Seattle Graffiti by Seattlest Flickr photographer Grundlepuck Capitol Hill Seattle has found the answer to the "graffiti problem"--passive aggressive semi-anonymous notes. Because passive aggressiveness has worked so well at solving everything else in Seattle.If you like mojitos as much as we do, you might be tempted by this Belltowner post. Apparently, the failed Mojito Cafe is selling their big neon sign on Craigslist.Lights & Sirens brings us the sad and disturbing story of a Tacoma......

Hur Monster by Slightlynorth Another amazing shot of our fair city courtesy of everyone's favorite, Slightlynorth. Share your own pics with us via the Seattlest Flickr Pool.......

"Flock; Narboo Style" by Shawn McClung The keenly observant Slightlynorth and the prolific Narboo, both of whom make looking at this city infinitely more entertaining. Thanks for sharing, both of you!......

We had a laid-back, happy time at Dope Emporium on Saturday. It felt like a hiphop block party: a family affair with barbeque, a beer garden, and kids running around doing cute things like breakdancing. There even was a producers' battle from which MTK (of Himalayan Rickshaw Run fame) emerged triumphant. Check out some photos from the event, taken by Seattlest and Terry Creighton.......

"No Future" by Shawn McClung (Slightlynorth) Sure, he may work for our Distinguished Competition, but Shawn shares a generous number of excellent photos in our Flickr pool nonetheless. Most of them are almost as awesome as this photo, and most of them call attention to similar little-seen flourishes of detail that pop up across the city. Thanks!......

Seattlest is a big fan of graffiti, as long as it's not some silly kid tagging the side of someone's house. We like graffiti as art, we appreciate political statements writ large on sidewalks and the walls of abandoned buildings. We're not advocating anything, we're just saying. And now, the city is down one more fabulous graffiti mural. A kindly gentleman interested in saving this particular mural (near the Zoo, at 57th and Phinney)......

"I Broke All the Rules for You" by prima seadiva Even the one about talking about Fight Club? That's love. Or religious fervor. Or something. We're not sure what the rest of the story is, but that's our Flickr pool for you: chock full of mystery. Beauty and mystery. Check it out for yourself.......

Alley Man by lachance This slightly creepy, very awesome image was plucked from the always awesome Seattlest Flickr Pool - thanks for sharing!......

ART: New York graffiti artist Ghost a/k/a Cousin Frank has a show up at the BLVD Gallery. A pioneer who got started in the late 1970s, Ghost was on the ground for the NYC subway graffiti movement featured so prominently in Warriors. His stuff is instantly recognizable. If we end up walking by, we're heading in. 1-6 p.m. // BLVD Gallery, 2316 Second Avenue // FREE FILM: Now where did that cat Jonesy get......

There's some sort of primeval or subconscious part of our brains that remains fascinated with the potential magic of spaces we can't enter, whether it's down a rabbit hole, on the other side of a mirror, or the life of things within the walls of our home. The work of Dutch artist Femke Hiemstra, which goes on display at Roq la Rue tonight, captures that fascination with whimsy and wit. Her paintings demonstrate a miniaturist's......

The Woods Coffee Shop in Bellingham was victim to two insults this weekend--theft and vandals who didn't take the care to spell their message properly. Someone caused over a thousand dollars of damage, smashing in a tempered window and plate glass. Also left behind at the scene of the crime, some misspelled political graffiti. "Facsism (sic) begins with the sale of public space" was stenciled on two of the remaining windows. Police believe the......

"The soul of a city resides in its humanity, not its historic buildings. But those buildings serve to remind the changing cast of human characters what that soul is made of, and keep it from mutating beyond recognition." --Lawrence Cheek Architecture writer Lawrence Cheek writes in today's P-I about two historic properties--one landmarked and one not, respectively--that have been undergoing some creative adaptive reuses: Queen Anne High School and the old Rainier (Sick's) Brewery......

On Saturday night, we took one of our oldest and best friends to her very first hiphop show over at the Sunset in Ballard. She's typically more of a KT Tunstall/Garden State soundtrack kind of girl, and we had to bribe her with $2 mojitos at La Isla's late Happy Hour to get her to even leave the house after 9pm. Her feedback after three hours of Elefaders (trippy), N/NW (loud) and dj100proof's mixes?......

Seattlest attended the late-night Graffiti Rock beat battle at The Sunset on Saturday night, casually organized by P.U.S.H., primarily so we could remind ourselves what Ballard looks like. Ballard's doing fine, in case you haven't been there recently either, and djblesOne of Massive Monkees took home the battle's imaginary trophy somewhere around 2am; second place went to Sportn' Life DJ Nphared (interviewed by Seattlest here). Both of the finalists brought beautifully composed, rock-hard, trampoline-tight......

Slightlynorth has gone all Metblogs on us, but he still sends a little love our way. We love you too, man.......

Andrew Le, known further and wider as Nam, is one of those artists Seattlest's been seeing over and over again at most of the local hip-hop shows we attend; sometimes he even ends up on stage, making the performance bang that much harder. We emailed him questions, he emailed back answers. Why hip-hop? Why Hip Hop? Why not? Hip Hop is the one of the best ways for people to express themselves. I got into......

