Dear Seattle,

Dogs are great, but there are a few things that maybe we shouldn’t trust them to do for us. Driving [#] and voting [#], for instance. Both stories of canine meyhem, thanks to the Seattle Times. On the other hand, while you’re might be better suited the heavy lifting of influencing elections and operating a motor vehicle, perhaps leaving the job of sniffing out whale droppings [floatings?] to the dogs. [p-i]

All best,

/ j

2006 St. Louis Soapbox Event, photo (c)James Cassimus/Red Bull Photofiles

I don’t know about you, but the prospect of building something ridiculous and racing it down Fremont Avenue gets me a little excited!

Red Bull Soap Box is coming to Seattle, hosting a free race / spectacle on September 29th. Get a team together over beers, design something, and send your sketches in by June 29th.

That’s one week, people. Bring it!

image of A Sunny Day in Glasgow by Flickr user subinev

So, anyone know what happened at the Crocodile to make them all bag-searchy and pat down-y? I’ve noticed over the last year or so that they’ve been paying a lot more attention to what people are hauling in there, but last night was the first time I’ve seen them do things like look under my lip gloss and pat down Josh. Not that I mind, or anything; just curious.

Dreamy noise-pop shoegazers A Sunny Day in Glasgow keep getting lumped in with bands like M83 and Grizzly Bear, and as I watched them play a short set to a sparsely occupied room last night I found myself mulling over why exactly those comparisons are so wrong. And it isn’t that they’re wrong, exactly, since all three bands use layers of instruments and noise to create something deeply colored, and vocals are mostly just another instrument rather than the point. It’s just that they’re rather irrelevant. Live, M83 assaults the audience with sound and lights, and Grizzly Bear spend half of their time on the floor fiddling with things that make noise, forcing me into irritating coping mechanisms [mb], but ASDIG focus on quietly and steadily weaving a spell over their audience. Even one member short–sister Robin had to miss the tour due to some emergency knee surgery–they put together a sound that is somehow all at the same time darkly tender and sometimes clattery and a little creepy. I might not be scared to meet their songs in a dark alley, but I wouldn’t take anything that they offered me.

Pitchfork sort of nailed it when they said, “If those voices in your head decided to start a band, they’d probably sound something like A Sunny Day in Glasgow.”

We’ve covered this before, but it really doesn’t take much for a band to charm me. Arthur & Yu, the first band signed to Jonathan Poneman’s “Hardly Art” label, managed it handily. Grant Olson and Sonya Wescott (formerly of Rogue Wave) recorded most of their debut “In Camera” in Olson’s living room, and live they have the same soft, lo-fi feel. We immediately set about trying to figure out what the band made us think of, and Josh said, “I feel like I should have a picnic blanket.” Which was exactly right: I would feel perfectly at home watching Arthur & Yu on a breezy sunny day, sitting on a red checked blanket, eating sandwiches from Three Girls Bakery, and drinking champagne. Maybe all of that in sepia tone. (We were not the only ones that had this feeling, since some guy felt it strongly enough to come close to the stage and sit on the floor of the Crocodile. Ew.)

Arthur & Yu have a folk sound that is distinctly not folk, possibly because of the muted vocals, occasional melodica, and an outline of droning bass that feels a little too complicated for a simple “folk” label. They won my heart by whistling in one song and having a spare drum for Sonya Wescott to beat on–I’m a sucker for whistling and extra drums strewn around the stage. I distinctly heard a jam block hidden somewhere on the drumset, and at one point a shaker came out to dangle from the hihat.

The crowd seemed open to the concept of an encore, but encores are so last year, and the stage lights came up almost immediately. We walked back out into the restaurant, where I could not stop chastising my friends that had chosen not to come in to see the set. Arthur & Yu have stolen my heart.

I’m as giddy as a schoolgirl with her first crush at the thought of seeing Flash Gordon, midnight at the Egyptia this Friday and Saturday, but as always there are a plethora of great film choices:

• La Vie en Rose, the biography of Edith Piaf that was one of my favorite SIFF films, opens at the Egyptian Friday.
• The sequel to last year’s stunning Night Watch is the equally stunning Day Watch, a Russian sci-fi/fantasy thriller in which the balance between the Forces of Light and the Forces of Darkness can only be restored by the discovery of an artifact missing for centuries. At the Neptune
• The Grand Illusion features O Lucky Man, a 1973 film about a man who discovers that hard work and high hopes alone aren’t always enough to get you what you want.
• Another 70s film, this one Killer of Sheep hits local screen–Northwest Film Forum presents this vital underground gem by director Chartles Burnett that was one of the first fifty films places in the National Treasury. A fully restored look at Black life in 1970s Los Angeles, Killer of Sheep is a human and humane view of a man struggling with an ordinary life.
• Central Cinema celebrates Pride week with a showing of the classic film Fame. Just try and get the theme song out of your head! Dress in drag and get in for a mere $2.

Throughout my Seattle explorations this week, I have been greeted by kindly, welcoming…pigs. I was rather confused by their presence, beautiful though they are, until a bus tour guide explained it to us yesterday.

In 1971, Georgia Gerber, a local sculptor, created the bronze piggy bank Rachel as a fundraiser for Pike’s Place Market. This little piggy has raised over $120,000. In 2001, Gerber created a mold for the first Pigs on Parade. Celebrating the Market’s centennial, the pigs are back by popular demand, marking many of the city sights. As a tourist here, I find their colorful presence representative of the fun, offbeat vibe of the city.

