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Politics Mr. Stickney Goes to Washington. (And Furiously Calls Out The Stranger on the Steps of the U.S. Supreme Court.)

Posted by Jake Blumgart on Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 6:00 PM

Not pleased.

I was just going through my notes from this week’s Doe v. Reed case and I came across a little tidbit I’d forgotten. After the oral arguments inside the Supreme Court chambers, everyone decamped for the marbled front steps of the building for the traditional post-argument press conferences. Lawyers for both sides tried to put their spin on the morning's events and then, after they drifted off, supporters of both sides pressed forward to speak.

One of them was a large fellow in a beige suit and a muted American flag tie who I recognized as Larry Stickney, executive director of Washington Values Alliance and an original backer of Referendum 71, the anti-gay measure that led to Doe v. Reed. Stickney was not a happy camper (the man is quite skilled in the incoherent ranting department).

First, presumably riled up by a morning that hadn't seemed to go his way, Stickney admonished “the people in ivory towers and gated communities” for abandoning “the little people." Then he went on to describe the awful harassment his supporters had already suffered. No specific instances were cited by Stickney, other than a story about the R-71 campaign manager forcing his family to sleep in their living room for fear of the gays—and no reason was given for that relocation, other than the fact that bedrooms have windows. (And living rooms don’t?)

Finally, Stickney turned to the media, describing his deep-seated fear that the names and addresses of his supporters would be funneled through “the homosexual blogs, the Huffington Post, to the San Francisco gay blogs and right to the gay community in Washington.” (I’m not sure why he decided the information needed to be re-routed through San Francisco.) Then he called out The Stranger by name. I didn’t get his exact words, but the basic gist of it was that the paper is home to a bunch of raving homosexuals who regularly harass him, his family, and his supporters. Or something like that.

Maybe Stickney's fury had something to do with these articles by Dominic? (For those who haven't read them, it turns out Stickney isn't just any old bigoted defender of "traditional" marriage; he's also a thrice-married alleged wife-beater. Now that's hypocrisy.)

In any case, congratulations to Stickney on some impressive raging on the Supreme Court steps, and congratulations to The Stranger for being on the tip of his tongue when it happened.

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Fashion What Are You Doing? Overseen in the Office Edition!

Posted by Eric Grandy on Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 5:40 PM

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!"

"WE'RE WEARING STRIPES!"

That is all.

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City Cascade Bicycle Club Takes the Green Bike Project to SE Seattle

Posted by Cienna Madrid on Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 5:37 PM

This Saturday, May 1, roughly 50 novice bike riders in southeast Seattle will abandon their cars and make a three-month commitment to try bicycle commuting as part of Cascade Bicycle Club’s Green Bike Project.

The Green Bike Project provides participants with a new commuter bike in return for their pledge to reduce drive-alone commuting by 50 percent during the project. Trips are recorded through an online tracking system. At the end of the project, participants who fulfill their pledge will get to keep their bike.

The project is geared toward employers who have five to 15 employees game to participate in the project, which ends on July 31. Employers provide secure bike parking and access to showers and lockers; to appoint an in-house coordinator for the project and to provide gear, tools or an incentive to all of their bike commuters.

Spring 2010 participating businesses are Darigold, Outdoor Research, Wellspring Family Services, Committee For Children, Odyssey High School (Tyee campus), Iron Bow Technologies and Case Design.

Tomorrow, Cascade Bicycle Club will provide safety training, rider education and a fitted commuter bicycle to each of the participants at South Seattle Community College. Again, those who achieve their pledge get to keep their bike. Those who fail get to keep their marshmallow butts.

If you want to know more about the Green Bike Project, like how to participate, hit up the Cascade Bicycle Club.

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Animals Isn't It Awful When The Authorities Stereotype A Breed Like That?

Posted by Dan Savage on Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 4:54 PM

It's not as if the nice lady's pet ever attacked anyone.

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Music / Homo / Celeb This Has Been Everywhere Today—Except Slog

Posted by Dan Savage on Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 4:37 PM

A group of soldiers stationed in Afghanistan remake a Lady Gaga video...

