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A quiet moment with some hot tea before the face stuffing later today, courtesy of mangpages. Happy Thanksgiving! (From the SunBreak Flickr pool.) 

The winter holidays quite often mark the beginning of a long season of depression for some folk. If it's not seeing your family that depresses you, the weather in these parts might do the trick. Never fear! Someone from England feels your pain and already wrote every song you need to sing until Spring cycles around again. In the 80's, he was doing exactly the same thing as the frontman for The Smiths. Now, he's living the solo project dream as the enigmatic Morrissey.

Morrissey will be in town Sunday promoting his new B-sides collection, Swords. He'll be moping about on stage and collecting bouquets of roses from enthusiastic fans. His entire band will have the same signature Morrissey pompadour. He'll be filling The Paramount with his melancholy, breathy voice and somehow making us feel better about our lives. Perhaps it is true that misery loves company, because Morrissey has been publicly miserable since 1982. And it seems like he loves it.

 

• Morrissey begins the festivities at The Paramount on November 29th at 7:30 PM. Tickets range from $52 to $72, plus fees.

Seems like everyone's got their holiday-themed food and drinks going on this Thanksgiving. 

The Bottleneck Lounge has a truly frightening drink special tonight: a cocktail made with Jones Soda's Tofurky and Gravy flavor.  I'm a-scurred.  There will also be Jones giveaways, and the first ten people (starting at 7 p.m.) who dare taste this libation get a free t-shirt.  You will have earned it. 

For those of us who would rather not drink fake tofu turkey flavor, there will also be plenty of Thanksgiving Old Fashioneds, made with fresh cranberries, to go around.  Now that's consumable!

Meanwhile, the good people at Po Dogs are offering up a seasonal wiener all week. As per Ye Olde Twitter: "Come in today and try our Thanksgiving dog. It's a Wiener topped with stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy...."  That just might work with a brioche bun.

 

House (Hausu) is a Japanese art house horror flick finally getting an American bow 32 years after its Japanese release.  Under domestic distribution by Janus Films, it's the story of a group of seven high school girls (each with their own personality-defining nickname like Prof, Kung Fu, and Sweet) who decide to spend the summer together at Gorgeous' aunt's house in the country.  And of course, it's a haunted house, complete with a freaky cat, dancing skeleton, a possessed piano, and your basic demonic pillows and duvet covers. 

I expected House to be campy, but it was also a lot of wackadoodle fun.  Director Nobuhiko Obayahshi based the script of his debut feature on his eleven-year-old daughter's surreal stories, and it shows in the best possible way--from the girl's character tics to the truly psychedelic animation and editing.  It comes as no surprise that there's some inventive deaths and good use of spurting blood.  Because nothing says Thanksgiving like Asian gore.

 

• House is showing at Central Cinema November 27-December 1 at 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m., December 2 at 9:30 p.m.  Tickets are $6.  7 p.m. screenings all ages, 9:30 p.m. 21+. 

A little while ago, the fine photographic folks at Olympus put us in touch with Lou Manna, "Olympus Digital Visionary Photographer," for a story on photographing holiday meals.

If you're a foodie, it's likely you've already run into Lou Manna's food photography; he shot for the New York Times for 20 years.

Now he's got his own Fifth Avenue food photography studio, which is where he works with corporate, advertising, and restaurant clients, using (it must be noted) Olympus E-System cameras and flashes. Check out his website www.loumanna.com and blog www.digitalfoodphotography.com.

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, we talked Lou in to a photo essay. Click through each photo for a tip on how it's done. We can vouch for the "good enough to eat" part.

Here's Lou to get things started:

You’ve spent two days baking all of your holiday goodies… Finally on Thanksgiving Day, the turkey is ready to be gobbled up. Now you want your sweet labor to translate well in photographs. If you follow some of the following...

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Every time a venue stops hosting music, the world gets a little bit darker, even if that venue is 90 miles north of here.

Friday, I took a trip up to Bellingham to see one of The Rogue Hero's last shows. After traffic died down, I pointy my trusty steed northward and made the trek through the darkness and the rain to an unfamiliar college town near the Canadian border. After a wrong turn or two, my companion and I stood in front of a large wooden door guarded by a warmly dressed gentleman asking for $5 and our IDs. A simple transaction afforded us entry to the keep, and we were welcomed by the first couple notes of rock and roll for the evening.

