Seattle Weekly, March 25, 2015

MARCH 25-31, 2015 I VOLUME 40 I NUMBER 11

SEATTLEWEEKLY.COM I FREE

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inside» March 25-31, 2015 VOLUME 40 | NUMBER 12 » SEATTLEWEEKLY.COM

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news&comment 7

CRUDE AWAKENING

BY CASEY JAYWORK | An oil-bearing railroad seems to be underreporting its safety violations. Plus: giving prisoners a voice, bringing grizzlies back, and the City Council’s biggest fan.

13 TALE FROM UNIT 7

BY JANICE HARPER | You know that

apartment building you just bought?

Well, let me tell you about the aftermath.

food&drink

15 EAT LIKE A BIRD

BY NICOLE SPRINKLE | Lark, I love

your food. I just wish there were more of it.

15 | FOOD NEWS 15 | THE WEEKLY DISH 16 | THE BAR CODE

arts&culture 17 CYBERSHAME

BY BRIAN MILLER | A new book

explores how it became so easy to destroy someone’s life.

17 | THE PICK LIST 19 | OPENING NIGHTS | La revue

belge! La comédie musicale! Oo la la!

20 | PERFORMANCE 21 | BOOKS & VISUAL ARTS

OPENING THIS WEEK | A Koch

Brothers villain, a Lawrence/Cooper rematch, and Will Ferrell proves that buttsex-phobia = comedy gold.

24 | FILM CALENDAR

26 MUSIC

BY KELTON SEARS | Up close and personal with IG88’s equipment. Plus: Chastity Belt’s lyrics illustrated and Cat Harris-White’s musical herstory.

30 | THE WEEK AHEAD

odds&ends

4 | CHATTERBOX 32 | HIGHER GROUND 33 | CLASSIFIEDS

»cover credits

PHOTO FROM THINKSTOCK

Editor-in-Chief Mark Baumgarten EDITORIAL Senior Editor Nina Shapiro Food Editor Nicole Sprinkle Arts Editor Brian Miller Editorial Operations Manager Gavin Borchert Staff Writers Ellis E. Conklin, Kelton Sears Calendar Assistant Diana M. Le 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

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»26

3

JOSE TRUJILLO

“This is a ritual to satan.

Oh you will come back as a lemon tree!

Is this what our creator really wants for us???!!!”

chatterbox the

TRICKS AND A TRADE

Last week, Nina Shapiro explored a new attempt to end prostitution, which enrolls johns in a 10-week course that seeks to uncover the underlying reasons for buying sex (“Educating John,” March 18, 2015).

As part of the program, Shapiro wrote, the johns are asked to “look at poetry and other works of art created by sex workers, in an attempt to get the men to see prostitutes as human beings.”

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The fetishization of bitterness is, I think, maybe a misguided attempt to appear “cutting edge” when it comes to brewers making the recipe.

What it reminds me of is the fetishization of hot peppers. I love jalapeños, I love serranos, but I ain’t a fan of habaneros. And there’s no way I want a ghost pepper. I want my food to have layers of taste, not an impenetrable shield of hot.

Similarly, I wanna taste the different flavors in my beer, rather than get dominated (and, really, overwhelmed) by hops.

Tim Robinson, Director of Communications & PR, Visit Spokane

Interesting. Are similar programs planned for men who engage in one-night stands (which can be perceived as degrading, dishonest, and immoral)? Surely such men require help to adjust such behaviour, which objectifies and exploits In 2000, a Seattle beer snob was a person who often intoxicated women, opens up the possibilsaid, “Oh, this? It’s a craft beer. You? You like ity of rape charges, and potentially spreads STDs. Budweiser and Coors Light. This is differOr is this type of behaviour, ent, more sophisticated. You as jovially represented by wouldn’t understand.”

Send your thoughts on the character of Barney in Fifteen years later, a Seattle this week’s issue to How I Met Your Mother, for beer snob is a person who says, instance, somehow more letters@seattleweekly.com “Oh, this? It’s an Elderflower admirable than a “john” who Gose aged in cognac barrels facilitates an honest financial transaction with and dry-hopped with organic hemp hearts. You? a consenting and sober adult?

You like IPA and Pale Ale. This is different, more sophisticated. You wouldn’t understand.”

David Arnold, via seattleweekly.com Kendall Jones, via seattleweekly.com The sex industry indeed has many sides, something prohibitionists have a hard time acknowlRISEN FROM THE DEAD edging, while, in contrast, sex-worker advocates A story that Nina Shapiro wrote about the Urban generally do. I guess that’s because prohibitionists Death Project last summer found new life, so to view the world in simplistic absolute terms, at speak, and elicited a few fresh comments condemnleast in regard to this issue. As is usual, a good ing the idea put forth by architect Katrina Spade cure for that is talking to the people involved, (“Compost-Mortem,” July 9, 2014). As Shapiro becoming a person involved, and listen and learn. wrote, “Our bodies would be composted. Turned to That’s what I did. dirt, spread on gardens, used, as Spade sees it, for something ‘productive one last time.’ ” Hookstrapped, via seattleweekly.com BITTER BATTLE

Our Bar Code columnist Zach Geballe continued his ongoing quest to singlehandedly end the era of the IPA last week (“How IPAs Dis Seattle’s Beer History,” March 18, 2015). “Perhaps some local brewers could take a chance on beers that don’t nuke your taste buds and render you drunk after one,” he wrote.

This is the sickest thing i have heard in a while.

Don’t you green people think you are taking things too far? Whatever happened to respect for the dead? You want to turn human beings into compost? Are you freaking out of your minds?!!!

Wake up people, this isn’t normal!!! elisabeth, via seattleweekly.com

I think the vast majority of our local breweries do exactly this. Even newcomers like Holy Mountain have had a (terrifically tasty) “Lager Beer” on tap from Day 1. Schooner Exact has been experimenting with sours, not to mention their standbys like Gateway Golden and Seamstress Union. Stoup has a great variety that change frequently. Fremont has been doing this for years.

You’d be hard-pressed to find a local brewer that only brews IPAs. Skrud, via seattleweekly.com

You are sick! As well as the perpetrator of this satanic idea! This is a ritual to satan. Oh you will come back as a lemon tree! Is this what our creator really wants for us???!!! The Bible states that the prince of this world is satan, but God ( Jesus Christ) has the final word on all of what is going on in this wicked world. For now, satan is having a hay day! But look what is waiting for him. To be locked up in hell! hadenough, via seattleweekly.com E Comments have been edited for length and clarity.

SEATTLE WEEKLY • MARCH 25 — 31, 2015

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news&comment

Keeping Track

Behind Bars

With a new report alleging numerous violations by BNSF, concern over oil trains grows.

A new podcast investigates a prison success story.

BY CASEY JAYWORK

BY MARK BAUMGARTEN

JOSH FOGT

I

S

in the supply chain to transport by rail.”

Cue the choo-choo. Railroad companies like BNSF have an already-built transportation infrastructure to haul crude from North Dakota to refineries and seaports in the Pacific Northwest, and they have been using it. Of all the crude oil imported into Washington, the percentage borne on railroads has jumped from zero in 2011 to six percent in 2012 and more than eight percent in 2013. Last year, an average of 19 oil trains trundled through Washington every week, carrying 57 million gallons of crude spread throughout 1,900 tanker cars. The Department of Ecology estimates that, depending on how many of five currently proposed oil-transport facilities are built and how much oil Oregon and California want to import, the number of trains could triple in five years and sextuple in 20.

Bottom line: Seattle is seeing a lot of new oil trains. And the UTC’s report has raised concerns among Seattleites who were already skeptical of this new influx of crude-by-rail.

“Any individual violation is not a big deal,” says Eric de Place of the Sightline Institute, a green think tank. “But . . . it looks like there is a pattern emerging here where they may be trying to keep the public in the dark about instances where the public has been exposed to potentially dangerous substances.” As evidence of that pattern, he points to a 2011 incident in which a BNSF tanker jumped the track and spilled its contents into Puget Sound. Emergency responders were unable to reach BNSF for hours, “plac[ing] initial . . . responders in jeopardy,” the Department of Ecology later reported.

Fortunately, that spilled tanker was carrying lye, not oil. But for de Place, BNSF’s clumsy response just goes to show that Washington’s been kept safe by luck, not policy.

“Oil trains are fundamentally, structurally, by their nature, unsafe,” he says. “These things are bombs. We don’t know when they’re gonna go off, but they’re gonna go off. And if they happen in an urban area, get the body bags ready.” And get the lawyers ready, too. While BNSF’s liability insurance appears to max out around $1 billion (their press person declined to give a hard number, saying that “BNSF currently purchases what the market offers”), de Place estimates the cost of a worst-case scenario to be in the tens of billions of dollars.

“To me, that is batshit crazy,” de Place says.

“I can’t imagine a clearer signal from the private marketplace that something is fundamentally unsound” than commercial insurers refusing to insure it.

Oil-train catastrophes have become increas-

ingly common in recent years. Seattleites got lucky last summer when three BNSF tankers derailed beneath the Magnolia Bridge.

That accident led to no injuries and no spill, but other locales have been less fortunate.

Last month, 19 tankers erupted after a train derailed in West Virginia. A 2013 derailment near Montreal exploded about 60 oil tankers, killed 47 people, and leveled half of LacMégantic, Quebec’s downtown.

“Not a way I wanna go,” says O’Brien. He adds that various city departments are inves-

» CONTINUED ON PAGE 8

And how did you settle on this particular subject? Some of the prisoners were lamenting the

fact that the only story you ever hear about prisoners is that when they’re released, they do bad things and get sent back. This is upsetting to them because they know that that’s true more than we’d like it to be, but they also know a lot of people don’t come back and actually do establish productive stable lives on release.

How did you end up meeting Jeff Coats? The prisoners wanted us to capture their own stories, but that would be difficult given the Department of Correction’s rules about interviewing inmates.

So we agreed that the next best option would be to find people living in the Puget Sound area who had spent a lot of time in prison but were now doing great things with their lives. Jeff rose to the top of the list.

And what did you discover? One of the most powerful things was when we got into the case files and there was a judge who was asked to decide whether Jeff should stay in the juvenile system or whether he should go into the adult system. In explaining his ruling, he said “The state has clearly exhausted its rehabilitative effort, and this person is just not reformable.” He was 14 years old, and the only thing that had happened to him at that point was that he had been in 62 foster-care placements.

The fact that the judge so quickly concluded that he was not reformable, given the circumstance of his life, was really shocking to us. It had huge ramifications. E

mbaumgarten@seattleweekly.com

To hear the podcast, go to citedpodcast.com or listen to KUOW on March 30 at 11 p.m. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

SEATTLE WEEKLY • MARCH 25 — 31, 2015

even hundred. That’s the number of hazardous-spill reporting violations that railway giant Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) has racked up with state regulators. Since November.

In a report released Thursday, Washington’s Utilities and Transportation Commission (UTC) revealed that out of 16 reportable spills that BNSF had in Washington from November 2014 through February, BNSF was late or absent in reporting all but two of them—so late and so absent that those 14 incidents snowballed into 700 individual violations, worth up to $1,000 in fines apiece.

For City Council member Mike O’Brien, this is not reassuring. “What it signals to me is kind of a behavior pattern from Burlington Northern,” he says, a sort of “casualness” toward regulation. “When you take [an] already dangerous, intrinsically explosive material that you’re bringing through our community and combine it with a company that seems to be comfortable violating the laws—I worry about that mix.”

That mix is a relatively new worry for O’Brien and many others. Historically, about 90 percent of Washington’s imported crude oil has come in via boat, mostly from Alaska. But in the past decade Alaskan imports have slumped, while the quantity of crude shipped by train (and pipeline) has ballooned, largely thanks to drilling in North Dakota’s Bakken formation.

This swell of new crude from the Midwest “has strained the capacity of existing oil-pipeline infrastructure,” the state Department of Ecology wrote last year, “and caused a sudden shift

Seattleites were lucky these derailed cars didn’t go boom last summer.

t has been two decades since 14-year-old Jeff Coats kidnapped and stole the car of a man named David Grenier. The incident served as Coats’ entry into Washington’s criminaljustice system, and later as the starting point of the Rethinking Punishment Radio Project, a collaboration between UW Professor Katherine Beckett and Cited, a new podcast from the University of British Columbia. The series aims to unpack and challenge our society’s perceptions of prisoners. This first episode, “Superpredators Revisited,” explores Coats’ crime, punishment, and return to the outside world.

We spoke with Beckett about the show’s origins.

How did this get started? A colleague of mine in the Law, Societies, and Justice program began to teach mixed-enrollment classes, where he takes a group of UW students up to Monroe Correctional Complex. It’s usually about 12 UW students and 12 or so students from inside the prison, so prisoners. At one point he invited me to come along and observe.

7

Keeping Track » FROM PAGE 7 tigating what kind of authority, if any, Seattle has to moderate the risks of oil tankers. “It’s not fair. There’s just nothing fair about this. We have farmers in eastern Washington who can’t get their crops to market because the train tracks are full. Because the trains that used to carry their product are now carrying oil. Because they make more money on it. And they’re doing that by putting communities all along the line at risk.

This is not the American dream. This is the corporate nightmare.”

For its part, BNSF insists that it’s committed to safety. Reached via e-mail, BNSF spokesperson Courtney Wallace says that the railroad company is “currently reviewing” the UTC’s report. Regarding “what appear to be very small releases” of hazardous material described in the report, she says, “We believed we were comply-

SEATTLE WEEKLY • MARCH 25 — 31, 2015

“These things are bombs.

They’re gonna go off.

And if they happen in an urban area, get the body bags ready.”

8

NOW - MAY 17, 2015 (206)292-7676

ing in good faith with the requirements from our agency partners.”

“I don’t think you could say that [BNSF] didn’t know” it was violating reporting requirements, says UTC spokesperson Amanda Maxwell. She points out that the UTC started working with BNSF in September—before any of the 14 incidents—to bring their reporting system into compliance with state regulations.

The devil is in the details here: While BNSF did properly file federally mandated spill reports (copies of which are sent to the UTC), the window for submitting those reports is 30 days. By contrast, Washington law requires that hazardous spills be reported via telephone to the state’s Emergency Operations Center within 30 minutes (since cleanup can be time-sensitive). According to the UTC report, BNSF failed that requirement 14 out of 16 times between November 1 and February 24; and since each day that passes counts as a separate violation, those 14 missed reports turned into 700 violations.

Wallace says that in response to concerns, BNSF has stopped running passenger trains and oil trains inside the King Street Tunnel, and has helped the Seattle Fire Department prepare by getting them a foam trailer (for oil fires), providing free crude oil derailment training, and paying for firefighters to attend specialized training in Colorado. In addition, she says, the company has a sophisticated logistical network in place to respond to disasters. “There is nothing more important to us than safely transporting all of the commodities we carry,” she says, “and we are committed to complying with all applicable local, state, and federal guidelines.”

But are those guidelines adequate? “The railroads have done an amazing job over the century,” says O’Brien, “creating a system of laws that makes it very difficult for anyone to regulate them.”

O’Brien says the city should have a better idea of its legal options within a couple of months. In the meantime, the UTC has issued a formal complaint against BNSF. The railroad company has yet to respond. E

news@seattleweekly.com

news&comment»

Ranting Man

A thorn in the side of the City Council, Alex Zimerman is now vying for a seat. What’s the deal with this guy?

JOSE TRUJILLO

W

hen s J. Co ldman ougla o D G y m b a l illi ica A Mus novel by W n the ased o

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ON STAGE in issaquah MArch 19 – April 26 Box Office (425) 257-8600 l VillageTheatre.org

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SEATTLE WEEKLY • MARCH 25 — 31, 2015

World War II. He was raised in Russia, attended a college in Moscow, and emigrated to the U.S. in the 1980s, during the era of Gorbachev and glasnost.

“My whole life, I have fought against totalitarian regimes. Every day, I fight against fascism,” he says. “My dream was to come to this country because it is a free country.”

In 1989, Zimerman arrived in Seattle with his aged and chronically ill mother Leya Rekhter, whom he cared for until she died in 2008. Today he lives in a two-bedroom apartment in Lake City— “a small and dirty place,” he calls it—for which he pays $1,000 per month. In the beginning, Zimerman knew nary a word of English, stepping off the plane with a mere $200 in his pocket. He tried to Zimerman has called the Council “dirty motherfuckers.” squeeze out a living as a business consultant and later an independent caregiver.

“I was not too successful at either one, to be honest hen you first meet Alex Zimerwith you,” he confides. His main source of income man, he’s all laughs and good now is a monthly $134 Social Security check. cheer and gives scant clue as to the depths of his fury—this In 2013, Zimerman, never married and childtightly wound Lake City man with a bizarre penless, ran afoul of the law and was convicted on four chant for calling Seattle City Council members, counts of first-degree theft following a jury trial often at earsplitting volume, “gangsters,” “Nazis,” and sentenced to 960 hours of community service “crooks,” “criminals,” and his default fulmination: for stealing state Medicaid benefits meant to assist “You’re all a bunch of fucking idiots.” Once, address- the elderly. For six months after his mother’s death, ing Councilmember Sally Bagshaw, he roared, “Heil Zimerman received $9,000 for care he claimed Fuhrer Bagshaw!” while brandishing his arm in a to have provided her. It is not something he cares Nazi salute. to discuss, and he steers the conversation to try to Zimerman looks as if he were plucked from the explain why, late last year, he filed candidacy papers pages of a John le Carré novel, a veritable secret to run against Tim Burgess for the at-large Posiagent. Tall, with a crisp crop of thinning silvery hair, tion 8 seat. he cloaks his bearish frame in a weathered black “Burgess, for me, is the number-one fascist in peacoat. His Russian accent is thick, his brown-eyed this group,” he says. “He represents this group congaze attentive. At 68, he looks fit as a fiddle. After trolled by the power elite.” our initial meeting last week in front of Barnes & Zimerman knows he cannot win, and has no Noble at Northgate, Zimerman, entering the bookintention of spending a dime (even if he had one) store, offers a wide smile and cracks loudly, “So, you on a campaign. His game is to gain entry to canwant to destroy me more?” Heads turn. didate forums and expound on what he call his Zimerman’s repeated disruptive behavior has “philosophy of life.” deeply alienated the City Council, the members of It is, of course, easy to dismiss Zimerman as a which have grown weary of his disposition. The man crazy old coot, but amid all his belittling (and bewilneeds a time out, they say. Over the past two years, dering) bluster, he is able to muster a coherent ratiohe’s been ordered to steer clear of council chambers nale for returning Seattle (and America) to a pure on three separate occasions, for periods ranging town-hall democracy. Hear him out for a moment: from 14 to 28 days. He and his foul-mouthed com“Elections were a fiction in the Soviet Union and rade in barbs, Sam Bellomio—both members of the they are a fiction here. It is the elite that bankroll fringe activist group Stand Up America (Zimerthese elections. This is what I try and tell the counman serves as president)—prompted the council cil. I try and tell them they are being controlled. in November 2013 to “forbid outbursts and other They are collaborating with the powerful who tell disorderly conduct” and allow the chair of the meetthem what to do.” ing to eject anyone for breaking the rules.

Zimerman goes on. “We need to restore freedom “I’ve gone 600 times to council meetings since of speech. What I want is an open Bertha [Landes] 2010, but I did not start the harsh language until room in City Hall every Sunday for citizens and the last year or two because no one listened before,” public officials to come and speak their mind. We explains Zimerman. “We decided we needed to be must talk and talk together. This will neutralize the more of a pain in the ass.” money. It will bring us back to the real America.”

Are they listening now, Alex?

