Why poets, writers, comics, musicians and more bare their souls every week page 14
EDITOR’S NOTE
There’s a sense of comfort behind the page — or screen — that we writers enjoy. While not all of us identify as introverts, standing in front of a live audience, behind a mic or on a stage can be daunting. Which is why we give wholehearted kudos to the creative folk who bare their souls and heartfelt feelings week after week at the community’s many OPEN MIC sessions, the focus of this week’s cover package.
As our writers share, the catharsis and camaraderie found at these events — like Neato Burrito’s Broken Mic, Auntie’s 3 Minute Mic or Emerge’s Third Thursdays — is essential to countless participants. Besides a creative outlet, many performers have found much-needed community support during challenging stages of life among these groups of open-minded, caring creatives.
After all, a thriving arts scene requires that all levels of artists are supported, seen and guided, from those just starting out to the professionals who’ve made it their livelihoods. And open mics accomplish this beautifully.
— CHEY SCOTT, Editor
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WHAT WOULD YOU PERFORM AT AN OPEN MIC NIGHT?
SUE GRIFFITH
I’d probably sing a favorite song. I love Stick Figures, one of my favorite reggae bands, so I would probably try to memorize one of their songs.
Have you ever been to an open mic?
Never. I would be pretty nervous, but I would probably do it.
RACHEL LENZ
Well, I love to sing so if I had a microphone, I’m singing into it.
Do you have a song that you would sing?
I love Nancy Sinatra, I like “Bang Bang,” I like Billie Holiday — any smoky, jazzy woman singers are my favorite.
JESSE TODD
I’m really into Amy Winehouse lately, so I would probably do Amy Winehouse karaoke.
Have you ever been to an open mic?
I have, yeah. I go to Neato downtown, which I normally do poetry there. It just depends on what open mic we’re talking about.
JENNIFER LOPEZ PRINSKOWSKI
I would perform an information piece, probably about sustainability. Yeah, some sort of education piece about sustainability and being able to reduce and recycle.
DAVE AINLEY
I’m gonna have to say — although I kinda don’t wanna admit this to the world, but it’s too funny not to — I’m gonna go with “Strokin’” by Clarence Carter.
Why did you pick that one?
Because it’s really funny to watch my wife squirm, and there’s a lot of showmanship involved in that song.
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“I give to Providence Heart Institute because it gave me more time with my family.” Katy Bruya Follow Your Heart
OVER 1000 WHISKEYS ON THE WALL & GREAT FOOD
A Lie Is Bourne
As presidential deceits go, even Richard Nixon’s Watergate denials and George W. Bush’s WMDs are like amateur hour compared to the Big Lie
BY JOHN HAGNEY
Marlene Bourne said her thoughts were “wackadoodle.” Most of her strange musings were benign such as, “The wind tells me I’m a ghost.” But on Nov. 7, 2020, four days after the presidential election, she sent a bizarre email to Fox News host Lou Dobbs and attorney Sidney Powell, who forwarded it to Maria Bartiromo, according to court filings. It was on Fox News the next day.
Bourne claimed that malicious software corrupted voting machines so that 3% of votes for Trump automatically switched to Biden. She told journalists she possessed a “sixth sense” enabling her to “connect the dots. I am able to connect things that don’t seem to connect,” she said. “I see things that other people don’t.” Thus the “Bourne Conspiracy” gestated into the distorted progeny of the Big Lie, the Doublethink of two-thirds of Republicans that the 2020 presidential election was a heist.
Even before Election Day 2020, Trump was sowing doubts about voting. “The only way we’re going to lose this election is if it is rigged,” he said. And in both the 2020 and 2016 campaigns, Vladimir Putin was polluting our politics. Yevgeny Prigozhin, Putin sycophant and later commander of the savage mercenary Wagner Group that staged an aborted coup against Putin in 2023, directed an aggressive online disinformation assault in 2016 infecting social media accounts with fake posts to manipulate American voters to
the advantage of Trump and to the detriment of Hillary Clinton. Among the Russian posts: “Obama founded ISIS” and an ad depicting Jesus arm wrestling Satan, suggesting that Satan supported Clinton, while Jesus was all in for Trump. Such propaganda is red meat for America’s alt-right info black hole.
Tens of thousands of such fabrications — a “firehose of falsehoods” — flooded the internet during the 2016 campaign, the bipartisan 2019 Senate Intelligence Committee verified.
In July 2018 at a U.S.-Russian summit in Helsinki, Trump was asked about conclusive CIA evidence that Russia had interfered in the 2016 election. To the shock of the European diplomatic audience and his State Department entourage, Trump replied, ”President Putin says it’s not Russia. I don’t see any reason why it would be.”
Putin could not conceal his smug smirk. Trump’s reality TV roles had reversed: It was horrifyingly apparent that Putin was the calculating boss, Trump the supplicant apprentice.
The same virulent messages with which Putin was infecting Russians — America’s purported dysfunctional democracy, fraudulent elections
Despite being called the “the most secure” election in American history by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, many still mistakenly believed the 2020 election was rigged.
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a decadent civilization — were weaponized, targeting U.S. internet domains during the 2016 and 2020 campaigns. Not coincidentally, this is the cynical script of Trump and his MAGA acolytes. Yet, as Anne Applebaum observed in the June Atlantic: “The entity that becomes the most persistent in alleging that American elections are fraudulent turns out to be the president [Trump].”
And during this current presidential campaign, “Russia remains the most active foreign threat to our elections,” according to the U.S. director of intelligence. With more sophisticated AI capabilities, Russia’s Doppelgänger is swarming the internet with disinformation. A State Department agency, the Global Engagement Center, is poised to inoculate us from foreign fake information, but its mission is circumscribed by Republicans to focus only on propaganda outside the U.S. Its budget is $60 million compared to the billions the Russians have devoted to disinformation. Mark Warner, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said, “We are actually less prepared today than we were four years ago.”
American elections are tainted, but it’s not due to corrupted mail-in balloting, voter fraud or rigged voting machines. Rather, it’s foreign interference and gerrymandering, voter suppression, the doxing and terrorizing of election officials, and a system awash in dark money — money from anonymous political donors — that advantages those with deep pockets. If America is to be great again, start by overturning Citizens United, we need to enact substantive campaign finance reform and shorten the time presidential candidates can campaign with an abbreviated primary schedule.
So by the time Marlene Bourne sent her delusional email, the MAGA mindscape was tinder, parched by Russian duplicity and Trump’s screeds. But it was Fox News that ignited the still fierce conflagration. And for the Trump faithful, Fox is gospel. (See Brian Stelter’s book: Hoax: Donald Trump, Fox News and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth.)
On Nov. 7, Fox journalists formally declared Biden the winner of the 2020 election. Rupert Murdoch ordered Fox hosts to stop the baseless “stolen election” noise. Fox viewers were enraged by its Biden election call. On Nov. 8, Maria Bartiromo defied her boss on her Fox program. Murdoch said nothing. (Less than two months later, Jan. 6 happened.)
Bartiromo’s guest that day was Sidney Powell, recipient of Bourne’s email and a member of Trump’s legal team. Armed with Bourne’s uncorroborated “evidence” and with Bartiromo an obliging midwife, Powell birthed the Big Lie Hydra, stating that Dominion Voting Systems had inserted software sabotaging voting machines. The Fox PR guy called the interview “crazy.” Even Tucker Carlson conceded privately that Powell’s “software shit” was “absurd.” Yet Murdoch was silent.
The deceit was unleashed. Soon the Big Lie was feral, amplified by agitprop meisters such as Steve Bannon, Alex Jones, Tucker Carlson, and Fox host and Trump Minister of Newspeak Sean Hannity. Bannon’s tactic in his own words: “Flood the zone with shit.” In 2023 Dominion was vindicated in a $787.5 million defamation lawsuit against Fox. (Their legal filings revealed Marlene Bourne to be the original source of the Big Lie.) In righteous denial, Trump filed 62 lawsuits challenging the election’s legitimacy. Sixty-one were found to have no merit.
As presidential deceits go, the Big Lie eclipses LBJ’s “hostile actions” in the Tonkin Gulf, Nixon’s Watergate denials, Clinton’s “I did not have sex with that woman” and George W. Bush’s WMD’s in Iraq. The Big Lie is the most egregious in our history because it desecrates the foundation of democracy — fair elections.
Considering the Supreme Court’s Trump v. U.S. and Fischer decisions last week, if the Big Lie is not extinguished, losing candidates — including Democrats — have precedent and legal protection to incite future insurrections with impunity. n
John Hagney taught high school and college history for 45 years. He was a U.S. Presidential Scholar Distinguished Teacher. His oral history of Gorbachev’s reforms has been translated into six languages.
ELECTION 2024
SEVEN FOR THE SEVENTH
Candidates in Washington’s largest legislative district vie for two open seats in the state House of Representatives
BY COLTON RASANEN
There’s less than a month before the Aug. 6 primary election and a handful of races in the Inland Northwest do not have an incumbent running, leaving room for fresh faces in the Legislature. That’s the case in Washington’s Legislative District 7, which encompasses a huge portion of the state’s northeast corner.
In February, state Rep. Jacquelin Maycumber, R-Republic, announced she would not seek reelection to her District 7 seat in order to run for the spot in Congress that U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers is vacating. Shortly after Maycumber’s announcement, state Rep. Joel Kretz, R-Wauconda, revealed that he would be retiring after 20 years representing the 7th District.
Now, three candidates — Teagan Levine, Andrew Engell and Soo Ing-Moody — hope to fill Maycumber’s seat, while four — Ronald McCoy, Hunter Abell, Pat Bell and Paul “Rocky” Dean — are on the ballot for Kretz’s seat. Only the top two vote-getters in each race will advance past the primary.
Compared to many other legislative districts in the state, District 7 is enormous. It encompasses a small part of Spokane County, along with Pend Oreille, Stevens, Ferry and Okanogan counties — representing the towns of Chewelah, Colville, Newport and Deer Park. Due to recent redistricting, District 7 also covers more of Douglas and Chelan counties than before, with about 7,000 new voters in Douglas and about 2,000 in Chelan, the Washington State Standard reported.
While each of the state’s legislative districts has approximately the same population, legislating across such a large area can seem complicated. However, candidates have found that many of the district’s top issues are shared regionwide.
“It’s about the size of Poland,” Abell says of the district’s size. “But there’s a number of issues that apply to most of the district, regardless of political affiliation.”
“What I’m finding is that the issues across the district are similar,” Engell says. “[Voters are] concerned about high cost of living, issues facing agriculture, public safety and a general disillusionment with state government.”
‘EXPERIENCE MATTERS’
All three of the candidates in the race for Maycumber’s Position 1 seat are Republicans with largely the same goal of protecting the “way of life” in the district. They’re separated by their experience, according to Engell and Ing-Moody.
Ing-Moody was elected to the Twisp Town Council in 2010
POSITION 1
and appointed about nine months later to be the town’s fourth mayor in two years. At the time, she was tasked with filling three key vacancies at City Hall: police chief, public works director and treasurer.
She went on to be elected for three terms as mayor before deciding not to run again in 2023. Her other experience includes serving as the president of the Association of Washington Cities, a nonprofit that represents the state’s towns and cities before the Legislature, and she helped start the Okanogan Council of Governments, a voluntary alliance of governments across Washington’s Okanogan region.
“I ask that people look at this as a job, and an important one at that,” she says about the role of legislator. “Experience matters.”
Meanwhile, Engell’s only elected experience has been as a Republican precinct committee officer in Colville. However, he’s worked as a deputy district director for McMorris Rodgers for the past seven years.
...continued on page 10 ANDREW ENGELL
“I have the most experience working with diverse people across 12 counties with Cathy McMorris Rodgers,” he says. “I’ve done her case work and constituent work, and I’ve worked with state legislators within the congressional district, too.”
The third candidate, Levine, has served as a Tonasket City Council member since 2017 and was previously a three-term chairwoman for the Okanogan County Republican Party. Additionally, she has worked with Let’s Go Washington, the group behind the six citizen-backed initiatives — largely focused on what supporters feel is excessive taxation by the state — that went to the Legislature earlier this year.
Levine did not respond to multiple Inlander requests for an interview before our Tuesday, July 9, deadline.
‘A CLEAR CHOICE’
The race for Kretz’s Position 2 seat is shaping up to be competitive, with two candidates endorsed by the Spokane County Republican Party and another candidate who is running as the sole Democrat in the District 7 races.
McCoy, who is the only Republican in this race without a major partisan endorsement, is serving his first term on the Chewelah City Council. However, the retired Navy veteran also served as Chewelah mayor for one term from 1998-2002.
“SEVEN
“We’re all good candidates, but what separates us is our backgrounds,” he says. “I’m not saying one candidate is better than the next.”
Much like Engell in the other race, Abell’s only elected experience has been as a Republican precinct committee officer in Colville, but he believes his background in the law stands out.
“I am the only candidate with experience in the criminal justice system,” Abell says. “I think there is a clear choice in this election.”
Abell has worked as an attorney in Ferry County and was appointed as a Ferry County District Court judge for a short period. Abell is also current president of the Washington State Bar Association, which has its headquarters in Seattle.
Bell is the communications director for Spokane County. He believes his communications experience and his eight years working for McMorris Rodgers will help him get elected. Bell was endorsed by McMorris Rodgers, and along with Abell, he received an endorsement from the Spokane County Republican Party.
“I haven’t seen a strong platform from all the other candidates,” Bell says. “I have heard a desire to serve, but when it comes down to experience and the type of person who voters want to represent the district, I’m the best choice.”
The final candidate in this race is Dean, who identifies as a moderate Democrat. He’s served as a Springdale Town Council member since 2020 and served 26 years in the Army.
“I’m not a politician, but I know how to reach across the aisle to work with everyone,” he says.
All six candidates interviewed across both races said they would work for bipartisan solutions in state government if elected — a skill that will be needed for any Republican candidate if the state Legislature maintains its Democratic majority.
POSITION 2
PUBLIC SAFETY & AGRICULTURE
In terms of issues the candidates hope to address if elected, public safety takes the top spot. Between the ever-present threat of wildlife predators, the overwhelmed law enforcement field, and the fentanyl crisis, there’s much work to be done.
“We need to get a hold on fentanyl that is ravaging families in the 7th, killing the weakest among us,” Abell says. “There are some things that the Legislature could do, like adding funding for the drug task force.”
Abell says that he would also like to see more money going toward drug court programs, which he has overseen personally.
Bell says the central issue outside violent crime is wildlife predators, such as grizzly bears, cougars and gray wolves endangering livestock. Plus, these predators have driven other animals such as deer and elk onto agricultural land causing it to be overgrazed, he says. He thinks the issue has only been compounded by the general feeling among constituents that the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife is there to protect the predators, not the people.
“When there is a predator attack we need universal support to have some kind of predator alert system,” Bell says. “It’s a real concern, people are fearful that they might be attacked.”
While Dean thinks some type of alert system would be greatly beneficial to the 7th District, he hopes to find a way for humans and predators to coexist.
“We really need to find better ways to deal with these predators. With more people moving into the animals’ habitat, the animals are actually the victims here,” Dean says. “However, I think ranchers are entitled to quickly responsive reimbursement for herd losses.”
Many candidates are also concerned about the district’s agricultural needs. Ing-Moody says much of the district’s economy is
HUNTER ABELL
PAUL “ROCKY” DEAN
PAT BELL
RONALD MCCOY
dependent on agriculture, effectively intertwining the two topics.
“We all share an appreciation for the outdoors we live in,” she says. “But we need good policies moving forward to protect all the things we cherish about the area where we live.”
McCoy mirrored what Ing-Moody said about agriculture even though they’re running in different races. However, neither candidate identified any specific policy ideas they have or existing proposals that they plan to support.
“Most of our upper north end is very agricultural, I plan on continuing to protect our farmers, cattlemen and our orchards,” McCoy says. “I’m not knocking tourism, but we have a way of life, and I want to protect that.”
PROTECTING RURAL LIFE
While each candidate differed on the top issues facing the 7th District, they all claimed that they would protect the rural way of life. Who are they protecting it from? The Legislature’s urbanized majority.
“The majority party is overwhelmingly from the urban parts of the state,” Engell explains. “So [7th District voters] feel disenfranchised by what goes on in Olympia … a lot of things that are talked about as one size fits all, but don’t work for our rural areas.”
Ing-Moody says that being a strong, fiscal conservative voice in Olympia would help alleviate those issues where voters feel they’re not being represented properly. While her opinion aligns with Engell’s, she says that her priorities are in Olympia, not D.C. — referring to Engell’s experience working for a congressional representative.
“I’ll focus on the people and less about what’s happening in D.C.,” she says. “I know statewide policies that most affect us in the 7th, and if I’m elected I would find great joy to be a strong voice and have strong policies for our families moving into the future.” n
Primary election day is Tuesday, Aug. 6.
to Your List
Smells Like Centrist Spirit
Nirvana co-founder Krist Novoselic is forming a moderate political party in Washington state
BY NATE SANFORD
Krist Novoselic, an activist and musician best known as the bassist who co-founded Nirvana with Kurt Cobain, is running for president of the United States.
He wishes he didn’t have to.
He hopes the Cascade Party will run candidates for local offices in upcoming elections.
“It seems like the center lane is open in politics, and there could be a realignment,” Novoselic says.
The Cascade Party’s website says it is a “centrist political association.”
What Novoselic really wants is for the Cascade Party of Washington, a new centrist political party he founded this year, to gain official recognition as a “minor political party” from the Washington Secretary of State’s Office.
The minor party designation would make it easier for the Cascade Party to fundraise, organize and run candidates for local elected office. But to qualify as a minor party, Washington state law requires that political parties gather 1,000 signatures to put a candidate on the presidential ballot.
Novoselic thinks the rule is “bonkers.”
The signatures have to be gathered at official party conventions. But luckily for Novoselic, music concerts technically count as conventions under state law. With that in mind, Novoselic formed the Bona Fide Band, which is playing a series of “conventions” across Washington to gather the necessary signatures.
“I can attract people with music, and so these conventions are just like concerts,” Novoselic says. “That way we can have as much fun as possible.”