...and in what feels like a somewhat related development: efforts to repeal DADT this year are officially dead. The brass at the Pentagon wants more time and their wants matter more than what their Commander in Chief (supposedly) wants. So that's that. So only straight Lady Gaga fans can be stationed in Afghanistan for now, okay? (One of the guys in the video apparently has two mommies.)

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Nerd / Fashion "Make It Work..."

Posted by Mary Traverse on Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 4:33 PM

I'm sorry, this is priceless: Tim Gunn discusses superhero fashion.

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City Get Your Ass Off the Couch

Posted by Unpaid Intern on Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 4:26 PM

posted by news intern Lara Phillips

SATURDAY:

As Jake Slogged earlier, there's a big immigration reform rally and march that you should go to. (Judkins Park, 2150 South Norman Street, noon.)

The Ballard URban Picnic, or "BURP," features mobile food trucks ready to feed you, a beer garden, live music, and a screening of the Disney film "Up" at dusk. (Ballard Commons Park, 5701 22nd Avenue NW, noon to 9:00 p.m., free.)

It's Free Comic Book Day, so go get some free comics, already. (Participating comic shops, everywhere, free.)

SUNDAY:

More marching and rallying, this time from Seattle University to Waterfront Park to abolish nuclear weapons. (Seattle University's Quad, 1:30 p.m.)

Seattle Center is holding a Seattle Mural Restoration Open House to celebrate the mural and bribe you to vote for it in the "Partners in Preservation" contest. Can you be bribed with cake and live music by Slender Means, or are you going to let Tacoma's "Schooner Adventuress" (the current leader in the contest) win? (Seattle Center Mural Amphitheatre, noon to 5:00 p.m., free.)

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Savage Love SL Letter of the Day: When Does The "Friends Rule" Kick In?

Posted by Dan Savage on Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 4:10 PM

I'm a bi female who tends to lean a little more towards the guys than the girls. About a month ago, I went to a show at a local bar and struck up a conversation with a really funny, intelligent, captivating guy. This exchange really excited me since we seemed to have a very similar outlook on life, while most people in our town tend to be a little too conservative and/or right-wing minded for my preference. We spoke for about an hour and a half... and then he introduced me to his girlfriend (cue the music: wah, wah, waaaaah). At first I was disappointed (of course a guy this great would have a girlfriend already), but then I struck up a conversation with her, and she was just as great!

Fast forward two weeks: They bring me home with them for his birthday. After an amazing night he makes caramel apple pancakes for us all. Fast forward one more week: after becoming best friends with the girl, I find out that their relationship has gotten a little rocky over the past week. We all go to the same party, but he doesn't talk to her since he's currently upset with her. At the end of the night he goes home alone but first says to me, "Without saying too much, I really enjoyed seeing you tonight." Fast forward another week to the present day: she breaks up with him after he ignores her attempts to resolve their situation, and then calls the "friends rule" on me, saying that she doesn't even want me hanging out with him since he may come on to me and it would crush her if him and I started dating.

So now my question is, when there's a breakup in a menage a trois, who gets custody of the odd man (or woman) out?

Thank's so much for your input!

Bro Or Ho, Friend Or Foe

My response after the jump.

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Books America Is Writing Its Own Self-Help Book

Posted by Paul Constant on Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 4:03 PM

Amazon has started to make public the most-highlighted passages in Kindle Books on this webpage. (For the record, I am not a highlighter. I am a dog-earer, which, depending on who you ask, is an even worse crime than writing in a book.) The results are kind of fascinating. It seems that the passages we highlight in books—from novels to business books—are almost exclusively inspirational statements. Here are seven quotes from the top 25:

Type I behavior emerges when people have autonomy over the four T’s: their task, their time, their technique, and their team...Such a simple concept, yet so true: that which we manifest is before us; we are the creators of our own destiny. Be it through intention or ignorance, our successes and our failures have been brought on by none other than ourselves...The First Splendid Truth: To be happy, I need to think about feeling good, feeling bad, and feeling right, in an atmosphere of growth...The Bhagavad Gita—that ancient Indian Yogic text—says that it is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else’s life with perfection...WHAT WE HAVE DONE FOR OURSELVES ALONE DIES WITH US; WHAT WE HAVE DONE FOR OTHERS AND THE WORLD REMAINS AND IS IMMORTAL...When you don’t know what you believe, everything becomes an argument. Everything is debatable. But when you stand for something, decisions are obvious...Passion and satisfaction go hand in hand, and without them, any happiness is only temporary, because there’s nothing to make it last.

