11:00 AM – Phyllis Yasutake: Storytelling
Northwest African American Museum
“This summer at the Northwest African American Museum, gifted griots—storytellers—will enchant young and old with tales recounted following oral traditions. Children of all ages are invited to experience the art of storytelling and the power of stories…” (NAAM)
[LINK]

6:00 PM – Miz Floes & the Carmel Latte Duo: Smokin’ Spoken Wurd
Northwest African American Museum
Open mic night! Howl your heart out, you angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night… Accompaniment provided by bass and percussion for that jazz vibe.
[LINK]

7:00 PM – John Pappas: When Wolf Comes
Secret Garden Bookshop
Secret Garden hosts the launch party for the local author. “Set in the Northwest, this historical adventure explores the native culture of coastal tribes in 1801.”
[LINK]

7:00 PM – Jonathan Tropper: This is Where I Leave You
UW Bookstore
U District
“Judd Foxman’s marriage has ended at a bad time. His father has died and he will spend a week sitting shivah with his dysfunctional family. His sister is in a loveless marriage, his older brother and sister-in-law are struggling with infertility, and his younger brother is a lothario incapable of a lasting, adult relationship. And the family matriarch? She’s a noted child-rearing expert with four screwed up kids.” –UW Bookstore
[LINK]

How did an all-American boy – born in Alaska and raised on a farm in Montana – end up living in Tokyo, giving tours of Akihabara, and dressing in his favorite manga and anime costumes as if every day were Halloween?

Meet Patrick Galbraith, author of the new book The Otaku Encyclopedia: An Insider’s Guide to the Subculture of Cool Japan. By day, Patrick is an ethnographer and journalist based in Tokyo. He’s also a Ph.D. candidate in the Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies at the University of Tokyo. By night, he pursues a self-admitted obsession with manga and anime.

Working as a freelance journalist specializing in Japanese popular culture since 2004, Galbraith writes a regular column for Metropolis magazine. Under the auspices of H.I.S. Experience Japan, he also runs a weekly tour of Akihabara, the otaku capital of Japan. Prior to moving to Japan, he earned degrees in print journalism and Japanese at the University of Montana.

Patrick Galbraith will be discussing otaku culture and signing copies of The Otaku Encyclopedia at Elliot Bay Books in Seattle on Wednesday, September 2, 2009 at 7:30 PM.

Patrick was kind enough to answer some questions for Seattle Metblogs about otaku culture, his studies, and Japanese pop media.

When and why did you become involved in Japanese pop culture fandom? Do you recall how your interest originated?

I was maybe five or six years old when I first saw anime, Japanese anime. I was sitting waiting for my parents in this barbershop, and the owner was playing anime in Japanese. I have no idea why, but guess it might have been a kind of background noise or ambience. The work was Miyazaki Hayao’s Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, this immersive story that takes place in a world ravaged by war and ecological disaster. (more…)

6:30 PM – Matthew Amster-Burton: Hungry Monkey: A Food-Loving Father’s Quest to Raise an Adventurous Eater
SPL Ballard Branch
“Matthew Amster-Burton was a restaurant critic and food writer long before he and his wife, Laurie, had Iris. Now he’s a full-time, stay-at-home Dad and his experience with food has changed …a little. Hungry Monkey is the story of Amster-Burton’s life as a food-lover–with a child. It’s the story of how he came to realize that kids don’t need puree in a jar or special menus at restaurants and that raising an adventurous eater is about exposure, invention, and patience. He writes of the highs and lows of teaching your child about food–the high of rediscovering how something tastes for the first time through a child’s unedited reaction, the low of thinking you have a precocious vegetable fiend on your hands only to discover that a child’s preferences change from day to day (and may take years to include vegetables again).” (SGB)
[LINK]

7:00 PM – Rowena Wright: A Loop in Time & Bard King
Revolution Books
The SF author reads from her Polis series.
[LINK]

7:30 PM – Joy Keniston-Longrie: Seattle’s Pioneer Square
Elliott Bay Book Co.
Former Seattle mayor Wes Uhlman will join the author to celebrate Seattle’s historic Pioneer Square district in words and pictures.
[LINK]

Kia Motors really wants you to check out their new Kia Soul “urban passenger vehicle”. To inspire you to test drive it, they’re hosting a “Soul Collective” from Friday, August 21 to Sunday, August 23 at the Pacific Industrial Center at 2640 – 4th Ave S in SODO.

In addition to offering vehicle test drives to licensed drivers from noon to 8pm (4pm on Sunday), they’re also showcasing art installations, video screenings and live music. Friday check out live performances from Dum Dum Girls and Wavves, with DJ sets by Soul Uno, Risk One, and Supreme LaRock. Saturday’s DJs are N8, Sean Cee and Four Color Zack and the bands are No Age and Chairlift. Sunday features DJ sets from N8 and Supreme LaRock and finished off with a private performance featuring Santigold – to get a pair of tickets, take a test drive any of the three days of the events.

Are you totally excited about the upcoming election and eager to hear the results? Sure, it’s not as sexy as some of the elections we’ve had, but it’s still there are some important decisions to be made. Will the bag tax pass or fail? Who will make it through the primary to face off in the big battle royale for Mayor, King County Executive, and City Council Positions 4, 6, and 8?

Join the Municipal League, PubliCola and Seattle Works for an Election Watch Party Tuesday night featuring candidates, activists and all sorts of local folks ready eagerly anticipating the results tonight from 7:30 to 11 pm at Twist, 2313 – 1st Ave in Belltown. Hors d’oeuvres will be provided and there’s a cash bar for all your liquid needs. Television and internet will be available for when those first returns start rolling in around 8:15.

