There has been a lot of discussion lately about what to do about the Seattle Center, which is definitely looking a bit frayed around the edges these days.For Seattle Weekly founder and former publisher David Brewster, the answer is simple: Get rid of buildings like the Center House and replace them with green space.Brewster, a Madrona resident who set up and until recently ran the Town Hall programs, even has a small core of supporters. The group calls itself Friends of Green, or FROG, and it touts the idea of turning the Seattle Center into a major park as a way to address a glaring deficit in downtown green space.The perfect location?It's an issue he wrote about in an April op-ed piece in a daily paper, but Brewster took the idea on the road by speaking at a July 13 meeting of the Uptown Alliance, a planning group in Lower Queen Anne. Also at the meeting, Brewster promoted the idea that the Seattle Center could become a neighborhood park.As a member of a downtown parks task force, he noted that it would be too expensive to buy enough downtown land for a major Seattle park, "so it has to be in an existing space," he said.
It seems some people will do anything to improve their view.Just ask city arborist Nolan Rundquist. The Nebraska native has encountered all manner of arboreal shenanigans on the job, from the overzealous - and illegal - topping of city trees, to vigilante "girdling," a process whereby an unbroken circumference of bark is chiseled from a tree's trunk, breaking the continuous flow of water and nutrients and often killing the plant. Usually such acts are commissioned to improve visual access to that vaunted Northwest scenery of mountains, water or, ironically enough, more trees, and they can be carried out by anyone from the lone homeowner wielding a chainsaw, to a private arborist hired to trim some bothersome foliage.Whatever the case, Rundquist points out, cutting into trees on city property without a permit is against the law - period. Tree-related crimesAnd it's not just arborcide - tree murder - that can get you in serious trouble. "Typically, someone doesn't commit arborcide," he said of the frequency of the types of tree damage, adding that such instances of girdling don't happen all that often. Rundquist said that of the two or three tree-related violations he sees every week, most cases involve the improper topping and trimming of trees on city property. A police report is filed every time.
Meet the packIf you were at this year's Fourth of July parade, you saw boys from Cub Scout Pack 550 handing out small American flags. This year the pack handed out 1,500 flags, and they hope to hand out even more next year. Pack 550 is made up of boys ages 6-11 who live in the Highlands, Market and NorKirk neighborhoods. Most of the kids go to Peter Kirk Elementary, some go to private schools and some are home schooled. I asked some of the Highlands boys what they like most about being a Cub Scout. John Lyon said, "I love going to Camp Brinkley and making up the skits for pack meetings." Chase Barringer said, "I love the camping experience." Connor Gerth said, "It's fun to get outdoors playing with friends and helping your community." Robi Bhomik said, "I like summer camp best of all, especially archery and BB guns." Chris Raabe said, "I like to help other people by doing things like cleaning up the park. I want to make the world a better place. We also have a lot of fun - racing cars, shooting rockets and other cool stuff."The other Highlands Cub Scouts are Nicholas Lewis, Nathan Lewis, Sam Jacobs, Alex Lyon, Brendan Ball and Dalton Peacock.Connor's mom, Andrea Gerth, is the committee chair. She says "Pinewood Derby is one of the things the boys look forward to. They take a block of wood and make a race car out of it. Depending on their age, they may get to use power tools. They race down a 25-30-foot track four times and then they take the average time. The winners go on to the district championship."