This company pissed us off with their graffiti-esque chalk attack advertising recently in Downtown Seattle, but as far as we know not much came of it. Well, an anti guerrilla advertising site was created, but to our knowledge the city of Seattle didn't hold the company responsible for all their visual litter. It's a different story in Bellevue, though. The city to the East is apparently less tolerant of this job site's hyper-aggressive marketing schtick,......

We're starting to think that it's not just the Wedgwood Safeway that's a bit odd. We've started coming to the conclusion that it may the whole dam neighborhood. On a recent walk to our local PCC (which, for the record, is also odd in that it is ridiculously small for a liberal neighborhood with as much disposable income as this one seems to have) we spied the graffiti pictured here. We have to admit that......

Holy smokes! Giant fish on the MTA, Paris Hilton in jail, then out, then in again, Al Gore, goatses, blumpkins, Matt Damon, and baby art critics! It's been a busy week across the Ist-A-Verse, and here's a smattering of what's been going on. In Gothamist's neck of the woods, they found out that many things are possible: A man caught a 40+ pound fish off the Rockaways and took it home on the subway. Graffiti......

Seattlest has a talk with the photographer from last week's "Segway Mom" and then experiences some dissension in the ranks over the question of wine vs. beer. It's not West Side Story, but about as close as they'll get. They're also still waiting on some inbox relief after a spammer is arrested. As Chicagoist counts down the days to its third anniversary party, they found all-organic pizza to be underwhelming amidst the hoopla, tried......

Neon Graffiti by ReeBeckiSupergirl, one of the SoGreatAwesome pics you can find in the Seattlest Flickr Pool.......

Monday PREQUEL TO MCARTNEY'S WINGS: Richie Unterberger, the author of several books on the history of rock, shows some film footage and plays some music recordings of unreleased Beatles material. He´s promoting his latest book, The Unreleased Beatles -- Music and Film. We had no idea they were in jail! (Ha! Because of the "unreleased" -- see how...oh...sure, we can move on.) 7pm // Seattle Central Public Library Microsoft Auditorium // FREE GARDENING AT......

We used to love Spacecraft, or the party we formerly called Snowcat. You know the one: stickers that resemble a treaded, heavy-duty machine to traverse snow. Long before we saw stickers --sometime about 3 or so years ago-- we first started running into stenciled, painted pieces. Not having much more to go on, we called the work/artist "Snowcat". The stencil-work itself was visually crude simply because the stencil was reproduced numerous times in a......

Austinist gets arty with an interactive guide to SXSW, loved some local art galleries and a new art exhibit and lamented the possible loss of "Friday Night Lights" production to New Mexico. Bostonist was happy they finally found an Anna Nicole Smith connection to their fair city and that an Apple Store was opening up. They were less happy that new rules have been established limiting underage shows and that their Governor is spending......

We'd like to start this week's run-down by wishing a very happy birthday to parent blog Gothamist, which turned four on Friday. If it wasn't for them, the rest of us wouldn't be here. They celebrated their birthday by nabbing an interview with Entourage star Adrian Grenier, who misses NYC public transportation when he's working in LA. They also reported on NYU students protesting a band whose name is also known as a slur,......

This is a gift for our would-be Portlandist readers. Upper Playground earlier this year teamed up with gallery Fifty24SF to compile a DVD introducing the world to a variety of urban contemporary artists. The Run Up profiles 27 of today's hottest artists, with heavy leanings on traditional street art (think graffiti), but incorporating other disciplines as well. We realize that we mention our love for Seattle's home for urban contemporary art BLVD on a pretty......

This past weekend Seattlest visited Gothamist's stomping grounds. We were there for the farewell shows of Rainer Maria, but had our days free to see the sights and take in the New York experience. We stumbled upon a once-in-a-lifetime event in the world of street art, and amazing as it was, we couldn't help but to be struck by what lessons it could have for Seattle. The building at 11 Spring Street was a......

MUSIC: Criminally underrated British singer-songwriter Jim Noir delivers his psych-pop twice tonight: first an acoustic set at Sonic Boom in Ballard, and then rocking out at the Croc as part of the Sub Pop/Barsuk Winter Celebration and Holiday Party Extravaganza. 6pm // Sonic Boom Ballard // Free 8pm // Croc // $10 SINGIN': Have a very piratey Christmas at this month's Northwest Seaport sing-along, full of shanties and featuring a recitation of "A Visit from......

--Expect to share I-5 with military vehicles this week. --This guy isn't into being frisked by a homosexual man. --Darwin caused the Columbine shootings. --Lookout Landing on the newest Mariner: "I imagine a party with Jose Guillen involves Tecate by the gallon, militant graffiti, and at least one guy getting stabbed." --Maybe the Mariners do have a chance at signing Barry Zito! --Rain City Real Estate Guide gleaned some lessons from the collapse of......

The Scion film series comes to an end Tuesday night at the Harvard Exit with Pablo Aravena's graffiti documentary Next: A Primer on Urban Painting, featuring interviews with the likes of Futura, Lee Quiñones and Doze Green, as well as younger art collectives like the Inkheads, the Barnstormers and Heavyweight. Apparently Aravena scoured the globe, talked to like-minded artists from North and South America, Europe, and Japan, and collected an oral history that traces......