NEW OPENINGS 

Jack's BBQ
Jack Timmons's Texas-style barbecue joint plans to debut a new Eastside location next Thursday, May 9, serving steak, fried chicken, and breakfast tacos in addition to its signature smoked meats.
Redmond

The last time I saw Lesley Hazelton was around 7 pm on December 5, 2023. I remember the time and day because we and others were in Fremont celebrating the launch of Blaise Aguera y Arcas's book Who Are We Now? All I remember of her that night was her energy, which was the same energy she expressed when I first met her in 1995 at a literary event in the Ruins. The energy is not easy to describe. It was so many things at once: funny, deadly serious, raw, sophisticated, and in the moment. When speaking to her, I always felt the past and future dissolve into the intensity of the here and now. And this intensity was found in her books, the most recent of which were biographies of long-gone religious figures: Jezebel: The Untold Story of the Bible's Harlot Queen, Mary: A Flesh-and-Blood Biography of the Virgin Mother, and The First Muslim: The Story of Muhammad. In the way she breathed life into a moment, she breathed life into her historical subjects. She made Jezebel a living being. The same goes with her approach to religion (she once wanted to be a rabbi but instead became an accidental theologist—the name of a blog ran between 2010 and 2017). With her, divinity was as real as her hair, the cigarette she was lighting, a book on her mind, the city that surrounded Lake Union and her houseboat.  

On Saturday, May 4, some of the Pacific Northwest's funniest people will take the stage at the Egyptian Theatre as part of The Stranger's Undisputable Geniuses of Comedy showcase. Andy Iwancio! Dan Hurwitz! Chris Mejia! Monica Nevi! Juno Men! Bernice Larson! Kermet Apio! And headliner Sam Miller! Plus, the whole night will be hosted by Emmett Montgomery, beloved weirdo, host of Friendship Dungeon and Joketellers Union, and one of 2023's Undisputable Geniuses.

It's going to be very funny! I hope you come! Tickets are available here! Exclamation points!

Glass Beams, "Snake Oil" (Ninja Tune)

Unlike most musicians today, Melbourne, Australia trio Glass Beams understand the power of mystery. At a time when everyone in the biz is hustling overtime for increasingly diminishing revenues and fans seek access to and info about their fave bands on social media 24/7, Glass Beams remain an enigma—a very popular enigma, garnering over one million monthly $p0t1fy listeners and selling out shows worldwide. They achieved all this despite rejecting the modern playbook for entertainment-industry success. (Only founding member Rajan Silva's name is known. A web search yields one interview with him—in Rolling Stone India.) You gotta love Glass Beams' quiet rebellion... and their fantastic music, too. 

Citing Indian luminaries Ananda Shankar (Ravi's nephew), R.D. Burman, and Kalyanji-Anandji as inspirations, Silva and band debuted with 2021's Mirage EP, a mesmerizing strain of psychedelic funk that hits with more mystical force than obvious sonic cousins Khruangbin. Glass Beams don't have a vocalist, per se, but they do incorporate chants and glossolalia as yet another instrument and mysterious layer in their rich aural tapestries. 

To Tony Sparks, author of Tent City, Seattle: Refusing Homelessness and Making a Home, the self-governing tent encampment Tent City 3 is as iconic and integral to the city’s social fabric as the Space Needle. Made possible by a 2002 consent decree that allowed the group to live legally on privately held land for 90 days at a time—the first such move by any US city—the camp is a “regular feature of Seattle’s neighborhood landscape,” Sparks writes, due to its “persistent peripatetic existence.”

As a graduate student at the University of Washington in the mid-aughts, Sparks lived in Tent City 3 for seven months, contributing as other residents do to the encampment’s ongoing maintenance and negotiation with landowning religious groups, city officials, service providers, NIMBY neighbors, and others governing the place of Tent City 3 and its residents. Tent City, Seattle, which Sparks says he began writing in 2020 “entirely as a rage piece,” is the culmination of that work. It argues that self-governance lets encampment residents rebuke how housed people and homelessness services perceive them, opening up cracks in the colonially determined ways Seattle governs shelter and movement. 

Let's go back to the critics of Kshama Sawant. They were, if you remember, in the habit of describing her as divisive. What was meant by this? Just one thing: She totally represented the interests of the destitute and working poor. Sawant had nothing to offer the rich. Nothing. Why? Because they already have everything: political power, economic power, and power over the distribution of mainstream information. Today, the only member of our City Council who comes close to Sawant's political program and positions is Council Member Tammy Morales. She beat the Republican Tanya Woo by 2 points. This makes the district she represents—composed of "Rainier Beach, Beacon Hill, Columbia City, Hillman City, Othello, [and the like]"—the baddest ("...not bad meaning bad, but bad meaning good") part of town. And as one who lives in Columbia City, I can confirm there's great pride in this fact. A pride that grows as the majority of the Council regresses to the Lilliputian weltanschauung of Jonathan Choe and Brandi Kruse.

Whether you're putting the finishing touches on your weekend plans or you have no idea what you're doing right after you shut your laptop on Friday, we're here to help. We'd like to suggest cheap and easy events from Windermere Cup Week to the Asian Pacific Islander Heritage Month Celebration and from Free Comic Book Day to Fogón's 2nd Annual Cinco de Mayo Block Party. For more ideas, check out our guide to the top events of the week and our Cinco de Mayo calendar.

