980s, Heart made a big comeback as queens of the power ballad in the mid-’80s with songs like “These Dreams” and “Alone.” And more than 50 years after the band’s formation, the Rock and Roll Hall of Famers still know how to put on a show.

Heart was initially slated to play Spokane in December 2024, but plans for that tour got derailed earlier that year in the wake of Ann Wilson being diagnosed with cancer. After undergoing surgery and chemotherapy, Ann has been cleared to resume rocking with Heart again,

Nancy (left) and Ann Wilson (center) remain PNW rock heroes. CRISS CAIN PHOTO

which is exactly what she’ll be doing when the band heads to Spokane Arena on March 11. Before Heart hits the stage, we caught up with Nancy Wilson to ask about family dynamics, hair metal copping their style and getting to return to the “loud office.”

INLANDER: Since the concert was delayed from December after Ann’s cancer diagnosis, I have to start by asking how she’s doing healthwise.

WILSON: You know, I’ve been saying when people ask about it: God bless modern science. Because she came, she saw, she kicked its ass, and now she’s doing great. She looks great, she sounds great. We’ve been in rehearsal in Nashville, and we do tech rehearsal in Vegas before the show starts. It’s just the best, because we had to postpone for eight months — and it was scary, you know — and we just are back with full force, and everyone’s really relieved and excited to be able to get back into the loud office and do the loud job. No matter how much sleep I don’t get or bad pizza I have to eat, we’re still lucky to be here.

How has it been navigating being in a band with your sister for most of your life?

That’s better than saying “Do you guys fight?” [Laughs] Thank God, we’re not guys. Thank God, we’re not brothers in a rock band because historically, that’s a bad scene. But in our case, it’s different because we’re women. I think naturally, women are more nurturing with each other and support each other, and can put up with a lot of extraneous politics and flack that swirl around.

So my analogy always is — there’s a hurricane called Heart. We’re the center. We’re the calm center of the hurricane — you look straight up and you see blue sky, and everything else is just kind of ridiculous drama that unnecessarily swirls around you because there’s a lot of money and power involved. But we make all the final decisions together, and we just have to tune out the noise a lot of the time.

It is fascinating to see how Heart’s appreciation has shifted over the years. Not only have you shifted sounds from heavy rock to ballads and a lot in between, but also you’ve gone from people treating y’all as a novelty — like “look it’s the girls playing hard rock” — to being appreciated for the wildly influential trailblazers that you are.

Right. At first folks were like, “Wow! How do you maintain your femininity and wield a big rock show at the same time?!” And then later in the mid-’80s it’s like, “Wow. You’re up there wielding the big guitar on an MTV video!” While the rock guys [at the time] were playing a million songs that started with the same undistinguishable chunky riff and trying to get the same hair and clothing as us.

[Laughs]

And then in the ’90s, we kind of took a break with the Lovemongers. And people became fans of the Lovemongers because it was kind of underground Heart. And then in the 2000s, the Kennedy Center [performance] kind of put us back on the map, like, “Whoa, they’re still there!” The cultural imprints that continue to tail through the

decades are pretty cool.

At this point, what are your favorite songs to play live?

I really do love playing “Barracuda,” believe it or not. It’s just got an energy that you can’t beat. The energy of “Crazy on You” is the same thing. It’s really muscular, and it just resonates, you know? It electrifies the room every time.

We’ve dusted off a couple things — a song called “Treat Me Well,” that I wrote in high school. And another one called “Sand” that was a Lovemongers tune, that only ended up as a Heart track on a B-side of a Japanese release. But the fans know the song.

You released your first solo album, You and Me, in 2021. What keeps your musical creativity flowing after decades on the job?

It’s really fun to be in a rock band, especially when everyone knows how to play. We still are working on original material. The band’s got a bunch of new songs. I’ve got a bunch of new songs. Me and Sue Ennis are still writing songs that Ann can be part of as well. So you know, the original creative spark is still burning strong inside. We don’t just go on tour and go home and just watch football or whatever. They should have us on a halftime show though. The next Super Bowl should have Heart.

How does the creative spark differ now as opposed to what it inspired when you were first writing songs back in the early years?

It’s a whole process. We write differently now. When we started writing during and then after high school, around college age. When you’re writing songs in that era — in your 20s and stuff — you feel like you’re wise beyond your experience. You have the ancient wisdom of things that haven’t happened to you yet in your life, which is a beautiful time to be creative, because it’s like the wisdom of pain you have not yet experienced. You have not had all that loss or all of that disappointment yet. So you’re projecting this spiritual wisdom into the future of what’s coming. And that’s what stuff the album Dog & Butterfly is all about.

And today, we’re writing about a lot of the same kind of spiritual, aspirational feelings. Life does beat the shit out of you. It does. And if you start with a lot of really strong, good, positive intentions, you’re going to come out better than if you start with low expectations and cynicism going in. And it’s hard not to do that, because there’s a lot of tragedy, poetic tragedy, drama. If you’re lucky, you don’t get sucked into that vortex too early. So we try to maintain a positive attitude in the aspiration of trying to be inspiring with creative stuff like songwriting and even a live performance on a stage. You want to be there in the spirit of the good things that music does for the world, because it does a lot of good in the world and it heals people. You talk to people and they go, “Oh my God, that song saved my life!” and it’s pretty miraculous what music does for people. So that’s the spirit in which we proceed, going to the loud office every day, doing the rock job. n

Heart, Squeeze • Tue, March 11 at 8 pm • $65-$328 • All ages • Spokane Arena • 720 W. Mallon Ave. • spokanearena.com

RETRO AMERICANA POKEY LAFARGE

J = THE INLANDER RECOMMENDS THIS SHOW

J = ALL AGES SHOW

Thursday, 3/6

J THE BIG DIPPER, Smile On The Sinner, Vilegloom, Midnight Drive, Deceiving The Masses

J BOTTLE BAY BREWING CO., Olivia Brownlee CHECKERBOARD TAPROOM, Weathered Shepherds J COEUR D’ALENE CASINO, Don Felder

GARLAND DRINKERY, Speak Easy: Open Mic Night

J QQ SUSHI & KITCHEN, Just Plain Darin ZOLA, X24 25

Friday, 3/7

ARBOR CREST WINE CELLARS, Aspen Kye

J THE BIG DIPPER, Time Baby, Mama Llama, Rosie CQ BULLHEAD SALOON, Neon Interstate THE DISTRICT BAR, Ballyhoo!, Cydeways, The Harbor Boys GARDEN PARTY, Storme

J THE GRAIN SHED, Haywire

J HAMILTON STUDIO, Maxwell Sadler

J JAGUAR ROOM AT CHAMELEON, Seance Audio

J J KNITTING FACTORY, Jerry Cantrell, Filter

J PEND D’OREILLE WINERY, Ponderay Paradox

J PUEBLA MEXICAN RESTAURANT, Latin Dance Party

THE RIDLER PIANO BAR, Just Plain Darin

SPOKANE EAGLES LODGE, Over Easy Duo

ZOLA, Brittany’s House

While time machine technology has yet to be perfected, those who’d like to take a break from modern times can do so by attending a Pokey LaFarge concert. The singer-songwriter’s aesthetic is pure throwback with a look that’s somewhere between Vaudeville performer, vintage rockabilly singer and old-timey country crooner, and a sound that combines blues, Americana, ragtime, jazz, swing and Appalachian folk. His traveling roadshow stops for a night in Spokane with an array of tunes from his 2024 album, Rhumba Country, which injects his already eclectic music with some sunny beach day vibes. So let Pokey treat your brain to a brief reprieve from 2025.

— SETH SOMMERFELD

Pokey LaFarge, Cicada Rhythm • Mon, March 10 at 8 pm • $33 • 21+ • The District Bar • 916 W. First Ave. • sp.knittingfactory.com

GRUNGE JERRY CANTRELL

Saturday, 3/8

ARBOR CREST WINE CELLARS, Max Daniels

J THE BIG DIPPER, Thundergun Express, Not For Nothing, Bitter Row, This Could Be Dangerous!

