Seattle Weekly, February 25, 2015

FEBRUARY 25-MARCH 3, 2015 I VOLUME 40 I NUMBER 8

SEATTLEWEEKLY.COM I FREE

NEWS MORE POWER FOR MURRAY & DEATH WITH DIGNITY, REVISITED» PAGE 5

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inside» February 25–March 3, 2015 VOLUME 40 | NUMBER 8 » SEATTLEWEEKLY.COM

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news&comment 5

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MUSICAL CHAIRS

BY ELLIS E. CONKLIN | Another City Council member decides to say goodbye: What will this mean for Murray? Plus: King County’s new public defender, and dealing with Death With Dignity.

POSTER CHILDREN

BY CHELSEA BOLAN | How Cuba’s

past, present, and maybe future are reflected in its burgeoning underground graphic-arts scene.

food&drink 17 A PLUM ROLE

BY TIFFANY RAN | City Fruit harvests the bounty of Seattle’s trees.

17 | FOOD NEWS 17 | THE WEEKLY DISH 19 | THE BAR CODE

arts&culture 21 IN SYNC

BY KELTON SEARS | TEAN taps into Ishmael Butler’s vision, and shares the result at SW ’s Music Video Festival.

25 FILM

OPENING THIS WEEK | Icelandic metal,

Irish animation, and a pulp-cinema king tells his own story.

27 MUSIC

BY GWENDOLYN ELLIOTT | A hip-hop

duo EEvolves, and builds a community, while riding the “new black wave.”

29 | THE WEEK AHEAD

odds&ends

30 | HIGHER GROUND 31 | CLASSIFIEDS

»cover credits

ILLUSTRATION BY OLIVERWINWARD.COM PHOTO OF THEESATISFACTION BY KING TEXAS

Editor-in-Chief Mark Baumgarten EDITORIAL Senior Editor Nina Shapiro Food Editor Nicole Sprinkle Arts Editor Brian Miller Music Editor Gwendolyn Elliott Editorial Operations Manager Gavin Borchert Staff Writers Ellis E. Conklin, Matt Driscoll, Kelton Sears News Intern Shawn Porter Calendar Assistant Diana M. Le 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, Marcus Harrison Green 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 • FEBRUARY 25 — M ARCH 3, 2015

21 | THE PICK LIST 23 | PERFORMANCE 24 | VISUAL ARTS

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news&comment

Power Surge

Three Important Facts About the County’s New Public Defender

Turnover in the Seattle City Council has uncorked a wild scramble that is already shaking up this fall’s election. The big winner? Mayor Murray.

BY NINA SHAPIRO

I

BY ELLIS E. CONKLIN

S

n early March, Lorinda Youngcourt will most likely be confirmed as King County’s first permanent public defender. Her staff of roughly 400 is a new one. Previously, four nonprofit agencies contracted with the county to handle public defense, a situation brought to an end by a lawsuit challenging what it argued were inequitable pay and benefits for staffers essentially working as county employees. The job—on a par with that of the county prosecutor—is a big step up for Youngcourt, 52, who most recently headed a nine-person public-defense agency for a county in Indiana.

Grabbing a salad for a late lunch one day last week, Youngcourt introduced herself to Seattle Weekly.

She’s not here for the mountains.

COURTESY OF SEATTLE CITY COUNCIL

The out crowd: Tom Rasmussen, Sally Clark, and Nick Licata.

occupied by Socialist Councilmember Kshama Sawant. Seattle Weekly learned late last week that Pamela Banks, president and CEO of the Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle, is all but certain to take on Sawant, and she’d be a formidable challenger.

Sawant’s high-profile dissents have rankled Murray—most particularly her lone vote against the confirmation of new police chief Kathleen O’Toole last June, and, four months later, her lone vote against his 2015–16 budget.

Murray’s press secretary Jason Kelly said the mayor did not want to comment on Council politics.

“I’m pretty sure I’m going to do this,” Banks told me in an interview at her Urban League office last Thursday. “It’s about getting things done. I’m a collaborator. That’s my style. I try to get along with people and I want to be reasonable. I’m not into the national spotlight.”

As a parting jab at Sawant, she added, “I work with poor people. It’s going to be hard for her to call me a corporatist . . . I can be a street fighter, too.”

So what does all this ultimately mean for Ed

Murray? Well, for starters, it means a good deal

more political clout. Already the district elections empower the executive.

“Ed will vastly increase his power now,” says Clark. “The members [at least the seven elected by district] will deal with their own district and cede the bigger vision, the bigger picture to the mayor.”

Adding to that power shift is the rookie factor. By this time next year, it is well within the realm of possibility that there will be four new City Council members. The fourth newcomer could emerge from District 4, where 83-year-old incumbent Jean Godden is thought to be in serious jeopardy of losing to either of a pair of young chargers: Transportation Coalition Choices executive director Rob Johnson or Democratic Party activist Mike Maddux.

Bruce Harrell said it takes time time to learn the job, and Murray will be able to capitalize on that inexperience in controlling his agenda.

With the very real chance that four of the nine members will be raw, Harrell added, “It will take a while for us to be an effective governing body.”

Still, O’Brien sees an upside to the political turmoil. “It’s exciting. There will be a lot of change, and I think it will be good for the city.” E

econklin@seattleweekly.com

godden’s baby » City to Consider Paid Parental Leave This week Mayor Ed Murray, flanked by City Councilmember Jean Godden, announced legislation that, if approved, will provide city employees with up to four weeks of paid parental leave for the birth, adoption, or foster placement of a child. For Godden, a longtime advocate for genderequity issues, the moment was particularly sweet. Seattle is now poised to join four other major U.S. metropolitan areas to offer paid parental leave, including San Francisco and Washington, D.C. (although Seattle’s four weeks would be the least). “The United States is the only developed nation in the world without a statutory right to paid parental leave,” Murray said. “I hope this is yet another way Seattle leads the nation.”

Youngcourt hails from a 100-acre farm in the middle of the Hoosier National Forest, where she kept 10 horses and could “ride one all day long and not see another person.” Coming to Seattle, she stresses, “is not a quality-of-life move.” So why did she come? “Because you guys are huge.”

She speaks her mind. Just a few weeks after her selection by the 11-member King County Public Defense Advisory Board, Youngcourt, who spent 20 years of her career focusing on capital cases, jumped into a debate over a state bill that would eliminate the death penalty.

As of last October, she wrote in a letter to the House committee hearing the bill, the county had spent almost $14 million on three ongoing death-penalty cases. “Please know this is a zerosum proposition for us. Every dollar spent on capital defense work is a dollar not spent on the thousands of other cases we handle each year.”

She’s got her work cut out for her.

Not only does Youngcourt have to unify what had been four separate agencies with unique identities, but she has to confront a drive by the county to cut costs. A last-minute change of heart stopped the county council in November from approving a budget that would have laid off 40 publicdefense staffers, half of them attorneys. Instead, the council convened a work group headed by the county public defender and its budget director Dwight Dively. The group is scheduled to deliver a report by April 1.

Youngcourt says she has made clear to Dively that losing 40 staffers—10 percent of her department—would be a “devastating” loss that would increase case load and potentially compromise the quality of public defense. “It would be the opposite of what they hired me to do.”

She says Dively, to his credit, is listening. “I would call it less of a fight now and more of a shared learning experience.” After all, the county has never had a public-defense department before. “It is uncharted territory.” E

nshapiro@seattleweekly.com

SEATTLE WE EKLY • FEBRUARY 25 — M ARCH 3, 2015

eattle’s political landscape is being dramatically transfigured before our very eyes. Palace intrigue has City Hall ablaze in rumor and speculation.

No one saw this coming. In less than a month, three senior City Council members, with 40 years of collective experience, have decided to call it quits. The departures of Nick Licata and Tom Rasmussen, though mildly surprising, were not altogether unexpected. Both are in their late 60s, their political careers largely spent.

But Sally Clark’s decision last week to not seek re-election came as a real shock to her colleagues. It has created a fascinating game of musical chairs, which could end with Mayor Ed Murray strengthening his ability to set and implement his policy agenda.

As Councilmember Bruce Harrell told Seattle Weekly: “Sally has really thrown a wrench into things.”

Has she ever.

Within two hours of Clark’s announcement, Murray’s in-house legal counsel, Lorena González, seeking to become Seattle’s first Hispanic council member, dispatched a press release declaring her candidacy for the at-large seat that Clark was thought to be running for.

More dominoes fell.

In the wake of Clark’s February surprise, Councilmember Mike O’Brien immediately began to reassess his place on the game board.

With Clark bowing out, O’Brien is now pondering whether to remain a candidate in District 6 or put his chips on that same at-large spot, making a citywide bid for re-election.

The district race is O’Brien’s to lose, and would give the popular progressive a four-year term, thereby providing him the option of running for mayor in 2017—and O’Brien does have mayoral ambitions—without having to surrender his seat. The at-large citywide seat could well broaden his political profile. But there’s a risk: none greater than the fact that it affords only a two-year-term—a result of the council redistricting approved by voters in 2013—meaning that if he did run and lose the mayoral race in less than three years from now, he’d have no council seat to fall back on.

“I’ve always contemplated running at-large,” O’Brien told me Friday. “I don’t know. I am just going to take a breath right now and talk to my family.”

By far the most provocative development is evolving in District 3, the Central Area/ Capitol Hill/Madrona/Madison Park district

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news&comment»

The Final Conversation

Are patients considering the Death With Dignity Act getting all the information they need?

BY NINA SHAPIRO

SEATTLE WEEKLY • FEBRUARY 25 — MARCH 3, 2015

6

DREW BARADANA

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ast week, an Oregon cancer doctor named Kenneth Stevens told a legislative committee in Olympia about a former patient named Jeanette Hall.

As he recalled it, Hall had been told she had inoperable cancer and resolved to make use of Oregon’s Death With Dignity Act. “This was very much a settled decision,” Stevens told the state Senate’s Law and Justice Committee.

“I informed her, however, that her cancer was treatable and that her prospects were good,” he continued. As a result, she underwent treatment.

The cancer disappeared. “Today, 15 years later, she’s thrilled to be alive,” Stevens said.

It’s for the Jeanette Halls of the world, or rather of Washington state, that Stevens said he was supporting Senate Bill 5919, which would require doctors treating patients who want to avail themselves of our state’s Death With Dignity Act to inform them about possible cures and treatments. The bill, backed by critics of the original act, subsequently passed out of committee.

The bill seemed to come out of the blue, though the issue had recently garnered national attention. In November, 29-yearold Brittany Maynard ended her own life after being diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. She had actually moved to Oregon to take advantage of the country’s first deathwith-dignity law and publicized her decision online—an episode that brought physicianassisted death back into the spotlight.

Maynard inspired a “massive national campaign” for death-with-dignity laws across the country, according to the website of Compassion & Choices, the national organization that supports such laws. The group says an “unprecedented 27 states,” including New York and California, are now considering legislative action. Currently only a handful of states allow physician-assisted death, including Washington, where the practice became law in 2009 after a hard-fought initiative campaign.

Yet despite that controversial campaign and the national attention, Washington’s law has quietly gone forward. The number of people using it has steadily gone up, and now surpasses those utilizing Oregon’s law. In 2013, the latest year for which information is available, 173 Washingtonians were prescribed lethal medication and 119 died after taking it, compared to 122 people who received such medication that year in Oregon and 71 who ingested it.

As in Oregon, though, such deaths in Washington represent a tiny fraction of overall mortality. And, in this state at least, there has been no hue and cry over any particular cases. But could it really be, as the bill facing our legislature now implies, that dying patients are not being told about treatments available to them?

In fact, the story of Jeanette Hall’s neardeath—now circulating not only in Washington but in various states as ammunition against death-with-dignity bills—does not suggest as much. Speaking by phone from the tiny town of King City, southwest of Portland, Hall says

Can you legislate that kind of approach? she was told about treatment from the start.

Should you? What kinds of conversations are “Jeanette, the only way to beat this is through going on—or aren’t—around death-withchemotherapy and radiation,” she says she was dignity laws? These are the real questions that told by the doctor who first informed her that Hall’s story raises. she had anal cancer that had spread to her lymph nodes.

Though only 55, she didn’t want to go Helene Starks says that Hall’s experience illusthrough with the treatment. She explains that trates how complicated conversations around she kept thinking about her aunt, a onetime death and dying can be. A professor of biofeisty lawyer for the ethics who works for federal government a University of Washwho underwent gruelington center devoted “How much do we want ing cancer treatment to palliative care, she to push people, and what talks about the “movand died anyway. “She was slumped over, people play in do we do when we get an ies” bald. She couldn’t their heads related to even talk,” Hall says, the way they’ve seen answer we don’t like?” describing the last others deal with seritime she saw her aunt. ous illnesses in the Hall didn’t want to turn into that person. past. These movies may date back decades— Still, when Hall’s doctor referred her to SteHall’s aunt died in the ’70s—and have little vens, a cancer radiologist, she agreed. “He didn’t bearing on what patients may go through give up,” she says of Stevens. It’s not so much today. “The world of cancer and treatment is that he provided her with new information changing all the time,” Starks says. about treatment as he persuaded her, forcefully, She knows something about this from perto go through with it. “Don’t you want to see sonal experience. After being diagnosed with your son get married?” he asked her. “That one breast cancer, she says she was surprised to learn sentence hit home,” she recalls. that chemotherapy would not necessarily make Though the treatment proved arduous, causher throw up all the time—or, as proved to be ing her to lose her hair and making eating difthe case, at all. ficult for years afterward, she says she remains But, she says, we won’t know what people grateful to Stevens for convincing her to live. are afraid of if we don’t ask. That conversa-

tion is different than a rote “checklist” that goes through the various treatment options. It may start with questions like “Tell me about yourself ? What’s important to you? Are there things in the world you feel really strongly that you want to accomplish?”

Doctors will invariably bring the conversation around to treatment, but Starks says there’s a world of difference between dryly laying out the options and saying something like “Look, lady, you should try this, really. I’m going to walk with you every step of the way. I’m not going to abandon you.” She is skeptical as to whether you can legislate this type of conversation, seeing training as a more obvious approach.

Regardless, she says, there are these open questions: “How much do we want to push people, and what do we do when we get an answer we don’t like?” She mentions a friend of hers who has leukemia. Deemed eligible for a bone-marrow transplant, she turned it down—a decision Starks says her friend’s doctor initially couldn’t understand. Her friend decided that the ongoing complications would be too onerous, and she preferred living hard as long as she could and then dying. In this case, Starks says, the doctor did ask why, and came to accept her friend’s decision.

One local institution that has a great deal of experience with conversations about mortality is the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, which incorporates doctors from the Fred Hutchison

Cancer Research Center, UW Medicine, and Seattle Children’s. Anthony Back, an Alliance oncologist who writes about the communication between patients and doctors, says a lot of people ask about the Death With Dignity Act. “The most important thing about the conversation,” he says, is to ask “why are they thinking about it, why now?” He adds that “a lot of it is helping people think about their values.” What do they want their last days to be like? Are there things they want to wrap up?

If patients are really serious about utilizing the Death With Dignity Act, he and other doctors will refer patients to social workers at the Alliance who help patients understand their next steps. He says that many, however, just want to know there’s a way out if they need it. Even so, he says that discussion can become a doorway into broader—and in his mind more crucial— conversations about mortality.

Most people, he says, are trying to figure out how to have as natural and dignified a death as possible. In medicine right now, he says, “We don’t have a good way to have that conversation.”

So many people end up in the emergency room or intensive-care unit, suffering through a lot of invasive treatment in their dying days.

nshapiro@seattleweekly.com

SEATTLE WE EKLY • FEBRUARY 25 — M ARCH 3, 2015

Clearly some people feel strongly about taking control of their death through medication, and these people may indeed lack information—but not necessarily about possible treatment. Unlike at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, a number of medical facilities around the state—particularly the growing number affiliated with the Catholic Church—do not help patients utilize the Death With Dignity Act. The law requires a patient to have two doctors fill out forms for the state Department of Health certifying that the patient is terminally ill. “It’s difficult to find providers in certain parts of Washington,” says Robb Miller, executive director of Compassion & Choices of Washington, citing southwest Washington, Bellingham, and Spokane.

