Whatever your Valentine's Day plans may be, we've gathered a bouquet of swoon-worthy options around town, from Big Mario’s pizzagrams to food lover's tasting menus at Marjorie and Taylor Shellfish, plus sweet treats from Ben’s Bread. For more ideas, check out our food and drink guide.

Big Mario’s Pizza
The year was 2001 when I first discovered the genius move of sending someone a message via pizza (see: The Princess Diaries). Local New York-style pizzeria Big Mario’s also knows the way to Seattleites’ hearts is pizza, so they're reprising their popular pizzagram delivery and pickup from February 13–15. Take another little pizza of my heart now, baby. 
Capitol Hill, Fremont, Northlake, Queen Anne, White Center

Immigrant and advocate Julie Kang thinks she's the best City Council candidate for Seattle's "neglected child," District 5. But can she make up her mind on how she'd handle surveillance, homelessness and policing? by Micah Yip

Julie Kang slid a small plastic bag across the table at the downtown library coffee shop. It was an ICE alert kit containing a whistle and a short pamphlet, the kind she helps assemble with Common Power every Friday. 

“It’s one thing to share information,” she says. “But I really think it’s important for us to be leaders and not just be bystanders.”

Kang, a Korean American immigrant and the cochair of the King County Immigrant and Refugee Commission, is running for Seattle City Council District 5, which stretches from the bay west of Broadview to Lake Washington on the east, with I-5 running down the middle, and hasn’t had an elected representative since Cathy Moore resigned last year, one year into her term. Longtime District 5 councilmember Debora Juarez stepped in to take Moore’s place. Just when we thought she was gone for good.

Where Kang fits in on the spectrum of Juarez and Moore isn’t totally clear. She’s never held elected office before. She’s resting on the laurels of her decades of education work, advocacy, and community organizing, as well as her lived experience and “take action” spirit—that all makes her the best candidate to lead what she called the “neglected child” district.

But it didn’t seem like she could make up her mind. In our interview, Kang saw both sides so often I couldn’t always tell where she stood on surveillance cameras, homelessness, and law enforcement. She insisted councilmembers must take in all sides, all data, and all stories before making a decision. Really, Kang, all sides?

So far, two other people have filed in this race: Silas James, an unknown, and Nilu Jenks, who ran for the position in 2023 and is Kang’s biggest competition so far. But Kang’s betting her behind-the-scenes civic work will matter more than Jenks’s name recognition.

To go from community organizer to councilmember, Kang will have to adapt and work hard. She’s no stranger to either. 

Kang and her mother came to the US from Korea when she was 7 years old. They were poor. Her mother made ends meet making computer chips on assembly lines in Los Angeles. They never left the city, but hopped from apartment to apartment 23 times in 11 years.

In college, Kang became her family’s breadwinner. She entered a career in education—first as a paraeducator, then as a classroom teacher. She was 20.

“I couldn’t get a glass of wine or a beer, but I was given 32 children to teach Spanish,” she jokes. 

Kang kept learning. She earned a masters in education, a doctorate in philosophy. Most recently, she held directorial roles at Seattle University and the University of Washington. And she’s had her fingers in lots of advocacy pies like leading the Korean American Coalition of Washington or being on the King County Citizens’ Election Oversight Committee.

She’s smart and determined, but does that mean she’d be good on the city council? Great question. 

Kang’s priorities are what you’d expect: more housing, better transit, public safety, community engagement, and protection against ICE. That’s all well and good if she can back it up. 

For instance, Kang wants to figure out how to manage the intersection of homelessness, public safety, and small business ownership, that familiar throuple from hell. So, when it comes to something like the tent city in Lake City, Kang says she supports it, but she’s also weighing the perspectives of small business owners who don’t want unhoused folks outside their storefronts. 

“I think humans, our unhoused neighbors, have to be the center of decision-making,” Kang says. “But I am working out who is working in the best interest of unhoused and small business owners.” She didn’t know how she’d manage that.

Kang says she’s excited about the recent expansion of the Community Assisted Response and Engagement (CARE) Department, the city’s alternative public safety response. She says homeless people shouldn’t be swept without the city connecting them to resources and a place to go, which the city already often does.

Her other worries include empty storefronts in North Seattle and grocery stores packing up and leaving the area a food desert. She’s floated ideas like small-business rental vouchers to help retailers with startup costs. She believes mixed-use development, with stores on the ground floor and housing above, should be easier to build. 

That housing? She wants more of it. “As an immigrant, we aspire to have secure housing, and that’s what we should aim for for everyone,” Kang says. “We all should have a roof over our head and not worry about, ‘Do we have to move next year because my rent is going to increase?’” She didn’t have a plan to manage that, either.

But housing is nothing without solid transit infrastructure. District 5 doesn’t have that, she says. The district has two light rail stations—Northgate and 148th Street—and a third planned station at 130th Street. But neither side of the district has an easy route to get to them; she’s led walking groups to test them. Parking is limited. Bus routes don’t line up.

“How can we not get rid of bus lines, but add to the bus lines, so we can all get there?” she asks. She doesn’t yet have an answer.

On the topic of Aurora Avenue—mainly the Seattle Police Department’s CCTV surveillance program—Kang has opinions, but is cautious, again, of both sides. The CCTV is a growing concern among Seattleites, immigrant rights organizations, and public officials who know the Feds could subpoena the data for immigration enforcement. Kang agrees: expanding data collection at a moment when ICE is unleashing terror across the US isn’t safe. 

“At this point, I’m not interested in collecting data for it to be available or forcibly handed over. I’m not,” Kang says firmly. 

But she also won’t dismiss the concerns of small business owners who say the cameras make the streets feel safer. 

“People wanted it, so I think at the same time, we do have to consider the input and desires of our constituents,” she says.

It’s a similar story for her on SOAP and SODA, the “Stay Out of Areas of Prostitution” and “Stay Out of Drug Areas” zones put forward by Republican City Attorney Ann Davison. Kang says she was hesitant when council first passed the zones in 2024, and still leans toward opposing them. But then again, she says that as a councilmember, she’d have to consider other perspectives and data that might conflict with her opinion. That includes “positive” data, like from the Chinatown International District, where SOAP/SODA have been implemented as well.

If Kang becomes a councilmember, constituents can expect her to collect data, see all sides, and consider the “sociopolitical context” ad nauseum before making a decision. Expect to hear from the dais, “I think XYZ, but at the same time, XYZ” a lot. Expecting her to take a hard stance, however, could take time. For now, she insists she’s a “doer.” 

I have a boyfriend who never asks for anything. He also never says “I love you.” Do you think this is a red flag? by Dan Savage 1. I’m an 81-year-old heterosexual woman whose husband died last May. I have found that my 56-year-old gardener of fifteen years can make me sexually happy. But now after four months he says he’s not respecting his wife by having sex with me. He relates this to going to a Catholic priest for confession. He seems to enjoy our sex. What should I tell him? “You’re fired.” P.S. Kidding, kidding — don’t fire your gardener. Tell him you’re grateful for the sexual happiness, you don’t want him to do anything that makes him feel uncomfortable, and then give him a raise. P.P.S. Will no one free us from these meddlesome priests? 2. What is the most frequently asked question you get? Hard to say — but I suspect I’ll get a lot more questions like the one above as my readership ages along with me. 3. I have a boyfriend…

[ Read more ]

The Stranger's morning news roundup. by Vivian McCall

ICE Cams: In an attempt to save her head, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced that DHS will strap a body camera to every federal agent in Minneapolis, and expand that program nationwide when “funding becomes available.” President Donald Trump is in favor. “They generally tend to be good for law enforcement because people can’t lie about what’s happening,” said the President, who has consistently lied about what’s happening, at a Monday news conference. 

This isn’t much of a reform. It’s a new camera angle. These immigration agents are being filmed constantly, and clear footage of Jesus Ochoa and Raymundo Gutierrez shooting Alex Pretti 10 times didn’t stop the government from lying about his killing. Hell, Jonathan Ross was filming when he shot Renee Good in the face. For all the administration’s supposed “concessions” in Minneapolis, ICE is still wilding out in the streets.

The admin is also wilding out in the courtroom. As the Minnesota Star Tribune and Mother Jones have both reported, federal prosecutors in Minnesota are “demoralized” and “pissed” that their DOJ handlers have asked them to charge anti-ICE protesters without appropriate evidence, so they’re quitting in droves. According to the Star Tribune, eight more prosecutors quit the US Attorney’s Office yesterday. Will the last prosecutor please turn off the lights?

This morning, the House will try to pass a deal to end the government shutdown. The bill would fund important stuff —defense, healthcare, labor, education, housing—and temporarily extend DHS funding while legislators negotiate changes to immigration enforcement. Far-right Republicans are threatening to tank the bill unless they tuck in new voter ID laws.

School’s Out for ICE: Hundreds of high school students in Highline and Renton School Districts walked out of school Monday morning to protest ICE. Highline senior Andre Gordon, the 17-year-old son of immigrants, told the Seattle Times: “We shouldn’t have to be scared to live in our own country. We shouldn’t have to do this.”

The millionaire tax has been revealed. The proposal would impose a 9.9% income tax on people earning more than $1 million a year (an estimated 20,000 households statewide) and eliminate a sales tax on personal hygiene products. Wow, somewhat: This tax on the wealthy will be offset with cuts to the business taxes the Legislature passed last year. Most of the $3 billion in annual revenue would go to the state general fund and pay for things like education and healthcare. Dems are going to hold a press conference today. There’ll be a public hearing Thursday. Tim Eyman’s squires are armoring him as you read.

Weather: Patchy morning fog followed by a pleasantly cool high of 58, clouds and a light wind. The clouds will stick around through Wednesday and clear out for a sunny Thursday and Friday. Rain will kill the vibe Saturday and Sunday.

I have good news about a Seattle movie theatre? Shocking, I know. What was years ago the Ark Lodge, is now the Tasveer Film Center, a new Columbia City spot to catch artsy South Asian films. Two of the theatre’s four screens will open for public screenings next week. A third screen will open later, once Tasveer remedies some ambiguous technical issues. Tasveer bought the building last March for $2.85 million. It wouldn’t have been possible without the 4Culture Doors Open funding I wrote about in 2024.

If I were Mark Zuckerberg, I’d be pale and scared. For he’s stolen a VR fitness routine from muscular, middle-aged women.

Bob the Builder: A state bill backed by Gov. Bob Ferguson could force local governments to open dying strip malls and office parks for redevelopment as shiny, new mixed-use buildings.

Mamdani Opens Up: Mayor Wilson, the gauntlet has been thrown. Raise the portcullis; let the children play in the Great City Hall Pit.

It’s your city, from the sidewalk to the skyline. The David Dinkins Municipal Building’s rooftop is open & free to everyone, starting this June.

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— Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@mayor.nyc.gov) February 2, 2026 at 12:25 PM

Jeb Bush’s proudest moment turned 10 yesterday: Please clap.

What if they had?

gazing longingly at the timeline where they clapped

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— Brendan O’Kane (@bokane.org) February 2, 2026 at 4:44 PM

Portland’s own underground abortionist-turned-poet was a legend. She was also my friend. by Megan Burbank

This story was originally published in our sister paper, Portland Mercury.

In 2017, Judith Arcana sent a postcard to the old Mercury offices in Old Town/Chinatown. I was the arts editor at the time—it was my first real journalism job—and after many stories covering local theater (I still think about the plays I saw at Shaking the Tree) and books (a reading at Powell’s followed by a strong martini at Pepe le Moko was a typical after-work routine), I had written a feature on the newly-formed Northwest Abortion Access Fund. After Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2023, NWAAF would become a frequently cited source in coverage across the country. But at the time, most newsrooms were not covering the issue of abortion access particularly well. Reaching out to an abortion fund for comment on anything was rare.

So Judith noticed when someone did. “BIG CHEER!,” she wrote in her missive. “HUZZAH!—and all like that—Great work on the NWAAF—Thank you. Jeanie’s right: FREE ABORTION ON DEMAND.”

Judith had been part of Chicago’s underground abortion service known as Jane—never the Jane Collective, she told me later. That was a journalist’s language, never hers. As one of the Janes, she had helped facilitate 11,000 abortions in Chicago in the years before Roe v. Wade and was even arrested for it. Though she wasn’t directly involved in NWAAF’s work, the abortion fund carried on the legacy of the Janes, connecting people seeking abortions with funding and compassion when state-level policies stood in the way—a dynamic that long preceded the gutting of Roe.

The story of the Janes was made into movies and books, but Judith was, before everything else, a teacher. In Portland, she was known as a writer and a poet. She was someone who could be described as a feminist icon, but she was also approachable and generous, a friend to many.

We didn’t meet in person until years after she sent me that postcard, when I wrote a profile on her for a Seattle-based outlet. I had left the Mercury to work for The Seattle Times, and after years of general assignment reporting that left me feeling scattered and unfocused, I returned to the subject I knew best: abortion policy.

The first time I called Judith for the story, I could tell she didn’t really want to speak to yet another journalist. But the more we talked, the more we got along. Sometimes you meet someone and you just have a feeling that they’ll be important in your life. Anne of Green Gables called them kindred spirits. Though she was already on the edge of her 80s, and I was barely in my 30s when we met, Judith was a kindred spirit. She connected me with other Janes for the story—fascinating, generous women who had been brave in ways that made them the subjects of movies and books. They had survived ordeals in jail and illegal abortions in underground economies, and recounted those experiences to me in full, horrifying detail, but also shared their personal obsessions and pleasures. I talked with one of them about my reality TV fixation; she recommended the Discovery Channel’s Alaskan Bush People.

I met Judith in person for the first time at Case Study Coffee on NE Alberta. We sat in the upstairs space at a long table, and talked until closing time, then outside on a bench. It was not a warm day, but the business at hand was too important not to keep talking about it. My phone battery died, my fingers cramped in the cold as I took notes, and I knew that as long as Judith wanted to talk, I would want to listen.

After the story came out, we became friends, or perhaps that’s what we’d always been. I would let her know whenever I was coming to Portland, and she would email me ahead of time if she had a reading in Seattle. In the meantime we corresponded regularly.

When you meet someone already nearly 80, you know your time with them will likely be limited, but her death in December still surprised me. I think it surprised me because she and the other Janes were so sharp in their intellect and sense of justice as to seem ageless, but of course they were not.

The last time I saw Judith was in July. She’d recently moved, and I met her at Coffeehouse-Five on N Killingsworth. It was a much nicer day than the one years ago, when we’d sat outside in the wintry dark. We found a different bench, under the trees in the sunshine at Portland Community College. It was one of those perfect Portland days, when the sky is slightly golden—more golden than it is in Seattle, an atmospheric quirk I have never quite understood—and we talked about the current political situation, which we were both following with dismay. Judith was the kind of person who didn’t buy into false hope. When you said something was bad, she would agree, and in that clarity, you would feel held. It was awful, but you were in the struggle with Judith. That was a good place to be.

And the fight could also be beautiful. As we sat together on the bright-green lawn, the sprinklers kicking into high gear, Judith showed me pictures on her phone of the Great Columbia Crossing 10k walk she had taken 10 years prior. The organized walk takes place every year, starting from Dismal Nitch in Washington state, then taking the 101 and crossing the entire impossible span of the Astoria-Megler Bridge, the behemoth of engineering that runs four miles across the Columbia. The bridge was the highlight of Judith’s walk, and she talked about it excitedly. We talked about going together the next time the walk was held. “People say we cross a bridge to get to the other side / and that’s true, though there’s more– / on the bridge one day, we walked through the sky,” Judith wrote in a poem about that day she sent via email when I’d come home.

When I heard of Judith’s passing, I looked back through our correspondence. We had written each other after our visit in July, but she had never responded to my final email. When I read my last email to her, I think I understood why. I was surprised by my own message. After some griping about managing a public media newsroom while the president defunded PBS, I said I hoped to see her again next time I was in town, then signed off like this: “Thinking fondly of your walk thru the sky, Megan.”

I didn’t know it at the time, but this is how I will remember Judith forever. It is the final memory and image she, a poet, would leave me with—that of a slightly younger Judith, on that compelling walk, feeling free in her body, marveling at the world around her, a world shaped by her own bravery and moral clarity, showing all of us what is possible.

As Easy Street Records owner Matt Vaughan has demonstrated, posting is almost always a mistake. by Audrey Vann

It really didn’t have to go down like this. On Friday, the long-running West Seattle record shop and cafe, Easy Street Records, posted on Instagram that it’d donate 10 percent of its sales through the weekend to the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota. This was the store’s way to support Friday’s sort-of “general strike” without cutting staff hours. All day, they’d be blasting song requests from their outdoor speakers. Suggestions poured in: “Know Your Rights” by the Clash, “What’s Going On” by Marvin Gaye, and “Imagine” by John Lennon.