One of the Cascade Party’s concerts/conventions will be held at the Hill House Event Center in Spokane’s Hillyard neighborhood on July 25. The Bona Fide Band will perform at the free show and Novoselic will help gather signatures and host a brief Q&A before the music.
Novoselić, 59, says the party has already gathered more than half of the required 1,000 signatures. He’s asked the state to remove his name from the presidential ballot once he qualifies.
The draft party platform says members “appreciate and promote wealth creation and success” while also understanding that “government can prevent the abuses of capitalism.” Its priorities include agriculture, judicial reform, conservation and health care.
Novoselic says the party is a fan of politicians like Seattle City Council President Sara Nelson, a newly elected moderate, and gubernatorial candidate Mark Mullet, a Democratic state senator who said in an interview with the Inlander earlier this year that he is “giving every voter a chance to not have to pick between the extreme left and the extreme right.”
A centrist political ideology may seem like a departure from the edgy, punk-rock anarchism people often associate with Nirvana. The band’s music wasn’t really explicitly political, but there was often a radical undercurrent. During a 1991 concert at the Paramount Theatre in Seattle — one of the band’s best live recorded performances — Cobain played a Fender Jaguar with a sticker that said “Vandalism: Beautiful as a rock in a cop’s face.”
“He had a bad experience with a cop,” Novoselic explains. “That really affected him. The cop sicced [a] dog on him.”
The Cascade Party, by contrast, lists “fund law enforcement” as a priority.
Former Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic is (unwillingly) running for president. ROB FRASER PHOTO
Novoselic’s politics have long been hard to categorize. He started becoming politically active after Nirvana dissolved — forming a political action committee in 1995 to fight legislation attempting to restrict the sale of “erotic” music. He later became an advocate for electoral reform as the chair of FairVote, a nonprofit that advocates for ranked choice voting. He served as chairman of the Wahkiakum County Democrats for several years before breaking with the party in 2009. He later supported Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson and was briefly involved in Andrew Yang’s Forward Party.
Novoselic acknowledges that his politics have evolved over the years. There was a time when he would have supported decriminalizing all drugs. Not anymore. He talks about the tragedy of walking past people nodding out on the street, and how he believes progressive approaches like “harm reduction” and “housing first” haven’t been effective. The draft Cascade Party platform supports requiring sobriety for access to public services.
“It’s heartbreaking to see people like this, but what are we getting back?” Novoselic says. “I think it’s fair to expect people [to be] like, ‘Alright, we’re going to help you, but you’ve got to be sober.’ It’s not a big ask.”
Novoselic says an independent, DIY punk ethos still underpins his political work. The Cascade Party might be politically moderate, but it’s still a scrappy, grassroots effort that exists outside the establishment.
Before Nirvana was big, Novoselic recalls a music scene in the 1980s where people made zines and organized their own house shows. It stuck with him.
“I guess that’s just where I learned to do this stuff, and I just took it to politics,” Novoselic says. “It’s like, ‘Folks, we just need to do it ourselves. We can’t really depend on somebody to save us.’”
Social networking is a big part of Novoselic’s vision for the Cascade Party. The party is built around HumHub, an open source social media platform that Novoselic believes can be used for a secure, more democratic type of political organizing. About 85 people have joined the party’s HumHub server so far. Novoselic hopes the party can combine social networking with a model of “old-fashioned political association where people are amplifying their needs and values.” He views it as reviving an approach to volunteer community organization that used to be more common in American society.
Novoselic has released five albums since 2017. In addition to bass, he’s been playing lots of accordion and exploring fingerstyle acoustic guitar influenced by folk musician John Fahey.
The new Bona Fide Band features Novoselic on bass, along with Screaming Trees drummer Mark Pickerel and guitarist Kathy Moore. It also includes vocalists Jennifer Johnson and Jillian Raye, who are members of Novoselic’s previous bands, Giants in the Trees and 3rd Secret.
The band’s setlist includes covers of two songs Nirvana covered and helped popularize: “The Man Who Sold the World” by David Bowie and “Love Buzz,” by Shocking Blue.
Novoselic’s musical and political interests may have evolved over the years, but some things stay the same. He still prefers playing Gibson Thunderbirds — the same style of bass he played at countless iconic Nirvana shows. At a recent Bona Fide Band concert in Aberdeen (where he grew up starting in 1979), he ripped into the hypnotic bass line on “Love Buzz” with an aggressive picking style and the instrument strap hung below his waist in classic punk rock fashion.
“I like big basses,” Novoselic says. “I’m 6-foot-7, so it just seems to work for me.”
When told that taller candidates have historically had an advantage in presidential elections, Novoselic stresses that he really doesn’t want to be president.
“I just want to start a party,” Novoselic says. n nates@inlander.com
CHRISTMAS IN JULY
Mic Drop
Open mics across the region let Inland Northwest creatives showcase their many talents
It all comes down to bravery.
Staring down a room full of people while standing in front of a live microphone is plenty of people’s worst nightmare. Sweaty palms and shaky hands threaten scripts scattering to the ground, and voices quaver in fear of stumbling over words.
Yet nearly every night of the week, a budding musician in a crowded bar dares to perform in front of strangers. Aspiring comedians tell original jokes, hoping for a laugh. In a burrito shop, poets share vulnerable words straight from their hearts.
Open mics invent space for creatives to share their work without judgment, something that doesn’t come easily in many public forums.
The stories that follow showcase five local open mics. Some were established over a decade ago and still draw crowds each time, while others dwindled and were rekindled over the years. All feature courageous constituents who find solace in words, music and laughter.
— MADISON PEARSON, SECTION EDITOR
Three for All
For more than a decade, Auntie’s 3 Minute Mic has welcomed writers from all walks of life
BY MADISON PEARSON
Think of all of the things you can do in three minutes.
Microwave popcorn. Make your bed. Take a phone call. Listen to your favorite song.
It isn’t a lot of time, but it can feel like a lifetime when you’re baring your soul to a room full of people.
For 11 years now on the first Friday of each month, Auntie’s Bookstore in downtown Spokane has been hosting 3 Minute Mic, giving poets and other wordsmiths three minutes in front of a microphone to share their work.
Former Spokane Poet Laureate (2019-2021) Chris Cook has been hosting 3 Minute Mic along with his co-host Chris Coppen since the beginning.
Cook has seen faces come and go, some readers who return every month, and plenty of newcomers trying out the open mic format over the past decade-plus.
“Poetry can be a solo game,” Cook says. “It can be an introverted pursuit. But, if you’re brave enough to
step up to a mic, you’re going to get support.”
And it’s true. On the first Friday of June, the seats in Auntie’s Bookstore are nearly full. Some attendees are established poets, some are first-timers, some have come as moral support, and some are just there to listen. As they settle into their chairs, the microphone stares down the crowd perched atop a stand at the front of the store.
crowd, so Cook brings up regular and former attorney for the city of Spokane, Michael Connelly, to start things off. He’s retiring and reads a few poems that reflect his feelings toward the new chapter of life he’s entering.
He receives snaps, claps and a pat on the back as he returns to his spot in the crowd.
Next, Cook calls up a tourist visiting from California. She explains that she heard talk about an open mic and figured she’d try it out while she’s in town.
3 MINUTE MIC
First Fridays at 7 pm, free, all ages Auntie’s Bookstore, 402 W. Main Ave. auntiesbooks.com, 509-838-0206
Something akin to excitement is palpable in the air as regular 3 Minute Mic readers walk around talking with other regulars, while others sit quietly, scanning their poems and practicing in their heads before go-time.
The clock strikes 7 pm and Cook walks to the front of the room to go over the rules: You may read up to three minutes worth of poetry. This is a free-speech event. (Be mindful of young ears!) Have fun. This time around, there are a few fresh faces in the
“We almost always have new readers,” Cook says. “We make a really big deal of it. We announce that from the beginning, and we space them out. There’s roaring applause, it’s over the top.”
After the Californian finishes, the audience of about 15 bursts into applause, snaps and cheers of affirmation.
“We always invite people back,” Cook says. “Quite loudly and in unison. And more often than not, they do come back.”
Brandon T. Sullivan, a local poet, found his place and renewed meaning at 3 Minute Mic.
“I wrote poetry for the first time in 2012,” Sullivan says. “Consequently, I started my recovery process at the same time. Poetry and God got me through that time in my life.”
Sullivan found himself driving to Spokane in the years
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after the COVID pandemic from his then-home in the Tri-Cities repeatedly each week to attend open mics. Attending 3 Minute Mic, along with other local events, helped Sullivan find his footing as a poet and inspired him to pursue writing as a career.
“In Spokane, you can stumble upon poetry in so many places,” he says. “We have such talented and varied poets here. They make it so exciting to be a part of this scene because no matter what open mic I go to, there will be a performer there that will make my work, and my life, better in some way.”
Sullivan reads from his independently published poetry collection, Love and Toxic Waste, at the June event. His poem “Growths” discusses tree burls, which he describes as “pockets of mystery that trees sometimes grow.”
“There was more going on in that small block of forest than in most cities on Earth,” Sullivan reads. “Life microscopic, insectoid to rodent and beyond, but human ears just weren’t made to notice that kind of traffic, or maybe it’s because we’re not listening.”
He gets to a beautifully alliterative line, “weirdly wavy whirl whorls of wonder,” and the room fills with audible “oohs” and faint snaps.
Anyone can share. All it takes is three minutes, a microphone and eager, listening ears.
“It’s religion in the best possible sense,” Cook says. “I feel like, in many ways, we have seriously saved lives.” n
Twahan Simultaneous reads at July’s 3 Minute Mic while host Chris Cook watches. YOUNG KWAK PHOTO
The Laugh Lab
Local comics hone jokes for a live audience at Spokane Comedy Club’s weekly open mics
BY AZARIA PODPLESKY
In comedy, a few minutes on stage takes months of work.
“Trimming the fat” from one’s set, as comedian Charles Hall Jr. says, involves trial and error, studying crowd reactions to determine when a joke is at its best. For comedians both new and seasoned, open mics are the perfect place to cut that fat. And for comedians in the Inland Northwest, the Spokane Comedy Club hosts two open mics every week: New Talent Tuesday and Open Mic Night on Wednesdays.
General manager Brit Ducommun says open mic nights have been a Spokane Comedy Club staple since the very beginning, when the club opened in 2016. Ducommun creates the lineups for each open mic, likening the scheduling process to the oft-memed It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia scene in which actor Charlie Day is in a mailroom surrounded by a complex web of paper taped to the wall.
“Sign-ups are so high that it’s crazy trying to get
everyone on, but I definitely get everyone on,” she says.
Even if comics aren’t selected for a particular open mic, Ducommun suggests they still come to watch other performers, get advice and put their name in the “Lucky Bucket.” Three Lucky Bucket comics are added to the lineup before the show starts. The host, closer and lineup changes each week, so audience members enjoy a new show every time.
At a recent open mic, about 60 people settle in for a night of local comedy. Host Sophie Thomi warms up the crowd with jokes about how she has resting psychopath face, not resting bitch face, because she smiles all the time.
didn’t necessarily heckle, but responds to jokes from the first couple comedians until a staff member intervenes. The whole evening feels seamless, with Thomi keeping things running smoothly and comics respecting time limits.
C OMEDY OPEN MIC NIGHTS
Hall shares jokes about finding out he can sunburn — “Jesus, you need to do a recall on Black people” — his experience as a father, and being called Black Panther by a child in Idaho.
Tue and Wed at 7 pm, free, 21+ Spokane Comedy Club, 315 W. Sprague Ave. spokanecomedyclub.com
Other comedians talk about pickleball, the Inland Northwest and why you shouldn’t trust a bidet to actually get you clean.
The crowd is well-behaved, save for a man who
Hall’s been a comedian since 2019, when he was inspired to get on stage after seeing Kevin Hart perform in Portland.
“I was like, ‘Let me just say I did it,’” he says. “But then I did pretty well and they kept inviting me back, and then one thing led to another.”
At those early performances at the Capitol City
Charles Hall Jr. works out his jokes at Spokane Comedy Club. YOUNG KWAK PHOTOS
Theater (now the Infinity Room) in Salem, and later in Seattle, Hall focused his set on his children and his parents. During a two-and-a-half hour work commute, Hall tuned into Sirius XM radio, listening to as many comedians as he could.
“I was like a sponge, and I was absorbing all these different variations of comedy and learned it’s a huge spectrum,” he says. “There’s clean comedy and dirty comedy, satire, one-liners. I really used that as a stepping stone to find my own style and how to structure a joke.”
Hall tries to write more generally so he can tell the same jokes in different cities. He usually runs jokes at open mics a few times before adding them to his set.
“Reading the room and understanding your demographic is a huge thing,” he says.
After moving to Spokane in late 2020, Hall went to an open mic at Spokane Comedy Club. He did so well that he was asked to open for six shows at the club.
Ducommun says that could happen to any open mic performer, as club staff watch open mics to decide if comics are ready to host, open or feature for the touring comedians who perform at the club. If the comic is willing to travel, they might perform at one of Spokane Comedy Club’s sister venues around the country, too.
Hall estimates he’s hosted as many as 50 shows at the club and has been a featured comic up to 30 times, in addition to a few headlining performances. He also opened for Hasan Minhaj last year at Beasley Coliseum in Pullman.
In a truly full-circle moment, Hall gets to open for Hart, who’s headlining the Great Outdoors Comedy Festival on Aug. 25 at ONE Spokane Stadium. Hall feels honored to be selected to do something so big for the city and sees the performance as another step toward his dream of becoming a full-time comedian. He’s still working on his festival set and will surely workshop a few jokes at open mics before then.
“Comedy itself is an art form,” he says. “It’s no different than ‘Go draw a picture’ or ‘Go write down a poem.’ It’s the creativity aspect of it. When you’re on stage at an open mic, you literally have four minutes to be as creative as you want… Every community needs a place where artists, people of all backgrounds can come together in a space and tell their experiences… I’m pretty thankful Spokane has a good spot.” n
Gerri Newell performs during a recent comedy open mic.
5:30pm
“Doors” open for you to bring
7:00pm
Concert 1st Half starring Artistic Director Zuill Bailey & the Spokane String Quartet
Concert 2nd Half starring Grammy-winning fiddlers
Mark and Maggie O’Connor
OPEN MICS
Poetry in Motion
Don’t let the name fool you. Spokane’s long-running Broken Mic series is intact and vibrant as ever
BY E.J. IANNELLI
With a ledger in one hand and a pen in the other, emcee Liz Marlin circulates through the tiny dining area of Neato Burrito. It’s approaching half past 6 on a glowing evening in early summer, and the few remaining seats are quickly being claimed by poetry readers and their audience.
She greets a guy with a graying goatee. He’s seated close to the front, wearing a black T-shirt with a fading graphic of the words “Death Metal” below a cartoon-style rainbow.
“Are you reading tonight?” she asks. He hesitates. “If you’re on the fence, that’s OK.”
He is on the fence, as a matter of fact. But after a few beats he reconsiders.
His name is Anthony. Marlin jots it down in the ledger below Wendy, Mel, Elsa and Jake.
Every Wednesday in this space and at this time, a fresh page fills with readers’ first names, accompanied by an assortment of the host’s doodles, quotes, notes and reminders. And after 13 years, the cumulative list of first names is a long one. This is Broken Mic, Spokane’s longestrunning open mic poetry event.
Partly because of its longevity, Broken Mic continues to draw newcomers as well as established poets. They use the weekly forum to try out new material, to reprise their existing work or to share poems they admire. In the earthy parlance of Broken Mic, those broad categories are “new shit,” “old shit” and “other
people’s shit.” Signaling their familiarity with the rituals, veteran readers preface their poems accordingly when they step up to the mic. Otherwise the audience and host will do it for them.
Anthony — full name Anthony Hauck — already knows the drill. He’s opted to read “other people’s shit,” specifically, a “A Poison Tree” by the Romantic poet William Blake (of “Tyger Tyger, burning bright…” fame). His initial hesitation didn’t stem from the act of reading itself but from deciding what to share.
“It’s just that I haven’t written a new poem in a long time, so a lot of the poetry that I’ve read here before I’ve read two or three times over,” Hauck says.
By contrast, Amelia Schuhler — Mel in the ledger’s shorthand — is a relative newcomer to Broken Mic, even if the self-described “fugitive artist” is no stranger to similar events. She’s hung out in spaces like these since she was a teenager. She recently moved to Spokane from Southern California and was encouraged to attend as a way of tapping into the support and solidarity that open mics can offer.
B ROKEN MIC
Wednesdays, sign-up at 6 pm, starts at 6:30 pm; free, all ages Neato Burrito, 827 W. First Ave. 509-847-1234
“It was a really big part of my life and who I was, my community and my romantic relationships,” Schuhler says. “Now that I’ve moved here, I don’t really have a community.”
On this evening, she reads an original poem prompted by the death of a writing partner. The emotions are still raw, but she wel-
comes the opportunity to share them candidly with an audience that’s vocal in its acceptance. Raucously so.
“I’m looking forward to getting more comfortable with not protecting myself so much and being in spaces where I feel the most like myself,” Schuhler says. “So it’s scary, but it’s more of a relief.”
Hauck likewise links the experience to a mix of catharsis and comfort. He compares Broken Mic to “a form of therapy.”
“The reason I come out here is that I just love the atmosphere. I love the people. I love people being able to share who they are, what they are, what their feelings are, what their thoughts are, without being judged or examined or anything,” he says.
Marlin says the absence of judgment goes further than that. Broken Mic is, in her words, “militantly supportive.”
And though Marlin happens to be the one taking readers’ names and rousing the crowd with liberal use of four-letter words, she isn’t the series’ only host. Poets Twahan Simultaneous and Caya Berndt are also in the weekly rotation. Zachary Anderson-White steps in on occasion, too, as does past Spokane Poet Laureate Mark Anderson, who founded Broken Mic in 2011.
Among the regular hosts is yet another former Spokane Poet Laureate, Chris Cook. Toward the end of tonight’s event, he arrives to conclude with a poem that has a timely tie-in with Pride Month. He settles into his cadence, and the entire room falls quiet — even the casual customers who are stopping in to order burritos. Then comes the outpouring of hearty and heartfelt applause.
The response jibes with Marlin’s thoughts on Broken Mic as a fixture in the regional poetry scene.