He also points to something that happened at Catholic-affiliated Providence Hospice & Home Care of Snohomish County early last year. According to a complaint subsequently filed by a hospice nurse with the health department, a patient with brain cancer “made repeated requests for alternatives to end his life.” Neither his physician nor “numerous hospice clinicians” would provide any information or referrals, according to the complaint, which added that Providence nurses and social workers believed that if they discussed the Death With Dignity Act, they would be fired.

So the patient took matters into his own hands. He got into his bathtub and shot himself.

Providence spokesperson Mary Beth Walker calls the death “tragic,” but, as of press time, says she has little information about the details of the event. She says Providence “absolutely respects that patients have a right to ask” about the Death with Dignity Act. But the organization’s policy, forwarded to Seattle Weekly, says that it will not “participate in any way in assisted suicide.” And that’s likely to stand. The DOH, finding no wrongdoing, concluded that facilities are not required to provide information about the Act. E

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The Miracle of

St.

LAZARUS

How the poster, once a tool of propaganda, has emerged as a vehicle for self-expression and a source of capitalistic anxiety in the new Cuba.

By Chelsea Bolan I Photos by Daniel Ryan Smith

I

» CONTINUED ON PAGE 10

SEATTLE WE EKLY • FEBRUARY 25 — M ARCH 3, 2015

t’s my first night in Havana, and I’m seated in a paladar discussing a nativity scene. Across from me is Daniel Ryan Smith, a graphic designer and friend from Seattle who has been here before—this is his fifth trip to Havana. We just walked by the elegantly lopsided stone Catedral de San Cristóbal, and there in front of us was the famous scene— a remnant of Christmas, which had just passed a week before. Smith tells me that he doesn’t remember seeing so many Christian artifacts on any of his prior trips to Cuba.

Indeed, there are a lot of Christmas trees around, not to mention the Christmas garland looping around the portraits of Che found in bars and restaurants, and the countless Santas we’d already seen. Saint Nicholas is here in the house with us, alongside Cuba’s patron saint, Saint Lazarus.

9

The Miracle OF St. LAZARUS » FROM PAGE 9

On his first trip to Havana, Smith saw the work of this new generation of Cuban designers beyond the “Hallmark” posters they created for Sharing Dreams—work they were doing for actual clients. What he found made him realize his ideas about Cuban design were outdated.

Further, he was struck by the similarities between their work and the work from Seattle. The Cuban designers he met were, consciously or not, leading the rebirth of the silkscreen poster. They initiated a resurgence in interest and production and were devoted to the history and lineage of the Cuban poster, yet they ached for outside contact and inspiration. Their work was obviously more personal in content and motivation than the propaganda posters of the past, and symbolic of an emerging trend in individual initiative.

The work of a design group called Cameleon struck Smith especially—these artists’ posters featured brutally rough imagery that could have been lifted verbatim from a sketchbook, often produced for their own personal exhibitions, sometimes printed in the middle of the night by state-run printers paid under the table. (Now there exists at least one private print shop, but then all print shops were state-run.) It was a DIY attitude that paralleled the explosion of silkscreen rock posters in Seattle in the mid-’90s.

Feeling this energy, seeing the lack of resources for designers in Havana and sensing their interest in the work from Seattle, Smith felt he “had to do something . . . to share our work publicly, open eyes to our common ideas symbolized by these posters.” So he began work on what would become The Seattle-Havana Poster Show.

The exhibition, which premiered at Bumbershoot in 2007 and showed the next year at El Centro de Desarrollo de las Artes Visuales (CDAV) in Havana, paired posters by designers from both cities.

Now Smith has returned to Havana, talking to people about making a new exchange between artists of the two cities, perhaps one that includes music and film as well as posters.

But he has found a different Cuba than the one he last left.

SEATTLE WEEKLY • FEBRUARY 25 — MARCH 3, 2015

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e order fried fish and mojitos and study the oceanic taxidermy on the wall of this private, family-run restaurant: Marlin, shark, black flying fish with enormous wings, frowning mahi-mahi. A blind man with a guitar is seated at the door, still and silent, waiting for the right moment to strike the chord, to come alive and sing.

Asking for the bathroom, I’m directed through a door that leads into a family living room and kitchen. Two women sit on a gold, floral-patterned couch from the ’70s, watching a telenovela—one is changing a baby’s diaper. Our waiter sits at the table behind the couch eating dinner while a woman in a shower cap cooks in the kitchen, preparing the fish we just ordered.

I’m suddenly a part of this family’s world, one that I didn’t know existed beyond that door.

Until recent times, the situation was reversed.

A living room was what one saw from the street, and behind the closed door, a restaurant flourished, a kind of speakeasy. While all retail business was declared illegal after Fidel Castro took power in 1959, paladares, which operated for many years underground (along with all other private businesses), were legalized in the early ’90s. Now businesses are everywhere, out in the open, often in the front rooms of people’s homes—from nail parlors and barbers to cellphone repair shops to, yes, even a sideshow shooting range offering to educate your child about the revolution. The “education” here consists of rustic BB guns and faded portraits of the leaders of the Cuban revolution: Castro, Ernesto “Che” Guevara, and Camilo Cienfuegos. These three, shooters are told, organized the guerrilla war that toppled the reign of corrupt president Fulgencio Batista. Thusly educated, one can take aim at the soda cans and stuffed animals strung up against the back wall.

Each doorway is a frame, offering a different picture of life in Havana, lived in full view. Doors to homes are thrown open in the evenings to let in cooler air. Inside are crumbling marble staircases, laundry strewn across living rooms, interior design and furniture from past eras. All framed by the exquisitely collapsing, molding buildings of old Havana—bright paint peeling off in sheets like dead skin.

Smith first came to Havana in 2006 to make posters. As part of a graphic-design exchange called Sharing Dreams, organized by the American Institute of Graphic Arts, he traveled with other American graphic designers to Havana to meet Cuban designers and collaborate on a poster exhibition. While Sharing Dreams may have opened the door, Smith wasn’t totally satisfied with the project.

“The theme of the posters we were making was Love Conquers All—which came across as sentimental, very Hallmark,” Smith recalls.

“I wanted to see what people were really doing, what they were really working on—not this made-up thing.”

Smith says he had preconceived ideas about Cuban graphic design, mostly because of the poster’s role in the propaganda efforts that followed the Cuban Revolution. “I pictured statesponsored propaganda frozen in the 1960s or 1970s,” he says, “because that’s all I’d ever seen,

Edel Rodriguez Molano’s poster deftly, and subtly, challenges authority.

the state-sponsored stuff. Cuban posters are world-famous, but it’s their communist propaganda—reproduced for decades—that is known outside the Island.”

Since cultural and commercial exchange between the U.S. and Cuba has been virtually non-existent since the revolution—the result of a strict embargo against the island nation— these classic propaganda posters alone formed the basis of Smith’s stereotypical view of Cuba.

Heroic posters featuring the fiery yet languid gaze of the guerrilla leader Che and incessant calls to arms; hard-edged graphics printed in bold, flat colors; ink as dense as wall paint.

In the past, post-revolution Cuban posters embodied the voice of the state since the means, the production, and the distribution of posters were entirely controlled by the government. An incredible number of posters were generated, primarily for propaganda purposes, with the express agenda of bolstering the Cuban Revolution at home and exporting the idea of revolution abroad. The designers who created them (now

often referred to as maestros by contemporary artists) were employed by state-run agencies such as the Committee on Revolutionary Orientation and later the Organization of Solidarity with the People of Asia, Africa, and Latin America (OSPAAAL).

Taken as a whole, these posters, bursting as they were with creativity and experimentation, represent a high point of 20th-century poster design, not only for Cuba but around the world.

Yet their messages were tightly controlled. Private-sector advertising and promotion was essentially nonexistent. Only film posters produced by the state-run Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry, which controlled film import and distribution across the island, might be considered a kind of retail advertising. The idea of an individual producing posters for public consumption was practically inconceivable until the reintroduction of private business following the collapse of Soviet support in the early 1990s.

It was the death of the USSR that signaled the rebirth of the Cuban poster.

Just about everything spills out onto the streets in Havana. The street is everyone’s yard. It’s where people fix bicycles and cars, where kids play soccer or kick around crushed-up cans. Couples make out on the steps. Produce carts park on the corners, selling heaps of finger-sized bananas.

Exhaust from vintage American cars and Soviet Ladas hovers and clings. Music from wandering trios, playing hits from the Buena Vista Social Club, permeate the sounds of conversation, honking, bici-taxi bells, grumbling car engines, and the constant Taxi, amigo? Cohiba, amigo?

And then there is the soft rock that completes the atmosphere, plenty of Air Supply and too many songs off the Dirty Dancing soundtrack.

And in the street people are talking. Many habaneros want to discuss politics and the recent news about the change in relations between the U.S. and Cuba. These Cubans say they are ready to be a part of the world, ready for change, ready for dialogue. One couple, upon learning that we are Americans, shakes our hands and says, “We are friends now!” A man who introduces himself as Antonio says he hopes this means that Cubans can have better access to medicine. Another man confesses he does not particularly like President Obama, and perhaps when all was said and done,

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nothing would change. “But,” he says, “at least we are talking.”

Edgar Moreira, a poster dealer we meet in the Plaza de las Armas, offers his philosophy. “America is a universe. It has the best of everything and the worst of everything. You cannot separate the blood from the shit—they both must exist in the same body.”

Eventually Smith and I come across a man asking for change near the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de La Habana. Spread out beside him are naked baby dolls, orixás out of the Santería pantheon, and a statue of San Lázaro in a burlap shroud, suffering and holy, with his wound-licking dogs. A discussion about Saint Lazarus leads to talk about Cuba and the U.S. He asks us what we think of the recent announcement. We tell him it is a great thing— we are all for it. So is he. “Now things can get better for the Cuban people,” he says. We can begin to heal.

Saint Lazarus is Cuba’s saint. He represents healing, good health, and in some cases, military

might. There are a few Saint Lazaruses in the Catholic canon, one having risen from the dead and another one stricken with leprosy, wandering around on canes—and with those dogs that constantly lick his wounds. For all purposes, they are the same: Saint Lazarus is about healing, a new start, a rebirth—about life resurrected.

It’s no accident that the simultaneous speeches by current Cuban leader Raúl Castro and Barack Obama about normalizing relations between the two countries happened on December 17, the day many Cubans celebrate San Lázaro by making a pilgrimage to his shrine in the village of El Rincón, not far from Havana. “They picked that day [on purpose],” says Giselle Monzón when we meet with her and Michele Hollands. “And whoever wrote Obama’s speech knew the Cuban very well. I feel manipulated, but it’s good.”

Monzón and Hollands often collaborate on design projects—but as they never seem to stop laughing, it’s hard to imagine how they get any work done. Hollands is currently working

» CONTINUED ON PAGE 12

SEATTLE WE EKLY • FEBRUARY 25 — M ARCH 3, 2015

Designer Roberto Ramos is one of Cuba’s new young entrepreneurs.

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The Miracle OF St. LAZARUS

» FROM PAGE 11

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SEATTLE WEEKLY • FEBRUARY 25 — MARCH 3, 2015

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full-time as a book designer for El Centro de Formación Literaria Onelio Jorge Cardoso and freelancing for various agencies. Monzón is a freelancer, splitting her time between Havana and France, where her husband is working.

Monzón worked for a time in-house at CDAV, where all the Seattle posters from Smith’s first show were donated, so she had access to a small but compelling collection of Seattle design books and posters. This collection influenced Monzón and Hollands—in particular the book Modern Dog: 20 Years of Poster Art. In 2010, Hollands and Monzón created a poster for their own personal exhibit of posters at CDAV called “Paralelas.”

“We wanted to be revolutionary!” Monzón says of their poster and their exhibit.

“We wanted to do something funny and free and personal. It was an opportunity,” Hollands says.

Smith mentions that he recognized the influence of Modern Dog immediately in the “Paralelas” poster—specifically, Modern Dog’s “Care to Dance” poster, made for the Chicken Soup Brigade in 1997. Monzón looks a little sheepish.

“They caught us,” she says to Hollands. What inspired them technically was the combination of photography and illustration—but even more evident was a Modern Dog attitude, a distinct brand of spontaneity and humor.

Monzón brought this new inspiration into the rest of her work, but found herself at a surprising crossroads between old and new when she was commissioned to make a poster design for South of the Border, an Oliver Stone documentary that examines seven Latin American leaders and the U.S. media’s biased perceptions of them.

Working through the Instituto Cubano del Arte e Industria Cinematográficos (ICAIC), she created three versions of the poster—two made in her personal style and one that Monzón refers to as “old-fashioned.” This retro one, she says, was “very political. Black, white, red . . . like the OSPAAAL posters . . . with a claw . . . and this is finally what [Stone] wanted.” She says the film

producers wanted a poster to align with Cuban poster tradition, a nod to the propaganda posters of the ’60s and ’70s.

However, her peers were unimpressed when she showed them her poster. “Everyone said, ‘Oh. Huh. You made that? We have many posters like this.’ ” The poster was not at all representative of Gisele’s work, which adhere’s to the current wave of designer-driven Cuban posters that are highly personal and organic, and draw on global influence. The designer is largely in charge in these works, with the state demonstrating less and less control over the outcome—a shift which reflects the current changes in Cuba as a whole.

So it is not surprising that Hollands thinks the idea of change in diplomatic relations between Cuba and the U.S. is good, but there is some trepidation that nothing will happen. Or that change will happen, but it will be the wrong kind of change. “Please,” she says, “no McDonald’s.”

“Oh no,” Monzón echoes. “No McDonald’s.”

Claudio Sotolongo’s will to do seeps from his pores. He inspires this in others—often by directly telling them to do something. Introducing Smith to his fellow designers, he says, “Cards, people. Where are your cards? I always have to remind people to share their cards,” he tells me. I begin to feel bad that I do not have a card.

Sotolongo is a graphic designer who makes posters, teaches, and writes about design—his book, Soy Cuba, written with Carole Goodman, a U.S. designer who took part in the Sharing Dreams exchange, discusses Cuban cinema posters after the revolution. He says that once you begin to design posters, you can never stop. Their appeal is deeply personal—you get to express yourself as well as open a dialogue among the designer, the client, and the audience.

We walk along the old port in the sun-soaked air, the scent of fuel and salt on the breeze, barges anchored out in the bay. We turn down Calle Sol to a cafe that has a cat theme going for it:

» CONTINUED ON PAGE 14

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MARCUS K. HARMES

Along with an in-depth critical reading of the original 1931 film, this book tracks Frankenstein the monster’s heavy cultural tread from Mary Shelley’s source novel to today’s Internet chat rooms.

Critics abhorred it, audiences loved it, and Hammer executives where thrilled with the box office returns: The Curse of Frankenstein was big business. In the film sparks fly, new life is created and horrors unleashed but the film itself was a jolt to 1950s cinema going that has never been entirely surpassed.

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We squeeze onto the bench behind the table.

“This looks like Seattle,” Smith says, looking at the red painted walls, the chalkboard menu, Christmas lights. “What’s up with all the Christmas trees around here? Is that new?”

Sotolongo rolls his eyes and says that yes, it is all pretty new. “It’s the Pope,” he says. He goes on to express his distaste for the whole Christmas package, from trees to Santas to mangers. When the barista brings out our coffee, Sotolongo’s cappuccino is decorated with a cinnamon Christmas tree. He stares at it a minute, at a loss for words.

Then he conjures up one. “Fuck,” he says.

“How have things changed in poster design?”

Smith asks. One of his objectives here is to gauge the effect of The Seattle-Havana Poster Show on poster design in general. Sotolongo doesn’t bite.

“How have things changed?” he says. “It hasn’t changed!” They were doing silkscreen in the 1960s, and they did silkscreen in the 1990s, and they are still doing silkscreen.

