As Seattle slips into summer, Pacific Northwest Ballet finishes its season with a two-week run of Kent Stowell's "Silver Lining."For their final bow at the helm of PNB, retiring artistic directors Stowell and Francia Russell chose this tribute to the music of Jerome Kern.Stowell originally created the full-length ballet for the 25th anniversary of the company in 1998. The evening is stuffed full of such classic tunes as "Till the Clouds Roll By" and "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes."Many of the dancers in this production worked with Stowell when he created the original choreography seven years ago, including PNB ballet master Paul Gibson. He will temporarily leave retirement to rejoin the dancers on stage for "Silver Lining" at the request of Stowell.
"Such stories make the world," declares Emrys, the Merlin (Terry Edward Moore) of "Arthur: The Hunt," Jeff Berryman's lively second play in a cycle of dramas he's writing about the Once and Future King. Emrys refers to the story of a "hidden king" he's been seeding along the roads of 5th-century Britain, to offer hope to a country shattered by internecine warfare and foreign invasions. Merlin's sustaining legends - starring a unifying hero who rises in a time of terrible need - still speak to us today; witness Neo of "The Matrix," and before that, Luke Skywalker in the first "Star Wars." Visionary mythologist Joseph Campbell called these enduring tales "Myths to Live By," and they're so hardwired into the human imagination, you can trace their archetypal forms everywhere in religion and art. The continuing power of "the hero with a thousand faces" comes to mind because I happened to see "Star Wars: The Revenge of the Sith," the day after attending Berryman's play at the Taproot Theatre. It's pretty well known that George Lucas tapped into Campbell's paradigm of the hero's journey to juice up Luke Skywalker's evolution from orphaned kid to light-saber-wielding Jedi Knight, fighting to save a universe-wide Republic. That's why you'll find numerous parallels between Lucas' space opera and the story of Arthur, a nobody who, drawing the great sword Excalibur from a rock, becomes Britain's champion against invading barbarians.
Rainier District Little League players reside within the boundaries of I-90 south to the Seattle City limits, I-5 to Lake Washington, and Georgetown. The league serves kids ages 6 to 14 (based on how old the player will be as of July 31, 2005). Senior players ages 15 -16 start play after the end of the high school season.For more team, game, and to learn about how you can volunteer for the league or help with team sponsorship, visit www.rainierlittleleague.org, leave a message at 206-781-RDLL (7355), or fire off an e-mail to RDLLSeattle@aol.com. Here are the team standings for the Rainier Little League according to division as of May 26.
Columbia School started as a classroom in Columbia Town Hall in 1891, just a year after the Rainier Valley streetcar line (now Rainier Avenue) was completed. Columbia's citizens, recognizing the importance of a school to their community, donated their labor to build the original Columbia School building at the east end of the current site, facing Rainier. Two teachers taught 85 kids on the ground floor of that building while the second story was being completed - just take a moment to imagine that.
He was in the bus lane, almost invisible thanks to the transit rain shelter, but I saw him.I'd already slowed going into the curve, but I slowed some more, then stopped and watched as the cyclist passed in front of me. Now, let us review: I'm stopped. I've stopped in plenty of time (no scream of brakes, no cloud of dust) that the cyclist is three or four car lengths away from me as he (1) enters my immediate field of view, (2) crosses my path and (3) heads up onto the curb, with the intention of biking across the bridge on the pedestrian way.
e often go through life oblivious to problems until they directly impact us. This was the case with the Seattle School District's budget saving proposal to close 10 schools. The financial crisis has existed for many years, yet many people were unaware or disinterested. When school closures were recommended, affected parties came out in droves to voice their disapproval, but most of the protesters' misguided and self-serving rhetoric did, unfortunately, not resolve the budget predicament. The Seattle School District is an immense bureaucracy obligated to placate such diverse constituencies as parents, teachers, students, support staff, tax payers, unions and the business community. Because these groups often have competing agendas, the district must make unpopular and painful decisions. Although the media has focused mainly on school closures, the proposed cuts will also impact transportation and other support services. While advocates pressure the district to spare their schools, the other affected constituents will be lobbying for their services and programs too. These divisive and parochial turf battles will exacerbate the district's fiscal problems.
Like most people, my knowledge of the Boy Scouts was limited to a vague recollection of the scouts-honor and handshake, a few useful knots, and, more recently, the unfortunate abuse scandals that have made headlines. But as I pass by the headquarters of the Boy Scouts located on Rainer Avenue South almost every day, I thought I might stop in an ask "How is business?" and find out for myself.
