Results tagged “people”

Last night at Benaroya Hall, author Richard Powers read from a new short story called "Modulation." It was classic Powers; a dense, far-reaching, and meticulously vivid tale of a computer virus that infects music player devices via filesharing sites. He weaves the story around four different individuals: a Japanese hacker recently released from prison and now employed by the RIAA to huntdown filesharers, a Brazilian journalist researching soldiers in Iraq who blast ear-crunching music from their vehicles when they go out on missions, a forlorn music scholar on the eve of his retirement from a mid-western University, and a young laptop battler who agonizes over keeping track of the ever-multiplying sub-genres of electronic music and enthralls with his live performances of entirely computerized music that rely heavily on audio samples from early-80s video games.

A friend of Seattlest sent us a link to Cakespy's examination of the history of the ubiquitous pink frosted cookie. Turns out "ubiquitous" only applies in the Seattle area:

If you don't live in Seattle, you might not even know about this cookie (while it exists elsewhere, we've never seen it in quite the same proliferation in our assorted travels); even if you do live in Seattle, you might not have stopped to question why it is that this confection is always around--gas stations, delis, grocery stores, drugstores--everywhere!

Saturday // Macklemore // Nectar // $7 //21+

(For example to measure the sin of "wrath" the magazine used murder rates for cities.)

What do you get when you cross first-class amenities with a blood-thirsty, third-world parasite? If you’re a downtown Seattle hotel you get bed bugs.

Tonight's sky should be just as active, though not nearly as much of a surprise. The last visible full lunar eclipse until 2010 takes place tonight and, weather permitting, should be in clear view for Seattle. The full eclipse will begin at roughly 7pm and should last nearly 50 minutes. Moon watchers are in for an extra treat, as Saturn should be visible too.

We got into Memphis last night, and we'll be here for the rest of the week, celebrating folk music along with people from all over the world at the annual Folk Alliance conference. We'll be going on and on about that in articles for another job we have, but we just wanted to take a moment to express how much we love Seattle. We miss Seattle. But mostly, we miss people.

We respectfully disagree with our colleagues. Having gone into our second caucus as undecideds, we emerged firmly decided: the caucus stinks. And we weren't even invested in any candidate this time around. The Slog's Erica Barnett makes a good case against it. We'll concede that it was nice to see some neighbors; however, we don't really care to meet our neighbors in this particular context. Block parties, barbeques, chats across the fence, and pleasantries exchanged while taking walks are far better community builders. Politics doesn't build community; it builds cliques. At best, caucuses are just echo chambers for them, like mega-churches in which people get caught up in the moment. At worst, they intimidate.

Now that all votes are in, all caucuses adjourned, CNN declaring it all for Obama, here's how the day fared for our Seattlest contributors:

Back in the early '00s, Seattlest spent some time freelancing at Macy's Northwest's corporate offices, coming up with exciting new ways to talk about 30% off flatware and learning more than we ever cared to about thread count. The corporate offices are downtown on the top floor in the former Bon building. It's a windowless floor -- a cave in the sky -- and, atmosphere-wise, one of the most depressing places we ever worked.

Hey, Seattlest!

Wayne Wentz, Seattle's traffic management director, says the city is considering finally doing something about the Pine Street Zigzag. Officials do not know what changes are coming, but construction is expected to begin in 2009. In the meantime, he says the city will put up "Do Not Cross Here" signs on the north side of Pine at Boren.

In preparation for his upcoming visit, Seattlest sat down and emailed four fairly inane questions to the novelist, essayist, and MacArthur genius Colson Whitehead. It's true: we could have tried asking Whitehead insightful questions about his brilliant novels , but we figured, everyone tries to do that and he winds up getting asked them same question over and over again. So instead, we asked him about Barack Obama, why people don't read, and why he seems to like Portland better than Seattle. Anyone wanting more insight into the great writer's work should get tickets to his Monday, Jan. 14 appearance at Benaroya for Seattle Arts & Lectures.

As ChrisB of Three Imaginary Girls points out, losing your job sucks. Losing a job that meant a lot to you sucks more. And losing all that during the holidays? Well that just blows a goat.

If you're wondering what happens to the lesser-known bands who used to play Seattle at the Croc, evidence from the sports world shows that you ought to look for them in Kent. Or not at all.

This Seattlest took one look at the weather forecast and headed to sunny Florida yesterday. Now here we are in our hometown of DeLand, population 24,375 (per 2006 census). Our mother doesn't have wireless at the house, and is operating off a 1997 iMac. It's cute and compact, but slow as hell, so we headed out this morning for the one source of public wifi in town: Boston Gourmet Coffeehouse.

"They should take off their left socks."

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.

Besides being in the running for Owner of the World's Most Glamorous Name, Katjana Vadeboncoeur plays the maternal hen Aunt Julia in blahblahblahBANG at On the Boards. To make a point of it, she sips then spits up her tea into a cup, complete with birdlike neck spasms, and hands it to her beloved, coddled nephew Yorgen Tesman -- who drinks it, onstage, to an audience of wrinkled noses. If you're an Ibsen fan (blahblahblahBANG is WET's precocious interpretation of Hedda Gabler) this subtextual underlining may just elicit a desire to see the original. The difference here is that it's not a matter of moral fiber or willfulness. WET's cast reacts to their socially caged life with the stereotyped behavior of unhappy parrots, literally climbing the walls. Again and again, WET reminds you that they are real people doing real things, disgusting, sexy, risky things. If it's not "perfect," it's compelling as a high-wire act.

This fall we are combining our love of the football and our dream of learning to cook. On Sunday morning, following a trip to a local farmer’s market/major supermarket chain, we will be preparing a meal from the city of the Seahawks opponent. Then at halftime we will throw our badly burned hands in the air and make hot dogs

For the first time in Seattlest's life, we're actually bemoaning the fact that we don't have any tank tops in our closet. Heck, this is probably the first time we've ever thought about not owning a tank top. Not having one puts a serious crimp in our plans to go to Sustainable Capitol Hill's Tank Tops to Totes this Saturday at Stitches on Capitol Hill. (We don't think Sustainable Capitol Hill has a Web site. If they do, we can't find it.)

Those crazy kids at WET have put Ibsen's Hedda Gabler on a crash diet -- the subtitle is "A Pistol Fit in One Act" -- and added what they call "dance and circus vocabulary" to the mix. According to the Weekly,

The show is “movement intense,” says director Jennifer Zeyl; actors can and do literally run up the walls.

We showed up to the Westlake area just in time to wedge ourselves onto the 2nd streetcar out of downtown today. There was a smallish crowd out and by our unofficial measurement it was comprised of 10% reporters and photographers, 10% supporters and Vulcan employees and 80% smartasses in S.L.U.T. shirts, including the guy who wrote the S.L.U.T. song who we had the good fortune to ride along with a little later on.