Popular Seattle blogger Anita Rowland passed away this afternoon. She had been battling cancer since 2003, and though everyone thought she had a few months left, she had a sudden decline the last few days.

Anita was among the first people I met when I moved to Seattle and started this whole blogging thing. She was always interested in the people she met, and she found something worth talking about in every conversation. It’s a terrible loss, and she will be missed.

Her husband Jack has made a memorial post for condolences and memories.

img of where our geography education is headed
courtesy of [eldan] from our [flickr] pool.

guy at bar #1:
Where are you from?

guy at bar #2:
New Zealand.

guy at bar #1:
Hmm. Hold on. I studied the geography of Europe in college…what is that due west of Sweden and Denmark, right?

image via Buster McLeod

I’ve been waiting to post about this because I’ve been waiting for more photos to roll in, but: last Saturday was the last night for Cafe (Un)American, the “speakeasy” whose demise was hastened when some sour grapes at the PI published the establishment’s address in the paper. (For the record, the place was working with the police on shutting down already, but had to step up the timeline when the article appeared. The police were perfectly nice about the whole thing.) On Saturday night they were encouraging people, for the first time, to take pictures and tell the internet about it, so I’m sure that more photos are out there somewhere.

I missed the last night–this cold I picked up while traveling a couple of weeks ago has seriously curtailed my carousing–but the late nights I spent there this summer, stumbling home at dawn reeking of cigarettes and whiskey, were so much fun. It was totally illegal and completely worth the experiment, and I hope that it inspired other people in this city to give things like this a shot. Cafe (Un)American wasn’t meant to last forever and I’m not sad that it’s gone because I’m excited for whatever the next thing will be.

More pictures or other thrilling social experiements to tell us about? Let us know in the comments.

equal opportunity wet blankets?

Quick question.

Can anyone tell me why the protesters that I snapped at this year’s Pride Parade were also at the Torchlight parade on Saturday? When I first saw them, I just thought they were bigoted dicks, but apparently I was wrong and they just hate parades. I saw someone interviewing one of them on my way from Capitol Hill to Union Saturday night. What gives? Who knows something? TELL.

via The Cable Car Home Page

On its way downtown, the 12 bus crosses the east side of Capitol Hill and rides Madison the rest of the way downtown. Since it passes right over Pill Hill, during mid-day the bus is always crowded with elderly residents headed for their doctor’s appointments.

One of the gentlemen on today’s bus was one of Seattle’s true elders, an aged patrician with watery eyes and a gentle smile carved out of a thousand wrinkles. He was talking to the slightly younger man next to him.

“Wow,” he said. “This was so much easier when Madison had the cable cars.”

They’ve been gone since 1940, incidentally.

Wil Wheaton, portrayer of Star Trek: the Next Generation‘s favorite teen ensign, was in town to help prepare for Gene Roddenberry’s induction into the Science Fiction Museum Hall of Fame. He wrote up the experience of visiting Paul Allen’s little shop of SF artifacts for Suicide Girls:

The whole place feels magical, without any of the commercialism we’ve come to expect from installations like Star Trek: The Experience in Las Vegas (in fact, their gift shop could have a lot more books and DVDs and collectibles in it, but if it did, it would actually be unseemly, I think) and though I was there for just a few hours before I had to get on a plane and come back home, I made sure I took some time to walk around the place (which was closed, and opened up just for our shoot) blurting out “OH MY GOD THAT’S SO COOL!” and “DUDE!” every few feet. [sg]

In the end, he leaves the experience appreciating both the museum and the power of TNG as a gateway drug for “normals” into the world of science fiction. (Personally, I left the museum wanting to check out Battlestar Galactica because they were advertising it so heavily on the day a few years ago that a friend and I decided to go inside after missing the Pop Music Conference.)

On a related subject, the video accompanying this post shows the last ten seconds of every episode of the first season of Star Trek: the Next Generation. Engaging, no?

(via digg, the internet, etc.)

Yesterday, we learned that the hiker that fell into a crevasse and was killed near Baker Lake this weekend was Joe Crawford, formerly of the New Mexicans.

The New Mexican’s one and only full length release, “Chicken Head Talking Diamond,” was the first album by a local band that I bought after I moved to Seattle, mostly based on the strength of Kathleen Wilson’s enthusiasm. His bandmates have gone on to do other things–Creighton Barrett is in Band of Horses now, and and Jeff Montano is in Grand Archives–and each time I’d see him at one of their shows he’d have a great big smile on his face. He always looked like such a nice guy, which rings a little hollow, I realize, but is true nonetheless.

His body wasn’t found until Tuesday afternoon, hidden as it was halfway down a cliff. He’d been camping with some friends and had left to go fishing when he slipped off the trail [Times].

Kerri, a friend of Joe Crawford’s, has written a long and heartfelt goodbye.

He may have struck out on the Viaduct, but Mayor Nickels is taking a swing at one more source of urban decay: Hugh and/or Drake Sisley, at least in their role as North Seattle’s Lords of the Slumlords.

The Seattle Times argues it’s mainly the brothers’ properties along NE 65th Street, just east of Whole Foods, which are the target of yesterday’s proposal by Nickels to increase fines for trash and debris on properties ten-fold. (This was apparently lost on the P-I’s commenters, of whom only one mentioned the Roosevelt connection in the discussion section attached to that newspaper’s article.)

You might remember the Sisley brothers from the arrest of their white-supremecist gun-runner enforcer in 2005. Hugh claims he’s holding on to the rundown bungalows along 65th in order to build an eventual ‘urban village,’ something the Roosevelt Neighborhood Association doubts.

From Beasts!: Chenoo, by M. Brinkman

Just when you thought Fantagraphics was breaking into the mainstream – what with the new Georgetown store front and great new publications, Beasts! anyone? – the local comics store/archiver is again under attack…or still, I guess.

The facts are thus: Harlan Ellison, a well-known, award-winning author, is suing Fantagraphics for libel. For Fantagraphic’s version of events, check out today’s Flog post [#, tcj]. However, I highly recommend also checking out the court documents posted up on Harlan Ellison’s site [#]. It’s totally ripped from the hallowed halls of the People’s Court! Featuring gems like the following:

“Unfortunately, Groth revealed himself to be a scheming pathological liar and little more than an obsessively vindictive and petty man trying to be a mover and shaker. The phrase ‘no deed goes unpunished’ speaks volumes in this instance.”

Ouch! And replete with unintentional (perhaps) irony:

“These offhanded if provocative remarks were quite clearly non-actionable ‘opinions’ about Fleisher’s writing and its laudable literary origins, and not slanderous statements suggesting the speaker’s actual knowledge of Fleisher’s mental state. But there was no reasoning with or apologizing to the temperamental Fleisher; he was determined to sue and in fact he did.“

Emphasis mine, of course. I’m not going to speculate on the veracity of the complaint – I’m too chicken someone would want to sue me or, maybe, go so far as to grope me on stage (!) [wiki]. You know, if I were ever to be famous enough to be speaking at the Hugo Awards…ahem. All I’m going to say is now might be an ideal time to do some shopping for your favorite comic/graphic novel lover.