Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Crime / News / Theater Seattle Children's Theater Employee Arrested on Charges of Child Pornography
Posted by Brendan Kiley on Wed, Apr 15, 2009 at 9:37 AM
This morning, the Department of Homeland Security informed Seattle Children's Theater that one of its employees had been arrested on charges of child pornography. Homeland Security presented a warrant and conducted a search of the building.
SCT spokesperson Jim Jewell said that the administrative employee—not a teacher, not an actor or director—"pretty much worked in a room with a computer."
The theater issued the following statement this afternoon:
Seattle Children’s Theatre’s mission is to provide children of all ages with professional theatre. We hold our responsibility to the children we serve as sacred, particularly as it relates to safety and well-being.
Earlier today, the Department of Homeland Security arrested one of our employees on charges of child pornography. We do not have much detail at point in time, but authorities have indicated no children from the theatre were involved. As we await further word, Seattle Children’s Theatre is cooperating fully with authorities in their investigation. The employee involved has been placed on administrative leave.
The Theatre has clear policies and procedures in place to minimize the chance of such an occurrence. All SCT employees are subject to a background check and must sign our Conduct with Minors Policy Statement.
The Managing Director, Artistic Director and the Board of Trustees are all monitoring the situation and understand its seriousness and sensitivity. We have plans in place to communicate directly and regularly with the parents and patrons of our theatre and associated programs.
UPDATE
The US Attorney’s office has filed federal charges against William Hoke, the Children's Theater IT director, for possession of child pornography.
Hoke was arrested at his home in Seattle this morning and is being held at the federal detention center in Sea-Tac.
According to US Attorney’s Office spokeswoman Emily Langlie, the charges against Hoke are the result of a two-year-old global child pornography investigation by federal authorities.
UPDATE-UPDATE
A summary of the criminal complaint, just sent out from the US Attorney's office:
According to the criminal complaint filed yesterday in Seattle, the United States Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) received information in January 2007, regarding individuals in more than 30 countries who were producing, trading and possessing child pornography via the internet. The individuals were using password protected bulletin boards to trade child pornography. In 2008, law enforcement seized the server that housed one of the bulletin boards and linked it to more than 545 registered members. Investigators determined that an email address associated with HOKE had joined the bulletin board in November 2005, and made 260 posts. Following the seizure, a second bulletin board was set up.That server was seized in September 2008. An email address associated with HOKE had posted 60 times between April and September 2008. The posts were traced to internet addresses at both HOKE’s home and work. Further investigation revealed that HOKE is employed as the Director of Information Services in the Information Technology Department at Seattle Children’s Theatre.
FINAL UPDATE
We got a copy of the complaint today and Hoke has admitted to the allegations:
HOKE admiteed to viewing images of child pornography from both his home computer and his work computer at Seattle Children's Theater. He admitted that he accessed the images from the internet and had been doing so since the 1990s.
Also revealed: That his wife caught him a year and a half ago, he deleted the images, then started collecting again. When the police arrived, he immediately waived his rights and told them everything. It's hard to imagine the hell of guilt and compulsion in that man's head. Reading between the lines of the dry police report, Hoke seemed almost relieved to get caught and confess everything.
Originally posted yesterday afternoon. Additional reporting by Jonah Spangenthal-Lee.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Crime Drive-By Shooting in Othello Park
Posted by Jonah Spangenthal-Lee on Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 11:44 PM
A 21-year-old Seatac man was taken to Harborview earlier tonight after a drive-by shooting in the Othello Park neighborhood.
According to SPD spokeswoman Renee Witt, the man was walking near Rainier Ave S and S Fontanelle when four men pulled up in a car and opened fire on the 21-year-old man.
Witt says the man was hit in the arm and was transported to Harborview with non-life-threatening injuries.
Officers have stopped a car near the scene which matches a description given by witnesses.
Yesterday, King County Prosecutors filed murder and attempted murder charges against four men who allegedly opened fire on a car in SeaTac with an AK-47 on April 7th, wounding one man and killing another.
