Inlander 01/25/2024 by The Inlander

MADDIE’S PLACE HELPING BABIES BORN ADDICTED TO DRUGS PAGE 10

LET IT STOP!

GROWING OLDER, HATING ON WINTER PAGE 22

JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL 20 FILMS FOR THE 20TH ANNIVERSARY PAGE 38

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JANUARY 25-FEBRUARY 25-31, 2024 | LOCAL, 1, 2024INDEPENDENT | GROWING AND ANDCHANGING FREE SINCESINCE 19931993

Understanding the newcomers to the Inland Northwest

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VOL. 31, NO. 16 | COVER ILLUSTRATION: DERRICK KING

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FOOD 34 SCREEN 38 MUSIC 42 EVENTS 46

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EDITOR’S NOTE

veryone moved from somewhere. At least, that’s what it feels like around here nowadays. I’m not from here, and I’m reminded of that fairly often, despite my 16 years as a Spokanite. I came directly from Michigan, my home after Oregon. And, yes, like many people who move here, I grew up in California. (Not the one you imagine. Google “Shasta County” and “militia” and you’ll see what I mean.) I moved here for a job, at this very paper, and stayed. Renouncing my nomadism had something to do with Spokane’s nice, low house prices and immediate nature, but I also took a warming to the snowy weather and the possibility of this place. Clearly I’m not alone. As Colton Rasanen reports in this week’s cover story — WHERE DID EVERYONE COME FROM? — a lot of people moved here in a short amount of time. Over the last decade, we’ve watched the roads become more congested and homes become more expensive. The growth has been especially notable in Coeur d’Alene’s Kootenai County, which has seen a 32% increase in population since 2010. Spokane County saw half that, but still grew by nearly 80,000 people in the same amount of time. But why? Is it the quality of life? Or are people fleeing something? Colton has some answers. Read on. — NICHOLAS DESHAIS, editor

MOVE FAST, GREEN PROJECTS PAGE 6

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EWU-LIBRARY COLAB PAGE 18

GET OUT! PAGE 46

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My hometown is Monroe, Louisiana. How long have you been in Spokane? I’ve been in Spokane 22 years. Why did you come? I lived in Seattle for a while, but I wanted to get to a small-town area. But it’s not small anymore. It’s growing a lot.

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I consider Spokane my hometown. We’ve jumped around a little between here and Idaho, but I was here when I was little, then we moved to Idaho for a few years, and then I’ve been here ever since. What are some of the things that you like about Spokane? I like all the food places.

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I came from Nairobi, Kenya. How long have you been in Spokane? About three, four years now. What do you like about the area? It’s beautiful. All seasons, good people, good food, everything. We come shopping here, get a lot of food and have a good time.

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Two massive solar power facilities have opened on public lands recently — a lot more will be needed.

Concessions to the Common Good In the race to build green energy facilities, the usual disputes over projects on public lands need to be resolved early and efficiently BY JONATHAN THOMPSON, HIGH COUNTRY NEWS

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n November, at a meeting of Western governors in Jackson, Wyoming, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland announced the advancement of 15 clean energy projects on Western public lands. At the top of the list were the Oberon and Arlington projects in Southern California, two massive solar-plus-storage facilities with a combined generation capacity of 864 megawatts — enough to power more than 250,000 homes — that are fully operational. Other solar, transmission and geothermal projects in various phases of development are also moving forward. It was a nugget of good news for climate hawks, who see an intensive buildup of low-carbon electricity generation as the only way to avert climate calamity. At the same time, the Biden administration’s willingness to offer up public lands for the cause understandably worries desert advocates and tribal nations who cherish those same lands. That the planet is heating up is undeniable. After the hottest summer on record, September was so warm globally that one climate scientist described it as “absolutely gobsmackingly bananas.” If the science doesn’t move you, then consider what Westerners have experienced in recent months, from melting glaciers in Montana and catastrophic flooding in parts of California, to all-time-high temperatures in New Mexico and Arizona. Extreme heat killed nearly 600 people last year in Maricopa County, Arizona, a new record and a 36% increase from the previous

year. And the heat and resulting dust and wildfire smoke in the air will take an even larger toll in the long term, especially on outdoor workers and underserved communities. And yet the world’s nations are dillydallying. The title of the United Nations’ annual report on greenhouse gas emissions says it all: Broken Record: Temperatures hit new highs, yet world fails to cut emissions (again). The report finds that worldwide emissions, which continue to increase, need to be slashed by more than 40% by 2030. While the U.S. has incrementally cut emissions over the last decade, it hasn’t done so rapidly enough, and Americans — particularly the wealthiest 1% — are still emitting far more per capita than just about anyone. It’s abundantly clear that society must stop burning fossil fuels, and soon. Electrifying our cars and industrial boilers and home heating systems is a start, but it won’t amount to much as long as our power grid persists in relying on natural gas and coal. Decarbonizing the grid will require not only replacing fossil fuels with clean energy sources, but also building new transmission lines to deliver that power, as well as enough energy storage to provide electricity once the sun goes down or the wind stops blowing.

his energy evolution must include distributed generation: solar panels and battery packs at homes, on big-box stores and over parking lots. But it cannot succeed without the kind of utility-scale clean energy installations only well-financed companies can construct quickly enough. Such industrial-sized facilities require lots of space, capital and material, though, and some of them, inevitably, will end up being built on public lands. Which brings us back to the projects being pushed by the Biden administration. Many of them are already facing, or are

inally, those who oppose utility-scale development on public lands should be doing all they can to shift that development onto rooftops, parking lots and so-called “brownfields” — already damaged landscapes, such as abandoned industrial sites. This means fighting the efforts of regulators and utilities to slash incentives for rooftop solar. It means combating kneejerk opposition to clean energy installation on private lands because it might end up disturbing the view, lowering property values or taking land out of agricultural use. The residents of Ophir, Colorado, for example, recently voted against a proposed study of a solar-powered microgrid that would have allowed them to keep the lights on even if an avalanche took out the power lines. Why? Because the small solar array would have impinged on the town’s open space — this in a town surrounded by public lands that would have remained untouched. The world is in a serious quandary, one that is especially challenging for those of us who value public lands but also realize that we’re in the midst of an existentially threatening climate crisis. The task will be monumental — and at times heart-rending — and it will be hard to see acres of solar panels and forests of wind turbines sprouting from landscapes we love. But the situation is not hopeless. We have clear choices about how and where we construct the clean energy projects we need. The only option we don’t have is to do nothing. n Jonathan Thompson is a contributing editor at High Country News, where this first appeared. He is the author of Sagebrush Empire: How a Remote Utah County Became the Battlefront of American Public Lands.

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likely to face, considerable pushback, mostly for legitimate reasons — because they will harm wildlife, landscapes or cultural sites. The Oberon solar facility in Southern California, for example, destroyed habitat used by imperiled desert tortoises and plenty of other critters. The developer also had to suck up copious quantities of precious groundwater in an arid environment for dust control during construction. The geothermal projects, if approved, could deplete aquifers and the springs and the wildlife that depend on them. But if the energy projects are necessary, the amount of damage they do is not. Given the vast expanse of the public lands, there are bound to be places that are appropriate for development, as well as many others that are not. It’s up to the land-management agencies and the developers to find the best locations and figure out ways to at least minimize possible damage to lands and wildlife and cultural sites. The first step is obvious: Project developers need to engage local stakeholders well before any plans are drawn up or proposals are made. This seems like a no-brainer, yet in most cases the developer comes up with a plan that never receives public input until it’s too late to either alter it or kill it altogether. Take the SunZia transmission project in southern Arizona. The Bureau of Land Management gave the developers permission to build it through the San Pedro River Valley despite the objections of local Indigenous nations. After the bulldozers broke ground, the Tohono O’odham Nation, the San Carlos Apache Tribe, and Archaeology Southwest formally challenged the project’s approval, citing its potential harm to cultural sites. The BLM temporarily halted construction on a 50-mile segment of the line to allow the agency to further consult with the tribes. If major changes to the line follow, it will surely cost more than if that consultation had taken place before construction began and if any necessary changes had been made at the start. It seems obvious that developers should be kept away from the most sensitive landscapes to begin with, either through heightened environmental protections or by protecting the land by designating national monuments. Instead, projects should be built in previously disturbed areas, such as reclaimed coal mines or oil and gas fields. Federal agencies could also encourage new transmission lines along existing utility or transportation corridors by streamlining permitting in those areas — something the Biden administration has already proposed.

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JANUARY 25, 2024 INLANDER 7

Sarah McMillan, an infant care specialist at Maddie’s Place, holds a baby. ERICK DOXEY PHOTO

HEALTH

Nursing Recovery One of four such facilities in the country, Maddie’s Place seeks to help Spokane’s drug-addicted babies and their parents BY SAMANTHA WOHLFEIL

ate Thursday afternoon last week, the scene inside one of the nurseries at Maddie’s Place in the Perry District was delightfully peaceful. With the lights dimmed in the living-room style space, two infant care specialists sat in cushy chairs holding three tiny sleeping babies against their bodies — one was born at just 2 pounds, but has managed to double his weight. Two more infants slept silently on pillows on the rug in front of the staff, swaddled in the comforting embrace of tightly wrapped blankets. But that’s not always what it’s like for the infants here, who were born addicted to drugs and suffer from what’s known as neonatal abstinence syndrome, or NAS.

8 INLANDER JANUARY 25, 2024

Many of them cry for hours on end in a highpitched tone, thrashing their bodies as they struggle with withdrawal and recovery for weeks or months. Some sleep nearly constantly, while others are hyperactive and shake, especially when overstimulated by light or noise. Some won’t eat when they’re hungry or struggle to make eye contact, missing early milestones essential to development. Each was exposed in utero to drugs ranging from methamphetamine to legal antidepressants, but the vast majority — more than 80% — of the 64 babies who’ve received care at Maddie’s Place have been addicted to opioids, most often fentanyl.

Opened in October 2022, Maddie’s Place uniquely allows a parent (the mother or father, but not both) to live at the facility with free room and board while their infant is taken care of and assessed by medical staff. By working with mostly mothers, the nonprofit has simultaneously helped parents get into recovery, attend court dates, work with child protective services, get to medical appointments, and more. Virtually all of the parents who’ve had a child receive care at the nonprofit were homeless when their child was born, so the staff also helps them secure housing before discharge. The results are game changing: All 30 women and two men who’ve lived at Maddie’s Place with their infant have retained custody, and nearly all of the babies have been able to recover without the use of morphine. The two infants who received morphine only needed one or two doses. “The mom, if she’s in recovery, is the best medicine for the baby, and the baby is the best medicine for the mom,” says Shaun Cross, Maddie’s Place president and CEO. “All of the women who have gone through this program are in custody today of their babies.” With a focus on holding the tightly swaddled babies as much as they need, and a staff of 79 working three shifts to provide 24/7 care, Maddie’s Place has been able ...continued on page 10

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NEWS | HEALTH “NURSING RECOVERY,” CONTINUED...

Some of the infancts at Maddie’s Place require special-ordered breast milk, which costs $4 an ounce. ERICK DOXEY PHOTOS to improve outcomes for babies for a fraction of the cost of hospitalization, Cross says. “This is disruptive,” he says. “And way better.” But there’s a snag to getting that care paid for. With help from Republican U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, federal law changed in 2018 to allow Medicaid (the government-funded insurance for very low income people) to cover stays at pediatric transitional care facilities. But Washington state law hasn’t changed to include that coverage. Washington pays half the cost of Medicaid for its residents (federal money covers the other half), so without the guarantee of state reimbursement, some insurance companies that provide Medicaid might not approve a stay at Maddie’s Place, Cross says. However, with help from local lawmakers, the nonprofit has been given a shot to prove they’re worth it, with the state paying for most of their operations under a two-year pilot program, and a study underway to analyze the outcomes.

STUDYING OUTCOMES

Washington created a license for pediatric transitional care facilities in 2017, but aside from a similar Kent facility that was grandfathered in, Maddie’s Place is the first facility to open under those new state guidelines. There are only three other facilities in the country using the same model as Maddie’s Place, Cross says. Those three are in Arizona, Ohio and West Virginia. All have opened in the last decade or so, largely in response to the opioid epidemic. Last year, state Rep. Marcus Riccelli, D-Spokane, helped secure $5.5 million of the state’s opioid settlement account for Maddie’s Place to serve as a pilot program from July 2023 to July 2025, Cross says. “The pilot program must study and evaluate the efficacy, outcomes, and impact of providing these services to avoid more costly medical interventions,” according to the state budget item. The funding includes $190,000 for Washington State University to conduct a study of Maddie’s Place this year. The study has three aims, explains Celestina BarbosaLeiker, the lead researcher on the team and executive

10 INLANDER JANUARY 25, 2024

vice chancellor for WSU’s Health Sciences campus in Spokane. First, what is the actual rate of neonatal abstinence syndrome in Spokane County, and what are the barriers to getting accurate and up-to-date statistics? Based on nationally estimated rates, providers would expect about 36 babies in our area to be born with NAS each year. But in about 15 months, Maddie’s Place has already treated 63 infants (admitting their 64th on Monday) and received inquiries for another 63. Part of the information gap may be due to doctors listing the syndrome on the mom’s chart instead of the baby’s, but the team will be talking to neonatologists, OB-GYNs and pediatricians to better understand what’s going on, Barbosa-Leiker says. “We’re trying to find all the leaks in the pipeline where the information is falling out,” she says. The second aim of the study is to look at the outcomes for the moms and babies who’ve stayed at Maddie’s Place, including observing the developmental milestones the babies reach, and looking at the behavioral health of the moms. The third aim is to highlight the stories and experiences of the moms, with the team interviewing the mothers about their stay and trying to learn what they would’ve done without that help. “We’re really thrilled about this evaluation, because I think we’re going to be able to show exactly what Maddie’s Place is really able to do,” Barbosa-Leiker says. “I think they could be a national model of care for babies with neonatal abstinence syndrome.” The study will be provided to the Washington State Health Care Authority, which will provide a report to the Legislature by December. That report could impact whether state lawmakers approve the care to be covered by Medicaid. “If we can get $1,000 a day, which is what I’m shooting for, it’ll be a quarter [the cost] of what the current model is, with way better outcomes,” Cross says.

BREAKING DOWN BARRIERS

Maddie’s Place was founded by Tricia Hughes, a lo-

cal nurse who for years took in babies with neonatal abstinence syndrome to help them recover. Through trial and error, she learned what worked and what didn’t, and she found the most success when she spent nearly every hour of the day carrying the infants wrapped closely to her body. In 2008, she had her first experience caring for an infant born addicted to opioids — Maddie. Hughes and her husband adopted Maddie and four other infants born with NAS, but eventually, her husband told her they couldn’t possibly save every child. Instead, Hughes could teach others to provide that care. She and Cross partnered in 2017 and set to work fundraising, then buying and renovating a facility to meet strict state standards (with the added challenges of the pandemic). In fall 2022, they opened the doors. They’ve already started to prove that infants can have better outcomes, with very little need for medication during treatment, Cross says. The average length of stay at Maddie’s Place has been 53 days, with some infants staying as short as a week, and one staying for 110 days. Hughes now serves as the clinical director, while Dr. Randi Edwards is the medical director. They help oversee a team of 79 paid staff and 40 volunteers, including 27 nurses, a nurse manager, 40 trained infant care specialists, a full-time social worker, and two peer support staff with lived experience who can help moms get into and stay in recovery. One of those peer support members is Katie BunchSmith, who says three of her four children were born addicted to substances. She just celebrated seven years clean and sober, but says she understands the struggles after using intravenously, shoplifting, and experiencing homelessness. “I am lucky enough to get to work here and come alongside the moms who have similar life experience,” Bunch-Smith says. “I can come to them and just be like, ‘Hey, this is my story,’ and immediately they can relax a little bit.” Many moms fear having their children removed to foster care by the state, and fear judgment in medical

settings. Maddie’s Place staff and volunteers strive to provide a judgment-free environment while helping the women recover, even though they’re technically not the ones being treated at the facility. Cross says it’s important to know that it’s not like any of the mothers woke up one day and decided to become homeless, get addicted to drugs and have a child in that environment. “The birth of a child is such an inflection point,” Cross says. “These women are really in a horrific predicament with very little support. There’s a lot of well-intentioned stuff going on in the medical community, and a lot of great nonprofits and people are trying to do stuff. But it’s siloed. It’s not coordinated.” Maddie’s Place is seeking to change that. For Mary Potter, one of the moms currently residing at Maddie’s Place with her son, the organization has been incredibly helpful. Potter says she was homeless for seven years and addicted to meth and fentanyl. She says she got onto methadone 10 months ago, and her son was born addicted to that drug, which is meant to help people recover from opioid use. She was living in Moses

Shaun Cross, CEO and president of Maddie’s Place. Lake, but her son had to be admitted to the neonatal ICU at Providence Sacred Heart Children’s Hospital, which is where she learned about Maddie’s Place. In the few months they’ve been living at Maddie’s Place, Potter says she’s also been able to get help with her own medical care, including getting dentures last week, since her teeth were destroyed by drug use. “It’s been awesome staying here because they’ve helped with a lot of things,” she says. “They’re helping me figure out what my next steps are, like to get a house or a place somewhere. I won’t be leaving here until I have somewhere to go, you know?” Infant care specialist Baylie Lysek says it’s great to see the ongoing relationships that form with the families, noting that one mom who stayed there last year returned last week for a CPR class and brought along her 18-month-old daughter, who “was running around so cute.” “It’s amazing how lives have been transformed here, both the babies and the moms. It’s really incredible to be a part of,” Lysek says. “We really get that long-term relationship in the community and support for moms, and it’s awesome.” n samanthaw@inlander.com

JANUARY 25, 2024 INLANDER 11

NEWS | EQUITY

Stepping Up

derserved communities are heard. Lisa Brown’s campaign has always been an ally to the NAACP, so we’re making sure that we have a relationship with the mayor’s office. I look forward to her holding the city accountable and looking at areas where we can come together and not just brainstorm, but actually make change. There needs to be a relationship between communities of color and public safety. I’m in a great place to make connections with a new police chief once they’re chosen.

Lisa Gardner moved home a few years ago — now she’s leading the Spokane NAACP with plans to lift up Black and Brown communities in the Inland Northwest

How do you plan to hold the city accountable when it’s your employer? Is there a conflict there? No, there’s not necessarily a conflict as I would be working directly with the mayor, her team and the Spokane Office of Civil Rights. Working for the city isn’t a hurdle but more so a collaboration, and I also plan to work with the Human Rights Commission — I’ll be speaking at their March meeting.

BY COLTON RASANEN

hen Lisa Gardner made her way back to Spokane in 2020, she didn’t expect to be president of the local NAACP in just a few short years. But that’s exactly what happened. When Gardner moved home, one of her friends promptly introduced her to Kiantha Duncan, who was the Spokane NAACP’s president at the time. The two met for dinner at Duncan’s house, and Duncan asked Gardner to join the NAACP. “I was there for about two hours when she made the ask,” Gardner says. “She knew my grandmother was an activist, too, so it was kind of this story of a prodigy child coming home.” After joining, Gardner moved her way up the ranks to become second vice president under Duncan. Duncan resigned in January 2023, and Gardner stayed as Kurtis Robinson shifted from vice president to begin his second stint as president of the local chapter of the nation’s oldest civil rights organization. In December, Robinson announced his resignation, and Gardner took a seat at the top of the organization she’d only joined a few years prior. And it’s not even her day job. She still works as the Spokane City Council’s communications and community engagement director. We talked to Gardner about this recent change, what we can expect as new leadership takes over in City Hall, and who the upand-coming Black leaders in Spokane are. This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

Are there any cities that you’re looking to as an example of what Spokane could become? I wouldn’t say we’re trying to become like any other city. Lots of cities have different problems, and they require different solutions. For example, in Spokane we’re working with communities to uplift Black history education — not just during Black History Month. It may be a silent fight, but it’s such an important fight. Times were different for our elders. Spokane had the second Black mayor in Washington, and there was this feeling of pride in Spokane that we were progressive. [James Chase was elected Spokane mayor in 1981 with more than 60% of the vote.] That was huge and really transformative for our community. My hope is that what we do in Spokane can sometimes set the standards for what other cities are doing. One thing I can say is that we’re not going to be able to eradicate racism. It’s just not something that the NAACP can do. It’s something that we unfortunately need to break and chip away at those barriers. But, what we are able to do in this time is lay the groundwork and lay down the path towards change. So those who come to follow know what has been done and what else can be done.

