Results tagged “northamerican”

When we used to work at the Starbucks in the Bank of America building (nee: Columbia Center), one of our duties was to bring up boxes of cups, napkins and other sundries from the storeroom located in the garage on level E, five stories below ground.

We're as guilty as anyone else when it comes to not knowing that Nada Surf has been living a second life of sorts -- a new life, all their own, long after "Popular," the satirical high-school anthem that ruled MTV circa 1996.

It's hard to think of Ozzy Osbourne as scary anymore, after seeing him unable to work his remote controls and shuffling around in a haze from all the meds he's on, but rest assured, at one point in time, he was a freaky, bat-beheading maniac. Perhaps he can borrow some freakiness from Rob Zombie, who lately is known more for his gory movies than for his music. The two are embarking on a forty-show North American tour in support of Black Rain, Ozzy's first album of new material in six years.

Our land, this inlet on the western coast of the North American continent, is a fortunate one, endowed with natural riches and settled by people who do not confuse prosperity with moral superiority. Modesty becomes us; we do not flaunt our advantages.

N.P. Thompson went to SIFF, and we all benefit now that he's written about the best and worst films of the festival -- and launched a few broadsides at SIFF and select members of its audience:

The 33rd Seattle International Film Festival ended two weeks ago; it’s taken me this long to gain enough distance to sort and sift through all I might conceivably have to say on the subject. Even so, the movies under discussion here represent only a small fraction of what I took in. There were several screenings I walked out on, a few more I considered walking out on, and perhaps a baker's dozen of screener discs I couldn’t eject quickly enough. This year, as in other years, festival officials emphasized the sheer quantity of it all: 25 days, 600 screenings, X-number of North American premieres. They take this approach, because qualitatively, especially this time, there was almost nothing to point to. Which isn’t to say that weren’t some good films, but that they were in short supply.

We've been Thompson fans for a while -- no one since John Simon has made such vivid use of anger and spleen in his criticism. Thompson lambastes fellow members of the film critic community as zealously as he eviscerates the 90% of movies that are crap. We haven't obsessively followed his career post-Slate-rejection, but we were pleased to see his name as a contributor on Matt Zoller Seitz's essential film and TV site The House Next Door. Every good cop needs his bad cop.

Sometimes we feel like we grew up on the road. Our parents would hit the road for a weekend or plan a road-trip vacation at the drop of a road atlas. We've spent a lot of time on a lot of great North American roads. We've logged thousands of family miles, thousands of solo miles, and thousands of companion miles. We've driven and/or owned hatchbacks, wagons, SUVs, and pick-ups -- stick and automatic. We're no experts in highway safety; however, we've seen enough things to give us plenty to think about, especially during those stimulating stretches of topographically-diverse Nebraska.

Blame NAMBLA. Not that NAMBLA. Or even the North American Marlon Brando Look Alikes. Nope, blame Seattlest trivia regulars NAMBLA, who always come up with the most twisted (and often the funniest) team name of the night. Fast Times at NAMBLA Elementary's fourth-place finish last week meant they got to pick the theme of a round this week. Their chosen theme: Famous Pedophiles. If you're reading this at work, you're probably too late to...

AUTHOR, AUTHOR: Barbara Ehrenreich talks about her book Dancing in the Streets, in which she explores the desire for collective joy (see photo), historically expressed in ecstatic revels of feasting, costuming, and dancing.

It's a holiday week, and people are too busy stuffing themselves with turkey and cranberry jam to talk much. Just hang on until Tuesday, when things really pick up.

Buried in an P-I article about "The Jane Goodall of tree kangaroos" is this sad information:

Who would you think grows the best syrah in the world? A French guy in the Rhône Valley, no doubt. The celebrated wines of the Côte Rôtie and Hermitage are 100 percent syrah, after all. Or maybe a bloke from Australia, where syrah provides the backbone for the legendary Penfold's Grange Hermitage? Wrong! It's a one-time potato farmer from Pasco!

Sampaist is on the scene in São Paulo beginning this week to become the only ist south of the Equator. Editor Leandro M. Pinto leads the paulistanos down there.

It's common knowledge that every seemingly-local media organization actually belongs to a vast network of similar outlets in other geographic areas. It's for suppressing stories, congratulating each other on liberal bias and conspiring against politicians and celebrities and other things along those lines. For example, every once in a while Seattlest will say, "Hey, SFist, way to stick it to the religious right last week. Let's not report on that story casting gay marriage in a poor light. Pass it on to Gothamist." And they'll reply, "Good call and great job inventing global warming." It's all very fraternal and it's the way media works.

Seattlest sometimes has a hard time reading on the bus because we're too busy checking out what everyone else is reading. The 48 had a great vibe to it today, must be the increasingly yummy weather but everyone seemed happy and there was lots of reading to surreptitiously sneak a peek at.

We noted the arrival of some new water rat to the Seattle area on Friday, but after every single newspaper in the entire free world printed the AP story about it over the weekend maybe we should note it again. We're also going to note that nearly everyone who printed the article was fine with the AP headline, "South American Rodents Found in Seattle." Descriptive, but not all that punchy. You know, fine for the AP and thirty other newspapers around the world, but not quite up to Fox News standards. Fox had to modify rodents and spice up the verb a bit --"Ravenous South American Rodents Invade Washington State Lake". They INVADED. Personally Seattlest wonders if some editor at Fox News mistakenly thought he was heading an article on immigration when he wrote this.

Seattlest has no time. No time to contemplate our future. No time to mindlessly surf the internet. No time to pick blackberries, baby our sunburn, tune up our bike, while away the hours, smell the roses, make another pot of coffee, stop for a 12-pack on the way home, be annoyed by the Blue Angels or write this post. We certainly have no time to attend the Take Back Your Time North American Conference in Seattle today through Sunday.

Here we are in the home stretch of the 31st annual Seattle International Film Festival. If you haven't seen a great foreign film/documentary/indie flick, or at least an advertisement featuring aspects thereof, you only have till this Sunday to do so. Between now and then, some festival films of note (and in a nutshell) include: