Seattle Weekly, September 04, 2013

SEPTEMBER 4-10, 2013 I VOLUME 38 I NUMBER 36

SEATTLEWEEKLY.COM I FREE

WHAT CAN YOU GET FOR A NICKELSVILLE? PAGE 6 | THE REAL PRICE OF AN EGG, PAGE 19

wired ed The University of Washington gambles on low-cost online education. BY NINA SHAPIRO

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inside»   September 4–10, 2013 VOLUME 38 | NUMBER 36

» SEATTLEWEEKLY.COM

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news&comment 6

IN TENT CITY

Nickelsville closes; pot questions reopen. 9 | SPORTSBALL The Harvin question.

10 BOOKS TO MOOCS

BY NINA SHAPIRO | Massive Open Online Courses are changing the nature of higher ed and the makeup of UW.

food&drink 19 EGGONOMICS

BY BETH MAXEY | They are the eggmen: a look at local producers . 19 | FOOD NEWS 22 | THE BAR CODE 22 | TEMPERATURE CHECK

arts&culture 23 BEING WARASHINA

BAM’s career retrospective for the master ceramics artist. Plus: this week’s Agenda,

featuring Roger Shimomura, Jonathan Raban, and Davy Rothbart.

25 ARTS

25 | PERFORMANCE 26 | VISUAL ARTS

29 | OPENING THIS WEEK

Naomi Watts and Robin Wright as Australian MILFs, Olivia Wilde as brewpub temptress, and Audrey Tautou as murderous bride. 32 | FILM CALENDAR

35 MUSIC

35 | SEVEN NIGHTS | Jason Isbell,

the Eagles, Shuggie Otis, and the week’s top shows. 40 | DUFF MCKAGAN | A tour report.

odds&ends

41 | THE GEEKLY REPORT 42 | TOKE SIGNALS 43 | CLASSIFIEDS

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news&comment

Nickelsville, Nixed $500,000 and three new tent cities later, assessing the encampment eviction. BY MATT DRISCOLL

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NEWSLETTER

By city order, everything had to go at Nickelsville last weekend. Volunteers from other tent cities and elsewhere were cleaning up the city land this week.

PR O M O TI O NS

EV ENT S

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council’s eviction notice and an ordinance that, n Sunday, in the middle of a threeaccording to a spokesman for the Seattle Human day holiday weekend and as the City Services Department, gives the city leeway to Council wrapped up a two-week move fast in such situations. vacation, the last campers at West While she’s excited about the move and the Seattle’s Nickelsville packed up and moved out, promise of a better future for tent-city residents, prodded by a Sept. 1 eviction deadline handed Hotes calls the Union Gospel effort a “disaster,” down by the council in June. saying that the options offered by the Mission— Avoiding the photo op no one wanted—cops and bulldozers forcing Nickelodians off the city- which often included restrictions on pets or family types—“weren’t viable for a great number of owned land and into uncertainty—Nickelsville people” living at Nickelsville. residents were able to secure three new locations A month after the vote to shut down Nickelsat the last minute. Thanks to temporary permits ville, Councilmember Tim Burgess explained the and sympathetic private landowners like the wisdom used, writing on his blog: “When preLow Income Housing Institute, which offered vention efforts are not sufficient, the best strategy land in the Central District at South Jackson for dealing with homelessness—proven in many Street and 20th Avenue South, the latest crisis cities across the country—is to help people into for Nickelsville residents was averted, at least for permanent housing quickly. This is exactly what the time being. the Council directed in June when we authorized “It’s wonderful. We’ve got enough room for everyone” at the new locations, says Peggy Hotes, an additional $500,000 to help those living at the a liaison between Nickelsville and Jam for Justice, Nickelsville encampment in West Seattle find a place to live.” the nonprofit that sponsors the tent city. She But with three new smaller tent cities taking says the move will make Nickelsville residents safer and provide stability. “We’re very happy that Nickelsville’s place, it’s worth wondering just what was gained and just how far that $500,000 went. it’s all working out the way it is,” Hotes says of According to the Union Gospel Mission’s the move, while maintaining that the order that Terry Pallas, by the time the dust settles, a total made it necessary was misguided and in many of 60 Nickelsville residents will have been helped ways cruel. Misguided or not, Nickelsville is closed, just as into more permanent housing. Pallas says the majority of these former Nickelodians have been the council instructed, with a $500,000 generalplaced in furnished transitional apartments, while fund check cut to the Union Gospel Mission to some have gone to drug treatment and domestichelp relocate residents to more viable housing. violence safe houses. Eight received bus or train With the council trumpeting compassion and tickets out of town to reunite with friends or citing Nickelsville safety concerns like rats and family members. Pallas has heard the critiques winter mud, and arguing that tent cities aren’t an of the Mission’s effort, effective solution to bring but remains adamant that people out of homelessthe religious organization ness, the contract with the PRINT IS GREAT, but if you want to read . . . has done everything in its Union Gospel Mission real-life horror stories of terrible power to help. “From our was signed quickly. There Seattle drivers, check it out on end, with what we were was no advertisement or The Daily Weekly. tasked to do. We feel like bidding process, thanks to SEATTLEWEEKLY.COM/DAILYWEEKLY it’s been a good model, the tight time frame of the

A R T S A ND ENTE R TA I NM E NT

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news&comment because we’ve been able to serve so many different kinds of people,” says Pallas. A forthcoming Human Services Department review will likely be the final judge of that. Complicating matters, the population at Nickelsville ballooned after word came down that the council intended to close it and was funneling money there to help people find housing. According to City Council President Sally Clark, in June Nickelsville had about 80 residents; recent estimates have put that number closer to 150. “One of the things you learn is when you put a half a million dollars in services out there, people will take notice,” says Clark. Speaking last week, Pallas indicated that, working with the Sept. 1 deadline in mind, the Union Gospel Mission had already committed “a large majority of the [money].” Asked if he thought that money would be gone by the end of the Labor Day weekend, he said “It’s going to be pretty close.” The math is fairly straightforward: Relocating 60 former Nickelsville residents at a cost of roughly $500,000 breaks down to an average of about $8,000 per person. With most of those placed in transitional apartments with year-long leases (by the fourth month, according to Pallas, newly housed former Nickelodians are expected to start contributing “a very small program fee”), $8,000 per person seems reasonable.

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According to Clark, if you consider that Nickelsville had roughly 80 residents when the Council acted and 60-some were helped, the operation’s success rate wasn’t bad. However, she also admits that gauging this success is “in the eye of the beholder.” As skeptics will note, if the goal was to make a statement that Seattle is too compassionate to allow people to toil in encampments, it’s hard to view the effort as a win. Where once there was one big tent city, there are now three small ones. As Real Change executive director and longtime homeless advocate Tim Harris notes, for every person lifted out of Nickelsville, five more seemed to show up to take their place. “Even if Nickelsville does come up with, say, three sites that are suitable for 150 people to move to,” Harris opined last week, “then instead of one big unregulated camp, we’ve got three smaller camps dispersed throughout the city and no framework for how that can be supported through outreach and social services. . . . I don’t think anybody I knew thought that throwing $500,000 at this was going to be any kind of a long-term solution.” What is the long-term solution, and how will the Council proceed now that the West Seattle Nickelsville is no more? “It takes money,” says Clark. Likely a whole lot more than half a million dollars.

502 Wins. Does Medical Pot Lose? as Gov. Jay Inslee noted at a press conference following the Department of Justice announcement. “Even independent of today’s discussion, we believe there are serious changes that need to be brought to bear on medical marijuana for a variety of reasons,” he said. “That probably even predated the voter initiative. There’s some work to be done with medical marijuana.” But medical-marijuana advocates contend that I-502 regulations are—to borrow a phrase from Durkan—“untenable” for medical-cannabis users, including the ban on use for those under age 21 and on concentrates like tinctures that help people consume higher doses of the drug. “The reaction the governor and Jenny Durkan are having to this is saying we have to prop up” I-502, said Doug Hiatt, a local lawyer who opposed I-502 (as did Boiter). The governor’s office says it isn’t even close to committing to a course of action. As part of this year’s state budget, the Liquor Control Board was directed to study how, or if, I-502 and Washington’s medical-marijuana law could co-exist; that study is just beginning, said John Lane, Inslee’s senior policy adviser on public safety, and it’s too soon to say what the administration would support. “Yesterday’s announcement was just a reminder there’s a need to put regulations around the medical-marijuana market,” Lane said. Still, unease runs deep, as exhibited by a visit paid on Friday to a medical-marijuana access point by a Liquor Control Board employee, who said she wanted to learn more about how the operations work. To the business owners it felt like intimidation, and they cried foul. Within a day, the control board had apologized. “I’m a little embarrassed,” Liquor Control Board Director Rick Garza told The Stranger. “It plays into the paranoia some people have.”

DANIEL PERSON E

news@seattleweekly.com

SEPTEMBER 7-14, 2013

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Since the passage of Washington’s potlegalizing I-502 last fall, the searing debate over how broad legalization and regulation would affect the state’s medical-cannabis users largely fell away as residents grappled with the new law’s more immediate implications. But no longer. With last week’s announcement that the Department of Justice would not challenge I-502 as long as strict regulations were laid down on the use and distribution of marijuana, officials foreshadowed what’s sure to be a knock-down, drag-out fight over medical-marijuana policy in the upcoming legislative session, if not sooner. The question is this: Does the state want, and will the federal government allow, two separate avenues for legal marijuana to exist in Washington, each with its own set of rules—or was Thursday’s announcement a signal that the Department of Justice wants I-502 to become the law of weed-land? The latter scenario has been floated since I-502 made it onto the ballot, but U.S. District Attorney Jenny Durkan seemed to feed the paranoia Thursday with a brief statement on the DoJ statement: “The continued operation and proliferation of unregulated, forprofit entities outside of the state’s regulatory and licensing scheme is not tenable and violates both state and federal law.” Nobody had to ask what “entities” she was talking about, nor which “regulatory and licensing scheme.” “She made it pretty clear that there’s no protection for medical marijuana,” said Keri Boiter, the head of a campaign called Health Before Happy Hour that is lobbying the state to not impair medical-cannabis distribution while crafting regulations for recreational use. “I don’t know if it’s pressure from her superiors or if she said ‘Look, it’s easier to work with 502,’ but it’s not a workable system for patients.” Most agree that Washington’s medical-marijuana industry is in need of tighter regulations,

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news&comment»Sportsball

Percy Harvin and the Art of Redundancy BY SETH KOLLOEN

W

single point of failure. By amassing trios of playmakers, the Sounders and Seahawks have introduced redundancy into their systems. Just as you wouldn’t risk a year of IKEA furniture assembly with a single Allen wrench, the Seahawks and Sounders aren’t going to risk their seasons on a single playmaker. If one goes down, they have two big ones to take his place. So what is in a big play? A big play has, obviously, the practical effect of making you more likely to win a game. But big plays are also generally believed to create the psychological effect known as ”momentum.” Your numbers-minded analysts scoff at momentum-believers as the sports equivalent of evolution-deniers. Study after study shows that NBA players who’ve sunk five straight shots are no more likely to hit the sixth; that MLB players with a long hitting streak going are no more likely to get a hit the next game; that the team that came back to send the game into overtime is no more likely to win it. Yet the Seahawks design their offense around making big plays and their defense around preventing them. In a 2008 presentation by thenUSC/current Seahawk assistant coach Rocky Seto, he made this claim (according to a copy of the presentation obtained by the indispensable Seahawks blog Field Gulls): A recent unpublished NFL study conducted in recent years again concluded that giving up explosive plays (+16 in the passing game and +12 in the running game) has a major effect on determining the outcome. Give up either an explosive run or pass play in any given drive, and the opposition will score over 75% of the time for the period studied. In 2012, the Seahawks made 26 more of these plays than they allowed. The two top teams in “Big Play” differential? The 49ers and Broncos, this year’s Super Bowl favorites. If you’re a fan of the Seahawks or Sounders, you’re going to live or die by the big play. Will the Sounders, mired in a difficult playoff match as in years past, be inspired to victory by a magical Clint Dempsey goal? When Percy Harvin returns, will a momentum-changing kick-return TD finally lift the Seahawks to a championship? The Hawks and Sounders have paid dearly to make these fantasies possible. E RUBENDN

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hy do the Seahawks need Percy Harvin when they already have Sidney Rice and Golden Tate?” Many questions surround the Seahawks as the team enters its most-hyped season ever, but this one might prove the most insistent. It was asked earlier this year when the Hawks signed Harvin to the spendiest contract in team history, and you’re hearing it a lot more since Harvin’s balky hip has sidelined him for most of the season, which starts with Sunday’s game against the Carolina Panthers. But Harvin’s injury isn’t an argument against the Seahawks’ Before decision to sign him; joining the it’s the exact reason Seahawks, they did. And it’s Harvin was the same reason the a threat Sounders—who for four already possess two years in top-flight goal-scorers Minnesota. in Eddie Johnson and Obafemi Martins— wrote their biggest check to acquire a third threat. Yes, Harvin’s huge salary could prevent the Hawks from resigning young stars once they reach free agency, and giving up three draft picks to get him will hurt the team’s depth. Dempsey’s signing makes the Sounders wildly overstaffed in the goal-scoring department. With Eddie Johnson and Obafemi Martins already in the fold, wouldn’t Dempsey’s $5 million salary (and $368K cap hit) be more wisely spread among a passel of reinforcements for the Sounders’ aging defense? You can at least make the argument. But for the Sounders and Seahawks the signings are necessary, due to their faith in the Church of the Big Play. Big-play players are expensive because they are rare. It is that rare skill that also makes them unusually prone to both injury and rapid decline. Soccer has a long, arduous season during which a star striker, who is frequently targeted for desperate tackles, will inevitably suffer an injury that knocks him out of a game or two—as Martins did last month in Clint Dempsey’s first match as a Sounder. Football, meanwhile, has a short, violent season during which players are one hit away from season-ending surgery—elite wide receivers more so, since they are often tackled by men who outweigh them by 100 pounds. The fact is that it’s not good enough anymore to have just one elite offensive talent. In engineering terms, that approach leaves you with a

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Facing skyrocketing costs and a sea change in higher ed, the University of Washington is betting on low-cost online courses that could attract more students and money. And maybe turn its professors into stars.

Wired Ed W BY NINA SHAPIRO

SEATTLE WEEKLY • SEPTEM BER 4 — 10, 2013

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atthew Sparke sits at the head of a table in a first-floor classroom in the University of Washington’s Smith Hall on a May afternoon and asks the 15 students before him to contemplate a thought-provoking question: Why would an antipoverty project in Africa feel the need to trademark its work? “Are you afraid someone might steal it?” the red-haired, British-born professor asks with a wry chuckle. Sparke, the winner of a 2007 distinguished teaching award from the University of Washington, displays humor and a boyish sincerity when engaging with his students. Like many professors, he uses academic jargon like “meta-discourse”and “spatial selectivity,”but he’s otherwise lacking in airs. It’s perhaps one lasting effect of being told at age 11, after failing a critical test then given in Britain, that he had no academic future. He went on to Oxford University anyway. There’s a pause while the bright-eyed, 20-something seniors, who signed up for this “global health and philanthrocapitalism” class as part of their studies in the prestigious Jackson School of International Studies, consider the question, which is directed at an enterprise called the Millenium Villages Project. “You don’t want somebody to use the name and then mess it up,” ventures a young man. » CONTINUED ON PAGE 13

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Wired Ed W » FROM PAGE 10 “Ah-ha,” Sparke says. “So what does that tell you about his vision?” he asks, referring to Millenium Villages’ founder Jeffrey Sachs. The geography professor goes on to mention that Sachs seems to have an ego, and prompts the class to mull over whether today’s philanthropists are like the “charismatic leaders” of old, deriving their power from an image of godlike “beneficence.” Further contemplation of Sachs leads a student to question his seeming obsession with “data,” which leads to a discussion of a similar obsession on the part of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which meanders back to the proprietary attitude of philanthropists. In Africa, says a young woman who has traveled there, “every village has a sign that says what NGO worked there—like [the villages] were owned by the NGOs.” It’s a keen observation that gets at the heart of a point Sparke is trying to make. “There is this weird way in which Africa becomes a tableau for all these foreign flags,” he

by a frenzy for online teaching that has hit higher education, in the words of Stanford University President John Hennessy, like a “tsunami.” Much of that energy is sparked by what has become known as MOOCs, or Massive Open Online Courses. They are wildly popular, and there’s a key reason why: These university classes, offered over the Internet and consisting largely of video lectures broken into short chunks suited for the attention span of the wired age, are open to all comers, whether in Seattle or Shanghai. And they are free. One 2011 Stanford class in computer sciences famously drew 160,000 students. But MOOCs are also wildly controversial. In early May, members of the philosophy department of San Jose State University wrote an open letter to a Harvard teacher offering a MOOC course on social justice. SJSU had signed a contract with edX, a nonprofit partnership between Harvard and MIT that produces MOOCs, and the California school’s president wanted to test the online Harvard material as part of the regular philosophy curricula. “Let’s not kid ourselves,”

“The Internet is about to bring to university professors, what it has brought to secretaries, journalists, and music executives: unemployment.”

Professor Matthew Sparke is miked up to film a lesson for his online globalization course.

the philosophy professors wrote, explaining why they were refusing to follow their president’s wishes. “Administrators at the CSU [California State University] are beginning a process of replacing faculty with cheap online education.” Financial Times columnist Christopher Caldwell believes their fears are warranted. “The Internet is about to bring to university professors what it has brought to secretaries, journalists, and music executives: unemployment,” he wrote in a piece last year. There are also concerns that the online craze will narrow the range of intellectual thought, as universities around the country rely on digital classes taught by professors at just a few prestigious schools. Plus there is the question of the

classroom experience, which can perhaps be approximated (through, for instance, discussion boards), but not quite replicated, online. In a brickand-mortar class, says Cliff Mass, UW’s renowned professor of atmospheric sciences, “there’s something important and magical that occurs.” Yet the traditional university, with its spiraling costs, is facing scrutiny as never before. Josh Jarrett, deputy director for post-secondary success at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, is one of a growing number of people skeptical about how well the magic is working. He says only about one-third of low-income students who start college make it to graduation. What’s more, he says, “we’ve known for 30 years” that there are better ways to learn than the classroom

I

don’t have strawberry jam in my teeth, do I?” Sparke half-jokes. “No, you’re good,” says Ryan Adams, who with cameraman Lars Myren is filming Sparke in front of Smith Hall on a beautiful June day. “Let’s roll.” Sparke hesitates. “How does ‘Greetings’

SEATT LE W EEKLY • SEPTEMBER 4 — 10, 2013

PHOTOS BY LARS MYREN AND RYAN K. ADAMS

elaborates. It’s a “turf war,” he continues, albeit one that has to do with “saving lives.” This class embodies a lot of what is good about the university experience, with its opportunities for give and take between curious students and knowledgeable scholars. When it ends, however, Sparke rushes out and heads across the quad to Savery Hall, where he makes a presentation before the Faculty Senate about a major new university initiative that is, in a way, antithetical to that experience. Sparke has just been named the head of a program that will offer a full complement of socialsciences classes online. The so-called Integrated Social Sciences Program—which, if all goes as planned, will launch in the fall of 2014—is fueled

experience—namely one-on-one tutoring, shown in decades-old research to be more effective. “We can’t get everyone a tutor, but we can blend the best of what faculty can do with what technology can do,” he says. Facing such sentiments, the prospect of being left behind in the online craze, and the allure of technological innovation, UW has jumped into this new world. Last summer, it started offering MOOCs through Coursera, a for-profit company started by Stanford professors. And in May, the university announced that it would also work with edX. David Szatmary, UW’s vice provost for educational outreach, which handles online initiatives, calls the university’s MOOC offerings “an experiment.” And it comes with some risk. While MOOCs are free to students, they are costly to produce. Karen Dowdall-Sandford, head of online programs in Szatmary’s department, says she budgets as much as $29,000 for video production, “instructional designers” who help professors plan their online content, and project managers. That doesn’t include the extra month’s salary the university pays professors to create a MOOC. The university, which does not use taxpayer money for MOOCs, got a $50,000 grant to develop one on public speaking that ran over the summer. Nathan Kutz, a professor of applied mathematics who has offered some of the UW’s first MOOCs, observes that universities “are looking like they might lose their shirts unless they can find a way to monetize.” In this respect, the program headed by Sparke offers another way forward. Its online classes will not be MOOCs. The program is, in fact, a degree completion program, targeted at the millions of students not just in this state but around the country who have taken some college courses but dropped out. Students will pay tuition, albeit much less than what their on-campus counterparts pay. It is an experiment—one that generates mixed feelings on campus. “The Faculty Senate has been concerned that we don’t rush foolishly into untested waters,” says Jim Gregory, the senate president. At the same time, UW economics professor Dan Jacoby observes of online teaching: “Everywhere you look across the country, there’s a sense that it’s coming.”

» CONTINUED ON PAGE 14 13

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sound?” he asks. “Do you think it sounds weirdly English?” “Yeah, but it’s great,” Adams says. “Whatever you’re comfortable with.” Sparke begins a take, looking at the cameraman. “So greetings! In this introductory video, I want to give you a sense of where I’m coming from, both physically and intellectually. Come with me, up to my office.” Sparke walks up the stairs into the building and makes his way to his third-floor office. Trailing him with a hand-held camera are Adams and Myren. “What we’re doing today is like a short film,” Adams explains during a break between takes. Before being hired by UW a little over a month ago as a full-time video producer, he worked in TV and movies. He served as director of photography on The Oregonian, an independent horror flick that went to the Sundance Film Festival in 2011, and last year he shot a Mike Birbiglia Comedy Central special. He says he took this job in part to have a steady income. But he waxes enthusiastic about

the opportunity to tell what he calls “educational stories” in a more polished way than has often been the case. When you look at MOOCs, he says, “a lot of them are webcams in people’s offices. They’re dreadful.” He says he’s also excited about helping UW professors reach a wider audience. As of yesterday, he notes, the public-speaking MOOC had 80,000 people enrolled. “Those are like successful indie-feature numbers!” The footage he’s filming today is intended for both a MOOC—to be offered on Coursera in the fall—and for a meatier class that could become part of the new online social-sciences program. The topic is globalization. But Sparke doesn’t want to dive right in. He wants this introduction to give students in far-flung places a more personal connection to him and the university environment. In a way, he sees these online courses as breaching the “town/gown divide,” exposing academics to people who might not otherwise set foot on a university campus. In his office, shades drawn, an imposing piece of lighting equipment called a chimera set up in a corner, Sparke again turns to the camera.

