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MARCH 26-APRIL 1, 2014 I VOLUME 39 I NUMBER 13

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The life and many deaths of a Seattle institution.

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inside» March 26–April 1, 2014 VOLUME 39 | NUMBER 13

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news&comment 5

IMMIGRANT LIMBO BY NINA SHAPIRO | Inmates at a

Tacoma detention center hunger-strike for better conditions. 5 | SEATTLELAND 7 | SPORTSBALL

COMET TALES

BY KELTON SEARS | The many

“deaths”—and mysterious mascot— of a Seattle nightlife institution.

food&drink 17 THEO-LOGY

BY MEGAN HILL | A local company helps establish cocoa-bean farming in an embattled region. 17 | FOOD NEWS/TEMP CHECK 18 | THE BAR CODE

arts&culture 19 INSIDE COMICON

BY MARK RAHNER | What’s with all

those costumed nerds at the Convention Center this weekend? 20 | THE PICK LIST 22 | OPENING NIGHTS | A newly

translated Uncle Vanya, adultery in South Africa, and an Oscar Wilde revival.

27 FILM

27 | OPENING THIS WEEK | Bears and mice, living together as friends! Plus Chinese mythology, epistolary romance in India, and a biopic honoring Cesar Chavez. 29 | FILM CALENDAR

30 MUSIC

A rapper connects with his homeland via an ancient instrument. Plus: Neil Finn, family man. And trill sizzurp! 33 | SEVEN NIGHTS

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36 | THE GEEKLY REPORT 37 | TOKE SIGNALS 38 | CLASSIFIEDS

»cover credits PHOTO BY KYU HAN

Editor-in-Chief Mark Baumgarten EDITORIAL Senior Editor Nina Shapiro Food Editor Nicole Sprinkle Arts Editor Brian Miller Entertainment Editor Gwendolyn Elliott Editorial Operations Manager Gavin Borchert Staff Writers Ellis E. Conklin, Matt Driscoll, Kelton Sears Editorial Interns Margery Cercado, Colleen Fontana, Imana Gunawan Contributing Writers Rick Anderson, Sean Axmaker, James Ballinger, Michael Berry, Sara Billups, Steve Elliott, Margaret Friedman, Zach Geballe, Dusty Henry, Megan Hill, Robert Horton, Patrick Hutchison, Sara D. Jones, Seth Kolloen, Sandra Kurtz, Dave Lake, John Longenbaugh, Jessie McKenna, Terra Clarke Olsen, Kevin Phinney, Keegan Prosser, Mark Rahner, Michael Stusser, Jacob Uitti PRODUCTION Production Manager Christopher Dollar Art Director Karen Steichen Graphic Designers Jennifer Lesinski, Sharon Adjiri Photo Interns Joshua Bessex, Kyu Han ADVERTISING Advertising and Marketing Director Jen Larson Advertising Sales Manager, Arts Carol Cummins Senior Account Executives Krickette Wozniak Account Executives Peter Muller, Brett Leverett Classifieds Account Executive Matt Silvie DISTRIBUTION Distribution Manager Jay Kraus OPERATIONS Administrative Coordinator Amy Niedrich PUBLISHER Wendy Geldien COPYRIGHT © 2014 BY SOUND PUBLISHING, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART WITHOUT PERMISSION IS PROHIBITED. ISSN 0898 0845 / USPS 306730 • SEATTLE WEEKLY IS PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY SOUND PUBLISHING, INC., 307 THIRD AVE. S., SEATTLE, WA 98104 SEATTLE WEEKLY® IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARK. PERIODICALS POSTAGE PAID AT SEATTLE, WA POSTMASTER: SEND ADDRESS CHANGES TO SEATTLE WEEKLY, 307 THIRD AVE. S., SEATTLE, WA 98104 • FOUNDED 1976.

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news&comment

The Fire’s Cookin’

Cobain’s Death: A Shut-and-Open Case

Protesters outside the Northwest Detention Center inspired a hunger strike within. Two weeks later, a dozen remain, demanding better conditions.

BY NINA SHAPIRO

NINA SHAPIRO

Jose Moreno is hungry for justice.

nshapiro@seattleweekly.com

THE WEEKLY BRIEFING | What’s going on at seattleweekly.com: Seattle’s police chief search now has a help-wanted ad, seek-

•

The Monorail celebrated its 52nd birthday. Yes, there were ing a leader who’s “bold and courageous.” Craft your cover letters accordingly. This year’s competing gun control initiatives, I-594 and I-591, launched their campaigns. 594 point man Zach Silk, who’s cupcakes involved. fighting for background checks on all Internet and gun show firearm sales, says 591 is “a cynical attempt to confuse voters.” But will it work? Finally, the Western Washington Taxi Cab Operators Association is suing Uber. We can only assume Macklemore thinks the lawsuit is bogus.

•

SEATTLELAND

A recently released photo from the scene of Cobain’s death shows the star’s heroin stash.

Seattle Police seemed puzzled by this latest stirring. “Despite an erroneous news report,” SPD tweeted to the media and others on Thursday, “we have not ‘reopened’ the investigation into the suicide of Kurt Cobain.” The famously dead are always restless and closely watched for new signs of life. But SPD insisted this was not such a case, despite a KIRO-TV tweet that said the death case was in fact being reopened. “Our detective reviewed the case file anticipating questions surrounding the closed Cobain case as the 20 yr anniversary approaches,” nothing more, the department said in a second tweet. KIRO and the rest of the media then updated Cobain’s death status to being “re-examined.” But even to that, police gave a funereal response. The detective “dug up the files and had another look, and there was nothing new,” police spokesperson Renee Witt told The Seattle Times. “No change, no developments, no new leads,” she also told The Washington Post. Yet there was something new: four rolls of undeveloped film. Detective Mike Ciesynski had

SEATT LE W EEKLY • M ARCH 26 —APRI L 1, 2014

Meanwhile, immigration activists on the outside are keeping up the pressure. Last week they held a press conference and announced plans for an April 5 rally to call on President Obama to stop deportations, which have reached a record number during his administration. Maru MoraVillalpando, one of the activists and the head of a group called Latino Advocacy, says a coalition came together in recent months out of frustration with Congress’ failure to act on a bipartisan immigration-reform bill that arose in the Senate last spring. “We realized Congress was playing with us,” says Mora-Villalpando, who also expressed frustration with the president. “If he’s not going to stop the deportations, we have to stop them.” The protests both inside and outside the facility have gotten attention. Last Thursday, U.S. Rep. Adam Smith visited the detention center to meet with three detainees as well as officials from ICE and GEO, the private company that contracts with the government to run the facility. Speaking by phone minutes after the visit, Smith says the detainees, which included the two in isolation, “made a compelling case” about the facility’s conditions. “The biggest takeaway is that there is no government regulation of detention centers. We’re going to look into the possibility of creating some standards.” On Monday, he announced that he had also discussed the matter with U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson.

During his visit, Smith says, he heard many detainees complain about the food. “You’re always hungry,” Moreno explains. Not only are the portions small, he says, but the meals are bland, meatless, and repetitive—often rice or boiled potatoes and beans. In a 2012 report, ICE inspectors acknowledged such complaints and said a new menu, with items including cheeseburgers and pizza, was on the way. ICE maintains the new menu is in effect. Detainees also complain about prices at the commissary and the wage for work inside the facility: $1 a day. ICE responds that the work is not mandatory. Overall, ICE’s 2012 inspectors reported that they “observed a better-than-satisfactory quality of life among detainees,” who have access to TV, outdoor recreation, and newspapers. And that might be true—if “satisfactory” is measured by the standards of a prison. That, more than anything, is what the detention center resembled when I took a tour in 2006 and observed concrete floors, metal toilets, cell-like bunks, and minimal privacy. “It is like a prison,” agrees Jorge Barón, executive director of the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project. He sees that as a problem. given that immigration violations are a civil, not a criminal, matter. Detainees are not there to be punished, but to ensure that they make court dates that will determine whether they can stay in this country or be deported. Many have families, jobs, and other deep ties to the community that minimize their flight risk, Barón contends. ICE itself has recently proposed stepping up the use of alternatives to detention, including electronic bracelets and bonds. Estimates calculate such alternatives would cost less than $20 a day per person, whereas ICE pays GEO $100 a day for each detainee at the Tacoma facility, according to the 2012 report. A major obstacle to scaling back detentions is a 2009 federal statute, pushed by immigration hawks in Congress, that sets a 34,000 “bed quota” at facilities around the country. In its contract with GEO for the Tacoma facility, ICE has committed to paying for at least 1,181 beds. Last month, Obama directed DHS to come up with a more “humane” approach to immigration enforcement. Activists are skeptical that it will go far enough. Still, Mora-Villalpando says she believes that the pressure activists are putting on the president both locally and nationally is having an effect. “It’s working,” she says. E

SPD

fter three months in Tacoma’s Northwest Detention Center, Mexican-born Jose Moreno was headed to Tukwila in the rainy, early morning of February 24 to get fingerprinted for a visa application that might allow him to stay in this country. Suddenly he saw a woman blocking the van that was taking him out of the facility, which holds immigrants being considered for deportation. Handcuffed, the 25-year-old couldn’t get up to see the nine others who were attempting to blockade the detention center in protest of immigration policies. But he heard them. “You are not alone,” the protesters chanted in Spanish. “It felt really good,” recalls Moreno.“They were supporting us.” Taken to the detention center last fall after he was arrested in Bothell on a DUI charge, Moreno, who walked across the border seven years ago, has since been released on bond pending consideration of his case. Speaking last week through an interpreter at a south Seattle Starbucks, he recalls telling fellow detainees about the attempted blockade when he got back to the detention center later that day. Inspired, the detainees decided to stage their own protest— aimed both at the policies that landed them in the detention center and at what they say are its dismal conditions. Through notes surreptitiously passed in hallways, word of a hunger strike spread among the segregated pods where groups of detainees are kept. On the evening of Friday, March 7, they made their move: 750 meal trays were returned uneaten, according to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Moreno, and activists supporting the hunger strike, claim a remarkable 1,200 detainees—just 100 shy of the facility’s entire population—soon joined in. Two weeks later, activists say the numbers had dwindled to just a dozen or so hunger strikers, two of whom were under medical supervision. Moreno, who spent three days without food before being released, says many detainees were intimidated into ending their protest by guards clad in black SWAT gear who went around taking names. “There have been no punitive actions,” ICE stated in a written response to questions. Rather, the agency says it talked with hunger-strikers merely to inform them of its policies, which include seeking a court order allowing forcefeeding if deemed medically necessary. That would likely provoke a court battle, as the ACLU of Washington, which is representing two hunger-strikers, says it would oppose such a move.

or a man whose suicide was unequivocally confirmed and his case then closed—slammed permanently shut by police, it seemed—Kurt Cobain has been a lively corpse. He will live again next week, reincarnated by fans and the media for the 20th anniversary of the rocker’s Seattle death by double shots of heroin and Remington. Already, “new” 22-year-old photos of the trashed Los Angeles apartment he shared with wife Courtney Love have been released in some sort of tribute. BY RICK ANDERSON Cobain was up and moving around last week as well, when reports of his demise were again called into question following the release of “new” 20-yearold photos from the Denny-Blaine neighborhood death scene. He was still dead at 27, but perhaps a little less so than the week before.

» CONTINUED ON PAGE 7 5

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Fall of the Romar Empire

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discovered them while rummaging through an evidence locker a few weeks earlier during his file-foraging, police said. The April 8, 1994, photos were developed and turned out to be evidence from the death scene. While some were duplicates of earlier released photos and others were gruesome splatter shots of the 138-pound Nirvana frontman, two were important enough to be released to the media and public. Posted on the police website, one shows an opened vintage Tom Moore cigar box containing Cobain’s apparent stash of heroin and his works—a spoon and a needle collection. The other shows the box closed, next to a small wad of cash, a pack of smokes, shades, some clothing, and a wallet with Cobain’s ID. “Nothing earth-shaking,” as Witt put it. Not to her or the police, anyway. But doubters, disbelievers, and murder-conspiracy theorists felt a slight temblor. Just as they were coming down from the retraction of the “reopened” suicide case, they suddenly learned through the police denial that never-before-seen evidence had just been found. The pictures might not show much. But their discovery was telling: In a case that police say they thoroughly examined before closing, they had overlooked photos from the scene itself. That seemed to raise other questions, starting with “What else did they miss?” And if the case is in fact closed, why was a detective going over it

You don’t need conclusive evidence to believe in conspiracies. A fertile mind will do. again and looking through the evidence? If, as police say, the case is solved—and Cobain was the killer—why the review? Why not stick to information given out in the past? Why open that Pandora’s cigar box? The Kurt-Was-Murdered phenomenon is a cottage industry of books, music, websites, and movies, including a film set for release this year, Soaked in Bleach—essentially private detective Tom Grant’s view of how Cobain died. He questions Cobain’s suicide note and cause of death, and believes that widow Love and livein male nanny Michael Dewitt were involved in a conspiracy that resulted in murder. Not that he can prove it. But you don’t need conclusive evidence to believe in conspiracies. A fertile mind will do. Which is why Seattle Police, attempting to kill off such talk, ended up giving it new life in living color last week. As even Detective Ciesynski, still trying to rub out the murder theorists, concedes, “Sometimes people believe what they read—some of the disinformation from some of the books—that this was a conspiracy.” But “that’s completely inaccurate,” he adds. “It’s a suicide. This is a closed case.” OK, starting now. Or week after next, maybe. E

randerson@seattleweekly.com

Rick Anderson writes about sex, crime, money, and politics, which tend to be the same thing.

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SEATT LE W EEKLY • M ARCH 26 —APRI L 1, 2014

or something that wasn’t planned, it sure made sense. University of Washington head coach Lorenzo Romar and top deputies Cameron Dollar and Ken Bone commanded the rise of Husky hoops. So put Dollar and Bone each in charge of a lesser school in the same state, and watch Washington conquer the world of college basketball! It’s a good thing no one planned it, BY SETH KOLLOEN because that person would deserve to be thrown to the lions. You’ll have noticed when filling out your NCAA tournament bracket that Lorenzo while smaller Romar states like Utah, Iowa, and Oklahoma had multiple entrants in the 68-team field, Washington had just one. While Gonzaga carried our state’s standard— not very far, losing in the second round—Romar’s University of Washington Huskies, Dollar’s Seattle U Redhawks, and Bone’s Washington State Cougars are all watching postseason basketball from home. None received an invitation. Now the fall of the Romar Empire has begun. Bone, who’d reached the tourney twice when he was head coach at Portland State, didn’t do it once in five years at Wazzu. The school fired him March 18. Meanwhile, Dollar’s Redhawks finished at the bottom of their league, despite competing against the likes of Chicago State, Texas Pan-American, and for-profit Grand Canyon. Dollar’s teams not only don’t win, they are practically unwatchable. His high-turnover, low-shooting-percentage style is a pale imitation of that run by the successful Huskies teams he reigned over with Romar in the 2000s. To be fair, Dollar has been negotiating a transition to Division I play, but this was a school with pretensions of being another Gonzaga. Last place in one of the nation’s worst conferences is hardly what Dollar’s bosses had in mind for year five of his tenure. Romar’s Huskies are out of the tourney for the third straight year, the longest drought in his 12 mostly successful years at UW. Since Dollar left, Romar has had six assistant coaches, none of who seem to fit the role of motivator/enforcer the way Dollar did. I think the best thing to do is to shrink the Romar Empire and reunite the Romar/Bone/ Dollar triumvirate at UW. Leave colonial outposts like Pullman and First Hill to mercenaries from other states, and centralize around Montlake. Wouldn’t you rather have one good basketball program than three mediocre ones? That’s my plan, anyway. I hope I don’t end up a lion’s dinner. E sportsball@seattleweekly.com

Kurt Cobain » FROM PAGE 5

SEATTLE WEEKLY • MARCH 26 —APRI L 1, 2014

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Where’s Ed Comet?

arl Sander must be messing with me. “Who is Ed Comet?” I innocently asked him.  The gray-haired, bespectacled man has been staring silently out the window for a full conversational minute. Cosmically, a minute might not seem long, but in a conversation, it’s an eon.  I look out through the glass of the hamburger shop we’re in to make sure the President, Macklemore, or Ed Comet himself hasn’t just walked by. Nope, nobody is out there.  “Take your time,” I tell him awkwardly.  “I’m just trying to think of a good yarn about Ed,” Sander replies.  I look down at the drawing of a pudgy little cartoon man with a buzz cut and aviator glasses that Sander has brought with him. “Ed” is embroidered in loopy lettering on the man’s shirt. “DAMN, I loves you people,” he says in a square speech bubble.  The cartoon spills from a binder full of memorabilia from Sander’s glory days at the Comet Tavern. There are black-and-white pictures of Sander’s actor friends caught mid-laugh—folks who used to put on shows at The Empty Space theater at 919 East Pike Street just across the way from the Comet. Back in the late ’70s, when Sander started drinking beer there, the Comet Tavern was a huge theater hangout on Capitol Hill, and stayed that way through the ’90s. When the curtain closed on a show at New City Theater, Freehold Studios, Alice B. Theatre, or the Broadway Performance Hall, the cast would immediately head to the Comet. They even had their own table, “The Actor’s Table,” a big, round, Arthurian thing by the front window that could seat 10. Sander, now the public programs manager at the Burke Museum, used to be an actor and a poet himself.  Sander’s poetry is actually the reason I’m here.  In 1938, Pike Place Market erected its famous neon sign. Sixty years later, in 1998, the Market decided it needed to replace 12 of the sign’s worn-out letters. As a publicity stunt, the Market held a poetry contest; the winner got to pick one of the 12 to keep, with the 11 others auctioned to the highest bidder as a fundraiser. Sander wrote the winning poem: Under the Market Clock’s Neon/ Knots and Noise/ I Encounter True Love. 

Searching for the soul of Capitol Hill’s most storied tavern. By Kelton Sears

“You mean the one in Nazi Germany?” I ask him. Sander nods. “He came back and started a family; I’m not really sure how he made his money.” “Was he just a regular at the Comet?” I ask. “I think I might’ve seen him once or twice. He was more of a . . . ” Sander drifts off again. “More of a what?” Sander looks back out the window. “He was a spiritual guide of some sorts. I can’t define him. He was just a normal guy. He was inviting.” I look back down at the drawing on the table.

I try to imagine this doofy-looking cartoon man as an Olympic-gold-winning rower who defeated the Nazis before returning to Seattle to drink his days away in a dive bar on Capitol Hill, where he allegedly served as some sort of shaman. “Well . . . what would Ed say to you?” I ask Sander. “What spiritual guidance did he provide?” “Oh, I never talked to him. You should ask Sam Wright about him—I think he knew him better.” When Sander leaves, I take out my smartphone and look up “UW Olympic Rowing Team 1936 Olympics.” An article pops up with a black-and-white picture of nine men staring back at me. They are wearing tiny shorts and jerseys emblazoned with the letter W. The caption lists their names: Don, Joseph, George, James, John, Gordon, Charles, Roger, and Robert. No Ed. Carl Sander was indeed messing with me.

ho is Ed Comet?” I ask Meinert and Lajeunesse. We are sitting in the 24-hour diner they own, Lost Lake. It’s just around the corner from the Comet Tavern, which as of November 2013 they also own.

» CONTINUED ON PAGE 10

SEATT LE W EEKLY • M ARCH 26 —APRI L 1, 2014

ALL ART COURTESY OF THE COMET

Sander chose the C, and decided he would donate it to his true love—the Comet Tavern. The wily Sander enlisted his friends Bliss Kolb and Gary Smoot to build a giant Rube Goldberg machine to unveil the C at the Comet party marking the occasion. “There are some very clever, wonderful people who live in this city,” Sander says.  A schematic of the device is strewn across the table in front of me, drawn in pencil on a piece of 16-year-old graph paper. To start it, Sam Wright, then-owner of the Comet, poured a glass of beer into the contraption. Thus began a chain of reactions that raised a lit candle, which burned a rope, which released some pool balls, which then released a big tarp that revealed the giant neon C. The neon letter has been there ever since, “permanently on loan,” hanging on the Comet’s back wall. Every time the Comet has changed ownership, Sander has tracked down the new owner(s) to vet them before permitting them to keep the glowing Pike Place relic. Dave Meinert and Jason Lajeunesse, the Comet’s newest owners, just recently received his blessing. His minute of contemplation over, Sander finally answers my question. “Ed was on the rowing team from the University of Washington that won the Olympic gold medal in Berlin,” he says very slowly.

