It's a live question. Still Life is a docudrama about the aftereffects of China’s Three Gorges hydro project: a 2,000-year-old town has been submerged, the new version isn't quite built yet, and people are feeling more than a little rootless. The drama comes from Sanming, a miner looking for his ex-wife, and Shen Hong, a nurse looking for her husband. No less a personage than Manohla Dargis called the film "a human triumph," but it closes on October 2. Not much time left! more ›

We read the Stranger's article on the death of Pike/Pine yesterday. Hm. Yes, it does suck that the Cha Cha et all are going to be replaced by what we're promised will be a gross condo building soon. To say that the character of the neighborhood is going to change is like saying that Three Gorges changed the character of the Yangtze. Then we read the Weekly's jeering "now choke on it" post on their blog which argues that after advocating for density for years "now that said density threatens to shutter some of the Stranger staff's favorite walking-distance watering holes, the paper has done a 180 of sorts." Hm. Well, kind of. Previous density has come at the expense of nothing. Belltown, Downtown, Bellevue; these aren't really places that inspired a lot of passion from anyone before they were densified. We're probably somewhat wrong there in the case of Belltown. Some people did like it the way it was. more ›