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Lighting the Park

cbal_LED_for_blog.JPG

As we've previously written, the new Counterbalance Park in Lower Queen Anne (aka Uptown) has been flickering with new LED lights that were part of the original design. (The park is located at the base of Queen Anne Ave. North, where it meets Roy Street.) But, for a variety of reasons, they've been delayed since the park's ceremonial opening in July. So now there's to be a second opening on Saturday, featuring a band from McClure Middle School, hot cider, and s'mores. (Mmmm, s'mores.) Details as follows:

Counterbalance Park, 2 Roy St., www.seattle.gov/parks. Free. 5-7 p.m. Sat. Dec. 6.

The $1.1 million makeover of the old gas station site, long vacant, was made possible by $300,000 from the 2000 Seattle Pro-Parks Levy, with the balance raised by the Uptown Alliance from various local benefactors. We applaud the effort. But we also wonder why the park is being rolled out twice, and why it's seemingly being built in stages, and why some portions of the design still haven't been implemented. And, moreover, who gets credit for the LED design versus the landscape architecture: Murase Associates, a Portland firm with a Seattle branch office; or Italian-born Seattle artist Iole Alessandrini? At least one SW reader has suggested she was fired from the project.

So we decided to ask her, and the city, and Murase what's going on with the "urban oasis" (that being the official city suffix to the name—how many other parks get such an honorific?)...

Continue reading "Lighting the Park"

Topics: Architecture, Art Events, Seattle Streets, and Visual Arts

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New Packaging for the EMP?

Gehry_for_web.JPG

File this one under the Department of Things We Actually Like: Esther da Costa Meyer's new book Frank Gehry: On Line (Princeton University Press, $29.95), which comes inside an ingenious corrugated cardboard slip cover. Within, the small paperback looks like it's made of brushed, stainless steel. Like hard inside of soft, the structure inside the skin, only everything is 100 percent recyclable. (Though design geeks will keep it forever, of course.)

Gehry's architecture and sketches are presently being featured at Princeton, and this is essentially the catalog for the exhibit. Closer to home, Paul Allen's scalloped, multicolored, titanium-skinned, monorail-pierced Experience Music Project is the only local sample of the L.A. architect's work. It's famously a building with Too Much Going On (unlike his more successful museum in Bilbao, Spain). But then Gehry is a flamboyant designer who got initial notice for wrapping houses in chain-link fencing and such.

Somehow, too, this book-and-box combo recalls old ad campaigns from print and TV. You know the sort—a pickup truck or Rolls driving across a cardboard span. Or an elephant standing on a cardboard box to show how strong it is.

Of course, Gehry is such a famous boutique architect, working at such a high commission rate (which is why he and Allen parted company on EMP's awful, touristy interior), that Seattle will probably never again host one of his designs. Unless it's made out of something cheap, like cardboard. In which regard our city's homeless population is way ahead of him.

Topics: Architecture and Books & Authors

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Lost in the Library? It's Your Own Stupid Fault.

koolhaas library

Oh, and speaking of the library ... While being interviewed by the P-I, architect Joshua Prince-Ramus, an assistant to Rem Koolhaas, said this:

When you understand the building, it is very simple — just a series of boxes. But what we didn't understand is, to the uninitiated person, someone not an architect or library staffer, it can be complex if they don't understand that. What we thought is blatantly obvious, isn't.
So if you're one of those people who can't find the stairs or the bathroom, ha ha, you're stupid. You can't even visualize a simple configuration of intersecting quadrilaterals hovering in space.

Topics: Architecture

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You Can't Be Too Thin...

trophy.jpg

...but how rich will you have to be to live here? This 400-foot-tall hypothetical condominium tower has been proposed for a tiny site jammed up close to I-5, and next door to a housing facility for chronic alcoholics at Yale and Howell. Over at his invaluable Web site, hugeasscity.com, Dan Bertolet has a good analysis of the project, which is as much provocation as design by local architecture firm Pb Elemental. We like the way it shakes up the staid conventions against tall, dense downtown housing and uses some aggressive engineering to max out a parcel not much larger than a tennis court. Given how much of each floor (some 2,000 square feet) would have to be dedicated to the elevator core and structural elements, we doubt the thing ever gets built at a price anyone could afford. Still, the Denny Triangle and South Lake Union are filling up fast with well-heeled tech companies including (soon) Amazon.com. But we're guessing the wealthy owners of these 19 hypothetical homes probably won't be inviting their boozy neighbors over for any cocktail parties.