Where’s Ed Comet?

SEATTLE WEEKLY • MARCH 26 —APRI L 1, 2014

» FROM PAGE 9

Some people refer to these two and their cohort as “The Pike/Pine Mafia.” Meinert owns The 5 Point Café and is a co-manager at Onto Entertainment, the local managing company responsible for launching the Lumineers. Lajeunesse is the owner of the Capitol Hill Block Party music festival and co-owner of Neumos, Barboza, Pike Street Fish Fry, and Moe Bar. Together, Meinert and Lajeunesse co-own Lost Lake Café and Lounge, Big Mario’s New York Style Pizza, and now the Comet Tavern. They are very good at what they do. “From what we understand, Ed was a caricature of a Comet regular,” Meinert says. “They used to use him in a bunch of Comet ads in the newspapers like The Rocket and the Weekly, I think. I don’t know when they stopped. I don’t think they’d used him recently.” Meinert and Lajeunesse have been collecting historic photos and documents from the Comet’s past to hang up when they reopen the place on March 31. Ed has popped up in many of the documents they’ve gotten from past owners and patrons so far. “Where else can ya go and drink a beer like a normal person?” a cross-eyed Ed with a mustache exclaims from the top of an old “Backgammon Happy Hour” postcard that the duo dug up. The image of Ed with that same catchphrase appears a couple more times in other documents Meinert and Lajeunesse show me. “I have no idea if he was a real person,” Meinert says. “Sam Wright would know more about him—have you talked to him yet?” When it was shuttered last fall, The Comet Tavern was the shittiest, scummiest, craziest place on Earth to see live music. Rakish blonde punks covered in tattoos and leather jackets seemed to run the place, a place with a bathroom notoriously filthier than the inside of Satan’s anus. The sound system was terrible and the cheap beer was even worse, but that was sort of the charm. To top it all off, it was booked by a woman named “Mama Casserole.” “One of the earliest bands I booked there were the Jailbirds, this rockabilly band from Japan,” Mama tells me, flashing back to the start of her booking days in 2004. “They had long cords on their guitars, so they just jumped up on the bar and played there.” Part of the reason the Jailbirds, and many bands at the Comet, might’ve played on top of the bar is that for most of the tavern’s musicvenue days there wasn’t really a stage. Up until one was installed two years ago, there was merely a tiny wedge in the corner, only big enough to fit one drummer. The drummer still got to have fun, though. “Monotonix almost lit fire to the place,” Mama says, referencing the Israeli rock band’s 2008 show. “They lit fire to their bass drum, and the drummer was holding it up in the air and banging it around. I was like, ‘Oh, my God, the place is gonna catch on fire.’ Then they started playing outside. All the people in the crowd held the drummer up in the air with their hands.” Seven nights a week, you could see live music at the Comet Tavern, thanks to the work of Mama Casserole. Anybody could play there. Das Racist, a hip-hop group from Brooklyn, would sell it out one night, then your roommate’s awful alt-country band would play there the next. If you had Mama’s e-mail, you were pretty much good to go.

“It was hard to book seven nights a week like they wanted me to and keep that integrity as a booker,” Mama says. “Honestly, on Mondays and Tuesdays I’d come by and the doorman would just sigh really big, look over at the band, and go ‘Mamaaaaa . . . ’ If you wanted to work there, you had to put up with some bad shit sometimes.” Despite that, the Comet Tavern’s reputation and lore is as thick as the beer stains on the floor. When Mama was in Rome on vacation once, she noticed the bartender was selling microbrews, unusual for Italy. She asked him about it, and he said he’d gotten the idea while in the Pacific Northwest, where he and his band “played a show at this crazy place in Seattle with a big light-up C.” “You’d see so many passports at the door,” Mama says. “It was internationally known as this Seattle institution.” Part of the reason the Comet Tavern had that charmingly divey, constantly-about-to-collapse feel is because it actually was about to collapse. Mama didn’t book seven nights a week because she wanted to. She did it, she says, because owners Chris Dasef and Brian Balodis would’ve gone out of business if she didn’t. “They just didn’t care at all, they just wanted to get the money from the shows,” Mama says. According to multiple sources, Balodis, a banker who bought the bar from Dasef in 2007 on something of a whim (he claimed he didn’t really hang out there before), botched his role as an owner in almost every way.

“It was unpretentious. It was comfortable. Anybody and everybody was welcome.” By the end, Balodis even failed to pay his waste bill. Dumpsters outside sat crammed full of ancient beer-soaked trash. And then, last October, the Comet Tavern finally did collapse, abruptly closing its doors. That’s when Meinert and Lajeunesse came in and bought the lease. “The Comet sort of signifies the soul of this street,” Meinert tells me. “We were afraid to lose that soul. In some ways we felt if that goes away, the street kind of tumbles away to become something very different.” A lot of people might think it’s funny to hear Meinert say that. A month ago, he and Lajeunesse posted the first pictures of the Comet’s extensive renovations on the bar’s Facebook page, prompting an onslaught of outraged comments: Nice, I hope all the douchebags that will patron the joint enjoy all that history we made. Miss the old bar! Looking a bit too swank to be the Comet, crying inside. Make sure to get all the soul out of there. Inquiring minds want to know why the new owners are doing away with the Comet’s long tradition of supporting live music? Is there any truth to the rumor that live music will only be Tuesday nights (the worst bar night of the week)? Indeed, there is truth to the rumor. The Comet Tavern will no longer be a live-music venue. There will be no stage. Bands and DJs

When George Commet opened the tavern in 1932, it was half the size it is now— the eastern portion of the bar, annexed by Jim Martin during his ownership in the mid-’70s, used to be a separate storefront called Cornwall Tool Company.

will play on the floor a couple of nights a month, but that’s it. The bathroom is completely new—clean as Jesus Christ’s anus. No more rotting floorboards or vomit stains on the wall. Then there was this comment: RIP the Comet 1950s–2013. Turns out there is not as much truth to that comment: The Comet Tavern was actually born in the ’30s, and it has “died” many, many times.

man named George Commet established what we now know as the Comet Tavern in 1932 with a bar, some booths, pinball machines, and a

jukebox. Even before that, around 1900, it was called The Wee Deoch and Doris, a little ma-and-pa Irish bar. Back then, Capitol Hill was pretty barren. In 1905 the first automobile dealer opened, and by 1915, almost all the city’s carrelated businesses had moved into the neighborhood, which took on the nickname “Auto Row.” Tunnels ran under some of the neighborhood’s buildings, connecting repair shops to auto dealers so parts could easily be moved back and forth. When Prohibition hit, people snuck into the basement of The Wee Deoch and Doris and drank illegally in those tunnels. The tunnels have since been sealed. In the ’50s, the Comet was mostly a blue-collar bar for older folks. Newspaper records from The Seattle Times report a couple of stick-ups and robberies at the tavern around that time, but it was pretty quiet for the most part. When your average Joe would get off work from the auto shop, he’d go to the Comet. It was your friendly neighborhood bar. It was not a mythological palace of debauchery quite yet. Then the ’60s hit, and like most things in the ’60s, the Comet got a little weird. Around that time a new owner, Dick Worthington, decided to paint the windowpanes black, and suddenly it became “an acid bar,” according to a number of the Tavern’s later owners. Older regulars weren’t too happy. This might be considered the first “death” of the Comet. “The decision was made before I got there that they wanted a younger clientele,” says Fred McDonald, who co-owned the bar from 1972

to 1974 with Worthington. “They hired younger bartenders to scare the old people out, and a lot of hippies started hanging out there. You know, long hair and everything.” The upstairs portion of the bar was dubbed “The Cloud Room,” a place where people could go and smoke weed. By the time McDonald installed the famous “Comet Tavern” sign out front, the place was a bizarre melting pot of those old blue-collar workers, hippies, and everyone in between. “It was unpretentious,” McDonald says; “it was comfortable. Anybody and everybody was welcome.” The night Nixon resigned in ’74, the Comet Tavern handed out free beer to celebrate. A reporter from The Seattle Sun, Bruce Olson, was on hand to report on the jubilant, strange scene: Jack Voltaire, sweat pouring from his 65-yearold face, his Hawaiian shirt open to the third button, stood in the middle of the Comet Tavern last Thursday night bellowing ‘This is a GREAT day for communism!’ The president had resigned, the beer was free, and the Comet, a long-time Capitol Hill hangout for burned-out radicals, assorted carpenters, artists, and unemployed journalists, was exploding with toasts, cheers, and obscenities. Jim Martin, the owner after McDonald, apparently ran around that night in a yellow construction hard hat. Sometimes people ran around in there not wearing anything at all.

nd/Or was an artist-run nonprofit in the mid-’70s, right around the corner from the Comet, where Oddfellows Café now resides. Nationally renowned avant-garde performers like Laurie Anderson, Judy Chicago, Terry Riley, and Harold Budd all came through the space—one of the few places in town with a house Moog synthesizer. Along with all the actors from The Empty Space across the street, folks from And/Or would hang out at the Comet, including Cathy Hillenbrand, who at the time was unhappily practicing law. When the Comet went up for sale, her then-boyfriend mentioned “it might be fun” to buy it. It made complete sense to jump

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Where’s Ed Comet? » FROM PAGE 10

The Comet made it into the PostIntelligencer when Chip Carter, son of Jimmy, debated and drank there.

Hillenbrand grins. “You should ask Sam Wright about him.”

ou’ve reached the Wright residence at the wrong time, leave a message.” I heard that answering machine over and over and over before Sam Wright finally picked up. A week later I am sitting across from him. “Everyone keeps saying I should ask you, so . . . Who is Ed Comet? Was he on the Olympic rowing team in 1936? Or did he used to own the place?” The 54-year-old with wide-set eyes starts laughing at me. “I told all my employees, and the hundreds of people I hired over all those years, ‘If anybody asks you about Ed Comet,

TERRY TOEDTEMEIER

SEATTLE WEEKLY • MARCH 26 —APRI L 1, 2014

ship and run the bar all her friends were at anyway. Two years later, she started interviewing patrons, collecting their memories for a personal project called “Ed Comet Remembers.” She’s lost most of the tapes, but one story about a particular day in the early ’70s sticks out because she heard it multiple times. “Apparently, the bartender at the time came in and decided that day he was going to get completely naked except for an apron he put on. For that particular day, he just decided to institute the policy that if you wanted a beer, you also had to strip. More than one person told me the first time they ever went to the Comet was that day.” Hillenbrand had a few debauched nights at the Comet herself. In 1976, a year before she bought it, she was present for the event that first launched the Comet into the national spotlight—a televised mock debate between Chip Carter (the son of then-Presidential hopeful Jimmy Carter) and a college student who debated as “Jack Comet,” the son of Ed Comet. The debate whipped up controversy thanks to the televised images of the candidate’s son drinking Cuervo tequila straight from the bottle, which violated state liquor laws mandating that taverns could serve only wine and beer. Carter denied there was real tequila in the bottle, claiming it was “only a prop, and, in fact, had flat beer,” according to the Ellensburg Daily Record. “One of those who drank from the bottle—who wished to remain unidentified—could not recall whether the bottle contained flat beer,

James Logie, Ross Focke, Ethel O’Hearn, Herman Gilman, Bill Vittur, Ken Slack, Cathy Hillenbrand, and a woman named Claire pose outside the Comet in the late ’70s.

tequila, or water,” the article ends. Hillenbrand can’t really remember anything from that night either. “It’s pretty hazy. I remember it ended with me dancing on top of the bar, though. I don’t know why the debate was in Seattle or at the Comet. The Comet was just a magical place. Crazy, wacky stuff happened there.” “Who is Ed Comet?” I ask Hillenbrand. “Supposedly the bar used to be owned by a great guy named Ed something? I honestly don’t know. Robert Horsley—he owned a print shop up on 19th—he did the original drawing and created the character Ed Comet, but I don’t know the origin story.”

you can tell them anything you want except the truth.’ The more convoluted the story, the better,” Wright says. “Ed was my favorite part of the Comet. The look that he had. And his famous saying, ‘Damn I loves you people.’ He just looked like a regular Joe having a beer. I thought it created a picture of what the Comet was really like inside. ‘Where you can be anything but an asshole.’ That’s what we used to say about the Comet. “And there was a lot of that happening back then, too. There were places where you weren’t welcome if you were black, gay, you know . . . pick your thing. It’s not the case now, but it was then. If you were a hippie, there were

what “killed the Comet” the first time and scraping all the black paint off the windows. “I might as well have just locked the doors. They thought I’d just ruined it. You don’t understand—when you’ve got something like that that you like, change is not good. No matter what kind of change it is, it’s not good. That’s what people think initially. They all came around to it after that, after the fact. ‘Maybe the light ishhn’t so bad? Maybe having . . . shhumm windows, maybe it’s OK,’ ” Wright says in a mock drunken slur. “Letting the light in made the place seem twice as big. What’s wrong with that? It also allowed people to see that something was going on inside. Which is also good.” One day Ethel started telling Wright stories about the old days. She said the Comet used to

Ethel O’Hearn with a couple of regulars.

serve free turkey dinner for Thanksgiving. “Why the hell don’t we do that now?” she asked Wright. So in his second year of owning the Comet, Wright took Ethel up on her challenge. April 7, Ethel’s birthday, became “Ed and Ethel’s Super Famous Chili Day.” Wright and his wife at the time would make enormous pots of chili, dumping in $100 worth of ingredients and serving it free to whoever knew to come in. On Thanksgiving he served free turkey dinner prepared in his “janky-ass turkey cooker,” as an employee of his explained it. On Christmas, he would serve free ham dinner to anyone who needed it. I ask Wright why he was driven to spend so much on charitable dinners at his dive bar.

» CONTINUED ON PAGE 14

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places that wouldn’t let you in.” Of all the chapters in the Comet Tavern’s history, Sam Wright’s saga is easily the longest, and quite possibly the most lyrical. It began with a lady. Three ladies, actually. The first was Sam’s girlfriend, who worked at the Comet, then under the ownership of Hillenbrand, and who regaled Wright with stories about how wonderful the place was. “So I went to go check it out and ended up loving it,” Wright says. “And I met this older lady, Ethel, this legend, the patron saint of the Comet.” Today Ethel O’Hearn is literally a part of the Comet Tavern. Her ashes are inside one of the bar stools, marked with a brass plaque bearing her name. It’s a fitting resting spot. Ethel lived upstairs above the Comet for most of her life. “I loved her,” Wright says with a sweetness in his voice. “She was very much like you might suspect a 72-year-old woman who had been hanging out Sam Wright in bars for the last 40 years and chain-smoking to be like. Horn-rimmed glasses. Short, little, bent over. More than once she’d thrown big, scary guys out for me. She’d grab them by the ear and push them out the door, guys that would’ve torn me apart given the opportunity. They wouldn’t mess with her.” Ethel had been working the door since at least 1972. Fred McDonald fondly remembers her checking IDs and telling almost everyone who walked in, “The older I get, the younger you look.” Ethel is the reason Wright got a job at the Comet. She realized that at her age, any hours she worked would get taken away from her Social Security, so she started giving Wright a couple hours on Sundays when he turned 21 in 1981. “Our relationship was very jovial—I used to call her ‘Her Oldship,’ ” Wright says. “I’d do the kowtow with the whole regal twirling-your-wrist thing. She was so well-liked by the people who came there. We used to have this thing where if you wanted to buy someone a drink, we’d have markers—you’d overturn a shot glass. Sometimes she’d end up with a pyramid you could park a car on top of made out of overturned shot glasses.” Ethel was also friends with Wright’s mother, a bookkeeper for Hillenbrand at the time. When Hillenbrand decided to sell the Comet, she tried her best to give it to Ethel. Ethel wanted nothing to do with it. “I went on pushing her for a while,” Wright explains. “I could understand why Ethel didn’t want to go in on it, but she finally said she would if I could convince my mother to become a third partner.” On the first day of 1982, a little less than a year after he’d turned 21, Sam Wright suddenly found himself a co-owner of one of Seattle’s most storied bars, alongside his mother and a chain-smoking elderly woman who downed pyramids of free shots. “I was elated,” Wright says. “I had no clue what I was doing.” Wright would remain at the Comet for almost a quarter-century. He started that stint by “killing the Comet” a second time—reversing

Where’s Ed Comet? » FROM PAGE 13

“It struck me that the kind of people that were in a bar on Christmas Day, you know, as a general rule they could probably use a Christmas dinner. It wasn’t all my doing . . . it was Ethel’s idea, really . . . ” Tears begin to well up in Wright’s eyes. “Sorry, I’m starting to get misty thinking about Ethel. I haven’t in a long time,” he says. Ethel died in 1984 on April Fools’ Day from a gangrene infection she picked up after a trip to Las Vegas with her friends. “It was horrendous,” Wright says. “There was a big wake, everybody took it very hard. People mourned for a large amount of time behind large amounts of alcohol. That’s just the way it was done.”

