Seattle Weekly, January 28, 2015

JANUARY 28-FEBRUARY 3, 2015 I VOLUME 40 I NUMBER 4

HAWKS VS.PATS

SEATTLEWEEKLY.COM I FREE

HOW TO WATCH SUNDAY’S BIG GAME PAGE 5 AND WHAT LOCAL BEERS TO DRINK PAGE 19

A VOICE FOR VICTIMS

ALISON HOLCOMB IS LEADING A NATIONAL CAMPAIGN TO SHRINK THE PRISON POPULATION. SHE’S FINDING ANSWERS IN SURPRISING PLACES.

BY NINA SHAPIRO PAGE 7

SEATTLE WEEKLY • JAN UARY 28 — FEBRUARY 3, 2015

2

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Rebel, Jedi, Princess, Queen: Star Wars™ and the Power of Costume was developed by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service in partnership with the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art and in consultation with Lucasfilm Ltd. © & ™ 2015 Lucasfilm Ltd. All rights reserved. Used under authorization.

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inside» Jan. 28–Feb. 3, 2015 VOLUME 40 | NUMBER 4 » SEATTLEWEEKLY.COM

»17

news&comment 5

7

TRIGGER WARNING

BY NINA SHAPIRO | How “smart guns” are reframing the gun-rights debate.

Plus: tactics to watch at the Super Bowl.

LIFE SENTENCE

»32 Editor-in-Chief Mark Baumgarten EDITORIAL Senior Editor Nina Shapiro Food Editor Nicole Sprinkle Arts Editor Brian Miller

BY NINA SHAPIRO | Lawyer Alison

Music Editor Gwendolyn Elliott

Holcomb’s work for the ACLU on criminaljustice reform comes from a very personal—even painful—place.

Editorial Operations Manager Gavin Borchert

food&drink

17 NEW WINE, OLD BOTTLES

BY NICOLE SPRINKLE | Two new

restaurants have legacies to contend with; one does so better than the other. Plus: V-Day dinner specials and Super Beers.

17 | FOOD NEWS 17 | THE WEEKLY DISH

arts&culture 21 ALL ABOUT IVES

21 | THE PICK LIST 24 | OPENING NIGHTS | Two fine

revivals, and a fun intergenerational clash.

25 | PERFORMANCE

27 FILM

OPENING THIS WEEK | Jude Law

underwater, Julianne Moore with Alzheimer’s, and the superb new Dardenne brothers movie.

29 MUSIC

BY KELTON SEARS | The $tory of

KEXP’s new $tudio$. Plus: Hobosexual does more with less; music to sauna by; and Stasia Irons on production that obsesses her.

31 | LADIES FIRST 33 | THE WEEK AHEAD 34 | CD REVIEW

odds&ends 35 | CLASSIFIEDS

»cover credits

PHOTO BY DANIEL BERMAN

News Intern Shawn Porter Editorial Interns Bianca Sewake, Alexa Teodoro Contributing Writers Rick Anderson, Sean Axmaker, James Ballinger, Michael Berry, Roger Downey, Alyssa Dyksterhouse, Jay Friedman, Margaret Friedman, Zach Geballe, Chason Gordon, Dusty Henry, Rhiannon Fionn, Robert Horton, Patrick Hutchison, Seth Kolloen, Sandra Kurtz, Dave Lake, Terra Clarke Olsen, Jason Price, Keegan Prosser, Mark Rahner, Tiffany Ran, Michael Stusser, Jacob Uitti PRODUCTION Production Manager Sharon Adjiri Art Director Jose Trujillo Graphic Designers Nate Bullis, Brennan Moring Photo Intern Kaia D’Albora ADVERTISING Marketing/Promotions Coordinator Zsanelle Edelman Senior Multimedia Consultant Krickette Wozniak Multimedia Consultants Sam Borgen, Cecilia Corsano-Leopizzi, Peter Muller, Matt Silvie DISTRIBUTION Distribution Manager Jay Kraus OPERATIONS Administrative Coordinator Amy Niedrich Publisher Bob Baranski COPYRIGHT © 2015 BY SOUND PUBLISHING, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART WITHOUT PERMISSION IS PROHIBITED. ISSN 0898 0845 / USPS 306730 • SEATTLE WEEKLY IS PUBLI SHED WEEKLY BY SOUND PUBLISHING, INC., 307 THIRD AVE. S., SEATTLE, WA 98104 SEATTLE WEEKLY® IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARK. PERIODICALS POSTAGE PAID AT SEATTLE, WA POSTMASTER: SEND ADDRESS CHANGES TO SEATTLE WEEKLY, 307 THIRD AVE. S., SEATTLE, WA 98104 • FOUNDED 1976.

SEATTLE WE EKLY • JANUARY 28 — FEBRUARY 3, 2015

BY GAVIN BORCHERT | The SSO plays a very inclusionist symphony.

Staff Writers Ellis E. Conklin, Matt Driscoll, Kelton Sears

3

SEATTLE WEEKLY • JAN UARY 28 — FEBRUARY 3, 2015

THE SE AT TLE SE A H AWK S AND THE ROA D TO VIC TORY

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news&comment

Getting Wise to Smart Guns

The Smart Fan’s Guide to the Super Bowl

Techies and gun-control groups believe they have uncovered the next big step in firearm safety. But will these new weapons ever make it to market?

BY SETH KOLLOEN

W

ant to know Pete Carroll’s game plan for this Sunday?

No chance, unless you’re a player, coach, or Macklemore.

Curious about Bill Belichick’s approach to the Super Bowl? Too bad, unless you’re Tom Brady or the equipment manager (too soon?). But if you can answer these three key questions early in the game, you should get a sense of how the Seahawks and Patriots plan to attack each other.

BY NINA SHAPIRO

I

How many Pats defenders are “in the box”? Bill Belichick invested $28 mil-

nshapiro@seattleweekly.com

JOSHUA BESSEX

districts and dropouts » The City Council Changes Shape Over the past week, the Seattle City Council has lost not one but two longtime members. Councilmember Tom Rasmussen announced, rather surprisingly, that he was calling it a career after serving for more than a decade, while Nick Licata, first elected back in 1998, revealed the same. Here’s a sampling of the reactions: “Licata’s retirement will make the @SeattleCouncil more conservative by subtraction.”

—David “Goldy” Goldstein, via Twitter

•

“[Licata’s] voice will be sorely missed on the City Council.” —Mayor Ed Murray

Rasmussen has served our City well. Thank you for your service Councilman!” —former Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels to city council district elections is already working like a charm.” —Knute Berger, Crosscut

•

•

“Tom

“The switch

Who defends Gronk? Pete Carroll’s defensive philosophy: Get the best athletes, then put them in one-on-one situations where they’ll be bigger and faster than their opponents. And who does he face in the Super Bowl? The NFL’s toughest one-on-one matchup. Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski, at 6´6˝, 260 lbs., has wide-receiver skills in an offensive lineman’s body. The Hawks simply don’t have a player who matches Gronk physically. Pete Carroll almost never doubleteams receivers or changes his defense to account for particular players, but with Gronkowski he may not have a choice. Watch who defends Gronk early on—if it’s a different guy from playto-play, that means Carroll is sticking with his normal defense.

When will Wilson run? With the Seahawks’ passing game doing more harm than good against Green Bay in the NFC Championship, armchair playcallers everywhere—and not just 12s, some national media folks too—couldn’t grasp why the Hawks waited so long to make Russell Wilson’s legs more of a threat. It’s been like this all year: The Hawks only unleash Wilson’s running game when they’ve exhausted all other options. But if New England is able to take Marshawn Lynch out of the game (see above) and force quarterback Wilson to contend with the Pats’ pass defense, running back Wilson may be the Hawks’ best weapon. If Wilson attempts at least two runs in the Seahawks’ first 10 plays, it likely means his legs are a bigger part of the game plan than they’ve been all year. E

sportsball@seattleweekly.com

SEATTLE WE EKLY • JANUARY 28 — FEBRUARY 3, 2015

pened just a month later, when a Lake Stevens 3-year-old apparently found his father’s gun and shot himself in the face.

Smart guns, Fascitelli says, “could have prevented Marysville. They could have prevented Lake Stevens.”

Alan Gottlieb, founder of Bellevue’s Second Amendment Foundation, voices skepticism.

“The problem is they’re not really smart. There are technical problems.”

Asked what evidence he’s relying on, Gottlieb talks generally about the use of biometrics.

“I’m talking to you on an iPhone 6,” he says, referring to the smartphone model that offers fingerprint identification as an alternative to a password. Most of the time it works just fine.

However, he says, “One out of 30 times, my fingerprints don’t work and I need to put in my code.” If he were facing an intruder and needed his gun for self-defense, he says, such fumbling could prove disastrous.

Such criticism aside, Fascitelli says he is buoyed by poll results to be announced at the symposium. The poll, jointly commissioned by Washington CeaseFire and the San Franciscobased Smart Tech Challenges Foundation, found that 40 percent of interviewed gun owners said they would consider exchanging their conventional guns for smart guns.

Heck, even Gottlieb says he theoretically likes the idea. “If someone could come up with a smart gun that was reliable and workable, I would buy it tomorrow.” E

MARSHAWN LYNCH, RUSSEL WILSON BY JEREMY DWYER-LINDGREN; ROB GRONKOWSKI BY WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

This prototype relies on grip to recognize its user.

tion about the technology, which he calls “as exciting an opportunity as exists” in the work CeaseFire has been doing for 30 years. Over coffee in Pioneer Square last week, he explained that he and others in the group have turned to technology after giving up on the legislative route.

Yes, the state just passed landmark backgroundcheck Initiative 594, putting Washington in the forefront of the gun-control movement.

But that, he says, was accomplished only after wealthy venture capitalist and do-gooder Nick Hanauer put his clout and money into the campaign. “We can’t count on $10 million to be raised for another ballot initiative,” Fascitelli says, referring to the sum donated by Hanauer, together with other big-name contributors like Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer.

That means gun-control advocates would be back trying to get legislation passed in Olympia, a route both futile and unpleasant, in Fascitelli’s mind. Of the crowds that show up at hearings on the issue, he says, “We would testify and there’d be 400 people with assault rifles yelling at us.”

Does more need to be done after the passage of I-594? Fascitelli and others in the gun-control movement say yes. Background checks only prevent criminals and others judged to be dangerous from buying guns. But they do nothing to stop a legally purchased gun from falling into the wrong hands—perhaps those of a child. Witness the Marysville Pilchuck High School massacre last October, carried out by a teen using a family member’s gun. Or look at what hap-

lion in his pass defense this offseason.

And who does he face in the Super Bowl? The NFL’s best rushing offense.

Belichick’s defense is only leagueaverage against the run. We’ll see right away how Belichick plans to manage his bad luck. On the Seahawks’ first offensive possession, count how many New England defenders line up within five yards of the football (“in the box”). If you count seven or eight, it means that Belichick’s strategy is to stop Marshawn Lynch and force the Seahawks to gain yards through the air against that expensive secondary.

ALLIED BIOMETRIX

t’s a new conundrum for veteran tech executive Michael Schutzler. The problem he’s facing involves something called a “smart gun,” a new kind of weapon that proponents say could improve firearm safety.

The gun will fire for rightful users, but for everybody else—including children and intruders—it would be useless. This is not a pie-inthe-sky idea. A handful of manufactures have come up with various models, some using biometrics like fingerprint identification, others radio-frequency technology. And yet, Schutzler marvels, “Nobody’s selling the stuff !”

At first, he couldn’t understand why. As he puts it, “Why is this complicated?”

As he has come to find out, there are a lot of reasons. Smart guns are not your typical technology product, but rather the latest flashpoint in the gun-control war. That means inflamed passions on both sides, at times devolving into death threats.

So when the gun-control group Washington CeaseFire recently approached Schutzler, who serves as CEO of the Washington Technology Industry Association, to suggest that the two organizations co-host a symposium on smart guns, he eagerly agreed. “Let’s have all the people in a room and hear it out,” Schutzler says.

The symposium, to be held today, Wednesday, Jan. 28, will be the largest gathering of its kind to date, according to Washington CeaseFire president Ralph Fascitelli. One smart-gun manufacturer, Robert McNamara of TriggerSmart, is flying in from Ireland to attend. Others are coming from around the U.S. Smart-gun critic Rick Patterson, from the Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers’ Institute, will share the stage with proponents. Also in attendance will be New Jersey state Sen. Loretta Weinberg, the author of a smart-gun mandate that’s turned her state into ground zero in the smart-gun debate. That mandate states that once a smart gun appears on the market anywhere in the country, all guns sold in the state of New Jersey must be smart guns within 30 months.

Weinberg is now saying that she may work to repeal the mandate if she can get assurances from gun-rights leaders that they will work to end calls for a smart-gun boycott by firearms stores. Speaking to Seattle Weekly last week, she said she’ll be looking to gauge the temperature at the symposium, as well as to see whether the technology crowd here is interested in furthering smart-gun development.

Meanwhile, Fascitelli is trying to raise atten-

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SEATTLE WEEKLY • JAN UARY 28 — FEBRUARY 3, 2015

A

lison Holcomb had just come out of El Centro de la Raza when she looked down at her cell phone. She had a text and a voice mail, both from a staffer at the ACLU of Washington, where she was working as criminal-justice director. The messages were unexpected. Holcomb was taking a vacation day and wasn’t expecting any work calls. Instead, she was setting the stage for her next big move: a planned City Council run against Kshama Sawant.

The contest was shaping up as the council fight to watch in 2015. Sawant, the socialist firebrand who pushed the city to increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour, would be hard to beat. But if anybody had a chance, it seemed likely to be Holcomb, a poised, Stanford-educated lawyer who had written marijuana legalization Initiative 502 and then, on “loan” from the ACLU, served as the measure’s campaign director. She achieved a resounding win, striking a blow against the war on drugs by making Washington one of only two states at the time to allow the sale of recreational marijuana.

“I was feeling really, really super-excited about running,” Holcomb recalls of that October day when she toured El Centro to solicit input and support for her council campaign.

Then she checked her messages. “Anthony’s in town,” the text from the ACLU staffer read, referring to the group’s national executive director, Anthony Romero. Could she have a quick meeting with him later that day?

“He’s going to offer you a job,” her husband

A VOICE FOR VICTIMS Seattle lawyer Alison Holcomb is leading the fight against mass incarceration.

It’s a subject that hits close to home.

By Nina Shapiro Photos by Daniel Berman

Gregg guessed after picking her up from El Centro. It seemed improbable to Holcomb.

Even more improbable was that Gregg, often a quietly supportive presence at Holcomb’s public appearances, would figure significantly in the events to come. But neither of them knew that yet.

Holcomb says she thought Romero just wanted to talk about the good work being done by the local ACLU office.

When she sat down with Romero and local ACLU leaders several hours later, at 5 o’clock, the national director started by telling Holcomb about the $50 million grant the ACLU had received to combat mass incarceration from the Open Society Foundations, the reform-minded network founded by billionaire George Soros.

The ACLU had already launched a national project on the issue in 2010 with a wildly ambitious goal: to reduce the country’s incarceration rate—the highest in the world—by half over the next 10 years.

The ACLU had judged that the time was ripe. After decades of tough-on-crime policies, voices on both the left and the right were acknowledging that this country puts too many people behind bars, raising questions about our

nation’s humanity while breaking state budgets from California to Texas to New York.

Soros’ foundation dedicated that huge chunk of money to the ACLU’s political arm rather than its nonprofit side—thus the organization can use the money to lobby for legislative reform, get involved in political campaigns, and run its own state-level ballot initiatives across the country, all of which the organization hopes will raise the issue’s profile exponentially as a presidential election year approaches.

After recounting all that, Romero, who later told me he had watched Holcomb’s work on I-502 with admiration and considered her one of the ACLU’s “up-and-coming stars who will take us to the next level,” said to her: “I want you to lead the campaign.”

“At which point, I couldn’t breathe,” Holcomb recalls. When she could, she asked Romero: “If I call you back in an hour and say yes, what’s next?”

She did say yes, deciding that the opportunity was too good to pass up, and even more exciting than a shot at a City Council seat. And she quickly found out what was next: diving right into California’s Proposition 47 campaign, which proposed turning drug possession and low-level property crimes from felonies into misdemeanors. Hailed nationally as a model of sentence reform, and bolstered by $3.5 million of the Open Society grant as well as Holcomb’s advice, Prop. 47 passed in November with almost 60 percent of the vote.

» CONTINUED ON PAGE 9

SEATTLE WE EKLY • JANUARY 28 — FEBRUARY 3, 2015

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A VOICE FOR VICTIMS » FROM PAGE 7

It’s the week before Christmas, and the Hol-

combs have squeezed a stately tree into the small living room of their one-bedroom Capitol Hill condo. A larger room lies adjacent, but it’s filled with toys, having been turned into a makeshift bedroom for their 6-year-old son, Dashiell.

Given the steep cost of trading up in the current real-estate market, they’re determined to make do with the small quarters as long as possible.

As Gregg makes coffee in a French press, Holcomb emerges from getting dressed, her short, dark hair still damp. At 9:30 in the morning, she just now got around to showering, she explains with a little embarrassment.

She’s usually put together as if ready to step into a corporate board meeting; it’s one way she countered the stoner stereotype while

» CONTINUED ON PAGE 11

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SEATTLE WE EKLY • JANUARY 28 — FEBRUARY 3, 2015

Talking by phone a few days later, Holcomb says she is contemplating running more ballot initiatives like Prop. 47, likely targeting earlyprimary and battleground states as a way of introducing the issue into the 2016 presidential debate. Yet she goes on to say that as radical as that measure might seem, it addresses relatively “easy” issues. A lot of people have come to condemn the war on drugs, which resulted in aggressive enforcement that has put an unprecedented number of people behind bars since the ’80s, many of them guilty of possession charges that hurt only themselves.

The hard question, but one Holcomb says she feels is “absolutely necessary” to ask, is this: “What do we do about violent crime?”

Bringing that into the conversation risks pushing a lot of buttons: fear, anger, grief, the desire for vengeance.

Holcomb knows this better than most. What she rarely talks about publicly—what even Romero didn’t know when he asked her to take on criminal-justice reform—is that Holcomb’s father-in-law was murdered. “I can’t talk about it without starting to cry,” she says, her normally composed voice becoming shaky. “Gregg has struggled with the trauma for a long time.”

That doesn’t temper her belief that too many people are in prison. In an unexpected way, it strengthens it.