FRIDAY

LIVE MUSIC

Kassi Valazza with Bart Budwig and Mike Giacolino
I love it when artists reference their own names (see: Caroline Polachek's "Caroline Shut Up," Cardi B's "Bartier Cardi" or Harry Styles’ latest album, Harry's House). So, when I saw that Kassi Valazza's new album was called Kassi Valazza Knows Nothing, I was immediately bewitched. The album doesn’t disappoint, with British folk-inspired tunes that explode into spellbinding psychedelic jams. However, it's Valazza's timeless vocals, which bring to mind folk greats like Joan Baez, Buffy Saint Marie, and Iris Dement, that make the album an instant classic. She will play songs from the album after opening sets from indie-Americana singer-songwriters Bart Budwig and Mike Giacolino. AUDREY VANN
(Sunset Tavern, Ballard, $15-$17)

On Saturday, May 4, some of the Pacific Northwest's funniest people will take the stage at the Egyptian Theatre as part of The Stranger's Undisputable Geniuses of Comedy showcase. Andy Iwancio! Dan Hurwitz! Chris Mejia! Monica Nevi! Juno Men! Bernice Larson! Kermet Apio! And headliner Sam Miller! Plus, the whole night will be hosted by Emmett Montgomery, beloved weirdo, host of Friendship Dungeon and Joketellers Union, and one of 2023's Undisputable Geniuses.

It's going to be very funny! I hope you come! Tickets are available here! Exclamation points!

UPDATE: Due to unforeseen circumstances, Sam Miller is unable to perform at Saturday's showcase. We are thrilled to announce that Dewa Dorje and Derek Sheen, two of our 2023 comedy geniuses, will now be joining us!

Evergreen State College says it will divest: Around a week after Evergreen students started their protest encampment, they will remove tents and stop the protest after Evergreen State College agreed to explore divestment from companies involved in the Israel-Hamas war. Additionally, the college agreed to publicly call for a ceasefire. Evergreen now joins Brown and Northwestern in the group of colleges that have listened to its student protesters. 

Another dead Boeing whistleblower: Joshua Dean, 45, a former quality auditor at a Boeing supplier, died Tuesday after a MRSA bacterial infection. Dean was openly concerned about the improperly drilled holes in Boeing's 737 Max jet fuselages. Dean is the second Boeing whistleblower to die in the last three months, according to NPR. Hm. I guess it's just... coincidence? 

It seems they may not have laid off everyone ... https://t.co/SGjOS2YjBJ https://t.co/MrGT6cJn2l

— The Needling (@TheNeedling) May 2, 2024

On Saturday, May 4, some of the Pacific Northwest's funniest people will take the stage at the Egyptian Theatre as part of The Stranger's Undisputable Geniuses of Comedy showcase. Andy Iwancio! Dan Hurwitz! Chris Mejia! Monica Nevi! Juno Men! Bernice Larson! Kermet Apio! And headliner Sam Miller! Plus, the whole night will be hosted by Emmett Montgomery, beloved weirdo, host of Friendship Dungeon and Joketellers Union, and one of 2023's Undisputable Geniuses.

It's going to be very funny! I hope you come! Tickets are available here! Exclamation points!

I Saw U at Julia's Bad Girls Brunch

You were full of the electricity. You went on stage and were fire itself. You took a pic with me in it. I waved, you showed me. You are so gorgeous!

Zen and the Art of Mandolin

five years ago maybe. we talked at a bus stop, our bus never came. you got a gig car and gave me a ride. tell me what bus stop it was. cheers <3

The party’s not over! Billie Eilish is bringing her Hit Me Hard and Soft tour to the Climate Pledge Arena this winter. Slipknot has also announced a tour celebrating the 25th anniversary of their debut self-titled album. Plus, P!nk will fly through the Tacoma Dome this September. Read on for details on those and other newly announced events, plus some news you can use.

Tickets go on sale at 10 am unless otherwise noted.

ON SALE FRIDAY, MAY 3

MUSIC

AJ Rafael
Neumos (Sat Sept 28)

American Aquarium
Neumos (Sun Nov 10)
On sale at 7 am

Animals As Leaders
The Showbox (Thurs Oct 31)

On Saturday, May 4, some of the Pacific Northwest's funniest people will take the stage at the Egyptian Theatre as part of The Stranger's Undisputable Geniuses of Comedy showcase. Andy Iwancio! Dan Hurwitz! Chris Mejia! Monica Nevi! Juno Men! Bernice Larson! Kermet Apio! And headliner Sam Miller! Plus, the whole night will be hosted by Emmett Montgomery, beloved weirdo, host of Friendship Dungeon and Joketellers Union, and one of 2023's Undisputable Geniuses.

It's going to be very funny! I hope you come! Tickets are available here! Exclamation points!

Lesson learned: Earlier this week, Ashley called me out for being a “corporate shill” because I used Accuweather for my forecast instead of the National Weather Service. My bad! The National Weather Service is forecasting a suuuuuuper nice day—sunny with a high of 63!

Popular University for Gaza: I overheard two students at UW sorta laughing at how small the Progressive Student Union’s (PSU) encampment was early yesterday afternoon, but not 10 minutes later a bunch of students from the United Front for Palestinian Liberation (UF) rolled in with tents, easily doubling the size of the occupation to a steady population of 150. According to the UF’s media liaison, the students plan to stay in the quad until the University meets their demands: Divest from Israel, cut ties with Boeing, and stop repressing Palestinian students and faculty. 

NOW: A large group of student advocates are setting up more tents at the quad at UW, at least doubling the existing Gaza solidarity encampment that's already calling for the Universoty to divest from Israel pic.twitter.com/9PrpN2VXIz

— Hannah Krieg (@hannahkrieg) May 1, 2024