In a post about the KC Municipal League's candidate ratings two days ago, I wrote a snarky bit about "Republican 36th District state Rep candidate Leslie Bloss." Actually, the information in the post referred to Republican Leslie Klein, who is also running in the 36th District, but for the other legislative position. Republican Leslie Bloss received a "good" rating from the Muni League. My apologies for the error; please consider my snark redirected toward Leslie Klein, who listed as his proudest accomplishment, again, as “my ability to help a friend unlock her psychic abilities that had become blocked.”

Jen Graves Profiles the Free Sheep Foundation--the Artists Behind Bridge and the Belmont--As They Move from One Dying Building to Another
"So far, the artists behind Free Sheep have delivered ephemeral monuments to the ephemeral monument we all live in, the city. They've been mythic and short-lived; the challenge now will be to preserve that spirit over the length of a three- or six-month lease. The idea is that once one lease expires, the artists will move to another disused space, or maybe even take over more than one at a time. It's a moveable feast of artists in real-estate purgatory."

Your Heatstroke-Preventing Guide to the Capitol Hill Block Party
Michaelangelo Matos interviews Craig Finn of the Hold Steady. Kelly O "interviews" Jay Reatard. Tim Harrington on the hottest show his band Les Savy Fav has ever played (illustrated!). Eric Grandy on Girl Talk. Megan Seling introduces New Faces. Plus: write-ups of every act this weekend, including Vampire Weekend, U.S.E., Kimya Dawson, Fleet Foxes, and Throw Me the Statue. Details, tickets, grid, etc., are here.

Sean Nelson on the Complex Morality of Loving Roman Polanski
"For this antisentimentalist, in film as in life, 'acceptable behavior' is something for other people to worry about. Which is, of course, the whole dilemma of being an ardent fan of Polanski's movies. Because of what we know and think we know, it's never easy to find the line between the artist and his work. Because there is no such line. Because the Polanski who made so many titanic works of cinema is the same Polanski who escaped from the Nazis is the same Polanski who not only lost his wife and unborn child to the Mansons but was initially accused of the murders in the press is the same Polanski who gave a 13-year-old girl champagne and a quaalude fragment then had sex with her on the floor of Jack Nicholson's living room. If the 20th century happened to anyone, it happened to Roman Polanski. And as a new documentary shows, it's still happening to him."

David Schmader on an Alleged Nazi Living... Like, Right Over There
"Details come from the U.S. Attorney's Office in Seattle, which alleges Herr Egner joined the Nazis in German-occupied Serbia in April 1941, after which he allegedly became part of a 'mobile killing unit' that claimed more than 17,000 victims. Most of the victims were Jewish men, women, and children, who Egner's unit allegedly took from a Belgrade concentration camp, asphyxiated with carbon monoxide, and then dumped in a mass grave. Today, Peter Egner will spend a final day puttering around the Bellevue retirement community where he's lived for the past two years in relative anonymity."

Annie Wagner on the New Brideshead Revisited Adaptation
"It isn't at all a bad time for a new adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's exquisite Brideshead Revisited. The BBC miniseries is over a quarter-century old, and there's never been a proper feature. The homosexual content--never exactly disguised--can be overt now, but we're not so advanced that the crushing guilt that accompanies it seems foreign. Meanwhile, Waugh's simultaneous envy of and nostalgia for the perfumed decadence of the English-Catholic aristocracy between the wars seems especially poignant, poised as we are on the lip of another recession."

Jonah Spangenthal-Lee on the CIA's New Presence at UW
"When classes at the University of Washington resume this fall, some students at the school will be under the watchful eye of a Central Intelligence Agency spook. In fact, some of them will even be learning from him."

ALSO DISCUSSED IN THIS ISSUE: Pink Skull; what the Zombies think of Odessey and Oracle; Implied Violence's new show in a disused City Light warehouse; rural King County; sexual harrassment at the Washington State Department of Natural Resources; the PONCHO shakeup; being ugly; Montreal; taco trucks; Taco Time; Nabokov; French detective novels; shamanism; the Double Beer Helmet™ (see below); and more.

Exciting news over at Line Out: the Stranger is hiring another writer for the music section. Read all about it here.

Bethany Jean Clement, who has contributed to The Stranger since 2003 and before that was managing editor of another alleged publication in Seattle, is The Stranger's new managing editor. She's also the sort of writer who gets letters from school teachers who use her column to teach writing. Here, for your lunchtime reading pleasure, are five of her best pieces to date.

On Digging for Razor Clams
"Copalis Beach, Washington (25 miles north of Aberdeen, population: 489), is known for two things: shipwrecks and razor clams. The most recent shipwreck, thought to be a steamer that had foundered in 1852, was discovered in 1987 where the Copalis River meets the ocean. The wreck has since disappeared and reappeared again several times, swallowed back up and regurgitated by the waters. The most recent razor-clam dig was about a week ago, in late April. The dig began before low tide in the dark around 5:30 a.m., with dawn bringing a highly unseasonable brief snowfall. Those out digging in the cold sand--mothers with toddlers in small-scale galoshes, old men of the sea with crabby expressions, out-of-towners carrying oversize buckets, one tweaker whose feet were bare but whose mind wore a protective coating of meth--took little notice of the snow."

On the Pink Door's 25th Anniversary Party
"A man in a tiny clown hat sliced prosciutto ceaselessly. One partygoer camped out in front of the king crab legs, eating away, prompting a certain city council member's wife to observe, 'It's a buffet, not a trough.'"

On the Fireside Room at the Sorrento Hotel
"It takes concentration to discern that one side of the octagon isn't a mirror, but a portal to the reception desk. Upholstered chairs wear stripes of varying widths and colors, while already puffy couches bear embarrassments of bonus cushions. Add some amber and white lights and a flock of poinsettias, and it's as if you're somehow wallowing comfortably at the bottom of your great aunt's dish of hard candies on a low dose of a strong hallucinogen."

