I just got back from Yulefest, which I hadn’t heard about until this year, even though it’s is in it’s 28th year. Apparently I’m the only one who hasn’t heard of it though, because the place was mobbed. If you’re a fan of folksy Scandinavian crafts, and aren’t too claustrophobic, it’s worth checking out. There’s a vendor on the first floor who has some amazing vintage pieces. Just be sure to bring cash or checks, because they don’t all take credit cards. I had to leave a beautiful vintage hand-woven table runner behind, because I didn’t have enough cash on me.

Yulefest runs until 6pm tonight and from noon to 5pm tomorrow at the Nordic Heritage Museum in Ballard.

Yulefest 2006 photo via Johann C. Rocholl on Flickr

HA HA. You were really so desperate to steal a major sports franchise that you stole one from Seattle, in a year where everything this town touches turns to rust. And now your “Thunder” are 1-12

You think firing your coach is going to solve anything? You paid your money and you took your choice, and that choice is tainted with the Seattle Contagion.

Don’t let the Thunder get too close to your precious football teams, now.

photo by Margaret Sunshine [flickr] via our group pool [#]

• In a hotly contest blogelection, Dave Cameron lost a scholarship to someone from DailyKos. [slog]
• Dan Savage’s obsession with Marlee Ginter continues. [slog]
• The New York Times spend a(nother) day and a half in Seattle hitting up the Olympic Sculpture Garden, the Public Library, Center for Wooden Boats, Neumo’s, Cafe Presse, Quinn’s, Matt’s in the Market, the Zig Zag, with time for a jaunt to Columbia City along the way. [nyt]
• On Apple Cup weekend the presidents of WSU and UW give up a pay raise. [p-i]
• The Blethyns are angry that Google is directing people to their news stories and making money along the way. This, I think, says a lot about what the Times’s might think that the main function of a newspaper is to deliver advertising. [horsesass]
• Urban hikers are trekking from library to library, saving gas along the way. As I always wonder, why take a two hour car trip to take a long walk anyway? [myballard]

agendaesque:

• NON-Agenda: at least one person is excited about NKOTB. [reverb]
• AGENDA: 826 Seattle celebrates mustaches with a music showcase, the non-Movember crowd breathes a sigh of relief that the month of ill-advised facial hair is nearing an end. [seattle.lj]
• AGENDA: So many good shows tonight like the Hold Steady at WaMu [lineout], Deerhunter + Times New Viking (the glorious contrast!) at Neumo’s [subsonic], but I will also be seeing Sera Cahoone tonight in Dick Cheney’s secret bunker. [seattlest]

Yes, tomorrow in Pullman the “college” “football” teams based at the University of Washington and Washington State University will play a “college” “football” “game” that will determine who goes home with the Apple Cup.

And it could well be the worst college football game we’ll ever see in our lifetimes. As best as I can tell, no two teams from the so-called “BCS conferences” (Pac 10, Big 10, Big 12, SEC, ACC, Big East) have ever met in a game with both teams having tallied 10 losses already in the season. Yes, the college season was only 10 games long from WWI to the 1960s and it’s only been expanded to 12 this decade, so having two ten loss teams meet has been highly improbable to impossible for most of college football history. Still, an 0-10 Husky team facing a 1-10 Wazzu team — that one loss being against Portland State, which is in the so-called Football Championship Subdivision, one level below the level Wazzu plays at, the Football Bowl Subdivision — is a rare thing.

One we should be happy is rare, because it’s going to be an awful game.

Consider that Wazzu has lost its eight conference games by an average score of 55-8. That Washington’s season total rushing yards (842) is less than what 42 individual players have rushed for (and two of those players are on the same team). That there are four teams in college football (Texas Tech, Tulsa, Houston, Oklahoma) with more offensive yards per game than UW and Wazzu COMBINED.

We’re looking at history, folks. It’s the “OJ-in-a-Bronco” kind of history, but it’s history.

So, here’s a little poll for y’all.

We’re off to see the wizardS

Two separate productions of The Wizard of Oz are playing this weekend - Seattle Children’s Theater and Bellevue Youth Theater. Take your pick.

