The clearest way to explain Dynasty Handbag’s act might be to quote the artist herself. “I am not a wretched performance artist, or merely a comedian, or the ghastly clown, or simply an actor,” Jibz Cameron writes in her new memoir, Hell in a Handbag. “I perform as this alter ego. I do songs sorta and stand-up kinda and ummm I look insane. Yea. It’s like, funny performance art, or artsy comedy. It’s like my insides on the outsides.”

Her refusal to self-identify is intentional. In Cameron’s opinion, art shouldn’t have to explain itself. It should “move you through an unnamable thing; after all, it is another language.”

Cameron has performed as Dynasty Handbag for over 20 years, notably winning a Guggenheim fellowship in 2022 and co-creating a film titled Weirdo Night, which was shown at Sundance Film Festival in 2021. You might remember her 2015 Time-Based Art Festival work, one of that year’s most-lauded—a conceptual talk show called Good Morning Evening Feelings. 

Your favorite performer likely loves Dynasty. Cameron’s late friend Paul Reubens sent her “dirty memes about lesbians,” and she’s collaborated with Kate Berlant, Cole Escola, and Ayo Edibiri through her ongoing variety show Weirdo Night!. SNL’s Sarah Sherman called the show “freak church,” with Dynasty Handbag as its “weirdo priest.”

The Los Angeles-based artist will return to Portland in celebration of Hell in a Handbag’s release, to discuss the memoir with local writer Sara Jaffe at Always Here Bookstore on May 10. Side fact: Jaffe was Erase Errata’s founding guitarist and the two know one another from their Bay Area punk scene days. Two evenings of “performance, film, and readings” at the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art will follow on May 11 and 12. 

Growing up in the “hippie criminal” atmosphere of a Northern California commune, Cameron’s childhood was shaped by her mother’s mental illness and her “charismatic and scary” father, who offered the family little stability. Hell in a Handbag contends with this past in a conversational style, punctuated with lines like “IMHO. I’m Hoe. Ha ha.” and “I can’t be bothered to explain what that is. Ask Jeeves.”  

That easygoing approach makes Hell in a Handbag compulsively readable. I swallowed the 300-page memoir in two sittings, scarcely registering the outside world. Cameron pays little attention to literary polish; her prose is a vehicle for communicating as much as possible, as vividly as possible, at a rapid clip. Surprising images emerge. Late in the book, she describes an actor’s turmoil “zapping around under her flesh, like a very fragile bubble filled with screams.”

It’s easy reading, but not light reading. Cameron lays plain her experiences navigating queerness, statutory rape, childhood neglect, alcoholism, and a suicide in her family. She only briefly touches on her sobriety—in her words: “Who wants to read about someone getting sober? Snore.”—but Alcoholics Anonymous clearly played a pivotal role in it. “I went to a meeting once where someone was holding a sink over their head. No one said anything,” she recalls.

Hell in a Handbag is at its strongest when it connects Cameron’s life experiences—sometimes glittery, sometimes punk, and very often traumatic—to the formation of her Dynasty Handbag persona. As a child, she learned that improv comedy reflects “our unconscious brain on display,” and pulled inspiration from influences like Laurie Anderson, Divine, and John Waters. Of Prince, she writes: “He knew he was confusing people, he was doing it on purpose. I somehow had the sense, even at age ten, that Prince was a theater project.” 

The reader smells notes of Dynasty Handbag’s heady perfume in the videos Cameron made as a San Francisco Art Institute student, and in the campy lyrics of the Roofies, her late-’90s punk band. But Cameron’s alter ego didn’t fully crystallize until after her father’s death and her divorce in the early aughts. “I needed somewhere to put all these fucked up feelings,” she writes. “So, I put them into a 4-track, and called them Dynasty Handbag.”  

Dynasty Handbag may feel high-concept, but she’s fiercely corporeal. Cameron writes: “I am 51 years old, and not every queer loser theatergoer gets to have that privilege. My boddy oddy has changed in ways you can’t imagine. It’s a temple of secret lumps, and it’s holy. So don’t try me.” Her alter ego looks “ugly” on purpose—a droll response to misogynistic beauty standards and our tendency to accidentally highlight that which we wish to hide. She adorns herself in lumpy undergarments, dirty pantyhose, and smeared lipstick, lampooning every restrictive system—heteronormativity and capitalism especially.

Hell in a Handbag serves as a reminder that funny, honest art can still evolve from darkness. It’s a total relief. “I believe people want to see wildness because they need to see it,” Cameron writes, “not just because it’s entertaining.” She understands that performance art can help both artist and audience process trauma. Referencing scholar José Esteban Muñoz’s Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity, she notes: “We, as queers, create new worlds for ourselves… we are not necessarily escaping, but we are also not activating the wound. When we (I guess me?) are really raw, I try to use the space of performance-making to move the feeling along in some capacity.”

The memoir feels like an extension of that artistic method. In Hell in a Handbag, Cameron demonstrates how trauma can alchemize through strangeness and sincerity. After all, her upbringing is just the beginning of the story. What happens next is where things get truly interesting. 

Hell in a Handbag was published by Dopamine/Semiotext(e) on Tues May 5. See Dynasty Handbag at Town Hall Wednesday, May 13.

The post Jibz Cameron Becomes Dynasty Handbag appeared first on The Stranger.

