• The stage, with Kathryn Rathke's lovely drawings of Geniuses.

• Stranger Film Genius Zia Mohajerjasbi

• Literary Genius Stacey Levine

• Visual Art Genius Jeffry Mitchell

More after the jump...

Sweat and tears, certainly. (Happy tears.) I didn't see any blood. But somebody saw a little bit of lovin' but in the balcony and sent this email (and very fuzzy photo):

This couple was totally going at it in the balcony, she was riding him hard! We have the BEST parties!

Art editor Jen Graves had her body decorated by other artists, in honor of this year's Visual Art Genius Jeffry Mitchell:

Paul Constant shouted about how Seattle is the city of books with a born-again, Southern-preacher-man, can-I-get-an-amen? fury:

More photos—just a few—after the jump. (Our photographers are still a little groggy.)

So many questions.

What we know for sure:

At the Moore Theater. Five bucks for a phenomenal party with the city's best and brightest and smartest and sexiest. I can't wait. You can't wait. Nobody can wait!

Read all about the winners—Zia Mohajerjasbi, Jeffry Mitchell, Stacey Levine, the Cody Rivers Show, and Pacific Northwest Ballet—here.

This week in the music section, the Stranger profiles young duo USF (formerly Universal Studios Florida) and ponders the prospects of Seattle's rising "chillwave" scene:

Seattle hasn't really been at the vanguard of a musical moment since grunge—the very geographic and cultural isolation that allowed that scene to gestate in peace has more often than not kept the city a year or two late to trends taking hold in denser, more connected places (cf. our late arrivals to electroclash, freak folk, disco punk, etc., etc.). But as the internet has alarmingly accelerated the hype cycle, it's also decentralized the way trends spread—or even removed geography from the equation entirely. If grunge were to happen today, it wouldn't need a bunch of bands living in the same city to reach critical mass; it would only require enough acts linked up online. (Or, to defer once again to Hipster Runoff: "Chillwave was a genre created by the internet, 4 the internet?")

Chillwave may prove to have the life cycle of a mayfly, but at least this time Seattle is buzzing along right on time, thanks to a nascent local scene that includes acts like U.S.F. (formerly Universal Studios Florida), Big Spider's Back, and Secret Colors. But let's back up a minute—hypnagogi-huh? Just what exactly are we blogging about here?

Read and comment on the whole thing here.

USF play the Stranger Genius Awards Party tonight at the Moore Theatre, along with Throw Me the Statue, They Live!, and the Emerald City Soul Club. 9pm, $5, 21+. More info here.

But Boal also slid in some poppier work—Jerome Robbins's West Side Story Suite, which condenses the musical into a one-act ballet with a little singing—and some firecracker new work.

He brought back Mopey, the spastic solo to C.P.E. Bach and the Cramps, which has become an audience favorite since Boal introduced it in during his first season (at the time, it was considered a crazily radical addition). And Petite Mort by Jiri Kylian, a dance for six men, six women, and six fencing foils (dance rarely looks good on video, but to give you some flavor of the thing):

Because it's a work night for the ballet, tonight's Genius Party won't be overrun by dancers. (At least not in the beginning. But once the pointe shoes and makeup comes off, who knows what'll happen? Maybe you'll get to buy a drink for a seven-foot-tall professional dancer.)

Read all about Boal, PNB, and why we gave a Genius Award to such a giant organization here.

During their 28-year directorship, Stowell and Russell built PNB into a nationally renowned stronghold for classical dance training and the works of Russian ballet giant George Balanchine, who collaborated extensively with Igor Stravinsky, became the leading choreographer of the 20th century, and founded New York City Ballet. PNB earned the respect of the classical ballet world as a kind of NYCB-West. But conservatism set in, with Stowell and Russell only adding a few new works to the repertoire each year.

Between 2000 and 2004, only 10 new dances appeared in the repertoire, two of them by Stowell. In four seasons, Boal has added 52, none by him, and many that stretch the definition of ballet.

One of those pieces was One Flat Thing, reproduced by William Forsythe. (Again, video can't really capture the mood, but click to around 6:20 or 9:10 to get a little flavor.)