J BLACK LODGE BREWING, Scatterbox, Dilrods, POTUS

J BOTTLE BAY BREWING CO., Carson Floyd BULLHEAD SALOON, Neon Interstate CENTRAL LIBRARY, Get Loud in the Library Concert Series: Laffin’ Bones, Bay 7

THE DISTRICT BAR, Kxllswxtch & Sxmpra NIGHT OWL, Priestess

J PEND D’OREILLE WINERY, One Street Over

J WESTWOOD BREWING CO., Just Plain Darin

ZOLA, Jason Evans’ Cosmic Fantasy

Sunday, 3/9

HOGFISH, Open Mic

J REPUBLIC BREWING CO., Kyran Daniel

Monday, 3/10

J THE DISTRICT BAR, Pokey LaFarge, Cicada Rhythm

Tuesday, 3/11

J MIKEY’S GYROS, Diminished Republic

J PEND D’OREILLE WINERY, Jonathon Nicholson

J J SPOKANE ARENA, Heart, Squeeze SWING LOUNGE, Swing Lounge Live Music Tuesdays

ZOLA, The Zola All Star Jam, Candace Zari

As the lead guitarist and co-vocalist for Alice in Chains, Jerry Cantrell helped define the more metal-leaning side of the ’90s Seattle grunge boom. His riffs and solos on songs like “Man in the Box” influenced legions of aspiring rockers to find their dark heaviness within. When singer Layne Staley died in 2002, Cantrell took over lead vocals for Alice in Chains to keep his late friend’s sonic legacy alive, and he’s really never slowed down his musical output. Cantrell’s 2024 solo LP I Want Blood showcases that he’s still as heavy as ever, so there’s bound to be some sore necks in Spokane the day after Cantrell’s headbanging live show comes to town.

— SETH SOMMERFELD

Jerry Cantrell, Filter • Fri, March 7 at 8 pm • $50 • All ages • Knitting Factory • 919 W. Sprague Ave. • sp.knittingfactory.com

Wednesday, 3/12

THE DRAFT ZONE, The Draft Zone Open Mic

J TIMBERS ROADHOUSE, Cary Beare Presents TRVST, The TRVST Open Decks ZOLA, Akifumi Kato

Just Announced...

J KNITTING FACTORY, Machine Head, April 3.

J SPOKANE TRIBE CASINO, Collin Raye, April 19.

J NORTHERN QUEST CASINO, Brad Paisley, May 30.

J KNITTING FACTORY, Tash Sultana, June 25.

J GORGE AMPHITHEATRE, Watershed Festival, Aug. 1-3.

Coming Up...

J BOTTLE BAY BREWING CO., Mason Van Stone, March 13, 7-9 pm.

HERITAGE BAR & KITCHEN, Pivot Open Mic: Madness, March 13, 7 pm.

J THE BIG DIPPER, Nott, Xenoplasm Heritor, POTUS, March 13, 7:30 pm.

THE CHAMELEON, Yak Attack, Cytrus, March 13, 8 pm.

J PEND D’OREILLE WINERY, Tom Catmull, March 14, 5-8 pm.

ZOLA, RCA, March 14, 5:30-7:30 pm.

ARBOR CREST WINE CELLARS, KOSH, March 14 & 15, 6-8 pm.

J NEATO BURRITO, Sex with Seneca, Bao, When She Dreams, March 14, 6 pm.

SPOKANE ARENA, Kelsea Ballerini, The Japanese House, MaRynn Taylor, March 14, 7 pm.

J THE BIG DIPPER, Bleach, Simian, KURB, Willing Hands, March 14, 7:30 pm.

THE CHAMELEON, Women in Music: Sugar Bear, Aspen Kye, Mister Sister, March 14, 8 pm.

THE DISTRICT BAR, Richy Mitch & The Coal Miners, Briscoe, March 14, 8 pm.

J SPOKANE TRIBE CASINO, Umphrey’s McGee, March 14, 8 pm. ZOLA, Mister Sister, March 14, 9-11:55 pm.

NEW MOON ART GALLERY, The Front Porch Rockers, March 15, 3:30-6 pm.

J PEND D’OREILLE WINERY, A.P. Collective, March 15, 5-8 pm. ZOLA, The Ronaldos, March 15, 5:30 pm.

J BLACK LODGE BREWING, Chuck Vibes, Daylily Dreams, Millergold, Flyborne, March 15, 7-11 pm.

J BOTTLE BAY BREWING CO., Eric Kegley, March 15, 7-9 pm.

J THE BIG DIPPER, InComing Days, OVRLK, Amerikane Poetz, Tr3ezy, March 15, 7:30 pm.

J NORTHERN QUEST CASINO, L.A.vation: Tribute to U2, March 15, 7:30 pm.

THE CHAMELEON, Vibe!, March 15, 8 pm.

J MIKEY’S GYROS, Depiction of Man, Stasi, Reefer Stick, labsorbyourstatic, March 15, 8 pm.

THE DISTRICT BAR, Itchy Kitty, Ideomotor, March 15, 9 pm.

J MARYHILL WINERY SPOKANE, Kori Ailene, March 16 5-7 pm.

J HAMILTON STUDIO, Spokane’s Classical Guitar Showcase, March 16, 6 pm.

J THE BIG DIPPER, Penis Envy, Deepslate, Willing Hands, Absent Cardinal, March 16, 7:30 pm.

ZOLA, Curtiss G, March 18, 5-7 pm.

J THE BIG DIPPER, High On Fire, Merlock, Black Locust, March 18, 7:30 pm.

J NORTHERN QUEST CASINO, Mitchell Tenpenny, March 18, 7:30 pm.

CENTRAL LIBRARY, Come Be Heard Open Mic Night, March 19, 3:30-5 pm.

J THE BIG DIPPER, Spitalfield, Millergold, March 19, 7:30 pm.

J JAGUAR ROOM AT CHAMELEON, Jeshua Marshall and The Flood, The Holy Broke, Mason Van Stone, March 19, 8 pm.

J BOTTLE BAY BREWING CO., Jason Perry, March 20, 7-9 pm.

J THE BIG DIPPER, Atrae Bilis, Replicant, The Last of Lucy, The Night We Died, March 20, 7:30 pm.

MUSIC | VENUES

219 LOUNGE • 219 N. First Ave., Sandpoint • 208-263-5673

ARBOR CREST WINE CELLARS • 4705 N. Fruit Hill Rd., Spokane Valley • 509-927-9463

BABY BAR • 827 W. First Ave. • 509-847-1234

BARRISTER WINERY • 1213 W. Railroad Ave. • 509-465-3591

BEE’S KNEES WHISKY BAR • 1324 W. Lancaster Rd.., Hayden • 208-758-0558

BERSERK • 125 S. Stevens St. • 509-315-5101

THE BIG DIPPER • 171 S. Washington St. • 509-863-8098

BIGFOOT PUB • 9115 N. Division St. • 509-467-9638

BING CROSBY THEATER • 901 W. Sprague Ave. • 509-227-7638

BLACK DIAMOND • 9614 E. Sprague Ave. • 509891-8357

BOLO’S BAR & GRILL • 116 S. Best Rd., Spokane Valley • 509-891-8995

BOOMERS CLASSIC ROCK BAR • 18219 E. Appleway Ave., Spokane Valley • 509-368-9847

BUCER’S COFFEEHOUSE PUB • 201 S. Main St., Moscow • 208-596-0887

THE BULL HEAD • 10211 S. Electric St., Four Lakes • 509-838-9717

CHAN’S RED DRAGON • 1406 W. Third Ave. • 509-838-6688

THE CHAMELEON • 1801 W. Sunset Blvd.

