Seattle Weekly, May 13, 2015

MAY 13-19, 2015 I VOLUME 40 I NUMBER 19

SEATTLEWEEKLY.COM I FREE

MUSIC THE HIGHLINE TURNS 5, ALLEN HUANG TAKES ON CLUB CULTURE, AND DAX EDWORD TALKS TAPES

» PAGE 29

THE NATION’S BIGGEST FILM FESTIVAL TAKES OVER THE CITY

FEATURING

A Sasquatch attack, Ballard romance, hog hunting in Texas, and Ned Ryerson?!?

PLUS Robert Horton’s festival picks and Brian Miller’s Week 1 reviews.

Page 11

Breaking the Ice

Is the Coast Guard’s fleet of Arctic vessels ready for an offshore oil spill?

By Brandon Reynolds Page 6

Live From New York

Director Brandon Ivie arrives with Jasper in Deadland.

By Mark Baumgarten Page 20

THE LEGACY TOUR A TRIBUTE TO MICHAEL JACKSON MAY 14–16 | 8PM

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SEATTLE WEEKLY • MAY 13 — 19, 2015

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news&comment 5

A PIPE DREAM?

BY DANIEL PERSON | Light rail from Ballard to West Seattle? Yes, if Seattle Subway gets its way. Plus: more on Troy Kelley, and breaking the ice in the Arctic.

11 WELCOME TO SIFF-LAND

BY SW CRITICS AND CONTRIBUTORS

Our passport to the nation’s largest cinema festival, with local filmmaker profiles, hog hunting, a Sasquatch siege, Robert Horton’s picks, and more.

food&drink

19 INTO THE MOUTHS OF BABES

BY DAKOTA MACKEY | A new school

program teaches nutrition smarts.

19 | FOOD NEWS/THE WEEKLY DISH

arts&culture

20 WHEN BRANDON MET JASPER

BY MARK BAUMGARTEN | A second

chance to stage a new musical.

20 | THE PICK LIST 22 | OPENING NIGHTS | Othello gets

a new prologue.

22 | PERFORMANCE 24 | VISUAL ARTS & BOOKS

25 FILM

26 | OPENING THIS WEEK | Drug

addicts and Elliott Smith.

27 | FILM CALENDAR

29 MUSIC

BY JAMES BALLINGER | Where metal meets vegan. Plus: celebrating Asian club music and the glory of the cassette.

32 | THE WEEK AHEAD

odds&ends

4 | CHATTERBOX 33 | HIGHER GROUND 34 | CLASSIFIEDS

»cover credits

ILLUSTRATION BY JOSHUA BOULET

Editor-in-Chief Mark Baumgarten EDITORIAL News Editor Daniel Person Food Editor Nicole Sprinkle Arts Editor Brian Miller Music Editor Kelton Sears Editorial Operations Manager Gavin Borchert Staff Writers Ellis E. Conklin, Casey Jaywork Calendar Assistant Diana M. Le Editorial Interns Olivia Anderson, Kate Clark, Warren Langford 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 A. Stusser, Jacob Uitti PRODUCTION Production Manager Sharon Adjiri Art Director Jose Trujillo Graphic Designers Nate Bullis, Brennan Moring

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Oct 1-3

Jan 26 - Jan 31

ANNIE Sept 26

SANKAI JUKU

STOMP

Oct 17

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CAMERON ESPOSITO

BULLETS OVER BROADWAY

Oct 23

Feb 6

WHOSE LIVE ANYWAY? Oct 26

TRADER JOE’S SILENT MOVIE MONDAY: THE CABINET OF DR. CALGARI

SEATTLE ROCK ORCHESTRA PERFORMS MOTOWN

SHAPING SOUND Oct 30 - Nov 1

RIVERDANCE THE 20TH ANNIVERSARY WORLD TOUR

PUSSY RIOT: A CONVERSATION AND DOCUMENTARYSCREENING Feb 17

GREGORY PORTER

Feb 8 - 29

KRONOS QUARTET TRADER JOE’S SILENT MOVIE MONDAYS: SILENT TREASURES SERIES Feb 29

GLOBAL PARTY Nov 20 - 22

MARK MORRIS DANCE GROUP Nov 22

TRADER JOE’S SILENT MOVIE MONDAYS: BEN HUR: A TALE OF THE CHRIST with Stewart Copeland* Mar 6

SNARKY PUPPY

JOSE GONZALEZ AND YMUSIC

Dec 10 - 12

TAYLOR MAC SONGS OF THE AMERICAN RIGHT

Mar 8 - 13

Dec 11 - 13

KIDD PIVOT/ELECTRIC COMPANY THEATRE BETROFFENHEIT

JERSEY BOYS Mar 18 & 19

NETworks presents DISNEY’S BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

STAR TREK: THE ULTIMATE VOYAGE Apr 15 - 17

Apr 16

Nov 7 & 8

Nov 13

Apr 8

THE JONES FAMILY SINGERS

Feb 20

SEATTLE ROCK ORCHESTRA PERFORMS DAVID BOWIE & GLAM ROCK

TANYA TAGAQ Presents NANOOK OF THE NORTH

ALVIN AILEY AMERICAN DANCE THEATER

Nov 3 - 8

IF/THEN

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MYTHBUSTERS JAMIE & ADAM UNLEASHED

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Dec 14

ARLO GUTHRIE ALICE’S RESTAURANT 50TH ANNIVERSARY TOUR Apr 26 - May 1

DISNEY’S NEWSIES May 6

15TH ANNUAL MORE MUSIC @ THE MOORE May 7 & 8

SEATTLE ROCK ORCHESTRA PERFORMS NEIL DIAMOND May 13

SOUND OPINIONS LIVE May 31 - June 12

MOTOWN THE MUSICAL June 13 - 27

TRADER JOE’S SILENT MOVIE MONDAYS: FLAPPER ERA SERIES July 8 & 9

18TH ANNUAL DANCE THIS * BEN HUR is included within the Silent Treasures series, or can be purchased alone.

Taylor Mac, Kidd Pivot/Electric Company Theatre, and Tanya Tagaq presented in partnership with On the Boards.

Sankai Juku is presented in association with UW World Series.

PICk A SPOTLIGHTED SERIES OR BuILD YOuR OwN AT STGPRESENTS.ORG/SEASON OR CALL (206) 812-1114 SEASON SPONSORS

“In a sense, they were pimping for the pimp.”

chatterbox the

THE THICK BLUE WALL

Last week, Rick Anderson exposed the hidden life of Darrion Holiwell, King County deputy sheriff and SWAT-team marksman (“The Double Life of the Deputy,” May 6). “What Holiwell did was extremely egregious. His actions disgraced the sheriff ’s office, and they disgraced the badge he wore each and every day. The bad news is that he’ll soon be released far earlier than he should. The good news is he’ll never wear a sheriff ’s uniform or badge again,” Anderson wrote. Several readers responded to note the double standard that officers of the law seem to enjoy when they themselves are the criminals.

SMOKED OUT

Casey Jaywork reported that Seattle Parks and Recreation will decide later this month whether to ban smoking tobacco throughout the city’s parks. Sharon Lee called the proposed ban a “classic overreach and an offense to social justice,” (“Civil Rights, Social Justice Groups Line Up Against Smoking Ban in Parks,” May 8).

What will become the inevitable outcome is that this ordinance will pass. Then police will be pressured into enforcing the ordinance.

Then, once the police do enforce the ordinance, “homeless” advocates will accuse the police of In the above case, the sheriff obviously ran excessive force with the usual display of coninto that blue wall of silence—as he said, they veniently edited cell phone footage. Then the were even questioning same politicians who pushed Send your thoughts on for the ordinance in the first former commanders who place will wring their hands claimed to be shocked— this week’s issue to “shocked!”—that one of and call the actions of the theirs would so persistently letters@seattleweekly.com police “idiotic.” Then these same politicians can act like break the law he was sworn to uphold. In a sense they were pimping for the they’re displaying leadership by calling for pimp. further investigations into police handling of cigarette smoking arrests in city parks by calling Raoul, via seattleweekly.com for an independent committee made up of the usual sort who are picked to fill committees in The fact is that police are people too and not the City of Seattle. immune to criminal behavior. Police commit more crimes than we will ever know because Don Ward, via seattleweekly.com most of the time they are protected by their brothers in crime who all stand behind the blue FEELING DEFLATED wall of police silence. It’s impossible that this In the sporting scene, we noted that whatever the guy did all this without any of his cop buddies fallout of new revelations that Tom Brady likely knowing about it . . . they protected his criminal knew that his team was using deflated balls for behavior. competative advantage (a four-game suspension, it turns out), the fact that the Patriots are cheaters is Tommy Hurtz, via seattleweekly.com no consolation for heartbroken Seahawks fans (“No, Deflategate Doesn’t Mean the Seahawks Win the WHO’S IDIOTIC, NOW? But it wasn’t all cop-bashing this week. Some readers Super Bowl,” May 7). Some readers agreed, while others wanted New England blood. weren’t amused by city councilman Bruce Harrell’s assertion that an “idiotic” arrest led to mayhem at the I think everyone under the Patriots brand should May Day demonstrations earlier this month (“Chief be fined, they should be stripped of ALL ChamO’Toole Shocked, Simply Shocked by Harrell’s Critipionship titles/materials, and be banned from cism of SPD Force on May Day,” May 7). playing at all in the upcoming season. But that’s just me.

Is Harrell so dense that he truly believes that these anarchists came to Seattle ‘to demonstrate’ Micah Nathaniel Johnson, via Facebook and not to fight with the police? Demonstrators do not bring backpacks full of weapons, cans of At least have a asterisk next to Cheatriots history spray paint, etc., wear masks and hoodies, and in the official NFL record or a blank space for basically have no message to present other than 2014 Super Bowl XLIX. ‘capitalism is bad,’ and ‘all cops are thugs.’ They Ryan Pat, via Facebook came to Seattle to have their fun, just as they do every year. It figures that the guy that was arrested Nope Seahawks win! Shout it from the solar first was from Olympia. Probably a professor at panel rooftops!

The Evergreen State College. @willseattle, via Twitter E summitlaker, via seattleweekly.com letters@seattleweekly.com

news&comment

Tunnel Vision

How Washington State Has Criminalized the Homeless

A grassroots campaign to connect Ballard and West Seattle by subway shows how Seattle could—or could not—get the modern transit system it deserves.

BY DANIEL PERSON

BY KATE CLARK

magine, for a moment, stepping onto a light-rail train on Ballard Avenue that, following a few beeps and boops and “doors closing”s, whisks you toward Downtown.

Around Queen Anne the train ducks into the black of a tunnel that runs beneath Downtown all the way to SoDo. From there it comes back to ground level and brings you over the Duwamish, to the end of the line in West Seattle.

There are two important points to understand about this: First, it’s a real idea, and probably a really good one; second, it may well not come to fruition before Kylie Jenner is eligible to be president. (2033. Mark your calendars.) And those two facts alone go a long way to explain both the hope and frustration that can be expected in the months to come as Greater Seattle begins to contemplate how it should shape mass transit over the next few decades.

The concept of what amounts to a subway line from Ballard to West Seattle through a new Downtown tunnel is being championed by a group called Seattle Subway. Around for more than two years, it’s run entirely by volunteers obsessed with seeing Seattle get the mass-transit system a city of its size and stature deserves. But over the past few months, with the state legislature wrestling over how much taxing authority Sound Transit should get for its next massive wave of capital improvements (no figure of fewer than 11 digits is on the table), Seattle Subway has been pushing its agenda more aggressively, laying out a host of knotty demographic figures that add up to a good case for the necessity of a Downtown Seattle transportation system like this.

To avoid drowning in those figures, Seattle Subway’s basic point is this: Seattle’s population is expected to continue to explode because of jobs Downtown, and many of those workers are expected to live in Ballard and West Seattle. Simply running more and more buses into a Downtown that’s already at capacity for surface transportation won’t work, and buses alone won’t be able to handle the demand Sound Transit projects for Downtown by 2035. A 2014 study showed that even including high-capacity transit—like light rail running through West Seattle, Ballard, and Downtown—transit service to Downtown would still fall short of demand by 5,000 to 8,000 trips a day. So you need a tunnel, and you need high-capacity trains running in it. With that in mind, Seattle Subway is proposing that Sound Transit start building the tunnel now; run buses in it to begin with; then eventually transform the tunnel into the rail system envisioned above (though it would have rail installed from day one).

“If people don’t want jobs, we can keep our transportation system a mess. If they want the city to continue to grow and prosper, we have to build a new tunnel,” says Jonathan Hopkins, a West Point graduate and army vet who volunteers with Seattle Subway. “The alternative is just be stuck on buses and cars on the surface. That’s not how you move people in a world-class city.”

ccording to the 2015 One Night Count, over 10,000 people were homeless from 2 to 5 a.m. on the night of January 23—up from 9,300 in 2014. Homelessness in Seattle is a growing problem, yet a slate of new reports from Seattle University Law School’s Homeless Rights Advocacy Project shows that this city—along with cities across the state—have (ineffectively) addressed the issue through ordinances that essentially make it illegal not to have a home. As Casey Jaywork reported on seattleweekly.com, “Since the beginning of the millennium, laws that require homeless people to hide evidence of their poverty have proliferated, particularly in places with high income inequality. The more extreme the contrast between a city’s rich and poor, the more urgently legislators try to squeeze the latter out of existence.” Here’s a quick summary of the report’s key points.

A

I

JOSE TRUJILLO

New transit doesn’t have to go underground, but it can’t stay here: Downtown streets are already at capacity.

First, there’s Olympia. Republicans who con-

trol the Senate—most of whom don’t live in the Seattle area, but consider their conservative brethren here a persecuted minority needing their antitax protection—want to give Sound Transit the authority to raise only $11 billion with the ST3 levy. House Democrats and Gov. Jay Inslee continue to push for the $15 billion Sound Transit has requested. A final figure is expected out of Olympia shortly. Hopkins says anything less that $15 billion for ST3 will render his group’s proposal a nonstarter. (“At $11 billion, the discussion becomes, ‘Who gets served? Ballard or West Seattle? And who gets left out?’ ”) But even if Sound Transit gets the full $15 billion, regional politics will come into play. Voters from Everett to Tacoma will need to approve

the $15 billion levy, and if too much money is devoted to inner-Seattle transit, the levy risks being voted down. The Seattle Subway plan hasn’t been studied enough to be assigned a solid price tag, but building the tunnel and outfitting it with rail is expected to carry a substantial cost.

And since the region is still playing catch-up on transit projects that were needed decades ago, building for future needs might not be a luxury Sound Transit can afford.

“The list of things that we can accomplish in Seattle is a pretty long one. The list of things we’d like to include in ST3 is a pretty long one.

Financially, there’s not a way to accomplish all those things with an ST3 package,” says Chris Arkills, transportation policy advisor for King County Executive Dow Constantine. That list also includes popular proposals like light rail from Ballard to University of Washington and rail running down to White Center.

“It’s too early to say right now what’s in the mix,” Seattle city councilman and Sound Transit boardmember Mike O’Brien said Friday, adding that all eyes are on what comes out of Olympia.

“If it’s less that $15 billion, it’s going to be a messy fight.”

And among the non-policy-wonk crowd, the building of another Downtown tunnel is sure to raise the hackles of those who’ve watched in wonderment as Bertha ground to a halt in her pursuit of underground transportation. But as with most things, Seattle Subway has figures at the ready to push back against that argument.

“Trains are 1/7 of the size of Bertha,” Hopkins says. “It’s like comparing building a house to a skyscraper.” E

dperson@seattleweekly.com

Discrimination In another report,

HRAP found that ordinances criminalizing the homeless unfairly target minority groups, who constitute a large majority of the homeless population. About two-thirds of King County’s homeless are people of color, though minorities make up only one-third of the state population; domestic violence is the third leading cause of homelessness for women and children; and 20 to 40 percent of homeless youth in Washington and nationally are queer/LGBTQ, though only 5 to 10 percent of the total population are. These groups are simultaneously homogenized and dehumanized, the report explains. “Homogenizing the people who are homeless facilitates their dehumanization, erasing not only their diverse identities, but also obscuring the diverse causes of their homelessness.

Homogenization also encourages erroneous negative stereotypes, assumptions, and prejudices.”

Cost Enforcing criminalization ordinances has cost Seattle about $2,300,000 over the past five years and Spokane about $1,300,000. HRAP argues this money could be allocated toward affordable housing instead. This could save taxpayers $2 million per year and more than $11 million in five years. The authors also note that the estimates provided are actually quite low. The data provided does not include civil infractions, which may make up the largest percentage of these enforcement costs. E

news@seattleweekly.com

SEATTLE WEEKLY • M AY 13 — 19, 2015

Seattle Subway is a serious group, and is devoted to more than just the new downtown tunnel. But it’s presented its tunnel plan to the advisors of most relevant policy leaders, and those leaders remember who they are. Dubious gauge of relevance though it may be, the group has managed to get 7,400 likes on Facebook.

Speaking of policy leaders, that’s more likes than Ed Murray and Dow Constantine have combined—pretty impressive for a page essentially devoted to long-range transportation planning.

If nothing else, Seattle Subway’s broad appeal shows how frustrated residents have become with the city’s public-transportation system—decades of wounds crying out for catharsis. But frustration alone—nor good data—won’t make the tunnel a thing. In fact, the obstacles before it speak to why those deep frustrations exist in the first place, and why they may well run far into the future.

Criminalization One report found that limitations placed on the homeless make it difficult, perhaps impossible, for them to survive without breaking a law. “Cities increasingly enact laws that punish behaviors necessary for survival,” the report states. These behaviors include sleeping or urinating in public and sitting or lying down on sidewalks. The study also found that regardless of where you live—big city or small town—ordinances like these are unavoidable.

5

news&comment»

Frozen in Time

The Coast Guard’s underfunded icebreaker fleet, based in Seattle, is woefully unprepared to handle new challenges in the Arctic. An offshore oil spill, for instance.

BY BRANDON R. REYNOLDS

P

SEATTLE WEEKLY • MAY 13 — 19, 2015

6

But oh, there are troubles. First and foremost is that the past is catching up. Both Polar Star and Polar Sea are nearly 40 years old and well past their 30-year retirement dates. Which leads to a second issue: Polar Sea, owing to damage to its propulsion system, is in what’s called “inactive commission,” meaning it’s sort of broken at the moment. Polar Star, then, is the only ship the United States has that’ll go pretty much anywhere.

“The U.S. as a superpower, as a military power, should be able to access any part of the world we need to, at any time of the year. Only with a heavy icebreaker can you get into the Arctic and the Antarctic,” said Executive Officer Kenneth Boda from the bridge of Polar Star at the end of March, a few weeks before the ship sailed to Vallejo, Calif., for a few months in dry-dock, where an annual overhaul will prepare it for this year’s Operation Deep Freeze.”

Polar Star has stuff breaking all the time.

BRANDON REYNOLDS

retty much the entirety of the United States’ nautical access to the Arctic and Antarctic is in Seattle’s backyard. Tucked in at Pier 37, next door to the big Chinese freighters, are the Coast Guard’s three red-hulled polar icebreakers. Polar Star and its sister ship Polar Sea are the heavy icebreakers, capable of crunching through 20 feet of ice and thus suitable for a trip to Antarctica. Healy is a medium icebreaker that heads to the Arctic during the Northern Hemisphere’s summer for scientific research and support. To get to the far frozen corners of the world on a boat, there you have it: America’s fleet.

The icebreakers represent the confluence of the past and the future. A mission to the ice reads like old-school adventure, but always in the service of science, like climate change or dark matter, that may steer the course of human civilization.

A trip south means crossing the unpredictable and treacherous Southern Ocean before confronting miles of thick ice that the ships, owing to their sloping hulls, ride up onto and, owing to gravity, shatter. For the crew, it’s like a series of small earthquakes going on for hours, for days, in an empty place. Sometimes they’re called upon to rescue ships trapped in the ice, as happened this year when Polar Star had to free an Australian vessel and tow it to safety.

But the primary purpose of the southern trip, called Operation Deep Freeze since its inception in the 1950s, is to open a path to Antarctica’s McMurdo Station for supply ships. McMurdo’s scientific value lies in its isolation: From there you can get an unobstructed glimpse into the deep history of the universe by looking out, or the deep history of the earth by looking down. A trip north means studying climate change, but also supporting an area becoming more economically, politically, and strategically valuable. So the future, in many ways, is tucked away at the top and bottom of the world, amid the ancient ice.

The United States’ entire icebreaker fleet is housed at Pier 37 in Seattle.

That’s the nature of a ship that goes through the roughest seas in the world to smash through miles of ice every year. (That’s partly why half its crew works in engineering.)

“Engineering challenges are plenty,” says Boda, the ship’s second in command, who has served on both the Polars Sea and Star over the years and is considered, at least by fellow officers, the Coast Guard’s “ice guy.” “Everything is old. We have some new upgrades. For instance, our machinery control is upgraded, but the machinery plant is still old. So we have new computers controlling the old equipment.”

It’s a typical lament: A newer generation has problems communicating with an older one. This explains why Polar Sea is now tied up and crewless at Pier 37, awaiting judgment on her fate. “Polar Sea got an ‘upgrade’—I use upgrade in air quotes—to her propulsion plant. It was supposed to make it more efficient and give you more horsepower and this and that,” says Boda. “Well, actually, the metal of the engines couldn’t take the upgrade. . . . So some significant money has to be invested in Polar Sea’s engineering plant to get that back up to speed compared to where Polar Star is today.”

Thus, the third trouble, uniting past, present, and future: money. Budgeting issues have vexed the icebreakers for 15 years or so even as they needed more and more funding to stay afloat.

In the mid-20th century, both the Coast

Guard and the Navy shared icebreaking duty across about a half-dozen boats. Eventually that responsibility got handed to the Coast Guard, and over time the fleet was pared down to just

“If the [Arctic] oil spill happens late in the season and then it goes over the winter—God forbid, if it’s a long one like Deepwater Horizon—this ship could be on scene the whole time. I don’t think you can say that about any other asset. Once the ice comes in, other ships have got to go.”

Polar Star and Polar Sea. Healy was commissioned in 1999 and began going north, primarily as a science platform.

In 2006, due to engineering problems, Polar Star was put into “caretaker” status and tied up in Seattle, its crew reduced to 35. Polar Sea and Healy both mostly went north for the rest of the decade while the National Science Foundation contracted with Swedish and Russian icebreakers to clear the way to McMurdo in Antarctica.

The propulsion woes mentioned by Boda started in 2010. The Coast Guard had already started to reactivate Polar Star at that time, and decided to put Polar Sea’s crew on Polar Star.

Polar Star was reactivated at the end of 2012 after a $57 million renovation. Its intended shelf life is seven to 10 years. But as a March congressional report on the icebreakers notes, in 2010 then-Commandant of the Coast Guard, Admiral Robert Papp, said, “We’re getting her back into service, but it’s a little uncertain to me how many more years we can get out of her in her current condition.”

So nobody’s overly optimistic about the long-term prospects of rotating the tires on Polar Star and trusting that basic maintenance will carry it through the mid-2020s. Complicating the issue further is the reopening of the Arctic for exploratory oil drilling for the first time in two decades—which Shell Oil has been quick to exploit by dropping drilling rigs along the Alaskan coastline to search for, according to a National Geographic story, what is estimated to be “13 percent of the world’s undiscovered oil and 30 percent of its undiscovered natural gas.”