MONDAY 5/11

Ann Wilson: In My Voice

(FILM) Last year, when I interviewed Heart for our November issue, I asked Ann Wilson what it was like revisiting old footage for the then-forthcoming documentary In My Voice. “Very surreal!” she said. “Recently … I was looking at some slides from my teenage years. It’s so wonderful to see all of those faces again. There were people I could barely recognize now.” Now, the film is making its worldwide debut in Seattle, followed by a Q&A with the queen herself. Directed by multi-hyphenate filmmaker, TV producer, writer, and musician Barbara Hall (who directed Milk and created the CBS drama Madam Secretary), the documentary brings together video, photos, and interviews that chronicle the Wilsons’ beginnings, the formation of Heart, their rise to icon status, and Ann’s life beyond the band. (Neptune Theatre, 8 pm, all ages) AUDREY VANN

TUESDAY 5/12

RADIOHEART: The Drive & Times of DJ Kevin Cole

(FILM) Here in Seattle, we tend to take KEXP DJ Kevin Cole for granted. Even though I’ve heard his voice on the air since I was a child, Cole has done almost too good a job at championing artists and public radio, because I knew nothing about his own legacy. RADIOHEART: The Drive & Times of Kevin Cole takes you on his journey from an underqualified disco DJ in 1970s Minneapolis to a beloved fixture of the Seattle music scene, with several surprises along the way, like run-ins with then-up-and-coming musician Prince, and a stint at the then-little-known online bookseller—record scratch—Amazon, where he helped shape digital streaming as we know it. My only critique of the film was that I was left with so many questions about Cole’s relationship with streaming and with Amazon, which felt at odds with his legacy in radio, physical media, and independent music. So, I decided to ask him about it myself—read my interview with Cole here. (SIFF Cinema Uptown, 3:30 pm) AUDREY VANN

WEDNESDAY 5/13

Becoming Human

(FILM) One can think of the Cambodian film Becoming Human as having its back to (and heading in the opposite direction of) the famous German film Wings of Desire (1987). The former, directed by Polen Ly, has spirits who guard places (both natural and cultural); the latter, directed by Wim Wenders, has angels who watch the inhabitants of Berlin. A spirit in the former falls in love with a human; an angel in the latter also falls in love with a human. But the Cambodian spirit, Thida (Serak Savorn), who guards the ruins of a cinema house, must leave the world, and as a consequence lose connection with (her moments with) the human who has claimed her phantom heart. The Berlin angel must, instead, enter the human world to connect with his flesh/meat/bones obsession. Both films are political. But the politics in Becoming Human—a film that is, true, slow, but doesn’t contain a moment that’s not powerfully felt—has greater gravity. Though the Cambodian spirit is in appearance a teenager, she is 50 years old. Meaning, she lost her life during the last year (1975) of the Cambodian Civil War. Becoming Human is reflective, melancholy, and must not be missed. (PACCAR IMAX Theater at Pacific Science Center, 8:30 pm) CHARLES MUDEDE

THURSDAY 5/14

Natalie Porter Discusses Girl Gangs, Zines, and Powerslides: A History of Badass Women Skateboarders

(BOOKS) If you look back at the plethora of skateboard videos, books, and magazines that have captured the rise of skateboarding culture through the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s, you will see boys. So many boys. Tony Hawk, Jay Adams, Tony Alva, Steve Caballero, Stacy Peralta, Eric Koston. Women were skating, too, of course—Peggy Oki was a member of the Zephyr Competition Team featured in Dogtown and Z-Boys—but history wasn’t focused on their stories. Natalie Porter is here to begin to set the record straight. After establishing the online WomxnSkateHistory archive, she has compiled stories, zines, and photos into her book Girl Gangs, Zines, and Powerslides: A History of Badass Women Skateboarders, to celebrate the women and nonbinary athletes who contributed to the culture from the 1960s through today—Stephanie Massey, Cara-Beth Burnside, Georgina Matthews, and so many more.  (Seattle Public Library Central Branch, 4 pm, free) MEGAN SELING

FRIDAY 5/15

Ana Roxanne with Patricia Wolf

(MUSIC) On her new single “Keepsake,” experimental ambient artist Ana Roxanne delivers a dreamy piano ballad that showcases her vocals with angelic clarity. (She’s kind of like a modern-day Sarah McLachlan, without the tearjerking association with ACPCA commercials.) She is coming to Seattle to support her first album in six years, Poem 1, which is a big deal for people like me who have been hooked on her music since her debut EP, ~~~ (pronounced Tilde Tilde Tilde). I hope she plays a few songs from the EP, like “I’m Every Sparkly Woman,” an unrecognizable, meditative cover of the Chaka Khan hit. She will be joined by Portland-based nature-inspired electronic composer Patricia Wolf, whose upcoming album Yarrow chronicles the life cycle of the titular flowering fern-like plant. (Triple Door, 7:30 pm, all ages) AUDREY VANN

SATURDAY 5/16

Laraaji, Arji OceAnanada

(MUSIC) In 1980, Brian Eno spotted a man playing a zither in Washington Square Park and invited him into the studio. The man was Laraaji, and the result was Ambient 3: Day of Radiance—a shining collection of hypnotic and intense soundscapes (think lengthy, chiming patterns that emerge and dissolve; a bit of an outlier in Eno’s otherwise subtle Ambient series). It’s hard to describe the sound of a zither (a small, harp-like instrument) without using the word “shimmering” over and over, but that’s exactly what it’s doing. Shimmering like sun, shimmering like water, slow-motion shimmering; when amplified, it sounds at once devotional and playful, like Laraaji himself (check out his Laughter Meditation workshops). The celestial-minded visionary revisits the record, alongside selections from his vast and luminous catalog, joined by longtime collaborator and sound healer Arji OceAnanda. Saint Mark’s Cathedral will be filled with immersive, architecturally mapped projections to enhance what will no doubt be a very New Age (complimentary) experience. (Saint Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral, 8 pm, all ages) EMILY NOKES

SUNDAY 5/17

Timothy White Eagle: Once Wild River

(VISUAL ART) Timothy White Eagle is an icon. Grounded in theater, his work is both an embrace of and a revolt against the forces that shaped him—a queer, mixed-race Indigenous child adopted into a white Mormon family, raised in rural Washington. He’s known for his visual storytelling and visionary theatrical rituals (including performances at On the Boards), but also for founding the community/cabaret space Coffee Messiah and touring with Taylor Mac. Last year, White Eagle was named the inaugural artist for the Green-Duwamish Urban Waters Federal Partnership Artist-in-Residence program, a year-long residency piloted by the EPA. This exhibit marks its culmination, featuring work by collaborators working with White Eagle to read the river, addressing its problematic history and present healing. Participating artists include Adrain Chesser, Laura Wright, Epiphany Couch, Crystal Cortez, and Sarah Kavage. (Mini Mart City Park, 12–5 pm) AMANDA MANITACH

The post Stranger Suggests: Your Agenda This Week, May 11–May 17 appeared first on The Stranger.