A clear drumset and a couple small Fender amps powered the energizing set by the young Mount Vernon duo known as The Mission Orange. Their eclectic and technical songs warmed the hearts of a small group of locals. Heads were nodding under black longshoreman caps and many a music nerd marveled at the precision guitar work. Sporting a huge sound for a duo, the gentlemen of The Mission Orange wove wonderful melodies around powerful rhythms. Though under 21, they bring a swagger and a complexity to the stage that rivals their legally adult compatriots. I'm a big fan of their mix of garagey and technical sounds, particularly on "Hammer Fever" and I hope it's included on the record they mentioned they were recording. On Friday, they brought that just-right mix of excitement and rest for the end of a long drive and some hanging out in an unfamiliar town.

Yet, while the town was unfamiliar, the venue was beginning to grow on me. There was a pole covered with stickers just like at El Corazon. Groups of acoustic ceiling tiles were missing and replaced with black painted plywood. Fluorescent lights were missing their bulbs and stained with the familiar beige that comes with years of cigarette smoke or greasy food preparation. It might be the 12-year-old in me, but having one bathroom labeled "chicks" and the other labeled "dicks" was pretty hilarious. People were lounging about the two brightly lit pool tables and in the booths at the front near the inauspicious bar. It was starting to feel pretty welcoming.

These people were clearly different from my hometown folk, but somehow strangely similar. They wore a little bit more flannel, but in a non-ironic way. They were a little less afraid of enjoying themselves through ballroom dance or random yelling. Everyone seemed a little friendlier, as well. I've always considered Seattle to be the biggest small town ever, but it's good to visit smaller towns every once in a while to see how they really are supposed to be. The age range of the patrons was wide and the subcultures represented were varied. The lack of pretentiousness was palpable. People seemed a little more "real."

After a last minute slice of the local pizza, we were pumped and ready for Rooftops to celebrate their CD release. They augmented their sound Friday with a trumpet/flugel horn player and a violin. These additions were a bit buried in the small P.A., but their presence was appreciated nonetheless. Rooftops employs three guitarists/singers and a drummer in their normal mode. Each guitarist is well versed in the art of tapping. Taking a cue from bands like Minus the Bear, Rooftops create lovely melodies by constantly moving the notes around. With three guitars, countermelodies and counter-countermelodies are the modus operandi. Using pauses and some sparse singing, they provide enough break from the twiddly bits to keep you from being overwhelmed, however. They were also clearly enjoying themselves up there, making the live experience a wonderful end to a long week.

After a raucous celebration of melody and rhythm, I drove back south through the rain towards my bed for the night. Those Notherners aren't so different, they're just looking for something to entertain them for an evening. They're just trying to make the best of things, just like the rest of us. And I think they'll be a little sad when they have one less place to make both of those things happen. Hopefully, this will motivate them to come south and visit more often.

It'll be three seasons until Seattle University's basketball team is eligible to make the NCAA Tournament, so coach Cameron Dollar set the loftiest goal he could before the season, telling players: "Our goal is to play for a championship in New York, play in the NIT."

When I read this, I thought coach Dollar was blowing smoke. The NIT, the consolation tournament for teams that don't make the NCAA Tourney, seemed to me to be way out of reach for a school in just its second year of D1 ball.

But, last night, after SU went to Salt Lake City and upset the University of Utah--which won 24 games and was a #5-seed in the NCAA tourney last year--I'm taking Dollar seriously.

The NIT Is Coach Dollar's Goal

First, a little bit about yesterday's game. The Redhawks trailed 50-39 with 16 minutes left, but fought back with an 18-6 run, during which six different SU players scored. They held Utah to just one field goal in the final six minutes, and came away with a 77-74 win. Charles Garcia led SU in scoring again, tallying 24 points on 13 shots against a Utah front line with two seven-footers.

Now, let's talk NIT. The tournament has 32 teams. Automatic bids go to teams that win their conference's regular season title but not their conference tournament, and don't receive an at-large bid to the NCAA Tourney. There were 5 such teams in last year's tourney field, giving the tourney committee 27 at-large bids.

How many wins do you need? Major conference teams can sneak it with as few as 17, like Wazzu did last year. But Seattle U, with its schedule primarily consisting of Big Sky, Big West, and Independent teams, will need to do better than that.

