Royal Caribbean, which offers offers seven-day cruises that depart Terminal 91 for Alaska every week, got a D in sewage treatment and an F in air pollution reduction. Slate estimates that your carbon footprint doubles each day you're on a cruise. You might as well idle your car for a week instead. more ›

CAMPY: Nina Persson was a teenage crush of ours, back when she was producing brilliantly guileless pop with her band the Cardigans. So it's nice to see she's back on the road with a new band, A Camp, which began as a collaboration between her and soundtrack artist/husband Nathan Larson (damn you!) and Niclas Frisk. Now they're touring with a veritable who's who of American rock, including Kevin Marsh of Guided by Voices and James Iha of the Smashing Pumpkins and A Perfect Circle, all in support of a brilliant new album called Colonia (their second) that's somewhat akin to what would happen if Abba bred with the Carpenters. more ›

Yes, there's snow on the ground, but on Sunday, April 5, the most-awaited emblem of spring in Seattle finally arrives: the Elliott Bay Water Taxi begins its run, wrapping up in fall on October 31. (As you know, residents of West Seattle begin their winter hibernation about then, and have no need of transportation across the perilously stormy Elliott Bay.) more ›

GEEK TRIVIA: The infamous Geeks Who Drink take over Ozzie's on LQA. This may surprise those of you who visit their site and read about "two geeks who drink and host pub quizzes throughout Colorado, Texas and New Mexico." But now they're here in Washington, too. The quiz is eight rounds of eight questions and is played by teams of up to six people. There are audio rounds, too. Expect to spend two to three hours drinking in friendly company, and possibly losing to a team called Reverend Horton Hears a Who. more ›

"I Love Seattle" by James Hall (seattleye) more ›

A passerby spotted the body of a 38-year-old Seattle man under a pier in Elliott Bay this morning and promptly called police. Investigations are underway. We know what you're thinking, but yes, both of the man's feet were still attached. More information to come. more ›

SMALL BUSINESS SKILLS: SeattleSCORE, the people who help small business people learn stuff, have put together a 4-hour seminar, Marketing 101. On the syllabus! Identifying your customers, packaging your product or service, creating effective marketing tools, and getting repeat customers. Now, in this market none of this will help, but it will get you out of the office for a bit, and you might meet some new people. more ›

• What's going on in White Center, you ask? Really, we can hear you. These walls are paper thin. White Center Now reports that King County Sheriff Sue Rahr (RAHR!) will not be closing the sheriff department's storefront there. We don't really know what that means, but they have video of it, Sue!
• Meanwhile, West Seattle Blog reminds you there's just one day left in the Elliott Bay Water Taxi season, so if you have not tried out the tiny ship yet, a sunny fall day is the perfect time.
• PhinneyWood reminded you a few days ago that this time of year, storm drains need help staying unclogged, what with all the leaves comin' down. *cough* The city will give you special Drain Unclogging Gear if you ask. *crickets*

You can tell it's Seafair when your pets are trembling under the coffee table. Nothing signifies the dog days of summer in Seattle like the roar of a defanged F-18 driving your dog to piss himself. more ›

Tomorrow night, novelist Garth Stein (Raven Stole the Moon, How Evan Broke His Head and Other Secrets) and his piercing eyes are making a crosstown trek from Stein's Mount Baker home to the Elliott Bay Book Company, where Stein will read from his latest book, The Art of Racing in the Rain (6/25, 7:30 p.m.). more ›

As noted here earlier, area rivers are still surging with the long-delayed spring melt from last weekend’s heat. Although it's a little harder to tell right now, the dependably blueish-grey cocktail that is Elliott Bay has been diluted with a somewhat murkier brown finish. more ›

"Goose Family and the Barge" by seattlerealtorgal more ›

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Before we moved our worldly possessions across Elliott Bay to West Seattle, we'd never visited that neighborhood's Beveridge Place Pub. And we'd never tasted 3-Grid IPA, an excellently hoppy product of that neighborhood's Schooner Exact Brewing Co. Now that we pose as West Seattle regulars, we recognize both pub and brewer as priceless neighborhood gems; there's no better place to kill a few (happy) hours, and no finer micro-local IPA. more ›

