It doesn't officially open until January, but if you're a fan of Internet humor, a social activist, a person who enjoys theatre, a person who cares about those living with disease, or just someone who's into the macabre, you should immediately add A Short Term Solution To A Long Term Problem to your 2012 must-see list. more ›

Oh Snap! Turns out that IS what she said... or at least what she'll be saying tonight at the Hugo House. Featuring a fantastic lineup of seven Northwest female writers and poets such as Elizabeth Austen, Midge Raymond, Janna Cawrse Esarey, and Susan Rich, She Said: Women's Lives Through Poetry and Prose hopes to provide a witty and insightful look into the less obvious aspects of womanhood--something all of us ladies can relate to more ›

There is one well known way to render a movie that is bad enough into a thing of truly sublime wonder. That way, of course, is the above mentioned method, by which one drinks an ugly movie pretty. Booze can make a movie that should be awful a transcendent comic experience. Watching a film drunk builds a bond between friends, not unlike that which exists between soldiers who have shared a foxhole. more ›

PILLOW TALK: Almost no one we know gets a terrific night's sleep these days. Either it's restlessness or insomnia or neighbors, but it's tricky to get sleep to shroud you in his purple cloak. Dr. Catherine Darley, a naturopathic doctor from The Institute of Naturopathic Sleep Medicine has put together a Sleep 101 seminar (seminars do put us to sleep!) on what normal sleep is, and what can go wrong: sleep disordered breathing (and its effects on the cardiovascular system), insomnia, et al. And she'll talk about how sleep deprivation affects you, and how a sleep disorder can increase obesity. more ›

Last night we made it to Central Cinema for a sold-out showing of Roadhouse, which we're imagining is the one and only time Roadhouse has sold out anywhere. It was part of "From BAD to WORSE: Cinematic Terribleness in 6 easy pieces," hosted by David "I'm in ur Showgirls DVD, commentating" Schmader. Schmader gave us an introduction, we set into a pitcher of beer and a personal pizza, and the carnage began. Our previous experience with Roadhouse came from seeing excerpts from it on Saturday afternoon TV, and we were a little unprepared for lines like "Pain don't hurt," and "I used to fuck guys like you in prison!" From the back, Schmader chimed in via microphone and rewound key plot points (or their absence) in super slo-mo. Whoever was costuming Swayze outdid themselves. Still to come are the Dolly/Stallone-tastic Rhinestone and the Affleck/J-Lo implosion Gigli. *shudder* more ›

HOLIDAYS AT THE ZOO: Even the animals at the Woodland Park Zoo are getting into the holiday spirit. For the next three days of the zoo's Winter Celebration, zookeepers will bring the animals gifts of tasty treats like "wreaths trimmed with fish or assorted fruit, evergreen trees with ornamental fruit, or wrapped boxes filled with favorite tidbits." For today, the schedule of feedings is sun bears at 11 a.m., grizzlies and pigs at noon, and the elephants at 2 p.m. Tomorrow, the orangutans, otters, golden lion tamarins, and tigers get theirs, and Wednesday closes things out with the emus, gorillas, and Australian birds and keas. more ›

BAD FILM: This week, David Schmader's crash-course in the history of awful cinema continues with the legendarily bad Bill Cosby flick, writers for years, Schmader's shtick is probably a bit old by now. But by and large he's good at it, ensuring some added hilarity to an already comically bad film, all while gorging yourself on beer and pizza from the good people at Central Cinema. more ›

Readers of the Seattle Times take their bad movies seriously. Comments to Moira Macdonald's piece on David Schmader's six-week series of bad cinema run the gamut from slightly stupid ("Roadhouse is so bad that multi-million dollar Broadcast stations like TNT and TBS show it virtually every week...because it is so horrible no one will watch it, right?") to completely clueless ("I think this guy [Schmader] needs a job. Honestly, if it were Spielberg, Scorsese, John Woo, Oliver Stone, Polanski, or even Woody Allen or George Cukor giving the reviews of movies, I might be slightly persuaded to read them. But from some guy who knows nothing about directing a movie and even less about acting, give me a break.") to downright incomprehensible ("Does nobody else realize that this guy's 'job' has consisted of watching Elizabeth Berkely strip?"). Take a minute to read the entire ridiculous comment thread here. more ›

. more ›

POLAR BEAR APPRECIATION: If you’ve heard about global warming affecting the polar bears, you’ll want to head down to the Point Defiance Zoo for Bear Awareness Week. Learn more about the plight of the polar bear and watch the resident polar bears, Blizzard, Glacier, Kenneth and Boris, frolic. more ›

We seem to be covering the benefit beat lately--Wednesday night David Schmader takes over the Triple Door to "annotate" Paul Verhoeven's "film" Showgirls. It's to raise money for the the Urban Rest Stop, a "hygiene center" downtown. We're for a free place for people to freshen up, don't get us wrong. It's just funny to have the Showgirls tie-in, in that the one and only time we watched it we had to take a long hot shower afterwards. more ›

more ›

We randomly checked out the Walkmen and Kaiser Chiefs show at the Showbox last night, mostly in the dark about their work. Although we had seen the Walkmen live once before, we couldnt remember if they had made much of an impression. During the opening, a friend summed up their sound as "like the Strokes except not irritating." That's a good enough summary although we'd swap out the Strokes with Rod Stewart, who Walkmen lead singer Hamilton Leithauser sounds exactly like and if you don't agree then fuck you. more ›

LESS IS MORE: In Trance of Scarcity: Stop Holding Your Breath and Start Living Your Life, Victoria Castle asks why we feel that nothing is ever enough. Castle's book shows us how to escape this malaise and become more relaxed and alive. Hopefully it doesn't involve crisscrossing the U.S. on a book tour. more ›

MUSIC: Kled, with a lineup that boasts some of our favorite band names in town, including A Gun that Shoots Knives and We Wrote the Book on Connectors. more ›

The magic of theatre, like magic in general, relies heavily on misdirection. If you are dying to see a great play about cloning, there is a good chance that A Number, showing at ACT right now, will annoy the hell out of you if you go. more ›

more ›

Seattle has its own flavor. It's an American city, sure, but it's its own city, with obsessions, neuroses, and pathologies that are uniquely Seattle in character. Seattlest loves that about Seattle. There are some personalities that have gained national prominence that are either from this city or not but are seen to have characteristics that personify the city. Michael Jackson is not one of those people. Regardless of how many times The Stranger puts him on the cover or however many column inches they devote to him, Seattle will never be a MJ town. Thankfully. So Stranger, please, stop. Enough with the King of Pop. We stopped caring years ago. He stopped being relevant to American culture years ago. Despite that, we are still awash in national coverage and the last thing we need is another cover story by one of the alternative weeklies on Michael f'ing Jackson. more ›