Seattle Weekly | Complete Issue

Twist in the Gut

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500

In the annals of American dramaturgy, A Streetcar Named Desire isn't just an 800-pound gorilla—it's the whole monkey house. Family, betrayal, liquor, lunacy, and rape all intertwine in Williams' game of loyalties. Is Stella a sister first, or wife? Is Blanche drivi...

Bard Beats Bond

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Stage acting is where TV stars go to demonstrate that they've got chops. And when stage actors want to assay the test of great acting, they go to Shakespeare. All Shakespeare roles, even the minor ones, are difficult—the language is arcane and lacking in the traditional subtext of modern dr...

Blocked and Untagged

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500

If you walked into SOIL recently, the gallery looked a bit like a construction site. What appear to be pink Styrofoam building panels lean against one wall; against another, a stack of what look like Mac laptop boxes, while a whitish block sits in the center of the raw concrete floor. All of it l...

Rubbing With the Stars

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500

In the new millennium, we are all brands. The press uses poll results to talk about whether Obama's "brand" is rising or falling. Only a decade ago, regular Joes like us were told to "build our skill sets" and "establish our professional networks," but now the career-...

Betting on David Black

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500

In Frank Capra's holiday classic, It's a Wonderful Life, Jimmy Stewart's character shouts out to a mob besieging the Bailey Brothers Building and Loan: "Potter's not selling. He's buying! Why? Because we're panicking and he's not."

The scene was meant to depict the chaos of a bank ...

Open City

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500

So, what would you think?

The hip-hop scene—the one that's getting enough attention and producing enough talent and drawing enough crowds to potentially help you get your name circulating, and maybe land a deal with a local label and later...

Married With Urges

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Dear Dategirl,

I am a 31-year-old married man. Although I still check out other women occasionally, I was with enough of them before I got married that I don't feel any compulsion to cheat on my wife.

However, I do wonder what it would be ...

The Dark Knight: Christian Bale suits up against Heath Ledger

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500

What a brooding pleasure it is to return to Christopher Nolan's Gotham City--if "pleasure" is the right word for a movie that gazes so deeply and sometimes despairingly into the souls of restless men. In The Dark Knight, the continuation of Nolan's superb 200...

Opening Nights: Bare

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500

When I think of Catholic boarding school, I think of two things—parents who don't really want to be parents and bored, forgotten children who have more money than they know what to do with.
This stereotype is perfectly portrayed in the pop-opera bare, a tale of confused, sex-...

Sweden’s Greatest Gift to Humankind

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500

In this country, vodka gives white a bad name. It's an odorless, insipid mixer that only serves as a means to an end or a dull cohort for cranberry juice. There is so much more to the clear-spirits rainbow than this underachiever. Spiced, luscious, and primed for food, aquavit is the anti-vodka. ...

No Resting in Peace

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Handling more than 2,000 bodies a year, as the King County Medical Examiner's office does, has to have stressful downsides. That's reflected in the Pill Hill morgue's workplace turmoil in years past and by a testy exchange between a pathologist, Dr. Brian Mazrim, and a technician...

Sane in the Membrane

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Lil Wayne is not batshit insane.

Let's be clear about that. Despite the fact that he regularly refers to himself as an extraterrestrial, seems to have an utter disregard for the rule of law and for his health, and kisses his surrogate father on the mouth—despite the...

This Week's Horoscopes

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Cancer (June 21–July 22)

What started out as an exercise in flexibility may end up somewhere surprising. While playing devil's advocate, you might come around to the point you're making and take on that viewpoint for real. While play-flirting with someone, you could discover you're ...

PICK Alexandra: Meanwhile, the Russian war in Chechnya drags on

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Spare yet tactile, a mysterious mixture of lightness and gravity, Alexander Sokurov's Alexandra is founded on contradiction. Musing on war in general and the Russian occupation of Chechnya in particular, this is a movie in which combat is never shown. The star, octogenarian Galina Vishne...

