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Iremember the first time Ozzie Knezovich surprised me. It was 2010, and I’d just published a tough article in the Inlander about the flawed disciplinary system surrounding use of force complaints against local police. Knezovich was in the room with the police chief, an aggressive city attorney and my two bosses: the then-editor and publisher of the paper. We were told that my article put cops in danger, and it was clear that some in the room wanted me to lose my job. Knezovich, however, was silent for most of the meeting. Until, that is, he stood up, said he wasn’t a fan of the article but that no one else in the room spoke for him, and walked out. He wasn’t exactly defending my article, but his sudden departure took the air out of the others. The sheriff, it was clear, listens to only person’s counsel: his own.
For this week’s cover — OZZIE VS. THE WORLD — Daniel Walters and Nate Sanford report in great detail the ways in which Knezovich has navigated his 16 years as the county’s top law enforcement officer. It may surprise you. Over the course of two interviews and more than four hours, the outgoing sheriff told them story after story about the battles he’s waged against extremists, conspiracy theorists, activists, his political foes. Even himself. In the end, we see a flawed, maybe broken man still willing to wage his own battles. One man against the world.
— NICHOLAS DESHAIS, editor
PHONE: 509-325-0634
Ted S. McGregor Jr. (tedm@inlander.com)
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I am hesitant to say it, but Ferris Bueller’s Day Off could have a pretty sick sequel. I don’t know if it would center on Ferris’ kids or if it would be an entirely new cast, but it’s just a great and classic concept.
I feel like it would be another tearjerker, but Pixar’s UP could use a second movie. The first one was just too good to leave it open-ended.
I was going to say Good Will Hunting, but you can’t touch art. Let’s go with Over the Hedge
La La Land needs a sequel! The ending had me in absolute shambles, and I know a lot of people feel the same. A movie has never made me bawl harder.
I feel like the only movie I need to see a sequel for is The Goonies. Everything else already has one or has a crappy spinoff.
INTERVIEWS BY CATE WILSON 12/9/2022, LOGAN NEIGHBORHOOD
BY TARA ROBERTS
At a community Thanksgiving lunch, I glanced across the room and saw a young woman sit next to my children. A college student, I assumed, stuck in Moscow during a painful and bizarre fall break, perhaps finding some comfort in a free meal and a table with two sweet-faced middle-schoolers amid a sea of strangers.
When I sat down and introduced myself, she responded that she wasn’t a student. She was a staffer at a media organization. One that I despise.
I’d spent the days since the murders of four University of Idaho students in the same state of raw shock as everyone else in Moscow. Far too often, I dealt with that shock by staring into the maw of social media, especially Twitter — where I track mentions of the university on TweetDeck, just for fun. Usually it’s a nice way to spot interesting research or students in the news. For the past few weeks, it’s been a horror show of speculations, accusations and lurid “news” stories — including those written by this young woman’s colleagues.
“Oh, that’s interesting,” I said. “I’m a journalism instructor.”
Usually I introduce myself as a freelance writer, part-time teacher. At a community event like the lunch, I might have mentioned my church or my spot on the city’s human rights commission. But “journalism instructor,” I said, forcing a smile.
This semester I’m teaching an introductory media writing class. The week after Thanksgiving was scheduled as a discussion of media ethics. I was planning, if my students were up for it, to discuss media coverage of the murders — the good, the bad and the ugly. I knew pieces by this young woman’s organization would be among the latter.
But when I said “journalism instructor,” she lit up. As we talked, I started seeing someone not too far removed from the student I’d assumed she
was. Someone in the same stage as my former students, recent U of I grads, who had been covering the murders for Idaho news orgs.
She talked about how happy she was when a city official invited her to the lunch, and how welcoming everyone in Moscow is. I told her how upset people in town had been by some of the national news coverage, and she said she’d been upset by headlines and photos her organization had run, too.
I wanted to shout at her. Why didn’t you do anything about it, then? But I didn’t know she hadn’t. And if she hadn’t, how could I know why? She is a young person still feeling her way into an industry that is often exhausting and always complicated. I didn’t know why she works where she does. But I knew she seemed to trust me. She offered to connect my students with internships. She confided how her week in Moscow had made her want to shift her career path, to do more reporting. When we said goodbye at the end of the meal, my smile was genuine.
In class the week after Thanksgiving, my students and I talked about the 24/7 news culture we’ve created in America — a monster that feeds on fear and misery that readers and viewers have convinced ourselves we can’t look away from or live without. My students expressed their anger and confusion, and how being the center of national media attention had added to their grief. They talked about how much it hurts when pundits and armchair detectives treat Moscow like it’s not a real place, the people here like we’re not real.
My students talked, too, about how much they appreciated the reporters who cared, who wrote and broadcasted stories that shared important information while respecting the humanity of Xana, Ethan, Kaylee and Madison, their families and our community.
I mentioned the young woman at Thanksgiving and how I hoped she’d speak up to her bosses. But I didn’t tell my students how I’d failed to live up to my own ethical standards in that moment I introduced myself. Despite my core belief that every human deserves grace, my first thought was, She’s one of the bad ones, and she should know I think so.
I’ve spent the semester telling my students I don’t know how to fix “the media,” as a mass. But I try to influence who they’ll be as individuals within it. The people making unethical media decisions aren’t usually cartoon villains twirling their mustaches, but ordinary people who are pressed into a corner by frantic deadlines, broken systems, lack of training and circumstances they can’t control. I tell my students that they will face moments when they have to put their beliefs into action, and they may find this much, much harder than they think.
Though I don’t know her whole story, I’m grateful that the young woman who sat down with my kids at Thanksgiving — this stranger in my town, this person I initially responded to with self-righteous anger — reminded me of the complexity not only of the media, but of life in general. It’s so easy to rush to judgment, whether about a news story or a person, and so damaging. Repairing the damage takes patience, conversation and community.
This might feel overwhelming, I said to my students at the end of our ethics discussion, and you might wonder how you’re supposed to remember it all. If nothing else, remember this: This is complex. But you don’t have to do it alone. n
Tara Roberts is a writer and educator who lives in Moscow with her husband, sons and poodle. Her novel Wild and Distant Seas is forthcoming from Norton in 2024. Follow her on Twitter @tarabethidaho.
Across three chaotic North Idaho College board meetings last week, Todd Banducci — the controversial college trustee — proclaimed that a new age was upon us. With November’s election having delivered one more trustee in his hard-rightwing camp, it was time for a reckoning.
“There’s a new board… not a board picked by the governor and his minions,” he says. “We’re going to start fresh. It’s a new era and a new dawn here at NIC.”
He calls his critics “bullies” and “cowards,” suggests that they’re “vile and evil” — and declares that those who “supposedly love this college were ready to burn it down to the ground just because of their own personal issues just with me.”
And the language from the other, more politically moderate side of the board wasn’t any less colorful.
“It appears that your sole purpose is to undermine the college and to bring it down and destroy the college,” newly-elected trustee Tarie Zimmerman said of the board’s majority.
The board of a community college may seem an absurd place for this kind of overheated rhetoric. But over the past two years, NIC has become just the latest battleground in the proxy war between the hard-right Kootenai County Republican Central Committee and its more establishment opposition.
“Watching this trainwreck unfold, there’s significant concern that our institution is in jeopardy,” says Christa Hazel, a moderate Republican activist who’s part of the “Save NIC” movement.
After all, the college is currently under a warning from the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities, which said that if the board didn’t shape up, its accreditation would be at risk. What’s more, as the board’s politics have swung back and forth in the last 15 months, the college has been through three presidents, sowing more disorder.
Last week, the fourth president was placed on “administrative leave.”
And for comparatively moderate Republicans like Hazel, the concern goes deeper. They argue that the local GOP’s central committee has not only generated chaos at NIC, it’s let the extreme fringe influence its messaging.
You can learn a lot about any local Republican Party by who they pick to speak at their Lincoln Day fundraiser. Last year, the Kootenai County Republicans picked Michelle Malkin, a conservative pundit who’d been promoting Nick Fuentes, the virulently anti-Semitic activist, as the future of the Republican party.
But along with dropping applause lines like “it’s okay to be white,” Malkin offered political strategy.
“If I had to pick any office to run for, I’d start with school board,” Malkin told the Kootenai County Republicans at the 2021 Lincoln Day Dinner.
Indeed, longtime Nick Fuentes fan Dave Reilly ran for Post Falls School Board later that year with Malkin’s endorsement. And the local GOP endorsed him, even after Reilly’s long record of hateful tweets was exposed.
“They had a chance to denounce Reilly when he ran for the school board,” says Sandy Patano, a local moderate Republican who’s been fighting the fringe for years. “And they were silent.”
Hazel knows the GOP’s focus on local nonpartisan races isn’t entirely new. Nearly a decade ago, she beat Kootenai County Republican Central Committee chair Brent Regan in a Coeur d’Alene School board race.
But as the board has shifted in an ultra-conservative direction, that emphasis has intensified.
“The real power is in the non-partisan boards — the NIC board, the city councils, the smaller taxing districts,” longtime Kootenai County GOP member Bjorn Handeen said earlier this year in an interview. “That’s the swamp… We’re actually threatening the swamp now.”
Banducci wrote in an email to a student last year that he’s “battling the NIC ‘deep state’ on an almost daily basis.”
In the fall of 2020, after GOP-supported candidates were elected to the trustee board, Banducci had been made board chair. In September 2021, they fired President Rick MacLennan without explanation. A month later, they’d hired the school’s wrestling coach, Michael Sebaaly, as the new president, touting his doctorate in educational leadership.
The far right is winning in North Idaho and stoking havoc at the local community college, with a little help from an alt-right filmmaker
But the Banducci Era was short-lived. Turns out that one of the new trustees technically lived in South Dakota. Hazel and her NIC-backing allies threatened to sue if that trustee didn’t resign. He did in January. After that, all it took was for two of Banducci’s critics to also resign and the State Board of Education could legally appoint three new trustees, and — voila! — the moderates were back in power by May.
But at the same time the moderates managed to take control of the NIC board, they were getting crushed at the ballot box.
Over the summer, during the primary election, the Kootenai County GOP released a series of sleek and professional-looking videos, including a movie-trailer-style montage of looters, drag queens and drug overdoses with the warning: “Don’t. Let. Idaho. Turn. Into. California.”
Another video paired drone shots and sentimental piano music to tout the GOP’s “sample ballot,” with their list of endorsed candidates.
The election was a blow-out: Kootenai County voted for every candidate they’d recommended.
The Kootenai County Central Committee reported to the state that it paid a company called Idaho Dynamics $11,000 for these ads. It listed a P.O. Box at Upscale Mail in Post Falls as the company’s address, matching what was on file as the company’s official business registration.
And it’s the same mailing address that Reilly listed on his website while campaigning for governor and school board the past two years.
It made sense. Before Reilly’s drone footage and pro-alt-right tweets at the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally
in Charlottesville resulted in him losing his talk radio gig, his website touted his expertise in web design, music production and digital video production.
So while it looks likely that Reilly helped make the videos for the local GOP, records show that Regan, the party’s chair, amended his campaign finance record to list a different address for Idaho Dynamics a week after the Reilly connection was described in a Coeur d’Alene Press opinion article. (Another client made a similar change in May.)
Reilly, too, seems keen on not having his exact role clarified. He responded to an Inlander email inquiry last week by asking for the paper’s “correct address to serve the papers for your restraining order.”
Regan says he worked with somebody named “Matt” — Regan wouldn’t provide the last name — at Idaho Dynamics and scoffs at the idea he’d need to vet every employee of a firm he works with.
“When you go buy groceries, do you ask everybody there who supplies their groceries?” Regan says.
Asked if he’d talked to Reilly about the Idaho Dynamics advertisements, Regan says doesn’t remember. He said he wouldn’t help chase “rabbit holes and conspiracy theories,” and abruptly ended the call.
Regardless, Reilly’s behind the camera again.
“Where we see him now the most frequently is at the North Idaho College trustee meetings,” Patano says. “He films everybody.”
North Idaho College trustee candidate Diana Sheridan moved to Coeur d’Alene in September 2021. She gives off the opposite vibe as Banducci — more grandmother than gadfly.
For most of her life, she says, she didn’t pay attention to politics. COVID and the 2020 election changed that.
When she moved to Kootenai County, she connected with local conservative political types who recommended — with her background in educational advocacy — that she run for the NIC board of trustees.
Sheridan concluded the claim the college’s accreditation was at risk was wildly overblown. She felt that Banducci was the victim of unfair attacks and was being used as a “fall guy.”
She went through the local GOP’s rigorous candidate vetting process and earned an endorsement on their recommended candidate list.
But Sheridan says she “became very aware, very quickly” that she was facing off against a “crap ton of money” on the other side. Just one PAC supporting the moderate slate, the “Friends of NIC,” had raised nearly $150,000, including huge donations from the Realtors and the Coeur d’Alene Tribe.
“I’d never worked on a campaign,” Sheridan says. “I’m like, ‘How many signs do I need? Where do you get them?’”
As she was looking for help, people around her connected her to various operatives, including Reilly. Sheridan says Reilly took photographs, and later, video footage for her.
“He got presented to me as a craftsman,” Sheridan says. “To me, he was a technician.”
Campaign finance reports show that Sheridan paid $1,500 to Revere Media, a business that, despite just forming in September, churned out a number of flashy Idaho Dynamics-style ads for far-right independent governor candidate Ammon Bundy.
Asked directly whether Reilly took the footage for Revere, Sheridan refused to answer.
“I’m not willing to draw any connections for you,” she says.
Ultimately, Sheridan says, she didn’t end up using Reilly’s work or Revere’s advertisements.
Other ads went up without her involvement. In October, a video went up on the Idaho Tribune — a Reilly-connected far-right North Idaho news site — attacking Sheridan’s opponent as a maskmandate supporter. It called upon voters to support Kootenai County GOP-endorsed candidates instead, and “say no to the radical leftist agenda that is threatening our institutions.”
Ultimately, Sheridan lost by less than 500 votes. But all the Kootenai County GOP’s bloc needed was one candidate to win to take control. When another one of their candidates, Mike Waggoner, won, they got it.
The new conservative board zeroed in on President Nick Swayne, the current college president. The previous board had changed Swayne’s contract to ensure that he couldn’t be fired without cause. But after the board installed a new attorney — another Kootenai County GOP member — they used the contract change as a reason to put yet another president on administrative leave.
Despite the election losses, both Sheridan and Hazel have still been attending most every NIC board meeting. If there’s one thing they agree on — it’s that things have gotten really nasty.
“That meeting was… it’s not been pretty,” Sheridan says about Saturday’s meeting, punctuated by raucous protesters. “It was practically mob rule.”
Sebaaly, the wrestling coach, rejected the board’s attempt to rehire him. At press time, NIC has no president.
The direction of the Kootenai County GOP, however, is less uncertain. Just last week, the board announced their 2023 Lincoln Day Dinner headliner: Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, of Jewish space laser conspiracy fame. n danielw@inlander.com
BY SAMANTHA WOHLFEIL
Alarge Canada goose can poop an astounding 1 to 2 pounds per day. Roughly 250 of them regularly chow down on grass at Sandpoint City Beach, the manmade sandy park on Lake Pend Oreille, creating E. coli issues and leaving an unsightly layer of shit that people don’t like to be around.
The city has so far tried scaring the geese off the public park with trained dogs and coyote decoys. It even corralled them during previous molting seasons (when they can’t fly), banded their legs and drove them miles away in hopes they wouldn’t return.
But nothing worked. With avian flu preventing the annual roundup and relocation efforts, the City Council approved the most drastic measure yet on Dec. 7: a goose hunt just blocks from the downtown core.
Sandpoint Police Chief Corey Coon told the council before their 4-1 vote authorizing the hunt that they’ll use picnic tables as blinds.
“I’ve been told geese are pretty smart,” Coon said. “They’ll associate picnic tables with possibly hunters and they won’t land, so hopefully that’ll be a deterrent, but I think it’s a couple years out before we get any good data.”
Permits for hunting in the park over the next few weeks (set to be drawn Dec. 13) are regulated by Idaho Fish and Game, following U.S. Fish and Wildlife migratory bird rules.
Permitted hunters using nontoxic ammunition will be allowed to shoot toward the water two days each week between about 7 am and 10 am, with the season ending Jan. 13. Off-leash dogs can be used for bird retrieval those days, and cleanup needs to be done by 11 am so the park can reopen to the non-hunting public. Guidelines limit hunters to five geese per day, and any tags need to be reported.
Those upset at the idea of gunfire in the park during the holiday shopping season, or what some consider a wildlife slaughter, will have a designated area to protest, as interfering with a permitted hunt is illegal in Idaho.
As the Inlander reported in 2020, some environmentally minded residents felt that even tagging and relocating the birds was inhumane, so the hunt is sure to disturb some people. Jane Fritz, the concerned Sandpoint resident at the center of that story, is critical that the plan came together without public input and is upset the city chose death before trying other additional deterrents.
“It is a massacre, a bloodbath for Christmas,” Fritz says. “They are worse than sitting ducks, and those geese who are flying in for a rest en route south in migration will also be victims.” n
It’s been a month since four University of Idaho students — Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin — were found dead, stabbed in their beds by an unknown assailant.
Investigators have yet to publicly identify a suspect or motive. On social media, people have rushed to fill the information vacuum.
On platforms like Reddit, Facebook and TikTok, tens of thousands of people have congregated to share theories and analyze satellite photos, apartment floor plans, news reports, and the social media history of people close to the victims.
In some cases, social media users are posting the full names, addresses and phone numbers of people they think are suspects in the killings. The family members and employers of the accused have also been named.
In a press release last Friday, police said investigators are “aware of the large amount of rumors and misinformation being shared as well as harassing and threatening behavior towards potentially involved parties.”
Robbie Johnson, spokesperson for the Moscow Police Department, says she can’t go into specifics about what the harassment and threats have looked like. But in general?
“It’s bad. It’s hurting people,” Johnson says.
One Moscow resident who lives near the victims was targeted by online sleuths because he looked nervous during a national television news interview. He created a Reddit account and pleaded with members of the “R/MoscowMurders” forum to stop harassing him.
“You all need to stop blaming me for something [I] had nothing to do with,” he wrote in a lengthy post. “Yes I am an incredibly awkward person but that does not mean I have killed or attempted to kill anybody.”
The amateur online sleuths, the neighbor said, need to log off and “touch some grass.”
Others identified by the internet sleuth mob have gone silent, setting their social media accounts to private.
Not every member of these online communities is responsible for the misinformation and harassment. There are lots of posts condemning that behavior, and Johnson says she was glad to see the department’s Friday news release being shared in those communities, but
she says it’s hard to measure whether the flood of online misinformation has increased or decreased since the students’ bodies were found.
Melissa Luck, news director at Spokane’s ABC affiliate, KXLY-TV, thinks the rumors have only accelerated. Her newsroom has been flooded with messages from people speculating about the crime.