I ask him whether his Jeffersonian message is He offers no reply. getting through to anyone, masked as it is by his frequent temper pyrotechnics. “Probably not,” he replies with a gale of laughter. “People know I am Zimerman (born Avrum Tsimerman) is the son an asshole. I cannot help that.” E of a German Jew whose father, he says, was killed fighting Hitler’s Army on the Russian front during econklin@seattleweekly.com

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BY ELLIS E. CONKLIN

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SEATTLE WEEKLY • MARCH 25 — 31, 2015

news&comment»

FRESH FOOD & BREW Made and Served Right Here in BALLARD!

Out of Hibernation Grizzly bears could once again roam the North Cascades, but first the state must face its fears.

BY PATRICK HUTCHISON

C

The fears of grizzly bears

in the North Cascades are being fueled by the results of a similar program. Last August, a pack of wolves

killed nearly 30 sheep in the northeastern part of the state. Like grizzly bears, wolves were once regulars in our mountains, but saw the population drop dramatically with westward expansion.

Following a recovery plan, their numbers have rebounded—and with them, the number of attacks on livestock. Though the attacks aren’t yet regular, they have left some with concerns about intentionally introducing yet another big, hungry predator. “It’s one more endangered species that will ruin our lifestyle, custom, culture, and economic stability,” Okanogan County Commissioner Jim DeTro recently told The Capital Press.

To help curb those fears, the WDFW and NPS brought bear biologists and ecologists to many of the public meetings in an attempt to offer fair and unbiased information on grizzly behavior. “Being able to talk with people that have been working with bears for a long time about aspects of the bear’s behavior, like diet and movement, helps people be more informed about the animal and may help address some of those fears,” Froschauer says. “We’ve heard from a lot of people that have lived in grizzly country that have had great experiences.”

The information that Froschauer gathers as part of that conversation, along with that gathered by her partners at the NPS, will help inform an Environmental Impact Study (EIS) that examines possible restoration alternatives and the consequences of each of those plans. But overwhelmingly negative public opinion could slow the plan.

The plan is just one of many under consideration across the country, including areas in Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana. For now, those still concerned about the bear’s reintroduction don’t need to worry. It will be at least two more years before a final reintroduction plan could be presented. At that point, even if reintroduction is recommended, bears may not arrive for years. In fact, a similar recovery effort in Bitterroot, Mont., reached a consensus for reintroduction in 2000, but has since been growing stale due to lack of funding.

Even with a best-case scenario, the plan will be fairly mild and slow-moving. Bears would be brought into the Cascades a few at a time. “By introducing a small number of animals at a time, we allow them to acclimate and become selfsustaining,” says Froschauer. In other words, even for the most avid backpacker, it’s far more likely that seeing the results of this project will be a privilege of their grandchildren. E

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oncerned ranchers and excited environmentalists have had a lot to talk about in the past month as longstanding plans to restore grizzly bear populations in the North Cascades have inched closer to action.

It’s been 40 years since grizzly bears were first listed as a threatened species, and more than two decades since 9,800 square miles of Washington’s North Cascades were named as a possible area for restoration efforts aimed at building a new, sustainable population of grizzlies. According to the National Park Service, that area could support up to 200 bears, though those numbers won’t be reached for decades—even in the best of circumstances. In the near future, reintroduction plans would see only a few bears returned to the area every few years.

But before the grizzlies can return, the program needs to get through the public-comment period, which closes on March 26.

Following the progress of a habitat-restoration project can be a bit like watching paint dry, but the topic of grizzly restoration has brought an interesting twist to the six public meetings, held across the state from Wenatchee to Bellingham, and mail-in and online comments: namely, that many people find grizzly bears absolutely terrifying.

“There is a lot of fear, in general, and concern, especially from people who don’t understand the species,” says Ann Froschauer, a public-affairs supervisor for the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife. She provides information to those who are slightly nervous about these cuddly creatures, which can weigh up to 790 pounds and could function as a regulation-height basketball hoop if they stood on their hind legs and wore a rim as a hat. “It’s an issue that really does seem to attract polar-opposite camps. Some people are really excited. Others . . . are a bit more reserved,” she says.

The plan has drawn a wide range of opinions.

On one side are ranchers concerned about their livestock and backpackers worried about their safety. On the other are wildlife advocates eager to bring the bears back to a place they once regularly lived, returning some of the 100,000 grizzlies who roamed the lower 48 before Lewis and Clark portaged across the country. Now those numbers are estimated at around 1,500. In Washington state, a grizzly bear has not been seen since 1996.

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DEAR LANDLORD

A letter to the investor buying our building.

By Janice Harper Earlier this month, longtime West Seattle resident William McHalffey died quietly in his small studio apartment. A few days later, neighbor Janice Harper sent us the following letter.

Dear Landlord, Last week they took Bill’s body away. You never knew him. He’d lived here for over 25 years, a quarter-century that saw him slowly decline from an excited young man who loved James Joyce, the Seahawks, and a good bottle of beer to a decrepit old man who hobbled on crutches and still loved James Joyce, the Seahawks, and a cheap case or two of beer.

Bill’s life wasn’t worth much; no one in their right mind would have ever hired him, and few would think to rent to him. He was just this side of homeless, but our landlords, Eve and Charles, couldn’t throw him out. They knew he had no options, so year after year, they let him stay on, even though he couldn’t pay any rent. They’re good-hearted people who had bought the building as an investment, inheriting him from the previous owners, like a quirk in the building you grow to love even if it makes you grumble and groan.

Bill got by on about $660 a month in disability, some food stamps, and the security of his single small room. He was always happy to see his neighbors, always had a small gift to share, whether a poem he had written, a recipe from his mom, or a flower he’d picked on his walk. He drove us crazy, and we drove him places after bus service was cut in our neighborhood. Year by year, Bill lost what little he had—his ability to walk; the bus that took him to museums, parks, and the grocery store; most recently his food stamps. But he always had his little room, so he felt safe and secure in this unsafe and insecure world.

KYU HAN

» CONTINUED ON PAGE 14

SEATTLE WEEKLY • MARCH 25 — 31, 2015

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CHUCK SOCHA

2052 Rainier, Seattle

Sheila “Ms. Denight” Triplett

Until the day Eve and Charles told us they were putting the property up for sale. Who could blame them? The building is a century old and so much work went into maintaining it, especially for a couple of people who, also, are aging. But it’s prime real estate, right on the water with a view that would make even Donald Trump drool. So we had a good idea of what would happen after the sale went through. Skyrocketing rents and a landlord we’d never see, much less ever know.

Our fears were fanned by a recent Seattle Times article noting that old “mom and pop” buildings are being bought up by investors who are raising rents in our area by as much as 130 percent.

Another article noted that rents in Seattle are increasing faster than almost any other place in the country. In the last five years, rents have gone up 32 percent in Seattle, a trend that places our city second only to New York. That’s good news for you, as a landlord, because it means that investing in buildings like ours will bring you a steady flow of passive income. All you had to do is come up with a down payment and a management company to collect our rents. As our monthly rent checks roll in, we will provide you with the money to pay your mortgage, your taxes, your insurance, and your maintenance, and likely secure a considerable income for you as well.

But for us tenants, the increasing rents tell a different story. If we can’t afford high rent increases, we will have to move, regardless of how long we’ve lived in our homes, or how limited our resources.

Moving, of course, requires not just the cost of renting a truck and workers to move the heavy furniture, but first and last months’ rent, fees for credit checks and pets, and non-refundable cleaning and pet deposits. Moving costs us thousands of dollars, which we often don’t have. And for those who are unemployed or underemployed, have bad or no credit, high credit-card debt, or are living on disability, as Bill was, there’s just no point in a credit check. They’re simply out of luck.

That’s likely how Bill felt when he killed himself last week, telling me just the day before he did it that he knew the sale, which is scheduled to close on April 15, would not be stopped and that, as Eve had already told him, he’d have to move. Tears rolled down his face as he said that he had lived in his room for 25 years and had no place to go. He said maybe he’d move back to Wisconsin where he’d grown up as a child—a pipe dream for a man on crutches with not a penny to his name.

As they were cleaning out his apartment, you happened to come by with some of your friends to show them the building. It was then that I told you of his suicide and how he was on disability and had no place else to go. In response, you simply said, “Oh, there’s lots of places for people on disability to go.”

Yet a 2012 report of rents nationwide released by the Consortium for Citizens With Disabilities found that rent for a studio apartment consumes on average 90 percent of the income of a person on disability. “Nowhere in the United States can people with disabilities receiving SSI find a safe, decent place to live,” Kevin Martone, executive director of the Technical Assistance Collaborative, concluded.

So let’s take a look at just what happens to a disabled senior in Seattle making $660 a month.

Where can he go in King County?

The King County Housing Authority offers vouchers for low-income residents like Bill. But

their website states, “Because the demand for vouchers is very high, the waiting list is most often closed to new applications.” The good news is that every two or three years they open that list. The bad news is that it stays open only a couple of weeks, and as one housing specialist told me, the last time they opened the list there were nearly 22,000 applications for 2,500 apartments.

But just in case, I called them. The recording told me the waiting list is currently closed.

Bill would have had a slightly better chance at getting into low-income senior housing, but according to the website for the Seattle Housing Authority, “Your wait may be as short as two weeks or as long as several years.”

I decided to see whether Bill could have gotten on one of those two-week wait lists, so I called them. I told them I was looking for housing for a friend who was over 60 and disabled. I was told that there were some places in Seattle where the wait list is under a year, but there has been so much recent interest that it will now probably be longer than that. I inquired what might happen if he was given only a 30-day notice of a rent increase—which is all that is currently required by state law—or even 90 days? Could they find anything for him?

William McHalffey in happier times.

“For his situation,” I was told, “it would be primarily transitional housing or shelter housing.” Shelter housing, of course, means living in a homeless shelter, where residents must hit the streets at dawn and not return until evening.

But what about that transitional housing?

Surely that could have helped Bill. So I called the number and was told, “There’s actually a crisis with affordable housing in King County right now,” and referred to Housing Search Northwest. I called that number, and learned that there is currently one transitional housing unit available in all of Seattle, but it is for women only. There was, however, another one in Burien for men. Undaunted, I called them. Could Bill have found a safe place to stay with them?

The answer, I promptly learned, was no. They would not accept someone on crutches or who required a walker, because the hill leading up to the home is not navigable by anyone with ambulatory problems.

After that point, every number I was referred to and called got me back to a number I’d already called. It was clear that the housing options available to a disabled man in his 60s with no money are nil.

So you were wrong about Bill, dear landlord.

But what about the rest of us? Surely we’ll be fine, I’m sure you’ve already concluded.

The truth is that after years of paying rents of $1,600 to $2,000 a month, few of us can pay more, nor have we been able to save much money to move. Still, many of us will have to do so now. We will move to smaller, more expensive apartments.

For the younger among us, it’s something they’ll get over. But what of us who are older? What about the 63-year-old woman on a limited income who has lived in her apartment for 20 years, and has already paid over a quarter-million dollars in rent to do so? How will having to move at this point in her life affect her? What about the 64-year-old woman who is recovering from heart surgery? Do you have any idea what the anxiety of a pending rent increase that she can’t afford is doing to her?

Did you know she worries whether she’ll even be healthy enough to move from the home she has cherished for years? And what would you have done about the 93-year-old man who had lived here more than 25 years if he hadn’t died last year?

Would you have raised his rent to “market” rates and evicted him if he could not have paid them?

No one begrudges your interest in a profit.

After all, spending millions on a building is no small thing; you should indeed expect a sound return on your investment. But if that means that low-income, older tenants who have lived in the same place for decades must leave their homes, and likely their city, in search of affordable rents, then let’s be honest. You aren’t just in the realestate business. You’re in the business of creating unaffordable housing.

So I am writing to you now to ask you to think long and hard about the assumptions you make and the decisions you make as you buy up older buildings, do some cosmetic repairs, hike up the rents to ensure you’ll make a healthy profit, and move existing tenants out, as is your history. When you assume we will be fine, stop yourself. The truth is, the older we are, the more disabled we are, and the lower our incomes, the more likely we will not be fine. Chances are we will suffer severe hardships.

If you assume that there is nothing you can do to change the fact that your tenants will suffer the collateral damage of your investment, think again. Management companies not only provide a service to landlords, they also provide a buffer between you and your tenants so that you can distance yourself not just from them, but from the impact of your actions on their lives. Respect the human impact of your business. Get to know your tenants. We are the ones who pay your mortgage and provide you with an income. Ask about our lives, how long we’ve lived in our homes you now own, and what our options are. Give long-term, low-income tenants lower rents, but go ahead and increase rents to new tenants. Give tenants who must move at least 90 days’ notice so that they have time to pack and find a place and adjust to the drastic change. And consider providing relocation costs to those long-term, low-income tenants who must move so that you can make more money.

If those are actions you won’t take because the law doesn’t require you to do so, all right. But stop telling yourself the comforting lies that there are plenty of places for us to go, that we’ll be fine, that there’s nothing else that you can do, and that this is progress. Tell yourself the truth. You’re investing in unaffordable housing; you are contributing to homelessness and poverty as you drive rents up and people out, and sometimes those people kill themselves because they have no place else to go.

Sincerely, Unit 7

news@seattleweekly.com

Janice Harper is a cultural anthropologist and writer. She is a regular contributor to The Huffington Post and Psychology Today and is the author of Mobbed! A Survival Guide to Adult Bullying and Mobbing. She is a resident of West Seattle, where she has lived in her current apartment for five years.

food&drink

FoodNews

Nesting and Noshing

BY JASON PRICE

Lark attempts a tricky balancing act of perfection and portion at its new home.

Pie Bar opened its second Ballard location at 2218 N.W. Market St. There you’ll find flavors which rotate on the menu weekly, including strawberry rhubarb, sour cherry, and something called “Razzle Blue.” They also have a full cocktail bar— so you can sip apple-pie Moscow Mules. Savory pies are on sale too.

BY NICOLE SPRINKLE

T

PHOTOS BY MORGEN SCHULER

For those who remember the Swedish Chef, made famous by The Muppet Show in the early ’80s—well, you’re dating yourself. But fear not: Scandinavian food is coming with the arrival of the Tumble Swede pop-up, a collaboration between chef Jason Harris and the Old Ballard Liquor Co. The menu will focus on Pacific Northwest ingredients and modern Scandinavian cuisine. The first of the four-course meals, April 17–19 at Bloom Ballard, will run diners $50.

Miller’s Guild will begin their Sunday Dinner series on March 29 with a smorgasbord of meaty options.

“Butcher Block Sundays” will offer three options for protein lovers: prime rib; a rotating meat dish such as grilled pork chops, lamb chops, or duck; and a seafood option for the red-meat-weary. E morningfoodnews@gmail.com

TheWeeklyDish

Zhu Dang’s Mongolian beef tartare.

Top: Lark’s gorgeous new space. Bottom left: pasta with smoked ricotta, rosemary, dates, and brown butter. Bottom right: perfectly cooked lamb chops.

and a couple of greasy chicken skins. Why the overkill on a fine piece of rich foie?

The Montana wagyu steak tartare with capers, cornichons, and aioli is dreamy—and not overdressed, as tartares so often can be. But I could do without the accompanying toothsome crackers. Something more delicate would be preferable. The burrata with charred leeks, olives, and olive-oil croutons is some of the best of that cheese you’ll ever find, oozy as ice cream melting off a cone in the hot sun and lightly but necessarily salted. (Sundstrom works with Kurtwood Farms, Tieton Creamery, and Mt. Townsend Creamery, though I’m not sure which of these three the burrata comes from.) I was excited to try the eel glazed and sweetened with saba and served with new potato salad, but found the single piece of eel to be not much better than most incarnations of it at sushi restaurants, and the julienne of potato salad an afterthought at best. I’d had high hopes for that one.

Perhaps unexpectedly, it’s the pastas here that are truly remarkable and that can stand up to those of Spinasse or Ethan Stowell’s Italian spots—and maybe even surpass them. The agnolotti with smoked ricotta, rosemary, dates, and brown butter is one of those dishes that signal the presence of a truly gifted chef. The conception alone—the smoky with the savory herbal, the sweet notes of fruit, the punctuating richness of brown butter—is exceptional. The effect on the taste buds is even better. But here’s where the portion size really struck a nerve. The $19 handful of this beautiful dish left me frantically ordering bread to sop up the sublime sauce. Again, just a few more bites, particualry considering there was nearly a 20-minute wait between it and my entrée.

The cavatelli with lamb and pork Bolognese is as good as it gets with the addition of carrots to brighten the flavor, but, again, scant in portion for its price. The most plentiful of the pastas is

» CONTINUED ON PAGE 16

NICOLE SPRINKLE

BY NICOLE SPRINKLE

Over at the recently opened Zhu Dang on Capitol Hill, on a menu of “updated Chinese” food, I found a tartare that stands out among the many I’ve had recently. The Mongolian beef tartare, though listed as a small plate, is really quite plentiful and easily worth the $14. Made from Snake River Farm wagyu beef, it’s thoroughly fresh-tasting, and amped up with a dark, seductive house chili sauce that, besides chili oil and chiles, also has a touch of sesame oil. While sesame oil can kill a delicate dish like this, they are careful here to use it sparingly. I also love that they serve the sauce on the side, so you can mix in as much or as little as you wish. Crisp lotus-root chips to eat it on are bland, but that’s likely intentional, and fine by me. Crackers and chips with too much flavor would war with the tartare. A refreshing salad complements the dish. E nsprinkle@seattleweekly.com

SEATTLE WEEKLY • MARCH 25 — 31, 2015

he city, or at least its food critics, had been waiting with bated breath as John Sundstrom prepared to reopen Lark, which moved in December to its more spacious, grand home (still in Capitol Hill) and comprises the restaurant as well as Sundstrom’s new sandwich shop, SLAB; and Bitter/Raw, a dining space above Lark that serves a lighter fare menu, as well as the full Lark menu.

Formerly, Lark was distinguished by its small-plates menu. It continues to serve those, but with prices more befitting a large entrée.

Starters are typically $15 and up, while entrées are in the mid-$20s to $40s. Appetizers feel more like bites, entrées like appetizers. Yet nearly everything Sundstrom and his crew send out is a refined balance of creative flair and flawless execution. From the moment you walk in to the soaring space, its high rafter ceilings lit with a virtual constellation of over 100 twinkling lights, its open kitchen surrounded by plush, deep jewel-blue velvet banquettes, you know you’re in for something special—though not in that grand anniversary-dinner kind of way, where valet parking and a hushed air typically dominate. Lark is elegant but lively.

Generally speaking, I’m all in for paying extra for quality, and that’s basically how I approach Lark. However, after trying a slew of appetizers, pastas and entrées on two occasions, I couldn’t completely make peace with the fact that every single dish, regardless of how incredibly divine it may have tasted, was a Lilliputian portion. Mind you, I’m a relentless critic of overly large, heartattack-inducing American sizes. I’m known to split two starters and an entrée with my dining partner and often skip dessert. So it’s not that I wanted Lark to give me twice the amount; I just wanted two or three more bites of everything. Seriously. To leave comfortably satiated, not stuffed, each person needs their own starter (maybe even two) and an entrée—either that or spring for $10 and get two orders of their Columbia City Bakery bread with cultured butter and a fish spread for the table. That plus cocktails (the best Manhattan I’ve had anywhere, by the way) will set you back quite a bit. Though based on the well-presented clientele that filled the dining room even on weeknights, perhaps that won’t be an issue.

