We have gathered some of the top political writers in the country and asked them to discuss the presidential race throughout the year. Today they will discuss the Democratic race between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Seattlest-- How do you feel Senator Clinton's recent attacks on Senator Obama are shaping the upcoming Texas and Ohio primaries? Jeff (San Francisco Chronicle)-- I've got to come clean with my dirty secret-- I'm starting to get cold feet......

Is live theater still relevant in a society where computer users can create high-quality video and distribute it almost instantly via the web? That's been the subject of an ongoing, rancorous debate between two Seattlest contributors, Jeremy and Charles, both former theater artists. Jeremy maintains the theater can yet be a powerful art form -- Charles feels it's a dying, irrelevant medium (most likely wounded by its own hand). To stir them up appropriately, the......

We have gathered some of the top political writers in the country and asked them to discuss the presidential race throughout the year. Today they review Tuesday's doings in New Hampshire. Seattlest: Thanks for joining us again. We’ll start by asking what do you think made the difference for Senator Clinton in New Hampshire? Jeff (The New York Times): Is what happened in New Hampshire a pro-Hillary movement, or is it a reaction by Stubborn......

Monologuist and fascinating human being Mike Daisey arrives in town next week for a Jan 18 - Feb 3 run of his show Monopoly! at CHAC, followed by a shorter try-out of his newest piece, How Theater Failed America. We got Daisey on the horn the other day and took a walk down memory lane with him, a la Dick Cavett, to soften him up before surprising him with hard-hitting questions about how many pictures......

Vedder’s first solo music video—for his critically lauded and Grammy-nominated Into the Wild song “Guaranteed”—airs on VH1 (and VH1.com) on Monday. Perfect timing, then, for the ever-more-famous guy to bump into his 1992 self while browsing Easy Street’s vinyl bins. Serendipity! 1992 Eddie (strokes soul patch; sings to himself): I’ll tip my hat to the new constitution… take a bow for the new revolution… 2008 Eddie (spots 1992 Eddie): Hey, are you ... ? Young......

Last we talked with Carrie Akre, she was gearing up for the release of her latest CD, Last the Evening. Now, a couple of months later, the CD is officially out, and Akre is buzzing from the aftermath. Indeed, most of us music critic types have had nice things to say about the disc, which showcases her exuberant, imagery-laden lyrics and alt.country sensibilities, and shows off the great musicianship of her backup players. We......

What better time to talk about beer and food than with the holidays coming up? We enjoy wine with a good meal just as much as everyone else, but we hate the perception that beer should not be paired with anything except pizza. Unless you are still drinking that macro crap, you can enjoy beer with a wide variety of food. This Seattlest is currently reading "The Brewmaster's Table", written by Garrett Oliver, the......

Adrian Tomine started making comics in his teens when he created Optic Nerve. In it, he tells stories about people who tend to be searching for answers to questions they seem to think everyone else already knows. After a few years putting out Optic Nerve on his own, it was picked up by publisher Drawn and Quarterly. Tomine is coming to Seattle to promote his first full-length graphic novel Shortcomings. Seattlest used it as......

Mateo Messina, a Seattle native, has been composing television and film scores and penning symphonies for 10 years. His most recent score is for the upcoming, buzz-magnet comedy Juno. His latest symphony will be heard tonight at Benaroya Hall's (sold out) Symphony Legacy concert. (That's him above, at last year's show.) Messina's Symphony--a benefit for Seattle Children's Hospital & Regional Medical Center--features the combined musical talents of the Northwest Symphony Orchestra and the Northwest......

There are a lot of things we can see being seized at the border between Canada and the United States: handguns with the serial number filed off, bricks of heroin, briefcases with the radioactivity sign on the side. Hard drives we'd expect to make it through, but unfortunately we'd be wrong. The guy bringing the masters of the songs Chris Walla recorded in Vancouver back down to Seattle had the drive containing them yanked by......

If there's anything we learned studying literature in college, it's that everything either comes from Shakespeare, Greek mythology or the Bible. Seattlest used to entertain herself by playing "From Whence Did That Allusion Come?" Yeah, we only had two friends in college. The result of our education is an absolute delight for anything that successfully adapts some brilliant Shakespearean masterpiece into a slightly more ribald, contemporary spectacle. And so it is that we perked up......

A big 'thank you' to Seattlest commenters for making the previous two posts on the Gas Works Park Mystery Party the definitive places for speculation and conjecture. Just this morning an unregistered guest indicated that they'd received an email asking for actors to "protest" the party at $100 a head, which kind of dulls the luster on a previous commenter's note that Melinda Gates's birthday is August, 15. Anyway, in lieu of any actual, factual......

Jason Holstrom may be known as a founding member of two local bands, Wonderful and United State of Electronica, as well as a producer for such acts as Dolour and Aqueduct, but now he's got a new group up his sleeve: The Thieves of Kailua, a one-man island-pop project. Through its sunny surf sounds, layered loungey vocals, and a mixture of production techniques both old and new, the self-titled album evokes a Hawaiian vacation--starting......

A while ago we were looking for a picture of a mojito and in our search we ran into local author (and mojito photographer) Amanda Ford. She told us she had a book coming out and we said, Great, let us know when it's on the shelves and we'll interview you. The book is called Kiss Me I'm Single: An Ode to the Solo Life, and its message is of "fierce individuality and even stronger......

Yes, we know we've been plugging this band a lot lately, but it's only because they live up to the hype. Besides, after Battles' show tonight at the Croc, we probably won't have anything to say about them for at least a week or so. But no promises. Seattlest chatted with John Stanier, the man behind the kit, as the sonically solid foursome headed up the West Coast. Have you been surprised by the......

