Inlander 12/29/2022

Amit Arora and his wife Nalini Arora dance during a Diwali celebration in October at Q’emiln Park.

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EDITOR’S NOTE

I’m the fun one at the New Year’s party. The guy who asks about the best parts of your last year and what resolutions you have for the one ahead. It’s not that I’m trying to be annoying. I just really believe in the power of revisiting past triumphs and struggles as a way to learn from them and become a better person.

This issue of the Inlander does something like that. As we LOOK BACK ON THE LAST YEAR of our best and most favorite stories, we also are celebrating our home — the Inland Northwest. When we revisit tough stories, we’re reminded of the work we’ve all done together and the difficulties we’ve overcome. And of ones that may lie ahead.

Because that’s what we do at the Inlander. We celebrate what makes our region great, and we look for ways to make it a better place for all of us. I love this time of year for that reason. When we can celebrate our excellence, and seek ways to make ourselves better, happier and healthier. And better prepared for an unknown future.

Before we say goodbye to 2022, I want to first thank you, our readers, who make covering these sometimes joyful, sometimes sorrowful stories worth it. And I’d like to thank the entire Inlander team, but especially the reporters, editors and photographers for making this paper great. Together, we can make the world a better, happier and healthier place for all. See you next week, in 2023!

— NICHOLAS DESHAIS, editor

JO KOY WORLD TOUR

February 2 - 3

BLUEY’S BIG PLAY THE STAGE SHOW

February 8 - 9

First Interstate Center for the Arts

OUR PLANET LIVE IN CONCERT

Saturday, February 18

First Interstate Center for the Arts

First Interstate Center for the Arts

PHONE: 509-325-0634

Ted S. McGregor Jr. (tedm@inlander.com) PUBLISHER

Jer

EDITORIAL

Nicholas Deshais (x239) EDITOR

Chey

Derek Harrison (x248) CREATIVE

WHAT’S THE BEST THING THAT HAPPENED TO YOU IN 2022?

JORDAN MITCH

We moved our shop [The Small Biz Shoppe] into the mall. It’s helped a lot with sales and foot traffic.

Do you have any goals for 2023 that pertain to the store?

We’re actually expanding into an even larger space within the mall next year!

MATTHEW HUGHES

I played a show in London this year.

Woah. With a band? Solo? Solo. They even paid my way there.

ADVERTISING

Kristi

KATRINA BROWN

I finished my COVID quilt.

What exactly is a COVID quilt?

I started using my groceries to naturally dye raw silk during the pandemic. I turned all of the fabric into a patchwork quilt and even showed it at Terrain this year.

Tamara McGregor (x233) COMMUNICATION

Kristina

TERILYN NICOLLE

Actually being able to get together with family for the holidays after such a long break.

Are you looking forward to anything in 2023? My husband will be one year closer to retiring from the military, which is exciting!

KATIE AGER

Mine and my husband’s third kiddo here, Jack! [gestures to baby in a stroller]

Are you looking forward to anything in 2023? Having more outdoor family time; we like to go hiking together.

INTERVIEWS BY MADISON PEARSON 12/21/22, RIVER PARK SQUARE

Home for the Holidays

When

BY LAWRENCE B.A. HATTER

Earlier this month, the WBNA star Brittney Griner arrived home on United States soil after 10 months in Russian captivity. Moscow authorities arrested Griner in February 2020 on trumped-up cannabis-related charges and sentenced her to nine years in a penal colony starting in August. Griner’s release sparked criticism of the Biden administration, however, because her freedom was secured in a prisoner exchange that allowed the notorious arms trafficker Viktor Bout to return home to Russia. Dubbed the “Merchant of Death,” Bout was serving a 25-year sentence

for conspiring to provide arms to anti-U.S. terrorist organizations in 2011. An American citizen was free, but at what cost?

The Biden White House is by no means the first U.S. administration to face the challenge of freeing overseas Americans captives. In fact, the founders grappled with the problem of captiv-

Some critics charged that the price was too high for Brittney Griner’s prisoner swap. LORIE SHAULL/CC BY-SA 4.0 PHOTO

ity during the republic’s earliest days. Then, as now, American diplomats tried to resolve the tension between protecting the life and liberty of individual citizens and upholding broader U.S. foreign policy values.

In July 1785, Algerian corsairs captured two American merchant ships off the coast of Portugal, near the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea. The Algerians carried 21 Americans off to an uncertain captivity in Algiers. They had fallen victim to a longstanding practice among the Barbary States of North Africa (Tunis, Tripoli, Algiers and Morocco), who preyed upon foreign merchant shipping in the Mediterranean.

The American crews were the victims of independence. Europeans had long ago learned to cut deals with the local rulers to protect their sailors and cargoes from piracy. So long as American merchants were British subjects, they had enjoyed the protection that the British Crown had negotiated with the sultanates of North Africa. Now that the United States was an independent country, it was open season on Americans.

The Confederation Congress charged John Adams and Thomas Jefferson with securing the release of the Algerian captives. The two future presidents served, respectively, as ambassadors to Great Britain and France, and they were the nearest senior diplomats on hand to negotiate with the Barbary States in the 1780s. They failed. While the pragmatic Adams was prepared to pay to release the captives, Jefferson bristled at the ransom, favoring armed intervention by the brand-new U.S. Navy to force Algiers to let the sailors go. Jefferson believed that the Barbary States posed an existential threat to the peace and prosperity of the fledgling American republic that could not go unchallenged. With no deal in sight, the American crews remained in captivity and United States ships were still tempting targets for Barbary corsairs.

The captives languished in Algiers for over a decade. Some died. A couple managed to get their family and friends to raise the ransom money to pay for their freedom. The George Washington administration finally secured the release of the remaining captives in June 1796 by paying Algiers over $600,000 (approximately $13 million in 2022 money). It took the founders almost 11 years to strike a pretty lousy deal. Still, the surviving sailors finally came home.

Negotiating the release of political prisoners has never been easy. The deal to bring Brittney Griner home was far from perfect. Viktor Bout does not deserve to walk free. He is responsible for countless deaths as he trafficked in human misery for decades. Moreover, another U.S. citizen, Paul Whelan, who is falsely accused of espionage, remains in Russian hands. He will spend another Christmas apart from his family.

But releasing captives isn’t about what is just. It’s about what is possible. With little in the way of a navy, the United States was in no position to fight the Barbary States to secure the release of the captives in the 1780s. If Jefferson and Adams had paid up in 1786, the American sailors would have made it home 10 years earlier and for less money too.

Politics isn’t about the art of the deal. The German statesman Otto von Bismarck, hardly a liberal snowflake, was right when he described politics as the “art of the possible, the attainable — the art of the next best.” In an ideal world, the United States would not have to strike shabby deals with shady characters. But in this world, the Biden administration took the least bad option by exchanging Brittney Griner for Viktor Bout. n

Lawrence B.A. Hatter is an award-winning author and associate professor of early American history at Washington State University. These views are his own and do not reflect those of WSU.

isn’t about what

It’s about what is possible.

FIT TO PRINT

Wildcats, homelessness, labor battles, one shockingly normal election and more — here are our best stories from 2022

BY NATE SANFORD, DANIEL WALTERS AND SAMANTHA WOHLFEIL

Agood news story is not measured by likes, clicks, shares or any other tech-infused yardstick.

As journalists, we prefer to measure by impact, which is a slippery thing to quantify. Is telling the story of people dying in shabby, downtown Spokane buildings significant? Yes. And so is reporting on tribal scientists working to re-establish threatened wildcats. And digging into the continuing morass that is Camp Hope. And describing how national policy affects us locally.

In other words, journalism has meaning when it tells the stories of our community. And that’s what we’ve done. This year, the Inlander news team covered the most important issues of the day — from abortion rights to homelessness and from labor disputes to gun violence. We brought our investigative skills to topics others may have ignored, and told stories with precision and intention.

And we did it accurately and truthfully, as independent journalists working for a family-owned newspaper to make the world a fairer, more accountable place. (Oh, and for good measure, check out the list of our top stories from Inlander.com on page 10.)

WILDLIFE RESTORATION

At first glance, wild lynx look like adorable, oversized house cats with tufted ears and massive paws that allow them to run atop the snow hunting for hares. Despite their important role in Inland Northwest ecology, the wildcat species has been over-hunted and all but disappeared from the Washington mountain ranges where they once thrived.

The Colville Confederated Tribes are aiming to restore that balance within the Kettle Range, as their science team works to trap 50 lynx from Canada and

relocate them to the reservation over five years.

As we reported earlier this year, the team finished the first trapping season of the project, capturing nine lynx mature enough to be tagged and released in Washington. GPS collars have enabled the team to track most of the animals’ movements. Two of that first cohort died by late spring, but the others seem to be thriving along the backbone of the Kettle Crest, including one female that may have had kittens.

“Over the course of the year, we had two males and two females return to Canada,” said Rose Piccinini, the project’s lead biologist, in November. “One of the females traveled south again and has returned to the North Half” of the traditional reservation area.

The team got an earlier start for the second trapping season this fall, capturing and relocating 10 lynx before the end of November.

One interesting finding? Two of the captured lynx were runaways from the first group who made it something like 150 miles across the mountains and a major highway, says Richard Whitney, senior manager of the tribes’ wildlife division.

“One of the theories of why we didn’t have many lynx down here was just that the Kettles weren’t effectively connected to that population up there, they were cut off,” Whitney says, noting the Canadian highway was a major concern. “What we’re kind of seeing is these cats cross that with no problem.”

The project is one of several wildlife reintroduction efforts by the tribes. They’re also working to bring salmon back to parts of the Columbia and Spokane rivers. In May, the Colville Confederated Tribes, in partnership with other Inland Northwest tribes, released juvenile salmon outfitted with tracking devices at the base

of Chief Joseph Dam to start their journey out to the Pacific Ocean. If enough of those fish return to the dam as adults (roughly two to four years from now), it could help make the case for helping the species return to areas that were made impassable by dams. (SW)

CAMP QUAGMIRE

Earlier this month — to the horror of many local officials — Camp Hope celebrated its one-year anniversary.

What started as a small protest outside City Hall over a lack of low-barrier shelter space morphed into a political firestorm highlighting the region’s larger homeless crisis. This summer, the East Central homeless encampment had more than 600 residents — all crammed into one city block. The camp’s size made it the largest in the state, and possibly one of the largest in the country.

Camp Hope is smaller now. The Washington State Department of Transportation, which owns the land the camp is on, reports 198 residents. But the contentious debate over what to do about the camp hasn’t gone anywhere. The governor, mayor, county commissioners, sheriff, police chief, state attorney general, commerce director and other powerful officials have all been dragged into the fray.

Everyone says they want to see Camp Hope gone eventually — the question is when and how. The state government doesn’t want to clear the camp until there’s adequate shelter space for everyone. The city, county and local law enforcement are pushing to close the camp quickly, but their plans are tied up in lawsuits and constitutional questions about shelter space. Somehow, after more than a year, basic questions about Spokane’s shelter capacity are still the subject of debate.

The Colville Confederated Tribes are working to re-establish wild lynx in Washington. ERICK DOXEY PHOTO

Q Year’s Eve

Usher in 2023 at Spokane’s hottest N New Year’s Eve bash. The evening kicks off with cash and Reward Play giveaways, live music, dancing, and drink specials, followed by a grand celebration at midnight. And your night doesn't end there! The party continues well after the ball drops at Northern Quest.

After 12 months of fiery letters, lawsuits and dueling press conferences, Camp Hope looks less like an unsanctioned encampment and more like a disaster zone. It’s an ongoing humanitarian crisis: with a large white service tent, fencing, generators, floodlights, security patrols, mobile health services and hundreds of people — a majority of them originally from Spokane — preparing to spend another full winter in snow-covered tents. (NS)

DEATH AND MERCY

New Washington Apartments tenant Joseph Sargent isn’t the sort of person most people have sympathy for. He knows that. He’s a sex offender with a conviction for child porn. And before that, he served 20 years in prison for murder and arson. If it wasn’t for the troubled New Washington and Wolfe apartments, few places in society would take him.

