Another lost cat, this one with a somewhat exotic pedigree. (I thought “Mau male” was a typo until a little googling enlightened me about the existence of the Egyptian Mau breed.)

Bjorn, the tom cat’s already out of the bag, but assuming that you do get Chaco back, don’t you think it’s high time you got him neutered? If money’s an issue, there are a number of local groups that provide low/no cost spaying and neutering services (search for Seattle).

image: Pike Place Market, the mother of all farmers markets.

Today’s Seattle Times’ Food & Wine Section featured the lively article, “Farmers markets are a win-win for growers, consumers,” about the buzzing neighborhood farmers markets in our city.

Who doesn’t want fresh produce, eggs, seafood, meats and dairy on our table straight from the market? [Okay, the vegetarian I am will pass on the meat, et.al., but I love, love them fragrant fresh crisp fruits and veggies direct from the farm!] I marvel at folks who can grow their own palatable produce

image: Women and Violence
special exhibition at the
Wing Luke Asian Museum.

Throughout the duration of the Women and Violence special exhibition at the Wing Luke Asian Museum

Hugo House, across the street from the fancy new (no longer scary) park

Another item for your calendars: Phil Elverum and Rich Jensen present the results of their “month-long utopian experiment and audio conversation” at the Hugo House tomorrow. For the past twenty or so days, the gallery has been host to all sorts of artifacts from their lives — receipts, photos, clothes, posters, notes, cardboard — all of which culminates in a final exhibition called “Let

Thomas Frank, [#]

For those who have gazed inward at the vast sea of redness surrounding the “urban archipelago” and wondered just what was going on, Thomas Frank, author of What’s the Matter With Kansas [$] will be preaching to the choir at Town Hall tonight to explain it all. Or at least some of it. O.K., maybe not the part about putting intelligent design in the science curriculum. We make no promises.

As the founder of The Baffler and a former writer for the Simpsons, Frank is bound to give a humorous and informative talk. You should be there. TiVo the season finale of Lost. Advance tickets, which only cost $5, are available from Elliott Bay Book Company [#, 206.624.6600]

image: Star Trek Voyager’s Captain Kathryn
Janeway channels the legendary Kathryn Hepburn
in Seattle Rep’s Tea at Five production.

On another Trekkie note, Kate Mulgrew (a.k.a. Star Trek Voyager’s Captain Kathryn Janeway) channels Kathryn Hepburn and stars in Seattle Repertory Theater’s Tea at Five

image: Seattle’s Science Fiction
Museum and Hall of Fame

To jump in the Star Wars hype, today’s NY Times’ Arts Section-Museum Review featured the article “Sci-Fi Synergy” about Seattle’s very-own Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame

According to their press release leaked internal memo [Ed: you’re posting this just because you’re excited to have been included on a press release, right? –Sorry, I couldn’t resist the pull of real press acknowledgment. minor gossip], the Seattle Weekly took home a few mantlesfull of awards from the Society for Professional Journalists [spj.org]. Heady on the adrenaline of winning like crazy, the paper used the victories as an occasion for snark:

Seattle Weekly dominated the competition among alternative weeklies in five states with 19 awards and among non-daily newspapers in Western Washington state with 34 awards . . . In all, the paper won 54 SPJ awards for articles published in 2004. Among alt-weeklies in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and Alaska, the next-biggest winner was [Ed: Pulitzer Prize Winning] Portland’s Willamette Week with 11. Seattle Weekly’s direct competitor, The Stranger, won an honorable mention, which was awarded to a former SW staffer and was that paper’s sole honor in either contest.

While the paper is to be congratulated for their success, it’s comments like these that sort of explain why the kid at the top of the class isn’t always the most popular.

update: In case the tone of this post didn’t convey my impression that the prizes just might be vanity awards for the purpose of ego-boosting, here’s Dan Savage’s rebuttal to the Seattle Weekly’s victory party and explanation of why the Stranger didn’t take home any awards (because they didn’t enter). [slog] (p.s. Dan wrote that he sent me an e-mail, but it hasn’t yet arrived.)

RSVP for the April Happy Hour

Tonight is the monthly Metroblogging hang out happy hour type event. Many of your favorite Metroblogging Seattle authors will be having food and drinks at the Elysian Brewpub in Capitol Hill (1221 E Pike St) and we hope that you’ll join us. Come by if you have suggestions for the site, want to find out more about writing for us, or just want to talk and have a beer. To help us choose an appropriately-sized table please sign-up for the upcoming.org event (or leave a comment) and let us know that you’ll be there.

Once again, I’m remembering why I get so excited about this whole festival thing. First of all, of course, there are the movies — and I was fortunate enough to see four very good ones this past weekend. But there’s also the fun of chatting with fellow film-lovers while waiting in line, and the pleasure of watching movies in a theater packed full of enthusiastic festival goers. If SIFF is lacking in the concentrated glamor of a festival like Cannes or Sundance (and I’m only guessing here, cuz I’ve never been to either), maybe it’s more fun because it’s got such a casual, community-based flavor. That, and lots of Nutella!
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