Then, an hour later, Easy Street liked (accidentally, says the shop’s president Matt Vaughan) and un-liked a lovely screed, bringing it to the top of the comments section:

“ICE is doing God's work. Ain't nobody above the law, and that includes immigration law. Abolishing ICE is a radicalized notion; if people truly wanted change, they'd ask for a reform but abolishing a federal law enforcement agency is pure lunacy. Because of such a fundamental disagreement I will never participate in idiotic calls to boycott nothing. And in spirit of good neighborlyness [sic], here's my song request: Led Zepellin [sic], Immigrant Song.”

People wanted to know why Easy Street liked the comment. Easy Street could’ve said anything, and chose wrong.

“Dude chose Immigrant Song,” wrote Vaughan. “C’mon! He’s trying. Obviously the guy has some decent thoughts…at least has good music taste. I may not agree w what he says, but I’ll fight like hell for him to express his opinion.”

People did not like that. Vaughan doubled down. “We agree w him saying ‘nobody is above the law,’ we agree w his song choice, we appreciate the engagement. It seems the guy is trying to come to grips w things, we can support that even if we don’t agree.” 

By “we,” Vaughan must have meant “I,” because he’s “in charge of social media and replying,” says an anonymous Easy Street employee who wanted to keep their job. Vaughan confirmed they were his comments. “Our social media person had the day off,” he wrote in an email to The Stranger. He apologized for speaking for his entire staff of sales clerks and music buyers, whose pithy reels of music recommendations have made them the faces of his account.

Though in the moment, Vaughan kept digging: “I imagine there are some decent ICE agents out there, if u are a quality human being...gotta be a tough job. Clearly we don’t agree w how it’s been managed…and the optics are awful.” The comment has been deleted. But the screenshots are alive, well, and on Reddit.

Realizing his mistake, Vaughan commented that “It takes 20 years (or 58) to build a reputation…and 5 minutes to lose it. I very much understand that notion.” 

In an email to The Stranger, Vaughan said he hadn’t seen the bit about ICE doing “God’s work” when he was liking song requests, and had made a mistake by “not reading the whole thing.” (Close readers will note the comment began: “ICE is doing God’s work.”) 

“I agreed with the reply the guy saying ‘nobody is above the law,’” Vaughan continues, “I thought he was referring to Trump and the administration, everyone.” He acknowledged that upon reading it again, he can see how it could be referring to “protesters who aren't above the law.” 

“This was inappropriate given the circumstances in recent weeks and the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. I am terribly sorry to my staff and any customers who feel let down. This was all on me.”

It’s unclear whether Vaughan’s real-time responses and ever-changing explanations for the comments (the apology on Instagram continues to be edited) are a reflection of a man trying to learn from his mistakes or a business owner trying desperately to get back in good graces with his customers. Patrons of Easy Street Records, at least in the online sphere, appear to be split. “This is how you handle a mistake,” one commenter writes. “Performative apology,” another says. 

Either way, Vaughan’s employees are bearing the brunt of his thumbs. 

“We have received angry calls and people in-store voicing their opinion on Matt's comments,” says an employee. “On behalf of the staff, I just want to reiterate that his comments on Friday were not ours.”

Before you seek retribution on Easy Street with a nasty phone call, remember the last time your boss did something stupid, and you took the hit. My advice to Vaughan: put down the phone. My advice to you: Take your business elsewhere if you please, but leave the workers alone.

The best culture and community events in Seattle in February. by Julianne Bell

Want more? Here's everything we recommend this month: Music, Visual Art, Literature, Performance, Film, Food, and This & That.

FEB 14–15

Gallop into the Year of the Horse with the Tết Festival, a free, family-friendly event hosted at Seattle Center as part of the Festal World Cultural Program. Browse vendors and health-related booths with free screenings and services, check out lion dances and other performances, enter some eating competitions if you’re feeling bold, and watch a fashion show with traditional Vietnamese garments. Don’t forget to wear red and yellow or gold for good luck! (Seattle Center, 11 am–6 pm, all ages, free) JULIANNE BELL

FEB 27

The intimate Rabbit Box Theatre will host this evening of witchcraft, led by the psychic, medium, and ceremonial artist Mugga Rose (formerly KOOK Teflon), who recently returned to Seattle. Shamanic arts throat singer Soriah will cultivate otherworldly vibrations, followed by an occult performance by storyteller and psychic Doña Macabra. Meagan Angus, Hannah Haddix, and Gabriela of All Gates Within will impart stories and spoken word, Mugga Rose will read from her book, and Jessica Henry and CURRĄŊ will curate a market full of “unique, peculiar, one-of-a-kind creations” from artists. The night is also in part a tribute to the late “fire-tongued, spell-bright, never forgotten” witch Jaguar Bullet. (Rabbit Box Theatre, 7–10 pm, all ages) JULIANNE BELL

The Real Twin Peaks Various locations across Snoqualmie Valley, Feb 19–22

Riding Together: 135 Years of Cycling in Seattle Through Apr 26, Museum of History & Industry

Isaac Mizrahi April 9, Triple Door, 7:30 pm

The best food and drink events in Seattle in February. by Julianne Bell

Want more? Here's everything we recommend this month: Music, Visual Art, Literature, Performance, Film, Food, and This & That.

FEB 5

Local author (and former Book Larder culinary director) Polina Chesnakova returns with her third and latest cookbook Chesnok: Cooking from My Corner of the Diaspora: Recipes from Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia, a love letter to the food of the Soviet diaspora. Chesnakova, who was born in Ukraine to Russian and Armenian parents from Georgia, has painstakingly documented over 110 regional recipes ranging from Ukrainian varenyky (dumplings) to medovik (honey cake), alongside essays and stories of her childhood memories of cooking and eating. (Book Larder, 6:30 pm) JULIANNE BELL

FEB 9

Meals cooked in a donabe (a traditional Japanese earthenware pot) are the original one-pot meals. Besides being energy-efficient and having even heat distribution thanks to their porous material, they’ve also given rise to “nabe o kakomu” (“surrounding the pot”), a culture of communal meals centered around the donabe. Naoko Takei Moore’s new cookbook Simply Donabe demonstrates how you can recreate some of this comforting, nourishing magic in your own kitchen, with recipes like sour minced pork hotpot and miso-simmered ramen, plus side dishes like quick-pickled Napa cabbage and desserts like matcha ice cream. (Book Larder, 6:30 pm) JULIANNE BELL

FEB 9

Trained chef, professional recipe developer, and cookbook author Nicki Sizemore has nearly 20 years of experience in the food industry, but she hasn’t always had an easy relationship with food. She’s shared her journey of overcoming diet culture and health issues on her Substack newsletter and podcast Mind, Body, Spirit, FOOD and offers recipes paired with mindfulness techniques, as well as interviews with guests on their relationships with food. Her newest book, also called Mind, Body, Spirit, Food, contains 51 recipes (that just so happen to be free of gluten, due to her medical necessity) alongside mindfulness prompts that invite home cooks to slow down, invoke the five senses, and enjoy the process. (Book Larder, 6:30 pm) JULIANNE BELL

Ballard Farmers Market Every Sunday, Ballard Ave, 9 am–noon, free

Capitol Hill Farmers Market Every Sunday, E Denny Way and Nagle Pl, 11 am–3 pm, free

West Seattle Farmers Market Every Sunday, Alaska Junction, 10 am–2 pm, free

Fremont Sunday Market Every Sunday, Evanston Ave N and N 34th St, 10 am–4 pm, free

Strong And Dark Beer Festival Feb 7, Figurehead Brewing Magnolia, noon–5 pm

Hops & Props Feb 21, Museum of Flight, 7–10 pm, 21+

Tacoma Beer Week Feb 27–March 8, various locations across Tacoma

Taste Washington March 21–22, various locations, 21+

The best film events in February in Seattle. by Audrey Vann

Want more? Here's everything we recommend this month: Music, Visual Art, Literature, Performance, Film, Food, and This & That.

TUESDAYS THROUGH FEB 24

Despite the Western genre being associated with images of cowboys in dusty deserts, there are, surprisingly, a large number of Western films set in the lush Pacific Northwest, and SIFF’s Pacific Northwestern series is bringing these gorgeous movies to the big screen. The series kicked off last month, but there is still so much great programming to come, like 1959’s The Hanging Tree, starring Gary Cooper as a doctor in a Montana gold rush town (but filmed entirely in Yakima), Kelly Reichardt’s First Cow, following a cook and a Chinese immigrant as they team up to steal milk from a prized cow in Oregon Country, and, my personal favorite, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Robert Altman’s snowbound Western starring Warren Beatty and soundtracked by Leonard Cohen. (SIFF Film Center, 6:30 pm) AUDREY VANN

FEB 5–8

Set in the Chilean desert in the early ‘80s, director Diego Céspedes’s feature debut follows Lidia, an 11-year-old who was abandoned as a baby and raised by a fiercely loving queer found family. Their ragtag clan is ostracized by their sleepy mining town, blamed for a mysterious plague that is believed to be transmitted by a single gaze when two people fall in love. Lidia sets out to defend her loved ones and determine whether the rumor is true or not. The surreal Western explores AIDS panic, transphobia, violence, revenge, marginalization, and prejudice, mixing folktale vibes with the scrappy tenderness of Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Shoplifters. (Northwest Film Forum, times vary) JULIANNE BELL

FEB 26–APRIL 30

Look, HUMP! is always good. You already know that this indie porn festival is nothing like the 5-minute clips you watch while bathed in the cold, blue, loveless light of your laptop. They’re creative and silly and usually feel like a friend is sharing their new, naked, art project with you. But if the trailer for this year is any indication, this year’s spring lineup isn't one to miss. It has stop-motion praying mantises, pottery, a sexy Bop It, and the Starfish Sex Beetle. One person managed to weave in sanitation workers and labor solidarity into their submission. Another clearly knows what it’s like to bomb on stage as a standup comedian, and used the power of porn to reimagine it. This festival only happens twice a year, and it’s never the same. Don’t miss this one. (Various locations) HANNAH MURPHY WINTER

Truth to Fiction: Black Is… Black Ain’t Feb 5, Northwest Film Forum, 7 pm

Fools’ Paradise (lost?) Feb 6–7, SIFF Film Center, 7 pm

Resurrection Feb 6–8, Northwest Film Forum, times vary

A Void in the Cosmos and From There You Sing: Early Pasolini Feb 8–Mar 5, Beacon, times vary

Friday the 13th Feb 13, Beacon, 10 pm

The Bridges of Madison County Feb 14, Beacon, 7 pm

In the Mood for Love Feb 14, Beacon, 10 pm

2026 Sakinah Film Festival Feb 14–15, Northwest Film Forum, 3 pm

Daisies (with Velocity Dance Center) Feb 18–19, Northwest Film Forum, 7:30 pm

Star 80 Feb 22 & 25, Beacon, times vary

Martin Scorsese: Maestro of Cinema Wednesdays Feb 25–Apr 29, SIFF Cinema Uptown, 7:30 pm

The best performance events in February in Seattle. by Julianne Bell

Want more? Here's everything we recommend this month: Music, Visual Art, Literature, Performance, Film, Food, and This & That.

FEB 5–21

Meet j. chavez, a Seattle theatre maven who won the KCACTF (Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival)’s National Undergraduate Playwriting Award (whew), for their opus how to clean your room (and remember all your trauma). Their new play Next Exit deals passionately, yet sympathetically, with a man named Miguel trapped on a highway (sans car, I think), who is communing with and deriving philosophical companionship from a dead possum called Orlando. Some deer come out, and a Lady In Yellow, and a sinister force that threatens to eat up anyone and anything lingering too long by the sizzling side of I-5. I’m not clear on how this all flows together. But you should indubitably find out. (Annex Theatre, times vary, all ages) ANDREW HAMLIN

FEB 12

These days, there are only a handful of accounts that keep me from deleting Instagram altogether: Flamenco diva Charo (whom regularly gives life advice with a massive glass of wine), Our Lord and Savior Britney Spears (who I honestly just need to check on once a week to make sure she’s okay), and, of course, Depths of Wikipedia. Run by journalist and comedian Annie Rauwerda, Depths of Wikipedia scours the deep, dark depths of the free online encyclopedia for the site's most obscure, magical, and bizarre entries. Some memorable examples include a moth species named Freak, a medieval tradition called Feast of the Ass, and the Japanese concept of “hatsuyume,” referring to the first dream one has in the New Year. Rauwerda is bringing her live show of comedy and research back to Seattle to answer all your burning questions, like “When was ciabatta invented?” and “Why is there anything at all?” (Neptune Theatre, 7 pm, all ages) AUDREY VANN

FEB 19–MAR 15

Keiko Green is a playwright, screenwriter, and performer who splits her time between Seattle and LA, and has written for TV shows like Hulu’s Interior Chinatown and the upcoming Apple TV series Margo’s Got Money Troubles. Last fall, Seattle hosted productions of two of her plays: Exotic Deadly: Or the MSG Play, a wacky time-traveling comedy set in 1999, and Hells Canyon, a chilling horror thriller. Now, there’s another opportunity to glimpse even more of Green’s impressive range with the Seattle Children’s Theatre premiere of her play Young Dragon, which shows Bruce Lee as an ambitious young man finding his place in the world in Seattle. I’m willing to bet audience members of all ages will be moved by Bruce’s journey to becoming a “flexible, fluid, and flowing master.” Seattle Children’s Theatre recently made the difficult decision to pull a two-week April run of Young Dragon from the Kennedy Center due to the impact of the Trump administration, which makes it even more important to support local productions like this one. (Seattle Children’s Theatre, times vary) JULIANNE BELL

FEB 27 & 28

Hilarious Asian-Millennial perspectives spill forth from Jimmy O. Yang at a rapid pace in his stand-up performances. Sure, the actor and former strip-joint DJ covers some familiar ground: relationships, parent-child interactions, the importance of friendships, how different cultures talk about money, media representation of his people—and the pressure he feels as a high-profile Asian to do his tribe proud. But the Chinese American comic also tackles some less common subjects, such as the feet etiquette of different cultures, the limited options for Halloween costumes among Asians (“I was Bruce Lee for six years.”), whether it’s okay for Asians to say the N-word when singing along to rap songs, as well as an advanced lesson on how to tell Asians apart by the sound they make when they’re disappointed. He also does the best tai chi joke I’ve ever heard. With his acting chops honed in TV comedy shows such as Silicon Valley and Space Force and the movie Crazy Rich Asians, Yang has become an efficient and super-expressive joke machine. (Paramount Theatre, 7 pm, all ages) DAVE SEGAL

Topdog/Underdog Feb 4–Mar 1, ArtsWest, times vary

Bridge Project 2025 with DaeZhane Day, kelly langeslay, and No Girls No Masters Feb 6–8, Velocity, times vary

Bosco Presents: GRINDHAUS Feb 7, Crocodile, 10:30 pm, 21+

The Wiz Feb 10–15, Paramount Theatre, times vary, all ages

The Serpent Sisters Tour: Nymphia Wind and Plastique Tiara Feb 15, Neptune Theatre, 8 pm, all ages

Rose Jarboe’s Rose: You Are Who You Eat Feb 19–21, On the Boards, 8 pm

Fellow Travelers Feb 21–Mar 1, McCaw Hall, times vary

Amy O’Neal: Again, There Is No Other (The Remix) Mar 26–28, On the Boards, 8 pm

Pacific Northwest Ballet Presents: Giselle Apr 10–19, McCaw Hall, times vary, all ages

Jonathan Van Ness Apr 24, Moore Theatre, 8 pm, all ages

Margaret Cho Apr 19, Moore Theatre, 7 pm, all ages

Seattle Opera: Carmen May 2–17, McCaw Hall, times vary

Fauxnique: How Do I Look? May 7–9, On the Boards, 8 pm

The best book events in February in Seattle. by Julianne Bell

Want more? Here's everything we recommend this month: Music, Visual Art, Literature, Performance, Film, Food, and This & That.