More likely, they'll be treated like lesser conference at-large teams such as Illinois State of the Missouri Valley Conference, which made last year's field with a 24-9 record. Or Saint Mary's of the WCC, which got in with a 26-6 record.

Seattle U plays 31 games this year. I think that to make the NIT, they'll need to finish 24-7 at a minimum. Considering that they've already lost twice (Oklahoma St., Portland), they face the tough task of going 21-5 the rest of the way. Could they do it?

Almost certainly, they'd need to win all 11 of their remaining home games. (You can help there, buy tickets today, get out to KeyArena and cheer). SU's toughest home test will likely be Idaho on January 30th.

SU also plays at Idaho. The Vandals are one of seven schools that the Redhawks will play both home and away. The others are UC Davis, Eastern Washington, Sacramento State, Cal State Northridge, Portland State, Utah Valley.

The Redhawks also have road games against Pac-10 opponents Oregon St. and Washington. Mark those down as likely losses.

So, assuming that SU wins out at home, they would have to go 10-3 in their other road games to get to 24-7. It's a tall order. But after going into SLC and beating Utah, I think they at least stand a chance.

Washington two-year colleges stuffed another 10 percent more students in their classrooms this fall, compared to 2008.

Seattlepi.com has the AP story (also in the Seattle Times, if you're partial) quoting SCCC's Jill Wakefield as saying, "Our classes are very full. We have waiting lists. We're trying to accommodate as many students as we can. I'm not sure how long we can continue to do it." There are 32 percent more unemployed students than last year, too.

Meanwhile, if the University of Washington Factbook [pdf] can be believed, the UW has 42,933 students, about 800 more than fall 2008.

The Washington Post points out that those students are more likely than ever to be paying higher non-resident tuition: since 2007, the percentage of out-of-state students has grown from 19 to 25 percent at the UW. But even resident students are managing to come up with fourteen percent more in tuition, $7,692, after a seven percent increase in 2008.

So just how bad is it out there?

Did you see the sunrise this morning? I didn't; I'm out of town. But I heard about it—and Slightlynorth already has a photo in our Flickr group. Wow.

I'm in the market for an Enhanced Driver's License (EDL) because of my lifelong dream to get around to taking Amtrak up to Vancouver. So I have a trip to the DMV in my future. My dealings with the DMV always seem to involve moments where I ask myself, "Are they serious?" It turns out they usually are, so that hard-won knowledge I pass on to you.

Since the approval of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (Slogan: "You can still travel around the Western Hemisphere, it just takes a lot more personal initiative!"), Washington residents need either their passport or EDL to visit Canada (and Mexico, Bermuda, and the Caribbean).

Seattle residents have two EDL choices: the downtown DMV office or what's charmingly known to the DMV as Seattle-West. At the Seattle-West (known to locals as "West Seattle") location, they only take walk-ins for EDL applications, and stop taking applications 30 minutes before closing (closing weekdays is 5 p.m., Saturday, 2:30 p.m.).

Downtown, they only take appointments (call 1-866...

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On my iTunes, I have a playlist called "Misery." It's for those times when I really want to own being depressed. Stars of the playlist include "I Would Be Sad" by the Avett Brothers and Dylan's "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright."

But the main attraction is Ray Charles' 1963 rendition of "Old Man River," a song from the 1927 musical Show Boat. Charles imbues Oscar Hammerstein's lyrics, written from the perspective of a oppressed, overworked African-American dock worker, with melancholy and a hint of rage.

And Charles does this despite the fact that he doesn't know the words. Due to some half-assed remastering, you can hear the recording engineer feeding Charles the lyrics line-by-line.

I don't know if that's how Charles liked to work, or if he was too strung out to memorize the song (he'd go to rehab for heroin addiction in '64), but it's real funny to hear the words transform from recording engineer monotone to soulful blues.

Recording engineer (use your most uptight white man voice): "He don't plant taters....

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Closer to home, Mount Rainier's glaciers have retreated, too.

The Copenhagen Diagnosis is out (23MB download here), authored by 26 researchers, one of whom is Eric J. Steig, professor of Earth and Space Sciences at the University of Washington. The report updates the last IPCC assessment in 2007, with the general tone being that, even then, the speed of climate change was underestimated.

