Results tagged “history”

THE CHILDREN ARE OUR RALLY: Friends of Children’s Hospital, your friendly neighborhood Fearey Group-promoted advocacy group for Seattle Children's Hospital is taking it the steps of City Hall. The rally is to show support for Children's after Laurelhurst Community Club protested Children's proposed expansion and won the city hearing. Few moments in life offer the moral high ground of this rally, and it should be a great way to meet hot nurses and doctors. noon-1:30 p.m. // City Hall's west side steps, 600 4th Avenue // FREE

              

Who says we're making transportation progress? Eighty years ago, you could've joined other day-tripping Puget Sounders on a passenger train to Monte Cristo, then one of the area's leading tourist destinations. Now you have to hoof it. The rails are gone, and most of the town, too. But the gorgeous sights that drew your grandparents here remain.

It is our sad duty to report that the 50th St. Market, a Wallingford fixture since the Woodrow Wilson administration, has closed.

WTF, HISTORY?: It was George Santayana, if we recall, who issued the famous dictum about people who don't learn from history having to re-take it or something...honestly we weren't paying attention and apparently neither was anyone else, which is sort of the subject of historian Roger van Oosten's talk tonight at MOHAI: what are the differences and similarities between today and the Great Depression. And he should know, 'cause unlike all the journalists with their accursed similes, he actually studies the '30s and is a recognized expert on WPA art.

This American Life-r Sarah Vowell has written a new book, The Wordy Shipmates, which is the most readable history of New England Puritan thought you're likely to come across in your lifetime. It's a bit like reading the journal of a grad student who's doing their thesis on Puritan rhetoric--with all the marginal asides and musings left poignantly in. We emailed her a few questions, and she wrote back, double-spacing after periods, which extra space we edited out to save on pixels. If you have better questions, super-genius, she's in town on Monday, October 13, at Town Hall. Hie thee hence, why doncha.

"We Remember because They're Our Families" by Synapped

At the intersection of Sussex Avenue and Sheridan Street in Tenino, a small stone stands erect on the edge of a vacant lot, with the words "Old Oregon Trail 1845–53" etched in it. Many Oregon Trail markers exist, of course, many laid at the time the trail was blazed, others—like this one—laid later to commemorate the pioneers. But this one in Tenino happens to be special: This was the first one laid by Ezra Meeker.

   

At 4:45 a.m. Saturday morning, July 12th, 2,427 bicyclists set out from the Husky Stadium parking lot to make the 204.5-mile Group Health Seattle to Portland Classic in one day. Fifteen minutes before that, we were drowsily slumped over the steering wheel of our car, stuck in the traffic jam on NE 45th St. headed towards University Village. Around us, cyclists with enough foresight to their bikes to the event were zooming downhill, past the poor suckers who drove.

Guy Maddin films are not for everyone. With his love of silent film flourishes and his often bizarre sense of humor, Maddin can easily confound viewers. To wit: we have a good friend who lives and breathes cinema. He likes his films weird and dark and avant garde. But even he says of Maddin, "I just can't handle the guy."

Photo by Nils Geylen. Thanks!

This is the coolest collection of random, old Seattle photos we’ve ever stumbled upon while not working at work. For anyone who can’t imagine 3rd and Pine before crack, or the masochistic liberal who wants to marvel at a time when people would have paraded massive, old growth firs down the street in celebration, this is your time capsule.

Like anybody else, we appreciate the sentiment of the Presidents' Day long weekend--well, for those of us who have that day off or are able to take it. It provided us the perfect opportunity to temporarily ex-patriate ourselves and pump money into Canada's economy. That's what it's all aboot, anyway. This so-named Presidents' Day has become just a reason for the commercial sector to entice us with Fabulous Savings. Nobody thinks about Washington or Lincoln anymore, much less Millard Fillmore, say, or Grover Cleveland if we are to buy into this doubletalk about the inclusivity of the day. But--ZOMG--holy crap! Fry's has HDTVs on sale!

Absurdistan is an allegorically rich comedy care of witty German director Veit Helmer and filmed in the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Azerbaijan. In the tiny titular land, a war of the sexes break out when the local aqueduct ceases to work, and the men are too lazy to fix it. The women declare a strike--no water, no sex--and two childhood sweethearts find themselves feuding instead of consummating their long-standing love. Looks like it's up to the kids to fix the water pipe and get everybody laid. Helmer directs this charming, mostly dialogue-free little film with childlike wonder, with shades of Jeunet in his use of fanciful contraptions, like a gondola on pulleys flying over the town.