Opening Nights: Big River

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Taproot Theatre gets a number of things right in its staging of Big River, the 1985 musical that follows Huckleberry Finn and his runaway slave companion Jim as they raft down the Mississippi River. First, the notion that Big River and summer go together like picnics and waterme...

Sage Goes Soft Over New Developer Tax Breaks

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Earlier this month, the Seattle City Council voted to dramatically increase the amount of rent developers could charge for apartments and still receive the

Opening Nights: The Mikado

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Just like the pair themselves—W.S. Gilbert, bourgeois family man/cutting satirist, and A.S. Sullivan, shameless hymn-monger/bon-vivant bachelor—a production of any one of their operettas thrives or sinks based on a careful balance of opposites. The words and music, to take the most ob...

The Times’ Obsession With a Nameless Man

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Even if they're right, you have to chuckle, really, at the Seattle Times' crusade, posing as news stories, to bring a certain Mr. Nobody to justice for the 2001 murder of federal prosecutor Tom Wales.
The stories—written in part by a reporter whose wife works for the same pro...

Bottoms Up

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Ken Kesey had a theory about proper heavy drinking: "Put a bottom under it." Essentially, this bit of advice is the reverse of "soaking it up," the brunch-centric/morning-after hangover cure. Put literally, Kesey was saying: "Eat a good meal, then start boozing." But it's a tricky balance. If you...

PICK The Last Mistress: Asia Argento is too sexy for history

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Catherine Breillat hitches her wagon to the hottest of European stars, Asia Argento, in a highly entertaining adaptation of Jules-Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly's mid-19th-century novel Une vieille maîtresse—once notorious for its treatment of a young libertine's ero...

Opening Nights: The Wind in the Willows

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500

With little more than a tricked-out bicycle, Theater Schmeater transports the young and the young at heart to a magical realm of animals in their adaptation of The Wind in the Willows. Here, weasels conspire and carry pop guns, badgers sport Scottish brogues, and best buddies Mole and Wa...

Revised DUI Law Gets Solid Debut

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500

So far, so good for King County prosecutors and the state's new DUI felony statute. Karl Solid, 45, the first person in the county to be charged under the revised 2007 law providing prison terms for drunk drivers, last week became the first person in the county to be convicted under it. Solid, of...

Mamma Mia!: Meryl Streep sings the music of Abba

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Sure, it's nice that the actors sing their own numbers—Meryl Streep has a fab set of pipes, and the fact that Pierce Brosnan sings like a bullfrog in heat is used to adorable effect. But without the originals' multiply dubbed wall of sound, these ABBA tunes only get their due in the all-too...

Big Greg’s Bursting Wallet

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500

As the mayor surely likes to say, you can never be too thin or—when it comes to campaign donations—too rich. Big Greg's war chest hit $200,000 on the Fourth of July—with just a mere 17 months left until the Nov. 3, 2009 general election. Based on his history of arm twisting, he ...

Taller For Transit

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500

In less than a year, if all goes as planned, the first of Sound Transit's light-rail lines will open connecting the airport with downtown. In 2001, the City Council approved station-area overlay districts that increased density and zoning around the transit stations. The idea behind the ordinance...

Can’t Get an Attorney for Your FBI-Conspiracy Case?

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Corporate embezzler in an Armani suit or trailer-park guy who just knocked over a liquor store—both are told the same thing as those metal bracelets lock around their wrists: "You have the right to an attorney."
But that right only applies in criminal court. If you feel you were wrong...

My Custom Van

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500
Michael Ian Black, best known for his frequent (constant?) appearances on I Love the ’80s, now makes his first foray into, ahem, literature with his humorous essay collection My Custom Van (Simon Spotlight, $23.95). A foreword by Abraham Lincoln, check. Threatening letters to squirrels, check. ...

Wyclef Jean

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500
Many socially conscious rappers started out with a message and ended up rhyming about money, hos, and Dom Perignon. Not Wyclef Jean. The Haitian-American MC, who founded the philanthropic organization Yéle Haiti to benefit that impoverished island nation, has managed to avoid the bling and st...

