The Weather Today 3:30 PM

This Unsually Warm Weekend Was a Nightmare

We Should Be Horrified by This Weather, Not Enjoying It

Let's begin with social engineering. It's usually seen as one of the dark arts. For example, Wikipedia describes it as, one, "the psychological manipulation of people into performing actions or divulging confidential information." It also describes it as something specific to socialist societies: "In the 1920s the government of the Soviet Union embarked on a campaign to fundamentally alter the behavior and ideals of Soviet citizens..." With the latter, the implication is that Western liberal polities encourage the freest thinking possible. You get to vote for your leaders, the market offers you more choices than your heart desires, you are free to decide which God created you and the entire universe, and so on and so on.

But of course, one has always already been socially engineered—this inescapable condition is also called interpellation. You were not born with the certainty that free markets produce the best social results. You were not born with a Christian soul. All of these feelings and ideas (feelings as concepts) are the result of social engineering. And so it is not a question if it's bad or not. What matters is if it's empowering or disempowering, if it presents feelings that correspond with the real state of affairs or does not. Social engineering's material is human feeling. And what it does with this psycho/physical material, to use the language of the great British cultural theorist Raymond Williams, is structure it. A civil engineer builds bridges. A social engineer builds feelings.

With that in mind, let's turn to this weekend's unusually warm weather. How did Seattle feel about it?

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Elections 2024 Today 2:08 PM

Make Sure Your Vote Got Counted

Washington’s "Uncommitted Delegates" Vote Hangs in the Balance

Election agencies challenged more than 80,000 ballots in the Washington State Presidential primary last week. Of those, 20,000 come from residents in King County, home to the largest percentage of voters who selected “Uncommitted Delegates” in the Democratic primary in protest of President Joe Biden’s support for Israel’s ongoing genocide of Palestinians.

Supporters of the movement to vote “uncommitted” believe that “curing” those challenged ballots could lead to Washington sending uncommitted delegates to the Democratic National Convention and may even be enough to make us one of the least-committed states in the country. Voters have until 4:30 pm on Thursday, March 21 to fix their ballots online or return (not just postmark) their resolution form to get their vote counted before certification on Friday.

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Music Today 12:25 PM

Arizona Man Turns Seattle Church into Planetarium

Steve Roach Celebrated 40th Anniversary of Ambient Masterpiece Structures from Silence at First Baptist

"Reflections is an immersive curatorial platform for sound, light, and space." That basic description belies a very important mission in the 2020s: to provide sanctuary from the numerous fucking horrors of the fucking world and to figuratively turn down the temperature of an overheated planet. And so Reflections founders Brandon Shotwell and Bob Maynard continued their Nobel-worthy project by bringing Southwestern ambient-music maestro Steve Roach to Seattle First Baptist Church on March 15 in order to celebrate the 40th anniversary of his classic album, Structures from Silence. 

Reputedly a favorite of yoga instructors, medical doctors, and psychotherapists, Structures from Silence was influenced by Southern California's many deserts, where the young musician absorbed their spaciousness and quiet into his aesthetics. As Roach said in the liner notes to the 2017 reissue of Structures, "I was uncovering and discovering a palpable sense of stillness emanating from a soundcurrent of 'silence.'"

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I Saw U Today 10:17 AM

I Saw U Is Back!

See Someone? Say Something.

You asked for it, Seattle! The Stranger's beloved I Saw U column is back.

Catch an eye on the light rail but miss your chance to grab that number? Fail to exchange contact information with that they/them baddie in the park, that adorable bank teller, that mysteriously shy go-go dancer? Don’t let that spark die. Write up a little love note to your crush, and we’ll share it on our platforms. 

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EverOut Today 10:00 AM

The Top 36 Events in Seattle This Week: Mar 18–24, 2024

Trevor Noah, Neko Case, and More Top Picks

There's a lot to do and see this week and no time to waste—we've done the heavy lifting by compiling the very best things to do, with events from Trevor Noah: Off The Record to Neko Case and from Women in Beer to Moisture Festival.

