the Stranger, Seattle Weekly : skimmed, didn’t read

Sorry kids. Because of a little power outage at Metblogs Central Command, the site wasn’t up when you might have been expecting your regular preview/review of what’s in the weeklies. This bit of server downtime seemed like the perfect excuse to skip the feature for this week,¹ especially since both papers now have their tables of contents online for your general enjoyment.

Plus, they really seem awfully similar this week, don’t they? Both feature cover stories about nature, death, and destruction have glowing reviews of the Hold Steady; and include Rossi Court Loss takedowns inside.

Naturally, all of the differences you’ve come to know and love are still there: the Stranger is cautiously optimistic in the face of new monorail cost estimates while the Seattle Weekly uses the higher prices to break out it’s gloom and doom dance of joy; the column from the Weekly’s editor is about how Greg “MetroKyoto” Nickels hates trees,¹ while Dan Savage’s column is about foot fetish parties.

Once again, the “Mossback” column really tells you a lot about the philosophical differences at the two papers. Knute Berger describes a trip to Freeway Park: “. . . but braving Freeway Park at midday, wandering its odd passageways under the green canopy, you find a really wonderful, forgotten concept . . . ” while the Stranger used it as their inaugral entry in their “Topography of Terror” series [#].

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(1) On a personal note, I have a bit of bad news for the three of you who actually like this compare and contrast feature. I’ll be on hiatus for the next couple weeks; so unless I can find someone crazy enough to “guest ‘blog” for me, you’ll need to brave the weekly waters on your own until I get back.