Does anyone actually pick up a weekly paper to read a long feature story? Doesn’t it seem a little soul-killing to read page after page of long form reporting on messy newsprint while shiny magazines sit neglected on the coffee table? That said, we’re off to another rundown on what the weeklies have to offer this week. Let us try to forget that it’s now Thursday evening and that you’ve probably read both of them already. This week, both papers go with long sad stories about locals.

features

Painter’s Pants

The Stranger features intertwined profiles of Micah Painter and the men who savagely attacked him last summer. [#] The story, one of crushed dreams, drugs, immigration, gymnasts, Russians, and religion was strong enough to earn the A. Birch Steen seal of approval which is a rare commodity. On the other hand, the ombudsman also defended DeathFest; so take it with a grain of salt. But read it. Good work from Eli Sanders, even though it went to print before the three men were found guilty of committing a hate crime [p-i].

Cop: Good & Sad

In the other newsbin, the Seattle Weekly rigorously details the trials and tribulations of being a bipolar police officer [#] Over eight pages, we learn about so-called Good/Sad Cop Angela Holland. The shorter version: it’s hard to be bipolar, harder still to be a bipolar deputy, and that even a good record didn’t keep her on the force.

Not content with a single feature, the Weekly expands its book section with a series of related articles about books and film. Books about movies, movies about books, movies adapted from books, books about directors: there’s no shortage of topics and seemingly no page limit for this section; so if you’re into reading or watching or both, this could be the section for you to read on a long bus ride.

news

Both papers are skeptical of the ongoing struggle to save the Streetcar. The Weekly wins the column inches and cynicism battle (representative/concluding sentence: “the streetcar also demonstrates one reason Seattle continues to have such terrible problems developing solutions to our transportation problems — whimsy trumps reason”). The Weekly is also a little late to the Paul Allen South Lake Union Kickback Extravaganza while the Stranger rounds out its news section with some juicy Governor–Auditor drama in Olympia.

hot picks

Both papers agree on one topic: your should lay down twenty bucks and pencil-in Buck 65 for your Monday night. If you something better to do than listening to a Canadian hip-hop / unclassifiable musician at the Showbox on Monday, we’d like to hear about it.

comics

Good news for the Stranger fans. It looks like David Rees’s brilliant comic, Get Your War On might be a regular feature. Finally, a little competition for the Weekly’s usual best feature, This Modern World by Tom Tomorrow.

continued ignorance

We continue to ignore the Weekly’s personals section and still refuse to read Stefan Sharkansky’s column in the Stranger. Somehow reading a conservative rant mixed in with the usual Stranger frivolity seems like an unnecessary buzz kill.

the Stranger, 31 March

In a possibly uncomforable turn of events, the Stranger’s cover art finds itself outdated on arrival. Terri Schiavo died this morning [nyt], winning the horrible footrace imagined by artist “Smell of Steve, Inc” for this week’s issue.

In this week

It turns out that there’s more to this crazy end-of-winter/beginning-of-spring weather that we’ve been experiencing in town. Beyond the consequences of whether to break out the GoreTex for the afternoon commute, this wacky indecisive climate seems to have an effect on the mountains. Snowboarders and skiiers whose spirits were crushed by the fantastically mild winter might have one last reason to hope. As hinted at by a morning bulletin (15″ of snow in the past 24 hours and it’s still coming! Don’t put away your ski/snowboard gear just yet!), fans of the winter sports can keep their dreams alive for at least another weekend:

The Summit is re-opening in time for April Fool’s Day; it’s no joke!

Summit West will be open Friday through Sunday (April 1st-3rd) from 9AM-4PM. And there’s more…here’s the news you Alpentalics have been waiting for all season:

One of the fun parks in my area is Kelsey Creek Park, home to Kelsey Creek Farm. This Saturday (11 to 3), they’re holding their annual sheep shearing event, a.k.a. Wild-n-Wooly. Along with the sheep shearing, there’s sheepdog demonstrations, pony rides, tractor/wagon rides, and more. Good, smelly fun.

Highlights: For this city gal, the highlight of the day is watching the sheepdog demonstrations. It’s amazing how the dogs never get close to the sheep, but still manage to push them around, like 2 magnets with the same poles, repelling each other. For the kids, it’s all about an opportunity to touch a lot of largish animals, and get dragged around on a wagon.

