Riding our bike to work this morning along Elliot Bay, we realized that we are going to make it. The dark, cold winter is finally getting ready to release its grip and, while we are sure to have more cold, wet days ahead, today is a sign of great things to come. Heck, it was warm enough for us to wear shorts while riding and we even took off our gloves and hat at a red light. more ›

A photo by lorilovesyouu, and she must love you as her name suggests, because why else would she have taken this photo of the beautiful weather yesterday and these four strangers enjoying it alone together and uploaded it to the Seattlest Flickr Pool? more ›

#1 on our list of events for the weekend is the Elysian Pumpkin Beer Festival this Saturday up at the Capitol Hill location. There will be 13 different pumpkin beers on tap, including the GABF silver-medal-winning The Great Pumpkin Ale. Festivities begin at noon with the tapping of the Great Pumpkin at 4pm; a huge pumpkin in which a batch of Night Owl carried out its secondary fermentation. Yum. more ›

The trio of authors Akashic's showcasing includes the novelists Felicia Luna Lemus and Joe Meno, neither of whom we've read and therefore can't comment on. But trust us--it's worth going for Chris Abani alone. An exiled Nigerian playwright and novelist, Abani was such a thorn in the military regime's side that they even tried to assassinate him in London (prompting his move to the US, where he currently teaches at UCLA). more ›

tomorrow night. So excited, in fact, that we thought we'd go to the Google to find out what sorts of happenings are going to, well, happen tomorrow in celebration of the big release. more ›

We broke our vow of not caring about the damn Viaduct anymore the other day while making small talk with a building manager type who represents a waterfront-property owner type. We were killing time and the subject of building access in the event of work on the Viaduct came up (We work in a building adjacent to the Viaduct). We ticked off the big ones: surface, tunnel, rebuild and repair and then he mentioned an Elliott Bay Bridge. "They're also talking about a bridge," he said. "But it's like too expensive or something?" we guessed. "No, it would be about half the cost of the rebuild." They're certainly not talking about it, as far as we're concerned. We've never even heard of this Elliot Bay Bridge before, but we Googled it and found a Seattle Times guest editorial from last summer and a PDF laying out the case against it: Unprecedented design, difficult permitting, dramatically different views, many property impacts, seawall's gotta get fixed anyway. A bridge is born and dies before Seattlest even realizes it. We're guessing our property manager doesn't know what he's talking about. "They" discussed it and discarded it long ago here here here here. more ›

DEMOCRACY: There's a Seattle school levy election today. If you don't know where you are supposed to vote, but know your name and the day you were born, you can look it up online. If you can't get to that place, you can cast a provisional ballot anywhere--just march up to the nice poll-worker ladies at your local school or church and say "I'd like to cast a provisional ballot, please." We did it last election and it worked like a dream. more ›

This was the plain truth spoken by John Spade in I'm Gonna Git You Sucka, and so it goes for audio books as well. If you wanted to catch the reading of Areas of My Expertise a little while back at Elliot Bay, but found the line up the stairs too intimidating, you can now get the same (albeit much more prolonged) experience for free in the iTunes store, complete with introductory theme song by Jonathan Coulton. more ›

There are those who espouse the theory that "experiences" make better gifts than things (does Deja Vu offer gift certificates?), but we're not above worshiping material goodies ourselves. Either way, Seattlest wants you to give good, yummy, thoughtful things--tangible or experiential--to those you love and so over the next couple of weeks, we'll offer our local picks for things to pick up. more ›

>>>DORKBOT, 7:30pm. We love the name, but saying that they plan to "discuss their innovative approach to immersive, participatory entertainment" doesn't hide the fact that this will be geeks talking about videogames. Free, but only if you know the secret code: 'Knock knock, who's there?' 'Um, dorks?' 'Come in!' more ›