On Cooking for the Holidays
"I'm not the kind of person who'd serve a pre-made holiday meal--too picky, too poor, and too morbidly curious about what'll happen in the cooking. I first made a Thanksgiving dinner in college with my beautifully named friend Kellie Diamond; we listened to old records, called our mothers for instructions repeatedly, and drank wine from a jug all day, with far better results than anyone expected. I went to lie down postprandially--just for a minute--and woke up the next morning atop the bedclothes, still wearing my shoes."

On the Changing Nature of Georgetown
"Georgetown is now home to both a waxing salon and an art walk, meaning the area has officially crawled out of its incubating murk, grown little flipper-feet, and is locomoting across the shore toward some terrible light. (Evidence directly outside the 9 Lb. Hammer's door: the beautiful brick Rainier Cold Storage building, half-demolished and gaping like a wartime nightmare.) The first-ever art walk--called the Georgetown Second Saturday Art Attack ("I'm wearing a bulletproof vest," someone joked)--was mobbed. It looked like latter-day Brooklyn."

That's not even counting the one that was just accepted for inclusion in Best Food Writing 2008. Many more examples of her work can be found here.

Do you enjoy trolling through mind-numbing court filings? Do you like taking long walks down to city hall to pick up always-exciting legislative action agendas? Do you wish you spent more time interviewing crazy people about everything from the fascinating world of mass transit to gay robot conspiracies?

Then have we got a job for you!

The Stranger's news department is looking for a few good interns.

If you have any aspirations to be a journalist, can string together a sentence, and don't mind acting as a drug mule every once in awhile, then send a resume and clips (if you have them) to Barnett@thestranger.com.

Stranger internships: You can't say you hate it if you haven't tried it.

Oh Anderson, with you to juggle the talking heads through November, I know we're in good hands. And that little rat smile you have, like when you told Donna Brazile you wanted to be her 'boo', well it melts my heart and helps me forgive you for having complete ass-chancres like Tony Perkins on your show. Je t'aime, my sly little friend.

Here's my imaginary mother-in-law, glamorous descendant of the original 19th-century robber baron, whose book on collage is in a word, riveting. I picked it up at the Goodwill earlier today, and the photographs of her Southhampton house aswirl in pink gingham were worth the $2.99! I picture Andy and I lolling on the veranda, sipping lemonade from the family crystal and molesting each other through our clothes.

^{Photo by Kelly O}

It's my last day as a guest Slogger. I found I had much less to say than I thought I would. I've also been unusually busy, so that's kept my postings to a minimum. But it has been grand to post my little things for your amusement. I'll see you in comments.

See if you can stay in your seat while you enjoy my final video offering!

Brendan Kiley on Greg Lundgren's Monumental Undertaking
"Lundgren Monuments will succeed or fail depending on how many people seek alternatives to the defaults and clichés of the death-care business. Lundgren's cast-glass monuments adorn cemeteries in five countries and 20 states, but he's had to fight, cemetery by cemetery, to get them in. Most cemeteries only allow monuments made of granite or bronze, which don't erode like marble and sandstone. Glass, Lundgren tells reluctant cemetery directors, is as durable as granite. Lundgren argues that because the technology required to cast thick glass is only 30 years old, people don't understand how tough it is. In his studio, he heats glass to 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit--incidentally, the same temperature at which bodies are cremated--and cools it in computer-controlled ovens, over a period of weeks, so it congeals into a strong, flawless mass. 'Slice granite as thin as a piece of window glass and throw a rock at it,' he says. 'It'll shatter.'"

Dominic Holden on Qwest Field's Problem with Queers
"The staff at Qwest Field had every clue that gay couples would be attending the WaMu Theater on July 1. After all, that night's concert was the Seattle stop on the True Colors tour. It starred Rosie O'Donnell and Cyndi Lauper, the stage was decorated with a rainbow and a pink triangle, and the event was billed as a fundraiser for organizations to 'raise awareness about the discrimination the GLBT community still faces.' But while the B-52s played a slow song, two lesbians who were sitting in the third row say a security guard approached them, shined his flashlight in their faces, and then lowered the beam onto their joined hands. He then gestured with his finger across his throat to 'cut it out' and told them to 'stop it,' the women say."

Jen Graves on Adam Satushek's Photographs, Eric Elliott's Paintings, and the Most Influential Radical Idea of the 20th Century
"On the surface--in fact, especially on the surface--two young Seattle artists, Adam Satushek and Eric Elliott, have nothing in common. Satushek makes big, bright, smooth, ultraclear photographs. Elliott makes thick little gray oil paintings. But it's even truer in art than in life that looks aren't everything. These artworks think similarly, in sculptural terms, about the relationship between innards and skin."

Bethany Jean Clement on the Scene at Seattle's Longest-Running Speakeasy (Location Undisclosed)
"The bartender is hands-down the slowest in town. Protocol dictates that, after a near-eternal wait, when he asks you what you'd like, you ask him what he thinks you ought to have. The featured cocktails this evening are the bloody Caesar, the redoubtable Pimm's cup, and variations on Jim Beam (ginger ale is a favorite addition). After brief scrutiny--his solemn gaze through owlish glasses is an apparent assessment of the state of your soul--a prescription is issued, and your cocktail is undertaken. Subjects to raise: his recent trip to London, his sartorial splendor (top hat, bow tie, striped trousers, tails). He doesn't say much, and, as noted, he's not quick with the mixing, but at his bar, all the drinks are free."

Steven Blum Questions David Sedaris
"As he walks out of the elevator at the Fairmont Olympic Hotel, David Sedaris looks up, over his shoulder, down at his shoes, and then sort of spins around. He's looking for me, but I'd rather watch him futz around than introduce myself."