FEB 4

Mark Z. Danielewski is most well known for his debut novel and postmodern horror cult classic House of Leaves, which famously requires active participation (including turning the book upside down at times) from the reader to decipher its multiple nonlinear narratives, cryptic text, and copious footnotes. Reading it feels like a descent into madness and will have you glancing around to make sure no one (or nothing) else is in the room with you. He’s now embarking on a tour to promote his longest novel to date, Tom’s Crossing, which came out last October and clocks in at 1,200 pages. It’s a dark, epic Western/ horror hybrid that required 10 drafts and which Danielewski has said he considers the “pinnacle” of his work. Here’s a chance to catch a living horror legend in the flesh. (Elliott Bay Book Company, 7 pm, all ages, free) JULIANNE BELL

FEB 4

A newly translated collection of 1970s anti-fascist poetry by a female poet? I’m listening! Italian poet Amelia Rosselli’s last collection to be translated into English, Document, explores how poetry can document our contemporary experiences through the lens of classical models. Rosselli was long obsessed with classical sonnets, particularly Petrarchan sonnets, in which meaning is conveyed through sequence and structure. Through the collection of 175 poems, Rosselli speaks to her experiences in postwar Italy, meditating on violence, class struggle, religion, consumerism, and capitalism, all topics that unfortunately still resonate 50 years after they were written. For this Q&A and book signing, Document translator Deborah Woodard will be joined by poet Rachel Karyo. (Third Place Books Ravenna, 7 pm, all ages, free) AUDREY VANN

FEB 15

Chuck Klosterman bucked himself up from tiny-town obscurity all the way to toast of Manhattan and staff position at the Gray Lady itself (though he’s since moved to Portland). Music scribing put him on top, but he’s branched out into broader cultural criticism, plus the occasional novel; now he’s tackling “America’s game” in time for Super Bowl weekend. His new book, Football, approaches the mighty gridiron as a “hyperobject” so massive in time/space that its true contours can’t be mapped. As an honest effort, though, he essays the six-man variant (silly me, I only knew about eight-man), the myth of the Great Man Theory (or at least Great Jock Theory), the sport’s seamless melding with television, and the morality of potentially crippling violence as public spectacle. No word on whether he’ll tackle arena football (Washington Wolfpack and Seattle Sabercats represent!), women’s football (we’ve got the Majestics, the Spartans, and the Thunder), fantasy football (I vote ecchh), and/or video games (scratch Madden, I’m sticking with Atari). Want to know more? Ask the answer man himself. (Town Hall, 7:30 pm, all ages) ANDREW HAMLIN

FEB 17

Seattle-based author and self-described “queer cripple with a PhD” Nicola Griffith has received countless honors, including two Washington State Book Awards and six Lambda Literary Awards, and was inducted into MOPOP’s Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 2024. Her novels Hild, Spear, and Menewood explore the medieval era through a queer perspective, and she also cofounded the #CripLit movement with the late activist Alice Wong. Her latest work, She Is Here, is a new installment in PM Press’s Outspoken Authors series, in which “today’s edgiest fiction writers showcase their most provocative and politically challenging stories.” Griffith’s contribution combines fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and artwork to discuss topics ranging from disability justice to the distinction between love and ownership. (Third Place Books Ravenna, 7 pm, all ages, free) JULIANNE BELL

Aja Monet Feb 5, Town Hall Seattle, 7:30 pm

Emily Nemens Feb 11, Elliott Bay Book Company, 7 pm

Roddy Bottum Feb 13, Elliott Bay Book Company, 7 pm

Nick Offerman Feb 15, Moore Theatre, 7 pm, all ages

Cristina Rivera Garza & Javier Zamora Feb 24, Town Hall Seattle, 7:30 pm

James McBride March 3, Town Hall Seattle, 7:30 pm

Stephen Graham Jones March 30, Town Hall Seattle, 7:30 pm

George Saunders: Vigil: A Novel Apr 7, Town Hall Seattle, 7:30 pm

Patrick Radden Keefe April 22, Town Hall Seattle, 7:30 pm

Marlon James May 6, Town Hall Seattle, 7:30 pm

Emily Wilson May 12, Town Hall Seattle, 7:30 pm

Tommy Orange May 21, Town Hall Seattle, 7:30 pm

The best February visual art events in Seattle. by Amanda Manitach

Want more? Here's everything we recommend this month: Music, Visual Art, Literature, Performance, Film, Food, and This & That.

THROUGH FEB 28

It’s kinky, it’s neon, it’s fascism. Timothy Siciliano spent the past three years creating a suite of paintings that hold a mirror to our times—a campy hot take on corruption and carnival rendered in luscious hypercolor. His war generals and dominatrix figures populate a sadomasochistic fever dream with echoes of The Night Porter, while other moments harken to Weimer-era artists like Otto Dix, who painted the grotesqueries of their zeitgeist with unflinching color and a dash of gallows humor. You’ll want to linger with cacophonic compositions dripping bullet shells and blossoms, gender-ambiguous bulges, leather, chains, and ruby pearls of blood. But don’t fret: He doesn’t gild the fascist lily with all sugar and sex. There are plenty of flies swirling around literal shit. Siciliano proves that in trying times, clowning the bad guys can be a pleasure. (studio e) AMANDA MANITACH

THROUGH MARCH

What does God’s sweat smell like? Or the anoxic cold of Eau De Space? Smell for yourself out at the Scent Lending Library, an olfactory exhibition that arrived at Fogue after its five-month run at Olfactory Art Keller in New York. While determining the base note of divine perspiration may involve a smidge of poetic license, NASA did actually work with chemists in 2008 to recreate the smell of the void (as relayed by space-walking astronauts), and Australian-born documentary filmmaker turned olfactory artist Donna Lipowitz has bottled these distillations for your sniffing pleasure. There are over 100 scents to explore (70 of which are available to check out for two weeks at a time), including delightful nose poems like Old Luggage, Bermuda Triangle, and American Psycho, as well as more classic fare, including the oldest continuously produced perfume, Guerlain’s 1889 Jicky. The sensory excursion to the world right under our nose is the perfect antidote to algorithm purgatory. (Fogue Studios & Gallery) AMANDA MANITACH

FEB 5–OCT 4

Overlapping figures of female bodies emerge and dissolve in Samantha Yun Wall’s velvet monochrome worlds. The Portland-based artist (and winner of the 2024 Betty Bowen Award) is a master of rendering images in ink and conté, where layers of shadow intertwine with stark black silhouettes. Wall’s imagery reflects the artist’s multi-ethnic background, blending Korean folk stories with elements from Eurocentric mythology to create scenes that seem plucked from an untold fairy tale. Her solo at Seattle Art Museum features new works haunted by the iconography of the pasqueflower, a motif throughout Korean lore, which Wall has entwined with the memory of a lost grandmother. While there, pause for Song Cycle, a newly installed kinetic sculpture by Chris Kallmyer, which uses vintage train-station signage to generate ever-revolving cascades of poetic fragments—words clacking and flipping through a mechanical stream of consciousness. (Seattle Art Museum) AMANDA MANITACH

FEB 21

It’s the first installment of what is whispered to be a recurring event (yes, please) granting artists free rein in a transitional site slated for demolition—in this case, a house in Greenwood. The project was conceived by Sammy Skidmore and Zoë Hensley, two gallerists with day jobs at commercial galleries wanting to expand into unconventional spaces while showcasing work too large, too experimental, or too existential for the white cube. Artists for the inaugural edition (probing themes of sex, power, and the poetics of space) include Nadia Ahmed, Rachael Comer, Jenikka Cruz, Gaeun Kim, and Ali Meyer. The free, all-ages party starts at 6 p.m. and goes late, with music by DJ spicycherrypop and Friends of the Road Ensemble. (DM @once__removed for address) AMANDA MANITACH 

Excellence in Fibers X Through Feb 14, Schack Art Center, free

Welldweller: New Works by KEMC Through Feb 14, Specialist Gallery, free

Dan Webb: Yespalier Through Feb 21, Greg Kucera Gallery, free

Aisha Harrison: Porous Body Through Feb 22, Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, free

Black History Month Exhibition Through Feb 26, M. Rosetta Hunter Art Gallery, free

Austin Lewis Through Feb 28, James Harris Gallery, free

Crystalline Lens - Curated by Allyce Wood Through Feb 28, SOIL, free

Group Show: Landscapes Through Feb 28, Winston Wächter, free

Kandis Susol Through Feb 28, Winston Wächter, free

New Nordic: Cuisine, Aesthetics, and Place Through Mar 8, National Nordic Museum

Susan Meiselas: Crossings Through Mar 22, Photographic Center Northwest, free

The One-Two Punch: 100 Years of Robert Colescott Through Mar 29, Tacoma Art Museum

Boren Banner Series: Camille Trautman Through Apr 12, Frye Art Museum, free

Priscilla Dobler Dzul: Water Carries the Stories of Our Stars Through Apr 19, Frye Art Museum, free

Jonathan Lasker: Drawings and Studies Through Sept 27, Frye Art Museum, free

A Room for Animal Intelligence Through Nov 1, Seattle Art Museum

Ten Thousand Things Through Spring 2027, Wing Luke Museum

Ash-Glazed Ceramics from Korea and Japan Through July 12, 2027, Seattle Art Museum

Ai Weiwei: Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads (Bronze) Through Oct 2027, Olympic Sculpture Park, free

Chris Kallmyer: Song Cycle Ongoing, Seattle Art Museum

Gossip: Between Us Ongoing, Tacoma Art Museum

Haunted Ongoing, Tacoma Art Museum

Qiu Zhijie: Map of the History of Science and Technology Ongoing, Olympic Sculpture Park, free

Indira Allegra: The Book of Zero Opens Feb 4, Jacob Lawrence Gallery, free

Susan Bennerstrom: The Light Is Never the Same Twice Opens Feb 5, Patricia Rovzar Gallery, free

Worlds Seen and Unseen: Paintings by Gary Faigin Opens Feb 5, Harris Harvey Gallery, free

Wallflowers Opens Feb 7, Frye Art Museum, free

Legacy: Highlights from the Permanent Collection Opens Feb 14, Tacoma Art Museum

Project NW: Ralph Pugay Opens Feb 14, Tacoma Art Museum

Beyond Mysticism: The Modern Northwest Opens Mar 5, Seattle Art Museum

Actualize AiR and SOIL Collaboration: Imprints and Echoes - Curated by Julia Anderson Opens Mar 5, SOIL, free

Aimee Lee: Tethered Opens Mar 6, Bainbridge Island Museum of Art

Crafting Futures: Emerging Artists Invitational Opens Mar 6, Bainbridge Island Museum of Art

George & David Lewis: Deeply Rooted Opens Mar 6, Bainbridge Island Museum of Art

Interwoven Narratives Opens Mar 9, M. Rosetta Hunter Art Gallery, free

Water Ways: Healing the Circle of Water and Life Opens Mar 26, Schack Art Center, free

Boren Banner Series: Chloe King Opens Apr 15, Frye Art Museum, free

Monochrome: Calder and Tara Donovan Opens May 13, Seattle Art Museum

Tom Lloyd Opens May 16, Frye Art Museum, free

The best February music events in Seattle. by Julianne Bell

Want more? Here's everything we recommend this month: Music, Visual Art, Literature, Performance, Film, Food, and This & That.

FEB 6

I constantly annoy everyone I know by bragging that I was three years early to knowing about Chappell Roan, so I need you to believe me when I say that former Little Mix singer Jade Thirlwall is going to be a main pop girlie within the next couple of years. She’s already big in the UK and steadily gaining popularity stateside. No one else out there is doing it like her—I mean, who drops a fully art-directed visual album for their solo debut?? There are no skips, either. You can hear touches of all the great pop divas, like Gaga, Madonna, Kylie Minogue, and Diana Ross. The opener, “Angel of My Dreams,” about Jade’s ambivalent relationship to fame, is dreamy, celestial pop goodness reminiscent of “Lucky” by Britney Spears. I also love the track “Before You Break My Heart,” which samples a recording of Jade singing the Supremes’ “Stop! In the Name of Love” as a little girl, and which she says is written from the POV of her “younger self, begging me not to forget her and how far we’ve come.” (Paramount Theatre, 8 pm, all ages) JULIANNE BELL

FEB 6

There is only one musician alive who could write a song titled “Tropical Flesh Mandala,” and that magus is 72-year-old Englishman in Nashville Robyn Hitchcock. A veteran psychedelic-rock court jester whom you should take very seriously, he continues to rock unorthodoxly and spin surrealistic yarns of deep mirth and poignancy at an age when most of his peers have declined creatively or dropped out of the game. Had the man with the lightbulb head only released those Soft Boys records—especially 1980’s jangly, neo-retro-psych classic Underwater Moonlight—he’d still be a hall-of-famer. But, of course, Hitchcock’s also built a prolific solo career studded with idiosyncratic gems that extrapolate on the brain-tickling elements of sonic soul mates Syd Barrett and John Lennon. Recent albums such as the earworm-intensive Shufflemania! and the acoustic-guitar-heavy, instrumental Life After Infinity prove that Robyn’s noggin’s still teeming with great, weird ideas. You never quite know which gaggle of tunes you’ll get at a Hitch gig, but you’re always guaranteed transport to more fascinating headspaces—particularly if he dips into 1981’s Black Snake Diamond Röle (hint, hint). (Neptune Theatre, 8 pm, all ages) DAVE SEGAL

FEB 11

They’re an anonymous, experimental indie-pop band who rock out on chillwave in hoods. What more do you need? I’m all about bands wearing disguises, and with the Residents out of commission for the moment (sigh), a quartet that tinks and reverbs and chirps along to videos of themselves (or somebody in hoods) lifting weights, shooting guns, making a mess with Chinese takeout, and turning themselves into scarecrows, just might fill dat gap. That was the gist of their video for the “Set It on Fire” single from their 2021 album LUNO, at least. What they’ll do in concert, I have no idea whatsoever, but it’s got to be conceptual. (Neumos,
7 pm, 21+) ANDREW HAMLIN

FEB 11

The fact that “Does GZA have a degree in physics?” pops up as the top GZA-related query on Google is a fitting testament to the scientific rhymes of the Wu-Tang cofounder and eldest statesman. Though he has appeared as a guest lecturer at Harvard and several other lauded institutions of learning (mostly about the field of life rather than the official study of physics), GZA—aka the Genius—keeps his most heralded published material on wax. His current tour is in celebration of the 30th anniversary of the release of his classic RZA-produced sophomore album, Liquid Swords. The album is an important document in the Wu catalog as it captured the essential Wu formula in amber—RZA’s developing cinematic, hard-knocking East Coast beats, heavy kung-fu samples, stacked guest verses from bandmates—while the group was in the process of taking over the rap world. Seeing a legendary artist perform a classic album, especially with a live band, is always a great opportunity to shout your favorite lines with a bunch of rowdy fans, and who knows, maybe he’ll give us a taste of his long-awaited Dark Matter project. (Nectar Lounge, 8 pm, 21+) TODD HAMM

FEB 12–13 & 15

Cécile McLorin Salvant has the most exciting voice in contemporary jazz. It’s not just her pitch-perfect voice, which reaches the heights of Edith Piaf, Ella Fitzgerald, Eartha Kitt, and Kate Bush, but the inventiveness with which she flexes her vocals. On her most recent album, Oh Snap, the three-time Grammy Award winner and MacArthur Fellow croons through a dozen short, intimate original songs (plus an a cappella cover of the Commodores’ “Brick House”) that she never intended to see the light of day. Setting out on a personal creative quest to place spontaneity and joy at the heart of her writing process, Salvant tinkered with home recording programs to craft personal songs inspired by the music that soundtracked her childhood in 1990s Miami, from grunge and pop boy bands to classical and folk music. The result of the album is a delightfully chaotic audio journal that will please traditional jazz fans as well as genre rulebreakers like Erykah Badu and Solange. (Jazz Alley, 7:30 pm, all ages) AUDREY VANN

FEB 15

Four days after his brother in Wu, GZA, touches the stage at Nectar, Ghostface Killah—he of many names and statement furs—plays the Crocodile. The silver-tongued storyteller is perhaps the greatest yarn-spinner in rap history; his extensive catalog stretches, of course, back to the Staten Island genesis of Wu-Tang Clan, and with very few breaks, extends to this past summer’s Supreme Clientele 2, which arrived complete with the typically preposterous skits, dicey slang, and tall tales of street corner business ethics you’d expect. It does pay to mention that not all Ghost’s exploits have aged well, and recent reports of homophobia and paternal negligence in relation to his queer son, who happens to be the rapper/singer Infinite Coles, show that he may have carried some of the uglier side of ’90s rap with him into the current day. Here’s hoping he makes an effort to clear things up by showtime. (Crocodile, 7 pm, 21+) TODD HAMM

FEB 17

After touring together for several years, ambient musician/vocalist Julianna Barwick and experimental harpist Mary Lattimore developed a “musical telepathy” that became the basis for their newly released collaborative album, Tragic Magic. The result sounds like what would have been if there were synthesizers in the 18th century, thanks in part to their access to the Philharmonie de Paris’ Musée de la Musique’s instrument collection while recording the album. The duo miraculously recorded the album over just nine days, shortly after the 2025 LA wildfires, and poured their emotions from the tragedy into this meditation on the healing power of improvisation and shared experiences. They will support the album alongside Seattle-based experimental folk musician Tiny Vipers. (Crocodile, 8 pm, 21+) AUDREY VANN

