Your roundup of this week’s most widely-read, shared, and discussed stories.
• As you may have heard, MTV plans to reboot their old reality show, The Real World. The 2016 season will be set in a converted retail space next to Northwest Film Forum on 12th Ave in Capitol Hill. Seattle-based television critic Melanie McFarland joins this week’s episode of Blabbermouth to explain what it all means: "A show that is losing its relevance being set in a neighborhood that has lost its edge."
• Speaking of podcasts: Faced with the fact of rapidly disappearing black communities in Seattle, Eula Scott Bynoe, Alaina Caldwell, and Jasmine Jackson decided to start Hella Black Hella Seattle—a podcast for and by people of color.
• Jen Graves visited Seattle Art Museum’s “Emblems of Encounter: Europe and Africa Over 500 Years,” a show that addresses colonialism. The term “encounter” too gently refers to a “half-millennium of culture shock, mutual awe, exploitation, slavery, murder, and mass dismemberment,” she writes. More details on the show here.
• Seattle University's Dean Jodi Kelly has been placed on administrative leave following accusations of racism. The move comes after three weeks of a student sit-in calling for her resignation, a demand that has divided the campus and its college alumni. The sit-in continues. Protestors are expressing concerns over an alleged hostile learning environment, and they're insisting that SU hire a woman of color as interim dean to replace Kelly.
• Missed Hillary’s foreign policy speech? Watch (or re-watch) it here, and read an accompanying play-by-play by Dan Savage, who calls it, “an act of ripping Donald Trump several new assholes.” As confident and tough as she is in her takedown of Trump, Matt Baume argues that the speech is unlikely to sway his supporters.
• In Bernie Sanders news, Sonic Youth icon Thurston Moore feels the Bern so much that he released a benefit song for Sanders’ campaign. The vinyl edition sold out fast, but the tune is available for digital download. “We eagerly await Kim Gordon's pro-Hillary anthem,” Dave Segal writes.
• Rich Smith taste-tested five new pizzerias in Capitol Hill: Ian’s, Dino’s, Sizzle Pie, Pizzeria 88, Meltdown Pizza Co. After multiple slices of varyingly satisfactory pies, he decided on a winner (and some losers).
• It’s the second-to-last weekend of SIFF, meaning you don’t have much longer to catch these must-see SIFF films. You have even less time left to visit SIFFX, a series of events centered around virtual reality storytelling that ends tomorrow.
• But maybe you’re all SIFF-ed out at this point, and you’re looking for something else to enjoy. Check out this week’s non-SIFF movie listings. Then check out this week’s Cheap & Easy listings.
Enjoy the sun this weekend.