CHECKERBOARD • 1716 E. Sprague Ave. • 509-443-4767

COEUR D’ALENE CASINO • 37914 S. Nukwalqw St., Worley • 800-523-2464

COEUR D’ALENE CELLARS • 3890 N. Schreiber Way, Coeur d’Alene • 208-664-2336

CRUISERS BAR & GRILL • 6105 W Seltice Way, Post Falls • 208-446-7154

CURLEY’S HAUSER JUNCTION • 26433 W. Hwy. 53, Post Falls • 208-773-5816

THE DISTRICT BAR • 916 W. 1st Ave. • 509-244-3279

EICHARDT’S PUB • 212 Cedar St., Sandpoint • 208-263-4005

FIRST INTERSTATE CENTER FOR THE ARTS • 334 W. Spokane Falls Blvd. • 509-279-7000

FOX THEATER • 1001 W. Sprague Ave. • 509-624-1200

IRON HORSE • 407 E. Sherman, Coeur d’Alene • 208-667-7314

IRON HORSE BAR & GRILL • 11105 E. Sprague Ave., Spokane Valley • 509-926-8411

JOHN’S ALLEY • 114 E. Sixth St., Moscow • 208-883-7662

KNITTING FACTORY • 911 W. Sprague Ave. • 509-244-3279

MARYHILL WINERY • 1303 W. Summit Pkwy. • 509-443-3832

MILLIE’S • 28441 Hwy 57, Priest Lake • 208-443-0510

MOOSE LOUNGE • 401 E. Sherman Ave., Coeur d’Alene • 208-664-7901

NASHVILLE NORTH • 6361 W. Seltice Way, Post Falls • 208-457-9128

NORTHERN QUEST RESORT & CASINO • 100 N. Hayford Rd., Airway Heights • 877-871-6772

NYNE BAR & BISTRO • 232 W. Sprague Ave. • 509-474-1621

PEND D’OREILLE WINERY • 301 Cedar St., Sandpoint • 208-265-8545

POST FALLS BREWING CO. • 112 N. Spokane St., Post Falls • 208-773-7301

RAZZLE’S BAR & GRILL • 10325 N. Government Way, Hayden • 208-635-5874

RED ROOM LOUNGE • 521 W. Sprague Ave. • 509-838-7613

THE RIDLER PIANO BAR • 718 W. Riverside Ave. • 509-822-7938

SEASONS OF COEUR D’ALENE • 1004 S. Perry St. • 208-664-8008

SPOKANE ARENA • 720 W. Mallon Ave. • 509-279-7000

SPOKANE TRIBE RESORT & CASINO • 14300 US-2, Airway Heights • 877-786-9467

SOUTH PERRY LANTERN • 12303 E. Trent Ave., Spokane Valley • 509-473-9098

STORMIN’ NORMAN’S SHIPFACED SALOON • 12303 E. Trent Ave., Spokane Valley • 509-862-4852

TRANCHE • 705 Berney Dr., Wall Walla • 509-526-3500

ZOLA • 22 W. Main Ave. • 509-624-2416

VISUAL ARTS FIRST & FOREMOST

Guess who’s back, back again? First Friday! This month Spokane’s local artists are showing out in a big way. Karen Mobley is displaying a cache of what she calls “big doodles” at Entropy. Of course, these “doodles” (pictured) are works of watercolor art, but Mobley calls them this because she goes into each painting without much of a plan. There’s plenty more in store to see and ponder, including the newly opened Moeckel Studio, which is hosting a group show titled “Chaos & Order” featuring owners Sonny and Lisa Moeckel alongside guests Gwyn Pevonka, Matt Schwenk and more. If you’re down for a celebration, head to Marmot Art Space and wish owner Marshall Peterson a happy 10 years in business (read more on page 18). See our First Friday blog on Inlander.com for all the details on this month’s receptions.

— MADISON PEARSON

First Friday • Fri, March 7; most receptions from 5-8 pm • Free • Locations vary • downtownspokane.org/first-friday and Inlander.com/events

THEATER HUNGRY LIKE A WOLF

Throughout the month of March, the Spokane Civic Theatre is hosting the dramatic comedy The Wolves. Written by Sarah DeLappe and directed by Spokane local Dawn Taylor-Reinhardt, the play captures raw adolescence while following a girl’s high school soccer team as they go through their warmups. Together, the team navigates some of life’s biggest challenges as well as their own personal battles from the safety of their warmup circle. The story emphasizes the value of community and the pursuit of happiness for a group of girls who want to score goals on and off the field. Together, they overcome obstacles and grow closer as a team through their shared love of soccer and their team.

— HANNAH HIGENS

The Wolves • March 7-30; Thu-Sat at 7:30 pm, Sun at 2 pm • $15-$30 • Spokane Civic Theatre • 1020 N. Howard St. • spokanecivictheatre.com

MAGIC LAUGHS AND ILLUSIONS

Is this your card? Or is Justin Willman a card? While many magicians employ corny jokes as a tool of distraction when executing their tricks, Willman has a knack for making laughs appear out of thin air while performing his magical feats. The host of the Netflix series Magic for Humans and The Magic Prank Show (as well as less mystical programs like Cupcake Wars) excels at making people believe the unbelievable through hilarious tricks ranging from making someone think they’re invisible (with the help of an in-on-the-bit crowd) or convincing someone he’s an A.I. robot through misdirection and research. Expect the unexpected (with a dash of awe and chuckles) when Willman’s Illusionati Tour apparates at the Fox.

— SETH SOMMERFELD

Justin Willman • Sat, March 8 at 7 pm • $50-$169 • The Fox Theater • 1001 W. Sprague Ave. • foxtheaterspokane.org

GET LISTED!

Submit events online at Inlander.com/getlisted or email relevant details to getlisted@inlander.com. We need the details one week prior

WORDS THE ONLY TRUE MAGIC

Spokane has an exceptional and thriving literary community for such a big-little city. Take, for example, the cache of children’s book authors and illustrators that call our city home. This Saturday, the community is invited to celebrate that community at the first annual Lilac City Book Festival for Writ ers & Illustrators of Children’s Books. Presented in partnership with Spokane Public Library, Wishing Tree Books and the local chapter for the Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, the daylong event features workshops from local authors like Kris Dinnison, Lora Senf (pictured), Donell Barlow and H.F. Brownfield as well as illustrators Jiemei Lin, Kayla Coombs and Annette Bay Pimentel. Learn how to write nonfiction for kids, tackle spooky stories and meet the authors and illustrators at the end of the day.

— MADISON PEARSON

Lilac City Book Festival • Sat, March 8 from noon-5 pm • Free • Shadle Park Library • 2111 W. Wellesley Ave. • spokanelibrary.org

THEATER QUEEN OF SOUL

In the 1960s, soul music peaked in popularity with artists such as Marvin Gaye, James Brown and Etta James exemplifying the power of the genre. However, there’s one name that stands out among the greats: Aretha Franklin. Often described as the Queen of Soul, Franklin was known for her hardhitting vocals in songs like “Respect” and the softer, more emotional hits like “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman.” While the soul superstar died in 2018, Spokanites can still hear all of her most popular songs performed live when R.E.S.P.E.C.T., a tribute concert detailing Franklin’s journey through love, tragedy, courage and triumph, stops at the First Interstate Center for the Arts on Friday.

— COLTON RASANEN

I SAW YOU

CREDIT UNION CUTIE I saw you at a valley credit union, where you are employed. I smiled at you, you smiled back, and then saw me again and gave me a beautiful big smile. You=brunette, statuesque, female, glasses, not a teller...me, long hair, beard, average height and size...maybe meet for coffee, or a bite to eat?

RE: I WAS NEVER MRS OUTTHERE Because you can be sure if I ever was Mrs. Outthere I’d stay that way until I died!! lol what is this troll nonsense? Choices? Yes, I have integrity and stand up for my convictions. I’m not a coward. I wanted you to know after I saw your tears my true feelings for you, to tell you Yes! Unequivocally I am in love with you. You know I love you. And that is the point it hurts so good. But you want to keep chomping at the bit. Meanwhile I’ll be Lady Godiva over here, patron saint of enginerds. Come home when you’re ready, papi. Purrrr

NUBIAN QUEEN OF MY DREAMS Did it hurt when you fell from heaven? You were working at a local pot shop when I laid eyes on you. I’ve yet to witness such a beauty ever in all of my years on this planet. Such beautiful dark skin, ethereal lips. Paired with the most intoxicating almond eyes, I’m hooked. Till we meet again my beautiful Nubian goddess

FRIENDLY SMILE IN LINE AT GOODWILL Your smile in line made my night 6 pm Saturday March 1st at downtown Goodwill. I caught up to you in parking lot & told you

about funerals, you offered a hug. Your smile & hug made my day. May I buy you coffee or tacos to say thanks properly?

CHEERS

THANK YOU FOR READING Essential reading list for every single American, Part 1: 1984 by George Orwell, Animal Farm by George Orwell, It Can’t Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder. To your family and friends, read aloud, before they’re not allowed.

