Part 1 of the TV version of Jared Diamond’s history of civilization, “Guns, Germs, and Steel,” is on in high def right now. I hardly ever watch TV without doing something else at the same time, but this is urging me to put the laptop down.
The city council spent the day interviewing 14 candidates for council position #9, and I spent the day watching them.
For the interviews, the council split up into two groups and spoke with candidates for 24 minutes each, asking predetermined questions sent to candidates by email earlier this week. One group met in council chambers; the other in a cramped conference room outside the mayor’s office on the seventh floor. Virtually no members of the public showed up to watch the interviews; the audience, such as it was, was made up almost exclusively of reporters and city staff. Unlike last week’s parade of wannabes, unknowns and also-rans, today’s aspirants were serious contenders, identified as “semifinalists” by the council on Tuesday.
What distinguished today’s candidates from one another, more than their political leanings (all are liberal Democrats), were their specific positions on issues from the Alaskan Way Viaduct to bus-rapid transit. I won’t try to summarize all their responses here; instead, I’ll highlight a few moments that grabbed my attention:
• Dolores Sibonga, a former city council member who says she won’t run for reelection if she gets the position (but didn’t rule out the possibility of running for another seat), said she supported “increased bus service” now that the monorail to Ballard and West Seattle is dead, but had little response to council members who pointed out that buses, unlike elevated or subway trains, get stuck in traffic. “I wasn’t altogether sold on the monorail because it… took people off buses,” Sibonga said. “Elevated transportation cuts light and air and access for people on the stret.”
• Venus Velazquez, a public-relations consultant who some say has been difficult to work with, seemed to rub some council members the wrong way when she answered pointed questions about how she would respond to minorities who oppose linking gay rights to civil rights by laughing uncomfortably and dodging. “The bus is big enough for all of us… When one group goes down the rest of us go down.” (Velazquez also had an annoying tendency to speak in corporate PR jargon, e.g. “building bridges,” “keep everyone moving up the economic ladder,” “all things being equal,” “finding win-win solutions,” “bringing everybody to the table,” etc.)
• Attorney Joann Francis took a tough stance on police accountability, supporting indemnification from officer lawsuits and access to unredacted officer complaints for Office of Police Accountability Review Board members. She did raise a few eyebrows, however, when she talked about her work as an attorney for First and Goal, the Paul Allen corporation that built and operates Seahawks Stadium. And she floundered a little when asked what cuts she would make in difficult budget times, stating the obvious “you listen to the public in terms of specific priorities and go to basic services that the government’s responsible for” without answering the question.
• Sally Clark, the Lifelong AIDS Alliance employee and former aide to ex-city council member Tina Podlodowski, came across as poised and well-versed in city issues, while Stella Chao seemed vague and unspecific, talking generally about “working collaboratively toward common goals” without identifying what those goals might be.
• Javier Valdez responded pointedly to Tom Rasmussen’s question about whether he would be an independent council member, given that he has worked for the last five years under the mayor as an employee of City Light: “You were the head of the mayor’s office for senior citizens [when you ran for office], council member Rasmussen, and I think you’ve really done your job remarkably well,” he said.
• Verlene Jones, a union organizer, elicited some puzzled looks when she referred to the Alaskan Way Viaduct as “one of the beauties of Seattle,” continuing effusively, “It’s very rare that you can call a freeway a beauty. I would hate to lose that beautiful vision I have every morning of our city that gets me going, gets me pumped, makes me happy to be here.”
• Sharon Maeda, alone among all the candidates, expressed interest in a proposal to tear down the Alaskan Way Viaduct and replace its capacity with improvements to surface streets downtown, noting that while she was living at Harbor Steps, across from the viaduct, “I would occasionally see little pieces of concrete falling off it.”
On Monday, January 23, the council will announce its list of six finalists. They’ll interview those finalists throughout the week, and will likely choose a new council member on Thursday. Peter Steinbrueck tried unsuccessfully on Tuesday to convince his colleagues to hold a public hearing on the three top contenders, but his effort failed, and no public hearing is planned.