What has changed, he says, is the economic environment in which the posters now exist.

Foreigners are buying and reselling posters at a large profit. Seeing Cuban posters for sale online—“We do have Internet,” Sotolongo says, “sometimes”—for anywhere from $200 to $500 each makes designers and printers realize how much they’ve been undercharging.

This is no small matter. Designers may make posters out of love, the need to express oneself, and to contribute to a conversation. But to exist, they have to be funded by somebody—generally some cultural institution—because the cost of making a poster is very high. A run of a single poster, Sotolongo says, adds up to about 20 months of his salary. As a result, the prices are going up. And with those increased prices has emerged a growing market for bootlegged copies.

We leave the cafe and walk through the Plaza de las Armas, where a flea market takes place.

Sellers set up booths of largely bootlegged books about Che, Fidel, and Ernest Hemingway; Cuban ephemera from coins and military medals to drinking glasses with Fidel on one side and ¡Viva la revolución! on the other; and of course, stacks of posters—some genuine, some not.

Genuine ones are stamped by the printer and often signed by the designer.

Smith buys a few posters for 40 to 100 CUCs, or convertible pesos, each. These prices are two to three times higher than they were during his last visit in 2009.

Sotolongo points out the bootlegged ones.

“You see here?” He runs his finger along the lettering. “The detail is gone. The color is wrong.”

Prior to The Seattle-Havana Poster Show in 2007, people were still talking about the Cuban poster in terms of potential, says Pepe Menéndez, who co-curated the exhibit with Smith. “People always talked about the poster in a nostalgic way.” Nostalgic feelings, he says, can be a kind of poison that makes people stay still and do nothing. “You just say, ‘Oh, we used to have those nice posters. We used to have those old maestros . . . ’ But this perception has changed. Most of the people today—critics, teachers, collectors—refer to the posters as a living body.”

Smith and I are speaking with Menéndez in the backyard of the home he shares with his wife, designer Laura Llópiz, their two sons, and his

“We wanted to be revolutionary!” says designer Giselle Monzón.

parents in the Vedado neighborhood. Their black cat, Betún, named for shoe polish, rubs against our chairs.

“We made possible that people look at posters . . . as something that is alive. It’s not a dead body anymore . . . a luminescent, brilliant dead body. What a nice, beautiful dead body. What a nice corpse. And it’s not anymore like that. It’s a living thing.”

“A beautiful dead body,” Smith repeats. “The poster is rising from the dead.”

Menéndez was one of the first designers Smith met through Sharing Dreams. He was immediately friendly and engaging, always smiling; his recognizable brand of humor always struck Smith as somehow American. He’s sharp, knowledgeable, well-traveled, speaks a terrific number of languages, and—via his work as art director of the famed cultural institution Casa de las Américas—has greater Internet access than most Cubans (for whom Internet penetration is still only about 5 percent). Born in 1966, he’s a link between an older generation of Cuban designers he met while studying at Havana’s Superior Institute of Design (ISDI) and a younger generation he’s helped mentor, particularly through the founding of the Friends of the Poster Club (CACa).

In Menéndez’s view, Cubans have been trained by the system to “complain, not to do.”

For example: “People complain, ‘Why is there no poster magazine?’ I say to them, ‘Well, why don’t you make one?’ ” CACa, established by Menéndez with fellow Casa designer Nelson Ponce, is a loose affiliation of Havana designers who gather every six months to review new posters. Each designer submits a new poster or two; they discuss, critique, drink beer, and eventually vote on the best poster. In a country known for an impenetrable, top-down bureaucracy and a litany of organizations that hold sway over everyone’s lives, CACa is an egalitarian collective where everyone has an equal voice and vote.

But this freedom extends only so far. The chances that a poster critical of the government would be printed are slim, and a designer

OF St. LAZARUS wouldn’t create an overt one.

Menéndez tells us a story about a printer who was fired after printing oppositional materials after hours at a staterun print shop—for “political misuse of technology.”

When Smith asks if any oppositional posters were brought to the poster club these days, Menéndez says no, but if someone did, he would let the artist display it just like anyone else. “Hopefully, it is a nice design,” he says.

Even if there were more oppositional messaging, it’s hard to say what effect it would have. As Menéndez explains, poster-makers struggle to make an impact, something he describes as “our biggest death.”

While progress has been made in reviving the Cuban poster among artists, designers, and collectors, the original intent of posters to communicate to a wider audience hasn’t come back, since posters are largely made for cultural institutions and aren’t posted on the street (a problem, Smith points out, that is replicated to a degree in Seattle, where the nicest poster for a concert is the one sold at the merch booth, not necessarily the one used to promote the show on the street).

Until government postering restrictions are eased and they make the leap back to the streets, the poster rebirth could be headed back to the grave.

It would help if people had more opportunities to see posters, particularly more current ones, says Menéndez. He would like a museum in Havana dedicated to posters. “This is a need,” he says. “It’s not just for me. It’s the responsibility of the state.” He’s been trying to convince the government to create this museum for four years, but so far nothing has happened.

Smith asks, “Will you take your own advice and just do it yourself?”

A thoughtful look comes across Menéndez’s face. He smiles. “Maybe.”

We pause a long time at a piece Mola made for the Asociación Hermanos Saíz, a government-funded association of young artists, under the theme of Pensamos Cuba (“We think about Cuba”).

He describes it as a “graphic essay.” It is an extremely personal work for Mola, but also a difficult one, because of the line a designer must walk between the personal, the state, the old, and the new. A designer can’t really cross the implicit lines drawn by the state. On the other hand, if the line isn’t crossed at all, there is a risk of looking “ridiculous” in the eyes of the graphic-design world as a whole. I am reminded of Monzón’s South of the Border design experience. “The limits,” Mola says, “are very complicated.”

The end result, though, is a stunning poster— the head and neck of a muscular brown man, his afro overtaking half the page, the words Pensamos Cuba wedged into the afro with a pick—loose strands of hair as barbed wire.

“We have a saying here,” he says. “A lo hecho pecho. It means stand by your work. This is yours—stand by your piece, be proud of it.”

“We have a saying here. A lo hecho pecho. It means stand by your work.

This is yours— stand by your piece, be proud of it.”

Edel Rodríguez Molano, better know in design

» CONTINUED ON PAGE 16

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circles as “Mola,” comes into the lobby of Smith’s hotel smiling, headphones dangling around his neck, a portfolio of his recent work under his arm. He graduated from ISDI in 2006, just before the opening of The Seattle-Havana Poster Show. He too says that the show signaled the beginning of a new era of posters.

Asked how the show affected his work, he laughs. “I don’t know—because I am contaminated.” So many designers are doing posters these days, he has trouble pinpointing what exactly influences his work anymore. Influence and exchange are in the air he breathes.

We move aside the Christmas centerpiece so that Mola can spread out his recent work across the coffee table. He narrates each poster as he goes, describing what it was for and what he likes about it. He taps one. “This is for a political event.”

“I thought you didn’t do political posters,” Smith says.

“This was about political songs,” Mola explains, “the right political songs.”

Another poster, featuring a suspect lineup, uses American measurements. Mola laughs when Smith points this out. “We are all American now,” he says, adding, “We saw The Usual Suspects.”

Olivio Bonifacio Martínez Viera has always stood by his work, though his work is of a different sort than that of the current generation of graphic designers. A celebrated maestro who worked with the Committee on Revolutionary Orientation and then for OSPAAAL, he’s created hundreds of propaganda posters. Viera traveled to Africa, Nigeria, and the Congo as a designer to promote Fidel’s plan to export revolution to colonized peoples around the world.

With that resume, you might not expect Viera to be open to Americans, but he’s immediately kind and generous—even if he finds himself at a crossroads with Cuba’s current movement toward capitalism. When Smith and I ask him what he thinks about the changing economy and about designers who are opening small businesses, he takes a drag off his cigarette and looks out the little window of the hotel bar at the sea. We look out to sea with him, sharing his silence.

Half a cigarette later, he has an answer. “My perspective is not economical. I don’t think first about money. I first think as a designer, about the objective of design.” His entire career was spent in an economic and political system that allowed him to focus on his craft—type, image, color— not on financial reward, he says. And although he is happy about improved relations with the U.S., he believes everything outside of design— politics, economy—“is all the same shit.”

He says his initial reaction to the announcement by Castro and Obama was happiness.

“It was logical. It’s very good to start a discussion. . . . This will be a more intelligent confrontation.” Cubans, he says, don’t have access to a lot of things that they need. Medicine, for example.

He tells us about a hospital for kids with cancer, that they sometimes can’t get medicine. The medicine exists, he says, but not for Cuba.

Viera says he has always been for the people, and that means people in whatever country, even the United States. After hurricane Katrina,

15

The Miracle OF St. LAZARUS » FROM PAGE 15

Viera felt compelled to do something to help.

He designed a poster to be sold to benefit a nonprofit organization in the U.S. that was helping Katrina’s victims. Unfortunately, organizers told him they couldn’t get the funding to print the poster because he was Cuban. He told them to remove his name, that he didn’t care about credit or anything like that—he only cared about helping the people.

In Viera’s view, graphic designers can make a huge impact on the world. “Designers . . . and images are at the centers of power,” he says, but the new designers coming out of ISDI don’t realize it. “They embrace banality. They are too influenced by others.” He takes a sip of his espresso and shrugs. “But they think I am a dinosaur.”

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Marca, a shop recently opened by designer and tattoo artist Roberto Ramos, we find a handwritten sign on the door: “Back in ten minutes.”

“It figures,” Sotolongo says. We peer into the windows at the mural painted on the back wall— a collage of letters, numbers, roses, and stars, crowned with a framed portrait of the Virgin of Guadalupe. Laundry hanging from the building across the street reflects in the windows.

Ramos shows up in a sleeveless T-shirt and black jeans—a feathered creature tattooed on one arm, stars and ocean waves on the other—and gives us a complete tour of the place.

The shop is located in a more touristy section of old Havana—it gets a lot of curious looks from passersby. In the gallery space, located at street level, Ramos will exhibit posters by Havana designers that incorporate tattoos in some way.

Though these posters will not be back on the street, they’ll be close to it. As both a gallery and a tattoo parlor, La Marca will attempt to bring design to the street, contribute to the neighborhood, and reach out across audiences.

Fellow designer Idania del Río shows up at La Marca covered in sweat from a journey across Havana via taxi, bici-taxi, and finally by foot.

She wears a white T-shirt that reads “ACTION CAUSES MORE TROUBLE THAN THOUGHT.” When Smith met del Río through Sharing Dreams, she was a part of a new generation of designers in Havana. A recent graduate of ISDI, she was open to collaboration and hungry for contact beyond the island. She acted as a guide and translator, helping Smith track down designers who didn’t have a phone or Internet, assisting with translations in the Seattle-Havana exhibition catalog, and creating the poster for the exhibition.

Having learned English from action movies, del Rio does not mince words.

“The poster was the least important thing,” del Río says. More important was the contact with designers from the U.S., e-mail exchanges—having primary contact with people outside of Cuba.

“Idania is literally my poster child for The Seattle-Havana Poster Show,” Smith says, “a Cuban designer I wanted to help by giving exposure to her work. . . . She’s the one I thought of when I thought I can make a difference to someone in Cuba. I felt I had to personally do something.”

“That’s a very American thing,” del Río says.

“You’re all infected with I-must-do-something disease.”

We sit in Ramos’ gallery space and talk about the store del Río will soon open—if she gets her merchandise out of Cuban customs. She had items made and T-shirts printed in the Dominican Republic, since it’s difficult to find supplies in Cuba. Her store will feature Cuban design as well as plastic toys typical of the island and straw hats from provinces outside of Havana. Del Río also plans for the store to have a workshop space where designers can make their own prints.

“The simplest thing,” she says, “can be so hard here.” Her store, Clandestina, has been in the making for more than two years. Even the name caused difficulty because of its implications, referring to the time when private businesses were illegal and really did have to be clandestine.

She says that while officials tried to discourage them from using the name, they didn’t say no.

“I’ve learned in this process,” she says. “In the beginning, I asked too many questions. Now I don’t ask—I just do.”

The street on the way to Clandestina is completely torn up. Cobblestones are piled along a trench, and bici-taxis, pedestrians, and cars try to squeeze their way through the intact side of the street. The four of us—Smith, del Río, Sotolongo, and myself—navigate through hordes of uniformed schoolchildren on their way home.

Garbage bins further narrow the street. I hold my breath against the stench. We walk past bloody fish heads, and I step in a pile of shit.

“In Ireland, that’s good luck,” I say.

“It’s good luck here too,” Sotolongo tells me.

We come to a fenced-off plaza with a dumpster in the center. Some of the buildings around the plaza sag; paint flakes off, revealing the gray beneath. Dust whirls in the wind. Del Río and Sotolongo point out that the plaza is in the process of renovation. Signs on the fence show what it could be: tree-lined and lush with cobblestone pathways, the buildings surrounding it scrubbed, repaired, and repainted. I mention that it looks pretty nice—though, based on the plaza’s current state, it is hard to imagine the picture ever becoming reality.

“Yeah, they’ve been restoring it for, like, 10 years,” Sotolongo says, laughing. “And it never changes.”

We turn away from the plaza and walk toward del Río’s store. Clandestina stands out on the street like a kind of phoenix rising from the ashes—a restored colonial building, painted clean white, with beautiful wood-framed windows and doorways.

The inside is equally renovated and polished.

She’s painted one wall with melting multicolored hearts and another with a silver palm tree. High on a white wall is a message in black paint: 99% diseño cubano. It is all empty space now, but she shows us where the merchandise will go, where the workshop will be.

From the balcony of her office-to-be, we take turns checking out the view, looking out onto the street, the plaza, people walking by. I wave to a woman out on her own balcony. From here, I can imagine the plaza restored and lined with trees. I see that it could happen, that what seemed dead could be resurrected. It would take a lot of work, determination, and maybe even a miracle—but it is possible. Anything is possible. E

news@seattleweekly.com

Chelsea Bolan is a Seattle writer. Her first novel, In the Place of Silence, will be published in spring 2016 by HarperCollins Canada.

food&drink

Fresh Fruit in the Urban Jungle

FoodNews

BY JASON PRICE

City Fruit comes off a banner year of saving Seattle’s orchards, sweetening the dining scene, and helping those in need.

It’s that time of year again when locals flock to restaurants participating in Dine Around Seattle. In its 15th year, 63 local restaurants are offering three-course prix fixe meals.

This year’s lineup includes past favorites such as Poppy, Preservation Kitchen, and Local 360, as well as some new entries including Tray Kitchen, Pomerol, and Ravish. The Seattle Good Business Network is donating 50 cents for every reservation made to the Rainier Valley Food Bank, all of which will be matched by Umpqua Bank with a donation to Dine Around Seattle. The event runs throughout March, Sundays through Thursdays. (Karma points are earned this year by booking through OpenTable.)

BY TIFFANY RAN

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Top: a backyard orchard.

Bottom left: ripening plums.

Bottom right: fruit trees ensnared in electric wires.

The Capitol Hill Blog reports that Euro Pub and Bottle Shop will open on Broadway in mid-March. What was once a humble bodega will become the latest option for your drinking pleasure, to feature 10 rotating taps (including growler service) and Eurocentric bottles for sale to you and your posse on Broadway.

Nano-brewery Outer Planet Craft Brewing on Capitol Hill will produce a mere 24 barrels a month and focus distribution in the neighborhood. The owners started brewing at home, and have developed Outer Planet with a unique sci-fi bent. In the future the brewery will offer movie nights and book launches and host local groups into the genre. Greetings, Earthlings! E morningfoodnews@gmail.com

TheWeeklyDish

Shanik’s vegetable koftes.

Winter is the optimal season for pruning and relocating fruit trees. As the weather warms, organic pest control will be the next step to ensure a bountiful summer harvest—when most of the fruit trees, including the Arumugam-Hino household’s plum, apple, and pear trees, will produce more fruit than the family would know what to do with.

