12:00 PM – Adria Lang: For the Sake of the Vine
Seattle Mystery Bookshop
“…this is the first in the Merlot Murder Mysteries series where each new book will partner with an actual winery from around the world. In this case, the award winning Kestrel Vintners, and their wines, will appear in the book and the artwork of the book will be reflected in the labels on the bottles of the fictional winery.”–SMB
Published by Tigress Publishing of Seattle.
[LINK]

2:00 PM – Tim McNulty: Olympic National Park: A Natural History
Elliott Bay Book Co.
I expect to receive about 20 copies of this very pretty book as corporate gifts the next winter holiday season. Joy.
[LINK]

2:00 PM – William O’Daly & Kisha Xiomara Palmer: Reading
SPL Central Library, Microsoft Auditorium
The duo will perform bilingual readings of the poems of Pablo Neruda. Take your SO. Really. Neruda is incredibly sexy, even when he’s depressing.
[LINK]

3:00 PM – Dani Cone: Tall, Skinny, Bitter: Notes from the Northwest Coffee Culture
Bailey/Coy Books
Publication party! Cone will bring coffee and pie. PIE!!!
[LINK]

3:00 PM – Jennifer Worick: Backcountry Betty Crafting with Style: 50 Nature-Inspired Projects
SPL West Seattle Branch
“…a hip, snappy craft book that includes projects designed to bring the outdoors in! Worick will discuss a variety of craft projects that she has divided into habitats from your backyard to the seashore.” –SPL
[LINK]

7:00 PM – Josh Weil, Mark Cooper: Reading
Vermillion
“DEBUT LIT will host its first release party in Seattle for Josh Weil’s debut novel, The New Valley, from Grove Press. Weil will be joined by Mark Cooper, who will celebrate the publication of his first book-length comic, The Inspectre.
Both authors will read excerpts of their new books, and illustrations from each publication will be on display.”
[LINK]

photo by liquidnight [flickr] via our group pool [#].

• El Corazon is having trouble getting people to simulate sex with the air onstage tonight. This is your chance to take inspiration from the ottoman humpers of yesteryear [youtube] and make your mark (just don’t, er, complete anything lonely island style [youtube] or face disqualification.) [dailyweekly]
• It’s not only the ATM decorations that are getting rotated, Chase hands off some of WaMu’s old art collection to nonprofits and museums. [anotherbouncingball]
• Crew sounds like it might be possible to learn and worth all of the logistical effort and hard work. [slog]
• It kind of sounds like the Stranger might have inadvertently called the Liquor Control Board about a D.I.Y. venue that had possibly already stopped putting on shows. [lineout (follow-up)]
• Breakfast is getting more difficult to find on Capitol Hill during the week, with even early-morning aspirers at Oddfellows conceding that their core clientele has no intention of eating before nine. [chs]

AGENDA

• Tonight finds the Builders & the Butchers headlining a show with support from Loch Lomond . [neumos]
• Saturday morning is the Fremont Fair and annual Solstice Parade. Arrive early if you want to see naked cyclists (who ride before the parade starts), but consider what the possibility of rain means for their body paint.
• If you’d rather stay south of the Ship Canal and clear of sun worshiping ceremonies, Juneteenth festivities are happening throughout the Central District (as are benefits for stoner dogs). [centraldistrictnews]
• Saturday night, the Moore is being turned inside-out [mb] by the always-amazing Free Sheep Foundation and forty-some Seattle artists. The Stranger has a nice overview of all of the scheduled performances [#]; the event is free and runs from 6 to 10 pm.
• Afterward, the recently rave-earning Underground Events Center hosts the Fresh & Onlys. [blackbird]

On Tuesday, June 23rd at 9:30 AM, the Parks and Seattle Center Committee of the Seattle City Council will meet. On the agenda is the usual boring stuff, like the Chair’s report, authorizing an agreement for Festivals, Inc. to run the Bite of Seattle, and possibly designating a section of Bell Street (between 1st and 5th) as a “park boulevard.” And, of course, the meeting will be open for public comments after the Chair’s report.

This is where the really interesting stuff comes in.

Also, on the agenda for Tuesday is discussion and possible voting on limitations and/or controls on Cooper and Pantages Houses, both designated Historic Landmarks. If you live on Capitol Hill, are interested in old things, architecture, or Seattle history, you will be interested in this meeting. The timing of committee meetings is incredibly inconvenient for most people, but if you can get the time off of work, or are able to comment via email, please do so. Citizen input = responsive government. /soapbox

Cooper House. Photo courtesy of Historic Seattle.

Cooper House was built on land acquired by Seattle real estate developer James Moore in 1900; Moore purchased 160 acres, which he subdivided into 800 lots collectively named “Capitol Hill.” John O. Cooper acquired the Cooper House parcel in 1902 and applied for a building permit. Very unusually at the time, the building was designed to be a duplex, with an estimated cost of $5,000. Construction was completed in 1904. In 1914, the Coopers sold the property to John E. Minkler; the Minkler family owned the property until 1958.