A decomposed body was found in the house of ex-radio guy Mike Webb. We heard that first on the television, but we've been reading about Webb on the excellent Blatherwatch blog for a while now--they've been following Webb's fall for months, even from way back in the days before they had a special category for "Mike Webb Missing" on the blog. Webb used to be a liberal talk radio guy. He was charged with some......

We're trying to decide if we're panicked about the bees. The other day -- sunny, warm -- we were in Volunteer Park in the middle of a patch of clover and it was completely bee-free. It would have been chilling except, like we say, the sun was out and it was in the 80s. We have a lot of respect for bees, and not just because a dead one stuck in some honeycomb took revenge......

This month Seattlest Book Club is reading Seattle-born and -raised Pauls Toutonghi's debut novel Red Weather, just out in paperback from Random House. You'll get a discount if you buy it at Bailey-Coy or Santoro's. We emailed questions, he emailed us back answers. Red Weather is set in Milwaukee, but are there any aspects of your experience growing up in Seattle that make their way into the book? Many of them, absolutely. Well, "Alexander Hamilton......

Just to be clear, while it's called Falstaff -- and there's a lot of Falstaffian drinking, gorging, and attempted wenching in it -- this is really Verdi's Merry Wives of Windsor. Falstaff's boozy run at two of them starts things off, but they take over from there. We have all sorts of compromising connections to Seattle Opera, so don't take our word for how good this show is. Take the word of the guy......

We’ve all heard it. Many of us have even said it. A “religious experience.” As in, “Seeing Tool at the Paramount was just amazing – like a religious experience.” It’s different for everyone. For some, it’s all about the environment of the show – the venue, the crowd, maybe the mushrooms you ate about an hour before the lights went down. For others, it’s all about the band. Maybe it’s Tool at the Paramount.......

Ex-Seattleite, ex-Stranger-nic and ex-grassroots campaign manager Phil Campbell wrote a book that we loved about Grant Cogswell's run for City Council in the wake of WTO. The book is Zioncheck for President, which we've discussed with Phil in the past. Now Stephen Gyllenhaal has bought the rights to the film adaptation and plans to produce the thing DIY style here in Seattle. In keeping with the grassroots spirit of Zioncheck for President, Gyllenhaal said he......

Admission: We don't know shit about graphic novels (we were more baseball cards than comic books in our day) We read Maus in the mid 90's and the Watchmen for a college class, and that's it. But as we were down in Georgetown for a work function, we thought we'd check out the new store. The lovely and charming Rhea (pictured at right) picked something out for us based on the bibliography just mentioned and......

If the P-I is to be believed - and a good six out of ten times they are - we are in the midst of an illegal advertising blitz. The paper has an article today on a particularly grotesque form of urban pollution: unauthorized advertising appearing on the sides of buildings. In previous years the city would hear of maybe two a year, but so far in 2006 the city has received twelve complaints.......

Seattle conversations showed up on Overheard in the Office three times last month. Oct. 9:Old man: Excuse me. CD store employee: Yes. Old man: Where do you keep your Negro music? CD store employee: What? Old man: Your Negro music! Grandson: He means rap music. CD store employee: Oh, over there. 1st Avenue North Oct. 23:Guy: Why can't you just have the party at your place? Girl: 'Cuz I lost my damage deposit after that......

Speaking of Violet Blue, she weighed in on the "Craigslist Experiment" over the weekend on her blog: When researching my sex books, I've placed CL ads just to get a random sampling or to get ideas; I post as female. Every time, I've received an overwhelming amount of troll responses with unsolicited photos. I have always wanted to do something with those responses and photos, as they are often offensive and sometimes even kind......

We heard a rumor and since rumors are one of our favorite things to propagate (second only to "the species") we're getting off to a good Friday. Unfortunately, while there are potentially lots of good rumors surrounding the Seattle public school district (no school closures, across the board school closures, Gates Foundation bought the district) AND lots of good rumors surrounding Apple (new wireless iPod will get you chicks, Apple recalling those crusty and yellowing......

Unlike Seattle's University District, the town of Whistler is a bit more used to living with, and near, bears. Over the past holiday weekend, we discovered just how close one can get, as the record-breaking snowfall from this past winter at Whistler means the bears coming out of hibernation this spring can't get very far up the mountain just yet. We're pretty used to seeing the occasional bear on the golf course, or even lurking......

You all remember Vern, right? Seattlest interviewed him a few months back, and let us reassure you, this man knows badass inside and out. If anyone could convince us that the Steven Seagal Blues Band (aka Thunderbox) wasn't all that bad, it would have to be him. We were mighty pleased to discover that Vern had emailed Seattlest HQ to let us know he'd answered our plea and has a review of last weekend's concert......

Friday night Seattle gets a new art gallery -- BLVD, dedicated to urban contemporary art. (Note to the uninitiated: that's "boulevard," not "beloved.") We talked with gallerist Kirsten Anderson, who also owns Roq La Rue, the neighboring lowbrow/pop surrealism gallery, about urban contemporary art and what to expect from BLVD. You've said that, in a nutshell, lowbrow and pop surrealist artists grew up listening to punk and new wave, while urban contemporary artists grew up......

What's better than a film noir? A stylized, old-timey, slang-heavy film noir that takes place at a modern-day high school. Seattlest recently spoke to Rian Johnson, writer and director of the highly acclaimed Brick, now playing at the Neptune Theatre. About your melding of genres...while you do make use of light and shadows, which are always seen in noir, I have to say that Brick is the sunniest noir film I've ever seen. So why......