In just one instance, the area of the Arctic's summer sea-ice that melted between 2007 and 2009 was about 40 percent more than the IPCC model average. Earlier, the models were off by as much as 80 percent: Over the past 15 years, the sea level has risen more than five centimeters, almost most double 2001 IPCC projections. At the time, various people dismissed those as "doomsday" predictions.

UW News quotes Steig as saying the Copenhagen Diagnosis "articulates a much clearer picture of what has to happen if the world wants to keep future warming within the reasonable threshold of 2 degrees Celsius that most scientists believe is prudent."

Steig also says if you've been paying attention to research results since 2007, you may not be all that surprised. However, if you've been told repeatedly that climate change has stopped, or pointed toward the effects of solar forcing, you might be taken aback. So that is really what the "diagnosis" does, is survey the climate change field and bring everyone up to date.

It's disquieting to read, then, that despite all the rhetoric around climate change, carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels in 2008 grew by 40 percent from 1990. That, too, was unanticipated. UW professor Edward Miles emphasizes to UW News that while the IPCC has consistently led with non-worst-case climate change forecasts, the growth in fossil fuel emissions since 2005 does exceed the worst-case scenarios of the IPCC.

The report concludes that to keep the sea level rising three to six feet, as ice caps and sheets reach a tipping point, we need to reduce CO2 emissions by...well, that's not going to happen. And I have bulletproof models of past political action to back me up on that. Maybe look into this option instead.

Oh, the statistics are ugly.

--The Seahawks are 7-19 over the past two seasons.

--Their defense, supposedly the cornerstone of GM Tim Ruskell's winning formula, allowed Brett Favre to complete a career-best 88 percent of his passes Sunday. It even allowed a TD pass from Tarvaris Jackson.

--The Seahawks rushing attack, supposedly bound for improvement under new offensive coordinator Greg Knapp, is the worst in the NFL.

Get out your pointing fingers! It's time to play the blame game!

Ruskell: Whipping Boy

The Times' Steve Kelley fixes on GM Tim Ruskell: "The Seahawks are in a death spiral and the defense that Ruskell has put together has allowed 56 points and 746 total yards in the past six quarters. ... They need a shake-up at the top."

Kelley's already touting a candidate for Ruskell's job: Former coach and GM Mike Holmgren, who left the team after last season.

Yeah, things are getting a little silly.

If you must place blame for this season, point the finger at Lady Luck, who has struck the Seahawks where they are most vulnerable.

The Seahawks have five Pro Bowlers on their roster: Walter Jones, Matt Hasselbeck, Lofa Tatupu, Patrick Kerney, and Marcus Trufant. Through eleven games, these players could have played a total of 55 combined games.

They've played in just 26. Jones, the best player in franchise history, hasn't played at all. Tatupu is also out for the season.

Even those who are playing aren't doing so at full strength--Hasselbeck is playing with a broken rib, and Kerney has a variety of injuries. Trufant missed the first two months of the season and has looked rusty on his return.

Jones' absence, already a huge blow for the team, was exacerbated when his backup went down. And then that backup went down. Another former Pro Bowler, Mike Wahle, was supposed to line up beside Jones, but Wahle was released before training camp after failing his physical. Instead of having a left side of their line with two Pro Bowlers, the Seahawks have rookies and backups....

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In the immortal words of Sam Cooke, everybody loves to cha cha cha. Zenobia_joy captures that sentiment in bronze, with a little help from Jack Mackie. (From the SunBreak Flickr pool.)

Coastal Kitchen's happy hour is from 9-11 p.m. every day, with $3 small plates, and $3 wells, drafts, and wines. These items are from the Cuban menu. I might give the Midnight Cuban sandwich (right) a miss, but the rest satisfies.

There is a downside to the King County Council restoring all our bus service: It may mean more muggings. Seattle Crime says robberies are up 19 percent in Seattle, and I have noticed a remarkable amount is occurring at bus stops all over the city. [UPDATE: A bus stop mugging occurred the day I posted this.]

Just recently, a babysitter was mugged waiting for the bus in the Central District, a man was robbed at gunpoint at a Greenwood bus stop, and a man was jumped at Third and Pike downtown. That's all in the last month or so. Earlier than that, and you get bus stop crime on Lake City Way and Roosevelt.