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am was an incredibly generous man,” says Jason Finn in his raspy voice. “You really couldn’t ask for a better boss than him. The Christmas bonuses he gave were insane. I worked every single Christmas because my family’s Jewish, and every Thanksgiving because my family would get done early. There would be 40 people there having turkey sandwiches every Thanksgiving. All of that was straight out of Sam’s pocket. Everybody couldn’t wait to come in—they’d be taking their ties off going ‘Ahhh, my fuckin’ parents.’ ” Most people know Finn as the drummer of the Presidents of the United States of America, the Seattle band whose self-titled debut album, released in 1995, went triple platinum. Aside from the Presidents, Finn has had only one job in his entire life: working at the Comet Tavern. “In the late ’80s, I was part of a group of young people who were going to the Comet,” he says. “Many of us were underage. Including me. It was a place you could get into. This was a transition time for the Comet in that it had been kind of a logger’s bar. Tough guys. People we thought of as older—they seemed 100 years old. Nobody our age was working at the Comet at that time.” In 1988, Finn was one of the first people of his generation to score a job at the Comet. Others followed. This was the third “death of the Comet,” depending on whom you ask. Finn and his friends would get in occasional tiffs with the older patrons who sensed they were getting phased out, thanks in part to the strange, heavy music that started blaring out of the sound system on a semi-regular basis. One gentleman even went so far as to dump his pitcher of beer on Finn’s co-worker’s head. “You guys have ruined this place,” he told the young man. Sub Pop was just two years old then—Finn’s band Love Battery was part of the second wave of local singles the label had put out, starting with the band’s song “Between the Eyes.” “I think that whatever larger demographical things that were happening in town, it being kind of an exciting time for music and arts, it was just a right time, right place for the Comet,” Finn says. “All of a sudden everybody was in a band. It wasn’t that it was ‘the band bar,’ but it was one of the only bars, and everyone was in a band, so of course there were a ton of musicians in there. Anyone you would care to name from the regional Sub Pop roster at least poked their head in.” Well, except Kurt Cobain. Krist Novoselic would come in, but Cobain would sit in the van

out front, smoking cigarettes and staring off into space, never setting foot inside. The late ’80s to mid-’90s was one of the busiest periods in the Comet Tavern’s existence. “It was crazy,” Wright says. “Just the sheer volume of people packed inside there every night was nuts.” Next to the Washington State Ferry System, the Comet had the state’s largest Rainier beer account. Finn had to slam empty pitchers on the tables by the end of the night and scream “GET OUT OF HERE! YOU GOTTA GO!” to get the packed bar to disperse. It was a bittersweet time for Wright. After Ethel’s death, things were dark for a moment, but Wright’s love for the Comet prevailed. He fell back in love with Ed, taking joy in the weekly newspaper ads he ran featuring the bar’s mascot. “We never advertised because we needed to,” Wright says. “We just did it for fun. Lots of different people would come up with the stuff he would say. I came up with a lot of them. One of my favorites—Ed was sitting at a dinner table with a pilgrim hat on, surrounded by a huge big spread, so it was obviously Thanksgiving. He has this big shit-eating grin on his face, and he’s just saying ‘Thanks.’ ”

“I think one of the great things about the Comet is that it appealed to the common, less-than-rich subculture person. You know, Ed.” Regulars loved Ed and loved Wright. The Comet’s pool league took off, the sign-up chalkboard becoming so cluttered that people devised intricate ways to sneakily scoot their name up the list when nobody was looking. By the mid-’90s, Comet fever reached its height when Hale’s Ales debuted its “Ed’s Ethel Ale,” bestowing the ultimate honor on the bar by creating a namesake brew complete with a custom tap and a neon sign featuring Ed’s likeness. But by the time the Comet unofficially became the “grunge hangout of the Northwest,” Wright stopped wanting to hang out there quite as much. “That was one of the first things that kind of pushed me in the direction where I didn’t really want to go there at night to have fun anymore,” Wright says. “They would play some music in there I just could not believe anybody would pay money to listen to.” Until then, the Comet deliberately had never been a music venue. The only band that played there was a funk band from Portland called Slack, for whom Wright had a soft spot. But by the time Finn permanently left the Comet in ’95 for a massive POTUS tour, the tavern and Seattle in general was an entirely different place. The influx of people moving to Capitol Hill placed unprecedented pressure on the Comet— which until then had done gangbuster business with little effort, since it had always been one of the only places in the neighborhood to get a drink. But that changed with the addition of the Cha Cha Lounge and Linda’s Tavern, the first of a wave of new bars on Capitol Hill. Then the building’s landlord passed away, and the new owner increased the rent sevenfold. By the 2000s, things were getting rocky. Pressure began to mount from Wright’s musicminded patrons to start hosting shows to bring in

money. Mama Casserole, then a relative newcomer, led the charge to get live music in the place. “As soon as you put music in, I knew it would cease to be the neighborhood’s living room,” Wright says. “It’s not your living room if there’s a loud band in it.” In fact, all the owners from the ’70s on had experienced similar pressure, but were able to resist hosting live music. “My employees were going on and on about how this is what was going to save us, this is what’s going to make it vibrant,” Wright recalls. “I think it started when I finally agreed and said, ‘OK, you can do it one Sunday night a month.’ I hated it.” The final straw came one night in 2003, when Wright dropped by and found 15 or so people standing outside the Comet, the bartender included. Nobody was inside except for the band, who were wearing nothing but diapers. “I thought, ‘Yeah, OK. This is going in the wrong direction.’ ” In 2006, Wright sold Chris Dasef the Comet Tavern, which very soon became a seven-nightsa-week music venue. When Finn heard that the Comet had started hosting shows, he was incredibly angry. “The Comet was not a special venue,” Finn says. “It was a special tavern.” By the time Brian Balodis took over, Wright was disgusted. “People didn’t respect the place at all. They were kicking in the walls. You could hock a loogie on the mirror and put a cigarette butt out on it, and it would stay there the whole week. Even though the place was always a dive, we prided ourselves on the fact that it could pass a white-glove test.” This was the fourth “death” of the Comet.

know, Ed. It was a poor man’s hangout. It’s hard to be a poor man’s hangout in a rich man’s neighborhood.” “Do you think you’ll give him back to David Meinert and Jason Lajeunesse?” I asked. “I might.” As I continue to poke around the new, spiffier Comet, Meinert calls my name from across the room. “Hey, you should check this out, too.” Over on the huge exposed-brick wall, Meinert points to a faded painting of a very ordinarylooking man smoking. “This graffiti someone did of Ed Comet is one of the few things on this wall that survived. I think we’re going to frame it. Pretty neat, right?” Some plaster getting stripped off the old brick falls from above. We both look up. E

Cloud Room as a sort of museum of the Tavern’s history. In one ad, Ethel peeks out from behind a tall man with his arm around her shoulder. “Where’s Ed Comet? The Real Comet Tavern,” it reads. Before I left my conversation with Sam Wright, I asked him the same thing. “Where is Ed Comet? I haven’t seen him since I started hanging around the Comet Tavern.” “I took Ed when I left,” Wright said. “That was really the only thing I wanted to keep. Now the original lives in my basement.” “Why?” “Ed was the Comet,” Wright told me. “He was the Comet the way it was, the way it should’ve been. I think one of the great things about the Comet is that it appealed to the common, less-than-rich subculture person. You

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t’s now early March and a man on a ladder with a power tool is chipping away the paneling on the eastern portion of the Comet Tavern, helping to carry out the place’s latest “death.” As the plaster falls, brick appears behind it. “We found out there’s a bunch more old brick back there that got covered up in the past for some reason,” Meinert says. “We thought it looked really cool, so we’re trying to expose more of it.” Meinert and Lajeunesse are giving me a tour of the new Comet. It’s a lot different. There is no stage. Everything is clean. I would eat off the toilet. But in a lot of other ways, it’s familiar—it looks like how all the bar’s owners before 2006 described it to me, pool tables, pinball, booths and all. A table much like the one Carl Sander and his actor friends hung out at sits near the front window, replacing the sound booth that most recently lived there. “When we first got here, there was a lot of urine,” Lajeunesse tells me. “All the drywall was soaked. Anywhere there was water or plumbing that had touched something was completely rotted. The Comet was a punk venue, and like true punk rock, it burned to the ground. Just complete and total devastation. All the drywall and plaster surfaces in the entire place were kicked in. First we were like, ‘What can we keep? Let’s try not to do too much.’ But then we got the keys to the place, and realized how much physical destruction had been done to the bar. There was not a whole lot to keep anymore.” Meinert explains that he and Lajeunesse are trying to create a “best of ” the Comet’s past, including an array of cheap beers on tap. Lajeunesse and his employees are busy framing all the old prints and ads they’ve gathered; the plan is to hang them upstairs in the old

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food&drink Congolese Cocoa

FoodNews

Theo Chocolate joins Ben Affleck’s Eastern Congo Initiative. BY MEGAN HILL

PIET SUESS

morningfoodnews@seattleweekly.com

Left: Theo founder Joe Whinney and actor/ activist Ben Affleck examine harvested cocoa in eastern Congo. Right: Congolese cocoa farmers.

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just good business sense.” But the partnership with Affleck’s ECI wasn’t love at first sight. “I was like, ‘You’ve gotta be kidding me,’ ” he says. But Whinney changed his mind after Affleck visited the company’s Fremont factory in 2010. “He was articulate and intelligent and committed and impressive. He really knew his stuff and he really cared.” Whinney had been looking to develop supply lines in Africa, in large part because Theo sought a more balanced flavor in its chocolate. So the timing of Affleck’s visit was lucky. “From a flavor standpoint, cocoa from the Caribbean and Latin America is much more sour and fruity. Africa’s is more nutty, cocoa-y,” he says. A region’s soil and climate affect a cocoa bean’s flavor profile, similar to a wine’s terroir. The DRC proved to be the answer, both in terms of the beans’ quality and the farmers’ willingness to take on the opportunity. “The people there were motivated and very intent on creating economic opportunities for themselves,” Whinney says. A few passport stamps later, Theo began importing its first Congolese beans. In 2012, Theo imported 20 metric tons of organic, fairtrade-certified cocoa from eastern DRC farms; in 2013, 340 metric tons. This year, they expect to jump to 640 tons. That’s a relatively fast evolution from idea to supply chain to production, but

working with farmers in a war-torn region has not been without challenges. The DRC is a tough place to do business. The country has been fraught with poverty, disease, and violence since 1998, and over 5 million people have died as a result. The ongoing conflict with terrorist militias has displaced some 1.3 million people. The eastern DRC, where Affleck’s ECI works and where Theo’s cocoa farmers live, is the epicenter. In towns throughout this region, there’s a sense of impermanence, that one’s entire life could be uprooted at any time, Whinney says. Very few children are in school. A water bottle becomes a coveted toy. Tension and unease are palpable. Whinney said he heard chilling stories of militias and rebel groups turning entire villages into ghost towns, of farmers fleeing their cocoa trees and taking cover in the bush. Of unspeakable violence and tragedy. A recent visit to the DRC with Affleck and Howard Buffett was the only time, Whinney says, that he’s ever felt unsafe in his decades of travel in developing countries. The group’s convoy was bookended by United Nations armored gun trucks, traveling deserted roads to villages with only one way in or out. “It was like, wow, anything could happen at any time, my whole life could just be upside down in a moment, and that’s how

» CONTINUED ON PAGE 18

People are starting to flock downtown again. While neighborhood restaurants have been the gems of the dining scene for years, there is a resurgence of dining downtown. Also, people are caring more about their coffee: Espresso machines sales have increased, and we are getting more requests from guests on how to replicate the perfect cup of coffee at home.

Local ingredients don’t have to dictate dishes any longer. Instead, quality of ingredients is starting to take precedence over the need for local. This makes way for imported ingredients that can’t be replicated locally.

Skipping breakfast. Our grab-and-go breakfast options have seen a surge with coffee orders in the morning. Also, massproduced corporate coffee. We are seeing a lot of guests switching to craft-oriented independent coffee bars.

SEATT LE W EEKLY • M ARCH 26 —APRI L 1, 2014

oe Whinney has lost count of how many times he’s been to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The Theo Chocolate founder and CEO estimates he’s set foot in the country or near it—traveling to the DRC’s border with Uganda—eight to 10 times. “But I’d have to check my passport,” he says. Theo’s Congolese sourcing made national news last month when Ben Affleck mentioned the company while testifying before the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. Affleck’s Eastern Congo Initiative (ECI), a nonprofit dedicated to advocating on behalf of this embattled region, is partnering with Theo Chocolate to source DRC-grown cocoa. It’s all part of Theo’s “triple bottom line”— instead of making decisions based solely on the company’s need to make a profit, Theo is also committed to ethical sourcing, environmental sustainability practices, and social responsibility. The Fremont-based chocolate shop and factory claims the status of North America’s first beanto-bar chocolate maker, with Organic, Fair Trade, Fair for Life, and Non-GMO certifications. Rather than getting the cheapest price possible at the expense of farmers in developing countries, with no concern for how the beans are grown, Theo pays fair wages for higher-quality cocoa grown sustainably, “exceeding the premiums for organic and fair-trade cocoa by more than five times” the world market price, according to their website. And that makes for a better product, too. “I believe that you can’t make a beautiful product unless everyone does well as a result of the sourcing and the making of it,” Whinney says. “And we find that through our commitment to the producers that we get a higher-quality product. We provide technical assistance to make sure the farmers can improve quality. They get a better price for higher-quality cocoa so we can make a better product, and we commit to them long-term. As a result, they are more willing to invest in their farms and their communities. It’s

The lengthy list of James Beard Award semifinalists has been whittled down to an elite list of finalists. Representing Seattle are Huxley Wallace’s Westward, Renee Erickson (The Whale Wins), Jason Franey (Canlis), and Ethan Stowell (Staple and Fancy). Mount Baker’s favorite wood-fired pizzeria, Mioposto, is opening a second location in Ravenna. The restaurant is taking over the former Taverna Mazi space on Northeast 55th Street and is aiming for a June 12 opening. Citing high rent, Bellevue’s casual Korean restaurant Oma Bap has announced it is relocating to 12th Avenue East and East Cherry Street. Oma Bap will open in The Douglas, the Seattle University studenthousing development, though an open date hasn’t been announced yet. Nuflours, a gluten-free bakery, is building out its Capitol Hill space and will be ready for a summer opening. Owners Amanda Bedell and Phebe Rossi are hard at work in the former North Hill Bakery space on 15th Avenue East. E

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people live there,” he says. “No wonder it’s tense.” Theo is currently sourcing its Congolese cocoa from the Watalinga area, near the Ugandan border, an area largely thought to be safe. With no gold mines or other resources nearby, rebels have little interest in these far-flung communities. Theo received its first shipment of Watalingagrown beans last year. But life in Watalinga was thrown into chaos starting last July, when the ADF-Nalu militia, a group on the U.S.’ list of terrorist organizations since 2001, emerged, killing seven village chiefs and causing some 150,000 villagers to flee into the bush or into refugee camps in Uganda—including Theo’s partnering cocoa farmers. The UN has since helped restore order, but for several months, farm-

The UN has helped restore order, but for months, farmers were struggling to tend their cocoa trees. ers were struggling to tend their cocoa trees. This is where Whinney gets misty-eyed, struggling to speak about the people he’s befriended in this war-torn country. “During this time, the farmers had camped out along the border. They had been going back to their farms during the day. They’re staying because they have an opportunity there that they didn’t have before,” he says. When Whinney visits farmers, he helps them understand what it is they’re growing, creating an attachment to their work that isn’t always present in a region where so little lasts. Many cocoa farmers even have no idea what their product is used for, having never seen or tasted a chocolate bar. Whinney remembers bringing a Theo bar to one of the Congolese farmers whose beans were used to make it. “He was like, ‘This is incredible. We have to bring the cocoa up off the ground and dry it and keep it safe and clean,’ and he’s really getting into it,” Whinney says. “He felt a part of this and it was important to him, and so I think that sense of purpose and mutuality is an important part of the business also.” Theo has big plans for its future work in the

DRC with ECI and with export partner ESCO. They’re talking about farmer training and resources, and perhaps increasing its import levels. Today, Theo sources half its beans from the DRC; any given bar or confection is made with 50 percent Congolese beans. And they’ve released two bars made with 100 percent Congolese beans and vanilla, with a portion of the purchase price going to ECI: Vanilla Nib and Coffee & Cream, which uses Caffé Vita–roasted coffee beans also from the DRC. Theo has not chosen an easy way to do business, but the right thing isn’t always the easy thing, says Vice President of Sales and Marketing Debra Music. “There are much less risky places for us to work,” she says. “But it’s good business because we’re cultivating a meaningful supply chain of a high-quality product while having a really beneficial impact in a part of the world that desperately needs it. It’s this crazy, beautiful, exhausting endeavor.” E

nsprinkle@seattleweekly.com

Beer Snobs? The Growing Trend of Collector Beers

hose who know me know that I love to collect wine. Being able to pull out a properly aged bottle for a special dinner or a random Tuesday night is one of the biggest reasons to start a collection. But not everyone is a wine lover, so I was intrigued to learn that collecting beer and aging it has become a growing part of the routine for beer lovers in Seattle. Of course, like collecting BY ZACH GEBALLE wine, it can be risky, confusing, and occasionally a disaster. That’s why I sought experts for more info. “There are two main kinds of beer to collect,” says Kayle Thompson of local distributor Urban Family Brewing: “beers that are made with Brettanomyces (a wild yeast) and beers that are high in alcohol, like barley wines and Imperial stouts. Winter warmers also often fall into that category, along with barrel-aged beers.” The reasons to choose certain styles of beer to age are relatively straightforward: Beers made

THEBARCODE

“Beers to look for are ones with a high alcohol level and a high original gravity.” with wild yeasts have complex flavors that can take some time to integrate and mellow, and higher-alcohol beers have a longer shelf-life in general, as the alcohol acts as a preservative. They also tend to be intense, rich beers, and as with wine, boldness in youth can temper into depth and complexity with age. Steve Little at Bottleworks in Wallingford agrees. “Beers to look for are ones with a high alcohol level and a high original gravity. You don’t want to be aging a pilsner.” Beers with a lot of malt in the initial brew give the yeasts still living within the bottle plenty to break down over time, changing the beer’s aroma and flavor as it ages. In a side-by-side tasting at Bottleworks, Little and I tried a 2014 and a 2005 Old Guardian Barleywine from Stone Brewing. The 2014 had aggressive acidity and bitterness, with a lighter, grassy aroma. In contrast, the 2005 was richer, smelling of malt, chocolate, and clove. It also had a deeper color and a fuller, more generous mouthfeel. Much like wine, beer that’s aging should be stored in a dark, relatively cool place that’s neither super-dry nor overly humid. Little keeps Bottleworks’ cellar at 55 degrees, which he considers the optimal temperature. The aging period varies, but he suggests 12 to 24 months for most beers, stretching up to five or 10 years for beers that are specifically made to be aged. Of course, aging doesn’t always work. Both Thompson and Little shared stories of bottles that had oxidized or faded, or in which the cap or cork had failed. Such are the risks of aging, but the potential rewards are so great that it’s a worthwhile experiment. Even better, starting a beer collection is much cheaper than starting a wine collection—and it lets you impress your guests with a fun and unique drink that they’ve probably never experienced. E

thebarcode@seattleweekly.com

arts&culture The Incredible Bulk

Has the Emerald City Comicon outgrown its geeky charm? Not yet, say insiders. And I hope it never does, says this insider. BY MARK RAHNER

from that one. MR: How about: Please don’t just stand and watch while your child fingers and mutilates the comics on my table. EST: . . . without purchasing at least one copy of something. And please cover your mouth if you cough/sneeze—or at the very least, don’t aim yourself directly at my eyes. (Also actually happened.) MR: Hand sanitizer? EST: I figure that’s my responsibility, since I genuinely would prefer not to drown in my own phlegm. MR: But if everyone used hand sanitizer— and wore a full hazmat suit—it would be safer. EST: You just keep clinging to those attainable goals, Mark. MR: Also, I’m not big on eye contact.

COURTESY CARA NICOLE

Cosplayer AZ Power Girl at a recent convention.

