Did you see someone? Say something! by Anonymous

Illustrations by Helen Nesburg

three friends on the one line

you and your friends hopped on the packed 1 line yesterday as i was heading home, but your black/blond hair combo got me, hmu?

huggers outside la dive 1/5

Seattle, we don’t hug enough. Or at least not like the two I saw last Thursday night. That was an EMBRACE. TY for keeping romance and whimsy alive.

Drugged up and down bad

Me: I’m the ER for a broken back. You: hot doctor who had to give me a rectal exam. Let’s break HIPPA?

u know how to whistle don't you steve

to have and have not @ SIFF. same stop on D line. i regret not saying hi! u have good taste in clothes & movies. thin man @ central cinema next month?

My heart stopped in the soup aisle

Cap Hill TJ’s 2/11 6pm. You: Dark ponytail, glasses, 2 black panniers, rolled up pant leg Me: Blue coat, short brown beard, wishing I paused when we locked eyes by your bike

Compliments @ st. Bread 2/6

you, blonde cutie w/ a blue bag and “mt. st. helens pin” me: wearing an orange knitted hat. You complimented my hat and name. Baked goods on me?

Is it a match? Leave a comment here or on our Instagram post to connect!

Did you see someone? Say something! Submit your own I Saw U message here and maybe we'll include it in the next roundup!

If a Washington rainforest started a band, it would sound something like Mt Fog. Carolyn B.’s playful whispers are like a sprite luring you into a mossy forest; the rhythm section—Andy Sell and Casey Rosebridge—like raindrops plopping into a mushroom; the electronics shimmer like a ray of light through the trees. The Seattle-based trio whimsically marries the vocal stylings of Kate Bush, Björk, and Siouxsie Sioux with sparse electronics, evocative of CAN and Mort Garson, and a free jazz song structure. Ahead of releasing their new album, Every Stone Is Green (out Mar 13), and accompanying release show at the Tractor Tavern, I spoke to the band about the medieval mystics, cosmic jazz albums, and psychedelic dreams that inspired them.

One thing that is really unique about Mt Fog is that you don’t use six-string guitars. Was this a conscious choice or something that happened by accident?
CAROLYN: Well, I started Mt Fog as my solo project, and I don't play guitar—I’ve never been that into guitars. So, in the beginning, all the music I was writing was oriented towards voice and a drum machine. It has just evolved from that. Also, I think a trio is the most powerful, stable form. If we had a guitarist, they wouldn't be included in our throuple scenarios. [Laughs]

ANDY: Carolyn covers a lot of ground with the various synth patches and her voice. We play around with all kinds of textures as well, with the drum and bass. It's full enough without having a guitar. Although I like the guitar sometimes. It's either guitar, or I’m like, hey, we should put some congas on this thing!

CAROLYN: No guitar. No shaker. No slap bass. 

ANDY: There are a lot of rules in Mt Fog [laughs]. It’s not a democracy, and that's cool. 

Every Stone Is Green has an improvisational feel to it, especially on songs like “Trees in Conversation.” Were spontaneous decisions made while recording?
ANDY: There's not a whole lot to say about the drums on “Trees in Conversation,” but it was improvised. We kind of built that into the song that's right after it, so it starts with the drum solo, then goes into “Eyes in Buildings.” I have a jazz background, so that song has that improvisational character to it. I was surprised when Carolyn said, “Yeah, the drum solo should be this long!” 

CAROLYN: Side B is more spontaneous because we recorded it live together in the studio. My instincts on this album were to capture a fleeting, whimsical, curious feeling, so I'm really happy to hear that comes across. The song started as these rough ideas, as songs do, and then we worked on them together, and things would come up just naturally, spontaneously. For example, “Imperfect Machine” was something Casey came up with while I was taking a break during rehearsal. I came in, and he was playing this really cool thing. I made a voice memo of it, and then he and Andy expounded upon that idea at the studio. Then, I had a realization that the song sounded like a caravan full of giggling goblins with a little ratty flag coming through the desert, that’s like, getting closer and closer, then goes off into the distance. 

What media were you consuming while writing or recording the album?
CAROLYN: ECM’s ’70s jazz records were a big influence, particularly Gateway [the trio of John Abercrombie, Dave Holland, and Jack DeJohnette]. It’s hard to describe, but they create these portals in time that you could spend a million years in—it's really beautiful cosmic jazz. One of the records we have by them had a skip in it during Dave Holland’s bass playing that was really cool. I recorded it, and then while learning bass, I tried to replicate that baseline skip. That became the basis for “Grimelda’s Cave.” It was an immediate reflection of the things we were listening to. We were also listening to a lot of prog—Yes’s Fragile, and a lot of other weird 1970s jazz. I was just thinking a lot about the different textures you can make and how music can be fractal; there are micro moments that can be really special, but how do we turn them into a whole song? 

I was also inspired by mystics of the medieval times, especially Hildegard of Bingen. I've always loved her—I organized a mini music festival last year inspired by her, which got me to delve deeper into her concept of “viriditas,” about the green energy that's within us all. One of the songs, “Life as a Window,” is from Hildegard’s perspective. 

ANDY: We all have musical backgrounds, but it's all filtered through Carolyn’s vision. Carolyn has concepts for a lot of the songs, like “Hey, this sounds like goblins!”

CASEY: Yeah, it’s usually goblins. 

You also mentioned the Brontës in your album description. Do you have a favorite Brontë sister or a favorite Brontë novel?
CAROLYN: Definitely Jane Eyre. While thinking about how to describe the album, I was like, “It's Gothic with a capital G, like Gothic literature.” Andy was like, “No one will know what that means; they’ll think it means dark wave.” So I described it as “a Gothic tale, in the Brontë sisters’ sense.” 

I think, too, that there are feminine aspects to the music, reminiscent of a journey that might get scary at times. You might encounter big landscapes and ghosts. You may not be able to entirely understand what's going on, and there is a lot of heightened emotion. The Brontë sisters created huge worlds, even though their worlds were actually really small. They were governesses; they didn't traverse that much area, yet they were able to build these magnificent emotional universes. 

My friend actually asked me recently which Brontë sister each member of Mt Fog is. I was like, “We're not the sisters, we’re actually long-lost characters from the Brontë sisters' imagined world of Gondal. [Laughs]

Do you think seclusion is necessary for making art?
CAROLYN: Actually, Björk was recently talking about how streaming is the worst thing for artists because of the pressure of constantly being visible and making things. Björk is on our wall. [Points at poster] We love Björk in this household. “In this house we believe…” [Laughs] 

It’s a great thing to think about, because being able to retreat, hide, and explore things without being looked at is really, really important. It’s also really important for artists to be original. When you're out in the world, you're like a sponge absorbing information, and you need time to go home and dream about it. I think isolation is the sleeping/dreaming aspect of being an artist—you have to go to sleep so you can learn things. I think being alone is important as an artist, so you can synthesize the world that you're experiencing. Throw your computer into the sea, metaphorically (don’t cause environmental pollution!). 

Is the band’s relationship to the internet something you guys think about often?
CAROLYN: Definitely. We're all involved with Seattle Artists Against Spotify. As artists, we have a responsibility to be leaders and help create the world that we want to see. Our music is not on Spotify, but people are still listening to it. I don’t think these corporate-owned platforms have our best interests in mind. It’s a losing game for artists to try to succeed on these platforms. I'd rather have 100 people listen to our record and cry than a million people streaming on Spotify while they're doing five other things and paying their taxes.

What are your personal favorite tracks on the album?
CASEY: “Look Inside” really resonates with me lyrically and musically. I like the melody, the bass line, and the shape of the song—it’s fun to play. Every element is individually catchy, the energy is infectious, and the message is really positive.

CAROLYN: My favorite track is “A Single Green Strand Emerges,” because the idea came from the most vivid dream I've ever had. In this dream, I was looking for someone and came upon this vintage camera with a single green strand emerging from the aperture. I knew I had to crawl into the camera to find the person I was looking for. When I crawled inside, the middle of the camera was a dirt tunnel. I could feel that I was climbing through this tight space, and then, I emerged into a green, soft world that was very childlike. I found the person I was looking for, but I also knew I had to leave soon. It was one of the most psychedelic experiences I've ever had. So, the song is about that dream, and also about the feeling of working really hard to get someone to love you, which is a sad feeling that I've experienced before.

ANDY: “Green Strand Emerges” is also my favorite. I just love the feel and the power of it. I think it's a nice representation of what the band has morphed into. Plus, we recorded it live in the studio together, which is a testament to what the band can do. We were able to pull it off, and we surprised ourselves when we finished recording it. We were like, “Holy shit, this is it!”

Can you guys tell me a little bit more about the album artwork? Did the artist make it before listening to the album, or after? How did it come about?
CAROLYN: Yeah, we actually have the original oil painting right here. [Points at wall] It was done by our friend Nico Lund. She came to one of our shows, and we just connected like mad. Then, I reached out to her to see if she would make an original painting for our album art. It turns out she was about to reach out to me about the same thing! We were both in each other's heads. So, I shared all of the earliest recordings of the album, before we had fully recorded everything. 

We had a lot of conversations, but she is a fan of our music, so she already knew the vibe. When I first saw the concept sketch, I started crying because it was just so perfect. Then she took that original concept and made this beautiful painting. She's an amazing artist. Her work is really cool in person, too.

Let’s end with a fun question! Can you each share an artist, album, or song that you love but that other people hate? What music needs to be reevaluated?
CAROLYN: I like Björk’s 2007 album Volta, and I know some people really don't like that one. I love the song “Earth Intruders”—the very beginning sounds like gross, muddy footsteps. I actually like tried to recreate it for one of our other songs, and I wasn't able to come close. I also like that weird costume she wears on the cover.

ANDY: Maybe the third Duran Duran record, Seven and the Ragged Tiger—I think it's a really cool record. I also like the Accüsed a lot, which is a pretty far stretch from Mt Fog. Martha Splatterhead's Maddest Stories Ever Told is one of my favorite records that's ever been put out. 

CASEY: I’ll say Muse—people always told me that they were a poser band to like when I was like 18. They’d say, “Oh, you like Muse? That’s so lame!” But I thought they were so cool, and I still think they have cool musical ideas—they seem like fucking dorks, but whatever.

See Mt Fog at Tractor Tavern on Thursday, March 12, 8 pm, 21+

Ready for the time jump that is spring forward this Sunday? Before Monday's rough wake up call, spend time at weekend events from the Seattle Women's March to Seattle Fat Mall's Big Love Social + Market and from Chinatown-International District's Lunar New Year Celebration to the opening of Ai Weiwei: Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads. For more ideas, check out our top picks of the week.

Echo Ravine (Album Release,) VuVu & Black Nite Crash
Local band Echo Ravine joked on Instagram that though two of its members are originally from Massachusetts, their friendship survived the Super Bowl. The group is used to bridging divides; their alt-rock song "Tumbling Wall" is about breaking down literal and metaphorical barriers between countries and people. The track is off their third album, Taking Up Space, which they put out last month and are celebrating with a release show at Seattle's own community-owned cooperative venue this Friday. Pick up a one-of-a-kind record at the show—the band hand-stamped images and track names onto the vinyl covers for a perfectly DIY feel. Fellow shoegaze bands Black Nite Crash and VuVu open the night with their layered, guitar-driven rock. SHANNON LUBETICH
(Conor Byrne Pub, Ballard, $15)

The Stranger's morning news roundup. by Nathalie Graham

Layoffs at the 5th: The 5th Avenue Theatre Company is laying off 14 employees, cutting staff from 55 people to 41. The 5th is mired in the $7.5 million budget deficit it’s accumulated since the pandemic. Subscription rates haven’t recovered since COVID-era slowdowns. So, the theater is cutting jobs in "marketing, box office, education, and artistic departments," according to the Seattle Times. If you care about live theater in Seattle, you better go see their production of Jesus Christ Superstar this May. Don’t be a Judas.

We're Doing Slurs Now? During a House debate in Olympia over a bill that would “eliminate the Community Protection Program, a service for people with developmental disabilities who have a history of sexually aggressive behavior" Sen. Leonard Christian, R-Spokane Valley said this: "The folks that we’re responsible for, we’re putting rapists in with retarded people," reports the Seattle Times. It's not 2007 anymore, Leonard. He later defended his use of the r-word, saying it emphasized that the bill would be "feeding these people to the wolves." He has not apologized.

