We're observing Slog silence from now until 11 a.m. while we have an editorial meeting, but look—we made an entire paper's worth of stuff for you! Here's what Din Tindleson has to say.

Have you read Never Heard of 'Em by Anna Minard this week? WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?

Back, after a brief break, to the spirit of this column: I really have never heard of Love (ha-ha, cue sad spinster joke). Grant handed me this CD, and I didn't even know which was the album title and which was the band name. But the cover is great! Look at it! It's like a trippy coloring-book page.

I know it's funnier when I hate everything, but I loved this album from the very first second I pressed play. That doesn't mean I know what this genre is called1, or what year this is from2, or what the music nerds say about it3, but the first track, "Alone Again Or," pretty much sounds like a young version of your dad hanging out in a field with his best friend, his VW bug parked nearby with an acoustic guitar lashed to the front bumper. It sounds like honey and tall grass, and also right away there is so much TRUMPET! I love trumpets!

Read the whole thing here >>

It has been moved to its proper place. Goldy has not been around long enough to get away with what certain other members of staff who shall remain nameless (*cough* Dan Savage) get away with.

Last summer, I finished principal photography on my debut feature film, The Killist, about a Starbucks barista and trivia host named Vegas who's also a secret hit man. Vegas's pop-culture-savvy wit and prowess as an assassin are as sharp (and deadly) as the cut of his suit. To say that I was proud of The Killist would be an understatement: For less than $30,000, I produced, scripted, directed, lit, and created the SFX for a motion picture that, in my humble opinion, could stand up to any Hollywood product. People I showed the movie to compared it to Tarantino, Spielberg, and Scorsese. I completely agree. And it is no exaggeration to say that my childhood friend Eddie Blunt, making his big-screen debut as Vegas, is the next Matthew McConaughey. He falls in love with his target—a stripper played by my girlfriend, Deena Thompson. In the tour-de-force third act, Vegas has to decide between being a good company man or telling the whole system to go fuck itself.

Since the Seattle International Film Festival brags about being the biggest film festival in the country, I had high hopes when I submitted the film to SIFF for consideration last November. But then we got a rejection slip from SIFF in the mail, and it's like, what the fuck? I sent an e-mail to The Stranger about how they should do a feature on SIFF's bullshit standards, and they wrote back that they were "actually excited" about SIFF this year because there are "more quality films than usual." That's such complete horseshit I don't even know where to start. When I asked them to review The Killist, they never responded.

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TO: The Stranger
1535 11th Avenue
Third Floor
Seattle, WA 98122

YOU ARE HEREBY COMMANDED to appear at Seattle Police Department (SPD) – Headquarters, 610 Fifth Avenue, P.O. Box 34986, Seattle, WA 98124, on May 9, 2012, at the hour of 9:00 a.m., and bring with you the following record(s):

1. Materials (cassette tapes, notebooks, journals) employed in the production of BRENDAN KILEY's article "Anarchy Is Boring." Mr. Kiley alludes to a Greek anarchist who applied electrodes to his scalp. Please provide the legal name and current whereabouts of that individual. In addition, please provide legal names and contact information for the following individuals mentioned in the article: "punk rockers," "radical hippies," and "romantic young men at house parties." Additionally, Mr. Kiley makes reference to "100 people wearing black clothes and bandannas over their faces." Please provide an alphabetized list of contact information and known aliases for those 100 people.

2. Materials (paintbrushes, reference texts, hamburger wrappers) in reference to "The Devil Eats at Dick's" by DEREK ERDMAN. In his article about an artist by the name of Darryl Ary, Mr. Erdman refers to two known socialist provocateurs (one Salvador DalÍ and one Pablo Picasso). Mr. Erdman shall supply any further information on the ties between the Socialist Party and Mr. Ary.

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A NOTE TO OUR READERS: As you have undoubtedly heard, The Stranger's public editor, A. Birch Steen, passed away two weeks ago. Along with a tremendous outpouring of cards, flowers, and supportive notes, the offices have been deluged with applicants for the public editor position. Here's this week's candidate.