For more on the top 14 contenders, see the council’s web site.
In years past I’ve been sent the catalog of films ahead of time, where I’ve been able to make notes about what I’m looking forward to and what I can’t wait to avoid. This year I never got the book, probably because I was nearly late with my press application. Though I’ve gone through some of the films on-line, it’s harder to make notes in the margins when looking at a computer screen.
Two Seattle films are playing in Park City, one at Sundance and one at Slamdance, and I’m looking forward to them both.
I’ve heard from people in Seattle who’s worked on both the sound and the video post-production that Iraq in Fragments is a poetic and visually arresting film. I’ll report back on it once I’ve been to the press screening.
The other local film is Lynn Shelton’s Slamdance entry We Go Way Back, which was produced by the non-profit studio The Film Company. I’ve seen an advanced screening of this sweet and deceptively simple film, and I’ll report on that down the line. Plus, I’m dying to find out if they raised enough money to retrieve the 35mm print from the lab. I’m guessing they did, but I’ll know for sure in a day or two.
Anyway, I’m grabbing the catalog from the press office right now, and I’ll write back with more movie news in a bit.
-Andy Spletzer slogging from Sundance in Park City, Utah
Yes, he of the scantily clad teen sex and whatever flicks, Larry Clark is back at it with Wassup Rockers. It’s premiering at the Slamdance Film Festival and opens nationwide in April. Let’s hope it’s better than that piece of shit Ken Park (although aside from that one I do like Clark’s stuff).
I’m sitting in the airport as I write this (though I’m posting it several hours later in the free wi-fi of the Sundance Press Suite), waiting for my friend Jonathan Marlow to arrive from San Francisco before we drive into Park City. The snow advisory has been lifted, and it looks like it’ll be a lovely day. There’s even sun shining outside.
Funny thing about sitting in this Salt Lake City airport: you can tell by looking at them who is here on business, who is here to ski, and who is here to make a splash at Sundance. Something tells me the people-watching is much more fun at this time of year. I’m talking about the LA trio where the girl in the designer jeans is laughing a little too loudly at the joke made by the guy in the adidas sport coat. I’m talking about those awful dyed green Nikes. I’m talking about the two lost and rural-looking guys who haven’t mastered the attitude needed to pull off those flashy fur coats. Oh my god, are short ponytails on guys coming back, or is he a time traveler from 10 or 20 years ago?
The entertainment begins as soon as you land.
-Andy Spletzer slogging from Sundance in Park City, Utah
Your neighborhood supplier of corporate theater (the touring productions of The Graduate and The Lion King at “Broadway in Seattle at the Paramount”) changed hands recently. The infamous Clear Channel Communications got rid of its theater and concert divisionwhich produced 12,000 theater productions, 10,000 concerts, and 600 “motor-sports events” last yearand the new company, called Live Nation, went public. Guess what happened? Clear Channel stock shot up, and Live Nation’s promptly plummeted. The lesson? There is no money in theater.
Osama bin Laden has broken his long silence. In a videotape aired today on Al-Jazeera, he did three things:
1. He offered a truce.
2. He threatened another attack like Sept. 11.
3. He offered recommended reading for this weekend: “The Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower,” a book by the American author William Blum about how the American government is inviting terrorist attacks.
Sure, he wrote “Mustang Sally” many, many years ago, but I still think 64 is far too young.
I’m not the only one who misses Juno, the defunct local rock band, right? Of course not, they were great! Now fellow fans can rejoice because frontman Arlie Carstens (who has since relocated to LA) is working on a new project called Ghost Wars. A bunch of Seattle musicians have collaberated with Carstens, including Rosie Thomas, Jay Clarke and Derrick Fudesco of Pretty Girls Make Graves, Cory Murchey of Minus the Bear, Nate Mendel of the Foo Fighters, as well as former Juno bandmate Gabe Carter, and the results are pretty awesome.