Topics: Architecture

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SW Today

  • Last Night: Built To Spill @ The Showbox


    Who: Built to Spill
    Where: Showbox in the Market
    When: Friday, November 20

    Watching Built to Spill last night, I couldn't help but think of what Bill Graham said about The Grateful Dead--they aren't the best at what they do, they're the only one who do what they do.

    For close to two decades, the great Idaho concern has made indie rock as soaring and sprawling and wonky as the Western U.S. territory they call home. They are very much a band from west of Rockies, which also means they have little of the drive to succeed so prevalent among East Coasters. In other words, Built to Spill doesn't really give a shit, which is both awesome and frustrating in the best possible ways.

    Topics: Concert Reviews
  • New York Times Columnist Nicholas Kristof Bashes Microsoft Bing

    microsoft-bing_logo_resize.JPG
    Don't even ask about the Dalai Lama.
    While several nice things have been written about Microsoft's new Bing search engine, including by his NYT colleague David Pogue, op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristof does not agree. In a scathing Friday blog post, Kristof accuses MSFT of tailoring Chinese-language search queries in Bing to censor sensitive topics like the Dalai Lama, Tiananmen Square, and Falun Gong.

    Kristof writes that Microsoft's explanation, a software bug, "insults my intelligence and yours." He continues, "My hunch is that Microsoft simply has decided at a top level that it will compromise what principles it must to ingratiate itself with China." And further, "Now Microsoft is sacrificing the integrity of Bing searches so as to cozy up to State Security in Beijing. In effect, it has chosen become part of the Communist Party's propaganda apparatus."

    Got a response to that, Steve Ballmer?

    Topics: Business
  • Tonight: Those Darlins with King Khan, Mt. Fuji Records Showcase #2, Nonsequitur

    thosedarlins6.jpg
    Those Darlins
    Those Darlins, King Khan and BBQ Show at Chop Suey, 9 p.m., $12

    A totally bizarre combination of freaky dance rocker King Khan and punk-infused country band Those Darlins. Weeeeird.

    Nonsequitur presents the music of composer John Luther Adams at the Good Shepherd Center, 8 p.m., $5-$15, all ages

    Pianist Cristina Valdes will play Among Red Mountains and Nunataks, while Steven Schick will play The Mathematics of Resonant Bodies.


    Black Whales, the Whore Moans, Virgin Islands (EP release) and Mr. Gnome at the Sunset, 9 p.m., $8

    The second of two Mt. Fuji-centric shows; this one is also a release party for Virgin Islands' (ex-Cops) Age of Anxiety EP.

    Topics: Happenings
  • Comment of the Day: Furious Styles Member Didn't Expect T-Shirt Controversy

    clueless.jpg
    A reader who calls himself a current member of the band Furious Styles responds to Local Hardcore Band 'Furious Styles' Uses Cop-Killing to Sell T-Shirts. He says the murder of an innocent police officer isn't going to change his group's views on law enforcement.

    "The past day has been a shit-storm for a shirt that wasn't even supposed to reach mainstream society. This shirt wasn't a silly publicity stunt and frankly we're supprised at the ammount of attention it's recieved. We've never wanted or expected mainstream success or attention. This shirt was meant to sell to a select few fans, not to be peddled off onto Seattle's teenagers at Hot-Topic.

    Anyone who knows Furious Styles knows our stance on police and just because an officer is actually killed doesn't mean we're going to change our tune, so to speak. It wasn't a joke then and it's not a joke now.

    Topics: Crime & Punishment
  • Saturday's Set Times and "Itinerary" for Them Crooked Vultures' Seattle Visit

    davejosh.jpg
    7 p.m.: The Paramount doors open.

    8 p.m.: Mini Mansions take the stage in support.

    9:15 to 10:45 p.m.: Them Crooked Vultures (Zeppelin's John Paul Jones, Nirvana's Dave Grohl, and Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age) take the stage.

    11:15 p.m.--12:15 a.m.: Jones leads the band in a nostalgic bit of fishing out the window of their suite at The Edgewater Hotel.

    12:15--2 a.m.: The band break into Anthony's, raids the liquor, heats up a pan, and Jones cooks up some Zeppelin-style fish 'n' chips.