Holcomb is beginning to focus on a rather revolutionary approach to criminaljustice reform—one that views the tremendous resources put into prosecutions and prisons as misguided, and that aims to siphon some of those resources instead to victims. “I’m just spitballing,” she says, “but it seems to me that we could be a lot more creative and have a much more victims-centered approach to violent crime than we do right now.”

What would that look like? One would first have to understand what victims experience. As it happens, Holcomb shares a life with someone who is living that experience.

Gregg doesn’t talk about his father’s murder much with Alison; it’s too painful. But I ask them if they would be willing to sit down together to talk about how the murder impacted Gregg and what lessons that might have for criminal-justice policy. So it is that a little more than a month into her new job, Holcomb hears her husband, for the first time, recount in full the violence that changed his world 22 years ago and the reverberations that continue to this day.

stumping for pot legalization. But now, having to rise before dawn to make calls to the East Coast, she’s having trouble figuring out when to duck into the bathroom.

“What would you like to know?” Gregg asks, settling on a couch. He’s 45, owner of the Capitol Hill bar Witness, and a gentle bear of a guy who calls empathy his greatest strength and weakness. On a wall nearby is a picture of his dad, blond and mustachioed, wearing a jacket and tie. “Do you know how long that’s been up?” he asks. “Three days.” Feeling for many years that he couldn’t look at it without being overwhelmed by grief, he finally decided he wanted Dashiell to have at least an image of his paternal grandfather around.

I ask Gregg to tell me about his dad. He says that for much of his childhood, spent in San Diego, he didn’t know Hank Holcomb all that well. Gregg’s parents divorced when he was young and he lived with his mom. When he was 18, though, he moved in with Hank. Gregg was about to join the Navy, following his dad’s footsteps. By then, his father had retired from the Navy and started counseling substance-abusing teens for Job Corps.

Once a tough disciplinarian with Gregg’s halfsister and brother, Lydia and Frank, Hank had mellowed, somewhat. Gregg once saw his dad throw out his siblings’ dinner because they were 20 minutes late. For the child he was newly getting to know, things were different. Gregg says Hank cut him a lot of slack, listened to him, and offered encouragement.

On Sunday, August 15, 1993, shortly after Gregg’s 24th birthday, the young Navy sailor was scrubbing the engine compartment of the USS Nimitz, which was docked in Bremerton, when he got a call. It was his commander, telling him to go home. Nothing more. Just go home. His then-wife, before Alison, met him crying. His father had been shot, dead.

Hank had been withdrawing money from an ATM in Imperial Beach, just south of San Diego, so that he could buy a bouncy house for a grandchild’s 1st birthday. A young man confronted him. “Come on, man, give me the money,” the man said, according to later court documents. Instead, Hank kept walking, got in his car, and locked the door. Through an open window, the man shot Hank in the left arm— the bullet traveled into Hank’s chest and through several vital organs.

The killer, who neglected to take Hank’s wallet, which lay on the seat beside the now-dying man, left by bike—a hint at his young age. Five months later, a 17-year-old named Oscar Rubi was identified as the culprit. Tried as an adult, he received a sentence of life without parole.

I ask Gregg about his feelings toward Rubi.

Gregg sets down his coffee cup and stares at the wall. Alison sits quietly across from him, as she has the whole time. We wait.

“For years,” he continues unsteadily, “I would go to sleep and think about what my dad’s last thoughts were.” And his last words. “My dad could be an ornery son of a bitch, right? So it’s possible that his last words might have been, ‘Go fuck yourself.’ ” He laughs. He says he also wanted to know whether his dad panicked. Was he scared?

“So nobody knows what happened except my dad and Rubi.” It was impossible for Gregg to ask Hank. And he couldn’t ask Rubi either—at least not at the trial, with its clear set of rules about who can address the defendant.

So years later, Gregg tentatively explored getting in touch with Rubi. He and Alison had

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SEATTLE WEEKLY • JAN UARY 28 — FEBRUARY 3, 2015

A VOICE FOR VICTIMS » FROM PAGE 9

some friends who mentioned something called the “restorative justice” model, which entails bringing victims together with offenders as a way of getting answers to the kind of questions that were haunting Gregg, and of providing an opportunity for a more personal form of accountability. Gregg called Pelican Bay State Prison, where Rubi was then held, and reached a guard on the inmate’s block. “This is a bad dude,” the guard warned, mentioning something about Rubi violating prison rules. “He’s not going to tell you what you want to hear.”

“I was on the fence anyway,” Gregg recalls.

“And so I gave up.” So where did that leave him?

“With a lot of ‘Why?’ ” he says. “And some hatred.”

“Only some?” I ask.

He nods. “And here’s something interesting—how much guilt I feel.” Guilt, he goes on to explain, that he didn’t want to personally rip open Rubi’s throat with his bare hands. Gregg says he just wasn’t wired that way, and it couldn’t bring his dad back anyway. “And every time I bring it up, I feel like less of a man.”

In 1980, roughly 500,000 Americans were behind bars.

Currently, there are 2.3 million, more than 60 percent of them minorities.

and Justice set out to survey victims about their attitudes toward criminals. For years, an influential narrative had been taking the place of hard data: Victims want to see offenders put away for as long as possible, or even killed, if the death penalty is on the table.

The California group had a hunch that such a view, while prevalent among some victims, did not represent them all. Lenore Anderson, the group’s founder and executive director, says she’s sat with grieving mothers in communities that have both rampant street violence and extremely high incarceration rates. “We really wanted to make sure we heard from victims from all walks of life,” says Anderson, a former chief of policy for the San Francisco District Attorney’s office.

A research firm hired by the group found 500 people who had been victimized in the past five years, of all races and genders. To Anderson’s surprise, it turned out that the differing demographics had a minor impact on attitudes.

Across the board, by margins of at least two to one, victims said the state should focus more on probation and rehabilitation programs than on incarceration. When the research firm touched on the matter of resources, asking victims whether the state should invest more in mentalhealth and substance-abuse treatment or in jails and prisons, the numbers jumped even higher.

Seventy-four percent of all victims, and 94 percent of African American ones, opted for treatment over incarceration.

Armed with its data, the California group created a political arm that brought Prop. 47 to voters. One of its animating ideas was to take the money saved in criminal-justice costs and redistribute it into treatment programs, anti-truancy efforts, and victim services. An ardent campaigner for the proposition was a police widow named Dionne Wilson.

Explaining her support, Wilson tells me that she had “jumped up and down” when her husband’s killer got the death penalty. But the hate that continued to consume her left her immobilized. Eventually she let it go, writing him a letter offering her forgiveness, then meeting with other prisoners through a restorative-justice group— many of them, she discovered, survivors of brutal childhoods. “It brought me a tremendous amount of healing,” she says.

Prop. 47’s success—and the victim data it was based on—energized an anti-incarceration movement that was already seeing new life. The numbers themselves told a powerful story. In 1980, roughly 500,000 Americans were behind bars. Currently, there are 2.3 million, more than 60 percent of them minorities.

A more-than-400 percent increase in 25 years might be understandable if there had been a horrible crime wave during that time period. In fact, crime has been dropping since the ’90s.

Might crime be going down because we’ve been locking up so many people? Only to a limited extent, according to a 2012 report by The Pew Center on the States, a nonpartisan research organization. “Experts differ on precise figures, but they generally conclude that the increased use of incarceration accounted for one-quarter to one-third of the crime drop in the 1990s,” says the report, “Time Served: The High Cost, Low Return of Longer Prison Terms.” “Prison expansion has delivered some public safety payoff,” the report allows.

Marc Mauer, executive director of The Sentencing Project, a national organization working

» CONTINUED ON PAGE 12

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A VOICE FOR VICTIMS » FROM PAGE 11

for criminal-justice reform since 1986, explains that Ronald Reagan’s war on drugs began the unprecedented march of people to prison. Then, along came mandatory minimum sentences, which were usually quite long and not open to judicial discretion. Witness the 25-year-sentence reluctantly handed down by a Florida judge in 1998 to Scott Earle, a first-time offender and painkiller addict whose crime involved providing pills to an undercover police officer.

In the ’90s, the national mood darkened even more when it came to criminals. Washington voters passed the first “three strikes” law in 1993, sending repeat criminals—sometimes fairly petty ones, convicted on charges such as assault—to prison for life without the possibility of parole.

Dozens of other states followed suit. Many, including Washington, also ended parole altogether. A saying at the time: “Life means life.”

But now, Mauer observes, “the climate for criminal-justice reform is shifting quite rapidly.” In part, he credits the recent economic crisis, which prompted policy-makers of all political stripes to ask of incarceration: “What are we getting for our money and what else could we be doing?”

Witness the birth of a conservative group called Right on Crime in a part of the country often associated with draconian penal policies: Texas. Spokesperson David Reaboi explains that the group has its roots in the budget negotiations that led to the 2007 legislative session. The way incarceration rates were going, Texas was going to have to spend $2.6 billion to expand its prison system.

Instead, a bipartisan group of legislators rallied behind a bill that would attempt to lower the incarceration rate by putting money into programs designed to lessen recidivism. “A lot of folks, especially the politicians, in Texas took a tremendous chance by going against the grain,” Reaboi recalls. “In a few years, the results came back. The crime rate in Texas dropped to its lowest point since the ’60s.”

In 2010, Reaboi continues, Right on Crime formed this idea: “Let’s go and do it for other states in Red America.” In places such as Alabama and Utah, it carries weight to say, “Hey, look, this is what Texas did.”

Talking with Reaboi and Right on Crime policy director Marc Levin, it’s apparent that their critiques of incarceration policies go beyond economics. Reaboi mentions the “crazy and outrageous” mandatory minimum sentences sometimes given drug offenders. Levin says his organization always talks about “locking up people we’re afraid of and not those we’re mad at,” meaning that prisons and jails should be reserved for dangerous, violent offenders. In June, he and other members of his organization participated in a Texas delegation that traveled to Seattle to observe our Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion program, known as LEAD, which offers treatment and other support services to nonviolent drug and prostitution suspects instead of booking them. “It was really impressive,” Levin says.

What about those people we’re afraid of, though? Those who commit serious, violent offenses? In terms of reforming the system, Levin says, “that’s not where we start.” Yet he goes on to say that his group, as does Holcomb, wants to

see the country start talking about what victims really need and want. “One of the things people wrongly assume is that victims want the harshest sentence.” Among the reasons they may not, he notes: People on probation pay vastly more in restitution and compensation—court-ordered obligations paid by criminals to their victims— than those in prison.

“It’s interesting,” adds Scott Bass, executive director of the North Carolina group Murder Victims’ Families for Reconciliation. “The number-one thing victims want, in my view— and I’ve talked to hundreds of crime victims—is information.” He says that, like Gregg, they want to know a loved one’s last words, or whether that person suffered. Sometimes they also want to impart information, in a face-to-face meeting with the wrongdoers, to tell them “You didn’t just break the law. You hurt my family.”

But that doesn’t happen in the criminal-justice system, according to Bass, who adds that what victims tell him “over and over and over again is that the process has little to do with them.” It’s about what law is broken, who did it, and how they will be punished. “The victim is nowhere in there.”

Gregg says he didn’t feel part of Rubi’s first trial. Nor did the harsh sentence handed down in March 1995—the worst possible short of the death penalty—bring him peace. Ironically, it was a request for resentencing two decades later, and what then ensued, that Gregg says “was the best thing that happened to me.”

Gregg had been trying to put Hank’s murder

out of his head. He marked its anniversary one final time last year. From then on, he resolved, he would mark Hank’s October 13 birthday, remembering his life, not his death. When October rolled around, he invited friends to Witness and toasted his dad.

A month later, he heard from the San Diego deputy district attorney who had prosecuted Rubi in 1994. Rubi had petitioned the court for a new sentencing hearing. This was only possible because California had passed a law in 2013 that allows a “second chance,” in the form of a shot at parole, to lifers who committed their crimes while under 18. Senate Bill 9, as it was called, arose out of a national re-evaluation of juvenile brain development and the implications it carried for the justice system. Citing juveniles’ immaturity and impulsivity, the U.S. Supreme Court had in a recent ruling indicated that judges should impose life-withoutparole sentences on children with great caution.

A number of states, including California, rewrote their laws to limit such sentences for juveniles.

Rubi’s hearing was to be held in late January 2014.

“I wanted to be present,” Gregg says. He means that both literally and figuratively. Along with planning a trip to San Diego, he absorbed the details of the case in a way that he did not the first time around. He read hundreds of pages of court and prison files. He learned that Rubi came from a broken home, got involved with gangs, and had a drug problem. None of that excused Rubi’s actions, in Gregg’s mind, but it made his dad’s killer more human.

When Gregg saw Rubi walk into the San Diego courtroom, he saw someone more like himself than he would have previously thought.

“It allowed me to understand that he’s not the same guy who shot my dad,” Gregg says.

“Twenty years later he was, like me, a little pudgy.” Middle-aged. He had a wife: a highschool sweetheart who had married him after he had received—and despite—the life sentence.

She walked over to Gregg. “I’m so sorry for what happened to your dad,” she said.

Gregg’s sister brought a picture of their dad to

court and asked the judge to keep Rubi locked up, forever. Lydia wrestled with her position, she told me recently by phone from Chula Vista.

“I’m a mom. So I’m on the other side, looking at his mom’s perspective.” Still, she worried that he might get out and harm someone else’s family.

Gregg, at the hearing, didn’t argue with his sister’s position, but he didn’t agree with it either.

“I was OK with him getting out,” he says.

And that’s what is likely to happen, one day.

“Is his heart so black, to use a term, that he will never, never, never change?” asked Judge Frederic Link of Rubi. Link decided not and adjusted Rubi’s sentence to 25 years to life, making him eligible for parole almost immediately.

Rubi has a choice of when to apply to the parole board, and has decided to wait two years, when he might have a stronger case. As the prosecutor pointed out at the resentencing hearing, Rubi has participated in few rehabilitative programs.

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Gregg asks. “I in some ways want to help him when he gets out of prison.” He says it’s a feeling that stems from wanting to make sure that Rubi doesn’t falter in the way that his sister fears.

“There’s also a percentage of me that wants to . . . ” He sighs. “I don’t know if I want to say this. OK, sure, why not? We’re being honest, right? There’s a part of me that wants to wait for him to get out of prison, have kids, wait for them to be my age, and kill him. That’s the real part of it. My emotions swing so hard, it’s difficult for me to process sometimes.”

Alison, taking it all in, seems momentarily stunned. She pauses for a beat when, finally, I ask her what she makes of it all. Then she launches

into an extended riff that illuminates where she’s headed with the campaign she’s about to spring on the country.

“It’s funny,” she begins. “The last month, I had an opportunity to talk with people thinking about violent crime.” They included Bass from the North Carolina group and a Brooklyn woman named Danielle Sered, who directs an organization that, as its website puts it, facilitates “a dialogue process designed to recognize the harm done, identify the needs and interests of those harmed, and develop appropriate sanctions to hold the responsible party accountable.”

“So how would the last 22 years have looked if that opportunity had been presented to Gregg?” she wonders. “Even if he wasn’t ready to take anybody up on the offer until year six or seven or 12 or 13. What might have changed if there had been a kind of support, if our criminal-justice system actually focused on the victims instead of . . . ” She trails off into what she calls her “floating hypotheses”—that the fear of “vigilante justice” of the sort entertained in her husband’s darker moments has led the state into an outsized role.

“We knights in shining armor, we prosecutors, we are going to step in and take care of this . . . on behalf of the victim.

“I think for a surprising number of victims that’s not what they want, not what they need.

What they need, I think, is for really capable, highly trained, sensitive people to basically bug the shit out of them until they’re ready to engage and talk. That’s a crude way of saying it. But just be there. Just be there. Check in on them, talk to them, deal with the fact that they’ve had this emotional trauma. Who are the people coming to mow your lawn when you can’t function?

Who’s coming to deliver your bread? And who says, ‘Hey, if you ever want to have a conversation with that person [who put you in this state], we can make that happen.’ ” Here, Holcomb delves deep into her spitballing. “Maybe, ultimately, sentencing shouldn’t happen in really violent crimes for five years.

We’re going to say, once guilt is established, you’re going to stay in custody for a year at least and we’re going to check in with the victims.

We’re going to create some process for them.

And we’re going to have a sentencing process down the road once they’ve had a chance to process and think about what’s appropriate.”

When I ask, Holcomb confirms that she is saying that victims should, somehow, help determine sentencing. It’s an idea that would surely raise a lot of questions. For instance, which victims do you listen to? Gregg was OK with Rubi getting out, but his brother and sister were not.

A lot of victims want sentences to be as long as possible, confirms Lew Cox, executive director of Tacoma-based Violent Crime Victim Services.

Take Melissa Hansen, a Pierce County woman who had a powerful, emotional meeting with her dad’s killer at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla several years ago.

She says she saw “more of the human element” in killer William Schorr than she was prepared for, and in the process of forgiving him gained a sense of power she never felt during the trial.

Still, she says prison is where Schorr belongs.

Not the death penalty she once sought for him and co-defendant Jeremy Hosford, mind you.

But certainly Schorr’s full sentence of 34 years.

Holcomb knows that she has a big challenge in convincing victims like Hansen, among others. “For me the hardest and most exciting work is figuring out how to tell the story,” she says, meaning the story of how incarceration rates could and should come down. She’s obviously

13

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A VOICE FOR VICTIMS

» FROM PAGE 13

chosen a central theme with her focus on victims.

Yet, of course, the story she will eventually tell has to address offenders too. She touches on some of the arguments she’s developing around what research reveals about these people, one of them being that men tend to “age out” of crime. There’s no reason to keep someone who, say, committed an armed robbery at 20 in prison until they’re 60, even if someone died in the crime, she contends. The concept of redemption will surely figure into her arguments too. She says it’s an important theme for many, particularly religious conservatives, questioning a lock-’em-up-and-throw-awaythe-key mentality.

“I guess at my core I think having prisons and jails makes sense for immobilizing someone and removing the threat to self and others,” she says.

But it seems a conclusion she has come to after wrestling with her conscience. “I think most Americans have no concept of what it’s like to be in a cage for a day,” she says.

Rubi describes himself as being reborn since the resentencing.

“Before, I lived here without any hope.”

“Do you think I deserve to go home?” This is what Oscar Rubi asked his wife during one of her visits to prison in 2011. It was soon after the bill was introduced that would give juveniles sentenced to life a chance at parole, and Rubi was contemplating the real possibility of freedom for the first time in decades.

“Why do you say that?” she responded.

“Because I caused so much pain.”

