So when Slog disappears, don't panic. Just go watch the puppies for about 30 minutes. And when you come back, you'll see a new and improved Slog! (Sort of.)

Thank you for your patience while we continue to make Slog an enjoyable experience. We can't do it without you.

But that's not all--this month's Slog Happy is going to be the Slog Happy of Shame, inspired by (but not officially affiliated with) the local Salon of Shame* readings where people bravely get on stage and read the terrible poetry/stories/letters from their awkward adolescent years.

It will, no doubt, be hilarious and awful and gloriously torturous.

It'll take place Wednesday, November 19th at the Theater Off Jackson in the International District. That’s next week! So what we need right now are courageous people who are willing to read excerpts from their old diaries/journals/poetry collections. Still got that love letter you wrote to Duran Duran in 8th grade? What about that poem you wrote your first boyfriend, but never had the balls to give him? Or maybe you were a loner... scribbling sonnets alone in the back of your closet while blasting Nirvana? If that's you e-mail me at megan@thestranger.com (I'm looking at you Joh, Monique, Mr. Poe, Abby, Scary Tyler Moore, and Fnarf). You must sign up with me in advance in order to read that night! And in an effort to fit in as many readers as possible, each person will get about 2 minutes MAX to share their fantastically awful teenage angst, so you only need to prepare to share a small sample.

And, if we're lucky, a couple brave Stranger folks will dig out some old gems too... no promises, though.

It'll be a lovely, shameful, drunken way to prepare for Thanksgiving, don't you think?

See you next week!

(Oh yes, it should be noted: THERE WILL BE BOOZE AVAILABLE. Should you need a little liquid courage.)

^{*This event is produced by Theater Off Jackson and The Stranger. While we have the Salon of Shame's blessing, they are not officially affiliated with the event. Their next reading is December 2nd, visit their website for more info.}

It hurts! More here.

While the Stranger Election Control Board is going to be reporting from all over the city, we most likely will not be in your living room, so share your celebrations with us! You can post your photos in the Stranger's Flickr Pool, and we'll be putting up your shots throughout the night Tuesday (and probably Wednesday too).

After the piece came out on Wednesday morning, there was no violence, no vandalism. There was some debate on The Stranger's website on Thursday and Friday about the piece's inclusion of addresses—about the homeowners' and The Stranger's right to free speech, and about yards signs as public discourse—and some readers posted addresses of Stranger staffers in comments, because turnabout is fair play. We did not remove those comments and left our own addresses up on our website.

On Saturday morning the piece exploded on right-wing blogs, and death threats were made on our staff. What began as political satire changed from reasonably intelligent, irreverent discourse to something ugly. We do not want harm to come to anyone—to those who live in the houses (from wannabe Ashley Todds) or to our staff (from right-wing nuts)—so we've taken the piece down.

We regret that people are crazy.

Cobwebs and witches are for children and morons. If you're looking for the most hair-raising Halloween horrors, try scouring the streets of the Eastside. That's where we found the most pants-wettingly scary houses, sure to give you night terrors well past Halloween and all the way until November 4. Because in an election year, nothing's more terrifying than the future.

People in the comments thread are hoppin' mad that we published the addresses of the scary houses.

Publishing addresses crosses the line, for all your talk of open ideas, you are clearly against free speech. Let people have their lawn signs, it's their right as Americans - morons.

Wow. Wow. I love visiting the Stranger to get my daily dose of "progressive double standards" but this is shocking. You truly hate these people and what they believe in. How can anybody possibly be sympathetic to your cause when you show such callousness to anybody who doesn't fall in step with your views?

These signs are in front of houses. The houses have addresses. You drive by, there's a house with a political display, there's the house number... It's not private information.And it's not like the people in those houses are keeping their opinions a secret. They're going out of their way to broadcast their opinions — if anything, the Stranger is helping!

The Stranger is just gross.

To answer a few questions running through the thread:

Yes, this is legal. Newspapers have been printing addresses for houses with extravagant Halloween and Christmas decorations for as long as there have been glowing Santas and cackling automatons.

