We were impressed by this morning's Times article about the need to increase bicycle safety on the city's streets. Writer Mike Lindblom stays away from polarizing histrionics. Instead he makes bicyclists seem like sane, good people who just want to make it to work alive:At each end of the Fremont Bridge, road signs tell car drivers to yield to bikes -- southbound motorists turning right toward Seattle Pacific University will wait for the bicyclists pedaling......

We were delighted to find out that offerings from Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales have hit the shelves in your better beer stores around Seattle. We would not be surprised if very few people in Seattle have heard of this small brewery out of Dexter, Michigan; let alone tried their beer. Jolly Pumpkin takes pride in producing small batches of Belgian inspired beers, which are all aged in oak barrels and bottle conditioned (Except for......

We've seen a lot of dangerous places in Seattle to ride a bike (Dexter, 15th, the Burke-Gilman) and at each of those we've either come close to clipping bikes with our car or nearly rode straight over them with our bus. There's only one place in the city that Seattlest can never remember a near miss with a bicycle, or ever even considered that someone on a bike might be a potential road hazard we'd......

A sinkhole opened up on a tiny road beneath the University Bridge this morning, eating two cars, forcing the Mayor to change his morning plans, and closing the University Bridge. The cause: a water main break, which was what caused Dexter Avenue to resemble Wild Waves last week. This morning's water attack occurred on East Portage Bay Road. After eating the cars, the water launched a charge toward the footing of the University Bridge, which......

South Lake Union is currently under water after a 20" main was broken by contractors this morning. Some businesses in the area aren't getting water and the area around Harrison and Dexter is flooded. "I just took my dog for a walk, and when I came back I saw a river coming down Harrison," said Nic Roussouw, who is working on opening a coffee shop at 404 Dexter Ave. N. "I imagine the city must......

We vividly remember the first time we saw Brett Wolfe: in 1998, we were standing outside in a parking lot on Dexter, talking to someone on our cell phone. We stopped silent when we saw a guy with only one leg riding his bike up Dexter, and he was passing people like they were standing still. This was before we became immersed in mountain biking ourselves, before we found out about Wolfe, who has completed......

Monday SEATTLEST BOOK CLUB PICK: For March, we're reading Jonathan Raban's Surveillance, set in a not-so-distant future, when everyone's actions are highly monitored. Get a head start on the conversation by hearing from Raban himself. (We'll know if you went or not.) 7pm // UW Bookstore // FREE FANTASTIC FICTION SALON: Connie Willis, an award-winning SF writer, hosts this discussion of sci-fi/fantasy fiction writing. (As a new member of Hugo House's "Writing Fantastic Fiction"......

CASTING CALL: Local director Garrett Bennett is looking for extras to cast in his independent film The Spy & the Sparrow. 3-8pm // First Church of Christ Scientist [1519 E. Denny Way] // $Whatever minuscule remnants remain of your dreams of an acting career BOOKS: Don't wear sweatpants to this event. Erotica writer Jennifer Munro reads from her award-winning work, as does the winner of Hugo House's erotica writing competition. Keep your fingers crossed for......

If you got caught in traffic today because Aurora was closed for five hours, you've got your friendly Seattle cops to thank:Just after 1:30 a.m. Monday, officers were called to an apartment building in the 1500 block of Aurora Avenue North following a report that a man there had thrown a knife at his girlfriend and threatened two other people in the apartment with a rifle... Police closed northbound lanes of Aurora Avenue and a......

The Seattle Times reported today that commute times all around Seattle are increasing. We've never heard of a metropolitan area that had decreasing commute times, so it's not exactly news that it's taking people here longer and longer to get to work (We'd love to hear of a metro area with decreasing commute times, though, so if you know of someplace please share. No fair citing Detroit during the 90's or something with similarl rapidly......

Seattle is a pretty good place to be if you're into food. Probably way better than average, even, for a city our size. There are tons of hip-ish new restaurants with creative menus constructed from organic ingrediants, there are a gazillion Asian and Asian-influenced places that are fantastic and the seafood is incredible almost everywhere. However, when it comes to food that Seattlest might label "Old World," there is nothing. Granted, this comes from a......

All music all the time wears us out, so we decided to hopscotch around Bumbershoot this year and take advantage of the talks, arts performances, and art exhibits. Thinking Globally I We arrived a little late, having forgotten about a little thing called traffic (about half the people on the #8 bus disembarked and hoofed it from Dexter). Ngugi Wa Thiong'o was reading from his Wizard of the Crow (which we think John Updike......

Our reader sent this in asking if we knew what it was all about. Unfortunately, we don't, but we do have a strong suspicion that as soon as we're good and frenzied to know (yeah, yeah, this post is contributing to it) the rest of the billboard will be completed. Meet such-and-such product or whatever. Reader Brad says: Someone keeps vandalizing the one on Dexter with the word "resist!", and they keep painting over......

On the odd days that Seattlest drives to work rather than bus it from Wallingford to downtown and back we generally tend to stay away from 5. Sometimes we do 99, but our prefered route is Dexter / Fremont Bridge, a route that does have one significant drawback: the damn bikers. Note to Lance wannabes: There's no yellow jersey awarded for getting from Denny to Fremont in under six minutes so it may not be......

No comments, just schedules. (Because we're lazy, that's why.) At Center on Contemporary Art, 410 Dexter Ave. N.: Wednesday 11/9: Charles Burns promotes Black Hole at 7 p.m. (More details below.) At Elliott Bay Book Co., 101 South Main Street: Tuesday 11/8: Joshua Wolf Shenk promotes Lincoln's Melancholy at 7:30 p.m. Thursday 11/10: Dan Savage promotes The Commitment at 7:30 p.m. Friday 11/11: Doug Peacock promotes Walking It Off at 6 p.m. Friday 11/11: Daniel......

Seattle native Charles Burns will appear at the Center on Contemporary Art Wednesday to sign copies of and promote the new Pantheon collection of his 12-issue comic book series Black Hole, originally published in stapled pamphlet form by everyone's favorite local funny-book manufacturing concern. While most everyone recognizes Burns as the mastermind behind everything from the slick album cover art for Iggy Pop and Believer magazine, as well as those weird Altoid ads, few......

It looks like it's going to rain all weekend (T-Storms even!) and frankly there's not a lot going on barring Citizen Cope, which is sold out. Yeah, you should try to get in to the Robert WIlliams thing, but as Seattlest Silvie suggested in the comments, you may have to go early and spend some time waiting in line. In the rain. Tonight's also Bright Eyes, but since he sucks there's no way you'll be......