Surprisingly—and refreshingly, to my mind— the menu here is quite extensive, a trend-bucker in a restaurant landscape defined by abbreviated ones with similar requisite voguish options. Lark, in contrast, has 18 “Starters,” seven “Pasta, Grains, and Dumplings,” 10 “Mains,” and seven “Desserts”—no small feat when you’re serving food of this caliber. The Pleasant View foie gras terrine with kumquat vanilla preserve and brioche is lush, flavorful, and, I felt, a much better dish than the seared foie gras (and $3 less at $19). The latter, of which there were maybe four bites, was unfortunately paired with too many unctuous items, like charred sweet onions that turned slimy

15

food&drink Taste Washington

The Lost Pelican

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the rabbit-and-mushroom lasagne with porcini cream and fried onions. It too is exceptional: a lovely play on the woods with its game and fungi, though perhaps too rich for some (not me) with its porcini cream sauce. Sundstrom is likely treating his pastas as they do in Italy; as a “primi” dish to come before the entree, not in place of it, but if that’s the case, the price really needs to reflect that.

The wagyu hanger steak was cooked to a faultless medium-rare, and was one of the more generously sized dishes, but the spicy chimichuri sauce was barely evident. The veal-sweetbread fricassee surprised me; I’d have thought something so rich as sweetbreads wouldn’t have worked in a fricassee-style preparation, but the goat cheese somehow doesn’t turn it all too decadent, and the faro grits cake adds nice heft. The Ninety Farm lamb duo, though again on the small side with just two little chops, is an inspired plate, served with large white Corona beans, black kale, and Meyer lemon.

Desserts, I’m happy to report, don’t get short shrift here. In fact, I recently spoke to Sundstrom by phone for another story about his love of— and commitment to—making desserts that go beyond fried donuts or premade puddings, which is the trend at most restaurants now. Though he doesn’t employ a pastry chef, he takes the reins on dessert, and the results speak for themselves.

His Theo chocolate panna cotta with salted pretzel, caramel, and peanut brittle is utter perfection; the panna cotta has that incredibly hard-toachieve silkiness. Similarly, a pineapple tarte tatin with rum caramel and vanilla-bean ice cream isn’t the deconstructed smattering of ingredients I’ve come to expect of a dessert of this ilk. This one is cohesive and delicious.

On one night I ate at Lark, Sundstrom was present in the kitchen and also out and about in the dining room, which may account for the superior execution of the food. While he, like so many other chefs these days, may have more projects up his sleeve, my sense is that he’s one who thrives in his kitchen rather than in the empire-building restaurateur world. Now that he’s created his trio of sorts in a breathtaking new space, we can only hope he’ll stick around and enjoy it. E

aste Washington is an incredible opportunity for wine lovers. But what rarely gets talked about is how it’s also a very challenging couple of days for wineries. There’s the simple fact that pouring wine for thousands of people takes a lot of energy and patience, and the more complex reality that standing out in

BY ZACH GEBALLE a sea of wine (plus beer and cider) is getting ever more difficult. I thought I’d get some perspective from a few of the folks serving you this weekend to see what they’re looking forward to—or not.

“The biggest challenge at Taste Washington is standing out,” explains Madeleine Richards of Rotie Cellars. “When there are literally hundreds of wineries in attendance, no one can taste them all, and palate fatigue is certainly an issue.”

By the end of an afternoon of tasting, only the boldest or strangest wines can even register. So do a little homework ahead of time and map out the places you really want to try.

Figuring out how to talk to guests can be a challenge as well. Fall Line’s Tim Sorenson has changed his approach with experience: “I used to discuss my wines in the context of ‘new world’ and ‘old,’ ” he explains. “Now I mostly talk about my style of winemaking—towards the end of minimal intervention—and what that generally means for the wines’ characteristics. I talk, too, about the specific vineyards and growers I work with.”

My perception was that the biggest opportunity for smaller wineries was to get their juice in front of local wine lovers. Turns out I was mostly wrong.

“For very well-known wineries, Taste seems to be a great opportunity to connect with media and trade representatives and consumers alike,” Sorenson tells me. For others like Fall Line—known but not “very well known”—the prospect of trade and/ or media connections tends to loom larger. While new consumer connections can be and are made, Taste is sort of an overwhelming event (in a good way) for most indivudals by the end of the day. But chances are that these smaller guys will be superappreciative if you stop and ask them about their wines—and you may find a new favorite winery.

You might think that after two days of pouring, reps at Taste would be a bit burned out, but not so. For many of them it’s also a chance to catch up with old friends, explore new wine, and scope out what the competition might be up to.

So don’t hesitate to engage with them.

Personally, I’m always eager to try Gramercy’s new releases. I also like to find at least one winery I am not familiar with; I’ve heard good things about Avennia, so I’ll make a point to visit them. I’ll also check out new releases from DeLille and DenHoed and see friends at Tranche, Kerloo, Somme des Parties, Proper, and Seven Hills, among others, for a taste of their latest efforts. All of these are among my favorite Walla Walla wineries. Going to Taste? Tell us what you’re most excited to try! E

LARK 952 E. Seneca St., 323-5275, larkseattle.com. Open daily 5–11 p.m.

TASTE WASHINGTON Four Seasons, 99 Union St., and other locations, tastewashington.org, $90–$205, March 26–29.

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arts&culture

‘Only Creepy People Check Past the Second Page’

Jon Ronson investigates why the Internet makes us so good at making others feel so bad.

BY BRIAN MILLER

U

tasteless post or intemperate tweet, and suddenly you’re Hitler. Most all of Ronson’s shame-victims are recent; this is a book compiled quickly and journalistically from still-smoldering accounts you may’ve encountered elsewhere (on Gawker, Wired, and of course The Guardian). Ronson does plenty of original reporting, but there’s also the sense of a speedy, anecdote-driven survey of the bilious Webscape. The mere act of hitting the send button— instantly drawing hits, likes, or scorn—is still very new. It’s easy to mock inane Hollywood celebrity tweets or the sexting follies of teenagers, but even the best of us can make similar cyber-mistakes.

The reason for this transgression-and-shaming cycle, so far amplified beyond the old pillory, is fundamentally technological. Back in the Middle Ages or puritan New England, we adulterers or witches only had to worry about small community opinion.

Hester Prynne knew only a few dozen people in her lifetime, most of them illiterate. And she had no Facebook account. Today, writes Ronson, “Social media is so perfectly designed to manipulate our desire for approval.” And so too does it facilitate our infamy once the shame cascade begins. Though Ronson never gets any executives from Google or Facebook on record, search engines profitably reinforce the negative: Once you’ve been publicly shamed, as Cemetery Woman notes above, no one looks past the first page of the search results to find the real you.

Ronson ambles through his reported vignettes without any great thesis in mind. And not all his anecdotes have a solid payoff. (I could’ve done without visits to a California sex-debasement club

and a New Jersey prison; his experience crossdressing for a newspaper assignment teaches us nothing.) This is a short, topical book, not scholarly research. Still, I wish Ronson had dug a little deeper into the ancient social/ psychological urge to cast out pariahs and find scapegoats for wider social ills.

He’s right that the Internet helps us enforce a herd mentality (“All of this is creating a more conformist, conservative age”), but hasn’t it ever been such?

The Bible was the Internet of the Middle Ages, spreading and imposing its codes, the church inflicting its punishments (the pillory included). Heretics and their ilk have always been symbolic outcasts: Their existence in the community threatens the political order (or betokens a new one).

Also, had I been the editor of this highly entertaining and deeply troubling book, I would’ve asked Ronson to write a chapter on the notion of anonymity, because most Internet shamers (like the commenters and trolls on Gawker, Reddit, 4chan, etc.) are nameless cowards. Only the victim’s name is known, and every time we treat ourselves to that self-validating little endorphin rush of righteous shaming (I make myself good by condemning the bad), that name surges to the top of the first page of Google search results. (This is why I don’t name Cemetery Woman; I don’t want to be part of that cycle.) Scientists tell Ronson this is a feedback loop, resulting both from neurochemistry—more on this please, Jon—and a closed information system. It’s like the red/blue divide in politics.

Some of us get our ideological reinforcement on FOX News, others via The New York Times; but both camps gleefully participate in shaming the other. Because it makes us feel good.

The worst thing for one victim, Ronson writes, “was her lack of control over the Google search results. They were just there, eternal, crushing.”

That would be a terrible last thought, and make for a fatally depressing book, if Ronson didn’t then find computer scientists who could push one’s rightful self back onto the first page. E

bmiller@seattleweekly.com

THIRD PLACE BOOKS 17171 Bothell Way N.E., 366-3333, thirdplacebooks.com. Free. 7 p.m. Tues., April 7.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25

Deviant Septet

Surely realizing it was unsustainable, two composers who contemporaneously took the orchestra to its hypertrophied extreme— Stravinsky (in The Rite of Spring, 1913) and Schoenberg (in his Gurre-Lieder, completed in 1911)—soon thereafter turned to radically stripped-down chamber groupings to write pieces that are (in their way) just as theatrically gripping. Yet Schoenberg, somehow, bet on the right horse: The instrumentation of his song cycle Pierrot lunaire (flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano) became the template for uncountable new-music ensembles over the succeeding century; while Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale— every bit as picturesque—spawned no successors. Which means that performances of this wry, Faust-ian folk tale are rare, put together by ad hoc collations of musicians—and that if you want to make a permanent performing group out of this odd instrumentation (violin, bass, clarinet, bassoon, trumpet, trombone, percussion), you’re going to have to commission yourself a repertory. Deviant Septet, out of Brooklyn, took this quixotic path; and though the Stravinsky is naturally the centerpiece of tonight’s concert, they’ll also play new works by Esa-Pekka Salonen and others.

Town Hall, 1119 Eighth Ave., 652-4255, townhall seattle.org. $17–$25. 7:30 p.m. GAVIN BORCHERT THURSDAY, MARCH 26

Noir de France

We think of film noir as a distinctly American genre, but after World War II the shadows of the noir sensibility fell across almost every national cinema, each in their own image.

Jacques Becker’s Casque d’Or (1952) opens with a scene that evokes the gentle beauty of the Impressionists—a lazy repast at a riverside cafe, lovers rowing and lolling in the sun—but ends up in the dark alleys and slum taverns of the Parisian underworld. It’s a fitting openingnight pick for this retrospective, a transition from the lyrical dramas of the ’30s to the postwar disillusionment of Becker’s elegiac follow-up Touchez Pas au Grisbi (April 2), a modern gangster melodrama about the collision of the romantic criminal code (embodied by a dapper Jean Gabin) with the new generation of mercenary thugs. The nine-film series spotlights two great French noir directors, with three films by Becker and four by JeanPierre Melville, whose meticulously plotted and elegantly directed pictures evolve from a romantic vision of the underworld code (Bob le Flambeur, April 9) into an unforgiving cinema fantasy of loyalty, professionalism, and sacrifice (Le Cercle Rouge, May 7). The series runs Thursdays through May 21. Seattle Art Museum, 1300 First Ave., 654-3121, seattleart museum.org. $63–$68 series, $8 individual.

7:30 p.m. SEAN AXMAKER

SEATTLE WEEKLY • MARCH 25 — 31, 2015

nless you read The Guardian online or watch the BBC, you may not be familiar with the masterfully sly and self-deprecating English journalist Jon Ronson. Now also living in New York, he’s gradually infiltrated This American Life; and his books The Men Who Stare at Goats and Frank have been made into acclaimed movies. Back in Britain, he’s the rare newsman who’s successfully bridged into new media, including Twitter, which makes So Now You’ve Been Publicly Shamed (Riverhead, $27.90) both timely and disturbing. Ronson, we learn in his very breezy first-person style, was an early adopter of the Internet, an early fan of Google. As every professional writer knows, the Web is your first line of research—your library, your librarian, your personal assistant and fact-checker.

Except when it’s wrong. And for a certain woeful class of cybershame mob victims, the Web can go very, very wrong. One example comes from the young woman I quote in the headline above, who in 2012 posted a jokey photo of herself at Arlington National Cemetery. She—and I am not going to name Ronson’s subjects, for reasons to become clear—was soon vilified for a silly, illconsidered snapshot she intended only for close friends who knew her sense of humor. It went viral because she didn’t check, or didn’t understand, Facebook’s privacy settings.

Soon she was mobbed by hate-spewing Internet commenters and trolls, most of the conservative Tea Party variety, for supposedly disrespecting dead war veterans. Ronson samples the vitriol: “U retarded cunt,” “Send the dumb feminist to prison,” “Fuck you whore,” and so on. This young woman, who worked with learning-disabled adults, soon lost her job and retreated to her apartment, massively shamed and traumatized. “Literally overnight, everything I knew and loved was gone,” she tells Ronson in his exclusive interview.

Among his other interviewees—how does Ronson get these gets?—are a publicist who made an AIDS joke on Twitter (actually mocking white privilege), an author who fabricated Bob Dylan quotes, a programmer whose whispered schoolboy innuendo to a pal at a tech conference was overheard, and public figures whose private sex lives were suddenly broadcast over the Internet, losing them their jobs.

Everyone here loses their job, their reputation, their public face, their personhood. At work we see an awful, destructive take-down process in which, during the early days of the Internet, Ronson admits he willingly participated. (He once called out a rival English writer for enthusiastically discoursing upon the pleasures of baboon hunting—rather worse, of course, than a dirty joke or private sex party.)

Where is the proportion? There is none, because of the magnifying power of the Internet. One

ThisWeek’s PickList

» CONTINUED ON PAGE 18 17

arts&culture» Film » FROM PAGE 17 FRIDAY, MARCH 27

If you didn’t get a ticket in time for this enormous, totally sold-out gathering, don’t worry.

Simply standing outside the convention center is an entire show unto itself, thanks to our city’s incredibly dedicated cosplayers. If you’ve ever wondered what it would look like to see the entire Avengers squad and a random assortment of Final Fantasy characters walk to The Cheesecake Factory together, this weekend is your chance. (They might even let you join them for fried macaroniand-cheese balls.) But if you did manage to score tickets, you’ve got a lot to be excited about. This year’s celebrity guests are stacked: Anthony Daniels (C-3PO from Star Wars), Finn Jones (Game of Thrones), Charisma Carpenter (Buffy), Hayley Atwell (Captain America), and Gina Torres (Firefly) will all be hanging out to realize your nerdiest wet dreams. Mike Mignola, creator of Hellboy, will be selling Seattle-themed Hellboy shirts, and Dark Horse will offer Seattle-specific cover variants for its Lady Killer series, featuring fish monsters floating around Pike Place Market and characters posing in front of the Space Needle.

COLLECT THEM ALL AND STUFF THEM INTO AS MANY FREE TOTE BAGS AS YOU CAN FIND! (Through Sun.)

Washington State Convention Center, 800 Convention Pl., emeraldcitycomicon.com. $85–$295 (weekend pass). 10 a.m.–midnight. KELTON SEARS MONDAY, MARCH 30

Barney Frank

. n a m

s i ” h . s t u i e n “Se ic ge

m o c s i He SEATTLE WEEKLY • MARCH 25 — 31, 2015

ekly ttle We a e S e h –T

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STARRING

FRANK FERRANTE AS

THE CAESAR

Some critics are complaining about the lack of dish, gossip, and sex in Frank: A Life in Politics From the Great Society to Same-Sex Marriage (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $28). The former Massachusetts congressman doesn’t need such Kardashian shit to sell books. He’s a serious guy who doesn’t want to relive that one long-past scandal about the rent boy, and he’s got a real legislative record—including the Dodd-Frank bill, now under Wall Street/GOP assault—that reflects an insider’s knowledge of how deals are brokered in D.C. One reason he left in 2013, of course, is that it’s so hard to strike a deal with today’s hyperpolarized political climate, with our elected representatives in constant cable-shouting/fundraising mode. His memoir is packed full of pragmatic political lessons. He’s a centrist—not the same as a moderate—and an incrementalist. And he’s not a fan of feel-good parades and Democrats flying their freak flags high. “If you care deeply about an issue,” he writes, “and are engaged in group activity on its behalf that is fun and inspiring and heightens your sense of solidarity with others, you are almost certainly not doing your cause any good.” Try putting that on a banner or protest sign.

Tonight, local writer Eric Liu will lob onstage questions at the famously smart, prickly pol. University

Temple United Methodist Church, 1415 N.E. 43rd St., 634-3400, bookstore.washington.edu. $27 (admits two, includes book). 7 p.m. BRIAN MILLER

Music of Remembrance

Actor Paul Wegener was nearly 40 when he made his first film in 1915: an eerie Romantic fantasy of sorcery, love, and death called The Student of Prague. While on location there, he heard an obscure legend about a medieval rabbi who made a monster of clay to defend the city’s Jews from an emperor’s persecution. The story came to obsess Wegener, who made three versions of it. The

UFA/FAMOUS PLAYERS-LASKY CORP.

Emerald City Comicon

Wegener in The Golem.

last—The Golem: How He Came into the World (1920)—was a huge success, soon recognized as one of the masterpieces of silent cinema. With his broad, flat face and narrow, slanted eyes, Wegener specialized in spooky roles. His man of clay, stiff as a child’s crude modeling attempt, begins as an almost comic figure, but rapidly develops a tragic dimension as the lurid events around him unravel. Wegener’s performance is amplified by the bizarrely Expressionist settings of architect Hans Poelzig, who created a stony vision of medieval Prague as an enormous termite mound of muddy spires and crepuscular alleys. A freshly restored print of Wegener’s film forms the climax of this Music of Remembrance concert devoted to music inspired by Jewish folklore. Betty Olivero has composed a new klezmer-flavored score for The Golem, to be performed by a string quartet and Laura DeLuca on clarinet, under the baton of Guenter Buchwald. Benaroya Recital Hall, Third

Ave. & Union St., musicofremembrance.org. $30–$40. 7:30 p.m. ROGER DOWNEY

Kazuo Ishiguro

I haven’t yet cracked its spine, but the highly anticipated The Buried Giant (Knopf, $26.95) is going in my bag to read on a coming vacation flight to Montana (the first time I’ll ever wish that were a longer flight). The British novelist had his first great success with 1989’s The Remains of the Day, which earned a Booker Prize and inspired a very successful film adaptation. More recently, his Never Let Me Go had a sci-fi aspect to it; and now after a 10-year gestation, The Buried Giant is a somewhat mythical story, set in England’s legendary, dragonfilled past, in the time after King Arthur. There, an older couple embarks upon a dangerous foot journey to find their long-lost adult son. Equally, the quest of Axl and Beatrice leads them through their own marital memories and nervous anticipation of death and the afterlife. Their path necessarily puts one in mind of Tolkien, though the magic and spells and curses (one causing amnesia) are grounded in mortal decay and some historical fact. The land is divided between Saxon invaders and British natives, and the embers of past conflict threaten to burst into flame. Still, realism only runs so far: Sir Gawain makes an appearance, and Querig the dragon does eventually arrive.

(Also note a $40 ticketed breakfast event with the author, 8:30 a.m. Tuesday at Ravenna Third Place.) Seattle Central Library, 1000 Fourth Ave., 386-4636, spl.org. Free. 7 p.m. BRIAN MILLER E

» Performance

Opening Nights Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well & Living in Paris ACT THEATRE, 700 UNION ST., 292-7676, ACTTHEATRE.ORG. $15–$49. 7:30 P.M. TUES.– WED., 8 P.M. THURS.–FRI., 2 & 8 P.M. SAT., 2 & 7 P.M. SUN. ENDS MAY 17.

TRACY MARTIN

First off, Jacques Brel is not alive. The Belgian crooner died of a pulmonary embolism back in 1978, 10 years after this musical revue made its debut off-Broadway. The revue came in the autumn of a hugely successful career. Brel’s songs, by turns sardonic, fanciful, tragic and sincere, embodied Western European life in the decades following World War II. Despite a brief period of stateside popularity in the mid-’60s and a long list of accomplished American songwriters who performed translations of his work after his prime, most Americans didn’t get it—we were all swooning over the Beatles’ playful transgressions and Sinatra’s new masculinity. But Brel’s songs —sung mostly in French and Dutch—were a touchstone for Europeans at the time, their fragililty and terror, beauty and hopefulness a reflection of the world around him.