“It’s about supporting each other as a community,” she says. “Without that, why the hell are we here?” n
Poet Wendy Harvey reads at Broken Mic inside Neato Burrito. E.J. IANNELLI PHOTO
OPEN MICS
Emerging Victoriously
Emerge gallery’s monthly sharing sessions are a place for community and recovery
BY COLTON RASANEN
On one of the longest days of the year, I meet Sam Rowland at The Crown & Thistle Pub in downtown Coeur d’Alene. He’s just finished his shift there as we sit at a wobbly wooden table to talk about the open mic night he hosts each month at the nearby art gallery Emerge, and which starts in less than an hour.
As Rowland sips from a teacup half full of black coffee, he talks about the open mic’s origin, which was really driven by his desire to fill the city with music. However, as Emerge’s music coordinator, he realized implementing live music on a regular basis wasn’t feasible.
“We were coming up with new ideas to incorporate music more at Emerge,” Rowland says. “We have a stage in there and a really nice sound system. But it’s kind of hard in the city, because we’re not really an event space, we’re an art gallery.”
He and Emerge’s executive director, Jeni Hegsted, needed to find a middle ground to fill that musical hole without pushing beyond the venue’s boundaries. Thus, the Third Thursday Open Mic night was born in 2020. In the time since, the event has changed a lot, Rowland explains. This includes a handful of different hosts who bring their distinct personalities to the stage. But the biggest difference is a shift in mediums from mainly music to poetry and spoken word.
“I’m very much in the soul of letting it be organic,” he says. “I let the community create the event, we are just providing a space.”
“Definitely growth is ideal, but there’s just something I’m really finding magical about this group as it is,” he adds.
That community isn’t very big though. Rowland says there’s a core group of fewer than 10 people who show up every month.
Then, a few months ago, Rowland found out that everyone in that core group, including himself, was engaged in some form of addiction recovery. Under-
standing the gravity of that moment, he told the group his own struggles and how he’s been sober now for more than five years.
“It was that moment we all just were like, ‘This is it. This is us,’” he says.
While a monthly performance event doesn’t quite make up for addiction recovery groups like Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous, Rowland thinks something like what Emerge’s open mic has become could be vital for anyone’s recovery.
“I mean I’m a human services student. I’m a veteran. I have addiction issues. I’ve gone through the process [of recovery] so many times. And this is something I wish everybody had on the side of their recovery,” he says.
His coffee finished, we walk about two blocks to Emerge.
Even with such a small group, the gallery swells with chatter as everyone catches up with each other. When Rowland begins slowly plucking his acoustic guitar, the group grows silent.
“Are you guys ready to start this thing?” he asks. They respond with head nods and some quiet whooping. He responds back by jumping straight into an upbeat, folksy song reminiscent of Mumford & Sons’ second album, Babel.
T HIRD THURSDAY OPEN MIC
Third Thursdays at 7 pm, free, all ages Emerge, 119 N. Second St., Coeur d’Alene emergecda.com, 208-930-1876
“The most important part of recovery, in my opinion, is keeping your mental health in a constantly good environment,” Rowland continues. “Anytime you have an opportunity to build or provide a space for community, you’re providing a space for mental health… and that’s the ticket for these guys.”
Rowland and I mosey into Emerge just a few minutes before the open mic is scheduled to begin.
The gallery is empty aside from a few workers. As I wander the space taking in its LGBTQ+ Pride collection, Rowland pulls out about 15 chairs and sets them up facing a small corner stage.
“I would say the key to a successful open mic is our venue,” Rowland says as he begins fidgeting with the sound system. “It’s an easy, intimate environment allowing for this unraveling [of emotion] within this core group.”
As soon as the clock hits 7 pm, a few people begin to wander into the gallery. A couple more come in about five minutes later, bringing the night’s total attendees to nine.
“That’s one of my favorites, Sam,” one audience member yells as he finishes the song. Rowland performs another, sonically similar to the first, and then passes the mic to the group’s poets. One person delivers a two-minute piece of slam poetry filled with slick rhetoric and a fast-paced tempo. They’re followed by another poet who shares an intensely personal poem about self-harm, followed by another about heartbreak.
After a brief lull another pair of musicians, Amberle and Tony Madden, take the stage together for the first time in a long time. If they hadn’t told us, however, no one would’ve known.
The musical mix of Amberle’s immaculate voice and Tony’s accompanying guitar resembles a traditionalsounding folk rock song. After the first song, Amberle tells the audience she’s still so nervous.
Someone yells out to her, “You’re killing it!” Two songs later and the entire group is cheering louder than they have all night.
Finally, another poet closes out the night with two original pieces she says will be in her soon-to-be published book.
The open mic ends about an hour after it started, but nobody’s left yet. Instead, they’re all gathered to swap compliments and ask questions. Everything Rowland has said about the group is reflected in this small moment of joyous community. n
Open mic host Sam Rowland COLTON RASANEN PHOTO
‘Space to Show Off’
Red Room Lounge has hosted plenty of hip-hop stars, but its open mic night is all about community
BY TAYLOR WARING
For 16 or so years, Red Room Lounge has been an understated staple in Spokane’s music scene. While it often doesn’t get the same hype as venues of a similar size in Spokane, it’s been graced by hip-hop greats like Warren G, Mobb Deep and Nappy Roots — not to mention Ms. New Booty himself, Bubba Sparxxx, who made a recent post-Hoopfest appearance. In addition to regular hip-hop bangers, Red Room Lounge hosts regular open mics on Mondays.
According to owner Craig Larsen, the opportunity to share the same stage as some of these legends is, in part, what makes his Monday night open mic so special for new artists. Larsen has bartended for most of the Red Room Lounge’s open mics over the years and is behind the bar when I swing in to check it out.
“Open mic gives artists an opportunity,” Larsen says. “That’s why I like it — it gives people a chance to get rid of stage fright and get a natural reaction from the audience. It’s important to give people a space to show off — like Joey, that long-haired rock ’n’ roll guy over there. He’s an amazing guitar player — he loves this place. He could be in his studio, but the stage is a whole different thing. We’re not the Knitting Factory, but we have the sound, the stage and the lighting a lot of places don’t have.”
duces the first of many interesting and original performances. The evening opens with a flute performance dedicated to “the merriment of tonight and the joy that it brings” and ends with an off-the-cuff psychedelic blues jam in which the performer envisions hooking up with an intergalactic bombshell — “we’re gonna have alien babies, but I ain’t gonna see ’em,” he sings.
Melissa Phoenix, who’s also taking part in the event’s weekly artist vendor, is a harpist and singer. Bedazzled in psychedelic clothes with a voice not entirely unlike Tori Amos, she sings a few down-to-earth songs dedicated to the solstice. Matt Legard, of the local Smashing Pumpkinsinfluenced The Colourflies, performs acoustic cuts of his usually much louder rock songs. And, of course, Joey, the aforementioned dude Larsen points out with the David Coverdale haircut, rocks. He plays a few guitar-focused, instrumental compositions.
R ED ROOM OPEN MIC
Mondays at 8 pm, free, 21+ Red Room Lounge, 521 W. Sprague Ave. facebook.com/MusicMovement509
And while Larsen has helped keep the Red Room’s open mic a mainstay, he’s also let it evolve.
“When we started, we’d have a lot of random people and hosts — people would burn out,” Larsen says. “About three months ago, we partnered with MAC Movement. The MAC girls have set up a rotation of weekly hosts. They’ve been working really hard to bring in great hosts every week and keep things fresh. At the end of the day, we couldn’t do everything we do without support from local artists, promoters and people who believe in what we do.”
Shortly after I finish chatting up the owner, local rapper, singer and open mic host for June 24 Myla Cree welcomes the crowd and intro-
At the midpoint of the show, the MAC girls — Drea and Crystle — take the stage. Drea, who has a couple of hip-hop inspired stage names like Dr. Drea and Mac Drea, sings along with a few songs and talks about the importance of community in the arts, which is in line with the mission of MAC Movement. According to the group’s Facebook, it exists to “feed starving artists and nourish creative growth.”
“We’re in a broken society, and we need big changes and something that brings us all together,” she says. To follow, Crystle shows off a few shibari knots — a form of Japanese knot tying often used by the BDSM community — on some of her friends.
Red Room Lounge’s open mic takes place every Monday at 8 pm. The event is open to all genres, including music, performance arts and comedy. The venue also hosts weekly art vendors.
If you want to check out some of Spokane’s up-and-coming local musicians as they cut their teeth on stage or are seeking some stage experience yourself, get to the Red Room Lounge — maybe your own booty will be rockin’ everywhere. n
Mikah Smith on flute ERICK DOXEY PHOTO
ANNUAL REPORT FOOD & DRINK NIGHTLIFE
Rising mixed martial artist Lisa Holtz looks to add her name to the roster of star athletes from Spokane’s Sik-Jitsu gym
BY AZARIA PODPLESKY
Tdrops into a crouched stance. Bouncing from one foot to the other, she lifts her gloved hands toward her face.
Standing across from sparring partner Melissa Amaya, the 23-year-old Holtz throws a light punch. Amaya bobs to avoid the hit before returning the move, but Holtz darts out of the way before resetting her stance. The pair continue to trade strikes — some find their target, others are deflected. Practice has just begun, but Holtz is sweating, her braided hair coming loose in wisps.
The exchange continues until the buzzer sounds again, marking the end of the five-minute round. The pair tap gloves before moving on to new partners, the process repeating for the next hour.
Eventually, coach Rick Little tells everyone to grab water. When asked how she’s feeling, Holtz gives a big
Holtz practices at Sik-Jitsu in Spokane’s far northeast corner four times a week. She’s fought twice — one win, one loss — and is preparing for her third match during the July 13 Conquest of the Cage at Northern Quest Resort and Casino, organized by Little and his company, Excitefight.
A younger Holtz would be surprised to find herself at Sik-Jitsu, but today Holtz knows she’s meant to be here.
Originally from Rhode Island, Holtz grew up trying athletic and artistic endeavors like gymnastics, hockey, track, flute, violin and piano, yet never sticking to any pursuit. As she got older, she realized if she wanted to reach her full potential she had to get out of Rhode Island.
“No offense to people there, but it’s a little close-minded,” she says. “A lot of people don’t venture out or try to see how the world operates… I felt like I had a purpose in
life, and I wasn’t going to go far anywhere in Rhode Island.”
Holtz and her then-boyfriend moved to Florida, then Colorado, then Nevada and finally Spokane in August 2020 after COVID derailed their plans to move to Vietnam.
Though her former partner had been training in mixed martial arts — MMA for short — Holtz didn’t feel confident enough to try it. After feeling she wasn’t active enough, though, she started conditioning.
In August 2022, the pair traveled to Mexico. That November, Holtz took her first class at Maranatha, a kickboxing and Brazilian jiu-jitsu gym in Mexicali. Those early sessions were awkward for Holtz, who didn’t know what to do when grappling with someone, but she learned to love it.
“Before I left Mexico, I already had in my mind that I wanted to be a fighter,” she says. “I wanted to go full time with this.”
After two months of training in Mexico, the pair returned to Spokane in January 2023 with their sights set on Sik-Jitsu.
“I was still fresh with MMA so it was pretty intimidating coming here, but I knew by coming here I would advance pretty fast,” Holtz says.
Holtz is in great company at Sik-Jitsu, home to professional fighters like her sparring partner Amaya, as well as Juliana Miller, Michael Chiesa, Brady Hiestand and Ashton Charlton. Star athletes in the sport Julianna Peña (former UFC women’s bantamweight champion), Sam Sicilia and Austin Arnett also trained at Sik-Jitsu.
Coach Little, who opened Sik-Jitsu in 2008, isn’t ashamed to answer “me” when asked why so many top fighters come out of Sik-Jitsu.
“I know what the f--k I’m doing,” he says. “Most people don’t know what they’re doing. It’s like having a good builder that can build houses and once they get a system and they know what they’re doing, they build these beautiful houses.”
Little’s interest in MMA began in 1995 when he watched an ad for ultimate fighting. After seeing the bulkier fighters, Little laughed when a smaller contender entered the ring.
“This guy was my size,” he says. “I was like ‘This karate kid’s going to get smoked.’”
Little watched in amazement as the smaller fighter won simply by grappling and taking the bigger fighter to the ground.
“It turned me upside down and made me feel like a badass,”
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Holtz began her training in mixed martial arts in late 2022.
he says. “I was like ‘I can do this.’”
Even so, it took Little three years to enter the ring. First, he used his college savings to move to Torrance, California, and train with renowned fighter Royce Gracie of the Gracie jiu-jitsu family.
Little trained with Gracie for a year before returning to Spokane. He fought five times, winning four, but hated each experience because event promoters were more concerned with making money than with fighters’ safety.
Feeling confident in the base he built with Gracie and not wanting to work with what he calls “scumbag” promoters, Little started Sik-Jitsu gym and Excitefight, the latter of which hosts fights at casinos nationwide.
“I have a system that cuts the BS and everybody that’s attracted to the system — the Julianas, the Melissas, the Lisas — why they’re good is because they know they’re not getting any YouTube moves,” Little says. “I can show them some fancy stuff, but if Lisa’s fighting a real bitch that’s really trying to hurt her, that fancy shit’s not going to work. What I like about the athletes I have, they’re not looking for those shortcut moves.”
Little’s intensity brought the undefeated Melissa Amaya to Sik-Jitsu four years ago.
“It’s not your traditional gym,” she says. “It’s just people grinding in a garage. There’s no farce here. People here grind.”
Miller, meanwhile, came to Sik-Jitsu a year and a half ago after winning Season 30 of The Ultimate Fighter, for which Little coached with Team Peña in 2022. Miller entered the sport after an abusive partner hurt her, vowing, “No one will ever touch me like this again.” After years of hard work, Miller earned her UFC contract.
“That’s one of the good things about this gym is the opportunity to work with pro fighters as an amateur,” Holtz says.
Both Amaya and Miller say they’ve noticed Holtz’s growth during her time at Sik-Jitsu. Amaya likens each fight to a traumatic experience your body remembers, saying a fighter is changed after each match.
“You get to decide if it’s for better or for worse, and I feel like Lisa’s used everything she’s learned and she’s constantly growing, which is really cool to watch,” Amaya says.
Holtz’s debut bout was against Marcelina Zacarias in November 2023 at Northern Quest. Holtz won by submission in the first round.
“I’m glad I won, but it was way too fast, because I had worked so hard to improve my skills,” she says.
Still, Holtz enjoyed the bout of extroversion she experienced in the ring.
“I felt more like myself or what I would want myself to be,” she says.
In February, Holtz was back at Northern Quest, fighting Nataliya Kharkavaya. She felt calm stepping into the cage but knew it was going to be a tough fight.
Holtz held her own against the more experienced Kharkavaya for nearly three minutes. After a good scramble, Holtz, who was fighting with a hyperextended elbow, had to tap out when Kharkavaya managed to get her in an arm-bar.
“I wasn’t really worried about the loss,” she says. “When you’re doing so much work before a fight and then you have nothing else to look forward to, that was the main thing I was struggling with, just being consistent afterwards.”
Rehabbing her elbow, then dealing with a sprained ankle and work commitments led to a delay in fights, but
Holtz is ready for her return.
“As shy as Lisa is, I think there’s a part deep down that is so ready for the spotlight,” Miller says. “She’s completely unafraid to go for it.”
Back on the mat, Holtz is now working with Miller. They start with shadow sparring. Holtz smiles when Miller accidentally makes contact with her forehead.
At the buzzer, Little tells the group to jab and squat on their own.
“Activate that back leg,” he says. “If you can’t activate it now, you can’t activate it when someone’s trying to kick your ass.”
Holtz and Miller spend the rest of practice working on getting out of being pinned against the wall and taking their opponent down. At the end of the session, Holtz seems tired but happy.
Days before the event, it’s unclear if she’ll fight at the July 13 Conquest of the Cage, as there aren’t many eligible female fighters willing to travel to the area, but Little hopes to get Holtz on the card.
Always positive, Holtz says she won’t be upset if she has to wait to fight.
“I’m not mad about it,” she says. “I feel like that’s how it is when it comes to girl fights. There’s not too many girls in this area that are at my experience, so I’ll just keep training and learning, basically just improving until we find someone else.”
Spoken like a true champ. n
Conquest of the Cage • Sat, July 13 at 7 pm • $49-$149 • All ages • Northern Quest Resort and Casino • 100 N. Hayford Road, Airway Heights • northernquest.com
“SPOKANE BUILT, SPOKANE STRONG,” CONTINUED...
Holtz trains with her undefeated teammate Melissa Amaya. YOUNG KWAK PHOTOS
I Scream, You Scream
Urban Art Co-op’s Scoops & Bowls fundraiser has become a Spokane summertime staple
BY MADISON PEARSON
Preparing for summer’s arrival usually includes stocking up on sunscreen, breaking out the jorts and ensuring the air conditioning is in working order before the first heat wave.
At Urban Art Co-op, summer preparations happen year-round.
Fingers are covered in clay, kilns are always firing, and hand-shaped bowls are dipped into colorful glazes nearly every day at the pottery studio on North Monroe Street, all for its annual fundraiser, Scoops & Bowls.
Urban Art Co-op’s six founders convened in a restaurant at the end of 2014 to dream up plans for a memberowned pottery studio. By March of the following year, bylaws were written and classes got underway in a small studio on Monroe, down the street from their eventual home. The studio’s six founders also immediately began making bowls for the co-op’s inaugural Scoops & Bowls.
“We hauled like 300 bowls up to Manito Park that first year,” co-founder Karen Mannino says. “We almost sold out as well. I think we brought back seven bowls. We thought we were on top of the world back then!”
Now, in its ninth year, Urban Art Co-op’s 63 members have collectively made over 2,000 bowls to sell in Manito Park this Saturday, along with scoops of delicious huckleberry, cookie dough and vanilla ice cream, plus fruit popsicles for the dairy-free crowd.
All of the bowls — which come with a free scoop of ice cream — start at $15 and go up from there depending on size. Mannino says a line usually forms, so attendees may want to arrive early for the 10 am event.
As bowls are made and fired, they’re moved to boxes which are then stored in a shipping container. For the big event, the vessels are transported up to Manito Park via a U-Haul, ready to go to their new homes.
