7 HOME CULTURE COLUMNS
Save the planet: Stay married
11/7/2008 | Editor's note: Meghan Daum is on a book tour. This column originally ran in December 2007. The American obsession with striking out on our own, with poster children as varied as John Wayne and Mary Tyler Moore, appears to be at odds with our other current obsession: saving the planet.
'Thank you' not a mundane concept
10/17/2008 | Question: What prize was recently characterized by one of its winners as "mundane"? a) Radio-Active Car Audio's "Loudest Car Stereo" contest. b) The International Federation of Competitive Eating's World Tamale Eating Championship.
Fretting about weddings in California
10/10/2008 | A television ad supporting California Proposition 8 implies that gay marriage would have to be "taught" in California public schools unless the right of same-sex couples to marry is overturned.
A guaranteed horrific time
10/3/2008 | They might as well call him Spokane's Rob Zombie. Rob Paine, our local '80s horror movie enthusiast, has resurrected his Month of Macabre, featuring campy scary movies at area bars and culminating with a costume party and zombie march at the end of the month.
Recalling the McCain we once knew
9/26/2008 | On Sept. 12, the writer David Foster Wallace, who was 46, died by hanging himself in his Claremont, Calif., home. A formidable intellect and a virtuosic craftsman whose following seemed cultlike despite being too large to really qualify (several of his books were best-sellers), Wallace had been a professor of creative writing at Pomona College since 2001.
Meghan Daum: Campaign fatigue? We're beyond that
9/19/2008 | Are you experiencing disturbing, election-related thoughts? When you close your eyes at night, do the colors of CNN's "magic" electoral map dance in your head like red and blue sugarplums?
Grand slam of poetry
9/19/2008 | Anis Mojgani's troupe of truth activists is back in town this week. Last year the multiple poetry slam champion brought Solomon Sparrows Electric Whale Revival with a brotherhood of the best of the best in the national poetry scene.
Meghan Daum: Lighting up the right
9/12/2008 | Sure, I spent much of last week in a state of apoplexy at the hypocrisy and cynicism of the political process in general and the Republican Party in particular.
Out On The Town: Until death do you part
9/5/2008 | Del Martin is gone. Her wife, Phyllis Lyon, is in mourning. Her wife. It was with a heavy heart that I read of Martin's passing, yet those two words, fitted into the story like they belonged like it was no big thing to refer to another woman's wife brought an instant of great joy.
Visual dynamite
8/29/2008 | Dris Turner got tagged. Monday morning he woke up to an ugly piece of vandalism on the retaining wall in front of his home. Exactly one block north, Tim Piper was working with graffiti on the wall and fence in front of another beautiful home on the South Hill. Only he wasn't removing graffiti. He was spraying it on. And he's being paid to do it.
Isamu Jordan: Without training wheels, attitudes change gears
6/13/2008 | Today is the last day of my 6-year-old son's first year in the public education system. At long last, Caleb Jordan is a kindergarten graduate.
Locals carry Elkfest
5/30/2008 | Elkfest '07 is going to be tough to top. Drawing on regional bands from Seattle, Santa Rosa, Calif. , and Salt Lake City, last year's event set a new standard for outdoor music festivals in Spokane.
Don't just take our word for it
5/9/2008 | Last week after the Musee Mecanique show at Caterina Winery, 7 editor Ken Paulman was riding his bike through the parking lot on his way home and he offered me some advice for the masses: "When PK says it's the best band he's ever seen, you better listen to him."
Artist moves away to find niche in Spokane
3/28/2008 | It's good to get out of Spokane from time to time. Getting in to Spokane, now that's a different story. John Waters moved from Spokane to Seattle during his 20s you know the clichι.
Thin Air celebrates Spokane music
11/12/2007 | Pat Dundas is deep in the trenches of the local music scene. For the last two years he's been standing on the proverbial milk crate in the corner, shouting into his megaphone about the quality and quantity of talent that resides in and tours through this sort-of-like-a-city-kind-of-like-a-town.
The Word is on the come up
11/7/2007 | Things were looking really good for the local music scene on all fronts last year. The acoustic scene exploded. All-ages venues were harder to kill than Steven Seagal. And there were more media outlets covering live music than ever.
A very good month
8/27/2007 | Platform Booking held the music scene down in August, but RAWK the Inland Northwest is making a run for September. Or, more accurately, RAWK teamed with Kelly Lotze's ERC Booking.
