Inlander 04/04/2024

As Spokane prepares for Expo’s 50th, the fair’s historian takes a look back at how all it came to be

By Bill Youngs

Page 16

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EDITOR’S NOTE

Before I moved to Spokane, I read a column by Ted McGregor, the Inlander’s founder and publisher. In it, he talked about how he’d like to see salmon try to surmount the Spokane Falls someday, like they used to before the dams, the poisoned waters and all the other environmental damage industrialism brought to the Pacific Northwest.

That day is still far off, but it’s an idea we can talk about — and care about — thanks to Expo ’74. The story of how the world’s fair reminded the city of the reason for its existence, the Spokane River, is one we all know and cherish. But how did the fair come to be? That story — the last harried months, the saving of a historic structure and how some little known pavilions were conceived — is one told less often.

This week, we tell two stories of BUILDING EXPO, both of which come from local historian Bill Youngs’ masterful The Fair and the Falls. His book has long been out of print, but not anymore. This month, Youngs’ book will hit bookstore shelves once again. So as the city prepares for 50th anniversary of the fair, we tell you how 50 years ago the city got ready for the fair itself.

— NICHOLAS DESHAIS, editor

LIBRARY HOUSING PAGE 12

LAKE ERUPTION! PAGE 6

CATHERINE

The Bachelor.

What kind of food or drinks would it serve? I think that they should try to serve food or drinks that they also serve on the show. Piña coladas and resort-themed things.

PAIGE CARR

Maybe rock music, like bringing back grunge culture and stuff like that. I feel like that could be pretty interesting.

HALEY SENDERAK

I would say probably a Love is Blind theme where you could have drinks where you’re either blindfolded or drinks that you don’t know what’s in it, and you just have to guess what’s in it and you don’t know. It’s kind of like a surprise.

JILLIAN GREENE

I would like to see a Minecraft themed bar. I think the costumes would be really cool to dress up as, and I feel like it kind of reaches out to the gaming community.

What would you name it?

Probably “Minecraft Bar.” Or like maybe a spinoff — they call the little guy “Steve,” like “Steve’s Mine Bar” or something.

KARINA SMITH

I would do Shrek and it could have themed drinks that are slime, and they could do a “get swampy” night or “get shreked.”

“I

give to Providence Hear t Institute because it gave me more time with my family.” Katy Bruya WHY

524

Independent media has never been more important.

THOM

Weekdays at

The Lake Where a Mountain Once Stood

Thousands of years ago, Mount Mazama stood at 12,000 feet; about 7,800 years ago, it blew its top, leaving behind North America’s deepest lake

BY KNUTE BERGER, CROSSCUT.COM

This is one of the most spectacular gems of the Cascades — an extraordinary blue mountain lake at an altitude of 6,000 feet that is also the deepest lake in North America.

Many natural wonders are the result of natural disasters. Standing on the rim of Crater Lake, it’s hard to picture the massive cataclysm that made it. Some 7,800 years ago — more than 3,000 years before the Egyptian pyramids were built — a super-volcano, Mount Mazama, blew its top. It was the greatest Cascades explosion in the past 600,000 years.

Over the millennia, volcanic hotspots and cones have spewed lava and ash from this spot. Volcanic violence and glacier action carved the area. Smaller volcanoes came and went. The eruptive activity coalesced into what we call Mount Mazama. Thousands of years ago, it stood some 12,000 feet high. Then one autumn

day eight millennia ago, it exploded on an epic scale. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the blast took off the top of the mountain and the cone collapsed inward, creating a huge caldera 5 miles across. Ash and debris covered much of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and parts of California, Nevada, Montana, Utah, Wyoming, British Columbia and Alberta. Some traces of Mazama ash have even been found as far away as Greenland.

The eruption is said to have been 40 to 50 times as powerful as that of Mount St. Helens in 1980. If you’ve seen film or TV footage from that eruption, you know how devastating the ash, floods, pyroclastic flows and blast zone could

Oregon’s Crater Lake

AMY

be. So too with Mazama. Its eruption lasted many days, burned forests, turned day into night and choked the air. It buried some areas in 14 feet of ash.

The cataclysm left an indelible mark where its debris fell, creating in many places a timeline in the soil, a distinct layer of before and after.

The Northwest was already long occupied by Indigenous people. Evidence is found below the ash layer that has helped push dates of human occupation back to the Ice Age. At the Paisley Caves in Oregon, evidence shows people were sheltering more than 14,000 years ago. There’s evidence that Mazama ash may have snuffed out ancient hearths. Stone tools and flakes found in Redmond, Washington, below the distinct Mazama ash layer have been dated back about 14,000 years. Evidence of Indigenous occupation above the ash layer is nearly as old as the eruption.

In Alberta, researchers say that for days a “dry snow” of fallout buried prairies in ash. Game, including herds of buffalo, were displaced along with those who hunted them. Centuries passed before people returned. Eruptions of the Mazama scale are rare but have the potential to impact climate, disrupt ecosystems and devastate communities.

Those who lived within view of the mountain recorded what occurred in oral stories and traditions that scientists say track closely with the geologic record. The Klamath people of south-

“The eruption is said to have been 40 to 50 times as powerful as that of Mount St. Helens in 1980.”

ern Oregon remembered smaller eruptions over time before the mountain finally blew and ejected massive hot rocks and pumice “as big as hills and burning ash falling like rain.” People were said to have retreated into water for protection. They remembered that the mountain fell in on itself and eventually rain and snow filled the deep hole left behind.

Some said that the disaster was punishment for bad human behavior. Crater Lake “came from a battle between spirits… and when the people saw what happened there, they had to run into the water to keep from being burned up,” a Klamath elder has recounted. “They were being punished for forgetting the right way to live. I heard this story from a lot of the old people when I was a kid.”

Crater Lake became a sacred place for many, a place for supernatural beings, shamans and vision-seekers. The lake’s existence was kept secret from the first white settlers. It continues to have sacred significance for the Klamath people today whose ancestral knowledge has been passed down for hundreds of generations.

One historian has written, “As the ash clouds settled and the rumbling ceased, the caldera became a place of pronounced historical and moral significance to the peoples living in all directions.”

For its extraordinary blue waters and its uniqueness, Crater Lake was designated a National Park in 1902 — the fifth one after Yellowstone, Sequoia, Yosemite and Rainier. Crater Lake is not a finished product. Geologists say it could erupt again someday. On crystal-clear nights, the stars above reflect in its still waters, a mirror of the galaxy set in high-altitude silence.

One can reflect on the miracle of nature and its power to transform the catastrophic into the sublime. And ponder how lucky we are to get to witness this part of Mazama’s story. n

Knute “Mossback” Berger is editor-at-large for Crosscut.com, where this first appeared.

Six, Please

As Spokane smashes building permit records, a planned South Hill sixplex offers hints at the city’s dense future

BY NATE SANFORD

Last month, the city of Spokane approved plans for a project called the “Spokane Six” — a six-unit apartment building that will be built on a lot currently occupied by a single-family home on South Grand Boulevard, a block from Manito Park on the South Hill.

Visually, the building’s design is simple and unassuming — but its implications for the future of housing in Spokane couldn’t be more dramatic.

Matt Hutchins, an architect with the Seattle-based CAST architecture firm that designed the building, describes it as a “traditional, simple box.”

“There’s a traditional vernacular in American residential design that is sort of blocky, big eaves and detailed porches,” Hutchins says. “It feels very much like it could have been built in the ’20s or in the ’40s.”

Sixplex buildings like the Spokane Six are common in Spokane’s historic Browne’s Addition and Cliff/Cannon neighborhoods. But those buildings are almost all close to 100 years old. During the latter half of the 20th century, Spokane and many other American cities passed zoning laws that prevented those housing types from being built in most neighborhoods.

That’s what makes the Spokane Six so notable. The design itself may be simple, but up until just two years ago, it would have been impossible to build.

The Spokane Six is only possible because of a sweeping set of zoning changes passed in 2022 and expanded

last year that made it legal to build multifamily housing in all parts of Spokane previously restricted to single-family homes — dramatically expanding the types of housing that are possible to build.

Now, two years hence, the zoning reforms have prompted a major uptick in permit activity. As Spokane’s population continues to grow, projects like the Spokane Six aim to help address the housing shortage by allowing multiple families to live in a space previously occupied by one.

The Spokane Six is designed to fit on any traditionally sized housing parcel, so once the first one on Grand Boulevard is finished, Hutchins’ firm hopes to build more across the city.

“Our goal is to essentially bring back a housing type that we haven’t seen a lot in the last 100 years,” Hutchins says.

OPENING UP THE CITY

The Spokane Six is an example of what’s become known as “middle housing.”

It’s a category that includes duplexes, triplexes, townhouses and other small, low-intensity developments that sit in between single-family homes and large apartment buildings.

Middle housing serves a lot of people’s needs and is “generally more accessible, a little bit more affordable

and a higher quality of living than a big apartment building,” Hutchins says.

Middle housing is often referred to as “missing” because decades of zoning policies have limited where it can be built, instead emphasizing single-family homes.

In Spokane and other cities, advocates have long argued that these restrictive zoning policies constrain housing supply and are a driving force behind America’s housing affordability crisis. Populations grow, after all, and people need places to live.

Spokane’s housing shortage reached a fever pitch at the start of this decade. A report from the Spokane REALTORS found that, between 2016 and 2021, the proportion of the city’s employed population that could afford a median-priced home had decreased from 70% to just 16%.

In 2022, city leaders responded to what the city’s planning director described as a “desperate need for housing” by passing an interim emergency law called “Building Opportunity and Choices for All,” or BOCA.

BOCA dramatically reshaped the city’s zoning laws, making it legal to build duplexes, triplexes and townhouses in all residential parts of the city.

“It just opened up the whole city to the type of development that we wanted to build,” Hutchins, the architect, says. “Instead of competing for multifamily sites with

A house on South Grand Boulevard, center, will be demolished and replaced with a six-unit building called Spokane Six. YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

“SIX, PLEASE,” CONTINUED...

other townhouse builders, we were able to essentially just buy a single-family house and replace it with something that is, granted, a little bigger than a single-family house, but fits in the neighborhood.”

BOCA’s zoning changes went much farther than other Washington cities and was praised across the state for taking a bold, innovative approach to addressing the housing crisis.

“I think Spokane is being more ambitious than most other larger cities in Washington,” says Ryan Packer, who writes about housing and other issues for The Urbanist, a Seattle-based news site. Packer visited Spokane last month to learn more about the city’s housing and transportation policies.

In February, Gov. Jay Inslee visited Spokane to present the city with a “Smart Community Award” for its efforts to tackle housing affordability with BOCA.

“There is no community in the state of Washington that has understood this better and done more about it than Spokane,” Inslee said.

In 2023, the state Legislature passed a law similar to Spokane’s that requires Washington cities to allow missing middle housing in residential areas. The state law allows for sixplexes in any residential area near transit.

In November, Spokane made BOCA permanent with a new law that goes even further than the state — allowing for six units per lot in any residential area.

GENTLE DENSITY

When finished, the Spokane Six will be flanked on both sides by existing single-family houses. The sixplex will be “slightly bigger,” Hutchins says, but will still fit the overall neighborhood feel.

Proposals for new apartments in residential areas are sometimes met with pushback from residents concerned about parking, traffic or “neighborhood character.” But Hutchins hasn’t heard any backlash so far. (“Knock on wood,” he says.)

“We weren’t trying to shock the neighborhood into the future, we were trying to build a simple, sensible, affordable project that makes sense anywhere in the city,” Hutchins says.

A map of units permitted under BOCA shows that new middle housing developments have largely been spread evenly across the city, and that no single neighborhood is set to be dramatically altered by the zoning changes.

“I think it’s clear that Spokane is disproving a lot of the talking points around what happens when you legalize these types of housing,” says Packer, with The Urbanist. “You don’t see transformative, traffic-inducing neighborhood change. It’s really more of a slow build.”

“We weren’t trying to shock the neighborhood into the future, we were trying to build a simple, sensible, affordable project that makes sense anywhere in the city.”

“I think Seattle and a lot of the jurisdictions around Seattle are resting on their laurels a little bit and assuming that the growth they’re seeing is going to continue to be sustainable without making zoning changes,” Packer says. “I think Spokane is showing that the alternate pathway is getting out ahead of these things and opening up more opportunities.”

Spokane’s housing reforms appear to have prompted a major uptick in permits issued for duplexes and other missing middle housing types. But sixplexes like Hutchins’ Spokane Six project remain rare.

The Spokane Six will be three stories tall, with two units per floor. The units will range between about 990 and 1,000 square feet. Rent for two of the units will be below market rate, due to the project receiving the city’s multifamily tax exemption, which gives developers a property tax reduction to incentivize affordable housing.

The sixplex design offers several advantages over larger apartments, Hutchins says. Instead of just one wall being open to the outdoors, the sixplex will have windows on three sides of each unit, allowing every room plentiful views of the outdoors.

“This is just a much more livable scale,” Hutchins says.

Luther Hughes

Maya Jewell

Alexandra Teague

Sharma Shields

Greg Marshall

There were zero sixplex permits issued in 2022, and only two in 2023, says Brian Walker, a spokesperson with the city. The two permits issued in 2023 were part of Greenstone’s Garden District project near the intersection of 29th Avenue and Southeast Boulevard. Greenstone is the developer behind Kendall Yards in the West Central neighborhood.

Another developer applied to build a sixplex in 2023 — for a project called Khinda Townhouses on a lot off North Division Street in North Spokane — but it is still under review. Initial building plans for the Spokane Six were approved in March, but the project is waiting to be issued building permits.

Hutchins hopes the Spokane Six will show that the model is feasible and will create a path for more sixplex development.

“As a way of adding housing to existing neighborhoods, it’s just a great template,” Hutchins says. “We wanted to illustrate how it could be a successful development opportunity, and Spokane was the right place to do it.”

Each of the six units will have two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a dining room, living room, kitchen, laundry area, and a porch with enough space for a table or seating — essentially an extension of the apartment, Hutchins says.

The other big advantage of the design, Hutchins says, is that the building is still compact enough to allow for a parking space for each unit — and a shared backyard.

PERMIT BOOM

Hutchins says the process of development in Spokane has been a breeze compared to Seattle, where his firm also works.

“The planning departments and permitting, they’re much more approachable and accessible,” Hutchins says. “When we had issues, we were able to connect with reviews directly, which was quite empowering.”

In Seattle and some other cities, Hutchins says there are often issues with the various departments that review projects being siloed, or separated, from each other. Not in Spokane.

“One of the great things about Spokane is

there’s an acknowledgement that they have a housing affordability crisis, and they’re being proactive about solving it,” Hutchins says. “I think that’s helped to break down barriers between departments.”

Hutchins says BOCA is a great example of Spokane trying to address the problem, and that he thinks it’s why the city broke so many permitting records last year.

In 2023, the city issued 1,340 residential building permits — the highest number on record since 1995, and a 56% increase over the prior four-year average.

Of the total residential permits, 984 were for multifamily units. The previous record for multifamily units permitted in a year was 506 in 1996.

The city also permitted 37 duplexes last year, which translates to 74 residential units. That’s more than the previous four years combined.

Spokane still needs a lot more housing. The state Department of Commerce estimates that Spokane County will need to build nearly 71,000 units by 2044 to meet population growth.

Mayor Lisa Brown says the challenge of adding more housing was a major topic of conversation during her recent trip to Bosie, a city similar in size to Spokane that has also struggled with housing shortages.

Brown says her transition team made several recommendations about how to encourage housing development, and that she plans to make an announcement soon about changes to permitting processes and incentive structures that she hopes will streamline the process.

“We want more housing downtown, but also in our neighborhoods,” Brown says. “We think there’s more that we can do.” n nates@inlander.com

Last week, we inadvertently ran the wrong readers’ comments for Best Pawn Shop, and a few incorrect runners up for Best Pilates. Here are the correct ones.

READER COMMENTS

BEST PAWN SHOP

Pawn 1

“Honest and ethical!” (Margaret H.); “Pawn 1 was at least willing to listen to the details of the jewelry before giving me a quote — and higher than any of the other pawn shops around.” (Vicki S.); “Local!” (Shirley S.)

2nd PLACE: Double Eagle Pawn; 3rd PLACE: Axels Pawn

BEST PILATES

Precision Pilates

2nd PLACE: Core Pilates and Wellness; 3rd PLACE: Pilates Evolve Studio; NORTH IDAHO’S BEST: Reform Studio, Coeur d’Alene

A rendering of the Spokane Six. COURTESY CAST ARCHITECTURE

Life and the Library

Spokane Public Library and Thrive International collab will provide refugee housing in the latest evolution of library services

BY SAMANTHA WOHLFEIL

Spokane Public Library continues to adopt the most innovative ideas for what a library can be, with the latest plan bringing forward a unique partnership that’s set to build library amenities alongside apartments for refugees in Spokane.

Starting later this year, Thrive International will begin building 45 to 55 apartments in the Nevada/Lidgerwood neighborhood on a vacant piece of property the library has owned since the 1990s.

As a nonprofit, Thrive helps refugees relocate and become part of the community. Half of the new apartments will be designated for refugees at affordable housing rates, while the other half will be rented out at market rates to help create a sense of community.

In addition to housing, there will be a public event space operated by the library that the public can rent out for free, and a 24/7 library kiosk. Outside, visitors will find a playground and a geodesic dome classroom space inspired by a project in Denmark. Community members will be able to learn how to garden in a greenhouse setting and take other creative classes from the library’s staff and partners.

Libraries in cities like Chicago and New York have built similar public-private partnership apartment projects, but this will be the first known project specifically intended to help refugees.

Thrive currently offers temporary housing for refugees out of a former hotel in downtown. Knowing they wanted to offer the next step in stability and independence, the nonprofit started looking for vacant real estate to build on, which led them to ask the city if there were any potential properties, says Thrive Executive Director Mark Finney.