Even before this year’s event has happened, the co-op has scheduled a Create Day in August to make about 200 bowls for Scoops & Bowls 2025, Mannino says.
This year’s Scoops & Bowls is particularly important to Urban Arts members as it will fund their biggest project yet.
“We try to keep the rent paid with member dues and keep the lights on with the student money essentially,” Mannino says. “And then Scoops & Bowls has always been for big improvements.”
me,” Mannino says. “It’s about 5,000 square feet of open warehouse. We’re in there all the time right now fixing it up — painting, filling holes in the floor, and getting everything ready to move in hopefully by the fall.”
The co-op’s current digs can only accommodate about 65 members and 30 to 40 pottery students each quarter. Mannino hopes to grow those numbers once Urban Art Co-op settles into its new location later this year.
“This place is some of our members’ livelihoods,” Mannino says. “We have 18 members who run their entire business out of here.”
Co-founder Autumn Bunton runs her business Goblin Pottery out of the co-op. So does Shannon Hagerty, who goes by The Common Potter.
Throughout the year, the co-op has been hosting bowl-making parties called Create Days in order to meet their quota for Scoops & Bowls.
“We fill up all of the wheels we have and have people running, wedging clay and just keeping everything moving,” Mannino says. “Sometimes we play musical wheels. You get three minutes to throw, and then you switch with someone. It’s really great experience and practice.”
But for the last couple years, the studio has been putting money raised at Scoops & Bowls aside to move the studio into a larger space. Later this year, the co-op is moving from North Monroe to a building in far North Spokane on the Newport Highway. Some may recognize the location by the zebra sculpture that sits atop a tall pole near the highway, peeking its head out from the trees.
“When I was a kid that building was, like, iconic to
“We’re going to have a non-pottery conference room that we can use for workshops and other art forms,” Mannino says. “The new space will allow more variety in our schedule, and we’ll be able to collaborate with other arts organizations in the city more easily.”
And, yes, they’re keeping the zebra statue. n Scoops & Bowls • Sat, July 13 • $15+ • All ages • Manito Park, Lower Picnic Shelter • 1702 S. Grand Blvd. • urbanartcoop.org
Vessels for Scoops & Bowls come in all shapes, sizes and finishes. PHOTO COURTESY OF KAREN MANNINO
Bowls in production for the big fundraiser. MADISON PEARSON PHOTO
A WAVY BUNCH OF VENDORS
A growing local artisan market’s take on community brings creative people together
BY MADI OSWALT
With creativity and individuality flowing in every direction, the Wavy Bunch Night Market stands out. Crystals glisten in the early evening sun, passing pups stare down gourmet dog treats, and the owner of a funky photo bus showcases a crocodile mask prop.
These scenes and more were all part of the 2024 season kickoff on June 14 of the night market and street fair organized by a group of creatives who call themselves the Wavy Bunch. The music-festival-inspired market began in Coeur d’Alene in 2021, and was originally held at Runge Furniture. This year, however, organizers moved the event to Spokane’s University District, where it occupies a parking lot next to Eastern Washington University’s zero-carbon, zero-energy building, the Catalyst.
Wavy Bunch founder Alena Horowitz is optimistic that this location will allow the market to thrive.
“It’s kind of a trendier side of town,” Horowitz says. “The [Catalyst Building] parking lot is new and really incredible, also right next to the University District and that amazing architectural Gateway Bridge … Honestly, I couldn’t think of a better place right now.”
Horowitz began as a vendor at markets and events mostly around Coeur d’Alene and at music festivals at the Gorge Amphitheatre. These outings inspired her to start her own market with items not commonly seen at other vendor events, such as handmade jewelry, colorful crystals and vintage clothing, accompanied by a drink bar. Adding to the market’s creative flair, each monthly event has a theme; in June it was “Galactic Shenanigans,” and in July it’s “Undersea Fantasy.”
“This is what we’re missing,” she says. “Really cool vendors, more activities, live music, beer and cocktails — a place for people to hang out.”
Moving the market from Coeur d’Alene was nervewracking for Horowitz, but its first night in Spokane drew approximately 1,000 attendees.
“The city of Spokane was really awesome and welcoming,” she says.
Horowitz describes an older couple she spotted sitting in the grass and listening to music together as an example of the market’s diverse demographics, an aspect that vendor Robin Peltier appreciates as well.
“The Wavy Bunch has a great reputation for having more fun and different types of people around,” Peltier says.
Peltier was part of an “intuitive reading” booth, not to be confused with tarot readings. The purpose of an intuitive reading is for the reader to tap into the customer’s energy and lay out their past, present and future, using different techniques for each person. Peltier mainly conducts her intuitive skills through the form of oracle readings, occasionally employing a pendulum.
With numerous weekly markets happening around the region, Peltier says the Wavy Bunch event is geared toward a slightly different demographic than, say, the average farmers market.
The market’s July event poster, for example, promotes “immersive art,” “mysterious things” and “apothecaries.”
“To the person outside, it’s very different as far as vendors, and it’s fun and lighthearted; it has that great mixture of local people sharing their gifts,” Peltier says.
Whether you’re an avid craft fair attendee, in need of some new music festival gear, or a regular at farmers markets, the Wavy Bunch has a bit of it all, from face painting to customizable trucker hats and more. By reenvisioning what it means to attend an artisan market, Horowitz hopes to create a space for anyone to feel welcome.
“I pour my heart into marketing the event because I want to see it do well, it’s super inspiring for me,” she says. “It feels more artistic than a lot of things I’ve done… We couldn’t stop smiling, our cheeks were hurting at the last event.” n
The Wavy Bunch Night Market • Second Fridays from 5-9 pm through Oct. • Free • All ages • 508 E. Riverside Ave. • thewavybunch.com
THE BUZZ BIN
NO IFS, ANDS OR PUTTS
Spokane is a golfer’s paradise with nearly 15 courses within an hour’s drive of the city and plenty more on the outskirts. Following the success of the Swing Lounge in Spokane Valley, a second location recently opened in the Bank of America building in downtown Spokane, featuring six Trackman virtual golf simulators. Golfers of all skill levels and ages are invited to step up to the tee box and take a swing. Swing Lounge also has a lobby bar and a full-service restaurant, so you can get the full golf course clubhouse experience in the heart of downtown. Head to swinglounge.golf to book a tee time and get to makin’ some birdies. (MADISON PEARSON)
WHEN ONE BLUE DOOR CLOSES…
Back in October, local improv comedy group the Blue Door Theatre announced a move from its longtime digs in the Garland District to downtown Spokane’s historic Benewah Dairy milk bottle on South Cedar Street. As of this summer, however, the troupe has temporarily moved all shows to Spokane Children’s Theatre while their new space is remodeled. In a recent newsletter, Blue Door staff informed supporters that they’ve been “required to make improvements” including a new bathroom, fire door, stage ramp, HVAC system updates and improved accessibility from the parking lot to the front door. Although weekly performances have been moved to SCT, Blue Door’s summer camps and improv classes are still happening on Cedar Street. (MADISON PEARSON)
THIS WEEK’S PLAYLIST
Noteworthy new music arriving in stores and online on July 12.
JOHNNY BLUE SKIES, PASSAGE DU DESIR
For some (dumb) reason alternative country superstar Sturgill Simpson only wanted to release five proper albums under his own name, so his latest LP comes out under the new alias “Johnny Blue Skies.”
PHISH, EVOLVE
After a short residency at the Sphere, the legendary jam rock band releases a 16th studio album to provide fresh tunes to noodle over live.
MEGAN MORONEY, AM I OK?
The rapidly rising country singer-songwriter star clearly knows what’s up, because she’s spending release day for her sophomore album in Spokane (see page 32). (SETH SOMMERFELD)
Move, groove and shop. MADI OSWALT PHOTO
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Lady Luck
Fine dining restaurant Doña-Magnolia opens at Hotel Indigo in downtown Spokane
BY ELIZA BILLINGHAM
In deep sepia paint on a white wall, a woman in a flapper gown ignores the gaze of an enamored admirer. She tilts her chin down, in profile to the mural’s viewer, revealing a flower tucked into the side of her crimped hair.
The mural’s painter, well-known Spokane artist Daniel Lopez, named the woman Magnolia.
She’s a patron saint of sorts. She graces the wall of the restaurant underneath Hotel Indigo on the west end of downtown Spokane. That restaurant used to be Magnolia American Brasserie. But now it has a new owner, new chef and new, simpler name — Doña-Magnolia, or “Lady” Magnolia.
Doña-Magnolia opened in March and is Spokane’s
newest fine dining spot, helmed by chef Manuel Montijo, Jr., who’s also new in town. Montijo, who trained at the now-closed Oregon Culinary Institute, spent years in fine dining in Portland and is excited to open his first restaurant in Spokane.
Montijo was handpicked by co-owner Fredy Martinez, who also owns Molé Restaurant in Kendall Yards, to curate an experience inspired by international flavors and modern flair.
“We wanted to make it a little bit different, as opposed to just being French,” Montijo says. “I always find that [when] you have no restrictions to guide your menu, you can play around and do a little bit of everything.”
Montijo isn’t exaggerating. For appetizers at Doña-
Magnolia, you can try deep-fried risotto balls called arancini ($11), a plate of tuna and salmon ceviche ($22), or spicy Szechuan dumplings ($12). For dinner, try rosé pasta ($24), a New York steak ($40), sausage fried rice ($18), green coconut curry ($24) or grilled salmon tacos ($20).
Montijo aims to rotate the menu every three months or so, and is already planning a menu flip soon that will include a new pork belly dish.
“I want it to be something where you can get transported by eating certain foods,” Montijo says. “For example, you’re eating ceviche — that’s Central or South American, coastal. But then, you can transport yourself by eating a curry dish and go to an Asian country. Then
Pork belly is a new addition to Doña-Magnolia’s eclectic menu. YOUNG KWAK PHOTOS
you can go to Italy and get pasta, and then from there, jump over to America and get something different.”
Travel is inherent not only to the menu, but the entire building’s history. About a hundred years ago, with a good location near the train line and savvy, discreet owners, the building is rumored to have been host to plenty of travelers looking for illegal gambling and drinking during the 1920s Prohibition era — depicted in other murals inside.
Nowadays, for anyone looking for a perfectly legal but particularly swanky birthday party or business meeting, there’s a rentable private room just off the main dining room suitable for buffets or presentations.
Doña-Magnolia just opened in March, but is already proving to be a popular pre-show dinner spot before concerts at the Fox Theater, which is just across the street. The restaurant can comfortably seat about 100 people, but it’s best to make a reservation beforehand to make sure you can get to the show on time.
For those with a little more chill time on their hands, Doña-Magnolia’s happy hour is every day from 4-6 pm and offers 10% off the entire menu, including drinks.
Montijo grew up in the Tri-Cities, taking cooking classes in high school and knowing he wanted to be a chef by the time he graduated. He went to Oregon Culinary Institute (which closed in 2020) and fell in love with fine dining.
“Being in the culinary scene in Portland — everyone over there in that community breathes, talks, lives that to the fullest,” Montijo says. “You come across good, good talent out there. The passion is there, you know, so it’s hard not to have that rub off on you.”
After years in Portland, Montijo went back home to the Tri-Cities and spent a few months as the head chef at Fredy’s Bar & Grill in Kennewick. Yes, that Fredy’s — as in Martinez, an experienced restaurateur who also helped open places like Umi Kitchen and Sushi Bar in Kendall Yards and Nudo Ramen downtown Spokane. Though Montijo’s stint at Fredy’s was short and the steakhouse has since closed, his talent and attention to detail made a significant impression on Martinez. When Martinez took over Magnolia American Brasserie after it closed in 2023, he knew exactly who he wanted to own
and operate it with.
More than just food, Montijo is dedicated to an entire dining experience.
“From the time you get greeted by the host to the time you get to your table and time you get your water or beverages — it’s basically a whole team effort,” Montijo says. “It’s like an orchestra.”
Montijo is usually in the kitchen, where he feels the most at home. But every once in a while, he’ll sneak into the dining room to secretly check on his guests.
“I like people’s facial expressions when they’re eating,” he says. “You’ll see them nodding that nod of approval. Anyone that comes in and takes time out of their day to come and eat here — I want them to be able to remember the dining experience.”
While some restaurants have shied away from downtown locations, Montijo isn’t phased by the “different walks of life” that pass by the tall glass windows of Doña-Magnolia.
At night, the contrast of bright interior lights shining onto the dark street are reminiscent of the diners looking out on the sidewalk in Edward Hopper’s famous painting “Nighthawks.” A mural next to the restaurant’s delivery entrance riffs on that very painting, romanticizing the corner restaurant even more.
Spokane’s dining scene is different from Portland’s in many ways. It’s smaller, Montijo says, and more tight-knit.
“Everyone kind of knows each other,” he says. “I feel like a lot of the good restaurants have that background established already, where the chefs know each other or have worked with each other at one point or another.”
Montijo is working 13 to 14 hours a day to make his restaurant dreams come true. He’s hoping his passion, and the support he gets from his wife and two children, will eventually pay off.
“My commitment, my passion is definitely there, and the hunger to see the restaurant succeed and make something of a name for myself,” Montijo says.
Time will tell how many admirers will flock to the muse that is Doña-Magnolia. n
Doña-Magnolia • 110 S. Madison St. • Open Mon-Thu 7 am-10 am and 3-8 pm; Fri-Sat 7 am-9:30 pm; Sun 7 am-8 pm • 509-862-6410 • donamagnolia.com
Doña-Magnolia co-owner and chef Manuel Montijo, Jr.
REVIEW
Send It Into Orbit
Space-age rom-com Fly Me to the Moon is a total misfire
BY JOSH BELL
If you’re making a movie that involves faking the moon landing as a central plot point, it should probably come up before the story is nearly over. That’s not how the dreadful alt-history romantic comedy Fly Me to the Moon goes, though, since it takes more than an hour before government operative Moe Berkus (Woody Harrelson) tells NASA marketing director Kelly Jones (Scarlett Johansson) that he’s going to need her to put together a staged production of the upcoming lunar landing, in case things don’t go as planned out in space. This top-secret conspiracy is a fairly minor plot point in the laborious Fly Me to the Moon, which functions like an out-of-date commercial for the space program with an underwhelming romance attached to it. As the movie opens, Kelly is working as a New York City advertising executive, using her feminine wiles to mesmerize conference rooms full of men so she can pitch them her brilliant ad ideas. She’s a slick manipulator with a shady background, but she’s no Don Draper, and the movie’s take on advertising is more like Mad Men for Dummies
Fly Me to the Moon
Rated PG-13
Directed by Greg Berlanti
Kelly’s ad wizardry brings her to the attention of the mysterious Moe, who works directly for President Richard Nixon and needs someone who can sell the American public on the space program, given its waning popularity. As NASA prepares for its first manned mission to the moon in 1969, Kelly breezes in to work on media relations and sponsorship deals, much to the chagrin of straitlaced flight director Cole Davis (Channing Tatum).
Kelly and Cole have a meet-cute in a diner before they know that they’ll be working together, and their rote conflicts eventually lead to rote romance, although it takes far too long to get there in a movie that unforgivably runs over two hours. Director Greg Berlanti could have staged a zippy, stylish 1960s romance in the vein of cult classic Down With Love, but he plays things disappointingly down the middle, and the movie looks like a bland midrange TV show despite its colorful costumes and set design.
That’s no surprise given that Fly Me to the Moon was originally set to go straight to Apple TV+ before being
upgraded to a theatrical release, and its meandering plot, dull declarative dialogue and one-note performances seem designed to be absorbed while only halfway paying attention. Johansson and Tatum have no chemistry, and they both look uncomfortable in the period setting — Johansson in some alarmingly unflattering hairstyles, and Tatum dressed in mock turtlenecks and undershirts that make him look like a department store catalog model rather than a rocket scientist.
Berlanti, best known as a prolific TV producer (DC Comics’ “Arrowverse”), has trouble shifting tones, lurching from sitcom shenanigans to wink-wink historical references to manipulative, unearned sentiment. Moon landing aside, Fly Me to the Moon is almost entirely fictional, but Berlanti and screenwriter Rose Gilroy use the real-life tragedy of the Apollo 1 fire and subsequent death of three astronauts to give Cole his requisite tragic backstory, and it comes off more like exploitation than tribute.
Fly Me to the Moon is full of misguided plot points like that, including the eventual fake moon landing production, led by flamboyant director Lance Vespertine (Jim Rash). That undertaking suddenly dominates the movie’s final act, diverting urgency from the actual moon mission and dragging the plot past its natural stopping point. Instead of sharp political satire about the world’s most famous conspiracy theory, Berlanti focuses on cutesy running jokes, including the convenient recurring presence of a black cat that Cole believes is a bad omen for the mission.
Nothing about Fly Me to the Moon works, either as a romantic comedy or as a playful alternate take on a well-known historical event. Its cloying patriotism is more grating than rousing, and the same goes for its central romantic pairing. The moon landing was real, but everything about Fly Me to the Moon rings false. n
Fly Me to the Moon fails to launch.
Scare Tactics
Heavily hyped horror movie Longlegs follows through on its promise of terror
BY JOSH BELL
With all the expertly curated hype leading up to the release of writer/director Osgood Perkins’ horror film Longlegs, it seems almost inevitable that the film itself would turn out to be a disappointment. While Perkins doesn’t sustain the exact same sense of disorienting terror evoked by the early clips and trailers for a full 100 minutes, he does come about as close as could be reasonably expected. Longlegs is consistently unsettling and occasionally viscerally upsetting, although it’s also often balanced just at the edge between horrifying and laughable.
That dichotomy is perfectly embodied by Nicolas Cage’s performance as the titular serial killer character, which is broad and bizarre in the way only a Cage performance can be. Buried under prosthetics and adorned with a stringy white wig, Cage looks like a cross between Marilyn Manson and a demented grandma, and he speaks in a highpitched whine that sounds a bit like cult comedian Emo Philips. Cage knows how to make this absurd character menacing, and Perkins adds to the unease by keeping Longlegs’ face obscured for the first half of the movie.