Kassebaum: Do not leave her!

No Way to Treat a Lady VILLAGE THEATRE, 303 FRONT ST. N. (ISSAQUAH), 425-392-2202. $35–$67.

RUNS WED.–SUN.; SEE VILLAGETHEATRE.ORG FOR EXACT SCHEDULE. ENDS APRIL 26.

(RUNS MAY 1–24 IN EVERETT.)

In light of Robert Durst’s recent revelations on the HBO documentary series The Jinx, true-crime junkies like me spent last week on a media bender. Luckily, No Way to Treat a Lady offers some hair of the dog. It’s a strange musical comedy, reworked since its last appearance at Village Theatre in 1999 (also directed by Steve Tomkins), which was originally inspired by the Boston Strangler—according to source novelist William Goldman. (There’s a middling 1968 film version, too.) Predictable as something on LMN, Douglas J. Cohen’s 1987 gore-free, family-friendly show is one part murder-porn-gasm, one part hokey musical, and all parts fun.

Suffering a deadly devotion to his late mother (a celebrated actress), failed thespian Christopher “Kit” Gill (Nick DeSantis) dons various disguises and adopts different dialects whilst murdering women who remind him of her. (If he can’t be famous, he decides, he’ll be infamous.) Dissatisfied with his media mentions, he begins an antagonistic telephone relationship with NYPD detective Morris Brummell (Dane Stokinger).

This cat-and-mouse script smartly balances engaging action with witty dialogue and lyrics.

Under Tomkins’ shrewd direction, this ensemble enchants with energetic singing and excellent acting. Notably, as the cop’s suffocating Jewish mother, Jayne Muirhead provides a performance reminiscent of Estelle Getty. She and Morris’ shiksa love interest ( Jessica Skerritt) provide the show’s most memorable moment in the number “So Much in Common,” with Morris adding the lyric, “Now that ‘Queen Esther’ has met her match.” Bobbi Kotula establishes herself as the production’s versatile champion, distinctly depicting Kit’s mother and his victims.

Bill Forrester’s Roy Lichtenstein-inspired set supplies a seamless simplicity while shifting among Manhattan locations. Aaron Copp’s vibrant lighting design also lends to the flat, near-Pop Art caricatures. The show is set in the early ’60s of Mad Men and Goldman’s novel, which Melanie Taylor Burgess’ costumes impeccably convey. Her stunning outfits for Skerritt radiate Uptown elegance from head to toe. Seriously, her shoes sometimes distracted me from the playful murder mystery.

Given that serial killer Kit even plays one scene in drag (a stratagem Durst also employed to elude capture), can a stage-musical version of The Jinx be far behind? ALYSSA DYKSTERHOUSE E

stage@seattleweekly.com

THREE ACTS TWODANCERS ONE RADIO HOST IRA GLASS, MONICA BILL BARNES, ANNA BASS

THREE ACTS TWODANCERS ONE RADIO HOST IRA GLASS, MONICA BILL BARNES, ANNA BASS

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It’s not a bad fit in our current world, either, and this production, directed by the 5th Avenue Theatre’s artistic director David Armstrong, tries hard to make that point. On opener “Marathon”—a trance-inducing number that fit the entire history of the 20th century into a pop song decades before Billy Joel did the same—an extra verse or two have been added so that the five-member cast can shoehorn in a Twitter reference among the flappers and Hitler. A rousing performance of “The Middle Class” is set in the streets of downtown Seattle, with the ensemble’s three men, drunk, sneering a translation of Brel’s lyrics, “The middle class are just like pigs/The older they get, the dumber they get.” The parallels to the city’s current bro infestation are made and the humor is undeniable, but if the mind lingers on the fact of our currently threatened middle class, the critique falls apart. Likewise, but much more effectively, Brel’s condemnation of matador culture, “The Bulls,” is here cloaked in the trappings of American football. At the song’s end, the stage flooded in blood-red light, Brel’s long list of cities ravaged by man’s lust for violence ends with a more current locale: “Baghdad!” singer Eric Ankrim shouts to an “Ole!” from the ensemble. The audience around me gasped.

Such cheap shocks, though, are just window dressing for this production, which forgoes the reworking of recent revivals and adheres, almost entirely, to the original 1968 songlist with translations by Eric Blau and Mort Shuman. Brel’s genius, of course, carries the night. His musical

punch lines are crisp, his desperation real, his anger frightening. And the cast does a fine job of bringing these songs to life. Ankrim, in particular, is a joy to watch, his pronounced physicality and devilish demeanor imbuing the material with the uncanniness it requires. The star of the production, though, is Kendra Kassebaum, whose aching renditions of some of Brel’s most heart-wrenching balladry are undeniable. Near the end of Act 2 she takes the stage with a lone acoustic guitarist to perform “Ne Me Quitte Pas,” the only deviation from the original production’s songlist and the only number delivered in its original French.

Translations were provided but unnecessary. As she recited Brel’s poetry, pleading with a lover not to leave her behind, Kassebaum wept. She wasn’t the only one. MARK BAUMGARTEN

19

arts&culture» Performance Stage OPENINGS & EVENTS

THE BEST OF ENEMIES A KKK member and a civil-rights

activist are forced to integrate a school in 1971 North Carolina. Based on the book by Osha Gray Davidson.

Taproot Theatre, 204 N. 85th St., 781-9707, taproot theatre.org. $20–$40. Previews March 25–26, opens March 27. 7:30 p.m. Wed.–Thurs., 8 p.m. Fri., 2 & 8 p.m.

Sat. Ends April 25.

BRUTALESQUE Elle de la Night, Jaxin Yoff, and many others perform in this heavy-metal-themed burlesque show.

JewelBox Theater at the Rendezvous, 2322 Second Ave., 800-838-3006, brownpapertickets.com. $15–$18. 7 p.m.

Sat., March 28.

DR. SEUSS’S THE CAT IN THE HAT The bringer of havoc is back, terrorizing two innocent children.

SecondStory Repertory, 16587 N.E. 74th St., Redmond, 425-881-6777, secondstoryrep.org. $5–$10. Opens March 28. 1 & 3 p.m. Sat.–Sun. Ends April 19.

LIVE! FROM THE LAST NIGHT OF MY LIFE In Wayne Rawley’s black comedy, a gas-station attendant vows to off himself at the end of his shift. 12th Ave Arts, 1620 12th Ave., 800-838-3006, theatre22.org. $14–$25. Preview March 26, opens March 27. 8 p.m. Thurs.–Sat. plus 2 p.m. Sun., April 12 & 8 p.m. Tues., April 14. Ends April 18.

LIZARD BOY A monster with strange powers emerges from the ashes of Mt. St. Helens. Is he a superhero or a freak? Find out in Justin Huertas’ rock musical. Seattle Repertory Theatre, Seattle Center, 443-2222. $17–$67.

Previews begin March 27, opens April 1. 7:30 p.m.

Wed.–Sun. plus some Wed. & weekend matinees; see seattlerep.org for exact schedule. Ends May 2.

THE MARK OF IMMEDIACY Nathan Jeffrey’s theatrical take on the Gospel of Mark. Isaac Studio Theatre, 208 N. 85th St., 781-9707, taproottheatre.org. $12–$15. Opens March 27. 7:30 p.m. Thurs., 8 p.m. Fri.–Sat. Ends April 4.

NINE Showtunes Theatre Company stages a concert version of Maury Yeston’s musical about a film director in 1960s Venice and the women in his life. Benaroya Recital Hall, Third Ave. & Union St., 215-4747, showtunestheatre.org. $21–$46. 8 p.m. Sat., March 28, 2 p.m. Sun., March 29.

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

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

SISTER’S EASTER CATECHISM This chapter in the “Late Nite Catechism” series’ Mad-style take on Catholicism is subtitled “Will My Bunny Go to Heaven?” Northshore Performing Arts Center, 18125 92nd Ave. N.E., Bothell, 425984-2471, npacf.org. $10–$35. 7:30 p.m. Sat., March 28.

SLOWGIRL The always arresting Hannah Mootz stars as a wastrel visiting her even more messed-up uncle in Costa Rica. Greg Pierce directs the drama by Kelly Kitchens. Seattle Public Theater at the Bathhouse, 7312 W. Greenlake Dr. N., 524-1300, seattlepublictheater.org. $5–$32. Preview March 26, opens March 27. 7:30 p.m.

Thurs.–Sat., 2 p.m. Sun. Ends April 12.

CURRENT RUNS

SEATTLE WEEKLY • MARCH 25 — 31, 2015

• CHINGLISH In the fast-growing China of David Henry

20

Hwang’s 2011 comedy, Daniel (Evan Whitfield) has fled recession-afflicted Cleveland to try his luck. Trying to sell bilingual signage, he’s pegged as an honest, innocent rube by Xi Yan (Kathy Hsieh), vice minister of a small inland city. Daniel hires English tutor-cum-consultant Peter (Guy Nelson) to broker a deal between his firm and the city boss (Hing Lam). But, as we and Daniel will learn, everyone in Guiyang is bound by a complext web of web of guanxi, a uniquely Chinese notion of mutual responsibility owed between two people or groups. Directed

by Annie Lareau, Chinglish is quick-paced, quick-witted, and brimming with humor. Nearly one-quarter of the play is spoken in Mandarin (with projected subtitles that we trust are being translated appropriately). What makes us chuckle, though, are the mistranslations and communication breakdowns among Hwang’s characters. It’s like that game of telephone, where children whisper a single phrase around the room until it’s mangled and unrecognizable. IRFAN SHARIFF ArtsWest, 4711 California Ave. S.W., 938-0339, artswest.org. $15–$34.50. 7:30 p.m. Wed.– Sat., 3 p.m. Sun. Ends March 29.

THE COMPARABLES Should women work collaboratively with one another to break the glass ceiling, or is it every woman for her ambitious self? And which philosophy yields the better commissions? Those are the questions confronting late-middle-aged Bette (Linda Gehringer, with bouncy bronze tresses and ball-breaking attitude).

Leaving her boutique real-estate agency to star in a reality show about women achieving their dreams (!), she’s about to bequeath her business. Her dutiful consigliere Monica (studiously sexless Cheyenne Casebier) is the logical choice, but logic be damned. Empires like Apple aren’t built on logic; they’re built on magnetism and risk—qualities that sexy new hire Iris (Keiko Green) has in spades. These two younger women duke it out

for supremacy in this custom-built comedy by Laura Schellhard (The K of D), with Braden Abraham directing. Though the rivalry amuses in a sitcom-y spirit, and several clever ironies weave through, any sense of the genuine vaporizes under scrutiny. Yet thanks to the commitment of these three skillful performers, who buttress their cartoonish, polarized characters, I stayed engaged through most of the 85-minute one-act. MARGARET FRIEDMAN Seattle Repertory Theatre, 155 Mercer St. (Seattle Center), 443-2222. $17–$102. 7:30 p.m. Wed.–Sun. plus some Wed. & weekend matinees; see seattlerep. org for schedule. Ends March 29.

DINA MARTINA—TONIGHT! All-new songs, stories, and videos from the incomparable, indescribable entertaineress, with Chris Jeffries on keyboard. Re-bar, 1114 Howell St., 800-838-3006, brownpapertickets.com. $20–$25. 8 p.m. Fri–Sat., 2 p.m. Sun. Ends April 26.

THE FLICK Annie Baker’s Pulitzer winner—a magical mingling of Pinter pauses, Ibsenesque naturalism, and flashes of Pirandello—causes me cognitive dissonance.

Brevity is not one of its selling points, but the script takes chances that this New Century Theatre Company production, directed by MJ Sieber, does finally redeem.

Working in a dilapidated old single-screen movie theater, ushers Sam (Sam Hagen) and Avery (Tyler Trerise) and projectionist Rose (Emily Chisholm) discuss film, the transition from 35 millimeter to digital, and life in general. A millennial David Mamet, Baker captures, like, the speech patterns of Generations X and Y, and keenly conveys the universal experiences—and rants—of peons in the service industry. Like Rent, The Flick will not resonate with everyone. It’s a generational statement of sorts, in which Baker beautifully depicts the human condition through her trio of underachievers. Though a test of patience, the play is worthwhile for both ardent theater lovers and those theater-averse members of Generation Me, who so seldom find themselves represented onstage. ALYSSA DYKSTERHOUSE The Mainstage at 12th Avenue Arts, 1620 12th Ave., wearenctc.org. $15–$35. 8 p.m. Thurs.– Sat., 7 p.m. Sun. Ends April 4.

GOODNIGHT MOON Based on the bedtime book by Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd, this musical debuted here in 2007. Now a new wave of kids can enjoy it. Seattle Children’s Theatre, Seattle Center, 4413322. $20 and up. Runs Thurs.–Sun.; see sct.org for exact schedule. Ends April 26.

JACQUES BREL IS ALIVE AND WELL & LIVING IN PARIS SEE REVIEW, PAGE 19.

MAMMA MIA! On the night before her wedding, a wom-

an’s desire to find her father brings three men from her mother’s past into their lives. With the music of ABBA, like you didn’t know that. The Paramount, 911 Pine St., 877-STG-4TIX, stgpresents.org. $25 and up. 7:30 p.m.

Wed.–Thurs., 8 p.m. Fri., 2 & 8 p.m. Sat., 1 & 6:30 p.m.

Sun. Ends March 29.

MARCH IS CABARET MONTH Classic cabaret from a variety of artists; see ballardjamhouse.com for lineup.

Egan’s Ballard Jam House, 1707 N.W. Market St., 7891621. $15 for one show, $25 for both (+ $10 food/drink min.). 7 & 9 p.m. Fri.–Sat. Ends March 28.

MOISTURE FESTIVAL The 12th annual varieté overload: comedy, circus, and burlesque acts of all descriptions.

Runs Wed.–Sun. through April 12 at Hale’s Palladium, 4301 Leary Way N.W. with “Libertease Burlesque” shows March 27–April 4 at Broadway Performance Hall, 1625 Broadway, plus other special events including at Teatro ZinZanni, April 7–8. See moisturefestival.org for full schedule and info.

THE MOST DESERVING Catherine Trieschmann’s comedy examines the snakepit that is civic arts-council grantgiving. Theater Schmeater, 2125 Third Ave., 324-5801, schmeater.org. $22–$29. 8 p.m. Thurs.–Sat. Ends April 18.

NO WAY TO TREAT A LADY SEE REVIEW, PAGE 19.

THE RAINMAKER arrives to transform a drought-stricken farm and its denizens in N. Richard Nash’s 1954 play.

Presented by Local Jewell Productions. The Ballard Underground, 2220 N.W. Market St., 800-838-3006, brownpapertickets.com. $15–$20. 8 p.m. Fri., 2 & 8 p.m.

Sat. Ends April 4.

SNOW FALLING ON CEDARS A stage version of David Guterson’s Puget Sound-set play. Bainbridge Performing Arts, 200 Madison Ave. N., Bainbridge Island, 842-8569, bainbridgeperformingarts.org. $19–$27. 7:30 p.m. Fri.– Sat., 3 p.m. Sun. Ends March 29.

TARTUFFE Seattle Shakespeare Company is resetting Molière’s enduring farce about swindlers and hypocrisy in 1947. Center House Theatre, Seattle Center Armory, 733-8222. $25–$48. 7:30 p.m. Wed.–Sat. plus some weekend matinees; see seattleshakespeare.org for exact schedule. Ends April 12.

TEATRO ZINZANNI: THE HOT SPOT Frank Ferrante and Dreya Weber return for TZ’s new show, in which “love and magic in the digital age collide.” Teatro ZinZanni, 222 Mercer St., 802-0015. $99 and up. Runs Thurs.–Sun. plus some Wed.; see zinzanni.com/seattle for exact schedule. Ends June 7.

» Performance, Visual, & Literary Arts Openings & Events

SEPTET SEE THE PICK LIST, PAGE 17.

• DEVIANT • SEATTLE SYMPHONY Their Sibelius cycle wraps

BEST OF THE NORTHWEST Arts and crafts are offered

up with the Symphonies 5, 6, and 7, led by Thomas Dausgaard. (Thursday’s concert will be followed by a brief recital of Sibelius’ songs.) Benaroya Hall, Third Ave. & Union St., 215-4747, seattlesymphony. org. $20–$120. 7:30 p.m. Thurs., March 26; 8 p.m.

Sat., March 28.

HAMSAZ ENSEMBLE 700 years of Iranian music.

Town Hall, 1119 Eighth Ave., townhallseattle.org. $5–$25. 7 p.m. Thurs., March 26.

PAUL KIKUCHI A CD-release event for his Bat of No Bird Island, a cycle of pieces inspired by (and incorporating) his grandfather’s collection of 78s.

Jack Straw Cultural Center, 4261 Roosevelt Way N.E., paulkikuchi.com. Free. Noon–3 p.m. Sat., March 28.

SEATTLE PHILHARMONIC Exploring two tragic heroes: Hamlet (via Shostakovich’s incidental music) and Petrouchka (via Stravinsky’s ballet score). Benaroya Hall, Third Ave. & Union St., seattlephil.org. $20–$30. 2 p.m. Sat., March 28.

PHILHARMONIA NORTHWEST Will Haydn’s 1796 Mass in Time of War ever not be relevant? Meany Hall, UW campus, 800-838-3006, philharmonianw. org. $18–$25. 7:30 p.m. Sat., March 28.

BYRD ENSEMBLE British choral music from the early 20th century by Finzi, Walton, and the like. St. Mark’s Cathedral, 1245 10th Ave. E., byrdensemble. com. $10–$20. 7:30 p.m. Sat., March 28.

SEATTLE MEN’S CHORUS Honoring two martyrs, Tyler Clementi and Harvey Milk, with new works.

McCaw Hall, Seattle Center, 388-1400, seattlemens chorus.org. $28–$68. 8 p.m. Sat., March 28, 2 p.m.

Sun., March 29.

PUGET SOUND WIND QUINTET Music by Nielsen, Piazzolla, and others from Auburn Symphony players. St. Matthew Episcopal Church, 123 L St. N.E., Auburn, 253-887-7777, auburnsymphony.org. $10–$17. 4 p.m. Sun., March 29.

MUSIC OF REMEMBRANCE SEE THE PICK LIST, PAGE 18.

BAROQUE AT CORNISH Free for lunch? Hear some vocal and instrumental music from Byron Schenkman, Ingrid Matthews, and Cornish students. PONCHO Recital Hall, Cornish College, 710 E. Roy St., cornish,edu. Gree. 12:30 p.m. Wed., April 1.

LONDON SYMPHONY On his 70th-birthday tour of the West Coast, Michael Tilson Thomas conducts favorites by Britten, Gershwin (the Piano Concerto with soloist Yuja Wang), and Sibelius. Benaroya Hall, Third Ave. & Union St., 215-4747, seattlesymphony. org. Call for ticket prices. 7:30 p.m. Wed., April 1.

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Ongoing

SHERI BAKES Her oil paintings capture light and motion

in nature. Foster/White Gallery, 220 Third Ave S., 622-2833, fosterwhite.com. 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tues.-Sat. Ends April 1.

BELONGING Activist profiles and original artwork explore the cultural and political climate leading up to the Immigration Act of 1965. Wing Luke Museum, 719 S. King St., 623-5124, wingluke.org. $9.95-$14.95. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tues.-Sun. GALA BENT AND BLAKE HAYGOOD A Chorus for the Multiverse and The How, What, and Wherefore explore complex themes through watercolor, acrylic, and graphite on paper. G. Gibson Gallery, 300 S. Washington St. (Tashiro Kaplan Building), 587-4033, ggibsongallery.com. 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Wed.-Sat. Ends April 18.

