A lot of the exhibits resemble earlier displays in Tacoma, where work by the glass-master can be seen for free. The Chihuly showroom opened Sunday at Seattle Center.

What really conveys approval is the sitting ovation. May it come back.

A new study finds a fascinating correlation between weight control and culturally enriching but sedentary activities. 

The News Tribune reports, "The University of Washington Tacoma now has an original Picasso drawing hanging in its library, courtesy of Tacoma peace activist The Rev. Bill 'Bix' Bichsel." (A Jesuit priest, no less.) 

The key loss is the connection between a live audience and the singers. Clap in the movie theatre and no one hears you on stage.

He does marvelous, if infrequent work in Seattle. His new post is in Western Australia.

Peter Plagens, the Journal's gallery critic, enthuses over the Portland art scene's venturesomeness, "residual roughness and collective spirit," and "plethora of 'alternative spaces,' such as a decommissioned crab boat and renovated neighborhood storefront. But he diagnoses "a schizophrenia" in artists who try to both play and scorn "the art game as it's contested in New York and Miami."

In the process, it may signal the end of contemporary art.