Clara, as his wife asks to be known, recounts the conversation to me in early January. Trying to reach Rubi, I caught up with her first.

Clara is not the person you expect a lifer’s wife to be. Once involved in gangs herself, she firmly turned her back on that life long ago, earned a college degree in business studies, got a job as operations manager for a California company, and became a committed Christian. She was headed this way even as she married a man convicted of murder and sentenced to life.

“I was 19. I wouldn’t say it was the best decision,” she laughs. But she loved him. She says she never saw him do drugs—although he has admitted to using heavily at the time—or even be mean. “He was that boyfriend who was always so sweet, who opened doors.”

Having made the commitment, she resolved to “stick it out,” even though it meant spending her weekends in a prison, unable even to sleep beside her husband. The state ended conjugal visits for lifers in 1996. She says the sacrifice is worth it given the “hope and joy” it gives her husband. And yet, she says she’s hard on him.

Rather than tell him he deserved to get out, she said, “That’s up to God.” When Rubi remarked recently that his mom, having just turned 56, was getting old, Clara said, “Well, at least you get to see your mom.” Gregg, Lydia, and Frank, she reminded him, lost their dad at just that age. “He needs to understand that he’s not a victim,” she explains.

When I finally reach Rubi, who calls me from the Ironwood State Prison in California, he speaks as if that idea has sunk in. “What I did, it affected a lot of people—not just my fate but Mr. Holcomb’s family.”

Rubi sounds a little nervous but forthcoming. His sentences tumble one after the other, in a slight Mexican accent that reveals his place of birth. (He says his parents brought him here, legally, at age 7.) Yet he’s hesitant to go into the details of his crime. “That’s always been the most difficult for me to speak on. It’s pretty troubling.”

In a subsequent call, he’s willing to talk more.

“Really, my intention wasn’t to kill him at all but to cause fear,” he says of Hank. “At the moment he tried to drive away, it created a bigger confusion.” He says he’s still confused as to why he did what he did.

At the time of his initial sentencing, his family members, pleading for Rubi to have a chance at parole, said the teen was strung out on methamphetamine, sleepless, for eight days before the murder. “I could say I was under the influence and all that,” Rubi tells me now. “At the same time, I have to accept my role in it.”

How can you know whether remorse is sincere? Or whether a convict’s “rehabilitation” is genuine? Inmates know that their freedom rests on expressing the right sentiments. “I have to prove to them that I’ve changed,” Rubi tells me, alluding to parole-board members.

Clara thinks he has changed. While she says he once talked about himself as a “stupid kid,” not seeming to understand the gravity of what he did, he has in recent years repeatedly brought up the Holcombs.

About a dozen years ago, long before parole was on the table, Clara says her husband asked her to say a prayer for Hank on the anniversary of the day Rubi killed him. He asked her to find out Hank’s birthday too. Rubi says he just wanted to think about Hank then.

It’s eerie how Rubi hit upon some of the same notions as Gregg: wanting to remember Hank on the day he was born, not just the day he died, and mulling over some kind of communication with the Holcomb family. Rubi says he considered writing a letter, but didn’t know how the Holcombs would feel about that.

Rubi describes himself as being reborn since the resentencing. “Before, I lived here without any hope.” As a lifer, he says, the prison allowed him access to a limited number of educational and self-improvement programs. That changed with his resentencing. And so he says he sat down and tried to figure out some things: the person he used to be, the person he was now, the person he wanted to become. “Before that, I never looked that deep into myself.”

Since then, he says, he’s thrown himself into groups (for anger management, drug addiction, peer counseling) and correspondence classes through a local community college. He hopes to become certified as an alcohol- and drugaddiction counselor.

He recalls that when Gregg spoke at the resentencing hearing, he said that if his dad were there, he’d tell Rubi “not to half-ass anything.”

Says Rubi, “That was one of the statements I’ve held on to.” E

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BY JASON PRICE

Anheuser-Busch announced that it’s buying Seattle’s Elysian Brewing—the brewery as well as the four Seattle brewpubs. The East Pike Street locale, which opened in 1996, was the company’s flagship spot.

According to a press release from Anheuser-Busch, Elysian’s co-founder and CEO, Joe Bisacca, who will continue to work with Elysian, said, “For two decades, we’ve welcomed guests into our brewpubs and served them creative and impeccably crafted beers. After a lot of hard work, we’ve grown from one Seattle brewpub to four pub locations and a production brewery. With the support of Anheuser-Busch, we will build on past successes and share our beers with more beer lovers moving forward.” Is the beginning of the Starbuckization of Seattle’s beer scene?

Hommage and Vespolina take over former spots of distinction.

BY NICOLE SPRINKLE Left: Vespolina’s main dining room.

Right: The bar at Hommage.

PHOTOS BY KAIA D’ALBORA

Meanwhile, over at Vespolina, Jason Stratton

has also repurposed a former restaurant—his own Aragona, an ambitious Spanish spot that closed only eight months after opening—into another of his Italian collection, joining Spinasse and Artusi. Since Aragona was open for such a brief time, a vast majority of diners won’t be oddly reminded that Vespolina’s focal white mosaic tiled column with glittering bursts of gold and red was originally installed as an ode to Moorish culture. They will simply be, for the most part, expecting good pasta.

And, generally, they’ll get that.

Back to my bread theory. At Vespolina, we never got any—well, not until we’d finished dessert—and the hostess brought it without explanation. A look at other tables confirmed that they’d forgotten to give it to us at the start— which was a shame because it was damn fine bread, and the olive oil that came alongside it had those intensely grassy, herbal notes that I relish.

That wasn’t the only thing that was off from the beginning. When I checked in with the hostess for our 6 p.m. reservation, we were led to a table in the restaurant’s smaller bar area— completely separate from the main dining area, with its award-winning design and views of the open kitchen. When I indicated my surprise, the hostess said she’d check into it, but came back and told us there was no room for us in the dining area. I politely argued that when I made my reservation, I hadn’t expected to sit in a bar area with a large TV broadcasting a basketball game. As an alternative, she suggested the counter at the kitchen, or that perhaps the bartender could turn off the TV. Needless to say, I wasn’t placated. Then, with sudden and unexpected decisiveness, she led us to an empty two-top in the main room and suggested that in the future I indicate which room I want to be in when I make my reservation, which is obviously hard to do if you’ve never eaten there before.

Fortunately, our server was extremely nice and good-humored, much appreciated by that point.

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In more 12th-Man capitalism, Theo Chocolates is offering their very own commemorative chocolatecovered Super Bowl treats beginning on Wednesday, Jan. 28 in their retail store. Featured items, all under $10, include 12th Man Beast Mode Bites (Peanut Butter Big Daddy confections with 12s drawn on top) as well as chocolate-drizzled potato chips, pretzels, and kettle corn. E morningfoodnews@gmail.com

TheWeeklyDish

Meatloaf from Bob’s Quality Meats

BY NICOLE SPRINKLE

Meatloaf is one of my favorite comfort foods, and while you can argue that it’s hard to mess up a marriage of pork and breadcrumbs (with ketchup on top!), not all meatloaf is created equal. Don’t get me wrong: I loved my mom’s as a kid, but the one at Bob’s Quality Meats in Columbia City (just a couple doors down from Columbia City Bakery) is perhaps the best I’ve ever had. It’s also one of the more pedestrian offerings from this butcher, who carries items like elk patties and goat.

At $12 to $13, their loaf easily serves three for dinner.

A combo of beef and pork (one of the key elements of a good one) held together with egg and breadcrumbs, it also has just the right amount of minced onions, and—the best part—more fresh tomato than average, moistening and flavoring what can often be a dry dish.

It oozes out in each bite. In an ode to ketchup topping, theirs is glazed with a sweet tomato sauce. Pop it in the oven for about 80 minutes, and you’ll have a simple meal that tastes like childhood, only better. E nsprinkle@seattleweekly.com

SEATTLE WE EKLY • JANUARY 28 — FEBRUARY 3, 2015

egg hidden in a nest of shredded filo dough, presumably to add texture, though it was reminiscent of a mouth full of shredded wheat. The smear of crème fraîche on the bottom of the plate turned it all into a mighty mess, minus flavor. Our black cod poached in kombu and matsutake dashi, though certainly a departure from heavier dishes, didn’t fare much better: It came severely undercooked.

To the chef ’s credit, he admitted the error and sent a new one done properly. But unfortunately, the beautiful broth they coax out of the seaweed and loamy, naturally cinnamon-laced matsutakes doesn’t infuse the fish, which was bland and on the slimy side. We left a large chunk of it, but slurped up every drop of the dashi.

At this point, food was coming at an alarmingly quick pace, which felt counterintuitive to the fine-dining French experience. If I closed my eyes, I might have have been at Damn the Weather or Single Shot or any of the many trendy cocktail bars that send out food like extra balls in a pinball machine, fast and unpredictably—which is fitting in those places but not at this one. By the time our seared duck breast arrived, our table was filled to within an inch of its life, as were our stomachs.

How then would we attack the massive amount of duck set before us—served as two hulking chunks with equally large, delicious parsnips and and a poached persimmon the size of a fist swimming in a chestnut butter sauce? I suppose the chef felt that a $34 entrée deserved a sizable portion, but I want my portions curated—even if that means getting a little less—if it makes sense for the dish.

Though cooked perfectly, the duck was quite salty and had a smoky flavor that reminded me of bacon or sausage. My favorite part of the plate was that mango-flesh-colored persimmon, its sweet, almost floral meat an intriguing vehicle for poaching.

It’s very clear that Borzee knows his way around a French kitchen (and he is French), and this young chef ’s ability to achieve heightened flavors and small moments of culinary clarity speak to his potential. My optimistic guess is that he’s still figuring it all out, and I’ll certainly be back to see where he lands.

BRENNAN MORING

H

ommage has big clogs to fill in the Seattle culinary world. Taking over the space of the venerable Book Bindery, which closed last summer after a five-year run catering to the moneyed set, it opened this fall under the direction of executive chef Nico Borzee of Seattle’s Artusi, and Michelinstarred restaurants in France and San Francisco.

However, it remains in the Book Bindery/Canlis stratosphere, offering a more refined style of service that’s swiftly dying in our multiplate, feastingand-sharing, cocktail-bar-and-snacks restaurant culture. Waiters hover to replace forks, refill water glasses, and intricately explain the menu, albeit with a down-to-earth, accommodating vibe. Its interior still offers views of the canal along Nickerson Street, a beautiful wooden ceiling, and a large, glassed-in room full of casks of wine.

As for the food, I’m of the persuasion that a restaurant’s bread service is a determining factor in what’s to follow (though with so many good bakeries in town, it’s becoming increasingly easy for even mediocre restaurants to serve delicious baked goods). Hommage offers Columbia City sourdough with two butters: one cultured in a charred corn husk, another infused with black truffle. Both were chilled buttery bliss, and not surprisingly you’re charged $5 for it. That decadence set the tone for the rest of the meal, and while excited by the pageantry, I was also mildly burdened by it.

A starter of chestnut soup (châtaigne) was frothy (almost a foam) and unadulterated in its nutty sweetness; it doesn’t really need the tiny dollop of foie gras custard at the bottom, especially since our sautéed chanterelles, topped with one perfect sheet of fried-sage pasta, came with spoonfuls of creamy lemon ricotta. That, however, was a pairing choice we made, and easily could have averted. Moving forward, trying to lighten the meal would prove more difficult.

I was intrigued with the idea of their salmon: cold-smoked, with a 35-minute poached egg and house vodka crème fraîche. Unfortunately, the salmon itself was not as fresh as it should have been, and scant in portion. That left me with an

Grand Central Baking is capitalizing on the Hawks’ Super Bowl run with the bizarrely named “12th Man Loaf.” The bakers, in self-proclaimed “Yeast Mode,” will bring you this football-shaped batard—complete with 12 stenciled in flour—beginning Friday, Jan. 30 through Super Bowl Sunday.

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SEATTLE WEEKLY • JAN UARY 28 — FEBRUARY 3, 2015

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food&drink » FROM PAGE 17 We started with the prosciutto di parma with marinated apple—the small size, for $13. Vespolina offers small and large portions for many of its menu items, which always makes me stupidly happy. Though I’d ordered this dish out of curiosity about the apple, what we got was a heaping plate of prosciutto but only four thin slices of fruit. It’s quibbling to criticize getting too much of really good prosciutto, but it was odd that they don’t throw in at least a couple more pieces of apple (the cheapest part of the dish) to bring more balance in flavor and proportion.

What was less forgiving was the shigoku oyster bisque, just added to the menu. While a bisque typically conjures images of creamladen lobster soup, a true bisque is a broth of strained and puréed seafood, thickened traditionally with rice, not cream. So while I appreciated the kitchen’s restraint in avoiding excessive cream, the aggressiveness of the puréed oysters without something to dilute it a bit (I don’t know what thickener they used, if any) was ultimately unpleasant, with a far too pungent taste that neither my dining partner or I could stomach after two spoonfuls. Our server understood our complaint and very graciously suggested another starter: the chicory salad with beets, Gorgonzola dolce, and balsamico.

This we left half eaten, that nicely bitter chicory and the sweet beets completely obliterated by balsamic vinegar, the Gorgonzola only adding to the overpowering effect.

On we moved to pastas. A tagliatelle with a ragú of Oregon game (venison specifically), red wine, and cacao was hearty but not heavy. The venison’s gaminess was at just the right level. The cacao was hard to discern, though it may have contributed to the plate’s overall integrity. The real charmer was the leek raviolo with brown butter, poppy seeds, and tarragon, which managed to bring all those varied parts together harmoniously. The velvety, luscious interior is obviously not just ricotta; indeed, the waiter told us it was a mixture of ricotta and mascarpone. Touché.

The downside is that the small portion for $13 only gets you two large raviolis. Upgrade to the $19 portion and you’ll get only one more. (Note to self: Why is ravioli always so expensive?)

Seared sea scallops were decent but unmemorable, and slightly metallic in taste. I liked the sweet lentils and the olive purée served on the side individually, but neither really helped the scallops.

Dessert was a disappointing tiny, deconstructed pineapple-upside-down cake: the cake stale, the rum sauce virtually undetectable. The charred pineapple rings were the only joy in an old-school dessert meant to be playful and comforting.

I expected—and hoped for—more from Vespolina since it’s based on a formula that Stratton has perfected at his other restaurants, and because solid Italian restaurants are hard to come by in Seattle. But until better ones come along, I’ll stick with Il Corvo and Ethan Stowell’s generally spoton, and affordable, Northwest trattorias. E

nsprinkle@seattleweekly.com

HOMMAGE 198 Nickerson St., 283-2665, hommageseattle.com. 5–10 p.m. Tues.—Sat. VESPOLINA 96 Union St., 682-3590, vespolinaseattle.com.

Dinner 5–10 p.m. Sun.–Thurs., 5–11 p.m. Fri.–Sat.

Valentine’s Day Dinners

BY JASON PRICE

BRENNAN MORING

Voted Best Movie Theater

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or the first of the year’s Hallmark holidays celebrating commercialism under the guise of true love (or wanton lust), options to wine and dine the object of your (hopefully wanted) affection: For those of you who have saved for months, or who can just plain afford it, El Gaucho is celebrating V-Day twice on both Friday the 13th (who wants to take a chance on that day?) and Saturday the 14th. The subterranean Pampas Room will play host to “Love Is in the Air—a Valentine Cabaret.” Order some meat on a sword and flambé your bananas while you watch a live burlesque. There’s one show on Friday (8:30 p.m.) and two on Saturday (5:30 & 9:30) with prix fixe menu prices ranging from $115 to $185 per person. 728-1337, elgaucho.com For a more low-key, romantic event, try Volunteer Park Cafe for a five-course meal prepared by chef Ericka Burke. For $95 ($130 with wine pairings) you’ll get hamachi crudo, shrimp bisque, duck breast, lamb ragout, and a darkchocolate torte for dessert. Take a stroll in the park afterward. Reservations are required. 3283155, alwaysfreshgoodness.com If you want to dine in Norman-style, then head to Bell + Whete for a four-course meal that features Hawaiian big-eye tuna and wagyu beef zabuton. Finish with chocolate mousse accompanied by brown butter, nougat, and banana.

All for the low price of only $55 per person!

The menu is available both Friday and Saturday.

538-0180, bellandwhete.com For something different, try Shanik in SLU where $50 (plus $30 for wine) gets you a selection of dishes including jackfruit in black-cardamom and cumin curry, beef short ribs, grilled lamb popsicles, or saag paneer with Punjabi daal.

Who doesn’t need more jackfruit in their lives?

486-6884, shanikrestaurant.com Maria Hines offers a trio of options: Sicilian cuisine at Agrodolce in Fremont (547-9707, agrodolcerestaurant.net) with a four-course meal featuring dishes such as burrata Pugliese, poached spot prawns, and Theo Chocolate budino for $65 per person. At Ballard’s Golden Beetle (706-2977, golden-beetle.com), sample plates like Moroccan spiced roasted cauliflower and beef-cheek tagine for $55 per person. Wallingford’s Tilth (633-0801, tilthrestaurant.com) will serve organic treats including rabbit rillette, and smoked heirloom-bean cassoulet. mariahinesrestaurants.com For something completely original: Blue Ribbon Cooking School is offering a couple’s class.

Make your own five-course meal—and pay $155 per couple for the privilege! Cognac poached-fig salad and flaming filet mignon are on the menu.

328-2442, blueribboncooking.com E food@seattleweekly.com

Super Beers

A play-by-play guide on what to drink during the big game.

BY JACOB UITTI

E

njoying the Super Bowl is an all-day event (though it kicks off at 3:30 p.m.

PT)—that can get you into trouble if you don’t pace yourself. Along with all the nachos, burgers, hot dogs, bean dips, and hummus you might ingest, beer plays a big role in the Sunday-turned-national holiday. So we wanted to offer a bit of advice on which Seattle beers might work best for ultimate enjoyment of the game. Oh, and GO HAWKS! 10 a.m. Presumably you’ll be awake around now and will begin making decisions: Should I start in on a beer? Should I begin the tailgating? Remember: There are a lot of hours ahead, so maybe this is a good time to have breakfast and set a foundation for the day’s festivities. Let’s be smart!

11 a.m. OK, maybe now you’re into the idea of a drink. (It’s afternoon somewhere, right?) If you’re ready to imbibe, we suggest a schooner (otherwise known as a half-pint) of pilsner or cider.