    2 a.m. til Exhaustion: Homme and Grohl take their pants off and reenact that damn statue at the Olympic Sculpture Park.

    Sunrise: With the park finally open, the three men enjoy a leisurely stroll past the eraser.


    Topics: News
  • It's Official: Schoolyard Heroes Are Calling It Quits

    noschool.jpg
    Justin Dylan Renney
    Schoolyard Heroes at Vera Project.
    To close the book on the band after eight years of making music reaching back to core members' high school days, horror rockers Schoolyard Heroes will regroup with their classic lineup -- Ryann Donnelly, Jonah Bergman, Steve Bonnell, Brian Turner -- for December 19's Horrordays at El Corazon. It will be their last show. Kane Hodder will also be reuniting their original lineup for the show, and promptly break up.

    "I'm really glad schoolyard heroes are being put to rest the way it started," vocalist Ryann Donnelly told us yesterday before today's official announcement. "And, honestly, the reason we're calling it a day on Schoolyard isn't because we don't love it."

    Donnelly says the reason it was time to move on was that she and Bergman couldn't see working as Schoolyard without Bonnell and Turner, who exited separately within the last year.

    "It was strange to play shows as Schoolyard Heroes with different people," she says.

    In the announcement on their web site, Schoolyard hinted at the future:

    "Don't freak out! If Schoolyard Heroes has taught you anything over the years, it is that death is always around you... and that from death shall emerge new channels of destruction. Loud, distorted, maybe even operatic channels."

    We'll post more info as we get it.

    Topics: News
  • David Mendoza, Former Owner of Pazzo's Pizza, Weed Smuggler, Gets 14 Years in Prison

    Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Pazzo's(1).jpg
    Definitely under new management
    David R. Mendoza's life in summation: former Garfield High School class president. Owner of the historic Liberty Theater in Bend, Oregon, and the bro-friendly Pazzo's Pizzeria in Eastlake. Apparent friend to the entire B.C. chronic smoking nation.

    As of today, however, you can add sentenced pot smuggler to that list.

    Topics: Crime & Punishment
  • Sighted: A Taco Truck Parks in Pioneer Square

    campesino.jpg
    My car just automatically followed this truck after spotting it on Jackson Street, followed it to it's Thursday through Saturday parking spot. Tacos El Campesino sets up on Occidental between Yesler and Washington and opens for business at 4:00 p.m., but the honking cars behind me precluded me from getting the closing time and more info. This truck usually produces a better than decent torta (carne asada over carnitas).

    Topics: Eats report
  • Two Very Different Opinions on the Seattle Housing Market

    houseforsale.jpg
    To buy or not to buy? That is the question.
    CNNMoney.com reports today that if you're in the market for a lifetime's worth of debt, Seattle is a great place to live. The Emerald City placed second behind only San Francisco in a list of cities most likely to see their home values increase by 2011.

    According to forecasters polled by the cable-news giant, that means a 3.8% jump thanks to our "better than average" job market. A welcome softening of the 15% free fall housing values have taken since the bottom fell out. And a seriously delusional load of crap if you're to believe the lovable cranks over at real-estate blog Seattle Bubble.



    Topics: Economy
  • OMG! Jonas Brothers to Endorse Microsoft Xbox360!

    Jonas_bros_resize2.jpg
    The Jonas Brothers want...more brains!
    You know what? Let Apple have its annoying Justin Long and nerdy John Hodgman for those Mac versus PC commercials. Microsoft just upped the celebrity stakes by announcing that teen rockers the Jonas Brothers will be endorsing its Xbox360 videogame console.

    The NYT and others are reporting that a new MSFT ad campaign will prominently feature the tween rockers. The spots are built around the catchphrase "It's more fun time." (Not something you could ever imagine Steve Ballmer saying.) Given that gamers are overwhelmingly male (not the brothers' fan base), it's unclear how the clean-shaven, Disney-created trio will connect with those who prefer Grand Theft Auto and first-person shooter games to bubblegum pop.

    Unless, of course, a game can be developed that features the Jonas Brothers as evil, brain-eating zombies who, with the power of their their stupefying music, turn millions of preadolescent girls into their army of slaves. Oh, wait...

    Topics: Business
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Seattle News, Events, Restaurants, Music
Receive Weekly Email and Text Message Updates:
Sign up for latest info on concerts, dining, promotions and more!
Go!