Seven Dancing Sultanas - A bellydance fairytale

“Music, intrique, dancing and martial arts, come together in a magical kingdom far, far, away” in this production by Cause It’s Art featuring martial arts by Seattle Wushu.

11/22, 7pm, Rainier Beach High School Performing Arts Center, tickets

Yulefest

It’s Yulefest at the Nordic Heritage Museum. They’ll have decorations, crafts and treats for a Scandinavian holiday, plus kid’s crafts, music, and entertainment.

11/22:  10am - 6pm; 11/23:  noon - 5pm

Italian Story Time

Get them started early with stories, songs, and activities in Italian.

11/23, 1pm, Newport Way Library

Image via Josh

You know…seeing Icy Demons and Yeasayer the night after of Montreal, and watching all of it heavily dosed on cold medicine, is an awful lot of sound to pack into two days.

Icy Demons is the most inappropriately-named band I’ve seen in ages. They’re almost ridiculously warm and friendly, with the panda bears on their pants and the smiling and their adorable macramé covered rattle. But Donte wasn’t kidding when he wondered if the audience would be able to keep up with the band’s dizzying genre changes–I certainly couldn’t. It felt like this band was everyone’s side project and so everyone got to write a song or two and the band had to play it, no matter how it fit with the rest of them. One song we’re rocking an excellent synth-rock jam and the next we’re verging on reggae, and then all of a sudden it sounds like a lounge band on a cruise ship has taken over. Josh said, “Icy Demons were like the old saying “If you don’t like the weather now, stick around. It will change,” and they’re one of the few bands that can put a crazy collection of genres in their myspace subheadline and really mean it. They currently have “ICY DEMONS: EXPERIMENTAL / CLUB / DUB”, which hardly covers their range.”

I enjoy genre-hopping as much as the next girl, and what I liked of Icy Demons I really liked. They’re like world music from the future, a house band in a sci-fi movie, and by the time they were done I was thoroughly bewildered.

Read more

how to get your iphone to help you take a bus.

OMFG. Apple just pushed out the iPhone 2.2 update [#] and along with other nifty things, it includes incredible (and much wished-for) updates to the Maps Application. Namely, you can now search for directions and get the results in terms of walking or public transit instead of just driving. Since Google knows about Seattle’s bus system, the map will show you bus timetables and a generous estimate of the number of minutes until the next bus is scheduled to arrive. A further extension that’s wspecially great for when you’re going someplace new, the map also has a link to show you the “street view” of your destination (example after the jump).

Aieeee! This is the perfect collision of technology and car-free fandom of the month.

Via Gizmodo and their overview of the other updates. [gizmodo]

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Harvey is a six-foot tall rabbit who hangs out with eccentric Elwood P. Dowd. (Jimmy Stewart in one of the finest performances of his storied career.) Maybe. Since Elwood is the only person who can actually see Harvey, it’s entirely possible that Harvey doesn’t really exist and Elwood is simply delusional. It’s also entirely possible that Elwood’s simply having a laugh at the expense of his stuffy sister and her social scheming by pretending that he sees a rabbit that isn’t actually there. It’s still further entirely possible that there really is a giant rabbit named Harvey who enjoys palling around with Elwood. One of the great things about this charming comedy is that not only is there no definitive answer to whether or not Harvey really exists nor any explanation for the odd things that seem to happen when he’s allegedly around, but that ultimately it doesn’t really matter. Harvey is sweet without being cloying and its gentle mockery of social convention still hits its targets all these decades later. Starts Friday at the Grand Illusion. Late night at the Grand Illusion: “no budget” post-apocalyptic sci-fi epic Steel of Fire Warriors 2010 A.D. made right here in Seattle.