If you’re curious (and you probably are), a few tracks are available via myspace at www.myspace.com/ghostwarsmusic. Go. Listen. Love.
This website is not a bad place to while away a few precious moments of your ever-shortening life. I particularly recommend the Who medly.
Forget the gum. If you’re trying to quit smoking, chew the hell out of these little guys. They’re amazing. They burn your mouth and make you forget. You can find ‘em at Madison Market, next to the hippy toothpaste.
I think a crack reporter should be assigned to investigate why downtown is being buzzed repeatedly this afternoon by a quartet of fierce looking unmarked Hueys or some other sort of most very military looking helicopters. All week long a single one of these monsters has been going up and down the waterfront, but today there are four, flying low, flying loud, back and forth, all along the waterfront. Why?
Anyone got any info?
Apparently, smoking cigarettes can disrupt the healing and lead to the rejection of face transplants.
Why do we know this? Because the lady who just got a new face in France has resumed puffing. See this Associated Press reportsporting the prize-winning headline New Lips Not Made For Smokingfor details.
To the great many harboring low-level obsessions with the peerless human train wreck that is Courtney Love: Be sure to check out this interview with Courtney’s moma web exclusive on The Stranger site.
Basic story: Linda Carroll, the professional therapist and woman from whence came Courtney, has written a book about her famously tortured child. Judging from the interview, Her Mother’s Daughter looks to provide some invaluable new insight into the forces that formed one of the 20th century’s most fascinating and exasperating artists (and one of the 21st century’s lamest jokes.)
P.S. Linda Carroll reads from Her Mother’s Daughter at the University Book Store next Tuesday, January 24 at 7 pm.
If he were smart, bin Laden would hit the San Fernando Valley, ground zero of the porn industry, with a nuke. That would put Bush in a weird spot w/ his Christian Conservative base.
While walking to work this morning, I came across this scene on the corner of 19th and Yesler: Clouds are in the sky, a school bus is picking up school kids, a man wearing a heavy jacket is walking down the street with a dog wearing black shoes. I stop in disbelief and look at the man and his best friend. The man is tallish and altogether normal. The dog is husky-like and each of its paws is covered by what appears to be a leather black pouch—a dog shoe. Shame was all over the dog’s face. I felt sorry for the poor thing. Now, here is one of my many fantasies: I have always wanted to meet a mid-sized dog on a level plain and fight it with no weapons, no stones. Me: just my hands; it: just its teeth. We would fight with precisely what nature gave us. Fight with our givens and nothing else. The dog after my throat; me trying to poke its eyes out. All of this happening simply to determine which living machine is in actuality better. The dog I saw on the street corner certainly sensed (or sniffed) this fantasy of mine, and communicated through the saddest of eyes that it too had this fantasy: a fair fight with a human. But the shoes made it look so ridiculous. For a human, well and good. But for it, for an animal to wear shoes—how far it had fallen from the age of the wolf.
Smobriety Charticle TenWeight: 175 pounds
Pulse: 67 beats per minute
Song Stuck in Head: “The Man Comes Around,” Johnny Cash
Risk of Smoking Resumption: Lemon Yellow (pretty much non-existent)
Symptoms: My cough is getting deeper, which is inspiring some concern over how deep it can go. I’m afraid that I’ll be coughing up toe jam in a week or so.
As a recently reformed smoker, I have received a few questions from concerned parties that run along the lines of: “How can I convince my friend/loved one to quit smoking?”
Answer is after the jump.
Continue reading "My Smobriety, Day Eleven: My Anti-Smoking Campaign" »
Andrew’s got a great post up about gay cowboysreal onesand why gay marriage matters even to them. Especially to them, in this instance. It’s heartbreaking, and it isn’t fiction.
OLYMPIA The lawmaker tapped to speak for Senate Republicans opposing gay-rights legislation is an affable, soft-spoken man who believes gays will go to hell unless they change their ways.