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Professor Matt McGarrity taught UW’s public-speaking MOOC this summer, and says it was “a massive amount of work.”

LARS MYREN AND RYAN K. ADAMS

He calls attention to a picture sitting on the bookshelf that lines one wall. It’s of his own class of freshmen, or “freshers” as they were called, at Oxford, he explains. “There I had my first important intellectual experience,” he goes on, referring to a geography professor he had named David Harvey. “You can see books on the shelves by him.” Sparke waves an arm to point them out. As he does so, he knocks over the Oxford class picture. “Ah, shit,” he exclaims. By this time, he’s already done quite a few takes—walking upstairs to his office and then back down, saying less or more, “landing” in the spot indicated by Adams, correcting slips of the tongue—and he’s getting flustered. “I’m not sure I’m cut out for this,” he

As of yesterday, the public-speaking MOOC had 80,000 people enrolled. “Those are like successful indie-feature numbers!”

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galitarianism runs through the onlineeducation movement, which is older than many people realize. As far back as the 1990s, the UW began to offer online courses, says Szatmary, the head of educational outreach. The digital offerings, most of them part of graduate degree or certificate programs, generally cost money. But since 2001, about a dozen online classes have been free. Szatmary says that the university considers the free offerings a public service, in keeping with a mission to provide broad access to residents across the state. And in fact, that tradition goes back way before the digital age—to 1912, when UW launched correspondence courses, with textbooks and assignments traveling back and forth by mail. Yet it was not until the nation’s most prestigious universities began to offer free online courses a couple of years ago that the phenomenon captured worldwide attention. What was in the offing was nothing less than an “Ivy League for the masses,” proclaimed Time. The appeal of MOOCs has been potent. The skyrocketing cost of higher education is causing national panic. In the ’80s, UW’s tuition amounted to less than $1,000 a year. It now tops $12,000. Add room and board and you double that. At Ivy League schools, the total bill runs close to $50,000 a year. “We’re facing a crisis in this country,” says Larry Seaquist, chair of the state House Higher Education Committee. It was a point much discussed in the last legislative session, which ended, for the first time in decades with no tuition increase. The cost is increasingly prompting people to ask a heretical question: Is a college education worth it? Peter Thiel, a libertarian education reformer and venture capitalist, likes to talk about what he calls an “education bubble,” which overvalues the college experience just as the real-estate bubble once overvalued houses. A foundation he started in San Francisco finances a select group of college students to drop out and pursue other work, in the tradition of such notables as Bill Gates. “Maybe there are more effective ways of learn-

» CONTINUED ON PAGE 16

SEATT LE W EEKLY • SEPTEMBER 4 — 10, 2013

confides at one point, a couple hours into shooting. A few takes later, he asks for a break: “Can we get a coffee? I’m exhausted.” Taking a seat, his gaze falls on a picture of the scenic Lake District in England, where he spent holidays as a child. He used to hike, but not with his dad. Having suffered brain damage at birth, the elder Sparke was disabled. Sparke says his dad managed to get a job as a clerk at an insurance company, but stagnated in that lower-level position. In an earlier conversation, Sparke noted that he loved America’s willingness to give people second chances in life. Indeed, he said, that ethos was part of what drove him to get involved with online education, which he believes opens new “learning opportunities.” Now, alluding to his father, Sparke reflects, “That’s also why I believe in second chances—because he never got one.” His break over, Sparke continues filming. He will spend the rest of the day behind the camera, taking his crew downtown to film the setting of

the 1999 World Trade Organization protests. Unfortunately, it will prove too noisy a spot, and Sparke fears the footage may need to be scrapped.

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Wired Ed W

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ing than spending four, five, six years in college and racking up hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt,” says Thiel Foundation president Jonathan Cain. Those ways, he says, could be “new online models.” If they don’t offer credit, so what? Cain calls a B.A. “meaningless.” What’s important, in his view, is whether young people get the “knowledge and skills they need.” For many people, of course, college is about more than knowledge and skills. Consider, for example, Fiona Stefanik, a 20-year-old UW senior sitting one sunny day last spring on the sprawling lawn outside Smith Hall. All around her are students doing the same, or reading or talking with friends. It’s the kind of idyllic scene that goes into college brochures. Stefanik says she thinks of college as an “experience.” She adds, “It’s about figuring out who I am.” She relates that she started UW as a “diehard” pre-med student, but found herself stressed out and miserable by sophomore year. Then she took an anthropology class. “I just fell in love,” she says. She explains that anthropology, which she’s now majoring in, gave her a way of understanding the world. And she really connected with the class’s high-spirited professor, who started every class by leading a group dance session. She believes that none of that would have happened had her education been online. That’s undoubtedly the case. But other students are willing to dispense with the experiences of campus life. And in Cain’s subversive vision, the online students of the future won’t necessarily need to make such stark trade-offs. He contends that new online entities will spring up to serve some of college’s auxillary functions. It’s a model certain to produce shudders from university figures. They already see private schools, like the University of Phoenix, as bugaboos, making a profit while they siphon resources from the publics and nonprofits. And many academics find it alarming that venture capitalists are moving into online learning. Most notable, Coursera has raised $65 million in private funding as of July. What do investors see in a company offering free classes? In a widely circulated open letter to Coursera co-founder Daphne Koller, University of California professor Bob Meister speculates that the classes won’t be free for long. Coursera, he suggests, has a hidden profit-making agenda. Sparke says he has “critical concerns” about this possibility. Yet despite those, and despite the subversive notions of people like Cain, Sparke and other academics see an upside to MOOCs. Given that he’s teaching about globalization, Sparke likes the idea of students from all over the world contributing to online class discussions. Kutz, chair of the applied-mathematics department, articulates another reason that university administrations might find MOOCs appealing. “It’s a great marketing tool to highlight what we do.” The two he taught last year, in scientific computing and data analysis, each drew around 14,000 enrollees, many of them in India, Africa, and South America, all of them now exposed to the UW and its expertise in applied math. Kutz’s personal exposure has also grown—he’s become a MOOC mini-celebrity. Walking around Boston this past year while on sabbatical,

he’s had students from his online courses stop him excitedly. His celebrity is apparently not unique. The Chronicle of Higher Education recently reported that some MOOC professors gain such a following that students have entertained the idea of printing T-shirts adorned with their faces. Kutz notes that digital lectures have some distinct advantages for students, something he says he learned teaching in an online master’s-degree program offered by his department. To his surprise, he found that the videos he made for the online program were popular even with on-campus students. He realized that in a traditional lecture, a student’s attention can drift. He can see it in their faces, and he’ll try to bring them back with a joke. Yet online, he says, students who miss a moment can simply rewind. Those who get bored by a lecture’s slow pace can, alternatively, speed up the playback. Still, he’s concerned about the financial aspect of MOOCs: “It’s one thing to challenge $50,000 tuition, but zero dollars—that doesn’t make sense.” Given the financial drain, UW negotiated a special deal with Coursera, Kutz says. As Coursera offered the UW’s MOOCs, it would give students an opportunity to switch into upgraded courses with the same rigorous assignments and evaluations given on-campus students. Those who switched would also pay roughly as much as if they were in the actual

“This has the potential of creating something that could be a model for the rest of the country, if not the world.”

classroom, and in return receive academic credit or a certificate. Through those fees, the university figured, it might be able to recoup its expenses on the MOOCs.

B

ellevue’s Karen Boher took the bait. The 57-year-old software developer and business-management consultant had just finished getting a UW master’s in business administration the oldfashioned, on-campus way. Wanting to launch a start-up, she recalls, “I still felt like a few pieces of the puzzle were missing.” Previously she had discovered iTunes U—a service of the iTunes store that, much like Coursera, offers free university lectures—and became enraptured with the ability to learn from professors at places like the London School of Economics. She sampled courses as if they were ice-cream flavors, trying a little bit of this, a little bit of that. “They’re free, so if you get too

UW president Michael Young came up with the idea for an online degreecompletion program for dropouts.

busy, you can drop out,” she says. That’s typical. Szatmary says the latest figures he’s gotten from Coursera reveal that only 3 to 5 percent of people who enroll in a course finish it. Boher turned to Coursera to find her missing pieces, and saw a UW MOOC on information security that interested her. She enrolled. And she loved it. But she also knew that an on-campus class was going on at the same time, one that promised more extensive readings, up-to-theminute lectures, guest speakers, and interaction with the professor. “I couldn’t stand what I was missing,” Boher says. So she upgraded on Coursera, which allowed her to virtually attend the oncampus course. She ended up taking two additional courses that way and received a certificate in information security and risk management. At a south Seattle Starbucks, Boher fires up her laptop and clicks on a link to bring up a class from the spring. In a little box on the left side of the screen, we see the professor, Mike Simon, standing in front of a white board. He tells the students in the classroom—whom we can hear but not see—that he’ll wait a few more minutes for others to trickle in. In the middle of the screen is a big space for PowerPoint presentations. In a column on the right side of the screen, texts from online students are appearing. “It’s been a very busy week,” texts an online student, revealing that his workplace has experienced a security breach. “All applicants and employees potentially had exposed SSN, birth date, maiden names, etc.” Those in the classroom can see the texts, which are projected onto a screen. Boher notes, though, that in the first class she took, the professor was sometimes slow to look at the screen and respond. Technical glitches also emerged. In the class we’re looking at, another online student attempts to give a presentation using his computer mike, but his voice keeps fading out. All of a sudden he appears onscreen, a young man wearing a red beard, a baseball cap, and a look of utter frustration. He still can’t be heard. The professor moves on to another student. These problems didn’t bother Boher much. Being local, she was able to drop into the classroom occasionally. And because of the online

SCOTT EKLUND / RED BOX PICTURES

SEATTLE WEEKLY • SEPTEM BER 4 — 10, 2013

» FROM PAGE 15

dimension, she enthuses, “we had people from all over the world in class.” Via Skype, she worked on projects with students from India, Italy, and Canada. “It was a little hard because we had three different time zones,” she says. They worked it out. The biggest problem of these upgraded Coursera classes affected not students but administrators: There simply weren’t enough takers. Boher was one of only nine last year who took the leap into paying for courses. “It was at best a mixed experiment,” Szatmary concludes. The university recouped about $36,000, but spent more than $100,000 developing the MOOCs that could be upgraded, according to Szatmary. Even so, he says the university will continue to develop free classes— but in limited quantities. “We’re not poised to offer dozens of courses,” he says. UW President Michael Young acknowledges the question facing many schools that have leapt into offering MOOCs: “How do we monetize?” Speaking by phone one day this summer, Young expresses an interest in online delivery. In addition to providing increased access, he says, he sees it as a potential way to create “efficiencies” and make education more affordable. Yet, in contrast to education radicals like Thiel and Cain, he’s quick to opine that MOOCs don’t add up to a genuine college education, which he holds is not only about “content” but “transforming young minds.” That’s why he says he’s adamantly opposed to offering credit for MOOCs—a line in the sand that also looks out for the university’s bottom line. Young is betting, however, that the university can transform young minds through a more systematic online education. He’s the one who came up with the idea of a degree-completion program for college dropouts. Aware that this demographic is considerable, he says he asked his staff soon after arriving in Seattle from the University of Utah, where he was previously president, to explore the idea. “I don’t want a UW Light,” he says he told his staff. “I don’t want [online] classes to be bigger than 35 or 40 students . . . And could we do it for half the price?” That’s cheap, but a lot more than nothing; the tuition currently under discussion is roughly $7,000 a year. The goal is to break even. By doing so, Sparke points out, the university will potentially get something it has been seeking for a long time: the ability to hire new staff. That hasn’t been possible for years, given slashed funding by the legislature. Sparke refers to the faculty as a “graying population,” causing low morale in departments hungry for fresh talent. The proposed social-sciences program won’t generate a ton of new hires, Sparke cautions—maybe only four or five a year. But in a small way, he says, it “will allow us to basically expand the university.” Last fall, Szatmary came to a Faculty Senate meeting to outline the idea. Faculty members peppered him with critical questions. Many felt it was a vague, top-down notion that had more to do with “a desperate need to get online” than with a concrete educational mission, says Robert Wood, head of the UW chapter of the American Association of University Professors. He also recalls that Szatmary’s presentation, complete with market-research figures, sounded off-puttingly like a “business plan.” And while UW had a long history with online

programs, this one proposed “to cross a different threshold,” explains senate president Gregory. He points out that existing degree programs offer specific skills to graduate students. This new program, however, would be for undergrads seeking a more general, broader education. The students would be younger. Could their needs really be met online? Jacoby, the economics professor, says his worst fear is that programs like this will create “more of a class-based system,” with those who can afford it getting the full on-campus experience and those who can’t relegated to the online world. What makes this particularly alarming, in Jacoby’s view, is that those who can’t afford it are precisely the people who most need the support of an on-campus education—faculty engagement, peer-group morale-raising and reinforcement of study habits. It’s a view that counters the sunny egalitarianism that others see in online education. The administration wasn’t proposing to start small with this new venture, moreover. It indicated that its goal for the social-sciences program was to enroll 5,000 students within five years— almost the size of last year’s freshman class. To move ahead with such a program, the administration needs the approval of two Faculty Senate committees. While debate simmered over the social-sciences proposal, the administration came forward with another proposal for a much smaller bachelor’s program, one narrower in scope—offering a degree in early-childhood and family studies that would enroll maybe a couple hundred students. The proposal responded to a new federal requirement that half of Head Start teachers have a college degree. Faculty felt it was “a good way for UW to test the waters,” Gregory says. The requisite Senate committees gave it the go-ahead in the spring, and the program will begin this month. Meanwhile, the administration continued to work on the social-sciences idea. In the spring, it named Sparke to head the program.

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n a big lecture hall filled with 100 or so faculty members, Sparke takes the podium with characteristic cheerfulness. It’s his May presentation before the Senate, the first time he’s appeared in his new role. He declares himself excited about “using online education to expand the University of Washington’s teaching vision.” But he acknowledges ongoing debates over online teaching. He references San Jose State. There, he says, professors face the prospect of “being reduced to the level of a TA [teaching assistant].” The UW program, Sparke stresses, is “an insourcing model rather than an outsourcing model.” Sparke also notes that the program will offer “mentoring and coaching”—a point reiterated by Judy Howard, dean of social sciences, who takes the podium next. She talks about “e-nags” who will check up on students. Exuding competence and self-assurance, Howard briskly covers other aspects of the program: the intended outreach to marginalized populations, the possible online seminars that will create a “community of learning,” and the desire to avoid a “bifurcated” staff by encouraging all faculty members to teach online classes. “It’s really critical that departments as a whole embrace the program,” Howard says, indicating that as yet this has not happened. “The hardest part” of pulling off the program will be “resources,” she notes, elaborat-

ing that it will require more instructors than have currently signed up. That’s not surprising. On top of all the concerns faculty initially expressed, there is the time commitment involved. Matt McGarrity, the lecturer teaching the public-speaking MOOC, says its development has been “just a massive amount of work,” including preparation, filming, and post-production editing. And while he expresses excitement at reaching a global audience, he also notes that his “obligations are first and foremost to the people who paid to be in the seats here.” When Howard opens the floor to questions, it’s clear that this faculty reception is far more positive than the one that greeted Szatmary in the fall. A woman in back raises her hand. “The academic substance of this is just wonderful to behold,” she gushes. “This has the potential of creating something that could be a model for the rest of the country, if not the world.” “This sounds pretty impressive,” Gregory chimes in. Talking with Seattle Weekly later, the Senate president explains that the idea seems more carefully fleshed out than when it was first proposed. Of Sparke and Howard, he says “They are thinking deeply about what can be done in online courses.” Both have earned much respect from faculty, and have lent the program credibility. Consequently, by mid-August, upward of 30 instructors had signed on, as many as needed to launch the program next fall. Sparke is open about his deliberations. He concedes that one big challenge will be to make good on the program’s “degree-completion” billing, with reference to students who have already dropped out once. He hopes to keep students engaged through the e-nags (or e-advisors, as he prefers to call them), webinar office hours, and “interactive spaces.” Also prompting much discussion in recent months, Sparke says, is “risk management.” As with MOOCs, UW is not tapping into taxpayer funds for the new program, which is meant to be self-sustaining. So the university needs to be careful about how much it spends and realistic about the program’s possible enrollment. Just in the past six months, “things have changed a lot,” Szatmary explained by phone a few weeks ago. Such is the rush by universities to get into online teaching that UW faces ever more competition. The University of Florida, the University of Wisconsin, and Colorado State University have all launched online programs. Their enrollment results have been mixed, according to Szatmary. UW administration has consequently downsized its ambitions, now saying it wants to enroll 1,250 students in three years rather than 5,000 in five. “We’re going slower than some would like,” Sparke allows. Yet, he says, even the scaled-back program is “quite a big beginning.” A couple of weeks ago, having just finished the proposal that will go before a Faculty Senate committee on academic standards, he was mulling over where to find office space for the three new advisors who will be hired. Also, he’s scouting locations in his mind for the 10 remaining days of filming he has yet to do. He’s thinking about the Port of Seattle and Boeing Field to illustrate points he wants to make about globalization. But he knows enough now to make sure that the background noise won’t interfere with how he comes across on the little screen. E

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The Price of Local Eggs

BY SARA BILLUPS

Not a business, but a labor of love. BY BETH MAXEY John Rawley, right, and his chickens and eggs.

JOHN PORTLOCK

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est unit you can raise and still make a profit in a commercial setting. Singel had only 20,000 chickens, 12 acres, and a garage. “Profitable commercial chicken facilities,” Singel explained, “raise four to five batches a year, and they don’t buy chicks, they buy chickens that are already laying. Raising chicks to laying age is a separate business.” Singel and other small-scale local egg producers like Early Bird Eggs do not use this type of facility. Not only is it contrary to their philosophy, but they want to use heritage breeds, for reasons that range from the birds’ beautiful feathers and their eggs’ striking blue and brown shells to preserving genetic diversity and the eggs’ rich flavor. “But,” Singel continued, “heritage breeds “don’t produce as many eggs to begin with. You have to feed them for six to eight months before they lay, and it is difficult to sex them, so you end up feeding males for four months until they are big enough to be identified and culled from the flock.” Four months of feed costs a lot of money. According to Singel, the cost of feed is sig2:17 PM nificant in a truly free-range system. “Chickens that run freely in the pasture don’t lay as many

eggs as if they’re confined. All the energy they spend running is energy they were not using to produce eggs. My girls had big muscles and lots of fun. I used to call them my little athletes!” But like most athletes, chickens have their season. “You have to keep your chickens indoors and under at least 14 hours of artificial light in the winter to trick them into laying. This also costs money.” For Singel, that price was $800 a month. He also saw significant costs, in both time and money, in bringing Biocento’s eggs to market. “When I account for everything, it costs me $9 to produce a dozen truly free-range eggs. So you see, the consumer will not support what it costs us.” But poor profitability was not the reason Singel stopped producing eggs. He was told he had to. Several seasons ago, Singel planted berries at Biocento Farms. “What we learned,” Singel said, “is that the consumer’s idea of a happy farm with produce and livestock, chickens and pigs, is a fiction.” The Washington State Department of Agriculture sets strict regulations governing raising livestock or other animals on a farm and selling produce grown onsite. “The WSDA’s

Grocery are open on north Lake Union. Come by foot, bike, car, or vessel: The aquatic-themed eateries include boat parking. Seattle Tilth’s Harvest Fair is this Saturday from 10 a.m.–4 p.m. at Meridian Park in Wallingford. The all-ages event includes a cider pressing, an urban livestock demo, a seed swap, and a DIY herb crownmaking booth. A full schedule is available online. He’s on a roll: Ethan Stowell is planning to open his latest neighborhood venture market in Tangletown by the middle of the month. The 600-square-foot storefront, squeezed between Mighty-O Donuts and Elysian’s Tangletown Pub, will seat just shy of 30 diners. Molly Moon’s is headed for U Village this autumn. The scoop shop is aiming for a November opening in a new construction at the outdoor mall that will also include Din Tai Fung Dumpling House and Joey Kitchen.

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SEATT LE W EEKLY • SEPTEMBER 4 — 10, 2013

wo weeks ago I arrived at the Broadway Farmers Market on Capitol Hill at 1 p.m. A sign at Early Bird Eggs read “Sorry! Sold Out.” I’m used to it. Every week I see similar signs at the Ballard and U District farmers markets. Fresh eggs are my favorite local food. I love the bright sunflower-gold yolks, the cohesive texture of a just-laid egg-white, the rich, buttery flavor, and the knowledge that the chickens who laid these eggs are not cooped up in tiny cages, but scratching and foraging and improving the soil, out in the fresh air. At $5 to $9 a dozen, local free-range eggs can seem expensive, but their quality is so obvious that to me the cost is worth it. And apparently I’m not alone. So the next I week got to the market at 11:15 a.m., 15 minutes after it opened. Early Bird Eggs’ blackboard said “Buy your eggs first. Limited Supply Today.” I handed over $12 and bought two dozen large brown, white, and pale blue eggs. Good thing I did. By the time I made it back to the booth 30 minutes later, the sign had changed. “Sorry! Sold Out.” The market had been open less than an hour. Why, I wondered, is there a “limited supply” of local free-range eggs? Even at twice the price of a grocery-store dozen, farmers markets are always selling out of them. What are the economics of the local egg business? If there’s such a demand, why aren’t farmers producing more eggs? Or charging more for the eggs they have? Until last year I bought my local free-range eggs from Biocento Farms at Madison Market/ Central Co-Op. Then they suddenly disappeared. I called Biocento’s Soren Singel, whose farm is in Yakima, and asked him what happened. Singel was surprisingly candid: “There are no economics to it.” The local egg business—for Biocento, at least—was not profitable at all. Part of this is because Biocento is a small farm by design, and Soren is unable, or uninterested, to take advantage of economies of scale. “When I first started with the chickens,” Singel said, “I called up this chicken ‘guru’—a vet here in Yakima—to learn what I could, and he asked me ‘How many batches do you have?’ I didn’t even know what a batch was. He just laughed at me.” BOD_WKLY_Gin_6-4-13.pdf 6/4/13 In a so-called “conventional” system,1 a batch is 200,000 chickens—supposedly the small-

Washington Cider Week runs Sept. 5–15 with events all over the city and state. Check out the deets and our cider picks at seattleweekly.com/food/voracious.

