So, we’re a couple weeks into 2005 and are only now getting around to wringing the last drops of content out of 2004. But everyone loves lists, and everyone loves “best of” lists even more. Or at least this is what we like to pretend as we type this thing out. I’m not usually a huge fan of the genre, but somehow this list materialized. Go figure.

That said, we hope you’ll accept our apologies for tardiness (after all, we’re doing this for free) and frequent use of the editorial “we” as you enjoy this list. We make no claims on “best,” but below are a few of our favorites from last year.

Festival

During the summer, you can’t throw a stone without hitting some sort of neighborhood festival, but as far as recurring citywide events go, it’s hard to beat Bumbershoot. Sure, we know that every year’s lineup is somehow deficient compared to the golden memories of past festivals and that the prices keep going up.
Complain all you want — but it’s hard to argue about value when you
got a double billing of the Pixies and Built to Spill for under $20 (add in the Killers and Bebel Gilberto on the same day and it’s like they’re paying you). Despite all of mandatory crankiness, it’s a great value and an
exceptionally balanced festival with something for everyone. Even on days
with underwhelming agendas, it’s hard not to find your visit to Seattle
Center tightly booked with competing options. Just be sure to buy in advance to take the sting off ticket prices.

Event

Choosing a “best event” for a city for a year is impossible; so let’s
just celebrate the sham wedding of Dan Savage and Amy Jenniges that
took place this spring. While various municipalities were creatively
interpreting laws to grant marriage licenses to same-sex unions, the
City of Seattle forced the issue into the courts. To put the focus on the
absurdity of city policy Dan and Amy held a mostly tasteful wedding
ceremony at the Timberline. Both mention the event in their entries to
The Stranger’s “Regrets” issue, but it was a lot of fun while it
lasted.

Favourite Gross Scandal of 2004

This year’s poopiest scandal would have to be the alleged smearing of
feces, all over the produce section of the Evergreen Village Safeway
by a homeless man. Safeway did The Right Thing by us, and
immediately threw out about $35,000 worth of produce and scrubbed
down the shelves. The mental image continues to make me shiver,
and at our house, we do not say “I’m going to Safeway,” we say “I’m
going to the poopy Safeway.” [skye]

Free Periodical that isn’t the Stranger

We just wanted to mention that we’re really glad that Tablet
survived apparent death, finding new life in a glossy monthly two city
magazine format.

Books

We’d like to say something about missing the Northwest Bookfest, which
was cancelled this year, but we never made it when they actually held the
event. Instead, we’ll just say that we’re extremely lucky to have
bookstores like Elliott Bay and the University Bookstore, which regularly
attract high caliber authors (and crowds of fans). Great free
entertainment, and flashback to the joys of story hour.

Movie

Seattle is a great city for watching movies, made even better by the
Seattle International Film Festival. We like it so much that we forgive
the insanely long lines, need to pre-purchase, and the decision to show
the incredibly bad The Notebook at the opening night gala.

My Best Seattle Movie Experience of 2004

As a movie-viewer, I found myself living in a peculiar time warp this year.
On the one hand, I attended SIFF for the first time and saw a number of
movies that had not yet been released in theaters, acquiring a sort of
glimpse into the future. On the other hand, Netflix delivered an endless
stream of DVDs to my door, giving me a long view into the film past but not
delivering the most current films until long after they had played in
theaters (and had managed to claw their way to the top of my queue). As
2004 comes to an end, I’m still working my way through the Village Voice’s Film
Critics’ Poll of 2003 and have what can only be described as a skewed
and idiosyncratic take on the past year in film.

That said, I did see many wonderful films this year, thanks to both SIFF and
Netflix. Looking back, one movie stands out as particularly good: Yoji
Yamada’s Twilight Samurai (originally released in Japan in 2002).
This was the very first film I saw at SIFF and I showed up for the screening
at the Harvard Exit with a certain amount of trepidation – I knew next to
nothing about it and had merely chosen it because I needed an eighth film to
round out my Asian slate. Unbeknownst to me, the film had already generated
quite a lot of buzz and was completely sold out. I experienced for the
first time the thrill of having chosen one of the must-see films of the
festival. (Later, seeing Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Bright Future in a very
thinly populated Pacific Place screening room, I would learn the equal if
more refined joy of having chosen a good film too obscure and peculiar to
draw a crowd.)

Set in late nineteenth century Japan, Twilight Samurai tells the
story of Iguchi “Twilight” Seibei, a widowed samurai struggling to support
his two young daughters and senile mother on his salary as a lowly
functionary. While this premise may not sound all that promising, the film
is deeply engaging and quickly captured my heart and mind with its moving
depiction of the conflict between the protagonist’s personal struggle to
take care of his family and his allegiance to a fading samurai culture. The
acting – especially by versatile young actor Hiroyuki Sanada, who stars as
the lead – is flawless, while the visual reconstruction of the period is
impressive in its detail and beauty. The film is at turns funny and sad,
and although the story moves along at a leisurely pace the dramatic tension
builds to a fight scene at the end of the film that is both intellectually
and viscerally exciting. In the end, Seibei is a compelling and heroic
character not because he can wield a sword with skill, but because he is so
deeply committed to doing the right thing, whatever the cost. [cat]

New Bar

Was Viceroy new this year? We just love it. Maybe for the feeling
that we’ve accidentally stumbled into The Ice Storm.