INLANDER: Were you expecting to become the Spokane NAACP president? GARDNER: Well, we weren’t expecting Kiantha to resign, so it took me by surprise when she decided to leave. I didn’t even expect to become the vice president after she left. I had a little time to actually prepare for the presidency: In the summer, Kurtis told us that he planned to step down. He had a lot going on with other commitments, and he’d served as the president previously.

Who are some of the rising Black leaders in Spokane that we should look to? We have a lot of youth who are overlooked, and they go unheard. And we have leaders that are emerging that will certainly lead us forward. The newness that’s happening in Spokane is historic, and right now we’re clearing the path for more Black and Brown people to more success. n coltonr@inlander.com

What are you looking forward to in your new position? I’m looking forward to the personal development that comes with being the NAACP president. It is such an honor to be a president in an organization that means this much, and I think it’s going to catapult me forward to learn and absorb all the knowledge and really dive into what it means to be an activist and an advocate. Too many times people take a back seat, I want to push us forwards.

There was a big change in city leadership this year, with the elections of both Council President Betsy Wilkerson and Mayor Lisa Brown. How will that affect the way you lead the NAACP in Spokane? I’m in the unique position that I am stepping into this position as the city is making transitions. Betsy Wilkerson just became the Spokane City Council president. She has been a champion in making sure un-

12 INLANDER JANUARY 25, 2024

YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

Why is the NAACP’s work still important in Spokane? We’ve been in Spokane since 1919, so we’re truly entrenched in the tapestry of the city’s existence. Black and Brown folks are such a small population in Spokane, so the NAACP works as our advocate when injustice is being done in the area. We will be a voice for the voiceless. We will show our future leaders how to use their voice, how to use their activism. We do live in a world where the systems are broken, and a lot of them are shaped to not help Black and Brown communities. So we’re making sure that Black and Brown folks live in an area where we all belong and that we’re all safe and seen.

GARDNER’S YOUNG BLACK LEADERS OF SPOKANE

Stephaine Courtney is a young activist and educator. She’s also the founder of the Learning Project Network — a multipurpose educational hub meant to advocate for underserved families throughout Eastern Washington. Jaime Stacy is an educator and was the first Black woman to run for a spot on the Mead School Board. She also serves as the NAACP’s first vice president and is the founder of Strong Women Achieving Greatness, a mentoring community that helps girls and young women reach success. Jerrall Haynes became the first director of Spokane’s Office of Civil Rights in June 2023. Before that, he was hired as the city’s first civil rights coordinator in 2021. Haynes also served as a school board director, and eventually school board president, for Spokane Public Schools from 2015 to 2021. Luc Jasmin III serves as the NAACP’s second vice president and also works as Eastern Washington’s regional outreach representative, working closely with Gov. Jay Inslee. Chauncey Jones is the co-owner of A Better Way JJJ, a real estate investment company that rehabilitates single-family and multifamily homes in an effort to provide affordable housing in Spokane. Kerra Bower is an early childhood advocate and founder of Raze Development Inc., a nonprofit organization that aims to dismantle barriers and challenges that Black students face in education. She’s also the owner of Little Scholars Development Center.

NEWS | BRIEFS

COMING SOON! LOW TICKETS

A three hour strike led to a big agreement. PHOTO COURTESY WSU-CASE/UAW

featuring

Striking a Deal WSU student employees win a new labor contract. Plus, Washington invests big in affordable housing; and the Spokane City Council says to keep your seat.

or the past year, Washington State University and the WSU Coalition of Academic Student Employees have been bargaining for an initial contract. After securing about 80% of their demands, the union warned WSU that its members would go on strike by Wednesday, Jan. 17, if they hadn’t reached an agreement on everything. WSU made significant progress on improving wages, but union members weren’t satisfied — so, as promised, they went on strike. However, only three hours after ASEs hit the picket lines, the university and the union came to a tentative deal on the final few sticking points. ASEs working at Pullman campus can expect to make a minimum monthly salary of $2,318 — $2,485 at Spokane’s campus —which increased from the current minimum salary of $1,670 a month. While the union didn’t get all it asked for concerning health care, they did secure the right to continue negotiating with the university for improvements to 2024-25 and 2025-26 insurance plans. (COLTON RASANEN)

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Washington is investing big in low-income housing, putting $274 million into affordable housing projects across the state that will create 3,443 new multifamily units, including for people with developmental disabilities, those who are homeless, and for seniors. The state is also putting $38.6 million into 470 new housing units that will be sold to low-income first-time homebuyers. About $12 million will be invested in the Spokane area. Spokane Neighborhood Action Partners received $1.8 million for Broadway Senior Housing, which will provide 60 units for seniors in Spokane Valley. Catholic Charities’ housing arm received $5 million for River Family Haven, which will provide 107 units in Spokane, including 35 for families with children who are homeless upon entry. Alpha Supported Living Services received $1.85 million to build seven units for people with disabilities in Spokane County. On the homeownership side, Community Frameworks received $1.6 million to go toward 21 units in Spokane, while Habitat for Humanity Spokane received $1.7 million to go toward 24 units in Spokane County and Airway Heights. (SAMANTHA WOHLFEIL)

SIT DOWN

Should members of the public be allowed to stand up while other people are speaking during City Council meetings? Not according to the Spokane City Council, which banned standing as part of a sweeping slate of procedural rule changes passed Monday. (You can still stand up to use the bathroom.) The rules previously prohibited clapping or booing, so audience members would often stand up to show support for speakers, or turn their backs to show opposition. Council President Betsy Wilkerson, who introduced the rule changes, argued that standing can be distracting, disrespectful and block other audience members’ views. A large number of regular public speakers turned up to oppose the change. Liz Moore, executive director of the Peace and Justice Action League of Spokane, described standing as a point of “political expression and bodily autonomy.” The procedural changes passed Monday also moved open forum to the end of meetings and further cracked down on people using visual aids while testifying and filming meetings from non-designated areas. While most of the changes generated backlash, Council members did receive praise for increasing the number of people allowed to speak during open forum to 20, from 15. A number of audience members left their seats for One Last Stand as the Council voted 4-2 to pass the changes. (NATE SANFORD) n

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NEWS | GOVERNANCE

Lucky Number Seven Spokane City Council members just appointed a new member to fill an open council seat for almost two years — why didn’t voters didn’t get a say? BY NATE SANFORD

here’s a fresh face on Spokane City Council. On Monday, council members voted to appoint Lili Navarrete to fill a vacant seat representing south Spokane’s District 2. She’ll serve until the next election in November 2025. Navarrete, who works as a community development officer with the state Commission on Hispanic Affairs, will make history as Spokane’s first Latina and first immigrant to serve on the council. She was born in Mexico City and moved here with her family in 1988. A letter of support signed by over 100 community members earlier this month described Navarrete as a “prominent and active community leader.” The seat was previously held by Betsy Wilkerson before she won the race for City Council president in November. Navarrete was one of 17 people who applied for the job, which was open to anyone who lives in the district. Council members chose five finalists and interviewed them last week. “I’ve always known her to be a very hard worker and a very thoughtful worker,” says Council member Paul Dillon, who previously worked with Navarrete at the lo-

cal Planned Parenthood.

he almost twoyear appointment is a pretty big deal. But not everyone is happy about not having a say in who their next City Council member will be. Earlier this month, James Bergdahl, a District 2 resident, emailed council members to suggest that district residents be given a chance to vote on their Lili Navarrete new representative during a special election already scheduled for Feb. 13, when citizens will vote on school and library levies and a redistricting ballot measure. “This alternative is a much more democratic option,” Bergdahl wrote, adding that the current plan will only exacerbate the City Council’s political imbalance.

Bergdahl says he never got a response. Navarrete’s past political activity and support from progressive organizations like Fuse Washington indicates that she will likely join the City Council’s left-leaning majority on most votes — giving the council a veto-proof, five-person progressive supermajority. Wilkerson says a special election to fill the vacant seat isn’t possible because the appointment process is required by city law. “We can only do what we can do within the structure we have to work with,” Wilkerson says. Wilkerson herself first joined the council as an appointee to fill a vacancy in January 2020. Almost two years later, Wilkerson ran for office and retained her seat. Michael Cathcart, a member of the council’s twoperson conservative-leaning minority, says he would support changing the law in the future to allow vacancies to be filled by special elections. “I think it’s a great disservice to the community that a small number of people get to essentially determine the future of a district like that,” Cathcart says. Even if changing the law isn’t immediately possible, Cathcart still thinks the appointment process should have been more thorough and open to the public. He says a debate or town hall would have given the public — and council members themselves — a chance to better understand the candidates’ stances on issues.

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The Seattle City Council is also in the process of filling a vacant seat. Last Thursday evening, the city held a community forum where audience members spent two hours asking the finalists questions. Afterward, the public voiced support for their top picks through an online poll. That same day, members of the Spokane City Council used their regular 11 am study session to interview the five finalists. Each council member was allowed to choose one question to ask the five finalists. Cathcart, frustrated by the limit, asked a question that was longer than everyone else’s combined, and actually contained three separate questions. After the interviews, council members went into a private meeting to discuss the finalists. Cathcart didn’t attend. He says he knows that a number of the applicants are close friends with other council members, and that he felt uncomfortable discussing the applicants in that setting. “There’s a lot of folks who are part of the same cliques,” Cathcart says. “It should be a much more public process, it shouldn’t be decided behind closed doors.” Wilkerson defended the process, and notes that many community members did provide input by sending letters of support for various applicants. Her advice for people frustrated about the process? “If you don’t like it, you should have put your name in for the open seat to get on the inside to help change it,” Wilkerson says. “That’s how I feel the democracy process kind of works.” n nates@inlander.com

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NEWS | HISTORY The Monaghan statue. YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

Problematic Past A proposed Spokane law plans to evaluate — and possibly remove — racist statues and signage on city-owned property BY NATE SANFORD

or more than 100 years, a statue of John Monaghan has loomed over the downtown Spokane intersection of Riverside Avenue and Monroe Street. The statue was erected in 1906, several years after Monaghan — a naval officer and the son of a wealthy Spokane family — died during the U.S. military’s questionable actions on the Samoan islands. An inscription below the statue refers to Samoan people as a “savage foe” and contains other inaccurate and racist imagery. In recent years, members of Spokane’s Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander community and other groups have described the statue as a troubling reminder of the nation’s violent colonial past and called for its removal. Last summer, those concerns prompted the Spokane City Council to pass a law that would cre-

16 INLANDER JANUARY 25, 2024

ate a process to evaluate and respond to community concerns about the Monaghan statue and similar monuments on city-owned property. The law would have put the city’s Human Rights Commission in charge of evaluating complaints raised by citizens. Then-Mayor Nadine Woodward vetoed the ordinance, arguing that the city’s Historic Landmarks Commission should be in charge of reviewing concerns. Because of a vacancy, the City Council lacked its usual five-person, left-leaning supermajority, and was unable to override Woodward’s veto. But now that Mayor Lisa Brown — who is more politically aligned with the council majority — is in office, council members are planning to try again. A new version of the ordinance is slated for a vote on Jan. 28. “The support is there from the administra-

tion,” says Council President Betsy Wilkerson. “I believe it will go forward.” The new version of the law is mostly identical to the one vetoed this summer. It applies to any “institutional statements, names or monuments” on city-owned property that “reflect the historical denial of human rights, discrimination and exclusion” and can “trigger mental pain and suffering among community members.” The city’s Human Rights Commission will process concerns submitted by citizens and determine if the name or monument is discriminatory or likely to “cause mental pain, suffering or disrespect in a reasonable person with a cultural background and lived experience.” If the commission finds the complaint is valid, it will be forwarded to the city’s Office of Civil Rights, Equity and Inclusion. After further evaluation, the Civil Rights Office will pass the complaint back to the Human Rights Commission, which will then recommend a course of action for the City Council. Council member Michael Cathcart, a member of the council’s two-person conservative-leaning minority, voted against the original version of the law. He says he’ll likely vote against the new version as well because he feels it lacks a clear criteria for evaluating complaints. “My main concern is that we’re not doing this based on any sort of data or metrics… It’s really emotional,” Cathcart says. “I think the next step from banning statues is to start banning books.” When Cathcart raised those concerns during a council meeting earlier this month, Council member Paul Dillon, who introduced the new law, said that some issues can be hard to quantify with data. “I think there is an emotional reaction to statues that are offensive or markings that are certainly offensive, and that is very valid,” Dillon said. “I wouldn’t want to invalidate those feelings.” n Spokane Inlander - 4 Units S - 3.6” x 5.4” nates@inlander.com

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EWU art grad Noelle Bowden paints in her studio at the Hive. YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

VISUAL ARTS

Spokane Public Library’s the Hive and EWU team up to offer new residency for recent art program grads BY CARRIE SHRIVER

vintage typewriter perches on the corner of a spacious table. Pages of typed paper are affixed everywhere in the studio around it, over paintings and covering the edges of the table. The typewriter once belonged to Noelle Bowden’s grandmother and holds great significance to the artist. It also plays a vital part in her creative process. “There’s this personal connection to typing the keys and having to really punch [them],” says Bowden, a 2023 graduate of Eastern Washington University’s fine arts program. Now that she’s out of college, forming connections with other creatives and the professional art world at large will be a crucial step for the young artist. A new partnership between Spokane Public Library and EWU seeks to help do just this, by supporting newly graduated art students like Bowden as they navigate this sometimes nebulous phase of adult life. Bowden and

18 INLANDER JANUARY 25, 2024

fellow EWU art grad Luu Melendez are the first graduates chosen for the new Emerging Artists Program, a six-month residency that began last fall and wraps up in February. “I think that in the past, Spokane has lost some of its creative talent to bigger cities because we didn’t support them… and that’s losing some of our best and brightest,” says Eva Silverstone, Spokane Public Library’s arts education specialist. “So, we need to make opportunities for people in Spokane.” For any field, transitioning from the regimented structure of college to post-graduate life can be a difficult process, sometimes more so for creative fields. “Unfortunately, a lot of art students, myself included, set aside being an artist and do not pick it up again for a little while, because [we] had to get a job and focus on other things,” says Silverstone, who helped develop the residency. At the Hive, Spokane Public Library’s hybrid branch in the East Central neighborhood, Bowden and Melendez share a studio where they can spread out and work on multiple projects simultaneously. Having a space to create was appealing to the two artists, as was continuing their art practice while they explore potential career paths and other opportunities. The Emerging Artists Program was created thanks

to a collaborative effort between Silverstone and two Eastern art professors, Jenny Hyde and Joshua Hobson. “[We] were talking about, how do we nurture an artist post-graduation [so] they get a chance to figure out how to incorporate artwork into the daily rhythm or weekly rhythm of their life,” Silverstone says. “Individuals who have just graduated from college, they don’t have a huge portfolio, they don’t have a huge resume, and so they often don’t get the same opportunities that someone with more experience gets.” As part of the Spokane Public Library network, the Hive is also funded by taxpayers. The new Emerging Artists Program was added to the Hive’s existing (unpaid) artist residency opportunities. Since opening in 2021, the facility has supported more than 30 local artists with studio space. Bowden and Melendez were chosen among a pool of other EWU art grads, versus the more traditional residency route of an application process. The program requires eligible graduates to have a Bachelor of Fine Art, which shows they’re serious about art. Committing to three public programs (hosting a joint class and each holding a solo event), attending weekly open-studio hours and spending 20 hours on art in the studio each week are other requirements. In ...continued on page 20

W I T H O U T

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JANUARY 25, 2024 INLANDER 19

CULTURE | VISUAL ARTS

“A CREATIVE BOOST,” CONTINUED...

Noelle Bowden (left) and Luu Melendez (right; her art below) are the first cohorts of the Hive’s Emerging Artists Program. YOUNG KWAK PHOTOS

addition, graduates submitted faculty letters of recommendation. EWU faculty advisors The Hive, 2904 E. Sprague continue to be involved with Ave., spokanelibrary.org/hive the artists throughout their Open Studio, Wednesdays residency, meeting monthly to from 4-7 pm check in. Art is often created alone, Words & Visuals: Narrative Silverstone notes, but something to the Abstract, Jan. 27 incredible happens between from 1-3 pm artists when they gather in a A Visual Language & Sketchshared space. book Workshop, Feb. 10 “A lot of other libraries from 1-3 pm (RSVP required) will have an artist-in-residence, where they’ll have one artist at Comic Book Workshop, a time,” she says. “The natural Feb. 24 from 1-3 pm mentoring that happens be(RSVP suggested) tween artists in a group studio situation is really valuable. So, we have seven artists and two writers in the building right now, and they end up learning from one another and supporting one another.” The Hive has four studios reserved for artists, and it’s a highly desired space. During the last application window for artist residencies, 73 people applied. Selected artists choose their length of stay, between one and six months, and while working at the Hive they provide community programming, although the number of events is dependent on their length of stay. “It’s always been a dream of mine to have this artist-in-residence program,” Silverstone says. Partnering with EWU for the Emerging Artists Program is the perfect complement to existing residencies at the Hive, she notes.

MEET THE ARTISTS

owden and Melendez acknowledge their artwork is similar, with deeper narratives playing a large part in their creations, but also very distinct. The artists have known each other for two years, first meeting in creative writing courses, then spending a year together in Eastern’s BFA cohort. As a student, Bowden focused on painting and poetry, while Melendez chose drawing and digital art. In Bowden’s part of the shared studio are paintings made on the back of large maps that teachers once pulled down over their chalkboards. Her smaller paintings are filled with movement and deep, maroon shapes. Bowden also creates poetry, and has enjoyed making crafts and writing since childhood. But it wasn’t until she attended an intuitive painting class at 21 when she “had a very deep spark that was rekindled.” The Emerging Artist Residency has given Bowden more opportunities for introspection, offering her the chance to decide where

20 INLANDER JANUARY 25, 2024

she is in relation to the art world, and how far she wants to take her art. Dozens of unused, rolled maps occupy space under a table, most of them salvaged from EWU. Bowden relishes using found objects made of natural materials to repurpose in art. She feels a more personal connection to paper, so she prefers painting on it instead of canvas. Throughout the residency she’s been working on a cohesive collection utilizing as many of the maps as possible. She’d also like to self-publish a book of her writing alongside the paintings she’s made at the Hive.

Her studio partner, Melendez, meanwhile, keeps a methodical, organized area. A grid of her illustrations and a few paintings line a wall, ranging from cute figures like a comic strip of a girl and her cat to atmospheric pieces, such as one depicting a bed inside a bare, shadowy room. Writing under the pen name Luu Melon, Melendez mostly creates comic strip-style narratives, telling stories with illustrations. She works with ink pens, markers and a computer, and sometimes paints. Creating graphic novels is the type of professional work she’s drawn to. “[Art] is just like another way of communicating yourself,” she says. “How I see things in general in life, it’s always been through some creative lens.” After the residency, she plans to finish her current graphic novel, Grey Area, and find her audience. The novel explores the relationship of two young men from different backgrounds who are united by a need to hide their sexual identities. “At the end of the day, I just want to make it for myself, but hope that someone else [will] like it,” Melendez says. A comprehensive collection of the artwork Bowden and Melendez are creating during their time with the Emerging Artists Program is set to be exhibited at the Central Library in September. The same month, a new cohort of recent EWU graduates will move into the Hive’s studios to produce their own creations, continuing the creative cycle. “Art feeds other art,” Silverstone says. n

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SUNDAY |

Avenue of the Giants

February 11 Magic Lantern

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TUESDAY |

February 13

Magic Lantern

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7:00 pm Coming Around

1:30 pm Family Affair: US Shorts

WEDNESDAY | February 14 Magic Lantern

+ FILMMAKER Q&A

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11:30 am No Right Way

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7:00 pm Coming of Rage: World Shorts

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4:30 pm To Die Alone

THURSDAY |

2:00 pm Where the Rope Ends

7:00 pm Queer Lives

6:30 pm Hard Miles

7:00 pm My Love Affair with Marriage

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MONDAY |

8:30 pm Closing Party

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6:30 pm Bones of Crows

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February 12 Magic Lantern

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February 15 Magic Lantern

Awards Ceremony

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Virtual Screenings Some screenings are In-Person only. Some screenings are Virtual Only. Please check our site for individual title. Screenings subject to change. Please check our website for updates.