TUESDAY

COMEDY

Trevor Noah: Off The Record
Having grown up in apartheid-era South Africa, Noah’s worldly perspective shines alongside common-sense feminism in his specials like African American, Afraid of the Dark. Noah continues to prove that political correctness is not a threat to comedy. His is the kind of stand-up you can learn a thing or two from; Noah’s cultural commentary is the entire reason I now pronounce “zebra” correctly. PORTLAND MERCURY CONTRIBUTOR JENNI MOORE
(Paramount Theatre, Downtown)

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Cops Today 9:00 AM

See a Cop Driving Irresponsibly? Report It.

If We Report Enough Cops for Driving Badly, Maybe They’ll Stop Killing Us and Costing Us Money

Have you ever seen a cop apparently take an illegal left turn, speed unnecessarily, or generally drive like an asshole, and then wonder whether they’re really above traffic laws? Well, they aren’t! And you–a normal-ass Seattle resident–can help try to stop that bad behavior by reporting irresponsible driving to the Office of Police Accountability. Doing so may reduce serious injuries or death, and help the City save hundreds of thousands of dollars in the process. 

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Looking to buy land in Seattle? Why don't you snatch up 10 acres of sweet, sweet North Seattle land for only $1.5 million? The only catch is those 10 acres are Crown Hill Cemetery. 

A big, fat KING 5 correction: Last week, KING 5 reported on how a US District Court judge sided with the King County Sheriff's Office (KCSO) in a legal motion that would preclude the KCSO from enforcing Burien's new camping ban, which makes it illegal for people to sleep overnight within 500 feet of libraries, schools, daycares, parks, and senior centers. The KING 5 report stated the judge had ruled in KCSO's favor and determined the KCSO wouldn't have to enforce the ban. Now, a correction reads that the judge hasn't ruled at all, that many of the quotes KING 5 used in the story—many which were attributed and contained substance about the ruling and the ban's constitutionality—were "misattributed." How can you misattribute quotes about something if the thing hasn't actually happened? This is a big journalistic blunder. So big that it makes you wonder whether a journalist actually wrote it. 

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EverOut Fri 5:40 PM

This Week in Seattle Food News

A Halal Smash Burger Joint Arrives, HoneyHole Gets New Owners, and A Cookie Bakery Says Goodbye

In this week's edition of food news, SMA5H brings halal burgers to Beacon Hill, new ownership takes over HoneyHole, and we learn what's next for the legendary Machiavelli space. Plus, find out where to get sakura buns and Guinness-glazed doughnuts. For more ideas, check out our food and drink guide.

NEW OPENINGS 

SMA5H
This new halal smash burger joint recently opened its doors in Beacon Hill. Besides burgers, the restaurant also serves chopped cheeses, chicken sandwiches, loaded fries, and shakes in flavors like mango and Oreo.
Beacon Hill

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Emma Stone's role as the guileless baby-in-a-woman's-body Bella Baxter in the Yorgos Lanthimos picaresque Poor Things has everyone talking, especially as the star took home an Oscar for Best Actress for the role on Sunday.

But when I saw the film, there was another onscreen presence I couldn't tear my eyes away from: Portuguese egg tarts.

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The Seattle City Council pitched some ideas on Tuesday for how to retain and recruit Seattle Police Department (SPD) officers. Ideas included higher raises, providing child care, and allowing cops to take home their patrol cars. City Council President Sara Nelson, who has criticized the City in the past for its “unsustainable” spending, floated the idea of the housing subsidies for police officers. At a time when the City’s hiring freeze threatens summer camps for disabled youth, the city council's readiness to drain the general fund to perhaps marginally increase recruitment rates for police at the expense of all else raises serious questions about the budget priorities in a city facing a major budget shortfall, a housing crisis, and several other issues. 

At the meeting, Deputy Mayor Tim Burgess, SPD Chief Adrian Diaz, and members of the City’s human resources and recruitment teams presented the Council with an overview of the state of staffing, recruitment, and retention at the department. Diaz gave the same spiel as always, saying that SPD’s number of deployable officers has dropped by 375 in the last five years, sinking to its lowest number since 1991. No one mentioned that the number of major crimes reported in Seattle in 2022 is down by about 20,000 compared to 1991, but, whatever, let them continue to throw out that meaningless benchmark. 

