SARAH VENIS"I wish my whole family was here so that I see them all."STEVEN RAY"Good health."
So, is he going to kiss her, or what?So tantalizing is the suspense preceding Seattle Children's Theatre's version of "Sleeping Beauty"'s famous smooch that kids in the audience are loudly counting down to the last possible moment that the spellbound princess can be awakened with a peck. A smart, occasionally powerful production with a Pre-Raphaelite gloss and sets that literally seem to emerge from a dream, SCT's "Sleeping Beauty" is largely faithful to the Brothers Grimm account of the old story. But it has been judiciously tweaked - by the prolific Welsh playwright Charles Way - for heightened conflict and laughs. Way's most inspired invention is a direct link between Briar Rose, the titular princess, and the witch who curses the girl with death when she reaches the age of 16. (It was 15 in the Grimms' story.)
Naughtiness runs amuck in "Restoration Comedy," a retro romp of fashion, opulence and sexual cavorting. Think "Sex and the City" circa 1660 England.  Former Artistic Director Sharon Ott returns to Seattle Repertory Theatre to steer the world première of Amy Freed's frothy and often lewd concoction of decadence, disguise and deception. The costumes are gorgeous, the sets imaginative and the actors superb. Ott adds so much frivolity to this production, you don't much care that "Restoration Comedy" has little plot. Its theme might be "Virtue is a bore, so let's have sex galore." Or perhaps, "The road to repentance seems lined with temptation. So why travel when you can give in?"Playwright Freed takes inspiration from two 1690s comedies, Colley Cibber's "Love's Last Shift" and John Vanbrugh's "The Relapse." Set in London and the nearby countryside, Freed's pseudo-satire sweeps us back into the late 17th century.
Forget "gay cowboy movie." That's a careless, stupid label that doesn't begin to contain the emotional scope of Ang Lee's "Brokeback Mountain," adapted from Annie Proulx's 1997 short story. An adult alternative to inane comedies about "hooking up," "Brokeback" puts its faith in human passion as a potentially soul-altering experience. It's a masterly movie about the making and breaking of a fundamental human connection, the kind that sparks between any pair of star-crossed lovers, in any time or place that thwarts their union. In a dusty parking lot out in the middle of nowhere, two young cowboys lounge in very separate spaces, sharing not a single word, while they wait to be interviewed for sheep-herding jobs up in the mountains. In 1963, it's the way young men were in rural communities: wary, shy, not given to immediately striking up conversation or friendship. But there's poignancy in that prolonged silence, in the flat, colorless landscape that surrounds these boys. It's like a Western version of an Andrew Wyeth frame, filled with aching isolation, loneliness.Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) is wound tight as whipcord, a quiet loner who mostly lives inside his own head, hardly able to allow words to get free of his clamped-down control. There's a fadedness about this young-old man, as though he learned the art of camouflage very early on and never stops practicing it. With his dark-eyed good looks, Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) is softer, more vivid, and he projects an optimistic innocence, not yet bruised by pretense and thwarted passion. If Ennis can't conceive of a future outside his emotional prison, Jack doesn't yet know what it is to be locked up for life.
The holiday season is the time many of us can expect surprises, but one local business is delivering just that to its customers year-round. Housed in a simple, unassuming brick building at the corner of North 65th Street and Third Avenue Northwest, New Roots Organics, the 6-year-old, home-delivery service provides varied arrays of organic fruits and vegetables straight to its customers' doors. Proprietor Carolyn Boyle has operated her business here for the last two years. She hand-picks seasonal produce every week for delivery to homes in neighborhoods throughout King County.
The mint-green house facing east on Phinney Avenue North doesn't look dramatically different from its neighbors.But there's a difference, for sure.This house comes with a turntable for the family vehicle. It's a perfectly round, mini-version of what one sees in San Francisco when the cable cars are rotated and pointed in the right direction.This is the house of Jim Stacey, writer, lecturer and real estate entrepreneur. Stacey, who teaches at the University of Washington Experimental College on the do's and don'ts of buying real estate, just sold the 2,800-square-foot house for $754,000. He bought it in 1987 for $94,000, adding 500 square feet along the way.There is one thing Stacey did not want to do when setting out for a day's work: back his car down his narrow driveway and out into traffic.Stacey's solution certainly qualifies as creative.
With January only a few days away, thinking ahead to possible New Year's resolutions can't hurt. A quick Internet search for the10 most-popular resolutions produced the list below. The problem is that to accomplish even a quarter of the tasks, one would need to hire a personal assistant. And therein lies the problem with self-improvement: It takes time and effort. So in the interest of efficiency, and with a nod to the spirit of the new year, let the Seattle Public Library be your one-stop resolution fulfillment center.