7:00 PM – Joan Hockaday: Greenscapes: Olmstead’s Pacific Northwest
UW Bookstore U District
With UW Prof. David Streatfield. The two will discuss pastoral space in urban settings, ala Frederick Law Olmstead and his stepson and protogee John Charles Olmstead.
[LINK]

7:30 PM – Cheryl Klein: Lilac Mines
Elliott Bay Book Co.
Klein is a playwright and the director of Poets & Writers California office.
[LINK]

High mileage cars are (thankfully) becoming more and more popular. The Toyota Prius is still one of the hottest cars on the market, especially in the Northwest. However, did you know you can extend the gas mileage of the Prius even further? That is where A123Systems and their Hymotion battery come into play. The Hymotion system is basically a giant laptop battery with the purpose of augmenting the Prius’ stock batteries. This gives the car more electric power and allows the driver to move around in just electric mode, as long as you stay below Toyota’s 33mph limit for electric only driving. I’m not exactly sure why the limit is BELOW 35, but it is. However, even if you are going 40 down the road with the gas engine on, you are still getting over 100mph. This works because the Hymotion battery is still helping power the car through the electric motor.

I got a chance to drive one of these cars for a weekend. It was pretty cool to actually see how my driving style affected the car’s overall mpg. I found myself changing how I accelerated in order to get better mileage. The Prius has a pretty sophisticated computer in the dash, but the Hymotion still needs another readout screen because the Prius’ built-in system can only report up to 99.9mpg!

The Hymotion does come at a price though, and a rather hefty price at that. $10,395 will get the system installed in your existing Prius by The Green Car Company in Bellevue. They also can sell you a new Prius already outfitted with the Hymotion system.

If you are interested in knowing more; The Green Car Company is having an event this coming Saturday from 10-4. If you go, you can test drive a plug-in Prius and see what is involved in the conversion. The Green Car Company is located at 345 106th Ave NE. Bellevue, WA 98004.

And hey, there is even a tax rebate for converting your car to plug-in electric.

Tuesday night at Northwest Film Forum join filmmaker Bill Brown and media artist Sabine Gruffat for an evening of video performances, spoken word, scratchy records, and 35 mm slides with their project Time Machine

Gruffat directs you through Real Time Rendering, Quartz and Max patches through digital and analog hyperspace. Brown gives you a guided tour of memory’s roadside attractions from both the past and the future.

The trip begins 8 pm Tuesday, August 18th.

The New York School

A couple towards the front cuddles,
As Frank’s cat excavates his armpit
And looks away from the camera,
Black and white diva tabby.

Farther back, a woman slumps,
Mouth open, wheezing? Snoring.
She snuffles, sits up, fakes a cough.
(So sorry, pardon me.)

Schuyler sweats, glistening beads
Rolling down his face as he mumbles,
His thick lisp like surf describing rock.
I think the cameraman is high.

The couple still canoodles, like the gallery
Is Make-Out Point and they are in his car
Over a dry Midwestern town,
Dirty windows steamed with lust.

John is funny. “Saturday,” he reveals,
“Is a very good time to write a poem.”
And, casually, “all words are pretty good.”
I concur, but secretly contemplate nachos.

*

Wave Books Poetry Festival, August 14-16, 2009. Good times, y’all.

Hajime Sato, chef and owner of West Seattle’s Mashiko Japanese Restaurant made the switch to serving only seafood that is sustainable on August 15th. A few (darn few!) sushi joints have opened their doors as sustainable, but Mashiko will be the first established, successful sushi bar (*) in the world to make the switch, and Seattle’s first fully sustainable sushi restaurant.

“I have always had so much respect for the oceans. Learning about some of the common fishing methods left me no other option – Mashiko had to go sustainable.” Chef Sato continues, “The process has been so inspirational. Instead of just cutting things from the menu, there are now more unique options than before.”

With information available from so many sources, Chef Sato’s sustainability education will be ongoing. He has put his head together with the Seafood Watch department at Monterey Bay Aquarium and is in close contact with the experts at Select Fish, the seafood division of Whole Foods Markets. He is also consulting with noted fisheries analyst Casson Trenor, author and “sustainability guru” for San Francisco’s groundbreaking Tataki Sushi & Sake Bar.

“The sushi industry draws from some of the most depleted fish stocks on the planet,” Trenor said recently. “The five most popular sushi items in the United States – long-line tuna, farmed salmon, imported shrimp, farmed freshwater eel (unagi), and farmed Japanese amberjack (hamachi) – are all generally unsustainable.”

Vowing that this is no green-washed marketing ploy, Chef Sato will make Mashiko fully responsible. He says, “Sushi lovers will be surprised how delicious sustainable choices can be.”

Sushi done conscientiously can include B.C. spot prawns, domestic albacore tuna from the North Pacific, hand-lined yellowfin tuna, farmed California striped bass, suspension-farmed Hokkaido scallops, farmed almaco jack (kampachi) from Hawaii, farmed Washington State Coho salmon, and much more.

Mashiko, well reviewed and thriving since 1994, is known not only for its classical sushi but also for Chef Sato’s innovative departures. The menu is one of the most interesting and unusual in Seattle.

Mashiko Japanese Restaurant
4725 California Ave SW
Seattle, WA 98116-4412
(206) 935-4339
www.sushiwhore.com

M-Th: 5:33pm-9:30pm
Fri: 5:33pm-11:00pm
Sat: 5:03pm-11:00pm
Sun: 5:03pm-9:30pm

* See comment: http://www.bamboosushipdx.com/