The last time a local crime got this much national attention was probably in 2005, Luck says, when serial killer Joseph Edward Duncan III murdered members of a Coeur d’Alene family. But that was before social media supercharged everything and created the “perfect storm,” Luck says.
Luck worries about the noise drowning out any credible tips investigators might receive. She scoffs at the internet sleuths who didn’t know Moscow existed a few weeks ago who are now driving through the town on Google Street View, hunting for clues.
“There has to be something more productive you can do,” Luck says.
In a news statement, Moscow police warned that anyone engaging in threats or harassment, online or in person, could be “subjecting themselves to criminal charges.”
But with rumors and threats flooding in from so many different platforms and communities, “it’s really hard to trace back where it originated from,” Johnson says. She adds that many of the accounts are also anonymous.
Even if people don’t face criminal charges for harassment, they could still be risking a civil lawsuit for defamation.
Defamation cases can be complicated, says Cory Carone, an Idaho lawyer. He’s currently representing a North Idaho drag performer who is suing for defamation after being falsely accused online of flashing minors during a Pride in the Park event this summer. (It’s a long story.)
To qualify as defamation, a statement generally needs to be false, published to an audience and cause harm to a person’s reputation, Carone says. The statement also needs to be an assertion of fact — not opinion, speculation or theory. Many of the online detectives seem to be toeing that line, but not necessarily crossing it.
Regardless, last month on Instagram Goncalves’ sister, Aubrie, had a message for the online gumshoes: “To the people spreading completely false and irrational rumors — you need to stop.” n
As the online rumor mob churns out theories and lobs accusations over the Moscow murders, others say the amateur sleuthing is harmful and illegal
GOP swings back to the right.
BY INLANDER STAFF
When unsuccessful candidate for Spokane County Board of Commissioners Paul “Brian” Noble was elected as the new chair of the Spokane County Republican Party on Saturday — in a meeting held at the Spokane Valley church where Noble works as a pastor — former state Rep. Matt Shea leapt to his feet in a standing ovation. Consider it a sign of changing times. Over the years, the control of the local GOP has seesawed back and forth between a more hardcore wing who have defended the controversial and farright Shea, and a more moderate wing who has sided with Shea’s critics, like outgoing Sheriff Ozzie
When a slate of new precinct committee officers were elected in November, that balance of power shifted rightward once again: Local moderates saw their preferred candidates get blown out of the water for each leadership slot. Still, the speeches Noble gave on Saturday weren’t exactly radical. While he called for “standing against the threats of woke-ism,” he also called for the GOP to be compassionate to the vulnerable and care just as much for the “elderly and disabled among us” as the party does for the unborn. (DANIEL WALTERS)
Washington’s Supreme Court has unanimously ruled that Spokane taxpayers aren’t allowed to require unions to bargain for their salaries in public Nearly 77 percent of city voters in 2019 approved a change to city code requiring that publicly paid contracts be negotiated in public. But the state Supreme Court ruled on Dec. 8 that requiring public bargaining violates the state constitution and state labor laws. While it’s possible for contracts to be negotiated in public if both parties agree, one party can’t force the other to do so in public, the court held. “We are grateful to the Court for finally putting this issue to rest and forcing the City of Spokane to bargain in good faith,” Michael Rainey, who leads the Washington State Council of County and City Employees, said in a written statement. “This ruling makes it clear that forcing workers to give in to unfair and arbitrary bargaining conditions is patently illegal.” (SAMANTHA
WOHLFEIL)Camp Hope got another reprieve on Monday, when a federal judge approved a temporary restraining order preventing local authorities from sweeping the large East Central homeless encampment. The order comes a week after sheriff’s deputies entered the camp to pass out flyers warning residents that eviction was imminent. The restraining order says authorities cannot arrest or remove residents from the camp without individual probable cause. It also says law enforcement can’t keep using helicopter flyovers and infrared imaging to surveil the camp without a warrant. Clearing Camp Hope now, wrote U.S. District Judge Stanley A. Bastian, would present an “immediate risk of irreparable injury.” Bastian’s decision stems from a larger lawsuit filed by Jewels Helping Hands and three Camp Hope residents in October seeking a permanent injunction to prevent the sheriff, police chief, city and county from sweeping the camp. A motion hearing is set for Dec. 28. (NATE SANFORD) n
Local
Plus, Spokane voters lose at the state Supreme Court, and Camp Hope will stand through ChristmasKnezovich.
Longtime Spokane Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich calls himself a “true cowboy.” As he rides into the sunset after 16 years in the position, he’s bruised, haunted and still ready to fight — even if it’s just one man against all.
BY DANIEL WALTERS AND NATE SANFORDThe hat fit.
It wasn’t the sheriff’s idea. No, the proposal to allow deputies to wear cowboy hats as part of their uniform came from his command’s staff, an easy way to boost the department’s morale. Still, for Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich — the man known as “Ozzie” to many — there’s some full-circle Western poetry to it.
The boy who would be sheriff wore a straw Stetson back in Wyoming coal country, when he was a “lone wolf” kid from a broken home.
And now, he’s donning the cowboy hat again as he rides off into the sunset, retiring after 16 years as Spokane County’s chief lawman.
There’s “sheriff” as a profession, and there’s “sheriff” as that very American Western mythic character, and Knezovich is every bit of both. And wants to be. Bald, badged and built like a barrel, he’s a mustache away from every gunslinging sheriff stereotype to grace the TV screen. But his impulse is deeper, something he’s had in his bones before he had a star on his chest.
You could go back to a snowy December night, as a young buck just out of college, when Knezovich faced down a pack of roughnecks outside a Wyoming nightclub. The club’s bouncer punched one of the troublemakers, a behemoth with oil rig brawn. The guy didn’t flinch, and the bouncer tucked tail and ran.
But Knezovich stood his ground.
“Suddenly, there I am — five guys, and just me,” Knezovich says. The cavalry — the local police — arrive just in time.
“A friend of mine walked up: ‘We were right behind you Ozzie.’ They were way behind me,” Knezovich scoffs. “Standing up’s not easy. Sometimes it gets you hurt.”
The man’s always had a kind of go-with-his-gut stick-to-hisguns stubbornness, the sort that makes people either stick a halo over his head or paint a target on his back.
He’s served four terms of one high-noon showdown after another. Showdowns with White supremacists or Black activists. With a mayor or governor or preacher’s son. With crooked deputies, conspiracy theorists and reporters with too many questions.
Yet these days, when Knezovich stares down his rivals, there’s weariness behind the squint. He’s worried that the old ways are dying, that virtues like “honesty” and “honor” have gotten unfashionable, that our whole country’s gone to hell.
His critics say his head’s gotten a bit too big, his skin a bit too
thin. No matter. He has his fans. He got a letter once praising him as “the last John Wayne.”
He doesn’t mind the comparison. “Work hard. Tell the truth. Stand up for people. Protect the weak. That’s a true cowboy,” Knezovich says. “I am a cowboy.”
Knezovich was a union man.
His father, grandfather and great-grandfather all mined Wyoming coal as union men. He remembers standing with his dad in a picket line when he was 11 and feeling shame when a relative crossed it.
The unions were why parts of Wyoming stayed blue for so long. They’re why in 1994, Knezovich ran for Wyoming’s Sweetwater County Commission as — no lie — a Democrat
Before becoming sheriff, Knezovich spent five years at the negotiating table fighting for his fellow deputies as president of the Spokane County Deputy Sheriff’s Association.
But then, in 2006, Knezovich became the boss. Within two months as sheriff, Knezovich had fired a deputy who’d exposed his penis to a drive-thru barista, only to face a citizen commission that wanted to give the exhibitionist a cushier exit.
Former deputy Mike Zollars, who ran to replace the outgoing Knezovich this year but lost in the August primary, thinks Knezovich was harsher than his predecessors. Too quick to fire.
“The longer I stayed there, the more he seemed to pride himself on terminating deputies for transgressions,” Zollars says.
Knezovich saw it differently. He was cleaning house, and the institution he once swore by — the union — was standing in the way.
“It used to be, it was about safety and livable wages. Unions never protected the slug,” Knezovich says. “Now they protect the lowest common denominator.”
In 2010, a deputy jammed a knife into the seat of a citizen’s impounded car. Knezovich fired him. Later that year, a corrections deputy made a mentally ill inmate strip naked and do jumping jacks. Knezovich fired him. Both were defended by the union, and both were reinstated by an arbitrator.
Knezovich reached out to lawmakers to propose a bill that would clamp down on the arbitration process, making it easier for dishonest and law-breaking cops to stay fired.
Of all the battles that Knezovich has waged, this one, the one against unions, is what he dedicated a 104-page self-published book to recounting. The Price of Honor: Are We Who We Say We Are? features a lion surrounded by lightning bolts on the cover, and tells of his toe-to-toe battle with both union bullies and compromised politicians. All to preserve the integrity of his profession.
“Sheriff, you’ve really pissed us off,” one union lobbyist tells the sheriff, according to the book. “If you don’t back down now, we’re coming after you.”
By his own account, Knezovich responded with a Charlton Heston-style quip: “If you want a piece of me, come and get it.”
Despite Knezovich’s swagger, and the support of sheriffs across the state, the bill failed to make it out of committee. The sheriff points to the all-powerful unions — and the money they gave to politicians — for killing the bill.
But critics in both parties argue that Knezovich failed to successfully put together a coalition to see his bill through. “He wasn’t interested in getting in sort of bipartisan support of the legislation,” says Paul Dillon, a progressive activist who now works with the local Planned Parenthood chapter. Dillon was state Sen. Andy Billig’s legislative aide at the time. “He never once emailed us, called or reached out or discussed the bill.”
In 2014, the Spokane County Deputy Sheriff’s Association struck back, voting to endorse his opponent. They attacked him when he tried to fire a deputy for having sex on duty. They even formally accused the sheriff of being blinded by his Mormon faith. That feud faded with time, something Knezovich attributes to a change in union leadership. Kevin Richey, who took over as union president in 2015, agrees, but credits Knezovich too.
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“He agreed to make some changes and come to the table and negotiate more,” Richey says.
Knezovich doesn’t think he’s gone soft. By now, he says, he’s probably fired close to 90 deputies.
“Sometimes leaders have to take a stand, even if it means ‘pissing someone off’ who can make your life hell, or even end your career,” Knezovich wrote in his book. In bold.
Throughout his 45 years as a Baptist pastor, Wayne Scott Creach backed the blue.
“My dad would stand in the pulpit on Sunday morning and tell people, ‘You have nothing to fear from law enforcement,’” Alan Creach recalls. “‘Because they are appointed by God to be there.’”
His dad can’t say that anymore.
One night in 2010, the pastor grabbed his gun and a flashlight to investigate a car parked in the parking lot at the family’s Greenacres plant nursery. It turned out to be an unmarked sheriff’s deputy vehicle. Within minutes, the 74-year-old pastor was dead. Deputy Brian Hirzel had fired once and hit Creach in the chest.
For Knezovich, news of a deputy killing someone is followed by a cascade of contradictory emotions. Grief over the loss of life. Relief that his deputy is alive. Dread over the stampede of news coverage. Flashbacks of all the deputies he’s seen who’ve been shattered, never the same after pulling that trigger. Pain over the toll it takes on the deputy’s families. And then — oh my God — thinking of what the family of the slain is going through.
All that settles into “the deepest sense of emptiness you could ever feel,” he says.
As the hail of investigations, lawsuits and dueling experts rain down after so-called “officer involveds,” Knezovich has often been out front, defending his deputies. But that sometimes pits the sheriff directly against grieving family members. Like Alan Creach, the pastor’s son.
“I called him the liar that he is,” Alan Creach says. “Face to face.”
Since Knezovich was first sworn in as sheriff, media accounts show that at least 20 men have died after being shot or tased by his deputies — three just since August.
And that’s not including 2014, when the victim wasn’t an elderly pastor or a threat to deputies — it was just a kid.
Deputy Joe Bodman was careening down Sprague Avenue in Spokane Valley going 74 mph — no emergency lights, no sirens — when 15-year-old Ryan Holyk rode his bike into the
crosswalk. Holyk ended up dead. The only question was whether Bodman was the one who killed him.
At first, investigators from the Washington State Patrol and Spokane Police Department concluded that Bodman didn’t hit Holyk. At the time, Knezovich dismissed Holyk’s DNA on the front bumper of Bodman’s vehicle as having been accidentally transferred by sloppy emergency responders.
But then — two years after Holyk’s death — an independent expert hired by Knezovich took another look at the evidence and saw it: the subtle markings of Ryan’s snapback hat band on Bodman’s bumper. A smoking gun.
Knezovich called a press conference and revealed the new finding.
“Apparently, we got it wrong,” Knezovich says to this day, but he’s torn. In his heart, he says, he still doesn’t think Bodman hit the kid.
The Holyk lawsuit was settled for $1 million, but Holyk’s mom, Carrie Thomson, says she probably wouldn’t have even sued had the sheriff’s office reached out and showed some decency.
“Even just like, you know, ‘We’re sorry this happened,’” says Thomson.
Alan Creach says the $2 million settlement of the Creach family’s wrongful death lawsuit was, in effect, an admission that the deputy was in the wrong. Knezovich disagreed, and slammed the county’s insurer for not standing firm and going to trial.
“The man never acknowledged he was wrong,” Alan Creach says. “He’s going to go into the sunset thinking of himself as a hero. But I don’t see him as a hero. He’s a flawed man.”
“Thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican.” So goes a GOP truism delivered by the original modern Republican cowboy, Ronald Reagan.
Standing on the Central Valley High School stage in 2015, armed with his PowerPoint slideshow remote control, Knezovich broke that commandment repeatedly and vigorously.
It was the first of his “The Threats We Face: The Myth of Police Militarization” series. It’s a sprawling twohour lecture where, along with excoriating ISIS, cop killers and White supremacists, he took aim at the far right and libertarian flank of the Republican Party, particularly those who were spreading conspiracy theories about his office that he said led to death threats online.
“If anything happens to my deputies, I hope you all hold them accountable,” Knezovich said.
His presentations pushed back against liber-
als and libertarians who opposed law enforcement’s use of heavy, military-grade weaponry and armored vehicles.
But he went even further. He zeroed in on the farright state Rep. Matt Shea, a Spokane Valley politician who had brandished an unlicensed gun during a road rage altercation and seemed to endorse killing males who didn’t yield to theocratic rule in his never fully explained “Biblical Basis for War” document. The sheriff cast the conflict as good vs. evil, warning that Shea was fanning the flames of violence.
“How dare you?” Knezovich says his fellow Republicans would ask. “Because the guy’s evil.”
“Fear was ruling at that time,” says Beva Miles, a former local Republican leader who supports Knezovich. “He had to be a voice of reason.”
The fight became a three-way schism that fractured the local Republican party for years — Team Shea, Team Ozzie and the can’t-we-just-get-along caucus stuck in the middle.
“I lost friends,” Knezovich says. Sure, he had a few allies who were behind him. Way behind him.
Knezovich’s brash personality had a tendency to draw antagonists who were even more over the top than the sheriff. A local motorcycle club leader, Scott Maclay, was so obsessed with Knezovich that when he tried to run against Knezovich in 2018, he legally changed his name to “DumpOzzie Dot Com” to do it. Knezovich says people told him that Maclay, who died in a motorcycle accident before the election, planned to kill him if he lost.
But Knezovich didn’t stop calling extremists out.
In 2018, the local Spokane County GOP chair hosted White supremacist and Washington State University student James Allsup at an event. At a press conference, a fuming Knezovich declared that he was “Jiminy Cricket” — the conscience of the local Republican Party — and vowed that Allsup would “never have a foothold in the party as long as I’m part of it.”
Knezovich’s stand worked. Allsup was effectively cast out of Republican Party politics. Shea was booted from the Republican caucus in 2019 after an independent investigation concluded that his involvement with Ammon Bundy’s occupation of a national wildlife refuge in Oregon made him complicit in “domestic terrorism.”
There’s a risk to calling out your own party, but Knezovich feels vindicated.
He says he’s moving back to Wyoming. It’s the most Republican state in the nation, the state where Rep. Liz Cheney lost her primary by 37 points after she went all Ozzie on Trump.
But there’s also a kind of stardom that can come from speaking your mind. Even about something
“He’s going to go into the sunset thinking of himself as a hero. But I don’t see him as a hero. He’s a flawed man.”Alan Creach and his mother Imogene in 2011 near where Wayne Scott Creach was killed. YOUNG KWAK PHOTO
like Jan. 6 and the mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol.
“Darkest day we ever had,” Knezovich says he told a crowd of state Republicans before dropping a particularly brutal comparison for the receptive audience. “That day, we became Democrats. ... That day, we became like those who burned our cities down.”
A murmur rippled through the crowd, he says. At the end, an audience member asked a question.
“‘Sheriff, when will you run for governor?’” Knezovich recounts. “This room explodes. Standing ovation.”
This February, Knezovich stood before a PowerPoint slide, once again calling out the people he believed were failing Spokane County.
But this time, his targets weren’t just extremists or local politicians. They were leaders in Spokane’s AfricanAmerican community: Pastor Walter Kendricks, NAACP vice-chair Kurtis Robinson and Black Lens publisher Sandy Williams. Activists, in Knezovich’s description, and he doesn’t mean it as a compliment.
He accused them of putting out falsehoods about crime stats. He said he should’ve listened to the people who warned him against talking to Williams and Kendricks.
Black men, he said during his presentation, were “responsible for shooting 40 percent of your law enforcement officers” who’d been shot. (Three deputies have been shot during Knezovich’s tenure.) He added that most murderers and most murder victims were Black men.
He didn’t know that, just four months earlier, one of his deputies, Jeff Thurman, began a phone call to a fellow deputy by saying, “You ready to kill some n-----s tonight or what?”
Knezovich fired Thurman when the violent racist comment came to light in 2019. When the NAACP and others demanded a “culture audit” surveying attitudes in his department, Knezovich readily jumped on board.
“He was leading it,” Robinson says. But then came 2020. “2020” — Knezovich snaps his fingers — “it snapped.”
a “trainwreck” who “kills relationships.”
But Knezovich disputes all that. He knows the importance of relationships, he says, how “once you damage your partnership, I’ve never really seen it ever rebuilt.”
He knows how crucial it is to admit when he’s wrong. While serving as an Army combat medic in the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea in 1988, he followed a captain into dangerous territory.
“Left turn at the rice paddy, right?” Knezovich recalls saying, as the captain walked straight ahead.
Knezovich claimed some were afraid of being called “a White supremacist” for talking about such “hard data,” but not him. “If me trying to stop the death of young Black men makes me [a racist], I’ll be a racist for you all day long.”
But others say his words and approach are offensive, dangerous and ignore the racist policies that have perpetuated violence in Black communities.
“What that did is that put a target on us,” Robinson says, and put them at risk from the same kind of far-right groups that the sheriff had condemned.
Knezovich says he didn’t always have contempt for local activists, and had sought to work “shoulder to shoulder with them.”
He spoke out against taking away drivers’ licenses for unpaid court fees. He pushed for body cameras on law enforcement. He not only supported “ban the box” — giving felons a better shot at jobs and housing after prison — he launched a program to help give them construction training.