Lindy West Watches Heathers Outdoors
"Hey! Young people! I just thought of the best idea for you. Why don't you move to South Lake Union? Seriously. Move to South Lake Union. Do it. Do it. Come on. Do it! Aren't you having fun? Don't you like it here? Look at all these condos we're building! Aren't they cool and tall? God, it's so great hanging out here in South Lake Union and doing stuff like watching totally cool cinema on a lawn with other young people. Hey, look—the Big Dipper! The stars really are brighter over South Lake Union. Except when the outdoor movie is playing (Paul Allen has the stars dimmed for the outdoor movies). Listen. I'll tell you what. If you move to South Lake Union, Paul Allen will personally guarantee you ONE free hug. Wait, what? Okay, if you'd prefer, Paul Allen will personally guarantee never to hug you. Ever. No hugs. Dooo it."

ALSO DISCUSSED IN THIS ISSUE: Heath Ledger's Joker; Lil Wayne's lil problem; Dan Savage's insomnia; what Mark Arm thinks of the music community ("Fuck the music community"); the Janus-faced marvel that is Strawberry Theatre Workshop's Leni; what Matt Dillon did to two goats over the weekend (sewed them together, stuffed the cavity with more meat, roasted it all over an open fire); why King Cobra's owners are selling after just six months; the ongoing looniness of the 46th District state legislature race; censorship on Craigslist; Michelle Obama; fireworks; anaphylactic shock; and more.

A great deal of heart and soul and a surprising amount of nerdiness will walk out of the Stranger's offices in just a few minutes as Bradley Steinbacher is going on to do bigger and better things with his life. And I think it's about time someone called bullshit.

Seriously, Brad. What the fuck?

Brad has always been the quiet, reasonable one in the office, and his departure will undoubtedly endanger many of our lives.

Brad has prevented publisher Tim Keck from following through on his many threats to "fucking gut [us] assholes" for consistently failing to meet deadlines—which is often since we're all a bunch of fucking potheads—and has always been there to pass out vitamin D and orange slices when someone has a bad trip at a staff meeting. More likely than not, by Tuesday, we'll all have gone feral and eaten an intern.

So, fuck you for leaving, Obi-Brad Kenobi. You [were] our only hope.

photo by Chieni, via Flickr.

Brad is a self-loather. He likes to say of himself, "You can't kill what's already dead." He also likes to believe that as he has gotten older, he has lost his appeal. Perhaps it is impertinent to say so, but I would like to report that this is empirically untrue. Slowly, over the two-plus years I've worked here, I have discovered that every single person I've ever met who also knows Brad currently has or has at one point in recent history had some sort of crush on him. It's almost weird. Nevertheless, it is a body of evidence impossible to argue with. (And quite harmless and innocent—with due respect, Brad is very taken.)

The alpha and omega of my own personal crush is Brad's performance on an episode of the ridiculous Stranger-staffed game show Whatcha Talkin' 'Bout, Sherman?!, which aired in the mid-90s on public access. Brad was sort of the Vanna White of that show. Except that in at least one episode, viewed by me in a recent VHS-fueled nostalgia trip, Brad was also the Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, and Marx brothers.

The man can pratfall.

I mean, really, really well. Everyone knows he is a funny man. But he also seems to be a gifted physical comedian. Underneath all those torn-up baggy jeans and worn-out plaid shirts is a body just waiting to fall. Perfectly. Hysterically.

Swoon.

A. Birch Steen Comments on Brad Steinbacher's Departure
"Bradley Steinbacher, managing editor of this publication, has tendered his resignation. Unsurprisingly, it was immediately accepted. Word has it Steinbacher has found a more lucrative line of work and is getting out of journalism entirely--the best thing to happen to journalism in years."

Adrian Ryan Returns to His Hometown in Montana to Watch Barack Obama Watch an Independence Day Parade
"Barack Obama is black. Science has confirmed this. Butte, Montana, on the other hand, is white. Lawn-art-and-RVs white. Extraordinarily white, absurdly white, 96 percent white! I was born and grew up in Butte, so I should know. Before age 14, I had never laid eyes on a bona fide black person who wasn't a Cosby. Why did Barack Obama--in the mad heat of a presidential campaign--drag his entire family to celebrate America's most American of holidays in a conservative backwoods with only three sad little electoral votes and almost no appreciable sway in the course of presidential doings?"

Erica C. Barnett on a 9,000-Word, Three-Part Editorial in Crosscut Decrying Light Rail
"The pieces prompted a rather overwrought bit of damage control by Sound Transit, which mistakenly issued, then withdrew, a response replete with phrases like 'That's naive,' and 'Hello?' The agency issued a calmed-down version on July 2. Not that there isn't plenty in MacDonald's argument to criticize, starting with the utterly unsupported claim that people will love riding the bus if we just make them nicer. As the Seattle streetcar has demonstrated, what you're riding matters—not just whether, as some have derisively claimed, the train or bus or streetcar is 'cute,' but whether you know where it's going, whether you're sure it'll get there on time, and whether you'll be surrounded by people for whom transit is a rolling homeless shelter. Rail offers certainty--and certainty means people use it as transit, not a convenient place to sleep or shoot up."

Paul Constant on Dash Shaw and His 720-Page Comic Book Bottomless Belly Button
"Even to look at the thing, one can tell that it's the sort of dense brick of a book that causes book critics to become insensate and throw around words like tour de force and magnum opus in a drunk-on-criticism daze. The feverishness will only get worse once the besotted literati fly through the thing. It's enough to make a grown-up reviewer swoon."

Jen Graves on the Art of Doing What You're Told
"For the first few cranks, you absorb how the machine works. You watch the exposed gears turning beneath the little stage, puppeteering the papier-mâché figures. You take in the actions that repeat as you turn the crank: An Iraqi woman is raped, a hooded Iraqi prisoner is strung up by his arms, a college student is pushed down and Tasered. On one level, you know these are news events that you had nothing to do with. On another level, you're the one standing there, turning the crank."

