More Bad News From Indie Booksellers: Bailey/Coy Books to Close

Posted Nov. 2 at 9:41 am by Brian Miller

​As reported, Elliott Bay Book Co. may be moving from Pioneer Square. One possible new location is Capitol Hill, where business conditions aren't necessarily more favorable. Now it's Broadway's venerable Bailey/Coy Books sending out an unhappy news release. After 26 years, writes owner Michael Wells, the store "will be closing its doors at the end of November."

Wells, who lamented changing business conditions on the hill in a SW story last year, blamed most of the same economic forces affecting Elliott Bay: "We have struggled, along with independent bookstores across the country, for the last decade to keep our bookstore profitable and healthy. The economic downturn of the past year, combined with the rapidly changing world of bookselling, has led us to believe that this is the most responsible decision."

The "rapidly changing world of bookselling" includes competition from big-box retailers including Wal-Mart, Target, and Costco. And, of course, Amazon. A going-out-of-business sale begins this week with 20 percent price reductions. It truly is an indicator of how bad things are for the books trade that Bailey/Coy couldn't even hang on through the holidays. Wells explains after the jump...

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Topics: Arts & Culture, Books & Authors, and Business

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Cocoa Beware: Carr's Office Targets Longtime African-American Watering Hole for a Shuttin' Down

Posted Oct. 29 at 10:17 am by Mike Seely

The activities alleged to have occurred at Angie's are bluer than its felt.

​In a move eerily reminiscent of the City Attorney's Office's effort to shut down the Blue Moon, only with a different median skin tone of the target's clientele, Tom Carr and his henchmen have now taken dead aim at Angie's, a lively watering hole that's one of the last reminders of Columbia City's historic Afrocentrism. But whereas the Moon fought the City Attorney tooth and nail over whether or not to sign a Good Neighbor Agreement, Angie's willingly signed such an agreement, and is now being targeted for shutdown because of alleged violations.

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Topics: Arts & Culture, Civil Rights, Crime & Punishment, and Neighborhoods

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Amazon Vs. Elliott Bay Book Co.: Winners and Losers

Posted Oct. 21 at 12:55 pm by Brian Miller

​Everyone is upset that Elliott Bay Book Co. might move from its Pioneer Square location, where it's been for 36 years, to Cap Hill or Ballard or someplace less touristy but with a more manageable rent. As owner Peter Aaron told The Seattle Times, business is way down in our recession economy, he's got a loan due, and he needs a break on rent from his landlord.

Meanwhile, business is booming at Amazon, which once billed itself as "Earth's biggest bookstore." With the aid of some helpful city rezoning in South Lake Union, with Paul Allen's Vulcan as its landlord, the company is preparing to move 20,000 employees out of the ID and the old PacMed Building on Beacon Hill and into 11 spiffy new office buildings served by the shiny new SLUT. (The old waterfront trolley tracks leading to Pioneer Square have been gathering rust for years.) Oh, and we're about to pay for a $200-million makeover of Mercer Street, so Amazon employees have it even nicer in their new hood. Elliott Bay, a small, private company, doesn't report its financials. Amazon, with a $41 billion market cap, reported a 14% increase in sales for the last quarter, ending in June.

The divergent fates of these two iconic and respected local booksellers are connected, though not the way you might think...

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Topics: Arts & Culture, Books & Authors, Business, and Technology

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President Taft Visits Seattle, on TV Tonight!

Posted Oct. 17 at 12:55 pm by Brian Miller

​This is the centennial year of the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition (AYPE), or, as tonight's hour-long television documentary would have it, "Seattle's Forgotten World's Fair." But local historians are doing everything they can to discourage that cultural amnesia. There are at least two photo books out this year on the subject, one by HistoryLink's Alan J. Stein and Paula Becker, who are primary sources for this doc (narrated by Tom Skerrit, produced by John Forsen and Gayle Podrabsky).

