As Seattle Opera's "Ring" festival approaches with 12 sold-out performances beginning on Aug. 7, the man whose unique vision and drive ushered in this rite of Wagnerian veneration has died.Glynn Ross, Seattle Opera's founding general director, died July 21 in Tucson, Ariz., of complications from a stroke. He was 90.Mr. Ross held the reins as Seattle Opera's general director from the company's inaugural season in 1964 through 1983. A silver-tongued, energetic impresario with magnetic charm, he convinced the public that opera was an approachable art form and helped build the Seattle Opera into a cornerstone of the local arts scene.With his uncanny ability to persuade potential audience members and funders alike, Mr. Ross was instrumental in the survival and growth of the new company. He and his marketing team created accessible, attention-grabbing and sometimes controversial ad campaigns - e.g., "Get Ahead with Salome" for the production of Strauss' "Salome."
Who said Seattle is only a 20something paradise? The mayor's office, along with Seattle Parks and Recreation, is offering a variety of fun and healthy events for seniors including picnics, tours, games and lots of opportunity for excercise and friend-making.Sound Steps is a volunteer-supported walking program being offered by the nonprofit Sound Steps organization in partnership with Seattle Parks and Recreation's Senior Adult Programs. It's designed to get sedentary senior adults, ages 50 and up, moving and experiencing the health benefits of regular exercise. This free, year-round program is designed to connect seniors with other walkers in their community, provide tools to measure baselines and progress, and encourage people to stay with it through volunteer walk leaders and regular check-ins.
Life itself so often gets in the way of living.To be alive - to be alive and human - is to know a vague yet burning desire for fulfillment. We seek it in the work we do, in the relationships we share, but our focus is often dissipated by the messiness and complications of daily existence.Magnolia resident Brom Wikstrom has struggled more than most folks, yet he's found success as an artist, educator and administrator both because and in spite of the challenges he's faced. "Before my injury, I started out as a commercial artist and sign painter," Wikstrom said recently. "I figured I'd just do my fine arts for my own enjoyment."
It's no secret that five years of George W. Bush's economic policies have gone a long ways toward creating a two-tiered society of rich Americans and poor Americans, while the middle class - the heart of the American Dream since the 1930s - is shrinking: a few families going up, a lot more falling through the gaping cracks in our culture's fraying, outdated safety net.In a column written in this space almost two years ago, I compared the new American economy with Argentina, a place where the poor have carried the bloated rich on their thin, straining backs for more than a century. An economics professor at a local university, not wishing to see his name linked with a notion so radical - that our own rich folks are cannibalizing our culture at the expense of the rest of us - dropped me a personal note."You are on the money, but the model is Mexico, not Argentina," he stated.
I guess you could call me a curious guy - some might say a pain in the derriere - but either way, questions pop into my head, often from something I've read or heard. Or maybe it was what I ate the night before.My latest rumination deals with our water supply. Every winter - like the one just past, when our snows are below normal - the headlines are full of words like drought, water conservation and rationing, and local politicians step to the fore awash in leadership, just as they did this last spring.Fortunately, we got some late snow in the mountains and lots of rain that diminished the threat, and we've gone back to sleep.We are fortunate to live in a part of the world where at every turn we see water, whether in the Sound, the many rivers that bisect our state or the snow pack and glaciers in the mountains. But is that enough?
Attach the names Richard Zanuck, Roald Dahl, Johnny Depp and Tim Burton to a film and you've got a very interesting way to spend two hours. "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," projected onto the IMAX screen of the Boeing Theater at the Pacific Science Center, provides just that.First published in 1964, "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" recently celebrated its 40th anniversary in print. As beloved by children and adults today as it has been throughout past decades, the book has sold more than 13 million copies worldwide and has been translated into 32 languages. Its enduring popularity indicates how well Dahl understood, appreciated and communicated with children.The filmmakers also sought the support and collaboration of Felicity Dahl, the author's wife and the caretaker of his estate since his death in 1990. Says co-producer Brad Grey, "Without her blessing, we wouldn't have a movie.""This was bigger than anything I've been involved with my entire career, not only as a producer but as a studio head. It's bigger in scope, size and imagination," says Zanuck, Oscar-winning producer of "Driving Miss Daisy" and 1991 recipient of the Academy's Irving Thalberg Award.If you're like me, you've seen a few films in the IMAX format. But they usually have been "nature"-type endeavors, or action documentaries filmed from the nose of a twisting and swooping jet fighter. This was one of the first fictional films I've seen that has been blown up to the large IMAX 15/70 film frame.
Southwest Airlines may provide low-cost travel to its passengers, but its proposal to relocate its terminal to Boeing Field will cost Seattle neighborhoods and businesses immeasurably.The Dallas-based airline says it has taken into consideration its impact on its residential neighbors, yet it proposes to pay only $130 million, and that's for its own terminal, parking garage and accommodations for its own airport traffic.Even if the neighborhoods were to receive the same amount of money, it still wouldn't compensate for the resulting decrease in property values and the displacement of thousands of homes, businesses and jobs - no matter what King County Executive Ron Sims says.The dozen businesses Southwest Airlines claims to displace include the Seattle-founded UPS parcel carrier, which only has about a dozen flights daily.