As Seattle Weekly reported last week (“Port of Stall,” May 6),Shell plans to use Terminal 5 in Seattle for its oil-exploration fleet. That includes drilling rigs like the Kulluk, which in December 2012 ran aground after Shell decided to tow the giant rig away from the coast of Alaska to avoid tax liabilities, a move which required the Coast Guard to rescue the Kulluk’s crew and which

» CONTINUED ON PAGE 8

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could’ve resulted in an ecological disaster. The subsequent Coast Guard report pointed a lot of fingers at Shell’s judgment. So if Shell does get its permit to use Terminal 5, its Arctic drilling operation and the icebreaker that may have to come save it could be located just down the maritime block from each other.

And make no mistake, the increased Arctic traffic introduced by Shell and other companies adds a whole new role for the icebreakers.

“Drilling in the Arctic is a big deal right now. If you were to have an oil spill and you would need to get people on scene, the best way to do that would be from a ship,” says Boda. “You put ’em on a ship like Polar Star any time of the year, and we can get there.

If the oil spill happens late in the season and then it goes over the winter—God forbid, if it’s a long one like Deepwater Horizon—this ship could be on scene the whole time. I don’t think you can say that about any other asset.

Once the ice comes in, other ships have got to go. And once the temperatures drop, flights get really restricted with the weather. This ship can be on scene in any weather, any time of the year.”

All of which means that Shell is in a unique position to go to bat for the Coast Guard in requesting a new icebreaker, and the Coast Guard stands to benefit from the interest of an industry that might also introduce new messes for it to clean up.

The icebreaking mission is a tiny part of the Coast Guard’s overall priorities, which include search-and-rescue, drug interdiction, and patrolling U.S. borders. Its total annual budget for acquisition, construction, and improvements is $1 billion, which is about what a new icebreaker is estimated to cost. So securing funding to build a new one—or even just to bring Polar Sea back online ($100 million, Boda guesses) and maintain her and Polar Star for the 10 to 15 years it’ll take to approve and build a replacement—is no sure thing.

That’s the conversation that the Coast Guard, the president, and Congress are having now. But Adam Murray, a research fellow at the University of Washington’s Arctic Law & Policy Institute, wrote in a February op-ed in The Maritime Executive that there’s no clear path to a decision. While Congress has decreed that Polar Sea either be repaired or decommissioned, it “stands poised to appropriate just $1.2 billion for 2015 Coast Guard acquisitions. For 2016, the Coast Guard proposes to spend only $4 million on icebreaker acquisition. If the U.S. is to have a new polar icebreaker, someone needs a new position.”

The Coast Guard, he tells me, is “uncomfortable with it, but they have all these other boats to build.” So the organization has to accept, for now, relying on only Polar Star—durable old Polar Star—to go absolutely anywhere. “They don’t want to be seen as not being able to complete their mission,” he says. And if one of the two icebreakers breaks? “They’re ready until they’re not ready.”

Meanwhile, Healy and Polar Star continue their lonely missions. Healy heads north in June to an ever-busier Arctic, while Polar Star heads south at year’s end to support research into big questions about the origin and fate of the world while its own past and present churn away, deep in the darkness and the cold. E

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news&comment» Suspected Cover-Up Turned Troy Kelley Tax Case Into Larger Probe

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serious criminal case lurked in the background. But it was difficult to keep a straight face when the question of recalling state auditor Troy X. Kelley from office was argued in court last week.

There was the lawyer from the office of Attorney General Bob Ferguson—who has called for the auditor to resign. He’s legally obligated to defend the auditor against recall claims. Thus, at taxpayer expense, he was helping Kelley stay in office.

Also there in Kelley’s defense was his personal attorney, Jeffrey Paul Helsdon, who is 1-1 in recall defenses. He won representing quirky Pierce County

BY RICK ANDERSON Auditor Dale Warsham and lost in the recall of stubborn Pacific Mayor Cy Sun. Kelley seemed like a Larry to their Curly and Moe. And there was recall petitioner Walkin’ Will Knedlik, ex-state legislator and disbarred attorney, promising to get 715,800 signatures for a public vote to remove Kelley from an office he has already departed on unpaid leave.

SEATTLELAND

In the March 25 federal search warrant, IRS special agent Aaron Hopper sought court approval to search Kelley’s home computers and accessories, which had been seized earlier that month. The IRS made electronic clone images of the data from six thumb drives, an ASUS notebook computer, an Apple iMac desktop, and an external hard drive. Hopper wanted permission to search the e-images for evidence corroborating a cover-up.

“During the search of Kelley’s [Tacoma] residence,” Hopper stated, “searching agents found and seized hard copies of documents that, on their face, corroborate Kelley’s statements to the IRS.” In an IRS interview two years earlier, Kelley claimed that his escrow business, called Blackstone International, was still working on contracts with title firms and was incrementally earning the fees he’d already collected and stored in an impound account.

Each time he moved money from the account, he’d then pay taxes on it. (Kelley maintains that was a legal practice with IRS approval).

“However,” Hopper stated, “a closer examination of these documents raises questions about the reasons for and the timing of their creation, which may be answered by an examination of the contents of the images.”

For example, the search of Kelley’s home turned up a $20,000 bill of sale from Blackstone to an unidentified purchaser for a 2012 Toyota Highlander. It was dated Feb. 1, 2013, two months before Kelley sat down for the IRS interview. Kelley’s bank records didn’t show a $20,000 deposit to Blackstone that year, just an October deposit for $30,000 to Blackstone from Kelley’s personal account.

The document, created on Kelley’s computer, “appears to support the conclusion that the vehicle was disposed of prior to any contact” by investigators, stated Hopper. “On the other hand, the bill of sale appears selfserving in content and timing.” Maybe the images—which could show when documents are created—could resolve that.

Additionally, the Tacoma search produced 200 pages of spreadsheets from Kelley’s office.

“On their face, these spreadsheets give the appearance that Kelley and his company may indeed be continuing to service old files from his former clients,” Hopper stated.

Yet during a 2010 civil lawsuit brought by a former client, Kelley swore that all his business records were destroyed in a mysterious 2008 fire in Everett. Here were “hundreds of pages of spreadsheets that appear to contain some of the very records sought during that litigation,” Hopper stated.

The warrant was granted. The images were searched. Less than a month later, the grand jury indictment of Kelley on 10 felony counts was announced. The auditor pled not guilty and said somewhat inscrutably, “I hope everyone now understands why I remained silent.”

The problem, it seems now, is that he didn’t. E C

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randerson@seattleweekly.com

Rick Anderson writes about sex, crime, money, and politics, which tend to be the same thing.

His latest book is Floating Feet: Irregular Dispatches From the Emerald City.

SEATTLE WEEKLY • M AY 13 — 19, 2015

The sideshow lasted an hour until a Pierce County judge said “Enough.” Walkin’ Will had tripped over the legalities and, rather than Kelley, the recall petition was thrown out.

It was a diverting exercise in democracy and futility. If Kelley returns to office, it will most likely be to clean it out. The governor and legislators are pushing for that. And though he has promised to return, it will only be after his more serious federal legal battle is over, Kelley said.

Thanks to a newly released federal search warrant, we now know Kelley’s own maneuvering will likely make that battle a hard one for the auditor to win. While investigators were initially looking for tax-evasion evidence, they came across what they assert was an ongoing criminal cover-up, expanding the case.

Typically, cover-ups are worse than the crime, and this one includes allegations of forgery, backdating documents, and lying under oath in an attempt to justify non-payment of at least $1 million in taxes for 2011 and 2012, when ex-legislator Kelley, now 50, was elected state auditor.

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LOVE & MERCY

CULINARY CINEMA

MAY 15 | 6:30PM | SIFF CINEMA EGYPTIAN MAY 16 | 12:30PM | PACIFIC PLACE

FOR GRACE

A mesmerizing portrait of Brian Wilson, the mercurial singer, songwriter, and leader of the Beach Boys. The film examines the personal voyage and ultimate salvation of the icon whose success came at extraordinary personal cost.

MAY 15 | 6:00PM | SIFF CINEMA UPTOWN MAY 17 | 3:45PM | PACIFIC PLACE

With his ambition having cost him his family, Chef Curtis Duffy looks to redeem himself with the opening of his new Chicago restaurant. But will his troubled drive get in the way of success?

For Grace is a complex, fascinating, and delectable documentary main course.

COMPOSER ATTICUS ROSS SCHEDULED TO ATTEND

DIRECTOR KEVIN PANG SCHEDULED TO ATTEND

I’LL SEE YOU IN MY DREAMS

DINNER & MOVIE FILM: MAY 17 | PACIFIC PLACE DINNER: BOOKSTORE BAR & CAFE

Learn more at SIFF.net

MAY 17 | 5:30PM | SIFF CINEMA UPTOWN MAY 18 | 4:15PM | HARVARD EXIT

After the death of her dog, and prodding by her sassy group of friends, an elderly widow (Blythe Danner) starts dating again and must choose between two very different suitors. This engaging romantic comedy proves you’re never too old to fall in love.

ACTOR SAM ELLIOTT SCHEDULED TO ATTEND

FRAME BY FRAME

SPECIAL EVENT

THE STUDIO 54 EXPERIENCE

MAY 29 | 7:00PM | FILM | EGYPTIAN MAY 29 | 9:00PM | EVENT | NEPTUNE

Go beyond watching the film and experience it live as the Neptune Theatre is transformed into Club Studio 54. Disco Lessons at 9pm with a live show from 10pm til late featuring Studio 54 Dancers, videoke, flash mob performances, contests and more.

SEATTLE WEEKLY • MAY 13 — 19, 2015

MAY 16 | 10:00AM | PACIFIC PLACE MAY 17 | 6:30PM | PACIFIC PLACE MAY 18 | 3:30PM | LINCOLN SQUARE

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When the Taliban ruled Afghanistan, taking a photo was a crime. Since then, four Afghan photojournalists have worked to reframe their country and build a free press. What will happen as foreign troops and media withdraw?

AN EVENING WITH

KEVIN BACON

MAY 27 | 8:00 PM | SIFF CINEMA EGYPTIAN

Join acclaimed actor Kevin Bacon for a special Tribute followed by a screening of Cop Car. Mr. Bacon will be honored with the Seattle International Film Festival Career Achievement Award and an onstage interview before the screening.

DIRECTORS AND PHOTOJOURNALISTS SCHEDULED TO ATTEND

BUY TICKETS ONLINE SIFF.NET PHONE 206.324.9996 IN PERSON ALL FESTIVAL VENUES

Sponsored in part by

PHOTOS COURTESY OF SIFF

ion’s t a n e h T . elming h w r e like v o Yes, it’s lm festival can feel biggest fi another country. entering

SEATTLE WEEKLY • M AY 13 — 19, 2015

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ver the years, and there have been many, I have heard the mandarins of SIFF say “We’re slimming down the schedule” or “We’re trying to make the fest more manageable.” And during the past recession, there was a little bit of belt-tightening. But somehow the Seattle International Film Festival always swells back, with more titles (now some 260 features and docs), more panels, more oddly named categories (“To the Extreme!”), more visiting filmmakers and talent, move venues (this year reviving the Neptune and Harvard Exit), and more hoopla. (How many galas can there be before the word loses its meaning?)

For the newbie or casual filmgoer, SIFF can be intimidating. Uniquely among Seattle’s major arts fests, SIFF, which runs May 14–June 7, has its own quasi-national character. The regulars know the protocols and customs; they speak a lingo of their own. The savvyveteran pass-holders appear to have memorized the entire schedule in advance and cherry-picked all the best screenings, which tend to sell out early.

(As ever, siff.net is your best guide to tickets and schedule.) The ranks of friendly volunteers are drawn from SIFF’s most loyal year-round patrons; there’s a self-perpetuating culture, a clannishness that stops just short of cult-hood.

Though the country’s largest film festival, averaging around 150,000 attendees, SIFF is equal parts democracy and walled city-state. You almost need a passport—well, one of those lanyard-dangling passes— to enter this peculiar foreign land. But SIFF citizenship is still worth having, if only for one month of the year.

—Brian Miller

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SEATTLE WEEKLY • MAY 13 — 19, 2015

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atih Akin (Head-On, Soul Kitchen) is on the short list of the most intriguing 21st-century directors, and his latest effort, The Cut , travels into the realm of historical epic—namely the slaughter of Armenians by Turks during World War I. A Prophet star Tahir Rahim plays a survivor searching for family members. Adding intrigue is that Akin, a German of Turkish heritage, collaborates here with Raging Bull screenwriter Mardik Martin, an American of Armenian heritage. (SIFF Cinema Egyptian, 4 p.m. Mon., May 25 & 9:30 p.m. Wed., June 3) The Great War remains a deservedly compelling subject during these centenary years, which might bring extra attention to experimental filmmaker Bill Morrison’s Beyond Zero: 1914–1918 . Morrison (his Decasia was the first 21st-century film named to the Library of Congress Film Registry) makes hypnotic imagery from decayed film stock, and this 39-minute offering uses original WWI footage that has apparently never been shown.

Music by the Kronos Quartet accompanies the images. (SIFF Film Center, 6 p.m. Sat., May 16 & 7 p.m. Sun., May 17) One of the great ongoing duels of the counterculture era was the intellectual swordsmanship between William F. Buckley and Gore Vidal—the multisyllabic prince of conservatism and the erudite lefty born of political royalty.

Sometimes the sparring wasn’t so much intellectual as nasty and low, as we will presumably witness in Best of Enemies , a documentary chronicle of the duo’s Crossfire-style set-tos. It’s very difficult to imagine this not being a hoot.

(SIFF Cinema Uptown, 6 p.m. Sat., May 16.

Pacific Place, 1:30 p.m. Sun., May 17) This should be the grindhouse double-bill of the season: A recently rediscovered Chinese

silent from 1927, Cave of the Spider Woman , will be followed by its 1973 kung fu remake, Cave of the Silken Web . The story follows a Buddhist monk and his companions who are lured into a cave, where . . . well, spider women.

Expert practitioner Donald Sosin provides live piano accompaniment for the silent. (Uptown, 6:30 p.m. Wed., June 3) And speaking of the grindhouse, anybody who survived ’80s cinema should be curious about Electric Boogaloo: The Wild Untold Story of Cannon Films , a documentary look at a film company that appeared—at the time and in retrospect—to be certifiably insane. Cannon, run by the tireless Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, churned out yards of dreck featuring Chuck Norris and martial-arts nonentities (I have never really recovered from Ninja III: The Domination), but also bankrolled John Cassavetes and Jean-Luc Godard. Hear it all explained in 105 almost-certainly entertaining minutes. (Lincoln Square, 3:30 p.m. Thurs., May 28. Egyptian, 11:55 p.m. Sat., May 30. Uptown, 9:30 p.m. Tues., June 2) At some point Hungarian filmmaker György Pálfi is going to score a real international hit.

Based on advance word, it sounds like Free Fall might not be it, but the director of the whimsical Hukkle and the outrageous Taxidermia can be counted on for something diverting.

The movie is a collection of vignettes about the denizens of an apartment building, tied together by the efforts of a woman to climb back up the stairs of the place after throwing herself off the roof. (Harvard Exit, 11 a.m.

Sun., May 17 & 6:30 p.m. Fri., May 22. Lincoln Square, 8 p.m. Tues., May 26) David Gulpilil is one of the most fascinating stars in world cinema, and his great project—since debuting at 17 in the 1971 classic

PHOTOS COURTESY OF SIFF

top ’s c i t i r c p o t Our IFF. picks for S r ton Ho

By Rober t Walkabout—has been tracking the complexities of Aboriginal life in the modern era. Charlie’s Country is his third collaboration with director Rolf de Heer (Ten Canoes), and it won Gulpilil a special acting prize at Cannes last year. Here he plays an old-timer who claims affinity with traditional ways but is stuck in the 21st century.

(Harvard Exit, 4 p.m. Fri., May 15 & 9:30 p.m.

Sat., May 16) In his films Kitchen Stories and O’Horten, Bent Hamer stretched his Scandinavian deadpan to the point of almost cracking a smile.

Those very droll outings are reason enough to take a shot with 1001 Grams , which sounds a little softer in tone: It’s about a Norwegian scientist (Ane Dahl Torp) who must retain her northern reserve while attending a conference to establish the absolute weight of a single kilo.

(Uptown, 4:30 p.m. Fri., May 15. Harvard Exit, 9:30 p.m. Sun., May 17) The electronic-dance-music boom in 1992 Paris may or may not be your thing, but Mia Hansen-Løve (Father of My Children) has quietly established a distinctive voice as a filmmaker. Therefore Eden holds some interest, and it might be a footnote to music-biopic history by being the first film to include characters based on the musicians who would become Daft Punk. (Uptown, 9:30 p.m. Thurs., June 4.

Egyptian, 4 p.m. Fri., June 5) There are true stories that make one curious about what the hell, exactly, might have been going on behind the headlines. The bizarre theft of Charlie Chaplin’s body from its gravesite in 1978 is one of those stories.

The Price of Fame seeks to dramatize this tawdry little event, with a cast that includes Chiara Mastroianni and Benoit Poelvoorde. It’s directed by Xavier Beauvois, whose 2010 Of Gods and Men was a surprise arthouse smash.

(Uptown, 7 p.m. Wed., May 27 & 4 p.m. Fri., May 29. Kirkland Performance Center, 8:30 p.m.

Fri., June 5) Peter Greenaway has been working in increasingly obscure margins of world cinema for 20 years, but it sounds as if Eisenstein in Guanajuato is his wildest work in some time. The film looks at the great Sergei Eisenstein’s interlude in Mexico in the early 1930s, evidently served up with flamboyant sex and jarring stylistic flourishes. Eisenstein never completed his Mexican film—nor ever recaptured the good graces of Soviet authorities.

(Egyptian, 7 p.m. Sat., June 6. Uptown, 5 p.m.

Sun., June 7) SIFF will also screen the 1979 compilation of Eisenstein’s footage, Que Viva Mexico! —a stunning artifact in its own right.

(Uptown, 2:30 p.m. Sun., June 7) Heaven Knows What looks at junkie culture in Manhattan, observed at the micro-budget level. This is the new film by Josh and Ben Safdie, whose previous work, including Daddy Longlegs, has been distinctively not-quitewhat-you’d-expect from their downtown indie pedigree. (Uptown, 9 p.m. Fri., May 22 & 2 p.m.

Sun., May 24) SIFF’s bulked-up survey of African films in recent years has been a welcome thing, and this year’s slate sounds strong. While looking at the new work, save time for archival restorations. One is Ousmane Sembene’s Black Girl (1966), a film long since afforded classic status. (Harvard Exit, 7 p.m. Mon., June 1) Much rarer is Alyam, Alyam , a restored 1978 drama by Moroccan director Ahmed El-Maanouni about a young Moroccan who plans to escape his dreary rural existence by emigrating to France. (Harvard Exit, 4:30 p.m. Mon., May 25) E film@seattleweekly.com

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rolling downhill), but certain things must not be said in polite company. Confronted with Thomas’ cavalier carousing, one pearl-clutching academic sputters, “Do you think Auden and Eliot do this kind of thing?” Though the plot—more like a theater piece—doesn’t really unfold, there are some nice cameos from Shirley Henderson and Kelly Reilly. Also, when was the last time poetry was considered seriously in a movie? (SIFF Cinema Uptown, 7 p.m. Fri.) Also based on real events, the Dutch crime drama Accused has truth on its side, but it also feels like a long-form TV series is trying to escape here. Events cover nine years during the past decade, when nurse Lucia is charged and convicted of euthanizing a dozen patients (including infants). Lead actress Ariane Schluter does nothing to elicit false sympathy for careworn Lucia. If a little more illustrative than dramatic (a young female prosecutor has a change of heart), the movie demonstrates the sheer mechanical process of how injustice works— surely with resonance in our own policing and courts. Despite statistics, DNA, and modern science, says Lucia’s lawyer, “a strange mass hysteria” rules the day. (SIFF Cinema Egyptian, 4 p.m. Fri. Harvard Exit, 7 p.m. Sun. Lincoln Square, 3:30 p.m. Fri., May 22) The compound Brian Wilson biopic Love & Mercy —with John Cusack and Paul Dano playing Wilsons old and young—is another fact-based account. (And, I can’t help noting, it dramatizes the doc Brian Wilson: I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times, which debuted at SIFF 20 years ago.) Both lead actors succeed in making Wilson a damaged, enigmatic near-martyr to music. The Beach Boys are generously sampled in this authorized account, rich in montages and juicy supporting roles. Paul Giamatti excels as a self-pitying villain in parachute pants, while Elizabeth Banks deserves some kind of medal for her late-’80s costumes, hair, and makeup.

Like the two titles above, the outcome here is a given, but the exquisite pop harmonies and densely layered soundtrack provide even more

of a nostalgic wallop. It’s a pick. The film opens June 5. (Egyptian, 6:30 p.m. Fri. Pacific Place, 12:30 p.m. Sat.) From Nepal, the village drama The Golden Hill will be a must-see among Seattle’s trekking and climbing crowd who love that earthquakeafflicted country. Director Rajan Kathet shot on location in the harshly beautiful Mustang Valley, with Tibet and the Annapurna range looming in the distance. But, as they say, you can’t eat scenery. Kathet’s young protagonists speak knowledgeably of Facebook, cell phones, and exit visas. Their village is emptying—if not to Kathmandu, then to the U.S. Some of the old customs and pieties may survive, and Kathet gives documentary-like emphasis to the farming, singing, and dancing still practiced by an aging population. The writing is fairly blunt, as when engineering-trained hero Lhakpa declares, “Our generation needs more education.” The Golden Hill leaves his rebuttal unsaid: Education only has a market value in the city or abroad. (Pacific Place, 7 p.m. Mon. & 4:30 p.m. Wed. Renton, 6 p.m. Fri., May 22) Based on a long-form ’90s cartoon strip in The Guardian, Gemma Bovery ought to be cleverer than it is. There are only so many jokes that director Anne Fontaine can wring out of the Emma Bovary parallels, as expat English newlywed Gemma (Gemma Arterton) becomes the obsession of a French baker besotted with Flaubert’s Madame Bovary. He’s sure Gemma will follow Emma’s tragic path into adultery . . . and some of those parallels are in fact realized. Yet the film is too easily distracted by gorgeous Normandy countryside, and the baker’s wishful dread-fulfillment begins to look like the behavior of a deranged stalker. Arterton is a bona fide beauty who’s been slumming in action fodder like Prince of Persia and Clash of the Titans. She has a charm—unlike the supporting cast—that would’ve been better served by the old Merchant-Ivory team, had they gotten their hands on Posy Simmonds’ original comic. (Egyptian, 3:30 p.m. Sat. & 7 p.m. Tues.)

Love is also interrupted in the odd, underwhelming menopausal romance I’ll See You in My Dreams, starring Blythe Danner as a widow who finds a second chance in silver fox Sam Elliott. The two stars have chemistry; and scenes with Danner and her bridge cronies ( June Squibb, Rhea Perlman, Mary Kay Place) are lots of predictable fun. Still, this May 29 release tries and fails to reach the elder-comedy tone that the new Netflix series Grace and Frankie (with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin) has got in spades. I could see the entire likable cast of Dreams doing guest shots on the later show. Netflix executives, are you listening? (Uptown, 5:30 p.m. Sun. Harvard Exit, 4:15 p.m. Mon.) I’ll leave you with two final and unequivocal picks. François Ozon and his handsome leading man Romain Duris are always favorites at SIFF, and The New Girlfriend teases a lot of expectations about them both. Ozon is riffing on a story fragment by the late English mystery writer Ruth Rendell, though no actual crime is committed in the movie. Rather, it’s about the assumption of a false identity that’s truer than the old, and how that change wreaks havoc upon the false assumptions and securities of friends and family. No spoilers—go see it. (Egyptian, 9:30 p.m. Sat. Uptown, 11:30 a.m.) And while the teen-oriented Sundance favorite Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (opening June 19) kicks you in the head with its unusual two-act structure and major misdirection ploy, its first half is a utterly delightful spin on the usual mopey YA themes of misfit teens. Cancer immediately enters the plot, as do a series of art-house parody movies made by our cineaste hero (including A Sockwork Orange, enacted by sock puppets).