“We’re like the dregs of society who end up here,” Sargent says.

The New Washington and Wolfe aren’t just home to sex offenders, but also to people with mental illness and drug addiction, and those in serious poverty. For some folks, the $450 rent here is all they can afford.

As part of our “Out of Reach” series on the housing crisis, we investigated the New Washington and Wolfe apartments this year. We discovered that 19 people died in these very low-income apartments over six years, including from heat exhaustion, drug overdoses and — in one case — murder.

By that standard, 2022 was a good year. Sargent isn’t aware of anyone in the New Washington Apartments dying. He says management has tried to make more of an effort to improve things, like by covering electrical outlets or fixing holes in the ceiling.

The shared bathrooms and kitchens are often worse than just messy. He says someone kept a raw turkey in the community kitchen, and even when it disappeared, the pool of turkey juice remained.

“There’s that red juice in there, like a big petri dish of salmonella, just brewin’ away,” Sargent says.

And there’s always a pest problem: bed bugs and mice. Sargent says that the owner put out sticky traps for the mice. But when Sargent saw one trapped and suffering in the kitchen, he tried to rescue it. Sargent killed his wife and is bothered by seeing a mouse suffer.

“Nobody sees the irony better than me,” Sargent says. “I’m like, ‘What happened to me?’” (DW)

TRAIN PAIN REMAINS THE SAME

This year, we sat down with local BNSF Railway engineer Shawn Blackburn and chatted with him about how an always-difficult but well-paying job — working on the railroad — had turned into a nightmare. The railroad had moved to a Kafkaesque scheduling system that charged employees “points” from a limited pool with each day taken off, and made it almost impossible to earn points back. And considering that schedules were always wildly unpredictable, it left him seriously sleep-deprived.

Since then, we’ve had months of contract negotiations, union votes, a strike threat and — most recently — federal legislation imposing a new labor contract in order to avoid disruption to the nation’s freight system.

The good news? “We did get a 14 percent pay increase,” Blackburn says.

The bad news? Pay wasn’t really the problem. “It’s a separate issue from their draconian attendance policy that they decided out of the blue to institute,” he says.

He says the new contracts do guarantee them one extra day of sick leave on their birthday.

“It’s peak season right now. That means there are a lot of trains bringing Christmas presents,” he says. “Last month I worked 240 hours on the train. I spent 150 hours in the hotel.”

Add on commuting time, and that’s more than 100 hours a week away from his family. But what else is he going to do?

“Maybe I can get to one of these coveted Holy Grail land of milk and honey [railroad] yard jobs,” Blackburn says. It used to be that jobs in the railroad yard were the worst of them all. It was monotonous and didn’t pay very well. But at least they have a predictable schedule.

“You basically switch boxcars around,” Blackburn says. “There’s a morning shift, there’s an afternoon shift, and there’s a night shift, and they have two set days off a week.” (DW)

VERY NORMAL ELECTION

In October, we reported on how the election denialism sparked by Donald Trump’s loss in 2020 was continuing to haunt local

TOP NEWS STORIES OF 2022 ON INLANDER.COM

1. “Lesley Haskell, wife of Spokane County prosecutor, calls herself ‘White nationalist,’ uses N-word as slur” Daniel Walters (Jan. 27)

2. “Sheriff Ozzie walks nonexistent homeless camp while talking Camp Hope, dirty politics” Nate Sanford (Sept. 28)

3. “As temps reach 104, Spokane orders WSDOT to remove cooling tent at state’s largest homeless camp” Nate Sanford (July 29)

4. “Spokane home values just skyrocketed and not everyone is happy about it” Nate Sanford (June 30)

5. “What we can learn from the 19 dead found over six years at Spokane’s Wolfe and New Washington apartments” Daniel Walters (Sept. 8)

6. “Some BNSF workers say a Kafkaesque scheduling system has turned railroad work into a dangerous nightmare” Daniel Walters (April 21)

7. “Umpqua Bank wants Washington’s Supreme Court to agree its executives are too important to be deposed” Samantha Wohlfeil (July 7)

8. “In bringing back wild lynx, Confederated Colville tribes hope to right historical wrongs and restore balance to wildlife on the landscape” Samantha Wohlfeil (Feb. 17)

9. “With limited access, neighbors and WSDOT both worry about proposed homes near Highway 195” Samantha Wohlfeil (March 24)

10. “Explosion of overtime boosted 11 Spokane firefighter salaries over the $200,000 mark” Daniel Walters (Feb. 4)

Shawn Blackburn, a Spokane-based engineer with BNSF Railway, in April. Months after we reported on rail labor issues, federal legislation was passed to avert a nationwidestrike. YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

elections — leading to self-appointed drop-box watchers, a flurry of public records requests and unfounded concerns about “mules” stuffing drop boxes with votes for Democrats.

But the election itself went off without a hitch. The armed vigilantes didn’t show up at local drop boxes, and a state-mandated audit found zero evidence of any errors in the vote counting process.

Retiring Washington state Rep. Bob McCaslin, a Republican who has flirted with election conspiracies in campaign materials, did end up paying thousands of dollars for a partial recount in his race against the incumbent county auditor, Vicky Dalton. But it changed the final results by exactly zero votes, and he still lost the race.

The election was still historic in other ways.

Two new seats were added to the Spokane County Board of Commissioners this year, bringing the total to five. In November, voters chose two Democrats to fill those seats. In doing so, they shifted the balance of power on a governing body that’s been solidly red since 2006. The two newcomers — Chris Jordan and Amber Waldref — will take office in January. They’ll struggle to overcome the Republican majority, but their presence is still likely to shake things up and bring more debate to the county government. (NS)

ABORTION RIGHTS SPLINTERED

Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court voted 5-4 to overturn Roe v. Wade, removing federal protections that for nearly 50 years ensured the right to an abortion in every state. The decision was groundbreaking enough that someone leaked a draft of the final version more than a month before the court officially published its ruling in June.

As we reported in May, the leaked decision elicited strong emotions from both abortion rights supporters and anti-abortion groups.

Protests quickly popped up across the nation, as many learned they might soon lose the ability to obtain an abortion in their state. Some worried about accessing safe health care should they miscarry or need help with unexpected pregnancy complications. Others questioned how the court could argue the Constitution doesn’t protect bodily autonomy and privacy.

At a protest in Spokane, a woman dressed as a handmaid (from Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel about forced pregnancy) said she felt like the fears that sparked the Women’s March after former President Donald Trump’s 2016 election had become a reality.

“Six years ago, when we had the Women’s March, people were like, ‘Oh, calm down. Don’t worry, this is never gonna be overturned. No one needs to worry about Roe v. Wade, that’s safe,’” she said. “Well, we were not overreacting, and this is exactly what happened.”

Meanwhile, anti-abortion groups cheered the decision, knowing their decades of efforts to restrict abortion had finally resulted in change. Pastor Ken Peters, who used to lead the Church at Planned Parenthood anti-abortion protests in front of Spokane’s health center, said the day he learned of the decision was “probably one of the greatest nights of my life.”

Several states, including Idaho, had already passed trigger bans to immediately ban abortion if Roe was ever overturned. (Many of those bans await court decisions.) Some also criminalized abortion, putting health providers at risk of fines and prison time.

Abortion remains legal in about half of the country, including in Washington state, which legalized the procedure before Roe, and is likely to see more patients arrive from out of state. (SW)

GUNS, GUNS, GUNS

In spring this year, a horrific string of mass shootings — including one that took the lives of 19 students and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas — highlighted the country’s grim relationship with firearm-related violence.

In response, students at Lewis and Clark and other Spokane high schools walked out of class and organized protests calling on elected officials to do something. Earlier this month, the threat reared its head again when a false active shooter threat terrified parents and sent Lewis and Clark into lockdown.

“FIT TO PRINT,” CONTINUED...

On a local level, some work has been done to improve firearm safety.

This summer, we reported how the Spokane Police Department had confiscated a record-breaking number of guns — mainly from people facing domestic violence protection orders. That work was aided by a domestic violence firearms analyst who was hired through a grant from the U.S. Department of Justice and works to follow up on protection orders and make sure people are actually complying when ordered by courts to surrender their guns. Local officials have touted the program’s success, and in September this year, the DOJ awarded an additional grant to continue the work. (NS)

FEWER BEHAVIORAL HEALTH BEDS

Unfortunately, this year didn’t bring as much financial strength for behavioral health care options as many would have hoped, considering how the pandemic exacerbated both mental health and addiction struggles.

As we reported in June, at least three behavioral health options in Spokane and Coeur d’Alene closed their doors after they struggled to make enough money and find adequate staff to support their services. At Kootenai Health, an inpatient addiction recovery unit closed along with outpatient adult behavioral health services. At Frontier Behavioral Health, a 16-bed voluntary inpatient stabilization unit closed.

and here we have fire season right around the corner,” Fisher said.

had been available for walk-ins downtown. By May 2022, they stopped providing other more intensive withdrawal management or “detox” beds in a county-owned building, because the rent grew too high. As we reported in August, STARS is remodeling its downtown center to offer detox in those 16 beds, and its sober living homes offer some flex capacity for treatment if sobering services are needed at the downtown site. (SW)

RED AND WHITE

For the past decade, Idaho has turned into a tussle between the far right and, well, everyone else. It’s often pretty evenly matched. During this year’s primary election, we reported on Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin’s decision to give a video message at the national conference of virulent racist — and future Trump dinner guest — Nick Fuentes.

Statewide, McGeachin and most of her allies were soundly defeated in the Republican primary, solidifying the dominance of Gov. Brad Little. But moderate Republicans didn’t dominate in Kootenai County. With the help of a powerful and broad range of grassroots, alternative far-right media outlets, the far-right Kootenai County Republican Party largely swept their elections.

At the same time, a coterie of internet-savvy white supremacists who’d recently moved to the area — including alt-right video-streamer Vince James and Charlottesville “Unite the Right” rally hype man Dave Reilly — actively stoked national fury about Pride in the Park. In the end, the rally for LGBTQ rights ended up being invaded by a U-Haul filled with masked “Patriot Front” White supremacists. Coeur d’Alene law enforcement ended up arresting them, charging them with conspiracy to riot.

As the year ended, the chaos hadn’t. Moderates and the rightwing trustees at North Idaho College threw the college into chaos, and the board had put its president on administrative leave — just months into his term. (DW) n

ROE REVERSAL

Abortion rights advocates took to the streets as part of the Bans Off Our Bodies protest in Spokane on May 14, following news that the Supreme Court would reverse 50 years of precedent protecting such rights.

ERICK DOXEY AND YOUNG KWAK PHOTOS

January Spa Special

Start the new year with a fresh manicure or pedicure at Spa Ssakwa’q’n. This January, guests who get an add-on with any nail service will receive a free Pedi Delight Instant Pedicure Sampler. Choose from our great selection of add-ons, such as our warming stones, anti-aging hand mask, CBD Infused Fizzing Soak and Mellow Moon, French Tips and more to get your free gift. Offer is valid January 1ST to January 31ST, 2023. While supplies last.