Blogs

The Daily Weekly


News, politics, media.

Reverb


Music and nightlife.

Voracious


Food, news, booze.

Columns

Krist Novoselic: Contention & Conscious

Election 2009 Recap: You Can't Always Get What You Want

  • Weekly
  • Music
  • Promotions
  • Dining
  • Green Card
  • Events

Top stories

SW Today

  • Last Night: Built To Spill @ The Showbox


    Who: Built to Spill
    Where: Showbox in the Market
    When: Friday, November 20

    Watching Built to Spill last night, I couldn't help but think of what Bill Graham said about The Grateful Dead--they aren't the best at what they do, they're the only one who do what they do.

    For close to two decades, the great Idaho concern has made indie rock as soaring and sprawling and wonky as the Western U.S. territory they call home. They are very much a band from west of Rockies, which also means they have little of the drive to succeed so prevalent among East Coasters. In other words, Built to Spill doesn't really give a shit, which is both awesome and frustrating in the best possible ways.

    Topics: Concert Reviews
  • New York Times Columnist Nicholas Kristof Bashes Microsoft Bing

    microsoft-bing_logo_resize.JPG
    Don't even ask about the Dalai Lama.
    While several nice things have been written about Microsoft's new Bing search engine, including by his NYT colleague David Pogue, op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristof does not agree. In a scathing Friday blog post, Kristof accuses MSFT of tailoring Chinese-language search queries in Bing to censor sensitive topics like the Dalai Lama, Tiananmen Square, and Falun Gong.

    Kristof writes that Microsoft's explanation, a software bug, "insults my intelligence and yours." He continues, "My hunch is that Microsoft simply has decided at a top level that it will compromise what principles it must to ingratiate itself with China." And further, "Now Microsoft is sacrificing the integrity of Bing searches so as to cozy up to State Security in Beijing. In effect, it has chosen become part of the Communist Party's propaganda apparatus."

    Got a response to that, Steve Ballmer?

    Topics: Business
  • Tonight: Those Darlins with King Khan, Mt. Fuji Records Showcase #2, Nonsequitur

    thosedarlins6.jpg
    Those Darlins
    Those Darlins, King Khan and BBQ Show at Chop Suey, 9 p.m., $12

    A totally bizarre combination of freaky dance rocker King Khan and punk-infused country band Those Darlins. Weeeeird.

    Nonsequitur presents the music of composer John Luther Adams at the Good Shepherd Center, 8 p.m., $5-$15, all ages

    Pianist Cristina Valdes will play Among Red Mountains and Nunataks, while Steven Schick will play The Mathematics of Resonant Bodies.


    Black Whales, the Whore Moans, Virgin Islands (EP release) and Mr. Gnome at the Sunset, 9 p.m., $8

    The second of two Mt. Fuji-centric shows; this one is also a release party for Virgin Islands' (ex-Cops) Age of Anxiety EP.

    Topics: Happenings
  • Comment of the Day: Furious Styles Member Didn't Expect T-Shirt Controversy

    clueless.jpg
    A reader who calls himself a current member of the band Furious Styles responds to Local Hardcore Band 'Furious Styles' Uses Cop-Killing to Sell T-Shirts. He says the murder of an innocent police officer isn't going to change his group's views on law enforcement.

    "The past day has been a shit-storm for a shirt that wasn't even supposed to reach mainstream society. This shirt wasn't a silly publicity stunt and frankly we're supprised at the ammount of attention it's recieved. We've never wanted or expected mainstream success or attention. This shirt was meant to sell to a select few fans, not to be peddled off onto Seattle's teenagers at Hot-Topic.

    Anyone who knows Furious Styles knows our stance on police and just because an officer is actually killed doesn't mean we're going to change our tune, so to speak. It wasn't a joke then and it's not a joke now.

    Topics: Crime & Punishment
  • Saturday's Set Times and "Itinerary" for Them Crooked Vultures' Seattle Visit

    davejosh.jpg
    7 p.m.: The Paramount doors open.

    8 p.m.: Mini Mansions take the stage in support.

    9:15 to 10:45 p.m.: Them Crooked Vultures (Zeppelin's John Paul Jones, Nirvana's Dave Grohl, and Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age) take the stage.

    11:15 p.m.--12:15 a.m.: Jones leads the band in a nostalgic bit of fishing out the window of their suite at The Edgewater Hotel.