Rated R
Starling from The Silence of the Lambs, although Harker’s investigation takes a supernatural turn that Starling never faced when tracking Buffalo Bill. In that way, Longlegs owes more to The X-Files, given the killer’s method of exerting influence on his victims, and it’s easy to imagine him as a monster of the week on the classic sci-fi procedural.
Although Harker follows clues and collects evidence, Perkins isn’t interested in making a standard procedural, and Longlegs is more about a pervasive sense of existential dread than solving a mystery. Perkins’ previous films (The Blackcoat’s Daughter, I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House, Gretel and Hansel) could be described as horror tone poems, and while Longlegs is more plot-heavy, it’s equally vibes-driven.
Every location, even mundane offices and living rooms, feels like the setting for a nightmare that will haunt you long after you wake up. There’s no normalcy here, despite the familiar trappings of the police investigation, and that means no relief for Harker or the audience. Monroe plays Harker with the dull stare and clenched jaw of someone who’s been through unspeakable trauma, even though this is her first case. It’s obvious that she has a connection to Longlegs somewhere in her murky past, and her stern mother Ruth (Alicia Witt) cryptically admonishes her about saying her prayers when she asks about her childhood.
Longlegs
Directed by Osgood Perkins
Starring Maika Monroe, Blair Underwood, Nicolas Cage
Although getting the full Cage experience is a major draw, the actual star of Longlegs is Maika Monroe as FBI Special Agent Lee Harker, a rookie whose first assignment is knocking on doors to look for witnesses after the latest Longlegs murder. The mysterious figure has been leaving behind unintelligible notes at murder scenes for three decades, although he himself doesn’t appear to kill anyone directly. Instead, he somehow convinces men to murder their entire families, always near the birthdays of young girls born on the 14th day of a given month.
Harker, who’s dubbed “half psychic” by her supportive supervisor Agent Carter (Blair Underwood), uses her apparent intuition about Longlegs to revive the case, decoding his cipher and tracking down the only person who ever survived a Longlegs attack. The movie is set in the 1990s, and Harker is at least partially modeled on Clarice
There’s eventually a rush of exposition that explains the ties between Harker and Longlegs, but the movie doesn’t provide straightforward answers, and part of what’s scary about it is the enduring uncertainty over why any of this is happening. No one attempts to create a psychological profile for Longlegs, and he’s not concerned about being arrested or facing prison time. He’s a force of nature rather than a person, and Cage’s off-putting performance emphasizes the character’s aggressive inhumanity.
Perkins matches the intense performances with an immersive visual style, framing flashbacks in a square aspect ratio with rounded corners, like old home movies, giving them a claustrophobic feel that mirrors the way Longlegs traps his victims. When the frame expands during transitions to the main time period, it’s like the past is intruding on the present, a visual representation of Longlegs’ insidious impact.
That lurking fear remains with the characters and the audience from the beginning of the movie all the way through the terrifying finale. For viewers who were primed by inexplicable arcane snippets online, Longlegs makes the most of its ingenious marketing campaign. Like Cage’s committed performance, it’s unhinged in the best way — a singular, relentless vision of maniacal torment. n
Twisted terror is constantly palpable in Longlegs
COUNTRY
More Than Just Okay
After a Lucky break, Megan Moroney is poised for country superstardom with Am I Okay?
BY SETH SOMMERFELD
In terms of country debut albums, it’s hard to think of many in recent years that can come close to Megan Moroney’s Lucky. Marrying commercial and critical success from the jump — cracking the top 10 on the Billboard Country Charts and being named the top country album of 2023 by Rolling Stone — the Georgia singer-songwriter set a pretty high bar for her first rodeo. But listening to Lucky makes it clear why folks of all sorts rave about it. To put it simply, Moroney’s songwriting runs laps around most contemporary pop country acts.
Possessing an innate ability to capture life’s swaggering highs and crushing lows with a sweet twang, Moroney’s lyricism feels lived-in because she can span that gap so effectively. Lucky’s peppy album-opening single, “I’m Not Pretty,” is an overflowing cup of confidence with that distinctly Southern “Awww… bless your heart” energy, snarkily taking aim at insecure women who scroll Instagram to hate on their boyfriend’s exes in order to mask their own insecurities. But Moroney is also fully aware of how emotionally brutal it can be for ladies out there, getting extremely vulnerable on “Girl in the Mirror,” a heartbreaking, slow-burning ballad about not being able to love yourself at all during moments of emotional lows. Humans
aren’t monoliths, and neither is Moroney’s music.
“I think it’s just me writing and being authentic to who I am as a person,” Moroney says. “I think my friends, or anyone that actually knows me, would say that I do have the confident side. Like my friends go to me when they’re going through a breakup, because they know I can hype them up and put the confidence back into them. But I’m also very in touch with my emotions. So when I’m sad, I know how to put it into words in a way that punches you in the gut. I feel like that’s very, very human. I think it would be crazy of me to just say, ‘Oh, I’m so confident! And I don’t care about anything! F--- ’em!’ [Laughs] I think it’s just real. Some days you’re feeling really confident, and then other days you’re like, ‘Everything is horrible! I know I’m gonna die!’ [Laughs]”
But beyond the broad strokes, there are also tons of fascinating little details happening in Moroney’s songcraft. This can manifest in creative structuring, like how she responds to her own lyrics on “Lucky” (“Best friend said, ‘Meg, you’re diving off another deep end. [And maybe I am!] / Are you sure wanna go there, sure you wanna jump back in?’ [Hell yeah I do!]”). It can be found in the sneakily protective details, like how the Peach State
native and University of Georgia grad’s ode to falling for a Tennessee football supporter (“Tennessee Orange”) makes sure to include the line “And I still want the Dawgs to win” at the end so that she can safely return to her alma matter without fear of SEC football fanatics.
But perhaps most crucially, Moroney’s songwriting doesn’t shy away from humor. Her clever lyrical turns of phrase both add a level of reliability that counterbalances her highs and her lows. For example, “Sleep on My Side” is set up like a cute opposites attract song in the vein of “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off,” only to get to the last line of the chorus and realize there’s far more hilariously cutting bile from a woman wronged at play — “It’s good that we’re so different, but when the day is done / I sleep on my side… and you sleep with everyone.” And Moroney’s fully aware that these inversions are a crux to her music, often being the sonic launching points.
“I definitely think of whatever that twist is first and then make a song out of it,” Moroney says. “Like I’ll hear someone say something or I’ll read something. I tend to write my songs best by having the hook first and then writing the rest.”
Perhaps it’s not totally shocking that Moroney hit the ground running with her debut album because she has something very few of her contemporaries do: a degree in music business. Her time studying at UGA helped her avoid the pitfalls that many fresh-faced artists encounter.
“I think even a baseline knowledge of all the moving parts of the music industry definitely helps me as a younger artist. It helped me put together a team that works for me,” Moroney says. “I think if I hadn’t known anything at all, I definitely would have gotten screwed over early on.”
Megan Moroney’s songwriting has set her up to be a star. CECE DAWSON PHOTO
While most artists would likely stretch an instant initial success like Lucky into a multiyear album cycle of touring and self-promotion, Moroney’s overeager songwriting brain meant fans wouldn’t have to wait long for a follow-up. Barely 14 months after Lucky’s release, Moroney is back with new tunes in the form of her sophomore LP, Am I Okay?, which conveniently comes out the same day — July 12 — that she swings into town to play the Pavilion at Riverfront Park.
“I think I’m just eager and excited to have the music out,” Moroney says. “It’s always a mental fight for me to not just post all the songs ahead of time. I know my fans are so excited. I mean, I really didn’t put too much pressure on my second album. I heard that ‘Oh, your second album is the hardest to write,’ and whatever. And honestly, the writing process for this one... I was so busy that I couldn’t even think about it. I still write songs because I enjoy it. So in my free time on the road, I just started writing songs. And then one day, I looked down at my notes, and I was like, ‘Wait… we have an album.’ OK, sure, it’s done. Let’s put it out and keep it rolling.”
Sidestepping any thought of a sophomore slump, Am I Okay? finds Moroney’s cleverness still fully intact. The titular albumopening rocking pop country single finds space for both subtle music theory indications she’s head-over-heels for a good new guy (“I’ve been playing less black keys lately”) and some innuendo mirth by near rhyme omission (“He says what he means, and he means what he says / And he’s funny and he’s smart and he’s good in…”). In fact, there are more outwardly comedic songs on the new album, including a plea to literally blast a headache of an ex into space (“Man on the Moon”) and a silly track about an ex ending up with an actual elite beauty pageant winner (“Miss Universe”). To further mix things up, Moroney even dips her toes into a crunchy Good Charlotte-esque rocker with “Indifferent.”
“Aside from the songs that are very sad, which obviously there’s a couple of those, the fun songs are just very fun,” Moroney says. “And I’m looking forward to touring with the songs and performing them live. That was something that I considered a lot when writing the second album. I know that I’ve got to put out songs that I enjoy playing live, because I will be playing them live every single night for the next however many years. So songs like ‘Indifferent’ and ‘Man on the Moon’ and ‘Miss Universe’ and ‘Am I Okay?’, like they’re just fun songs. I love sonically how it’s a little bit different than Lucky, but there’s still definitely a throughline there, because they’re only a year apart. I didn’t go off the deep end or anything.”
All that said, “Aside from the songs that are very sad” is carrying a lot of weight in that quote. It’s easy to tell that Moroney is in fact a genuine country singer-songwriter because Am I Okay? is not just a collection of feel-good anthems from an artist basking in their success. In fact, Am I Okay? often feels way sadder than Lucky
The album is strewn with gut punch songs that aren’t afraid to get real and be extreme bummers: tunes about bemoaning manipulative exes (“No Caller ID”), lying to your folks about bad beaus (“Mama, I Lied”), would-be anniversaries that are now “just another Tuesday” after a breakup (“28th of June”), and wanting the best for former lovers but their joy being too painful to hear (“Hope You’re Happy”). Heck, even the album closing “Hell of a Show” finds Moroney consumed by melancholy backstage before a sold-out show because she’s brutally still hung up on some jerk.
While the machinations of the music industry are always extremely fickle, based purely on talent, Megan Moroney should be a top-tier bona fide country superstar in the very near future. But even if you don’t see her name plastered across arena marquees ASAP, it’s clear she’ll just keep writing songs to get through the highs and the lows life throws her way.
But let’s not get too wrapped up in the careerist weeds.
Megan Moroney is spending Am I Okay’s release day in the Lilac City.
Let’s make it an appropriately rowdy party, Spokane. n
Megan Moroney, Logan Crosby • Fri, July 12 at 7:30 pm • $40-$45 • All ages • Spokane Pavilion • 574 N. Howard St. • spokanepavilion.com
Well I Guess This Is Growing Up
Getting old with Blink-182
BY SETH SOMMERFELD
Make no mistake, there’s a myriad of reasons why so many teenagers are drawn to pop punk music. It’s rebellious without delving into more dangerous feeling genres like hardcore punk or gangsta rap. It’s musically edgier and harder than mainstream pop while still being ultra melodic and a blast to sing along with when gathered with a bunch of buddies. Its core musicianship is accessible with simple power chord attacks and non-virtuosic singers. It touches on the core topics that dominate hormonal teen brains — falling in love, heartbreak, parental frustration, hanging with friends, feeling outcast, unfair societal systems, etc. — while still being completely unafraid to be childishly silly and sophomoric.
For scores of kids, pop punk is a delightful sonic bridge between kiddie naivete and the daunting prospect of the adult world. Ultimately, it’s a genre that allows kids to feel validated, confident and less alone in the world at a time when many feel their most unseen, unsure and isolated.
For all those reasons, Blink-182 is the ultimate pop punk band.
Admittedly, Blink-182 was my favorite band growing up. The band hit at nearly the perfect time for me, as the group’s superstar-making 1999 album Enema of the State dropped exactly one week after my 12th birthday. “What’s My Age Again” and “All the Small Things” were tearing up the charts on MTV’s Total Request Live exactly when I craved that seed of snotty musical defiance. I latched on for the ride and saw a band of punks from San Diego rise to become legitimately one of the biggest bands in the world.
While improbable, it’s easy to see why Blink-182 hit it huge. This may seem wildly oversimplistic... but the songs were just catchy as hell. There’s an innate melodi-
cism that even other top pop punk acts that I adore like Green Day and The Offspring could never fully reach. It’s sometimes remarked that a song is truly an earworm if you hear the melody and rhythm once or twice and then can hum it from memory.
Blink-182’s discography is chock-full of humdingers.
Too often though, catchiness is conflated with a lack of depth. The tunes become disposable kiddie stuff — hence why some cringe at the prospect of 52-year-old bassist Mark Hoppus and 48-year-old guitarist Tom DeLonge still singing the tunes. But that’s being entirely too dismissive of the duo’s songwriting. While no one’s gonna make the case that they’re elite lyricists, they’re certainly effective ones. There are moments of genuine tenderness to be found on a hopeless romantic Hoppus song like “Wasting Time” and real grounded anger in DeLonge’s “Anthem, Part 2.” And Blink-182 even tackled some serious subject matter better than more acclaimed artists. There aren’t many songs wrestling with suicide that can match the almost euphoric melodic ache of “Adam’s Song” and not a single hit tune has tackled the pain of divorce from a child’s perspective the way that “Stay Together for the Kids” does.
Humor also played a crucial part in Blink-182 success. Hoppus and DeLonge essentially were a comedy duo, inserting jokes into songs, bantering at live shows and usually going for a laugh above anything else in their music videos. Do all the jokes hold up all these years later? Of course not. As products of their time, there were certainly more than a few gay jokes bandied about. But the guys also didn’t present those jokes with malice behind them, allowing them to evolve into more mature adults… who still make all the same junior highlevel dick jokes — but now with inclusivity!
Somehow — perhaps shockingly — Blink-182 has aged kind of gracefully.
But it’s hard even when you’ve successfully aged well as a pop punk band, because our pop cultural landscape considers the genre to be only for kids. It’s a genre devoid of reverence, so it gets othered as pure nostalgia in ways many other rock genres do not.
Of course that’s bullshit.
For all their joking, Blink-182 isn’t emotionally insignificant. Sure they sing about young love and f— ing up and parental issues and all the messy feelings those topics entail, but you know who else does? Bruce Springsteen. Taylor Swift. The f—ing Beatles. ALMOST EVERY POPULAR MUSICIAN. All the feelings people felt as teens listening to Blink-182 songs decades ago were real feelings. And they still are.
Yes, Blink-182’s pop punk might resonate most with teens who are unseen, unsure and isolated, but you know who else can be crushed by feeling unseen, unsure and isolated?
Adults.
I’m not going to grow out of Blink-182 no matter how ludicrous society deems hanging on to a pop punk band to be.
I’m not going to grow out of Blink-182 because I deeply, sincerely love the band and its music. And you shouldn’t grow out of the things that you love.
And that realization? To paraphrase the chorus of the Blink-182 hit “Dammit”...
Well that is growing up. n
Blink-182, Pierce the Veil, Landon Barker • Sun, July 14 at 7 pm • $180-$317 • All ages • Gorge Amphitheatre • 754 Silica Road, Quincy • gorgeamphitheatre.com
What’s Blink-182’s age again? RORY KRAMER
COUNTRY MARGO CILKER
J = THE INLANDER RECOMMENDS THIS SHOW J = ALL AGES SHOW
Thursday, 7/11
ARBOR CREST WINE CELLARS, Jason Evans THE CHAMELEON, Evergreen Afrodub Orchestra feat. Luminosity, Sugar Bear CHECKERBOARD TAPROOM, Weathered Shepherds
J COEUR D’ALENE PARK, Villa Blues ‘N Jazz
J HAMILTON STUDIO, Chap’s Band
RED ROOM LOUNGE, Rewind: Thursday Night Vibes
J RIVERSTONE PARK, Nu Jack City, Son of Brad
J STELLA’S ON THE HILL, Heather King Band
J TRUE LEGENDS GRILL, Evan Denlinger
ZOLA, Sidestep, Jason Lucas
Friday, 7/12
AK ASIAN RESTAURANT, Nate Ostrander
J THE BIG DIPPER, BRADEN ALL CAPS, Nathan Chartrey, Nothing New, Jae Cleo THE CHAMELEON, Gryffin vs. Illenium Tribute Dance Night
CHAN’S RED DRAGON ON THIRD, The Usual Suspects
CHINOOK STEAK, SEAFOOD & PASTA, Riley Anderson
J THE DISTRICT BAR, Margo Cilker, Junior the Band
J HAMILTON STUDIO, Clive Carrol HELIX WINES, Robert Vaughn
THE KENWORTHY, Madeline Hawthorne, Izzy Burns
J J PAVILION AT RIVERFRONT, Megan Moroney, Logan Crosby
J PEND D’OREILLE WINERY, Heat Speak
ALT-COUNTRY BLITZEN TRAPPER
RED ROOM LOUNGE, Live DJs
THE RIDLER PIANO BAR, Just Plain Darin
SPOKANE EAGLES LODGE, The Black Jack Band
TERRA BLANCA WINERY, Jan Harrison, Barry Aiken, Roxy McDaniel
J BIG BARN BREWING CO., Prizmatica, All Directions
J THE BIG DIPPER, White Trash Romeo, Children of the Sun, Sight Received, Leviticuss
THE CHAMELEON, Perry Wayne, Psyian, Druid, Schraeder
CHAN’S RED DRAGON ON THIRD, Carson Rhodes
CHINOOK STEAK, SEAFOOD & PASTA, Riley Anderson
J DAHMEN BARN, Crazy Love Duo
J THE DISTRICT BAR, Blitzen Trapper, Louisa Stancioff
THE GRAIN SHED TAP HOUSE,
Bob Gallagher & Cold Canary
J HAMILTON STUDIO, Sacha Boutros Jazz Quartet
J HARRINGTON OPERA HOUSE, The Rusty Vikings
IRON GOAT BREWING CO., Little Gospel Devils, Katie Mae
While Megan Moroney will have the pop country set whooping it up at the Pavilion earlier in the evening, folks searching for a more stripped-down vintage country sound can head over to The District to catch Margo Cilker. Over her past two Sera Cahoone-produced albums — 2023’s Valley of Heart’s Delights and 2021’s Pohorylle — Cilker has established herself as one of the richest voices in the modern Americana/country realm. Her gorgeous, detail-rich songwriting feels immensely lived-in and the warmth in her voice communicates heartbreak and humor with equal effectiveness. With songs that could spawn line dancing and others that may lead to some sad whisky sipping, Clinker’s ready to guide you along this dusty sonic trail of life.