That's about five minutes' worth of looking--I didn't have to dig much harder than typing "bus stop," "mugging," and "Seattle" into the search box. While some people have been mugged by someone walking up behind them, the man in Greenwood was held up by people in a passing car.

The only lesson I can draw from this is that if you're alone at a bus stop at night, no matter where you are, you're a sitting duck. Keep the whistle and mace handy, and don't flash your iPod or cell phone. These seem to attract the wrong kind of attention. Last but not least, use OneBusAway to keep your waiting time to a minimum.

Looking east of the intersection of Bellevue & Thomas on Capitol Hill. The cars on the left have all been ticketed after more than 24 hours of being parked illegally.

The Slog mentioned this morning that the city council is likely to vote to raise parking fines by $4 across the board this afternoon, and to judge by the view outside this writer's apartment, that's not nearly enough to fix the problem. Signs clearly mark that there's no parking on the left (north) side of the street in the above photo, but on Sunday, one person (who left before being ticketed) parked there, and ever since cars have lined up in an act of monkey-see, monkey-do parking anarchy.

Interestingly, SDOT is actually trying to make parking legal on the north side of Thomas, Harrison, and Republican Streets [PDF of proposed changes] as part of their new Capitol Hill Community Parking Program, though it's hard to envision how services will get through the already narrow streets (even without north-side parking, it's impossible to pass garbage trucks on these streets).

The changes are currently open to public comment, though a friend pursued a series of inquiries to SDOT a few weeks ago to try to determine what public comments achieve. Short of stating they consider all community input, it appears SDOT, unlike some other agencies, has no regulations requiring it to respond.

Continuing our sporadic tour of 206 hoopsters around world, we land in Europe, home to several ballers with local ties.

Bobby Jones

The 206 star: Former Husky Bobby Jones, who's leading Banca Tercas Teramo of the Italian Serie A in scoring, with 12.6 ppg. One of Jones' teammates is Drake Diener, one of the famed shooting Deiner brothers. Jones' team, sadly, is just 2-5 on the year.

Teramo is a town of about 55,000, about two hours from Rome near the Adriatic Sea. Here's a picture of city hall at night. Nice!

Garfield High and University of Nevada star Marcelus Kemp is playing in Italy's second-division league, in Sassari. Kemp averages 17.3 ppg for the third-place Banco di Sardinia Sassari squad.

Sassari is 120 miles from the Italian mainland on the island of Sardinia. It is Sardinia's second-largest city, with a metro population of 300,000. Learning Italian won't necessarily get Kemp by, as many people in the area speak Sassarese.

Franklin High grad Lyndale Burleson also attended Nevada--in fact, he and Kemp are members of the Wolfpack all-decade team. Now Burleson plays for USC Heidelberg in Germany's second division. Burleson's averaging 18.3 ppg, which puts him third on the high-scoring Heidelbergers....

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"Fun Fact!" says shawnmebo: "The Space Needle is held in place with a giant wooden pole." That sense of puckish humor, sepia, and a resemblance to a Hitchcock fever dream will get you featured on The SunBreak every time. (Well, you have add your photo to our Flickr pool first!)

What do we want? Bus and library hours! When do we want 'em? Over the next biennium!

Bus service hours for the next two years won't be cut, says the King County Council. Instead, fares will go up $0.25 each year, to $2.00/$2.25 (off-peak/peak one-zone fare) in 2010 and $2.25/$2.50 in 2011.

That, combined with full bus-wrap ads (with an open strip for windows), more efficient bus routes and scheduling, and diverted funding from the King County Ferry District, will save the 310,000-odd hours that had been on the table.

Those are generic bus hours, of course--Metro is not making any promises about your particular bus route not changing. In fact, the budget crunch (Metro had been looking at a $213 million deficit for the next two years under the proposed budget) gives Metro license to use software to optimize its routes and schedules more aggressively--something I believe they have wanted to do for some time, but have held off on due to the "You moved my cheese!" response of riders outraged at things changing.

Seattle Transit Blog notes that, in other transit news, the federal government is considering letting the FTA take over safety regulation of "commuter rail, subway, and light rail systems nationwide," citing "increased collision rates, derailment rates, and worker fatalities." Federal oversight would eventually extend to bus transit systems, too. Depending on the administration, this could be either good news--federal money for safety--or bad news, if safety regulations are tightened to make transit costs prohibitive.

The Bella Edward, at the Hunt Club.