The sheriff had fought for reform, for better training and more accountability. If his reforms had passed, Knezovich muses, maybe they could have spread across the country. Perhaps, he says in all seriousness, the ripple effect from his reforms would have been so profound that George Floyd would still be alive today.
Still, the sheriff’s words could piss people off. At a 2017 Republican rally in Spokane Valley after Trump’s election, he pointed to assassinations of police officers like the five murdered in Dallas in 2016, and declared, “I blame Barack Obama.”
When the NAACP confronted Knezovich over those remarks, he dug in and scoffed at the notion that racism was widespread across the justice system.
Lockdowns and riots, right-wing protesters screaming about masks at school board meetings, left-wing extremists setting police precincts on fire. Knezovich was just 11 days out of back surgery when he was standing on the front lines during the George Floyd protests. Everywhere he looked, he saw policing under siege.
Racial disparities, crime stats and “systemic racism.” Antifa. “Defund the police” and “All cops are bastards.” “Killology” training. Live P.D., C.O.P.S. and Paw Patrol “Crazy reforms” from the state Legislature. COVID restrictions. A recruitment ad from Knezovich’s office in Times Square that misspelled “Washington” as “Washinton.”
He lumped in some reporters with activists too. His contempt for both grew. You wanna beat Knezovich up for being wrong. Fine. But if you’re attacking him just because you disagree?
“You better put your baseball bat back,” he says. “Because if you don’t, I’m taking mine out. And we’ll just see how many times you can thump me while I thump you.”
Across two years of conflicts, Robinson believes, the pressure seared away the sheriff’s niceties and exposed Knezovich’s more antagonistic and fragile core. In the end, his relationship with folks like Robinson and Kendricks was in tatters.
It’s difficult to untangle all of Knezovich’s grievances with them — they’re personal as much as ideological. Both sides feel wounded, lied to and betrayed.
But because Knezovich’s electoral victories have been so overwhelming — typically over 70 percent — he argues that if you betray him, you betray all of Spokane County.
“I get to say this because of the mass support this community has given me. I speak for the community, when I speak,” Knezovich says. “And they disrespected everything and everybody.”
Knezovich has heard the criticism. He says that progressives who saw him as a “coalition builder” now think he’s
But the captain ignored the warning, even as they drew closer to the border where they could be gunned down, even as North Korean propaganda that was broadcasting through the woods got louder, even as they found themselves climbing the hill “where an entire patrol got blown up because of landmines.” Only a more direct intervention from a major convinced the captain to turn around.
So Knezovich knows the importance of surrounding himself with people willing to challenge him.
At times, he’s wondered about whether his involvement with an issue has backfired. For years, the sheriff had beaten a drum for a new jail. But by 2013, Knezovich had concluded that he’d become too associated with that cause.
“As long as it was about me, people could always just go, ‘It’s just him.’” Knezovich says. “I had to find a way to make it about the community.”
So he stepped back, handing control of the jail itself to the Spokane County commissioners. It didn’t work, and it’s one of his biggest regrets.
“I blew it when I gave that jail up,” Knezovich says.
The jail’s up there when Knezovish names his topof-mind regrets. Most are about giving up control, about holding back, or about trusting other people.
“Endorsing Matt Shea?” Knezovich says. “I blew it.”
What about endorsing former Spokane Mayor David Condon, also a fellow Republican?
“Blew it,” Knezovich says. “Hugely blew it.”
A little over a decade ago, Knezovich was pushing a proposal to merge his office with Spokane police into one super agency, all under his command. Condon seemed to support the idea during his first campaign for mayor in 2011, but then he retreated from it.
Gavin Cooley, who served as the city’s chief financial officer for Condon and four other mayors, disagrees. Condon was more technocrat than cowboy, Cooley says, and his “more detailed approach served the community more than the Clint Eastwood approach.”
“Getting Ozzie to be a team player was exceedingly difficult in most cases,” Cooley says, adding that “nuance did tend to escape him.”
“You better put your baseball bat back. Because if you don’t, I’m taking mine out. And we’ll just see how many times you can thump me while I thump you.”
But if you’re on team Knezovich?
“Nothing’s better,” Cooley says. “Get behind the battering ram and buckle up your chinstrap and let’s go.”
The causes Knezovich has fought for are many: He decried vaccine mandates, the North Monroe Street lane reduction, and an anti-coal train voter initiative. When Gov. Jay Inslee signed a law barring local officials from helping federal immigration officials, Knezovich went on Fox News and suggested Inslee should resign or “be arrested for obstruction.” When voters passed strict statewide controls on assault weapons in 2019, Knezovich said it was unconstitutional and that there was “nothing to enforce.”
That kind of thing’s essential to Knezovich’s charm.
“He’s a kind of a no B.S. kind of guy. He’ll tell you what’s exactly on their mind,” says Spokane County Commissioner Josh Kerns, a Republican. “I think people respect it.”
And so when homeless people set up camp on stateowned land in Spokane’s East Central neighborhood last winter — growing at one point to over 600 campers — the sheriff saw it as the same kind of assault on law and order as the armed occupation of the Oregon wildlife refuge in 2016 and the police-free Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone in 2020.
“This is no different than CHAZ in Seattle or what Bundy did in Oregon,” he writes in an email.
Tension over Camp Hope was already cranked when Knezovich barged in this September, abruptly declaring his intention to sweep the camp by mid-October, describing it as disgusting, ridden with crime and drugs.
He thinks the people still living there need more accountability, not more handouts.
His agency flies helicopters overhead and sends confidential informants into the camp. He makes allegations of fraud against the service providers working there and accuses state officials like Lisa Brown, the director of the state Commerce Department and former Democratic state Senate majority leader, of profiting off the camp.
“It feels like it’s been inflammatory,” Brown says. “A lot of his accusations and characterizations of things are distorted or inaccurate, and he’s always throwing shade at me personally and at Commerce.”
Spokane City Council member Jonathan Bingle, a fellow conservative, has a different reaction to Knezovich’s involvement.
“It was as if we had been screaming to the heavens to no avail,” Bingle says. “It felt as if up until that point, the people in the neighborhood were being ignored.”
But then Knezovich burst onto the scene, Bingle said,
and things started moving. It’s an unsettled question: Did the sheriff parachuting into the Camp Hope fight trigger results or just chaos?
At the time of this article’s publication, Camp Hope is still standing and the sheriff’s plan is tied up in lawsuits.
Knezovich has yet to visit the encampment. “If I go down there, it becomes a circus,” he says.
In a crisis, you can see who a person really is, even if it’s just a piece of them.
In September 2017, the day Knezovich had been fearing for decades occurred. A 15-year-old gunman opened fire at Freeman High School killing one and injuring three. The shooter was in custody when the sheriff arrived at the school, but the kids were still locked down, huddled in their classrooms.
There was Ozzie the Brash Doorkicker, rushing into the breach. Upon arriving at Freeman, he led officers into the school himself to bring the kids out in groups. His SWAT incident commander thought this was reckless, and thought he should’ve stayed at the command post. But Knezovich disagreed.
“There is no one they trust better and no one they trust more at this scene than me,” Knezovich says.
There was Ozzie the Grandstanding Pundit, who used the ensuing press conferences to blame school shootings on national media coverage, the glorification of “gang culture,” even video games.
But there was also Ozzie the Compassionate Protector.
Erik Poulsen remembers his wife frantically trying to find their kids at Freeman that day.
“The sheriff saw her running toward the school and sobbing and stopped what he was doing,” Poulsen says. “He went over and put his arm around her and let her know everything was going to be OK.”
As black and white as Knezovich can sometimes seem — he’s always been complicated. But in the last few years, to some, there’s a sense that Knezovich has changed.
Democratic state Rep. Marcus Riccelli chooses his words carefully — a number of people interviewed for this article said they didn’t want to kick the sheriff on his way out the door. He’ll take his badge off for the last time in January, when his chosen successor, John Nowels, will take over.
“I do think these last couple of years it’s been different to work with him,” Riccelli says. “Maybe it’s COVID,
maybe it’s because he was feeling the pressure of leaving the community, wanting to solve some big problems quickly.”
The brash, liberal former City Council President Ben Stuckart is less diplomatic.
“Ozzie has really taken a downhill turn,” Stuckart says. “He’s paranoid. He was not like this in 2014 and 2015. He’s a sick individual.”
But even some of Ozzie’s biggest fans have seen a shift. “The years of sheriff have made him hard,” says Miles, his local Republican ally.
When asked if he’s become more cynical, Knezovich says it’s a question he’s thinking about a lot. There was a time, he says, when he tried to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. “I find it very, very hard to do that anymore,” he says.
Losing that feels like losing part of himself, a part he really liked. All these showdowns — the victories, the defeats, the stalemates — they build up like scar tissue.
“You don’t think the Holyk matter haunts me?”
Knezovich says. “You don’t think the Creach matter haunts me?”
It’s not just that he thinks about it on Aug. 25, the anniversary of the pastor’s death, though he does. It’s that every time he bites into a peach, he thinks about how Creach would eat that fruit every night.
And Freeman. Knezovich thinks about that moment, when a student’s mother sees the devastating news written on the sheriff’s face. She screams, a scream that freezes everyone at that scene, a scream he’s heard far too many times — and then crumbles into his arms.
But as he’s talking, the sheriff’s voice begins to break — any tone of cowboy swagger or what-happened-to-thiscountry outrage is gone — and it’s just the raw rasp of a human reckoning with the weight of it all.
The sheriff clears his throat, says he needs to compose himself, and for a brief moment, we sit in silence.
Knezovich says he’s heading back home to Wyoming soon. For now, he’s set aside his regrets about never running for governor. He had a heart attack last December and wants to focus on his family. He’d like to teach. Maybe he’ll visit Croatia, where his ancestors immigrated from. He wants to go to New Zealand, to stalk and shoot a stag.
“Maybe try to make a reconnection with pieces of me that I feel are disconnected right now,” Knezovich says. “You don’t survive this career without a certain amount of damage
to your inner core.” n
“You don’t survive this career without a certain amount of damage to your inner core.”“OZZIE VS. THE WORLD,” CONTINUED... Ozzie Knezovich (right) shakes hands with then State Representative Kevin Parker at a Republican election night party in 2014. YOUNG KWAK PHOTO
Samuel D. Hunter’s roots in Moscow, Idaho, run deep. Like deep, deep. When I mention I drove down to his hometown to watch a screening of The Whale at Kenworthy Theater, he immediately brings up that his grandfather was an usher there all the way back in the 1930s. The city is in his blood, and traces of it show up onscreen in The Whale, the new Darren Aronofsky film that Hunter adapted for the big screen from his own Drama Desk-winning play.
Set in Moscow, the emotionally taxing drama introduces viewers to Charlie (Brendan Fraser, who’s garnering Oscar buzz for his performance), an online college English teacher whose 600-plus pound frame limits his world to that within his apartment. When it becomes clear Charlie is suffering heart failure and refuses to go to the hospital, he tries to reconnect with his estranged teen daughter, Ellie, while also sorting through issues with his lone friend/caretaker Liz and a young door-to-door missionary named Thomas. (For more, read a review of The Whale and the full version of this interview on Inlander.com.)
With The Whale set to arrive in local theaters this week, we caught up with Hunter to talk about his hands-on adaptation process, putting Moscow details into the film, and controversy surrounding the lead character’s weight.
INLANDER: How do you feel like Moscow has sort of influenced your playwriting?
HUNTER: I started writing plays out in Idaho really early on. It was my freshman year in college. I knew I wanted to be a playwright, but I was just sort of like, “I don’t know where my slot is,” you know what I mean? And when I started writing plays set in Idaho, there’s just something that like — it immediately authenticated it for me. My family has been in Moscow since just after the Civil War. Like, my great-great-grandfather was the first postmaster in Moscow. So I feel deeply connected to it.
This is the thing though — I don’t really think
D. Hunter discusses turning his play The Whale into a Darren Aronofsky movie starring Brendan Fraser
BY SETH SOMMERFELDof myself as a regional writer. And I don’t really think The Whale is a story that can only happen in Moscow or in Idaho. But there’s something about like, within the specificity, there is something universal.
The only play that is really specifically kind of Idahoan is a play I wrote called Lewiston/ Clarkston, [they] are kind of two companion plays that are set across the river from one another, but those specifically deal with the Lewis and Clark legacy. Even that’s more about the sort of postboom, existential malaise of our current era that is not specific to Idaho.
A writer’s involvement can vary wildly once a screenwriter turns in the script, so how involved were you with the production of the film?
I was extremely involved. The short version of the very long journey is that the play was in New York... off-Broadway at one of my favorite theaters, Playwrights Horizons. And I didn’t even know that Darren had seen it. But I got a call shortly before the run ended, saying, “Darren Aronofsky wants to meet with you.” And that was 10 years ago. So I met him shortly after that, and that just kicked off a really long conversation that continued over many years.
Darren eventually got more interested in making Mother!, so that took him out for several years. But he kept extending the option because he still had faith in it. He even shopped it around to a few other directors. I’m really glad that that didn’t happen, because Darren, I think, had this really unique thing of having so much faith in me and the story that he let me do the adaptation entirely. I mean, of course, I was working on it with him on it, but I [wrote] it myself. So it’s very true to the play.
And I was on set the entire time, including three weeks of rehearsal that we did before anybody turned the camera on. And that kind of access and collaboration for a screenwriter is almost unheard of. So I’m very, very lucky.
So were you providing specific input on-set to get the Moscow details right?
I’d written in some and then the production designer and the set dressers did amazing work. Stuff that you’ll never be able to see on film. Like my favorite prop — and I stole it after we finished shooting — was a flier that’s on the fridge. You can’t see, but it’s an ad for a play at the Hartung Theater at the University of Idaho. And I was looking at it, and I was like, “Did they just, like, find an old Hartung production?” And I googled it, and it’s a play that does not exist — somebody like made it up entirely. I think the title of the play was like The Doing is Dually True or something absurd like that. So there’s tons of those details all around the set.
What aspects of the story changed over the adaptation from the play to the film? I know the original had the missionary character as more Mormon, and now he’s clearly a bit more Christ Church-y, though I’m not sure if that’s something audiences outside of Moscow will pick up on.
I went to [Moscow K-12 Christian school] Logos for a few years, and I have written a lot about Christianity, probably because of that. I originally made the character Mormon, I think in a bit of active self-protection, because I didn’t want to kind of hit too close to home.
Also, it kind of felt like when I wrote this in 2009-2010, Mormonism was not very mainstream, and people didn’t really know a lot about it. And so it did kind of feel like the audience was getting this peek into a world that they didn’t know. But nowadays, like Mormonism is mainstream. This was before Mitt Romney; it was before The Book of Mormon musical. And I think in rewriting it and making it this New Life Church — which is similar to Christ Church, but not entirely — it did kind of hit way closer to home for me personally. So that was a big change.
Were there any moments during that cinematic conversion where things that maybe you didn’t even realize were in the text ended up
Oh yeah. I mean, especially in Brendan’s performance. I’ve done screenwriting before, I wrote on a television show (Baskets) for a number of years. But this is my first feature. And it’s certainly the first time that I’ve adapted any of my plays into films.
I adore plays, I will always write plays. And I really do think of myself as a playwright. But the cool thing about [film] is you can get so close. Especially with the 4:3 aspect ratio that Darren chose, you know, it’s not landscape — it’s human, it’s portraiture. And there’s so much that Brendan did in the performance. I found myself giving him lines on the fly just based off of stuff that he was finding in the moments. And also taking away some lines, because Brendan can tell the story with his eyes.
I know there’s been some pushback from people who haven’t seen The Whale about the weight aspects of the film — Brendan wearing a fat suit to play the role and concerns that it’s just a film about fat shaming. How do you sort of respond to those feelings being out there?
You know, I wrote it from a deeply personal place — I have personal experience with selfmedicating with food and rapid weight gain. This is one specific story of one specific person. And I understand that provokes some people, just the mere existence of this story is provocative for some people, but I just wrote a story about a complete and fully realized human being. That’s all I can do as a writer.
And also I can recognize why people are having the reaction that they’re having. Because if you read a one-sentence synopsis... that’s scary. Because the history of cinema and its portrayal of people dealing with obesity is really a troubling one. But I think if you engage with this with an open mind, you’ll realize that the story is ultimately a call for empathy. n
The Whale screens at AMC River Park Square starting Dec. 20.
shining through because of Darren’s directing or the actors’ performances?
Extend the giving spirit to these local nonprofits — and dozens more — this holiday season
BY CATE WILSON
The holiday season is the perfect time to give back to those in need. Charitable donations are welcome year-round, but donating to a nonprofit during one of the hardest times of the year for some is a great way to show gratitude for the work that these important organizations do, including the following.