Jesperson coordinates summer harvests near food banks and times them to end within the banks’ receiving hours, to ensure that fruit is delivered fresh, without spending too much time in transport or ripening overnight in someone’s car.

Miguel Jimenez of the Rainier Valley Food Bank explains that summer, a time of fruitful yield, coincides with the most difficult months for many guests at Rainier Valley Food Bank, which benefits greatly from City Fruit harvests. “If you have a young man or woman who doesn’t have the structure of school, who is going through the day hungry in their city, they are

more likely to make poor decisions than they are when they have a place to go and something to eat. These are the kids that really need stuff that comes from City Fruit. They need apples and pears; they need fresh produce because those are easy to take with them to soccer practice or to have a snack to make up for the potential meals they’re missing,” says Jimenez.

The City Fruit donations make a double impact, Jimenez goes on to say, by freeing up money at the bank. “We’re able to go out and purchase other items that are organic and fresh as well,” he adds. “When it’s in season, one thing we really love is figs. They’re a dark, deep purple and very rich. They’re hard to get in stores and go bad quickly. They don’t have a long shelf life.”

Jesperson tried his first fresh fig last year while harvesting the fruit at a local residence.

“I remember going to my first house and not knowing what a fig tree looked like, what they

» CONTINUED ON PAGE 18

If you’ve not yet dined at Shanik, here are two good reasons: It grinds its own spices, which will cause any self-respecting home cook to blush with shame should she (me) have a 6-year old bottle of half-used star anise stashed in the pantry. The just-two-year-old restaurant will also close in March, which should inspire a visit to this bold flavor country on the double. As a bonus, here’s a third: This is vegetarian heaven. For example: A shared plate entrée like the exotic vegetable koftes (pictured above, on the right), chickpea flour-based sausages swimming in a decadent tomato curry, are savory and rich enough to stand up to the menu’s other daring dishes featuring lamb and yes, protein-packed crickets.

It was recommended by my server as her favorite, and has a nice kick to it. If the heat proves too much for you, that’s the mercurial nature of the house spice blend; make it mild with a side of cooling raita.E gelliott@seattleweekly.com

17

GWENDOLYN ELLIOTT

COURTESY OF CITY FRUIT

COURTESY OF CITY FRUIT

BY GWENDOLYN ELLIOTT

SEATTLE WE EKLY • FEBRUARY 25 — M ARCH 3, 2015

On a sunny afternoon earlier this month, a small group of these people gathered at the Arumugam-Hino residence in Seattle for a Prune-athon, one of many workshops held as part of the organization’s structured education program, which empowers local residents to become trained orchard stewards.

“We’re trying to determine what would make this tree happy,” says Barb Burrill, City Fruit’s director of orchard stewardship, of a budding pear tree on the property.

The aim is to trim the branches in a way that coaxes fruit to grow low and branches to grow out horizontally, as opposed to vertically toward the electrical wires above it, Burrill explains.

CAMILLE SHEPPARD DOHRN

hough she lives in the city, Catherine Morrison has a touch of the pastoral right in her Greenwood backyard: a century-old cherry tree.

“The urban fruit tree is a natural resource we have in Seattle, and it is unique to Seattle,” she tells me, gesturing to her prized possession. “As larger cities have grown, they have destroyed their agricultural core. We have these amazing remnants of orchards that used to exist in this area.”

Morrison should know. As the Executive Director of City Fruit, she leads the organization that preserves and protects urban fruit trees, harvesting and distributing its fruit to those in need.

Unlike the fruit trees we find in most orchards, the urban fruit trees that City Fruit members encounter in people’s yards and along sidewalks are full of surprises. Some bear fruit 30 feet in the air, while others are deeply rooted on a slope or entangled in electric wires. It’s all part of the fun and challenge in working with urban orchards, explains Luke Jesperson, City Fruit’s harvest and community-outreach manager.

2014 was a banner year for the staff and volunteers of City Fruit, who harvested more than 27,948 pounds of unused fruit from residential properties in six Seattle neighborhoods. More than 22,000 pounds of the record-breaking haul was donated to food banks, schools, and community organizations, allowing those in need to feast upon the fruit of decades-old trees, including various varietal apples, four types of plums, persimmons, pears, cherries, figs, and more.

The plentiful harvest is a culmination of pruning and trimming, organic pest prevention, tree plantings, and tree relocations that started in 2008 when City Fruit founder Gail Savina first gathered a small group of urban horticulturists to help the trees and their community.

In the seven years since, the organization has expanded beyond its humble roots to include a vast network of city government, gardeners, farmers, social-justice advocates, restaurants, and neighbors rallying around the urban orchard and enjoying its literal and proverbial fruit.

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Little orchard stewards.

Fresh Fruit » FROM PAGE 17

HAPPY HOUR

AR T S AN D E N

would look like on a tree, and what they would yield. I picked one and just ate the whole thing.

Lots of people open them up. I just ate the whole fig, and it was one of the most delicious things I’ve ever tasted. I had what was too many more after that first one, and left with a stomachache of deliciousness. I felt like a little kid—you know, right after the cookies come out of the oven and you’re stuffing them in your mouth.”

Others in the city share that enthusiasm for these figs, including the staff at Tom Douglas’ Dahlia Bakery, who eagerly take photos of the figs before using them in tarts. In 2014, eight percent of the year’s harvest was sold to local restaurants and bakeries including Café Flora, Nuflours Bakery, and Palace Ballroom to help sustain the program, with the remainder going to the food banks and community organizations.

Going forward from a record-setting year, Jesperson has connected with farmers asking to use wormy fruits bound for compost as feed for their goats and pigs. City Fruit plans to launch the “Save Seattle Apples” campaign in April to promote organic pest prevention by providing education and information for homeowners with apple trees, and stewards will institute these methods on urban orchards in public parks and trails. Their goal is to reduce by half the amount of pest-ridden apples that go to compost. They are also working with Seattle Parks and Recreations on further efforts to map our urban orchards in the Seattle area.

At the Arumugam-Hino residence, Burrill stands beside three bags of twigs and branches taken from the pear tree. She recently connected with a woman who fosters pet rabbits, and considered dropping off a pile of branches that would serve as chew toys for rabbits in exchange for bedding and rabbit droppings that may act as good compost and ground covering for fruit trees. It’s clear that an interest in preserving fruit trees will lead to a raft of many other interests and causes. While many have yet to see the results, City Fruit members will be the first to attest that a humble apple tree on a random sidewalk in Seattle touches many lives in so many ways. E

food@seattleweekly.com

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No, it’s not an espresso Martini—

BY ZACH GEBALLE in fact, it originated thousands of miles away. The Last Word isn’t a native Seattleite, yet it’s our most prominent contribution to the modern cocktail movement. So how’d that come to be?

As with many aspects of the local craft-cocktail scene, Murray Stenson is the pivotal figure. As the story goes, while digging through old bar books, he found the cocktail, which was apparently invented in Detroit in the 1920s. It eventually made its way to New York, and was featured in the 1952 book Bottoms Up! by Ted Saucier, but then fell into relative oblivion. Stenson rediscovered it in 2004 and added it to the drinks list at the Zig-Zag Cafe, where his zeal and that bar’s massive influence spread it throughout the city and to cutting-edge cocktail bars nationwide.

Truthfully, it’s a drink that probably would have remained in obscurity forever without Stenson’s skill and influence. Even to experienced drinkers, the ingredients can give pause, and the average bar patron is apt to dismiss it out of hand. Properly made, a Last Word is equal parts (usually 3/4ths of an ounce) of four ingredients: lime juice, gin, maraschino liqueur (usually the brand Luxardo), and green Chartreuse. It’s then shaken and served in a martini glass, often with a brandied cherry as the garnish.

Its magic comes from the interplay of ingredients. Each pulls the drink in a different direction: the lime juice toward sourness and fruit, the gin toward herbaceousness and alcohol, the maraschino liqueur toward sweetness, and the Chartreuse toward bitterness and exoticism. When the ratio is correct, the drink visits each of those realms before returning to a state of balance by the end of the sip, and it’s that tension that makes it such a dynamic drink. It seems ideal for contemplation, for slow sipping, and as the name suggests it’s often a fine finale to an evening of drinking.

It’s also a template that allows for some experimentation. The most famous variant is the Final Ward, by New York City’s Phil Ward, which substitutes lemon juice for lime and rye whiskey for gin. Yet my preferred variant, which I think I made up (feel free to tell me that I’m wrong) is called the Scottish Goodbye. It consists of the same ratio (3/4ths of an ounce) of scotch (blended is fine), lemon juice, maraschino liqueur, and yellow Chartreuse, which is a bit milder than its green cousin.

Instead of a vast panoply of herbal notes, this variant allows the scotch’s smokiness to meld into the sweetness of the maraschino, while retaining the acidic zing of the citrus and the complexity of the Chartreuse. While it might not be a rediscovery of a forgotten classic, it’s well worth a try. E

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arts&culture

It’s a Feeling

ThisWeek’s PickList

How Shabazz Palaces’ Ishmael Butler turns filmmakers into channelers.

BY KELTON SEARS

FRIDAY, FEB. 27

T

Fists & Fury

The Mystic and vast world of “Motion Sickness.”

agents who often have very specific, marketing-based guidelines in mind. Butler couldn’t have been more different in his approach—he spoke very little during his meetings with TEAN, occasionally uttering a protracted “Cooool” or another nugget of encouragement to “simply feel the narrative out” as it went along.

“He didn’t say that much, but everything he said was so astute, he was right there in the idea with you, and had this crazy depth of understanding of filmmaking that we didn’t expect,” Kvashay says. “It really meant a lot that he told us just to go with the moment.

ksears@seattleweekly.com

SYNC MUSIC VIDEO FESTIVAL SIFF Cinema Uptown, 511 Queen Anne Ave. N., siff.net. $15. 9 p.m. Sat., Feb. 28.

The Oscars are past, so now the Cinerama is celebrating . . . violence? Well, not exactly.

This festival mostly harkens back to the golden era of kung fu and martial-arts movies, the genre that Seattle-educated Bruce Lee helped make an international sensation during the ’70s. (Remember to visit the Wing Luke’s ongoing exhibit dedicated to his local years and subsequent film career.) Yet along with chopsocky favorites like Game of Death and Enter the Dragon (the latter at 7:30 p.m. tonight), the series also ventures back to Kurosawa classics Rashomon and Yojimbo, action comedies from the likes of Jackie Chan and Stephen Chow (The Legend of the Drunken Master, Shaolin Soccer, etc.), and the artful, Oscar-winning Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, always worth revisiting. Like a Chinese restaurant buffet, this is a spinning sampler of flying fists and feet, numbering 18 titles in all (plus both halves of Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill). Also represented are not-sospry Jet Li and Donnie Yen, both from the last generation of wuxia stars (all those stunts take a toll on the body). Where are the younger roundhouse-kickers like Iko Uwais (The Raid) or Tony Jaa (Ong-bak)? I guess they’ll have to wait for Fists & Fury 2. (Through Thurs.)

Cinerama, 2100 Fourth Ave., 448-6880. $12.

See cinerama.com for schedule. BRIAN MILLER

Lee in Enter the Dragon.

SATURDAY, FEB. 28

Sync Music Video Festival

When John Landis directed the video to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” back in the early ’80s, his intended venue was not television, where MTV was then busy building an empire out of video stars, but a movie theater where the short film—which happened to include one of the biggest hits of the century and a zombie Michael—could be fully appreciated. Hard to imagine such a vision in this current era, when we watch most of our videos on our phones. It’s really not an enjoyable experience. The screen is the size of a postcard—maybe—the sound quality is garbage, and, let’s be honest, it’s hard to stay focused on one thing for three minutes when the option to chat with your friends is ever-present. Our current deficit of a proper venue for videos (MTV, I hardly know you) is why Artist Home, along with Seattle Weekly and SIFF, has put together the Sync Music Video

SEATTLE WE EKLY • FEBRUARY 25 — M ARCH 3, 2015

“He said the coolest thing in the world to us, which was, ‘Why don’t you just see what it feels like on set and just go with what you feel is right.’ ”

That is the most energizing and empowering note we could have received. It’s hard to stress how much that confidence allowed us to be bold and decisive. That’s what really happens when you’re making art. You’re interacting with the moment. It’s not always easy to explain that to someone . . . but he did.”

On set, the team took that directive to heart with their cast as well, telling the actress who played the lead character, Francesca, “You’re inhabiting this character that the three of us have envisioned, and now it’s in your hands.”

As a result of that openness, TEAN says “Motion Sickness” ended up being one of their favorite projects. Critics liked it too, with The Fader, Okay Player, and Pilerats all suggesting the clip would work as a feature-length film or a television series.

“The whole thing was a dream come true,” Kvashay says.

Whether or not the viewer understands Shabazz Palaces’ esoteric lyrics or the films that accompany the music is beside the point. If you spend some time wandering around dumbfounded in Ishmael’s brain, or within the films that have been inspired by that brain, you’ll likely discover some meaning of your own.

To tap into the wavelengths of the universe, as Butler claims to do, is a feat in itself. But to elevate filmmakers you’ve never met to tap into unspoken wavelengths, and in turn elevate viewers to become cosmic channelers themselves, is a triumph that deserves, at the very least, a feature at our festival. Come get exalted with us this Saturday. E

WARNER BROS./GOLDEN HARVEST

We told him, ‘Hey, this is our interpretation of the song, but it’s your song so we’ll leave it up to you. If you’ve got any feelings about it, let us know.’ And he said the coolest thing in the world to us, which was, ‘Why don’t you just see what it feels like on set and just go with what you feel is right.’ He would ask us questions like, ‘Is this character like this or like this?’, and we’d go, ‘What do you think?’ and he’d go, ‘No no no no! It’s your thing! What do you guys want to do?’ ” This directive shocked the filmmaking team, which is used to working with PR teams and

TEAN

he music made by Seattle’s Shabazz Palaces is an encrypted transmission from the cosmos. There really isn’t a word for it yet, but you could call it “Space-SHip-Hop.” So where does it come from? Well, in a number of interviews, lead MC Ishmael Butler has said he doesn’t generate his lyrics. Rather, he claims lines like “cheetah waves clash against the glistening purple cliffs” happen to him. He’s merely a vessel for forces that he is “channeling,” he says— forces both “ancient and futuristic.”

In an interview with The Quietus following the release of Shabazz Palaces’ latest album, Lese Majesty, Butler is asked about the elusive, mysterious veil surrounding his work and his lyricism. The MC explains that he simply taps into the present moment when working on his songs—that “a mood is much more specific, and has more weight, than a word or something that is telling you what to feel, rather than providing the space for you to feel what you’re going to feel inside of it.”

Part of the reason we here at Seattle Weekly decided to put an artist spotlight on Shabazz Palaces for the upcoming Sync Music Video Festival is because the clips filmmakers have created for the wizardly hip-hop duo truly do lay out vast spaces a viewer can inhabit, explore, and feel. Hiro Murai’s video for “#CAKE” runs around a shadowy urban landscape that suddenly blooms with mutating beings, at times recalling the album cover for Bitches Brew by Miles Davis.

Chad VanGaalen’s brilliant animated clip for “Forerunner Foray” drops into a sea of shifting forms, aqueous and Egyptian in nature, before sending Magic Johnson soaring through space on a slice of pizza. The videos feel the way the music does—mystic and vast.

Butler achieves this visual and sonic synchronicity—according to L.A. filmmaking group TEAN, the team behind Shabazz Palaces’“Motion Sickness” video—by making filmmakers into “channelers” as well, asking them to explore the moment in the same way he does with his music. “[Butler] sent us the entire album [Lese Majesty] beforehand and asked us what songs we liked and wanted to do a video for, which is really unusual,” TEAN’s Jamieson Fry says.

Kerrie Kvashay, the team’s writing specialist, was immediately sparked by “Motion Sickness” and the tale it weaves about a drug dealer’s rise and fall. TEAN eventually turned the song into an HBO-worthy narrative about a reality-TV star whose on-the-side coke dealing sparks unusual daydreams in her neglected young daughter, who imagines her mother as an astronaut drifting through space, chasing a crystal that might actually destroy her.