No, we don't want people to go vandalize those houses.

No, we're not terribly worried people are going to vandalize or attack those houses—last I checked it wasn't Democrats who were doing lots of gun-waving, clinic-bombing, and reporter-assaulting.

Yes, there was some ambivalence in the office about printing the addresses. We had a debate. The pro-address-printers won.

Yes, I would print my address online in a spirit of fairness and shut-the-fuck-up-edness. But I live with other people who shouldn't be subjected to the rage of our readers—who, judging by the comments thread, would be far more likely to come egg my house than egg those McCain supporters' houses.

No, we don't hate these people. But we are afraid of what they believe in.

No, The Stranger is not against free speech.

And for anyone who thinks we secretly want somebody to go vandalize those houses—seriously, don't. It was just a joke.

And now please enjoy another Hell House:

Like an oversized cousin of John McCain's aged, brown iguana teeth, this foreboding fence is busy keeping immigrants out and Jesus's love within. How like the wily immigrant is the frightening foliage, as it insidiously creeps and scratches at Real America's doorstep! How mighty the speculum of Dino Rossi—an army of dead-baby ghosts at his back—aborting civil rights before civil rights can abort him first! Who knows what liberal bogeymen lurk outside this fence's cherished sanctum? The nightmare has just begun for you, Republican fence.

UPDATE

It's been an exciting weekend—death threats, TV interviews, etc. Here's what happened:

On Thursday, October 30, we published this story, about houses on the Eastside displaying McCain and Palin yard signs. We were parodying a certain kind of daily-newspaper feature—the "houses with the best Halloween/Christmas decorations" article, which typically includes addresses, so we included addresses. The point was that our readers, typically liberal, would be chilled by these "Halloween" displays. After the piece came out, there was some debate on The Stranger's website about the piece's inclusion of addresses—about the homeowners' and The Stranger's right to free speech, and about yards signs as public discourse—and some readers posted addresses of Stranger staffers in the comments. Turnabout is fair play, so we did not remove those comments and left our own addresses up on our website.

On Saturday morning, the piece exploded on right-wing blogs. The piece received over 1,300 comments, including dozens and dozens of death threats against our staff, many directing readers to incorrect addresses. What began as political satire changed from reasonably intelligent, irreverent discourse to something ugly. We don't want anyone to get hurt—not the homeowners listed in the piece, not our staff, not the innocent bystanders who live at our old addresses—so we pulled the piece from the website.

So that readers can judge the content of the article for themselves, we're reposting it online (with comments disabled for the time being and addresses redacted).

We regret that people are crazy.

"Not as bad as when you left your gym shoes on the heater."

Liberalism is alive and thriving in the Seattle Hippy-Commie-Freak community. Johan Spangenthal-Lee's piece on Ms. Kathy Barker is one more example of the whiny-crybaby crap that makes Seattle a haven for the Obama-lovers of Amerika.

Think for a moment of a city by the bay where a Military Recruiter is forbidden to "recruit" at any public function. Can you say D-R-A-F-T. Now, instead of an All-Volunteer Military you have a conscripted on. All of you Long-Haired sudo-college students studying the best way to build a bong will be sweating your asses off in Afganistan fighting the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. Thanks a lot....you suck!

Oh and the uniform is not called fatigues. They are called BDU's (Battle Dress Uniform). Your grandpa called them fatigues.

Isn't hate a wonderful thing

David E.
Tacoma, WA

Sudo-college! You can read Jonah Spangenthal-Lee's piece on Kathy Barker's one-woman fight to keep military recruiters off Seattle Parks Department property (and leave your own similarly enlightened comments) here.

Boil water in a saucepan (bubbles mean it is boiling!). Take two eggs (for one person) out of the refrigerator. Hold them under the hot tap water to make them ready for what awaits them.

Place each in a pan, one after the other, and let them slip soundlessly into the (boiling) water. Consult your wristwatch. Stand over them with a spoon preventing them (they are apt to roll) from knocking against the damned side of the pan.

