Last year at the second night of Pyramid's "Get Snowed In Party" we had a great time. Matt Costa played. We didn't even know who that was, and though we didn't exactly rush out and buy his record, it was a good scene. This year on the second night of "Get Snowed In," we had a great time. This Seattlest contributor hails from Portland originally, and yet strangely has never seen The Dandy Warhols live.......

They're setting up for Sandfest 2007 at Westlake Park, which is this Saturday, the 25th. "Community sponsors" will have sculptures built, and then for a $1 suggested donation you can vote for whichever strikes your fancy. (It benefits the Moyer Foundation.) Actually, there's a little Friday night music from 5-6:30pm in Westlake Plaza, the Latin jazz sound of Sonando. Saturday the music runs from 11am-4:30pm, which is when the results of the sculpture competition......

You may see incumbent councilwoman Sally Clark at a local candidate forum, but you won't see one of her opponents, Bob Brown. Brown doesn't need the hoi polloi telling him what to think, because he formed some pretty strong opinions back in the early 60s and he's sticking to them. He doesn't like all the new fruity town houses, skate parks, and is the only man brave enough to speak out about the city's conspiracy......

Are you there Seattle art world? It's us, Seattlest. We're trying our best to talk up your First Thursday openings, but it looks like you've crapped out on us this month. We understand: you're on vacation or something, it's kinda hot out, the BLUE ANGELS are in the sky ... We've got posts to post, however, and damned if we won't find something to recommend from your namby-pamby Art Walk offerings. Here's what we're going......

The weather is stunning and you need to burn off yesterday's celebratory beef and beer, right? Right. Luckily for you, it's First Thursday! So get off your duff, take a stroll and enjoy some free art. Here are our ten picks for tonight's walk: G. Gibson Gallery 300 S. Washington Street Eva Sköld Westerlind Anableps Westerlind’s macro photos of water in nature feel slow and gooey, capturing droplets as they seemingly devour sticks, stones......

Laser Rocket Arms hates it when we call them "the new Husker Don't." Then again, they keep winning, so our motivation to stop doing so is minimal. 16 teams played the quiz, and the mighty Arms overcame a second-place finish at halftime to take the lead in the end. The loudest groan of the night came during the Nudity category, when Seattlest asked this question: Janet Jackson had a famous breast-exposing wardrobe malfunction during......

Hey guys, we hate to have to ask you to do this, but if you have a minute or so can you fill out a survey? It would really help us get a handle on who's out there which will in turn help us improve the site. Fourteen multiple choice questions and you're out. And, no, we're not going to sell your information to anyone, but, yes, we may use it to sell advertising on......

After being out of the loop for a while, we were interested to read that Washington will have a presidential primary on February 19, and that the City Council races are set (Rasmussen, you are going down). Reading about the candidates we were delighted to see that one of Sally Clark's opponents, Judy Fenton, is running on one issue: get rid of the naked statue in the Olympic Sculpture Park. No one, ESPECIALLY US, wants......

One time about six years ago a certain Seattlest staff person who will remain nameless ingested half a shroom and watched his girlfriend turn in to a fucking Orc from the hobbit movie - all gray scales and black teeth - and weird hieroglyphics and symbols swarmed like insects all over every surface of everything he could see. He shut his eyes, but that didn't help, because behind his eyelids there was a black......

Yes, yes, the new Seattle Art Museum is a vast architectural improvement over its predecessor. No question. But let's not lose sight of another change that's proved another vast improvement: Pentagram's reworking of SAM's brand identity. Remember the old SAM logo? We didn't. We had to Google it. As soon as we saw it, we a) recognized it, and b) realized why it was completely forgettable. It couldn't scream "refugee from the mid-'80s" any......

As we mentioned the other day, Seattlest was very excited for the PNB production of Carmina Burana, but we left a bit perplexed and frustrated. To start, we enjoyed Mark Morris' Pacific, a light and dreamy piece that found our thoughts wandering in a pleasant way about halfway through, befitting of a day spent listening to the ocean advance and retreat while pretending to read a book. It was a short and "limited" (to borrow......

Are you looking at that? It's the Pacific Northwest Ballet's production of Carmina Burana, and that's an entire choir behind the giganto Illuminati-looking sculpture hanging from the ceiling. The sheer scale of this piece has us salivating, the chanting backdrop to Carl Orff's seminal composition coursing through our veins and pounding in our head. Choreographed by Kent Stowell, former PNB artistic co-director and epic brewer of ballet dramas, Burana kicks off the "Celebrate Seattle Festival"......

--The guy who abused his mailorder bride to death was sentenced to 32 years in prison today. --The Scarecrow blog gives a little love to the VHS box. --Seattlest's favorite roaster outside of Seattle says it doesn't think Starbucks is the devil. --Local American Idolers aren't faring so well. --This is so what the sculpture park should be all about. Scale, though, guys. We'll be impressed when someone creates a giant Eagle that dwarfs......

Oh Boston, you silly over-reacting bunch of Nancys. Who can't tell the difference between a LiteBrite and a real bomb? Seriously, getting riled up and freaking the fuck out over some strange marketing thingies? Over here in Seattle, we're rational types who don't jump to instant, fear-mongering conclusions about things we find in our streets...oh hey, waitaminute:On July 15, 1996, police evacuate a nine-block area around Westlake Center in downtown Seattle after a pickup truck......

You'd think it was the Second Coming or something. TV news shots, front page of the local dailies, big story in the New York Times. It's a fucking ski lift, for chrissakes. You get on, you ride in a gondola for five minutes, you get off at the top. But it's in Portland, you know, so it's got to be terrific. Even Amy Jenniges, former Stranger staffer now at the Portland Mercury, thinks it's......

