REMEMBERING
T I M OT H Y WHITE EAGLE
OCTOBER 2026 • THESTRANGER.COM
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OCTOBER 2026
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fter giving years of my life to this paper and reaching the point of my career where people have to listen to me, I’m returning to the marsh I crawled out of, Chicago. Have I lost my mind? I’m writing to you from the road. In the last 30 hours, I have bruised my entire body hauling my most prized possessions down the stairs, gifted my less-than-prized possessions to a curb in Capitol Hill, woke up in a state where it is illegal for me to pee, and spent exorbitantly on gas thanks to Trump’s idiot war in Iran. I am on US Route 212 East, where I am on deer watch. Deer undermine what should be our shared mission of keeping them alive by running stupidly at death. Oh, another dead one. Congrats to her; this was her Jellicle Ball. I am not insane. I am moving home for a job at our sister publication, the Chicago Reader. The box merchant at UPS did not agree that moving to Chicago is sane. He thought all the neighborhoods were very scary. Incorrect. Only some of them are very scary, like River North. It sucks there. Part of moving back is trading tech bros for just bros. I can accept this. My coworkers cannot accept this, and I take their displeasure as a sign of unyielding love and admiration. Don’t be embarrassed. It’s mutual. I spent five years and two months of
my life in Seattle, three years and five months of them at The Stranger. It defined my life here, mostly because working at The Stranger leaves a person with very little extra time. All the near deer strikes have given me the space to consider two things: which of my prized possessions would embed itself in my skull if we crashed into a deer right now, and what it means to be a Stranger writer. I only have 400 words, so I’ll keep this brief, using examples from this very issue: Stranger writers must be funny (pg. 24), hungry and/or thirsty (pg. 47), emotionally intelligent (pg. 35), emotionally unintelligent (pg. 8), aware of what makes this city special (pg. 43), and sick of what makes this city fucking suck sometimes (pg. 12). Lastly, a Stranger writer often works when they aren’t supposed to, like when they’re the designated deer spotter at 10 p.m. on a cross-country road trip. Perhaps this is all too much crawling into my own ass. In my defense, it is very warm, and Chicago is very cold. I am finishing this in South Dakota, where the only gender is biker. My girlfriend is setting up our new electric account. Wall Drug awaits. I wrote 48 words over.
Look Good. Feel Good. Smell Good.
Thanks, Seattle, Vivian
This Issue Brought to You By… Sacrificing a hot dog pin to the Bikini Kill mosh pit Stage Girl by Eli Workplace mercenaries Wearing a dress covered in sequins and spinning around and around and around in it until you almost fall over at the Genius Awards in front of everyone you know Comptooters Not All Men™ but certainly most of them at this point!
Girl bossing
Gabby Pentin
Eating all the playdog
A 4.2 earthquake
OTTOGI Otoki Cheesy Ramen made with frozen peas and the cheese powder packet’s “cheese pro” level
Elvira: Mistress of the Dark Chicago
Robitussin
My big Russian history phase
Move it Sis!
Gnarly insomnia
Tongue kissing your dog after he ate peanuts
1 milligram sleepy weed gummies
Press-on nails
New tattoo as a little treat
[Barely] Surviving your in-laws
Spilling a whole sample of Troye Sivan’s perfume on myself
Prophesizing a car crash, and then becoming a car crash victim
Cloud tops on coffee (yeah I didn’t see this phase coming either) Nail-biting relapse Suicidal deer or plaintive bison
905 E. Pike St. • ineedretailtherapy.com
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THE STRANGER 1101 E. Pike St., Suite 300, Seattle, WA 98122 VOICE 206-323-7101 editor@thestranger.com
Mon–Fri, 9 am–5:30 pm;
OCTOBER 2026
“A hilarious poison-pen satire… [it’s] a yellow thumbs-up emoji.” — The New York Times
I Saw U . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Staring at Cheese, Sitting in the Back Row, and Blowing Bubbles
Last Month This Month . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 All the Electrocuted Fish, Strongly Worded Letters, and Pig Kidneys You May Have Missed in September
S E P 24 – NOV 1 5 , 20 26
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Where to Scream . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11 Protests, Rallies, and Other Ways to Get Involved in October
The Stranger’s 2026 General Election Endorsements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Taxing the Rich Is on the Ballot This Fall
Night of the Living Dentist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 At 23, I drunkenly toppled off a LimeBike while dressed as Ty Pennington. What followed was a three-and-a-half-year dental horror story.
Remembering Timothy White Eagle . . . . . . 35 Artist, Ritualist, and Performer
New Music You Shouldn’t Miss . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Faith Coloccia + Tashi Dorji’s Melodious Drone Folk and Melanie Radford’s Hushed, Bass-Centric Songcraft
Spotlit in Seattle: Analog Projections . . . . . 41 Aubree Barber Finds Forgotten Memory in the Shadows
Shelf Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Scarecrow Video Buyer Mark Steiner Retires After 34 Years
One Smart Cookie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Vince Vu’s Collaborative Shop Lifts Up Fellow Asian American Bakers
Things to Do . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 Music! Visual Art! Literature! Food & Drink! Film! Performance! This & Also That!
Laugh While You Can . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 Comics and a Genius Crossword Puzzle!
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OCTOBER 2026
I Saw U…
Staring at Cheese at Trader Joe’s, Sitting in the Back Row at the Regal Meridian, and Blowing Bubbles From Your Porch ILLUSTRATIONS BY BRIAN SCAGNELLI
D
id you recently share a ~*moment*~ with someone while riding the bus, dancing at the club, or standing in line at the supermarket? Do you want to try to reconnect? Submit your own I Saw U at TheStranger.com/ isawu, and maybe we’ll include it in the next roundup! Look for a new batch of I Saw U messages every week on TheStranger.com. Man in Vintage Red BMW Wearing Hot 70s-style Glasses We made brief eye contact at a 4-way stop in NE Seattle on 9/19. I smiled & looked away. Let’s ride into the sunset? Sincerely, gal in a Blue Honda.
couldn’t figure out how to do so without seeming like a creep. Cutie with the “Oobi” Ring Chatted @ Ballard Seafood Fest; you had blue eyeshadow & Oobi eyes on your finger. I was the volunteer w/ the Jaws shirt & septum piercing. Coffee? Dance with me? You: blond hair blue eyed male in jersey and pash. We locked eyes as I scanned your ticket at the Sodo skrillex after party. Rave with me again?
Cheese at Trader Joes We met staring at the cheese at the Ballard TJ’s. I was impressed by your expertise and wit. And then you told me you are from WI, and I understood. Gone fishing on the Link (the one that got away) Morning train: I asked about your fish earrings, you said Fairhaven & popped one out. You waved & vanished. Wish I caught your name—coffee? Emo Night at El Corazon I wasn’t super feeling myself, and you approached me to tell me how pretty I was. Thank you so much, it was incredibly kind of you! Made my night! Arsenal at Twist of Fate 09/05 You saw my Arsenal shirt and we had a little chat. Sorry I didn’t ask for your name I was a little tired. We won the next day, I think because of you! Spreading whimsy and bubbles in Fremont You created an enchanting cloud of bubbles off your porch, bright and early on a Sunday morning; I watched, entranced from the bus stop. Buddy at the Meridian, tattoos and black/white striped shoes Saturday the 5th, 3pm, back row. Wanted to talk to you about that insane movie but
You used my binoculars to look at the eclipse In Capitol Hill. I let you and your friends use my binoculars to look at the eclipse. You showed me a picture of your sunburn. You’re cute! Drinks? Movie Magic Sat next to you @ Central Cinema. You had pizza and rosé. Your enchanting eyes shined brighter than the screen. I’d share my candy with you anytime ;) KEXP BBQ Cutie You: a volunteer with a kind smile. Me: in a white baseball cap, eating a tamale. Tried to chat but we were interrupted. Coffee sometime? Broadway and John 10 am Wed July 15th. you were chatting on the phone on the NE corner. I admired your hair and interesting blouse. would be cool to grab a drink Is it a match? Follow The Stranger on Instagram and leave a comment on our weekly I Saw U posts to connect!
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LAST MONTH THIS MONTH All the Electrocuted Fish, Strongly Worded Letters, and Pig Kidneys You May Have Missed in September
awarded Constantine a $30,000 bonus, a near $16,000 salary bump (with a 4 percent inflation boost in April), and a three-year contract. Constantine’s salary will be $490,086 next year. Dow, we hope that’s enough.
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*** The Humane Society of Tacoma & Pierce *** Disease abounds. The Australian Antarctic County has had enough pussy for a lifetime. Division extracted 24 researchers stationed The shelter took in more than 100 cats on the sub-Antarctic Macquarie Island due seized from “deplorable conditions,” 61 sailors to a bird flu threat. If the flu comes to cats rescued from an abandoned sailboat Macquarie, 90 percent of baby last month, and another 20 cats elephant seals could found living in a car. That’s die. There are 100,000 a lot of cats! They had seals on the island. If commandeered the this mass extinction vessel to search for a event comes to Macgiant pile of dead fish. quarie Island’s ele*** phant seals, it could You know who has create “psychological not allegedly had her risk” for the researchers fill of pussy? US Rep. stationed there. Lauren Boebert! A Please don’t die. complaint filed with the US *** Sound Transit CEO and former House Committee on Ethics County Executive Dow Constantine is in the accused the Colorado Republican of having mood for a Scrooge McDuck-sized swim- sex with three House employees under her ming pool of gold. Sound Transit’s board direct supervision and paying to keep them S CK GE ET/G ETTY IMA
TR IS
*** /G The Israeli AmeriET TY can Council wanted Ed IM *** AG ES Perhaps this was the gods as Sheeran to kick Macklemore Free Palestine. well: The Mariners did not off the US leg of his world tour make the playoffs. Do you for giving a “Free Palestine” speech on stage. The spineless English know what song they no longer play during glob complied and booted Macklemore, and the Seventh Inning Stretch? “Can’t Hold Us” by Macklemore. Much to think about. the mogging began. Macklemore, who has spoken out in sup*** port of Palestine for years, released a thought- In Actually Existing Antisemitism news, the ful statement. Sheeran released a statement German far-right won their first big elecof his own, essentially saying it wasn’t his tion since the Holocaust, with Nazi-succesfault; Robert Kraft, the billionaire owner sors Alternative für Deutschland handily
sweeping state elections in Saxony. Saxony used to be part of communist East Germany, which has fared poorly after annexation by West Germany at the end of the Cold War. So poorly that they’re voting for the far-right in droves.
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of Gillette Stadium who’s featured in the Epstein files, told Sheeran he couldn’t play his concert if Macklemore stayed on the bill, and Sheeran said his opening acts are counting on him to feed their families. Within hours, Sheeran’s opening acts dropped off their respective dates, including his own fucking backing band, Beoga. Taking a side, the gods unleashed a brutal nor’easter that led to the cancellation of the Gillette Stadium shows.
R LE EH KA ANG WOLFG
ARNAU
Fall is upon us. Come drizzly skies, come death, come a Saturday Halloween where people in this corporate snoozetown will actually go out. Gas prices are still high, and Iran is still exploding! Trump banned the press from the White House and let them back in when a judge said he had to! The FBI got hacked by nerds! And the prophesied return of the Mack was upon us in September.
BY NATHALIE GRAHAM
I, Anonymous
Readers’ Rants and Confessions ILLUSTRATION BY STEVEN WEISSMAN To the person who left me a card with this note: Hi there, I live two floors below you (ground-floor patio). Can you please stop letting water pour off of your balcony and sweeping your dirt over the edge? You’re making a mess on my patio—piles of dirt, puddles of dirty water, and a splash zone that includes a bunch of my plants, the table + chairs, and sometimes me. Thanks, Apt. #109 P.S. You just made 2 giant stains on the patio I spent 3 hours cleaning yesterday! Hi, Apartment 109— First of all, what the fuck is this—a grievance delivered inside a greeting card? If water was landing on you, you could have yelled, “Hey, what the fuck? You’re splashing me!” like a normal human being. I would have yelled back, “Oh shit, sorry! I didn’t realize!” and the entire problem would have been solved before you had time to commission the commemorative stationery. Second, how the fuck do you know I was “sweeping dirt over the edge”? Were you standing on my balcony supervising? I was not deliberately sweeping shit onto your patio. Leaves, potting-soil residue, and ordinary outdoor debris can blow through or over a balcony railing
because—and brace yourself for this shocking development—wind exists. If some of it landed downstairs, that does not mean I stood up here maliciously launching garbage at your furniture. As for the water, I had no way of seeing that runoff from two floors above was reaching your patio. Had you used your words when you first noticed it, I would have fixed it weeks ago. Instead, you apparently let the irritation accumulate, cleaned for three hours, wrote a victim-impact statement, added a dramatic postscript, and signed it not with an actual human name but “Apt. 109.” By the way, “Apt. 109” is not a name. Unless your parents named you Apartment and 109 is your middle name, use your fucking name like a normal person. You know who I am and where I live, but you apparently need witness protection before requesting a plant saucer. If you want to communicate neighbor-to-neighbor, the minimum requirement is briefly participating in the interaction as an identifiable neighbor rather than an anonymous municipal code-enforcement unit. Also—and I realize this may come as startling regional news—you have an outdoor ground-floor patio in Seattle. It rains here. Quite a bit, actually. Water routinely falls directly out of the fucking sky and lands on outdoor plants, tables, chairs, patios, and occasionally human beings. I will contain runoff from my plants because that part is within my control, but I cannot guarantee that your patio will remain a federally designated moisture-free zone. Now that I know what is happening, I’ll address the runoff and be more careful about loose debris. Problem solved. In the future, please knock on my door, yell up, or leave a normal two-sentence note before privately assembling a fucking criminal case against my lavender. Sincerely, The Alleged Balcony Menace
Do you need to get something off your chest? Submit an I, Anonymous, and maybe we’ll illustrate it! Send your unsigned rant, love letter, confession, or accusation to ianonymous@thestranger.com. Please remember to change the names of the innocent and the guilty. Read more I, Anonymous letters every week at TheStranger.com.
OCTOBER 2026
quiet. This includes two women, which is considered a bit of a faux pas in MAGA culture. Boebert, a noted bigot, has denied the allegations, which came from the political operative who previously accused her of being a sex worker, a claim news media could not independently corroborate. Boebert was, however, caught red-handed fondling that guy’s junk during a musical production of Beetlejuice. What can we say? It’s a sexy show.
*** If the gooners are passing into legend, who will ride at dawn to protect the bikini baristas of Washington? No worries, kings, the law is already on it. Seventy Bikini Baristas could recover more than $1.8 million after winning their lawsuit over pay violations. A King County Superior judge found that Alan Tagle and his company violated Washington employment laws, including by failing to pay minimum wage for all hours worked. *** As if things weren’t expensive enough, Canada slapped $27.6 billion in retaliatory
*** No city has truly bounced back from the pandemic, what with a million Americans dying and the government deciding they were tired of spending money to fight it. Seattle remains in a worse position than most, with the twin pandemics of COVID-19 and the technospeculators closing down many of the old haunts that defined the city, particularly the after-hours scene. But now, six years since we all started masking up, Beth’s Cafe is back open 24 hours. It’s a start.
*** Apple released its new foldable iPhone, which will go for a thrifty $2,000, nearly twice the price of the iPhone 17 Pro. It’s a shame because that phone would IO slide perfectly into /G ET TY your pocket while you *** IM AG ES It’s resurrection time navigated the new Charlie Kirk corn maze on Get a 12-egg omelet at 12 a.m. in Seattle. The beloved Grand Illusion Cinema, an Indiana farm. Goebel which left its University Farms—no, this is not a joke—cut Kirk’s face into the corn to District home in 2025 after 50 years, is movhonor him because “he believed that dis- ing back to the neighborhood to take over agreement should lead to conversation, not the recently closed Varsity Theattr. That’ll give the Grand Illusion, which used to only violence.” have one screen, three screens to play with. *** The first-of-its-kind light rail floating bridge After a few improvements, the plan is to open is zapping the fish in Lake Washington. The up in November or early December and bridge and its underwater cables have show movies every day of the week. Capitol killed around 2,000 fish since March— Hill’s Egyptian Theater may be getting a new mostly perch and bass, but a few salmon as owner, too. well. Not killing fish was one of the require*** ments for the creation of the floating light rail Business leaders from 38 companies, includbridge. As of publication, the problem was ing Starbucks, Microsoft, Costco, Nordstrom, still unsolved. In the meantime, is anyone the Seattle Mariners, and Alaska Air Group, sent a strongly worded letter urging Mayor in the mood for sushi? AR OS .R IO M ANTON
*** The youth cannot understand why anyone would want to ruin Beetlejuice the musical with a handy. In addition to having less sex than their forefathers, Gen Z isn’t even pleasuring themselves. These jerk-offs are not jacking off! A Playboy Gen Z sex survey found that one in three men aged 18 to 29 haven’t rubbed one out in 90 days. The same was true for half of women in the same demographic. Are the gooners goners? They aren’t speaking as much these days, so we may never know.
tariffs on hundreds of US goods. The duties of 15 to 50 percent include dairy, agricultural equipment, paper, appliances, electronics, steel, aluminum, iron, furniture, motorbikes, clothing, and beauty products. We are not currently negotiating with Canada to stop the trade war we started. Brilliant gambit, sir.
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Katie Wilson and the Seattle City Council to create a 100-day public safety action plan. The letter is in response to an August poll, conducted by our town’s business circle jerk, the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, which found that only 34 percent of 500 registered Seattle voters were confident in the city’s public safety plan. Well, boo hoo. Violent crime is down through the first half of 2026. Where was this angry letter to the last two mayors when violent crime rates were much higher? Also, most of these businesses aren’t even based here! *** RIP to some good ones. Three Capitol Hill businesses on 15th Avenue East shuttered due to drama with the building and landlord. The bricks of the 1922-era building that houses Rubinstein Bagels, Rione XIII Italian restaurant, and Bar Vacilando have been crumbling. Nothing’s been done about it. And, it turns out, the property owner hasn’t paid taxes on the parcel since 2023. *** Surely this counts as magic more than science. A woman has lived with a transplanted pig kidney, gene-edited to make it fit for human transplantation, for 285 days without need of dialysis. That beats the former pigkidney-transplanted-to-a-human record by two weeks. Guinness, come get this!!! This is big news for people awaiting kidney transplants. Waits for old-school human kidneys can take between three and five years. *** The Pope was gifted a green orb called the “Sphere of Humanity” by the nonprofit Saint Peter for Humanity. Good for him.
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Protests, Rallies, and Other Ways to Get Involved in October BY MEGAN SELING Solidarity Days With La Resistencia
Multiple dates La Resistencia will gather outside the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma to show support for detainees on October 10, 24, and 31. They also collect donations via PayPal (@laresistencia) and Venmo (@LaResistenciaNW)—in one week in September, they gave $1,450 to detainees for food and supplies from the commissary. (Northwest Detention Center, Tacoma, 1–3 pm)
Stop Sexual Violence Rally & March
Oct 8 In response to the Cornell University rape case, Gender Equity Movement is organizing a rally and march to protest sexual violence. They encourage attendees to wear teal and/or carrying signs that say “I am Jane Doe.” (Henry M. Jackson Federal Building, 6:30 pm)
Chris Hedges and Joe Sacco: Requiem for Gaza
Oct 12 For their new book, Requiem for Gaza—out October 6 on Fantagraphics—journalist Chris Hedges and cartoonist Joe Sacco interviewed dozens of Palestinians who fled Gaza. Hedges writes, “Our book is our effort to combat erasure, to preserve memory, to defy an indifferent world, to record scraps of existence, to pay homage to the villages, refugee camps and cities that have been obliterated, to set down the stories of butchery, carnage and loss, as well as resilience, courage and self-sacrifice, to name and condemn the killers, to mourn the extermination of families, including tens of thousands of children, and to preserve a vanished world.” If that doesn’t make you scream, I don’t know what will. (Town Hall, 7:30 pm, all ages)
Pattie Gonia: SAVE HER!
Oct 16 Getting sued by Patagonia won’t keep Pattie Gonia from saving humankind and the
world! The climate activist and drag queen brings her SAVE HER! tour to Showbox SoDo for a performance focused on climate change and what we can do to stop us all from burning up or suffocating by 2050. (Showbox SoDo, 8 pm, 21+)
Vote Early March and Voting Fair
Oct 24 This fall installment of the nationwide No Kings Day is focused on encouraging people to vote early. Trump’s probably gonna try some sneaky shit, so get your ballot turned in and counted ASAP! Groups including Seattle Indivisible, Troublemakers, Evergreen Resistance, and Defund Musk are organizing this event that invites people to “march joyfully through Seattle to a voting fair at Seattle Center.” Does that mean dancing? Music? Snacks? Five-thousand Trump bucks? Who knows! (Westlake Plaza, 2 pm)
Pints and Postcards
Multiple dates Several times a month, Defund Musk hosts letter-writing parties around town, and that effort is ramping up as we near the November midterms. Join in every Tuesday on Capitol Hill, every Thursday in Ballard, every other Thursday in Maple Leaf, and every other Sunday in Greenwood. Visit DefundMusk. com for the specific dates and locations.
VOTE!
Nov 3 Vote! VOOOOOOOTE! Here are the dates to know: Election Day is November 3. King County ballots will be mailed out October 14, and you should receive it by October 19. If you don’t, call King County Elections to see what’s up. Not registered? It’s not too late! You can register online through October 26, and even register and vote in-person through Election Day. Not sure what’s on the ballot? Flip to page 12 for The Stranger Election Control Board’s general election endorsements. We helped you with your homework.
Want to tell us about an event? Email us at WheretoScream@TheStranger.com. Find more listings on our sister site, EverOut.com/Seattle.
OCTOBER 2026
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12 THE STRANGER
THE STRANGER’S 2026 GENERAL ELECTION ENDORSEMENTS BY THE STRANGER ELECTION CONTROL BOARD ILLUSTRATIONS BY MARK KAUFMAN
E H T H C G I N R AT XI OCTOBER 2026
T H E IS ON
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t’s that time of year again, time for a cabal of vulgar Marxists in a hot conference room on Capitol Hill to handpick the government. Just kidding. We fixed the AC in the conference room. Why go through the trouble of voting? A city council seat in District 5 could undermine the moderate majority in what we predict will be their last year on the dais, the State Supreme Court is up for grabs, and the futures of tax reform and trans kids are on the ballot. Washington has the second most unequal tax structure of any state due to an insane State Supreme Court ruling from the Great Depression that makes taxing rich people’s income more than poor people’s illegal. Progressive legislators got organized enough to pass the Millionaires Tax as a test case to hopefully overturn that ruling, which is why the right has backed conservative candidates in the five races for State Supreme Court, and dumped millions into a ballot initiative to repeal this potentially transformative legislation. The other two initiatives are anti-trans and antigay nonsense, so you should vote against all three.