CHANGE-SEED Twenty-five artists from Hong Kong seek to update the U.S. on shifts in contemporary art created outside mainland China. Most works are small, concerned with the body and functionality. CoCA Georgetown, 5701 Sixth Ave. S., 728-1980, cocaseattle.org. 11 a.m-5 p.m. Wed.-Fri. Ends May 15.

CLAY COLLECTS CLAY The most treasured pots from private collections. Pottery Northwest, 226 First Ave. N., 285-4421, potterynorthwest.org. 11 a.m.-5 p.m.

Tues.-Fri. Ends April 3.

IMOGEN CUNNINGHAM A Stitch in Time is 17 photographs of Cornish, its students, and founder Nellie Cornish, taken in 1935 by the pioneering Northwest photographer. Cornish College of the Arts, 1000 Lenora St., 726-5151, cornish.edu. 9 a.m.-5 p.m.

Mon.-Fri. Ends June 30.

DIRTBAG SISTERS Working under one name, Karie Jane and Jess Bonin contemplate the pursuit of hap-

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Author Events CAROL CASSELLA The local author/anesthesiologist

Glass Company gallery features about two dozen artists pushing the boundaries of their medium. Bellevue Arts Museum, 510 Bellevue Way N.E., 425-519-0770, bellevuearts.org. $5-$12. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Tues.-Sun. Ends June 14.

CHARLES EMERSON AND GUY ANDERSON The two painters take inspiration from the Northwest landscape. Sisko Gallery, 3126 Elliott Ave., 283-2998, siskoworks.com. 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Fri.-Sun. Ends May 3.

EQUILUX Featuring the art of Jon MacNair, Lauren Napolitano, Talia Migliaccio, Bunnie Reiss, and others.

Flatcolor Gallery, 77 S. Main St., 390-6537, flatcolor. com. Noon-6 p.m. Wed.-Sat. Ends March 28.

FAERIE III Artists from all over the world create their visions of Faerie. Krab Jab Studio, 5628 Airport Way S., 715-8593, krabjabstudio.com. 1 p.m.-5 p.m. Wed.-Sat. Ends April 4.

JOSEPH GOLDBERG His paintings focus on weather and abstracted landscapes. Greg Kucera Gallery, 212 Third Ave. S., 624-0770, gregkucera.com. 10:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Ends March 28.

JOHN GRADE Middle Fork is a partial replica of a giant Western hemlock. MadArt, 325 Westlake Ave. N., 623-1180, madartseattle.com. 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Wed.-Sat. Ends Apr. 25.

MAÏMOUNA GUERRESI Inaugurating the new gallery is a selection of photos from the Italian/ Senegalese Guerresi, whose studio scenes have a highly ritualized, almost theatrical aspect. The images in Light Bodies are less individual portraits of women than idealized renderings of high priestesses (or even saints, though the iconography is mostly Islamic). Colorful robes, chadors, and headdresses are elongated and enlarged, taking an almost architectural form; hats become minarets. Female bodies fall away, or become black voids, suggesting a kind of sublimation from flesh to spirit. Guerresi’s often-looming figures are like peaceful giants from myth, figures removed from our petty, earthly concerns. BRIAN MILLER Mariane Ibrahim Gallery, 608 Second Ave., 467-4927, marianeibrahim.com. 11 a.m.-6 p.m.

Wed.-Fri. Noon-5 p.m. Sat. Ends May 1.

ANN HAMILTON She has created new commissioned art for the Henry that she invites viewers to interact with through touch. Henry Art Gallery (UW campus), 543-2280, henryart.org. $6-$10.

11 a.m.-4 p.m. Weds., Sat. & Sun. 11 a.m.-4 p.m.

Thurs. & Sat. Ends April 26.

sets her thriller Gemini in Seattle, where her heroine is a doctor. Parkplace Books, 348 Parkplace Ctr. (Kirkland), 425-828-6546, parkplacebookskirkland. com. 7 p.m. Wed., March 25.

BRANDON MULL Crystal Keepers is the third installment in the best-selling Five Kingdoms fantasy series.

Third Place Books, 17171 Bothell Way N.E., 3663333, thirdplacebooks.com. 7 p.m. Wed., March 25.

MARIE-ROSE PHAN-LÊ Talking Story: One Woman’s Quest to Preserve Ancient Spiritual and Healing Traditions is her companion to an award-winning film. Elliott Bay Book Co., 1521 10th Ave., 624-6600, elliottbaybook.com. 7 p.m. Wed, March 25. (Also: Third Place, 7 p.m. Thurs., March 26.)

JAMES HANNAHAM In his new Delicious Foods, a widow finds herself separated from her son on a mysterious farm. Elliott Bay, 7 p.m. Thurs., March 26.

LUÍS ALBERTO URREA The prolific author (The Hummingbird’s Daughter, The Devil’s Highway, etc.) discusses his craft. Richard Hugo House, 1634 11th Ave., 322-7030, hugohouse.org. $12. 7 p.m. Thurs., March 26.

DEBORAH BACHARACH Sex, faith, and breast cancer figure in her memoir After I Stop Lying. (NR) Third Place, 7:30 p.m. Fri., March 27.

LUCY KNISLEY The graphic novelist discusses her two recent Fantagraphics releases: An Age of License and Displacement. Elliott Bay, 7 p.m. Fri., March 27.

PAIGE MCKENZIE She’s the teen star of the popular web series Haunting of Sunshine Girl; this is her eponymous debut book. University Book Store, 4326 University Way N.E., 634-3400, bookstore.washington.edu. 7 p.m. Fri., March 27.

LON COLE The Puyallup poet shares inspiring poems from this new collection, Alive and Thankful: Life is a Gift. University Book Store (Bellevue), 990 102nd Ave. N.E., 425-462-4500, bookstore.washington.edu.

2 p.m. Sat., March 28.

OWEN CURTSINGER He shares his latest self-published comic, Myths of the Tusk, and hosts a workshop on comics, science, and drawing. Ravenna Third Place, 6500 20th Ave. N.E., 523-0210, thirdplacebooks.com. Noon. Sat., March 28.

NELSON GEORGE The author of The Death of Rhythm & Blues and the Evolution of Culture & Style reads from his new mystery novel, The Lost Treasures of R&B. Elliott Bay, 7 p.m. Sat., March 28.

GEORGE BAXTER-HOLDER Drugs, Food, Sex and God is his memoir of drug addiction and recovery. Elliott Bay, 3 p.m. Sun., March 29.

PETER V. BRETT The Skull Throne is the latest in his Demon Cycle series. University Book Store, 7 p.m., Mon., March 30.

BY D IA NA M . LE

BY D IA NA M . LE

EMERGE/EVOLVE 2014: RISING TALENTS IN KILNGLASS This group show from Portland’s Bullseye

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

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

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SEATTLE WEEKLY • MARCH 25 — 31, 2015

ONE H T NIGHT

from over 100 regional artists. Activities include tasty local food and a children’s art table. Magnuson Park (Hanger 30), 7400 Sand Point Way N.E., 684-4946, nwartalliance.com. $6-$8. 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Sat., March 28. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sun., March 29.

ONE PAGE Opening to coincide with this weekend’s Emerald City Comicon, this group show will include Ashley Wood, Veronica Fish, Audrey Kawasaki, and others, each contributing a one-page comic with a short story. Opening reception, 6-9 p.m. Fri. Roq La Rue Gallery, 532 First Ave. S., 374-8977, roqlarue.com.

Noon-5 p.m. Wed.-Sun. Ends March 30.

SOIL TURNS 20 Come celebrate this milestone with food, drinks, party games, art and auction (with Laura Michalek as auctioneer). Greg Kucera Gallery, 212 Third Ave. S., 624-0770, soilart.org. $40. 1 p.m. Sun., March 29.

WRAPPINGS Gallery artists Colleen Hayward, Justyn Hegreberg, and Saya Moriyasu explore wrapping in various media to explore intricate layers. Opening reception, 6-8 p.m. Sat. The Alice, 6007 12th Ave. S., thealicegallery.com. Noon-5 p.m. Sat. Ends May 2.

piness in a conceptual show called Happily Never After. Punch Gallery, 119 Prefontaine Pl. S. (Tashiro Kaplan Building), 621-1945, punchgallery.org.

Noon-5 p.m. Thurs.-Sat. Ends March 28.

Images by ALEC MILLER

Classical, Etc.

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arts&culture» Film

generated in an Oklahoma frat house. (Bringing James to a white-supremacist group to ask for protection inside the joint, Darnell tells James to go ahead and practice calling him That One Word.)

Key & Peele’s Jay Martel and Ian Roberts cophoned-in the script, from a story by Ferrell and his lifemate Adam McKay (Anchorman, Step Brothers).

If I were in that pitch meeting, I’d have piped up with, “I don’t know. Some of these jokes about sodomy feel just plain . . . forced!” MARK RAHNER

Opening ThisWeek Get Hard

22

Imagine the pitch meeting for Get Hard: “What’s not funny about prison rape? Am I right?”

“Or using ‘keister’ as a verb! Hey-oooo!”

A raunchy ebony-and-ivory buddy comedy, Get Hard is essentially a long riff on the terror of becoming another man’s prison bitch. Or, even more horrifying, a white man becoming a black man’s. Except for when it’s also a riff on black stereotypes.

And honestly, who deserves to pull a train behind bars more than a rich hedge-fund manager? Before his lavish wedding to the boss’ golddigging daughter, James (Will Ferrell) is framed for fraud and embezzlement, and has 30 days before slammer-time. He’s so terrified of becoming someone’s bitch that he hires the only black guy he knows, his building’s car-wash guy, Darnell (Kevin Hart), to teach him to survive behind bars.

“The hilarious irony: Darnell is a huge pussy!

Get it?”

Darnell’s a khaki-and-polo-wearing family man, no more gangsta than Cosby, as someone close to him points out. He needs money for a home loan, so he pulls his “prison school” lessons out of his own . . . (See: “keister,” above.)

But sensitivity and comedy are mortal enemies. Setting aside any consideration of taste—or the concept of taste—Get Hard is marginally funny with a handful of solid laughs, and it goes limp in the final act. Along with such hilarity as Darnell telling James that if he can’t fight, he’s going to have to practice sucking dick, there are a few clever satirical moments that’ll be lost on, say, northern Idaho audiences.

If you’ve seen most any Will Ferrell movie— not to mention his naked keister—this is more of the same oblivious man-child doofus. Nearly a foot shorter, Hart’s the motor-mouthed straight man and sight gag.

With the talent behind this movie, it should be more than marginally funny. Co-writer and firsttime director Etan Cohen wrote Tropic Thunder, whose racial humor was a lot less like something

Like Sunday, Like Rain OPENS FRI., MARCH 27 AT SUNDANCE CINEMAS. RATED R. 104 MINUTES.

Here is a romance that can’t happen, so why make a movie about it? In her early 20s, penniless Eleanor (Leighton Meester) desperately takes a job as live-in nanny for 12-year-old Reggie ( Julian Shatkin), the only, lonely child of a wealthy family on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. We ought to hate the kid, a know-it-all prodigy who practices his cello in the family mansion’s conspicuously empty pool. (His parents are mostly absent; Debra Messing plays Reggie’s self-absorbed mother in a few early scenes.) But Reggie—we can’t help thinking of Richie Rich—is no brat. He’s a coddled vegan aesthete, encyclopedia pages pouring from his mouth. He plays chess on actual chessboards and reads old history books in hardcover, never on an iPad. (This preternaturally old soul was actually born after AOL.)

MONTEREY MEDIA

SEATTLE WEEKLY • MARCH 25 — 31, 2015

OPENS FRI., MARCH 27 AT SUNDANCE CINEMAS AND OTHER THEATERS. RATED R. 100 MINUTES.

Who’s in charge of whom?

Meester and Shatkin.

Gradually, on long walks through the park and one trip upstate, these two chaste lovers will share their secrets. Reggie has little in his past, of course, but for one family tragedy; yet we can feel secure that the Ivy League and a very large trust fund will ensure his future. Eleanor meanwhile comes from a poor, fractured Poughkeepsie family, yet there’s curiously little class resentment in Like Sunday.

Reggie’s constantly bribing the servants and buying Eleanor expensive restaurant meals, which she

Merchants of Doubt OPENS FRI., MARCH 27 AT SUNDANCE AND MERIDIAN. RATED PG-13. 93 MINUTES.

Have you ever developed a crush on a movie villain, the kind of Dr. Evil-ish sociopath you don’t need to marry, but just want to know more about? Darth Vader, the Joker, Hannibal Lecter, Norman Bates . . . sure, they’re bad boys, but with an insidious, appealing mystery about them.

That’s how I feel about Tim Phillips, the vile, folksy president of the Koch brothers-sponsored Americans for Prosperity. He appears late in this slick, unsurprising doc by Robert Kenner, but he’s been making cameos in other exposés of a political system polluted by dark corporate money. Phillips was recently seen in Citizen Koch, but Merchants of Doubt is a much higher-quality indictment. Based on the 2010 book by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, the film lays out a convincing, followthe-money trail from the tobacco industry’s postwar efforts to prevent (or forestall) government regulation to a profitable lobbying specialty today.

Fake scientific experts and “teach the controversy” subterfuge have now infiltrated all public-policy debates where billions are at stake.

Harvard historian Oreskes, prominent in the film, helps advance the thesis that PR consultants perfected a strategy of obfuscation and delay (“There is no consensus”) during our government’s decades-long war against Big Tobacco.

Though scientific evidence in the ’50s was clear that smoking caused cancer, the industry reaped billions—and inflicted even more costly damage to public health—before eventual settlements and admissions of guilt. After those payouts, a professional class of liars found eager new clients in the oil, chemical, and food industries.

Merchants of Doubt is about D.C.’s permanent lobbying establishment and those false-front organizations always espousing individual liberty and responsibility. Constrained by fact, it’s not so entertaining as Thank You for Smoking, but most of its points are well familiar. Scientists and environmentalists are defamed by shills on FOX News; phony grassroots bodies are funded by the Fortune 500; and a weird old faction of Cold War-holdout Ph.D.s—so like Dr. Strangelove himself—are willing to testify against the scientific consensus because, you know, GUBMENT REGULATION IS SOCIALISM!!! (Citizens United isn’t mentioned, but we all know its pernicious effects.)

This is a film designed to make you angry, and it succeeds as such. But rather than finally consoling us with a few heroes (e.g., former NASA climate scientist James Hansen), Merchants should’ve focused more on those mavens of spin who control the debate today. Their side is winning. They’ve successfully tapped into a tribal belief system that trumps empirical evidence. “It’s all about distraction,” says Oreskes. Why does that distraction work so well? That’s a question for Phillips and his colleagues to answer in a future documentary, after they’re rich, retired, and free from their NDAs. BRIAN MILLER

Serena OPENS FRI., MARCH 27 AT GUILD 45TH. RATED R. 109 MINUTES. LARRY D. HORRICKS/MAGNOLIA PICTURES

WARNER BROS.

Ferrell goes to jail.

never questions. Yet scenes with her needy/grating ex, effectively played by Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong, make clear this isn’t a fairy tale.

After her many seasons on Gossip Girl, Meester has a comfortable grace before the camera, though the script gives her little character to lift. Only when Eleanor finally confides her dashed dreams to Reggie do we realize (of both Meester and Eleanor) that Gosh, but this girl’s actually got some talent. Yet writer/director Frank Whaley never builds upon that potential. The same listless scenes play over and over (park, restaurant, cello, etc.), with odd editing lurches between them. Eleanor is shocked to discover Reggie can’t swim; the pool is empty; yet there’s no payoff. Most of the film is set during summer vacation, so the meandering might fit the rhythms of a grown boy’s distant memories of his first crush. Not Whaley’s memories—he came from Eleanor’s blue-collar, hard-drinking upstate wasteland, as recounted in his 1999 Joe the King.

Eleanor feels like a refugee from that movie, unsure of her place in this one. BRIAN MILLER

Lawrence knows logging.

A movie starring Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper was made available through Video On Demand before it played theaters in the U.S. This might lead to conclusions about a) how dramatically the release model for Hollywood films is changing, or b) how quickly superstars can drop from the stratosphere. Neither is true.

Serena is simply a one-off botch, signifying nothing about the value of VOD or its stars’ undiminished red-hotness. Shot in 2012, it’s being dumped because it’s a major bummer, despite the cast. Based on a novel by Ron Rash, it has an outdated style and subject matter—the kind of thing that might have worked in the 1930s, which is when the story is set. In fact, the setting of the thing vaguely recalls that of Come and Get It (1936), a timber-baron drama with the illfated Frances Farmer’s best role.

We are in the logging country of North Carolina, where an ambitious young entrepreneur, George Pemberton (Cooper), stops felling trees long enough to fall instantly in love with the mysterious Serena (Lawrence). Once installed as his wife, she shares her own savvy about the timber industry with George’s workers, a habit that doesn’t sit too well with the rough-hewn lumberjacks. Especially hostile is the foreman (David Dencik, from Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy), who apparently harbors more than just professional loyalty to his boss. Everything in the plot is written large and bold, as though borrowed from Greek tragedy: Death lurks in the woods, dismemberment leads to supernatural devotion, and a panther and Serena’s snake-killing hawk (what the hell?) take on near-mythological significance. Those big, stark elements might have had some power on the page, but Danish director Susanne Bier doesn’t find a consistent tone to bring this thing to a simmer.

While the Czech Republic credibly stands in for the American setting, the actors can’t carry off the same sleight-of-hand. With the film’s straight-ahead melodramatic approach, Rhys Ifans is especially stranded, stuck with a ridiculous lumberman character who occupies a place somewhere between Robert Shaw in Jaws and

E K LY. C O M / S I G N U P DI N I NGW W W. S E AT T L E W EWEEK LY

“PHENOMEN AL.

MUSIC

PR OM O T IONS

EV ENT S

A H Y BR I D O F R I CH A R D L INKL ATER & H. P. LOV E CR A F T. ” RogerEbert.com

Boo Radley. Jennifer Lawrence has a distinctly secondary role and fails to make a Lady Macbeth out of it, while Bradley Cooper acts as though he’s in a secondary role, even though he’s got the lead. A few choppily placed sex scenes manage to dissipate all memory of the terrific chemistry the two shared in Silver Linings Playbook. A movie that does that deserves to go straight to VOD.

SHOWTIMES

SHREK

MAR 27 - APR 2

FRI - WED

ROBERT HORTON

F IL M

Spring RUNS FRI., MARCH 27–THURS., APRIL 2 AT GRAND ILLUSION. NOT RATED. 109 MINUTES.

Until the female lead is revealed to be a grossly mutating shapeshifter who devours animals in order to keep her human appearance from dissolving into gooey ick, Spring could be mistaken for a relaxed little indie about budding love. In fact, the film’s idea seems to come from a jokey proposition: What if you were watching one of those walking-and-talking indie romances in the style of Richard Linklater’s Before series, and it suddenly turned into a horror flick? Though slowed by artiness and a certain overly earnest attitude, Spring manages to catch some of the appeal of such a genre-blending experiment.

