The Stranger back issues from September 2008:
PUBLIC EDITOR
Sep 04, 2008; ... Like a small child putting on his father's shoes and tie and pretending to go to work, it can be rather endearing when The Stranger tries to dress itself up as a real newspaper. So I couldn't help but chuckle warmly when I learned that, in honor of the Democratic National Convention, ELI ...
DEPT. OF CORRECTIONS
Sep 04, 2008; ... Due to an editing error, an article on King County Initiative 26 called a "she" a "he": Theresa Gillespie, not her husband, has donated exclusively to Republicans in previous partisan races ["Red Carpet" Aug 28]. We are sorting out our ...
YOU'RE MY SISTER, AND I HATE YOU
Sep 04, 2008; ... It wasn't easy being raised by the parents we had, but they were affectionate, had good intentions, and tried their best. YOU on the other hand, despite doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING with your life, feel you can sit in judgment of EVERYONE. Let me tell you something: You fucking suck and I hate your ...
WHAT'S THAT WAILIN'?
Sep 04, 2008; ... NEW COLUMN! Hey! Hey, kids! What's that wailin'? Shit, is that a baby? Did one'a you brats have a gol-danged 'nother baby again? Which one'a you was it this time? Piper? Willow? Oh, hell, you know I can't stay mad for long-every baby's a miracle, after all! Pass that li'l chitlin over ...
Cops and Robbers
Sep 04, 2008; ... SPD Program Trains the Next Generation of Cops Two police cars, lights flashing, race into a gravel-covered parking lot next to a rail yard in Georgetown, boxing in a small red coupe. A voice booms over the patrol car's PA system, ordering the driver out of the car. A young man ...
Poor Planning
Sep 04, 2008; ... South Lake Union Splinter Group Has Rival Plan for Neighborhood Until last week, everything appeared to be going as planned for the South Lake Union Friends and Neighbors Community Council (SLUFAN), the group that submitted a neighborhood plan to the city in June that would increase ...
IN OTHER NEWS
Sep 04, 2008; ... by Stranger Staff INVESTIGATION The Seattle Police Department and King County Prosecutor's office are investigating a Washington State assistant attorney general for alleged fraud and identity theft related to an adult hookup site. Earlier this month, according to a ...
How the Party Parties
Sep 04, 2008; ... Behind the Scenes at the Democratic National Convention The welcome party for the 15,000 members of the media covering the Democratic National Convention in Denver was held, rather appropriately, at a giant amusement park called Elitch Gardens. Everything was free for the night and so, ...
Don't Worry, Ladies (and Gents)
Sep 04, 2008; ... Why Clinton's Strongest Supporters Aren't Going to Vote for the McCain/Palin Ticket The selection of Sarah Palin as John McCain's running mate means Republicans have decided that wooing disaffected Hillary Clinton supporters is their best chance, at retaining the White House. It ...
The Madness of STRIKETHROUGH
Sep 04, 2008; ... What Happens Outside the Box BY BRENDAN KILEY Last week, a piece of performance art almost literally drove a woman crazy. Some performers were doing something secret in a gigantic, silvery box that filled the small stage of the Rendezvous Theater. The woman wanted in. "My ...
Grocery Shopping with Zizek
Sep 04, 2008; ... Grocery Shopping with Zizek The World's Most Popular Philosopher [hearts] Junk Slavoj Zizek is the most popular philosopher of our day. In his work, we primarily find the influence of Jacques Lacan, Karl Marx, and Georg Hegel. We also find many references to the filmmaker Alfred ...
TWO NOVELS, FAT & THIN
Sep 04, 2008; ... CONSTANT READER TWO NOVELS, FAT & THIN In early 2001, David Ebershoff released a short, beautiful book called The Danish Girl. The novel, set in the 1920s and '30s, is about a painter named Einar Wegener who, with the tentative blessing of his wife, Greta, becomes the first ...
The Beauty of the Beast
Sep 04, 2008; ... Getting Friendly with the Main Course My grandmother raised Angus cattle east of the mountains, outside Sunnyside. We often went over on weekends. We mended fence, and we took the cattle from pretty pastures out to prettier sagebrush and back in the ancient International Harvester truck, ...
