Search

Music Column »

Data Breaker: Plump DJs' Fat Breakbeats and Joker's Comic-Book Dubstep

Music »

This Week's Noteworthy Shows and Parties

Slog

News & Arts

Saturday, November 22, 2008

Books In Constant Reader This Week

Posted by Paul Constant on Sat, Nov 22, 2008 at 4:08 PM

This week, I write about John Updike's lecture at Benaroya Hall :

There's always something ridiculous and over the top about attending a Seattle Arts & Lectures event at Benaroya Hall. It could be that all the pomp and circumstance around a book reading seems a bit much, or perhaps the overkill feeling is, in part, thanks to the gigantic twin Chihuly chandeliers in the lobby—sculptures that appear to represent nothing so much as mutant sperm fighting vigorously to impregnate a parsnip. Last Wednesday, November 12, was a more ridiculous SAL pre-event vibe than usual. The hall had the impatient energy of a stadium rock concert by someone like Springsteen: "I want to get good seats," a woman scolded her husband as they arrived and saw the enormous crowd. "I want to get a good long look at him."

The whole column, which is about Hopper, Updike's rock star status, and David Guterson's woeful inability to ask a single decent question, is here.

Permalink Share

Do yourself and the city a favor and see Kidd Pivot at On the Boards this weekend. You've been trying to limber up the rigid bodies and brains at Pacific Northwest Ballet for the last couple of years (bringing dances by Jerome Robbins, Benjamin Millepied, and William Forsythe), but this shit will blow your skull open.

Crystal Pite's choreography begins with a brawl—an obscure (possibly schoolyard) battle royale that ends in murder, performed in dim light. The choreography gets a little redundant in the middle, sometimes intentionally, sometimes not. But that doesn't matter.

What matters is the way these dancers move. I've never seen anything like it—from their guts: twirling; worming; popping and locking; extending; lifting and soaring; then undulating like kelp, bearing all their weight on the tops of their feet; fighting; fucking; walking down the street; jostling in line; hypnotizing each other.

They all seemed to have extra joints the rest of us don't—they were not of this earth, Mr. Boal.

I thought of you while I watched them. Since you've come to Seattle, you've been pushing your company and your audience in directions they don't always like. For that, I commend you. Your predecessors, the Stowells, programmed like they were lecturing, handing down doctrine. Your programming is more like a series of questions—about ballet, about music, about dance in general.

These dancers may be one of the answers you're looking for.

(Dear the rest of you: If you give a damn about dance, see Kidd Pivot. It will recalibrate the way you think about bodies in motion.)

Permalink | Post Comments (4) Share

Books / Arts In the Books Section This Week

Posted by Paul Constant on Sat, Nov 22, 2008 at 2:04 PM

This week, in the books section, Jen Graves takes a look at a weird little book by a weird little art critic.

Jed Perl is not in with the in-kids. He's a critic's critic in a world mostly populated with yes-critics; you value him if you value criticism itself. Agreeing with him or not doesn't matter. For instance, I think this is wrong (he wrote it last May after the death of Robert Rauschenberg, for the New Republic, his regular perch since 1994): "As for his art, it stank in the 1950s, and it doesn't look any better today." I still read him.

We learn about Watteau, rococo, and the low-cal salad dressing school of art, too. You should read her lovely, smart review and take a look at Antoine's Alphabet when you have a chance.

Permalink Share

News / Politics Change We Can Believe In

Posted by Dan Savage on Sat, Nov 22, 2008 at 1:13 PM

This ought to crank up the shriekers on the right:

Ellen Moran, executive director of EMILY’s List, was named White House communications director by President-elect Obama on Saturday.... EMILY's List, one of the most important Democratic constituency groups, says it is "dedicated to building a progressive America by electing Democratic pro-choice women to office."

Liberals were worried about the next two or three appointments to the Supreme Court before the election. Now who gets to worry?

Permalink | Post Comments (18) Share

Stranger Suggests Today The Stranger Suggests

Posted by The Stranger on Sat, Nov 22, 2008 at 11:00 AM

Theater

'Love Person'

Love Person is a new play about translating ideas and emotions. As the three characters flirt and fight in sign language, Sanskrit, and English, we quickly realize the real problems with loving across borders of language: The ambiguity of translation leaves plenty of wiggle room to lie, cheat, and generally act like an asshole. As the weather becomes more malevolent, it's a pleasure to duck into a theater and watch a play that's both unabashedly romantic and undeniably intelligent. (Live Girls! Theater, 2220 NW Market St, 800-838-3006. 4 and 8 pm, $5–$15.)

