Let's begin with an admission of gullibility and credulity: Yes, when I initially read this essay posted on Crosscut's site, I misconstrued it to be factual and not satirical, as it has since been identified. In my defense, I cite Poe's Law, and reference this fine essay on credulity written by Roger Ebert (acknowledging that, in this instance, I am the type of person he describes therein). more ›

Satire in any traditional sense has become almost impossible because the pieces it requires - belief in a coherent and functional larger society, belief in satire as a corrective tool and belief in clear alternatives to ideas satirized - are virtually non-existent in America. more ›

Salmon jokes are all the rage today after President Obama's salmon joke during last night's State of the Union address: more ›

It's a Seattlest special report...from the future! We sent Editor Emeritus Seth Kolloen into 2009--let's face it, he's not getting much done the rest of 2008 besides raiding our liquor cabinet and shooting at "squirrels" who "looked at him funny." Just like Martin Sheen at the start of Apocalypse Now, we hadda send him upriver. more ›

Ah, the '70s. A time of economic insecurity, political cynicism, energy crisis, and overarching global anxiety. It seems like the decade never ended, but you can still take a stroll down Nostalgia Lane with the final showings of Network tonight (7, 9:15 p.m.) at the Northwest Film Forum. The NWFF has a new 35mm print of the film, which is downright immaculate, though the movie itself is less so. more ›

Tonight's the final night of the final film in the Northwest Film Forum's Hal Ashby series, and it's a good 'un. Being There is the story of Chance the Gardener, a simple man whose straight-forward innocence charms everyone he encounters in upper crust Washington D.C. As played by Peter Sellers, television-loving Chance hews closely to Kirk Lazarus' sage advice that an actor should never go "full retard." Shirley MacLaine and Melvyn Douglas also turn in solid performances as the D.C. power couple who take Chance in to their palatial estate after a minor car accident. Though it came out in 1979, the film's satirical look at politics, the press, high society, and media hypersaturation is just as relevant now, if not moreso. Think Forrest Gump with more dark wit and less aw-shucks, and then get yourself to the Northwest Film Forum tonight for Being There's final two screenings. more ›

Seattle Rep's The Murderers is three monologues, one after the other, that thankfully get more entertaining as the show goes along. Each monologue deals with a murder (or murders) committed at the Florida retirement community, and sends up a different view of senior citizens -- as old moneybags who keep their heirs on tenterhooks, as randy old goats, as cash cows for the unscrupulous. It's a mildly dark series of "I-dun-its" for Matlock's urban audiences and their graying kids. Any younger, and you're there just for Sarah Rudinoff, which is right and good. more ›

If there's anything we learned studying literature in college, it's that everything either comes from Shakespeare, Greek mythology or the Bible. Seattlest used to entertain herself by playing "From Whence Did That Allusion Come?" Yeah, we only had two friends in college. more ›

Well, this piece certainly is interesting. We recognize it as satire because we know the cultural context that is Dan Savage. We only wish that Mr. Savage would have done the same about a month or four ago when he royally skewered Garrison Keillor, who wrote his own bit of satire in this Salon piece. more ›

Sniff sniff, single tear. It's the last full week of SIFF, so you're well approaching your last chance till next year to take in some of that sweet filmy goodness. SIFF's not just movies; this week offers both the Opticlash 2 VJ battle at the CHAC and the Face the Music party at Neumo's, the latter of which includes performances by Viva Voce, Jesse Sykes, and Siberian. Tickets for both are going fast! more ›

Through April 21, tickets $12/$10 students/seniors more ›

THEATER: You have only five more chances to catch WET’s latest offering, In Disdress Now: Redux. Marya Sea Kaminski’s one-woman show was originally developed as as part of On the Boards' Northwest New Works Festival in June 2006. Now the “story of a girl wrestling meaning out of love, porn, and the folds of an enormous red hoop dress” has been expanded into a full-fledged tour de force. more ›

The first time we saw "Ask an Uptight Seattleite" in Seattle Weekly we thought it was a fake headline for "Ask a Mexican" and was supposed to be some kind of joke reaction to Seattle's reaction to "Ask a Mexican." Then we read it and it was the funniest thing we've probably ever read in the Weekly. It was funny and accurate (and exactly the kind of thing that would be great on Seattlest) and it gave us a glimmer of hope for the alt-weekly that's been living under a cloud of Big Changes Coming for, it seems like, ever. If this is the new Weekly, the promised New Yorker of Seattle, maybe it's going to work. Maybe it can make its way back into must-readville, assuming it ever had an address there. We weren't born here, so who knows. more ›

Suicide Girls is five years old, which makes these young starlets some of the grande dames of alt-porn. You can celebrate with them tonight, when they bring their controversial burlesque show to Neumo's. more ›

One of the most puzzling developments of the past hundred years is how the Three Stooges became more popular than the vastly comically superior Marx Brothers. To see what we mean, spend an hour hitting your friends on the head while exclaiming "Why I oughta," then head over to the Grand Illusion and watch the Marx Brother's 1933 classic Duck Soup. more ›

On the commute home yesterday, we saw what appeared to be a moving truck of the UHaul variety, with rotating, high-resolution billboards on both sides and the back of the truck. After we recovered from the terrifying flash-forward to our country evolving into the world depicted in Blade Runner, we thought we'd skewer these soulless advertiser jackals with a the sharp spears of Seattlest satire. more ›

Ok, we're completely in favor of an award honoring Dave and the Orcinus site, but when you put it down on paper and announce the 2005 winners of the Neiwert Awards, well... The Neiwerts are awarded by the The Northwest Progressive Institute to celebrate deeds of derring-do and other accomplishments by progressive bloggers. more ›

This Friday, "America's Funnyman" Neil Hamburger will turn the Funhouse into the Funnyhouse (sorry, but we had to say it before he did). more ›

The theme of Port commissioner Paige Miller's campaign to defeat incumbent city councilman Richard Conlin has been this: when it comes to transportation, Conlin flip-flops, he dillies, he dallies, he waffles, he wavers, he can't make up his mind. In other words, he's your average Seattleite (have you been at a four-way stop lately?) more ›

John Bruce "Jack" Thompson is an attorney often cited in the media for his views on the effects of obscenity and violence in popular media. That's cribbed directly out of the Wikipedia entry for him and that same Wikipedia entry contains a large warning that the neutrality of the entry is disputed, which is cool to see in an encyclopedia. Jack Thompson has been hating on popular culture (the neutraility of this post should definitely be disputed) since lawsuits against 2 Live Crew back in the Eighties. Howard Stern, Grand Theft Auto, the list of defendants contains all the usual suspects. more ›

Seattlest enjoyed a rare night of theatre this weekend. We saw Patience, a lovely show put on by Seattle’s Gilbert and Sullivan society. Now, if you’ve never seen a Gilbert and Sullivan show before, we suggest thinking of their oeuvre as a cross between Oscar Wilde and Cole Porter, with an occasional dash of pirates (see Pirates of Penzance) and some satire thrown in for good measure. more ›

The Northwest Film Forum's been showing The Girl from Monday for a week now, but for tomorrow night's screening at 8pm, director Hal Hartley will be in attendance to introduce his latest work and hold a post-film Q&A. Since Hartley's veritable indie film royalty, this is a big geeky deal. The Girl from Monday has been dubbed a "fake sci-fi movie," but it's also a dark dystopian satire, a vision of the future where humans are traded like stocks, their value determined by sexual experiences. Sounds like a hoot. The film's showing sans Hartley through May 4th daily at 7pm and 9pm. more ›