STA PARATRANSIT As far as transportation to a doctor and for grocery shopping is concerned, I wouldn’t be able to do either if it wasn’t for the wonderful STA PARATRANSIT. Their vans are always on time & the drivers are always friendly & concerned about their passengers’ safety. After I called them to ask if keys had been turned in that I might have dropped on their van on Thursday, a gracious person named January said yes & then actually delivered my keys to my home. To me this is service above & beyond. I don’t know of any other U.S. city that provides this type of service for the elderly & incapacitated. So, many thanks go out to Spokane & the STA.

TAKE BACK THE STREETS On Feb. 27 I was riding my bicycle through Browne’s Addition and noticed something odd at CDA Park... Women, children and old couples enjoying the park! In Browne’s it’s become odd to see civilization enjoy public spaces without being witness to human degradation. Cheers to whomever is responsible. Keep it up! Where will they go? Who cares? If they want to operate outside the law, then they can go live with the deer.

A LOCAL FREE PAPER Your Jeers section has recently received contributions of great quality. Apparently there was no room for “a variety of voices.” I am seeking space in the Cheers now. Maybe we need more space for the hallowed section of social concern? Perhaps a full page with no ads?

LIFE IMITATES ART Life imitates art is a philosophical idea that real life events and behaviors can seem like fictional works of art. It suggests that our experiences can sometimes be like the stories we’ve read or seen in movies. The China Syndrome

movie (March 16, 1979) and the Three Mile Island incident (March 28, 1979) are often cited as a prime example of life imitating art. The China Syndrome was about a fictional nuclear power meltdown and less than 2 weeks later a partial nuclear power meltdown happened at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station in Pennsylvania. Sometimes real-world

a goof, a lark, or whatever else you’d like - theft is still theft. Sad that your parents, teachers, & coaches, etc., haven’t taught you better. Maybe it was mob mentality? Or perhaps you feel entitled and not bound by the laws the rest of us have to follow? Wonder how much this will count for/against next year’s Rubber Chicken award?

events can closely resemble fictional narratives. Hollywood is well-known for creating disaster movies, apocalypse situations and end of the world scenarios. Be careful what you create, you just might end up living it.

JEERS

SPOKANE TRAFFIC PLANNING Jeers to the idiots who continually make problems for traffic on Market Street. This week, they restricted traffic to one lane northbound just north of Ermina. Then, they had the idiotic idea to leave the left turn signal onto Ermina (going south on Market) to yellow. So, the traffic is backed up for those trying to turn into SCC, thereby restricting traffic behind them to one lane on the right side. Meanwhile, cars have to turn left onto Ermina while one lane of traffic is continuously moving through the intersection going north (and those cars don’t stop for red lights). So, cars have to turn left while dodging cars headed north. Will Spokane people never learn? What’s wrong with giving traffic a green arrow turning left onto Ermina so as to avoid traffic jams and accidents? Spokane: Near nature. Near very bad traffic planning. I predict there will be a serious accident sometime soon, and when there is, I really hope whoever is involved sues Spokane, which is richly deserved. Dumb!

CLUCK, CLUCK, WE’LL STEAL CHUCK

JEERS to the four Ferris HS boys at the McDonalds on Regal & Palouse Hwy, before school on 2/27. Call it a prank,

MAY 1796 228 years ago Edward Jenner invented the smallpox vaccine. In 1980 this disease that kills children was eradicated worldwide. Now people who don’t believe that vaccines are helpful have eliminated polio, malaria, dengue fever vaccines from USAid. This is being done by the Ruputin Party so they can deliver a $4,000,000,000 tax cut to the oligarchs that run this country now. Maybe RFK Jr. can get Prince Elon to invent a Space X Iron Lung for kids that haven’t had Dr. Jonas Salk’s Polio Vaccine. Remember the March of Dimes? I do.

GREEN RUSE Thank you Inlander, for all of the info shared in the Green Zone! Unfortunately, there’s a Catch-22 for veterans. As a Schedule 1 drug, pot is still federally illegal and has not been officially studied for its interactions with other drugs. Veterans can be denied Veterans Administration health care for claiming its use. VA (federally employed) doctors can terminate and deny treatment due to the lack of data on cannabis and its interactions with other prescription drugs, citing the unknown dangers, safety risks. A disabled veteran friend with a VA given pacemaker was suddenly cut off from further help and treatments after his honest admittance of pot use, and said to “seek civilian care” from then on. Most veterans have no other medical coverage. Most veterans also know not to discuss their pot use at the (federally funded) VA. Despite cannabis’ evidence based benefits and physician’s recommendations, veterans are still being thrown under the bus. There’s very little hope now with the

current administration for reclassification or taxpayers monies spent on research.

QUESTION? How many votes did President Musk receive in the 2024 election? Answer One. How much did he pay for that vote? Answer $288,000,000. His return on his investment so far is $64,000,000,000. He also gets, with his 19-22 year old computer hacks, access to the Treasury, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid Data Files. MAGA really stands for Millionaires Are Greedy Always. Last time a Million+ Americans died from Covid. This disease is still with us, but this time there will be no data coming from the CDC.

A LITTLE FYI To those of you who insist on using public roads and not pay for the privilege by displaying an expired license tab, here’s something you might not know. The “tabs” on the end of a package of aluminum foil or plastic wrap are there to be pushed in to keep the roll from flying out as you tug on it. It’ll save your frustration. You’re welcome.

STRONG Spokane City Council and Mayor B.: State law doesn’t trump federal law. How do you not know that, in this case? Are you just trying to feel some non-real power that doesn’t exist? YOU have to be “documented” to be working in your current capacity as does your “staff.” Why are you exploiting people that you claim to be helping. How ‘bout you truly help by referring them to the proper process? Those who legitimately understand the beauty of immigration hold the hands of those seeking refuge as they are waiting in line, not shuffling the masses thru for the dirty numbers games “you” play at the gate. Follow the law. You will then know community. Many of us did it the proper way. We matter. Our journey matters. Stop giving false hope for “your” gain. n

BENEFIT

MARCH FOR MEALS 2025 A walk around Spokane Valley Mall benefitting Meals on Wheels. The event features DJs, local businesses and raffles. March 7, 8-10 am.

$20. Spokane Valley Mall, 14700 E. Indiana Ave. mowgsc.org (509-924-6976)

AN EVENING OF GOLDEN NOTES The CHS Blackhawk Band Parent Booster’s fourth annual benefit auction and gala featuring catered dining, live jazz, auctions and more. Proceeds support CHS Bands & Color Guard. March 8, 6-10 pm. $45. Shriners Event Center, 7217 W. Westbow Blvd. chs-blackhawk-band-parentbooster.square.site

THE FIG TREE SPRING BENEFIT LUNCH

Four speakers briefly discuss how The Fig Tree shares wisdom among the generations. March 8, 11 am-1 pm. By donation. Gonzaga University Hemmingson Center, 702 E. Desmet Ave. thefigtree.org

SHARE THE EXPERIENCE DINNER AUC-

TION An annual dinner and auction benefitting the STIX Diabetes Program and children and parents living with diabetes. March 8, 6-9 pm. $125. Spokane Convention Center, 334 W. Spokane Falls Blvd. stix.maxgiving.bid/tickets

SPOKANE MOM PROM An evening of dancing, drinks, and desserts benefitting the Women Helping Women Fund. March 8, 7-11 pm. $55. Montvale Event Center, 1019 W. First. Ave. momprom.org

MARDI BRAS DONATION DROP-OFF

Spokane Mardi Bras invites community members to host a party, collect donations and then drop off donations to Women’s Hearth. See website for list of items and party information. March 14, 4-6 pm. Free. Women’s Hearth, 920 W. Second Ave. help4women.org

COEUR D’IRISH ST PATRICK’S DAY

PARTY This fundraising event for the Coeur d’Alene Friday Rotary includes carnival games, Irish libations and cuisine, live music from Floating Crowbar, dancing, raffles and more. March 15, 5-9 pm. $60-$75. The Coeur d’Alene Resort, 115 S. Second. coeurdalenerotary.org

COMEDY

CASEY MCLAIN Casey Mclain has been featured in the Seattle International Comedy Competition and on ComedyJuice. He has a podcast called Nobody Likes Casey McLain. March 6, 7 pm. $12-$16. Spokane Comedy Club, 315 W. Sprague. spokanecomedyclub.com