The Stranger? Who cares? I guess when I was a kid, I thought it was kind of funny or something, but now they're the biggest corporate sellouts, like, ever. Look, I'm blowing down to Portland right now (the pigs are on to me after an action I was part of at the General Strike), but I guess I have a minute to speak truth to power.

It's kind of sad to think that The Stranger was on the fringe of society at one point, because they're such running dog lackeys now. I guess sometimes CHARLES MUDEDE is kind of cool—at least he writes about Marxism—but he spends way too much time talking about things that don't matter, like science books by white guys. He's like the token black dude and the token socialist all rolled into one, which is, like, big whoop for you.

Instead of reviewing real films—I haven't seen one mention of Occupy: The Movie in The Stranger, ever—they waste time on Disneyfied shit like The Avengers and other opiates for the sheeple. All the arts coverage is super-boring crap about the kind of airport-friendly pabulum you'd find in, like, Kansas or something. Where's the coverage of Seattle's spoken-word scene? That's where the truth is coming from now. Why isn't the visual art section all about street art by now? That is the real art of the people, but JEN GRAVES is still dicking around in museums—or worse, galleries that show street art, as if that makes any fucking sense. She's like some washed-up old peacock, driving up the value on the academic-industrial-complex-funded "fine arts" bourgeois galleries that are gentrifying the good neighborhoods around town, social justice be damned.

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Kristian Hammond, co-founder of algorithm journalism company Narrative Science, predicts it will happen within five years. Even if he's wrong, it's only a matter of time:

Every 30 seconds or so, the algorithmic bull pen of Narrative Science, a 30-person company occupying a large room on the fringes of the Chicago Loop, extrudes a story whose very byline is a question of philosophical inquiry. The computer-written product could be a pennant-waving second-half update of a Big Ten basketball contest, a sober preview of a corporate earnings statement, or a blithe summary of the presidential horse race drawn from Twitter posts. The articles run on the websites of respected publishers like Forbes, as well as other Internet media powers (many of which are keeping their identities private). Niche news services hire Narrative Science to write updates for their subscribers, be they sports fans, small-cap investors, or fast-food franchise owners.

And the articles don’t read like robots wrote them.

... Hammond believes that as Narrative Science grows, its stories will go higher up the journalism food chain—from commodity news to explanatory journalism and, ultimately, detailed long-form articles. Maybe at some point, humans and algorithms will collaborate, with each partner playing to its strength. Computers, with their flawless memories and ability to access data, might act as legmen to human writers. Or vice versa, human reporters might interview subjects and pick up stray details—and then send them to a computer that writes it all up. As the computers get more accomplished and have access to more and more data, their limitations as storytellers will fall away. It might take a while, but eventually even a story like this one could be produced without, well, me. “Humans are unbelievably rich and complex, but they are machines,” Hammond says. “In 20 years, there will be no area in which Narrative Science doesn’t write stories.”

I'm trying to imagine the kind of computer it would take to replace our team of Stranger writers. I'm thinking a '95 Macintosh Color Classic II sitting in a pool of bong water and covered in "Fuck the Police" and peeling Obama stickers. It would be programmed to hate men on the weekends (for a feminine touch). And instead of analyzing sports games or financial reports, it would use its algorithms to predict the outcomes of porn.

Hat tip yelahneb.

Here's what we need: Someone who's interested in state politics, is organized and a meticulous researcher, and is eager to schedule endorsement interviews for the Stranger Election Control Board. We also need someone who doesn't mind going to the odd evening meeting and reporting back. The internship lasts for three months; we're looking for someone to start sometime in May.

Interns enjoy all-you-can-eat pizza parties and the chance to write. Our news intern compiles various news roundups, the odd city post, and the Morning News for Slog on the weekends, so please be a functional drinker or a teetotaling Mormon (we don't discriminate when it comes to free help).

Qualified candidates are available at least three days a week between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., and can appreciate Goldy's love of rhetorical rants, help Eli polish his various awards, enjoy Dominic's love of show tunes (for he will serenade you), and respect my need for womyn's tyme.