In 2005, the building was targeted for demolition, but local resident Paul Slane was inspired to nominate the building for Landmark status. Slane, a retired Boeing employee, spent the summer of 2005 researching and writing his nomination. The result of his efforts was the preservation of Cooper House. Reportedly, Board members burst into spontaneous applause after Slane’s presentation. Slane, who has since passed away, remains something of a hero to the folks at Historic Seattle.

Pantages House. Photo courtesy of Historic Seattle.

The Pantages House has an even more colorful history: Alexander Pantages was a Greek immigrant who became an early motion picture mogul, via brothel-keeping, burlesque, and vaudeville. While Pantages theatres were known for elegance, good taste, cleanliness, and efficiency, Pantages personal life met none of those standards. Infamous Madame “Klondike” Kate Rockwell, Alexander Pantages’ former lover and business partner, sued him for breach-of-promise in 1902, and in 1929, Pantages stood trial for the rape of 17-year-old aspiring dancer Eunice Pringle. Pantages was initially convicted and sentenced to 50 years for the rape, but won on appeal. Contemporary rumor had it that Pantages was framed by Joseph Kennedy and RKO Pictures, in order to force Pantages to sell his theatres to RKO, which he, in fact, did after the second trial, and for a far lower price than RKO had originally offered for the chain.

The Committee has the power to determine what cosmetic and structural changes can be made to these lovely and historic buildings. Citizens and residents with an interest should make every effort to comment and/or attend. Also, Historic Seattle is always hoping for another Paul Slane to come to the rescue of some poor, neglected piece of Seattle history: Historic Seattle holds Landmark Nomination Workshops twice a year. Find out more HERE.

2:00 PM – Mike Gastineau, Art Thiel, & Steve Rudman: The Great Book of Seattle Sports Lists
Barnes & Noble University Village
These guys, again.
[LINK]

7:00 PM – Theo Pauline Nestor and guests: Candace Walsh, editor , Teresa Coates, and Susan Carol Stein: Ask Me About My Divorce: Women Open Up About Moving On
UW Bookstore U District
Women write about divorcing, being divorced, and moving on, without wallowing in guilt. Go team!
[LINK]

7:30 PM – Charles Durrett: The Senior Cohousing Handbook: A Community Approach to Independent Living
Elliott Bay Book Co.
The spokesman for the co-housing movement tackles eldercare and the complexities of housing an aging population of Boomers with dignity and care.
[LINK]

Were 25 days just not enough to see everything you wanted at SIFF? Don’t stress–this weekend you have several chances to catch those films you missed or repeat view one you really liked.

SIFF Cinema gets the ball rolling with their “Best of SIFF ’09″ event this weekend. Friday night check out Jury Documentary Award winner talhotblond, a movie several people told me inspired them to think very seriously about their own online behavior. Hopefully none of them get caught in a murderous online love triangle. Also screening Friday night are zany French spy spoof OSS 117: Lost in Rio and locally made Humpday.

Saturday brings The Family Picture Show, New Director Award winner The Other Bank, Rembrandt’s j’Accuse, Shrink and Black Dynamite, an affectionate modern take on “blaxploitation” films that won the Golden Space Needle for Best Film and was promptly followed by one of the most charming acceptance speeches ever.

Sunday see Best of SIFF shorts, Golden Space Needle Best Documentary The Cove, folksy mockumentary Morris: A Life With Bells On, sweetly silly Swimsuit Issue (one of my festival faves) and close out the weekend with offbeat sci fi comedy Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle, another local production.

The Egyptian gives you another opportunity to ponder Food, Inc. , a look at the bad practices of the food industry and what you can do to improve your own food choices.

Every Little Step, at the Harvard Exit, is a documentary about the creation of Broadway musical hit A Chorus Line and the casting process for the 2006 revival, a must-see for serious musical theater fans.

Also at the Harvard Exit: Tetro, Francis Ford Coppola’s new drama about shaking the family tree that just made its North American debut at SIFF last week. His first original screenplay since 1974, Tetro‘s tale is fictional but loosely based on Coppola’s feelings about his own youth.

Seven Gables has Departures, Academy Award winner for Best Foreign Film and the moving and sometimes funny story of Japanese concert violinist who goes to work as a “Nokanshi”, the person who prepares bodies for burial.

Films that didn’t play the festival are also on the big screen this weekend:

Grand Illusion screens A Night at the Opera, the best of the Marx Brothers movies. A lovelorn opera singer wants the chance both to prove himself worthy of the stage and to be with his true love. His self-appointed agent and his dresser want to come with him to America. A smooth-talking ladies man wants to help them achieve their dreams and make some cash for himself. Entwined in the tangled storylines are some of the funniest sight gags and clever repartee put to film.