You can see more piggy pictures on Josh’s post here.

As would-be customers scheme and plot their way to the head of the line to pick up Apple’s forthcoming cellular phone on June 29th, our own UVillage Apple Store has received the oversized iPhone window displays that are the talk of the macoblogosphere today:

UVillage is host to both an Apple Store and an AT&T Cingular AT&T store, meaning iFans have two chances to grab a device that comes with the privilege of no carrier subsidy AND a $175 early-cancelation fee for the mandatory 2-year contract.

As a coda to the bizarre saga of Apple changing hand models to make the iPhone appear smaller, it should be noted that these new displays (which are really just a cosmetic wrapper for a plasma display showing a mockup of the phone’s UI) make the device about as tall as an 8-year-old child.

Our cheese series continues with Appel Farms. I’ve been sampling and buying Appel Farms’ cheeses for the past two years at the University District Farmer’s Market. The other day, I spoke to Janet while sampling some of their cheese curds.

Appel Farms at the University District Farmer’s Market

(more…)

As Seattle’s central, hip neighborhoods lose some of their indie cred, the crazy pseudo-suburban mesclada of Northgate seems to be lurching in several contradictory directions. We’ve chronicled the loss of the mid-century old, and anyone can see the new-century new by watching the construction of the new Barnes & Noble next door to California Pizza Kitchen, or by walking through the recently-remodeled mall itself.

But what caught our attention recently was on the other side of the street: In the Target/Best Buy complex, a street-level storefront has stood empty for at least 6 months due to the inexplicable failure of an Olive Garden. (Don’t those things usually exhibit cockroach-like powers of survival?)

We were expecting a Chevy’s or a Macaroni Grill to show up in the space, but lo and behold something a lot less cookie-cutter is coming in:

We have no idea of the provenance or heritage of “Super China Buffet”, or how it will use the cavernous space inside the old Olive Garden. But there’s no question the dining scene opposite CPK and Azteca is about to get more interesting.

There are two reasons why I have no interest in fighting with Josh over having horned in on a “Midnight at the Egyptian” post. One, I don’t like Buffy. Two, I’m way too excited about this weekend’s midnight movie showing of one of the best bad films of all time, 1980′s Flash Gordon, starring a then-fresh-from Star Search Sam Jones, the legendary Max Von Sydow (a/k/a “The only member of the cast who doesn’t embarass himself”) and featuring a soundtrack largely composed of Queen songs. I like to believe that once they came down from whatever drugs it took for them to come up with most of these songs (including the title track which rhymes “He’ll save every one of us” with “Saviour of the universe”) that they were absolutely horrified by shame and felt the need to immediately come up with something to repay all their loyal fans for the indignity of having had to listen to this tripe. Hence, the collaboration with David Bowie that produced “Under Pressure”, truly a fine, fine song.

Some discussions of the movie say that it’s the first film to have its soundtrack largely composed by a rock band but I think that actual honor might go to ELO for the slightly less awful Xanadu. Yes, dear readers, that’s exactly how bad Flash Gordon is, it’s so bad that it makes Xanadu look good. I think this is where I’m forced to admit that I love Xanadu in part because of its badness. “Love” isn’t quite the word for Flash Gordon, but it’s a similar sentiment. This movie…well, let me tell you a little story about how bad it is.

When I was a kid back in the 70′s two of my main interests were sci-fi movies and the band Queen. When I heard about this movie I knew it was the ideal blending of these dual passions of mine and knowing that it couldn’t possibly be anything less than utter magic, I demanded that my parents take me to its opening night. Possibly against their better instinct, they agreed. To give you a reflection of just how gloriously awful this movie is, it’s 27 years later and to this day neither one of them has ever taken one of my film recommendations seriously again.

So, right now you’re probably thinking: “Well, if the movie’s that much of a stinker, why be excited about its screening at the Egyptian?”

Well, simple: there’s a certain sort of value in really bad films; if you’ve ever watched Mystery Science Theater or read one of Roger Ebert’s brilliantly written books on movies (for example, Your Movie Sucks), you understand that value already. If you don’t–well, this is a good movie to show you what I mean. It is from this very film, in fact, that I learned that even the weakest written, most badly directed with a mostly mediocre at best cast plus a silly soundtrack by slumming rock stars movie can be fabulously entertaining if you allow your inner snark to surface. You really should go to this film this weekend–you will laugh so hard that you cry and then you will laugh even more.

Thanks to eagle-eyed reader Gully for pointing out the incorrect lyrics in a previous rendition of this post

What three things did I love about going to the University Farmers’ Market last weekend? 1) Somebody was wearing a hat — what do you call those wide, conical Chinese hats — well, whatever they’re called, it was totally covered in sequins. That sort of thing can make my whole week.

2) Raspberries and cherries were in season, which just might be enough to convince me to make ice cream. Fresh fruit on homemade vanilla ice cream? Gotta love summer.

And, 3) Patricia Jane (my farmers’ market Sherpa) was very supportive of my shy enthusiasm of buying sea beans from the forager’s stall. They looked … fun. Little green squiggles that taste like sea spray smells. She said that after I blanched them to get some of the extra salt out, I could put ‘em in a salad, or make a crab and sea bean risotto.

I had my doubts, but two days and one crab and sea bean risotto later … my adventure turned out pretty tasty! And any plant that dense and green has got to be packed with vitamin goodness. So now I have a new veggie on my (fairly short) list of veggies that I like. Sea beans!