The Stranger, Seattle's Only Newspaper: Brendan Kiley

Greek Journalists Seize the Means of Production

Brendan Kiley — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 12:26:03 -0700

This news is a few days old, but: When the economically and politically bruised Greek government announced it would shut down the country's equivalent of the BBC, the journalists and technicians didn't walk away. They took over.

On Tuesday, it was announced that ERT – the Greek equivalent of the BBC – would be closed down by Antonis Samaras' coalition government after 87 years of operation, the latest in a line of austerity measures after the country was bailed out in 2010. The "sudden death" of the national public broadcaster – which was largely state-funded, with Greek households paying a fee through their electricity bills – took with it some 2,600 jobs; journalists, technicians, artists – everyone it usually takes to run an array of nationwide TV and radio stations. There were plans to replace it with a new public broadcast company called NERIT, but with a hugely reduced number of staff.

However, its closure was far from the end of the story for ERT. Soon after the announcement was made at around 6PM, the redundant workers returned to their former place of work, took control of the company's broadcast frequencies and began transmitting their own programmes.

The government responded by trying to pull the plug on the now-volunteer journalism project, and the broadcasters played hide-and-seek with transmission signals. Meanwhile, thousands reportedly amassed at the station, radical leftists and conservatives alike, to express their support.

By the morning, the workers had won a few important technical battles, but the signal was still unstable and they had to regularly change the analogue and digital frequencies to keep on broadcasting. Worse still, armed police had begun trekking up the mountains around Athens to switch off ERT's antennas.

The European Broadcasters Union announced its support for ERT and gave it a satellite TV channel to broadcast worldwide.

Then Greece tried diplomatic intervention with Israel to shut ERT down:

Officials in Athens confirmed that Greece's ambassador to Israel, Spyros Lambrinis, had held talks with the Israeli government after it became clear that RRsat, a privately-owned local company and subcontractor of the EBU, was continuing to transmit ERT via its uplink facilities in Greece...

"He made no demands as such but, yes, it is a rather unpleasant situation," added the official who contacted the ambassador before speaking to the Guardian.

Now it looks like a Greek court has ordered the restoration of ERT's signal, but there's uncertainty about the staffing and future of the station.

The upshot: Greek journalists working for free while the Greek government burned diplomatic capital to stop them.

It's a mad world.

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Today in the Surveillance State: The "War on Reality"

Brendan Kiley — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 11:22:42 -0700

This NYT essay by Peter Ludlow—a professor of philosophy at Northwestern University and a specialist on ethics and hacktivism—is great stuff that goes a step beyond the NSA revelations and concentrates on private security companies and their role in not only surveillance but outright deception of the public, with a short detour into Heidegger and Plato's allegory of the cave.

A few tidbits:

The realm of secrecy and deception among shadowy yet powerful forces may sound like the province of investigative reporters, thriller novelists and Hollywood moviemakers — and it is — but it is also a matter for philosophers. More accurately, understanding deception and and how it can be exposed has been a principle project of philosophy for the last 2500 years. And it is a place where the work of journalists, philosophers and other truth-seekers can meet.

An important insight into the world these companies came from a 2010 hack by a group best known as LulzSec (at the time the group was called Internet Feds), which targeted the private intelligence firm HBGary Federal. That hack yielded 75,000 e-mails. It revealed, for example, that Bank of America approached the Department of Justice over concerns about information that WikiLeaks had about it. The Department of Justice in turn referred Bank of America to the lobbying firm Hunton and Willliams, which in turn connected the bank with a group of information security firms collectively known as Team Themis.

So a query to the Department of Justice eventually led Bank of America to Team Themis—check out what those guys (and guys like them) do for a living:

Team Themis (a group that included HBGary and the private intelligence and security firms Palantir Technologies, Berico Technologies and Endgame Systems) was effectively brought in to find a way to undermine the credibility of WikiLeaks and the journalist Glenn Greenwald (who recently broke the story of Edward Snowden’s leak of the N.S.A.’s Prism program), because of Greenwald’s support for WikiLeaks. Specifically, the plan called for actions to “sabotage or discredit the opposing organization” including a plan to submit fake documents and then call out the error. As for Greenwald, it was argued that he would cave “if pushed” because he would “choose professional preservation over cause.” That evidently wasn’t the case.

The hack also revealed evidence that Team Themis was developing a “persona management” system — a program, developed at the specific request of the United States Air Force, that allowed one user to control multiple online identities (“sock puppets”) for commenting in social media spaces, thus giving the appearance of grass roots support. The contract was eventually awarded to another private intelligence firm.

One intriguing e-mail revealed that the Coca-Cola company was asking Stratfor for intelligence on PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) with Stratfor vice president for Intelligence claiming that “The F.B.I. has a classified investigation on PETA operatives. I’ll see what I can uncover.” From this one could get the impression that the F.B.I. was in effect working as a private detective Stratfor and its corporate clients.

Team Themis also developed a proposal for the Chamber of Commerce to undermine the credibility of one of its critics, a group called Chamber Watch. The proposal called for first creating a “false document, perhaps highlighting periodical financial information,” giving it to a progressive group opposing the Chamber, and then subsequently exposing the document as a fake to “prove that U.S. Chamber Watch cannot be trusted with information and/or tell the truth...”

In addition, the group proposed creating a “fake insider persona” to infiltrate Chamber Watch. They would “create two fake insider personas, using one as leverage to discredit the other while confirming the legitimacy of the second.”

The high-school civics class version of American democracy, at least the version I learned, said that individuals are largely free to do what they do and believe what they believe in private (within the bounds of law), while representative government has a duty to be accountable and transparent.

All this NSA and surveillance-state debate in the past week has shown that our understanding of that order has flipped. Now government has the privilege of operating in opacity and secrecy, while our day-to-day must be transparent and scrutinized (without any meaningful input from us about that arrangement).

Al Gore has said this level of surveillance is "not really the American way," but Congress doesn't seem to give a crap.

Meanwhile, the polls on what Americans think of the NSA surveillance program are all over the place. Pew says 56% approve of the surveillance, CBS says 58% disapprove of the surveillance, and Gallup says that 53% disapprove but that 10% have no opinion at all. (This post has some interesting arguments about why the numbers are contradictory, including analysis of the way the polls were worded.)

But the one thing we know—and what the NYT essay shows—is that we don't really know much.

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Sandbox One-Act Play Festival

Brendan Kiley — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 11:00:00 -0700

There will be some plays about death. There's always gotta be some death. by Brendan Kiley

The folks at the Sandbox Artists Collective—who put together the popular Sandbox Radio Live!—introduce their SOAP Festival, a weekend of one-act plays by favorite local writers: Scot Augustson, Elizabeth Heffron, Paul Mullin, and Emily Conbere. Topics will include an aging mother and her grown sons, a community that openly carries guns, the rise of a “comely female prophet,” an urban couple’s flight toward solitude, and death. There’s always gotta be some death. (Erickson Theater, 1524 Harvard Ave, soapfest.org, $15, 8 pm, June 13–15)

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Remember the Young Subway Employee Who Walked Off the Job During the Fast-Food Worker Strike?

Brendan Kiley — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 11:54:53 -0700

This is her, Sophia Garcia:

I'd been worried about Garcia and wondering whether she'd suffered any reprisals from her employers for spontaneously walking off the job and locking the door behind her during the Seattle fast-food strike for better wages and the opportunity to organize.

So I dropped by that Subway yesterday to see if she was still around. Garcia was there, making sandwiches for a middle-aged white guy and an Asian family that seemed to be in Seattle on holiday. She was smiling and seemed to be in good spirits.

Garcia said she didn't get in trouble for her participation in the strike. She still had her job and her hours hadn't been cut. "My boss, the owner, said she understood," Garcia said. "But she said the next time, I should call somebody before leaving."

Just in case you were wondering.

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The Reviews Are In!

Brendan Kiley — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 09:30:04 -0700

Allie Hankins

In this week's theater section, we have Melody Datz on the upcoming Seattle International Dance Festival:

At noon this coming Saturday, June 15, the Seattle International Dance Festival (SIDF) will kick off its “Art on the Fly” street party in South Lake Union, with free performances (including local b-boy heroes Massive Monkees), open classes, bands, margaritas, and a beer garden. Even I, who will freely throw down dozens of dollars for a three-hour ballet in a chilly theater, am much happier about seeing dance if I can watch it while sitting on the grass with a keg cup in hand.

The two-weekend SIDF, produced by Khambatta Dance Company, melds professional dance culture—including an Inter|National series with performers from Israel, Guinea, and Ghana—with an easygoing summer atmosphere.

The Internet

Also: Cienna Madrid on the Comedy Womb, Seattle's first feminist comedy night, with a detour into Lindy West blowing up the internet last week by suggesting that comedy might—just might—have a lady problem:

It's a Tuesday night in the basement of the Rendezvous, and, up until a minute ago, the room was packed with the kind of crowd comedians dream of—attentive, polite, and quick to laugh. But that all ends when a young male comedian takes the stage with a set that revolves around domestic violence and date rape jokes. "If a girl asks to jerk me off, I'll crack her in the face," he says.

That's precisely the type of comment that doesn't go over well at this weekly open mic, known as the Comedy Womb. The crowd is stonily silent. He pushes on. "I've never understood date rape," he says, nervously running a hand through his hair. "I'd never date a girl after I raped her."

"Get off the stage," someone shouts, breaking the Comedy Womb's no-heckling rule.

"I guess I'll leave you with that," he says.

"Yes, please do," shouts another audience member.

LaRae Lobdell

Also-also: I write about Other Desert Cities at ACT (it'll be in Suggests soon):

Picture the Wyeths in their grand Palm Springs living room on Christmas Eve: Dad is a gentle Republican politico and John McCain doppelganger. Son is a goofball TV producer. Daughter is a lefty writer. Mom is a drolly cruel Reagan-worshipper. “You are never going to meet anyone,” she says to the daughter, “if you continue to dress like a refugee from a library in Kabul.” When the daughter announces that she's written a dangerously revealing memoir about her radical leftist older brother who later killed himself, the living room becomes a battleground. Watching the sparks fly between mom (Pamela Reed) and daughter (Marya Sea Kaminski) is like watching two people angrily welding at each other.

Olive Way Starbucks Vandalized

Brendan Kiley — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 11:40:53 -0700

Slog reader Katie Westlake sent this tip:

Not sure if you guys have been tipped off about this yet, but the stupid "anarchists" of Seattle decided to smash some windows and spray paint all over the front of the Olive Way Starbucks last night...

By the time Ansel arrived to take a few photos, the "A" symbol had already been washed off and a repairman was replacing the windows. Some of the locks and doors were superglued, however, and those are still stuck.

Some group called "Jokers Towards Total Freedom" (a riff of the Joint Terrorism Task Force, which has spent some time and money helping investigate suspected anarchists and anti-war demonstrators) took credit for the vandalism.

