VOLLMAN VISITS: William T. Vollmann is in town to read from his latest nonfiction work, Kissing the Mask. This book is the first American work on the topic of the historical Japanese Noh Theater since Ezra Pound's 1916 classic study, Pisan Cantos and the Noh. Vollmann is absolutely amazing and this is truly a reading not to be missed. more ›

Yes, another Bumbershoot artist announcement, but this time around it's for the festival's literary program. This year's lineup is really all over the place, with everyone from director Melvin Van Peebles to The Outsiders author S.E. Hinton to David Cross (and his girlfriend) debuting his first book to the guy behind Stuff White People Like. But we're probably most excited for a panel involving three of the writers for Lost (no J.J. Abrams, Damon Lindelof, or Smoke Monster, sorry) and a hopefully not-too-cringeworthy Q&A. Full lineup after the jump. more ›

We’re not sure how we first stumbled upon Jude and his music, but we have a vague recollection of hearing him on the radio as a guest DJ while we passed through Seattle on a business trip in the late '90s. An amazing song set made us think "this guy really knows music," and when we picked up his 430 N. Harper Ave., we were hooked from the first lyrics: more ›

When it comes to good beer, brews made in Belgium are usually the cream of the crop. So, no one should be surprised that American brewers often try to emulate their success by brewing their own versions of Belgian styles. And you know what? Some of them are fantastic (And some, not so much...) more ›

If you've yet to hear Barton Carroll's work, you should get on it. There's a Billy Braggish quality to it, a little Bruce Springsteen. There's a little Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark going on there, maybe even a little bit of the Pogues. His guitar work isn't necessarily extraordinary, but it builds cascading walls of sound that wrap around you, creating a nice little room where the songs dance amid filtered light and images of longing. His stories aren't afraid to back off and let the instruments go for a spell. His voice cracks now and then the way skin cracks on a well-worked pair of hands. Honest is the best word for it. more ›

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Seattle is now one of the lucky few markets in the US to be getting beer from Port Brewing/The Lost Abbey in southern California. If you have not yet tried any of their beer, you have no idea how lucky we are....If you have tried their beer, there is a good chance you are likely rushing out your door to the nearest bottle shop right now. more ›

1. Things We Lost in the Fire. There are a few things we liked about this (supposedly based here, though there is nothing to indicate that it actually takes place here) movie---mostly that the heroin junkie played by Benecio Del Toro lives in a flophouse in Renton and that Halle Berry plays a Seattle woman named Audrey, leading to a scene where Del Toro runs after her calling, "Audrey, Audrey, Audrey, Audrey, Audrey!" Call us vain, but we like the sound of our name. more ›

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The Hugo House Literary Series kicks off Friday night with "Lost in Translation," and the program features Seattlest-favorite and monologist Mike Daisey, novelist Randall Keenan and historian Lesley Hazleton. more ›

Are you there Seattle art world? It's us, Seattlest. We're trying our best to talk up your First Thursday openings, but it looks like you've crapped out on us this month. We understand: you're on vacation or something, it's kinda hot out, the BLUE ANGELS are in the sky ... We've got posts to post, however, and damned if we won't find something to recommend from your namby-pamby Art Walk offerings. more ›

Hey, whaddya know? There's another show worth your attention at the Sunset this week. Tonight it's Irish singer-songwriter Fionn Regan. Yeah yeah, we know what you're thinking: "Another singer-songwriter? Just look at him, all broody with messed-up hair strumming a guitar in an alley." Truth be told, we usually avoid the genre as a whole, since most singer-songwriters run the gamut from boring hippie to boring douchebag. But in this case, don't be so easy to dismiss. more ›

Note for any aspiring musicians: if you're going to have a schtick, you'd damn well better pull it off. A few weeks ago we saw Datarock, and while they weren't our thing, the energetic party band vibe was only increased with the matching red custom track suits. Last week we saw The Pipettes, who playfully mimic the girl groups of the sixties with pop songs about love, sex, and boys (the fact that they're all hot helps a bit too). And Wednesday night we saw The Horrors, the UK "it" band more famous for who did their video (Chris Cunningham, creator of those demented Aphex Twin videos) than they are for their music. With shows like this one that's definitely set to change. more ›

What a weekend! Temperatures in the 80s! more ›

This weekend the National Weather service is calling for mid-70s to 80 degrees. You may want to recover from heatstroke by rehydrating in an air-conditioned theater with other bepinkenned Seattleites, and their melanin-endowed friends savoring their little moment of schadenfreude. (Here's the Seattle Times cheat sheet on the various venues.) more ›

That's how we'd put it. But the snorer terminology that University of Washingon researchers are using is mindfulness-based relapse prevention (MBRP). Scientists do not know how to package things, that's all. 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 ›

Microsoft is attempting to yank the developing world into the age of Personal Computing and to that end they just announced $3 software bundles for developing nations. Windows XP Starter Edition and Office Home for $3, which is about $3 more than what we think developing nations currently pay for their software. more ›

One of the weirder blog posts about the Seattle Weekly "expose" of Real Change is over at Crosscut, courtesy of ex-Weeklyite Chuck Taylor. (We'd point you to the Metblogs recap but it's fatally flawed, in that it's missing one of the seminal posts on the subject, namely ours. So no can do. But here's Real Change's take on the kerfluffle-thus-far.) more ›

Somehow, we don't expect many people to be reading Seattlest this afternoon (and honestly, if you are right now, please stop and run outside while you can). We'll use the gorgeous weather as a touchpoint for our brief initial comments on Timothy Egan's The Worst Hard Time: Thank god we don't live in the Midwest. That aside, so far we're enthralled with Egan's ability to craft historical figures into living, breathing characters with better depth than we find in a great deal of fiction. He's working a small bit of Lost magic on us, introducing a range of characters all drawn into small-town Dalhart--a once unpopulated stretch of the Texas-Oklahoma panhandle that experienced a sudden boom thanks to deceit and false promises from greedy land developers and a federal government desperate to settle what had been known forever as "No Man's Land." more ›

FANTASTIC FICTION SALON: Novelist, nonfiction author, and short story writer Terry Bisson has swept every honor in the science fiction field as well as France's Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire. He joins Hugo House's Writing Fantastic Fiction workshop series, where he will teach "Who Likes Short Shorts? We Like Short Shorts!" 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 ›

We admit, one statue of an ancient Greek philosopher looks a lot like another, so picking Plato instead of Socrates in our "identify the alleged seducer of youth from the picture" round was a little cruel. Regardless, you all did very, very well, with the average team correctly identifying 7.77 pedophiles out of 10. more ›

David Lynch premiered his hopeless, boring mess of a film last night at the Cinerama and the only thing worse than sitting through three hours of mindless scenes of people staring in to space and nothing happening was the insipid, gushing fannish Q&A with the Lynch freaks immediately following the film. Did you know that Lynch's fans are all filmmakers too? You do now. Do you care that every one who took the mic wanted to remind Lynch about their conversations they had with him (BFF!) earlier that day at the Scarecrow signing? Too bad. more ›

*Sample set: Live on Mix Up Radio Australia, November 2006
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Best thing we learned at last night's quiz: Gabriel Garcia Marquez looks like "Agatha Christie on a bad day." more ›

>>>Third Place Books, 7:00pm. Another weighty tome, Unreleased Beatles by Richie Unterberger, to add to your Beatles-only reference section. It details the shitload of stuff that was recorded but, you know, forgotten about what with being so high at the time, plus the whole headtrip with Yoko. Free with OCD collecting disorder. more ›