The documentary basically follows the proven Ken Burns historical format: new interviews, old stills, and precious bits of silent newsreel footage—including the Norwegian frenzy attending the sailing of a Viking longboat (this before the digging of the Montlake Cut). Today, the most tangible legacy from the temporary fairgrounds is the UW campus layout by John C. Olmsted, whose firm would later design many of our greatest parks. Unlike the '62 World's Fair, which left behind the Seattle Center and an Elvis movie, most of the AYPE buildings were immediately torn down (though a few remained in service for the UW through the '30s). Apart from the Taft visit (this when Seattle was solidly Republican, but progressive), some neat little historical details jump out of the doc: It was publicly funded, and we citizens bought shares in the AYPE company. (Amazingly, the expo turned a profit.) Among the many contests and giveaways, an orphan baby was offered for adoption! (No one claimed it.) It was dry, meaning no beer or spirits were sold, unlike most fairs and carnivals. And toward the end of the fair, which ran from June to Oct. 16, 1909, a plumbing mishap connected Lake Washington—then full of sewage—to the city's drinking supply; 61 people died of typhoid as a result! (That compared to the 3.7 million who visited the fair, three times the state population at the time.)

The Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition: Seattle's Forgotten World's Fair KCTS Channel 9, 7 p.m. Sat. Oct. 17 (expect multiple rebroadcasts)

Topics: Arts & Culture, City of Seattle, and Television

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Breaking Review: The Stepfather

Posted Oct. 16 at 3:52 pm by Brian Miller

​Not screened in advance for critics, the remake of the 1987 The Stepfather opens today at the Meridian and other theaters. Here's a quick impression from our Nick Pinkerton:

Awkwardly chummy guys with weird glasses who disappear into darkened rooms with your laughing mother to listen to Donald Fagen solo albums—the stepfather was a ready-to-villainize archetype for the kids-of-divorce who saw the 1987 Terry O'Quinn thriller. That Stepfather was Donald Westlake's reworking of Hitchcock's wolf-in-the-suburbs Shadow of a Doubt, and now Westlake's screenplay has been rejiggered. The kickoff is good—the finale effectively literalizes the expression "broken home"—but director Nelson McCormick doesn't keep things "taut" in between. Rather than do scenes right the first time, he tends to deja vu them (this usually involves Amber Heard, wearing not-too-much). Menaced family and friends include a Gossip Girl guy and a bunch of actors who look faintly like other more-famous actors....

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Topics: Arts & Culture and Film

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Your Arts & Watts Weekend Planner

Posted Oct. 16 at 3:00 pm by Brian Miller

​Friday: Margaret Friedman says you should see the stage and video comedy of Reggie Watts at On the Boards (8 p.m.). Adriana Grant recommends you drive up to Bothell to see TV chef Alton Brown at Third Place Books (6:30 p.m.).

Saturday: SAAM is hosting the free, one-act operetta Love's Fool, which Gavin Borchert recommends (2 p.m.). I'm partial to the environmentally themed photocollages by Chris Jordan at Pacific Science Center (10 a.m.-6 p.m.).

Sunday: Admission is always free at the Frye Art Museum, where David Stoesz finds much to like at "The Old, Weird America" show (10 a.m.-5 p.m.). I'm not so keen on the Henry's themed "Vortexhibition Polyphonica" exhibit, but it contains many good pieces, regardless of curatorial conceit (11 a.m.-4 p.m.) And don't forget Danny Boyle's dark, bloody, funny Shallow Grave, his debut feature from 1994, at the Central Cinema (7 and 9 p.m.).

Topics: Arts & Culture

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Anyone Wanna See "Black Cannonball Run"?

Posted Oct. 16 at 1:14 pm by Brian Miller

​With their SIFF prize-winning blaxploitation spoof Black Dynamite opening today at the Varsity, filmmakers Michael Jai White and Scott Sanders were eager to talk about the '70s origin of the genre during their Seattle visit on Wednesday. Both are young enough—VHS babies, if you will—that they saw the classics on home video or in second-run movie houses that continued to play the classics (Shaft, Coffy, Dolemite, etc.) well into the '80s. In co-writing the film (review), lead actor White recalls how they reflected back both on blaxploitation movies good and bad. Meaning those, like Shaft, that really seemed to reflect the black experience and a yearning for African-American heroes. And also the cheapies, the rip-offs that simply copied a Hollywood formula and slapped the word 'black' in front of the title.