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EPIC MOVIE NIGHT: DUNE THURSDAY @ 8:00PM

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SEATTLE WEEKLY • MARCH 25 — 31, 2015

Evan (played by Lou Taylor Pucci) is a mid-20s American drifting through Italy in the wake of his parents’ death. In a small coastal town, he strikes sparks with a sultry, elusive local, Louise (Nadia Hilker), who doesn’t like to explain much about herself. And yet they do a lot of talking (see Linklater reference). Evan is living the life—thanks to a grizzled farmer (Francesco Carnelutti), he gets a job and a free place to stay, and he’s strolling around a cobblestone Italy that looks as romantic as the one in Three Coins in a Fountain. And there’s this flirty woman, who has a great apartment and two pet rabbits. Granted, it’s troubling when the rabbits abruptly vanish, but hey, there’s always a learning curve when you meet someone new. You fall in love, and you have to take on the whole person, warts and all, right? In this case, the warts are gigantic and sometimes sprout fangs.

I imagine co-directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead have seen Cat People (1942) and Night Tide (1961) and a few other movies about men who fall in love with women who are not what they seem. Spring shares a lyrical approach with those two films, but it tries something new. Where most such tales end in horror, this one gets some humor and sweetness out of Evan’s determination to work with his new girlfriend to deal with her issues. It’s like a sincere little indie in which a lover has to overcome commitment-phobia—just slightly exaggerated here. Benson and Moorhead don’t nail all of it; some of the conversations feel stilted, and I’m not sure why we are treated to periodic shots that float above the town: a sign of a supernatural presence, or proof that the filmmakers could put their camera on a drone? Overall, though, the gene-splicing here is pretty intriguing. ROBERT HORTON E

The Musicians Behind the Biggest Hits of the ’60s

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arts&culture» Film

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By Seattle Weekly Readers!

Thank You!!

F

2014 W

INNER

Local & Repertory LIFE: THE FILMS OF HOU HSIAO• ALSO LIKE This retrospective continues with the Taiwanese HSIEN

SE AT TLE

4500 9TH AVE. NE • 206-633-0059

Two Ways To Save At Sundance Seattle Monday is $6 ORCA Day Show Your Orca Card and ALL Seats are $6 ($7.50 for 3D).

Tickets Avail at Box Office Only. Not good on holidays.

Tuesday is Girls Movie Night Out!

2 or more ladies get $5 ($6.50 for 3D) Admission All Day. Tickets Avail at Box Office Only.

IT FOLLOWS

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MERCHANTS OF DOUBT GET HARD

LIKE SUNDAY, LIKE RAIN

WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS KINGSMAN: THE SECRET SERVICE THE DIVERGENT SERIES: INSURGENT IN 3D & 2D THE SECOND BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL

MR. TURNER

timepieces Good Men, Good Women and Dust in the Wind, the gorgeous colonial-era Flowers of Shanghai (no less infused with memory and regret), and the more playful, contemporary Millennium Mambo (2001), about which J. Hoberman wrote in these pages, “Hou plunges headlong into gaga youth culture with a movie that seems designed to complement a jumbo tapioca bubble tea. Mambo basically concerns the unsatisfying relationships Vicky (Shu Qi) maintains with two men: her youthful lover, a druggie layabout and sometime–DJ; and a somewhat older gangster. Her third-person voiceover narration from the perspective of 2011 sets up and sometimes contradicts each episode as we untangle her convoluted past.” (NR) Grand Illusion (1403 N.E. 50th St.) & Northwest Film Forum (1515 12th Ave.). See nwfilmforum.org for full schedule. $5–$9. Ends Sat. ROGER BEEBE The visiting avant-garde Ohio director presents several films, including pieces screened simultaneously on multiple projectors. Selections are made from his 20 years of experimental filmmaking.

(Also note that the Grand Illusion will show more of his work at 7 p.m. Sun.) (NR) Northwest Film Forum, $6-$11. 5 p.m. Sat. GROWING UP BAUMBACH On Wednesday the 25th we have Noah Baumbach’s 2013’s Frances Ha, starring his muse and co-writer, Greta Gerwig, as a young woman finding her way in New York. Following on April 1 is a sneak preview of While We’re Young (which opens April 10), with Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts as 40-something filmmakers who become besotted with an energetic married couple (Adam Driver and Amanda Seyfried). The ending doesn’t quite achieve its desired effect, but it’s a brisk, smart comedy of marital dissatisfaction you’ll definitely want to see.

And as in Greenberg, Stiller is excellent at channeling Baumbach’s brand of self-sabotaging male characters.

(R) SIFF Film Center (Seattle Center), 324-9996, siff. net. $5. 7 p.m. Wednesdays through April 1.

HANDMADE PUPPET DREAMS VOL. III Series curator Heather Henson presents various short films, totalling about 110 minutes. (NR) Grand Illusion, 523-3935, grandillusioncinema.org. $5-$9. 4 p.m. Sun. LEVIATHAN At the core of this Oscar-nominated drama is a simple land-grab, but the implications are far-reaching. Kolya (Aleksey Serebryakov) is a rough handyman who’s managed to carve out a livelihood on the seafront near Murmansk. His house sits on a rocky piece of oceanfront property that is being claimed by the town’s crooked mayor. Kolya’s old Army friend Dmitriy (Vladimir Vdovichenkov), now a lawyer, has just arrived from Moscow to help in the case; his big-city sophistication is in stark contrast to Kolya’s country ways, a fact that Kolya’s wife (Elena Liadova) notices.

As we sink into the situation, every strand of life is revealed to be rigged. The shady mayor is blatant in his greed, and the legal system is a comically wordy charade. The success of this study-in-corruption by director Andrey Zvyagintsev has brought Vladimir Putin’s minions, Russian nationalists, and religious authorities out in force to condemn it as “evil,” “a cynical and dirty parody,” and “a cinematic anti-Putin manifesto.”

In other words, it needs to be seen. (R) ROBERT HORTON SIFF Film Center, $7-$12. 7 p.m. Mon. NOTORIOUS Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman are quite wonderful, and Claude Rains none too shabby, in Hitchcock’s taut 1946 espionage thriller. To bust a ring of Nazis down in Rio, undercover agent Bergman marries one of their leaders (Rains), which drives her handler (Grant) crazy with jealousy. It’s a classic Hitchcock mix of sexual guilt and feminine purity: Bergman is doing the wrong thing in order to do the right thing; while Grant can’t decide which woman he loves or hates— the “good” Bergman (before) or the “bad” Bergman (after). And he, of course, is the cause of her sinning.

And she does it for him. The dialogue (by Ben Hecht with help from Clifford Odets) is loaded and subtle; and Hitchcock’s camera work is extraordinary—a master class in how to create wordless tension, where a mere look can incriminate, kill, or betray one’s beloved. (PG) BRIAN MILLER Central Cinema, 1411 21st Ave., 6866684, central-cinema.com. $7-$9. 9:30 p.m. Fri.-Wed. SABBATICAL Visiting Wisconsin director Brandon Colvin will conduct a Q&A following the presentation of his indie dramedy about a middle-aged academic who opens old wounds during a visit to his former hometown. (NR) Northwest Film Forum, $6-$11. 6 p.m. Sun. SATURDAY SECRET MATINEE Hosted by The Sprocket Society, this Saturday matinee series features the 1941 serial The Adventures of Captain Marvel, preceded by various vintage cartoons and shorts. Total program length is about two hours. (NR) Grand Illusion, $5-$9.

1 p.m. Saturdays through March 28.

THE GUNMAN

*Tickets available at the box office.

SUNDANCECINEMAS.COM

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SEATTLE WEEKLY • MARCH 25 — 31, 2015

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g all Playin KS W SEAHAMNF and es!

Gam

SHREK The plot to this 2001 animated hit, based on William

Steig’s children’s tale, relies upon familiar bedtime reading conventions: There’s a beautiful princess (Cameron Diaz) locked in a castle, guarded by a dragon; there’s a villain (John Lithgow) who seeks to marry her; then there’s a brave, chivalrous hero (Mike Myers) who must free the damsel in question. Only here our paladin is a crass green ogre fond of slime baths and flatulence.

(He’s tailed by Eddie Murphy’s Sancho Panza-like talking donkey.) Seemingly a grouch, Shrek is naturally masking hurt feelings, lamenting, “They judge me before they even know me!” (The princess had got body-image issues of her own.) Amusing enough family entertainment for the rest of us, Shrek aims its accept-yourself sermonizing squarely at pre-teen girls. But which action figure will they prefer? (PG) B.R.M. Central Cinema, $7-$9. 7 p.m. Fri.-Wed. plus 3 p.m. Sat.-Sun. matinees ZOMBEAVERS College kids are attacked by zombie beavers. What more do you need to know? (NR) SIFF Cinema Egyptian, 801 E. Pine St., 324-9996, siff.net. $7-$12. 11:55 p.m. Sat.

Ongoing

CINDERELLA When the mood strikes, I can be swept up in

watching two beautiful people fall in love. And beautiful they are: Game of Thrones’ Richard Madden as Prince Charming (in some very flattering tight pants) and Downton Abbey’s Lily James as the demure and freespirited Ella, who wears butterflies in her hair because that’s just her brand of Manic Pixie Dream Girl. (Let’s also here bestow the praising-hands emoji upon James’ eyebrows, the boldness of which is unprecedented by any other Disney princess.) The familiar plot has been gently tweaked. Prior to the fateful ball, Ella now meets Prince Charming in the forest, where he claims to be a humble apprentice. Ella’s also been given more agency.

Unlike most adaptations of the Perrault folk tale, this Ella is hardly embarrassed by her low station. She soon adopts a strong take-me-as-I-am attitude, surely designed to appeal to girls raised on Frozen. After being christened “Cinderella” by her evil stepmother (Cate Blanchett) and stepsisters, she chooses to reclaim the demeaning nickname and make it her own. Is that the best message for how to respond to bullying? Perhaps not the worst. (PG) DIANA M. LE Ark Lodge, Majestic Bay, Kirkland, others INSURGENT Insurgent picks up three days after the end Divergent, with teenage Tris (Shailene Woodley), Four (Theo James), and Caleb (Ansel Elgort) on the run from Jeanine (Kate Winslet) and her goons. So far, so good: We came to see some action. However, Insurgent soon falls into the typical second-movie slump so common to trilogies. (Though four movies are actually being made from Veronica Roth’s three novels.) The fun to 2014’s Divergent came from the introduction of a whole new futuristic world, and in seeing misfit Tris blossom and get to know her new faction. Now, after the death of her parents and a friend, Tris is understandably troubled—but her nightmares weigh heavily on us, too. Insurgent feels exhausted by its latter half; even the ever-energetic Woodley seems a little depleted. Early in Insurgent, Tris cuts her hair short, without any thought to whether or not her boyfriend will like it. Because she doesn’t draw her strength or beauty from his approval, I dug Shailene’s no-makeup, androgynous look—believable for fugitive life. Tris also loses her virginity in a no-nonsense manner, another small touch of realism in this dystopia. (PG-13) D.M.L. Kirkland, Ark Lodge, Majestic Bay, Sundance, others INTO THE WOODS Cue the irony that this sly modern classic musical (songs by Stephen Sondheim, book by James Lapine) has been taken up by Disney, history’s busiest purveyors of the happy ending. Its fairy-tale happy ending comes halfway through the action, then Cinderella and company must decide what to do next. It’s a crowded roster, with Meryl Streep top-billed as the Witch, the blue-haired crank who sets things in motion with a curse.

(James Corden and Emily Blunt play the baker and wife who want a child; also on hand are Anna Kendrick, Chris Pine, Tracey Ullman, and Johnny Depp as various familiar fairy-tale characters.) The blend of rustic locations and studio-built woods is eye-filling, especially when the characters cross from the realistic realm to the enchanted forest. In general, though, director Rob Marshall (who guided Chicago to its dubious best-picture Oscar) brings his usual clunky touch, hammering home the big moments and underlining subtlety with a broad brush. The singing tends toward the Broadway-brassy, although Blunt and Corden—working in a more casual style—are completely charming. A bit of the 1987 show’s subversive message still peeks through, making this an unusual blockbuster to unleash at Christmastime. (PG) R.H. Crest IT FOLLOWS David Robert Mitchell’s suburban thriller creates constant anxiety. The premise itself is simple, if faintly absurd. A teenager, Jay (Maika Monroe, excellent in The Guest), sleeps with her handsome new crush; he then informs her that she is now the target of a relentless,

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“PROvOCATIvE AND IMPROBABlY ENTERTAININg.”

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have to admire Hawke’s patience (courage, even) just to stand back, point his camera, and let the man play. (PG) GAVIN BORCHERT Guild 45th SONG OF THE SEA Dazzling in its visual presentation, though not so thrilling in its conventional storytelling, the Irish-animated Song features a 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 spellspinning songs. 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). (PG) R.H. Guild 45th THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING The Stephen Hawking biopic opens with our hero (Les Miz star Eddie Redmayne) as a young nerd at university, where his geeky manner doesn’t entirely derail his ability to woo future wife Jane Wilde (Felicity Jones). Hawking is diagnosed with motor neuron disease at age 21 and given a two-year prognosis for survival—one of the film’s sharpest ideas is to allow time to pass, and pass, without pointing out that Hawking is demolishing the expectations for someone with his condition. James Marsh’s movie is officially adapted from (now ex-wife) Jane Hawking’s memoir, so the love story has its share of ups and downs. This is where Theory manages to distinguish itself from the usual Oscar bait.

Whether dealing with Jane’s closeness to a widowed choirmaster (who becomes part of the Hawking family), or Stephen’s chemistry with his speech therapist, the film catches a frank, worldly view of the way things happen sometimes. No special villains here—you might say it’s just the way the universe unfolds. Redmayne’s performance is a fine piece of physical acting, and does suggest some of the playfulness in Hawking’s personality.

From now until Oscar night, you will not be able to get away from it. (PG-13) R.H. Crest WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS The premise is ’90s-stale: basically MTV’s The Real World cast with vampires, presented as direct-address documentary.

This droll comedy comes from the brain trust behind 2007’s Eagle Vs. Shark: Jemaine Clement (Flight of the Conchords) and Taika Waititi, who play neck-biters Vladislav and Viago, respectively. Our three main vamps are a hapless lot. They can’t get invited into any of the good clubs or discos—ending up forlorn in an all-night Chinese diner instead. After all the aestheticized languor of Only Lovers Left Alive (and the earnest teen soap opera of Twilight), the silly deadpan tone is quite welcome.

Clement and Waititi know this is a sketch writ large (forget about plot), so they never pause long between sneaky gags. The amsuing and essential conflict here is between age-old vampire traditions and today’s hook-up customs.

These neck-biters have been at it so long that they’re only imitating old vampire stereotypes. Things have gotten to the point, Vladislav admits, where they’re even cribbing from The Lost Boys. (NR) B.R.M. Sundance, Kirkland, Ark Lodge, SIFF Cinema Uptown WILD TALES The opening sequence to Damián Szifrón’s Argentine anthology movie sets up a Twilight Zone-style series of revelations, compressed into just a few minutes.

Passengers riding on a suspiciously underfilled plane begin to realize that there might be a reason for their presence there, beyond the obvious business of getting to a destination. Szifrón wants to get his movie started with a bang, and he does—though the rest of Wild Tales doesn’t live up to the wicked curtain-raiser. But there are enough moments of irony and ingenuity to make it worthwhile. In one episode, a lone driver has a flat tire in the middle of nowhere, which allows the slowpoke he antagonized earlier to stop by and exact revenge. In another, an explosives expert becomes enraged by a parking ticket—rage that leads him to lose everything. But there’s a twist. A lot of these segments rely on a twist, a technique that doesn’t quite disguise how in-your-face the lessons are. The twists also can’t disguise the way some of the tales rely on illogical behavior to allow their plots to develop. Wild Tales is a showy exercise (you can see why Pedro Almodóvar signed on as a producer), and Szifrón has undoubtedly punched his ticket for bigger and better things. (R) R.H. Seven Gables

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-Joe Morgenstern, WAll STREET JOURNAl FOOD, INC. AND THE COMPANY BEHIND WAITING FOR SUPERMAN AND AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH FROM THE DIRECTOR OF

a film by RObERT KENNER

produced and directed by RObERT KENNER WWW.TAKEPART.com/doubT

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IN THEATERS APRIL 1 WomanInGoldMovie.com •

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The inside scoop on upcoming films and the latest reviews.

HAP P Y HO UR

SEATTLE WEEKLY • MARCH 25 — 31, 2015

shape-shifting ghoul, which will pursue her to death. Her only escape is to have sex with someone else, who will then become the target. Mitchell canny about using the camera to evoke mystery. Every time someone drifts into the background of a shot, we have to wonder: Is that just a random passerby, or is that, you know, “It”? There’s also a wild musical score by Disasterpeace that provides an aggressive—at times maybe too aggressive—accompaniment to the film’s eerie mood. If the use of teen sex as a horror convention seems tired, rest assured that Mitchell seems less interested in a morality play than in sketching the in-between world of suburban adolescence. (R) R.H. Sundance, Ark Lodge, SIFF Cinema Egyptian KUMIKO, THE TREASURE HUNTER The setup here might promise routine road comedy: A sad and lonely Japanese woman, who somehow believes the 1996 Coen brothers movie Fargo is a documentary, ventures from Japan to the frozen Midwest to find the cash Steve Buscemi buried in the featureless snow. Yet filmmakers David and Nathan Zellner have no interest in obvious gags. Half their movie is scene-setting in Tokyo, where dejected office drone Kumiko (Rinko Kikuchi, from Babel) is a Eleanor Rigby-like loner. More than shyness or defeat, an ever-widening distance separates her from the world beyond her imagination. Kindly strangers, including a widowed Minnesota farm wife and a sympathetic cop (David Zellner), barely register. Unseen in Seattle, the Zellners’ prior two features, Kid-Thing and Goliath, also dealt with alienated loners. The well-crafted Kumiko can likewise be seen as a character study; though, like her supposed treasure, it’s not certain if that character actually exists. A stubborn obstinacy lies at Kumiko’s core, but also delusion—and possibly mental illness. (NR) B.R.M. SIFF Cinema Uptown A MOST VIOLENT YEAR Abel Morales (Oscar Isaac) sports a handsome camel-hair topcoat. He’d like to achieve success the honest way, and that immaculate coat is like his shining armor. Problem is, this is 1981-era New York, the business is heating oil, and nothing stays clean for very long here. Writer/director J.C. Chandor is skillful with these details—this is a very intricate story— and quiet in his approach. Abel’s jacket is the flashiest thing about the movie, where the essential plot is him trying to put together a deal to buy a choice piece of East River waterfront, where he can land oil barges. Assisting him is his fierce wife Anna (Jessica Chastain), the daughter of a local mobster, whose take on life is a little worldlier than his. The actors are a splendid pair: Isaac, of Inside Llewyn Davis, captures the immigrant’s go-go drive for success; and the only problem with Chastain in this film is that she isn’t in it enough. Chandor’s first two films, Margin Call and All Is Lost, were more startling and original. But he does manage the game with dexterity, and the re-creation of a grungy, now-distant era is completely convincing. (R) R.H. Crest THE SECOND BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL The plot devices in this sequel are so stale that the movie itself loses interest in them halfway through its dawdling 122 minutes—and this is a good thing. By that time the contrivances of Ol Parker’s script have done their duty, and we can get to the element that turned the film’s 2011 predecessor into a surprise hit: hanging around with a group of witty old pros in a pleasant location. There are many worse reasons for enjoying movies. Director John Madden (Shakespeare in Love) mostly allows Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, Celia Imrie, and Penelope Wilton to float around on many years’ worth of accrued goodwill.