“We do our best to make sure our show floor is focused on comics and related items,” says Demonakos. “It’s one of the things we’re proud of, is how curated and diverse our show floor is.” Ah, the massive show floor: jammed with solid, slow-moving rivers of humans flowing—and always abruptly stopping to gawk or snap photos—among giant booths for big companies such as Marvel, DC, and Image. Long lines of fans waiting to pay for autographs from nerd-media idols like Ron “Hellboy” Perlman, and bringing comics for big-timers like Matt Fraction (Hawkeye, Sex Criminals) to sign for free. Vendors selling comics, shirts, toys, posters, and every imaginable tchotchke. Tables where the many dozens of artists, writers, and other talent sell their wares and do sketches. Panel discussions, exhibits, movie screenings, and assorted parties. Behemoth. I do hear some people beginning to ask: Is Emerald City getting too big and crowded, too close to San Diego? We do have our own contingent of media guests from up and down the food chain this year, including Richard Dean Anderson of MacGyver, Michael Biehn of The Terminator, Eliza Dushku of Buffy, and Cary Elwes of The Princess Bride. Most are selling their autographs at rates of $40 and up. “It gets crowded at times, and I hate crowds, but if a comic con isn’t crowded, they’re doing

ANTHO N Y JESELNI K THUR | APR 17 | 8PM

something wrong,” says writer Jay Faerber (Near Death), who lived in Seattle when ECCC began. Now he finds it a perfect excuse to visit each year from Los Angeles, where he also writes for TV’s Star-Crossed. He continues, “I think the con is so well-liked by professionals because it still feels like a convention that really values its comicbook roots.” Speaking for Fantagraphics, which will have a booth at ECCC and host artists including Stan Sakai, Ellen Forney, and Michel Gagné, editor Eric Reynolds says, “We fully support it, even if it’s not a huge business for us. It’s fun to have a hometown show and see people who come in from around the country. Usually it’s the other way around for me.” Now if you’re a member of Group A above, let’s

discuss the proper care and feeding of the guest artists and authors, myself included, you’ll meet inside. I asked Lacey-based writer Eric S. Trautmann (Shooters, Lady Rawhide, Frost: Rogue State), about dos and don’ts for such encounters. He’ll also be sitting behind a table (E-05) this weekend. EST: Please don’t bow your head sadly when you find out that I’m “only” a writer. If I could draw Batman well enough, believe me, I’d be drawing Batman. MR: That’s what I was going to say: Please try to conceal your palpable disappointment. EST: With one caveat: children are excluded

Lastly, for Group C above, and for the pedestrians who gawk at the Spandex- and furry-costumed contingent wandering around Pike Street, let’s address the phenomenon of cosplayers. No, they are not Bill Cosby imitators. In fact, the elaborately costumed people at comic cons range from amateurs with homemade outfits to pros who make money at it. I asked Arizona cosplayer Cara Nicole, aka “AZ Power Girl,” for some etiquette tips. (She’ll be hard to miss at table C-16.) Here are her Power Girl edicts: 1) Do ask if you can take a picture. Don’t demand one. 2) Have your camera or phone on and ready to take the picture. 3) Don’t take cosplayers’ pics while they are eating. 4) Don’t grab a cosplayer in any way. Ask if you can touch them if you would like an appropriate interaction such as a hug or a handshake. 5) Don’t put your armpit on a cosplayer’s shoulder. It causes pit stains on their costume. 6) Don’t ask for a phone number. Ask for an e-mail address instead. My own costume may seem incongruous, but it’s more common than you’d think: sarcastic, misanthropic writer, possibly hung-over—who’s really happy to be there. E

markrahner.com

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his weekend’s Emerald City Comicon is sold out, so I’ll limit my remarks to the following readers: a) geeks who are already going; b) civilians who’d never go but have a kind of anthropological curiosity; c) perplexed drivers who make the mistake of being near the Washington State Convention Center, where 75,000 people—some in costume—will swarm; and d) those few people who’ve posted hilariously desperate pleas for tickets on Facebook. I began covering ECCC for The Seattle Times at the inaugural event in 2003, when it drew 2,500 visitors to a portion of the old Qwest Field Event Center. For the past few years, post-Times, I’ve been there as one of the many comic-creator guests, pimping my work like Rotten and Dejah Thoris and The Green Men of Mars. (This year, look for me at Table I-O6, which I hope isn’t in the broom closet.) Over the past decade, it’s grown to become the third-largest such gathering in the U.S., according to founder Jim Demonakos. It’s the hugest pop-culture event in one of the nation’s pop-culture epicenters, now a fixture on our calendar like SIFF, Folklife, Seafair, and Bumbershoot. By comparison, the big-ass San Diego ComicCon in July draws about 130,000 visitors. More and more industry types—myself included—find SDCC tedious, claustrophobic, loud, too expensive, and increasingly skippable. There you find yourself strolling past a baffling array of reality-TV stars and other SDCC guests who don’t have even a peripheral relationship to comics or geekdom. Yet the Emerald City con seems to be one that pros and fans look forward to and enjoy. Why? “I think it’s multiple factors,” says Demonakos. “It’s one of the first shows of the year, so it’s a nice kick-off to the con season. The attendees are not only enthusiastic about comics, but we have a huge variety of attendees, so there’s something for everyone. On top of that, we really value our creators and make them a huge part of the show, not marginalize them.” That’s a reference to San Diego, where the people who actually make the comic books that fuel nearly all our mainstream pop culture are eclipsed by the lavish promotional efforts of TV shows, video games, and Hollywood studios. For instance, ECCC has no equivalent to San Diego’s infamous Hall H, where a guy got stabbed in the eye with a pen at a Resident Evil: Afterlife panel in 2010.

EASTERN WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY PRESENTS alex sanchez william T. vollmann matthew zapruder David abrams chitra divakaruni anthony doerr Linda gregg

arts&culture»

ThisWeek’sPickList Salt Horse performing at SAM.

April 7-13, 2014 • Spokane, Wa MORE INFO at getlitfestival.org

THURSDAY, MARCH 27

Salt Horse

PRATT FINE ARTS CENTER’S

Usually at NWFF you’re tucked into a cozy seat in one of the screening rooms, eating popcorn and watching a movie. But for Color Field, the latest project in the venue’s “Live at the Forum” series, dance is wherever you find it. Choreographers Corrie Befort and Beth Graczyk and composer Angelina Baldoz, collectively known as Salt Horse, will be dancing throughout the building in a form of “kinetic architecture.” The work jumps off from the intensity of abstract expressionist artists like Helen Frankenthaler and Arshile Gorky, they say, intended to translate those visual textures into human activity. (Through Sat.) Northwest Film Forum, 1515

12th Ave., 267-5380, nwfilmforum.org. $12–$15. 8 p.m. SANDRA KURTZ

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Seattle Symphony

Probably the most decisive indication that the Ludovic Morlot Era had begun for the Seattle Symphony was his performance, early in his first season, September 2011, of the explosive Amériques by Edgard Varèse (1883–1965), whose in-your-face delight in pure sound-as-sound did as much as any composer to yank music out of the 19th century and into new realms still being explored. Morlot and the orchestra will return to Varèse this weekend, playing his 1954 Déserts. It opens with chimes, and the clangorous resonance of bells seems to pervade this work for stringless ensemble; there’s very little of the hazy or softedged here, quite a bit of the incisive and penetrating. (Déserts’ four movements were composed, but are not always performed, with three tape interludes, to be omitted here; they’re fun to hear, if a bit dated in their space-agey, radio-transmission-from-Neptune evocativeness.) As a measure of the importance Morlot grants the French avant-gardist (a composer Gerard Schwarz never touched), Déserts is one of the three pieces the SSO’s bringing to Carnegie Hall in May, with Debussy’s La mer (also heard on this weekend’s concerts) and John Luther Adams’ Become Ocean, premiered memorably last June. (Desert, sea, ocean—get it?) Tonight, the third piece joining Varèse and Debussy is Dvořák’s Cello Concerto, 35 patience-trying minutes capped by four glorious ones; still, I’ll leap at any chance to hear the SSO’s fantastic first cellist Efe Baltacıgil.

(Also 8 p.m. Sat.) Benaroya Hall, 200 University St., 215-4747, seattlesymphony.org. $19–$127. 7:30 p.m. GAVIN BORCHERT

zoe | juniper

Choreographer Zoe Scofield and visual artist Juniper Shuey have been very busy. After crafting in-progress works and doing several residencies, their company zoe | juniper will now premiere BeginAgain, the culmination of several years of work. In 2012, they created several “studies,” not your typical stage performances. They held dance installations—all involving audience participation—at Velocity Dance Center, the Frye, and even a private home in Madrona. Although each of their works is always abstract and complex, they tread a signature line every time: The pair meshes Scofield’s contorted balletic affinities with Shuey’s kaleidoscopic visual-art installations. Typically, Scofield’s fervent choreography is a hearty mix of the rigorousness and grace of ballet and the freedom of contemporary dance. She often adds peculiar movements reminiscent of postmodern dance theater. Shuey then generally shapes the dance with his sculptural props and video projections of dancing bodies. Yet for BeginAgain, they’ve turned their process around: Scofield is now taking her turn responding to Shuey’s installed projections. It’s going to be a fresh beginning. (Through Sun.) On the Boards,

100 W. Roy St., 217-9886, ontheboards.org. $20. 8 p.m. IMANA GUNAWAN

JUNIPER SHUEY

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Seattle Vice

trade. Yes there was prostitution behind the scenes, but nightclubs were also social spaces filled with music, dancing, booze, and cigarette smoke. The notion of adult entertainment meant something quite different back then, says Siano: “The ’60s sounded so fun; we were a little bit looser then, a little bit freer.” And Seattle was booming with postwar prosperity, the World’s Fair, Elvis, and the Beatles. Dull suburban propriety was a decade away. Today, with a bar in ACT’s Bullitt Cabaret and audience dancing encouraged during Seattle Vice, Siano says, “We wanted to create a space that feels like one of those old clubs.” New yet retro-sounding songs are interspersed with the rise and fall of Colacurcio’s T&A empire—“It’s probably half fiction, half real,” says Siano. This stage version of Seattle Vice is all about melody and comedy; it’s not meant to be serious history. Yet, says Siano somewhat ruefully, “Frank was a man who really believed he was giving us what we wanted, but in some ways he ruined adult entertainment.” With his excesses, and the revelation of police and political graft, came a new raft of laws regulating strip clubs and bars. Good old risqué fun got legislated out of existence. (Through April 19.) ACT Theatre, 700 Union St., 292-7676, acttheatre.org. $20. 21 and over. 8:30 p.m. BRIAN MILLER E

SEATT LE W EEKLY • M ARCH 26 —APRI L 1, 2014

When a new cabaret show is directly inspired by a book by our own Rick Anderson, you can be damn sure we’re going to claim all the credit. Published in 2010, Seattle Vice follows SW cover boy Frank Colacurcio (1917–2010), he of the famous “Strippergate” scandal, and other scoundrels, lowlifes, criminals, and eccentrics. Anderson’s dark and darkly funny alternative history is also rooted in reporting he did with The Seattle Times and the Post-Intelligencer. In a real sense, he remembers the good old bad old days, when cops, crooks, and reporters all tolerated a certain degree of mutual corruption. Someone who does not remember that era is Mark Siano, one of the stars—and co-creator, with Opal Peachey—of this new musical revue, set mainly in 1965 (but with a third act in the post-reform ’70s). “The book was definitely an eye-opener,” says Siano. “Before then, I was mostly interested in the music and style of that era, when the Vegas lounge singers became pop singers.” Appropriately, Siano plays Gil Conte in the show, a lounge singer who became Colacurcio’s bag man for bribes and proceeds from the smut

UpWest Arts

Peachey and her nightclub cohort.

JOHN CORNICELLO

Poor, dumb Texas jailbird Nicolas Cage is just too weak, or too lovestruck, to resist the maternal edicts of ex-cop Holly Hunter in the Coen brothers’ 1987 kidnapping comedy. My three favorite scenes in the movie involve variously textured surfaces. The first is when the Dobermans go skittering and careening on a supermarket’s slick linoleum floors while chasing diaper-thievin’ Cage. The second is when he raises his fists overhead in the trailer-home brawl and scrapes his knuckles on the popcorn ceiling. The third is when he claws his fingernails into the dirt while being dragged from beneath a car by the unforgettably evil biker Randall “Tex” Cobb. It’s slapstick, but the Coens understand that for comedy to work, it has to hurt. But in Raising Arizona (only the Coens’ second film), Cage’s dim, sweet felon takes all the abuse because he’s so in thrall to the fierce, child-hungry Hunter. Or, as he says, “I’m in dutch with the wife.” Rated PG-13. (Through Wed.) Central Cinema,

arts&culture» Stage A harsh confrontation between Gwendolen and Cecily (Grogan and Lass).

PThe Suit SEATTLE REPERTORY THEATRE, 155 MERCER ST. (SEATTLE CENTER), 443-2222, SEATTLEREP.ORG. $15–$80. 7:30 P.M. TUES.–SAT. PLUS MATINEES. ENDS APRIL 26.

April 14

TINARIWEN

Illsley Ball Nordstrom Recital Hall

Don’t miss this spellbinding desert rock band from the southern Sahara! JOHN ULMAN

TICKETS From: $29

Opening Nights

April 19

LEROY BELL AND HIS ONLY FRIENDS

PThe Importance of Being Earnest

Illsley Ball Nordstrom Recital Hall

This passionate singer-songwriter comfortably embraces a wide range of genres.

TICKETS FROM: $30

May 10 & 11

BRANFORD MARSALIS

Illsley Ball Nordstrom Recital Hall

Branford Marsalis and his Quartet of musical friends are one of the most innovative jazz ensembles around today.

July 7

BOZ SCAGGS THE MEMPHIS TOUR

JU ST AD DE D!

S. Mark Taper Foundation Auditorium

Scaggs’ trademark sound makes plain his abiding respect for a wide spectrum of American roots music.

TICKETS From: $42

FOR TICKETS:

206.215.4747 Benaroyahall.org

In Oscar Wilde’s 1895 comedy, style largely depends on the way the women are played. The men get plenty of good lines, but it’s the women who deliver Wilde’s most pointed satire: heroine Gwendolen, who says the most subversive things; her mother Lady Bracknell, the carved-inmarble voice of Victorian rectitude; and ingenue Cecily—“the apple-blossom type,” as Wilde once described one of his characters in a different play. It was refreshing, in Seattle Shakespeare’s distinguished production, to see Kimberly King play Bracknell as something more than a mere bitch (a miscalculation even Judi Dench made in the 2002 film version). She’s even allowed to be charming occasionally; and of course no woman in Victorian London would have gotten anywhere without that skill. Gwendolen is sometimes treated as a sort of Bracknell-inembryo, but here that foreshadowing comes from Cecily, whom Hana Lass gives an edgier, sharper tongue than usual. She and Emily Grogan as Gwendolen play their Act 2 confrontation a little harshly; for me, the scene’s humor comes from seeing the two chafe against surface propriety as their anger mounts. Raising their voices does put a bit of a brake on the pacing. It also steals some of the thunder of the broader humor in the act-climax argument between the two friends for whom Gwendolen and Cecily have fallen (under the false assumption that their names are Ernest): Jack (Connor Toms) and Algernon (Quinn Franzen). Both are first-rate, though I like a stuffier Jack and an airier Algy, just for the sake of comic contrast. But Franzen has one distinct advantage in the role: He actually looks quite a bit like a young Wilde, and the character’s function as the playwright’s alter ego was never more delightfully apparent. It made his entrance at the very top of the show a pleasant shock. GAVIN BORCHERT

Kheswa and Jeremiah with the troublesome garment.

PASCAL VICTOR/ARTCOMART

SEATTLE WEEKLY • MARCH 26 —APRI L 1, 2014

TICKETS From: $54

CENTER HOUSE THEATRE AT SEATTLE CENTER, 733-8222, SEATTLESHAKESPEARE.ORG. $29. 7:30 P.M. TUES.–SAT. PLUS WEEKEND MATINEES. ENDS APRIL 13.

Trailing great reviews behind it, Peter Brook’s international touring production of The Suit had me feeling nervous with anticipation, like a sci-fi fan before seeing Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. Would it live up to the standards of Brook’s long, eminent stage career? Happily, unlike that George Lucas flop, every element of this parable proves nothing short of a heavenly hit. Set in 1950s South Africa during apartheid, Can Themba’s 1967 short story was first dramatized during the ’90s in South Africa and France. Using the same text by Mothobi Mutloatse and Barney Simon, Brook and his collaborators (Marie-Hélène Estienne and Franck Krawczyk) relate what’s essentially a simple story of adultery and revenge. From there, The Suit expands into themes of hurt, humiliation, and forgiveness, which certainly have resonance in the post-apartheid South Africa of today. In his late career, Brook, 89, is now celebrated for simple and strong scenography (unlike his old spectaculars), with set designs that are simultaneously sparse and vivacious. Here, the bright colors and geometric lines remind me of Mondrian. Three performers share the stage, brilliantly and believably expressing the anguish of the script. After a prelude showing the happy Matilda (Nonhlanhla Kheswa) and Philemon (Ivanno Jeremiah), the latter must ride the bus home to confront his adulterous wife. During his morose monologue—his body jerked and jolted during his commute—Jeremiah verbally and physically nails the torment of trying to travel, with alacrity, on packed public transportation. Upon discovering his wife’s infidelity, Philemon provides a peculiar punishment, insisting that her lover’s abandoned suit be treated as a prominent houseguest. It’s an impossible situation: a vengeful husband, a guilt-ridden wife, and the token of her shame being used to oppress her. Narrating The Suit is Jordan Barbour, who also plays Philemon’s unnamed friend; in their conversations we learn about racially integrated Sophiatown, a suburb of Johannesburg, where

the play is set. That vital community will soon be segregated by the authorities—doomed, perhaps like this marriage. A trio of musicians provides tunes that range from Schubert to period Swahili pop to American standards like “Strange Fruit” (the latter being quite excellent). Still, in such a compact 75-minute show, I actually could’ve used less music, which felt a trifle indulgent. Is it apartheid that makes Philemon so cruel? The Suit implies as much. Themba’s original story makes this something of a period piece, and we’re now 25 years post-apartheid. Still, as we see in the ongoing legal battles over marriage equality, those who have power over a minority will cling to it as long as they can.

ALYSSA DYKSTERHOUSE

Uncle Vanya GARDEN HOUSE, 2336 15TH AVE. S., 800-838-3006, AKROPOLISPERFORMANCELAB. COM. $15–$22. 8 P.M. WED.–SAT. 4 P.M. SUN. ENDS APRIL 5.

The first thing you notice about Akropolis Performance Lab’s Uncle Vanya is the sheer physicality of its Vanya, played by Joseph Lavy. Anton Chekhov’s 1897 play, fittingly staged in the parlor of Beacon Hill’s Garden House, opens with Vanya, shirt sleeves rolled up, dragging much of the set over his shoulder. As the ensemble cast sings the first of the production’s many powerful Russian choral arrangements, Vanya unloads his burden, literally setting the first scene for this fin-de-siècle family drama. It’s a fitting image, and not just because Lavy—who also directs the production—manages to carry the two-and-a-half-hour play almost entirely on his own. Truly, Uncle Vanya is a play about labor. Vanya has spent his life working the fields of his late sister’s country estate, pulling the property out of debt with the help of his niece Sonya (Margaretta Campagna) and supporting the professorial career of his brother-in-law, Serebryakov (Scott Maddock). The story begins shortly after the latter, crippled by a lack of money, recognition, and youth, moves from the city to the country estate, joined by his alluring, and endlessly bored, young second wife Elena (Samantha Routh). It is the introduction of the couple’s idleness, both dependent on Vanya’s labor yet despising it, that sets the family and their neighbors on edge, exposing deep-seated unhappiness in just about everybody and eventually leading to gunshots and lots of wailing. But back to Lavy’s Vanya. It is tempting to imagine Vanya as a man worn down by village life, too old at 47 to win the affections of 27-year-old Elena, but he explodes with passion and athleticism. He’s a man with unquenchable passion and belligerent rage at a life wasted. When he says he could’ve been an equal to Schopenhauer or Dostoevsky, it’s without the usual pathos of the role; the claim doesn’t appear extravagant. Next to Lavy, the rest of the cast seems cardboard, still fumbling toward the contours of their characters’ individual miseries. The one exception is Carter Rodriquez, who plays the drunken country doctor Astrov with a lucid nonchalance that perfectly counters Lavy’s intensity. When the two tangle in drunken revelry, it’s a delightful moment of lightness before the eventual darkness descends. MARK BAUMGARTEN E

stage@seattleweekly.com

FEB 13 THROUGH

MAY 26 Now thru Apr. 13

1300 FIRST AVENUE SEATTLE WA 98101

Mar. 19–Apr. 13, 2014

www.seattleshakespeare.org

TOWN HALL

CIVICS

SCIENCE

ARTS & CULTURE

COMMUNITY

(3/26) Shane Bauer, Josh Fattal, & Sarah Shourd with Mark Wright A Memoir of Iranian Imprisonment

(3/27) Systems Biology and Cancers Big Data to Personalized Treatment (3/28) Hipnotic Productions: A Celebration of Tribal Belly Dance

(3/29) SBO presents Bach Cantatas for Lent & Easter with Kevin Mallon (3/30) Seattle Festival Orchestra: A Spring Concert (3/30) Short Stories Live Northwest Spotlight

GET TICKETS AT VISITSAM.ORG/MIRO This exhibition is organized by the Seattle Art Museum and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía.

(3/31) Women’s Funding Alliance: Today’s Feminism (4/1) Jenny Bowen Loving One Million Chinese Orphans TOWN HALL

CIVICS

SCIENCE

ARTS & CULTURE

Major Sponsors Christie’s Seattle Art Museum Supporters (SAMS) The Seattle presentation of this exhibition is made possible by donors to:

COMMUNITY

(4/2) Simon Sinek WWW.TOWNHALLSEATTLE.ORG Leadership’s ‘Circle of Safety’ (4/3) Charles R. Cross with John Richards

This exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.

Image: Woman, Bird and Star (Homage to Picasso), February 15, 1966 / April 3-8, 1973, Joan Miró, Spanish, 1893-1983, oil on canvas, 96 7/16 x 66 15/16 in., Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía. © Successió Miró / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris 2014.