Thus, White recalls, "They had white movies that worked, like The Godfather, they would just throw the word 'black' in front of it—they had The Black Godfather, Blacula, Blackenstein. And they said, 'Shampoo was a hit, let's have Black Shampoo!' They're not even thinking about how ridiculous it is—black shampoo!?!"

But the fun of blaxploitation, says Sanders, the film's director, is that mixture of the ridiculous and the heroic...

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Topics: Arts & Culture, Film, and SIFF 2009

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Actual Roller Derby Girls on "Whip It"

Posted Oct. 16 at 11:01 am by Brian Miller

​Members of the Rat City Roller Girls league were naturally curious about Drew Barrymore's Whip It (review), which continues at the Metro and other theaters. Below, some choice quotes from the women of the RCRG league, who know firsthand the bruises, glory, and camaraderie of the sport, after seeing Whip It. (Note: They go by their nom de track, not their street names)

"Regarding authenticity, I thought it was really cute that after Babe Ruthless [Ellen Page] took a whip, she would bend her knees real low and stop skating to make it around the corner. It just made me think of being fresh meat and being yelled at perpetually to 'MOVE YOUR FEET' around the turn. Don't stop moving your feet, Babe Ruthless!" —Leeloo, Throttle Rockets

"I thought the actors the director picked were absolutely PERFECT for their characters/roles!" —Skate Trooper, Derby Liberation Front

"While it has a few misses on the track, the passion of a skater is well captured. The acting was superb and Barrymore made a smart move by stepping back and letting the talent shine."—Sister Piston, Sockit Wenches

And if that has you curious about the next RCRG competition, select local teams will actually next take the ring in Philadelphia, for the Women's Flat Track Derby Association's national tournament in Philadelphia Nov. 13-15. So good luck with that.

Topics: Arts & Culture, Film, and Sports

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Now on Stage: Abe Lincoln in Illinois

Posted Oct. 15 at 1:35 pm by Brian Miller

​Intiman's three-hour production of Robert Sherwood's 70-year-old play pays off painlessly, yielding a surprisingly funny, tender portrait of a self-doubting yokel whose uncommon empathy overrides his own considerable resistance to the call of service. Impishly played by Erik Lochtefeld (left), Abe starts out as a loose-lipped, musket-toting yahoo whose goofy good nature (plus his brawn) has a civilizing effect on Illinois hooligans. Directed by Sheila Daniels, the show's attention is split between a regular man rising above his fears and the community that gestates and births him. That community's needs shape the gifts he offers, however reluctantly. But as he rises in the world, the staging imagery increasingly emphasizes his alienation and apotheosis. The dais from his candidates' debate with Stephen Douglas becomes a catafalque for a marked man, buoyed by members of the adoring public and slowly receding into the horizon of history. Intiman Theater, 201 Mercer St. (Seattle Center), 269-1900. $20-$55, Mon., Wed.-Sun., 8 p.m. Through Nov. 16. MARGARET FRIEDMAN
(Image by Chris Bennion)

Topics: Arts & Culture

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Greil Marcus: No Time for the Frye

Posted Oct. 15 at 11:58 am by Brian Miller

​There's a whole lot to see at the Frye's worthwhile new exhibition "The Old Weird America: Folk Themes in Contemporary Art." The traveling show takes its name from the book by cultural scholar and critic Greil Marcus, who, coincidentally, is coming to town next week. Perfect! Get the guy to do a lecture or something, right? He's a nationally famous writer, though sometimes difficult to unpack in print, but surely he could offer some intelligent, off-the-cuff impressions on the Frye exhibit. (See our take from David Stoesz.)