The city pointed the nonprofit to the library system. Over the years, Spokane Public Library had tried to sell

the Nevada Street land, but nothing could be built over a sewer line that runs through the middle of the site, says Caris O’Malley, deputy director for Spokane Public Library.

“We’ve had several sales that were posted that didn’t go through for various reasons,” O’Malley says.

In soliciting community feedback for the library’s 2018 bond, the library system identified 24/7 kiosks as an important way to expand book access throughout the city. But they had struggled to find a good place in that area to put one where people would be drawn to use it, O’Malley says. Just as the library started to design an indoor community gardening space that could bring people to the Nevada Street location, Thrive reached out, and the plans clicked into place.

“We realized that we had some mission alignment,” O’Malley says. “Libraries aren’t trying to solve housing problems. Libraries aren’t trying to provide indoor play spaces for children or meeting rooms. But we know those are all needs in Spokane, so when we take efforts to move the needle on those, we end up moving the needle in the library world, too, and catch a lot of attention that way.”

In March, the library board agreed to sell the land to Thrive for $10. The libraries in turn will pay $10 per year on a 50-year lease to continue using the public event room in the apartments, and a 50-year easement will maintain library access to the gardening and classroom spaces on site, O’Malley says.

Thrive is working with private investors to push their project along quickly (rather than waiting for federal or state resources), and their team was able to see past the site restrictions and design multiple apartment buildings with a parking lot that’s allowed over the utility line.

“Our process is unique, using social impact investors as opposed to the traditional government-funded approaches,” Finney says. “Part of our broader vision is to create environments where people can quickly move from surviving to thriving.”

Whereas Thrive hopes refugees spend maybe six to nine months stabilizing, finding work and getting accustomed to the cultural differences while staying at the hotel space downtown, the goal for the new apartments is to offer a more independent housing environment for two to five years, as they work toward citizenship and potentially homeownership, Finney says.

“It’s kind of like the difference between a skilled nursing facility and independent living,” Finney says. “The staff is more hands-on in one place, and in the second place you’re more independent, but the resources are still there for you to access.”

The project is the latest cutting edge service expansion for Spokane’s libraries, which in recent years also started offering things like studio recording spaces and room for artist residencies. There will always be books in the library’s offerings, but the common thread among the many expanded services is community connection, says Amanda Donovan, director of marketing and communications for Spokane Public Library.

“If I was going to predict the future, we’d be looking for more ways to create connections within the community, opportunities to be together, to connect with resources that you might not be able to afford on your own,” Donovan says. “That’s really where I think we’re headed as libraries. Less a place for quiet studying, which of course that’s still available, and more a place to connect, learn and grow as a community.” n

This geodesic dome in Aarhus, Denmark, was the inspiration for a new dome the Spokane Public Library is planning. WIKIMEDIA PHOTO

Happier Teens

A state survey shows that students are happier than they’ve been in decades. Plus, a group that helped raise graduation rates turns its focus to child care; and police shootings already outpace all of last year.

BY INLANDER STAFF

This week in good news: Students in Washington state are less depressed than they’ve been in the last two decades, according to the biennial 2023 Healthy Youth Survey. The survey, which tracks state and county data on student health, also found that suicidal thoughts among 10th graders in Spokane County (18.1%) are the lowest they’ve been since 2012 (17.8%). However, LGBTQ+ 10th graders in the county are more than twice as likely to contemplate committing suicide than their cisgender, heterosexual peers. “There are many school-aged LGBTQ+ youth in elementary, middle and high school that are still living in the closet because they’re afraid either of harassment by their peers or … they’re not prepared to deal with the negative consequences at home,” Lambert House Executive Director Ken Shulman told Crosscut. More than 200,000 students from grades six-12 across the state’s 39 counties filled out the 2023 survey. (COLTON RASANEN)

KIDS ARE THE FUTURE

Priority Spokane has identified child care as its newest project to make meaningful change in the community. Specifically, the group will focus on expanding child care capacity to boost the local economy. Born out of Eastern Washington University’s Community Indicators Initiative (now called Spokane Trends), which collects data to understand needs in Spokane, Priority Spokane brings together government agencies, nonprofits, businesses and community leaders to identify “priorities” that can be fixed in three to five years. From 2009 to 2014, the group successfully grew Spokane’s high school graduation rate from below 60% to more than 80%. Priority Spokane then addressed youth homelessness from 2014 to 2019. Since late 2022, the group of 27 member organizations has held dozens of community meetings to identify four new priorities, and last month it selected child care as its newest focus. (The other priorities are mental health access, expanding the tree canopy, and alternative housing options.) Next, they’ll establish a task force to change child care access significantly over the next three years.

(SAMANTHA WOHLFEIL)

MORE POLICE SHOOTINGS

An unusually violent year for local police grew more deadly last week, when local law enforcement shot and killed two people, bringing the total number of people shot by law enforcement in Spokane County this year to six Five people were shot by police in Spokane County in all of 2023. On March 29, the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office was called to help Stevens County detectives attempting to serve a warrant in Deer Park to a suspect who had failed to appear in court on a charge of first-degree rape of a child. The Spokane County Sheriff’s Office says the man was uncooperative. After an hourslong SWAT standoff, deputies entered the house, and shot and killed the man during a confrontation. Three deputies who fired shots were placed on administrative leave, as is standard practice for local law enforcement agencies. Two days later, on March 31, the Spokane Police Department responded to a house fire call in the West Central neighborhood. Police suspected that the fire was the result of arson, and tried to interview a suspect. The department says that when police tried to detain the suspect, he attempted to fire a gun he’d concealed on his body. Officers returned fire, and the man died at the scene. Two officers were placed on administrative leave. (NATE SANFORD) n

Author Jess Walter leads the orchestra through his stories as they set the soundtrack to scenes he narrates from his bestselling novels.

WARNER

Provisions, Prohibitions and Regulations

Idaho Gov. Brad Little has already signed more than 200 bills into law this year as the state’s legislative session trudges on

BY COLTON RASANEN

The length of Idaho’s legislative sessions has never been set in stone because there are no legal or constitutional requirements to do so. Often a session ends sometime in March and April, but can technically last as long as it needs to — in 2021 lawmakers were in session for 311 days from Jan. 11 to Nov. 17.

This year, legislators set a lofty goal of ending the session by its 75th day — March 22. However, it’s April, and one handful of bills were introduced last week and another handful are on the calendar for a second and third reading in the state’s House of Representatives,

The law received bipartisan support with a 30-4 vote in the Senate on March 5, and a 64-2 vote in the House on March 14.

Both laws go into effect on July 1, 2024.

Idaho’s Republican supermajority continued to fight against policies around diversity this session with the passage of Senate Bill 1274. The law, which passed along party lines, bans public universities in the state from asking for a “diversity statement as part of an admissions process, employment application process, hiring

Setting

in a form of synthetic media now have a way to legally prevent it from being published again. These candidates can also seek damages in court against whoever produced the content.

It will also require any synthetic media to be thoroughly disclosed. If the media is a video, the disclosure must be on screen for the entire duration. Disclosures for audio must be read at the beginning and end of the message, and if it’s longer than two minutes, it must be read throughout the recording.

HB 664 passed through the House and Senate with bipartisan support, with only Republicans voting against it. The law went into effect immediately after Little signed it on March 25.

Another measure, House Bill 575, took aim at AI abuses, creating penalties for people who disseminate sexually explicit synthetic material without consent of the person portrayed in the media. The bill makes it a misdemeanor to disclose explicit synthetic media if it’s meant to “annoy, terrify, threaten, intimidate, offend, humiliate or degrade an identifiable person.” Repeat offenders could be charged with a felony and face up to 10 years in prison and a $25,000 fine.

The measure passed through the House almost unanimously — four representatives were absent — and through the Senate unanimously. Like almost every other law passed this session, HB 575 becomes effective by July 1. n

Preparing the city for a world’s fair wasn’t easy — but locals joined together to save the clock tower and bring a bit of Michigan to the Inland Northwest

By Bill YOuNGs

There are many stories within the story of Expo ’74 — some of conflict and some of cooperation, all driving toward making Spokane the smallest city on earth ever to host a world fair. Success was by no means certain.

As King Cole, president of Expo, remembered: “We not only had some impossible tasks, but we had some impossible timetables.”

Two such challenges in the months leading up to the fair’s opening day were deciding what to do with the historic railway terminals on the exposition grounds — and furnishing the many exhibits on the fair site, including

the Ford Pavilion’s waterfall, stream, mountain and tents that touched on the theme of camping.

TEARING DOWN

The first step in building up the new park by the falls was to reduce millions of pounds of iron, wood, stone, and glass to rubble. Some of the rubble could be reused: tens of thousands of bricks and hundreds of tons of iron. Some became fill for the park itself, and some was trucked away to dump sites outside of Spokane. The demolition began on June 1, 1972. “They set it up for a

little ceremony beneath the trestles,” Mayor David Rodgers recalled. The first target was a row of sheds. The mayor and Bill Quinn, a railroad executive, pulled on a line rigged to a wall, and it tumbled over. A wrecking ball then began pummeling the buildings, and bulldozers scraped up the rubble. The ceremony had one hitch: after a few successful whacks, the wrecking ball fell off its line with a loud “plunk.” Despite that accident, the mood was cheerful. “It was a kick-off, getting rid of all of that industrial clutter that was down there. And that was what the city was really trying to do.”

BOok ExcErpT

EDITOR’S NOTE:

Bill Youngs first published The Fair and the Falls in 1996, and it quickly became a must-have on the bookshelf for anyone interested in Expo ’74 or the history of Spokane itself. It also quickly went out of print and was available only to those willing to engage with Ebay or a rare book collector. Now, just in time for this year’s Expo 50th festivities, Youngs has republished the book. And he has allowed us to excerpt two sections, both from Chapter 14, “Building the Fair.” The first looks at what it took to change an industrial landscape into a jewel of an urban park, all the while preserving a bit of the past. The second goes deep into one local professor’s work to bring the Ford Pavilion to reality.

The work of historic preservationists saved the Great Northern Clock Tower, which stands amid demolition and construction 397 days before the fair’s opening day. COURTESY OF THE NORTHWEST MUSEUM OF ARTS AND CULTURE

“BUILDING EXPO,” CONTINUED...

During the subsequent months the wreckers tore down the Union Pacific trestles, the railroad tracks on Havermale Island, a Travelodge Motel, an asphalt plant, a crematory, the industrial laundry on Canada Island, old buildings on Skid Road (a blighted part of town on what is now Spokane Falls Boulevard), three railroad bridges over the river, old warehouses, and two Spokane landmarks: the Union Pacific and Great Northern depots. In November 1972, Jack Roberts, a reporter for the Spokesman-Review described the site: “Havermale Island’s sinking skyline, slammed for weeks by wrecking balls, is taking on the tired, desolate look of a bomb-gutted section of World War II London. The island, which is the heart of the 100-acre Expo site, is a mass of twisted structural steel, broken chunks of concrete, railroad gondola cars being loaded with salvage, huge cranes poking skyward and piles of nondescript debris.”

During the spring of 1973, one year before opening day, new forms began to emerge on the islands and the riverbanks. Graders recontoured the land, and foundations were laid for the opera house, the United States Pavilion, and other structures that would make up the world’s fair. One historic landmark by the falls, an old mill, survived the changes of the Expo era. The building was transformed into modern offices, restaurants, and shops. The “Flour Mill,” as it was known, was the lone survivor of the many mills that had once flanked the river. The railroad stations met another fate.

Although most citizens were enthusiastic about the new park, many regretted the loss of the depots. They formed an organization called SOS, Save Our Stations, and worked towards retaining at least one as a railroad museum. A debate over the fate of the stations raged in

Spokane’s newspapers and in letters to the Expo board. Nineteen members of the Spokane Fine Arts Council wrote a letter to Expo’s president, King Cole, with copies to city officials, urging the preservation of the Union Pacific Depot; they used the well-worn arguments of environmentalism in defense of the station:

The creative efforts of an earlier generation which provided the craftsmen and building materials to construct this fine old building should not be wasted by the expedient acts of a later generation who would destroy this structure in the name of “Ecology.” It is the responsibility of the city of Spokane and the Expo planners to resist the temporary shortcut by removing an “old” building to provide a site for temporary “low cost” exhibition space.

It is the planner’s challenge to be creative enough to incorporate the old with the new — it has been successfully executed in many large and small-scale architectural projects .... Recycle the existing building to provide a cultural center for the visual arts and crafts.

King Cole, Expo’s architect Tom Adkison, and the city were bombarded with letters proposing various uses for the stations. The Inland Empire Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society argued that “at least one of the depot structures within the Expo ’74 site should be preserved and restored to commemorate Spokane’s railroad heritage.” The chair of a local group called Citizens Against Residential Freeways suggested that the Union Station should be converted into a bus depot. Gerald J. Quinn, who chaired the Save Our Stations committee and attempted to get the issue on the ballot, emphasized the “aesthetic and cultural values connected with the two buildings.”

For more than a year after planning began for Expo, the fate of the stations was undetermined. Early site maps and models included both depots.

On May 26, 1971, Cliff Warden, assistant director for the fair, wrote to a preservationist: “We are asking that this landmark be retained if possible.” On Jan. 26, 1972, King Cole wrote, “considerable time and effort has been spent by the city and Expo on seeking ways to retain classic old structures.” Preservationists drafted applications to include the depots on the National Register of Historic Places. The Union Pacific Depot was the only major station in the region “constructed in the Grand Union Terminal motif” and was the location where a golden spike ceremony had taken place, on Sept. 15, 1914. The Great Northern Depot was described as “one of the finest examples of railroad architecture in the United States.” Noting the relationship between the two terminals on opposite sides of the river’s south channel, the preservationists ventured a comparison to Venice. “The two [depots], when viewed together, form a scene reminiscent of the Piazza del Duomo in Italy, except for the substitution of a reflecting river pool in place of the paved court.” They particularly praised the Great Northern tower:

The clock tower gracing the structure is perhaps the most distinguished feature of the building. Rising over 155 feet above ground level, the tower is an established member of the Spokane skyline. .... The nine-foot-diameter clock-faces make it the largest timepiece in the Pacific Northwest. The glass dials total over 1,400 pounds. The zinc pendulum rod weighs nearly 500 pounds and is 8-1/2 feet in length. The total weight comes to 7,050 pounds for the entire piece. The clock was placed in service at high noon on June 20, 1902.

Despite such praise, many Spokanites found little to admire in the buildings. The two professional historians on the committee that had drawn up the National Register nomination ultimately voted against retaining the

Two satirical preservation groups — Save Our Laundry and Keep Our Falls Foamy — unsuccessfuly sought to save the industrial laundry on what was Canada Island.

stations. One of them, Albert Culverwell, the director of Cheney Cowles Museum, wrote Tom Adkison explaining his reservations about depot preservation. He thought that the river itself was important “esthetically and historically.” The falls “attracted our first people here and caused them to remain. The railroads came afterward and brought about an increase in our population. It is very important, however, that we recognize what caused our first people to settle here.” In losing the depots, the city would gain fuller access to its essential resource, the river.

Others questioned whether the depots were, in fact, notable historical buildings. In the letters to the editor section of the Spokesman-Review, one correspondent noted that the city actually had three old railroad depots, so they could easily afford to tear down the two by the river. The old Northern Pacific terminal, several blocks south, would be sufficient. Moreover, it was the oldest of the three stations anyway, having been built in 1891. Other writers questioned the aesthetic value of the Great Northern Station. “That is an ugly building. If it were of an earlier, particularly beautiful period, I could understand trying to keep it, but it is not!” One writer spoofed the Save Our Stations movement by claiming to have founded an organization dedicated to saving the industrial laundry on Canada Island. “Think what it would have been like,” he argued, “not to have had plenty of clean towels in the early mining camps!” He reported that his group, SOL (for Save Our Laundry) was planning to join with a like-minded group called KOFF, Keep Our Falls Foamy. Mimicking a line from Oliver Wendell Holmes’s poem, “Old Ironsides,” the writer proclaimed: “Arise, oh, clean-minded citizenry! Don’t tear our tattered enzymes down!” In local folklore, SOL became Save Our Industrial Laundry, or SOIL, adding to the spoof on SOS.

In the face of substantial opposition, the Save Our Stations movement placed two depot preservation measures on the ballot for the fall of 1972 and blanketed the city with pro-depot signs. The voters were asked to preserve the stations and to adopt a $1.491 million tax levy to restore and maintain the buildings. A few years later, when historical preservation enjoyed greater support in Spokane and around the United States, the measures might have passed. But in 1972, the year of the wrecking ball, the urge to remove the buildings that “encrusted the ecological heart” of the city — in Tom Foley’s phrase — was as formidable as the desire had been a century before to harness the falls with mills, bridges, and railroads. The Save Our Stations campaign was hampered by Spokane’s traditional suspicion of new taxes, and it also ran counter to the city’s newfound commitment to building a park by the river.

The depot ballot measure resulted in a resounding defeat for the preservationists. The voters turned down the proposal to save the stations by a three-to-one margin, and they defeated the levy measure to support preservation by six-to-one. As a concession to history, the fair builders decided, however, to retain the old Great Northern clock tower. Vern Johnson recalled that the “railroad buffs” were at him constantly and he felt that something had to be retained.

Finally I got tired of it, and I said, “I think that I can get you the tower

Save Our Stations’ Gerald “Jerry” Quinn in 2021. YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

with a feeling for Spokane’s history, this act of vandalism will create a reservoir of bitterness and resentment that will last long after Expo ’74 has come and gone.

If Expo ’74 had been held 10 or 15 years later, history would have presented more examples of depot preservation. But Spokane’s architectural preservationists of 1972 were defeated by an aesthetic which placed a premium on nature. Eventually grass would grow where the stations stood. The six-to-one vote against funding the restoration of the stations was, in part, a measure of public support for the park by the falls. The wide difference in funding for the two movements was another sign of the times. Donations of $5,000 and $10,000 were common for the exposition, while typical donations to Save Our Stations were between $2 and $10.