This holiday season and beyond, shoppers will have the opportunity to help the homeless with the purchase of a collection of songs performed by local musicians and produced by the Fremont Public Association (FPA).All of the proceeds from the "Songs for Shelter" CD will go directly to the FPA, a nonprofit organization that provides shelter, food, advocacy and care for people in need throughout Seattle and King County, The agency helps 25,000 families each year through its 27 programs. The FPA also produces the Fremont Fair every year.
One year I gave my then-young nephew who was in the first years of elementary school a rock for Christmas. Not just any old rock, but a piece of sandstone from a science store. In it were embedded fossils, shells and other little surprises. But you couldn't just take a hammer, smash it to pieces and extract your prizes. The rock came with little scraping and brushing tools and, like a paleontologist, you had to slowly and methodically scrape away the rock. It was exciting for me over the next weeks to get my nephew's excited phone calls, telling me that he thought he could see a little white piece of bone sticking out and that he would keep me informed on his progress. I was watching a curious mind and a fired imagination learning patience and perseverance.
Connoisseurs of irony can delight in the fact that, in famously under-churched Seattle, plenty of apparently extraneous gifts are leaving the stores, scenes that have little to do with the true spirit of Christmas.But dedicated ironists might consider, in the spirit of the season, to observe a cease-fire in the culture wars.Today is the winter solstice, the year's shortest day. Today, the earth pivots toward the sun, and we begin the long march toward summer. On Sunday, Christians will commemorate the birth of Jesus and the star of Bethlehem that declared the good news. On the same day, the Jewish world will observe the first day of Hanukkah in memory of the menorah that burned for eight days on a day's worth of oil. All three occasions reflect the sacredness of light and humanity's longing, in the face of mystery, for meaning.To that end we would do well to pause and look back to something that happened in 1914.
Despite being far from full, the lower meeting room of the Green Lake Library was not empty of critical comment, ambition or hope for dozens of local Seattle skateboarders. Spanning generations, those in attendance at the Dec. 13 Seattle Parks and Recreation meeting got a glimpse of the city's second skate park for its growing skating community. They had input on desired terrain and features for the nearly19,000-square-foot park at Lower Woodland Park, 5201 Green Lake Way N., which will cost nearly $850,000. "We are trying to build a park that is worthy of people traveling to [it] and getting used," said designer Wally Hollyday, who owns a skate-park design and construction company out of Aliso Viejo, Calif. The city selected him for his 30 years' experience; he is "renowned among skateboarders for the fact that they love to skate his parks," said Karen Lynch, the park's department's senior public-relations specialist.
The weather could not have been better for the last day of the summer-fall farmers market in the University District. The sun was out, the temperature was up and the shoppers strolled along the rows of vendors. This year, the market's customers will not have to wait until May or June for it to reopen. The University District Farmers Market begins its second official winter season on Dec. 31. The market will be open every week through February at the University Heights Center, at Northeast 50th Street and University Way Northeast.Another winter market is opening in West Seattle. That market will run through February as well.
It is snowing at the Northwest Film Forum. Continuing their tradition of live plays in December, NWFF invited local actor and playwright Jonah Von Spreecken to create an original work for their space."The Snowflake Factory" reveals how snowflakes became the best product to come out of the Factory of Cold run by the evil Mr. Slurch."Mr. Slurch was a character that I created last summer for a one-man show," said Von Spreecken. "In the original show, he was a really wicked schoolmaster, somewhat like the Childcatcher in the movie 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.'
This time of year can be a lonely time for many. Look at folks like Scrooge and Grinch - they were a couple of lonely guys living in their little caves. That is, until people brought them around - people (from past and present) who planted little seeds of warmth inside their cold, shriveling hearts. And ultimately, it was their own decision to listen and eventually burst out of the boxes they put themselves into. At the risk of sounding sentimental, I would like this holiday season to be something more than an ordeal that I have simply survived. Thus, I'm going to divulge how I survive and even (gulp) enjoy the final few weeks of each year (give or take a few).
The following is an except from Seattle City Councilmember Nick Licata's Urban Politics, an e-mail newsletter containing his perspective about various council decisions.In early December, the council voted (8 to 1) to pass Council Bill 115442, which requests the state Liquor Control Board to impose restrictions on alcohol sales in the Downtown Seattle, parts of Capitol Hill, Lower Queen Anne, First Hill, Chinatown/International District, the Central Area and the University District. These are to be all designated as Alcohol Impact Areas (AIAs).This action follows previous legislation which asked retail outlets to voluntarily restrict the sale of low-cost, high-alcohol products in these neighborhoods which have contributed to chronic public inebriation. The mayor's office determined that these voluntary efforts failed and thus requested this legislation. This strategy follows Tacoma's positive experience with the same legislation over a large area, where alcohol-related Emergency Medical Service cases declined by more than one-third in these Alcohol Impact Areas (AIA).