“For ‘Motion Sickness,’ there was always this question of how to end the video—does it end where she’s running away from the cops? Does she get arrested? Is it an upper or a downer?” Fry says. “We left it open to Ishmael.

» CONTINUED ON PAGE 22 21

arts&culture»

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» FROM PAGE 21

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SEATTLE WEEKLY • FEBRUARY 25 — MARCH 3, 2015

(2/28) PSSO presents Winter Concert

22

CHRISTIAN MCBRIDE TRIO WED, FEB 25

Grammy-winning jazz bassist Christian McBride hits the jazz sweet spot with his trio and recent release “Out Here”

STEVE TYRELL THURS, FEB 26 - SUN, MAR 1

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Two Ways To Save At Sundance Seattle

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(3/5) Michael Gazzaniga WWW.TOWNHALLSEATTLE.ORG Understanding ‘Both Sides of the Brain’ (3/6) Jen Pahlka Powering a Better Government

Festival. Now in its third year, the festival will feature a collection of videos highlighting directors and musicians from the Pacific Northwest and beyond. This year we will be recognizing the work of directors Leeni Ramadan, Tristan Seniuk, and Ransom & Reason; shining a spotlight on the videos made for Shabazz Palaces’ music; and screening a world premiere of OCnotes’ “Hum Drum Killa,” directed by last year’s Sync Grand Jury Award winner Stephan Gray. All this on the big screen, where, as Landis knew, this work belongs. SIFF Cinema Uptown, 511 Queen Anne Ave. N, 464-5830. $15. See syncvideofestival.com for new details.

MARK BAUMGARTEN

SUNDAY, MARCH 1

Eloquent Objects

Although the tendency would be to view this selection of Southwestern art as a Georgia O’Keeffe show (with 22 of her paintings on view), the intent is to bring the New Mexico still-life tradition out of the desert and to our mossy climes. Thus another 40-odd works will represent her peers and heirs: Stuart Davis, Marsden Hartley, Gustave Baumann, Eliseo Rodriguez, and a dozen more. Flowers, cow skulls, cacti, and the Painted Desert are surely represented here, but there’s a meditative way of seeing that’s equally important to the arid inspiration. The desert strips away everything excess (recall Peter O’Toole’s T.E. Lawrence saying he liked the desert because “It’s clean”), always a useful lesson for artists. This touring show is making its only West Coast stop in Tacoma. TAM has more works by O’Keeffe (1887–1986) in its permanent collection (some added with the recent Haub family bequest), though she’s the main draw here, and her influence extends far beyond Santa Fe. We’ll see that reach in a concurrently running companion show, The Still Life Tradition in the Northwest, featuring local names like Morris Graves, Norman Lundin, and Doris Chase.

(Through June 7.) Tacoma Art Museum, 1701 Pacific Ave., 253-272-4258, tacomaartmuseum. org. $14. 10 a.m.–5 p.m. BRIAN MILLER

MONDAY, MARCH 2

Self Absorb

In the first minute of Self Absorb, an indie animated web series by Seattle’s Ian Obermuller, a green man wakes up with amnesia in an alien jungle, greeted by two talking cats who have received consciousness transplants. A couple of scenes later, we are treated to jokes about phenomenology, and a purplish old man named Doctor Trellis delivers the amazing line “I’m not a wizard, I’m a metaphysicist.” Developed over the years in his free time, the first two episodes of Obermuller’s series, released on the web in 2010 and 2011, went criminally underrated. Its high production values, deliciously trippy design, and unique fusion of surreal goofiness and serious philosophical contemplation is way better than 99 percent of the junk on TV. Obermuller will debut all four chapters of the recently completed series at the Northwest Film Forum, and if you are a fan of Chad VanGaalen’s melty music videos, the work of Moebius, or Star Trek-style space operas, you are going to devour Self Absorb. Also, the show’s got mothertruckin’ dancing salamanders in it. Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave., 329-2629, nwfilmforum. org, $5. 8–9 p.m. KELTON SEARS

Marc Goodman

Hollywood is doing a good job of showing the world why cyber-security is needed. The Sony hacking scandal—aside from inflicting The Interview on a larger, freedom-loving audience—showed us all the havoc that a maybe-foreign organization could wreak on lax security. Citizenfour revealed the lengths our own government will go to infringe on our security (in the name of security). And Black Hat hinted at the lack of job security Chris Hemsworth will have after the Thor franchise dries up.

For solutions, though, movies are worthless. That’s why we have books, like Marc Goodman’s Future Crimes. In this tome—available in cyber-resistant paper—the cybercrime consultant explores the “burgeoning dark side of the Internet,” from those big corporate attacks to humdrum identity theft and creepy GPS stalking. He also, thankfully, offers steps to protect ourselves from a horrifying future where hackers can tap into your baby monitor and listen in as you and your family watch Black Hat. Town Hall, 1119 Eighth Ave., 652-4255, townhall seattle.org. $5. 7:30 p.m. MARK BAUMGARTEN

» Performance Stage OPENINGS & EVENTS

THE LONG ROAD/NINE Two gripping one-act dramas,

presented by Arouet. Eclectic Theater, 1214 10th Ave., 800-838-3006, arouet.us. $12–$40. Opens Feb. 27. 7:30 p.m.

Thurs.–Sat. plus Mon., March 2. Ends March 14.

QUESTIONABLE CONTENT Schmeater’s comic panel game show. The Schmee, 2125 Third Ave., schmeater.org.

Pay what you can. 11 p.m. Fri., Feb. 27–Sat., Feb. 28.

SEVEN WAYS TO GET THERE The premiere of Bryan Wills and Dwayne Clark’s group-therapy comedy. ACT Theatre, 700 Union St., 292-7676. $20–$65. Preview Feb. 25, opens Feb. 26. Runs Thurs.–Sun.; see acttheatre.org for exact schedule. Ends March 15.

TALES FROM THE MIDDLE AGES The adventures of the knight Bisclavret, and more, told by the kids of Seattle Historical Arts. Town Hall, 1119 Eighth Ave., 325-7066, earlymusicguild.org. 1 p.m. Sun., March 1.

CURRENT RUNS

BLOOD/WATER/PAINT Live Girls! premieres Joy

•

Dance

LA PRIMAVERA Savannah Fuentes presents an evening of

flamenco dance and music. Columbia City Theater, 4916 Rainier Ave. S. $22–$35. 8 p.m. Tues., March 3.

Classical, Etc.

• SEATTLE OPERA Handel’s 1743 opera Semele, based

on the myth of a mortal seduced by Jupiter, is proving catnip to SO’s creative team. There’ll be vocal fireworks, too, with Stephanie Blythe as Juno. Gary Thor Wedow conducts; sung in English with English supertitles. McCaw Hall, Seattle Center, 389-7676, seattleopera.org. $25 and up. 7:30 p.m. Wed. & Sat. plus Fri., March 6. Ends March 7.

TOM VARNER & FRIENDS An evening of “Meditations and Improvisations for Brass Ensemble, Percussion, and Field Recordings” promises sonic surprises. Chapel Performance Space, 4649 Sunnyside Ave. N., wayward music.org. $5–$15. 8 p.m. Wed., Feb. 25.

SEATTLE SYMPHONY Jonathan Cohen conducts Beethoven and Mozart. Benaroya Hall, Third Ave. & Union St., 215-4747, seattlesymphony.org. $20–$76. 7:30 p.m.

Thurs., Feb. 26, 8 p.m. Sat., Feb. 28.

LAKE UNION CIVIC ORCHESTRA Mendelssohn, Sibelius, and Lydia Park’s A Serenade Fanfare. Town Hall, 1119 Eighth Ave., luco.org. $13–$18. 7:30 p.m. Fri., Feb. 27.

PUGET SOUND SYMPHONY All-Tchaikovsky, including the “Pathetique” Symphony. Town Hall, 1119 Eighth Ave., psso.org. $5–$11. 7:30 p.m. Sat., Feb. 28.

SEATTLE SYMPHONY “Celebrate Asia” includes music from Slumdog Millionaire and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Benaroya Hall, Third Ave. & Union St., 215-4747, seattlesymphony.org. $20–$76. 4 p.m. Sun., March 1.

METROPOLIS It’s not unusual for a film to be cheered by viewers; it is unusual for a film score to be cheered. One of the most memorable moments in any Degenerate Art Ensemble performance over the years (which is saying something) came during their live accompaniment to Fritz Lang’s 1927 expressionistic sci-fi film, a surreal transformation scene that had the thrilled audience roaring.

Composers Haruko Nishimura, Joshua Kohl, Ian Rashkin, Tim Young, Troy Swanson, and Ambrose Nortness contributed to the score, and tonight the DAE is reviving it—with 40 new minutes of music and played by a 17-piece orchestra—15 years after its premiere for 10,000 viewers at Gas Works Park. The Paramount, 911 Pine St., 877-7844849, stgpresents.org. $10. 7 p.m. Mon., March 2.

ROBIN MCCABE From the UW pianist and her students, fireworks for two pianos. Meany Hall, UW campus, 543-4880, music.washington.edu. $12–$20. 7:30 p.m. Mon., March 2.

SALISH SEA EARLY MUSIC FESTIVAL Flutist Jeffrey Cohan and friends play Bach trio sonatas. Christ Episcopal Church, 4548 Brooklyn Ave. N.E., 633-1611, salishseafestival.org. $15–$25. 7:30 p.m. Tues., March 3.

SIMON TRPCESKI From this pianist, Liszt, Ravel, Schubert, and more. Benaroya Hall, Third Ave. & Union St., 215-4747, seattlesymphony.org. $20–$112. 7:30 p.m. Tues., March 3.

KYLE ABRAHAM abrahaM.In.MoTIon

“The best and brightest creative talent to emerge in New York City in the age of Obama.”

-oUT MaGaZIne “...Lush movement, infectious music and magnetic dancers...”

-sIobhan bUrKe, ny TIMes “...Immediately Eloquent” -alasTaIr MacUalay, ny TIMes

• •

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

March 4 & 5

The Moore TheaTre presenTed In collaboraTIon wITh

sponsored by

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

TICKETS CALL (877) 784-4849 GROUPS 10+ (206) 315-8054

STGPRESENTS.ORG

EST. 1907 2ND AVE & VIRGINIA ST

SEATTLE WE EKLY • FEBRUARY 25 — M ARCH 3, 2015

McCullough-Carranza’s drama about baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi. Theatre Off Jackson, 409 Seventh Ave. S., 800-838-3006, lgtheater.org. $15–$22. 8 p.m.

Thurs.–Sat. plus Mon., March 9. Ends March 14.

CAROUSEL With its tricky mix of realism, Americana, and fantasy, what Rodgers and Hammerstein’s 1945 musical needs is air, light, poetry, and a dash of sea spray; it needs to cast a spell. The 5th Avenue’s new staging does this in just one scene: a dance sequence by Spectrum Dance Theater. Overall the production is fairly unenchanting, despite a cast of local favorites that would be very hard to surpass. GAVIN BORCHERT 5th Avenue Theatre, 1308 Fifth Ave., 625-1900. $29 and up. Runs Tues.–Sun; see 5thavenue.org for exact schedule. Ends March 1.

CINDERELLA This Cinderella “is a contemporary figure . . . with savvy and soul who doesn’t let her rags or her gowns trip her up in her quest for kindness, compassion, and forgiveness.” The Paramount, 911 Pine St., 877-STG-4TIX, stgpresents.com. $25 and up. 7:30 p.m.

Wed., Feb. 25–Thurs., Feb. 26; 8 p.m. Fri., Feb. 27; 2 & 8 p.m. Sat., Feb. 28; 1 & 6:30 p.m. Sun., March 1.

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. 8 p.m. Tues.–Sat., 4:30 p.m. Sat. (& some Fri.), 1:30 & 5 p.m. Sun. Ends March 22.

DEAR ELIZABETH Sarah Ruhl’s portrait of Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell is built on their letters. Seattle Repertory Theatre, Seattle Center, 443-2222. $17–$67. 7:30 p.m. Wed.–Sun. plus some Wed., Sat., & Sun. matinees; see seattlerep.org for exact schedule. Ends March 8.

THE DOG OF THE SOUTH Judd Parkin’s adaptation of Charles Portis’ 1979 novel makes for a classic road-trip story—self-discovery mixed with self-effacing comedy and laced with magical realism. Told in flashbacks as they’re enacted on stage, these picaresque vignettes are kept short and sweet under the direction of Jane Jones.

IRFAN SHARIFF Center Theatre at the Armory, Seattle Center, 216-0833. $25. Runs Wed.–Sun.; see book-it.org for exact schedule. Ends March 8.

THE EXPLORERS CLUB This pleasing production of Nell Benjamin’s 2013 comedy is no stodgy period piece, though set in 1879 London. There the asshat male adventurers of the Explorers Club argue about adding the assertive and attractive anthropologist Phyllida Spotte-Hume (Hana Lass) as their first woman. Under the direction of Karen Lund, this ensemble expertly executes goofy gags, even if the blocking is often problematic. ALYSSA DYKSTERHOUSE Taproot Theatre, 204 N. 85th St., 7819707, taproottheatre.org. $15–$40. 7:30 p.m. Wed.–Thurs., 8 p.m. Fri., 2 & 8 p.m. Sat. Ends March 7.

14/48 “The World’s Quickest Theater Festival” divides participants (tasked with writing and staging new plays from scratch within 48 hours) by age: artists under 35 the first weekend, over 35 the second. Cornish Playhouse, Seattle Center, the1448projects.org. $10–$20 (festival pass $60).

8 & 10:30 p.m. Fri.–Sat. Ends Feb. 28.

THE GOD OF HELL Sam Shepard’s drama pits Wisconsin farmers against malevolent corporate interests. (Are there any other kind?) Stone Soup Theatre, 4029 Stone Way N., 633-1883, stonesouptheatre.org. $15–$25. 8 p.m. Thurs.– Sat., 4 p.m. Sun. Ends March 14.

GODSPELL Or, the Passion According to Stephen Schwartz.

Youngstown Cultural Arts Center, 4408 Delridge Way S.W., 800-838-3006, brownpapertickets.com. 7:30 p.m. Fri.–Sat., 3 p.m. Sun. Ends March 1.

I MAY HAVE SEEN THE DEVIL Alejandro Stepenberg’s take on Hamlet “transplants the action to a New England asylum circa 1946, and rewrites the lead role . . . to be played by a woman who is locked in a lesbian relation-

ship with Ophelia.” Theatre4, fourth floor, Seattle Center Armory, 800-838-3006, brownpapertickets.com. $10–$15.

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

LOCALLY GROWN This festival promises “5 weekends.

9 productions. 32 performances” of new works by José Amador, Jennifer Jasper, and others. New City Theater, 1404 18th Ave., 800-838-3006. $12–$15. Shows run Thurs.– Sat.; see radialtheater.org for full lineup. Ends Feb. 28.

MATT & BEN Mindy Kaling’s sendup of the Hollywood bromance that gave us Good Will Hunting launched her career. Richard Hugo House, 1634 11th Ave., seattle stageright.org. $10–$22. 7:30 p.m. Fri–Sat. Ends Feb. 28.

NEXT TO NORMAL A “typical” American family is anything but because of the mother’s 16-year battle with manic depression. SecondStory Rep, 16587 N.E. 74th St., Redmond, 425-881-6777, secondstoryrep.org. $27. 8 p.m.

Thurs.–Sat. plus 2 p.m. Sun., March 15. Ends March 15.

SAVAGE/LOVE The vagaries of love, by Sam Shepard and Joseph Chaiken, with music by Michael Owcharuk. The Pocket Theater in Greenwood, 8312 Greenwood Ave. N., thepocket.org. $10–$14. 7 p.m. Fri., Feb. 27.

SWEET CHARITY A dance-hall girl looks for love. Seattle Musical Theatre at Magnuson Park, 7120 62nd Ave. N.E., Building 47, 800-838-3006, seattlemusicaltheatre.org. $20– $35. 7:30 p.m. Fri.–Sat., 2 p.m. Sun. Ends March 1.

