Dear Hendrix,

It’s 4 a.m., and I can’t sleep.

Soon, I’ll have to walk out of our apartment door and head to the KEXP radio station, where I do my daily Early Show. It’s Monday morning after a long weekend. I’m going to start the show at 5 a.m. with a tune from Mozart. It’s Mozart Monday—a regular thing for me. But I don’t feel happy about anything right now.

When I finally arrive at work around 4:30 a.m., something feels off. It’s eerie, uncomfortable. It somehow even smells different down here at Seattle Center, where the station is located. It’s as if the whole area is sitting in some sort of stasis. You can feel the fact that a mass shooting took place less than 12 hours ago. Henny, I try to keep these letters to you light, fun, and upbeat. I love telling you about an old flame or how to play a rock show. But this morning, that feels impossible. I can’t help but think about our common reality. How guns too often rule the day. It’s not just in Seattle, either. All over the country, people are senselessly dying from bullets.

Sunday night’s shooting took place during the Bite of Seattle, a music and food festival. According to reports, two young people shot at each other in the middle of a very crowded Seattle Center. They killed three people. They also injured several others, including a 2-year-old child. (Henny, as I write this, you are two years old.) Sadly, this isn’t the first mass shooting in the city, and it won’t be the last. In America, we see a mass shooting just about every day. We are the only country that lives this way.

Hendrix, I’m sorry that you live in this type of world. I am sorry we brought you into such a violent place. And I’m sorry it feels there is nothing we can do to change it. That it feels like if Seattle Center can be turned into a mini war zone, any place can.

America has a gun problem. America has a mental health problem. America has a lack-of-opportunities problem, too. We aren’t the only country with issues, but this is the only country I live in. This is my home. And it’s a scary place to be.

I don’t think every gun on Earth should be thrown into a volcano. I’m not against gun ownership. I myself have a concealed carry permit. I’m a member of an all-Black gun club, and I even pay yearly dues on that membership. I believe in the right to bear arms, as people like Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale have written about, to protect yourself and your family. But we also have a right to safety.

Second Amendment nuts have contributed to a culture where calm, safe, and serene places like libraries, churches, and food and music festivals feel like war zones. This is the world we live in. A world where, 12 hours after the mass shooting, you can still feel people’s screams, the pain of senseless violence and lost life heavy in the air.

Something needs to change. We owe you that much, Henny.

I love you.

Mom

Eva Walker is a writer, a KEXP DJ, one-half of the rock duo The Black Tones, and mom to her baby girl, Hendrix. She also cowrote the book The Sound of Seattle: 101 Songs That Shaped a City, which was released in 2024. Every month for The Stranger, she writes a letter to Hendrix to share wisdom learned from her experiences—and her mistakes. Read all installments here.

The post Dear Hendrix appeared first on The Stranger.

Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson and Seattle Police Department leaders said during two Monday press conferences that yesterday’s deadly shooting at Seattle Center was the result of three people shooting at each other and hitting bystanders.

Wilson said at an 11 am press conference that a 15-year-old is being held at King County’s youth jail for a firearm offense and first-degree assault, and will make a first appearance in court today at 1:30 pm.

At a second press conference Monday at 4 pm, Mayor Wilson echoed prior court filings that said one of the deceased, a 19-year-old man, was one of the shooters.

Police Chief Shon Barnes said at the earlier press conference that police were still searching for another shooter, but the department has not yet identified who that person is. Barnes said a SWAT team searched the Seattle Center yesterday searching for another shooter, but found no one.

Barnes said witnesses should report what they saw to SPD’s tipline, and Mayor Wilson said investigators are checking footage from Seattle Center security cameras.

As for a motive, SPD’s Assistant Chief of Investigations Nicole Powell said Tuesday afternoon that the department believes the violence could be gang related, and that the 15-year-old in custody and deceased 19-year-old were associates.

Seattle Fire Department Chief Harold Scoggins says two men, aged 19 and 44, died on the scene, and a 56-year-old woman died of her injuries at Harborview Medical Center. The King County Medical Examiner identified the victims Tuesday afternoon as Junior Cee Niko Semo, 19, Carlos Israel Sanchez Villalba, 44, and Ashley Whitehead, 56.

Two women, aged 40 and 39, and a 23-year-old man transported to Harborview on Sunday have since been discharged. A two-year-old boy remains at the hospital in “satisfactory” condition.