SMASHING SUCCESS

Freelance writer Elissa Ball at Rage Xscape on April 9 — doing her best to “BREAK SH!T,” as the rage room encourages. YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

CROSSING THE LINE

After a two-year break, Bloomsday returned on May 1, to the joy of many runners like elite women’s runner Carre Hamilton. ERICK DOXEY PHOTO

HOPE BEYOND HOPE

FUNGUS AMONG US

FURNITURE AFFECTION

Rob McFarland holds Lion’s Mane and Black Pearl King Oyster mushrooms at Far Land Fungi in Medical Lake on March 7. ERICK DOXEY PHOTO

Camp Hope resident Chris Senn walks through the East Central Spokane camp on Oct. 13. At one point, the encampment housed more than 600 people, making it the largest in the state. YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

REACHING FOR THE SKY

Mandela Kalu dunks the ball at the Hoopfest Slam Dunk competition on June 25 in downtown Spokane. ERICK DOXEY PHOTO

Ryan Flanery, sanding a Herman Miller DCM chair, revitalizes vintage furniture at his store, Howard House on Jan. 24. YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

CELLENT

ZEAL FOR THE ZAGS

CIVIC DUTY

Fans celebrate in the Kennel when Gonzaga defeated Saint Mary’s 74-58 on Feb. 12. ERICK DOXEY PHOTO

EGG-

Beth LaBar holds Ethel, her Red Star chicken, on July 21. Backyard flocks provide ecological benefits and lots of eggs.

YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

Containers of empty ballots at the Spokane elections office on Oct. 13. ERICK DOXEY PHOTO

CATERING TO ALL TASTES

IT’S A DINGER!

Culinary arts students Jacob Thueringer (left) and ShamRae Strain serve customers on March 22 at Orlando’s Restaurant on the Spokane Community College campus.

YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

Spokane Indians catcher Colin Simpson hits a home run against the Everett AquaSox on June 24 at Avista Stadium. ERICK DOXEY PHOTO

END GUN VIOLENCE

High school students listen to a speaker during a rally against gun violence at Riverfront Park on June 4 — 11 days after the Uvalde, Texas shooting at an elementary school.

SPO-CANVAS

Jiemei Lin paints her mural on Sept. 16 at the Warren building near the university district, contributing to Spokane’s stock of public art.

SEEKING SHELTER

REASON FOR THEATER SEASON

YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

Jamie Boyd (right) and Gabe Graham relax at their Latah Creek camp on Sept. 10. They lost their apartment in April after the sudden death of her son. ERICK DOXEY PHOTO

ERICK DOXEY PHOTO

The cast of Terrence McNally’s Corpus Christi posing as the “Last Supper” at Stage Left Theater on Jan. 9. YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

A COLLECTIVE RETROSPECTIVE

Our arts and culture writers reflect on their favorite and most meaningful stories of 2022

BY INLANDER STAFF

When looking back at 2022’s highlights from the region’s creative movers and shakers — the artists, actors, musicians, writers, thinkers, makers, athletes, community organizers and so many others — it’s becoming harder to recall that it wasn’t so long ago when our world was completely upended by a global pandemic. This year, we finally saw the return of many cherished inperson performances and events, like Terrain’s flagship arts showcase in October. We celebrated collaborations and renovations, but also mourned death and disappointment.

Looking back on the year that was, our core arts and culture writing team accomplished a lot. We had a blast, too, and it was our sincere privilege to bring the following 12 stories to Inlander readers around the region. (To re-read these stories online, visit Inlander.com/culture, or search our archives at Inlander.com/issuearchives.)

— CHEY SCOTT, Inlander Arts & Culture Editor

RURAL RESTORATION

Historic preservationists in rural communities across Eastern Washington race against time to save old buildings, Jan. 13 Around this time last year, I had just finished compiling months’ worth of reporting into this five-piece cover story on efforts across rural Eastern Washington to restore and preserve historically significant buildings.

Throughout fall 2021, I drove around to these small towns to hear about projects like Austin and Laura

Storm’s vision for the 130-year-old St. Ignatius Hospital in Colfax, and a communitywide effort to save Depression-era bunkhouses in LaCrosse. Closer to home, a nonprofit in Cheney had recently raised enough money to move and preserve its historic passenger train depot, set to become a museum and multiuse public space. I also learned about a decade-plus of careful restoration work at Harrington’s Hotel Lincoln, aka “the Electric Hotel,” led by Karen and Jerry Allen. The fifth building profiled, Palouse, Washington’s St. Elmo Hotel, still waits for the right buyer to come in and attempt to bring it back to life.

The Allens, meanwhile, just celebrated the opening of a retail storefront, The Mercantile in Harrington, on the hotel’s first floor, offering locally made goods. And this summer, the Storms were able to finally replace St. Ignatius’ deteriorating roof, which had threatened the integrity of the entire structure and was a first major step in saving it. (CHEY SCOTT)

MOM AT THE MAC

A Stained Glass Mom’s Take on the MAC’s Tiffany Exhibit, Feb. 8 When I saw that the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture would host “Louis Comfort Tiffany: Treasures from the Driehaus Collection,” I knew I had to take my mother when she visited town. After all, she’s a stained glass artist herself.

Going through the exhibit and hearing her perspec-

tive on Tiffany, the history of stained glass and the modern troubles for the medium brought it all to life with insight that even an ace tour guide wouldn’t have been able to provide. While most folks would probably wander through such an exhibit merely taking in the artistic beauty, she would marvel at the specific skills, effort and work it requires to actually make these things. It recentered things. Art is ethereal, but there’s plenty of tactile humanity poured into a creation before it reaches its final state. (SETH

SOMMERFELD)

FOR ART’S SAKE

Across disciplines, local artists and cultural organizations are emerging from the pandemic a little wiser and with renewed zeal, April 14 If ever there were a testament to the resilience and the resourcefulness of the local arts community, this would be it. Despite pandemic-related setbacks that completely upended every stage of the creative process across every discipline, artists managed to find new ways to support one another, to derive strength from hardship and to reach their audiences. Make no mistake: It’s going to take a long time to recover from the havoc caused by COVID. Many of the old certainties have been shaken to their foundations. But as the artists, advocates and organizers who I interviewed collectively point out, each obstacle they faced was also an opportunity for growth and rethinking the status quo. (E.J.

IANNELLI)

Musician Devonte Pearson took the pandemic years to expand his skillset.

YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

HECK YES!

Jon Heder reflects on the “boom” of Napoleon Dynamite as he readies for Spokane visit, April 14

When Napoleon Dynamite came out in 2004, it was an immediate cultural phenomenon. You could hardly find a corner of the internet that didn’t mention voting for Pedro or tots. That was 18 years ago, and the film is still widely loved today. Shortly after this story came out, Jon Heder, who plays the movie’s titular character, and Efren Ramirez, who portrayed his sweaty bestie Pedro, gathered local Napoleon lovers at the Fox Theater for a screening of the film.

Heder made it very clear during my interview with him that he’s not ashamed to be known as Napoleon Dynamite: “I hope that we can bring in a new generation of Napoleon lovers. It changed my life and so many others, it’s such a special thing.”

(MADISON PEARSON)

SCOOT ON OVER

Meet the Mild Riders, Spokane’s chillest (and only) scooter gang, May 19

On an unusually chilly spring day, I pulled on my winter parka to whiz through Spokane’s West Central neighborhood on the back of a scooter for this delightful piece on the city’s fledgling “scooter gang,” the Mild Riders. While the group is currently on a winter hiatus (do they even make snow tires for scooters?) its members meet weekly during warmer weather for group rides around the region, often led by founders Tiffany Patterson and Ruben Villarreal.

“You absolutely cannot have a bad time riding a scooter,” Patterson says in the story. “I think if people tried it once, there would be a lot more people on scooters.” (CHEY SCOTT)

MONUMENTAL UNDERTAKING

A North Idaho man joins unique U.S. military-led effort to protect and preserve global sites and objects of cultural significance, June 30 Three years is a long time to track a story, but what a story — a monumental one with international derring-do, rare artworks and a local Boy Scout-turned-soldier. This piece shares the route North Idaho’s Tyler Douglass Lowe took to becoming a member of the Monuments Men and Women, a group of art historians and other academics working with the U.S. military that began during World War II and continues to be tasked with preserving objects of cultural heritage in potentially dangerous situations.

“All descriptions point to this being a physically demanding role in sometimes really stressful environments” Lowe told us. “We kind of joke about it, but we are having to prepare ourselves to be nerdy Rambos.” (CARRIE SCOZZARO)

RENEWED

The Central Library welcomes the public for the first time in over two years, and it’s been well worth the wait, July 14

Nearly four years after a $77 million bond was approved, Spokane Public Library’s downtown branch, now dubbed the Central Library, welcomed the public back into its newly renovated halls in July 2022. While walking through the building just a few days before the grand opening event, I realized just how much thought went into the renovations. Libraries aren’t just for housing books; libraries are a space that members of the public use to connect with one another. Since reopening, the Central Library has been a hub of community and culture within the downtown area. Use your public libraries! (MADISON PEARSON)

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Zooming through town with the Mild Riders. ERICK DOXEY PHOTO

A LONG-AWAITED RETURN

Terrain’s flagship event is back after a two-year pause, showcasing more local art than ever, Sept. 22

COVID put a major damper on the arts scene, but in 2022 we finally saw the light again. Terrain’s flagship event came back in full swing after a two-year hiatus, highlighting more local art than ever before. While reporting for this story, I fully understood the impact that Terrain, as an organization and an event, has on the local art community.

“In this new normal that we’re living in it’s more important than ever to the soul of the city to support local artists,” Terrain’s operations director Jackie Caro says in the story. “We need to invest in and support our creative community in a significant and meaningful way. Terrain accomplishes that.” (MADISON PEARSON)

STILL IN PLAY

After 40 years as the Civic’s playwright-in-residence, Bryan Harnetiaux continues to turn out new work, Sept. 22 Two incidental observations stand out from the long conversation I had with Bryan Harnetiaux that informed this article. One: Informed, civil (well, mostly), honest analysis of local work was once a regular part of the general cultural conversation in Spokane and, along with strengthening artists’ work through feedback, it made for some amusing anecdotes. And two: Spokane has a richer history of progressive artistic collaboration than we might give it credit for. A detail that didn’t make it into the story is how proud Bryan is of his daughter Trish, who’s not only followed in his footsteps, but has even topped his success as a playwright. (E.J. IANNELLI)

DEARLY DEPARTED

Spokane painter Mel McCuddin passes away at the age of 89, Sept. 27 Art has the power to impact us profoundly. So do artists. We marvel at their unique way of seeing and interpreting the world we all live in. We wonder what motivates them, why they do what they do. As an arts writer, I get to ask these questions and more, including of the incomparable Mel McCuddin, whose painting career dated back seven decades. In September 2022, McCuddin passed away not entirely unexpectedly, which allowed me time to ask questions of McCuddin’s many admirers. I hope I did his story justice. I hope

it brought our readers who knew him some closure. And for others, I hope it impacted them just a little. (CARRIE SCOZZARO)

WOE IS THE MARINERS FAN

The Seattle Mariners Flip the Script Over Wild Card Weekend / The Seattle Mariners and the Numbness of Nothing, Oct. 10 & 17

The joy and agony of sports fandom is enough to give supporters the emotional bends. Perhaps never was this more clear than when the Mariners had both their biggest wins and most crushing defeats in 20-plus years over the course of one week.

