weekly weekly roundup : columnar format, again
Once again, a roundup of what’s going on in the weeklies. Happily enough, this week’s issues have different themes and different news stories, making this week’s rundown of the highlights a little less tedious.
 the Stranger |
 Seattle Weekly |
| major themes (news) |
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| the Stranger is in full “Anti-Discrimination Bill Failure Fallout” mode [#, #]. With four stories on the topic , they are still riding the high of being cited by the New York Times. It sort of makes one wish that someone had set off the alarm bells before the bill failed.The most interesting is the conspiracy theory suggesting that the fake democrat whose nay caused the vote to fail isn’t even a a legitimate member of the state senate [#]. Also meta-interesting is the paper’s decision to bring in a liberal ‘blogger (short for Web Logger) to write a column to suggest an appropriate liberal response to Microsoft [#]. Although the Sharansky column goes unread every week, the impulse to add a conservative to the paper’s pages for “balance” is understandable. That the editors felt that the liberal perspective needed additional representation is entertaining. Also: people in a neighborhood are unhappy about something, 96.5 goes |
The Seattle Weekly focus is also on Olympia, but in a different way. Skepticism about Democrats and taxes [#] and yet another cleverly titled in-depth feature [#] about the neverending 2004 election dominate the news section. For those who have stopped paying attention, it’s a decent summary of why and how things got so messy. However, there are some weird and surprisingly angry sentences. In the midst of passages on technical difficulties, Rick Anderson lashes out about the quality of the candidates (e.g. “others … assigned votes to … unannounced candidates — perhaps, understandably, because they were sometimes faced with choosing the lesser liar on the ballot.”) In 5 pages, no one investigates the reason that |
| solipsism watch |
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| A third week about Jonathan Safran Foer and the reading sponsored by the Stranger. While Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close may be the most heartbreaking and beautiful important novel of the year and smart, funny, charming Foer is deserving of the attention, another article celebrating the event borders on (self-aware) overkill and is a really strange read [#]. |
No stranger to self-promotion (or special! pullout sections!), the Seattle Weekly devotes a 35-page section to this weekend’s Seattle Weekly Music Awards Showcase [#]. Why does it seem that this event — featuring 50 bands on one night for one price — would seem a lot more exciting if it wasn’t happening in Pioneer Square? |
| arts/culture | |
| This week’s winner is Sean Nelson who has two compelling reviews: one for the new Todd Solondz film, Palindromes [#], and another of Sarah Vowell’s Assassination Vacation [#] (a preview of her free appearance tomorrow at Elliott Bay). Also: Erica C. Barnett’s news coverage of the Stolen Art Show |
An intriguing story about NSF, a retro-futuristic art collective’s exhibit [#] at the Frye, part of its apparent shift from conservatism in its collections. With sentences like “Much of Irwin’s art is about turning this kitsch [e.g. huge images of antlered deer] back against the state” Andrew Eagleson’s review is convincing evidence that it might be time to check out the museum. |
| obvious news with occasionally surprising angles |
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| Eli Sanders has two feature pages about the difficulty of biking in Seattle [#] in which we learn that the Fremont bridge is the most heavily traveled bridge by bicyclists in the state and in which the debate over access to bike lanes is framed in the context of a civil rights movement. Suddenly the Critical Mass rides make much more sense. |
In a story about how many Americans don’t like to order wines that are hard to pronounce, Roger Bowney uses the “sips” column [#] to detail the history of Gewürztraminer’s crazy name and advocates for a shorter, more Australian, easier on the lounge name for this undemanding wine. |
| overlapping picks? |
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| Both papers agree: you should be at the Purple Rain Sing-Along (Egyptian / Saturday / Midnight) |
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Related posts:
- weekly weekly roundup : tabular format edition
- weekly weekly roundup : read or skip edition
- your regular weekly weekly review
- weekly weekly report
- weekly weekly reader : late edition