SEATT LE W EEKLY • M ARCH 26 —APRI L 1, 2014

(3/28) Melissa Clarke Taking Charge of Healthcare

arts&culture» Performance April 5th ~ 6th We are getting really yummy with our pear-centric food crawl. Bring your appetite and your sense of adventure and take a trip though ﬂavor-town! ALL MONTH! Pear map to all things

pear-fectly delicious in town

April 5

Stage OPENINGS & EVENTS

CYRCUS “The Five Elements” is this aerial/acrobatic/

SPRING SENSATIONS EVENTS:

April 5

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

Leavenworth International Film Festival Dinner & La Boheme

April 12 Total Experience Gospel Choir April 12 Leavenworth Ale-Fest April 17 Music at the Mountain April 19 Easter Egg Hunt April 19 Icicle Creek Chamber Players April 20 Easter Bruch at Sleeping Lady April 26 Dinner & Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte April 27 Earth Day Community Fair

PRESENTED BY WASHINGTON STATE BEEF COMMISSION

dance troupe’s new show. Columbia City Theater, 4918 Rainier Ave. S., 800-838-3006, cyrcus.org. $20–$55. 8 p.m. Thurs., March 27.

DINA MARTINA: HER GREATEST VIDEOS... AND MORE! A night of highlights from the grande dame’s

shows, hosted by herself. Re-bar, 1114 Howell St., 800-838-3006, brownpapertickets.com. $20–$25. Opens March 28. 8 p.m. Fri.–Sat., 2 p.m. Sun. Ends April 27. THE EDGE OF OUR BODIES Adam Rapp’s one-woman show sends a vulnerable teenage girl (Samie Spring Detzer) into big, bad New York City. Washington Ensemble Theatre, 608 19th Ave. E., 325-5105, washingtonensemble.org. $15–$20. Opens March 28. 7:30 p.m. Thurs.–Mon. Ends April 14. GIDION’S KNOT Censorship erupts in school in Johnna Adams’ new drama. Seattle Public Theater at the Bathhouse, 7312 W. Green Lake Ave. N., 524-1300. $15–$32. Preview March 27, opens March 28. See seattlepublictheater.org for schedule. Ends April 20. HIGH SOCIETY SHOWTUNES Theatre Company’s concert version of Cole Porter’s take on The Philadelphia Story. Benaroya Recital Hall, Third Ave. and Union St., 215-4747, SHOWTUNESTheatre.org. $21–$46. 8 p.m. Sat., March 29, 2 p.m. Sun., March 30. IN THE BOOK OF In John Walch’s play, inspired by the Book of Ruth, an Afghan woman tries to fit in in a Mississippi town. Taproot Theatre, 204 N. 85th St., 781-9707, taproottheatre.org. $20–$40. Previews March 26–27, opens March 28. 7:30 p.m. Wed.–Thurs., 8 p.m. Fri., 2 & 8 p.m. Sat. Ends April 26. KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN Two unlikely cellmates fall in love, or something, in this revival of the Fred Ebb/ Send events to stage@seattleweekly.com, dance@seattleweekly.com, or classical@seattleweekly.com See seattleweekly.com for full listings. = Recommended

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Terrence McNally musical. Second Story Repertory Theatre, 16587 N.E. 74th St., Redmond, 425-881-6777, secondstoryrep.or., $22–$27. Preview March 27, opens March 28. 8 p.m. Thurs.–Sat., plus 2 p.m. Sat.–Sun. closing weekend. Ends April 13. MOBY ALPHA Comedy duo Charles presents “the story of a mad captain’s quest for revenge on the amorphous spacial energy cloud that temporarily took his leg”—aka Moby-Dick in space. The Ballard Underground, 2220 N.W. Market St., 800-838-3006, brownpapertickets.com. $12. Opens March 28. 8 p.m. Fri.–Sat. Ends April 12. SEATTLE VICE SEE THE PICK LIST, PAGE 21.

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CURRENT RUNS

THE BOY AT THE EDGE OF EVERYTHING A bored

12-year-old meets his doppelgänger—in space! Seattle Children’s Theatre, Seattle Center, 443-0807. $15–$36. Runs Thurs.–Sun.; see sct.org for exact schedule. Ends April 6. CHARLOTTE’S WEB E.B. White’s tale of spider/pig friendship. Second Story Repertory Theatre, 16587 N.E. 74th St., Redmond, 425-881-6777, secondstoryrep. org. $5–$10. 1 & 3 p.m. Sat.–Sun. Ends April 6. CHECKOFF IN THE SUN A dying woman’s friends gather one last time in Leonard D. Goodisman’s comedy. Eclectic Theater, 1214 10th Ave., 800-838-3006, brownpapertickets.com. $12–$25. 8 p.m. Thurs.–Sat., 2 p.m. Sun. Ends April 19. GIRL YOU KNOW IT’S TRUE A frustrated playwright has a wheelchair-bound lesbian stand in for him—and watches interest in “her” work skyrocket—in Bixby Elliot’s satire of the arts biz. Theater Off Jackson, 409 Seventh Ave. S., 800-838-3006, brownpapertickets.com. $15–$20. 8 p.m. Thurs.–Sat. Ends April 5. THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST SEE REVIEW, PAGE 22. JULIUS CAESAR Robert Downing’s solo version of Shakespeare’s political tragedy. Ark Lodge, 4816 Rainier Ave. S., 800-838-3006, brownpapertickets.com. $5. 7 p.m. Mon. Ends March 31. THE KENTUCKY CYCLE Robert Schenkkan’s multipart story of three families over two centuries. Bainbridge Performing Arts, 200 Madison Ave. N., Bainbridge Island, 842-8569, bainbridgeperformingarts.org. $19–$27. Part 1: 7:30 p.m. Fri., 2 p.m. Sat. Part 2: 7:30 p.m. Sat., 2 p.m. Sun. Ends March 30.

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Stick a Pin in It The name of this group photo show is Process, which certainly describes its very procedural, materials-focused theme. Forget about digital; these prints—some made without a camera—

THEFUSSYEYE

April 24 th / 7:30 - 10pm

6pm VIP early entrance PARAMOUNT THEATRE UNLIMITED SAMPLING FROM:

40+ Seattle Restaurants 15+ Local Master Mixologists

Specialty Foods & Desserts Food Trucks

TICKETS ON PURCHASE TICKETS: SALE NOW!

are all about the chemicals, photons, paper, and the physical basis of old-school photography. The medium was invented some 175 years ago, and this exhibit is generally historicist; it feels like an insiders’ farewell to traditional darkroom skills at a time when so many of us are retiring our old film cameras—and finding no buyers on eBay. I fear, however, that the average gallerygoer has no such interest in these foundational traces. The images here seem mostly like shop-speak directed at other photographers; they’re mainly technical and forbidding. Nobody bothers with beauty or scenery. Yes, let’s overexpose or overdevelop the paper, then sand off the emulsion. Yes, let’s tear or crinkle the paper or put it out in the rain to see what happens. This is an inwardlooking and backward-looking show, arranged as if the 15 artists are talking exclusively to themselves (and the curators). The only thing that really answers your gaze is a huge circular pushpin collage of male faces by the Bellingham duo of Garth Amundson and Pierre Gour. Their appropriated images make me think of Richard

BRIAN MILLER

SEATTLE WEEKLY • MARCH 26 —APRI L 1, 2014

BY BRIAN MILLER

Prince (masculinity is being playfully dissected), yet the array also has a pleasing tactility to it, like sculpture. (For that matter, why not go further and use old red-and-yellow Kodak boxes or film rolls or their discarded cans to make things? Why not turn those unwanted old Nikons and Konicas into some new assemblage?) The message here, perhaps unintentionally gloomy, is that traditional photography’s done—so stick a pin in it already. Photo Center NW, 900 12th Ave., 720-7222, pcnw.org. Free. Noon–9 p.m. Tues.–Fri., noon–6 p.m. Sat. Ends June 15.

• THE LION KING Based on an animated movie that’s

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TEATRO ZINZANNI: ON THE AIR Their new radio-

themed show features the return of emcee Kevin Kent. Teatro ZinZanni, 222 Mercer St., 802-0015. $99 and up. Runs Wed.–Sun.; see zinzanni.com/seattle for exact schedule. Ends June 1. THE TUTOR This new musical by Andrew Gerle and Maryrose Wood has a New York writer trying to balance difficult teen clients with his blocked novel. Village Theatre, 303 Front St. N., Issaquah, 425-3922202. Runs Wed.–Sun. plus some Tues.; see village theatre.org for exact schedule. Ends April 27. (Then runs May 2–25 in Everett.) UNCLE VANYA SEE REVIEW, PAGE 22.

Trio con Brio Copenhagen

Dance

SEE THE PICK LIST, PAGE 20. • BEGINAGAIN COLOR FIELD SEE THE PICK LIST, PAGE 20. • IN THE MOOD A swing-era revue with big-band music

and dance. Benaroya Hall, 200 University St., 215-4747, seattlesymphony.org. $29–$79. 2 & 7 p.m. Fri., March 28. ABBEY GROWN Three new dance pieces, with live music and an interactive art installation. Fremont Abbey Arts Center, 4272 Fremont Ave. N., 414-8325, abbeyarts.me. $10–$15. 8 p.m. Fri., March 28–Sat., March 29. CARMONA FLAMENCO Traditional music and dance in a show dedicated to the memory of Paco de Lucia. Cafe Solstice, 4116 University Way N.E., 932-4067, carmona2@comcast.net. $15–$20. 8 & 9:30 p.m. Sat., March 29. TERPSICHORE’S LANDING 2014 Choreography by Cornish Dance Department students. Cornish College/ PONCHO Concert Hall, 710 E. Roy St., 726-5066, cornish.edu. Free. 3 & 8 p.m. Sun., March 30.

Works by Nørgård, Mendelssohn, and Beethoven

APRIL 8 | 206-543-4880 | UWWORLDSERIES.ORG

Classical, Etc.

ROYAL OPERA HOUSE AT THE MOVIES From London,

Mozart’s Don Giovanni. See screenvision.com for participating theaters and exact times, Thurs., March 27. SEATTLE SYMPHONY SEE THE PICK LIST, PAGE 20. WEST SEATTLE SYMPHONY Kim Roy conducts Mozart, Rossini, and more. Chief Sealth International High School, 2600 S.W. Thistle St., wscorchestras.org. Donation. 7:30 p.m. Fri., March 28. CHORAL ARTS Brahms’ German Requiem on Friday and a symposium on the composer at UW on Saturday. See choral-arts.org for full details. St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, 732 18th Ave. E. $18–$23. 7:30 p.m. Fri., March 28–Sat., March 29.

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SEATTLE MEN’S CHORUS/SEATTLE WOMEN’S CHORUS The ensembles collaborate on a children’s

concert. McCaw Hall, Seattle Center, flyinghouse.org. Free. 2 p.m. Sat., March 29. PHILHARMONIA NORTHWEST With the Kirkland Choral Society and the Bellevue Chamber Chorus, Brahms’ German Requiem (the second performance of it this weekend!) Meany Hall, UW campus, 6759727, philharmonianw.org. $15–$25. 7:30 p.m. Sat., March 29. WASHINGTON HALL BENEFIT CONCERT Jazz from the Holden Family and The Teaching to raise funds to restore the 106-year-old hall. Washington Hall, 153 14th Ave., 800-838-3006, brownpapertickets.com. $10–$20. 7:30 p.m. Sat., March 29. THE BOX IS EMPTY A new chamber/field recording/ spoken-word/video piece by Nat Evans and Beckettinspired string music by NYC’s Leaha Villareal. Chapel Performance Space, 4649 Sunnyside Ave. N., nat evansmusic.com. . $5–$15. 8 p.m. Sat., March 29. SEATTLE BAROQUE ORCHESTRA Four Bach cantatas for Lent and Easter. Town Hall, 1119 Eighth Ave., 325-7066, earlymusicguild.org. $20–$42. 8 p.m. Sat., March 29. SEATTLE MEN’S CHORUS Tunes from the Broadway musical in “Totally Wicked.” McCaw Hall, Seattle Center, 388-1400, flyinghouse.org. $28–$78. 8 p.m. Sat., March 29, 2 p.m. Sun., March 30. NORTHWEST CHAMBER CHORUS Mozart’s other unfinished choral work, the Mass in C Minor. Benaroya Hall, 200 University St., 523-1196, northwest chamberchorus.org. $32. 2 p.m. Sun., March 30. SEATTLE PHILHARMONIC Paul Dukas’ thrilling symphony belies his one-hit-wonder reputation as the composer of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Meany Hall, UW campus, seattlephil.org. $10–$18. 3 p.m. Sun., March 30. GUAN CHANGXIN Chopin and Schubert, plus music from his homeland of China. Brechemin Auditorium, School of Music, UW campus, 685-8384, music. washington.edu. $15. 7:30 p.m. Wed., April 2. TOM COLLIER Celebrating “60 Years Behind Bars” as a jazz mallet player. Meany Studio Theater, UW campus, music.washington.edu. $12–$20. 7:30 p.m. Wed., April 2.

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SEATT LE W EEKLY • M ARCH 26 —APRI L 1, 2014

now 20 years old, this 1997 Broadway stage musical proved a smash for Disney, thanks largely to the vision of director Julie Taymor and the tunes of Elton John and Tim Rice. The Lion King is hardly the first movie reverse-engineered to stage success, but its global popularity—and profitability, having earned some $5 billion (!) to date—now makes it the modern template for such musical exports. By virtue of its age and constant touring, there are few children (and young adults) on Earth who don’t know at least some of the songs from The Lion King. Most parents have had “Hakuna Matata” drilled into their heads by home DVD players on endless loop (or on planes or during family car trips), but the melodies are undeniably catchy. The themes are mythic, too, as little Simba tries to make his way in the world (well, jungle). And the onstage menagerie of zebras, monkeys, and giraffes is wonderfully realized by the costumes (part actor, part puppet) that both tower over the action and elevate the story into fairy-tale-land. BRIAN MILLER The Paramount, 911 Pine St., 877-784-4849. $85–$135. Runs Tues.–Sun.; see stgpresents.org for exact schedule. Ends April 6. LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS Created in 1982 by composer Alan Menken and his lyricist partner, the late Howard Ashman, Little Shop is simple, it’s overstuffed with hummable melodies, and it toys affectionately with two of America’s enduring infatuations: cheesy monster movies and jukebox pop. Appropriately, this co-production of ACT and the 5th Avenue cranks the fun dial up to 11 with a string of spectacular performances. These include the Spectoresque Greek chorus of Ronnette, Chiffon, and Crystal (Nicole Rashida Prothro, Alexandria Henderson, and Naomi Morgan, respectively); floralshop owner Mr. Mushnik (Jeff Steitzer, long my favorite Scrooge in ACT’s A Christmas Carol); and his starcrossed lovebird employees, Audrey and Seymour (Jessica Skerritt and Joshua Carter). It’s easy to see why Ashman and Menken’s work has stood the test of time: They make story and song interdependent. Every song in Little Shop—the tale of a man-eating plant come to conquer Earth by devouring every last man, woman, and child—either advances character or plot. Often they do both. Here, director Bill Berry lets all his cast members cut loose, and none shrink from the opportunity. During both solo and ensemble tunes (arranged and conducted by R.J. Tancioco), there’s a palpable glee in watching confident performers nail each number with sharpshooter precision. KEVIN PHINNEY ACT Theatre, 700 Union St., 292-7676. $20–$50. See acttheatre.org for exact schedule. Ends June 15. MOISTURE FESTIVAL Entering its second decade, the Moisture Fest comes in two flavors: the familyfriendly edition featuring clowns, acrobats, jugglers, and all manner of music; then there’s the late-night program, which emphasizes burlesque, T&A, and double entendres (liquor helps set the mood). In truth, both are good fun; and if you take your kids to a matinee, you may feel like going back later with your friends on a baby-sitter date night. Opening night, your host will be Ron W. Bailey, who’ll preside over an array of talent including the acrobats Duo Rendez-vous, magician Jay Alexander, the vaudeville clowns Kamikaze Fireflies, aerialist Marina Luna, and the comedy stunt performers known as Rootberry. Doc Sprinsock and the SANCApators provide the live music. The roster of talent changes almost nightly, one reason they call it a variety show. (Other venues include Broadway Performance Hall and Teatro ZinZanni) T. BOND Hale’s Palladium, 4301 Leary Way N.W., 706-1544. $10–$25. See halesales.com for schedule and lineup. Ends April 13. ODYSSEO The dancing horse show from traveling circus troupe Cavalia. Marymoor Park, 6046 W. Lake Sammamish Parkway N.E., Redmond. $34.50–$149.50 ($154.50–$229.50 w/dinner). Runs Tues.–Sun.; see cavalia.net for exact schedule. Re-re-extended through April 6. ROYAL BLOOD The premiere of Sonya Schneider’s play about a dysfunctional family and their illusions. West of Lenin, 203 N. 36th St., 800-838-3006, brownpaper tickets.com. $20–$25. 8 p.m. Thurs.–Sun. Ends April 4. THE SECRET GARDEN Studio East’s adaptation of the Frances Hodgson Burnett classic. Studio East, 11730 118th Ave. N.E. 100, Kirkland, 425-820-1800, studioeast.org. $12–$18. 7:30 p.m. Sat. and Fri., March 28; 2:30 p.m. Sun. Ends March 30. SINNER SAINT BURLESQUE “Down to Brass Tacks” is their salute to the women in Seattle history. Brass Tacks, 6031 Airport Way S., 397-3821, georgetown brass.com. 9 p.m. every fourth Thurs. Ends April 24. THE SUIT SEE REVIEW, PAGE 22.

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arts&culture» Film bamboo; Xuan Zang races around like a silentmovie clown, with a hairstyle seemingly inspired by The Simpsons’ Sideshow Bob. The Pig Demon occupies a haunted inn with a horrifying culinary delicacy; there Xuan Zang gets thoroughly schooled by sexy rival demon hunter Miss Duan (Shu Qi of Three Times and The Transporter), who flings golden rings around like throwing stars. Her real agenda is to place a ring on Xuan Zang’s finger; why she falls for this clown is a bit of a mystery, but it results in a funny fake kidnapping. In far-western China, all the demon hunters converge to face the Monkey King (the sly, amusing Huang Bo), who’s endured a very Gollum-like 500 years of captivity. If Marvel has its Avengers, this is where Chow’s prequel sets up a gang of enlightened superheroes to rid China of more demons. After seeing Journey to the West, I won’t miss the Water and Pig Demons, but I will retain a soft spot for the scheming, indignant Monkey King. When Xuan Zang tries to placate him with kindness, he essentially responds, “Five hundred freaking years in solitary confinement, and you offer me a banana?” He’s got good reason to be pissed. BRIAN MILLER

Opening ThisWeek Cesar Chavez

BRIAN MILLER

PErnest & Celestine OPENS FRI., MARCH 28 AT SEVEN GABLES. RATED PG. 80 MINUTES.

Can mice and bears be friends? NO THEY CANNOT—which is the one thing the denizens of the above-ground bear city and the subterranean, Borrowers-style mouse city agree on in this French/Belgian nominee for the 2013 Best Animated Feature Oscar. The two are linked by mutual fear and a weirdly interdependent dentalbased economy too fancifully complex to go into here. (Mice and bears, that is, not France and Belgium.) But independent-minded and (consequently) lonely Celestine, who lives in a mouse orphanage and likes to draw, isn’t afraid of bears, shocking everyone. She befriends Ernest, a grumpy and none-too-successful busker, and the two outlaws (after raiding a confectioner’s) settle down in Ernest’s cabin. The pair’s final peril, after the Bear Police and Rat Police finally catch up with them, is scary enough for kids to enjoy, but not too scary to freak out parents.

Belgian author Gabrielle Vincent created the original series of Ernest & Celestine children’s books.

The masterful animation, sketchy and watercolory in a way that reminded me a bit of William Steig’s illustrations (CDB! ), hits its peak of adorableness early with a mass mouse pillow fight, though a lot of what comes after comes close. GAVIN BORCHERT

The Face of Love OPENS FRI., MARCH 28 AT SUNDANCE CINEMAS. NOT RATED. 92 MINUTES.