For decades, SNAP has been supporting Spokane County residents through its myriad human services programs ranging from rental and utility assistance to small business workshops. In 2021, SNAP’s work aided more than 40,000 households and helped transition more than 200 individuals from homelessness to permanent housing. Find out how to donate your time or money by visiting the following link. snapwa.org
Make-A-Wish’s regional branch offers hope and joy to kids with critical illnesses, a result that’s medically backed by their doctors, who report that “wish alumni” show improved emotional and physical well-being, as well as better quality of life. Donations of time and/or money help Make-A-Wish make dreams come true for even more children as they traverse the challenging road of treatment and recovery. wish.org/akwa
Every Woman Can encourages awareness and education of women’s health issues. The organization’s central belief is that all women should have access to regular mammograms and clinical breast exams, follow-up diagnostics, and assistance with transportation to and from medical appointments when needed. To do your part, donate, attend and volunteer at events.
everywomancan.org
For over 100 years, Hutton Settlement has cared for local children in need of an alternative, long-term home, providing education and a nurturing environment to help prepare them for success in life. To support this mission, locals can volunteer their time, including as an educator or host parent. Donations support learning
opportunities, educational scholarships and housing for kids who are working hard as students, and even as budding entrepreneurs. huttonsettlement.org
This organization’s mission is to “prevent, interrupt and repair cycles of abuse and neglect within families.” Mental health services for both parents and children, treatment to combat substance abuse, and parenting courses are all provided by Partners. Its Children’s Advocacy Center helps provide a safe space for children who’ve been neglected or abused. Donations of time and money directly support local families served. partnerswithfamilies.org
While the Spokane River is far too icy and cold to enjoy beyond its physical beauty in winter, work to keep it healthy is a year-round effort. The Spokane Riverkeeper not only oversees programs to clean up trash and protect the river’s ecosystem from harmful pollution, it also educates local youth and the broader public about the importance of doing so. Donations make this work possible. spokaneriverkeeper.org
Transitions works to end poverty and homelessness for the women and children of Spokane. Through its programs at six physical locations in the area, Transitions operates drop-in shelters, job training, child care, and transitional and supporting housing. Donate to help buy diapers and bus passes that many participants rely on, or become a volunteer. help4women.org
The Spokane County Human Rights Task Force supports those who have been faced with bigotry, hatred and prejudice, and helps victims combat these biases in order to advance human rights for all. The organization also monitors local instances of hate speech and crime in order to help put a halt to these heinous actions. spokanecountyhumanrightstaskforce.org n
The final round of 2022 SPOKANE ART GRANT AWARD (SAGA) recipients have been announced, bringing the total distributed this year to $141,000. The latest recipients are as follows:
Chase Ogden, for The River Speaks, a documentary on the Spokane River
Art Salvage Spokane, for expanding its storefront and programming
Tami Hennessey, for a multimedia art project titled “Unraveling My Mind”
Friends of Manito, for the third annual Manito Park Art Festival in 2023
Spokane Aerial Performance Arts, to buy stilts used in classes for young performers
Olivia Evans, James Pakootas and Devonte Pearson (T.S. The Solution) for the upcoming multicultural Root Experience Festival and a companion film score
Imagine for a moment that Siri could write your college essay or code a functioning app. Well, in November, research company OpenAI released its CHATGPT chatbot that’s been getting eerily close. The tool went viral uber-quickly, spurring the usual conversations about AI taking jobs from translators, computer scientists and writers alike. After users sign up for ChatGPT, the world is their oyster. Ask it to do anything, from “write an obituary for Boromir from The Lord of the Rings,” to “rewrite ‘Baby Got Back’ in the style of the Canterbury Tales,” like one Twitter user did. (The response was hilariously accurate and almost exactly what you’d expect.) Personally, I won’t be toying with these AI overlords anytime soon — seeing other’s experiences via Twitter is as close as I’m willing to get. (MADISON PEARSON)
Spokane artist MELISSA COLE is known for her paintings depicting nature in all its forms, especially underneath the surface of the world’s oceans, lakes and rivers, including from her travels to farflung places. As soon as COVID travel restrictions were lifted, Cole and her husband traveled to Egypt and Iceland, yielding the content and title for her most recent body of work, “Fire and Ice,” up this month at Kolva-Sullivan Gallery. Cole’s vibrant paintings explore the two cultures through their respective mythologies, from Egypt’s Anubis to the Old Norse wolf known as Fenrir. Contact the gallery (kolva.comcastbiz.net) to make an appointment to view the work, or meet the artist there on Dec. 17 or Dec. 30. (CARRIE SCOZZARO)
It's called a linear accelerator, and it's used to treat cancer at MultiCare's Comprehensive Cancer Center. It's noninvasive, precision radiation capable of treating tumors anywhere in the body. What it can't do is provide emergency childcare. Which is why, along with precision cancer treatment, MultiCare partners with Vanessa Behan, giving parents a safe place to bring their children in a time of stress. Because healthy communities need more than health care. See how we're supporting communities at multicare.org.
We're here for you.
Symbolically, “X” can mean many things. Something crossed off a list. Where treasure is buried. A place off limits. An unknown variable.
The Yellow X, a new venue with a modern, urban vibe in the historic Garland District, plays with these varied interpretations because its purpose is just as multifaceted.
Opened in November by Spokane couple Heidi and Ryan Miller, the Yellow X can be rented for private events, but the Millers are also organizing gatherings like themed dinners and pop-up pub nights.
On Friday, Dec. 16, for example, is a holiday-centric tacos and tequila night ($29/ person). A Nordic dinner party the following week (now sold out) celebrates the winter solstice with Scandinavian-inspired eats and drinks. On the venue’s calendar for January is a series of book club-esque events ($19-$22 each), before which attendees are tasked with completing a book, podcast episode or movie to then discuss with others over drinks and appetizers.
“It was always meant to be a space with some mystery, with some unknown, some treasure — kind of playing on X — and just where events happen that are a little more intentional, inspiring, or have some purpose in them beyond just eating good food or having a great cocktail,” says Ryan.
“And to build that community aspect,” Heidi adds. “It’s a social club, because it’s
just people getting together with different creative ideas, too.”
The Yellow X is located in a newly renovated, single-story building constructed in 1961 where the couple also run their print and design business, Mango Ink. BANG Design Studios, owned by the couple’s friends, Katherine Tibbetts and Jonathan Vanderholm, is also in the building. The duo collaborated with the Millers to design the Yellow X’s interior.
While its brick facade along Garland is unassuming, the Yellow X’s interior immerses visitors in an eclectic, colorful and stylish space. An installation of faux palm fronds and leaves painted a fiery red-orange line one wall above bench seating running the length of the room. On the opposite wall, painted black, a bubble-like assemblage of silver disco balls shimmers. Hanging from the ceiling, a twisting tangle of neon-like lights can be set to any color, from an icy teal blue to rich magenta to lemon-lime.
“The space is important, the architecture is important, the way you feel in it is important — we’re big believers in all of that, so we did put a fair amount of money in here to make it really cool, and I’m really proud of it,” Ryan says.
Initially, the Millers envisioned the Yellow X as a membership-based club. Their plan was that members, vetted through an application process, would pay
a monthly or yearly fee to gain access to exclusive events as well as opportunities to use the space on a drop-in basis or for private functions.
The membership model quickly proved to be a hard sell, however, so the couple opened the space to the general public both for private rentals and ticketed events. The Yellow X has capacity for about 24 guests seated at tables and up to about 50 for standing room-only.
“I think memberships may come back, but from our perspective it was hard to get traction,” Ryan says. “We did have some members, but we got so many questions on ‘What’s a social club? What do you mean by memberships? What do I get?’ and it felt like it closed it off too quickly.”
For private events, the Yellow X is available to rent for a minimum of two hours starting at $160, and up to 12 hours for $970. Guests can bring in their own food and beverages or hire a caterer. The venue has a full bar, but no on-site commercial kitchen.
With the flexibility to host whatever piques their interest, the Millers are excited about the possibilities in the Yellow X’s future: live comedy, music and other entertainment, classes, more dinners and social events intended to build community connections. Guests, likewise, can use the space for parties, book clubs, photo shoots, workshops, intimate receptions, meetings and more.
“I mean, the sky is the limit,” Ryan says. “We’re definitely new, and we’re learning a lot, but it’s something we really want in our lives, and we really want it in Spokane. Not that it’s not here, but in our way, it’s not. We wanted a really cool space that we could do it in.” n
The Yellow X • 1011 W. Garland Ave. • Event calendar and more info at theyellowx.com
The holidays are upon us, and it’s that special time of year when we get socked in by snow and a little time away from our responsibilities. For the purposes of this very special gift guide, that means one thing: We’re dreaming of a Green Christmas. In this oh-so-special Green Zone Gifts guide, we feature the year’s hottest strains, spotlight non-cannabis gifts to get that stoner in your life, give some ideas on what to buy the cannabis-curious, and have a few tips about presents for people who just don’t have time to partake like they used to. To wrap it up, we give some suggestions on how to stay entertained after you’ve smoked, eaten, vaped or ingested in any other safe way the reason for this season’s gift guide. So pass the dutchie from the left hand side. Don’t bogart that joint, my friend, pass it along again. Because whether you celebrate Cannabismas, Chronukah, the Winter Smoke-a-Bowlstice or for any other marijuan-derful reason, it will be a very Dank Holiday Season.
— NICHOLAS DESHAIS, editor
This product has intoxication effects and may be habit-forming. Cannabis can impair concentration, coordination, and judgment. Do not operate a vehicle or machinery under the influence of this drug. There may be health risks associated with the consumption of this product. For use only by adults twenty-one and older. Keep out of reach of children.
The kids are nestled snug in their beds — time to settle down for a quick, discreet high, in style
BY WILL MAUPINThere are some in this world who can pair cannabis with daily life without any problem at all. Then there are others for whom life’s obligations — kids, work, community — make consuming cannabis a challenge. Whether it’s trying to stifle the smell or finding an appropriate time to get stoned, and then sober, we’ve got gift ideas that will help make smoke sessions better and easier for the time-constrained cannabis enthusiasts out there.
a
Often lumped in with edibles in the swallowable category of cannabis products, there’s another side to tinctures that make them ideal for the stoner strapped for time who prefers to not inhale their cannabis. When swallowed, tinctures tend to have an effect profile and duration like other edibles. They produce a strong high that comes on slowly and can last for eight hours or longer. However, when absorbed sublingually — kept under the tongue where the THC can enter the bloodstream directly — the high comes on faster than with an edible and fades away sooner as well. $26 • Greenhand • 2424 N. Monroe St.
Like just about everything besides fine wine, cannabis slowly degrades over time. If opportunities to spark up are few and far between, simply leaving the bud in the bag is a bad idea. While there are fancy and expensive cannabis-specific humidors available online, an airtight storage jar is enough to do the trick if you keep it in a cool, dark location. The 0.2-quart container is small enough for crumbs but could easily hold an eighth or more. $9 • The Kitchen Engine • 621 W. Mallon Ave. • thekitchenengine.com
Thin and discreet, the MiGo vape pen doesn’t scream paraphernalia like old-school bulky vape rigs. It’s size also makes it incredibly easy to store in a location hidden away from prying eyes or curious kids. Speaking of which, if you’re trying to keep your kids from smelling the smoke, vaporizers produce almost no discernible odor. Plus, the battery fits with all standard vape cartridges, which makes trips to the dispensary a breeze. $16 • Cinder • 1421 N. Mullan Ave., Spokane Valley • cindersmoke.com
Forget simplicity, when smoking is only a once in a blue moon activity, you may as well go all out to make it memorable. Handblown water pipes made by regional artisans have an aesthetic impact that simple bongs and bubblers will never match. The exceptional craftsmanship not only allows for a visually stunning piece of functional art, but an intricate network of tubes and chambers to produce incredibly smooth smoke. Designs vary from sleek and clean to cartoonish and beyond into the psychedelic. $200-$6,000 • Piece of Mind • 4103 N. Division St. • pomcannabis.com
Ideal for people who want to spark up, but don’t know how long it will be before they can, pre-rolls are single-serving products, made to be used and discarded. A 1-gram joint will have enough cannabis to do the job while providing an easy, perhaps nostalgic, smoking experience. They come in sealed containers, making storage simple, and there won’t be any leftovers to worry about. $6 • Green Light • 10309 E. Trent Ave., Spokane Valley • greenlightspokane.com n
BY WILL MAUPIN
The holidays are a time to spend with people you care about, people for whom you want only the best. Whether they’re on your gift list or attending your holiday party, the cannabis consumers you’ll be around this season deserve better than just any old strain. With the help of budtenders, industry insiders, consumers and yours truly, we’ve put together a list of four hot strains to try this holiday season, and where to find them locally.
“Every time I’ve smoked it, it’s been really well done,” says Jesse Rogers, purchasing manager at the Top Shelf. “Good smoke, good taste, good high. That one just keeps popping back up for me.”
Spokane’s own Redbird Cannabis produces its Grape Cake using an aeroponic growing method, which suspends the plant’s roots in misty air rather than soil, allowing for greater oxygen absorption while reducing the amount of water used in the process. Redbird’s Grape Cake is an indica-dominant hybrid strain developed as a cross of Grape Stomper, Cherry Pie and Wedding Cake F4. The Top Shelf • 1305 S. Hayford Rd., Suite A, Airway Heights • thetopshelfcannabis.com
Seattle dispensary Dockside Cannabis held an NCAA Tournament-inspired contest this past March, in which customers voted on eight strains to advance in a knockout-style bracket. The winner was Dutchberry from Lacey, Washington, grower Artizen. As the name suggests, this sativa-dominant hybrid and cross of Dutch Treat and DJ Short Blueberry has a fruity flavor combining berry and citrus. The sativa-dominant effects include increased energy and improved mood. Artizen’s Dutchberry is grown using only pest control methods listed by the Organic
Materials Review Institute, making it ideal for the more health-conscious consumers out there. Cinder Downtown • 927 W. Second Ave. • Cinder North • 6010 N. Division St. • Cinder Valley • 1421 N. Mullan Rd. • cindersmoke.com
Prolific Spokane Valley grower Phat Panda produces a ton of great products, which explains why they consistently land among the top-three in the Inlander’s annual Best of the Inland Northwest readers poll in the best cannabis brand category. A personal favorite of mine is their Animal Mintz strain. The Vault sells $6 pre-rolls of the high-THC, indica-dominant hybrid that are perfect for smokers on a budget. Low-tolerance consumers can get even more bang for their buck as a 1-gram joint of this strong strain can last for multiple sessions — just make sure to store the leftovers in a smellproof container. The Vault • 2720 E. 29th Ave. • thevaultcannabis.com
Leading cannabis industry publication Leafly named Jealousy the Strain of the Year for 2022. Leafly examines sales and online search data to find strains that are surging in the marketplace, which Jealousy has done since it was first introduced in 2019.
“If your local dispensary has Jealousy in stock, it’s safe to say that they’re savvy to the connoisseur cannabis conversation in the U.S. right now,” says David Downs, the bureau chief of Leafly California in a statement.
A true hybrid, Jealousy is a cross between Sherbert and Gelato, winner of Leafly Strain of the Year in 2018. With caryophyllene leading the terpene charge in Jealousy, the smoke packs a peppery, somewhat spicy flavor profile. Cannabis & Glass • 25101 E. Appleway Ave., Liberty Lake • cannabisandglass.com n
Don’t let the holidays (puff-puff) pass by the smoker in your life who already has everything — gift them these wonders instead
BY MARY STOVER
Since cannabis became legal, more and more Washingtonians are partaking in its many forms. Marijuana users aren’t stoners anymore, so today we celebrate cannabisseurs and herbivores, too. We smoke it, inhale it, eat it, wear it, soak in it, drink it, and so much more. Buying gifts for today’s enthusiast isn’t limited to lighters, incense burners, lava lamps and tapestries. Here are a few of our recommendations for those who ingest on your list.
Take the guesswork out of eating your weed. The Easy Cannabis Cookbook: 60+ Medical Recipes for Sweet and Savory Edibles by Cheri Sicard is available for purchase or order at Auntie’s. These easy-to-use recipes can turn any meal or snack into a delicious bite of marijuana. It comes with a dosing guide so you can experience delicious food and a comfortable high without getting blitzed and over-munching. $15 • Auntie’s Bookstore • 402 W. Main Ave. • auntiesbooks.com
If your giftee is a fan of hot-boxing... I mean baking, you should consider these hilarious and well-made oven mitts and dish towels. Boo Radley’s of-
“The food has weed in it.” No matter how you’re ingesting cannabis, safety first! Keep your hands safe and your clean dishes dry with this delightful set. $14-$16 • Boo Radley’s • 232 N. Howard St.
For those using cannabis to relax, Wonders of the World offers a huge selection of singing bowls. These singing bowls boast deep relaxation, muscle regeneration and pain relief. Try a hand-hammered metal Tibetan bowl or a quartz crystal bowl after you toke up; both produce deep, rich tones and feel-it-in-your-chest vibrations. $40-$425 • Wonders of the World • 621 W. Mallon Ave. • wondersoftheworldinc.com
The ultimate non-pot experience for someone who enjoys a good high is a light therapy session at Luminosity. Luminosity uses the Lucia Light, a tool used to achieve relaxation and internal transformation. Lucia lights use solid and flickering lights at varying levels of speed, brightness, intensity and frequency. An intense and highly personal experience, the user feels light spreading throughout their body, moving into a deeper encounter as the session progresses. What begins as slightly awkward or scary quickly becomes peaceful and calming. Enter a meditative state and experience deep relaxation, insight and wonder. Prices start at $75 • Luminosity • 501 S. Bernard St., Suite 209 • luminosityspokane.com
At Atticus, look for Goblin Pottery’s travel mugs. These beautifully made mugs are sealed with hand-cut cork lids. So, y’know, disguise your weed storage in this beautifully handcrafted vessel. Each mug is unique, having been wheel-thrown and hand-sculpted right here in Spokane. When you’re done blazing through your sweet spliffs, use this treasure for a warm beverage like hemp tea or CBD coffee. $43 • Atticus Coffee & Gifts • 222 N. Howard St. • Also at etsy.com/shop/Goblinpottery n
It’s been 10 years since Washington legalized recreational cannabis. Each year brings more states that either do the same or otherwise lessen restrictions on its use. That means not only more legal products (and businesses selling them), but more people willing to try cannabis who previously stayed away. If a person on your gifting list is thinking about trying cannabis products for the first time, or is relatively uninitiated, consider one of these ideas. (NOTE: Informed use is essential. Be sure to let the person know exactly what you’re giving and how it could affect them.)
Not all products are ingested, and not all products contain the psychoactive chemical THC (tetrahydrocannabinol). Many people use non-psychoactive CBD (cannabidiol) products as topical ointments for pain relief or as a dissolvable product for baths. Tiger balm products are available in several stores. $13-$35 • The Green Nugget • 1340 SE Bishop Blvd., Pullman
Edibles come in all shapes, sizes, flavors, varieties, and potencies. If the person on your list likes chocolate, there’s plenty available. If they’re more of a hard candy or gummy fan, you’re in luck. The key is to know what the person likes, what their background is with cannabis use, and how using it may affect them. Talk to a knowledgeable budtender at a local shop who can recommend a good product. One suggestion for the Northwest-minded: huckleberry, marionberry or strawberry gummies by WYLD, complete with elk antler designs on boxes. $24 • TreeHouse Club • 14421 E. Trent Ave., Spokane Valley • treehouseclub.buzz
It seems there’s a new caffeinated energy drink or alcoholic seltzer brand every time you hit the grocery store. Drinks aren’t exclusive to caffeine or alcohol, of course, and that’s true in the cannabis world. You can find premade drinks or liquid packets that contain either THC, CBD or a hybrid. Look for a flavor and style that suits the person on your list. Suggestions: multiple flavors of Ray’s Lemonade. $10-$24 • Royals Cannabis • 7115 N. Division St.• royalscannabis.com
One daunting task for a cannabis newbie: rolling a joint. Luckily, most shops have convenient pre-roll packs of various options. Or a hybrid pack of a few pre-roll joints and loose buds for when your gift recipient is ready to roll their own. Try a “Your Best Buds” pack. $25 • Spokane Green Leaf • 9107 N. Country Homes Blvd, Suite 13 • spokanegreenleaf.com
If your true love has an interest in vaping, most
have a wide range of cartridges. They use cannabis concentrate in a self-contained device to produce vapors using a vape battery. Sound confusing? Let a budtender explain the pros and cons and what flavor (if any) is right for your person. There are lots of brands. Prices vary • Apex Cannabis. • 1325 N. Division St., Suite 104 • apexcannabis.com
“I know what I’m talking about — I did my own research” is certainly a line we hear applied to, well, everything. Though knowledge is power, and it wouldn’t be a gift guide without passing on wisdom through books. For the person in your life who likes to research before jumping into something new, consider a book such as Marijuana: A Love Story or Marijuana: Your Questions Answered $22/$40 • Auntie’s Bookstore • 402 W. Main Ave. • auntiesbooks.com n
Sure, get high for the holidays — then get distracted with these stoner-friendly seasonal offerings
BY SETH SOMMERFELDWhile some people enjoy baking Christmas cookies this time of year, others just prefer getting baked. I mean, one of the holiday’s two main colors is green. So if you’re ducking out of any family drama to get high and chill, here’s some seasonal stoner entertainment to keep you occupied.