Imagine you are having a child. Imagine you are barely making enough money to keep yourself afloat, let alone the tiny person soon entering your life. You have no crib, baby clothes, diapers or any of the essentials a baby needs.Unfortunately, this is a reality for many expecting parents in the Seattle area as well as parents who already have children. With costs of raising a child in a single parent home estimated at $30,023 per year, for some, it is nearly impossible to make ends meet.Fourteen years ago, a group of Magnolia mothers got together and began collecting items from the community for babies and young children alike. Magnolia Moms, now a thriving volunteer organization based out of Magnolia's Our Lady Fatima parish, works year-round to help families in need.
On the weekend of July 9-10, participants from 22 teams converged on the Magnolia Community Playfields to take part in this year's Relay For Life of Seattle at Magnolia.The Relay For Life events are organized by the American Cancer Society, the nation's largest non-profit provider of cancer research funding, to raise dollars for its research and programs. They have been taking place throughout the country for almost two decades.
It cost $140 million and took 12 years to plan and build, but a Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) project has been completed, King County officials announced last week. CSOs result when water from rainstorms combines with sewage and overwhelms the handling capacity of the West Point sewage plant, leading to an untreated discharge into local waters such as Lake Union and Elliott Bay.The problem, explains project manager Judy Cochran, is that city pipes were designed to handle both stormwater and sewage "back in the horse-and-buggy days of 150 years ago."The result was that untreated wastewater was dumped between 10 and 115 times a year into Lake Union and up to 50 times a year into Elliott Bay, according to King County's Wastewater Treatment Division figures.
Robbie Pease's digital photographs capture the rich, luminous colors of unreconstructed nature. Lush green leaves surround pink and lavender and violet petals that seem stolen from the palette of American painter Georgia O'Keeffe. It's hard to believe the pictures are not doctored."I don't mess with them," says Pease, a Magnolia resident for the past five years. He is 37. The survivor of a brutal hit-and-run accident when he was 18, he is the sort of artist about whom people drop such words as "inspirational" and "courageous."All true. Yet don't let that get in the way of the fact that he is damn good, too.
The Seattle Police Department's Gang Unit is investigating a Friday night shooting in the parking lot next to the Soundtrack Bar & Grill across the street from the Magnolia QFC, according to SPD spokesman Sean Whitcomb.The victim, a 28-year-old man, was shot around 9:45 p.m. on July 22 in the right arm, in the left leg and several times in the abdomen, Whitcomb said. Police have a possible name for the alleged shooter, a man a witness saw holding a semi-automatic handgun, Whitcomb added. The shooting followed an argument that turned physical between the suspect and victim inside the bar, he said.
Every year in July, "The British Hour" broadcasts a special nautical program in honor of SeaFair, featuring sea songs, the words and music of the British Isles, tales of ships and sailors - and always, updates on the raising of the H.M.S. Mary Rose, including interviews with the people involved. Over the years, my husband and I enjoyed doing the research and producing the programs. We had supported the Mary Rose Trust since its formation in 1978, recording interviews and taping transatlantic telephone reports from Margaret Rule, the trust's archaeological director. All this was brought to mind recently by the arrival of the tall ships in Tacoma, the local wooden boat festival, and the excited calls from several Queen Anne and Magnolia resident anglophiles reporting that there was a huge international review of the fleet by the Queen taking place at Portsmouth (England). This included, they insisted, a reenactment of Nelson's victory at Trafalgar (the battle, not the square). I was sure they were mistaken, because like any self-respecting English English-major, I knew the Battle of Trafalgar took place in October - Oct. 21, 1805, to be exact. However, I finally obtained the following BBC report, which proved they were right: Thousands of spectators are expected in Portsmouth as a massive international fleet review gets under way to mark the bicentenary of the Battle of Trafalgar.
David Williams finds natural history stories wherever he looks. He's incorporated some of them into his new book, "The Street-Smart Naturalist - Field Notes from Seattle." Naturally, his background as a geologist always draws him to rocks. Rocks are everywhere. Look for them instead of brains in the knucklehead who cuts you off on I-5. And of course they're in mountains. But they're also under our feet and in our buildings."In 1993, the city did an inventory of cobblestone streets in Seattle," writes Williams. "They found 94 of them. Queen Anne has about one-third of those streets." Sandstone cobbles were a popular road-paving material in Seattle from the 1890s to the 1910s.
In the photograph, David Williams stands with his right hand grasping a crow. His fingers gently but firmly wrap around the bird's legs. The scene gives the appearance that Williams holds a large black Popsicle - a Crowsicle. Observers might be tempt-ed to ask, "This is science?"Science it is, though Williams and the crow are participating in the study for different reasons. He's there, along with University of Washington researcher John Withey, to study the birds. As Williams explains, "Being social birds, crows gather in roosts to converse and share information. In the summer breeding season, the number may drop as low as 300 because they stay and defend their nest territory instead of socializing." The remainder of the year can find over 10,000 birds occupying the roost.The bird waits patiently while Williams points out what makes crows such successful urban birds.