Also from PNB's Genius profile:

One Flat Thing, reproduced, by Forsythe, inspired scores of walkouts when it premiered in March of 2008. Not coincidentally, it was the most thrilling piece PNB has staged in years. "We have a deliberate pattern of pushing the envelope and then pulling it back to something more familiar," Boal says. "But with that piece, people felt pushed too far, too quickly."

Performed by 14 dancers on and around 20 gray aluminum tables, Thing sounded like rumbling static and looked like a fit. The dancers (dressed in bright American Apparel colors) slid along and under the tables, jumped over and onto them, briefly locked limbs in furious but mechanical couplings, then disengaged. The dance was cold and glittering, with a medicinal aftertaste. As the bright bodies streaked through the gray grid, shoving the tables back and forth as they went, they looked like a riot of metastasizing cancer cells or a pack of cocaine molecules skipping through the brain. It was hard on the dancers, who suffered nicks and bruises. It was also a hell of a lot of fun.

Seattle is learning to love weird new dance like Mopey and Thing because Boal has given us a taste for it—he's also breathed new life into the organization and found the Holy Grail: the attention of newer, younger audiences.

I hope other Seattle institutions due for new leadership—the Rep, the symphony, the opera—are paying attention.

In case you hadn't heard, The Stranger has selected its 2009 Genius Award winners, each of whom will receive a $5000 no-strings-attached cash prize and humongous party in their honor tomorrow night at the Moore. (Read all about the current crop of Geniuses here.)

Even better, tomorrow night's party features live performances by Throw Me the Statue, U.S.F., and They Live!, along with the eternally beloved DJ stylings of the Emerald City Soul Club.

9pm! Five bucks! 21 and over! See you there.

Zia the beautiful:

Malik the beautiful:

Lindy West drove all the way to Bellingham to hang out with the Cody Rivers Show.

I leave Seattle at 7:00 a.m. and drive north for a long time, mostly in a straight line, toward a warm, tall, purple, green, slightly sagging, and very appealing Victorian house at the intersection of a busy street and a less busy street in residential Bellingham. Bellingham is far, and I have to meet Mike Mathieu and Andrew Connor—the two-headed comedy wizard better known as the Cody Rivers Show—at 9:00 a.m. (Note: They also have two bodies.) The early hour was my idea of courtesy.

Connor and Mathieu seem like the kind of people who get up early and start accomplishing shit. They are strikingly wholesome. Their shows are clean. Their lives are cleaner. I had a hunch they ate mostly vegetables. I had a secondary hunch that people who eat mostly vegetables like to get up early and start accomplishing shit.

Two hours later, I get out of the car and Mathieu walks onto the porch. Clearly he has just woken up, against his will. I was wrong about the whole vegetables/accomplishing stuff correlation.

Read the rest here.

And come ogle Genii this Friday night at the Moore. With bands.

(Never heard of USF? Read all about them and their "chillwave" selves here.)

The Moore is all beautiful and creepy and crawling with sexy poltergeists and ghost cats (don't you think?) and the Phantom of the Opera lives there and he wants to be with you! And bands will play (They Live!), and other bands will play (Throw Me the Statue), and even more bands will play (U.S.F.), while handsome gentlemen spin tasty rare soul songs for you and sexy ladies pour tasty alcoholic cocktail drinks for you, and lots and lots of Seattle's most interesting lovelies will be milling about and possibly (POSSIBLY) engaging in heavy petting with the Phantom of the Opera! Possibly. Do you want to miss that? Is it worth the risk?

Anyway, see you on Friday, 9 pm, Moore Theatre. Look sharp.*

*Speaking of, does anyone know where I can get a zipper replaced cheap and quick and well? Anyone? Thanks in advance.

They Live! are only one quarter of the musical entertainment, though: There will also be sets by U.S.F., Throw Me the Statue, and Emerald City Soul Club. And booze. There will be a lot of booze. And this year's crop of Stranger Geniuses will be milling about. Here is something I wrote about Literature Genius Stacey Levine last year:

It is kind of a shame that Stacey Levine's stories have to be published in the form of a book. It's not that they should appear in e-books or anything so mundane as that. Rather, I wish it were somehow possible to hire elfin booksellers to sneak into your home and hide Levine's stories in odd places—inside a cereal box, tucked into a pair of swimming trunks, taped to the back of the oven—so that you could discover them at random and, perhaps, inopportune times. Levine's stories are rare and mysterious things, and confronting them in a book makes them feel less wondrous somehow.