Harvey, this week at the Grand Illusion

• Northwest Film Forum has a pair of films about people who chose to push the envelope. Obscene: A Portrait of Barney Rosset and Grove Press tells the story of a man whose name isn’t known in every household in America but whose battle against censorship has influenced every one of us. Stop in for the 7pm Saturday showing and you’ll get a bonus ACLU-moderated panel discussion. Christmas on Mars is a science fiction film directed by Flaming Lips leader Wayne Coyne about the colonization of the Red Planet and features music by Flaming Lips and appearances by Modest Mouse’s Isaac Brock and Steve Burns who hopes that someday he’ll be better known as Steve Burns of Steve Burns and the Struggle than as Steve from Blue’s Clues.
• The Zeitgeist films series continues at SIFF Cinema with Todd Haynes’ startling and sensual film Poison, inspired by the works of the notorious Jean Genet on Friday; Ballets Russes, a love letter documentary about the groundbreaking ballet troupe, on Saturday; and the delightfully odd Short Films of the Brothers Quay on Sunday, a series of films which may change the way you think about puppets for good. The series finishes with Caraveggio, The World and Nowhere in Africa during the week.
• Central Cinema screens In Search Of, an intense drama in which a strong ensemble cast search for love, power, revenge, sex and belonging.
• Midnight at the Egyptian: the sometimes briliant, sometimes cheesy and always entertaining Labyrinth in which young and charming Jennifer Connelly must rescue her baby brother from the Goblin King, played by a smokin’ hot David Bowie who contributes several songs to the soundtrack.

photo by M.V. Jantzen [flickr] via our group pool [#]

• Twilight mania, already too far gone, goes over the deep end and back again when even the hand model for the first book’s cover has become “famous”. [bigblog]
• An amazing find: trolling the newly-released Google LIFE archives and rediscovering mid-century Seattle. [vintageseattle]
• SEATAC finally opens its new runway, Dan Savage wants a high-speed train next. If wishes were unicorns… [slog]
• Yes, the of Montreal show was weird, but wasn’t that the point? The same can be said for gruff security. [ohmygodseattle]
• The weeks leading up to Thanksgiving tour break are increasingly crowded with good shows. Tonight’s near-universal pick is Yeasayer [soundonthesound], whom I’ve managed to miss on several occasions. I’m planning to remedy that this evening, but show up early for “special guests” Icy Demons (another night, another elephant six alum), who will probably be a little weird and loud, too. [neumos]

of Montreal at the Showbox SoDo last night. (more photos [flickr / slideshow].

The main mistake of Montreal made was kickng off their Skeletal Lamping tour with a setpiece featuring Kevin Barnes trotting onto the stage astride a LIVE HORSE. Because, as far as expectations games go, that’s a tough one to beat even when you know that no band, no matter their level of sanity, is going to take a horse with them on the road. Still, every show after that will be measured by an equine yardstick and no matter how much spectacle there is (and there will be a whole lot of it), a certain segment of the audience will await the moment of the horse’s arrival.

As far as I could tell, though, the show had everything but that stallion. Pigs and ninjas. So many sexy ninjas. Death and rebirth. Guitar playing tigers and crowd-warming cowboys. The air filled with pig-launched flying feathers. Covers of “Take Me Out” and “Smells Like Teen Spirit” as encore. The song about Antarctica left unblemished by crass commercialism. Too many costume changes to track, and bizarre scenes of buddhas, the old west, blasphemous nuns, and animal tableaus. Silver-faced John McCains staging a hanging. Body paint, centauric transformation, and a resurrection in shaving cream. This two-plus hour dance party (setlist [flickr]) left the expansive room hungry for more, jittery from too many energy drinks, and coughing up feathers and glitter in awe when it was all over.

Even people who aren’t into baseball at all are aware that the Seattle Mariners weren’t exactly looking like champs in their last season. In true sports club form, this meant that it was time for a new coach.

Today the M’s announced their new coach: Hood River, Oregon, native Don Wakamatsu who now becomes the fourteenth full-time manager for the Mariners and the first ever Asian American to manage a Major League ball team.

Wakamastu’s most recent past job was bench coach for the Oakland A’s; his career history includes a stint as catcher for the 1991 White Sox and six years of coaching in the American League West. He spent seven years as a player after four years of college ball and has coached since then. [For an excellent summary of his career check out this story by Doug Miller of MLB.com.]

Wakamatsu will be wearing number 16 on his uniform but hopes to turn the M’s into a number one team.

You know, if I ever decide to start a brothel, I am not going to use something like a massage parlor as my front, because everyone does that and they keep getting caught. I’ll have to use an accountant’s office or something. No one would suspect that.