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Bar Cantinetta has opened its doors in La Côte’s previous space in Madison Valley. The quaint new sibling of Cantinetta’s Wallingford and Bellevue locations features communal seating and a handful of small tables with small plates to match. E food@seattleweekly.com

food&drink

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concern is that livestock could potentially contaminate the produce and pose a health risk to the consumer. So we got rid of the chickens. As long as we had them, we could not get a health permit to take the berries to market.” Rawley Johnson of Early Bird Eggs has a

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slightly different story. Johnson bought his first 500 chicks this past October. Because of the acreage, the distance between the fields, and the type of planting at Local Roots Farm, where Johnson also works and pastures his chickens, he’s able to integrate livestock with produce, which he considers essential to a healthy, diversified farm. As he explains it, state and federal farming regulations are complex and in flux. The Food Safety and Modernization Act (FSMA), a huge piece of legislation which could have an enormous impact on the viability of small diversified farms, is in Congress now. In Washington state, the Good Agricultural Practices program (GAP) is trying to identify problems and define best practices for small diversified agriculture. In Johnson’s experience, safety guidelines depend on the size of the farm; the distance between livestock and vegetables; whether the farm sells wholesale as Biocento did or directly to the customers like Early Bird Eggs; and how crops that might be contaminated by livestock are raised. Lettuce and other vegetables grown on the dirt, for example, are considered more at-risk than, say, tomatoes, trellised off the ground and protected by a greenhouse. Another important factor is how long fields rest after livestock use them. Currently, Johnson says, that time is between 90 and 120 days. But there is some concern about a provision in FSMA that would require a nine-month fallow period on fields used by livestock. “Not being able to use a field for nine months means I can’t make money from that field for a whole season.” During this fallow period, intended to protect against harmful contamination, the nutrients from animals that pastured there would leach out of the soil and likely need to be replaced with fertilizers. More important, farmers like Johnson would need more land to produce the same amount of produce. This could have a huge impact on the financial viability of small diversified farms, like Early Bird Eggs. “I know lots of small farmers who are holding their breath,” says Johnson. Still, he thinks it’s important that small farms should not be exempt from common-sense food-safety practices. But what he doesn’t want is for regulations aimed at farms of a different scale to make small-scale farming untenable. He doesn’t want to get rid of his chickens or face a produce-vs.-livestock game. Instead of hard-and-fast regulations, Johnson advocates adaptable guidelines that could work with small farmers and their individual situations to achieve safe food and diversified farms. Johnson means diversified not just in terms of plantings, but economically as well. As he sees it, a farmer needs to be able to offer something at the market throughout the season. “Eggs are seasonal. As the days get shorter and the weather gets hotter—unfortunately, when demand for eggs is the highest—chickens lay

WEE K LY

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less, no matter how many chickens I have. But in an integrated farm, we have these beautiful fall vegetables coming in.” “Right now,” he says with a hopeful look in his eye, “I’m looking for the right piece of land to plant vegetables and pasture my chickens,” which I hear as a vote of confidence in local eggs and small diversified farms in a climate where legislation leaves many unknowns. E

food@seattleweekly.com

Seattle Residents Raise Their Own Chickens Increasingly, urban dwellers are choosing to raise chickens and get their own farm-fresh eggs. Leslie LaRue Whalley and her husband always had secret aspirations of living on a farm, so they built a coop instead, buying plans online from a guy in Kansas. “We let them roam around our backyard most of the day, which is about 4,000 square feet. They feast on bugs, grass, dandelions, and any food scraps we give them. Unfortunately, they ate all my kale I just planted. Apparently they’re big fans!” Though their goal wasn’t to save money on eggs, Whalley admits the eggs are a big perk: “We did it purely for our own entertainment of raising something from a baby; watching it grow, knowing everything it eats, how it’s treated, has been really satisfying. And yes, the eggs are amazing!” But her favorite thing about having her own chickens? “I never realized how much personality chickens have. Spartacus is the most friendly and vocal, Lollie is shy but loves to be held, and Penny takes a daily dust bath and throws dirt all over herself. She’s also a big sunbather, and spreads her wings and legs out in a little-old-lady way. They follow me around the yard, and come running when I call. It’s a very unique form of stress relief and humor. When we have to get them back in the coop, my husband and I sometimes feel like we’re in a Benny Hill video. But I wouldn’t change a thing. They’re wonderful!” Gwendolyn Elliott, on the other hand, did initially get her chickens for the eggs, though she and her boyfriend also wanted to see what it would be like to raise their own birds. Their flock of four is fed a diet of organic corn pellets, organic cracked grain, and lots of kitchen scraps. Elliott says the eggs “taste wonderful, and we use them all the time in baking, pickling, salads, all kinds of cooking.” (The upkeep does not in the end save them money, though.) Their hens have a 480-square-foot run, separate from their backyard. The building of their coop is a funny story. “We actually had a 1984 VW diesel Jetta we traded with a carpenter who custom-built us a cedar coop. It has six nesting boxes, three on each side, and the roof over each side opens so you can clean the boxes and reach in and grab the eggs easily. There’s also a removable aluminum floor for easy cleaning, air vents, a removable ramp to get in and out of the coop, and sliding doors to secure them in at night. It’s up on stilts, and kind of looks like a chickie chalet.”

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food&drink»The Bar Code

The Home Bar, Part 2: The Drinks

BY ZACH GEBALLE

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elcome to Part Two of the Home Bar series. By now you’ve had a week to amass the spirits you’ll need to make some of the cocktails highlighted last week: the martini, the Manhattan, the Old Fashioned, the mojito, the lemon drop, the sidecar, and the French 75. Some are well known, others are on their way to becoming classics. Just to reiterate, these cocktails taste best when you squeeze real citrus juice, and all ingredients should be as fresh as possible. First, the martini. The epitome of class: 007, swanky cocktail parties, and those ever-sodistinctive glasses. Fortunately, the martini is easy to make—just two ingredients and a little mixing. Depending on your preference, pour 2.5 ounces of either gin or vodka into a pint glass and add a half-ounce of dry vermouth and enough ice to fill the glass two-thirds of the way. Stir with a bar spoon; you just want to move the liquid around, not agitate it. This is especially true of gin, infused with many different herbs and botanicals which give it its flavor. When you stir too hard—or, God forbid, shake gin—it becomes cloudy, which can ruin the visual of the super-clean drink. (Of course, some of you out there don’t like vermouth, which is a shame. You can lower the amount or leave it out altogether, but then you’re just drinking cold gin or vodka.) Strain the drink into your favorite martini glass, and add your garnish: an olive or a twist of lemon. The Manhattan is another cocktail that oozes charm. Whiskey-based, it’s dark, seductive, and a bit bold, just like the place it’s named for. Similar to a martini, it starts with 2.5 ounces of your preferred whiskey: bourbon if you want a rich, slightly sweeter drink, rye if you want it lighter and spicier. Add a half-ounce of sweet vermouth and two or three dashes of Angostura bitters, and stir it over ice. Strain it into a martini glass and add either a preserved cherry or a twist of orange. Do not use those hideous bright-red maraschino cherries you last saw in a Shirley Temple, unless you enjoy the taste of cherry cough syrup. Spring for marasca cherries at a specialty foods store; there’s a world of difference.

I may have been thwarted in my attempt to tell you the story of the Old Fashioned in my first column, but it’s still a classic drink, one that requires a bit more technique than the previous two. Start by shaving a generous piece of orange peel: it’s easiest with a wide vegetable peeler, but you can use a paring knife. Put that in a pint glass with a half-ounce of simple syrup and three dashes of Angostura bitters. Gently press the orange peel with a muddler; the handle of a wooden spoon also works. We’re just releasing the oils in the peel, so be gentle. Add ice and two ounces of rye, stir, and then strain into a fresh glass—a lowball or rocks glass is best. Add ice and garnish with one of those fancy cherries I talked you into buying, or an orange twist . . . or both. Now we’re getting to the fun stuff. A mojito is just a minty daiquiri, but one that still wows people. Start by taking five or so good-sized mint leaves and placing them in the palm of your hand. Smack your hands together a couple of times, to bruise the mint. If you’re too rough with the mint, it’ll turn bitter. Add a half-ounce of lime juice, three ounces of white rum, and a half-ounce of simple syrup. Shake and garnish with a pretty-looking mint sprig. The Sidecar is great for people who want something slightly sweet but with a bit more complexity than a lemon drop. Combine two ounces of brandy, a half-ounce of lemon juice, and a half-ounce of Cointreau. Shake and strain into a sugared martini glass. Garnish with a lemon or orange twist. Lastly, a French 75 makes an excellent aperitif. Start with an ounce and a half of gin and a halfounce of lemon juice. Shake and strain into either a martini glass or a champagne flute. Fill the glass with sparkling wine and garnish with a lemon twist. So there you go: six distinct and delicious drinks that you’ve now learned how to make like a pro. The best thing about them is that they can each serve as a template on which you can improvise, by swapping an ingredient out here or there or by changing ratios a bit. We’ll talk a bit more about that in Part Four, but next week Part Three will deal with tools, glassware, and other specialty items. E thebarcode@seattleweekly.com

TemperatureCheck

»From Derek ronspies, Art oF the tAble

Offal! Utilizing all parts down to those nasty bits is the best way to honor the animal and the life it gave us. Chefs are doing just that, cooking sweetbreads, hearts, feet, and heads, and they are amazing. We served duck testicles at Art of the Table on a tasting menu one weekend; everyone loved them. Go someplace where you trust the chef, and if it’s on the menu, get down! Sliders. It seems every restaurant out there has to have a slider on the menu, most of them little more than a piece of pork belly on a bun. I do love little sandwiches, though—I mean, who doesn’t? So if you’re doing this, do something different—a biscuit or some grilled bread instead of the usual brioche bun or hard-as-a-rock pretzel roll. Try a pulled goat leg or braised veal breast for the meat. Don’t forget the sauce, and a slaw or some cooked-down greens. Make these babies worth the $7 we’re paying for them, and they’ll stay in the hot seat! Super-beautiful, expensive restaurants that skimp on your $8-a-glass pour or can’t throw a small side salad or even some chips on that $12 sandwich. Place looks great, but I came here to eat! E

food@seattleweekly.com

arts&culture

A Malleable Life

Clay is only a starting point for Patti Warashina’s many career stages.

BY BRIAN MILLER

ThisWeek’s Agenda THURSDAY, SEPT. 5

Roger Shimomura

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SPIKE MAFFORD

Warashina’s 1996 painting Redwood Drift.

help but recall the old Rolling Stones logo. Surrealism is filtered through the Age of Aquarius. The ’60 really become the ’60s; yet there’s also strong reference to the domestic. By decade’s end, Warashina had two small kids; then she became a single mother in the early ’70s. Several small, delicate altars refer back to her grandmother’s household Buddhist shrines, though Warashina was raised Methodist. “I’ve always been interested in religious objects,” she says, though their spirituality hardly seems church-ordained. Her own delicately painted altars and pyramidal stacking boxes depict heroic women and martyred housewives, a more personal pantheon, among other motifs. The ’70s also marked a return to figuration, Warashina explains. During her early career, “My work was really influenced by painting,” she says of a time when “Abstract Expressionism was at its peak.” That’s not where ceramic art was then headed, that’s now how she was trained, so she had to forge her own path. Thus followed her series of little white female figures, some massed in heroic poses, some caught in mazes, some draped over cars (the automobile being a favorite icon). It’s hard not to read these assertive women

as avatars of empowerment during that era of the ERA and Ms. magazine. As an artist, teacher, and single parent, Warashina recalls, “I couldn’t even get a credit card in my own name.” (She later married fellow UW instructor and artist Robert Sperry, who died in 1998.) Themes of politics and the environment run through later work, like a satirical sake set depicting an oil spill, with little figurines of Bush and Cheney—actually cups you can use—sitting on the tray. Elsewhere, gunboats and military forces pay unwelcome visits. Such ideas “usually come up in the morning, while I’m reading the newspapers,” says the selfdescribed news junkie. It’s not a case of NPR setting the agenda for her art, but the influence of everyday life seeping in. The eggs often seen here are both tokens of fertility and of the daily necessity of making breakfast. Still, since moving mostly from vessel to figure, the female form has dominated Warashina’s recent output, which extends to prints, paintings, and self-portraits. (These for me are the show’s real discovery—a more direct consideration of female roles and discontents.) Many of her later cherubic figures cavort like harlequins; there’s an often whimsical, carnivalesque aspect, a sense of celebration or performance. Stripes of paint suggest masks, and domestic items—forks, knives, crockery—become props. At the same time, most of these figures stand like sentinels in isolation, unlike the swarming groups of little white women in the ’80s. Her largest figures—some over seven feet tall—have the forbidding aspect of Easter Island moai. On a smaller scale, there’s a strongly social component to the black-andwhite little cherubs of Pecking Order or Scrutiny, with their adult faces on baby bodies. Realistic human contours have been reduced. “I’m trying to work toward simplicity,” says Warashina. Apart from her remarkably long and prolific c.v. (this from a woman who’s had no other career but making and teaching art), what links the early and late works and the many stops in between? What constantly impels Warashina forward into new themes and media? “When people tell me not to do something,” she says, “I always want to do it.” E BELLEVUE ARTS MUSEUM 510 Bellevue Way N.E., 425-519-0770, bellevuearts.org. $7–$10. 11 a.m.–5 p.m. Tues.–Sun. Ends Oct. 27.

OK, so the opening reception for Roger Shimomura’s An American Knockoff show was during mid-August, but who was in town for that? During tonight’s First Thursday art walk, which kicks off the fall season among downtown galleries, you should definitely stop to see the large new paintings by the veteran artist. Shimomura has long combined colorful Pop Art with personal history. Born and raised in Seattle, illegally interned with other Japanese-Americans during World War II, and today a retired teacher at Kansas University, his influences include comic books, Disney cartoons, and traditional Japanese art. Where he fits into that East/West clash, or doesn’t, has always been central to Shimomura’s work. He frankly acknowledges his hybrid status, and here he’s literally fighting his way through Asian and American iconography. He karatekicks samurai and Wonder Woman; dresses like Superman, Sailor Moon, and George Washington; even intermingles with Chinese Communist poster figures. If others were once confused about where he came from (always that contentious question), he embraces the confusion, mocks it, and makes it his own. (Through Sept. 28.) Greg Kucera Gallery, 212 Third Ave. S., 624-0770, gregkucera.com. Free. 6–8 p.m. BRIAN MILLER

Jonathan Raban

Though forever branded as a newcomer and outsider here, because Seattle never lets you forget that, Jonathan Raban is actually our city’s preeminent essayist, whose voice often carries back East and to the newspapers of his native England. (Only The New York Times’ Timothy Egan has a bigger soapbox.) Raban came here in 1990, which now makes him a veteran among the Northwest literary tribe. New in paperback, his Driving Home: An American Journey (Sasquatch, $20) collects two decades of work in 600 pages. Upon settling here, Raban made every effort to learn the new trees and birds, to master the environment before the people. “The immigrant needs to grow a memory, and grow it fast,” he wrote for The Telegraph 20 years ago. “Somehow or other, he must learn to convert the uncanny into the homely, in order to find a stable footing in the new land.” With that footing in place, Raban’s gone on to chronicle the peregrinations of Ted Roethke, his own frequent road trips, sailing, the depression of Capt. Vancouver, our city’s dot-com bubble (remember?), the election of Obama, and more. Driving Home is a pleasurably baggy collection from an acerbic, sometimes crusty writer, well suited to the nightstand. No one but Raban has written so much in such a short time on his adapted hometown—not that that makes him a native, of course. Seattle Central Library, 1000 Fourth Ave., 386-4636, spl.org. Free. 7 p.m.

BRIAN MILLER

SEATT LE W EEKLY • SEPTEMBER 4 — 10, 2013

big career retrospective is equal parts biography and art, especially when it covers a halfcentury of work. Patti Warashina: Wit and Wisdom at the Bellevue Arts Museum includes more than 140 pieces by the Seattle artist—mostly ceramics, which made her reputation in the ’70s as a pioneering female artist in our region. A Spokane native, Warashina came to the University of Washington in the late ’50s, earned two degrees, married twice and raised two daughters, taught at the U for 25 years, and now enjoys a kind of elder/ emeritus status among her fellow clay artists and former students. It’s good to be Patti, though during a summer walk-through at BAM, her remarks were anything but imperious. She wears her status lightly, like a friendly grandmother who lets you cut in front of her in the Safeway line. “I’m amazed I worked so hard,” says Warashina, a chatty and vigorous 73, as she leads a tour through the museum’s top-floor gallery. (It’s about 8,000 square feet, and she fills all of it in a show that originated at Pasadena’s American Museum of Ceramic Arts; BAM’s Stefano Catalani has added other materials.) Works are mostly grouped chronologically, interspersed with photos and documentation. To pass through the various groupings is to wander through time and the different chapters of Warashina’s evolution through clay and beyond. BAM last treated her to a 30-year survey in 1991, and during the 2000s she had three smaller shows at the nowclosed Howard House gallery. This exhibit is a comprehensive career assessment, including a coffee-table catalog with text by retired UW professor Martha Kingsbury. Ceramics, like glass blowing, was something of a macho, male-dominated art during the ’60s. Warashina was at first an anomaly in the field. Perhaps because there were no obvious role models to follow, particularly for a JapaneseAmerican woman, she subsequently tried on many hats and ventured through many phases of ceramic art. Her early earthy vessels are practical and shaded with natural hues—jugs, bottles, and jars that seem much older than the ’60s. Tradition reigns. Then, as Warashina and her first husband travel among campuses as a smart young academic couple, Pop Art and bold colors seep in. Consumer brands and iconography are recreated and riffed upon. A pair of giant red lips can’t

» CONTINUED ON PAGE 24 23

arts&culture»Agenda

By Will Eno CRITERION COLLECTION

Directed by John Langs

The meaning of life is somewhere in the middle.

» FROM PAGE 23 FRIDAY, SEPT. 6

Heaven’s Gate

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Now-Sep 29

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FALL OPEN HOUSE

SATURDAY, SEPT 7, 2013 6-9PM

SEATTLE WEEKLY • SEPTEM BER 4 — 10, 2013

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Now running over three and a half hours, the restored version of Michael Cimino’s 1980 postfrontier Western has at least partially redeemed its old reputation as a studio-destroying fiasco. An entire book, Steven Bach’s Final Cut, was written on how the movie brought down United Artists, but to be fair, broader market forces were at work back then. Regardless of Cimino’s costly, unbridled auteurism or the negative reviews (“a woozy, morose mixture of visual virtuosity, overarching ambition, and slovenly writing . . . the work of a poseur who got caught out,” said Pauline Kael), long period pieces were simply going out of style. Westerns, especially, had fallen out of favor. It’s worth remembering that Apocalypse Now was equally profligate and self-indulgent, but the recent context of the Vietnam War gave Francis Ford Coppola’s movie that much more deference—as Cimino’s prior The Deer Hunter had also received from critics. That said, the restored Heaven’s Gate—reissued last year on DVD from Criterion—is never going to be a great movie. It certainly looks great, thanks to cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond, but Cimino’s script fails to get a grip on the class conflicts of 1890s Wyoming. His story is based on the actual Johnson County War between ranchers, here represented by hired gun Christopher Walken, and immigrant settlers, here defended by Kris Kristofferson. (Isabelle Huppert plays the brothel owner caught between them.) There’s so much historical detail in Cimino’s vision that the historical conflict gets lost—often beautifully so. In a shoot that ran almost six months, Cimino forgot that editing begins at the typewriter, not on location. (Through Thurs.) Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave., 267-5380, nwfilm forum.org. $6–$10. 7 p.m. BRIAN MILLER

MONDAY, SEPT. 9

Davy Rothbart

You could call Davy Rothbart one of the children of David Sedaris, since the stories in his My Heart Is an Idiot (Picador, $16) are both biographical yet so entertaining as to inspire skepticism. Nothing can be verified as Rothbart ransacks his past for vignettes he can use in his frequent stage performances. (He’s a regular road warrior in support of Found magazine and its anthologies.) Just as Rothbart made his literary reputation by collecting and publishing the written scraps of total strangers, he’s also a near-compulsive collector of experience, a man who always wants to talk to strangers. During one low moment in a collection that’s equally a non-chronological

Romance on the range: Huppert and Kristofferson.

memoir, Rothbart regrets his addiction to novelty and penchant for drinking, but there’s a fundamental generosity to his ADHD antics. He sleeps on pool tables; wakes up naked in a New York City park; discovers a corpse in pool after cheating on his girlfriend (while a tarantula watches “like a black, severed hand”); picks up hitchhikers and gives them money; bonds with bus passengers returning to Manhattan after 9/11; and even stalks a scam artist with the intent of dousing him with bottled urine. Yet Rothbart never abuses or shames those who confide in him (names have been changed). Even the intended victim of his pee-bottle attack, who profits from fake literary contests, arouses Rothbart’s unexpected sympathy. Is it plausible that they should accidentally meet in a hotel room, drunk, smoking pot, and watching an Orlando Magic game on TV? And did Rothbart really inflict such perfect, nonpiss punishment upon the fellow? Maybe not, but this version of events plays better. Lucid Lounge,

5421 University Way N.E., 634-3400, ubookstore.com. Free. 7 p.m. BRIAN MILLER TUESDAY, SEPT. 10

Jamie Ford

His best-selling first novel, 2009’s Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, was set in Seattle’s Chinatown, and Jamie Ford returns to the same small enclave during a different era for his Songs of Willow Frost. Set in the ’20s and early ’30s, the sentimental tale follows a 12-year-old orphan, William Eng, who believes a Chinese-American film star to be the mother who abandoned him (Willow Frost being her stage name). Today based in Montana, Ford—his great-grandfather changed the family surname from Chung—has roots in Seattle, where he researched the many surviving landmarks that figure in young William’s quest. From the 5th Avenue Theatre to the Sacred Heart Orphanage in Laurelhurst to the Bush Hotel in today’s ID, the book provides readers a veritable walking tour. (In fact, the Wing Luke Museum offers just such a tour for Bitter and Sweet, which Book-It adapted last year in a well-received stage production.) Willow Frost bears the pungent traces of the Great Depression, with breadlines, Hoovervilles, and Skid Row flophouses where the residents are warned to use the toilets only at low tide. Casual racism is the norm, and William everywhere pushes against boundaries of class and ethnicity. If Willow really is his mother, and there is some doubt, she’s an exemplar of Hollywood assimilation: playing the sultry “exotic” stereotype to escape the hardships of her mundane old past. No wonder William wants to follow her. Town Hall, 1119 Eighth Ave., 652-4255, townhall seattle.org. $5. 7:30 p.m. BRIAN MILLER E

arts&culture»Performance and much more. Annex Theatre, 1100 E. Pike St., 728-0933, annextheatre.org. $5–$10. 11 p.m. Fri., Sept. 6.