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JANUARY 25, 2024 INLANDER 21

CULTURE | DIGEST

THE BUZZ BIN

Winter doesn’t have to feel bad. YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

WARM WISHES

BALLET BONANZA Big news for local ballet fans: The World Ballet Company’s brandnew touring World Ballet Festival showcasing beloved classics and new, modern works is coming to town. The new series is only stopping in four U.S. cities — Minneapolis, Spokane, Detroit and San Diego — to showcase dancers from New York City Ballet, Boston Ballet, Los Angeles Ballet and World Ballet Company. Each stop spotlights a local ballet company, providing rising dancers an opportunity to join professionals onstage. The LA-based World Ballet Company seeks to share the art with everyone, in part by performing in cities with less access to ballet. The festival takes place at the First Interstate Center for the Arts June 14-16, and tickets are on sale at ticketswest.com. (SUMMER SANDSTROM)

Snowy days just hit differently when you’re all grown up BY MADISON PEARSON

s I write, snow is clinging to the windows. It clings to the trees, the roads, my car’s windshield, the sidewalk outside my apartment, and all I can do is hope it disappears by some magical feat. I think maybe if I close the blinds it will melt by dinnertime. But the weather app on my phone tells me the snow is here to stay. Fifteen years ago, I would’ve prayed for a day like today. I would wake up at 6 am, throw open my bedroom curtains and peer outside with hope that the ground would be completely covered in over a foot of snow dense enough to make snowballs. I would run into my mother’s bedroom, shake her awake and beg her to turn on the news. And there I would sit for the next hour until the news announced my school closed, beginning the absolute best day of every child’s life: a snow day. I’d dig out my snow pants, warmest gloves and winter hat with the pom-pom on top, and spend the next eight hours sliding down the most perfect sledding hill in Medical Lake. (In hindsight, said “sledding hill” was someone’s farmland, but I’m sure they didn’t mind us kids finding a secondary purpose for it.) We shared sleds, long and circular alike, and walked up and down and up and down the hill until our legs were aching and our noses were red from the frigid air. We didn’t notice though. We were too busy having fun. Even after the fun ended and I was inside my warm house once again, I would close my eyes tight and wish that tomorrow was just the same. But that was almost two decades ago now, and winter doesn’t feel the same anymore.

ow, I open my blinds at 6 am, hoping that the weather reports were wrong. Hoping that instead of the predicted 10 inches of snow, Mother Nature decided to cut us a break.

22 INLANDER JANUARY 25, 2024

I make my morning coffee and scroll through various apps until it’s time to leave for the day. I begrudgingly put on boots and a stiff winter jacket to gear up for the tundra that awaits outside my door. I cross my gloved fingers and hope that the streets are clear of ice, my car will start, and I can make it to work on time. Behind the wheel of my car, I wait for the defrost to kick in and mentally prepare myself to drive only eight minutes to work. I also think about how slowly and carefully I will have to walk just to get from the parking lot to the office. Is this how my mom felt when I was growing up? If her commute from Medical Lake to downtown Spokane was treacherous in the winter, she did a great job of keeping it to herself and ensuring that I wasn’t worried for her safety while I played the day away under my grandparents’ supervision. I was none the wiser. Little 10-year-old me had no idea that someday, beloved snow days would turn into anxiety-inducing days of worry. Worry for myself, my family and for the people who can’t find shelter from the cold. I make it to work on time after some white-knuckled driving, shed my layers and shield my eyes from the window. If I can’t see it, it doesn’t exist. But a part of me wishes my heart was still filled with that hope I held during childhood. I want to jump into the snow without a care in the world, make a snow angel, look up at the sky and let the snowflakes hit my face and dust my eyelashes. So next time we get a winter storm — when the first flurries fall from a gray sky — I’ll run outside and feel like a child again. I’ll tap into the hope I once felt and wish for snow again. I’ll put on my stiff winter jacket and smile while I scrape ice from my windshield because, to paraphrase John Steinbeck, what good is the warmth of the sun without the cold of winter to give it meaning? n

HOARDING AMMO While he’ll always be a Zags legend, injuries derailed the NBA career of Adam Morrison. But in the digital realm, NBA 2K24 players can now play out Ammo’s best case scenario. Developers just added a set of “Rewritten” players to the video game’s MyTeam mode — where players collect cards of players, then play with them in on-court games — highlighting guys who had “What If” careers, like Greg Oden and Grant Hill. The reward for collecting all the cards in the set is a Pink Diamond Adam Morrison card with an eye-popping 96 rating, making him one of the best players in the entire game currently. With how the current Gonzaga squad shot in non-conference play, making it rain with digital Morrison sounds like a much needed fun reprieve. (SETH SOMMERFELD) THIS WEEK’S PLAYLIST Noteworthy new music arriving in stores and online on Jan. 26. THE SMILE, WALL OF EYES It’s pretty clear Radiohead’s Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood are having a blast with their smallerscale side project, now releasing their second LP less than two years after the band’s debut. ALKALINE TRIO, BLOOD, HAIR, AND EYEBALLS The macabre maestros of pop punk maestros look to prove they’re still able to provide a bloody good time on the band’s first new LP in six years. MATT MITCHEL MUSIC CO., OBVIOUS EUPHORIA The Spokane singer-songwriter rounds up another collection of folksy odes about everything from the hardscrabble country music life to love and the troubles of folks at the Second and Division intersection. (SETH SOMMERFELD)

CULTURE | THEATER

there was some sense of personal challenge for myself. I haven’t done a musical in over a decade, so I was interested in that technical challenge,” she says.

F Fun Home’s protagonist is portrayed at various stages of her life. PHOTOS COURTESY JEREMY WHITTINGTON

If Memory Serves Stage Left’s season opener, Fun Home, has parallels with the play that closed its last season BY E.J. IANNELLI

he show that closed Stage Left Theater’s 2023 season was Paula Vogel’s How I Learned to Drive. It was a memory play that saw its main character, Li’l Bit, reconciling her present and past selves in a process of coming to terms with the sexual abuse she experienced as an adolescent at the hands of her Uncle Peck. The show that opens Stage Left’s current season this Friday could almost be considered a companion piece. Jeanine Tesori and Lisa Kron’s Fun Home is a memory musical that sees its main character, Alison, reconciling her present and past selves in a process of embracing her sexuality and coming to terms with her father Bruce’s denial of his own. That programming is no coincidence. It’s precisely because of the shows’ parallels that Jeremy Whittington, Stage Left’s managing and artistic director, chose to create this finale/opener pairing. “The public perception of How I Learned to Drive versus Fun Home is so interesting to me. They touch on similar problematic activities by men in both of their scripts, and what’s interesting is how visceral people can be [in their opposition] toward How I Learned to Drive’s content and how adoring and open they can be toward Fun Home,” he says. Chelsea DuVall, who plays grown-up Alison in this production Fun Home, has a theory for the difference in reception.

“It’s because what you see in Bruce you don’t see in Peck, which is Bruce struggling with his identity. It opens up an individual who understands that there is tension and problems with the way that he’s living, and that is never presented with Peck,” she says. “The other reason [Fun Home] is more successful in my mind as a piece of writing is because you have Bruce’s journey and the meditation on his identity against that of Alison’s and her coming into her own queerness. So there’s something put against it, a counter, that’s just as honest.” Fun Home is based on the eponymous 2006 graphic novel by cartoonist Alison Bechdel. Although Bechdel wasn’t directly involved in the genesis of the musical, it follows the arc of her illustrated narrative and centers on her autobiographical character at three different ages: Small Alison (played here by Madelyn Brownlee), Medium Alison (Hope Cornett) and the Alison of the present day. At each phase of existence, she discovers truths about herself as well as truths about her father (Jerrod Phelps) that he’s concealing. Before auditioning for Fun Home, DuVall was less familiar with the stage adaptation and better acquainted with Bechdel’s graphic novel as well as her comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For. “I really was interested in this musical because of the representation of a queer female on stage, which you don’t really see a lot on stage or in film. Additionally,

or Whittington, staging Fun Home has long been on his wish list. He worked on the set design of a production in San Antonio, Texas, in 2018 and has been looking for the right time to bring it to Stage Left following its regional premiere at Lake City Playhouse in early 2020. “I grew up wanting to be a comic book illustrator. That was my life goal when I was a kid,” he says. “And the idea of a queer comic book illustrator as the main protagonist of a story really drew me into it. The tenuous relationship between Alison and her father also really reminded me of when I was young and coming out.” Whittington hasn’t just scheduled this run of Fun Home. He’s heading the design team, too, with an emphasis on the comic-style drawings that resonated with him as an aspiring illustrator. But his involvement extends beyond even that, as he’s co-directing this production alongside Troy Nickerson. “I think that both Troy and I would have delivered something really beautiful on our own, but the combination of the two of us — our friendship and our communication skills — works really well to craft a production. We worked so closely together on the last couple of season openers, Sweeney Todd and Corpus Christi, it just seemed like a no-brainer to have one of Spokane’s most desired and sought-out directors leading the show. But I didn’t want to give up my seat at the table either,” Whittington says, laughing. And whereas DuVall and Whittington first came to Fun Home in its illustrated and its stage forms, respectively, Nickerson had his own trajectory. He first discovered it through its “character-driven” music after listening to the cast recording. Later he came to appreciate it for the creative freedom it offered. “I’m sort of a little obsessed with this show,” Nickerson says. “For me, there are definite moments where, being a gay man, of course I identify with some of the themes in the show. But it’s absolutely my favorite kind of storytelling where there’s zero rules. It’s got a black box feel that is completely open to your interpretation. It has the music that is so touching and so wonderful, yet it has all the sensibilities of a great play.” n Fun Home • Jan. 26-Feb. 18; Thu-Sat at 7 pm, Sun at 2 pm • $35 • Stage Left Theater • stagelefttheater.org • 509-838-9727

JANUARY 25, 2024 INLANDER 23

THE (ALLEGED) CALIFORNICATION OF THE INLAND NORTHWEST

PHOTOS BY YOUNG KWAK

24 INLANDER JANUARY 25, 2024

New data from Idaho and Washington helps debunk some myths about who’s moving here, and whether they came as selfidentified political refugees or for the quality of life BY COLTON RASANEN

ho the hell is in front of me at this stoplight, and why do they have California plates? If you wanted to answer this question in Idaho before the summer of 2023, you’d have to do a lot of digging. And then, once you found the data you were looking for, you’d have to figure out how to understand it. Luckily, that’s not an issue anymore. In June, Idaho Secretary of State Phil McGrane hired Gabe Osterhout to work in the newly created position of “data visualization specialist” to dig through a ton of previously unexplored data. Before being elected to his statewide office, McGrane worked as the Ada County clerk in Boise, where he had a data visualization specialist on staff — and where he got the idea for the same position at the state level. “We just had this treasure trove of data,” says Osterhout, who previoulsy worked as a researcher with Boise State University’s Idaho Policy Institute. “The stuff we’re presenting has always been publicly available, but not in a way that was easily digestible.” So Osterhout set out to transform tons of data just collecting dust into something more visually appealing and easily understandable. Since the data came from voter registration forms, much of it was basic information, such as party affiliation, age and county of residence. But, with a bit more digging, Osterhout uncovered a gem. Thanks to an optional question on voter registration forms about previous residences, he found a cache of information on people moving to Idaho. Even though it’s an optional question, Osterhout says there’s a large enough sample to be considered important. “This information wasn’t necessarily available before,” he explains. “That even includes public records requests.” What it showed probably won’t surprise you: There are more former Californians in North Idaho than from any other state (other than Idaho). Almost 40,000 of them to be exact. Perhaps that’s to be expected since California has a population comparable to countries — like Canada and Australia. The number of registered voters who reported moving to Idaho at some point from elsewhere is 118,702. That’s about 12% of the state’s total 996,941 voters. One flaw in Osterhout’s data is that it isn’t timestamped. That is, it’s a snapshot of Idaho’s current voter pool. These numbers reflect currently registered voters, whether they registered to vote in 2023 or in 2003, when the state took over managing elections from individual counties. Osterhout says when someone who previously voted in Idaho registers to vote in another state, their Idaho registration is discarded. The other top states that folks come to Idaho from are Washington (20,199), Oregon (9,178), Utah (7,308) and Arizona (4,371). Speaking of Washington, more people have moved to Idaho from Spokane than from than any other U.S. city. A recorded 2,045 former Spokanites are registered to vote in the Gem

State, 1,069 of them in Kootenai County alone. Osterhout’s data visualization allows folks to interact with it as a map on the Secretary of State’s website. We can see which counties in Idaho folks are moving to and what cities they’re coming from. For example, almost 1,000 people moved to Idaho from San Diego, and 130 of them live in Kootenai County. We can even get into the demographics of folks coming from each city. Like the single voter who moved to Kootenai County from Ontario, Oregon, isn’t affiliated with a political party and is between the ages of 30 and 49. Or the two voters from San Martin, California, who are both older than 70 years old and registered as Democrats in Kootenai County. Because of this we can debunk a myth while telling you something you probably could’ve guessed. All these new Idahoans aren’t Democrats coming to liberalize the Gem State. In reality, most of the people moving to Idaho are Republicans. In the case of those Californians, almost 80% of them registered in Idaho as Republicans. (By contrast, only 58% of the state’s nearly 1 million voters are registered as Republicans.) “We got some big numbers that mean we can really understand just how conservative those Californians are. ... Many consider themselves political refugees from their home state,” Osterhout says. “A lot of us who study this always knew this was true.” The Idaho Secretary of State’s Office’s data release is only meant to share what the state has. Osterhout says it’s up to citizens to choose how they’ll interpret it.

WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?

Just to dispense with the obvious, people are moving to the Inland Northwest, and in great numbers. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Idaho’s population grew from 1,571,450 in 2010 to 1,939,033 in 2022, a 23% increase. Kootenai County — home to Coeur d’Alene — saw an even bigger boom. In 2010, it had 138,494 people. Twelve years later, 183,578 lived there, a 32% increase. While Washington saw a bigger increase in raw number of people, it was a markedly smaller proportional increase in the population. Washington’s population grew from 6,744,496 in 2010 to 7,785,786 in 2022, or about 15%. Over the same time, Spokane County went from 471,221 in 2010 to 549,690 in 2022, nearly 17%. If you ask Travis Hagner, a political science professor at North Idaho College, all this data collection can be boiled down to a question we’ve been asking forever: Why do people move? The Idaho data points toward an ideological pull toward Idaho, but Hagner says that’s a large claim for such a relatively small amount of data. “The general consensus would be, yes, it’s looking like there’s been a shift of people moving for ideological reasons. But, historically, ideology hasn’t been a deciding factor to move to a state — it’s been the cost of living,” he says. This data, however, only points to folks moving for the cost of living in some cases. The top cities moving to Kootenai County from ...continued on page 27

“The very thing that people come here for is being ruined by the same people coming here.”

JANUARY 25, 2024 INLANDER 25

POPULATIONS

WHERE IS EVERYONE COMING FROM? Spokane

OREGON

- 35,997 licenses to WA

INFOGRAPHICS BY LESLIE DOUGLAS

2,045 voters

Portland 1,069 to Kootenai Co.

964 voters

118 to Kootenai Co.

1,482 to Spokane County

- 9,178 voters to ID

ABOUT THIS DATA

987 to Kootenai County

Salt Lake City 733 voters

UTAH

Washington tracks newcomers to the state via driver’s license registration or by new ID cards. Idaho tracks newcomers via voting registration. On this graphic, we show migration to both states from other states and their top cities.

21 to Kootenai Co.

- 6,472 licenses to WA

509 to Spokane County

- 7,308 voters to ID 184 to Kootenai County

CALIFORNIA

- 67,068 licenses to WA 3,244 to Spokane County

UT CA

San Diego 974 voters

130 to Kootenai Co.

Phoenix

445 voters

50 to Kootenai Co.

- 39,558 voters to ID

6,157 to Kootenai County

ARIZONA

- 14,135 licenses to WA 1,008 to Spokane County

- 4,371 voters to ID

20 to Kootenai Co.

TEXAS

- 21,188 licenses to WA 1,002 to Spokane County

- 3,002 voters to ID 326 to Kootenai County

TWO GROWING STATES + 1,041,290

How many more residents in WA in 2022, up from from 2010 — a 15% increase.

+ 78,469

How many more residents in Spokane County in 2022, up from 2010 — a 17% increase.

26 INLANDER JANUARY 25, 2024

+ 367,583

How many more residents in ID in 2022, up from from 2010 — a 23% increase.

+ 45,084

How many more residents in Kootenai County in 2022, up from from 2010 — a 32% increase.

SOURCES: IDAHO SECRETARY OF STATE; WASHINGTON DEPARTMENT OF LICENSING; U.S. CENSUS

542 to Kootenai County

Austin

234 voters

“THE (ALLEGED) CALIFORNICATION” CONTINUED...

“Many consider themselves political refugees from their home state.”

VOTE NOW! bestof.inlander.com UR YO

OR ALL EF

“People don’t like to make other people angry if they can help it, so they will often answer surveys how they think the provider wants them to feel,” he says. But for legislators to introduce good public policy that will affect all citizens, they need to actually know what their citizens want, Hagner says. Whether that’s something more ideologically aligned with the new Idahoans, or ways to combat increasing housing, transportation and energy prices is still unknown, at least according to Hagner.

POLLS ARE OPEN

VO T

California and Arizona — San Diego and Phoenix, respectively — both have higher costs of living than Coeur d’Alene, according to Zillow. The top cities moving to Idaho from Washington and Utah, Spokane and Salt Lake City, have lower costs of living than Coeur d’Alene. Realistically, Hagner says what’s happening is closer to the self-sorting that happens in a high school cafeteria. People want to be around like-minded people. “Without the data to support these assumptions, it’s just a pretty picture,” he says. “I think we can get to the truth, rather than getting to the gut feeling around here that ‘those people from California are moving here and bringing their politics.’” However, he does think that it’s possible to get that information. “It wouldn’t be that hard,” he says. “When people fill out a voter registration, we could have them fill out a short survey, too.” Some may worry about giving up too much of their information to the state. Hagner thinks if this theoretical survey wasn’t anonymous, it wouldn’t get enough true answers.

HITS

WHAT ABOUT WASHINGTON?