The shooting was apparently retaliation for another shooting in South Seattle earlier that day.
SPD has not indicated that tonight's shooting is related to either of these incidents.
Police are also investigating yet another shooting, which took place Saturday night in Judkins Park.
Sports Today in Sports
Posted by Jonah Spangenthal-Lee on Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 8:52 PM
The Mariners beat the LA Angels 3-2 in the home opener at Safeco!
USS Mariner says:
The M’s, at 6-2, have now won 10% of last year’s total. If they go .500 the rest of the way, they’ll finish 83-79, an improvement of 27 games.
The King County Prosecutor's office also announced that it won't pursue charges against Seattle Sounder Fredy Montero.
According to the prosecutor's spokesman Dan Donahoe:
The King County Prosecutor's Office has completed its review of a criminal investigation referred from the Bellevue Police Department regarding Seattle Sounders soccer player Fredy Montero. Prosecutors have determined that there is insufficient evidence to file any criminal charges in this matter
And the NFL released the 2009 schedule. More on that tomorrow.
Politics / Religion
Susan Hutchison, Partisan Republican Religious Wingnut
Posted by Erica C. Barnett on Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 6:26 PM
Check out "nonpartisan" King County Council candidate Susan Hutchison, who spoke at the annual Governor's Prayer Breakfast earlier this year (no transcript—because I'm leaving for Houston, you godless heathens, not because I couldn't stand to watch the whole thing!—below the video; Hutchison's keynote starts at around 47 minutes). So: Anti-choice, creationist, believer in "miracles," and evangelical Christian? Hmmm... wonder what she thinks of the gays?
Boom Ghetto Fabulous
Posted by Dominic Holden on Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 4:54 PM
Seattle’s former convergence zone for drug sellers and crack addicts (the corner of East Denny Way and East Madison Street) has been stripped of its former identity. Jim Mueller, a developer who bought two parcels of land, razed the notorious Deano’s building on the corner (more on that here). The former Twilight Exit building across the street—which was notorious for drunken, feckless hipsters, not crackheads—is now vacant.
Mueller has submitted near-final plans to the city for the excellent buildings that will replace them. Here’s the Twilight site recently:
And Mueller’s plans for 96 apartments above retail:
The former Deano’s site before the demolition:
And Mueller’s plans for 222 apartments with retail:
The two buildings will cost $75 million, Mueller says; he’s waiting for the lending markets to thaw before beginning construction. He expects to break ground within the next two years. “I think it will be positive for the neighborhood,” says Mueller. “You get the right kind of retail and you’ve really made a statement.” The right kind of retail is “neighborhood” and “local.” Aw, c'mon, Jim, crack is neighborhoody and local. "Friendly, neighborhood and local," he says. "No imports."
A public design meeting for the latter project is scheduled for May 6, at 8:00 p.m. in room 3211 of Seattle Central Community College, 1701 Broadway.
Books / Retail Re: Yeah, OK, But...
Posted by Paul Constant on Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 4:43 PM
Oh, man, Christopher. I was out for the afternoon, but I just can't let this go: Your response to Sam's Amazon story is in dire need of some unpacking.
It is true that businesses exist to make money. Nobody would create a business with the intent to lose money unless that person is either A) a scam artist or B) the government. But the economic issues that we're dealing with right now seem to prove (to me, at least) that successful businesses will keep making money until they become too huge to be healthy for the rest of us. They don't have an "OK, that's enough money" valve. It's a complex issue. We used to have monopoly and antitrust laws to protect the public from giant companies going bad or getting too goddamned big, but the government has pretty much been defanged in that respect.
And as to this paragraph:
Cuz, like, the thing Amazon does? It's a pretty amazing thing, when you think about it. You have two choices: (1) you can get in your car and go to the store to get something, or (2) you can sit down in your own home in front of a magic but intuitively designed portal that remembers who you are, shows you everything you could want to know about a product, including what other people who bought it thought of it, and then at the click of a button will send you whatever it is cheaper than you could get it if you went out and got it yourself.