A 27-year-old man also showed up to UW Medical Center’s Montlake campus last night with a gunshot wound and was later discharged. SPD is still investigating whether his injuries were related to the Seattle Center shooting.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated with new information from a second press conference this afternoon.

The post UPDATE: SPD Says 15-year-old in Custody After Gunfight at Seattle Center Kills Three, Including Second Shooter appeared first on The Stranger.

MONDAY 7/27

Black Moth Super Rainbow, Giant Day

(MUSIC) Since 2003, Pittsburgh’s Black Moth Super Rainbow have been creating some of the finest honey-glazed, weird-dream soundtracks in the USA. If you like rock music that sounds as if it’s being filtered through clouds of DMT haze and sung by a wonderstruck waif, BMSR will set your wheelhouse on fire. Back in 2009 in these pages, I wrote, “BMSR’s songs are concise and hooky, but peculiarly out of focus, smeared into a hazier dimension via technology—and a creator—that seems imbued with an otherworldly spirit.” Led by a singular presence named Tobacco, BMSR write uniquely warped and catchy songs—some unbelievably tender, some grotesquely sinister, some absurdly ebullient. Their newest LP, 2025’s aptly titled Soft New Magic Dream, doesn’t disorient like their first three albums did (“Tastebud” is an exception), but it still casts an oneiric spell. (Showbox, 8pm, all ages) DAVE SEGAL

Dark Room x Streamline Tavern

(FOOD) Dark Room’s chef/owner, Amy Beaumier, is staging a takeover of the kitchen hole at the divey old Streamline, bringing her signature Korean bites with some added Latin ’zazz—and vice versa. Some menu excerpts include mole-glazed popcorn chicken with yuj-scallion aioli (fuck!), birria tteokbokki (fuuuuuuuuck), and kimchi-pimento esquites (Beecher’s cheddar, Kewpie mayo, piquillo peppers, pickled jalapeños, and cilantro served over corn kernels with tortilla chips for scoopin’). Beaumier also famously excels at the art of the glizzy; this one will be loaded up with gochujang refried beans, chorizo, queso fresco, and kimchi salsa and served on a housemade milk-bread bun. There’ll also be a craft cocktail and a wacky Jell-O shot, TBA, and they’ll be selling shots of Rezpiral Mezcal, made by a fair-trade cooperative of small-scale artisanal mezcaleros, for $15 apiece. Beaumier is a frequent collaborator with Streamline’s bar manager, Matt Pachmayr—the impresario behind the wildly creative pop-up No Call No Show—and the cocktail, whatever it is, will very probably go crazy. (Streamline Tavern, 5pm) MEG VAN HUYGEN

TUESDAY 7/28

of Montreal, Sloppy Jane

(MUSIC) I’ve seen of Montreal live three times, and this month, I won’t miss the chance to do it again. The first time I saw them was a whole 20 years ago at Bumbershoot 2006, where Kevin Barnes was surely part of my journey to figuring out just how queer I am. Then again in 2010, when the band was collaborating closely with Janelle Monáe, and they were small enough that they were touring as of Montreal’s opener. And the third time was in 2018 at the Knockdown Center in Bushwick, where someone in a Spiderman costume crowdsurfed and twerked while standing on people’s hands (remember pre-2020?). And my fourth will be at Neumos. Their new album, aethermead, brings it back to their early-2000s era, before any of us knew what a President DJT was, so it’s a perfect time to pack into a club and twerk while standing on people’s hands. This year of our lord 2026 needs more of Montreal. (Neumos, 7pm, 21+) HANNAH MURPHY WINTER

WEDNESDAY 7/29

Public Grains’ Vegetarian Farmer’s Market Sandwich

(FOOD) My summer crush is Public Grains’ vegetarian Farmer’s Market Sandwich, available every Wednesday and Sunday at Wallingford and Ballard Farmers’ Markets, respectively. It is perfection. It starts with freshly baked fermented focaccia that is chewy, bouncy, and tender. They could just give me a hunk of that and send me on my way and I’d be happy. But no, they make it into a sandwich the size of a small child’s head, stuffed with a pile of roasted winter squash, cabbage slaw, and both a gorgonzola crema and garlic aioli that punch you in the mouth simultaneously but in different ways. Boom! Pow! The gorgonzola hits you first—sharp and pungent—and then the garlic comes in, and just as you start to think it’s too much, the sweet earthiness of the roasted vegetables, caramelized to the point that they taste almost like candy, smooths out the edges. (Public Grains) MEGAN SELING