They are almost all inspirational, which means that the majority of highlighters are reading books in order to find themselves in the book. Which seems kind of sad, to me. The first non-inspirational quote in the top 50 most highlighted quotes is this one, at number 31:

For inspiration go to Chris Brogan’s “50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Business”: http://www.chrisbrogan.com/50-ideas-on-using-twitter-for-business/

It is about making money. So my question is this, Kindle highlighters: Does this mean that The Secret is the perfect book? It's nothing but inspiration and money and dieting.

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News The Red Flag

Posted by Dan Savage on Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 3:58 PM

Do people take out life insurance policies on small children they don't intend to kill?

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City Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Posted by Unpaid Intern on Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 3:49 PM

Neighborhood blog roundup by news intern Lara Phillips.

"Hi meerkat neighbor! I hope we can be friends."

Capitol Hill residents now have a firmer date for the re-opening of the Olive Way interstate exit: "Sometime after May 17."

Over in the U-District, UW president Mark Emmert is leaving after five years for a new job at the NCAA. Also, a participant in UW's Engineering Discovery Day program turned out to be infected with chickenpox, so anyone who hung out at the HUB or the engineering building on April 23 might want to get vaccinated.

There is no vaccination against the cuteness of adorable meerkats, who make their debut at the Woodland Park Zoo on Saturday. Meanwhile, two totally un-adorable Aurora Avenue motels will be sold or leased for use as low-income housing within four months as the result of a plea agreement between the city and the motel owners, who were accused of criminal tax violations.

In continuing adventures up north, a 75-pound mosaic artwork of a whale's eye was stolen from the Magnuson Park Children’s Garden by someone with the foresight to bring a saws-all tool to remove it from its re-bar-and-concrete home. Also being stolen: outgoing mail in Fremont. And a man suspected of being the "Grim Reaper Bandit" who robbed the U-Village Key Bank last week was arrested while sleeping in a car behind the Roosevelt Way QFC.

Back on Capitol Hill, police have arrested a man accused of being one of the neighborhood's most prolific car thieves; surveillance footage of him allegedly using a stolen credit card to buy food at the Madison McDonald's reportedly helped nail him. In sadder McDonald's news, a 67-year-old man was killed in the Ballard McDonald's parking lot Monday as a woman backed out of her parking space; the death was ruled accidental and the driver was not charged with a crime.

Over on Queen Anne, a man allegedly set fire to the "Ride the Ducks" building and afterward told the police a strange story about his motivation for the arson. In other aquatic vessel news, a submarine has been spotted (and photographed!) off the Alki coast; invent your conspiracy theories now!

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Arts / Sex Seattle Erotic Arts Festival

Posted by Dan Savage on Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 3:48 PM

This was my second favorite piece at SEAF. My favorite piece—my favorite suitable for hanging-on-the-wall piece—was a delicate little line drawing of a couple of satyrs doing something stupid and dangerous. I can't describe in any detail without ruining it. Go find it. My favorite interactive piece was Ellen Forney and Jacob Peter Fennell's brilliant "Love Note." You sit at a small writing desk, pen a short love letter (lovely thick paper provided), and then tuck your note into the pocket of any one of a dozen pillows resting on a large bed. But before you can tuck your note in the pocket of the pillow you've selected, you have to remove the last love letter left in the pillow. That love note—left by someone you don't know for someone you don't know—is yours to read and to keep. It's a charming piece. Here I am filling out my love note last night while Ellen watches from a safe distance...

