Results tagged “thenational”

Volume One was pretty cool. Two was better. Three was great. Volume Four is hands down the best. Is it simply because it's new? Because the songs are still fresh? We don't think so. There's more more to it than that.

Right on the heels of the announcement that the Mars Volta was added to the Sasquatch lineup, and right before tickets go on sale this Saturday, the three-day music festival has seen fit to delineate who will be playing on which day:

After months of wild speculation, the official 2008 Sasquatch lineup has finally been announced:

Expect the national TV broadcasters to rain clichés on the constant grey that is Seattle this weekend as the Seahawks host the Sean Taylor Memorial Experience at Qwest Field.

The new Zagat is out, at least the one "devoted to Seattle" restaurants. And with "all due respect" to "local editor" Alicia Comstock Arter (who also contributes to Northwest Palate), it's "a freakin mess." The trouble, "brewing for years," is that the "capsule reviews" take isolated "nouns and adjectives" from "reader comments" and string them together to make "nonsensical" and "often inaccurate" profiles. It's a Fox News approach to dining, all pseudo-oracular, disjointed headlines with "little substance."

Inspired by a random iPod event at Seattlest's Thanksgiving, a friend lamented the early death of John Denver and then launched into a diatribe about how he didn't pull a Kennedy; that is, Denver wasn't a dilettante pilot. He went on to explain that Denver was an experienced pilot who owned many planes and flew often. He died, our friend claimed, when one of the fuel tanks in the experimental plane he was flying...

No. But that doesn't make this factoid from a political campaign article in today's any less disturbing:

's lead real estate reporter--writes an article about the state of the national housing market once a month when the industry standard Case-Shiller numbers are released. The Case-Shiller index (from S&P) tracks the changes in home prices for 20 US metropolitan areas each month as compared to a year prior and is the benchmark index for real estate performance.

The National Weather Service had released a high wind warning for Seattle. It hasn't gotten quite that bad yet.

The Stranger has endorsed a No vote on the RTID Proposition 1 (along with the Seattle Times, but thankfully with more logic and, er, research). Their reasoning? "Rather than letting compromised politicians tell us what's possible, the people should tell the leaders what's needed: more light rail without massive roads expansion."

In a well-paced one-hour lecture, Matthew Brzezinski provided a summary of Red Moon Rising, his new book about the Sputnik launch and its explosive political aftermath.

In New York, a place where we once lived, recycling does not--despite being mandatory--actually happen.

Tuesday night at the Showbox, waiting, watching the crowd. They're a lovely blend of shimmer and shab. A fitting and complimentary mix of well dressed girls and unkempt boys. Some nights you can tell who's here to see which band, but not this night. Seattlest got the impression that much of this crowd was like us: Here for The National, but also excited and curious to see what newcomer St. Vincent brings to the table.

We've been anticipating this show for some time now and it's finally here. Tomorrow night at the Showbox, Brooklyn's The National bring their beautiful brand of brooding, soulful rock fronted by the man with the rich, deep voice, Matt Berninger.

If you're unfamiliar, the quintet, based loosely in Lyons, Colo., started out with some exquisite renditions of old-timey standards like "Red Rocking Chair." , however, opened up a whole new can of worms when the g'Earls, as they call themselves, tried their hand at writing brand-new old-timey tunes. Banjo player Abigail Washburn (who's toured recently with banjo master Bela Fleck) writes sad and lonely, heart-wrenching tunes about longing and self-identity, while fiddler Raya Gellert's tunes are more hoe-downy. KC Groves tends more toward Dolly Parton-ish sentimentality, while Kristin Andreassen's compositions run the gamut.

Sonics minority owner Aubrey McClendon confirms what we all suspected from the start. In an interview with the Oklahoma City Journal Record, he says:

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Londonist are starting to think their city is getting just a little bit too expensive, when even Christian Slater can't afford to go out there. And there's no escaping, as local singer Lily Allen discovered when she was barred entry to the US. The British mapping agency caused further bad karma, by blocking a 3-D representation of London in Google Earth. But the smiles returned to Londonist's faces as they interviewed Baroness von Reichardt, who has completely covered her house in mosaic tiles.

We've been trying to keep abreast of the latest strike news via the networks as well as our singular Canadian television channel down here but both the quantity and quality of coverage has been most unsatisfying. So we took matters into our own hands. (Confidential to Metroblogging Vancouver: If you don't provide any sort of contact address, we cannot reach you for guest/expert commentary.) We contacted The Vancouverite because we believe in their attractive tag line --"Hyper-Caffeinated Snarky News & Opinion". More importantly, following The Onion's precedent, we assign greater cultural credentials to sites employing the definite article. Here's what Editor Jackson reported about the strike:

Rachel Hynes is a former barista and yet still enjoys spending time in espresso places. She will review them. This is her second such review.

You may recall that Seattlest recently moved to Rainier Beach.

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."

Holy smokes! Giant fish on the MTA, Paris Hilton in jail, then out, then in again, Al Gore, goatses, blumpkins, Matt Damon, and baby art critics! It's been a busy week across the Ist-A-Verse, and here's a smattering of what's been going on.

Al Gore’s fiercely-argued new book, The Assault on Reason, is an indictment of current policy making -- especially the President’s use of power and his handling of the war. But in Gore’s view, the real problems lie deeper. Gore argues that the marketplace of reasoned debate on which our country was founded is being endangered by a variety of things: the use of fear and the misuse of faith, the distractions of our entertainment culture, and the concentration of power in the national media and the executive branch.

Adios Lakisha. Did we call it, or what?

Strasbourg--seat of the European Parliament--has a population of 265,000, less than half Seattle's, yet in the past 15 years it has built four interconnecting lines of light rail with some 50 stops. That's in addition to 35 bus lines, over 250 miles of new bike paths and plenty of bike racks at tram stops.

Back in December, we defended the search and rescue efforts for the climbers lost on Mt. Hood. We were also baffled by the intensity of the national media focused on the effort--people have died on Mt. Hood and Rainier in the past without hardly a sneeze from most national news outlets--but figured it was the fact that it trailed the Kim rescue so closely.

If you're in the mood for some wide-eyed, Kool-Aid stained boosterism, look no further than this article in today's P-I. It's in response to the New York Times piece announcing a condo-sales slump. The tone is strictly "move along, nothing to see here."