The actual stupidity (or intelligence) of the vandals has not been confirmed.

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When the Government Vanishes, Mexican Farmers Take Up Arms Against Narcos

Brendan Kiley — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 14:57:23 -0700

This story in the LA Times about what's happening in Tierra Caliente, which mostly produces avocados and meth, is both heartbreaking and heartening—the government tried to come down on the narcos of La Familia, the narcos responded by becoming even more powerful and more thoroughly integrated into the police and military.

Always remember when reading stories about the drug war: In Mexico, the government forces and the narcos aren't like two separate soccer teams duking it out. They've been holding hands, in one way or another, since the Colonel Esteban Cantú Jiménez figured out he and his army pals could make a lot of money off of the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act of 1914 by growing their own opium poppies in northern Mexico. Arguably, the first narco kingpin was a retired military officer.

Anyway, in Tierra Caliente, the farmers decided they wouldn't take it anymore, armed themselves, and are now defending their own turf on their own terms:

This western-most section of Michoacan state is experiencing a rare phenomenon in Mexico: Communities have risen up against the drug-trafficking gangs that terrorized them for years. And although questions remain over who exactly is behind all of it, the developments are posing a challenge to President Enrique Peña Nieto, who must confront the possibility of widespread vigilantism, possibly even outbreaks of civil war. His decision to send in the army last month was the first major military operation against traffickers in his 6-month-old administration.

Locals had tolerated cartel henchmen for years — and often collaborated with them — but increasingly, the bad guys harassed the public. First there was the steady stream of extortion as the cartel, which took the name Knights Templar ("Caballeros Templarios") after the Middle Ages crusaders, gained a stranglehold on the economy throughout Michoacan, one of the most bountiful agricultural states in Mexico.

The Templarios dictated whom cattlemen could sell their stock to, then insisted on a 10% cut. Same with lumber. Lime pickers, tortilla vendors and everyone else had to pay a fee to the cartel. Homeowners had to pay 1,000 pesos, about $80, per square yard of their houses.

Refusal meant your business or residence might be burned down. Ten lime pickers who resisted were slaughtered, their bodies dumped on the side of a road, in mid-April. Garcia said he had to pay 10% of his municipal budget to the Templarios as protection money.

Then, they began raping women, often the wives or daughters of prominent residents. "That's when it became a matter of dignity," Garcia said.

All the money, guns, law enforcement, and "just say no" campaigns in the world aren't able to curb the drug trade—instead, in some areas, it's threatening government legitimacy and power altogether.

Meanwhile, the feds have spent their time raiding 103 marijuana shops in Los Angeles County.

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The Night Jandek (and One of His Fans) Sent Me Running from a Concert

Brendan Kiley — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 12:22:32 -0700

This week, Anna Minard's "Never Heard of 'Em" column is about the Arctic-cold, sometimes evil-sounding, loner-folk of Jandek—which reminded me of the night I saw him in 2006 at On the Boards. It's the only concert I've fled fearing for my life.

This is what I wrote on Line Out at the time:

It was both haunting and boring—long, melancholy songs with a ghost of a folk-blues structure languishing at the bottom of an ocean of weird: unsettling open-chord tunings, plucked slowly, almost incidentally, and warbling vocals. (Boring, I should add, isn’t necessarily bad: If it’s used as a tactic so tenderize audiences for greater shocks later on—and isn’t simply the by-product of a lazy imagination—boredom can be a useful tool in an artist’s kit.) There was a fairly straight-ahead bassist. There was a drummer who played like he was backing a jazz trio. There were two women sitting far upstage. And then there was the spooky man himself, Jandek-who-isn’t-Jandek. From an explanatory web site:

Officially, Jandek is not a person. The man from the album covers and live appearances is “a representative of Corwood Industries,” and “Jandek” is a musical project which he directs. The trinity of Jandek, Corwood, and “the representative” is both three and one… Everybody knows one thing about Jandek, that no one knows anything about Jandek. There is nothing but the music. Some find it crude or inept on first hearing, but upon exploration it reveals incredible depth, intelligence, feeling, and rewards for the listener.

He was tall, thin, pale, with a black hat, a shadowed face, black shirt and pants, playing his guitar by picking up and down the neck of the instrument, never using the frets that I could see. (He spent a lot of time not-facing the audience.) Unfortunately, about an hour into the performance, I began to feel ill and had to leave. Which is too bad. I didn’t walk in the door as a fan and I didn’t walk out the door converted, but I’m curious to hear what the rest of the set was like.

About that "began to feel ill"—actually, I began to feel terrified. Just before the show, someone at On the Boards told me that a potentially suicidal kid from Ohio had gone missing a month ago. His parents thought he might turn up at the OtB Jandek show. The kid was obsessed with Jandek and, at that time, Jandek hardly ever made live appearances. I sat in the back on heightened alert.

A few spooky songs into the set, some kid came through the theater's back door—I don't know whether he'd bought a ticket or snuck in or what—and sat down next to me. He was wearing a jacket and had a backpack that looked full. He might have been wearing a hood or a ball cap—I only remember not being able to see his face. I immediately felt a deep fear that this was the kid, and he might kill himself while sitting next to me, or kill Jandek, or kill all of us.

I quietly flipped my lid for a song or two and then booked it out of there.

The next day (I think) I asked my friend at OtB about the kid next to me. She didn't seem to know what I was talking about. Nobody got killed. And the kid from Ohio didn't turn up—as far as she knew.

I'd like to say that if I could go back in time I would've engaged the kid, tried to talk, hung around to see if he was all right. But I'm not sure that's what'd happen if I got a do-over. Between the music and the kid, I was in the throes of some primordial fear. I might turn tail and run all over again.

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Who's Afraid of the NSA?

Brendan Kiley — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 12:39:20 -0700

Apparently not most Americans, the majority of whom—according to a Pew Research poll—think the NSA's secret surveillance of millions of Americans is an acceptable way to fight "terrorism."

That echoes conversations, blog posts, and comment threads I've run across in the past few days that basically say: "What's the big deal? I have nothing to hide. They're doing this to make us safer. If you don't pal around with terrorists, it's not a problem. And Obama said nobody is listening to my phone conversations, so who cares?" (Yesterday, for example, Charles argued that this NSA surveillance is no more serious than market research for advertising firms.)

For the sake of argument, let's take Obama at his word and say the NSA is only recording the time, duration, and location of millions of Americans' phone calls—and if your phone habits send up a red flag, and you're somehow digitally connected to terrorists, then you could be subject to wiretapping and more extensive surveillance.

The problem with that: The government's definition of "terrorism" is extraordinarily broad.

In the past few years, we have seen multiple cases in our own backyard of the Joint Terrorism Task Force and federal anti-terrorism dollars and resources going to investigate anti-war protesters in Olympia (with concerted infiltration by an intelligence analyst from Fort Lewis), people who might have "anarchist" or "anti-government" literature in their homes or might know May Day demonstrators, and people who threw a series of after-hours parties.

Apparently, when government officials say "terrorism," Americans think of some guy in Yemen buying surface-to-air missiles to shoot down their favorite relative's plane over Des Moines, Iowa.

But we can see that when the anti-terrorism dollars get doled out, they also go to investigating hippie grandma anti-war protesters, people who might know people who might have broken some windows, or people who haven't engaged in any serious activism since the WTO.

So what's the problem, besides law-enforcement confusing political dissent with terrorism?

There's the "chilling effect" of political dissent and affiliation, for one: If we know the government's definition of terrorism is so broad, and we know that being digitally connected to dissidents puts you at risk for targeted scrutiny, everyone has an incentive to remain politically mainstream, as well as stay away from any protests or protesters, dampening robust political debate. You know the rest from high-school civics. (You can find a case study of surveillance and chilling effects in this report from CUNY law school. The link is a .pdf, by the way.)

And when innocent people get caught in the dragnet, it can potentially derail their lives. A few years ago, I interviewed Michael German, a former FBI special agent whose specialty was domestic terrorism and undercover surveillance. He now works for the ACLU. (It's a little odd how many career FBI and NSA agents are now banging the gong about the dangers of their former employers.)

German said that if the FBI is under the impression that you know someone who knows something about "terrorism," they might pay visits to your employers or landlords, not to mention the possibility of them raiding your home. Another example: If you're an immigrant working towards a green card or citizenship and you, say, talk with with Marxist professors who talk with radical Greek anarchists, that could jeopardize your status.

Then there's the "turnkey totalitarianism" issue. Even if you do trust the Obama administration, or the people at the NSA, or the folks on the Senate intelligence committee, we have created an enormous apparatus that could be hideously abused—and until a few days ago, most Americans didn't even know it even existed.

But don't take my word for it. If you haven't yet, check out this 2012 story in Wired which features William Binney, the "senior NSA crypto-mathematician largely responsible for automating the agency’s worldwide eavesdropping network."

He explains that the agency could have installed its tapping gear at the nation’s cable landing stations—the more than two dozen sites on the periphery of the US where fiber-optic cables come ashore. If it had taken that route, the NSA would have been able to limit its eavesdropping to just international communications, which at the time was all that was allowed under US law. Instead it chose to put the wiretapping rooms at key junction points throughout the country—large, windowless buildings known as switches—thus gaining access to not just international communications but also to most of the domestic traffic flowing through the US.

... sitting in a restaurant not far from NSA headquarters, the place where he spent nearly 40 years of his life, Binney held his thumb and forefinger close together. “We are, like, that far from a turnkey totalitarian state,” he says.

Another problem: How secure is our security apparatus? A 2008 story from the San ~~Francisco~~ Diego Union-Tribune detailed how a group stole files on potential terrorists and "operated with impunity from one of Camp Pendleton's most heavily guarded buildings." So there's the theft issue, on top of everything else.

But there's nothing to be worried about.

Right?

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Deep Thought

Brendan Kiley — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 15:12:45 -0700

Every time I see this ad in the New Yorker, I wonder how often people go to bigassfans.com looking for fans of big ass, or big fans of ass, instead of fans which are big-ass.

And I wonder if that's intentional.

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An Interview with the Former Government Contractor Who Leaked Information About NSA Surveillance

Brendan Kiley — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 10:09:44 -0700

Edward Snowden, the former government contractor who leaked top-secret documents about the NSA's extraordinarily broad digital surveillance program, intended to release his identity all along. Here's an interview he conducted with journalist Glenn Greenwald—about why he did what he did—at his current refuge in Hong Kong.

You can read the transcript here. An excerpt:

Snowden: You can't come forward against the world's most powerful intelligence agencies and be completely free from risk... But at the same time you have to make a determination about what it is that's important to you. And if living unfreely but comfortably is something you're willing to accept, and I think it many of us are it's the human nature; you can get up everyday, go to work, you can collect your large paycheck for relatively little work against the public interest, and go to sleep at night after watching your shows.

