photo by ray tracing [flickr] via our group pool [#]

• I can’t tell if this re-posting of a letter to the editor was intended to poke fun of or highlight the legitimate concerns of a reader about the Block Party, but amid some of the expected knee-jerk rude responses are some really great thoughtful and polite comments in this post, including thorough explanations from Dave Meinert (the festival organizer), suggestions from Robin Pecknold (of Fleet Foxes), and compliments from Kerri Harrop. [lineout]
• A split shot Sonics lawsuit. [p-i]
• Treading the thin line between satire and psychopathy: the criticalest mass. [seattle.lj]
• By a 7-0 vote foam containers are out, disposable bag fees are in 6-1. [seattle]

So far, no incessant, self-serving whining about the Blue Angels from The Stranger.

Stop acting like anarchists and start acting like a protest movement.

For example:

1. Get official buy-in. Get permits if you have to.
2. Announce the time — and the route — in advance. Perhaps last Friday’s fiasco wouldn’t have happened if the driver had known the ride was going to happen on his street.
3. Bring in the community more. And that not only means possibly getting some bike cops mixed in, but also get the community itself to buy in to what you’re doing.
4. Get a real purpose. Corking isn’t the solution, it’s uncivil disobedience. Critical Mass, despite its size, cannot point to one single positive thing it’s done to improve conditions for bikers in Seattle.
5. Can the “silence” and the smug, self-serving Seattle passive-aggression. If people ask you why you’re riding, tell them. If there are angry drivers, talk to them respectfully.
6. Identify the problem riders and self-police. If someone’s being an ass, do something about it.

Civil disobedience movements have always been about respecting others while disrespecting injustice. And being respectful of others and respectful of community mores is possible even while standing against injustice. Look at the Civil Rights marches of the early 1960s — African American men and women and children wearing their Sunday clothes, walking home from work, sitting at lunch counters, marching in Birmingham and Selma and DC. What turned the course of this country was watching white cops turn firehoses and truncheons on well-dressed, respectful African Americans seeing a little equality. It appalled white America. And they were willing to listen to a suit-wearing preacher from Atlanta via Montgomery, because they were increasingly afraid of what would happen if they didn’t listen to the ones who were respectful.

By comparison, the WTO protests couldn’t find their dignity. They turned to pageant, then to farce, then to violence. And in the end, the anti-WTO movement became marginalized as the globalization movement just got better security and marched on. A lack of respect for this city, and the people of this city, may have stopped the WTO meetings, but they lost the war on globalization.

So, Critical Mass, ball’s in your court. Do you choose the way of the bike lane, seeking to protest peacefully while working towards a transit system that respects all forms of transportation — bike, car, pedestrian, bus, or train? Or do you choose the way of the sharrow, the way of chaos, anger, and the marginalization of everything you believe in?

photo by danny ngan [flickr] via our group pool [#]

Since this morning seems to be official announcement time, I thought I’d mention that we are looking for a few new writers to help out here at Seattle Metblogs. Are you an avid chronicler of the arts and/or sciences? Obsessed with local politics? A die-hard follower of local sportsballery? Been frustrated that we’re missing something that you’d love to be writing about? Now’s your chance to make a difference in this little world.

Here’s how you make your big break into the glamorous world of volunteer cityblogging: you need to live in Seattle and be excited about it enough to commit to writing a few posts per week. If this sounds as great to you as it does to us, send me [josh (at) metblogs.com] a note to introduce yourself.

p.s. Want to see what you’d be getting yourself into? Feel free to drop by the Six Arms on Wednesday; we’ll be meeting there at 7:00.

If Metblogs is a city, hub.metblogs is the playground. We kept hearing from people that one of their favorite parts of Metblogs was meeting and interacting with readers and writers from other parts of the world, as well as getting requests for more ways that readers could be involved besides just posting comments. We thought about this for a while and decided that with a network like this, a giant community area where folks from all over the world could hang out, post photos and videos, talk with each other, form groups, play games, send messages, and do about a million other things was probably a pretty fun idea. The Hub is that.

If you have any tech ideas or suggestions join this group and speak up. See you on hub.metblogs!

Nine Inch Nails returned to Seattle’s Key Arena last night for their first official show supporting “The Slip,” their latest album that hit stores last week. And not a second of the 2-hour-plus performance last night was a wasted effort.

(Excuse the crappy cellphone camera pic.)

Simply put, Trent Reznor and his band – now nearing 20 years of existence together – have outdone themselves with the visuals and imagery that accompanies the already-stellar music on this tour. From the opening track selection of “1,000,000,” a giant wall of lights was on cue with every note the band played. It seemed like old hat at first, what with seemingly every huge rock act nowadays dazzling the crowd with as many visual wows as audio ones. But after a few songs, I realized something extremely insane was about to happen.

After three or four more songs – of which “Closer” and “March of the Pigs” were included curiously early on – a giant backdrop came down behind the band, which was to be the setting for all kinds of insanity for the rest of the night. The backdrop was some kind of screen that generated the most outrageously creative effects at a show that I’ve ever seen.

