And the plans presented on Sunday, July 24, by Murase Associates, Landscape Architects, for the new park at Roy Street and Queen Anne Avenue North did just that. But I will return to those plans in just a bit.Last week's front-page article in the Queen Anne News, entitled "Medium-strip plantings run riot," was a compelling story (starting with the headline: should it have been "median strip"?). The overgrown median strip is a classic example of today's infatuation with perennials. They look great when young, but most perennials need to be lifted and divided every three to five years. No government agency has the manpower, or perhaps even the skill, necessary to accomplish this feat.
In all official polls taken within the past 10 centuries, it's been noted that the males of our species continue to believe, against scientific evidence to the contrary, that they do not need to visit a licensed medical professional even if they have nearly severed a limb. If by chance the limb is anywhere in the vicinity of where it has originally resided, the male will pooh-pooh efforts to pack it in ice and take it and him to the nearest hospital. "It's only a flesh wound!"The first known instance of this occurred when caveman Oog lost a digit due to the use of undue force from his club wielding companions congratulating him on bringing down the mastodon for dinner. When he got back to the cave, his woman grunted and pointed to the blood still dripping from where his finger used to be. Oog grunted in return and waved his stump around, which meant, "Woman, I am fine! I still have nine left!"My son, being male, is afflicted with this unfortunate inability to recognize imminent death.
Attach the names Richard Zanuck, Roald Dahl, Johnny Depp and Tim Burton to a film and you've got a very inter-esting way to spend almost 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 over 13 million copies worldwide and has been translated into 32 languages. Its enduring popularity indicates how well author 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.
Afterwards, I realized that a few hundred years ago I would have risked being burnt at the stake. Yet I only strolled across a wooden porch into Queen Anne Books, for the release of "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince."A Womping Willow, a big, brown creature with octopus arms dedicated to protecting Hogwarts, guarded the bookstore door. An arm flapped across the entrance; a boy screamed and ran away, looking happy, not scared. There were children in wizard capes, children with wands, children with magic in their eyes. Adults, too, looked slightly charmed.I warily passed the Womping Willow, which fortunately preferred children to adults. Inside the bookstore, I passed through a black curtain into the secret rooms. There was a table, where dishes with names like "herbology," "divination" and "potions" circled a large crystal globe; and another table with even more odd concoctions. It was good that Pope Benedict XVI had not flown over from Rome for the event. Before becoming pope, he wrote that the Harry Potter books distort the church in the souls of young readers. Although he could not throw us into the fire, he would have spoiled the fun.
It's Godden Time again.There are so many things I want to talk about with you all, and so little space. So it's bullet time, without the cutesy license plates.* First, the daily papers are trumpeting the fact that state Republicans are going to run Safeco CEO Mike McGavick against the Democrats' incumbent senator, Maria Cantwell, next year.
As Seattle Opera's "Ring" festival approaches with 12 sold-out per-formances 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 artform 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."
SHARON RUTBERG "I like the idea of persevering against difficult odds and never quitting. Our family just went through a tough time, and it does inspire you to keep trying when the chips are down."MARK BOEKER"Absolutely. I was just thinking that an ambassador from Texas, therefore America, is doing something so positive and heroic, while my feelings about our administration are the exact opposite. For me, it helps balance things out."
It doesn't have a name yet, but there's a preliminary design for a new neighborhood park at the corner of Queen Anne Avenue North and Roy Street. The design by Murase Associates was shown off at a July 24 community ceremony marking the one-year anniversary of the purchase of the land for the "Uptown Queen Anne Park" site. People had a chance to comment on the design at the event, which also featured a brass band and the crowning of neighborhood resident Rose Walter as "Miss Uptown Sunday in the Park 2005."Walter, who manages two apartment buildings near the park, said she had no idea why she won. But John Gessner from the Uptown Alliance said Walter was honored for her volunteer efforts in Queen Anne.
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 wa-ters such as Lake Union and Elliott Bay.The problem, explains project manager Judy Cochran, is that city pipes were designed to handle both storm water and sewage "back in the horse-and-buggy days of 150 years ago."The result was that untreated waste-water 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 Waste-water Treatment Division figures.