Even though I’ve heard his voice on the air since I was a child, KEXP DJ Kevin Cole has done almost too good a job at championing artists and public radio, because I knew nothing about his own legacy before watching his documentary. RADIOHEART: The Drive & Times of Kevin Cole takes you on his journey from an underqualified disco DJ in 1970s Minneapolis to a beloved fixture of the Seattle music scene, with several surprises along the way, like run-ins with then-up-and-coming musician Prince and a stint at the then-little-known online bookseller—record scratch—Amazon, where he helped shape digital streaming as we know it. My only critique of the film was that I was left with so many questions about Cole’s relationship with streaming and with Amazon, which felt at odds with his legacy in radio, physical media, and independent music.

So, I decided to ask him about it myself. Early on in our interview, I was skeptical about Cole’s unwillingness to say anything negative about Amazon, streaming, or rapidly changing technology. That is, until I realized that Cole is unwilling to say anything negative, period. The man exudes positivity with the sole mission of healing the world with music, whether that be on a crowded dance floor, radio airwaves, or the World Wide Web. In a time where it feels like the only options are to be a blissfully ignorant consumer or an actively hostile Luddite (I’d categorize myself as the latter), it’s refreshing to hear from a man unwilling to shake his fiercely optimistic vision of connection through technology.

When were you first approached about making the documentary?
I was approached in the spring of 2024 by a friend of mine, Peter Hilgendorf, the co-director of the film, about making a short documentary to show at my retirement party. July 26, 2024, was my last day on the air full-time, hosting Drive Time, which I’d been doing for 20 years. When we showed the complete 18-minute video at the event, ahandful of filmmakers and music people saw it and encouraged Pete to expand it. From there, it evolved until there was enough confidence to expand the film into a full-form documentary.

How involved were you in the making of the film?
It was pretty interesting because the project kept evolving; I saw bits and pieces here and there. I also made suggestions to Pete and Andrew [Franks], like interviewing Kristin Hersh from Throwing Muses, but it is really their movie. I didn’t see the full edited version until the premiere in Minneapolis, which was amazing and surreal. My family and friends were there. I was nervous and excited. The film contains moments of vulnerability that I hope people will, at best, be inspired by.

Did you ever anticipate that someone would make a movie about your life?
One hundred percent  no, not at all. For me, the movie is about loving music and the power of music to make our individual lives better and richer. We’ve all felt the power of music. It can provide comfort and solace, or when we need to be uplifted, inspired, or motivated, it can provide that energy. It can help us dance, move, and shift energy, which makes us feel better. The power of music also helps us understand ourselves better, and when we better understand ourselves, we can better understand others. It’s like magic.

I think people will be surprised to learn that you worked at Amazon from 1998 to 2003 and were an early proponent of streaming and digital downloads, which feel antithetical to independent radio and physical media. What do you think about the current state of streaming?
That’s a good question, and a really big one. Radio, as a technology or as a platform, has really evolved, and it’s needed to. Being flexible is critical for survival. There was a huge shift in the late ’90s and early 2000s to digital, and we would hear from media consultants all the time that radio was dead. The key is that if you’re unable to adapt to new technologies or how people want to experience music, then you are dead. We need to be able to meet people where they are, or anticipate where they’re going to be, and be on the front end of that. Technology is not the enemy; it’s a tool. For KEXP, I feel like we’ve used streaming in a great way. We have been part of showing the world that human curation is really what matters.

I think part of KEXP’s success came from that experimental mindset in terms of music distribution and platforms. Whether streaming, downloading, podcasts, or videos, we leaned into it. In fact, at some point after we launched videos, we started noticing that more people were watching our videos than listening to the station, which set off a kind of existential introspective examination. We shifted our mindset and our leadership structure and acknowledged that we are a nonprofit arts organization, not just a radio station. We now have approximately over 350,000 streaming listeners outside of our broadcast area, which means that many people a month are hearing when we play Pacific Northwest bands like Dark Chisme, Mt Fog, Chinese American Bear, TV Star, Terror/Cactus, it’s connecting on a global level. So streaming, in some ways, I don’t want to say it saved KEXP, but it really was a catalyst for being able to accelerate our mission and have more impact in the world.

In terms of streaming platforms like Spotify, I think of Patti Smith’s song “People Have the Power.” Power and decision-making, as it relates to streaming music or commerce, are very significant. If an artist goes on tour with 500 copies of a record to sell directly to fans, they could conceivably make about $10,000. To make $10,000 from streaming would take about 300 million streams. It’s not equitable. I think it’s up to individuals to choose how they want to support independent artists. If you can, buy records directly from artists on tour, or from their websites, or local independent record stores, or Bandcamp. Then, you’ll be using your dollars in a way that supports artists and continues to support a vibrant music ecosystem.

What was your original vision for streaming at Amazon?
I joined Amazon in early 1998 and was part of a team that built the music site. My interest was in streaming. At that point in time, our goal was to help people discover music by broadening access to artists. We had multiple channels of audio, sort of like online radio stations, to help people discover great music. It wasn’t even about buying and selling music, necessarily. The feeling was, if we can help people discover their next new favorite artist, hopefully they’ll buy from us. During the first year, our two best sellers were Sounds of North American Frogs and Buena Vista Social Club. Then, I got into the promotional downloads. We set up a platform for independent artists to share free promotional downloads of their music.

Amazon was a new environment for me. It was challenging, but I had a great experience. About a year into working at Amazon, I started doing a Sunday show at KCMU (now KEXP). I missed that direct connection with listeners through radio that I didn’t get online, which is what fueled the decision to then go to KCMU/KEXP full-time.

I’m sensing that your vision for streaming was pretty different from the current state of streaming platforms.
Yeah, that is more or less correct. Algorithms are incredibly powerful at recognizing patterns, and they can predict what we’re going to like, based on what we’ve already liked or listened to. But taste and love for music isn’t about pattern recognition. It’s about risk. It’s about intuition. Sometimes it’s about irrational love. The role of the DJ isn’t to be a mirror like an algorithm is. The role of a DJ is to widen the circle, not shrink it. Human curation and passion for music shape the experience differently than what an algorithm or a streaming platform can do. As long as humans are creating music, there’s going to be a need for humans to curate it.