But if you realize that that's the world you helped create and it's gonna get worse with the next generation and the next generation who extend the capabilities of this sort of architecture of oppression, you realize that you might be willing to accept any risk and it doesn't matter what the outcome is so long as the public gets to make their own decisions about how that's applied.

Greenwald: Why should people care about surveillance?

Snowden: Because even if you're not doing anything wrong you're being watched and recorded. And the storage capability of these systems increases every year consistently by orders of magnitude to where it's getting to the point where you don't have to have done anything wrong. You simply have to eventually fall under suspicion from somebody even by a wrong call. And then they can use this system to go back in time and scrutinize every decision you've ever made, every friend you've ever discussed something with. And attack you on that basis to sort to derive suspicion from an innocent life and paint anyone in the context of a wrongdoer.

Earlier today, Charles wrote that state surveillance is inevitable (which might be true) and that it is no different from corporate surveillance for marketing purposes—which is clearly untrue. There is a mighty difference between more targeted advertising techniques and undermining constitutional protection against unwarranted search and seizure, not to mention the chilling effects against free speech and association.

From the ACLU:

With this sensitive data, the government can compile vast dossiers about innocent people. The data sits indefinitely in government databases, and the names of many innocent Americans end up on bloated and inaccurate watch lists that affect whether we can fly on commercial airlines, whether we can renew our passports, whether we are called aside for “secondary screening” at airports and borders, and even whether we can open bank accounts.

Dragnet surveillance undermines the right to privacy and the freedoms of speech, association, and religion.

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‘The Twilight Zone: Live!’

Brendan Kiley — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 11:00:00 -0700

Cheap cocktails, marooned astronauts, and a drunk-ass Santa in an old bunker! by Brendan Kiley

During the 21 years Theater Schmeater has lived in its subterranean theater-bunker on Capitol Hill, it has regularly produced part-campy, part-sincere re-creations of Twilight Zone episodes. People love them: the fascination with the outer edges of science, the moral queasiness about our workaday existence, the cheap cocktails. This round has entertaining shorts about marooned astronauts, a tyrannical and psychic child, and a drunk-ass Santa Claus. Schmeater will have to relocate soon (due to real-estate issues), so enjoy this old bunker while it lasts. (Theater Schmeater, 1500 Summit Ave, schmeater.org, 8 pm, $18 adv/$23 DOS, through June 15)

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Today in the Surveillance State: Secret Court Gives FBI and NSA Blanket Access to Phone Records

Brendan Kiley — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 09:03:24 -0700

Megan mentioned this in the Morning News, but this story deserves its own post—over at the Guardian, Glenn Greenwald reports that the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has granted the FBI and the NSA the power to suck up all Verizon's call records, regardless of relevance to any kind of investigation or threat. They call it "metadata."

Though the specific order leaked to the Guardian was for a three-month period and specifies Verizon, it's safe to assume this is not an isolated incident. Here is the original text of the order.

The story also explains the vague but Cassandra-like warnings from senators Wyden and Udall of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

The court order appears to explain the numerous cryptic public warnings by two US senators, Ron Wyden and Mark Udall, about the scope of the Obama administration's surveillance activities.

For roughly two years, the two Democrats have been stridently advising the public that the US government is relying on "secret legal interpretations" to claim surveillance powers so broad that the American public would be "stunned" to learn of the kind of domestic spying being conducted.

Because those activities are classified, the senators, both members of the Senate intelligence committee, have been prevented from specifying which domestic surveillance programs they find so alarming. But the information they have been able to disclose in their public warnings perfectly tracks both the specific law cited by the April 25 court order as well as the vast scope of record-gathering it authorized.

Julian Sanchez, a surveillance expert with the Cato Institute, explained: "We've certainly seen the government increasingly strain the bounds of 'relevance' to collect large numbers of records at once — everyone at one or two degrees of separation from a target — but vacuuming all metadata up indiscriminately would be an extraordinary repudiation of any pretence of constraint or particularized suspicion." The April order requested by the FBI and NSA does precisely that.

Those senators have been warning the public about "twisting" of the Patriot Act and abuse of surveillance powers—in ways that even most senators don't understand—for years now, further indicating that this three-month FISC order is a small part of a larger pattern. From a 2011 NYT story:

During the debate, Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat and a member of the Intelligence Committee, said that the executive branch had come up with a secret legal theory about what it could collect under a provision of the Patriot Act that did not seem to dovetail with a plain reading of the text. “I want to deliver a warning this afternoon: When the American people find out how their government has secretly interpreted the Patriot Act, they will be stunned and they will be angry,” Mr. Wyden said... The Obama administration declined to explain what the senators were talking about.

Over on Twitter, Greenwald is being slightly more pugnacious:

Dear DOJ: your bullying tactics will scare some sources, but they embolden others, who realize what USG is becominghuffingtonpost.com/2013/06/06/doj…
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) June 6, 2013

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Occupy Gezi, Con't.

Brendan Kiley — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 11:35:24 -0700

Later today, we'll post some eyewitness accounts from a Seattle man who's been living in Istanbul since early 2006.

In advance of that, this seven-minute YouTube video is an excellent primer on how things began and escalated:

And the photos on a Facebook page for Istanbul anarchists are high drama—fires, overturned cars, protesters in abaya (gives a whole new meaning to "black bloc"), a Starbucks that looks like it was bombed, individuals in Tiananmen-style standoffs with armored vehicles...

Some protesters have met with officials and issued a list of demands, including:

...the dismissal of the governors of Istanbul; the capital, Ankara; and the city of Hatay; as well as the head of the security forces in those three cities. The representatives’ list also included the release of detained protesters; an end to the use of tear gas by the police; and the cancellation of the project that started the protests: the construction of an Ottoman era replica that would destroy a park in Taksim Square in Istanbul.

Turkish police have been rounding up Twitter users, accusing them of tweeting "misleading and libelous information."

And there will be a solitary demonstration with the Turkish community in Seattle this Saturday at Victor Steinbrueck Park.

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Summer Performance Calendar

Brendan Kiley — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 04:00:00 -0700

Everything Happening in Theater and Dance This Season by Brendan Kiley

Larger Theaters

5TH AVENUE THEATER

1308 Fifth Ave, 625-1900, 5thavenue.org

Hairspray: 10th Anniversary Concert (June 20–23): The Seattle Men's Chorus performs Hairspray, the 2002 Broadway musical that premiered in Seattle, in a concert directed by David Armstrong and Dennis Coleman. Featuring Jerick Hoffer (the hometown drag hero Jinkx Monsoon), Kirsten DeLohr Helland, Aaron Finley, and others.

The Pirates of Penzance (July 11–Aug 24): The old Gilbert and Sullivan chestnut. Quoth Wikipedia: "On the coast of Cornwall, at the time of Queen Victoria's reign, Frederic, a young man with a strong sense of duty, celebrates the completion of his twenty-first year and the apparent end of his apprenticeship to a gentlemanly band of pirates." Then a bunch of other shit happens.

ACT THEATER

700 Union St, 292-7676, acttheatre.org

Other Desert Cities (Through June 30): When Brooke Wyeth arrives at her parents' Palm Springs mansion on Christmas Eve with a frighteningly revealing memoir in hand, she threatens to tear apart their powerful and prestigious Republican dynasty. In 2011, the New York Times called Jon Robin Baitz's discomforting Tony and Pulitzer finalist the "best new play on Broadway." Victor Pappas directs this Northwest premiere, featuring Pamela Reed (Parks and Recreation) as Polly Wyeth, Seattle performer Marya Sea Kaminski as her daughter Brooke, and Kevin Tighe (Lost) as the family patriarch.

An Evening with Groucho (June 13–30): Frank Ferrante returns with his portrayal of Groucho Marx.

The Construction Zone (June 18, July 23, Aug 27): New works are read aloud by professional actors and followed by a discussion with the playwrights. Produced with Washington Ensemble Theater.

Rapture, Blister, Burn (July 12–Aug 11): In an exploration of the evolution of modern American feminism, playwright Gina Gionfriddo connects Catherine—a successful academic—with her childhood friend Gwen, a stay-at-home mom married to Catherine's high-school sweetheart. Each has some degree of envy for the other.

The Love Markets (Aug 10): The Seattle band inspired by Weimar cabaret culture performs its new album with opening act the Half Brothers.

Icicle Creek Theater Festival (Aug 20–21): This festival has helped incubate plays that have gone on to be produced around the country, including: The Whale by Samuel D. Hunter, You for Me for You by Mia Chung, On the Nature of Dust by Stephanie Timm, Him by Daisy Foote, and others. This year's selections are announced in May.

Middletown (Aug 30–Sept 29): In a spin on Thornton Wilder's Our Town, playwright Will Eno explores mundane and metaphysical misdirection among the cosmos of resident Middletonians.

INTIMAN

Cornish Playhouse at Seattle Center, 201 Mercer St, 441-7178, intiman.org

Intiman Theater Festival 2013 (June 21–Sept 15): By now, you probably know the Intiman story—the venerable theater crashed and burned after a leadership change, then revived itself last year for a last-ditch summer festival (using the same cast and design team for all the plays) that was successful enough to merit a second round. This year, the plays are themed on four thorny topics: race, sex, money, and politics. They include Trouble in Mind by Alice Childress, directed by Valerie Curtis-Newton; Lysistrata by Aristophanes, directed by Sheila Daniels; Stu for Silverton (a new musical about the real-life trans mayor of a small Oregon town) by Peter Duchan and Breedlove, directed by Intiman artistic director Andrew Russell; and We Won't Pay! We Won't Pay! by Dario Fo, directed by "queen of clowning" Jane Nichols.

MOORE THEATER

1932 Second Ave, 682-1414, stgpresents.org

Dancing Around the World (June 8): More than 400 youth dancers between the ages of 3 and 17 fill the stage to demonstrate their achievements in ballet, jazz, tap, hiphop, and lyrical dance forms.

NEPTUNE THEATER

1303 NE 45th St, 682-1414, stgpresents.org

Anthony Jeselnik (June 8): Comedy. "I've got a long history of suicide in my family. The good news is it skips a generation. So, if I'm lucky, my kids will kill themselves."

Tracy Morgan (June 14): Comedy. "I want to hold a mirror up to society and then win 'world record for biggest mirror.'"

Dylan Moran: Yeah, Yeah (June 28): Comedy. "The truth is that I'm constitutionally incapable of doing an ordinary job."

Pete Holmes (June 29): Comedy. "You ever hail a cab just to stop it from hitting you?"

ON THE BOARDS

100 W Roy St, 217-9888, ontheboards.org

Northwest New Works Festival (June 7–16): The annual festival where On the Boards brings snippets of new work to the stage. NWNW has incubated work by some of the better/weirder performing artists in our corner of the country: Zoe Scofield, Pat Graney, Amy O'Neal, Allen Johnson, Ellie Sandstrom, Salt Horse, Spencer Moody, Mark Haim, Mike Pham, Haruko Nishimura and Joshua Kohl, Cherdonna and Lou, and more. This year features Paul Budraitis, the Satori Group, Allie Hankins, Pony World Theater, the New Animals (Markeith Wiley's dance company), and many others.