In 1883 Spokane had greeted the arrival of its first trains with joy. In 1972 the demolition of the structures that separated the city from the river was just as inspiring. The Union Pacific trestles — the infamous “Chinese Wall” — were removed with almost no regrets. Many years later, King Cole described his “defining moment” during the construction. One day he drove down Grand Boulevard from Spokane’s South Hill and curved around Sacred Heart Hospital to Washington Street. “There had always been these railroad tracks cutting me off from the view of the north side of town and of the river and everything else. The day that I actually drove down, and they weren’t there, I felt like, if nothing happens, if the fair didn’t happen, if I died, whatever happened, what I really wanted to do the most of all was to get rid of those damn tracks.”

THE FORD PAVILION

Bob Carriker sits in his office at Gonzaga University, reminiscing about his experiences as a staff member at Expo ’74. Shortly before the fair, Carriker took a leave of absence from his position in the History Department at Gonzaga to serve as assistant manager of the Ford Pavilion. He remembers those days with a fondness bordering on regret. During his months in a position that involved both public relations and management, he glimpsed another world, far different than the day-today life of an academic.

“I loved that job,” he says. “I was in this thing up to my armpits, and it was great. It was a terrific opportunity for me to do something real.” Carriker’s feelings are a measure of the power Expo ’74 had to attract citizens of various backgrounds. Here was a chance to be part of a world-class event. Carriker’s Expo experience illustrates that attraction, and his memories of people he worked with along the way illustrate the energizing power of the exposition.

When Ford announced that it was planning to exhibit at Expo ’74, the company sent representatives to Spokane to begin planning their pavilion. They contacted Bob Witter, the 17-year-old high school student who had been pestering them for employment, and they promised him a job. Bob Carriker, another Ford admirer, contacted the company’s agents in Spokane and arranged a meeting. Taking a line from the popular musical, The Music Man, Carriker told Ford they should hire him because he “knew the territory.”

on that Great Northern Station down there, but I can’t get you another damn thing.” And so I went to the board the next time I got the chance, and I said, “I’ve just got to get rid of these guys. They’re taking all my time, and I promised them that I could give them the tower off of the Great Northern Railroad station.”

Rod Lindsay said, “Can you do that? Will it stand up?”

And I said, “Sure it will stand up. It’s got a good foundation on it.”

“Well,” he said. “Let’s do it.”

The city retained the tower and fixed the clock so that, for the first time in years, it worked. But that was cold comfort to the preservationists. When he heard about the plan to save only the tower, John D. Konen, local secretary of the National Railroad Historical Society complained, “We contend that the tower configuration would have the stigma of a tombstone rather than a monument. Frankly, we would rather see the whole structure demolished than allow the Great

Northern tower to taunt the heritage of this fine city.”

Possibly the most poignant of all the protests against destroying the stations came from Ben Harney, an accountant who had served as treasurer of Save Our Stations. He wrote Mayor Rodgers, telling him that he had supported Expo ’74 from the beginning and had even signed a note promising to help underwrite any losses from the fair. Additionally, he said, “For the first time in my life, I sat on my hands while the city passed a B & O tax,” funding the fair. On June 23, 1972, when he wrote his letter, the demolition of the trestles nearby had already damaged the station.

A few minutes ago, I drove past the Union Station, and noticed a hole in the corner of the building where demolition had begun. Until now, I don’t believe I really accepted the fact that Expo ’74 would actually go through with the destruction of these fine old buildings. I am now ashamed that I did not actively oppose Expo ’74 from the beginning. Among those of us

Carriker’s interest in working on a pavilion at Expo ’74 began with his recognition of the potential impact of the fair on the city. He considered Trent Avenue, Skid Road, and the trestles “a dull, disgusting” part of downtown Spokane. Trent was “really industrial and ugly. There were derelicts on the street. There were shops that catered to derelicts. The parking underneath the tracks reminded you of Chicago.” Carriker remembered his first impression when he learned that Expo would change the face of Spokane. “When they put it in the paper, when they drew little white lines around the photographs of the city and said, ‘This is going to change; this is going to be an Expo grounds,’ I couldn’t conceive that all of that building and mortar and brick and steel was going to come down. It was like a dream come true.”

Carriker persuaded Ford to hire him as their local contact in the planning stages of the fair. The actual design work and much of the construction for the exposition took place back in Michigan. At first Carriker worked for Exhibit

The U.S. Pavilion rises. COURTESY THE NW MAC

“BUILDING EXPO,” CONTINUED...

Design Company, which often developed shows for Ford. They came up with the basic exhibit and called on Carriker to help flesh out the details. Later he would help manage the pavilion.

The basic plan called for a display on the theme of camping. The elements of the exhibit would include a stream, a mountain, a waterfall, and various kinds of tents and camping gear — all assembled under a large dome. The pavilion would be erected on grounds that had seen artificial rivers and waterfalls earlier, during the Sportsmen’s Shows. The “mountain,” 22 feet high, was built in Wayne, Michigan, near Ford headquarters. Most of the tents were high-tech shelters borrowed from a sporting goods company in New York City. And to add a touch of Ford history, the company planned to send Henry Ford’s own station wagon, a classic “woody,” to Spokane along with a videotape and a display of Henry Ford camping.

The Exhibit Design Company assigned Bob Carriker to handle some of the more challenging details of the project. They wanted a genuine Conestoga wagon, a genuine Indian teepee, and a good facsimile of an Indian horse. Carriker was assistant director of the Museum of Native American Culture in Spokane as well as a professor at Gonzaga. Through his contacts, he was able to track down and borrow a buffalo-skin teepee from an Indian woman in Oregon, and a Conestoga wagon from a museum in Yakima.

The horse was more elusive, but Carriker spotted a likely candidate one day while driving past a saddle shop on Sprague Avenue in Spokane. There he saw a horse made of plaster-of-Paris, and “it had deteriorated quite a bit.” Carriker thought it would be perfect, however, for “the Indian motif.” Ford had given him a generous allowance for acquiring the necessary artifacts to complete the exhibit, and so Carriker was in a position to buy the horse and pay for its restoration. He trucked it off to an artist who thought he would improve the horse by coating it in epoxy. But the artist lost confidence in his ability to do the job, and passed the commission on to another artist, who also grew faint of heart. “Now I’ve got this horse, and I’ve got a place for it,” Carriker recalled, “but I’ve got nobody that can paint it so it won’t look like a nag.”

In Carriker’s estimation, the solution provided an example of the way that ordinary men and women discovered untapped resources in themselves when faced with challenges provided by the world’s fair.

My neighbor is a welder, the head of maintenance for School District #81, and he can do anything. I mean, he can build cars. He can build houses. He can repair anything. He can weld

anything. He can weld underwater. He can weld standing on his head, and now he showed he could mix epoxy.

He epoxied the horse into a permanent finish. And then I went to the library and got books on Appaloosa horses. We picked out one we liked as a model, and he actually airbrush-painted the horse, and it was perfect. It was widely referred to as one of the best models ever of an Appaloosa horse, and it was made in the garage of the man who was a welder. That’s the sort of thing where the people of Spokane had resources and talents they didn’t know they had until all of these companies came in town and gave them a chance to show it.

The tent brought a different kind of challenge. The hides were available, but Carriker needed poles. He came to realize that “lodgepole pine” was more than a picturesque name. Carriker spotted a likely grove of trees outside of Spokane and asked the landowner if he could cut about fifteen lodgepoles. He offered to pay, but on hearing that the trees would be used at Expo, the owner insisted that Carriker take them free of charge. “This was something he could do to contribute. Now he could bring his grandchildren to the Ford Motor Company exhibit, and there’s a little bit of him and his land inside that exhibit. People in the area loved it, and I was the recipient of that love — I mean, just like the welder who put together a horse, this was a guy who wanted to contribute.”

Carriker also needed wood for fencing the pathway inside the Ford Pavilion. The company that made the rails insisted on giving them to Carriker, since they were going to be used for Spokane’s exposition.

Meanwhile the design company had completed its work and shipped the Ford exhibit to Spokane in an 18-wheel truck, accompanied by four employees to help set it up. Carriker went one Sunday with his wife and children to a restaurant called Faddy’s on Trent Avenue, where he liked to have an omelet and watch the work on the fairgrounds across the street. “One day I went to breakfast, and suddenly there was a geodesic dome where there hadn’t been one before. The Exhibit Design Company had come into town and put up the Ford dome.”

frameworkofSpokane’sentirehistory.We learnaboutthetown’searliestfairsamong thevirginpinesandunderrailwaytrestles asapreludetothestoryofitsmagnificent

firstitbeckonstown-builderJamesGlover withitsexistentialbeauty–anditspoten-

houses.Duringthe1950ssuburbanmalls

18-wheeler to Yakima to pick up the Conestoga wagon. The truck was barreling along the highway back to Spokane with the wagon inside when a police car pulled it over. The officer was apparently one of few people in the Inland Northwest who was not imbued with the spirit of Expo. He gave the driver a ticket for transporting goods within Washington state without a special license.

Inside the Ford Pavilion, the men from Michigan did most of the work. They installed seating and a projection booth for a small theater. They dug a channel through the asphalt floor of the pavilion and coated it with epoxy-like a horizontal water slide to accommodate the stream that would circulate through the pavilion. They set up the man-made mountain from Michigan, and attached a pump. Finding that the pump was too noisy, they expertly packed it in sand so it worked quietly. With their work completed, the men left for home, returning again just before opening day to run final tests.

In the meantime, Bob Carriker made an additional contribution to the exposition. There was an Indian artist in Kalispell, Montana, whom Carriker knew from his appearances at western art shows in Spokane. He had once given one of the Carriker children a picture painted on a rabbit skin. Could he raise a teepee in the traditional native way? The Indian said he could and agreed to drive to Spokane to help out. He let Carriker pay for his transportation, but refused any other payment.

He and Carriker went to the Ford Pavilion one evening after the workers had left. They were joined by a Jesuit priest from Gonzaga. The interior of the pavilion was not yet illuminated. “We had to hook up all kinds of extension cords and then lights and lay them on the ground. It had an eerie feeling.” With the Indian’s guidance, the men carefully raised the teepee. Carriker explained, “There are spiritual connotations in the direction that you set this up and the order in which the pieces go up.”

wastawdryandfinanciallystrapped.What todo?Atthispoint,in1964,localcitizens hiredKingCole,whoturnedouttobeoneofthemostvisionaryandcharismaticurbanplannersofhistime. ColeledthemovementthatenabledSpokanetobecomethesmallestcityintheworldtoholdaworld’sfair. Additionally,Expo’74wasthefirstworldfairtoembraceanenvironmentaltheme.Andtheenvironment,notablytheSpokaneRiver,thrivedduringandafterthefair.Withurbanclutterpeeledback,thefallsoftheriver nowthunderthroughtheheartofRiverfrontPark–arguablythemostarrestingriverscapeinanyAmericancity. Thisisthetriumphantstoryofthefairandthefalls.

Carriker enjoyed working with the four Italian-American craftsmen who had come along to set up the exhibit. They treated him to good meals, and they knew their job. The one bad moment came when they took their

AuthorBillYoungs DrawingbyCecilyMoon BookdesignbyRusselDavis

Soon the job was done; the tent was standing erect, and another milepost was passed in the building of the fair. A genuine teepee — held up by genuine lodge pole pines and raised in a traditional ceremony — stood beside an epoxied horse near an epoxied stream, under a man-made dome in a corporate pavilion. All in all, it was an apt symbol for the diverse forces then at work building a world’s fair in Spokane. n

Beginning in mid-April, The Fair and the Falls will be available at Auntie’s Bookstore for $29.95.

The Ford Pavilion sat in what is now known as Red Wagon Meadow between Stevens and Washington streets.

EWU

Historian Bill Youngs talks about writing the definitive account of Expo ’74 and what lessons the World’s Fair holds for Spokane today

BY NATE SANFORD

In 1996, Bill Youngs published The Fair and the Falls, a mammoth book recounting the story behind the Expo ’74 World’s Fair and how it shaped the city of Spokane.

Over the course of four years, Youngs, a history professor at Eastern Washington University, worked with a team of student assistants to conduct hundreds of interviews and pore over thousands of archival documents. The final product became the biggest book ever written about an American World’s Fair, Youngs says.

“That was blood, sweat and tears from yours truly, but also from a magnificent set of EWU students,” he says. “I think of it as kind of a small mirror of what happened with Expo itself — getting the community behind the book made possible a book that would not otherwise have been possible.”

The tome is a landmark account of Spokane history, but getting a copy has become difficult — and expensive — in recent years.

Now, with the city preparing to celebrate the fair’s 50th anniversary, Youngs is republishing the book as a paperback that will be widely available through Gray Dog Press.

We talked to Youngs last week about what it was like to experience the 1974 World’s Fair, the writing and research process, and what Expo ’74 can teach us about Spokane today. His answers have been lightly edited for length and clarity.

INLANDER: When did you first become interested in Expo?

YOUNGS: In 1972, I was in the job market as a historian. I had a job offer from a school in Virginia, and then also Eastern. And one of the things that appealed to me about Eastern was the fact that there was going to be a World’s Fair here, and I felt like any small city that can have a World’s Fair is pretty impressive.

The World’s Fair happened shortly after you came to Spokane — what was your impression of it?

I was very impressed. I thought, among other things, it’s

great to have a World Fair at your doorstep. And to be able to pick your time to go in when it’s not going to be too crowded.

I had twins, they were about 4 years old when Expo started. It’s fun doing something like that with children because of course everything is exciting to them. Things like the Garbage Goat, which is still there. My children just loved to go up there with a piece of paper and watch the Garbage Goat chew it up.

What did the research and interview process for the book look like?

It was a combination of things. One was often kind of word of mouth. People were aware of the book, and they’d say, “Oh, you ought to talk to this person or that person.” I talked to three mayors, and then they would suggest somebody in the planning department of the city.

But also we did a lot of advertising. We had shirts that said “Expo ’74, share your story.” There would be six or eight research assistants running around in the summer at one place or another with these shirts.

We also put ads in the newspaper saying “Expo ’74, share your experience,” and we gave a phone number. And I had the phone hooked up to a recorder so even if none of us could answer, it would just say “This is the Expo hotline, please share your story.” And that way we got not only the movers and shakers of the fair, but also a lot of other people that were basically fairgoers with very interesting stories.

Was there anything that surprised you during the research process?

There were just a lot of things, given the fact that it’s such a big book — there’s just a tremendous number of details that I didn’t know about. And it was beautiful the way one thing kind of led to another.

Things like the basic funding structure of the fair. There was a bond election that failed, I think it got 57% approval, but it needed 60%. And it almost looked like the fair was dead in the water at that point. Until the business community got together and said, “We’ll tax

ourselves,” with what’s called a business and occupation tax. I remember one banker saying to me, “To business folk, a business and occupation tax is like a skunk at a garden party.” People hated to do it, but they wanted to see the fair happen.

On pretty much every page is something that just was not common knowledge in terms of the details.

The book is really long and detailed. How did you approach writing and trying to structure it?

There was a big room in a dorm that wasn’t being used very much. That summer I think I had nine or 10 research assistants. And staged around the room, we had boxes and papers representing different chapters. We had this all on blackboards around the walls: chapter one, chapter two, chapter three. People would come in daily with what they’d learned, and we knew just where to put it.

I remember in particular, these two students came in and they found that there was a whole pile of notes opposing the environmental [Garbage] Goat. And why would you do that? Because that’s kind of an icon today and it’s just such fun. But various goat owners wrote in and said, “We don’t like the idea that you’re representing goats as eating trash.” I remember one in particular, a kid maybe 8 or 10 years old saying, “I have a goat named Sally, and this is insulting to Sally because Sally doesn’t eat trash!”

What lessons do you think Expo ’74 can teach us about Spokane today?

I think the most important lesson to take from that is just the fact of what happens when you have a can-do spirit that ends up affecting an entire populace. It was first urban planners and city officials that were promoting it. But bit by bit, as it became more of reality, you had the entire community supporting it.

If there’s an enduring lesson, beyond the physical aspect of having that park and having a river released from the burden of railroad tracks over it, it’s the lesson that people working together can do pretty amazing things. n

EXPO 50th ANNIVERSARY EVENTS

IT HAPPENED HERE: EXPO ’74 FIFTY YEARS AFTER

The Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture, tucked away in the historic Browne’s Addition neighborhood, has been through it all. Founded in 1916, the MAC existed through the World’s Fair, and is still around to celebrate the event’s Golden Jubilee. The museum is curating a big exhibition, titled “It Happened Here: Expo ’74 Fifty Years After,” which opens May 4 (50 years since opening day) and aims to revisit the historical roots of Expo ’74 by incorporating recognizable elements from the fair’s built environment through artifacts and archival materials.

May 4-Jan. 26, 2025; Tue-Sun from 10 am-5 pm, $7-$12, Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture, northwestmuseum.org

50TH ANNIVERSARY OPENING CELEBRATION

Expo ’74 was a celebration of things to come and included informational exhibits about the environment, cultural performances and much more, so it’s only fitting that the 50th anniversary celebration is kicked off in the same fashion. Gather under Riverfront Park’s Pavilion (a structure gifted to Spokane by the federal government for the World’s Fair) and watch live performances from arts, cultural, tribal and community organizations. There will also be speakers, lots of international cuisine to try, and plenty of activities for attendees of all ages.

Sat, May 4 from 3-9 pm, free, Pavilion at Riverfront, visitspokane.com

HISTORIC WALKING TOURS

The World’s Fair played a pivotal role in the creation and development of Spokane’s beloved Riverfront Park. These walking tours invite participants to step back in time and tour the park on foot while learning about the transformation of the area and how Expo forever changed the landscape of the city. Select Saturdays at 10 am from May 11-June 15, free, Spokane Visitor Information Center, visitspokane.com

COMMUNITY STAGE AND VENDOR VILLAGE

Cultural, tribal and arts performances continue into the summer in Riverfront Park. Experience panels, dances and more from community members and organizations. Adjacent to the stage is the Vendor Village which features a variety of local artisans and handcrafters.