"Shipping cranes" by Murray plays guitar more ›

We left it up to Jami Attenberg to pick a spot in a not-so-crowded Bauhaus Coffeehouse this morning, and somehow she managed to find the cavelike area behind and below everything that goes on in a not-so-crowded coffeehouse. Overtired, pre-caffeinated and maybe a little bit getting sick, Attenberg seemed comfortable in the cave. An interview she did with Metblogs on her last book tour indicated that Bauhaus is one of her favorite Seattle haunts, so that explains that. more ›

co-horts Leon Wieseltier and Dale Peck--they accuse of writing literary criticism that "was wholly negative. And, it eventually became clear, indiscriminately so." more ›

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It's Seattle Shakespeare Company's version of the wandering prince Pericles on Friday night for MvB, followed Saturday night by Britain's accordion-driven, Brechtian street opera trio with neo-castrati Martyn Jacques, the Tiger Lilies at the Moore, ladies and gentlemen. 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 ›

Armistead Maupin is an anagram of 'Is A Man I Made Up', he tells us, but he claimed to be a real person last night at Elliott Bay last night. Stupid baseball traffic took up all the parking spots near Pioneer Square. We cruised around for half an hour, then finally ditched and paid $5 to park in the Sinking Ship. Too late! The cafe in the basement was already packed to the gills and there was not a single solitary chair left for your poor correspondent. If today's sketch sucks more than usual, blame it on the angle I had to assume: head craned over the banister. Ow, my neck. more ›

We knew Bremerton residents were the step-chilins of the Washington State Ferry System, but now that wireless access for the 55-minute run has been delayed again we're starting to suspect a conspiracy. Bainbridge has been happily browsing away on their 30-minute jog since like the mid-nineties or something, but can Bremerton catch any of that wifi gold? Hell no. At least not until July at the earliest. Of course, the Rich Passage is the official culprit according to Parsons which has the contract to provide wireless internet to Washington ferries. more ›

Michael Chabon's new book The Yiddish Policeman's Union is THE SHIT. We finished it in a little over a weekend recently and regretted not that we'd once again failed to execute our long-held dream of eating every single item on the Taco Bell menu on Cinco de Mayo night. more ›

Via True Hoop, the News Tribune's Frank Hughes reports today that the Sonics' organization is "enveloped by a cloud of paranoia, mistrust, distrust and, now, anger." more ›

KING 5 did a great job with a story about the growing demand for organic beer. more ›

BOOK CRUSH: Librarian Nancy Pearl´s latest book is Book Crush, a guide to books you loved when you were growing up. How does she know? Head over to the launch party and find out. more ›

April Brews Day is a benefit being held at Depot Market Square in Bellingham. They will have at least 11 confirmed breweries attending to sling their tasty beers. more ›

Last year artists Sarah Kavage and Nicole Kistler collaborated on an art installation called The Living Barge Project that opened Seattlest's eyes two facts. One, Seattle has a river. Two, that river sucks. We took a tour of the Duwamish to hear about some of the environmental nightmares that exist in and around it and to see Sarah and Nicole's Living Barge, which was exactly what it sounds like: a barge, planted and beautiful. We crushed on it so hard that we were one industrial accident in the Bay away from absconding with it under cover of night and breaking for open water. That was a year ago. Now the Barge has been dismantled and replanted in South Park and while the river may still suck, at least a whole lot more people are aware of it. Seattlest for one. Rivers never actually suck, of course, and the Duwamish is no exception, but the lower five miles just before it empties into Elliott Bay around Harbor Island are a Superfund site. PCBs, PAHs, mercury, phthalates, blah blah blah. You're a bitter pill, industry. more ›

SHERMAN FREAKING ALEXIE: The best-selling author returns with his first novel in ten years. Flight tells the story of an orphaned Indian boy who travels back and forth through time in a violent search for his true identity. Real Change-published poets (that would actually include Alexie, too) read as part of the program. more ›

CALL 911! CALL 911!: Political and economic commentator and White House strategist during the Nixon administration, Kevin Phillips talks about his book, American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century. Phillips traces the set of related causes that caused the downfall of historical world powers. That same combination of ills he says -- global over-reach, militant religion, resource problems, and ballooning debt -- is at work in the U.S. today. more ›