PACIFIC NORTHWEST BALLET

McCaw Hall, 321 Mercer St, 441-2424, pnb.org

Director's Choice (Through June 9): A tribute to George Balanchine curated by artistic director Peter Boal, this triple bill features a world premiere from Christopher Wheeldon, the return of Agon (a 1957 avant-garde ballet by "Mr. B," now staged by Francia Russell), and the last third of Balanchine's Jewels series, entitled Diamonds.

Season Encore Performance (June 9): Dance is ephemeral, and this PNB tradition brings back the "best-of" moments from the past season. Expect bits and pieces of Roméo et Juliette, Agon, Dancing on the Front Porch of Heaven, Swan Lake, Concerto Barocco, Sum Stravinsky, and more.

Next Step (June 14): It is a sign of artistic health that some Pacific Northwest Ballet dancers go on to become choreographers (Kiyon Gaines, Olivier Wevers, and others). In this concert, company dancers try out their new choreographic works, accompanied by the Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestra. If you're looking for new stuff from the ballet, start here.

PARAMOUNT THEATER

911 Pine St, 682-1414, stgpresents.org

Bill Maher (June 22): Comedy. "If conservatives get to call universal healthcare 'socialized medicine,' I get to call private, for-profit healthcare 'soulless vampire bastards making money off human pain."

DANCE This (July 13): A performance of the annual DANCE This program, in which teenage dancers from a diverse spectrum of backgrounds work with adult choreographers (also from a diverse spectrum of backgrounds, including modern, hiphop, and international traditions from many continents) to create new work.

Jim Gaffigan (July 20): Comedy. "Isn't it strange—when you're single, all you see is couples, and when you're part of a couple, all you see are hookers."

Joe Rogan (July 26): Comedy. "I was raised Catholic. That's why I don't take religion too seriously."

Sister Act (Aug 20–25): The "musical comedy smash" about an aspiring diva who hides out in a convent as part of a witness protection program.

SEATTLE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

Benaroya Hall, 200 University St, 215-4747, seattlesymphony.org

Cirque de la Symphonie (July 12–13): Contortionists, jugglers, and aerialists perform to classical music played by a chamber-sized orchestra of Seattle Symphony musicians.

TRIPLE DOOR

216 Union St, 838-4333, thetripledoor.net

Nightcap (June 8): A cabaret including Waxie Moon, Sarah Sparrow, Lily Verlaine, and others.

Freedom Fantasia (July 3–6): From the creators of Homo for the Holidays, a "liberty-encrusted, justice-soaked, apple-pie-scented pageant of patriotism" starring Jinkx Monsoon, Cherdonna and Lou, Kitten LaRue, Jim Kent, Markeith Wiley, and many more.

VILLAGE THEATER

303 Front St N, Issaquah, 425-392-2202, villagetheatre.org

Chicago (Through June 29): Kander and Ebb's Prohibition-era musical about merry murderesses and their lust for fame.

Smaller Theaters

14/48: THE WORLD'S QUICKEST THEATER FESTIVAL

Erickson Theater Off Broadway, 1524 Harvard Ave, 1448fest.com

14/48 Festivals (June 21–29): 14/48 used to be a relatively simple form of chaos: assembling a bunch of theater artists (actors, writers, directors, designers), pulling themes and little nodes of collaboration out of a hat, then smashing them together to make 14 new short plays, from the first written word to the final costume adjustment, in 48 hours. After several years of this, 14/48 got restless and has begun new experiments, including the "kamikaze" mode, in which participants have no idea whether they'll be writers, actors, directors, designers, or musicians. The first weekend of this run will be like that. The second weekend will be "all virgins," with lots of bewildered newcomers to the process.

ANNEX THEATER

1100 E Pike St, 728-0933, annextheatre.org

Mating Games (June 7–22): Seattle Playwrights' Collective presents eight short comedies about love 'n' sex 'n' stuff. Including scripts by Kelleen Conway Blanchard (Pink Elephants), Jim Jewell (Just Kissing), Dan Tarker (The Minotaur Next Door), John C. Davenport (Their Eyes Meet), Lauren Stone (Awkward), and others.

Murder Abbey (June 12): Comedian Kate Hess of the Upright Citizens Brigade parodies the BBC's Downton Abbey in this solo-show deconstruction with period costumes. The Daily Beast calls it one of the "six best Downton Abbey spoofs." (Who knew there were so many?)

Accio Burlesque!: A Burlesque Tribute to Harry Potter (June 28–29): I can imagine some potential problems with a burlesque show based on a series of children's books, but here's hoping...

Quick Change! (July 5–6): Flirty Sanchez and Bella Bijoux perform a two-woman burlesque show they describe as "like Golden Girls but with much less clothing."

Spin the Bottle (June 7, July 5, Aug 2, Sept 6): On the first Friday of every month since 1997, Annex has hosted a cabaret of new stuff—music, comedy, dance, film, theater, cirque, burlesque, smut, paper-airplane-making demonstrations, and stuff you can't even imagine.

Weird and Awesome with Emmett Montgomery (July 7, Aug 4, Sept 1): A monthly menagerie of people singing songs, telling stories, and doing strange stuff, curated by comedian, impresario, and self-described "mustache wizard" Emmett Montgomery.

Precious Little (Aug 2–31): A linguistics professor who is studying the last known speaker of a nearly extinct language is burdened with new information about her unborn child. She seeks solace with a gorilla at the zoo, which is played by a calm woman in a Coco Chanel suit. Written by Madeleine George, founding member of the Obie Award–winning playwrights' collective 13P.

The Half Brothers Brand Baking Products Old-Time Variety Show (Aug 9–30): Described as "Hee Haw on mushrooms," the neo-bluegrass trio known as the Half Brothers mixes original music with cooking lessons in an homage to infomercials of the Foggy Mountain Boys singing about Martha White's self-rising flour. Directed by Scotto Moore (A Mouse Who Knows Me, Duel of the Linguist Mages).

BALAGAN THEATER

1524 Harvard Ave, 329-1050, balagantheatre.org

The Totally True and Almost Accurate Adventures of Pinocchio (June 29–Aug 4): Written by Brendan Healy (of Pony World Theater) and directed by Shawn Belyea (14/48: The World's Quickest Theater Festival), an ensemble performs as an Italian theater troupe in the comic-improv style of Christopher Guest. With performances at Volunteer Park and Lake Burien Park.

Les Misérables (Sept 6–28): Balagan keeps chasing its li'l-Broadway dreams, with another show to add to its already formidable collection of ambitious shows (Avenue Q, August: Osage County, etc.). This one stars Seattle natives (and Broadway actors) Louis Hobson and L. Steven Taylor, and Balagan promises Seattle will "experience Les Mis like never before."

BALLARD UNDERGROUND

2220 NW Market St, 395-5458, ghostlighttheatricals.org

ComedySportz (Ongoing): Two teams of comedians compete for your precious, precious laughs.

Seattle Sketch Comedy Month (Through June 29): SketchFest ("the world's original comedy festival") has rented out the Ballard Underground to bring together a bunch of local sketch-comedy groups for a month of performances. Featuring well-loved groups such as Ubiquitous They, Charles, the Entertainment Show, Pork Filled Players, and others.

BOOK-IT REPERTORY THEATER

Center House Theater, Seattle Center, 216-0833, book-it.org

The Financial Lives of the Poets (June 7–30): Adapted from the novel by Jess Walter, the story follows Matt Prior, whose life is "falling apart at the seams." Adapted and directed by Myra Platt, and presented at the Jones Playhouse at the University of Washington.

CAFE NORDO

The Kitchen by Delicatus, 103 First Ave S, cafenordo.com

SMOKED! (Through June 16): According to Kim Fu's recent review in The Stranger, "SMOKED! is marketed as an homage to the genre-defining spaghetti westerns of Sergio Leone, best known for the Man with No Name trilogy (A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly). Ray Tagavilla gamely invokes Clint Eastwood's stoic, irreverent stranger, riding into a troubled town in the grip of a big bad boss... That the big bad boss sells genetically engineered produce and pesticides is presented with such science-fiction hyperbole and strained anachronism ('Seeds engineered like a gun'), it brings to mind Cowboys & Aliens more than Monsanto. Two of the dishes elicited actual pain. The spring vegetable 'spaghetti' (read: coleslaw) came with mozzarella 'meatballs' rolled in powdered olives, a combination so salty it hurt. The smoked alfalfa-hay popcorn was impressive only from a scientific standpoint, as each kernel carried such an intense cigarette-smoke sensation that it stung the lungs. Salt was an ongoing problem: The dessert consisted of a thin layer of rhubarb, seemingly sugarless, buried by salty biscuit dough and served with a side of smoked-salt fennel whipped cream—sweet and savory without the sweet."

CAN CAN CABARET

94 Pike St, 652-0832, thecancan.com

The Dark Side of the Veil: Chartreuse (June 9): Les Fleurs D'Egypte Dance company presents an evening of poi, techno music, and bellydancing. Performers include Najla, Nadira, BreAnn, Kitiera, Danielle, and Ava.

Tiny Diamonds (Through June 27): The Heavenly Spies burlesque company celebrates its 10-year anniversary with a weekly show. Paul Constant, a longtime Spies fan, wrote earlier this year: "Fae Phalen's choreography sets the Spies apart from other, more amateurish burlesque you could see around town on any given night, where dancers waste time between a few simple steps and discard clothing whenever a number gets boring. A Spies striptease is all about control. Every movement—from the tilt of a hand while pulling off a glove to the arc of a swinging ponytail—is planned and practiced to perfection. Corrie Befort, a local modern dancer and choreographer, most recently of Salt Horse, explained that Phalen's choreography provides a 'sense of form and an aesthetic' that you don't usually find in burlesque—'like white cake made with real cream,' Befort wrote in an e-mail. 'I was totally lured by the sugar, but hooked by the quality.'"

Tuesday Tease (June 25): Local burlesque performers strip to live music by The Lurid Spectacles every fourth Tuesday. Hosted by Ace Carter and Sailor St. Claire.

Can Can Castaways (Through the foreseeable future): As Brendan Kiley has written in The Stranger: "The Can Can Castaways, as we've often said, are like a gateway drug for modern dance. People show up at the subterranean, red-lit bar, order a few drinks, expect to see some hard bodies dancing—and they get that. But what they also get is the expert choreography by Rainbow Fletcher and her team of dancers and designers (often the dancers are the designers), who create dreamscapes from the Moulin Rouge to a bondage club in Tokyo. Fletcher and her team have also performed at On the Boards and other, more august venues, and their marriage of artistry and sensuality is excellent."

ECLECTIC THEATER COMPANY

1214 10th Ave, 679-3271, eclectictheatercompany.org

Waiting for Jenkins (Through June 8): Improv, including superhero movies built from audience suggestions.