B Y G AV I N B O R C H E R T

Stage

WHERE NO MAN HAS GONE BEFORE/NERDPROV

One is a Star Trek parody troupe; the other’s a geekculture improv group. What will happen when they collaborate? JewelBox/Rendezvous, 2322 Second Ave., 800838-3006, seattleexperimentaltheater.com. $16–$20. 8 p.m., Sat., Sept. 7.

OPENINGS & EVENTS

ATOMIC BOMBSHELLS This burlesque’s troupe’s

homecoming gig after a summer run in Provincetown. Columbia City Theater, 4918 Rainier Ave. S., 800-8383006, theatomicbombshells.com. $22–$25. 9 p.m. Thurs., Sept. 5–Sat., Sept. 7. A BURLESQUE AFFAIR TO REMEMBER Burlesque infused with ballroom and Latin dance from a cast of 20. Century Ballroom & Cafe, 915 E. Pine St., burlesqueaffair. com. $25–$35 ($65 includes dinner). 7:15 p.m. Fri., Sept. 6, 6:30 p.m. Sat., Sept. 7. THE EDGE Bainbridge Island’s own improv troupe. Bainbridge Performing Arts, 200 Madison Ave. N., Bainbridge Island, 842-4560, theedgeimprov.com. $12–$16. 7:30 p.m. Sat., Sept. 7. FREE DESIREE Amontaine Aurore revisits Seattle’s funky ‘70s. West of Lenin, 203 N. 36th St., 800-838-3006, westof lenin.com. $15. 8 p.m. Fri., Sept. 6–Sat., Sept. 7. LES MISÉRABLES Balagan’s production replaces Broadway epicness with “intensely intimate and immersive staging.” Erickson Theatre Off Broadway, 1524 Harvard Ave., balagantheatre.org. $5–$30. Opens Sept. 6. 8 p.m. Thurs.–Sat., 2 p.m. Sun. Ends Sept. 28. SECONDHAND LIONS The premiere of a musical based on the Michael Caine/Robert Duvall fantasy/adventure film. 5th Avenue Theatre, 1308 Fifth Ave., 625-1900. $29 and up. Previews Sept. 7–25, opens Sept. 26. Runs Tues.–Sun.; see 5thavenue.org for exact schedule. Ends Oct. 6. SPIN THE BOTTLE Annex Theatre’s variety show includes “uncanny ululations,” “suburban sexy dance cinema,”

Send events to stage@seattleweekly.com, dance@seattleweekly.com, or classical@seattleweekly.com See seattleweekly.com for full listings. = Recommended

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CURRENT RUNS

BREAK-UP SONGS Unexpected Productions takes your

tales of romantic trauma and turns them into theater. Unexpected Productions Market Theater, 1428 Post Alley, 800-838-3006, unexpectedproductions.org. $12–$15. 8:30 p.m. Fri.–Sat. Ends Sept. 21. FALLING UPWARD SANCA’s ‘30s-themed staff show promises “acrobatics, trick-roping, tight-wire, juggling, Chinese pole, hand balancing, aerial acts, and more.” School of Acrobatics and New Circus Arts (SANCA), 674 S. Orcas St., 800-838-3006, brownpapertickets.com. $13–$20. 7 p.m. Fri.–Mon. Ends Sept. 8. LYSISTRATA Setting Aristophanes’ salacious tale—about a coalition of Athenian and Spartan women who unite in a sex strike against their warrior husbands to end the Peloponnesian War—as a play within a play, performed at a U.S. camp in Afghanistan, makes more urgent the heroines’ crusade to kill the war. This topical Lysistrata, directed by Sheila Daniels, is a forcible reminder of bloody wars still being fought on the other side of the globe. When warfare breaks the suspension of disbelief, it really breaks it. Would an antiwar play like Lysistrata even be allowed on an Army base? MARGARET FRIEDMAN Cornish Playhouse at Seattle Center, 726-5190. $20–$50. See intiman.org for exact schedule. Ends Sept. 12. MEN OF ACTION Jet City’s improv takeoff of adventure movies and their intrepid heroes. Wing-It Productions, 5510 University Way N.E., 781-3879, jetcityimprov.com. $12–$15. 8 p.m. Thurs.–Fri. Ends Sept. 20. MIDDLETOWN As if to honor the Seattle Freeze—which maintains we all be near-acquaintances, or sort-of strangers, no matter the temperature—ACT is staging one of the heralded works of Will Eno. With his penchant for bursts of dialogue and low-impact despair, the Boston

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playwright is something like Aaron Sorkin if you replaced the bravado with ennui. An absurdist take on Thornton Wilder’s classic Our Town, Middletown tells the story of two neighbors, newcomer Mary (Alex Tavares) and longtime resident John (Eric Reidmann), and their attempts to connect. Of course, true connection is never truly achieved. (Is it ever?) The premise is a downer, and Eno isn’t shy about reminding you. “I never thought I’d have a lonely life,” says John. “I do, it turns out. Like, medically lonely. Like I’ve got sad genes.” If, like me, you think that sounds like a jolly good night of entertainment, Eno is for you. Yet his succinct, poetic dialogue—also exchanged among umpteen other village folk—does manage to find some hope and humor in between, and even within, the Sisyphean task of getting to know your neighbor. John Langs directs. MARK BAUMGARTEN ACT Theatre, 700 Union St., 292-7676, acttheatre.org. $41 and up. Runs 8 p.m. Tues.–Sun. Ends Sept. 29. THE RAFT Rock Paper Theater’s debut stars comics Ryan Sanders and Mike Mathieu as two men lost at sea and coping as best they can. TPS Theatre 4, Seattle Center, rockpapertheater.com. $10. 8 p.m. Fri.–Sat. Ends Sept. 14. THE REALM OF WHISPERING GHOSTS Subtitled “If Truman Met Einstein,” Arne Zaslove’s Noh-inspired new play explores the legacy of the Hiroshima bombing. Seattle Public Theater at the Bathhouse, 7312 W. Green Lake Ave. N., 800-838-3006, brownpapertickets.com. $15– $27. 7:30 p.m. Thurs.–Sat., 2 & 7:30 p.m. Sun. Ends Sept. 15. STU FOR SILVERTON This new musical, part of Intiman’s summer season, tells the absolutely true story of a small Oregon town and its transgender mayor. Cornish Playhouse at Seattle Center, 726-5190. $20–$50. See intiman.org for schedule. Ends Sept. 15. TEATRO ZINZANNI: LUCKY IN LOVE The spiegeltent becomes Casino ZinZanni in their new Vegas-themed show. Teatro ZinZanni, 222 Mercer St., 802-0015. $106 and up. Runs Thurs.–Sun.; see dreams.zinzanni.org for exact schedule. Ends Sept. 8. TROUBLE IN MIND Alice Childress’ 1955 Obie winner catalogs the charades and compromises (i.e., sellingsout) demanded of “negro” stage professionals trying to make it on Broadway. Wiletta Mayer (Tracy Michelle Hughes) arrives for her first day of Broadway rehearsal,

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where she and other black cast members are confounded by the destructively narrow vision of producer/director Al Manners (Tim Gouran). In a play about a lynching, he wants Southern dialect and old stereotypes; his performers are uncomfortable, but they also want the job. Intiman’s splendid rendering marries beautiful acting to the powerful architecture of a laser-sharp script that ricochets between hope and heartache. MARGARET FRIEDMAN Cornish Playhouse at Seattle Center, 726-5190. $20–$50. See intiman.org for schedule. Ends Sept. 15. WE WON’T PAY! WE WON’T PAY! Dario Fo’s 1974 farce about life in an exploitive, inflationary economy is an intelligently ridiculous examination of whether looting is justified under a corrupt regime—timely in our era of unprecedented income inequality. Director Jane Nichols deftly articulates the quick beats that can be so easily muddled in farce. MARGARET FRIEDMAN Cornish Playhouse at Seattle Center, 726-5190. $20–$50. See intiman.org for schedule. Ends Sept. 14. WORDS, SOUNDS, SILENCE Unexpected Productions’ new improv show: “This edgy show illuminates three things present in a single moment. We often only hear the words, but it is the sounds that accompany the words that give us a chance at understanding the meaning behind what was said. It is in the silence that we truly see the impact of the message conveyed between the lines of verbal language.” Unexpected Productions Market Theater, 1428 Post Alley, 800-838-3006, unexpected productions.org. $7. 8:30 p.m. Thurs. Ends Sept. 26.

Dance

A CELEBRATION OF CHINESE CULTURE Traditional

and modern songs and folk dances in celebration of the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival. Seattle Central Library, 1000 Fourth Ave., 386-4636, spl.org. Free. 2 p.m. Sat., Sept. 7.

Classical, Etc.

COMPOSER SPOTLIGHT Thomas Makucevich discusses

his electronic music and explorations in computer-music languages. Jack Straw Studios, 4261 Roosevelt Way N.E., jackstraw.org. Free. 7:30 p.m. Wed., Sept. 11.

THE ARTIST LIU XIAODONG ON HOMETOWN BOY Now a renowned contemporary artist, Liu Xiaodong left home at age 17. Three decades later, he returned home to paint the people of his small Chinese village. Come hear the artist talk about his work, currently on view.

Seattle Asian Art Museum in Volunteer Park

Buy tickets online at seattleartmuseum.org, by calling 206.654.3210 or at the Ticketing Desk at any of SAM’s three locations.

Self-Portrait (detail), 2010, Liu Xiaodong, Chinese, born 1963, oil on canvas, 15 x 13 in. © Xiaodong Studio, 2010, Photo courtesy of the artist.

SEATT LE W EEKLY • SEPTEMBER 4 — 10, 2013

Thursday, September 12, 7 pm

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arts&culture»Visual Arts B Y K E LT O N S E A R S

Openings & Events AARON BRADY & RYAN DORSON Brady transforms

images of urban bus commuters into abstract ink and graphite forms. Doran’s modern version of scientific illustration uses graffiti stylings to render skeletal structures of animals. First Thursday opening reception, 6-8 p.m. Gallery 110, 110 Third Ave. S. (Tashiro Kaplan Building), 624-9336, gallery110.com, Opens Sept. 5, Weds.-Sat., 12-5 p.m. Through Sept. 28. THE BAXTER COLLECTION Contemporary and pop surrealism from 14 different artists. First Thursday opening reception, 6-9 p.m. Linda Hodges Gallery, 316 First Ave. S., 624-3034, lindahodgesgallery.com, Opens Sept. 5, Weds.-Sat., 12-5 p.m. Through Sept. 28. GALA BENT & DIEM CHAU Bent’s colorful paintings of trippy organic fractals collide with Chau’s totemic miniature crayon and pencil carvings of animals. First Thursday opening reception, 6-8 p.m. G. Gibson Gallery, 300 S. Washington St. (Tashiro Kaplan Building), 5874033, ggibsongallery.com, Weds.-Sat., 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Through Oct. 5. JAQ CHARTIER SubOptic explores the artist’s interest in coral reefs and the environmental damage being done to them through a series of paintings modeled after scientific graphs. First Thursday opening reception, 6-8 p.m. Platform Gallery, 114 Third Ave. S. (Tashiro Kaplan Building), 323-2808, platformgallery.com, Opens Sept. 5, Weds.-Sat., 11 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Through Oct. 12. DOUBLE DOZEN Twelve gallery artists pick 12 guest artists for a companion exhibit to create dialogues among their work. First Thursday opening reception, 6-8 p.m. Lisa Harris Gallery, 1922 Pike Place, 443-3315, lisaharrisgallery.com, Opens Sept. 5, Mon.-Sun., 10:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Through Sept. 30. Send events to visualarts@seattleweekly.com See seattleweekly.com for full listings = Recommended

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PATRICK DRISCOLL & MATTHIAS MERKEL HESS

Driscoll’s first solo exhibition works with unstretched canvases and attempts to challenge and expand the conventions of painting. Hess displays his sculptures of everyday objects in humorous tableaus. First Thursday opening reception, 6-8 p.m. James Harris Gallery, 604 2nd Ave., 903-6220, jamesharrisgallery.com, Opens Sept. 5, Weds.-Sat., 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Through Oct. 12. THE EDGE AND A LITTLE BEYOND A collection of work from six abstract artists who play with the structural and spacial limits of the physical canvas by cutting and altering it. Also on view, Heady features mixed-media representations of heads and brains. First Thursday opening reception, 6-8 p.m. Soil Gallery, 112 Third Ave. S. (Tashiro Kaplan Building), 264-8061, soilart.org, Opens Sept. 5, Weds.-Sat., 12-5 p.m. Through Sept. 28. FREMONT ART WALK Fremont’s First Friday artwalk venues include Activspace, Fremont Brewing Co., 509 Winery and Tasting Room, Caffe Vita, and Fremont Abbey. See fremontfirstfriday.com for participating artists. First Friday of every month, 6-9 p.m. THE GREAT OUTDOORS Paintings from four artists address the theme of wide-open natural spaces. First Thursday opening reception, 6-8 p.m. Foster/White Gallery, 220 Third Ave. S., 622-2833, fosterwhite.com, Opens Sept. 5, Tues.-Sat., 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Through Sept. 28. LEONIE GUYER & LYNNE WOODS TURNER Guyer’s stark black-on-black images, rendered with oil and chalk, feature diminished figures trapped in canvas. Turner’s paintings feature geometric forms and patterns. First Thursday opening reception, 6-8 p.m. Greg Kucera Gallery, 212 Third Ave. S., 624-0770, gregkucera. com, Opens Sept. 5, Tues.-Sat., 10:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Through Sept. 28. TED HIEBERT Electrocuting Babel employs an electricity-based photographic processes to create images of Jorge Luis Borges’ The Library of Babel. First Thursday opening reception, 5-8 p.m. Shift Collaborative Studio, 312 S. Washington St. (Tashiro Kaplan Building), 547-1215, shiftstudio.org, Opens Sept. 6, Fri., Sat., 12-5 p.m. Through Sept. 28.

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ETSUKO ICHIKAWA Echo at Satsop is a mixed-media

exhibit by the Japanese artist exploring the tsunami and nuclear tragedies of her homeland via our own Satsop nuclear facility. First Thursday opening reception, 6-8 p.m. Davidson Galleries, 313 Occidental Ave. S., 624-1324, davidsongalleries.com, First TuesdaySaturday of every month, 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Through Sept. 28. CARA JAYE Falling is the result of her studies in Paris of classical prints and images depicting falling figures. Her new drawings feature a variety of characters in a similar state of free fall. First Thursday opening reception, 5-8 p.m. Punch Gallery, 119 Prefontaine Place S. (Tashiro Kaplan Building), 621-1945, punchgallery.org, Opens Sept. 5, Thurs.-Sat., 12-5 p.m. Through Sept. 28. DAVID KROLL Kroll’s paintings feature surreal depictions of birds and fish in strange poses and stark landscapes. First Thursday opening reception, 6-8 p.m. Grover/Thurston Gallery, 319 Third Ave. S., 223-0816, groverthurston.com, Opens Sept. 5, Tues.-Sat., 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Through Nov. 2. SHERRY LOESER Boobs is a look at the love/hate relationship women have with their breasts, rendered via photos and textiles. First Thursday opening reception, 6-8 p.m. Core Gallery, 117 Prefontaine Place S. (Tashiro Kaplan Building), 467-4444, coregallery.org, Weds.-Sat., 12-6 p.m. Through Sept. 28. MATTHEW HILGER, CLYDE PETERSEN & TONA WILSON Three multimedia artists show their films and

animations with themes like nautical life, the condition of the pedestrian, and castoff paper and texts. First Thursday opening reception 6-8 p.m. Gallery4Culture, 101 Prefontaine Place S. (Tashiro Kaplan Building), 2967580, 4culture.org, Opens Sept. 5, Mon.-Fri., 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Through Sept. 26.

OBSERVATIONS FROM THE NEW GOLD MOUNTAIN

A collection of work from contemporary ChineseAmerican artists. Reception 6:30-8 p.m. Fri., Sept. 6. Kirkland Arts Center, 620 Market St., 425-822-7161, kirklandartscenter.org, Opens Sept. 6, Tues.-Sat., 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Through Nov. 6. CONNIE SABO information + impression is a sitespecific installation made of twisted and woven

newspaper. First Thursday opening reception, 5-8 p.m. Method Gallery, 106 Third Avenue S., Seattle, methodgallery.com, Opens Sept. 6, Fri., Sat., 12-5 p.m. Through Sept. 21. THE SALON IN THE FIELD Artists Sarah Kavage and Adria Garcia will be creating their latest in-situ woven grass installation. Green River Natural Resources Area, 21250 Russell Rd. (Kent), Free, Sun., Sept. 8, 2-6 p.m. ROGER SHIMOMURA SEE THE AGENDA, PAGE 23. JENNIFER BEEDON SNOW Her new paintings depict mundane urban scenes and objects. First Thursday opening reception, 6-8 p.m. Linda Hodges Gallery, 316 First Ave. S., 624-3034, lindahodgesgallery.com, Opens Sept. 5, Tues.-Sat., 10:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Through Sept. 28. LINO TAGLIAPIETRA Profumo del Vetro collects the Venetian artist’s whimsical and colorful blown glass work. First Thursday opening reception, 5-8 p.m. William Traver Gallery, 110 Union St., 587-6501, travergallery.com, Opens Sept. 5, Tues.-Sun., 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Through Nov. 3. TO GIVE IN RETURN Six artists from Seattle and Oaxaca, Mexico present work that contemplates what it means to be an immigrant to new communities. First Thursday opening reception, 4-6 p.m. City Hall, 600 Fourth Ave., 684-8888, seattle.gov, Sept. 5-6, 7 a.m.-6 p.m. PETER WAITE & ERICH WOLL Waite’s architectural paintings explore what he calls “existential tourism,” while Woll’s glass sculptures play on visual puns. Open reception 6-8 p.m. Tues., Sept. 10. Winston Wachter Fine Art, 203 Dexter Ave. N., 652-5855, winstonwachter. com, Opens Sept. 10, Mon.-Sat., 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Through Oct. 24. WALLINGFORD ART WALK Participating venues and galleries include Stu Stu Studios, Fuel Coffee, Julia’s Restaurant, and Oasis Art Gallery. See wallingfordartwalk.org for full roster of attractions. First Wednesday of every month, 6-9 p.m. WEAVE FESTIVAL A new arts festival featuring over 60 contermporary artists at venues like Axis, Ghost Gallery and Vermillion. First Thursday opening reception, 6-9:30 p.m. Bherd Studios, 312 N. 85th St., 234-8348, bherdstudios.com, Opens Sept. 5, Mon.-Sun.. Through Sept. 28.

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Salmon Return Family Festival SEATTLE WEEKLY • SEPTEM BER 4 — 10, 2013

Presented by

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OLYMPIC SCULPTURE PARK Saturday, September 7 | 10 am–3 pm Come to the scupture park for a FREE end-of-summer celebration! Featuring: •

Family-friendly yoga & tours of the park

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Outdoor grass-weaving with artist and urban planner Sarah Kavage & fashion stylist and Native Taino artist Adria Garcia

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Woven cattail salmon necklaces & wall-hangings with fiber artist Melinda West

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Performances by Red Eagle Soaring Native Youth Theater

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Music by the Latin & Jazz band Alma y Azúcar

SAM Kids Media Sponsor

seattleartmuseum.org

Additional support provided by Russell Investments and The Foster Foundation

CIVICS

SCIENCE

ARTS & CULTURE

COMMUNITY

(9/5) Mercedes Nicole presents A Tribute to Nina Simone (9/5) Christopher Parker with David Domke: ‘Change They Can’t Believe In’ (9/6) Q Youth Resources presents A Night Celebrating Love, with Mary Lambert (9/6) Aaron Hirsh Saving the Sea of Cortez

Image: Junya Watanabe Comme des Garçons, washed denim dress and pants, Spring/Summer 2002, Collections of the Kyoto Costume Institute, Photo: Takashi Hatakeyama

TOWN HALL

E C N A H C 8 T R S E B A M L E T P E S ENDS

(9/9) Ramez Naam Can Innovation Save the Planet? (9/9) Katie Hafner ‘Mother Daughter Me’ (9/10) Jamie Ford ‘Songs of Willow Frost’ (9/10) Inside Art Why Do We Make Things? (9/11) Indefinite Detention without Due Process TOWN HALL

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Exhibition originally conceived by the Kyoto Costume Institute and Barbican Art Gallery, London. Seattle Exhibition organized by Kyoto Costume Institute in collaboration with the Seattle Art Museum. Exhibition supported by Wacoal Corp.

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SEATT LE W EEKLY • SEPTEMBER 4 — 10, 2013

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SEATTLE WEEKLY • SEPTEM BER 4 — 10, 2013

Kathryn Hahn Juno Temple Josh Radnor and Jane Lynch

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WED 9/4 2 COL. (4.83") X 3.5" ALL.SPK.0904.SW Written and directed by Jill

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“Jill Soloway joins MR the ranks of Apatow #1 & Tina Fey.” - Xaque Gruber, The Huffington Post

“A meticulously acted movie.”