They all begin compellingly: "Hallo. I'm a fool. I married Mike Sump." "Imagine being a bean: a pale supplicant, rimy dot, a belly-wrinkled pip, lying enervated on the kitchen chair, trying too hard all the time." "Oh, to be Bill Miller, the unreachable one with the invulnerable eyes, the 35-speed bike, the sixty years more of life and a future as good as real." Some of the stories are plain as day; others are willfully obtuse, as though jealously guarding a secret. You can't just read fiction by Levine the way you'd appreciatively read a short story by, say, Alice Munro. You have to pry the words apart like a poem and trust the language to reveal something of value...

Our annual Genius Awards issue hits the streets tomorrow, but all the information you need about the party is right here. This is your only chance to party like a genius in 2009. So get fancy on the 13th and come on out; I'll see you there.

Here is a teaser for that video:

Work on my Genius Profile of PNB, I guess, and watch these lovely videos by this year's film genius Zia Mohajerjasbi to remind me of what's good about Seattle and what will remain, no matter who becomes our next mayor.

The opening bars of this one are a perfect balm for hurting/anxious souls, the camera moving from Beacon Hill to the glass towers of the city's financial center (as Mudede has written for his profile of Zia in next week's issue):

And give a hand to Mix-a-Lot for his cameo (and his orange Lamborghini). Zia's colors and light are dreamy and crepuscular. Even when I don't like the rappers (and I don't like all these rappers), the images are their own reward.

4:30 today. Then Nov 13.

Oh yeah. I'm throwing it down for Jeffry Mitchell. He will WHUP all you other Geniuses, like Wesley Willis whupped Batman's ass!

Okay, I'm just talking shit. But I did come across this adorable photograph of Jeffry making a drawing of Gretchen Bennett last week.

And need I remind you of Ellen Ziegler's Jeffry tribute?

When are we gonna know about the theater award? You've got me in a tizzy!

And Comte wrote in the comments on this post:

C'mon, when are you going to announce the Theatre Genius? Give 'em the damned cake already! The suspense is KILLIN' me!

Your long, theater-geek nightmare is over. The winner(s) of this year's Stranger Genius Award for theater are these guys:

As I wrote in a short-list entry for the Cody Rivers Show a few years ago:

Andrew Connor and Mike Mathieu say they perform "high-octane sketch comedy," but that undersells their uniqueness. "Avant-comedy" would be better. A stream of delightful weirdness burbles through the Cody Rivers Show.

There are tight Fosse-style dance routines with kayak oars and Viking costumes, infomercials in French about how to deal with "les gens difficiles," and boys manically and nonsensically destroying everything onstage while trying to make a present for their mother. Then there's the one I like to call Chez Fuck-With-Your-Head: An audience member is selected to sit at a small table on the stage. Strange, alien noise rumbles over the theater's speakers. The boys come out as excruciatingly clumsy, slow-motion waiters dressed in full biohazard suits. Their actions are simple and stupid—pouring the water glass to overflowing, making a viscous concoction with a blender, glaring at their increasingly uncomfortable guest—but their indescribably ominous presentation pushes the bit past comedy into something disturbing and great.

They've only improved with age—the Cody Rivers Show is a generative duo that doesn't just make comedy: They make performance art that just happens to be funnier than most comedy and more physically precise than most dance. They've also begun to take over as producers—SketchFest, the Suitcase Festival, and so on.

They began in Bellingham, have wooed Seattle, and will soon belong to the world. They've already conquered the Canadian Fringe circuit and next month Andrew Connor will tour Japan.

I showed up at the deli of Bellingham's Community Food Co-op with their cheap, highly processed sheet cake. The boys were eating figs and soup and had a pile of collards they had just bought. They looked at the cake—which read "You're a Friggin' Genius"—and began beaming. Mike stood up. "Can I hug you?" he asked.

Congratulations, hippies.

So far, the winners are:

Visual art—Jeffry Mitchell.

Literature—Stacey Levine.