There’s also a possibility of flipping a few Republican state legislative seats this year, though not so much in deep-blue Greater Seattle, where it’s more important to replace moderate Democrats with progressives who aren’t afraid to tax the rich. (Read our full endorsements at TheStranger.com.) Based on our desire to support candidates who are actually capable of delivering progressive policy wins, the SECB took some flak in the primary for not endorsing two candidates Seattle’s mayor did, because apparently some people think we work for her (she would return our calls if we did). Upper management also coincidentally decided to let our editor-in-chief go right before we published primary endorsements, fanning the flames spread by rumormongers and spurned candidates that the paper’s owners interfered with endorsements. We heard many fanciful rumors about our bosses stopping the presses to replace our opinions with theirs. But that didn’t happen. We’ve also heard that the board has been stuffed with allegiants at the
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beck and call of our investors. As if. Our staff has a clause in our union contract to prevent interference in endorsements, and allowing the business side of the paper to interfere with editorial direction is a big ethical no-no in our profession that would’ve led several of us to resign in protest. As we’ve explained ad nauseam by now, the SECB endorsed incumbent Senate Majority Leader Jamie Pedersen over first-time candidate Hannah Sabio-Howell because he’s quarterbacking the once-in-a-generation income tax reform fight and replacing him would also mean a more conservative Senate caucus. Washington’s conservatives think so, too, which is why they’ve spent tens of thousands of dollars opposing Pedersen’s reelection, and the whole race has become a referendum on progressive tax reform, whether you like it or not. Regardless of our actual logic, the SECB got tarred as compromised by corporate interests for this (no, we don’t get the logic either) as well as for not endorsing YIMBY tech bro Ron Davis, who didn’t have
a backup plan for fumbling his interview with us. A tip for candidates seeking political office: If you’re going to spend thousands of dollars on yard signs, make sure they say “vote for me” instead of advertising that you lost The Stranger’s endorsement. Your donors will thank you. Though the SECB is leftist, progressive, and kind of annoying, we are not yes-men for any candidate who occupies the leftmost lane. Our political class knows they have to appeal to the community’s progressive majority whether they share their beliefs or not, and you would not believe the number of moderates who walk through our doors hoping we will launder their reactionary politics to our readers. Think of us as six overworked food safety inspectors at a slaughterhouse trying to let as little contaminated meat out the door as possible. And folks, there is poop on a lot of this meat. Our health code is journalistic scrutiny: We scour their voting records and financial reports. We call their current and former associates. We compile hefty research documents for our colleagues. We conduct panel interviews so they can tell us exactly
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OCTOBER 2026
how they plan to execute progressive policy, and then we discuss at length whom each of us would endorse. We frequently disagree, delay votes to hunt down key facts, and take vote after vote until we reach a simple majority. Then we write an endorsement and bicker some more. The only people who see it before it’s published are the SECB, a copy editor, and a fact-checker. Our bosses and colleagues often find out who we endorse the day we go to press. We joke that we handpick candidates, but The Stranger is not a political machine. We are not interested in performing politics or propaganda. We are an independent newspaper that informs our progressive readers which candidates most align with their political goals. You’ll find explanations behind each endorsement in this paper and online. You can see similar decisions spanning decades on our website. Sometimes people are happy with us, sometimes they are very angry. That’s politics. If this doesn’t sit right with you, and you think we should be using our influence to be a rubber stamp, to be good soldiers for the progressive movement, then congratulations, you don’t want fucking journalism. You want friends and associates of politicians to tell you how to vote. Don’t like how much power we exert in primary elections? Then you’d better get organized! The business community sure is. Included in this print edition of our endorsement guide: endorsements for all initiatives on the ballot and the races that did not appear in our primary endorsement guide because they were overwhelmingly two-candidate races between Democrats vs. Republicans. Not much of a primary. Additionally, we have included King County races outside of Seattle. All other write-ups are on our website. Those endorsements have not changed since the primary, but we have updated them because time has passed and flows ever on. Please read them at TheStranger.com. The SECB does not endorse in uncontested races, races we forgot, or races in Spokane. Its members include, for a second time, Vivian McCall, Megan Seling, Charles Mudede, Nathalie Graham, Hunter Pauli, Cedar Attanasio, and Gracie, the privately owned Texas giraffe.
FOUR VERY IMPORTANT BALLOT INITIATIVES
VOTE (FUCK) NO ON I-001, I-638, AND I-645 Brian Heywood and his outfit, Let’s Go Washington, are the stupidest, most destructive motherfuckers in the state of Washington. These know-nothings push culturally conservative ballot initiatives as a front for their real aim: convincing people much poorer than them to defend their wealth and prevent their millionaire money
from being used for the benefit of society. Vote no on all three of these Let’s Go Washington initiatives, all of which are so silly and counterproductive that even the conservative bozos on the Seattle Times Editorial Board saw them as low-effort, self-serving trash. I-001 is an attempt to resurrect the Parents’ Bill of Rights (PBOR), which is not about parents or rights. It is about control and keeping students from seeking the support of trusted adults. It gave parents essentially no new rights. But inside this harmless, sensible exterior was a bomb. Ripped directly from a 2014 Louisiana law, the PBOR could’ve handed private counseling records, detailing the private feelings, sexualities, and struggles of children, to their overbearing or unsupportive parents. It also could’ve buried school districts in onerous exemption paperwork. After the PBOR earned enough signatures to end up on the ballot in 2024, it was proactively adopted by the Legislature so it could be dismantled. If it passed, they wouldn’t have been able to touch it. Slapping a law made for one state onto the established legal code of another is fucking stupid and created numerous conflicts the Legislature later resolved and amended. The folks at Let’s Go Washington couldn’t handle that, so they’ve made it our problem again. Vote No. If passed, I-638 would be the most extreme trans sports ban in the country, mandating genital exams, genetic testing, and hormonal testing for girls playing sports in high school, middle school, and in some cases, elementary school. Trans people have never dominated sports and there is zero evidence they ever will dominate sports. But requiring this shit is a great way to get a child molested, exclude a girl with high testosterone from competing, and create a higher barrier to entry for every girl who wants to play a school sport, all to keep somewhere between 10 and 20 trans people off the fields and courts. No, no, no. The big kahuna, the real reason for the season, is I-645, an initiative to repeal the Millionaires Tax. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve heard that the Millionaires Tax, a 9.9 percent tax on all income above $1 million, is the first chess move toward a checkmate, graduated income tax in Washington State. It’s also sorely needed revenue for essential government services, public school, statewide universal free school lunches, health care and behavioral health care services, and human services. Contrary to popular speculation, it’s not going to chase every rich person out of the state. To make this real simple: If you’re not a millionaire, vote no on I-645. If you’re a millionaire, be a pal and vote no on I-645. We thank you for your service and for your continued residency in this state. We know a fair tax is not enough to drive you from our moderate climate and rugged, emerald vistas. We all have a civic duty to stop taking this charlatan Brian Heywood seriously, or at least stop casting him as a political maverick unafraid of speaking hard truths. He is a dragon nestled on his golden horde, a rich and powerful man with the cash to amplify his voice over the thousands he seeks to politically and monetarily disempower. Vote no on these initiatives and pierce Heywood’s dragon heart.
VOTE YES ON PROP 1 TO APPROVE THE SEATTLE TRANSIT MEASURE Hey, do you like the bus? Do you like when your bus is on time? What about when your bus still runs on the weekends or—gasp— after 10 p.m.? Well, then you’re really going to like the Seattle Transit Measure. We’ve had this citywide levy since 2014. We typically renew it every six years. This year’s renewal is the biggest ever. Proposed by Mayor Katie Wilson and passed by the Seattle City Council, it adds a sales tax increase of 0.15 percent, bringing the total sales tax to fund transit service to 0.3 percent, and it’ll last for 10 years this time. That’s huge, but voters need to approve it. Not only will it sustain current bus service, but it will add 100,000 extra service hours in the city. Plus, it includes maintenance dollars for transportation improvements. If we’re lucky, some of that money will add late-night buses, so you’re not stranded in the dark after a long night of grinding on your leather daddy at Massive. Everybody wins! And if this doesn’t pass, bus service is fucked. So there’s no alternative. Vote Yes.
R.I.P. TO THE FALLEN
You can’t always get what you want. When our candidates lose in the primary, we bet on another horse in the general. These horses sometimes suck.
FEDERAL
ADAM SMITH
CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT 9 The only reason we can present as to why you should vote for Adam Smith is that a Democratic majority in Congress could gum up some of the works of Trump 2. That’s it. We have zero other reasons. Given Smith’s imperialistic foreign policy record, he can only really be relied on to fight against bad domestic policy—he’s been all aboard for military adventurism overseas for decades now. There’s a reason we called him an “unapologetic AIPAC darling ” in our endorsement against him in the primary. If he wins and Democrats gain a House majority, he’s in line to chair the House Armed Services Committee. The weapons companies know this, and it’s why they spend big to keep him in power. But there’s nothing you, the voter, can really do about that now. The district’s progressive forces continued their tradition of failure in the primary and Smith is once again going up against a doomed Republican he’s defeated before. If you can’t overcome your revulsion to Smith enough to tactically vote for him, know that odds are good that your abstention won’t accidentally beknight a Republican majority in Congress. We’re personally covering our collective ass so we don’t get blamed for a possible Republican House majority after all the racist gerrymandering in Southern districts. The odds aren’t zero, hence our reluctant endorsement, but don’t bet money on his opponent. Washington banned Kalshi this August, but not before thousands of dollars were lost by gamblers who didn’t read The Stranger’s pre-primary elec-
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tion coverage in the 9th Congressional District warning of the split progressive opposition that could produce this exact depressing retread of a general election. Until the left can get their shit together in the 9th, the community is chained to a man who has taken more than $325,000 from AIPAC in this year’s primary election cycle alone. He’s taken more money from Palantir in recent years than any other Democrat, $124,051, placing him fifth nationally among both parties (Trump is first). This pattern repeats with numerous tech companies and weapons manufacturers like Microsoft and Boeing that run this town, on and on, for the nearly 30 years Smith has held the seat.
STATE SUPREME COURT
JAIME MICHELLE HAWK SUPREME COURT JUSTICE, POSITION NO. 3 We had the hardest time choosing between Jaime Hawk and Mike Diaz, the other lefty (for a judge) candidate in the August primary. Ultimately, we went with Diaz because of his wide breadth of experience as a Washington Court of Appeals judge and as the prosecutor who put the Seattle Police Department under the consent decree for murdering Indigenous Nuuchah-nulth woodcarver John T. Williams. Diaz did not make the cut, so now we get to endorse Hawk. And it is so easy to sing her praises. Hawk has spent her career as a state public defender and as an assistant federal public defender in Eastern Washington and Idaho. She also served as the legal strategy advisor for the ACLU’s Washington Campaign for Smart Justice (real title), where, as a civil rights attorney, she defended voting rights, argued against cash bail and jail overcrowding, and worked to reduce bias in the justice system. Three years ago, Hawk became the first ACLU attorney in Washington State to become a judge. In King County Superior Court, she’s judged criminal, civil, and appellate trials. Hawk will be a worthy addition to the Washington State Supreme Court. Especially when you consider whom she’s running against. Former Spokane prosecutor and current Mason County Superior Court Judge David Stevens is very unhappy with the State Supreme Court and believes it is overstepping in its decision-making; he is particularly displeased with the lengths the Court has gone to make juries more representative, saying that jurors should not be selected based on race. Stevens also believes the Court shouldn’t be allowed to reinterpret the state constitution, which is their fucking job sometimes, and a big sign he thinks the Millionaires Tax is a big no-no. Oh, and would you look at that, one of the guys behind the anti–Millionaires Tax ballot initiative, Steve Gordon, gave Stevens $1,200. On the topic of red flag donors, the Council of Police Political Support gave him $4,800. If this is not enough, we will leave you with one more factoid: His favorite US Supreme Court justices are Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito, three men who are in Hell or will be soon. Vote Hawk. (Sorry, Mike.)
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ALL THOSE STATE AND CITY SEATS STATE
DAVINA DUERR
1ST LEGISLATIVE DISTRICT STATE REPRESENTATIVE, POSITION NO. 1 Rep. Davina Duerr has been in this Bothell-serving seat since 2019, and oh boy, does she love to get shit done. One of her earlier bills, HB 1099, which added climate change mitigation into the Growth Management Act, died in the Senate in 2022. At the time, The Stranger mourned the loss, calling it “the last decent piece of housing legislation on offer this year.” But Duerr held strong. She reintroduced the bill as HB 1181, which The Stranger described as a “top-ticket item for urbanists” that “would force cities and counties to use their growth plans to reduce climate change by figuring out ways to reduce greenhouse gases and vehicle miles traveled,” and it was signed into law in 2023. Her environmental policy work earned her endorsements from the Sierra Club and the Jane Fonda Climate PAC, and she’s continued to use her background as an architect to focus on both increasing housing and mitigating how development impacts the environment, with recent successful bills that streamline the permit process so homes can get built faster (HB 2502), improve housing material affordability (HB 1183), and cut down on industrial refrigerants (HB 1462). Her opponent, Maggie Wang, thinks the American Dream is under attack. It’s not. Vote Duerr.
SHELLEY KLOBA
1ST LEGISLATIVE DISTRICT STATE REPRESENTATIVE, POSITION NO. 2 You may recognize Cliff Moon’s name. He’s the Republican candidate who ran for Jayapal’s 7th District seat in 2022 and 2024 and lost… by a lot. In 2022, he told KOMO News he supported the 15-week abortion ban floated by Sen. Lindsey Graham. His website got a makeover since last time he ran, but not much else has changed. Moon hasn’t raised any money, he didn’t respond to our request for an interview, and in his voter pamphlet statement he supports three things: “law enforcement, public safety, and legal immigration.” What’s more, on his website, he claims to be endorsed by “Jane Doe,” the mayor of Kenmore, with a quote about what a good guy he is, but the mayor of Kenmore is Democrat Nigel Herbig, who endorsed Moon’s Democratic opponent Shelley Kloba. Kloba, who has held the seat since 2016, is all for the Millionaires Tax, and this year she sponsored a bill to require AI chatbot safeguards starting in 2027 and a bill that allows terminally ill patients to use medical cannabis as part of their endof-life care in health care facilities. Tax the rich and give people weed if they want it? Hell, yeah. Vote Kloba.
CLAIRE WILSON 30TH LEGISLATIVE DISTRICT STATE SENATOR Sen. Claire Wilson is a moderate Democratic leader and incumbent in the 30th district, which covers Federal Way and surrounding areas like Auburn, Algona, Pacific, and parts of Milton and Des Moines. Wilson whips votes for Democrats, but wouldn’t tell us which Dems are responsible for abandoning a bill that would allow farmworkers, most of whom are immigrants, to unionize. We wish Wilson would use her power more radically. But you should still vote for her, because she has proven to be a staunch advocate for vulnerable populations. She’s pragmatic and often scores wins, like that one time she made childcare more available for more ultra-low-income families. She is a fixture in every policy conversation affecting kids, from K-12 funding to juvenile justice to various health and human services policies. A former teacher, she seems to have succumbed to something of a summer slide— dodging many of our questions by saying she didn’t remember issues from the last session or hadn’t learned about them yet. We hope she studies up on how artificial intelligence is affecting electricity prices, and why New York City put a moratorium on AI learning tools for K-8 this year. While Wilson spent her career helping nurture young minds, her opponent Michael P. Rutland was helping terrorize them from above. Rutland worked in the private sector at Boeing on the alwaysover-budget F-22 fighter plane program, so that he could one day run for State Senate to warn about the perils of government spending and the sanctity of “local control.” We thank him for his service (he’s a veteran), appreciate his extensive volunteer work, and apologize that we won’t be joining the Knights of Columbus (where he works) until they end the anti-abortion crusade.
JAMILA E. TAYLOR 30TH LEGISLATIVE DISTRICT STATE REPRESENTATIVE, POSITION NO. 1 Progressives are lucky that they can vote for Taylor, who bounced back from personal health issues and the loss of both parents in the last year. She could have taken a break. Instead, she’s heading back to Olympia, where she is a reliable vote for progressive taxation and a thought-leading wonk on the justice system. This year she’s tackling tort reform, a thankless political minefield. The reward would be transferring wealth from lawyers to social programs. The risk is short-changing victims of ne’er-do-wells and civil rights abuse. But Taylor has a record of defending the vulnerable and has a good chance of getting this right. Do not expect her to get high with you, though— she’s not eager for backyard pot cultivation or recreational psychedelics. Taylor is GGG and agreed to play Fuck, Mary, Kill with us on funding priorities. But she is also a classy lady, saying “I would cuff the child care,” and reminded us that it is cuffing season.
OCTOBER 2026
Don’t get cozy with Taylor’s opponent, Tiffany Bowyer, a first-time Republican candidate with zero policy chops and muted MAGA keyboard warrior vibes. She didn’t have the courtesy to tell us to go cuff ourselves. Her social media persona is Ardent Anti-Trans Clown, and her website is thin on ideas, ignoring the causes (tariffs, Iran war) of affordability issues like inflation and high gas prices, while offering zero solutions. Vote Taylor.
KRISTINE REEVES
30TH LEGISLATIVE DISTRICT STATE REPRESENTATIVE, POSITION NO. 2 Sure, go ahead and vote for Kristine Reeves, who flipped this Federal Way–area seat blue in 2016. Reeves says she supports progressive taxation, but voted against the Millionaires Tax last year. Gymnasts and the double-jointed may enjoy her explanation. “I personally agree that an income tax is the right way to do it, but [the Millionaires Tax] did not go far enough, in my opinion, to remove regressive taxes on working families. So I voted against it,” she told The Stranger, adding that it takes all types of Democrats to flip Republican seats. We are interested in which types of Democrats could flip her seat. She has some cool ideas on how to slow AI data centers (regulate their water use) and how to protect against Trump funding cuts (she helped codify rights of homeless students at the state level). Don’t be confused by the “Independent” label of challenger Paul McDaniel, whose platform and social media rhetoric are solidly MAGA. He promoted election conspiracy theories, says life starts at conception, suggests more guns make people more safe, and wants to defund public schools with vouchers. Vote Reeves.
TAMARA STRAMEL 31ST LEGISLATIVE DISTRICT STATE SENATOR The 31st LD stretches the credulity of requiring districts to represent natural communities—it cuts in and out of quite a few towns and cities, is bisected by the King-Pierce county line, has no clear center, and stretches from Puget Sound exurban sprawl deep into the Cascades. Even with the district’s strange borders, Democratic challenger Tamara Stramel knows it and its needs well. She’s spent years as a local Democratic Party leader and knows the area needs better everything, from public buses that connect to the light rail to improved evacuation plans, should Mt. Rainier splooge a lahar. “It’s a lot of work to get people in the state to care about a district that many have written off,” she says. The party has been slowly gaining ground in the district over the past few cycles, but they’re still too far behind Republicans to have good odds this November. Stramel sees a bright side, however: “We’re losing by less without much financial help.” If trends continue, this longtime red district might eventually follow other commuter communities and turn purple enough for state Democratic Party
leaders to pay attention. She described an ouroboros of failure: local Republicans do not deliver, the community loses faith in government, and that same community becomes susceptible to arguments for small government from Republicans. Because Stramel didn’t come up in Washington politics, she’s not party to the “animosity” over the idea of a graduated state income tax (how most civilized societies pay for things) and walks the fine line of progressive politics in a conservative area better than most. Like many remaining Republican incumbents in Western Washington, incumbent and Catholic paladin Republican Rep. Phil Fortunato’s campaign is not grassroots, but funded by industry lobbies, with tobacco industry donations sitting right at the top of the list to set the tone. Vote Stramel.
STEPHEN SZCZURKOWALTON 31ST LEGISLATIVE DISTRICT STATE REPRESENTATIVE, POSITION NO. 1 Stephen Szczurko-Walton is another perfectly normal Democrat cursed by fortune to live in a community the redistricting commission drew in a way that stymies challenges to Republican dominance. He’s challenging Republican incumbent Rep. Drew Stokesbary, the minority leader in the Washington House of Representatives. Taking down a whale like that would be a notable victory for Democrats, but they’re not going hard. Stokesbary is taking it easy this election. Szczurko-Walton says he’s not going negative, because it’s not a community that would respond well to negativity. He may be right, but that’s a shame, because Stokesbary shilling for the Israeli government in the state legislature opens him up to antiwar attacks most opponents can only dream of. Szczurko-Walton, a retired US Navy aircraft carrier nuclear reactor operator, isn’t likely to go there, as much as the current crew of the USS Lincoln might want him to. If gas prices hit $10 a gallon, maybe he goes there! He is, however, libbed out enough to reluctantly support redistricting Washington’s congressional districts to retake US House seats lost to racist Republican gerrymandering in the South. Like other Democrats who didn’t make their stripes in Washington politics, Szczurko-Walton also doesn’t get what all the hubbub is about with longtime party opposition to graduated state income tax. It shouldn’t take a master’s degree in public administration to figure that out, but he has one for good measure. His willingness to be real with voters about raising revenue is a breath of fresh air compared to many of the 4D chessmasters the SECB deals with. Vote Szczurko-Walton.
JOHN BIELKA
31ST LEGISLATIVE DISTRICT STATE REPRESENTATIVE, POSITION NO. 2 Unlike the other Democrats in the 31st, John Bielka couldn’t be arsed to return our
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endorsement interview requests, but voters have few better options by default. Bielka got second in the primary by 13 points and will need more than his desperate cowboy hat and “I’m a Democrat, but,” platitudes to rugged individualism if he wants to win in the red 31st. He’s one of those politicians who inappropriately compares the state budget to family finances, and the rest of his policy proposals aren’t any more progressive. Running to the right to pick up moderate Republican voters alienated by the dominance of the party’s far-right wing is usually a losing strategy, but Bielka seems happy enough to ride the bull anyway. We hate to encourage such a doomed strategy, but no one more progressive made it through the primary, so he’s the tactical choice, and the only choice. His opponent, Republican incumbent Rep. Josh Penner, runs an AI startup, and is therefore a dream opponent this cycle for any challenger smart enough to peer beyond his own brim. Vote Bielka.
EDWIN OBRAS
33RD LEGISLATIVE DISTRICT STATE REPRESENTATIVE, POSITION NO. 1 Edwin Obras is growing his portfolio, and we love it. Obras’s district covers the area around SeaTac and much of Kent. He’s deputy whip for Dems in the House. We’ve endorsed him before for delivering on sexual assault protections for isolated workers and intensely pro-labor views. This year, he sponsored bills related to policing and justice, taking on vigilante sheriffs and expanding the state prosecutors’ investigative power. He pissed off cops. He pissed off business groups worried about investigations. We couldn’t be happier. His opponent Chris Martinez wants to keep sheriffs safe from state scrutiny, lower taxes on business, and abolish the Climate Commitment Act (instead of just ignoring it, like Gov. Bob Ferguson). Unless you agree with Martinez about “the bold truth of leaders like Charlie Kirk” mentioned on his website, vote for Obras.
MIA SU-LING GREGERSON 33RD LEGISLATIVE DISTRICT STATE REPRESENTATIVE, POSITION NO. 1 Gregerson called us from the car, on the way back from a rural rally for immigrant workers. Talk about pandering! And unnecessary, since we’ve endorsed her before and not even in a mean way. Voters in her district, which stretches from Burien to Kent, should return her to Olympia to do the truly dull work of budget writing. She supports a progressive state income tax to replace our insane regressive tax scheme. She wants immigrant workers to be able to unionize (you know, like in radical New York State!). We asked a lot of candidates about their last grocery bill, and Gregerson was one of the few who was ready with precise stats. She’s feeling the pain of her $10 Dave’s Killer Bread, subbing in a cheaper loaf. She’s aghast that three Cosmic Crisp apples set her back $8.
Gregerson’s opponent is Yuri Marinchik, a Belarusian immigrant who became a US citizen in 2024. We called him to ask who he voted for that year, but he didn’t pick up. Years ago, Marinchik’s social media pages included a lot of support for activism against Belarusian dictator and Putin pal Alexander Lukashenko, who has been getting a lot of sanctions relief from the Trump administration this go-around. It’s unclear why Marinchik is running as a Republican, as he lacks much of the MAGA posturing in his campaign website and social media feeds that many in this cycle are leaning on. On his website, Marinchik says he’s against new taxes (we know what that means!), he’s been robbed twice (sorry, dude!), and he’s noticed trees hanging over powerlines! Call 311, no need to run for office.