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Arushi Jain, “Imagine an Orchestra” (Leaving)

As anyone who caught her 2023 set opening for the analog-synth legend Suzanne Ciani at Seattle's First Baptist Church can attest, Arushi Jain is a sublime instrumentalist/vocalist. Her renditions of Hindustani classical music realized on modular synthesizers made her fusions of ancient and modern/Eastern and Western sound like golden silk feels. Also, it's exceptionally rare for a master of minimalist composition to sing with the devotional beauty of Jain. So, we are fortunate that this NYC-based Indian artist decided to leave the tech industry to devote her time to music.

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Podcasts Fri 12:00 PM

BE/ST FRI/ENDS

Lindy West and Meagan Hatcher-Mays's New Podcast Text Me Back Is the Perfect Blend of Life

Look, I love true crime podcasts as much as the next Gen Xer who grew up in the Pacific Northwest where the evergreen trees whisper Gary Ridgway, Robert Lee Yates, and Ted Bundy's names. But as the world gets increasingly overwhelming, so can the constant stream of murder. Comedy podcasts can be an entertaining alternative, but I don't always want to completely ignore the hellscape burning outside. (I have Love Is Blind for that.) And political podcasts? These days, for me, most go one of two ways: Too wonky or too depressing. 

Forgive me for going full Goldilocks, but Text Me Back, KUOW's newish podcast hosted by the hilarious Lindy West and her democracy policy expert BFF Meagan Hatcher-Mays, is juuuust right.

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Fri 11:00 AM

The Best Bang for Your Buck Events in Seattle This Weekend: Mar 15–17, 2024

St. Patrick's Day Celebrations, U District Cherry Blossom Festival, and More Cheap & Easy Events Under $15

It's your lucky day—you've found your way to the corner of the internet that's gonna give you the best intel on how to spend your weekend. Peruse solid gold events from the 53rd Annual St. Patrick's Day Parade to Irish Festival Seattle and from U District Cherry Blossom Festival to Ma’Chell M. Duma: 33 1/3rd - Invasion Of Privacy.

FRIDAY

FOOD & DRINK

Ghost Note Coffee 7 Year Anniversary
The Capitol Hill cafe Ghost Note Coffee is one of my favorite places to go for a fancy beverage—they treat their menu items like cocktails, with complex flavor profiles and additions like chai-spiced honey, smoked grapefruit rosemary syrup, and spiced chocolate bitters. On Friday, they'll celebrate their lucky seventh birthday with 30% everything in store and online, plus a cake pop-up from 11 am-3 pm from the married baking duo Lovely&Dapper Desserts. (Don't miss the "Lush Life," a cake inspired by Ghost Note's bestselling signature drink of the same name, made with honey, Lighthouse Roasters espresso, lime, grapefruit syrup, almond buttercream, and candied grapefruit). Gift card purchases over $50 will earn you a free T-shirt. JULIANNE BELL
(Ghost Note Coffee, Capitol Hill)

Music Fri 10:00 AM

All Apologies

No, a Podcast Dedicated to Kurt Cobain's Favorite Records in 2024 Isn't Redundant. I'm as Surprised as You Are.

I was skeptical when I first heard about KEXP's newest podcast, The Cobain 50. The series, hosted by Dusty Henry and Martin Douglas, is a weekly look at the titles featured on Kurt Cobain’s handwritten list of “Top 50” albums. Cobain wrote the list sometime in the early '90s (it includes PJ Harvey's Dry, which was released in 1992) and it was published posthumously in 2002 in Journals. Since then, it has been featured, dissected, and discussed in Spin, Kerrang!, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, Brooklyn Vegan, and countless Tumblr and Reddit threads.

Now a podcast? In 2024? What’s the fucking point? 

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Dance Fri 9:52 AM

'Here Because' Made the Future of Seattle Dance Look Bright

The Showcase Featured an Incredible Diversity of Movement and Some Emerging Generational Talents

Last Friday at 12th Avenue Arts, the Seattle Project and Velocity Dance Center premiered here because, an evening of contemporary dance that aimed to answer a few of the questions implied by the show's title; namely, why are all these dancers working together here in Seattle, and how come they haven't moved to LA or New York yet?

Though I left the theater still wondering a little about the precise ways in which Seattle as a place influenced the dancers and their movements, I felt little doubt about how lucky the city was to host such talent. 

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