VOYAGE FOR MADMEN Not Don Draper and company, but the voyage of Seattle’s ill-fated, real-life Ardeo Theatre Project. West of Lenin, 203 N. 36th St., the1448projects.org. $20. 8 p.m. Fri.–Sat., plus 8 p.m. Mon., March 2 & 2 p.m. Sun., March 7. Ends March 7.

For many more Current Runs, see seattleweekly.com.

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by mental illness or brain injuries, including work from Holly Ballard Martz, Allison Mollner, Carolyn Nelson, and Kate Vrijmoet. Opens Wed., Feb. 25. Columbia City Gallery, 4864 Rainier Ave. S., 760-9843, columbiacity gallery.com. 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Wed.-Sun. Ends April 5.

THOMAS ALBDORF His work explores the relationship between pre- and post-photography. Opens Feb.26.

Platform Gallery, 114 Third Ave. S., 323-2808, platform gallery.com. 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Wed.-Sat. Ends March 28.

DALE CHIHULY See the signature glass artist’s process across the mediums of charcoal, graphite, and acrylic.

Opens March 1. Museum of Glass, 1801 Dock St., 253284-2130, museumofglass.org. 10 a.m-5 p.m Wed.-Sat. 12 p.m.-5 p.m Sun. Ends June 30.

GEORGIA O’KEEFFE SEE THE PICK LIST, PAGE 22.

GAIL H. MARTINEZ AND HILDA BORDIANU Martinez’s A Winter’s Perch comprises graphite drawings inspired by the season; Bordianu’s Into the Woods includes paintings of imaginative forest scenes. Opens Tues., March 3. Parklane Gallery Kirkland, 130 Park Lane, 425-8271462, parklanegallery.com. 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Tues.-Sun., 12 p.m.-8 p.m. Fri. Ends March 29.

MULTIPLE FACETS Artists Di Faria, Shari Kaufman, Tara McDermott, and Joan Robbins show their work across various media including clay, photography, and colorful glass. Opens Wed., Feb. 25. Columbia City Gallery, 4864 Rainier Ave. S., 760-9843, columbiacitygallery.com.

11 a.m.-7 p.m. Wed.-Sun. Ends April 5.

SMALL WORKS SHOW Over 200 pieces from more than 70 artists including small paintings, mixed-media collages, and pastels will be available to view and purchase. Opens March 1. Gallery North Edmonds, 401 Main St., 425-7740946, gallerynorthedmonds.com 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sun.-Fri. Ends March 30.

Ongoing

DAVID ALEXANDER The artist, an avid environmentalist,

MAR 12 / MEANY HALL / 206-543-4880 / UWWORLDSERIES.ORG

•

Seven men.

One brave therapist.

Tons of baggage.

A world-premiere play, based on a true story.

By Bryan Willis and Dwayne Clark Directed by John Langs

•

• • • © Tim Durkan

SEATTLE WEEKLY • FEBRUARY 25 — MARCH 3, 2015

Seven Ways to Get There

24

portrays his landscapes in a highly fluid, melty paint style, prodding at the fact that the subjects are in danger of slipping away thanks to climate change. Foster/White Gallery, 220 Third Ave S., 622-2833, fosterwhite.com.

10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tues.-Sat. Ends Feb. 28.

ANNUAL JURIED EXHIBITION Scott Lawrimore picked his favorites from 1,500 submissions. Gallery 110, 110 Third Ave. (Tashiro Kaplan Building), 624-9336, gallery110.com. Noon-5 p.m. Wed.-Sat. Ends Feb. 28.

BED BATH & BETWEEN Nine local and international artists display work in a “hand-painted wallpaper” environment. SOIL Gallery, 112 Third Ave. S. (Tashiro Kaplan Building), 264-8061, soilart.org. Noon-5 p.m. Thu.-Sun. Ends Feb. 28.

CHRIS BERENS Eerie paintings of pale, childlike figures in dark settings. Roq La Rue, 532 First Ave. S., 374-8977, roqlarue.com. Noon-5 p.m. Wed.-Sat. Ends Feb. 28.

MARK CALLEN AND RACHEL DORN Yakima’s Dorn creates colorful, aquatic-looking ceramic sculpture. Callen paints saturated natural landscapes. Core Gallery, 117 Prefontaine Pl. S. (Tashiro Kaplan Building), 467-4444, coregallery.com. Noon-6 p.m. Wed.-Sat. Ends Feb. 28.

JOHN CRISCITELLO One day a giant dick appeared on a Jägermeister ad on Capitol Hill, and nothing has ever been the same. Criscitello’s long running guerilla wheatpaste street-art project has become emblematic of the struggle against gentrification by skewering the woo girls and bros whose puke floweth bountifully through the streets. Vermillion, 1508 11th Ave, 709-9797, vermillion seattle.com. 4 p.m.-midnight. Tues.-Sun. Ends Feb. 26.

JOHN GRADE Middle Fork is a replica of a giant Western hemlock created with plaster molds and real wood chunks. MadArt, 325 Westlake Ave. N., 623-1180, mad artseattle.com. 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Wed.-Sat. Ends Apr. 25.

INDIGENOUS BEAUTY Traditional Native American artwork from the Diker Collection, with a Northwest sidebar. Seattle Art Museum, 1300 First Ave., 654-3121, seattleartmuseum.org. $12.50-$19.50. 10 a.m.-5 p.m.

Wed.-Sun. (Open to 9 p.m. Thurs.) Ends May 17.

AMANDA KNOWLES The artist grew up with a scientist mother, and pays homage to her upbringing in Nescience by utilizing diagrams and a scanning electron microscope to create her works. Davidson Galleries, 313 Occidental Ave., 206-624-7684, davidsongalleries.com 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Tues.-Sat. Ends Feb. 28.

JASON LAJEUNESSE In Echoes, he explores his pursuit of sobriety through paintings. Ghost Gallery, 504 E. Denny Way, 832-6063, ghostgalleryart.com. 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Tues.-Fri. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Sat.-Sun. Ends March 9.

JUSTIN MARTIN Using materials that purposefully recall his rural upbringing, Martin creates “poetic sculptures” in his new show Windburnt. Punch Gallery, 119 Prefontaine Pl. S. (Tashiro Kaplan Building), 621-1945, punchgallery.org. Noon-5 p.m. Thurs.-Sat. Ends Feb. 28.

Feb 24–Mar 15

Buy tickets today or see it with an ACTPass!

acttheatre.org 206.292.7676

• MELT A group show of local and international artists

responding to issues pertaining to youth, childhood, and education. Youngstown Cultural Arts Center, 4408 Delridge Way S.W., 935-2999, youngstownarts.org.

9 a.m.-9 p.m. Mon.-Sun. Ends March 15.

MYSTERIES OF THE HEART New work from May Lee Chung, Rachel Morton, Magda Petrou, and Barb Yeakel.

A/NT Gallery, 2045 Westlake Avenue, 222-0680, ant gallery.org. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Wed.-Sun. Ends Feb. 28.

LUCINDA PARKER & MICHAEL T. HINSLEY Two Portland painters—Parker dealing in cartoonish, abstract representations of mounatins and Hensley in grafitti-like chaotic landscapes. Linda Hodges Gallery, 316 First Ave. S. 624-3034, lindahodgesgallery.com. 10:30 a.m.5 p.m. Tues.-Sat. Ends Feb. 28.

POP! 3 The pop-culture-themed art gallery’s final show, featuring prints from all of its previous shows over its four year lifespan. Ltd. Gallery, 501 E. Pine St., 457-2970, ltdartgallery.com. 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Tue.-Sat. Ends Feb. 28.

ANNE DREW POTTER Her representational clay sculptures in Vanitas explore what she calls the chief vice of the digital age: vanity. Pottery Northwest, 226 First Ave. N., 285-4421, potterynorthwest.com. 11 a.m.-5 p.m., Tues.-Fri. Ends Feb. 28.

EMILY POTHAST The artist and lead singer of Midday Veil deliers a lecture on all things mystical. Her show, which also includes illustrative works by other artists, including William Blake, is called Drawing God From Direct Observation. Hedreen Gallery (Seattle U), 901 12th Ave., 296-2244. 1:30-6 p.m. Wed.-Sat. Ends April 4.

POWER SCRIBBLES Seven local artists celebrate the simple yet bold medium of doodles and sketches. True Love Art Gallery, 1525 Summit Ave., 227-3572, trueloveart.com. 1-9 p.m. Tues.-Sat. 1-8 p.m. Sun. Ends March 8.

CHRISTINE SHARP Impressionistic landscape paintings of natural landmarks. Lisa Harris Gallery, 1922 Pike Place, lisaharrisgallery.com, 443-3315. 10 a.m.- 5:30 p.m.

Mon.-Sat. Ends March 1.

TERMINAL It’s hard to think about death—yet here it is, staring us in the face. The morbid subject of this group show unites disparate photographers including Sylvia Plachy, Joel-Peter Witkin, David Wojnarowicz, and (closer to home) Robert Adams and Isaac Layman. There are no dead bodies (though one mummy), yet images of illness and decay abound. Animal carcasses prove irresistible subjects, and Catherine Chalmers actually creates some interesting scenes with dead cockroaches. (Eeew!)

Corpses being static, early photography—when exposures took minutes, not seconds—often memorialized the dead.

Here, in this selection of 16 postwar artists and 43 images, death is more conceptual than personal. Old dogs, taxidermy animals, and even the tinfoil remnants from cooked salmon—this courtesy of Seattle artist Layman—make one think about our animal kinship with the natural world.

Our furry and feathered cousins are interred with less respect (see Richard Misrach’s desert burial pit), though how we treat their remains—or photograph them—here seems a kind of rehearsal for human rites. BRIAN MILLER Photo Center NW, 900 12th Ave., 720-7222, pcnw.org.

Noon-9 p.m. Mon.-Sat. Ends April 5.

25 ALUMNI To celebrate Gage Academy of Art’s 25th anniversary, 25 alumni will show recent work. Axis Pioneer Square, 308 First Ave. S., 681-9316, axispioneersquare. com. 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon.-Thurs. Ends Feb. 27.

RODRIGO VALENZUELA In Future Ruins, he turns his attention to what he dubs the “13th Man,” or the people who labor to clean up the city when its football celebrations are said and done. Through his video installation and photographic work, he muses on a transforming Seattle.

Frye Art Museum, 704 Terry Avenue, 622-9250, frye museum.org, 11-5 p.m. Tues.-Sun. Ends Apr. 26.

JASON WALKER A giant deer towers over the city, like all those Amazon construction cranes above South Lake Union. An elevated roadway turns to a river, pouring commuters over the brink of a waterfall. Aberrant chickens lay coins instead of eggs. Welcome to the fanciful urban menagerie of Bellingham’s Walker, whose solo show On the River, Down the Road has been specially created for BAM. The local artist works mainly in ceramics, combining whimsy and satire, “exploring American ideas of nature and how technology has changed our perceptions of it.” That notion of transmogrification seems apt in our booming, post-recession Northwest (Bellevue is sprouting as fast as Seattle, after all). There’s a woodsy surrealism to Walker’s work, as if unfathomable forces—hatched almost from dreams—are burrowing into our conscious cityscape. BRIAN MILLER Bellevue Arts Museum, 510 Bellevue Way N.E., 425-519-0770, bellevuearts.org. $5-$10. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Tues.-Sun. Ends March 1.

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BY D IA NA M . LE

Send events to visualarts@seattleweekly.com See seattleweekly.com for full listings = Recommended

•

» Film Samuel Fuller at his fullest.

NOW SELLING

CHAPPIE

PA Fuller Life RUNS FRI., FEB. 27–THURS., MARCH 5 AT GRAND ILLUSION. NOT RATED. 80 MINUTES.

filmmaker’s daughter, Samantha (of course she’s named Samantha), who crafts it with affection and a keen sense of where the good anecdotes are. It would be great to see more film clips, even from the acting turns Fuller did; a moment from Jean-Luc Godard’s Pierrot le Fou leaves out the scene’s most famous line, in which Fuller defines cinema as though he’s dictating the lead paragraph of a tabloid story: “Film is like a battleground: love, hate, action, death . . . In one word, emotion.” A juicy writer, Sam Fuller was a vivid, often startling director—but for a taste of that, you’ll have to see the excellent 1996 doc The Typewriter, the Rifle & the Movie Camera.

Better still: During the run of A Fuller Life, the Grand Illusion theater will host one-off screenings (in appropriately gritty 16mm) of Fuller’s wild Shock Corridor (1963) and equally strange but compassionate The Naked Kiss (1964).

Stumble in, and be flabbergasted. ROBERT HORTON

LASER PROJECTION, DOLBY ATMOS, RESERVED SEATING, BEER, WINE AND CIDER

TICKETS, SHOWTIMES, & RESERVED SEATING AVAILABLE AT

CINERAMA.COM

Maps to the Stars OPENS FRI., FEB. 27 AT SUNDANCE AND SIFF CINEMA UPTOWN. RATED R. 111 MINUTES.

As I write this, the memory is fresh of Julianne Moore winning her Oscar—finally!—for mentally perishing in About Alice. It’s not a great movie, but who cares? She’s done so much excellent work over the years that there’s no point in quibbling over her superior performances in much better films. (And yet I can’t help myself: Boogie Nights, Far From Heaven, The Hours, The End of the Affair . . . but no, back to the movie at hand.)

Maps’ second most prominent name, after Moore, is that of director David Cronenberg, who has also had a long, though more varied, career, including both highs (The Fly, Eastern Promises) and lows (eXistenZ). He began in horror, while Moore started onstage and in soaps.

But Maps really bears the imprint of screenwriter Bruce Wagner, whose insider novels about Hollywood (I’m Losing You, Memorial, etc.) are drenched in knowing wit and sordid detail. It doesn’t matter if his Tinseltown writing has any basis in truth; his novels’ appeal—and I am a guilty fan—lies in readers wanting to imagine

» CONTINUED ON PAGE 26

g all Playin KS W SEAHAMNF d an es!

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SEATTLE WE EKLY • FEBRUARY 25 — M ARCH 3, 2015

If you are already a fan of Samuel Fuller’s uncompromising pulp cinema, you’ll be delighted by this new documentary tour of the director/ writer/producer’s life and career. If you’ve never encountered one of his two-fisted yarns, you’ll almost certainly wonder how you got this far without stumbling across this flabbergasting character. A Fuller Life is ingeniously designed. The screenplay is drawn entirely from Fuller’s posthumously published 2002 memoir, A Third Face, spoken on and off camera by a gallery of intriguing readers: cast members from Fuller’s Big Red One (including Mark Hamill), fellow filmmakers such as Wim Wenders and Buck Henry, and the inescapable James Franco. Fuller’s scandal-sheetready prose is accompanied by (very brief ) clips from his pictures, plus some fascinating footage he shot as an infantryman during World War II. Infantry? Yes. Fuller (1912–1997) was already a successful Hollywood writer when he volunteered for the Army’s 1st Infantry Division, a decision that took him to North Africa, the D-Day landings, and the ovens of the Falkenau concentration camp. He signed up as a grunt because he figured that’s where the stories would be, an instinct honed in his scrappy teen years as a hungry reporter for New York newspapers. Fuller’s life is an incredible American saga, a tale of gigantic personality undaunted by poverty or danger. His recollections are hardly black-and-white, however, and his descriptions of postwar nightmares give the lie to notions of glory or heroism.

His films do that, too. They also stir up trouble—critics still can’t figure out whether he’s right-wing or left-wing—a habit that brought scrutiny during the Red Scare when FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover found Pickup on South Street less than patriotic. A Fuller Life is directed by the

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the worst about their matinee idols. Maps is the product of such venomous, take-down confabulation. It’s beneath Moore, but also a nasty and nearly welcome tonic for her dull, blameless martyrhood to Alzheimer’s in About Alice.

