Results tagged “seattle”

First the Seattle Public School teachers put a spike in the heart of summer, by agreeing to a one-year contract (not ratified until Monday, August 31, kids, so get out there and lobby). Now Shoreline's teachers have reached a "tentative contract agreement," and will vote on it tomorrow. That leaves Kent facing a strike vote at 5 p.m. today. The teachers want smaller classes, better pay. When do they want it? Now!

Thank the gods of Olympus! Amtrak's twice-a-day Seattle-Vancouver train service starts a week from today, on August 19, 2009. (UPDATE: Seattle Transit Blog says Thursday the 20th. Here's the current train schedule.) Seattle rail passengers will be able to depart at 7:40 a.m. or 6:40 p.m. and arrive in Vancouver, B.C., at about 11:35 a.m. or 10:45 p.m, respectively. From Vancouver, the southbound Amtrak Cascades train will leave at 6:40 a.m., hitting Seattle four-ish hours later, and arriving in Portland at 2:45 p.m. We get the train to help us get to the 2010 Olympic and Paralympics Winter Games, with no promises for after the Games are done.

JAZZY: Guitar phenom John Pizzarelli and his wife, the chanteuse Jessica Molaskey, are setting up shop tonight at Jazz Alley for four days. John has carried on the tradition of his legendary father Bucky Pizzarelli, and as duo, he and his wife move fluidly from jazz to pop to torch, exploring the depths of the good old proverbial "American Songbook."

Not that kind of pew. It's a Pew Charitable Trusts report on how major cities are handling deficits, and Seattle, we think it's fair to say, is full of fiscal win: our one-year deficit of $44 million is just 5 percent of our general fund. For context, L.A. and Chicago stand at 12 and 13 percent, respectively. For even more context, we're tied with Baltimore, so don't get cocky. "Proposed service cuts are mostly targeting libraries, recreation facilities and aspects of trash collection." It probably makes budgetary sense, but it's really unfortunate, symbolically, that we're cutting library hours and increasing the size of our police force.

"Beat L.A." "Beat L.A." The chant never worked in basketball, we never tried it for weather. But check it! Gloat away, Seattle. This week's weather is absolutely boomin'. After the jump, see how we house the rest of America's big cities. Yes, Chicago can suck it.

We'll keep this short, for our readers' benefit--Seattlest.com is now accepting local advertising, which makes great sense because our readers are local, too. In a Seattlest survey, 87 percent of our readers said they live in Seattle, while 97 percent lived in Washington State. (Thank you, Seattle! And West Seattle! And the Eastside!)

Yesterday, On the Boards announced their next season of shows, and we're excited. OtB is the company we most often recommend to friends, particularly if they're , classic tragedy and issue plays about people coming to terms with things are right up your alley. But a lot of people aren't like that, and for them, the whipsmart contemporary performance at OtB, visually interesting and intellectually stimulating, is going to be a more enjoyable night out, so long as they can get over the initial "it's performance art" thing.

   

Troubleyn, the theatre/performance company Belgian artist Jan Fabre founded 1986 to produce his idiosyncratic stage pieces, and this week, Troubleyn makes a rare U.S. (and Seattle debut) at On the Boards with unforgettable in terms of its effects and staging.

Sometimes we fantasize that the Capitol dome is a Reset button that just needs a really big thumb. Here's the exciting part about the viaduct bill that just passed the House: "Any costs in excess of ($2.8 billion) shall be borne by property owners in the Seattle area...." Are you at all reassured by Gov. Gregoire's spokesperson that "we don't envision any cost overruns to occur on this project"?

Twitterer columbiacity brought this parkour YouTube video--shot one-handed in and around Seattle--to our attention, and we say thanks. It's an amazing amount of fun to watch this guy go. And Slate claims no one wants to advertise on YouTube's user-generated content. We just want more of this, less baby vomit.

The latest in the plastic bag saga: Edmonds might ban them before Seattle does, thanks to quick and decisive work by their city council (now that's a foreign concept!). According to HeraldNet, Edmonds is well on its way to already implementing what could be a quick vote on the issue--the major Edmonds grocery store has already stopped using plastic to bag groceries, except for the small bags used to separate meat and fish packages, and in their version of the ban, the sanitary bags will remain legal. If they manage to ban plastic bags before August, that would make Edmonds the first city in Washington to regulate them. We always have thought of Edmondsians as trend-setters...!

Over at TechFlash, John Cook reports that Alaska Airlines misspoke when representatives gave what many interpreted as an announcement that they'd be offering free wi-fi to Alaska travelers at SeaTac gates. The airline will be extending the offer to travelers in Oakland for the three-month promotion, but not here. Seriously? Seattle would be the perfect place to run that deal. This reminds us to ask why we don't already have free wi-fi available at our airport. Anyone have a compelling explanation for this pitiable situation?

Every so often we get an email from someone visiting town for a few days who wants to see the sights, but not get trapped in a constant scrum of tourists the whole time. We've made a stab at some likely suspects, but feel free to add yours in the comments. This is a game the whole internet can play!

Sounders FC hosts Real Salt Lake Saturday night at Qwest Field. We thought you might want to know a little about the team our local 11 (?) will be facing.

Turns out cloudy weather and passive-aggressive behavior will only attract people for so long. Recent data from the US Census shows that the Seattle-Bellevue-Tacoma metropolitan area is the slowest-growing region in the whole wide country of the largest 100 areas that grew last year. From 2007 to 2008, we only grew at a 1.4 percent rate. Across the mountains the Tri-Cities were attracting enough people to become the third-fastest growing area, up 3.5%. Of course from 2007 to 2008 the need for rodeo clowns greatly outweighed the need for fish tossers.