NEW JUJU
Sep 04, 2008; ... BAR EXAM NEW JUJU Long ago, Juju was located on 11th Avenue and Pine Street, where it was called the Bad Juju Lounge. Through the lens of memory, at least, the place had a legitimately dark soul, a hodgepodge seaminess that fit its name; it definitely had a large live snake that ...
Perfect Sound Forever
Sep 04, 2008; ... Eight Writers on Built to Spill's Perfect from Now On In 1997, Built to Spill released their third album, and their first for a major label, Perfect from Now On. In 2008, the stalwart band have taken to the road to perform Perfect from Now On in its entirety. This week, eight ...
Ash Bowie of Polvo
Sep 04, 2008; ... DAVE SEGAL INTERROGATES ON THE AVANT ROCKERS' DECADE-LONG HIATUS, NOT BLOWING UP, AND WONKY GUITAR SOUNDS What prompted you to re-form Polvo, besides Explosions in the Sky asking you to play All Tomorrow's Parties? It was really the ATP invitation that got us to re-form ....
SINGLES, REMIXES & MP3S
Sep 04, 2008; ... "All Summer Long" by Kid Rock (Top Dog) A friend recently spent two weeks in Croatia, far from American pop culture-except, he said with concern, for Kid Rock's "All Summer Long." The song "followed [him] there." You might not expect that from a song so pronouncedly ...
Bits
Sep 04, 2008; ... OXFORD COLLAPSE Bits (Sub Pop) *** The name Oxford Collapse suggests the chaotic crumbling of well-mannered, ivy-covered edifices (it also sideways recalls Orchid's brilliant freak-out "Amherst Pandemonium"). Appropriately, Oxford Collapse's songs are smart, ...
There Is Loud Laughter Everywhere
Sep 04, 2008; ... HEAD LIKE A KITE There Is Loud Laughter Everywhere (Mush) *** If nothing else, Head Like a Kite will inspire beat envy in musicians who hear There Is Loud Laughter Everywhere. The drums-many of which are supplied by Stranger freelancer Trent Moorman-on ...
Worried Well
Sep 04, 2008; ... 31KNOTS Worried Well (Polyvinyl) *** 31Knots' early releases were all about instrumentation. Joe Haege's intricate guitar riffs, matched with constantly climbing bass lines and impeccable drumming, signaled a new incarnation of progressive rock-one more ...
HIPHOP YA DON'T STOP
Sep 04, 2008; ... MY PHILOSOPHY RIP, Andre Young Jr. My condolences to Dr. Dre and his whole family. Our friends at Sportn' Life Records and On a Mission Entertainment have jumped off a brand-new jump-off-the first Friday of every month at Re-bar. It's called Yes Yes Y'all and features live ...
A BONKERS! ANNIVERSARY, THE JUAN MACLEAN, XXXCHANGE
Sep 04, 2008; ... DATA BREAKER First, I'd like to say it's great to be back in Seattle, breaking data once more for electronic-music heads. During my 16-month stint in Orange County, I sorely missed the febrile activity this city's producers and DJs generate. One week of beat-centric events here outshines ...
DOG DAYS
Sep 04, 2008; ... UNDERAGE Sad to say, but summer is almost officially dead. Sure, school doesn't start for a few more weeks, but September is here, and that means it's time to get back to living like responsible young people. But before everything gets chaotic and the cold weather turns you into a ...
BIG "JOHN" AND PORSCHE LYNN
Sep 04, 2008; ... DRUNK OF THE WEEK "Attention, passengers, we are now leaving Nun Central and are beginning our journey to hell and beyond." -Tom Hanks as Rick Gassko, Bachelor Party, 1984. Most girls have big dreams for their wedding day-the dress, the ring, throwing flower bouquets around. When ...
THE GREAT AMERICAN CHALLENGE
Sep 04, 2008; ... PARTY CRASHER This will be my final column as Party Crasher. Many weeks I was amazed by the people I met and the bizarre sights I saw, but also several Saturdays I wished I could have just been hanging out with my friends. So this final crash is about them, because they invented ...
I Served the King of England
Sep 04, 2008; ... I Served the King of England dir. Jirí Menzel This year is the 40th anniversary of the Prague Spring, when Czechoslovakia-then controlled by the USSR-got a new president who ushered in a season of happy reform: Art and literature flourished, the press rediscovered its backbone, ...