All you need to know about New Moon is contained here.  After making approximately a bajillion dollars this weekend--well, $140.7 million here, $258 million globally, but who's counting?--Twilight fever is raging now more than ever. Soon, they will have all the monies.  But whether you are on Team Edward or Team Jacob or some other team, we can all agree that the Twilight series is for fourteen-year-old girls, the occasional gay, and sad middle-aged housewives.  So roll out the terrible themed tie-ins.

There was the Twilight menu at Gold Class Cinemas. And now there's two terrible cocktails at ostensibly classy joints:  the Hunt Club at the Sorrento has the Bella Edward, "a dance of love, evil in a cocktail glass," while Canlis (et tu, Canlis?) has a drink that sounds like a sewage-tini: The Temptation of Edward Cullen.  Head barman James MacWilliams' inspiration:

The Temptation of Edward Cullen. Photo care of Brian Canlis.

 

I was trying to capture some of the essence of the movie with this particularly vampires and the Olympic coast.  Forks is surrounded by the Olympic national park on one side and the pacific ocean on the other.  I was trying to create a biting crisp taste just hinting a forest and visually feeling like vampire.  This drink is not for the feeble of heart.  Strong but strangely keeps pulling you back.  The crushed ice helps chill it and if done right will frost the outside of the glass like the crystal vampire skin of the books and movie.

 

 

 

Nasty-ass recipe and Volvos after the jump.

The Temptation of Edward Cullen:

• 1oz Plymouth gin
• 1/4oz Zirbenz (Austrian Arolla stone pine liqueur)
• 1/8oz Le Tourment Vert Absinthe (A french vert or green absinthe with pronounce crisp eucalyptus notes)
• 2oz Champagne
• 3/4oz Green Walnut Wine (a sweet, homemade, aromatized, fortified wine with a spicy nutty flavor)

In a 10oz long drink glass pour Gin, Zirbenz, and Absinthe.  Fill glass to the top with crushed ice and stir.  Top off the glass with champagne.  Pour green walnut wine over the top so it slowly sinks through the crushed ice. Garnish with lemon fangs and a straw.

Meanwhile, the Volvo dealership on Pike has the below photo in the window.  Now all the fourteen-year-old girls can go out and buy a sensible Swedish sedan.  Edward, drive me away!

The boys from Broken Lizard (Super Troopers, Beerfest) paid a visit to Pike Place Fish Market Friday afternoon to promote their new movie, The Slammin' Salmon, which hits theaters December 11.

Supposedly the Troopers were going to try their hand at tossing fish like the pros, but I either left too soon or it never happened. No matter, the guys were extremely friendly and seemed to be having a good time taking photos with everyone.

Also in attendance was the tank-top-clad Hooters "Spirit Squad." Say what you will about Hooters girls, they know how to draw a crowd. To their credit, they did a smash job of making sure everyone who wanted to got photos with either them or the Broken Lizard guys, or both.

Special to The SunBreak by Matt Mason.

MTM Photography: Jensen, 2, does her part at the Wallingford Senior Center Fundraiser on November 19.

Thursday night at the Wallingford Senior Center was of special importance to the community life of the Wallingford neighborhood. The "Brother Can you Spare a Dime" a soup line fundraiser for the Wallingford Senior Center was a great success. But it was only the beginning.

The Senior Center has already cut back to one daily staff member, who happens to also be the executive director of the Center, Kathleen Cromp. Faced with the big picture and the daily details she describes the last few months as a roller-coaster. This event is a hopeful step in developing the grass roots support that the center needs to recover from this closure and restart full programming in the new year. Faced with old debts and a lack of operating funds the Center's Board of Directors is developing a sustainable model it hopes to implement if the community and financial support can be secured.

The fundraiser was sponsored by the Wallingford Community Council and the Chamber of Commerce, along with over a dozen local businesses. Selena's Guadalajara donated tortilla soup, Chutney's Bistro provided the mango lassi, and Trophy Cupcakes satisfied the sweet tooth with a tower of mini-cupcakes. Local bluegrass band Lost in the Fog also donated their time to perform.

All of the businesses involved and the dozens of volunteers at the event believe in this cause and based on the turnout, the people of the community are beginning to see the value as well. Part of the evenings program allowed a few minutes for people to share with the gathered audience.