Bethany Jean Clement on Spring Hill, West Seattle's First Destination Restaurant
"Mr. Fuller and his staff move silently and smoothly around each other in choreographed harmony in the kitchen. Nary a word is spoken; pots do not clang. One man's job is to stand still with his brow furrowed and his chin sunk to his chest, concentrating deeply on endless prep tasks. It's professionalism incarnate, of the opposite sort from red-faced, plate-throwing TV chefs. The precision and intensity are presided over by shining ladles and tongs hanging in order of size, and it's all reflected in a stripe of mirror along the opposite wall. Watching the lining-up of each stalk of asparagus on a plate makes a certain kind of person feel a little choked up."

Lindy West Tries to See a Movie about Beavers at the IMAX (Ends Up Seeing a Movie about Car Racing)
"I didn't want to see the stupid race-car movie. I wanted to see the movie about the beavers. I'd really been hyping up Beavers in my brain: thinking about beavers, talking about beavers, performing an original one-woman preenactment of Mr. Beaver and Mrs. Beaver talking to each other in British accents. ''Ello, Mrs. Beaver!' 'Good morning, 'usband! Would you loik to chew on sticks and wood for breakfast?' 'Capital! Cheerio! Oi'll do the 'ishes!' 'Oi love living underwater with you as mammals, Mr. Beaver.' Kersploosh!"

ALSO DISCUSSED IN THIS ISSUE: How the Vaselines feel about reuniting for Sub Pop's festival this weekend; Sub Pop's reasons for having the festival in Redmond; No Age getting flipped off and called "faggot queer" by a passing car while giving an interview from their minivan; the last surviving (but perhaps not for long) street newsstand in Seattle; more details about the Russian clown impostors; the difference between flashing and exhibitionism; and (say it ain't so!) the last installment of Sonics Death Watch.

^{*A note about this cover. Brad Steinbacher has worked at The Stranger for 14 brutal years and done just about every job here at one time or another. He's also written for almost every section. For years we've had this running idea that one week we'd all take the week off, Brad would write the whole paper, and we we'd call it The Steinbacher. That never came to pass, so for his last issue on staff we decided to finally change the name of the paper for a week. But we didn't tell him. As managing editor, Brad sees all the pages right before they're sent to the printer, but we wanted The Steinbacher to be a surprise, so our art department had to create a fake "final" cover for Brad's approval. We also ended up changing another item of cover text in between creating the fake final cover for Brad and the actual final cover for the printer, and when Brad first looked at this week's issue, he noticed that cover text had changed and wanted to know why. Meanwhile, he completely failed to notice that it said The Steinbacher in huge letters across the top.}

Slog friends and foes, I'm leaving The Stranger at the end of this month, so tonight's will be my last Slog Happy. (There's no drama behind the scenes; I'm just hungry for a new challenge.) Come down and tell me how much you'll miss me, why don't you? They're reserving space on the deck for us.

Slog tipper and superstar commenter PopTart writes:

Did you see the glossary on Gawker yesterday? When do we get one for Slog?

I'll get right on that, PopTart, as soon as I complete my flowchart of Slog commenter relationships and feuds. Here's a flow chart to keep everybody busy in the meantime.

We'll be at the charming Maximilien on Thursday. Note the new, earlier time. See you there!

Since June 1 we've had 1,118 posts on Slog. Of that number, 10 concerned pit bulls—or .89 percent. Please make a note of it, whiners.

Trisha Ready on the Housing Crisis, the Crumbling Economy, and an Unseasonably Anxious Summer
"Everybody has a theory about the future of the economy, or a theory about why the American infrastructure is crumbling. It's easiest to pin the failing economy on the blundering George W. Bush, who has become our misery mascot. Or on SUVs that suck the oil fields dry, or arrogant meat eaters who kill by proxy politely in their kitchens. One of my friends blames the fall of the American empire on a tax structure that favors the wealthy and deconstructs the middle class. Barack Obama blames the Iraq war. Then there's blaming corporate greed, which is like pinning responsibility on a nameless star in a hardly visible solar system; big money moves in abstract glyphs around us. Corporations change shape and eat each other so quietly. Daily stock-market numbers read like charts of tides."

Dominic Holden on What the Economy Is Doing to Planned-For Skyscrapers
"On First Hill, a massive sign obscured by layers of graffiti ballyhoos the Boylston, featuring 43 luxury condominiums with slab-granite countertops, workout facilities, and valet parking. But the website on the sign no longer exists. On Ninth Avenue and Pine Street, a lot sits vacant. Records for the site show that since May of last year, the site's developer hasn't pursued a permit for a 37-story tower. Near Green Lake, promises made in 2004 to redevelop the Vitamilk dairy into hundreds of residential units have produced only an excavated maw. Seattle's building boom has busted, despite cranes on the skyline for developments that broke ground before the economy took a dive last summer. Some projects, specifically three- and four-story apartment buildings, seem to be keeping pace, but the more ambitious towers are on hold--perhaps indefinitely."

Brendan Kiley Profiles Fringe-Director-Gone-Establishment Sheila Daniels
"Sheila Daniels makes audiences listen. When Bart Sher, the decorated artistic director of Intiman, hired her as his associate director last fall, he was effectively hiring his opposite. Sher favors thunder, bombast, Sturm und Drang. Daniels, who toiled in the Seattle fringe scene for 15 years, builds intensity with quietness, favors substance over flash. She doesn't push her actors to assault the audience; she makes us lean forward, go to them."

Paul Constant on Scott McClellan
"In fact, McClellan is the worst kind of amoral snake-oil salesman, twisting with the shifting winds of public perception. If Bush's approval rating was above 50 percent, McClellan would still slither onto talk shows to praise the wisdom of the president's plan in the Middle East. He's the kind of idiot who actually says the word 'irregardless' without any sense of irony."

Jen Graves on Portland Art Museum's New Prize--and Its Bid to Become the Art Capital of the Northwest
"In order to give birth to the CNAA, PAM killed its longstanding Oregon Biennial: not a popular move, but a smart one. The museum had to sell out Oregon in order to make Portland the art capital of the Northwest."