From its impossible title to its tortured plot, The Face of Love sounds like a good candidate for a “Lifetime Movies That Were Never Actually Made” category. A woman sees her late husband’s exact double, starts a romance without telling the new man about the resemblance, and causes woe to all concerned. Because—let’s just note this for the record again—she doesn’t tell him about the resemblance. Tortured. However. While The Face of Love might well be a failure because of its delayed-revelation contrivance, there is something in this movie that haunts. For one thing, the two actors at the center of its story are well above the level of a cableTV production and visibly eager for this kind of meaty emotional material. Annette Bening plays Nikki, the well-off L.A. widow whose architect husband drowned five years earlier; Ed Harris is Tom, an art teacher who indeed looks exactly like the dear departed. Nikki’s presence reawakens Tom’s urge to paint (her muse status is too much for the movie to bear), but his reason for falling for her is psychologically acute: Nobody’s ever looked at him the way she does. He doesn’t know why, of course, but you can see why this casual narcissist would go for such immediate, unbridled adoration. As for Bening, it’s a pleasure to see her for a sustained amount of time onscreen. The role allows her to be both foolish and brittle, but Bening locates the sense of loss that must be at the center of Nikki’s decision-making. (Why doesn’t she tell him about the resemblance? Maybe because she’s afraid it will make the magical reappearance vanish in thin air.) The writer/director here is Arie Posin, whose pre-

The Lunchbox vious film was the tired suburban satire The Chumscrubber (2005); here he works with a narrow gauge and a small cast. Our focus is properly on the central duo, but Robin Williams is on his best behavior as Nikki’s frustrated neighbor/suitor (the role highlights the pissy side of Williams’ screen presence), and Amy Brenneman shows up briefly as Tom’s ex. The Face of Love sounds a faint echo of Jonathan Glazer’s Birth, the brilliant 2004 study of a widow who convinces herself that her late husband has come back in the form of a child—a movie due for proper discovery now that Glazer’s Under the Skin, due April 11, is garnering accolades. This very flawed movie falls well short of that standard, but is unexpectedly affecting nonetheless. ROBERT HORTON

Journey to the West RUNS FRI., MARCH 28–THURS., APRIL 3 AT GRAND ILLUSION. RATED PG-13. 110 MINUTES.

If you were a bored 10-year-old sitting in Asian history class, this is exactly the kind of movie you’d want your hungover teacher to screen instead of giving a lecture. Stephen Chow’s silly mythological romp is another fusion of martial arts, slapstick comedy, and computer effects; it’s broad entertainment aimed at the mainstream Chinese market, like his Kung Fu Hustle and Shaolin Soccer. Xuan Zang (Wen Zhang) is a freelance demon hunter, one of several who compete like hired guns in the Old West (or wandering ronin in Old Japan; take your pick). While other demon hunters employ magic, explosives, flying swords, kung fu, and a giant foot to destroy their foes, Xuan Zang uses only a book of Buddhist nursery rhymes to placate and redeem these tortured, angry souls who’ve turned into monsters. For this nice-guy approach he’s roundly mocked. However, the vying Buddhist philosophies don’t occupy much screen time. Chow stages the first battle with a Water Demon in a rickety fishing village, heaped high on stilts, that soon becomes a teetering wreck of ramps, chutes, pulleys, and rope swings, like Xbox made of

OPENS FRI., MARCH 28 AT HARVARD EXIT. RATED PG. 104 MINUTES.

The epistolary novel of the 18th century has occasionally been updated to the age of Twitter and e-mail (Maria Semple’s Where’d You Go Bernadette makes use of such correspondence), but this compact Indian drama dares a return to actual handwritten notes to advance its plot. In teeming Mumbai, a network of Dabbawallahs delivers hot lunches to desk-bound bureaucrats like Saajan (Irrfan Khan), a lonely widower nearing retirement. His food is commercially cooked, while luckier office workers have wives back home who employ the same Dabbawallah delivery service. Somehow the lunches get switched, regularly, between Saajan and neglected housewife Ila (Nimrat Kaur). What’s worse, her distracted and possibly adulterous husband can’t even taste the difference! She’s hurt and offended, while Saajan is delighted with his misdirected meals. The Lunchbox is the simple story of their accidental friendship. Nowhere does writer/director Ritesh Batra seriously suggest his two leads will ever hook up. (Kisses would cause a scandal in Bollywood.) Nor even does a chaste, Brief Encounter–style meeting of the souls seem likely. The Lunchbox merely describes an increasingly hectic, impersonal city, where two kindred spirits crave human connection. Ila’s husband may be a slave to his smartphone, but she and her pen pal are more traditional and sentimental—perhaps more Indian for Batra. (Sajaan works in a government ministry, surrounded by paper, without a computer in sight.) Khan, of Slumdog Millionaire and Life of Pi, gives a master class in tamped-down emotion. Saajan initially refuses to train his eager young replacement (Nawazuddin Siddiqui), but once Ila pries open his heart (via his stomach), he begins to soften. If this civil servant is past the age for romance, maybe friendship is still possible. And more, this quietly rewarding movie argues, maybe it’s possible to give succor to a stranger with a little bit of ink or a little bit of roti. BRIAN MILLER E

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SEATT LE W EEKLY • M ARCH 26 —APRI L 1, 2014

“If the poor aren’t involved, change will never come.” I wish those words were spoken at the beginning of this routine, earnest biopic, rather than at the end. Director Diego Luna has made the wise decision to show us just a few years of the titular speaker’s life: mostly 1962–1970, when Chavez organized California agricultural workers into an upstart union. But Chavez (1927–1993) belongs too much to the past, and the struggle depicted here crests at his peak influence and renown. (Time’s 1969 man of the year, he counted Robert F. Kennedy among his supporters.) Still, the ’60s are long ago for many filmgoers. Chavez (played by Michael Peña) now has to be reintroduced, and that takes time. There are many montages of his organizing in the dusty fields, directing picket lines and marching in solidarity beneath the hot sun, even undertaking a hunger strike to shame the powerful landowners of the San Joaquin Valley. (The latter are represented by weary grape oligarch John Malkovich, whose dimwit minions don’t realize the times are a-changin’.) Supported by his wife (America Ferrera) and colleagues (Rosario Dawson, Wes Bentley, etc.), Chavez denounces violence and strives to keep his fractious coalition together. The movie revisits an activist era of homemade placards, shoeleather protests, and rotary-dial phone banks. But Twitter and Facebook have replaced all that now, and the modest Chavez is better suited to documentary treatment than big-screen figures like Malcolm X, Che Guevara, and Abbie Hoffman. What this movie fails to engage are the ethical concerns of today’s grocery-store shopper. Never mind organic or gluten-free, why are these Chilean grapes so cheap? That out-of-season asparagus? The Australian syrah? Who picked this produce from the ground? Cesar Chavez dully relates an admirable, even heroic life, but it’s just one among of millions still toiling in the dirt.

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OPENS FRI., MARCH 28 AT MERIDIAN AND OTHER THEATERS. RATED PG-13. 98 MINUTES.

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yokels figure in this new horror flick. (NR) SIFF Film Center, 305 Harrison St. (Seattle Center), 324-9996, siff.net, $6-$11, Fri., March 28, 9:30 p.m.; Sat., March 29, 9:30 p.m. AS YOU LIKE IT This nine-title retrospective of British cinema begins with 1937’s Storm in a Teacup, adapted from a stage play, with investigative reporter Rex Harrison falling in love with the daughter (Vivien Leigh) of a corrupt politician he just exposed. (NR) Seattle Art Museum, 1300 First Ave., 654-3100, seattleartmuseum.org, $63-$68 series, $8 individual, Thu., March 27, 7:30 p.m. Through May 1. DOCBRUNCH Local director Leah Warshawski will introduce her Finding Hillywood, about a traveling outdoor movie screening circuit in Rwanda. Free movies are projected on an inflatable screen in rural areas—often near mass graves from Rwanda’s 1994 genocide of ethnic Tutsis by the majority Hutus. As she told SW last year, when her movie played during SIFF, “People show up with no shoes, in all kinds of inclement weather. They walk for miles and stand together in this precarious situation where you don’t know who you’re standing next to”—meaning Hutu perpetrator or Tutsi survivor. “There’s a huge issue of trust there still, years after the genocide. And that’s a little different than going to Sundance.” (NR) SIFF Film Center, $6-$11, Sun., March 30, 12:30 p.m. EARTHQUAKE The Science on Screen series brings WSU seismologist John Vidale to discuss this cheesy disaster film from 1974, starring Charlton Heston, Ava Gardner, George Kennedy, Lorne Greene, and others. (PG) SIFF Film Center, $6-$11, Mon., March 31, 7 p.m. A FIELD IN ENGLAND Along with its arty approach and unexplained allegorical premise, the movie explodes into full-on psychedelia after a certain stage—all the weirder for being in black-and-white. The movie’s a little Waiting for Godot and a little Magical Mystery Tour, with Vincent Price’s character from Witchfinder General hanging around. The actual setting has nothing to do with Swinging London; the film’s summary says it’s set in the mid-17th century, so that’s what we’ll go with. All of the action takes place in featureless fields, where a small group of soldiers trudges along after fleeing a battle. The most talkative of them, Whitehead, is actually a scholarly servant out doing the bidding of his unseen “master.” He and his filthy fellow deserters fall under the sway of an Irishman, who claims to be an alchemist and says that if they begin digging holes in the field, they will find gold. Oh, and they all get high on mushrooms. Directed by Ben Wheatley (Down Terrace, Sightseers), A Field in England probably has more sock for UK viewers, to say nothing of the fact—for this hearing-impaired Yank, at least—that maybe a third of the dialogue is unintelligible. (NR) ROBERT HORTON Grand Illusion, 1403 N.E. 50th St., 523-3935, grandillusioncinema.org, $5-$8, Fri.-Sat. 10 p.m. HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH FILM FESTIVAL Beginning the fest at 6:30 p.m. Friday is Camp 14 - Total Control Zone, about the horrific prison camps in North Korea. Its main subject, Shin Dong-Huyk, was also recently the main figure in local author Blaine Harden’s book Escape From Camp 14; in it, one of Shin’s few benefactors “explained that the world was round” to the young escapee. See siff.net and ff.hrw.org for full schedule of the nine documentaries being screened. Subjects include genocide in Cambodia, the U.S prison system, and ethnic violence in Afghanistan. (NR) SIFF Film Center, $6-$11, Fri.-Sun., March 28-30. THE IMAGE REVOLUTION Associated with this weekend’s Emerald City Comicon, director Patrick Meaney will introduce his new documentary about the artists and writers behind Image Comics. (NR) Grand Illusion, $5-$8, Thu., March 27, 8:45 p.m. RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK Unlike the ill-advised Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, the 1981 Raiders is a movie freed from the responsibility of fatherhood, much less adulthood. Then 39, Harrison Ford was more like the embodiment of the boyish dreams of producer George Lucas and director Steven Spielberg. Sure, he makes manly eyes at Karen Allen, but the lust—like the violence, in which movie-Nazis can be killed like flies—is only as real as in the movie serials that inspired the Indy franchise. In a thoroughly satisfying, always kinetic way, this first Jones flick lives inside its

EVENTS

own archetypes, and Ford is too disciplined an actor to wink at the artifice. He always seems sincerely, physically invested in this iconic role, whether he’s outrunning boulders, being dragged under trucks, or recoiling from snakes. He’s a moonlighting, graverobbing, rogue scholar, nobody’s hero. Here is Indy as we remember him: cocky, an improviser, irresponsible, but true to his course. He’s a man you want to be—not the same thing as being a role model. (PG) BRIAN MILLER Central Cinema, 1411 21st Ave., 686-6684, central-cinema.com, $6-$8, March 28-April 2, 7 p.m.; Sat., March 29, 3 p.m. RAISING ARIZONA SEE THE PICK LIST, PAGE 21.

• RED RENEWAL: SEATTLE’S SOCIALIST SPRING

Newly elected city council member Kshama Sawant has brought socialism back to the national spotlight. Now there’s an entire film retrospective that will program titles (some still pending) looking back to our 1999 WTO protests, the great strike of 1919, and other touchstones of the left. See nwfilmforum.org for ongoing schedule. (NR) Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave., 829-7863, $6-$11, Through May 1.

THE SPROCKET SOCIETY’S SATURDAY SECRET MATINEES The 1949 serial Batman & Robin will be

screened in weekly installments. March’s surprise features will have a B-movie monster theme. (NR) Grand Illusion, $5-$8 individual, $35-$56 pass, Saturdays, 2 p.m. Ends March 29.

P ROngoing OMOTIONS

BAD WORDS Jason Bateman cussin’ out a 10-year-

old and terrorizing the other tween participants in a national spelling bee ought to be more fun than it is. Bateman’s also the director of Bad Words, and he brings a suitably curdled approach to the misanthropic material, which is rather too familiar. Guy Trilby is an angry 40-year-old proofreader with a secret. Why has he gamed the rules of the bee to compete against kids? He’s not saying, not even to his sponsoring website’s woman-on-the-ground, journalist Jenny (Kathryn Hahn, fiercely funny but in need of a real role). Bateman the actor can play surly asshole in his sleep, and Bateman the director never pushes him out of that comfort zone. The hostile behavior—and later, inappropriate mentoring—Guy directs at his precocious rival Chaitanya (Rohan Chand), dubbed “Slumdog,” is never less than predictable. And Guy’s secret, I’m sorry, is easy to guess. (R) B.R.M. Lincoln Square, Sundance A BIRDER’S GUIDE TO EVERYTHING Fifteen-year-old David (Kodi Smit-McPhee, Viggo’s son in The Road ) and his two best pals are avid ornithologists with their own school birdwatching club. Which is another way of stating the obvious: They’re outcasts, virgins, and nerds. Into their company, however, comes photographer Ellen (Katie Chang, possessing a Danesian assurance and transparency). David thinks he’s spotted an extinct duck, so the four pile into a “borrowed” VW and drive to a Connecticut lake, where they hope to make history. (Ben Kingsley plays their grouchy, onelegged, Ahab-like ornithologist mentor.) David’s mother, seen in flashback, has died of cancer. His father (the ursine James Le Gros) is about to remarry, perhaps the real reason for David’s flight before the wedding weekend. Birder’s Guide is an indie-film anomaly in today’s marketplace: predictable, pleasing, and more than a little passé—virtually extinct, in other words, like that odd, elusive duck. (PG-13) B.R.M. Sundance DALLAS BUYERS CLUB Making a straight white Texas homophobe the hero of a film about the ’80s AIDS crisis doesn’t seem right. It’s inappropriate, exceptional, possibly even crass. All those qualities are reflected in Matthew McConaughey’s ornery, emaciated portrayal of Ron Woodroof, a rodeo rider and rough liver who contracted HIV in 1985. Fond of strippers, regularly swigging from his pocket flask, doing lines of coke when he can afford them, betting on the bulls he rides, Ron has tons of Texas-sized character. Directed by Jean-Marc Vallée, the unruly Dallas Buyers Club goes easy on the sinner-to-saint conversion story. McConaughey and the filmmakers know that once Ron gets religion, so to speak, their tale risks tedium. As Ron desperately bribes and steals a path to off-label meds, his allies and adversaries do read like fictional composites. Best among them is the transvestite Rayon, who becomes Ron’s right-hand woman (Jared Leto). They’re both fellow gamblers who delight in beating the house. (R) B.R.M. Sundance ENEMY A schlumpy Toronto history professor who drones on about totalitarian societies, Adam walks with a crabbed, defeated gait. He comes down with a severe case of heebie-jeebies upon discovering his exact physical double in the form of a bit player in a minor movie. The actor’s name is Anthony Clair, he lives in town, and he’s a much more aggressive guy than Adam. They both have beards, and they are both

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SEATT LE W EEKLY • M ARCH 26 —APRI L 1, 2014

played by Jake Gyllenhaal. Enemy gives Gyllenhaal a dramatic workout, and he is up to the challenge. As the guy who played Donnie Darko, Gyllenhaal has experience operating in parallel lives, and he proves deft at navigating this film’s grim, enigmatic strategy. Based on José Saramago’s 2002 Portuguese novel The Double, adapted by Javier Gullón, Enemy aims for the paranoid, closed-system intensity of vintage Roman Polanski. We infer there’s something out of whack here even before we happen to notice a giant spider looming over the city—surely that’s a vision from a character’s nightmare, but whose? Director Denis Villeneuve needs to deliver on all this well-managed buildup, and Enemy admittedly stumbles in that department. However, the abrupt final sequence should have cult-movie mavens chattering online for some time. (R) R.H. Sundance, SIFF Cinema Uptown THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL By the time of its 1968 framing story, the Grand Budapest Hotel has been robbed of its gingerbread design by a Soviet (or some similarly aesthetically challenged) occupier—the first of many comments on the importance of style in Wes Anderson’s latest film. A writer (Jude Law) gets the hotel’s story from its mysterious owner, Zero Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham, a lovely presence). Zero takes us back between world wars, when he (played now by Tony Revolori) began as a bellhop at the elegant establishment located in the mythical European country of Zubrowka. Dominating this place is the worldly Monsieur Gustave, the fussy hotel manager (Ralph Fiennes, in absolutely glorious form). The death of one of M. Gustave’s elderly ladyfriends (Tilda Swinton) leads to a wildly convoluted tale of a missing painting, resentful heirs, a prison break, and murder. Also on hand are Anderson veterans Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, and Owen Wilson—all are in service to a project so steeped in Anderson’s velvet-trimmed bric-a-brac we might not notice how rare a movie like this is: a comedy that doesn’t depend on a star turn or a high concept, but is a throwback to the sophisticated (but slapstickfriendly) work of Ernst Lubitsch and other such classical directors. (R) R.H. Ark Lodge, Big Picture, Guild 45th, Kirkland Parkplace, Lincoln Square, Lynwood Theater, Pacific Place, SIFF Cinema Uptown, Woodinville THE GREAT BEAUTY Paolo Sorrentino’s fantastic account of an aging playboy journalist in Rome casts its eye back to La Dolce Vita (also about a playboy journalist in Rome). Yet this movie looks even further back, from the capsized Costa Concordia to the ruins and reproachful marble statues of antiquity. “I feel old,” says Jep (the sublime Toni Servillo) soon after the debauch of his 65th birthday party. He’s been coasting on the success of his first and only novel, 40 years prior, content with his goal to be king of Rome’s high life. Jep is a dandy with thinning hair brushed back and a girdle beneath his silk shirt. False appearances are all that count, but it takes intelligence to deceive. Disgust—and then perhaps self-disgust—begins to color his perception of the whole “debauched country.” Servillo’s wry glances are both mocking and wincing, appropriate for a movie that’s simultaneously bursting with life and regret. (NR) B.R.M. Sundance HER Spike Jonze’s unlikely romance is set in a smooth, efficient near-future Los Angeles. There are no poor people, no upsetting stories on the news. Technology works perfectly. Everyone ought to be happy, and that’s the problem for mopey Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix). Gradually it emerges that he’ separated from his wife (Rooney Mara), but won’t sign the divorce papers. Impulsively deciding to upgrade his phone and home PC, Theodore opts for the new OS1. He chooses a female voice (Scarlett Johansson’s) called Samantha, which soon takes over his life. Before long they’re going on dates together—and more. In this ingenious and unexpectedly touching story, both humans and programs worry about being alone. And both yearn to connect across the digital divide between sentience and software. (R) B.R.M. Crest, Sundance PARTICLE FEVER If nothing else, this doc confirms something you’ve probably always suspected: Really brilliant physicists are almost exactly as nerdy as the average sci-fi geek. Director Mark Levinson was probably wise to focus on the personalities working on the Large Hadron Collider, near Geneva. Their quirkiness allows a human portal into the science behind this massive underground lab, which went live in 2008 and confirmed important results just last year. We are guided in this journey by a batch of physicists, from esteemed veterans in the field to the puppy-dog enthusiasm of Monica Dunford, who treats the word “data” the way the average person might describe a Powerball jackpot. Particle Fever serves as a needed reminder of the excitement of science, a practice that need not be left exclusively to nerds. (NR) R.H. Varsity

arts&culture» Music

Mystic Rhythms

SevenNights

The haunting sound of the mbira defines Chimurenga Renaissance’s latest, riZe vadZimu riZe.

