Some guy at a bar last night told Seattlest that some friends of his got city approval for a public art prank in Queen Anne yesterday. He said that they set up some bogus construction site with a big painting of the city skyline obstructed by a new tram to take Queen Anne residents in to downtown. The painting supposedly listed the cell phone number of one of the pranksters. Guess we can expect an......

Someone named Shilo Urban at Seattle-based CultureMob claimed yesterday that: It’s going around the streets of Seattle like wildfire that Johnny Depp is going to buy the old Crocodile Cafe and make it much, much cooler (and hotter) than it ever was before. Apparently Seattlest isn’t in touch with "the streets," cuz we haven’t heard a thing. Or maybe we’re just not hanging with the right drunks. This is from several unreliable sources, some......

We love starting rumors. While talking to a Redhook rep at the Winter Beer Fest this weekend and trying their small batch German Winter Wheat (pretty good!), he mentioned that they are hoping to open a brewpub in Fremont within the next 18 months. The rep's best comment: "We've conquered the US; now we need to re-conquer Seattle." It's about time they figured out they made a mistake ever leaving in the first place.......

Seattlest was so tired last night, coming down with a cold we've been coming down with for a couple of weeks now, and hearing rumors of snow. All of this honestly made us just want to curl up under a thick blanket and watch the re-runs of Man Versus Wild that have been backing up on our TiVo. But alas, we had agreed to check out some band from Portland called Casey Neill and......

Despite what you may have heard the past few days--scuttlebutt about the sale of the Showbox Market and subsequent consolidation of venues at the SoDo location--it turns out that the original (and best) Showbox is staying right where it is, thankyouverymuch. Says Chad Queirolo, Talent Buyer/Manager for both Showboxes: It used to be once a year an especially virulent rumor that the Showbox lease would end in March. This has been happening for at......

"We know you're not assholes," said Carl Newman at the Showbox on Saturday night, "so don't do asshole things." Seattlest doesn't go to a lot of concerts -- we never did, and once parenthood embraced us we tend to invest in babysitters for stuff like movies and restaurants. There's less thrill in staying up until 1:30 when you know, no matter what, that 7:00 would be sleeping in. But the New Pornographers? Frankly, Seattlest......

Late summer is berry season, which means it is also bear season. A 51 year-old man mountain biking in Banner Forest (near Port Orchard on the Kitsap Peninsula) was attacked by a male black bear last week. His dogs were running ahead of him, and he heard them barking. He turned a corner, and was face-to-face with the bear, which then attacked him. Attacks by black bears are remarkably rare, which makes the situation all......

The first thing Mike Hargrove did after quitting the Mariners? He followed Alan Jackson's advice and bought a Ford truck. Jim Moore of the P-I talked to Hargrove's car salesperson:Jerry Korum of Korum Ford in Puyallup read that the Hargroves always said when they retired, they would get a red truck, call it "Retired Red," load up their belongings and drive off into the sunset. Korum called the Mariners and told them he had a......

The rumor is that liberals don't vote. That goes for presidents as much as it does for American Idol, and our guess would be that it applies even more to the latter. We've heard it from several people that adults don't vote, either. After last week's grossly misguided injustice, we're fairly certain both rumors are true. That's why we're making it a point to head off further sadness the best way we know how:......

When the possiblity of a H&M of our very own was mentioned on this site a few weeks ago there were a few different reactions, but most people were more than happy to drink the lingonberry juice with Seattlest, take the rumors as gospel and begin speculating on where to start lining up. U Villiage Key Bank? Or over by the Blue C? Or the U Villiage Abercrombie and Fitch? Downtown Barneys? Northgate? The much......

Last year's immigrant rights protest was out of character with the well-publicized, poorly-attended quick hitter marches that seem to be de rigueur in Seattle currently. Thirty thousand people came out for that one and snaked through the streets of Downtown for hours. Yesterday afternoon we left the office a few minutes early to try and track down the 2007 version and after chasing 5th all the way back to Westlake Center and coming up empty......

Finally, someone else sees things our way. Like peanut butter and jelly, there has been one natural combination longing to be put together: having a beer and thinking about your favorite insurance company. Thank God Online providers Esurance have stepped up to the plate. Meshing together insurance needs with scenester whoredom, that's right, this year it's the Esurance Capitol Hill Block Party. The Esurance Capitol Hill Block Party is a huge, two-day explosion of......

On the off chance that you don't know the drill, let us introduce you: Seattlest James hosts the pub quiz tonight at the Old Pequliar in Ballard. The quiz starts at 8:00. Signup starts at 7:45. Jockeying for tables starts even earlier -- we've heard rumors that you should be there by 7:00 if you want to guarantee a seat. Given that we always have a seat behind the microphone, we're not experts on that.......

Seattlest and Mrs. Seattlest have been getting take out on Friday nights at Chantanee Family Thai Restaurant in Bellevue for almost 3 years and have found no better Thai restaurant on the Eastside. From time to time, we eschew the styrofoam containers and eat our meal in the gold and purple themed interior. The service? Efficient and friendly. Mrs. Seattlest is the more adventurous of our duo and has eaten her way around most of......

"Streetcar gongs ceased their clamor; newsboys cast their unsold papers into the street; from the doors of mill and factory, store and workshop, streamed 65,000 workingmen. School children with fear in their hearts hurried homeward. The life stream of a great city stopped." That's how Mayor Ole Hanson described the beginning of the general strike that was held in Seattle February 1919, one of the few general strikes ever attempted in the U.S. The Bolsheviks......