Select Saturdays at 11 am from May 25-June 22, free, Rotary Fountain in Riverfront Park, visitspokane.com

— MADISON PEARSON

For the full schedule of Expo 50th events, head to visitspokane.com/expo-50

PRINTMAKING

Make a RK

Spokane Print Fest invites the community to participate in a slate of printmaking events throughout April

BY MADISON PEARSON AND SUMMER SANDSTROM

As the saying goes, April showers bring May flowers, and then the long-awaited summer finally arrives in the Inland Northwest. For some, though, April is even more magical: a celebration of paper, ink, books and art.

Spokane Print & Publishing’s sixth annual Print Fest is a monthlong event of all things printmaking. This year’s schedule is jampacked with workshops by local and regional artists as well as special celebrations of various facets of printmaking like letterpress and screen printing. The following are a few highlights of Print Fest 2024; see the complete schedule at spokaneprintfest.org.

ENIGMA

What better way to kick off a monthlong celebration of print than by highlighting local artists who are leading the movement? This art show features graphic works created by Spokane Print & Publishing members that showcase a wide variety of printing techniques. The show aims to emphasize the strange and ephemeral nature of printmaking through relief carving, book arts, collage and much more. (MP)

April 5-27, daily from 11 am-7 pm • Free • Liberty Gallery • 203 N. Washington St.

RECEPTION: EXODO

Featuring 33 artists from the U.S. and Mexico, “Nexos: Entre Racies” is a portfolio of prints that explores traditions.

“So what does that mean to be Mexican?” says Marco Sanchez, artist and curator of the show. “It’s very different for everybody, right, so what traditions do we keep?”

The exhibition showcases various printmaking techniques, such as linocutting, woodcutting, lithography and aquatinting. Sanchez says there’s even a piece that used chine collé, a form of collaging where a super thin paper the size of a printing plate is placed on top of a thicker paper, both of which are run through a printing press and thereby adhered together.

“They’ll see various themes — there’s a lot of food within the show, there’s certain sort of pre-Columbian Mesoamerican themes within it, some deities or monoliths,” Sanchez says. “Myself and a few others that are here from El Paso that are part of the portfolio, we’re confronted with that wall on a daily basis, and so you’ll see some of those things on there as well.” (SSa)

Opening reception Fri, April 5 from 4-7 pm; also open Fri from 4-7 pm and Sat from 10 am-3 pm through April 13 • Free • Gonzaga University Urban Arts Center • 125 S. Stevens St., 3rd floor

Derek Landers got into screenprinting due to his love of concert posters. DEREK LANDERS PHOTO

Local book artist Mel Antuna Hewitt partakes in Print Fest’s Print Fair. YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

If you’re not creatively inclined or can’t draw to save your life (like me), don’t worry, you can still participate in Print Fest! The Print Fair at Spokane Public Library’s nontraditional branch, the Hive, is the place to find incredible pieces made by local and regional print artists. But, the Print Fair doesn’t stop at just prints. You can also watch demonstrations, meet the Hive’s current artists in residence, and view art displays from Jon Deviny, Mel Antuna Hewitt (Librobuch), Reinaldo Gil Zambrano (RGZPrints), local university students and more. (MP)

Sat, April 6 from 2-6 pm • Free admission • The Hive • 2904 E. Sprague Ave.

BOOK REPAIR WORKSHOPS

Sophia Bogle isn’t a bookbinder or a book artist. She’s both.

She’s crafted a title for herself that she says describes what she does perfectly.

“I call myself a book restorationist,” Bogle says. “It combines restorer and artist. Because I do a bit of everything.”

For Print Fest, Bogle is traveling to Spokane from Oregon to spread the good word of book restoration through three workshops. The Inland Northwest has its fair share of book artists — artists who use books in their art or create books that are works of art — but book restoration is a whole other ballpark.

“I was going to school at the University of Minnesota studying English,” Bogle says. “I knew I wanted to be in the book world, but hadn’t quite pinpointed my niche.”

That’s when Bogle learned about the university’s book rebindery.

“I learned that books come apart,” she says. “And they go back together again.”

After teaching herself about bookbinding and book repair for many years, Bogle began attending classes at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts. Because, she says, before you can repair a book, you have to know how to create a book. She also has a diploma in book conservation from the American Academy of Bookbinding and has been restoring books professionally for over 30 years. Now, she’s sharing her knowledge with the book enthusiasts of Spokane.

Bogle’s workshop “Book Damage Treatment Options: Is Restoration Worth It?” is free and open to the public. She invites participants to bring in damaged books for evaluation and discusses how to fix books and how to find someone who can repair one.

She’s also hosting two basic repair classes that teach participants simple ways to repair books in minutes. From loose spines to torn pages, all books can be fixed and returned to their former glory.

“The workshops I’m holding break down book repair in manageable, bite-sized pieces,” she says. “They’re geared toward beginners. At its core, it’s kindergarten stuff: cutting, gluing and putting things together.” (MP)

Book Damage and Treatment Options: Is Restoration Worth It? • Fri, April 19 from 7-8 pm • Free • The Hive • 2904 E. Sprague Ave.

Basic Book Repair Classes • Sat, April 20 and Sun, April 21 from 9 am-2 pm • $85 • Spokane Print & Publishing Center • 1921 N. Ash St.

ROCK & POP ART SHOW WITH ITCHY KITTY

To celebrate another year of Print Fest, the event comes to a close with one final gallery showcase also featuring live music from local punk band Itchy Kitty.

Print Fest’s final week focuses on screen printing, and Spokane Print & Publishing Center’s screen print instructor Derek Landers says this event encapsulates the multifaceted media.

“I got into screen printing because of concert posters, gig posters, and even some movie posters and things like that, and I’ve always been a big champion of that kind of artwork,” Landers says. “It’ll be a grungy, kind of urban art show that’s kind of rough around the edges, but it features a lot of concert posters or event posters and movies.”

Landers says other styles of art will also be displayed, including photographs by local photographer Alicia Hauff, plus prints by Chris Bovey and the Inlander’s own graphic designer Derrick King.

“It’s a chance to kind of mingle and look at artwork,” Landers says. “This won’t be quiet and proper — this is a rock and pop art show that has a bunch of just really kind of off the wall stuff.”

As the show’s curator, Landers tried to feature as many artists as possible, whether they’re well-known printmakers or just starting out.

“There’ll be music and people will be talking, and there’s beer and wine, so in that respect, it is kind of like just a normal gallery showing, but just the vibe in general is a lot more laid back,” he says. “We’re hoping that a lot of the people enjoying the entire Print Fest month will want to come and help kind of shut it down with this fun party.” (SSa)

Derek Landers

Sophia Bogle

Reinaldo Gil Zambrano

MORE THAN A SPORT

The Spokane Indians have an exciting season ahead with many new efforts to impact the community

BY COLTON RASANEN

The Spokane Indians aren’t just a baseball team, they’re a local cultural phenomenon. Between the commitment to countless communities in the Inland Northwest, the promotions at every home game, and the mere existence of Ribby the Redband Trout (one of the team’s four mascots), it’s not hard to understand why.

While the team is lucky that Washington’s only Major League Baseball team (ahem, the Mariners) doesn’t hold much sway in Spokane, the Indians’ success can mainly be attributed to the identity that’s been carefully crafted with every die-hard and fledgling fan in mind. And starting this year, that identity is about to get a lot more technological — at least in the ballpark that is.

Thanks to the team receiving a total of $16.5 million in combination from state and local funding, as well as from private donors, Senior Vice President Otto Klein says that the next two years will be filled with construction and upgrades at Avista Stadium.

“In addition to another great season of baseball, we’ll be in the first segment of our construction projects,” he says.

Some of this year’s improvements will be all new stadium lights, which Klein says will benefit players and spectators like, and a ton of new LED signage. However, the biggest impact will be two new video boards planned for installation by the end of this season.

“We have an older scoreboard, and we have been behind in technology here at the stadium,” he explains. “This will have the greatest impact on every single person who attends a game.”

Klein hopes to have the boards installed by fall, but says that may mean work is finished after the baseball season ends in September. (This could give them time to craft a clever Ribby-centric fan cam, or something like that).

The upcoming season, which starts with a home opener on Friday, April 5, also introduces two new community campaigns that have been in the works for a year, Klein says. The “King Carl” campaign honors the legacy of local civil rights activist and champion boxer Carl Maxey with new uniforms featuring a special King Carl logo that will debut in the Indians’ April 19 game. The new jerseys and hats will also be worn for a game on Juneteenth, the June 19 holiday

commemorating the end of slavery in the United States. The Spokane Indians collaborated on the Maxey campaign with the Carl Maxey Center, The Black Lens newspaper and Spokane’s NAACP chapter.

A second campaign introduces another special team uniform and a different identity for the 2024 season — Cafecitos de Spokane — as the Indians join in on Minor League Baseball’s Copa de la Diversión (or Fun Cup). This identity is meant to honor the Latino and Hispanic communities of Spokane while also celebrating the Inland Northwest’s love of coffee, Klein says. Cafecito, which literally means “little coffee” in Spanish, is often used to describe the shared conversation friends may have over coffee. The Indians play their first Cafecitos game on May 5 against the Eugene Emeralds.

On top of all the newness this season, Klein says folks can expect more of the Spokane Indians’ game promotions that they’ve come to love over the years. For example, this year the team is presenting more than 20 game night fireworks shows, including opening day and a grand season finale.

“Fans have grown accustomed to our many promotions,” he says. “That’s why we’re trying to introduce as many as we can this year.”

This includes the “Dollars in your Dog Day” game on April 7, during which fans may randomly find money or other prizes in their hot dog wrappers, and the first “Ballpark Bugs & Stadium Snakes Day” game on June 9, when attendants will get to view some (hopefully not scary) reptile friends.

We also can’t forget to celebrate the team’s beloved mascots either. On May 15, the Indians celebrate Ribby’s birthday, and then on May 30, it’s Doris’ turn for a birthday party. And if one Ribby celebration just isn’t enough for you, there’s another chance at the July 12 game where 1,000 fans will have a chance to receive a free Ribby bobblehead.

Otto’s birthday celebration isn’t until the July 14 game, but that gives fans enough time to save up for a big present. (You are getting these mascots some presents, right?) n

Spokane Indians Opening Day vs. Vancouver Canadians • Fri, April 5 at 6:35 pm (additional games April 6-7) • $11-$20 single game tickets • Avista Stadium • 602 N. Havana St. • spokaneindians.com

THE BUZZ BIN

NEW DIRECTION

In June 2023, after seven years serving as executive director, Melissa Huggins departed Spokane Arts. After a nearly yearlong search, however, Spokane Arts has appointed Skyler Oberst as the nonprofit’s new executive director. Oberst has been involved in myriad organizations in the Spokane area including Spokane Public Library, Embrace Washington, the Spokane Interfaith Council and has served as a legislative assistant to the Spokane City Council. In an announcement of his appointment, Oberst says he’s “honored to join Spokane Arts and to have the opportunity to work alongside such a dedicated team” and looks forward to advancing the mission of Spokane Arts and supporting the vibrant arts community in Spokane. (MADISON PEARSON)

PATIO PARTY!

If this week’s been any indication, patio season for 2024 is finally here! While our region is filled with lots of great spots to dine and unwind in the sunshine and fresh air, No-Li Brewhouse’s Riverside Bier Garden has been dubbed the third-best beer garden in the nation by USA Today’s Readers Choice poll. The spacious and scenic outdoor space overlooking a beautiful, calm stretch of the Spokane River is filled with amenities, like adirondack chairs along the riverbank, a newly installed firepit area and a variety of other seating options from picnic tables to standing bar counters. There are also outdoor tap handles so you don’t have to wander far when your pint glass is empty, which tends to happen after settling in to enjoy the good brews and vibes. (CHEY SCOTT)

THIS WEEK’S PLAYLIST

Noteworthy new music arriving in stores and online on April 5.

VAMPIRE WEEKEND, ONLY GOD

WAS ABOVE US

Ezra Koenig and Co. take a halfstep away from the band’s preppy indie rock sound to get a touch grittier and less perfectly polished on VW’s fifth LP.

THE BLACK KEYS, OHIO PLAYERS

For its latest album packed with catchy nuevo retro rock, The Black Keys called in assistance from notable collaborators like Beck and Noel Gallagher.

GUSTAF, PACKAGE PT. 2

New York’s Gustaf (who plays District Bar on May 1) returns with a second dose of cheeky, off-kilter art punk. (SETH SOMMERFELD)

The Indians’ first pitch is April 5. ERICK DOXEY PHOTO

Synergy, Serendipity and the Sculptural Process

Artist Rob McKirdie transforms, combines and elevates common materials into mixed

media sculptures

BY CARRIE SCOZZARO

To Spokane artist Rob McKirdie, entropy is more than just the name of the Spokane gallery where he’ll be exhibiting his work through April 27. Meaning both disorder and the tendency toward uniformity, the word entropy serendipitously figures into the title of two of McKirdie’s seminal works, one of which is included in the exhibit he titled “Transcendent Departures.”

Before he settled on that name, however, McKirdie — thinking back to earlier works he’d made dealing with entropy — toyed with the idea of including the word in the title of his April exhibit.

“When I was tossing around ideas for names for the show [the word entropy] sort of played a little bit, but it didn’t gain traction because it wasn’t quite where I was at,” says McKirdie, a Spokane Falls Community College art instructor since 2015.

McKirdie’s art journey has been shaped by many factors, including his upbringing and the schools he attended. As an undergraduate at Portland State University, for example, he was fascinated with the idea of rust — decaying metal — but also kinetic sculptures.

“I have a sort of connection with the kinetic artist Jean Tangley,” McKirdie says, describing his shared heritage with the Swiss sculptor who died in 1991.

Growing up in Salt Lake City, McKirdie split time be-

tween his Swiss grandparents’ house, where order reigned supreme, and the home he shared with his mother, who was doing the job of both parents.

“I had these two sort of aspects,” says McKirdie, who felt an affinity for how the artist Tangley would “challenge that orderly quality and make things that were just a little bit off.”

In his work, McKirdie likes to do the same, finding synergy in the unexpected, with a process that “typically starts with a singular idea of seeing whether you can combine things together and [discover] what the result will be,” he says.

As a graduate student at Rhode Island School of Design, McKirdie moved away from making kinetic sculptures, only half-joking about how graduate school tends to nudge (or, more realistically, shove) artists away from their present ways of working toward a completely new format.

Feeling a little beat up at the time, McKirdie says he “sort of gravitated more to like collecting of materials, and on the East Coast there’s just a litany of that stuff.”

While in graduate school, McKirdie made frequent forays into New York City, finding abundant materials that resonated with him, like the street sweeper bristles that, ironically, littered the city’s streets. When he saw stuff falling off 18-wheelers laden with recyclable metal bound for overseas, McKirdie swooped in behind them armed with a magnet.

“I picked up buckets and buckets and buckets and buckets of these small little pieces of metal that had fallen off these semis, drug those back to my studio and sort of just played” with them, he says.

The result was the 2013 sculpture he’d call “Entropy,” which is not included in his upcoming exhibition. Instead, McKirdie created almost all new wall-mounted (versus freestanding or hanging) works for the gallery’s enigmatic rounded interior.

McKirdie is, however, also including a piece dealing with the idea of entropy titled “Entropic Cosmology” that debuted in 2021 in SFCC’s faculty exhibit at the Gonzaga University Urban Arts Co-op. It features found wooden objects and a mostly flat, shiny metal shape resembling a lake on a topographical map.

The metal shape is the byproduct of an iron pour, an event held by metallurgically minded community members as nearby as Missoula, McKirdie explains.

“We do some work where we are either production pouring — where we make molds of things — or we do performance pours where we just throw metal around to make sparks,” McKirdie says, adding that making fireworks from the reaction between molten metal and heat is part of a Chinese light festival called Dashuhua.

For McKirdie, however, the allure of iron-pour events is the metal that has fallen to the ground and cooled.

“It picks up rocks, it picks up random stuff,” he says.

These serendipitous metal forms were nickel plated and incorporated into seminal works like “Entropic Cosmology.”

Another body of work involves more figurative pieces, which are new for the artist.

“I feel like I’ve just used objects as stand-ins for the person or for myself,” he says, connecting his personal meditative practice with causing a shift in his artwork.

“Flag Had Flung,” for example, is a tribute piece to a close friend from graduate school who died from a traumatic heart condition. It features a bronze version of a blocky carved wooden figure with small red construction flags emanating from where the heart would be.

“It’s kind of serendipity in that he created that piece in wood and I recreated it in bronze to kind of commemorate him,” McKirdie says.

The bronze figure is positioned atop a wall-mounted portion of a rustic table, which also holds a little mechanism that waves a small white flag. Does that mean his friend surrendered? Or that McKirdie has? Or something else?

Maybe all three things are or can be true for the viewer, which McKirdie definitely has in mind as he’s working with specific materials.

“I also like the play of people going, ‘Oh, I can recognize this, but not in this context,’” he says, mimicking pointing to a sculpture. “I recontextualize” things, he adds, “so I’m trying to create a familiarity, but also sort of a question of like, ‘Why is it like this? What’s the combination?’” n

Transcendent Departures • Reception Fri, April 5 from 5-9 pm; open daily from 11 am-6 pm through April 27 • Entropy • 101 N. Stevens St. • facebook. com/entropyspokane • 509-414-3226

Rob McKirdie

A mixed media sculpture in McKirdie’s new show.

PHOTO COURTESY ROB MCKIRDIE

THINK INSIDE THE BOX

Tamale Box opens its first brick and mortar location in Kendall Yards, with another on the way in Liberty Lake

BY ELIZA BILLINGHAM

Growing up, Enrique Mariscal would ride his bicycle around his apartment complex’s retention pond in sunny Southern California. All the 8-year-old wanted to do was play. But his mother, Candelaria, who was in the kitchen making tamales, would interrupt him every afternoon.

“Enrique,” she called. “Ven, prueba la masa!”