You know? Except for plane tickets, I'm not a big fan of buying things online. I'm just not. You know what I think is more amazing than the Amazon experience? Living in a city with a bunch of neighborhoods and a great selection of businesses. Unless you pay out the nose for Amazon's speedy shipping (or what the fuck ever it's called), most of Amazon's books, I believe, will arrive within two to four days. Do you know when most bookstores can get a book for you? About the same amount of time. True, there are some books that take longer, but about half the time, those books will take longer for Amazon, too. Because they're ridiculously rare. Everybody has a story about going into a bookstore and ordering a book and hearing it'll take a month and a half to get there, but that's actually a tiny percentage of the time. Amazon is a miracle for rural book lovers. Our abundance of great bookstores are what we should be thankful for.
Now there are two main issues with Amazon that booksellers struggle with: 1) The enormous selection coupled with the 24/7 availability and 2) the discounted prices. No brick and mortar bookstore is available all day, every day, and no one physical location can contain all the books that Amazon has on its website. That's why I will sometimes browse on Amazon when I'm looking up books about a specific topic and then go find the books in a real store. The number of books that I've positively had to have within 12 hours of learning of their existence is really very small.
And I consider the prices I have to pay at bookstores—not actually inflated prices, but the actual price listed on the book, and a price that is not actually that much higher than the bookstore has to pay for the book—part of the "urban tax" on having all these wonderful places nearby for me to enjoy. Amazon has never recommended a book to me that has changed my life, but real, living booksellers do this all the time. Amazon recommends similar books and books that other people moved on to. It's a lateral recommendation system, and it simply can't take the glorious leaps that sometimes happen when you engage a real person in a real human interaction.
This is a real word bomb, so I'm putting the rest, including the true problem with Amazon and the way they handled all this, after the jump.
??!! / Film / Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz "Bullcorn!"
Posted by Lindy West on Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 4:15 PM
In my column this week, I wrote about: "the dude who played the dude in Can't Hardly Wait who's all, 'Bullcorn!' to Ethan Embry (clearly I made some bad choices in my teens, but one must admit that 'bullcorn' is funny)."
Then I received a wonderful e-mail:
I was reading what you wrote about Can't Hardly Wait, and the actor's name who said "Bullcorn" is Victor Togunde! I know because I was having a long distance fling with him at the same time he was filming that movie (the fling was short lived). I also want to tell you that he stole that line from me and I still use it today! Victor is a great guy and really funny. Because he used my line he has dedicated that movie to me!
Just thought I would tell you because you brought back some funny memories that I haven't thought of in a long time.
Cheers!
Cheers to you, former fling of Togunde! Thank you for bringing "Bullcorn" into my life.
Much like Victor Togunde snatching "bullcorn" from his former fling, I snatched this photo from Victor Togunde's MySpace (where you can also watch his acting reel, IN WHICH HE SAYS "BULLCORN" at minute 3:18). Please don't be mad that I snatched your photo, Victor Togunde. That would be bullcorn.
Crime News from the Animal Kingdom
Posted by Charles Mudede on Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 4:08 PM
Yesterday, the bloody SEALS; today, the fucking dolphins!
China View reports:
Thousands of dolphins blocked the suspected Somali pirate ships when they were trying to attack Chinese merchant ships passing the Gulf of Aden, the China Radio International reported on Monday.Wow. These are hard times for khat-chewing Somali pirates.
City / Media The Post-Noon Post Globe
Posted by Eli Sanders on Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 4:03 PM
Delayed by a virus, the new Seattle Post Globe missed its hoped-for lunchtime launch today but is now up—and brought to you by The Seattle Weekly.
Jonah Spangenthal-Lee says: "Out of one JOA and into another..."
Visual Art But Now How Will We Know This Is the Entrance to the Shopping-for-Diamond-Rings District?
