Hypodermic needles are littered on sidewalks, used condoms lie on lawns and mid-day drug transactions are witnessed by neighbors. This isn't a movie, and it isn't the streets of another city. It is Greenwood, five miles north of downtown and just off Aurora Avenue North.In an attempt to reclaim a neighborhood they believe they have lost, four residents founded a grass-roots crime-prevention organization called Greenwood Aurora Involved Neighbors (GAIN). The new organization will strive to bring the areas between North 75th and 95th streets together at its first meeting next Wednesday, Oct. 26, at Greenwood Elementary School, 144 N.W. 80th St., in the cafeteria, starting at 6:30 p.m.
Menopause may have been the silent passage. But not anymore. Not if "Menopause the Musical" has its way. Making its Seattle bow in an open-ended run at ACT Theatre, this sassy musical revue celebrates women with plenty of attitude and a sensational cast. The show is boisterous, brassy, bawdy, satirical - and hilarious.Menopause has long been a taboo topic in some circles - synonymous with old age. But thanks to this musical, hordes of women across the country are flocking to the theater to share and celebrate. Even a few good men, who will probably never be the same, are joining the frivolity.
One of the many problems with the Internet, which seems more and more to me to be exacerbated television, is that the information comes all in a rush, commingled in such a way that nothing is more important than anything else, which isn't the way real life really works, where some things are super-important and other things are all but meaningless.For example, on the way to checking one of my e-mail sites, one of those headline-news pages popped up. I don't remember if it was Hotmail or AOL, two of the places where I get my mail, but I do remember the lead photo was one of those waist-to-neck shots of some gargantuan American man or woman, the photo subject too fat for gender identification, and a headline: Soon we'll all be overweight.Beside the photo were three other stories, one of which was, 21 best places to get steak in your town.The irony of placement brought me a smile before I noticed President Pinhead's name next to a quote about his latest selection for the Supreme Court: "She was the best person I could find," the Pinhead said in defense of his latest judicial selection, a woman some conservatives are calling "too liberal." By that they probably mean she is against burning witches and homosexuals at the stake - positions that, along with Creationism as science, God everywhere but in the corporate boardroom and no abortions for anyone, even rape victims - are now seen as faith-based politics instead of reactionary bigotry.
The 25-foot smoking rule in Initiative 901 needs to go outside itself and step a few leagues away from Washington state. It'll probably run into a portal of some kind in Idaho or Montana but at least it won't be hovering around our public spaces, forcing people to stand in the middle of streets to smoke, blocking traffic. Maybe we could exile it to Death Valley, California. That's where it belongs. Currently, California is the only state that upholds an outside smoking ban of 20 feet within a public entrance. I guess we just want to show them up.Oh, you haven't heard? Initiative 901, set to go on the ballot to ban public smoking, was a popular idea at first until people got wind of the smoky 25-foot clause. Many folks I talked with signed the initiative thinking it supported a smart ban on smoking inside any public building, including taverns and night clubs. No big deal, we can just go outside and smoke. Or sit outside on the porch of some establishments and light up.For some reason we didn't know about the ban on outside smoking as well, until recently.
(Last week, the Capitol Hill Times ran an interview with Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels. This week, we include an interview with Nickels' opponent in the Nov. 8 election, former University of Washington professor Alfred Runte.)<Al Runte is very much at home in Seattle, having lived in his Wedgwood neighborhood for the past 25 years. He sits affably for our interview, inviting a curious onlooker to listen in and "be entertained."
The shovels told the tale. Work has begun on the Broadway & Pine Apartments. More than two-and-a-half years after community outcry drastically altered the course of a proposed development on the corner of Broadway and East Pine Street, an official groundbreaking last week announced that the physical work is ready to begin.The site of a former gas station immediately east of the Egyptian Theatre and across the street from Seattle Central Community College, the prominent location might well have become a generic Walgreens store. That more than 100 people came to the Wednesday, Oct. 12, groundbreaking signaled relief and satisfaction that the project will be a great deal more.When complete, the development will consist of a street-level Walgreens store with underground parking. Above the retail space will be 44 units of affordable housing, units that will be owned and operated by Capitol Hill Housing (formerly the Capitol Hill Housing Improvement Program).
Do you remember the dreaded phone calls that invariably came at dinnertime until the marvelous "do-not-call list" came into action? Well, lately I feel there has been a shift to doorknockers, who also choose to arrive either while we are preparing, or eating, dinner. They are infinitely harder to gently (or not) blow off, even while explaining that our family has already emptied its coffers to tsunami or Katrina victims. I don't mind the neighborhood kids who are rustling up sponsors for their school jog-a-thon, since my kids will probably knock on their doors when it's time for their own. It's different with the compelling young adults who wave a badge and give a good story about changing their lives for the better, if I buy a $30 magazine subscription (that I don't want) so they might go to college. It's hard, and meanwhile my dinner is burning on the stove.So, when I drove by MLK Jr. Way South and South McClellan Street last Saturday and saw a cheery group of girls waving a carwash sign, I swung on in.