The Ripple Effect
Sep 04, 2008; ... The Ripple Effect dir. Philippe Caland Hey, beautiful spirits. It's me, Hollywood actor Forest Whitaker. Yes. Yes, I am looking at you. No, it's just ray eye thing. Yeah, I have that weird eye, you know? What? Okay. A dog bit me on the eye. Yes, really! A dog! Or maybe I got acid ...
La France
Sep 04, 2008; ... La France dir. Serge Bozon Anyone who knows me knows that World War I is obviously my favorite war. The trenches, the tactical fuckups, the mud, the arbitrariness of the whole thing-it's a sublimely affecting disaster. It's also, as it turns out, the ideal context for a gloomy ...
MONEY, MONEY, MONEY
Sep 04, 2008; ... CONCESSIONS Originally, I had planned to write this column about Mamma Mia!: The Sing-Along Edition, which, I'm sure, is happening somewhere sometime in your area in the near future. It involves the movie Mamma Mia! (which delighted me, honestly), and YOUR very own vocal cords, and, ...
SCI-FI VAMPIRE HOLES
Sep 04, 2008; ... I [hearts] TELEVISION(TM) Do you like science fiction, vampires, and "holes"? SO DO I! I simply adore all three things, and if asked to rank them from least to most loved, this is how I'd stack 'em up: In third place, I would put "science fiction." Though I love Battlestar Galactica, the ...
TRANS-EUROPE EXPRESS
Sep 04, 2008; ... TRANS-EUROPE EXPRESS Trans-Europe Express, directed by Alain Robbe-Grillet-a French novelist who was at the center of a literary movement, Nouveau Roman, that had its moment in the '50s and '60s-is a movie that is not conditioned by the stuff of cinema. It's not even conditioned by the ...
THE EDGE OF HEAVEN
Sep 04, 2008; ... NOW PLAYING * THE EDGE OF HEAVEN The Edge of Heaven (by Head-On director Fatih Akin) starts out broad and then narrows to a point sharp enough to pierce your heart Opening with the lightly crass scenario of an elderly Turkish-German immigrant inviting a prostitute to become his ...
FROZEN RIVER
Sep 04, 2008; ... * FROZEN RIVER Courtney Hunt's first feature film is nothing short of indelible. Shot in sub-zero weather on Lake Champlain in northern New York, it captures flawlessly the frozen, cracking lives of two women, one living just outside the Mohawk reservation at the Canadian border with her ...
THE GIRL WHO LEAPT THROUGH TIME
Sep 04, 2008; ... * THE GIRL WHO LEAPT THROUGH TIME Everything about this animated film is appealing, from the slapstick comedy of the main character diving into broom closets and oceans to activate her time-traveling powers to the spare ...
MAMMA MIA!
Sep 04, 2008; ... * MAMMA MIA! My expectations for the ABBA musical Mamma Mia! were so low that they dug all the way to China and were walking around upside down asking for a fork. But oh, how young and wrong I wasl Mamma Mia! is pure entertainment. I have but one tiny issue. While Mia! features quite a ...
MAN ON WIRE
Sep 04, 2008; ... * MAN ON WIRE In August of 1974, a red-headed Frenchman with the perfectly precious nom de cirque Philippe Petit (along with a crew of coconspirators) sneaked into the newly erected World Trade Center, smuggled cables and equipment up to the unoccupied top floors, strung a tightrope from ...
MIRRORS
Sep 04, 2008; ... * MIRRORS Mirrors, the latest Hollywood co-optation of Asian horror tropes-in this case, the downbeat 2003 South Korean entry Into the Mirror-distinguishes itself from the glut via an unusually suggestive premise (reflecting goblins wreak havoc on haunted security guard Kiefer ...
TROPIC THUNDER
Sep 04, 2008; ... TROPIC THUNDER Tropic Thunder, Ben Stater's first directorial effort since 2001 's Zoolander, may ultimately feel a bit toothless-it's difficult to cut too deeply when your satirical take on studio blockbusters and ...
VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA
Sep 04, 2008; ... VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA Vicky Cristina Barcelona is about two American types: uptight Vicky (Rebecca Hall), who's engaged to be married, and loosey-goosey Cristina (Scarlett Johansson), who has precious few goals in life. On a sojourn in Barcelona, the girls encounter Juan Antonio ...
