Slog

Cover art—with hand lettering!—by Ellen Forney.

How the Party Parties—A Report from the DNC by Eli Sanders
“Some parties were just strange, and made one wonder whether the combination of perpetual boozing and Denver’s high altitude was triggering some sort of psychic break. A friend of a friend reported: ‘It was right about the time that I was eating coconut-covered shrimp at the Denver Aquarium and watching a tiger lick up the words ‘DNC 2008’ written in whipped cream that I realized I had no idea what the convention was about.’ Why there was a tiger at the Denver Aquarium could not be answered by anyone I encountered.”

Rebecca Brown, David Shields, Tao Lin, Kathleen Wilson, Everett True, et al. on a Certain Album By a Certain Band Called Built to Spill
“I once thought if I tried I could be perfect. If I did what one should, was nice and good, worked very hard, one day I could become as pretty and perfect as you. But I was wrong.”

Bethany Jean Clement on Getting Friendly with the Main Course
“My grandmother raised Angus cattle east of the mountains, outside Sunnyside. We often went over on weekends. When we branded—heating the branding iron to red-hot over a fire in the corral, guiding the cattle through a labyrinth of fences with more yells than whipping, squeezing them tight one at a time in the metal-barred chute—my job was to clip off the fur on their sides in a square so my dad or brother could apply the iron. It smelled pretty bad, and the cow would bellow mightily, its eyes rolling back in its head. Then, released, it would forget instantly, walking away calm and docile.”

Jonah Spangenthal-Lee on How the SPD Is Training the Next Generation of Cops
“In many ways, it seems strange that such a program even exists—teenagers, practically by definition, aren’t supposed to want to hang out with cops. But every other week, between 15 and 20 young men and women—the current class is predominantly white and male, save for one ex-cheerleader—show up to hear officers talk about life on the beat, learn tactical maneuvers and shoot guns with SWAT teams, and even run security or direct traffic at events such as Seafair.”

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: One of the guys in Polvo answers Dave Segal’s questions; Charles Mudede makes a grocery-shopping list out of Žižek’s latest book; Jen Graves and Brendan Kiley attempt to make sense of STRIKETHROUGH; Dan Savage asks Sherman Alexie about Native American porn; Lindy West goes to a Mayor’s Office of Film + Music mixer; Last Days begins with the psychotic meth-heads who tried to get Obama; Sarah Palin pens her first of (let’s hope!) many columns for The Stranger; A. Birch Steen hates everything; plus all the usual news, columns, calendar listings, and movie times.