“She would call me over to try [the masa],” Mariscal says. Masa was the mixture of ground corn, salt and water she used as the tamale base.

“She would ask me if it needed more salt or if it had enough,” he says. “As a kid, she would take my word for it. I think that gave me confidence. If it wasn’t for me trying that as a kid, I don’t know if you could teach me now.”

What started as an interruption became a full-time passion. Mariscal and his fiancée, Lauren Murray, now

own Tamale Box, a counter-service restaurant that features the same tamale recipe his mother used (and never wrote down). Tamale Box started as a farmers market booth in 2019 and opened its first permanent location in Kendall Yards in February. Another location is in the works for Greenstone’s new River District near Liberty Lake, which the couple hopes will be open by next winter.

Farmers market regulars and newcomers alike pummeled Tamale Box’s soft opening. Each tamale — black bean, cheddar and jalapeño, pork chile verde, shredded beef, or chicken chile rojo — is under $6. They’re so plump that a pair is more than enough for an office lunch. Or, grab a side of homemade rice and beans ($4) with a single tamale for just as satisfying a meal.

The menu is simple, especially since Mariscal oversees each handmade tamale. The Kendall Yards location

is so small that they use a commercial kitchen down the block. This summer, Tamale Box won’t be able to operate as a farmers market booth. But once the kitchen in Liberty Lake is built out, he might experiment with a few more offerings and pop-up vending again.

“There are ways that we could expand,” he says. “But keeping it to just tamales keeps it specialized. I think it’s the best way to keep our quality at the level that we want it, especially because they’re so labor intensive.”

In Mexico, tamales are sometimes cheap street food, gobbled down on the go like a banana. Or they’re made with family at Christmastime. Like pasta, they were created as a food for the people. But unlike pasta, they aren’t often elevated as a luxury dish.

“We want to do our part in helping to change the perception that certain cultures of food are more valuable than others,” Murray says.

Hot tamales — the real kind! YOUNG KWAK PHOTOS

The drink menu is also intentionally curated, offering Jarritos, Mexican Coke and classic Mexican beers, but also some favorite natural wines. Murray was the first to introduce Mariscal to natural wine, and she does most of the beverage selection for the spot. Mariscal trusts her palate. He’s not the only one.

“My mom, she trusts her,” he says. “Lauren knows her stuff.”

Tamales have always been the family business. Once Candelaria honed her recipe in her Mexican hometown, La Peñita de Jaltemba, she sent Mariscal’s older brothers out on bikes to sell them. The young boys didn’t want to work, so the first few days they purposely came back with plenty of tamales left over. They figured if they didn’t sell them, their mother would stop making them.

“My mom would be in tears because this was the only way to make money,” Mariscal says. “So the next day, my mom would make more and send them out.”

After a few days, neighbors started noticing how good Candelaria’s tamales were — the masa was perfect, they had lots of filling, and they were tied at both ends, a technique that allows for bigger, more stuffed tamales. Once word got around, the boys’ job got a lot easier.

“They would just show up, and the first place they would stop, they would sell everything,” Mariscal says.

Mariscal’s family has been providing tamales, and tamales have been providing for them, for three generations now. Murray and Mariscal are expecting a baby girl this summer. The tamales that Candelaria started in La Peñita will now provide for a granddaughter in Spokane.

During a recent visit to Spokane, Candelaria sat in the back of Tamale Box, still involved in tasting and perfecting the tamales, but dutifully passing down “el sazón,” the magic touch, that was trained into her.

“It comes from her grandparents and her mom, just by tasting it and knowing what it’s supposed to taste like,” her son says. “Growing up, my mom would call me over — specifically me. My brothers all sold tamales. But I will take pride in saying that I think I’m the one that can make them just like my mom. If not, maybe sometimes, better.” n

Tamale Box • 1102 W. Summit Pkwy. • Open Tue-Sat 11 am-8 pm • tamaleboxspokane.com • 559-426-9850

Tamale Box owners Lauren Murray and Enrique Mariscal.

ALSO OPENING

THE FIRST OMEN

In this prequel to the horror classic The Omen, an American woman in Rome (Nell Tiger Free) uncovers a dark conspiracy where the holy members of a church are trying to bring forth the birth of the antichrist. Rated R

MONKEY MAN

Dev Patel directs, co-writes and stars in this Indian-set, John Wick-esque stylish action revenge flick. He plays a veritable one-man army hunting down the rich and corrupt leaders in Mumbai responsible for his mother’s death, eventually becoming a symbol of hope for the downtrodden. Rated R

Richland’s

FILM REVIEW

Rich in Contradictions

Richland is a meditative portrait of a town created by the atomic bomb

BY ELIZA BILLINGHAM

Ahigh school football team rushes the field, decked out in green jerseys with gold lettering. Their helmets have typical face guards on the front but yellow airplanes on the back. Superfans fly a banner that reads “Welcome to Bomber Territory.” The back of the coach’s jacket depicts an atomic cloud blooming above a capital R. An R for Richland.

Not Rated

casseroles and the entrenched feeling that they were doing something to help America win the war. Never mind that the “something” was nebulous to most Richland residents, especially the wives and kids who didn’t realize, or didn’t want to realize, that a world-changing killing machine relied on the work being done in their own backyard.

RICHLAND

Documentarian Irene Lusztig has no interest in easy answers. Take the filmmaker’s first feature film — 2002’s Reconstruction — which investigated her own family’s history before fleeing Nicolae Ceausescu’s Romania. Her new documentary Richland turns a similarly curious, compassionate lens to the small Washington town drenched in international controversy.

Directed by Irene Lusztig

Screening at the Magic Lantern

Most children who grew up in Richland in the 1940s had a mother or father who worked in “the area,” the local shorthand to refer to the Hanford Site, a nuclear reactor that manufactured plutonium for atomic weapons. Richland was a bedroom community lined with rows of “alphabet homes,” prefabricated homes that made life in the commuter town that much simpler.

At the height of World War II, it was that certain brand of idealized Americana at its finest: suburban neighborhoods, Fourth of July parades, sporting events,

A heavier hand than Lusztig’s might force the contrast, hammering the story of a naive, optimistic America versus the impending violence that would ravage Nagasaki and Hiroshima and change global politics forever. They might bluntly pair the idyllic Americana with the environmental destruction Hanford was wreaking across southeastern Washington. But instead of setting up simple dichotomies, Lusztig forays into the world of tensions and contradictions where art lives, breathes, provokes and heals.

Richland is a beautiful portrait of a broken place, without final judgments about what is right and wrong. Visually, it’s a slow meditation on barrenness, violence, stillness and rebirth. The camera lingers on desert art installments by artist Yukiyo Kawano, a third-generation hibakusha (the Japanese term for anyone suffering the lingering effects of an atomic bomb). Later, it pans across to an Indigenous family suffering the radiation contamination of their ancestral land. Between still shots, it follows Rich-

land residents through the seemingly mundane — walks through parks, neighborhoods, bowling alleys and cafes — tracing how each place and person is altered by the town’s atomic history.

Conversations touch on guilt, pride, current American politics, reparations, health, greed, love and memory. Church choirs and folk duos sing about climate change, childhood and sin. High school students sit in the grass and talk about their mascot, the atomic cloud, and whether it’s the best way to represent Richland High. The history is plain — the atomic bomb created this community… but it destroyed so much else. Is it time to disassociate? Is that even possible?

Confronting death and denial head on is the only way to find a way forward, Lusztig suggests. History and place are central to our identity, but human ingenuity and collaboration changed this place forever. Which, then, defines Richland and its residents more?

“We were just taught to be proud of the area,” one Richland resident says. “We did an amazing, terrible thing. But people drop the ‘terrible.’” n

Richland screens as part of the International Uranium Film Festival at the Magic Lantern on April 4 at 6:25 pm (with a post-screening a Q&A with Lusztig). Richland continues at the Magic Lantern through April 11.

atomic legacy looms forever in the background.

Wickedly Good

Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley delight in Wicked Little Letters

BY MARYANN JOHANSON

As far as I am concerned, there is nothing that either Olivia Colman or Jessie Buckley — screen goddeses both — could possibly do that wouldn’t be worth watching. I don’t mean that I’ve loved every film they’ve appeared in, because I certainly haven’t. But I do mean that even in the films of theirs that I haven’t loved, I’ve always found their performances hugely fascinating. They redeem bad movies. They make good movies better. They always reward time with them, no matter what else is happening around them.

Rated R

Directed

And now they get to butt heads onscreen for the first time? Is it Christmas? Even better

able characteristics, doncha know. Still, Edith and Rose become friends, to the degree allowable between such disparate women.

WICKED LITTLE LETTERS

by Thea

Sharrock Starring Olivia Colman, Jessie Buckley

Their new film Wicked Little Letters could easily become a future comfort movie, a flick to revisit when feeling low and in need of a cheerfully indecent, gloriously naughty pick-me-up.

My goodness this is a treat. It’s an upending of the English period costume drama, which is long overdue. It’s full of female rage at the societal restrictions and expectations that women operate under — in the past, but also today as well — which is never not welcome. It’s about women who keep secrets and still their discontent because the consequences of not doing so are too immense. It’s something that so many women (and probably many men) will relate to.

Wicked Little Letters is also funny as hell and bursting with impudent energy. The collision course that Colman and Buckley are on here is hilariously mock-epic, while also serious in a kidding-not-kidding sort of way.

Colman’s Edith Swan is a prim, religious, extremely conservative spinster (a word I hate but is, alas, historically apropos) who at the ripe old age of late fortysomething still lives with her parents (Timothy Spall and Gemma Jones). It is the early 1920s in the sleepy English village of Littlehampton, Sussex, not too far outside London. Their next-door neighbor is Buckley’s Rose Gooding, a rowdy Irish immigrant, mother to a young daughter (Alisha Weir) and married to a man (Malachi Kirby) who is not her child’s father — all rather coarse and socially unaccept-

For quite a while Edith has been receiving the most vile poison-pen letters, vicious little notes full of shocking vulgarity, at least when grading on a 1920s curve. Poison-pen letters used to be a thing, in the pre-Internet era — in modern parlance, think “nasty foul-mouthed trolls sliding into your DMs.” Only these DMs come through the mail slot in your front door in time to be read with afternoon tea.

And Edith comes to believe that Rose, an earthy lass who swears in public and loves inventive invectives, is behind the letters.

Screenwriter Jonny Sweet’s debut script is based on events that really happened. While Letters may be fashioned at the beginning as a mystery about how one could be sending such awful letters, it rather quickly morphs into a character study of why the perpetrator, revealed fairly early on, is doing what they are doing. And then it becomes a delightfully sneaky pseudo-heistlike tale as other characters try to ensnare the poisonpenner to prove their guilt.

And this might be where Letters is most wonderfully intriguing. Director Thea Sharrock maximizes some deliciously provocative casting choices. Tamil actor Anjana Vasan is a hoot as “Woman Police Officer” Gladys Moss, who takes it upon herself to investigate the ongoing shenanigans despite being taken far less seriously than her white male colleague. The real Moss was not a brown-skinned woman, just as Rose’s husband was not Black. But the colorblind casting only makes the sly shiv of this movie all the more powerful.

This may have been inspired by actual events, but those events are molded here to tell a tale that has something to say to us a century later. The craftiest thing Wicked Little Letters does is prodding us to interrogate our 21st century prejudices by underscoring the still-enduring social and cultural vectors along which ordinary everyday oppression continues to occur. n

“Sobering,

Colman and Buckley may be incapable of being bad.

ROCK THE PLANK

Scotland’s Alestorm sails the sonic seas as the premiere pirate metal band

BY SETH SOMMERFELD

Metal contains multitudes. It can encompass everything from Black Sabbath’s speedy headbanging riffs, the guttural satanic screams of Norwegian black metal, the technical wizardry of Eddie Van Halen, or the hip-hop-influenced sounds of nü metal. It can also be some Scottish dudes writing songs about pirates.

Hailing from Perth, Scotland, Alestorm has carved out a niche as the premiere pirate metal band since starting up in the mid-2000s. Combining elements of shredding ’80s power metal, Scottish folk, thrash breakdowns, and loads of mirth, the group has crafted an extensive catalog of songs about sailing the seven seas, notorious

pirate captains, plundering, talking trash about rival ships, and drinking… a lot of drinking.

Before Alestorm drops anchor in the Spokane River to play a show at the Knitting Factory on April 9, we caught up with Christopher Bowes, the band’s kilt-wearing lead singer and keytarist, to discuss leaning into a silly theme, European power metal, and rubber duckies.

INLANDER: How did Alestorm become a piratecentric band in the first place?

BOWES: It was a complete accident. We had no intention of being a pirate band. None of us really give much of a shit about pirates [laughs], but we accidentally wrote a song about pirates one day [“Heavy Metal Pirates”].

And then we rehearsed it and were like, “Aye, this sounds kinda cool.” And then it all sort of spiraled out of control from there. We played a show, and then suddenly everyone was turning up in pirate costumes. And we’re like, “I guess we’re a pirate band now.”

What are the fun aspects and the frustrations with having such a specific theme?

The things that are fun are the exact same things that are frustrating. It’s kind of amusing writing absolute nonsense songs. It’s fun trying to frame them in the context of 17th century sailing in the Caribbean. But then, at the same time, you get all these people who are so super into the 17th century sailing in the Caribbean [aesthetic], and

Alestorm is a very serious band. NIEK VAN DE VONDERVOORT PHOTO

METAL

as soon as you do something that’s not totally historically correct about piracy, they get really angry at you.

At the end of the day, we want to play songs and have fun on tour. It’s best when people understand our vibe perfectly. It is kind of stupid and weird, but it works. We’re not really big into pirates, we just like writing cool songs about funny stuff. And it’s funnier when it’s on ship.

Since there are some who get hung up on specifics, do y’all have to do pirate research when writing songs or keep up on current pirate pop culture?

Good lord, I do none of that nonsense. I went on Wikipedia once and scrolled through a couple of pages. And that was a lifetime’s worth of research for me. I know a bit of history — all the names and places and dates and stuff — but I’m not deep into the lore. We try not to be like a historical band. We’re not trying to tell tales of real history very much. It’s more fun being creative and inventing tales.

It does seem like a smart choice that while Alestorm is clearly a pirate band, y’all don’t go full out and wear eight layers of elaborate pirate costumes as part of the live show. Exactly. People say, “Oh, why aren’t you wearing pirate costumes?” Well, number one, we’re here to put on a rock-and-roll show. And if you’re wearing this oversized costume, it’s difficult to fly around the stage and be jumping off risers and doing cool stuff.

Plus it stinks. Like if you’re on tour as much as we are, your clothes will just stink. So we wear light breathable things that you can throw in the washing machine and be done with it. It’s for hygiene purposes! People would hate it if we were dressed as pirates. We’d smell so bad.

You just put out a new EP — Voyage of the Dead Marauder — in March. What’s your favorite thing about that collection of songs?

Well, the fact that it’s an EP is very exciting to me, because I’ve sort of been getting bored with the album as a format. In recent years, the album has died. These days everyone’s on Spotify or YouTube — people just listen to the singles. No one listens past track three on an album. So I feel like we’ve written all these songs on albums in the past that no one’s ever listened to. What’s the point?

So I’m really enjoying just writing a shorter format thing. And concentrating on two fun singles that are fun to play live. I think it’s a much more enjoyable way of working for me.

Beyond standing out for the pirate theme, Alestorm is also an outlier in the metal world because you’re front and center playing a keytar.

It’s great for me, because I started as a keyboard player in this band, and then sort of reluctantly became the vocalist. At first it was a joke, “Hey guys, a keytar! LOL the ’80s!” And then I actually realized it is incredible, because I can run around the stage rocking out while also singing. It’s the perfect instrument for us.

What’s kind of weird is that you’re possibly the first person in about 10 years who’s even asked about that. It’s a very unique thing to have in a band, but I think because every other aspect of this band is so much more ridiculous that sometimes the keytar just fades into the background. I thought we’d get more — I don’t know

— keytar endorsements or something by this point. [laughs] But no one seems to care, which is kind of nice. It’s not there as a gimmick, it’s absolutely a practical instrument for me. I love it.

Are there certain cheats when y’all are writing a song and need to make it sound more pirate-y?

When you feel like “This song needs more pirates,” there are a couple of cheap scales you can do. Then a little keytar melody and a violin, and it suddenly sounds like a yo-ho sea shanty. You stick in one of these little riffs and — bam — instant pirate classic.

Did you feel like your turf was being stepped on when suddenly sea shanties became a viral trend on TikTok a few years ago?

Yeah, we couldn’t resist the temptation to join in that crap. So we did a cover of that song [“The Wellerman”]. Why not? Because that was like the old COVID times, and we had nothing going on. We should probably remind people that we exist with a little cheap cover of that song. That’s all dead and gone. No one cares about that song anymore. That was definitely a flash in the pan moment. I don’t I don’t think it had a lasting effect on pirate metal as a genre.

What type of metal originally influenced Alestorm?

I grew up on late ’90s and early 2000s European power metal. That was my jam. Bands with big orchestras and shredding guitar solos and keyboard solos. Also a lot of folk metal was my thing growing up. I got really excited about violins and threading guitars. Our background was just absolute European power metal cheese.

But where we live in Scotland, all the local bands were just kind of sludgy, screaming nonsense. And we were like, “No! We want to bring back hyperspeed harmonized shred solos.” We didn’t get started to be pirates, we got started to school people in the shredding solos. But obviously that fell by the wayside and piracy took over.

It certainly seems like Alestorm leans into the playful side of metal rather than the darker side of the genre.

Certainly when we got started, metal was not fun I think that’s changed now. You can point at 20 big bands these days who’re doing amazing stuff who are silly. Like, silly-looking costumes and dressing up [as] ridiculous themes has taken over metal. But 20 years ago, when we were 15-ish and started becoming a band, that wasn’t really a thing.