First, the team made one of the more improbable comebacks in baseball history, rallying to erase an 8-1 deficit to eliminate the Toronto Blue Jays from the Wild Card round. It was the type of thing long-sufferings M’s fans couldn’t even dare to dream could happen. That type of magic just doesn’t happen for us

But the bliss wouldn’t last long, as the Mariners were swept out of the playoffs by the Houston Astros the following week, losing three straight games, all of which they probably should’ve won. The final jawbreaking blow came in agonizing fashion, as the first home playoff game in Seattle in two decades — which I trekked across state to attend — saw the Mariners score zero runs over 18 excruciating innings. One could only feel numb watching a doubleheader’s worth of nothing to send a magical season out with a whimper. At least we still have Julio… (SETH SOMMERFELD)

COYOTE, COME HOME

Josephine Keefe is paying homage to her family and tribe with a revival of According to Coyote, Oct.13

Highlighting just one of the dozen or so productions I’ve ended up covering this year — among them Hamilton, Hadestown, Pass Over and Rocky Horror Show — wasn’t easy, but According to Coyote is noteworthy for several reasons. The play isn’t just introducing new audiences to the legendary Native American figure of Coyote. Josephine Keefe is also honoring the legacy of her late uncle, the Nez Perce playwright John Kauffman, through its revival. Furthermore, this production of According to Coyote has largely been possible through the collaborative effort and talents of the Indigenous community, from organizations like Red Eagle Soaring to its remarkable one-man cast, Kellen Trenal Lewis. (E.J. IANNELLI) n

TOP ARTS & CULTURE STORIES OF 2022 ON INLANDER.COM

1. “Meet three local makers repurposing vintage fabric, quilts and clothing into sustainable, on-trend pieces” Chey Scott (May 12)

2. “The bittersweet end of the Chet Holmgren era at Gonzaga” Seth Sommerfeld (March 28)

3. “Jay Mohr on addiction, stand-up and why he named his newest special after a deadly Rolling Stones concert” Dan Nailen (Feb. 24)

4. “The nine worst new TV series of 2022” Bill Frost (March 3)

5. “The resonance of Hamilton in 2022 as the Broadway phenomenon makes its Spokane debut” Seth Sommerfeld (May 6)

6. “On loving the Seattle Mariners, even when it seems like a terrible idea” Mike Bookey (April 7)

7. “Shrek, sharks and Kung Fu Panda: Spokane becomes the first U.S. destination for new Dreamworks Animation exhibit” Madison Pearson (April 14)

8. “Drew Timme and the real problem with the transfer portal” Seth Sommerfeld (April 8)

9. “Historic preservationists in rural communities across Eastern Washington race against time to save old buildings” Chey Scott (Jan. 13)

10. “Author Leah Sottile discusses her deep dive into two dead children in Idaho, and where extreme religion meets extreme conspiratorial fervor” Dan Nailen (June 23)

COLLECTIVE RETROSPECTIVE,”

Kellen Trenal Lewis performs in According to Coyote. YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

THE MUSTACHE ABIDES

One man’s shaggy adventures in not shaving

BY NICHOLAS DESHAIS

Ihave a mustache.

Not the Burt Reynolds or Tom Selleck type. Not Ron Swanson, Groucho Marx or Clark Gable. Not Dali or Twain. It’s not the creepy type, either, I think. It’s more of a Sam Elliott. But instead of gracing the face of a charismatic actor with a honey-drenched baritone, it abides on mine.

It is shaped like a horseshoe, but I’m no cowboy. I prefer the bicycle to the horse, so I like to think my facial hair resembles more of a handlebar. In these cold days of winter, as my trusty steel steed lies in wait in the cold garage, I can look in the mirror and be reminded of warmer days in the saddle.

It may sound strange to seek some sort of physical commonality with a machine, but it is what it is. I love my bike, and I love growing facial hair.

In my 25 years as a follicle-capable person, I’ve grown and shaved the gamut. In the late ’90s, my upper lip was largely bare, but I could grow one of those chin-only goatees so ubiquitous back then. It seemed like a grungy, rocker sort of thing to do. An act of rebellion and, for me, an act of proving that I was a member of the hirsute set. Now, alas, the goatee is anything but rebellious. More of a dad look than a radical one.

In the aughts, I had mutton chops. At my shaggiest, I was asked to appear on morning television to talk about a story I’d written. I showed up at 5 am, and the looks on the faces of those gleaming, styled broadcast journalists said it all. A werewolf

was in their midst, and they had to put him on air. I was great. Didn’t howl once.

A decade ago, I inadvertently crested hipsterdom as I let my freak face fly. I’d left a newspaper job and was freelancing. The hair grew and grew. It grew down and out to the sides. Without exaggeration, nearly everyday someone — almost exclusively men — told me how great my beard was. Some actually grabbed it and tugged. My wife feared I would never shave, but she remained supportive of this unshaven undertaking. Until she could no longer take it, and told me I was beginning to look too much like her father. I shaved.

The first few times I sported a mustache was as a joke. A brief, minuteslong fling as I removed a beard, or took a razor to a days-old five o’clock shadow. I’d laugh and pose in the mirror before lathering up and scraping it off. It was not yet fit for the world.

The first time I kept it, however, I was smitten. I’d grown old enough to see the charm in a mustache, shedding decades of anti-stache propaganda as I embraced the true potential of being a man with hair on his face. My wife again had my back in this brave endeavor, but my mom told me I looked like a creep. So I kept it long enough to see myself in photos, when I thought, “Who let me keep this on my face?” It, again, was gone.

This current iteration I’ve had for nearly a year. It came from a trim beard, which too became the victim of a photo of me and all that gray hair that is colonizing my once luxurious, brunette beard. But not above my lip. So, yes, I have a mustache because I’m vain about my (prematurely! I swear!) graying head.

So the mustache abides. My vanity won’t go away, but I’m not concerned. I’m not out to please the world. No, I’ve got a handlebar. Just like my bike. n

THE BUZZ BIN

EXPANDING TIME TRAVEL

With its trippy comedic take on time travel and the multiple versions of one’s self it’d create, Spokane-made sci-fi short TIM TRAVERS & THE TIME TRAVELER’S PARADOX was a favorite at last year’s Spokane International Film Festival, and has gone on to win awards at other fests. This month, writer/director and EWU alumnus Stimson Snead has been back in Spokane shooting Tim Travers as a feature film. After visiting the set, it looks like the full-length version could be a blast, with Samuel Dunning back to play many wild versions of the titular Tim and a host of very recognizable Hollywood faces (whose names can’t be announced yet) joining the fray to expand the scope of the story. (SETH SOMMERFELD)

PEDALING TO GOLD

With cowbells ringing and beer surely slinging, Tom Ryse won gold earlier this month at the 2022 USA CYCLING CYCLOCROSS NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS in Hartford, Connecticut. Ryse runs the School of Cross in Spokane, which coaches youth in cyclocross, a type of cycling that typically takes many laps around the same short course involving pavement, wooded trails, mud and other obstacles. To take gold this year, Ryse finished 30 seconds ahead of the second place finisher in the age 55-59 category, but almost a full four minutes faster than his time last year, when he took the bronze. (NICHOLAS DESHAIS)

COLOR IN THE STATIC

Don DeLillo’s 1985 classic postmodern novel White Noise has long been thought of as one of those unfilmable books. Undeterred, Oscar-nominated director/screenwriter Noah Baumbach decided to give it a crack. Baumbach’s WHITE NOISE (on Netflix Dec. 30) certainly doesn’t reach classic status, but it feels like an interesting departure from his usual New York intelligentsia fare. The comedy/ drama leans on over-the-top ’80s absurdism, as a professor in Hitler studies (Adam Driver) sorts through the strange behavior of his wife (Greta Gerwig), capitalist modernity, and existentialism after an airborne toxic event forces his family to flee home. Some notes of the narrative’s structure and the Day Glo, Wes Anderson-lite aesthetics don’t work, but at least the film swings big. (SETH

SOMMERFELD)

YEAR IN REVIEW

The Three R’s

Looking back in 2022, the local restaurant scene saw growth, creativity and community

BY CARRIE SCOZZARO

Resilience, resourcefulness, relationships. These could easily be the core themes of the past couple years in the local dining and hospitality industry, which continues to deal with staffing and food sourcing issues, plus the specter of rising costs. Even nearly three years since the COVID pandemic’s onset, many local eateries continue to tweak their operations, such as by adding outdoor dining and takeout options, in response to pandemic-related challenges.

While 2022 saw the closure of several beloved establishments, like Azars Restaurant in North Spokane, there’s been even more new restaurant debuts, plus existing venues expanding their brand and geographic footprint. The past year has also seen a renewed emphasis on relationships, both from a business and consumer standpoint — especially eating and supporting local places as a kind of investment in community. What follows are highlights of what we ate, drank and wrote about in the Inlander’s food section during 2022, organized by general areas of the region.

DOWNTOWN SPOKANE

The downtown Spokane core has come alive again with new places to eat, drink and gather. Located near Riverfront Park, wet your whistle at THE WET WHISTLE,

which has you covered with coffee in the morning to cocktails at night.

Additional drinking establishments nearby include PURGATORY CRAFT BEER & WHISKEY BAR, a new spot that boasts 650 whiskeys and spirits. A little ways across town you’ll find COMMON LANGUAGE BREWING COMPANY, a kid- and dog-friendly place featuring beers made from locally sourced grains, hops and fruits, in addition to rotating guest taps for Washington-made ciders and wines.

Looking for a full meal downtown? Check out THE NEW 63 SOCIAL HOUSE & EATERY in a historic building formerly known as the home of Rocky Rococo Pizza and Pasta, but now offering an eclectic menu of Asian-fusion inspired and vegetarian dishes, craft cocktails and scratch-made pizzas.

Downtown diners may have been sad to see Incrediburger & Eggs close in mid-2022, but it was only temporary, as chef-owner and Eat Good Group founder Adam Hegsted quickly rebranded the space as DE ESPAÑA, serving Spanish-inspired small plates, cocktails and entrees like paella, the national dish originally from Valencia, Spain.

Head slightly north across the Monroe Street Bridge to discover several eateries in both familiar and new loca-

tions. Chef Travis Tveit opened CHOWDERHEAD in the corner spot formerly known as Ruins, offering breakfast-through-early-dinner options like his chopped cheese sandwich and, of course, assorted chowders.

Nearby, the Wonder Building welcomed several new eateries, including VICTORY BURGER, which replaced Bosco Pasta and Panini; both are projects of Seattle’s Ethan Stowell Restaurants. Chef Chad White also replaced his shuttered High Tide Lobster Bar with UNO MÁS TACO SHOP. Although his initial lobster bar on Riverside Avenue remains closed, White has also since added a second Uno Más location in Spokane Valley.

Down the road from the Wonder, the Papillon Building at the northwest corner Riverfront Park is aflutter with two new venues, including OUTSIDER, which highlights farm-to-table foods and the culinary expertise of chef-owner Ian Wingate. And opening in the Papillon just weeks before year’s end is KASA RESTAURANT & TAPHOUSE, an elevated fast-casual spot.

Heading west from the bridge, on the border of Kendall Yards and West Central, UPRISE BREWING has quickly ascended to a favorite spot for families and friends to gather for craft beer and a flavorful menu of elevated street food.

A sampling of eats (and a drink) from the New 63, Victory Burger, Outsider and Birrieria Tijuana. YOUNG KWAK PHOTOS

NORTH SPOKANE

In Spokane’s Audubon-Downriver neighborhood, RADIO BAR opened in spring, offering craft cocktails and a small, but thoughtful, menu of shareables and lunch-type items.

Over in the Logan neighborhood, meanwhile, BIRRIERIA TIJUANA had everyone talking about birria when Fredy Zavala opened the first Spokane location of his popular chain in June. Nearby, INDIGENOUS EATS made history as the area’s first Native-inspired eatery, serving its popular “NDN Tacos.”

Keep heading further north to find MOSSUTO’S ITALIAN in the Fairwood neighborhood, the third restaurant from longtime restaurateurs Scott and Lisa Poole, founders of Poole’s Public House, and featuring Lisa’s family’s recipes like her mother’s lasagna “swirls.”

Go far enough north to put yourself in the local agricultural mecca known as Green Bluff, where WILDLAND COOPERATIVE continues to evolve from its former life as the tasting room and production facility for Townshend Cellars to a worker-owned farm, winery, brewery and local art market.

WEST PLAINS

West of Spokane, the buzziest new dining options to debut this year are three spots inside Northern Quest Resort & Casino. In May, the casino opened EAST PAN ASIAN CUISINE, featuring house-made noodles and dishes inspired by Asian Pacific, Japanese, Thai, Chinese and Korean cuisine. East was soon followed by NEON PIZZA, with an ’80s vibe and pizza-by-the-slice, and then HIGHBALL, a modern speakeasy featuring cocktails, savory and sweet dishes, and a calendar full of music and live events.

