Until the day after Thanksgiving, Seattlest hadn't seen The Nutcracker -- probably the world's most famous ballet -- in years. But we had a solid image in our head of what it looked like because when Seattlest was a little kid, our mom made an annual birthday tradition to see it every year on opening night. For much of our childhood, this meant getting all spiffed up and walking a few blocks to Lincoln......

A couple of Seattlest haters and their friends went to the SIFF Cinema last night to check out the new Coen Bros. movie, which is still every bit as good as we already said it was when we saw it months ago. Lucky for us No Country for Old Men is more along the lines of vintage Coen masterpieces like Blood Simple and has absolutely nothing in common with the turd-arific misfires of their more......

The first thing to know about Devra Davis is that she's not speaking from the sidelines: she's director of the Center for Environmental Oncology at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, is an environmental health expert, professor of epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health and visiting professor at Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz School of Public Policy and Management. So when she said that the war on cancer has been almost......

The P-I is still defending its decision not to run the random photo of Arab-lookin guys the FBI passed them last week, as if not participating in a man-hunt for two guys who happened to ask a question about the workings of the ferry in front of the wrong citizen detective is something that needs any more ink. Robert Jamieson Jr says: The trouble with public outings goes beyond these men being stripped of their......

For those of you just tuning in, yesterday we wrote a little piece about the steam pipe that burst in New York. Apparently it pissed a bunch of people off, and we have to concur that actual true (non-sensationalist) details have been slow to trickle in over here. Everything we've read the last couple of days focuses on a "geyser of steam and debris," which seemed like an overblown fearmongering catchphrase at first, but......

LAist was comped front row seats by the Dodgers due to Malingering being struck by a foul ball last week, and she came back with some great photos, and earlier made fun of 4th of July on Venice Beach. But the biggest stories of the week was that the Mayor's Hot Tamale was revealed, and that a Kwik-E-Mart was erected in Burbank. Phillyist was busy doing the Fourth of July up right, exercising their......

Since its development in 1982, Victor Steinbrueck Park (formerly "Market Park") has been a melting pot of downtown green-space seeking citizenry and tourists. Just about every class of human being can be seen here on a warm, sunny day. We, being fortunate enough to work near the market, spend many a lunch here. We always bring a book to read, but on a day like today, little reading gets done because of all the people......

It was a week of bizarre, embarassing headlines at DCist. The trial of the local administrative law judge who sued his cleaners for $54 million over a pair of missing pants left everyone shaking their heads. Then the capital city was nearly brought to its knees, twice, by poop. Finally D.C. contemplated taking Vermont's place as a state and marveled at the GOP lessons learned from the "Macaca Moment." Due to some sad shootings......

Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU, spoke last night at Town Hall to publicize his new book In Defense of Our America. Notwithstanding the scheduling genius that placed Romero opposite mega-bestselling author Khaled Husseini (The Kite Runner) the lower auditorium was full of citizens waiting to voice their displeasure with ACLU policies. Romero didn't get any criticism for defending the Ku Klu Klan, Neo-Nazis, Ollie North, Fred Phelps, and NAMBLA. No, Seattle's citizens......

It's always good to be reminded that here in the other Washington, our Republicans are just as nutty, corrupt and paranoid as their cousins in D.C. Today, David Postman over at the Times reports on his blog that state Sen. Joe Zarelli recently hosted right-wing Israeli politicians and others at a two-day conference down in Vancouver, to fan the flames of Islamophobia. Known as the Convergence Northwest conference, Zarelli invited "[m]embers of Israel’s Knesset, former......

Once the dust had subsided, after we'd sawed through a concrete wall and brushed the rat droppings from our heads that rained down on us as we demolished our basement bathroom, we began to find unusual things. Old toys stashed behind sheetrocked walls, left there to mourn their solitary confinement at the hands of a former owner who was too lazy or cheap to free them amidst the detritus of the dump. And then we......

Seattlest has been through our fair share of earthquakes, and while Jonathan Raban's book Surveillance gave us a quivering reminder of the Nisqually quake, we understood the optimism inherent in his ending. Seattle is still there; shaken, likely forever changed, but still there. We know quakes can be insanely devastating, but they don't scare us nearly as much as what we discovered in grad school in central Illinois: tornadoes and wind storms. The first time......

Monday SEATTLE ARTS & LECTURES: Art Spiegelman's 1992 Holocaust tale Maus (based on a true story) won the first Pulitzer Prize awarded to a comic book. Its success paved the way for the graphic novels thriving today and led to Spiegelman's ten years on the staff of the New Yorker. In the Shadow of No Towers (2004) gathers his recent broadsheets of disenchantment with the war on terror. 7:30pm // Benaroya Hall // Tickets:......

Dear Darek, We were dancing behind you towards the back of Neumo's at the Los Invisibles show on Saturday night. It was late in the show, and we noticed that you'd also discovered the joy that is the oversized bottles of Red Stripe. We were a bit slap-happy at this point, it being our friend Kevin's birthday and all. Earlier, we saw that you didn't seem much for the dancing, which surprised us, you being......

If faced with the prospect of falling 1-2 stories out of the sky, just what would you exclaim at the moment you realized your free fall was imminent? Most likely not "Oh my..." with the intonation of a shocked heroine from a Jane Austen novel, but that is exactly what came out of my mouth when I fell off the chairlift at Summit West last Sunday. As a lifelong skier, chairlifts are like the subway......