The simple breakdown of the talk after the jump. more ›

>>>UW Forum for Science and Ethics Policy, 5:30pm. Dr. Dennis Schatz, VP for Education at the Pacific Science Center, cheerleads for “Making Science as Pervasive as Sports in Society.” His ulterior motive? It can only be to pack the Sonics off to Oklahoma and build our very own Exploratorium right here in Seattle, to which we say “Be Aggressive, Be Be Aggressive!” Free. UW Health Sciences Building, T-478. more ›

We called Elliot Bay Books last week in advance of John Hodgman's reading, and asked whether they thought it would be crowded. Should we show up early, now that he's all famous and whatnot? Not a bad idea, they said, maybe 7pm. The reading was to start at 7:30. We strolled into EBB as the clock struck 7, and our heart sank into our feet as we spied the line at the bottom of the spiral staircase, making its own spiral all the way through the cafe next to the reading room in the basement. Luckily, Seattlest Jack and Audrey were wiser than we are, and had arrived even earlier, securing our seats three rows back, just left of center. more ›

Seattlest just found out that John Hodgman's troubador-in-waiting and coonskin-cap-wearing songwriter extraordinaire, Jonathan Coulton, will be performing at the Jewelbox Theater (chez Rendezvous) after the reading at Elliot Bay. Those who've only read Hodgman's book and not attended any readings may not be so familiar with Coulton--who plays musical and straight-man counterpart to Hodgman on a variety of fronts--but his acoustic remix of "Baby Got Back" brings down the house every time. more ›

When he last graced our fine city, Mr. Jonathan Hodgman was touring for his new book The Areas of My Expertise. He has since then become straightman-comic hawker of Apple computers and Resident Expert on the Daily Show. Seattlest could possibly be more jealous, but we're not certain. more ›

Italy vs. France more ›

Eric Blehm’s third book, The Last Season, reconstructs the story of Randy Morgenson, a National Park Service backcountry ranger in California's rugged Sierra Nevada Mountains who heads out for a routine 3-day patrol in the summer of 1996, never to be seen again. Exploring numerous theories surrounding the circumstances of Morgenson's disappearance--suicide, accidental death, even starting over with a new anonymous life--Blehm retraces the ranger's steps, weaving together a story that celebrates the juxtaposition of the breathtaking yet unforgiving terrain of the high Sierra backcountry wilderness, and the people dedicated enough to serve it. Seattlest was unable to attend his reading at Elliot Bay a couple weeks ago, but we chatted with him a few days later about the process of writing a book that took eight years to research. more ›

The straight up coolest art installation of the spring that every man, woman and child should have seen will be floating through Elliot Bay today at 10am. It's the Living Barge project from artists Nicole Kistler and Sarah Kavage and they say 10am but we say you should be on the lookout between 10 and 11, optimistically. more ›

Seattlest's newfound fascination with cook book tours will likely be short-lived, but right now the fires of our interest burn hot and we have another something-something for you to attend tonight along those lines. Tonight at Elliot Bay Books Anna Lappé will be taking the stage to read from her book on sustainable food Grub: Ideas for an Urban, Organic Kitchen. more ›

Anyone who thought that our state legislature had any chance at all of forcing Wal-Mart to act less like Wal-Mart raise your hand. Yeah, none of you. House speaker Frank Chopp sat on the "Wal-Mart Bill" yesterday instead of allowing a vote on it, despite a big push by his traditional allies in organized labor. The bill would force employers of 5,000 or more in the state of Washington to allocate 9% of their payroll to health benefits. Chopp alternately doesn't think it will help, doesn't want to piss off businesses and doesn't think it has the votes, or, some say, he made a deal with someone. The world may never know. The P-I speculates that he may be killing the bill in favor of a voter initiative which could help bring out the progressives next election day, but screw that. Progressives will already be out (or mailing it in) to stand up against the homophobes and their jackass king Eyeman. To Seattlest's knowledge no such initiative campaign currently exists and even if it did it's an abuse of the initiative process because the legislation is sitting right there on his desk staring him in the face and all he has to do is put it to a damn vote. Ahem. more ›