SOUTH SPOKANE

Spokane’s southside has seen several new and expanded spots, too. Check out the former Lindaman’s on the South Hill, which Lost Boys’ Garage founders Kevin Pereira and Jhon Goodwin transformed into SUMMIT KITCHEN & CANTEEN in August.

Also on the South Hill, Jennifer Davis opened HIDDEN BAGEL (it initially launched in late 2021 for preorder only; but expanded to walk-in and on-site noshing in 2022) attached to her ice cream shop, The Scoop. In late November, she opened a second Hidden Bagel inside the Kendall Yards location of The Scoop.

East of Spokane’s downtown corridor, several neighborhoods saw the changing of the guard from older establishments to new ones. MORSEL, a spinoff from chef Ricky Webster’s popular Rind and Wheat bakery and cheese shop, took over the space formerly occupied by Fery’s Catering. And after the Perry neighborhood’s Casper Fry closed its doors in April, Eat Good Group’s Hegsted reopened the space as FRANÇAISE in summer, offering a contemporary spin on French classics.

NORTH IDAHO

In North Idaho, notable newcomers include STYLUS WINE & VINYL BAR in Coeur d’Alene, which offers expertly sourced wine, a modest menu and a perpetually changing soundtrack provided by owners Robby and Krista French.

After numerous iterations as other restaurants, a beloved downtown spot reopened as TAKARA JAPANESE CUISINE & SUSHI under longtime sushi chef-turned-restaurateur Kenta Nishimori. n

Wine Bar is new in Coeur d’Alene. ERICK DOXEY

YEAR IN REVIEW

THE GOOD, THE RAD AND THE STREAMWORTHY

Our critics share their Top 10 Movies of the Year lists

BY SETH SOMMERFELD, JOSH BELL, CHASE HUTCHINSON, NATHAN WEINBENDER

It’s safe to say 2022 won’t go down as one of the greatest cinematic years of all time, but that doesn’t mean it’s inherently been a bad 12 months for movies. While there might not be an Oscars field crowded with big beloved favorites, and most of the big box office movies not involving Tom Cruise in a fighter jet seemed to leave the general public relatively tepid, there were big screen gems to unearth. From quiet sci-fi meditations to killer slashers to epic Indian action buddy flicks to multiple films boasting characters with googly eyes, here are the Inlander critics’ picks for the best movies of 2022.

CHASE HUTCHINSON

all other blockbusters to shame by flouting the laws of gravity in magnificent fashion. The reflective multiverse family dramedy Everything Everywhere All at Once rocketed through time and space. After Yang’ s exploration of memories in an A.I. robot — both thematically and visually — upended sci-fi conventions to build a new cinematic grammar. A descent into the rubble of a dark world, Phil Tippett’s Mad God was a visionary work of stop-motion animation 30 years in the making. Sci-fi blockbuster Nope made us question what we give of ourselves in search of spectacle. An evocative character study of a conductor considered to be a musical genius, Tár was an unsettling yet uproarious portrait of power. The Banshees of Inisherin told a hilarious and haunting tale of conflict via two friends finding themselves having a prolonged falling out. A remarkable horror film that finds poetry in how the psychological is intermixed with the technological, Jane Schoenbrun’s We’re All Going to the World’s Fair captured the loneliness and liberation of the internet.

NATHAN WEINBENDER

The understated French drama Saint Omer tore through the stories we tell ourselves about the law and justice. S.S. Rajamouli’s epic Indian action musical RRR put any and

However, nothing resonated as much as writerdirector Charlotte Wells’ feature debut Aftersun. A delicate yet devastating story of a father and his young daughter on a vacation that will be their last time together, it never sets a foot wrong no matter how boldly it dances into the darkness. For all the ways Wells draws us into a profoundly personal story, she makes us feel as though we are all living under the same sky together.

The future of the movies is out of focus. The theatrical distribution model is in shambles. Mid-budget, adult-oriented dramas are an endangered species. The streaming bubble seems apt to pop at any moment. Dispassionate terms like “content” and “IP” have infiltrated discussions of the artform.

And yet there are still daring, exciting, actually original new movies being made. I try not to intellectualize the exercise too much: These are, quite simply, the movies that have stuck with me and reminded me of the infinite possibilities of the medium. Whether I was laughing in disbelief at the bombast of RRR, puzzling through the plot of Decision to Leave or wincing in recognition at The Worst Person in the World (editor’s note: which many people categorized as a 2021 movie), these were

the films that made me a bit more hopeful about our cinematic future.

Martin McDonagh’s story of men behaving like boys, The Banshees of Inisherin happens to be his most grown-up film to date. Set a century ago, it’s about two civil wars rocking the bucolic Irish isle of Inisherin: the literal one booming across the sea, and the metaphorical one brewing between a gloomy man with artistic aspirations and the guileless friend he abruptly cuts out of his life. The fallout is sad, shocking and brutally funny, a study of the precarious nature of friendship, the emotional quicksand of small-town groupthink and the universal fear of being lost to time. With a quartet of astonishing performances by Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Kerry Condon and Barry Keoghan, McDonagh has crafted a tonally audacious, deeply moving fable that makes us laugh, somehow, in between the pangs of existential despair.

beautiful it is. Set mainly in 1924, it starts out like a more sexually explicit take on Downton Abbey, but expands to encompass the entirety of the main character’s internal life. Odessa Young is astonishingly good as a young housemaid whose future as a writer is shaped by her affair with the wealthy neighbor of her employers. All of it will stay with me: the impressionistic, nonlinear storytelling, the vibrant colors, the hushed secrets that even the viewer never fully understands, and the sense of grief combined with a renewed hope for the future.

I’ve noticed over the last few years that, contrary to typical awards-season patterns, my best-of lists skew heavily toward movies released earlier in the year, which is the case again here. Contemplating these movies for longer means I can say for certain that they stuck with me. I’m still thinking about the existential questions raised by Kogonada and David Cronenberg in their respective sci-fi movies After Yang and Crimes of the Future. The emotional experiences of adolescence portrayed in Domee Shi’s gleeful animated fantasy Turning Red and in Richard Linklater’s rotoscoped memory piece Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood still resonate with me, and I’m still humming the tunes by Turning Red’s fictional boy band. I can still viscerally recall the thrills in Robert Eggers’ Viking epic The Northman and Ti West’s delightfully scuzzy 1970s-set horror movie X, and I’m still laughing at the deadpan humor of comic murder mystery Confess, Fletch. I’m still marveling at the breadth of this year’s achievements in animation, including Turning Red, Apollo 10½, and stop-motion wonders The House and Marcel the Shell with Shoes On

And I still remember when my top movie of the year — Eva Husson’s period drama Mothering Sunday — took me by surprise back in March with how emotionally powerful and staggeringly

Top Gun: Maverick has a hilariously dumb script, but it fully leans into that fact and the action scenes were truly thrilling on the big screen. Weird and Fire Island were both nonstop laugh fests despite coming from completely different places, a parody biopic and gay Pride & Prejudice Sweetheart Deal (a documentary that was part of the Seattle International Film Festival) provided a harrowing and heartfelt portrait of sex workers on Aurora Avenue in Seattle with heart-wrenching twists along the way. The sci-fi contemplation of After Yang and the deadly romantic drama of Decision to Leave hit their targets on both intellectual and emotional levels. Confess, Fletch boasts topend quality across the board, a perfect example of the adult-targeted mid-budget cinematic romp that barely exists anymore. And Marcel the Shell with Shoes On radiated with a playful warmth that can connect with viewers of all ages.

But my top film of 2022 hasn’t changed since March. I like to joke that Everything Everywhere All at Once has run a brilliant Oscars campaign by making sure no other great movies were released for the rest of the year. Writers/directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert crafted a manic multiverse that had mass appeal despite its bizarre nature. The cast absolutely crushes the material at every turn, with Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan rightfully finally getting their flowers (if Quan doesn’t win Best Supporting Actor, I personally demand a recount). The Daniels seem to throw every idea they have against the wall, and most of it sticks, because the inherent heart of family drama never gets fully buried by the frenetic visuals and comedic absurdity. n

YEAR IN REVIEW

Hear Now

Our picks for the 10 best records of 2022

BY SETH SOMMERFELD

10 RAISED HAILEY WHITTERS

There’s heart in the heartland, but it takes a proper rural Midwest girl like Whitters to make the heartbeat feel authentic when filtered through a pop-country lens. Sure the singer-songwriter hits on plenty of familiar tropes with her rosy nostalgic odes to the types of small towns she grew up in — there’s plenty of drinking, trucks, big families and side-eyed glances at city folk — but it never feels like a calculated product designed for lowest-common-denominator country fans. By keeping the production simple and letting the county fair sweetness in her voice do the heavy lifting, there’s an authenticity to the clap-filled singles and aw, shucks Americana.

9 A LEGACY OF RENTALS

CRAIG FINN

Craig Finn is primarily a storyteller. Whether fronting The Hold Steady or doing his own solo thing, his primary goal over the course of each three- to five-minute rock song is to craft characters that feel fleshed out, flawed and human. A Legacy of Rentals surpasses his prior solo outings, feeling almost like a subdued, spoken word Hold Steady record in the best possible way. The lyrical poetry with which he paints these bittersweet tales of memories (emphasis on the bitter) pairs perfectly with instrumental arrangements of strings, subtle rock ’n’ roll and vocal aid from Cassandra Jenkins. The backing assists without ever overwhelming, making for a whole that’s as beautiful and rotten as all those faded days gone by.

8 LAUREL HELL

MITSKI

There’s a magical contradiction inherent to Mitski’s entire musical persona: No one else can sing as confidently about not being confident at all. That holds true on Laurel Hell. After releasing multiple indie rock masterpieces, she drowns her sound in ’80s synth-pop stylings this time around. The refined and lush dance pop of singles like “Stay Soft” and “The Only Heartbreaker” manage to balance retro saturation and sleek modernity with a steely, effortless cool. The musical tone delightfully clashes with her pensive lyrics that wrestle with staying connected to life and creativity, worthiness, and lopsided love.

6 DANCE FEVER

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Topical Dancer Charlotte Adigéry & Bolis Pupul Diaspora Problems Soul Glo Sometimes, Forever Soccer Mommy Drive My Car (Original Soundtrack) Eiko Ishibashi

Emotional Creature Beach Bunny Big Time Angel Olsen Fossora Björk Blue Rev Alvvays Special Lizzo ILYSM Wild Pink

FLORENCE + THE MACHINE

7 MIDDLING AGE

TIM KASHER

Cursive frontman Tim Kasher has always been the dour sort, but even when stacked against his catalog of bummers, the lyrical work on new solo album Middling Age feels brutal and at times devastating. While his solo sound might be stripped back compared to Cursive’s harder edge, there’s plenty of twists and turns added to the fingerpicked folk and rock formula via swirling horns, string flairs, kalimba and the like. But that’s all really a backdrop for Kasher’s thoughtful lyrical explorations of being unable to move past a failed marriage (“I Don’t Think About You”), fear of being forgotten, faith in the face of death (“I don’t need a crucifix for a crutch”), the middle-age crisis of numbing routines, wrestling with staying egotistic or giving up, and the agonizing thoughts of lovers inevitably dying. The whole package is a poetic gut punch.

After becoming an arena-filling star on the strength of her powerhouse vocals and wonderfully dramatic delivery, Florence Welch has turned her lyrical lens inward on Dance Fever. The album details Welch’s reflections on the life of an artistic performer and the inherent anxieties and weights one must bear by choosing such an existence. Welch manages to avoid making this exploration an example of “woe is me, the famous star” by being acutely aware and critical of her own self-mythologizing. She’s able to make even wallowing anxiety into absolutely blissful dance pop on songs like “Free.” Not even Jack Antonoff’s usually detrimental production can derail the pop grandeur of the instrumental arrangements that ensure the album is not too heavy of a mental endeavor, allowing Welch to dance like she’s got a benign case of choreomania the whole way through.

5 SKINTY FIA

FONTAINES D.C.