Please Ring Bell

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500
Alicia, a model, supports herself on the pool’s edge, the light from her iPhone illuminating her face against the green glow of the underwater lights and the dark of night. She’s probably still so absorbed in Steve Jobs’ latest must-have that she doesn’t realize the photo she...

Bite of Seattle

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500
As the smells of roasting meat, fried delights, and sweet libations waft through downtown, the masses will be drawn to Seattle Center like fruit flies to banana peels. Stomachs are already rumbling in anticipation of the annual Bite of Seattle weekend (Friday through Sunday). There, epicureans will ...

The Last Polar Bear

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500
That damn global warming: First it made the weather wacky. Now it’s melted enough Arctic ice to threaten polar bears with extinction. And while the Lords of the Arctic have a reputation for being stealthy, ruthless killers, the exhibit “The Last Polar Bear: Facing the Truth of a Warming Wo...

Ghostbusters

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500
Who you gonna call? I think we all know the answer: the top-grossing film of 1984, Ghostbusters! Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, and Sigourney Weaver star in the paranormal smash comedy, which inspired only one so-so sequel and a surprising number of video games. It was, of course, a simpler...

Last Year at Marienbad

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500
Back in the day, literal-minded audiences had great fun pretending to be baffled by this artiest of European art films. In Alain Resnais’ 1961 Last Year at Marienbad, politely avid “X” (Giorgio Albertazzi) pursues the mysteriously diffident “A” (an irresistible Delphine Seyr...

Seattle Bon Odori

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500
During my childhood in Japan, I’d find refuge at my grandmother’s because, unlike my parents, she didn’t give me a money-doesn’t-grow-on-trees spiel when I turned on the AC. Japanese summers are heavy with humidity and filled with the sound of cicada beetles wailing incessantly i...

Bruce Lee 35th Anniversary

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500
“Why doesn’t somebody pull out a .45 and, bang, settle it?” asked Bruce Lee in his martial-arts classic Enter the Dragon. Despite that Chris Tucker–esque line, former Seattle resident and UW student Lee was a master of ass-kicking finesse until his untimely death in 1973. The Bru...

I Die Daily

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500
You tell me what Matthew Barney is up to in his five Cremaster flicks. Or let documentary filmmaker Matthew Wallin venture a guess in his canon-spanning doc I Die Daily: The Making of Matthew Barney’s Cremaster Cycle. Through Aug. 30, portions of Wallin’s film-in-progress and related audio...

Kirkland Uncorked

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500
I acquired a taste for good wine during my four years at prestigious Washington State University. Or at least I thought it was good wine. “You aren’t supposed to keep your Burgundy in the fridge,” my roommate would sniff as I pulled out the sweet deal I’d scored at Rite Aid to en...

Dancing 'Til Dusk

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500
Ever wanted to waltz with a homeless person? You’ll have the chance at Dancing ‘til Dusk (Thursdays through Aug. 28). Despite the odd location, where an actual dance floor will be trucked in, the series offers live music and a different dance theme so you can dress up (or down) for ...

Angels in America

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500
Back in 1994, Intiman was the first regional repertory company to stage Tony Kushner’s two-part epic Angels in America, probably the greatest American play of the decade. Kushner’s “gay fantasia on national themes” tackled AIDS, Republican hate politics, religion, a...

Anchorman

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500
“I love scotch. Scotchy, scotch, scotch. Here it goes down, down into my belly . . . ” Oh! Is the camera rolling? Well, then, let the broadcaster finish his drink before delivering the news. Which he does, on camera, without shame—and that’s the way Will Ferrell tears up the rest...

The Jesus and Mary Chain

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500
From Scotland they came, the Reid brothers, shuddering the plaster off dorm-room walls with their 1985 debut Psychocandy. No one expected The Jesus and Mary Chain to last for long, especially with its reputation for drinking and brawling, a studied indifference to fans and critics, and a reluctance ...

My Neighbor Totoro

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500
If you’ve got kids, or even if you don’t, Hayao Miyazaki’s 1988 enchanted anime adventure film is sure to bring a smile. Dubbed, not subtitled, to make it easier for children, this gentle tale concerns two sisters who encounter woodland spirits when they move to the country.