THURSDAY 7/30

Marcos Valle, Fabiano do Nascimento

(MUSIC) Born in Rio de Janeiro in 1943, Marcos Valle is one of those rare musicians who’s remained artistically and physically vital into his 80s. The Brazilian legend popularized bossa nova in the ’60s and then expanded his repertoire to embrace samba, rock, soul, funk, and jazz, making him a towering figure of MPB (Música Popular Brasileira). He’s a suave synthesist of styles, bringing a lovely lightness and danceability to his sophisticated compositions. And unlike with most aging musicians, Valle’s later albums have maintained lofty quality control; check out 2024’s lusciously groovy Túnel Acústico for proof. His last Seattle show a couple of years ago proved that this octogenarian still has energy and creativity to burn. (Neptune Theatre, 8pm, all ages) DAVE SEGAL

FRIDAY 7/31

Lotus L. Kang: I hear the hollow boom of time

(VISUAL ART) Deep within the Frye, there’s a curious contraption: a delicate, industrial light- and color-casting machine made of yards and yards of 35-mm film spooled around a motorized, powder-coated steel-and-aluminum frame that slowly turns, scattering the soft glow of stage lights through amber film. All of Kang’s work is rooted in photography; it feels birthed in a Wonderland-like darkroom where everything is wondrously oversized and photographic processes have been deconstructed and turned into something totally new. Even her “paintings” are made using darkroom chemicals instead of paint. The pièce de résistance is Molt, an installation made of massive reams of unfixed, photosensitive film draped like scrolls over steel rods and suspended with aircraft cables. They’re beautiful as objects, but even more sublime as archives of material memory, continually color-shifting and image-changing over time—sometimes for years—responding to their environment. (Frye Art Museum) AMANDA MANITACH

SATURDAY 8/1

Flock Fiber Festival

(FESTIVAL) As an obsessive knitter, my favorite weekend of the year is Flock Fiber Festival, which could be considered the Coachella of the Pacific Northwest fiber arts scene. Knitters, crocheters, weavers, and other fiber artists from far and wide congregate at this annual yarn show to caress and coo over gorgeous skeins from a variety of vendors. Attendees can also grow their skills with expert-led classes and connect with fellow fiber lovers at community events. I’m excited to check out the colorful indie dyer Superglō Fiber, the witchy Portland-based shop Ritual Dyes, Bellingham’s yarn-world-famous “sheep-to-skein” spinners Spincycle Yarns, Montana-based producer the Farmer’s Daughter Fibers, pastel-hued Brooklyn brand the Wandering Flock, the cool-girl stitch marker supplier Mabel & Jess, and so much more. Stock up on supplies for some fun, cozy projects to see you through the Seattle fall and winter. (Seattle Convention Center Summit Building, 10am–5pm, all ages) JULIANNE BELL

SUNDAY 8/2

Poppy – Constantly Nowhere Tour

(MUSIC) Moriah Rose Pereira is better known by her stage name and internet persona, Poppy. With a self-described “kawaii Barbie child” aesthetic, she rose to fame making satirical YouTube videos depicting herself as a Stepford Wives-esque character commenting on Internet culture and social media trends. Poppy expanded her reach into the music world with the release of a bubbly, synthy debut record dripping with J-pop and K-pop influences in 2017, but her sound has changed drastically since. Her two latest albums could easily be classified as heavy metal, and she earned a Grammy nom for Best Metal Performance for a collab with hardcore punk band Knocked Loose in 2024. Poppy rips through town supporting her seventh full-length record, Empty Hands, before jetting off to support Evanescence on the European leg of their tour. (Paramount Theatre, 7pm, all ages) SHANNON LUBETICH

⚡ Prizefight! ⚡

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The post Stranger Suggests: Your Agenda This Week, July 27–August 2 appeared first on The Stranger.

Goooood morning. Today we have to talk about gun violence. In a weekend slated to be full of art fairs and food festivals, at least nine people were shot in two different shootings, and three people were killed. We all know this, but let’s say it out loud: This isn’t normal. The Second Amendment does not trump the right to survive in public. It should not be this easy to end a life. 

Let’s do the news. 