NOEL FRAME
36TH LEGISLATIVE DISTRICT STATE SENATOR Noel Frame has represented the 36th District for 10 years, first as a representative and then, as of 2023, as senator. With her winning record and over $100,000 in the bank, her victory is almost guaranteed. This is good news. Frame is a tax dork in an age where we must revere them. The number one progressive priority for Washington is to balance our regressive tax code in spite of every Chicken Little screaming that the rich will abandon us. Forging ahead takes guts, which Frame has heaps of. To finally pass a bill making clergy mandatory reporters, Frame told her own story of childhood abuse. As this state dealt with restrictions on the abortion pill mifepristone, Frame shared that lack of access made her miscarriage an ordeal. Frame’s opponent, software engineer Jillian Astra England, is the vice chair of the small 36th Legislative District Republican Party. She believes energy is the “lifeblood” of the economy, Jamie Pedersen’s Millionaires Tax is the greatest threat to our future, and trans people arriving threadbare and poor to Seattle shouldn’t receive assistance. A coward’s opinion. Showing an impressive commitment to saving the rich money, she has raised only barely $5,000. We need Frame in the room when it comes time to (hopefully) implement the Millionaires Tax. In fact, she’s already there. Vote Frame.
JANICE ZAHN
41ST LEGISLATIVE DISTRICT STATE REPRESENTATIVE, POSITION NO. 1 We must endorse Janice Zahn in this race. She is a moderate Dem, a two-time incumbent of the House, a former Bellevue City Council member, and the only engineer in the Legislature. Zahn claimed an impressive 71 percent of the vote in the primary. Her opponent, Elle Nguyen, a Republican, got 27 percent. The specifics of Nguyen’s platform, including her subtextual support for Let’s Go Washington’s Parents’ Bill of Rights and her super-textual disgust with abortions and all who support them, tell us everything we need to know. Her opinions on immigration (LEGAL, STRONG BORDER) tell us more than we would ever want to know.
Zahn, however, is a bit of a budget hawk. Indeed, the Seattle Times endorsed her during the primary because she is “cleareyed about the budget difficulties.” Zahn wants to “make government work more efficiently.” Zahn did, however, support the Millionaires Tax, and added an entirely reasonable amendment: no sales tax on essential consumer items like diapers. She believes the basics of everyday life should be as cheap as possible. Zahn also cosponsored a bill that would tax capital gains made from a start-up. Budget hawk or not, she’s not anti-tax and she’s not Nguyen. Where Zahn sponsored a bill that requires employers to alert immigrant workers of ICE “inspections,” Nguyen took issue with the bill Zahn cosponsored to regulate what data from automated license plate readers can be sent to the feds. Wait. One last thing concerning Nguyen. She described on X her undying admiration for the late Lindsey Graham and hoped she would one day have the same tenacious spirit for the Republican Party. Enough said.
MY-LINH THAI
41ST LEGISLATIVE DISTRICT STATE REPRESENTATIVE, POSITION NO. 2 My-Linh Thai, a four-term incumbent, claimed 66 percent of the vote during the primaries. Her opponent, independent Michael Rosen, won 33 percent of the vote. He was creamed, but if he were a Republican, he would’ve been creampied (take that as you will). Rosen is the sort of independent who would’ve had a home in the Republican Party a decade ago. His key positions: Washington doesn’t have an income problem, it has a spending problem; budget discipline is a must; greater fiscal control is the solution to all of our problems. We tried to contact him to bring more clarity on the nature of his independence from Dems and the GOP, but he did not respond. Thai champions reproductive rights for low-wage earners, improved community services, and increasing investments in education. She’s particularly stellar on health issues, which we can attribute to her profession: pharmacist. Along with Sen. Noel Frame, Thai introduced in 2023 the Washington capital gains tax, which focuses on large gains made from market speculation. So she was on the right side of history. There can be no doubt who should win the race for this position. Vote Thai.
ROGER GOODMAN 45TH LEGISLATIVE DISTRICT STATE REPRESENTATIVE, POSITION NO. 1 We feel good about sending Roger Goodman and his silky voice back to Olympia, where he runs the Washington House Community Safety Committee “like a smooth jazz show.” A champion of early drug decriminalization in his suburban district that covers Kirkland, Duvall, Bothell, and Sammamish, Goodman knows that he used to be really cool. “But that was 20 years ago, so ... I’ve got to keep up my cred here.” He is keeping up his cred, despite a few buzzkill votes last session. Goodman backed the Millionaires Tax,
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and he would roll out a normal progressive income tax if we culled existing regressive taxes. He supports regulating psychedelic drugs like cannabis, allowing farmworkers to unionize, and using climate funding for actual climate projects. As Democrats ignore the public defender crisis unfolding across the state, Goodman is vocal about funding indigent defense and ensuring the right to a fair trial. We’re also hopeful that Goodman is studying how to get young men who carry illegal guns to give them up— without sending them to jail. Goodman knows he’s been a very bad boy for voting to increase police chases by loosening the rules for cops. He justified the vote as legislative “harm reduction”— watering down a bad law to make it less bad. He says he still thinks the bill sucks and, after a study of its impacts, says the Legislature went too far and now people are dying again. His MAGA opponent, JoAnn Tolentino, is a total shitshow. She ran for school board last year, telling everyone she homeschooled her four children, a fact she repeated at a speech she gave while hosting a rally supporting Jan. 6 insurrectionists this year. Vote Goodman.
VANESSA KRITZER 45TH LEGISLATIVE DISTRICT STATE REPRESENTATIVE, POSITION NO. 2 Vote for Vanessa Kritzer. She is ready to balance the budget by raising taxes instead of cutting services or raiding the climate fund like Gov. Bob Ferguson did last year. She’s a first-time candidate for the Legislature, but knows the 45th Legislative District around Redmond well. She has significant public experience as a Redmond City Councilmember. Here’s where it gets awkward. As city council member in Redmond, Kritzer helped install Flock license plate reader cameras. In retrospect, looking at all the immigration arrests: boo! But Joe Biden was president when she voted for that, and the city proactively put in a lot of data safeguards that other cities didn’t. When Trump’s immigration agents started elbowing their way into Flock databases last year, Kritzer supported getting rid of the runaway surveillance tool. The Flock cameras were being taken down in September, police and activists confirmed. Perpetual GOP scarecrow candidate John P. Gibbons doesn’t appear to be campaigning. Often called “paper candidates” because they just file to run, Gibbons has managed to fail his obligations as a paper candidate, too. The state Public Disclosure Commission has chastised or fined him multiple times for failing to file campaign disclosure paperwork, including this year. Is this what GOP #quietquitting looks like?
JAVIER VALDEZ
46TH LEGISLATIVE DISTRICT STATE SENATOR Incumbent Seattle State Senator Javier Valdez destroyed his Republican opponent, Sandra Stephens, in the primary, claiming nearly 90 percent of the vote. Valdez has
20 THE STRANGER been in this position since 2023; before that, he was appointed to Jessyn Farrell’s seat in 2018, when Farrell, if you remember, hoped to become the mayor of Seattle. It didn’t work out. Valdez, who was born and raised in Moses Lake, is pro–gun control and antiICE, and led an unsuccessful but commendable effort against a voter-approved measure that banned affirmative action. He did, however, cosponsor a bill that successfully banned deceptive advisory votes, the moss that feeds tax goblins like Tim Eyman. Valdez’s big effort to impose regulations on initiative signature gathering, SB 5973 faced strong resistance from conservatives, who call the bill the “initiative killer.” Oh no! They feel strongly about this because the only way they can pass legislation is by duping the public. Valdez has been on the right side of key issues, and, in a climate that’s openly hostile to immigrants and cosmopolitan values, he’s a much-needed voice in Washington politics. Vote for him.
DARYA FARIVAR
46TH LEGISLATIVE DISTRICT STATE REPRESENTATIVE, POSITION NO. 2 The 46th District covers deep-blue neighborhoods (Green Lake, Lake City, Maple Leaf, Ravenna, the University District, and so on). Republicans do not grow here, the soil is too woke. So it’s either a progressive or standard-issue Dem. Darya Farivar, the incumbent running for her third term, is a progressive, supported by urbanists, and has an excellent voting record. Also, as an Iranian American, she has provided a strong Washington voice against the illegal war Trump started with Iran for no good reason at all. Lastly, the people love her. She won nearly 90 percent of the vote during the primary; her opponent, a character named Rodney “Star” Thornley, was left with 10 percent. Though Thornley ran as an independent, it’s clear he is a Republican. “I’m running as an independent,” he states on his website, “because too many elected officials fall in line with party leadership instead of focusing on the people they serve.” And how do they (Dems and Republicans) not serve the people? Again, from his website: “Washington needs practical housing policies that encourage private participation without creating more unnecessary government administration” (put directly: I’m a NIMBY). And: “Washington should create graffiti removal grants for cities and counties, especially along state and interstate roads” (put directly: I’m a conservative crank). Thornley did, however, use “self propelled human transportation” (otherwise known as a bike) during his campaign.
CLAUDIA KAUFFMAN 47TH LEGISLATIVE DISTRICT STATE SENATOR Sen. Claudia Kauffman can keep doing what she’s doing in the 47th Legislative District, the pastoral regions of Covington, Auburn, and Kent. She is a perfectly fine Democrat, who is supportive of the Millionaires Tax and cautious about, but not unwilling to pass, more progressive
taxation. Or is she??? Last session, she proposed a bill that would lower the state’s estate tax (taxes paid on the estates of the dead worth over $9 million). Kauffman wanted to “provide some relief for families” and allow them to give their children more generational wealth. Finally, someone is thinking of the trust fund babies. As the chair of the Senate Business, Trade & Economic Development Committee, Kauffman is very business minded. Do not even get her started on a statewide payroll tax on big businesses. She does not like it. She says that would be bad for the state’s economy. She isn’t pro-car-crash, per se, but says lowering the legal blood alcohol content limit would also be bad for businesses, which is why she voted against it. In 2027, Kauffman says she’s focused on bringing the space industry to Washington. Yay? She also wants to regulate cryptocurrency to reduce the number of crypto scams people are falling for. So it’s complicated for Elon Musk. Kauffman is duking it out with Kristina Soltys, a Republican Covington City Council member running on “affordability” and opposing the Millionaires Tax. Steve Gordon, one of the cofounders of the dark conservative money machine funding anti-trans and anti–Millionaires Tax initiatives, Project 42, gave Soltys $2,400. Vote Kauffman.
DEBRA JEAN ENTENMAN 47TH LEGISLATIVE DISTRICT STATE REPRESENTATIVE, POSITION NO. 1 We see no reason to kick South King County Rep. Debra Jean Entenman out of the legislature. Entenman has been a solid voice for the 47th Legislative District, especially on workforce development, housing, and making the police suck somewhat less. Entenman’s been a longtime advocate for police accountability measures, especially since George Floyd’s murder. However, she sponsored the 2025 bill to fund the police. Entenman was doing what politicians love to do: compromising. Way back then, Gov. Bob Ferguson was talking a big game about beefing up police staffing on the campaign trail and he said he would veto any budget that didn’t include more money for cops. Big dickin’ ’em, eh Bob? Entenman is also a fierce supporter of education, especially when it comes to education equity. She’s passionate about funding the schools. All schools. Even, sigh, charter schools. We all have our flaws. Some of us have more than others. Libertarian Cobi Clark wants to cut taxes and has listed the right to bear arms as his first priority under his “civil rights” tab on his website. Congratulations, you have that right. Vote Entenman.
CHRIS STEARNS
47TH LEGISLATIVE DISTRICT STATE REPRESENTATIVE, POSITION NO. 2 Rep. Chris Stearns’s progressive id is dampened by his ego. We can accept the multifaceted nature of the human mind and of the Covington Democrat if we must. And we must, because Stearns is running
OCTOBER 2026
against Republican Ted Cooke, who wants to “Fix the Economy, Restore Education, Reduce Homelessness, Ensure Election Integrity, and Fund the Police.” Cooke has lost to Stearns before, and dare we say, he’s going to lose again. Stearns has had an impressive 2026. He sponsored bills to reduce sentencing requirements on juvenile convictions, an evolution of his 2024 bill of the same ilk. Neither passed, but Stearns is still striving. Criminal justice reform is important to Stearns in part because Indigenous people are incarcerated at a much higher rate than the general population. Stearns is Indigenous himself and, as speaker pro tempore, is one of the highest-ranking Native politicians in the country. Stearns also cosponsored a bill to allow agricultural workers in the cannabis industry the right to organize, supported rent stabilization legislation, and cosponsored a bill to protect athletes and players from the ire of online sports gamblers (though it made gambling on Washington collegiate sports at tribal casinos legal). Stearns also sponsored some whack legislation to raise the penalty of paying for sex from a misdemeanor to a Class C felony. That one luckily did not pass, and he should stop striving. Vote Stearns.
OSMAN SALAHUDDIN 48TH LEGISLATIVE DISTRICT STATE REPRESENTATIVE, POSITION NO. 1 Osman Salahuddin has accomplished a lot in the two years he’s represented the 48th district’s Eastside ’burbs. That first year, he sponsored a bill to give paid sick leave to workers attending immigration hearings for themselves or family members. He expanded that bill last session to allow workers to donate their time off to a coworker who missed work for immigration proceedings. Salahuddin also sponsored a bill that regulated automatic license-plate-reading Flock cameras by preventing any of that data from going to ICE, federal enforcement agencies, or out-of-state agencies. Salahuddin supported the Millionaires Tax; he wants to fix our shit-for-brains tax code with progressive policy and eventually bid the B&O tax goodbye. He’s impressive, but has suburbitis. He’s not a fan of a head tax on businesses. Ever heard of his constituent, Microsoft? Ever heard of it? Salahuddin is interested in proposing a corporate income tax on annual profits. We didn’t totally love Salahuddin’s idea to replace the state’s low carbon fuel standard, otherwise known as a gas tax, with a “road usage charge.” But that’s the suburbs for you. Salahuddin’s Republican opponent, Jeffery Poppe, is a retired CPA ready to go to war to defend our billionaire tax haven. Vote Salahuddin.
JESSICA FORSYTHE 48TH LEGISLATIVE DISTRICT STATE REPRESENTATIVE, POSITION NO. 2 Any Democrat who didn’t vote for the Millionaires Tax set themselves up to a pro-
gressive challenger from the left, which explains the glowing red dot in the middle of Eastside Rep. Amy Walen’s forehead. Her challenger, seasoned Redmond City Councilmember Jessica Forsythe, is fine with the Millionaires Tax, and isn’t afraid of a graduated state income tax either, so long as it comes with a reduction in our regressive sales tax (astute readers may recognize this is the standard form of taxation that nearly everyone else in the country uses except for Washington). Forsythe beat car dealership baroness Walen in the primary by 17 votes, which is about as small a margin a victor can claim this cycle. But it does suggest that even the Eastside commuter cities Seattleites have long derided as suburban hellscapes are trending left, particularly on progressive tax reform, whether Microsoft and its deep pockets wants them to or not. Forsythe criticized Walen’s opposition to Washington’s rent stabilization bill and touted that she herself spearheaded Redmond’s rent stabilization law. Forsythe is incredibly knowledgeable about policy, and there wasn’t a single question we hit her with that threw her for a loop. Finally, a smart progressive! Forsythe has the experience, the knowledge, and, crucially, the support from Washington’s progressive Democrat PACs to overcome the fortune amassed by independent fiscally conservative PACs supporting Walen, and all she needs is a safer voter margin. Vote Forsythe.
DISTRICT COURT
HEATHER BARKER
SOUTHEAST DISTRICT COURT JUDGE, POSITION NO. 5 This is a big year for the King County District Court. Due to a spate of retirements, there will be eight new judges on the bench after this year, one third of the judges. Property law attorney and Judge Pro Tem Heather Barker thinks experience is critical in these positions. Barker says her four years Pro-Temming in the therapeutic courts, which is, for the most part, the equivalent to subbing (nonsexually) for a judge who’s absent, makes her the right, sympathetic, patient, and supportive choice. We’re inclined to believe her! And even if we didn’t, we’d have no choice, because Barker’s challenger, Joshua Harris, withdrew from the race. He did so only after it was too late to get his name off the ballot. So Barker is running against a ghost. Harris was a ghost even before he withdrew. He raised $0 for his campaign. What was surprising—since Harris remained a mystery in the three months since he filed to run— was that he told Barker he was going to pursue a career in MMA. Vote Barker.
JAN TRASEN
NORTHEAST DISTRICT COURT JUDGE, POSITION NO. 1 The race for a judgeship in the District Court’s Northeast division, spanning Bellevue, Kirkland, and Issaquah, is a classic showdown between a career prosecutor and a career public defender. Bianca Tse was a King County Deputy Prosecutor for
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22 THE STRANGER
OCTOBER 2026
16 years. Now, Tse is a Pro Tem judge, basically a substitute judge, a bench warmer. Tse says she’s gotten plenty of trial experience and claims to be the only Pro Tem in the race. Except, she isn’t. Jan Trasen is a Pro Tem as well, though only once a week. Pseudo-judge on pseudo-judge violence. You hate to see it. Trasen, who worked as a public defender for 26 years, is busy. She works full-time as an administrative law judge presiding over disputes between vulnerable people and the government, most having to do with health care. The bulk of that work was in the Washington Appellate Project, where she helped people appeal their convictions. She learned that many judges mistreated people. She wants to “set an example for how to do it better than some of the [ judges] I’ve seen.” She sees becoming a judge as “the greatest public service.” Trasen says her career of working with real people rather than people (*cough* prosecutors *cough*) who “worked as government functionaries” informs her approach to things as small as setting bail. “I have a window into what people are experiencing,” she said. Trasen is exactly what this system needs. Vote Trasen.
FEDERAL United States Representative, Congressional District 1
Suzan DelBene
United States Representative, Congressional District 7
Pramila Jayapal
United States Representative, Congressional District 8
Kim Schrier
United States Representative, Congressional District 9
Adam Smith
STATE
HARRY STEINMETZ SOUTHWEST ELECTORAL DISTRICT JUDGE, POSITION NO. 4 Attorney Harry Steinmetz has been a lawyer for 36 years and practiced seemingly every angle of law that will be relevant for a position on the King County District Court. Steinmetz has been a criminal defense lawyer for the bulk of his career, but he’s also served as a deputy prosecuting attorney, and he’s worked as an administrative law judge with the Washington State Board of Industrial Insurance Appeals, where he primarily hears cases from workers injured on the job. Steinmetz also used his honed legal mind while he served the city of Des Moines as a city council person and as deputy mayor. He’s everywhere! Currently, he’s part of a University of Washington task force working to advocate for more (some? Any?) public defense funding in our no-money state. We like all of this about Steinmetz. Something else we like about Steinmetz is that he has never been sanctioned by the Commission of Judicial Conduct. His
opponent, Judge Fa’amomoi Masaniai, cannot say the same. This year, Masaniai was disciplined for behaving inappropriately with a female clerk, including offering to massage her, messaging her outside of work hours, and giving her a full-body hug she felt she couldn’t refuse. Masaniai insisted the SECB come watch him in court to judge his judicial work. We might take him up on the offer, and will keep our physical distance for obvious reasons, but we do not think anything can excuse his past behavior. Vote Steinmetz.
NOEL MERFELD
SOUTHWEST ELECTORAL DISTRICT JUDGE, POSITION NO. 5 Both candidates running to be the judge in Southwest King County (from Burien to Federal Way and everything in between, plus Vashon Island) are good. In one corner, we have the nerdy defense lawyer, Noel Merfeld, who brought us miracle berries to eat so our tastebuds would be all riled up and enhanced when we feasted on the Tupperware of fruits he also brought. (They make everything miraculously sweeter, but the good shit is
The Stranger Election Control Board
CHEAT SHEET For the August 4, 2026 Primary Election The Stranger does not endorse in uncontested races or in races we forgot.
Legislative District No. 32, State Representative Position No. 2
Legislative District 45, State Representative Position No. 2
Legislative District No. 33, State Representative Position No. 1
Legislative District No. 46, State Senator
Imraan Siddiqi Edwin Obras
Legislative District No. 33, State Representative Position No. 2
Vanessa Kritzer Javier Valdez
Legislative District No. 46, State Representative Position No. 1
Mia Su-Ling Gregerson
Will Dreher
Davina Duerr
Legislative District No. 36, State Senator
Legislative District No. 46, State Representative Position No. 2
Legislative District No. 1, State Representative Position No. 2
Legislative District No. 37, State Senator
Legislative District No. 11, State Representative Position No. 1
Legislative District No. 37, State Representative Position No. 1
Legislative District No. 30, State Senator
Legislative District No. 37, State Representative Position No. 2
Legislative District No. 1, State Representative Position No. 1
Shelly Kloba
Ashley Fedan
Claire Wilson
Legislative District No. 30, State Representative Position No. 1
Jamila E. Taylor
Legislative District No. 30, State Representative Position No. 2
Noel Frame
Chipalo Street
Kelabe Tewolde Jaelynn Scott
Legislative District No. 41, State Representative Position No. 1
Janice Zahn
Kristine Reeves
Legislative District No. 41, State Representative Position No. 2
Legislative District No. 31, State Representative State Senator
Legislative District No. 43, State Senator
Legislative District No. 31, State Representative Position No. 1
Legislative District No. 43, State Representative Position No. 1
Tamara Stramel
Stephen Szczurko-Walton Legislative District No. 31, State Representative Position No. 2
John Bielka
Legislative District No. 32, State Representative Position No. 1
Keith Scully
My-Linh Thai
Jamie Pedersen Nicole Macri
Legislative District No. 43, State Representative Position No. 2
Darya Farivar
Legislative District No. 47, State Senator
not the freeze-dried kind he brought, he told us.) This was one of the best bribes the SECB has ever received. There are no points, but if there were, Merfeld would get them for creativity. On shit that matters to you at all, Merfeld would like to expand therapeutic courts and bring more compassion to the courtroom, which, like miracle berries, would sweeten the experience. He has also served as a prosecutor, but that work didn’t agree with him, and he quit rather quickly. Prosecution has agreed with his challenger, Renee Walls, who has been bringing the hammer down for 26 years. Walls does not seem to enjoy putting people in jail. She is clear-eyed about the system and its inequities, and believes that this perspective brings a certain cleanliness and just perspective to a dirty job. She has lengthy experience as a Pro Tem judge, which could be valuable. However, the city of Burien contracts with Walls’s law firm, Walls Law, for all of its prosecutorial needs. Burien is a punitive city. Just look at its anti-homeless camping ban. The SECB was somewhat split on this one, but ultimately, we do not want to mess around with that. Vote Mr. Miracle, Mr. Merfeld.