And my favorite piece of ass—besides the one I arrived with—belonged to the boy burlesque dancer in the tutu. Daaaaamn.

The Seattle Erotic Arts Festival is a unique event and a great time. Get down there. It's at the Seattle Center Exhibition Hall through Sunday. More info at www.seattleerotic.org.

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Design New Logo of the Day

Posted by Aaron Huffman on Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 3:47 PM

I'm sure you've all noticed that Seattle Met (née Metropolitan) has a new logo:

Read the whole story here. I'm glad to see I'm not the only art director who uses chocolate syrup—in one way or another—to make major design decisions.

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Chow Pretzel m&ms!! Or: Dear m&m's, You Are Forgiven

Posted by Megan Seling on Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 3:42 PM

Remember last year when m&ms tried to get creative and they released this shit? I thought it was a joke. As one clever Slog commenter put it (Joh? Was it you?), "It's like eating a handful of peanut butter m&ms after making out with a 13-year-old girl wearing strawberry lip gloss." They were totally disgusting. They were unforgivable.

The disappointing coconut m&ms released soon after weren't much better. Too artificial—they should've mixed real toasted coconut into the chocolate (DUH).

I was ready to give up on the entire m&m franchise altogether when an m&m miracle happened: PRETZEL M&MS.

They're fantastic. They're like the delicious and addictive crispy m&ms but they're bigger and rounder and saltier (that's what she said). And they're currently on sale for 50¢ at the Broadway and Pike QFC.

You're welcome.

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At Large Flickr Photo of the Day

Posted by Aaron Huffman on Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 3:40 PM

Look closely. No, in the upper left. Yes, that is a glowing dolphin. This photo (posted to The Stranger's Flickr pool by Grzegorz Chorus > In Coma) is accompanied by a poem, which, upon further inspection, turns out to be the lyrics to a song by the band Live. And that is all I have to say about that.

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Visual Art Currently Hanging: Eli Hansen

Posted by Jen Graves on Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 3:34 PM

When Eli Hansen switched galleries from Howard House to Lawrimore Project, the event was announced not in a press release on letterhead, but in an ad in the infamous back pages of The Stranger.

The ad pictured the scruffy, bearded artist and a frequent collaborator (a character named Herman Beans, shirtless and slouching) sitting on a makeshift platform attached to a concrete wall covered in graffiti. "Available for 'In or Out' Calls," the ad beckoned, licking its rhetorical lips, with the gallery's phone number. The ad was surrounded by pictures of bethonged and bendy ladies: Mia, JayLynn, Savanna, Toni, and Sexxxy Britney, in particular. It wasn't an official work of art by Hansen (the way, say, Lynda Benglis and Jeff Koons have created ads as artworks), but it was an easy extension of the trashy-hetero sensibility that heralded the local arrival of Hansen and his brother, Oscar Tuazon, at Howard House two years ago.

Since then, where Tuazon's work has moved toward a cool and imperious aesthetic—reflecting hippie-village Indianola, Washington (where the brothers grew up), by way of chic-rationalist urban Western Europe, where Tuazon spends most of his time now (in Paris)—the recent creations of Hansen have become both more hardcore and more vulnerable.

The title of the new show at Lawrimore Project is We Used to Get So High (also reviewed recently on Artforum.com), and it's the heartbreakingest art show in recent memory in Seattle. It's sad—Hansen once wrote that he finds himself "chasing his sadness"—and it wants, it wants, it wants. It's also grimy and a little dangerous, like a friend your mother insisted was a bad influence.

In the front room are photographs of fetid scenes embedded in cigar boxes, seen under a layer of yellowy resin, like slightly shameful secrets that the artist has decided to share anyway. You insert a finger into a twisted wire to open the boxes, getting yourself entangled, maybe complicit, maybe sympathetic to whatever has happened before in these decaying after-places.

Clear glass vessels mounted on the walls glow like jewels under the gallery's spotlights, but on closer inspection you notice their necks are jagged and broken or they dangle long, ugly plastic hoses that turn them into a combination of beer bongs and hospital equipment.