Planet of the Apes

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500
“Get your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!” Need we say more about our favorite post-apocalyptic film of 1968? The late Charlton Heston stars in his second most iconic role (after Ben-Hur), with Roddy McDowall surprisingly recognizable, and effective, under that Oscar-win...

Aliens

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500
"Game over, man! Game over!" With panicky Bill Paxton and the rest of his military squad quaking in fear around her, leave it to Sigourney Weaver to again save the day in James Cameron's flat-out brilliant 1986 sci-fi/feminist/monster movie Aliens. It's a showdown between mothers: Weaver's Ri...

Sidewalk Cinema

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500
There are six names guaranteed to make you laugh in Monty Python and the Holy Grail: Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin. Arthurian legends have never been treated with such impudent silliness as in Monty Python’s 1975 geek comedy classic...

Seattle Bike-in

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500
Join the bicycle parade to this evening of outdoor music, movies, and fun--all geared towards an environmentally friendly purpose. Tired bikers will also be able to appreciate the grueling terrain of the Paris Roubeaix bicycle tour documented in the 1976 A Sunday in Hell, as well as the local...

Hoquiam

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500
The last I heard, Hoquiam was inches away from signing with Secretly Canadian. This would make sense, since Hoquiam is the project of Drake Jurado and his older, well-known brother Damien, who has been a part of the Illinois label's roster for years. Damien plays guitar and sings. Drake plays keyboa...

Judas Priest

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500
Judas Priest and I were born in the same year-- 1970. How are we doing 38 years later? Well, I need more naps, and hangovers are really becoming a bitch. Priest, however (which joins Sabbath and Maiden in metal's Holy Trinity) continues to rock as loudly and proudly as always. Plus, defying all logi...

Boss Martians

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500
Getting too much of something over and over again isn't always a bad thing. Sex, for example. Or sweetly punkish power-pop. Yes, there's about a bazillion bands in the world marrying gritty, crunchy guitar to instantly catchy hooks and fist-pumping melodies, maybe with a touch of synth here, and bri...

Burning Brides

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500
A few years ago, Dmitri Coats-- frontman of the L.A.-via-Philadelphia power-rock trio Burning Brides-- said to me, "Where are the bands that make you feel like you're driving 90 miles an hour in a convertible? Where are the bands that make you feel like walking around with gold spray paint, y'know, ...

The Copyrights

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500
The Copyrights appear to have infringed liberally on a sound trademarked by the Buzzcocks and the Ramones, but when you're dealing with goofy, fun pop punk, no one's going to get too haughty about intellectual property. This Carbondale, Illinois-based band isn’t G-rated (while the Descendents d...

MakLak

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500
Well, MakLak has given his three-months notice: After September, the venerable one-man band (with live rhythm section support) won't be playing any more shows. Presently, this is the only gig on his concert calendar, so local music enthusiasts who've been meaning to see MakLak for the past twelve ye...

Flobots, P.O.S., Doomtree

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500
2007 was a good year for the Flobots, and 2008 is shaping up to be even better, at least if you're measuring things by their popularity on 107.7 The End. Seattle loves well-thought-out hip-hop, and between Johnny 5's tight rhymes, Brer Rabbit's gravity-defying dance moves, Mackenzie Roberts' viola p...

Flosstradamus

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500
It's not often that I have the opportunity to drop the word "zany" free from the shackles of ironic detachment I've so self-consciously created. But there's really no other word that fully encapsulates the sounds-- and its mostly glossy noise-- of DJing duo Flosstradamus. From the frigid glass-and-s...

Lyfe Jennings

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500
While his first name implies a full cycle on this planet, Lyfe Jennings actually only did a dime behind bars-- which probably feels like a lifetime, so he's forgiven. The Toledo native has been compared to Curtis Mayfield and D'Angelo, and with good reason-- his voice is light but raspy, impassioned...