WALL*E
Sep 04, 2008; ... WALL*E is a little trash compactor charged with cleaning the waste that covers the depopulated Earth. We watch him wheel off to work, return home with a Rubik's Cube and other treasures, humming along contently. But WALL*E plays hooky when a ...
TOP 10 THINGS NOT TO SAY TO ME
Sep 04, 2008; ... CONTROL TOWER I believe in a collective unconscious. Why? Because of the otherwise inexplicable frequency with which people make the exact same remarks to me. It's mainly nonkinky people, and not clients-this is in social situations. I swear, it's like some sort of genetic programming. I ...
PUBLIC EDITOR
Sep 11, 2008; ... Along with words like "Democrat," "journalism" "writing," and "gay," The Stranger has been hard at work devaluing the term "genius." Every year, the mental midgets who chum out this newsletter for a dying clique decide to praise some of their friends as Geniuses and give them $5,000. Beyond the ...
I, ANONYMOUS
Sep 11, 2008; ... To submit an unsigned confession or accusation go to forums, thestranger.com. Rease remember to change the names of the innocent and guilty. One submission wilt be published in the paper every week, but all submissions to I, Anonymous can be read at www.thestranger.com. I WANT MY ...
Creepy Caller
Sep 11, 2008; ... Assistant Attorney General Under Investigation for Sex-Site Fraud The Seattle Police Department and King County Prosecutor's Office are investigating a Washington State assistant attorney general for alleged fraud and identity theft related to several adult hookup sites. Earlier ...
Boxed Out
Sep 11, 2008; ... Big-Box Contract Leaves Little Saigon Divided A photo across the top of the Dearborn Street Coalition's website shows 14 Vietnamese young adults holding a banner emblazoned, "Save Our Little Saigon." But despite the neighborhood coalition's proud announcement in early September that it ...
IN THE HALL
Sep 11, 2008; ... ODD MAN OUT This year's light-rail expansion measure. Proposition 1, shares little more than a name with last year's roads and transit ballot proposal. Unlike last year, when the Sierra Club opposed Prop. 1 because it included 182 new miles of roads, Seattle's entire mainstream ...
IN OTHER NEWS
Sep 11, 2008; ... by Stranger Staff MONEY Out-of-state money has become a big factor in the race for state representative from Seattle's 36th District-a somewhat surprising development, given that such races are generally decided by a few thousand votes, and that state legislators make less than ...
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to McCain's Speech
Sep 11, 2008; ... Our Skin-Burning, Cigar-Chomping, Douchebag-Studded, Palin-Aghast Report from the Republican National Convention SUNDAY The night before I am to be pepper-sprayed by a police officer, I run into two acquaintances from Seattle who have come to St. Paul to protest the Republican ...
The Stranger Genius Awards 2008
Sep 11, 2008; ... THROWING WADS OF CASH AT LOCAL ARTISTS SINCE 2003 Hello and welcome to the 2008 Stranger Genius Awards. For the sixth year in a row, The Stranger has scoured the city for the most beguiling, brain-tingling, smartest, and best work in theater, literature, film, and visual art, and now we ...
Wynne Greenwood
Sep 11, 2008; ... MAKES: Videos, sculptures, performances, music, and alter egos, often in a single work of art. USED TO WANT TO BE: United States president, a stockbroker, or "a savvy businessperson." IS A FUCKING FEMINIST: "Can you have a feminist car dealership? Well, ...
GRETCHEN BENNETT
Sep 11, 2008; ... Gretchen Bennett is perhaps Seattle's greatest artist's artist, a modest grande dame who brings and holds people together-and who is always working. On any given day, you can find her walking in the International District where she lives, wearing a focused expression that makes her look lost-not ...
JEFFRY MITCHELL
Sep 11, 2008; ... Jeffry Mitchell was supposed to peak years ago. He had his first solo show in Japan, where he studied ceramics, in 1984. Seattle's contemporary art museum, the Henry Art Gallery, honored him with a surveysometimes, but not always, reserved for the high point in an artist's career-back in 2001 ....