Film—Zia Mohajerjasbi.

Organization—Pacific Northwest Ballet.

And theater? Get comfortable. You'll have to wait.

Jeffry Mitchell and Joey Veltkamp were innocently sitting in a corner of Cupcake Royale this morning when we arrived with Mitchell's Genius cake, at which point Mitchell turned bright red, cried, wiped his eyes, said thank you, cried again, wiped his eyes again, and then said he would like to call his mother.

She was not in. Neither was his brother. "He's one of a brood of nine, you know," said Veltkamp, a fellow artist and the awesome Best Of blogger.

Mitchell, eventually put both hands in the air, which caused Veltkamp to say, "Two paws up," and it also caused his owl belt buckle to be seen in full ("it digs into my belly," he said sheepishly), which caused me to be jealous, because it is a great belt buckle.

This is, undeniably, Jeffry Mitchell's year, and Jeffry Mitchell is, undeniably, a genius.

Eventually, the artist Leo Saul Berk (hey!) called Mitchell's phone and became the first person Mitchell told about the award. "Isn't that good?" Mitchell said in his characteristic half-sheepishness/half-straight-upness. "Yeah, I'm all teary and happy," he continued. Berk asked to talk to me. "You couldn't have picked a better person!" Berk announced immediately.

We agree, Leo.

Here's what I wrote about Mitchell in "The 25 Greatest Works of Art Ever Made in Seattle":

Jeffry Mitchell, Pickle Jar with Silver Elephants, 2007

Two same-species lovers with long protuberances: Jeffry Mitchell poses gay love as ridiculously encoded, only discussable via elephants or elephantine euphemisms, or in childish terms. There are difficult ideas here (and considered traditions, too, like the Quaker pickle jar the underlying form is based on), but you come to those later. First you hit the surface: a forest pile of flowers and berries and vines and tree branches and pretzels and hidden rabbits and a horseshoe and what looks like the face of a bear. These are fat fleshy loops made out of breakable ceramic, coated—but only coated, and only lightly—in the refinement of pretty white and platinum luster. Underneath, in the earthenware itself, unperfected finger pinches and crude little marks are still visible: There's always the memory of softness. Instead of irony there is wonder, humor, humility, and a warmth so intense you may as well call it love. Actually, that's it: No other Seattle artist has come close to producing as much sheer love as Jeffry Mitchell.

See the jump for a picture of how happy these awards make not only the receiver, but the giver. I love Genius Day!

UPDATE: Mark your calendars for the party. It's November 13 at the Moore!

• "Damnit, I'm getting my hair cut tomorrow."

In the sunny front window of Cafe Pettirosso this morning, local filmmaker Zia Mohajerjasbi (young, gracious, a few minutes late) received his sheet cake, declaring him the 2009 Stranger Genius in Film. He seemed confused, then excited, then confused again. "Your timing is really perfect," he said. "Three days ago I was sitting at my desk saying, 'November 1st I'm quitting.'"

In last year's Genius Awards shortlist, Charles Mudede wrote this about Zia:

The eye of the Hollywood studio sees little more of Seattle than the Space Needle; the local filmmaker, however, sees a dynamic relationship between the urban and the natural, between concrete and trees, between outside and inside. In his latest video for Blue Scholars, "Loyalty," director Zia Mohajerjasbi contrasts the rural with hiphop's multicultural solidarity. A group of urban youth walk across a field of wild grass. Though we do not see a single building, we never feel that we are anywhere else but in the middle of Seattle.

His next project is a short film about early-'90s life in Yesler Terrace. You can view his work, including music videos for the Blue Scholars, Common Market, and Jake One, HERE.

UPDATE: Congratulate Zia (and all the other 2009 Geniuses) at the great, big, fun Genius Awards Party! November 13 at the Moore! Hooray!

I wrote about Levine earlier this year:

It is kind of a shame that Stacey Levine's stories have to be published in the form of a book. It's not that they should appear in e-books or anything so mundane as that. Rather, I wish it were somehow possible to hire elfin booksellers to sneak into your home and hide Levine's stories in odd places—inside a cereal box, tucked into a pair of swimming trunks, taped to the back of the oven—so that you could discover them at random and, perhaps, inopportune times. Levine's stories are rare and mysterious things, and confronting them in a book makes them feel less wondrous somehow.