NWFF returns to their Spirit of ’69 series with My Night at Maud’s, Eric Rohmer’s film about a pious Catholic engineer in his early thirties who faces a challenge to his rigid ethical standards when he unwittingly spends the night at the apartment of a beautiful divorcée.

Yesterday’s revelation of the bizarre “don’t call me Liz” e-mail thread between a McDermott aide and an overly apologetic scheduler from JP Morgan Chase has made it from Politico’s “shenanigans” blog [#] across the internet and back. Today it crossed over into even stranger territory when Keith Olbermann ended Countdown [msnbc] with a staged reading of the messages. Adding even further to the oddity, the part of Elizabeth Becton was played by a man in a terrible wig. Watch for yourself:

“don’t call me liz”, msnbc.

phot by zeebleoop [flickr] via our group pool [#]; for more pictures of the options to sustain you on the deck of captain blacks check the gallery[seattlest].

• On the occasion of his death, the surprising story of how Max Gurvich slipped a “hideous pair of woven, widow-blind style metal sculptures” on our side of the Evergreen Point Bridge and a plea to take them down. [anotherbouncingball]
• Double feature! Tonight at Solo you can listen to the upcoming records from United State of Electronica and Throw Me the Statue in their entirety. [threeimaginarygirls]
• It isn’t possible to overstate how good the schedule is for KEXP’s Concerts at the Mural so I’ll just re-iterate it and leave the after-work calendar-clearing up to you: Blitzen Trapper & Throw Me The Statue (31 July); Dyme Def (7 August); Cymbals Eat Guitars, Japandroids, & more (8 August, all-day BBQ); the Dodos & Army Navy (14 August); Fruit Bats (21 August). Free! Fridays 6-8, BBQ 2-9. Beer gardens, too! OMGSUMMER. [seattlesubsonic]

As anyone who saw at least one film at this year’s festival will recall, thirty-five is a very special number (tetrahedral, number of green firms, average winter low, a film gauge, the number of years SIFF has been around … did I miss anything?). Entirely by coincidence, it also the number of feature-length films I watched. As an experiment in compactness and as a mental bookkeeping system, I posted mini-reviews to Twitter along the way. For a full list of my viewing habits, I’ve reposted them after the jump.

Overall, I think that the average of my torn ballot slips would have been somewhere just below the dotted line indicating a “4″, which means that I did well in deciding what to see or that the programmers did an exceptional job in stocking the theaters (probably a bit of each). Of the films I liked best (Lynn Shelton’s compassionate and credible Humpday ; Jamie Johnson’s joyful Sounds Like Teen Spirit ; Doug Pray’s surprisingly elevating Art & Copy) , several will be re-screened at this weekend’s “best of the fest” marathon [siff] or have distribution and are likely to be returning to Seattle in the very near future.

I’m a bit disappointed that Craig Johnson’s True Adolescents didn’t make it into the encore presentations, but I am holding out hope that it finds a distributor to bring it back to town. Across the board, the cast is stellar; the foul-mouthed script is funny and affecting; the direction generously takes on all sorts of comings of age, delayed and otherwise; and the pacific northwest setting looks great. Maybe it’s because I didn’t expect much from the potentially slapsticky premise of “aging indie rocker takes his teen nephew for a hike”, but the results were consistently surprising, a little suspenseful, and consistently believable. Keep your fingers crossed for it!

What’s on your distribution wishlist?

(more…)

vintage helio sequence photo by peter l. [flickr]

• It seems like only a few yesterdays ago that Neumo’s [Crystal Ball Reading Room] returned to the corner of 10th and Pike from a series of endless failed clubs to reclaim the legacy of its former incarnation as Moe’s Mo’Roc’N Café. Well, those yesterdays have added up to five years of solid booking of great shows on Capitol Hill. Tonight they celebrate with a (free with a drink at Moe’s) show featuring Grand Hallway, Palmer Electric Company, and headlined by Sub Pop’s the Helio Sequence (a consistent Metblogs favorite, both for hilariously awesome drumming antics and for winning albums like last year’s consistenly enjoyable sleeper Keep Your Eyes Ahead). I wonder if they’ll bring out the scary mural, quaint neon sign, or much-missed highly-functional for old time’s sake? [neumos ]

In one corner of the undeclared battle for the title of “Cutest New Animal” at the Woodland Park Zoo are the two new snow leopard cubs born on Memorial Day. Snow leopards are endangered, native to the mountains of Central Asia, and can’t roar because they don’t have a larynx.

In the other corner, we have the zoo’s very first Tawny frogmouth baby. Grown up Tawny frogmouths look like owls but don’t catch their prey while flying like owls do. Baby Tawny frogmouths look like adorable cotton balls.

Who will emerge from the summer as the zoo’s cutest addition? In the long run I think that the snow leopards will have the advantage, especially since a molting bird is not usually very cute while a baby carnivorous cat just gets more and more adorable. What would be best for us all would be if the kittens and the frogmouth became unlikely best friends and had an adventure together.

(Photos by Ric Brewer and Ryan Hawk.)