If you go: The event is free but food and some activities are not. They don’t accept credit cards, and there is no ATM in the park. Parking is at a premium, all side streets fill up fast, so park at the International middle school and catch the free shuttle.

For a while this afternoon it looked a little like winter outside my office but it was only hail. I’m a native so I should be used to our weird weather patterns but was surprised nonetheless when the weather turned from raging hail storm to sunny, calm skies in the time it took my co-worker and I to have a smoke break.

The forecast for the rest of the week is typically rainy with continuing wind. A glance at the National Weather Service’s Seattle page emphasizes the wind, with gale warnings aplenty for all our major bodies of water.

Wednesday is “Take a Walk in the Park” day. Take a moment to stop by your favorite local park and hug a tree or something. Over at Mercer Slough, Barb Williams is taking a 10AM walk with 15 of her closest buddies (a.k.a. whoever is there at the interpretive signboard in the Winters House parking lot). Although they’ll only cover a mile in territory, they’ll actually cover quite a lot more in information. You’ll look for birds, and native plants and their uses.

And what’s not to like about Mercer Slough? If you miss tomorrow’s walk, the park rangers hold guided nature walks throughout the year. Over the summer (May – Sept) on Saturdays, they have guided canoe trips. You can also buy blueberries in season, or pick your own.

Still feeling all mopey and goth about not being able to make it to Coachella to hear Nine Inch Nails in the desert? Angry and angsty that Seattle isn’t on the spring tour?

Time to cheer up! At least you can listen to the new album more than a month before it’s in stores. Head over to the EMP tonight at 7:30 to hear With Teeth in the company of other fans. If you pre-order the album tonight, they’ll even send you an exclusive track on seven inches of vinyl.

see also: Listening Parties [nin]

(via interimlover [lj])

a sneak peek inside the store.

At long last, the creepy empty storefront on the corner of 45^th and the Ave in the U-District will be used for something other than a makeshift bus stop, street musician rain shelter, and platform for the neighborhood to advertise its vitality. While some may have considered the window posters promoting the U-District an improvement over the Pier One Imports that once occupied the space, there’s a new tenant in town.

That’s right — no more going out of town or to the website for us. Seattle finally gets it’s own brick-and-mortar American Apparel location for all of our plain well-fitting sweatshop-free clothing needs. According to a sign tacked on the front door [jpeg], the shop opens tomorrow (30 March) and they’re still hiring for all positions. Applicants should be aware that the store founder Dov Charney is more than a little unconventional [jewlicious] with respect to interviews and office behavior; so “all positions” might have more than a single entendre.

Still. Why hold funny mustaches and chronic masturbation against the clothes? As far as I’m concerned, the size medium T-shirts are just about perfect.

Hank: Uh, hi, Homer. What can I do for you?

Homer: Sir, I need to know where I can get some business hammocks.

Hank: Hammocks? My goodness, what an idea. Why didn’t I think of that? Hammocks! Homer, there’s four places. There’s the Hammock Hut, that’s on Third.

Homer: Uh-huh.

Hank: There’s Hammocks-R-Us, that’s on Third too. You got Put-Your-Butt-There?

Homer: Mm-Hmm.

Hank: That’s on Third. Swing Low, Sweet Chariot… Matter of fact, they’re all in the same complex; it’s the hammock complex on Third.

Homer: Oh, the hammock district.

Hank: That’s right.

— “You Only Move Twice” episode, from The Simpsons TV show.

Thank goodness the Mud Bay Granary has moved. Because I will tell you, what the Overlake area needed was another MATTRESS STORE, and boy howdy, this one is a doozy. The new Mattress Outlet Store’s sandwich-board people actually get to wear CROWNS!!

Now, let’s see. So there’s the Levitz store just off 148th and 24th — they sell mattresses. And then there’s the old Bon Marche furniture store, now rebranded as Macy’s furniture store, just one block down from 148th and 24th — they also sell mattresses. And there’s Sleep Country USA, just off 148th and 24th, who sell mattresses. Oh, can’t forget their twin across the street — Sleep Country Plus!. Mattress Depot, off near 148th and 20th sell mattresses. Matter of fact, they’re all in the same 4 block area. I think it’s cute how they clump together like that.