Mass Shooting at Seattle Center: During the last hours of the Bite of Seattle, at least one gunman opened fire in the crowd near the Armory. They killed three people, and injured four more. Police haven’t released any of their names, but one of the injured is a 2-year-old boy. 

As of this morning, three of the injured victims have been released from Harborview. The toddler is still at the hospital. One suspected shooter is in custody, and SPD is still looking for a second person they believe was involved. “There may be more,” Assistant Police Chief Tyrone said. “We’re still trying to figure this out.” Based on the weapons found at the scene, SPD believes the gunmen were trying to shoot at each other. If you witnessed the shooting, they want to talk to you at 206-233-5000. 

Information moved too slowly last night. Seattle police didn’t hold a news conference until almost 11 p.m.—leaving the public with just one vague update to “please avoid the area” for almost five hours. A Seattle Police Department spokesperson told KOMO that the conference was delayed because some dignitaries wanted to attend the news conference. Representative Pramila Jayapal attended the late-night conference, as well as Mayor Katie Wilson. 

Seattle Center is still closed to the public while vendors come back to close up their stands. The Pacific Science Center is closed today as well. If you have tickets for anything at the museum today, they’ll be automatically refunded. 

More Gun Violence: Late on Friday night, two people were shot on Capitol Hill at Pike and 11th—one at A-Pizza Mart and another at Wildrose. Based on security footage, police think the victims were innocent bystanders of a shootout between people on the street. They’re both in stable condition. 

In Less Horrifying Crime News: Two men bought tickets for the Space Needle on Friday night, rode the elevator up, went out onto the observation deck, climbed over the glass wall, and parachuted off of it. They landed safely on the ground, and didn’t appear to hurt anyone else. Police would like to charge them with first-degree criminal trespassing, but they haven’t been able to find them.  

It’s Officially Jimothy Summer: Is a meme still a meme if our local government endorses it? Yesterday, near the Ballard Farmer’s Market, Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck declared Summer 2026 “Jimothy Summer.” The event included a call-and-response of “round” and “boi,” and a Jimothy art competition. The winner was a Saint Jimothy stained glass piece, but I’m partial to the delightfully round Jimothy piñata. 

Weather: It’s warming up a little today. Expect highs in the upper 70s, partly cloudy, you know the drill.

Fucked Around, Finding Out: Economists are sounding the immigration alarm again. On Monday morning, in the name of “protecting American jobs,” the Trump administration will revoke about 350,000 immigrants’ work permits, with another 190,000 expected to get pulled in September. All of these workers, largely from Haiti and El Salvador, were protected under the humanitarian Temporary Protected Status program until last month when the Supreme Court gave Trump the OK to end it. But it turns out losing half a million workers isn’t good news for the American economy. The US Chamber of Commerce is lobbying Congress to push back. Even Republican elected officials in Florida and Ohio are calling it a “mistake.” 

If you remember one quote from the NYT story about Temporary Protected Status, let it be this from Stephen Miller: 

Stephen Miller, an architect of Mr. Trump’s immigration agenda, was asked after the T.P.S. ruling if Haiti is safe.

“For Haitians? Absolutely,” Mr. Miller said. “Haitians live in Haiti. It’s not our position that Haitians should leave Haiti. It’d be crazy for us to say that Haitians couldn’t live in Haiti. It’s their country.”

Haiti has been engulfed in violence since the assassination of its last elected president in 2021. Large swaths of the capital Port-au-Prince are controlled by gangs that have attacked, kidnapped and killed civilians, causing the internal displacement of more than one million people. The country’s economy is in ruins, and international aid organizations report widespread food insecurity.

Trump Tries to Hide the Cost of War: The Pentagon has changed how they report deaths in the Iran War, splitting them into categories on two separate webpages in an apparent effort to hide the total number of lives lost. As of today, 18 Americans have been killed in the war with Iran. One website logs the deaths in Operation Epic Fury, tallied at 14. Another logs “Overseas operations casualties starting July 7, 2026,” which includes the other four. Sean Parnell, the chief Pentagon spokesman, said any claims that the Pentagon was trying to conceal the total number of deaths were “fabrications.” Sure. 

Has your Spotify rotation gotten sloppy? Spotify is getting overrun by AI slop, and the company has so far refused to actively mark when music is AI-generated. If you’re tired of it, SoullessMusic.com and SlopTracker can help you weed out the BS. (Or, even better, join the “Luddite Gnomes” and go back to physical media.)