School District Sued: Makena Simonsen, a special needs student in the Edmonds School District (ESD), graduated from Lynnwood High School with a 3.87 GPA and a first-grade reading level. Four years after getting her diploma, Simonsen's family is suing ESD claiming it was "benevolent discrimination" to hand their daughter a diploma. Because if she hadn’t gotten one, she would’ve been eligible for a free vocational program in the district that helps special needs students make the transition to adult life. Simonsen had to pay more than $40,000 for a similar program at Bellevue College.

Big News for like 20 People: The walking, rolling, and biking advocacy group Seattle Neighborhood Greenways has rebranded to Seattle Streets Alliance. Just thought some of you might care, idk.

The Weather: Drizzly, rainy. What did you expect?

The Time: And say goodbye to an hour of sleep starting Sunday. Clocks skip forward this weekend.

Security. We’re On It: Donald Trump has removed Kristi Noem as Secretary of Homeland Security and replaced her with Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Oklahoma). Her new role is “Special Envoy for The Shield of the Americas,” head of a new security initiative. The purpose of this very real job will be announced tomorrow at an event in Florida.

It’s Tornado Season: Warm Gulf air is mixing with cold air from Canada. Millions of Americans from Iowa to Texas could be hit by strong tornados, the AP reports. Taking precautions could be the difference between life and death, experts say.

Water Is Wet: Donald Trump is in the Epstein files. The Pope is from Chicago. And the Florida International University college republicans are racist. Leaked WhatsApp group chats showed—surprise, surprise—the young conservatives are sending slurs, sexist and homophobic comments, and Nazi references back and forth. I can't wait until they graduate into high-level roles at Palantir.

I Don't Know Who I Am Anymore: For some reason, I care about Shohei Ohtani hitting a grand slam in his first game with team Japan at the World Baseball Classic.

SHOHEI OHTANI GRAND SLAM

[image or embed]

— MLB Daily News (@insidemlbnews.bsky.social) March 6, 2026 at 2:35 AM

Meanwhile, the Mariners Blew Chunks in Their Latest Spring Training Game: As Lookout Landing put it, Seattle's favorite only baseball team "gave up three touchdowns and two field goals" to the Padres yesterday. Yep, they lost 27-6.

An Update from Job Land: It's no good out there in Job Land. Employers axed 92,000 jobs in February and unemployment climbed to 4.4 percent. The unemployment rate isn’t bad, but the fact that it's rising is worrisome. The report paints a bleak picture of stagnant job growth. Hang onto your job if you have one.

Congrats to everyone who voted for Trump and a Republican Congress "for the economy." This is what you get, a sputtering job creation engine that can't make progress like before and keeps rolling backwards.

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

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— Max Kennerly (@maxkennerly.bsky.social) March 6, 2026 at 7:20 AM

We are the Baddies: According to Reuters, US military investigators are pretty sure the US is responsible for the apparent strike on an Iranian girls school that killed 150 children. The investigation hasn't been concluded yet.

War Continues: On Friday, Israel warplanes barraged Tehran and Beirut. Iran launched retaliatory strikes against Israel. President Trump made it clear he wants "complete surrender" from Iran. He made this statement in a Truth Social post.

Pass Gas: China is pressing Tehran to allow crude oil and Qatari gas safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz, Reuters reports. The war has all but shut the Straight, which makes China unhappy, because China gets 45 percent of its oil from the Straight. Meanwhile, crude oil prices are up 15 percent and US gas prices rose 11 percent in one week, hitting their highest point in the last year-and-a-half. Will this radicalize the normies?

Don't Forget about the Real Threat to Humanity: While everyone is worried about the rise of fascism, global warfare, and AI, climate change is still chugging away and spelling our doom. Researchers found that we are heating the earth faster than ever before. The heating rate has almost doubled. From 1970 and 2015, global heating increased by a rate less than 0.2 celsius per decade. In this most recent decade, that number jumped to 0.35 celcius. Scientists say that's the highest jump in warming since anyone started keeping track of temperature back in 1880. We are so boned.

Huge News: The Swiss Canton of Bern has chosen to keep the bear penis on its coat of arms after the government rejected a proposal to erase his junk. This bear will continue to hang dong as he has proudly for 600 years.

A Song for your Friday: I didn't know what to pick, so I scrolled randomly in my library and stopped on this. Enjoy.

News editor Vivian McCall poured a bit of blood and sweat into this slog.

After opening Outsider BBQ last March, self-taught pitmaster Onur Gulbay quickly built himself a cult following in Seattle. by Meg van Huygen

Hard to believe it’s been a whole year since Seattle, frequently bemoaned by Southerners as a barbecue wasteland, finally got some legit Texas-style barbecue. And made by a Turkish guy, no less. After opening Outsider BBQ last March, self-taught pitmaster Onur Gulbay quickly built himself a cult following with the authentic Central Texas-ass barbecue chops that he picked up while living in Austin. 

“I went to Franklin Barbecue and just fell in love,” Gulbay says, “and kept going back over and over, talking to the guys there, until I could learn how they were doing it.”

What started out as a pop-up, which the former IBM salesman ran from a portable smoker on wheels, re-manifested last year in the massive ex-Frelard Pizza Company space on Leary. Gulbay has since transformed the place into a sprawling smoked-meats compound, replete with fire pits, retractable garage-door walls, a play area for kids, a separate little house for his TWO gigantic smokers, and a huge outdoor beer garden. (Guess he learned that part from Texas, too. Oops, haha, it is cold here.) 

If this style and caliber of barbecue weren’t rare enough in the Northwest, Gulbay next-levels it with his gently Turkified versions of classic Southern sides: sumac-dusted potato salad, lemon–poppyseed coleslaw, a cinnamony rice pudding called sütlaç that’s similar to the American version except it's taken a ride in the smoker. The flavorful “street corn,” is a thick, creamy scoop of grilled esquites that’s loaded with fresh herbs and black pepper and shares architectural properties with Beecher’s mac. When asked what he puts it in, Gulbay pauses, then says, “Lots and lots of cheese. Like six cheeses.”

As for the meats, y’all can’t miss the snappy jalapeno-cheddar sausage, made in-house from pork and brisket trimmings, or the buttery meltaway brisket that disintegrates as soon as you breathe on it. Gulbay himself can’t get enough of the succulent beef rib, which is just flamboyantly enormous and always makes me think of the chunk of dino ribs that makes the runny footmobile fall over in the opener from The Flintstones. “My very favorite,” Gulbay proclaims. “It’s a whole meal by itself.” 

On Saturday, March 7, Outsider BBQ will be celebrating its first birthday with live music, specials, new menu items, and an all-day indoor/outdoor party. Guests should make sure to say hi to Gulbay, who is a goddang character and will be holding court all day. As our local barbecue prescriptivists bitch on Reddit about grill marks and bark tones, Gulbay’s creative take on a very pious category of American cuisine is at once faithful and playful, and it's refreshing as hell to see. It's also a great example of what makes Seattle’s restaurant scene so vivacious and unique. Something to celebrate for sure.

Said it before, but this town is a rough place to open a new restaurant, especially if you’re new to the area—and to say nothing of it being your first restaurant!—so a year in biz is no small feat. Congrats to Gulbay and the Outsider team, who are clearly elite insiders now. We’re so glad you’re here.

Kate Olson
So It Goes
(OA2)

Saxophonist/composer Kate Olson has excelled in Seattle’s jazz and experimental scenes for about 15 years as a solo artist, bandleader, and member of Syrinx Effect, Royal Room Collective Music Ensemble, and Battlestar Kalakala. She’s especially shown an affinity for minimalist works that exhibit a deep spirituality, à la Terry Riley, Pauline Oliveros, and Don Cherry. Olson’s last album, 2020’s Homeland, pushed her into new territory: funereal post-rock, industrial music recalling the Bug’s iciest and most ominous moments, and discombobulating IDM.

Olson returns to jazz on her new LP, So It Goes, joined by Conner Eisenmenger (trombone, trumpet), Tim Carey (electric bass, electric guitar), and Evan Woodle (drums, percussion). With Olson playing soprano sax, the album zips out of the gate with “Bumbling Thumbs Blues,” bustling bebop full of thrilling dynamics, with Woodle devoting acute attention to the tom-toms. Which makes the transition to the sly “Take Five” homage of “ShouldaCoulda” a brilliant change of pace. Olson finesses a quietly ecstatic and rococo solo in this utterly beguiling and introspective tune. The burrowing, mesmerizing bebop sorcery of “All Pear-Shaped” continues So It Goes’s hot streak.

But Olson also excels at cooler temperatures; her ballad game is strong. “Nominally Challenged” is beautiful, serpentine jazz for late nights or early mornings, while “Pink Mountain”—a delicate, bittersweet ballad—displays Olson’s playing at its most tender. Dedicated to Billy Pilgrim, protagonist of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five, “So It Goes” is a languorous, melancholy ballad with scene stalwarts Wayne Horvitz on piano and Geoff Harper on double bass. And showing immaculate taste, Olson and company—with Horvitz and Harper again lending stellar support—do justice to the legend Alice Coltrane’s questing astral-jazz composition “Translinear Light,” the title track from her final studio album. Real recognize real.

Thomas Andrew Doyle
Twilight
(Incineration Ceremony)

It’s crazy that Thomas Andrew Doyle’s synth-based music from 2017 onward flies so far under the radar, even though it ranks among his best output. The man best known as the leader of Sub Pop grunge brutes TAD has undergone a radical transformation in this century, and maybe fans of that band and critics just can’t get their heads around this new and improved musician/composer.

These days, Doyle’s into creating soundtracks in search of film directors who revel in transporting viewers to profoundly disturbing places. Twilight is Doyle’s latest excursion into the vast bleak. The epic title track begins with a subdued, solemn organ drone poised between hope and distress, creating a paradoxical tension. Eventually, ceremonial male chants enter and lend a wafting gravitas to proceedings. It would sound infernally grand in a theater. “1 over 137” is a bass-heavy dirge of deep suspense, cut with fluid synth motifs that suggest an appreciation for Dune-loving keyboard sorcerer Bernard Szajner. On “Decimated,” Doyle coaxes out the interstellar eeriness of Brian Eno’s best ’80s ambient releases. The despairing drones of “Dormant Complexities” approximate the sound of E.M. Cioran’s brain waves as he was writing A Short History of Decay. Dedicated to Doyle’s late friend, and friend of the paper (and entire city), Bradley Sweek, Twilight epitomizes the art of darkness.

Seattle-area musicians can send music to NewSeattleMusic@thestranger.com for possible coverage.

We’re serving up another fresh batch of tickets. Lo-fi R&B singer Joji supports his recently released album, Piss in the Wind, at Climate Pledge this summer. English virtual band Gorillaz closes out the North American leg of their Mountain Tour in Seattle. Plus, “American Woman” rockers The Guess Who are takin’ it back on their reunion tour. Read on for details on those and other newly announced events, plus some news you can use.

MUSIC

Belle & Sebastian: 30th Anniversary Tour, Performing "Tigermilk"
Neptune Theatre (Sat June 13)

Charley Crockett – Age of the Ram Tour
Northern Quest Resort & Casino (Wed July 15)

Concrete Boys
Neumos (Mon May 11)

Seattle’s hottest nightclub doesn’t have velvet ropes, bottle service, or a bouncer. Instead, it has folding tables. It has name tags. It has four people to a table, all playing mahjong. A year ago, this kicked off with two borrowed sets. Tonight, Emerald City Tile Club is standing room only.

An Unexpected Friday Night
On a recent Friday night, when I’d usually be confronting my shortcomings as both a home cook and a human, I instead found myself craving connection. For many these days, “socializing” means forwarding each other Reels… and not replying. Which is why it felt somewhat revolutionary to get dressed, hop in my car, and brave the parking situation of Capitol Hill. All to play mahjong with strangers.

I was at Stoup Brewing wearing a name tag, in a small room upstairs—high above the Carhartt-clad product managers and their Patagonia-donning dogs. The room was rocking, and it felt like a fashion show: gold and jade jewelry brushing against Chrome Hearts hoodies, ruched halter tops, and mock neck sweaters. Perfect mahjong fits: dressed for a game their grandparents played, styled like they might end up at a warehouse party after.

Fifteen tables were in play and not one empty. At some, the mood was loose, alternating between silly and flirtatious. At others, players leaned in without speaking, eyes fixed on the pile of engraved ivory tiles in front of them, focused like they were refining macrodata in Severance. Hong Kong, Taiwanese, and Filipino gameplay ensued, with rule sheets open between beer glasses. Onlookers, myself included, crowded around especially interesting games like a Vegas craps table.