Georgetown never lets you down; with an excellent IPA (Lucille), red ale (Chopper’s), and, yes, pilsner (Roger’s), their beers are clean and crisp. Our pick: Georgetown’s Roger’s Pilsner. It’s light and never skunky. A perfect sunny start for the early session.

If you want to move from a lighter-style beer or start with a Seattle cider, try Tieton’s Cherry Apple—a mediumdry, slightly tart cider that dances on your taste buds.

For a more traditional cider, try Seattle Cider Company’s know you’ll be noshing most of the day, but this is the time to at least have a sandwich. Maybe wash it down with Stoup’s Red Ale, a bright, non-syrupy red ale from one of Ballard’s newest breweries.

2 p.m. You can feel game time approaching.

Your hands are beginning to twitch. You’ve researched Richard Sherman’s injuries, made sure Marshawn Lynch isn’t going to be fined (again!), and read Russell Wilson’s inspirational tweets on family, love, and spirituality.

Pete Carroll is saying all the right things.

The clock can’t move fast enough. It’s time for your first IPA, Seattle’s favorite style of beer. If this is the case, go for Fremont Brewing’s Interurban, a quintessential Northwest hoppy brew. It’s bitter in all the right places—so you don’t have to be.

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food@seattleweekly.com

The Lost Pelican 2400 1st Ave, Seattle

206.441.5132 • thelostpelican.com Happy Hour 3pm-7pm / Late Nite Menu 10pm-1am Weekend Brunch 10:30-2

New Orleans & Regionally Inspired Southern Cuisine

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SEATTLE WE EKLY • JANUARY 28 — FEBRUARY 3, 2015

Semi Sweet Cider.

12:30 p.m. Eat lunch! We

3 p.m. THE GAME IS ABOUT TO START THE GAME IS ABOUT TO START THE GAME IS ABOUT TO START! Anything can happen in football and anything can happen when you’re watching football, so now it’s time to relax and calm your mind with Odin’s Nordic Amber (previously called their Ruby Red): dark in color with a malty start and an oaky finish. The bonus is that it drinks light. Perfect for a time of uncertainty.

3:45 p.m. THE SEAHAWKS JUST SCORED! (Well, we can only hope.) It’s probably time to go back to the schooner size. We have a long way to go. The Patriots (boooo!!!!) are a good team (booo!!!) and we’re nowhere near out of this yet. So go for another IPA—remember, schooner size! Let’s try Black Raven’s Trickster hoppy beer, which has a touch of malt. Black Raven (out of Redmond) is an excellent brewery and—bonus—resides near where all the players do on the Eastside.

4:40 p.m. The first quarter is done. Drink a glass of water, use the restroom, come back and have another glass of water. It’s the right thing to do.

5 p.m. It’s almost halftime and the score is close.

We’re predicting 14-10, good guys. Let’s go back to the smooth, dark side of things (it’s always darkest before the dawn, after all) and sample Maritime Brewing’s Nightwatch Dark Ale. Smooth, smooth, smooth, this malty dark ale is perfect for bringing you from the edge of your seat to the middle of it.

Enjoy life—it doesn’t all have to be that tense.

Halftime Walk around, have a cup of coffee perhaps, leave the room you’re in. Use your legs! Weren’t those commercials with animals and Doritos funny?!

5:30 p.m. AAAaaaaannnnnndddd we’re back.

Maybe one more glass of water, huh?

6 p.m. Home stretch!

Seahawks are winning. Life is good. Schooner of Hilliard’s Amber, please! Refreshing, clean, light enough but not watery whatsoever. Yes, this will be great.

7 p.m. You’ve bitten your fingernails down, you’ve rubbed your lucky rabbit’s foot, Wilson has scrambled and hit Baldwin for a TD, Lynch has run a couple in, and Steven Hauschka has just given the Hawks the lead with a clutch field goal—it’s 24-17 Hawks. For the last beer of the game, let’s get Georgetown’s Lucille —maybe the smoothest IPA in the entire city. It’s hoppy but floral and tastes like victory.

8 p.m. Postgame. Buy your buds whatever they want, leave your keys in your pocket, and let’s celebrate! We’ve gone back-to-back! E

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arts&culture

ThisWeek’s PickList

The United States of Ives

The Seattle Symphony tackles a work that’s as much of a melting pot as our nation itself.

BY GAVIN BORCHERT

WEDNESDAY, JAN. 28

O

Nazila Fathi

The pileup of musical lines creates a glorious chaos, a riotous, all-American crowd scene.

Just as the result is a massive collage, so was

Ives’ working method. In addition to all the quotations, he constantly tweaked, repurposed, and pilfered from his own music, which is why the Fourth is impossible to date definitively; he readied it for performance sometime in the 1920s, but probably never considered it genuinely “finished.” Much of “Comedy” draws on piano pieces inspired by the writings of Nathaniel Hawthorne (for one, the short story “The Celestial Railroad,” hence the locomotive sound effect); the fugue was written in the 1890s as a Harvard music student (and later included in his First String Quartet); the finale uses a funeral march for organ which Ives wrote in honor of assassinated President William McKinley (and later worked into his Second String Quartet).

All this—what Ives borrows, and how—is what attracts Morlot to his music. He never heard the Fourth growing up in France, but discovered the composer while an assistant conductor with the

gborchert@seattleweekly.com

SEATTLE SYMPHONY Benaroya Hall, Third Ave. & Union St., 215-4747, seattlesymphony.org. $20–$122.

7:30 p.m. Thurs., Jan. 29, 8 p.m. Sat., Jan. 31.

Town Hall, 1119 Eighth Ave., 652-4255, townhall seattle.org. $5. 7:30 p.m. BIANCA SEWAKE FRIDAY, JAN. 30

2015 Oscar-Nominated Short Films Hawkins tries to give hope in The Phone Call.

SHORTS.TV

Boston Symphony. “For a long time I’ve tried to understand what is American music,” he told me recently, and the inclusiveness, the meltingpot-ness, of Ives’ music naturally resonates—as a kind of metaphor for America itself, as Ives acknowledged: “The future of music may not lie entirely with music itself, but . . . in the way it encourages and extends, rather than limits, the aspirations and ideals of the people.” Morlot compares Ives to Mahler, whose approach to the symphony, he says, was also to “embrace all possible traditions”—absorbing and evoking folk songs, klezmer tunes, quaint old Austrian dances.

So it’s exciting that the Seattle Symphony plans to release a live recording of the Fourth— part of a series of all four of Ives’ symphonies (their recording of the bumptious Second came out last April). Ives himself never heard the complete work—only, in 1927, the opening movement and what must have been a seat-of-thepants attempt at “Comedy” that bore God knows what resemblance to what he really wanted. It wasn’t until 1965 that the full Fourth was posthumously premiered. Its unfettered, festive noise and otherworldly grandeur are thrilling selling points, but it’s also at times heart-clutchingly lovely. And to my ears—even after all these decades, even with all its unself-conscious nostalgia—it’s as fresh and stunningly novel as just about any orchestral work written since. E

As a child of 7, raised in a secular, privileged family, Nazila Fathi witnessed Iran’s 1979 revolution, when a conservative Islamic tide transformed the world around her. This is how The Lonely War: One Woman’s Account of the Struggle for Modern Iran (Basic Books. $28) begins. By 2009, by which time Fathi had been a New York Times correspondent for more than 10 years, she fled the country with her husband and two children—a decision made shortly after being informed that snipers had her photo and the command to kill her. Although Fathi thought she and her family might eventually return to their homeland, they were urged to stay away, forcing them to live in exile—to this day. In her memoir, the Bethesda, Md.-based Fathi shares how modern Iran has created a robust middle class despite economic sanctions (and, lately, falling oil prices). It will be interesting to hear her perspective from afar on how that middle class might now be chafing at Iran’s restrictive regime.

The final lineup to this twofold collection— animated and live-action—always seems to be written in pencil, not ink. Surprised by their good fortune, directors and distributors scramble to include their prints in time for this omnibus, from which I was able to preview a half-dozen titles. On the animated side (10 titles, 82 minutes), I particularly liked Me and My Moulton, a girl’s recollection of life in 1965 Norway. The middle daughter (of three), our narrator forever wears a large No. 2 on her blouse, but leads the negotiation as the three girls try to convince their carless bohemian parents to buy them a bicycle.

(A Moulton turns out to be a fancy imported English bike.) The colors radiate warm hues from Klee and Kandinsky, and the linework by director Torill Kove evokes both Peanuts-style innocence and a dawning beatnik awareness (an effect aided by West Coast jazz with a cool Wes Montgomery timbre).

On the live-action side (five titles, 118 minutes), look for Sally Hawkins (Happy-GoLucky, Blue Jasmine) as a meek, defeated woman

SEATTLE WE EKLY • JANUARY 28 — FEBRUARY 3, 2015

trombone’s poignant farewell is actually a phrase of “Joy to the World” slowed way down.) In the last movement, another offstage group, of percussion, keeps up a gentle, irregular tapping throughout; the rhythmic structure of the rest of the orchestra relates to it in shifting but painstakingly specified ratios.

Earlier music returns, transformed and dreamlike (Ives called it “an apotheosis of the preceding content”): The stentorian string theme goes gloomy; the multilayer chaos that was manic and abrupt in the “Comedy” movement is here moody and inexorable; the choir returns, now singing wordlessly, wanderingly; and the orchestra gradually evaporates, leaving only the percussion, like some clockwork that exists outside the symphony’s frame—or outside of man’s control.

BRENNAN MORING

ne indication of the unique complexity of Charles Ives’ Symphony no. 4, which the Seattle Symphony is playing this weekend: The score, in the most recent edition, is prefaced by 37 pages of explanatory notes, instructions, and background material to help the conductor untangle and coordinate the composer’s extravagant intentions.

Another is the map conductor Ludovic Morlot and the Benaroya Hall stage crew had to devise to plan the layout—the unusual instrumental groupings and sonic foreground/background effects that so fascinated Ives. A third: The SSO will be using four conductors—not only Morlot on his usual podium, but three assistants (Stilian Kirov, Julia Tai, and David Rahbee) to help hold the reins of what is likely the most logistically daunting piece the orchestra has ever played.

And one of the most labor-intensive. The required arsenal for the half-hour work includes six trumpets and two saxophones, an organ, a chorus, and three pianos: one with a madly difficult solo part (to be played by Cristina Valdes); a second played four-hands; and one on which certain keys are retuned a quarter-step off. Ever the idealistic visionary, Ives (1874–1954) even managed to ask for instruments that don’t exist: seven octaves’ worth of bells, which he wanted in “a continuous scale and of like quality” (a part normally played today on synthesizer); and an “ether organ,” which he seems to have envisioned as a sort of keyboard-activated Theremin.

An early champion of the Fourth was Bernard Herrmann, who could plausibly have taken its hyper-angsty opening gesture—stentorian low strings, a snarling trumpet fanfare—as a model for his film scores. Right away Ives deploys the first of those multi-conductor effects: an offstage group of violins and harp, dubbed “Distant Choir,” which continues at its own slow tempo against the rest of the orchestra. Soon the choir (a literal one) enters, singing a hymn that seems to float within the swirling instrumental texture.

Early in the second movement, the quartertones in the piano and strings bring a hallucinatory beauty. Later an every-man-for-himself pileup of musical lines—quoting or aping familiar marches, hymns, parlor music, and patriotic songs—creates a glorious chaos, a riotous, all-American crowd scene. The orchestra is divided into groups that play in independent tempos and time signatures, some even accelerating while others remain steady (for instance, the unmistakable imitation of a locomotive starting up, complete with shrill whistle).

This chaos drops in and out, revealing, then rudely interrupting, quieter interludes: a dreamy piano, a bluesy trumpet, a saccharine solo violin. After the longest and loudest tumult comes the best joke in this movement, which Ives subtitled “Comedy”: the suddenly deflating ending.

The following fugue—for strings, with touches here and there of solo winds, brass, and organ—is plain in expression yet sumptuous in sound, like a Shaker table made from the richest woods. (The

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arts&culture» » FROM PAGE 21

L.A. vation | Saturday, January 31st A tribute to the music of U2

House of Floyd | Friday, February 6th

A tribute to the music of Pink Floyd with laser show

Motley Crue’d | Saturday, February 7th A tribute to the music of Motley Crue Bikini Contest at 7:30 PM

St., 632-8821. $10.50. See landmarktheatres. com for showtimes. BRIAN MILLER

Unleash Maru!

The Long Run | Saturday, February 14th

Mardi Gras Party | Friday, February 20th Burlesque, Costume Contest & Party Favors

Blues Power Revue | The Boom Room | 10:00 PM

The Police Experience | Sat, February 21st A tribute to the music of The Police

SEATTLE WEEKLY • JAN UARY 28 — FEBRUARY 3, 2015

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Tickets $10 advance | $15 day of show | 21 and over Doors 7:00 PM | Shows 8:00 PM

| Full entertainment schedule online

Internet Cat Video Festival

While Seattle’s famous existential kitty, Henri le Chat Noir, will not be attending this second edition of the popular traveling highlights reel, his owner, Will Braeden, will be on hand instead. It’s all for the best: Henri eschews the limelight to observe his daily life and its rituals—feeding, napping, using the kitty door—quietly, cynically, alone. “While I’m sure the thieving filmmaker will spread his usual lies about me,” Henri says, “I do support any event where people gather to worship cat videos.” Braeden, creator of the Henri YouTube series and a bestselling book, Henri, le Chat Noir: Musings of an Angst-Filled Cat, personally curated the reel—from the main festival at Minneapolis’ Walker Arts Center—and will again host this year’s event. Admission includes a light snack and access to KAC’s ongoing group show, Imaginature. Kirkland Arts Center, 620 Market St., 425-822-7161, kirkland artscenter.org. $25. 7 p.m. (plus 3 p.m. Sat., 7 p.m. Sun.) GWENDOLYN ELLIOTT

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A tribute to the music of the Eagles

1/27/15 1:34 PM

Scott Freiman

The Beatles are dropping like flies. While John and George are gone, Paul and Ringo are profitably filling stadiums and will likely continue touring until they drop. (Their work ethic was established early in the pubs and bars of Liverpool and Hamburg.) After they’re gone, however, the number of recordings and scholarly studies is only likely to increase; like Shakespeare, the Beatles’ compact body of work will keep academics publishing for years to come. One such

SCRIBNER

working the suicideprevention hotline.

Directed by Mat Kirkby and James Lucas, the 21-minute The Telephone Call is one of those very old-fashioned but effective “Keep talking!” kind of dramas, as poor Heather begs, beseeches, and cajoles her caller— who’s overdosed on pills—to see the few redeeming bits of happiness left in life (and, by extension, in hers as well). Who voices the unseen caller? It took me 10 minutes to guess the 2001 Oscar winner. You may have to wait for the end credits.

(Through Thurs.) Seven Gables, 911 N.E. 50th

Oswalt knows all about movies.

scholar is Freiman, most recently the editor of All the Songs: The Story Behind Every Beatles Release. Yet he’s no musty campus intellectual, since his preferred lecture hall is the cinema.

His touring program Deconstructing the Beatles has a popular following among fans of the group—which is to say almost every living American, from boomer to millennial. During this year’s visit, he’ll expound upon the Beatles’ early recordings (at 5 p.m.) and Revolver (at 8:30 p.m.), with the White Album and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band also on the schedule. Additionally, SIFF will screen a digitally restored edition of A Hard Day’s Night (Sat.–Sun.), released in 1964 to help launch the eponymous album. Not only does the film include signature hits (“Can’t Buy Me Love,” “She Loves You,” etc.), but it’s a tremendously enjoyable romp—directed by Richard Lester, written by Alun Owen, indebted to both the English music hall and French New Wave—that established each moptop’s persona in the public imagination. And now, Freiman will argue, they can never be forgotten. (Through Sun.) SIFF

Cinema Uptown, 511 Queen Anne Ave. N., 3249996, siff.net. $10–$15. 5 & 8:30 p.m. T. BOND SATURDAY, JAN. 31

Patton Oswalt

Anyone lucky enough to have seen this comic perform will know that—besides sometimes starring in movies like Big Fan and Ratatouille—Oswalt is a serious student of movies.

He jokes about them with an insider’s knowledge, he reels off Hollywood trivia with more authority than IMDb, and now he’s finally written a book on the subject: Silver Screen Fiend: Learning About Life From an Addiction to Film (Scribner, $25). As a young comic in the ’90s, new in L.A., Oswalt began a selftaught total-immersion program in film—his DVD player never empty, spending evenings at the New Beverly Cinema, that West Hollywood shrine of repertory and arthouse movies.

During that period, besides nurturing a love for Billy Wilder pictures, Oswalt was finding his feet as a comic: first writing for MADtv (anyone remember that show?), then discovering his confidence onstage. (And from there, eventually, to the soundstage.) Tonight he’ll be joined in a discussion about movies, showbiz, and life in L.A. by expat comedy writer George Meyer, now a Seattle resident, who made his bones on The Simpsons, another rich trove of movie gags and genre parodies. Town Hall, 1119 Eighth Ave., 621-2230, lectures.org. $35 (includes book). 7:30 p.m. BRIAN MILLER E

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arts&culture» Stage

MICHAEL BRUNK

From left, Standley, Corzatte, LaMorticella, and Porkalob in 4,000 Miles.

Opening Nights P4,000 Miles

SEATTLE WEEKLY • JAN UARY 28 — FEBRUARY 3, 2015

ARTSWEST, 4711 CALIFORNIA AVE. S.W., 938-0339, ARTSWEST.ORG. $15–$46.50.

7:30 P.M. WED.–SAT., 3 P.M. SUN. ENDS FEB. 15.

24

At first, the biggest thing 20-something Leo (Adam Standley under a hipster mop) and his acerbic widowed grandmother Vera (Susan Corzatte) seem to have in common is confusion.

His stems from the plethora of choices ahead of him, hers from incipient Alzheimer’s. When he, slow-witted and smelly from his cross-country bike ride from Seattle, walks into Vera’s New York apartment (a spacious, book-filled urbane safari as conceived by Burton K. Yuen), Vera’s dismay is palpable—as though she’s watching the downward mobility of her family become a mudslide. Safely ensconced in the comedy-of-manners genre, we spend a fun 100 minutes (with no intermission) watching these lovable Odd Couple roomies offend, oblige, and predictably re-offend each other with relatively little at stake. All four performances are delicious, including those of Adria LaMorticella (as Leo’s enigmatic girlfriend, Becca) and the typhoon-like Sara Porkalob (as his new love prospect, Amanda).