Eli Sanders on Barack Obama's Liberal Abandonment
"In the last few weeks, Obama has upset huge swaths of the liberal base in rapid-fire fashion. When the U.S. Supreme Court banned executing child rapists, Obama announced that he disagreed with the court's decision--reminding everyone that he supports the death penalty, and making clear that he wants it to be handed out to people who rape children even though it has traditionally been reserved only for murderers."

ALSO DISCUSSED IN THIS ISSUE: BOAT's practice space; Ratatat's vintage instruments; what Lake Union tastes like; Steven Seagal; tzatziki; Sherman Alexie's problem with boat racing, the symphony, and Lost; Lindy West's favorite patriotic YouTube videos; and so much more.

The Stranger's award-taking Web Development Department (that would be me) is hiring. Want a job here? Are you good? See the descriptions after the jump.

If you do decide to apply for this position, or forward it to a friend or relation, some advice for you or them:

1. DO NOT send me a portfolio site that's entirely in Flash. I don't like Flash, I don't want Flash, no Flash.
2. DO NOT brag about having created a web form that generates an email when submitted.
3. DO NOT start your cover letter like this:

Dear Recruiters, please accept my:

Letter of Interest.

Thems the rules. There may be others.

Continue reading "The Opportunity of a Lifetime" »

I got an email this morning from Judy McGuire about the cover of this year's Queer Issue. McGuire writes an advice column for a weekly newspaper and recently brought out a book—which was news to me. (Fire your publicist, Judy.) Anyway, here's Juuuudy's email:

So pretty... and so familiar.

On her blog Judy claims that our Queer Issue somehow ripped off her book ("Copycats!!!"). And here's the evidence...

Whoa... pretty damning. I mean, black backgrounds and text-only covers? Wish we had thought of that first. Oh, wait... we did.

I believe our art director—who actually put the cover together—was harkening back to our first queer issues, and not perusing the dollar bin at Half Price Books, when he put this cover together. And we've had Queer Issue covers with a solid background and an little iconic image floating in there somewhere before too, like so and so.

But what about that "How NOT to..." thing? I'm embarrassed to say that the "how not to..." concept isn't all that brilliantly original—on our part or McGuire's. It has been done before. Heck, it's been done to death. A selection of "how not to..." titles available on Amazon.com: How NOT to Make It in the Pop World (2007); How NOT to Make the Same Mistake Once (1999); How NOT to Turn Into Your Mother (2006); How NOT to Get Rich (2005); How NOT to Share Your Faith (2006); How NOT to Look Fat (2006); How NOT to Write a Screenplay (1999); and on and on and on.

A transformer explosion has disabled our internets. Paul Constant is reading poetry aloud and we may soon resort to cannibalism.

Slog will be slow for a while. Please make a note of it.

Update: We're back.

From the Funeral Consumers Alliance, a kind of Consumer Reports + PIRG for the death-care industry:

While you might not relate to a convention for Elvis Impersonators, UFO enthusiasts or Tattoo and Body Artists, now there’s a gathering for everyone… Whether you like it or not—all of us will be funeral consumers some day! So how about commiserating with other worm fodder to learn more about the inevitable?

The Funeral Consumers Alliance (FCA), a national umbrella organization, is holding its 22nd biennial conference June 26-28 at Seattle University.

For schedule of events and workshops (including, um, "Using Computers: They're Not Scary" in the SU computer lab), click here.

A lot of people are sending me the link to this story, suggesting that it might make a really good "Every Child Deserves a Mother and a Father" post. But there's no father or step-father or boyfriend in this story, people, so it doesn't qualify. Perhaps it might make a good "There Is No Morality Without Religion" post—mom appears to have been motivated by her deeply and sincerely held religious beliefs—but for a story to rate an ECDAMAAF post, it really does require one of those opposite-sex couples that the religious right insists all children deserve. Please make a note of it.

Paul Constant Goes to a Los Angeles Convention to Survey the State of the Book-Publishing Industry and Eat Bison at Larry King's House
"Larry King's backyard in Beverly Hills, with its high hedges, glittering pool, and verdant lawn, is full of Industry People. Besides Larry King, there aren't any movie or television stars here, but you get the sense that these are the people who hire the stars. There is a giant portrait of Larry King made entirely out of Jelly Bellies in the room overlooking the lawn. On the buffet table in the dining room is a mountainous spread of medium-rare bison, a layer-cake-like dip composed of seven varieties of goat cheese, dishes of duck pâté, and platters of other things so bizarre they almost seem like they were ordered off a menu from a myth..."

Erica C. Barnett on Ron Sims and the Budget
"Two weeks ago, Ron Sims announced the county would have to cut $68 million from its budget in 2009, a crisis Larry Phillips and other critics called both predictable and utterly avoidable. The cuts are more than superficial. They slash away at the heart and soul of county government--policing (Sheriff Sue Rahr predicts she will have to eliminate more than 100 deputies), public health (the county's cash-strapped health clinics may have to close), and human services (whose funding from the county will be slashed over three years to nothing)."

Kurt B. Reighley on the Place Where Hiphop's James Pants Lives
"Cheap rent and a penchant for making his own fun keep Pants in Spokane. But the city's biggest selling point is how uncool it remains compared to most cities, including other towns he's called home, like Austin, Texas, and Richmond, Virginia. 'Spokane is a weird place. It's a magnet for strange people. One of those cities that looks pretty downtrodden--and it is--but within that you'll find strange pockets that wouldn't exist in other metropolitan areas...'"

Christopher Frizzelle on Musicals, Avenue Q, and Barack Obama
"Like Sesame Street, Avenue Q is a mix of puppets and actors, but unlike Sesame Street, the puppeteers are visible, too, giving some characters three surface dimensions: the puppet, the person controlling the puppet, and the shadow they both cast. Unlike Sesame Street, the subject matter includes the fuckedness of being a closeted gay Republican (poor guy has to say things like 'I can't wait to eat her pussy again!'), the fuckedness of childhood celebrity (Gary Coleman is a character), how fucked you are if you get an English degree, the politics of hetero fucking on a first date, the deliciousness of beer, the wonderfulness of porn, and racism..."