This Eagle is going to be a Flickr hit. If shady stuff's going to happen at the park it'll happen down in the pit with these. Some serious reverse psychology going on here. The sign on this one says you can't take pictures of it. Whatever you do, do not come down to SAM's sculpture park and enjoy yourself while taking lots of pictures. The police tape blocking the Disney waterfront didn't last long......

MUSIC + ART: Nothing needs to be said about KEXP's DJ Riz, since the man is nothing short of a Seattle party-rocking institution. HVW8 might be unknown to many of you though. Along with more traditional production, HVW8 paints murals in front of live club audiences, both capturing and reflecting the vibe of the crowd that surrounds them. Interesting to see art come to life in real-time. 9pm doors// Baltic Room, 1207 Pine St.......

MUSIC: Carrie Clark & The Lonesome Lovers. Memphis Radio Kings headline this show, but we're here for Carrie Clark all the way. Clark's been wooing Seattle crowds with her superb voice -- both playful and brooding for over ten years now. Backed by her band, The Lonesome Lovers, things seem to be coming together beautifully for Miss Clark; her new album, Seems So Civilized, produced by Darryl Neudorf (Neko Case, Kinnie Starr, The Sadies, The......

--Four inches of new to go with our already substantial base will fall on area roads tomorrow morning. Blah blah blah "drivers should consider staying home if they can." --"The ambassador of Monkeyhut was Nigel, a breed Steve called American Brown Dog. Others knew Nigel as the mayor of Fremont, who made daily solo rounds off-leash to local residents and businesses where he was usually greeted with a biscuit. Nigel died recently at age......

Not true! Sure, Alexander Calder's 39-foot painted steel Eagle is going to be Seattle's next icon, but from this angle it looks kind of like a puppy getting ready to nip at its master's trousers. Rivalry of middle-aged artworks: Eagle is 35, Needle's pushing 50. Seattle Art Museum's Olympic Sculpture Park opens to the public Jan. 20th.......

SAM just can't wait to open its sculpture park. Over on the Slog, Jen Graves summarizes the kvetching about SAM's sculpture park's January 20th opening. Here's another reason why 1/20 isn't working for us, and it's the same reason SAM employees were rooting against the Hawks on Saturday. According to our highly placed museum source, had the Seahawks lost, the Space Needle would've been lit up with a sculpture park related display. But with the......

It's a bar, it's a gallery, it's a cafe, it's an installation art space, it's probably going to become part of the Belltown circuit that should involve Roq La Rue, BLVD, and the Sculpture Park. It's the McLeod Residence. Tonight is the public opening, but due to hot NYE party, the high-tech pedigree of the McLeod's (Buster McLeod is a Robot CoOp member), and the fact that the place grovels on the floor begging to......

Governor Gregoire stood in front of the sculpture park yesterday and threw packets of hundred dollar bills into the Sound until $220 million disappeared into the sludge, or, she may as well have. Actually, she talked about the myriad environmental concerns that threaten Puget Sound and she pledged $220,000,000 towards the $9 billion the Puget Sound Partnership says it will take over the next 14 years to adequately protect and repair the Sound. The money......

If you think it's too early to talk Halloween, you must really hate those Xmas tchotchkes that have shown up in major retailers near you. We, on the other hand, think Friday the 13th is the perfect day to start celebrating. And so does local lowbrow institution Roq La Rue -- they're kicking off their traditional Halloween show ("Monster Mayhem and Day of the Dead Delights") tonight. In a break with tradition, though, it's not......

You can't buy tickets for the next Seattle Erotic Art Festival until January -- the show isn't until March -- but there is one thing you can do to get ready: Paint your horny little heart out. SEAF '07 is officially accepting submissions: The CALL FOR ART is now open. Artists 18+ are invited to submit work that explores the diversity of erotic art - explicit, subtle, unconventional, beautiful, shameless, and beyond - to SEAF's......

-Tim Eyman's car tab initiative ain't gonna make it on the ballot which makes him 0-3 lately: No car tab initiative, no legally mandated bigotry and his Vader costume was nowhere near as funny or as cool as Cee-lo's. -The Seattle Times photog who got hit in the head by a baseball is alive and well enough to recount the ordeal in all its terrible detail ("They tell me I convulsed on the ground......

-Damn you, concrete strikers. Damn you. SAM will announce a new Sculpture Park opening date after the holiday weekend. -We may have little idea when it's coming (~Jan 30th), but we now know how much Vista will cost when it gets here (Windows Vista Home Premium, $239). It's available for preorder on Amazon. -Dan Savage is so confident he'll be arrested tomorrow he's packing an overnight bag. -The Fattest: 1: Mississippi*; 2: Alabama; 3:......

In Seattlest's little egg of grey matter, every news item is connected to another, bigger, news item. We can't help ourselves. So when we see that the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild is going to settle with the Seattle Times for pay raises of $0.00 for the next two years, we have to connect it to something else, and in this case that something else is the Joint Operating Agreement that binds the Seattle Times......

Possibly we first saw this meme in a blog post, but the barely controlled chaos that is our newsreader makes calling it back up not feasible at this time. It caught our eye. Hey, that's smart, we thought, wish we'd thought of it. We're pretty sure the first time we saw someone tie the delays at the Sculputure Park to the striking concrete workers was in a blog post. Ninety percent certain. Then it appeared......

No thanks to the Seattle Art Museum or their contractor, Sellen Construction, for making it easy to attend Hempfest this weekend. Their obstinacy in complying with terms of a Parks Department permit wasn't resolved until midweek. Finally, like a petulant kid deigning to clean his room, they reluctantly cleared a 10-foot dirt path around heavy equipment and through construction debris at the site of the new Olympic Sculpture Park thereby allowing tens of thousands of......