Enjoyable as 4,000 Miles may be, this is not an ambitious play like Amy Herzog’s pioneer effort, After the Revolution, in which a young woman’s family legacy falls apart when she learns her supposedly revolutionary grandfather betrayed his comrades; nor even like Belleville, in which meaner main characters claw their way self-hatingly through life. (Both await Seattle stagings.)

Rather, this 2012 comedy is a mostly sweet stroll on the High Line, warm as a July breeze, studded with harmlessly withering one-liners and darkened only by the shadows of Leo’s best friend’s death on the bike trip and Vera’s fading memory.

Herzog’s signature interest in the intersection of personal issues and political movements comes to the fore when Leo brings Chinese-American Amanda home, and they face off over how communism “made” both their families. Leo’s grandparents were proud (and well-off) Marxists, while Amanda’s escaped China after the Cultural Revolution to get rich founding a dim sum empire. That communism could have such different valences for different people is the first cleft in Leo’s ego armor, the first crack in the doofus eggshell from which

he’ll hatch. Growing into mensch-itude forms the only dramatic arc here. Though it may seem trivial, big-heartedness goes a long way in a theatrical (and political) era that all too often mistakes meanness for wit and perfidy for plot. In terms of heartspace, director Mathew Wright’s 4,000 Miles covers a lot of ground. MARGARET FRIEDMAN

PThe Piano Lesson SEATTLE REPERTORY THEATRE, 155 MERCER ST. (SEATTLE CENTER), 443-2222, SEATTLEREP.ORG. $17– $102. 7:30 WED.–SUN. PLUS MATINEES. ENDS FEB. 8.

The age-old dilemma of whether to preserve sad history or plow right over it undergirds many of August Wilson’s plays, including this, the fourth of 10 in his touchstone “Pittsburgh Cycle.” The dilemma tugs like an undertow beneath the lore-rich three-hour saga precisely because both options are valid, commendable, imperative, and mutually exclusive. At the center of what escalates into a property war sits a blood- and tear-burnished family piano representing both the tortured past and the potentially promising future of an African-American clan in 1936. If you can’t simultaneously afford both future and past, which do you choose?

Berniece Charles (Erika LaVonn) wants to keep the past—including the piano—close.

For her, the magnificent instrument—carved to depict her ancestors during slavery—is like a revered elder for whom multiple lives were sacrificed. For her brother Boy Willie (Stephen Tyrone Williams), eager to invest in land their family used to work as slaves and then sharecroppers, the piano represents a ticket to economic independence. On William Bloodgood’s drably respectable living-room set, the exquisitely rendered instrument shimmers with otherworldly power.

Berniece’s home churns like a busy tidepool.

Uncles Doaker (Derrick Lee Weeden) and Wining Boy (G. Valmont Thomas) impeccably tell labyrinthine stories yet exemplify the career limitations for black men of the era. Willie’s friend Lymon (Yaegel T. Welch) pines and prostrates himself for women; preacher Avery (Ken Robinson) courts a stony Berniece; and good-time gal Grace (a very wiggly Allison Strickland) calls on Willie. Director Timothy Bond—formerly local, now with Syracuse Stage—orchestrates breezy informality, and some of the richest chords involve bursts of harmonized blues and pot-banging percussion by composer Michael G. Keck.

Still, as in real life, there are laggy times. Perhaps too heavily, Wilson’s 1990 Pulitzer winner

ACADEMY AWARD NOMINEE BEST ACTRESS - MARION COTILLARD ®

relies on supernatural elements to shake things up and resolve the plot. There are ominous noises and electrical blackouts, plus offstage manifestations of a ghost—the white landowner, recently drowned in the well—at the top of the stairs.

These occult tendencies can feel like a bit of a deus ex machina cop-out, given our emotional investment in Berniece and Willie, whose unresolved sibling conflict concludes with a didactic lesson from beyond. But it doesn’t ruin the pleasures of uniformly fine acting, a changed historical context since the last local staging in ’93, and the sense of enduring kinship. Audience and performers still steep in the glow of that tempestuous heirloom. MARGARET FRIEDMAN

PThe Three Sisters ACT THEATRE, 700 UNION ST., 292-7676, ACTTHEATRE.ORG. $15–$25. 7:30 P.M. THURS.–SAT. PLUS 2 P.M. SUN. ENDS FEB. 8.

stage@seattleweekly.com

AS FINE A PIECE OF SCREEN ACTING AS YOU WILL EVER SEE.’’

OPENINGS & EVENTS

Some shows may not offer performances on Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 1; double-check websites for exact schedules.

CIRQUE DU SOLEIL “KURIOS—Cabinet of Curiosities” asks “What if by engaging our imagination and opening our minds we could unlock the door to a world of wonders?” Marymoor Park, 6046 W. Lake Sammamish Pkwy.

N.E., Redmond, 800-450-1480, cirquedusoleil.com/kurios. $35–$156. Opens Jan. 29. 8 p.m. Tues.–Sat., 4:30 p.m. Sat. (& some Fri.), 1:30 & 5 p.m. Sun. Ends March 22.

THE EXPLORERS CLUB In Nell Benjamin’s comedy, an intrepid woman shakes up Victorian society. Taproot Theatre, 204 N. 85th St., 781-9707, taproottheatre.org. $15–$40. Previews Jan. 28–29, opens Jan. 30. 7:30 p.m.

Wed.–Thurs., 8 p.m. Fri., 2 & 8 p.m. Sat. Ends Feb. 28.

GOD’S COUNTRY Steven Dietz explores the whitesupremacist mindset in a play that draws on actual interviews and court transcripts. ACT, 700 Union St., 292-7676, endangeredspeciesproject.org. $10–$15.

7 p.m. Mon., Feb. 2.

GRAB BAG 4: GRAB HARDER! Burlesque stars Bolt Action, Jovie Devoe, Cherry Tart, Scarlett O’Hairdye and The Shanghai Pearl promise (or threaten) to “push it to the limit!” JewelBox Theater at the Rendezvous 2322 Second Ave., 800-838-3006, scarlettohairdye.com. $15–$25.

7:30 p.m. Sat., Jan. 31.

HUMBLE BOY Charlotte Jones’ play about shakeups in the life of an English astrophysicist. Seattle Public Theater at the Bathhouse, 7312 W. Greenlake Dr. N., 524-1300, seattlepublictheater.org. $5–$32. Preview Jan. 29, opens Jan. 30. 7:30 p.m. Thurs.–Sat., 2 p.m. Sun. Ends Feb. 15.

LOCALLY GROWN This festival promises “5 weekends. 9 productions. 32 performances” of new works by K. Brian Neel, José Amador, Jennifer Jasper, and others. New City Theater, 1404 18th Ave., 800-838-3006. $12–$15. Opens Jan. 30. Shows run Thurs.–Sat.; see radialtheater.org for full lineup. Ends Feb. 28.

NATURAL Marcus Gorman’s play examines shifting social relationships among six Seattleites. Annex Theatre, 1100 E. Pike St., annextheatre.org. $5–$10. Opens Feb. 3. 8 p.m.

Tues.–Wed. Ends Feb. 18.

TWELFTH NIGHT Shakespeare’s romance is reset in 1920s New Orleans. Meany Studio Theatre, UW campus, 5434880, drama.uw.edu. $10–$20. Previews Jan. 28–29, opens Jan. 30. 7:30 p.m. Wed.–Sat., 2 p.m. Sun. Ends Feb. 8.

ZAPOI! Quinn Armstrong’s imaginative fantasia on Soviet life. Annex Theatre, 1100 E. Pike St., annextheatre.org. $5–$20. Preview Jan. 29, opens Jan. 30. 8 p.m. Thurs.–Sat. plus Mon., Feb. 9. Ends Feb. 21.

CURRENT RUNS

ANNIE JR. As performed by Youth Theatre Northwest. Stroum

Jewish Community Center, 3801 E. Mercer Way, Mercer Island, 232-4145, youththeatre.org. $13–$17. 7 p.m. Fri–Sat., 2 p.m. Sat.–Sun. (N.B.: 1 p.m. Sun., Feb. 1.) Ends Feb. 8.

AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS Five actors take on a total of 39 roles in this madcap adaptation of Jules Verne’s adventure novel. Village Theatre, 303 Front St., Issaquah, 425-392-2202. $35–$67. Runs Wed.–Sun.; see village theatre.org for exact schedule. Ends March 1. (Runs at the Everett PAC March 6–29.)

THE BLACK LODGE Design your own Twin Peaks episode at this improv show. Unexpected Productions Market Theater, 1428 Post Alley, 587-2414, unexpected productions.org. $12–$15. 8:30 p.m. Fri.–Sat. Ends March 7.

A DELICATE BALANCE Albee’s drama about troubled, brittle people in close quarters. Trinity Parish Church, 609 Eighth Ave., 332-7908. Pay what you can. Runs Thurs.– Sun.; see theatre912.com for exact schedule. Ends Feb. 14.

DIRTY DANCING Nobody puts this 1987 movie classic in a corner. But they did put it onstage. The Paramount, 911 Pine St., 877-STG-4TIX. $25 and up. Runs Tues.–Sun.; see stgpresents.org for exact schedule. Ends Feb. 1.

4,000 MILES SEE REVIEW, PAGE 24.

THE LOVE LIST In Norm Foster’s comedy, two guys think they’ve cracked the secret of finding the perfect woman.

SecondStory Repertory, 16587 N.E. 74th St, Redmond, 8816777, secondstoryrep.org. $22–$27. 8 p.m. Thurs.–Sat. plus 2 p.m. Sat., Jan. 31. Ends Jan. 31.

THE LOWER DEPTHS In Theatre Machine’s revival of Maxim Gorky’s 1902 drama, we’re thrust into a poor house, run by cruel, conniving Wassalissa (the formidable Alissa Cattabriga), where residents waste away their lives drinking and bickering. There we meet a fallen baron (Phillip Keiman), a bookish prostitute (Sharon Barto), a cirrhosisstricken actor (Mark Waldstein), and the pragmatist of the group (Cole Hornaday). Then Natasha (Brittany Cox), Wassalissa’s daydreaming, wide-eyed sister, introduces the newest boarder: the firebrand Luka (Bill Badgley). His

» CONTINUED ON PAGE 26

–A.O. Scott

★★★★. “

two days, one

Marion Cotillard Fabrizio Rongione

A SOARING, HEART-RENDING HYMN.’’

–Ann Hornaday

INFUSED WITH THE SUSPENSE OF A TICKING-CLOCK THRILLER.’’

‘‘

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A BEAUTIFUL MOVIE. MARION COTILLARD’S PERFORMANCE , A BREATHTAKING TRANSFORMATION, IS

“

(DRAMA)

In 1995, a production of The Three Sisters at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre altered my entire existence and activated an adoration of all things Chekhov. Twenty years later, The Seagull Project’s current revival only increases that ardor.

The plot of this 1900 classic can be summed up as “Three sisters want to move to Moscow and never do.” They pine for, and opine about, a sophisticated life in their urbane birthplace; yet, because of bad marriages, gambling addictions, and myriad other offstage conflicts, their dream remains unfulfilled. However, Chekhov marvelously infuses his static story with melancholy wit, as Olga (Julie Briskman), Masha (Alexandra Tavares), and Irina (Sydney Andrews) lament living in a provincial town where knowing three languages is “an unnecessary encumbrance, like a sixth finger.”

Chekhov resides somewhere between naturalism and a heightened, almost enchanted realm.

Directed by John Langs, this production expertly achieves both effects, allowing our imaginations to roam between them. Jennifer Zeyl’s simple, stark white set transports us to dull, wintery Russian hinterlands while providing an impeccable canvas for Robert J. Aguilar’s evocative lighting. Doris Black’s anachronistic costumes mix styles and periods; each sister is dressed differently to indicate her distinct personality and internal state. Black even boldly outfits Natasha (brother Andrey’s low-class wife, played by Hannah Victoria Franklin) in modernday lingerie, which no respectable woman in imperial Russia would wear to greet her guests.

True to the Stanislavsky tradition, this is a well-rehearsed ensemble. Briskman, Tavares, and Andrews adroitly ensnare you in their characters’ anticipations and agonies. It’s impossible not to feel empathy. When Olga exclaims her exhaustion, you feel fatigued. When Masha bemoans her boredom, you experience ennui. When Irina specifies the satisfaction of work (a novelty for women in preSoviet times), you desire to don a blue collar. These splendid performances live up to the stellar script.

Why, 100 years after the revolution put an end to Chekhov’s Russia, does this masterpiece still hold up? Hope and despair are timeless.

Most of us “know,” like the Prozorov daughters, that we’ll be happier when we lose weight, get that job, or meet that special someone. And the lack of a deus ex machina ending—or any clear resolution—in Chekhovian drama leaves us haunted and forever suspended. Each of us has our own unsatisfied objective. Our own Moscow.

Stage

25

arts&culture» Stage

FROM THE DIRECTOR OF POLICE, ADJECTIVE

When Evening Falls On Bucharest or Metabolism

» FROM PAGE 25

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rhetoric is incendiary, giving these derelicts hope. At a time when Oxfam is predicting that one percent of Earth’s population will soon control 50 percent of global wealth, director Melissa Fenwick’s adaptation is surely topical, but with a twist: This show is a musical. Ryan Ricks and a band provide live melodic/melodramatic accompaniment: tunes by Tom Waits, Neil Young, etc. Call it a gimmick, but the soundtrack at least partially offsets our frustration with typical characters who never pull themselves up by their bootstraps and get out of their rut. The new songs lend romance, though they fail to update this prerevolutionary stage relic to the age of Thomas Piketty.

IRFAN SHARIFF theLAB@INScape, 815 Seattle Blvd. S., 800-838-3006, brownpapertickets.com. $12–$18. 8 p.m.

Thurs.–Sat. Ends Jan. 31.

MEASURE FOR MEASURE In this legalistic dystopia, directed by Desdemona Chiang, marriage costs money; and by fornicating outside of marriage, you can lose your head—literally. While the legitimate Duke of Vienna (David Anthony Lewis) pretends to be out of town, petittyrant Angelo (a subdued Bradford Farwell) sentences Claudio (Moses Yim) to death for fornicating with his girlfriend without the proper license (marriage). Claudio’s novitiate sister Isabella (Cindy Im) intercedes on Claudio’s behalf, but refuses Angelo’s quid pro quo demand of her chastity. In fact, his attempted rape of Isabella is played almost for slapstick. Fonts of more conventional humor include lowlifes Lucio (Tim Gouran), concave and jangling with the DTs, who heckles from the audience; natty pimp Pompey (Scott Ward Abernethy), who moonlights as executioner; and pillow-bellied constable Elbow (Harry Todd Jamieson) with his whoopee megaphone. In general, Chiang and company get the balance right to this problematic “unfestive comedy,” which proves again how lust and justice are perilous companions. Just ask Eliot Spitzer. MARGARET FRIEDMAN Center Theatre at Seattle Center, 733-8222. $29–$43. Runs Wed.–Sun.; see seattle shakespeare.org for exact schedule. Ends Feb. 1.

THE MODERN ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES The audience takes the place of Sir Arthur

Conan Doyle in this improv mystery. Jet City Improv, 5510 University Way N.E., 352-8291, jetcityimprov.org. $12–$15.

8 p.m. Thurs.–Fri. Ends Feb. 13.

MWINDO Cheryl L. West’s new play, based on a Central African tale, sounds roughly Lion King-y: the exiled son of a chief goes on a coming-of-age quest. Seattle Children’s Theatre, Seattle Center, 441-3322. $20–$36.

Runs Fri.–Sun. plus some Thurs.; see sct.org for exact schedule. Ends Feb. 15.

OUR TOWN Thornton Wilder’s iconic drama is opening one of the theaters at 12th Ave Arts. 1620 12th Ave., 800-8383006, strawshop.org. $18–$36. 7:30 p.m. Thurs.–Sat., 2 p.m.

Sun. Ends Feb. 21.

THE PIANO LESSON SEE REVIEW, PAGE 24.

PIGGYBACK Improv inspired by a preceding stand-up routine. Unexpected Productions’ Market Theater, 1428 Post Alley, 587-2414, unexpectedproductions.org. $10. 8:30 p.m.

Sun. Ends Feb. 8.

THE SECRETARIES A black-comic satire of gender stereotypes set in an Oregon lumber mill. Theater Schmeater, 2125 Third Ave., 324-5801, schmeater.org. $22–$29. 8 p.m.

Thurs.–Sat. Ends Feb. 14.

SPRAWL Pregnant Shawna (Samie Spring Detzer) and misanthropic Monique (Laura Hanson) are a pair of realtors who’ve organized a book-club meeting at one of their listings: a crappy new spec home in a middle-of-nowhere development. Guests converge in amusing vignettes: Elaine (Marc Kenison, aka “boy-lesque” dancer Waxie Moon), the mayor’s condescending wife, prone to preening her hair into a planetary nimbus; a gay couple, both halves of whom are named William (Justin Huertas and Ben McFadden); and friends Heather (Jessie Underhill) and Bibi (Leah Salcido Pfenning). Then the book-club members are stung by soul-infiltrating insectoids, then gradually become insectoids themselves—who are far less interesting than the people they started out as. Strobe lights, swampy gases, vomiting, alien voices, seizures . . . pretty much the full warehouse of horror-genre misfortunes gets trundled out. This 90-minute one-act apocalypse comedy by Joshua Conkel—whose Milk Milk Lemonade Washington Ensemble Theatre produced in 2011—draws more laughs skewering the burbs than churning dust storms of sci-fi camp. The WET peformers, and Ali el-Gasseir’s direction, are better than the script. MARGARET FRIEDMAN 12th Avenue Arts, 1620 12th Ave., washingtonensemble.org. $15–$25. 7:30 p.m. Thurs.–Mon. Ends Feb. 2.

TEATRO ZINZANNI: HACIENDA HOLIDAY It’s your last weekend to catch TZZ’s tale of showbiz couple Vivian Beaumount and Clifton Caswell (Christine Deaver and Kevin Kent), returning to a swanky hotel to renew their vows. By the end, the gender-melding is complete— Beaumount and Caswell reconcile, each adopting at least two sexes, maybe more. It’s a romantic finale as spicy as

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the Southwest-inspired menu. GAVIN BORCHERT Teatro ZinZanni, 222 Mercer St., 802-0015. $99 and up. Runs Thurs.–Sun. plus some Wed.; see zinzanni.com/seattle for exact schedule. Ends Jan. 31.

THE THREE SISTERS SEE REVIEW, PAGE 24.