There’s a menacing quality that permeates Skinty Fia, the third LP by Irish post-punk band Fontaines D.C. The bass-driven tracks with ultra-tight drumming create an ominous brooding rock atmosphere while singer Grian Chatten lets the dark unease hang. He sings his lines of cold love and the complexities of his Irish identity with a captivating detachment, like he’s been cornered in a smoke-filled pub and must seethe his worldview through clenched teeth. Skinty Fia is a snarling, jaded, brooding collection of pummeling sound that rarely relents.

Luxuriate in the seediness of Alex Cameron’s Oxy Music JEMIMA KIRKE PHOTO

4 VERSIONS OF MODERN PERFORMANCE HORSEGIRL

To a certain degree, cool can’t be manufactured. You’ve either got an inherent coolness or you don’t. No 2022 album has as much unteachable youthful swagger as Versions of Modern Performance. One would be forgiven if they didn’t realize Horsegirl was a trio of Chicago teens. After all, the group’s debut LP could’ve come out before any of them were born and it would’ve effortlessly fit in as one of the best post-punk albums of prior eras, alongside albums from bands like Sonic Youth, Pixies and My Bloody Valentine. The tracks emit a buzzing wall of shoegaze noise without ever losing their melodic underpinning. With the aid of ace post-punk producer John Agnello, Horsegirl saunters through ultra hooky brooding jams (“Anti-Glory”) and the type of guitar rock (“Live and Ski”) that’s artfully ramshackle in the hip way that only masters of the genre can typically pull off.

3I JUST WANT TO BE WILD FOR YOU MAITA

Maria Maita-Keppeler is yearning. What exactly for varies over the course of I Just Want To Be Wild For You’s 11 tracks, which only makes the Portland-based singer/songwriter’s sonic dexterity shine through. Her razor-sharp songwriting can’t easily be pinned down, as she shifts from a retro smokey, loungey creep (“Loneliness”) and moments of desire for sheer release (“Someday I’ll drive to the ocean and scream” on “Ex-Wife”) to a tongue-in-cheek “love” song about her smartphone (“Light of My Life (Cell Phone Song)”) or a two-song examination about both sides of a failing relationship (“You Can Sure Kill a Sunday, Part I & II”). The album closes with what might be the best song of 2022 — “Wild for You” — which starts as a fingerpicking meditation on the way distance grows and causes relationships to fade before opening up and becoming an emotionally moving anthem that pines for a return to those carefree times of wild passion.

2 WET LEG WET LEG

Like many of the best treats, Wet Leg understands the importance of blending the sweet and the salty. The band’s first LP is packed with tight melodic rockers that are as catchy as they are cynical. Singer Rhian Teasdale’s vocal tone perfectly captures the appropriate hollow eye-rolling reaction to the oversexed young man mystique. The group gets the inherent silliness of raunchiness and leans into it with incredulous saucy detachment on banger singles like “Wet Dream” and “Chaise Longue.” But the album-closing “Too Late Now” also showcases there’s room for the love of self-care in the Wet Leg oeuvre. Teasdale might be practicing the longest and loudest scream for “Ur Mum,” but all of Wet Leg’s debut is screaming out in one triumphant way or another.

1 OXY MUSIC

ALEX CAMERON

Aussie troubadour Alex Cameron has long felt like a character pulled from a David Lynch or Harmony Korine reality, crating alternative synth-pop rock character studies that luxuriate in seedy territory most songwriters wouldn’t touch with a 10-foot pole. A contributor to recent The Killers albums, Cameron is kinda like Brandon Flowers’ dirtbag cousin; still suave and charismatic, but you can see all the gross stains on his teeth. Oxy Music offers up sardonic observations about the people that society shoves to the fringes — the ones that are getting eaten alive by the opioid epidemic and the other failing trappings of modernity. Whether sax-heavy (“Sara Jo”) or synth-forward (“Best Life”), the arrangements beg listeners to get up and get their hips shaking while Cameron cheekily creates catchy choruses based around cancel culture, internet antivaxxers, k-holes and a-holes. Oxy Music holds a mirror up to societal ills and dares you to dance along. n

SOUL BLAKE BRALEY

JAZZ MASTERCLASS BIG BAND

Thursday, 12/29

CHAN’S RED DRAGON ON THIRD, Thursday Night Jam CHECKERBOARD TAPROOM, Weathered Shepherds J QQ SUSHI & KITCHEN, Just Plain Darin

STEAM PLANT RESTAURANT & BREW PUB, Son of Brad ZOLA, Desperate8s

Friday, 12/30

THE BEE’S KNEES WHISKEY BAR, Kosh

BIGFOOT PUB, Dangerous Type

BOLO’S BAR & GRILL, The Shift

CHAN’S RED DRAGON ON THIRD, Steve Livingston CHINOOK STEAK, PASTA & SPIRITS, Kicho

COEUR D’ALENE CASINO, Pastiche CURLEY’S, Bruiser

IRON HORSE (CDA), Rock Candy LUCKY YOU LOUNGE, Snacks at Midnight MOOSE LOUNGE, Chasing Eos J PEND D’OREILLE WINERY, Chris Lynch and Lauren Kershner

THE RIDLER PIANO BAR, Just Plain Darin

TRAILS END BREWERY, Jonathan Tibbetts ZOLA, The Happiness

Saturday, 12/31

BIGFOOT PUB, Dangerous Type

BING CROSBY THEATER, Meet Me in ‘23: A NYE Party

BOLO’S BAR & GRILL, The Shift

CHAN’S RED DRAGON ON THIRD, Cary Fly CHINOOK STEAK, PASTA & SPIRITS, Kicho CURLEY’S, Bruiser

J HIGHBALL A MODERN SPEAKEASY, NYE in Highball with Storm Large & DJ Jade

IRON HORSE (CDA), Rock Candy

J J KNITTING FACTORY, MasterClass Big Band’s Swingin’ in the New Year

J LEBANON RESTAURANT & CAFÉ, Safar

LUCKY YOU LOUNGE, New Year’s Eve at Lucky You Featuring Blake Braley

J LYFE COFFEE ROASTERS & PUBLIC HOUSE, New Years Eve with the Sam Leyde Band MILLIE’S, Loose Gazoonz

MOOSE LOUNGE, Chasing Eos NOAH’S CANTEEN, Son of Brad J PEND D’OREILLE

If you’re looking for a hip vibe to send 2022 off in style, Lucky You Lounge’s festivities might do the trick. In addition to a photo booth and DJs playing tunes in the cozy confines of LY’s basement, Blake Braley and his talented pals will be grooving at the main stage space all night. The local soul singer-songwriter has been a fixture on Spokane stages at places like Zola for years and just released a new single titled “Starting Over,” which revels in its sweet and funky melodic sensuality. If you need a spark to make a last-minute connection before a NYE kiss, Braley might make for the perfect musical wingman.

— SETH SOMMERFELD

NYE at LYL Featuring Blake Braley • Sat, Dec. 31 at 9 pm • $15 • 21+ • Lucky You Lounge • 1801 W. Sunset Blvd. • luckyyoulounge.com

There aren’t a lot of entities around quite like MasterClass Big Band. The group has a core base of ace veteran jazz and swing musicians, but also brings in student players to show them the ropes and give them invaluable experience. The biggest celebration on the MasterClass calendar is the group’s “Swingin’ in the New Year” bash, where hepcats and swing aficionados can showcase their fleet feet on the dance floor while the band blasts through classic standards with plenty of pep and pizzazz. While libations will be flowing from the Knitting Factory’s bar, the concert is also all ages, so caffeinated kiddos who like to boogie down are also welcome, making this a potentially multigenerational affair.

— SETH SOMMERFELD

RED ROOM LOUNGE, The Roomates SOUTH PERRY LANTERN, Just Plain Darin ZOLA, Runaway Lemonade

Coming Up ...

J LUCKY YOU LOUNGE, Good Growth: Jinx Universe, ExZac Change & Iyzlow Matisse, DJ Donuts, Jan. 6, 8 pm.

LUCKY YOU LOUNGE, Never Come Down, Jan. 7, 8 pm.

J THE BIG DIPPER, Symphony of Syllables: Flynn, Past Life Kenny, Willistherealist, Nathan Chartrey, Jan. 13, 7 pm.

LUCKY YOU LOUNGE, David Ramirez, Jan. 13, 8 pm.

J THE BIG DIPPER, Roderick Bambino (EP Release), Buffalo Jones, Strangerers, Jan. 14, 7 pm.

LUCKY YOU LOUNGE, Heat Speak, Traesti Darling, Queen Bonobo, Jan. 14, 8 pm.

NORTHERN QUEST RESORT & CASINO, Mitchell Tenpenny, Jan. 19, 7:30 pm.

J KNITTING FACTORY, Niko Moon, Dylan Schneider, Jan. 19, 8 pm.

LUCKY YOU LOUNGE, Helmer Noel, Jan. 21, 8 pm.

J LUCKY YOU LOUNGE, Damien Jurado, Feb. 12, 8 pm.

J J KNITTING FACTORY, Alvvays, March 13, 8 pm.

J MARTIN WOLDSON THEATER AT THE FOX, Jerry Cantrell, Thunderpussy, March 31, 8 pm.

J NORTHERN QUEST RESORT & CASINO, LeAnn Rimes, April 14, 7:30 pm.

Band’s

MUSIC | VENUES

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

COMMUNITY HOP INTO 2023

Just as 2022 — the year of the tiger — ends with a roar, its successor moves in with a hoppity hop. The Chinese zodiac calendar marks 2023 as the year of the rabbit, and locals can celebrate this turning of a new leaf during Spokane Buddhist Temple’s Oshogatsu festival, a Japanese new year celebration that’s observed on the Gregorian (versus lunar) calendar. The two-day event includes traditional Buddhist services, as well as the sale of Japanese food like mochi (preorders for traditional mochi are required), sushi and sweet fish-shaped taiyaki pancakes. It’s a ritual in Japanese culture to eat mochi on New Year’s Day to avoid a year of bad luck! Visitors to the temple can also browse a selection of Japanese antiques, art prints, dolls and dishes. On New Year’s Eve, the traditional Joya-E Buddhist service at 7 pm is a short, family-friendly ceremony that includes the symbolic ringing of the Kansho bell a total of 108 times.

— CHEY SCOTT

Oshogatsu: Buddhist New Year’s Festival • Sat, Dec. 31 from 5:30-7:30 pm and Sun, Jan. 1 from 10 am-2 pm • Free to attend; food items from $3-$6 • All ages • Spokane Buddhist Temple • 927 S. Perry St. • spokanebuddhisttemple.org

COMMUNITY HELLO, 2023!

Bid farewell to 2022 and festively usher in its successor, even if it’s a few hours before the clock actually strikes midnight. To make this time-honored tradition more family friendly, Riverfront Park once again is hosting its “midnight” fireworks show a little early, at 9 pm. So if staying up late, even on the holiday, isn’t your jam — hooray! The 15-minute fireworks show launches near the Clock Tower and is viewable from outdoor and indoor vantages around downtown and beyond. Looking for something else to do before or after the fireworks? Head to Inlander.com/events (you can filter to see all events on Dec. 31), and check out our recent overview of the many New Year’s Eve events happening around the region that we’ve been able to track down.

— CHEY SCOTT

New Year’s Eve Fireworks • Sat, Dec. 31 at 9 pm • Free • Riverfront Park • 507 N. Howard St. • riverfrontspokane.com

COMEDY LAST LAUGHS

While some stand-up comedians use high energy or gimmicks to hook an audience, Sam Morril is content to hang back and let his joke writing do the talking. His calm, raspy, almost deadpan delivery draws an audience in without desperately grasping to get their attention. His new Netflix special, Same Time Tomorrow, captures the fluidity of his humor. He can hit humorous insights on modern events and politics in such a matter-of-fact way (rather than try to be a provocateur) and then swiftly move on to another topic, craft hilarious bits from his own life and relationships, and do crowd work that actually pops. Whether pointing out the stupidity of moral statement shirts, the similarities between the Catholic Church and Amazon, or why slow drivers make him suspicious about Nazism, there’s always a new humorous spin around the corner. Laughing in the New Year with Morril sounds like a pretty good way to wind down 2022.