Have you seen the video of that French duo Angine de Poitrine? They became viral because of the KEXP session. That would not have popped into people’s algorithms. It’s interesting, challenging music. It’s almost like anti-AI. The fact that they have blown up is a good indicator that people don’t want to simply consume; they want to connect, and connection happens through human curation. The way AI and streaming have changed music, you know, making songs shorter and trying to get the hook in in the first five seconds, is not going to sustain itself. People want real experiences and real connections.

Considering Amazon’s evil presence in our city, how do you feel about having your name associated with them?
I left Amazon in 2003, and it’s a radically different place now. When I was there, it really was all about expanding access to music. I’m proud of the work I did. I made lifelong friendships, and really, it’s hard to describe now, but the whole focus at that time was experimenting with digital music and distribution and helping people find music that they would love, which really spoke to what I was about.

Did you work directly with Jeff Bezos at Amazon?
No. I was in a couple of meetings with him, but wasn’t working directly with him.

Do you currently have any connections to Amazon in any way?
No, outside of some friends I made while I was there. You know, it’s so hard to describe, but the world was different. It was all about trying to use new tools, new technology, as a means to provide access to music. That was the drive, and that was what inspired me.

Is there anything that didn’t make it into the documentary that you wish had?
It’s impossible to encapsulate somebody’s 50-year career in 83 minutes, but Peter, Andrew, and Rebecca did a fantastic job. There are certain things, like running, [that] are kind of a big part of my life, and that keeps me healthy. And you know, some clips of me running or ski jumping, when I was a ski jumper, but it would have to be another movie.

RADIOHEART: The Drive & Times of Kevin Cole screens at SIFF May 12, 15, and 17 at SIFF Cinema Uptown

The post A DJ Isn’t a Mirror appeared first on The Stranger.

New Seattle Teacher’s Union President Under Investigation: Ibijoke Idowu, the special education teacher at Beacon Hill’s Rising Star Elementary leading the race to become the next president of the Seattle Education Association, was placed on paid leave in December 2025 after the parents of an autistic, partially verbal third grader with a speech delay accused her of abusing their child. According to the complaint the parents filed to the district, they noticed bruises the size of adult fingerprints on their son’s arm in October and December. Using visual aids, the third grader confirmed that Idowu allegedly caused the bruises. The parents also say their son’s therapist allegedly saw Idowu throw a marker at the student’s head. 

What Now? Last week, the Seattle Police Department sent the case as a statutory referral to the King County’s prosecuting attorney’s office. “Police typically send a case and identify the referral as a statutory referral when they do not believe they have evidence for prosecutors to charge a crime,” office spokesperson Casey McNerthney wrote in a statement to The Seattle Times.

Old Faithful: Let’s Go Washington, the group that resurrected the Parents’ Bill of Rights, announced Friday that it’ll begin gathering signatures to put a repeal of the popular millionaire’s tax on the ballot this November.

UW Student Killed: Police are looking for a suspect in the stabbing of a 19-year-old in an off-campus student housing building last night. When University of Washington police arrived at the Nordheim Court Apartments, 5000 25th Avenue Northeast, they found a young woman stabbed in the laundry room. UW police and Seattle Fire attempted to save her, but she was pronounced dead at the scene. Investigators have not said what led to the stabbing, but they are treating it as a homicide. According to NBC news, the student was transgender.

Another Homicide: Police are searching for a suspect who shot and killed an employee at the Growler Guys on Saturday morning. Police say just before 8 a.m., an employee of the North Seattle taproom, 8500 Lake City Way NE, discovered their co-worker laying on the ground with bullet wounds. The Seattle Fire Department declared the employee dead at the scene. Seattle police have not released a description of the suspect nor the name of the employee. Owner of The Growler Guys, Kelly Dole, said the employee, who was in his early 20s, went to Nathan Hale High School with his son. Police are investigating the shooting as a homicide.

It Stings: After a five year campaign, Washington officially eradicated the invasive yellow-legged hornet (once known as the murder hornet, but don’t call it that) from the US. Or did we?! Agriculture officials in Vancouver, Washington are asking people to report any sightings of the hornet after an agricultural inspector found a live one at the Port of Vancouver while inspecting a cargo ship that had sailed from South Korea. Keep an eye out, Vancouver.

The Whale: An endangered fin whale was stranded and died last week at Samish Island in Skagit Country. While the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration typically lets rotting whales lie where they land, the tragic sight had a tragic smell and the community decided it couldn’t wait for time to gnaw at 61 feet of meat. The Seattle Times has the story of how they moved the 40-ton whale. No, they did not blow it up like that Oregon whale, keeping a spew of blood and chunks out of the local weather forecast. 

Bros: Trump is heading to China this week for a summit with the country’s leader Xi Jinping. They’ll discuss Iran, Taiwan, artificial intelligence, trade, nuclear arms, and China’s relationship with Russia—so nothing thorny. Trump and Xi will also discuss extending an agreement that allows rare earth minerals to flow from China to the US. One US official told reporters he was confident that the agreement would be extended, and would be announced at “the appropriate time.”

The War: Negotiations are not going so good. Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei has accused the US of presenting “unreasonable” and “one-sided” demands to end the US-Israeli war on the country. On Sunday, via Pakistan, Iran submitted what it considered a “generous” response to our latest proposal, which Trump called “TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE” on social media. His post raised the price of oil nearly 4.7 percent to  $99.95 a barrel during Monday morning trade in Asia.The Strait of Hormuz remains closed.

The Latest on the Latest Assassination Attempt: Cole Tomas Allen, the 31-year-old man who allegedly tried to assassinate President Donald Trump at the White House Correspondent’s Dinner last month, pleaded not guilty in federal court Monday.

About That Attempt: Nearly a quarter of Americans believe it was staged, according to a survey by Newsguard. Roughly one in three Democrats surveyed believed the shooting was staged, compared with about one in eight Republicans. Living in a stew of fetid unreality is having an effect on people. Jared Holt, a senior researcher at the online extremism tracking group Open Measures, told The Washington Post that the poll numbers were bleak, but not terribly shocking:

“Unfortunately, when governments or institutions are hiding the truth about what they’re up to or they’re playing fast and loose with certain regulations or they’re not imposing certain laws on different people,” Donovan said, “it is much easier to believe in a conspiracy against oneself than it is to believe that the system has become rotted.”

