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]

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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.

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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.

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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]

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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

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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]

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photo by Kane Jamison [flickr] via our group pool [#].

Thanks to Kane Jamison and others for sharing photos from yesterday’s Prop 8 (et al) protests in Seattle [mb]. We’d love it if you contributed some of your photos, too.

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* 2:00 PM: Elliott Bay Book Company hosts Christina Pratt, author of An Encyclopedia of Shamanism. [LINK]

* 2:00 PM: “If you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes,” is something Seattle-ites say a lot. Why? Why is our weather so messed up? Cliff Mass, UW atmospheric scientist and radio personality explains it all in his book The Weather of the Pacific Northwest. Finally! He’ll be at SPL Central Library, Level 1, Microsoft Auditorium, to answer our burning, freezing, and rain-drenched questions. Mass says, “The weekend looks generally dry (a few light showers perhaps in the north half of the state) and cloudy. Highs in the mid 50s.” Shocking. [LINK]

* 2:00 PM: The Ballard Branch Library hosts local author Michael Schein. He’ll be reading and signing Just Deceits: a Historical Courtroom Mystery. Strangely, I can’t find any holdings at SPL, so don’t expect to be able to check out the book from the Library. Schein is director of LitFuse Poets’ Workshop. Sponsored by Secret Garden Bookshop. [LINK]

* 3:00 PM: Local science fiction/fantasy author David Page will be at the Northgate B&N to talk about his latest novel, Mithras Court: A Novel of the Mists. [LINK]

* 4:00 PM: Travel writer Rolf Potts has travelled back in time from the future to talk about his book Marco Polo Didn’t Go There: Stories and Revelations from One Decade as a Postmodern Travel Writer, at Elliot Bay Book Company. Ask him how! [LINK]

* 5:30 PM: Michael Eric Dyson, author of a ton of books on race and class, is hosted at Mount Zion Baptist Church (1634 19th Ave, Seattle) by the Bush School and Seattle King County NAACP for a lecture entitled “Power, Justice, Freedom: Vote!” The election may be over, but the topic lives on. And can I just take a moment to say, “Yes, we can!” WOOT! I’m finally recovered from the almost debilitating relief. [LINK]

* 7:30 PM: Leslie Walker Williams, author of The Prudent Mariner, yet another novel of the American South, will read and sign at Elliott Bay Books. How many gripping, wise, lucid, inventive, evocative novels of the American South have been written and published to date? Way, way too many. [LINK]

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*7:00 PM: Poet and former nun, Madeline DeFrees will speak at the UW’s Suzallo Library 101. Ms. DeFrees has won more awards than you can shake a stick at. [LINK]

* 7:00 PM: Hugo House hosts Poet Populist-elect Mike Hickey, finalists Ananda Selah Osel, Roseanne Estelle McAleese, and Chelsey Richardson, and other, unnamed, nominees. There will be drinks and door prizes. Woot! [LINK]

* 7:30 PM: Amitav Ghosh has won the ALA Notable Book Award and was a finalist for this year’s Man Booker Prize. He’ll be at Elliott Bay Book Company tonight to read and sign his newest novel, Sea of Poppies, the first in a proposed trilogy. Fans of Ghosh’s work will undoubtedly be all over this book, but new readers might find the first volume of the “Ibis” trilogy a bit uneven and schizophrenic, with an abrupt ending that offers no resolution. Which can happen with series’ novels… [LINK]

* 7:30 PM: Fremont’s Café Babel hosts author Jeffrey Overstreet. Overstreet will read from Auralia’s Colors and his new novel, Cyndere’s Midnight. Billed as Christian Fantasy, the series is available at SPU’s bookstore. Attendees with a copy of one of the books in hand will get a free poster of the cover art. [LINK]

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