Cleveland High School students and alumni will say goodbye to their 78-year-old building when the school closes for a two-and-half-year renovation at the end of the school year. The renovation is estimated to cost $60.4 million. CHS students will be moved to the Boren Building in West Seattle while construction takes place. The new Cleveland High School will reopen in September of 2007. With the school listed as a historic landmark in 1999 by the Seattle Landmarks Preservation Board, the Seattle Public Schools administration is required to preserve the façade of the original building. Renovation plans include partial demolition of the existing building. They also include adding a new gymnasium/commons building and a new classroom building, according to the Seattle Public Schools Web site.
Growing up is a difficult endeavor.As young, often intolerable sprites, we are concurrently bombarded and bemused by the dizzying array of adoptable values and behaviors at our disposal. Of course some of these choices are recognized as being universally virtuous.It is assumed that fairness, tolerance, cooperation and compromise are the pillars, the foundations of a good society, and so we teach them in our schools and we smile when we see them practiced by our protégés.
Lake Washington Youth Soccer's Crossfire U-11 Boys' team, led by veteran coach Todd Schilperoort, won the Force FC 6v6 Challenge tournament in Marysville on May 21.
The two men in the black-and-white photograph sit in a television studio facing each other.The man talking appears comfortable in this setting. The other man, brow furrowed, does not. He throws his counterpart a sullen glare. That would be Richard Nixon. The subject of his glare: Don McGaffin.Instead of a puffball interview with a local, awestruck reporter, the President had run into a feisty combination puncher.Don McGaffin has been called many things: a "reporter's reporter," a fearless man of uncompromising integrity, a symbol of the days when local television news pursued unflinching, investigative journalsm.McGaffin, 78, died May 29 after a fall in his Magnolia home.
On June 16 the Greater Queen Anne Chamber of Commerce will meet at Paul Allen's Vulcan South Lake Union Discovery Center. This occasion affords members of the local business community a prime opportunity to (the pun is built right in) discover what is happening in our own backyard. The Discovery Center features a giant,16-by-12-foot model of the south end of Lake Union, portraying the span from the lake itself to downtown Seattle.But it's not just a model in space - it's also a projection in time. The artifact offers a dimensional rendering of what the neighborhood would look like in 2010 after the city's proposed transportation changes have taken effect. In addition to the giant model of South Lake Union, more than a dozen other oversized displays are featured in the Discovery Center. These address such pending developments as a 160-room Pan Pacific Hotel, a Whole Foods Market and 261 condominiums, as well as redefined individual business districts; work, retail and living spaces; and shops and restaurants.
Recently named our official bird by the Seattle City Council, the great blue heron thrives in Kiwanis Ravine, just east of Discovery Park in Magnolia. Boasting more than 44 nests, the ravine has become a choice nesting ground for Seattle heron, but also contains large amounts of invasive plant species, which impede the growth of native species and can create an inhospitable living environment for the heron.Four years ago Heron Habitat Help-ers (HHH), a Seattle nonprofit, environmental-restoration group, was founded to help return the ravine to its natural state so it could continue to promote heron habitation. In June, HHH received a $10,000 award from the Seattle Wild Places grant pool to aid in its efforts. The grant will be used primarily to fund restoration efforts in the Wildlife Corridor at the north end of the ravine.
Mild weather, a wandering musical duo and a mod-erate but steady flow of shoppers were just a few of the features marking the Saturday, June 4, opening of the Magnolia Farmers Market, for its third year.Fresh flowers and fresh-baked bread, organic produce and juices and free-range meats were all on sale during the opening-day celebration that also featured live, perambulating music by the Bonnie Birch Duo, an accordion-and-guitar combo that threaded its way through the crowd. Other season-opening attractions in the Magnolia Community Center parking lot included visiting live chickens and roosters from a local farm and a face-painting booth for children.
Tom Peyer walks into Uptown Espresso on Queen Anne Avenue on an 85-degree afternoon and orders a steaming cup of drip coffee. In a sky-blue T-shirt and sweat pants, he holds a Simpsons comic book in one hand and his own cup of smoldering-heat cure in the other."I heard an old wives' tale that hot liquid on a hot day is supposed to cool you off," he says.At age 51, Peyer is working his childhood dream job. Instead of being held in a briefcase or displayed in some sophisticated report, his professional work can be seen on the shelves of the local comic-book store. His name adorns the covers of such illustrious and long-running comics such as Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, X-Men and Justice League of America. As a child, he frequently read the storylines he now sustains as an adult.