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Dance

THE BRIDGE PROJECT Four new works (by Adriana

Hernandez, Coleman Pester, Hannah Simmons, and Dylan Ward) created in four weeks and premiered here. Velocity Founders Theater, 1621 12th Ave., 325-8773, velocity dancecenter.org. $12–$20. 8 p.m. Fri., Jan. 30–Sun., Feb. 1.

ACIFIC NORTHWEST BALLET: DON QUIXOTE • PAlexei Ratmansky’s lavish and acclaimed production

premiered here in 2012. McCaw Hall, Seattle Center, 4412424. $30–$184. Opens Jan. 30. Runs Thurs.–Sun; see pnb. org for exact schedule. Ends Feb. 8.

MASQUERADE WALTZ Social dancing to the Valse Café Orchestra. No mask, no entry. Century Ballroom, 915 E. Pine St., centuryballroom.com. $50–$60. Doors 8:30 p.m.

Fri., Jan. 30.

DANCE DAY Sample lessons in nine different styles—from kizomba to Lindy hop—and if you’re hooked, sign up for a full February class. Century Ballroom, 915 E. Pine St., centuryballroom.com. $10. 11:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m. Sat., Jan. 31.

Classical, Etc.

SYMPHONY SEE PREVIEW, PAGE 21.

• SSEATTLE • EATTLE CHAMBER MUSIC SOCIETY Benaroya

Recital Hall, Third Ave. & Union St., seattlechamber music.org. $16–$48. Recitals at 6:30 p.m., concerts at 7:30.

• Jan. 29 Recital: Pianist Anton Nel plays Mozart’s Fantasia and Sonata in C minor. Concert: Brahms, Schubert, and Franck.

• Jan. 30 Recital: Schubert’s Fantasia in C for violin and piano. Concert: Turina, Beethoven, Mendelssohn.

• Jan. 31 Recital: William Wolfram plays Liszt’s Après une lecture de Dante. Concert: Mozart, Debussy and a Brahms sextet to close the festival.

SEATTLE SYMPHONY: SONIC EVOLUTION SEE THE WEEK AHEAD, PAGE 33.

THE NILE PROJECT Music from East Africa. Meany Hall, UW campus, 543-4880, uwworldseries.org. $35– $40. 8 p.m. Fri., Jan. 30.

THE MET: LIVE IN HD Opera from NYC at a moviehouse near you. This week, there are Seattle connections in Offenbach’s Tales of Hoffmann: It’s directed by Bartlett Sher and, as Nicklausse, stars frequent Seattle Opera soprano Kate Lindsey. See fathomevents.com for participating theaters. 10 a.m. Sat., Jan. 31, encored 6:30 p.m.

Wed., Feb. 4.

BYRD ENSEMBLE Choral music by Peter Hallock, longtime director of St. Mark’s Compline Choir. St. Mark’s Cathedral, 1245 10th Ave. E., 397-3627, byrd ensemble.com. $10–$20. 7:30 p.m. Sat., Jan. 31.

METALES M5 Classics and pops from this brass quintet.

Northshore Performing Arts Center, 18125 92nd Ave. N.E., Bothell, 425-984-2471, npacf.org. $10–$25. 7:30 p.m. Sat., Jan. 31.

OCTAVA CHAMBER ORCHESTRA Mozart, Tchaikovsky, and a new work by Harold Owen. Maple Park Church, 17620 60th Ave. W., Lynnwood, octavachamber orchestra.com. $15–$20. 7:30 p.m. Sat., Jan. 31.

MUSIC NORTHWEST Chamber music spotlighting the cello, including Villa-Lobos’ juicy Bachianas Brasileiras no. 5. First Lutheran Church of West Seattle, 4105 California Ave. S.W., 937-2899, musicnorthwest.org. $16–$18. 2 p.m. Sun., Feb. 1.

JOSEPH ADAM Music of Hakim, Guilmant, and Messiaen on the Watjen Concert Organ. Benaroya Hall, Third Ave. & Union St., 215-4747, seattlesymphony.org. $20–$31. 7:30 p.m. Mon., Feb. 2.

MATT HAIMOVITZ Known for his urgent advocacy for contemporary music and his pioneering exploration of non-traditional venues (he prefers playing in bars and clubs to churches), this cellist now makes another surprising turn: Beethoven on period instruments.

Christopher Riley joins him on fortepiano for a selection (from their sizzling new CD) of Ludwig’s sonatas and variation sets. Tractor Tavern, 5213 Ballard Ave. N.W., 789-3599, tractortavern.com. $20. 8 p.m. Mon., Feb. 2.

VADYM KHOLODENKO From this pianist, an ambitious program: Beethoven’s “Diabelli” Variations and two Scriabin sonatas. Meany Hall, UW campus, 543-4880, uwworldseries.org. $36–$41. 7:30 p.m. Tues., Feb. 3.

SAM BOSHNACK QUINTET Originals from this exploring trumpeter and four colleagues. Royal Room, 5000 Rainier Ave. S. Donation. 8:30 p.m. Tues., Feb. 3.

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

Send events to stage@seattleweekly.com, dance@seattleweekly.com, or classical@seattleweekly.com

» Film

Opening ThisWeek Black Sea OPENS FRI., JAN. 30 AT SUNDANCE AND OTHER THEATERS. RATED R. 114 MINUTES.

OPENS FRI., JAN. 30 AT SUNDANCE CINEMAS. NOT RATED. 90 MINUTES.

Patrick Stewart is always fun to watch, in any kind of movie or TV show, though I’d rather have seen him onstage in the role of Tobi, a solitary gay 70-something ballet teacher suddenly confronted with a paternity crisis. Directing this suitably mediocre adaptation of his 2004 drama (in which Frank Langella starred, not Stewart), Stephen Belber gives his leading man the most leash in the Juilliard rehearsal studio and out on the street. The first few scenes do breathe a bit, as Tobi lovingly hectors his students. (“No dogs at the hydrant!” he commands, regarding an inelegant leg lift.) Then the prim old choreographer retires to his apartment to knit, smoke a bit of pot, and tend his plants. He’s a hermit, directing all his energy within, and Match struggles to escape Tobi’s fuddy-duddy vortex. (He collects his fingernail clippings because, you know, he’s eccentric or something! Aren’t all artists like that?)

Into this cloistered life comes married Seattle couple Lisa (Carla Gugino) and Mike (Matthew Lillard), the latter a resentful lunk whose anger is soon explained by the most obvious of plot twists. (One of the movie’s few laughs comes with the revelation that he, an SPD cop, has been suspended for excessive use of force. Belber couldn’t have known.)

From there, Match swiftly dwindles into the most middlebrow kind of theater. Accusations are hurled, apologies are tendered, grudges are nursed and dismissed, and everyone learns valuable lessons. Among the latter, a missed opportunity, Tobi tries to teach Lisa to dance—because naturally, a woman in her 40s, she doesn’t know how—on the rooftop of his Inwood apartment. Behind them, its lights twinkling in the night, the George Washington Bridge is given a rare star turn. The mood is set, grumpy Mike is off doing whatever needs doing, and Match offers us the welcome chance to watch attractive performers dancing. But no. Lisa’s too shy or repressed, and the moment passes . . . until later when we get back inside the apartment! Here is a valuable if unintended lesson in how not to adapt a play.

(Belber’s hotel-room drama Tape, adapted back in 2001 by Richard Linklater, depended on such confinement; this play does not.)

Does Stewart ham it up? Of course he does.

This isn’t Beckett, so there’s no point to actorly restraint. Gugino is warm as ever; and Lillard, with his mustache and now-doughy features, has aged into the sort of studio utility player who thrived at Warner Brothers during the ’40s. (He’s the kind of mug you could imagine Dan Duryea mocking, or killing, in some old gangster melodrama.) Otherwise, Match is most notable for introducing a new corollary to Chekhov’s famous stage maxim: If a jar of fingernail clippings is seen, it must be smashed later in the play. BRIAN MILLER

Still Alice OPENS FRI., JAN. 30 AT SUNDANCE, LINCOLN SQUARE, MERIDIAN, AND GUILD 45TH. RATED PG-13. 99 MINUTES.

If the Oscars this year go to Eddie Redmayne for ALS (in The Theory of Everything) and Julianne Moore for Alzheimer’s here, I hate to think what the next few seasons may bring at the movies.

James Franco with bovine spongiform encephalopathy? Robert Downey Jr. with ebola? Reese Witherspoon with CP? I don’t want to say that

the impairments of My Left Foot, Iris, and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly are diminishing the choices for awards-hungry film stars and enthusiasm among their fans, but medical case studies do not good movies make.

Still Alice is adapted from the 2007 bestseller by Lisa Genova, a neuroscientist turned novelist, who depicted Alzheimer’s mostly from her heroine’s perspective. For the reader, and now moviegoer, this is like experiencing only the second half of Flowers for Algernon: high-functioning start as Columbia professor, wife, and mother of three grown children; then after diagnosis at age 50, the brutal, inexorable mental degradation and loss of self. Here, thankfully, Alice isn’t our narrator, so we’re spared the spectacle of Moore—overdue for an Oscar in one movie or the next—beseeching us directly for hope where there is none.

An academic, Alice tries to prepare clinically for her deterioration. (This comes 30 minutes in, after diagnosis and the movie’s only big weepy explosion—the scene they’ll undoubtedly excerpt at the Oscars.) Alice plays word games and self-tests her memory. She types constant reminders into her iPhone, which soon becomes her adjunct memory and, eventually, her intellectual superior—even the autocorrect feature seems poignant. And finally she records a video on her laptop addressed to her future self, conveying detailed instructions, that will later allow Moore to play both sides of a scene with herself: crisp professionalism versus foggy incomprehension.

Directors Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland (Quinceañera) mostly avoid the sap, despite the score’s twinkly piano pathos. The movie skips forward by months, so each new cognitive loss comes as a surprise—both for us and Alice, so long as she’s able to perceive them.

The filmmakers do add gauzy, sunny beach flashbacks to soften the sting, but mainly we’re left with the relentlessly linear narrative of decline, which isn’t very interesting to watch. (In Hollywood, Alzheimer’s isn’t so fruitful a disease as, say, bipolarity or alcoholism.) There’s a bit of tension as her family—led by husband Alec Baldwin, playing a fellow Ph.D.—tries to cope with Alice’s predicament, yet the Howlands’ rifts aren’t terribly dramatic either. Moore is more compelling early, when Alice can articulate her plight (“I wish I had cancer. I wouldn’t feel so ashamed”).

Then the actress gradually sheds her high craft and intelligence, becoming a lump. More sincere

PTwo Days, One Night OPENS FRI., JAN. 30 AT SIFF CINEMA UPTOWN. NOT RATED. 95 MINUTES. CHRISTINE PLENUS/SUNDANCE SELECTS

Law and the loot in Black Sea.

Cotillard as desperate factory worker.

There is only one situation in Two Days, One Night—no subplots, no vast canvas. But filmmaking brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne (The Kid With the Bike) need only this one situation to somehow speak of the entire world and what it means to be human in the early 21st century. The situation is this: Sandra (Marion Cotillard) has been on medical leave from her workplace, owing to depression. She has a low-level job in a manufacturing plant in Belgium. She’s ready to go back to work, but management has decided to cut her position. According to labor laws, her 16 fellow employees can vote to keep her on the job—but the boss has offered them each a 1,000euro bonus if they agree to lay off Sandra. She has a weekend to plead her case to each co-worker.

We follow her for 48 hours, as Sandra makes her individual entreaties. Every few minutes we are reminded of the cruelty of being put in this position, and the humiliation of having to repeat her argument. Because depression is tugging at her heels, the process is even harder—Cotillard’s performance makes you see Sandra’s illness dragging against her body. Her husband Manu (Fabrizio Rongione) cajoles her into keeping her rounds; he understands his wife, unflaggingly loves her, and embodies a quiet determination in his own right. The matter-of-fact method of the Dardennes, who practice a kind of artful realism, makes these efforts seem all the more heroic.

The one exception to their plain method is that they’ve employed a bona fide, Oscar-winning movie star in the central role, but the deglammed Cotillard is more than up to the task of convincing us of Sandra’s modest place in the world.

The Dardennes’ human stories have always had a political purpose, and this film’s portrait of the power of manipulation and greed is one of their clearest. But it all comes down to people,

SEATTLE WE EKLY • JANUARY 28 — FEBRUARY 3, 2015

Match

ALEX BAILEY/FOCUS FEATURES

This is the kind of satisfyingly well-executed little B-movie that never pretends to be original, precisely because it doesn’t need to be. Only one star is required, Jude Law, and the rest of the Russian-British cast comprises a bunch of interesting/familiar faces whom we know will perish one by one, this being a submarine movie. And not only is it a submarine movie, one of my favorite genres, it’s a guys-on-a-mission movie salted with Nazi intrigue. Basically, Law and his motley proletariat crew are hired by some smooth magnate to boost the bullion from a sunken World War II U-boat, while the modern Russian Navy cruises overhead (unseen in this frugal production). In a rusty old surplus submarine, his 12-man crew predictably divided along national lines, Law—playing a taciturn Scotsman, no less—tries to keep a lid on the tensions and possible mutineers. And again, we know he will fail.

Director Kevin Macdonald (One Day in September, The Last King of Scotland) keeps the focus on process and story, with a minimum of fuss. As Law’s sub locates the loot, Black Sea proceeds like a series of grisly, body-mangling industrial accidents: engines break, fires start, valves fail, bolts pop, and—God how I love this cliché—the glass face of the depth gauge inevitably shatters, needle in the red, when the disabled sub careens to the sea floor. Oh, and a couple guys get variously stabbed or bludgeoned to death with wrenches, because that’s what knives and hand tools are for. (One less crewman equals a larger share of the treasure.)

Though the gold and the Nazi skeletons and the constant betrayals are treated quite seriously, as they should be, Captain Law’s anti-corporate rhetoric and solidarity speeches feel stale (Occupy Sunken Nazi Sub?); they’re just not needed. This is essentially The Treasure of the Sierra Madre underwater, with a softer ending and worse music. “We live together or die together,” says Law. True, but some men will die better than others, and that’s all that matters here. BRIAN MILLER

than convincing, Still Alice is the rare picture that earns plaudits for its star dimming, not glowing.

In a real sense, Moore gradually disappears from her own movie.

What sticks with you most here are the sad practical details—there aren’t enough—of Alice and family navigating their way into darkness: the precious iPhone misplaced in the freezer; a nursing-home guide assuming that Alice is shopping for a bed for her parent, not herself; and a dropped sheaf of lecture notes when Alice addresses an Alzheimer’s support group. Not only does her screen audience gasp, but we do, too, as the papers flutter to the floor with the impact of a collapsed building. Moore has been in better malady movies (specifically Safe), but her recessive performance gains weight—as does the film—owing to the baby-boomer dread of aging and Alzheimer’s. Besides the disease, there’s the fear of becoming one’s parent. BRIAN MILLER

» CONTINUED ON PAGE 28 27

arts&culture» Film

A CRACKING ADVENTURE WITH GUTKNOTTING SUSPENSE.”

“

KYLE SMITH / NEW YORK POST

» FROM PAGE 27 and on that score the brothers refuse to simplify. Some of the people in Two Days, One Night are kind, some are ashamed, some are jerks. Many of the employees casting votes could really use 1,000 euros. They’ve got problems of their own. That’s what is so devastating about this superb film: We might have Sandra’s dilemma as the focus of our attention, but every one of these people has a comparable story. In these circumstances, that realization is heartbreaking. ROBERT HORTON

PWhen Evening Falls on Bucharest, or Metabolism RUNS FRI., JAN. 30–THURS., FEB. 5 AT GRAND ILLUSION. NOT RATED. 89 MINUTES.

Movies about moviemaking don’t come much drier than this new one from Romania. It has the usual elements of backstage stories—the director is sleeping with a cast member, professional rivalry rears its head, the movie’s gone over budget—but When Evening Falls approaches these things in an extremely off-center way. We AND PRESENT A PRODUCTION A FILM PRESENT A C never do the closing AND PRODUCTI O N A FILMsee the film set (although C CO- COCOSTUME MUSIC MUSIC CASTINGCASTING COSTUME MUSIC inside a makeup CASTING COSTUME trailer that sequence takes place PRODUCERS DESIGNER

BY CO- BY PRODUCERS DIRECTORDIRECTOR DESIGNER PRODUCERS isDIRECTOR presumably nearBYthe shooting),DESIGNER and the only PRODUCTION DIRECTOROFOF EXECUTIVE PRODUCTION DIRECTOR EXECUTIVE PRODUCTION DIRECTOR OF EXECUTIVE EDITED B. S .

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DESIGNER PHOTOGRAPHY PRODUCERS DESIGNER PHOTOGRAPHY PRODUCERS DESIGNER actual footage we glimpse is from the director’s B. S .

C .

PHOTOGRAPHY PRODUCERS BY SCREENPLAY DIRECTED PRODUCED endoscopy.

He’s been suffering from gastritis SCREENPLAY PRODUCED SCREENPLAY DIRECTED PRODUCED BY

BY DIRECTED BY BY BY BY BY and . . . oh,BYit’s hard to explain. BY BLACKSEAFILM.COM BLACKSEAFILM.COM Like Birdman, that recent gem of behindBLACKSEAFILM.COM the-scenes intrigue, this movie has a curious subtitle. “Metabolism” could refer to the acid CHECK LOCAL LISTINGS FOR THEATER LOCATIONS AND SHOWTIMES reflex of the self-absorbed director Paul (Bogdan

ATURESFEATURES AND FILM4FILPRESENT A KEVI NFEATURES MACDONALDFILJUDE JUDESCOOT LAW MCNAIMENDELSOHN RY BEN FOCUS M4 A COWBOY COWBOYFIFILLMSMS PRODUCTION KEVI N MACDONALD MSCOOT NAIFILRMSY BEN FOCUS M4FILMLAW COWBOY KEVINMENDELSOHN MACDONALD JUDE LAW SCOOT M NAIRY BEN MENDELSOHN NINA GOLD ILAN ESHKERI NATALIE RELFALL “BLACK SEA” JANE ROBERTSON ALASDAIR FLIND NINA GOLD ILAN ESHKERI NATALIE WARD DAVID THRELFALL “BLACK SEA” JANE ROBERTSON ALASDAIR FLIND DAVID THRELFALL “BLACK SEA” JANE ROBERTSON ALASDAIR FLIND WARDNINA GOLD ILAN ESHKERI NATALIE WARD DITED ROSS TERESA MONEO MERVE JIHARZADI M COCHRANE JUSTIGNHTE WRIGHT NICKNIPALMER CK PALMER CHRI CHRISTOPHER ROSSNICK TERESA MONEOHARZADI MERVE INBYE WRI TOPHERROSS,ROSS,JUSTI B.S.C. NE WRITESSA TESSA ROSS TERESA MONEO MERVE HARZADIN JIM COCHRANE GHTTESSA PALMER CHRISNTOPHER ROSS,N JIM COCHRANE CHARLES STEEL KEVIN MACDONALD DENNIS KELLY KEVIN MACDONALD CHARLES STEEL KEVIN MACDONALD DENNISCHARLES KELLY STEEL KEVINKEVINMACDONALD MACDONALD DENNIS KELLY KEVIN MACDONALD ©2014 FOCUS FEATURES LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

STARTS FRIDAY, JANUARY 30 IN THEATERS EVERYWHERE

©2014 FOCUS FEATURES LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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©2014 FOCUS FEATURES LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Dumitrache), or to the peculiar biorhythms of filmmaking itself. We know early on that Paul is having an affair with up-and-coming actress Alina (Diana Avramut), whose role has been built up accordingly. He’s added a nude scene for her; and over the course of a handful of very slow scenes, they workshop this new sequence.