I met a white man celebrating his 26th birthday wearing a magnificent custom felt crown like a malevolent mahjong monarch. I dapped him up. At another table, I saw a guy on crutches and another with a boot on. People planned their night around this event—insurance claims included. In the middle of Seattle’s winter, here were over a hundred people voluntarily sitting knee to knee, Labubu to Labubu, for hours, all sharing the understanding that if you sit down long enough, something great might happen.

Community Is Table Stakes
At the center of this room—though he would probably object to that phrasing—was Sean Herrera, the humble proprietor of Emerald City Tile Club.

A year ago, almost to the date, Sean was sipping a beer at Stoup, contemplating his future while doing trivia. He looked up to see folks playing board games, and the idea for Emerald City Tile Club formed all at once. He envisioned an accessible and welcoming social night surrounding the game his dad taught him to play. As a Filipino kid growing up in Alabama, Sean used mahjong as a magnet to find his people. He parlayed that energy when he moved to Seattle, hosting small mahjong nights with friends during COVID. Then they stopped being small. “It got too big at my place,” Sean told me, yelling over the DJs. “And I was like, how do I transform this into something bigger than myself?”

Around that time, he noticed mahjong social nights taking off in New York and Los Angeles, with editorial shots of young Asians framing the game as cool again. Some of the clubs in LA even charged membership or event fees, but that never sat right with Sean. “I don’t want someone moving to Seattle thinking they have to pay to meet friends,” he said. “I hate the idea of having a physical barrier to coming in and hanging out.”

When Sean decided to pitch Stoup on a mahjong night, he went full-out honor student. He shared MLA citations on the resurgence of mahjong among Asian American youth. He included a deck with mockups of attendance. He made a business case for foot traffic and sales. He said please. Stoup obliged, and ECTC was born. Forty people showed up to night one, blowing Sean away and earning more buy-in from Stoup. Tonight, and most nights, ECTC is hosting hundreds of folks.

“I hear about people meeting here and then going on dates,” Sean told me. “Someone came up to me and was like, ‘I met my girl here.’” He laughed, still slightly stunned by it. “I see people hanging out elsewhere and I’m like, ‘I didn’t know y’all were friends.’ And they’re like, ‘Oh, we met through ECTC.’ That’s crazy.”

One night, walking through Capitol Hill, he overheard a group of 20-somethings ahead of him debating whether they were going to “mahjong night” that week. They didn’t know he was behind them. “That’s when I knew this was real.”

Flipping the Script
For decades, mahjong lived in kitchens and garages, in the background of family parties, in rooms that smelled faintly of vapor rub and pork. It was something you inherited. A game you aged into. Now it’s something people line up for.

Across America, mahjong nights are quietly filling restaurants and backrooms. Young people are showing up dressed for a night out and are learning that the romantic prospects are better at the mahjong table than the bars. What used to signal retirement now signals arrival. “The traditional view about mahjong,” Sean said, “is that it’s an old man’s game.” He gestured to the brimming room. “Here in Seattle, we’re flipping that script.”

It’s definitely happening in Seattle, headlined by ECTC and supported by budding nights including Mahjong Mondays at Kilig and QT Mahjong Nights—a community for queer/BIPOC folks to learn mahjong together. At each of these events, community is table stakes, but knowing how to play is not.

So Why Now?
Part of the appeal is structural. Mahjong is analog. You can’t scroll through it, you can’t multitask. In a time where you see more AI slop on your timeline than pictures of actual human beings, the youth yearn for something real. And mahjong provides, not only with tangible tiles and real-life conversations, but also an invitation to unplug. To lean in. To pay attention. In an economy of distraction, that feels radical.

But part of it is cultural. For a generation of Asian Americans, mahjong is less about preserving tradition and more about reclaiming it. It’s taking something your parents played and deciding it belongs in public. It belongs under DJ lights. It belongs in breweries.

It belongs to us.

Same Time Next Week
Back at Stoup, my wife had just won her first game, thanks to three new friends she just met, thrilled to be beaten by their new padawan. The DJs were getting crunk, backed by the comforting cacophony of shuffling tiles. Someone just found a roommate.

In a city designed to keep you alone—in your car, in your apartment, in your feed—the kids are choosing something older. Something slower. Something you can’t swipe away.

I stepped outside into the cold and immediately saw three people I recognized from upstairs arguing about game strategies on the sidewalk.

They’ll be back next week. So will I. 

A group of unhappy cosplayers penned a petition to Emerald City Comic Con's parent company asking them to do something about it. by Nathalie Graham

There’s a cloud over Emerald City Comic Con (ECCC) this year and, no, it’s not pissing rain. It’s pissing ICE.

Back in January, con-goers discovered that ECCC’s parent company, ReedPop—which acquired the con in 2015 and runs a variety of cons including  New York City Comic Con and BookCon—has a not-so-distant connection to the immigration enforcement agency.

The problem lies in a rotten, corporate family tree. Reed Pop is part of the entertainment group RX which is owned by RELX, and RELX owns LexisNexis, a data broker that holds a $22.1 million contract to be ICE’s precogs, helping the agency track people who may potentially commit a crime (and their cars, according to The Intercept) before they’ve actually broken the law.

So a group of unhappy cosplayers penned a petition asking Reedpop, which purports to “promote inclusion and diversity,” to force their parent company to divest from LexisNexis. ReedPop responded with a boilerplate statement, saying “RX, ReedPop and our event brands operate independently from other RELX businesses on an arm's length basis. RX, ReedPop and our event brands do not sell any information or data to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security or U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.”

The petition reads: "How can event attendees feel safe, supported, or included when they are deliberately choosing to support the equivalent of the Empire in Star Wars, the Fire Nation in Avatar: The Last Airbender, and other oppressive forces that fans consistently support the dismantling of on-screen and in the pages?”

Elizabeth Sweet, a Korean immigrant known in the cosplay world as Cosmic Reys, co-organized the petition with her friend group of cosplayers and Romantasy lovers (Fourth Wing, A Court of Thorns and Roses, the fanfiction that warped your sexuality) that Mallory Shoemaker, a Disney cosplayer, and Jenna Karr, who primarily cosplays romantasy book characters. (Sidenote, while this group doesn’t have a name, they’ve done panels together as The Bookish Baddies).

They wanted to send a message that “Seattle does not eff with ICE,” Sweet says, omitting the cuss word. Nearly 1,300 have signed since late January, and the Baddies have since written to electeds like Mayor Katie Wilson.

Though they aren’t advertising it, they’re tying ECCC’s relationship with ICE into their planned “Smash or Pass” panel about sexy Romantasy characters and tropes.

It’ll be much, much more about fascism than a steamy book panel usually would be (less monsterfucking, more fucking monsters). Sweet gave an example: “We find it attractive when the heroes we root for may have wings or horns or something, but what’s sexier is what they’re standing up for.”

And another: “A smashable trait is standing up for what you believe in and is advocating strongly for critiquing systems of power.”

“We’re putting pressure on our local officials, our city, and reminding nerds, ‘You could be the hero in the story that you're reading about,” Shoemaker says. “You could be Rey, you could be Katniss.”

Sorry to immediately be a bummer, but I can’t stop thinking about the state of technology. by Emily Nokes

Sorry to immediately be a bummer, but I can’t stop thinking about the state of technology. About how we could have done anything in the world with it at this point, and yet this is where we landed. 

Waist-deep in a slop gauntlet run by the most corrupt/least cool (in every sense of the word) grifters imaginable. An internet that currently looks like shit and works like shit, in service of shareholders who will monetize it until there is nothing left to extract. I won’t belabor the point. 

Except of course I will. We are supposedly inching toward an era of AI grandiosity beyond our wildest dreams/nightmares, but until that happens, can we make one website function correctly? It would be incredible, if in the year of our 2026, I could look up what time a show starts without being led to a third-party ticket site, bloated with ads, with some out-of-date map widget that blocks the screen while their glitchy AI asks if you want whatever the fuck. Anything but the information you’re looking for. You will never find it; you will forget what you came here for. 

Woman yells at [the] Cloud, I know. But if you are a venture capitalist reading this (hiiii), let me whisper my incredible idea, then: Make the internet work again. 

Beyond its current janky state, AI’s insidious seep into the arts raises genuine concerns around labor displacement, authorship, surveillance capitalism, and the slow evaporation of expertise. Another concern is simpler: The people pushing AI are fucking dweebs. Mikey Shulman (of generative AI start-up Suno) literally said, out loud, in an interview: “It’s not really enjoyable to make music now. It takes a lot of time, it takes a lot of practice, you need to get really good at an instrument or really good at a piece of production software.” Concluding that this is a problem to be solved (by him, for money) rather than, you know, the entire point. 

Finally. We are so close to solving the problem of having a creative process.

Okay that is enough rain! The days are getting longer, my friend, and I am once again trying to keep it weird around here. What are the interesting people of Seattle doing with their one precious life?

My moodboard for this issue was ARTS, of course, with a special interest in: anti-slop, DIY out of ethical necessity, weird/cool/fun, hands-on, physical media, in real life. We may not be able to escape algo-driven toxicity entirely at this point, but I was curious about the people and places operating outside of all that. People dedicated to the value of physical experience, or people doing strange or difficult or specific things with a lot of dedication. Some as a deliberate statement, some just because it’s what they’re into, or it’s what they’ve always done. I’m tickled by the results. People are making such neat things!

In these pages you’ll find artists who deal in physical media—less because the aesthetic still fucks (it does), but because every other option sucks. We make the case for recession-era art, repairing your own clothes, and the joy and frustration of a dumber phone. 

Elsewhere, what’s more analog than a baroque flutist? An opera singer, perhaps—did you know they are just belting it out without amplification up there? We also learn about the ancient techniques like the Korean paper art of hanji, and Turkish meat-carving with giant blades. 

We also envision something better. A city with a healthy bodega culture, a city that invests in the arts, a city with unique arts spaces, and a city that envisions something better for a neat old building in a queer/arts neighborhood than a… McDonald’s. 

Spring is coming.
— Emily Nokes 

COVER ART

Samantha Yun Wall
Diaspore No.15 (2026)
From Let There Be Light at Cannonball Arts

The same intensity with which Spencer Pratt reads the audiobook of his memoir The Guy You Loved to Hate

Hot Slog Buns

Zoloft

Gabapentin

The weight of the world

Gun soup

Chappell Roan’s nipples

Alexander Skarsgård’s slutty little glasses

The community fig leaf

Realizing I’ve been wearing my carabiner on the wrong side

Season two of The Boyfriend on Netflix

Joy sobbing to videos of Alysa Liu

Hilary Knight refusing to make excuses for men’s behavior

“Regular Rabbit” by Stephen Spencer

Keri Russell’s wigs on The Americans

Puppy anticipation

A powder day, finally

My last fried nerve

Chu Minh Tofu and Vegan Deli

Ex-Lax

LITERALLY MAKING PHYSICAL MEDIA

Cold red wine

Lightrailers is a real word, Henry

The Kissenger Pocket Pussy for Kissing

Ring, the dogcatching company

Being Chinese before Chinamaxxing made being Chinese cool

Sparkle kicks in Las Vegas

Davis has heard grumblings about his decision to run against an established Democrat incumbent, but he thinks he's the right choice for the seat. by Nathalie Graham

I sat across from Ron Davis—dad, urbanist, bald—at Tailwind Cafe in Capitol Hill. He wasn’t going to eat during our interview, but then he saw the menu: the “finest” avocado toast in the city. He had to try it. But we weren’t here to discuss toast. We were here to discuss his latest candidacy.

Voters may remember the former tech start-up CEO from his 2023 city council campaign. He ran for the District 4 seat as a density champion, a progressive—aka everything 2023 voters rejected. Outspent by corporate PACs, he lost to Maritza Rivera. He’s been a constant poster since—skeets, TikToks, Reels, and Substacks (or just stacks?). Raise your hands, Rondezvous readers.

Even if you haven’t seen Davis, you’ve probably sensed him. He’s become a progressive mainstay in local politics. He even flirted with a mayoral run before Katie Wilson jumped in. A believer in the cause—and a casualty of corporate fundraising—he fundraised with Progressive People Power PAC (P3) which helped unseat Sara Nelson and kickstarted the PAC that supported Wilson with political consultant Stephen Paolini. (“He and I, together basically raised all the individual contributor money between the two of us,” says Paolini, the director of the Katie Wilson for an Affordable Seattle PAC.)