(New to the expat ensemble is Richard Gere.) Especially fine is the spindly Bill Nighy, whose shy Douglas is a hesitant suitor to Dench’s Evelyn, a still-active buyer of fabrics. Even while fulfilling sitcom ideas, Nighy maintains his tottering dignity and sense of fun. Second Best will be a hit with its original audience, and maybe then some. The languid mood is laced with an appreciation for getting to the End of Things, especially as Smith’s formerly snappish Muriel mellows into a melancholy leave-taking. (PG) R.H. Sundance, Majestic Bay, Kirkland, others SEYMOUR: AN INTRODUCTION From the first scene, in which pianist Seymour Bernstein talks his way through his thought process for fingering a passage in a Scarlatti sonata, it’s gratifyingly clear that Ethan Hawke’s documentary portrait isn’t going to be afraid to dig seriously into music. Hawke’s own search for artistic purpose (why acting?) led him to examine the life of the pianist, a casual acquaintance who became a role model for a life devoted to art, not to the trappings of art. “I’m not so sure that a major career is a healthy thing to embark on,” says the 88-year-old Bernstein, who, despite acclaim, retired from public performance at age 50 thanks to stage fright and a disdain for the showbiz side of the classical-music world.

The concertgoer’s loss was the aspiring pianist’s gain; scenes with private pupils and master classes show he’s a fantastic teacher. He’s also a captivating raconteur (wait until he starts talking about his time in the army in Korea, playing recitals for soldiers on the front) and a fount of aphorisms (“Every piano is like a person. They build them the same way; they never come out the same way”). You

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arts&culture» Music

A Visual Tour of IG88’s Galactic Beatmaking Gear

The Seattle producer behind Shaprece’s gorgeous tunes shows us how he does it.

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n the extended Star Wars universe, IG-88 is an infamous assassin droid model whose sentience programming evolves far beyond the point its engineers intended. Four of these IG-88 droids eventually launch a massive “Droid Revolution” to exterminate “inferior biologicals” across the galaxy and assert a new robotic world order.

Seattle’s Branden Clarke, who named himself IG88 in honor of these bloodthirsty droids, might inadvertently be doing the same thing— slaying countless “inferior biological” guitar/bass/ drum bands with his advanced electronic prowess as a producer. After making a name by pumping out fluttering, down-tempo beats on three separate LPs in 2012 and 2013, Clarke teamed with local R&B songstress Shaprece to create one of 2014’s smartest local releases—her lush, vernal Molting EP. If you haven’t checked it out yet (which you should immediately): Imagine a

PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE ARTIST(CENTER PHOTO BY MICHAEL JOHN)

SEATTLE WEEKLY • MARCH 25 — 31, 2015

BY KELTON SEARS

mermaid choir performing with an orchestra in an underwater concert hall equipped with hundreds of old, tick-tocking mechanical clocks and an array of state-of-the-art subwoofers.

Being an inferior biological myself, I asked IG88 to break down some of the sophisticated robot technology he uses to craft and perform his highly evolved tunes with Shaprece. Mercifully, rather than sending an HK-50 droid to slaughter me on the spot, IG88 beamed over some images from SXSW, where he was gigging with Shaprece, to reveal how his setup works. You can check it all out live and in action when Shaprece returns to Seattle this Sunday for a homecoming show at The Crocodile.

1

QuNeo

“Primarily used to trigger all of my drum sounds. I use the sliders to sculpt sounds in real time and manipulate master effects for drum

racks. I built one drum rack out of recordings of hiccups from my 8-month-old daughter. Even though the MIDI controller has those colorful lights, they’re just like regular sliders. There are MIDI controllers where you can customize what the lights look like, but, y’know . . . I’ve never felt like that was that necessary, even if it looks cool.”

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Launchpad Mini

“Primarily controls a step sequencer that I built, also used to launch clips and loop elements on the fly. I’ll chop up a bunch of field recordings of me flicking glass bottles or banging trash cans or something that I just record with my iPhone, and then I layer them and trigger those sounds on top of my beats.”

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LaunchControl

“The brain of my live set—it controls parameters for all live instruments, the step sequencer,

and arms instruments to record and loop. I use a mic for live beatboxing that I loop in real time, and with this I can add reverb, bitcrushers, delay, whatever I want. By the time I’m done effecting it, it doesn’t sound like it came out of my mouth anymore, it just sounds like . . . weird.”

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QuNexus

“Compact keyboard used for melodies and textures. You can use it to trigger old vintage synth sounds, deep bass sounds, weird patches I’ve made. Like, I slowed down hitting a glass cup with a butter knife, and then it ended up sounding like whale songs.” E

music@seattleweekly.com

SHAPRECE With ELEL, Bryan John Appleby. The Crocodile, 2200 Second Ave., 441-4618, thecrocodile.com. $13 adv./$15 DOS. All ages. 8 p.m. Sun., March 29.

RICHARD CHEESE & LOUNGE AGAINST THE MACHINE

A Herstory Lesson

4/30

Cat Harris-White on the musical women who have shaped her.

B

eing that it’s the tail end of Women’s History Month, I decided I would share some of the women who have inspired me and my journey through their music:

TLC

Growing up in Hawaii, my older brother would send us VHS tapes (seriously dating myself here) of current music videos that were popular on the mainland. I was always excited about what each tape would introduce me to. I fondly remember the video for “Ain’t 2 Proud 2 Beg” by TLC. It blew my young black

BY STASIA IRONS AND CATHERINE HARRIS-WHITE mind.

Beautiful women in baggy clothing, strongly expressing themselves. They sang about getting some when they wanted it and not being afraid to pursue who they were interested in. A little advanced for my 6-year-old self, but inspiring nonetheless.

LADIESFIRST

WHITNEY HOUSTON

Sometime that same year, Whitney Houston released her cover of Chaka Khan’s 1978 classic “I’m Every Woman.”

Written by legends Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson, the song was already a standard in my home—so to hear this funky house rendition of the tune really got my wheels turning. I couldn’t stop dancing to it. You could find me walking around singing “I’m every woman . . . CHAKA KHAN!” at any point throughout the day.

The video for it was incredibly uplifting, featuring an array of women dancing and sporting all kinds of styles. Artists like TLC, Valerie Simpson, and Cissy Houston (Whitney’s mother) made cameos, but, most impactful, the clip showcased a very pregnant Whitney. I felt so empowered by that image—I learned never to question if I could be a mother and a musician.

QUEEN LATIFAH

BESSIE SMITH

When I found out Queen Latifah would be portraying one of my favorite blues singers, Bessie Smith, for the HBO biopic Bessie, I thought it was the perfect pairing. Smith, an openly bisexual woman, was someone I stumbled across while in high school. It was hard for me around then, having had to come out about

ELLA FITZGERALD AND OTHER BASSY VOCALISTS

Continuing my studies, I would look deeper into music history to find artists who had similar vocal ranges to myself.

My low tenor voice was looked down upon (pun intended) by my vocal coaches.

Everyone suggested I learn how to sing higher in an alto or soprano if I truly wanted to be successful or score solo parts. I needed role models to keep my head above water during that time.

Relearning about artists like Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, and Sarah Vaughan saved me. I had been aware of these artists for a while, but this time around I dove into their repertoires headfirst. Their ability to bend and stretch notes while expressing deep storylines kept my hope of becoming a singer alive. I would sit in my room listening to Fitzgerald’s “Take the ‘A’ Train” and “A-Tisket A-Tasket” learning all the runs and scat solos.

This would eventually create my sound—I suddenly realized I wanted to be a jazz singer. The freedom that existed in the genre excited me. But I knew that sound hadn’t stopped there. I knew that somewhere there were more deep-voiced women exploring their ranges. So I asked my parents and my brother, who should I listen to?

My older brother (the one who sent me those VHS tapes) suggested Brandy, Toni Braxton, and Mariah Carey. He was right on the money! I fell in love with their low, tender tones. My parents suggested Anita Baker and Patti Austin, advising I look into funk and soul. From there I got into Mavis Staples, Patrice Rushen, the Emotions, and many more. The groove came easy to me and fit my personality. Being a disco baby at heart, I felt at home with the psychedelic, gospelinspired vibrations.

All around me, music was expanding. It seemed like there was an endless vat of resources to sort through, and I wasn’t planning on stopping. I wanted to sing with all these women and be in all these groups, dancing and harmonizing.

Performing had always come natural to me, but after all this research I felt like I was truly prepared. Music is a huge part of my life; it has saved me from my lowest points and taken me to high ground. It has accentuated my happiest moments. Without these women, there wouldn’t be a SassyBlack or a THEESatisfaction—and for that I am eternally grateful. E

music@seattleweekly.com

9PM

DAN+SHAY PASSION PIT

3/28

with CANAAN SMITH

8PM

DARK STAR 4/1

ORCHESTRA

9PM

SHOWBOX & CAPITOL HILL BLOCK PARTY PRESENT

YELLE

4/7

with HIBOU

9PM

BLUE OCTOBER with HARVARD OF THE SOUTH

+ ASHLEIGH STONE

4/17

with HOLYCHILD

8PM

THE WATERBOYS 8:30 PM

5/21

JJ GREY + MOFRO

9PM

RAEKWON & GHOSTFACE KILLAH

4/15

5/19 & 20

5/28

with ETHAN TUCKER BAND

8PM

BEST COAST

6/4

9PM

7:30 PM

GRAMATIK THE STORY SO FAR with FOUR YEAR STRONG +

4/24

9PM

6/10

TERROR + SOUVENIRS

7:30 PM

SHOWBOX SODO RODEO TOUR

SHOWBOX AND KNITTING FACTORY PRESENT

TECH N9NE

YOUNG THUG + TRAVI$ SCOTT 3/31

with METRO BOOMIN (DJ SET)

8PM

with KRIZZ KALIKO + CHRIS WEBBY + MURS + KING 810 + ZUSE + NEEMA 4/24

8:30 PM

KALIN & MYLES APOCALYPTICA with ANJALI 7:30 PM

4/18

MOORE THEATRE

with ART OF DYING

9PM

MOORE THEATRE

DIRT UNDERNEATH TOUR

DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS 4/28

5/29

JIM JEFFERIES

8PM

5/27

SHOWBOXPRESENTS.COM

8PM

SEATTLE WEEKLY • MARCH 25 — 31, 2015

Queen Latifah has always had a special place in my heart. Watching her switch roles from rapper to singer to actress to producer reminded me that life has no boundaries but the ones you place on yourself. Over the years she has played with many genres of music, skirting from jazz to hip-hop to house. She was and still is my vision of a fearless woman. Her character on Living Single really spoke to me. She was able to run a magazine, spend time with friends, pursue different love interests, and wear whatever she wanted.

Her strong identity still inspires me.

WHERE IT ALL BEGAN TOUR

my sexuality for the millionth time—so I went searching for some sort of peace through music.

While working on a research paper for one of my classes, I fatefully found Bessie Smith. A wisecrackin’, deeply profound vocalist, Smith openly spoke about her relationships with both men and women. She sang about brawling, heavy drinking, and stabbing folks, which is . . . not something I promote, but the way in which she told these stories was totally enchanting. Having been told by my music teachers that I couldn’t sing about loving women was very discouraging. They told me there wasn’t room for queer artists, so I was glad that my research proved them wrong.

with “IPOD ON A CHAIR”

TWO SHOWS!

27

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

JAZZ ALLEY IS A SUPPER CLUB

arts&culture» Music

Glitter & Apathy Our favorite lyrics from Chastity Belt’s new LP, Time to Go Home, illustrated.

BY BRITTANY KUSA

WAYNE KRANTZ GROUP featuring JAMES GENUS AND CLIFF ALMOND WED, MAR 25 A world-renowned guitar improviser who consistently pushes his stylistic roots in rock, jazz, fusion and blues beyond their boundaries.

GREAT GUITARS with BUCKY PIZZARELLI, JOHN PISANO & MUNDELL LOWE

THURS, MAR 26 - SUN, MAR 29

Three defining figures of acoustic jazz guitar together for the first time in history!

BEYOND EBOLA BENEFIT featuring MESSAGE FROM GUINEA MON, MAR 30

Fundraising efforts in partnership with Seattlebased Guinea Arts Cooperative!

JOHN HAMMOND TUES, MAR 31 - WED, APR 1

Grammy award-winning veteran bluesman!

BRIAN CULBERTSON

LONG NIGHT OUT 20TH ANNIVERSARY TOUR

THURS, APR 2 - SUN, APR 5

Contemporary jazz/R&B/funk musician, instrumentalist, producer and performer!

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

tractor TIMES

DOORS 30-60 MIN. BEFORE. OPEN

LISTED ARE

SHOW TIMES.

WED,

MARCH 25th 

DO206 & JAMESON PRESENT HAVE YOU HEARD SHOWCASE

THEORETICS

HIBOU, MAIAH MANSER, TRANSMISSIONARY

8PM - $3

RSVP AT DO206.COM

THURS,

MARCH 26

th 

WHITNEY’S DIRTY THIRTY GOLDEN BIRTHDAY

THUNDERPUSSY

FAME RIOT, THE HOLLERS 9PM - $10

SEATTLE WEEKLY • MARCH 25 — 31, 2015

FRI,

28

MARCH 27th 

AFROFUNK

POLYRYTHMICS JAMES APOLLO SAT,

9PM - $15

MARCH 28th 

THEATRICAL FOLK

THE LAST BISON NEULORE

9PM - $12/$15

THURS,

APRIL 2nd NEW BELGIUM PRESENTS

MINNESOTA ROOTS LEGEND

CHARLIE PARR W/BETSE ELLIS

9PM - $15 Up & Coming 3/31 THE FUTUREBIRDS 4/1 WHITEHORSE 4/4 THE PREATURES 4/5 DEAD WINTER CARPENTERS 4/7 BRONZE RADIO RETURNS 4/8 GENERAL MOJOS KEY PROJECT 4/9 POCKET PANDA 4/10 MICKEY & THE MOTORCARS 4/11 BROTHERS COMATOSE 4/12 JUNIOR BROWN 5213 BALLARD AVE. NW  789-3599

www.tractortavern.com

CHASTITY BELT RECORD RELEASE SHOW With Cool Ghouls, Dude York. The Highline, 210 Broadway E., 328-7837, highlineseattle.com. $8. 21 and over. 9:30 p.m. Sun., March 28.

Mar20-21 ..... Vox Dox Film Festival Apr 1 ............. Brewmaster Dinner Apr 3 & 10 .... Spring Paring Wine Dinners Apr 11-12....... Taste Leavenworth Apr 11 ........... Fresh Pantry Book Signing Apr 17........... 4-Course Winemaker’s Dinner Apr 17-18 ..... Leavenworth Ale-Fest Apr 19 .......... Earth Day Community Fair Apr 24 .......... 7-Course Winemaker’s Dinner Apr 25 .......... Breakfast and the Met Live Apr 30 .......... FED UP Film Screening

APRIL 11TH & 12TH

leavenworth.org | 509.548.5807

SEATTLE WEEKLY • MARCH 25 — 31, 2015

S P R I N G S E N S AT I O N S E V E N T S

29

arts&culture» Music Thunderpussy

CHECK OUT OUR FREE STUFF PAGE! FOR MORE DETAILS, VISIT US AT: seattleweekly.com/promo/freestuff

MAKENZIE STONE

WANT TO WIN DVDS, CONCERT TICKETS & MORE?

heel in the face (and like it). The Fame Riot, on the other hand, is about 30 percent Diamond Dogs–era Bowie, 60 percent Saturday Night Fever, and 10 percent feather boas. If you’ve got sensitive eyeballs, you’ll want to wear shades for this show—you’re pretty much guaranteed to get an aggressive glitterspritzing. With the Hollers. Tractor Tavern, 5213 Ballard Ave. N.W., 789-3599, tractortavern.com. 9 p.m. $10. 21 and over. KELTON SEARS

Wednesday, March 25

www.elcorazonseattle.com

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

THURSDAY MARCH 26TH

STEVE TAYLOR & THE PERFECT FOIL with Danielson &

The Nine-Fruit Tree, Hello Nowhere Lounge Show. Doors at 7:30PM / Show at 8:00 ALL AGES/BAR W/ID. $12 ADV / $15 DOS

FRIDAY MARCH 27TH

SEATTLE WEEKLY • MARCH 25 — 31, 2015

METALACHI

30

THE WORLD’S FIRST AND ONLY HEAVY METAL MARIACHI BAND

with The Jilly Rizzo, Stay Tuned, Reverend Bear Doors at 8:00PM / Show at 9:00 21+. $12 ADV / $15 DOS

FRIDAY MARCH 27TH

SLUMS OF UTOPIA

SUNDAY MARCH 29TH

LEX

with Aradia, Babel Echo, Plus Guests Doors at 7:30PM / Show at 8:00 ALL AGES/BAR W/ID. $8 ADV / $10 DOS

SUNDAY MARCH 29TH

HEAVYWEIGHT

with Killing The Messenger, Disciples Of Dissent, Surgical Chaos, Esoson Lounge Show.

Doors at 7:00PM / Show at 7:30 ALL AGES/BAR W/ID. $8 ADV / $10 DOS

MONDAY MARCH 30TH MIKE THRASHER PRESENTS:

MARMOZETS

with South Jackson, Christa Says Yay Lounge Show.

Doors at 8:00PM / Show at 9:00 21+. $10 ADV / $12 DOS

with Wild Throne, Life As Cinema, Avoid The Void Lounge Show.

Doors at 7:00PM / Show at 7:30 ALL AGES/BAR W/ID. $10 ADV / $13 DOS

SATURDAY MARCH 28TH

TUESDAY MARCH 31ST

THE PANCAKES & BOOZE ART SHOW Over 50 Local Emerging

TANTRIC

Artists Exhibiting!!! Live Body Painting!!! AllU-Can-Eat Pancake Bar!!! Live Audio & Visual Performances!!! Doors at 8:00PM. 21+. $5

with Jaded Mary, A Lien Nation, Plus Guests Doors at 7:00PM / Show at 8:00 21+. $15 ADV / $18 DOS

JUST ANNOUNCED 4/9 - VOLTAIRE 5/13 - TODAY IS THE DAY 5/28 - CHUNK! NO, CAPTAIN CHUNK! 5/30 LOUNGE - LUCKY MACHETE 6/4 LOUNGE HUGH CORNWELL 6/6 - TEENAGE BOTTLEROCKET UP & COMING 3/31 LOUNGE - CHRYSALIS 4/1 LOUNGE - KEVIN SECONDS 4/2 LOUNGE - SAVIOURS 4/3 - BLACKLIST UNION 4/3 LOUNGE - YONATAN GAT 4/4 - THE COLOR MORALE 4/5 LOUNGE - ROSEDALE 4/6 LOUNGE - THROW THE GOAT 4/8 BANE 4/10 - D.R.I. 4/11 - STRUNG OUT 4/13 - MUSHROOMHEAD 4/14 - ABK / AXE MURDER BOYZ 4/15 - THE MAINE 4/16 LOUNGE - PEELANDER-Z Tickets now available at cascadetickets.com - No per order fees for online purchases. Our on-site Box Office is open 1pm-5pm weekdays in our office and all nights we are open in the club - $2 service charge per ticket Charge by Phone at 1.800.514.3849. Online at www.cascadetickets.com - Tickets are subject to service charge

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

Friday, March 27

As so often happens, from the ashes of one band rise another. Canadian art-rock quartet VIET CONG was formed by Women bandmates Matt Flegel (vocals/ bass) and Mike Wallace (drums) after the group broke up in 2012. The duo wasn’t finished exploring Women’s art-rock sound, and recruited guitarists Scott Munro and Daniel Christiansen for a new project. On its selftitled debut, Viet Cong mixes industrial, noise-rock, and ’60s influences with the art-rock base Women fans are familiar with. The album can be jarring at times, but there’s no denying its captivating power, especially on the 11-minute epic closing track, “Death.” The band is currently undergoing some heavy scrutiny for its loaded name, which got them barred by concerned students from a planned show at Oberlin College this month. With What Moon Things. Barboza, 925 E. Pike St., 709-9951, thebarboza.com. 7 p.m. $10. 21 and over. ACP Ian Kurtis Crist, Dan Shaw, and David Dempsey, transplants from Alaska and Massachusetts, met and formed HEALTH PROBLEMS in Seattle a few years ago. Since then they’ve been warmly embraced in the city’s scuzzy DIY punk circles. Listening to the Counterproductive EP, it’s immediately evident that the band is heavily influenced by noise and hardcore bands like Fugazi and Pissed Jeans. The trio definitely has the whole snotty, aggro-teen-lashing-out-againstsuburban-America thing down. With Marriage + Cancer, Nail Polish. Cairo, 507 E. Mercer St., temple ofcairo.com. 8 p.m. $7. All ages. DML

Prom Queen After more than 20 years together, storied rap group BONE THUGS-N-HARMONY is calling it quits as a quintet, but not before going out in a couple of big ways. First, all five group members—Krayzie Bone, Layzie Bone, Wish Bone, Flesh-n-Bone, and Bizzy Bone—will perform their most successful album to date, E. 1999 Eternal (which features “1st of tha Month,” “East 1999,” and the Eazy-E-dedicated, Grammy award-winning “Tha Crossroads”), in its entirety. And later this year, the group plans to follow Wu-Tang Clan’s footsteps and produce a single copy of its forthcoming final album, E. 1999 Legends, to sell at auction, setting the opening bid at $1 million.