So when we started playing festivals, we used to get so many funny looks. Like, “What the hell is this band? What are they doing? This is weird. This is not real metal.” But now it’s like we’re just part of the in-club of cool bands, which is kind of weird.

It’s all cyclical. In another 10 years, you’ll probably be the weirdos again.

It’ll all come full circle again. In five years, it’ll be us sitting alone on stage with giant rubber ducks while everyone else is spooky. n

Alestorm, Elvenking, Glyph • Tue, April 9 at 7 pm

J = THE INLANDER RECOMMENDS THIS SHOW

J = ALL AGES SHOW

Thursday, 4/4

BACKWOODS WHISKEY BAR, Carson Rhodes

J THE BIG DIPPER, Piper’s Rush, AA Bottom, Push THE CHAMELEON, Gotu Gotu, Polykronos, Carbon Copy, Iron Chain CHAN’S RED DRAGON ON THIRD, Thursday Night Jam

CHECKERBOARD TAPROOM, Weathered Shepherds

J KNITTING FACTORY, Hippie Sabotage

J MCCRACKEN’S PUB AND BBQ, Steve Starkey

J QQ SUSHI & KITCHEN, Just Plain Darin RED ROOM LOUNGE, Hip-Hop Night ZOLA, The Night Mayors

Friday, 4/5

AK ASIAN RESTAURANT, Patrick Lamb

J AVISTA STADIUM, Into the Drift Duo

J THE BIG DIPPER, Millington, Good Terms, College Radio, The Pink Socks, Fine-Line

J BING CROSBY THEATER, Dawn Of Life BOLO’S BAR & GRILL, The Real McCoy

J THE CHAMELEON, Kadabra, Itchy Kitty CHAN’S RED DRAGON ON THIRD, Max Daniels and Soulful Brothers CHINOOK STEAK, SEAFOOD & PASTA, Kosh

J EVANS BROTHERS COFFEE, Traesti Darling, Dario Ré

J THE GRAIN SHED, Haywire

Vancouver’s Devours (aka Jeff Cancade) offers super gay goth-tinged electronic pop that spans the gamut of emotions. His 2023 LP Homecoming Queen delivers hyper-danceable synth tracks while singing about everything from melancholic yearnings for youthful queer longing (“37up (the Longing)”) to love songs where both parties are “narcissistic psychopath(s)” (“Silmer”). There’s also a delightful undercurrent of black comedy criticism to be found on songs like “Reverse Ombre” (“Good for you, you’re political now / but as soon as the trends change you’re somebody else”) and the takedown of commodification of queer culture that is “Jacuzzi My Stonewall” (“I guess we’re mainstream now / let’s move out to the ’burbs”). With everything from hyperpop freneticism to cat meows thrown into the mix, a Devours show is capable of making you think, cry, laugh and shake your moneymaker over the course of a single set.

— SETH SOMMERFELD

Devours, Total Chroma • Sat, April 6 at 8 pm • $10 • 21+ • The District Bar • 916 W. First Ave. • sp.knittingfactory.com

CONTEMPORARY CHRISTIAN MERCYME

HISTORIC DAVENPORT HOTEL, Thomas Pletscher Trio IRON HORSE (CDA), Chasing Eos

JEREMIAH JOHNSON BREWING CO., Son of Brad MOOSE LOUNGE, Sonic Groove

NIGHTHAWK LOUNGE (CDA CASINO), Laketown Sound PEND D’OREILLE WINERY, Mike Wagoner, Utah John

RED ROOM LOUNGE, Live DJs

THE RIDLER PIANO BAR, Just Plain Darin

SPOKANE EAGLES LODGE, Stagecoach West ZOLA, The Dead and Down, Brittany’s House

Saturday, 4/6

J 49 DEGREES NORTH, Quarter Monkey

J THE BIG DIPPER, Malinois, Cold Hearts, Warcrime, Dragged Out

J BING CROSBY THEATER, Hagfest Northwest

BOLO’S BAR & GRILL, The Real McCoy

J CAFE COCO, B

CHALICE BREWING CO., Son of Brad THE CHAMELEON, Club Blush

CHAN’S RED DRAGON ON THIRD, Bobby Patterson Band CHINOOK STEAK, SEAFOOD & PASTA, Kosh

J THE DISTRICT BAR, Devours, Total Chroma

If you’re not big into the Chrisian music scene, I can only imagine that you may still have heard of MercyMe. That’s because back in 2003 the band achieved the always-rare mainstream crossover success for a worship act when its tune “I Can Only Imagine” became a major radio hit, cracking the Billboard Top 40 and becoming one of the bestselling singles of the year. While they didn’t stick in the pop cultural zeitgeist, MercyMe still rules their Christian niche with just about every album they’ve put out topping the Billboard’s Christian album charts (including its most recent LP, 2022’s Always Only Jesus). MercyMe heads to Spokane Arena for a massive worship concert featuring fellow Christian music powerhouse Newsboys and All Sons & Daughters’s David Leonard.

— SETH SOMMERFELD

MercyMe, Newsboys, David Leonard • Sat, April 6 at 7 pm • $27-$102 • All ages • Spokane Arena • 720 W. Mallon Ave. • spokanearena.com

IRON HORSE (CDA), Chasing Eos KNITTING FACTORY, Rock the 5th!

MOOSE LOUNGE, Sonic Groove NIGHTHAWK LOUNGE (CDA CASINO), Laketown Sound

PEND D’OREILLE WINERY, Mike and Shanna Thompson

RED ROOM LOUNGE, Live DJs

J SIRINYA’S THAI RESTAURANT, Howie King

J J SPOKANE ARENA, MercyMe, Newsboys, David Leonard

ZOLA, Austin Miller

ZOLA, Blake Braley

Sunday, 4/7

J THE BIG DIPPER, Serpentspire, The Night We Died, Propagate the Rot, Stasi, Bonemass

HOGFISH, Open Mic

J SOUTH HILL GRILL, Just Plain Darin

Monday, 4/8

EICHARDT’S PUB, Monday Night Blues Jam with John Firshi

RED ROOM LOUNGE, Open Mic Night

Tuesday, 4/9

J J KNITTING FACTORY, Alestorm, Elvenking, Glyph ZOLA, Jerry Lee and the Groove

Wednesday, 4/10

J THE BIG DIPPER, Bad Image, Psychic Death, KURB, Puddy Knife

Heard Open Mic Night

THE DRAFT ZONE, The Draft Zone Open Mic PEND D’OREILLE WINERY, Dwayne Parsons

RED ROOM LOUNGE, Red Room Lounge Jam

J TIMBERS ROADHOUSE, Cary Beare Presents

J ZEEKS PIZZA, Pamela Jean

J J THE BIG DIPPER, Box Elder, Jet//Lag, Uh Oh & The Oh Wells, Mama Llama, April 19, 7:30 pm.

J THE CHAMELEON, G-Space, Otek Miiko, Jojo, Trizzle, April 20, 9 pm.

J HAMILTON STUDIO, Rock & Pop Art Show with Itchy Kitty, April 26, 7-10 pm.

J J THE PODIUM, Dethklok, DragonForce, Nekrogoblikon, April 28, 7 pm.

J THE DISTRICT BAR, Gustaf, May 1, 9 pm.

J J THE BIG DIPPER, Not For Nothing: Circles Album Release Show, Pulling 4 Victory, Thundergun Express, Her Memory, May 3, 7 pm.

J THE CHAMELEON, Stinkfoot Orchestra, May 8, 8 pm.

J J NORTHERN QUEST CASINO, Boyz II Men, May 15, 7:30 pm.

J J SPOKANE ARENA, Lil Wayne, Kash and King, May 16, 8 pm.

J J THE BIG DIPPER, Agent Orange, Messer Chups, The Dilrods, May 22, 7:30 pm.

J J KNITTING FACTORY, Portugal. The Man, Reyna Tropical, May 23, 8 pm.

J J KNITTING FACTORY, The Wallflowers, June 1, 8 pm.

J J NORTHERN QUEST CASINO, Daryl Hall, Elvis Costello & The Imposters, Charlie Sexton, June 4, 7 pm.

J J KNITTING FACTORY, Taking Back Sunday, Citizen, June 6, 8 pm.

J J NORTHERN QUEST CASINO, Third Eye Blind, Yellowcard, Arizona, June 8, 6:30 pm.

J J THE BIG DIPPER, The HIRS Collective, Psychic Death, Blacktracks, Spooky, June 11, 7:30 pm.

J J PAVILLION PARK, Primus, Coheed and Cambria, Guerilla Toss, July 20, 6 pm.

J J KNITTING FACTORY, STRFKR, Holy Wave, Ruth Radelet, July 25, 8 pm.

J J PAVILION AT RIVERFRONT, The Decemberists, Ratboys, July 27, 7 pm.

J J PAVILION AT RIVERFRONT, Ween, Aug. 4, 7 pm.

J J NORTHERN QUEST CASINO, Donny Osmond, Aug. 11, 8 pm.

J J NORTHERN QUEST CASINO, Sammy Hagar, Loverboy, Aug. 13, 7 pm.

MUSIC | VENUES

219 LOUNGE • 219 N. First Ave., Sandpoint • 208-263-5673

ARBOR CREST WINE CELLARS • 4705 N. Fruit Hill Rd., Spokane Valley • 509-927-9463

BABY BAR • 827 W. First Ave. • 509-847-1234

BARRISTER WINERY • 1213 W. Railroad Ave. • 509-465-3591

BEE’S KNEES WHISKY BAR • 1324 W. Lancaster Rd.., Hayden • 208-758-0558

BERSERK • 125 S. Stevens St. • 509-315-5101

THE BIG DIPPER • 171 S. Washington St. • 509-863-8098

BIGFOOT PUB • 9115 N. Division St. • 509-467-9638

BING CROSBY THEATER • 901 W. Sprague Ave. • 509-227-7638

BLACK DIAMOND • 9614 E. Sprague Ave. • 509891-8357

BOLO’S BAR & GRILL • 116 S. Best Rd., Spokane Valley • 509-891-8995

BOOMERS CLASSIC ROCK BAR • 18219 E. Appleway Ave., Spokane Valley • 509-368-9847

BUCER’S COFFEEHOUSE PUB • 201 S. Main St., Moscow • 208-596-0887

THE BULL HEAD • 10211 S. Electric St., Four Lakes • 509-838-9717

CHAN’S RED DRAGON • 1406 W. Third Ave. • 509-838-6688

COEUR D’ALENE CASINO • 37914 S. Nukwalqw St., Worley • 800-523-2464

COEUR D’ALENE CELLARS • 3890 N. Schreiber Way, Coeur d’Alene • 208-664-2336

CRUISERS BAR & GRILL • 6105 W Seltice Way, Post Falls • 208-446-7154

CURLEY’S HAUSER JUNCTION • 26433 W. Hwy. 53, Post Falls • 208-773-5816

THE DISTRICT BAR • 916 W. 1st Ave. • 509-244-3279

EICHARDT’S PUB • 212 Cedar St., Sandpoint • 208-263-4005

FIRST INTERSTATE CENTER FOR THE ARTS • 334 W. Spokane Falls Blvd. • 509-279-7000

FOX THEATER • 1001 W. Sprague Ave. • 509-624-1200

IRON HORSE • 407 E. Sherman, Coeur d’Alene • 208-667-7314

IRON HORSE BAR & GRILL • 11105 E. Sprague Ave., Spokane Valley • 509-926-8411

JOHN’S ALLEY • 114 E. Sixth St., Moscow • 208-883-7662

KNITTING FACTORY • 911 W. Sprague Ave. • 509-244-3279

MARYHILL WINERY 509-443-3832

THE MASON JAR • 101 F St., Cheney • 509-359-8052

MAX AT MIRABEAU

Spokane Valley • 509-922-6252

MILLIE’S • 28441 Hwy 57, Priest Lake • 208-443-0510

MOOSE LOUNGE • 401 E. Sherman Ave., Coeur d’Alene • 208-664-7901

MOOTSY’S • 406 W. Sprague Ave. • 509-838-1570

NASHVILLE NORTH • 208-457-9128

NORTHERN QUEST RESORT & CASINO Hayford Rd., Airway Heights • 877-871-6772

NYNE BAR & BISTRO 509-474-1621

PEND D’OREILLE WINERY

• 208-265-8545

THE PODIUM • 511 W. Dean Ave. • 509-279-7000

POST FALLS BREWING CO. Post Falls • 208-773-7301

RAZZLE’S BAR & GRILL Hayden • 208-635-5874

RED ROOM LOUNGE 509-838-7613

THE RIDLER PIANO BAR 509-822-7938

SEASONS

FOOD SECRET SAUCE

Are you addicted to Chopped? Tantalized by Top Chef?

Enamored by The Great British Bake Off? How would you like to be director, cheerleader and judge all at once? At the Coeur d’Alene Resort’s Black Box: Resort Chef’s Challenge dinner, you not only get to choose the super secret ingredients, but you also get to taste the sweet meal of victory. Watch in real time as nine of the resort’s chefs (pictured above) work together to create an unplanned, unprecedented four-course meal with your surprise picks in 90 minutes or less. After attendees choose the mystery ingredients, they get to lean back and sip champagne as the professionals do the rest of the work. It’s not only an unrepeatable meal, but an unforgettable live experience. So tear yourself away from the screen and get into the dining room instead.

— ELIZA BILLINGHAM

Black Box Dinner: Resort Chef’s Challenge • Fri, April 5 from 6:30-9 pm • $150 • The Coeur d’Alene Resort • 115 S. Second St. • cdaresort.com

DANCE CONTEMPO COLLAB

Celebrate dance in the Inland Northwest at Vytal Movement Dance’s upcoming show, “In Parallel.” Vytal Movement formed in 2016 with a focus on contemporary dance, and this performance features other local dancers and groups to highlight the collaboration between regional dance companies. “In Parallel” features new dances by Vytal Movement’s artistic director Lexie Powell, founding director Vincas Greene, and Quiero Flamenco’s Monica Mota. The troupe performs with Bellingham Repertory Dance on April 5 and 6 and with the University of Idaho Dance Program on April 12 and 13. “In Parallel” aims to showcase fluid and expressive movement that highlights the growing world of dance in the Inland Northwest.

— SUMMER SANDSTROM

In Parallel • Friday, April 5 and 12 at 7:30 pm; Sat, April 6 and 13 at 2 pm and 7:30 pm • $30-$35 • Vytal Movement Dance Space • 7 S. Howard St., Ste. 200 • vytalmovement.org

COMMUNITY SCOTTISH ROOTS

It’s time to pull that plaid wool shirt out from the depths of your closet for the St. Andrews Society of the Inland Northwest’s National Tartan Day Celebration! Celebrating all things Scottish heritage, attendees can learn about the rich tapestry of Scottish culture, including the significance of the tartan pattern. The event also includes weaving demonstrations, poetry readings, bagpipe performances and, of course, traditional Scottish dancing. Find out how the Scottish interacted with the Vikings and how their historic weaponry has left a lasting impact on American military traditions. Enjoy some traditional food and drink, and a day filled with entertaining, educational information about Scotland’s vibrant past and modern-day society.

— ASHLYN NORRIS

National Tartan Day Celebration • Sat, April 6 from 11 am-4 pm • Free • Shadle Park Library • 2111 W. Wellesley Ave. • spokanelibrary.org • 509-444-5300

GET LISTED!

Submit events online at Inlander.com/getlisted or email relevant details to getlisted@inlander.com. We need the details one week prior to our publication date.

THEATER WORDS, WORDS, WORDS!

Be transported to 1912 London with Best of Broadway Spokane’s latest production, My Fair Lady, a tale of transformation, tenacity and friendship. The musical’s main character is Eliza Doolittle, a young Cockney flower vendor who embarks on a journey to transform into a proper lady through the coaching of linguistics professor Henry Higgins. Based on George Bernard Shaw’s 1913 play Pygmalion, My Fair Lady premiered on Broadway in 1956 starring Julie Andrews and Rex Harrison, with a film version starring Harrison and Audrey Hepburn released in 1964. This production of My Fair Lady stars Anette Barrios-Torres (above) as Eliza Doolittle. The Miami native and recent graduate of Oklahoma City University is making her national touring debut with the show.

— SUMMER SANDSTROM

My Fair Lady • Fri, April 5 at 7:30 pm, Sat, April 6 at 2 and 8 pm and Sun, April 7 at 1 and 7 pm • First Interstate Center for the Arts • 334 W. Spokane Falls Blvd. • broadwayspokane.com • 509-279-7000

WORDS PROTECTING THE PRESS

According to an article by Indian Country Today, only five tribes (out of 574 federally recognized tribes) in the U.S. have passed laws protecting freedom of the press. One of those tribes, the Muscogee (Creek) Nation repealed its Free Press Act in 2018. Documentary filmmakers Rebecca Landsberry-Baker and Joe Peeler document the fight to restore the freedom of the press in their documentary Bad Press by following tribal journalist Angel Ellis, among others. The film, which premiered at Sundance Film Festival in 2023, explores the importance of an independent press as well as the danger of government corruption. The University of Idaho is hosting Landsberry-Baker and Peeler as keynote speakers for its annual Oppenheimer Ethics Symposium, along with a film screening and Q&A with the directors and Ellis.

— LUCY KLEBECK

Oppenheimer Ethics Symposium • Tue, April 9 at 6:30 pm • All ages • Free, donations accepted • Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre • 508 S. Main St., Moscow • uidaho.edu/news

I SAW YOU

BADGER AND ROSY Fifteen years! We have had our ups and downs, but we’ve got through it every time and can say I’m genuinely happy. Here’s to many more years with my best friend!

DOUBLE TIME You: wearing purple and your long, dark hair tied up. Wild beard. Wearing two watches. So mysterious. I bet you’d wear a third if you could. I want to get to know you. Let’s regret a couple Crunchwrap supremes and Baja Blast together.

TO THE CUTE BOY AT INDABA I was seated near you on March 30 and asked you to move your backpack so I could rescue a spider. You’re cute, any chance you’re single?