Maps has a different fate in store for the Oscarhungry, over-the-hill actress Havana (Moore), who hires a particularly unsuitable young woman as her personal assistant (or “chore whore” in the parlance).

Agatha (Mia Wasikowska, from Tracks and The Kids Are Alright) arrives without prospects in L.A., her only contact a Twitter friendship with Carrie Fisher (later to cameo, of course). Something’s clearly not right with Agatha, a timid soul on many psych meds and covered with burn scars. We’re also introduced to self-help guru Stafford (John Cusack), his wife (Olivia Williams), and bratty teen actor son (Evan Bird); all these figures will play a role in the fortunes of Havana, Agatha, and the dim, decent limo driver (Robert Pattinson, back from Cronenberg’s Cosmopolis) who ferries them all around.

All Wagner novels feature dense, gothic backstories of corruption and conspiracy. Pathologies are revealed, rehab is reversed, and sexual deviance becomes the new white-bread normal. The problem to Wagner’s oeuvre, and here, is that it all becomes so grindingly obvious. We watch to see the worst in Maps, it’s revealed, and absolutely nothing about it is surprising. (Even the ghosts are predictable.)

Also, unforgivable in the inside-Hollywood canon, Wagner can’t craft dialogue or be funny to save his life. Billy Wilder’s tossed-away tissues contain more wit than his glib, pissy writing.

As a result, a lot of talent is wasted here.

Moore’s Havana, like every other character, becomes more grating and ridiculous the longer we know her. Cusack, his career more ill-starred, suggests a kind of pathetic, defeated Tony Robbins with Stafford (who wears guyliner and those individually toed running moccasins); the longform writers at HBO could surely do something better with a showbiz charlatan like this.

Still, let it be said that Maps contains at least one good joke: If you’re going to be bludgeoned to death in Hollywood, at least let it be with your own Oscar. Because any other kind of death just isn’t worth having. BRIAN MILLER

Metalhead RUNS FRI., FEB. 27–SUN., MARCH 1 AT SIFF FILM CENTER. NOT RATED. 101 MINUTES.

She comes from the land of the ice and snow. We first meet Hera as a 12-year-old on an Icelandic dairy farm. Her beloved older brother wears his Viking tresses long, as any Nordic or metal god should, which proves his undoing. About 10 years later, in the mixtape-cassette early ’90s, Hera (Thora Bjorg Helga) has become the village outcast, tending the cows by day, practicing guitar licks by night. Hera’s parents, more quietly mournful, are baffled. The townsfolk are generally tolerant of Hera’s rages. Everyone expects her to take her dark urges to the big city of Reykjavík, yet she never gets farther than the bus stop.

We can predict that Hera will eventually win over the town and her parents with the power of her music. How Metalhead will get there is more uncertain, this being Icelandic cinema. Writer/ director Ragnar Bragason is drawing on his youthful love for Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, and company, and there’s an intriguing dissonance between Hera’s anger and the widescreen beauty of what we’ve come to think of as the Land of Björk. The

weirdness of most Icelandic movies—or Björk’s music, for that matter—springs from the eerie desolation of place and the passionate stoicism of its inhabitants. (This is an island where no one ought to live, yet they do.) Hera’s rebellion is more pat; and she, like the movie, has only one song to play.

There’s a sympathetic priest and a doughy suitor, even the late-film arrival of a band that’s heard Hera’s yowling demo tape, but Hera is the only one who can save herself. Yet instead of sending her on some transformative journey, Metalhead is more a Kübler-Ross exercise, which makes its heroine more static than she ought to be. I won’t say this is a disservice to metaldom, but Helga (a former law student) certainly has the talent to plumb deeper scripts that this. By turns scathing, wounded, and contrite, the actress conveys an atonal, akimbo soulfulness that, yes, marks her as a true daughter of the Land of Björk. BRIAN MILLER

Song of the Sea OPENS FRI., FEB. 27 AT GUILD 45TH. RATED PG. 93 MINUTES.

It didn’t cop the Oscar on Sunday, but the good news is a few hundred million people have now heard of Song of the Sea. The Best Animated Feature category often includes a title or two that— while utterly obscure by Disney or DreamWorks standards—are at least as impressive in the realm of cartoon art. This year Disney’s lukewarmly received Big Hero 6 was a bit of a surprise winner, its triumph perhaps the result of votes being siphoned off by two tiny but acclaimed competitors, Tale of the Princess Kayuga and this one.

Song of the Sea comes from an Irish company, Cartoon Saloon, whose previous feature The Secret of Kells (2009) also snagged an Oscar nomination.

Like that picture, Song is absolutely dazzling in its visual presentation and not so thrilling in its conventional storytelling. The plot is drawn from Celtic folklore, specifically the tradition of the selkie, those mythological shapeshifters who can live on land or sea, as humans or seals. Our hero is Ben (voiced by David Rawle), a young lad whose mother vanishes under dramatic circumstances the night his mute younger sister Saoirse is born. They live on a wee shard of an island with their mournful father (Brendan Gleeson), a red-bearded lighthouse-keeper, but a series of marvelous events lead Ben into a secret world of magical creatures and spell-spinning songs.

Little Saoirse, Ben’s nemesis, tags along for the adventure, and in fact proves central to the unraveling of the mystery. (If you’ve ever wondered how to pronounce Saoirse, the matter is settled after hearing it spoken approximately 126 times here.)

Director Tomm Moore lets the movie’s forward momentum run aground at various moments, but he and the Cartoon Saloon crew seem more interested in creating the gorgeous vistas that occupy virtually every frame. The character designs follow circular, looping patterns, and the visual influences seem inspired by anime and the line drawings of 1950s-era UPA cartoons (Mr. Magoo is not forgotten, people).

Add the Irish taste for sadness and fairy folk, and the film really does have a distinctive look. It’s even more geared for children than The Secret of Kells, a film I admired but never really felt enchanted by. I can’t shake the idea that the filmmakers really want kids to know about folk tales, as though dutifully passing on a somewhat cobwebbed tradition— when what a tale like this really needs is a storyteller drunk on the dark magic of seals and mermaids and the deep blue sea. ROBERT HORTON E film@seattleweekly.com

» Music

Thee Evolution

THEESatisfaction grows its tribe and returns with a second album that pushes the duo to the next level.

BY GWENDOLYN ELLIOTT

Catherine Harris-White (left) and Stasia Irons of THEESatisfaction.

see a silhouette of the pair riding a dinosaur).

Reflecting on such an approach will aid a listener’s comprehension of EarthEE, which has an astral-planing, mystical vibe like Erykah Badu grooving to Sun Ra on one of Saturn’s rings.

It’s all part of the “new black wave,” as they call it—an approach to music and art with a strong nod to the cultural history of afrofuturism. Building on an aesthetic constructed by African-American writers and artists like Octavia Butler, Sun Ra, and George Clinton, the collective adds their unique Pacific Northwest seasoning to the mix.

Themes of time and space aren’t unique to THEESat; they also signify the duo’s involvement in a larger cause, the artist collective known as Black Constellation, which counts other Seattle hip-hop and rap artists like OCnotes and visual artists like Barnes among its members, along with Ishmael Butler and Tendai Maraire of Shabazz Palaces and producer Erik Blood. (These last three all appear on EarthEE.) “It’s a community of multitalented individuals working towards a similar goal of creative evolution,” says Cat. If evolution is the goal, EarthEE succeeds. Yet, like its predecessor, the album features the same small set of Black Constellation collaborators.

Blood is again acting as co-producer and mixer.

“To be able to create with them is an honor and a joy at all times,” he says. His first impression meeting “the girls,” as they are affectionately known to friends, during Seattle Pride Weekend

in 2009, is forever seared in his mind.

“I was walking back home through Cal Anderson Park and heard them playing through the air.” He was with friends and made everyone reroute in pursuit of the music. “‘We have to see what’s going on,’” he told them. “This sounds pretty amazing.”

Encountering this music, carried on the breeze: It’s a fitting picture that describes the overall aesthetic of THEESatisfaction, and one that Blood has succeeded in capturing again on EarthEE: a groove-oriented, soulful affair flecked with tantric rhythms and sensuous beats that flit and float according to its own instincts.

It’s a step beyond the more “radio-friendly” awE naturalE, an eclectic, funk-infused work that revealed the beginnings of the duo’s meditations on rhythm and repetition. A track like “QueenS,” for instance, with its syncopated refrain “Whatever you do/Don’t funk with my groove,” is the natural parent of EarthEE’s more somber “Recognition,” that album’s first single—a reflective examination of the titled word set to tribal mbira beats provided by Maraire.

Stas, who once struggled with confidence, is now brimming with it; this is nowhere more evident than in “Recognition,” as she calmly articulates the word’s four syllables, staring down the camera in the song’s video—the embodiment of cool. Backed by Stas, Cat has a bigger canvas to explore her jazzy vocals, which are smooth, rich, and drape like velvet over

each intergalactic synth. You might hear Badu or Ursula Rucker in Cat’s phrasing or Ishmael Butler in Stas’ lyrical flow, but the style is all their own.

“They’ve always had an extremely unique vision and their sound has always been very much them,” says Blood. “Even just talking about awE naturalE to EarthEE, they really have just accepted their own style and their own songwriting, and embraced it in a way that’s just breathtaking. There’s no one doing anything at all like what they do. It’s an unmistakable sound. Even just the structures of the songs— they’re so unique to them.”

That unique style is attracting collaborators of impressive caliber. The new album features contributions from a handful of new players—most notably Meshell Ndegeocello, the renowned bass goddess, solo artist, and session player (Madonna, John Mellencamp, Alanis Morissette), who first shows up on “Universal Perspective” with a subdued, ruminating line that gently buoys the song’s message of humanity’s shared connection. Lyrics like Cat’s softly delivered “When we face our biggest fears/The truth appears” are escorted into infinity by Moog-like blips. Ndegeocello next appears on the following track, “WerQ,” a song with an even heavier synth treatment recalling those of Radiohead or Massive Attack, with even deeper bass tones.

The band connected with Ndegeocello over Twitter. “I guess she mentioned THEESatisfac-

SEATTLE WE EKLY • FEBRUARY 25 — M ARCH 3, 2015

The orthography is playful but intentional, the language a kind of gateway to a different kind of sound. Likewise, the group’s visuals frame their work as otherworldly. The album cover pictures Stas and Cat nearly nude, adorned in ritual regalia, seated on what looks like a geometric golden throne hovering in outer space (pull out the liner notes and you will

KING TEXAS

S

tasia Irons will never forget meeting Catherine Harris-White at the University of Washington’s Retro Revolutionary open mike in 2006.

“I was just getting involved with spoken-word poetry. But I was kind of clowning it at the same time,” she says. “Cat was doing this jazzy, soulful singing. . . . When I saw how free she was up there, just how confident, it definitely helped boost my confidence.”

At the time, Stas, who grew up singing in a church choir, was struggling with morale as a musician and lyricist. She was studying English literature at UW; Cat was pursuing vocal jazz at Cornish College for the Arts. Until then they were on different paths. But that meeting began a partnership that their friend Maikoiyo AlleyBarnes now sums up as “Past Lovers. Present Friends. Future Deities.”

“When we got together, being onstage, it was a whole other level,” says Stas about her eventual collaboration with Cat as THEESatisfaction, “nothing I had ever experienced before.”

The foundation for their partnership was set with one of its earliest collaborations: a name.

“Back in the day, I had a MySpace and I would often change my name, just being unsatisfied with a lot of things,” Stas says. “I was like, ‘Why don’t I be The Satisfaction, since nothing else is satisfying?’ ” Cat agreed and an extra ‘e’ was added, a nod to a shared love of Shakespeare and, as Stas puts it, “us incorporating old-school language and wanting to change the way we think about language.”

Browse the duo’s catalog and you’ll see this has been the case from the start: Extra vowels and spontaneous upper-case letters pepper songs like “Wee Sound Weird,” “QueenS,” and “deCODE” and mark their two Sub Pop releases, 2012’s awE naturalE and their latest, dropping this week, EarthEE.

» CONTINUED ON PAGE 28 27

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Babes in the wood: Stas and Cat.

» FROM PAGE 27 tion and my friend tweeted at us and we were like, ‘Oh, cool, what a nice tweet,’ ” recalls Cat, who then asked Ndegeocello if she’d like to be on the new record. Ndegeocello recorded the bass lines before they met in person. “It was so weird because it felt so in tune,” Cat says. “Stas said, like Erik being from the tribe, she’s part of our tribe, we’re part of her tribe. We have the same sonic values and feelings. We’re all black weirdos in our own right. I couldn’t imagine the songs without the bass lines. It just fit in perfectly.”

Last Friday, in the Norman B. and Constance

SHOWBOX SODO IN FLAMES +

KING TEXAS

2/26

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ORCHESTRA

8PM

Rice Legacy Hall in the Northwest African American Museum, a sizable group is gathered, slowly grooving to the sounds of THEESatisfaction spinning steamy tracks by Pharrell and Keith Sweat and even some of their own. By 11 p.m. the venue is packed with a crowd that includes members of both Stas’ and Cat’s families, out on the dance floor.

Conceived and organized by Cat and Stas, the scene—what they call “a magical soulful, Black experience” filled with music, DJs, drinks, and dancing—is the latest in an ongoing series of Black Weirdo parties, bringing together and celebrating Seattle’s diverse and expressive black arts world.

“We started Black Weirdo kind of when we started THEESat [in 2008],” says Stas.

“It started as little house parties. We’d have our friends over and everyone would bring their laptops and plug in to the speakers and just share what they were listening to. and we would jam out and have a good time, drink a lot, smoke a lot, you know, Seattle. From there we wanted to take that vibe and make it on a bigger level. We had a blog [uniquenoir.tumblr. com], and we would post about some of our favorite music and art and just profiles of people we thought were cool.”

Following the success of the Seattle shows, the duo decided to host one in Brooklyn. 400 people showed up, and soon afterward Black Weirdo expanded to other cities. They’ve since hosted parties in Minneapolis, Oakland, and Toronto.

“We just wanted people to have a safe place to be. There wasn’t a lot of places for, like, queer

people of color to feel comfortable just vibing out and dancing without being harassed or not feeling like they fit in,” says Stas, who goes on to say that all are welcome. “You just gotta be pro-people being themselves, pro-positivity. It’s a freedom party. It’s a loving place.”

Lending further vitality and authenticity to their shared drive is that Stas and Cat, both nearing 30, are queer women of color. Tendai Maraire says it’s that quality that makes EarthEE a true expression of Seattle culture; he ranks the group with Pearl Jam and Nirvana.

“If you grew up here, there’s a certain humbleness we walk with here, but there’s also a certain pride.” Grunge happened here, he says, because of how Seattle supports its own, and how “we will not conform—that’s Seattle. They’re two lesbian women in hip-hop not exploiting that.”

Those who find success, he says, are the ones who set out with no “predetermined racket of what success is.”

As part of that evolution and growth, with their continuing work in Black Weirdo and as columnists for this paper (excepting this week, Ladies First runs the last Wednesday of every month), the two women have a heightened platform to discuss race, gender, and art in constructive ways, and they have seized it, zeroing in on a long-delayed and positive zeitgeist: The world is interested in the black experience.

At last Friday’s Black Weirdo party, I approach Cat’s mom, Paula, who is taking a break from the dance floor she and her husband were busy cutting up. It’s their anniversary, but she won’t disclose how long they’ve been married. “I’d rather not say,” she says politely. Turning the subject to her daughter, I ask, “What do you make of the scene your daughter has created here, the Black Weirdo parties?”

She gestures out to the dance floor. “Just look around you,” she replies.

Beautiful people are everywhere, shimmering and shimmying, like a gentle, undulating wave. Riding atop is a ship, of course: Stas and Cat taking turns at the wheel, DJing on a small stage. E

gelliott@seattleweekly.com

THEESATISFACTION EARTHEE ALBUM RELEASE With Gifted Gab and DJ Mursi Layne.

Neumos, 925 E. Pike St., 709-9442, neumos.com. $12 adv. 8 p.m. Thurs., Feb. 26.