Across the border, Washington doesn’t track migrating voters. Instead, the state has information of a different, yet still mobile, kind: driver’s license data. “The data that we look at in Washington is typically only a part of the whole story,” says Mike Mohrman, a demographer with the state who does forecasting for the Office of Financial Management. “But looking at this driver’s license data gives us a good look at where people are moving to.” The Washington Department of Licensing requires newcomers to get a state license within 30 days. And it records where folks come from. By looking into this driver’s license and ID card data, we found some similarities to Idaho — more Californians moved to Washington than those moving from any other state. And we know when they moved here. Between January 2022 and November 2023 (the most recently ...continued on next page

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available month of data), more than 65,000 Californians obtained a Washington state license. About 3,000 of them received their license in Spokane County. Washington’s other top in-moving states are Oregon (35,997), Texas (21,188), Arizona (14,135) and Idaho (11,501). Many of the people moving to Washington settled in the Puget Sound area along the I-5 corridor, in King, Snohomish and Pierce counties. Of the 11,503 drivers who moved from Idaho between January 2022 and November 2023, 3,293 transferred their license in Spokane County. Conversely, only 3,244 of the 67,068 Californains who transferred their licenses to Washington chose to live in the Inland Northwest. In that time, Washington transferred a total of 356,645 licenses, only 21,649 of them in Spokane County, which is the fourth-most populated county in the state. (As of 2022, there are about 7 million total driver’s licenses and ID cards in Washington.) Like Mohrman says, this data only tells part of the story. Folks moving to Washington who don’t drive, or choose not to get an ID card for whatever reason, won’t be counted. It also doesn’t say what cities people are moving to, or why. While the data in Washington doesn’t reveal much about the in-movers, Spokane Realtor Marianne Bornhoft says many are moving to Spokane County for the lower cost of living. People moving from California often can buy a house with double the space for the same cost, she says. “People moving to town are wanting a better quality of life,” Bornhoft says. “I think this is the land of opportunity — people are capitalizing on that and the lower price points.” Bornhoft herself moved to Spokane from Portland about three decades ago and has no regrets. “It’s really great seeing people discover Spokane,” she says. “I’m really proud to live here.”

POLITICAL AFFILIATION OF VOTERS WHO MOVED TO IDAHO 12.39% 20.98%

118,702 Voters from 49 States now living in Idaho

64.98% Republican Unaffiliated Democrat Other

BUT… WHY?

“I woke up this morning and it was -8 degrees out,” says Michael Wendland. “But then, I look at the lake and the snow-covered landscape, and I just fall in love with the place where I live.” Wendland grew up in Coeur d’Alene and graduated from Lake City High School. But after graduation, a time when many young adults decide to move away from home, he decided to stay. In 2012, Wendland got his real estate license. Now, more than a decade later, he’s president of the Coeur d’Alene Regional Realtors and still helps folks find their own little piece of North Idaho. With more than a decade of experience under his belt, Wendland has a keen sense of the market’s trends, especially when it comes to out-of-staters. Like with many recent trends in our nation, Wendland says a lot of North Idaho’s migration growth stems from the pandemic. “When COVID happened, people were flocking to Idaho from Western coastal states based on our loose rules during the pandemic,” he says. But that’s not the only reason. “Prior to the COVID craze, some [migration was] politically driven, but a lot of it can be tied to quality of life,” Wendland says. “We still have that small town feel.” But will it last? David Callahan, Kootenai County community development director, says that some people move to the area for its natural appeal and its allure to those who want to live a more recreational life. Overall, though, he says many move to

1.64%

8.74%

1.78%

18.66%

...continued on page 30

17,350

Voters from 49 States now living in Kootenai

SOURCE: IDAHO SECRETARY OF STATE

71.07%

Breathin’ easy

‘cause we have our vaccines!

Flu & COVID-19 Flu & COVID-19 srhd.org/breathineasy

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JANUARY 25, 2024 INLANDER 29

POPULATIONS “THE (ALLEGED) CALIFORNICATION” CONTINUED...

North Idaho to avoid the congestion of the cities they come from. But that desire to move away from the city has in turn effectively created the very places they hoped to escape. “I’m seeing a repeat experience of what I experienced in Boulder, Colorado, when I lived there — the tragedy of the commons,” Callahan says. “The very thing that people come here for is being ruined by the same people coming here.” Idaho is one of the least-densely populated states in the nation — and even counting the recent growth, it still is — but the ongoing influx of out-of-state movers has had an effect on that small-town feel. The main impact is on the housing market. Wendland, the Realtor, says many of the folks moving to Idaho are retirees who sold their house in their home state and were able to make a large down payment on property in the Gem State. More than two-thirds of the voters moving to Idaho are older than 50, according to the Idaho data. “We do see multiple issues with the limited inventory and space in the area,” he says. “We’re still in a housing shortage, but just about every organization in North Idaho is looking for solutions.” Folks are seeing these issues come up as an increased cost of living and even minuscule changes to their commute times, not just in Idaho, but in Washington, too. For homebuyers, that looks like a nearly $150,000 jump in Spokane County’s median cost of a home between 2019 and 2024. In 2019, the median home price was just under $250,000 and now, it’s sitting at $390,000, according to Redfin. Kootenai County saw a much larger jump, from about $281,079 in 2019 to $519,960 in 2024. The average rental prices in Coeur d’Alene actually went down by about $225 from last year’s average of more than $2,000. Even with the decrease, average rents in Spokane are lower by about $400. In 2012, the average commute time in Kootenai County and Spokane County was recorded at about 21 minutes, according to the Census. However, in 2022, the average commute time increased in Kootenai County to about 24 minutes and in Spokane County to about 22 minutes. And while folks aren’t moving to Spokane County like they’re moving to Kootenai County, it’s easy to see why Washington may be enticing to newcomers, especially in Seattle’s King County where more than 70,000 (seven times Spokane County) licenses and ID cards were issued. Along with a long history as one of the most politically progressive cities, Seattle is the birthplace of national retail giant Amazon. The almost $20 per hour minimum wage in Seattle is also one of the highest in the nation. (Which probably helps since the average rent price is almost $2,100.) No matter who you ask though, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. “I think the biggest thing is responsible

30 INLANDER JANUARY 25, 2024

NEW WASHINGTON STATE LICENSES BY COMPARISON 20,000 Not surprisingly people move here in the summer!

15,000

10,000 JAN

MAR

SOURCE: WASHINGTON DEPARTMENT OF LICENSING

growth,” Wendland says. “We love our Idaho, and we have to protect that, but we have to look at some alternatives.” Wendland thinks Kootenai County could move from building homes on 5-acre lots to building them on 2- or 3-acre lots. That way folks still get that rural vibe from their property, and more are able to be built than before. (This is much different than what responsible growth looks like in Spokane. In recent years, rules on housing in Spokane have been increasingly loosened to allow more types of housing on more types of land.) Callahan has been looking to other communities throughout the nation to find solutions to handle this growth but has been unsuccessful so far. “I’m not comfortable yet saying what I’ve seen in other places will work here,” Callahan says. His office, however, just got authorization to update comprehensive plans and change some policies to adequately deal with growth in Kootenai County. And while it’s too early to assess the impact of these potential changes, Callahan is optimistic that they lead to a better future for those who call North Idaho home — even if they just moved here. n coltonr@inlander.com

MAY 2022

JUL

SEP

NOV

2023

“The general consensus would be, yes, it’s looking like there’s been a shift of people moving for ideological reasons. But, historically, ideology hasn’t been a deciding factor to move to a state — it’s been the cost of living.”

JANUARY 25, 2024 INLANDER 31

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Itty Bitty Buddha Bar’s miso mai tai. LESLIE DOUGLAS PHOTO

COCKTAILS

ARE YOU READY TO RUM-BLE? Craft bartenders are competing to become Spokane’s next tiki master BY ELIZA BILLINGHAM

fter subzero wind chills, frozen pipes, 4 pm sunsets and months of gray skies, it’s time to ask yourself: Wanna get away? If you’re searching for a tropical getaway but flights aren’t really your thing right now (thanks, Boeing), consider a different kind of escape. The Knitting Factory is about to transform into a balmy oasis filled with bottles upon bottles of Don Q. Think desert island with Jack Sparrow, except the rum is definitely not gone. This Sunday, a dozen of Spokane’s craft cocktail bars compete in the Rum Rumble Tiki Off, a cocktail competition where the only requirements are lots of escapism and plenty of rum. Veteran and novice bartenders alike are putting the finishing garnishes — like pineapple spears, grapefruit husks and flames — on brand-new tiki drinks created just for the event. Each bar is also designing its own tiki hut to create a convincing “you’re not in Spokane” experience. A ticket gets you your very own cocktail passport, granting entry to each booth and a 3-ounce sample of each tiki drink. Don your most obnox-

34 INLANDER JANUARY 25, 2024

ious floral shirt, soak in the exotic flavors and good vibes, and then sail off to sleep in your own bed. The Tiki Off is the brainchild of local bartender Dakota Goldman, bar manager at Lorèn and founder of Padrino Events, a consulting company for special events, collaborations and menu design. Last year, she helped coordinate the Bloody Mary Bash and Agave Fest at the Wonder Building. A lot of Rum Rumble participants joined the Tiki Off because of how much fun they had at these previous competitions. “I have a huge passion for bringing the bartending and restaurant community together,” Goldman says. “This has been a really great way to do that. They’re all very competitive, but I don’t think it’s in an animosity kind of way. Everybody wants to win — don’t get me wrong — but it’s not gonna stop anyone from being friends at the end of the day.” It’s time to meet the contestants. At least 20 bartenders are competing, and some of them took precious moments out of their prep to tell us what to expect from the

Rumble. There will be a people’s choice award alongside a judge-picked winner, so get a head start on picking your favorite!

BIJOU

Team: Kiefer Geary and DeAndra Perrigo How long have you bartended? Geary: Three months. Perrigo: Three years. Favorite spirit? Geary: Gin. You have so many more opportunities to use different things with it. Perrigo: Gin! Why join Rum Rumble? Geary: I’ve done cooking competitions before — four of them. I love doing competitions and trying to do the best that I can on certain things. Perrigo: Knowing that Kiefer’s newer [to bartending], I thought it would be a good opportunity. ...continued on page 36

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Edge over competitors? Geary: Our ability to play with things here [at Bijou]. Perrigo: What we’ve learned working at Bijou, like making syrups from scratch, really helps. We want it to be an experience with every cocktail, a beginning, middle and end. It tells a story. What can people expect from your entry? Geary: I really like tiki drinks, and I like finding the out-there, weird ones that people don’t really think of. So I just found one that I’ve enjoyed in the past and then added things that I wanted in it. Perrigo: It’s thoughtful and it’s layered. There’s a lot of elements, but you taste each one and at different times. Favorite cocktail you’ve ever made? Geary: I make my girlfriend this Christmas margarita. The main parts are tequila and cranberry, and coconut cream to make it thick. Perrigo: The Battle Royale which I entered in Agave Fest. Using fernet [means] it changes flavor in the first three sips.

THE DISTRICT BAR

Team: Tessa Wilcox and Aubrey Layton How long have you bartended? Wilcox: Eight years. Favorite spirit? Tequila. Why join Rum Rumble? I wanted to do the tequila competition, and I didn’t end up doing that one. So I wanted to do whatever next one came up. Edge over competitors? Homefield advantage! What can people expect from your entry? My favorite fruit. Favorite cocktail you’ve ever made? I fat-washed some tequila with coconut milk, and I really liked the way that tasted. I was making coconut pineapple margaritas with that.

EMMA RUE’S

Competitor: Zach Thomas How long have you bartended? Thomas: A little over two years now. Favorite spirit? Rum! Why join Rum Rumble? I mean, Emma Rue’s is one of the best bars in Spokane. I feel like we have to represent, we

have to let Spokane know what’s out there, right? Edge over competitors? I specialize in rum and tiki. I love the craft not only of bartending but just the rum scene and the tiki legacy. I know a lot about it. I’ve studied it. I’ve studied the greats like Donn Beach, Trader Vic’s, Steve Crane. I know all the little secrets, the Donn’s spices — I have a very niche interest in this stuff. What can people expect from your entry? Expect a good amount of wintry spices but still the warmth that tiki exudes. Favorite cocktail you’ve ever made? It was rhum agricole, green chartreuse, lime juice, pineapple juice, lime, oleo saccharum and Polynesian bitters. I worked so hard along the way, and I finally got dialed in.

HOGWASH WHISKEY DEN

Team: Erin Fasbender and Simon Moorby How long have you bartended? Fasbender: Twenty-one years. Favorite spirit? Whiskey, which I think is probably pretty obvious. Why join Rum Rumble? To challenge ourselves again. It’s a lot of fun. It’s a lot of chaos right before. Usually you don’t get enough sleep, and it’s probably your only day off. It’s basically everything that bartenders thrive on anyway. It’s so masochistic. Edge over competitors? I don’t know that we have [one]. Simon does have a little bit of a background in tiki — he trained in some tiki bars in Seattle years ago. But for me personally, I don’t feel like I have an edge. What can people expect from your entry? Infusions! We’re infusing our base, we’re making everything from scratch of course, and we’re making our own cream of coconut, pineapple gum syrup and carrot cordial. Favorite cocktail you’ve ever made? One of my favorite cocktails is a Trinidad Sour, which is a little bit of rye whiskey with a whole bunch of Angostura bitters. It’s just a fantastic cocktail, and you don’t you don’t really see it very often.

ITTY BITTY BUDDHA BAR Competitor: Jason Overdorff How long have you bartended? Overdorff: Two months. Favorite spirit?

FEB 22 THROUGH MAR 2

ZONA BLANCA

Competitor: Dominic Rage How long have you bartended? Rage: About six years. Favorite spirit? Tequila and mezcal. Why join Rum Rumble? We did the Agave Fest earlier last year and we took first place [crowd favorite] for that. So we figured, why not? Edge over competitors? I know some of the guys we’re going up against, and they are very knowledgeable. I’m just working with a variety of fruits and ingredients that hopefully other people aren’t using, and I’m hoping for the best. What can people expect from your entry? A bright vibrant cocktail. Something that’s boozey, citrusy, sweet — something you can drink on a beach all day long. Favorite cocktail you’ve ever made? Probably my cocktail that I made for the Agave Fest. We call it Agua Dorado. It was a rum tequila split, and I used Sungold kiwis to make a syrup. Bartenders from Bon Bon, Garden Party, Le Catering, North Hill on Garland and Summit Kitchen & Canteen will also be vying for glory. Ready your passport and be prepared to crown Spokane’s true tiki master! n

E IT R VO FA

m co . k ee tW n a ur a st e rR e d an l In

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Competitor: Noah Carter How long have you bartended? Carter: Six years. Favorite spirit? Agave and rum. Why join Rum Rumble? It’s because of the community. Mental health in the service industry is terrible. Anything that gets a bunch of people that work behind a bar or a restaurant together to go do something all together is just good. Edge over competitors? Attention to detail. I’m not a half-asser. I’m really all or nothing when it comes to a project. So luckily at the moment, I have the motivation to full-ass this thing. What can people expect from your entry? You’ve crash landed a spaceship in this intense crazy alien jungle. We’re going super Twilight Zone with it. Favorite cocktail you’ve ever made? It’ll be back on the Valentine’s Day menu this year. It was the “Late Night Invitation.” We custom printed some sweet hearts and instead of something adorable, it says, “You Up?” That’s the garnish on top. It’s an egg white cocktail with a dusting of sugar, and then you torch it so the sugar brulees. You get this beautiful marshmallow-y vanilla thing, but the cocktail itself is spicy and fruity.

R U YO

VOLSTEAD ACT

D N FI

Definitely gin. Why join Rum Rumble? I’ve gotten really into this whole bartending thing. It started off as just trying to get some experience and having fun helping Kadra [Evans] out. Now it’s turned into something I actually really enjoy. So she asked me if I’d be interested in the competition, and I was like, absolutely. I think it’s really cool. Edge over competitors? We’re really big on presentation. Our big thing is garnish everything. We’re really good at making drinks that not only taste good, but look good. We try to cultivate a whole experience around it. What can people expect from your entry? It’s gonna be on fire. It’s probably going to change people’s lives. Think of Jesus in a tiki mask. Favorite cocktail you’ve ever made? We have a drink called the Thai Garden Party. It’s a gin-based drink with lots of citrus and different types of simple [syrups].

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ALSO OPENING FIGHTER

I’m not saying Fighter is clearly trying to be Top Gun for a Hindi audience… but yeah. That. Exactly. Centered on Indian Air Force pilots, Fighter aims to make the Tom Cruise franchise look grounded by comparison, amping up the over-the-top nationalism and fighter battles (though these ones are clearly CGI). Not rated

ORIGIN

Writer/director Ava DuVernay examines the lasting legacy of oppression and racism by adapting journalist Isabel Wilkerson’s book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, into an emotional drama that shifts between Wilkerson’s life and the historical horrors of American slavery, the Nazi Holocaust and the Indian caste system. Rated PG-13

FESTIVAL PREVIEW

MOVIE MAZEL TOV The Spokane Jewish Film Festival celebrates its 20th anniversary BY SETH SOMMERFELD The intersection of Jewish hymns and pop music is played with in SJFF’s Less than Kosher. COURTESY SPOKANE JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL

espite the attempts by many to paint with the broadest of brushes, Jewish culture is not a monolith. And one of the purest expressions of that locally is the annual Spokane Jewish Film Festival. This year’s fest, which runs Jan. 27-Feb. 5, features 17 films including four in-person screenings. It’s also a big milestone for SJFF, with 2024 marking its 20th anniversary. To celebrate, things kick off with the festival’s first-ever opening night gala, a presentation of the crowdpleasing Remembering Gene Wilder at the Montvale Event Center (which also includes a silent auction and catering by Feast World Kitchen). “I’ve been working on the festival almost a decade now. And when I started, it was still very much a smaller, kind of by-and-for the Jewish community, mostly wordof-mouth kind of thing,” says the festival’s director, Neal Schindler. “And it has grown substantially in terms of us bringing in members of the general Spokane community, not just the Jewish community. And that’s what I’ve wanted.” With that in mind, the SJFF is bringing back some favorites from the past 20 years of programming that might’ve been originally seen by smaller audiences, such as the father/son road trip film Magic Men. That film — like many screened over the years — attempts to contend with the legacy of the Holocaust without actually being a film about suffering during the Holocaust. “In general, I think the festival committee tries not to program too much Holocaust-related stuff, because it’s easy to fall into half the festival or more about the Holocaust. And we don’t want anyone who attends the festival to think that’s the main thing, or the only thing that being Jewish is about today,” says Schindler, who points to another film on the slate as an example. “The film Where Is Anne Frank? is an animated film. We’re always excited to present a film that is animated and a film that does have appeal beyond just the adult

38 INLANDER JANUARY 25, 2024

audience. And this film really looks at kind of what Anne Frank’s legacy is. In and around the place where she lived, there is a degree of commodification of her and her narrative. And this film tries to kind of, like, look at how can we still find meaning in something that is [exasperated sigh] for a lot of people, a cliché,” Schindler continues. “We don’t think that much anymore about who she was or what it all means, but just like she represents a person who was lost in the Holocaust, which represents everyone and it all becomes kind of hard to wrap your head around. But this is kind of back down to ‘What meaning can we make of it?’” There’s also lighter fare like Less Than Kosher, in which a 30-year-old Jewish woman who has abandoned religion and is failing at being a rock star takes a gig as a substitute cantor to pay the bills only to find some musical reawakening through the holy music. It’s definitely leaning into the awkward vibes of Emma Seligman and Rachel Sennott’s stellar 2021 comedy Shiva Baby, but with music video-esque sequences sprinkled into the mix.

his year’s SJFF also has to deal with the backdrop of the ongoing devastating warfare in Gaza, where Israel’s mass killings of Palestinian civilians has led to a genocide case in the International Court of Justice. Against this backdrop, it’s fair to recoil at the prospect of films in SJFF’s lineup that touch on the decadeslong Israel-Palestine conflict. Schindler was mindful of this when programming the festival, including rejecting a documentary about the Oct. 7 attack on the Supernova Music Festival in Israel by the Palestinian militant group Hamas that sparked the current bloodshed. “I kept thinking... too soon. Like, what kind of historical perspective do we have on any of this?” says Schindler. “We just were not going to entertain the possibility. I think that in years to come, there will be Jewish films, Palestinian films, films from other places that have

something to say about what’s going on right now. But now is not the moment that we have those films.” With that in mind, the films that do focus on the tensions in that region are older ones as part of the 20th anniversary retrospective like A Borrowed Identity. “That film actually foregrounds a Palestinian perspective,” says Schindler. “The main character is Palestinian and ends up at a boarding school in Jerusalem. I really liked it when we first showed it. And that is not something you see at every Jewish Film Festival. I think increasingly, you do see films that include in a substantial way a Palestinian point of view. What I also like about that film is that the director is an Israeli Jew, and the screenwriter is Palestinian. And it is a fascinating collaboration.” For the full festival schedule and more info, visit spokanejewishfilm.org. n

EXPERIENCE PALESTINE: A FILM FESTIVAL

This week also sees the start of Experience Palestine: A Film Festival. Starting Jan. 28, the Inland Northwest Coalition for the Liberation of Palestine is hosting screenings of Palestinian documentaries at Unitarian Universalist Church every Sunday for a month. Things start with 1948, which chronicles memories of the 1948 expulsion of about half of the Palestinian people from their homes following the Partition Plan for Palestine. That’s followed by 5 Broken Cameras (Oscar-nominated doc about a farmer filming Israel destroying Palestinian farmland), Al Helm: MLK in Palestine (American singers joining a Palestinian National Theatre production about Martin Luther King Jr.), and Imprisoning A Generation (centered on four young Palestinians imprisoned by Israel). For more information visit the INW Coalition for the Liberation of Palestine’s Facebook page.