Cruise from Hell, Continued: Most passengers aboard the hantavirus-striken MV Hondius, now anchored near the Spanish island of Tenerife, are on their way home, CNN reports. Seventeen Americans, including one who tested positive for the hantavirus, have arrived in Nebraska “for evaluation at a highly specialized quarantine unit.” An evacuated American and a French passenger have tested positive.

Don’t Freak Out: I know that a lot of people are detecting pneumonia-of-unknown-etiology-in-Wuhan vibes from this hantavirus situation, but health officials are unequivocal that this is not the beginning of another COVID. Literally. That’s almost a direct quote from Maria Van Kerkhove, director of epidemic and pandemic management at the World Health Organization. Epidemiologists are not panicking; neither should you.

How It Spreads: While people usually contract hantaviruses by breathing in viral particles from the urine, feces, and saliva of an infected rodent, the specific type of hantavirus picked up by the first man who fell ill is different. It’s called the Andes virus and is known to transmit from human to human, particularly those in close contact for a prolonged amount of time. The first two passengers infected were husband and wife. And compared with the highly contagious and virulent COVID and the flu, hantaviruses spread much less easily and do not mutate nearly as fast as the respiratory viruses that so vex health officials.

Just What We Needed: A Wordle television show, which NBC believes will be a hit. The series, hosted by Savannah Guthrie, will be filmed in Manchester, England and in primetime next year. I’ve watched people play Wordle before, and it’s boring.

The post Slog AM: Trump Heads to China This Week, Shaky Ceasefire in Iran, Let’s Go Washington Wants to Repeal the Millionaire’s Tax appeared first on The Stranger.

This week, The Stranger‘s comment section was all about one thing: the Laurelhurst Community Council’s agreement with Seattle Children’s Hospital to limit how many helicopters can land on the hospital’s roof, carrying sick and injured children.

We heard from everyone: protestors, medical professionals, parents, and residents of Laurelhurst who were also pissed about this arrangement.

Want to respond to something you read in The Stranger? Write to us at letters@thestranger.com.

Feel like making your feelings even more public? You can shout at us on BlueSky or on Instagram, and maybe we’ll even embed them in the roundup. 

Laurelhurst Community Council Isn’t Sure Helicopters Need to Land Sick Kids at the Hospital
They Took Down Their Website, But Not Before We Downloaded Their Meeting Minutes

By Nathalie Graham

Last week, thanks to a post on X and Reddit, it seemed like the whole city learned at once that for the last 30 years, the Laurelhurst Community Council has had an agreement with Seattle Children’s Hospital to limit the number of medevac helicopter landings could happen on the hospitals roof. Only the most severe cases could land there. The rest, they agreed, would land a mile away at UW’s helipad, and an ambulance would bring the sick or injured child the rest of the way to the hospital (adding extra time and cost to their transportation).

Stranger deputy news editor Nathalie Graham had the foresight to download the community council’s meeting minutes before they panicked and shut down their website. In it, we see the lengths they went to give input on the flights: including paying for flight tracking software, and complaining that one flight that landed on the roof was a broken leg.

The cruelty of weighing the noise of a helicopter against a child’s medical care resonated across the city. People planned a noise protest in the neighborhood. Neighbors in Laurelhurst who didn’t know about the arrangement said they planned to start showing up to neighborhood council meetings. And the Community Council felt the pressure. On Friday, they announced that they’d support ending the policy.

What You Had to Say:

From croak.sac on Instagram:

From beccanurs on Instagram:

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From musings_of_a_nightnurse on Instagram:

From mariell68 on Instagram:

From playapixie on Instagram:

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Wanna tell us how you feel? Email us at letters@thestranger.com.

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Valerie Veatch’s work will make you feel all kinds of things: dismayed, icky, but also empowered with the knowledge that we are not, in fact, actually doomed to a future of AI overlords. Across her career, the Seattle-born filmmaker has made numerous documentaries about the impact of technology on our personal and collective lives. Me at the Zoo and Love Child are tales of a brave new world coming of age in an online universe. But those films, made in 2012 and 2014 respectively, retain an aura of dreaminess around chilling stories. 

In Ghost in the Machine, the dream is crushed. The film takes us back to the 19th-century roots of statistical mathematics, from which modern algorithmic computer science has sprung, to reveal how the logic of compute is tethered to a group of eugenicists intent on producing scientific rationale for racial genocide. 

Veatch has the receipts. For nine months, she interviewed 40 scientists, historians, and philosophers to get to the bottom of this sordid story. I sat down with her to chat about the making of this exposé.

What made you decide to make this film?
There’s an urgent, lo-fi grittiness to this film because, in a lot of ways, I didn’t want to make it, but the story had to be told. In my previous films, I approached technology’s impact on humans, but I was still kind of optimistic about technology. Ghost in the Machine was a culmination of a lot of the things that I was tugging on [in] my work.

What were those things?
A friend signed me up for [OpenAI’s] Sora early artists access program. It was all so secretive, how they were secretly training this thing. I was trying to be open-hearted, and part of me was like, Wow, I can type “mountain” and there’s a mountain. As a filmmaker, that’s like gold dust. But then, the clouds gather instantly: hyper-sexualized depictions of women as a default, and socioeconomic, racist stereotypes—it was jarring. I tried talking to OpenAI about it. Long story short, I walked away like, Oh my god. Everybody is drinking the Kool-Aid. I started reading white papers and researching, trying to get context for why this gave me such ick and heartache. At the time, I didn’t know how to articulate what I was so angry about.

Were the connections to eugenics obvious from the start?
In the beginning, I just knew I had something to say about the misogynistic culture around big tech. Dan McQuillan, author of Resisting AI, is among the experts who contributed to the documentary. In one of our first interviews, he offhandedly mentioned that, of course, all of these things go back to eugenics. I was like, what? I started researching and was blown away—that there are these two tracks that stem from the late Victorian moment: one is the idea that intelligence is an externalizable feature around which you can categorize, rate, and create hierarchy. And then the other is the very structure of statistics—the algorithms of machine learning. People argue that “math is math,” but when you have causal agnostic mathematics, which is what statistics is, there’s no causal relation between two data points. There’s no y-axis.