In our review of the "startlingly good" Merchant of Venice at Seattle Shakespeare Company, we left out one other reason we enjoyed the show--the performance of Melanie Moser as Jessica, Shylock's daughter. Few American actors make good friends with Shakespearean speech--they tend to emphasize the important words as landmarks--and their awkward hops from point to point add to the dislocation audiences feel as they struggle to adapt their ear to the rhythm. But fewer have Moser's talent, which is to speak Shakespeare as if he's finally put into words--into these words--what she feels. The emotion lies in the flights of language, in the way the way words pour forth, and Moser nails this.

Want tickets to My Bloody Valentine at the Wamu Theatre on April 27? The pre-sale goes through Thursday at 10 a.m. Two pre-sale codes: MYBLOODYVALENTINE and LOVELESS. Tickets here, from TicketMaster, so there's fees galore, but the tickets are $38.50.

Thanks, everyone who came out to the Seattlest Happy Hour at Zig Zag last night--and thanks to Ben and Autumn for pouring drinks down our thirsty gullets. We had a chance to order an Aviation, which we wanted ever since we read about creme de violette in The Atlantic. It may be impossible to convey in words how cool you feel drinking a slightly purple drink called Aviation.

Says the Stranger's Dan Savage: "I've had it with Peter and Tim and and Nick and Richard pansy-assing around about running for mayor. They announce they're thinking about it, they think about it, and then they announce that running for mayor is just too scary or too expensive or that Greg is just too formidable an opponent. Christ, do these guys have one lonely little nut between the four of 'em?" He promises to remain mayor for only 24 hours, then hand over the title to the city council president. We've heard that before. You elect these Chicago boys, they get comfy in the mayoral palace fast.

We've been following the news releases--cleverly disguised as Slog posts--issued by Peter Steinbrueck's stealth campaign manager, ECB, and she's gotten us fired up. Now if they just work on Steinbrueck himself, we'll be all set. Yesterday ECB was publicizing green golden boy Steinbrueck via a "RUN FOR MAYOR" Facebook group that has sprung up--it had 41 members then and this morning we became 99, just like in Get Smart. Today ECB has hit the e-bricks early, quoting an unnamed "recent poll" in which "Steinbrueck wallops Nickels 46.6 percent to 24.1 percent, with 29.4 percent undecided" in a head-to-head match-up. (ECB doesn't mention our equally scientific 5-way poll in which Nickels just edged out Steinbrueck 38 percent to 36.) So all we've really learned so far is that ECB would vote for Peter in a heartbeat--but maybe...just maybe...that's enough?

CommuteSeattle is an "initiative of the Downtown Transportation Alliance (Downtown Seattle Association, King County Metro and the City of Seattle)" which is responding to the fact that driving in and out of Seattle on a regular basis begins by giving you a twitchy eye and ends with a Glock in the glovebox which you promise to only use on people who drive up beside you and try to merge. It's for commuters, employers, and property owners, and it tries to assemble all the information any of them might need to help people choose life (outside a car). We count ten little car-alternative icons on the home page for commuters. Ten! Maybe they should add one for Snow Day.

As of just a few minutes ago, KIRO TV is reporting that Ken Griffey, Jr., has decided on Seattle. We're a little gunshy until we hear it from Junior's mouth, but Atlanta station WSB has "said two of its sources confirmed that Griffey will come back to the Mariners, where he spent the first 11 years of his major league career."

Two hundred years ago today Charles Darwin was born, and 150 years ago this year, he killed God by publishing this momentous occasion, but for the life of us, while putting together today's "Can't Miss It," we couldn't find a single damned happy hour, lecture, or event for tonight. And strangely, neither Elliott Bay Books nor Town Hall even have an event scheduled, leaving us thinking that maybe we could have worked something out.

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One of our favorite Flickr pool contributors is Shawn "SlightlyNorth" McClung, a Denver transplant with an eye for graffiti and the wilds of SoDo. After ogling a whopping ten of his Flickr sets in SlightlyNorth's "Ephemeral Art" collection, we asked the man to tell us more about his photography, the tagging community, and his abiding love for an often-neglected neighborhood.

Violent crime rates are up in Bellevue and down in Tacoma, according to the most recent FBI reports. The number of occurrences of violent crime reported in that new, shiny city across the lake increased from 65 in 2007 to a whopping 91 in 2008--a 40 percent boost in one year, for whatever reason. (Fights at The Parlor?) Down in Tacoma, the reported occurrences of violent crime went from 1,085 to 905 in that same time span (a 17 percent drop). In related news, the migration path of several flocks of flying pigs will lead them right over downtown Seattle this afternoon around 4 p.m., so be sure to step outside and take a gander at what is sure to be an educational sight. Seattle's info, of course, wasn't turned in on time to be included in the FBI's report. (Win!)

We've had confirmation that a fairly large parade , the contact was listed as commanderinchief6@hotmail.com. The Garfield H.S. event is apparently the official MLK Day event.

Saturday afternoon, feeling we should get out and enjoy the sun, we headed on up to Volunteer Park to pretend to be tourists, where we snapped this awesome photo of the sunset. And now, outside the old office windows (yes, we have to work on MLK Day!), the fog that rolled in just past midnight last night has finally risen, and another chilly but clear day is blossoming before our computer monitor-strained eyes. According to The Weather Channel's 10-Day forecast, we can look forward to clear days all throughout the week, so take the opportunity to get outside while you can, because as of Saturday, the winter's supposed to be back.