With every seat at Seattle Opera's internationally renowned production of Richard Wagner's four-opera "Der Ring des Nibelungen" spoken for months before opening night, just what is a Wagnerhead without a ticket to do?If you're an optimist, you'll put yourself on the waiting list - at last count more than 140 long - for tickets that may be returned to Seattle Opera. If you have the stamina of a Valkyrie, you'll vie for one of the precious few standing-room-only spots - "Götterdämmerung," the fourth opera in Wagner's "Ring" cycle, runs five hours and 15 minutes. If those options fail, tune to FM 98.1 on your radio. KING-FM, Seattle's classical music station, will air delayed broadcasts of Seattle Opera's complete 2005 "Ring," recorded live at Marion Oliver McCaw Hall
With every seat at Seattle Opera's internationally renowned production of Richard Wagner's four-opera "Der Ring des Nibelungen" spoken for months before opening night, just what is a Wagnerhead without a ticket to do?If you're an optimist, you'll put yourself on the waiting list - at last count more than 140 long - for tickets that may be returned to Seattle Opera. If you have the stamina of a Valkyrie, you'll vie for one of the precious few standing-room-only spots - "Götterdämmerung," the fourth opera in Wagner's "Ring" cycle, runs five hours and 15 minutes. If those options fail, tune to FM 98.1 on your radio. KING-FM, Seattle's classical music station, will air delayed broadcasts of Seattle Opera's complete 2005 "Ring," recorded live at Marion Oliver McCaw Hall.
The brightly lit stage is adorned with only a stool, a table and a framed photograph of a young boy. In a bathing suit and life vest, he's standing in a beached kayak. The boy holds a kayak paddle above his head in what could be a gesture of tentative victory. His smile suggests a happiness that's unable to fully break through the daunting barrier of youthful uncertainty. Happiness?Considering the context of the picture, one can't help but dwell on that which hides behind the glinting teeth and dimpled cheeks. When, really, does childhood end? Is the struggle toward adulthood defined by the sexual maturation of the body? By the attainment of knowledge? By a profound wounding of the spirit? If you don't have an answer already, don't expect one to come easily. It's a tricky question.
In 1960 the United States was a gentler place. We were a more innocent people. TV was without graphic references to sex. Sitcom characters didn't swear. Those who were alienated and dissatisfied sat in at lunch counters; they didn't strap bombs to their waists. Dwight Eisenhower was president, and "The Fantasticks" opened in a tiny theater in New York.With its wistful songs, sweet love story and gentle awakening to life's trials as well as its joys, it was the perfect musical for those times and the years after. "The Fantasticks" spoke so directly to the heart that it enjoyed enormous popularity and became the longest-running musical ever to be produced anywhere in the world. It played continuously in New York for 42 years. Since 1960, it has been produced in thousands of places, including all 50 states and such far-flung venues as Afghanistan and Zimbabwe.
With "Last Days," Portland-based director Gus Van Sant has made a movie only he could, and perhaps should, make. There is a sense of inevitability to the film that registers far beyond its minor-key meditations on fate and fatality. Van Sant's previous work, especially "Drugstore Cowboy" and "My Own Private Idaho," seems to lead directly to this leap of artistic faith. It is Van Sant's affinity for society's outcasts and loners, coupled with his distinctly Northwest ethos of fractured individualism and overcast quietude, that finds perfect expression in this daringly intimate story of a death foretold.A quiet, haunting portrait of a drug-addled rock star hiding out in murky isolation in a decrepit mansion in the woods, "Last Days" moves with a languid yet relentless momentum to its chilling closing shot - a scene that recreates the final act in the life of Kurt Cobain, the Aberdeen-born founder of Nirvana who suicided in 1994 at the age of 27.
Thanks to last-minute donations from some Kirkland neighborhood associations and developers, change-collecting quartet players at the Kirkland Market and the generosity of more than 600 donors, the grand total of $212,160 was successfully raised on July 22 to outright purchase the famed three bronze statues.The bears, bunnies and deer will be permanently situated in downtown Kirkland and near Carillon Point. Bill Ballantine will be paid, and the statues will stay.