I apologize to the 98.5% of you who could give a shit about Bravo’s reality television/competition show Project Runway, but does anyone else think that the resident egotistical asshole, Santino Rice, needs to go home!? Did you see the ice-skating outfit he designed last night!? Jesus! It was horrific! It wasn’t quite as bad as his lingerie line, though, which actually made me want to throw-up in my mouth a little bit. “It’s supposed to come off!” he screamed at the judges when they criticized his creation… Who’d feel sexy in something that looked like an Oktoberfest celebration exploded all over their body!?
He’s an asshole, he only pulls off good designs about 30% of the time, and he’s ugly. Auf Wiedersehen, Santino! Go home!
I haven’t read Frey’s book, but ironically enough I heard all about it from my parents over Christmas, as they both read it and loved it. So we all plunked in front of the TV to watch the big, sappy ass Oprah special with Frey, where he meets a recovering alcoholic who had his words tattooed on her arm, Frey’s mother gave a teary-eyed explanation of how happy she was for her son, and Frey himself spoke of holding on when things get rough. It’s really creepy thinking of all the acting that went into this whole Oprah performance—to me it’s a lot sicker than someone like JT Leroy (whoever that person is) writing books and keeping the sermons out of the picture. The recovering alcoholic was in tears talking to Frey…wouldn’t that make you feel just a little bad about how far you’d taken your con? I guess that’s the age of (sur)reality TV we’re now immersed in though.
If you enjoy being inflamed, Jennifer, scan this Salon article in which writer Rebecca Traister interviews O’Beirne over lunch here.
Here is my favorite passage:
In the chapter about VAWA [Violence Against Women Act] you describe some of the signs of abuse — like having a partner who monitors what you’re doing, humiliates you in public, and controls your money — as trivial. Do you really think those things are trivial?I think they are potentially trivial. Could any one of those things rise to the level of a real abusive situation? I suppose so. But it strikes me as a sort of alarmist [attempt to define] domestic violence down in order to find some epidemic of it. [If those were true] every dating relationship in high school would be abuse. I mean constant, constant humiliation in front of people? It’s all so subjective: like every time I go out he asks me where I’ve been?
What I see there is an attempt to define it down because it has to be an epidemic — because there’s a lot of money in it being an epidemic.
Right. You complain about all the jobs VAWA created. But you also write about how the domestic crime statistics fell between 1993 and 2002, calling that bad news for all the people who need the stats to be high to keep their VAWA jobs. But given that the numbers fell with all those people in those VAWA jobs, isn’t it conceivable that those jobs helped lower the domestic violence rates?
The overall crime rate’s also down; you just don’t ever know, frankly. But I do know that they have an incentive to hype an epidemic. We don’t know. Because it’s so unclear what they’re doing [in VAWA jobs] except advocating and hyping the epidemic.
Goddamn VAWA for inventing and perpetuating the domestic violence epidemic just to get jobs, and perhaps good holiday bonuses! It’s as underhanded as Gay Recruitment!
…which is pissing off Unicef. Read all about it here. Hat tip: Alert reader Maria. (And, yes, Maria, a golden shower comes from the penisif a man is doing the showering.)
Originally, I was cavalier about the James Frey debacle. I’d read A Million Little Pieces, got a fair sense of its self-serving romanticizations upon contact, and initially dismissed the hubbub as naive mudslinging.
As the controversy spun out, I learned the specifics of Frey’s inventions, the nature of his amplifications, and, most creepily, the switcheroo in the book’s classification. (Originally shopped around as a novel, the book only sold after Frey re-labelled it a memoir.) The more I thought back on Frey’s book, the creepier it all got: At bottom, AMLP is a Tale of Redemption, but the stakes of any redemption are set by the depths from which the protagonist is redeemed, and by artifically lowering his depths—grossly overstating his criminal history, inventing rehab tortures out of whole cloth—Frey reveals himself to be a con artist.