At one point during “The Greater Good,” a particularly creepy and unsettling track from last year’s “Year Zero,” the backdrop displayed a close-up of a face with dark, leering eyes staring into the crowd. It soon became eerily obvious that this face was indeed the face of none other than Trent Reznor, slowly whispering lyrics that were enough to make my flesh crawl. The scene looked like the perfect environment for some kind of terrifying snuff film or low-grade horror flick, but Reznor’s freakish expression more than compensated for any lack of carnage or nudity.

But, I thought to myself, this was Nine Inch Nails. This is what they do. Their music inspires. It gets to you. It leaves an undeniable imprint on the listener’s psyche, and with enough repetition, the music can often become almost like a drug. (Ironically enough, “The Perfect Drug” wasn’t in the set list for the night.)

The rest of the list, however, left no room for disappointment. “Wish,” “Only,” “The Hand that Feeds,” “The Good Soldier,” “Terrible Lie” and “Head Like a Hole” were all definite highlights, with various set changes and equipment switching going on the entire time. Interestingly enough, there was a 10-minute instrumental interlude about halfway through that included a cellist, a xylophone and lots of bizarre programming jamming together. The result was subtle, artistic and perhaps a little too long, but launching back into the furious “Wish” directly after the tranquility was the perfect way to grab the audience’s attention again.

All in all, Reznor’s work is undeniably brilliant, both on stage and in the studio. He’s a rare man who has the brain of a musical genius and backs it all up with an absolute knockout punch of a live performance. Let’s hope they make another run through town, and soon.

You, wonderful you, enjoying Chromeo on the main stage. Photo by joshc [flickr].

Last year’s Capitol Hill Block Party made for one of the best weekends of music I’ve ever had (Daft Punk’s Sunday night finale at WaMu Theater definitely helped). This year’s Block Party had a lot to live up to – probably too much. But you know what? I enjoyed it nearly as much as I did last year. The Block Party moniker is apt – it really feels like a big neighborhood party. I bumped into old friends at almost every stage and by the end of Saturday night had made up my mind that I’d take a Capitol Hill Block Party over a Bumbershoot or Sasquatch any day.

After the jump, some thoughts on a couple of the weekend’s sets and my favorite photos from Josh’s Flickr collection.

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Block Party, this may be a little indelicate, but we need to talk about your size. See, it seems that you’ve grown out of those pants you’re wearing, and it’s making you really difficult to be around. While it’s nice to have the mainstage in the middle and all, it makes it ridiculously difficult to get from one side to the other. I spent most of the weekend pretty stationary mostly because I was afraid of getting sucked into the crowd. If you keep this up, people are going to get hurt.

The best $2 I’ve ever spent were used to sit in that corner window at the Comet on Friday. The guy selling cans of PBR had put up a sign that said “Comet VIP Seating $2″ behind him, but I don’t think anyone believed him, so I watched almost everything at the mainstage perched in the window, getting high fives, and able to see everything, including a little too much of Tim Harrington when he came careening over to the hot dog stand during Les Savy Fav’s set. (The best $1 I spent was on a Creamsicle during the Fleet Foxes’ set–man, those things are delicious.)

The best dance party of the weekend came, unsurprisingly, during The Saturday Knights’ appearance as the super secret Neumos guest. (Told you so.) I feel like I’ve been practicing tantric record appreciation for the last few years, waiting for these guys to finally release something other than the EP I’ve had since they were giving them away at the Crocodile in 2005, and I’m so pleased that Mingle was the album I was hoping for. Most of the crowd in Neumos around us clearly were not Metroblogging readers, because they had no idea who was coming up, and when The Saturday Knights walked on with a full band and started in on “45″ the crowd sat in stunned silence for a second and then let loose. By the end of the set I was drenched in sweat and beaming, without once having been trampled to death by the crowd.

Image via Josh

More after the jump…

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I hope you’ll forgive me, Seattle. You might not. Heck, I’m not sure I forgive myself. What is this horrible thing I’ve done? I failed to tell you about Joule’s Urban BBQ happening on Sundays from now until August 17th.

I’d never been to Joule when my husband mentioned this series. We’d driven by often, but never stopped. We didn’t know what we were missing. More after the jump, but here’s a picture of my dish from last week (the theme was Beef).

That’s from left to right: Cold Beef Salad, Pulled Short Rib Sandwich, and Marinated Flank Steak.
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craig finn of the hold steady at the capitol hill block party on saturday. more in the photoset [flickr].

The Capitol Hill Block Party is over and I’m rethinking my complaint that it was Friday–Saturday instead of Saturday–Sunday. After yesterday, I’m glad for the day to recover. Depending on the criteria, I keep shifting on my favorite set of the day. Stay tuned for more write-ups, but for now, flip through a slideshow of faces in the crowd, people in trees, Kimya Dawson, Man Plus, Fleet Foxes, Chromeo, Steed Lord, the Hold Steady, DeVotchKa, and super secret show-stealing guests the Saturday Knights. [flickr]