Word Magazine's readers have been creating a map detailing where iconic album cover photos were taken. So far, there are three listed in the Seattle area: Damien Jurado's Waters Ave. S., taken at Waters Ave. S.; Mudhoney's Superfuzz Bigmuff, taken at 207 First Ave. in Pioneer Square; and (of course) Sir Mix-A-Lot's "Posse on Broadway," taken at the NE corner of John and Broadway. (The definition of "album" is a loose one, obviously.) That's a......

We have just spent approximately 35 seconds analyzing the contributions of Seattle residents to the Best of Craigslist, and we have discovered these salient facts: the last time Seattle made BoCL was July 16, when someone was selling an original Bible autographed by Jesus. Before that someone got fired, some dirt asked to be moved, and someone else found a stinky cat. These are all good, but it's been two and a half months since......

We dream of soup like this. Photo Courtesy of Seattlest Flickr photographer nikchick. While Seattlest's Katelyn has a healthy obsession for the perfect sandwich, we have similar devotion to finding the most delicious fall soup. In fact, the one saving grace of the imminent fall and rainy days is that it is soup weather. When it starts to rain in Seattle, our thoughts turn to soups of all kinds--pho, creamy butternut squash, Cafe Presse's soup......

Under the cover of darkness and secrecy, a Seattle homeless encampment named "Nickelsville" in mockery of Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels moved to a new location early this morning. The residents of the new Nickelsville pitched 155 neon pink tents in a field off West Marginal Way. The residents of Nickelsville hope the encampment can become a permanent location for their tent town, while Mayor Nickels says that like any illegal encampment in the city, Nickelsville......

Dear Seattlest Readers, It's true, I've gotten roped into being editor. Three years ago I wrote back to an ad on Craigslist, looking for writers, and now...this. Please, take the lesson: the internet is not "fun." It wants something from you. Your soul. *cough* Now is as good a time as any to point out that Seattlest is always looking for new voices. Please contact me if you'd like to write about your slice of......

"City Bus, 1953" from the Seattle Municipal Archives You think the buses are bad now? Check out this shot from 1953! We do love the Penney's sign. We found this classic in our incredible Flickr Pool......

If Mayor Greg Nickels can cut youth crime in half, as long as we give him $9 million, shouldn't we just give him $18 million and get rid of youth crime all together?......

On the front page of the local news section of the P-I this morning is a feature on David Entrikin's 1,500 portraits of local homeless people. (You can read more about Entrikin's photo exhibit on "unsheltered" people here.) On the inside page is this story: Seattle-area foreclosures soar. This August, King and Snohomish counties had 1,185 foreclosure filings, or one out of every 906 households. According to the Greek chorus that is the SoundOff comments......

"Blayne loves Pop Rocks" and Bryant Park, we imagine. Courtesy of Seattlest Flickr contributor Archie McPhee Seattle It's getting down to the real talents (save Joe and Ms. Pants and Blazers only) on Project Runway and we have to admit to being a little (okay, a lot) surprised that Seattle's own licious-loving Blayne is still in the picture. Despite being kept around for his personality and catch-phrase creations after a disastrous first few designs, Blayne......

Naturally Slavoj Žižek, whose inner cultural critic wins equal time from his inner philosopher, spiced his Town Hall talk last night with cinematic references, in particular, The Dark Knight. After seeing that (and Kung Fu Panda five times, thanks to his "small degenerate son"), he was disturbed by the message that it's noble to lie on behalf of power, to protect it. In our apparently post-ideological era, Žižek argues, we're even more enmeshed in ideology......

"Why is that green thing in the street?" Little Miss Seattlest asked us recently. "It's for bicycles," we replied. But we'd have been mystified (putting green? guerrilla ad?) if we hadn't read Erica C. Barnett's lament about how they weren't working. Today's "Getting There" column in the P-I repeats our daughter's question. "They signal to turning motorists that bicyclists might be in the bike lane," explains Eric Widstrand, Seattle's traffic operations manager. Of course, a......

No really. It's true. According to the League of American Bikes (via the Cascade Bicycle Alliance in our case), Washington is the most bicycle friendly state in the union. According to the LAB, "Washington’s model bike laws, signed and mapped statewide bike route network, dedicated funding from the state for bicycle related programs and projects, and an active statewide bicycle advisory committee" are reasons that the state earned top honors above Wisconsin, Arizona, Oregon (numbers......

Rudolph Valentino. Ray Charles. Jerry Lee Lewis dancing on pianos, for God's sake! Dance in Seattle had anything but a boring 20th century. We were prowling around the internet this morning and discovered that today is the anniversary of the date the city banned a really bizarre but popular 1920s and '30s fad called "dance marathons" within its city limits. That was enough to pique our interest, and we've spent the day researching what was......

Seattle’s reality TV lovers are loving life right now. Along with Blayne on Project Runway, we can add a hopeful on America's Next Top Model to our cadre of locals to root for (or laugh at, depending on your feelings for Blayne): Elina. We agree with Seattlest Katelyn's first blush reaction to Elina. She's "weird and pretty enough to have made it through the first double-episode, and Elina smiles with her eyes!". We'd like to......

M is for Molly Moon's by Seattlest's own ScareQuotes Not to say that the rest of your day is going to be downhill from here, but here's the best news you'll read all day: Molly Moon's Ice Cream II to open on Capitol Hill. Thanks to Capitol Hill Seattle for making our day!Blogging Georgetown updates a previous story on the Armed Citizens Brigade. Unsurprisingly, the interview subject cited's last name is Cheney.An armed stand-off started......