Please send your resume, writing samples, and a brief introductory statement to news@thestranger.com.

"Once upon a time, it meant something for a reporter to be called a 'Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist,'" Brent Bozell scribbles in the opening of his latest column for Newsbusters. It didn't take long for him to turn those gorgeous, steely eyes our way:

The Pulitzer judges even bestowed an imprimatur on The Stranger, a Seattle alternative weekly rag edited for six years by radical sex columnist Dan Savage. Eli Sanders won the Feature Writing category for a story on a horrific local double-rape of two lesbians, one of whom was stabbed to death.

The Stranger staff’s reaction to the Pulitzer wasn’t solemn. Big surprise, that. Their website quickly added “Winner of the Pulitzer Prize” like a slogan and asked on their blog, “Hey, Eli: Is that a Pulitzer Prize in your pocket, or are you just happy to see us?” Unless I miss my guess, this is the first Pulitzer Prize for a newspaper that also operates an annual home-video pornography competition (called the Hump! Festival).

And so I'd like to say to Mr. Bozell: We have a Public Editor slot open, and we're holding tryouts right now. I think you'd be perfect for the job. Give us a call!

A NOTE TO OUR READERS: Last week, The Stranger's public editor for more than a decade, A. Birch Steen, passed away unexpectedly. Along with a tremendous outpouring of cards, flowers, and supportive notes, The Stranger's offices have been deluged with applicants for the public editor position. For the next few weeks, we are publishing sample columns by several prospective replacements. This week's candidate is Carlotta Abernathy, an activist and mom.

Let me start by saying that what happened to A. Birch Steen is a great loss to our community, but that the Lord works in mysterious ways, and Mr. Steen has passed on to a place where he is needed more than here. We at the Concerned Moms of Seattle appreciated his valiant efforts to counteract the objectionable content of The Stranger and have been praying for guidance about whether to accept The Stranger's offer to fill in for him, based on our "independent, outside voice." In the Bible, it says you should "Read Unto the Sinner for to Know His Sins" (Dr. Bonner's Abridged Sunset New American West Zone 2 Bible Almanac), but as a Christian, I am not comfortable judging other people, and I wouldn't do it at all, except I was just appointed chairwoman of our group's Prayer Lair. This is where we identify an evil, study it, and pray it out of existence. Coincidentally, a few days ago, I caught my son, Newel, hunched over a copy of The Stranger. Though he denies that it has turned him gay, when caught, his deflating demon spike was clearly pointing at a column by DAN SAVAGE.

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In 1972, the Pulitzer Prize committee saw fit to tarnish its good name by bestowing its honor upon Mormon huckster Jack Anderson, whose acts of journalistic treason deliberately placed American soldiers in harm’s way. This week, the committee added another blemish to the hunk of metal bearing Joe Pulitzer’s good name by awarding The Stranger with an award of its own.

To be fair, the award’s named recipient, ELI SANDERS, is by all accounts worthy of the recognition, for his June 2011 story about a brutal home invasion/sexual assault/burglary in the godforsaken neighborhood of South Park was indeed excellent journalism, a rare blast of compassion—and sobriety—for a scribbler whose archives are littered with assaults on both grammar and common decency. I therefore tip my hat to him and plead that he remembers the sense of honor that accompanies such common decency the next time he breaks out his pen.

Still and all, the fact that this besotted heap of dangerous pulp can now claim it has “won” a Pulitzer is a ghastly prospect. Like Anderson, who was legitimized by the committee for his decade-long blitzkrieg on the honorable Richard Nixon, the name The Stranger now salts hallowed journalistic ground. The thought of all the crowing that is to come—the parading around at the impending Pulitzer luncheon, the inevitable jacking up of advertisement prices, the false impression that readers around the country will be under about the goals and mores of The Stranger—gives me a headache so prodigious I lack the vocabulary to describe it.

There is a bright spot to be found in this week’s shameful events...