Starbucks

We thought about having a category about best Seattle Café, but
that was way too hard. Victrola is like a second office, except
with better art and tastier sandwiches; Solstice has a special
place in my heart, crappy furniture is countered by
great (and loud) music, endearingly great (powder-based) mochas, and now
with food and alcohol; the best physical space (interior + stellar light
and views) has to go to Bauhaus; the list could go on forever.
So instead, we decided to skip it and crown the Greenlake
Starbucks the city’s best. We have no idea if their coffee is better
than any of the other hundred, but it’s one of the easiest landmarks for
meeting up with friends at the park and the staff really seems good about
giving water to Green Lake exercisers during the summer.

Music Venue

Special mention goes to Neumo’s, which has made stumbling home from shows
a heck of a lot easier for the Capitol Hill set. Not to mention the
consistently great booking, the flexible layout, the proximity of Belgian fries, and the (late)
addition of fans to keep summer showgoers from early overheating.

Band Performance

Though it’s way too hard to choose, we’ll just say that seeing The
Postal Service playing their only American show at the Gorge was
pretty neat. So was being at the Wrens KEXP Morning Show at
Night, with John in the Morning rocking the fuck out in the front row.

Sports Franchise

Even though we’re not exactly sports fans, it was hard not to notice that
the Seattle Storm took home first national championship in
decades. Did they ever get that tickertape parade? We hope so.

Favourite Non-free Tourist Attraction

How else can you see so much in so little time? Two or three hours
and about $22 buys you a trip around the lake with
Argosy Cruises. On the
Lake Cruise (Seattle), see both Lake Union and Lake Washington,
including the homes of the rich and famous and that place where
they shot the outside of “Sleepless in Seattle”. An Argosy cruise
is perfect when you have entire families visiting — equally
palatable to your grandparents as it is to your ten-year-olds. It
doesn’t matter where you sit, you’ll all get there at the same time. [skye]

I’m recovering from having entertained a visitor from out of town. He is a fellow amateur photographer (meaning we’re both enthusiastic about the photographic opportunities). In the nine days that he was here, we stayed close to town, as he preferred to spend his time exploring the streets of Seattle rather than traveling all over the state. The notable exception was a trip down to Tacoma to visit the glass museum and watch the glassblowing demonstration. The museum itself is small, but the demonstration more than made up for it. At this time they are making dog biscuit containers.

This visit marked my first opportunity to visit the EMP. The only photographic opportunity in the EMP is the giant pile of guitars — all other exhibits are pretty much off limits. Fortunately, the sound lab on the top floor more than makes up for it. Where else can you learn how to play Louie Louie on the guitar? (OK, so it’s basically three notes played on one of the strings, but still! Rockstardom, here I come.) Since it was a week day, there were no lines, so I also spent a lot of time smacking the hell out of the drums.

I’m probably the reason Seattle has such a bad reputation for rain. I tell everyone that it rains here 100 percent of the time. I had prepped my friend for a good old Puget Sound winter: overcast and rainy. I must have told him at least a hundred times, “now, you should expect it to rain the entire time you’re here.” Imagine his disappointment at the high pressure system that spent the whole week in Seattle — clear blue skies and a crisp coolness.

Our most exciting event of the week was a visit to the Chittenden Locks. We watched the boats park themselves obediently to one side of the locks at the direction of the Army Corps of Engineers. One of the last vessels to arrive was a sailess yacht, which was traveling a little quickly (to my uneducated eyes). Apparently the rest of the Corps thought so too, and suddenly there was a flurry of activity and yelling to the captain of the yacht to slow the hell down. The other boat owners joined in the chorus, giving the poor yacht’s captain advice to which he could only helplessly yell back, “I can’t slow down!” One of the Corps employees threw him a rope and he started to tie it to the yacht, but the employee couldn’t hold on to it — in fact the rope gouged his hand bloody, and he had to let it go. During a normal locks passage, when everyone is doing everything right, it’s so easy to wonder why the employees are tied to the ground but when things like this happen, you know that the guy holding the other end of the rope would have probably been yanked into the water if he wasn’t anchored to his post.

The yacht sailed towards the other side of the locks — the closed gates. The captain managed to avoid the other boats. The boat owners and the employees continued to yell instructions. The rest of us looked on in silent horror. The yacht swung wildly to one side and then the other, executing a tight hairpin turn right in front of the gates. I heard a scraping, snapping sound, but when I looked, the bow appeared untouched.

Finally at a stop, the yacht was pulled back into position about 3 boats back, being passed from one boat to the other. If I had been the captain I would have been humiliated beyond belief, but the guy still found time to question why they wouldn’t park him at the front row of boats. I guess if you don’t ask, you’ll never learn. Last I saw him, one of the other boats was giving him a tow out away from the locks. Probably the safest thing for all concerned.