FEB 22

Don’t be deceived by Chicago trio Bitchin Bajas’ goofy name: They’re one of the world’s headiest groups. Evolving out of neo-krautrockers Cave, BB synthesists Cooper Crain and Dan Quinlivan and saxophonist Rob Frye have been enhancing their melodic chops, creating majestic tracks that would sound righteous filling Europe’s most ornate cathedrals. This past October at Neptune Theatre, they outshone their much more celebrated headliners Stereolab in a set that made me feel as if I were on five hits of Owsley. Animal Collective member Geologist (aka Brian Weitz) just released Can I Get a Pack of Camel Lights?, the follow-up to last year’s arcane, abstracted Americana LP, A Shaw Deal, with Sleepy Doug Shaw. The new hurdy-gurdy-powered album’s a mystical avant-rock trip that I dig more than anything his parent group have done. (Sunset Tavern, 8 pm, 21+) DAVE SEGAL

FEB 25

clipping. have let it be known that they spend a lot of time thinking about what space sounds like, but it’s their creative process that may capture the idea best: Aside from a few notable exceptions, they use no samples, no presets—they make every sound from scratch. In short, they create in a vacuum. Space also permeates their lyrics and concepts. Octavia Butler and Samuel R. Delany pop up in verses; they have entire albums billed as Afrofuturist space operas. But it’s important to remember the three humanoids amidst the sci-fi poetry: vocalist Daveed Diggs (whom you may remember as ol’ Tommie Jefferson in the original cast of Hamilton), and producers William Hutson and Jonathan Snipes. Hutson and Snipes graft jagged power electronics to the cyberpunk quilt, bold and discordant by design, while Diggs pens horrorcore anthems that he unleashes breathlessly. The result is like a cleaner, more theatrical Death Grips—both of which are equally beautiful and terrifying. Tonight’s show opener, Open Mike Eagle, is also not to be missed. (Showbox, 8 pm, all ages) TODD HAMM

FEB 26

Patty Griffin is one of the of the most consistently underrated American singer/songwriters in recent decades, boasting shotgun pipes and writing chops that have led Emmylou Harris, Ellis Paul, Kelly Clarkson, Rory Block, Dave Hause, Sugarland, Bette Midler and the Chicks, to cover her. And if you don’t believe them, take the word of Robert Plant, who installed her in his Band of Joy and still comes around to sing backups, notably on her latest album Crown of Roses, a tribute to her late mother. Rickie Lee Jones has a new live album out, Way Up High (Live Boston ’89); she’s looking to consolidate her longer-running position in the firmament. Not that it needs much consolidation—she had a hit on the singles chart with “Chuck E.’s in Love” back in 1979, and in 2012 she sang “Sympathy for the Devil” in the matter-of-fact scratchy diction of Mr. Scratch himself. Not even Jagger managed that. (Moore Theatre, 7:30 pm) ANDREW HAMLIN

FEB 26–MARCH 1

The jazz-vocal quartet säje (rhymes with “beige”), took home two Grammys between 2023 and 2025. They consist of Sara Gazarek, Seattle native and graduate of Roosevelt High’s mighty jazz program; Amanda Taylor, also of our fair city; Johnaye Kendrick, a San Diego native who moved north to teach at Cornish College of the Arts; and Erin Bentlage, who came out from Vermont to teach in Los Angeles. They blend jazz, soul, blues, pop, folk, and Gazarek’s ever-evolving experimental edge, into an elaborate mix emphasizing complex chords and braided vocal parts. They solve problems neatly, too—stuck without a recording studio during the pandemic, they rented an Airbnb and dragged their own gear into it. That’s how they clocked their first Grammy. Excelsior! (Jazz Alley, 7:30 and 9:30 pm, all ages) ANDREW HAMLIN

FEB 27

Way back in the ’00s, Pacific Northwest psychonauts Jackie O Motherfucker were standard-bearers for what venerable British mag The Wire termed “New Weird America”—a hazy axis of US musicians who infused folk and rock with a lysergic looseness and who mutated songforms into third-eye-punching jams. At their best, JOMF boast the opiated tunefulness of Relatively Clean Rivers and the organic, free-range rock sprawl of Amon Düül I. Leader and sole constant Tom Greenwood keeps changing the design of JOMF’s freak flag (as well as personnel), but the colors always astound. Portland’s Abronia have been steadily rising in the underground with five albums of peyote-spiked, Popol Vuh-like soundtrack grandeur, including the new Shapes Unravel (out 2/20 on Cardinal Fuzz/Feeding Tube). Listen to songs such as “Cauldron’s Gold,” “Smoke Fingers,” and “Walker’s Dead Birds,” and feel mountain-sized. Tacoma’s Von Wildenhaus are unpredictable eclecticists whose songs range from chamber-jazz torch songs sung by the alluring vocalist Billie Bloom to anthemic, Grandaddy-esque indie rock to Middle Eastern–inflected electronic pop to the most gorgeous song ever about ketamine. (Add-a-Ball, 8 pm, 21+) DAVE SEGAL

FEB 27

Get your loved one what they really want this Valentine’s Day: tickets to see cupcakKe. I was introduced to the Chicago rapper in 2018 when she released Ephorize, and was immediately obsessed with the icy percussion that is just as frosty as her blue metallic lipstick on the cover. It belongs in the holy trinity of winter albums alongside Björk’s Vespertine and Whitney Houston’s My Love Is Your Love. On her newest album, The BakKery, cupcakKe serves up a fresh batch of witty, pearl-clutching poetry with memorable tracks like “One of My Bedbugs Ate My Pussy” and the very romantic “Fist Me.” As always, cupcakKe’s magic lies in her ability to pair the most random topics and references with unexpected production styles, such as the silky-smooth “Akeelah,” a city-pop-inspired breakup song with references to the 2006 film Akeelah and the Bee. (Showbox, 8:30 pm, all ages) AUDREY VANN

MAR 3

I discovered Esther Rose in 2017 when she released her debut, This Time Last Night, an intimate country/folk album that feels like she’s playing for you around a campfire. Now on her fifth studio album, Want, the New Orleans native defies the expectations of what an Esther Rose album can be with bold indie rock arrangements and fuzzed-out guitars. As it’s depicted on the album’s cover, with Rose in a gauzy white cotton dress beside a Rose in a black pleather catsuit, the album balances hard and soft, juxtaposing songs like the Liz Phair–esque track “Ketamine” with the stripped-down piano ballad “Color Wheel.” The album also includes “Scars,” a duet with Seattle-based troubadour Dean Johnson—we love to see it! For this local date, Rose will be joined by fellow New Orleans singer-songwriter Thomas Dollbaum. (Sunset Tavern, 8 pm, 21+) AUDREY VANN

The Wayne Horvitz Ensemble Feb 2, 9, 16, 23 and March 2 & 9, Royal Room, 7:30 and 8:30 pm, all ages until 10 pm

The Stylistics Feb 5–8, Jazz Alley, times vary, all ages

Purelink, 'no hup,' Hünter Feb 10, Substation, 7 pm, 21+ 

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah Feb 11, Woodlawn Hall, 7:30 pm, all ages

Iris Unveiled Feb 12–15, Benaroya Hall, times vary, all ages 

Biblioteka, TeZATalks, Acapulco Lips Feb 12, Neumos, 7 pm, 21+

Sudan Archives Feb 14, Neptune Theatre, 8 pm, all ages

Christopher Owens Feb 17, Tractor Tavern, 8 pm, 21+

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Living Hour Feb 16, Vera Project, 7 pm, all ages

Cat Power Feb 20, Paramount Theatre, 8 pm, all ages

Lola Kirke Feb 21, Fremont Abbey, 8 pm, all ages

SRJO Presents: The Music of Jimmy Smith and Oliver Nelson Feb 21–22, Benaroya Hall, times vary, all ages

Cardi B: Little Miss Drama Tour Feb 22, Climate Pledge Arena, 7:30 pm, all ages

Joan Shelley Feb 22, Ballard Homestead, 7:30 pm, all ages

Suzanne Vega Feb 22, Neptune Theatre, 7:30 pm, all ages

Neko Case Feb 27, Edmonds Center for the Arts, 7:30 pm, all ages

St. Vincent Mar 5, Town Hall Seattle, 8 pm, all ages

Toody Cole, Semisoft Mar 6, Tractor Tavern, 8:30 pm, 21+

Blackwater Holylight, Som, Muñeca Mar 10, Neumos, 7 pm, 21+

Indigo De Souza Mar 10, Showbox, 8 pm, all ages

Mt Fog, iroiro, DJ Martin Douglas Mar 12, Tractor Tavern, 8 pm, 21+

Peaches Mar 14, Showbox, 8:30 pm, 21+

Aimee Mann: 22 ½ Lost in Space Anniversary Mar 15, Neptune Theatre, 8 pm, all ages

Conan Gray Mar 16, Climate Pledge Arena, 8 pm

Dirty Three Mar 21, Neumos, 7 pm, 21+

Marissa Nadler Mar 26, Tractor Tavern, 8 pm, 21+

Skullcrusher Mar 30, Barboza, 7 pm, 21+

Eliza McLamb Mar 31, Neumos, 7 pm, all ages

Raye: This Tour May Contain New Music Apr 3, WAMU Theater, 8 pm, all ages

Cass McCombs, Hand Habits Apr 4, Tractor Tavern, 8:30 pm, 21+

Waxahatchee, MJ Lenderman May 3, Paramount Theatre, 7:30 pm, all ages

Florence + the Machine May 12, Climate Pledge Arena, 7:30 pm, all ages

The Last Dinner Party May 22–23, Showbox SoDo, 8 pm, all ages

The Stranger's monthly news roundup. by The Stranger's Slog AM™️ Specialists

Last Month This Month is a recap of all the previous month's news, featuring headlines from Slog AM. Find it in every issue of The Stranger! Subscribe to our daily Slog AM newsletter here.

***

The country seems to be waking up to the obvious fact that Donald Trump is a fascist, their government is dangerous and unlawful, and the tantamount act of resistance isn’t simply voting. Even The Atlantic, a magazine for the worst people in your social studies class, admitted the “f-word” was apt.

* * *

To jolt us out of our holiday stupor, Trump kidnapped the president of Venezuela on a nighttime raid and literally admitted it was for oil. Presidents usually say it’s for democracy or something! Once we were all emptied of visions of sugar plums, on January 7, ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot Renée Nicole Good in the face three times.

* * *

The day after, ICE shot two people in Portland. Then, on January 24, Border Patrol Agents executed Veterans Affairs nurse Alex Pretti in the street for the capital crime of filming them. Reading the room accurately, Kommandant Greg Bovino continued to dress like a Nazi through it all. Until he lost his job. But he may dress like a Nazi at home, too. Maybe we should’ve taken that New Year’s Eve tragedy at the Crans-Montana ski resort in Switzerland—40 people died in a sparkler-set fire—as a grim portent for the year to come.

* * *

That, or the up to 30,000 people killed in Iran during mass protests. Or the Israel-Palestine ceasefire, where fire has not ceased. So yeah, 2026 is 20-sucking-shit.

* * *

We started on such a hopeful note. On New Year’s Day, Zohran Mamdani became mayor of New York City. He’s the first Muslim and South Asian person to do so and the youngest in a century. And the hottest one, but we didn’t need to tell you that. Mamdani has already started making childcare free for New Yorkers. He’s also getting shots so he can accommodate all the pussy he’s getting (his wife wants to get a cat, he’s allergic). Oh, and in our second fiddle city (maybe a viola—instrument of losers), Katie Wilson took power.

* * *

Wilson’s done a really good job of making the Seahawks go to the Super Bowl (which Bruce Harrell never did), and not sweeping homeless people from Ballard, a favorite pastime of our former mayor(s). She’s also found a new hobby: firing department heads. It must be addictive. Goodbye, former leaders of the Department of Neighborhoods, Parks, Office of Economic Development, Office of Arts & Culture, Seattle City Light, and a long list that would honestly bore you. (We are aware of the literacy rates.) But, yeah, quite the shakeup before the mettle-testing World Cup.

* * *

Speaking of the coming-together-of-nations, Trump hates the concept. His whole thing is take, take, take, and Greenland is his latest kink. Whatever denials you hear, he’s willing to invade the semiautonomous Danish territory for its precious minerals. Coupled with his lust for Venezuela’s oil, Trump is playing a fucked-up game of Settlers of Catan. Except this is not a game for virgins, and we’re offering shit trades to our best friend, Canada. For all this, the man obviously deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. Thank God María Corina Machado, the opposition party leader in Venezuela, gave him hers. Sadly, it’s non-transferable.

* * *

On the home front, the QAnon Shaman is running for governor of Arizona. He doesn’t support Trump anymore because he won’t release the Epstein files, aka The Adventures of Jeff and Donald.

* * *

Dilbert creator Scott Adams died, still supporting Donald Trump. He will rot in unfunny eternity. Possibly Christian heaven, if Jesus is a Dilbert fan. Unlikely. Jesus is a Cathy man. Ack!!

* * *

The United States is taking a short break from killing foreign children to focus on killing our own. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (soon to be rechristened the Centers for Disease Preservation?) cut the child vaccination schedule by more than half because… autism?

* * *

Because trans kids have it too good, hedge fund millionaire Brian Greetingspenis Heywood wants to bring them down a peg, or get rid of them entirely, whichever the electorate will let him do. This November, Washington will decide if we should un-amend his “Parents’ Bill of Rights”—a law that allows parents to read their kids’ counseling records—and whether or not we should ban trans girls from sports. Yes, all dozens of them.

* * *

Some good news, locally! Notorious dick and President of the Seattle Police Officers’ Guild Mike Solan announced on his terrible podcast that he isn’t runningfor reelection. Not that his replacement will be someone we’d like to get a beer with, but we’ll revel in his vanishing from public life.

* * *

Things remain quite phallic at the Seattle Police Department. The boys in blue—emphasis on the “boys” part—are far from achieving their goal of having a recruit class that’s 30 percent women by 2030. Only 10 percent of SPD’s 165 new hires this year were ladies. This department is not for the girls.

* * *

It’s a bad time to be a ferry, or a ferrylover (FL). The state’s ferry system is up shit’s creek without a paddle. As of late January, only 15 of the state’s 21 ferries could sail. Those remaining keep falling apart and hitting logs. Things are so dire, a local shipyard is pitching a crazy idea: revamping old-ass, decommissioned ferries to do the work. We could do a Dunkirk?

* * *

Meanwhile, it is really sunny here. Should we be concerned? Probably. Fortunately, we’re not going to know it’s too late until we’re dead. The EPA, at the direction of Trump, won’t calculate the health benefits of air free of ozone and fire particulates. This step is brought to you by greed, for the change will make it easier for coal power plants, oil refineries, steel mills, and other industrial facilities to operate unimpeded by the trivial concern of human life.

* * *

We should honor our dead. Like, the Varsity Theater in the University District. And the Crocodile, which isn’t dead, but is bankrupt and up for sale. In better arts and culture news, Scarecrow Video bought their building on Roosevelt Way, and the Vera Project announced plans to open a new all-ages space in Georgetown in early 2027.

* * *

We don’t even have Sears to ease the pain. There are only five stores left in the country, and none of them are long for this world. The store that once sold the American Dream in a mail-order catalog will be sold for parts.

* * *

If only we could all learn to self-soothe like an Austrian cow has. Veronika’s scratching stick, developed in a 13-year life of leisure, is the first documented instance of a cow using tools. Cows are farting idiots, so this is significant from an evolutionary perspective. Will Veronika & Co. become the new master race? She is Austrian.

* * *

At least she’s not going to be taking anyone’s job. Why? There aren’t any. Trump’s Department of Labor reported that employers only added 50,000 jobs in December, a dismal cherry on top of a dismal year for job growth.