There was a great editorial in the P-I over the weekend in which the writer Daniel Jack Chasan said (and this is Seattlest’s Paraphrase): The Sound is a mess. The Sound was a mess in the 80’s and we said we’d fix it and we never wanted to foot the bill so the Sound is mess now and we’re saying we’ll fix it and we won’t foot the bill. That was the gist of it, but it’s worth going to read for yourself if you haven’t. more ›

While Seahawk fans were cheering on the home team and celebrating a trip to the most Super of Bowls yesterday a nearby tug boat gave up on life and sank. The 101' Island Brave went down in 30' of water near the mouth of the Duwamish on the west side of Harbor Island with 20,000 gallons of diesel fuel and nearly pulled another tug down with it. We're guessing the accident was not a result of marauding Seahawks fans, although if it's painted blue and green with "12"s all over it when they raise it we'll let you know. more ›

We're pretty lucky here in Seattle that our main industries are pretty clean from an environmental standpoint. We've been shipping all of those dirty industries out of cities since the seventies and have been doing so at hyperspeed now that we've recognized our urban areas as holding pens for the creative class. There just aren't a lot of harmful byproducts invloved in computer software manufacturing - Maybe an overabundance of NorWestNerdCons, but that's about it. Every economy's gotta grow, though, right? Isn't that the system that we've agreed to? An economy that isn't expanding is dying, so bring on those new industries. more ›

Seattlest saw John Hodgman give one of his unusual, deadpan readings from his first book, The Areas of My Expertise. Given our solely platonic love of ferrets and hobos, we couldn't pass up the opportunity to speak briefly with Mr. Hodgman. more ›

The monorail is eviscerated in the local election. Boo! But then the Arctic Wildlife National Refuge appears to be granted another reprieve. Yeah! And then a senator starts making noise about more tankers in the Sound again. Boo! more ›

Phil Campbell. We interviewed this guy previously, and that should have been enough to make you go buy Zioncheck For President. Seriously, how hard is it to buy a book these days. It takes two minutes. Now you own the book and it's buried somewhere in your "to read" stack. The Stranger excerpted it and you maybe bumped it up to the top of the pile. Still not good enough. Put down that pretentious crap you've been slugging through and read Zioncheck For President. Now. You'll like it. You'll fly through it. You'll wonder if you're in it (you're not). more ›

No one actually knows what's going on with the monorail. That can't be true. There must be a handfull of people somewhere in the city who know how things stand and where things are going, but they don't seem to be saying anything. So instead we get a new vote on the monorail, which means it's not happening and then means it is happening and then there's no vote on the monorail which means, again, that it is happening, but wait, now it means it's not happening. Doesn't it seem like that, kinda? Which is why we say no one actually knows what's going on with the monorail. more ›

Fans of progressive radio will want to tune in this afternoon between 12 and 3pm (you're late) for the Ed Schultz Show broadcast from Town Hall. If you had known about the event earlier you could have bought tickets to see it live and helped benefit First Place, but you already dropped the ball on that. more ›

West Seattle is just days away from the springtime resurrection of it's lifeline to the downtown waterfront: the water taxi. Beginning May, 1, Three dollars will get you across Elliot Bay aboard the Argosy Sightseer. Strangely, it will only cost you $1 if you can also come up with a valid Metro transfer, so you penny-pinchers can save yourselves $0.50 by going that route. The Sightseer will leave from pier 55 every hour on the half hour from 8-10pm on Saturdays and make the return trip from Seacrest Park on the hour. The full schedule, in all its irregular glory, is here. more ›

Seattle's preferred method of total annihilation has always been the earthquake, with an eruption of Mt. Rainier running a close second. Possibly both at the same time. But after Asia's tragedy at the end of last year, tidal waves are on everyone's mind. Think a tsunami wouldn't be able to navigate the Sound and find its way into Elliot Bay? Think again. more ›