His ideas make him sound like a pompous blowhard who doesn’t actually know why he’s staging his movie scene this way; among other things, this is a film about the creative process getting tangled up in passive-aggressive ego.

Deliciously, Paul then experiences exactly the same kind of scene in their intimate life, and has a revelation—or just a knee-jerk reaction— that changes her role and their relationship.

Although it sneaks up on its material in a sideways fashion, this is actually quite a funny film, if you think long pauses during awkward conversation over Chinese food are funny.

Writer/director Corneliu Porumboiu (Police, Adjective) is one of the leaders of the ongoing film movement from Romania. He introduces this movie’s method in the opening sequence, as Paul pontificates about the value of long, unbroken camera takes in capturing the reality of life.

This 89-minute movie will itself consist of those long takes, which suggests that Porumboiu is poking fun at his own style (the style of so many Romanian movies, like the great The Death of Mr. Lazarescu) while also proving himself an expert at executing it. This is a small movie, but on its own terms—and with many long pauses— it’s quite amusing. ROBERT HORTON E

film@seattleweekly.com

CS

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» Music

Fifteen-Million-Dollar Baby KEXP is pulling out all the stops for its latest fundraising venture.

BY KELTON SEARS

T

Above: the projected exterior of the new KEXP campus. Below: the new studio.

from every level of regional government. Governor Jay Inslee just personally recommended that the state legislature allot $1.8 million from the Department of Commerce’s Building for the Arts program for KEXP’s campaign. On a county level, KEXP has received big boosts from 4Culture; on a city level, the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture is also happily helping foot the bill.

“Folks have really just rallied around the station and upheld it as a valuable public resource,” Mara says. “We take that commitment really seriously.”

To date, KEXP has raised a little over half of its goal, a hefty $8.1 million—which doesn’t include some of the money floating around that’s

“not yet in the can,” Mara says, like Inslee’s. But, with help from US Bank that will finance construction fees, it’s enough to front the $6 million required to start construction immediately.

That’s not to say there isn’t anxiety over achieving the $15 million goal. “We have to be out of our current home on December 31,” Mara laughs, “so that’s also certainly driving us.” E

ksears@seattleweekly.com

KEXP GROUNDBREAKING CEREMONY With Rose Windows, Bass Drum of Death.

Seattle Center Northwest Rooms, 305 Harrison St., kexp.org. Free. 10 a.m.–2 p.m. Wed., Jan. 28.

SEATTLE WE EKLY • JANUARY 28 — FEBRUARY 3, 2015

RENDERINGS BY SKB ARCHITECTS

he day this story hits stands, King County Executive Dow Constantine and Pearl Jam lead guitarist Mike McCready will figuratively stick a big ol’ shovel in the dirt, maybe cut a fancy ribbon, and proclaim the ground for KEXP’s future headquarters in Seattle Center “Officially Broken!” They’ll throw their top hats in the air and everyone will cheer as Rose Windows and Bass Drum of Death play a free show out in the courtyard alongside a bunch of food trucks.

Woo-hoo!

KEXP’s new location is certainly worth celebrating: Housed inside the soon-to-be-renovated Seattle Center’s Northwest Rooms, the public radio station will be even more public in its new space, which will feature a cafe, a record store, a communal gathering space, and a viewing area where up to 75 people can check out the station’s popular live studio sessions as they happen.

It’ll be a far cry from KEXP’s current digs: a cramped, overstuffed office on Dexter that barely accommodates the current staff. The new HQ will be more artist-friendly, too.

“We talked to a lot of artists and they told us how important having clean socks on tour is,” KEXP executive director Tom Mara says. “So we’ll have a washer and dryer for them.”

The price tag for this new venture is no small sum for a listener-supported station: a whopping $15 million. KEXP will need all the experience gathered in its 34-year fundraising history for the campaign, its biggest yet. Which raises the question: How do you go about raising that kind of capital?

Being listener-powered, KEXP is pulling double duty at the moment. “You know, it’s interesting—there’s the question of the relationship between the community support of our normal year-in, year-out operations, and then the other fundraising for construction of the new home,” Mara says. “Our teams have to strategize for that and make some assumptions.”

Since broaching the public phase of the campaign last July, some of those assumptions have been challenged. For instance, the makeup of KEXP’s individual donor base. “Your typical capital-campaign donor is older,” Mara says, “but we’ve found our donor base is trending much, much younger, [like] the 19-year-old donating $100 for the first time in their lives. We’ve had the real interesting position of watching younger folks develop their philanthropic philosophy. It’s really interesting; you get kind of humbled by it.”

KEXP held its first on-air campaign for the new headquarters a month ago and raised $670,000 in a week, exceeding its goal by $100,000. “We thought $570,000 was already ambitious,” Mara says. “We ended up exceeding our separate day-to-day operations fundraising goal, too.”

The effort is not all listener-sourced, however.

Identifying what they call “superconductors,” the station has attracted big-name local entrepreneurs, foundations, and corporations that donated $10,000 or more—like Linda Derschang, Microsoft, the Sasquatch! Music Festival, and the Chihuly family. The station has also garnered support

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QN I G H T C L U B u P c o m i n g

e v e n t s

s a t u R D a y, j a n u a R y 3 1 s t

icon

TH URSD AYS

anjunaDeeP touR golDRoom huxley mike mago jackma steR kl angk aRussell

FRID AYS

01/29/15 02/05/15 02/12/15

SEATTLE WEEKLY • JAN UARY 28 — FEBRUARY 3, 2015

02/20/15

02/26/15 03/12/15

01/31/15 02/07/15 03/07/15

W ED N ESD AYS

gRe at Dane + sevnth wonDeR bRenmaR + PRomnite salva + giRl unit swe ateR be ats + Pomo

tickets avail able at w w w.qnightclub.com 1426 broadway - seattle, wa

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01/30/15 02/06/15

02/19/15

SATURD AYS

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02/04/15 02/11/15 02/18/15 02/25/15

arts&culture» Music

Heart Beats

This week, Stasia Irons weighs in with her producer crushes and the special qualities of her favorite artists.

T

he truth is that Cat and I love music polyamorously. There are many producers that I wish would live with me in a compound where we can have endless amounts of jam sessions.

I remember my first time hearing Missy Elliott and Timbaland’s production on the Supa Dupa Fly

BY STASIA IRONS AND CATHERINE HARRIS-WHITE album. I was at my cousin’s house who lived in the Central District; she used to play all the latest cool shit. This album hit me very hard in particular, and I had no idea why back then. I would play it over and over from start to finish. I had to buy it three times because I kept getting my CD case jacked at school. Now when I listen to it, I can pick apart all the nuances that I fell in love with. Like how heavy the snare hits, the syncopated snaps, how they sample their voices, the brash horns, the extremely wet bass, and the featured artists. The triad that I had with Missy and Timb’s music was magical.

Those are my old flames, along with Q-Tip, J Dilla, 9th Wonder (who plays the Crocodile with my little sister JusMoni on Feb. 6), DJ Premier, Madlib, and MF DOOM. We have a longlasting relationship. Their music has shaped the way that I receive sounds. Their beats are poetic and colorful and unique. They all take a sample and sip it, dip it, and then flip it. They make it so that I want to research and find the original sound clip; and then I often find I prefer their sampled and looped versions to the original.

Currently my obsessions are very West Coast-based, starting right here in Washington state. A producer by the name of Khris P, from my home city of Tacoma, has captured my heart. I wigged out when I first heard the beat for the song “Gertrude,” which was featured on his band ILLFIGHTYOU’s selftitled EP. It sounded like my childhood days spent wandering around Hilltop when I was supposed to be at vacation Bible school. It sounded like real gangsterism, reminiscent of Death Row Records. His use of snare and kick is very hop and bap, which forces the head nod (the head nod is necessary, especially for the folks who can’t get jiggy).

Another West Coast beatmaker I’ve fallen for goes by the name of MNDSGN (pronounced “mind design”) and is based in Los Angeles. He’s got a futuristic, nostalgic approach. By taking the best parts of music from the past and incorporating it with new vibe-wave sounds, he creates a very fresh style. He’s especially good with the keys, and composes in a jazzy way. I watched him in a Boiler Room session, and he just looked like one of those producers comfortable jamming out for hours and hours. I’m also from that tribe. I’ve Tweeted my admiration at him a couple of times, but I’m trying not to be thirsty. I should also tread lightly because I hear that he is good friends with one of my other producer crushes, Iman Omari.

COURTESY OF IMAN OMARI

LADIESFIRST

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

Top: Iman Omari.

Below: Missy Elliott and King.

COURTESY OF ATLANTIC RECORDS

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

JAZZ ALLEY IS A SUPPER CLUB

LYNNE, CARLA, GRACE WED, JAN 28

Allstar power jazz piano, sax and vocal trio.

THE RIPPINGTONS FEATURING RUSS FREEMAN THUR, JAN 29 - SUN, FEB 1

Grammy-nominated American contemporary jazz band celebrating their 25th anniversary and new release Fountain of Youth

MELISSA ALDANA & CRASH TRIO MON, FEB 2 Chilean saxophonist/composer and 2013 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition winner

MARCIA BALL TUES, FEB 3 - WED, FEB 4

Blues pianist/vocalist and her band touring in support of The Tattooed Lady and the Alligator Man! AN INTIMATE EVENING WITH

JEFFREY OSBORNE THURS, FEB 5 - SUN, FEB 8

Classic R&B Musician touring in support of his latest jazz release A Time For Love

all ages | free parking | full schedule at jazzalley.com

SEATTLE WE EKLY • JANUARY 28 — FEBRUARY 3, 2015

COURTESY OF KING

Omari’s music is sex. By that I don’t mean the the best musicians on the planet. Cat and I binged actual act, but the feelings and the process of it. The on the Minneapolis sound when we were in the rollercoaster of rhythms and the waviness of his synth process of making our first album, and Paris carsounds emulate harmonious copulation. I love his ries on this great legacy and adds her own sway. use of layering, like pillows piled softly over each Her live setup reminds me of watching clips of other, and his use of air. I’ve never felt this way Herbie Hancock in the ’80s. She is completely about anyone’s production. He’s definitely carving a surrounded by synthesizers and keyboards, the same way the characpathway for music that Now I can pick apart all the ter Uhura looked at is typically labeled and the control board on pigeonholed. I can’t nuances I fell in love with: Star Trek. She takes call his music R&B or hip-hop or soul, the snare hits, the syncopated me to other planets with her chord prothough it obviously snaps, the brash horns, gressions and floaty is sourced from those space bass. They have elements. I’m OK with the extremely wet bass, a song called “In simply listening to and the Meantime” that feeling it rather than and the featured artists. has this powerful calling it something. build-up moment that feels like actual fireworks I got a chance to meet Iman at the Soul of exploding. This is something similar to a first kiss, Brooklyn Festival last summer, where I also so Paris’ beats and I have a true love affair. I live for met my current female producer crush Paris romance, and I’m so thankful that music like this [Strother], from the trio King. Paris is from exists to enhance those moments. E Minneapolis, a place that I feel infuses something into its water because it breeds some of music@seattleweekly.com

31

arts&culture» Music

ANDY GRAMMER ALEX & SIERRA 2/24

BILL FRISELL

9PM

AUGUST BURNS RED 2/16

7PM

COMMIT THIS TO MEMORY 10-YEAR ANNIVERSARY TOUR

MOTION CITY SOUNDTRACK

2/17

with WILLIAM BECKETT BRICK + MORTAR

2/18

RIFF RAFF

FACILITIES with BEAT CONNECTION

8PM

8PM

BAYSIDE

with SENSES FAIL + MAN OVERBOARD + SEAWAY 3/18 8PM

7:30 PM

RICHARD CHEESE AND LOUNGE AGAINST THE MACHINE “IPOD ON A CHAIR” with

4/30 – ON SALE FRIDAY AT NOON 9PM

9PM

30TH ANNIVERSARY OF PSYCHOCANDY

THE JESUS AND MARY CHAIN

FLIGHT

2/21

BY CORBIN REIFF

FIFTEEN YEAR BIRTHDAY TOUR

7:30 PM

KARL DENSON’S TINY UNIVERSE 2/19

The raucous duo just wants to party like it’s 2099.

THE INFAMOUS STRINGDUSTERS + KELLER WILLIAMS

3/6

RUN DMC REMIXED

featuring VOKAB KOMPANY with BROWNOUT

2/26

9PM

5/14 – ON SALE FRIDAY AT NOON

9PM

SEATTLE WEEKLY • JAN UARY 28 — FEBRUARY 3, 2015

SHOWBOX SODO

32

KIP MOORE 1/31

with CANAAN SMITH

IN FLAMES + ALL THAT REMAINS

3/7

with special guest WOVENWAR

THE MISSING LINK TOUR

8PM

MASTODON +CLUTCH 4/26 with BIG BUSINESS

7PM

THE FUTURE HEARTS TOUR

ALL TIME LOW with

7:45 PM

STROMAE

4/6

The Hobosexual Agenda

8PM

5/6

ISSUES + TONIGHT ALIVE + STATE CHAMPS

GRIZ

with FLOOZIES + MUZZY BEARR

5/8 – ON SALE FRIDAY AT NOON

SHOWBOXPRESENTS.COM

6PM

9:30 PM

JASON TANG

with MISS MAY I + NORTHLANE + FIT FOR A KING + ERRA

8PM

LEIGHTON MEESTER

GUITAR IN THE SPACE AGE! TOUR 1/31

with PARADISE FEARS

M

ost everything in art is in some way a reaction to the trends that came before it. This is particularly true of pop music. In the beginning there was jazz and the blues, then came rock & roll, album-oriented rock, and punk followed by metal. Then grunge hit, and the vacuous post-grunge period until the early 2000s when the garage-rock revival rolled in. Essentially, this revival era was marked by a wave of new bands—the White Stripes, the Black Keys, the Kills, Death From Above 1979—who aimed to mirror the gritty, DIY aesthetic of underregarded outfits from the late ’60s and early ’70s.

All these were duos to boot.

Since those groups came to prominence, and as a direct result of their success, an idea has been planted in the public mind that a two-person outfit automatically equals stripped-down, fuzzed-out guitars pounding atop monotonous snare-driven beats. Local rockers Hobosexual may be a duo, but drummer Jeff Silva and vocalist/guitarist Ben Harwood are perhaps the most virulent reaction possible to that particular point of view.

With his outsize personality and bombastic performance style, Harwood shares more qualities with gregarious AC/DC guitarist Angus Young than with the outwardly morose Jack White. Well over six feet tall, with hair that hangs below his shoulders and a pretty impressive beard, he bears little resemblance to either.

Meanwhile, Silva bangs the skins with all the force and technical acumen of, say, John Bonham.

Together they manage to make more with less than any other group around.

It seems so many bands take on a calculated direction at the beginning of their career in the hope of attracting attention, but Hobosexual is more inclined to follow the craziest idea and worry later where it might take them. Their second record, Hobosexual II, released near the end of 2013, was a science-fiction concept record set

Hobos at home: Silva (left) and Harwood.

in the year 2071 that aped the zany, larger-thanlife aesthetic of so many 1980s action films and featured an album cover (an apocalyptic landscape full of menacing biker babes) that Harwood spent a full eight months designing with artist Adam Burke. Their merch even includes officially licensed action figures, like the “Hobo 1 Tour Van Playset” or the “Hobo 2 Super Jet.” 2014 was a real watershed year for Hobosexual.

“It’s better than we ever could have expected,” Silva says. “We keep hitting these ceilings and then just keep jumping over them.” First came the release of their new record, which was met with near universal acclaim and is now entering its fourth printing. Then came a few buzz-generating sets at Sasquatch!, followed by the West Seattle Summer Fest and Bumbershoot.

“Usually you start with Block Party or Bumbershoot, then you hope for Sasquatch!,” Harwood continues. “To jump right over all of that and go straight to Sasquatch! with nothing other than merit was just huge for us.” Hobosexual performed one of the fest’s most notable sets, attracting a crowd that easily numbered in the low thousands around the Narwhal stage.

Time will only tell what the future holds for the duo, but they’re already well on their way to writing their next record. “We’re approaching it from a classical perspective,” says Harwood. “Not classical like ‘do-do-do-dooooo,’ but [more] like classic rock where you drop something completely monolithic.” He adds, “Whatever the next record becomes, it’s going to be even more ambitious, even more out-there, and even bigger than the last one. That’s just who we are.” E

music@seattleweekly.com

HOBOSEXUAL With Ayron Jones and The Way, Jared James Nichols. The Crocodile, 2200 Second Ave., 441-4618, thecrocodile.com. $12 DOS. 21 and up. 8 p.m. Sat., Jan. 31.

Wednesday, Jan. 28 It seems like only yesterday that those little silver and blue cars began infiltrating the streets of Seattle.

But it’s actually been two years since Car2Go, that hassle-free service, came to the city. At this show, CAR2GO SEATTLE’S 2ND BIRTHDAY PARTY, three local artists will help celebrate a new Seattle mainstay. Cataldo, aka Eric Anderson, blends stark drum beats and warm vocal melodies on Gilded Oldies, while ambient indie-rock trio Slow Bird brings a heavy dose of contemplation on its latest, Chrysalis. Erik Walters, who performs as Silver Torches, rounds out the lineup with acoustic rock tunes from his debut full-length, The Living Fact. The Crocodile, 2200 Second Ave., 441-4618, thecrocodile. com. 8 p.m. RSVP only. 18 and over.