One really great thing to do every day of the week. by Julianne Bell MONDAY 2/2  

Rituals of Mine with LabRats & Rose Peak

(MUSIC) Terra Lopez has been making electronic-influenced alt-R&B since 2010—first under the moniker Sister Crayon, then changing the project’s name to Rituals of Mine in 2016. That year was a landmark one for the group, touring with alternative metal band the Deftones and celebrating the re-release of their sophomore album Devoted on a major label, but Lopez was on the verge of a mental health crisis. After processing the trauma of losing her father and best friend in a six-month span, Lopez released her third record—and first solo venture—HYPE NOSTALGIA in 2020. Rituals of Mine has since released a handful of singles, groovy and emotional tracks that have left me wanting more. They're on tour with support from jazz hip-hop fusion group LabRats, who double as the headliner's backing band. (Baba Yaga, 7 pm, 21+) SHANNON LUBETICH

Yeobo Cafe and Bar

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A post shared by Yeobo Cafe and Bar (@yeoboseattle)

(FOOD) Yeobo, will you be our Valentine?? The name "yeobo" is a Korean term of endearment like "honey" or "sweetheart," which is fitting, because I'm extremely smitten with this Capitol Hill coffee shop. In fact, I'm writing this blurb there right now, enjoying a cup of roasted oolong tea while Norah Jones plays in the background. In our recent Complaints Issue, arts editor Emily Nokes begged local businesses to stay open later, whereas I lamented the lack of truly cozy coffee shops in Seattle, and Yeobo might just be the answer to both of our prayers—they even extended their hours to 9-ish pm daily as a direct response to Emily's complaint! They have delicious coffee drinks (I love the burnt honey miso latte), a selection of Friday Afternoon tea, and both alcoholic and non-alcoholic cocktails, plus kimchi breakfast sandwiches made with house-made gluten-free English muffins. There's always something fun playing on the TV, like Avatar: The Last Airbender, anime, or Kim's Convenience, and if you want some analog entertainment, they have a community library, puzzle exchange, and board games. This is the inclusive third space that the neighborhood desperately needed. Also, if you have some spare cash, consider donating to their GoFundMe to help them out with critical repairs and unexpected expenses so they can keep the lights on.  (2332 E Madison St, 7 am-9ish pm) JULIANNE BELL

Mark Z. Danielewski

(LITERATURE) Mark Z. Danielewski is most well known for his debut novel and postmodern horror cult classic House of Leaves, which famously requires active participation (including turning the book upside down at times) from the reader to decipher its multiple nonlinear narratives, cryptic text, and copious footnotes. Reading it feels like a descent into madness and will have you glancing around to make sure no one (or nothing) else is in the room with you. He’s now embarking on tour to promote his longest novel to date, Tom’s Crossing, which came out last October and clocks in at 1,200 pages. It’s a dark, epic Western horror hybrid that required 10 drafts and which Danielewski has said he considers the “pinnacle” of his work. Here’s a chance to catch a living horror legend in the flesh. (Elliott Bay Book Company, 7 pm, all ages, free) JULIANNE BELL

aja monet

(LITERATURE) Poet, organizer, and musician aja monet is a triple threat who’s in the business of activating rooms. Drawing from a lineage rooted in oratory practice, monet blends spoken word, music, and experience into something that feels more akin to a performance or communal offering than a standard reading. Her latest book, Florida Water, explores love, migration, climate grief, and community with a clarity that reflects, reveals, and unravels in equal measure. A Grammy-nominated spoken word artist and Nuyorican Poets Cafe Grand Slam Champion, monet creates urgent and intimate work. If you plan to attend, you’re in for a treat. Just be sure to stick around for the post-event Q&A hosted by Kiesha B. Free. (Town Hall Seattle, 7:30 pm, all ages) LANGSTON THOMAS

Jade: That’s Showbiz Baby! Tour

(MUSIC) I constantly annoy everyone I know by bragging that I was three years early to knowing about Chappell Roan, so I need you to believe me when I say that former Little Mix singer Jade Thirlwall is going to be a main pop girlie within the next couple of years. She’s already big in the UK and steadily gaining popularity stateside. No one else out there is doing it like her—I can't name another artist who dropped a fully art-directed visual album for their solo debut, but that's exactly what she did with That's Showbiz Baby. There are no skips, either. You can hear touches of all the great pop divas, like Gaga, Madonna, Kylie Minogue, and Diana Ross. The opener, “Angel of My Dreams,” about Jade’s ambivalent relationship to fame, is dreamy, celestial pop goodness reminiscent of “Lucky” by Britney Spears. I also love the track “Before You Break My Heart,” which samples a recording of Jade singing the Supremes’ "Stop! In the Name of Love" as a little girl, and which she says is written from the POV of her “younger self, begging me not to forget her and how far we’ve come.” (Paramount Theatre, 8 pm, all ages) JULIANNE BELL

Scent Lending Library at Fogue Studios

(ART) What does God’s sweat smell like? Or the anoxic cold of Eau De Space? Smell for yourself out at the Scent Lending Library, an olfactory exhibition that arrived at Fogue after its five-month run at Olfactory Art Keller in New York. While determining the base note of divine perspiration may involve a smidge of poetic license, NASA did actually work with chemists in 2008 to recreate the smell of the void (as relayed by space-walking astronauts), and Australian-born documentary filmmaker turned olfactory artist Donna Lipowitz has bottled these distillations for your sniffing pleasure. There are over 100 scents to explore (70 of which are available to check out for two weeks at a time), including delightful nose poems like Old Luggage, Bermuda Triangle, and American Psycho, as well as more classic fare, including the oldest continuously produced perfume, Guerlain's 1889 Jicky. The sensory excursion to the world right under our nose is the perfect antidote to algorithm purgatory. (Fogue Studios and Gallery) AMANDA MANITACH

The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo

(FILM) Set in the Chilean desert in the early '80s, director Diego Céspedes’s feature debut follows Lidia, an 11-year-old who was abandoned as a baby and raised by a fiercely loving queer found family. Their ragtag clan is ostracized by their sleepy mining town, blamed for a mysterious plague that is believed to be transmitted by a single gaze when two people fall in love. Lidia sets out to defend her loved ones and determine whether the rumor is true or not. The surreal Western explores AIDS panic, transphobia, violence, revenge, marginalization, and prejudice, mixing folktale vibes with the scrappy tenderness of Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Shoplifters. (Northwest Film Forum, 3 pm and 6:30 pm) JULIANNE BELL

Episode Five tapped the brakes on Season 18 with the Rate-A-Queen Talent Show. This two-episode story arc suspends the conventional Drag Race challenges and culminates in only a single elimination, but we get to see the queens in a solo performance format. After last week’s “Faintgate,” I am absolutely ready for a gay-ass variety show. by Mike Kohfeld

Episode Five tapped the brakes on Season 18 with the Rate-A-Queen Talent Show. This two-episode story arc suspends the conventional Drag Race challenges and culminates in only a single elimination, but we get to see the queens in a solo performance format.

After last week’s “Faintgate,” I am absolutely ready for a gay-ass variety show.

There’s Friendships, Lovers, and Barbecues

Rate-A-Queen splits the cast in two: in week one, half the cast performs and the other half judges; then in week two, their roles reverse. The highest rated queens lip-sync for the win while the lowest rated queens of each week are declared the bottom two and must lip-sync-for-their-lives.

We’ve seen Rate-A-Queen in previous seasons, but it’s always been part of the premiere, before the queens get a sense of who’s-who in the competition. As a result, the ranking has historically been less about strategy and more about genuine reactions to the performances. So Season 18 threw a curveball when it put Rate-A-Queen in Week Five, after the queens have built friendships… and have had plenty of time to size up their competition. Kenya, who had wanted to kick off Episode One with the talent show, did not understand why they’d play Rate-A-Queen in the middle of the season. “We already know each other! There’s friendships. There’s lovers. There’s barbecues.” I’m waiting for an invite to that barbecue.

Our local queen and frontrunner Jane Don’t worried that the other queens would rate her in the bottom regardless of how well she does in the talent show simply to eliminate a threat. “I planned to be judged by RuPaul,” Jane grumbled, “but now I’m being judged by a bunch of bitches from Florida who can’t read.”

The Miami girls—mother/daughter Athena and Juicy, plus “Auntie” Mia—had a natural alliance, and Athena quickly snagged Kenya as a fourth vote in her favor. But it was team GLAM! from the Q-Pop Girl Groups challenge that emerged as the superpower of the episode: Nini, Mia, Ciara, Myki, and Kenya (yes, Kenya is playing both sides. Werk!). They strategically split themselves between the two talent performances so they could rate each other highly in each episode.

The storyline potential of Rate-A-Queen is more useful at the top of a season, when the slower pace gives audiences time to get to know the full cast. Here, it felt like a loss of momentum at a critical point in the season, when viewers are more likely to tune out for a non-elimination episode that felt more like Survivor than RuPaul’s Drag Race. (Give us a Mini-Challenge! I will die on this hill.)

Mama Mia, Starr On the Rise

This week’s performers were Ciara Myst, Juicy Love Dion, Nini Coco, Vita VonTesse Starr, Darlene Mitchell, and Mia Starr, while the remaining queens rated their performances. Each queen got 60 seconds to prove their star quality.

Nini treated us to her genius Mother Mantis routine in the talent show, but got mid-ratings by her castmates for her act of drag déjà vu. Darlene did a campy country song about screws, nails, and drills and Vita gave us a shaky aerobics routine. All three were rated safe. One would think a savvy queen would use frontrunner Vita’s slip-up in this episode to put her in the bottom, but no. These queens are not built for Survivor-style play.

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Ciara went with an unconventional lip-sync to a raw piece of original poetry about her struggles with depression that highlighted her exquisite costume construction, but it did not translate well to the Drag Race mainstage, and her performance was rated last by the queens.

Mia and Juicy proved that Drag Race is really all about splits, tricks, and death drops. (Sigh.) As far as drag goes, I’ve always been more attracted to the weird, cerebral, and unconventional (AKA Seattle vibes), so the polished, dancing Drag Race diva act feels tired to me. I literally groaned aloud when judge Ross Matthews said that Ciara’s poetry performance needed a death drop to grab his attention.

Flips and dips may not be my cup of tea, but the Miami girls killed it. Juicy did an exquisite dance number in Ready Player One drag, skillfully shimmying across every inch of the mainstage. Mia brought us Y2K video ho with a smart mashup of hip hop dance and drag excellence. Go listen to “Mama Mia [Runway Mix]” by Mia Starr: it’ll cure whatever ails you, I promise.

Ultimately, the “most hated girls in Miami” got their way (thanks, Mama Athena). Juicy and Mia were rated as the top two queens by their peers. This marked a turning point for Mia: she’s finally getting a top-four edit rather than the “filler queen” cut she’s had in past weeks.

Juicy and Mia lip-synced-for-the-win to guest judge Zara Larsson’s “Pretty Ugly.” This high-energy pop track became the perfect soundtrack for a hung jury: RuPaul declared a tie after an epic auntie-niece dance-off.

Larsson also treated us to a Swedish translation of RuPaul’s classic “good luck, and don’t fuck it up”: “Nu har du skitit i det blå skåpe,” which literally translates to: “now you’ve really taken a shit in the blue closet.” I’m gonna need to hear RuPaul say this at some point this season.

Jane Don’t Gives Good (Talking) Head

Jane Didn’t perform this week, but we still got plenty from her. Beyond being anxious about her castmates sabotaging her with Rate-A-Queen, she gave top-tier side-eye cutaways during the queens’ talent acts. She questioned Ciara’s choice to feature poetry, citing “drag family trauma” after her drag sister Irene was sent home first on Season 16 for a similar performance in the talent show. It sounds like Jane will be taking the conventional route next week–maybe we’ll see her do a death drop for Ross Matthews.

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A post shared by Jane Don’t (@heyjanedont)

As part of the “Not Today, Satin” runway category, Jane was anything but conventional. She slithered down the runway in a sky blue satin gown with sun and cloud details, complete with a giant orange-and-pink feathered bird draped over her shoulders. “I’ve had this bird for a few years. Her name is Denise.” Her mind.

If a queen can win both America’s Next Drag Superstar and Miss Congeniality on the same season, it’s gonna be Jane. Kenya’s designer wasn’t able to deliver her satin runway look in time for filming, but Jane saved the day by lending Kenya an oversized satin coat that Kenya quick-sewed into a cute dress. “Jane, thank you so much. You saved my life, bitch!” My heart! Can we convince Kenya to move to Seattle, too?

Tune in next week for the final half of Rate-A-Queen, where we will finally see Jane Don’t’s talent performance and find out who will be lip-syncing against Ciara Myst!

The Stranger's morning news roundup. by Hannah Murphy Winter

Good Morning and Happy Groundhog Day! Phil saw his shadow this morning, so the fates have promised us another six weeks of winter. Which makes sense. It’s February. 

ICE Out: From New York to Kansas City to Portland to Seattle, everyone hit the streets this weekend. The marches came out of an amorphous social media call for a “general strike” on Friday, but after spending the entirety of January watching ICE brutalize Minnesota on the screens in our pockets, people needed to shout about it. In Seattle, we had a critical mass bike ride, and three separate rallies held by tech workers, healthcare workers, and educators. It all came together to mean thousands of people were in the streets telling ICE to fuck off. 

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Best News All Week: Five-year-old Liam Ramos is home. After immigration agents took the Ecuadorian preschooler and his dad from Minneapolis more than a week ago and shipped them 1,300 miles to an ICE detention center in Texas, a judge ordered their release this weekend. His written decision is brief, scathing, and sassy. “The case has its genesis in the ill-conceived and incompetently-implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even if it requires traumatizing children,” US District Judge Fred Biery wrote. “Apparent also is the government's ignorance of an American historical document called the Declaration of Independence. Thirty-three-year-old Thomas Jefferson enumerated grievances against a would-be authoritarian king over our nascent nation…We the People are hearing echos of that history.” He then goes on to cite “that pesky inconvenience called the Fourth Amendment.” Read the full text below. 

ProPublica Does the Government’s Job: For the last week, the government has protected the identities of the two agents who shot Alex Pretti 10 times while he was pinned on the ground. ProPublica’s editors said, in their much more diplomatic way, that that’s bullshit. According to the investigative outlet, which identified them based on government documents, the two men are Border Patrol agent Jesus Ochoa and Customs and Border Protection officer Raymundo Gutierrez. They are both from South Texas, and neither are new recruits—Ochoa joined in 2018 and Gutierrez in 2014.  

A note from our editors:

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— ProPublica (@propublica.org) February 1, 2026 at 1:10 PM

Speaking of the Government’s Job: We’re back in a partial government shutdown. Dems finally refused to fund ICE, which means, as of this weekend, we’re working with the backup generators. On Friday, the Senate did pass a two-week patch to fund DHS and give Republicans time to offer an alternative that doesn’t fund Trump’s personal secret police, but its future in the House is uncertain. Fortunately, this shutdown won’t impact essential services like SNAP benefits, but this spending bill does include FEMA and TSA. 

Trump Doesn’t Want You at His Arts Center Anyway: Nobody wants to perform at the Kennedy Center after Trump gutted its board and scribbled his name on the side of it, so he’s closing it down for two years for "renovations." He’s closing it on July 4, the country’s 250th birthday, presumably so he doesn’t have to remember another date. And he says he’ll make it “new and spectacular.” Tell that to the East Wing. 

He Did Not Have Sexual Relations With That Plane Broker: Like every other filthy rich person you’ve ever heard of, the former Seahawks quarterback’s name cropped up in the Epstein files, apparently trying to buy one of his planes. Wilson hopped on the porn generator formerly known as Twitter to set the record straight: “NOPE!!! ABSOLUTELY NOT! Not TODAY satan!,” he wrote. “Some Random plane broker tried to sell me a plane. I had no idea whose plane and never bought the plane. Never talked nor Never met the man. Thank God!!!”

Beware the Memes! There’s a massive winter storm getting ready to wallop most of the US, which means most of our roadways are going to be covered in warning signs. But the DHS has asked FEMA to pretty please avoid the word “ice” in their warning, because they just can’t handle the memes. They’ve asked FEMA to use “freezing rain” instead. Snowflakes. 

Would Ya Lookit That: The Grammys still happen in an autocracy. A lot happened at the award show last night, I think, but I really only want to talk about Chappell Roan’s nipples. 

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In Non-Nipple Related News: Bad Bunny won Album of the Year last night for Debí Tirar Más Fotos, the first all-Spanish album to win the award. In front of a crowd full of musicians wearing “ICE OUT” pins, he was the first to actually say the thing out loud. “Before I say thanks to God, I’m going to say ICE out,” he said. “We’re not savage, we’re not animals, we’re not aliens. We are humans, and we are Americans.”

What’s it like outside? We’ve got soft weather today. Standard drizzle. Highs in the 50s. Lows in the mid 40s. Like Punxatawney Phil said, it’s still winter. 

Bus Stop Shooting: Four Seattle schools are starting late this morning after two teenagers were killed at a Rainier Valley bus stop on Friday, right after school let out. The kids haven’t been identified by the coroner’s office yet, but about 100 friends and loved ones gathered at a vigil at the bus stop on Saturday. “He didn’t deserve this,” said one of the victims’s moms. “He was a great kid. He’s my only child, and he’s gone.” SPD thinks the shooting was targeted, and doesn’t believe that the community at large is in danger, but they have increased patrols in the area.

Evictions Are Up, Again: They’ve been climbing up consistently since the pandemic, and 2025 was no different. Both Washington State and King County recorded more evictions last year than they ever have before. Almost half of renters in Washington pay more than 30 percent of their income on rent, which means they’re often just one setback away from an eviction notice. And with the rise in corporate landlords, they’re less likely to negotiate with tenants who are behind on rent. 

A Few Suggestions to Take That Edge Off: In San Francisco, if you make $230,000 or less, childcare is now free. And if you make up to $310,000, you still have access to a 50 percent subsidy. And in Massachusetts, Governor Maura Healy announced her plan to ban medical debt from being reported to credit agencies. Alright, Mayor Wilson, you’re up!