An afternoon treat: Grayskul's video for "Missing," a creepy-cool verily addictive substance of a rap song from their latest album Bloody Radio, is now playing...on MTV! Holy crap! That is a really, really good look for Seattle locals JFK and Onry Ozzborn. This video was directed by another local, Christian Hansen, and may we just say: deeply awesome. E-Hats should be tipped to 206Proof.......

Metro just can't make up its mind about fare increases, so we say bring another quarter just in case. Just a few weeks ago, Metro said it wouldn't be increasing fares for a second time this year, but as of yesterday they'd decided that a fare increase is indeed necessary and imminent. Starting November 1, it may cost you an extra 25 cents to ride the bus. Another 25-cent increase may come in January 2010......

Lake Union on the 4th of July courtesy of Seattlest Flickr Photog Jonathon Hanlon THE LAKE IS CELEBRATING: Summer is when neighborhood pride reaches its zenith here in Seattle, and Lake Union is no exception. LUFest, a festival including a pet parade, live music (Harvey Danger! Local funksters The Staxx Brothers!), and food, happens this Saturday, and we recommend you head down there to experience some classic fun in the sun. To repeat: Harvey Danger......

In the Summer 2008 issue of Granta--theme: the new nature writing--Seattle adoptee Jonathan Raban has an Columbia-River-sized essay titled "Second Nature." He's comparing the wilderness of the American West (the Northwest, most specifically) with the more domesticated natural landscape of England--and subsequently, the frame of mind where you inhabit a spot, or are just passing through. In the Northwest, he says:The real thing–-the pricelessly antique antique–-is deep forest, the river running wild, the open......

Despite layoffs at seemingly every other major news outlet, CNN is adding 10 new regional reporters in the next year—including one based in Seattle. CNN is calling their new additions "all-platform journalists" (which sounds creepily sci-fi to us) and they will contribute to both on-air and online content. We can expect our very own Seattle CNN correspondent within the year. The other cities also being added to the CNN rotation? Minneapolis, Denver, Houston, Las Vegas,......

Forbes must have an entire staff dedicated to list-making, because the magazine is at it again. This time ranking the hardest drinking cities in America. Seattle ranks a respectable eighth in the nation for drinking, where we are basically tied with drinkers in Cleveland and St. Louis. (We don't blame folks in St. Louis for drinking heavily--at all.) No surprise for anyone who's spent any time there and managed to remember any of it...Austin, Tex.,......

Having avoided tougher hikes all year due to general gutlessness and late-melting snow, we finally tackled a real challenge in Bandera Mountain Monday, confronting our lack of conditioning and the embarrassment of seeing people twice our age negotiate the same slopes without our pained expressions of agony. Bandera is one of the big, bald mountains on the left-hand side of I-90 as you near the Pass. It’s easy to get to, but that’s about......

Last weekend we went to see Off the Cuff, part of the Seattle Festival of Dance Improvisation, and we've been mulling over what to say about it ever since. Improvisational dance--here, mainly of the contact improvisation kind--can immerse you in the middle of a free-floating, flow experience, as if you're a musical phrase being traded by jazz musicians. The connection is direct and visceral. We think it works best for two or more people; during......

Can you walk? Are you skinny, and can you pose your body in bizarre ways that come across as really sexy and alluring in photographs? Then maybe head out to the Doubletree Guest Suites Seattle Airport/Southcenter next Thursday, Aug. 12, and get your ANTM face on. All interested models should show up camera-ready. This isn't Seattlest's Next Top Model, it's America's Next Top Model. Last year, there were 600 women at the audition, so you're......

Robert L. Jamieson has a big, big problem with the way things are down in Belltown and a pretty strong idea of who's to blame: If the fates had cast Greg Nickels as mayor of New York City when Times Square was the pits, overrun with crime and grime, the renaissance of the one-time eyesore would have stayed a dream. "One-time eyesore," huh? Apparently Robert Jamieson hasn't been to New York recently. Jamieson's been on......

We just had to run down to SeaTac, and along the way lost count of the amount of road repair and construction projects going on. August is the Pacific Northwest's official Road Repair Month, on account of its stretches of good weather, and transportation crews work around the clock to get the most paving done possible. SeaTac is always under construction, so nothing new there, but Mercer has a lane closure or two, which ought......

The Tour de Fat bicycle festival, sponsored by New Belgium Brewery, took place at Gasworks Park today. Naturally we bicycled over to see what it was all about. On the way, two guys in a pickup pulled up next to us and rolled down the window. Uh oh, we thought. "Hey, nice bike!" they yelled. "And nice shirt!" (We were wearing the cream of our Hawaiian shirt collection.) They gave us a thumbs up. Then......

"Emerald City Overwatch Brigade" by Taylor Hain Looks like the end of the world as we know it--and they feel fine. Another glorious post-apocalyptic shot from the talented Seattlest Flickr Pool......

In the wake of a brutal tussle between car and bicycle last weekend, it's good that New Belgium Brewing's Tour de Fat, the "traveling celebration of all things bicycle," arrives in town on Saturday, opposite the carbon-spewing, combustion engine worship-fest that is Seafair, what with the supersonic jets and souped-up motorboats. So for those who favor pedal-power over horsepower, you can show up at Gas Works Park at 9 a.m. to register yourself and your......

We're now Number 18 on the list of American tourist destinations, the Emerald City, for all its faults, leapfrogging the City of Brotherly Love. That's the word from Global Insight, a Massachusetts outfit that counts visitors. The weak dollar and more convenient international flights (Air France, Lufthansa, British Airways, KLM, etc.) make Seattle an increasingly attractive destination for European travelers, not to mention all that good press we've been getting (you know, green mayor,......