Palette

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The cure for the common marriage.

“Kathryn Hahn is absolutely incredible.” –Cory Everett, Indiewire

SEATTLE’S WIDEST SCREEN SUPERIOR TECHNOLOGY Fresh Chocolate Popcorn, Cupcake Royale, Theo Choc & so much more

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arts&culture»Film

Opening ThisWeek Adore

Watts and Frecheville get too close.

Afternoon Delight

for instance, at a hen party where she tipsily insists on toasting her friends while staring soulfully into the eyes of each—she’s all skyrockets in flight. There’s also Jane Lynch, stealing a few typically crisp moments as Rachel’s oversharing therapist, and the splendid Michaela Watkins and Jessica St. Clair as friends whose personalities roughly fit the molds of Fran Drescher and Chelsea Handler—though each actress is distinctive enough to break those molds. As funny as its isolated moments can be, Afternoon Delight opens too many cans of rubber snakes. Soloway seems to be aiming at the kind of observational groove that Nicole Holofcener and Lisa Cholodenko get in their films, but with some Judd Apatow stirred in. The mix doesn’t quite become Jell-O, and it’s further proof that the plot device of the soulful striptease artiste deserves a break from contemporary movies.

OPENS FRI., SEPT. 6 AT PACIFIC PLACE AND SUNDANCE CINEMAS. RATED R. 93 MINUTES.

The Starland Vocal Band is nowhere to be seen (or heard) in Afternoon Delight, so there’s another lost opportunity for the ’70s one-hit group to come back. This Afternoon Delight has more serious fish to fry, even if it’s full of strong comic actors. The movie is arranged around Kathryn Hahn, who—whether parachuting for the length of a story arc into ongoing series such as Parks and Recreation or cutting a bizarre path through Step Brothers—has been threatening to bring her particular brand of funny/weird to center stage for the best part of a decade. Hahn is allowed to make her mark, and then some, in Afternoon Delight as Rachel, a stay-athome mom whose disenchanted life is shaken by her encounter with an exotic dancer, McKenna ( Juno Temple), during an evening when she and husband Jeff ( Josh Radnor, from How I Met Your Mother) double-date with friends at a strip club. (Couples in movies have been known to do this.) McKenna is soon staying at Rachel and Jeff ’s place, an awkward situation complicated by McKenna’s sideline as a prostitute. Writer/director Jill Soloway would have us believe that Rachel’s midlife crisis might accommodate all this and more, and maybe in a better movie it could. Soloway does her best to remind us we’re not watching a pure comedy, as she regularly includes scenes of idle boredom and cringeworthy behavior. If the film works at all, though, it’s because of the comedy. Anytime Hahn is let off the leash—

ROBERT HORTON

Drinking Buddies OPENS FRI., SEPT. 6 AT SIFF CINEMA UPTOWN. RATED R. 90 MINUTES.

MAGNOLIA PICTURES

Workplace romance is always a fraught subject, and the water-cooler flirting that seems so fun at the office can crash into hard reality after happy hour. Working at a Chicago microbrewery, the amiable bearded Luke ( Jake Johnson) can afford to kid around with colleague Kate (Olivia Wilde) because both are protected by the firewall of being in a relationship. We’re only kidding about you being so hot and me being so horny, because we go home to someone else—right?

FILM ARCADE

Temple (left) and Hahn as mismatched housemates.

Wilde and Johnson tip more than a few.

Guitar Innovators: John Fahey & Nels Cline RUNS FRI., SEPT. 6–THURS., SEPT. 12 AT GRAND ILLUSION. NOT RATED. 84 MINUTES.

This program presents two takes on the guitarhero archetype, though their differences are more about timing than perspective. The first profiles John Fahey (1939–2001), the inventive guitarist and musicologist. The second is told from within the creative crucible of Nels Cline, lead guitarist for Wilco, who’s actively reinventing the instrument for this new century.

» CONTINUED ON PAGE 30

SEATT LE W EEKLY • SEPTEMBER 4 — 10, 2013

There are worse reasons to see a movie than the spectacle of Naomi Watts and Robin Wright sunning themselves in bikinis on a raft, each accessorized with a buff young Australian stud. Called Two Mothers when it screened during SIFF last spring, this adaptation of a Doris Lessing story tantalizes with its Oedipal displacement: Each mother begins a fling with the other’s 18-year-old son. It’s totally inappropriate, but not quite incest. Then, by mutual assent, these covert affairs drag on for years (and I mean drag). Fathers are mostly absent from the melodrama: One’s dead, leaving Lil (Watts) a widow, and the drama-teacher spouse (Ben Mendelsohn) of Roz (Wright) soon departs the scene. And what a scene it is. Filmed in a beach colony overlooking the Tasman Sea north of Sydney, the movie is full of pounding surf and golden sunsets—like the jacket art for a romance novel. The heaving tides and musky suntan oil practically demand transgression, and neither woman seems inclined to resist. (The sons, played by Xavier Samuel and James Frecheville, don’t figure much in the decision-making; lounging around shirtless and available is their primary function in the plot.) Are Roz and Lil fools, predators, MILFs, or what? Adore never really gets a handle on their behavior. English screenwriter Christopher Hampton (Dangerous Liasons) expands the timeframe from Lessing’s 2003 novella Two Grandmothers, and French director Anne Fontaine (My Worst Nightmare) is nothing but generous toward her two stars. Both look great in one of the rare movies to be shot in 35 mm film these days. But the story only unfolds from shock to acceptance to soap opera. It needs to get smarter after the initial sex, but the opposite happens. Watts and Wright are left with exchanges like “What have we done?” “Crossed a line.” Yes, ladies, we can see that—now what are you going to do about it? That question really applies to Hampton and Fontaine, and they don’t seem to have any idea. With all the swimming and surfing, I kept hoping for some sharks to attack, but they sensibly stayed away. BRIAN MILLER

MATT NETTHEIM/EXCLUSIVE MEDIA

OPENS FRI., SEPT. 6 AT SIFF CINEMA UPTOWN AND SUNDANCE CINEMAS. RATED R. 110 MINUTES.

Things aren’t so clear in Luke’s mind, however, and Kate’s relationship with the older, more affluent Chris (Ron Livingston) appears to be shaky. He’s the kind of guy who conspicuously offers books to help improve his girlfriend; worse, he’s not a beer drinker—as are Luke and Kate, by vocation and near-constant thirst. The fourth leg of this stool is schoolteacher Jill (Anna Kendrick), a lot more together and mature than her boyfriend Luke. All four head to Chris’ family’s cabin on Lake Michigan—a weekend trip that portends future decades of married life for the two couples unless some bed-hopping interrupts that fate. Because Drinking Buddies was made by mumblecore director Joe Swanberg (Hannah Takes the Stairs, LOL, etc.), who works fast and frequently on tight budgets, I expected the foursome to stay at that lakefront location and work through their cross-couple sexual stirrings. Perhaps Swanberg rejects that expectation because we’ve all seen the same movies with similar plots; or more damningly, perhaps he simply doesn’t know how to write an ending for his conventional setup. Kisses are stolen, confidences are broken, and the dramatic crux of the piece involves moving a couch. Maybe that’s life for millennials, but moviegoers expect more for their 10 bucks. Swanberg doesn’t seem to direct scenes so much as simply hang out with his cast. Highly conversational but minimally articulate, lacking any story momentum or serious conflict, Drinking Buddies stalls in its own laxity. Listed as a producer for the film, Wilde would appear to be using Swanberg as a means to escape her Tron-babe image, and this wide-browed beauty isn’t entirely implausible as a fixie-riding marketing gal who trades on her charm just past the point of ethical behavior. Unlike Chris and Jill, Kate isn’t quite an adult. (About Luke, opinions may vary.) If Drinking Buddies is half-baked (or half-brewed?), so is its heroine. BRIAN MILLER

29

SEPTEMBER �–��

IN SEARCH OF BLIND JOE DEATH

15,500 FANS AND COUNTING

arts&culture»Film

JOHN FAHEY facebook.com/seattleweekly

Seattle guitarist Bill Horist performs with shows on Fri/Sat night!

Approximately Nels Cline GR ANDILLUSIONCINEMA.ORG ���� NE ��TH STREET | ���-����

“THE FINEST AMERICAN DRAMA SO FAR THIS YEAR. Brie Larson gives a star-making performance.”

SHOWTIMES SEPTEMBER 6 -12

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ONE OF THE YEAR’S BEST PERFORMANCES. An exceptional film in every way.” – Peter Travers, ROLLING STONE

“A WONDER. EXCEPTIONAL, MOVING AND INTIMATE. Honestly earns every bit of its emotional impact.”

SEATTLE WEEKLY • SEPTEM BER 4 — 10, 2013

–Kenneth Turan, LOS ANGELES TIMES

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“ONE OF 2013’s BEST!

One of the most gripping films about human decency ever made.” –Bob Strauss, LA DAILY NEWS

SHORT TERM 12 LANGUAGE AND BRIEF SEXUALITY

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» FROM PAGE 29 Guitar players and enthusiasts are the intended audience for both docs, but this is also a very kind pairing for the casual fan, who can learn where Cline’s racket comes from before being subjected to it. The hour-long doc The Search for Blind Joe Death: The Saga of John Fahey opens with train tracks and rolling countryside before The Who’s Pete Townsend appears, proclaiming Fahey the William S. Burroughs or Charles Bukowski of folk guitar players. It’s a nice bit of framing that creates great expectation for the artist, though his early life isn’t that unique. Talking heads guide us through his artistic development, one music critic suggesting that the babbling brooks of his youthful wilderness hikes inspired Fahey’s rolling, repetitive, slightly discordant finger-picking style. Among his disciples are the Decemberists’ Chris Funk and Calexico’s Joey Burns, who provide humorous, if somewhat removed, accounts of the far-out Fahey. James Cullingham’s doc then wisely moves on to Fahey’s development as a musicologist. After starting a record label to release his own records (because no one else would dare), Fahey toured the South, knocking on doors in search of old blues standards he could reissue. It’s this curiosity and hunger that make Fahey a compelling character— along with early interview footage that features the young artist ashing cigarettes into his guitar. Yet shortly before his death, Fahey connected with Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore to record abstract electric-guitar sound collages. That departure from his folk roots is no less jarring than the second doc of the evening, Steven Okazaki’s half-hour Approximately Nels Cline. The film presents Cline in his studio, experimenting with sound, collaborating with a handful of notable musicians, and sharing his well-examined philosophy on intuitive guitar picking. It’s less comprehensive than Blind Joe Death, but the entertainment value is high. Do Fahey and Cline have anything in common? Maybe they don’t need to. It’s possible to appreciate both musicians as one-of-a-kind during this double feature. (Note: Seattle guitarist Bill Horist will perform before the Friday- and Saturday-night screenings.) MARK BAUMGARTEN

Off Label RUNS FRI., SEPT. 6–THURS., SEPT. 12 AT NORTHWEST FILM FORUM. NOT RATED. 80 MINUTES.

Containing little in the way of news or information, this advocacy doc about Big Pharma was supported in part by Northwest Film

The PTSD meds for an unhappy Iowa veteran.

Forum and screened at last year’s Local Sightings Film Festival. It’s not local, however, nor are any of its half-dozen subjects, all touched by the testing, treatment, and misadministration of psychoactive drugs. (And no, the film has nothing to do with Tom Cruise or Scientology, though that would’ve made it more interesting.) Directors Donal Mosher and Michael Palmieri sympathetically portray the “guinea pig” drug testers who eke out a living, barely, participating in human drug trials. They’re a sad lot, led by one bitter blogger who aged out of the medically desired demo and now inveigles against the industry that once supported him. Or abused him, depending on your perspective. We also meet a bipolar woman who benefits from her bucketful of monthly meds, despite serious side effects and even more serious bills. An ex-con describes his uninformed consent to a prison drug trial that’s given him chronic health problems. And here’s a likable young Iraq War vet suffering from PTSD. “I don’t need medication. I need help,” he says. This is undoubtedly true, but while Frontline or any serious documentary would explain why drugs are so much cheaper than therapy, then provide numbers and an economic context against our nation’s rising health-care costs, Mosher and Palmieri just skip to the next friendly subject. Here’s a pair of tattooed punks in Rochester, Minnesota, who hate the Mayo Clinic—“It’s where people go to die”—but are funding their wedding by participating in drug trials. How cute. The only guy worth following here is a former drug rep turned academic and consumer advocate, Michael Oldani, who explains how shady salesmen encourage doctors to write prescriptions for off-label drug uses. But what are the industry’s profits? What are the financial incentives for those doctors? And what do physicians or the FDA or public-health experts think? Again, Mosher and Palmieri don’t think to ask, and can’t even be bothered to read the basic literature (including Ben Goldacre’s Bad Pharma, for a start). Their movie is like a placebo for actual thinking. (Note: The directors will attend Friday and Saturday’s screenings.) BRIAN MILLER

Short Term 12 OPENS FRI., SEPT. 6 AT SEVEN GABLES. RATED R. 96 MINUTES.

Expanding his prior short film, Destin Cretton’s affecting little indie drama is set in a foster home where troubled young residents age out at 18. Deprived of real parents, they grudgingly look to staff members like Grace and Mason for guidance. One minute they’re docile and grateful for the affectionate rule-givers, the next they’re

throwing tantrums or fleeing the campus. (Off the grounds, staffers can only follow the kids and try to talk them back to the facility.) Both in their 20s, Grace (Brie Larson) and Mason ( John Gallagher Jr.) are a couple, a fact they try to disguise at work—though it seems an open secret among the kids. As it lurches from crisis to outburst to revelations of past abuse, there’s a kind of amped-up naturalism to Cretton’s film. Normal kids from loving homes wouldn’t exhibit such behavior, and the whole point of this facility is to shelter damaged teens with no other place to go. So of course they have unhappy stories to share—or conceal, as is the case with 15-year-old Jayden (Kaitlyn Dever), a surly new arrival with much eyeliner and considerable attitude. With her sketchbook and wrist scars, the girl arouses a protective, almost sisterly instinct in Grace, who also projects her own past traumas, gradually revealed, upon Jayden. “I didn’t think about it until I met you,” the counselor tells her charge. Grace is less in command than it seems, and her wavering authority gives the film a certain kinship to Half Nelson. Ever-decent Mason, the thinnest-drawn character here, is patient and understanding until he’s not. (“You won’t let me in,” he implores Grace.) Several kids have various teary episodes, but the story boils down to Grace’s secret—two of them, actually—and the need for everyone involved to achieve catharsis and healing. But what else would you expect but a therapy movie in such a therapeutic setting? That the film never loses your goodwill is a credit first to Larson (United States of Tara, Rampart), who convincingly guides Grace from poise to panic, and second to Cretton’s handling of his likable young cast. Cretton (I Am Not a Hipster) isn’t far along in his career, so we can expect his writing to improve. And he gains extra points for the film’s sweet coda. Short Term 12 may not surprise the viewer, but it convinces you of the need for foster care and of the burdens placed upon those who run that overtaxed system. BRIAN MILLER

PSpark: A Burning Man Story RUNS FRI., SEPT. 6–SUN., SEPT. 8 AT SIFF CINEMA UPTOWN. NOT RATED. 90 MINUTES.

PThérèse OPENS FRI., SEPT. 6 AT VARSITY. NOT RATED. 110 MINUTES.

Back in the first dewy shine of Amélie (2001), I would not have anticipated beginning a review with the words “Audrey Tautou is frankly too old to [fill in the blank].” But the years pass. And so: Audrey Tautou is too old to play the early scenes here as a teenage bride in 1920s France. Thankfully, the movie advances in time, and the still-youthful Tautou (she’s 37) very effectively brings her eerie presence to bear on an enigmatic, controlled, supremely rational character. In this adaptation of the 1927 novel Thérèse Desqueyroux by the subsequently Nobel Prize-winning François Mauriac, Thérèse is very far from an old-fashioned lady of literature. She enters into marriage with the practical and uncharismatic Bernard (Gilles Lellouche); their families own vast swaths of adjoining pine forests, and their union will create a profitable dynasty. Poker-faced Thérèse seems all right with this, although she becomes troubled by news that Bernard’s sister (Anaïs Demoustier)—her lifelong bestie—has launched a torrid affair with a callow-yethunky young man. This is a prelude to the section that occupies much of the film, as Thérèse ponders the exact dosage of her husband’s anemia medicine, which contains arsenic. He trusts her to keep track of how much he’s ingested, and she begins to measure her future in spoonfuls of the stuff. We have to guess at the last part, because although a homicidal impulse enters Thérèse’s actions, the film does not provide reasons for her behavior. This reticence will make Thérèse a tough sell—it’s neither a feminist liberation scenario nor a full-blooded murder melodrama—but it’s the finest aspect of the movie, scrupulously executed by veteran director Claude Miller, a onetime assistant to François Truffaut. (He directed a lovely Truffaut screenplay, The Little Thief, and died shortly after completing Thérèse.) A somber mood prevails over this project, as though to remind us that the decisions made by these characters really are a matter of life and death—and maybe all decisions are. Thérèse begins as a familiar kind of French costume picture, but its grim undercurrent marks it as something else. I won’t make gigantic claims for it, but I admire its narrow focus and its refusal to play up its leading lady’s charm. It’s unlikely to delight Tautou’s fans, and that speaks well of it. ROBERT HORTON E

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FILM NEWSLETTER The inside scoop on upcoming films and the latest reviews.

“Fascinating and provocative. Featuring a brave and vulnerable performance by naomi Watts and a career-high acting masterclass from robin Wright.” - damon Wise, The guardian

“taboo-breaKing. naomi Watts and robin Wright have rarely been better.”

- John powers, vogue

“sensual and scandalous,

bohemian and modern, and downright fascinating.” - alex Koehne, twitch

“a great FilM.” - Krista smith, vanity Fair

starts FridaY, septeMber 6 4.81" x 7"

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SEATT LE W EEKLY • SEPTEMBER 4 — 10, 2013

Believers in the stereotype of Burning Man as merely an E-fueled hippie rave in the northwest Nevada desert will find lots of footage here to confirm it, but that’s not the focus of Steve Brown and Jessie Deeter’s doc, which concentrates as much on the crisis that marred the 2012 gathering—for some, permanently—as on the event itself. Organizers saw it coming: BM’s increasing popularity ensured that eventually demand would outstrip capacity; and, confronted with 80,000 ticket requests and a Bureau of Land Management–mandated attendance cap of 60,000, a lottery system for ticket allotments seemed the only answer. (In 2003, the most recent year I went, attendance was 30,000.) It was a significant philosophical shakeup: This utopian experiment in radical inclusiveness now had to keep some people out. Longtime Burners, faced with not even being allowed to buy a ticket, were outraged, and the large-scale art installations that for many are the festival’s raison d’être were threatened: Why start planning and building if you don’t know whether you can go? (The most interesting of the potential attendees profiled here, San Francisco’s Katy

Boynton, goes ahead anyway with her work: a 14-foot-high heart made from elaborately bent metal pipes, sort of a wire sculpture writ large.) Another issue touched on in Spark: the controversial rise of “plug and play” or “turnkey” camps, fully catered experiences in which, basically, you pay to have other people set up everything for you. One not touched on (albeit debated extensively elsewhere): BM’s extreme racial homogeneity, the grandest example of Stuff White People Like. (I don’t recall seeing a single African-American face anywhere in this 90-minute film.) But if all this is starting to sound like an old episode of Firing Line, rest assured that scenes of the 2012 event are plentiful and dazzling, some of the most luscious BM images I’ve ever seen. If, like me, you’ve been away for a while—and still feel an I-should-be-there pang the Saturday night of Labor Day weekend, when the Man burns—Spark will have you aching to return. GAVIN BORCHERT

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arts&culture»Film BY BRIAN MILLER

Hawkins and Clay in Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine.

CLOSED CIRCUIT We’re in the aftermath of a terrorist

Local & Repertory AMERICAN PSYCHO Mary Harron makes slick work out

JESSICA MIGLIO/GRAVIER PRODS./SONY PICTURES CLASSICS

of Bret Easton Ellis’ satirical novel, with Christian Bale convincingly cast as murderous yuppie. The 2000 film couches the violence at a dreamy, “Is this happening or not?” kind of distance. Since the book was published in 1991, but really looked back to the ‘80s, the movie feels like an artifact from the Reagan era. (R) Harvard Exit, 807 E. Roy St., landmarktheatres.com, $8.25, Saturdays at midnight. Through Sept. 14. CHARADE Stanley Donen was famed as a director of musicals, and this delightful 1963 Euro thriller is fittingly light on its feet. With stars Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant, Charade is choreographed like a dance where neither partner trusts the other. Is suave but mysterious Grant a killer? Should newly widowed Hepburn trust him? And how can she resist him? (Even when playing shady, the man is still Cary Grant.) The footwork’s dazzling, and so are the lines. She: “I already know an awful lot of people, and until one of them dies I couldn’t possibly meet anyone else.” He: “Well, if anyone goes on the critical list, let me know.” The corpses do actually pile up (deserving villains all, including James Coburn and Walter Matthau), but Charade is mostly a nimble caper-comedy, like Hitchcock without the sin and dread. (PG) BRIAN MILLER Central Cinema, 1411 21st Ave., 686-6684, central-cinema.com, $6-$8, Sept. 6-11, 7 p.m. THE GRADUATES Bernardo Ruiz’s documentary follows several Latino high-school students and addresses efforts to correct a high drop-out rate among such teens. Actor Wilmer Valderrama and Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa are among the adults interviewed on the topic. (NR) Frye Art Museum, 704 Terry Ave., 622-9250, fryemuseum.org, Free, Sat., Sept. 7, 2 p.m. THE HARDER THEY COME Jimmy Cliff stars in this left-field hit from 1972, which helped make reggae a global phenomenon. There are plenty of technical limitations and ragged spots to this rasta-gangster flick, but it’s also one of the most influential films of the ’70s, with a breakout performance by Cliff, playing the frustrated Jamaican slum dweller who turns to crime to further his singing career. The classic soundtrack includes the title song, “You Can Get It If You Really Want,” and “Many Rivers to Cross.” The plot is essentially that of the principled outsider versus a corrupt system, always timely for that reason. And Cliff, now an elder statesman of music, plays Monday at the Neptune. (NR) BRIAN MILLER Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave., 829-7863, nwfilmforum.org, $6-$10, Thurs., Sept. 5, 7 p.m. HEAVEN’S GATE SEE THE AGENDA, PAGE 23. OCTOBER COUNTRY Directed by Donal Mosher and Michael Palmieri, whose documentary Off Label is also playing NWFF this week, this 2009 doc makes a study of Mosher’s own family, where domestic violence runs rampant. The directors will attend Saturday’s screening. (NR) Northwest Film Forum, $6-$10, Sat., Sept. 7, 5 p.m.; Sun., Sept. 8, 5 p.m. THE REP Morgan White’s recent documentary celebrates art-house and repertory cinemas, including New York’s Film Forum and Austin’s Alamo Drafthouse. Interviewees include Kevin Smith, John Waters, and Atom Egoyan. (NR) Grand Illusion, 1403 N.E. 50th St., 523-3935, grandillusioncinema.org, $5-$8, Mon., Sept. 9, 7 p.m.; Tue., Sept. 10, 7 p.m. SAMURAI CINEMA One of the great pleasures in revisiting Akira Kurosawa’s action-filled 1954 masterpiece Seven Samurai is how the seven different samurai will consider the odds and adversity against them, then simply throw back their heads and laugh. They don’t look so grim and anguished as certain latter-day action heroes, although they’re both a product of and influence upon Hollywood. Toshiro Mifune stars as Kikuchiyo, an unwashed 16th-century peasant masquerading as a samurai, only grudgingly tolerated by the six real ronin defending a village against 40 bloodthirsty bandits just “for the fun of it.” Kikuchiyo entertains the village children with his mimicry, connects with its adults with his earthy humor, and wins the audience with his insecurities and bluster. And, of course, he fights like “a wild dog” when the time comes. See siff.net for showtimes. (NR) BRIAN MILLER SIFF Cinema Uptown, 511 Queen Anne Ave. N., 324-9996, $6-$11, Opens Sept. 9, Mondays through Oct. 21.