The post Slog AM: At Least Nine People Were Shot in Seattle This Weekend, Jimothy Got His Own Art Contest, and Stephen Miller Continues to Be Terrible appeared first on The Stranger.

Since TPUSA founder Charlie Kirk was shot and killed at Utah Valley University last September, his widow Erika Kirk has taken over as the right-wing, youth-focused organization’s CEO and spiritual voice. Much of the time, she is on the road—moving from White House appearances, to book tours, to guest segments on right-wing media, to speaking engagements, to stops on her 25-city, national “Make Heaven Crowded” tour.

This evening, the tour will bring her just outside of Seattle, at the Kirkland campus of Pursuit NW, one of the fastest growing evangelical empires in the Pacific Northwest. As I reported in June, Pursuit hired pastors Ross Johnston and Jay Koopman, two prominent evangelical figures with histories of anti-LGBTQ activism, Christian nationalist organizing, and close ties to powerful dominionist networks and the Trump White House.

Tonight’s lineup includes TPUSA Faith senior director Lucas Miles, former actress and “Girls Gone Bible” podcast host Arielle Reitsma, Johnston, and Pursuit’s founder, Russell Johnson.

For locals, the question isn’t really about who’s coming—Charlie Kirk’s death made Erika Kirk into a household name. It’s why here, to the secular Pacific Northwest, and why now? 

The “why here” is clear. The Seattle metro area’s secularity is actually part of the draw for TPUSA, which has a well-worn playbook for visiting deep-blue, non-Christian strongholds to generate friction. The local backlash, counter protests, and media coverage feeds a ready-made narrative of persecution that plays well to the base back home. 

Few things unify the right faster than a visible left-wing protest. The splashier, the better for the right. The event follows a Patriot Front march through Kirkland on July 11, and comes a week after Secretary of State Marco Rubio and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller used a State Department conference to reframe “far-left political terrorism” as a top security priority—rhetoric that’s already translating into new visa restrictions. It builds on NSPM-7 (which lists “anti-Christian” views as an indicator of left-wing terrorism), a directive broadening the government’s definition of politically motivated extremism in ways critics say could sweep in ordinary protest activity.

Right-wingers have staged confrontational events in Seattle for some time now. Take right-wing Evangelical worship leader Sean Feucht, who performed music and proselytized at the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest in 2020. He planned to return to Cal Anderson Park last year, but the city moved him to Gas Works Park after the Mayday fallout. (In that case, the concert was a bust. Feucht didn’t get the charged reaction he wanted, he was mocked by, in some cases, literal clowns.) Johnson and Johnston were in attendance at these Christian nationalist pop-up worship events that plant their events in LGBTQ friendly, progressive cities. Claiming Christian dominion while casting queer people as the enemy, the Mayday tour stop led by Johnston and the multilevel marketer turned New Apostolic Reformation Apostle Jenny Donnelly at Cal Anderson Park in May of 2025 resulted in mass arrests of Seattle locals. 

To that end, Pursuit NW is an obvious ally in this region for Erika. The church’s founder was friends with Charlie Kirk—he is due to speak at the TPUSA “Faith Forward Pastors’ Summit” in late August—and that they share influential friends in Washington DC. Paula White-Cain, who leads the White House Faith Office, spoke at Pursuit last year and called the church “the tip of the spear” in the spiritual warfare fight—language that places Pursuit inside the same political-religious network that shapes the administration’s approach to faith and culture. It’s a meaningful credential for Erika Kirk and TPUSA to align with. 

But the “why now” is more puzzling. TPUSA is fundamentally a conservative youth organizing machine, and this tour runs through the high-stakes midterm elections in November. Generally speaking, Republicans are souring on Israel. Polls from Pew and Gallup show support is still high, but falling, especially among people under 50. The extreme right in particular is splitting over imperial questions about America’s involvement with Israel and antisemitic belief in an international Jewish conspiracy. And this tour does not appear to be designed to paper over that rift.

Leaders in the Charismatic movement such as Johnson, Johnston, and White-Cain are pro-Israel, and have run cover for the country’s actions in Gaza and the West Bank. They believe the ongoing genocide is all part of God’s plan to usher in the end times and seem to have little interest in the death and destruction Israel has inflicted on the Palestinian people. On a trip to Israel in October 2025, Johnston posed for a photo in front of a banner that read “Make Gaza Jewish Again.”  