— SETH SOMMERFELD

Sam Morril • Dec. 29-31; Thu at 7:30 pm, Fri at 7:30 and 10:30 pm; Sat at 4:30, 7:30 and 10:30 pm • $25-$50 • Spokane Comedy Club • 315 W. Sprague Ave. • spokanecomedyclub.com

GET LISTED!

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.

MUSIC NEW YEAR’S JOY

There simply isn’t a classier way (at least in a traditionalist sense) to ring in the new year than with an evening of symphonic music. Knowing this, the Spokane Symphony maintains its annual tradition of sending off the concluding year with one of the classical canon’s best known and most majestically moving pieces — Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Even with our underfunded arts education system, loads of kids can still recognize the fourth movement’s utterly timeless “Ode to Joy” melody. The piece teems with lively beauty and a humanistic spirit. When the chorale joins the symphony — cramming over 150 performers onto the stage — the results are the musical equivalent of celebratory fireworks exploding to celebrate another journey around the sun.

— SETH SOMMERFELD

Spokane Symphony New Year’s Eve: Beethoven’s Ninth • Sat, Dec. 31 at 7:30 pm • $35-$71 • All ages • The Fox • 1001 W. Sprague Ave. • foxtheaterspokane.org

CHEERS

“I WILL HONOR CHRISTMAS IN MY HEART....” "I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me." A personal thank you of deep gratitude to the kindly old woman with a magical bird who when I was counting my last few dollars for Christmas at the check out line paid for my gifts for Christmas for my family and handed me the change from the 100 dollar bill. It was the most moving kindness I have seen in years. Merry Christmas and Thank you. I promised to light you a Candle at Church and I will at St. Als at Gonzaga. Sending love.

FUNDING CHOICES All you have to do to support normalization of the: degradation, humiliation, and remote termination of employees, help eliminate worker self-esteem, undo 100 years of fair labor practices, enable the rise of white supremacists platforms, encourage the strip mining of the desert, keep 10 year old's sifting for minerals, help defend fascism, give to the desecration of the Constitution, encourage the defamation and belittling of all union workers, show your support for anti-Semitism, give an audience to holocaust deniers, promote ignorance, end democracy, all you have to do is just keep your Twitter account, then go out with your transportation spending choices and buy a Tesla.

CIVIC THEATER IS A GEM Wow! I saw a spectacular performance of A Christmas

THANX Thank you to the good-looking older woman who gave a ride to my kitty and me as we were on the way to the vet in Mead. I often think of your kindness. Again, thank you.

SAFEST BIKE STORAGE EVER Kudos to the merry prankster(s) who placed a bicycle on top of an old bridge pier about 20 feet high in the middle of the Spokane River next to the Sandifur footbridge in People’s Park. Pray tell, how did you do this?

SHOUT-OUT TO THOSE STRUGGLING AT HOLIDAYS This time of year even the most stoic and cynical feel the heartstrings pulled. We all have a lot of memories. If you're feeling lonely or alone, just know other people are thinking of you and sending love and warmth your way. We don't get to choose our families. Sometimes this makes it difficult to make friends. If you reach out for Friendsgiving to those missing family passed away or far from home or those without for whatever reason, thank you. This is a great time for reflection and building community. It's a time to share. You can share sadness, joy, cheer, love, friendship and, hey, even being annoyed as well as laughter. We're all in this together as human beings. Sending out a virtual hug to those in need. Let's make this Inlander section and Spokane reflect the holiday human spirit. All the best, Mrs. Claus.

MISSING YOU We used to look at all of the drama in the Inlander. Now every week I hope to hear from you. I want to trust you. I forever will have you in my heart. Happy holidays bear. Our love is the club, our chemistry is the dj. Let's dance! I'm right here.

ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS Missing you is an understatement. I miss your smile, your touch, your shrimp Alfredo. I deeply love you and am still in love. I can't have you, and it sucks. All I want is my Irish kisses

it's cold outside. For everyone else, we are doing our job by telling you to turn it off.

VERY HELPFUL POLICE A BIG thanks to the two helpful Spokane police officers who helped a clueless grandmother get the infant car seat installed in her Subaru Forester. I was outside the C.O.P.S. office at Lincoln Heights the week before last when your car pulled up — and you were so pleasant and helpful — the car seat was installed within 15 minutes. THANK YOU AGAIN

PURPLE-HAIRED LADY My car died in the middle of the intersection on 29th and Lincoln, and you and your kiddo stopped to make sure I was OK and stayed with me so I wouldn’t be alone. I didn’t get to sincerely thank you like I wish I could have. Just in a panic, I left so quickly after that guy jumped my car. But you saved me from a breakdown, and I appreciate you so so so much! It’s people like you who make me still have hope. Your kid has someone real special raising them.

JEERS

JEERS TO ME I let a really stressful week get to me and was unbelievably unkind to the people in line with me at Chaps. I am not that person and sincerely apologize for my rudeness.

DREAM JOB? CMR Cathy McMorris Rodgers, voted to chair the House Energy and Commerce Committee, how can you qualify, when you don’t believe in, global

warming or renewal energy, wind energy, solar power, water power, and electric cars, your ideas for re-election was getting oil from Russia and China, activated pipelines (the keystone that leaked large amounts of oil into our waterways), coal, basically anything that pollutes the environment, and saying that’s you will work with the Democrats, I find that funny, when, you’ve

an off leash dog on a public road, its owner said it was was “friendly” too. Then it bit me repeatedly and wouldn’t let go. I’m glad you weren’t wearing a helmet.

WHAT WERE YOU THINKING??? Who is responsible for the planning and PLANTING out on Country Homes? We residents out in that area are AMAZED that anyone in their

done nothing but criticize them and their efforts in this field. also your re-election promises, help the veterans, lower food and gas prices, all which you’ve had time to do, the past two years, empty promises, just like your energy promises will be, also stating that nothing that Biden wants to do about this, has to cross your desk first, says it all, you’ll do what best for the Republicans first, so basically nothing as usual for Washington, thanks for 20 years of empty promises

RE: I’M A CUSTOMER TOO In my years retail I've encountered countless "Privileged White Woman" (and men) who interrupted while I was midsentence with another customer. The audacity was stunning! Regarding the clerk at Huck's: they may not have had the confidence to speak up. It took me years to build the confidence to verbally prioritize the first customer. However, you, too, could have told the other customer to wait their turn. It may have felt like racism to you - and maybe it was- but I suspect that it was more the ass-hat behaviour of the PWW than anything. “conscientious” people that pull off the roadway only to park over the sidewalk. I thank you in advance for enlightening me.

PLEASE PUT YOUR DOG ON A LEASH Jeers to the mountain biker with an off leash dog in Riverside State Park Monday 10/3. You are breaking the law and I shouldn’t have to ask you to put your dog on a leash. When I told you I was attacked by a dog you told me to “relax”. How dare you, I was left scared and crying after your dog ran at me. I was attacked previously while jogging by

right mind would approve the number of plants that were put in out there! After just the short time it’s been done, the plants are way overgrown, making it difficult to see on-coming traffic when trying to cross at any of the bridges! We also need the guard rails back on the bridges! Can’t the plants be thinned out of this area and reused elsewhere around town, where I see other planting being done? Just seems like a huge waste of $$$$ to me! We love what was done and the reasoning for it, but who’s going to be responsible for the vegetation over growth when the two year contract to maintain it runs out? Poor planning if you ask me!! n

not “j.smith@comcast.net.”

NOTE: I Saw You/Cheers & Jeers is for adults 18 or older. The Inlander reserves the right to edit or reject any posting at any time at its sole discretion and assumes no responsibility for the content.

“

What a great way to ring in the holiday cheer! Spokane has a treasure there at the Civic. ”

Carol at the Spokane Civic Theater. The set design, costumes, and special effects had my mouth agape with wonder. Scrooge gave the performance of a lifetime. What a great way to ring in the holiday cheer! Spokane has a treasure there at the Civic.

GIRL WITH THE GRINCH HEADBAND Cheers to the checker with the grinch headband and her Christmas spirit. You made me laugh with your Santa story and made my day with your sweet smile.

again. With all the toppings. I'll see you in my dreams. Brrrr.

KUDOS TO RESPONSIBLE PEOPLE Spay, neuter, feed and protect pets and strays!

JUST DOING OUR JOB Cheers to everyone who remembers that you need to turn off your car when you're getting gas even if

COMEDY

SAM MORRIL Sam is a regular on Comedy Central and has performed-up on multiple late night shows. Dec. 29, 7:30 pm, Dec. 30, 7:30 & 10:30 pm and Dec. 31, 4:30 7:30 & 10:30 pm. $25-$50. Spokane Comedy Club, 315 W. Sprague. spokanecomedyclub.com

HA!!MARK HOLIDAY SPECIAL A fullimprovised satire of heart-warming holiday movies. Dec. 30 at 7:30 pm. $8. Blue Door Theatre, 815 W. Garland Ave. bluedoortheatre.com (509-747-7045)

ANTHONY JESELNIK The stand-up comedian from Pittsburg can currently be heard on the Comedy Central podcast, “The Jeselnik and Rosenthal Vanity Project.” Jan. 5, 7:30 pm, Jan. 6, 7:30 & 10:15 pm and Jan. 7, 7 & 9:45 pm. $35. Spokane Comedy Club, 315 W. Sprague. spokanecomedyclub.com

COMMUNITY

25TH ANNUAL HOLIDAY LIGHT SHOW Featuring over a million lights along the floating boardwalk. Nov. 25-Jan. 2, daily at sundown. Free. The Coeur d’Alene Resort, 115 S. Second. cdaresort.com/ holiday-light-show (208-765-4000)

COWLEY PARK LIGHTS Presented by the KXLY Extreme Team, the park is lit up with holiday lights for the kids at Sacred Heart Children’s Hospital. Through Jan. 31. Cowley Park, Sixth Ave. and Division St. kxly.com

CRESCENT HOLIDAY WINDOWS Five window bays on the south side of the Grand display scenes featuring refurbished figurines from the basement of the former Crescent department sstore. 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

JOURNEY TO THE NORTH POLE A 40-minute holiday cruise across Lake Coeur d’Alene to view the holiday light displays and visit Santa Claus and his elves. Daily at 5:30, 6:30 and 7:30 pm through Jan. 2. $11.50-$26.50. Coeur d’Alene. cdacruises.com

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 (509-242-7000)

NORTHWEST WINTERFEST The Pacific Northwest’s largest illuminated lantern display and cultural celebration. Fri from 5-8 pm, Sat from 4-8 pm and Sun from 3-6 pm through Jan. 1. $10-$15. Spokane County Fair & Expo Center, 404 N. Havana St. northwestwinterfest.com

ROLE-PLAYING GAME DROP IN Improve your RPG skills by watching and participating in games. Fridays from 4-8 pm and Saturdays from 1-5 pm. Free. RPG Community Center, 101 N. Stone Street. rpgcenter.org (509-608-7630)

NEW YEAR’S EVE FIREWORKS Riverfront and Idaho Central Credit Union invite the community to enjoy an early, free 15-minute show at 9 pm to accommodate families with younger children. Dec. 31, 9-9:30 pm. Free. Riverfront Park, 507 N. Howard St. riverfrontspokane.org (509-625-6600)

NEW YEAR’S EVE AT THE DAVENPORT Begin the countdown to the beginning of the new year with live music from the Sacha Botros Quartet, a photo booth, hors d’oeuvres and a champagne toast

at midnight. Dec. 31, 8 pm-1 am. $150$250. Historic Davenport Hotel, 10 S. Post St. davenporthotelcollection.com