Novelist Jesse Andrews adapted his own 2012 book, directed with a light, sure hand by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon. Four fresh faces fill the highschool roles; Nick Offerman, Connie Britton, and Molly Shannon play the concerned—but never clueless—parents. (Pacific Place, 6:30 p.m.

Sat. Uptown, 2:30 p.m. Sun.) E

bmiller@seattleweekly.com

SEATTLE WEEKLY • M AY 13 — 19, 2015

very edition of SIFF begins with optimism and fresh resolutions: This year I’ll buy my tickets earlier. Or, This time I’ll see more movies. Or, No more South Korean snuff porn! So it is with Robert Horton’s wannasees at SIFF, which are as of yet unblemished by the experience of actually seeing those promising titles. Here, conversely, is a report on what I’ve already watched among the festival’s firstweek offerings.

Along with the attendance of director Paul Feig, the festival-opening Spy is worth attending for the party’s sake. The 007-inverting comedy supposes what might happen if Miss Moneypenny went out in the field instead of James Bond. Melissa McCarthy plays an unhappy CIA desk jockey who runs a dim, handsome agent ( Jude Law) like a drone, whispering instructions in his earpiece, seeing what he does through a camera in his contact lens. Then, of course, out-of-her-depth Susan is sent to Europe to clean up a mess (cue Jason Statham and Rose Byrne), where she proves quite adept at covert ops, thank you very much. (The R rating is more for cussin’ than killin’.) The generously budgeted comedy opens June 5, when the Bechdel Test will be subjected to the cruel marketplace of summer blockbusters. Its best scenes take place between McCarthy and other women (including Byrne, Allison Janney, and English TV star Miranda Hart). Yet too often those scenes are written as insult-spewing cat fights. Is it really so funny to hear women repeatedly yell “Fuck you!” back and forth? A good spy, male or female, has lethal wit, and Spy disappoints in that regard.

(McCaw Hall, 7 p.m. Thurs.)

By contrast, Set Fire to the Stars is an entirely more cerebral affair, set amid Ivy League intrigue in 1950, when Dylan Thomas (co-writer Celyn Jones) is making a boozy campus tour under the timid stewardship of a young poetry prof (Elijah Wood). Shot in austere black-and-white, this fact-inspired account has a shrewd eye for ’50s detail and propriety. Everyone smokes and drinks like a demon (we can see Thomas’ health

PHOTOS COURTESY OF SIFF

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ou may know him as Sandy Ryerson on Glee or Stu Beggs on Californication or Ned Ryerson in Groundhog Day—the overly ingratiating insurance salesman Bill Murray punches. Face come to mind now? Bing!

But thanks to his popular podcast and subsequent PRI radio show The Tobolowsky Files, Stephen Tobolowsky has become almost as well-known a storyteller as a busy Hollywood character actor. And there’s a Seattle connection to his unlikely success: a Belltown techie named David Chen who produces The Tobolowsky Files and has now directed a performance documentary featuring Tobolowsky at the Moore, The Primary Instinct , which will premiere at SIFF. Chen, who was born in Taiwan but raised in Massachusetts from age 3, began producing the then-weekly, now-monthly podcast in 2009. All the while he had a day job as a researcher at the Harvard Business School and contributed to a film-review podcast on Slashfilm.com. With no training in film production, The Primary Instinct is his first feature film.

Tobolowsky’s podcast has its roots in the memorable 2005 film Stephen Tobolowsky’s Birthday Party, in which the actor regales guests with hilarious yet profound stories of his life, and in Tobolowsky’s subsequent appearances on Chen’s Slashfilm podcast. As Chen explained during a recent chat in the unusually bustling lobby of the Alexis Hotel, “I said, ‘Stephen, your stories are so good, and I bet there are so many more of them in

your head just waiting to get out into the world. If we don’t do something to preserve them, they’ll be lost forever.’ A couple of weeks later we started the podcast, and now we’re here.”

Well, it wasn’t quite that direct. Chen invited Tobolowsky to perform a live show in front of an audience at Harvard, where Chen was then earning an M.A. in education. “People seemed to like it,” says Tobolowsky by phone from L.A., so he took the act on the road. An editor at Simon and Schuster attended one of those shows and proposed a book, which became The Dangerous Animals Club, published in 2012. Around the same time, KUOW’s Jeff Hansen approached Chen and Tobolowsky about turning the podcast into a weekly radio show, which brought his stories to a whole new audience. Meanwhile, unrelated to the KUOW connection, Chen was hired at Microsoft and in 2012 moved here from Massachusetts.

Seattle became the new production base for the show. “It’s just kind of a fluke that everyone ended up in Seattle,” says Tobolowsky, who now calls our city “a home away from home.”

“All that spun from David saying, ‘Why don’t we do this?’ ” insists the ever-modest Tobolowsky— meaning the film, too. “David said, ‘What if we did a Kickstarter movie?’ ” Chen launched a campaign in early 2014 and 12 days later had $50,000 in crowd-funding commitments, enough to cover a modest production. He envisioned a documentary that attempted to answer the question “Why do we tell stories?” through Tobolowsky’s storytelling.

Chen is a recent Seattle transplant.

The actor would talk directly to the camera, with an audience gradually expanding from small groups to a classroom and finally to a centerpiece performance in a full theater. While Chen hired a crew and booked the Moore for a May 2014 show, Tobolowsky turned to writing that centerpiece. “There was the idea of let’s do several small stories,” he recalls. “I thought, wait a minute, what we really have is a story about stories. And it evolved into one huge story.”

the first time with him making a movie, there were going to be problems.” But perhaps fewer than anticipated: That near-seamless Moore performance became the entire film.

“I happen to like to tell true stories,” Tobolowsky says early in The Primary Instinct.

From there he launches into a couple of seemingly unrelated anecdotes, easing his audience into an evening that slowly creeps into matters of life and death without ever losing that easy, conversational engagement. Neither stand-up comedy nor traditional one-man show, the feels like an extension of the podcast. Tobolowsky tells true stories from his own life in a monologue that recalls Spalding Gray’s Swimming to Cambodia or Julia Sweeney’s God Said Ha!. These autobiographical tales and reflections ultimately converge in touching and resonant ways. The film’s title comes from motto his mother liked to repeat, “The primary instinct is self-preservation.” But come the end of the journey, Tobolowsky offers an alternate theory.

Chen, who’ll attend the SIFF screenings with his self-effacing star, hopes that The Primary Instinct will introduce a whole new audience to Tobolowsky’s warm, funny, and sometimes philosophical stories. It’s a movie that hews to the podcast’s motto: “True always trumps clever.” E

There’s a leap of faith when embarking on any

film project, and The Primary Instinct is built on a foundation of trust—not just between Chen and Tobolowsky, but among fans who attended the oneoff show, the artist performing, and a seven-camera crew working for a neophyte director. Though a dress rehearsal was filmed, yielding just a few editing patches, the 70-minute performance would be filmed live and continuously, with no safety net, no margin for error, no second night to fix mistakes.

(Most comedy specials and performance films are compiled from two or more shows.) Reflecting back, says Tobolowsky, “We had one shot at it, which made it, I think, more desperate, and in a way more engaging, because the cracks in the leather are there. The times when I don’t come up with the next word are there and the audience is rooting for me.” It also helped that the vibes were right from the historic old Moore: “I love that theater so much.

It’s like you’re on the inside of a violin.”

Tobolowsky says of his newbie director, “There’s always going to be a first time, and I figured that

film@seattleweekly.com

SIFF CINEMA EGYPTIAN 801 E. Pine St., 324-9996, siff.net. $11–$13.

9:45 p.m. Fri., May 29 & noon Sat., May 30.

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me a a c e b e i h nlikely wn tec u o t t l l s e o B m a e How i th th w , r o t c e r i d od. o m l i w f y e l l m o i t H first an in leading m n A xmaker

By Sea

t started with a road trip to find an odd name on the map: an East Texas town called Uncertain, population 94, located on a lake straddling the Louisiana border. Madrona couple Ewan McNicol and Anna Sandilands were in Lafayette, Louisiana, three years ago, working on their short film The Roper (seen during SIFF ’14), and they had a day to kill. What they found on and around Caddo Lake would inspire their first feature-length documentary, Uncertain, which had its premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival last month.

“How does a town get a name like Uncertain?” asks Sandilands as we sit in the sunwashed downtown office of Lucid, the commercial documentary firm she runs with McNicol.

With clients including Apple, Nike, and Nokia, that business underwrote the production of Uncertain—and gives the film more professional polish than any local doc in recent memory.

Raised in Chicago but a longtime Seattle transplant, Sandilands met the British McNicol while she was working for Starbucks. He relocated here about five years ago, when the two partnered professionally, too.

Though visiting Caddo Lake in early 2012 as curious tourists, McNicol and Sandilands brought their camera. A local man, Henry, was suggested as their fishing guide, and they were immediately enchanted. “He was so open and friendly,” Sandilands recalls. The more locals they met, the more they encountered “a real grace in these people. We kind of felt we’d stepped back in time.” In part, the filmmakers admit, this was because Uncertain is poor and unhurried. The Internet exists there, as we see in the film, but

the economy is depressed—and it got worse during filming. As the doc relates, Caddo Lake is being choked by an invasive weed called salvinia.

Uncertain depends largely on vacationers and fishermen. And, as a local says in the film, “If the lake dies, the town dies.”

“At the beginning,” says the London-raised McNicol, “we didn’t know what [the film] was about—we just had these great characters.

We were kind of uncertain where we were going . . . how to tie it all together. But we had this freedom because we funded it ourselves. [A few grants came later.] We filmed over eight or nine months. We made 10 separate trips. We love that part of the U.S. It’s so foreign, but it’s so beautiful. It’s underrepresented.”

Well, yes and no. As the filmmakers acknowledge, news and documentary crews are swift to descend upon the scene of a Southern catastrophe like Katrina or Deepwater Horizon.

There’s no shortage of poverty- and disasterporn flicks, often accompanied by the clucking of tongues and condescension. That’s what McNicol and Sandilands were determined to avoid with their three main subjects, she says.

“It was a very pure relationship. Because they had no agenda, and we had no agenda. We explained early that we were not there to film Duck Dynasty.” When the locals asked what their film would be about, she recalls, they answered honestly: “We don’t really know.”

In finished form, Uncertain is a lovely portrait

of place and a respectful profile of three men.

Besides old Henry (his thick bayou accent subtitled), we meet the intrepid, philosophical

EWAN MCNICOL/ANNA SANDILANDS/LUCID, INC.

I

Seat tle e n a b r u How t wo und themselves s fo filmmaker ing in rural Texas. hog hunt Miller n a i r B y B Sandilands and McNicol prepare to hunt hogs.

hog hunter Wayne and the skinny young Zach, too bright for his surroundings, who drinks too much and does yard work while dreaming of Austin. Uncertain takes its time introducing the three. There’s no murder to solve or scandal to discover, no topical hook—the opposite of most docs these days. (Think of The Jinx, recently on HBO, or Capturing the Friedmans.)

Nobody’s going to jail or being freed from jail, yet there’s a tacit socioeconomic element to the film. Themes of poverty, disease, addiction, and past criminal misbehavior do emerge.

And there’s humor as Wayne hunts his porcine nemesis, dubbed Mr. Ed. “I’ve been outsmarted by that hog many times,” he admits. In eerie green night-vision scenes, Uncertain documents his obsession—like a melding of Herman Melville and Samuel Beckett.

“So much documentary film today has an agenda. In many ways, we’re pushing against that,” says Sandilands, who cites purely observational docs like Steve James’ Hoop Dreams and the Maysles brothers’ Salesman as influences. Poignantly, she and McNicol won the Albert Maysles New Documentary Director Award at Tribeca, bestowed by children of the late filmmaker, who died in March. “He and his brother [David] are among my favorite filmmakers.”

Like those influences, McNicol and Sandilands eschew voiceovers and explanatory titles in Uncertain. It’s up to the viewer to supply the context, the sense of a dwindling, near-subsistence economy in Uncertain. When the camera pulls back on Zach, who wouldn’t look out of place as a Capitol Hill barista or an Amazon coder in South Lake Union, you realize how poor he is. His prize possession is an Xbox. There are no jobs in Uncertain, he explains, no women his age. All the young people have fled or will soon—as he hopes to do.

This is a town that time is leaving behind.

And that gives Uncertain a melancholy sort of Brigadoon quality. There are long, leisurely beauty shots of the primordial lake; but for a few traces of modernity, the setting could be 18thcentury America or older. Lives are dictated by fishing, hunting, and the seasons. “A lot of this is informed by the lake itself,” says Sandilands of the film’s serene essence. She sees Uncertain less as narrative and “more like a myth or a tale, because these stories are representative of larger stories within us all.” E

bmiller@seattleweekly.com

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SEATTLE WEEKLY • M AY 13 — 19, 2015

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SEATTLE WEEKLY • MAY 13 — 19, 2015

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titles are 2013’s horror flick The Invoking and 2014’s sci-fi thriller The Device; this is the company’s first effort to reach SIFF.) Shot in just 23 days last summer (in and around the Mountaineers’ Meany Lodge near Stampede Pass), replete with bickering characters and practical gore effects, Portanova’s horror film shows traces of 1968’s Night of the Living Dead in its blood-

THE OCTOBER PEOPLE

T

alking about supposedly true Bigfoot stories with John Portanova, I stop him for a clarification: Does he mean true or “true”? “Oh no, I believe in Bigfoot,” insists Portanova, the 29-year-old writer/director of Valley of the Sasquatch .

Making its third stop on the festival circuit at SIFF, the low-budget indie is the Burienbased Portanova’s first as director. He’s alsready been cranking ’em out at an impressive rate, one genre movie per year, working in different capacities for The October People, a production outfit he co-founded with partners Jeremy Berg and Matt Medisch. (Prior

Portanova pictured at Scarecrow Video.

Vail (left) and Joris-Peyrafitte in the Sasquatch siege.

stream. “Definitely!” says Portanova during a recent Skype chat; he’s an avowed cult-film aficionado. “People in a cabin fighting off Bigfoot—as soon I heard the true story that inspired the spine of the script, I knew that this would be like Night of the Living Dead, except with Bigfoot instead of zombies or gang-bangers [as in Assault on Precinct 13].”

In the film, a father ( Jason Vail) drags his reluctant son (Mils Joris-Peyrafitte) to live in and renovate their crappy cabin in the Northwest woods. Tension piles onto their already strained relationship when a couple of Dad’s buddies (David Saucedo and D’Angelo Midili) show up. Add alcohol and firearms.

Then commence with the all-night Sasquatch siege! And, as Night of the Living Dead showed, the humans are every bit as much the problem as the monsters.

Portanova intends for VOTS to join the Bigfoot horror subgenre (part of the larger Bigfoot shelf at Scarecrow). “It’s funny,” he says, “most people, when they think Bigfoot movies, they think Harry and the Hendersons, and it ends there. But in reality there are hundreds of Bigfoot movies. There’s actually a book called The Bigfoot Filmography that is specifically about Bigfoot movies, several hundred pages long. And either they’re family movies like Harry and the Hendersons or they’re horror. So before writing the script, I just watched as many as I could and took what I didn’t like that those movies did, and did it differently in mine.”

The Poulsbo native says he’s been fascinated with Bigfoot since he was a kid, when he’d get freaked out watching Unsolved Mysteries and Sightings on TV. “I just always loved the idea that there was this monster out

RONNY SOESATYO

get d u b w o l re into o l k l o f s n eek. h tur c r o n i t c e e u r i g d ocal or ton A young l r, with no winking hner a horro

By Mark R

there,” he says. Inspiration for VOTS came from childhood hours spent in the library, reading about Bigfoot, alien abductions, and ghosts. “That stuff really fascinated me,” Portanova recalls “I would read those books instead of going out for recess.”

Preparation for filming those tales came years later as an adult, studying at Vancouver Film School. Today, Portanova works as an office manager at a media production company, along with running The October People. (His partners in that enterprise will join him, cast, and crew at the SIFF screenings.)

As for the “true” story behind VOTS—or true, according to Portanova—one of his characters describes it in the movie. In 1924, “There were some miners on Mt. St. Helens who ran afoul of some Sasquatch, and so in their cabin one night, rocks started raining down from the hilltop and the walls started shaking, so they had to kind of fight through the night.”

All right, then, if he’s serious: What about the infamous 1967 Patterson-Gimlin film, which purported to show a shaky glimpse of Bigfoot ambling through a forest clearing?

Real or bullshit? “Real,” Portanova answers.

No hesitation. “If it was fake, why would they give the Bigfoot boobs? It makes no sense.

It’d be such a hard thing to construct at that time . . . looking as good as it does in the film. If they were going to fake it, it would have been a male Sasquatch.”

Boob point taken. He’s clearly given some thought to the matter—including what he’d do in a Bigfoot encounter: “I’d either be frozen in place, or I’d run away screaming.” So the lesson is, stay out of the goddamn forest?

Portanova laughs. “Yeah, that’s true. If horror movies have taught us anything, it’s to never go anywhere and never do anything.” E

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I

punk band rehearsing and performing, plus a rival synth-pop outfit, but Beach Town is scored wall-to-wall.

“About half of it I wrote,” says Hammen of the soundtrack. “I was in punk bands on the East Coast in the ’80s.” Arthur works in a record shop where a grumpy/friendly DJ (Steven Sterne) keeps tunes spinning throughout; if that makes you think of American Graffiti and Wolfman Jack, Hammen smiles at the association. He sought “a radio feeling” to the movie, the bygone sense of shared music played in the open air from boom-boxes and passing cars—not the modern private experience of earbuds and iPods.

Also lending to the vintage texture, Hammen shot entirely on 16mm film stock (later transferred to video), which is fast disappearing.

(In fact, in a sad footnote, he was one of the last commercial clients for Alpha Cine Labs after completing photography on Beach Town two summers ago.) “The results you get are unbeatable,” he says of the skinny old format. “You work with the best material you can.” After being enlarged, the grainy 16mm stock yields “a tactile sense,” he notes. The medium’s limitations are integral to Beach Town’s retro charm. And like the beach towns of Hammen’s youth, 16mm may also soon be extinct—lending to that briny, wistful quality.

Even so, the friendly, bespectacled director is

anything but a bitter or mournful nostalgist.

“This is my third feature,” says Hammen (after 2001’s Love My Guts and Time of the Robots, a fanciful, archival sci-fi collage seen at the Grand Illusion in 2012). “This is my first one [at SIFF]; it’s very exciting.” (He and cast members will attend the festival screenings.) The former punk rocker came to Seattle 20 years ago as a Microsoft contractor. His DIY ethos drew him to

indie film, using the cameras and other resources offered by Northwest Film Forum. He describes himself as “self-taught and self trained. I never went to film school.”

Why shoot primarily in Ballard? It’s what he knows. Before the first dot-com boom and bust, circa 1999, “We bought a little tiny house,” where he and his wife and two kids still live. With a day job in the tech industry, he learned his new neighborhood on foot. “This is a pedestrian film,” he jokes of Beach Town, meaning that it’s scaled and paced at a walking (and occasionally bicycling) perspective gleaned from his early shoeleather explorations. During that time he was surprised to discover, behind the warehouses and boat sheds, that “Goddamn! Ballard has a beach!”

In particular, he was drawn to the rocky-sandy Golden Gardens, appreciating the multicultural mix of barbecue parties, bird-watchers, sailboarders, and cold-weather sunbathers. “How public it is,” Hammen marvels—not exclusive Malibu, not the ritzy Hamptons, but a relaxed coastal community blending easily into industrial Ballard.

Time unfolds slowly here, as Noelle and Arthur miss connections and meet up for movie dates.

Of both the plot and milieu of Beach Town, says Hammen, “There isn’t the rush” of a more conventional, more tightly plotted film. He’s seeking to recall “the experience of being kind of young and shiftless . . . but in a romantic way.” Hence there’s time to hang, time to chill, time to sing campfire songs on the beach. “I feel like the beach town is an incubator,” he says. “There’s a sense of promise.

There’s still room for the eccentrics.” E

bmiller@seattleweekly.com

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f the images in his shoestring romance Beach Town seem a little grainy and washed-out, if the sun flares in the lens, if the plot and dialogue lack much heft, that’s just fine with Ballard filmmaker Erik Hammen.

His third feature—and first in SIFF, where it will premiere—is more about a summertime state of mind than any kind of weighty tale. Sitting over beers at the Lock & Keel on an appropriately mild May evening, he explains how “there is a delicacy to it. It’s a beach movie of the mind.

Wistfulness . . . I’m trying for that sense.”

The locations are utterly concrete: Golden Gardens, the Ship Canal, industrial Ballard, and old red-brick Georgetown. Local shops are prominently featured, as is the novel—to me, anyway—phenomenon of yoga performed on paddleboards floating just west of the Ballard locks. “Yes,” says Hammen, pleased with the same discovery, “it’s a thing.”

Yet the idyllic and idealized Beach Town—the name Seattle is never uttered or invoked—is more backward-looking, innocent, and vaguely nostalgic. Raised in a coastal Connecticut town, Hammen tells me how he sought to evoke the sensual pleasures of sand between your toes, the smell of suntan oil, the sensation of ice cream (or cold beer) on a hot summer day. “It’s an atmospheric piece,” he says of Beach Town. “It’s not literally Seattle, but the essence of it. I’m really interested in a sense of place . . . that kind of saltburned world” of creosote-smelling boardwalks and unpolluted surf.

The plot is suitably skimpy: Sparks are struck when boy meets girl, girl has second thoughts about boy (a musician about to leave on tour), etc. The two would-be sweethearts in this chaste romance, Noelle and Arthur, are played by local stage performers Sarah Winsor and Ahren Buhmann, respectively. Not only do we see Arthur’s

Kenna Kettrick (center) as the leader of a rival band.

ERIK HAMMEN

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food&drink

Pure Food Kids

FoodNews

BY JASON PRICE

Teaching students to eat healthier by exposing the dirty secrets of food labeling.

Just in time for the 2015 Copper River salmon season, Ray’s Boathouse & Café will offer a selection of pinot and Copper River salmon pairings in both restaurants, May 15–June 15.

Jon Rowley brought the first Copper River to Ray’s Boathouse in 1983; before that, it was typically canned and shipped to Asia. An instant favorite, it’s been a coveted seasonal delicacy ever since. Ray’s will also offer 20 pinots by the glass via its Coravin wine system, including wines from Domaine Drouhin, Shea Wine Cellars, Domaine Serene, and Beaux Frères.

BY DAKOTA MACKEY

A

COURTESY OF PURE FOODS FOUNDATION

Top: enjoying the chili they made. Bottom: preparing chili; learning how to read food labels.

If you love Italian wines, you should take the opportunity to meet eight of Italy’s finest winemakers (and one from Spain). McCarthy and Schiering is hosting wineries represented by the Vias Imports portfolio, which provides access to some of the most diverse Italian wines available in the U.S.: wines from Produttori del Barbaresco, Fossacolle, Bruni, and Le Salette will be served, among others. The Swedish Cultural Center, 1920 Dexter Ave. N. (with plenty of free parking), hosts the event, 6–8 p.m.