It's safe to say the trip Scott Cummins made to Africa two summers ago changed the Magnolia resident's life. That month long journey - taken on behalf of the Magnolia-based Sister Schools program that brings needed school supplies to Ugandan children - opened Cummins' eyes to both the country's endemic poverty and the resilience and human warmth of African society.This past summer Cummins, who also has hosted visiting Ugandan students in his Magnolia home, traveled to Africa a second time, being joined by Pastor Dan Baumgartner of Queen Anne's Bethany Presbyterian Church. He returned stateside with an even greater sense of mission. When asked if he will go back yet again next year, Cummins' eyes light up and he nods, adding that it's likely his teenage daughter, who has formed a deep interest in Ugandan culture, will join him on this trip.Along with his firsthand contact with a country undergoing what former Secretary of State Colin Powell called the gravest humanitarian crisis on the planet, Cummins' energies have been channeled and focused by the unlikeliest of objects: an hourlong video created by three twentysomething kids from San Diego.Conceived almost simultaneously with the act of filming, "Invisible Children" is a powerful documentary that captures, in gritty yet compassionate detail, the day-to-day existences of the thousands upon thousands of Sudanese and Ugandan children orphaned by war and disease. The filmmakers - friends Jason Russell, Laren Poole and Bobby Bailey - traveled in the spring of 2003 to the Sudan in search the real story behind that country's longstanding civil war.
It's been a mainstay in the record business for almost half a century, but the 89 Tower Records stores in the United States will soon be just a fond memory for generations of customers.After filing twice for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in as many years, Tower was snapped up Oct. 6 by the California-based Great American Group, a liquidation company that plans to sell off all of Tower's stock assets in the next few months.The development has devastated 40 to 50 staff members at the Queen Anne and University District stores, said John Aldrich, who has worked for the company for 16 years and six months, serving as head investigator for loss-prevention in the northwest region, which includes Portland, Ore. "It's kind of like a morgue, waiting for the end to come," he said about working at the store these days. But Tower staffers had held out hope that at least the flagship stores like the one in Queen Anne could be saved, Aldrich added. "We all knew we were in Chapter 11, that a sale was imminent."And of the 16 bidders in a Delaware bankruptcy court auction, some of them-like Music Land-had talked of keeping at least a few of the locations open, Aldrich said. Instead, the liquidation company submitted the winning bid of $134.3 million. That marked the end.
Seattle Parks and Recreation has winnowed down the choices for potential off-leash areas in Magnolia and Queen Anne from five to three, said park planner Lana Krisman at an Oct. 12 public hearing in front of the Board of Park Commissioners.Magnolia Park and Thorndyke Park didn't make the cut, but Magnolia Manor Park on 28th Avenue West did, as well as Lower Kinnear Park and David Rodgers Park in Queen Anne, she said.The Park Board meeting was a follow up to public hearings held earlier this year in both Magnolia and Queen Anne, and there was no consensus about any of the choices, Krisman said. "But there have been very good comments for and against all the sites."There are 11 of the off-leash areas now in Seattle, and the program has been a model for other cities, she said. But the city's goal originally was to set up areas in all sectors of the city where dogs could run free, Krisman noted. "And Queen Anne and Magnolia do not have an off-leash area."Based on "numerous requests" from Citizens for Off Leash Areas (COLA), however, the idea is finally getting a second look, according to a briefing paper Krisman prepared for the Park Board.Mirroring the often-contentious debate about setting up off-leash areas in Seattle back in the mid-1990s, those testifying in front of the Park Board were both for and against the idea generally and for and against the choices specifically. Some at the meeting also suggested that off-leash areas should be considered in Discovery Park, Lower Smith Cove Park and even in Interbay.
Picture Perfect Queen Anne (PPQA), a neighborhood beautification group, finally has something to show for all its planning and grant-writing efforts.Working off an $8,000 grant from the city's Office of Economic Development, the organization has bought and had installed three new benches on Upper Queen Anne Hill, said PPQA co-chair Kathy King. Two of the benches are located on Queen Anne Avenue in front of the Gilbert Apartments across the street from Olympia Pizza, she said. The third is at the corner of Boston Street and Queen Anne Avenue North, King added. "I think each bench was about $2,000."Asphalt has also been removed in front of the Ravenna Gardens store at Queen Anne and Boston, she said of a job paid for by the developer of Eden Gardens, a new apartment house going in at the site of the former 76 gas station.Staff from Ravenna Gardens has already added soil and will be adding plantings, King said. "We're reimbursing them for the plants," she said of another use for the Economic Development grant.The grant also will be used for other plantings in the neighborhood. PPQA offered to come up with designs and add city-approved plants to tree pits for all merchants on upper Queen Anne Avenue, she said. "So far, we have 13 merchants who have requested plants and designs," King added. "It'll be shrubs that will look good all year."