— SETH SOMMERFELD
Margo Cilker, Junior the Band • Fri, July 12 at 9 pm • $20 • 21+ • The District Bar • 916 W. First Ave. • sp.knittingfactory.com
While Blitzen Trapper emerged from the larger Pacific Northwest indie folk boom in the early ’00s as one of the scene’s most critically acclaimed acts thanks to albums like 2008’s Furr and 2007’s Wild Mountain Nation, it totally makes sense that BT actually started as a much more psychedelic prog-y band. There’s always been a bit of trippy weirdness to the Portland group’s sound, and that’s again the case on the band’s new album, 100’s of 1000’s, Millions of Billions. There’s a spacey feel to the country-folk instrumentals on display as frontman Eric Earley delivers Buddhist-inspired existential lyrical meditations on transcendence across the album. While Blitzen Trapper may be wrestling with topics beyond human comprehension, the quality of the band’s live set remains a concept that is much easier to grasp.
— SETH SOMMERFELD
Blitzen Trapper, Louisa Stancioff • Sat, July 13 at 9 pm • $25 • 21+ • The District Bar • 916 W. First Ave. • sp.knittingfactory.com
J LIVE AT ANDRE’S, Cruz Contreras & The Black Lillies
OLD SCHOOL LIQUOR BAR, Just Plain Darin
J ONE SHOT CHARLIE’S, Tamarack Ridge Band
PEND D’OREILLE WINERY, Pamela Benton
J PONDEROSA BAR AND GRILL, Nate Ostrander
RED ROOM LOUNGE, Live DJs
J REPUBLIC BREWING CO., The Spooklights
ROCKET MARKET, Tim Snodgrass
SCHWEITZER, Mike Wagoner, Sadie Sicilia
J SPOKANE TRIBE CASINO, Zowie Bowie
ZOLA, Blake Braley, Dan Conrad
Sunday, 7/14
ARBOR CREST WINE CELLARS, Starcourt
J CRAFT & GATHER, Dallas Kay
J J GORGE AMPHITHEATER, Blink-182, Pierce the Veil
J HAMILTON STUDIO, Time Baby HOGFISH, Open Mic
J ONE SHOT
CHARLIE’S, Jayden Cornett
J RIVERFRONT PARK, Quindrey Davis Annual Birthday Concert
JEN BORSTCROP PHOTO
JASON QUIGLEY PHOTO
J SOUTH HILL GRILL, Just Plain Darin
ZOLA, Working Spliffs
Monday, 7/15
J THE BIG DIPPER, Daikaiju, Spooky, The 4th Kind
EICHARDT’S PUB, Monday Night Blues Jam with John Firshi RED ROOM LOUNGE, Open Mic Night
J STELLA’S ON THE HILL, Howie King
J THE FOX THEATER, Lyle Lovett and his Large Band ZOLA, Great Comet
ZOLA, Jerry Lee, Lucas, Gina, and Mars Birthday Bash
Tuesday, 7/16
J THE BIG DIPPER, Extortionist, The Ongoing Concept, Blacktracks, False Visions
OSPREY RESTAURANT & BAR, The Ronaldos
SWING LOUNGE, Swing Lounge Live Music Tuesdays
ZOLA, Royale, Ariel Collins
Wednesday, 7/17
THE CHAMELEON, Tristan Hart Pierce, Scott Ryan Ingersol, Britanys House THE DISTRICT BAR, Pony Bradshaw
THE DRAFT ZONE, The Draft Zone Open Mic
J KENDALL YARDS, Rock the Nest: Dave McRae, Brandon Jackson Band, Gil Rivas, Ron Greene
J MILLIE’S, Just Plain Darin
PACIFIC AVE PIZZA, Corrupt Vision, Proleterror, Pee Pee Poo Poo 420 69 RED ROOM LOUNGE, Red Room Lounge Jam
J TIMBERS ROADHOUSE, Cary Beare Presents
J TRUE LEGENDS GRILL, Dallas Kay ZOLA, Sidestep, Nick Seider
Just Announced...
J THE BIG DIPPER, Armed for Apocalypse, July 21.
J HAMILTON STUDIO, Jared Hall, July 28.
J THE DISTRICT BAR, Gaytheist, Itchy Kitty, Sept. 7.
J GORGE AMPHITHEATER, Luke Combs, Oct 4 & 5.
THE CHAMELEON, Keze: Restless Dreams Album Release Show, Oct. 12.
Coming Up ...
J BROWNE’S ADDITION, Cannonball, July 20, 2-10 pm.
J J PAVILLION PARK, Primus, Coheed and Cambria, Guerilla Toss, July 20, 6 pm.
Now in its 11th year, Emerge’s annual block party grows bigger and bigger with each installment. In 2024, there will be more artists, more demos, more performances and more chances to support the incredible work of local artists. While Emerge’s gallery shows usually feature two or three artists, this event features over 145 artists and performers in a juried exhibition. Along with all of the artsy fun, Emerge is setting up a silent disco and a stage for live music so attendees can get their boogie on through the night. Proceeds from art sales go directly into artists’ pockets and funds generated by the event support Emerge’s mission of providing artists with the support and tools necessary to further their careers.
— MADISON PEARSON
Emerge Block Party • Sat, July 12 from 5 pm-midnight • Free • All ages • Emerge • 119 N. Second St., Coeur d’Alene • emergecda.com
MUSIC BACH TO THE PARK
While symphonic music might sound best in finely tuned concert halls, seeing classical music performed live under the summer sun is a hard experience to top. Northwest BachFest knows this all too well. The organization once again heads to Duncan Garden at Manito Park for its annual Music in Manito concerts. The show kicks off with the Spokane String Quartet and NW Bachfest artistic director and cellist Zuill Bailey playing pieces by Boccherini and Arensky, while the second half of the show features the fiddling duo of Mark and Maggie O’Connor (both nights feature the same program). While there won’t be concessions for the concerts, patrons can get in the summer spirit by bringing their own food and drink for an extremely well-scored picnic in the park.
— SETH SOMMERFELD
Music in Manito • Tue, July 16 and Wed, July 17 at 7 pm • $40-$65 ($5 students) • All ages • Duncan Garden at Manito Park • 1702 S. Grand Blvd. • nwbachfest.com
FESTIVAL TWILIGHT BLOOM
In Eastern Washington, we’re used to seeing rolling fields of wheat (“Amber waves of grain…”). Though beautiful in their own right, nothing beats a pop of color in the middle of a dry summer. The Evening Light Lavender Farm brings some purple vibrancy into the landscape with its annual Lavender Festival for which attendees are invited to pick their own lavender bundles, shop local vendor booths, listen to live music and indulge in lavender-flavored treats like lemonade, ice cream, cookies and more. Freeze this glorious moment in time by taking advantage of the luxurious lavender fields and the one-of-a-kind photo opportunity they offer.
— FOPE SERIKI
Evening Light U-Pick Lavender Festival • Sat, July 13 and Sun, July 14 from 9 am-5 pm • $12-$45 • Evening Light Lavender Farm • 5552 S. Wallbridge Road, Deer Park • eveninglightlavender.com
Submit events online at Inlander.com/getlisted or email relevant details to getlisted@inlander.com. We need the details one week prior to our publication date.
THEATER HIGH SCHOOL IS HELL
Before there was Mean Girls, we had the Heathers, a 1989 film that explored the vicious cliques (the Heathers in this case) that form in high school and the (R-rated) ways to deal with them. The film, buoyed by Winona Ryder’s performance as protagonist Veronica Sawyer, would soon become an integral thread in the fabric of high school cultural reference. Then in 2014, Laurence O’Keefe and Kevin Murphy turned the cult classic into a high-energy musical (again, before Mean Girls’ 2017 musical debut). Now, the Spokane Civic Theatre is producing its take on the musical on the Margot and Robert Ogden Main Stage, with Troy Nickerson and Heather McHenry-Kroetch directing the performance. Additionally, Tonya Ballman directs the show’s music, while Delaney Kahler is in charge of choreography.
— COLTON RASANEN
Heathers: The Musical • July 12-28; Wed-Sat at 7:30 pm, Sun at 2 pm • $15-$38 • All ages • Spokane Civic Theatre • 1020 N. Howard St. • spokanecivictheatre.com
COMEDY JOST A JOKE
Ever wanna punch someone in the face but have no idea why? Turns out, some people are just walking around in public with extremely punchable faces. Take it from Colin Jost, a pudgy lifeguard from Staten Island, a Harvard Lampoon alum, the head writer and Weekend Update co-host for Saturday Night Live, and the author of a hilarious and poignant coming of age memoir, A Very Punchable Face. If none of that rings a bell, you might recognize him as the white bread husband of Scarlett Johansson, a match that still confuses everyone. After scheduling issues, Jost will finally be at the Fox Theater for the next stop of his national comedy tour. Come for a peek into Jost’s glamor-filled life, but stay for the dad jokes and sprinkle of self-deprecation. Jokes aside, Jost is one of my favorite writers of all time — if you’re reading this, Colin, can I get a signed copy of your book?
— ELIZA
I SAW YOU
LIBRARY PROTESTERS Why on earth would you protest Idaho HOUSE BILL 710? Did you read it? It makes it so sexual content is not made available to minors in public libraries and schools. One should question your motivations for protesting such a bill. What part of you decided that minors need access to sexual materials through public libraries and schools. Walter said it best. “8-year-olds dude. 8-year-olds.”
SULLIVAN DOLLAR TREE “So what do you think you could bake w/ this?” Is what I asked you & you couldn’t believe the hole in this baking pan. You were so nice to try’n help me find somethin better. Anyways, IF this sounds familiar & you’d like to I’d like to see you again. My name is Chris
MCBB We saw You, Master Class Big Band, uniting “all” of us there to celebrate Independence. Riverfront Park, the forever treasure of EXPO ‘74. Celebrating how far we’ve come since then, and sharing in each person’s version of freedom. You, MCBB, got us on our feet dancing...9-year-olds, and 90-year-olds. We danced standing, sitting on lawns, in rows, wherever we found ourselves. We came, not knowing what to expect. Many of us “found” you when we followed the captivating strains of the goodness that gathered us as one at The Pavilion. A deep heartfelt THANK YOU for a wonder-filled concert of tunes that took us back and those that keep us moving forward. Master Class Big Band filled us with reminders to be grateful for the freedoms to do just what we did there. Freely express ourselves. We were all colors, creeds, ages,
genders, flavors, and fancies. You lifted us up with encouraging demonstrations of the power of music to unite, community that is inclusive, and sheer joy in the magnificence available to us all. Thank you for the magic.
BETTY SHAW I saw you stand tall through the struggles, and your amazing ability to manage three girls alone without losing your ambition is outstanding. You deserve to feel like the most successful mother and friend in the world because of the consistency and magnitude of the unconditional love you have taught me to have and that I have taught my daughter to have as well. You are a wonderful woman and deserve to be treated like a queen. Thank you for following your mother’s legacy and donating so much time to helping senior companions. I want to one day do the same kind of volunteer work. You deserve to be celebrated. I am so thankful for you. Love, Your baby girl Teresa
CHEERS
FMUOASL Couldn’t help but notice the double Alison Wonderland mention in the past couple of issues. Shout out SW for your impeccable music taste! See ya on the farm at Shambhala :)
HOLY HIGH HAT! Junkyard Eats and Drinks, on Trent, Spokane Valley. YOU were the venue for THE best no-cover show we’ve ever seen!! You served us all, so efficiently, on that amazing, rainy Sunday evening, June 30. Rain or Shine, indeed!! Your servers, cooks, and all staff, were so prompt, friendly, kind, fun-not-phony, and aware of the stellar vibe unfolding in that mesmerizing mix of musical, “madness!”
We could “feel it in the air” on every level. Fabulous dive joint!! The BEST Roadhouse we’ve discovered. Is this the area’s bestkept secret?? Voo-Doo Church, we will miss you.
KUDOS FOR SAVING MY CELLPHONE Last
Saturday I was enjoying a mocha while sitting on a bench outside the United Building in Hillyard. I set my phone down on the bench and then took off not realizing I had left it until 30 minutes later. When I went back there, someone had turned it in. I’m so grateful to that person. I sure didn’t want to spend hundreds of dollars on a new phone! Thanks for being so thoughtful.
RE: ARTWORK I have to agree with the comment last week about college art. It is
pretty good. Spokane has some of the best artists in the whole wide world.
FOUND WALLET I found a Black women’s wallet on July 6 late morning in a cart in the parking lot at Albertson’s on Nevada and Lyons. I gave it to customer service. She put it in a locked drawer. I’m hoping you retraced your day and went back to Albertson’s and got it back. Good luck
SOUND
began loudly screaming at the beginning of the show and didn’t stop throughout. Not only could we not hear what the performers were saying, but your screaming sounded like fingernails on a chalkboard. Many people turned to look at you and many suggested you stop, but you didn’t care, how selfish! You are young, but I hope as time goes on you learn you are not the only person in the room and also learn some manners, at this moment, you’re a disgrace.
JEERS
NOT HAPPY WITH YOUR CHOICES It’s about time for a female Commander-in-Chief who has actually been in a war zone. Tulsi Gabbard.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT ON THIS FOURTH OF JULY WEEK As an average American citizen, there are times I am skeptical if my engagement in elections, or other civic affairs, really makes a difference. I know many have the same doubts. But then I was reminded after last Thursday’s presidential debate, what DOES happen when “We the People” are not engaged. Just sayin’
GOV. LANDRY You’re right Moses is the lawgiver. However, the Ten Commandments come from God. Please immediately post the 613 laws of Moses in every school in Louisiana and ban pork in every school cafeteria.
DAVE, KEN AND MOLLY SHOW Shame on Morgan Murphy Media for the hasty cancellation of the award-winning and much loved Dave, Ken and Molly show. They didn’t even give the trio a chance to bid farewell to us listeners. Shameful. I’m tuning out KZZU.
SCREAMER AT THE PARANORMAL CIRQUE SHOW To the “lady” sitting behind us at the Paranormal Cirque show at the Valley Mall: thanks for almost ruining this great show for me and many people in our section. You
People like you give all Gen z’ers a bad name. You should be embarrassed!
RE: SPOKANE (TRAFFIC CALMING) “I agree that you have a great point, our city’s traffic calming measures have been a half measure! We need true infrastructure changes with modern road design that prioritizes pedestrian safety over driving speed. This means narrower roads, fewer lanes, speed reducers. It’s proven to work, but cops out ticketing don’t reduce traffic deaths. How do I know? Reading the research on it. Here’s your citation if you want to read too: Sarode et al. 2002 doi: 10.1097/TA.0000000000003163“
JUST IN TIME FOR THE 4TH The Supreme Court has a strong twist of irony. Just before Independence Day, where we celebrate the republic’s founding where “All Men Are Created Equal” and “Liberty and Justice for All,” they decided to make the president above the law (as long as they decide what they’re doing is an “official act”). King George III must be laughing from his grave.
SWAN SONG It’s so ironic that the Inlander used a photo of a bird on its 4th of July issue! After the War on Nature over three nights here there are few birds left in town. No lovely bird songs at 4 am anymore. This happens every year now. Does anyone else notice or care? When the Chinese declared the sparrow a pest for eating their grain, they used fireworks to scare them all away. It worked. Then they found themselves plagued with insects instead. If you notice a lot more flies, wasps, and mosquitoes at the
rest of your summer picnics, now you know why.
BUS STATIONS This is my first major Jeers for Spokane Transit. The bus shelters at all your transit centers and park-and-rides are not weatherproof or even weatherresistant, and none of them have public bathrooms. We have a heat wave right now and we suffer freezing temperatures in winter. This is unacceptable. We need more seating and an actual building we can use to stay warm or cool in the relevant months. Either that or let us stay in the buses while they’re parked. With all the money we’re paying, all of that should have been available years ago.
F YOU AND YOUR TAX INCREASES City and county officials, how about instead of trying to raise taxes constantly you start cutting the fat in your budgets. What are you doing with the money you’re currently collecting? Clearly not spending it on fixing roads, traffic safety or just enforcing the laws that exist. Voters of Spokane send these politicians and bureaucrats a message and vote no until there is some accountability for where all the money they’re already extracting from us is going. Probably to fund there pet projects and cushy gigs for their friends. Enough is enough. n
& Fireworks
BENEFIT
FRIENDS OF THE DEER PARK LIBRARY
WAREHOUSE BOOK SALE Gently-used books of all genres plus movies, music, puzzles and games. Proceeds support the Deer Park Library and community. Second Friday and Saturday of each month from 9 am-4 pm through Sept. 16. Reilly Family Storage, 2405 E. Crawford St. scld.org
SCOOPS AND BOWLS Purchase a handmade ceramic bowl to benefit Urban Art Coop and eat ice cream. July 13, 10 am-4 pm. $15. Manito Park, 1800 S. Grand Blvd. facebook.com/Urbanartcoop
HILLYARD BUILT 1ST ANNUAL CORNHOLE TOURNAMENT A cornhole tournament featuing live music and food benefitting Hillyard Built, a nonprofit dedicated to assisting Hillyard youth. July 20, 11 am-9 pm. $5-$50. Hillyard Food Truck Pavilion, 5108 N. Market St. hillyardbuilt.com (509-499-1090)
BIRDS & BREWS Short birdwatching walks around the farm, followed by a taphouse gathering with no-host beverages and birding trivia games benefitting Audubon’s Save-A-Bird team. July 20, 4-7 pm. Free. Wildland Cooperative, 8022 E. Green Bluff Rd. audubonspokane.org (509-993-2085)
COMEDY
TYLER FISCHER Fischer is a YouTuber known for his sketch videos. July 11, 7 pm. $24-$32. Spokane Comedy Club, 315 W. Sprague. spokanecomedyclub.com
CRAIG CONANT Conant made a name for himself in the LA comedy scene by
sharing the stage with Dave Chappelle, Chris D’elia Daniel Tosh and more. July 12-13, 7 & 9:45 pm. $22-$30. Spokane Comedy Club, 315 W. Sprague. spokanecomedyclub.com (509-319-9998)
FINDERS CREEPERS Blue Door Theatre players improvise a search for the creatures of legend through improv games and skits. July 12-26, Fri at 7:30 pm. $9. Blue Door Theatre, 319 S. Cedar St. bluedoortheatre.org (509-747-7045)
SAFARI The Blue Door Theatre’s version of Whose Line where they improv short comedy skits from audience suggestions. Every Saturday at 7:30 pm. $9. Blue Door Theatre, 319 S. Cedar St. bluedoortheatre. com (509-747-7045)
UNCLE LAZER Lazer stars on the My Drunk Uncle’s podcast. July 14, 7 pm. $25. Spokane Comedy Club, 315 W. Sprague. spokanecomedyclub.com
COLIN JOST Colin Jost serves as a head writer for Saturday Night Live and is the co-anchor of the Weekend Update sketch. July 16, 7:30 pm. $40-$148. The Fox Theater, 1001 W. Sprague Ave. foxtheaterspokane.org (509-624-1200)
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
OPEN MIC STAND-UP Wednesdays at 7:30 pm. See website for advance signup details. Free. Spokane Comedy Club, 315 W. Sprague Ave. spokanecomedyclub.com (509-318-9998)
ASHLEY GAVIN Gavin is best known for her viral TikTok videos of her crowdwork. July 18, 7 pm, July 19-20, 7 & 9:45 pm.