Now he’s hoping to knock Rep. Gerry Pollet out of Washington’s 46th District, the Northeast Seattle region he’s represented for 15 years.

Davis says he’s heard grumblings about this decision. Taking on a 15-year incumbent is expensive and there are actual swing districts where people want to put their energy and their dollars. But “good enough is not good enough, especially right now,” Davis says.

Pollet may be fine on taxes and education, but he’s also a NIMBY firmly standing in the way of change, Davis says. “There's no suburb left in the district, it’s time to act like it,” he says, citing Pollet’s vote against an environmental review exemption to speed along patching the missing link in the Burke Gilman trail, and Pollet’s watering down of the “missing middle” housing bill back in 2022, which could have allowed denser buildings in more places.

Davis wants to build more housing, improve transportation, stick it to Donald Trump, pass progressive revenue. Even if it ruffles some feathers, he thinks he’s the better person for the job.

While writing this story, Pollet’s communications consultant Erik Houser texted me to say he heard I was writing about Davis, and Pollet wanted to respond to anything negative Davis said about him.

Pollet rejects Davis’ characterization. In a statement, Pollet said “he has long advocated for increasing density in Seattle and the 46th district” and has sponsored legislation to make that happen, including 2025’s “middle housing and transit oriented development bills.” He did vote against suspending the environmental review for the Burke Gilman Trail, but maintains “the legislature has put these environmental reviews in place for an important purpose.”

Paolini and Tiffani McCoy, the interim CEO of the Seattle Social Housing Developer, agree that Davis is a housing juggernaut. He’s already been in Olympia advocating for housing bills, like last year’s Parking Reform and Modernization Act which restricts how much parking cities and counties can require for new housing. Davis says he put together the coalition that got the bill passed.

“I realized this is a place I could really make a difference,” he says.

Davis is persistent to the point of being professionally annoying, he says. “It's kind of a personality flaw, but it turns out, like in enterprise sales where I come from, and politics it has proven very, very useful, even if it drives some people nuts.”

Effective, but is that the personality of a guaranteed collaborator, or a pusher hungry for credit and adoration?

Wait. Hold on. Davis’ avocado toast arrived. He paused to take a photo. Two juicy fried eggs sat on the green bed of fluffed avocado, dusted with cracked pepper and spices.

“Oh, the lighting is bad,” he says, and readjusted, leaning back and lowering his body in the chair, twisting his phone to the landscape position.

“Do you always take photos of your food?”

“Not always but when I go—” he gasps— “then I get really excited about it,” he says. The pictures often go nowhere.

He pressed his knife into one fried egg. Yolk spilled over the toast.

He dug in the toast and his loftier goals: 1,000 miles of new bus-only lanes across the state, taxes on the rich to pay for universal child care (the millionaires' tax doesn’t go far enough, he says), and myriad wonky housing proposals.

And then there’s that damn President and his gooners. Davis supports several of the anti-ICE bills making their way through the Legislature—a potentially unenforceable bill to unmask ICE, and another prohibiting agents from becoming cops in Washington. Though the latter doesn’t go far enough, he says.

“It should be a permanent ban from working for any state or locally-funded organization.”

“We should punish companies that collaborate [with ICE],” he says, waving his fork with a perfect bite of fried egg and avocado toast. This could mean taxing them more or, at the state level, cutting any contracts with businesses that are also working with ICE in any capacity.

Davis wants there to be a state run “office of people” to disrupt  ICE operations. People “who are trained in interruption and de-escalation, and who have an understanding of the ways to maximize the difficulty for ICE.” He wants the people “ready and deployable” to make ICE operations more difficult and costlier in Washington.

That’s kind of fucking crazy. All I could say was, “Wow, I can only imagine the Truth Social posts.”

“[Conservatives] say all that shit about paid protesters—they make all that shit up anyway—why not do it?” Davis says.

“That was fucking amazing,” he says of his avocado toast. “Be sure to get the extra egg. I just love runny yolk. I had a whole spiritual experience while we were talking.”

Ed's Note: This story has been updated to clarify that Davis fundraised for individual campaign contributions. 

The Stranger's morning news roundup. by Micah Yip

Constitution? I Hardly Know Him: Senate Republicans voted down a war powers resolution that would’ve halted the attacks on Iran and allowed time for Congress to authorize the war. That’s the Constitutional way to go to war, anyway—only Congress has the power to declare war. The president does not (despite this, we haven’t declared any of our wars since World War II, and we’ve waged many). The House will vote today on a similar measure, but it’s expected to fail. 

Also: The US government is dodging responsibility for the deadly strike on the Iranian girls’ school, with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth only saying they’re “investigating” the incident. The incident killed at least 165 students and injured 96 others. 

And Also: President Donald Trump says he must be involved in choosing Iran’s next leader. Replacing Ayatollah Ali Khamenei with Mojtaba Khamenei, his son and likely successor, would be “unacceptable,” Trump said.

Trespassing/Occupying, Tomayto/Tomahto: Last May, 33 protesters broke into and occupied the University of Washington’s Interdisciplinary Engineering Building, smashing windows, spray painting walls, breaking equipment and setting dumpsters on fire to protest the university’s ties to Boeing, which sells weapons to Israel. Twenty-three of them were UW students. Yesterday, King County prosecutors charged them with misdemeanor criminal trespassing—a downgrade from the original felony charges they got in June, which were dropped for lack of evidence. They’ll be arraigned on March 25.

Another Day, Another Anti-Trans Effort: An initiative to keep trans girls out of sports will appear on November’s statewide ballot. Backed by Brian Heywood, the conservative hedge fund manager who founded Let’s Go Washington, Initiative IL26-638 would require girls to “verify their biological sex” with a health care provider to play school sports. Verification could include  blood draws and genital exams.

The War on Drugs Sugar: Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wants Dunkin’ and Starbucks to prove their sugary coffee drinks are “safe.” How about informing Americans of the risks of going unvaccinated?

Mayor Wilson Proposes 1,000 New Shelter Units: Mayor Katie Wilson sent legislation to City Council that would let the city more quickly secure space for 1,000 new units of shelter and emergency housing in Seattle this year. Her proposal would both allow the Finance and Administrative Services Department to sign lease agreements with property owners and temporarily increase the number of people allowed in most shelters from 100 to 150, while one shelter in each district could house up to 250.

Weather: Mostly cloudy with a high of 51 and a 50 percent chance of rain before noon. Tonight, temps drop to a low around 44 with rain falling after midnight.

Ouch: Republican Sen. Tim Sheehy tried to help Capitol police arrest Brian McGinnis, a Marine and Green Party candidate, protesting the war in Iran at a Senate hearing yesterday, and ended up snapping his arm as he clutched the door. 

Here’s the video. Keep scrolling if you’re squeamish.

[TW: graphic fracture, sound of breaking bone]

Sen Tim Sheehy (R-Montana) badly breaking the arm of a Marine veteran protesting the war Iran.

[image or embed]

— Claire Zagorski, MSc, EMT-P (@clairezagorski.bsky.social) March 4, 2026 at 2:05 PM

Extreme County Makeover (Cont.): It looks like King County Executive Girmay Zahilay is continuing to reconfigure the county workforce. He just hired a new internal auditor and created a “subcabinet” focused on accountability, new internal grant fund controls and training employees on ethics and fraud prevention to “improve oversight of the county’s finances.” 

Hurry Up: State lawmakers are running out of time to pass the millionaires' tax before the legislative session ends. Most Democrats support the bill, but intra-party division threatens to derail this much needed tax. If passed, the bill would still need Gov. Bob Ferguson’s signature, but he’s now said for the third time the measure still needs revisions before he’d sign. He said he’s hopeful they can reach an agreement but is committed to getting this “right,” even if that means pushing the issue to next year.

War in Iran Brings Higher Gas Prices: The state's average price climbed another two cents per gallon. The state’s average price is $4.40 per gallon, as of yesterday—43 cents more than a month ago and $1.20 above the national average. 

FIFA Transit Money: Seattle is getting $8.4 million from the $100 million Federal Transit Administration to mitigate any  strain on the city’s public transit system from the FIFA World Cup this summer. These funds can be used for event planning, hiring, security equipment, and more. The money is part of last month’s $1.2 trillion congressional spending package that prevented a government shutdown but stalled funding for the Department of Homeland Security. 

Will Iran Send a Team? They’re scheduled to play against Egypt in Seattle on June 26, but after the US attacks, Iranian soccer federation President Mehdi Taj said they might not.

Smoke anywhere else. by Anonymous

Hey, '90s throwback guy: Your cigarette smoke is gross. And I hate having to walk through it to get my coffee.

You’ve been asked—politely—by staff and customers to move. There is signage. There are coughs. There are stares. Yet you remain.

It’s peak Hill. A neighborhood that prides itself on being considerate—but when it comes to shared air, asking someone not to hotbox the doorway is apparently a controversial take.

We all share the sidewalk. We all share the air. The NO SMOKING sign is not a vibe check. It’s a rule. You are not bravely disrupting the system. You are just making everyone smell like 2003.

Newsflash: You are not the main character. Standing in the doorway, smoking like this? It’s giving entitled vibes—and that’s not a good look.

Please take an extra 20 steps. Smoke anywhere else. Capitol Hill is not short on corners.

Sincerely,

Someone Who Would Like Their Cortado Without a Side of Marlboros

Do you need to get something off your chest? Submit an I, Anonymous and we'll illustrate it! Send your unsigned rant, love letter, confession, or accusation to ianonymous@thestranger.com. Please remember to change the names of the innocent and the guilty.

Meaty finger waves. by Meg van Huygen

It’s prep shift at Hamdi, and the room smells like fire. Winter sunlight filters in, and there’s a faint hum of spices in the charred air. Chef Berk Güldal is giving a private tutorial on making Turkish Adana-style kebap—aka kebab—a meticulous, laborious two-day process that plumps up these peppery lamb skewers.

Hand-mincing kebap is considered an art form in Southwest Asia, but this time-consuming process is being practiced less and less these days—even in Turkey, and certainly here in Seattle. Güldal, however, has all the time in the world to practice this thousand-year-old culinary craft.

Hamdi opened in 2021 as a Turkish food truck and moved into its beautiful, simple fine-dining space on Leary Way the following year. Güldal and his partner, Katrina Schult, had spent their careers in Michelin-starred restaurants—in Güldal’s hometown of Istanbul as well as NYC and Healdsburg, California, among other places—before peacing out to starless, Michelin-free Seattle to do their own thing.

That thing is fire. “We don’t have gas ranges,” Güldal says. “It’s all fire—wood or charcoal.” Low flames and embers burn here and there under grills around the open kitchen. It’d be a waste to NOT make kebap here.

The artist’s tools are a butcher block, a scraper, and a giant medieval-looking Turkish zirh (“zuh-ruh”). Genetically somewhere between a machete and a Bowie knife, it looks like the weapon your orc-slaying half-paladin/half-rogue D&D character carries. A fantasy knife.

I ask him if he bought it in Turkey, and he says, “No. I got it on Etsy.”

Güldal holds his colossal knife with both hands. A few pieces of suet—the hard fat that surrounds a lamb’s kidneys—sit in a ninth pan. He utilizes the zirh as a parer, deftly removing the silverskin enclosing each parcel of fat. “In Turkey,” he says, “they use tail fat for kebap. But it’s a different kind of lamb with a much bigger tail. It’s like a second butt.” However, America’s lambs aren’t quite as caked up, so Hamdi uses suet instead.

It’s no compromise. “To be honest, this lamb right here is the best lamb ever,” Güldal boasts. “We don’t need the tail.” Hamdi sources lamb from Anderson Ranches, 30 minutes outside Eugene, Oregon. “I cooked a lot of lamb in New York and California, at Michelin restaurants? I never tasted any lamb like this lamb.”

Güldal adds that Hamdi only uses grass-fed lamb, so Anderson Ranches is a natural choice, where free-range sheep and lambs graze on pasture ryegrass, herbs, and flowering forbs. “I really believe that grass-fed meat is the best, most nutritious food for your body,” he says. “It’s more chewy. It’s not gonna melt in your mouth. That’s why it’s great for kebap.”

The artist’s canvas is a massive wooden butcher’s block. This one was custom-made by Lee Andrews, a woodcarver in Walla Walla. “This artist told us this block’s gonna survive like four generations,” Güldal says. “Plastic just breaks.”