Last week when Salon came to town to check in on the Ballard megachurch Mars Hill there was a lot of commenting here and elsewhere, both condemning the church and inviting non-believers to attend a service. The proprietress at the local Electrolicious blog took them up on it and went to Mars Hill this Sunday, and today Seattlest sits down with the resulting post for a chat. So, what first got you excited about attending......

Seattlest has a magazine problem (as if our book debauchery wasn't enough already). Our habit combined with the husband's predilection for shiny, glossy paper-based crack results in a house we could putatively wallpaper with pages from one of our dozens of weekly or monthly subscriptions. Schizophrenically, our two favorites tend to be the New Yorker and Outside; we often plug through the other placeholders vainly waiting for either of those selections to appear in the......

We heard a rumor and since rumors are one of our favorite things to propagate (second only to "the species") we're getting off to a good Friday. Unfortunately, while there are potentially lots of good rumors surrounding the Seattle public school district (no school closures, across the board school closures, Gates Foundation bought the district) AND lots of good rumors surrounding Apple (new wireless iPod will get you chicks, Apple recalling those crusty and yellowing......

Perhaps in celebration of Pluto's demotion, this Sunday ushers in a new monthly showcase at the Mars Bar. The Iterative Rock Interaction---awkwardly acronymed "IRI," and even more awkwardly pronounced "eerie"---debuts Sunday, August 27th at 8pm. The opening night's the oddman out, on the last Sunday of the month and starting early. The series will continue every third Sunday of the month (September 17th, October 15th, November 16th, and so on and so forth) at......

A full house of feminists and gender warriors attended the release party of a new biography of James Tiptree Jr. at the Elliott Bay Bookstore Tuesday night. Julie Phillips is the author of James Tiptree Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon, an examination of a remarkable woman who wrote genderbending science fiction stories while leading, in effect, a double life. Writing as James Tiptree, Jr., she led editors and readers alike to believe......

Rumors abound early this week concerning a most ghastly notion, a dark vision that has kept us sleepless: reportedly, both the Houston Astros and Philadelphia Phillies called Mariners GM Bill Bavasi over the weekend to inquire about a potential trade for Ichiro. Candidates for the swap included Roy Oswalt from Houston and some insulting combination of Bobby Abreu, Cory Lidle, and Arthur Rhodes from Philly. Abreu and Lidle finally landed with the New York Yankees......

A few hours ago we were very happy with Mariners GM Bill Bavasi. He ridded the team of one of its most sour spots, and brought up a kid who, despite wicked injury troubles, we can't help but want to love. Now comes a move that garners a mixed reaction: Bavasi just traded minor league centerfielder Shin-Soo Choo and a player to be named later to the Cleveland Indians for 1B/DH Ben Broussard, completing the......

Seattle clubs are playing a big game of musical chairs, but when the music stops and everyone grabs a seat it's going to be downtown that's out of the game. Neumos lost a third of an owner and added a new one who happens to be employed by Chop Suey which sounds like a raw deal for Chop Suey. Let's focus on downtown, though. The Fenix closed and the guy who owned that place bought......

By now it’s no secret that Seattlest is all ga-ga over local showmasters, Awesome. We’ve recommended numerous times that you, John and Jane Q.P., experience for yourselves this strange and wonderful ensemble, and well, here we are once more. As if there wasn’t enough going on this weekend, Awesome will be playing two shows. First, Saturday July 1st at the High Dive, Awesome will kick things off for another broadcast of KEXP’s live local music......

-David Goldstein is first on the scene of the heartwarming story of Sacajawea escaping the Seattle Public School advisory committee's carving knife. Which hasn't happened as of this writing. (and didn't, it turns out, happen at all) -Starbucks is throwing $2.5 Million the NAACP's way for, well, the NAACP site doesn't say what programs will be funded with the money. -The Campaigner-in-Chief is expected to come to Seattle in June to prop up the......

Seattlest had heard nasty rumors from brother Austinist that New Orleans-based Mute Math was, in fact, a Christian rock band. At first, we didn't know whether or not to believe it. After all, there's nothing to the band's overproduced Police/early U2 sound that seems overtly religious, nor was there the requisite shout-out to the Man Upstairs in the CD liner notes or on their website. Plus, people from Texas lie. However, when we got......

Payola: In the music industry, the illegal practice of record companies paying money for the broadcast of records on music radio is called payola, if the song is presented as being part of the normal day's broadcast. Rumors of payola in the radio industry have been brewing for a while and have gotten more attention since NY's Attorney General began an investigation of the recording industry. Finally today the New York state Attorney General......

Seattlest has read or seen a great deal of Shakespeare's plays, in one form or another. But somehow, Richard III had escaped our purview, even though there have been some interesting interpretations of the work. So when we saw that the Seattle Shakespeare Company was doing their own production, we figured it was about time for us to see this history play---in the round, no less. Like their previous production of Romeo and Juliet, the......

Hot on the heels of the Kenji Johjima signing (which will, mark our words, end up being the most underpublicized but important free agent signing in all of baseball this winter), the Mariner corporate stiffs are busy trying to shanghai other talented baseball players into service on the U.S.S. Last Place. At the baseball winter meetings in Dallas, the rumors are flying fast and furious. According to Brad "Assface" Stalin of the Tuscaloosa Evening Masturbator,......

This baseball offseason, rumors have abounded that the Mariners' best player, Ichiro, is unhappy about the teams' losing ways (who isn't?) The New York Post even reported that he may want to be traded. In an interview with a Japanese newspaper last week, partially translated in today's Seattle P-I, Ichiro for the first time named specific reasons for his discontent: --He was upset to see his teammates playing cards so frequently, and was dismayed......