$30-$40. Spokane Comedy Club, 315 W. Sprague. spokanecomedyclub.com
COMMUNITY
DRIVING THE AMERICAN DREAM: 1970S CARS Learn about the changes in the world that heralded a new era of auto making in the United States through automobiles of the 1970s. Tue-Sun from 10 am-5 pm through Sep. 14. $8-$12. Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture, 2316 W. First Ave. northwestmuseum.org
IT HAPPENED HERE: EXPO ‘74 FIFTY YEARS LATER This 50th anniversary exhibition revisits the historical roots of Expo ’74’s legacy. It incorporates recognizable elements from Expo’s built environment with museum artifacts and archival materials. Tue-Sun from 10 am-5 pm through Jan. 26. $7-$12. Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture, 2316 W. First Ave. northwestmuseum.org
MOORE-TURNER HERITAGE GARDENS
SELF-GUIDED TOURS A guided tour of the gardens, restored in 2007 to look as they did when in use in 1915. Learn about the discovery, the restoration and the two influential families of early Spokane who enjoyed them. Tue-Sun from 9 am-3 pm through Sep. 21. Free. Moore-Turner Heritage Gardens, 507 W. Seventh Ave. heritage-gardens.org (509-998-5020)
ALL FAIRS LEAD TO EXPO ’74 A special exhibit that guides attendees in discovering the history of fairs in our region, starting in 1886 leading up to Expo ’74 being held in Spokane. Wed-Sat from 11 am-4 pm through Sep. 2. $7. Spokane Valley Heritage Museum, 12114 E. Sprague Ave. spokanevalleymuseum.com
BEAR TOTEM TABLE TOP DROP-INS
Play various table top role playing games. Every Friday from 6-10 pm. $5. Bear Totem, 5016 N. Market St. instagram.com/ beartotemspokane (509-953-0652)
POST FALLS FESTIVAL A community event featuring live music, vendors, food trucks, movies, inflatables and a beer garden. July 12-14. Free. Q’Emiln Park, 12201 W Parkway Dr. postfalls.gov
SCENIC CHAIRLIFT RIDES Ride a chairlift to see views of the Bitterroot mountains, pick huckleberries and more. Fri-Sun from 10 am-3:30 pm through Sep. 29. $12-$16. Lookout Pass Ski & Recreation Area, I-90 Exit 0. skilookout.com
FEED THE BUFFALO Tour the farm, learn about the buffalo and hand-feed them. Sat-Sun from 12:30-1:30 pm through Sep. 1. $7. Win-Tur Bison Farm, 4742 W. Highway 231. winturbisonfarm.com
EVENING LIGHT LAVENDER FESTIVAL
The annual festival features shopping, dining, live music, crafting and U-Pick lavender fields. July 13-14, daily from 9 am-5 pm. $12-$45. Evening Light Lavender Farm, 5552 S. Wallbridge Rd. eveninglightlavender.com (509-939-0313)
SPOKANE HOUSE INTERPRETIVE CEN -
TER OPEN HOUSE Discover the different areas of RSP and meet the organizations that use the park for activities and recreation. July 13, 9 am-2 pm. Free. Spokane House Interpretive Center, 13501 N. Nine Mile. riversidestateparkfoundation.org
SANDPOINT PRIDE 2024 A pride celebration in Sandpoint’s Granary District featuring vendors, drag performances, live music, spoken word and more. July 13 and July 14. Free. sandpointpride.org
CDA FLEA MARKET A market with over 45 vendors including vintage and antiques, local handmade goods and artisan food. Second Sundays through October, 10 am-3 pm. Roosevelt Inn, 105 E. Wallace. cdaflea.com (208-765-5200)
TINTYPE PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOP Artist-In-Residence Brian Deemy leads a hands-on workshop on the historic wet plate collodion (tintype) photographic process introduced in 1851. July 16, 5-8 pm. free. The Hive, 2904 E. Sprague Ave. spokanelibrary.org (509-444-5300)
EASTERN REGION CONNECTS: PEOPLE, PLACES, AND POSSIBILITIES Share thoughts, ideas and concerns about WSDOT projects in your neighborhood. July 17, 5-7 pm. Free. Liberty Park Library, 402 S. Pittsburgh St. spokanelibrary.org
MOONSHINE ARTISAN NIGHT MARKET & MOONLIT MOVIES An market featuring local makers, food vendors and more. Movie begins at dusk. Wednesdays from 5:30-11 pm through Aug. 28. Free. Commellini Estate, 14715 N. Dartford Dr. commellini.com/moonshine
LILAC CITY LIVE This month’s show features a variety of guests, comedians and musicians. July 18, 8-10 pm. Free. Central Library, 906 W. Main. spokanelibrary.org
KNITTING FOR BEGINNERS During this two-session workshop, learn the basic skills of knitting. All supplies provided. Registration required. July 13 and 20, 10 am-noon & 1-3 pm. Free. North Spokane Library, 44 E. Hawthorne. scld.org
YOGA & MIMOSA CRUISE A two-hour cruise and a 45-minute on-board yoga class taught by CDA Power Yoga. July 18-Aug. 29, Thu at 9 am and 10 am. $36. The Coeur d’Alene Resort, 115 S. Second. cdacruises.com (208-765-4000)
RENDEZVOUS IN THE PARK A two-day, family-friendly music and arts festival featuring activities and musical acts. July 19-20; see artist lineup online. $40-$70. East City Park, 900 E. Third St., Moscow. rendezvousinthepark.com
STORY TIME AT THE CARROUSEL An early literacy activity to spark and engage young children with stories, songs and preschool activities. Ages 2-5. Third Fridays at 11 am. Free. Looff Carrousel, 507 N. Howard St. riverfrontspokane.org
TOUCH A TRUCK Children can touch, climb and explore various trucks. July 19, 10 am-1 pm. Free. Orchard Park, 20298 E. Indiana. libertylakewa.gov/435/library
33 ARTISTS MARKET A curated, monthly art market featuring local artists, art demos and live music. July 20, 11 am-5 pm. Free. The Wonder Building, 835 N. Post St. 33artistsmarket.com
FILM
EXPO ’74: FILMS FROM THE VAULT A selection of recently digitized film footage from the 1974 World’s Fair in Spokane. Tue-Sun from 10 am-5 pm through Sep. 8. $7-$12. Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture, 2316 W. First Ave. northwestmuseum.org (509-456-3931)
GARLAND FREE KIDS MOVIES Screenings of free kids movies every Wednesday, Thursday and Friday at 11 am. See website for details. Free. Garland Theater, 924 W. Garland Ave. garlandtheater.org
SUMMER FAMILY MATINEE SERIES See website for list of movies. Tue-Thu at 1 pm through Aug. 22. Free. The Kenworthy, 508 S. Main St. kenworthy.org
SUMMER OF STUDIO GHIBLI: SPIRITED
AWAY An English-dubbed screening. July 10-13, daily at 2 pm. $5. Garland Theater, 924 W. Garland. garlandtheater.org
MOVIES IN THE PARK Screenings of family-friendly movies in Sally’s Park. Fridays at sundown through Aug. 2. Free. The Salvation Army Spokane, 222 E. Indiana Ave. facebook.com/TheSalvationArmyofSpokane (509-325-6810)
MOVIES IN THE PARK: BACK TO THE FUTURE An outdoor screening with retro arcade games available to play. Movie at sunset. July 12, 7 pm. Free. Q’Emiln Park, 12201 W Parkway Dr. postfalls.gov
GARLAND FREE SUMMER MOVIES Free movies every Saturday and Sunday at 2 pm. See website for details. Garland Theater, 924 W. Garland. garlandtheater.org
STAFF PICKS: CITY OF GOD In the slums of Rio, two kids’ paths diverge as one struggles to become a photographer and a kingpin. July 16, 7-9 pm. $8. The Kenworthy, 508 S. Main St. kenworthy.org
MOSCOW FILM SOCIETY: THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS An FBI trainee enlists the help of the infamous Hannibal “the Cannibal” Lecter to gain insight into the mind of another killer. July 17, 7-9 pm. $8. The Kenworthy, 508 S. Main. kenworthy.org
SUMMER OF STUDIO GHIBLI: NAUSICAA AND THE VALLEY OF THE WIND
An English-dubbed screening. July 17-20, daily at 2 pm. $5. Garland Theater, 924 W. Garland Ave. garlandtheater.org
CELEBRATION OF SOUND: THE SONG
REMAINS THE SAME A Led Zeppelin concert film. July 18, 7-9 pm. $8. The Kenworthy, 508 S. Main St. kenworthy.org
SPOKANE VALLEY OUTDOOR MOVIE: ELEMENTAL Participate in crafts and other activities before the movies begin. July 19, 6-10 pm. Free. Mirabeau Park
Meadows, 13500 Mirabeau Pkwy. spokanevalley.org
MOVIES AT THE PAVILION: WISH A screening under the Pavilion. Bring your own seats, snacks and beverages. July 23, 8:30 pm. Free. Pavilion at Riverfront, 574 N. Howard St. riverfrontspokane.com
FOOD & DRINK
BRING YOUR OWN VINYL NIGHT Bring your own vinyl to spin while sipping on craft cocktails and listening to music. Thursdays from 3-10 pm. The Boneyard - Side Hustle Syrups, 17905 E. Appleway Ave. sidehustlesyrups.com
CRAVE! NORTHWEST The three-day food festival is chef-focused, showcasing the creative talents of chefs and tastemakers from around the region while highlighting the flavors of the great Northwest. July 11-13 from 6-9 pm. $15$254. CenterPlace Regional Event Center, 2426 N. Discovery Pl. cravenw.com
BBQ & BANDS: FARON GILBERT Live music by Faron Gilbert. Dinner is chicken and beef kabobs. July 12, 5-7 pm. $20. The Culinary Stone, 2129 N. Main St. culinarystone.com (208-277-4166)
CULINARY TOUR OF THE PALOUSE: SOUTH INDIAN CUISINE WITH PALOUSE GROWN CHICKPEAS Learn how to prepare Indian rice, egg curry and more. July 12, 4-7 pm. $55. Dahmen Barn, 419 N. Park Way. artisanbarn.org
MAKING SNACKS FROM AROUND THE WORLD Make and eat snacks from other countries, learn food facts and sample candies from around the world. Ages 1318. Registration required. July 12, 3-4 pm. Free. Moran Prairie Library, 6004 S. Regal St. scld.org
FOOD AS FARMACY Learn how the intersection of great food, farming, health and medicine all come together with naturopathic physician Casey Carr. Includes a salami-making lesson and farm-to-table dinner. July 13, 4-9 pm. $160. Genesis Mountain Farm, 3529 Wrenco Loop. foodasfarmacy.com
SUNDAY BRUNCH CRUISES A brunch buffet with a bar while on a cruise around Lake Coeur d’Alene. Sundays at 11 am through Sep. 1. $60-$73. Coeur d’Alene Resort, 115 S. Second. cdacruises.com
RIVERFRONT EATS A food festival featuring local vendors and live music. Tuesdays from 11 am-2 pm through Aug. 20. Riverfront Park, 507 N. Howard St. riverfrontspokane.org (509-625-6600)
TWO-DAY SOURDOUGH WORKSHOP
A two-day workshop; learn how to make dough, fold, portion, proof and bake sourdough. July 17-18, 5:45-8:15 pm. $150. The Kitchen Engine, 621 W. Mallon Ave. thekitchenengine.com
PAELLA & PALENCIA PAIRING ON THE PATIO Taste six wines from Palencia Wine Company with live jazz music from the Idaho Panhandlers. July 19, 5-7 pm. $90. The Culinary Stone, 2129 N. Main St. culinarystone.com (208-277-4166)
NORTHWEST WINEFEST Sample wines from around the Northwest while enjoying food vendors, mountain activities and live music. July 20-21. Schweitzer, 10,000 Schweitzer Mountain Rd. schweitzer.com
MUSIC
LILAC CITY COMMUNITY BAND CONCERT The band performs works from
their repertoire in various city parks. July 11, 6:30-8 pm. Free. Audubon Park, 3908 N. Driscoll Bvld. hnmc.org
WALLACE BLUES FESTIVAL A four-day festival featuring local, regional and national blues acts including John Primer, Sammy Eubanks, Anthony Gomes and more. July 10-14; see website for schedule. $10-$75. Wallace. silvervalleyevents. com/wallace-blues-festival
CLIVE CARROLL Carroll performs country, soul, pop, funk and traditional Irish music on guitar. July 12, 7-9 pm. $35-$40. Hamilton Studio, 1427 W. Dean Ave. hamiltonstudio.com (509-327-9501)
WHAT SHE SAID...BACK! Local singers perform solos, duets and trios that pay homage to the music of the 1950s while reflecting of the stereotypes of the day. July 12-13, 7 pm. $30-$50. The Jacklin Arts & Cultural Center, 405 N. William St. thejacklincenter.org (208-457-8950)
MUSIC FOR OBSERVATIONS A threepart music series pairing electronic music with the Jewett Observatory’s open viewings of the night sky. July 13, 9 pm. Free. WSU Jewett Observatory, Jewett Observatory. jasoneanderson.net
JENNIFER STOEHNER Stoehner performs contemporary and classical selections on piano. July 16, 5-7 pm. Pend d’Oreille Winery, 301 Cedar. powine.com
MUSIC IN MANITO The first half of the program features Northwest BachFest Artistic Director Zuill Bailey with the Spokane String Quartet. The second half features fiddlers Mark and Maggie O’Connor. July 16-17, 7-9 pm. $5-$65. Manito Park, 1800 S. Grand Blvd. nwbachfest.com
LILAC CITY COMMUNITY BAND CON -
CERT The band performs works from their repertoire in various city parks. July 17, 6:30-8 pm. Free. Prince of Peace Lutheran, 8441 N. Indian Trail Rd. hnmc.org
PLAID CAT Enjoy a musical mix of swing, country, oldies and original songs from the band Plaid Cat. July 17, 6-7 pm. Free. Sutton Park, 805 Washington St. scld.org
MARK & MAGGIE O’CONNOR The Grammy award-winning duo play the best of their array of fiddling favorites. July 18, 7-9 pm. $20-$50. Barrister Winery, 1213 W. Railroad Ave. nwbachfest.com
GIRLS ROCK LAB CONCERT An evening of performances by the bands created at Girls Rock Lab summer camp. July 19, 6 pm. Free. Central Library, 906 W. Main Ave. spokanelibrary.org (509-444-5300)
SPORTS & OUTDOORS
OPEN PLAY PICKLEBALL Play pickleball at the HUB. Every week Mon-Thu from 10 am-noon or 1-3 pm. $5.50-$7. HUB Sports Center, 19619 E. Cataldo Ave. hubsportscenter.org (509-927-0602)
RIVERFRONT MOVES: YOGA Beyoutiful Hot Yoga teaches an outdoor vinyasa class. July 11, 6-7 pm. Free. Spokane Tribal Gathering Place, 347 N Post St. riverfrontspokane.com
SPOKANE INDIANS VS. EVERETT
AQUASOX Promos for the series include College Alumni Night (7/11), Ribby Bobblehead Giveaway (7/12), Otto the Mascot’s Birthday and Kid’s Day Game (7/14) and more. July 11, 6:35 pm, July 12-13, 7:05 pm and July 14, 1:05 pm. Avista Stadium, 602 N. Havana. milb.com/spokane
MOONLIGHT PADDLEBOARDING: AMBER LAKE Paddle Amber Lake at dusk and through the night. Meet at Finch
Arboretum. Includes equipment, guides and transport. July 12, 6:30-10:30 pm.