What? No army of sword-wielding skeletons? No giant, living statue named Talos? No seven-headed hydra?Well, fine. It's not Seattle Children's Theatre's fault that my idea of a dramatized "Jason and the Golden Fleece" is pretty much the spectacular, 1963 film "Jason and the Argonauts," with its thrilling music score by Bernard Herrmann and fantastic, stop-motion special effects by the great Ray Harry-hausen. (During a recent appearance at Seattle's Science Fiction Museum, Harryhausen brought along one of those skeletons. It was about 5 inches tall - a real mind-blower. I fell in love with that special movie all over again.)But, ahem, I digress. Let me put it this way: Don't expect centaurs in SCT's new "Jason and the Golden Fleece," or, for that matter, dragon teeth sprouting into soldiers, or tempting Sirens, or fire-breathing oxen, or any of the other sensational accessories that are a part of one or another ancient version of Jason's story. And that's just fine.The play, an original by John Olive ("The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle"), is very much the antithesis of spectacle. Performed in the Eve Alford Theatre, a smallish, second stage at SCT, "Jason" is a condensed, abbreviated and revised take on the ancient myth, streamlined and softened for newcomers to the tale. There's literally no room on stage for the dozen-or-so exemplary heroes - the Argonauts - Jason legendarily took along with him on his amazing kingdom-to-kingdom journey from Thessaly to Colchis. Nor is there any way to suggest how big his ship, the Argo, is supposed to be. Instead, Olive's Jason (Lathrop Walker), a murdered king's son bargaining for the throne by promising to steal the Golden Fleece for his paranoid uncle, Pelias (Peter Crook), only gets to bring along a couple of special companions.
Lingo dancetheater - Relatively Real Nov. 4, 8 p.m.Adults $21, Seniors $19, Youth $10, Groups $19The Eastside debut of a symphony of movement from the Seattle-based interdisciplinary performing ensemble. Relatively Real explores the relativity of identity and perception through androgyny, alter-ego, voice and sound. Multi-media projections, a dynamic, mobile set and the seven athletic performers create an atmosphere of mystery and transformation.Carmona Flamenco Nov. 10, 8 p.m. Adults $25, Seniors $22.50, Youth $10, Groups $22.50In the large tablaos (cabarets) of Madrid and Sevilla, flamenco shows feature both a large cuadro (flamenco group) with group numbers and a small cuadro of soloists that perform the atraciones (attractions - featured soloists only). Carmona Flamenco has taken these attractions and modified them to feature the distillation of contemporary flamenco: the song, dance, guitar and cajon (percussion).Peter Brook's 'The Tragedy of Carmen'Presented by the Seattle Opera Young ArtistsNov. 11, 8 p.m. Adults $22, Seniors $20, Youth $10, Groups $20Chosen through national auditions, these singers come to study and perform with Seattle Operas Young Artists Program. They will perform a concert adaptation of Bizet's world-famous opera, "The Tragedy of Carmen."Tingstad and Rumbel Nov. 17, 8 p.m. Adults $23, Seniors $20, Youth $10, Groups $20Grammy Award-winning American acoustic duo, Tingstad and Rumbel return to KPC for another melodic holiday concert. Tingstad & Rumbel established their legacy as the leading guitar and woodwind duo in the country after the immediate success of their debut album, "The Gift."