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SEATTLE WEEKLY • SEPTEM BER 4 — 10, 2013

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Send events to film@seattleweekly.com See seattleweekly.com for full listings = Recommended

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SCREENINGS AT SCARECROW Friday at 8 p.m. is

the 1981 parody movie Student Bodies, a send-up of slasher flicks and other teenage genre staples. Saturday at 8 p.m. is the considerably more polished 1988 satire Heathers, with Winona Ryder and Christian Slater. Monday at 9 p.m., Runaway Daughters is a ‘50s-style juvenile delinquency flick directed by Joe Dante as part of the 1994 Showtime series Rebel Highway. Curator Mark Steiner will introduce the screening. Look for Julie Bowen, Paul Rudd (as the Brando-style motorcycle rebel), and even Fabian among the cast. Beer and wine are available from VHSpresso. 21 and over. (NR) Scarecrow Video, 5030 Roosevelt Way N.E., 524-8554, scarecrow.com, Free. TOTALLY ‘80S TUESDAYS “You’ve got a degree from NYU. What in?” “Philosophy.” “Any particular discipline?” “No, not really. Man’s search for faith. That sort of shit.” Care to guess who that philosopher is, and in what 1989 movie he kicks ass, trades quips with Sam Elliott (long before the Coen brothers got the idea), defeats Ben Gazzara, and wins Kelly Lynch? There can be only one man, one answer: Patrick Swayze in Road House. The 1989 movie finds Swayze in a contemplative mood. He’s a man of peace, yet not one afraid to fight. But the true fight, my friend, lies within one’s own mind. And the calm Swayze seeks through his mastery of martial arts is a deeply spiritual quest. But men—bad men, ruffians and rednecks—are drawn to his calm. They’re unbalanced and volatile; they flow like water to the serene Zen center that is Swayze, so that he, the sensei, can instruct them. Because he has a Ph.D in ass-whooping. And each beating is a lesson. Also playing, but not as a double-feature, is Swayze’s Dirty Dancing. See siff.net for showtimes. (R) BRIAN MILLER SIFF Cinema Uptown, $6-$11, Tuesdays through Oct. 22. WET HOT AMERICAN SUMMER It’s 1981, the last day of the season at Camp Firewood, and everyone’s trying to get laid. Acquitting herself remarkably well, camp director Jeanne Garofalo pines after astrophysics prof David Hyde Pierce while a counselor lusts for a girl who only has thighs for lifeguard Paul Rudd. There are some peripheral twists—the big talent show, the imminent crash of Skylab—but this isn’t a plot-driven satire, folks. Instead, in their 2001 comedy, Michael Showalter and David Wain gleefully, tastelessly spoof ‘80s sexat-summer camp flicks like Meatballs. WHAS frankly celebrates such depravities as a 34-year-old divorcée (Molly Shannon) being seduced by a prepubescent charge, gay marriage, and the love between a man and his refrigerator, anyway? (R) KURT B. REIGHLEY Central Cinema, $6-$8, Sept. 6-11, 9:30 p.m.

Ongoing

AUSTENLAND Let’s follow a naive young woman on

her dream vacation to an immersive, role-playing theme park that brings alive the world of Jane Austen novels. Here be proud young men, haughty dowagers, and drawing rooms with tea—a Comic-Con for BBC addicts. Our heroine is Jane (the role’s a blank, but Keri Russell does her best with it), whose life-size cardboard cut-out of Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy just isn’t enough to fill her Pride and Prejudice fantasy.

She arrives at Austenland at the same time as a rich lady called Elizabeth Charming—the visitors all have vaguely Austenish names—played by the irrepressible Jennifer Coolidge. Once she begins mingling with the hired role-players, Jane is vaguely torn between Darcy-like Mr. Nobley (J.J. Feild) and rough-hewn stablehand Martin (Bret McKenzie, of Flight of the Conchords), but the film is too slack to generate even the rudimentary suspense that comedy needs. I did laugh, mostly at Coolidge and the spectacle of Austenland’s puffy-sleeved actors relaxing in their downtime. But overall the movie disappoints; even the topic of fiction fans who take their enthusiasm a little too seriously is only mildly touched on. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Pacific Place, Guild 45th, others BLACKFISH Blackfish should be the final word on the subject of keeping orcas in places like SeaWorld, even if it probably won’t be. This relentless documentary circles around the 2010 death of Dawn Brancheau, a supremely experienced SeaWorld trainer who was killed in a performing tank by Tilikum, a 12,000-pound whale. But that death is the starting point for a film that makes a couple of general thrusts: Killer whales should not be kept in captivity, and the sea parks that own them have done a suspiciously incomplete job of informing their trainers and the public about how they operate their businesses. Interviews with former SeaWorld trainers paint a sad picture of a happy-face culture that sugar-coated the containment of giant wild animals; because of the industry’s expert PR spin, the trainers themselves would hear only vague rumors about injuries in marine parks. Director Gabriela Cowperthwaite looks into fatal incidents at Victoria, B.C.’s Sealand of the Pacific and Loro Parque on the Spanish island of Tenerife. The 1991 Victoria incident also involved Tilikum, which brought about the sale of the unfortunate whale to SeaWorld. The case is closed, and whales and dolphins are too high on the evolutionary scale to keep captive. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Varsity BLUE JASMINE There’s nothing comic about the downfall of Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire, the inspiration for Woody Allen’s miscalculated seriocom. Blue Jasmine is an awkward mismatch of pathos and ridicule, less fusion than simple borrowing. Grafted onto the story of delusional trophy wife Jasmine (Cate Blanchett) is a Madoff-like fable of the recent financial crisis. In flashback, we see her husband (Alec Baldwin) buying her consent with luxury while he swindles the Montauk set. In the present timeframe, Jasmine is broke and living with her sister Ginger (Sally Hawkins) in a shabby San Francisco apartment. Jasmine is a snob who needs to be brought low, a task relished by Ginger, her boyfriend (Bobby Cannavale), and her ex (a surprisingly sympathetic Andrew Dice Clay). As with Baz Luhrmann’s recent The Great Gatsby, you sense that Allen wants to say something about our present culture of inequality and fraud, but he only dabbles, never probes. Perhaps because her heroine isn’t entirely Allen’s creation, he doesn’t finally know what to do with her. Jasmine is more foolish than evil, but there’s nothing funny about her final punishment. (PG-13) BRIAN MILLER Ark Lodge, Kirkland Parkplace, Harvard Exit, Sundance, others

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bombing in London, for which a single alleged Islamic radical is held for trial. A quirk of British law—probably an intriguing point in real life, not so intriguing in the movie—stipulates the suspect be represented by two lawyers, one for open court, a second for closed proceedings involving top-secret issues of national security. Seems the two barristers, Martin (Eric Bana, late of Hanna) and Claudia (Rebecca Hall), had a fling in the past. After lying to the judge about this shared history, they prove spectacularly incapable of sticking to the no-contact rule as the case unravels. The plot complications are easy to guess, and director John Crowley (Boy A) can’t hide the mechanical grinding of the movie’s stumble into its trumped-up final act. Ordinarily one could take refuge in the excellent cast, but here it just reminds you of the wasted talent. In particular, Hall should check with her agent about putting this kind of role behind her. (R) ROBERT HORTON Oak Tree, Pacific Place, Kirkland Parkplace, Sundance, others ELYSIUM Elysium hangs in orbit, a giant spinning space station of deluxe McMansions and WASPy country clubs; it’s a brief supersonic ride from the filthy, overpopulated Earth of 2154. Down below, Max (Matt Damon) is a worker-drone who must find a way to get to Elysium and fix his decaying body after radiation accident at the factory. Already you can see the outlines of Neill Blomkamp’s allegory, a world divided between the haves and the have-nots (such a remarkably consistent vision in futuristic fiction). The orbital Elysium is so brilliantly visualized, Blomkamp might’ve benefited from exploiting it more—at least for satirical points. Most of the time we’re on Earth, in a Los Angeles that resembles Mexico City. Damon knows exactly how to lock Max into focus; Jodie Foster (leading with clenched jaw) is on point as the Elysium security chief; and William Fichtner is scrupulous as a corporate jerk. Less successful are Wagner Moura and Sharlto Copley in supporting roles. If this movie lacks the startling originality of Blomkamp’s 2009 District 9, it’s still workable enough to qualify as satisfying old-school science fiction. (R) ROBERT HORTON Alderwood 16, Cinebarre, Cinerama, Majestic Bay, Meridian, Thornton Place, others THE GRANDMASTER Wong Kar-wai’s U.S. cut of The Grandmaster, already a huge hit in China, relates often-filmed life of Ip Man (1893–1972), the celebrated martial-arts master who redefined kung fu and eventually tutored an eager young Bruce Lee. He’s played by Tony Leung, the ridiculously cool star of Wong’s In the Mood for Love, whose serene half-smile is as powerful a weapon as his fighting moves. A fair amount of 20th-century Chinese history is alluded to, including the Japanese invasion preceding World War II, but mostly as backdrop. More compelling is a long-burning attraction between Master Ip and the alluring Gong Er (Zhang Ziyi), which culminates in something dreamy and romantic in the final reels. You sense that Wong would rather be photographing furtive glances and cigarette smoke; by comparison, staging action and telling a story are unwanted—if beautifully executed—distractions. Whatever cultural emphasis this edit of The Grandmaster has, it is one odd picture, with too much kung fu for discriminating arthouse audiences and too many dreamy pauses for the grindhouse crowd. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Alderwood 16, Oak Tree, Cinebarre, Varsity, Lincoln Square, Meridian, others IN A WORLD... Carol Solomon (writer-director Lake Bell) is a voice nerd, fascinated by the accents she covertly tapes with her ever-present Dictaphone, yet her career is confined to voice coaching, not doing voiceovers for movie trailers, her family trade. When her widowed father Sam (Fred Melamed) kicks her out of the house to make way for a young new girlfriend (Alexandra Holden), he condescendingly tells Carol, “I’m going to support you by not supporting you.” Implicit in his rebuke is that women, with their higher voices, have no place in his manly profession. Then the couch-surfing Carol catches a break at a recording studio run by amiable Louis (Demetri Martin). Everything that transpires among Lake’s players is predictable, but in a pleasant, breezy way. In a World… plays like an overstuffed sitcom, with Carol’s wacky friends and neighbors dropping in for brief, effective bits (these include Nick Offerman, Rob Corddry, and Tig Notaro). It’s a knowing industry satire, but not a mean industry satire. Bell doesn’t write the conflicts, easily resolved, or characters any deeper than they need be—save for the imperious yet fragile Sam. Some may recall the wonderful Melamed, an actual voiceover artist, from the Coen brothers’ A Serious Man. His Sam is sexist, sure, but also a wounded bundle of pride whom Carol must somehow nudge off his voiceover throne. (R) BRIAN MILLER Sundance, others

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NOW YOU SEE ME A quartet of street hustlers and ris-

WE’RE THE MILLERS Drug dealer David (Jason

Sudeikis) must make good a debt to his slick supplier (Ed Helms) by bringing a huge load of marijuana across the border from Mexico. David’s idea: Hire three strangers to pretend to be his nauseatingly clean-cut family, the better to escape detection while driving through customs in a motor home. Jennifer Aniston plays a cynical, wised-up stripper; then she’s playing the goody-two-shoes masquerade on top of that, which is supposed to be funny because we see the cynical stripper beneath the chirpy surface. Except we don’t, because what we see is Jennifer Aniston. Game as she is, the worst moments are the strip scenes, when Rose goes down to her undies (there’s no nudity from Jennifer Aniston, unlike certain other actresses we could mention whose names rhyme with Angelina Jolie). The performance is awkward and unconvincing, as though Aniston knows she’s not getting away with it. Nothing kills a laugh like feeling bad for a performer— and you will feel bad for Jennifer Aniston here. (R) ROBERT HORTON Cinebarre, Kirkland Parkplace, Lincoln Square, Meridian, Thornton Place, others WORLD WAR Z There’s no slow build-up to this new zombie apocalypse. Director Marc Forster, who bungled much of the action stuff in Quantum of Solace, sets up a headlong pace and really goes for it. The planet’s suddenly overrun with zekes—movie slang for the undead—and Brad Pitt’s character is called back into service to help the U.N. fight the onslaught. I’m a little vague on what his job description is, but he appears to be an expert in very bad situations. After the grandness of the first 90 minutes, the last section is appealingly small-scale. It’s a major change from the first cut of the long-gestating movie, a finale that was scrapped and reshot. Pitt has no real character to play, although the film is at pains to remind us of his familyman concern. He carries the picture without having a character to play, because he’s Brad Pitt. However, the PG-13 rating is an absurd box-office decision that robs the film of some of its (figurative and literal) guts. (PG13) ROBERT HORTON Crest THE WORLD’S END In this this third Edgar WrightSimon Pegg-Nick Frost collaboration, five grown Englishmen try to reprise a failed 1990 pub crawl. Decades later, the obnoxious black sheep Gary (Pegg) is the least successful of the bunch (how much so is gradually revealed), still stuck in the past. The rest of them—played by Frost, Paddy Considine, Martin Freeman, and Eddie Marsan—have accepted boring bourgeois adulthood as their due. They don’t want to leave their comfortable London lives for the leafy suburb of Newton Haven, which seems quite changed upon their return. There, however, The World’s End suddenly and enjoyably shifts genres (that being Plot Turn A). The film gets a needed jolt of energy: clumsy, comic fight scenes, panicked chases from pub to pub, and lines like, “Pop her head off like an aspirin bottle!” This works fine for a while—until, like the first section, it runs out of ideas. In their screenplay, Pegg and Frost again return to their love of cheesy old movie genres and the vicissitudes of male friendship (see Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead). But here they’ve got to write a unified ending for both disparate halves of the movie, and they don’t. Instead they cough up Plot Turn B, an epilogue that should’ve been kept for the DVD extras. For all the prior goodwill generated by the WrightPegg-Frost combine, The World’s End plays like three different sketches from their early days in English TV. (R) BRIAN MILLER Ark Lodge, Cinebarre, Lincoln Square, Meridian, Thornton Place, SIFF Cinema Uptown, Sundance, others THEATERS: Admiral, 2343 California Ave. SW, 938-3456; Ark Lodge Cinemas, 4816 Rainier Ave. S, 721-3156; Big Picture, 2505 First Ave., 256-0566; Big Picture Redmond, 7411 166th Ave. NE, 425-556-0566; Central Cinema, 1411 21st Ave., 686-6684; Cinebarre, 6009 SW 244th St. (Mountlake Terrace)., 425-672-7501; Cinerama, 2100 Fourth Ave., 448-6680; Crest, 16505 Fifth Ave. NE, 781-5755; Grand Illusion, 1403 NE 50th St., 523-3935; Guild 45, 2115 N. 45th St., 781-5755; Harvard Exit, 807 E. Roy St., 781-5755; iPic Theaters, 16451 N.E. 74th St. (Redmond), 425-636-5601; Kirkland Parkplace, 404 Park Place, 425-827-9000; Lincoln Square, 700 Bellevue Way N, 425-454-7400; Majestic Bay, 2044 NW Market St., 781-2229; Meridian, 1501 Seventh Ave., 223-9600; Metro, 4500 Ninth Ave. NE, 781-5755; Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave., 2675380; Oak Tree, 10006 Aurora Ave. N, 527-1748; Pacific Place, 600 Pine St., 888-262-4386; Seven Gables, 911 NE 50th St., 781-5755; SIFF Cinema Uptown, 511 Queen Anne Ave. N., 324-9996; SIFF Film Center, 305 Harrison St. (Seattle Center), 324-9996; Sundance Cinemas, 4500 Ninth Ave NE, 633-0059; Thornton Place, 301 NE 103rd St., 517-9953; Varsity, 4329 University Way NE, 781-5755.

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SEATT LE W EEKLY • SEPTEMBER 4 — 10, 2013

ing stars of the various corners of the magic trade are recruited by a mysterious hoodie-wearing figure for a series of epic stunts. Billing themselves as “The Four Horsemen,” misdirection man Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg) and his former assistant Henley (Isla Fisher), “mentalist” Merritt (Woody Harrelson) and card-sharp Jack (Dave Franco) proceed to star in magic “events” where they catch the imagination of the world, and their super-rich promoter (Michael Caine). Mark Ruffalo is the comically hyper-ventilating FBI agent always a step behind The Four Horsemen. Morgan Freeman is the mysterious magic expert who may be helping the feds, explaining to them (and the audience) how tricks work. Or maybe he’s playing another game. Freeman and Ruffalo make strong impressions. But there’s little character development, and the point of view shifts, willy nilly, between the magicians—who start to feel they’re willing puppets in some larger scheme—and the cops, while Ruffalo works himself into a fine comic fury. Now You See Me is finally a plot-heavy thriller, with too much explaining and need to explain. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Crest PACIFIC RIM Giant robots fighting huge monsters, but no guys in rubber suits stomping on cheap models! Guillermo del Toro does for kaiju and mecha flicks what Lucas and Spielberg did for old serials. The result is well done, fun, and exhausting. Near-future Earth is several years into a war against kaiju (like roided-up Godzillas) invading through a dimensional rift on the ocean floor. Celebrity pilots from major nations pair up in psych-linked teams to take ‘em out in 250-foot robots called “Jaegers.” Washed out after a kaiju tears his pilot brother out of their mangled mecha, unpredictable young Becket (Charlie Hunnam, Sons of Anarchy) gets called back to duty as increasing kaiju-frequency starts to spell big, loud doom. Idris Elba (The Wire) intimidates as commander of the threatened Jaeger force—and he does not like to be touched. Rinko Kikuchi fills at least two stereotypes as the enigmatic Japanese wannabe pilot who may not be ready. Comic relief Charlie Day is half a bickering egghead pair (with Burn Gorman). And del Toro regular Ron Perlman is a sight to behold as a black-market kaiju-parts dealer with the coolest boots in either dimension. The movie’s cliché-heavy and character-light, but not even close to Michael Bay dumb. In fact, even if you didn’t grow up with a kaiju-mecha soft spot, it’s pretty cool. Skip the 3-D, though. (PG-13) MARK RAHNER Crest THE SPECTACULAR NOW In this agreeable adaptation of a 2008 young-adult novel by Tim Tharp, teen protagonist Sutter (Miles Teller) leads a wildly unsupervised life of partying and blown-off homework. He wakes up on a lawn, unsure where he left the car, which introduces him to smart-girl Aimee (Shailene Woodley). They’re total opposites, and The Spectacular Now is the story of their unlikely yet plausible romance. (Oh, and Sutter is plainly an alcoholic, though that term is curiously omitted here.) Director James Ponsoldt’s young duo behaves with a likable, naturalistic ease. There are no Hughesian quips or ridiculously hunky/ beautiful high-schoolers here. Both these kids are from families close to slipping out of the middle class, shadowed by the recession. In response to such stresses (absent fathers, etc.), Sutter’s credo is “Live in the now,” while ever-striving Aimee’s goals are to own a horse farm and work for NASA. They’re both living in a bubble, but such is first love. Reality intrudes in a clunky third act, as a road trip to find Sutter’s father (Kyle Chandler) yields predictable results. The storytelling here surpasses the story. Every generation needs its new Say Anything. This isn’t that movie, but it earns points for trying. (R) BRIAN MILLER Harvard Exit, Lincoln Square, Thornton Place, Sundance, others THE WAY, WAY BACK Fourteen-year-old Duncan (Liam James) and his divorced mother Pam (Toni Colette) are dragged to a Massachusetts beach rental by her overbearing new bf Trent (Steve Carell). Trent. There is no way we are going to like a guy named that (and a car salesman, of course), and Duncan emphatically dislikes the bullying Trent. In this awfully broad and familiar tale, unhappy Duncan finds a sympathetic mentor in Owen (Sam Rockwell), the flippant king of the local water park where Duncan lands a summer job. Owen is the anti-Trent: goofy and fun-loving, spitting out nicknames and bald lies, treating his staff with affectionate sarcasm, and harboring a not-so-secret thing for his boss (Maya Rudolph). While the drunken adults enjoy “spring break for adults” (per Duncan’s glum crush object, played by AnnaSophia Robb), Duncan finds new pals and self-confidence. We’ve seen this story a thousand times. But what are its incidental pleasures? Rockwell, Rockwell, and Rockwell. (PG-13) BRIAN MILLER Kirkland Parkplace, Guild 45th, Meridian, Thornton Place, others

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SEATTLE WEEKLY • SEPTEM BER 4 — 10, 2013

arts&culture»Music

A Trucker Comes Clean

SevenNights E D I T E D B Y G W E N D O LY N E L L I O T T

Wednesday, Sept. 4

With Jason Isbell’s new sobriety comes Southeastern, his best album yet.