Thursday, Jan. 29

Friday, Jan. 30

Worlds collide at SONIC EVOLUTION as the Seattle Symphony and storied rockers like Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready, Chris Cornell (Soundgarden, Audioslave), Guns N’ Roses’ Duff McKagan, and Matt Cameron (Pearl Jam, Soundgarden) take the stage together.

(The SSO’s ongoing concert series celebrates iconic local musicians; June’s Sonic Evolution saw Sir MixA-Lot performing you-know-what with full orchestral backing and a stageful of female audience members twerking along.) With conductor Ludovic Morlot at the helm, and with help from Cornell, McKagan, and Cameron, Mad Season’s McCready and Barrett Martin will perform three songs, arranged by Scott

Saturday, Jan. 31

In recent months, the call to organize inherent in the phrase “Black Lives Matter” has become a movement, mobilizing many, especially youth, to work to eliminate the systemic racism that has plagued our world for far too long. In honor of one group working to keep the effort going in Seattle, FISTS UP! A BENEFIT FOR THE GARFIELD BLACK STUDENT UNION is being co-hosted by local booker Mamma Casserole and POC as Fuck, which celebrates rock bands and fans of color. Through nonviolent activism, the Garfield BSU has led several peaceful demonstrations that earned them a Rising Human Rights Leaders award from the Seattle Human Rights Commission in December. With Máscaras, Trick Candles, and Wiscon, DJ Mamma Casserole, DJ El Mizell. The Lo-Fi, 429 Eastlake Ave. E., 254-2824, thelofi.net. 9 p.m. $10. 21 and over.

After listening to Sleepwalking Sailors, the latest from local sludge-rock trio HELMS ALEE, it’s amazing that audience members leave the band’s shows in one piece. As a whole, Sailors isn’t the heaviest record around, as more pensive moments, like the reverbladen “Slow Beef,” give listeners, and the band, time to breathe. But when the trio (guitarist Ben Verellen, bassist Dana James, and drummer Hozoji MathesonMargullis, who all share vocal duties) really gets into it—as it does on “Heavy Worm Burden,” “Fetus.

Carcass,” and album-closer “Dodge the Lightning”— it’s every fan for themselves. With mosh pit–ready guitar riffs and lots of throaty vocals, wallflowers should sit this one out. With Marriages, Grenades. Neumos.

8 p.m. $12 adv. 21 and over.

Known by many musicians as a guitar virtuoso, PNW transplant BILL FRISELL used his latest album, Guitar in the Space Age!, as an opportunity to pay homage to those who inspired his own musical journey. The Chantays’ “Pipeline,” the Byrds’ interpretation of Pete Seeger’s “Turn! Turn! Turn!,” Duane Eddy’s “Rebel Rouser,” the Kinks’ “Tired of Waiting for You,” the Tornados’ “Telstar,” and more get a sonic facelift from Frisell. Though these aren’t his tunes, Frisell makes them his own by adding the jazz-rock feel he’s mastered over his decades-long career, but without taking away from the magic of the originals. The Showbox.

9 p.m. $25 adv./$30 DOS. 21 and over.

If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear KEY NYATA’s latest release, The Shadowed Diamond, was a Big K.R.I.T. project. That’s not meant to imply that the Seattle native has stolen K.R.I.T.’s style, of course, but to praise Nyata for capturing the same atmospheric vibes that K.R.I.T. did on his latest, Cadillactica. On The Shadowed Diamond, Nyata, plus more than half a dozen guests, including Nacho Picasso, Avatar Darko, and Fresh Espresso’s P Smoov, brings an otherworldly feel to more grounded subject matter with distorted vocals and methodically placed synth features. With Mackned, Special Thraxxhouse Guests, Tre Ross, :30.

The Vera Project, 305 Warren Ave. N., 956-8372, thevera project.org. 8:30 p.m. $10 adv./$15 DOS. All ages.

Monday, Feb. 2

Tuesday, Feb. 3

Whether or not you’ve recently gone through a breakup, and especially if you have an unrequited crush, it’s hard not to get at least a little teary-eyed listening to SAM SMITH . The British crooner’s debut album, In the Lonely Hour , which includes his breakthrough hit “Stay With Me,” chronicles the thought process of pining for someone from afar. From seeing the one you love with another (“Leave Your Lover) and knowing you’d be a better match (“Like I Can”) to finding out your feelings aren’t reciprocated (“Not in That Way”), Smith has been there, done that, and he’s putting words to the heartache that keeps us up at night.

With George Ezra. KeyArena, 305 Harrison St., 6847200, keyarena.com. 7 p.m. $35.50 and up. All ages.

It’s never too early to start planning for Sasquatch!, especially after this year’s lineup is announced at this SASQUATCH! LAUNCH PARTY. Recently announced lineups for Governor’s Ball, Coachella, and Bonnaroo might hint at some of the national and international artists heading to the Gorge this Memorial Day weekend, but Sasquatch! always features a solid lineup of local acts, too. Ty Segall, Tacocat, and the Young Evils will be on hand to kick off the festivities. The Neptune, 1303 N.E. 45th St., 682-1414, stgpresents.org/neptune. 8 p.m. Free. All ages.

BY A Z AR IA C . P O D P LE S K Y

Send events to music@seattleweekly.com.

See seattleweekly.com for more listings.

THis

fri

& joe Pug

saturday feb 7 Paramount theater

911 pine ST · SeaTTle, Wa · 7:00pm doorS · all ageS full bar WiTh proper id TickeTS aT TickeTS.com · charge by phone 1-800-225-2277

friday january 30 the showbox

1426 1ST aVe · SeaTTle, Wa · 8:00pm doorS · 21 and oVer TickeTS 1-888-927-7849 · online aT WWW.axS.com

coming soon: periphery · pierce The Veil / Sleeping WiTh SirenS (Sold ouT!) · karma To burn / ScoTT kelly (of neuroSiS) behemoTh / cannibal corpSe · Suicide Silence · machine head · dr knoW · falluJah · moTionleSS in WhiTe · enSlaVed · mod Sun

El Corazon www.elcorazonseattle.com

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

WEDNESDAY JANUARY 28TH MIKE THRASHER PRESENTS:

PERIPHERY with Nothing More, Wovenwar, Plus Guests Doors at 6:00PM / Show at 6:30, ALL AGES/BAR W/ID. $18 ADV / $20 DOS THE PERIPHERY AFTER SHOW PARTY 21+ LOUNGE SHOW featuring live music from Tyranny Theory FREE Music begins at the conclusion of the Periphery show in the main showroom.

THURSDAY JANUARY 29TH

SKULL FIST

with Coast Culture. Bad Idea, Post Rapture Party Doors at 7:00PM / Show at 7:30 ALL AGES/BAR W/ID. $8 ADV / $10 DOS

THURSDAY JANUARY 29TH

THE TOASTERS

with Natalie Wouldn’t, The Pimpsons, Ready? Revolt!

Lounge Show. Doors at 7:00PM / Show at 8:00 ALL AGES/BAR W/ID. $12 ADV / $14 DOS

FRIDAY JANUARY 30TH

KGRG 89.9 FM & EL CORAZON PRESENT: EL CORAZON’S 10TH ANNIVERSARY SHOW FEATURING:

THE FALL OF TROY

(Performing 2 sets including the album Doppelg‰nger in its entirety) with Says The Snake, Pharaohs Of The Sun, Pig Snout!! Doors at 7:00PM / Show at 8:00 ALL AGES/BAR W/ID. $13 ADV / $15 DOS THE FALL OF TROY AFTER SHOW PARTY

21+ LOUNGE featuring live music from BUGS FREE Music begins at the conclusion of The Fall Of Troy show in the main showroom

SATURDAY JANUARY 31ST

PO’ BROTHERS

with Po’ Brothers, Mister Master, Dogstrum, Health Plan, Homeless Man Doors at 7:00PM / Show at 7:30 ALL AGES/BAR W/ID. $8 ADV / $10 DOS

SATURDAY JANUARY 31ST

BOATS!

with Wolfhämmer 3, Die Nasty, The Snubs Lounge Show. Doors at 8:00PM / Show at 9:00 ALL AGES/BAR W/ID. $6 ADV / $8 DOS

TUESDAY FEBRUARY 3RD MIKE THRASHER & EL CORAZON PRESENT:

KARMA TO BURN/ SCOTT KELLY(OF NEUROSIS) AND THE ROAD HOME

Sierra, Mike Scheidt (of YOB), Tony Reed (of Mos Generator), Black Bone Exorcism 21+. $10 ADV / $13 DOS

Doors at 7:30PM / Show at 8:00

WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 4TH

AIROSPACE

with Lucid Optics, Cauzndefx, The Dead Emcee, Thief Of Hearts Lounge Show. Doors at 7:30PM / Show at 8:00 ALL AGES/BAR W/ID. $8 ADV / $10 DOS

JUST ANNOUNCED 2/28 - SUBJECT TO DOWNFALL 3/3 LOUNGE - CHEAP GIRLS 4/1 LOUNGE - KEVIN SECONDS 4/4 - THE COLOR MORALE 5/2 JAKE E. LEE’S RED DRAGON CARTEL 5/27 - ERIC GALES UP & COMING 2/5 LOUNGE - RAW FABRICS 2/6 - THE DICKIES 2/7 - JUCIFER 2/8 - IPL @ THE EL 2/8 LOUNGE - Q DOT 2/10 - BEHEMOTH / CANNIBAL CORPSE 2/11 LOUNGE - SHIRIN 2/13 - SUPER GEEK LEAGUE 2/14 - PIRATEFEST FEAT. ALESTORM 2/15 - CANCERSLUG 2/15 LOUNGE - ABYSSINIAN FLAG 2/16 LOUNGE - CORINA CORINA 2/17 LOUNGE - SET YOUR ANCHOR 2/18 LOUNGE - HAIL THE SUN 2/20 - SUICIDE SILENCE 2/21 - REAGAN YOUTH Tickets now available at cascadetickets.com - No per order fees for online purchases. Our on-site Box Office is open 1pm-5pm weekdays in our office and all nights we are open in the club - $2 service charge per ticket Charge by Phone at 1.800.514.3849. Online at www.cascadetickets.com - Tickets are subject to service charge

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

SEATTLE WE EKLY • JANUARY 28 — FEBRUARY 3, 2015

Reading up on THE SPIDER FERNS, aka husband-andwife Alton (guitar/vocals/keyboard) and Kelly (bass/ vocals/piano) Fleek, the word “hypnotic” comes up a lot. And after listening, it’s easy to see why. The experimental-rock duo’s debut electronic album, Soon Enough—the release of which is being celebrated at this show—pairs Kelly’s moody and, yes, hypnotic vocals with ambient electro-rock grooves that hint at a psychedelic influence. As per the band’s Facebook bio, “We make music late at night in a converted barn at the base of a small mountain.” The studio’s spacious surroundings translate to the music and add yet another trancelike layer to the album. With Modern Ruins, Screens. Barboza, 925 E. Pike St., 709-9951, thebarboza.com. 8 p.m. $6 adv. 21 and over.

After making a name for itself as an electronic duo, Khaela Maricich and Melissa Dyne, who perform as THE BLOW, are unplugging for this tour. Well, not completely. The pair will perform with the synthesizers and other electronic gadgets they use to record, but they’re leaving the laptops, video projectors, smoke machines, and light shows at home for a more stripped-down performance of songs from throughout their discography, which builds on a series of “Unplugged” shows The Blow played on the East Coast in October. The band’s latest, a self-titled album, is already quite sparse, so this show will boil everything down to its most essential elements. With Anna Oxygen. Columbia City Theater, 4916 Rainier Ave. S., 722-3009, columbiacitytheater.com. 8:30 p.m. $10 adv./$12 DOS. 21 and over.

A rapid rise in 2013 left many a music fan anticipating the debut album of ISKA DHAAF: drummer/keyboardist Benjamin Verdoes (of Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band) and singer/guitarist Nathan Quiroga (of Mad Rad). And Even the Sun Will Burn doesn’t disappoint.

There’s a dark, at times psychedelic, side to the duo (which takes its name from a Somali phrase that loosely translates as “Let it go”) that’s balanced by some seriously spot-on synth-pop sensibilities. This is the duo’s first local show in a while, as Verdoes and Quiroga have been working on new music in New York, so anticipate a big homecoming. With Grave Babies, Newaxeyes. The Crocodile. 8 p.m. $10 adv. 21 and over.

In September, rapper RAZ SIMONE debuted “Cheap Money,” the first look at Cognitive Dissonance: Part 2, the release of which he’s celebrating tonight with his first local headlining show. Starting in late November, the Seattle native released a new song each week, unveiling a little more about everything he’s been through following the release of Cognitive Dissonance: Part 1, as well as things from his past he’s still trying to work through. Drama with loved ones, people trying to “sabotage [his] mission,” his fight to more easily let things go, his transition from “criminal to individual,” and more: Simone doesn’t leave anything out. With Ryan Caraveo and friends.

Neumos, 925 E. Pike St., 709-9442, neumos.com.

8 p.m. $20. All ages.

Teske, from the band’s sole studio album, Above.

If that weren’t enough, the orchestra will premiere McCready’s Waking the Horizon, plus works by Yann Robin and Angelique Poteat. Benaroya Hall, 200 University St., 215-4747, seattlesymphony.org. 8 p.m.

SOLD OUT. All ages.

We were crushing on SHELBY EARL long before she rocked Bumbershoot last year, and it’s safe to say we’re still smitten with the local singer/songwriter and her sophomore release, the Damien Juradoproduced Swift Arrows. We’re not the only ones.

Earl’s blend of grit and soul has enchanted listeners the world over, and praise is still rolling in for her and the album, released in 2013. Salon, for instance, profiled Earl as one of the SXSW performers readers needed to know last year. It takes a special voice to make a song like “We Will Die” appealing, but weaving bright melodies and dark content (“doom-wop,” she calls it) is Earl’s specialty. With Planes on Paper, The Holy Broke, The Ruins. Columbia City Theater. 9 p.m. $8 adv./$10 DOS. 21 and over.

Blending multiple genres on an album is nothing new, but G. LOVE & SPECIAL SAUCE has truly mastered the art. Throughout its 20-year-plus career, the Philadelphia trio—singer/guitarist/harmonica player Dutton, drummer Jeffrey Clemens, and string bassist Jim Prescott—has mixed alt-rock, blues, hip-hop, and R&B in such a way that classifying the band within a single genre is nearly impossible. “Come Up Man,” from the band’s latest, Sugar, is a prime example.

Dutton raps each verse while playing slide guitar as Prescott lays down a quintessential blues riff.

What sounds jarring on paper comes together swimmingly as soon as you hit play. With Matt Costa. The Showbox, 1426 First Ave., 628-3151, showboxpresents. com. 8 p.m. $27.50 adv./$30 DOS. 21 and over.

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arts&culture» Music Sweatin’ It Out

Mount Eerie’s Sauna cured my flu and taught me the virtue of the treatment.

BY KELTON SEARS Centuries ago, Phil Elverum’s Scandinavian ancestors gathered together, naked, in pits they dug into the Norwegian hillside. After a long day of dragon-slaying, it was, and still is today, totally commonplace to take off your tunic, chill out, and perspire in a hot, steamy room like a cooked eggplant.

While nearly every home in Finland has a sauna (two million are registered in the country), hanging out in a steamy room with naked strangers is not nearly as popular in Seattle in 2015 for some reason—even though, as Elverum has pointed out in The Believer, both Norway and the Pacific Northwest are full of “wet pine trees, salmon, [and] a vague sense of nature worship.”

My perspective on the matter changed when I gave Sauna, the new record from Elverum’s project Mount Eerie, a couple of spins.

When I received the press advance for the record, I was suffering—along with approximately 90 percent of the Seattle population—from a nasty bout of flu. Even though mine had mostly cleared up, a weird rawness in my lungs lingered, like a small impish man squatting on my chest, refusing to lift off his scratchy goblin butt.

Elverum, druid that he is, cast a spell on me with the album’s opening 10-minute track, also called “Sauna”—a spell that threatened to smite the tiny imp clinging onto me. It opens with the kindling of a fire, followed by a foghorn, a lilting organ, and

then a poem: “Under rising steam, a small room.

This animal form, and this lost mind. The wood heats up and cracks and pulls apart the way a body groans. I transform.” My animal form certainly needed transforming, and the video for the album’s single, “This,” full of forest-illuminati imagery and sweet-ass swords, convinced me that Elverum’s magic was real and I should heed his words. In the press release, Elverum says Sauna is about “Vikings, zen, and real life,” and nothing combines all those things better than sitting in a steamy room for 15 minutes. I decide to make like his sweaty naked ancestors and go to an actual sauna.

KELTON SEARS

Cyrille Aimée Banya 5, an urban spa with a range of amenities in South Lake Union, is full of large old men talking and laughing loudly in Russian. I visit both the dry and wet saunas, and the humidity of the wet sauna freaked me out at first; I had trouble breathing in the heat. After a couple of minutes, the eucalyptus by the vents calmed me down, filled my lungs with koala spirits, and

SEATTLE WEEKLY • JAN UARY 28 — FEBRUARY 3, 2015

Nicholas Payton

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whisked away my anxious thoughts and feelings.

I was fully conscious of my body, and my mind quieted down. Some sweaty hippies wearing beanies next to me talked about how ’shrooms really helped them “reorient with their own bodies.” Saunas did the same, they said.

It’s not uncommon to release a quart of sweat in an average session, but I feel as though I released two and a half, and along with them, I suspect, all the goblin toxins inside of me. After two sauna sessions, I was totally cured, and have gone back a third time since.

The Finns attribute the restorative power to the Saunatonttu, the “sauna elf ” who heals good saunagoers and punishes bad ones. But— as Elverum dictates near the end of his “Sauna” poem—“With the glowing core exposed, head first into the frozen lake”—the final step of the ritual is jolting and not nearly as fun. After roasting yourself, you must immerse yourself in freezing water to get the true, full health benefits: the sudden constriction of the blood vessels, which is good for the internal organs and promotes healthy immune response. This part is really terrible, but like the Vikings that pervade Elverum’s new album, you must be brave to achieve true Zen “Emptiness”—a heady subject he explores three tracks later.

But that’s an article for another day. Go get the album, sweat out your toxins, and thank the Saunatonttu for sending you. E ksears@seattleweekly.com

SAUNA Out Feb. 3. P.W. Elverum & Sun Records.

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