Unfortunately, the Frye confirms, no such arrangements were made with the visiting author, which really seems a wasted opportunity. Did they not know he was coming? Or is he more intent on flogging his fat new anthology, A New Literary History of America (Harvard Univ. Press, $49.95)? He'll be discussing that volume, which he co-edited, as follows:

Seattle Central Library 1000 Fourth Ave., 386-4636, spl.org. Free. 7 p.m. Thurs., Oct. 29.

Topics: Arts & Culture and Books & Authors

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Again, the Brits Discover Seattle

Posted Oct. 15 at 6:00 am by Brian Miller

​Not this again. First it was Everett True and grunge. Now it's Lynn Shelton and mumblecore. The Guardian is falling all over her locally shot indie Humpday, a film we like but which isn't exactly landmark cinema. But, oh, it was made in Seattle! The land of grunge! From which Everett True once reported on Nirvana and company. So that must mean something, right?

The Guardian's Jason Solomons gushes that Humpday "with its risqué humour and realistic dialogue, typifies a new breed of low-budget American independent film about to refresh the mainstream with a breezy energy and honesty not seen for a generation." And later, after much industry blather, he continues, "I believe a new American indie sector has sprung up, almost unnoticed, away from the old hubs of LA and New York."

And where might that be, you ask...?

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Topics: Arts & Culture and Film

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SIFF-Favorite Filmmakers Return Tonight

Posted Oct. 14 at 12:54 pm by Brian Miller

​The Golden Space Needle Award at SIFF this year went to the Blaxploitation comedy Black Dynamite (review), which opens Friday at the Varsity. Tonight, however, you can see it early and meet the filmmakers at the Harvard Exit. Co-writer and star Michael Jai White will appear with co-writer/director Scott Sanders; and the two will conduct a Q&A with the audience. (Buy your tickets early.) I'll be speaking with them this afternoon, and hope to have the interview posted Friday.

Harvard Exit 807 E. Roy St., 781-5755, landmarktheatres.com. 7 p.m.

Topics: Arts & Culture, Film, and SIFF 2009

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Who's Afraid of Rap in Public Places? Not Seattle Center

Posted Oct. 13 at 6:43 pm by Mark Fefer

​While establishments around Seattle have been turning to opera, country, classical music, or even show tunes (!) to try to discourage undesirable people from congregating or misbehaving in the areas around their premises, Seattle Center will have none of that. This week, KeyArena began pumping out Jay-Z tracks from speakers around the building.

The music isn't intended to attract or repel anyone from the open public area surrounding the Key, says Seattle Center communications director Deborah Daoust. Rather it's meant to whip up interest in the Jay-Z concert this weekend. She notes that the music, which runs from 4 to 8 p.m. is below the city's decibel threshold. These days, it's also about the last thing you might expect to hear being broadcast into any public space after dark.

Topics: Arts & Culture and City of Seattle

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Press Release of the Week

Posted Oct. 13 at 12:19 pm by Brian Miller

​It's only Tuesday, and yet I have decided. Please, God, let there be a book tour. I promise we will send an intern to cover it. Late-night infomercial pitchman Tony Little has a new motivational book coming out—as if his ponytail weren't motivating enough—and the release offers factoids including:

- Tony has sold over $3 billion worth of products worldwide.
- More than 40 million people own a product bearing his name.
- He was a juvenile delinquent before becoming a body builder and pitchman.
- In the 1980s, he introduced the Gazelle Exercise Machine into the home fitness market.
- His ponytail has the strength of ten men!
- And most important, he is totally psyched!

Full release after the jump; it's like living the '80s all over again...

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Topics: Arts & Culture, Books & Authors, and Business

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Possible Senatorial Candidate Chris Widener Explains Snoop Dogg

Posted Oct. 13 at 12:42 pm by Caleb Hannan

Joel Connelly reports that Biden-nabbing Sen. Patty Murray may finally have a legitimate opponent in for the 2010 election. His name is Chris Widener. He is a motivational speaker. He's formed an exploratory committee. And, apparently, he has a sense of humor.

Oh please lord, in the name of everything that is holy, persuade this man to start a campaign.

Topics: Arts & Culture and Politics

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