“Irene, Goodnight,” a nod to blues musician Lead Belly, is a song about hipsters in Everytown, U.S.A. that’s equal parts snarky (“We’ve got Ginsberg and Kerouac on the bookshelves/We built those ourselves”) and self-aware (“We sing old folk songs and play acoustic instruments”). And on album-opener “What’s the Meaning of this Magic?”, singer/guitarist Robert Anderson talks of running through the forest while wolves and helicopters circle. There’s a cinematic build to each song that amplifies the epic nature of each lyric. With Levi Fuller & the Library, Roselit Bone, Greenhornbluehorn. Conor Byrne Pub. 9 p.m. $8. 21 and over.

In honor of its namesake’s birthday, the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute, which “celebrates, nurtures, preserves, and presents African-American and Diaspora performing arts, cultural wealth, and iconic legacies,” is hosting the 3RD ANNUAL

Thursday, Feb. 26 Though it bills itself as “the world’s first Gruntry [grunge + country] band,” RED HEART ALARM leans more toward the twangier of the two flannel-favoring genres.

The quartet’s latest, Hammer Anvil Stirrup, does feature a few heavy guitar riffs and lyrics about darker topics like loss and addiction, but for the most part there’s a subtle country flair to it, especially on tunes like “Looking for Trouble” and album-closer “Autumn.”

Corey Allred and Jared Monschein, who share vocal and guitar duties, create strong harmonies while bassist Scotty Summers and drummer Donovan Pfeifer make sure everything stays on course. With Whiting Tennis. Conor Byrne Pub, 5140 Ballard Ave. N.W., 7843640, conorbyrnepub.com. 9 p.m. $8. 21 and over.

LANGSTON HUGHES MOTOWN BIRTHDAY BASH. The poet, novelist, playwright, and activist

“Folk-apocalypse” six-piece DAY LABORERS & PETTY INTELLECTUALS covers it all on its selftitled debut: life, love, and of course the apocalypse.

Since playing his first local show in November after moving to Seattle from Chicago, CHARLATAN, aka Omar Rashan, has quickly become an exciting addition to the scene, bringing his blend of reverb- and synth-heavy noise pop to the stages at Vermillion, High Dive, the Lo-Fi, and the Rendezvous. There’s a performance art quality to Rashan’s live set as he runs from the guitar, which he sometimes plays with a bow, to synthesizers and back, while video clips are projected behind him. Rashan is currently working on the follow-up to his self-titled debut, so expect to hear a lot more from this newcomer in the coming months. With Nostalgist, Shadowhouse, Satsuma.

Hollow Earth Radio, 2018 E. Union St. # A, 905-1250, hollowearthradio.org. 8 p.m. $7-10. All ages.

Fans of brutal rock are in for a treat with this show, as sludge-metal trio SANDRIDER and drone/psychedelia quartet KINSKI celebrate the release of their split LP. The Good to Die Records release features five new songs, three from Sandrider (two originals and one spot-on cover of Jane’s Addiction’s “Mountain

Throughout his decade-long career, Pennsylvania-born musician LANGHORNE SLIM, aka Sean Scolnick, and his backing band, The Law, have become a staple in the folk-rock scene, known for putting on shows full of both rowdy foot-stompers and earnest, heartfelt tunes. The band’s latest, The Way We Move, captures both those sides. The album was cut live to tape over four days, so there’s a raw energy to tracks like “Song for Sid,” a tribute to Scolnick’s late grandfather, and the lively title track. The band recently completed its fifth album, this time treating itself to two weeks in the studio, so expect new foot-stompers and tearjerkers soon. With Jonny Fritz. Tractor Tavern. 9 p.m. $15. 21 and over.

Drummer D’VONNE LEWIS, perhaps best known for setting the pace in avant-jazz quartet Industrial Revelation, was practically destined to perform. His great-grandfather, Dave Lewis Sr., played the guitar and taught Jimi Hendrix and Quincy Jones a thing or two, and his great-grandmother played the piano in churches around town. Then there’s his grandfather, who fronted the influential Dave Lewis Combo, which pioneered the region’s blues, jazz, and rock scene in the mid-1950s. Now the youngest Lewis, playing tonight as part of the Bill Anschell Standards Trio with pianist Anschell and bassist Phil Sparks, is carrying on the family legacy. Tula’s, 2214 Second Ave., 443-4221, tulas. com. 7:30 p.m. $16. All ages until 10 p.m.

Monday, March 2

As a producer, DANIEL LANOIS is known for his work with Brian Eno on several U2 albums, including The Joshua Tree and All That You Can’t Leave Behind, and for working with the likes of Bob Dylan, Peter Gabriel, Neil Young, and Emmylou Harris. As a musician, Lanois has contributed to film soundtracks, formed a group called Black Dub, and released several solo albums. But no matter what hat he’s wearing, Lanois does things with an ambient bent.

Flesh and Machine, his most recent full-length, is an instrumental album that uses steel and electric guitar, piano, and the human voice to create otherworldly textures. With Rocco Deluca, Matt Bishop.

The Crocodile, 2200 Second Ave., 441-4618, the crocodile.com. 8 p.m. $25. 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.

SEATTLE WE EKLY • FEBRUARY 25 — M ARCH 3, 2015

Friday, Feb. 27

Saturday, Feb. 28

Langhorne Slim

TODD ROETH

Those whose only exposure to actress LEIGHTON MEESTER (aka Blair Waldorf on Gossip Girl) as a singer is via her appearance on Cobra Starship’s 2009 hit “Good Girls Go Bad” are in for a surprise.

Meester’s debut full-length, Heartstrings, which follows a handful of one-off singles, is more folk-pop than dance-pop, with Meester alternating between breathy vocals (the title track, “L.A.”) and a richer style (“Good for One Thing,” “On My Side”). She isn’t the first actress to try her hand at music, but Meester is one of the few who can rely on actual talent, and not just a name, to succeed. With Duke Evers. The Showbox, 1426 First Ave., 628-3151, showboxpresents. com. 8 p.m. $20 adv./$25 DOS. All ages.

After the members of folk-rock group Buffalo Springfield decided to go their separate ways, vocalist Richie Furay began working on a new project with fellow Springfielder Jim Messina on bass. That band, POCO, became a country-rock pioneer following the release of its debut album, Pickin’ Up the Pieces. It peaked commercially in the late ’70s with “Crazy Love” and “Heart of the Night,” and though lineup and label changes have been a major part of the band’s nearly50-year career, Poco has always come out on top.

Original pedal steel guitarist Rusty Young now leads a revamped crew, and Poco released its 21st album, All Fired Up, in 2013. With Firefall. Snoqualmie Casino, 37500 S.E. North Bend Way, Snoqualmie, 425-8881234, snocasino.com. 7 p.m. $30. 21 and over.

There’s a timelessness to the ballads on the self-titled debut from country six-piece ANNIE FORD BAND that makes them relatable to lovelorn listeners of all generations. “Dirty Hearts and Broken Dishes” and “My Brother” are particularly stirring, and even some of the more upbeat songs are lyrically down on their luck. On “Lovesick,” for instance, the Virginia-born Ford sings about a girl who just won’t let her go: “I’m lovesick and sick of loving/Please let me be.” There is a bit of fun here, though. The band really kicks it into high gear on “Frankie” and closes the album with the devious “Gotta Kill a Rooster.” With Ole Tinder, Pepper Proud. Sunset Tavern, 5433 Ballard Ave. N.W., 784-4880, sunsettavern.com. 9 p.m. $8. 21 and over.

Now in its third year, the multi-bill night known as FAMILY REUNION is a reminder that, though it may sometimes feel like the opposite is true, someone always has your back. Hosted by KEXP’s Don Slack, Family Reunion benefits MusiCares, a program that helps people in the music industry with financial, medical, and personal issues. This year, a jam-packed lineup (Barb Hunter, Cooper Smith, In Cahoots, The Crying Shame, Massy Ferguson, Red Jacket Mine, The Ganges River Band, Long Dark Moon, the Swearengens’ Fredd Luongo, Inly, Casey Ruff, the Riveters, Jackrabbit, Matthew Harvey, and Gabriel Mintz) will perform the music of alt-country outfit Uncle Tupelo and the bands that grew out of its demise, Wilco and Son Volt. Tractor Tavern, 5213 Ballard Ave. N.W., 789-3599, tractortavern.com.

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

MICHAEL DALLATORRE

Leighton Meester

was actually born on February 1, but the institute notes that Hughes would’ve wanted to move the party back so as to not interfere with the Super Bowl. Now that football season is over, DJ Robin Summerrise will spin Motown classics to celebrate Hughes’ impact on the world. Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute, 104 17th Ave. S., 684-4757, langstoninstitute.org. 7 p.m. $10. 21 and over.

The only thing that captures the energy of Mardi Gras better than Carnivale Electricos, the latest fulllength from jazz-funk quintet GALACTIC, is being at the annual pre-Lent celebration yourself. The group worked with musicians from its native New Orleans, including the KIPP Renaissance High School Marching Band on “Karate” and carnival mainstays Big Chief Juan Pardo and the Golden Comanche on album-opener “Ha Di Ka,” to translate the experience.

Galactic also touches on the celebration’s love of hip-hop with “Move Fast,” featuring renowned Mardi Gras beatmaker Mannie Fresh and rapper Mystikal.

The event’s Brazilian influence also gets some time in the spotlight on “O Côco da Galinha” and the reworked Carlinhos Brown song “Magalenha.” The Showbox. 9 p.m. $28.50 adv./$33 DOS. 21 and over.

As its title suggests, Mixtape of the Open Road, the latest from rock ’n’ soul singer/songwriter MARTIN SEXTON, is a thoughtfully curated album meant to show off Sexton’s versatility while capturing the casual nature of a road-trip soundtrack. Album opener “Do It Daily” is a rousing bluegrass song, “Give It Up” is a smooth R&B jam, “Supper Time” is a foot-stomping country tune, and “You (My Mind Is Woo)” is Sexton at his soulful best. Each song is spirited and engaging, likely a result of Sexton’s early years building an audience while busking in Boston. With Brothers McCann. The Neptune, 1303 N.E. 45th St. 682-1414, stgpresents.org/neptune.

8 p.m. $35. All ages.

IAN MCFERON found his bearings in the local music scene in 2003 thanks to a major winning streak on 103.7 The Mountain’s weekly “New Music Throwdown” competition with “Love Me Twice,” from his debut full-length Don’t Look Back. But the folk singer with Dylanesque lyrics has really built a name for himself over the past decade with nearconstant touring around the world. Before McFeron hits the road with a calendar booked through May, he’ll mark the release of Radio, his eighth studio album, by playing the record in full, as well as select favorites from previous releases, all with a full backing band. With Josh Clauson. The Triple Door, 216 Union St., 838-4333, thetripledoor.net. 8 p.m. $15 adv./$20 DOS. All ages.

Song”) and two from Kinski. Sandrider made sure Side A was as massive as its sophomore album, Godhead, with “Rain,” “Glaive,” and “Mountain Song,” while Kinski took Side B down a more instrumental road on “Beyond in Touch With My Feminine Side” and “The Narcotic Comforts of the Status Quo.” Remember your earplugs; this one’s gonna get loud.

With Blood Drugs. Neumos, 925 E. Pike St., 709-9442, neumos.com. 8 p.m. $10 adv. 21 and over.

JMSN, pronounced Jameson, the stage name of Los Angeles-by-way-of-Detroit R&B singer and multiinstrumentalist Christian Berishaj, falls somewhere between Justin Timberlake and How to Dress Well’s Tom Krell on the “White Guys With Soul” spectrum.

He doesn’t have the former’s choreography or the full extent of the latter’s falsetto, but on his self-titled sophomore album, also referred to as Blue Album, Berishaj is just as lovesick. “You’re everything I want, yeah/It’s something that you got, oh/And I just want to make you stay/Keep you here right next to me,” he croons on album-closer “Foolin’.” With Rochelle Jordan, Devon Baldwin. Barboza, 925 E. Pike St., 709-9951, thebarboza.com. 7 p.m. $13.

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29

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t should be noted that I’m not exactly a shill for the marijuana industry. (Though product samples can be dropped off at the Weekly offices: make sure to mark packages “Legal Marijuana” lest they be confiscated by the federal HIGHERGROUND post office.)

BY MICHAEL A. STUSSER That said, when there’s positive news related to cannabis, given my predilection for smoking the stuff, I have every intention of highlighting the study, report, innovation, or miracle cure—if only to counter the hundred years of Reefer Madness propaganda that came before. (They did have cool posters . . . ) With that pot-infused preamble in place, it’s time for a joke: What’s the difference between a drunk driver and a stoned driver at a stop sign? The drunkard hauls right past, while the stoner waits for the sign to turn green.

A study released last week by the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration shows no link between marijuana use and car accidents.

And while that’s no green light to smoke a fatty and jump into the Caddy, it’s yet another death knell to the “Just Say No” talking points.

Data from the Roadside Survey of Alcohol and Drug Use by Drivers showed that booze increases a driver’s accident risk sevenfold. The road risk for people who test positive for marijuana, after adjusting for other factors, is the same as driving sober. Translation: Measurable amounts of THC in a person’s system doesn’t correlate to impairment as drinking and driving do. “At the current time,” states the NHTSA report, “specific drug concentration levels cannot be reliably equated with specific degree of driver impairment.”

In defense of the pharmaceutical industry (who are also welcome to send in samples), the use of painkillers, stimulants, and antidepressants also showed no statistically significant change in accident risk.

After alcohol, THC is the most common substance found in car crashes, and its presence increased the odds of smashing into something 25 percent. That risk, however, disappears after adjusting for variables like gender, age, and race.

For example, men and young people are more insane drivers than women and the aged—and they’re also more likely to smoke ganja. Once you adjust for these factors, “the significant increased risk of crash involvement associated with THC . . . is not found.” Another complicating

factor has to do with THC staying in the bloodstream for weeks on end, so while you may test positively after a fender-bender, you may also have been mellowing out (and unimpaired) for days.

Clearly, it’s best if people don’t drive under the influence of marijuana. Hell, some people shouldn’t be driving under the influence of their own power . . . because they suck. I’m only 50 years old and can barely see at night; they should revoke my license because of the odd raccoonsized floaty-things that periodically drift across my retinas. Sorry, I digress. The most important thing for marijuana users to note is, while you’re not nearly as bad as the boozers on the road, it’s best to get baked and remain couchlocked. Who wants to fire up and sit in a steel cage, anyway?

Stoned driving’s just not cool, man.

TRIBAL MARIJUANA RIGHTS RECOGNIZED

The Justice Department announced in December that it would allow Native American tribes to grow and sell marijuana on their sovereign lands, which sounds about right, since THEY WERE HERE FIRST. Tribal governments are now trying to figure out whether they want to get into the ganja game, and have scheduled a national conference on the matter to be held here in Washington on February 27.

The Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians, representing about 50 tribes, passed a resolution last year opposing legalization on their lands (partly due to health and safety concerns for their youth), while Washington’s Suquamish said they were exploring their options for production and sale. The Yakama tribe, with more than 10,000 members, also wants no part of legal weed, and outlawed it on both their own land (1.2 million acres) and the ancestral property (10 million acres) they ceded to the federal government.

So long as they do it in accordance with the federal guidelines set up for states that have legalized marijuana for recreational or medicinal use, any of the 568 recognized Native American tribes can grow or sell the plant. One key sidenote: When you leave the rez in a non-legal state, you damn well better leave the Kalamazoo Kush and Chinook Chronic behind, or you’re liable to be busted, big time.

The first Tribal Marijuana Conference will be held at the Tulalip Resort Casino. Tribes will pow-wow, so to speak, to discuss the future of cannabis on their territories, including cultural issues it may raise and concerns about substance abuse. Hopefully they won’t have to sit through Tulalip regulars like Engelbert Humperdinck, Billy Idol, or Tom Jones. These wonderful people have suffered enough. E higherground@seattleweekly.com

For more Higher Ground, visit highergroundtv.com.

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