(SEASON 3, EPISODE 20)
The always-absurdist humor of Comedy Bang! Bang! goes off the rails for its Christmas special when a Hans Gruber-esque villain takes over the fake talk show, demanding a shipment of Sauerkraut Kids dolls. Guests/hostages the Lonely Island keep a chipper mood as things spiral out of control, and the A/C repairman (Alan Tudyk) tries to save the day. Streaming on AMC+ and Plex
There’s no one more associated with marijuana than the D.O. Double G (whose “Holidaze of Blaze” tour hits Spokane Arena on Dec. 15), making this holiday hip-hop compilation a perfect addition to any pothead’s December playlist. In addition to Snoop, the album features Nate Dogg, Soopafly and many more spitting rhymes on tunes like “My Little Mama Trippin on Xmas” and “A Pimp’s Christmas Song.”
“THE
The third installment in the buddy stoner comedy franchise put a holiday spin on things. After the pair accidentally burn down the prized Christmas tree of Harold’s girlfriend’s dad, the duo must go on a wild hunt for a perfect Christmas tree. The journey includes the Russian mob, plenty of weed jokes and — of course — Neil Patrick Harris. Streaming on HBO Max
With over 200 products priced at under $20, Spokane Valley’s Green Light has stocking stu ers for all types of tokers on your list. Green Light first lit up their open sign eight years ago, making them one of the original retailers in the state. Since then, the shop has earned a reputation for its knowledgeable, approachable sta and consistent product quality.
General Manager Carli Durick believes the secret to Green Light’s success is “lovin’ our customers and our product, in that order. Everyone should be leaving happier than when they came in.” Green Light’s clean, tidy store feels welcoming because of its knowledgable sta , fast service and large inventory. They are also a “top donor” to the Spokane Humane Society and keep a big wooden barrel to collect donation items on the animal shelter’s wish list. There’s even a dog water bowl for canine companions.
Green Light carries a huge selection of consumable and edible products, and many are produced by NWCS (Northwest Cannabis Solutions), maker of the crowd-pleasing Mari’s Mints. Each variety reflects its THC/CBD levels and intended effects: Retire Mints contain sleepy Indica; Move Mints provide uplifting Sativa; and Refresh Mints offer a low-THC, high-CBD choice. Since most blends contain 2.5-5 milligrams THC per candy, the mints, says Carli, are “perfect for people [for whom] 10 milligrams might be too much” so newcomers “can find out what their perfect dose is.”
One drinkable option popular with customers is Ray’s Lemonade Along with a dazzling range of flavors, Ray’s also comes in two sizes: a standard 12-ounce bottle, and a miniature 1.75-ouncer. Both bottle sizes contain 100 milligrams of THC total and include a handy black cap that allows sippers to measure their serving size.
Green Light is stocked with two-gram Phat Panda Bong Buddies jars of flower. Throughout December, all Bong Buddies jars are buy one get one half off. So go wild! Speaking of Phat Panda, Green Light has expanded its selection of THC/CBD bath bombs by Six Fitths, Phat Panda’s topical department label.
The shop’s best-selling pre-roll joints are 50 Fold Snickerdoobies (infused joints) from 50 Fold Industries, one of Spokane’s most respected cannabis companies. Infused with kief crystals instead of oil, the .75-gram Snickerdoobies are available in multiple strains and consistently rank as one of our customers’ favorite and most popular products.
This product has intoxicating effects and may be habit forming. Marijuana can impair concentration, coordination, and judgment. Do not operate a vehicle or machinery under the influence of this drug. There may be health risks associated with consumption of this product. For use only by adults twenty-one and older. Keep out of the reach of children.
Nearly 64,000
GREEN
Reach 2829 N. Market | Corner of Market & Cleveland | 509.315.8223 | Mon-Thu 8am-10pm • Fri-Sat 8am-11pm • Sun 9am-9pm Close at 7pm on Christmas Eve
Chanukah is underrepresented in our holiday entertainment, and very underrepresented in the animated comedies for adults realm. Enter weed-fiend favorite Adam Sandler and Eight Crazy Nights, which the Sandman co-wrote, produced, and stars in as a grumpy alcoholic having to serve community service at a youth basketball league during the holidays. Streaming on Showtime
Want to keep entertained while high without the use of screens and speakers? Try some stonertargeted holiday coloring books. It’s a great way to
wind down with an indica while still injecting some trippy color into the proceedings. Online, you can find choice coloring book options like Stoner Santa, Stoner Christmas Coloring Book and Let’s Get High This Christmas
The Friday franchise has always had a soft-spot for tokers, and Friday After Next takes the South Central LA plights of Craig and Day-Day. When the guys’ apartment gets robbed on Christmas Eve morning, they must figure out how they’re going to pay rent, deal with bad work situations and still throw a banger Christmas party. Streaming on HBO Max
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 fiveyear sentence and fine of up to $10,000. Transporting marijuana across state lines, like from Washington into Idaho, is a felony under federal law.
Is the rapper behind the stoner classic “Because I Got High” an elite MC? Far from it. Still, you might be able to mine the mayhem of this unique Christmas album for some entertainment. It’s a collection of pretty low-brow parody versions of holiday standards, such as “I Wish You Would Roll a New Blunt” and “O Chronic Tree.” (It makes you think Weird Al never doing drugs might've been the right call.)
“THE
SEINFELD (SEASON 9, EPISODE 10)
Quite simply, there needs to be a Festivus for the rest of us. Streaming on Netflix n
Step inside MADELEINE’S CAFÉ & PATISSERIE (415 W. Main Ave.) and you’ll wonder if you’ve magically been transported to the heart of Paris. At this family-owned café, they specialize in French pastries, with the selection du jour typically being a tantalizing offering of fresh-baked croissants, éclairs, tartlets, napoleons, baked maple bars as well as cinnamon rolls and cookies. And when we say cookies, we’re talking about macarons, madeleines, financiers, shortbread and many other continental varieties. As an accompaniment, there’s nothing better than a latte or espresso made with locally roasted DOMA coffee blends.
But maybe your sweet tooth is partial to Mexican dulces? If so, head to the third floor of River Park Square and look for CHUCHERIAS AND SNOWCONES (808 W Main Ave.). Chucherias are “sweets” or “snacks” in Spanish, and this snack bar has won a devoted following for
City Sidewalks
DowntownSpokane.org
“SATISFY YOUR SWEET TOOTH” CONTINUED... SPOKANE REFILLERY Gifts that are good for you and the Earth! spokanerefillery.com 1105 W. 1st AVE
serving up whimsical and refreshing takes on churros, fruit cups, energy drinks, Jarritos (a popular Mexican soft drink) and, yes, snow cones. For something familiar yet fun, try the fresas con crema, or strawberries with cream, and add a little granola to give it some crunch.
Terrain’s annual winter market includes thousands of pieces of locally made art for sale on every level of River Park Square. Enjoy live music and food and drink vendors while browsing. Dec. 17, 10 am-8 pm. River Park Square, 808 W. Main Ave. terrainspokane.com
Free horse-drawn carriage rides through downtown Spokane provided by Wheatland Bank. Each ride lasts 8-10 minutes; no reservations, standby only. Pick up at 15 N. Wall St. Every Friday through Dec. 24 from 3-8 pm and Sat-Sun from 12-5 pm. Free. visitspokane.com
Walk through Riverfront Park while being guided by a trail of holiday lights and installations decorating the entirety of the park. Daily starting at sundown through Jan. 2. Free. Riverfront Park, 507 N. Howard St. riverfrontspokane.org (509-6256600)
Throughout the holiday season, purchase a beer at all seven West End breweries and scan the brewery QR code. After scanning all seven, you’ll be sent an email redemption for a West End mug. List of breweries on website. Daily through Jan. 2. Locations vary. Westendbeerfest.com (509-279-2982)
Five window bays on the south side of the Grand display scenes featuring refurbished figurines rescued from the basement of the former Crescent Department Store. See more items from the Crescent displays in windows at the MAC. Through Jan. 2; Fri-Sat from 12-10 pm and Sun-Thu from 3-8 pm. Free. Davenport Grand Hotel, 333 W. Spokane Falls Blvd. davenporthotelcollection.com (800-918-9344)
Enjoy tunes played by DJ A1 for themed-nights, music, lights and contests every Friday at 6 pm; Dec. 16, 23 and 30. Also on Sat., Dec. 31, on New Year’s Eve. $9.95$6.95. Numerica Skate Ribbon, 720 W. Spokane Falls Blvd. riverfrontspokane.org (509-625-6600)
The Spokane Symphony’s HOLIDAY POPS concert is more than a performance of seasonal tunes by first-class musicians. It’s also a beloved annual tradition. Why else would Santa Claus himself make a point of stopping by every year to lead the orchestra in favorites like “Sleigh Ride”? The Spokane Symphony Chorale and the Spokane Area Youth Choirs get in on the action, too, creating a festive and joyous musical experience that will keep you brimming with the holiday spirit well into the new year. Maybe some of that also comes down to the fun audience carol singalong that fills the room with song! There are two Holiday Pops performances: one on Saturday, December 17, the other on Sunday, December 18, both at the beautiful and historic FOX THEATER (1001 W. Sprague Ave.) in the heart of downtown’s entertainment district. Music Director James Lowe will conduct both Pops performances.
BY CARRIE SCOZZARO
Move over hygge; koselig culture is ready to wrap us in its comforting embrace.
What is koselig, pronounced koosh-lee? It’s Norway’s equivalent to Denmark’s hygge, pronounced hue-gah, which implies a coziness found in design, food and lifestyle. A soft sweater, a steaming mug of stew, a comfy spot on the couch surrounded by people and things that make you feel snuggly are all hygge. Although the concept is deeply ingrained in Danish culture, the hygge trend hopped across the pond in 2016 and joined the list of Scrabble-approved words soon after.
Now its Norwegian cousin — koselig — is trending, with a greater emphasis on food and togetherness. Find both at Spokane-based Koselig Kitchen, which chef Renée Bolstad transformed from a mobile to brick-andmortar operation in October.
Located inside the Wonder Building between Evans Brothers Coffee Roasters and Uno Más Taco Shop, Koselig Kitchen offers an unusual assortment of sweet and savory treats with a twist. Some items are available for onsite consumption, like soft-serve custard ($4-$7) in flavors like ube, a purple yam from the Philippines that
gives Koselig’s custard a vibrant purple color and unique floral flavor. Other items, like the miso caramel brownie ($9), are available for preorder or in prepackaged form.
When Bolstad offered pies ($30) for Thanksgiving preorder, for example, it wasn’t just apple, but apple with cardamom, and a bourbon pecan with miso, which lends a unique saltiness that parallels the popularity of traditional salted caramel. Bolstad calls her 6-ounce bags of caramel corn ($7.50) Jacker Cracks and features flavors — Japanese togarashi or Indian madras curry — from her past life as a high-end pastry chef in both New York and Seattle. Her packages of ultra-thin crackers ($7.50) are inspired by Norwegian crispbread called knekkebrød, with bold flavors like dill pickle and spicy cheese.
Bolstad experienced early success with Koselig Kitchen’s “nostalgic eats and frozen treats,” and after a year of doing farmers markets, she began shopping for a more permanent setup.
“I think people respond to these things because food brings them back to somewhere” in their memories, says Bolstad, who grew up daydreaming about opening a chocolate-covered cherry business with her father.
Her father’s mother, Dolores, also inspired early food memories. When Bolstad launched Koselig Kitchen in spring of 2021 with a line of frozen treats, she initially thought about calling the business Dolo’s Ice Box, after her grandmother.
Visits to grandma’s were special. Not only did Bolstad’s grandmother have a ready supply of treats, mostly homemade, she’d take the grandkids to area farmers markets near her home in Western Washington, Bolstad recalls. She also remembers trips to Sluys Poulsbo Bakery, which specialized in Norwegian foods like potato crepes called lefse and fried pastries called rosettes.
Bolstad didn’t pursue the culinary arts as a career, however, but rather graphic design, and initially ended up in Seattle’s telecommunications industry. She still daydreamed of a food business, however, like her vision for a hot dog and cheesesteak place. As the early 2000s housing bubble grew, Bolstad found herself in one not-so-great job after another, until fate, the eventual 2008 market collapse, intervened.
Rather than look for another job, she took the leap toward becoming a pastry chef and applied to New York City’s International Culinary Center, formerly The French Culinary Institute. She felt right at home in the kitchen.
“My instructor asked me how long I’d been cooking,” Bolstad says. When she replied she’d never cooked professionally, her instructor was floored.
“I feel like pastry melded with my two [strengths] of creativity and problem-solving,” she says.
Bolstad’s first culinary job was at Spice Market “doing 1,500 [individual desserts] a night for the tasting menu,” she says.
Eventually Bolstad moved back to Seattle, only to return to the Big Apple in 2012, landing at A Voce, an Italian fine dining spot with two locations and one Michelin star. The 70- to 80-hour workweeks took their toll, however, with a work environment similar to Hulu’s hit television series The Bear. The grind got Bolstad thinking about returning to Seattle.
“I had to stop watching that. I got a little PTSD moment there,” she says of watching The Bear.
While still in New York, she met Rachel Yang, a 14-time James Beard Foundation award nominee and eight-time semifinalist who founded Seattle-based Relay Restaurant Group with husband and fellow chef Seif Chirchi. Yang asked Bolstad if she’d be interested in working with her. Of course, Bolstad was. And it went very well, allowing her to take a more playful approach to desserts.
“I started looking at foods I had as a kid and thought, ‘How can I make this different?’” recalls Bolstad, who created whimsical dessert menus organized around such
themes as Star Wars and co-workers’ nostalgic favorites.
“That reminds me of my childhood” was the best compliment she could get, she says.
Bolstad’s final Seattle job was with celebrated chef Thierry Rautureau at his Loulay Kitchen and Bar. In spring 2021, Loulay was headed toward closure, and Bolstad had relocated to Spokane to finally start her own food business.
By June 2022, she’d created a Kickstarter fundraiser to facilitate her transition to the Wonder Building. Lacking a full-size kitchen of her own, Bolstad works out
of Inland Northwest Catering’s space to produce items for her stall, as well as for the downtown Spokane bar Emma Rue’s. She also makes food for occasional classes she teaches, and to test out possibilities for more Koselig Kitchen one-of-a-kinds that might someday end up in local grocery stores.
“I want to have more than one thing,” she says. “And I want to give back to the community.” n
Koselig Kitchen • 835 N. Post St. • Open Wed-Sun from 11 am- 8pm • koseligkitchen.com
BY CARRIE SCOZZARO
You might say the Spokane Valley brewing scene has turned the corner. Matt Hedman and Kevin Campbell have turned the former Hopped Up Brewing (which closed in 2021) into 45 Degree Brewhouse, a play on the building’s iconic A-frame from its earliest days as an IHOP restaurant.
“The 45 degree does not stop at the roof line,” says co-owner Campbell, adding “it also represents the angle of a perfectly poured beer.”
The duo are doing most of the brewing themselves for now, with a little help from others.
“Everyone in this brew community tends to operate like a true cooperative where everyone openly extends genuine offers of knowledge sharing and support,” Campbell says.
Look for a continuously rotating beer selection, like their first brew, Sun Child, a Belgian-style India pale ale, or the new Strawberry Blonde, as well as cider on tap.
Friends and family have also pitched in on creating the chaletlike interior, with murals that go all the way to the ceiling, as well as creating the evolving food menu. Enjoy an oversized pretzel and a pint ($15) or sausage plate ($5), choosing two of a rotating selection like beer-braised brats or a traditional Polish sausage. Check facebook.com/45degreebrewhouse for the latest specials.
BOTTLE JOY opened in Coeur d’Alene (1208 E. Sherman Ave.) in the former 1210 Tavern space offering beer, wine, cider, kombucha, canned cocktails and nonalcoholic drinks. It offers both indoor seating and an excellent patio area for warmer weather, plus a packaged goods area for to-go beverages. Visit bottlejoycda.com.
Looking for a brewery in Spokane’s Five Mile area? Look for SPOKANITE BREWING (6607 N. Ash St.) and check out its One 10 Stout or the Uncle Porter’s Porter, which won a silver medal in the brown porter category at the recent 2022 Washington Beer Awards.
Continuing with brewing news, additional Spokane-area award winners from the 2022 WASHINGTON BEER AWARDS include a bronze medal for Garland Brew Werks’ Märzen Lager (German-style maerzens); gold for Whistle Punk Brewing’s Schwarzbier (German-style schwarzbiers) and for its Apricot Crumble (experimental beers); gold for Perry Street Brewing’s Speechless IPA (New Zealand-style India pale ales), and silver for Uprise Brewing Co.’s Guava Gose Fruited Sour (goses).
Also in Spokane, Brick West Brewing Co. took home three medals: a bronze for its Festbier (German-style Oktoberfests) and for its Riverside (German-style kölsches), as well as a silver for its Helping Hand (juicy/hazy IPAs).
Liberty Lake’s Snow Eater Brewing Co. earned a bronze medal for its Moose Trot and Pullman-based Paradise Creek Brewery took silver for its MooJoe Milk Stout (coffee/chocolate beers).
NO-LI BREWHOUSE’S 25 Days of Christmas is underway. Until Dec. 24, No-Li is donating $1,000-$2,000 each day to local charitable organizations in Spokane and North Idaho, including the Martin Luther King Jr. Center, Washington State Firefighters’ Association, SCRAPS Hope Foundation and Newby-ginnings of North Idaho. On Christmas Day, No-Li also plans to donate $10,000 to Giving Back Packs, which provides backpacks full of clothes, snacks and other vital supplies to those experiencing homelessness. Visit nolibrewhouse.com/25days to find out more. n
To-Go Box is the Inlander’s regular dining news column, offering tasty tidbits and updates on the region’s food and drink scene. Send tips and updates to food@inlander.com.
The story of a precious telekinetic little girl who loves reading, despite her parents and evil headmistress’ objections, returns to the big screen — this time with songs! With loads of cheeky tunes written by Tim Minchin, Matilda the Musical won Tonys and became a Broadway hit for a reason. Rated PG At the Magic Lantern
BY JASON BAXTER
It’s a classic holiday tradition: gathering kith and kin to tread to the cinemas or gather around the television screen to watch a seasonal favorite. As comforting as the old standbys from Rankin/Bass, Disney and other studios can be, perhaps Christmas 2022 is the year to try some festive cinematic alternatives? (And let us please not re-litigate the tired “Is Die Hard a Christmas movie?” debate, which has become an annual tradition in and of itself.)
Here are some other options to shake up your yuletide viewing schedule. The possibilities are numerous — Wikipedia’s entry on Christmas films has 123 titles, and its list of films set around Christmastime is even longer. Among this merry multitude are a handful of unconventional holiday films that could become new perennial viewing for you and your family, depending on your tastes.