Two sculptural installations look like broken chemistry sets—a cross between high-school innocence and meth cooking—made of glass and concrete and detritus. What are they capable of cooking up? What have they already made? One concrete object sitting forlornly on the floor, shaped like a glass beaker with curls of glass sprouting from its top, is the bleak doppelgänger of the bright, bongy Chihuly Venetians so familiar to audiences in Seattle (and Hansen is a trained glassblower in the Northwest tradition). We used to get so high; this is what's left.

An eerieness hangs over the show, and it's the ghost of a spiritual promise that's failed but refuses to disappear. A handful of highly formal paintings are the most unexpected of the works—big, beautiful chemical chain reactions built out of cut wood panels, painted white and mounted on white walls in an act of camouflage, or painted black and mounted on black walls. It's hard to imagine a better abstract portrait of the addict on the verge of shooting up, all squirreled away somewhere, hidden and hoping to become one with the universe or at least to get off this ground. Russian suprematist painter Kasimir Malevich—creator of the Black Square—and "Pope of Dope" William Burroughs had much in common.

Word has it that Seattle Art Museum has one of the major sculptures in the show on hold, as well it should. Hansen is an almost painfully sensitive interpreter not only of his own dirtied soul, but of this place and its creative traditions.

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City Comic Sans Is a Cancer: City of Seattle Edition

Posted by Paul Constant on Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 3:13 PM

I have written in the past about Seattle Parks and Recreation's continuing love affair with Comic Sans MS font in press releases, especially in releases that come from Ms. Joelle Hammerstad.

Well, it's gotten worse, and the Comic Sans seems to keep spreading: News intern Lara Phillips discovered this logo on a real, live, public Seattle.gov webpage:

Make it stop. Please, please, make it stop. I predict that at this rate, by the end of 2010, the entire City of Seattle website will be in Comic Sans MS.

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Homo Gay Couples and Families Included In Immigration Reform—For Now

Posted by Dan Savage on Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 3:11 PM

Oh, that's nice:

The measure would allow gay Americans to sponsor an immigrant partner for citizenship.

“Today's inclusive framework is an historic step forward for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender binational families,” Rachel B. Tiven, executive director of Immigration Equality, a group that lobbies on behalf of binational gay and lesbian couples, said in a statement.

But before we celebrate, Andrew, let's remember that the original health care bill, when introduced, included provisions that would have ended unfair discrimination against same-sex couples and families. And those provisions? Dropped to make the final version of bill more appealing to "moderates" and "assholes." So let's not pop open any bottles of champagne. I'd say that odds are high-to-skyhigh that—should immigration reform go anywhere—gay and lesbian couples and families will be thrown overboard at the last minute. Again.

UPDATE: That didn't take long: Child Rape Inc. is already bitching about gay families being included in immigration reform:

Could the Democrats' newly proposed immigration reform "framework" be undermined by a single sentence that offers same-sex couples the same family-reunification status as traditional married couples? Already, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is out with a statement highlighting the issue. The Bishops' committee on migration, headed by Bishop of Salt Lake City John Wester, begins and ends by stressing the value and urgency of reform and how it could affirm human rights and dignity. But their support is tempered by caveats...

You'll never guess what their biggest caveat is:

While we support the general direction of the framework, including a legalization of the undocumented and improvements to our employment and family-based immigration systems, we strongly oppose extending marriage-like immigration benefits to same-sex relationships. This proposal threatens to undermine the opportunity to bring together the Congress and the American people around a common solution to the important challenge of immigration reform.

Gay couples are going to be dropped from immigration reform quicker than you can say "altar boys with anal fissures."

UPDATE 2: One more time!

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Death / Design RIP Leslie Buck

Posted by Mary Traverse on Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 3:09 PM

Leslie Buck, designer of the iconic "Anthora" coffee cup, has died at age 87.

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City Not His Preferred Alternative: The Mayor's Response to Gregoire's 520 Bridge Plan

Posted by Unpaid Intern on Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 2:58 PM

Not causing a mayoral railgasm.