He sets the snow-white suet chunks on the block, then places his two-foot blade alongside them. Carefully but powerfully, he lifts the knife’s handle up and out, like a crank on a water pump, pinching the back of the blade with his other hand. He slides it back and forth over the pile for what seems like 20 minutes but is probably like five.

After Güldal pulverizes the suet into a hill of crumbles, Schult brings over some rough-chopped lamb belly, cold from the fridge, where it’s been aged for 24 hours. He begins delicately smithereening it with the same precise skill: slicing motions, not crushing motions. Sounds simple, but it really is a complex physical performance, requiring minute movements to flick and flex this heavy sword. Controlled strength as art. I could watch him do this all day.

“The purpose of this knife is to slice,” Güldal says. “When you put meat in a grinder—how most people do kebap now—it smooshes it, and it becomes very sticky and soft and loses texture. But here, you use a very sharp knife like this one, moving it minimally to slice, not chop.”

He adds that a grinder creates a dry kebap. “Not as juicy. And the texture this way is gonna be very coarse. Not, like, smooshed.” That coarseness creates more edges and facets to be Maillarded later.

After mincing the meat and fat separately, Güldal does the same to a red bell pepper. Then he methodically kneads the pepper, lamb belly, and suet together to create binding protein structures. “Another thing,” he says, after wordlessly kebapping for a while, “is that you don’t wanna use gloves to do this. Because then it tastes like gloves. I believe the flavor of your hand needs to go in the food.”

Güldal produces a speckled loaf of mince. Now it’s time to season: paprika, Turkish pepper flakes, and salt. He pulls out a sheet pan of lined-up skewers, specifying that they must be iron, not aluminum, and starts fleshing out the metal skeletons.

The meat football gradually disappears as Güldal applies it to the skewers, punctilious, his fingers tantamount in his arsenal to his big-ass knife. We simmer in the piano lick from “Ms. Jackson” on the aux as he shapes the mince. Per tradition, he’s giving the kebap a subtly scalloped pattern, for both Mailliard reaction and artisanal reasons. Meaty finger waves.

And that’s it. They’re ready to hit the charcoal. The raw skewers look kinda pixelated, since unrendered suet is so brittle, but it’ll liquefy into nutty, golden, umami-tinged tallow on the grill, like lamby compound butter. It’s the art of suspense. A delicious future promise.

When asked if doing this makes him feel like an ancient person from a thousand years ago, Güldal frowns. “No! I believe we should still do these things today, not just in ancient history. I actually think everything has gotten too modern, too easy. I think we’re losing the fun part.”

Güldal takes a beat to admire his handiwork, then nods solemnly. “This is the fun part.”

Court documents show that behind the scenes, Sophon and chef Karuna Long struggled financially for years, resulting in bounced paychecks, late payments to vendors, unpaid rent, and lawsuits. by Harry Cheadle

On February 10, Sophon—one of Seattle’s hottest, hippest restaurants—announced on its Instagram stories that it would be canceling its dinner service that night. It stayed closed through Valentine’s Day weekend, one of the industry’s busiest stretches, because of financial difficulties and tensions between Sophon’s staff and owner, Karuna Long, that were spilling into public for the first time.

Employees were refusing to come to work because they hadn’t been paid. Long put up, and then deleted, an Instagram post admitting he owed money to staff and vendors. "I have no idea what I'm doing and cannot seem to figure what's up and what's down," he wrote. Days later, in a series of Instagram posts, general manager Moni Mitchell announced that the staff had resigned and accused Long of “documented financial mismanagement.”

This is a shocking turn of events for anyone who knows Sophon’s reputation. One of the only Khmer restaurants in Seattle, it is the kind of place that gets included on every “best of” list, renowned for its Cambodian-influenced cocktails and dedication to uplifting Khmer culture. But court documents, and interviews with Long and six of his former employees, show that behind the scenes, both Sophon and Long’s nearby, now closed bar Oliver’s Twist struggled financially for years, resulting in bounced paychecks, late payments to vendors, unpaid rent, and lawsuits. The former employees quoted in this article all asked to remain anonymous because of worries about professional repercussions.

Before Sophon, Long made a name for himself in the bar scene with Oliver’s Twist, a Phinney Ridge bar that he bought in 2017. During the COVID pandemic, he experimented with serving food influenced by his Khmer heritage. When that food was a hit, he announced Sophon, his dream project, which has been a pillar of the Seattle dining scene since it opened in 2024. 

Long’s compelling vision for a restaurant drew the exceptional people to staff it, and soon his vision became a reality. He struck many of them initially as charismatic, funny, and progressive, former staff said. “He came off very kind and warm,” says one former employee. “A lot of us were really excited about Sophon’s story.” 

But Long also had a way of “sugarcoating” things, as one former employee put it. Multiple employees say that he would often make excuses for missing scheduled meetings or why payments were late or why the refrigerators went out.

They were picking up on a pattern that Long himself was aware of. In an email to The Stranger, Long said that he’s dealt with “a personal internal battle for 30 years having to do with my clinical depression and ideations of suicide. When I’m overwhelmed, I unfortunately tuck my head in the sand and have avoided issues.”

Long’s financial troubles started before Sophon. In 2021, Long brought in two business partners, Joel Robinson and Waylon Puckett, who invested tens of thousands of dollars into the newly reopened Oliver’s Twist and the opening of Sophon. 

Last year, Robinson and Puckett sued Long for breach of contract and fraud. They allege that Long forged Robinson’s signature on contracts with restaurant vendors, failed to contribute promised money to the business (where Long was the majority owner), and used the business bank account to pay for his personal life, which, the suit alleges, “included withdrawals to pay for online gambling as well as paying his personal utilities.”

Long says he wasn’t taking any salary when Sophon opened and was in the habit of using Oliver’s Twist money to pay his expenses when he owned the bar by himself. He says he “failed to remember that I now have partners, therefore, any cost of living/personal utilities should go through proper processes.” Long also admitted to forging Robinson’s signature on contracts with vendors, however, writing in an email that “I made a lapse in judgment in doing so because my partners were unavailable.” But he denies lying to his partners or not contributing funds to the partnership. (Robinson and Puckett declined to comment on the contents of the suit.)

The suit also claims Long hid his debts from his partners. Attached to the lawsuit is a 2024 letter from a debt collection agency saying that the business owed $1.1 million as a result of an unpaid $879,000 COVID Economic Injury Disaster Loan that had accrued interest and fees. Among the other debts incurred by the business was the approximately $30,000 it owed to a financial services company after selling a portion of its future receipts; that company sued Oliver’s Twist for missed payments and won the case in 2023. In May 2024, according to the lawsuit, the three partners met and agreed that Oliver’s Twist should enter Chapter 11 bankruptcy, but it is unclear if that ever happened. Long declined to comment on the bankruptcy.

Robinson and Puckett attempted to settle the case through arbitration, according to court records, but are now seeking a default judgement against Long because they haven’t been able to schedule an arbitration sessions, the records show. Long declined to comment about the current status of the lawsuit or whether he is being represented by an attorney.

Oliver’s Twist had also fallen behind on its rent. By May 2024, the bar owed its landlord over $120,000, according to court records, and after Long renewed the lease he missed more payments. In December, the landlord initiated eviction proceedings against Oliver’s Twist. By then, the bar had been closed for two months. 

According to Long, Oliver’s Twist closed because “business was too slow and rent was too high.” (He also characterized the closure as temporary in an interview with the Seattle Times, saying the bar was “on its way to closing” permanently.) 

Former employees say the bar wasn’t paying vendors on time. More than one say that it went through stretches of not serving any food beyond popcorn, which they worried was against Seattle law.

One bartender says that after multiple missed paychecks, the Oliver’s Twist team began to leave until he was the only one left. He went over a month at a time without getting any pay himself, he says. “It ended up being kind of a social experiment for myself, because I had nothing better to do, to see what it's like to go work in the industry as a bartender without getting any compensation,” he says. “Because no more candles were being delivered, I was actually taking up candlemaking as a hobby and recycling the paraffin wax and making more candles. And I was actually having a pretty good time by myself.” 

Long eventually paid him the wages he was owed, he says. Former employees say, and Long admits, that there were two cooks who had not been paid for their work as of February.

Despite Sophon’s high-profile success, it had similar problems. 

In the spring of 2025, five former employees say, the restaurant switched from a direct deposit system to distributing checks every pay period. But workers soon began complaining their checks were bouncing or being placed on hold by their banks, according to screenshots of text messages and photos seen by The Stranger, and the complaints intensified into the summer. 

“There was an extended period of time where by the time another two week pay period came to an end, multiple employees were still waiting for their previous paycheck to be deposited, or waiting for the hold placed on them to expire,” said one employee in a statement to The Stranger, adding that by August, workers were demanding cashier’s checks because they assumed regular checks wouldn’t clear. (Long says that the cashier's checks were costing him $8 apiece.) Former employees also said that Long was slow to repair broken fridges—including a CO2 leak in the keg cooler, two employees say—stopped paying for the city to pick up recycling, and that W-2 tax forms for the 2024 year didn’t reflect their correct hours. In one case, an employee emailed Long to say that she only made a third of the income that was listed on the W-2.

Mitchell, the general manager, has accused Long on Instagram of allowing employees’ health insurance coverage to lapse, even though they continued to have premiums taken out of their paychecks. In one instance, according to screenshots seen by The Stranger, an employee found out about the lapse from a letter from their insurance company, after they'd already sought medical care.

Tensions came to a head when Mitchell went on a trip to Cambodia in January, leaving it up to Long to process payroll. Two staffers say they did not get paid but worked the first weekend of February anyway; one former employee says that Long told them he wouldn’t have the money to pay them unless the restaurant re-opened. “At this point, we've been through so many things with him,” one employee says. “We're not feeling like we're going to get paid, and it's the last straw, and the communication is really bad.”

On February 10 and 11, Long decided to close Sophon, this employee says. He also told the staff that there was a hold on the business account, former employees say. When some employees tried to sign up for unemployment, they discovered that they couldn’t, because their hours had not been properly reported to the state. (Long says this resulted from a “lapse in taking care of my tasks accordingly.”)

In the midst of all of that, most of the staff went on “strike,” as they put it, demanding Long fix their paperwork so they could collect unemployment and pay employees what they were owed, including the two former cooks at Oliver’s Twist.

Long and his staff met on February 17, and he handed out about $20,000 in cash (so Long could avoid cashier’s checks fees). Long says that he has updated the paperwork with the Washington State Employment Security Department and that former employees should be able to collect unemployment. But with the cooks unpaid and Long not communicating with the employees to their satisfaction, most of the staff resigned February 20. “As far as we are concerned, the employment relationship is severed due to his breach of contract and labor laws,” Mitchell wrote in an email.

Long says that he is working on paying the Oliver’s Twist employees. He reopened Sophon last Tuesday with mostly new hires along with some employees who did not go on strike, he says. Mitchell describes the current staff as a “skeleton crew,” writing in an email that “the entire original team that built the restaurant’s reputation has walked away.”

Those who quit may not miss the chaos, but many will miss one another. 

“We supported each other through a lot of hard, personal stuff,” says a former employee who began working at Sophon not long after it opened. “That’s a piece of it—this community and these beautiful relationships that I'm walking away with, which feels like the silver lining. And I think the other piece is a lot of sadness and a lot of anger and grief. I feel like we had something really special. This restaurant could have been perfect.”

In 1984, American science fiction writer William Gibson defined “cyberspace” (a term he coined) as “a consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators” in the near-future world of his novel, Neuromancer, where human consciousness drifts through a blinding data-world of corporate geometries.

More than three decades later, the English documentarian Adam Curtis traced how that hallucination became reality in his BBC documentary HyperNormalisation: “Over the past 40 years, politicians, financiers, and technological utopians—rather than face up to the real complexities of the world—retreated. Instead, they constructed a simpler version of the world in order to hang onto power, and as this fake world grew, all of us went along with it, because the simplicity was reassuring.”

Today, this “simpler version of the world” fits into our pockets. The average American now spends around five hours per day—about 2.5 months per year—on their smartphone. Most artists now depend on social media for visibility, and a small handful of tech companies now determine how culture is discovered and monetized. Whether you experience this moment as a dystopian technocratic existence, an interconnected digital wonderland, or some incredibly boring third thing, technology doesn’t just permeate most every facet of life, it intercepts substantial chunks of the day, warps tastes, and short-circuits human interaction.