It's a testament to Levine's magnificent eye for detail that she immediately fixated on the "Crisco rose" on the cake. Then, like almost every writer who has ever won the Genius Award (with the obvious exception of Sherman Alexie), she expressed some concern about being the center of attention at our huge Genius Awards party, but it was fun to watch her gradually pump herself full of courage. She will be lovely and you all will see her there. What will Levine do with the $5,000 dollars? "I can finally afford new printer cartridges!"

Genius Cake Day. Today, four artists and one institution will win Genius Awards—one in film, one in literature, one in theater, one in visual art, and one arts organization. (See winners from previous years here.)

All morning, The Stranger's arts editors have been ambushing artists in cafes and offices, handing them cakes that read "You're a Frickin' Genius." Some have laughed, some have cried, some have sat in stunned silence.

It's been fun.

We hand out Genius Awards—$5,000, a big party at the Moore, a long and glowing profile of the artist—for many reasons: Sometimes we reward lifetime achievement. Sometimes we reward potential. Sometimes we reward big institutions. Sometimes we reward tiny, low-to-the-ground guerrilla groups. Sometimes we reward people who need the money. Sometimes we reward people who don't.

We're capricious that way.

This year's winner for institution is Pacific Northwest Ballet.

When PNB was looking for a new artistic director a few years ago, it made a genius move by hiring Peter Boal—an artist instead of an administrator, someone connected to the new work happening in New York and beyond. Boal has breathed new life into the city's ballet.

As I wrote in a review of PNB's homage to Jerome Robbins:

Since 1977, when Kent Stowell and Francia Russell took over, PNB has been an outpost for the Balanchine legacy, a kind of NYCB West. But Stowell and Russell virtually ignored Jerome Robbins, performing only two of his ballets in 28 years.

Since Peter Boal took over PNB in 2005, he has staged four Robbins ballets and will add two more ("West Side Story Suite" and the famous "Dances at a Gathering") to the repertoire next season. Boal has been gently prodding PNB out of its fustiness with more modern choreographers and sexy print ads. All Robbins is a welcome coup from that admirable campaign, introducing Seattle to the other—more populist and comical, but no less important—genius of New York City Ballet.

Kent Stowell and Francia Russell worked hard to bring Seattle a reputable ballet. But Boal and his staff have kick-started their legacy into PNB 2.0.

Boal has kept the old Balanchine favorites in the repertoire, but has imported new, sexy, and vital choreographers into the building: William Forsythe, Marco Goecke, and Benjamin Millipied. Boal has replaced Kent Stowell's Romeo and Juliet with Jean-Christophe Maillot's steamy Roméo et Juliette. (See Jen Graves's review here.) These days, PNB is on fire—and big Seattle arts institutions who are due for new leadership in the next few years should follow the ballet's lead. (I'm looking at you symphony, opera, and Seattle Rep.)

We burst into a development meeting Boal was having in his office this morning. "Oh my," he said, beaming. "We love The Stranger. The staff will be so excited to hear about this."

"Well," he said to his meeting as we walked out the door, "this day is starting off well."

Oh. My. God. I gotta go lay down. More clips from Skatetown USA (1979)—Scott Baio! Ruth Buzzi! Billy Barty! Flip Wilson! Marsha Brady! Horshack! The Unknown Comic!—after the jump.

Here's Streep at 60: A Retrospective Celebration, compiled by Nathaniel R. at Film Experience.

Thanks for the heads-up, Wow Report.

Really. Click it. It will break your heart and make your day.

I'm on vacation with my family in Sedona, Arizona, where everything is covered in a fine red dust and a New Age glaze. This evening, I decided to Google "Humpday," "Sundance," and "reviews," to see how Stranger Genius Lynn Shelton's third feature Humpday is landing and holy shit.

Salon:

If there's an early candidate for Sundance breakout hit, that would be Seattle filmmaker Lynn Shelton's third feature Humpday, a subtle and intelligent picture that blends dudely comedy and adult relationship drama. It premiered here on Friday afternoon to a packed house that surfed along with every laugh line and every squirm....Shelton moves confidently from Seattle hipster self-satire to moments of profound emotional discovery; her directorial eye, aptitude with actors and impulse for stripped-down storytelling mark her as a major arrival on the independent scene.

