En route to flattening the curve. LESTER BLACK In an attempt to slow the spread of coronavirus, Gov. Jay Inslee ordered “restaurants, bars and entertainment and recreational facilities” across the state of Washington to temporarily shutter, according to a statement released Sunday evening. Restaurants will still be able to deliver takeout. Grocery stores and pharmacies […]
Rich Smith
Rich Smith writes about politics, books, and performance for The Stranger. You can hear his impersonations of Bernie Sanders and Jeff Sessions on Blabbermouth, and you can read his poems at www.richsmithpoetry.com
Posted inNational Politics
Bernie Sanders Draws Over 17,000 to the Tacoma Dome
The prospective “organizer in chief” comes through town with a list of policies only a billionaire could hate. Lester Black The following article comes from our sister paper, The Stranger.—eds. On President’s Day (hint, hint) over 17,000 people packed the Tacoma Dome to rally in support of Democratic frontrunner Senator Bernie Sanders. The crowd size […]
Posted inBooks
Anna Wiener Offers an Anthropological View of the Tech Industry in Her Memoir Uncanny Valley
AUTHOR PHOTO BY RUSSELL PERKINS Editor’s note: This piece was originally published by our sister paper The Stranger in Seattle. People Who Matter In East Coast Media and my social-media feed have made it very clear that we all must set aside a couple days to read Anna Wiener’s Uncanny Valley, a memoir about a […]
Posted inNational Politics
CNN Lost Last Night’s Debate
Biden had a good night, thanks to CNN anchors going after his rivals. Spencer Platt / GETTY IMAGES Only a few weeks before the Iowa caucuses, CNN treated the good people of Des Moines (and anyone with a CNNgo account, or a Twitter feed) to a dull, disingenuous debate on several policy issues the Democratic […]
Posted inBooks
E.J. Koh’s Memoir The Magical Language of Others Is a Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Korean Genius
At 15 years old, E.J. Koh was left in the United States when her parents moved to South Korea. JENNY JIMENEZ “There is a Korean belief that you are born the parent of the one you hurt most,” E.J. Koh writes in her new memoir, The Magical Language of Others. “I was revenge when I […]
Posted inBooks
Ben Lerner’s Genius Third Novel, The Topeka School, Tackles Toxic Masculinity
PHOTO BY CATHERINE BARNETT Ben Lerner again walks the outer edges of prose form and perspective in his third novel, The Topeka School, a book “about family and art and memory and meaning, how it’s made and unmade,” to borrow a line from one of its many extraordinary passages. The obsession humming under the well-wrought, […]
Posted inFood and Drink
Caffé Vita Employees Say They’re Getting Fired for Feeding Old Pastries to Homeless People
Caffé Vita on the Hill, one of ten locations across the country. RS [The following was published by our sister paper the Stranger in Seattle. Caffé Vita also has a location in Portland.—eds] Wednesday afternoon at 4:30 p.m. supporters of Caffé Vita baristas will gather outside the local coffee chain’s Capitol Hill location in Seattle […]
Posted inBooks
Book Review Patti Smith’s Year of the Monkey: Spare Me the Boomer Mysticism
STEVEN SEBRING Did the world begin to collapse in 2016 because corporate greed reached its zenith as political courage reached its nadir, or because it was the Year of the Monkey in the Chinese zodiac? Mystic punk rocker Patti Smith investigates in Year of the Monkey. This book follows Just Kids, a National Book Award–winning […]
Posted inBooks
Kristen Arnett’s Freak Flag Flies at Full Mast in Mostly Dead Things
AUTHOR PHOTO BY MARIA JONES Kristen Arnett has amassed a large following on Twitter, in part for refusing to reveal the location of a lizard to 7-Eleven’s corporate Twitter account because she didn’t want to “narc” on her new reptilian friend. She had met the lizard in the course of her regular wine run to […]
Posted inBikes
Bike Ride and History Talk: Tessa Hulls on the Lost History of Female Bicycle Explorers
Tessa Hulls When Tessa Hulls looks at a bicycle, she doesn’t see it as a cool toy she can use for adventures. She sees it as a cool toy she can use for adventures and a tool for social liberation. In the last eight years, the polymath visual artist/comic/writer/adventurer has biked all over the planet, […]
Posted inDance
You Might Not Know It, but Shen Yun Is Dissident Art Presented By a Persecuted Religious Group
The story behind the ubiquitous ads.