I’m not saying we made this happen, but…: In December’s complaints issue, The Stranger’s Nathalie Graham put her foot down. “Around the world, transit riders are waving their phones or gently tapping their credit cards to enter the glorious universe of a bus, a train, a ferry. In some parts of China, people pay for transit with their palms. Meanwhile, in Seattle, we are stuck in the past,” she wrote. Not anymore! The RapidRide G Line is soft-launching a Tap-to-Pay system on Monday. Riders can use debit cards, credit cards, or their phones to pay the $3 fare. The program should expand to the rest of the system by the end of the month, but don’t worry, your ORCA card won’t have to retire anytime soon. It’s still the system’s “preferred” payment method. 

A Song for Your Monday: Sometimes you want your morning to sound like the beginning of a jolly adventure. Haruomi Hosono will always deliver on that. 

February may be the shortest month of the year, but there's no shortage of exceptional things to do. In addition to big dates like Black History Month, Lunar New Year, Valentine's Day, and the Super Bowl (GO HAWKS!), there's the usual array of concerts, major author appearances, food & drink events, and more. Find all of February's highlights below, with events from Cardi B to The Head and the Heart with the Seattle Symphony and from The Wiz to Chilly Hilly 2026.

Nick Colletti
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past decade (or were too young for the glory days of Vine), there’s a very good chance you’ve encountered the ridiculous humor of Nick Colletti. From immortal one-liners like “suh dude” and “what the fuck is up, Kyle” to Real Bros of Simi Valley fame, Colletti has perfected a very specific comedic lane: laid-back, slightly cringe, and infinitely meme-able. If any of his past skits or lines have ever found their way into your head, you’re in for a treat seeing that energy translate onstage, even on a Wednesday. LANGSTON THOMAS
Emerald City Comedy Club, Capitol Hill (Wed Feb 11)

What ICE has done is actually strengthen, rather weaken, the bonds between urban dwellers. by Charles Mudede

The current cycle of protests in Minneapolis has been accompanied by a type of resistance that I call care activism. This is not just about assisting protestors on the frontline but also helping those who've been harmed or kidnapped by ICE. In this form, care activism is practiced by providing “rent, food, diapers, and animal support” for people whose lives have been disrupted by an ICE raid or who are scared to leave their homes. And many of these people are actually documented, as with the case of the 5-year-old boy, Liam Ramos, who, with his father, was taken into custody by ICE, despite the fact that both entered the country legally, and the parent had no criminal record. 

Thanks to the Kavanaugh stop, you only need to be brown or have a funny accent to be detained by ICE. Protests are surely important during this time of trouble, but for those who are exposed to legalized racism, what matters most is care activism. And it seems the people of Minneapolis, and other cities, have, through self-organization, met this challenge as best as they can.

"Let Minnesota Fuel You"

Important message from Imani B.

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— Key (@keykeymonet.bsky.social) January 23, 2026 at 2:45 PM

But what made the spontaneous networks of care activism even possible? One explanation can be found if we understand the kind of modern city in which we live. This is no easy task. But we can begin with a line from a poetic novel, Bones, by the late and great Zimbabwean writer Chenjerai Hove: “If the city is so frightening as you say… why are so many people living there?” Let’s keep these words in mind as we turn to this passage from T.S. Eliot’s conservative play The Rock:

“When the Stranger says: 'What is the meaning of this city?

Do you huddle close together because you love each other?'

What will you answer? 'We all dwell together to make money from each other?' or 'This is a community?'”

What Hove and Eliot capture is the paradox at the heart of the modern city. And by modern, I mean the kind of city that emerged in 17th-century Europe and, over the past four centuries, has become global. The cities of today are closely connected with the Amsterdam or London of that founding century, but are almost completely disconnected from those of antiquity: Rome, Alexandria, Timbuktu, and so on. 

What connects all modern urban centers is their very nature.  The pomerium, the sacred boundary of the ancient city, has been replaced by the market. Modernity is primarily about making money (industrial production, finance, consumer consumption). True, the market found a home in premodern cities, but rarely was it central to the life of the polis. Aristotle, for example, only devotes one chapter in the 500 pages of his book Politics to oikonomia (household management) and barely a page to what he contemptuously calls chrematistics, the unnatural massing of wealth. A modern examination of the polis would look mad if it excluded or made little mention of chrematistics, because that is what a modern city mainly does. To answer T.S. Eliot, that’s precisely why we come together. To make money. Don’t doubt it for even a minute. But there turns out to be another and maybe even deeper side to the modern metropolis. Markets are only possible because we are highly, even spectacularly, social animals. Remove this innate capacity to cooperate at very large scales and often with strangers, and we are no better than Hobbesian wolves. This is the great paradox of the modern city: an economic system that prioritizes individuals (the bellum omnium contra omnes of capitalism) and yet depends on human sociality, or species-being, for its realization and reproduction.

Now for a little theory. In socialist economics, there are two key concepts: contradictions and paradoxes. The former is associated with traditional Marxism, the latter with post-Keynesianism. To better understand a city that’s at once about community and generating profits, we need to abandon the concept of contradictions. It is too strict, teleological, and Hegelian. Meaning, contradictions are dialectical: thesis (what dominates), antithesis (what opposes what dominates), and synthesis (the resolution of the antagonism). Paradoxes, on the other hand, are not as tight or predictable as contradictions. For example, in post-Keynesian economics, there’s what’s called the paradox of thrift. This concept explains the fact that saving or hoarding money actually hurts capitalist accumulation on a macro level. The system’s performance is improved by circulating money, and hampered when large amounts of it are parked in bank accounts. And yet, capitalist ideology praises misers and even frugality to the high heavens.

The modern city is a paradox in this sense. The top ten metropolitan areas, including Seattle’s, generate an astonishing 90 percent of the US GDP, and 88 percent of its employment. The modern economy would collapse without them. Without this kind of economic power, you don’t have an Idaho, or a Wyoming, or a Montana. You don’t have a billionaire class. Yet cities are now under violent attack from the GOP, the party that represents the ruling class, because they’re too blue, because they have policies that are supposed to protect the rights of immigrants, and so on. Yet ICE has only one mission: make the lives of city people miserable. This is the paradox of all American paradoxes and it has seemingly backfired.

ICE is now facing resistance from the deeper city, from the community, from networks of care, from nurses, one of whom it killed. Adam Serwer of the the Atlantic writes: 

“The federal surge into Minneapolis reflects a series of mistaken MAGA assumptions. The first is the belief that diverse communities aren’t possible. ... ‘Social bonds form among people who have something in common,’ Vance said in a speech last July. ‘If you stop importing millions of foreigners into the country, you allow social cohesion to form naturally.’ Vance’s remarks are the antithesis to the neighborism of the Twin Cities. … A second MAGA assumption is that the left is insincere in its values, and that principles of inclusion and unity are superficial forms of virtue signaling.”

What ICE has done is actually strengthen, rather weaken, the bonds between urban dwellers. Indeed, the social meaning of the city, which, as Serwer points out, is still massively underrepresented in state and national politics, has become more pronounced. This is not to say modern cities are perfect. We have a heap of racial, housing, and gender issues to work through. But many of these problems come from the market of the modern city. What we are seeing now (in Chicago, Los Angeles, Portland, Minneapolis), and what must continue, even with the firing of Border Patrol chief Gregory Bovino after the broad-daylight execution of Alex Pretti, is the movement toward the stabilization of urban fellow feeling and, eventually, its expansion into state and national politics. The Dems, in a word, are failing our cities. Now is the time to change that. 

There is nothing like the love you get from a grandparent. by Eva Walker

Dear Hendrix,

I was one of the lucky ones. Growing up, my grandparents were in my life in a major way, and I don't know where I would be today without them. It's a funny thing—so often we're taught that success means to move away from your family and start your own life, your own family. But for me, success means being able to talk, learn, and live with my mother's parents, Gramsy and Poppie. And though they're no longer here with us, I think about them often. I miss them dearly. So, I wanted to take a moment here to tell you a bit about them. And their dentures.

Back in the 1900s, when I was a teenager, Gramsy, Poppie, and I were sitting at the dining room table in our family home, the home my mother (your grandma) still lives in today. They were done with their dinner, but I was just about to dig into mine. What was on the menu? Gramsey's gumbo! Both Gramsy and Poppie are from New Orleans, so while we lived 2,600 miles from the Crescent City, its cuisine was still a daily staple. 

As I licked my chops and picked up my spoon, Poppie started to talk to me about teeth. Specifically, his dentures. 

In old-school fashion, Poppie and Gramsy always cleaned their dentures after a meal—that wasn’t a rare sight. But that evening, they decided it was time I get a lesson in denture homecare. I sat there, spoon in hand, warm steam from the bowl of gumbo wafting up to my face, when Poppie took out his teeth and started to explain how he went about cleaning his removable pearly whites. An engineer by trade, Poppie, who moved up to Seattle in 1968 when there were no professional opportunities for him in the South, got a job at Boeing. It’s because of that job that you’re in Seattle today. And, seeing as how he’s an engineer,you can imagine how meticulous he was about his denture cleaning. 

This was not something at all I wanted to watch while I was eating—especially when sitting down to a messy dish like gumbo. But somehow I couldn’t look away, I listened intently and stared. I was fascinated by just about everything my grandparents told me. I wanted to soak up all their knowledge every chance I got and I guess that included their denture routine, strange as that might sound. After all, I might have dentures of my own someday!

I knew, even from a young age, both of them were smart. Both were good people. Both were the embodiment of love. Poppie's real name—David Davidson—is actually on a plaque on the literal moon for his work at Boeing and a partnership with NASA that helped put the first man on the moon. And Gramsy could outcook even the best New Orleans chef. Her food remains legendary in our family, even today. 

Well, after Poppie finished his important denture points, Gramsy joined the conversation. She took her teeth out, too, and began offering her own top cleaning techniques. It's like we were all of a sudden at a denture convention and they were the top panelists. I just wanted to eat my gumbo! Gramsy explained how the dentures fit snugly into her mouth, how they sat nicely on her gums and were secure there. Both continued to proudly display their well-cared-for false teeth at the dinner table, their stomachs full and appetites long appeased. My appetite? By then, my appetite was out the window. But it was a small price to pay for this memorable tableside show.

Gramsy and Poppie, Poppie and Gramsy. Yes, they (along with my mother) were my heroes growing up. I'm not close with my father's parents (heck, I'm not all that close with my dad either). But Gramsy and Poppie were like a second pair of parents to me and my siblings. 

My mother was a single parent. My father was a bank robber. When he went to jail, our family needed help. Enter: Gramsy and Poppie, who selflessly put their ideas of retirement away to help raise four kids (including a fabulous granddaughter who would one day become a DJ for one of the most popular independent radio stations in the country and a columnist for The Stranger). They cared for us and, as a result, I never felt like anything was missing in my life.

Gramsy’s real name was Eva—I was named after her. The story goes: pregnant with me (and your Uncle Cedric), my mom had made up her mind that my first name was going to be something completely different. But when I popped out of the womb, as my mom stared at me, she exclaimed, “Oh goodness, forget that other name! This is Eva! She looks just like my mom!” As they say in the Black community, I was a bright-skinned child or a “high yellow” baby. And I apparently also looked like a 65-year-old Creole woman with fake teeth. I'll take it! 

Gransy and Poppie met in New Orleans. He used to walk by her house on the way to his job and every day he saw her, he fell more and more in love. One day, he asked if they could go out. That led to a relationship, which led to a marriage, which led to the family moving up to the Pacific Northwest. It's the Poppie and Gramsy butterfly effect!

Henny, I so wish you could have met them. Growing up was special. We ate so well every single day, I didn’t  realize that red beans and rice, gumbo, yams, rice and gravy with shrimp Creole, greens, and cornbread weren’t what everyone else ate every week in the Northwest, too. Not until my grandma passed did I realize, “Oh shit! No one cooks like that up here!” And it wasn’t until your dad took me to New Orleans (where he also proposed), and we ate at a restaurant called Mother’s, that I was able to get a taste of the familiar flavors that brought back memories of sitting at the table in Gramsy’s kitchen. 

I remember watching cartoons on a black-and-white TV, eating southern cuisine like a queen. Teleport me there now! Just for an hour!

While I was born in Seattle, and raised in the cloudy and grungy ’90s, inside our home it always felt like 1970s New Orleans. Wood paneling (still up by the way), plastic-covered furniture, doilies everywhere, Gramsy in her rocking chair listening to big band music on her AM radio that doubled as  an 8-track player. Drapes, craftsman's wood, and the biggest floor model television sets you’ve ever seen, with matching gigantic remote controls that looked as if they powered Apollo 11. At night, your Uncle Cedric and I would routinely go into their bedroom to hang out while Gramsy while Poppie sat downstairs enjoying a glass of whiskey and his politically incorrect Westerns. Gramsy taught us how to play Go Fish, Uno, Pokeno and dominoes on her bed. Then we would watch the draw of her Keno lottery numbers, horse races, followed up with Nick at Night shows. Where is that teleportation device I ordered on Etsy!

But that brings me to you, dear Henny. Even though you never got a chance to meet Poppie and Gramsy, who died in the early 2000s, you do have the opportunity to meet your incredible grandmothers. Both my mom and your dad’s mom are remarkable women. Teachers; they raised six kids in total. They love to learn, read, laugh, and watch bad TV. They go to church, and they care about other people—even today, when that seems hardest. 

The best thing is they love you to the ends of the Earth! My life is better knowing that they are in your life today. Believe me, your father and I will always be there for you, but there is nothing like the love you get from a grandparent, from someone who's been around long enough to need dentures. It’s the coolest fucking shit there is. 

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.

I don’t know what to do. It’s getting increasingly difficult to push through the noise and focus on anything that feels worthwhile in the fight against the Trump administration’s relentless attacks. Each day is a new nightmare; each nightmare requires a battle plan. It feels hopeless. I have a feeling I'm not alone. by Megan Seling

I don’t know what to do. Maybe you don’t either.

It’s getting increasingly difficult to push through the noise and focus on anything that feels worthwhile in the fight against the Trump administration’s relentless attacks. Each day is a new nightmare; each nightmare requires a battle plan. It feels hopeless.

Even when I manage to pull myself together—or, at least, feel like I have—a rush of panic makes me come undone. Am I helping in the right way? What is the right way? Will this make any difference at all? We have to do something. People are literally dying. But we can’t afford to fuck this up! And so I sit. I stare. I cross-stitch a little bit, but doomscroll and watch shitty TV more, and I continue thinking about what to do instead of doing anything at all.

I have a feeling that I’m not alone.

It feels worse this week, today, while being inundated with messages about a general strike, a nationwide shutdown, a day for no work, no school no shopping. Because it’s adding to the confusion, not directing it.

The only directive—largely from scattered social media posts—is “ICE out,” “no work, no school, no shopping” in solidarity with Minnesota as they continue to protest the killings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti. Sounds easy enough, but without a unified goal, the questions that result in inaction swirl back up. Am I helping in the right way? What is the right way? Will this make any difference at all? For the past 72 hours, my social media feeds, text threads, and Slack conversations boil down to one question: What are we doing? We’re all that gif of John Travolta in Pulp Fiction where he’s looking around and wondering what the fuck is going on.

My skepticism is, in part, because we can’t trust activism that appears to start and mostly spread on social media. Remember #BlackoutTuesday in 2020, after Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd? The call to action evolved into people posting black squares on their Instagram and Facebook accounts. Something like 28 million people participated, which was more than 8 percent of the American population at the time. But without demands, and without sustained action, it’s just a flash in the pan that we all use as a punchline

And we shouldn’t trust faceless calls to action that encourage participants to hand over personal information, no questions asked. Even more so now that our administration basically brags about how it uses surveillance tech to monitor people’s social media activity and cross-reference it with personal information to target whoever it is they feel needs to be eradicated today.

Successful general strikes have union backing. They have demands. They have a reputable organization behind them that can build on its momentum.  Small versions of that have bubbled up: Members of UAW Local 4121—which includes about 4,000 student employees at the UW—will gather at the University of Washington at noon. (Pretti, an ICU nurse, was a member of the AFGE Local 3669 union.) Seattle’s Troublemakers and MLK Labor Union are organizing a rally at the Downtown Target to “send a message to the company that they must stop enabling ICE’s terror campaign.” Target, which is headquartered in Minneapolis, has been quiet ever since Greg Bovino and other US Border Patrol agents arrested two Target employees at work in a Richfield, MN store earlier this month. (Target also rolled back its DEI programs in 2025, resulting in a boycott that appears to have impacted sales, for what it’s worth.)

Efforts have bled over into Saturday, too. Seattle educators are organizing an Ice Out of Seattle rally at Seattle Central Community College at East Pike and Broadway at 1 pm, which has been endorsed by the Washington Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, among others. Both events are being backed by 50501.

Last year, after the nationwide protests in April, Kendall Turner published the Stranger article, “How Does a Protest Make Change?” She wrote, “almost no protest movement that has mobilized 3.5 percent of a population has failed to achieve its goals.” She added that “research suggests successful protests share four characteristics: worthiness, unity, numbers, and commitment.”