One Act Play Festival (June 7–8): Two days of one-act plays by local writers, for a total of 14 dramatic works, ending with a party Saturday night.

ERICKSON THEATER OFF BROADWAY

1524 Harvard Ave, 329-1050

Ashani Dances (June 7–9, ashanidances.org): Choreographer Iyun Ashani Harrison (Juilliard, National Dance Theater Company of Jamaica, Ballet Hispanico of New York, Ailey II) presents four new dances, two of which were created in collaboration with Seattle composers Ben Morrow and William Hayes.

Sandbox One-Act Play Festival (June 13–15, soapfest.org): Short plays by members of the Sandbox Artists Collective: Milwaukee by Scot Augustson, Openly We Carry by Paul Mullin, Knocking Bird by Emily Conbere, and ...dispose of me... by Elizabeth Heffron.

FRYE ART MUSEUM

704 Terry Ave, 622-9250, fryemuseum.org

A Night of Genius (Aug 21): Join The Stranger for an event featuring the work of—and a conversation with—this year's Genius Award finalists in performance (see page 9). Theater editor Brendan Kiley will interview choreographers Amy O'Neal and Pat Graney, as well as the choreography-design team of Zoe Scofield and Juniper Shuey, while showing video samples of their work.

INFINITY BOX THEATER PROJECT

Town Hall, 1119 Eighth Ave, infinitybox.org

Thought Experiments on the Question of Being Human: Robots and Artificial Intelligence (June 13–15): Five scientists who work in the field of robotics or artificial intelligence each teamed up with local theater artists. Their results are five short plays on the question of what it means to be human. Each performance is followed by a scientist-led conversation with the audience. Scientists include: Paulina Varshavskaya (humanoid robotics), Andrew Stewart (ocean engineer in an applied physics laboratory), Cady Stanton (research assistant), and others. Theater-makers include: Pamela Hobart Carter, Jim Jewell, Kathy Hsieh, Omar Willey, May Nguyen, and others.

LAUGHS COMEDY SPOT

12099 124th Ave, Kirkland, 425-823-6306, laughscomedy.com

Comedy at Laughs Comedy Spot (Ongoing): "Good open mic, good touring acts," Stranger comedy expert Lindy West wrote a few years ago. Plus, they have a "starving artists" menu where you can buy a grilled-cheese sandwich for cheap.

LUCID LOUNGE

5241 University Way NE, 402-3042, tuesdayteaseseattle.com

Tuesday Tease (June 18): Local burlesque performers strip to live music by the Lurid Spectacles every third Tuesday. Hosted by Ace Carter and Sailor St. Claire.

NEW CITY THEATER

1404 18th Ave, 271-4430, newcitytheater.org

Homebody (Through June 22): Mary Ewald stars in this forerunner of Tony Kushner's later and larger work, Homebody/Kabul. In this early version, New City tells us, Kushner "makes the personal and the universal, the trivial and the cosmic, come simultaneously to life in a single character's bewilderment—the Homebody."

NOC NOC

1516 Second Ave, 223-1333, clubnocnoc.com

Sinner Saint Burlesque (Ongoing): A long-running burlesque show.

RE-BAR

1114 Howell St, 233-9873, rebarseattle.com

Belltown Burlesque Revue (June 8, July 13, Aug 10): Burlesque by Sailor St. Claire, Dahlia Ste. Cyr, Violet DeVille, and other people with Francophile stage names.

World's End Burlesque Revue (June 21–29): Burlesque by Czech Mate, Ivy DuPri, Lilith von Fraumench, and others.

Midnight Menagerie Burlesque (July 26–28): This group has advertised shows about Dr. Who and "the minxes of Middle Earth," so expect something nerdy.

RENDEZVOUS

2320 Second Ave, 441-5823, jewelboxtheater.com

Comedy Womb (Ongoing): A weekly "female-focused but not female-exclusive" comedy open mic with special guest spots, a headliner, a raffle, and more.

The Colors of Comedy (June 7): "The funniest comics of color in the Northwest."

Family Affair—An Evening of Dysfunctional Performance (June 19, July 17, Aug 21): Hosted by Jennifer Jasper, storytellers, dancers, writers, musicians, and artists will be sharing their sick, hilarious, and ultimately relatable familial skeletons on the third Wednesday of each month. Some of the proceeds each month will also go to help "a family in the arts community who has had an unforeseen crisis."

THE SATORI LAB

Inscape Arts, 815 Seattle Blvd S, satori-group.com

Fussy Cloud Puppet Slam (June 29): Puppets for grown-ups in the Satori Group's space. Lineup announced in June.

SEATTLE INTERNATIONAL DANCE FESTIVAL

Cornish College of the Arts and other venues near South Lake Union, phffft.org

The Eighth Seattle International Dance Festival: Beyond the Threshold (June 14–23): The Seattle International Dance Festival returns with boatloads of locally, nationally, and internationally known dance-makers: Corrie Befort, Jody Kuehner, Wuza Wuza, Kokoro Dance Company, Yurek Hansen, Manimou Camara, Amelia Reeber, Khambatta Dance Company, Idan Choen, and many others. There will also be events with KEXP DJs, crafts, a beer and margarita garden, and so on.

SEATTLE PUBLIC THEATER

Bathhouse Theater, 7312 W Green Lake Dr N, 524-1300, seattlepublictheater.org

The Language Archive (Through June 9): Twin stories by Julia Cho about love and language. In the first, a linguist can't talk his way out of divorce. In the second, an indigenous tongue is threatened with extinction due to a lover's spat. Directed by Shana Bestock.

SEATTLE SHAKESPEARE COMPANY

Center House Theater, Seattle Center, 733-8222, seattleshakespeare.org

The Tempest (July 11–Aug 11): "What see'st thou else in the dark backward and abysm of time?" A Shakespeare in the park production directed by Kelly Kitchens.

Henry V (July 11–Aug 11): "Men of few words are the best men." A Shakespeare in the park production directed by George Mount.

SOUND THEATER COMPANY

Center House Theater, Seattle Center, 856-5520, soundtheatrecompany.org

Dogg's Hamlet, Cahoot's Macbeth (June 6–23): British schoolboys and Cold War–era Czechoslovakian actors are the new characters in Tom Stoppard's interpretations of two tragedies by Shakespeare.

The Wild Party (Aug 8–25): The Seattle premiere of a musical by Andrew Lippa, based on an epic, jazz-age poem by Joseph Moncure March.

SPECTRUM DANCE THEATER

800 Lake Washington Blvd, 325-4161, spectrumdance.org

A Cruel New World/the new normal (June 5–9): Earlier this year, in honor of Donald Byrd's 10-year anniversary with Spectrum Dance Theater, the company brought back this post-9/11 riff (which was Byrd's first work for Spectrum). That restaging is now getting an encore performance this June at the Emerald City Aerialdrome (2702 Sixth Ave S).

Autopsy of Love (June 20–29): A world-premiere work developed with Oregon Shakespeare Festival's Black Swan Lab. From the Spectrum website: "With Robert Schumann's Dichterliebe in its original 20-song cycle featuring poet Heinrich Heine's Lyrisches Intermezzo, Byrd returns to matters of the heart." At the Emerald City Aerialdrome (2702 Sixth Ave S).

TAPROOT THEATER

204 N 85th St, 781-9707, taproottheatre.org

Bach at Leipzig (Through June 15): German organists play dirty as they vie for the role of musical director after the latest one drops dead. Itamar Moses wrote this farcical look at true events in 1772 Leipzig.

TEATRO ZINZANNI

222 Mercer St, 802-0015, dreams.zinzanni.org

King's Wish with Caspar Babypants (Through June 30): A new family-oriented circus show with popular local kids' musician Caspar Babypants (aka Chris Ballew of the Presidents of the United States of America).

Lucky in Love (Through Sept 8): Ruby, proprietress of Casino ZinZanni, takes a chance on songster Ricky La Ruse. She gets more than she gambled for when a full cast of circus performers, including a contortionist cat burglar, come onto the scene. Featuring Joe DePaul, Les Petits Frères, Peter Pitofsky, and others.

THEATER47

Building #47, Magnuson Park, 7400 Sand Point Way NE, 363-4807, seattlemusicaltheatre.org/theatre47

A Midsummer Night's Fantasy (June 25): A new take on Shakespeare's beloved A Midsummer Night's Dream, from Seattle Musical Theater. Blending opera, acting, classical music, and more, this one-night performance promises to enchant audiences and bring new life to the classic play.

THEATER OFF JACKSON

409 Seventh Ave S, 340-1049, theatreoffjackson.org

Quickies: Volume 14 (June 7–15): The return of Live Girls! annual short play festival featuring women playwrights.

You Can't Do That on Television! (June 21): Local burlesque performers experiment with popular TV characters (from Breaking Bad, Glee, and other shows) doing "naughty" stuff they can't do onscreen.

The Clockwork Professor (July 12–Aug 3): Pork Filled Productions presents a world-premiere, steampunk adventure play by Maggie Lee (Kindred Spirits), directed by Amy Poisson (These Streets). Professor Pemberton, a resident of New Providence, must confront his past as political unrest sweeps through his town.

THEATER SCHMEATER

1500 Summit Ave, 324-5801, schmeater.org

The Twilight Zone: Live! (Through June 15): The annual round of three live episodes from the sci-fi/thriller TV series steeped in Cold War paranoia, space invaders, and tyrannical societies. This round features "I Shot an Arrow into the Air," "It's a Good Life," and "The Night of the Meek." Directed by Tim Moore.

UNEXPECTED PRODUCTIONS

1428 Post Alley, 587-2414, unexpectedproductions.org

Duo Comedy Showcase (Ongoing): Competing duos perform comedy and improv, tournament-style.

TheaterSports (Ongoing): Our local version of an international improv institution.

UNICORN

1118 E Pike St, 437-2532, unicornseattle.com

Mimosas with Mama (Ongoing): The long-running Sunday drag-show brunch has relocated from the Broadway Grill (R.I.P.) to the Narwhal, the shiny new bar and stage in the Unicorn's lower floor.

VELOCITY DANCE CENTER

1621 12th Ave, 325-8773, velocitydancecenter.org

Strictly Seattle: Maximum Velocity (July 26–27): After a three-week dance intensive with accomplished choreographers (including Stranger Genius Award nominees Zoe Scofield and Amy O'Neal, as well as Mark Haim, Ricki Mason, Ellie Sandstrom, Marlo Martin, and others), there is a performance at Broadway Performance Hall (1625 Broadway).

What We Talk About When We Talk About... (July 21): Choreographers and dancers, audience members, and Strictly Seattle participants will have a facilitated conversation with choreographers Zoe Scofield and Tonya Locker (the latter is also the director of Velocity Dance Center).

20th Annual Seattle Festival of Dance Improvisation: Maximum Velocity (July 28–Aug 4): An improv-dance festival of classes, intensives, jams, conversations, and performances with artists such as John Jasperse, Sara Shelton Mann, and Chris Aiken.