The Moore, 1932 Second Ave., 877-784-4849, stg presents.org. 8 p.m. $22.50 and up. All ages. AZARIA C. PODPLESKY

Thursday, March 26

In a way, Ghost Modern, the fourth album from synthheavy indie-rock band GEOGRAPHER, wouldn’t have come together had it not been for writer’s block. The main force behind it, singer/guitarist/synth player Mike Deni, would visit a beach in San Francisco when he was stuck on a lyric, only to be inspired by the ocean: its size, beauty, and ability to allude to so much yet reveal so little about itself, a trait Deni found very human. This influence, as well as the idea of letting go of the lies we tell ourselves, made its way into several songs on the album, most notably the soaring “I’m Ready.” With Wild Ones, De Lux. Neumos, 925 E. Pike St., 709-9442, neumos.com. 8 p.m. $15. 21 and over. ACP Between Seattle’s THUNDERPUSSY and The Fame Riot, tonight is about to be the glammest night of your entire life. Breaking down the math a bit, Thunderpussy is about 40 percent AC/DC, 40 percent Led Zeppelin, and 20 percent leather. There’s lots of high kicking and strutting, and you might get a high

UWE FALTERMEIER

El Corazon

VISHAL GOKLANI

Leeni Ramadan never falters in her character as PROM QUEEN, carrying herself with a Heathers-style mix of beauty and wickedness. She manages to make a pink guitar look totally hardcore instead of “Girl Power!” gimmicky. The band, whose music sounds like ‘60s bubblegum pop on Quaaludes, lists David Lynch, Quentin Tarantino, and Alfred Hitchcock as influences, hinting that for Prom Queen, aesthetic is just as important as the music. Ramadan’s period wardrobe is pretty spot-on—she looks like she just walked off the set of Valley of the Dolls. Going to a Prom Queen show is a must for any Twin Peaks fanatics who loved the musical acts at the show’s swoon-worthy Bang Bang Bar. With Saul Conrad, Levi Fuller & The Library. Chop Suey, 1325 E. Madison St., 324-8005, chopsuey.com. 8 p.m. $8 adv./$10 DOS. 21 and over. DIANA M. LE

Sir Richard Bishop Of course SIR RICHARD BISHOP’s new album was recorded solely using a mysterious, “enchanted” parlor guitar he haggled for in Geneva. This is the same dude who once who traveled to Indonesia with his brother and ended up embedding with a crew of fire-breathing magicians who played gamelan every night in the forest. One of Seattle’s elder grizzled wizards, Bishop has been shrieking his exoticized, Dada-inspired avantrock into the ether for decades now. But on Tangier Sessions, recorded in a single week in Morocco, he tamps down his trademark beatnik jitters for a lovely, hypnotic, Arabic-influenced instrumental album that your mom might even like. With Ben Von Wildenhaus.

Sunset Tavern, 5433 Ballard Ave., 784-4880, sunset tavern.com. 9 p.m. $8. 21 and over. KS

SEATTLE WEEKLY

PROMOTIONS

Saturday, March 28 If you’re familiar with CASPAR BABYPANTS, chances are you’re a die-hard fan of the Presidents of the United States of America and/or have at least one toddler at home. PUSA lead singer Chris Ballew’s child-oriented side project seemed like a one-time thing for a nonprofit show in 2002 until Ballew made his formal Babypants debut in 2009 with Here I Am!, a collection of reinterpreted folk songs, nursery rhymes, and baby-centric originals. His lyrics are perfect for younger ears but not so silly that adults can’t enjoy multiple listens, too.

Ballew released his ninth Babypants album, a batch of lullabies called Night Night!, earlier this month. The Neptune, 1303 N.E. 45th St., 682-1414, stgpresents.org.

10:30 a.m. $6/babes in arms free. All ages. ACP

WIN TICKETS TO STONE TEMPLE PILOTS

STG presents: Wednesday, April 8, 8 pm, Paramount Theatre. The new

line up of the band features Chester Bennington of Linkin Park. Their debut single ‘Out of Time’ reached #1 on both the Active and Mainstream Rock chart.

TICKET GIVEAWAY THE SONICS W/MUDHONEY ANGEL CEBALLOS

Chastity Belt Seattle’s brash and goofy CHASTITY BELT is beginning to break out of the bubble of the local music scene, scoring recent profiles in Rookie and on NPR and a mention in Paper. Time to Go Home, the band’s sophomore album, was released earlier this week to lots of fanfare focusing on the group’s cool-as-ice, lackadaisical approach to feminism. The ladies of Chastity Belt give teen girls everywhere the slutty role models they deserve with the record’s undisputable anthem “Cool Slut,” which boldly defuses the term’s demeaning connotations by assuring us all that “It’s OK to be slutty.” Yooooo—these girls are kinda magic. With Cool Ghouls, Dude York. The Highline, 210 Broadway E., 3287837, highlineseattle.com. 9 p.m. $8. 21 and over. DML

Sunday, March 29

Just as I hate the use of the word “quirky” to describe . . . anything, I’m also starting to hate “weird” as a descriptor for bands. But keeping it real, the dudes in !!! (pronounced Chk Chk Chk) are straight-up WEIRDOS. Everything is a joke for them, every party a dance party.

The band is a Frankenstein mishmash of Sacramento punk bands Black Licorice, Popesmashers, and Yah Mos, so between the thrashing and the dancing, there are a lot of vibes all chaotically vibing at once. Listening to the band’s self-described dance/punk/crunk/jerk elicits a couple of reactions—sometimes I’m like “!!!” and sometimes I’m like “???” With OCnotes. Columbia City Theater, 4916 Rainier Ave. S., 722-3009, columbiacitytheater.com.

8:30 p.m. $15 adv./$18 DOS. 21 and over. DML

Tuesday, March 31

BY SW STAFF

Send events to music@seattleweekly.com.

See seattleweekly.com for more listings.

RESERVE THE TROPHY ROOM FOR YOUR NEXT EVENT!

beginning of garage rock, grunge, or whatever anyone calls it, the Sonics set the pace and the sound.

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

WIN TICKETS TO GRAND HOTEL

Cornish presents: Grand Hotel April 8-11, Cornish

Playhouse. With five performances

only, don’t miss this Broadway showstopper full of high society, love, and murder at the Cornish Playhouse at Seattle Center.

COCKTAILS • TASTY HOT DOGS • LOTSA PINBALL

2222 2ND AVENUE • SEATTLE

206-441-5449

TICKET GIVEAWAY ACTION BRONSON

STG presents: Action Bronson, Friday, April 3, 9:00 pm, Neptune.

The 28-year old Queens native has become one of hip-hop’s most colorful new characters, thanks to his wicked sense of humor and a buffet of impressive releases.

WIN TICKETS TO THE PREATURES

STG presents: The Preatures, Saturday, April 4, 9:30 pm, Tractor Tavern. The breakthrough single ‘Is This How You Feel?’ catapulted the five-piece from Sydney’s worst kept secret to Australia’s freshest music export.

FOR MORE DETAILS AND TO ENTER TO WIN VISIT US AT:

www.seattleweekly. com/promo/freestuff

SEATTLE WEEKLY • MARCH 25 — 31, 2015

It’s been a pretty stellar ride for Brooklyn duo OH HONEY (vocalist/guitarist Mitchy Collins and singer Danielle Bouchard) since the release of “Be Okay” from the With Love EP. The song’s folk-pop bounce and the tried-andtrue “oh oh oh”s in the chorus caught the attention of Fueled by Ramen, home to acts like Paramore and Young the Giant, and led to two more EPs, Sincerely Yours and the recently released Wish You Were Here, the third of four parts in the duo’s “Postcard” series. Wish is as feel-good as “Be Okay” and should appease fans until Until Next Time is released later this year. Then a debut full-length is most likely on the horizon. With Public. The Crocodile, 2200 Second Ave., 441-4618, thecrocodile. com. 8 p.m. $12. All ages. ACP Dear Diary, Mood: MOROSE. The band’s name may say emo, but its low, droning guitars and deep-throated screams say doom-and-gloom-core. There isn’t much else to know about the band—it’s pretty far off the grid. Its Facebook page lists its members only by their first initials: J, C, R, A. There are no photos, and only a solitary sixminute practice recording of a song called “Dehumanize” on its Bandcamp. I’m dying to go to the show just to see if this band actually exists IRL. With Muscle and Marrow, Same Sex Dictator, KA. Narwhal, 1118 E. Pike St., 3256492, unicornseattle.com. 9 p.m. $7. 21 and over. DML

STG presents: Thursday, April 2, 7:30 pm, Moore Theatre. Since the

Join us in the Trophy Room for Happy Hour: Thursday Bartender Special 8-Close Fridays: 5-8pm

31

odds&ends» Pass the Dutchie to the Right

T

he idea of Higher Ground is to “elevate the dialogue,” and thus it’s important to remain open-minded to individuals and organizations on all sides of the marijuana-legalization conversation.

With HIGHERGROUND that in

BY MICHAEL A. STUSSER mind, let’s light the peace pipe and reach the roach across the aisle.

WHAT WOULD JESUS DOO-BIE?

Strongly opposing marijuana legislation are activists Alan Gordon and Anne Armstrong, who made headlines by bum-rushing a press conference supporting a new state legalization bill in Rhode Island. The duo aren’t against the notion of legal weed, but instead believe that taxing the plant is against the teachings of the Bible, and Satanic. They take issue with the language of the law, claiming medical use of cannabis (which they believe is the Biblical plant called “kanehbos”) outweighs any laws, restrictions, or taxes. “ ‘Marihuana’ is a slang term popularized

by William Randolph Hearst in his ‘yellow journalism’ Reefer Madness-type propaganda,” Armstrong told Marijuana.com. “To pass laws about ‘cannabis,’ the plant specified in the Bible as essential to the Holy Anointing Oil, as ‘marijuana’ is as offensive to me as would be a law referring to ‘Equal Pay for Bimbos.’ ” Gordon and Armstrong will be planting fields of the sacred herb in National Parks this summer, and dedicating them to religious freedom.

Praise Sativas!

The reason sheriffs from Kansas and Nebraska submitted the initial lawsuit had to do with the porous borders their states share with Colorado.

Apparently, it’s too damn easy for Okies to mosey over to Colorado, pick up that-there marihuana, and cruise back home with the wacky weed to share with friends and family at the annual Toothless BBQ. (Sorry, I’m really trying here, I swear.)

In addition to violating federal law, officers state, legalization in Colorado jeopardizes the U.S.’s compliance with international anti-drug treaties.

As the sheriffs put it, departments are “suffering a direct and significant detrimental impact, namely the diversion of limited manpower and resources to arrest and process suspected and convicted felons involved in the increased illegal marijuana trafficking or transportation in their jurisdictions.” Maybe they should consider legalizing it.

Funded by the Florida-based Drug Free America Foundation, the suit goes on to play the Kid Card! “As a result of Amendment 64-related interdiction efforts,” it mopes, “departments have been forced to scale back on drug education and awareness programs in schools.” That hurts. (A related aside: Marijuana sales in Colorado since Jan. 1, 2014 have brought in $15.6 million in excise taxes specifically earmarked and voter-approved solely for public schools, according to the director of the office of capital construction for the state’s Education Department . . . just sayin’.)

CHRONIC KILLS

Bellevue’s Retail Cannabis Store

SEATTLE WEEKLY • MARCH 25 — 31, 2015

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SHERIFFS SUE

While the Evergreen State skates, for some reason Colorado’s getting picked on, and has already been sued by neighboring states Nebraska and Oklahoma for its dope-smokin’ ways. Now a group of sheriffs from Kansas and Nebraska, and even inside Colorado, are piling on, and also filing suit.

“When these Colorado Sheriffs encounter marijuana while performing their duties,” the new lawsuit states, “each is placed in the position of having to choose between violating his oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution and violating his oath to uphold the Colorado Constitution.”

BRIANNA CASHIN

LARGEST SELECTION OF PREMIUM FLOWER, EDIBLES, AND EXTRACTS IN WASHINGTON STATE

New York Police Commissioner Bill Bratton is claiming that ganja is responsible for the murders, mayhem, and overall rise in crime in the Big Apple for the first three months of this year.

“In this city, people are killing each other over marijuana more so than anything we had to deal with in the ’80s and ’90s with heroin and cocaine,” Bratton stated. While murders in NYC have increased 17 percent from last year, whether pot is to blame is somewhat questionable. The overall crime rate in New York City is actually down: felony assaults have decreased 18 percent, robberies 22 percent, and crime on subways more than 25 percent.

Compare that to the largest cities that have legalized weed: In Denver, homicides are down 24 percent, but in Seattle they’ve soared—from 23 to 26. And the biggest fact-check of all: In 1990 there were 2,245 murders in New York. Last year? 383.

While I’m attempting to be objective, it seems as though the marijuana plant’s not killing anyone.

LEGALIZE LETTUCE

Finally, a pro-life, pro-gun, Tea-Partying Texas Republican has a unique and simple take on the legalization matter: Take every law that prohibits weed off the books. Representative David Simpson of Longview said his bill would increase individual liberties and decrease government control, bedrock values of the conservative movement’s libertarian wing.

“I think we’re at a tipping point,” Simpson said. “I think it’s clear the war on drugs has failed, that the war mentality has eroded individual rights, the sanctity of one’s home, the ability to travel freely with dignity. And at the root of all this is prohibition.”

The bill is as no-nonsense as the man behind it.

Rather than add flowery language about taxation and registration, House Bill 2165 simply regulates marijuana . . . as a plant.

“I’m hopeful that if this bill were to pass, we could see hemp cultivated and used as ropes,” noted Simpson. “We can see the marijuana with differing levels of THC used medicinally. I think it’s the right thing to do. It’s the conservative thing to do.”

The bill allows folks to farm it and use it, like tomatoes, coffee, and corn. Untaxed. Deregulated. Done and get ’er done. E For more Higher Ground, visit highergroundtv.com.

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The inside scoop on features, columns and reviews.

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SEATTLE WEEKLY • MARCH 25 — 31, 2015

W W W. S E AT T L E W E E K LY. C O M / S I G N U P

33

EVE

Employment Computer/Technology

Employment Computer/Technology

Employment Computer/Technology

Adobe Systems, Inc. seeks applicants for the following F/T position at its Seattle, WA worksite: Computer Scientist (Job Code: 35441): Test automation & deployment of video publishing systems. Test dvlpmt for mobile & desktop video publishing systems. Ed or exp background must include: SW dvlpmt & testing, cloud services deployment; performance testing; etc. Reqs: BS or Equiv & 5 yrs exp. To apply, applications must indicate Job Code & mail resume & cover letter to: Adobe Systems, Attn: Arlene Batten, 345 Park Avenue, San Jose, CA 95110.

Principals only. EOE.

F5 Networks seeks Field Systems Analyst to work w/ F5 customers to analyze technical biz needs & identify computer system solutions using F5 ADN products. Reqs: Bach dgr in CS, Eng, closely-related field or FDE followed by 5 yrs technical exp, incl exp w/: TCP/IP protocols incl Diameter, IPsec & IKE; Performing remote data translations in varying types of equipment & technologies, incl 2G, 3G/UMTS equip., in support of wireless infrastructure; Participating in test plan reviews & executing test plans; Testing of ANSI GSM/3GPP compliant equip. such as call servers; Creating & documenting methods & procedures & creating & testing configuration scripts prior to implementation; & C/C++ development & UNIX/ Linux operating environments.

Travel req’d approx 60% of time to U.S. customer sites.

FT, Seattle, WA or based out of home office w/in the U.S. Apply Attn Y. Malina, Job ZZ18687, 401 Elliott Ave. W, Seattle, WA 98119

Big Data Hadoop Engineers sought by zulily, Inc in Seattle, WA. Bld hi-dmnd data srvics.

MS in Comp Sci or rltd fld + 2 yrs exp or BS in Comp Sci or rltd fld + 5 yrs exp. 2 yrs exp in dbs dvlpmt, reportg, & anlytcs.

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Employment General Associate Attorney (Seattle, WA) Provide legal services to small & midsized businesses on legal & bus. issues involved in doing bus. in China. Perform legal research & draft legal memoranda on China & int’l bus. transactions. Review, draft & consult on int’l bus. contracts & provide legal strategies for clients. JD deg & WA State bar license reqd. Knowl of both Chinese legal system & legal sources is reqd. Send resume to HR, Harris Moure, PLLC, 600 Stewart St, Ste. 1200, Seattle, WA 98101

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than depression.

34

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Employment Services WANTS TO purchase minerals and other oil & gas interests.

Send details to P.O. Box 13557, Denver, Co 80201

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Proof Due

35

TS E PRESEN T A N T S O I S N INGTO EEF COMMIS H S A W B

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SEATTLE WEEKLY • MARCH 25 — 31, 2015

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K BOOK HINOO C • A Ñ LE CKS ANTINA Y • KIND SNA C • IA R S EA NUTS UMB IL’S BIG TY-O-DO CREEK • CAFFE H M E IR IG J N • M U K M GE RY • Y • ROC • CAFE OMMA RI BAKE N PAGNE INE • H ROB RO • MIDO V • M MISSIO H T Y A M E G S C O E K U E V C IS O F R T F A H A E N C E W H E • B • R K F C RO TO ATE MCKRA EN LEA IG BIST • RADIA TON ST R • GRE ARKET • BLIND P SHING LETICS A M • A B H E T W IN D H A • T G O Y N O IN IT TUB MISSIO • QUAL MATT’S ALD • G • BATH ER COM BISTRO HE GER INERY • STILLE E T A A B W • B L IM N • O R IL O P M T YH RIO S• ASHING GELATIA OODS • MAR R • BAR QUITO F • BA BA IZZA • W .A.S.T. • OL • PO F P X R O I • R E R C E A T M A F M IS R O A B VE •P N• SC FUSION INTXO TAIRS • MNOO CTION BILE • P HE UPS ALICIA’S HOP • COLLE ID • MA O T C • M U R L IE IA P • • A AV CHOP S ARKETS • TRY C BODEG URAL M TONEBURNER ZA • LA T U A R N U AT C K PC KU •S T & CO ICANS • X U E O M N S W • LE THE NE E NEED Y AT TH IT C Y K S

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