Wed., May 13. Tickets are $19.95; call 524-9500.

West Seattle Junction is getting a Moroccan-fusion restaurant, Itto’s, slated to open on or before July 1.

The West Seattle Blog reports that it will be located in the former Firefly Café and Creperie space, and offer Moroccan, Spanish, French, and Jewish cuisines on a menu that will rotate weekly. Brothers Khalid and Aziz Agour, the proprietors, also run Toscana Pizzeria on Capitol Hill. E morningfoodnews@gmail.com

TheWeeklyDish

donate one percent of sales to the Pure Food Kids Foundation, making the workshops free to schools.

Pineapple margarita at Señor Moose Cafe.

Hyde joined the Foundation in 2012. After working in different areas of the food industry, she found a way to continue her work to improve the food system, making it healthier for people and the planet. “After many years of frustrating work to reform policies like the farm bill and school lunch,” she says, “it was refreshing to be introduced to an initiative that was working so directly with youth to shift culture and consumer behavior around food choices—which I believe is a quicker way to change the marketplace and policy in the long run.”

Though a large part of Hyde’s job is to grow the Foundation by applying for philanthropic grants and appealing to corporate giving programs, her favorite part is being able to occasionally teach the classes herself. “I have been thrilled to see kids inspired to take action as citizens, not just consumers, who are passionate about creating positive change in the way government and food companies do business when it comes to food.”

The program has grown to reach 274 schools in the country. Hyde says the goal is to make the workshop part of every 4th- and 5th-grade class in the region in order to further assess its longterm effects on kids, teachers, and families.

“Our hope is to attract additional support to be able to scale this program to every school in the country someday,” Hyde says. “But we certainly can’t do it alone.” E

BY NICOLE SPRINKLE

food@seattleweekly.com

NICOLE SPRINKLE

As the conversation segues to food additives, Dummer gives examples of common ingredients in processed foods with unexpected origins. She explains the history of Splenda, including that it was originally designed in a lab as an insecticide.

According to a New Yorker article, the scientists, after noticing the flavor was sweet, repurposed it as an artificial sweetener. Similarly, Dummer says, “All artificial colors are chemicals found in petroleum or coal tar.” Since the 20th century, scientists have extracted chemicals from coal tar to make synthetic colors. Many students make uncomfortable noises; one boy says, “They’re trying to kill us!”

“Any time foods are made in a science lab, your bodies don’t know what to do with them,” Dummer adds.

She places the ingredient list of a generic canned chili on a projector. The students read silently, taking in the suspect elements in the long list. She points out the caramel color, oatmeal, and corn flour at the top. She then projects the ingredient list of the chili the students will learn to make in class, indicating the beans, vegetables, and spices.

Soon the smell of chopped raw onion permeates the classroom. Other students measure corn, spices, and canned tomatoes into Dummer’s sizzling pot. Every two-hour workshop since the program’s launch in 2006 ends with students making this vegetarian chili, its longevity due to its absence of allergens like gluten, dairy, and soy. The tomatoes and beans are donated, as are the compostable cups and spoons used to serve it. Beecher’s Handmade Cheese and other Sugar Mountain companies annually

I love Señor Moose Cafe in Ballard. It’s one of the best places in town to get pretty authentic Mexican food, and it’s homey and bustling with regulars. Last week I had one of the best margaritas in town, made with fresh pineapple, a blanco tequila, and some serious chili-pepper infusion. The play of fresh fruit against the heat is fabulous. Warning: Do not order this if you are at all sensitive to spice. It paired perfectly with a plate of enchiladas suizas, which seem to have gotten a really good reboot since the last time I visited. This dish often runs on the bland side (not just here but at many Mexican restaurants), but the creamy green sauce the enchiladas swim in was way tangier than usual. After devouring them, I almost considered bringing home the scant remains of the sauce to use for a late-night chip-and-dip snack. E

SEATTLE WEEKLY • M AY 13 — 19, 2015

cluster of animated students sit around a table discussing what marketing strategies were used on a PopTarts box. Nora Dummer calls on one of the raised hands to answer. “I don’t think it’s baked with real fruit like the box says,” the student says. “They could lie.”

“Lying is illegal!” another student yells across the room.

In a 4th-grade classroom at West Seattle’s Lafayette Elementary School, Dummer, with the Pure Food Kids program, tells the students they will be food detectives during the workshop. “You will find the criminals in our foods and investigate food packaging,” she said. “Then you can make your own decisions about what to put in your bodies.”

The Pure Food Kids Foundation is part of Beecher’s Handmade Cheese, known for their impossibly rich mac and cheese. One of several food entities headed by Sugar Mountain CEO Kurt Dammeier, Beecher’s founded Pure Food Kids in 2006 to work toward reversing the influx of diet-related diseases. Its mission is to educate and inspire 4th- and 5th-grade students to make better choices about what they buy and eat. Executive director Kristin Hyde compares the program to the ones from the 1970s, when kids took home what they learned in school to encourage their parents to quit smoking or start recycling. “Our theory of change here at Beecher’s Pure Food Kids Foundation is that kids are powerful change agents, and can be the catalyst for family-wide healthier food choices,” Hyde said.

According to a 2014 survey by the Foundation, 94 percent of kids who participated in the Pure Food Kids workshop were more likely to choose a less-processed snack with a shorter ingredient list, and 97 percent became more skeptical of industrial food companies’ marketing tactics. These results drive additional funding and participation.

Motivated by education and activism, Dummer became involved with the organization while earning a degree in nutrition and culinary arts from Bastyr University. She leads the class in a quick test of their knowledge of food and health: “What is marketing?” “What is a calorie?” Using visuals like laminated cereal boxes, she asks the students to make observations about their ingredient lists.

Though Kellogg’s may not be lying about using real fruit, the dried fruits are listed beneath ingredients like high-fructose corn syrup, sugar, and soybean oil. Dummer explains that ingredients are listed from greatest weight to least, showing the students that Pop-Tarts contain more processed sugar than actual fruit. The sweet breakfast pastry is also used to demonstrate unrealistic serving sizes. After revealing that the nutrition information on the back of the box accounts for only one Pop-Tart, Dummer holds up a foil pouch containing two—the standard packaging—and asks the kids if they would have eaten both of them. The majority raise their hands, understanding now how nutrition-information labels can mislead.

nsprinkle@seattleweekly.com

19

arts&culture

Hell and High Water

How a local stage director jumped to New York — then came home to face an even bigger production challenge.

ThisWeek’s PickList

BY MARK BAUMGARTEN

Cabaret

With Jasper, the 5th has now produced 17 new

musicals since 2001—nine of which have been exported to Broadway. But Ivie is also an export 20 for which the theater can make some claim.

Here’s a Broadway trivia question to separate the brown-shirted men from the mascaraed chorus boys: Who created the role of Sally Bowles in the Kander & Ebb musical Cabaret? Why, English actress Jill Haworth, of course—but you’re forgiven if Liza Minnelli was the first name/ face to pop into your head; she made the role forever hers in the 1972 film adaptation. Based on Christopher Isherwood’s recollections of his life in Berlin just before World War II, the show takes us to the divey Kit Kat Club, where Sally is the star attraction and Cliff (Isherwood’s stand-in) the expatriate writer who falls for her as German civilization slowly crumbles atop them. I can’t wait to see how far Village Theatre—known for excellence, but not so much for edginess—pushes the sex and the Nazi imagery. Some other recent productions have pretty overtly depicted what happens to all those louche cabaret artistes once the Third Reich takes power. (Through July 3; moves to Everett July 10–Aug. 2.) Village Theatre, 303 Front St.

Doyle’s Jasper amid the signature blue waves.

MATTHEW MURPHY

N. (Issaquah), 425-392-2202, villagetheatre.org. $35–$67. 7:30 p.m. GAVIN BORCHERT

A graduate of the Village Theatre KidStage in Issaquah, Ivie has in the past four years emerged as a great young talent, a point of pride in our region’s strong musical-theater scene.

Early in his career, Ivie found work with the 5th, serving as the casting director for 2009’s A Christmas Story. When that new musical headed to Broadway in late 2012, Ivie signed on as the assistant director. And since then he’s been splitting his time between New York and Seattle. Here he’s since directed a critically lauded production of Next to Normal at Balagan Theatre, the return of A Christmas Story to the 5th, and, this spring at Seattle Rep, the Justin Huertas musical Lizard Boy. Back in New York, however, Ivie was biding his time. While working as assistant or associate director for a handful of productions or directing readings and workshops, he says, he was waiting for the right production to make his debut.

That chance would come from Oliver, whose untested musical had been commissioned by the Pasadena Musical Theatre Program in 2011. Oliver had never seen Ivie direct, but had worked with him on New Voices, the Seattle musical showcase that Ivie has produced for the past decade with his own company, Contemporary Classics. Based on that, and a shared sensibility explored further over drinks in New York, the composer handed Jasper over to Ivie.

The musical—an edgy, modern interpreta-

tion of the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice—was obviously challenging, one reason it appealed to Ivie. “I get all the shows that on paper seem sort of impossible, and they

Pilobolus have no idea how the hell someone’s going to do it,” says Ivie. “I sort of see myself as more of a problem-solver than I am an auteur director.”

Before the New York production, Oliver invited Ivie to throw the original stage directions out the window. Then Ivie got to work figuring out how to bring the story to life on an off-Broadway budget (hence the haggling at the fabric store). Forced to stretch his ingenuity when his dollars could stretch no further, Ivie created a production that relied on basic theatrical conventions—and the audience’s suspension of disbelief—to tell a wildly expansive story. While planning this larger Seattle production, Ivie says he felt some pressure to toss out the fabrics and bring in the harness. But by then the imaginative essence of Jasper was already baked into it.

Ivie recalls, “We thought, ‘OK, we could fly him. We could put him in a harness and Peter Pan him and fly him all through the opening number.’ But we very quickly were like, ‘While that’s really cool, and it would be a really awesome way to start the show, it’s not going to be consistent with the way we’re going to tell our story.’ ” Doyle concurs: “It didn’t feel like Jasper in Deadland.” E

mbaumgarten@seattleweekly.com

THE 5TH AVENUE THEATRE 1308 Fifth Ave., 625-1900, 5thavenue.org. $29 and up.

Opens Thurs., May 14. 7:30 p.m. Tues.–Wed., 8 p.m. Thurs.–Fri., 2 & 8 p.m. Sat., 1:30 & 7 p.m. Sun. Ends May 24.

Billie Wildrick stars as Sally Bowles.

© 2015 MARK KITAOKA/VILLAGE THEATRE

SEATTLE WEEKLY • MAY 13 — 19, 2015

B

randon Ivie had a problem to solve.

During the first scene of Jasper in Deadland, his hero needed to take a deep dive into the underworld while singing a rousing anthem along the way.

It was the spring of 2014, and the show was set to debut off-Broadway in an 80-seat theater.

Expensive Spiderman-like flying harnesses were out of the question; Ivie couldn’t afford to be literal. He had to get creative. The solution: rippling sheets of blue fabric to represent the turbulent waters standing between the 16-year-old Jasper and his missing best friend, Agnes.

“I went to a fabric store and convinced them to give me a thousand dollars worth of fabric for, like, $200,” says the UW-trained Ivie, sitting in the lobby of the 5th Avenue Theatre on a recent afternoon. “I paid with cash.”

That fabric came to represent the scrappy staging of the new musical by Hunter Foster and Ryan Scott Oliver. The image of lead actor Matt Doyle swimming through the blue billowing sheets adorned a warm review in The New York Times, which called the production “inventively staged” and “quite a bit of fun.” Jasper’s buzzedabout month-long run was a coup for Ivie, who had never before directed in New York City.

Fortunately for the bicoastal Bellevue native, there’s a much larger company account to pay for the much larger sheets that are now needed for the darkly comic tale, which will open at 5th Avenue on Thursday. This Jasper is in many ways much like last year’s production, says Ivie. It has the same lead actor in Doyle, and of course the same director. But it is a much grander affair, taking place in a room 25 times the size of the West End Theater.

“I was just blown away,” says Doyle, who before Jasper was playing Elder Price in the long-running Broadway smash The Book of Mormon. Joining us in the lobby of the historic 1926 theater, he says of the 5th, “It’s one of the most beautiful theaters I’ve ever been in. This little show that we had in a church attic, here, it’s just unbelievable.”

Yet the scaled-up production has also proved daunting for Ivie, who was offered the spring slot in January (this January!) after the scheduled debut of another new musical, Something Rotten!, was snatched up by Broadway. The 5th’s artistic director, Bill Berry, had seen Jasper in New York and invited Ivie to do a table read in December.

Ivie recalls, “They came up to me and [composer/ lyricist Oliver] and [writer Foster] after that reading, and we’re like, ‘So what’s your schedule like?’ And I was like, ‘Oh, I’m probably doing this holiday show next season’ . . . And they were like, ‘No, no, no. In the next three months, what’s your schedule like?’ ”

THURSDAY, MAY 14

When it began making dances in the 1970s, Pilobolus was like almost nothing else in the modern dance world. Here was a collection of guys who combined sport and gymnastics skills to create a kind of trompe-l’oeil repertory where forms seemed to evolve or morph like fantasy characters.

Since then, the company itself has spawned a number of groups and artists (Momix, ISO, Portland’s BodyVox) that have applied that tricky aesthetic

OPEN UP

to the arts in Snohomish County Arlington Arts Council presents

An evening with jazz pianist

George Cables

interests belie the callow rock-star stereotype— though, of course, those old stories of backstage debauchery have informed his self-reinvention and sobriety.

Novoselic, of Nirvana, was by contrast an almost purely political writer for us. He’s passionately committed to a fair and just democratic process, a gentle, thoughtful soul who becomes outraged only by barriers to voting and free speech. Fame came to both men in wildly disparate musical acts, yet they’re generational peers now juggling music, family, and the new pressures of midlife. As Gen-X uneasily confronts its graying, McKagan and Novoselic have become elder spokesmen for the cool-dad demo—role models for former clubgoers who still fit into their old jeans, even when carpooling the kids to school. The Neptune, 1303 N.E.

& 6-time Grammy winning barisax

Gary Smulyan

Chuck Deardorf, bass Matt Jorgensen, drums

Opening with AHS Jazz Band I directed by John Grabowski & special guest Thomas Marriott

Friday, May 22 - 7:30pm @ Byrnes Performing Arts Center 18821 Crown Ridge Boulevard Arlington, Washington

Tickets: $15 at Flowers by George, 355 N. Olympic Avenue, Downtown Arlington BrownPaperTickets.com Youth under 12, free! • www.arlingtonartscouncil.net Paid for in part by Arlington and Snohomish County Lodging Tax Grants

NADIRAH ZAKARIYA

45th St., 877-784-4849, stgpresents.org. $10.

7 p.m. BRIAN MILLER

Pilobolus dancers in All Is Not Lost.

wherever they’ve gone. But in the meantime, the original group has continued to develop its innovative alternative style. (Through Sat.) Meany Hall (UW campus), 543-4880, uwworldseries.org. $51–$56. 8 p.m. SANDRA KURTZ

FRIDAY, MAY 15

Bike to Work Day

See cascade.org for locations, open 6–9 a.m.

Evening afterparty: Velo Bike Shop, 2151 Sixth Ave. Free. 4:30–6:30 p.m. BRIAN MILLER

This year’s pre-monsoon climbing season on Mt. Everest has—on the Nepal side of the border, at least—been canceled owning to that country’s cataclysmic earthquake. Guided expedition climbing on the Seven Summits is now a profitable niche business, with several Seattle companies serving high-altitude clients. In such a contentious climate, where the average Nepalese citizen is dirt-poor and rich Google executives die on their paid adventures, this 1924 silent film will transport viewers back to the colonial era when mountaineering was a relatively pure, unmonetized pursuit. Recently restored, this is a chronicle of the doomed Mallory-Irvine expedition, which features amazing photography by John Noel (black-and-white, with some scenes tinted). A new orchestral score by Simon Fisher Turner has been added to the account, which also includes much ethno-documentary footage of Tibetan tribes and customs. (Be prepared for the imperialist condescension of the period, 20 years before Heinrich Harrer set foot in Tibet.)

Noel could lug his gear only so high up the Himalayas; Mallory and Irvine’s fate lies beyond his lens. This is a film about the approach to a fatal adventure, and also a record of lost Tibet.

(Through Thurs.) Grand Illusion, 1403 N.E. 50th

St., 523-3935. $5–$9. See grandillusioncinema. org for showtimes. BRIAN MILLER SUNDAY, MAY 17

WE EK LY

Duff McKagan & Krist Novoselic

MONDAY, MAY 18

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

Jessica Hopper

Despite its title, The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic (Featherproof, $17.95) is not the first book of its kind, a fact Hopper clarifies in her preface, citing the anthology Rock She Wrote and critics Ellen Willis, Lillian Roxon, and Caroline Coon. But as Hopper also notes, she should be able to list dozens more such names.

Editor-in-chief of The Pitchfork Review and senior editor at Pitchfork, Hopper knows she’s not the first female critic to dream of publishing a collection, but she acknowledges the lack of precedents.

This volume is drawn from two decades of her writing career: beginning as a teenager contributing to zines and leading to recent work for GQ, Rolling Stone, and The Village Voice. Her subjects range from Chance the Rapper, the grunge years, our own EMP Pop Conference, Coachella and other festivals, and album reviews (Miley Cyrus, Tyler the Creator, M.I.A., etc.) Perhaps The First Collection will inspire a new generation of female critics to start indexing their own archives. Elliott

MUSIC

This is an evening of bro talk, not a musical event, featuring two of our favorite former columnists and SW cover boys. McKagan, erstwhile bassist of Guns N’ Roses, is the one with a second new memoir out, How to Be a Man (Da Capo, $26), and a documentary premiering at SIFF, It’s So Easy and Other Lies (screening May 28 and June 4 at SIFF Cinema Egyptian). His writing topics for us were by no means limited to music; other subjects included hiking, parenthood, and even dating advice. Such wide-ranging

F I LM

All the ladies love Duff.

EV ENT S

Bay Book Co., 1521 10th Ave., 624-6600, elliottbay book.com. Free. 7 p.m. AZARIA C. PODPLESKY E

HA P P Y HO UR

PR OM O T IONS PROMOTIONS NEWSLETTER

The inside scoop on VIP events, free tickets, and event photos.

AR T S A ND ENT ER TA I NM ENT

SEATTLE WEEKLY • M AY 13 — 19, 2015

D I N I NG

The Epic of Everest

BOOTSY HOLLER

The problem is this: Seattle grows ever more crowded and affluent; driving to work has become a stressful suckers’ game, a frustrating, life-shortening ordeal; then, outside your car window, the cyclists sneaking past your traffic-stalled vehicle seem like cheaters. It isn’t fair. You paid taxes for that roadway, right? And there’s the cost of car tabs, gas, insurance, and maybe an auto loan on top of that. Bike to Work Day rankles some motorists, because it seems to privilege a smug class of neon-jacketed free-riders gliding past you during rush hour.

And yet: Why not join them? They’re not a different tribe or caste; they’re just like you, yet opting for a more efficient means of getting to work. Most cycle commuters—me, for example—also own cars, buy gas, pay property taxes, and harbor no ill will toward our office-bound brethren trapped inside their steel cocoons of rage. Biking isn’t a better mode of transportation, and it doesn’t make cyclists better people. It’s just one option among several. Today is thus an occasion to sample that option from the commuter menu. There will always be days—rainy, hectic, errand-filled—for the bus or car. Most all of us Seattle taxpayers will remain trans-bidextrous, using whatever mode best suits our daily needs. Though the very notion of Bike to Work day implies a separate category of commuter, we’re all going to commute by multiple means in the future. We’re all commuters in the same traffic—where the same laws of common sense and courtesy apply. Today, there will be dozens of pop-up commuter stations around town, offering swag, encouragement, and fixes to your bike.

SATURDAY, MAY 16

21

arts&culture»Performance

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Few will forget the extraordinary ending director John Langs added to his 2010 Hamlet, in which—after umpteen poisonings and stabbings effectively eradicated the royal house of Denmark—Hamlet and his father, both dead, walk away together in peace. It filled an emotional story hole that we hadn’t realized existed, because it occurs at the end: What happens next?

Also directing for Seattle Shakespeare Company, Langs’ mesmerizing new Othello offers another apocryphal emotional glimpse—this time, What happened before?

The mood-setting preface depicts Othello (Sean Phillips) and Desdemona (Hillary Clemens) marrying. In African-influenced costumes

by Doris Black, they enter alone (but for one attendant) and enact with a candle a ritual inhaling of each other’s souls. It establishes the worldeclipsing depth and insularity of their relationship—as well as its kindness and intimacy, freed from their respective clans. This anchoring for everything that follows offers a far richer basis for future jealousy than Shakespeare’s racial alarm bells, which provide no sense of what a mystical love is at stake. (Robertson Witmer’s barely audible music and Manchurian Candidatelike sonic triggers lend further intriguing notes of magic in a text known for having none.)

In short order, the union is raked over coals of racism and envy on Jennifer Zeyl’s brazierlike stone set, perforated with doorways and a window for spying. Darragh Kennan’s Iago gracefully weaves through factions of General Othello’s fans and detractors: He’s precise and detached, fanning their loathing and trimming their admiration. Langs constructs efficient contexts for conversation, e.g., a workout session in which Othello’s and Iago’s push-up rhythms speak volumes of their power dynamics. Other subtle shadings of the text come from Trick Danneker as squeaky fop Roderigo, Quinn Franzen as debauched paragon Cassio, and Alexandra Tavares as Iago’s tragic wife and accomplice Emilia (here given a particularly jaundiced take). Clemens, too, packs unexpected complexity into Desdemona’s maturation from lucky girl into the stoic partner in an abusive marriage. (Her multivalent “I am a child to chiding” slayed me.)

Phillips’ initially understated Othello seems to double in size when the telltale hankie—planted “proof ” of Desdemona’s infidelity—hits the fan.

His rage is simultaneously fearsome and pitiable, part angry bull, part self-blaming schoolboy.

Later, with Desdemona in their bath and boudoir, Othello’s homicidal pursuit also registers as masochism for not feeling worthy, for doubting her. There’s a psychological truthfulness reminiscent of a Hitchcock thriller in this long, difficult scene, which includes a wrenching water-cure for the fire within.

This riveting production casts spells you don’t want to miss. MARGARET FRIEDMAN E

stage@seattleweekly.com

Stage OPENINGS & EVENTS

CABARET SEE THE PICK LIST, PAGE 20.

• THE CHILDREN’S HOUR Lillian Hellman’s period piece

form the bad old days when a rumor of lesbianism could end careers and lives. The Ballard Underground, 4240 N.W. Market St., 425-298‐3852. $12–$40. Opens May 14.

7:30 p.m. Fri.–Sat. plus some Tues., Thurs., & Sun; see arouet.us for exact schedule. Ends May 31.

HEDGEBROOK WOMEN PLAYWRIGHTS FESTIVAL

Readings and discussion of new work by six women.

Whidbey Island Center for the Arts, 565 Camano Ave., Langley, 4 p.m. Sun., May 17; ACT, 700 Union St., 7 p.m.

Mon., May 18. $5. hedgebrook.org, acttheatre.org.

IMPROV FOR NEPAL A comedy showcase for earthquake relief. Jet City Improv, 5510 University Way N.E., jetcity improv.org. $20. 7:30 p.m. Sun., May 17.