STATE SUPREME COURT Supreme Court, Justice Position No. 1
Colleen Melody
Supreme Court, Justice Position No. 3
Jamie Michelle Hawk
Supreme Court, Justice Position No. 4
Ian Birk
Supreme Court, Justice Position No. 5
Theo Angelis
Supreme Court, Justice Position No. 7
Debra L. Stephens
DISTRICT COURT West Electoral District Judge Position No. 1
Bardi Martin
Southeast Electoral District Judge Position No. 5
Heather Barker
Northeast Electoral District Judge Position No. 1
Jan Trasen
Claudia Kauffman
Southwest Electoral District Judge Position No. 4
Legislative District No. 47, State Representative Position No. 1
Southwest Electoral District Judge Position No. 5
Debra Jean Entenman
Legislative District No. 47, State Representative Position No. 2
Chris Sterns
Legislative District No. 48, State Representative Position No. 1
Osman Salahuddin
Legislative District No. 48, State Representative Position No. 2
Harry Steinmetz Noel Merfeld
CITY City of Seattle, Council District No. 5
Nilu Jenks
City of Seattle, Municipal Court Judge Position No. 5
Gabe Rothstein
INITIATIVES
Jessica Forsythe
Initiative-001 Resurrecting the Parent’s Bill of Rights
COUNTY
Initiative-638 Banning trans girls from sports
Assessor
Rob Foxcurran
Joe Fitzgibbon
Metropolitan King County, Council District No. 2
Legislative District 45, State Representative Position No. 1
Metropolitan King County, Council District No. 8
Roger Goodman
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Rebecca Saldaña
Teresa Mosqueda
Vote No Vote No
Initiative-645 Repealing the Millionaires Tax
Vote No
Seattle Prop. 1 Seattle Transit Measure
Vote Yes
24 THE STRANGER
ILLUSTRATIONS BY YASIMAN AHSANI
OCTOBER 2026
25
Night of the Living
T S I T N E D
At 23, I drunkenly toppled off a LimeBike while dressed as Ty Pennington. What followed was a three-and-a-half-year dental horror story. BY NATHALIE GRAHAM
B
y the time we’d left the party, the tool belt on my hips was no longer weighed down by White Claws. I’d chosen to put my costume’s accessory to good use: getting as drunk as possible on a budget. This was important at 23. Almost as important as my Ty Pennington costume. Ty Pennington from Extreme Makeover: Home Edition is a man with a small soulpatch and frosted tips. He tears down a house and creates a dream home for a family. Or, at least he did on the early-aughts feel-good reality television show. He was my blueprint for the perfect Halloween costume: something obscure, yet still recognizable enough to be funny. Also a man. Over the years I dressed as Colonel Sanders, Billy Mays, and Alex Trebek. During my first Halloween dating my boyfriend, we went as the MythBusters. So, I spray-painted my hair, twisted and teased it into an illusion of short spikes. I drew on facial hair with eyeliner. The cloying smell of hairspray hung around me as I sauntered into my shared living room in baggy jeans, flannel, and hiking boots. I cracked open a White Claw as my friends (Nicole and Frieda as astronauts, Tonio as a farmer, Zach as a yellow M&M, Lacey as a witch) got ready. I slurped the drink.
“Move that bus!” I yelled. It was the only Ty Pennington line I knew, and I was determined to be in character. We arrived at the party house, a small Craftsman with a fenced-in garden on the edge of busy 35th Avenue NE. Its neighbor to the north was Loyal Heights Cemetery. We pushed open the garden gate and entered the party. Music thumped. People filled every available space. Every time someone asked who I was and I told them, they’d exclaim. I
I fell with a crunch, landing face-first on a cinderblock at the base of the cemetery’s fence. kept shouting, “Move that bus!” and drinking my tool belt Claws. At one point, I marveled at a girl dressed as a dragon in a scaly mini dress and a long furry hat. She sucked on her vape and exhaled smoke rings. I made her pose for a photo shoot. A lumberjack played beer pong in the background.
Later, sufficiently drunk and tired, Tonio, Frieda, Nicole, and I stepped outside into the quiet late October air. A gust of wind swept the leaves at our feet. We were only 20 blocks away from home. Should we Uber? we wondered. “Let’s walk,” someone said. “It’s not far.” Probably, it was me who said that. Concerned about making small talk while dressed silly, the walk seemed like a better option than calling a stranger to pick us up. Across the street, we spotted a LimeBike. “We could bike!” I said. A few weeks before, at Fremont Oktoberfest, my boyfriend Harry and I had experienced the joy of a drunk LimeBike ride. Tipsy from bottomless beer, we found two bikes and put the lipstick plant we’d purchased into one of the bikes’ baskets. We pedaled 5.1 miles across the city. Along the Burke-Gilman’s protected path, things were fine. They got dicier as we crossed the ship canal and climbed into Capitol Hill, biking alongside the freeway and then up impossibly steep 10th Avenue. Our bikes swerved as we pedaled. We laughed in between huffs of breath. When the stupor wore off inside Harry’s apartment, we realized the risk we’d taken. We’d been stupid. Arriving safe and sound was a freebie. The universe punched my drunk bike-
riding ticket when I swung my leg over the bike, kicked off, and immediately toppled over. I fell with a crunch, landing face-first on a cinderblock at the base of the cemetery’s fence. “Oh my god, are you okay?” my friends asked. I sat up. Blood poured from my lip. A dull, persistent thud pounded in my mouth. Please no, please no, I thought as I slid my tongue over my teeth to investigate. It hit something rough, pointed. Something that couldn’t be my tooth. “How bad is it?” Still seated on the ground, I opened my mouth. Frieda, Tonio, and Nicole leaned in to look. Nicole’s eyes widened. “Um,” she said. “It’s a little broken.” I fumbled for my phone in my tool belt. I first caught sight of myself on the dead black screen. My heart sank. I had to be certain. I swiped the camera open and stared at myself, smiling into the phone the way I’d done thousands of times before. Every selfie I’d taken—and I’d taken a lot—had angled slightly upward, making my wide, straight grin the centerpiece of every snapshot. My whole life people commented on my smile. My stepdad often marveled at how I could “turn it on like that,” and he’d snap his fingers. I remember a tour guide on
26 THE STRANGER
OCTOBER 2026
a family vacation calling it “a thousand-watt smile” as he snapped our family’s Christmas card photo. It was my best asset. My eyes are too small for my face, but they crinkle up into half-moons whenever I smile. They’re gobbled up by my teeth, by my outward performance of joy. My teeth are my smile and my smile makes my face make sense. When I looked into the phone camera and saw the jagged square punched out of one front tooth and its smaller neighbor, I shook my head. I started to cry. “Oh no, oh no, oh no.” “Look for the piece,” I heard Tonio and Frieda say to each other, rustling the leaves strewn on the sidewalk. I flung my phone and took off sprinting. I ran as fast as I could, tears streaming from my eyes, sobs burning in my chest. My airway constricted with the tears and the exertion. That feeling always reminded me of being 8 and playing soccer on the Purple Pumas, a team coached by a man who shouted a lot. Whenever he yelled at me, I cried on the field. I sat on the sidelines after I couldn’t catch my breath. I panicked. Running that night in my Ty Pennington costume, I ran through the panic because I was running away from my new reality. Footfalls pounded behind me. Tonio kept pace. Nicole and Frieda followed behind. “Nat, Nat! Harry’s on the phone,” Frieda panted. I ground to a halt. “What’s going on?” His voice sounded small and distant thousands of miles away on a weekend trip in Atlanta. I mumbled what had happened. “You’re beautiful no matter what,” he said. He had no idea, I thought. He hadn’t seen the mess of my mouth. “You don’t know that,” I cried. I hung up and kept sprinting. Panting after running up the hill that is 75th Street, I fumbled for my keys and let myself in our front door, letting it slam behind me. In my room, I disrobed and slunk into the bathroom. The shower sputtered on. I stepped inside and poured shampoo on my head, scrubbing desperately and unsuccessfully to get the yellow out of my hair. I heard my friends come in. They called for me. I didn’t respond. I slipped out of the bathroom into the hallway, avoiding them. I climbed straight into my bed and searched “emergency dentist.” Too few hours later, my eyelids tugged free of last night’s crusted-over mascara. I blinked awake into the still-dark of not-yetdawn. Sleep! I’d been asleep.
Maybe that meant… I sucked in a breath and hoped as I checked my teeth. As soon as I felt the jagged edge, I yanked my finger away. It hadn’t been a dream. I pulled myself out of bed and stood in a pile of Ty Pennington’s clothes, shed like outgrown skin in a heap on my floor. I couldn’t bear to look at myself in the mirror as I tugged on my regular clothes. A yellow residue coated my hair and hairline. A shadow of a soul patch stained my chin. I gathered my sticky hair into a knot under a Hamilton: The Musical baseball cap. My emergency dentist appointment— the only one I could find on a Sunday while searching drunk in my bed at 2 a.m.—was in Issaquah. The house creaked around me as I crept outside. My knuckles whitened around the keys clutched in my hands. In the
My teeth are my smile and my smile makes my face make sense. driver’s seat, I checked my texts to see if my stepmom had fulfilled my late-night request: Could she send me a copy of my dental insurance? There it was, along with an “Oh no! I hope you are okay,” from her. As I reversed out of my driveway, in the rearview mirror I couldn’t look my reflection in the eyes.
“H
ow did this happen?” the dental hygienist asked. “Riding a bike,” I said, leaving out the part where I was drunk and it was Halloween and hoping she couldn’t smell the hairspray or see the hangover threatening to consume me. “Well, you’re lucky it’s the front teeth,” she said. “Not much chewing involved. Back teeth are so much worse. ” I took this to heart. Maybe this would be as easy a fix as I’d hoped. I could be in and out of here in no time, back home with working teeth like this had never happened. Little did I know how wrong I was and how wrong she was. When the dentist dropped in, he looked fed up. I re-explained my incident. “And how old are you?” he asked. I told him. “So young,” he said. There was a “tsk” in his voice, an unsaid “and so stupid.” He poked around in my mouth with gloved fingers. One front tooth
remained intact, while only half was left of the other. The neighboring incisor had a chunk missing, too. “We can’t save either of these front teeth,” the dentist said. Wait, what? Couldn’t they glue the tooth back together and send me home? It was never that simple. The broken tooth was too far gone for a patch job. And a fissure ran through the intact tooth, threatening its viability. It would inevitably die. Or, at least, that’s what the dentist told me. “You’ll need two crowns,” he said. Dentistry and I had never exactly jibed. The enamel on my baby teeth never fully formed, so I spent much of my youth in the giraffe-covered walls of my childhood dentist’s office, with drills in my mouth filling cavities. However, I’d never had any dental procedures beyond that. Desperate to return home with two front teeth that day and to feel whole again, I signed the paperwork. I texted my parents asking them for the necessary cash. I did not ask for help or advice or think about a second opinion. I was already in the chair. I would leave with my hands washed of this whole thing. They stuck needle after needle into my gums since the novocaine failed to last all four hours of the procedure. Awake and alone, I sat as they grinded away at my teeth. The dust blew up into my nose, acrid and chemical. Their tools whirred and buzzed. When the instruments made contact with my teeth, the vibrations reverberated throughout my whole skeleton. “Turn your head this way,” the dentist said, pulling my jaw so my head tilted toward him. His belly brushed against my face. I almost enjoyed the contact, convincing myself it was comforting and not clinical. Hours later, the dentist left me alone while he went to make my fake teeth. Flakes of the rubbery cement mold hardened on my lips. I could see my reflection in the metal of the medical light above me. Tentative, I opened my mouth. In the small reflection, I saw the outline of the two nubs that now stood in place of my front teeth. I looked like Gollum. I cringed and vowed to never see myself that way again. As she stuck my fake tooth on, pressing and pulling at the same time, the dental hygienist chatted about the front desk woman. “Debra has a crown on her front tooth,” she said. “One day, it slipped out of position while she was talking to me. She was horrified!” The hygienist laughed. “Good thing she works at a dentist’s office!” I don’t know if she thought she was being
27
reassuring, but the hygienist’s comments terrified me. Crowns could fall out? I did not like reckoning with the impermanence of what felt like a very permanent procedure. But it would be a long time before I saw any permanent solution. The Issaquah emergency dentist equipped me with temporary crowns. They felt too big for my mouth, but they were just temporary. I assumed. Multiple appointments and multiple trips out to Issaquah proved futile. My gums were inflamed. I needed new temporary crowns. Meanwhile, I forgot how my teeth were supposed to feel in my mouth. My new fake teeth kept hitting against my bottom teeth. I moved my jaw backward to compensate. My jaw grew tired. It began aching. At the dentist, I complained. They made me grind my teeth against a thin wisp of sticky paper. Then, they sanded away the new teeth until they couldn’t anymore. “The material is not sturdy enough,” the dentist said. “If we make it too thin, they will break.” I said the teeth felt better. They didn’t. I did not go back to the Issaquah dentist. And, because I was 23 and had only been to a dentist once in six years, I didn’t have a fallback option, or someone I could trust. Through a recommendation from a medical doctor, I found someone who I will refer to as Dr. S, a dentist and certified jaw pain expert who charged $200 for an initial consultation. This convinced me of his expertise. Inside Dr. S’s downtown Seattle office that looked more like a study than a dentist’s office, I peered through the spaces between criss-crossing plastic on the contraption encasing my skull. Dr. S called the plastic headpiece a “football helmet.” Skyscrapers crowded the view of the room’s 14th-floor window. No matter. All I could focus on anyway was the Encyclopedia of Pain, the biggest spine stuffed inside the crowded bookcase. Dr. S tapped an alligator-skinned cowboy boot as he observed the football helmet’s findings on an ancient computer. He was perched on a leather chair, his tweed suit creased neatly. He turned toward me then, his white hair gathered away from his face in a small ponytail, his bow tie stuck under his throat. “Push your jaw out,” he said. I obeyed. He hummed as a bar of red grew on the screen behind him, mirroring my movements. Red did not seem to be a good color. The nodes attached to the back of my neck
28 THE STRANGER
OCTOBER 2026
and my temples buzzed faintly. I followed his instructions. The cut on my lip burned. My teeth—were they even my teeth anymore?— ached. Dr. S had read the Encyclopedia of Pain. Surely that meant he could fix mine. Numb and in denial about my circumstances, I did not do any research on Dr. S. If I did, maybe I would’ve seen the Yelp and Google reviews calling him a grifter, a snake oil salesman, a fraud. “He should not be practicing and hopefully will get his license revoked,” one Google review read. “Avoid him!” On a website called Ripoff Report, which I now know exists, a post under his smiling face reads, “This dentist is a total scammer who rips off patients at all costs and tries to collect as much money as he can from them without caring and providing the right type of treatment.” Dr. S’s cure for me was an “appliance”—a special kind of mouth guard meant to fix my jaw function. It cost thousands of dollars and was only partially covered by insurance. He took scans of my head, my mouth. He analyzed my face. Looking at the inside of my throat, he told me never to gain weight or I would develop sleep apnea. When would we put in the permanent crowns, I wondered? “ When my jaw was corrected” seemed to be the answer. I got the appliance, a flimsy piece of plastic that balanced my teeth in a way where they almost sat normally in my mouth. As I sat in his chair hooked up to sensors, a crew of other dentists poked their heads in to observe. They had all learned from Dr. S. “You’re with the best,” one told me. Months went by. At a progress appointment, while measuring my jaw function— could it slide forward smoothly? Open wide without hitching?—I noticed his medical assistant spoke with a new lisp. She wore the appliance, too. “He treats me and my son,” she told me, fawning. He gave her a discount because she worked there. I noticed braces on the front desk lady, too, as I tapped my debit card. The pandemic began. Appointments stalled. My front teeth were still encased in the same temporary crowns from Issaquah. Made from a cheap resin composite that’s rough and porous, they are meant to last between two and four weeks. Two months if they must. Mine had been in my mouth for almost five months. They looked gray and jagged. I learned to smile with my mouth shut. In May of 2020, Harry took me to Kubota Garden in South Seattle. We both had pandemic-era botched haircuts; he rocked a terrible, scraggly COVID beard. My temporary crowns were now six months old. The rhododendrons flowered. “Let me take your picture,” he said, asking me to pose among the flowers. I had never felt uglier in my life. After keeping it all in for half a year, I broke down. Fat, frustrated tears rolled down my cheeks, wetting my handmade cloth mask.
“You need to find out when you are getting new crowns,” Harry determined. At the next appointment, I did. Dr. S put the procedure on the books. But they would not be permanent. My jaw still needed fixing. First, he had to make new teeth. They would be semi-permanent—a step above temporary, but not the smooth porcelain of the long-lasting versions. He yanked off my temporary crowns, which really does feel like your teeth are being pulled out of your jaw. I had brought in a mold of my mouth that the Issaquah dentist had made after the accident, when one of my original teeth still existed. Could Dr. S use that mold? “No,” he said. “We can’t do anything with
October 2019 to look at what my teeth used to look like. For months, these were my teeth. Dr. S made no mention of a permanent option. I kept going to his office once a month for jaw scans. Come December, one of my teeth—the original nub underneath—turned gray. It was dying. When I saw Dr. S, he didn’t remark on it. In January 2021, underneath the “face coverings recommended” sign pasted on the frosted window to his office, Dr. S had put up a picture showing people fishing masks out of waterways with the words “Good thing we got rid of plastic straws.” I started to consider a change. But first, I asked again about permanent crowns. “Hm,” Dr. S mused,
that. We can’t recreate the teeth.” Oh. I kept the mold in my glove compartment. Just in case. As he prepared to install the new teeth, he remarked about not having done something like this in a while. I shrugged it off and dutifully opened my mouth. Above me, Dr. S mused about how vaccines weren’t that effective. Just put the teeth in, I thought. Let me be free of this. “How do they look?” He showed me a mirror. I smiled. Wide buckteeth stared back at me.
taking a pause from bloviating about all the people he’d cured of ailments, his fingers in my mouth. “You’ll need root canals first.” “What?” This was the first I’d heard of this. “On each tooth,” he said, fingering one tooth, then the next. Then, after that, braces. Braces? “Everyone needs braces to fix how the teeth move with age,” he said. “I just got a new set myself.” He grinned, showcasing a mouth full of metal. “I’m scheduled to put my daughter in braces again soon, too. She’s 40. I’ve put braces on my whole family.” This was enough to knock me out of my inoculated stupor. I needed out. I requested a referral to an endodontist for the root canal, then a referral to a different dentist who wasn’t him for regular dental things. He connected me with an endodontist— young, hot—in the same building. It was weeks before he could see me. At appointment time, my stomach roiled. I’d only heard horror stories about root canals. As I leaned back in the chair, the endodontist asked if I wanted to put my headphones in to listen to music while he drilled into my teeth and filled the roots with cement. I said yes and played “Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity” from Gustav Holst’s The Planets on a loop. The triumphant trumpets and swelling violins held me. The procedure was a breeze. It took multiple requests for Dr. S to give
Dr. S had read the Encyclopedia of Pain. Surely that meant he could fix mine. I looked like a cartoon. At least they were the same white as my other teeth. Mostly. “Can you make them any smaller?” I asked. He shaved the sides down marginally. I pretended that was enough. Slowly, I got used to them, even if I would sometimes mournfully scroll back to before
29
me the referral to the new dentist. Finally, he did. In March 2021, I sat down with a new dentist and asked her—a woman, finally— what it would take to get me new crowns. She examined my mouth. My gums were in terrible shape. The original dentist had shaved my teeth down too close to the gums, and the long stint with temporary crowns had left them infected, red, and angry. I’d need gum surgery first and then we could talk about permanent crowns. After that appointment, I emailed Dr. S’s office. I was done. Could they send my records to the new dentist? (Years later, I found records of a King County Superior Court lawsuit against Dr. S from patients who had undergone more invasive procedures under his care.) The new dentist fixed what she could of my gums, and said they would now need time to heal. When it was time to talk about permanent teeth, I brought the mold of my old teeth with me. Could she make them look like this? She examined it, turning the now nearly two-year-old mold over in her gloved hands. “Of course we can,” she said. Three and a half years after my accident—in April of 2023—my mouth was ready for my new front teeth. The last step was a trip down to Renton to a dental laboratory that would hand paint my new ceramic crowns to match the rest of my teeth. I was all ready to go alone, as I had throughout this whole process, when Harry asked if I wanted company. I hadn’t thought to ever ask before. Most of the time, I didn’t tell him about the appointments. I would grit my teeth—all 30 of them—and bear it, entering a catatonic-like pliantness once they put those fucking sunglasses on my face and tilted me back in the dentist chair. What the hell, I thought. Let him come. There wasn’t much for him to do in the appointment. But he asked clarifying questions as the lab tech compared porcelain shades to my regular teeth. Just having another person there felt fortifying. I was less numb, and the end was on the horizon. We went out for pancakes near the airport after it was done. A few weeks later, Harry dropped me off to get my new, final set of teeth—the teeth I still have today. He met me outside with flowers. It was over. Except. Halloween will never hold the same excitement, the same gleeful joy it once did. It has been seven years since I’ve bitten into an apple, a corn on the cob. I think about my smile now. Does it look normal? Is it mine? This new one is the one in my wedding pictures, so surely it is. The last time I played laser tag—more recent than I’d like to admit—someone jokingly said, “Now we can see who has fake teeth” and grinned in the black light. Their teeth glowed. There were two dead spots smack dab in the middle of mine. And there always will be.
30 THE STRANGER
OCTOBER 2026
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Columbia City & Hillman City Neighborhood Month
EverOut x The Stranger ... is a month-long celebration of the businesses that define our neighborhoods and make them special. In October, we’re shining our love light on Columbia City and Hillman City, inviting locals and the rest of Seattle to show their love, too! Come shop, sip, eat, and dance your way through the neighborhood. Find some new favorites, and support your steady go-tos. Catch the EO crew at Columbia City Night Market, Saturday October 17, and be sure to check out our Columbia City & Hillman City guide at everout.com!
1 SOUTH END CERAMICS A community pottery studio offering multi-week classes, focused workshops, 24/7 access memberships, and private events. 4689 Martin Luther King Jr Way South Suite 7, Seattle, WA 98108
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5 COLUMBIA CITY DENTAL Founded in 2013 by Dr. Meghan Crawford. Our mission is clear: to support your long-term health through excellent preventive care. 3810 S. Ferdinand St, Ste 201, Seattle, WA 98118 6 OLA MAIKA’I Brand-new construction project featuring seven stand-alone homes located in the heart of Columbia City with light rail and all the hip shops and restaurants a couple of blocks away. 4517 35th Ave S, Seattle, WA 98118
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7 COLUMBIA CITY NIGHT MARKET The Columbia City Night Market transforms South Seattle into a vibrant celebration of commerce, community-driven innovation and fun. 3702 S Hudson St, Seattle, WA 98118
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8 GROWLERZ Dog Daycare M-F 7AM-6PM, Play Park/ Tavern Evenings and Weekends, Dog Grooming Salon, and Dog Pack Hiking Adventure Groups. 5269 Rainier Ave S, Seattle, WA 98118
HALLOWEEN PARTY SATURDAY, 10/31 1–4PM
9 ROUGH & TUMBLE PUB Rough & Tumble is Seattle’s
home to women’s (and men’s) sports! Located right in the heart of the historic Columbia City district. 4914 Rainier Ave S, Seattle, WA 98118
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City, offering unique eyeglasses, sunglasses, and eye exams since 2010. 4854 Rainier Ave S, Seattle, WA 98118
20% OFF ALL REGULAR PRICED FRAMES DURING OCTOBER! 12 HABESHA CAFE The best vegan & vegetarian restaurant in Seattle, with inflation-buster prices on all vegan and non vegan dishes. 5710 Rainier Ave S, Seattle, WA 98118
15% VEGAN DISHES & 10% OFF NON-VEGAN DISHES IN OCTOBER 13 MACHINE HOUSE BREWERY Neighborhood brewery making English cask ales and other beers. Taproom open every day—all ages and dog friendly. 5718 Rainier Ave S, Seattle, WA 98118
WEEKLY BLUEGRASS JAM, PUB QUIZ, AND SOCCER WATCH PARTIES. 14 PIZZUTO’S ITALIAN CAFE Italian comfort food served with familiar faces. Queer, woman-owned business. Opened in 1984, Pizzuto’s is a staple of Seward Park. 5032 Wilson Ave S, Seattle, WA 98118
LIVE MUSIC ON THE FIRST WEDNESDAY OF EACH MONTH
15 LOTTIE’S LOUNGE Columbia City’s neighborhood bar specializing in craft cocktails and chill vibes. Great house-made snack options, four beers on tap, a wide selection of bottles/cans of other beverages, a gins of the world program. 4900 Rainier Ave S, Seattle, Washington 98118 16 ROCKET COMMUNITY FITNESS Anyone, even with no experience, can come to Pilates, Kettlebell Fitness, Flex and Sunday FUNfit classes. 5720 Rainier Ave, Seattle, WA 98118
FOR OCTOBER, FREE DROP-INS FOR NEW FOLKS TO MOST CLASSES
17 BLACK & TAN HALL A cooperatively owned restaurant and performance venue that centers local artists, serves food that nourishes the soul, and offers event space. 5608 Rainier Ave S, Seattle, WA 98118
SUNDAY BRUNCHES. LIVE MUSIC RESIDENCES. EVENTS & PERFORMANCES ALL MONTH LONG. 18 SEED ARTS/COLUMBIA CITY GALLERY SEEDArts builds community by presenting diverse arts experiences, nurturing local artists, and infusing creativity into Southeast Seattle. SEEDArts runs these beloved programs and more.
