As if you need an excuse to start your weekday drinking rituals:

• It’s night three of seven in a citywide series of alcohol-based benefits to support entertainment programming for Seattle’s underage scenesters. Each night of the week, a designated bar offers cocktail and beer specials to benefit the Vera Project (which is in the process of building a brand new home for themselves [vivavera]). They’re too young to drink, so it’s practically your civic duty to have an ice cold adult beverage for them. Tonight’s host is the Mirabeau Room. While you’re there (or at one of this week’s other venues), remember that being at the take your opportunity to buy a ticket for the grand finale event: a Friday night Iron Composer showdown between SNL’s Fred Armisen and a pair from the Shins, hosted by comedy heroes David Cross, Todd Barry, and Jon Benjamin. Drink up! [adrinkforthekids]

If you’re oddly opposed to Lower Queen Anne or Monday night drinking, the series continues at Linda’s (Capitol Hill), West 5 (West Seattle), and the Rendezvous (Belltown) throughout the week.

Last year, the Gates Foundation gave away about $1.36 billion. That’s a whole lot of cash, and even though I poke fun at them pretty often, they really are doing a lot of good. Yesterday, a crazy billionaire by the name of Warren Buffett, announced that he’d be giving the foundation about the same amount every year–his only catch is that he wants the money to be distributed in the same year it’s given [P-I].

Buffett’s the second richest man in the world, after Bill Gates himself, and the two have apparently been buddies for years. (The statement from the Gates references a “special friendship” with Buffett, and I will not make any jokes about swinging. But I will think them really loudly.) Buffett’s going to give them two years to ramp up their philanthropic efforts, but he expects all that money to be used up starting in 2009.

It’s really sort of an astonishing donation. He wants them to use it to deepen their commitment to the causes they’ve already started working in–particularly things like global health. I’m sure that those of us down the street from the Gates Foundation are already rubbing our hands together, trying to decide if we should bring over a fruit basket and point out our HIV trials network right across the street.

Buffett’ll also be giving a lesser amount of money to his late wife’s foundation, which funds hospitals, teachers, and Planned Parenthood groups.

This is where I ask you, dear readers, to solve a mystery for me.

One of my friends spent the weekend in Kingston visiting family. On his way back to this side of the water, he noticed a Coast Guard ship in the water near the ferry. Two Washington State Patrol officers rode their bikes up the passenger ramp and talked to the ferry attendant for a moment before walking the passenger ramp, looking about them. When they asked when the ferry was scheduled to depart, they were told it was already five minutes late for departure. The officers left the boat, which eventually departed the dock. Departure was followed by an overhead announcement informing passengers that the two Coast Guard vessels (at leat one of them was armed, my witness says) were giving the ferry an escort to Edmonds.

Anyone got a clue why?

You may remember Jami Attenberg from her guerilla footage of Death Cab for Cutie and M. Doughty covering “Hungry Like the Wolf” at last summer’s big 826 Seattle extravaganza [mb]. But beyond her considerable videography credentials, she’s a New York based writer (whatever-whenever.net) whose work has appeared in Pindeldyboz, Salon, TimeOut NY, among others. More importantly, she recently published Instant Love [$], a collection of somewhat interconnected short stories about sexy ladies finding, losing, and making love in the modern age. With an endorsement from O Magazine as one of the books on their “What You’re Really Going to Want to Read this Summer” list, she’s likely to be a familiar name on beaches and pools across America.

Jami took a few moments out of her exhausting whirlwind tour to answer a few questions for Metroblogging Seattle. The following interview was conducted by e-mail earlier this month. She will be making a stop in Seattle on Tuesday to read at Third Place Books at 7 pm. Drop by to show her some love.

27 June — 7:00 pm
Third Place Books

Lake Forest Park Towne Centre

17171 Bothell Way NE

Lake Forest Park, WA 98155

So, you’re touring pretty extensively for the book. How’s life on the road so far?

You know, I’ve heard rumors that book groupies exist, but I haven’t seen them yet. Where’s the sex, drugs and rock and roll? Although I did have a very nice bookstore owner in Chicago give me a glass of chardonnay on the house.
Actually it has been completely gratifying, probably one of the best experiences of my life. I’ve had good crowds at every reading so far, and they’ve been really receptive and enthusiastic. And I’m here to testify there are a lot of nice people working at bookstores all over the country. It’s nice to know that people believe in the importance of books.

Parts of Instant Love appeared on Nerve, right? Are any “literate smut” fans who skew more toward the smut than the literate showing up with awkward questions?