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Shots of Sundance Spotlighting four standouts from the 2024 Sundance Film Festival that should hit our big screen soon BY CHASE HUTCHINSON

hough January is one of the slower months for movie releases, this year’s Sundance Film Festival more than made up for this with screenings of some of the best and boldest films you’ll be likely to see in 2024. Last week, I braved the perilous Park City cold and labyrinthian lines to find the ones that you should have on your film-watching radar.

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40 INLANDER JANUARY 25, 2024

The second feature directed by Jesse Eisenberg to premiere at Sundance (after 2022’s When You Finish Saving the World), A Real Pain is a much more assured and confident work that also boasts an outstanding performance from Succession’s Kieran Culkin. It follows the drastically different cousins David (Eisenberg) and Benji (Culkin) as they go on a tour through Poland to honor their late grandmother by finding her home. Giving this life is a magnificent Culkin, whose performance grabs hold of you right from the opening shot and doesn’t let go until the mirroring closing image. With biting humor and reflective sadness, it is in his eyes that we get a portrait of a troubled man who is himself looking to be seen.

I SAW THE TV GLOW

With their flooring 2022 debut, We’re All Going to the World’s Fair (my second-best film of that year), writer/director Jane Schoenbrun set the bar high for themselves.

They’ve now done so once again. In I Saw the TV Glow, Schoenbrun expands the scope of their vision without ever losing sight of their incisive ability to excavate the particulars of growing up, navigating identity and the way media shapes our lives. Specifically, the media in question is the fictional supernatural TV series The Pink Opaque that is a point of fascination for two young people — wonderfully played by Justice Smith (Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves) and Brigette Lundy-Paine (Bill & Ted Face the Music) — who are looking for an escape. When the show is canceled, they’ll spend the rest of their lives searching for what it was that it meant and why it was that they were so moved by it in the first place. Drawing some understandable comparisons to the work of David Lynch, it more feels like Schoenbrun has made their own Synecdoche, New York, one that remains a surreal and distinct work of art. It emerges as a stunning achievement whose striking visuals will linger in your mind. After experiencing such an evocative emotional epic that becomes hauntingly beautiful, you too will want to wind the tape back to play it again as soon as it ends.

LOVE LIES BLEEDING

In her second feature after 2019’s searing Saint Maud, Rose Glass crafts a love story that is sweaty, sexy, sweet, and sadistic all

at once. A darkly funny film, it is a thrilling experience in moments big and small. Centering on the lonely Lou, played by a terrific Kristen Stewart, we see how her life is forever changed when the charismatic bodybuilder Jackie (played by a killer Katy O’Brian of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania) drifts into the small-town gym where she works. The two are instantly drawn to each other, resulting in the most romantic steroid-injecting scene you’ll ever see. And that’s just the beginning of this wild ride of a film. The less that is known the better, but this is the premiere that got so much buzz that I almost wasn’t able to get into the film’s final packed press screening. It was easy to see why with Stewart and O’Brian proving to be as delightful to watch and Rose taking increasingly big swings before launching us to a towering new height in a mad yet mirthful climax.

YOUR MONSTER

Last but definitely not least is Caroline Lindy’s charming feature debut Your Monster starring Melissa Barrera of Scream and Scream VI, who proves she’s already moved beyond her controversial departure from that horror franchise. Here she plays Laura, whose monster of a boyfriend broke up with her in the hospital after she went through surgery for cancer. She ends up finding an actual monster (Tommy Dewey) living in her childhood home while she recovers. As the two grow closer, Laura will have to determine what’s next. Does she go back to her old life or embrace a new one with this monster? Both silly and sharp, it all works as we get swept up in a playful horror-comedy that builds to a real showstopper of an ending. n

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RADIO

Spokane listeners know where to turn their dial for deep cut oldies...

Oldies But a Goodie

Local radio station KOOL 107.1 FM is trying to keep the early years of rock ’n’ roll alive on the airwaves BY CARRIE SHRIVER

ock ’n’ roll is as foundational to American culture early years of rock ’n’ roll: KOOL 107.1 FM. as apple pie and baseball. The music, born in Since beginning operation in 2012, owners Bob Anthe USA, fed a new generation searching for a thony Fogal — known to listeners as “Big Bob Anthony” different kind of life than the ones their parents led. It — and his wife, Pati, have made it a mission to save that helped bridge the racial barriers. People were drawn to sonic era. Tune in for a while and you’re likely to hear the music. “Fly Robin Fly” by Silver Convention, “Ain’t No MounBut, that past is fading from the airtain High Enough” by Diana Ross, “My One waves, one radio station at a time. Accordand Only Jimmy Boy” by The Girlfriends, ing to global data company Statista, there and “Dee Dee Dinah” by Frankie Avalon, all are 15,441 AM/FM stations broadcasting within the course of an hour. across the country, but only 365 still play But like the rest of the oldies lot, KOOL true oldies. It feels like a slow good-bye 107.1 FM is struggling to keep the past on-air. to the Chantels, Elvis, Fats Domino, the The challenge of remaining financially Poni-Tails, and all the other original rock solvent, along with the mission to preserve ‘n’ roll artists. oldies on the radio, led the owners to form Listeners may not have actively the Oldies Preservation Society and shift to precipitated this change, but money talks. become a listener-supported radio station. Oldies radio stations started losing ad Currently, KOOL is a hybrid, relying on revenue in the early 2000s. The original local businesses for advertising and listener “Big Bob Anthony” Fogal audience of rock ’n’ roll was aging past donations. Fewer ads means they stand out the desirable, target demographic. As a result, many clearly to listeners, a bonus to the businesses. Listeners radio stations changed format to newer music to keep the receive more songs and shorter advertising segments, revenue stream rolling. interrupting the music less often. Despite the odds stacked against them, one station COVID almost silenced KOOL permanently. The in the Inland Northwest is still spinning tunes from those station went out on a financial limb and moved to its cur-

42 INLANDER JANUARY 25, 2024

rent site, on South Jefferson Street, when the pandemic struck. Plans to become completely listener-supported were shelved as employees and volunteers were sidelined, the danger of the virus looming too large to take the chance and proceed with business as usual. Despite the tenuous times, Fogal kept the station running. As other media outlets, like streaming services and podcasts, gain popularity among a younger audience the radio landscape is also changing. Educational institutions are shifting their resources away from old media, including Eastern Washington University and its radio station KEWU, which is scheduled to go dark later this year after nearly 75 years of broadcasting. But this brings an opportunity for KOOL. If EWU accepts a proposal from Fogal to take over the station’s frequency license, KOOL’s potential audience base will increase. The frequency is two times the strength of what KOOL is currently using. While KOOL’s signal doesn’t travel much beyond Spokane, the boost could reach as far as Ritzville, 60 miles west of Spokane, and even into North Idaho. The timetable for a decision on KOOL’s proposal is unknown, and EWU says it’s recieved multiple inquiries about KEWU. If the university accepts this plan, the station will

eliminate the local advertising on KOOL because it’s a noncommercial, educational license. It’s good for KOOL and for the new folks it could reach, but could be a bummer for some local advertisers. “In my Medicare business, it was definitely my target audience,” says Bonnie Tapscott, owner of T4MI, which advertises on KOOL. And she sees results from advertising with the station, bringing people in the door of her business. Tapscott loves the station so much that she even volunteers her time there doing “daily prep work,” including researching information like the time of sunrise or noting any weird, made-up holidays like “Be Good to Your Husband Day.” Bob Gallagher, owner of Spokane’s 4000 Holes Records, agrees with Tapscott about advertising on KOOL bringing people into his business. The first time he found them on the dial “they were playing a Sonics song,” which is a plus for Gallagher, who enjoys much of the station’s fun, obscure music. KOOL is certainly in a class by itself. Their playlist includes over 5,000 songs. Most stations playing oldies music “are playing between 365 and 525 cuts,” says Keith Shipman, president and CEO of the Washington State Broadcasters, as well as a KOOL listener. Succeeding with an oldies format isn’t done “by taking 400 oldies and playing, playing them to death so that people get sick of them and having 10-minute commercial breaks,” Fogal says. “That’s not what people want to hear.”

eyond Fogal, there’s only one other KOOL DJ: John Maynard, known on-air as “Buzz Lawrence.” For about five years Maynard has run the humorous Buzz Lawrence Show on KOOL, Saturdays from 9 am to 1 pm, from his home studio in Seattle. He plays songs and jingles from the ’60s, back when he was a DJ on the Spokane AM radio station KNEW and its predecessor, KJRB, which was on air from 1947 to 1966. There’s a mutual admiration between the two DJs. “[Fogal] digs deep, he picks up some real obscure songs and just plays anything that was ever on the air anywhere,” Maynard says. KOOL’s show lineup also includes Greatest Hits USA, Joe Johnson’s Beatle Brunch, and That Thing with Rich Appel. Every Tuesday at 5 pm listeners are treated to TV theme songs from the same 30 years of rock ’n’ roll oldies. Some of the theme songs were already in the KOOL collection, and inspired Fogal to start TV Theme Tuesdays. Among the tunes are the titular “Green Acres,” “Bonanza” and “Jeannie” from I Dream of Jeannie. Despite its wayback vibes, KOOL draws fans from a wide range of ages. Elsie King, 12 years old, has spent most of her life listening to KOOL. Her parents introduced her to the music, but she doesn’t just listen because they do. “It’s better than a lot of the

newer music,” King says. (Elsie’s dad, Derrick, is the Inlander’s senior graphic designer.) Bailey Stout, 25, is another devoted listener. He displays his loyalty with decals on his truck and KOOL clothes. Stout discovered the station when his grandpa played it on a road trip. And it wasn’t even the music that first hooked him. “We were driving towards Seattle and one of George Carlin’s stand-up bits [came on],” Stout says. “And me and him shared a laugh.” After receiving permission from Fogal, Stout had a letterman jacket specially made with the colorful KOOL logo emblazoned on front and back. Many KOOL supporters have listened to oldies music from a young age, like 77-year-old Ed Clark. He started listening on his Cub Scout crystal radio set and became “addicted to a rock ’n’ roll radio in grade school.” KOOL has even been known to change some driving behaviors. During one station pledge drive, listener Joan Williams pulled off the road and into a parking lot to make her commitment. “If I don’t do this now... I’ll forget again, and I don’t want this radio station to go away,” Williams remembers thinking. Fogal makes the radio station personal for fans, something Williams cherishes. She’s left messages on the comment line, and Fogal has returned some of her calls. “It feels like you’ve been listened to, and I so appreciate what they’ve done,” Williams says. KOOL fan Peggy Luke, who also grew up listening to oldies when they were new, calls the station every time she hears one of her favorite songs. “The Beatles showed up on Ed Sullivan. And my life changed for the better. I couldn’t believe the music I was hearing,” she says with a laugh. Until then, Luke was accustomed to hearing what her mom played on the radio, singers like Perry Como. “But the Beatles brought a new dimension to my music education, and, man, I haven’t looked back.” In addition to financially supporting KOOL, Luke volunteers for them, too. “I’m the sticker lady,” she says. Luke mails out window decals with the station’s logo on them. As a special touch, she sends the envelopes out with Elvis stickers on them. “So that [the sticker recipients are] pretty clear about how serious this place is for rock and roll,” Luke says. The fate of KOOL is tenuous. Two hundred listeners and a dozen advertisers are keeping them on the air, but another disaster (like a direct lightning strike to the transformer two years ago) has the potential to silence the station. And if KOOL ends as a radio station, the loss would devastate many fans. “It’d feel like part of Spokane just went off the airwaves,” Stout says. “Music carries with it snapshots of our history, and even the world’s history,” says Fogal. “I can turn on my radio every morning. I can’t stand to turn it off at night,” Luke says with a laugh. “I have to hear it.” n

The Sustainability Issue

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JANUARY 25, 2024 INLANDER 43

MUSIC | SOUND ADVICE

ROCK G3

J = THE INLANDER RECOMMENDS THIS SHOW J = ALL AGES SHOW

Thursday, 1/25

ne of the best aspects about guitar music is the vast chasm of ways one can approach the medium. While it’s approachable enough for a teen to pick up a six-stringer, learn how to play a sloppy power chord, and start a punk band, it’s equally valid to approach the instrument as if it’s a math problem to conquer with technical precision. For those who prefer listening to the latter, the G3 Reunion tour is here for you. Started by guitar wizard Joe Satriani (the best-selling instrumental rock artist of all-time), the G3 tours pair him with two other aces of the axe for a night of fret-burning, face-melting guitar virtuosity. While those flanking Satriani on G3s have rotated over the years, he’s going back to his original 1996 compatriots — Eric Johnson and Steve Vai — for the 2024 edition. Let the shredding commence. — SETH SOMMERFELD

ALTERNATIVE ROCK SLOTHRUST

ARBOR CREST WINE CELLARS, DJ Armen CHAN’S RED DRAGON ON THIRD, Thursday Night Jam CHECKERBOARD TAPROOM, Weathered Shepherds J QQ SUSHI & KITCHEN, Just Plain Darin RED ROOM LOUNGE, Hip-Hop Night J RIVERSIDE PLACE, Kung Fu Vampire, DJ Clay ZOLA, The Rub

Friday, 1/26

AK ASIAN RESTAURANT, Cassandra Wheeler ARBOR CREST WINE CELLARS, Wyatt Wood THE BEE’S KNEES WHISKEY BAR, Wiebe Jammin’ J THE BIG DIPPER, Hostilities, KURB, Blacktracks, Spooky BOLO’S BAR & GRILL, Eternal Jones CHAN’S RED DRAGON ON THIRD, Bay 7 CHINOOK STEAK, SEAFOOD & PASTA, Ron Greene DRY FLY DISTILLING, Son of Brad J THE GRAIN SHED, Haywire MOOSE LOUNGE, Loose Gazoonz NIGHTHAWK LOUNGE (CDA CASINO), Devon Wade Band J NYNE BAR & BISTRO, Hayes Noble, Shady Angels, Sick Pay Holiday, Sex with Seneca RED ROOM LOUNGE, Live DJs THE RIDLER PIANO BAR, Just Plain Darin

44 INLANDER JANUARY 25, 2024

G3 Reunion Tour: Joe Satriani, Eric Johnson, Steve Vai • Mon, Jan. 29 at 7 pm • $25-$307 • All ages • First Interstate Center for the Arts • 334 W. Spokane Falls Blvd. • firstinterstatecenter.org

hile Slothrust isn’t a household name, the alt-rock outfit centered around Leah Wellbaum (vocals, guitar) and Will Gorin (drums) has an tremendously high approval rating among other current cool bands. It’s easy to understand, as Wellbaum’s deep vocal timbre manages to seem simultaneously ferocious and detached, which pairs excellently with the dark grungy instrumentals that bare a hint of shoegaze. This formula is on full display on the band’s 2014 album Of Course You Do, which (for a 10th anniversary conceit) Slothrust will play in its entirety on its upcoming tour that stops at the District Bar. Slothrust also achieved a new milestone in late 2023, cracking the Billboard Mainstream Rock charts for the first time with a scintillating and heavy cover of Ginuwine’s “Pony” off the band’s new EP, I Promise. Regardless of your entry point, don’t miss a chance to take a ride with Slothrust. — SETH SOMMERFELD Slothrust, Weakened Friends • Wed, Jan. 31 at 9 pm • $16 • 21+ • District Bar • 916 W. First Ave. • sp.knittingfactory.com

J SMOKESMITH BAR-B-QUE, Live Music at Smokesmith SPOKANE VALLEY EAGLES, Stagecoach West ZOLA, Starcourt

Saturday, 1/27

219 LOUNGE, B Radicals ARBOR CREST WINE CELLARS, Jason Evans BOLO’S BAR & GRILL, Eternal Jones J CAFE COCO, B CHINOOK STEAK, SEAFOOD & PASTA, Ron Greene J J HEARTWOOD CENTER, Heat Speak. Mama Llama J HUCKLEBERRY’S MARKET, The Front Porch Rockers

J J J BONES MUSICLAND, Blake Braley & Aspen Kye MOOSE LOUNGE, Loose Gazoonz NIGHTHAWK LOUNGE (CDA CASINO), Devon Wade Band PEND D’OREILLE WINERY, Ben Vogel RED ROOM LOUNGE, Live DJs J SIRINYA’S THAI RESTAURANT, Howie King J SNOW EATER BREWING CO., Just Plain Darin J SPOKANE TRIBE CASINO, RaeLynn, Brandon Jackson SPOKANE VALLEY EAGLES, Sharky and the Fins ZOLA, The Night Mayors

Sunday, 1/28

J THE BIG DIPPER, Apex Predator, Room 13, Psychic Death CURLEY’S, Loose Gazoonz HOGFISH, Open Mic J SOUTH HILL GRILL, Just Plain Darin

Monday, 1/29

EICHARDT’S PUB, Monday Night Blues Jam with John Firshi J J FIRST INTERSTATE CENTER, G3 Reunion Tour: Joe Satriani, Eric Johnson, Steve Vai MARYHILL WINERY SPOKANE, Son of Brad RED ROOM LOUNGE, Open Mic Night

J J THE FOX THEATER, Pink Martini

Tuesday, 1/30

FIRST INTERSTATE CENTER, Johnny Cash: The Official Concert Experience LITZ’S PUB & EATERY, Shuffle Dawgs ZOLA, Jerry Lee and the Groove

Wednesday, 1/31 J THE DISTRICT BAR, Slothrust, Weekend Friends THE DRAFT ZONE, The Draft Zone Open Mic J KNITTING FACTORY, The Elovaters, Swayze, Claire Wrights RED ROOM LOUNGE, The Roomates

J TIMBERS ROADHOUSE, Cary Beare Presents J J WOMAN’S CLUB OF SPOKANE, Stevie Lynne: Liminalities Album Release Show J ZEEKS PIZZA, Ben Vogel ZOLA, Brittany’s House

Coming Up ...