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32 THE STRANGER
Columbia City & Hillman City Neighborhood Month
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Columbia City & Hillman City Neighborhood Month
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OCTOBER 2026
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Remembering Timothy White Eagle Artist, Ritualist, and Performer BY AMANDA MANITACH ILLUSTRATION BY KATHRYN RATHKE
M
y reaction to meeting Timothy White Eagle for the first time was probably similar to that of every person who ever met him: awestruck. For me, it was an evening in 2016 on the Bellevue Arts Museum plaza, where, amid a swarm of mere mortals, I was introduced to White Eagle: barrel-chested and statuesque, with long locks falling halfway down his back. The warmth of his smile was matched by the warmth of his words. The last time I saw him was at the end of July; we had both been invited to speak on a panel at the Seattle Art Fair, discussing why artists stay in this city. By then, his physical size had diminished, yet his presence was as large as ever. He brought everyone caramel chocolates and made us laugh with his tough love and wisdom wrapped in jokes. He always was a bit of a class clown. People like White Eagle are why we stay. White Eagle was born in Tucson, Arizona in 1966 to a woman of Mohave descent, from the Colorado River Indian Tribes. At three days old, he was adopted into a white Mormon family that eventually relocated to Montesano, Washington, where, in the ’80s, he stood out. Not only was he one of the only children of color at his school (he took eighth grade algebra with Kurt Cobain), he was one of the only Mormons, and he was gay. “I was a big screaming queen trying not to be screaming,” White Eagle told me in an interview in March of this year. “But yeah, I was pretty much not like the other boys.” White Eagle spoke with regard for his adoptive father, who raised him and his siblings as a single parent when White Eagle was a teenager. “My dad was a bit of an iconoclast,” White Eagle said. “He was a Mormon, but he also had a very strong independent streak. He had an idea that God understood him. Even if he wasn’t doing things right according to Mormonism—having a beer with the loggers in town or not tithing so he could pay off his house— he just knew that God gets who I am, and it’s okay. I think that that was an early way of laying into me that we all can have a unique relationship to spirit, and what’s important is our relationship, not the dogma of some authoritarian channel through which you receive a connection to the divine. I think that was an early, little key to why I went where I went, which is very nontraditional.” White Eagle graduated with a BFA in the-
ater stage management from the University of Utah in 1990. After graduating, he moved to Seattle to take a job at Seattle Rep, which had invited him to an internship. The offer was retracted when the organization realized he had not yet completed the required masters degree. He stayed in Seattle and went on to work at low-budget shows in black box
ing Isherwood’s The Berlin Stories,” White Eagle recalled. “He put the book down and said, ‘Would you let me do a cabaret in here?’” The result was a drag cabaret and open mic night that ran most nights
“Get messy. Have fun. Do whatever you want, just clean up when you’re done.” theaters and at restaurants, saving money to open his own coffee shop cabaret space. The death of a relative in 1995 provided him enough cash to open Coffee Messiah during Pride month of that year. It was Ursula Android—drag persona of artist and Pony founder Marcus Wilson—who suggested the Cabaret of Despair. “Ursula was sitting in the coffee shop read-
from 2 a.m. till dawn and featured artists like Sylvia O’Stayformore, Ursula Android, and Jackie Hell. “I used to call us a home for freaks,” White Eagle said. “The vibe was very anything is welcome. Risk is encouraged. Get messy. Have fun. Do whatever you want, just clean up when you’re done.”
During his 20s, White Eagle also discovered the radical faeries of the Wolf Creek Radical Faerie Sanctuary in Southern Oregon. He quickly took up planning rituals at their gatherings. “That was my happy spot,” he said. “It became the place where I got to do a lot of experimenting and learning about traditional pagan ritual structure, how to hold space for a community, how to state intention, and how to make public prayer.” It was at Wolf Creek that White Eagle met Clyde Hall, a Shoshone elder who took him under his wing. At that point, Coffee Messiah became financially unfeasible—he sold the cafe in 2000 and took up odd jobs, like cleaning houses, so he could travel. “A normal pursuit would have been to go to New York to follow the kind of performance art I loved,” he said. “But I had such a hunger to understand Native culture, so I just started traveling with [Hall], and that kind of took over my life for more than 10 years.” Most of his Indigenous training took place with Shoshone and Piute elders, unrelated to his ancestral tribe. It was only a few years ago, through DNA testing, that White Eagle was able to trace the identity of his birth mother and his true Native heritage. The attorney who handled his adoption had mistakenly recalled his mother as White Mountain Apache; she was Mohave, from the Colorado River Indian Tribes. When, in his 50s, he finally identified and contacted his birth mother, he respected her wish to remain distant. “I feel strongly that I need to protect her privacy and not invade her elderly years with something she moved on from,” he said. That’s the kind of grace White Eagle extended to the entire world around him and infused into his work. The performances that emerged in his 40s combined experiences from his life, including his ongoing training in pagan ritual and Native ceremony, with the religious liturgy he grew up with in the Mormon church. His first major solo performance, The White Room, created in 2016, was an immersive installation that fused performance and public space. It referenced the Celestial Room in the Mormon Temple—a sacred space. “You have to be a tithe-paying, good Mormon in good standing [to enter],” White Eagle said. “A queer Native American doesn’t qualify. I wanted to make a space that was the opposite of that. The White
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Room was created as a temporary autonomous zone, a place where there were no rules, a place to see and surrender the layers of miseducation. We all come into this world a blank slate, and then the world starts telling us what’s wrong with us and how we have to be different and how we have to be some other way.” The White Room ran for nine months, and saw over 160 participants. White Eagle’s performances have been presented at On the Boards (Indian School, 2024, and Revival, 2022) and Town Hall Seattle (Dead House, 2021). The Indigo Room was presented at the University of Utah, Texas A&M, and La MaMa and the Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival in New York (2023–2024). He toured internationally with Taylor Mac as a cast member in Holiday Sauce (2019) and as a consultant, performer, and artistic director for A 24-Decade History of American Popular Music in 2016. His visual art, including installations and photographic collaborations with Adrain Chesser and Steven Miller, has been exhibited White Eagle in Lake Washington, 2024. extensively, both locally and globally. Among numerous other residencies, We were lucky at On the Boards to be in 2025 he was named the inaugural Duwa- a creative home for Timothy. He was a mish Watershed Artist-in-Residence. board member, an artist in residence, White Eagle was three months into the an experimental performer, and a yearlong residency when doctors discovered friend. Timothy had a big part to play stage one pancreatic cancer, in September of in my move to Seattle and working last year. Though White Eagle was hesitant for OtB. During the recruitment to emphasize such a facile parallel between process, I asked to meet with artists the toxicity of the Duwamish River and his own fight for health, the diagnosis and treatment transformed his residency. What began as a largely solitary experience in collaboration with Chesser expanded to include works by artists Laura Wright, Epiphany Couch, Crystal Cortez, and Sarah Kavage. His own work focused on creating and performing rituals for healing, both in private and public, and creating medicine objects through photography and materials gathered in the community. The board sent throughout the watershed. me off to coffee with Timothy. I was White Eagle passed away on Tuesday, immediately struck by the sheer September 8. He was 60. He leaves behind artistic force and presence of him. his husband, Kenny McDonald, and a comI remember being impressed by his munity of colleagues, collaborators, and ability to hold his love for OtB with the friends who mourn and cherish his memdetermination that it must be and do ory. Here are some of their words:
“I was immediately struck by the sheer artistic force and presence of him.”
In the last year, after his diagnosis, we shared many tender moments, because I’ve had my own cancer struggles. After the opening of his show at Mini Mart City Park, we spoke about the fucked-up gifts that cancer gives you: recognizing the beauty of small things, and how much we really have in community. –Steven Miller, artistic
collaborator and friend
better for Seattle. I was moved. It lit a fire in me to share in that dream with him. –Megan Kiskaddon, executive and
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his last days of being able to speak, most of his energy was spent talking about art. He turned the hospital into an absurd trickster theater capturing the hearts of medical staff, as well as friends and family. Creativity blazed in glorious intensity within him. I am inspired by his raw want to connect through spirit and art and I hear his echo in everything, encouraging us all to not waste a sip of this life! Go for it… Let it all in and give everything in return! –Rebecca Farr, artist and friend
From the moment I met Timothy White Eagle, some 25 years ago, I loved that queen—because it’s hard not to love someone who’s got a great big heart. Timothy had a gift of connecting with people who are often overlooked and undervalued, and helping them realize they were beautiful and STEVEN EDWARD MILLER loved. Seeing his artistic career blossom these then he handed me a pillbox full of past years, it was a great reminder to microdots of acid. We took some and never be ashamed of how fabulous you the next thing I knew we were parking are. –Rosette Royale, journalist, storyteller, near Tacoma Dome. Someone had and friend given Timothy tickets to the Spice Girls Our friendship was long & messy concert, and that’s where he took me, & juicy & big, & so is he. He was tripping my pumps off. –Marcus Wilson, authentic to his core & it came out in friend and Cabaret of Despair co-conspirator
Timothy White Eagle is a friend, a brother, and a guide who taught me to pray so that ‘the lessons be memorable and gentle.’ He challenged me to accept the urgency of an artist’s impulse and make what was required for the moment—even imperfectly. It has been an honor knowing him for twenty years and being on his creative team for the last five. –Pepper Pepper, artist, friend, and admin/producer of Once Wild River
We were both concerned with what our work *DOES* in muscular, loving, ambitious ways, for audiences and for us. He was at his best when he pursued his own healing first, knowing it would ripple out. What a gift to learn how to do this with him.
artistic director at On the Boards
–Hatlo, friend and collaborator
I will always cherish the time we made plans to go out one night, but he wouldn’t tell me where we were going, just told me to look good. So I got dressed in full drag as Ursula Android, and Timothy came and picked me up in his car, we got on the freeway, and
He was a maximalist that loved the light and dark, vulnerability and power, the high and the low. A mythically brilliant mind, he was devoted to creating works that would surprise a community into a state of playful transformation. In
his theater, his art, his leadership, his magic, & in every beautiful & stupid & stupidly beautiful choice he made. I guess more than anything else I want to say: I will be unpacking the gifts he gave me for the rest of my life. Sometimes I will surely wish he’d saved the receipts so I could return one or two of them, but here we are. I love him. –Ampersand Charmpop He could turn a common room into a temple, and simple fire into a cauldron of transformation, a photograph into a prayer for change, and a holiday party into a devotional for Dionysus. I watched him shift from a recovering Mormon kinky gay man into a Mohave Ceremonialist. He embodied what I understand as a true human being. He would be equally reverent and silly. As strong as he was, he could be equally as vulnerable. With our longevity of friendship, we would talk of where we came from and appreciate how far we have come. I will deeply miss his mirroring, mischievous grin, and love. –Jaime Barber
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SUPER SEATTLE SONICS
New Music You Shouldn’t Miss
Faith Coloccia + Tashi Dorji’s Melodious Drone Folk and Melanie Radford’s Hushed, Bass-Centric Songcraft BY DAVE SEGAL Faith Coloccia + Tashi Dorji
And Their Power Was Alive (Whited Sepulchre) Faith Coloccia has been a luminous presence in the region’s underground music scene for 20 years. She’s best known for the haunted folk music, isolationist ambient, and dilapidated-cathedral metal she creates in Mamiffer, with husband Aaron Turner. Her delicate voice carries a churchly grandeur ideal for the stoic, drone-based songs
that form much of her catalog. Tashi Dorji is a Bhutanese national based in Asheville, NC—a bold guitarist whose output ranges from jagged twists on John Fahey’s American primitive stylings to fiery sheets of noise as both a solo performer and a collaborator with fellow avant-gardists. And Their Power Was Alive elegantly merges these artists’ talents. The icy drone of opener “Excessive Yield” preps the listener for serious existential contemplation; when Coloccia’s wistful chant fades in, it acts as a gentle brain-cleanser. By contrast, “Short Lived Echo” sounds like a pop hit. Coloccia leads with a warmhearted piano melody and sings a sweetly melancholy tune about ecological disaster and “cosmic horror.” Later, Dorji generates swelling guitar feedback signifying the catastrophic results of failed human stewardship of the planet. The coda is incredibly moving. On “Fires Three,” a poignant, circular piano motif and ghostly guitar feedback cohere into a momentous soundtrack to a crushing denouement. Throughout And Their Power Was Alive, Coloccia offers up her vocals like a distressed angel. Beneath the stark piano-and-guitar duets (with occasional cameos by Turner on guitar and Nicholas Wilbur on keys and tubular bells), beautifully introspective melodies slide into subtly foreboding soundscapes.
Melanie Radford
For the Sake of Stillness (Jealous Butcher) The debut solo album by Built to Spill bassist Melanie Radford is miles away from that Idaho band’s big-sky indie rock. And that’s pretty cool. For the Sake of Stillness finds Radford—who also plays in Boise rock group Blood Lemon—burrowing inward in singer-songwriter mode, but instead of the usual acoustic guitar, she brandishes bass and incorporates field recordings. And that makes a huge difference. On “Philadelphia,” Radford utilizes the bass more as a sculptural tool to forge rumbles, drones, and sighs than as a riff generator, and she puts the onus on her soft, unadorned voice to carry the song’s melody. “Hangin’ On” is as interiorized as Vashti Bunyan at her most intimate, with Lori Goldston contributing morose cello strains to the trepidatious bass line that’s the song’s spine. The album’s most dissonant and unsettling song, “Back Again,” deploys synth to create a cosmic whir alongside Radford’s eerie bass susurrations. Stillness peaks on “Sink & Swallow,” which features Built to Spill’s Lê Almeida on drums and Jim Roth on pedal steel. This is a gorgeous, lilting country-rock arm-swayer that belongs in the canon.
It’s possible that the record’s introverted aura and unhurried pace were an antidote to the touring musician’s bustling life; Radford worked on Stillness while on the road with Built to Spill. Whatever the case, it’s an assured debut that promises more great, understated things to come. Seattle-area musicians can send music to NewSeattleMusic@TheStranger.com for possible coverage.
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SPOTLIT IN SEATTLE
Analog Projections
Aubree Barber Finds Forgotten Memory in the Shadows BY NICO SWENSON
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f you’re lucky, your social media scroll has been interrupted by Aubree Barber’s mesmerizing dreamscapes. The heart behind Analog Projections, Barber creates stills and videos using projected light, silhouettes, and her personal collection of precious objects. The ephemeral images, swirling in color and constructed with elaborate sets, are emotionally evocative and often weighted with a sense of nostalgia. Her personal story reveals how she’s created her own sources of light through a difficult journey.
papers, crucifixes. I fell in love with the feeling of being surrounded by these forgotten memories. The feeling of a memory you’ve forgotten is equally sad. You’re at the mercy of your own brain, whose job it is to protect you from these images. You create a new
What led you to this art form? I’ve always loved being creative. The first time I remember creating anything was when I lived in a campground after Hurricane Katrina. One day, while mindlessly scraping mud around like my own personal Zen garden, I found clay. I tossed it into my minnow-catching net and squeezed it. It revealed a snake-like pattern that remained. I was enamored. We ate food on a campfire grill, and afterwards I put my creation in the charcoal. Just like that, I’d created my first sculpture! I got into creating my dreamscapes because I became an oil painter following a house fire (that’s a long story). Once I’d moved into a 400-square-foot apartment in Seattle, I couldn’t paint my still lifes anymore; there was no room. I couldn’t escape into myself, so I attempted another iteration of a still life using my beautiful objects. Thus, Analog Projections was born! Your work explores memory and carries an almost eerie nostalgia. What do memory and nostalgia mean to you? After the storm, the streets were flooded with people’s memories. I We love Aubree Barber’s shadow side. remember my dad stopping the car on a long stretch and there were thou- memory out of the broken pieces. Ironisands of personal items washed up on the cally, this is now my lived life. I got to create road, as far as the eye could see. We didn’t a beautiful life out of the objects left behind. speak, we just got out and stared. They were so covered by swamp water and mud How did Hurricane Katrina—and leaving that they were unrecognizable. All except home at a young age—influence your work? one little doll. I felt bad for her and the After fleeing my home and watching thouchild who loved her. What are the dreams sands of people lose their most special they shared together? Who will they shed memories and objects, my own objects their tears with now? became very precious to me. After being A decade after the hurricane, I started abused for many years, and seeing how difexploring abandoned homes. They were ficult it was to get outside help from adults, filled to the brim with previous owners’ I was feeling trapped. I had to point my photographs, furniture, rosaries, old news- attention outside of my own circumstances.
I focused my efforts on helping other children at the New Orleans Children’s Hospital. I took shells that the local seafood shops were tossing out and hand-painted them to make Christmas ornaments, which I then sold to raise funds to buy toys for the
I was absolutely beaming. Something I created made a difference. I found my purpose. I think that’s why people are confused when they see a vibrant person who is always looking for their little Christmas presents in everyday moments. The world calls that naive, but it’s a strength, a lust for life. Every day is another chance to turn your oil lamp flame a little brighter. My grandmother was also imprisoned in her own home with her abusive husband. The only time I really saw her beaming was when she was
“I thought if I could make their lives brighter for just one day, maybe they would feel strong enough to get through this horrific time in their life.” decorating for the holidays. I thrifted my first object with her at a Habitat for Humanity. We found this gold jewelry box with an image of a couple in a garden on the face. “I want to live there,” I said. She said, “We already do, together.” She was building her own dream world. My grandmother was the one who taught me to dream. I learned that if I could find joy in my imagination, even just for one second, I can be free. After she passed away, I had no support system, and I left my childhood home. It’s a sad feeling knowing you have to leave everything you’ve ever loved behind, with only a single bag COURTESY OF AUBREE BARBER around your arm. Another Katrina. It gave me a deep appreciation for children. I ended up making around $400 objects and how we use them to tell stoand grabbing all the toys I could at the Dol- ries. My work is a lot about escapism. lar Store. When I dropped the presents off, I wasn’t allowed to see the children, which What do you hope to communicate to those I understand, but I desperately wanted to who have lived through similar experiences? connect with them. The children at the You have to find the joy in life and focus on hospital and I had a lot in common, as we that. To feel trapped and alone is the most were both prisoners, trapped in purgatory. I difficult place in the world. Focusing on the thought, if I could make their lives brighter beauty we get to experience in this life is a for just one day, maybe they would feel lovely distraction. Protect your flame, keep strong enough to get through this horrific your shining light. Cut people off and try time. We all just needed to hold on a little not to feel guilty, get as far away as you can. longer and we could leave this prison and The world is so much brighter and kinder find joy. When I walked out of that hospital, than you could imagine.
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Shelf Life
Scarecrow Video Buyer Mark Steiner Retires After 34 Years BY JULIANNE BELL PHOTOS BY BILLIE WINTER
Steiner’s 34-year stint at Scarecrow has surpassed the entirety of Blockbuster’s 29-year corporate retail era in the US.
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s he leads me on a tour of Scarecrow Video, longtime buyer Mark Steiner spots former employee Xoe Amer in the new releases section and waves. Steiner, who started working at Scarecrow in 1992 and retired in September, has worked with Amer’s mom, witnessed Xoe grow up, and seen her work at Scarecrow’s erstwhile coffee stand VHSpresso. “Just seeing Xoe browsing the shelves, that’s second-generation right there. Right behind the counter, too,” he says, gesturing toward Sophia Soriano, an employee whose mother, Rebecca Soriano, cofounded Scarecrow in 1988. “It blows my mind. We’ve endured, no matter what got thrown at us, and it boggles my mind that we’re still here.” This kind of relationship is emblematic of Steiner’s 34-year stint at Scarecrow, which has surpassed the entirety of Blockbuster’s 29-year corporate retail era in the US; international stores closed in 2020. He has seen the store go from around 1,000 titles to
over 156,000, and nearly every single one has passed through his hands. Even he still sometimes gets overwhelmed by Scarecrow’s massive inventory. “Every day I do my job, and I leave and I have 50 things to watch,” he says.