JEEVES INTERVENES That paragon of butlers, creation of P.G. Wodehouse, lives again. Taproot Theatre, 204 N. 85th St., 781-9707, taproottheatre.org. $20–$40. Previews May 13–14, opens May 15. 7:30 p.m. Wed.–Thurs., 8 p.m. Fri., 2 & 8 p.m. Sat. Ends June 13.

JURASSIC PARK Another in Ian Bell’s Brown Derby Series of cult films comically deconstructed onstage. Re-bar, 1114 Howell St. $20–$25. 8 p.m. Thurs., May 14–Sat., May 16.

PLANET XXXPRESS This Futurama-themed burlesque show stars Lowa DeBoomBoom, Vanadium Silver, and many others. JewelBox Theater at the Rendezvous, 2322 Second Ave., 800-838-3006, brownpapertickets.com. $18–$30. 7:30 p.m. Fri., May 15–Sat., May 16.

GOLDEN DRAGON WATER PUPPET THEATRE Saigon’s folk-theater troupe is accompanied by a seven-member orchestra. Town Hall, 1119 Eighth Ave., townhallseattle. org. $5–$15. 7 p.m. Fri., May 15; 11 a.m. & 2 & 7 p.m. Sat., May 16–Sun., May 17; 10:30 a.m. & noon Tues., May 19.

TALLEY’S FOLLY Lanford Wilson’s 1980 Pulitzer winner features interfaith romance, rural poverty, racism, and war. Did we mention it’s a comedy? Seattle Public Theater at the Bathhouse, 7312 W. Greenlake Dr. N., 524-1300, seattlepublictheater.org. $5–$32. Preview May 14, opens May 15. 7:30 p.m. Thurs.–Sat., 2 p.m. Sun. Ends May 31.

CURRENT RUNS

AND, AND, AND, ISABELLA BOOTLEGS In Samantha

Cooper’s play, 17-year-old Brooklyn has to deal with a paranoid, isolated mother. Cornish Playhouse, Seattle Center, machamonkey.org. $18–$20. 8 p.m. Thurs.–Sat. plus Mon., May 18. Ends May 22.

ANGRY HOUSEWIVES A revival of the long-running ’80s musical, created by A.M. Collins and Chad Henry.

Widowed Carol (Ann Cornelius), divorced music teacher Bev (Heather Hawkins), unhappily married Jetta (Chelsea LeValley), and single bridge operator Wendi (Janet McWilliams) decide to form a band. From there we witness how adapting punk personas creates both empowerment (for them) and disapproval (from their men). Ably directed by Shawn Belyea, the entire cast provides potent performances. ALYSSA DYKSTERHOUSE ArtsWest, 4711 California Ave. S.W., 938-0339, artswest.org. $17–$36.50.

7:30 p.m. Wed.–Sat., 3 p.m. Sun. Ends May 24.

BUNNIES Keiko Green’s pedantic mashup of The Bacchae and environmental armageddon chronicles a crew of castoff cottontails bent on revenge against humanity. Under the humdrum direction of Pamala Mijatov, the long-eared chorus doesn’t do much hopping or exhibit other animal attributes. The human foes prove more intelligible and interesting. Bunnies lacks catharsis, doing a disservice to both Euripides and Dionysus. ALYSSA DYKSTERHOUSE Annex Theatre, 1100 E. Pike St., 728-0933, annextheatre. org. $5–$20. 8 p.m. Thurs.–Sat. Ends May 16.

CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF Laura Griffith and Brandon O’Neill as Maggie and Brick are just two examples of the superb casting in this Tennessee Williams revival, directed by Kurt Beattie. O’Neill’s portrait of the multiply wounded ex-athlete is a cocktail of bitterness and dry, resigned wit. Griffith’s Maggie and John Aylward’s breathtakingly good Big Daddy come off as fascinating mirror images. Testament to the excellent acting is that the play’s frankness of language and subject matter still shock, 60 years after Cat’s premiere. GAVIN BORCHERT ACT, 700 Union St., 292-7676. $15–$44. Runs Tues.–Sun.; see acttheatre.org for exact schedule. Ends May 17.

DON NORDO DEL MIDWEST Food is the focus of Café Nordo’s absurdist, comedic storylines; actors and musicians interact and play among the audience. After getting fired from a steakhouse because he tried to invigorate the menu, Don Nordo hires his own sous chef, and the two set out on a series of food-inspired adventures designed mostly to set up jokes about our rabid foodie culture. Yet even as Sancho and the Don’s relationship gains heft, lifting it out of mere allusions to Don Quixote, the food disappoints. NICOLE SPRINKLE Nordo’s Culinarium, 109 S. Main St., cafenordo.com. $75 ($100 w/wine flight). 7:30 p.m. Thurs. & Sun., 8 p.m. Fri.–Sat. Ends May 31.

•

THE FEAST When the world’s meat disappears and

everyone’s an involuntary vegetarian, one particular dinner party doesn’t end well in Celine Song’s satire. The Schmee, 2125 Third Ave., 800-838-3006, map-theatre.com.

Name your own price. 8 p.m. Thurs.–Sat. Ends May 16.

H.P. LOVECRAFT: STAND-UP COMEDIAN The cult horror author gets a comedy-club spin. “Can Howie pull off one last sold-out gig before the human race is destroyed?” Annex Theatre, 1100 E. Pike St., 728-0933, annextheatre.org. $5–$10. 8 p.m. Tues.–Wed. Ends May 13.

EL HIJO PRODIGO In José Amador’s solo memoir, he returns to Puerto Rico after 22 years. West of Lenin, 203 N. 36th St., 352-1777, westoflenin.com. $10–$15. 7:30 p.m.

Thurs.–Sat. Ends May 16.

JACQUES BREL IS ALIVE AND WELL & LIVING IN PARIS Jacques Brel’s songs were a touchstone for

•

• •

• PILOBOLUS SEE THE PICK LIST, PAGE 20.

Classical, Etc.

• UW CHAMBER ORCHESTRA Curiosities by, and

inspired by, Mozart. Brechemin Auditorium, School of Music, UW campus, 685-8384, music.washington.edu. $5.

7:30 p.m. Wed., May 13.

PHILIP GLASS In conversation with cellist Rajan Krishnaswami, touring for his memoir Words Without Music. Town Hall, 1119 Eighth St., 624-6600, elliottbaybook. com. $37–$42 (incl. book). 7:30 p.m. Wed., May 13.

SEATTLE OPERA Most of the magic in Chris Alexander’s staging of Richard Strauss’ 1916 meta-opera Ariadne auf Naxos is concentrated in Act 2. A wealthy patron is presenting an opera on the Greek myth of the title—and also engaged a commedia dell’arte troupe to perform, which invades and comments on the opera. Act 1 shows the backstage preparations for all this, centering on the achingly idealistic Composer—Kate Lindsey, ardent and soaring. Act 2 boasts Christiane Libor as Ariadne, the cool gleam of her soprano a glorious complement to Strauss’ radiant orchestration, her delivery palpitating with emotion. GAVIN BORCHERT McCaw Hall, 321 Mercer St. (Seattle Center), 389-7676, seattleopera.org. $25 and up.

7:30 p.m. Wed., May 13, Fri., May 15, Sat., May 16.

INVERTED SPACE Stockhausen’s Stimmung, a meditative 70-minute piece for voices. Chapel Performance Space, 4649 Sunnyside Ave., waywardmusic.org. $5–$15.

7:30 p.m. Thurs., May 14.

NORTHWEST SINFONIETTA Beethoven, Mendelssohn, and two new works by Taiwanese composers. Benaroya Recital Hall, Third Ave. & Union St., 215-4747, northwest sinfonietta.org. $20–$40. 7:30 p.m. Fri., May 15.

CAPPELLA ROMANA Schnittke’s Verses of Repentance and Rachmaninoff’s Concerto for Choir. Trinity Parish Church, 609 Eighth Ave., 503-236-8202, cappellaromana. org. $22 and up. 8 p.m. Fri., May 15.

SEATTLE SYMPHONY Vivaldi and a wine-tasting.

Benaroya Hall, Third Ave. & Union St., 215-4747, seattle symphony.org. $20–$76. 8 p.m. Fri., May 15–Sat., May 16.

MEDIEVAL WOMEN’S CHOIR St. Hildegard of Bingen’s medieval morality play Ordo virtutum. Seattle Public Library, 1000 Fourth Ave., medievalwomenschoir.org.

8 p.m. Fri., May 15–Sat., May 16.

UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE PROJECT To complement Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale, Jovino Santos Neto has written Saci—a Brazilian Folktale, also for seven musicians and narrator. Velocity Dance Center, 1621 12th Ave., 800-838-3006, universallanguageproject.com. $10–$25.

8 p.m. Fri., May 15–Sat., May 16.

CANDICE CHIN With pianist Jason Kuo, violin music by Beethoven, Kriesler, and others. Seattle Public Library, 1000 Fourth Ave. Free. 3 p.m. Sat., May 16.

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special guest AYRON JONES & THE WAY

FRIDAY JULY 3 | THE MOORE produced in association with PCI EVENTS

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THE SILK ROAD: TRADE AND THE CURRENCY OF MUSIC Five musicians from cultures based along the

ancient Asian trade route. Trinity Parish Church, 609 Eighth Ave., 200-3394. $5–$20. 7:30 p.m. Sat., May 16.

PUGET SOUND SYMPHONY Shostakovich, Wagner, and Dvorak’s Seventh. Town Hall, 1119 Eighth Ave., 800-8383006, psso.org. $5–$8. 7:30 p.m. Sat., May 16.

CHORAL ARTS Music by John Muehleisen and Melinda Bargreen. St. Joseph Parish, 732 18th Ave. E., choral-arts. org. $20–$25. 8 p.m. Sat., May 16.

CONCERT IMAGINAIRE From this new-music ensemble, a five-minute opera and settings of Dickinson and Poe. Chapel Performance Space, 4649 Sunnyside Ave., waywardmusic.org. $5–$15. 8 p.m. Sat., May 16.

14/48: BOOMBOX Twelve composers will make new five-minute pieces in 48 hours, to be premiered by a band.

12th Avenue Arts, 1620 12th Ave., the1448projects.org. $15–$20. 9:30 & 11:30 p.m. Sat., May 16.

SEATTLE SYMPHONY UNTUXED An informal one-hour concert: Strauss’ Don Juan and Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet. Benaroya Hall, Third Ave. & Union St., 215-4747, seattlesymphony.org. $17–$81. 2 p.m. Sun., May 17.

MASTER CHORUS EASTSIDE Bach, Faure, and more.

Bellevue Presbyterian Church, 1717 Bellevue Way N.E., Bellevue, 425-392-8446, masterchoruseastside.org. $15–$20. 3 p.m. Sun., May 17.

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SEATTLE/SEATTLE CHAMBER • ORCHESTRA Copland, Bernstein, and more from mid-cenSINGERS

tury America. First Free Methodist Church, 3200 Third Ave. W., osscs.org. $10–$25. 3 p.m. Sun., May 17.

ANGELA HEWITT Renowned for her Bach, this pianist also plays Beethoven and Liszt. Meany Hall, UW campus, 5434880, uwworldseries.org. $40–$45. 7:30 p.m. Mon., May 18.

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

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SEATTLE WEEKLY • M AY 13 — 19, 2015

postwar Europe, their fragililty and terror, beauty and hopefulness a reflection of his world. It’s not a bad fit for us either, and this production tries hard to make that point.

Not every tune works, but Brel’s genius carries the night, and the cast does a fine job of bringing these songs to life.

MARK BAUMGARTEN ACT Theatre, 700 Union St., 2927676, 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.

JASPER IN DEADLAND SEE FEATURE, PAGE 20.

LITTLE BEE In Book-It’s version of Chris Cleave’s 2008 novel, who in the world gets to live in peaceful prosperity is the thorniest of many conundrums. Brits Sarah (a wistful, compelling Sydney Andrews) and Andrew (Eric Riedmann) cavort on a Nigerian beach where they meet locals Little Bee and her sister just before the adolescent girls are kidnapped by insurgents.Later in England, these scarred individuals must come to terms with what they have seen in themselves and in others.

The show depends—and succeeds—on the basis of its star, Claudine Mboligikpelani Nako. With shy smile and unflinching gaze, her Little Bee radiates intelligence.

MARGARET FRIEDMAN Center Theatre at the Armory, Seattle Center, 216-0833. $25. Runs Wed.–Sun.; see bookit.org for exact schedule. Ends May 17.

OTHELLO SEE REVIEW, PAGE 22.

OUTSIDE MULLINGAR There’s nothing the least bit edgy about John Patrick Shanley’s Irish rom-com, nor excessively sappy. Rosemary Muldoon (Emily Chisholm) has been nursing a grudge against Anthony Reilly (M.J. Sieber) for decades: At 13, he shoved her when she was 6. Now she owns a strip of land that blocks his family’s property from the road—compromising a possible sale.

As the romantic pursuer, however bitter, Rosemary seethes, stews, smokes, pines, coaxes, goads, accuses, and corners. Sieber, playing an evasive depressive, is stuck in defensive mode. Still, the 90-minute one-act flies by, the excellent performances expedited by lyrical language and jaunty passing humor. 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 May 17.

THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA Andrew Lloyd Webber’s touring musical features all the hit songs, plus revamped stagecraft. The Paramount, 911 Pine St., 877-STG-4TIX, stgpresents.org. $30 and up. 7:30 p.m. Tues.–Thurs., 8 p.m.

Fri., 2 & 8 p.m. Sat., 1 & 6:30 p.m. Sun. Ends May 24.

R.A.F.T. That stands for Rabbits Afloat From Thuringia in Jonah Von Spreecken and Ali el-Gasseir’s all-ages liveaction cartoon series about two bunnies’ seagoing adventures (with special adult performances 10:30 p.m. Fri., May 8 & 22). 12th Avenue Arts, 1620 12th Ave., washington ensemble.org. $5–$10. 11 a.m. Sat.–Sun. Ends May 24.

ROBIN HOOD The evergreen adventure tale promises not to be too intense. But will it turn your kids to socialists with all that talk of robbing from the rich? Seattle Children’s Theatre, Seattle Center, 441-3322, sct.org. $20 and up. 7 p.m. Thurs.–Fri.; 2 & 5:30 p.m. Sat.; 11 a.m. & 2:30 p.m. Sun. Ends May 17.

THE TALL GIRLS In rural Oklahoma during the 1930s, we meet five young women vying to play basketball. In Meg Miroshnik’s drama, the odds are stacked against women, yet The Tall Girls seems to be about more than what’s being delivered in this production, directed by Kelly Kitchens. Miroshnik’s text lacks credibility: Basketball is here a pipe dream for most of these characters—unless fatalism is her point here. IRFAN SHARIFF 12th Avenue Arts, 1620 12th Ave., washingtonensemble.org. $15–$25.

7:30 p.m. Thurs.–Mon. Ends May 18.

TAPE Stephen Belber’s 1999 play “follows classical unities of action, time, and space, featuring three characters in a single plot narrative regarding their differing perspectives of past events, in one unbroken period of real time, in a single motel-room set.” 2220 N.W. Market St., gilmore actingstudio.org. $24. 7:30 p.m. Fri.–Sat. Ends May 23.

TILT ANGEL Dan Dietz’s play “about a ghost-mom, an outsized agoraphobic son, an auto-repair dad, and a heavenly messenger with unfinished business.” And live blues.

West of Lenin, 203 N. 36th St., theatersimple.org. $15–$25.

8 p.m. Thurs.–Sat., 2 p.m. Sun. Ends May 17.

Dance

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SEATTLE WEEKLY

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arts&culture» Visual & Literary Arts Openings & Events • CAPITOL HILL ART WALK Along with the typical

players, of note are a show by Japanese pop-art painter Yumiko Kayukawa at Grace Gallery and col·li·sion by Jacob Dixon, Specs Wizard and Sir Froderick at Vermillion. Capitol Hill, capitolhillartwalk.com. 5-8 p.m. Thurs., May 14.

FIONA MCGUIGAN She creates the same image over and over again in Repetition, Paradoxically Is Always New. This is apparently a one-off event, which promises an “opening and closing reception,” 5:30-9:30 p.m.

Thurs., May 14. Calypte Gallery, 1107 E. Denny Way, 304-6782, calyptesings.tumblr.com.

AKIO TAKAMORI His sculptures piece together a narrative through psychological spaces in The Beginning of Everything. Opening reception: 6-8 p.m. Thurs., May 14. James Harris Gallery, 604 Second Ave., 903-6220, jamesharrisgallery.com. 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Wed.-Sat. Ends June 27.

Ongoing

• CHIHO AOSHIMA This is SAAM’s second exhibit by

a contemporary young Japanese artist associated with Takashi Murakami. (The artist known as Mr. was the guy who recently filled a gallery with tsunami detritus.)

Aoshima is a woman, however, who ought to provide a different perspective on the oppressive sexism of most anime. In addition to 30-plus drawings and two large “dreamscapes,” her show Rebirth of the World will include new animated work, Takaamanohara (or The Plain of High Heaven), dealing with Shinto deities. In her typically colorful paintings, ethereal kawaii sprites roam in enchanted glades where the colors are anything but natural. Long, undulating hair mixes into the undgrowth and vines, suggesting deeper connections to the planet. There are cityscapes, too, as in her 2005 animation City Glow, where the towers rise like wormy, human-faced figures. The corporeal, architectural, and natural realms blur together in her work.

Aoshima is a syncretist whose diverse subjects grow from the same spiritual undercurrent. BRIAN MILLER Seattle Asian Art Museum, 1400 E. Prospect St. (Volunteer Park), 654-3100, seattleartmuseum.org. $5-$9. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Wed., Fri.-Sun. 10 a.m.-9 p.m.

Thurs. Ends Oct. 4.

ILSE BING An early user of the 35mm Leica hand-held camera, the German Bing (1889-1998) is known as a pioneering woman in European photography. Ilse Bing: Modern Photographer is a selection of her images.

Henry Art Gallery, 4100 15th Ave. N.E. (UW campus), 543-2280, henryart.org. $6-$10. 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Wed., Sat., Sun. 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Thurs.-Fri. Ends Oct. 11.

FRED BIRCHMAN AND CAROLYN KRIEG Birchman focuses on architecture and landscape in Reclamation Projects. Krieg shows equine photographs in Horses.

Prographica Gallery, 3419 E. Denny Way, 322-3851, prographicadrawings.com. 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Wed.-Sat. Ends June 20.

LUKE BLACKSTONE I Might Be Nothing is a showcase of his sculpture work, often including found materials and technologies, which comments on the shifting relationship between humans and machines. Bellevue College Gallery Space, 3000 Landerholm Circle S.E., 425-564-2788, bellevuecollege.edu. 9:30 a.m.-4 p.m.

Mon.-Thurs. Ends May 22.

CALLIGRAPHIC ABSTRACTION A collection of 35 works in calligraphy spanning from Islamic to archaic Chinese to the contemporary writing system created by artist Xu Bing. Seattle Asian Art Museum. Ends Oct. 4.

VIVIAN CHESTERLEY Journey collects paintings that combine realistic images of flowers and more abstract landscapes. Bainbridge Performing Arts, 200 Madison Ave. N., 842-4560, bainbridgeperformingarts.org. Noon-5 p.m. Tues.-Fri. Ends May 31.

JIM CHUCHU Pagans is a photo/video series that reimagines African deities. Mariane Ibrahim Gallery, 1203 Second Ave., 467-4927, marianeibrahim.com.

11 a.m.-5 p.m. Tues.-Sat. Ends June 13.

NANCY COLEMAN In Textus, she uses painted, woven text to study the space between literal and abstract. Gallery 110, 110 Third Ave. (Tashiro Kaplan Building), 624-9336, gallery110.com. Noon-5 p.m.

Wed.-Sat. Ends May 30.

IMOGEN CUNNINGHAM 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.

BEN DARBY Auspicious features dolls, toys, and Godzilla molds. Foster/White Gallery, 220 Third Ave S., 6222833, fosterwhite.com. 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tues.-Sat. Ends May 30.

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LINDA DAVIDSON AND SAYA MORIYASU Road

Trip is a collection of new paintings from Davidson, featuring skies, landscapes, and rainbows. Moriyasu’s exhibit, Parlor, uses a variety of media to consider what might be called the inner life of her own ceramics studio. Opens Fri., April 24. G. Gibson Gallery, 300 S. Washington St. (Tashiro Kaplan Building), 587-4033, ggibsongallery.com. 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Wed.-Sat. Ends June 6.

• ELOQUENT OBJECTS Although the tendency would be to view this selection of Southwestern art as a Georgia O’Keeffe show (with 22 of her paintings on view), the intent is to bring the New Mexico still-life tradition out of the desert and to our mossy climes.

Thus another 40-odd works will represent her peers and heirs: Stuart Davis, Marsden Hartley, Gustave Baumann, Eliseo Rodriguez, and a dozen more.

Flowers, cow skulls, cacti, and the Painted Desert are surely represented here, but there’s a meditative way of seeing that’s equally important to the arid inspiration. The desert strips away everything excess (recall Peter O’Toole’s T.E. Lawrence saying he liked the desert because “It’s clean”), always a useful lesson for artists. This touring show is making its only West Coast stop in Tacoma. TAM has more works by O’Keeffe (1887–1986) in its permanent collection (some added with the recent Haub family bequest), though she’s the main draw here, and her influence extends far beyond Santa Fe. We’ll see that reach in a concurrently running companion show, The Still Life Tradition in the Northwest, featuring local names like Morris Graves, Norman Lundin, and Doris Chase. BRIAN MILLER Tacoma Art Museum, 1701 Pacific Ave., (252) 2724258, tacomaartmuseum.org. $14. 10 a.m.-5 p.m.

Tues.-Sun. Ends June 7.

Author Events The eminent composer has written • PHILIP GLASS Words Without Music, which he’ll discuss

Bullseye 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-$10. 11 a.m.-6 p.m.

Tues.-Sun. Ends June 14.

JEN ERICKSON Her paintings deal with loss and decomposition. Punch Gallery, 119 Prefontaine Pl. S. (Tashiro Kaplan Building), 621-1945, punchgallery. org. Noon-5 p.m. Thurs.-Sat. Ends May 30.

EVERYTHING YOUR HEART DESIRES Five Seattle film and video artists try to answer the question, “What do you want most?” SOIL Gallery, 112 Third Ave. S. (Tashiro Kaplan Building), 264-8061, soilart.org.

Noon-5 p.m. Thurs.-Sun. Ends May 30.

GET THE SCOOP! This show is all about spoons and ladles, made predominantly from clay. Pottery Northwest, 226 First Ave. N., 285-4421, potterynorthwest.org. 11 a.m.-5 p.m., Tues.-Fri. Ends May 29.

ROBERT HARDGRAVE Cullom Gallery collaborates with the host venue to present Die Kopie, a collection of large-scale collaged and toner-transfer work. Studio E Gallery, 609 S. Brandon St., 762-3322, studioegallery. org. Hours by appointment. Ends June 6.

HENRY HORNSTEIN He presents black-and-white photos taken at horse tracks around the coutry, with images dating back to the early ’70s, in Racing Days.

(NR) Photo Center NW, 900 12th Ave., 720-7222, pcnw.org. Noon-9 p.m. Mon.-Sat. Ends June 13.

INDIGENOUS BEAUTY New York collectors Charles and Valerie Diker have a good eye for Native American art, augmented by professional curators and buyers.

This traveling private collection offers a lot to see from every corner of the continent, including over 500 tribes and 2,000 years of history (up to the present era).