Lightning Talks (July 31): Seattle Festival of Dance Improvisation artists have seven minutes to share what they're researching in 2013.

OFF THE CUFF: Dance Innovators in Performance (August 1): John Jasperse, Salt Horse, Karen Nelson, Louis Gervais, and others will "perform spontaneous flashes of brilliance," blurring the "lines between improvisation and devised theater."

WASHINGTON ENSEMBLE THEATER

608 19th Ave E, 325-5105, washingtonensemble.org

Tall Skinny Cruel Cruel Boys (Through June 24): Brandy is a popular birthday-party clown who can't seem to get it together, with complications like teenage boyfriends, binge drinking, and a demon living under her bed. This part puppet/part clown fantasy stars Hannah Victoria Franklin and is directed by Jane Nichols (Yale School of Drama, professor of clown and physical comedy).

WEST OF LENIN

203 N 36th St, 352-1777, westoflenin.com

The Horrible Lamb (June 14–29): After performing popular shows at the Seattle Fringe Festival in 2012, Sauer Bauer Productions revives this musical about Lyle Candell, a slacker who must sacrifice his love for sin to compete with his childhood-friend-turned-arch-nemesis Hal O'Luyah, now a Christian televangelist superstar.

WING-IT PRODUCTIONS

5510 University Way NE, 352-8291, wingitpresents.com

World's Fair (June 6–21): Improv inspired by the true story of a serial killer at the 1893 World's Columbian Expo in Chicago.

Jet City Improv (Ongoing): An improv institution.

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Herman's House: Building the Dream Home of a Prisoner Who's Been in Solitary Confinement for 30 Years

Brendan Kiley — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 04:00:00 -0700

Herman's House: Building the Dream Home of a Prisoner Who's Been in Solitary Confinement for 30 Years by Brendan Kiley

Herman Wallace, a Southerner and a Black Panther, has been in prison longer than I—and maybe you—have been alive. He went in on a bank-robbery charge in the early 1970s, was later convicted of murdering a prison guard, and has spent the past 30 years in solitary confinement. That murder conviction is dubious: No fingerprints tie him to the scene, and the only "evidence" is questionable testimony from other prisoners. More importantly, solitary confinement is increasingly regarded as a form of torture with physiological, brain-changing effects—the United Nations, the International Red Cross, physicians, and US judges have come down against the practice.

Brooklyn artist Jackie Sumell struck up a friendship with Wallace more than a decade ago. They've been in close contact—writing, calling, visiting—ever since. At one point during their talks, she asked him what a man in solitary confinement would imagine for his dream home. He told her, in detail, and that became their project. He designed it, she put together architectural drawings and a model for gallery shows (along with a precise wood re-creation of his current cage), and now she's looking for land in New Orleans to build it, where they hope it will become a youth center. Wallace's dream house includes an enormous bedroom with African art and mirrored ceilings, a bright yellow kitchen, and a swimming pool with a Black Panther logo on the bottom. The man's aesthetics froze the year he went to prison.

Herman's House, a deceptively plain documentary by Angad Bhalla, documents the friendship and the process. Bhalla's style as a director is effectively unostentatious—he hangs back with simple shots and straightforward interviews, gently letting us in on the gravity (and crazy hope) of the project, as well as the quiet and articulate dignity of the prisoner. Herman's House is a gorgeous, humane, and surprising piece of work.

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The Reviews Are In!

Brendan Kiley — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 15:38:41 -0700

In this week's theater section, a world premiere at WET and Tony Kushner's Homebody at New City Theater:

LARAE LOBDELL
Like a marshmallow with a core of creosote.

Actor Hannah Victoria Franklin does her best work when she's playing a specific strain of human viciousness—roaring, sneering, sarcastic, intoxicated, and destructively promiscuous. (Can someone organize an all-female festival of Mamet plays for her to star in? That could be Franklin's apotheosis.) She played that kind of sexy beast in Tommy Smith's White Hot at West of Lenin in 2012 and is bringing the scary back for Tall Skinny Cruel Cruel Boys, a world premiere at Washington Ensemble Theater.

In Boys, Franklin plays Brandy, a successful children's birthday party clown whose recreational activities would drive the mothers who hire her around the bend—she drinks heavily, serially screws off-limits guys (usually entertaining fathers and teenagers after she's finished entertaining the tots), and gambles like a fiend. She lives as if the innocence of her day job is a stain that must be scrubbed away with broken glass and vomit.

Occupy Gezi

Brendan Kiley — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 14:12:30 -0700

The analyses of what's happening in Turkey are all over the place: urban vs. rural, secular vs. religious, publicly vs. privately controlled space, feminism and LGBT issues, denial of the Armenian genocide, May Day protests, Kurdish oppression, the income gap. It has obvious similarities to Occupy Wall Street—a protest that started with a park and broadened into a general critique about politics, the economy, and power across the country.

But is that similarity just superficial? Here's a roundup of opinions about what's going on:

From the New York Times:

Mr. Erdogan’s attempt to forge a Muslim moral majority is evident also in his government’s stance on abortion, which, until recently, had prompted no theological or political controversies. Islam, like Judaism, gives priority to the mother’s life and health over that of the fetus, but Mr. Erdogan, borrowing a page from America’s Christian right, has introduced legislation to curb the availability of abortion through Turkey’s national health insurance system. And he has compounded such measures, which would hurt poor women more than the wealthy, with nationalistic calls to increase the population of the great Turkish nation by recommending that all women have at least three children.

From Open Democracy:

It was one month to the day since the Turkish government – without any international attention – mobilised 40,000 police and stopped public transport, in order to suppress turnout for Istanbul’s May Day demonstration...

Seven protesters are unofficially reckoned to have been unofficially killed. One woman crushed under an armoured police vehicle, a man dead from his injuries having been hit in the head with fire from a water cannon. Stop a moment, that doesn’t quite cut it, because they aimed the water cannon at his face. I say ‘they’, and yet, as is so often so in Turkey, we know the perpetrator. The ‘they’ will be the police. The police, every time, and always, the police. Western readers have heard about eyeballs pulled from sockets by water cannon, the man beaten until his scrotum split has also grabbed a few column inches for the cause. Aside from these grotesque titbits, the details will remain hazy, and we should take no consolation in the fact that the official death toll, having belatedly crept to one, will likely remain low. On a day when a wave of people took and crossed the vehicle-only Bosphorus bridge to march on Taksim, the Turkish media were still reporting minor skirmishes at the Syrian frontier. Hundreds of incarcerated journalists, and the overlaps between government ministers and media conglomerates, are the combination of hard and soft power that has stopped the mouthpiece of Turkey’s civil society from articulating its own trauma. Those inside Turkey say consistently that social media has become their best information source.

Also from Open Democracy:

One mainstream perception is that events developed unpredictably, spontaneously  and without any particular organizing. Was it really unpredictable? It is  partly true that mass social events are unpredictable; but only partly true.  Yes, exactly when it will happen is unpredictable, but that it  will happen is not. For instance, does one need to be a Marxist to see that  the EU elites are sitting on a social time bomb? Not really.

In the case of  Turkey, the revolutionary leftist press has been swarming with analyses pointing to  the fact that the AKP is increasingly alienating not only social groups like LGBT,  religious and ethnic minorities, students, artists, Kemalist and liberal  secularists, and so on,but also people from  its own electoral base. Look at the Tekel resistance, look at Reyhanli, look at  public and private sector workers disillusioned with extreme outsourcing, the  relentless assault on worker rights, the widening income gap!

From the Guardian:

Calling the recent events a "Turkish spring" or a "Turkish summer", as some commentators were quick to do, is not the right approach. It is true that Turkey has lots of things in common with many countries in the Middle East, but it is also very different. With its long tradition of modernity, pluralism, secularism and democracy – however flawed and immature it might be – Turkey has the inner mechanisms to balance its own excesses of power. If this cannot be achieved, however, there is concern that the demonstrations could be hijacked by extremist groups and turn violent. The same concern has been voiced by the country's president, Abdullah Gül, who gave a constructive statement saying the people had given the politicians a clear message, and the politicians should take these well-intentioned messages into account.

Also from the Guardian:

There is a lot of confusion among the International community regarding what's going on in Turkey. Why is the public so outraged against a government that came to service by democratic election?

Here is a sampling of what the ruling party AKP is doing to create so much reaction from its own public.

1) The constitutional amendment they are trying to pass moving Turkey to a US based Presidential system - This will give AKP another 10 years of electability. Convenient timing as under the current regime Erdogan won't be eligible to run for PM in the next elections. on.wsj.com/OM2UPQ

2) Restriction on alcohol use. It started as a bill for a full ban but under public pressure was passed as "restrictions". Oh and did you know our national drink is now Ayran (Watered down yogurt) instead of Raki? (Anice based liquor widely popular in Turkey). Yup cause Erdogan said so. Because with 1.5 litres per capita consumption a year, the Turkish youth clearly needs to be put in an AA program. bit.ly/1aHmKY2.

3) Turkish Airlines ban on red lipstick for hostesses. bit.ly/165xTnP

From Al Jazeera:

As demonstrations in Turkey enter a fifth day, the country's deputy prime minister has apologised for "excessive violence" against protesters trying to save a park in Istanbul.

It is unclear whether the remarks made on Tuesday by Bulent Arnic, who is standing in for Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan while he is out of the country, were towing an official government line.

Despite facing the biggest challenge to his rule since he came to office in 2002, Erdogan left Turkey earlier on Monday on an official visit to Morocco, where he insisted the situation in his country was "calming down".

He earlier rejected talk of a "Turkish Spring" uprising by Turks who accuse him of trying to impose religious reforms on the secular state, and dismissed the protesters as "vandals", stressing that he was democratically elected.

Also from Al Jazeera:

Twitter has become a useful source of news for the Turkish public in recent days - and months. The protests have largely been untelevised, with some of Turkey's news networks airing cooking shows and penguin documentaries at the height of the tensions...

Government supporters, however, reject accusations that it has exerted control over Turkish media.

From the Jerusalem Post:

After his third consecutive election victory in 2011, Erdogan began to abandon civic pluralism. He instead focused on empowering his core constituency through a crony capitalism and pushed through a series of polarizing measures for state enforcement of conservative religious mores. In the month prior to the outbreak of massive demonstrations, Turkey witnessed the banning of Turkish Airways flight attendants from wearing red lipstick, legislation restricting the sale and consumption of alcohol and the Ankara subway authorities using closed-circuit television surveillance to prevent passengers from kissing.

Most egregious has been Erdogan’s program of grandiose construction projects designed to enrich AKP-affiliated businesses and artificially boost the Turkish economy. Imposed over objections by local residents, many of these heavy-handed projects also attempt to erect edifices glorifying the Ottoman Empire and Sunni triumphs instead of Turkey’s pluralist heritage.