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As you may have noticed, comments aren't working. There are some server issues—"the facility that hosts our servers (and many many others) lost power," we're told—but tech-savvy, at-risk youth are on the case.

Meanwhile, please consider the following: Pit bulls, Iraq War, Critical Mass, monorail, the Monkees, vaginas, foie gras, tipping, and Lisa Dank.

The issue opens with a series of febrile letters from first-time readers saddened and offended by the fey scribblings of ADRIAN RYAN. Like many homosexuals, Mr. Ryan has death and disease at the forefront of his thoughts, but individuals who have never read The Stranger might not detect the telltale lilt. Rather than make things plain and apologize to these mourning Monkees fans—many of whom are from the Midwest, and all of whom encountered Mr. Ryan's commentary out of context and on the internet—The Stranger has chosen instead to showcase these letters, ignorant of Mr. Ryan's sexual preoccupations though they may be. Why explain things to an upset reader when you can just dance them around for the amusement of the loyal local audience before mocking them even further? The page that follows the letters contains a column entitled "Infuriate a Monkees Fan!" that is disgusting in its glee.

Typing the above paragraph allowed me to imagine for a moment the unbridled pleasure of being a person from the Midwest who has never read The Stranger. Imagine the productive lives such people enjoy. One such individual, a state representative in Iowa, had the misfortune of answering his telephone when BRENDAN KILEY called to interview him for a "serious" article this week. The topic: a new intoxicant that can be used to wean drug addicts off other intoxicants. Mr. Kiley's love of drugs is well documented, but again, only if you're a Stranger reader, and the good legislator's unwillingness to play along with Mr. Kiley's charade—prohibition is always wrong! Heroin for everybody!—results in the legislator coming across poorly. How surprising.

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Aside from a "Sexual Relations for Procreative Purposes" issue, The Stranger's unlikeliest themed issue is a fashion issue. Several Stranger scribblers (GRANT BRISSEY and BRENDAN KILEY) appear to own, at best, one and a half shirts between them. Others (CIENNA MADRID and JEN GRAVES) cannot manage to keep their genitals on the inside of their outfits. Still others (PAUL CONSTANT) manage to cram every pendulous lobe of their enormous bodies inside clothing fit for children—cartoon characters smeared across their T-shirts, food encrusted on their tattered dungarees, topped off with thrift-store running sneakers that have never once seen even a caricature of strenuous physical activity.

I do not have any idea how this MARTI JONJAK who wrote this week's fashion feature dresses, but if she pens columns for The Stranger, I assure you that her taste in fashion is not to be trusted. I presume an inspection of her closet—if she does, in fact, own a closet and does not currently "squat" in someone's "lean-to"—would find not a single, solitary item of any value. How could she afford any, on a Stranger paycheck?

And for that matter, why would a recommendation from loaf-happy gadabout TRENT MOORMAN inspire you to listen to a musical group that decided, for some unknown reason, to name itself "Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band"? The last time Mr. Moorman's brain was not sopping wet with rye was in 1997, and I have it on good authority that that was because he was imprisoned.

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Like a bolt from the blue, The Stranger this week births an entirely new publication entitled A&P. Given the near-permanent lacuna of information I'm kept in, this came as a surprise. I discovered A&P the way everyone else will: It slid out of my copy of The Stranger and into my breakfast, nearly puncturing a poached egg.

The real surprise is the evident good faith, restraint, and high-mindedness that went into A&P, which according to the fine print is short for Seattle Art & Performance Quarterly. The masthead has a few august names on it, including opera editor REBECCA BROWN (smart move), poetry editor HEATHER McHUGH (an even smarter move), and fiction contributor SHERMAN ALEXIE (you can't win them all). Whereas The Stranger is a weekly pastiche of pro-drug, neo-"punk" propaganda doused in a homosexual glow and then urinated upon, A&P feels like the work of writers and critics who would like you to take them seriously. Such determined striving comes across as ridiculous within the context of The Stranger—I love to imagine the facial expressions JEN GRAVES makes while writing about "important" art exhibitions—but within the context of a quarterly publication that lacks Savage Love, Drunk of the Week, and lurid adult advertising, Ms. Graves's work can be seen in a new light. Her essay on a Seattle artist's foray into overt feminist intention, coupled with a visual aid illustrating nine other notorious feminist artworks, is rather edifying. And no, I cannot believe I just typed that, either.