FUNNY FUNNY FUNNY JOKE JOKE

JOKE A unique comedy experience that takes full advantage of the Garland Theater’s projector system, combining stand-up comedy, live sketches, and other mixed-media comedic bits. This month features Imani Denae, a Portland-based comedian. March 6, 7:30-9 pm. $15. Garland Theater, 924 W. Garland Ave. garlandtheater.org (509-327-1050)

PUNDERGROUND This improvised punning competition is perfect for fans of wordplay, dad jokes and witty quips. March 6, 7-9 pm. $9. Blue Door Theatre, 319 S. Cedar St. bluedoortheatre.org

BLUE DOORS & DRAGONS Watch as fearless improvisers embark on a quest shaped entirely by audience suggestions, daring dice rolls and pure imagination in this Dungeons & Dragons-inspired improv show. March 7-28, Fri at 7:30 pm. $9. Blue Door Theatre, 319 S. Cedar St. bluedoortheatre.org (509-747-7045)

DANNY JOLLES Jolles is an actor and

comedian who just finished his run as George on the CW’s Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. He also appeared this past year as Jacob in Ramy and in The Joel McHale Show March 7-8, 7 & 9:45 pm. $22-$30. Spokane Comedy Club, 315 W. Sprague. spokanecomedyclub.com (509-318-9998)

SASHAY & SLAY Sip your favorite cocktails while local drag queens serve up a mix of show-stopping lip-syncs, banter and outrageous comedy. March 8, 3 pm. $10-$15. Spokane Comedy Club, 315 W. Sprague. spokanecomedyclub.com

JUSTIN WILLMAN An interactive evening of magic, comedy and mind-control for the whole family. Prepare to join a secret society of wonder with Justin Willman. March 8, 7 pm. $45-$56. The Fox Theater, 1001 W. Sprague Ave. foxtheaterspokane.org (509-624-1200)

ERICA RHODES Rhodes has appeared on ABC’s Modern Family, HBO’s Veep, Fox’s New Girl and IFC’s Comedy Bang Bang March 9, 7:30 pm. $15-$22. Spokane Comedy Club, 315 W. Sprague. spokanecomedyclub.com (509-318-9998)

OPEN MIC MONDAY Hosted by local comedian Anthony Singleton, this open mic welcomes artists and entertainers of all genres. Open to all ages. Every second and fourth Monday of the month from 7-9 pm. Free. Lyyv Entertainment, 8712 E. Sprague Ave. lyyv.tv (509-557-3999)

NEW TALENT TUESDAYS Watch comedians of all skill levels work out jokes together. Tuesdays at 7 pm (doors at 6 pm). Free. Spokane Comedy Club, 315 W. Sprague. spokanecomedyclub.com

WHITNEY CUMMINGS Whitney Cummings delivers her signature sharp wit and fearless perspective navigating our wild world as a single mom. March 11, 7-8:30 pm. $62-$124. Bing Crosby Theater, 901 W. Sprague Ave. bingcrosbytheater.com (509-227-7638)

HANS KIM Kim is a regular on Kill Tony and has opened up for Joe Rogan and Tony Hinchcliffe. March 13-15, 7 pm and March 14-15, 9:45 pm. $27-$37. Spokane Comedy Club, 315 W. Sprague. spokanecomedclub.com (509-318-9998)

JUBAL FRESH Fresh is a standup comedian, a Marconi Award-winning radio host, television personality, comedy writer and graffiti artist. March 15, 4 pm. $22-$30. Spokane Comedy Club, 315 W. Sprague. spokanecomedyclub.com

COMMUNITY

THE EVOLUTION OF THE JAPANESE SWORD This exhibition showcases Japanese swords as more than a mere weapon of war. The iconic samurai sword of Japan and its accompanying fittings were elevated to works of high art that were, and still are, treasured and collected for their beauty and craftsmanship. Tue-Sun from 10 am-5 pm through May 4. $9-$15. Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture, 2316 W. First Ave. northwestmuseum.org (509-456-3931)

ISAAC’S CLUBHOUSE A social hangout for older students (grades 6-12) impacted by autism, rare disorders or developmental challenges who do not require high supervision. Mon-Thu from 4-6 pm through March 27. $25. The ISAAC Foundation, 606 W. Sharp Ave. theisaacfoundation.org (509-325-1515)

MINECRAFT CLUB Drop in and explore architecture, engineering and art through Minecraft. Participants are given a building prompt related to one or more of these fields. Grades 3-8. Every Thursday

from 4-6 pm. Free. Spark Central, 1214 W. Summit Pkwy. spark-central.org

SAMURAI, SUNRISE, SUNSET Step into the world of a samurai and experience armor, weaponry and personal items from the powerful military class that ruled Japan for nearly 700 years. Each item tells a story through its master craftsmanship and individual details. Tue-Sun from 10 am-5 pm through June 1. $9-$15. Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture, 2316 W. First Ave. northwestmuseum.org

SURVIVING & THRIVING: AIDS, POLITICS, & CULTURE EXHIBIT This exhibit, along with supplemented items from the Spokane Aids Network and our archives, tells the story of AIDS in the United States. Daily from 9 am-7 pm through March 8. Free. Central Library, 906 W. Main Ave. spokanelibrary.org

CUSTER’S SPRING ARTS & CRAFTS

SHOW An arts and crafts vendor fair featuring over 150 artisans selling fine art, hand crafts and specialty foods. March 7-9, times vary. $8-$10. Spokane County Fair & Expo Center, 404 N. Havana St. custershows.com (509-477-1766)

INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY CELEBRATION A celebration highlighting the resilience, talents and accomplishments of refugee and immigrant women in Spokane. See dozens of community organizations sharing resources, a donation room with free items, giveaways, activities for women and children and more. March 7, 10 am-1 pm. Free. Central Library, 906 W. Main Ave. spokanelibrary.org

INLAND EMPIRE COIN SHOW A coin show featuring over 30 dealers, hourly door prizes, raffles and more. March 8-9, 10 am-5 pm. $3. Kootenai County Fairgrounds, 4056 N. Government Way. coinshows-usa.com/Inland-EmpireCoin-Stamp-Show (509-595-0435)

INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY MARCH Bring signs and march with others in support of women’s rights. March 8, 3 pm. Free. B.A. Clark Park, 3922 N. Normandie St. ewc4p.org

SOCIAL CHESS NIGHT Play casual games, learn new tactics and connect with fellow chess lovers in a relaxed, welcoming environment. Mondays at 5:30 pm through March 24. Free. Lumberbeard Brewing, 25 E. Third Ave. blitzandblunders.org (210-580-4929)

THE ECHOES WITHIN: SOUND HEALING WITH I AM A sound journey designed to harmonize your mind, body and soul. Come with intention and allow sound to guide you. Every month on the second and fourth Tuesday. $37. I AM Alliance, 7 S. Howard St. iamalliance.me

ENCHANTED SPRING FESTIVAL A festival featuring live music, yoga, dance, workshops and a local vendor market. March 14-16; times vary. Free. Patera Temperance Lounge, 1507 E. Sprague Ave. instagram.com/pateralounge

ST. PATRICK’S DAY PARADE Floats, community members and businesses march through downotwn Spokane in St Patrick’s Day spirit. March 15, noon. Free. Downtown Spokane. visitspokane.com

BLOOM TOGETHER A celebration of spring a with crafts inspired by the season. Connect with Art Salvage, Catholic Charities and others. March 15, 1-5 pm. Free. Spark Central, 1214 W. Summit Pkwy. spark-central.org

ST. PATRICK’S DAY PARADE Watch parade entries like marching bands, dancers, music and festive floats. March 15, 3-4 pm. Free. Downtown Coeur d’Alene, Sherman Ave. cdadowntown.com

3 P.M. SUNDAY, MARCH 16 BING CROSBY THEATER

Samuel Barber String Quartet in B Minor, Op. 11 (with the original setting of his Adagio for Strings )