$59. Finch Arboretum, 3404 W. Woodland Blvd. my.spokanecity.org/parksrec
RUN FOR YOUTH FUN FEST A familyfriendly fun run and festival aimed at raising funds to serve, lift and empower under-resourced youth in Spokane. July 12, 5-8 pm. $10-$45. Manito Park, 1800 S. Grand Blvd. spokaneyfc.org
PLANT CLINIC WITH WSU SPOKANE COUNTY MASTER GARDENERS Get advice from WSU Spokane County Master Gardeners about plant selection, maintenance, environmentally friendly practices, pest management, effective landscaping practices and more. July 13-Sept. 28, Sat from 11 am-3 pm. Free. Shadle Library, 2111 W. Wellesley Ave. spokanelibrary.org (509-444-5300)
RIVERFRONT MOVES: YOGA Eclipse Power Yoga teaches a class featuring playlists designed to uplift and invigorate your yoga poses. July 13, 10-11 am. Free. Spokane Tribal Gathering Place, 347 N Post St. riverfrontspokane.com
SABOTAGE 2024: ROLLER DERBY DOUBLE HEADER Two roller derby games featuring the Yetis and other PNW skaters. July 13, 2:30 pm. $12. EWU, 526 Fifth St. ewu.edu (509-259-2241)
THE SHOOTOUT AT SILVER MOUNTAIN
A 3D archery event with competitive and non-competitive play, payouts, prizes and team events. July 13-14. $90-$110. Silver Mountain Resort, 610 Bunker Ave. silvermt.com (208-783-1111)
BHANGRA & BOLLYWOOD DANCE This class combines the excitement of Bollywood with the folk of Bhangra. Wear loose clothing. No experience necessary. July 14, 2:30 pm. Free. Liberty Park Library, 402 S. Pittsburgh St. spokanelibrary.org (509-444-5300)
MILD RIDERS TUESDAY NIGHT RIDES
Bring your Vespa scooter and ride with others. Every Tuesday at 6 pm through the fall. Free. Lunarium, 1925 N. Monroe St. instagram.com/mild.riders.spokane
RIVERFRONT MOVES: VINYASA Rare Wellness leads a class featuring foundational postures, transitions and breath techniques. July 16, 6-7 pm. Free. Spokane Tribal Gathering Place, 347 N Post St. riverfrontspokane.com
ROSAUERS OPEN INVITATIONAL A 54hole individual competition golf tournament. July 19-21. $360-$390. Indian Canyon Golf Course, 4303 W. West Dr. my.spokanecity.org/golf/courses/indiancanyon (509-953-3780)
RIVERFRONT MOVES: YOGA & STRENGTH The Spokane Club leads a yoga class focused on strength. July 20 and Aug. 20. Free. Riverfront Park, 507 N. Howard St. riverfrontspokane.com
SPOKENYA A 7k walk/run along the Centennial Trail and SFCC designed to raise money for clean water in rural Kenya. July 20, 9-11 am. $35. Life Center Church, 1202 N. Government. spokenyarun.org
SUMMER ROOFTOP YOGA SERIES A one-hour yoga class taught by The Union on the Davenport rooftop. July 20, 10 am. $35. Historic Davenport Hotel, 10 S. Post St. davenporthotelcollection.com
YMCA KIDS XTREME FUN RUN Kids are invited to run, jump,and slide through a 500-yard outdoor obstacle course complete with tires, water balloons and many other fun challenges along the way. July 20, 9-11 am. $25-$35. YMCA North Spokane, 10727 N. Newport Hwy. ymcainw. org (509-777-9622)
THEATER & DANCE
HEATHERS: THE MUSICAL It’s 1989 and Westerberg High is terrorized by a shoulder-padded, scrunchie-wearing clique: Heather, Heather and Heather. Misfit Veronica Sawyer rejects their evil regime for a new boyfriend who plans to put the Heathers in their place — six feet under. July 12-28; Wed-Sat at 7:30 pm, Sun at 2 pm. (Sat, July 27 performance at 2 pm.) $15-$38. Spokane Civic Theatre, 1020 N. Howard. spokanecivictheatre.com
MASTER HAROLD...AND THE BOYS Fugard’s coming-of-age story, loosely based on his own experience in South Africa, concerns the changing relationship between a white teen and the two Black men who work as waiters in his mother’s tea room. Fri-Sat at 7:30 pm, Sun at 2 pm. $6-$26. The Forge Theater, 404 Sweet Ave. uidaho.edu/class/theatre
SPOKANE VALLEY SUMMER THEATRE RISING STARS A showcase of promising, emerging talent featuring 18 teens and young adults pursuing musical theater. July 12-13; Fri at 7:30 pm, Sat at 2 pm. $25-$35. Central Valley High School, 821 S. Sullivan Rd. svsummertheatre.com
SHAKESPEARE IN THE PARK: A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM This 90-minute adaptation consists of five interconnecting plots, connected by a celebration of the wedding of Duke Theseus and Hippolyta. July 13, 4-5:30 pm. Free. Chewelah City Park, North Park Street. chewelahcenterforthearts.com
AN R-RATED MAGIC SHOW Comedy magician Grant Freeman performs a unique, raunchy magic show. July 16, 8 pm. $32-$48. Bing Crosby Theater, 901 W. Sprague Ave. bingcrosbytheater.com
AS YOU LIKE IT An adaptation of Shakespeare’s As You Like It. Performed in Corbin Park (July 18-21), Manito Park (July 25-28) and Riverfront Park (Aug. 1-3). Wed-Sat at 6:30, Sun at 2 pm. Free. spokaneshakespearesociety.org
THE SECRET GARDEN Orphaned in India, 11-year-old Mary Lennox returns to Yorkshire to live with her uncle Archibald and his disabled son Colin. July 19-28; Thu-Fri at 7:30 pm, Sat-Sun at 2 pm. $50-$192. Schuler Performing Arts Center, 880 W. Garden . cstidaho.com
VISUAL ARTS
1924: SOVEREIGNTY, LEADERSHIP AND THE INDIAN CITIZENSHIP ACT This exhibition commemorates the 100-year anniversary of the Indian Citizenship Act and centers on photographs of early local tribal leadership as they and their people. Tue-Sun from 10 am-5 pm through Feb. 2. $7-$12. Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture, 2316 W. First Ave. northwestmuseum.org (509-456-3931)
JULIE ALEXANDER: BLINK MARGIN WEFT Seattle artist Julie Alexander creates paintings on various fabrics using acrylics and ink. July 5-31, by appointment through July 31. Free. Kolva-Sullivan Gallery, 115 S. Adams St. mobile. kolva.comcastbiz.net (509-458-5517)
EXPO GROUP SHOW A show featuring 19 local artists showcasing art inspired by Expo ‘74’s 50th anniversary. July 5-29, daily from 11 am-6 pm. Free. Entropy, 101 N. Stevens St. explodingstars.com
HIGHER GROUND: AN EXHIBITION OF
ART, EPHEMERA AND FORM Higher
Ground features artwork and archival material from across the Palouse that speaks to the history of queer experience in the area. Mon-Fri from 8:30 am-4:30 pm through Oct. 31. Free. Washington State University, 2000 NE Stadium Way. libraries.wsu.edu/masc (509-551-4231)
INLAND NORTHWEST JURIED LAND -
SCAPE ART EXHIBITION This juried display seeks to present the diversity and dynamism of contemporary artistic activity in the Inland Northwest. Mon-Sat from 10 am-4 pm through Aug. 24. Free. Jundt Art Museum, 200 E. Desmet Ave. gonzaga.edu/jundt (509-313-6843)
JAN CLIZER Clizer showcases paintings featuring Scottish, Irish and Cornish culture. Wed-Fri from 10 am-6 pm, Sat from 9 am-noon and Sun from 1-4 pm through Aug. 14. Free. The Jacklin Arts & Cultural Center, 405 N. William St. thejacklincenter.org (208-457-8950)
LESLIE LAMBERT: WESTERN COLORS
Award-winning artist, teacher, illustrator and author Leslie Lambert is known for her dramatic watercolors. Daily from 11 am-7 pm through July 27. Free. Liberty Building, 203 N. Washington St. spokanelibertybuilding.com (509-327-6920)
REUSE WORKSHOP Learn about creative reuse by getting hands-on and bring home your own craft. Free with admission to Mobius. Every second Thu of the month from 10-11 am. Free. Mobius Discovery Center, 331 N. Post St. artsalvagespokane.com (509-321-7137)
ANTONIO ROMERO & DIANE LIND -
BLADE Digital art by Antonio Romero and landscapes by Diane Lindblade. Both artists are members of the River Ridge Association of Fine Arts. Daily from 6 am-8 pm through July 31, 6 am-8 pm. Free. Indaba Coffee Roasters (Riverside), 518 W. Riverside. rrafaofspokane.com
SPOKANE ART SCHOOL EXPO ‘74 50TH
ANNIVERSARY SHOW Art relating to Expo from Gina Freuen, Jo Fyfe, Tom Quinn, E.L.Stewart, Gordon Wilson and more. Mon-Fri from 10 am-5 pm through July 26. Free. Spokane Art School, 503 E. Second Ave. spokaneartschool.net
WOMAN, ARTIST, CATALYST: ART FROM THE PERMANENT COLLECTION
Focusing on locally, nationally and internationally known women artists, this exhibition showcases the quality and varied focus of leading artists and art movements. Tue-Sun from 10 am-5 pm through March 9. $7-$12. Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture, 2316 W. First Ave. northwestmuseum.org (509-456-3931)
SPLASH: A WATERCOLOR GROUP
SHOW Lush watercolor artwork of Elise Beattie and other known local artist consignors and the gallery’s collective members. July 12-27, Wed-Sat from 11 am-5 pm. Free. New Moon Art Gallery, 1326 E. Sprague Ave. manicmoonandmore.com
BECKY BUSI: MEMORY METANOIA Work by artist Becky Busi based on artifacts of precious objects, photos, heirlooms and more. Fri-Sat from noon-8 pm through July 26. Free. Saranac Art Projects, 25 W. Main Ave. sapgallery.com
EMERGE BLOCK PARTY The annual block party features over 150 local artists selling their art and goods. Additionally, the party features films and performance artists showing and performing their work. July 12, 5 pm-midnight. Free. Emerge, 119 N. Second. emergecda.com
MARY FARRELL: LOOK + LISTEN Pieces by Mary Farrell in response to the quiet power of nature. Fri-Sat from noon-8 pm
through July 26. Free. Saranac Art Projects, 25 W. Main Ave. sapgallery.com
SECOND FRIDAY ARTWALK Stroll the streets of downtown Coeur d’Alene and enjoy artwork along with local shops, restaurants and businesses. Second Friday of every month, 5-8 pm. Free. Downtown Coeur d’Alene, Sherman Ave. artsandculturecda.org (208-415-0116)
HEARTISTRY: ARTISTIC WELLBEING
A relaxed and inspiring environment for self-discovery. Participate in basic artistic concepts and activities or respond to a mindfulness prompt. Every Tuesday from 3-5 pm. Free. Spark Central, 1214 W. Summit Pkwy. spark-central.org
ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTS Hannah Charlton teaches students the history and process of creating illuminated manuscripts using medieval techniques and modern materials. July 16, 9-11:30 am. $85. Spokane Art School, 503 E. Second Ave., Ste. B. spokaneartschool.net
OPEN STUDIO Stop by The Hive to see what current Artists-In-Residence are up to, and tour the building. Every Wednesday from 4-7 pm. Free. The Hive, 2904 E. Sprague Ave. spokanelibrary.org
TOTS MESSY ART A messy art class for children ages 7 and under. Guardian must be present for the entire class. Every Wednesday from 11 am-1 pm. Free. Create Arts Center, 900 Fourth St., Newport. createarts.org (509-447-9277)
CERAMIC GLAZE WORKSHOP Katie Rose walks students through a variety of unique glazing techniques. The main technique taught is the use of shellac designs on greenware. July 18, 4-7 pm. $60. Emerge, 119 N. Second St. emergecda. com (208-930-1876)
HAND EMBROIDERY: A MOUNTAIN
SUNRISE Maria Andrus teaches how to embroider a mountain scene using a traditional hoop. July 18, 5-7 pm. $49. Spokane Art School, 503 E. Second Ave., Ste. B. spokaneartschool.net (509-325-1500)
RE: PRESENT A collection of painting by various artists made with high regard for presence in the moment. July 18-Aug. 29, Mon-Fri from 8 am-5 pm. Free. Third Street Gallery, City Hall, 206 E. Third St. ci.moscow.id.us/203/Third-Street/Gallery (208-883-7036)
SIP & SPIN Try throwing on the pottery wheel in a low-pressure environment while enjoying a glass of wine. July 19, 6-8 pm. $30. Emerge, 119 N. Second St. emergecda.com (208-930-1876)
BUNNY VASE Collista Krebs teaches how to make a rabbit vase using the slab and coil method. July 20, 10 am-1 pm. $71. Spokane Art School, 503 E. Second Ave., Ste. B. spokaneartschool.net
WORDS
DROP IN & WRITE Aspiring writers are invited to be a part of a supportive writers’ community. Bring works in progress to share, get inspired with creative prompts and spend some focused time writing. Hosted by local writers Jenny Davis and Hannah Engel. Thursdays from 5:30-7 pm. Free. Spark Central, 1214 W. Summit Pkwy. spark-central.org
HARMONY WRITERS GROUP A writing group focused on memoir and craft. Every other week on Thursday from 5:15-7 pm. Free. Liberty Park Library, 402 S. Pittsburgh St. spokanelibrary.org
NATUREBRARY A six-week nature and exploration-based program geared for ages 3-6 and their adults. Each week in-
cludes a brief story time with movementbased, science-based and art activities. See website for information. Saturdays from 9:30-11 am through July 25. Free. Sandpoint Library, 1407 Cedar St. ebonnerlibrary.org (208-265-9565)
AUNTIE’S BOOK CLUB: NEW FICTION
Discuss Western Lane by Chetna Maroo at the July meeting. July 11, 6-7 pm. Free. Auntie’s Bookstore, 402 W. Main Ave. auntiesbooks.com (509-838-0206)
PAGE 42 SUMMER READING PROGRAM For every 20 minutes spent reading, fill in a bubble on the sheet provided. Bring the sheet back to Page 24 by Aug. 31 to collect prizes. For readers K-12. Free. Page 42 Bookstore, 2174 N. Hamilton St. page24bookstore.com
MERMAID STORYTIME Mermaids read a water-themed story to kids. July 13, 11 am. Free. Auntie’s Bookstore, 402 W. Main Ave. auntiesbooks.com
STORY AND CRAFT A read-aloud of a popular children’s book is followed by an optional craft related to the story. Ages 3-7. Every Saturday from 11 am-noon. Free with admission. Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture, 2316 W. First Ave. northwestmuseum.org (509-456-3931)
BOOK CLUB WITH A BEVERAGE Discuss James by Percival Everett with local writer and lecturer Jenny Davis. A complimentary glass of wine is included. Ages 21+. July 14, 1 pm. $18-$20. Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture, 2316 W. First Ave. northwestmuseum.org
TRAILS AND TALES An outdoor story time and nature walk at the Pine Street Woods featuring an animated reading of a book, guided nature discovery, snacks and more. Tuesdays from 9-10 am through Aug. 6. Free. Sandpoint Library, 1407 Cedar St. ebonnerlibrary.org
BROKEN MIC A weekly open mic reading series. Wednesdays at 6:30 pm; sign-ups at 6 pm. Free. Neato Burrito, 827 W. First Ave. bit.ly/2ZAbugD (509-847-1234) n
PRESCHOOL STORYTIME PLAY & LEARN Share books, songs and fun. After storytime, spend some time in open play with learning activities. Every Wed from 10-11 am. 10-11 am. Free. South Hill Library, 3324 S. Perry St. spokanelibrary. org (444-5331)
BOOK BINGO Keep track of book titles called to see if you are the first to get five in a row and win a prize. Bring your own Bingo dauber or borrow one. Families and kids 5+. July 18, 1-2 pm. Free. Cheney Library, 610 First St. Also on July 18, 6-7 pm and Aug. 21, 2-3 pm at North Spokane Library, 44 E. Hawthorne Rd. scld.org
THE EGG BUNTECTIVES BOOK READING Local author Whitney Kolterman reads from her children’s book, The Egg Buntectives. July 18, 6 pm. $25. Mulberry Market Co., 17325 E. Sprague Ave. mulberrymarketco.com
BLUEY STORYTIME Enjoy themed stories, songs and interactive activities. July 19, 10:30 am. Free. Liberty Park Library, 402 S. Pittsburgh St. 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 will write alongside of you and provide prompts and advice if needed. July 19, 10 amnoon. Free. South Hill Library, 3324 S. Perry St. spokanelibrary.org n
RECIPE
Cannabis Cream
Cook up some cannabis-infused cream to help cool off with a frozen treat this summer
BY WILL MAUPIN
It is absurdly hot outside. In this weather, who isn’t craving some ice cream?
Here is how to make cannabis-infused cream, the main ingredient in ice cream. That’s right, homemade cannabis ice cream is just around the corner.
INGREDIENTS:
• 1 gram of approximately 20% THC cannabis flower
• 4 cups of heavy cream
• Cheesecloth or coffee filter
ACTIVATE YOUR CANNABIS
This is when you turn your raw cannabis flower into an edible. You can’t just eat raw cannabis and get stoned because a reaction must take place to convert the form of THC in raw cannabis into a form that is active when ingested — this is what happens when you light it with a flame or heat it in a vape.
Place your cannabis into an oven-safe container with a lid. I used a small Dutch oven, but even a loaf pan covered in tin foil can do the trick. Anything oven-safe with a good lid will work. You want to rough chop the flower, but not grind it as you will lose many of the hair-like trichomes.
Heat the cannabis in an oven at 230 F for 30 minutes.
Note: This will both stink up your home
and also heat it to hell-like temperatures. Don’t do this during the day in a heatwave. Open your windows and do it at night.
CANNABINIZE YOUR CREAM
Let the cooked cannabis cool before chopping it up a bit more finely, but still avoid grinding it. Transfer the chopped and activated cannabis into 32 ounces of heavy cream in a pot over low to medium-low heat. You’ll want to bring it to a low simmer and then keep it there. Speed is not part of the game. Don’t burn or boil it. Do not go above 180 degrees.
Keep the cannabis cream at a low simmer for 30 minutes, stirring often, to incorporate.
Then, strain the cream through a coffee filter or a cheesecloth into an airtight jar. That is your edible. Store in the refrigerator for up to three days before freezing or using. Once chilled, it can be used to make ice cream.
NOTES
The potency of your edible will depend mostly on the strength of your cannabis. I used 24% THC cannabis for these recipe tests, which came out to approximately 2 to 4 milligrams of THC per tablespoon of infused cream. Up the dose by increasing the percentage of THC — increasing the quantity of cannabis can overwhelm the flavor — or decrease the dose by using a lower percentage or smaller quantity. n
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.
GREEN ZONE
Reach Nearly
64,000
Inlander readers that have BOUGHT OR USED CANNABIS in the past year and live in Eastern WA.
INLANDER’S GREEN ZONE GREEN ZONE QUARTERLY MAGAZINE
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*2018 Media Audit
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.
Response to “Are too!”
Notable period
Laced again
Insurance company named after a mountain
___ bars (raps)
WINNING IS JUST THE BEGINNING
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