Soon to Be On the Boards: Stranger Genius Award-winning contemporary performance center On the Boards has just announced its 2014-15 subscription series. Among the offerings: new work from venerable NYC theater artist Richard Maxwell, Detroit's "interactive theater" collective Complex Movements, and Berlin's beloved multimedia theater makers Gob Squad, plus new shows by local artists Amy O'Neal, Erin Jorgensen, Kate Wallich, and Ahamefule Oluo.

Reasons Why Not: The first post from the new Seattle City of Literature site begins with a down note: "We’re not going to get designated a UNESCO City of Literature in 2014," Ryan Boudinot says in a letter. It gets way more positive from there.

They're Coming for Our Jobs: Eight critics in training—you read right: eight—reviewed the Miro show up at Seattle Art Museum now. They’re in TeenTix, a program that gets five-buck tickets for teens for just about any arts performance or event in the city, and asks them to develop the skills to respond in depth. Hattie S. writes, “As pertaining to the sculptures, the lighting is such that you can see shadows, which creates incredible depth and a more natural viewing perspective. Almost unnoticeable, the lights trained on the paintings are centered so that the outer corners of the walls are darker than the focal point.” Now I didn’t even notice that.

Teen Night at the Ballet: One of the things that really surprised some people when TeenTix got off the ground was how much teens love Pacific Northwest Ballet. They can't get enough of it. PNB has won several awards from TeenTix members and, according to TeenTix data, their students have bought between 98 and 514 tickets per show during the past two seasons. (Most popular: Romeo et Juliette. Runner up: Don Quixote.) Because PNB is run by sharp folks who realize that what every nonprofit arts organization needs to survive is a new generation of young, enthusiastic patrons, they're starting a "Teen Night"—no adults allowed. Next Wed, April 30 at 6 pm, patrons between the ages of 13 and 19 will, for $5, get "an exclusive preview of brand-new works" created by PNB company members as part of its Next Step showcase. Very smart, PNB. In fact, that's genius.

“Poverty is a punishment for the crime of living" Sarah Kendzior wrote this incisive, brutally honest look at minimum wage workers in America, and you should read it.

The Market Has Spoken: Elliott Bay Book Company has sold its entire batch of the economic book that's rocking America right now, Thomas Piketty's 700-page Capital In the 21st Century. But while you are waiting for the next batch to arrive, they recommend buying David Graeber's marvelous Debt: The First 5,000 Years and also Benjamin Kunkel's short Utopia or Bust, a book Charles Mudede found under his desk this afternoon and plans to read some time this week. Amazon also sold all of its copies of Capital. It seems lots of people are eager to read about how the rich own almost everything, the middle class just a bit, and the poor nothing.

Meet Your Biggest Inspiration: Young sculptors in Seattle, here’s a father figure you may not have known you had: Robert Maki made abstract works in the 1960s (and beyond) that novelist Tom Robbins, then writing art criticism for Art in America, declared to be “the most original sculpture output the Northwest has yet seen.” Robbins described things this way: “Although Maki is much more economical than Frank Stella, he sets up almost as many literal-allusional contradictions, cancellations and playful dialogues. If Maki is not in the front ranks of America’s abstract illusionists, he is hard on their heels.” Maki may not have become the next Frank Stella, but he is a relative of such fine artists here as Mark Calderon and Peter Millett, and he’s still represented by Prographica. If you’re at all interested in sculpture, abstraction, or Northwest art, you probably don’t want to miss the new exhibition of his works from between 1966 to 1969 at Bellevue College.

YouTube Just Got Better: Pathé has always had a pretty cool YouTube channel, but now they've made it a million times better: They've uploaded 85,000 films demonstrating historical, slice-of-life, and news footage ranging from 1896 to 1976. Go check it out.

Netflix Prices: Going up. Visit your local video store tonight.