It’s true that within many artistic fields, digital tools have made an extraordinary amount of art possible and accessible, but there is also the reality that the hyper-integration of technology has left the door open too wide for manipulation by powerful corporations, and has encouraged isolation between artists and audiences.

“Take Spotify, for example,” says Aaron C. Schroeder, owner and recording engineer of Pierced Ears Recording Co.—a tiny yet wondrous basement studio in the Ballard neighborhood. “They bury musicians that don’t pay them money to get promotions on playlists,” he says, referring to the streaming service’s forcing of lower royalty rates on artists to be included on “Discovery” playlists, a practice that bears striking resemblance to the radio “payola” schemes that were outlawed by Congress in 1960. “I just don’t like having someone else in control. And then how do you get people to hear you in a digital space? Well, now you have to promote in a digital space, so now we’re stuck on social media constantly. A false reality of a sort, or a second reality. And I’m analog.”

On a recent Sunday morning, Schroeder invited me to his studio to show me the workings of his Presto 8N vinyl lathe, an original from the 1940s. It “cuts” records in real time, a process in which a Van Eps Duotone cutter head—a needle-like device on an adjustable arm—carves sound vibrations into a soft vinyl disc (or record blank) in the form of the continuous spiral grooves, which your home record player needle then traces back into sound.

“You can really record any sound onto the record,” he explains. We discuss his ideas for hosting pop-ups around town where anyone can record anything they want on the spot and take home the record, and his ideas for bespoke groove patterns, like recording the record from the center outward, or in sequential spirals.

Schroeder uses a mix of digital and analog recording technologies, and maintains a website for his studio and business-only Instagram and TikTok accounts for minimalist marketing (“It’s like Backpage”), but he talks of tech devices and programs as though they are only one kind of tool among many, the amount of importance we have placed on them being unfortunate. The idea that a platform could change their business model or simply close shop if profits dried up, essentially deleting the most visible evidence of musicians’ artistic output, is also a possibility that haunts Schroeder. If that happens, “who’s to say you ever existed?”

Kelly Froh, executive director of Short Run Comix festival-turned-nonprofit, is among the many people I spoke with who think physical media—things like handmade books, visual art, hand-drawn comics and zines, vinyl records and cassette tapes—and the communities they spawn provide a necessary counterbalance to tech domination in the arts. “Why do any of these smaller festivals exist if we can just buy whatever we want online? It’s so you can show up, and you can actually look into the eyes of the artist, and talk to the artist, to the person that made these books.”

Froh is a firm believer in real-life settings where you can meet the artist at the point of purchase, and likely come away with personal artist recommendations, a newfound knowledge and appreciation for the time and techniques that go into the art form, and make any number of person-to-person connections—all weaknesses of the digital marketplace.

The online environment also gives the false sense of infinite choices and egalitarian platforming, when in reality, online algorithms (not to mention governments) suppress many artists and voices if you don’t follow their guidelines, both stated and unstated, before the general public even has a chance to click on them.

With physical media, however, “there’s no need to censor yourself,” Froh says. “If you were to promote something on the internet, you would have to block out certain words so the post doesn’t get buried. I don’t want to think about any of that shit. Just do your own thing.”

Froh also sees organizational potential in physical formats for off-the-grid information sharing in times of political or social turmoil: “Zines are untrackable in that way, and they’re not gonna be blocked by some evil algorithm.” She continues, “For people who feel helpless as our democracy is crumbling, guess what? They’re screen printing posters, they’re making pins and buttons, they’re making zines and fliers, posters on poles.” Indeed, at a recent anti-ICE rally on Capitol Hill, organizers were handing out keychain whistles packaged with a zine that outlined the whistle’s uses and whom to contact if officers are spotted; on a recent trip to Hex Enduction Records & Books in Lake City, I left with a tour guide zine for safe small-town queer hangouts, and leafed through an impressive hand-bound book about anarchism and “settler socialism.”

James Ballinger, who ran the influential heavy-rock-focused Seattle music zine The Seattle Passive Aggressive during its decade-long run in the 2010s, agrees that physical media is an important part of the social ecosystem. “It keeps things true, and it keeps things away from [that] kind of outside influence, or a fear of saying things that’ll make people upset, or [come off as too] political. I print it, I can’t go back and change it, or delete it. I can’t go back and edit that typo, it’s out there. Technology’s weird, and social media has made people weird as far as what they feel they’re free to say. So I think zine culture is important, because you can say what you need to say, get it out there.” Ballinger also takes issue with the thoughtlessness that social media rewards through ambiguous reposts and bandwagon “likes.” Conversely, physical media “allows you to not just say what you want to say because you’re passionate about it; you have to collect your thoughts and say things intelligently.”

Across town at Concuss Creations screen printing, local musician and artist Rob Castro prints band merch on the same press as protest swag. “Since I print my own shirts out of my own shop, I can basically print anything I dream of. If I want to flex a run of protest tees before a march, I can do that.”

Kay Redden, founder and operator of Seattle cassette-tape label Den Tapes, likens the choice to interact with physical media to shopping local, given the increasingly competitive attention economy of today: “It’s kind of like voting with your dollar, like when you’re opting to support a local business rather than go to Home Depot or whatever.” In this way, devoting time to the making or consuming of physical art can be seen as a net positive in the war over our time and data points—each non-technological activity we participate in has become an act of micro-revolution.

Back in the Pierced Ears studio, Schroeder is walking me through the process of folding a zine. Using scissors, he cuts a slit across the middle of a halved 8”x11” piece of paper, then accordions it into eighths. The result is a miniature flipbook complete with quirky yet informative diagrams showing the step-by-step process of recording a record on his equipment. He puts one in the sleeve of each record he cuts.

“It is a problem in every aspect of Western civilization,” he says. “We use tools to try and make things we consider to be beautiful, but I think we have corrupted the concept of beauty. The natural world is what’s actually beautiful, a manicured lawn, not so much… I’m a fan of music with edges.” I suggest that an ideal metaphor may be a Zen garden, where humans manipulate natural elements with tools, but the tools aren’t pesticides that are supposed to kill any imperfections.

After thinking for a moment, he answers, “We’re just doing an odd beautification ritual. I don’t think everything looking the same is the correct answer.”

The Stranger's Morning News Roundup by Charles Mudede

Lilli Moreno, I did not know it was you who was killed by a car on February 16, 2026, until a friend showed me a photograph at a bar not far from where you died. I instantly saw the Lilli who once asked me to explain the actual meaning of Schrodinger’s cat. A few months later, I also saw you operating a table at the late night art market at Bad Bar. We were, in time, close to the final hour of August 11, 2024. I bought one of your small metal matchboxes (this one decorated with a picture of a flower) for $11. We talked a little, we laughed a little. And later I was in the psychedelic bar watching one of my favorite scenes in Star Wars on a very flat TV screen above the bottles of spirits: the setting of the two suns on the parched planet Tatooine. I will still have your matchbox. It will live among my books.

The world has not changed one bit since you left, Lilli Moreno. In fact, it’s getting worse.

We may be gutting our urban forestry program but fear not, Washington State is still funding the construction of new urban highways.

www.khq.com/legislature/...

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Today will be cool (low of 42) and rainy. It’s the kind of day that’s made for the charmingly melancholy jazz of Bill Evans. At this point, however, we can forget about any kind of snow falling upon the living and the dead. We can also expect, when summer temperatures arrive, which might be as soon as next month, an explosion of rats and bugs because winter proved to be hospitable. Indeed, I can remember when Seattle winters were so cold that rats would climb into car engines for warmth or shelter only to freeze to death. Those days are more and more receding into the past in our warming world.

Dem superstar Rep. Jasmine Crockett lost Texas’ Democratic Senate primary to populist and God-loving Rep. James Talarico (and it wasn’t even close—53% to 46%). The race between Attorney General Ken Paxton and incumbent Sen. John Cornyn was close and, as a consequence, is headed to a runoff election on May 26. Expect the battle between these hyenas to get very, very ugly. 

Greedy defense contractors have sold the US government very expensive and clumsy interceptor weapon systems. The whole dismal story is in a report posted this week by Bloomberg: “Iran's Missile Math: $20,000 Drones Take on $4 Million Patriots.” The drones are called Shahed-136, which are basically “small, rudimentary cruise missiles.” It’s estimated that Iran has about 80,000 of these weapons, and can manufacture about 500 of them a day. Also, Shaheds can be transported by a conventional truck to any launch site in the country. The US, on other hand, uses cumbersome missiles that cost millions to hit just one of these cheap-ass drones. The fear on the US side is that, because our defence contractors can produce only 600 or so of these expensive weapons a year, their stock will soon be depleted by the constant swarm of inexpensive drones, which have the power to destroy buildings or badly damage military bases.

Qatar's Patriot interceptor missiles will last four days at the current rate of use, Bloomberg reported. Qatar has requested help countering drones, which have proven a greater threat than ballistic missiles, while the UAE has requested medium-range air defense assistance. #MiddleEast

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— NOELREPORTS (@noelreports.com) March 2, 2026 at 9:58 AM

The US has known about these Iranian drones for years but failed to make needed cost-effective adjustments because, arguably, there’s no money in making and selling cheap stuff to US taxpayers. Defense contractors want the US to buy state-of-the-art shit, even if they are impractical and ineffective.

Realizing the great disadvantage the Iranian drones present, the US is now making an exact copy of the Shahed, called LUCAS, in Arizona at $35,000 a pop. The factory began operation last year; meaning, the US had until then no idea how to make cheap missiles. They had to steal the technology from the Iranians. And what can we conclude from this fiasco? The US’s military certainly has the biggest budget in the world by far ($1 trillion annually), but it might be filled with expensive junk. China, on the other hand, has the second-largest budget ($250 billion annually), but that money might purchase or manufacture weapons at reasonable or state-controlled prices. If this is the case, then China has, due to a lack of super-greedy defense contractors, the superior arsenal.

If the Iranian drones do the trick, if they hit regional American military bases and oil production sites on the regular, then the US consumer can kiss goodbye to cheap oil forever. It will take years to repair the damaged infrastructure, busted bases, and restore confidence in the US’s ability to protect Gulf assets.

I read somewhere that some ants send their elderly to fight wars. Apparently, the young are too precious to waste on deadly conflicts. With humans, the old tend to start wars and send their youth to fight them. It seems we humans have it backwards. Those who declare war must be handed the guns and armour (or an exoskeleton developed by Elon Musk) and head straight to the battlefield. That includes Captain Bone Spurs.

Who knew? The pigeon that hangs out in Beacon Hill Station actually has an Instagram account. Presently, the bird only has  27 followers. All humans. I have seen this pigeon several times while waiting for a train in one of America’s deepest subways. The bird walks around with an air of total calm. No predators down here. No rain. Some food. And generally nice people going this way and that.

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Let’s end AM with a compilation that was released 30 years ago and launched Seattle’s post-Sir Mix-a-Lot hiphop, Tribal Music’s Do the Math.

In a mere four years, Ground Hum has risen from an experimental multimedia festival at makeshift warehouses with infrastructure issues and strictly local performers to a full-fledged Happening™ at a legit venue (Washington Hall) with international artists. That's due to organizers Hans Anderson, Bobby Azarbayejani ('nohup'), and Alex Markey (Archivist) being savvy electronic musicians with deep roots and connections in the Northwest rave scene—plus crucial 4Culture grants.

Azarbayejani views Ground Hum's lofty mission as a recontextualization of rave's "fantastical, transformative experiences that emerge over the course of a single night. You leave those events with a sense of community, of being transported somewhere outside of ordinary life, and the feeling that a different world is possible. A lot of us first encountered that translation when we went to Corridor (2016–2018) and wanted to carry that same ethos forward."

Markey elaborates, saying Ground Hum "is essentially about Deep Listening, in the sense of the concept developed by Pauline Oliveros. Listening as an active, engaged process as opposed to passively hearing. I think the concept extends to our installation and performance art pieces, too. We’re trying to create this... multisensory experience that draws people into an alternate reality and keeps them there for the duration of the evening."