Wednesday, March 26

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

On “Rawks,” K.FLAY, aka Kristine Flaherty, raps “Swear I’m on the cusp of something great/Least I hope I am.” After seven well-received mixtapes and EPs, most recently 2013’s What if It Is, it sure seems as though the Brooklyn-based Stanford grad’s raspy voice and original blend of indie-hip-hop and electronica are pointing her in the right direction. With Air Dubai, Itch. Chop Suey, 1325 E. Madison St., 324-8005, chopsuey.com. 8 p.m. $13.50 adv. All ages. AZARIA C. PODPLESKY • Twenty years after releasing its seminal grunge hit “Possum Kingdom,” THE TOADIES are celebrating the anniversary of Rubberneck, the album that included that song. The group has not achieved the sustained success of some of its peers, but so help me Jesus, it still knows how to rock. With Supersuckers, Battleme. El Corazon, 109 Eastlake Ave. E., 262-0482, elcorazon seattle.com. 8 p.m. $20 adv./$23 DOS. 21 and over. BRIAN PALMER • ST. VINCENT’s discography can be categorized into two time frames: “Before David Byrne” (BDB) and “After David Byrne” (ADB). The Talking Heads influence has been evident throughout the work of this songwriter, born Annie Erin Clark; but after collaborating with Byrne on 2012’s Love This Giant, it’s clear that Clark finds herself the successor to his manic, funky throne. Her latest self-titled album ushers in the ADB era with fuzzed guitars and wobbling synth grooves, and the horns on “Digital Witness” feel straight out of the Heads’ own Remain in Light. While not a carbon copy, St. Vincent reinterprets the sound with visceral guitar experimentation and 21st-century despondency, and Clark tops it off with a new violet hairdo and sequined dresses, a clear embrace of the theatrics that Byrne made so popular with the Heads. Not one to fall in line with trends, Clark is taking herself further down the rabbit hole of weird sounds and infectious rhythms. With Noveller. The Moore, 1932 Second Ave., 877-784-4849, stgpresents.com/neptune. 7:30 p.m. $25. All ages. DUSTY HENRY

BY KELTON SEARS

hooky. Sonically, Chimurenga Renaissance dances among styles effortlessly—the opening track, “Red, Black & Green,” is a minimalist Pan-African anthem that sounds like a beat-boxing competition on a distant moon, while “Lean” fuses a polyrhythmic conga-drum rhythm with a trickling electro-synth line. Album standout “Go Go Gettem,” featuring Maraire’s Shabazz collaborator Ish, combines all the above with the addition of a healthy heaping of car-rumbling bass while a spooky mbira line dances underneath.

Send events to music@seattleweekly.com. See seattleweekly.com for full listings.

Thursday, March 27

Shoegaze and new wave often run parallel, admiring each other from afar. WEEKEND is the bold high-school kid at the dance who makes the first move, offering a hand to someone across the gym. Behind the guitar noise and dreamy vocal reflections, there’s a romantic core to the music. With Cities Aviv, Haunted Horses. Barboza, 925 E. Pike St., 709-9467, thebarboza.com. $12 adv. 8 p.m. 21 and over. DH Stephin Merritt has written hours of gloomy, despairing, heartbreaking lo-fi tracks over the years. ELECTRIC EELS UNDER THE COVERS: A NIGHT OF MAGNETIC FIELDS SONGS will take his discog-

raphy down a different route, as members of local electro-pop and glam groups like Night Cadet and Glitterbang reinterpret the gloom to their liking. With Ononos, Nightmare Fortress, Butcher. Chop Suey. $5. 8 p.m. 21 and over. DH The members of rowdy blues-rock quartet THE STRYPES are in their mid-to-late teens, yet the band’s debut album, Snapshot, pays respect to storied artists like Chuck Berry, the Yardbirds, and the Rolling Stones. But the Irish foursome pulls inspiration from younger

The clash of sounds might be jarring in the

hands of any other artist, but for Maraire “it’s just natural,” he says. “It’s just who I am and how I grew up. A lot of the album is me telling my story. When I sit down and make music, this is just what happens—I couldn’t tell you where any of these songs end or begin.” An elusive statement, but there’s no question the songs trace some of their origins to Africa. In fact, vadZimu in the album’s title means “family spirit,” the Shona name for the “uniting force” that brought together the previously disparate colonized tribes of Zimbabwe to successfully fight for independence from Britain in 1979, which had renamed the country Rhodesia. The ensuing battles were called the chimurenga, Shona for “revolutionary struggle.” Maraire says that revolutionary spirit must now be projected toward reconstructing Zimbabwean culture. “We put vadZimu in the title as a way to say that it’s time for Zimbabwe to take control of its own music,” Maraire says. Thanks to a simple little folk instrument—and perhaps a witch doctor—Maraire is helping to do just that. E

ksears@seattleweekly.com

riZe vadZimu riZe is out now on Brick Lane Records.

COURTESY OF THE ARTIST

SEATTLE WEEKLY • MARCH 26 —APRI L 1, 2014

CHARLIE SCHUCK

hen Tendai “Baba” Maraire was 25, his mother took the family to Masvingo, the Zimbabwean village where his family came from. Though Maraire grew up in the south end of Seattle, his ties to the country run deep. When his father, Dumi, moved to the States, he taught ethnomusicology at the University of Washington and Evergreen State College and specialized in the mbira, the thumb piano that helps define the joyous, haunting music of the Shona people of Africa. During his visit, Maraire visited the hut of a nyanga, a witch doctor, with his mother and brothers. He was instantly drawn to a mbira in the room. “We were on some Biggie and Tupac at the time,” Maraire says. “That’s what was hot and what was out. [So] we were just being all wild and I saw the mbira, and I was like, ‘Yo, can I see that?’ The lady looked at me and said something, but I had to ask my mom because I don’t speak Shona. She was like ‘Yeah, it’s cool.’ ” Maraire started playing the instrument when he was 18 months old, and from his dad learned of its many different styles and tunings. He had never played this particular one before. “I pick it up and the lady tells everyone to be quiet, and I start playing. Then all of a sudden, she starts prophesying, ‘This mbira is going to change the world. It’s going to be in front of millions of people.’ I put it down and she was like, ‘No, that’s yours.’ In her mind, it was always mine. The mbira is a very possessive instrument. It scared the life out of me, it still does.” The nyanga certainly was on to something— Maraire went on to fuse his fascination with hip-hop and his family’s African roots to create the spacey, avant-rap of Shabazz Palaces, a project he started with Ishmael Butler that found him touring the world and playing the humble folk instrument in front of huge festival crowds. Maraire’s project Chimurenga Renaissance, a collaboration with musician Hussein Kalonji, explores his relationship with the mbira even further in riZe vadZimu riZe, the pair’s latest album, which masterfully mixes the artist’s rich background into a blazingly unique sound. Lead single “The B.A.D. Is So Good” features helium-warped vocals tossed over a beautiful mbira melody and a hip-hop beat, all while Maraire eloquently confronts the state of black America: “The black American dream/We all get high ’cause we all are fiends/Gangsters hustle ’cause we all have needs/The world’s gone crazy ’cause we all want cheese/So live that life of pussy, coke, and weed.” If that sounds like a lot, it is, but the album handily manages to strike the rarely achieved golden middle ground between heady and

Through songs like “Tourniquet,” “You’ll Only Break His Heart,” and “Hitman,” JEREMY MESSERSMITH addresses both the bitter and sweet sides of love on his latest full-length, Heart Murmurs. The Minneapolis-based indie-pop singer, who grew up in the Tri-Cities, uses light acoustic melodies both to soften dark ideas and further brighten cheerier thoughts and feelings. With The Royal Oui. Sunset Tavern, 5433 Ballard Ave. N.W., 784-4880, sunset tavern.com. 9 p.m. $13. 21 and over. ACP The forthcoming self-titled third release from THE APACHE RELAY, due in April, is the band’s finest yet. More polished and focused than previous releases, the album contains a nice mix of Americana, folk, rock, and even spaghetti-Western country, guided by its love of artists like Shelby Lynne and Jessie Baylin. With The Lonely Wild, The Soil & the Sun. Tractor Tavern, 5213 Ballard Ave. N.W., 789-3599, tractortavern.com. 8 p.m. $10. 21 and over. BP THE HOWLIN’ BROTHERS are a Tennessee trio of bluegrassers extraordinaire. Their latest album, Howl, just released this month, pleasantly crosses the sonic spectrum into folk, blues, and New Orleans swing, keeping the Americana spirit alive while pushing it into new directions. Treehouse Cafe, 4569 Lynwood Center Rd. N.E., Bainbridge Island, 842-2814, treehouse bainbridge.com. 8 p.m. $12. CORBIN REIFF

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SEATT LE W EEKLY • M ARCH 26 —APRI L 1, 2014

SEATTLE WEEKLY • MARCH 26 —APRI L 1, 2014

arts&culture» Music Neil Finn

Sunday, March 30

mainstage

dinner & show

WED/MARCH 26 • 7:30PM

trace bundy w/ sungha jung COURTESY OF THE ARTIST

would be curious to know if Neil Finn’s approach to songwriting has varied, in any way he could put his finger on, depending on who he’s working with: 1) ’70s pop icons Split Enz, which big brother Tim recruited Neil into in 1977; 2) ’80s pop icons Crowded House, built from the ends of the Enz; 3) his duo albums with Tim; or 4) his solo work. Or does he just write songs as they pop into his head and record them with anyone handy? Wild guess: Judging by category 4 album Dizzy Heights, released last month, and its lavish, even experimental production, working alone (so to speak—joining him here as instrumentalists are Neil’s wife Sharon and sons Liam and Elroy) frees him to do anything he wants. (In a recent interview, Finn did admit that he’s “always looking for a chance to step into the unknown. That’s where all the good stuff happens in my experience.” It’s not over produced, mind you, just generously so (with producer Dave Fridmann), including a huge palette of vocal processing effects and far more strings than I recall on any other Finn album. Roughly generalizing, Finn’s voice is de-emphasized in the album’s early tracks, and thus so are his trademark buoyantly arcing melodies; they both become more prominent as the album goes on. For example, there are the half-whispered lyrics and up-all-night sleepiness of opener “Impressions,” with wisps of strings and guitar wafting by like dream images and a coda that sounds like a Revolver backward-tape effect. “Divebomber” marks Dizzy Heights’ rococo

height; from simple acoustic guitar, it builds—via airplane noises, ominous Hollywood brass, and more suspended cymbal than any 10 comicbook-movie scores—to a Bolero-ish snare-drum ostinato, and ends with sirens, explosions, and bleak cocktail piano. (The emotional theatricality here seems very Tim.) On track 8, “Recluse,” a sweetly aching Finn tune at last takes the spotlight; following that, “Strangest Friends” and “In My Blood” come closest to the relative simplicity of a standard Crowded House guitar/bass/drums texture. On the final track, “Lights of New York,” his voice is way up front, accompanied only by urban ambient sounds and keyboards (harmonium morphing into piano). Oh, and a dash of choir. And more strings. With Midlake. The Neptune, 1303 N.E. 45th St., 877-784-4849, stgpresents.org. $45. 8 p.m. GAVIN BORCHERT

THU/MARCH 27 • 7:30PM

cahalen and eli

w/ john reischman and greg spatz FRI/MARCH 28 • 8PM

ian mcferon w/ mozo SAT/MARCH 29 • 7PM & 10PM AN EVENING WITH

pat rothfuss and paul & storm SUN/MARCH 30 • 7:30PM

zucchero

MON/MARCH 31 • 7:30PM bands, too, and made waves at South by Southwest this year with its energy and attitude. Single “What a Shame,” for example, brings to mind artists like Jet and Arctic Monkeys. With The Knast. Crocodile, 2200 Second Ave., 441-4618, thecrocodile.com. 8 p.m. $11. 21 and over. ACP

Friday, March 28

Saturday, March 29

SIOUX is one of the many quality heavy acts coming out

of Portland these days. Released earlier this month, its second record The One and the Many pushes past the obvious influences (think High on Fire meets Mastodon) of the band’s self-titled debut to a heavier yet more progressive sound. The result is a phenomenal release of brooding, melodic, sludge-filled doomscapes. With Ancient Warlocks, Mother Crone, Swamp Heavy, Black Bone Exorcism. The Highline, 210 Broadway E., 328-7837, highlineseattle.com. 9 p.m. $7. 21 and over. JAMES BALLINGER • LIVE AIR-RAID PODCAST An avid podcast listener, Aaron Roden started his music and comedy podcast back in 2010, recording episodes “in my dining room, much to my family’s chagrin,” he says. Now partnered with KIRO, the show that “drops bombs of awesome in

meklit hadero TUE/APRIL 1 • 7:30PM

battlefield band next • 4/2 tommy castro • 4/3 tyrone wells • 4/4 left hand smoke • 4/5 joe ely w/ david ramirez • 4/6 stanley jordan • 4/7 little bill 75th birthday tribute show • 4/8 susy sun w/ naomi wachira and whitney lyman • 4/9 cedric watson and sidi toure • 4/10 lady rizo • 4/11 v. contreras • 4/13 andy daly • 4/14 & 4/15 slow music w/ the humans • 4/16 - 19 through the looking glass: the burlesque alice in wonderland •4/20portlandcelloprojectw/alialujahchoir •4/21juanamolina•4/23simontownshend

happy hour every day • 3/26 pickled okra • 3/27 aaron mcdonnell • 3/28 ranger and the “rearrangers” / silk stockings • 3/29 cordaviva • 3/30 olivia de la cruz • 3/31 crossrhythm session • 4/1 singer-songwriter showcase featuring: chris poage, don hopwood and amanda sue winterhalter • 4/2 dirty rice 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

SEATT LE W EEKLY • M ARCH 26 —APRI L 1, 2014

After 12 years in the local scene, SPANISH FOR 100 are calling it quits. The band’s sound, as evidenced on its latest Six Song EP, is a nostalgic time capsule of indie rock as it was a decade ago. If there’s a “roots indie” subgenre on the rise, this band’s melodic guitar rock fits the bill. With Red Heart Alarm, Stereo Embers. High Dive, 513 N. 36th St., 632-0212, highdiveseattle.com. 9:30 p.m. $8. 21 and over. DH KINGS OF LEON has one foot in Top-40 territory and the other in the world of straight rock & roll. The Nashvillebased quartet has ruled the charts since its 2008 breakthrough Only by the Night, and will no doubt continue to do so with September’s Mechanical Bull. But with gritty singles like “Supersoaker” and “Temple,” KoL shows it still has some dirt under its nails. With Local Natives. KeyArena, 305 Harrison St., 684-7200, keyarena.com. 8 p.m. $41 and up. All ages. ACP • Lost in the Dream, the new record from THE WAR ON DRUGS, feels decidedly American. With whistling synths, clean guitars, and gaudy snare snaps, songwriter Adam Granduciel deals with anxiety and fear as Bruce Springsteen did on Born in the U.S.A. It’s hard not to be anxious these days amid back-and-forth politics and worries of wars overseas. As Granduciel sings on “Red Eye,” “Losing every time but I don’t know where.” With White Laces. The Neptune. 9 p.m. $18 adv./$20 DOS. All ages. DH • THE BLACK LIPS’ Southern-tinged garage noir keeps getting better. Its fourth release on Vice, Underneath the Rainbow, enlisted the Black Keys’ Patrick Carney and Dap-Kings member Tommy Brenneck as producers, and the sound is all the better for it. With the

Coathangers, Universe People. Neumos, 925 Pike St., 709-9467, neumos.com. 8 p.m. $16 adv. 21 and over. GWENDOLYN ELLIOTT For a communal and contemporary blues experience, no band is better than BIG HEAD TODD AND THE MONSTERS. Originally hailing from Boulder, the group has toured incessantly over the past quarter-decade playing a mix of blues and early-era alternative pop that seems to just get bluer with each passing album. The band’s latest, Black Beehive, produced by popularblues pro Steve Jordan, includes a couple odes to blues giants Memphis Minnie and Hubert Sumlin. Featuring Ronnie Baker Brooks and Hazel Miller. The Showbox, 1426 First Ave., 628-3151, showboxonline. com. 8 p.m. $25 adv./$30 DOS. MARK BAUMGARTEN RAVENNA WOODS is at its best when it gives into creepy sentiments. Whether shimmering acoustic ballads or full-band post-punk slow burners, Chris Cunningham’s ghoulish vocals haunt each track and bring a much-welcomed darkness to the band’s sound. With Modern Kin, Bigfoot Wallace & His Wicked Sons. Tractor Tavern. $12. 9 p.m. 21 and over. DH

El Corazon www.elcorazonseattle.com

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

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 26

SUNDAY, MARCH 30

Mike Thrasher Presents:

The Country Gone Wild Spring 2014 Tour featuring:

Doors at 7 / Show at 8PM 21+. $20 ADV / $23 DOS

Doors at 7/ Show at 8PM ALL AGES/BAR W/ID. $12 ADV / $15 DOS

THE TOADIES with Supersuckers and Battleme THURSDAY, MARCH 27

OLIVER TROLLEY

with The Union Street Orchestra, Dead Cat Hat, Butchers 4 Butterflies and Emily Randolph Lounge Show. Doors at 7 / Show at 7:30PM ALL AGES/BAR W/ID. $8 ADV / $10 DOS

FRIDAY, MARCH 28

FALL CITY FALL with Wrath Of Vesuvius, Sorrow’s Edge,

plus guests Lounge Show. Doors at 7 / Show at 7:30PM ALL AGES/BAR W/ID. $8 ADV / $10 DOS

SATURDAY, MARCH 29 THE ORIGINAL LIVE BAND KARAOKE SENSATION

ROCKARAOKE “You Sing, We Play!”