Seattle Children's Theatre productions have long earned the respect of their audiences by respecting, in turn, the emotional and intellectual range of a child's imagination. The tradition continues in the current production of "Seussical," a musical based on the works of the iconic children's author Theodor "Dr." Seuss Geisel. Instead of creating a concrete world to be passively observed, it puts the imagination of each and every audience member in the driver's seat. The action is built around an amalgam of many beloved Seuss classics, but the narrative doesn't rely on the audience's familiarity with the base material. Written for the stage by Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, "Seussical" could easily have become an episodic affair, the story of "Yertle the Turtle" segueing into "The Cat in the Hat," etc. Instead, they frame the story within the "thinks" of a single child, a boy named Jojo who brings a world to life on a wild flight of spontaneous fancy.
You shouldn't go to see Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman" simply because it's an "American classic." You shouldn't go to see it to fulfill some arbitrary cultural prerequisite, and you most certainly shouldn't see it because academics and critics have deemed it important. To see this play for these reasons could turn an already fraught emotional experience into a crisis of brooding introspection, and the production of "DOAS" currently running at Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center is acutely aware of this.But you must go to see it.
Seattleites could stop uttering those nasty four-letter words in traffic if the solution wasn't as taboo.No one has a positive opinion of the monorail anymore.But if Seattle doesn't commit to improving public transportation, the city is headed for a state of permanent gridlock.It is understandable why some resist. It's not as if the city has done an exemplary job of pitching it to the public. Most citizens believe the monorail is a waste of time, energy and tax dollars. Even though Seattleites take pride in being eco-friendly, we still rely on gas to power our cars and buses.What city officials and residents need to do is figure out how to make mass transit fit our needs. I don't care if we use the plan we have or revamp it, but with so many brains pondering the topic in committees and boards, I know we should come up with a solution - and fast.
When someone tells you that the James Brown of Eritrea - the person who has the same kind of success and longevity in music as the "the hardest working man in show business" - is in town, you have to go and check it out. Actually two legends of Eritrean music appeared on the same stage at 4208 Rainier Ave. S., Saturday, Sept. 24.Bereket Mengistab who is called the godfather of Eritrean country music has been a star for over 40 years while recording more than 350 songs. He sang and played the krar. The instrument boasts from five to six strings, looks like a lyre, and plays some truly ancient musical sounds. Some believe the krar was one of the first musical instruments used widely on earth. It is tuned to a pentatonic scale, featuring five notes per octave. This scale is foundation for music played all over the planet, including African American spirituals. The krar owned by Mengistab is rumored to be an ancient instrument.
Only a judge can put somebody in King County's Secure Community Transition Facility (SCTF) in SODO, which has been open for more than a month now. But even then, a trip to the level-3 violent predatory sex offender housing must have a stamp of approval by counselors, therapists and correction authorities. Located at South Spokane Street and Second Avenue South, the facility's typical residents will be violent sex predators. These people served prison time and finished a rigorous treatment program at MacNeil Island's Special Commitment Center. Most are men in their mid-to-late 40s or older and are out of shape from years of incarceration."It's not known when a court will move a qualified civilly committed sex offender into the SCTF," said Steve Williams, spokesperson for Washington State's Department of Social and Health Services. The DSHS facility is equipped for six residents, with capacity for 12.
(Last week, the Capitol Hill Times ran an interview with Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels. This week, we include an interview with Nickels' opponent in the Nov. 8 election, former University of Washington professor Alfred Runte.)<Al Runte is very much at home in Seattle, having lived in his Wedgwood neighborhood for the past 25 years. He sits affably for our interview, inviting a curious onlooker to listen in and "be entertained."
There's still time.October is National Physical Therapy Month, which gives physical therapists an excuse to get on your case about exercise and the widespread (pun intended) lack of fitness in our society.They've even got a theme for the month: "Walking for Exercise - A Physical Therapist's Perspective."
The doomed princes of rock 'n' roll, Jimi Hendrix and Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, emerged out of Seattle and onto the world stage, captivated their respective generations and then dissolved. Each left his fans shocked and grieved.So why do these icons endure in the public imagination? How are their tragic lives valuable to us, as a culture?Those questions dominated my mind as I prepared to talk with Charles Cross about "Roomful of Mirrors," his 2005 biography of Jimi Hendrix. Cross' 2001 Cobain biography, "Heavier than Heaven," was a bestseller. But I brought sorrow as well as questions to this interview, an emotion I feel is part of this story. After Cobain committed suicide, I strenuously avoided everything to do with him. Cobain's sad-eyed face, features finely drawn, reminds me of one of my close friends who died from a combination of alcohol and sleeping pills. His suicide summons up my memory of the same shotgun act by another friend.And as a Pacific Northwesterner, I feel pride in natives who carry the high creative charge of this moody region into the world.