Posted by Jen Graves on Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 3:57 PM
Those sculptures by the Paramount have been removed to make way for the next phase of light rail construction. (Photo sent by Seattle Theatre Group employee)
*I'm sorry, Ries. But I really can't countenance those things.
Film This Week in the Film Section: Absurdistan
Posted by Lindy West on Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 3:57 PM
Absurdistan, Brendan Kiley is disappointed to discover, is not based on the Gary Shteyngart novel. But it is kind of cute:
This Absurdistan is a light, sweet fairy tale, basically a children's movie, about sex and how much people enjoy having it. (Très European, no?) Young and old, chubby and svelte, furry and smooth, the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker—everybody in the little unnamed town likes to make sweet, loud love, every night at sundown. But the men are too lazy to fix the broken water pipes and the town is getting stinky and thirsty, so the women go on a Lysistrata sex strike. The men, proud and patriarchal, collectively declare: You're not the boss of me. The women paint a line down the center of town, the genders are divided, and it's all old-timey battle of the sexes until the end, when a virgin saves the day. (Because he doesn't want to die a virgin.)
Read the whole thing HERE.
Sports Mariners! Home Opener! Now!
Posted by Jonah Spangenthal-Lee on Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 3:48 PM
The Mariners home opener should be underway about now. If you're stuck at work on this beeyootiful Tuesday afternoon, the game can (I think) be streamed here.
Feel free to discuss the game in the comments.
Life Mommy Issues
Posted by David Schmader on Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 3:04 PM
Submitted to I, Anonymous, with the title "A Letter from Your Oldest Child":
Dear Mom,I call you mom not because you're my mother, considering I've fathered three great children from you, but because that's all you are now. You're a mom. Gone, gone are the days where we have sex with any frequency, because I look at porn. Nevermind that I have looked at porn since you've known me, and you even at one point said "I love porn" while we were in courtship. Now you hate porn, because "you can tell" when I've been looking at it when we have sex because I say or do things that are "influenced by porn". Nevermind that you tell me to cum on your face, talk about pulling my dick out of you so you can suck all the nasty pussy juice off of it, or order me to choke you with my cock, I said "you're my bitch" once, so clearly I'm a porn fiend.
You told me that either I stopped looking at porn or we'd stop having sex, and I chose porn, because I recognized this little ruse for what it is: your willful retirement from the world of adulthood. We don't have adult discussion in any capacity, if we aren't discussing children, upcoming appointments, or the requisite how-was-your-days, you treat each and every invitation to open discussion with a tenuous hostility. Why would we discuss what's happening with the economy, you know nothing about economies, have no interest, don't want to hear other people discuss it, and one of the kids made a funny face today and it needs to be described in scrutinizing detail. Fuck my 401k, you never knew how it worked to start with. Once you're done describing said wacky face hopefully one of the kids will be in pseudo-peril and you can punctuate the conversation with a concerned look and a wobbly hurry.
Your fatness is an essential core of your withdraw into mommyhood. I pay an extra $40 a month so you can go to the gym and leave the kids in their daycare. I tell you that you can leave them with me. But none of this is good for you to exercise more than once every two months. I tell you that I have absolutely no problems with the extra weight, it's sexy in its own way. So you go out and buy a two-thousand dollar home treadmill for you to work out at home and slap it on another credit card for purchases-for-which-i-consulted-no-one-and-don't-have-the-money-for. Of course, you told me you were looking at treadmills, but all the ones you asked me to look at were $800, $900. We've had it for a week and you haven't even used it once. Signs point to another good purchase!
In other "real" news, I'm getting a job as a federal agent soon, and we both feel it coming. A point at which I'm going to end up moving out to be closer to my job, which you refuse to follow me to because you don't want to leave your momma, and you don't want to stop being just a momma. You know once the job gets rolling I'm going to be gone more, have less time for stupid bullshit, and have a lot more exposure to ADULTS who have ADULT wants, ADULT needs, and ADULT expectations, and you melt away from those things not because you can't, but you don't want to. Someone may not like you, and you're going to have to cope with the real world, in a real job setting, in a real relationship, instead of being a school teacher in a retirement town that opts out of every relationship that doesn't have a predetermined power advantage.