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For the last six weeks, I have not read The Stranger—call it a sabbatical, or a preserver of sanity, or whatever you like. Instead, I began reading the Seattle Times again. And may I say: Hallelujah! The effect is like that of spending six months in some squalid foreign land and then at last having a lengthy, agreeable conversation with a native-born American about, say, the idiocies of the death tax.

But for every moment of pleasure I take from reading the Blethens' storied publication, three inferior intellects are led astray by the chronically stoned mop-tops at The Stranger. My job here as the single glimmer of reason is too important to ignore any longer. And so I speak to the indigent, to the borderline illiterates, to the reprobates and to the deviants: Right-thinking has returned to The Stranger once more, and I will continue my sworn duty of standing athwart this foul-mouthed publication, yelling "Stop" in your name. You will thank me later, when you own a house and a car and have something to offer society.

And what a week I have chosen to redouble my efforts as the voice for the voiceless: ELI SANDERS, the faithful mouthpiece of the Washington State Democratic Party Machine, inquires rhetorically and at length about the whereabouts of gubernatorial candidate Jay Inslee. This is the first of what will doubtless be a dozen Sanders-penned profiles of Inslee between now and the election in November in a failed attempt to sink the campaign of Republican Rob McKenna, who is far and away the clear favorite in this fight.

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Rock-and-Roll Survival Guide! With tips on how to make a living, how to tour without killing your bandmates, how to win a Grammy and not become a tool! Also: A mucus wall!

And:

Bye Bye: Lindy West on Seven Years at The Stranger

Breakfast: Five New Brunch Spots

News: The GOP vs. the Disabled

Theater: A Gorgeously Brutal New Play by Keri Healey

See EVERYTHING here!

Drugs! You'll never guess who's against the campaign to legalize marijuana.

Music! Sub Pop rescues some Aussies from obscurity.

Film! Jen Graves profiles the director of Undefeated.

New Column! Is Sherman Alexie a creep?

News! GOP hijacks Olympia!

And SO MUCH MORE!

Anna Minard, the latest addition to the Stranger's editorial gaggle, has never heard any music aside from Richard Marx and Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. Thus, starting today and following every Wednesday, we present Never Heard of 'Em, in which we force her to listen to and write her impressions about random records by artists considered to be important by music nerds. This week: Suicide's first record!

Blonde Ambition
25-year-old rapper Katie Kate makes all her own beats. Do you realize how rare that is?

Plan B
Pharmacists Flout Judge's Ruling

Fran L
Ms. Lebowitz Answers Questions

Effin' A
Tilda Swinton's Cinematic Birth Control

Also: A fashion contest! Drunk of the Week! An interview with Andrew W.K.! And SO MUCH MORE.

Enjoy. Slog will return at 11 am.

White Man's Book Does Justice to Black Power Music: Pat Thomas's Listen, Whitey! Is History at Its Grooviest*
by DAVE SEGAL

Rap Urbanism: J. Pinder Finds His Place in Urban Hiphop
by CHARLES MUDEDE

Veteran of Disorder: Jennifer Herrema Switches Gears (Sort of) with Black Bananas
by GRANT BRISSEY

Things You're Not Supposed to Hear: Whitney Ballen's Debut Album Is Telling Everyone's Secrets
by MEGAN SELING

Sound Check: Trent Moorman and Benjamin Thomas-Kennedy Go to the Ballet
by TRENT MOORMAN

Granted: The West Launch Party in West Seattle
by GRANT BRISSEY

Up & Coming | Chuckletown | Data Breaker | The Homosexual Agenda | Underage | Poster of the Week | My Philosophy

* Already populated with White Supremacist comments