To start with a more mainstream option, consider giving the Tim Burton-produced The Nightmare Before Christmas the year off, and opt instead for the Tim Burton-directed Batman Returns. Though it was controversial among family groups for its gothic darkness upon its release in 1992, the film has had something of a critical reclamation in recent years. Set during the holiday season, the movie is moody, baroque and a little (a lot?) kinky, but undeniably festive all the same. Like many a good holiday film, it’s imbued with an inherent sadness that hangs over the proceedings like snow clouds.
Other alternative Christmas-set big Hollywood fare you could consider for your seasonal viewing menu: Stan-
ley Kubrick’s erotic dream odyssey Eyes Wide Shut (best watched with a brandy eggnog after the kids are in bed), Spielberg’s delightful conman caper Catch Me if You Can, DC cinematic universe superhero flick Shazam!, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011), and practically anything from action auteur Shane Black (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Lethal Weapon, and plenty more — even Iron Man 3).
On the artsier side of holiday cinema is Hong Kong director Wong Kar-wai’s sumptuous sci-fi 2046, a spiritual sequel to the director’s period romances Days of Being Wild and In the Mood for Love. The Christmas holiday serves as a recurring narrative fulcrum point in this romantic drama, whose non-linear plot folds in on itself like origami. As with his earlier work, many of Kar-wai’s trademarks are present: an all-star cast including Tony Leung ChiuWai, Gong Li, Maggie Cheung, and Zhang Ziyi, themes of lust and longing, characters languorously smoking a seemingly endless supply of cigarettes, impeccable neonsoaked cinematography, and lots and lots of sex.
While it might not technically be arthouse, 1961’s lean, nasty Blast of Silence does boast a spine in the esteemed Criterion Collection (though it is currently unstreamable and hard to find). The film noir follows a hitman over the Christmas holiday as he seeks to accomplish an archetypal “one last job.” The movie’s cynical tone is hammered home by its borderline-over-the-top hard-boiled narration, with dialogue like “Remembering out of the black silence, you were born in pain,” and “Lose yourself in the Christmas spirit with the rest of the suckers.” At only 77
minutes, the film is a jet-black morsel. As feel-bad Christmas movies go, you couldn’t find a better one.
Perhaps unexpectedly, there’s a sizable volume of Christmas-set horror films, from the recent Krampus to the classic black comedy Gremlins to a whole glut of risible schlock like Santa’s Slay and Silent Night, Deadly Night. One that may have eluded your Grinch-y tastes is Black Christmas (the 1974 original, not either of the 21st century remakes). Believe it or not, Black Christmas comes from the mind of Bob Clark, best known for perennial cable-TV marathon staple A Christmas Story. The thriller follows a group of sorority sisters who are menaced over the phone and gradually picked off one by one by a killer they call “The Moaner.” It’s widely considered one of, if not the first North American slasher film, establishing many of the tropes and techniques that would appear in John Carpenter’s Halloween four years later. Film buffs will recognize a handful of familiar faces among the cast of Black Christmas: Margot Kidder (Superman), Keir Dullea (2001: A Space Odyssey), and exploitation icon John Saxon.
There’s clearly something inherently cinematic about the holiday season, with its bright lights, decorations, annual rites and ability to inspire feelings of either warmth and nostalgia or isolation and existential anxiety. These films exemplify just how varied a late-Decemberset movie can be, and they’re only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to worthy substitutes for the usual go-tos. So go ahead, pop one of these on and lose yourself in the Christmas spirit with the rest of the suckers. n
With Avatar: The Way of Water, James Cameron proves he still has many more Pandora stories to tell
BY CHASE HUTCHINSON
If there was ever a film that could win over those who were agnostic or even antagonistic about the original Avatar, Avatar: The Way of Water would be it. A science fiction epic that is far more emotionally engaging than its predecessor, it moves away from the high-flying sequences to instead dive headfirst into a rich ocean world teeming with life. Operating on a vast canvas, it makes use of remarkable performance capture crossed with stunning special effects to create a vibrant setting that feels like you could almost reach out and touch it. Always interested in what lies beneath in the unexplored underwater worlds, writer/director James Cameron now takes us with him on a journey into the depths and reminds us that he still has got an eye for splendor. Even as its presentation is hamstrung by the persistent use of a high frame rate that takes some getting used to, the awe of letting the visuals envelop and wash over you is truly unparalleled.
We pick right back up where we last left these characters when human-turned-Na’vi Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) had managed to drive the corporation that was mining Pandora’s resources off the planet. Years then pass as we see that the two have now started a family. In many ways, the couple are not the protagonists of this story. Instead, we spend most of the film with their children, watching as they struggle with growing up and reckoning with their respective lineages that make them outsid-
ers from the rest of the Na’vi. On top of that, the humans have now returned with a greater force in order to continue extracting resources and begin the process of colonizing the planet. Fire consumes everything when they touch down, and the city they build in the ashes is impressive though pointedly cold. The Na’vi then take up the fight once more to disrupt the decimating process of colonization by waging a guerrilla warfare campaign. However, ghosts from their past send Jake and his family on the run as he reflects on their future and the potential of losing everything.
Rated PG-13
Directed by James Cameron
Starring Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña
While much of this resembles the story that was already told in the first film, even making use of the same often clunky narration all the way up until the humorously familiar final shot, there is much that elevates Avatar: The Way of Water as a distinct work. The Na’vi, who often felt like they were secondary to Jake’s journey in the first film, are now central to the experience. The introduction of a new clan with their own way of life, unique physiology and home in the water is where this film is at its best. They feel infinitely more multidimensional and complicated. Just getting to spend time with them as they do everything from going
diving to communing with whale-like creatures, which becomes an integral part of the narrative, is breathtaking to behold.
While moments of the original Avatar felt oddly hollow, everything in The Way of Water is so fully realized. It’s leaps and bounds above that earlier work. There is a greater patience that does wonders in building this world and those who inhabit it. When this builds to an extended climactic fight that makes up the entire last act, all the emotional stakes feel far more genuine and fleshed out. It also gets a great deal darker and violent, including one surprisingly disarming moment that holds a cathartic poetic resonance. It is a work that opens a whole host of doors, both in a technological and thematic sense, to an intriguing future where Cameron gets to continue his journey of exploration. n
Once the calendar turns to December, we’re all barraged by an onslaught of Christmas music. It blasts out of store speakers, dominates the month’s concert calendar and gets whole radio stations to itself. If you’re looking to liven up your holiday playlists, why not do so with festive music produced by some of Washington state’s best artists? Here are a few Evergreen State classics and plenty of excellent hidden gem albums that might be missing from your life.
I feel like I might get kicked out of Spokane if I don’t start with this one. The city’s most famed musical son is also the king of Christmas music. Did you realize Crosby’s version of “White Christmas” isn’t just the biggest Christmas song ever, it’s literally the top-selling single of all-time (50+ million copies)? Merry Christmas is chockfull of the crooner’s seasonal classics.
While Bing might be king, One Christmas at a Time is actually my favorite Christmas record. The Long Winters’ frontman Roderick teams up with nerdy singer-songwriter Coulton for a collection of songs that eschews norms. The duo wrote it with rules to avoid some words that were too Christmas cliche, and the result is an absolute blast of an album featuring delightful tunes about your deadbeat uncle, spending Christmas in jail, the always odd week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, the childhood desire for a new Atari, and a techno reading of the Chanukah Wikipedia page.
Those seeking to freshen up their jingle bell rocking should look no further than this album by stellar Seattle pop punk trio Dude York. Featuring super catchy tunes about seeing hometown exes, being stranded a long distance from your family for the holidays, the glitz of Christmas in LA and more, it’s an LP that belongs in any festive record collection.
If you want something jazzy to cut a rug in front of your Christmas tree, you can’t go wrong with Hot Club of Spokane’s addition to the holiday catalog. The group’s peppy jazz and swing arrangements of classic favorites and less obvious selections (with plenty of enthusiastic vocal accompaniment), heats up the holidays without even needing to use the fireplace.
It’s safe to say David Bazan’s relationship with Christianity is complicated, as was clear in his indie rock work as Pedro the Lion. No Christmas album is as much of a beautiful bummer as Dark Sacred Night. You can feel the heavy emotional vocal tone in Bazan’s heartbreaking originals and extremely melancholy renditions of holiday standards.
The kings of Seattle instrumental surf rock brought all the best vibes to their 1965 Christmas record. It’s far warmer, sunnier, and cooler (metaphorically) than an actual Northwest Christmas beach day.
Santa may have his sack, but Kenny G has his sax. The smooth jazz superstar’s holiday album feels as comforting as being wrapped in a blanket in front of a crackling fireplace with a mug of cocoa in hand.
Seattle/Tacoma was a garage rock hotbed in the ’60s, and three of the scene’s best bands teamed up for this excellent Christmas compilation. Featuring mostly originals, this collection adds some guitar jangle to jingle bells.
The crown-wearing queen of Seattle pop punk is her usual hopeless romantic self on this EP of original holiday tunes about snagging a cute little drummer boy(friend) and only wanting love for Christmas.
Only the title track of this EP actually has anything to do with the holidays, but that song is a deep cut gem from the Seattle alt-rock outfit. An artful downer about someone who has to work at a movie theater on Christmas, it nails the ache of being lonely on the holiday.
There’s not any depth to this EP, but the Emerald City guitar icon shreds harder than kids taking on wrapping paper on Christmas morning on “Little Drummer Boy/Silent Night/Auld Lang Syne.”
To counter the always-present threat of a White Christmas, Afrofuturist R&B singer/producer SassyBlack (half of THEESatisfaction) put out this tiny EP cheekily celebrating holiday Blackness.
One of Seattle’s best current rock bands, DSD’s Christmas EP showcases Jessica Dobson’s sweet crooning of classics over tastefully restrained arrangements, before rocking out a bit on the original tune, “It’s Christmas Time (and I Am Still Alive).”
There’s an inherent empathetic kindness in Tomo Nakyama’s voice that gives all of the singer-songwriter’s tunes a certain glow. In this case, that’s a Christmas light glow, as he takes on “Happy XMas (War is Over)” and other holiday faves.
The Wilson sisters hit the brakes on their hard rocking mode to get soft and cozy for the holidays on a Christmas album that evenly splits original tunes with renditions of songs like “Oh Holy Night” and “Ave Maria.”
The ’60s Seattle folk group of brothers (the frat variety, not biological) delivers a very traditional presentation of the canonical Christmas classics that leans heavily on the ensemble’s wholesome vocal blending.
The dark punks howl and growl about Santa being depressingly lonely all but one day of the year (“364 Days”) and take a crack at covering Hanoi Rocks’ “Dead by Christmas” in this chaotic twosong blast of holiday noise.
The singer-songwriter best known for singing the chorus on “Same Love” warms up the holidays with a collection of tender tunes that overflow with queer love and acceptance.
This may be fudging the numbers a bit, but the folk singer who’s best known for voicing Sam the Snowman in the beloved Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer TV special spent his late years living in Anacortes. If you want more from the voice of that jolly snowman, this Ives album should do the trick. n
If you’re looking for some religiosity in your Christmas music, but don’t exactly feel like attending midnight Mass, perhaps The Blind Boys of Alabama will do the trick. The legendary Black gospel group has been entertaining audiences since the 1930s (!!!) with a soulful blend of jubilee and traditional gospel sounds. While the Gospel Hall of Fame and Grammy Lifetime Achievement-earning group has (obviously) changed its members over that stretch (Jimmy Carter being the current longest-tenured — since 1982), the emotional resonance of their harmony-rich spirituals has never wavered. A Sunday matinee of the group’s Christmas program at Gonzaga’s Myrtle Woldson Performing Arts Center should infuse listeners with the spirit of the season.
— SETH SOMMERFELDThe Blind Boys of Alabama • Sun, Dec 18 at 2 pm • $24-$99 • All ages • Myrtle Woldson Performing Arts Center • 211 E. Desmet Ave. • gonzaga.edu/mwpac
J J THE BIG DIPPER, The Fall of Troy, Strawberry Girls, The Color 8, Himiko Cloud
CHAN’S RED DRAGON ON THIRD, Thursday Night Jam CHECKERBOARD TAPROOM, Weathered Shepherds HIGHBALL A MODERN SPEAKEASY, Last Chance Band THE MASON JAR, Keva
J QQ SUSHI & KITCHEN, Just Plain Darin
J J SPOKANE ARENA, Holidaze of Blaze: Snoop Dogg, T-Pain, Warren G, Ying Yang Twins, Justin Champagne ZOLA, Desperate8s
J THE BIG DIPPER, Evergreen Afrodub Orchestra, Dreaded Warrior, Milonga, DJ Teej BIGFOOT PUB, WhiteNoise
J BLACK ANGUS STEAKHOUSE, Into the Drift Duo
BOLO’S BAR & GRILL, Loose Gazoonz
CHAN’S RED DRAGON ON THIRD, The Longnecks
CHINOOK STEAK, PASTA & SPIRITS, Steve Starkey
CURLEY’S, Dangerous Type
EICHARDT’S PUB, Headwaters
IRON HORSE (CDA), Royale
J LUCKY YOU LOUNGE, Lucky You Holiday Special MOOSE LOUNGE, The Happiness
NIGHTHAWK LOUNGE (CDA CASINO), Heather King Band OSPREY RESTAURANT & BAR, Jonathan Arthur
J PEND D’OREILLE WINERY,
THE
SPOKANE
BIGFOOT PUB, WhiteNoise
BOLO’S BAR & GRILL, Loose Gazoonz
CHAN’S RED DRAGON ON THIRD, Whack A Mole (Belly Dancers Show)
CHINOOK STEAK, PASTA & SPIRITS, Steve Starkey
CURLEY’S, Dangerous Type
INLAND KAVA BAR, Son of Brad
IRON HORSE (CDA), Royale
J LEBANON RESTAURANT & CAFÉ, Safar LUCKY YOU LOUNGE, Imagine Collective LUCKY YOU LOUNGE, Soul Proprietor, Jerry Lee Raines MOOSE LOUNGE, The Happiness OSPREY RESTAURANT & BAR, Land of Voices
There’s a case to be made that Mannheim Steamroller is the king of Christmas music. Led by composer Chip Davis, the instrumental neoclassical new-age group has had 14 Christmas albums crack the Top 100 on the Billboard charts, including eight that went platinum. Mixing jaunty rocking vibes with smooth synth infusions, Mannheim Steamroller became the only act that has two records among the top 10 best-selling Christmas albums of all time. Their arrangements are favorites among some families because they tend not to seem like stuffy old relics for the younger ones, while also not deviating too far from the traditional to alienate grandparents. Even nearly 50 years after the group’s formation, MS keeps (steam)rollin’ on.
— SETH SOMMERFELDMannheim Steamroller • Fri, Dec. 17 at 7:30 pm • $49-$94 • All ages • First Interstate Center for the Arts • 334 W. Spokane Falls Blvd. • firstinterstatecenter.org
J THE BIG DIPPER, Emo 2000 featuring Matty Mullins of Memphis May Fire, Dec. 26, 7:30 pm.
BING CROSBY THEATER, Meet Me in ‘23: A New Year’s Eve Party, Dec. 31, 6:30 pm-midnight.
LUCKY YOU LOUNGE, New Year’s Eve at Lucky You featuring Blake Braley, Dec. 31, 7 pm.
J HIGHBALL A MODERN SPEAKEASY, NYE in Highball with Storm Large & DJ Jade, Dec. 31, 8 pm.
J LYFE COFFEE ROASTERS & PUBLIC HOUSE, New Years Eve with the Sam Leyde Band, Dec. 31, 8 pm.
219 LOUNGE • 219 N. First Ave., Sandpoint • 208-263-5673
ARBOR CREST WINE CELLARS • 4705 N. Fruit Hill Rd., Spokane Valley • 509-927-9463
BABY BAR • 827 W. First Ave. • 509-847-1234
BARRISTER WINERY • 1213 W. Railroad Ave. • 509-465-3591
BEE’S KNEES WHISKY BAR • 1324 W. Lancaster Rd.., Hayden • 208-758-0558
BERSERK • 125 S. Stevens St. • 509-315-5101
THE BIG DIPPER • 171 S. Washington St. • 509-863-8098
BIGFOOT PUB • 9115 N. Division St. • 509-467-9638
BING CROSBY THEATER • 901 W. Sprague Ave. • 509-227-7638
BLACK DIAMOND • 9614 E. Sprague Ave. • 509891-8357
BOLO’S BAR & GRILL • 116 S. Best Rd., Spokane Valley • 509-891-8995
BOOMERS CLASSIC ROCK BAR • 18219 E. Appleway Ave., Spokane Valley • 509-368-9847
BUCER’S COFFEEHOUSE PUB • 201 S. Main St., Moscow • 208-596-0887
THE BULL HEAD • 10211 S. Electric St., Four Lakes • 509-838-9717
CHAN’S RED DRAGON • 1406 W. Third Ave. • 509-838-6688
COEUR D’ALENE CASINO • 37914 S. Nukwalqw St., Worley • 800-523-2464
COEUR D’ALENE CELLARS • 3890 N. Schreiber Way, Coeur d’Alene • 208-664-2336
CRUISERS BAR & GRILL • 6105 W Seltice Way, Post Falls • 208-446-7154
CURLEY’S HAUSER JUNCTION • 26433 W. Hwy. 53, Post Falls • 208-773-5816
EICHARDT’S PUB • 212 Cedar St., Sandpoint • 208-263-4005
FIRST INTERSTATE CENTER FOR THE ARTS • 334 W. Spokane Falls Blvd. • 509-279-7000
FOX THEATER • 1001 W. Sprague Ave. • 509-624-1200
IRON HORSE • 407 E. Sherman, Coeur d’Alene • 208-667-7314
IRON HORSE BAR & GRILL • 11105 E. Sprague Ave., Spokane Valley • 509-926-8411
JOHN’S ALLEY • 114 E. Sixth St., Moscow • 208-883-7662
KNITTING FACTORY • 911 W. Sprague Ave. • 509-244-3279
LEFTBANK WINE BAR • 108 N. Washington St. • 509-315-8623
LUCKY YOU LOUNGE • 1801 W. Sunset Blvd. • 509-474-0511
MARYHILL WINERY • 1303 W. Summit Pkwy. • 509-443-3832
THE MASON JAR • 101 F St., Cheney • 509-359-8052
MAX AT MIRABEAU • 1100 N. Sullivan Rd., Spokane Valley • 509-922-6252
MILLIE’S • 28441 Hwy 57, Priest Lake • 208-443-0510
MOOSE LOUNGE • 401 E. Sherman Ave., Coeur d’Alene • 208-664-7901
MOOTSY’S • 406 W. Sprague Ave. • 509-838-1570
NASHVILLE NORTH • 6361 W. Seltice Way, Post Falls • 208-457-9128
NORTHERN QUEST RESORT & CASINO • 100 N. Hayford Rd., Airway Heights • 877-871-6772
NYNE BAR & BISTRO • 232 W. Sprague Ave. • 509-474-1621
PEND D’OREILLE WINERY • 301 Cedar St., Sandpoint • 208-265-8545
THE PODIUM
RAZZLE’S
RED
THE
SEASONS OF COEUR D’ALENE
Unlike Terrain’s summer Bazaar that lines Main Avenue in downtown Spokane, its winter market invites visitors in from the cold to browse through thousands of pieces of local, handmade art inside River Park Square. It’s no coincidence that this market happens right before the biggest gift-giving holiday. If you need to snatch up any last-minute gifts before the big day, stroll across the mall’s three levels until something jumps out at you. The festive event also features more fun with food and drink vendors, as well as live music that’ll get you in the holiday mood and excited to be the person giving the most unique gifts at your holiday function.