Opposite Christian Zionists are the antisemitic leaders in the nationalist wing like Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson, and Nick Fuentes. They believe that Israel is evil and regularly lean into antisemitism and antisemetic conspiracy. 

Both of these camps exist in today’s Republican party, and when Charlie Kirk was alive, he was a master at balancing them both. Kirk would bring together voices from (nearly) all camps under the TPUSA banner for their annual conference AmFest.

Matthew Taylor, visiting scholar in religious studies, theology, and American religion, with a specialization in American Islam, Christian nationalism, and Christian extremism at the Center for Faith and Justice at Georgetown University, says Kirk’s singular role is what has made the fight over his legacy so bitter.

But Erika has yet to thread that needle. In fact, her actions—speaking against antisemitism when asked, talking about her trips to Israel as “the Bible coming to life in technicolor,” and her open battle with nationalists like Candance Owens—suggest she isn’t mediating at all. 

She appears to be most comfortable with Christian Zionists and Christian Zionist congregations. Johnson is not only the leader of a Christian Zionist congregation, he’s the Washington state director of Christians United for Israel. As Taylor put it “Erika is the kind of Catholic that hangs with evangelicals” and that her stance could be shaped by those around her, noting that “some of the other leaders in the TPUSA constellation have very strong ideological commitments to Israel.” 

The youth vote in the last presidential election was heavily driven by the TPUSA engine through a “ballot chasers” turnout program, campus based organizing in swing states that coincided with a marked rightward shift among young voters, who backed Trump over Harris by a much narrower margin (47 percent to 51 percent) than they had backed Biden over Trump in 2020 (36 percent to 61 percent). 

So, it’s unclear how TPUSA and Kirk will try to bridge this gap and turn the tide. As the event tonight and the rest of the tour is playing to people who already align with Christian Zionism, not the youth moving away from historic conservative support for Israel. But that brings us back to the “why here.” A divided movement, split over Israel, over Kirk’s legacy, over strategy has every incentive to rally around a shared enemy. A confrontation in Kirkland this week could do more to paper over TPUSA’s internal rifts than anything Erika Kirk says from the stage.

I reached out to Pursuit NW for a comment with no response. TPUSA initially responded however after I sent my questions, radio silence.

Local organizers are planning to protest tonight’s event, and Taylor warns they may be walking into exactly what TPUSA wants. The playbook is familiar: provoke a visible confrontation, film it, push it across social media, let Fox News amplify it, and use it as proof of left-wing hostility towards Christians. This playbook has been long tried and tested by the likes of Feucht.

“Left-wing protest organizations really need to be thoughtful about how they stage protests right now,” Taylor said. “They are using it to full effect as much as they can, trying to label anything that they can left-wing terrorism.”

For organizers weighing whether to show up in Kirkland today, the calculation isn’t just about making a point. It’s about whether making that point, right now, plays directly into a script written by people who are actively looking for a reason to escalate. 

The post Erika Kirk’s TPUSA Tour Lands in Kirkland appeared first on The Stranger.

After a 10-year hiatus, the city’s best art party is back!  The Stranger‘s Genius Awards return on September 12 at the Moore Theatre and past-Genius Award winners Shabazz Palaces is playing! 

What are the Genius Awards?

From 2003 until 2016, The Stranger awarded the city’s most innovative freaks with a cash prize, a big feature in our print paper, and a night in the limelight. From Cherdonna Shinatra to Scarecrow Video, we made a point to give Seattle visionaries their flowers. And an iconic/shitty cake we bought at the grocery store. 

And now we’re bringing it back! This year, we’re awarding six $10,000 (!!!) grants to recipients representing the best Seattle has to offer in Film, Food, Literature, Music, Performance, and Visual Art. 

The Stranger’s small but mighty arts team (Audrey Vann, Julianne Bell, Amanda Manitach, headed up by yours truly) have been comparing lists with our beloved arts writers: Dave Segal, Bess Lovejoy, Meg van Huygen, Jas Keimig, Michael Wong, and Katie Lee Ellison. We’ve yapped, we’ve researched, we’ve looked, we’ve listened, we’ve discussed, and we’re getting really excited to start dumping this money on six outstanding members of Seattle’s cultural community, no strings attached. Because we truly believe that art fucking matters. 