Posted by news intern Erika Broad

At Mike McGinn’s late-afternoon press conference yesterday, held in response to Gov. Christine Gregoire's proposed preferred alternative for the new 520 bridge, the mayor stressed the importance of keeping the future in mind.

“This is a 75 to a 100 year project and it’s important to take the time to get it right,” McGinn said. “The governor says that the new plan is ‘light rail ready,’ and it is not.”

McGinn noted that in the past, the decision that a project was “light rail ready” has been made too hastily, and the city has had to suffer the consequences. (He was presumably referring to the downtown bus tunnel debacle, when the wrong type of "light rail ready" rail was installed and had to be ripped out later.) He does not want to make the same mistake with the 520 bridge, which is why he feels that waiting “a year or longer” to perfect the plan and work out the kinks is worth it. Although McGinn reiterated several times how “appreciative” he was about the way the Washington State Department of Transportation and the governor worked on the design, and said his office would continue to be “as collaborative as they can,” he is not happy with the preferred alternative as is.

“More work needs to be done,” McGinn stated. “We are not well-served in saying that all the work has been done.”

McGinn's concerns with Gregoire’s "preferred alternative" are in three major areas: The project is not light rail ready from the start; he's not satisfied that questions about the protection of natural areas have been resolved; and he's still worried about the impact a new six-lane highway will have on the Montlake neighborhood.

When asked if he was willing to compromise in any of these three areas in order to move things along, McGinn remained firm:

“There’s still work to be done," he said. "I believe there is still time for us to do more work and make changes to the plan. Again, I think this is evidence that if you dig in and start looking at alternatives you can make changes. I don’t think this is an issue of who’s willing to compromise. I think this is more an issue building the best bridge for our future.”

McGinn then shifted his attention to a new policy that limits travel expenses, training, and out-of-state conferences for city officials. The directive mandates that “travel outside city limits should be carefully evaluated for the benefit provided to the city and should be restricted wherever possible.” It prohibits travel by city employees outside the state without written approval from the Mayor’s Office (the Mayor expressed his surprise that such a policy wasn’t already in place). He confirmed that the policy change was prompted by (now ex-) Seattle Parks Superintendent Tim Gallagher’s high-profile, tax-payer-funded trip to Australia for a conference this month. The mayor explained that the new directive is addressing the need to avoid unnecessary expenses; it’s not a blanket ban on all travel.

When asked if it should instead be a blanket ban on travel to Arizona, the Mayor laughed.

“That is a wonderful plan,” he said, referring to his already-stated dislike for Arizona's controversial new anti-immigrant law. “I wouldn't travel to Arizona at the moment. Last night when I got home, my wife said to me, how was your day? And I said to her, 'I’m boycotting Arizona.' And she said, ‘How would anybody know?’"

Sounds like our commenters aren't the only ones who find McGinn's solo Arizona boycott a little underwhelming in terms of civic leadership.

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Visual Art YO YO YO! Joseph Ducreux!

Posted by Jen Graves on Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 2:54 PM

Do not do anything else with your life before you read this piece on The Awl, and follow it to this page on Know Your Meme, full o' macros and featuring this edumacational video:

(Tipster Craig: You equals yess.)

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Cats / Life This Is Me in Five Years

Posted by Lindy West on Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 2:40 PM

Just me and my sauna and my hot cats.

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Chow / Enviro Do People in New Orleans Really Need More Character-Building?

Posted by Bethany Jean Clement on Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 2:32 PM

Here's an article on how the oil slick might impact Louisiana fishermen, oystermen, restaurants, and eaters. Shrimpers are hurriedly harvesting shrimp that the oil's threatening to engulf, and the Coast Guard might try to burn off some of the oil before it hits shore. What a mess. All an oyster ever wanted to do was be an oyster.

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Books Slog Commenter Book Report: Enigma's Cavalcade of Comics

Posted by Paul Constant on Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 2:06 PM

At the last Slog Happy, Enigma says she "got a little greedy" and grabbed three comics. Here are her reviews. Any errors you may find are caused by me in the editing process, and they are not Enigma's fault.