Polina Nazaykinskaya Adagio from Symphony for Strings

Joseph Haydn String Quartet No. 33

ALL SEATS GENERAL ADMISSION ADULTS $25 SENIORS $20 UNDER 18 AND STUDENTS WITH ID FREE

www.spokanestringquartet.org

Summer Camps

WIENER DOGS ON PARADE Show up in green and walk in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade with 30+ dogs from Dachshund Rescue NW. On Washington and Cataldo streets. March 15, 10 am-1 pm. Free. Downtown Spokane. spokanewienerdogs.org (509-703-2230)

FILM

MOSCOW FILM SOCIETY: CASINO In Las Vegas, two best friends, a casino executive and a Mafia enforcer, compete for a gambling empire and a fastliving, fast-loving socialite. March 6, 6:30-9:30 pm. $8. The Kenworthy, 508 S. Main St. kenworthy.org

OSCARS RECAP: ANORA A young sex worker from Brooklyn meets and impulsively marries the son of an oligarch. Once the news reaches Russia, her fairytale is threatened as his parents set out for New York to get the marriage annulled. March 7, 6-8:30 pm. $8. The Kenworthy, 508 S. Main. kenworthy.org

OSCARS RECAP: THE SUBSTANCE

A fading celebrity decides to use a black-market drug, a cell-replicating substance that temporarily creates a younger, better version of herself. March 7, 9:15-11:30 pm. $8. The Kenworthy, 508 S. Main St. kenworthy.org

SPOKANE INTERNATIONAL FILM

FESTIVAL A small, selective offering of world-class films created by locals as well as talent from around the world. The three-day event includes panels as well as film screenings. March 7-9. See website for full schedule. $49-$99. spokanefilmfestival.org

OSCARS RECAP: CONCLAVE When Cardinal Lawrence is tasked with leading one of the world’s most secretive and ancient events, selecting a new Pope, he finds himself at the center of a conspiracy that could shake the very foundation of the Catholic Church. March 8, 7-9 pm. $8. The Kenworthy, 508 S. Main St. kenworthy.org

OSCARS RECAP: FLOW Flow follows a courageous cat after his home is devastated by a great flood. March 8, 1-3 pm. $8. The Kenworthy, 508 S. Main St. kenworthy.org (208-882-4127)

OSCARS RECAP: THE BRUTALIST When a visionary architect and his wife flee post-war Europe in 1947 to rebuild their legacy and witness the birth of modern United States, their lives are changed forever by a mysterious, wealthy client. March 9, 2:30-6 pm. $8. The Kenworthy, 508 S. Main St. kenworthy.org (208-882-4127)

MOSCOW FILM SOCIETY: ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST A mysterious stranger with a harmonica joins forces with a notorious desperado to protect a widow from a ruthless assassin working for the railroad. March 13, 6:30-9 pm. $8. The Kenworthy, 508 S. Main St. kenworthy.org (208-882-4127)

BECOMING LED ZEPPELIN This film traces the journeys of the four members of the Stairway To Heaven rockers through the music scene of the 1960s and their meeting in the summer of 1968, culminating in 1970. March 14, 7-9 pm and March 15, 7-9 pm. $8. The Kenworthy, 508 S. Main St. kenworthy.org

MET LIVE IN HD: FIDELIO A faithful wife risks everything to save her husband from the clutches of tyranny in Beethoven’s Fidelio. March 15, 10 am-1 pm. $20. The Kenworthy, 508 S. Main St. kenworthy.org (208-882-4127)

FOOD & DRINK

INLANDER RESTAURANT WEEK The annual 10-day, regional culinary celebration returns, offering three-course fixed-price menus ($25, $35 or $45) at over 100 restaurants in the Inland Northwest. See complete details and menus at InlanderRestaurantWeek. com. This year’s charity partner is Big Table Spokane, which supports hospitality professionals in crisis. Through March 8. inlanderrestaurantweek.com

HISTORICAL TOUR & SUPPER CLUB

Take a tour of the historic Commellini Estate guided by flashlight and a docent. March 8, 5-7 & 7-9 pm. $85. Commellini Estate, 14715 N. Dartford Dr. commelliniestate.com (509-466-0667)

MAGICAL NIGHTS OF THE MIDDLE

EAST Traditional middle eastern food followed by a performance of traditional dances from America, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt by Belly Fest, an artist’s collective based in Spokane. March 8, 4:30-8:30 pm. $30-$35. Southside Community Center, 3151 E. 27th Ave. spokanesouthside.org (509-535-0803)

ST. PATRICK’S DAY PARADE POUR

BEFORE Sip Pacific Northwest beer and cider, taste Irish-inspired bites, and enjoy live music by the Shea Tea Folkin Irish Band. Tickets include a 16-oz. souvenir glass, ten tasting tokens, and St. Patrick’s Day swag. March 8, 6-9 pm. $35-$45. Northern Quest Resort & Casino, 100 N. Hayford. northernquest.com

SOURDOUGH CINNAMON ROLL CLASS In this hands-on class learn how to elevate your baking with the art of sourdough all while creating a decadent, crowd-pleasing pastry. March 9, 4-6 pm. $85. The Kitchen Engine, 621 W. Mallon Ave. thekitchenengine.com

CAKE DECORATING 101 Learn how to evenly fill a cake, crumb coat, frost and pipe stunning five petal flowers. March 10, 5:45-8 pm. $85. The Kitchen Engine, 621 W. Mallon Ave. thekitchenengine. com (509-328-3335)

SIP & CRAFT Enjoy a complimentary glass of wine while crafting your own personalized wine glass charms, with all supplies provided. March 11, 6-8 pm. $25. Helix Wines, 824 W. Sprague. reiningerwinery.com (509-242-3190)

ST. PADDY’S COOKIE DECORATING Instructor Jaime Roberts teaches various St. Patrick’s Day cookie designs. March 13, 5:45-8 pm. $85. The Kitchen Engine, 621 W. Mallon Ave. thekitchenengine.com (509-328-3335)

THE OFFICIAL LUCKY’S ST PATRICK’S DAY BAR CRAWL An annual Saint Patrick’s Day bar crawl stopping at several locations and featuring photographers, drink specials, no cover at all bars and an after party. March 15, 4-11:59 pm. $10. Fast Eddie’s, 1 W. Spokane Falls Blvd. CrawlWith.US (612-460-0094)

MUSIC

DWAYNE PARSONS Parsons plays original tunes on the grand piano. March 6, 5-7 pm. Free. Pend d’Oreille Winery, 301 Cedar St. powine.com

FLOATING CROWBAR Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with the sounds of Irish pipes, flute, whistle as well as fiddle and guitar. March 6, 7-8 pm. Free. Spokane Valley Library, 22 N. Herald Rd. scld.org

SELKIRK QUINTET Selkirk Quintet per-

forms works from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries by French, German and American composers. March 9, 3-4:30 pm. $10. St. John’s Cathedral, 127 E. 12th Ave. stjohns-cathedral.org

ARVID LUNDIN & DEEP ROOTS With fast fiddling, rollicking rhythms and beautiful ballads, Arvid Lundin & Deep Roots play a high-energy mix of instrumental music and songs drawn from traditional and contemporary sources. March 11, 7-8 pm. Free. Deer Park Library, 208 Forest St. scld.org

LIVE FROM SOMEWHERE: HIPPIE DEATH CULT PREMIERE The premiere of season 4 episode 1 of “Live from Somewhere,” featuring Portland band Hippie Death Cult. March 12, 6-9 pm. $15-$50. Garland Theater, 924 W. Garland Ave. lfs-nw.com (509-991-3000) COZY SONGWRITER SATURDAY John Wayne Williams, Scott Ryan Ingersoll and Jenny Anne Mannan perform original songs. March 15, 6 pm. $10. Indaba Flagship Roastery & Café, 2020 N. Monroe St. indabacoffee.com

SPOKANE JAZZ ORCHESTRA: THE MUSIC OF FRANK SINATRA Singer, trumpeter and bandleaderJake Bergevin performs selections from Frank Sinatra’s catalogue with the Spokane Jazz Orchestra. March 15, 7:30-9:30 pm. $38-$51. Bing Crosby Theater, 901 W. Sprague Ave. bingcrosbytheater.com

SPORTS & OUTDOORS

GONE TO THE DOGS & SKIJOR DAY Dogs are allowed on the lower trail system all day when accompanied by their human with a pass. March 7. 49 Degrees North, 3311 Flowery Trail Rd. ski49n.com (509-935-6649)