THE DIP After more than a year of playing the U District

BY DAVE LAKE

COURTESY OF THE ARTIST

A

agreed. And the resulting album is a stunner—a dozen tracks that reveal a man at a crossroads, simultaneously grieving his past and imagining his future. “Elephant” is particularly emotional, a heartbreaking tale of a man grappling with the death of a close friend. “When she was drunk she made cancer jokes/She made up her own doctor’s notes/Surrounded by her family I saw that she was dying alone.” But there’s hopefulness too. “I know every town worth passing through,” he sings on “Traveling Alone,” an ode to his new love. “But what good does knowing do/With no one to show it to/I’ve grown tired of traveling alone.” Or maybe the song is simply about finding the other part of himself. Isbell, touring with his band the 400 Unit, will play some Truckers compositions tonight alongside highlights from his solo catalog. Should you attend, you may want to think twice about busting out your cell phone to record your favorite song, however. Isbell hates that. “I’m not performing for documentation’s sake,” he told The New York Times recently. “I’m performing for people’s ears and their eyeballs.” Though he understands that fans enjoy having a souvenir to help remember the show, Isbell is simply grateful to remember, period. “I don’t remember a lot of the good times from my days with the Truckers,” he said. “This time I want to remember it all.” With Amanda Shires. Neumos,

925 E. Pike St., 709-9442, neumos.com. $17. 8 p.m. Tues., Sept. 10. E music@seattleweekly.com

Thursday, Sept. 5

CODY CHESNUTT Did anyone else fall in love with

the Roots’ “The Seed 2.0” after one listen because of ChesnuTT’s chorus? The song is amazing on its own, but there’s just something about his soulful voice that’ll grab ya. ChesnuTT’s touring in support of 2012’s Landing on a Hundred. Check him out—maybe you’ll get hooked, too. With Jarell Perry. The Neptune, 1303 N.E. 45th St., 682-1414. stgpresents.org/neptune. 8 p.m. $20 adv./$22 DOS. All ages. AP THE PSYCHEDELIC FURS Richard Butler and his band may be forever associated with John Hughes films thanks to their version of “Pretty in Pink,” but that’s OK—the films hold up just as well as the band’s ’80s catalog. With The Burning of Rome. Showbox at the Market, 1426 First Ave., 628-3151, showboxonline.com. 8:30 p.m. $22 adv./$25 DOS. DAVE LAKE GODSPEED YOU! BLACK EMPEROR The reigning kings of post-rock are coming to Seattle to show everyone just how epic an hour of dynamic builds can be. Steeped in cryptic mythology and post-apocalyptic imagery, GY!BE will make the end of the world feel like an ascension into heaven. With Total Life. Showbox SoDo, 1700 1st Avenue, 652-0444, showboxpresents. com. 8 P.M. $25 adv./$28 DOS. KELTON SEARS THE BASEBALL PROJECT The recipe for this supergroup, featuring members of R.E.M., Young Fresh Fellows, and The Dream Syndicate, is right in their name: The songs are all about America’s pastime, and if you know who Mark Fidrych is or long for the days when Ichiro played for the Mariners, you’ll probably love these guys. The Triple Door, 216 Union St., 8384333, thetripledoor.net. 7:30 p.m. $15. DL Send events to music@seattleweekly.com See seattleweekly.com for full listings = Recommended

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BLEACHED is about as perfect a name as one could gin

up for Jessica and Jennifer Calvin’s hazy, sunburnt rock. Taking cues from surf, punk, and dream pop, the sisters’ songs are as catchy as anything by, say, Best Coast, but with a much-needed injection of grit. With Bleeding Rainbow. Barboza. 7 p.m. $8 adv. AG It’s surprising that two years after forming, CHVRCHES has only recently hit American airwaves. Sure, we don’t keep the best notes on the Scottish music scene, but the Glasgow-based electro-pop trio is just too good to overlook. Take the second single from its upcoming debut, The Bones of What You Believe, slated for American release on Sept. 24. “The Mother We Share” packs synth-heavy, in-your-face melodies into just over three minutes, thanks to the double dose of electro keys from Martin Doherty and Iain Cook, who also play guitar and bass. Singer Lauren Mayberry’s crystalclear voice sounds younger than her 25 years, and Doherty and Cook layer samples with more traditional instruments in a way that simultaneously gives its electronic elements a bit of depth and the stringed instruments a little attitude. Having already made such a big mark internationally, it looks like the Scots are here to stay. With XXYYXX. Showbox at the Market. 9 p.m. $18 adv./$20 DOS. All ages. AP ON AN ON The remains of a middling Midwestern indiepop band called Scattered Trees, the boy/boy/girl trio that makes tingling electro-pop songs as On an On is equally adept at manipulating a room with washes of synthesizer for one song and anthemic beats the next. It also manages an excellent cover of Hot Chip’s “Boy From School.” Almost, almost as good as the original. With Hands, Maiah Manser. Sunset Tavern, 5433 Ballard Ave. N.W., 784-4880, sunsettavern.com. 9:30 p.m. $8 adv/$10 DOS. MB SONNY AND THE SUNSETS are touring in support of their June release Antenna to the Afterworld, a synthed-up departure from last year’s twangy Longtime Companion. But don’t worry, they didn’t lose their hooks along with their steel guitar, and Antenna to the Afterworld stands as another testament to Sonny Smith’s ability to craft timeless pop songs that sound as if they were written in Gram Parsons’ L.A., when in fact Smith hails from San Francisco. With Love as Laughter, Memories. Tractor Tavern. $10 adv./$12 DOS. 9:30 p.m. DANIEL PERSON

Saturday, Sept. 7

BALL OF WAX #33 RELEASE PARTY Seattle’s Ball

of Wax Quarterly compiles rare, obscure, and experimental music from a wide array of genres. This show features the wily post-rock of Lowman Markos and The Luna Moth along with the lo-fi singer/songwriter stylings of Sun Tunnels and Michael Wohl. Conor Byrne, 5140 Ballard Ave. N.W., 784-3640, conorbyrnepub.com. 9 p.m. $7. AG PREFUSE 73 Warp Records–signed producer Guillermo Scott Herren inhabits a heady corner of glitchy electronica, all strange textures, complex beats, and samples that seem to dissipate into the ether. Tellingly, Oneohtrix Point Never’s Daniel Lopatin is a frequent collaborator, though Herren’s music is more hip-hop than ambient. With Theoretics, IG88. Crocodile, 2200 Second Ave., 441-7416, thecrocodile.com. 8 p.m. $15 adv. AG

SCHOOL OF ROCK PERFORMS RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE Considering how many teenage guitarists

have built their chops trying to nail a Tom Morello guitar solo or perfect the riff from “Killing in the Name,” there might not be a more perfect pairing for Seattle School of Rock students than RATM. Whether the band’s ample profanity will be censored remains to be seen. El Corazon. 6 p.m. $10 adv./$12 DOS. All ages. AG TY SEGALL This prolific low-fi garage rocker’s latest LP, Sleeper, is a bit of a departure. A laid-back acoustic catharsis fueled by the death of his father and a fallingout with his mother, it’s his most emotionally bare collection yet. With Mike Donovan, Night Beats. Neumos. 8 p.m. $13. DL BONNIE PRINCE BILLY Will Oldham’s most recent two albums say a lot about his artistic restlessness. What the Brothers Sang, a collaboration with Dawn McCarthy, is a collection of Everly Brothers covers; 2012 EP Now Here’s My Plan contains reworkings of old material, including a bizarrely jaunty version of “I See a Darkness.” Expect his live show to contain some unexpected twists and turns as well. With Mount Eerie. The Neptune. 9 p.m. $23 adv./$25 DOS. All ages. AG

SEATT LE W EEKLY • SEPTEMBER 4 — 10, 2013

lot of artists fear sobriety will zap them of their creative potency. A lot of them would be right. Take Aerosmith, for example. No disrespect to the venerable Boston rockers, but their sober resurgence in the late ’80s didn’t exactly find the Toxic Twins firing on the same coked-up creative cylinders they had in the ’70s. Give me “Toys in the Attic” over “Janie’s Got a Gun” any day of the week. But perhaps it depends on what kind of artist you are. For Jason Isbell, getting sober had a different result. It yielded the 34-year-old Alabaman the best record of his career, the recently released Southeastern. But unlike Aerosmith, Isbell isn’t a songwriter with a lot of interest in hard-rock grooves or double entendres. Rather than “Sweet Emotion,” it’s genuine emotion he’s after, and sobriety has brought him closer to it—or perhaps brought the emotions closer to him. Isbell got famous when he joined the DriveBy Truckers as a 22-year-old in 2001, a collaboration that lasted only five years before he left the band just as his marriage to their bass player was fizzling. His songwriting contributions remain, however, with the trio of albums he recorded with DBT widely considered their strongest, even if he was too cloudy to remember writing much of them. “I sobered up and I swore off that stuff, forever this time,” Isbell sings on “Cover Me Up,” the opening track of Southeastern. After his new wife (musician Amanda Shires, who will open this show), his manager, and fellow singer/songwriter Ryan Adams convinced him to get clean, Isbell

house-show circuit, this soul act (featuring Beat Connection members Tom Eddy and Jarred Katz) is releasing its debut EP at this show. Everything about 9-to-5-fetishizing first single “Working Man” is Motown-era vintage: the groove, the horns, and the casual misogyny. With the Fabulous Party Boys, The Full Clip. Barboza, 925 E. Pike St., 709-9951, thebarboza. com. 8 p.m. $6 adv. ANDREW GOSPE THE ACACIA STRAIN Despite about half a dozen lineup changes since their 2001 inception, the Massachusetts-based metalcore quintet has kept on providing lots of deep growls and double bass to the masses. Their latest, Death Is the Only Mortal, was released last year. With Within the Ruins, Fit for an Autopsy, American Me, and Prestige. El Corazon, 109 Eastlake Ave. E., 262-0482, elcorazonseattle.com. 7 p.m. $15 adv./$18 DOS. All ages. AZARIA PODPLESKY Canadian trio AUSTRA makes chilly, synth-driven electropop that leans heavily on Katie Stelmanis’ outsized vocals, which, as many a reviewer has noted, are strikingly similar to those of The Knife’s Karin Dreijer Andersson. Sophomore album Olympia balances gothic introspection with dance beats. With DIANA. Neumos, 925 E. Pike St., 709-9442, neumos.com. 8 p.m. $17 adv. AG ANDY FITTS While you might not know who Andy Fitts is, you have likely heard his work. Throughout the last decade, the Seattleite has lent his multi-instrumental skills to numerous outstanding Northwest bands, including the David Bazan band, The Long Winters, and Say Hi, earning (along with drummer Alex Westcoat) the title of “Barkline.” In a press release for his very impressive debut full-length, Smoky Wilds, he explains the nickname came about “because we were the rhythm section for . . . Barsuk bands.” Tonight Fitts takes the early slot (opening a killer local bill with Shelby Earl and Tomten) to celebrate the album— which is not actually a Barsuk release, though it could be, falling somewhere on the spectrum between Say Hi and David Bazan with its warped instrumental textures, infectious melodic lines, and melancholy vibe. The rhythm is pronounced, of course. And the vocals possess many touchstones of the artists Fitts has spent so much time onstage with. One hopes that this is only the first Fitts release; it would be interesting to see where he carries this torch. Tractor Tavern, 5213 Ballard Ave. N.W., 789-3599, tractortavern.com. 9 p.m. $6 adv. MARK BAUMGARTEN

Friday, Sept. 6

» CONTINUED ON PAGE 37 35

tractor Times listed are show times. Doors open 30-60 minutes before

Wed, Sept 4 • 9pm ~ $6 indie folk singer/songwriter

SHELBY EARL TOMTEN

ANDY FITTS

ALBUM RELEASE SHOW Thur, Sept 5 • 9pm ~ $6 quirky and melodic garage rock

THE JESUS REHAB THE HOOT HOOTS

POOR FOLKS, LIVE WELL Fri, Sept 6 • 9:30pm ~ $10adv/$12dos beach-pop songs

SONNY & THE SUNSETS LOVE AS LAUGHTER MEMORIES

Up & Coming • 9/5 The Tractor presents at The Sunset SHINYRIBS • 9/7 KRISTEN WARD, JD HOBSON, 1UPPERS • 9/9 MONDAY SQUARE DANCE with THE TALLBOYS • 9/10 an evening with STEVE POLTZ • 9/11 THE PRESERVATION, THE BILLY JOE SHOW, EVENING BELL • 9/13 SHOOK TWINS, HANNALEE

5213 BALLARD AVE. NW www.tractortavern.com

El Corazon

Listen Hear!

www.elcorazonseattle.com

109 Eastlake Ave East • Seattle, WA 98109 Booking and Info: 206.262.0482 9 $119

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 5

99 $10

Five For Fighting Bookmarks

Mike Thrasher Presents:

Black Table, A God Or An Other, Chasma, and Into The Storm. Doors at 7:30 / Show at 8PM ALL AGES/BAR W/ID. $8 ADV / $10 DOS

It., Hostage Calm, and Moneta. Doors at 7 / Show at 7:30PM ALL AGES/BAR W/ID. $15 ADV / $18 DOS

DOWNFALL OF GAIA with

Passenger All The Little Lights

SEATTLE WEEKLY • SEPTEM BER 4 — 10, 2013

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 6

36

RAFAEL TRANQUILINO

with The Swamp Dogs, and TerraNova Lounge Show. Doors at 8 / Show at 9PM 21+. $8 ADV / $10 DOS

SINGLE MOTHERS with

9 $119

Slatwall, Lo There Do I See My Brother, Kids On Fire, and Peterman Lounge Shows. Doors at 7:30 / Show at 8PM ALL AGES/BAR W/ID. $8 ADV / $10 DOS

99 $13

Halie Loren Simply Love

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 7

Robbie Fulks

SCHOOL OF ROCK

PERFORMS RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE EARLY SHOW. Doors at 6 / Show at 6:30PM. ALL AGES/BAR W/ID. $10 ADV/$12 DOS

Gone Away Backward

"Depending on the song, Loren can be sweet, sly, or sultry, but she always nds the right read...pure magic." - ALL ABOUT JAZZ Visit our new huge store in sodo!

Gone Away Backward nds Fulks re-evaluating his roots and lamenting the decline of the small-town and rural America in which he was raised.

?

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 8

KISW (99.9 FM) Metal Shop & El Corazon Present:

“Secret Show” with RISE

RECORDS SURPRISE HEADLINER with Monsters

Scare You, Prestige, Reach For The Sky, and We The Audience LATE SHOW. Doors at 8:30 / Show at 8:45PM ALL AGES/BAR W/ID. $8 ADV / $10 DOS

SAVES THE DAY with Into It. Over MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 9 KISW (99.9 FM) Metal Shop & El Corazon Present:

The Back To Black Tour featuring:

VADER with Vital Remains, Sacrificial Slaughter, Execration, Extremely Rotten, Chemical Castration Doors at 6:30 / Show at 7PM ALL AGES/BAR W/ID. $18 ADV / $20 DOS

El Corazon Presents The Vader Aftershow Party Featuring Live Music From:

A.K.A. WHITE DEVIL

Doors at 6:30 / Show at 7PM 21+. FREE. Music begins immediately after the Vader show in the main showroom

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10 Mike Thrasher Presents:

VISTA CHINO

with Witchburn (CD Release Show), and Black Pussy Lounge Show. Doors at 7 / Show at 8PM 21+. $20 ADV / $23 DOS

JUST ANNOUNCED 10/19 MONSTERS SCARE YOU 11/17 THE CASUALTIES / NEGATIVE APPROACH 12/8 HIGH ON FIRE / KVELERTAK

On Sale Thru 9/24

UP & COMING

9/11 LOUNGE METAMERIC 9/12 LOUNGE BEND SINISTER 9/13 CHARLOTTE SOMETIMES 9/13 LOUNGE STOLAS 9/14 MOVING UNITS 9/14 LOUNGE EASY BIG FELLA 9/15 LOUNGE WE BUTTER THE BREAD WITH BUTTER 9/16 DEEP VALLY 9/16 LOUNGE THE GRAHAMS 9/17 KAMELOT 9/19 ESCAPE THE FATE 9/20 CALABRESE 9/21 HUNTER VALENTINE 9/21 LOUNGE THE VIBRATORS 9/22 JONNY CRAIG

Seattle/SoDo Bellevue 2930 1st Ave. S. Crossroads Mall (206) 283-3472 (425) 643-3472

Largest Selection Of New & Used CDs, DVDs & LPs In The Northwest!

Northgate 9560 1st Ave NE (206) 524-3472

Tickets now available at cascadetickets.com - No per order fees for online purchases. Our on-site Box Office is open 1pm-5pm weekdays in our office and all nights we are open in the club - $2 service charge per ticket Charge by Phone at 1.800.514.3849. Online at www.cascadetickets.com - Tickets are subject to service charge

The EL CORAZON VIP PROGRAM: see details at www.elcorazon.com/vip.html and for an application email us at info@elcorazonseattle.com

arts&culture»Music Seven Nights » FROM PAGE 35 ADAM ANT He may be 58, but that hasn’t stopped

Adam Ant from continuing to dress like Captain Jack Sparrow. And even though the new-wave star released an acclaimed album in January, this is mostly a nostalgia show, with Ant trekking through classics like “Goody Two Shoes” and “Strip” for adoring 40-somethings and hipster retro-fetishists alike. With Prima Donna. Showbox at the Market. 8 p.m. $27.50 adv./$30 DOS. DL CRUSHED OUT Stop me if you’ve heard this one: a guitar/drums duo that plays raw, loud, blues-indebted rock. Like the White Stripes, the Black Keys, and countless others, Crushed Out fits this description, though their shtick is a modern take on ’50s rock ’n’ roll. With West Coast Improvement Company, Acapulco Lips. Sunset Tavern. 9 p.m. $8 adv. AG

Sunday, Sept. 8

SAVES THE DAY Nearly every pop-punk band around

today has Saves the Day to thank for paving the way. The New Jersey–based quintet is nearing its 20th anniversary and is set to release a self-titled album, their eighth studio release, in September. With Into It. Over It. and Hostage Calm. El Corazon. 7:30 p.m. $15 adv./$18 DOS. All ages. AP THE DODOS Anyone who hasn’t listened to the Dodos since 2008’s Visiter, the frenzied sophomore full-length that broke the San Francisco duo into mainstreamindie consciousness, may be disappointed by Carrier, released last week. It’s dour, straightforward-sounding indie rock, with less of the breakneck energy that made the band’s early work so compelling. With The Love Language, Learning Team. Neumos. 8 p.m. $15 adv. AG JIMMY CLIFF The reggae legend’s first record in seven years, Rebirth, is his best in decades, earning him the

The Eagles

Wednesday, Sept. 4

F

Monday, Sept. 9

GROUPLOVE This indie dance act’s hit single “Tongue-

Tied” introduced fans to its 2011 debut release, Never Trust a Happy Song. A collection of punchy, electro-dance tracks for kids wearing hippie shirts and feathers in their hair, it became the soundtrack to the festivals that hosted those kids and a staple on alternative radio. Now the band is preparing to release their sophomore effort, Spreading Rumors, upping the ante by booking a short, nearly-sold-out fall tour that’s going to be twice as exciting—literally. For this run, the group will play two shows in each city—one electric and one acoustic, each at different venues—and it’s all kicking off here. With the Rubens. Sept. 9: Crocodile. 8 p.m. SOLD OUT. Sept. 10: The Triple Door. 8 p.m. SOLD OUT. KEEGAN PROSSER

Tuesday, Sept. 10

WHY? mastermind Yoni Wolf has carved a unique niche

for himself since debuting in the mid-2000s. His ultrapersonal hip-hop is indie-friendly—an endearingly gawky frontman, cutesy beats with glockenspiel and acoustic guitar—but also deeply uncomfortable, always letting listeners in a bit closer than they might like. With Lovers Without Borders. Neumos. 8 p.m. $15 adv. All ages. AG THE WEEKND The Biebs isn’t the only Canadian superstar to be discovered on YouTube. The Weeknd, aka Abel Tesfaye, uploaded a few alt-R&B songs featuring his tremoring vocals, and, after a shout out from fellow Torontonian Drake, the rest is history. With Anna Lunoe and Banks. Paramount Theatre, 911 Pine St., 682-1414, stgpresents.org/paramount. 8 p.m. $36.20 adv./$41.24 DOS. All ages. AP

ROCKIN’ PIANO SHOW

W JARELL PERRY

You name it, We’ll celebrate it! Anniversary Birthday Corporate Event Divorce Engagement Foreclosure Graduation Happy Hour Independence Day Just Because Kicking Back Looking for Fun Marriage Night On the Town

Out of Town guests Parent’s Night Out Quittin’ Time Reunion St. Patrick’s Day Tired of the Usual Scene Valentine’s Day Why Not? Naughty X-Rated party! (Just kidding!) Don’t Wanna Miss Out Zany Fiends

Voted Best Piano Bar & Best Place to Take an Out of Town Guest.