As of right now, our choices are top secret, but stay tuned for the reveal in our fabulous Fall Arts / Genius Issue (on stands September 2). And then, we celebrate! 

The Genius Awards VIP pre-party begins at 5:30 p.m., and doors are at 6:30 p.m. Enjoy tunes spun by DJ Erik Blood (who is also a past Genius Award winner!) to welcome you to the evening. The awards show runs from 7:30–8:30 p.m., hosted by the lovely Miss Texas 1988. Shabazz Palaces headlines the event from 9–10 p.m., followed by a DJ dance-party in the basement with DJ La Mala Noche until 11 p.m. LFG!

I think it would be fun if we dressed up, Seattle, what do you think? Personally, I’m aiming for something between an opulent magician and Miss Scarlet from the 1985 Clue movie. 

Limited VIP tickets available now. Get them here. 

The post The Stranger’s Genius Awards are Back, Baby! appeared first on The Stranger.

A beautiful July weekend is in the cards with cheap and cheerful events to match, from the Jimothy the Seattle Raccoon Proclamation & Art Competition to a Jimothy Rave and from Georgetown Pride to the Bite of Seattle. For more ideas, check out our top picks of the week.

FRIDAY

LIVE MUSIC

CatFest 2026 ft: Lichen Hearts, Filthy Traitors, Skates!, Straight to Video
Not to be confused with CatVideoFest (that’s next month), CatFest is an annual concert featuring local feline-loving bands that raises money for Seattle Area Feline Rescue, a nonprofit no-kill rescue that helps stray cats find homes. Queer guitar-and-drum duo the Lichen Hearts bring their riot grrrl energy and some new songs to the stage; Seattle “murder punk” band Filthy Traitors plays a set fresh off their Fourth Corner Punk Fest performance in Bellingham; pop-punk squad Straight To Video promises fast riffs and energetic shouting; and surf-pop trio Skates! has an Instagram page littered with cat pics so you know their hearts are in it. Speaking of “littered,” the organizers say they’re not doing cat puns (sorry I couldn’t resist) and ask that you leave your pets at home since cats don’t love loud noises. SHANNON LUBETICH
(Sunset Tavern, Ballard, $12-$15)

Read more on EverOut!

The post The Best Bang for Your Buck Events in Seattle This Weekend: July 24–26, 2026 appeared first on The Stranger.

Kenmore Air Plane Crash: A seaplane flying from Seattle to Roche Harbor in the San Juan Islands had to make an emergency landing in a bay near Sucia Island. After landing, the plane caught fire, and pieces of the plane had fallen off. All 11 people on board survived, though four people were injured and one was in critical condition. The cause of the crash is unknown. Kenmore Air cancelled all flights on Friday.

Drones Please: The Seattle Fire Department would like to acquire some drones to assist in specific situations such as “building fires, brush fires, water rescues, mass casualty events, technical rescues, and hazardous materials and energy responses,” reports The Seattle Times. Maybe the drones could carry life preservers or tools to victims in need, Chief Harold Scoggins said. To get these new surveillance toys, SFD needs approval from Seattle City Council and the Mayor. To mitigate security concerns, SFD says the drone will point its cameras horizontally until it arrives at the scene, and the footage won’t be retained. If you feel any type of way about this, you can fill out this survey or send an email to the city here. 

Grant County Fire: A 680-acre fire forced evacuations in the towns of Beverly and Schwana. Seven homes have been destroyed. 

A Lil’ 180: Three of the council members who voted for the controversial amendment to delay universal free meals at Seattle Public Schools—Council President Joy Hollingsworth and Councilmembers Dionne Foster and Dan Strauss—announced they would find money in the general fund to start the free meal program this coming school year after seemingly every person on Bluesky bullied them about their votes. Stranger contributor Guy Oron has more here. 

Life after Seattle: Longtime Seattle urban planner and former city council candidate Cathy Tuttle now lives in the Netherlands and paints beautiful watercolor postcards of the bike culture there. It gets better!

The Weather: It should be sunny and hot, but not too hot. Well, maybe too hot for some. But it for sure won’t be sweltering. 

Trolley Problem: Washington representatives in Congress proposed legislation to make it easier to kill pinnipeds—seals and sea lions—to aid salmon recovery. Pinnipeds eat salmon, so killing them would help the fourteen species of salmon and steelhead trout in Washington deemed at risk of extinction, right? Well, ecosystems are a bit more complicated than that. Predation is just one small piece of the pie, and easing restrictions on the Marine Mammal Protection Act to waste some baby seals won’t solve everything, critics say. Climate change, habitat loss, and pollution are bigger threats. 