--There's a Nintendo video game based on the paintings of Bob Ross that was getting developed in Seattle, but it looks like it got yanked. Damn, damn, damn that would have been awesome. --Free piano on Capitol Hill. Uh, you provide the transport, we imagine. --If you spot a little riot going on in the streets this weekend, take a look around for a camera crew before you start throwing news boxes through windows. Battle......

Ok, it's not funny when someone's house gets invaded by the cops. The continued erosion of our rights in the name of the war on terror isn't funny in the least. Perpetrating obscene phone calls isn't funny. The police making an error and therefore not apprehending the person making the obscene phone calls isn't funny, either. Multiple squad cars driving up onto someone's lawn in search of porn is, well, kind of funny. And this......

Celebrate Ben Franklin's 300th birthday with the Bikini Bandits and Phillyist! (NSFW). Speaking of Mr. Franklin, send in a picture of Ben (or Ed Rendell) with a red tongue and win a free t-shirt. And they might have the next YearlyKos in Philly. You know who's going to be upset about those Bikini Bandits? The Houston school system. Houstonist also reports on some redevelopment shenanigans over a landmark theater. LAist's sex advice column on......

Even as the stores sport back to school sales (which depress us, even now), summer lingers on your friends the -ists. This week's collection of links provides some of the best, worst, and oddest bits of summer fun. So, bring your laptop up onto the roof, make yourself an umbrella drink or ten, and enjoy this week's choice posts from across the Gothamist network. Torontoist (where it's 75 degrees F as of this writing)......

The P-I has an article today that explores the panic that the North Korean missile tests of 5, July have struck into area hearts. "I don't think Seattle will be a target," David Cahn stuttered in terror. "America has occupied their country for 50 years. America's policy is the provocation for this sort of thing," Ted Roberts told the paper while impaired by fear . "Even if (the missile) could reach the U.S., it would......

SIFF enters its second full week with a slew of great documentaries, including the final screening of fair trade coffee doc Black Gold (Tuesday, 9:30pm @ the Egyptian). The directors, Marc and Nick Francis, will be in attendance, as will Tadesse Meskela, an Ethiopian Farm Cooperative Organizer featured in the film. The SIFF screenings mark the first time the directors and subject have been together since the making of the film---and the first time......

DCist is screwed in the event of an oil crisis. Not that we're not all screwed in the event of an oil crisis, just D.C. is more screwed. Don't sell your car yet, District resident, a cabbie can kick you to the curb if he doesn't like your address. Not even Metro can save you now. Londonist experiences the London of the future through the wonders of 3D modeling, but while the 3D guys are......

-Bombs Over Bahgdad Jim McDermott will be guest hosting on KIRO radio while Dave Ross is on vacation. -The man who built The End is resigning after 10 years on the job. "Effective immediately." Wow, with authority. -Whining parents are barred from the remainder of the public school closure panel's meetings as are the media. Man, you'd think their presence wasn't contructive somehow. -There! She voted with her party, alright. Would we just shut......

The release of Pearl Jam's new album came and went without so much as a single flannel appearing in Belltown and nary a Rolling Stone cover story devoted to the Seattle Scene. Oh well, it's ok stuff and heartfelt, but hardly the life-altering event previous PJ albums may have been. The band released a video last week, though, which is something they haven't done since 1998. We barely remember '98: Y2K was approaching, the......

On your way home from work today don't grab that massive Sunday Seattle Times from the yard and toss it straight into the recycling bin. Usually, yes, if you don't get to it on Sunday it isn't worth reading, but at least pull the section with the "Is ecosabotage terrorism?" article out and bring it into the house this time. It's worth reading. Once upon a three months ago the Seattle Times was the local......

The place: Shorty's. The dog: Chicago-style, with everything. The scene: Jenna Curtis, in a leather bikini, playing a video game called Target Terror. She's posing for Ethan Jack Harrington, the plein-air painter and chronicler of Seattle's street scene whose alternative, indoor work features alluring, partially-dressed women using firearms. No, not Guns 'n Roses; Guns 'n Whores. You might have seen some of the art on the wall at Whisky Bar, where Jenna works as......

Someone was finally charged with arson in the case of the UW Horticulture fire of 2001 and no it wasn't someone from Eugene although we know you want to jump to that conclusion you anti-Oregonian. She's from Berkeley which we hope was going to be your second guess. Briana Waters, 30, of Berkeley, California is getting arraigned today on arson charges and there's a possibility that she could face 35 years in prison for the......

From time to time we residents of this unique/Northwestern/American city develop blindspots into which it's difficult to see. Jonathan Raban has made a good go of assisting us in these situations --sometimes just by nudging the mirror a little-- so we contacted him hoping he could help with a little perspective on our viaduct dilemma. He doesn't disappoint. Discussed are the Viaduct, the waterfront, South Lake Union, Aurora Ave North, the Tube, traffic, money, legacies,......

Torontoist throws down the gauntlet and challenges all comers: pillow fight, bitch. They also stand up for a fellow blogger taking heat from the TTC and welcome city-wide WiFi. SFist can finally admit it: It's possible that Bary Bonds juiced. Is Bay Area artist (tempted to put quotes around that) Thomas Kinkaid "kinda crappy" or "explosively crappy" or does he just like marking territory? SFist wonders. Technology comes in the form of new Mac goodness......

First were the crimes, then came the books. Inevitably, on January 3, comes the movie. Sure, it was just a matter of time, but there's also a matter of taste. The notorious Green River Killer confessed to murdering 48 Seattle-area prostitutes between 1982 and his capture in 2001. As if the real-life terror he brought on the region wasn't enough, an ad for the film in a recent trade magazine pitches the direct-to-video release not......