Short and sweet: Download fest should rock
8/20/2007 | For the past several years, indie-rock fans in the Inland Northwest haven't had much of a choice. Sasquatch was the one reason to go to the Gorge Amphitheatre. But the other indie-rock event at the Gorge Download Festival happens Saturday, beginning at 2 p.m. And even though it's one day and one stage, it's a doozy.
Super speakers: hearing is believing
8/9/2007 | A pair of stereo speakers that stand more than 7 feet tall it's something you'd expect to see on an episode of "Cribs" or "Celebrity Homes.
Toast to Caterina
8/3/2007 | Caterina Winery owns the month of August. The number and diversity of shows is outrageous. The winery recently added bottled beer. It will have its new stage up in a matter of days and will continue to host select shows on the patio, said Platform Booking's Patrick Kendrick, who runs the music and manages at Caterina, 905 N. Washington St. The month started strong with Cyrus Fell Down's CD release show. The heat continues tonight at 8 p.m. with the Acoustic Explosion 2007 all-star kick-off show featuring Marshall McLean, Kevin Long, Mordekye Layman and Melody Moore.
Radiohead tribute turns out OK covers
7/27/2007 | Ten years ago this month, Radiohead blew the door off the hinges with one of the most inventive and influential albums of the 1990s: "OK Computer." To celebrate the 10th anniversary of "OK Computer," hipster music blog Stereogum put together "OK X: A Tribute to OK Computer," with select artists covering songs in a compilation.
Fair kicks off film season
7/20/2007 | For more than seven years The Shop has been the heart of the South Perry Street neighborhood. The quaint coffee shop converted from an old auto shop was one of Spokane's essential allies for acoustic and indie music until last year. Consider some of the acts that have come through The Shop: Norfolk & Western, Point Juncture WA, Rocky Votolato, Jason Webley, The Pale, Shearwater, Mt. Eerie, Karl Blau and most of the K-Records roster.
Ink World hosts spectacle The Enigma
7/11/2007 | Fill in the blanks: "I am ______ who ______. "It's a question of self identity. The Enigma doesn't claim to have all the answers; there are still a couple of pieces missing to the puzzle. But he's not afraid to challenge the popular view. In fact, he's made a living out of it. The Enigma, aka Paul Lawrence, is one of the most well-known sideshow freaks in the business, unmistakable because of his horn implants and full-body jigsaw puzzle tattoo. The trademark puzzle pieces cover nearly every inch of The Enigma, but he maintains that it's what's on the inside that counts. "I'm just a guy who does that stuff. I'm just an entertainer who got a tattoo. Without it, I would still be an entertainer," The Enigma said during a telephone interview. The Enigma could've easily ended up a classical composer or in some other fine art instead of a monstrosity of a performance artist. That's the direction he was headed when he was young, taking piano, flute and dance lessons before age 10. But The Enigma's life took a turn at age 15 when he started swallowing swords on stages in Seattle.
For life, for luck, for love it's the date
7/6/2007 | Remember what you did on Jan. 1 of 2001? How about 2/2/2; 3/3/3; 4/4/4 or 5/5/5? Even 6/6/6 didn't cause much of a stir, except for scary movies and taboo. But what is it about the number 7? July 7, 2007 Saturday is turning out to be a bigger deal than all of those dates combined. 7s, especially in threes, seem to contain some magic in our culture. 777 is popping up everywhere, and with different kinds of symbolism, from the religious to the superstitious.
Transformers can't pull guns on Team Jordan
6/29/2007 | We have a no-guns rule at the headquarters of Team Jordan. That includes when it comes to TV, movies and video games. Classics from the 1980s "Star Wars," "G.I. Joe" and as much as pains me to admit it "The Transformers" cross the line. The pre-Columbine cartoons and toys weren't weighted with modern-day controversy. Still, looking back, Transformers was futuristic in both fantasy and the reality. A brief synopsis: The original Transformers series (1984) chronicles a war between two factions of advanced alien robots who came to Earth after draining their home planet's energy supply. While the tyrannical Decepticons seek to control Earth, the heroic Autobots fight to protect Earth's natural resources. What made Transformers cool and unique is that the "robots in disguise" masked their presence on Earth by transforming into planes, trains and automobiles (cue the "ree-eer-err-oor-irr" sound effects).