    12:15--2 a.m.: The band break into Anthony's, raids the liquor, heats up a pan, and Jones cooks up some Zeppelin-style fish 'n' chips.

    2 a.m. til Exhaustion: Homme and Grohl take their pants off and reenact that damn statue at the Olympic Sculpture Park.

    Sunrise: With the park finally open, the three men enjoy a leisurely stroll past the eraser.


    Topics: News
  • It's Official: Schoolyard Heroes Are Calling It Quits

    noschool.jpg
    Justin Dylan Renney
    Schoolyard Heroes at Vera Project.
    To close the book on the band after eight years of making music reaching back to core members' high school days, horror rockers Schoolyard Heroes will regroup with their classic lineup -- Ryann Donnelly, Jonah Bergman, Steve Bonnell, Brian Turner -- for December 19's Horrordays at El Corazon. It will be their last show. Kane Hodder will also be reuniting their original lineup for the show, and promptly break up.

    "I'm really glad schoolyard heroes are being put to rest the way it started," vocalist Ryann Donnelly told us yesterday before today's official announcement. "And, honestly, the reason we're calling it a day on Schoolyard isn't because we don't love it."

    Donnelly says the reason it was time to move on was that she and Bergman couldn't see working as Schoolyard without Bonnell and Turner, who exited separately within the last year.

    "It was strange to play shows as Schoolyard Heroes with different people," she says.

    In the announcement on their web site, Schoolyard hinted at the future:

    "Don't freak out! If Schoolyard Heroes has taught you anything over the years, it is that death is always around you... and that from death shall emerge new channels of destruction. Loud, distorted, maybe even operatic channels."

    We'll post more info as we get it.

    Topics: News
  • David Mendoza, Former Owner of Pazzo's Pizza, Weed Smuggler, Gets 14 Years in Prison

    Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Pazzo's(1).jpg
    Definitely under new management
    David R. Mendoza's life in summation: former Garfield High School class president. Owner of the historic Liberty Theater in Bend, Oregon, and the bro-friendly Pazzo's Pizzeria in Eastlake. Apparent friend to the entire B.C. chronic smoking nation.

    As of today, however, you can add sentenced pot smuggler to that list.

    Topics: Crime & Punishment
  • Sighted: A Taco Truck Parks in Pioneer Square

    campesino.jpg
    My car just automatically followed this truck after spotting it on Jackson Street, followed it to it's Thursday through Saturday parking spot. Tacos El Campesino sets up on Occidental between Yesler and Washington and opens for business at 4:00 p.m., but the honking cars behind me precluded me from getting the closing time and more info. This truck usually produces a better than decent torta (carne asada over carnitas).

    Topics: Eats report
  • Two Very Different Opinions on the Seattle Housing Market

    houseforsale.jpg
    To buy or not to buy? That is the question.
    CNNMoney.com reports today that if you're in the market for a lifetime's worth of debt, Seattle is a great place to live. The Emerald City placed second behind only San Francisco in a list of cities most likely to see their home values increase by 2011.

    According to forecasters polled by the cable-news giant, that means a 3.8% jump thanks to our "better than average" job market. A welcome softening of the 15% free fall housing values have taken since the bottom fell out. And a seriously delusional load of crap if you're to believe the lovable cranks over at real-estate blog Seattle Bubble.



    Topics: Economy
  • OMG! Jonas Brothers to Endorse Microsoft Xbox360!

    Jonas_bros_resize2.jpg
    The Jonas Brothers want...more brains!
    You know what? Let Apple have its annoying Justin Long and nerdy John Hodgman for those Mac versus PC commercials. Microsoft just upped the celebrity stakes by announcing that teen rockers the Jonas Brothers will be endorsing its Xbox360 videogame console.

    The NYT and others are reporting that a new MSFT ad campaign will prominently feature the tween rockers. The spots are built around the catchphrase "It's more fun time." (Not something you could ever imagine Steve Ballmer saying.) Given that gamers are overwhelmingly male (not the brothers' fan base), it's unclear how the clean-shaven, Disney-created trio will connect with those who prefer Grand Theft Auto and first-person shooter games to bubblegum pop.

    Unless, of course, a game can be developed that features the Jonas Brothers as evil, brain-eating zombies who, with the power of their their stupefying music, turn millions of preadolescent girls into their army of slaves. Oh, wait...

    Topics: Business
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