The geneticists of New York State kept amazing records of all their letters—so many fundraising letters. They were obsessed with proving poverty and degradation are genetic, and they were also obsessed with raising money. They were convinced that poverty was race-based, and they were using statistics to prove it. That is now the math we have for machine learning. There’s something about the eugenics story that feels really important to highlight, because the rhetoric we’re encountering with these so-called artificial intelligences is really just a consolidation of wealth and power and compute.

Is there an identity forming around AI resistance? 
More and more. Since releasing this film, I’m seeing a massive crystallization of AI resistance. This movie creates a space where we can openly reject the crazy idea that machines can think. Because they can’t. As soon as we stop anthropomorphizing compute, we’ll have a clearer picture of how power operates, and what’s actually happening with our social institutions.

I feel like I’m seeing more awareness in the comment sections—people pushing back against the narrative that we’re all doomed. 
McQuillan’s concept of decomputing looks at ways individuals and companies can utilize local compute—you don’t need to process everything through an LLM. We need a different kind of understanding of what compute is.

But AI resistance is also actively being co-opted by big tech. Some AI doomers might look like they have things in common with AI resistance, but their whole point of view is that AI is going to become a super-intelligent godlike entity. It distracts from where the actual power sits and accommodates the actual harm being done—like horrifically racist predictive policing algorithms in justice systems. This isn’t existential; it is actual harm. These doomer groups get all of the funding and media attention, then issue vague statements about phoning your senator and regulating AI. It’s a waste of political will and energy. I think it will become increasingly clear where and how real AI resistance will be centralized and what it will look like. I think that by next year, we’ll look back at our 2024 and 2025 obsession with AI, and we’ll giggle. The limitations of these systems are already becoming clear. And in 10 years, certainly, it will be hilarious. 

It’s like a singularity becoming more dumb instead of becoming god. 
The statistical phenomenon is called “regression to the mean.” It’s partially the fault of its own one-dimensional math, always aggressively finding the middle, then reframing itself on that. That’s model collapse.

You probably get this all the time, but what can we do? 
I personally am trying to get a hold of communities and engineers in the spaces of the software companies I use and telling them that, as a user, I want to be able to say that at no time in the creation of this piece of media was the token engaged. The default now is to be opted in. It should be the other way around. 

I’m also trying to articulate what it means to have a workflow free of AI. That will look different for different industries and media, but I think that overall, not engaging a hyperscale data center in the production of your work and relying on local compute—and insisting on software that allows you to do that—is something we can all do. 

I realize when I talk, I sound like, take responsibility for yourself, don’t use AI, recycle your plastic bottles. And that is true. But we also need to challenge the power structures, the companies that make the plastic bottles. We can all work towards that. Creating space for conversations around AI refusal is what I can do. And I think it’s working. People tell me stories about successfully moving toward being AI-free companies. It’s important to give people confidence that not using this technology does not set you behind professionally. I think five years from now, not using AI will be what puts you at the top of your field. 

That’s a relief. 
But it’s scary how much the idea of AI superintelligence has become embedded. When the film was screening at Sundance, I made a bunch of “NOT AI” buttons to hand out. When I picked them up from the manufacturer, the person working there was like, “I’m worried about what AI will think of this button.” This is the degree to which the narrative has become embedded.

Do you see anything positive about AI… anything?
Not at all. It’s a whole-hog ideology to be rejected, mocked, and seen for what it is—a fabrication. Unfortunately, the idea itself is the most harmful thing about it—harmful to the way we understand and value each other in this world. It’s the thought crime of the century. Which is why it’s important to state, outright, that there’s nothing good that comes with this technology. Because it’s not real. Engaging in the idea at all, or in the language around it, just perpetuates the narrative. 

What do you want people to take away from the film?
Confidence that by refusing to use AI, you will get ahead professionally, instead of the big tech narrative that you lose out. And the narrative that all of this is inevitable. The kind of consolidation of power and the erosion of our political space is not inevitable. We can exercise our ability to have community and democracy. We can center care and mutual aid. We can ground ourselves in our lived experience. And that is something that they can’t take away from us. I hope people walk out of the film knowing, Of course, machines can’t think. AI is an invented concept. It’s not real. This is not inevitable.

Ghost in the Machine screens at SIFF May 10 at PACCAR IMAX Theater at Pacific Science Center and May 11 at SIFF Cinema Uptown

The post This Is Not Inevitable appeared first on The Stranger.

We’ve got the ingredients to a wonderful weekend, with cheap and easy things to do from Linda From Work, Dining Dead, Understater to West Seattle Community Garage Sale Day to a World Migratory Bird Day Celebration to Tilth Alliance’s May Edible Plant Sale. For more ideas, check out our top picks of the week.

LIVE MUSIC

Linda From Work, Dining Dead, Understater
Get stoked: Local garage rock/dance punk band Linda From Work wraps up a multi-week tour with a homecoming show at the Sunset. The quartet makes music “at the intersection of garage, glam and dance-punk,” delivering live performances full of electric guitar, powerhouse vocals, and headbanging. Dynamic art rock quintet Dining Dead and fuzzed out alt-rock trio Understater open the show, making for a night of music from groups full of badass women and femmes. Both Linda From Work and Understater have played Freakout Fest and Dining Dead performed at Capitol Hill Block Party last year, so I’m confident all three groups know how to get a crowd moving. This is the perfect show to launch you out of the work week and into the weekend. SHANNON LUBETICH
(Sunset Tavern, Ballard, $12-$15)

Read more on EverOut!

The post The Best Bang for Your Buck Events in Seattle This Weekend: May 8–10, 2026 appeared first on The Stranger.

I can’t be the only person with a family member who is a liability with customer service—be it checking in to a hotel or sending a dish back at a restaurant. For me, that person happens to be my beloved mom.

My Filipino mother Shellani is a self-described picky lady: choosy about what she wears and whom she spends time with, opinionated about the service she receives (in real time), and also very particular about where she eats and what she eats when she’s there. When eating out, my mom’s picky eating has created its fair share of consternation for me. I often find myself overcompensating with the waiters at a restaurant to prove that there are indeed sane people in this bloodline. Conversely, I’ve also been moved (unexpectedly) by the lessons I’d learn from my mom’s choices, just by trying to see things her way. And I’ll admit, she often has a point, especially when it comes to her preferences with Chinese BBQ.