Doors at 8 / Show at 9PM. 21+. $3

THE LACS with Moonshine Bandits, Alki Jones and Crosby Tyler MONDAY, MARCH 31

DYLAN JAKOBSEN with Idee Fixe, Damien Lawson of Delta Wave and Mixtape Minus Lounge Show. Doors at 7/ Show at 7:30PM ALL AGES/BAR W/ID. $8 ADV / $10 DOS

TUESDAY, APRIL 1 KGRG (89.9 FM) & Take Warning Present:

LA DISPUTE

with Pianos Become The Teeth and Mansions Doors at 7 / Show at 7:30PM ALL AGES/BAR W/ID. $13 ADV / $15 DOS

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 2

FROM INDIAN LAKES

with The American Scene, Naive Thieves, Matt Bacnis and American Island Lounge Show. Doors at 7 / Show at 7:30PM ALL AGES/BAR W/ID. $10 ADV / $12 DOS

JUST ANNOUNCED 5/18 NEW YOUNG PONY CLUB (NYPC) 5/22 LOUNGE EARLY MAN 5/28 LOUNGE THE VEER UNION 6/3 LOCAL H 6/6 SNFU / MEATMEN 6/13 RATS IN THE WALL (FEATURING BRAD LOGAN OF LEFTOVER CRACK & F-MINUS) 6/15 LOUNGE LYNAM 6/16 LOUNGE SHINOBI NINJA 6/26 LOUNGE LEONA X 8/11 LOUNGE NOUVEAU EXPO UP & COMING 4/3 GREEN JELLY 4/4 DEAD MEADOW 4/4 LOUNGE POKE DA SQUID 4/5 BLACK N’ BLUE 4/5 LOUNGE MOTION 4/6 MOURNING MARKET 4/6 LOUNGE THE VIRUS 4/7 AUGUST BURNS RED 4/9 THE CREEPSHOW 4/11 MINDLESS SELF INDULGENCE 4/12 PANCAKES & BOOZE ART SHOW 4/13 OFF! 4/13 LOUNGE KR / ALEX WILEY 4/15 KING PARROT 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

SEATTLE WEEKLY • MARCH 26 —APRI L 1, 2014

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 your earholes” is sometimes recorded at the radio station and sometimes from Roden’s new backyard home studio, but it always keeps things interesting. A geologist by day, Roden has recently hosted a diverse group of guests, including comedians Billy Connolly and Brian Posehn and indie bands like the Fruit Bats and Iska Dhaaf. Tonight he’ll record the show live for the first time at show sponsors Naked City Brewery’s special “Screening Room.” Beyond the controlled environment, the show that will transpire, he says, is anyone’s guess: “I am expecting the crowd to be a healthy mix of listeners to the show and people that have no idea what they are in for.” With Shelby Earl, the Young Evils, Derek Sheen. Naked City Brewery, 8564 Greenwood Ave. N., 838-6299, air-raid.net. 9 p.m. SOLD OUT. GE • Here are some really stupid questions. Do you like beer? Music? Good times? THE PENUMBRA BEER FEST already knows the answer is “yes” and has you all set up. Now in its second year, this end-of-winter bash combines excellent regional suds (like Naked City’s Whiskey Barrel-Aged Sour and Portland’s Hopworks Urban Brewery’s Organic Galactic Imperial Red) with equally excellent local bands at a “crazy underground events space”so you can celebrate the return of spring in all sorts of good company. Tickets start at $25 and include seven beer-tasting tokens. With Broken Water, Dude York, Chastity Belt, the Shivas, Nighttrain, DJ sets by Peel Slowly, and Lori Goldston. King’s Hall, 2929 27th Ave. S., penumbrabeerbash.com. 5 p.m. GE LONDON GRAMMAR is about to become your new favorite band. This soulful trip-hop trio was recently nominated for Best Breakthrough Act at the Brit Awards, and its beautiful debut full-length album, If You Wait, releases in the States this week. Singer Hannah Reid’s vocals will floor you. Neumos. 8 p.m. SOLD OUT. 21 and over. BP THE DECIBEL MAGAZINE TOUR FEATURING CARCASS Formed in 1985 in Liverpool, Carcass is

a true pioneer of death metal and the grindcore subgenre. After calling it quits in 1996, the band reformed in 2007, with a slightly different lineup, for a few festival appearances. A full reunion tour followed a few years later. Last year’s Surgical Steel (its first record since 1996’s Swansong) picks up where the band left off and made several year-end best-of lists. With The Black Dahlia Murder, Gorguts, Noisem. The Showbox, 1426 First Ave., 628-3151, showboxpresents.com. 7:15 p.m. $27.50 adv./$30 DOS. All ages. JB

Bun B and Kirko Bangz

Sunday, March 30

COURTESY OF THE ARTIST

• MONOGAMY PARTY is one of those bands that oozes

charisma. Last year’s False Dancers swaggers with a noisy-sexy-cockiness, but the real treat is seeing the band live in the right environment. The Cha-Cha’s just might be perfect, and a free show will no doubt get very packed, sweaty, and a little weird. With The Great Goddamn, Sashay. Cha-Cha Lounge, 1013 E. Pike St., 322-0703, chachalounge.com/seattle. 8 p.m. FREE. 21 and over. JB

Monday, March 31

GALEN DISSTON OF PICKWICK, TIM WILSON OF IVAN & ALYOSHA, MYCHAL COHEN OF CAMPFIRE OK, AND BEN DOERR OF ST. PAUL DE VENCE have anchored the Seattle scene for the

past few years. Now the frontmen are stepping out for solo sets. While it may be strange to hear Disston sing without Pickwick’s pulsing grooves behind him, this is also a chance for him and the others to showcase their talents as vocalists and songwriters. Tractor Tavern. $12. 8 p.m. 21 and over. DH

Tuesday, April 1

A Prairie Home Companion storyteller/host Garrison Keillor is the main attraction tonight, but it’s difficult to imagine his meandering tales of Lake Wobegon without his longtime pianist RICHARD DWORSKY tinkling away behind him. Since 1986, the classically trained pianist has been Keillor’s regular accompanist not only on radio, but on multiple world tours and in the studio to boot. Along with Keillor, Dworsky has played with everyone from James Taylor to Yo-Yo Ma, and the beloved radio show would not be the same without his refined and whimsical touch behind the keys. Benaroya Hall, 200 University St., 215-4800, seattlesymphony.org/ benaroya. 7:30 p.m. $29 and up. GE ZZ WARD’s music has been setting the musical landscape on fire over the past year and a half. A potent mix of hip-hop, rock, R&B, and soul, guided by Ward’s simultaneously smoky and honey-smooth vocals, her debut album, ’Til the Casket Drops, is a damn fine listen. The Neptune. 7:30 p.m. $16.50 adv./$18 DOS. All ages. BP

dead in his hotel room in 2007 from an overdose of promethazine/codeine syrup that fatally combined with his sleep apnea. Prescription-grade syrup mixed with soda came to be known as “Sizzurp” and “purple drank,” among other names, and the affinity for the “cocktail,” which some say originated in Houston, is referenced on plenty of rap tracks, from Lil Wayne’s single “Me and My Drank” to Chamillionaire’s “2 MPH.” So it’s no surprise that Bun’s 24 year-old tour mate, also from H-Town, first came to prominence with his 2011 platinum hit single “Drank in My Cup.” The young rapper has released seven mixtapes, and his first studio album, Bigger Than Me, is set for release later this year. As for Bun, he released Trill OG: The Epilogue last November, on which the two collaborated on the track “Triller.” “Trill,” a term combining “true” and “real,” is a favorite word of Bun’s, included in every title of every solo album he’s made. The word is bound to be referenced a number of times tonight; it would be fun to make a drinking game out of it. (Although you’ll be out of luck if you try to order shots of Robitussin.) With Jarv Dee, Louis V. Neumos, 925 E. Pike St., 709-9442, neumos. com. 8 p.m. $20 adv./$50 meet & greet. 21 and up. MARGERY CERCADO

in This Bring T And ge n o p Cou Tizer e p p A one 2 oFF! For 1/

SEATT LE W EEKLY • M ARCH 26 —APRI L 1, 2014

t’ll be a show for hip-hop and rap devotees old and new when these Southern rappers roll into town tonight for their “The Trillest Tour.” Bun is known as half of the Houston-based duo UGK (UnderGround Kingz), which came to prominence in the ’90s and is known by mainstream audiences for its cameo in singles like Jay-Z’s “Big Pimpin’” and its own track “International Players Anthem (I Choose You).” Bun’s also the sole surviving member; his partner, Pimp C, was found

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SEATTLE WEEKLY PROMOTIONS PICTURE CONTEST: SUBMIT YOUR ODD ART WORK Seattle Weekly is looking for Seattle’s oddest artist! Oddmall: The Emporium of the Weird, May

31st - June 1st at the Comcast Arena, is reserving a spot for you!

ENTER TO WIN VIP TICKETS TO VORACIOUS TASTING & FOOD AWARDS 2014 Thursday, April 24 at 6pm at the Paramount Theater.

ENTER TO WIN TICKETS TO SEATTLE EROTIC ART FESTIVAL

SEATTLE WEEKLY • MARCH 26 —APRI L 1, 2014

Friday, May 30 at the Seattle Center Exibition Hall. Dress in your sexiest finery at this “see and be seen” event.

ENTER TO WIN TICKETS TO SEE GEORGE LOPEZ: LISTEN TO MY FACE TOUR Friday, April 4 at 8pm at the Moore Theater

ENTER TO WIN TICKETS TO SEE CHROMEO Wednesday, April 16 at 8pm at the Showbox. All ages to enter, 21+ to drink.

ENTER TO WIN TICKETS TO

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ceives passes for the weekend, including entrance to the event and camping.

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Whitney Ballen, Falls (out now, self-released, whitneyballen.bandcamp.com) Whitney Ballen’s voice isn’t for everybody, but for those who love a quirky tone that’s both sharp and sweet, it’s lovely. Inspired by her hometown of Fall City, Wash., this sophomore release explores both personal struggles and roving adventures through Pacific Northwest forests. Layered over fuzzy guitar, explosive yet controlled percussion, and calculated reverb, the result is a dreamy, at times atmospheric collection of tracks that resonate with the heart. Falls is a haunting, trickling love letter, but for whom is not quite disclosed. On tracks like “Olympia, Your Bridges” and “Torn,” the recipient could be an actual person. On others, it feels as if Ballen’s subject is Mother Nature. Her most romantic tune is “Rainier,” a nearly three-minute tearjerker: “Trying my best not to call you/I want to tell you ’bout my coffee/I want to send you pictures of Mount Rainier/I wish you were here.” Ballen is no stranger to the DIY scene, and its rawness is felt throughout. Messy urgency and passion drive this untidy yet wholly relatable release. KEEGAN PROSSER Mutiny Mutiny, Don’t Quit Your Day Job (out now, self-released, mutinymutiny.com) When the world around you has turned to shit, there are two things you can do: get sad or get pissed off. Mutiny Mutiny has chosen the latter. It’s a classic punkrock move, turning frustration into fierce, primal music, and the music itself is good—damn good. Jason Dean’s guitar alternates among droning noise, soft melodies, and furious thrashing chords, creating a constantly shifting aural landscape, while Jenn Schmidt’s grinding bass remains a steady bulwark, driving the music forward. The group’s new drummer, Stormi King, is absolutely aware her kit comes equipped with cymbals, and she isn’t afraid to use them. The vocal duties are split between Schmidt and Dean, who almost assume an adversarial spirit, to somewhat disorienting effect: The shrill pissed-off-ness in Schmidt’s upper register intertwines with Dean’s low-end, shifting mood. The lyrics themselves are somewhat cryptic, but delivered bluntly and at a furious pace—as in the album’s final track, “Rapture: Fail”: “Hallowed be thy/Hollow claims/A kingdom of the mundane/The sacred/The profane/Walked between like drops of rain.” It’s not the words themselves that matter as much as the feelings elicited in the listener. Mutiny Mutiny draws a lot of comparisons to Sleater-Kinney and Jawbox, but here it’s managed to push forward, further refining its own sound and making more interesting music in the process. (Sat., March 29, 2 Bit Saloon) CORBIN REIFF

Send your upcoming release to

reverbreviews@seattleweekly.com

Dungeons & Dragons Does Good

his year marks Dungeons & Dragons’ 40th anniversary! It’s hard to believe that it’s been around that long, and boy, has it come a long way since Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson unknowingly devised the role-playing game that would become a culture-shaping force. The first books were filled with simple BY TERRA CLARKE OLSEN ink drawings and contained only a few classes to choose from (wizard, fighter, and cleric), while today’s books are filled with beautifully crafted art and 26 different classes. Of course the perception of DnD has changed too. Once parents forbade their children to play it, believing it a fanciful step on the path to devil worship; worse yet, other gamers mocked RPG players. Nowadays DnD is a cornerstone of the gaming community, and for the most part it’s understood that playing DnD does not lead to devil worship. It’s rather good for youth: DnD allows its players to create worlds and expand their imaginations—not to mention that it helps kids with personal interaction and social-skill development, something the Internet doesn’t provide to the same extent. And in at least one case, it’s inspired community leadership. Though he might not put that fine a point on it, eighthgrader Alex Furi is promoting Dungeons & Dragons as a way to bring together the youth in his small town. Furi lives in Stratford, Prince Edward Island, where, he told The Geekly Report, there is “not much of a gaming community.” But he is hoping to create one. Earlier this year he ran a bottle drive to earn money to buy DnD supplies for the Cotton Centre Youth Room, a local teen hangout in danger of closing if it doesn’t draw more kids. Furi believes DnD will do that (he already has some sign-ups). After all, DnD offers something most video games cannot: absolute freedom. When I heard Furi’s story, I had to share it. What better way to celebrate Dungeons & Dragons’ 40th anniversary than to pass on our love of it to more kids? That’s why I’m calling on players in this DnD mecca to donate to Furi’s gaming cause. If you can, please send materials and/or money to: Stratford Dungeons and Dragons 234 Shakespeare Drive Stratford, PE C1B 2V8 Canada Or you can just take inspiration from Furi’s fundraising drive and throw some polyhedral dice at your own local youth center. E

GEEKLYREPORT

geeklyreport@seattleweekly.com

arts&culture»

S.A.M

Exploring the Galaxy

espite the exit of Seattle’s prominent Cannabis Farmer’s Market under an ethical cloud, there are still plenty of markets in the Puget Sound area, which means lots of competition. How to set oneself apart from the others? NW Cannabis Market, with two locations (White Center and the Galaxy location on Rainier Avenue) has found an answer: Open every day. Unlike other markets, the Galaxy location is open seven days a week, 11 BY STEVE ELLIOTT a.m. to 7 p.m., and the White Center location keeps the same hours Tuesday through Saturday. That means that if

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and many of them are smart enough to know they’ll never get a second chance to make a first impression. Wearing my “NEW” sticker at both locations, I was given free sample dabs, free half-grams of flower, and special deals on eighths and quarters. While the White Center location has been completely remodeled since my last visit two years ago—and looks great, with friendly vendors, a welcoming atmosphere, and a dab bar— the Galaxy location really takes it to the next level. It feels almost like a marijuana mini-mall,

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hit the spot—then you can go back the next day and get some more. I visited lots of vendor booths at both locations, and found no flowers priced at more than $11 per gram; most tables topped out at $10. If you buy in greater quantities, say a fourth-ounce or more, the deals get commensurately better. On your first visit to the market, you definitely want to be sure to request and wear the “NEW” sticker on your chest. This tips off vendors that it’s your first visit to the market,

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with several rooms full of vendors and a lounge area complete with its own dab bar where you can relax and enjoy a cold water, soda, or juice and choose from a tasty menu of hash oils from an attentive dab-tender. There are plenty of vendor booths at both locations, so if a particular vendor doesn’t offer the flowers, concentrates, or topicals—or good attitude—that you’d like, you can easily just move to the next vendor, no problem. Most of the vendors, however, “get it” when it comes to good customer service. Owner Mike Keysor tells me that NW Cannabis Market will have a third location very soon, in unincorporated King County north of Seattle. That won’t be the end of the chain’s expansion, either; a fourth branch will open not long afterward at another location, he said. E

tokesignals@seattleweekly.com

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

NW CANNABIS MARKET Galaxy: 2329 Rainier Ave. S., 420-4065. 11 a.m.–7 p.m. daily. White Center: 9640 16th Ave. S.W., 420–4823. 11 a.m.–7 p.m. Tues.–Sat. nwcannabismarket.com

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Premier Transportation is seeking Tractor-Trailer Drivers for newly added dedicated runs making store deliveries MondayFriday in WA, OR, ID. MUST have a Class-A CDL and 2 years tractortrailer driving experience. • Home on a daily basis • $.41 per mile plus stop off and unloading pay • $200/day minimum pay • Health & prescription insurance • Family dental, life, disability insurance • Company match 401K, Vacation & holiday pay For application information, call Paul Proctor at Premier Transportation: 866-223-8050. EOE • $1,000 longevity bonus after each year • Assigned trucks • Direct deposit Employment Social Services VISITING ANGELS Certified Caregivers needed. Minimum 3 years experience. Must live in Seattle area. Weekend & live-in positions available. Call 206-439-2458 • 877-271-2601

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MARKETING COORDINATOR The Daily Herald, Snohomish County’s source for outstanding local news and community information for more than 100 years and a division of Sound Publishing, Inc. is seeking a Marketing Coordinator to assist with multi-platform advertising and marketing solutions of print, web, mobile, e-newsletters, daily deals, event sponsorships and special publications as well as the daily operations of the Marketing department. Responsibilities include but are not limited to the coordination, updating and creation of marketing materials across a range of delivery channels, social media, contesting, events, house marketing, newsletters and working closely with the Sr. Marketing Manager to develop strategies and implement the marketing plan. The right individual will be a highly organized, responsible, self-motivated, customer-comes-first proven problem-solver who thrives in a fast-paced, deadline-driven environment with the ability to think ahead of the curve. We offer a competitive salary and benefits package including health insurance, paid time off (vacation, sick, and holidays), and 401K (currently with an employer match.) If you meet the above qualifications and are seeking an opportunity to be part of a venerable media company, email us your resume and cover letter to hreast@soundpublishing.com No phone calls please. Sound Publishing is an Equal Opportunity Employer (EOE) and strongly supports diversity in the workplace. Check out our website to find out more about us! www.soundpublishing.com

Real Estate for Sale King County

Carnation Luxury 2 Story! 4 Bdrms 3 Baths, 3492sqft, Huge Garage. $485,000. 425-7667370; Realty West 800599-7741 Federal Way

Employment General

MISSING DOG - LOGAN. Missing since August 10th from Auburn area. Sightings in Kent and Bellevue. Mini Blue Merle Australian Shepherd. Very scared and skittish. Please call Diane at 253-486-4351 if you see him. REWARD OFFERED.

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University District 3 bedroom apts available for rent. 206-441-4922 9am–2pm

WA Misc. Rentals Rooms for Rent Greenlake/WestSeattle $400 & up Utilities included! busline, some with private bathrooms • Please call Anna between 10am & 8pm • 206-790-5342

U-DISTRICT $450-$550 All Utilities Included! Call Peir for more info (206) 458-0169

WA Misc. Rentals Want to Share TUKWILA

2 HOME SHARE UNITS $550 & $460 / MONTH. 1) Your own private living room, bedroom, bath, sink, fridge, counter area plus free TV. Private entrance also. 2) Studio with kitchen and bath. Both have a view & private off street parking place. Laundry on-site. Large quality home. Employed with steady income, references & deposit req. No smoking/ pets. One adult only. Call evenings 206-2464700 206-243-4171 Computers Buy or sell refurbished & used Macs. 206-551-7366

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425-312-5489 NOTICE Washington State law requires wood sellers to provide an invoice (receipt) that shows the seller’s and buyer’s name and address and the date delivered. The invoice should also state the price, the quantity delivered and the quantity upon which the price is based. There should be a statement on the type and quality of the wood. When you buy firewood write the seller’s phone number and the license plate number of the delivery vehicle. The legal measure for firewood in Washington is the cord or a fraction of a cord. Estimate a cord by visualizing a four-foot by eight-foot space filled with wood to a height of four feet. Most long bed pickup trucks have beds that are close to the four-foot by 8-foot dimension. To make a firewood complaint, call 360-9021857. agr.wa.gov/inspection/ WeightsMeasures/Fire woodinformation.aspx agr.wa.gov/inspection/WeightsMeasures/Firewoodinformation.aspx

Appliances AMANA RANGE Deluxe 30” Glasstop Range self clean, auto clock & timer ExtraLarge oven & storage *UNDER WARRANTY* Over $800. new. Pay off balance of $193 or make payments of $14 per month. Credit Dept. 206-244-6966

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Auto Events/ Auctions

Clark’s Towing, LLC Abandoned Vehicle Auction 03/28/14 - 12 PM Viewing: 11-12pm RTTO 5275 5 Vehicles Auction @ 1780 NW Maple St, Issaquah

425-392-6000 - Issaquah See website for pictures: clarktow.com

Dogs NEW APPLIANCES UP TO 70% OFF All Manufacturer Small Ding’s, Dents, Scratches and Factory Imperfections *Under Warranty* For Inquiries, Call or Visit Appliance Distributors @ 14639 Tukwila Intl. Blvd. 206-244-6966

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Prior inspection will be from 7:00am - 8:00am. This company can be contacted at 425-888-1180 for questions regarding this Auction.

Auto Events/ Auctions

14112 452nd Ave SE North Bend

ABANDONED VEHICLE AUCTION Saturday 3/29/14 Preview 9:00AM Auction 10:00AM A-Seattle Towing, LLC 13226 1st Ave S. Burien 206-856-1388 www.towseattle.com

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ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT NEWSLETTER Find out about upcoming performances, exhibitions, openings and special seattleweekly.com/dailyweeklyevents.

AR T S AND ENTER TAINMENT

SEATT LE W EEKLY • M ARCH 26 —APRI L 1, 2014

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PROMOTIONS NEWSLETTER

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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

and event photos.

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EVENTS NEWSLETTER A weekly calendar of the city’s best offerings.

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