“It blows my mind. We’ve endured, no matter what got thrown at us.” “So I always tell people, ‘I get intimidated in this place too, and I’ve been here.’” As he points out, nobody will live long enough to see every movie in the store. Steiner may well be the longest-tenured video store employee in history, but you wouldn’t know it from his affable, modest demeanor. “I just put my head down and came to work,” he says. “And the other corollary that is equally important is that
it’s a really cool place to work, and everybody who’s run it has always been nothing but supportive.” In 2006, a tree fell on his house, nearly killing both of his children, and Scarecrow bolstered him through the crisis. They also allowed him to work four days a week, enabling him to spend more time raising his kids. Steiner lights up when he talks about film, gesticulating and reciting a steady stream of trivia from the annals of his cinematic knowledge. As a child in Detroit, he learned to read by poring over film critic Leonard Maltin’s annual movie guide. While home sick with chickenpox one day, he was wowed by North by Northwest on TV. The summer he turned 10, he rode his bike to the theater to see Star Wars, which he says “blew up my world.” His family got a VCR when he was 11, and each of them got to pick out a movie. Steiner chose Robert Altman’s M*A*S*H because he liked the TV series, which was based on the film, and watched it daily. Altman eventually became
his favorite director, and some 40 years later, he’d let M*A*S*H actor Tom Skerritt into Scarecrow and chat with him. At 13, his bubbe took him to see Raging Bull, his first R-rated movie. “That was the first movie that really knocked my socks off that I saw in the theater,” he remembers. Around the same time, his cousin, who worked at a record store in Detroit, introduced him to artists like Mott the Hoople, Lou Reed, and David Bowie, sparking a lifelong love of music and “rabid” record collecting habit. “I’m an omnivore, I guess,” he says. “I like what I like, but I always want more.” At Michigan State University, Steiner and a friend launched a film club, screening mostly foreign films on campus. He also frequented the Lansing video store Video to Go, which stocked a wide variety of titles and which he calls an “early model” for Scarecrow. After graduation, he moved to Seattle, having absorbed romantic visions of the Pacific Northwest from the films McCabe & Mrs. Miller and Trouble in Mind
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and the Tom Robbins novel Jitterbug Perfume. There, he became a regular at Scarecrow Video’s original Latona Avenue location. One day in 1992, he walked in feeling completely burned out from working in social services, and the staff encouraged him to apply for a job. Although he accidentally missed a meeting on his first day, the team embraced him warmly, and thus began a decades-long career. The following year, Scarecrow moved to its current Roosevelt location, and the buyer position was created for Steiner. Steiner’s life is inextricable from his vocation. Even his 1998 wedding vows came from the 1945 romantic drama The Clock, directed by one of his favorite directors, Vincente Minnelli. In the film, Judy Garland (who would later marry Minnelli) and Robert Walker play a young couple who wed within the course of a 24-hour whirlwind romance. Similarly, Steiner and his now-wife fell in love during a 24-hour first date, so the lines felt apt. “We were like, okay, good enough for Judy Garland and Vincente Minnelli,” he says. His curiosity and humility have served him well, helping him discover titles beyond his own taste. He credits his kids with broadening his horizons and stresses the importance of “know[ing] you’re a dumbass.” “You gotta pay attention, you gotta hear from people, because if it was just me, it’d be all Westerns on the main floor,” he says. “With any curating, I think you can view it with your knowledge, but that shouldn’t be the beginning or the end.” From his office on the second floor, Steiner could overhear customers talking to staff, which helped him gauge demand and learn about films he wouldn’t have otherwise. No day as a buyer was exactly the same as another. The position demanded grit, adaptability, persistence, and an ability to build relationships with distributors. “It’s a mix of listening to people and just being really, really diligent and detail-oriented, and that’s sometimes a slog,” Steiner says. Scarecrow almost went out of business in 2014 due to competition from streaming services; Steiner helped them survive as they became a nonprofit and introduced their popular DVD-by-mail program across the country in 2021. “He’s been a stabilizing force through all of that stuff. He’s paid his dues, he’s earned some rest,” veteran employee Joel Fisher says. Fisher, who helped spearhead Scarecrow’s transition into a nonprofit, is taking over as buyer. He says that the connections Steiner has cultivated with distributors will be the most difficult thing to replace. “That’s going to be a thing that I just have to earn through time and build from scratch. I’ll probably do things in my way and just try to figure out a good way to move forward,” Fisher says. “Things are always changing in this realm. We’re actually in a really good place now that the pendulum has swung back towards people understanding the importance of physical media.” Fisher will miss Steiner’s dedication. “Mark’s been around forever, so he remembers everything that happens, and he’s really passionate about helping people out,” he says. “He’s dealt with all the special orders and availability checks, so he’ll go out of his way if people are searching for a thing. If he can find
Scarecrow Video: also talented collagists. it, then he’ll leave no stone unturned, and he’s always really good with that.” Once, Steiner tracked down a VHS copy of Apocalypse Now for an older woman who wanted to watch it
“The pendulum has swung back towards people understanding the importance of physical media.” because it was her late husband’s favorite film—at the time, DVDs could not be easily paused with the intent of resuming later in the same spot, and she couldn’t sit through
a three-hour movie. The year Napoleon Dynamite came out, Steiner went to Costco to buy up their stock because of the extreme demand for it around Christmas, and it was so popular that people were begging to buy copies in the Scarecrow parking lot when he returned. Steiner has a gold mine of stories about brushes with celebrities and film industry behemoths. He’s seen stars like Bridget Fonda, Roger Ebert, Alejandro Jodorowsky, and Quentin Tarantino (a former video store employee himself ) walk through Scarecrow’s doors. When legendary director Bertrand Tavernier came to SIFF in 1997 to promote his film Capitaine Conan, Steiner invited him to the store and followed him around for three hours as he rifled through titles and remarked on them
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in a thick French accent. He once sat in on director Werner Herzog, actor Crispin Glover, and former Scarecrow employee Norm Hill recording the commentary for Herzog’s film Even Dwarfs Started Small, in which Herzog uttered the sage wisdom, “Chickens are something that frighten me because they are so stupid… When you really take a close look into the eyes of a chicken, it’s really, really weird.” Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love used to patronize the Latona location. Once, late Scarecrow cofounder George Latsios, who would read back customers’ first and last names in order to memorize them, loudly repeated “Kurt Cobain” several times, having never heard of the Nirvana frontman. “He was trying to keep a low profile, and George is like, ‘Hello, Kurt Cobain! Oh, you’re Kurt Cobain,’ and you see these people in the store, their ears perking up,” Steiner recalls. Still oblivious, Latsios inquired what Cobain did for a living and asked, “You aren’t one of those grunge musicians, are you?” When Cobain responded that he was, Latsios earnestly wished him luck. (For context, this was a week after Nirvana appeared on Saturday Night Live.) As for Love, she favored British dramas like Brideshead Revisited due to her time living in the UK and would rent a “shitload of tapes” at a time, until Love and Cobain’s nannies inevitably returned them late. She incurred so many late fees that her accountant had to have a talk with her, according to Rebecca Soriano, but Steiner calls it a “wonderfully symbiotic relationship,” since her fines helped support the store. He’s invigorated by the new wave of younger generations’ enthusiasm for film. “We’re really engaging more and more with customers, and that’s what I’m most excited about,” he says. “It used to be this boys’ club.” He’s seen a rise in interest in body horror, such as Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance, David Cronenberg’s films, and Louise Weard’s Castration Movie series, which sold a staggering 30 copies. It’s important to Steiner that Scarecrow persists as an archive. He says many people don’t realize that they don’t sell off anything from their stock, unless they’re upgrading existing titles. “If you came in here as a kid and saw something, it should still be here for you 30 years later,” he says. Of Scarecrow’s 100 rarest titles, 88 aren’t even in the Library of Congress. In retirement, Steiner looks forward to spending time with his wife and his dog Gracie and continuing to pursue his twin passions of movies and music. He’s excited about the possibility of working with Rebecca, who is retiring from teaching third grade, to bring film education to classrooms. Since 2019, he’s also hosted a radio show called Soundtrack Cinema from 7–8 p.m. each Thursday on SPACE 101.1 FM. “I’ve just always wanted to share cool things, and radio is perfect for that,” he says. Every week, he creates a themed soundtrack, using film and TV scores, needle drops, and other film-related music. Nevertheless, he’ll still be found roaming the shelves of Scarecrow from time to time. “I mean, how could I not?” he says. “I’ve had this at my fingertips for my whole adult life, so I couldn’t conceive of not taking something home when I come in.”
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One Smart Cookie
Vince Vu’s Collaborative Shop Lifts Up Fellow Asian American Bakers BY MEG VAN HUYGEN
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“
’m actually in trouble with the City because of how honest I am on the socials,” Vince Vu deadpans, feigning concern. We’re seated around a tiny table in the front window of Anh Ơi Bake Shop at Sixth and Jackson, and the unvarnished candor I’ve come to know from his IG stories starts pouring out of him right from the jump. “They were like, ‘Actually, you know, as a Restored cohort member, it’d be really great if you could, like, run your ideas between us first?’” He breaks character, grinning. “I was like, ‘No! What are you talking about? I’m not gonna do that. I don’t even say anything crazy online, guys.’ I’m just like, ‘Hey, it’s tough out here. Come in! Hello! I am selling sweet treats!’” Behind the friendly face of this neighborhood baker is a skilled political strategy leader, community activist, and storyteller who knows how to light a fire and call folks to action. And after the sweet treats, that’s kind of the entire point of his shop. Vu opened Anh Ơi Bake Shop in May 2026 as a place to sell his own Vietnamese-inspired cookies and cakes, as well as those of rotating guest bakers. The concept
Whatever’s happening inside Anh O’i on any given day, it’s always hyper-creative, and it’s always about to change. is a collaborative effort—he devotes a tall wooden shelf apiece to fellow Asian American bakers and their creations. He snagged the 94-year-old storefront—in the historic former Osami’s Barber Shop space in Seattle’s Nihonmachi (Japantown)—as part of Seattle Restored, a program run through the Seattle Office of Economic Development, the Seattle Good Business Network, and Shunpike. The idea is to rent out and thereby revitalize previously empty retail spaces, then sublet them to new businesses rent-free for six months. He says he actually found the long-empty space himself, then worked with Seattle Restored to secure it via the Seattle Chinatown International District Preservation and Development Authority, aka SCIDpda. Seattle Restored’s participants also receive marketing help, enjoy professional photography of their wares, benefit from a city-
DOUGAL BROWNLIE / ROOTS TO RESTAURANTS
Vu is a skilled baker, political strategy leader, and community activist who knows how to light a fire and call folks to action. And after the sweet treats, that’s kind of the entire point of his shop. wide media campaign to help boost them up, and are connected with the property’s owners to negotiate a possible future lease. It’s a bullpen for entrepreneurs to try out their ideas, workshop their products, and tweak their business plans accordingly. The timing seemed great: Anh Ơi would open just in time for the FIFA World Cup. “And we all know how that went,” Vu quips. Famously, the soccer-fan foot traffic that was promised by the city failed to materialize in the CID. That’s when Vu took mat-
ters into his own hands and started telling it like it is—via social media. In late June, he kicked off a reel by telling the camera, “I think the World Cup games in Seattle caused my business to have the worst sales day that it’s ever had.” The FIFA crash and the viral-ish reel that followed were just the beginning of Anh Ơi’s online media blitz. Today, Vu is harnessing as much marketing reach as the socials can bring him, mostly via reels. These include his takes on popular memes
with CID themes inserted, and installments of “The Anh Ơi School of Business,” where he “explain[s] business lessons I learned because I was forced to.” Other times, he’s just telling us that persimmons are in season and to look out for all the delicious pastries about to happen. Another quirk of the project: Everything in the store is prepackaged. “Yeah, my production isn’t here,” he explains. “I bake my own stuff in SoDo, and I buy the wrapped pastries from the other vendors and then sell them
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here. I’m just shelves. I’m a grocery store.” The treats themselves are as fascinating as his business model. Gaze at each shelf in Anh Ơi and read all the different placards with the bios of the bakers and the photos of their faces, and it’s like they’re baking little diary entries for us. On the day I interviewed Vu, baker Cindy Vuong, who operates as Sweet Dream Bakes, had pineapple bun cookies and lotus mooncakes filled with salted egg yolks on her shelf, while Alison Shiu from PãoBāo Bread was selling Portuguese-Chinese snacks like corn focaccia buns dressed with dried shrimp chili oil and sesame cookies loaded with spicy Huang Fei Hong peanuts. (To my chagrin, her
markets and other pop-ups, plus he gets new folks coming in with samples all the time. He says he always chats with prospective bakers and makers at length to see if they have matched energy, especially since he enjoys hearing people’s food stories. “What I really love is when someone’s like, ‘Oh, I made this because it reminds me of my mom,’ and I can be like, ‘Oh wow, really? Why? Tell me about your mom.’” Whatever’s happening inside Anh Ơi on any given day, it’s always hyper-creative, and it’s always about to change. If you eat something you love, you can always check the shelf’s sign and follow the maker online to see where else they sell their stuff. In
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The shop’s concept was nudged along into reality by Vu’s background in government, and his years of tech and marketing experience have proved useful too. “I knew that government policies make it really hard to start any business,” he said, “and especially a food business. So I was like, ‘Let me do it in a way that gets around a lot of that stuff.’” Vu says that, by and large, people don’t know— and the city doesn’t make it easy for them to know—that they can start a food business in such a creative, nonstandard way. He suspects he’s gotten some superfluous attention from county health inspectors for publicly telling folks how it’s done. “It’s so funny,” he says, “because the city has sent so many inspectors here, and like, I worked for the government for 10 years. So like, try me, right? Please try me. “I always tell people if I ever ran for office,” he says, “I’d be a single-issue politician, and that issue would be: We have to fix our small food business process. Like, people are getting crazy diarrhea from shredded lettuce and finding glass in their frozen bread, or whatever is happening from the big conglomerations. And yet you’re gonna come here over and over to try to pick on my tinyass business that hasn’t broken any rules?” As of press time, Vu’s Seattle Restored tenancy expires October 15. What happens next isn’t totally up to him. “I really want to stay. It depends on Restored—I need their blessing.” Hopefully, he says, once he gets it, he’ll be able to coordinate with SCIDpda and the building’s owners directly going forward.
my friends, ‘There’s a lot of space available here. The spaces are rough. But we can make them better! We’ll invest in the neighborhood—that’s what we do.’” It’s a tenuous situation, Vu says, to simultaneously rescue a historic district from both empty storefronts and evil empires. “Honestly, the city should be throwing money at us. There’s great food here. We talk about it like it’s one of the gems of the city. These old buildings are
Vu isn’t shy about his jingoism when it comes to the CID, its rich history, and its scads of very beautiful buildings. When he was applying for the Seattle Restored program, the neighborhood was nonnegotiable for him: “This business makes no sense anywhere but the CID.” As such, he’s frustrated with the city’s lack of investment in the neighborhood. He points to a recent application filed by McDonald’s for the prominent former Bartell Drugs space at Fourth and Jackson. “I’m like, ‘Do you want that to happen to the CID?’ So, I tell
operating costs sharply rising to more comedic and nonsensical heights every year, this city deeply needs more creative, unconventional business-building—especially the food kind. Something needs to change, as soon as possible. To put a bow on it, Vu concludes: “Let’s challenge what the local food landscape looks like. Right? It doesn’t have to be just solitary genius jerk chefs out here. It can be small people you’ve never heard of, sharing ideas and helping each other make them real. That’s why I do what I do.”
“Government policies make it really hard to start any business, especially a food business.” great. Tourists come here—it’s one of their main stops. But the city won’t invest in it, and no one is moving here. Why not? The city could be helping us.” The challenges of operating a business in the CID aside, Vu’s project sure seems like a success on paper. “I’m the most successful Restored installation they’ve had,” he admits. “I do really well here. But from a revenue perspective, it’s still incredibly difficult… I think the bigger thing I’m trying to highlight is that, hey, I’ve had all these supports, and I have a ton of community help, and I get money from these people. And still, even then, whew. It is rough out here.” With Seattle rent, permit fees, and other
The treats themselves are as fascinating as his business model. char siu chouriço bao had sold out—that’s Portuguese chouriço sausage and char siu, aka Chinese barbecue pork baked inside a crispy-crusted milk bread bun.) La Chinita’s Cocina melds Mexican and Muslim Southeast Asian flavors—among owner Philicia Saephan’s goodies is an ube-s’more brownie topped with beef-gelatin-based halal marshmallows. And Vu himself makes a strawberry corn milk cookie and a fried banana cookie that both go crazy and sell out consistently. These shelves are essentially a personal to-do list for me. There’s a self-serve cooler case in back for things like durian ice cream and canned cà phê sữa đá. The shop also has room for a coffee/tea cart, where several different pop-uppers—like Muni Cafe, whose menu includes, for example, a matcha latte crowned with a cloud of banana cold foam—have camped out for six-week stints. When asked how he curates his gallery of bakers, Vu says he began with people he’d met in the farmers market circuit. “I’d popped up at lots of different events, festivals, markets… and you quickly figure out who the competitive vendors are and who the chill ones are, who are very collaborative, very open. When I opened this shop, I called all the chill ones and was like, ‘Hey, I love your stuff. Let’s sell together.’” Vu also recruits new bakers at farmers
fact, that’s the whole idea: to be a marketing engine for the superhero pantheon of indie Asian American bakers. How did Vu cook up such a clever concept? “I’ve been a baker my entire life,” he replies, “like as a subplot. I have a master’s in public policy, and I worked in politics—I worked for Dow [Constantine, former King County Executive]. That’s what brought me to Seattle. And then I worked in tech, and even then, I was baking on the side. “But when I left tech,” he says, “and you hear this all the time, but tech left me completely spiritually defunct. I felt like I was doing evil. Like, ‘I’m an evildoer. I’m not making the world better.’ And that really bothered me.” He decided to do something not evil for a living instead and took a fourmonth sabbatical to Vietnam to figure out what that was. “I knew I wanted to do something tactile, with my hands. And I wanted to do something that’s very unapologetically me, which is something Asian American– and community-focused. So I sort of marinated in those ideas.” From the trip emerged the idea for Anh Ơi. The name is Vietnamese for “hey, you,” specifically when addressing an older male. Per the shop’s website, “it’s a tender little call to someone you care about—a brother, a lover, a friend. It’s playful, it’s warm, it’s how we pull each other close.”
50 THE STRANGER We do our best for accuracy, but please check venue websites for updates and more information, as event details may have changed since press time!
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Housekeeping note: We have ceased to include pricing information, unless the event is free or sliding scale. (This is mostly due to third-party ticket vendors, like Ticketmaster, who have a monopoly on pricing that is not only unfair, but also confusing, due to varying fee structures. We hate them, and so should you.)
beabadoobee Oct 29, Climate Pledge
MUSIC
MICHAEL HICKEY/GETTY IMAGES
Dälek to rise to even higher heights of lyrical causticity and sonic brutality. After 28 years of public service in the underground-hip-hop trenches, they’ve proved themselves to be the true heirs to Public Enemy’s crown. (Funhouse, 8 pm, 21+) DAVE SEGAL
uplifting new album he cut with London-based Your Brother’s Keeper, Where Rivers Meet. One of Bartz’s most indelible songs is 1977’s “Music Is My Sanctuary,” and it behooves us to realize that his is ours, too. (Triple Door, 7:30 pm, all ages) DAVE SEGAL
OCT 11
somesurprises, Ilyas Ahmed, Morgan Henderson DJ Shadow Celebrates 30 Years of Endtroducing.....
Dälek, Lamarr Family Values Gary Bartz NTU Troop OCT 8
America’s most uncompromising hip-hop group, New Jersey’s Dälek, have been enlightening and blowing minds since 1998. A staunch advocate for POC’s rights, MC Dälek (aka Will Brooks) trenchantly rails against oppression and strife, from now to centuries back, with an authoritative bellow and a conspiratorial sneer while he and producer/instrumentalist Mike Manteca fuse industrial noise, drone, and funk into towers of sonic power. Their newest album, 2026’s Brilliance of a Falling Moon, takes a flamethrower to the fa$cist ruling class. This decade’s awful times have motivated
Earshot Jazz Festival did us a solid by booking Gary Bartz NTU Troop. The iconic 86-year-old jazz saxophonist has played with Charles Mingus, Miles Davis (see Live-Evil), McCoy Tyner, and other legends, and he still sounds vital. Launched in 1969, NTU Troop—featuring the late, great Andy Bey on vocals—helped to lay the foundation for what’s become known as spiritual jazz. Their blend of soul, funk, African folk music, hard bop, and free jazz resulted in several albums that stimulate both body and mind. Currently, Bartz is supporting a serene,
Chapel Performance Space. They will be joined by Portland-based experimental artist Ilyas Ahmed and multi-instrumentalist and Stranger Genius Award short-lister Morgan Henderson (Blood Brothers, Fleet Foxes). For fans of: Broadcast, La Luz, Mazzy Star, Phoebe Bridgers, and Slowdive. (Chapel Performance Space, 7:30 pm, all ages) AUDREY VANN
OCT 16
Formerly the bedroom project of singer-songwriter Natasha El-Sergany, somesurprises has evolved through the years into a dynamic duo with synthesist and guitarist Josh Medina, blending soothing folk with electronic elements and shoegaze-inspired fuzz. Their latest EP, Year Without Spring, is appropriately reverbed (which, in my opinion, is a lot of reverb) and will most definitely sound amazing in the Good Shepherd Center’s spacious
OCT 17 There is a scene in the documentary Scratch that perfectly captures DJ Shadow. He is in the basement of a Davis, California record store. He is sitting cross-legged on the floor, among stacks and stacks of dusty and abandoned records. The ceiling is low. Pipes are visible. The light in this stuffed space has a glow that’s otherworldly. It is indeed spiritual, and
OCTOBER 2026
beabadoobee, Wisp
this is how his 1996 masterpiece, Endtroducing….. sounds. It’s the spirituality of sampling. This is why his album will never die. It is just too pure to erode or decay like a body. It instead floats in an ether of forgotten songs, singers, riffs, melodies. Both Blackalicious and DJ Shadow formed, along with Latyrx, the foundation of the legendary Bay Area collective Quannum. If Blackalicious were intellectual rappers, DJ Shadow was something of a medium, a person with the powers of clairaudience. (Paramount Theatre, 8 pm, all ages) CHARLES MUDEDE
OCT 29 I’m hard-pressed to think of many artists who reinvent themselves as effortlessly and confidently as Beatrice Laus, better known by her stage name beabadoobee. The Filipino British singer-songwriter rose to fame with her debut single, “Coffee,” which went viral on YouTube in 2017 and blew up even more after it was sampled on Canadian rapper Powfu’s TikTok-popular 2019 song “Death Bed (Coffee for Your Head).” Two years after her indie-pop album This Is How Tomorrow Moves, she’s adopting an edgier, grungier sound with her new album Pylon, which incorporates ’90s alt influences and enlists Hayley Williams, Pinegrove’s Evan Stephens Hall, Deftones’ Chino Moreno, and Turnstile’s Brendan Yates as collaborators. Laus’s ethereal vocals recall the Cranberries’ Dolores O’Riordan over fuzzy, shoegaze-tinged guitars, simmering with heartbreak and nostalgia—the album gets its title from the pylon towers she’d gaze at out the window while homesick on tour. Up-and-coming nu-gaze artist Wisp will join her on her first arena tour. (Climate Pledge, 8 pm, all ages) JULIANNE BELL