CHEERS

WHAT A GREAT GAME! Cheers to the Utah Utes. You came into the Kennel and gave us a phenomenal game. Hoop to hoop, it was tough played by everyone. That’s what sports should be about: great competition and huge heart. Mad props all around.

DID YOU NOTICE? What a beautiful night seeing the full moon on March 26. How many people took notice? Or were you to busy on your phone? Watching TV? Or busy on the Internet? Nobody looks at anything like that anymore... why? Are we so enamored in social media, that it takes precedent in our lives?

THANKS Thank you to all the people who are patient with seniors. Everyone’s going to be there someday, and having a smile and attitude of relaxation. Makes me feel like I’m OK in this world.

ROCKS I saw your rock carvings. It’s Maxwell’s Equations.

PLEASE? PLEASE! Will the person who found my wallet at the Spokane Tribe Casino around 5 pm on Monday, March 25, please return it to me? I would be most grateful, and express it with cash. Thank you.

KYRS DEMOCRACY NOW, NOW! At 8 am and 5 pm, Monday through Friday! You can hear Democracy Now! at 88.1 or 92.3, recordered daily with Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez. No Dish! You can dial in or stream, it’s been a flagship for 20 years on our community radio station. No blabber!

YOU MAKE A DIFFERENCE Miss Tammy, you make a difference for many, and the world is a better place because you are in it. Thanks for all you do to shape the lives of young ones. You rock

JUST IN CASE To the staff at PP, if no one has reminded you lately I want to say: You make a difference for many, and your work does not go unnoticed. Thank you for creating a place where kids thrive.

JEERS

LAKE CITY OR RACIST CITY? Way to go Coeur d’Alene. The NCAA came to your town for a once-in-a-lifetime event. Instead of being recognized and honored for their accomplishments, they were ridiculed and exposed to the racism and hatred that your city is becoming known for.

UGLY RACISM IN COEUR D’ALENE The most recent racist harassment of Utah basketball players by some Macho Boys in their big trucks might dismay some in the Lake City citizenry, but it should not be cause for surprise. Every day our streets are overrun by oversized pickups belching smoke from sewer pipe exhausts, their always-white male drivers proud to be disgusting cretins. Nobody who’s been paying attention should be “shocked!” by what happened. And pu-leez don’t say “Idaho has no place for racists.” Au contraire, this state is a haven for bigots.

UGLY TRUTH! Why would anyone want to bring back such a demeaning, ugly, dorky trend as the mullet? Go back to the hick days!!

SO MANY LIGHTS Looks like we as a planet have become so scared of our own shadow that we can’t be left in the dark. Everywhere you go, there is light. Porch lights, streetlights, car lights, business lights. Has anyone heard of light pollution? How much do we spend on electricity, killing out the stars?

IDAHO PICKUP RACISTS A local Coeur d’Alene business owner was quoted saying

DON’T VISIT IDAHO Jeers to the racist twits who abused a group of women visiting Coeur d’Alene. Local college athletes have worked so hard to participate in March Madness. We should be celebrating them and all those visiting the area to participate. Instead you morons make national news by threatening them. I am so ashamed for you. Idaho is beautiful, but I never visit anymore.

AWFUL OFFAL Today I had to step over a large pile of human poop and toilet paper near the front door of the Crestline post office. This person must either be out of their mind to the point of not caring or deliberately posting a dump on society

Get these drivers off the roads.

2022 LICENSE TABS Jeers to those many cars parked along Upriver Drive just east of the Greene Street Bridge that have expired license tabs that are driven on Spokane roads every day. Why do the rest of us pay for tabs while you continue to drive illegally? My understanding is that when law enforcement notices them, those driving illegally are given tickets with a pretty steep price tag and the funds are used to support other important services. So, here is a request from law enforcement. Please notice the cars and ticket them! It’s just ridiculous that the rest of us obey the

the pickup of racists that yelled slurs at the Utah basketball team members is not typical of the city. I am gladdened that owner is “disappointed,” but I think that owner has forgotten the dozen or so radicals caught preparing to cause trouble at a Pride march. While not all those men were local, what is it about CDA that suggests to people this is a supportive place to act out racist views and violent actions? I can tell you: It’s the racist and right-wing rhetoric I continually hear from Idahoans.

NORTH IDAHO RACISM... HOW EMBARRASSING! Hey, you redneck truck drivers in CDA who shouted racial slurs toward the visiting basketball players, and then hung outside the restaurant waiting for them: Take your ignorant hatred and leave the Pacific Northwest. Your presence is no longer required since the Aryan Nations disbanded.

TOO LITTLE TOO LATE Jeers to Coeur d’Alene. Where were all of you when the Utah women’s basketball team walked to AND from a restaurant from their hotel and were being bombarded with racist remarks and Confederate flags by ignorant idiots? You can’t tell me that no one on the sidewalks saw anything?? BS! No one took a picture of a license plate or these racist human beings? No one stood up to the bullies as these young ladies walked on YOUR streets?? Shame on you, CDA!

since there are unlimited other choices.

RE: BRAIN FRYING WOW! Are you seriously puffing in your Range Rover with your child in the car? Your brain is toast, in my opinion. Unbelievable that you’re actually DRIVING and puffing away. If you got pulled over, do you understand the consequences? I do, but I really encourage you to find out what will happen to you and your child. Think about it!

BIGELOW GULP Jeers to the roadbuilders for killing Bigelow Gulch. Condemning five properties, destroying rock formations, and clear cutting trees is NOT progress. Bigelow was the first highway from the farmlands (which are mostly gone now) to downtown and suburban neighborhoods. If people are getting hurt it’s because they treat Bigelow Gulch like a race track, driving too fast and weaving in and out of lanes. Quit trying to “fix” historical roads when you mean “destroy.”

WHERE ARE THE COPS? According to the Spokane Regional Transportation Council, 919 people have been killed or seriously injured on Spokane roads since 2019. Speeding is the No. 1 factor. We all see speeders everyday. They often have missing or expired plates. There was a hit-and-run fatality in my neighborhood last month. Why are people driving insane speeds? Because the police are NOT doing their job. This is a major public safety issue.

laws while so many others drive down the streets with tabs that expired in 2021 and 2022!!!! How totally obnoxious!!

VERY DISAPPOINTING, BUT NOT UNEXPECTED Jeers to racists and bigots everywhere. Our region made national news twice in one week. First, for racists harassing the Utah Utes in Coeur d’Alene, then for a Michigan state rep publicly declaring the Zags men’s basketball team arriving at an airport to be busloads of illegal immigrants in his state. These latest examples of open hatred, racism, and bigotry by mentally small and fearful people is nothing but cowardice in the face of reality in a complex and diverse world. “Home of the brave”? Not so much. n

NOTE: I Saw You/Cheers & Jeers is for adults 18 or older. The Inlander

BENEFIT

TA TA DASH Proceeds fund advanced breast screening technologies, and education and support for our community. Choose from a 5K or 10K. April 7, 7:30 am-noon. $10-$55. Riverfront Park, 507 N. Howard St. beyondpink.net

CDAIDE CARE AFFAIR A benefit auction featuring live music, no-host bar, appetizers by four local chefs and a buffet by Sysco chefs. Proceeds benefit CDAIDE. April 11, 5-8:30 pm. $75. The Coeur d’Alene Resort, 115 S. Second. cdaide.org

CERAMIC THROWDOWN & CUP FRENZY This annual event raises funds and awareness for Emerge’s pottery program and studio space. Activities include a ceramic art competition, a cup sale and a gallery show. April 12, 5-9 pm. Free. Emerge, 119 N. Second. emergecda.com

COMEDY

FUNNY FUNNY FUNNY JOKE JOKE JOKE A comedy experience combining stand-up comedy, live sketches and other mixed-media bits. This month features Adam Tiller, Alex Kaufman, Brittney Holden and host Josiah Carlson. April 4, 7 pm. $15. Garland Theater, 924 W. Garland. funnyfunnyfunnyjokejokejoke.com

BLUE DOORS & DRAGONS A unique improv comedy journey guided by the whims of the dice, audience suggestions and the creativity of the Blue Door improvisers. March 8-April 5, Fri at 7:30 pm. April 5, 7:30 pm. $9. Blue Door Theatre, 319 S. Cedar St. bluedoortheatre.org

CHARLES HALL & FRIENDS An evening

of stand-up featuring Charles Hall Jr., Harry J. Riley, Monica Nevi and Phillip Kopczynski. April 6, 7:30 pm. $32. Beasley Coliseum, 925 NE Fairway Rd. beasley. wsu.edu (509-335-3525)

SAFARI The Blue Door’s version of Whose Line, with improved comedy skits from audience suggestions. Every Saturday at 7:30 pm through Dec. 28. $9. Blue Door Theatre, 319 S. Cedar St. bluedoortheatre.com (509-747-7045)

OPEN MIC MONDAY Hosted by local comedian Anthony Singleton, this open mic welcomes artists and entertainers of all genres and ages. Every first and fourth Monday from 7-9 pm. Free. Lyyv Entertainment, 8712 E. Sprague Ave. lyyv.tv

POETS UP Improv based on poetry. April 12, 7:30 pm. $9. Blue Door Theatre, 319 S. Cedar St. bluedoortheatre.org

COMMUNITY

WHAT’S HAPPENING FOR THE EXPO 74 50TH ANNIVERSARY? Program Manager for the Expo ’74 50th Celebration Matt Santangel shares what’s planned as part of the upcoming celebration. April 4, 4-5:30 pm. Free. Shadle Library, 2111 W. Wellesley Ave. spokanelibrary.org

POP-UP BEAD SHOW & SALE A show featuring artist Jeanne Leffingwell’s career collection of beads along with the bead estate of jewelry designer Victoria E Mitchell. April 5, 10 am-5 pm and April 6, 10 am-5 pm. Free. Dahmen Barn, 419 N. Park Way. artisanbarn.org

SNAP SPRING RESOURCE CARNIVAL

Get help with tax preparation, energy assistance, home repair and more. Plus,

enjoy fun activities and food for the whole family. April 5, 11 am-3 pm. Free. The Hive, 2904 E. Sprague Ave. spokanelibrary.org (509-444-5300)

THE DOOR BETWEEN US: MAIDS, COACHMEN AND COOKS This guided tour takes participants through the Campbell House and explores the lives of Joseph Gladding, the Campbell’s first coachmen, and Iris Nielsen, one of their maids. April 6, 11 am-noon. $8-$10. Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture, 2316 W. First Ave. northwestmuseum.org

NATIONAL TARTAN DAY CELEBRATION

Members from St. Andrews Society of the Inland Northwest host activities like weaving, poetry readings, pipes and drums, Spokane Scottish Country Dancers, Scottish storytelling and more. April 6, 11 am-4 pm. Free. Shadle Library, 2111 W. Wellesley Ave. spokanelibrary.org

NATIONAL WOMEN’S EXPO A festival featuring local and regional shopping, fashion, food, women’s services, cosmetics, travel, health and wellness providers and much more. April 6, 10 am-9 pm and April 7, 10 am-5 pm. $10. Spokane County Fair & Expo Center, 404 N. Havana St. womensshows.net (509-953-0928)

NEIGHBOR DAY WITH ANGELA BOULET

An discussion with local health and wellness influencer Angela Boulet and Indaba owner, Bobby Enslow. Includes a BOGO drink special, open mic and Electric Photoland photobooth. April 6, 10 am. Free. Indaba Coffee Roasters (Riverside), 518 W. Riverside Ave. angelaboulet.com

ORCHID SHOW & SALE An orchid show and sale put on by the Spokane Orchid Society and Spokane Community College

featuring orchid vendors from all over the Northwest. April 6, 11 am-6 pm and April 7, 10 am-3 pm. $5. Spokane Community College, 1810 N. Greene St. facebook. com/SpokaneOrchidSociety

WHY DID THE TITANIC SINK? Explore how ships float and how they sink through hands-on activities with a focus on the famous sinking of the Titanic in April 1912. Grades K-8. April 9, 3:30-4:30 pm. Free. Indian Trail Library, 4909 W. Barnes Rd. spokanelibrary.org

SPOKANE HOME & GARDEN SHOW Exhibitors of garden, landscaping, flooring, windows, furniture and other lifestyle services showcase products and more. April 12-14; Fri from noon-8 pm, Sat from 10 am-7 pm, Sun from 10 am-5 pm. $8-$12. Spokane Convention Center, 334 W. Spokane Falls Blvd. spokanehomeshows.com

EXPO ’74: 50 YEARS OF ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE IN THE INLAND

NORTHWEST A retrospective look at the environmental justice work done since the World’s Fair in Spokane and what remains to be done in the coming decades. April 12, 8:30 am-4 pm. Free. Gonzaga University School of Law, 721 N. Cincinnati St. gonzaga.edu/climate-institute

LIBERTARIAN PARTY OF WASHINGTON

ANNUAL CONVENTION Learn about Washington’s Libertarian party at this three-day convention featuring panels, speakers and more. April 12-14; Fri from 6-10 pm, Sat from 8 am-8:30 pm, Sun from 8:30 am-2:30 pm. $47-$187. Woman’s Club of Spokane, 1428 W. Ninth. lpwa.org/con2024 (206-234-8455)

LOCALS ONLY A weekend dedicated to showcasing local beer, food, vendors

and more. April 12-13; Fri-Sat from 11:30 am-10 pm, Sun from 11:30 am-8 pm. Free. Lumberbeard Brewing, 25 E. Third Ave. lumberbeardbrewing.com

FILM

NUMERICA FREE & DISCOUNTED MOVIES Families can enjoy free and discounted movies at Spokane’s Garland Theater over spring break. Sponsored by Numerica Credit Union. Daily through April 5. Garland Theater, 924 W. Garland Ave. fb.me/e/xY9TFafjc

URANIUM INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL A festival featuring cutting-edge films on nuclear issues around the world, including Brazil, Germany, India, Canada and the United States. Through April 4, 5:30-9 pm. $7. Magic Lantern Theatre, 25 W. Main Ave. uraniumfilmfestival.org

50 HOUR SLAM KICKOFF Official kickoff of the 2024 film festival and competition with rules and secret criteria revealed. April 5, 6:30 pm. KSPS Public TV, 3911 S. Regal St. 50hourslam.com

BAD PRESS: FREEDOM OF THE PRESS IN INDIAN COUNTRY Documentary filmmakers Rebecca Landsberry-Baker and Joe Peeler, who co-directed the award-winning film Bad Press, headline U of Idaho’s annual Oppenheimer Ethics Symposium. April 9, 6:30-9 pm. Free/donations accepted. The Kenworthy, 508 S. Main St. kenworthy.org (208-669-4080)

MOSCOW FILM SOCIETY: THE THING A research team in Antarctica is hunted by a shape-shifting alien. April 10, 7-9 pm. $8. The Kenworthy, 508 S. Main St. kenworthy.org

EVENTS | CALENDAR

SEED: THE UNTOLD STORY Learn about seed keepers who are defending the future of our food. April 11, 5:30-7 pm. Free. Liberty Park Library, 402 S. Pittsburgh St. spokanelibrary.org

SPOKANE COMEDY FILM FESTIVAL Two nights of short-form comedy films from Spokane’s local comedians and filmmakers. 3D classes included with each ticket. April 12, 7-9:30 pm and April 13, 7-9:30 pm. $10. Garland Theater, 924 W. Garland Ave. spokanecomedyfilmfestival.com

FOOD & DRINK

CANDYLAND: A POP-UP BAR TAKE-

OVER The grand opening of Servante reveals a fully immersive, Candylandthemed space with drinks, over-the-top desserts and a full candy bar collab from Fluffy’s Candy. April 4, 5-10 pm, April 5, 5 pm-midnight, April 6, 11-midnight and April 7, 11 am-7 pm. $10. Servante, 221 N. Division St. fb.me/e/8B7w8MaBQ

BLACK BOX DINNER: RESORT CHEF’S

CHALLENGE Nine chefs have 90-minutes to work together to create a fourcourse meal using mystery ingredients secretly selected by the guests. April 5, 7-9 pm. $150. The Coeur d’Alene Resort, 115 S. Second. bit.ly/3SQxjpN

KRAUT CULTURE: A FOOD WASTE

COOKING EXPERIENCE Discover how to transform overlooked ingredients into meals while reducing your household food waste. April 8, 5:30-6:30 pm. Free. Second Harvest, 1234 E. Front Ave. secondharvestkitchen.org (509-252-6255)

THAI COCKTAILS & SMALL PLATES

CULINARY CLASS Master mixologist Mike Rineer teaches the art of creating authentic Thai small plates paired with cocktails. April 12, 6-8 pm. $80. Beverly’s, 115 S. Second St. beverlyscda.com

GINSPIRATION COCKTAIL CLASS This gin-focused interactive class features a chronology of three drinks. Hear the stories and make the drinks. April 12 and 13, 6-9 pm. $85. Commellini Estate, 14715 N. Dartford Dr. commelliniestate.com

MUSIC

OPERA WORKSHOP Celebrate the coming of spring with the cast of WSU Opera’s production of the comic opera

The Bartered Bride by Bedřich Smetana. April 5, 7:30-9 pm and April 6, 2-3 pm. $10-$15. Bryan Hall Theatre (WSU), 605 Veterans Way. music.wsu.edu

BACHATHON A 60-minute concert celebrating the music of Johann Sebastian Bach that takes place in four locations throughout the Spokane area: Whitworth Presbyterian (1 pm); Messiah Lutheran (2 pm), St. Augustine (3 pm); Trinity Lutheran in Coeur d’Alene (4:30 pm). April 7, 1 pm. Free. spokaneago.org (402-319-1716)

AN ENCHANTED AFTERNOON WITH BARBRA STREISAND Sharon Owens performs as Barbara Streisand and performs her classic songs. April 7, 3-5 pm. $36-$61. Bing Crosby Theater, 901 W. Sprague Ave. bingcrosbytheater.com

SPOKANE SYMPHONY: ROCKWOOD

CHAMBER SOIRÉE Experience musiciancurated chamber music performed by Symphony musicians. April 9, 7 pm. $33. Rockwood Retirement Community, 221 E. Rockwood Blvd. foxtheaterspokane.org