Market Day by James Sturm

I have a hard time describing the experience of reading this book. It was a good story, the art was well done, but I feel like the format was working against it. This is a short read, maybe 20 minutes, and that’s what bothered me when I finished it.

I feel I came into the middle of a story, then was abandoned before the end. It’s an enjoyable read, just one that felt truncated in some way. I felt unfulfilled as I closed the book. Re-reading it to examine the artwork is a pleasant diversion on the bus, but it doesn’t grab you so much you’d come back to it on a lazy Saturday. (Which is my personal criteria for recommending a comic.) I don’t want to not recommend Market Day, because it’s nice, but it's not something I have a great desire to add to my collection.

Other Lives by Peter Bagge

This book came out too late. It feels like it was set in the dying days of the Bush administration. The specter of surveillance and the new fad of Second Life taking center stage in this story of four fucked-up 30-somethings. And oh is everyone full of fucked-upedness. There’s Otis, a paranoid schizophrenic who “works” for the government; Vader, a writer who can’t get over his daddy issues; Woodrow, a leering jackass and gambling addict; and finally Ivy, a needy and confused girl. Ivy doesn’t get as much of a motivation as the three guys, it feels likes she’s just there to cause conflict between a Vader and Woodrow. None of these are people you would want to get to know, and it doesn’t seem like any of them really like each other.

Even with the unappealing characters, I would recommend this for anyone who enjoys comics. The art isn’t the style I typically pick up at the store. Very reminiscent of Crumb, which turns me off with its over-realistic/unrealistic style. But being a free book from Slog Happy I wanted to stretch my comfort level and I was rewarded for it by a thoughtful, if simplistic story. The epilogue saved the story from being a nihilistic tract, and I think that’s the only reason I feel comfortable with it. I don’t need a happy ending, but some hope for the future is welcome.

The Chill by Jason Starr

A little noir style brain candy for your rainy evening, The Chill takes us from Ireland and an ancient Druid legacy to the gritty streets of New York and the corruption of that legacy. A father/daughter serial killer team is terrorizing the city and it’s up to an old cop from Boston to stop them, the man that just so happens to have been there when the daughter’s powers first awoke.
Lots of sex and blood to keep you entertained, plus a little Celtic history thrown in to make it interesting. A fun and quick read.

Thanks, Enigma, for the reviews. Hopefully, she'll bring those comics to a future Slog Happy so the books can get another go-round. If any of these sound like something you'd like to own, you should head out to a comics shop tomorrow for Free Comic Book Day. You'll leave with an Enigma-approved comic, plus a bonus comic or two for free.

And if you've read a Slog Happy book, be sure to send me your review.

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Housekeeping Gold Star Comment

Posted by David Schmader on Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 2:04 PM

Added to my post about the Better Marriage Blanket, by commenter ams:

I am not looking forward to when these find their way onto the garage-sale circuit. "Half price. Haunted with 5 years of farts"

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Politics May Day Rally In Support of Progressive Immigration Reform

Posted by Jake Blumgart on Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 1:46 PM

Tomorrow is May Day, the internationally recognized labor holiday that is celebrated almost everywhere, except in the United States—where it originated.

But in recent years May Day has been rehabilitated in the U.S. as a day for political action of behalf of immigrant rights. In 2006, millions of people poured into the streets to express solidarity with immigrants and support humane immigration reform. Since then the cause hasn’t attracted the attentions of the mainstream media or the Obama Administration, which has had its hands full with the financial crisis, health care reform, and a superannuated Senate that refuses to deal with more than one major issue at a time.

After a year of disappointment, organizers hope their actions tomorrow will re-focus attention on the issue. Galvanized by the passage of Arizona’s draconian anti-immigrant (and just plain anti-Hispanic) law earlier this month, mass rallies and marches are being planned in cities across the country, including Seattle. (To find the one closest to you check out Reform Immigration For America’s “Find A March” page, which has almost one hundred actions listed.)