LADIES’ DAY CLINIC A ladies-only clinic led by mountain instructors. The day-long event also features a morning stretch, coffee, lunch and a social hour. Ages 18+. March 7, 8:30 am-3 pm. $149. Mt. Spokane Ski & Snowboard Park, 29500 N. Mt. Spokane Park Dr. mtspokane.com (509-238-2220)

CABIN FEVER GARDENING SYMPOSIUM The Master Gardeners of Spokane County host a hybrid symposium focused on conversations with fellow gardeners and conservationists like Doug Tallamy of Home Grown National Park. March 8, 1-3:30 pm. $10-$12. WSU Spokane County Extension, 222 N. Havana St. spokane.mastergardenerfoundation.org (509-477-2160)

CHEWELAH PEAK CHALLENGE: FAT

TIRE BIKE RACE A race and demo day with fat tire bikes. The race is 7 km on a lower trail system with ingle track downhill sections. March 9, 11 am. $20. 49 Degrees North, 3311 Flowery Trail Rd. ski49n.com (509-935-6649)

NORDIC CLINIC Develop and refine your skate and/or classic ski techniques with instructor Tim Ray. March 10, 9:30 am & 12:30 pm. $55-$90. 49 Degrees North, 3311 Flowery Trail. ski49n.com A CONVERSATION ON LOCAL CONSERVATION EFFORTS Inland Northwest Land Conservancy, Dishman Hills Conservancy, the Lands Council and Spokane River Keeper speak on their efforts on local conservation efforts in this Spokane Audubon Society event. March 12, 6-7:30 pm. Free. Shadle Library, 2111 W. Wellesley Ave. spokanelibrary.org (509-444-5300)

MASTER GARDENER WORKSHOP: LOW MAINTENANCE Learn about creative low maintenance gardening and design with Spokane County Master Gardeners. March 12, 10-11 am. Free. Liberty Lake Library, 23123 E. Mission Ave. scld.org

SPOKANE CHIEFS VS. EVERETT

SILVERTIPS Regular season game. Promotional schedule: TicketsWest player magnet giveaway, Delta Hotels by Marriott Night (March 12) and Special Olympics Night (March 16). March 12, 7:05 pm and March 16, 5:05 pm. $12-$40. Spokane Arena, 720 W. Mallon Ave. spokanechiefs. com (509-279-7000)

TOYOTA FREE SKI FRIDAY The driver of any Toyota, Scion or Lexus is eligible for the free lift ticket. All other passengers in the car will need a lift ticket to access the mountain. March 14. Free. Silver Mountain Resort, 610 Bunker Ave. silvermt.com

SPOKANE CHIEFS VS. TRI-CITY

AMERICANS Regular season games. Promotional schedule includes Miller Lite St. Patty’s Day Jersey Sweepstakes (March 15). March 15, 6:05 pm. $12-$40. Spokane Arena, 720 W. Mallon. spokanechiefs.com

THEATER & DANCE

EVERY BRILLIANT THING A young boy creates a list of everyday things that bring him joy in a desperate attempt to lift the spirits of his depressed mother. Over the years, the list continues to grow as he confronts life. Thu-Sat at 7:30 pm through March 15. $35. Hamilton Studio, 1427 W. Dean Ave. theaterontheverge.com

R.E.S.P.E.C.T An electrifying tribute celebrating the music of Aretha Franklin. This concert experience takes audiences on a journey of love, tragedy, courage and triumph. March 7, 7:30 pm. $50-$90. First Interstate Center for the Arts, 334 W. Spokane Falls Blvd. broadwayspokane.com (509-279-7000)

THE WOLVES A fly-on-the-wall look at a girls’ high school soccer team as they go through their warm-ups. From the safety of their stretch circle, the team navigates big questions and wages battles with all the vim and vigor of a pack of warriors. Thu-Sat at 7:30 pm, Sat-Sun at 2 pm through March 30. $15-30. Spokane Civic Theatre, 1020 N. Howard St. spokanecivictheatre.com

HAM ON REGAL An original musical/comedy show written and performed by Ferris High School parents and school staff that doubles as a fundraiser for the Ferris Parent Teacher Group. March 9, 2 pm, March 12, 7 pm, March 14, 7 pm and March 15, 1 & 7 pm. $13. Ferris High School, 3020 E. 37th Ave. hamonregal.org

INTRO TO SOCIAL TANGO An Argentine tango dance class for new and nearly new tango dancers aimed at learning prerequisite skills. Drop-in welcome. Preregister by emailing matt@tangomind.com. Tuesdays from 5:40-6:40 pm. $62$72. Sinto Activity Center, 1124 W. Sinto Ave. (509-290-8138)

...continued on page 42

The Forgotten Cannabinoid

Not as buzzy as THC or CBD, CBG is another cannabinoid worth knowing

BY WILL MAUPIN

When it comes to cannabis compounds, THC and CBD get top billing, but they are just two of over 100 chemicals known as cannabinoids that can be found in cannabis.

After those two, arguably the most referenced cannabinoid is cannabigerol or CBG. While Washington state labeling regulations don’t require it to be listed on cannabis packaging labels, as is the case with THC and CBD, CBG content is often promoted on packaging nonetheless.

It’s time to give this cannabinoid a moment in the sun, not just because it’s becoming one of the trendier compounds in cannabis, but because without it cannabis wouldn’t be what it is at all.

In the cannabis plant, many cannabinoids are ultimately derived from a form of CBG. As it grows, the plant converts CBG into THC, CBD and the 100-plus other chemicals that have direct impacts on creating both the high that recreational users seek and the medicinal benefits therapeutic users desire.

Like CBD, CBG is considered to be nonpsychoactive, meaning it does not directly result in intoxication, but rather modulates the feeling of the intoxication. This also means that like CBD, CBG has the potential for therapeutic use without causing a high.

Unlike CBD, however, which can easily be found in flower form, CBG-forward flower is uncommon on the market. Most products promoting CBG are in edible form, rather than smokable.

The effect profile of CBG, while still not fully understood, is considered to be similar to that of CBD. It has been used to promote sleep, fight pain and combat anxiety, among other uses.

However, unlike CBD, which has seen widespread adoption across the United States in recent years — CBD products can be found at grocery and pet supply stores in addition to traditional dispensaries — CBG remains largely constrained to the state’s regulated cannabis market.

CBG-forward products tend to come in a format that pairs the CBG with THC, CBD or both. Gummy brand Wyld, for example, offers a selection of edibles with a 1-to-1 ratio of CBG to THC. As a result, consuming those products will result in intoxication. On the recreational market, that sort of balance is the most common format in which CBG is available.

CBG products available outside the recreational market are derived from industrial hemp, rather than what the state defines as cannabis, and are not subject to the same regulations as products available at licensed dispensaries. n

BE AWARE: Marijuana is legal for adults 21 and older under Washington State law (e.g., RCW 69.50, RCW 69.51A, HB0001 Initiative 502 and Senate Bill 5052). State law does not preempt federal law; possessing, using, distributing and selling marijuana remains illegal under federal law. In Washington state, consuming marijuana in public, driving while under the influence of marijuana and transporting marijuana across state lines are all illegal. Marijuana has intoxicating effects; there may be health risks associated with its consumption, and it may be habit-forming. It can also impair concentration, coordination and judgment. Do not operate a vehicle or machinery under the influence of this drug. Keep out of reach of children. For more information, consult the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board at www.liq.wa.gov.

NOTE TO READERS

Be aware of the differences in the law between Idaho and Washington. It is illegal to possess, sell or transport cannabis in the State of Idaho. Possessing up to an ounce is a misdemeanor and can get you a year in jail and up to a $1,000 fine; more than three ounces is a felony that can carry a five-year sentence and fine of up to $10,000. Transporting marijuana across state lines, like from Washington into Idaho, is a felony under federal law.

There are more than 100 cannabinoids.