— MADISON PEARSON
BrrrZAAR
• Sat, Dec. 17 from 10 am-8 pm • Free • River Park Square • 808 W. Main Ave. • terrainspokane.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.
No Christmas special is more iconic than A Charlie Brown Christmas It’s so delightfully sincere to watch Charlie Brown and Co. work through the issues of putting on a Christmas play and find a sense of (spiritually) unity. So the fact that the soundtrack for the animated classic somehow is just as beloved as the cartoon itself really says something about the timeless resonance of Vince Guaraldi’s jazz score. You simply cannot picture the kids and Snoopy skating around the ice or dancing on stage without hearing the tunes in your head. Musically transport yourself to that sonic comfort spot when Spokane Jazz Orchestra performs those classic arrangements.
*Heartwarmingly weak Christmas trees not included.*
— SETH SOMMERFELDSpokane Jazz Orchestra: A Peanuts Christmas • Sat, Dec. 17 at 7:30 pm • $27-$32 • Bing Crosby Theater • 901 W. Sprague Ave. • bingcrosbytheater.com
The Central Library’s new nxʷyxʷyetkʷ Hall space has hosted a wealth of community events since the library’s grand reopening in July. nxʷyxʷyetkʷ is a Salish word meaning “life in the water,” making it an apt location for the nonprofit Spectrum Center to host its Winter Indigiqueer Celebration. The event features activities such as an Indigenous creatives market, a round dance performance, Indigenous language learning classes, the premier of a short film about Two-Spirit identities and an open mic. Whether you go to expand your knowledge of diverse identities, celebrate your own identity or to support a friend, you’re sure to feel the tight embrace of a thriving and loving community.
— MADISON PEARSON
Winter Indigiqueer Celebration • Thu, Dec. 15 from 4-7 pm • Free • Central Library • 906 W. Main Ave. • spectrumcenterspokane.org
Need a jolt out of the too sweet holiday events cycle? Relentless Wrestling can help with a dose of pro-wrestling violence. Highlighting the festivities is “The Undead Bride” Su Yung (one of my favorite women wrestlers on the planet) in an intergender tag match with Sonico against Funnybone and Drexl. The card includes Aussie standout Adam Brooks battling Kris Brady and local hero Chase James squaring off with Vinnie Massaro, plus the night also features Relentless champion Keita’s “Birthday Extravaganza.” (Spoiler alert: No birthday party segment in pro wrestling history has ever gone smoothly — someone is getting beat up and almost assuredly will have their face shoved in cake.)
— SETH SOMMERFELD
Relentless Wrestling: Episode 12 • Fri, Dec. 16 at 7 pm • $30 • Trailbreaker Cider • 2204 N. Madson St., Liberty Lake • facebook.com/RelentlessPNW
There’s a warm, cozy comfort found in the familiarity of timeless holiday tales, which is no doubt why local theater groups (not to mention movie theaters and streaming services) set aside each December to rotate through the most beloved classics. So after you’ve taken in Scrooge at the Civic or Snoopy’s sounds at the Bing (see facing page), head to Liberty Lake for a take on Miracle on 34th Street. The 1947 black-and-white film about a little girl and one department store Santa is revived on stage as local actors take on roles of young Susan, jolly Kris Kringle and Susan’s realist mother, Doris. Even those who know the film well can enjoy seeing this fresh take — in three-dimensional, living color, no less! — on the heartwarming story about the magic of childhood and the power of believing in your dreams.
— CHEY SCOTT
Miracle on 34th Street • Through Dec. 18; Thu-Sat at 7 pm, Sat at 3 pm, Sun at 2 pm • $13-$15 • TAC at the Lake • 22910 E. Appleway Ave., Liberty Lake • tacatthelake.com
OUTSTANDING SERVICE FROM USPS
Riverside Station Spokane, U.S. post office customer service window, postal clerk Alex always has a beautiful smile for customers. She is outstanding in her professionalism, friendliness and patience, going the extra mile in serving, helping and answering questions. She is an outstanding representative of our Postal Service. Thank you, Alex, and have a very Merry Christmas and New Year!
COMCAST-XFINITY OUTSTANDING REPS
Xfinity-Comcast N. Division store, Spokane. Heather W. provides excellent customer service, is a good listener, patient in answering questions and explaining complicated technical issues. She also offers helpful tips and suggestions. At the East Buckeye store, Kevin B. also provides excellent customer service with the same attributes just described. Both are excellent representatives of Comcast. Thank you, both, and Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
HOLIDAY BLUES Work through the trust issues someday? Hopefully. Come back together again someday? That would be nice. Take things slower this time? Sure. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
A PRIVILEGE, NOT A RIGHT When on the road, a hand pointed downward at 45 degrees means the person in front of you is preparing to stop or slow down. A hand pointed straight out to the left means they are turning left. It doesn’t mean that
you should whip around them as fast as possible so that you nearly crash into them.
If you need a refresher, all of these signals are in a handy booklet. It’s called a driver’s guide, and you were supposed to have read and understood it before you tried to wield a potentially deadly piece of heavy machinery.
BEST OF BING We are so incredibly fortunate to have two treasures in Spokane. The Bing Crosby House and Museum is the first treasure. We went to visit during the open house and were taken back in time. The house feels just like Bing is still upstairs in his bedroom. The collection of memorabilia, gold and platinum records, and photos is simply incredible. The docents did a wonderful job of guiding us through Bing’s life, career and time in Spokane. But the highlight of the day (and the best treasure) was listening to Brad Rovanpera, a docent at the museum and a member of the board of Bing Crosby Assoc. He spent over a half an hour regaling us with amazing tales of Bing’s life, career, movie trivia and history. It was a magical day filled with songs, movies and memories. Thank you to the museum and Brad for such a fun day.
SPOKANE CIVIC THEATRE Shout out to the Spokane Civic Theatre and cast and crew of A Christmas Carol. I was so impressed with the performance, particularly that of the actor playing Ebenezer Scrooge. He was both funny and heartwarming. Incredible job!
GOOD PEOPLE I’m happy to see people reconnect again and reaffirm their friendships. Many of us have separated over the years because of political differences. I’ve never seen the fervor we’ve experienced over the last few years in my lifetime. I never really cared about political opinions we differed on and always enjoyed a brief conversation about it. We respected each other. Anyhow, I have returned to that, and many of my friends have too. We’ve only been hurting ourselves and each other. Please step back and realize this, we’re better off working together.
THANK YOU, ELECTION WORKERS! On behalf of the majority of grateful citizens, thanks to all the election workers who carry out the foundational work of our democracy. You do this despite low pay and the criticism of an obnoxious minority who
GQP Jeers to the local GQP leaders who’re following The Former
of proudly asexual perversions, this little boy authoritarian, be worthy of jeering? Because, Dear Relatively Sane Reader, now even you know he who he is.
SHOVELING SNOW INTO STREET OK Boomer!
GESTAPO AT CAMP HOPE What a waste of resources and taxpayers money, sending police and sheriffs into Camp Hope two days in a row! You can’t find any of them writing speeding tickets, stopping road
uses of essential oils and cat safety? Yes. Because I was planning to buy some but needed to know some things first. You could have stepped in asking for help when we were done or a brief pause... but no. You demanded service and honestly, shame on the employee for not handling that situation. If you find yourself pushing others out... don’t be shocked if and when they push or snap back. I’m so tired of literally being stepped on in this town, and I can’t help but think it’s racism.
great experiment” of representational democracy. TFG lost to President Joe Biden in 2020. The kindergarten teacher-turnedlegislator lost to highly qualified CPA Vicky Dalton in the 2022 race for county auditor; only those who value party over country (or county) would believe otherwise. Consider using this holiday season to take your losses, and contemplate the possibility of running qualified candidates for office in the coming new year.
RICHES BEYOND ALL UNDERSTANDING The wealth of material provided in the past few weeks to wannabe Jeers writers is obscenely rich. Donald the Terrible wants to rip up the U.S. Constitution. He tells the world he has a little crush on Hitler. And of course, Herschel Walker. Period. These gimmes for la comédie noire make choosing among them so difficult! But one horrifyingly bad joke stands out in the personae of Nick Fuentes, virgin prince of furious Incels, making a dangerous movement out of their impotent rage. Pull back the veils on the pock-marked, scraggly bearded faces of the men outraged because they can’t get a date or keep a wife, and see who’s contemplating the next violent crime against a female (or a female “impersonator”). Fuentes fuels their misogynist fantasies. This 24-year-old maiden denies the Holocaust, calls for the lynching of journalists, idolizes that old lecher Trump, admires the ruthless tactics of the Taliban, and has the hots for Putin. How could such a ludicrous combination
rage, taking care of nuisance neighbors, etc. Not sure we have a force in Nadineville, this is the first they’ve been seen in public!
RECALL NADINE WOODWARD Mayor parades law enforcement two days in a row in Camp Hope, scaring residents while not having enough shelter for them while people are being robbed in downtown Spokane and crime is rampant, terrible use of resources.
S’NO GOOD COMPLAINING 1. Of all things in this world to lose sleep over, you choose this? Man, you need help. Seriously! 2. Three of my neighbors who are homeowners and were born and raised in Spokane all do it, so I am going to do it. Let the plows take it away instead of piling up in our yards. In fact if you wish, the entire city could all take our extra snow, pile it in a big dump truck and dump it in your yard! 3. Get a decent year-round car instead of some low rider because you think chicks dig it. 4. I bet you’re one of those losers that doesn’t even clear your walk when it snows, at least there are city laws for that. 5. I’m finding out now that shoveling snow into the street will keep jerks like you out of my neighborhood, and I will encourage this practice! Thank you!
I’M A CUSTOMER TOO To the older white woman at Huckleberry’s, you’re entitled privilege was showing when you demanded service when the Huckleberry employee was helping me. Were we discussing
THANKS A LOT, CATHY Thank you, Cathy, for banning veterans from petitioning your offlce for help. Shame on you for turnlng your back on your constituents.
PEOPLE AND PETS If you can’t take care of pets, you don’t deserve to hold their lives under your thumb. For those of you moving up here from warmer climates, please understand that it gets cold here during winter and pets die in the cold. How would you like to freeze to death helpless? Please, PLEASE take care of your pets. n
JINGLE N’ MINGLE Emerging Leader Society and United Way host a familyfriendly event featuring warm drinks, food, unlimited carousel rides and a silent auction. Proceeds benefit the Children’s Home Society of Washington Dec. 15, 5-7 pm. $20. Looff Carrousel, 507 N. Howard St. unitedwayspokane. org/emergingleaderssociety
SANTA EXPRESS This holiday retail store for kids ages 4-12 offers a wide selection of gifts priced from $1-$10. Proceeds benefit Vanessa Behan. Open Mon-Fri 11 am-7 pm, Sat 10 am-7 pm and Sun 11 am-5 pm through Dec. 22. River Park Square, 808 W. Main Ave. santaexpress.org (509-415-3506)
JOSH WOLF Wolf is a stand-up comedian an author from Massachusetts. Dec. 15, 7:30 pm, Dec. 16-17, 7:30 & 10:30 pm. $20-$35. Spokane Comedy Club, 315 W. Sprague. spokanecomedyclub.com
HA!!MARK HOLIDAY SPECIAL Improvised satire of holiday movies. Fridays at 7:30 pm through Dec. 30. $8. Blue Door Theatre, 815 W. Garland Ave. bluedoortheatre.com (509-747-7045)
SAFARI: A fast-paced, short-form comedic improv show. Saturdays from 7:30-9 pm. $8. Blue Door Theatre, 815 W. Garland Ave. bluedoortheatre.com
HANS KIM The stand-up comedian has appeared on Kill Tony and has his own podcast. Dec. 21, 7:30 pm. $20-$28. Spokane Comedy Club, 315 W. Sprague. spokanecomedyclub.com
OPEN MIC STAND-UP Wednesdays at 7:30 pm. See website for details. Free. Spokane Comedy Club, 315 W. Sprague. spokanecomedyclub.com
HOLIDAY LIGHT SHOW This annual show features over a million lights along the floating boardwalk. Through Jan. 2. Free. Coeur d’Alene Resort, 115 S. Second. cdaresort.com/
CRESCENT HOLIDAY WINDOWS Five windows on the south side of the Grand display refurbished figurines from the former Crescent. Fri-Sat from 12-10 pm and Sun-Thu from 3-8 pm. through Jan. 2. Free. Davenport Grand Hotel, 333 W. Spokane Falls Blvd. davenporthotelcollection.com (800-918-9344)
ELF ON A SHELF COEUR D’ALENE Characters are hidden around downtown Coeur d’Alene. Find one to win a prize from Santa. Through Dec. 17. Free. cdadowntown.com
JOURNEY TO THE NORTH POLE A 40-minute holiday cruise across Lake Coeur d’Alene to view the holiday light displays and visit Santa. Daily at 5:30, 6:30 and 7:30 pm. through Jan. 2. $11.50-$26.50. cdacruises.com
KIDS HOLIDAY HUNT Look for secret words in 25 downtown locations. Collect 10 words and return your ‘passport’ to be entered to win prizes. Through Dec. 18, daily from 10 am-8 pm. Downtown Spokane. downtownspokane.org
MANITO PARK HOLIDAY LIGHTS Walk through Manito to see the holiday lights. Through Dec. 18 from 5-8 pm nightly. Free. Manito Park, 1800 S. Grand Blvd. thefriendsofmanito.org/
QUESTMAS VILLAGE This holiday event features a “glice” skating rink, photo ops and visits from Santa and his reindeer. Through Jan. 8. Northern Quest Resort & Casino, 100 N. Hayford Rd. northernquest.com
REINDEER EXPRESS Meet Santa’s reindeer before their big trip around the globe. Dec. 18-23 from 4-7 pm. Free. The Coeur d’Alene Resort, 115 S. Second. cdaresort.com (208-765-4000)
RIVERFRONT TRAIL OF LIGHTS Walk through Riverfront while being guided by a trail of holiday lights. Through Jan. 2. Free. Riverfront Park, 507 N. Howard St. riverfrontspokane.org
A celebration of Indigiqueer and TwoSpirit identities, with an Indigenous creatives market, round dance, Indigenous language learning, a short film by the Spectrum Center and an open mic. Dec. 15, 4-7 pm. Free. Central Library, 906 W. Main Ave. spectrumcenterspokane.org (509-444-5336)
WINTER MAKER’S MARKET & BOOK
FAIR Featuring locally made goods, vendor booths and a book fair organized by the Center for Children’s Book Arts. Dec. 15, 2-4 pm. Free. Liberty Launch Academy, 24001 E. Mission Ave. Suite 210. libertylaunchacademy.org
WINTER PALAA-ZA Visit a variety of local vendor booths, plus enjoy kids’ crafts/activities and holiday photo stations. Dec. 15, 4-7 pm. Free. CenterPlace Regional Event Center, 2426 N. Discovery Place Dr. facebook.com/SpokaneValleyFarmersMarket (509-688-0300)
CHRISTMAS GIFT WRAPPING Bring your gifts and Southside staff wrap them in paper and trim of your choice. Dec. 16-22, 9 am-4 pm. $5-$15. Southside Community Center, 3151 E. 27th Ave. southsidescc.org (509-535-0803)
NORTHWEST WINTERFEST The Pacific Northwest’s largest illuminated lantern display and cultural celebration. Fri 5-8 pm, Sat 4-8 pm and Sun 3-6 pm through Jan. 1. $10-$15. Spokane County Fair & Expo Center, 404 N. Havana St. northwestwinterfest.com
SFCC OTA CLUB SKATE NIGHT Spokane Falls Community College’s Student Occupational Therapy Association club is purchasing tickets for the first 25 people to enter Pattison’s North’s door. Skate with the club, learn about occupational therapy and support the club. Dec. 16, 8:30-10:30 pm. $7.50. Pattisons North, 11309 N. Mayfair St. pattisonsnorth.com
HORSE & CARRIAGE RIDES Free horse-drawn carriage rides through downtown Spokane provided by Wheatland Bank. Each ride lasts about 8-10 minutes. No reservations, standby only. Pick up at 15 N. Wall St. Fri from 3-8 pm, Sat-Sun from 12-5 pm through Dec. 24. Free. visitspokane.com
CAMPBELL HOUSE HOLIDAYS Explore the home at your own pace, enjoy the Christmas tree, decorations, a scavenger hunt and more. Dec. 17-21, 12-4 pm. $9-$14. Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture, 2316 W. First Ave. northwestmuseum.org (509-456-3931)
KRAMPUS DAY Stop in and take a picture with Krampus for Krampusnacht. Dec. 17, 11 am-5 pm. Free. Petunia & Loomis, 421 W. Riverside. petunialoomis.com
WONDER HOLIDAY MARKET The Wonder Building’s winter market features live music, arts/gifts, hot cocoa
and more. Sat from 10 am-2 pm through Dec. 17. Free. The Wonder Building, 835 N. Post St. wonderspokane.com
WRAPPING, BOWS & COCOA Get a free book to wrap and learn how to make a fancy bow for the top. Everything is provided; BYO wrapping paper if you’d like. Dec. 17, 2-3 pm. Free. Coeur d’Alene Public Library, 702 E. Front Ave. cdalibrary.org (208-769-2315)