Animal Farm

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500
Animal Farm may be named for the infamous Orwell novel, but these party boys are more interested in jamming out than getting too serious-- not that politics don't come up, it's just that they'd rather be fun (or funny) than call the public to arms. Whether they're rhyming about mean streaks or the s...

The Master Musicians of Jajouka feat. Bachir Attar-- CANCELED

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500
The Master Musicians of Jajouka are one of world music's pioneering outfits. Although Smithsonian Folkways and the Ocora label had been producing field recordings as far back as the '50s, the 1971 album Brian Jones Presents: The Pipes of Pan at Jajouka was one of the first instances of Wester...

The Blasters

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500
For those of you now gearing up for that Los Lobos show on the 25th, why not get the party started a week early and shake your rumps to the Blasters? Both bands emerged from the same early '80s scene. After X blended punk, twang and rockabilly, Los Angeles soon became the breeding ground for post-ne...

Pigs!

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500
Think New Kids on the Block—with curly pink tails. In Tina La Plant and Jill Wangsgard’s zany epic about porcine youth blinded by the limelight, three little piggies with “Starz in Their Eyes” sing their way into the claws of the big bad wolf (ahem, talent agent). Under Mimi Kata...

Sitting In Circles With Rich White Girls: Memoirs Of A Bulimic Black Boy

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500
In his stage debut and one-man-show nonetheless, Chad Goller-Sojourner shares his story of growing up—get ready for it—black, fat, gay, and raised by white parents. (Augusten Burroughs, relinquish your most-unusual-upbringing title.) Whether delivering a detailed account of losing h...

Live from the HUT

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500
Wing-It Productions’ live-action variety radio show broadcasts a gritty blend of 1940’s noir drama and hot, modern improv action before their studio audience, and to all America via podcast. Part theatersports comedy, part scripted drama-within-a-drama, Live from the HUT is a fast-p...

Mother Courage and Her Children

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500
Amid the cruelty of war, Mother Courage hangs on tightly to what she knows best: capitalism. Soldiers may die, children may be lost, but profiteering will surely live on. Dorothy Cosby Atkinson’s direction of David Hare’s adaptation of Bertolt Brecht’s play maintains both the traditio...

Seattle Weekly | Complete Issue

Twist in the Gut

Bard Beats Bond

Blocked and Untagged

Rubbing With the Stars

Betting on David Black

Open City

Married With Urges

The Dark Knight: Christian Bale suits up against Heath Ledger

Opening Nights: Bare

Sweden’s Greatest Gift to Humankind

No Resting in Peace

Sane in the Membrane

This Week's Horoscopes

PICK Alexandra: Meanwhile, the Russian war in Chechnya drags on

Opening Nights: Big River

Sage Goes Soft Over New Developer Tax Breaks

Opening Nights: The Mikado

The Times’ Obsession With a Nameless Man

Bottoms Up

PICK The Last Mistress: Asia Argento is too sexy for history

Opening Nights: The Wind in the Willows

Revised DUI Law Gets Solid Debut

Mamma Mia!: Meryl Streep sings the music of Abba

Big Greg’s Bursting Wallet

Taller For Transit

Can’t Get an Attorney for Your FBI-Conspiracy Case?

My Custom Van

Wyclef Jean

Please Ring Bell

Bite of Seattle

The Last Polar Bear

Ghostbusters

Last Year at Marienbad

Seattle Bon Odori

Bruce Lee 35th Anniversary

I Die Daily

Kirkland Uncorked

Dancing 'Til Dusk

Angels in America

Anchorman

The Jesus and Mary Chain

My Neighbor Totoro

Planet of the Apes

Aliens

Sidewalk Cinema

Seattle Bike-in

Hoquiam

Judas Priest

Boss Martians

Burning Brides

The Copyrights

MakLak

Flobots, P.O.S., Doomtree

Flosstradamus

Lyfe Jennings

Animal Farm

The Master Musicians of Jajouka feat. Bachir Attar-- CANCELED

The Blasters

Pigs!

Sitting In Circles With Rich White Girls: Memoirs Of A Bulimic Black Boy

Live from the HUT

Mother Courage and Her Children