There's a nice little piece over at Crosscut this morning about Georgetown's Rainier Cold Storage Stock House (and the demise of), but just like the neighborhood opposition to the building's demolition, it's too little too late. To be fair, the building's owners broke their way through many walls (a much beloved building that defines a neighborhood, an official Seattle Landmark) with the wrecking ball of public safety: it's going to collapse onto Airport Way, they said. Demolish away, they were told. Demolish away they did and not enough people knew or cared beforehand to do much of anything to stop it.

Dennis McLerran, head of the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency is "pissed." Governor Schwarzenegger is suing federal regulators. According to more than 500 news articles, The Environmental Protection Agency denied California’s bill to place limitations on vehicle emissions, which would have cut greenhouse-gas emissions by 30 percent in the next 10 years. McLerran claims in a Seattle Times article the EPA’s decision is purely political, not factual.

We've been locking our keyboard in a drawer to keep ourselves from putting up any "this is the weekend the green line would have begun service" posts, both because it's been done and because it's history. Yes, it would have been great to have, but we decided against it. If there's anything like a blog to mark the day in the distant future when we'd have it paid off we'll be impressed.

The past few months have seen Mr. “Wes C. Addle”—Eddie Vedder—looking more like Mr. Tinseltown than just another (incredibly talented) Easy Street customer. Times don’t look like they’ll be a-changin’ in 2008.

Making up for weeks of hibernation and workaholism, Kim will hit the parties this weekend. Tonight, she’ll don her Groucho glasses for a lesbian function at Jabu’s celebrating the births of her two favorite Sagitarii. Saturday, it’s to the War Room for a company party with the missus and her workmates. Finally, she’ll ship off to the sub-tropics on Monday, where she’ll spend what remains of 2007.

We have to be honest: We were slightly annoyed when we read the email promoting Seattle School's (of Motel fame) latest event. Anything that calls an organization "insanely exuberant" and says that it is putting on one of the "craziest film events in the history of the city" is trying pretty hard to sound zany and exciting.

Hello out there in Seattlest-land, this is your friendly editor Seth.

"On October 1, when tickets went on sale for the Seattle premiere of Jersey Boys," the press release solemnly informs us, "all 5th Avenue Theatre box office records were broken."

The most unfortunate victims of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor--which happened 66 years ago today--were surely the 2,333 military personnel who lost their lives.

Franklin vs. Garfield is one of the Seattle sports events that you just shouldn't miss. Here's what we wrote about it for The Stranger in September:

True local hoops fans don't miss this game between two perennial inner-city basketball powerhouses, even at the cost of connubial tranquility. The 2005 game at Garfield fell on Valentine's Day, but happily married Husky basketball coach Lorenzo Romar was there anyway. A win in this game means neighborhood bragging rights for the rest of your life.

No. But that doesn't make this factoid from a political campaign article in today's any less disturbing:

We haven't read a ton of military history, but we've read enough to know that the most grievous mistakes by battle commanders aren't those that lead to defeat, but those that are made in the wake of victory. The biggest mistakes are by commanders who, having driven their opposition into full retreat, fail to press the advantage, chase the retreaters down, and destroy them. To cite just one example, had Confederate General P.G.T Beauregard ordered...

that have been backing up on our TiVo. But alas, we had agreed to check out some band from Portland called Casey Neill and the Norway Rats. We'll be honest--the main draw for us was Jennie Conlee (the Decemberists). We had been so stoked about seeing the Decemberists and Laura Veirs next week, and then a Decemberist came down with some illness bad enough to make them cancel the tour (we hope they're okay!). This was going to be about as close to the Decemberists as we were going to get this year.

So you're gonna look at that score and think this game was a blowout, but the Sonics--despite a career-high 39 from Dwight Howard--were actually within one point with as late as 4:22 left. They got there--despite having been down 15 at the start of the 4th--because P.J. Carlesimo finally figured out a way to make Kevin Durant an asset on defense instead of a liability--by having him front Howard while Kurt Thomas kept between Howard...