Wherever you are, you should join them. This Arizona law is simply unconscionable, and the state legislature has plans to go even further. Other states are thinking of emulating it, including such reactionary stalwarts as Oklahoma. Marching isn’t the only way to make your voice heard (donating to those organizations involved in the lawsuit against Arizona couldn’t hurt). But the media’s eye is finally re-focused on immigration (thanks, Harry Reid!) and it will be important to get as many feet on the ground as possible. Supporters have to show that this issue has legs.

The Seattle march will begin tomorrow at noon in Judkins Park (2150 S Norman Street) and will end at Memorial Stadium in the Seattle Center.

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Questionland "Are There Third Pronouns in Foreign Languages?"

Posted by Megan Seling on Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 1:44 PM

Missy Sturtevant had a very good question in Questionland earlier this week: "What do genderqueer folks do with languages like Spanish, German, etc. that use gender in adjectives and pronouns?"

Turns out holmgren is some kind of word expert or something—just look at this answer full of information that kind of makes my head spin:

In similar fashion to ze/zie/sie and zir/hir in English, the Dutch queer community uses "zhij", a cross of zij (she) and hij (he), and "zhaar", a cross of haar (her) and hem (him).

The poor German language is truly encased, and I mean that literally. Every word in a sentence reflects and is dependent on the case, number, and grammatical gender of the subject — and there are three: feminine, masculine, and neuter. Perceived gender identity doesn't necessarily correspond to grammatical gender (e.g. "Mädchen", German for "girl", is neuter not feminine because of the diminutive "-chen" suffix, effectively meaning that all little girls are referred to as "it".) There is no movement in the queer community that I'm aware of to use a non-gendered pronoun whether existing or created. Right now German is still fighting for more common use of inclusive nouns — like firefighter instead of fireman/firewoman or flight attendant instead of steward/stewardess. But it's a challenge; the structure of the language doesn't make it easy.

Along with Finnish, Hungarian has no grammatical gender. The pronouns are all genderless. It is impossible to decipher gender through grammar alone; one must enquire as to the subject's gender or gender identity.

As for Mandarin Chinese, when speaking the third person pronoun "ta" sounds exactly the same for he/she/it or (when combined with the pluralizing character) they. In modern writing, however, the characters are different and do in fact express gender with either a "man" radical/prefix-character or a "woman" radical/prefix-character or an "animal" radical/prefix-character.. or something else.

Whoa, right? Or maybe I'm just impressed because I can only remember exactly four words from two years worth of German and half of them are curse words. Anyway, holmgren's answer is this week's Answer of the Week! Both holmgren and Missy will receive a $25 gift card for Pagliacci Pizza.

Need some answers of your own? Remember that there are some really, really smart people in Questionland!

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Music / The Ladies Feminist Sympathizing For Dummies

Posted by Eric Grandy on Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 1:42 PM

Serious question: When writing about an all-female band, do you mention that they're all-female because being an all-female band is in itself a political, feminist act, or does mentioning that they're all-female just reinforce the idea that making music is mostly for men and that it's a curiosity or a novelty when a group of women do it?

Tell me to shut up over on Line Out!

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Film This Week in Film: No One Knows About Persian Cats

Posted by Lindy West on Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 1:36 PM

The music is "absolutely radical in context," says Eric Grandy:

If you think your band has a hard time here in Seattle—no money, crap shows, that damn idiot drummer—just be happy you don't live in Tehran. No One Knows About Persian Cats is the story—"based on real events, locations, and people"—of two young Iranian musicians, Negar (Negar Shaghaghi) and Ashkan (Ashkan Koshanejad), who want nothing more than to start an indie-rock band. They hope to play for their friends and family at home in Tehran, but they also want to travel abroad (Ashkan's dream is to someday go to Iceland and see Sigur Rós). Standing in their way is a theocratic dictatorship that requires all music to be approved in advance by the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance and that tightly controls access to passports and travel visas. At the film's outset, Negar and Ashkan are getting out of jail after having been arrested for playing a concert. $5 Cover: Seattle this is not.

Read and comment on the full review HERE.

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