The strongest argument I’ve read against Frey came in this past Sunday’s New York Times, where Liars’ Club author Mary Karr blasts Frey’s deeds on moral grounds before hitting her most persuasive angle, discounting Frey in the name of art:
At one point [during the writing of Liars Club], I wrote a goodbye scene to show how my hard-drinking, cowboy daddy had bailed out on me when I hit puberty. When I actually searched for the teenage reminiscences to prove this, the facts told a different story: my daddy had continued to pick me up on time and make me breakfast, to invite me on hunting and fishing trips. I was the one who said no. I left him for Mexico and California with a posse of drug dealers, and then for college. This was far sadder than the cartoonish self-portrait I’d started out with. If I’d hung on to my assumptions, believing my drama came from obstacles I’d never had to overcome - a portrait of myself as scrappy survivor of unearned cruelties - I wouldn’t have learned what really happened. Which is what I mean when I say God is in the truth.
The point: Truth is stranger—and slipperier—than fiction, and James Frey sucks for taking the easy, self-aggrandizing way out.
I forgot to Slog about this book review after reading it on Sunday, but it’s recommended reading in my book. Reviewer Ana Marie Cox rips apart author Kate O’Beirne’s new book, Women Who Make the World Worse. The book takes down old school feminists, from Betty Friedan to Gloria Steinem, but it’s O’Beirne who receives the big bruising here. My favorite part of the review, though, happens when Cox really sticks it to O’Beirne where it hurts:
In the age of the book-as-rant (see Goldberg, Ann Coulter, Al Franken and Michael Moore), perhaps one shouldn’t expect better than O’Beirne’s simplistic caricatures. Today American women have unprecedented access to educational and professional opportunity and to the machinery of power. O’Beirne, however, attributes women’s progress not to any feminist agitation but to “the natural evolution of social expectations.”Unfortunately, there is no such thing. Social change is often the product of confrontation between extremes. To depict one extreme as pernicious and all-powerful reduces real debate about equality into a cartoon about underarm hair. Feminism isn’t always pretty (see: underarm hair). Without it, however, Kate O’Beirne would have been unlikely to have this book published - and most women would not have their own money to waste on it.
Andrew Sullivan linked to this by Christopher Hitchens:
“I believe the President when he says that this will be a very long war, and insofar as a mere civilian may say so, I consider myself enlisted in it. But this consideration in itself makes it imperative that we not take panic or emergency measures in the short term, and then permit them to become institutionalised. I need hardly add that wire-tapping is only one of the many areas in which this holds true.The better the ostensible justification for an infringement upon domestic liberty, the more suspicious one ought to be of it. We are hardly likely to be told that the government would feel less encumbered if it could dispense with the Bill of Rights. But a power or a right, once relinquished to one administration for one reason, will unfailingly be exploited by successor administrations, for quite other reasons. It is therefore of the first importance that we demarcate, clearly and immediately, the areas in which our government may or may not treat us as potential enemies.”
Sullivan praises Hitchens, who is one of the plaintiffs in the ACLU’s lawsuit challenging Bush’s domestic spying (Hitchens may have been a target), for getting it. Then he ads…
Now the real question: why are there not more conservatives skeptical of a newly intrusive government power? Has it occurred to them that these powers may one day be deployed by a president they don’t trust?
There’s an easy answer to that question: It has, without a doubt, occurred to conservatives that one day someone like, say, Hillary Clinton or Russ Feingold or evenGod forbid!Howard Dean may be sitting behind that desk in the Oval Office. But why should they worry? When and if that happens, conservatives no doubt believe they can change the rulesagain.
Remember the conservative outcry when some low-level schmuck in the Clinton administration improperly peeked into a few FBI files? Who can ever forget conservatives screaming that Clinton lied to the American people? Oh, it was about a blowjob, sure, but still the man had to impeached. And remember how the Republicans claimed, during Bill’s war on Kosovo, that they could slam the Commander in Chief and pick apart the mission of our troops in the field? Remember “No one elected Hillarytell that woman to shut up and host state dinners!”