NOON YEAR’S EVE PARTY Learn about new year traditions using books and activities. A countdown to 2023 begins at noon. Dec. 31, 11 am-12:15 pm. Free. Shadle Library, 2111 W. Wellesley Ave. spokanelibrary.org

SWINGIN’ IN THE NEW YORK NEW YEAR Celebrate the new year with swing dance performances, dancing and a toast at 9 pm to celebrate on East Coast time. Live music by Zonky Jazz Band. Dec. 31, 7 pm-midnight. $10-$25. Woman’s Club of Spokane, 1428 W. Ninth. woodsideswing.com

3D PRINTER DEMONSTRATION Drop by to view one of the library’s 3D printers in action and learn about this technology. Jan. 4, 3:30-4:30 pm. Free. Shadle Library, 2111 W. Wellesley Ave. spokanelibrary.org (509-444-5300)

THE BUSINESS OF DATA: VIRTUAL LIVE PODCAST RECORDING Join Spokane Public Library and ABCD Consulting for the launch of a collaborative business podcast. Each episode fouses on a different business-related topic. Register to receive the link to tune in virtually. Jan. 4, 4:30-5:30 pm. Free. spokanelibrary.org (509-444-5300)

BUSINESS RESOURCES DISCUSSION WITH BUSINESS LIBRARIAN MARK

POND A quick, 90-minute overview of the Spokane Public Library’s business research toolbox. Get connected to the range of support available to Spokane’s businesses. Jan. 4, 10:30 am-noon. Free. Central Library, 906 W. Main Ave. spokanelibrary.org (509-444-5300)

OPEN STUDIO AT THE HIVE Stop by to check out the Artist-In-Residence studios, tour The Hive and ask questions. Jan. 4-Feb. 22, Wed from 4-7 pm. Free. The Hive, 2904 E. Sprague Ave. spokanelibrary.org (509-444-5300)

FIRST FRIDAY AT CENTRAL LIBRARY

In collaboration with the Downtown Spokane Partnership, the library becomes a hub for activities like art classes, swing dancing lessons, live music and more. Jan. 6, 4-8 pm. Free. Central Library, 906 W. Main Ave. spokanelibrary.org (509-444-5336)

FOOD & DRINK

DATE NIGHT ON THE RIVER Enjoy date night without calling the sitter, as the Ruby River Hotel provides childcare while you and your date enjoy a three-course meal. Dec. 29, 6:30-8:30 pm. $85-$105. Ruby River Hotel, 700 N. Division St. rubyriverhotelspokane.com

FIRESIDE DINNER & MUSIC SERIES

Enjoy selections from Arbor Crest’s seasonal menu along with wine and beer from Square Wheel Brewing. Music lineup varies, see website for more. Thu-Sat from 6-8 pm. $50-$60. Arbor Crest Wine Cellars, 4705 N. Fruit Hill Rd. arborcrest.com (509-927-9463)

SPARKLING SOIREE Gather your family and friends for an evening of bubbly wine and chef-curated cuisine. This festive evening includes a six-course, sparkling wine-paired menu crafted by executive chef Jim Barrett and sous chef Taylor Wolters. Dec. 29, 6 pm. $175. Beverly’s, 115 S. Second St. beverlyscda.com

WEST END WINTERFEST Throughout the holiday season, purchase a beer at

all seven West End breweries and scan a QR code. After scanning all seven, you’ll be sent an email redemption for a West End mug. Find list of breweries at link. Through Jan. 2, 2023. Free. Brick West Brewing Co., 1318 W. First Ave. westendbeerfest.com (509-279-2982)

DRAG ME TO NYE DRAG SHOW & DINNER This event includes an apricotglazed pork tenderloin dinner, drinks and an immersive drag show. Tickets include entry to the nightclub festivities, dinner and the show. Dec. 31, 6 pm. $95. Globe Bar & Kitchen, 204 N. Division. globespokane.com (509-443-4014)

MIDNIGHT ON THE RIVER NYE PARTY Enjoy Ruby River Hotel’s views of the Spokane River while sipping on bubbly and dancing to the music of Sammy Eubanks. Dec. 31, 8 pm-12:30 am. $50$229. Ruby River Hotel, 700 N. Division St. rubyriverhotelspokane.com

NEW YEAR’S EVE PARTY Enjoy special offerings from chef Scott Siff while DJ Donuts provides live music. Special cocktails available. Dec. 31, 9 pm-1 am. $65-$90. Tavolata, 221 N. Wall St. ethanstowellrestaurants.com

NEW YEAR’S EVE BIRTHDAY BASH Ring in the new year with giveaways, tunes from Rosethrow and drinks and desserts. Dec. 31, 9 pm-1 am. Emma Rue’s, 15 S. Howard St. emmarues.com

NEW YEAR’S EVE DINNER A multicourse dinner featuring oysters, caviar, shrimp, and more all prepared by chefs Chad White and Erin Nielsen. An afterdinner reception includes three cash bars, tacos, a midnight champagne toast and live music. Dec. 31, 7 pm-1:30 am. $175-$230. Zona Blanca, 157 S. Howard St. limefishsalt.com

NEW YEAR’S EVE MIDNIGHT MASQUERADE This party features a cocktail social hour and a grand dinner buffet with live music from Soul Proprietor. Ring in 2023 with a midnight champagne toast and a fireworks show. Cocktail attire required. Dec. 31, 6 pm-midnight. The Coeur d’Alene Resort, 115 S. Second. cdaresort.com/new-years-eve

NEW YEAR’S EVE PARTY AT NYNE This celebration features a drag show, appetizers, dessert, dancing and a midnight champagne toast. Dec. 31, 7 pm-2 am. $25. nYne Bar & Bistro, 232 W. Sprague Ave. nynebar.com (509-474-1621)

NYE CHAMPAGNE DINNER This celebratory dinner features a coursed meal paired with Lodgepole’s favorite wine and champagne of 2022. Dec. 31, 5-8 pm. $159. Lodgepole, 106 N. Main St. lodgepolerestaurant.com

OSHOGATSU: BUDDHIST NEW YEAR’S FESTIVAL A New Year’s celebration including Buddhist Services, food sales, Japanese prints, dolls, dishes and more. Food selection includes traditional mochi, inari sushi and sweet taiyaki pancakes. Dec. 31, 5:30-7:30 pm and Jan. 1, 10 am-2 pm. $3-$6. Spokane Buddhist Temple, 927 S. Perry St. SpokaneBuddhistTemple.org (509-534-7954)

MUSIC

PIANIST TOM PLETSCHER Tom performs jazzy holiday and other 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

SPOKANE SYMPHONY NEW YEAR’S

EVE: BEETHOVEN’S 9TH Celebrate the new year with Beethoven’s monumen-

tal work dedicated to freedom, joy and human unity. The concert features more than 150 performers, including the Spokane Symphony Chorale. Dec. 31, 7:30 pm. The Fox, 1001 W. Sprague. spokanesymphony.org (509-624-1200)

SPORTS & OUTDOORS

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)

DJ NIGHT ON THE ICE DJ A1 provides the tunes for themed nights, contests and more. Fridays at 6 pm through Jan. 27. $7-$10. Numerica Skate Ribbon, 720 W. Spokane Falls Blvd. my.spokanecity. org/riverfrontspokane (509-625-6600)

GONE TO THE DOGS & SKIJOR DAYS: Bring your dogs to the mountain and let them run around on the lower trail system. All dogs must be accompanied by their human who has a pass or lift ticket. Dec. 30, Jan. 28, Feb. 17 and March 25. $5-$82. 49 Degrees North, 3311 Flowery Trail Rd. ski49n.com (509-935-6649)

SPOKANE CHIEFS VS. TRI-CITY AMERICANS Promos include the Centennial Hotel Family Feast Night. Dec. 30, 7:05 pm. $12-$30. Spokane Arena, 720 W. Mallon Ave. spokanechiefs.com

NEW YEAR’S EVE TUBING PARTY Spend your final hours of 2022 with an action-packed tubing adventure. Dec. 31, 7-9 pm. $40. Schweitzer, 10,000 Schweitzer Mountain Rd. schweitzer.com

STATE LAND FREE DAYS Visitors are not required to display the Discover Pass for day visits to a Washington state park or state-managed lands. Jan. 1, Jan. 16 (more upcoming) parks.wa.gov

A FEAST FOR THE SENSES Local gardening guru Phyllis Stephens talks about her enduring passion for gardening and plants. Jan. 5, 4-5 pm. Free. Shadle Library, 2111 W. Wellesley Ave. spokanelibrary.org (509-444-5390)

VISUAL ARTS

AMERICAN IMPRESSIONISM: TREASURES FROM THE DAYWOOD COLLECTION This exhibition features 41 paintings from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Tue-Sun from 10 am-5 pm through Jan. 8. $10-$20. Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture, 2316 W. First Ave. northwestmuseum.org

MELISSA COLE: FIRE AND ICE An exhibit inspired by the artist’s recent trips to Egypt and Iceland, with deities and landscapes from both locales rendered in oil and acrylic. Dec. 30, 5-8 pm. Free. Kolva-Sullivan Gallery, 115 S. Adams St. kolva-sullivangallery.com

BUILD A MINIATURE ART GALLERY Each participant creates their own miniature room to take home. Participants also learn about art galleries and how artwork is curated. Jan. 3, 4-6 pm. Free. Shadle Library, 2111 W. Wellesley Ave. spokanelibrary.org (509-444-5300)

RECYCLED PAPER MAKING Make recycled paper from discarded materials. This program is intended for ages 10-14 (ages 7-9 with an adult.) Space and materials are limited. Jan. 4, 4-5 pm. Free. Liberty Park Library, 402 S. Pittsburgh St. spokanelibrary.org n

YEAR IN REVIEW

It’s Cannabis, Not Marijuana

Righting historical wrongs, moving beyond the drug war, and other news from the past year

BY WILL MAUPIN

In 1997, Mike Tyson bit off a piece of Evander Holyfield’s ear during a boxing match. In 2022, those two went into business selling ear-shaped THC gummies. It’s hilarious, and it became national news, but does it really matter?

Here are three stories that do matter, even though the coverage they received meant fewer people heard about them — heard, like, with your ears. Get it?

TARGETING RETAILERS

Due to their dependence on cash-only transactions, cannabis businesses have long been targeted by thieves. Seattle’s KING-TV reported more than 30 violent crimes targeting cannabis retailers in the state between

November 2021 and January 2022.

Things took a turn for the worse in mid-March, when over a span of four days, three west side retailers found themselves targets of violent robberies resulting in fatalities.

In the wake of those incidents, the state Treasurer’s Office was vocal in calling for expanded access to banking and debit services for the cannabis industry. In Washington, many retailers now offer debit purchases, reducing the need for cash on-site. National legislation allowing for similar access to banking and financial services for the cannabis industry has repeatedly flamed out on Capitol Hill, as recently as this month.

WORDS MATTER

In April, the state Legislature passed House Bill 1210, which called for a search and replace mission into Washington’s legal code. The term “marijuana” would be removed, and “cannabis” would be used in its place.

It may not seem like much, but this change is an attempt to right historical wrongs. The word “marijuana” was a pejorative from the start. A century ago, when

anti-cannabis activists were pushing for prohibition, they latched onto the term — “marijuana” has its origins in Mexico — hoping to fan racist flames surrounding cannabis use.

WHITE HOUSE, GREEN HOUSE?

The White House made headlines in October when President Biden said he would pardon all prior federal offenses for simple possession of cannabis, a move impacting approximately 6,500 people.

Buried at the bottom of the statement, and largely overshadowed by news of the pardons, was something that could prove to impact far more people.

It was the initiation of an administrative review of cannabis’ status as a Schedule I substance, which puts it alongside the most controlled of controlled substances. The review will determine whether or not cannabis should remain on Schedule I or be moved to a lessregulated tier.

It’s not legalization, but it does show a willingness from the executive branch to reconsider more than four decades of federal cannabis policy. n

NOTE TO READERS

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

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