Angela Garbes on the Restaurant Options on a Single Block in Greenwood
"Recently a friend boldly declared her belief that the block of Greenwood Avenue North between North 85th and North 87th streets is home to 'the best food in Seattle.' This friend being the sort of woman possessed of inherent charisma and credibility, I listened. (It also doesn't hurt that she used to manage a cafe, owns her own stand mixer, and makes her own pork rillettes.) I tried to picture the area she was talking about, but the only things that came to mind were a Washington Mutual, the PAWS Cat City Adoption Center, and a McDonald's..."

Dan Savage on God's Mysterious Ways
"Homos are marrying in California as of this week (congrats to all), and should a tornado--or an earthquake or a meteor or the Incredible Hulk--flatten, say, San Francisco's City Hall during a big gay wedding, respected leaders of the religious right will rush to cable broadcast studios to insist that the tornado/earthquake/meteor/Hulk was God's divine judgment, His righteous wrath, the Baby Jesus's latest temper tantrum, wocka wocka wocka..."

ALSO DISCUSSED IN THIS ISSUE: Clay Bennett's case; R. Kelly's acquittal; Sherman Alexie's testosterone; the writing of one filthy German; Lindy West's name ("My name was foisted upon me by CBS radio!"); black art; half-hearted Jello-O wrestling; the deadliness of undercooked turkey; and so much more.

...do try to get it right. Dismissing the complaints of die-hard Clinton supporters, Dwight Pelz described their gripes to Eli as...

“...sound and fury which signifieth little.”

Lots of people—particularly politicians—like to work a Shakespeare reference into their public statements because, you know, it sounds so damn smart. But there's nothing smart about botching the reference and making Shakespeare's language seem more elaborate and archaic than it actually is. Most of the prose and poetry in Shakespeare's plays is remarkably clear, straightforward, and direct. So while that "signifieth" of Dwight's sounds all Elizabethan and shit, not only is the third-person singular present simple form of "signify" archaic as hell, it's not the word that Shakespeare himself used.

Informed in Act V that the queen, his wife, is dead, Macbeth responds...

She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

If "signifying" was good enough for Shakespeare, Dwight, it ought to be good enough for you. And why leave off the best part of the line? The next time someone asks you about those Clinton dead-enders, Dwight, you can quote Shakespeare and call 'em names. Just smile and say...

Tales told by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Okay, it's done. The money has been spent. I thought on it and took suggestions from friends over the weekend. One insisted I should go to a strip club and make it rain, but I rejected that idea for a host of reasons, foremost that I would have to use one-dollar bills, which is just sad. Plus, Seattle clubs are lit up like Wal-Mart and don't allow smoking or drinking, so scratch that. Another friend suggested I buy a gun, which is insane and a little frightening. Most of my buddies thought I should use the money to get a delicious meal and some pampering, like a massage, but that didn't grab me either. So, I decided to go through the comments on "Fuck This" and "I Win" for inspiration. Here's what I landed on: Get something for me, something for everyone, and something for Mr. Poe.

For me: I normally think my purchases to death, so as a treat I let myself buy the first shiny thing that caught my eye. This:

It's sufficiently functional, it cracked me up, and it's made of sustainably grown hemp (a definite plus, as I have a pretty severe case of carbon-footprint anxiety), so I bought it. Done.

For everyone: $50 to the Washington State Democrats.

What's up, Big D?

For Mr. Poe: Dude, you made fifteen comments on "Fuck This" that I got paid for. That's not even counting the ones you posted after 4 pm. This leads me to believe that either you are unemployed or the job you have is not keeping you busy enough. I got really excited about getting you a deluxe Monster.com membership. Think about it! You could go from this:

to this:

But then I remembered that those sites are free, so I spent the money on a pizza. It was delicious. Thanks!

So, unless Keck pulls another weird deus-ex-slogina, this is goodbye for reals. Here's hoping the next guest Slogger has a better time of it than I did. I'll see you fuckers in hell!

On the death of pioneering special effects guru Stan Winston:

Oh, give it a rest, they grow producers, executive producers, script writers, actors, directors, and all that in orange groves all over Cali, @3.

Heck, the closing night film had something like seven producers ...

Posted by Will in Seattle | June 16, 2008 2:08 PM

I've had enough. When I agreed to my stint as a guest blogger here, it sounded like fun, as well as a good way to gain exposure for my own blog. Well, I was right on one count, at least.

A couple days before I started writing here I commenced jotting down a list of potential topics: things I like, things I'm excited about, things I thought should be shared with a larger audience than the regular readers of Who Did What To Who. That list sits across the room from me, untouched for days. I no longer want to share these things here, though I know them to be perfectly serviceable topics. I am aware that what I have contributed here so far has been enjoyed by quite a few people, and I thank you for reading. But I have no desire to contribute here any longer. I am taking my ball and going home.

I was warned beforehand that some of the commenters on Slog could be mean. That was an understatement. The word I would use is cruel. Luckily, I have a strong enough sense of self that I do not take the insults hurled at me to heart. In a way, I am glad that I was chosen to be the first guest Slogger. It could have been a far less stable person in my position, someone less able to separate the internet from real life. Or, God forbid, someone more prone to acts of violence towards themselves or others. That may sound melodramatic, but we do live in a world where bullying, both electronic and otherwise, has led fragile people to commit truly terrible acts.

When I say that there are cruel commenters here, I do not want that to be taken as a blanket statement. There are also thoughtful, witty, and interesting things being said. But here the good is overshadowed by the bad. As is the case in most forums with little to no regulation, the worst voices are the loudest. And then, rather than being discouraged (or banned, as they should be), these people are rewarded with more attention: Freaky Friday Slogging privileges, etc.