You want Hopi pottery? You got it. Navajo blankets?

Those too. Tlingit tunics and Washoe baskets? Check and check. Also on view are pipes, drums, bowls, war clubs, ivory carvings, rattles, rugs, moccasins, combs, dolls, purses, and even a bit of metalwork and ink-on-paper drawing—after those materials were introduced by European colonists. The show feels like a compressed visit to a dozen different museums scattered across the U.S., Canada, and Mexico—a sampler of sorts. You want to see more, but you also want to see more focus on history, tribe, or region. It’s the functional aesthetic here that’s most powerful and affecting. Nothing here is merely decorative. If you’re going to make a pair of high-top Kiowa moccasins, why not make them lovely—with elaborate tassels and beadwork? BRIAN MILLER Seattle Art Museum, 1300 First Ave., 654-3121, seattleartmuseum.org. $12.50$19.50. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Wed.-Sun. (Open to 9 p.m.

Thurs.) Ends May 17.

a memoir, with Rajan Krishnaswami. Town Hall, 7:30 p.m. 1119 Eighth Ave., 652-4255, townhallseattle.org. $37-$42.

7:30 p.m. Wed., May 13.

GESHE THUPTEN JINPA The longtime translator to the Dalai Lama talks about A Fearless Heart: How the Courage to Be Compassionate Can Transform Our Lives in Kane Hall. UW Campus, 634-3400, bookstore.washington.edu. Sold out. 7 p.m. Wed., May 13.

PATRICIA PARK Re Jane is a modern retelling of Jane Eyre through the eyes of a young KoreanAmerican woman. Third Place Books, 17171 Bothell Way N.E., 366-3333, thirdplacebooks.com. 7 p.m.

Wed., May 13.

TONY ANGELL The artist and naturalist shows images from his new book, The House of Owls, with art featured at his recent show at Foster/White Gallery.

University Book Store, 4326 University Way N.E., 634-3400, bookstore.washington.edu. 7 p.m. Thurs., May 14.

MEGAN A. CARNEY She talks about The Unending Hunger, a portrait of immigrant women in Kane Hall.

UW Campus, 5:30 p.m. Thurs., May 14.

PETER HELLER The novelist discusses The Painter; see spl.org for more library appearances through Sunday.

Capitol Hill Branch Library, 425 Harvard Ave. E., 684-4715. 7 p.m. Thurs., May 14.

JANICE NIMURA Her new Daughters of the Samurai takes place in 1871, when five young Japanese girls are sent to the U.S. for schooling. Seattle Asian Art Museum, 1400 E. Prospect St. (Volunteer Park), 654-3100, seattleartmuseum.org. Free7 p.m. Thurs., May 14.

JUDY REEVES She discusses Wild Women, Wild Voice, her guide for writers. Third Place, 7 p.m. Thurs., May 14.

JEN LANCASTER I Regret Nothing is a memoir about a midlife crisis that spurs a bucket-list quest. University Book Store, 7 p.m. Fri., May 15.

JAY RUBIN The translator, known for his work with Haruki Murakami, discusses his own novel, The Sun Gods, about the WWII-era destruction of Japantown (now the ID) here in Seattle. Elliott Bay Book Co., 1521 10th Ave., 624-6600, elliottbaybook.com. 7 p.m.

Fri., May 15.

M.J. BEAUFRAND The Rise and Fall of the Gallivanters is a new YA novel, set in the 1980s punk scene in Portland, where a serial killer is running loose.

University Book Store, 6 p.m. Sat., May 16.

MICHAEL V. SMITH My Body Is Yours is a new memoir from the gay Canadian writer and performance artist.

Elliott Bay, 7 p.m. Sat., May 16.

ELLE LUNA She talks about her self-help guide, The Crossroads of Should and Must: Find and Follow Your Passion. Elliott Bay, 3 p.m. Sun., May 17.

ROBIN LADUE AND MARY KAY VOSS The authors explore Native American history and culture in the aftermath of 9/11 in their Totems of September.

University Book Store, 7 p.m. Mon., May 18.

HEATHER LENDE Find the Good is a new book from the popular Alaska memoirist (If You Lived Here, I’d Know Your Name). University Book Store, 7 p.m. Mon., May 18.

THE MINIMALISTS Creators of the site TheMinimalists. com, Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus read and are accompanied by other talented authors (Colin Write, Josh Wagner, Shawn Mihalik) and violinist Skye Steele for a night of words, music, and Q&As. Third Place, 7 p.m. Mon., May 18.

NEAL STEPHENSON The local Zodiac author presents his latest sci-fi novel, Seveneves. First Baptist Church, 1111 Harvard Ave., 325-6051, seattlefirstbaptist.org. $35. 7:30 p.m. Mon., May 18.

DAVID GESSNER All the Wild That Remains is the latest book from the North Carolina nature writer. Elliott Bay, 7 p.m. Tues., May 19. (Also: Third Place, 7 p.m.

Thurs., May 21.)

KIMBERLY MARLOWE HARTNETT She shares from her new book, Carolina Israelite: How Harry Golden Made Us Care about Jews, the South, and Civil Rights.

University Book Store, 7 p.m. Tues., May 19.

GREG PROOPS The Whose Line Is It Anyway? comedian discusses The Smartest Book in the World, a collection of essays, trivia, and lists. University Book Store, 7 p.m. Tues., May 19.

BY D IA NA M . LE

BY D IA NA M . LE

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

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» Film MAY ��–��

Escapist Velocity

SHOWTIM ES

MAY 15 - 21

WORKING GIRL

FRI - Mon @ 7:00PM / SAT @ 3:00PM

The Mad Max reboot gives us all the requisite summer thrills, but skimps on the desert mythology.

BY BRIAN MILLER

MAY ��–��

Max (Hardy) is a man of action, not words.

NEW RESTORATION!

POOTIE TANG

FRI DAY-TUESDAY @ 9:30PM

IN HECKLEVISION

KINDERGARTEN COP

THURSDAY @ 8:00PM CUTE NIGHT - TUESDAY @ 7:00PM

MAP THEATRE: SIMPSONS TRIVIA NIGHT - WEDNESDAY @ 7:00PM

JASIN BOLAND/WARNER BROS.

M

alliance; the rest of the movie is essentially Stagecoach with explosions—though not much humor.

(Miller’s still, silent moments have equal power, but he seldom pauses.)

Fury Road is masterfully kinetic and often downright berserk, which oughtn’t be surprising.

Miller’s first three movies, made between 1979 and 1985, were accomplished sans CGI. Now, without undercranking the camera’s frame rate, he has the ability to throttle seamlessly between action fast and slow, shooting from any perspective. And because Fury Road is designed for 3-D (yes, worth the ticket price), that means endless amounts of sand, car parts, spears, harpoons, grenades, chainsaws, and fists being flung in your face . . . I mean Max’s face.

And, frankly, the more stuff being thrown in your face, the less time you have to worry about the plot holes or rushed heap of an ending. (An eager preview audience seemed too exhausted to applaud.) Miller is 70, and I do have to wonder why Warner Brothers didn’t order three new Maxes at once, Hobbit-style. Hardy and Theron are absolutely fit and terrific in their roles right now, and the public is clearly clamoring for this franchise reboot—rather like Star Wars, another series in danger of being embalmed by our pre-digital nostalgia. There’s too much hasty backstory here— Max’s family trauma, and Furiosa’s, plus those rival clans—to be compressed into a single movie. A grizzled faction leader sighs of Joe’s bloodlust, “All this for a family squabble.” I think that’s the reason people love Game of Thrones so much: A TV series has time to explain the slow-simmering politics and passions behind sudden spasms of violence.

But sequels or no, Fury Road will please fans of Miller’s original trilogy (which honestly turned rather campy come Thunderdome), of Hardy, and of Theron. As it did me. And yet for all the daredevil moments of dangling and leaping between speeding vehicles, I wish—speaking of Theron—the movie had taken a real risk. Why not Mad Maxine? E

bmiller@seattleweekly.com

MAD MAX: FURY ROAD Opens Fri., May 15 at Majestic Bay, Ark Lodge, Pacific Place, Thornton Place, Sundance, and others. Rated R. 120 minutes.

���� NE ��TH STREET | ���-����

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SEATTLE WEEKLY • M AY 13 — 19, 2015

ost film snobs are gross hypocrites. I know I am. Me, I couldn’t care less about those wisecracking Marvel movies or DC’s brooding caped superheroes. I’d rather watch my scratchy old VHS tape of Ladri di Biciclette for the thousandth time. But then there are the Mad Max pictures, George Miller’s crazy post-apocalyptic trilogy of Outback Westerns, which during the ’80s gained international recognition for Mel Gibson (no more on that subject, I promise), sand, speed, and arid humor. They’re violent and nearly nihilistic cartoons, no more plausible than The Avengers, and I love them. After porking around in Babe-land for the better part of three decades, Miller is now back with Mad Max: Fury Road.

Tom Hardy takes the title role. Charlize Theron plays a buzzcut-wearing, lethal, one-handed turncoat named Furiosa. Though this movie makes me feel like driving fast through the desert, there’s no way I’d stop to offer either of them a ride.

Regardless how thrilling the action in this nearconstant chase movie, Max and Furiosa haven’t got anything interesting to say. Hardy spends the first 30 minutes—after a prologue explaining Earth’s environmental ruin—silently wearing a muzzle. Recurring nightmares hint at Max’s tortured past, while Furiosa eventually explains her slavery and revolt. Miller and his co-writers have some sort of dense desert mythology in mind, with internecine conflict among rival families: one has the oil, another the water, the third the bullets.

Or that’s my best guess. The accents and engine noise make the dialogue and exposition mostly unintelligible, and I don’t think Miller really cares.

Max is swiftly captured by the water-controlling clan, led by a masked Geezer of Oz dubbed Immortan Joe. He rules his slave-labor kingdom with a pasty-white caste called the “War Boys,” who look like Nosferatu after bulking up at the gym. (Among these fanatical brainwashed mole rats, Nux—British actor Nicholas Hoult—will eventually switch sides.) Furiosa is the first to betray her master, stealing a tanker truck containing five of his nubile wives, at least one them pregnant. (Babies are male property, like gasoline and water.) Bound for her female-ruled homeland, Furiosa and Max inevitably form an

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SEATTLE WEEKLY • MAY 13 — 19, 2015

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FILM NEWSLETTER The inside scoop on

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HAPPY HOUR

Heaven Adores You RUNS FRI., MAY 15–TUES., MAY 26 AT NORTHWEST FILM FORUM. NOT RATED. 104 MINUTES.

Near the end of Nickolas Dylan Rossi’s documentary about Elliott Smith, the late artist’s former collaborator and good friend Sean Croghan offers a hope: “Maybe we can just get past the drama and start to focus on what he created.”

PR O M O

It’s a coda that affirms the artistry of Smith, the downcast balladeer beloved by his fans for raw, emotional lyricism buoyed by an otherworldly sense of melody (made famous for his Oscarnominated song “Miss Misery” from Good Will Hunting). The drama to which Croghan refers is both the songwriter’s untimely 2003 death at age 34—a suicide by most accounts—and the struggles with mental illness and drug addiction that preceded it. And while Rossi does touch on the darkness that swirled around Smith, Heaven Adores You is eager—sometimes too eager—to move on to the next album, the next show.

It’s a very different approach than 2009’s doc Searching for Elliott Smith, in which director Gil Reyes delved deep into that darkness. Smith’s family wasn’t on board with that effort, so none of his music was included. And, let’s be honest, a Smith documentary without those cascading finger-picked melodies is a tough sell. However,

AR T S AND E NT E R TAI NM

Smith in the darkness.

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He looks like a junkie, she doesn’t; but maybe that’s the point. Animals seeks to humanize the struggle of two lovers in the throes of addiction by depicting them as ordinary people who fell through the cracks. They drive an Oldsmobile, they go to the zoo, and every so often they run a scam or steal CDs and buy heroin with the proceeds. We don’t witness the preceding days of wine and roses, since when we meet them, Jude (David Dastmalchian) and Bobbie (Kim Shaw) are already living on the street—in the Olds, actually—and shooting up in diner bathrooms. But they speak of their respectable middleclass backgrounds and display enough humor to suggest they weren’t born into this grind.

Addiction dramas tend to unfold along formulaic lines, and Animals is no exception.

It does have grit, and it feels rooted in crummy details that lend authenticity. (The film’s publicity discreetly suggests that screenwriter Dastmalchian drew upon his own experiences.) Director Collin Schiffli takes a fittingly intimate approach—the film isn’t artful, in the way of Gus Van Sant’s superb Drugstore Cowboy, but Schiffli does get something haunting going in the vacant Chicago streets and the rapport of the two lead performers. The only other notable actor is John Heard, whose kindly night watchman reminds us that his volcanic performance in Cutter’s Way (1981) really was a lifetime ago. Less convincing is the movie’s attempt at paralleling the images of zoo animals with the bestial state inhabited by Jude and Bobbie during their time on the streets.

This kind of movie can boost the fortunes of little-known actors, and it should do that for Dastmalchian and Shaw. Her girl-next-door appearance suits the film’s everyday horror, and she has a great dead-eyed moment when Bobbie suggests that Jude’s best chance of stealing a woman’s purse is to threaten the unfortunate lady’s baby. Dastmalchian, whose ghostly appearance worked well as a Joker henchman in The Dark Knight, is freakishly thin and ghoul-eyed; he could play a 19th-century grave-robber, or maybe the Babadook. Throughout the film he wears an expression of dazed disbelief, just a beat or two behind the action. Whether shooting up in the Oldsmobile or mounting a staircase to score from an unfamiliar drug peddler, he looks as though he can’t understand—or remember—exactly how he got here. ROBERT HORTON

E VE NT S

the same can be said of a film that doesn’t delve into the darkness that fed Smith’s art.

His family evidently cooperated this time, so fans will enjoy this doc for the music alone. And it’s not just the hits here. Before Rossi gets to “Waltz #2” and “Say Yes,” he traverses the efforts of a younger Smith, then living in Dallas and going by his given name of Steve. There is one of his first songs, “Outward Bound,” then some deep cuts from Smith’s earliest bands—Stranger Than Fiction, Harum Scarum—and his successful Portland grunge outfit Heatmiser.

Between songs, Rossi traces Smith’s life through his discography, using all of the Heatmiser and solo albums as signposts. A montage of archival imagery and modern-day street scenes from Smith’s three artistic homes (Portland, New York, Los Angeles) provide visual cues, while old interviews with the plainspoken artist are, somewhat eerily, interwoven with commentary from nearly 30 close friends and colleagues, as well as his sister.

The stories are entertaining, sometimes funny, often enlightening, and at times moving. But the darkness, which clearly informed Smith’s art and made the 2013 biography Torment Saint feel so complete, is held at bay. There’s discussion of Elliott’s strained relationship with his stepfather, but no exploration of Smith’s claims of abuse.

There’s a passing aside about his difficulties at Hampshire College, but nothing on the singer’s struggles with gender and sexuality. And when Smith’s death finally approaches, the screen goes dark—no talk of the pain and paranoia that filled his final days, no mention of his relationship with Jennifer Chiba, the girlfriend who last saw Smith alive.

Instead we are given Croghan’s wish, and an uneasy feeling of fulfillment. MARK BAUMGARTEN E

film@seattleweekly.com

Local & Repertory LIMITED PARTNERSHIP Discussion follows this new

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Ongoing

AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON Writer/director Joss

Whedon balances comedy and derring-do with dexterity, and this sequel to 2012’s top grosser doesn’t stall the franchise. Plus it’s got new characters to geek out about, villains especially. Ultron is an artificial-intelligence “murderbot” inadvertently created by billionaire Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.)—also known as Iron Man, of course—and scientist Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), aka the Hulk. Ultron changes robotic shape during the film, but his voice is provided by James Spader, who sounds like a tiger mellowed out on expensive brandy. He’s fun, if perhaps overly humorous

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all the familiar chords. Retired schoolteacher Ruth (Diane Keaton) and non-selling painter Alex (Morgan Freeman) are finding it a chore to huff up the stairs of their sprawling, sun-washed corner Brooklyn apartment. Nor can their beloved old dog—the Carvers are childless—easily make the climb. The place could be worth a million after 40 years in a now-gentrified hood (Williamsburg, from the look of it). It’s time for an elevator building; time to ask, as Ruth does, “What about later?” With a niece (Cynthia Nixon, from Sex and the City) acting as their broker, they put their place on the market. The sick dog, real-estate haggling, and specious subplot about a fugitive Muslim terrorist—unless he’s not—all turn out to be tremendously mundane. It’s hard to see why we need a feature film about this—but for the welcome chance to enjoy Keaton and Freeman coasting in what’s essentially a TV movie. (PG-13) B.R.M. Sundance HOT PURSUIT The new buddy cop flick starring Reese Witherspoon as an uptight ding-dong police officer and Sofia Vergara as a sexy drug-cartel wife is by no means capital-G good, but it’s undeniably funny. Officer Cooper (Witherspoon) jumps at the chance to leave her desk in the evidence department to escort Mrs. Riva (Vergara) and her drug-dealing husband from San Antonio to Dallas to testify against the kingpin.

After realizing the errand was a set-up, Cooper and Riva flee from all kinds of undesirables in a shiny red convertible. Anne Fletcher (Step Up, 27 Dresses, The Proposal) directs this outlandish everything-that-cango-wrong-will comedy with a very refreshing undercurrent of female friendship. Witherspoon and Vergara exude onscreen chemistry in this flimsy but fun chase vehicle, so I definitely wouldn’t say no to a sequel.

(PG-13) DIANA M. LE Guild 45th, Meridian, Lincoln Square, Oak Tree, Cinebarre Mountlake, Cinnebarre Issaquah, others IRIS Among the final projects of documentary giant Albert Maysles, who died in March, was this somewhat unexpected but very entertaining film. It’s a profile of Iris Apfel, a nonagenarian fashion legend and colorful collector (and wearer) of baubles, bangles, and 280945_4.75_x_5.5 4/7/15 11:00 AM Page 1 beads. (The soundtrack of the movie is accompanied by the clacking of Iris’ Bundt-cake-sized bracelets.)

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If this seems a fluffy subject for Maysles, recall Grey Gardens: zany ladies, full of opinions, dressed to kill.

Iris is resplendent with common sense (so absent in Grey Gardens). She goes to thrift stores and haggles over already-inexpensive merchandise; she shrugs at the idea of criticizing the fashion choices of others. (“Who am I to tell them how to look?”) She’s had a happy marriage—hubby Carl turns 100 during filming— and the Apfels ran a successful business for decades, manufacturing classic textile designs for clients including the White House. Yes, Iris and Carl are eccentric, but they’re also brimming with self-possession. (PG-13) R.H. Sundance, Admiral MCFARLAND, USA Kevin Costner plays Jim White, who provides our perspective into McFarland, a largely Mexican-American town in the California desert.

There White soon loses his football coaching position and creates a cross-country team. His prejudices and assumptions are mirrored right back at him by a glib coach from an affluent school, a nice moment that Costner handles with a mix of shame and selfreflection. As a coach, White sees the untapped speed and endurance of his Cougars; as a person, he’s got no idea of their real lives. This is, after all, a town where the prison is across the street from the high school to remind kids that it’s pretty much their only alternative to working the fields. Director Niki Caro (Whale Rider) stirs Southwestern spices through the usual scrappylittle-team-that-could ingredients. The kids are types rather than characters with agency or aspirations.

Otherwise the film favors easy sentiment over sociology. All these kids needed was someone who believed in them—preferably a flinty but compassionate white guy who can overcome his preconceptions in the process. Go, Cougs! (PG) S.A. Crest THE SALT OF THE EARTH This is an unwieldy documentary portrait of the great Brazilian humanist photographer Sebastião Salgado, made by two authors: Wim Wenders (Wings of Desire, etc.), a professed fan who provides voiceover praise; and Juliano Salgado, the artist’s elder son, who’s part of the family enterprise. Stacked with stunning images (almost like a pedestal), this overlong doc can feel like a promo reel

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SEATTLE WEEKLY • M AY 13 — 19, 2015

documentary on marriage equality, which premieres June 15 on PBS. (NR) Frye Art Museum, 704 Terry Ave., 622-9250, fryemuseum.org. Free. Noon. Sat. NEVER TOO YOUNG TO DIE From 1986, a young John Stamos stars in some sort of VHS-era thriller, pitted against Gene Simmons of Kiss. (R) Grand Illusion, 1403 N.E. 50th St., 523-3935, grandillusioncinema. org. $5-$9. 9 p.m. Sat. NOIR DE FRANCE Isabelle Adjani stars in the 1983 revenge tale One Deadly Summer, directed by Jean Becker. In it, her sexy Elaine searches for a trio who brutally attacked her mother. (NR) Seattle Art Museum, 1300 First Ave., 654-3121, seattleartmuseum.org. $63–$68 series, $8 individual. 7:30 p.m.

Thursdays through May 21.

OUT OF PRINT Director Julia Marchese will introduce her doc about L.A.’s beloved New Beverly Cinema, where repertory screening attract the likes of Kevin Smith, Patton Oswalt, and Joe Dante. (NR) Grand Illusion, $5-$9. 7 p.m. Wed. POOTIE TANG Given the pants-peeing audacity of Pootie Tang’s inspired prologue, it’s a shame to report how thuddingly inept and unfunny the remainder of this 2001 comedy is. At the onset, producer Chris Rock and cronies from his non-watered-down HBO days give us a blaxploitation banana split: inarticulate, crime-fighting celebrity Pootie Tang (think Bean for the playa set) takes on a smorgasbord of gimmicky, Dick Tracy-style baddies...with his dead poppa’s ass-whupping magic belt. It’s as dead-on and breezy as Boogie Nights’ Dirk Diggler documentary. Then writer-director Louis C.K.’s well goes entirely dry. Pootie Tang (Lance Crouther) crusades to dissuade kids from devouring the malt liquor and cigarettes marketed by a despicable WASP corporation, which could’ve been hilarious—even important—social commentary, but C.K. paints his one-joke hero into a corner that a feature-length film cruelly magnifies. As he lingers on Pootie Tang’s bizarre, nebulous image, the coolness drips away like custard, revealing merely an uninteresting freak.

(PG-13) ANDREW BONAZELLI Central Cinema, 1411 21st Ave., 686-6684, central-cinema.com. $7-$9. 9:30 p.m. Fri.-Tue. PRINCESS ANGELINE Directors Sandy and Yasu Osawa will be on hand to discuss their recent hour-long doc about the Duwamish tribal princess, daughter of Chief Sealth, who refused to live outside the new city borders—as was required by a shameful 1865 law. In her later life, the defiant woman (who lived circa 18161896) was famously photographed by Edward S. Curtis.

(NR) Keystone Church, 5019 Keystone Pl. N., 6326021, meaningfulmovies.org. Free. 7 p.m. Fri. TRAILER APOCALYPSE Editor Bob Murawski has compiled this 100-minute reel of grindhouse faves dating back to the drive-in era and ’70s-era Times Square.

(NR) Grand Illusion, $5-$9. 7 p.m. Thurs.