A CONTEMPLATIVE CHRISTMAS... THROUGH TREES Walk through an indoor forest of decorated Christmas trees that tell the story of mankind and God, leading up to Christmas day and beyond. Dec. 18-23, 4-8:30 pm. Free. Undercliff House, 703 W. Seventh Ave. contemplativechristmas.com
ELITE WINTER DAY CAMP This video game camp allows kids to play competitive and social games together in an environment of good sportsmanship. Dec. 19-30, Mon-Fri from 9 am-4 pm. $175. Elite Gaming Center, 15312 E. Sprague Ave. elitegamingcompany. com (509-306-4313)
A SOLUTION TO HOMELESSNESS A lecture presented by former Spokane city CFO Gavin Cooley and former Spokane City Council President Ben Stuckart. Dec. 20, 6:30 pm. Free. Rockwood Retirement Community, 221 E. Rockwood Blvd. rockwoodretirement.org
WRAPPING PAPER PARTY & SWAP Decorate new sheets of wrapping paper and bring your old wrapping paper to swap and trade with others. Dec. 20, 6-7 pm. Free. Hillyard Library, 4110 N. Cook St. spokanelibrary.org (444-5331)
SPOKANE FOLKLORE SOCIETY’S CONTRA DANCE Dance to fiddle, guitar, piano and mandolin by regional musicians. Proof of vaccination and one booster required; mask wearing is optional. Every first and third Wed. from 7:15-9:30 pm through Dec. 21. $7-$10. Woman’s Club of Spokane, 1428 W. Ninth. spokanefolklore.org
WINTER MARKET AT THE PAVILION Shop local from local farmers, processors, artisans, hand crafters and vendors with the Spokane Tribe of Indians. Wednesdays from 3-7 pm through Dec. 21. Free. Pavilion at Riverfront, 574 N. Howard St. riverfrontspokane.org
CHANUKAH MENORAH LIGHTING This celebration includes a public menorah lighting, latkes, arts and crafts, face painting and live music. Dec. 22, 5-7 pm. Free. Riverfront Park, 507 N. Howard St. riverfrontspokane.com
CHRISTMAS CENTERPIECE FLORAL DESIGN CLASS Design a centerpiece for your holiday table using fresh flowers and greens. All materials provided, plus appetizers and wine. Dec. 22, 5-7 pm. $84-$104. Southside Community Center, 3151 E. 27th Ave. southsidescc. org (509-535-0803)
A FESTIVUS FOR THE REST OF US This Seinfeld holiday event includes the airing of grievances, music and drinks. Dec. 23, 6-8 pm. Free. Iron Goat Brewing Co., 1302 W. Second Ave. irongoatbrewing.com (509-474-0722)
KWANZAA TODAY & FOREVER Roberta and James Wilburn host a Kwanzaa celebration featuring music, dance, poetry and authentic displays of African American culture. Dec. 28, 6-8 pm. Free. Shadle Library, 2111 W. Wellesley Ave. spokanelibrary.org
THIRD THURSDAY MATINEE MOVIE: INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS Oscar Isaacs stars in the title role of this Coen Brothers film about the 60s folk music scene in New York and Chicago. Dec. 15, 1 pm. $7. Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture, 2316 W. First Ave. northwestmuseum.org
NATIONAL LAMPOON’S CHRISTMAS VACATION After failing to get the Christmas lights to work one last time, Clark Griswold takes his frustration out decorations in the front yard. Dec. 16, 7:15 pm and Dec. 24, 5:30 pm. $5. Garland Theater, 924 W. Garland. garlandtheater.com
DR. SEUSS’ THE GRINCH A grumpy Grinch plots to ruin Christmas in Whoville. Dec. 17, 7:15 pm. $5. Garland Theater, 924 W. Garland Ave. garlandtheater.com
PRECIOUS LEADER WOMAN & STEPPING OUT In addition to two screenings, the event includes a raffle and a social hour meant for networking. Dec. 17, 12-9 pm. Free. Chewelah Center for the Arts, 405 N. Third St. chewelahcenterforthearts.com (509-935-8832)
GREMLINS A young man inadvertently unleashes a horde of malevolently mischievous monsters. Dec. 19, 7:15 pm. $5. Garland Theater, 924 W. Garland Ave. garlandtheater.com (509-327-1050)
ELF After discovering he isn’t actually an elf, Buddy travels to NYC in search of his real family. Dec. 20, 7:15 pm and Dec. 24, 3:30 pm. $5. Garland Theater, 924 W. Garland Ave. garlandtheater.com
THE POLAR EXPRESS A young boy embarks on a magical adventure to the North Pole. Dec. 21, 7:15 pm and Dec. 24, 1 pm. $5. Garland Theater, 924 W. Garland Ave. garlandtheater.com
FIRESIDE DINNER & MUSIC SERIES
Enjoy selections from Arbor Crest’s seasonal menu along with wine and beer from Square Wheel. Music lineup varies, see website for more. Thu-Sat from 6-8 pm. Arbor Crest Wine Cellars, 4705 N. Fruit Hill Rd. arborcrest.com
TRUFFLE DINNER A five-course dinner featuring a menu centered around truffles from Washington, Oregon, France and Italy. Dec. 15, 5-11 pm. $250. Gander & Ryegrass, 404 W. Main Ave. ganderandryegrass.com (509-315-4613)
WEST END WINTERFEST Throughout the holidays, purchase a beer at all seven West End breweries and scan the brewery QR code. After scanning all seven, you’ll get an email for a special mug. Through Jan. 2. westendbeerfest.com
CHILI COOK-OFF Chefs show their stuff and compete in a chili cook-off. The public votes for the best chili. Dec. 16, 5-7 pm. $10. Southside Community Center, 3151 E. 27th Ave. southsidescc.org
BREAKFAST WITH SANTA Have breakfast with Santa and get photos before he goes back to the North Pole. Dec. 17, 9 am-noon. $5-$10. Southside Community Center, 3151 E. 27th Ave. southsidecc.org
CHRISTMAS TAMALES Make pork conchita and chicken chile verde tamales from scratch. Dec. 17, 1 pm. $75. Wanderlust Delicato, 421 W. Main Ave. wanderlustdelicato.com (509-822-7087)
KIDS’ BAKING DAY Book a 30-minute slot for up to four people and make a special holiday memory. All supplies
provided. Reservations must be made online. Dec. 17, 2-5 pm and Dec. 20, 9 amnoon. $40. Made With Love Bakery, 2023 W. Dean Ave. mwlbakery.com
BRUNCH WITH SANTA Includes crafts, cocoa and a visit with Santa. Brunch available for purchase. Dec. 18, 10 am-2 pm. $10. Ruby River Hotel, 700 N. Division St. bit.ly/RRH-Santa
WINTER MARKET Enjoy craft beer while supporting local makers, bakers and farmers. Third Sun. of every month from 2-4 pm through March 19. Free. Lumberbeard Brewing, 25 E. Third Ave. lumberbeardbrewing.com (509-381-5142)
KIDS DONUT DECORATING Kids can decorate a free donut to celebrate the start of Christmas break. Dec. 19, 11 am-1 pm. Free. Donut Parade, 2152 N. Hamilton St. facebook.com/donutparadespokane
JOYEUX NOËL WINE DINNER A sixcourse meal featuring salmon, beef bourguignon and flaky profiterole. Each course is paired with a wine and accompanied by live jazz music. 21+. Dec. 21, 6-9 pm. $100. Highball A Modern Speakeasy, 100 N. Hayford Rd. northernquest.com
WINTER WINE TOUR A guided walking tour with five stops to include local food, wine, beer, spirits and cocktail samples. Dec. 22, 2 pm. $85. wanderspokane.com
THE BEST OF CHRISTMAS Ellen Travolta’s annual evening of holiday music, laughter and stories, featuring Abbey Crawford, Molly Allen, Mark Cotter and Margaret Travolta. Thu-Sat at 7:30 pm; Sun at 5 pm through Dec. 18. $35. The Coeur d’Alene Resort, 115 S. Second. cdaresort.com/travolta-christmas-show
PIANIST TOM PLETSCHER Tom performs jazzy holiday selections at Masselow’s Lounge. Thu-Sat from 6-9 pm. through Dec. 31. Free. Northern Quest Resort & Casino, 100 N. Hayford Rd. northernquest.com (509-242-7000)
GOSPEL CHRISTMAS CONCERT An evening of Christmas gospel music and poetry with Yolando Kinlow and others. Dec. 16, 7-9 pm. Free. The Gathering House, 733 W. Garland Ave. gatheringhousespokane.faithlifesites.com
HOLIDAY CONCERT WITH PROJECT JOY Project Joy is a nonprofit composed of entertainers ages 50+. Listen to them perform instrumental holiday music. Dec. 17, 1:30-2:30 pm. Free. Shadle Library, 2111 W. Wellesley Ave. spokanelibrary.org
MANNHEIM STEAMROLLER CHRISTMAS A program celebrating Mannheim’s recent 35th anniversary since its first Christmas album with includes dazzling multimedia effects. Dec. 17, 7:30 pm. $45-$90. First Interstate Center for the Arts, 334 W. Spokane Falls Blvd. firstinterstatecenter.org (509-279-7000)
SPOKANE SYMPHONY HOLIDAY POPS
Featuring the Spokane Symphony Chorale and Spokane Area Youth Choirs, plus an audience carol singalong and a visit from Santa. Dec. 17, 7:30 pm and Dec. 18, 3 pm. Martin Woldson Theater at The Fox, 1001 W. Sprague. spokanesymphony.org
SPOKANE JAZZ ORCHESTRA: A PEANUTS CHRISTMAS SJO performs Christmas music of Vince Guaraldi, the man behind the music of Peanuts. Dec. 17, 7:30 pm. $27-$32. Bing Crosby Theater, 901 W. Sprague. bingcrosbytheater.com
CHRISTMAS CONCERT & SING-A-LONG The American Theatre Organ Society’s Dave Wickerham performs traditional
Christmas songs and carols. Dec. 18, 6 pm. Free. Spokane First Nazarene, 9004 N. Country Homes Blvd. (509-467-8986)
GLORY OF THE RADIANT DAWN The Palouse Choral Society performs carols, music from around the world and Camille Saint-Saëns’s “Christmas Ora.” Dec. 18, 4 pm. $8-$60. Simpson United Methodist Church, 325 NE Maple St. palousechoralsociety.org (509-332-5212)
MARK O’CONNOR: AN APPALACHIAN CHRISTMAS The three-time Grammywinning composer and fiddler performs arrangements of Christmas classics and more. Dec. 21, 7:30 pm. $32. Martin Woldson Theater at The Fox, 1001 W. Sprague Ave. foxtheaterspokane.org
DJ NIGHT ON THE ICE DJ A1 provides the tunes for themed nights, contests and more. Every Friday at 6 pm through Jan. 27. $7-$10. Numerica Skate Ribbon, 720 W. Spokane Falls Blvd. my.spokanecity. org/riverfrontspokane (509-625-6600)
MT. SPOKANE NIGHT SKI Ski in the dark on Mt. Spokane’s 16-lighted runs. Wed-Sat from 3-9 pm through March 11. Free. Mt. Spokane Ski & Snowboard Park, 29500 N. Mt. Spokane Park Dr. mtspokane.com (509-238-2220)
RELENTLESS WRESTLING 12 This match features Su Yung with Sonico against Funnybone and Drexl. The card includes Adam Brooks battling Kris Brady and Chase James squaring off with Vinnie Massaro, plus Relentless champion Keita’s “Birthday Extravaganza Dec. 16, 7 pm. $30. Trailbreaker Cider, 2204 N. Madson St. facebook.com/RelentlessPNW
MT. SPOKANE SNOWSHOE TOUR Learn the basics of snowshoeing during this guided hike on snowshoe trails around Mount Spokane. Pre-trip info sent out after registration. Fee includes snowshoes, poles, trail fees, instruction and transportation. Meet at Yoke’s in Mead. Dec. 17 and 18, 9 am-1 pm, $39. spokanerec.org
FOOTY ON THE BIG SCREEN Watch World Cup matchups on the Kenworthy screen. Concessions are available for purchase. Dec. 18, 7 pm. Free. The Kenworthy, 508 S. Main St. kenworthy.org
A CHRISTMAS CAROL As miserly old Ebenezer Scrooge falls asleep on Christmas Eve, three ghosts reveal the wrong doings of his life and what will happen if he continues his evil ways. Thu-Sat at 7:30 pm, Sun at 2 pm through Dec. 23. $10-$35. Spokane Civic Theatre, 1020 N. Howard St. spokanecivictheatre.com
MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET Kris Kringle gets a job as Macy’s Santa and unleashes waves of goodwill. Thu-Sat from 7-9 pm, Sat from 3-5 pm, Sun from 2-4 pm through Dec. 19. $13-$15. TAC at the Lake, 22910 E. Appleway. tacatthelake.com
NATIVE GARDENS A disagreement over a long-standing fence line soon spirals into an all-out war of taste, class, privilege and entitlement. Thu-Sat at 7:30 pm, Sun at 2 pm through Dec. 18. $10-$25. Spokane Civic Theatre, 1020 N. Howard. spokanecivictheatre.com
IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE Drawn Together Arts, in collaboration with The Art Spirit Gallery, presents a live radio play adapted by Joe Landry. Dec. 16 and 17, 7:30 pm. $20. The Art Spirit Gallery, 415
Sherman Ave. drawntogetherarts.com
THE SOUND OF MUSIC A heartwarming story based on the real-life story of the Von Trapp Family singers. Fri at 7 pm, Sat-Sun at 2 pm through Dec. 18. $12$16. Spokane Children’s Theatre, 2727 N. Madelia. spokanechildrenstheatre.org
A BIG BAND CHRISTMAS Spokane Valley Summer Theatre brings musicians and singers to perform songs of Bing Crosby, Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, Rosemary Clooney, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin and more. Dec 16-18; Fri-Sat at 7:30 pm and Sat-Sun at 2 pm. $25-$42. University High School, 12320 E. 32nd Ave. svsummertheater.com (509-368-7897)
TRADITIONS OF CHRISTMAS A Radio City Music Hall-style show that inspires audience members of all ages. Dec. 9-22, times and days vary. $23-$36. Kroc Center, 1765 W. Golf Course Rd. kroccda.org
26TH SMALL WORKS INVITATIONAL
This show and sale features works by over 100 artists, small enough to give as gifts this holiday season. Thu-Sun from 11 am-6 pm through Dec. 25. Free. The Art Spirit Gallery, 415 Sherman Ave. theartspiritgallery.com
AMERICAN IMPRESSIONISM: TREASURES FROM THE DAYWOOD COLLECTION This exhibition features 41 paintings from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, ranging from outdoor scenes to portraits. Tue-Sun from 10 am-5 pm through Jan. 8. $10-$20. Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture, 2316 W. First Ave. northwestmuseum.org (509-456-3931)
ART ROMANCES & MOLECULAR DANCES Community School students were asked to create original works of poetry and art to communicate concepts of chemistry. Mon-Fri from 8 am-5 pm through Dec. 30. Free. Chase Gallery, 808 W. Spokane Falls Blvd. spokanearts.org
CUP OF JOY Over three dozen artists from across the U.S. are featured in this annual show of ceramic vessels. Wed-Fri from 11 am-5 pm through Jan. 7. Free. Trackside Studio, 115 S. Adams St. tracksidestudio.net (509-863-9904)
FIBER & FANTASY Work by Diane Rowen-Garmire and Michele Mokrey. On display through Dec. 30. Free. New Moon Art Gallery, 1326 E. Sprague Ave. newmoonartgallery.com (509-413-9101)
LR MONTGOMERY PAINTINGS Montgomery’s original impressionistic landscapes bring the ambianc of the outdoors into the home. Open daily from 11 am-7 pm through Dec. 31. Free. The Liberty Gallery, Historic Liberty Building. spokanelibertybuilding.com (509-327-6920)
LILA SHAW GIRVIN: GIFT OF A MOMENT Living and working in Spokane since 1958, Lila Girvin has used vibrant color, form, and unassuming techniques with oil paint to explore new dimensions of feeling through ethereal, abstract paintings. Tue-Sun from 10 am-5 pm through March 12. $7-$12. Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture, 2316 W. First Ave. northwestmuseum.org (509-456-3931)
MEGAN ATWOOD CHERRY: PRECIOUS CARGO Cherry’s latest series combines painted wood, stone and fiber to create unique artwork. Mon-Thu from 9 am-4 pm, Fri from 10 am-2:30 pm through Jan. 27. Free. Boswell Corner Gallery at NIC, 1000 W. Garden Ave. nic.edu
ORNAMENT & SMALL WORK SHOW This annual show features small pieces of art and ornaments by local artists. Mon-Fri
from 10 am-5 pm, Sat from 10 am-4 pm through Dec. 23. Free to shop. Spokane Art School, 811 W. Garland Ave. spokaneartschool.net (509-325-1500)
SEASONS OF COLOR Original watercolors by local artist Gloria Fox. Wed-Fri from 2-7 pm, Sat from 12-4 pm through Dec. 31. Free. Craftsman Cellars, 1194 W. Summit Pkwy. craftsmanwinery.com
STEFANI ROSSI, SHANTELL JACKSON & HEATHER BERNDT: REMOTE A collection exploring themes and experiences common to many during the COVID-19 lockdowns. Thu-Sat from 4-7 pm through Dec. 31. Free. Terrain Gallery, 728 N. Monroe St. terrainspokane.com
SANTA PAINTING WORKSHOP Lon Hyatt guides participants through painting a classic Santa. Ticket includes all painting materials and a beer. Dec. 16, 6:30-9 pm. $45. Golden Handle Brewing Co., 154 S. Madison St. goldenhandle.org
SAP SMALL WORKS SHOW & SALE Artists featured this year include Kurt Madison, Margot Casstevens, Harry Mestyanek, Becky Busi and more. Fri-Sat from 12-8 pm through Dec. 31. Free. Saranac Art Projects, 25 W. Main. sapgallery.com
STAN MILLER An exhibition of artist Stan Miller’s egg tempera paintings in Miller’s home studio. Dec. 16-18; Fri 5-8 pm, Sat 12-6 pm, Sun 12-4 pm. 3138 E. 17th Ave., Spokane. Free. (509-768-9354)
BRRRZAAR Spokane’s largest, all-local art market features handmade items and artwork from 70 vendor booths. Local artists are selling clothing, jewelry, home goods, visual art and more. Dec. 17, 10 am-8 pm. Free. River Park Square, 808 W. Main Ave. terrainspokane.com
ELVES WORKSHOP Make cards and gifts for your loved ones and yourself this holiday season. Dec. 17, 12-4 pm. Free. Spark Central, 1214 W. Summit Pkwy. sparkcentral.org (509-279-0299)
EMERGE OPEN MIC NITE 3Hosts Willow Tree and Koda welcome all to share music, poetry, spoken word, etc. Third Thursdays from 7-9 pm. Free. Emerge, 119 N. Second St. emergecda.com
Jólabókaflóð is the Icelandic tradition of book giving. Celebrate with the CdA Library and pick up your free book through Dec. 23. Free. Coeur d’Alene Public Library, 702 E. Front Ave. cdalibrary.org
HANDS-ON POETRY This program invites youth and families to get creative with language through art and movement, no paper necessary. Fridays from 4-5 pm through Dec. 30. Free. Spark Central, 1214 W. Summit Pkwy. spark-central.org
SILENT WRITING PARTY A community event for writers with local author Sharma Shields. Dec. 17, 10-11:30 am. Free. Central Library, 906 W. Main Ave. spokanelibrary.org (509-444-5336)
DIANE SHERMAN: IN BORROWED SHOES A book launch event for Sherman’s new memoir told in 80 vignettes. Dec. 18, 2-4 pm. Free. New Moon Art Gallery, 1326 E. Sprague. dianesherman.net
STORYTELLING ADVENTURE CAMP Participants use their imagination to work in a team and create their own adventure book complete with illustrations. Dec. 20-22, Tue-Thu from 10 am-12 pm. Free. Spark Central, 1214 W. Summit Pkwy. spark-central.org n
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