Once Bush was elected, conservatives changed all of the rules. The president, as it turns out, can lie to the American peopleprovided the president in question is a Republican. The First Lady can say whatever she likeshell, Laura Bush is free to slam Hillary Clintonan elected member of the U.S. Senate!and no one says, “Who elected Laura?” The same conservatives who drove Vincent Foster to suicidesuicide!scream at Dems for making poor Mrs. Alito cry. Spying on American citizens? That’s okey-dokey. Don’t like the conduct of the war? Well, you can’t critique Bushor Rummy or Cheney or Ricewithout being accused of having the blood of troops on your hands.
How many times over the last five years has Bush gotten away with shit that would have gotten Bill Clinton impeached? I’ve lost count.
Conservatives are confident that, having changed the rules once, they can change the rule againthey’re not concerned that one day a second President Clinton or President Dean will have exercise the powers they’ve allowed/encouraged Bush to grab.
I’d like to think that this beliefthat conservatives can stuff the genie of an above-the-law, imperial presidency back into the constitutional bottle when a Dem is elected presidentis more evidence of Republican and conservative hubris. But five years of muttering “Bill Clinton would have been impeached for this shit” to myself over and over again has left me feeling pretty pessimistic. I’m half-convinced that the Republicans will be able to change the rules againchange `em backwhen a Dem takes the White House.
P.S. Andrew Sullivan’s blog is now hosted by Time.com, and it’s been redesigned. Check it out.
Rejoice, oh fans of Scott Walker - the enigmatic yet hugely influential singer-songwriter-weirdo is set to release, The Drift, his first new album in 11 years, this spring:
“4AD is delighted to announce that SCOTT WALKER has completed work on his first album for the label.
The long-awaited new album - titled “The Drift” - will be Scott’s first since the ground-breaking “Tilt” was released in 1995. 4AD will release the album worldwide in May. The exact date will be announced shortly. A documentary film about Scott’s music - including the making of “The Drift” - is being made by the New York-based director Stephen Kijak. The film features a rare and unprecedented look into the creative world of one of rock’s most uncompromising and influential enigmas. Titled “Scott Walker: 30 Century Man”, it will also be released in 2006.”
I missed this article that ran in the Tacoma News Tribune last weekend. It’s a nice hit on Washington Congressman Doc Hastings. (Hastings heads up the House Ethics Committee, and the question is: With Tom DeLay roaming the halls, why didn’t the Pasco, WA Republican hold a single hearing in 2005?)
Here’s a choice quote:
“They might as well disband and stop pretending to have an ethics committee,” said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics. “They are a disgrace. Hastings should be embarrassed.”
Judge Jones’s recent ruling banning the teaching of intelligent design in Pennsylvania public schools has gotten a subtle thumbs up from the Vatican. The New York Times has the story.
The article is pretty great, especially since it casually crushes the Discovery Institute’s floundering line of reasoning, without much pretense to journalistic pseudo-objectivity:
There is no credible scientific challenge to the idea that evolution explains the diversity of life on earth, but advocates for intelligent design posit that biological life is so complex that it must have been designed by an intelligent source.
My bags are packed and I’m ready to head down to Park City to attend the annual Sundance Film Festival. Yep, it’s that time of year again. It’s time to mingle with the celebrities who have descended on a scenic mountain town to talk (at press conferences) about how they’re making movies “for the love of the art” and not for the publicity and goodie bags.
Of course we all know that celebrities are not the reason to attend a film festival. It’s the movies, stupid. Last year there were some great films buried among some Hollywood wannabe indies, and it was a crapshoot trying to guess which movies would be good. I feel better about this year’s crop, if only because there are fewer films with a Hollywood pedigree and more movies that seem to be taking chances. We shall see.
Actually, it sounds like the skiing is the reason to go to Park City this year, judging from the news reports about how much snow has been falling in the last couple of days. I’m hoping it won’t be too much trouble just getting into town from the airport. You’ll see how my expectations match up with my realities, and hear about all my adventures (both in and out of the snow), as I blog from Sundance. Stay tuned.
-Andy Spletzer