JOHN WIESE The L.A. musician and filmmaker shows shorts and performs live. (NR) Grand Illusion, $14. 8 p.m. Fri. WORKING GIRL Sure, Harrison Ford is too old to be playing a junior executive in Mike Nichols’ 1988 female-empowerment comedy, and the Wall Street mechanics don’t hold up in retrospect. (The market crashed that very same year; perhaps no one understood the M&A bubble.) But the inevitable rise of Melanie Griffith’s Staten Island secretary—while Carly Simon sets her pipes to “Let the River Run”—is entirely irresistible. Griffith and Ford never let you feel they’re stooping to formula, while Nichols directs that bald rom-com formula to genre perfection. The supporting cast is tops: Sigourney Weaver as boardroom villainess; Joan Cusack as big-haired gal-pal; and the hairy young Alec Baldwin as the heel who cheats on our indefatigable heroine. Caught in flagrante delicto with a naked woman straddling him, he protests to Griffith, “It’s not what it looks like!” (R) BRIAN MILLER Central Cinema, $7-$9. 7 p.m. Fri.-Mon. & 3 p.m. Sat.

for a creature who seeks to end mankind’s dominance on Earth. But Whedon, an encyclopedia of pop culture, can’t help himself—earnestness about this nonsense is for 20th-century suckers. It’s not easy to out-irony Downey, but Spader succeeds; Ultron wouldn’t be out of place as a campy Austin Powers villain. “I’m glad you asked that,” says Ultron in response to one of Stark’s questions. “Because I wanted to take this time to explain my evil plan.” He then destroys everything in sight. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Cinerama, Sundance, Ark Lodge, Majestic Bay, Kirkland, Bainbridge, Admiral, Vashon, others CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA Like the clouds that garland the titular valley, Olivier Assayas’ drama of three woman laboring in showbiz has an odd, evanescent quality: Now you see it, now you don’t. Film star Maria (Juliette Binoche) arrives in Zurich to pay tribute to the eminent old playwright who launched her career. Inconveniently, he kills himself, but a rising stage director then proposes a new adaptation of that signature project. But here’s the catch: Maria originally played the pert young seductress; now she’s being offered the role of the tragic older woman. It’s a dilemma she discusses fitfully with her personal assistant, a very competent yet unformed young woman named Valentine (Kristen Stewart, excellent). Their conversations wind along Alpine roads and hiking trails, continuing through cigarette smoke and too much late-night wine. Running lines for the play, the two drop in and out of those scenes to comment on the material. The line between art and life becomes increasingly blurred (sometimes frustrating the viewer). Youth is represented by the Lohanesque tabloid troublemaker cast as Sigrid: Jo-Ann (Chloë Grace Moretz, arriving steely and late), who fascinates Maria with her volatile TMZ meltdowns. Though Clouds has a few welcome laughs, it’s a film about time and a woman’s passages through time—and how aging forces new roles on women, despite their wishes. (R) B.R.M. Seven Gables, Lynwood (Bainbridge) DANNY COLLINS As related in this simultaneously hackneyed and likable rock-’n’-roll redemption tale, there really was a guy who, 40 years after the fact, discovered that John Lennon had written him a letter telling him to stay true to his art. Al Pacino plays Danny as a music celebrity living high on his legacy, doing what looks like a lounge-act version of Mick Jagger on the casino circuit. He’s on showbiz autopilot, performing his greatest hits for the AARP demo. The belated arrival of the Lennon letter sends Danny to a sleepy New Jersey Hilton. From there, he hopes to finally connect with his neglected son Tom (Bobby Cannavale), born from a backstage hookup. It’s hard to get worked up over the emotional journey of a spoiled celeb who’s milked a bubblegum pop anthem into a fortune. What exactly happened to the earnest young folk singer of the prologue? We never learn. Yet such questions fade as Danny becomes part of Tom’s family. Pacino’s chemistry with Cannavale and Annette Bening (as his not-quite-but-getting-closer-to-age-appropriate love interest) overrides the plot contrivances. Like Danny, Pacino has also been a showman verging on—if not spilling over into—self-parody in recent decades, but he turns Danny’s showmanship into a character trait, a reflexive instinct to connect with and charm everyone he meets, whether a sold-out concert hall or a gobsmacked parking valet. Even in a momentary bit of banter, Pacino makes that moment feel genuine. (R) SEAN AXMAKER Bainbridge FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD Thomas Vinterberg’s new version of Thomas Hardy’s 1874 novel collapses the action so the movie can trot in at 118 minutes. We’ve just established the impossible relationship between prideful-but-poor Bathsheba Everdene (Carey Mulligan) and sensible Gabriel Oak (Belgian rising star Matthias Schoenaerts) when she inherits her uncle’s estate, flirts with neighboring landowner William Boldwood (Michael Sheen), and falls under the spell of caddish soldier Francis Troy (Tom Sturridge). The melodrama that has room to breathe in the 170-minute 1967 adaptation of the story is so rushed here that it looks faintly ridiculous. Maybe that was Vinterberg’s purpose; he was one of the Danish filmmakers whose Dogma credo—as embodied in The Celebration—was supposedly against this kind of old-fashioned material. The movie’s clumsiness is so desperate that Bathsheba is given a one-time-only burst of voiceover at the beginning of the film in order to plead ignorance about her supposedly mystifying name (no one has told her the Biblical reference?), as though preparing a 21st-century audience for something unfamiliar. (PG-13) R.H. Meridian, Sundance, Lincoln Square 5 FLIGHTS UP Completely reliant on the warmth and goodwill generated by its stars (rather than, say, its writing), this AARP-oriented dramedy strikes

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arts&culture» Film » FROM PAGE 27

JAZZ ALLEY IS A SUPPER CLUB

JANE BUNNETT & MAQUEQUE $10 WED, MAY 13

2015 Juno Jazz Album of the Year: Group!

“Jane Bunnett and Maqueque... utterly shatters the glass ceiling of Afro Cuban Jazz.” - Boston Globe

NAJEE THURS, MAY 14 - SUN, MAY 17

Iconic smooth jazz saxophonist touring in support of his new release The Morning After.

BALLARD HIGH SCHOOL JAZZ BANDS AND VOCAL ENSEMBLE MON, MAY 18 THOMAS MARRIOTT QUINTET $10 TUE, MAY 19 - WED, MAY 20 “Serious chops and a luxuriant sound.” Jazz Times Magazine

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Legendary R&B songstress touring in support of her new album Worthy with opener Tess Henley, Seattle’s own soul singer-songwriter.

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

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

SEATTLE WEEKLY • MAY 13 — 19, 2015

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W E E K LY

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MUSIC NEWSLETTER

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The inside scoop on upcoming shows

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for Salgado’s ongoing Genesis photo series. No outside voices or critics dare interrupt the master or his tribute.

Acclaim came in the ’70s and ’80s, as Salgado began haunting war zones, sites of famine and displacement, and scenes of brutal, back-breaking labor in the Third World. I have to say now that such stoic scenes of human misery and endurance have become commonplace, but that’s the legacy of Salgado’s success.

Salgado himself speaks in contented aphorisms— sometimes sounding like Bono, so secure in his compassion for the world’s poor and downtrodden, all of whom remain voiceless within his expensive, expressive frames. (PG-13) B.R.M. Ark Lodge

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 when the story has him 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. Crest THE WATER DIVINER Part of Russell Crowe’s immense credibility as an actor is how grounded he is—woowoo stuff is really not for him. Yet in his directorial debut, he plays Joshua Connor, a dowser who’ll use that a talent to search for the bodies of his three sons, all lost on the same day in the disastrous World War I battle of Gallipoli. Yet in 1919 Turkey (the Ottoman Empire having collapsed), Crowe’s convincing depiction of grief morphs into melodrama. Connor strikes up a friendship with hotelkeeper Ayshe (Olga Kurylenko) and her impish son, escapes from a train ambush on horseback, and runs afoul of political unrest. As a director, Crowe is earnest and old-fashioned, and there are movie-watching pleasures to be had here. Lord of the Rings cinematographer Andrew Leslie knows how to look at big open spaces so you sense the bones beneath the surface. The film gets bogged down in its many flashbacks and sidebar dramas, and finally uncorks one too many unlikely coincidences. The sacrifice of thousands of soldiers from Australia and New Zealand was vividly told in Peter Weir’s 1981 film Gallipoli. Three decades later, The Water Diviner feels almost too careful in its desire to hit all the right notes and do justice to all sides. Which makes it more of a war memorial than a living, breathing movie. (R) R.H. Kirkland, Bainbridge WELCOME TO ME Kristen Wiig’s ability to slip from broad humor to quietly devastating insight is already well documented. Here she plays an unfortunate soul named Alice Klieg, whose borderline-personality disorder has cast her into the margins of society—until, that is, she wins the lottery, which means she can bankroll her own cable-TV talk show. The show gives her a chance to air her grievances—she has many— prepare recipes, and sing. It’s a trainwreck, but she keeps throwing money at the production company and they keep pocketing it. (James Marsden, Joan Cusack, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Wes Bentley play her befuddled coworkers.) Director Shira Piven has a great cast and she handles it well, although it would be nice to find out more about Alice’s best friend and ex-husband, especially with ready-to-roll Linda Cardellini and Alan Tudyk playing the roles. The idea of Alice as an avatar for a collective fantasy about getting rich and famous keeps the movie interesting, but there’s something a bit off about the delivery. (R) R.H. Varsity 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

EV EN T S

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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. Crest WHILE WE’RE YOUNG In outline, this is a routine Gen-X midlife-crisis movie: documentary filmmaker Josh (Ben Stiller) and producer wife Cornelia (Naomi Watts) are stalled in careers and marriage. He can’t complete his weighty, unwatchable opus (something to do with geopolitics and a disheveled Chomskyian scholar; together they’ve IVF’d once for kids, failed, and are settling into a staid, childless rut. They need a shakeup, and it arrives in the form of a spontaneous, fun-loving Brooklyn couple half their age: would-be documentarian Jamie (Adam Driver) and wife Darby (Amanda Seyfried). Noah Baumbach’s lively, careerbest comedy sends cynical Josh into unexpected bromance, and much of the movie’s charm lies in our being swept along, too. Is Josh deluded and ridiculous?

Of course he is, and yet that’s not the movie’s real source of laughter and inspiration. In denial about his fading eyesight and arthritis, Josh will discover that being foolish and confounded is good for the system, a tonic. If Jamie is a hustler, he’s also like a personal trainer—pushing his client (who forever picks up the lunch tab) into discomfort. Baumbach’s female characters aren’t so sharply drawn, though he provides nice supporting roles for Adam Horowitz (the Beastie Boys), as the only guy who can speak truth to Josh’s blind infatuation; and for Charles Grodin, who brings welcome, sour appeal as Josh’s disapproving father-inlaw. (NR) B.R.M. Sundance WILD TALES The opening sequence to Damián Szifrón’s Argentine anthology movie sets up a Twilight Zonestyle 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. Crest WOMAN IN GOLD The last time Helen Mirren went up against the Nazis, in The Debt, it was really no contest.

So you will not be surprised to learn that the Austrian art thieves of the Third Reich fare no better against her Holocaust refugee Maria Altmann. Woman in Gold takes its title from the alternate, Nazi-supplied moniker for Gustav Klimt’s 1907 Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer.

Adele was Maria’s beloved aunt, and Maria became the plaintiff in a long-fought art-restitution case, begun in 1998, against the Austrian government. As Maria’s sidekick in this true-life-inspired tale, Ryan Reynolds plays the unseasoned young attorney Randy Schoenberg (forever judged against his genius forebear Arnold Schoenberg). This odd couple is obviously going to prevail against the stubborn, post-Waldheim Austrian establishment. As Maria says, “If they admit to one thing, they have to admit to it all.” Were the writing better, this would’ve made a good courtroom procedural (Elizabeth McGovern and Jonathan Pryce show up as judges), but director Simon Curtis (My Week With Marilyn) instead chooses to add copious flashbacks to the Anschluss era and Maria’s narrow escape from the Nazis. So while this is a serviceable star vehicle that depends on Mirren’s reliably purring V-12 engine, two other actresses play Maria at different ages—depriving us of the regular pleasure of her smackdowns upon poor Randy. (PG-13) B.R.M. Pacific Place, Kirkland Parkplace, others

•

PR O M O T I ONS

A R T S A ND E NT E R TAI NM E NT

BY B R IA N M I LLE R

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

•

» Music

Happy Birthday, Highline As Capitol Hill’s vital vegan metal venue turns 5, it finds itself still in flux.

INVISIBLE HOUR

BY JAMES BALLINGER

Highline owner Dylan Desmond: “There was a sort of outrage.”

E

“Originally we planned on Highline being more of a bar with a vegan kitchen,” Desmond says. “The room had a good-sized stage when we moved in, and we kept it with the idea that we could do occasional shows. As time went on, the shows became more of a priority. Not only did they help with the bills, they had more emotional weight for everyone involved in the bar. Eventually we decided to turn the focus of the room primarily to a live music venue.”

It’s something I can personally attest to—over the years, I’ve seen countless bucket-list bands at Highline. Supergroup Old Man Gloom made its Seattle debut here in 2012, and legendary New Orleans band Eyehategod played an unannounced show that quickly filled to capacity. I watched from way in the back (and likely will again when the band returns to celebrate Highlines 5th Anniversary on May 17). All are special moments that might not have happened without the venue’s vital attentiveness to aggressive music both local and national.

But while the shows were ratcheting up in caliber, the vegan cafe was doing lackluster business. In February 2013 the decision was made to pull the plug on the vegan kitchen altogether—no doubt a tough call to make for Desmond, himself a vegan for 14 years, but one that would ultimately work out in the long run. “When we announced [the kitchen’s] closing, I didn’t expect much attention, as it hadn’t gotten any in quite some time,” Desmond remembers. “However, there was a sort of outrage, and rumors started circulating that we were closing down.”

While the kitchen was out of order, Desmond was able to tighten the ship and focus specifically on the live music. He invited Brian Foss, booker of the legendary punk holdout the Funhouse,

to join the Highline booking team in June after the closure of the Funhouse. “Having Brian Foss take a big part in it was an incredible help, and continues to be even after the Funhouse has reopened,” Desmond says.

Members of the current kitchen staff approached Desmond about giving food another shot. After they came up with a menu, budget, and schedule, the club relaunched food service in February 2014, and so far it’s been more successful than ever. Currently, Highline serves vegan fare from 4 to 8 p.m. Sunday through Wednesday, but the plan is to expand to the other three days by the end of this year.

The focus for the future is on expanding not only the kitchen hours but also the artistic endeavors. Local slacker-punk breakout act Chastity Belt hosted the release for its latest LP, Time to Go Home, at the club—which might seem like an odd fit for a bar that’s made its name on darker, heavier bands. But thanks to Foss, Highline’s purview continues to grow, inviting more local micro-scenes to take part.

“I believe the underground music scenes we’re connected with are very powerful and important international cultural movements that have sustained themselves for decades through hard work, dedication, and heart from those involved in them,” Desmond says. “Seattle itself has a damn rich history with the arts, and I love the idea that Highline gets to be a part of it on a local and international scale.” E

music@seattleweekly.com

HIGHLINE’S FIFTH ANNIVERSARY SHOW With Eyehategod, Transient.

Highline, 210 Broadway E., 328-7837, highlineseattle.com. $20 adv./$24 DOS. 21 and over. 9 p.m. Sun., May 17.

SEATTLE WEEKLY • M AY 13 — 19, 2015

verything on the menu is delicious, and in my experience, the cooks are making some of the most innovative faux meats and cheeses in the world.”

Dylan Desmond is in Copenhagen, on tour with his critically acclaimed doom-metal band Bell Witch, when he shares this morsel about the menu at Highline, the metal bar he owns. That might seem like an odd quote to start a story about Seattle’s heavy music haven. But the fate of that vegan fare has been intricately linked to the half-decade life of the club.

Much like the neighborhood it calls home, the Capitol Hill venue has seen its share of changes over the years. What Desmond started as a simple vegan eatery and bar, hosting a few shows on the side, quickly ballooned into one of Seattle’s most important metal and punk venues. In that time the vegan-eatery part of the operation has ebbed and flowed, disappearing completely for a brief period, but the dungeon-like club has consistently served as a launching point and home base for internationally recognized local heavies including Samothrace, Black Breath, and Bell Witch. And it morphed and mutated in many different ways, a pattern Desmond hopes to continue while maintaining the essential role it has carved out for itself in Seattle’s music scene.

Highline was originally conceived by Desmond and two friends who all worked at Squid and Ink, a small Georgetown vegan cafe and beer bar that hosted occasional punk and metal shows. But its small showroom proved difficult to get to for many folks in the core of the city. A move to a more central location was a no-brainer; and so Desmond signed the lease on Highline’s current location on Broadway in 2010, where it lived upstairs from the Castle Megastore until the sex shop relocated to Pike Street just a few months ago.

29

arts&culture» Music

MOTOPONY

REEL BIG FISH + LESS THAN JAKE with THE INTERRUPTERS

5/13

8PM

THE

WATERBOYS

5/21

JJ GREY + MOFRO with ETHAN TUCKER BAND

5/30

WITH SCOTT HELMAN

JURASSIC 5 W MISTERWIVES 8PM

8/19 – ON SALE FRIDAY AT 10AM 8PM

WALK OFF THE EARTH

7;30 PM

10/10

BLUES TRAVELER

8PM

9PM

with HOLYCHILD

SHOWBOX SODO

APOCALYPTICA 5/29

with ART OF DYING

9PM

CHARLI AND JACK DO AMERICA

CHARLI XCX + BLEACHERS

SEATTLE WEEKLY • MAY 13 — 19, 2015

7/25

30

7/28

with BøRNS

DANZIG with PENNYWISE + CANCER BATS

7:30 PM

8:30 PM

SHOWBOX AND KISW PRESENT

8/7

With CUSTOMS, Allen Huang is changing the culture in the club.

BY CATE MCGEHEE

7/10

8:30 PM

9PM

RISE AGAINST with KILLSWITCH ENGAGE + LETLIVE.

SHOWBOXPRESENTS.COM

8:30 PM

hen it came to naming his Seattle-based electronica promotion collective, local DJ Allen Huang went international. “I like the idea of traveling as a function of becoming more worldly and more aware of things going on outside of your bubble,” he tells Seattle Weekly on a recent afternoon in the International District, “and whenever you travel, you have to go through customs.”

CUSTOMS, Huang says, aims to “provide a kind of gateway-international experience,” pairing local DJs and producers with artists from outside Seattle. These artists are usually pulled from the deep pool of Huang’s interests: producers of color, youth culture, and small, far-flung club scenes incubating their own aesthetic.

Huang has made a conscious effort to book across genres, but the music is usually beat-driven, curious, poppy electronica that gets a room moving. And he makes sure there is room to move, partnering with venues with large dance floors and solid in-house sound systems: The Vera Project, Lo-Fi, Q, Vermillion, the Crocodile. When successful, a CUSTOMS show should feel joyful and almost healthy, even uplifting, says Huang.

With CUSTOM, Huang is bringing a kind of mirthful irreverence to a city with traditional, almost solemn tastes in electronica, and working to keep the club inclusive.

“These kids are superyoung. It’s not about getting wasted for them; it’s about getting turnt.”

One of Huang’s primary goals has been to foster a space for Asian-Americans and Asian producers—an interest that took seed when Huang cohosted the cherished monthly Japanese and Korean pop night at Barboza, JK Pop! Huang has brought Japanese producers to Seattle and, conversely, played DJ sets in Osaka with people he’s helped book here.

Huang says it was a “dream come true” when he played at Neumos with Spazzkid and Giraffage— an all-Asian-American bill that sold out the venue.

Huang grew up in Seattle, but never felt connected to the scenes that made this city famous.

“I mean, I loved Nirvana,” he says. “But I’m an outsider when it comes to all that stuff just by the nature of my background and my upbringing and the color of my skin. These heroes in these scenes don’t look like me, and so [in] bringing Japanese producers and Asian producers, now I have people onstage who look like me.”

The next CUSTOMS show, a May 20 bill featuring Japanese producer Qrion, is a great example of the cultural musical exchange Huang is trying to create. It’s also in line with another radical ambition of CUSTOMS: What would happen if you took everything about a nightclub out of the nightclub, except for the music and the moving human bodies?

“People are listening to club music, party music, and the only way to experience it is with a lot of machismo and a lot of alcohol and

substance abuse, and I don’t think those need to exist in parallel,” says Huang.

“I’m hoping [the show at the all-ages Vera] can get into a pretty free and loose situation, where people are actually not treating it like an art exhibit but more like a dance party.”

Huang is adamant that the music itself will offer enough to sustain a good time. “A lot of the people who are making Internet club music now are not making it for the club, to get drunk and do weird things to girls . . . These kids are super-young, I mean like 15-year-old producers. It’s not about getting wasted for them, it’s about getting turnt.”

CATE MCGEHEE

5/28

with TRISTEN + BIG HARP

6/27

SHOWBOX & KGRG PRESENT

Room to Move

Sometimes Huang’s diversified approach to

club music works, sometimes it doesn’t; occasionally Huang has had to cover the cost of a show out of his own pocket. But there’s an unmet need for this kind of show, and other times the response is resounding. A CUSTOMS show at the Crocodile in early April featuring Filipino producer ESTA, for example, sold out its all-ages tickets immediately—long before the 21-and-over tickets sold out.

Huang has made the greatest effort of any local electronic promoter to keep things all-ages, even at major venues like the Crocodile, and to enforce a safe environment for everyone, which he believes needs to begin at the level of promotion, not just on the floor. “We don’t use sexual objectification in our branding and imagery, we don’t do drink specials, we don’t sell VIP,” says Huang. “I’d rather lose business than be yet another person throwing shows that end up a morass of bad behavior and vibes.”

And in terms of inclusivity, Huang’s shows challenge anyone’s definition of club music. He tells me about a scene where kids chop up the audio of viral Vines into club tracks. Or how, after the white-and-gold (or blue-and-black?) dress pandemonium, three different songs about the infamous dress immediately dropped. “I mean, the songs weren’t good,” says Huang, “but it’s amazing and hilarious. It’s not hard to make club music, it’s about the materials you pipe into it to make it interesting, which are a very direct periscope into the lives of these producers . . . it’s farm-to-table music.”

As Huang tells me about these “dress” songs, I tell him they don’t seem like they are meant for real clubs.

“No,” Huang replies, “they’re meant for CUSTOMS.” E

music@seattleweekly

CUSTOMS PRESENTS: DOT With Qrion, Ellie Herring, Yung Futon.

The Vera Project, 305 Harrison St., 956-8372, theveraproject.org. $8–$10.

All ages. 8:30 p.m. Wed., May 20.

ROCKIN

PIANO SHOW

Decked Out

YOU NAME IT WE’LL CELEBRATE IT!

Dax Edword, founder of Seattle cassette night Hisssssss, talks tapes.

ANNIVERSARY BIRTHDAY CORPORATE EVENT DIVORCE ENGAGEMENT FORECLOSURE GRADUATION HAPPY HOUR INDEPENDENCE DAY JUST BECAUSE KICKING BACK LOOKING FOR FUN MARRIAGE NIGHT ON THE TOWN

BY WARREN LANGFORD

F

or the past few months, Dax Edword has been curating and DJing a cassette-centric meeting of the rewind-minded. Dubbed Hisssssss (see what I did there?), the monthly event makes its home at Capitol Hill’s Vermillion, where legions of local cassette labels set up shop and hawk their analog wares for 2015’s anachronistic tape enthusiasts. Edword gave me the skinny on the event’s big changes this month, and talked turkey about local cassette culture and tape lore from yesteryear.

SW: Explain to me, like I’m a millennial who has never seen a tape in his whole life, what is Hisssssss?

What are some of the local tape labels that show up to Hisssssss?

Eiderdown, Hanged Man, and Concuss Creations come and sell their tapes and T-shirts.

Sharlese from KEXP and her friend [Rachel Kramer] make handmade house and electronica dubs on cassette [under the name “Technodad”], and sell them there as well.