The job is why you're feeling "depressed" lately, and I'm getting more and more chipper. Because this indefinite game of passive aggressive, sexless matriarchal bullshit is going to come crashing down. I'm going to have a job that I will follow to the ends of the Earth, and you will have little / no remaining ruses to string me along. If I meet a smart, attractive woman while I'm out-and-about with my job, I will have no compunctions with pursuing a relationship with her to a respectable stopping point, dumping your ass, and continuing where I left off. I'll see my wonderful kids whenever I can, and I'll laugh at your fat, pseudo-depressed ass the whole time. Your long vacation of being a wife and adult is ending, or our marriage is. And I'm not in the least bit upset by either prospect! Thanks for listening.
Love,
Your Husband
Crime / Two-Block Radius Suspicious Package in Cal Anderson Park
Posted by Jonah Spangenthal-Lee on Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 3:04 PM
Seattle Police have closed off a section all of Cal Anderson Park after officers found a backpack containing a canister with wires coming from it.
The bomb squad is on the way.
Photo by Stranger news intern Alexander Brown
UPDATE @ 3:27pm: Police have reopened the park. Nothing to see here.
City Nothing Is Better Than a Car Wash?
Posted by Dominic Holden on Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 2:41 PM
The street scene is pretty bleak on the north end of Beacon Avenue, complains the Beacon Hill Blog. One warehouse with a driveway across the sidewalk was vacant for months while taggers left graffiti on the garage door, and a sign hung advertising, “For Commercial Space Lease… For: Light mfg., Retail, Office.” Then a business finally set up shop: a car wash.
But on April 9, someone filed a complaint with the Department of Planning and Development, arguing that the car wash violates the city land-use rules. In areas zoned for heavy pedestrian use, including this one, “Drive-in or drive-thru businesses are prohibited.”
DPD hasn’t returned calls asking what type of action it might take.
But it seems to me that the appropriate enforcement action would be hanging the person who filed this complaint from his or her toenails and whacking them for hours with a Wiffle bat. It’s a driveway, person. Cars drive into driveways, and any business using that warehouse would likely have cars driving in and out all day. The building, as far as I can see, has no windows facing the sidewalk. No window shopping, candy shopping, or book shopping will be happening in that garage. The pedestrian potential there—at least for now, with that building in this economy—is probably as good as it’s going to get. “If the car wash gets shut down, the possibility exists that the 2507 [Beacon Avenue] site will be vacant for months again, and no one wants more vacancies in the North Beacon business district,” writes Wendi at the Beacon Hill Blog.
Here’s the scene, as captured in 360 degrees by the freaky geniuses at Google Maps.
Economy Freedom?
Posted by Charles Mudede on Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 1:59 PM
Couple pay off $46,000 in debt, throw party.Why does this success story sound more sad than satisfying? You feel the emptiness of it all. You paid your debts, you are owe nothing—what next? What are you going to do with this freedom? Or do you realize now that you actually were never not free? We see some connection between the image of the husband and wife in the car and the image of the husband and wife at the end of The Graduate. "You're wondering now/What to do/Cause you know/This is the end."
...[T]he Colorado resident and her husband threw a party Saturday for friends and family after mailing off the final check. The event at a community center featured a cake decorated with the debt amount in green icing, CNN television affiliate KUSA reported.The couple had been paying the debt for three years and seven months, Muldoon told CNN, adding that the last payment they made recently was for $1,500.
"When we mailed that last check ... I sat down in the car, I looked over to my husband and I just burst out into tears," she said....