J J THE FOX THEATER, Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox, Feb. 12, 7:30 pm. J J SPOKANE TRIBE CASINO, Dropkick Murphys, Pennywise, The Scratch, Feb. 18, 7 pm. J J KNITTING FACTORY, Silversun Pickups, Hello Mary, Feb. 18, 8 pm. J J THE BIG DIPPER, Matt Mitchell Music Co.: Obvious Euphoria Album Release Show with The Holy Broke, Feb. 22, 7:30 pm. J J KNITTING FACTORY, Sarah Jarosz, Feb. 23, 8 pm. J THE DISTRICT BAR, Itchy Kitty, March 1, 9 pm. J J THE BIG DIPPER, Kadabra, Smokey Mirror, Vika & The Velvets, March 2, 7:30 pm. J J KNITTING FACTORY, Zeds Dead, March 8 & 9, 8 pm. J J SPOKANE TRIBE CASINO, Blue Oyster Cult, March 15, 8 pm. J J KNITTING FACTORY, GWAR, Cancer Bats, Fuming Mouth, March 21, 7:30 pm. J J NORTHERN QUEST CASINO, Melissa Etheridge, March 24, 7:30 pm. J J FIRST INTERSTATE CENTER, Disney Princess: The Concert, March 27, 7 pm. J J KNITTING FACTORY, Danny Brown, March 27, 8 pm. J J NORTHERN QUEST CASINO, Boyz II Men, May 15, 7:30 pm. J J THE BIG DIPPER, Agent Orange, Messer Chups, The Dilrods, May 22, 7:30 pm. J J GORGE AMPHITHEATER, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Ken Carson, Irontom, May 31, 7 pm. J J KNITTING FACTORY, Taking Back Sunday, Citizen, June 6, 8 pm. J J NORTHERN QUEST CASINO, Third Eye Blind, Yellowcard, Arizona, June 8, 6:30 pm. J J GORGE AMPHITHEATER, Noah Kahan, June 29. J J GORGE AMPHITHEATER, Blink-182, Pierce the Veil, July 14, 7 pm. J J KNITTING FACTORY, STRFKR, Holy Wave, Ruth Radelet, July 25, 8 pm. J J NORTHERN QUEST CASINO, Bush, Jerry Cantrell, Candlebox, July 27, 6:30 pm. J J SPOKANE PAVILION, Ween, Aug. 4, 7 pm. J J KNITTING FACTORY, King Buzzo, Trevor Dunn, JD Pinkus, Aug. 11, 8 pm. J J NORTHERN QUEST CASINO, Sammy Hagar, Aug. 13, 7 pm.

MUSIC | VENUES 219 LOUNGE • 219 N. First Ave., Sandpoint • 208-263-5673 ARBOR CREST WINE CELLARS • 4705 N. Fruit Hill Rd., Spokane Valley • 509-927-9463 BABY BAR • 827 W. First Ave. • 509-847-1234 BARRISTER WINERY • 1213 W. Railroad Ave. • 509-465-3591 BEE’S KNEES WHISKY BAR • 1324 W. Lancaster Rd.., Hayden • 208-758-0558 BERSERK • 125 S. Stevens St. • 509-315-5101 THE BIG DIPPER • 171 S. Washington St. • 509-863-8098 BIGFOOT PUB • 9115 N. Division St. • 509-467-9638 BING CROSBY THEATER • 901 W. Sprague Ave. • 509-227-7638 BLACK DIAMOND • 9614 E. Sprague Ave. • 509891-8357 BOLO’S BAR & GRILL • 116 S. Best Rd., Spokane Valley • 509-891-8995 BOOMERS CLASSIC ROCK BAR • 18219 E. Appleway Ave., Spokane Valley • 509-368-9847 BUCER’S COFFEEHOUSE PUB • 201 S. Main St., Moscow • 208-596-0887 THE BULL HEAD • 10211 S. Electric St., Four Lakes • 509-838-9717 CHAN’S RED DRAGON • 1406 W. Third Ave. • 509-838-6688 COEUR D’ALENE CASINO • 37914 S. Nukwalqw St., Worley • 800-523-2464 COEUR D’ALENE CELLARS • 3890 N. Schreiber Way, Coeur d’Alene • 208-664-2336 CRUISERS BAR & GRILL • 6105 W Seltice Way, Post Falls • 208-446-7154 CURLEY’S HAUSER JUNCTION • 26433 W. Hwy. 53, Post Falls • 208-773-5816 THE DISTRICT BAR • 916 W. 1st Ave. • 509-244-3279 EICHARDT’S PUB • 212 Cedar St., Sandpoint • 208-263-4005 FIRST INTERSTATE CENTER FOR THE ARTS • 334 W. Spokane Falls Blvd. • 509-279-7000 FOX THEATER • 1001 W. Sprague Ave. • 509-624-1200 IRON HORSE • 407 E. Sherman, Coeur d’Alene • 208-667-7314 IRON HORSE BAR & GRILL • 11105 E. Sprague Ave., Spokane Valley • 509-926-8411 JOHN’S ALLEY • 114 E. Sixth St., Moscow • 208-883-7662 KNITTING FACTORY • 911 W. Sprague Ave. • 509-244-3279 LEFTBANK WINE BAR • 108 N. Washington St. • 509-315-8623 MARYHILL WINERY • 1303 W. Summit Pkwy. • 509-443-3832 THE MASON JAR • 101 F St., Cheney • 509-359-8052 MAX AT MIRABEAU • 1100 N. Sullivan Rd., Spokane Valley • 509-922-6252 MILLIE’S • 28441 Hwy 57, Priest Lake • 208-443-0510 MOOSE LOUNGE • 401 E. Sherman Ave., Coeur d’Alene • 208-664-7901 MOOTSY’S • 406 W. Sprague Ave. • 509-838-1570 NASHVILLE NORTH • 6361 W. Seltice Way, Post Falls • 208-457-9128 NORTHERN QUEST RESORT & CASINO • 100 N. Hayford Rd., Airway Heights • 877-871-6772 NYNE BAR & BISTRO • 232 W. Sprague Ave. • 509-474-1621 PEND D’OREILLE WINERY • 301 Cedar St., Sandpoint • 208-265-8545 THE PODIUM • 511 W. Dean Ave. • 509-279-7000 POST FALLS BREWING CO. • 112 N. Spokane St., Post Falls • 208-773-7301 RAZZLE’S BAR & GRILL • 10325 N. Government Way, Hayden • 208-635-5874 RED ROOM LOUNGE • 521 W. Sprague Ave. • 509-838-7613 THE RIDLER PIANO BAR • 718 W. Riverside Ave. • 509-822-7938 SEASONS OF COEUR D’ALENE • 1004 S. Perry St. • 208-664-8008 SPOKANE ARENA • 720 W. Mallon Ave. • 509-279-7000 SOUTH PERRY LANTERN • 12303 E. Trent Ave., Spokane Valley • 509-473-9098 STEAM PLANT • 159 S. Lincoln St. • 509-777-3900 STORMIN’ NORMAN’S SHIPFACED SALOON • 12303 E. Trent Ave., Spokane Valley • 509-862-4852 TRANCHE • 705 Berney Dr., Wall Walla • 509-526-3500 ZOLA • 22 W. Main Ave. • 509-624-2416

Spokane String Quartet

DELIVERED TO YO U R IN BOX

WITH GUEST CELLIST JOHN MICHEL

3 P. M . S U N DAY, JA N . 2 8 B I N G C R O S BY T H E AT E R

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S P O K A N E ’ S

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Luxury liquor selection, local beer, premium wine, and New Orleans classic and signature cocktails!

vieuxcarrespokane.com | 509.495.1400 | 1403 w broadway ave | spokane JANUARY 25, 2024 INLANDER 45

SPORTS BALLIN’

If you’re sick of this year’s Gonzaga men’s team being incredibly unfun to watch, there’s an easy solution… watch the Gonzaga women’s team! (They rock.) But if you’re looking for a second easy solution, catch the Harlem Globetrotters when they hit the hardwood at the Spokane Arena. The world’s most consistently entertaining hoops squad has been delighting audiences for 98 years with their family-friendly mix of elite basketball skills and comedic hijinks. Where else can you find SportsCenter quality dunks, AND1 Mixtape level dribbling skills, and loads of comedy bits that always delight? Sure, it’s never in doubt that the Globetrotters will defeat the Washington Generals in these exhibition tilts, but Zags fans could probably use the comfort of a guaranteed W right now. — SETH SOMMERFELD Harlem Globetrotters • Mon, Jan. 29 at 7 pm • $31-$333 • All ages • Spokane Arena • 720 W. Mallon Ave. • spokanearena.com

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46 INLANDER JANUARY 25, 2024

MUSIC HISTORIC MELODIES

To kick off the new year, the Spokane String Quartet is performing various works by prolific composers for its next concert program. The group formed in 1979, and since then it’s been one of the only regularly performing chamber ensembles in Spokane. The quartet next will be performing a piece by Florence Price, the first Black woman to be recognized as a symphonic composer, as well as pieces from Ludwig van Beethoven and Felix Mendelssohn. The four musicians are joined on stage by Central Washington University cello professor John Michel, who also is one of the founders of Central Washington University’s resident ensemble, the Kairos String Quartet. — SUMMER SANDSTROM Spokane String Quartet • Sun, Jan. 28 from 3 pm-5 pm • $20$25 • All ages • Bing Crosby Theater • 901 W. Sprague Ave. • bingcrosbytheater.com • 509-227-7638

OUTDOORS BOWLING & BRATS

For the past six winters, parents have had a chance to launch their gleeful children down a mountainside, all in hopes of knocking down 10 inflatable bowling pins to achieve an elusive strike. This quirky annual tradition takes place at Lookout Pass (starting at 1 pm) and is free to anyone with a season pass or lift ticket. Teams consist of two people — an adult or older sibling and a child under 12. Children are placed on a saucer and pushed down the gentle slope by their teammate, aiming for the pins. Liability releases are required for participation, and helmets are suggested. (Bumpers not provided.) The top three bowlers win a prize. No bowling match is complete without food, though, and Lookout’s Mountain Brewfest provides grub from 11 to 2 pm. — LUCY KLEBECK Kids Snow Bowling & Mountain Brewfest • Sun, Jan. 28 • All ages • Free with season pass or lift ticket • Lookout Pass Ski & Recreation Area • I-90 Exit 0, Mullan • skilookout.com • 208-744-1301

ARTS BASKETS OF FUN

Nothing compares to the accomplishment you feel after creating something with your own two hands. Coeur d’Alene Tribe member Elizabeth Fulton has been weaving baskets for over 32 years and in this class, she’ll share her knowledge and talents with anyone looking to learn how to weave their own small baskets with hemp cord and yarn. The art has been passed down through generations, from Fulton’s grandmother to her mother and then to Elizabeth, making the art a tribal tradition. Now, she’s taking her passion for the craft and teaching others about her culture and the importance of tradition through weaving. — MADISON PEARSON Weaving with Elizabeth • Sun, Jan. 28 from 1-7 pm • $85 • Coeur d’Alene Casino Resort Hotel • 37914 S. Nukwalqw Rd., Worley • cdacasino.com • 1-800-523-2464

COMMUNITY TWILIGHT TWINKLE

Christmas may have ended a whole month ago, but that doesn’t mean our spirits aren’t still in need of some extra light and joy as the daylight hours continue to reach toward spring. Until then, locals can boost their serotonin levels with this new event in Coeur d’Alene. Winter Lights comes by way of Big Art, a Calgary, Canada-based art installation outfit that aims to bring public art to more places. Three main installations are being set up: a lit tunnel, doors that open to reveal otherworldly scenes, and a structure called “the beacon.” A ticketed, kickoff event ($99, ages 21+) called Illuminate on Saturday, Jan. 27, at the Coeur d’Alene Resort is also part of the festivities, offering heavy appetizers, themed cocktails, aerial performances, ice carving, live music by the group Brittany’s House and more. — CHEY SCOTT Winter Lights • Jan. 26 through Feb. 4, Fri-Sat from 4-9 pm, Sun-Thu from 4-8 pm • Free • All ages • Downtown Coeur d’Alene • cdadowntown.com

JANUARY 25, 2024 INLANDER 47

me/us when we have loved you, as you were created, since your very first breath. Accept yourself and others for the beautiful creatures they have been from day one. Please grow. Don’t change. A flower is a flower. A tree is a tree. The moon is the moon. There is beauty, naturally.

CHEERS THE TALE OF TWO CITIES The Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens is a mirror image of today’s problems. It talks about the rise of Napolean Bonaparte during the French Revolution. The moral of the story is that things are not always as they seem. Listen to the opening line.

I SAW YOU LET IT RAIN Hey handsome man in that handsome blue suit; come back and see me. I have an umbrella for you! Stay sweet. Stay smart. Always pray for rain. RE: IN MY DREAMS The night we met?? It wasn’t at night... Not sure you are who I’m talking about. MALE DOMINATION How did our worn and torn world end up with male domination? Would we all be safer if the female species replaced the power-hungry male population? EVERYDAY I STILL MISS YOU Not a day goes buy that I don’t pine for you. I try distracting myself in every possible way. I can’t even find myself attracted to someone unless they resemble you. You changed how I love, why I do, and what I do. RE: TEREDA, THIS ONE’S ABOUT YOU This is a New Year and I am here waiting for you.

YOU SAW ME KNOW THYSELF I love you. Please don’t pressure me to accept your transitioning. One day you will have to acknowledge that YOU came to NOT accept yourself, exactly the way you were/are beautifully created. Whoever hasn’t accepted you (parents?... teachers?...mentors?), or if you decided yourself, you will have to do the work on that journey. Please stop pleading with

MIND CONTROL During the Cold War after World War II, the CIA created Project MK-ULTRA to search for mind control techniques that could be weaponized against their enemies through brainwashing and psychological torture. They used numerous methods to manipulate its subjects’ mental states and brain functions through various forms of torture such as electroshocks, hypnosis, isolation, sensory denial, high doses of psychoactive drugs, along with verbal and sexual abuse. After decades of experimentation these techniques have moved into the electronic version of mind control through social media outlets. The most basic form of mind control is repetition, and since thoughts become things, eventually, then having a self-awareness of your daily consciousness is basic. Be careful what you ask for, you just might get it. 700 AND COUNTING Congratulations Coach Few on 700 wins!!!! You sir are an inspiration to us all. Well done! PLOWING SPOKANE After the big “storm” of 5.8 inches on Wednesday, the city did a great job of plowing the roads! What a mess that tremendously large amount of snow caused, and what a great job the plows did to get it all removed. As of the end of the week, I’m driving on snow-covered roads, but they’re plowed. I wonder if there has ever been a study done showing how Spokane compares to comparably sized cities? I bet other comparably sized cities that have a lot more snow have a lot more difficult of a time getting that snow removed. Soon the rains will fall, the snow will be removed, and the “artists” can start scribbling on the new north-south freeway all over again.

SNOW SHOVELERS Thanks to everyone who shoveled their sidewalks. It really made it clear how important it is to keep the walkways safe for everyone. Thank you! 7.5-MINUTE HEADWAYS Cheers to the City Line, which now comes every 7.5 minutes during the busiest times of day. To the drivers of Spokane: Traffic isn’t in your way — you ARE the traffic!

“

the caucus for the Second Coming of the Anointed One. The media goes crazy after six months covering this state. The coverage is local, national and international. On to New Hampshire. No Debates. The campaign is over, but the coverage is oppressive. SPOKANE DRIVERS SUCK! Dearest Spokane Drivers, why don’t you pay attention to the news and law enforcement every once in awhile? Are you really THAT stupid?

RE: ZERO EMISSIONS CARS I’m convinced. I’m going to buy a coal-powered truck because 40% of our electricity comes from fossil fuels. Because the world is black and white, and I refuse to think on my own. RE: DOWNTOWN PARKING If the city would just let one more historic building be demolished for another parking lot, everything would be OK.

JEERS HABIT Hey Ryan. Did you leave that job because of your bad behavior? How about you work on changing that bad habit instead of regularly changing employers? It’ll serve you and your family well. Put that energy where it will serve those around you, positively. Jerks are jerks wherever they go, until they work to not be a jerk. You can do it. It’s your responsibility. Only yours. SHOVEL YOUR SNOW Jeers to the downtown brewery for not maintaining the sidewalk around the property. Why lease this property if you have no desire to maintain it? City ordinance (SMC 12.01.010) requires business owners to keep sidewalks clear of snow and safe. Please have some consideration for your neighbors and especially for anyone disabled trying to navigate around your business. IOWA Iowa has six electoral votes. Washington state has 12. Iowa has 28 million pigs, and 56,000 acolytes voted in

Provide basic info: your name and email (so we know you’re real). 4. To connect via I Saw You, provide a non-identifying email to be included with your submission — like “petals327@yahoo.com,” not “j.smith@comcast.net.”

Despite warnings from both about the severe weather and driving, you still were speeding down snow covered and slick roads, tailgaiting, passing illegally, and other assortments of bad and odd behavior. As a result, there were many accidents with many lawyers eagerly anticipating significant lawsuits yet again. What is the hurry, dummy? When the roads are bad, SLOW DOWN! Spokane: Near Nature. Near the Dumbest of Drivers! DAMN I WISH YOU WOULD STOP “Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover.” Please. End this saga. It is not as cute as you think. Exchange numbers or email or social media profiles or... get a room? PAY ATTENTION, SPOKANE VALLEY It’s honestly quite comical what people pay attention to these days but willfully ignore right in their backyard. Most of you ignored Matt Shea and his blatant antics. If someone says they are “conservative,” you take them at face value; but if someone tells you through telephone that someone is a “progressive” or a Democrat, you do everything in your power to destroy someone. Without any research and even when faced with truth of the opposite, you continue to drag those people and attack them as if they personally hurt you. The people who claim they are conservative and shout it from the rooftops *hint* most likely aren’t. Check their voting history. You’ll be shocked to know how many taxes they’ve actually voted for or how many times they have put Spokane Valley’s best interests on the back burner. When will you all WAKE UP and do your research and stop electing

APPRECIATION

& HEROES NIGHT

Fri. 1/26 vs. Prince George Cougars

Sat. 1/27 vs Portland Winterhawks

Bring the kids in costumes as their favorite Princesses and Heroes will be at the game to say hello and take pictures.

Chiefs will wear special military themed jerseys. to be auctioned off during the game to benefit the Washington State Fallen Heroes Project.

7 PM

Sponsored By:

liars? Pay attention. Hope you like your new taxes and extremist agendas.

