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Arts Beat

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Discovering Nirvana's lost treasures

Posted Fri, Nov 6, 5 p.m.

Two of the band's seminal concerts are captured in new releases this week. It's enough to make a critic regret, again, a long-ago mistake.

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When Martians invaded Concrete

Posted Fri, Oct 30, 6 a.m.

It's been 71 years since the famous "War of the Worlds" broadcast ... and the panic that overtook a little Skagit County town.

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Theater review: ACT's Rock 'n' Roll finds a groove

Posted Fri, Oct 23, 5:07 p.m.

Tom Stoppard's latest play melds memory and mirth in ACT's strong re-imagining of the Broadway production.

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Opera Review: 'La Traviata' kicks off 'Verdi-fest'

Posted Fri, Oct 23, 1 p.m.

Seattle Opera's production soothes and sometimes soars, but doesn't stretch.

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Compline at St. Marks: The torch is passed

Posted Wed, Oct 21, 6 a.m.

On the air for almost 50 years, KING-FM's live broadcast of the Sunday religious service remains both a beautiful program and a throwback to a classic era of radio.

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Modern dance, reconstructed

Posted Tue, Oct 20, 6 a.m.

As it shows in new performances this week, Seattle's Chamber Dance Company has made an art of reviving classic works and performing them as the original choreographers intended.

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Celebrating Seattle, 'City of Music'

Posted Thu, Oct 15, 1:39 p.m.

The Showbox dresses up for the city's inaugural music awards program, honoring KEXP, Quincy Jones, Fleet Foxes, and others. Even the restrooms smelled nice.

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Bryan Johnson's golden anniversary

Posted Sat, Oct 10, 6 a.m.

After 50 years of reporting for KOMO radio and TV, it seems the Seattle broadcast veteran has covered every story at least once ... and faked his way through "Album of Classics" too.

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Seattle Rep: One too many steps

Posted Wed, Oct 7, 6 a.m.

In going from thriller novel to onstage comedy, the slapstick adaptation of Hitchcock's classic '39 Steps' tries just about everything to get a laugh, when maybe none was needed.

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Beyond here lies somethin'

Posted Mon, Oct 5, 12:21 p.m.

Bob Dylan kicks off a new tour at Seattle's Moore Theatre with a spirited set that mixes deep album cuts, recent bluesy folk material, and even an unexpected sense of fun.

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Use the period. And other writing lessons.

Posted Thu, Oct 1, 6 a.m.

Most writing teachers get even the questions wrong, let alone the answers. So says our correspondent, himself a former writing instructor. And he's got old memos to prove it.

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Exploring options for Classic KING-FM

Posted Thu, Oct 1, 6 a.m.

Welcome to Seattle's next media melodrama, this time concerning an icon in Seattle's cultural history. Much more than a single radio station is at stake.

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Braised words: 'Julie & Julia' inspires a retro writing experiment

Posted Fri, Sep 25, 6 a.m.

The popular movie about Julia Child inspires our writer — not to cook with lots of butter, but to write longhand, and then use a typewriter and carbon paper. Tasty lessons result.

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When alternative radio meant Seattle's KJET

Posted Wed, Sep 23, 5:25 p.m.

It's been exactly 21 years since the grunge-anticipating, AM rock station KJET signed off the air, leaving a flood of great memories for our writer, including his favorite place to listen: a radio-challenged Ford Pinto.

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Utopia: Are we there yet?

Posted Wed, Sep 9, 9:24 p.m.

An art exhibit in Port Angeles displays creative responses to the Cascadia dream.

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Serene stone sculpture from a violent country

Posted Mon, Aug 24, 6 a.m.

A notable exhibition of Zimbabwe's leading sculptors has opened in Vancouver's botanical gardens

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Chaos and twilight: Seattle Opera's Ring, part 2

Posted Sat, Aug 15, 6:08 p.m.