Politics County Exec Campaign Update
Posted by Erica C. Barnett on Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 1:56 PM
King County Council member Larry Phillips raised more than $77,000 in March, a number his campaign credited to Phillips's "growing momentum" in King County. That total includes $7,125 in transfers from Phillips's county council campaign and $1,600 in personal funds, bringing Phillips's total donations down to just under $69,000. In the same period, Phillips' fellow county council member, Dow Constantine, raised just over $51,000.
Overall, since declaring for county exec in late February, Constantine has raised $98,904 in cash and in-kind contributions and has $57,455 on hand. None of that money is from personal funds or transfers from Constantine's previous campaign. Phillips, meanwhile, has raised $215,747 in cash and in-kind contributions and has $122,448 on hand; however, about $88,000 of that total comes from his previous campaign, and $1,600 from his personal funds.
Sex Das Ding
Posted by Charles Mudede on Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 1:28 PM
And that...
What's that thing? And why is it sticking out of the window at the Swedish Medical Center? And isn't that the maternity ward? If so, and if that thing is what I think it is, then what kind of message is it sending out the window? Maybe it's an SOS of some sort ("Save [us from] Our Seamen")? Or maybe it's communicating something similar to the words of the priestess of all sisters in distress, Lady Hill:
Girls you know you betta watch out
Some guys, some guys are only about
That thing, that thing, that thing
That thing, that thing, that thing
Visual Art Art Nerd Paradise!
Posted by Jen Graves on Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 1:21 PM
The Tate has now made more than 400 files—podcasts of artist talks, public discussions about art, and even people reading you poetry that relates to artworks in the collection—available for free on iTunes U.
Just go to your iTunes store and click on "iTunes U" on the left if you don't know where it is. I didn't. It's an amazing place. So far I'm downloading:
1. Gloria Steinem visits Yale
2. Gilbert and George
3. Roni Horn in Conversation
4. Talking Art: Lawrence Weiner
5. Talking Art: Glenn Ligon
6. Maggi Hambling, Jenny Saville, and Nigel Cooke on Francis Bacon
7. Science and Art
8. Muenster Sculpture Project
9. Martha Rosler
10. Talking Art: Hans Haacke
11. Dan Graham: Artist's Talk
12. Alan Morrison on Hogarth
And that's just the one-off stuff. You can also subscribe to Tate's ongoing podcasts, including the one where people read you poetry and another one where the subject is the materials of the art ("What Can the Matter Be?").
Michael Dee's Heartsmelt, seen last month at Howard House
City / Life Tuba Man Tribute: 2:00 pm Today at Safeco Field
Posted by David Schmader on Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 1:05 PM
At 2pm today at Safeco Field—right in front of The Mitt—there will be a kazoo-laden tribute to Ed McMichael, AKA the Tuba Man. More info at www.thetubaman.com.
(Photo from HistoryLink.org.)
TV / Film Amazing PR There, Guys
Posted by Lindy West on Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 1:03 PM
I have no idea whether or not Drowsiness (playing this Sunday at the Seattle Polish Film Festival) is a good movie, and I have previously quite enjoyed myself at the SPFF. HOWEVER, no block of text has ever made me want to stay home and watch HBO's True Blood* quite so effectively as this synopsis of Drowsiness:
There are people who constantly dwell in a state of emotional lethargy. They live in catastrophic relationships and, instead of making a change in their lives, they passively fade away into spiritual emptiness. Despite the fact that they cannot take it any longer, none of the characters in this film have the courage to change their lives.
Sorry, what were you saying? I just drowned. On purpose.
*And HBO's True Blood is a profoundly trashy and ridiculous show. (Seriously, Jason Stackhouse, are you earth's most suggestible human? Am I really going to have to deal with Jessica for an entire fucking season? Lafayette, what are you doing later and do you want to hang out? And also, MUST WE WATCH A TEN MINUTE SEGMENT OF SOOKIE EATING PIE AND CRYING AND WHY IS SHE CONSTANTLY WEARING A DELICATE YET CLEARLY UNCOMFORTABLE NIGHTIE!? Sike**, I love you anyway, HBO's True Blood, and thanks for putting Frank Sobotka on my TV again.)