PAUL CONSTANT

See what else is happening in Theater on Saturday »

Permalink | Post Comments (3) Share

Hetero Today in Traditional Marriage

Posted by Dan Savage on Sat, Nov 22, 2008 at 9:34 AM

Today in very traditional marriage—an arranged marriage, a marriage in which the husband reserves his God-given right to discipline his wife. With, in this case, passing cars.

A 22-year-old Canton man was charged with assault with intent to commit murder Friday after allegedly pulling his wife into traffic on Haggerty Road. Authorities said the couple was joined in an arranged marriage this past July and the woman had only been in the U.S. for about a week.

Canton police said they received a 911 call around 12:30 a.m. and went to Haggerty Road south of Ford Road, where they found a man and a woman had been injured after being hit by a vehicle.... Ahmed Kalile Jaber, 22, of Canton was charged with assault with intent to commit murder, as well as assault with intent to commit great bodily harm less than murder, and domestic violence. He is in jail on a $50,000 cash bond, police said.

Canton police Sgt. Debra Newsome said the couple was married in July in Jerusalem. She said the woman told police they were living in a hotel until their apartment was ready and got into an argument. The woman said she left and that her husband followed her while the argument continued. The woman alleged her husband then pulled her into traffic.

Thanks to Slog tipper Balt-O-Matt.

Permalink | Post Comments (22) Share

Politics What She Said

Posted by Dan Savage on Sat, Nov 22, 2008 at 9:31 AM

Gail Collins:

Thanksgiving is next week, and President Bush could make it a really special holiday by resigning.

Seriously. We have an economy that’s crashing and a vacuum at the top. Bush — who is currently on a trip to Peru to meet with Asian leaders who no longer care what he thinks — hasn’t got the clout, or possibly even the energy, to do anything useful. His most recent contribution to resolving the fiscal crisis was lecturing representatives of the world’s most important economies on the glories of free-market capitalism.

Putting Barack Obama in charge immediately isn’t impossible. Dick Cheney, obviously, would have to quit as well as Bush. In fact, just to be on the safe side, the vice president ought to turn in his resignation first. (We’re desperate, but not crazy.) Then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would become president until Jan. 20. Obviously, she’d defer to her party’s incoming chief executive, and Barack Obama could begin governing.

As a bonus, the Pelosi presidency would put a woman in the White House this year after all. On the downside, a few right-wing talk-show hosts might succumb to apoplexy. That would, of course, be terrible, but I’m afraid we might have to take the risk in the name of a greater good.

Permalink | Post Comments (27) Share

Books Reading Today

Posted by Paul Constant on Sat, Nov 22, 2008 at 9:05 AM

If you get up and around well on a Saturday, you should head down to the Hugo House, where there will be an interview with local author Ryan Boudinot about many things, possibly including his upcoming novel Sperm and Egg, which I am very excited to read. If you didn't attend last night's Personal Injury reading, $5 gets you in the door and also gets you a bagel or two. It's the bargain of the day.

And then there are two readings at Elliott Bay Book Company. First, Donna Hilbert reads from The Green Season, a collection of poems about the death of a husband. Billy Collins likes Hilbert (and refers to her as "curios," which I think should be "curious"), but you shouldn't hold this against her.

A couple hours after Hilbert reads, Tristan Taormino reads from Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships. This is the third big open relationship book published this year. Something must be in the water.

The full readings calendar, including the next week or so, is here.

Permalink | Comments (0) Share

2008 The Absolute Rejection

Posted by Charles Mudede on Sat, Nov 22, 2008 at 8:54 AM

Nothing can be salvaged from the Bush years. And the leaders of the world will not shake the hand of this negative King Midas, this man who made a disaster out of everything he touched.

As for Obama's new New Deal:

President-elect Barack Obama on Saturday outlined his plan to create 2.5 million jobs in coming years to rebuild roads and bridges and modernize schools while developing alternative energy sources and more efficient cars.

If it at all works, if any of his policies and immediate actions stabilize the economy, then the GOP supremacy envisioned by Karl Rove will become its total opposite.

As for the future of al Qaeda:

NEW YORK (CNN) — Spiritual leaders of New York's African-American Muslim communities lashed out Friday at a purported al Qaeda message attacking President-elect Barack Obama and, using racist language, comparing him unfavorably to the late Malcolm X.
Ayman al-Zawahiri said Obama was the "direct opposite of honorable black Americans" like Malcolm X.

The imams called the recorded comments from al Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri, "an insult" from people who have "historically been disconnected from the African-American community generally and Muslim African-Americans in particular."

Into the dark they go with Bush. His fate is tied to al Qaeda's fate.

Permalink | Post Comments (20) Share