In honor of Mother’s Day this month, I’m going to share with you a slice of those lessons via my mom’s (somewhat chaotic) list of favorite places to eat in Seattle, plus her go-to orders and pro tips as a picky mom.

Because there’s Asian Verified, and then there’s Asian Mom Verified.

Kau Kau
Generations of Seattle-area Asians and Asian-adjacents have patronized Kau Kau, mostly for its fluorescent red BBQ pork. But my mom has a different take. Because of her Filipino roots, when she thinks of Chinese BBQ, she goes for roast side pork belly—the poster child of crispy pork—similar in style to lechon kawali or moo krob, but certainly in a league of its own. And somehow slept on by the mainstream at spots like this. If your picky mom is turned off by the bright color of BBQ pork, Shellani invites her to the magic (and gout) of roast side pork.

Shellani is particular about how thick the pork is cut (she likes a clean bite), which is an issue for the experienced cleaver-wielder in charge of apportioning orders. “Too thin is bad for the skin,” the chef told us once, which at first sounded like an SPF hack more than the heeding he intended it to be. And yet, in pure Shellani style, she insists on the width she desires. (And she gets it!)

My mom’s pro-tip is to take her roast pork home so she can eat it with her Mang Tomas All-Purpose sauce, an IYKYK for Pinoys (she sometimes brings some in her purse if we’re gonna be driving around). Like mine, I’m sure your picky mom would also enjoy roast pork, and the no-brainer that is their garlic green beans, or their addictive pork fried rice—the color of which makes me know the chefs are going to heaven one day.

Mom’s Go-To Order: Half pound of roast side pork (the crispy shit, not the red joints), no sauces, eat rice at home.

MOTO Pizza
When Lee and Nancy opened the first MOTO Pizza in the “Up” house in the West Seattle Junction, my mom’s primary care doctor’s ears started burning. This is because MOTO and their refreshing, in-your-face approach to Detroit-style pizza would enamor this lady to no end.

Because let’s be clear, I’ve only seen my mom willingly wait in two types of lines: outside the Chanel store, and outside the MOTO Pizza.

Lee, who is also Filipino, has brought a brand of pizza to Seattle that at times makes Seattleites feel unworthy. These rectangle pies are seriously that good, and moreover, they transport your tastebuds to places and experiences that could only be summed up by knowing Lee himself. My mom’s proud to, at one time, have been on a first-name basis with Lee and Nancy in the era prior to MOTO’s pre-Mariner fame.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t the Filipino-inspired lechon kawali pie that hooked my mom, it was, in true picky fashion, the humble pepperoni, which for MOTO is beyond the standard of most pizza shops: piled on with the curly, cup type of pepperoni that pizza purists crave, dressed with thick lines of their red sauce, all atop the triumph that is their sourdough crust.

It doesn’t take a serious foodie to figure it out, your picky mom will love it, too.

Mom’s Go-To Order: Two pies, both pepperoni (it’s called meal prep).

Oriental Mart
I’m a good son, so periodically I take my mom to Pike Place Market to take pictures. On these pictorial journeys, a non-negotiable for Shellani is lumpia from O-Mart.

Oriental Mart is hidden in the B-side of Pike Place Market (that is, across the way from the building with the fish being thrown around). It’s a reverse Disneyland situation, where the gift shop is at the front of the store, with the real business in the back.

When you walk up, you’ll be confronted by a cacophony of printed-out photos of celebs posing with Auntie Lei, the honcho at O-Mart. There are dozens of colorful, handwritten paper signs that shape the personality of who’s cooking for and serving you, including quips like “We do not accept difficult customers, so know your role!” and “You can’t be making up your own price!”

This place was also a favorite of Anthony Bourdain and Andrew Zimmern. And for Pinoys, even Martin Nievera has written a personal note on the wall. This fact alone was enough to help my mom throw away the #PinoyPrejudice that comes with Filipinos sizing up their own culture’s food being sold to them.

It’s hard to fail with this tried-and-true menu, including favorites like salmon head sinigang (a sour soup often eaten over rice). But the best move for anyone, especially picky eaters, is to go for the lumpia litmus test. Because if you can impress anyone with anything, even a picky Pinay, it’s a good lumpia.

And O-Mart’s lumpia is like no other in a city with many variations. They take some time to cook, which is a good sign that the eggrolls are fried to order. By the time they finally arrive in your hands, encased in an oil-stained white paper sleeve for to-go orders, you’ll know it was worth the wait. The lumpias at O-Mart are long as fuck. Where many Filipinos cut down their lumpias to bite sized portions, O-Mart lets that thang fly. One order gets you three lightsaber sized lumpias that are as juicy as they are crisp.

For my mom, O-Mart lumpia is more important to secure at Pike Place than flower bouquets. 

Mom’s Go-To Order: Lumpia Shanghai, hold the chili sauce, and if she has it her way, a small bit of rice, too.

The post The Best Pizza, Pork, and Lumpia Spots appeared first on The Stranger.

For more than 30 years, Seattle Children’s Hospital has abided by a voluntary agreement with the Laurelhurst Community Council (LCC) and the city to restrict  which medevac helicopter flights carrying sick children can land directly at the hospital to the most serious cases.

A Reddit post last week brought this long-standing agreement to the public’s attention. A Stranger report this week showcased how, starting during the pandemic, the LCC had attempted to further reduce flights due to the noise and personal disruption it caused them.

On Friday, the day before a planned protest in the neighborhood, Seattle Children’s Hospital and the Laurelhurst Community Council released a joint statement saying “the Laurelhurst Community Council (LCC) has agreed to fully support Seattle Children’s as it seeks city approval to end the Medical Review Committee for helicopter landings.” In a statement, a spokesperson with Seattle Children’s said this would end oversight of helicopter activity.

Likely, that process will start by going through the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections (SDCI). The Stranger has reached out to SDCI for more information.

Huh, what a bit of public attention can do. The jury is still out on the strict no-parking policy for hospital workers in the Laurelhurst neighborhood, which has created a culture of car pooling and shuttle-busing. 

