I don’t know what the details are just yet but I’ve just heard about a zillion sirens and a helicopter go past my window here at work. The real time 911 site tells us that it’s a haz mat situation at 8th & Virginia. No other details at the time but since there are about 20 fire department vehicles and a ton of cops on the scene it’s either some serious caution or something scary. If you’re downtown, try to avoid the area.

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.
[poll=11]

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.

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.

Italian Story Time

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

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.

(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]

(more…)

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]