The first cycle is marred by an ill Siegfried and a subpar Brünnhilde. But there are some wonderful singers and just-right moments, and the subsequent cycles are likely to be better.

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Seattle Opera's Ring: What's it trying to say?

Posted Wed, Aug 12, 6 a.m.

There are delights, especially Stephanie Blythe's Fricka for the ages and a fine new Siegmund (Stuart Skelton) and Mime (Dennis Petersen). But the sets create cramped spaces for acting and singing, sacrificing characterization and meaning.

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Ah, Cappella!

Posted Mon, Aug 10, 11:39 a.m.

Portland's remarkable choral group, Cappella Romana, performs an otherworldly concert of music by Arvo Pärt

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At ACT, a tacky Texas sendup of Wagner's 'Ring'

Posted Sat, Aug 8, 10 a.m.

'Das Barbecu' is a lively show with an excellent cast and direction. Too bad it has more fun spoofing Texas than skewering Wagner.

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The best criticism and news about performances, exhibitions, and books. Have you read a good review? E-mail us.

Other media

For the opera world, a good news story New York City Opera's recent history has been, well, operatic, with no home, no money, and no leader. The company is back in its renovated theater at Lincoln Center and a reviewer gives a thumbs up.

Jonathan Raban: Learning how to read the mysterious Northwest An appreciation of the literary critic William Empson leads the writer to slow down and closely read his new home ground, Seattle, no easy city with which to feel at home.

Asian art wars: Singapore, Hong Kong fight for top spot in art auction market The two city-states, long rivals as financial markets, are now dueling over numbers of galleries and art sales figures.

Dallas applies a Rem Koolhaas cure for its downtown arts district The team that produced the Seattle Library has produced a radical rethinking of theater design, turning the normal design of a theater from horizontal to vertical.

The curtain drops on the age of showy cultural palaces by star architects These indulgent buildings were meant to tear down old social barriers to the arts, but in Los Angeles and Denver they just put up new ones. At any rate, the bubble has burst.

Blog posts

MOHAI’s future begins at the Armory

Posted Fri, Nov 6, 6 a.m.

With a new fundraising campaign kicking off tonight, the history museum hopes to be in its new Lake Union digs in 2012.

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Island Girl: 'This Is It,' every day

Posted Tue, Nov 3, 4 p.m.

An argument to see Michael Jackson's movie, and to remember that there's not always next year.

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'Hold for applause, fade out'

Posted Fri, Oct 30, 11:30 a.m.

Movie review: With This Is It, the late Michael Jackson offers what would have been one of the greatest concerts ever. But the film isn't as successful in explaining MJ the man.

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Holding Steady at the Croc

Posted Fri, Oct 23, noon

"America's bar band" turns in an animated set, at no charge. But make ours straight up, hold the covers.

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A tale of two bookfests

Posted Fri, Oct 23, 6 a.m.

A new Seattle book festival launches this weekend in Columbia City, amid bad news for Elliott Bay Books and word of a new fest planned for next year.

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Dance and the art of preservation

Posted Thu, Oct 22, 6 a.m.

Spectrum's mounting of the late Merce Cunningham's work shows both his genius and the value of planning for a choreographer's legacy.

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Island Girl: 'Somehow my husband has ended up in jail'

Posted Wed, Oct 21, 6 a.m.

After a bewildering domestic-violence charge, our alleged victim seeks help from the local authorities.

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Island Girl: A rocky landing in Washington

Posted Mon, Oct 19, 6 a.m.

"Even if you were taller and blonder," the cop said, your husband wouldn't love you. Part 1 of an occasional series.

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'Seattle’s Forgotten World’s Fair'

Posted Sat, Oct 17, 1:19 p.m.

KCTS documentary on AYP Exposition airs tonight.

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Flip Side, the surprise Nobel Prize winner!

Posted Fri, Oct 16, 6 a.m.

Awarded apparently for what he might achieve later, the Crosscut "humor" columnist fakes nonchalance about his imagined coup, then dreams of other "achievements."

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