6 PM

EVENTS | CALENDAR

BENEFIT

SPOKANE JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL OPENING NIGHT GALA Celebrate the film festival’s 20th anniversary with food and drinks from Feast World Kitchen, a silent auction and an exclusive screening of Remembering Gene Wilder. Jan. 27, 6-9:30 pm. $30. Montvale Event Center, 1017 W. First. sjff2024.eventive.org WISHES & WINE: A TASTE OF SPOKANE Enjoy tasting selections of what our region has to offer in food, beer, wine, cider and spirits while supporting Wishing Star’s mission to provide hope for children and families facing life threatening illness. Located at runway 4. Jan. 27, 6-10 pm. $125. Felts Field, 6105 E. Rutter Rd. wishingstar.org (509-744-3411)

COMEDY

NATE BARGATZE Bargatze is known for his three Netflix comedy specials and appearances on late-night shows like The Tonight Show. Jan. 25, 7-9 pm. $40$100. Spokane Arena, 720 W. Mallon Ave. spokanearena.com DUNGEONS & DRAG QUEENS Three drag queens play the tabletop game of Dungeons & Dragons. Dungeon Master Paul Curry, musician Carson Grubb, and audience participation will lead three Queens through an improvised storytelling adventure. Jan. 27, 7-10 pm. $38. Bing Crosby Theater, 901 W. Sprague Ave. dndq.live (509-227-7404) NEW TALENT TUESDAYS Watch comedians of all skill levels work out jokes together. Tuesdays at 7 pm (doors at 6 pm). Free. Spokane Comedy Club, 315 W. Sprague. spokanecomedyclub.com COEUR COMEDY SERIES: MARC YAFFEE WITH CHRIS JESSOP Yaffee is the costar of the Showtime special Goin’ Native, has his own Dry Bar comedy special and was named one of the 25 Indigenos Comedians to Watch by IllumiNatives magazine. Ages 21+. Feb. 1, 7-10 pm. Free. Coeur d’Alene Casino, 37914 S. Nukwalqw. cdacasino.com (208-769-2464) RANDY RAINBOW Rainbow is a musical satirist performing original songs and Broadway classics. Feb. 1, 7:30 pm. $111$176. The Fox Theater, 1001 W. Sprague Ave. foxtheaterspokane.org IMPROV & SELF CARE This four-week class teaches how the basics of improv can help reduce stress, deal with uncertainty and improve wellbeing. Feb. 3-24, Sat from 10 am-noon. $100. Blue Door Theatre, 319 S. Cedar St. spokaneschoolofimprov.org (509-747-7045)

COMMUNITY

CLOTHING SWAP Bring clean, gently used clothing items to swap or pick out some free clothes from the selection. Jan. 25, 5-8 pm. Free. Mom’s Custom Tattoo & Body Piercing, 1226 W. Summit Parkway. instagram.com/momsofspokane GENEALOGY DROP-IN SESSIONS Get help researching the story of your family. Come to the library to learn about our genealogy resources and work with experienced genealogy enthusiasts to learn how to fill out your family tree. Jan. 25, 5:30-7:30 pm. Free. Spokane Valley Library, 22 N. Herald Rd. scld.org HOMEBUYER EDUCATION SEMINAR Explore all of the major aspects of the home-buying process in an unbiased format with SNAP Spokane instructors certified by the Washington State Hous-

ing Finance Commission. Jan. 25, 6-8:30 pm. Free. North Spokane Library, 44 E. Hawthorne Rd. intakeq.com SPOKANE PROFESSIONAL SOCIETY NETWORKING EVENT An outing to Uptic Studios, a workspace designed to elevate collaboration. The evening features networking opportunities, food, beverages and games meant to connect professionals and industry experts from the architectural and design communities. Jan. 25, 5:30-7:30 pm. $10-$15. Uptic Studios, 402 E. Sprague Ave. spopro.org LATIN NIGHT SPOKANE A night of DJspun Latin beats and dancing. Jan. 26, 9 pm-2 am. $5-$10. The Goody Bar and Grill, 8714 E. Sprague Ave. facebook.com/ Latinnightsspokane (509-652-2885) QUESTMAS VILLAGE This outdoor family-friendly winter experience features large displays, a synthetic ice rink, photo backdrops and more. Mon-Thu from 4-9 pm and Fri-Sun from 12-9 pm through Feb. 18. Free. Northern Quest Resort & Casino, 100 N. Hayford Rd. northernquest.com (509-242-7000) WINTER LIGHTS An illuminated outdoor art experience featuring large-scale, light-based artworks, interactive displays and colorfully-lit sculptures. Jan. 26-Feb. 4; Mon-Thu from 4-8pm, Fri-Sat from 4-9 pm. Free. Downtown Coeur d’Alene, Sherman Ave. cdadowntown.com ACCEPTANCE SPOKANE A peer-supported safe space for LGBTQIA+ youth (ages 16-19) in the Spokane area to meet and discuss issues and topics, and promote mental health awareness and acceptance of oneself. The last Saturday of every month from 3-4 pm. Free. Atomic Threads Boutique, 1905 N. Monroe St. fb.me/e/3cxf4vKyL (509-280-9120) SPOKANE REIMAGINED INFO SESSION An information session for Spokane Reimagined, a proposal to repurpose existing rights, improve Spokane’s connectivity, increase density and spur economic development. Jan. 27, 4 pm. Free. Liberty Park Library, 402 S. Pittsburgh St. spokanereimagined.org ST. JOSEPH PARISH SEMI-ANNUAL BOOK SALE A used book sale featuring a variety of genres. All proceeds are donated to local charities. Jan. 27-28; Sat from 9 am-1 pm, Sun from 9 am-noon. St. Joseph Church, 3720 E. Colbert Rd. stjosephcolbert.org (509-466-4991) COFFEE WITH SPS This open house-style event us an opportunity to visit schools and chat with members of the Board of Directors and other district leaders. Jan. 30, 8-10 am. Free. Glover Middle School, 2404 W. Longfellow Ave. spokaneschools.org/coffee (509-413-1436) POWERHOUSE PANEL A panel featuring four female entrepreneurs from the Inland Northwest. The panel includes Aly Korchemniy, Heidi Miller, Jennifer Davis and Julia Lara. Jan. 30, 6 pm. Free. Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture, 2316 W. First Ave. sheisvested.com COFFEE & CONVERSATION This event aims to help people feel seen and heard within the community. The conversation is free form and the event includes lowkey activities like coloring, puzzles and more. Every Wed from 10:30 am-noon. 10:30 am-noon. Free. Central Library, 906 W. Main Ave. spokanelibrary.org ICE CREAM WITH SPS Families and community members are invited to join the SPS Board of Directors and district leaders for conversation over ice cream. Jan. 31, 6:30-8 pm. Free. Sacajawea Middle School, 401 E. 33rd Ave. spokaneschools.

org/coffee (509-354-5500) MANY SPIRITS COMMUNITY A space for two-spirit and Indigiqueer people to spend time together. Tea, hot chocolate and some art supplies are provided. Feel free to bring creative projects. 4-7 pm. Free. Shadle Library, 2111 W. Wellesley Ave. spectrumcenterspokane.org LEARNING CIRCLE: HISTORY & CULTURE OF UKRAINE During this learning circle, study the culture and history of our Ukrainian neighbors using free online materials. Held in collaboration with Thrive International. Registration is required. Feb. 1-March 7, Thu from 7-8 pm. Online. Free. scld.org CHIC & SHAB’S 5TH BIRTHDAY PARTY A shopping event with discounts, prizes, treats and raffles. Feb. 3, 10 am-5 pm. Free. Chic & Shab, 2321 N. Monroe St. chicandshab.com (509-381-5168)

FILM

EXPO ’74: FILMS FROM THE VAULT A selection of recently digitized film footage from the 1974 World’s Fair hosted in Spokane. Tue-Sun from 10 am-5 pm through Sep. 8. $7-$12. Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture, 2316 W. First Ave. northwestmuseum.org (509-456-3931) VALLEY GIRL Julie, a girl from the valley, meets Randy, a punk from the city. They are from different worlds and find love. Somehow they need to stay together in spite of her trendy, shallow friends. Jan. 25, 7-9 pm. $8. The Kenworthy, 508 S. Main St. kenworthy.org (208-882-4127) POOR THINGS Bella Baxter, a young woman brought back to life by the brilliant and unorthodox scientist Dr. Godwin Baxter. Hungry for the worldliness she is lacking, Bella runs off with Duncan Wedderburn, a slick and debauched lawyer, on a whirlwind adventure across the continents. Jan. 26-28, 3 & 7 pm. $8. The Kenworthy, 508 S. Main. kenworthy.org THE SUPER MARIO BROS. MOVIE A plumber named Mario travels through an underground labyrinth with his brother Luigi, trying to save a captured princess. Jan. 26 & 29, 12-2 pm. $8. The Kenworthy, 508 S. Main St. kenworthy.org MET LIVE IN HD: CARMEN A new production of one of opera’s most powerful works. The new staging highlights issues that are still relevant today like gendered violence, abusive labor structures and the desire to break through societal boundaries. Jan. 27, 9:55 am-noon. $20. The Kenworthy, 508 S. Main St. kenworthy.org (208-882-4127) SPOKANE JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL A festival featuring international films that share Jewish life and culture with the Inland Northwest. In person Jan. 27-28 and Feb. 3-4. Online Jan. 28-Feb. 8; times vary. $10-$65. Gonzaga University Jepson Center, 502 E. Boone Ave. sajfs.org EXPERIENCE PALESTINE FILM FESTIVAL This festival aims to showcase Palestine’s culture and history through a selection of films. Jan. 28, 1-3 pm. By donation. Unitarian Universalist Church, 4340 W. Whistalks Way. (509-325-6283)

FOOD & DRINK

BRING YOUR OWN VINYL NIGHT Bring your own vinyl to spin while sipping on craft cocktails and listening to music. Thursdays from 3-10 pm. The Boneyard - Side Hustle Syrups, 17905 E. Appleway

Ave, Ste A. sidehustlesyrups.com BEVERLY’S WELLER BOURBON DINNER This dinner features an expertly curated six-course dining experience featuring dishes meticulously paired with various expressions of Weller Bourbon. Jan. 26, 6-9 pm. $150. Beverly’s, 115 S. Second St. beverlyscda.com WINEMAKERS SUPPER CLUB: BARILI CELLARS A five-course meal hosted by Sue and Gary Hustad and Russ and Marlene Feist, owners of Barili Cellars. See website for full menu. Jan. 27, 6:30 pm. $95. Commellini Estate, 14715 N. Dartford Dr. commellini.com THE RUM RUMBLE TIKI OFF Sample 15 cocktails from 15 bars in Spokane as they battle for the title of Spokane’s Tiki Master. Jan. 28, 12-4 pm. $45. Knitting Factory, 919 W. Sprague Ave. sp.knittingfactory.com (509-244-3279) COMMUNITY WASTE REDUCTION CLASSES Learn how to cut back on food waste. The classes cover a range of topics including food storage, preservation, packaging and more. Registration required. Jan. 29, 2-3 pm. Free. Second Harvest, 1234 E. Front Ave. secondharvestkitchen.org (509-252-6255) KITCHEN COOKING CLASS: HANDFORMED PASTA Commellini Estate’s executive chef teaches students how to make various pasta noodles in this hands-on cooking class. The class culminates in a family-style meal. Jan. 31, 6:309:30 pm and Feb. 1, 6:30-9:30 pm. $85. Commellini Estate, 14715 N. Dartford Dr. commellini.com WINE DOWN WEDNESDAYS Beverly’s resident sommelier Justine Recor offers complimentary tastings of wine from around the globe as well as knowledge and conversations about their origins. Every week on Wed from 4-9 pm. Free. Beverly’s, 115 S. Second. beverlyscda.org BEVERLY’S J LOHR VINEYARDS WINE DINNER A six-course meal curated by the Beverly’s food and beverage team with wine pairngs from J Lohr Wines. Feb. 1, 6-9 pm. $100. Beverly’s, 115 S. Second St. beverlyscda.com (208-292-5678) BOOZY BOOKFAIR Bookishly Happy sets up a book fair in the Coeur d’Alene Cider taproom. A portion of sales benefits Borah Elementary’s library. All ages. Feb. 1, 3-8 pm. Free. Coeur d’ Alene Cider Co., 1327 E. Sherman Ave. cdaciderhouse.com MIXOLOGY CLASS Learn to mix beverages and create a fat-washed bourbon. Ages 21+. Feb. 2, 6-9 pm. $20. Millwood Masonic Center, 3219 N. Argonne Rd. millwoodmasoniccenter.com

MUSIC

THE JUPITER STRING QUARTET A fourpiece chamber music ensemble performing original songs as well as other selections. Jan. 25, 7-9:30 pm. $10-$25. University of Idaho Administration Building, 851 Campus Dr. uidaho.edu SPOKANE SYMPHONY BARRISTER CHAMBER SOIRÉE A selection of musician-curated music performed by various Spokane Symphony musicians. Appetizers, wine, coffee and dessert are included with ticket purchase. Jan, 24-25 at 7:30 pm. $99. Barrister Winery, 1213 W. Railroad Ave. foxtheaterspokane.org SPOKANE SYMPHONY: ROCKWOOD CHAMBER SOIRÉE Experience musiciancurated chamber music performed by Spokane Symphony musicians. Jan. 26, 7 pm. $33. Rockwood Retirement Community, 221 E. Rockwood Blvd. foxtheater-

spokane.org (509-838-3200) CDA SYMPHONY: STORYTIME ADVENTURES, A FAMILY CONCERT The Coeur d’Alene symphony performs Golden Window by Brian Schappals, Pirates of the Caribbean by Klaus Bedelt and more. Jan. 27, 7:30 pm. $15-$35. Schuler Performing Arts Center, 880 W. Garden Ave. cdasymphony.org (208-769-7780) THOMAS PLETSCHER TRIO Jazz pianist Thomas Pletscher performs repertoire from the Great American Songbook, along with jazz arrangements of pop songs, and original compositions. Jan. 27, 6-9 pm. Free. Historic Davenport Hotel, 10 S. Post St. davenporthotelcollection. com (800-899-1482) SPOKANE STRING QUARTET The Spokane String Quartet performs String Quartet No. 1 in G Major by Florence Price in honor of Black History Month. Jan. 28, 3-5 pm. $20-$35. Bing Crosby Theater, 901 W. Sprague Ave. bingcrosbytheater. com (509-227-7638) MUSIC MAJOR FOR A DAY Experience a day in the life of a WSU music student. This event is open to all students considering a degree in music education, music performance, general music, a double major or a music minor. Jan. 29, 9 am-5 pm. Free. Kimbrough Music Building, WSU Pullman. music.wsu.edu RENAISSANCE ITALIAN CANZONAS The Renaissance Italian Canzonas feature four specialists performing on instruments of the renaissance including recorders, transverse flute, viola, dulcian and bassoon. Jan. 30, 7 pm. $20-$25. Cathedral of Our Lady of Lourdes, 1115 W. Riverside Ave. salishseafestival.org/ spokane (509-358-4290) THE LOWEDOWN ON MASTERWORKS 6: A MESSAGE TO THE STARS Music Director James Lowe previews each of the Masterworks concerts he conducts each Thursday before the concert weekend. Feb. 1, noon. Free. Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture, 2316 W. First Ave. northwestmuseum.org (509-456-3931) FACULTY ARTIST SERIES: YOON-WHA ROH AND JIHYUN KIM The piano duo perform works by Bach, Schubert, Ravel and more. Feb. 2, 7:30-9 pm. Free. Kimbrough Music Building (WSU), WSU Pullman. music.wsu.edu (509-335-7696)

SPORTS & OUTDOORS

MT. SPOKANE NIGHT SKIING Ski after the sun sets under the lights at Mt. Spokane. Wed-Fri from 3-9 pm through March 16. $40-$80. Mt. Spokane Ski & Snowboard Park, 29500 N. Mt. Spokane Park Dr. mtspokane.com (509-238-2220) SPOKANE BOAT SHOW An exhibition and vendor show featuring the latest in boats and boating accessories from dealers around the Inland Northwest. Jan. 2528; Thu-Sat from 10 am-7 pm, Sun from 10 am-4 pm. $5-$10. Spokane County Fair & Expo Center, 404 N. Havana St. spokaneboatshow.com (509-477-1766) CLUB SHRED A club aimed at kids learning and practicing ski skills. The club also includes fun activities, movies, dinner and more. Ages 4-10. Skiers only. Fridays 5-8 pm through March 15. $45. Mt. Spokane Ski & Snowboard Park, 29500 N. Mt. Spokane Park Dr. mtspokane,com DJ NIGHT ON THE ICE Skate around to tunes from DJ A1. Jan. 26, 6-9 pm. $6.95$9.95. Numerica Skate Ribbon, 720 W. Spokane Falls Blvd. riverfrontspokane.

JANUARY 25, 2024 INLANDER 49

EVENTS | CALENDAR FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS Night skiing with the addition of live music on the mountain. Every Fri from 3-9 pm through March 29. $39. Mt. Spokane Ski & Snowboard Park, 29500 N. Mt. Spokane Park Dr. mtspokane.com (509-238-2220) HOW TO THROW A PUNCH Learn basic boxing skills in this all ages class. Jan. 26, noon. Free. Millwood Masonic Center, 3219 N. Argonne Rd. millwoodmasoniccenter.com (509-999-9930) SNOWSHOE MOONLIGHT TOUR Explore the meadows and woods around Mount Spokane guided by an experienced instructor. Registration required. Ages 16+. Jan. 26, 6-9:30 pm $41. Yoke’s Fresh Market, 14202 N. Market St. spokanerec.org SPOKANE CHIEFS VS. PRINCE GEORGE COUGARS Promotions include Gold Seal Princesses & Heroes Night. Jan. 26, 7:05 pm. $13-$32. Spokane Arena, 720 W. Mallon Ave. spokanechiefs.com COACHES CORNER Coaches from Spokane Figure Skating Club offer valuable tips and guidance to emerging skaters. Jan. 26 from 11 am-1 pm. $6.95-$9.95. Numerica Skate Ribbon, 720 W. Spokane Falls Blvd. riverfrontspokane.org HOUSEPLANT MASTERY SERIES Learn all of the strategies to maintaining the health of your houseplants. The classes go over plant selection, light and water needs, soil and pot selection and much more. Jan. 6-27, Sat from 2-3 pm. $10$30. Ritters Garden & Gift, 10120 N. Division St. 4ritter.com SNOWSHOE TOUR Explore the trails of 49 Degrees North while a tour guide instructs you how to better control your snowshoes. Fee includes guides, snowshoes, poles, trail pass, instruction and lunch. Ages 16+. Jan. 27, 10 am-2 pm. $53. 49 Degrees North, 3311 Flowery Trail Rd. spokanecity.org (509-363-5414) SPOKANE CHIEFS VS. PORTLAND WINTERHAWKS Promotions include Military Appreciation Night Jan. 27, 6:05 pm. $13$32. Spokane Arena, 720 W. Mallon Ave. spokanechiefs.com (509-279-7000) CROSS COUNTRY SKI LESSONS Learn the basics of cross-country skiing. Fee includes a day long ski equipment rental and two hours of instruction. Jan. 28, 10 am-noon. $77. Selkirk Lodge, N. Mt. Spokane Park Dr. spokanecity.org KIDS SNOW BOWLING & MOUNTAIN BREWFEST One adult or older sibling pushes while a child sits on a saucer and attempst to knock down inflatable bowling pins. The Mountain Brewfest and BBQ is also happening on the back deck with beers from Wallace Brewing on tap. Jan. 28, 1 pm. Must have a lift ticket. Lookout Pass Ski & Recreation Area, I-90 Exit 0. skilookout.com (208-744-1301) SNOWSHOE MOUNT SPOKANE WITH TRANSPORTATION Take a tour of majestic Mount Spokane by snowshoeing up and down hills through trails. Jan. 28 and Feb. 3, 9 am-1 pm. $41. Yoke’s Fresh Market, 14202 N. Market St. spokanerec.org UP YOUR HOUSEPLANT GAME This informational class focuses on rare and specialty houseplants. Jan. 28, 2-3 pm. $10. Ritters Garden & Gift, 10120 N. Division St. 4ritter.com (509 467-5258) HARLEM GLOBETROTTERS: 2024 WORLD TOUR Harlem Globetrotter team members perform tricks and stunts. Jan. 29, 7 pm. $31-$117. Spokane Arena, 720 W. Mallon Ave. spokanearena.com CHEAP SKATE TUESDAYS Free skate rentals are provided with each paid admission. Tuesdays from 11 am-8 pm

50 INLANDER JANUARY 25, 2024

through Feb. 27. $6.95-$9.95. Numerica Skate Ribbon, 720 W. Spokane Falls Blvd. riverfrontspokane.org (509-625-6600) PRUNING & PLANTING FRUIT TREES Learn the proper way to prune and plant fruit trees in your landscape from Master Gardener Steve Nokes. Jan. 30, 6:30-7:30 pm. Free. North Spokane Library, 44 E. Hawthorne Rd. scld.org SPOKANE CHIEFS VS. EVERETT SILVERTIPS Promotions include TicketsWest Player Magnet Giveaway Jan. 30, 7:05 pm. $13-$32. Spokane Arena, 720 W. Mallon Ave. spokanechiefs.com PRACTICAL CENTERING YOGA Experience the benefits of yoga and pilates movements through these weekly exercise sessions led by instructor Larkin Barnett. Every Wednesday from 1:30-2:30 pm. 1:30-2:30 pm. $18-$20. Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture, 2316 W. First Ave. northwestmuseum.org QIGONG Qigong is a traditional Chinese style of exercise that optimizes energy within the body, mind and spirit, with the goal of improving and maintaining health and well-being. Every Wed from 12-1 & 1-2 pm through March 20. $20. Spokane Community College, 1810 N. Greene St. campusce.net/spokaneactii WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU FOLLOW THE BLOOMS? Katie Lila of Flowers For People talks about her new TV series, Follow The Blooms, in which she travels to small flower farms throughout the country to find the best blooms at their peak and then creates big-impact, interactive designs for events such as parades, art and music festivals and more. Feb. 1, 4-6 pm. Free. Shadle Library, 2111 W. Wellesley Ave. tieg.org (509-535-8434) NORDIC YOUTH PROGRAM A series of 90-minute classes for beginners and intermediate youth skiers. Feb. 2-16; Fri from 10-11:30 am (beginners) and 121:30 pm (beyond the basics). $42-$75. 49 Degrees North, 3311 Flowery Trail Rd. ski49n.com (509-935-6649) CHEWELAH WINTERFEST This annual event features a skijoring competition, craft booths, live music and a rail jam. Feb. 3, 11 am-9 pm. Free. Chewelah, Washington. ski49n.com CROSS COUNTRY SKI LESSONS Learn to cross-country ski and tour the trails of 49 Degrees North Nordic Area. Instruction includes basics of equipment, ski area rules, etiquette and techniques. Ages 13+. Feb. 3, 10 am-2 pm, $67. 49 Degrees North, 3311 Flowery Trail Rd. spokanecity. org (509-363-5414)