OSCAR TUAZON AND ELI HANSEN
Sep 11, 2008; ... So many people got so excited about these two brothers this year that it seemed a little silly. After showing up seemingly out of nowhere, they found themselves having simultaneous shows at Seattle Art Museum, and at Western Bridge and Howard House. But they didn't come from nowhere ....
SUSIE LEE
Sep 11, 2008; ... Susie Lee's appearance on the scene in 2006 was kind of wild. She was the clear standout at the show of University of Washington MFA graduates that year, and by the end of the year, she was selling out editions of her work at Miami Beach Art Basel, where she was represented by Seattle's hot new ...
Sherman Alexie
Sep 11, 2008; ... BY THE END OF NEXT YEAR WILL HAVE PUBLISHED: 24 books in 16 years. IS ALSO CONSIDERING: Founding a new online poetry magazine, "something very specific and small." ONCE GOT SOME GOOD ADVICE FROM CAROLYN KIZER: "Don't fuck groupies." It's difficult ...
NEAL STEPHENSON
Sep 11, 2008; ... Science-fiction writers are everywhere in the Northwest-they grow here like some weird, bespectacled fungus. The best of them all is Neat Stephenson, whose 1995 novel The Diamond Age defined the cutting edge of science fiction for 10 years after its publication. His World War Il codebreaking ...
TRISHA READY
Sep 11, 2008; ... Trisha Ready is writing the meatiest, drollest, most unflinching/curious/thrilling semiautobiographical long-form narrative nonfiction in Seattle. The genre used to be called "personal essay," but that phrase deserves to the (the essay has feelings? a very long personal ad?). She is currently ...
GEOLOGIC
Sep 11, 2008; ... Yes, he is the rapper for Blue Scholars. Why did we consider him for the literary prize? Because Geologic's raps are crafted with great care and intelligence. Raw urban documentation is his substance. In this way, he is a part of a literary tradition that goes all the way back to Baudelaire, ...
Paul Mullin
Sep 11, 2008; ... WRITES PLAYS ABOUT: Science, death, radiation sickness, sex, amnesia. HAS HAD THEM PRODUCED IN: New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, Louisville, Baltimore. VIEWS HIS CAREER PHILOSOPHICALLY: "I am in the same shape as theater in general-I don't have a fucking ...
CHELSEY RIVES
Sep 11, 2008; ... I first saw Chelsey Rives in Intiman's worldpremiere production of Craig Lucas's Prayer for My Enemy, where, in the supporting role of a young divorcée. Rives lit up Lucas's ambitious work-in-progress with an undeniable intelligence and compelling sense of spontaneity. This initial promise was ...
MARYA SEA KAMINSKI
Sep 11, 2008; ... She made the Genius shortlist in 2006. She made the Genius shortlist in 2007. And she's done it again. Why don't we just give her a Genius Award already? Maybe because, as great as she is, we know she will go even higher. Electric and mercurial, Marya Sea Kaminski galvinizes audiences whether ...
CARLO SCANDIUZZI
Sep 11, 2008; ... In the summer of 2007, ACT Theatre launched the Central Heating Lab, a theaterwithin-the-theater that tries to bring livelier, fresher work into its august building. The Heating Lab produces stuff you don't normally expect to see in big regional theaters: modern dance, standup comedy, drag and ...
SARAH JANE LAPP
Sep 11, 2008; ... Illustrator, animator, and live-action filmmaker Sarah Jane Lapp is best known for two semifictional animated films about work: Chronicles of a Professional Eulogist, in which a rabbi discloses his trade secrets, and Chronicles of an Asthmatic Stripper, about the strange ...
Lynn Shelton
Sep 11, 2008; ... HAS MADE MOVIES ABOUT: Girls, boys, wilderness, the past, anal sex. HAS, IN THE NAME OF DERRING-DO: Worked on a trawler in the Bering Sea, milked a Danish cow, jumped out of an airplane. IS HARDER ON HERSELF THAN YOU MIGHT EXPECT: "I've always romanticized ...
CALVIN REEDER
Sep 11, 2008; ... Filmmaker Calvin Reeder splits his time between Seattle and Los Angeles, making seedy, hilarious splatter films for the Georgetown set. From his 2003 film Jerkbeast. he's gone on to make three short films, each besting the last in visual sophistication, comedic timing, and gross-out depravity ....