As I was walking home from the gym just a short while ago, near the corner of Bellevue and John I saw a man standing on the sidewalk and staring intently into a gated apartment parking lot. When I reached him, I turned to see what he was looking at and saw … first one … then two … then three raccoons, all staring back just as intently at us. We all stood still for a few moments, just taking each other in, and then we humans continued on our way, leaving the raccoons to their own devices.

I know how vicious raccoons can be, but these guys were really sweet — although I still appreciated the sturdy gate between them and us. I’m sure they were just prowling around for a nice juicy dumpster to raid, but at the moment they looked a bit timid and confused by the gate. Sure wish I’d had my camera.

(My fears about being bitten by a rabid raccoon, which I acquired on the East Coast, appear to be unfounded in Washington state. While 9% of bats tested in Washington between 1960 and 1997 were rabid, no raccoons tested positive during this period. See: Clinical Assessment and Management of Potential Rabies Exposures in King County for further information.)

ROCKRGRL, the best locally produced music magazine ever, is having a ten-year anniversary party at Neumo’s Wednesday, January 12th, where you can see ten bands for ten bucks and contribute to the ROCKRGRL Music Conference 2005 Scholarship Fund.

I was a volunteer at the first ROCKRGRL conference a few years ago and it was almost strange to be in a supportive, encouraging environment with no (or very little, at least) bitchiness, cattiness, backstabbing or drama. Even Courtney Love was relatively well behaved. The conference will be held in November, so mark your calendars, but in the meantime make sure you make it to Neumo’s Wednesday. Doors at 9.

Line up:
CARRIE AKRE
LAURA VEIRS
ROTTEN APPLES
KIM VIRANT
MECHANICAL DOLLS
TART
BETTY X
XXX AUDIO
FREE VERSE
DJ SUPERJEW

My wife, Goddess that she is, let me sleep in this morning. With snow on the ground, there was no way we were journeying from Redmond to our Unitarian Universalist church in Bellevue; that short trip involves taking the Lake Hills Connector, which is a fright-fest even in decent weather. Since I didn’t pass out until 2am the previous night, I welcomed the snooze.

My kids burst in a mere hour later. “Daddy, there’s SNOW!” my daughter Neve proclaimed. “Look outside – it’s a winter wonderland!”

I rubbed my eyes and pushed aside the blinds. An inch on the ground, perhaps two on the car. This was the Great Seattle Snowstorm of 2005? Didn’t this child remember when she was two and we lived in upstate New York? Had her little brain forgotten the three-day blizzard of 1999 that left us buried under 44 inches? That was a snow worth waking your father up for! This? This would probably melt before our hash browned.

But it clung to life for a few more hours. Not wanting to be a Snow Scrooge, I helped the wife suit everyone up so we could head out and pelt one another in the butts with mushy snowballs. After 30 minutes, I took our baby back inside while my wife helped the kids with their final winter’s day mission: building a sad, doomed “snow fairy”. Look at the poor thing; you can see the pall of Death in her button eyes.

My boyfriend woke me up a little after 5:00 this morning to let me know that it was snowing. I fell back to sleep watching the snow falling outside the window, but got back up at 6:30 and made us big bowls of steel cut oats for breakfast. I took a walk around the neighborhood with my camera, trying to capture a few shots of the snow-covered landscape, before it all melted away.

There wasn’t a lot of snow to work with, but someone managed to make a small, slightly grubby and disheveled snowman:

A view on Mercer Street, looking toward Queen Anne:

I still think the Science Fiction Museum is a kinda goofy idea, but I am pleased to learn that they’re going to be hosting a science fiction film series, beginning on January 21st and running through April 1st. The movies will be screened at the EMP’s JBL Theater on Friday evenings starting at 7:00 and include:

Altered States (January 21)
The Brother From Another Planet (February 4)
Brazil (February 18)
Until the End of the World (March 4)
12 Monkeys and La Jetee (March 18)
Dark City (April 1)

Most of these are familiar titles, except for Wim Wenders’ Until the End of the World. I’m really excited about getting a chance to finally see this, even if only in the butchered two hour theatrical release version. (The director’s final cut runs over four and a half hours.) I own the soundtrack, so I already know that the music is great, but the movie itself is pretty hard to find since it’s never been released on DVD.

The Twelve Monkeys/La Jetee pairing should also make for a sweet viewing experience.

Tickets are available at the theater on the day of the show and cost $6 ($4 for card-carrying SIFF members).

Does anyone who has read (and understood) the sales-tax tax-break for 2004/5, care to explain it to me using words with one or two syllables? My understanding is this:

– you can use their tables to estimate your sales tax expenditure and claim that back; OR
– you can save every single receipt for the year and tally that up to claim that back; BUT
– if you bought a large ticket item (we’re talking boat, plane, etc) you can definitely claim that back (in addition to one of the above 2 choices)

Surely it’s not that simple. What’s the catch? (I mean, I know what the catch is for other states — it’s having to choose between your sales tax and your state income tax. What’s the catch for Washington though?) What if you only save half your receipts? Can you still claim just that amount if it exceeds the amount in the table?

PS: Rather simpler to understand, on a recent trip to the optometrist, they sold me my glasses sales-tax free — apparently something new that happened in 2004.