EVENTS | CALENDAR VISUAL ARTS

ANDREA JOYCE HEIMER: NO NAME THAT I KNOW OF Through collage-like layers of detail, Washington-based artist Andrea Joyce Heimer reconstructs tangled memories of her upbringing in rural Montana. The artist combines autobiography, fantasy, and dark humor to explore themes of loneliness and belonging. Tue-Sun from 10 am-5 pm through May 25. $9-15. Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture, 2316 W. First Ave. northwestmuseum.org (509-456-3931)

MELISSA DINGFIELD & MEGAN PERKINS: TWO VIEWS OF SPOKANE

Painters Melissa Dingfield and Megan Perkins portray Spokane scenes in their own unique styles. Daily from 11 am-7 pm through March 29. Free. The Liberty Building,203 N. Washington. spokanelibertybuilding.com

PAPER AS WATER: CONTEMPORARY

INDIGENOUS PRINTS An installation of works by Indigenous artists of Washington state from the collection of Helen Carlson and Paul Nicholson. Mon-Fri from 10 am-4:30 pm through March 21. Free. Bryan Oliver Gallery, Whitworth, 300 W. Hawthorne Ave. whitworth.edu

BARI Local artist bari has been painting since 2003, painting subjects she loves like still life, pet portraits, florals and chickens. Daily from 11 am-7 pm through March 29. Free. Pottery Place Plus, 203 N. Washington St. potteryplaceplus.com

FIRST FRIDAY Art galleries and businesses across downtown Spokane and beyond host monthly receptions to showcase new displays of art. First Fridays of each month from 5-8 pm. Details

at firstfridayspokane.org. Free. Spokane. downtownspokane.org

FIRST FRIDAY: JOHN SEBASTIAN AND AMY CALKINS A First Friday reception for abstract artist John Sebastian and photographer Amy Calkins. March 7, 3-7 pm. Free. Avenue West Gallery, 907 W. Boone Ave. avenuewestgallery.com

FIRST FRIDAYS WITH POAC First Friday arts events in Sandpoint, organized by the Pend Oreille Arts Council. First Friday from 5:30-7:30 pm. artinsandpoint.org

I AG DUL BHFIAIN & DOINK AND INCONGRUITIES A two-person show with Thomas O’Day displaying text and images from Dublin Tresa Oosting with works resulting from a bag of candy. March 7-28, by appointment. Kolva-Sullivan Gallery, 115 S. Adams St. kolva.comcastbiz.net (509-458-5517)

KAREN MOBLEY: BIG DOODLES Large format improvisational watercolors by local artist Karen Mobley. March 7-29, daily 11 am-6 pm. Free. Entropy, 101 N. Stevens St. explodingstars.com

MARCH ON TO THE MOON A group show featuring printmaker Jill McFarlane and fiber artist Jenni Barry. March 7-29, WedSat from 11 am-5 pm. Free. New Moon Art Gallery, 1326 E. Sprague Ave. manicmoonandmore.com (509-413-9101)

MARMOT ART SPACE 10TH ANNIVERSARY The gallery in Kendall Yards celebrates 10 years in business with a showcase of over a dozen artists. March 7, 5-8 pm. Free. Marmot Art Space, 1206 W. Summit Parkway. marmotartspace.com

OUTSIDER ART EXHIBIT In alignment with March Disability Awareness Month, Spark-Central is hosting a Disability

Art Exhibit, showcasing and celebrating Spokane area and Northwest artists with physical, mental and developmental disabilities. March. 7-31, Mon-Fri from 8 am-5 pm. Free. Chase Gallery, 808 W. Spokane Falls Blvd. spokanearts.org

GINA FREUEN: WORKS ON PAPER AND CLAY An exhibit of early works on paper created by the artist while teaching drawing, design and domposition at Gonzaga University. Functional and sculptural clay works will be featured and placed into the rhythm of the paper works. March 7-28, Wed-Fri from 11 am-5 pm. Free. Trackside Studio, 115 S. Adams St. TracksideStudio.net (509-863-9904)

DARYA PILRAM: THE POETRY OF REPAIR An immersive exploration of kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken ceramics with urushi sap, gold and silver. This workshop combine hands-on experience with cultural insights, sustainability discussions and culinary elements to create a unique learning experience. Please register to attend. March 9, 1-4 pm. Free. The Hive, 2904 E. Sprague Ave. spokanelibrary.org

COLLAGE WORKSHOP This workshop offers an opportunity to create two original collage compositions under the guidance of an experienced local artist. Second Wednesday of each month from 6-8 pm. $25. Lunarium, 1925 N. Monroe St. lunariumspokane.com (509-270-4192)

HANDS ON: WORKSHOP FOR LITTLE MAKERS Use hands-on exploration to experience art basics like color and texture at this monthly workshop. Every second Thursday of the month from 1011 am. $10. Art Salvage Spokane, 610 E. North Foothills. artsalvagespokane.com

WORDS

3 MINUTE MIC Auntie’s Bookstore’s long-running first Friday poetry open mic continues. Readers may share up to 3 minutes worth of poetry. March 7, 7-8:30 pm. Free. Auntie’s Bookstore, 402 W. Main Ave. auntiesbooks.com

PICTURE BOOK ILLUSTRATION Awardwinning artist Jiemei Lin presents and discusses the illustrations in her recently published picture books. March 7, 3-3:50 pm. Free. Shadle Library, 2111 W. Wellesley Ave. spokanelibrary.org

WRITE TOGETHER: A COMMUNITY WRITING SESSION Bring your current writing project and your favorite writing tools and prepare to hunker down and write. Local novelist and Writing Education Specialist Sharma Shields writes alongside of you and provide prompts and advice if needed. March 7, 10 amnoon. Free. Indian Trail Library, 4909 W. Barnes Rd. spokanelibrary.org

SARAH AUGUSTINE: DECOLONIZATION IN ACTION This presentation will focus on concrete actions a community can embody as they assume a posture of decolonization. March 8, 7-8:30 pm. Free. Westminster Congregational United Church of Christ, 411 S. Washington St. westminsterucc.org (509-863-7661)

BREATHING LIFE INTO CHILDREN’S BOOKS WITH ERIN PRINGLE In this workshop, attendees will have a chance to think about what performance qualities a book should have for reading aloud, ways to prepare children for a read-aloud book, and tips to enhancing the reading experience for both the children and reader. March 8, 1-1:50 pm.

Free. Shadle Library, 2111 W. Wellesley Ave. spokanelibrary.org (509-444-5300)

LET’S TALK PICTURE BOOKS A panel about how to write and illustrate picture books featuring Jessica Linn Evans, Annette Bay Pimentel, Eija Sumner and Diane Worthey. March 8, 2-2:50 pm. Free. Shadle Library, 2111 W. Wellesley Ave. spokanelibrary.org (509-444-5300)

THE LILAC CITY BOOK FESTIVAL FOR WRITERS & ILLUSTRATORS OF CHILDREN’S BOOKS Whether you’re an aspiring writer, illustrator, or experienced author, this event offers workshops, panel discussions, and insights to help you grow your craft. The festival brings together local experts to inspire your storytelling journey. Register to attend. March 8, 12-5 pm. Free. Shadle Library, 2111 W. Wellesley. spokanelibrary.org

LILAC CITY BOOK FESTIVAL MEET & GREET Meet local authors and illustrators of children’s and young adult books. March 8, 4-5 pm. Free. Shadle Library, 2111 W. Wellesley Ave. spokanelibrary.org

STORY AND CRAFT A read-aloud of a popular children’s book will be followed by an optional craft related to the story. Ages 3-7. Every Saturday from 11 amnoon. Cost of admission. Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture, 2316 W. First Ave. northwestmuseum.org (509-456-3931)

KID & THE NOTHING-TO-DO-YEAR

STORYTIME Meet local author Megan Young and illustrator Melissa Murakami for a storytime with their new picture book, Kid and the Nothing-to-Do Year all about Spokane’s Garbage Goat and his friend, Kid. March 8, 11 am. Free. Auntie’s Bookstore, 402 W. Main Ave. auntiesbooks.com (509-838-0206) n

It may be tapped 54. Palindromic 1976 greatest hits album with the track “Ma-MaMa Belle”

Jai ___ (fast game)

Noteworthy stretch

Having an outer layer, like fruit

Tailless domestic cat

Shortest Morse

Low end of the choir

Belgian beer Stella ___

Grayson who was the title character in the Apple TV+ thriller “Servant”

“Funny Girl” composer Jule

Nautical hello