And from Jadaliyya:

On the one hand, unlike Occupy Wall Street and other similar movements throughout the West, many of the activists do not reject traditional forms of political organization and calculation (even though such sentiments are widespread among some of the younger leading protesters in Taksim). Such abstentionism from formal politics cost dearly to Western movements of the last couple of years. Unlike Arab protesters, on the other hand, Turkish and Kurdish activists have been living and breathing under a semi-democracy, so have a lot of everyday political experience under their belts. In short, “the leaderless revolution” has not arrived in Turkey. The disadvantage of Occupy Gezi, though, is that it is facing a much more hegemonic neoliberal regime when compared to the Western and Arab regimes. Turkish conservatives have been much more successful in building a popular base and a militant (but pragmatic) liberal-conservative intelligentsia (when compared to their fanatical and shallow counterparts in the West, not even to speak of their inexperienced counterparts in the Arab world). This consent is multi-dimensional and integrates compromises and articulations at ideological, religious, political and economic levels. The demobilization and counter-mobilization that neoliberal hegemony could generate cannot be taken lightly.

If the Turkish and Kurdish activists find innovative ways of overcoming these hurdles, Turkey will have the potential of adding a new twist to the post-2011 global wave of revolt.

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"Inane"

Brendan Kiley — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 16:26:35 -0700

This made me laugh yesterday:

"Inane" is a great handle for a tagger.

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‘The Vaudevillians’

Brendan Kiley — Sun, 02 Jun 2013 11:00:00 -0700

Starring our favorite drag superstar Jinkx Monsoon! by Brendan Kiley

Since the hometown actor, singer, and drag queen Jinkx Monsoon done good on RuPaul’s Drag Race, hearts (gay and straight) have been going pitter-pat all over town. Back before the stardom, Jinkx and her collaborator, Major Scales, developed a show called The Vaudevillians, about two old-timey variety stars who were frozen in an avalanche, have been thawed by global warming, and are trying to sing, dance, and joke their way back into the 21st century. This is their send-off show before The Vaudevillians goes to NYC. (Cornish Playhouse at Seattle Center, 201 Mercer St, thevaudevillians.brownpapertickets.com, 7:30 and 9:30 pm, $10–$25 )

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Letter from Prison

Brendan Kiley — Fri, 31 May 2013 09:46:23 -0700

Dan retweeted this earlier today, but you should check out the letter from prison by CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou, the first government official to admit that waterboarding was real, official, and sanctioned.

Now he's in prison, and his letter is revealing. Its details about how prisoners mostly get along (except when it comes to the TV), and how the guards are more likely to cause problems than anyone else, are reminiscent of stories told by the grand jury refusers.

Here's a taste:

When I got to the lieutenant's office, I was ushered into the office of SIS, the Special Investigative Service. This is the prison version of every police department's detective bureau. I saw on a desk a copy of my book, The Reluctant Spy, as well as DVD copies of all the documentaries I've been in. The CO showed me a picture of an Arab. "Do you know this guy," he asked me. I responded that I had met him a day earlier, but our conversation was limited to "nice to meet you." Well, the CO said, this was the uncle of the Times Square bomber, and after we had met, he called a number in Pakistan, reported the meeting, and was told to kill me. I told the CO that I could kill the guy with my thumb. He's about 5'4" and 125 pounds compared to my 6'1" and 250 pounds. The CO said they were looking to ship him out, so I should stay away from him. But the more I thought about it, the more this made no sense. Why would the uncle of the Times Square bomber be in a low-security prison? He should be in a maximum. So I asked my Muslim friends to check him out. It turns out that he's an Iraqi Kurd from Buffalo, NY. He was the imam of a mosque there, which also happened to be the mosque where the "Lackawana 7" worshipped. (The Lackawana 7 were charged with conspiracy to commit terrorism.) The FBI pressured him to testify against his parishioners. He refused and got five years for obstruction of justice. The ACLU and several religious freedom groups have rallied to his defense. He had nothing to do with terrorism.

In the meantime, SIS told him that I had made a call to Washington after we met, and that I had been instructed to kill him! We both laughed at the ham-handedness by which SIS tried to get us to attack each other. If we had, we could have spent the rest of our sentences in the SHU - solitary. Instead, we're friendly, we exchange greetings in Arabic and English, and we chat.

Read the rest here.

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"Supersize My Salary Now!"

Brendan Kiley — Thu, 30 May 2013 19:34:04 -0700

That was the rallying cry as around 200 demonstrators, several of them fast-food workers who'd walked off the job for the day, marched from Denny Park to McDonald's at Seattle Center, stopping by a Subway and a Taco del Mar along the way, trying to convince the workers to walk off the job.

They failed to convince the employee at Taco del Mar, a Latino man who later told me: "They can do whatever they wanna do, but I don't like to be pushed into anything."

But, after several minutes of conversation, a few Spanish-speaking activists succeeded in convincing a young woman at the Subway to leave the shop and lock the doors. The crowd went wild as she smilingly made her way into their midst. She spoke briefly into a microphone in Spanish, saying, "I'm very happy that you're doing this. Si se puede!"

This is her:

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Closed for business!

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All smiles.

Meet more of the striking workers, and hear about what happened at McDonald's—which ended with a very disgruntled franchise owner complaining to police that the crowd had committed "criminal trespass," the police gently arguing that they had some duty to protect freedom of expression, which the owner countered with saying that he contributed to the SPD foundation—below the jump.

This is Abdirashid:

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Abdirashid

He says he works at a Subway at Fourth and Lander and was striking today—it was the first moment of activism he'd ever engaged in. "I'm not here to target the owners of the [individual] store," he said. "I'm here to target the the big corporations that make all the money but make it so unavailable and need to share more with the workers."

He said he works 30 hours a week. I asked if he wanted to work more, to go full time and make benefits. "No matter how many hours you work for $9.50, you can't make it. The people who created the minimum-wage requirements don't understand how it feels." He says he has worked with single parents who are working but still relying on food stamps. He doesn't have kids, he says, "but I'm not here for myself—I'm here for a collective, for people who can't voice their opinion because they have fear, and can't afford to lose their jobs."

I asked if he was afraid of losing his job. "I'm not scared because we're all in this together," he said. "We're striking! This is America!"

Sage Wilson, one of the organizers, said that food service is "the fastest-growing sector in the economy and the lowest-wage sector in the economy—if we don't organize, we could end up with a permanent underclass."

This is Alfonso Areallano:

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Alfonso Areallano

He's been working in fast food for six years, since he was 16—Jack in the Box, Quizno's, Sbarro—and says "they're all the same." He's now at a Taco del Mar at 42nd and University. He says only three employees work there and he and another of his fellow workers were striking today.

"There is a lot of struggle" in the industry, he said. "When people feel this poor, they feel invisible." This was also his first moment of activism. "This is great," he said, "this is amazing—to make the corporations think again about how they're running their business, about what's wrong and what's right."

He also talked about single parents stretching their dollars and, like Abdirashid, said he was there for those people, "trying to get them out, letting them know there's nothing to be afraid of."

He said he lives in the Central District, which is "very expensive" and hopes demonstrations like this will "improve our wages."

Then the crowd began to chant "hold the burgers, hold the fries, make my salary super-size" while someone played "Celebration" by Kool and the Gang. Then the march began.

Once it passed by Taco del Mar...

...and Subway...

...the crowd marched to McDonald's. I showed up ahead of time, where a stern-faced manager type was on the phone, telling someone to call the police. The crowd charged in and occupied the McDonald's for several minutes, though nobody walked off the job.

I talked to one person standing towards the back wearing a manager tag looked shocked. I asked if that person knew this was coming, and that person said no, there was some talk on the news, but this was a total surprise. I asked if that person planned on walking off the job and the answer was "no." I asked if that person agreed with what the protesters were saying and the answer was a shrug, then a quick look to the left and to the right, and then "yes."

The police showed up, a protest liaison talked with them, and communicated the order to disperse. So they did, leaving signs and stickers on the windows, with a chant of: "We'll be back! We'll be back!"

I lingered, to listen to a man I think was the franchise owner complain to police officers that they hadn't charged in. The officer patiently explained that (a) they had to walk a "funny line" between protecting private property and protecting freedom of expression, (b) if the seven officers on the scene had charged into a situation with 200 demonstrators, the restaurant would've been trashed, and (c) that all in all things had gone pretty smoothly—the demonstrators had made their point and the store was intact.

The maybe-owner said "we support you guys, we're members of the foundation." The officers said they appreciated that and nothing more.

The maybe-owner shook his head and said: "I just never thought these guys would be bold enough to enter the restaurant."

The officers nodded and sauntered off.

There were several TV news cameras on the scene. Film at 11, as they say.

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"I Saw It at a Disadvantage—the Curtain Was Up"

Brendan Kiley — Thu, 30 May 2013 15:53:04 -0700

A dear family friend—the same book-bestowing, martini-making, charming East Coast lady from this post—has given me another book. It is titled The Nasty Quote Book and its section on theater (spelled with an "er," for those of you who live to have your feathers ruffled) slays me.

Here's Noël Coward on Waiting for Godot:

It is pretentious gibberish, without any claim to importance whatsoever. It is nothing but phony surrealism with occasional references to Christ and mankind. It has no form, no basic philosophy, and absolutely no lucidity. It's too conscious to be written off as mad. It's just a waste of everybody's time and it made me ashamed to think that such balls could be taken seriously for a moment.

In fairness, Coward also wrote: "Stage musicals are gaily irrational to the point of lunacy."

One gets the sense Coward didn't like anything that wasn't Coward. Ogden Nash gets a Coward dig in the chapter:

Could I write as witty
As Noël Coward
By my self-esteem
I should be devoward.

Here's Brecht (channeling Marx) on Broadway: "Broadway is a branch of the narcotics world run by actors."

And Harold Clurman for the Nation on Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?: "The pessimism and rage are immature. Immaturity coupled with a commanding deftness is dangerous."

Arthur Wimperis on an unnamed play: "I saw it at a disadvantage—the curtain was up."

Dorothy Parker on another unnamed play: "If you don't knit, bring a book."

And Parker on Tolstoy's Redemption: "I went into the Plymouth Theater a comparatively young woman, and I staggered out of it three hours later, twenty years older, haggard and broken with suffering."

And Israel Zangwill on George Bernard Shaw: "The way Bernard Shaw believes in himself is very refreshing in these atheistic days, when so many people believe in no God at all."

Some of the lines are too vicious even for Slog. But here's one you all might appreciate from Oscar Wilde: "There is much to be said in favor of modern journalism. By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community."

Amen.

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Today in the Surveillance State: The Surveillance College!

Brendan Kiley — Thu, 30 May 2013 10:36:49 -0700

This is all over the internet:

Months after a secret e-mail search controversy at Harvard College, Evelynn M. Hammonds announced on Tuesday that she will step down as dean on July 1, according to a statement posted online.