Actions can’t have any of those characteristics if the conversation around it is ultimately coming down to people asking, “So what do we do?” And it doesn’t help that what appears to be the main website behind the movement is giving psyop. But it’s also giving us an opportunity. It’s giving people permission to take time, in a moment when most days are full of nothing but internally screaming someone! has to do something! until they fall asleep. And that’s the first step.

Today’s “general strike” might be infuriatingly directionless. But it’s 2026. And today, the fight can be what you make it. So make today about doing something. 

• Dozens of restaurants across the city are remaining open and donating a portion (or all!) of their proceeds to Minneapolis businesses and immigration organizations. Go get a donut, go eat a taco, drink some really good coffee.
• Read up on what the Washington Immigrant Solidarity Network, La Resistencia, and National Day Laborer Organizing Network are doing—they work every day to track and free people detained by ICE here in the Pacific Northwest. (In fact, NDLON is hosting a virtual workshop on Friday at 5 pm for people interested in their Adopt a Day Labor Corner program.)
• Cancel Spotify. Cancel Amazon Prime. Support an indie art shop and make a really funny sign or batch of stickers and stick them all over town.
• Make a plan to go to one of the union-supported events on Saturday, too. The rain is supposed to clear by the afternoon.

Whether you’re working or not, going to school or not, participating in the economy or not, today can be a day that you think about how you want to participate in this downfall of democracy. Because it’s not a matter of whether or not you participate, it’s a matter of how. You’re in it, babe. It’s happening. Your actions—and inactions—are on record.

Today, do the thing you’ve been too debilitated by overthinking to do. Just don’t do nothing.

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

Covered head to toe in tattoos and a cream coat at elliot bay

I didn’t find salmon shanties but I found a new crush

Cuties Supporting First Amendment

Saturday night, you dropped off donut holes for the vigil and march at the Federal Building. I handed them out, as promised. Don't know u, but love u.

Light Rail Commute Rainier Beach to Seatac 1/18/26

7:14am. You had work boots, thick-rimmed glasses, half blue-green hair. I wore an olive parka. Our eyes kept meeting. Maybe again, but over coffee?

1.25.26 Stone Way & Bridge Way N

Cute brunette boy in Subaru doing a double take at me (shades & cherry red hair), u made my day (yeah I saw that). We should do that again sometime

pike place fish 01/25

u- fish thrower w/ brown curly hair… me- fem w/ calico hair n red jacket: we were making lots of eye contact - throw me a fish if ur interested!

Cute cargo bike and cuter person, Volunteer Park 1/26 lunchtime

I was curious about your Omnium, got curious about you. Should have asked but I panicked and walked, came back to try, you had gone. Ride bikes soon?

Creased Lesbian Flag near Broadway Hill Park

You recently moved in and put up a new flag as a window covering. If you can afford to live there you can afford a steamer. <3

Hot queer “look back” outside Charlie’s in Fremont, Jan 28

You walked past me laughing with a friend on the sidewalk outside Charlie’s. You looked back before ducking into Rudy’s. You are stunning, even shaggy

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!

The demands are simple: Get Target to denounce ICE, those chuds terrorizing and murdering people in Target’s hometown, and to stop allowing them to operate in their stores. Shouldn’t the company do something? Money is power and Target is the fourth largest employer in Minnesota. Hot deals can offer a company only so much protection. by Nathalie Graham

On Friday at 1:30pm, MLK Labor and Troublemakers Community will gather outside the downtown Seattle Target to protest the Minneapolis-based brand’s ties with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It’s a direct action on a day of loose, unfocused, pat-on-the-back politics.

The demands are simple: Get Target to denounce ICE, those chuds terrorizing and murdering people in Target’s hometown, and to stop allowing them to operate in their stores. Shouldn’t the company do something? Money is power and Target is the fourth largest employer in Minnesota. Hot deals can offer a company only so much protection.

This Friday afternoon, join us at 🎯, Seattle!

 

For the why's and demands: www.instagram.com/p/DUE7_KGkfrF/

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— Troublemakers (@troublemakers.bsky.social) January 28, 2026 at 6:18 PM

These targeted Target protests have sprung up around the country. Seven people were detained while protesting outside the store in Chicago’s West Loop. People in Philadelphia (home of Democracy and cheesesteak) and Emeryville, California (home of Pixar and Peet’s Coffee) have gathered to yell at their local Targets. Across the Twin Cities, protesters are staging sit-ins at 17 Targets where they will surely be subjected to a lot of Taylor Swift music played on loop. Many say this is like being auditorily waterboarded.

The protests are the cherry on top of a bad year for the big box store. Nearly a year ago, people began boycotting Target for rolling back its diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. Sales dropped.

So, if you are participating in Friday’s amorphous national general strike and don’t know what to do with yourself, join the masses at the downtown Target. The organizers emphasized that it will be peaceful. No broken windows here.

If that’s not your cup of tea, you can join a slew of anti-ICE actions on Saturday between noon and 1pm. The teachers will be gathering at Seattle Central College, the tech workers will rally at the Cal Anderson Park fountain, and the hospital workers will hold it down at Harborview Medical Center.

We've got the makings of a busy weekend with cheap and easy picks from Maita with St. Yuma to Comet Tavern's Winter Pride Party and from a Free Mending Fair to Social Justice Sundays Sign-Waving: Call Out Lawless Trump/ICE Behavior. For more event suggestions, check out our top picks of the week.

Demand: No Immunity for Big Oil
Oil companies have spent decades fueling the climate crisis, and now they want a legal hall pass. As communities push to hold fossil fuel giants accountable for climate damage, the industry is now lobbying for total immunity from lawsuits, shifting the cost of disasters onto everyone else. Um… absolutely not. Join a public push to deliver a 5,000-signature petition to US senators and demand they hold the line against Big Oil. If you’re into climate justice and not subsidizing trillion-dollar polluters (you are a Seattleite, right?), pull up. LANGSTON THOMAS
(Henry M. Jackson Federal Building, Downtown, free)

The Stranger's morning news roundup. by Nathalie Graham

Don Lemon Arrested: Federal agents arrested journalist Don Lemon in Los Angeles on Thursday where he was covering the Grammy Awards. Lemon's crime? The feds believe Lemon was “connected” to the anti-immigration protest that disrupted a Minnesota church service because a pastor at the church has a little sidegig—leading the local ICE field office . The protest happened almost two weeks ago. A magistrate judge previously rejected the case brought against Lemon by the Department of Justice due to insufficient evidence. Lemon says he was simply doing journalism. The DOJ claims Lemon was trespassing and his presence at the church interruption "may have impeded... churchgoers’ constitutional rights to express their religion." Constitutional rights for me but not for thee, hm? Independent journalist Georgia Fort, who filmed the church demonstration, was also arrested. Aside from journalists, feds arrested two other people involved in the church demonstration. Cool First Amendment we've got here. Strong. Sound. Unbiased.

The Feds Showed Up at Fort’s Door: 

Georgia Fort, an independent journalist and vice president of the Minnesota NABJ chapter, was also arrested by federal agents this morning

I was sent this video of agents at her door:

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— Phil Lewis (@phillewis.bsky.social) January 30, 2026 at 6:58 AM

$30 Million for CHOP Death: The City of Seattle must pay $30.5 million in damages to the father of Antonio Mays Jr., the teenager shot and killed inside 2020's autonomous Capitol Hill Organized Protest. A King County judge found the city was negligent in its response to Mays' shooting and that negligence caused his death. 

Wilson Preps for ICE: Mayor Katie Wilson laid out several actions to get Seattle and its residents ready in the event of an ICE surge. Her orders include barring federal “civil immigration enforcement activities” on Seattle property, directing the Seattle Police Department to investigate and verify reports of ICE activity, doling out $4 million to immigrants support organizations, and creating a community hotline. She hasn't said anything about those pesky police CCTV cameras, though.  

          View this post on Instagram                      

A post shared by Mayor Katie B. Wilson (@mayorofseattle)

The Weather: It's going to rain.

Measles, Shmeasles: That's the attitude some of you have about vaccinating your little gremlins. Snohomish County just reported three more measles cases, bringing the county's total cases this month to six. The most recent case involves an unvaccinated twerp who went to a church service while infected.

Congrats: Washington state now has a population of 8 million people. Between 2024 and 2025, the Evergreen State added more than 73,000 people—ranking our state sixth for population growth—and pushed us over that sweet, sweet, 8 million line.

Today's the Day We've All Been Waiting for: The Melania documentary is coming out! Amazon spent $40 million for the rights and then spent $35 million marketing the movie about Melania Trump in the days leading up to her husband's second inauguration. The director is Brett Ratner. This is his first film since he disappeared after six women accused him of sexual assault back in 2017. Disaster has already struck. The first screening of Melania in the United Kingdom was cancelled because  distributors allegedly forgot to send the film. That's okay, people can just read the erotic parody Melania Devourer of Men which is currently topping Amazon charts. 

Not Melania Fans? That aforementioned $35 million Amazon-funded ad campaign paid for a bunch of Melania posters at Los Angeles bus stops. The bus-going public in Tinseltown did not appreciate this. They scribbled Hitler mustaches on the Melania on the Melania poster, writing "Eva Braun" around her head, the name of Hitler's wife. Others gave their local Melania posters devil horns or left a note that the film's subject was in the Epstein files. Fearing more unsanctioned art by this city of artists, LA Metro, which has buses plastered in Melania ads as well, opted to relocate the buses to different routes away from hot graffiti zones. 

Eva 'Melania' Braun

...being in a position to know and nevertheless shunning knowledge creates direct responsibility for the consequences...

- Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich -

Inglourious Basterds - The Verdikt
(Dopo La Condanna) Ennio Morricone 🎼

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— Nicky Schwenzer (@nickyschwenzer.bsky.social) January 29, 2026 at 2:07 AM

Boston, You Could Earn $50: Someone is supposedly paying people to see Melania in Boston. It's on Craigslist, so it's probably real. 

Federal Reserve Gets New Dad: Donald Trump nominated former Federal Reserve governor and outspoken critic Kevin Warsh to run the whole thing. Warsh will replace Jerome Powell as the chair of the Fed. This could be good for Trump who was beefing with Powell who wouldn't cut rates. In the past, Warsh has echoed Trump's frustrations about  the Fed's resistance to cutting interest rates. The financial tea leaves (the strength of the dollar) seemed to approve of Warsh. 

No Death Penalty for Luigi: A federal judge ruled that prosecutors won't be able to seek the death penalty in their case against 27-year-old Luigi Mangione who is accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. The judge dismissed two counts against Magnione, “including murder through use of a firearm… and a weapons charge,” according to The Guardian. Mangione still faces two federal stalking charges and the possibility of life in prison without parole. 

Can You Be Addicted to Hair Transplant Consultations? My child, you can be addicted to anything. 

A Long Read: Remember when that army helicopter crashed into a passenger plane in D.C.? Here's what went down in that cockpit. 

Waymo Hits Kid: A Waymo robotaxi struck a child near a Santa Monica, California elementary school. The kid is okay and only suffered minor injuries. Waymo has started a probe into the incident to see what went wrong. I have an idea: No one was driving the car.

Downhill Doozy: Olympics-bound skier Lindsay Vonn, 41, crashed in the final World Cup downhill in Crans-Montana, Switzerland due to bad conditions (snow everywhere). The decorated Olympian came out of the crash clutching her knee. She was airlifted from the slopes via helicopter. She is due to compete in the Milano Cortina Olympics that start next week. Crans-Montana has seen far worse this month. 

A Song for Your Friday: You've probably heard this by now. The tradition of protest music lives on. Bruce Springsteen has carried that torch for decades. He cannot snuff it out yet.  

Last week, Seattle Children’s Theatre announced their decision to pull their two-week run of the play Young Dragon: A Bruce Lee Story from the Kennedy Center due to the impact of the Trump administration—namely, Trump installing himself as chairman, dismissing and replacing staff, and installing his name above Kennedy's. The Stranger caught up with playwright Keiko Green about the decision. by Julianne Bell

Last week, Seattle Children’s Theatre announced their decision to pull their two-week run of the play Young Dragon: A Bruce Lee Story from the Kennedy Center due to the impact of the Trump administration—namely, Trump installing himself as chairman, dismissing and replacing staff, and installing his name above Kennedy's. Many other artists, including Issa Rae, Phillip Glass, and the cast of Hamilton, have also canceled their upcoming performances at the theater for political reasons.

The play would have been staged at the Center in April, after its still-planned run at the Children’s Theatre from February 19 to March 15. "The landscape in which the production was originally created has changed to an extent that after careful consideration, we have come to the decision that this is not the right time to transfer a SCT production to the Kennedy Center,” said SCT managing director Kevin Malgesini in a statement. “Our priority is to honor Bruce Lee's story with integrity and to uphold the trust our community places in us.”

Keiko Green, the playwright, has been a celebrated contributor to Seattle’s wider theatre landscape. She was commissioned to write the script for Young Dragon by SCT and the Kennedy Center two years ago.  And in the meantime, Seattle hosted productions of two of her plays: Exotic Deadly: Or the MSG Play, a wacky time-traveling comedy set in 1999, and Hells Canyon, a chilling horror thriller. Green has also written for TV shows like Hulu’s Interior Chinatown and the upcoming series Margo’s Got Money Troubles, which stars Elle Fanning and Nicole Kidman and premieres on Apple TV on April 15.

The Stranger caught up with her after the announcement to pull the Young Dragon from the Kennedy Center.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

This decision means that the play isn't associated with the Trump administration, but it also limits its chance to reach a wider audience. How do you feel about that?

It's really complicated, to be totally honest with you. I really feel a lot of relief about this decision, personally. I can't really speak for the theater. I mean, there's obviously a lot of stress and complexity along with it too. I know that we had school shows that were going to be pretty heavily attended. When it comes to the public shows, the audience space has declined to around 20 percent of what it used to be, so I know that there's already been such a lack of support from their previous audiences.

I'm very sad about the school shows that will be canceled. In a way, the fact that the ticket sales for the Kennedy Center at large are down [makes me think] okay, at least we're not robbing a huge plethora of people. And the people who are upset about us not going probably weren't ever going to come to the show anyway. They're not really people who are supporting a story about a cool Asian American, and they're not necessarily supporting children's theater, either.

I also think that this was really an opportunity for us to tell the country and the world morally where we stand with this play. As much as it's sad to not be able to reach this audience immediately, I actually think we can use this as a launching point to try to reach out to new partners and find a future. My hope is that it'll end up in DC at some point, whether it's with the Kennedy Center in the future or a different location. It's just not going to be at this very moment, at that very place.

Are you and Seattle Children’s Theatre looking into any alternative venues?

I have personally been in touch with a few other theaters that have just reached out to read the script in completely different locations outside of DC—I’ve [been in contact with] a theater in Southern California and a theater in Kansas City. I've heard that [Seattle Children’s Theatre] plans to hopefully bring people from other regions in to see the production itself.

I am so proud of this team. What's really great about the play right now is that we have all this attention for pulling out, and with that comes a bit of pressure to make sure the show is good. I think the show is really, really cool, so the moment that we get people to come in and see what we're offering, I feel really confident that the show is going to have a future.

How were you involved in the decision making process, and how long were you and Seattle Children’s Theatre thinking about this?

We've been having these conversations for a long time. About a year ago, we had this workshop in New York, and at that time, there were a lot of conversations that were happening separately.

Before the [Kennedy Center’s] name changed, when the board was first fired and replaced, there was a conversation with myself and the director, Jess McLeod, about what that meant. For me, growing up in the South and seeing so little representation, for a long time I was like, those kids need it maybe more than ever. It was always a decision where we were going to have to see how things were evolving and moving.

For me, a big clincher is that no one who I was ever in communication with [at the Kennedy Center], who were giving notes through the process and were originally part of the commissioning team, works there anymore. We don't even know what to call this institution anymore, legally. There are still great people working there, and my heart goes out to them, but they're not the people who I originally was in contact with. So in addition to the big blowup and snowballing of everything that's been happening, there's just been a very real sense that I don't know what we're walking into.

I really applaud Seattle Children's Theatre for this. There are very real consequences that are not just affecting them—there are actors who are losing two weeks of work and two weeks of health insurance. There are crew members in DC who were going to be rebuilding the set and bringing it in and working the show, who are now going to be out of a job. [SCT] was really trying to talk to as many people who would be affected as possible, and in between that, Jess McLeod and I were chatting with the leaders at SCT, probably every other day, to help them as they were making a decision. But ultimately, we were saying, it's their name on the line, it's their contracts, and so I'm here to support them. I'm not going to sabotage anybody, I'm not going to leave if the choice is to go, I'm not going to leave actors hanging. But we were pretty vocal that our hope was that we would be able to pull out of the contract.

I know this play is at the Seattle Children’s Theatre, but would you encourage adults without children to attend too?