Mainly everyone has been really respectful of the sexual nature of the book. Or perhaps they’re just terrified of me.

You spent a bit of time in Seattle while writing this book, any favorite places to write?

Bauhaus, single tall skim latte, every morning, 10 AM. Best cafe ever. I used to sit up on the balcony and get all high on caffeine and watch everyone below at the register. That place makes me really happy.

We don’t have cafes like that in New York, sadly.

Congratulations on making it onto Oprah’s summer reading list. Did that involve trading the rights to your first born, or was her price steeper?

I think we all know that there will be no joking about Oprah.

Good call. It’s nice that the lessons of the Franzen era haven’t yet been forgotten.

I’ve seen your book described as a short story collection and as a novel? which is it? does it matter?

It’s short stories, I swear, but if someone wants to call it a novel, I think I can handle it. I’ve had plenty of folks tell me it reads that way because the stories are linked together, and now that the book is done I can totally see how that’s possible. But the intention was that each story was independent. I have always been a fan of storytellers that have the same characters repeat not just in one book, but throughout many books, and I have thought about bringing some of the ladies of Instant Love back again some day.

What’s up next for you?

I’m actually living a nomadic existence for the next four months. After I finish my west coast tour, I’m driving across the country and stopping in at bookstores along the way, and then eventually I’ll be starting a residency program on a farm in Nebraska. I recently sold a novel, the Kept Man, which will be published next year, so I have to edit that, and I’m starting a new novel, so somewhere in my travels I’m going to have to actually get some work done. Right around November I’ll be making it back to New York. Maybe I’ll have some book groupies by then, otherwise it’s going to be a long winter.

I think that groupies are a definite possibility. Thanks for the interview. Have fun and be safe out there!

image, via the Zoo

On Friday the Woodland Park Zoo issued a press release regarding the lawsuit over Bamboo the elephant. I’m sure you’ve heard that the Zoo has been accused of mistreating Bamboo (on the left), the 39 year old, 8,000-pound Asian elephant. The group that has leveled the lawsuit, Northwest Animal Rights Network, would like the zoo to send Bamboo to a private reserve in Tennessee. Which sounds like animal cruelty to me, but then, I’ve never been a big fan of Tennessee.

The zoo has filed a motion to dismiss NARN’s lawsuit, stating that, “Although we appreciate the philosophical and political debate about elephants in zoos, and recognize plaintiffs’ sensitivity to the issue, our Motion to Dismiss is being made because the plaintiffs have not presented a valid legal case.” The facility in Tennessee is for old, sick, and needy elephants, and Bamboo is none of the above.

Bamboo was transferred to Point Defiance Zoo last August in an attempt to integrate her with the herd there, but the other elephants didn’t accept her. In June she was moved back up here, and that’s when all of the trouble started. The elephant facility at Woodland Park is accredited by the American Zoo and Aquarium Association and it seems like, if elephants have to be in zoos, then our zoo is a good one to be at.

Once upon a time, we stumbled into the Boat Street Cafe looking for a place to celebrate a job change. ANd from that day on, that’s where we went to celebrate the big things in our lives. There were two reasons: one, because it’s not exactly cheap (dinner for two with wine usually ends up in the $100 range), and two, because the food was insanely good. And oh, the bread pudding, made with amaretto and soaking in butter and cream. I could eat that every day without tiring of it, and I wouldn’t regret dying of a heart attack by the end of the year.

Boat Street sat in a semi-industrial waterfront location under the University Bridge. At least, it did until 2003, when it was another victim of condoification. Boat Street vanished, but owner Renee Erickson promised that, like MacArthur, it would return.

So, we waited.

And had a kid.

And got poor.

Then weren’t so poor.

And then Boat Street came back last fall, appearing on the lower level of a new development at Western and Denny (3131 Western Ave., to be precise).

And now, all we needed was babysiiting, and we could go back.

More waiting.

So, last night, finally, we got babysitting, and off we went to Boat Street yet again. The decor is different (still Ikea-esque, though) and the positioning is a little strange (it’s pretty well hidden from the street). The food, though, is still incredible — the crab cakes were marvelous, the pork belly like butter, the pickle plate hot and spicy. And the bread pudding still makes you wish you could make sweet, sweet love to it all night long.

No, it’s not cheap. But it’s worth it. And there were tables open on Friday night — shame on you! What, you had better things to do or something?

Sigmund Freud’s handwriting; a prescription for the
Wolf-Man from the Library of Congress online archive.

