Results tagged “sf”

Mike Doughty (yeah, he used to be in some other band) has a new album out this week, Golden Delicious. We saw him at the Triple Door in December for his Question Jar tour; he sat on stage and played songs (even one from that other band), occasionally drawing questions written by the audience from a large glass jar and answering them with charming humor and candor. Most felicitously, we didn't even have to ask "Hey Mike, will you make a little video of one of your new songs and dedicate it to our lovely Seattlest readers?" Because he just went ahead and did it anyways. That's how much he loves us. And you. Please enjoy "Fort Hood" and we'll hope the sun continues to shine around here for a little longer, too.

Hello co-workers. Do you see us burning a hole through your backs, staring at you viciously out of the corners of our eyes as we watch you come into the shared kitchen, grab an essentially non-recyclable pseudo-styrofoam cup from the stack next to the water cooler and somehow manage to avoid the sign that my friend put up next to the cooler indicating what wasteful, ignorant fools you are for not being able to bring your own goddamned coffee cup or water glass to re-use at work? Yes, you. We see you. You suck.

(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.)

... and a $50 gift card.

Ichiro got a bunch of fantastic goodies along with his $90 million Mariner contract, according to the AP, including:

It was a week of bizarre, embarassing headlines at DCist. The trial of the local administrative law judge who sued his cleaners for $54 million over a pair of missing pants left everyone shaking their heads. Then the capital city was nearly brought to its knees, twice, by poop. Finally D.C. contemplated taking Vermont's place as a state and marveled at the GOP lessons learned from the "Macaca Moment."

SCUBA: The national tour presents works by three emerging national talents in contemporary dance: Zoe Scofield (YouTube) & Juniper Shuey (Seattle), LEVYdance (SF), and Justin Jones with Chris Yon & Friends (MN/NYC). We're fans of Scofield's work, which mingles ballet and modern dance, introspection and spectacle, and curious about the rest. Maybe we'll see you there.

Neighborhood-centric blog aggregator Outside.in released its list of "America's Top 10 Bloggiest Neighborhoods". Seattle, tech-centric 2.0tropolis that it is, must've cracked the top 10 with at least one neighborhood (cough Capitol Hill cough cough), right?

SEATTLEST BOOK CLUB PICK: For March, we're reading Jonathan Raban's Surveillance, set in a not-so-distant future, when everyone's actions are highly monitored. Get a head start on the conversation by hearing from Raban himself. (We'll know if you went or not.)

We hadn't been to the Comet for awhile, but everything looked just the way we left it. Everyone was just as scruffy and working-class-bluesy and it wasn't until we sat down and talked to them later that we discovered they were from Perth, Australia, and worked at Microsoft and Amazon. We holed up in the "Being John Malkovich" lounge upstairs (complete with 3/4-size red door marked "Private") trying to guess who that maddeningly familiar band was they were playing on the stereo (Social Distortion) until Prosser's melancholic indie-alt-country pulled us downstairs.

25 teams! Free ashtrays for the taking! Controversy about whether or not Bangor is a "city" or just part of Bremerton! And a geeky white boy dance-off to close the evening!

What do George Clooney and local SF author Neal Stephenson have in common? The diamond age:

Diamond Age, based on Neal Stephenson's best-selling novel The Diamond Age: Or a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer, is a six-hour miniseries from Clooney and fellow executive producer Grant Heslov of Smokehouse Productions.

Continue reading "Set Your TiVo Now: Diamond Age Coming to SciFi"

Despite their utterly forgettable name—“Who are we seeing again?” asked our companion for the third time—Scissors for Lefty give good show. We arrived at Chop Suey last night way early* in time to catch some of the soundcheck before the band played their tight-ass set. And what we heard both times was well put-together: sweet synth lines, catchy guitars, and Brit-leaning hooks up the wazoo. Cribbing from the Strokes one moment and verging into Pavement territory the next, the fact that this SF quartet is unsigned in the U.S. (in Europe, they’re on the venerable label Rough Trade) astounds us. While they didn’t play the soaring “Mama Your Boys Will Find a Home” [YouTube], they did close with “Ghetto Ways” [mp3], a radio-ready single if we’ve ever heard one.

Yesterday some guys from SFist emailed about a bet of some kind they wanted to make. When the Seahawks beat the 'Niners on Thursday night we'd get to post some gloating thing on their site. That was the gist of it. Well, it blew up in our faces, in play-by-play form, no less. Here's SFist Christopher Rogers reporting for Seattlest:

Our apologies if you're not following this story, but it just continues to break our heart. Family found! But without dad. So bittersweet.

Let's take a look back at a week that raised this Zen koan: if Kevin Federline got into a wrestling ring with a wrestler, who would you root for?

-This photo is obviously a fake. There are no tornados in Kirkland, sorry.

As we sat down to write this week's Best of the -ists post, a car blaring "21 Questions'" passed by our house. And that started us thinking about how some of the best -ist posts out there have at their hearts questions, some of which are answered, and some of which are left open. Check out the Best of the -ists from this week, and see if you agree.

Our day started early at the KEXP Backyard stage where the Mountlake Terrace trio, Mon Frere, woke us up, got us moving, fed us our delicious brunch of new wave keyboard and guitar anthems. We headed straight there – hadn’t even had our coffee yet, still a bit bleary-eyed from the night before. But this seemed the way to go. Jump right in. Don’t tip-toe into the lake like a pussy. Just get in there. It’s the best way.

recently featured in local library webcomic Unshelved).

Nalo Hopkinson, author of delightful Caribbean-themed speculative fiction, spoke last night at the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame as part of Clarion West's summer reading series. Hopkinson is one of the few people of color working in the mostly ivory SF tower. She's Canadian but spent her childhood in the Caribbean. Attendees were lucky enough to hear her read from her not-yet-released book Book of the Year in 2002) partially read by the author, in which Leonie Forbes reads a 'hot little red riding hood' erotica story.

Seattlest was admittedly skeptical about fiber arts. It sounds a little Metamucil. Then we saw On Mapping: New Perspectives with a Common Thread, now up at Bellevue Arts Museum.

Friday night Seattle gets a new art gallery -- BLVD, dedicated to urban contemporary art. (Note to the uninitiated: that's "boulevard," not "beloved.") We talked with gallerist Kirsten Anderson, who also owns Roq La Rue, the neighboring lowbrow/pop surrealism gallery, about urban contemporary art and what to expect from BLVD.

Seattlest saw a house party get senselessly attacked with a shotgun and end in seven dead. A local senator is debated and their version of the big dig is investigated. To truly get to the bottom of it they interview the writer Jonathan Raban.

As noted here and elsewhere, author Octavia Butler died last weekend.

There's something about a man who has the money and the time to indulge his every fantasy. A giant building/blob to house a collection of rock memorabilia? Done. Throw in a museum filled with ray guns, space suits and big foam aliens? Done. Take a few abandon warehouses, add water and mold a new neighborhood in your likeness, complete with little trains and condo-opolises? Easy. Seattle is Paul Allens plaything and you can hate it and tear your hair out and scream profainities at any sign of his guiding hand, or you can swallow as many fistfulls of blue pills as you can choke down and just enjoy his fruits. Seattlest, personally, operates on a case by case basis, alternately loving (SF Museum) and hating (EMP).

When's the last time you attended a reading by a genuine, MacArthur-certified genius? Tonight's your chance -- local author and Science Fiction Museum board member Octavia Butler will read from Fledgling, her first novel in 7 years, at 7:30 at Elliott Bay Book Co.