**I don't give a shit how many times you people internet-yell at me about this. I think "sike" is funnier than "psych," and I'm only saying it to be funny anyway, and do I have to explain the joke?
Crime Seattle Couple Bent Out of Shape Over Alleged Yoga Molestation
Posted by Jonah Spangenthal-Lee on Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 12:25 PM
Seattle Police are investigating a report of molestation at a downtown Seattle yoga center after Capitol Hill couple reported an alleged incident of hypnotism and inappropriate touching during a class in October.
According to the police report, a man told officers he was with his fiancee in class when he heard her say "no," sigh, and then go silent.
The woman told police that while she was in the yoga position, the instructor came over to her and held her legs up. The report says the instructor was clicking something and saying "listen to your master, you must do whatever your master wants you to do." The man told police the instructor then knelt down and put his hands on the woman's stomach.
The report says students saw the instructor reach inside the woman's pants and grope her, before she passed out and urinated on herself. The man told police he believed the instructor was trying to hypnotize his fiancee.
The incident happened in October but was not reported to police until last week.
When contacted this morning, Mike—an instructor at the yoga center, who did not give his last name—says he was not aware of the October incident, but did offer up a new age explanation for what happened: "Anybody can have the truth to their perspective. We just promote health happiness and peace in a way that allows people to heal their bodies. Sometimes those feelings can be strong," Mike says. "Until you actually get into water, if you’ve never been in water, it’s a new experience. You have to be open to that experience."
Mike adds that the low lights and music at the yoga center "can seem to be hypnotizing" but that staff at the center "just don’t do anything improper."
Video of the Day Lunchtime Quickie
Posted by Kelly O on Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 12:15 PM
Is the ChristianU2uber anti-gay marriage "Don't Call Me a Homo!" kid gonna go on a shooting spree at school one day? It's been over a week, and people keep making videos about him... keep calling him that h-word. I feel sorry for him. I think Mom should take away his video camera, just for a little while...
Theater The Ballooning Broadway Price Tag
Posted by Brendan Kiley on Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 12:12 PM
Bloomberg has a good, run-the-numbers story about the inflating costs of producing a Broadway show, using the critically savaged Impressionism—expected to soak its investors for millions—as a case study.
I called Emanuel Azenberg, a Broadway gadfly who has been mounting plays and musicals since becoming Neil Simon’s producer of choice in the mid-1970s.In 1982, Azenberg produced the first play in Simon’s semi- autobiographical trilogy, “Brighton Beach Memoirs,” for $500,000. The revival he’ll present next season, he said, will run $3 million.
“Over the last 25 years, all the costs have spiraled with no constraints,” Azenberg told me. The physical production, he said, “cost $100,000 then; it will cost $500,000 now.”
“The director’s fee was $25,000 then,” he continued. “It will be $100,000 now. An ad in the Times was $20,000 then; it’s $110,000 now. With payments to the pension fund and health plans, the cost of union labor today is $100 an hour.”
That’s the reality facing “Impressionism” producer Haber.
The show has a limited run of 16 weeks. The week of the opening, when “Impressionism” earned $289,057, ticket sales covered rent, advertising and payroll. The following week, sales bumped up to $325,000, attesting to the positive word of mouth I was talking about. Still, in order to recoup its $3 million cost, it will need to nearly double its box office income, which seems highly unlikely.
Visual Art Currently Hanging
Posted by Jen Graves on Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 11:47 AM
Wardell Milan's Battle Royale series of photographed collages, 2007
These individual images, seen large, are here. Milan was artist-in-residence at the Studio Museum in Harlem at the same time as Titus Kaphar, who made such an impression in this space yesterday. Where Kaphar's works are visceral bodies in the gallery (scrunched, pulled—I can't believe I didn't think of Matthew Monahan before now), Milan seems to keep his surfaces almost troublingly neat. Check out his color collages especially.
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