This is the time of year when we all start to prepare for the soon-coming winter. The plants and animals know this as surely as we do - trees begin to lose leaves, the vegetables and fruits have been harvested and the pine cones have disappeared into the squirrels' hollows. How refreshing it is then, that this month at Gina de Gorna gallery we find Petia Papazova's works showing the eternal colors of spring and summer. Her flowers remind us that robust, new life awaits us on the other side of winter. The nymphs evoke the sensuality of opening buds and the fragrance that awaits to envelop our senses. Her "Venecia" brings us back to those warm nights saturated with jasmine and the sea air.
During the first three weeks of October, something new and exciting happened for the fourth- to sixth-grade students of Juanita Elementary. They were the first school in the Lake Washington School District to ride brand new bikes in Group Health's Basics of Bicycling provided by the Cascade Bicycle Club Education Foundation.Students and volunteer parents waited anxiously for the arrival of the trailer packed with 30 brand new BMX bikes and bike helmets. It gives me the opportunity to teach safe cycling to her students during my physical education class.Because this was hands-on, bicycling skills and safety courses were designed to give young students skills and knowledge in traffic-wise bicycling. According to statistics, kids age 10 to 14 years old suffer from the highest number of bicycle collisions - nearly twice that of any other age group.
The new Rose Hill Elementary School, which was built on the same site as the 1954 building, was dedicated Oct. 5 and was attended by two of the schools' teachers from 1950s, Mr. Duane Thorson and Mrs. Esther Eyer-Cable.Also on hand was the school's current principal Joyce Teshima, district superintendent Don Saul, staff and many celebrants.
The atmosphere Friday night was festive as usual as the traditional Irishg coffees, roast beef sandwiches, desserts, Santa photos and wine kept Magnolia Village buzzing during the annual open night and tree lighting ceremony on Nov. 17. Above, the Magnolia Campfire Girls sing Christmas carols before the yearly tree lighting at Magnolia Garden Center. See ANOTHER REALLY CUTE HOLIDAY PHOTO on tthe next page.
The last in a series of three public meetings about the design and funding for the Counterbalance Park: An Urban Oasis provided some good news Nov. 15.Located at the corner of Queen Anne Avenue North and Roy Street, the Murase Associates and Iola Alessandrini design has been run by the mayor's office, Seattle Parks and Recreation and his own internal review, said Scott Murase, the son of Bob Murase, who died shortly before the plan was first released. "And everyone has praised this as an appropriate design for the location," he added.The interior of the park will be covered in crushed granite, while the current plan calls for the edges to be covered in ironwood planks, giving the edges the feeling of someone's front porch, Murase said.There was some concern about the cost and maintenance of the ironwood, as well as how difficult it is to work with the wood. But using paving stones for the edges is still on the table, said Keith Biever, chair of the parks committee for the Uptown Alliance, a neighborhood planning group that has spearheaded the project.A sense of light is also a big part of the design, Murase said, and the edges of a raised and sloping platform in the interior of the space will be lighted from within.One woman at the meeting was worried that the sharp edges and corners of the park would make the space less soft and welcoming. "Well, I think it's all a matter of geometry," said Murase, who likened the design to that of European plazas.
Hearing bells for the holidays?At the Pacific Northwest Ballet Box Office, they hear the ringing of 350 to 500 phone calls a day in November and December. All these calls signal the start of another "Nutcracker" for the box office. Approximately 100,000 tickets are sold each year for PNB's annual Christmas extravaganza, and all those transactions have to be funneled through the box office."Over the years, the number of calls have decreased a bit because of the Web. Our Web sales have increased substantially," said Jennifer Maier, PNB's senior manager of ticket operations. She has worked nine seasons of "Nutcrackers," and that includes being in the McCaw Hall Box Office for every performance. "I work every show, have done for years, and when we are busy, I act as a regular box-office employee - I step in and take calls or answer questions at the window."The calls really start picking up in the first week of November and don't end until after Christmas. "Not all the calls are for buying a ticket," said Maier. "People call for information - time, location and so on."And every year, people call to ask "Is this show appropriate for children?"