THEATER & DANCE

GOOD PEOPLE When Margie Walsh loses her job at the Dollar Store and faces eviction, she reaches out to old flame Mike, a Southie boy who left his blue-collar neighborhood behind and made it good by becoming a successful doctor. Jan. 19Feb. 4; Thu-Sat at 7:30 pm, Sun at 2 pm. $15-$25. Spokane Civic Theatre, 1020 N. Howard St. spokanecivictheatre.com SIX: THE MUSICAL This musical is a modern retelling of the lives of the six wives of Henry VIII, presented in the form of a pop concert. Jan. 23-28; Tue-Sat at 7:30 pm, Sat also at 2 pm, Sun at 1 pm and 6:30 pm. $52-$100. First Interstate Center for the Arts, 334 W. Spokane Falls Blvd. firstinterstatecenter.org FOURTH FRIDAY CONTRA DANCE All of the dances are clearly taught and called

by Susan Dankovich. The event features live music from Reel Friends. No experience is required. Fourth Friday of every month from 7-10 pm. $6. Sinto Activity Center, 1124 W. Sinto Ave. sintocenter.org CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN Based on a true story, this play tells the story of the Gilbreth family and their inventor father, who is well-known for bringing better efficiency to factories, keeps his family of twelve children running just as efficiently. Jan. 19-Feb. 4; Fri at 7 pm, Sat-Sun at 2 pm. $12-$16. Spokane Children’s Theatre, 2727 N. Madelia. spokanechildrenstheatre.org (509-328-4886) ARGENTINE TANGO SOCIAL DANCE CLASSES Learn to dance the Argentine Tango social dance. Classes use weekly step sequence topics to focus on fundamental skills. Open to all levels and drop-ins are welcome. Every Monday from 5:15-6:45 pm. $15. The Clutch Tango Dance Studio, 1507 E. Sprague Ave. tangomind.com (509-290-8138) AMADEUS While chasing fame and fortune, Antonio Salieri becomes obsessed with the rowdy young prodigy, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who is determined to make a splash. Feb. 2-25; Wed-Sat at 7:30 pm, Sun at 2 pm. (Sat, Feb. 10 performance at 2 pm.) $15-$38. Spokane Civic Theatre, 1020 N. Howard St. spokanecivictheatre.com (509-325-2507) ARGENTINE MILONGA Dance the Argentine tango surrounded by dancers of all levels. A light snack potluck is included. First Saturday of each month from 7-10 pm. $5. Sinto Activity Center, 1124 W. Sinto Ave. sintocenter.org THE THORN An immersive show with live music, drama and aerial acts that tells the biblical story of God and the spiritual battle for all humanity. Feb. 3-4, 1-3 pm.$37-$97. First Interstate Center for the Arts, 334 W. Spokane Falls Blvd. firstinterstatecenter.org

VISUAL ARTS

DRAWING FUNDAMENTALS CLASS Artist Marlene Laurich leads students in line, shape, form and space drawing techniques. Fridays from 3-4:30 pm. Free. Create Arts Center, 900 Fourth St. createarts.org (509-447-9277) E.L. STEWART Stewart showcases a mix from her Tree series which prominently features abstract paintings of trees. Thu-Sat from 3-7 pm, Sun from 12-4 pm through Jan. 31. Free. Craftsman Cellars, 1194 W. Summit Pkwy. facebook.com/ Craftsmanwines (509-328-3960) JUAQUETTA HOLCOMB Fiber artist Juaquetta Holcomb is Pottery Place Plus’s January guest artist. She uses local wool to make hand-spun yarn, hats, shawls and more. Daily from 11 am-7 pm through Jan. 31. Free. Pottery Place Plus, 203 N. Washington St. potteryplaceplus. com (509-327-6920) FRANK S. MATSURA: NATIVE AMERICAN PORTRAITS FROM A NORTHWEST BORDERLAND This show features images from the studio archive of Washington-based Japanese photographer Frank Sakae Matsura (b. 1873) which explore Indigenous representation through an artistic lens. Tue-Sun from 10 am-5 pm through June 9. $7-$12. Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture, 2316 W. First Ave. northwestmuseum.org (509-456-3931) GEORGE BEDIRIAN: BARNS OF THE PALOUSE George Bedirian has been photographing the Palouse for over 50 years, this exhibit showcases photos of barns across the Palouse. Mon-Fri from

10 am-6 pm, through Jan. 31. Free. Colfax Library, 102 S. Main St. whitcolib.org HERE IN A HOMEMADE FOREST: COMMON READING CONNECTIONS EXHIBITION Inspired by Washington State University’s 2023-24 Common Reading Book, Braiding Sweetgrass, this exhibition highlights crucial themes through the lens of art, inviting visitors into a conversation about prioritizing a reciprocal relationship with the land, with each other and with other living beings. TueSat from 10 am-4 pm through March 2. Free. Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art WSU, 1535 NE Wilson Rd. museum.wsu. edu (509-335-1910) HONEST PORTRAYAL This show features to-dimensional, three-dimensional and text-based artworks made by 55 artists in the Moscow region. Mon-Fri from 8 am-5 pm through April 5. Free. Third Street Gallery, City Hall, 206 E. Third St. ci.moscow.id.us/230/Third-Street-Gallery (208-883-7036) JEFFREY GIBSON: THEY TEACH LOVE This exhibition combines various art mediums such as sculpture, painting and video with the artist’s American Indian cultural background by adorning objects with beadwork, jingles, fringe and sinew. Tue-Sat from 10 am-4 pm through March 9. Free. Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art WSU, 1535 NE Wilson. museum.wsu.edu LISTENING FOR AN ECHO: SOMETHING ABOUT FARMING This show features artists Pam Deutschman, Abbie Evans, Megan Perkins and Karen Mobley exploring the intricacies of farming through visual dialogue. Thu-Sat from 4-7 pm through Jan. 27. Free. Terrain Gallery, 628 N. Monroe St. terrainspokane.com MEET YOUR MAKER Meet the artists behind all of the items in From Here. Daily from 11 am-6 pm. See website for artist schedule. Free. From Here, 808 W. Main Ave. fromherespokane.com NANCY ROTHWELL: FREEDOM AND JOY IN THE PALOUSE This exhibit showcases how the artist’s color palette and content shifted after moving from Western Washington to Eastern Washington. Mon-Sat from 10 am-6 pm through Jan. 31. Free. The Center, 104 S. Main St. whitcolib.org (509-397-4366) NORTH IDAHO COLLEGE FACULTY EXHIBITION NIC faculty members display recent works. Mon-Thu from 10 am-4 pm, Fri from 10 am-2:30 pm through Jan. 26. Free. Boswell Corner Gallery at NIC, 1000 W. Garden Ave., Building 22. nic.edu/cornergallery (208-769-3276) PALOUSE WOMEN ARTISTS SHOW Art by various female artists in the Palouse area featuring a wide array of mediums. Mon-Fri from 9 am-6 pm through Jan. 31. Free. 1912 Center, 412 E. Third St. 1912center.org (208-669-2249) QUINCEY MIRACLE: IT’S EASY TO GET LOST HERE Miracle’s artwork uses architectural space and personal archives to explore the nature of nonbinary transition. Mon-Fri from 8:30 am-3:30 pm through Feb. 1. Free. Spokane Falls Community College, 3410 W. Whistalks Way. sfcc.spokane.edu (509-533-3500) SPOKANE WATERCOLOR SOCIETY MEMBER’S SHOW This show features paintings created by 22 members of the Spokane Watercolor Society using water soluble painting media. Daily from 11 am-7 pm through Feb. 23. Free. Liberty Building, 203 N. Washington St. spokanelibertybuilding.com (509-327-6920) FRIENDS OF SARANAC ART PROJECT Participating Saranac members invited

guest artists to exhibit at the gallery. FriSat from 12-8 pm Jan. 27. Free. Saranac Art Projects, 25 W. Main. sapgallery.com MARGUERITE FINCH Finch is a fine art instructor and displays sculptural works in this exhibition that details certain facets of her family’s Wisconsin farmland. Fri-Sat from 12-8 pm through Jan. 27. Free. Saranac Art Projects, 25 W. Main Ave. sapgallery.com BRING YOUR OWN PIECE PAINT CLASS A workshop to help develop work-inprogress pieces. The piece must be easily carried into class such as a small side table, bench, window or picture frame. Pre-registration required. Supplies included. Every Mon from 12-3 pm, Sat from 2-5 pm. $85. Paint In My Hair, 3036 N. Monroe St. facebook.com/paintinmyhair (509-326-6999) CHILDREN’S PAINTING LESSONS An introductory painting class for children. Bring your own supplies. Ages 10+. Every Sunday from 3-4:30 pm. $10. Spokane Art Supply, 1303 N. Monroe St. spokaneartsupply.com (509-435-8210) WEAVING CLASS Coeur d’Alene Tribal member Elizabeth Fulton, who has been weaving baskets for over 32 years, teaches participants how to make a small basket twinned with hemp cord and yarn. All materials are provided. Jan. 28, 1-7 pm. $85. Coeur d’Alene Casino, 37914 S. Nukwalqw. cdacasino.com (208-769-2464) PLAY WITH COLOR! Drop in anytime during this program for colorful handson activities, crafts and play-and-learn toys. Ages 2-5 and their families. Jan. 29, 10 am-noon. Free. North Spokane Library, 44 E. Hawthorne Rd. scld.org (893-8350) TUESDAY GALLERY TALKS Join a museum staff member or docent for an 20 minute informal discussion about one of the currently showing exhibitions. Every Tuesday at 11 am. Included with admission. Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture, 2316 W. First Ave. northwestmuseum.org WATERCOLOR CLASS Learn the basics of painting with watercolors. Supplies included for first-timers. Open to all levels. Every other Tuesday from 10 am-2 pm. $20. Create Arts Center, 900 Fourth St. createarts.org (509-447-9277) DROP IN & DRAW Join a creative community for this weekly free-form drawing program. Explore different artistic mediums, develop skills and ideas and cultivate imaginative thinking through art. All skill levels are welcome. Supplies and projects provided. Wednesdays from 5:30-7 pm. Free. Spark Central, 1214 W. Summit. spark-central.org SPINNERS WORKSHOP Bring your spinning wheel or current projects to work on. Every Wednesday from 10 am-12 pm. Free. Create Arts Center, 900 Fourth St. createarts.org (509-447-9277) TOTS MESSY ART A messy art class meant for children ages 7 and under. Guardian must be present for the entire class. Every Wednesday from 11 am-1 pm. Free. Create Arts Center, 900 Fourth St. createarts.org (509-447-9277) LORETTA ETCHISON & MELISSA ISAACSON Etchison creates wool felted purses and decorates them with needle felting. Isaacson is a painter aiming to capture the essence of place in her work. Feb. 1-29, daily from 11 am-7 pm. Free. Pottery Place Plus, 203 N. Washington St. potteryplaceplus.com TOM QUINN Quinn is a Spokane-based artist who works mostly in acrylics and oils. Feb. 1-29, daily from 11 am-6 pm.

Free. Entropy, 101 N. Stevens St. explodingstars.com (509-414-3226) 2024 REGIONAL STUDENT INVITATIONAL ART EXHIBITION This exhibit features student art works from Gonzaga, EWU, Whitworth, Spokane Falls Community College and North Idaho College. Feb. 2-March 1; Fri from 4-7 pm, Sat from 10 am-3 pm. Free. Gonzaga University Urban Arts Center, 125 S. Stevens St. gonzaga.edu/gonzagauniversity-urban-arts-center FIRST FRIDAY Art galleries and businesses across downtown Spokane and beyond host monthly receptions to showcase new displays of art. Fri, Feb. 2 from 5-8 pm. Details at firstfridayspokane.org. FIRST FRIDAYS WITH POAC First Friday arts events in Sandpoint, organized by the Pend Oreille Arts Council. Fri, Feb. 2 from 5:30-7:30 pm. Pend Oreille Arts Council Gallery, 110 Main St. artinsandpoint.org (208-263-6139) HARA ALLISON: BENEATH YOUR BEAUTIFUL MAGAZINE Local photographer and magazine publisher Hara Allison showcases photographs of people featured in her magazine, Beneath Your Beautiful. Feb. 2-29, Mon-Fri from 8 am-5 pm. Free. Chase Gallery, 808 W. Spokane Falls Blvd. spokanearts.org (509-321-9416) JO FYFE: ARTIST, TEACHER, FRIEND A show paying tribute to Jo Fyfe, her creative spirit, her dedication to teaching and in recognition of her many accomplishments in the Spokane art community. Feb. 2-29, Wed-Sat from 11 am-5 pm. Free. New Moon Art Gallery, 1326 E. Sprague Ave. manicmoonandmore.com (509-413-9101) MARIAH BOYLE & DAN MCCANN Saranac Art Project members Mariah Boyle and Dan McCann exhibit new artwork. Feb. 2-25, Fri-Sat from 12-8 pm. Free. Saranac Art Projects, 25 W. Main Ave. sapgallery.org MATT LOME: REALITY & FANTASY Lome showcases illustrative paintings that are both realistic and whimsical. Feb. 2-23, Mon-Fri from 10 am-5 pm. Free. Spokane Art School, 503 E. Second Ave., Ste. B. spokaneartschool.net SPENCER JOHNSON: THE WAYS IN WHICH WE LIVE Johnson creates stone sculptures incoorprating familiar elements while celebrating the timeless allure of stone in a contemporary context. Feb. 2-24, Thu-Sat from 4-7 pm. Free. Terrain Gallery, 628 N. Monroe St. terrainspokane.com HAROLD BALAZS: LEAVING MARKS This exhibition celebrates Balazs’ regional impact through 31 new additions to the museum’s permanent collection. The show focuses on Balazs’ later woks in sculpture, drawing and enamel. Feb. 3-June 3, Tue-Sun from 10 am-5 pm. $7-$12. Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture, 2316 W. First Ave. northwestmuseum.org INMOD SEW DAY The Inland Northwest Modern Quilt Guild works on their sewing projects or group projects. First meeting is free, must join to continue attending meetings. Third Saturdays from 10 am-4 pm. Free. Corbin Senior Center, 827 W. Cleveland Ave. inmodquiltguild.com/sew-day VASE WITH COLLISTA KREBS Utilize both pinch pot and coil techniques to form a pot out of clay and then add texture with help from the instructor. Ages 12+. Feb. 3, 10 am-1 pm. $56.

Spokane Art School, 503 E. Second Ave., Ste. B. spokaneartschool.net

WORDS

DROP IN & WRITE Aspiring writers are invited to be a part of a supportive writers’ community. Bring works in progress to share, get inspired with creative prompts and spend some focused time writing. Hosted by local writers Jenny Davis and Hannah Engel. Thursdays from 5:30-7 pm. Free. Spark Central, 1214 W. Summit Pkwy. sparkcentral.org (509-279-0299) PIVOT STORYTELLING: FIRSTS Hear six people tell true stories about firsts in their lives. Drinks are available from Overbluff Cellars. Event is free with a suggested $10 donation. Jan. 25, 7-9 pm. Free. Washington Cracker Co. Building, 304 W. Pacific. pivotspokane. com (208-820-4229) AUNTIE’S BOOK CLUB: MYSTERY/ THRILLER Discuss The Caves of Steel by Isaac Asimov at the January meeting. This meeting takes place on ZOOM rather than at Auntie’s Bookstore. Jan. 25, 12-1 pm. Free. auntiesbooks.com BARTON ENGLISH LANGUAGE CLASSES One-on-one English language tutoring and conversation groups. Mon, Wed, Fri from 9-11:30 am. Register via email. Free. First Presbyterian Church of Spokane, 318 S. Cedar St. spokanefpc.org/barton ITALIAN CONVERSATION Learn key words and phrases in Italian, simple conversation and the Italian style of life from your instructor, native speaker Stefano Dona. Fridays from 2-4 pm and 4-6 pm through March 8. $33. Spokane Community College, 1810 N. Greene St. campusce.net/spokaneactii CARL JUNG: ENGAGED JOURNALING WITH ACTIVE IMAGINATION Journaling, writing meditations and literary themes guide you in developing your craft and sparking inspiration.Taught by Kim E. Morgan. Jan. 27, 10:30 am12:30 pm. Free. Coeur d’Alene Public Library, 702 E. Front Ave. kimemorgan. com (208-769-2315) E. KIRSTEN PETERS: RATTLESNAKES ON THE FLOOR Peters is a local author who wrote Rattlesnakes on the Floor: A Successful Life on the Schizophrenic Spectrum about her experience growing up with mental illness. The author discusses the book and takes questions from the audience. Jan. 27, 10 am. Free. BookPeople of Moscow, 521 S. Main St. bookpeopleofmoscow.org AUNTIE’S BOOK CLUB: QUEER & WEIRD Discuss Bookshops & Bonedust by Travis Baldree at the January meeting. Jan. 27, 6-7 pm. Free. Auntie’s Bookstore, 402 W. Main Ave. auntiesbooks.com (509-838-0206) AUNTIE’S BOOK CLUB: GET LIT! Discuss Unexpected Weather Events by Erin Pringle at the January meeting. Jan. 28, 6-7 pm. Free. Auntie’s Bookstore, 402 W. Main. auntiesbooks.com BROKEN MIC Spokane Poetry Slam’s longest-running, weekly open mic reading series. Wednesdays at 6:30 pm; sign-ups at 6 pm. Free. Neato Burrito, 827 W. First Ave. bit.ly/2ZAbugD SPOKANE BLACK STORIES A celebration of the relaunch of the Black Lens newspaper. Feb. 1, 7 pm. Free. Myrtle Woldson Performing Arts Center, 211 E. Desmet Ave. spokesman.com/northwest-passages n

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annabis wasn’t part of Joe Biden’s candidacy in 2020, but in the years since he has made it part of his presidency. With an election on the horizon in 2024, it’s fair to ask if he’s as committed to cannabis as he makes it seem. Historically speaking, Biden was not a fan of cannabis. As a U.S. senator, he was as anti-drug as it gets. In 2020, he was arguably the most anti-cannabis Democratic candidate in a field that included democratic-socialist Bernie Sanders, uber-progressive Elizabeth Warren and millennial Pete Buttigieg, to name a few. But since becoming president, Biden has come around to the plant. Under his administration, cannabis is doing as well as it ever has, and Biden is probably the most pro-cannabis president we’ve ever had. In early October 2022, Biden’s admin-

52 INLANDER JANUARY 25, 2024

istration pardoned thousands of cannabis users and asked multiple federal agencies to reconsider cannabis’ position in Schedule I of the DEA’s Controlled Substances Act. Those agencies have since reconsidered cannabis’ position, and some are now arguing for a change. Last week, the Department of Health and Human Services came out and said as much, asking for cannabis to be moved off of Schedule I, where it sits next to LSD and heroin. Instead, the Department of Health and Human Services determined that cannabis should be moved to the Drug Enforcement Agency’s far-less regulated Schedule III. (“Marihuana” has been a restricted “narcotic” in the U.S. since 1914 under the Harrison Act, but fell under even more severe rules under the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937.) “If it’s going to be finalized at Schedule

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