Tyondai Braxton OCT 20 The son of legendary experimental saxophonist Anthony Braxton, Tyondai’s anything but a nepo baby. He’s earned his lofty status in underground music through his exploits in former best band in the omniverse Battles, who took math rock to rarely matched realms of rhythmic complexity, melodic whimsicality, and electronic tomfoolery. Braxton departed Battles in 2010 and since then has been focusing on a solo career that’s veered from vaulting orchestral and electroacoustic composition to abstract electronic music that could discombobulate Autechre fans’ neurons. On Braxton’s mind-bending new album, Splayed Werks, he conjures alien sound worlds that expand the vocabulary of electronic-music composition. This is a rare seated show at Vera, so STFU and listen. (Vera Project, 7 pm, all ages) DAVE SEGAL
The Chicks OCT 25–26
Debt Rag, Miscomings, DJ Martin Douglas OCT 21 Astute local music critic and DJ Martin Douglas has coordinated another strong bill for his Trick Bag series. Olympia’s premier experimental-rock band, Debt Rag, puts punk and no wave in a cyclotron, resulting in concise, idiosyncratic songs that send diabolical heat and sparks through your sensorium. The trio’s music and lyrics possess the urgency and righteous rage that this perilous timeline demands. Check out their latest album, It Is Clear What’s Going On, for proof. Seattle’s Miscomings seemingly have absorbed the harsh lessons of the legendary No New York comp and transformed them into tracks that come at you like a herd of amphetamine-spiked porcupines, with bonus doses of Minutemen-like funk. Exhilaration awaits you. (Sunset Tavern, 8 pm, 21+) DAVE SEGAL
MOPOP’s Icons of Pop Culture Gala With Salt-NPepa OCT 22 MOPOP’s Icons of Pop Culture Gala is probably your only chance to see the queens of hip-hop, Salt-NPepa, at a venue this tiny (unless you time-travel back to 1986). The duo, with DJ Spinderella, of course, will perform classics like “Whatta Man,” “Shoop,” “Let’s Talk About Sex,” and “None of Your Business” at the 250-capacity Sky Church. I really hope they also play a few songs from their criminally underrated 1997 album Brand New, which is rich with wordplay and glossy ’90s production, in the same vein as Lil’ Kim’s Hard Core. And look, I recognize that the $250 ticket price is no small thing, but if you’ve ever paid Ticketmaster/Live Nation hundreds of dollars, don’t think twice about supporting the MOPOP with their future exhibitions, youth education programs, and community initiatives. (MOPOP, 8:30 pm, 21+) AUDREY VANN
Ken Ishii, Cory Simpson OCT 25 Ken Ishii was the first Japanese solo electronic-music producer I got hip to, thanks to his 1995 album Flare dazzling me with its ingenious textures and dynamic rhythms. Throughout the ’90s, Ishii released a grip of phenomenal records in which IDM, techno, funky breaks, and ambient converged into fascinating
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Rebecca Black, BAYLI
MATT WINKELMEYER/GETTY IMAGES
OCT 30
Rebecca Black has successfully shed the skin of her notoriously cringe viral bop “Friday.” Today, her public persona leans into her status as a queer icon, hyperpop sensation, and collaborator of genre rule-breakers like Dylan Brady (100 gecs), Big Freedia, and Dorian Electra. On her sophomore album, Age of the Exhibitionist, she harmonizes about kink and pleasure à la Madonna’s Erotica. Explaining to Out Magazine her hopes for the album, Black said, “I hope [listeners] sweat, I hope they fuck, I hope they do everything they need to do. There really is a song for everything on this record.” Brooklyn-based artist BAYLI will open with her signature blend of club, rap, and pop bangers. (Showbox, 7 pm, all ages) AUDREY VANN hybrids. Shamefully, I lost track of him in the ’00s, but, whoa, Ken’s still creating and DJing like a madman, including a 2019 collab with Detroit techno legend Jeff Mills. Whether he’s performing his own cuts or spinning others’ in his wide-ranging sets, Ishii manifests a distinctive brand of dance-floor hypnosis. At Substation, he’ll be DJing, along with Cory Simpson, a prime mover in Seattle’s techno scene who heads the Depth crew. (Substation, 7 pm, 21+) DAVE SEGAL
Frankie Cosmos OCT 26 Wanna feel old? It’s been 10 years since Greta Kline, aka Frankie Cosmos, released her 2016 studio album Next Thing, which contains some of her most well-known songs, including “Fool,” “Sappho,”
and “Outside With the Cuties.” The dreamy, wistful record features influences from poet Frank O’Hara and musician Arthur Russell, with Kline’s floaty vocals and contemplative lyrics layered over soft synths. It packs the emotional punch of a comingof-age film into the span of 28 minutes and 28 seconds and defined my 20s—in fact, I am having an existential spiral realizing that it’s been a decade since I attended the Vera Project show for Frankie Cosmos’s West Coast tour promoting this album alongside former Seattle favorites iji (now based in Los Angeles). Kline and her band will return to Seattle to celebrate Next Thing’s anniversary at the Crocodile, with an opening set by hometown heroes Coral Grief, and I fully expect it to heal me. (Crocodile, 8 pm, all ages) JULIANNE BELL
Do you remember where you were when the Chicks premiered “Not Ready to Make Nice”? I was 10 years old, sitting on the couch getting ready to leave for school when it first played on VH1. While I won’t pretend I understood the conflict at hand, I had seen ex-fans burning their CDs on the news, and I didn’t like the outrage toward the three sparkly women who made the only country music I liked. “Not Ready to Make Nice” isn’t just a courageous political statement that doubled down on their criticism of Bush, but it’s an excellent pop song. Even when I was 10, with almost no understanding of politics, the bubbling rage and frustration carried through and inspired me. And, in a time when artists are still being punished for speaking out against war (see: Macklemore, who was kicked off Ed Sheeran’s Loop Tour last month for advocating against Palestinian genocide), the legacy of the Chicks’ Taking the Long Way is a reminder that being on the right side of history is always worth it, even if it means loss of money or an audience you didn’t want in the first place. The trio will celebrate the 20th anniversary of the album by playing it in its entirety for two consecutive nights at Benaroya Hall. (Benaroya Hall, 8:30 pm, all ages) AUDREY VANN
More
Michigander, Chapel Oct 7, Sunset Tavern, 8:30 pm, 21+ Snax’s Karaoke Oct 7, Rabbit Box Theatre, 9 pm, all ages Acid Mothers Temple, Magick Potion, IROIRO Oct 7, Clock-Out Lounge, 9 pm, 21+ Earshot Jazz Festival 2026 Oct 7–25, various venues, times vary
Kishi Bashi, Geographer Oct 10, Crocodile
52 THE STRANGER
JASON KEMPIN/GETTY IMAGES
Kacey Musgraves, the Brudi Brothers OCT 26-27
I’ve been a fan of Dolly Parton’s spiritual successor Kacey Musgraves since her 2013 single “Follow Your Arrow,” and it’s been a treat to watch her career evolve over the years. Her bittersweet latest album, Middle of Nowhere, finds her deep in her single era, evoking both liminal spaces and her Texan roots—the title comes from a sign she spotted in her hometown that read, “Golden, Texas: Somewhere in the middle of nowhere.” It’s by turns horny, as on the touchstarved bop “Dry Spell” (“Ain’t nobody’s tool up in my shed / Ain’t nobody’s boots under my bed”), and heartbreaking, as on the ballad “Hell on Me.” She also works out a 15-year feud with country star Miranda Lambert on the remix in their duet “Horses and Divorces”: “It’s all whiskey under the bridge.” Seattle-based sibling busker trio the Brudi Brothers will kick off Musgraves’s show at Climate Pledge Arena. (Climate Pledge Arena, 7:30 pm, all ages) JULIANNE BELL Transylvanian Dance Jazz Concert Oct 9, Good Shepherd Center, 7:30 pm, all ages The Menzingers, Hot Water Music, Weakened Friends Oct 10, Neptune Theatre, 7 pm, all ages
Automatic, Donzii Oct 10, Neumos, 8 pm, 21+ The Spooooooky Sapphic Soirée Oct 10, Asylum Collective, 9 pm, 21+
The Dresden Dolls Oct 10, 5th Ave Theatre, 8 pm, all ages
Jeff Goldblum & The Mildred Snitzer Orchestra with the Seattle Symphony Oct 11, Benaroya Hall, 4 pm, all ages
Julian Priester Oct 10, Seattle Jazz Fellowship, 7:30 pm, all ages
Aaron Pond, Abbey Blackwell, Fredy Andrés, Eric Acosta, MSHR Oct 11, Vermillion, 7 pm, 21+
Kishi Bashi, Geographer Oct 10, Crocodile, 6 pm, 21+
Iron & Wine, Ken Pomeroy Oct 13, 5th Ave Theatre, 8 pm, all ages Warren Dunes, Litvar Oct 13, Rabbit Box Theatre, 8 pm, all ages
Zookraught, IX of Swords, Black Ends, Two Week Notice Oct 10, Sunset Tavern, 9 pm, 21+ Branford Marsalis and Dianne Reeves Celebrate John Coltrane Oct 10, Town Hall, 8 pm, all ages
Doja Cat Oct 15, Climate Pledge Arena, 7:30 pm, all ages
OCTOBER 2026
Fiesta de Putxs Oct 15, Chop Suey, 9 pm, 21+ As Many Weirdos as Possible: Kelli Canary, Kerri Harrop, Steph and Bruce Fairweather, DJ Sean Malik, David Booker, DJ Trent Von Oct 16, Town Hall, 6:30 pm, all ages The 8-Bit Big Band with the Seattle Symphony Oct 16, Benaroya Hall, all ages
The Lost Boys Vampire Ball: Prom Date Mixtape Oct 31, Hidden Hall, 8 pm, 21+ Slip Halloween 2026 Oct 31, Kremwerk Complex, 10 pm, 21+ Freakout Matinee: Laboratorios Morena, Gadfly, Buddy Wynkoop, Weep Wave Nov 1, Conor Byrne Pub, 1 pm, 21+
Killer Clowns From Outer Space: Alien-Clown Carnival Rave Oct 17, Asylum, 10 pm, 21+
Gilla Band, Piss Nov 1, Neumos, 7 pm, 21+
Shaboozey Oct 18, Paramount Theatre, 8 pm, all ages
Gorillaz, Little Simz, Deltron 3030 Oct 31, Climate Pledge Arena, 7:30 pm, all ages
Cheekface, Waitress, Dude York Oct 18, Crocodile, 7 pm, all ages Mom Jeans, Harrison Gordon, Sobs Oct 18, Showbox, 7:30 pm, all ages Hulder, Antichrist Siege Machine, Secterror Oct 18, Substation, 6:30 pm, 18+ Frog Oct 19, Neumos, 7 pm, all ages Nice as Fuck featuring Jenny Lewis, Erika Forster, and Tennessee Thomas Oct 20, Nectar Lounge, 5 pm and 8:15 pm, 21+ Digable Planets: Blowout Comb 30th Anniversary Tour Oct 20, Neptune Theatre, 8 pm, all ages This Is Lorelei, Colin Miller Oct 21, Nuemos, 7 pm, 21+ Sidney Hauser, Sasha Berliner Oct 22, Town Hall, 7:30 pm, all ages Shakey Graves, Wild Pink Oct 22, Showbox at the Market, 8 pm, 21+ Resavoir, Greg Uhlmann Oct 22, Barboza, 7 pm, 21+ Where’s Beth, Lilly Miller, Coach Phillips Oct 22, Tractor Tavern, 7:30 pm, 21+ Phoebe Bridgers, Alex G Oct 23, Climate Pledge Arena, 7:30 pm, all ages Maskerade: Queer Halloween Party Oct 23, Asylum, 9 pm, 21+ Bobbyy x AKAI Solo, Stas THEE Boss, DERO Oct 23, Clock-Out Lounge, 9:30 pm, 21+ Geese, Bill Orcutt Oct 23, Paramount Theatre, 8 pm, all ages Dummy, Golomb, Spiral XP Oct 23, Tractor Tavern, 8:30 pm, 21+ Dinosaur Jr., Stef Chura Oct 23–24, Neptune Theatre, 8 pm, all ages Bedouine, Other Delights Oct 24, Ballard Homestead, 7:30 pm, all ages Freddy Fuego Oct 24, Town Hall, 9 pm, all ages Lesbian Werewolf Chainsaw Massacre: High Camp Halloween Party Oct 24, Asylum, 9 pm, 21+ Møtrik, Screen Frogs Oct 24, Baba Yaga, 7 pm, 21+ Seattle Philharmonic Orchestra Presents: Demons, Vampires, Witches Oct 24, Benaroya Hall Protomarytr, Accessory Oct 27, Nuemos, 7 pm, 21+ The Dillinger Escape Plan, Squid Pisser Oct 27, Neptune Theatre, 8 pm, all ages Ho99o9, N8NOFACE, Slay Squad Oct 27, Substation, 8 pm, 21+ Julia Jacklin Oct 28, Moore Theatre, 8 pm, all ages Henry Mansfield Halloween Party with Ghost Fetish, Old Man of the Woods, Zara Oct 28, Hidden Hall, 7 pm, 21+ Mothica’s Halloween Extravaganza Oct 28, Neumos, 7:30 pm, all ages Twilight Cover Night: Wiseacre, Poached, DJ Kennady Oct 29, Chop Suey, 8 pm, 21+
Ian Sweet Nov 3, Baba Yaga, 8 pm, 21+
VISUAL ART Styled by the Streets: Black Women in Hip-Hop Fashion ONGOING When I think of the most important fashion moments in music, I think of Lil’ Kim’s purple pasty ensemble (and other iconic monochromatic looks), Missy Elliott’s inflatable trash bag suit, Salt-N-Pepa’s matching kufis paired with spandex bodysuits, and TLC’s fishnet tops that spell out their band name. Black female hip-hop artists take fashion risks when others won’t, and continue to innovate when other artists imitate (summed up by the Lil’ Kim lyric, “I used to wear Moschino, but every bitch got it / Now I rock colorful minks because my pockets stay knotted”). The Museum of Pop Culture’s newest exhibit celebrates this history, showcasing over 30 artifacts—that’s wigs, nails, clothing, and accessories—from across time, with pieces worn by icons like Mary J. Blige, Lil’ Kim, Cardi B, and Doja Cat. (MOPOP) AUDREY VANN
Actualize AiR Takes Over The Stranger Offices OCT 8 The love train for our 2026 Genius Award winners isn’t stopping anytime soon. On October 8, we’re letting Visual Arts Geniuses, Actualize AiR, take over the third floor of The Stranger offices for Capitol Hill Art Walk. Come! It will be so great! We told them they can do whatever the fuck they want, and since Actualize is a by-artists for-artists organization that encourages makers to take risks with their work, I, for one, can’t wait to see what they come up with. (Just please don’t break anything on my desk.) Another reason to visit us during art walk: candy! Stranger Marketing Manager Evanne Hall will be curating a Cursed Candy table full of wicked delights (juice-filled wax bottles and fish-flavored candy canes, anyone?), and I will be doing my damndest to make candy corn lovers out of anyone brave enough, with my candy corn smorgasbord.
Styled by the Streets: Black Women in Hip-Hop Fashion Ongoing, MOPOP
Everclear, American Hi-Fi Oct 29, Showbox, 8 pm, 21+ Cumbia de Muertos V Oct 30, multiple locations, 7 pm, 21+ Joy Oladokun Oct 30, Moore Theatre, 8 pm, all ages I’m Not Okay: Emo Halloween Party with DJ Baby Van Beezly Oct 30, Nectar Lounge, 9:30 pm, 21+ BOO Seattle: Haunted Mansion Oct 30–31, WAMU Theater, 5 pm, 18+ Hollerween: Frankie and the Witch Fingers Oct 30–31, Baba Yaga, 7 pm, 21+ Halloween Cover Show: The Love Cats (the Cure), Sour Times (Portishead) Oct 31, Clock-Out Lounge, 8 pm, 21+ Kepi Ghoulie, the Bloodtypes, Head Oct 31, Slim’s Last Chance, 8 pm, 21+
MUSEUM OF POP CULTURE (MOPOP)
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54 THE STRANGER
OCTOBER 2026
Boren Banner Series: Blake Blanco Oct 14–April 18, 2027, Frye Art Museum
If you don’t like candy corn, you just haven’t had it in the right circumstances! Let me help you! Candy corn forever! (The Stranger, the entrance is located on 11th Ave E between the Gemini Room and Chophouse Row, 5–8 pm) MEGAN SELING
PCNW’s 2026 Benefit and Auction Oct 16, Block 41, 6 pm Meet Me at the Henry Oct 24, Henry Art Gallery, 11 am–4 pm My Body Is a Basket: Brenda Mallory, Danielle Morsette, and Sara Siestreem Oct 24–April 11, 2027, Frye Art Museum
Refract: The Seattle Glass Experience
Betsy Eby: Beautiful Repair and Hyunjeong Lim: Archive of the Mind Oct 29–December 19 with artist reception Nov 7, Winston Wächter Fine Art
OCT 15–18 If you’ve ever yearned to deepen your knowledge of the region’s glass scene, gather with glassholes, or dabble in the hot shop yourself, let Refract be your guide. The annual festival takes place at galleries, museums, and studios across the greater Seattle area. Sample the hottest young glass artists in town (like Yale Wolf, Megan Stelljes, and Henry Jackson-Spieker) in Refract: Local Frequencies at The Space Columbia City, get hands-on making your own decorative autumnal squash at SLU’s Seattle Glassblowing Studio, or get downward-dog amid Chihuly’s many-tentacled splendors during a yoga class at the Chihuly Garden and Glass Museum. My top picks, however, are the intimate artist open studio sessions with masters of the craft like Carol Milne, Morgan Madison, and Weston Lambert. (Various locations) AMANDA MANITACH
Melissa Messer THROUGH OCT 31 Melissa Messer describes her practice and work as “if Rothko’s daughter were obsessed with form.” I might add Albers to the mix: her approach to color is technical and clever and makes the eyeballs vibrate with a kind of ocular orgasm. But she’s right about Rothko, because her use of hue is almost spiritual in its ability to overwhelm. She is also a preeminent figurative painter, using the human body as an armature upon which to drape shades of deciduous greens, burnt orange, and acid gold. Beneath all that color, however, the figures hold their own. Messer paints to convey intimacy—the kind that comes from knowing the closeness of a body from innumerable hours of holding, caring, carrying, or resting. That feeling is palpable in the heavy limbs of the mothers, friends, and others who populate her canvases. They loom, stark and monumental, bodies dissolving into the color fields that surround them. (Spectrum Fine Art) AMANDA MANITACH
Surge: A Geography of Flow
Shutter and Light Collective and Photographic Center Northwest presents: Currents Nov 2–Dec 13, Photographic Center Northwest
Ongoing
Coffin Farm Summer Show 2026 Through Oct 10, RSVP at coffinfarm.com for location Jonathan Lasker: Drawings and Studies Through Oct 11, Frye Art Museum Artists’ Choice with Guest Curators Through Oct 11, Frye Art Museum Boren Banner Series: Chloe King Through Oct 11, Frye Art Museum Kelsey Fernkopf—Outside: In Through Oct 23, Foster/White Gallery
Kelly Bjork: Lunacy THROUGH OCT 28
Kelly Bjork’s work has always been about tenderness and the intimacy of interior spaces, but there’s another narrative threading through it: a personal reckoning. Their first solo show at J. Rinehart, Swimming Naked, marked the arrival of an imagery that was explicit, fleshy, and decidedly queer. In their new exhibition, Lunacy, that blissful raunch gives way to something darker, as Bjork dances with literal demons and confronts the spiritual, emotional, and physical disruptions of perimenopause. The work remains rife with impeccable patterns and intimate details sprinkled like Easter eggs throughout, but now those details reveal something grittier, wilder, and more brutally intimate than what’s come before. (J. Rinehart Gallery) AMANDA MANITACH
THROUGH JAN 10 It’s fitting that Surge, an exhibition that pairs visual artists with scientists to make work about climate change, takes place at the Museum of Northwest Art, located in La Conner, Washington. Climate
change isn’t just a hypothetical in the Skagit basin, a 3,115-square-mile watershed that extends from the Cascades to the Skagit Bay. It’s experienced firsthand as the sea spills over levees, roads go underwater,
and the familiar ways of doing things are swept away. This is the fourth iteration of Surge, curated by Chloé Dye Sherpe, and it’s always fascinating to see what happens when artists spend quality time in the trenches with the climatologists, hydrologists,
Melissa Messer
Through Oct 31, Spectrum Fine Art
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biologists, and governmental policymakers tracking the changes that directly affect our region. This year’s robust roster includes artists working across media, from neon and glass to painting and assemblage: Holly Ballard Martz, Kelsey Fernkopf and Steve Gilbert, Melinda Hurst Frye, Morgan Madison, Steve Jensen, Sue Danielson, and Niki Keenan, to name but a few. (Museum of Northwest Art) AMANDA MANITACH
Opening
Temporal: Stories of Indigenous Present, Re-imagining Indigenous Futures Oct 2–Dec 31, Thurston County Museum of Fine Arts A Ballard Story: Pacific Fishermen Oct 9–Feb 28,
Allison Collins: War, Weft and Landlines Through Oct 24, Foster/White Gallery William Kentridge Through Oct 24, Greg Kucera Gallery Eric-Paul Riege: ojo|-|ól Through Oct 25, Henry Art Museum Here & Now: King County Public Art Collection Through Oct 26, Gallery 4Culture Please Touch: Together, Breaking Barriers Invites Seattle Audiences to Experience Art Through Touch Through Oct 31, Gray Sky Gallery Granite Calimpong: Under the Bank, Up a Narrow Valley and Dick Weiss: Older and Weisser Through Oct 31, Traver Gallery Social Contract Through Nov, Actualize AiR Mia Mulvey: I Contain My Outside Through Nov 6, Jack Straw New Media Gallery Fulgencio Lazo: Iluminando Caminos [Lighting the Way] Through November 14 with an artist’s reception Oct 28, ArtX Contemporary Colored Girls for Colored Girls: Evolution of Expression Through Nov 15, Arte Noir RailSpur x Hall Spassov: The Way Is Open Through Nov 30, RailSpur Once Removed Presents ‘It Means: God Is Great’ by Gizelle Hadeed Through Dec 21, Actualize AiR Project NW: David Hytone: The Lee Shore Through Jan 3, 2027, Tacoma Art Museum Day-to-Day: Rhythm, Routine, Resistance Through Jan 3, 2027, Henry Art Gallery The Kondō Family: Storytellers in Clay Through Jan 3, 2027, Seattle Asian Art Museum Monochrome: Calder and Tara Donovan Through Jan 17, 2027, Seattle Art Museum A Room for Animal Intelligence Through Jan 2027, Seattle Art Museum Rebels + Icons: The Photography of Janette Beckman Through April 18, 2027, MOPOP Ten Thousand Things Through May 2, 2027, Wing Luke Museum Joiri Minaya: To Hell With Hibiscus Through May 2, 2027, Henry Art Gallery Chloë Bass: Soft Services Through Aug 2027, Volunteer Park
2027, National Nordic Museum
Inconvenience Store Every Saturday and Sunday, Parnassus
Fantasmagoria Oct 10–Nov 7 with opening reception
Pioneer Square Art Walk Every first Thursday
Oct 9, Roq La Rue
Central District Art Walk Every second Friday
In Between: A Cross and a Hardgrave—Tim Cross
Capitol Hill Art Walk Every second Thursday
and Robert Hardgrave Oct 10–Nov 15 with an artist
Belltown Art Walk Every second Friday
reception Oct 11, AMcE Creative Arts
Georgetown Art Attack! Every second Saturday
56 THE STRANGER
LITERATURE Neal Stephenson Presents ‘D: Heavy Water’ OCT 13 No one does a sprawling narrative universe like Neal Stephenson. His novels usually contain enough information to make you briefly believe that you, too, could understand orbital mechanics, cryptography, nuclear physics, or whatever special interest he’s bringing to the adventure this time. I’m a huge fan: Seveneves and Fall; or, Dodge in Hell are two of my favorite science fiction works by a contemporary author. When I saw his 2024 book, Polostan, was a historical-fiction spy novel, I was skeptical (for selfish reasons—I was hoping for another 900-page sci-fi epic to transport me out of our current tech nightmare and into a much more interesting one). But, as Baroque Cycle readers already know, Stephenson’s an entertaining historian—I flew through the story, which follows a young spy-in-themaking and moves between the Soviet Union and America in the interwar years. (There’s a stop at the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair that’s particularly fascinating.) Polotsan is the first in his Bomb Light series; its sequel, D: Heavy Water, picks back up in 1930s Europe where journalists, spies, scientists, and government officials scramble to control a substance crucial to the coming atomic age. Stephenson’s superpower is making enormous concepts and systems feel thrilling, and I, for one, am ready to go on this ride. (Third Place Books, 7 pm) EMILY NOKES
OCTOBER 2026
Kristen Millares Young w/Melanie McFarland Oct 9, Elliott Bay Book Company, 7 pm Deaf Lit Fest 2026 Oct 9–11, Hugo House, times vary Cascadia Poetry Festival 10 Oct 9-11, Rainier Beach Community Club, times vary
Lyanda Lynn Haupt Presents Among the Birds Oct 14, Third Place Books
Paisley Rekdal Oct 10, Elliott Bay Book Company, 7 pm Salon of Shame Oct 13, Theatre Off Jackson, 8 pm Lyanda Lynn Haupt Presents Among the Birds: Field Notes from Cascadia Oct 14, Third Place Books, 7 pm Part-Time Poets Club Oct 15 (every third Thursday), Push/Pull, 6 pm The Moth StorySLAM Oct 16, Fremont Abbey Arts Center, 7 pm Becky Chambers With Caitlin Starling Oct 17, Town Hall, 7:30 pm Rivka Clifton and Caleb True Oct 23, Elliott Bay Book Company, 7 pm Emily Poole Presents Cascade of Life Oct 29, Third Place Books, 7 pm
Jeff Ament and Barry Ament With Jonathan Evison: Since Forever: Photographs and Text Oct 29, Town Hall, 7:30 pm
I was lucky enough to catch Cole Escola’s award-winning play Oh, Mary! at New York’s Lyceum Theatre last month, during Meg Stalter’s administration, and it was every bit as hilarious, joyous, and irreverent as critics and fans have claimed since it first hit Broadway in 2024. I mean, you don’t need me to tell you that: It won two Tonys, a Laurence Olivier Award, and it was nominated for a Pulitzer. Stalter—who already won my heart as Kayla in Hacks—was utterly delightful, perfectly balancing the brattiness, confidence, and naivety of Escola’s Mary Todd Lincoln as she struggled to accept that she was the President’s wife and not a cabaret superstar. I’ll be honest, my enthusiasm for catching the touring production when it rolled through Seattle was slightly tempered when I learned Escola would not be starring, but the casting is still impressive, with Alaska Thunderfuck as Mary and Tony Award-winner J. Harrison Ghee as Lincoln (aka Mary’s husband). Besides, we’ll all get to see Escola in the role when HBO premieres stage filming of Oh, Mary in 2027. (Paramount Theatre, times vary) MEGAN SELING
What can’t Barbara Kingsolver do? The bestselling author never misses, from her historical fiction classic The Poisonwood Bible to her 2022 Pulitzer Prize-winning sensation Demon Copperhead. Her most recent novel, Partita, follows piano teacher Livia Cable, who lives a peaceful, unassuming married life in the Tennessee countryside until an unexpected call from her ex-lover dredges up memories of trauma, tragedy, and her abandoned ambitions for a musical career. The book borrows both its name and format from a musical composition made up of dance movements. See Kingsolver discuss her lyrical work, her writing process, and the connection between art and life at Benaroya Hall, and don’t forget to bring donations for Ballard Food Bank’s food drive in the lobby, such as boxed mac and cheese, ramen, granola bars, oatmeal packets, cereal, and jerky. (Benaroya Hall, 7:30 pm, all ages) JULIANNE BELL
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Seattle Rep Presents: Eulogy or How to Play Your Own Funeral (And Have Fun Doing It!) Through Oct 11, PONCHO Forum, times vary Union Arts Center Presents: Hamlet Through Oct 11, Allen Theatre, times vary The Chinese Lady Through Oct 11, ArtsWest, times vary Rocky Horror Picture Show Starring Izzy Access and Friends Oct 11, Unicorn Bar, 7 pm and 10 pm
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Water for Elephants Through Oct 11, Paramount Theatre, times vary
Niki Desautels Presents For the Love of Bats Oct 7, Third Place Books, 7 pm
David Byrne
SHERVIN LAINEZ
OCT 14
Don’t peek! Puzzle on pg. 63.