This year's lineup includes mercurial Dutch IDM producer upsammy, NYC bassoonist Joy Guidry, whose unearthly, beatless music hits you like a ton of feathers, and Kirkland ambient-music legend Raica, whose two 2025 releases stand as her most inventive and emotionally resonant works. The fest's booking policy, Markey says, centers on "people whose work is engaging on that deep emotional/intellectual level that could have people listening thoughtfully to a 45-minute or one-hour set without talking. Ground Hum artists create their own worlds and invite our audience to enter and explore with them. We’re looking for that ability to create a suspension of disbelief and really draw people in." Azerbayejani adds, "That goes for visual artists, too. Gia Valente is our lead curator for visual art, and their focus is on art that feels like it is bringing you into another world."

The Ground Hum crew are also proud of the workshops, which happen in Washington Hall’s Lodge Room from noon to 3:30 pm on March 7. (Admission is free and open to the public.) "We’re really excited to be expanding the programming," Azarbayejani says. "The first is by duo i+eo, who will be presenting a workshop titled 'Worldbuilding & Live A/V For Performance,' which will touch on using experimentation and collaboration to bring a visual identity to a music performance. The second is 'Performance-oriented stochastic MIDI sequencing' by Bay Area artist CAMI FLAGE, who will be sharing the research and development of Quartermaster, her custom stochastic sequencer."

Don't let all this highfalutin talk spook you. Markey exclaims, "Ground Hum is fun! I think a lot of people think of 'experimental electronic music' or 'performance art' as pretentious or elitist, but we’re just a bunch of goofball music and art nerds, and I think that comes through."

Ground Hum happens March 7 at Washington Hall, noon–11 pm, all ages. 

The four people at my table had their heads down, needles and threads in their hands. Behind me, books like How to Fix Almost Everything, Basic Electricity, and, fittingly, Successful Shelves and Built-ins filled one shelf in a shelving unit full of everything from surge protectors and spare keyboards to at least four different types of inductors. Down the lime-green wall, sewing machines weighed down another shelf.

Across the room, more people sat around tables next to woodsaws and clamps. They weren’t working with wood, but on shirts and pants.

This was the Capitol Hill Tool Library’s monthly mending circle. On the first Sunday of each month, anyone can bring any textile items that need fixing into the workshop. Volunteers are on hand to show you what to do. No experience required.

I went to the mending circle armed with zero sewing knowledge and an armful of clothes. I left with a sense of self-reliance previously foreign to me.

“So,” I said to my tablemates, “the knot in the thread? I just tie a knot?”

In spite of having a mother who once handmade my baby blankets and at least one Halloween catsuit, I never learned to sew. According to Clare, the mending circle’s founder, only 50 years ago many people sewed their own clothes. Not anymore. The skill isn’t as universal anymore.

Clare started the mending circle in 2022 as a way for her to meet sewing friends. It became more than that. Under her stewardship, the mending circle grew to a monthly mainstay where she could equip people with real life skills. Except, most of the people who showed up didn’t know how to sew. That didn’t bother Clare. “The most important part of that work we’re doing is giving people skills,” Clare says.

Clare’s no longer part of it—not for any reason other than she moved to Ballard, which is basically dying in Capitol Hill terms. She now helps with Sustainable Ballard’s mending group and one at the Ballard Food Bank.

The act of mending clothes is radical to her. “Because it doesn’t make financial sense,” Clare says. “You could just buy a new jacket for 20 bucks. It’s almost antiestablishment.”

I suppose I have been very “establishment.” When my clothes fall apart, I throw them to the back of my closet, or throw them away. Then, the pocket on my favorite jacket ripped. It’s an article of clothing—a vintage denim chore jacket—I’m certain I won’t be able to find again. But I’m not preservation-minded. I can’t stop wearing it. Hence the mending circle.

The other people were also trying to save their clothes: Marco sewed a patch into his new shoes because they were slightly too big. Will’s favorite shirt—an eight-year-old flannel—split down the entire armpit. He could fit his head in the hole with room to spare. “Does anyone know how to choose a needle?” he asked. Vanessa, who sat at the end of my table, started coming to the mending circle a few months ago and is now a regular. She learned to sew there, which is helpful since she has “the bad habit of wearing clothes probably long after I should have gotten rid of them,” she says. Today, she coerced her friend Thyme to come so she could mend their clothes. She’d run out of her own things to mend.

They both sewed holes shut in two matching pairs of Thyme’s sweatpants. “I have to specifically buy athletic-cut pants because my butt is too big,” they said. Their butt is always busting holes into their pants. (According to mending circle volunteers, the dreaded groin rip is the most common mending project.) Thyme was new to sewing. Learning the skill excited them. They’re a furry and often have to ask their mom to fix their two fursuits when things fall apart.

Most people had a passing familiarity with needles and thread. I stared blankly at the threaded needle in my hand. Where do I go from here? Katherine, who had sat down across from me, busy with her own clothes, lent her expertise. “My grandmother always told me to do two knots,” she said, demonstrating how to tie a double knot. She learned to sew from two different grandmothers. “They didn’t talk to each other at all,” she says.

Following Katherine’s lead, I attempted a double knot. Except I really didn’t grasp what she’d shown me, and I felt bad asking again, so I pretended I’d gotten it.

A seat down from me, Thyme interrupted. “I heard the knot question, but I didn’t hear the answer. How many times did you go around?”

“So, I ended up making three little knots,” I said, examining my now-bumpy thread. “I’m hoping they’ll go on top of each other to make one big knot, but they haven’t done that yet.” Katherine demonstrated again for both of us. I got it that time.

Overseeing this exchange, the volunteer coordinator, Saralyn, commented on it to another volunteer: “I always love when people come in not as volunteers, but they end up helping other people. One of my goals for [the] mending circle is to bring people together.” And she had.

Katherine came here today because she’d had “a brief crisis” in December. “My younger sister sat down and was like, ‘Here’s a list of things in your area. Go to them,’” she told me. “I think this might be legitimately the first thing that I’ve gone to—which is sad.” Vanessa and Thyme jumped in. “It’s only been two months!” Thyme said. “Don’t worry, I only started getting out of the house for realsies a few weeks ago,” Vanessa said.

We all chatted for the three hours the mending circle spanned—which is about how long it took me to sew my pocket back together, as well as a ripped armpit hole on another shirt. Other people came in with their worn clothes, picked up the supplied needles and thread, and set to work. One person came in to make anti-ICE whistle packets. She took a break to darn a sock.

“I always feel like I get worn down [by the world],” Saralyn said, over the hum of conversation and the occasional buzz of a sewing machine. “Then I come to mending circle. On a large scale, things are stressful. On a small scale, I remember, ‘I can fix this.’”

The patch I sewed to bolster my jacket is not beautiful. So far, the patch is holding and the jacket functions, but the lines are uneven and the stitches are wonky. I feel proud nonetheless. I like that even though it’s imperfect, I can see the passage of time on this garment I love. I like that I did it myself. And I feel comfortable knowing there is a place I can go when the patch inevitably falls off, and next time I will sew it on even better. 

For her column Play Date, Nathalie Graham immerses herself in Seattle's subcultures. Got a fun group? Invite her: PlayDate@thestranger.com!

The Rusical (the Musical) is back, but first, after a seven-episode drought, we (I) finally got a Mini Challenge. It brought silliness and actual story development, with the queens doing something together rather than loitering around the werkroom. Keep the minis coming, please. by Mike Kohfeld

The Rusical (the Musical) is back, but first, after a seven-episode drought, we (I) finally got a Mini Challenge. It brought silliness and actual story development, with the queens doing something together rather than loitering around the werkroom. Keep the minis coming, please.

The queens were tested on how well they knew each other with “Grindr, I Hardly Knew Her.” Athena was ranked as the queen most likely to hook up in drag and lie about her age on the apps. Kenya was voted most likely to be on Grindr at a funeral. “There’s a lot of rich people at funerals, girl,” she justified. Get that money, Kenya.

 For the final question, the queens voted Kenya as the most likely to sashay away next. With her track record of three bottom placements and zero wins, this didn’t come as a surprise. But Kenya was still savvy enough in her social game to win the mini challenge alongside Discord Addams, and she didn’t let the other queens’ judgment get into her head. Queen of confidence, or delusion?

Category Is: Voguing Orphans

Onwards to the main challenge. Like Snatch Game, the Rusical has become a perennial challenge in Drag Race, testing the queens’ skills in singing, acting, dancing, and comedy. We’ve had regular Rusicals since Season 6, and not all of them have been good. (Remember the Trump-themed one in Season 11? Gross.) However, the challenge brings out star potential: more than half of past Rusical winners placed in the top three in their seasons.

This season’s Rusical was a mashup of the 1977 Broadway classic Annie and the legendary 1990 documentary Paris is Burning. In other words: voguing orphans.

For the uninitiated: ballroom is a Black and Latinx queer subculture rooted in urban spaces in the United States. It is both a powerful expression of community and a vehicle for queer creativity and expression. The ballroom scene of 1980s New York City was featured in Paris is Burning, introducing the world to queer slang, dance, fashion, and music. Go watch it.

Drag Race is intrinsically indebted to ballroom culture, so it felt correct to see a direct nod to it with Fannie: The Hard Knock Ball Rusical, with Bronx-based ballroom legend Carlos Basquiat joining choreographer Jamal Sims in teaching the queens how to vogue.

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Give My Regards to Myki Meeks

When it came time for casting, the queens landed roles that fit their schticks well. Chronically indecisive Nini Coco butted heads with Myki over the lead part, but ultimately settled for a role that didn’t require as much singing.

It was meant to be: Myki Meeks pulled out an exceptional performance as Fannie. After demurely introducing herself as having “retired” from musical theater, she impressed Drag Race music producers Leland and Gabe Lopez (RIP) during the recording session. “I didn’t realize that we had Sutton Foster in the building,” Jane remarked. However far Myki Meeks gets in Drag Race—and her recent upswing suggests a top three trajectory—Broadway is waiting for her.

Miss Shenanigans

Jane Don’t knew exactly how to play the Rusical, claiming the part of Miss Shenanigans, a stumbling drunk with vaudeville vibes and “a low chance of having to vogue.” Her savvy vocal stylings left plenty of room for comedy on stage. During the performance, she channeled the legendary Carol Burnett while keeping it quintessentially Jane, brilliantly blending physical comedy into the choreography. (I loved her makeup callback to Lil’ Poundcake, too.)

Myki and Jane were neck and neck when it came down to the win, but Jane shone a hair brighter this week. Maybe it was her extravagant, fur-lined, Mae West-inspired look for this week’s “Beige Against the Machine” runway category, or perhaps it was because she made RuPaul laugh more when she was literally rolling around the stage. Whatever the case, Jane earned her second win of the season. I would not have been mad about a double win, though. These queens are that good.

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Hard Knocks, Tough Calls

Jane and Myki were clear tops for the Rusical, but it wasn’t easy to figure out how the rest of the cast would stack up-–everyone else did a solid job. Darlene chose a safe role as Fannie’s loyal canine sidekick, Brandy. Her exquisitely-structured beige tweed suit on the runway was my favorite of the week.

Nini and Discord were paired together as Lil’ Salty and Big Peppa, an orphan duo versed in old-school hip hop (hello, Salt-N-Pepa!). Their dancing was “awfully white,” according to Kenya, but their synergy kept them safe. (I thought their dancing was cute. It reminded me of the kids from Peanuts.)

Kenya was the most excited about a voguing Rusical, and her performance as Grace Gaultier was a joy to witness. She looked, sounded, and moved like a ballroom queen, and she got *almost* all of her words, dropping some here and there during the more intense vogueing sequences. Given how many times she’s been called out for sloppy lip-syncing, I wondered if this would tank her, but she earned a well-deserved safe placement.

As Kenya’s scene partner, Juicy was not so fortunate. The kid is born to dance, yes, but her energy and presence as Cecile Cartier didn’t measure up to what the other queens were giving. During judging, RuPaul critiqued Juicy’s characterization as “lacking a point of view.” She landed in the bottom two.

Athena typecasted herself as the rich and ruthless Mama Bigbux. She played the part well, but it wasn’t consistent enough for the judges. Jamal Sims pointed out that her face betrayed her uncertainty with the ballroom choreo. Athena’s performance didn’t scream “bottom two” to me, but I knew what was coming.

The Fall of the House of Dion

Heavy are the hands that edit RuPaul’s Drag Race. It was time for the mother-daughter showdown that was promised the day Athena and Juicy walked into the werkroom. It was way more emotional than I expected.

Juicy started strong but has floundered over the last few weeks, with RuPaul consistently critiquing Juicy’s lack of a clear point of view in her performances. “At this point in the competition, we need to see you. Who are you?”