The Onion's AV Club:

Watching Lynn Shelton’s Humpday I felt the thrill of discovery, that glorious sense of uncovering something honest, truthful and genuine....Humpday has the scruffy intimacy of the best mumblecore efforts, a low-key observational sharpness that grounds the film's nervous laughter in the familiar rhythms of everyday life turned upside down.....Humpday seldom hits a wrong note and the climactic sequence where the two old friends finally confront the reality of having sex to prove an exceedingly fuzzy point neither quite understands is handled with humor, maturity and grace. Humpday was greeted with nervous laughter of the most excruciating, cathartic variety and ultimately applause. Both were richly deserved.

Cinematical:

Humpday feels structured, grounded and extremely focused. It moves and plays like a wandering indie, but it hits its marks and never takes its audience out of the moment. If the opposite of a chick flick would be a dick flick, then I suppose that's what Humpday would be — a funny, strong, sympathetic dick flick that will bury itself deep within your most intimate areas until it's won over your heart, your soul and your wicked sense of humor.

Cinemablend:

Every moment of the film rings with truth and honesty, a rare and welcome thing for comedic movies.

C.H.U.D.com:

The details all feel right, and the reality of the world and the characters helps ground the broadness of the central conceit. The movie really gets the minutia of male bonding and the strange inherent sexuality that comes with it, and what's most amazing is that the writer and director is a woman. Lynn Shelton nails the relationships between men in ways that few filmmakers ever have before.

AMC:

Lynn Shelton's comedy about two straight best friends who decide to have sex with each other for a low budget gay porn movie, Humpday, reportedly had festivalgoers in stitches, and prompted much discussion of the film's sexual politics. After the screening, Shelton noted a father of a friend had changed his stance on California's Proposition 8 after seeing the movie and realizing that homosexuality is not a lifestyle choice.

Awesome, awesome, awesome. Congratulations, Ms. Shelton, I hope you're enjoying your week of glory and I cannot wait to see your movie.

Indian probe touches down on Moon

Reminded me of this book:

Which contains this poem, which I haven't thought about in probably 10 years. The rediscovery is a deep pleasure:

A Reservation Table of the Elements
By Sherman Alexie

Aluminum

1.

My father quit drinking by use of a simple formula. He bought beer only with the money he saved from recycling the aluminum Coors Light cans he emptied by drinking. At 19 cents a pound for recycled cans, it was the Reservation Law of Diminishing Returns. Nobody can be alcoholic and ecological at the same time.

2.

Little Johnny Wonder Horse lost his fingers on Independence Day when he dropped a lit M-80 firecracker into an empty Diet Pepsi and held the can until it exploded. He ran to his HUD house and tried to open the door for a full minute before he realized he couldn't turn the knob because his fingers were gone. When they asked him later why he'd kept hold of the can, Johnny said, "Because I wanted to know how it would feel."

3.

Standing outside the Tribal Trading Post during a blizzard, there is nothing more beautiful than snow fallen onto the dark hair and braids of these Spokane Indians, nothing more beautiful than snow fallen onto the stray dogs and beer cans still on the sidewalk. If I light a fire in the dumpster, everything will change, transform, reinvent itself. If I light a fire in the dumpster, the Indians will dance, will forget the cold, will dance and forget the cold. If I light a fire in the dumpster and throw beer cans in, they will burn until their brand names are gone and the Spokane Indians will sing all night long, will sing all night long.

4.

Just after Victor told Suzy that he would love her forever he grabbed a random can, took a drink, expected beer, but got a mouthful of ashes instead.

5.

Pick up a chair and smash it against the walls, swing it so hard that your arms ache for days afterwards, and when all you have left in your hand are splinters, that's what we call history. Pick up an aluminum can and crush it in your fingers, squeeze it until blood is drawn, and when you cannot crush the can into any other shape, that's what we call myth.

Hydrogen

Crazy Horse
never died.

Don't you know
he was the one

who climbed on top
of the Hindenburg

and lit
a match?

Read the rest of the poem here.