Hammonds came under fire in March for conducting a search of the e-mail accounts of resident deans in an effort to find who leaked information regarding a cheating scandal involving more than 100 students.

This is interesting only because it's become commonplace. Nixon said about his snooping: "Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal." His attitude has trickled down. If you're the boss, you think you can do things in secret to expose your enemies or underlings—the boss gets to be opaque and everyone else has to be transparent.

That's totally backwards for a democracy, but it's the culture of power in America these days.

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Get the Thrust?

Brendan Kiley — Wed, 29 May 2013 15:42:05 -0700

Has everybody already seen the "Rite of Spring" workout? I may never listen to the most famous passage in Stravinsky the same way again.

Courtesy of Slog tipper j/k.

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The Reviews Are In!

Brendan Kiley — Wed, 29 May 2013 13:57:47 -0700

Carol Rosegg

This week we have a preview of FELA! at the Paramount courtesy of Charles Mudede who said that, at one point in his life, Fela Kuti was a hero of his—and that Fela was politically radicalized not by Africans, but by African-Americans.

Something to listen to while you read:

In a typical encounter between a black African and a black American, the black African knows more about the black American's world than the black American knows about the black African's. This has a lot to do with the fact that most Americans (white or black) know little about what happens outside of their country. But it's also because the United States exports a massive amount of culture and imports very little. As a consequence, a person in, say, Singapore consumes his/her local culture along with the culture that Americans consume almost exclusively. The US has become the universal—the rest, a puzzle of particulars.

When we talk about American cultural dominance, the discussion instinctively turns to brands like Nike, McDonald's, and Coca-Cola, and the image industrial complex called Hollywood. But blacks in Africa and countries with large black populations cannot imagine any discussion of American cultural dominance that fails to mention black American music, the music of the world. It is heard everywhere and imitated by everyone.

Taxing International Students

Brendan Kiley — Wed, 29 May 2013 13:02:10 -0700

Yesterday, Goldy posted that Washington has the second-worst funded public college system in the US, and that Bill Lyne of the United Faculty of Washington State has said: "Everybody knows we’re killing our colleges, nobody seems to be willing or able to do anything about it."

There is one proposed solution on the table, but it's full of thorns—a bill to raise the tuition of international students by 20 percent. That's a chunk of change. House Democrats such as Rodney Tom (a co-sponsor of the bill) support the idea as a way to raise $59.2 million in the next two years.

But state colleges and community colleges, some of the most popular schools for international students in the country, are saying (not without reason) that these students can go anywhere in the world and that the tax might price Washington schools out of the shiny-US-diploma market. The schools also note that money from the international-student tax would go directly into the general fund—so the schools get more expensive, have to work harder to attract international students, and the state gets all the money.

From Inside Higher Ed:

“Right now, international students actually subsidize Washington State residents,” said Margaret Shepherd, UW’s director of state relations. “We have used the revenue generated from both nonresident and international tuition to make up for the loss of state support or to help enhance the educational experience for all of our students, and a primary concern with this proposal is that the revenue that’s generated from international students actually goes to subsidize other institutions and other higher education programs from which they don’t receive a benefit.”

Green River Community College, Seattle Central Community College, Edmonds Community College, and Bellevue College (formerly known as Bellevue Community College) are the 10th, 12th, 14th, and 20th most popular destinations in the US for international students seeking associate's degrees. (North Seattle and Shoreline also make the top 40 list.)

But schools' popularity with international students is controversial all on its own.

Some people have complained that the community colleges have unduly low English proficiency requirements for international students. (Seattle Central Community College requires a minimum IELTS test score of 5.5, which the folks at IELTS describe as: "Modest user, partial command of the language, coping with overall meaning in most situations, though is likely to make many mistakes. Should be able to handle basic communication in own field." Someone familiar with the situation at SCCC more bluntly called the 5.5 score "survival English.")

So does the current presence of international students, under the current regulations, "help enhance the educational experience for all of our students"? Hard to tell. Are some schools valuing international students' money more than what actually happens in the classroom? Also hard to tell. And would hiking up tuition by 20 percent also "help enhance the educational experience for all of our students"?

Extremely hard to tell. This one's a toughie.

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The Virgin and the Slattern

Brendan Kiley — Wed, 29 May 2013 04:00:00 -0700

Tony Kushner's Homebody and a New Play About a Drunk, Slutty Clown by Brendan Kiley

The play, by Caroline V. McGraw, is heavy on clowning and puppetry to communicate its point. (It was directed by Jane Nichols, who has taught clowning at the Yale School of Drama.) Children are represented by Cabbage Patch–esque dolls, and Brandy's inner demons are represented by a literal demon under her bed with big red claws that creep out at night to lovingly and menacingly scratch at her body. The metaphor is a little ham-fisted, as is the growing red scab on her chest, which begins to recede when she makes her late-stage reversal back into a more moderate way of living.

The plot, moreover, is not particularly rich—she's a train wreck, the train wreck gets worse, she turns over a new leaf—but thanks to the cast and Nichols's direction, the characters are almost universally delightful to watch. Jay Myers plays Jack, a fresh-faced high-school student, with gleeful innocence, merrily tangling himself in Brandy's poisonous web without realizing how awful things might get. And Samie Spring Detzer brings a more pugnacious innocence to the character of Tash, Jack's high-school girlfriend—an Encyclopedia Brown–style youth-sleuth who figures out what's going on and, unexpectedly, saves everyone from themselves.

But Boys belongs to Franklin, who plays Brandy with a level of knowing self-destruction that is, at times, frightening. The old archetype of the sad, drunk clown is a cliché, but Franklin's combination of bile and smile—and a heartbreaking scene where she performs, under duress, a pantomime of her own arc of debasement—can be jarring. She's like a marshmallow with a core of creosote. Even though her character's reversal is sudden and not terribly well-explained, one still breathes a sigh of relief during the final fade to black when she laughs a real laugh—and not just a laugh that's a thinly veiled snarl.

The title character of Tony Kushner's monologue Homebody makes the opposite kind of transition. She begins as austere and almost ostentatiously sexless, sipping tea in her home and talking to us about her boring life—distant husband, antidepressants, a cartoonishly sterile middle-class life—juxtaposed with her fixation on the tumultuous and bloody history of Afghanistan. She talks in a precise but loopy manner, which she admits is difficult to listen to:

I speak... I can't help myself. Elliptically. Discursively. I've read too many books, and that's not boasting, for I haven't read many books, but I've read too many, exceeding I think my capacity for syncresis—is that a word?—straying rather into synchisis, which is a word. So my diction, my syntax, well, it's so irritating, I apologize, I do, it's very hard, I know.

Synchysis (the script spells it "synchisis") has a few definitions, including a poetic structure favored by Latin poets, but she's using it in the sense of "borderline incomprehensible." Yet Homebody, played with an elegant and transfixing reserve by Mary Ewald, sells herself short. Her situation—a white woman fantasizing about exotic Afghanistan on the eve of its collision with US bombs—is only too clear, and strangely prescient. Homebody began as a monologue Kushner wrote for an actor he admired, and it grew into the lengthy play Homebody/Kabul. (Some say it didn't grow so much as metastasize—I've never seen the full play, but several critics argue that the Homebody seed is much more successful than Homebody/Kabul.) Eerily, Homebody/Kabul was written before the 9/11 attacks and has become more eerie as time has lurched on. It's a commentary about well-educated people sitting in well-appointed rooms thinking they understand Afghanistan (or any faraway place) because they've read a few books on the subject. We know now that our collective failure to recognize the limits of our own ignorance can have bloody consequences. (In an afterword to the published version of the play, Kushner writes that "eerily prescient" has been used so many times to describe it, his boyfriend began joking that it should become the playwright's drag name: Eara Lee Prescient.)

Homebody fantasizes from her prim world about this far-off land that has been conquered so many times in the past 5,000 years—and she wants it to conquer her. By the end, she's telling us of an errand she ran to buy some festive Afghan-style hats for a party. She presumes the shopkeeper is from Afghanistan and notices that three of his fingers have been hacked off. She immediately sexualizes his mutilation, imagining herself making love to him beneath a tree in Kabul. Of course, there is nothing wrong with making love to a mutilated Afghan man beneath a tree in Kabul, but Kushner ever so delicately reveals the grossness of a privileged woman erotizing the oppressed and brutalized as an antidote to her own neurosis and fear of the world. Sexualizing suffering—real-deal, historical suffering—is an especially pernicious strain of Orientalism. (In the full version of Homebody/Kabul, Homebody actually goes to Afghanistan and meets reality by coming to a grisly end.)

But Ewald's performance is a thrilling exercise in hesitation and restraint (her talents are the opposite of Franklin's). By the end of the monologue, we adore Homebody, sitting and prattling at her table, delicately stacking her Afghan hats, and glancing off to her left where a violent red light occasionally beams through the lath of a busted plaster wall. We feel intimate with her—not least because the play is performed in a very small room for only a handful of audience members—and her being torn between fantasy and reality. Or, as she puts it, her state of being "suspended in the Rhetorical Colloidal Forever that agglutinates between Might and Do."

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Drug Czar's Office Withholds Data About Alcohol from Report About Drugs and Crime

Brendan Kiley — Tue, 28 May 2013 11:47:39 -0700

Over at reason.com, Mike Riggs details an exchange he had with the communications director for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy about this report correlating drugs and crime.

In short, the ONDCP released the study—which particularly highlighted how many arrestees had a history of marijuana use—but seems to have omitted data it collected about alcohol use. When Riggs pointed that out and asked for the data, the ONDCP demurred and then fell silent.

From the post:

As for why it matters: Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske argued in a Thursday speech at the Urban Institute that the ADAM II findings demonstrate why Americans must "come to grips with the link between crime and substance use," and "abandon simplistic bumper-sticker approaches, such as boiling the issue down to a ‘war on drugs’ or outright legalization.” Kerlikowske also singled out pot for criticism because a majority of arrestees tested positive for, or admitted to, using marijuana.

I have no idea why the ONDCP withheld alcohol data from its report, but the obvious answer is that alcohol has a higher criminal cost and is probably more prevalent among arrestees than illicit drugs. Yet admitting as much in the ADAM II report would have precluded Kerlikowske and the ONDCP from making its bogus "link" argument about marijuana and other illegal drugs.

Regardless of why the ONDCP admitted alcohol data, for transparency's sake they need to release it.

I suspect it would surprise exactly zero people to see a correlation between alcohol and crime, but eliminating an inconvenient dataset—if that's indeed what happened—is never a strong way to make the case for prohibition. Or anything else.

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Faith Is Truth?

Brendan Kiley — Fri, 24 May 2013 15:29:58 -0700

Seen on the street a couple of days ago:

Kierkegaard wrote that truth is subjectivity and subjectivity is truth—as someone on the internet explains it, "while objective facts are important, there is a second and more crucial element of truth, which involves how one relates oneself to those matters of fact."

Somehow I don't think this is about that.

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