COEUR D’ALENE BLUES FESTIVAL This 13th annual festival features various performers all in the realms of jazz, blues,

soul and R&B. See website for full schedule. April 12, 4-10 pm, April 13, 12-10 pm and April 14, 10 am-noon. $25-$75. The Coeur d’Alene Resort, 115 S. Second. cdabluesfestival.com (208-765-4000)

LIFE & LIBERTY LIFT EVERY VOICE The Chorale Coeur d’Alene performs works by Patti Drennan, Z. Randall Stroope, Rollo Dilworth and more. April 12, 7 pm and April 13, 2 pm. $20-$25. Trinity Lutheran Church, 812 N. Fifth St. choralecda.com

SPORTS & OUTDOORS

SPRING BREAK OPEN GYM A spring break special offering access to the turf field, batting cages and pitching mounds. All sports and activities welcome. Participants younger than 13 must be accompanied by an adult. April 1-5, daily from 1-5 pm. $15-$50. Airdome Northwest, 3939 E. Joseph Ave. airdomenw.com

BATTLE OF THE NATIONS BASKETBALL

TOURNAMENT An all-Native basketball tournament. All games played at the HUB or the Warehouse. April 5-7, 10 am. Free. hubsportscenter.org (509-993-2244)

SPOKANE INDIANS VS. VANCOUVER

CANADIANS Promotions include Opening Night Fireworks (April 5), Storybook Princess and Fireworks Night (April 6) and Dollars in Your Dog Day Game (April 7). April 5, 6:35 pm, April 6, 5:09 pm and April 7, 1:05 pm. Avista Stadium, 602 N. Havana St. milb.com/spokane

WATER WISE WEDNESDAY WORK-

SHOP: INTEGRATED PEST MANAGE-

MENT Learn how to manage pests before you reach for the chemicals with Spokane County Master Gardener Kris Hendron. April 10, 6-7 pm. Free. Shadle Library, 2111 W. Wellesley Ave. spokanelibrary.org

INTRODUCTION TO BIRDWATCHING:

SALTESE FLATS WETLANDS & TRAILS

Learn how to identify birds, how to set up binoculars and what books and apps are available for reference when birding. Presentation culminates in a bird walk around Saltese Flats. April 11, 6:30-7:30 pm. Free. Spokane Valley Library, 22 N. Herald Rd. scld.org

THEATER & DANCE

IN PARALLEL This evening of contemporary dance celebrates the sharing of dance across the Pacific Northwest and features new works by Lexie Powell, Vincas Greene, and Monica Mota of Quiero Flamenco as well as new pieces from local artists based in the Inland Northwest. April 5-6 and 12-13; Fri-Sat at 7:30 pm, Sat also at 2 pm. $30-$35. Vytal Movement Dance Space, 7 S. Howard St, Ste. 200. vytalmovement.org

MY FAIR LADY The story of Eliza Doolittle, a young Cockney flower seller, and Henry Higgins, a linguistics professor determined to transform her into his idea of a “proper lady.” Through April 7; times vary. $52-$100. First Interstate Center for the Arts, 334 W. Spokane Falls Blvd. broadwayspokane.com (509-279-7000)

I THOUGHT I KNEW YOU Jen returns home to comfort her devastated parents after her brother deliberately explodes a van in Louisville, killing himself and five other people. Thu-Sat at 7 pm, Sun at 2 pm through April 7. $25-$30. Stage Left Theater, 108 W. Third Ave. stagelefttheater.org

ARGENTINE MILONGA Dance the Argentine tango surrounded by dancers of all levels. A light snack potluck is included. First Saturday of each month from 7-10 pm. . $5. Sinto Activity Center, 1124 W. Sinto Ave. sintocenter.org

LANCE BURTON Burton is a stage magician who has performed over 15,000 shows in Las Vegas and has served as a judge on Criss Angel’s Magic with the Stars. April 6, 7-9 pm. $45-$125. Spokane Tribe Casino, 14300 W SR Highway 2. spokanetribecasino.com (877-789-9467)

BEAUTIFUL: THE CAROLE KING MUSICAL The story of a spunky, young songwriter from Brooklyn with a unique voice. April 11-21; Thu-Sat at 7:30 pm, Sat-Sun at 1:30 pm. $30-$35. Regional Theatre of the Palouse, 122 N. Grand Ave., Pullman. rtoptheatre.org

VISUAL ARTS

BEYOND HOPE: KIENHOLZ AND THE INLAND NORTHWEST EXHIBITION This exhibition delves into the collaborative artistic journey of American artist Edward Kienholz and his wife, Nancy Reddin Kienholz, in the small town of Hope, Idaho. Tue-Sat from 10 am-4 pm through June 29. Free. Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art WSU, 1535 NE Wilson Rd. museum. wsu.edu (509-335-1910)

ELLEN PICKEN: BEHIND THE FENCE A collection of abstract oil paintings that invite viewers to investigate ways of knowing and being, celestial and earthly, physical and intangible. Mon-Fri from 9 am-6 pm through April 12. Free. EWU Gallery of Art, 140 Art Building. ewu.edu/ cale/programs/art (509-359-2494)

ENCORE: BEYOND THE PAGE, BEYOND

THE CANVAS This exhibit features literary-based mixed media works by Tracy Poindexter-Canton including visual interpretations of poetry by renowned poets Nikki Giovanni, Sapphire, Ntozake Shange and local poet Stephen Pitters. Mon-Thu from 9 am–7 pm, Fri-Sat from 10 am–5 pm and Sun from 12-4 pm through April 30. Free. South Hill Library, 3324 S. Perry St. spokanelibrary.org

HAROLD BALAZS: LEAVING MARKS

This exhibition celebrates Balazs’ regional impact through 30 new additions to the museum’s permanent collection. The show focuses on Balazs’ later woks in sculpture, drawing and enamel. Tue-Sun from 10 am-5 pm through June 3. $8-$12. Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture, 2316 W. First Ave. northwestmuseum.org

MASTER OF FINE ARTS THESIS EXHIBITION This exhibition features works by MFA candidates Mozi Jones and Reika Okuhara that have been honed through years of study and exploration and includes visual narratives and conceptual pieces. Tue-Sat from 10 am-4 pm through June 29. Free. Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art WSU, 1535 NE Wilson Rd. museum.wsu.edu (509-335-1910)

NANCY ROTHWELL: LEAVES TALK This exhibit shows how the palette and content of paintings can change dramatically once an artist moves from western to eastern Washington. Mon-Fri from 10 am-6 pm, Sat from 10 am-2 pm through Aug. 31. Free. Colfax Library, 102 S. Main St. cowhitlib.org (509-397-4366)

SUBVERSIVE INTENT: SELECTIONS

FROM THE COLLECTION EXHIBITION

This show features rarely displayed artworks from the museum’s permanent collection, spanning from historical pieces by Hogarth and Goya to contemporary works by Holzer and Shimomura. Tue-Sat

from 10 am-4 pm through June 29. Free. Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art WSU, 1535 NE Wilson Rd. museum.wsu.edu

DUSTIN BRINKMAN: EVERYWHERE

THE SUN TOUCHES This show explores the liminal spaces between departure and arrival. Using Midwestern iconography, Brinkman’s work speaks of the connection between personal identity and collective spaces, evoking a sense of nostalgia and introspection. April 6-27, Thu-Sat from 4-7 pm. First Friday: April 5 from 5-8 pm. Free. Terrain Gallery, 628 N. Monroe St. terrainspokane.com

DYLAN LIPSKER Local artist Dylan Lipsker showcases a collection of art at his gallery. April 5, 5-8 pm. Free. Big City Art Studio & Gallery, 164 S. Washington St. instagram.com/bigcityartstudio

EXODO This show curated by Marco Sanchez features the works of 30 Mexican artists that depict the experiences of immigration, cultural appropriation and adaptation. April 5-13; Fri from 4-7 pm, Sat from 10 am-3 pm. Free. Gonzaga University Urban Arts Center, 125 S. Stevens St. spokaneprintfest.org

THE ATRIUM FIRST FRIDAY After a multi-year hiatus, this monthy event returns with live painting, demos, interactive stations, live music and works by over 20 local artists. April 5, 5-8 pm. Free. Liberty Building, 203 N. Washington St. fb.me/e/3FhVrVTuY (509-768-1268)

ROB MCKIRDIE: TRANSCENDENT DEPARTURES A collection of abstract works by local artist Rob McKirdie. First Friday: April 5 from 5-9 pm. Regular gallery hours: April 5-29, daily from 11 am-6 pm. Free. Entropy, 101 N. Stevens St. explodingstars.com (509-414-3226)

GAY WALDMAN: FLORALS This show features decorative floral works by artist Gay Waldman. She photographs flowers and manipulates them into newly realized compositions. First Friday: April 5 from 5-8 pm. Regular hours: April 6-27, Mon-Sat from 10 am-6 pm. Free. William Grant Gallery & Framing, 1188 W. Summit Pkwy. williamgrantgf.com

JAMES CUNNINGHAM A 13-year-old artist showcases portraiture ranging from Homer Simpson to Jimmy Carter. The reception features live music, free Twinkies and other refreshments. April 5, 5-9 pm. Free. V du V Wines, 12 S. Scott St. vduvwines.com (509-534-4302)

MASTER OF FINE ARTS THESIS ARTIST

TALKS AND RECEPTION This year’s candidates, Mozi Jones and Reika Okuhara, speak briefly to introduce the work they are presenting in the exhibition. Talks are followed by an opening reception. April 5, 3-6 pm. $0. Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art WSU, 1535 NE Wilson Rd. museum. wsu.edu (509-335-1910)

MENTOR A ceramics invitational featuring regional and local ceramic faculty and students they have personally mentored in their role as educators. April 5-26; Wed-Fri from 11 am-5 pm. Free. Trackside Studio, 115 S. Adams. tracksidestudio.net

MYSTÈRE This show features Barbara Miller, Terry Buckendorf and Justin Muth, three artists who have showcases extreme diversity in their exploration of content, materials and scale. April 5-28; Thu-Fri from 5-8 pm, Sat-Sun from 11 am-3 pm. Other viewings by appointment. Free. Kolva-Sullivan Gallery, 115 S. Adams St. kolva-sullivangallery.com

ON OTHER CORRESPONDENCES A collaborative art exhibition in which each featured artist has chosen a writer with whom they have corresponded through

ekphrasis. First Friday: April 5 from 5-8 pm. Get Lit! Reception: April 12 from 68 pm. Regular hours: April 5-27, Fri-Sat from 12-8 pm. Free. Saranac Art Projects, 25 W. Main Ave. sapgallery.com

ENIGMA: SPPC MEMBER EXHIBIT An exhibition featuring graphic works by members of the Spokane Print & Publishing Center. Held as part of Print Fest 2024. April 5-27, daily from 11 am-7 pm. First Friday: April 5 from 4-7 pm. Free. Liberty Building, 203 N. Washington St. spokaneprintfest.org

STEPHEN LESTAT: SPRING MOON Lestat’s works showcase quantum equations, mathematical theories and the pursuit of knowledge and understanding in a series of beautifully illustrated creatures. April 5-27, Wed-Sat from 11 am-5 pm. Free. New Moon Art Gallery, 1326 E. Sprague Ave. newmoonartgallery.com

DRYPOINT/COLLOGRAPH WORKSHOP

Participants learn the intaglio technique of drypoint etching and produce prints from their hand etched plates from Mary Farrell. Held as part of Spokane Print Fest. April 5, 9 am-noon. $70. Gonzaga University Urban Arts Center, 125 S. Stevens St. spokaneprintfest.org

ARTIST TALK: CHARLIE KNAPP & SHEILA EVANS The pair host an interactive discussion about their art, process, inspiration and more. April 6, 12-6 pm. Free. The Art Spirit Gallery, 415 Sherman Ave. theartspiritgallery.com (208-765-6006)

BEARGRASS MENDING CIRCLE Bring your mending projects and work on them in community with other menders. Sewing machine and iron available. BYO supplies. All levels welcome. Join the Facebook group for door code. April 6, 10:30 am-noon. Free. Shadle Library, 2111 W. Wellesley. beargrassconservation.com

SPOKANE PRINT FEST PRINT FAIR This event features printmaking demonstrations, prints for sale, print displays from a variety of print artists and an opportunity to meet the Hive’s Artists-In-Residence April 6, 2-6 pm. Free. The Hive, 2904 E. Sprague Ave. spokaneprintfest.org

WORDS

ORIGIN STORIES Create a short comic based on a myth, legend or anything else that inspires you. Registration required. April 2-5, daily from 9:30-11:30 am. Free. Spark Central, 1214 W. Summit Pkwy. spark-central.org (509-279-0299)

3 MINUTE MIC’S 11TH ANNIVERSARY

Readers may share up to three minutes worth of poetry. This special event features Danielle Estelle Ramsay. April 5, 7-8:30 pm. Free. Auntie’s Bookstore, 402 W. Main Ave. auntiesbooks.com

BLACKOUT / ERASURE POETRY Learn how to create blackout poetry, also known as erasure or redactive poetry. April 8, 5:45-7 pm. Free. The Hive, 2904 E. Sprague Ave. spokanelibrary.org (509444-5300)

OPEN MIC NIGHT An intergenerational, family-friendly open mic night. Participants get up to eight minutes to perform poetry, prose, music, comedy or other talents. Every other Wednesday from 5-7 pm through April 24. Free. Central Library, 906 W. Main. spokanelibrary.org

POETRY AFTER DARK EWU MFA students lead discussions about craft, style and form in poetry. Every second and fourth Wednesday from 7-8 pm. Free. Spark Central, 1214 W. Summit Pkwy. spark-central.org n

The Problem With Hemp

A coalition of elected litigators, including Washington’s Bob Ferguson, looks to disrupt a nascent cannabis industry

BY WILL MAUPIN

Washington state’s chief legal officer was one of more than 20 attorneys general across the United States who called for a change in federal cannabis policy last month, but not in the way you might be thinking.

Despite the fact that cannabis is legal in Washington, state Attorney General Bob Ferguson signed onto a letter that asks Congress to, essentially, make (some) cannabis illegal again.

“Hemp-derived intoxicants have proliferated across our states,” the March 20 letter reads. “We urge Congress in the strongest possible terms to address this reckless policy.”

Wait, what?

Hemp is legal across the U.S., and cannabis is legal in Washington. So, why the letter?

Well, even though botanically speaking hemp and cannabis are the exact same plant, the government sees it differently. Cannabis is illegal at the federal level, but hemp, which the federal government defines as cannabis with less than 0.3 percent THC by weight, is legal.

Same plant, different laws.

A legal loophole arose with the 2018 Farm Bill, which legalized hemp and subsequently allowed for a boom in hemp-derived products in the legal consumer market — it’s why you can buy CBDinfused everything from seltzer water to pet treats.

It’s also why you can buy THC-infused products via mail-order and have them delivered to your door by the United States Postal Service.

The latter wasn’t exactly the plan of the federal legislation that in 2018 legalized a plant that once upon a time was best known for rope making.

Hemp, despite containing only negligible amounts of THC, can be used to produce THC from other chemicals naturally occurring within the plant.

Enterprising entrepreneurs around the country have tried to cash in on this loophole by converting chemicals in now federally legal hemp into still federally illegal THC.

And that’s where Ferguson comes in.

He’s not asking the feds to ban hemp or THC, both of which are legal in Washington, but to close the loophole that allows THC to be sold outside the state’s licensed marketplace. The letter is asking for a new definition for a word that is already defined.

The federal government legalized “hemp” but not “cannabis,” though really they’re both “weed.” People sold weed when it was illegal, so is it a surprise that people are selling it now that it’s kind of legal?

For an answer to that question, we’ll have to wait and see with Ferguson’s letter. n

NOTE TO READERS

Be aware of the differences in the law between Idaho and Washington. It is illegal to possess, sell or transport cannabis in the State of Idaho. Possessing up to an ounce is a misdemeanor and can get you a year in jail and up to a $1,000 fine; more than three ounces is a felony that can carry a five-year sentence and fine of up to $10,000. Transporting marijuana across state lines, like from Washington into Idaho, is a felony under federal law.

Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson. PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY LESLIE DOUGLAS

___ from me ...”

58. In the thick of 59. “We can relate”

61. Prefix for rail or chrome

62. Chess play

63. Gambling mecca near Hong Kong

35. Smoothly, as a successful plan

36. Real estate developer’s unit

37. Rookie of the ___

65. Small wallet bills

66. “... I’ll eat ___!”

DOWN

1. Alaska gold rush city (and a hint to what’s missing from 3-Down)

2. “The ___” (1976 Gregory Peck horror film)

3. Didn’t say anything

4. Palindromic Ottoman official

5. “2001” computer

6. Outer limit

7. Runny French cheese

8. Rum cakes

10. Lowest points

64. Former Domino’s Pizza mascot (and a hint to what’s missing from 51-Across)

9. Banned substances

11. Speak your mind

12. “August: ___ County” (Meryl Streep movie)

21. Enthusiast

22. Pool ball with a yellow

24. Jazz vocal style

25. ___ Paradise (“On the

27. “Livin’ La ___ Loca” (Ricky Martin hit)

28. Product of pungency

29. “Understood”

30. Golf shoe gripper

34. Enjoying

39. Destination in “Peewee’s Big Adventure”

40. Dole (out)

42. Baby’s night spot

43. KPH part

44. Camera mount

46. Amount of gunk

47. “Star Wars” droid, familiarly

48. Neighbor of a Tobagonian, informally

49. Citrus with a zest

51. Kendrick Lamar Pulitzerwinning album

52. “___ Talkin’” (Bee Gees #1 hit)

53. Pindaric poems

55. Hurricane-tracking agcy.

56. In-___ Burger (and a hint to what’s missing from 35-Down)

59. Steak-___ (frozen beef brand)

60. Speak

13. Monica’s brother on “Friends”

stripe

Road” narrator)