Yesterday the authorities raided three “tanning salons”–one on Aurora (obviously), one in Tukwila, and one in Renton–and arrested a bunch of people on prostitution and money laundering charges [PI]. “Federal prosecutors say that Nguyen booked more than 70 flights in 2006, 2007 and 2008, allegedly carrying prostitutes to work at these brothels. The prostitutes were shuttled between Seattle and California or Seattle and Texas, Woo said. Woo said the women are from various Asian countries and that some are in the United States legally and others are not.”

The neighbors appear to be thrilled. If convinced, the two main main masterminds face up to 25 years each in jail for the two charges: 5 for prostitution and 20 for money laundering.

Hospitals in Washington State will adopt federal standards for tracking MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), thought to be one of the most widespread illnesses spread in hospitals. The Seattle Times wrote an in-depth three part article documenting the situation, and apparently it made an impact.

The state’s initiatives follow a Seattle Times investigation, “Culture of Resistance,” which reported this week that MRSA infection rates have soared as hospitals often ignored steps to control the threat.

In the first comprehensive tracking of the germ, The Times found that the number of hospitalized Washington patients infected with MRSA escalated over the past decade from 141 a year to 4,723 last year.

This will take a year or more to fully implement the new regulations, but there should be a noticeable drop in the spread of MRSA in the years to come. If you haven’t read the series yet, you should.

Part 1. Part 2. Part 3.

Shakespeare’s King Lear is widely considered one of the finest works in all of Western literature, but until I went to see it, all I knew about it was that it somehow involved a king and his daughters. Perhaps if I had known more than that I might have been intimidated by it, as King Lear features a complex plot with a large number of characters all engaged in a series of schemes against one another in subplots of various sizes to embroirder the rich, dense narrative. It would have been needless worry, however, as in the capable hands of director Paul Budraitis, Rough Play Productions‘ rendition of King Lear is completely accessible and a real pleasure to watch.

King Lear (Richard Clairmont) and Cordelia (Nicole Fierstein)

For those of you who may be as ignorant as I previously was, the basic story of King Lear revolves around the titular character, a once supremely powerful ruler who begins the play by abdicating from his throne to divide his authority and lands between his three daughters. Over the course of the play, King Lear will go from ferocious tyrant who deserves every bit of trouble (which is plenty) that he gets to a sad wretch who inspires pity even though he really did dig most of the hole in which he finds himself. Richard Clairmont does a fine job of capturing all of the moods of King Lear, a challenging role which requires the actor to portray a vast number of attitudes and emotions, often conflicting and sometimes changing within each minute.

In fact, the entire cast was excellent, always believeable and engaging. Their appealing performances were a major part of what made the play so exciting. I was most impressed with the acting of Gina Marie Russell as Regan and Daniel Brockley as Edmund. Each of these roles contains elements that could easily turn cartoonish in the hands of an unskilled performer but both Russell and Brockley keep their characters tragically and entirely human.

The very simple set design, centered around a single focus point, works well with the story and there are a myriad of small touches in the costuming and make up that emphasize the story without detracting from it. The simple but lush sound effects, music and lighting are all excellent and definitely add to the quality of the performance. This King Lear is a thrilling experience and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in a good story well acted.

King Lear at Theater Puget Sound
Thursday through Sunday at 8 pm/7 pm Sunday
Theater Puget Sound at Seattle Center
4th Floor, Center House (take north elevator to 4th floor)
Tickets: $12 advance, $15 at door

photo by Brittney Bush Bollay [flickr] via our group pool [#]

• On a day with other big pirate news comes another story of grand theft in the form of a half dozen parking meters being stolen from beneath the crumbling viaduct. [seattlest]
• Speaking of disappearances, all of the Sound Transit artwork has been cleared out of Broadway storefront to make way for demolition. [capitolhillseattle]
• WiFi in the Ferries still won’t be free, but it might be cheaper under a new contract. [westseattleblog]
• As the Stranger and its blogs start to look more and more like a locally-owned nationally-focused publication (confusing ANTM handicapping [tc] aside, the converse is happening at Seattle Weekly ), I was pretty excited to learn that you can subscribe to category-specific RSS feeds from the Slog. Maybe this has been around forever or maybe it’s part of the URL upgrade that irked Dylan last week? Those who want to keep Seattle news at the top of the heap would do well to plug the “City” archives into their RSS readers. [slog]