If, however, an egg cracks in the water (now bubbling like mad) and starts to disgorge a cloud of white stuff like a medium in an oldfashioned seance, fish it out and throw it away. Take another and be more careful.

After 200 seconds have passed, or, say, 240 (taking interruptions into account), start scooping the eggs out. Place them, round end up, in two egg cups. With a small spoon tap-tap in a circle and then pry open the lid of the shell. Have some salt and buttered bread (white) ready. Eat.

Take another and be more careful!

Cover art by Slava Mogutin

Lindy West on her first-ever HUMP!:

Although I've been associated with this dirty, filthy rag for a few years now, I have so far stayed away from HUMP!, the annual amateur-porn contest and jewel in The Stranger's dirty, filthy panties. Maybe it's because I'm admittedly skeeved out by public displays of sexuality (e.g., the time I went to the strip-club lunch buffet and then had to dry-clean my own brain), and so sitting in a room with a whole lot of clandestine man- and lady-boners watching my neighborhood barista get pleasured with the business-end of a bicycle pump didn't exactly sound like my cup of unidentifiable fluid. But this year, as film editor, I have certain duties and responsibilities. Duties and responsibilities that involve your genitals. Hooray for us all.

Eli Sanders on Stranger readers' election nightmares:

Will they actually let Barack Obama win? Will Diebold steal the election and give it to John McCain instead? Will martial law be declared so George Bush can be self-appointed to a third term? Will conservative thugs at polling places suppress minority turnout in the very swing states where the minority vote could really make the difference for the Democratic ticket? Is this shit I'm reading in Rolling Stone about voter-purging true? Because it's terrifying. Hold me!

HOLD ON.

Jonah Spangenthal-Lee on the one-woman crusade to keep military recruiters out of Parks Department events:

Last April, Barker, who sits on the board of Washington Truth in Recruiting, which provides students with alternatives to military recruitment, fired off a letter to the City Council and the parks department after army and navy soldiers showed up to a teen event at the Delridge Community Center in Southwest Seattle in a shiny black Hummer.

"[The parks department had] been advertising a teen-appreciation day [with] basketball, swimming, a DJ, and a barbecue," Barker says. She says the woman who alerted her to the recruiters' presence "pulled up with her kids and saw two guys in army fatigues in a black Hummer. She wanted them to go away and they wouldn't." Barker says she's also heard of recruiters showing up to events with climbing walls and video games.

Rebecca Brown on two Hawthornes: Nathaniel, and the California suburb where Beach Boy Brian Wilson just released his tenth solo album:

In the chapter entitled "The Recognition," Hester Prynne, condemned to wear the scarlet letter "A" on her dress, is leaving prison with her newborn love child. Someone, Hawthorne narrates, "the eldest clergyman of Boston," calls "Hearken unto me, Hester Prynne!" and exhorts her to confess, repent, and name the father of her child. This speaker is, like many characters in Hawthorne's work, based on a real person, in this case a leading Puritan divine, John Wilson (1591–1667).

Look, I'm not saying this Wilson was an ancestor of our California-bound Wilsons. On the other hand, don't we all believe, as our Puritan ancestors did, that if we go back far enough, we all go back to the same old Adam and Eve?

PLUS!: Megan Seling on Seattle's best cupcakes; Sean Nelson on Mike Leigh's new comedy; Jen Graves on surveillance-camera art; David Schmader on bad, drunk-ass puppetry; me on Democratic consultant Cathy Allen's work for two prominent Republicans; election endorsements; and more.

Special time, special movie. From the Sprocket Society via e-mail:

This Sunday's 4 PM matinee will be a great show, literally a once-in-a-lifetime screening. The Secret Feature is a spectacular 1950s Russian fantasy classic by the great director Alecsandr (Alexander) Ptushko, who lets his imagination and lush colors run riot in one of his most famous films...Extremely rare on any film stock, this particular 16mm print has never once been run through any projector or machine until this Sunday. On low-fade Anscochrome film stock, it is a mint copy stored well since it was struck in the late 1970s. I spliced it together tonight from the original lab cores.

Fancy!

Anyway, sorry everyone!