No matter what I post here, it will be ripped to shreds, whether by the grammar police (I dare you to find me something more boring than someone correcting another person's grammar), the pearl-clutching grannies who take umbrage with my use of profanity, or those with a general distaste for what and how I write. That's not what bothers me (I just find it intensely dull). What bothers me is that I woke up these last few mornings perfectly happy... until I remembered that I had to write something for Slog and the dread set in. I found myself unwilling to send in my best material, wishing instead to post it on my own blog where it remains mine, unsullied by comment threads that are at turns spiteful and boring. So, haters, rejoice. You have successfully defended your sad little fiefdom. Comte, I believe you called the date of my departure. Congratulations.

Mr. Poe, Jubilation T. Cornball, I want to address the two of you directly, as much as I hate to give you the attention you so clearly feed on. You hate me? Fine. I literally could not care less how you feel about me. But I need to say this: How can you possibly think that it is acceptable adult behavior in any venue to tell a stranger you know next to nothing about that they should kill themselves? That doesn't make you look smart, interesting, or witty. It only makes you look like small, awful, miserable people. And fuck you for putting me in a position where I had to tell my mother, who was so excited that I would be doing this, that she was not, under any circumstances, to read the comments because I did not want her to know that anyone was treating daughter that way. Fuck you both.

So this is it for me. For anyone who cares to read, I'll be back at Who Did What To Who*, where I can actually enjoy myself. Thank you, Amy Kate Horn and Dan Savage, for giving me this opportunity. It hasn't been all bad, just bad enough that I don't see any real reason to continue here. And for what it's worth, please consider switching to a commenter registration system, or at least more regulation. I cannot imagine how many readers are silenced because your comments are overrun with vicious bullies, tearing apart anyone they don't agree with.

^{* For the record, I am perfectly aware that the phrase "who did what to who" is grammatically incorrect. It is a Southern turn of phrase (as in, "She came in here lookin' like who did what to who"), and I like the sound of it.}

Charles Mudede on Obama and Hiphop
"The fact is, hiphop, at a mainstream level, did not see Obama coming, and this might be a sign of its age or its loss of relevance. From 50 Cent to RZA, support famously went to Hillary Clinton's run at the office. Hiphop missed the future."

Michaelangelo Matos on a Biography of Sonic Youth
"No one listens to Sonic Youth to learn about the personal lives of its members. The New York quartet are an ideas band--you listen to wallow in their famously retuned guitars, which nearly three decades ago altered rock's sonic palette as decisively as Hendrix had, and which are now a comfort staple to rock fans that can do without Hinder, thank you very much."

Jen Graves on Joe Park and the Art of Portraiture
"Few artists do formal portraiture-for-hire these days. It's an antiquated practice, something most artists--and sitters--consider the bailiwick of the Sears studio or some fusty boardroom. Park isn't particularly public about his portrait practice. He sees it as somewhat separate from his 'regular' paintings."

Bethany Jean Clement Endures a Screening Party for Sex and the City
"The party stampeded to the Big Picture, where everyone was administered an additional cosmopolitan (at the Pampas, made with fresh lime; here, tasting like melted strawberry Jell-O). Inside the theater, popcorn was distributed to unaccountable excitement. An attendee briefly adopted emcee duties, standing in front and shrieking, 'SEX AND THE CITY!' to universal delight. The movie began. It still has not ended."

Erica C. Barnett on the Real Budget Crisis
"Under county executive Ron Sims's proposed cuts, county funding for health and human services would be reduced, over the next three years, to zero--eliminating tens of millions of dollars for services like domestic violence support, drug and alcohol treatment, and public clinics."

ALSO DISCUSSED IN THIS ISSUE: Bar brawl over El Chupacabra; Islands' sophomore album; the frozen turkey Michael Mann sent to Moby; the Georgetown Music Fest; Neil Hamburger's career; the end of Electric Avenue; why actresses playing sex workers should try sex work; and much more.

For the most part I try to be sunshine and light on Slog and even when I try to piss people off it usually goes horribly wrong and I end up getting agreed with. So, obviously I'm a rank amateur among all you seasoned pros.

But, Will [in Seattle], for once I have to say, please stuff it. The fact that I have to constantly hear about the FUN! ACTION PACKED! EVENT FILLED! life you have makes me contemplate my own DULL! BORING! SUCKY! life and makes me wonder where the fuck I went wrong. Which in turn makes me contemplate driving a screwdriver through my brain.

AND, you still owe me a piece of pie.

Posted by PopTart | June 5, 2008 2:18 PM

Attention, Mr. "I know Dan has changed his mind and no longer supports the war--but, gee this shit keeps happening":

You're not affecting Dan or the peace effort or politics in any way; you're only annoying our readers and keeping me from a productive day. I've spent three hours so far removing your off-topic posts from Slog.

We all agree that the Iraq war is an ill-conceived travesty and a colossal tragedy. You're preaching to the choir. Stop wasting your and my time with obsessive rants.

The rest of you, please continue to ignore the troll.

Grant Cogswell on Drugs, Satanists, Tori Spelling, and the Making of Cthulhu
"I was the screenwriter, fundraiser, second-biggest investor, PR hack, extras coordinator, and a sometime producer of the largest, most expensive locally produced film ever made in Seattle. It took five years, it cost $1 million, and its extremely slow projected return may have broken the bank for local distribution-quality films for the foreseeable future. It ruined my health, driving me to the brink of suicide twice, and from sobriety back down into a drinking life (and, briefly, the cocaine life below that), and aggravating a chronic muscle condition that addicted me to painkillers. I started with $250,000 in assets and am now thousands of dollars in debt, making $15 an hour repainting a house near Sacramento. I own no more than what fills a backpack and am not homeless thanks only to the kindness of friends."

Jonah Spangenthal-Lee Reports on Seattle's Crackdown on Meals for Homeless
"In an April 23 letter to Food Not Bombs volunteers, the parks department claims FNB's weekly dinner at Occidental Park is a health and safety hazard and says the city expects 'all organizations' to serve their meals at 'the only approved city site,' at Sixth and Columbia."