Call or Scan QR Code for reservations

315 2nd Ave Seattle 206.839.1300 ilove88keys.com

NTw.RlittleYreMdhUenS.coIC LIVE COUww m THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 5TH

WEST OF WAYLAND BAND 9PM - $3 COVER

FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 6TH

WEST OF WAYLAND BAND 9PM - $5 COVER

SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 7TH

BUCKING HORSE 9PM - $5 COVER

SUNDAY SEPTEMEBER 8TH

TEQUILA ROSE BAND 9PM - $3 COVER 4PM OPEN MIC / ACOUSTIC JAM W/ BODACIOUS BILLY TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 10TH

TEQUILA ROSE 9PM - NO COVER

MONDAY AND WEDNESDAY

KARAOKE WITH DJ FORREST GUMP 9:00PM • NO COVER

FREE COUNTRY DANCE LESSONS WITH OUR HOST MARY ANN AT 8PM; SUN, MON, TUES

HAPPY HOUR 9AM-NOON & 4-7 PM • MON-FRI

WELL DRINKS & DOMESTIC BOTTLED BEER $2 16 OZ. MICROS $3.50 DINNER: 5-10PM EVERYDAY BREAKFAST & LUNCH: SAT 8AM-2PM / SUN 9AM-2PM 7115 WOODLAWN AVENUE NE 522-1168

SEATT LE W EEKLY • SEPTEMBER 4 — 10, 2013

ruary and is now available on DVD and Blu-ray, provided the necessary impetus for the band to initiate their current tour. For all the negativity that gets blasted in their direction though, the fact of the matter is that Frey is correct, the Eagles have become a band for all time. Certainly, the band did as much as any group to reach the highest levels of mass appeal, yet they did so without reducing their music to the lowest common denominator; take, for instance, their monumental album Hotel California, which at the time was a radical departure from their previously bankable countrified pop sound toward a harder rock flavor. It was a risk to be sure, one that inevitably paid off as history has shown, and it was absolutely necessary for the survival of the group not only to challenge themselves, but their audience as well–something not typically done in a race to the bottom. The band’s oeuvre of chart-topping songs like “Hotel California,” “Best of My Love,” and “One of These Nights” will far outlive any sort of bashing that’s been thrown their way over the years. For all intents and purposes, the group’s show tonight will prove to be just another stop on a career-capping victory lap. KeyArena, Seattle Center, 684-7200, keyarena.com. 8 p.m. SOLD OUT. CORBIN REIFF COURTESY OF THE ARTIST

or over 40 years, hating the Eagles has become a universally accepted stance. People love to hate the band for the same reason they love to hate Nickelback or Justin Bieber. To such haters, the most egregious crime an artist can commit is to be far more popular and financially successful than the overall quality of their work should realistically warrant. In the Eagles’ case, how dare Their Greatest Hits (1971–1975) even think of rivaling Michael Jackson’s Thriller atop the list of best-selling albums?! Guitarist/singer Glenn Frey alluded to this principle in an interview with Cameron Crowe in 1975: “Mass appeal is definitely suspect . . . sometimes all that mass appeal means is that you simplified your equation down to the lowest common denominator.” The band doesn’t do much to help their cause when they say things like this, either: “We set out to become a band for our time. But sometimes if you do a good enough job, you become a band for all time.” That painfully self-important quote comes once again from the mouth of Frey in the recent History of the Eagles. The documentary, which first aired on Showtime in Feb-

Grammy for Best Reggae Album of 2012. Produced by Tim Armstrong of Rancid, the album finds Cliff renewed, revitalized—even covering The Clash. With Ethan Tucker. The Neptune. 8 p.m. $35. DL

37

celebrating ten years throughout the month of september!

mainstage WED/SEPTEMBER 18 • 7:30PM

matt wertz w/ elenowen THU/SEPTEMBER 19 • 7PM

dougie maclean

THU/SEPTEMBER 5 • 7:30PM

the baseball project

FRI/SEPTEMBER 20 & SAT/SEPTEMBER 21 • 8PM

an evening with aaron neville FRI/SEPTEMBER 6 • 8PM

2013 raise the roof w/ brandi carlile

SUN/SEPTEMBER 22 • 7:30PM - SQUARE PEG PRESENTS

moshe kasher

SUN/SEPTEMBER 8 • 6:30PM & 9PM - STG PRESENTS

sweet dreams: the music of patsy cline

MON/SEPTEMBER 23 • 7PM & 9:30PM

an evening with allen toussaint

TUE/SEPTEMBER 10 • 8PM - STG PRESENTS

grouplove (special acoustic set) w/ the rubens WED/SEPTEMBER 11 • 7:30PM

beth orton

THU/SEPTEMBER 12 • 7:30PM

swamp dogg w/ brother james & the soul-vation

WED/SEPTEMBER 25 • 7PM & 9:30PM

billy cobham’s “spectrum 40”

featuring dean brown, gary husband and ric fierabracci THU/SEPTEMBER 26 • 7:30PM

sonny landreth w/ cindy cashdollar FRI/SEPTEMBER 27 • 8PM

an evening with robert cray

SEATTLE WEEKLY • SEPTEM BER 4 — 10, 2013

FRI/SEPTEMBER 13 • 7:30PM

38

vagabond opera SAT/SEPTEMBER 14 • 7:30PM & 10PM

burlesque royale

SAT/SEPTEMBER 28 • 6:30PM - DECIBEL FEST PRESENTS

optical 3 - night vessel

w/ zola jesus, jg thirlwell, margaret chardiet aka pharmakon SUN/SEPTEMBER 29 • 6:30PM - DECIBEL FEST PRESENTS

MON/SEPTEMBER 16 • 7:30PM AMERICAN RAG ON TOUR PRESENTS

megan & liz with kalin and myles

happy hour every day

optical 4 - black noise w/ oren

ambarchi, the sight below, raime

• 9/4 leftover cuties w/ vaudeville etiquette • 9/5 tony holiday band • 9/6 forever growing • 9/7 closed for a private event • 9/8 scott and dani • 9/9 monday night jazz w/ synthesis • 9/10 singer-songwriter showcase featuring: chelsea crabtree and tazlyn gue • 9/11 the true romans

TO ENSURE THE BEST EXPERIENCE, PLEASE ARRIVE EARLY DOORS OPEN 1.5 HOURS PRIOR TO FIRST SHOW - ALL-AGES (BEFORE 9:30PM)

thetripledoor.net

216 UNION STREET, SEATTLE · 206.838.4333

arts&culture»Music In his early teens, Shuggie was so good that his father smuggled his young son onstage, often disguised with a fake mustache and dark glasses. The prodigy cut his first record in his late teens, collaborated with Al Kooper, and unleashed Freedom Flight in 1971, the year he turned 18. “Strawberry Letter 23” from that set became a hit for the Brothers Johnson, but Shuggie took three years for his follow-up, 1974’s Inspiration Information. He’s been sampled by OutKast, J Dilla, Beyoncé, and others, but he couldn’t catch a break as his own self. He fell silent. He lost his record contract. He went back to playing on Johnny Otis sessions. And that, until earlier this year, was that. Now Inspiration Information’s back with four bonus tracks and a whole new set attached— Wings of Love, a full-length second CD of what Shuggie’s been working on since 1974. It’s more of the same, with testifying, worrying, contemplating, and astral-planing—not to mention the long-jam title track, which grows its own wings and glides through a few mountains. Catch him now or wait until another Nixon resigns. With Jessica Hernandez & the Deltas, Rippin Chicken. Neumos, 925 E. Pike St., 709-9442, neumos.com. 8 p.m. $25 adv. 21 and over.

Shuggie Otis Thursday, Sept. 5

T

he man born Johnny Alexander Veliotes Jr.—known the world over as Shuggie Otis— takes pains to mention on his website that he throws his brothers, Jon and Nick, into the mix on his all-too-rare tours. He thrives on connectivity, and he learned much from his own father, Johnny Alexander Veliotes Sr., better known as Johnny Otis. But in an opposite way, his work depends on distance. Veliotes Sr., Greek, couldn’t quite pass for Caucasian, and so in his words, “I decided that if our society dictated that one had to be black or white, I would be black.” His remarkable 90-year life included discovering Ella James, charting with “Willie and the Hand Jive,” and stabs at politics and journalism. Shuggie ignited the afterburner of his father’s self-definition, setting forth for uncharted, yet eerily familiar, musical territory. Wielding the mastery of soul, blues, and rock on one hand and the novelty of lyrics, arrangements, and production on the other, he poured strange, scintillating new wine from seemingly tapped bottles.

DIN ING

ANDREW HAMLIN

LocaLReLeases

ing and bassist Ryan Baker’s deep undertones, has us wondering just two things: How can something so youthful and refreshing feel so nostalgic? And when can we have more? (Fri., Sept. 6, Comet) KEEGAN PROSSER

COURTESY OF THE ARTIST

Witchburn, Bathed in Blood (Sept. 10, selfreleased, witchburnrocks.com): They say “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” I’m amending that to “Don’t judge an album by its tracklist.” After reading the titles on Witchburn’s latest release (“Warning to the Weak,” “Resurrection of Rebellion,” and “Hymn for the Damned,” for example), I formed an idea of how I thought the album would sound: lots of chunky guitar riffs and bass lines, headbang-inducing percussion, vocal snarling. While there are plenty of those throughout this release, the band does have a few other tricks up its sleeves. On “Hymn,” for example, vocalist Jamie Nova—who used to front an AC/DC tribute band—adjusts some powerful yell-singing to a softer, Janis Joplin-like warble at the drop of a hat, segueing perfectly into a sweet instrumental interlude. It’s a welcome change from the nearconstant moody Southern rock heard up to that point. “Sweet Rock ’n’ Roll,” too, is a bit unexpected; the tune kicks off with an extra-bluesy riff and Nova singing in a lighter tone about how rock ’n’ roll is the only thing that sets her free. The band—Nova, Mischa Kianne on guitar and violin, Dana Sims on drums, and Jacy Peckham on bass—clearly have a strong grasp of downtuned metal. Overall, Blood ’s rough-and-tumble quality gets a little old by the end, but thanks to those unexpected moments, it’s perfect listening anytime you need to, as the band says, throw your metal horns high. (Tues., Sept. 10, El Corazon) AZARIA PODPLESKY

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W W W. S E AT T L E W E E K LY. C O M / S I G N U P

JAZZ ALLEY IS A SUPPER CLUB

LARRY CORYELL AND THE ELEVENTH HOUSE REUNION BAND THUR, SEPT 5 - SUN, SEPT 8

W EE K LY

Limited Engagement Reunion Concert!

NELLIE MCKAY TUE, SEPT 10 - WED, SEPT 11

EV

MUSIC

Witty singer, pianist and songwriter

EARL KLUGH THUR, SEPT 12 - SUN, SEPT 15 Grammy-winning master guitarist, statesman of contemporary jazz

JACQUI NAYLOR TUE, SEPT 17 - WED, SEPT 18 “Naylor remains one of the most superbly arresting vocalists around.” - JazzTimes

ELIANE ELIAS THUR, SEPT 19TH - SUN, SEPT 22

F IL M

Sultry Brazilian pianist/vocalist/arranger combines the sensuous, sun-splashed melodicism of Brazil with the harmonic sophistication of New York City

all ages | free parking full schedule at jazzalley.com

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SEATT LE W EEKLY • SEPTEMBER 4 — 10, 2013

Tangerine, Radical Blossoms EP (out now, Swoon Records, swoonrecords.com/tangerine): In the same vein as Best Coast’s Bethany Cosentino, Tangerine’s Marika Justad delivers dreamy breeze-pop perfect for a sunny day. That’s why the timing of this release—the second EP from the newly formed Seattle act—may be its biggest hurdle (or a much needed weather pick-me-up/ big autumn success). Led by Justad’s soulful, wispy vocals, Blossoms is a tightly arranged (and too short) collection of surfer-friendly pop that both pays homage to classic groups such as the Breeders and Fleetwood Mac and introduces a warmer, more fully realized sound for an act that got its start on the Sound Off! stage. (Marika and her drummer sister Miro originally competed, as the Neons, in the Experience Music Project’s competition in 2004.) In the years since, the Justads’ sound has definitely matured, as they’ve traded their angsty alt-rock and aggressive riffs for something a bit mellower. The stripped and slowed-down version, made more poignant by guitarist Toby Kuhn’s gentle pluck-

2033 6th Avenue (206) 441-9729 jazzalley.com

39

arts&culture»Music

In an Uproar

The skinny on the big rock festival hitting the Gorge this weekend, from backstage. BY DUFF MCKAGAN

Join us in the Trophy Room for Happy Hour: Thursday Bartender Special 8-Close Fridays: 5-8pm RESERVE THE TROPHY ROOM FOR YOUR NEXT EVENT!

COCKTAILS • TASTY HOT DOGS • LOTSA PINBALL

2222 2ND AVENUE • SEATTLE

SEATTLE WEEKLY • SEPTEM BER 4 — 10, 2013

206-441-5449

40

filtering the best of

THE NORTHWEST!

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I

’m currently writing from 37,000 feet. I’m on my way to Oklahoma City where I will rejoin my new band, Walking Papers, to continue gallivanting around the U.S. and Canada with the Rockstar Energy Uproar Tour with stalwarts like Jane’s Addiction, Danko Jones, and headliner Alice in Chains. We’ve been at it since the beginning of August, but I had to schedule a quick trip back home, as my oldest daughter just turned 16 and I wanted to give her a quick kiss and a massive and embarrassing hug (to her, not me). There are a bunch of us dads out here—Perry Farrell and drummer Stephen Perkins from Jane’s Addiction are on this very same plane, as I suspect they did the exact same thing as me (but of course with their own kids). All of these men have been friends of mine for a long, long time. There are a few of us in these bands who shouldn’t be here at all, and

For me, this trading of ideas and exposure to other types of music seems to be the biggest “takeaway” from this year’s Uproar so far. a few, sadly, who aren’t. The respect I have for these guys simply remains silent, unspoken— because there really are no words. The musical celebration we have enjoyed every night on this tour is, of course, not silent. Alice in Chains is a band that is way on top of its game right now. Just epic, by all accounts. The guys in Jane’s Addiction are fresher and darker than I have seen them in years. They are musically astounding at this moment. Danko Jones is a guy who seems almost evangelical in his message and delivery of said message. Then there is us, Walking Papers, featuring Screaming Trees/Mad Season drummer Barrett Martin and Seattle’s newest favorite son Jeff Angell. For me it is just an honor to play with these guys on a nightly basis. But there are other bands on this tour, new bands, that I have gravitated toward. Middle Class Rut is a five-piece alternative-ish onslaught that should be the biggest thing on modern-rock radio right now. Of course, American radio does indeed leave a lot of the good shit out (that is a whole other story). Coheed and Cambria is another new-ish rock outfit that slants more to the prog side of things. They seem to sort of be a new Rush, and, thusly, there are prog fans coming to the Uproar Tour who might now be getting turned on to JA or Danko, and some AIC fans, conversely, getting exposed to a Coheed show that they might never otherwise have gone to. For me, this trading of ideas and exposure to other types

of music seems to be the biggest “takeaway” from this year’s Uproar so far. This traveling circus of a tour will be in its fourth week by the time it hits the Gorge this weekend (in partnership with KISW’s Pain in the Grass), and everyone on the bill will have earned their stripes. Some parts of this tour have been so damn hot and dusty that it almost takes the patience of a saint just to make it to gig time. The 200 or so people who work on this thing do so in relatively close quarters, and all of the men and women who are either performers, stagehands, carpenters, riggers, vendors, truck drivers, bus drivers, caterers, or general production . . . all get a massive dudenod from me. Up-and-comers Beware of Darkness had to leave the tour for a weekend to play the Reading and Leeds festivals, but are back. Charming Liars, from England, is a young rock band with a purpose that is undeniable. Circa Survive has been getting active and modern-rock radio airplay, and its progressive style of rock somehow seems to fit nicely in this whole thing. The Dead Daisies, from Australia, are doing their first-ever go-around of the U.S. This is a rockand-roll band of the finest cut, and even though they do originate from Down Under, some of the members may be recognizable: Dizzy Reed, Richard Fortus, and Frank Ferrer from the newest version of GNR and bass legend Marco Mendoza. The Chuck Schaffer Picture Show won the Battle Of The Bands on this tour last year, earning a spot on this whole mess this year. It’s been cool to watch that band learn the ropes. But the coolest thing I’ve seen so far on this tour had nothing to do with actual music. Jerry Cantrell’s father, Jerry “The Rooster” Cantrell Sr., came out for a few dates. The tour sponsor honored him onstage on the date that has historically been set aside to highlight a U.S. serviceman or -woman (they have had Bronze and Silver star recipients on past Uproar tours). The Rooster, who served six years in “the shit” of Vietnam and indeed was never snuffed, was genuinely taken aback to now be honored for his career of service. The fans stood and cheered and generally lost their shit, and I may have hinted just a glint of moisture in Mr. Cantrell Sr.’s left eye. I’m glad I got to see this moment. I don't know what moments await us at the Gorge, but I know there will be some. This is one of the better groupings of artists that I can remember in recent memory. The music is pretty damn great and interesting, and all of it is the real deal. E

askduff@seattleweekly.com

KISW PAIN IN THE GRASS Gorge Amphitheatre, 754 Silica Rd., Quincy, Wash., 509-785-6262, rockstaruproar.com. Advance: $59.50 one-day, $99.90 two-day. DOS: $65 & $110. 2 p.m. Fri., Sept. 6–Sat., Sept. 7.

the geekly report» Geek 101: A Brief Guide BY TERRA CLARKE OLSEN

Y

Goon), this geek can be found reading the digital version of the trade paperback (don’t want to bend the pages) and sporting a button of her favorite book on her messenger bag. Beware if a rare 9.0 CGC comic book (a grading system to mark the condition of said comic) is displayed; this geek might start foaming at the mouth. Never in her presence insult Stan Lee or Jack Kirby—these are the godfathers of comics and should be respected as demigods. Instead, ask what her favorite non-DC or Marvel comics are and watch as her face glows with enthusiasm. To learn more about this ever-expanding world, check out Emerald City ComicCon or Jet City Comic Show. The Sci-Fi and Fantasy Geek can be found at the EMP drooling over Tolkien’s handwritten notes for The Hobbit or catching up on classic sci-fi films at Central Cinema. Often heard debating what the best Star Trek episode is, he can be found designing his next steampunk gadget and discussing which book he should read next. Oh, don’t worry, he’s already read all the GoT (Game of Thrones) books, and is just “patiently” waiting for G.R.R. Martin to release the next one. Word of warning: Do not compare LOTR to Harry Potter; instead, mention that you’ve heard Firefly was canceled unfairly, and he’ll take the conversation from there. Head to Norwescon for an insider’s look at this world. The Anime Geek can be found wandering the aisles of Uwajimaya, or the attached bookstore, Kinokuniya, loading up on anime and manga. Often heard debating which anime movie is the BEST, she can be found downloading every purikura ( Japanese photo booth) app while planning her next cosplay photoshoot. Don’t say you love anime and then proceed to only talk about Pokémon; instead, ask for a movie recommendation. Mark your calendar for Sakura-Con to see some amazing cosplay and pick up a few manga books. And there you have it: the geeks of Seattle. Now, mind you, every genre of geek includes subgenres, and many of us actually fall into multiple categories—but for simplicity’s sake, begin with this guide. And to my people concerned that I will only skim the surface of geekdom in this weekly column, I say don’t worry. I reserve the right to geek out. E

geeklyreport@seattleweekly.com

In beautiful downtown White Center

Buy, Sell & Barter rs Records, Guita

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SEATT LE W EEKLY • SEPTEMBER 4 — 10, 2013

ou might have noticed that Seattle is teeming with geeks. Did you know you are 10 times more likely to be sitting right next to a geek in Seattle than in any other city?! (Note: I have no data to back this up, so don’t quote me or write in correcting me.) Don’t panic, we come in peace. But we do have some strange terms and rituals. I am here, with this first edition of The Geekly Report, to demystify these oddities for you. Identifying a geek in Seattle can be tricky; there are so many types. We have our music geeks, our academic geeks, our gear geeks, and our tech geeks. But this column is less concerned with the nouveau geek and more with the traditional geeks from your typical Revenge of the Nerds movie—aka my people. Before you scoff at me and “my people,” let me digress to tell you a bit about myself. I was born into this life. I had no other choice, really. My family is large and full of geeks. We collect comics, we play games, we debate sci-fi books and films, and we have had many shouting matches over a game of Magic the Gathering. We’re your average Tolkien-loving, game-playing, sci-fi reading family. And I love it. So again, my people. But who are these “people”? The Gaming Geek can be found watching LoL (League of Legends) tournaments or playing the latest edition of MTG at the local gaming store. Often heard discussing MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role-playing games), you can bet he has a D20 (a 20-sided die) on hand, since you never know when you may need to make a saving throw. (No joke: The other day I couldn’t find a pen in my purse, but I had two D20s and one D6.) When interacting with a gaming geek, never suggest he get a Mac over a PC; you might just get smacked across the face with your iPhone. To open a conversation, ask what he’s currently playing on Steam (a gaming platform developed by Valve). To learn more, check out local gaming conventions PAX Prime and Go Play NW. The Comic Geek can be found at the local comic shop every Wednesday (new-comic day), picking up subscriptions and probably adding a few more titles to her pull list. Often heard discussing the downfalls of the latest comicbook movie and how it did no justice to its source (although we have great hopes for The

41

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was on to perusing the 17 strains of buds. Making the selection process easier and more fun was the across-the-board $10-a-gram pricing structure (or you can get 12.5 grams of any strain for $99, which is just $7.92 a gram). Eyeballing the sativa end of the bar first, I was struck by the beauty of the Sour Diesel flowers, and decided those would be my “working meds” for the next few days. Sour Diesel, while zapping nausea and helping transcend pain, also can result in a burst of creative energy that is just the thing for morning and midday medication. Its fuelish aroma may be an acquired taste, but devotees of the Sour D will settle for nothing else. Fully intending to select an indica or hybrid strain next, I was waylaid by the crystalline comeliness of another sativa strain, Sugar Plum. With a knowing twinkle in his eye, Dylan opened the bud jar; the sweet, tantalizing aroma of ripe fruit terpenes mingling with the heady zing of fine cannabis sealed that deal in a hurry, with visions of Sugar Plum dancing in my head. I wasn’t disappointed upon toke-testing Sugar Plum back at home. This is one of those delicious strains that tastes even yummier than it smells—better yet, the taste lasts almost all the way through a joint. The heady effects come on with a warm glow of positivity, potentiated by the fruity terpenes and bringing almost instant relief. E

tokesignals@seattleweekly.com

Steve Elliott edits Toke Signals, tokesignals.com, an irreverent, independent blog of cannabis news, views, and information.

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