“I am grateful that there is a path forward to prioritize the needs of critically ill and acutely injured children,” said Mayor Katie B. Wilson in the statement. “This is the kind of solutions-focused partnership our city needs more of.”

You can pack up your pitchforks for now.

The post Laurelhurst Community Council Will Support Ending Policy that Reduces Helicopter Landings at Seattle Children’s Hospital appeared first on The Stranger.

Roadwork Nightmare Weekend: Roadwork will be paused during the FIFA World Cup, so crews must kick it into high gear this weekend. Closures will typically start late Friday night and extend until early Monday morning. The impacted roads are: 

• I-405 southbound from Coal Creek Parkway in Bellevue to North 30th Street in Renton.
• Eastbound Highway 520 between I-5 to Montlake Boulevard.
• Northbound Highway 99 First Avenue South Bridge. 
• I-405 northbound and southbound ramps at Northeast 85th Street in Kirkland. 
• Oh, and the light rail between the airport and Rainier Beach is shutting down for repairs on Saturday and Sunday. Enjoy!

Save the Trains: Sound Transit is in a $38 million hole and is trying to scrap a bunch of light rail lines promised in the ST3 plan voters approved in 2016. At a board meeting Thursday, people rallied to try to save the stations on the chopping block in a cost-saving project list Sound Transit published last week. The current plan cuts the three stations promised to Ballard, but Sound Transit threw them a bone and pinky swore it would at least build out a Seattle Center to Ballard line. West Seattle’s Avalon Station is dead. So are stations at Graham Street in South Seattle, and Boeing Access Road in Tukwila. Plus, a lot of stations that impact the suburbs. Oh, and ST3 now won’t be completed until 2052, 26 years from now. Hooray?

Big News for Whistle Whetters: Happy Drinking Water Week, Seattle! To celebrate, Seattle Public Utilities put in seven new water bottle-refill stations. Now, you can keep your gullet lubricated as God intended. That’ll be great for the World Cup fans wandering around downtown. That is, if they actually show up…

A World Cup for Ghosts: Hotel bookings for the FIFA World Cup are “below expectations,” according to a survey of American Hotel and Lodging Association members. Not only are the bookings below World Cup forecasts, they’re also lower than a typical Seattle summer.

Lucky Strike Out: A Seattle man is leading a class-action lawsuit against Lucky Strike Entertainment, the parent company behind the Lucky Strike bowling alleys, for making bowling more expensive and worse.

The Weather: Kinda the same as yesterday. So, not as warm nor as sunny as we have come to expect after being teased and tricked by a few 70 degree days. How could we have fallen for this? We live here. We know. We know. Sweaters again.

Pistol Shipped: The Trump administration wants to let people mail handguns, something that’s been illegal since Congress passed a law banning the practice in 1927. But the Justice Department thinks that law violates the Second Amendment. Let the people mail their handguns! It’s the only way they can use their own guns while traveling since laws make it complicated to carry a gun across state lines. Around two dozen state attorneys generals have opposed the rule change. Hm. Perhaps they’re afraid of making it easier to… go postal. Or, do they not want postmen to be able to defend themselves against dogs?

Jim Crow Returns: With the Supreme Court doing away with the a major part of the Voting Rights Act, southern states like Tennessee are hastily gerrymandering voting maps to silence Black voters. The city of Memphis—the last Democratic district in the state—is now split into three districts; Nashville, which had previously been gerrymandered to hell, is now split further into five districts. The redrawn maps “further dilute the power of minority voters,” Mother Jones reports. Martin Luther King Jr.’s son, Martin Luther King III, wrote in a letter to Tennessee lawmakers that the maps would “take this nation back to the days of Jim Crow.” Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina are also considering redrawing their maps before the midterms. “Louisiana v. Callais decision could lead to the largest drop in Black representation in the South since the end of Reconstruction.”

Sure, Why Not? Microsoft signed a 20-year power purchase agreement from Constellation Energy to power its insatiable AI data centers. Constellation operates a little place known as Three Mile Island. Maybe you’ve heard of it? Yes, Microsoft is restarting the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor—which will be getting a name change, too—and it is “the first time a nuclear reactor in the US has been recommissioned after closure,” the Guardian reports and it’ll make the Pennsylvania economy go gangbusters. Fingers crossed about the whole meltdown thing.

Support Those Children, Says State Department: The US State Department is going to start revoking passports of parents who owe child support today. Okay? I can think of … at least three other groups I expected the US State Department to steal passports from first. The feds are going to start with parents who owe $100,000 or more—a total of 2,700 people, dads, if I had to guess—and expand the program to anyone $2,500 or more behind on child support, a threshold set in a rarely-enforced 1996 law. We have no clue how many people that would be because Health and Human Services is still collecting that data. The State Department claims that after the AP first reported this policy change in February, “hundreds of parents took action and resolved their arrears.”

Ka$h: “Would a man who has lost control of the FBI do this?” asked FBI director Kash Patel as he ordered polygraphs for more than two dozen current and former members of his team in a desperate attempt to figure out if they had leaked information to reporters. Like that tidbit about him giving out self-branded whiskey bottles. According to reporters, Patel is panicked that more bad press could cost him his job.

Ah, the Art of Misdirection: The Pentagon is releasing a bunch of new UFO files, saying the public can draw their own conclusions.

Parents Rejecting Shot to Help Babies’ Blood Clot: In 2024, around 5 percent of newborns in the US didn’t receive a vitamin K shot. The shots are administered at birth because vitamin K deficiency frequently causes fatal brain bleeds in newborns. The standard practice had all but eliminated these deaths. Except, recently, due to misinformation online and from Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Department of Health and Human Services, parents have been rejecting the shot and their babies are dying.

Finals Week Win: Canvas, the grading software used by the majority of US universities, got hacked by the pay or leak extortion group ShinyHunters during finals week at many schools. Canvas was down at 9,000 US schools, including the University of Washington, on Thursday,  and “compromised the personal identifying information of 275 million people, including students, teachers, and staff,” reports Inside Higher Ed.

The post Slog AM: Your Bad Dad Can’t Leave the Country, We Can Finally Send Handguns in the Mail, and Are World Cup Fans Ghosting Seattle?  appeared first on The Stranger.