Lindy West Braves the Buffet at Déjà Vu
"I wasn't nervous at all about going to the lunch buffet at Lake City's Déjà Vu Showgirls, until it was time to actually go to the lunch buffet at Lake City's Déjà Vu Showgirls. Jokes about 'fried clams' and 'thousands of beautiful tater tots and three ugly ones' (thank you, thank you) are all well and good until the moment when you must physically leave the car, face the vaginas, and munch the tots."

Casey Catherwood, The Stranger's Underage Music Columnist, Turns 20
"This Japanther show just felt tired. I ended up leaving before they finished, dejected and disappointed with the whole experience. Was the band simply having an off night? Was my enthusiasm for life already fading just an hour after bidding farewell to my teenage years?"

Jen Graves on Dario Robleto: Part Artist, Part Innovator, Part Anthropologist
"He is an artist, but half his time is spent researching history and collecting its detritus. (A network of nerds helps him.) Once he gets the precious material, he changes it. He grinds bones to dust, pulverizes love letters, melts vinyl records and cassette tapes, makes casts of bitten bullets and DIY prosthetic limbs, and brews homemade remedies from plants and powders."

ALSO DISCUSSED IN THIS ISSUE: Jerome Robbins was a dick; Truckasauras's debut album; Darcy Burner's Iraq miracle plan; the downward slide of Dungeons & Dragons's popularity; Sherman Alexie's foul mouth; a local hiphop music video maker branches out; how to build a nuclear reactor in your back yard; and much more.

For all you prospective interns who have responded to this ad I posted yesterday:

Wanted: Intern for The Stranger's Theater Section—the old one has lost consciousness. Must be reliable (seriously, no flakes), available on Monday and/or Tuesday afternoons, and believe mindless data entry is a means to getting head.

Send inquiries to: brendan@thestranger.com or 323-7101.

That should read: "means to getting ahead."

We regret the error.

Despite the popularity of Smith, and Jonah lobbying hard for the Ram at Northgate Mall, Slog Happy is heading to Belltown next Thursday. Shorty's Coney Island has happy-hour specials, arcade games, hot dogs, a private room, and the place is completely wheelchair accessible. Hope you can join us.

Rendezvous fans, rest assured that we will party at the lovely Rendezvous at some point this year; it's perfectly suited to the next Slog Trivia Challenge.

Where shall we meet on Thursday, June 12?

Only vote once, please and thank you.

Last Thursday, the Seattle International Film Festival commenced with a gala screening of Stuart Townsend's Battle in Seattle, a dramatic retelling of the WTO riots, in which the character of Governor Gary Locke was inexplicably given a ridiculous, English-as-a-second-laguage chop-socky accent.

In this week's New Column!, we aimed to satirize Stuart Townsend's portrayal of Locke with a faux movie poster for his next flick:

However—the print version of the New Column! was published without that explanatory starburst ("If you liked Stuart Townsend's inexplicable characterization of Governor Gary Locke in Battle in Seattle, you'll LOVE..."), leading numerous readers unfamiliar with Battle in Seattle to conclude that we're racist pigs, with a weird bone to pick with a governor of yesteryear.

My apologies for any offense, and sorry for the confusion.

Where should we hold the June 12 Slog Happy? I think it should be downtown for once. The location must have happy hour specials, some type of food available, and room for 30 people to mingle (booths=bad) in one space. Toss out your ideas and tomorrow we'll decide, via a Slog poll, among the best options.

We recently discovered that an art review by Nate Lippens published in The Stranger in August 2004 bears striking similarities to an art review by John Miller published in ArtForum in the summer of 2002. Both pieces were about the artist Trisha Donnelly, and certain passages of Miller's review appeared almost verbatim in Lippens's review. For example, Miller wrote:

Word had it that the artist, dressed as a Napoleonic courier, rode into the gallery on a white horse, read a message of surrender, turned around and rode out. You had to be there. The rest of the show made no mention of it and the artist never photographs her performances.

Lippens wrote:

At her 2002 opening reception at Casey Kaplan in New York, word has it that the artist, dressed as a Napoleonic courier, rode into the gallery on a white horse, read a message of surrender, turned around, and rode out. The rest of the show made no mention of it and the artist never photographs her performances, or, as she prefers to call them, demonstrations.

That was not the extent of the similarities. Miller wrote: "Donnelly belongs to a generation of West Coast artists taken with Bas Jan Ader's paragon of incommunicability, self-mythification, and antidocumentation." Lippens wrote: "Trisha Donnelly, a San Francisco-based artist, creates work that revolves around belief systems, self-mythification, and antidocumentation." Miller wrote: "Seeing is not necessarily believing." Lippens wrote: "Seeing is not believing; believing is something else entirely." Miller wrote: "Although Trisha Donnelly's solo debut, at Casey Kaplan in New York, was all about belief structures, the work itself is full of baffles and feints." Lippens wrote: "Her art is full of feints and fable." Miller wrote: "Instead of asking viewers to suspend disbelief, she prods their credulity, pitting humdrum artifice against deadpan preposterousness." Lippens wrote: "It's not about the viewer merely suspending disbelief (we have movies and reality TV for that); credulity is pushed at every turn."

Reached for comment by e-mail, Lippens wrote, "I'm, of course, deeply embarrassed by this. I feel terrible."

On advice from the Poynter Institute (a journalism think tank), we are rereading everything Lippens has written for The Stranger. (He began freelancing for The Stranger in 2000 and was on staff from 2004 to 2005; his work has also been published locally in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Seattle Metropolitan, and Seattle Weekly.) Until we finish reviewing his pieces, his author archive will be unavailable on The Stranger's website. We will restore individual pieces as quickly as we can.

I just got off the phone with your boss (and Pagliacci co-owner) Matt Galvin. He said he didn't know that the new internet filter banned The Stranger.

"The filter is being modified all the time," he said. "And we didn't want to have to have one anyway, but a few people were downloading stuff and creating problems and ruining it for everybody."

He promised to lift the ban on The Stranger, but wouldn't make any promises about YouTube.

Sorry—did what I could.

When you were at the Emerald City Comicon this weekend, did you happen to witness this incredible exchange between father and son?