We were originally hoping to write something that was mostly for teens, and we started opening up that age [group] a little bit. That means we're not dumbing it down or talking down to kids at all on this play, which serves the play and who Bruce was. It just means that instead of a lot of dialogue-heavy scenes, we might be leaning more into letting physicality and visual storytelling do some work. The play itself is really cool, even for diehard Bruce Lee fans—it's about a lesser-known part of his life, which is when he was in Seattle. Before, he had been basically banished from Hong Kong for getting into too much trouble and was feeling a lot of shame about where he was in his life and what that meant for his future. It was a huge, sobering wake-up call.

Suddenly he's a dishwasher at a restaurant, and slowly, he's enrolling in college at University of Washington and becoming an instructor and getting the first little seeds of creating this new style of martial arts, Jeet Kune Do. What's really cool about the play is that even the parents or adults on their own who want to come see the show [will have] a really fun time. It'll be visually entertaining, but it's also a lot about his philosophies.

The play is full of a lot of moments in Bruce Lee's life that are going to be a little less familiar, even to a lot of adults. I’m really excited. I think it's the most fully intergenerational thing I've ever written. My hope is always that number one, I don't want to talk down to kids because they're smarter than we think, and two, I just want to make sure that those parents who may already have a relationship to Bruce Lee can gain something from the story.

What do you hope Seattle audiences take away from Young Dragon?

The trickiest part of this play has been making a play that's about Bruce Lee, before he's the legend. I had a meeting with Shannon Lee, Bruce's daughter, and I asked her, “What do you hope that young people take away from the show?” She said, “I really want people to know how curious he was, how he was trying everything. How he was a real renaissance man.” He loved the arts, and he was also writing poetry and drawing and dancing—he was a cha cha champion!— in addition to being this movie star and the creator of Jeet Kune Do.

Also, because the show so heavily features his philosophies, specifically the “be like water” philosophy, the play itself is about how Bruce Lee—who, as a kid, is this hothead, who we associate with in our play with fire—every single obstacle he's encountering, he’s hitting back as hard as he can, and there's this rageful fire. That's how he's approaching all of the obstacles in his life. Through the story, and in his time in Seattle, he's discovering truly what it means to be like water: When these obstacles present themselves, how do we find the cracks and the paths around to ultimately peacefully and more efficiently reach our goal? I think that the decision feels true to that message. We were hit with this big obstacle of having [to adapt from] the idea that we're going to be presenting the show at the Kennedy Center, and now we have this opportunity to find a new way around and hopefully find an even more exciting path forward for the play.

Kahlil Joseph is famous for his role in Beyonce’s Lemonade, and directing music videos for Flying Lotus and Shabazz Palaces. He was born in Seattle, and is known for images that are in every way bold, cosmic, and dusky. In this regard, he is very much in the Terrence Malick camp. 

His new film BLKNWS: Terms and Conditions, which was shot by Bradford Young (Arrival, Selma) is beautiful from start to finish. The music (techno, house, hip-hop, sacred minimalism), the images (sometimes raw, sometimes gorgeous, sometimes grainy, sometimes cinematic, sometimes surreal), and the remixed sequences (in turn a documentary, a reenactment, a work of science fiction) combine to generate an effect that’s hard to describe in non-poetic language. 

True, the dots that connect his approach to neo-pan-Africanism (Blacks in the US, UK, Africa, South America; Blacks in the past, present, and future) are all there and recognizable, but what one sees, scene after scene, transcends the political and cultural program. We seem to leave the planet and end up somewhere above the stratosphere, and, as we float, look back at the Earth with a feeling of pure wonder. 

The science fiction section of the film, however, gripped me the most. It’s clearly based on the aquatic mythology of Detroit’s techno duo Drexiya. We see an oddly shaped cruise ship that moves slightly above the water. It crosses the ocean as it crosses the history of the Middle Passage. There is some intrigue on this cruise ship, and now and then it erupts in a dusky cabin or on the deck. Somehow, the key to all of this intrigue is an encyclopedia on all things African that the Black sociologist W.E.B Bu Bois imagined in 1909, but never completed. BLKNWS is the dream of that encyclopedia. Do not make the mistake of missing this film.

BLKNWS: Terms and Conditions screens at SIFF Film Center on Jan 31 and Feb 1. 

It’s time to bust out your concert calendar. Genre-bending rapper Kid Cudi will bring M.I.A. and Big Boi along on his Rebel Ragers Tour. R&B songstress Summer Walker closes the chapter on her Over It trilogy. Plus, Dillon Francis and Flosstradamus revive their joint project Dillstradamus with a string of dates. Read on for details on those and other newly announced events, plus some news you can use.

MUSIC

America: The Happy Trails Tour 2026
Paramount Theatre (Thurs June 11)

Black Veil Brides
Showbox SoDo (Tues Apr 28)

The Crane Wives - ACT II
The Crocodile (June 20–21)

This week's music news. by Audrey Vann

Welcome back to Pop Loser! Despite everything feeling unbearably horrific in the world this week (FUCK ICE), there have been a few tiny glimmers of joy: the Vera Project has announced a new venue, Victoria Beckham’s single “I’m Not Such an Innocent Girl” is trending, and Connie Converse’s How Sad, How Lovely is finally getting reissued. And, in another edition of First Times, Maria Maita-Keppeler of Portland-based indie rock project MAITA shares her early musical influences from Elliott Smith to Vitamin C.

Let’s start with some rare good news: The Vera Project is opening a new all-ages venue in Georgetown next year. Dave Segal spoke with Vera’s executive director, Ricky Graboski, about their plans for expansion in 2027. While they consider Vera to be their “home base,” and Black Lodge their “underground venue,” they are hoping that the new Georgetown venue will be a space for mutual aid. “We want it to be run by and for community, so every show's going to have a mutual aid group, a nonprofit, someone there who is supporting something in local community,” Graboski told Segal, specifying that 40 to 60 tickets at every show will be pay-what-you-can. Vera's goal is to raise $2.5 million by early 2027, when the yet-to-be-named Georgetown space is set to open. Seattle-born rock band Band of Horses is already on board to contribute by donating $1 from every ticket they sell on their upcoming tour to help fund Vera’s new venue.

The lineup for Portland’s Pickathon festival has dropped, and it’ll be worth the three-hour drive south this summer. Highlights include Brazilian music icon Marcos Valle, alt-country king Steve Earl, and Idaho’s finest Built to Spill, along with lesser-known gems like experimental guitarist Mary Halvorson, Aussie outfit Folk Bitch Trio, and indie rock duo Widowspeak.

Meanwhile, the Watershed Festival will run dry in 2026. The Gorge’s annual contemporary country music festival announced its hiatus this year, providing no further details or reasons why. Oh well, Willie Nelson’s Outlaw festival is the only country music fest I was interested in anyway.

This week in pathetic Drake news (seriously, this could become a regular segment), the rapper has appealed the lawsuit ruling on “Not Like Us.” In October, a federal judge dismissed the rapper’s defamation lawsuit against UMG, which sought damages from the label for promoting Kendrick Lamar’s Grammy-winning diss track. UMG claims that Drake “lost a rap battle that he provoked and in which he willingly participated,” to which the judge agreed. But the self-proclaimed “Certified Lover Boy” still won’t give it up.

Reggae icon Sly Dunbar (of Sly and Robbie) has died at the age of 73. The Grammy-winning drummer, who has played on iconic tracks by Lee Perry, Jimmy Cliff, Bob Marley, Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, and Grace Jones, was found unresponsive in his home on Monday morning. No cause of death has been made public thus far.

The best news of the week: Monster-in-law Victoria Beckham has scored the biggest-selling single of the week, with a nearly 2,000 percent surge on her 2001 single “I’m Not Such An Innocent Girl.” If you’ve been living under a rock, Posh Spice’s son, Brooklyn, recently popped off on Instagram, revealing that his parents have been sabotaging his relationship with wife Nicola Peltz, citing his mother’s “inappropriate” dancing at their wedding. Release the tapes!

Prepare to be gagged: If you’re not familiar with King Crimson guitarist/Brian Eno collaborator Robert Fripp and New Wave diva Toyah Wilcox’s YouTube channel, let me introduce you. The married couple posts weekly covers while decked out in unbelievable costumes (for example, they recently used their giant pet rabbits as puppets while singing “Auld Lang Syne”). This week, the duo shared their cover of X-Ray Spex's “Oh Bondage! Up Yours!” in full bondage gear, ball gag and all.

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MAITA, the indie rock project by Portland-based singer-songwriter Maria Maita-Keppeler, has moved many people with her angelic vocals and cathartic lyricism. One such person was Kill Rock Stars' founder Slim Moon, who came out of a twelve-year-long retirement and revived the label to sign her. Four years after her debut album, Best Wishes, MAITA signed to Portland’s Fluff & Gravy Records, releasing her 2024 label debut, want—a must for fans of emotional indie rock à la Big Thief, Mitski, and Lucy Dacus. I caught up with the singer-songwriter ahead of her show at Baba Yaga on Sunday (with Seattle indie folk band St. Yuma) to discuss her early musical influences from No Doubt and Elliott Smith to Vitamin C.

What was the first album you bought?

It's so difficult to remember this because, admittedly, my middle school years were soundtracked almost exclusively by burned CDs. I do know that at one point I owned a No Doubt greatest hits CD, which I remember as one of the first albums I really fell for, even though technically it's not a real album and just a collection of their singles. Still, unbeknownst to me, No Doubt taught me a lot about song structure (they always had a bridge), as well as the concept that there could be women and electric guitars in a band. (What a novel concept for a pre-teen!)

What was the first song you sang in front of people?

I sang a lot as a young kid, but forced myself into hibernation for about a decade after hearing that I didn't have a good singing voice. Then, when I was 16, I decided to perform "Between the Bars" by Elliott Smith at a high school open mic night. I was shaking like a leaf! I did a private run-through in front of my best friend before the show, and even then, it took me about 10 minutes to start singing. I still love that song.

What was the first instrument you played, and what was the first song you learned?

I taught myself to play piano as a kid, mostly all by ear, so I never really got a firm grasp on music theory. (This is true even today, unfortunately.) I loved that song "Graduation" by Vitamin C when I was in elementary school, and learning that it was basically Pachelbel's Canon was a revelation for me. You bet I learned to play Pachelbel's Canon, and you bet I paired it with Vitamin C's "Graduation" and played it for my fifth-grade class when we, well, graduated.

What was the first song that made you cry?

I wasn't a big crier as a kid. This feels really random and almost embarrassing, but for whatever reason, I remember the Columbia space shuttle disaster of 2003 hit me really hard, and my mom was listening to some Jim Brickman piano song, and the combination of those sunk me into a deep, sulking state. I wallowed all afternoon. Now I mostly just cry at shows, when the energy is potent and all-encompassing. I cried when Feist revealed her full band mid-set at a show last winter. I bawled all the way through a Haley Heynderickx set last summer.

Who was the first musician you idolized?

Probably Conor Oberst. I went hard for Bright Eyes when I found them in middle school. I was obsessed, I listened to their albums on repeat. There's nothing like discovering Fevers and Mirrors as a young teen.

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Tyler Ramsey & Carl Broemel: Celestun Tour Jan 29, the Crocodile, 8 pm, 21+

WAR Jan 29-Feb 1, Jazz Alley, 7:30 pm, all ages

Den Tapes Winter Jam IV: Great Ooze, Tourist Activities, 222, & Young-Chhaylee Jan 30, Tractor Tavern, 8 pm, 21+

Drink The Sea Jan 30, Town Hall Seattle, 8 pm, all ages

Glaive: Y'all Tour Jan 30, the Showbox, 8 pm, all ages

Glitterfox Jan 30, Barboza, 6:30 pm, 21+

MAITA with St. Yuma Feb 1, Baba Yaga, 8 pm, 21+

Speak-Easier: Bridging the Abortion Divide, Presented by The Pro-Voice Project Feb 1, Hidden Hall, 4:30 pm, 21+

Want these recs a day early? Subscribe to Pop Loser. 

“House” by Connie Converse

I have many special holy-grail records that I’ve collected through the years: an early pressing of Velvet Underground and Nico with a perfectly intact banana, an original copy of Big Star’s #1 Record, etc. Yet, Discogs tells me that my most valuable record is the 2015 compilation of Connie Converse's 1950s recordings, which continues to baffle me. If I’ve learned anything from being a record-buying freak, it’s to never pay a premium for contemporary out-of-print records. They will be reissued, I promise! Exhibit A: Third Man Records has announced that they are reissuing Converse’s How Sad, How Lovely, which will likely make the value of my copy decrease from $300 to $20. Aside from making her music more widely accessible, the best part about the reissue is that it features this previously unreleased track. The song showcases everything I love about Converse’s songwriting: whimsy, complaining about rent prices, and puzzling song structure, which was far ahead of its time.

“Way Out” by Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Have you listened to the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s 2006 album Show Your Bones in a while? If not, throw it on now. The world is enveloped in darkness right now, and we can all use a boost of comforting nostalgia that isn’t the 2016 Instagram trend (I’d much prefer to return to 2006, thank you very much). This song in particular brings me back to the fourth grade, making pillow forts in my bedroom.

The Stranger's morning news roundup. by Micah Yip

Liam Conejo Ramos, the five-year-old taken by ICE in Minneapolis, is sick behind bars, according to his school’s superintendent. Liam reportedly is vomiting, feverish, experiencing stomach pain, and doesn’t want to eat, his mother told the superintendent. All this is due to the abysmal conditions and bug-infested food at the South Texas Family Residential Center, where Liam is being held with his father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias. The father and son entered the country legally. 

Mask Off: Law enforcement officers in Washington state may soon have to show their faces while performing public duties. Yesterday, a bill banning face coverings for on-duty officers advanced out of the state Senate. The Democrat-backed substitute Senate Bill 5855 is meant to unmask masked federal agents in Washington state. Federal authority takes precedence over states. Enforcing the law could be difficult, possibly rendering it useless, reports the Seattle Times. 

Want to Support Minneapolis Protests? These 30+ Seattle businesses are donating their proceeds to support restaurants in Minneapolis participating in a nationwide economic blackout tomorrow to protest ICE.

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Trump Insults Denmark, Part Infinity: On Tuesday, the U.S. Embassy in Denmark removed the 44 Danish flags placed in planters outside the building meant to honor 44 Danish soldiers killed in Afghanistan (about 9,500 Danish troops were sent to Afghanistan). Danish veterans placed them there after President Trump, fixated on taking control of the semiautonomous Danish territory of Greenland, said in a recent interview that the US “never needed” the country’s help. A State Department spokesperson claims there was no ill intent—just regular, post-demonstration maintenance. 

Weather: It’s kinda rainy, pretty gray, about 50 degrees…what more is there to know?

Buzzed: The state might lower its legal blood alcohol concentration limit for Washington drivers from 0.08% to 0.05%. Yesterday, the state Senate passed SB5067—the result of a years-long effort by Democratic Senator John Lovick, a former state trooper and county sheriff. If the House passes the bill, Washington would lower the threshold on July 1. The only other state with such a low legal limit is Utah, but from a global perspective, 0.05% isn’t low at all. Last year, The Stranger conducted a semi-scientific experiment using alcohol and Mario Kart 64 to test the difference between the current limit and Lovick’s limit.

A vacant lot in West Seattle could become a “religious-controlled emergency transitional housing site.” A proposal submitted to the city on January 16 includes space for 20 tiny homes and parking for up to 72 recreational vehicles. The Low Income Housing Institute would operate the site. District 1 Councilmember Rob Saka says it’ll be a “common-sense solution to help bring people indoors.” A formal permit application needs to be filed before any actual change happens.

12saquah: That’s what Issaquah Mayor Mark Mullet has officially renamed the city 12saquah—a nod to “the 12s” nickname for Seahawks fans—to honor the Seahawks return to the Superbowl. Issaquah changed its name to 12saquah in 2015, the last time the Seahawks went to the Super Bowl. 

The Broadview Six: The six protesters who blocked an ICE vehicle outside an immigration processing facility last fall were charged with federal conspiracy during Operation Midway Blitz, the massive ICE operation in Chicago. Yesterday, their attorneys argued to keep evidence in their case public, against prosecutors' proposed protective order that would limit access to discovery materials. The defense argued that growing national scrutiny of ICE warrants the materials to be public, and that secrecy makes little sense in a case centered on protest, policing and free speech. The judge ordered the Department of Homeland Security to preserve five days of surveillance footage from the Broadview ICE facility surrounding the protest. The case is headed to trial this spring.

Tech So Bad Even Techies Are Worried: Amazon has been dumping billions of dollars into its artificial intelligence infrastructure. Worker advocacy group Amazon Employees for Climate Justice issued an open letter to the company, saying employees are worried that the company’s push for energy-guzzling AI push is detrimental to its goal of reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2040. “The AI race is widening this gap,” read the letter.

This song has been stuck in my girlfriend’s head, which means it’s been stuck in my head, which means I must pass it on to you. Sorry or you’re welcome.