Wallingford resident and ex-mayoral candidate Joe Mallahan came out in support along with City Council Member Tom Rasmussen.

Rasmussen spoke for a few minutes to the packed hall calling this a "wake-up call to our community" he noted that what makes the difference in the success or failure of a center is the community spirit behind it. He emphasized the need for the Senior Center as a way to "help older people stay independent and in their homes," saying it provides a framework of support and a second family to help fulfill the needs of community members. Rasmussen concluded by adding this is "insurance for our future."

Ralph Moser stood and shared his experiences at the Center. He and his wife, Nancy, felt instantly at home four years ago when they received their personal tour of the facility. This introductory tour is something provided for all new members. He and his wife have a short five-minute drive to the Center, which has lots of easy parking. They take part in yoga, general exercise, and current events. They also are sure to attend the lunches, spaghetti dinners and monthly Sunday pancake breakfast. He commented on the programs saying, "It's no big deal but it means a lot [to us]." He has developed many very dear friends and feels a stronger tie to the community through the Center....

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SIFF Cinema is hosting three benefit screenings that just happen to be of films hoping to garner some bigtime buzz this season (and perhaps take home an award or two).  The first up Sunday is A Single Man, the debut feature from Tom Ford, which got high praise at Toronto and Venice for Colin Firth's touching portrayal of a gay man dealing with his partner's death, along with luminous fag hag Julianne Moore.  Not bad for a director previously best known for ads featuring him naked.

Coming up Wednesday, December 2nd is Me and Orson Welles, Richard Linklater's take on the early life of the auteur.  I like Linklater, but I've got a hard time buying Zac Efron as a teenage actor who's lucked into working with Welles.  And come Sunday, December 13th, the series rounds out with Emily Blunt as The Young Victoria, which is, yes, a period piece about the Queen of England.

 

• Award-Buzz Benefit Screenings at SIFF Cinema: A Single Man, November 22nd at 2 p.m., Me and Orson Welles, December 2nd at 7 p.m., The Young...

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I often think of Seattle as a small town, but maybe it's only in a city that I would not have known one of my neighbors on the next block was "freelance rocket scientist" Jordin Kare. He's been living on Capitol Hill since March 2003, though his first visit to Seattle was back in 1979.

Previously at Lawrence Livermore, he moved up from the Bay to consult on a commercial satellite project at Boeing. Now he's associated with Bellevue's Intellectual Ventures, though it's his side project, LaserMotive, that brought him to my attention.

A weary but suddenly richer version of Kare greeted me at the Victrola last week to discuss LaserMotive's $900,000 win at the Space Elevator Games, held November 2 to 6, 2009.

"So, what can I do for you?" Kare asked. He's unprepossessing at first glance, clad for Seattle's cold and rain, unruly gray hair longer on the sides and back, and slightly reserved. After the interview he was off to catch a late show of 2012 with his wife, with whom I had a quick discussion about Joss Whedon's Buffy, Firefly, and Dollhouse. (She's still angry at Whedon for the way he killed off "Wash"--really, a shock for all of us Fireflyers.)

This is just proof that you can't tell by looking at someone that he's devoted his professional life to laser propulsion; Kare has been a leader in his field pretty much since he got into it as a post-grad in 1986. It is the power-beaming aspect of space elevators that got him into the Games. As it happens, it's a great, high profile way to demonstrate that you can beam power over a kilometer's distance in a challenging setting.

LaserMotive was founded, essentially, as a part-time enterprise that would have one product, or goal: to create a laser-powered climber that would win the Space Elevator Games power beaming competition. First prize, for a climber that could travel one kilometer vertically at speeds of five meters per second or more, was $2 million, provided by NASA.

LaserMotive's climber set a world record, doing the kilometer twice at an average speed of four meters per second (topping out at 4.13 m/s), which netted them $900,00. "Hopefully we'll pick up the spare next time we go back down there," said Kare, cheerful at the prospect of holding another huge novelty check, this one for $1.1 million.

 

 

This is not precisely the space elevator you've seen on NOVA, with carbon nanotubes. For the competition, pilot Doug Uttecht's helicopter hauled aloft a 3/16-inch steel cable, 4300 feet long, that weighed about 300 pounds. (The people with this niche expertise are Northwest Helicopters, who also flew the cables in for the Tacoma Narrows Bridge.)...

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