What’s special about tape sound quality?

It’s shit. That’s what it adds, the shit sound, the fuzz and the warmth. I had this old Jimi Hendrix one where the bass and the drums are just gone, and you’re listening to it and it kinda starts warbling really bad, and then you hear this fucked-up Jimi Hendrix guitar solo.

It’s rad. I love that kinda weird shit.

Is there a cassette that you most often come across in thrift stores?

How about rare tapes? Is there a white whale you’re looking for?

DON’T WANNA MISS OUT ZANY FRIENDS

VOTED BEST PIANO BAR & BEST PLACE TO TAKE AN OUT OF TOWN GUEST

When cassette culture started taking off again, I noticed it was a lot of experimental and doomy metal.

Oh yeah, and noise. Actually a lot a surf rock, weirdly.

Yeah—what about cassettes lends itself to those genres?

It’s affordable. As far as having an awesome item to purchase at a merch table, it’s either a record or a tape. And records, to do a pressing of 100, it’s like $1,700 to front. Whereas tapes, 250 bucks, you can get a hundred tapes pressed up, and you can sell ’em for five, six bucks.

Where are people making them?

There’s a spot in Portland that you can ship your .wav files and artwork to, and he does the whole pressing for you. Lots of dudes in Seattle have tape duplicators. I just picked up a tape duplicator . . .

Does that get tedious after a while?

No! It goes one to three, and you can get them to go one to 10.

And it high-speed dubs them, so you just press a button and five minutes later you have four to 20 copies.

That’s amazing. I wish I’d had that when I was 14. What is the most prized tape you own?

What would you grab if your house was on fire?

Shit, based on worth, I’d probably have to grab my Nas Illmatic tape. But based on how much I love the tape: ZZ Top’s Drummer’s Drum Machine’s Manager’s Band, in which [local hiphop artLE

H OG

BET

A ELIZ

Well, the white whale of hip-hop cassettes is the “Purple Tape” [Only Built 4 Cuban Linx . . . ]. Ghostface Killer and Raekwon put it out in ’91 or ’93. [1995. —Ed.] It’s a Wu Tang album, but it’s just Ghostface and Raekwon. They made a super-limited run and a lot of them deteriorated, and it’s one of the first—

I dunno . . . my own? Don’t Call It a Beat Tape. I only made 24 of them.

It’s half instrumental hip-hop, half weird looped samples.

(JUST KIDDING!)

ists] Dick Furrari and Specwizard made an hour-and-a-half beat tape, and they only made so many copies of it, and they only sold it at their release show, and were never heard of again.

There you go—that’s the local super-rare tape!

Have you thought about expanding to other relic mediums?

Mini-discs were a thought. They’re hilarious . . . mainly ’cause I found a mini-disc player/ recorder with, like, eight discs at Value Village. I was like, “This could be interesting.” But there’s really no reasonable reason to use that shit.

So how far do you want to take this? Is this something you’d like to see expand to a bigger venue?

I don’t see that at all. People are hardly coming out right now as it is. But it’s incredibly fun. So far it has gotten a lot of people to start working together on different weird projects. . . . That was the hope from the very beginning. People just come, hang out, talk about music, buy and sell or trade shit. Musicians talk shop, hang out, have a drink. People play cassettes while Cold Brew Collective does weird awesome visuals. They have two VCRs and they run it through a bunch of analog signal machines. It does crazy, awesome visual stuff—it’s all glitchy, wavy.

Is there anything about this next one that’s exciting?

Yeah! Magnetic, the tape night from Portland that inspired me to do this, two of those guys [Bonerock and NorthernDraw] are coming up to DJ. Sharlese Metcalf from KEXP is going to be DJing as well. Christian Petersen is going to be doing visuals this time.

If someone wanted to vend, should they just find you through Facebook?

Oh yeah! Strictly tape stuff. Not necessarily music, but if you’re selling, make it about tapes. E

music@seattleweekly.com

HISSSSSSS: A TAPE NIGHT Vermillion Art Gallery and Bar, 1508 11th Ave., 709-9797, vermillionseattle.com. Free.

8–11:45 p.m. Wed., May 20.

N BRING IPON U O C S THI ONE AND GETIZER T APPE OFF! FOR 1/2

SEATTLE, WA • 206.839.1300 WWW.ILOVE88KEYS.COM 315 2nd Ave South

tractor TIMES

DOORS 30-60 MIN. BEFORE. OPEN

LISTED ARE

SHOW TIMES.

THURS,

MAY 14 TH

TWO NIGHTS WITH...

THE CAVE SINGERS

SHANA CLEVELAND & THE SANDCASTLES, (5/15 W/CASE STUDIES - SOLD OUT)

SAT,

9PM - $20

MAY 16 TH 

COUNTRY SONGBIRD

ZOE MUTH

9PM - $15

OLE TINDER

SUN,

MAY 17

TH 

“SUMMER MELTDOWN SHOWDOWN” LOCAL BANDS COMPETING FOR A SPOT IN THE FESTIVAL WWW.SUMMERMELTDOWN.COM

WEDS,

8PM - $5/$7

MAY 20 TH 

SHIMMERY POP

SISTER GIRLFRIEND

EPHRATA, FINE PRINCE TUES,

8PM - $8

MAY 19 TH 

KISW PRESENTS UK BLUES-DRENCHED ROCK

THE TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT

FOX & THE LAW 8:30PM - $12/$15 Up & Coming

5/21 JEN WOOD 5/22 AARON CRAWFORD 5/23 THE WEATHERSIDE WHISKEY BAND 5/25 SQUARE DANCE W/ THE TALLBOYS 5/26 FRAZEY FORD 5/27 JESSE MARCHANT 5/28 STAR ANNA 5/29 CODY BEEBE 5/30 BOB SCHNEIDER 6/1 PALMA VIOLETS 6/2 JOSH ROUSE 5213 BALLARD AVE. NW  789-3599

www.tractortavern.com

SEATTLE WEEKLY • M AY 13 — 19, 2015

Usually Christmas music. I see the Miami Vice soundtrack a lot. It’s not as good as it sounds.

How about locally—is there a rare 206 cassette?

DAX EDWORD

Edword: Tapes dropped off the face of the Earth once 2000 hit. So it’s really our thing, as 20-, 30-, 40-somethings. I don’t care about millennials. [Hisssssss is] a tape night. I have two cassette decks that have variable-speed controls on them, and a mixing board that they both plug in to. People can show up with mixes that they made at home, or they can go to Value Village and grab a random stack and we’ll just put ’em in and see what happens. There’s no themes, there’s no rules.

well, I don’t actually know the history of it, I would assume it’s one of the first cassettes that’s actually made of clear purple plastic.

OUT OF TOWN GUESTS PARENT’S NIGHT OUT QUITTIN’ TIME REUNION ST. PATRICK’S DAY TIRED OF THE USUAL SCENE VALENTINE’S DAY WHY NOT? NAUGHTY X-RATED PARTY

31

JOE BONAMASSA

arts&culture» Music

TheWeekAhead Wednesday, May 13

The songs of Harry Nilsson were made to be sung by others. Arguably the greatest songwriter of the late 20th century—better even than his buddy John Lennon, I’d argue—Nilsson often relied on other voices to carry his tunes, since he was averse to traveling and, therefore, unable to tour. During this TRIBUTE TO HARRY NILSSON, nine of the songwriter’s biggest hits—including “Without You,” “Jump Into the Fire,” and of course “Everybody’s Talkin’ ”—will be given a bit of a rock-’n’roll makeover from Best Friends, a band consisting of members of Sashay, Sharkie, and the Dutchess and the Duke. Don’t worry, the songs will hold up. Chop Suey, 1325 E. Madison St., 538-0556, chopsuey.com. $5. 9 p.m.

21 and over. MARK BAUMGARTEN

Thursday, May 14

MAY 14, 15 & 16

As of press time, the second evening of THE CAVE SINGERS’ two-night stand is sold out, but this show, with support from Shana Cleveland & the Sandcastles, is there for the taking. Now is a great time to see the Cave Singers play their stomping electric blues. The Seattle band is two years past 2013’s Naomi, and, if a recent Vancouver gig is any indication, will kick up some dust while revisiting old favorites and sprinkling in new material. Show up early for Cleveland, who’s following up on her success leading garage-band La Luz with a late June release from her delightfully meandering outfit, the Sandcastles. Tractor Tavern, 5213 Ballard Ave. N.W., 789-3599, tractortavern.com. $20. 9 p.m. 21 and over. MB

TICKETS AVAILABLE AT:

El Corazon E orazon www.elcorazonseattle.com

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

with Lazer/Wulf, Lesbian, Spacebag, Great Falls Doors at 8:00PM / Show at 8:30 21+. $13 ADV / $15 DOS

with Battleme, Shiver Twins Doors at 8:00PM / Show at 9:00 21+. $13 ADV / $15 DOS

TODAY IS THE DAY

WEDNESDAY MAY 13TH FUNHOUSE

SEATTLE WEEKLY • MAY 13 — 19, 2015

GRAYSON ERHARD

32

SATURDAY MAY 16TH EL CORAZON

KISW (99.9 FM) METAL SHOP & EL CORAZON PRESENT:

with Morning Bear, Katie Kuffel, Diamondwolf Doors at 7:00PM / Show at 7:30 21+. $8 ADV / $10 DOS

THURSDAY MAY 14TH FUNHOUSE

I-EXIST

with Waking Things, EverAMen, The Sky Rained Heroes Doors at 7:00PM / Show at 7:30 ALL AGES/BAR W/ID. $25 ADV / $28 DOS

FRIDAY MAY 15TH EL CORAZON MIKE THRASHER PRESENTS:

EMERY

with Wolves At The Gate, Forevermore, Until This Sunrise, Hermosa Doors at 6:30PM / Show at 7:00 ALL AGES/BAR W/ID. $17 ADV / $20 DOS

LOCAL H

SATURDAY MAY 16TH FUNHOUSE & THE HUSTLERS with Randall Conrad Olinger, Darci Carlson, Plus Guests Doors at 8:00PM / Show at 9:00 21+. $8 ADV / $10 DOS

SUNDAY MAY 17TH FUNHOUSE BRIAN FOSS PRESENTS:

DETECTIVE AGENCY with Talkies (Oakland), Zebra Hunt Doors at 8:00PM / Show at 9:00 21+. $8

TUESDAY MAY 19TH EL CORAZON

TRUCKFIGHTERS

with Big Bad, Reverend Bear, Plus Guests Doors at 7:00PM / Show at 8:00 ALL AGES/BAR W/ID. $10 ADV / $12 DOS

JUST ANNOUNCED 5/29 FUNHOUSE - SQUALOR 6/19 - COCKNEY REJECTS / ANGRY SAMOANS 6/20 FUNHOUSE - FERNANDO VICICONTE 7/4 - TAYLOR CANIFF 7/6 FUNHOUSE POUYA 7/31 FUNHOUSE - ANTHONY RANERI (BAYSIDE) 8/1 - JAZ COLEMAN (KILLING JOKE) 8/2 - JOE MANDE 10/2 - TODD BARRY 10/30 - THE REAL MCKENZIES UP & COMING 5/20 FUNHOUSE - BAD MOTIVATORS 5/21 FUNHOUSE - PEARL EARL 5/22 FUNHOUSE - DIAMANTI (EP RELEASE) 5/23 - INTO THE FLOOD 5/23 FUNHOUSE - SICK WARD 5/24 FUNHOUSE - FOUR SKIN 5/26 - LAIBACH 5/27 - ERIC GALES 5/27 FUNHOUSE - KILLER BEE (FEAT. PAUL CHAPMAN OF UFO) 5/28 - CHUNK!, NO CAPTAIN CHUNK! 5/28 FUNHOUSE - MICROWAVE 5/29 - PRESTIGE (FINAL SHOW) 5/30 FUNHOUSE - LUCKY MACHETE 5/31 FUNHOUSE - CHARMING LIARS

THE FUNHOUSE BAR IS OPEN FROM 3:00PM TO 2:00AM DAILY AND HAPPY HOUR IS FROM 3:00PM UNTIL 6:00PM. 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: details at www.elcorazon.com/vip.html for an application email info@elcorazonseattle.com

Friday, May 15

One of my biggest regrets is never starting my own radio show while matriculating at the University of Washington. At this point college radio is almost 50 years old, but it still feels as fresh and vital as it did in the days when KAOS and KCMU were educating the Northwest on what real music sounds like.

Rainy Dawg Radio might not have a place on the dial like those influential stations, but the online station carries on the spirit. Tonight the student-run station celebrates its 12TH BIRTHDAY FEST, featuring Isaiah Rashad, Wampire, One Above Below None, Naked Giants, SNUFF REDUX, and Richie Dagger’s Crime. Sylvan Grove Theater/The Columns, UW campus, rainydawg.org. 5 p.m. Free. All ages.

DIANA M. LE Terminal goofballs SEACATS are trying their hand at being highbrow. The boys have written a play called Seacats Forever. It’s an evolution many comic actors have attempted, but the outcome is uncertain. It could fall in the wonderful space between funny and dramatic (Jim Carrey in The Truman Show), or it could be a straight-up masterpiece (Jim Carrey in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind). It could also totally suck (Jim Carrey in The Number 23).

With Elch, Sun Dummy. Hollow Earth Radio, 2018 E. Union St., 588-5437, hollowearthradio.org. 8 p.m. All ages. DML About three years ago, the Everett Music Initiative was created to bring more live music to downtown Everett. That’s right, Everett. Last year’s inaugural FISHERMAN’S VILLAGE MUSIC FESTIVAL, the Initiative’s flagship project, was a surprising success. As far as I’m concerned, they’ve already knocked it out of the park this year with a lineup that includes some SW staff favorites: Say Hi, So Pitted, Telekinesis, Fauna Shade, Ravenna Woods, Prom Queen, Deep Creep, and Led to Sea. Downtown Everett, thefishermansvillage.com. Fri.–Sun. $30–$49.

All ages. DML AFROCOP is my tangerine dream come true. For real.

Get these guys a future dystopian neo-noir film to score posthaste. The band’s meandering, forlorn laser-jazz, if you will, conjures images of hardboiled nights in mega-cities where the only light comes from e-cigarettes and handheld personal computers.

On second thought, maybe Afrocop is just scoring the here and now. The Triple Door, 216 Union St., 838-4333, thetripledoor.net. 9 p.m. No cover. 21 and over. WL

Saturday, May 16

LORIN WALKER MADSEN

MIKE LAYE

WEDNESDAY MAY 13TH EL CORAZON

I’d challenge 16-year-old me to a game of wits— and I’d win because I know that Mom ripping up our Korn ticket was a prophetic blessing, and that 16-year-old me decided to cry in the bathroom for an hour to repay the favor. Maybe if I continued to make all C’s, I’d be going to see this nü-metalish incarnation of Sepultura, which has two of the original members left—but I think I’ll call my mom instead. With Warbringer, Arsis, Boris the Blade, Micawber, Jesus Wears Armani, and Rhin. Studio Seven, 110 S. Horton St., 286-1312, studioseven. us. 5 p.m. $23 adv./$25 DOS. All ages. WARREN LANGFORD

The Jesus and Mary Chain It was a big deal when THE JESUS AND MARY CHAIN reunited in 2007. The creative child of brothers Jim and William Reid, the Scottish band blazed a trail that numerous goth and shoegaze bands would follow before eventually falling apart in 1999. During the band’s absence, Sofia Coppola upped its stock by essentially making “Just Like Honey” the soundtrack to her epochal drama, Lost in Translation. When the band reappeared at Coachella, Scarlet Johanssen joined them onstage to sing the song. Like I said, it was a big deal. But for true fans, this performance is an even bigger deal. Psychocandy, the album that started it all, is turning 30, and the band—reportedly in fine, if somewhat tamed, form—is playing it in its entirety. With The Black Ryder. The Showbox, 1426 First Ave., 628-3151, showboxpresents.com. $35 adv./$40 DOS. 9 p.m. 21 and over. MB Oh Jesus, SEPULTURA. I was so into Brazilian thrash/ black-metal band Sepultura. 16-year-old me would kick my ass if I didn’t go see Sepultura. But instead

For the past couple of years, BRITE LINES has been popping up in the odd weekday slot at local clubs, posting a goofy video here, releasing an endearing ballad there, and at times in their live show achieving a blistering, if somewhat unwieldy, energy that is too uncommon in the roots scene that bore them. The whole thing felt a little precarious, to be honest. Yet with the release of its debut, When We Arrive, the band shows it is capable of a sustained effort with a quirky yet very serious collection of pop songs filled with equal parts urgency and heart. A band to watch, for sure. With The Weather, Unlikely Friends. Crocodile, 2200 Second Ave., 441-4618, thecrocodile.com. 8 p.m. $12 adv. 21 and over. MB Back in the mid-’90s, before Death From Above 1979, Lightning Bolt, or even the White Stripes, LOCAL H was the first two-piece modern-rock band on the scene. I was all, like, “This is just a drummer and guitarist? That’s the bomb!”(That’s how everyone talked back then.) But man, they really packed a punch. They were on the harder side of alternative—they weren’t out to make friends with the Gin Blossoms- or Better Than Ezra-lovers. They fit right in with that Toadies or Shudder to Think vibe. With Battleme and Shiver Twins. El Corazón, 109 Eastlake Ave. E., 262-0482, elcorazonseattle.com. 9 p.m. $13 adv./$15 DOS. 21 and over. WL

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In Prison for Pot

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SEATTLE WEEKLY • M AY 13 — 19, 2015

check” and found cannabis and drug paraphernalia in the kitchen. Officers subsequently took the boy into protective custody. Banda uses cannabis oil to treat her Crohn’s disease. A fundraising website for Banda’s legal defense states that her son “disagreed with some of the anti-pot points that were being made by school officials.” After a hearing last Monday, Kansas authorities refused to give Banda her son back and placed him into protective custody.

Banda, the author of Live Free or Die: Reclaim Your Life . . . Reclaim Your Country (about her medical use of cannabis oil), is generating a ton of support and publicity, and clearly will not go down without a fight. The case has been forwarded to the district attorney’s office, where possible charges include possession of marijuana with the intent to distribute and child endangerment.

In 2012, a Maryland District judge planned on letting Ronald Hammond off with a fine for his possession charge, saying there wasn’t enough weed in the case to “roll you a decent joint.” Hammond agreed to pay a $100 fine. Problem was that Hammond had then officially violated parole for a 2009 drug charge—so instead of the $100 ticket, the charge triggered a 20-year prison sentence. Like so many caught in the system, Hammond got just two strikes and he was out (for decades).

The folks at Seattle Hempfest have been advocating for those imprisoned for pot for more than two decades now; they’ve also “adopted” several men serving life sentences without the possibility of parole for cannabis-related charges. One adopted prisoner is writer George Martorano, who has been in prison 32 years. He’s serving a life sentence—the longest prison term ever imposed on a nonviolent first-time offender in American history.

(USA! USA!) Martorano has written more than 30 books (including self-help books for inmates); with all that confinement, he’s certainly got the time.

“Truly my greatest fear of prison,” he wrote on his website, freegeorge.us., “is to die and no one knowing of I, prisoner 12973, thus I must write.”

I’m sure there were people in 1964 who, after passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act, felt the movement had done its job and was over.

After all, the Act outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.

Unfortunately, the cause for that movement—as well as the legalization movement—still exists.

The struggle is not even close to being over. So we push on . . . and continue the dialogue. To get involved, go to hempfest.org, drugpolicy.org or clemencyreport.org. E For more Higher Ground, visit highergroundtv.com.

md car

BRIANNA CASHIN

W

hen I talk to friends about the marijuana movement, most think it’s a fun idea that’s basically run its course. I mean, everyone agrees pot will eventually be legal, right? So what’s left to talk about? While folks in four states can now get high as a kite without consequences, more than 600,000 citizens are arrested each year for marijuana-related offenses, and almost 100,000 HIGHERGROUND men and

BY MICHAEL A. STUSSER women currently serve sentences for drug offenses. Looking at the details of some of these cases makes your head spin—not in a hilarious hazy-fog kinda way, more in a Linda Blair-in-Exorcist kinda way. In an effort to show how lucky we are, how ridiculous federal policy is, and how much work still remains, allow me to share a few details of those affected by the War on Drugs.

Antonio Bascaró, now 80, has been imprisoned for 35 years after smuggling pot in a fishing boat from Columbia to Florida. No violence, no hard drugs, no prior offenses—just a bail of weed and some bad luck. Bascaró’s sentence does not qualify for the U.S. Sentencing Commission reform guidelines (which have shortened drug sentences for 40,000 federal prisoners), because—get this—the sentence itself is too old to be shortened. Convicted in 1980, he holds the record as the U.S.’s longestserving marijuana prisoner—a record I’m sure he’d happily relinquish if he could enjoy as a free man a few of his remaining days. The good news? His original sentence has been chopped by 20 years due to good behavior. His new release date? June 2019.

Canadians like locking up old hippies too.

76-year-old grandpa Donald Clarkson was just sent to a slammer north of the border for growing 150 plants in his rental house. The ex-trucker told the judge he’d started the grow operation only to supplement his meager pension. Guess Gramps should have tried a different entrepreneurial effort, cuz he’ll be serving the minimum sentence, six months, under Canada’s (recently toughened) federal drug laws after pleading guilty to production of marijuana for the purposes of trafficking.

Shona Banda, 37, lost custody of her 11-yearold son on March 24 after the boy questioned some of the Reefer Madness being delivered in a drugand alcohol-education program at his school—and mentioned the medical marijuana in his own home. School officials in Kansas then contacted the police, who went to the house on a “welfare

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Manufacturing Engineer, QA (Terex USA, LLC, Redmond, WA). Req. a bach. or foreign equiv. deg. in mech. eng., industr. eng., or a rel. field & 2 yrs. of exp. in the job offered or 2 yrs. of exp. in a manufacturing environment, incl. 1 yr. of quality eng. exp. supporting assembly, welding, & forming processes, & working with electrical & hydraulics systems.

Also req. is 2 yrs. of exp.: applying Lean Manufacturing concepts & TOS principles; using PFMEA tools to identify possible process issues in supplier paint systems & implement preventive measures; leading division-wide paint initiatives w/in the supply base to advise on specification reqs. or updates, direct suppliers on compliance, & monitor progress; working with customers & suppliers to understand paint problems w/purchased components & guiding suppliers w/regard to resolving issues within their paint processes; using 5 Why’s & Fishbone problem solving tools to identify root causes of paint issues & implement supplier corrective actions; & using 1st article & PPAP to qualify supplier paint processes & controls in order to maintain coating performance.

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Tuesday 05/19/15 Preview 8:00 AM Auction 9:00 AM A-Seattle Towing, LLC 13226 1st Ave S. Burien 206-856-1388 www.towseattle.com

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REPORTER (POULSBO, WA)

REPORTER The award-winning newspaper Journal of the San Juans is seeking an energetic, detailedoriented reporter to write articles and features. Experience in photography and Adobe InDesign preferred. Applicants must be able to work in a team-oriented, deadlinedriven environment, possess excellent writing skills, have a knowledge of community news and be able to write about multiple topics. Must relocate to Friday Harbor, WA. This is a full-time position that includes excellent benefits: medical, dental, life insurance, 401k, paid vacation, sick and holidays. EOE . No calls please. Send resume with cover letter, three or more non-returnable clips in PDF or Text format and references to hr@soundpublishing.com or mail to: HR/GARJSJ Sound Publishing, Inc. 11323 Commando Rd W, Main Unit Everett, WA 98204

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