Oh, Mary! NOV 3–8
OCT 19
Ayad Akhtar Oct 8, Town Hall, 7:30 pm
PERFORMANCE TOM FURTWANGLER
An Evening with Eric Idle: Idle in Provence Oct 29, Neptune Theatre, 7 pm
Barbara Kingsolver
Weston Morrow, Chris Vanjonack, & Jane Wong Oct 7, Elliott Bay Book Company, 7 pm
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Wake up babe, David Byrne’s new book about his creative process, Sleeping Beauties, just dropped. The Talking Heads frontman’s latest endeavor explores his concept of “sleeping beauties,” which refers to slept-on ideas that don’t gain traction until long after the creator is gone—the most obvious example of this is Vincent van Gogh, who famously sold just one painting in his lifetime. In his new book, Byrne digs into how these ideas “fell asleep,” how they can “wake up,” and the importance of not overlooking the next great idea. (Town Hall, 7:30 pm, all ages) AUDREY VANN
References to Salvador Dalí Make Me Hot Through Oct 17, Center Theatre at the Seattle Center Armory, times vary Conscience Through Oct 17, Taproot Theatre, times vary Emerald City Slasher: An Improvised Mystery Play Through Oct 31, West of Lenin, all ages Zombie Cheerleaders From Hell Through Nov 1, Can Can, times vary, 21+ Seattle Rep Presents: Fancy Dancer Through Nov 2, Leo K. Theater, times vary Seattle Rep Presents: Eureka Day Through Nov 15, Leo K. Theater, times vary Tush: Inga & Queen Andrew Scott, Amora Namor, Pussy Willow, Stasia Coup, Betty Wetter, DJ Dark Wiley Oct 8, Clock-Out Lounge, 8 pm Uncle Basement’s Attic of Horrors Oct 8–10, Theatre Off Jackson, times vary Sam Jay Oct 8–10, Laughs Comedy Club, times vary Rat Cage Oct 8–24, Annex Theatre, times vary
58 THE STRANGER Alex Falcone Oct 22–24, Laughs Comedy Club, times vary Pandora’s Playpen Oct 23, Kremwerk, 7 pm, 21+ SENSORIUM3 Oct 23–Dec 13, Base Camp Studios 2, times vary International Ballet Theatre: Dracula Oct 25, 5th Ave Theatre, 7 pm Marie Faustin Oct 25, Emerald City Comedy Club, 7 pm Hocus Pocus Drag Brunch Oct 25, Emerald City Comedy Club, 3 pm, 21+ International Ballet Theatre: Dracula Oct 25, 5th Avenue Theatre, 7 pm, all ages Nate Varrone: Intersting Perspectives Tour Oct 28, Rabbit Box Theatre, 7:30 pm, all ages Tush: Betty Wetter, Drama Tops, Keyes Wiley, Beau Degas, Miss Texas 1988, Moscato Sky Oct 29–30, Clock-Out Lounge, times vary Carnevolar XIV: Ascension: Halloween Circus Show and Dance Party Oct 29–31, Emerald City Tapreze Arts, times vary, 21+ Freakshow: Kali Kobra, Sid Seedy, Dyyke Otomy, Feather Fatale, Lamina Moon, Estrogina Jolie, Absinthe Father, Kymera D’Vil Oct 31, Cherry, 6 pm Queen Andrew Scott: Rhythm and Horror Oct 31–Nov 1, Triple Door
FILM Seattle Opera Presents: Salome
PATRICIO CASSINONI
OCT 17–31
The Seattle Opera is kicking off the season with Richard Strauss’s single-act opera Salome, adapted to German from Oscar Wilde’s play, which was originally written in French. Strauss’s take on the play famously strips down Wilde’s original story, removing Wilde’s motifs and leaving its most thrilling and shocking elements. What remains is an hour-and-a-half tragedy (which is actually short by opera standards). The piece shocked audiences when it premiered back in 1905 because of its Biblical nature blended with erotic and murderous elements. Don’t miss the Seattle Opera’s production, which will be brought to life through stunning sets from Leslie Travers, 80-plus members of the Seattle Symphony, and Grammy-nominated soprano Brenda Rae. (McCaw Hall, times vary) AUDREY VANN Call Your Mom Tour With Max and Alexis Oct 9,
Fussy Cloud Puppet Slam Volume 32: Neon Night-
Vermillion, 9 pm
mares Oct 16–17, Theatre Off Jackson, times vary
Washington Ensemble Theatre Presents: Xquisite
Circus of Steam & Shadows: Paranormal Archives
Corpse Oct 9–31, Base Camp Studios, times vary
Oct 16–25, Georgetown Steam Plant, times vary,
Holland Andrews and yuniya edi kwon: How does
all ages
it feel to look at nothing Oct 15–17, On the Boards,
Neha and Neel Oct 16–Nov 8, Seattle Public Theater,
7:30 pm
times vary
This Is Halloween Oct 15–31, Triple Door, times vary,
Maria Bamford Oct 17, Neptune Theatre, 4 and 8 pm,
21+ and all ages shows
all ages
Save Her: Pattie Gonia, Sequoia, VERA Oct 16,
Joey Dardano Oct 18, Rabbit Box Theatre, 6:30 pm,
Showbox SoDo, 8 pm, 21+
all ages
Bosco Presents: GRINDHAUS Oct 16–17, Crocodile,
George Civeris Oct 21, Emerald City Comedy Club,
times vary
7:30 pm
The Rocky Horror Picture Show Original Cast Spooktacular! with Patricia Quinn OCT 15 I will never forget the first time I saw Tim Curry as Dr. Frank N. Furter step out of the elevator singing “Sweet Transvestite” in fishnets and a sequin corset. I was 13, at the Admiral Theater’s monthly midnight screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and I felt deeply confused and excited by my first crush that existed beyond gender. This, my friends, is the bi experience. As the years have passed and monthly screenings diminish, I fear that teenagers are not being exposed to the magic of Rocky Horror. Take this opportunity to introduce the virgins in your life (in RHPS speak, that’s someone who’s never seen the film) to absolute pleasure with a special appearance from Magenta herself, Patricia Quinn. (5th Avenue Theatre, 7:30 pm, all ages) AUDREY VANN
The Blair Witch Project: Film Screening and Q&A
marketing hoax campaign, which leveraged the early internet to blur the boundaries of fact and fiction. The 1999 low-budget sleeper hit, which was primarily shot over the course of eight days, takes the form of a found-footage pseudo-documentary and famously listed its actors as “deceased” or “missing.” It’s not just a stunt, though: The film is genuinely haunting and understands that the unseen is more terrifying than the most gruesome monster special effects could ever conjure. This special screening at the 5th Avenue Theatre is an opportunity to see it in all its unsettling glory on the big screen, followed by a Q&A session with original cast members Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard, and Michael C. Williams (all three alive and well). (5th Avenue Theatre, 7:30 pm, all ages) JULIANNE BELL
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Trauma Bond Film Series Through Oct 23, Northwest Film Forum, times vary Nouvelles Femmes: Modern Women of the 1960s French New Wave Cinema Through Nov 17, SIFF Cinema Uptown, times vary Motel Hell Oct 7, Beacon Cinema, 7:30 pm True Stories: A Film by David Byrne Oct 7–8, Northwest Film Forum, times vary RRR Oct 8, Central Cinema, 8 pm An Autumn Afternoon Oct 9-13, Northwest Film Forum, times vary Vertigo Oct 9–14, Central Cinema, 4 and 7 pm Blade Oct 9–14, Central Cinema, 9:50 pm 18th Annual Seattle Latino Film Festival Oct 9–17, various venues, times vary The Blue Rose: Part II Oct 10, SIFF Cinema Uptown, 7 pm Salome’s Last Dance Oct 10, SIFF Cinema Uptown, 2 pm Screamplay Oct 10–11, Northwest Film Forum, 7:30 pm The Films of Andrzej Wajda: Kanał Oct 11, SIFF Film Center, 2 pm SIFF Book Club: Carrie Oct 11, SIFF Cinema Uptown, 3:30 pm SIFF Movie Club: Ginger Snaps Oct 12, SIFF Cinema Uptown, 6:30 pm A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night Oct 13, Clock-Out Lounge, 7 pm SFCS at 10: Green Room Oct 14, Northwest Film Forum, 7 pm Scarecrowber 2026 Oct 14–28, SIFF Film Center, times vary Baron Von Terror Presents: Halloween III: Season of the Witch Oct 15, Central Cinema, 8 pm Rainier: A Beer Odyssey Oct 15, MOHAI, 7 pm Jim Henson’s Labyrinth: In Concert Oct 16, Moore Theatre, 7 pm Ken Russell’s The Devils Oct 16–18, SIFF Cinema Uptown, times vary
OCT 11
Hausu (House) Oct 16–21, Central Cinema, times vary
Even if you’re not a horror fan, you undoubtedly know The Blair Witch Project, thanks to its prescient
Gross Pointe Blank Oct 16–21, Central Cinema, times vary
The Daytrippers
Staff Selects at Northwest Film Forum
OCTOBER 2026
Presented by Grand Illusion: I Walked With a Zombie Oct 17, SIFF Film Center, 5:30 pm
WTF with STUFF: Holy Trinity Oct 21, Northwest Film Forum, 7 pm
Presented by Grand Illusion: Black Zombie Oct 17, SIFF Film Center, 7:30 pm
The Totally Halloween Sing Along Oct 22, Central Cinema, 8 pm
Dracula, Prisoner of Frankenstein Oct 17, Beacon Cinema, 10 pm
2026 HUMP! Film Festival–Fall Lineup Oct 22 and 29, Lumberyard Bar, 7:30 pm, 21+
Begotten Oct 17–20, Beacon Cinema, times vary
20th Annual Tacoma Film Festival Oct 22–25, multiple locations, times vary
The Night They All Came Out of Their Coffins at Once: Monster Crossovers, Team-Ups, and Pile-Ups Oct 17–31, Beacon Cinema, times vary
SECS Fest Presents Driller Oct 23, Beacon Cinema, 10 pm
Presented by Grand Illusion: Television Terror Triple Feature Pizza Party 2 Oct 18, SIFF Film Center, 4:30 pm
Frankenstein (1931) Oct 23–28, Central Cinema, times vary
Universal Monster Mash Double Feature: Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein Oct 18 and 21, Beacon Cinema, times vary
Final Girl Screening, Q&A, and Social Oct 24, SIFF Film Center, 6:30 pm
Isle of the Dead Oct 18–21, Beacon Cinema, times vary
Camp Napalm Presents: Basic Instinct Oct 25, Central Cinema, 8 pm
Cemetery Man Oct 20, Clock-Out Lounge, 7 pm
Necropolis Oct 26–27, Beacon Cinema, times vary
Fright Night Oct 23–28, Central Cinema, times vary
VHS Über Alles Presents Shot on Video Halloween Special Oct 24, Beacon Cinema, 10 pm
Mourning Sickness: ‘Elvira: Mistress of the Dark’ OCT 24
Until recently, I had never seen Elvira: Mistress of the Dark, but rest assured I am making up for lost time. The 1988 cult classic revolves around everyone’s favorite goth horror hostess, Elvira (played by the iconic Cassandra Gay Peterson), who discovers her great-aunt Morgana bequeathed her a crumbling mansion in a small-minded town named Fallwell (likely a reference to conservative televangelist Jerry Falwell). The result is a delightful fish-out-of-water story, featuring relentless innuendos, a pink-dyed poodle named Gonk, a himbo love interest, a villain named Chastity Pariah, Tic Tac pie, and a bacchanalian picnic scene. This film was made in a lab for the gays—the slut-shaming and moral panic of the townspeople; Elvira’s fabulous drag; the film’s dedication to Peterson’s late best friend and makeup artist Robert Allen Redding, who died of AIDS; and of course, the fact that Peterson herself is sexually fluid and has been living her best queer life in Portland with her partner of 24 years, Teresa “T” Wierson. Who better to present this campy masterpiece than local queen Monday Mourning? (Northwest Film Forum, 8 pm, all ages) JULIANNE BELL
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60 THE STRANGER
OCTOBER 2026
THIS & THAT
The Most Dangerous Game plus Spooky Shorts on 16mm Oct 27, SIFF Film Center, 7:30 pm TV Party: Doomed Occult Detectives Oct 27, Beacon Cinema, 7:30 pm CatVideoFest 2026 Oct 29, SIFF Cinema Uptown, 7 pm
Make Your Own Cursed Lafufu
Idle Hands Oct 29, Beacon Cinema, 7:30 pm The Ring in Concert with the Seattle Symphony Oct 29–30, Benaroya Hall, times vary
OCT 18
Spookies Oct 30, Beacon Cinema, 10 pm
My New Year’s resolution was to make more art in 2026. Not for work, not to sell—I just wanted to prioritize making a mess for no reason other than to have fun. I picked up cross-stitching, got back into block printing, and have become mildly obsessed with making photo zines with the dirtylittlezine.com template. But the most fun art project I’ve done all year has been the Make Your Own Cursed “Lafufu” class at Push/Pull, where you get to make your own freaky, DIY Labubu, that polarizing plush collectible with a plastic face. The session is led by Holly Conrad, who made costumes for Robot Chicken and Guillermo del Toro. At Push/Pull, she dumps a bunch of art supplies on the table—small stuffed critters, polymer clay, glue guns, plastic eyes, fake teeth, sculpting tools, even resin that has to be treated with a UV lamp should you want to make your guy look a little wet or slimy—and as you cut off a stuffie’s face, she shares all her tips of the trade, from the ideal thickness of the clay so your monster’s face isn’t too heavy, to how to get realistic-looking wrinkles around the eyes. I left the three-hour class with a new bestie, a little lion named Meatball who has tentacles and buck teeth. What friend will you make? (Push/Pull, 2–5 pm) MEGAN SELING
Collide-O-Scope Halloween Oct 30–31, Northwest Film Forum Five Minutes to Die Halloween Edition Oct 31, Beacon Cinema, 7 pm
FOOD & DRINK Seattle Restaurant Week OCT 18–31 Sure, it’s confusing that Seattle Restaurant Week is actually two weeks, but that just means we have twice as much time to pig out on specials from dozens of delicious participating restaurants. And there are some true superstars on the list. Lupe’s Situ Tacos in Ballard will be offering a few different specials, including three of their incredibly crispy tacos, or five taquitos, served alongside a cup of soup, aguas frescas, and baklava for $30. That’s enough food for two! (Though I do hate to share my taquitos.) There’s also Shiro’s Sushi, Marination in Columbia City (and, hell yeah, their special includes malasadas), Kilig, which Stranger contributor Meg van Huygen put on her 2024 Best Restaurants in the Seattle Area list, and Melting Pot in Bellevue. I did not know Melting Pot still existed! The ’90s really are back. (Various locations) MEGAN SELING
Seattle Coffee Festival OCT 24–25 More than two dozen roasters are participating in the Seattle Coffee Festival, and I’m already strategizing how to drink everything without causing my nervous system to collapse on itself. The lineup features Victrola Coffee, Boon Boona, Kuma Coffee, Anchorhead Coffee, Sip House, and Speed Potion, whose iridescent and shimmery packaging makes my heart skip a beat even without the jolt of caffeine. Thankfully, there will be some food to help sop up all the coffee, including 9th and Hennepin Donuts, and treats from the Anh Ơi Bake Shop (read more about them on page TK!). If they have their fried banana cookies, I’m going to buy up every single one for myself. Sorry. (Magnuson Park Hangar 30, times vary) MEGAN SELING
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MEXAM NW Festival 2026 Through Oct 31, various venues, times vary
Melissa King
Last year, Top Chef fan favorite and lesbian heartthrob Melissa King released her James Beard Award-winning debut cookbook Cook Like a King. You may recall that she and the show’s host Padma Lakshmi sent the collective sapphic universe into a gay panic with their flirty Instagram banter while simultaneously promoting their books, plus there was a sultry Gomez and Morticia couple costume that ignited dating rumors. (They’re just friends, or so they claim…) Now, King is back with her memoir The Girl Who Became King. The book shares her story of growing up queer in a Shanghainese and Cantonese family in Los Angeles’s Gabriel Valley, her initiation into the high-stakes world of Michelin-starred restaurants, and her Top Chef journey. She’ll share her story with food writer, photographer, designer, and Little Fat Boy blogger Frankie Gaw at this event, hosted by Charlie’s Queer Books at Ballard Homestead. (Ballard Homestead, 7 pm, all ages) JULIANNE BELL
Nightmare on Wall Street: The Final Nightmare Through Oct 31, Navy Strength, times vary Joyce Tang, Bake Sum Oct 7, Book Larder, 6:30 pm
Oct 24–25, Magnuson Park Hangar 30
OLGA ROLENKO/GETTY IMAGES
ASHLEY BATZ
OCT 9
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Seattle Coffee Festival
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No Call No Show x Dark Room: Confessional Bar, a Night of Seven Deadly Sins Oct 26, Dark Room No Call No Show x Streamline Tavern: Chef Cody Perreira Nov 2, Streamline Tavern, 5–10 pm
For Which It Stands: The Many Threads of the American Flag Through Nov 15, MOHAI, times vary The After Party: A People’s Memorial Association Fundraiser with Noel Kennon and DJ Pavor Nocturnus Oct 8, Belltown Yacht Club, 6–9 pm, 21+ Renegade Seattle Oct 10, Seattle Center Exhibition Hall, 11 am Spooky Stuffie Workshop with Salvation Artists Collective Oct 10, Reuse Commons Lake City, noon Vanishing Seattle and Trees with Taha: Lake View Cemetery Walk Oct 11, Lake View Cemetery, 2–4 pm Seattle Interactive Conference 2026 Oct 12–13, ArLove Salon, times vary Rick Steves and Reverend Shelley M. Bryan Wee: The Traveler and the Bishop Oct 13, Town Hall, 7:30 pm Free Comet Lodge Haunted Trail Oct 16–31, Comet Lodge Cemetery, times vary Monster Mash Market Oct 17, Georgetown Trailer Park Mall, 10 pm–5 pm Life in the Wild with Chris Morgan Oct 17, REI Seattle, 6 pm Goblin Guild Bazaar Oct 18, Quality Flea Center, noon–5 pm, free Bill Nye: Solving for X—The Importance of a Scientifically Curious Generation Oct 20, 5th Avenue Theatre, 7:30 pm, all ages Howloween: A Dog Happy Hour Costume Contest Oct 22, W Seattle, 6 pm Haunted Skies: Snakes on a Plane Oct 24, Museum of Flight, 8 pm, 21+ GeekGirlCon 2026 Oct 24 Seattle Convention Center, times vary After Hours Premier: Halloween Oct 29, Seattle Aquarium, 7 pm, 21+ Fashionably Undead: MOPOP’s Halloween Bash Oct 31, MOPOP, 8 pm, 21+
Ali Francis, The Curious Lives of Vegetables Oct 8, Book Larder, 6:30 pm
Book Larder Presents: Erin French, The Lost Kitchen Volume 3: Seize the Supper Oct 19, SIFF Cinema Uptown, 7 pm
Lane Selman and Margarett Waterbury, Radicchio Oct 15, Book Larder, 6:30 pm
Brett Adams and Jacob Grier, The Bartender’s Library Oct 21, Book Larder, 6:30 pm
John Kanell, Preppy Kitchen Everyday Baking Oct 16 Book Larder, 6:30 pm
Seattle Catrinas Festival: Celebrating the Day of the Dead Oct 31–Nov 1, Town Hall, 1 pm, all ages
Demo: Morgan Eckroth, Coffee, for Here Oct 28, Book Larder, 6:30 pm
National Geographic Live: Battling Bloodsuckers Nov 1–3, Benaroya Hall, times vary
No Call No Show x Streamline Tavern x Chef Isaiah Ruffin Oct 19, Streamline Tavern, 5–10 pm
Spirits & Secrets: A Prohibition Halloween Oct 30–31, Smith Tower, times vary, 21+
Washington Park Arboretum Walking Tour Every Second and Fourth Saturday through Nov 14, 10 am
Georgetown Halloween Parade Oct 31, Oxbow Park, festivities start at 5 pm, parade starts at 8 pm
62 THE STRANGER
OCTOBER 2026
63
CURATED BY CORIANTON HALE
FOUR PANELS OF FEAR!
BY GREG STUMP
Fright Night BY NATE CARDIN ACROSS 1. “Thriller” or “Monster Mash” 5. “The Scorpion and the Frog” fabulist 10. Draped South Asian garment 14. Soothing succulent 15. British bakery buy 16. Corp. money managers 17. Speed for non-slow zombies 18. “Thou ___ not ...” 19. What’s black and white and pred(ator) all over? 20. Googly ___ 21. Rhyming way to describe something eerily scary, at Halloween 23. Adds to the payroll 25. A bit buzzed 26. Cuts in half, like in a “Saw” film 29. Runs at an easy pace, like someone not escaping from a horror film’s villain 30. “When We Were Young” singer
31. Source of the trunk in a “Trunk or Treat” event 32. Prop for a custodian costume 35. Rhyming expression of surprise, at Halloween 40. Sum up, in math class 41. Apple’s mobile platform
57. Give a speech 58. Black-and-white cookie
11. Natural hairstyles
60. Peels, like a Halloween apple
12. Halloween classic “The ___ Horror Picture ‘Show”
61. Haunted house emotion
22. Truffle-hunting animal
63. Downhill winter vehicles
24. Slushy drink brand with a “Witches’ Brew” Halloween flavor
43. Curse that brings bad luck
DOWN
49. What a designated driver should be 50. Rhyming magical incantation, at Halloween 52. Tools with teeth used in a certain horror film franchise 56. Makes a mistake
13. “My word!”
62. Things opened in browsers
64. Like costume blood
47. 2023 film “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor ___ Thieves”
10. Ice cream servings
59. Plugging away
42. “The Silence of the ___”
45. Most optimistic, colorfully
9. Where one might find a black cat
1. Out of danger
26. Taco Bell soda ___ Blast 27. Carded at the club
37. Word following Red or White in the names of Major League baseball teams 38. Final word in an ultimatum? 39. Goes off in twos, like when exploring a haunted location 43. Knights’ fights 44. Helpful connections 45. Provided with turnby-turn directions 46. Become completely fixated 47. Major blood vessel
2. Oil of ___ (cosmetics brand)
28. Future flower
48. Golden Arches pork sandwich
3. Red prop for a clown costume
29. Peanut butter container
49. Frighten
4. Runs for backup, like in a horror film
31. Includes on an email
5. Classify 6. Rebounds, as sound 7. Drenches 8. Hulu show “___ Murders in the Building”
50. Miami basketball team
32. Viral internet post
51. Taken by mouth
33. Celestial bodies
53. Geometry calculation
34. “Hey! Hey you!” 36. Jewelry-shaped candies (perhaps given out by the nice houses!)
54. Like watery coffee 55. Achy Answers on p. 58