As the queens processed last week’s critiques and auntie Mia’s elimination, Juicy revealed she had struggled with drug addiction in the past, and that she was still figuring out who she is. Athena helped get her back on her feet, and Juicy’s drag family has been her biggest source of support.

When Juicy and Athena squared up to lip-sync-for-their-lives, it was a somber moment. Juicy kept the game in mind, but Athena struggled to balance her desire to win with sending home the person that means most to her.

The song chosen was “Call Me When You Break Up” by Selena Gomez, Gracie Abrams, and music producer/guest judge Benny Blanco. It wasn’t a great choice for a lip-sync battle, as it didn’t inspire a particularly energetic show from the queens. But it was memorable nonetheless.

By the end of the lip-sync, the two had locked hands and sang directly to each other. Athena sank to her knees in front of Juicy, who followed suit and finished the song curled up in Athena’s arms. “I love you,” Athena whispered as the track wrapped, and Juicy sobbed. (We also got a choice shot from behind the queens during this tender moment of RuPaul staring hungrily at her next Emmy.)

Juicy was saved, and Athena sashayed away. I was surprised given how prominent Athena has been in the edit. Who will take on all the narration we’ve been getting from her? Well, we’ve got more options than you’d think: a queen (or queens?) will be returning to the competition next week. My bet’s on Vita.

Until next time!

The bill was allowed to skip the Land Use Committee and go straight to a full Seattle city council vote today, but Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck hit a snag. by Hannah Murphy Winter

If you planned to tell your council members to pass the detention moratorium at City Hall this afternoon, change your calendars—the vote has been pushed to next week, March 10. 

Last month, Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck introduced a bill to establish a one year moratorium on new permits “related to detention centers or jails.” Meant to stall any possible immigration detention within the city limits, the bill was allowed to skip the Land Use Committee and go straight to a full council vote today.

But Rinck hit a snag on the word “jail.” Someone didn’t want that word in the bill. “In order to get this over the finish line, we needed to make some changes,” she said, but declined to say who requested those changes on the record. She reintroduced the bill without the word “jail” in its body or title.

“The bill remains focused on instituting that moratorium on detention centers,” Rinck told The Stranger. 

Meanwhile, other jurisdictions are chugging ahead on similar legislation. Last week, the Tukwila City Council unanimously passed a six month moratorium on “a correctional institution or any detention or related facility for the detention, transportation, and food services for people detained by state, local, or federal law enforcement.” SeaTac passed theirs in early February. And today, the King County Council will hold an emergency vote on Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda’s detention moratorium. 

If you want to say your piece about this detention moratorium, public comment for Seattle’s moratorium will be at 2 p.m. on March 10, before the full council vote. 

And if you want to know how Councilmember Rinck feels about the delay, she made a video about it.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Alexis Mercedes Rinck (@councilmember.amr)

I don’t remember a time in my life when daydreaming didn’t take up a big portion of my day, if not all of it. by Eva Walker

Dear Hendrix,

As I write this, you are sleeping soundly on the sofa, maybe dreaming about the alphabet or perhaps Peppa Pig. When you grow up, I can’t wait to fill your head with my stories about touring the world with my rock band, playing at a soccer stadium filled with 40,000 people, and sharing the stage with some mind-bending musicians like Mavis Staples, Weezer, and Death Cab for Cutie.

But none of that would have been possible if I hadn’t learned the value of staring blankly at a wall. It might actually be my favorite activity. Because Henny, I have a confession: I love a blank screen, a bare wall, growing grass, and drying paint. To some, they’re mind-numbingly boring. To me, they sparkle, and they always have.

I don’t remember a time in my life when daydreaming didn’t take up a big portion of my day, if not all of it. Your grandma probably still has my old school report cards to prove it. I spent most of my school days drifting in and out of imaginary worlds. My teachers sounded like Charlie Brown’s—all mumbly and fragmented. As they’d talk in the background of my daydreams, I’d pop back into reality from time to time, wondering Who? What’s a Plymouth Rock? Fractions? Wait, what’s going on outside the window…?

There are others like me, too.

My favorite YouTuber, Michael Stevens, said, “Boredom compels us to try new things; a propensity to boredom is a sign of a healthy mind.” People have invented and discovered amazing things because they were bored. When you allow your thoughts to wander, when your mind becomes a blank page, you can conjure up images and ideas and futures. Some of the songs I’m most proud of writing have come from sitting and staring.

My band, the Black Tones, have a song called “Striped Walls.” I was inspired to write it while, you guessed it, staring at my bedroom wall. I had been gazing at the black-and-white stripes I’d painted a few months before, and then a lyric came to me—“Two chords for two colors / Don’t lose its touch / Feeling happy, feeling lousy / It makes you feel like you’re downtown.”

I picked up my secondhand banjo and began to strum the only two chords I knew. I’d never written a song on banjo before; the Black Tones traditionally play blues-rock. But fast-forward a year later, and there we were, tracking “Striped Walls” with super producer Jack Endino (!), and the song ended up on our debut album.

Just like that. Boredom, man.

That said, my hobby can catch some people off guard. There were times when your father would walk into our bedroom and see me sitting, staring, thinking. “You okay?” he’d ask. I’d turn to look at him and smile calmly, happily, like we were on a dinner date over candlelight. “Yeah, I’m great!” Early on, he may have given me a puzzled look—I know that look. It’s the look that says, Are you needing a straitjacket?

But it’s quite the opposite. Silence, peace, tranquility—these aren’t signs of illness, burnout, or mental exhaustion. To me, they are signs of health. Of course, your dad gets it now. He understands it’s just me exercising my imagination. It’s something I’ve done since childhood, and something I’ve continued to lean into, even into my thirties. I hope to be staring at blank walls until the day I die.

So dear, if you’re ever feeling stuck, uninspired, or restless, try this:

1. Sit down in front of a wall in a quiet room.

2. Stare, think.

3. Make up a world, a story, or an event you could be doing in a parallel universe.

4. Make sure it stirs you.

Embrace a blank page, Henny. A bare day, an unplanned road. Boredom is the perfect canvas upon which to draw with every tool of your imagination.

I love you,

Mom

Eva Walker is a writer, a KEXP DJ, one-half of the rock duo the Black Tones, and mom to her baby girl, Hendrix. She also cowrote the book The Sound of Seattle: 101 Songs That Shaped a City, which was released in 2024. Every month for The Stranger, she writes a letter to Hendrix to share wisdom learned from her experiences—and her mistakes. Read all installments here.

Got problems? Yes, you do! Email your question for the column to mailbox@savage.love! by Dan Savage 1. My boyfriend swears he’s cut. I say he’s totally uncut. He insists he was circumcised as an infant. How do I convince him? Some circumcisions are “tight” (all of the foreskin removed) and others are “loose” (most of the foreskin left intact). The looser the circumcision, the more “uncut” a man’s cock might appear. So, it’s entirely possible your boyfriend was circumcised as an infant but that his cock — if his circumcision was loose — more closely resembles uncut cocks you’ve admired in porn and encountered IRL. P.S. For the record: Your boyfriend should not have been circumcised in infancy. No infant should be. 2. What’s the best song about cheating? I nominate “One Way Out” by the Allman Brothers. There are so many greats — “Heard It Through the Grapevine,” “The Piña Colada Song,” “Don’t Hurt Yourself” — but in the category of “Best Song About Cheating,”…

[ Read more ]

The Stranger's morning news roundup. by Vivian McCall

Iran: Israel and US strikes have killed 787 people in Iran. Washington warned the “hardest hits” are to come. What? Combined forces have already killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, hit the state broadcaster, and damaged Golestan Palace in Tehran, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Overnight, the US and Israel bombed Tehran. This morning, Iran struck the US Embassy in Saudi Arabia; Israel hit Beirut, Lebanon in answer to yesterday’s strikes from the Iranian-backed Hezbollah. The US and Israel say this descending spiral into wider war is necessary to end Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

What did a girl’s school have to do with those nuclear ambitions? The roof collapsed when missiles hit Shajareh Tayyebeh (The Good Tree) on Saturday, killing 165 and wounding 95, according to Iranian media. Social media accounts and websites linked to Israel claimed the school was part of an “Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps base.” However, a report from Al Jazeera’s digital investigations unit determined the school had been clearly separate from the adjacent military site for at least a decade, throwing into question the accuracy of the intelligence that led to this bombing.

New Bus News: Sound Transit broke ground on the Stride S3 line, a rapid bus line connecting the north end of Lake Washington from Bothell to Shoreline, writes The Urbanist. The S3 is one of three lines under construction, upgrades to existing express routes. Doors are expected to pop open in 2028. See? The suburbs can have nice things, too.

Behind in Getting Ahead: British Columbia is adopting permanent daylight saving time on March 8. We’ll be in sync with Vancouver until November 1, when we fall back an hour once again. We want the same—Washington passed that law in 2019—but we need Congressional approval. British Columbia has had the ability to do this since 2019, and has been dutifully waiting for us, but nobody can wait forever with all these “recent actions from the US” going on.

Candidate Alert: Ordained minister, community organizer and Lavender Rights Project executive director Jaelynn Scott is running for a seat in the state house. The opportunity came by way of musical chairs: When State Sen. Rebecca Saldaña announced her run for King County Council, 37th District Rep. Chipalo Street told the Washington State Standard he was running for her seat, leaving his own vacant. Micah interviewed Scott ahead of her announcement.

Where’s Rep. The Lorax? Budget legislation in the House could dismantle a state program to plant and sustain trees in Washington.

Epstein Intrigue: The House Oversight Committee released video of the Clintons testifying in closed door depositions for its Epstein investigation. Did they burst this thing wide open? No. 

Bill: Bill described his relationship with Epstein, the convicted sex offender and “information-hungry person,” as “cordial,” not a true friendship (though who would admit to that now?). During questioning, he recalled talking with Trump about Epstein at one of the president’s golf courses about 20 years ago (Trump told Bill they’d fallen out over a property deal). Bill Clinton is the first former president forced to testify in Congress, which Democrats hope will set a precedent that makes it easier to call President Trump to the stand. But, when asked if Trump should testify, Bill replied “that’s for you to decide,” adding nothing Trump said to him made him think Trump was involved in anything “improper.” Bill did not, however, “exonerate” Trump as Rep. James R. Comer of Kentucky claimed.

Hillary: Rep. Nancy Mace, the transphobe from South Carolina, took the lead questioning Hillary, who considered the deposition over a person “that I don’t believe I ever even met” a waste of her time. Mace pressed Hillary for her feelings about photos in the Epstein files of her husband with young women. “I am not going to speculate,” Hillary responded. Rep. Lauren Boebert, the fool from Colorado, pressed Hillary about Pizzagate, the 2015 conspiracy theory that Democrats were running a child sex ring in the basement of a D.C. pizzeria that inspired a man to “investigate” with his AR-15 in hand, firing several shots. Hillary said she couldn’t believe Boebert was mentioning it. (I can—she’s Lauren Boebert? Besides, pizzagate is piping hot at the moment. The Epstein files contain 900 odd references to pizza.)

Deadliest Catch Star Dead at 25: Todd Meadows, the newest deckhand aboard the Aleutian Lady, died while filming the show on the Bering Sea. Captain Rick Shelford announced Meadows’ death on Facebook yesterday, writing that it was the most tragic day in the crabbing boat’s history. Meadows had three sons.

Fire: About 40 people were displaced when an apartment building caught fire in Everett yesterday morning.

Ida-Holy Shit: Republican Governor Brad Little cares little for the disabled people in his state. After Trump’s Big Beautiful cuts to Medicaid, Little released a budget that would all but dissolve home care for people with disabilities. Home care is not a luxury, it is a need. Meanwhile, Idaho legislators want to make it a crime for any organization to help undocumented immigrants, churches included. Next on the agenda, puppy mills that really mill puppies.

Let the monthslong stomachache commence. Primaries for midterms in Texas, North Carolina, and Arkansas are underway. For some reason, the Associated Press is teaming up with the prediction market site Kalshi so people can bet on the outcome. Kalshi struck a similar deal to become CNN’s “official prediction market partner” in December. Surely, this can only be good for democracy.

Wet: Rain is pitter-pattering between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., followed by one mysterious hour of patchy fog. Tonight, more rain. Tomorrow, even more rain. Thursday, you guessed it, rain. Friday? Rain again. Saturday and Sunday, rain is likely, but not for sure. Monday, rain, straight-up.