There’s a new handwritten prescription ban in Washington that has doctors and pharmacists both a touch puzzled. According to this new law, doc’s must print. But that printing can be block printed, written letters or computer printed. Typewriters are also valid, although when’s the last time you saw a doc office with a typewriter? This legislation leaves a lot of folks wondering “who decides what legible handwriting is, anyhow?” No cursive? Not even my mother’s Catholic school perfect penmanship? What if they have my blockprint handwriting, poor souls? How about that smudgy inbetween? And if something isn’t legible, and it’s a necessary-for-life drug, is a pharmacist going to have to play bad cop and refuse to fill the prescription?

The pharmacists interviewed in the Seattle Times article all said they were planning on ignoring the legislation and doing what they always do: call the doctor’s office if a prescription is unclear, or doesn’t make any sense. And frankly, this seems to be the most sensible idea of all.

I do have to wonder how easy it’s going to be to forge the printed prescriptions. My own doctor has been printing all but schedule 2 prescriptions for a few years now, and it’s occured to me a few times that it’s not the most secure method of prescription writing ever. Recently, they switched to printing schedule 2 prescriptions on special paper which is both a funky colour and appears to have some sort of watermark built in.

The legislation itself should make significant strides in reducing patient death due to misfilled prescriptions. I think my main problem with this legislation is that it puts pharmacists in the uncomfortable position of having to police doctors to follow the law. I just think it’d be best if they mandated a target date for all doc offices in the state to move to printed prescriptions – remove the ambiguity and necessity of the pharmacist playing cop. Because as I’ve said elsewhere, that’s not their job, either.

Good things come in threes. Larry, Curly and Mo. “Sunday, Sunday, Sunday”. And now a trio of “Planet of the Apes” movies at the Kirkland Performance Center.

“Planet of the Apes”, “Beneath the Planet of the Apes” and “Escape from the Planet of the Apes” will all be showing at the marathon. Dr Zaius would prescribe seeing all three if he was licenced to practice medicine in this state, so why not heed the good doctor’s advice and catch them all?

Planet of the Apes Marathon
Kirkland Performance Center
Sun., 06/25/06
4 p.m.
$12

While the Thursday agenda went on holiday to mourn the USA’s loss to Ghana (a match certain to inspire a new generation of anti-dentites), the Friday agenda returns to remind you of a couple recommendations for tonight:

• Holy Hensonfest! It’s a Capitol Hill Muppet-o-Rama! Samantha qualified her recommendation of the midnight showing of the Dark Crystal [mb] at the Egyptian as a chaser to Zee’s suggestion about seeing Labyrinth [mb] at the Northwest Film Forum. This unprecedented muppet movie convergence inspired Michael van Baker to call for a makeshift ‘blogger summit / gang war / drinkathon [seattlest].

update: Embarrassingly enough, most of us in Metrobloggingland have valid excuses for skipping the festivities (small children without babysitters, various flavors of non-negotiable prior commitments, backpacking trips, moves out of town, crippling fear of muppets); so it looks like the epic meeting will need to be postponed.

It’s been five days since SIFF left the building. Is everyone still doing O.K.? For those of us still experiencing withdrawal symptoms — signs include strange aversion to natural light, accidentally ordering extra butter on your latte, spontaneously showing up to events a half hour early to secure a good seat — there are a few ways to ease the transition.

For instance, if there’s a film that you missed or loved so much you need to see it again, hope floats. Throughout the summer, several movies that screened during the festival will show up for brief runs at a theater near you. Over at SIFFblog, Kathy Fennessy has provided a rundown of the release dates so that you can plan your catch-up accordingly [siffblog]. For people who prefer to watch from the comfort of their own homes, a whopping fifty-one of the SIFF entries are currently available on some form of DVD. As with most matters rentable, your best bet is to drop by Scarecrow Video. To make your searching even easier, Scarecrow employee and film reviewer “Media Babe” has posted a list of available titles on her livejournal [media_babe].

Sadly absent from both of those lists is Wristcutters: a Love Story [siff]. Because I didn’t see it until it’s last screening, I didn’t get a chance to tell you how great it was (a whimsical charmer about a alternate world populated entirely by people who have committed suicide! an achievement in and of itself.) During the Q&A, Goran Dukic said that the film still hasn’t found a U.S. distributor. Since then, it took second place in the Golden Space Needle contest and won the award for Best New Director. We can only hope that Seattle did a tiny bit to help it to make the jump from the festival circuit.