While trolling through today's Floor Proceedings of the U.S. House of Representatives for our other job (it's an exciting one), we noticed something that will probably get no coverage anywhere else. However, we think it is important to note when Congress singles out one faith as important. We think it's doubly important to note when the vote is taken while Congress fights with the Bush Administration over funding the government for the next year, haggles......

The husband-and-wife team Over the Rhine [MySpace] play at the Triple Door at 7:30pm this Thursday and Friday, and both shows are already sold out -- SRO tickets will be on sale the nights of the shows. They're touring for their new album The Trumpet Child, which All Music Guide reviews thusly:Produced by Brad Jones and recorded in Nashville, the album's music is steeped in the other kind of Americana: not the gothic country one......

Kurt Vonnegut, up there with Twain and Melville and Kesey as the most original American novelists ever in the history of writing stuff, died tonight. He was 84. He'd been in the hospital since a fall a couple of weeks ago. Attention kids: this is what happens if you chain-smoke for 73 years. Based on our cursory search of local newspaper archives, Vonnegut's last local appearance would seem to be at Eastern Washington University's GET......

We wanted to get behind the direct action against Mars Hill because we too believe that Mark Driscoll is a woman-hating weirdo and it annoys us that he has such a huge congregation that seems to consider itself so punk rock. We kind of doubt that that they're particularly ill-informed on the issue of their pastor's attitudes towards women (uh, doesn't he speak directly to them every week?), but there's a chance that there are......

"Are you disappointed that more people aren't converting to atheism after seeing your show?" That (loosely paraphrased) was the question that kicked off Ira Glass' conversation with Julia Sweeney on Saturday night. "No. I'm not really that conceited," replied Sweeney. (Again, paraphrased. We did not smuggle in a recording device.) Glass got first billing Saturday night, but Sweeney was really the star of the show. After a brief pitch for funding from Ross Reynolds,......

ConWorks has been bringing some interesting acts into their renovated lobby/stage space. The diversity in the inaugural lineup is nothing short of impressive, ranging from jazz to electronic music, from those with followings to the more obscure. The primary issue thus far has seemed to stem from a strong lack of promotion. Perhaps the art crowd is in the know, but knowledge of this set of events has yet to really percolate into the public.......

Seattlest made it to the opening night of the new Negativland show at Consolidated Works Friday, February 17th. The email invite promised "wine and hors d'oeuvres," but all we could find were these tiny nut bowls of asian cracker mix with wasabi peas (yuck), and the wine was sparkling white (blech), but it was free so who's complaining? There were at least three rooms of Negativland related program activities we could find: The first gallery......