In Jimothy News: Gov. Bob Ferguson named the beloved wonky raccoon “Washingtonian of the Day” on Thursday. He’s going to be in World of Warcraft. Google gave him his own easter egg and he will scamper across your screen if you search “Jimothy raccoon.” The Trump White House discovered Jimothy and tweeted a photo of him with a red MAGA-style hat on his head-body that reads “TRUMP WAS RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING.” I do not think Jimothy actually wore this hat and highly suspect it was doctored. 

Subpoenas Dropped: In response to a US District Court judge’s ruling, the Justice Department withdrew subpoenas seeking phone records and testimony from the New York Times reporters who wrote about the security capabilities, or lack thereof, of Donald Trump’s new Quatari-built Air Force One jet. The Times saw the subpoenas as an intimidation tactic. That’s all they amounted to—questioning from the US District Court judge revealed factual errors, omissions, and irregularities in the Justice Department’s legal filing. The judge ruled the government could subpoena reporters again in the future, but it must follow appropriate procedures. 

Welcome Back, Juan Ponce de León: Brian Johnson, the millionaire who injected himself with his son’s vibrant, 17-year-old blood, is so afraid of aging that he has announced he’s cloning himself “as a newborn” to harvest the organs so he can live forever. Perhaps it will also help with autoimmune gastritis, the incurable disease he was diagnosed with earlier this month. “With this clone, I can become my own blood boy, test therapies on the clone, grow organs for transplantation, develop new treatments, and inject young cells,” he said. Currently, the clone exists as a bunch of cells in a petri dish.  It’s very House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer and (spoiler alert?) Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro.

Big News for a Niche Portion of My Audience: To anyone who read my opus on Dungeon Crawler Carl, this news is for you. Jeff Hays, the guy who narrates the audiobooks, will voice Princess Donut in Seth McFarlane’s TV series adaptation. According to author Matt Dinniman, the majority of readers “read” the series via audiobook, so this is some good ass fan service. As a physical book reader, this means less to me. 

Big News for an Even Nicher Portion of My Audience: I don’t suppose any of you reading this own a second home in New York City worth more than $5 million, but if you do, Mayor Zohran Mamdani is trying to reach you.

Privacy for Me But Not for Thee: Madison Square Garden’s state-of-the-art security system documents and logs biometric data during Garden events like Knicks games and concerts but also during private events like the New York Police Department Police Academy graduation. But not during Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s wedding. If you are rich enough, you can enjoy the newest luxury: privacy. 

It’s Tariff Day: New Trump tariffs take effect today. They will impose taxes of 10 percent to 12.5 percent on imports from 85 countries, or the trading partners that account for 99 percent of US imports, reports the Associated Press. After the Supreme Court ruled against Trump’s usage of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to enact tariffs, the administration had to find other avenues. He’s settled on “failed forced labor enforcement” as the reasoning for these tariffs.

We’ve Reached a 35 Year High! For what? US cases of the preventable, highly infectious disease measles. According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 93 percent of those infected were unvaccinated. 

A Song for Your Friday: This is my song of the summer. 

The post Slog AM: Seaplane Crashes Near San Juan Islands, Congress Wants to Kill Seals to Save Salmon, Is Jimothy MAGA? appeared first on The Stranger.

So it turns out students may get universal free school meals this fall after all!

This afternoon, Seattle City Council President Joy Hollingsworth and Councilmembers Dionne Foster and Dan Strauss announced a plan to pay for universal meals at Seattle Public Schools over the 2026–2027 school year with the City’s general fund. 

The sudden reversal comes on the heels of yesterday’s bruising four-hour committee meeting, which resulted in a one-year delay in the implementation of free school meals and a lot of angry public comments about why that was a terrible idea. The six council members who voted for an amendment to delay the plan prefaced their support with defensive, hand-wringing speeches, as if preparing for backlash. Well, their preparations failed, and it turns out yelling works.

Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson had originally proposed free school meals for all students starting this fall, using money from the $1.3 billion Families, Education, Preschool, and Promise Levy, or FEPP Levy, voters approved last year. After two years, Washington State is supposed to pick up the bill with returns from the millionaires tax. 

However, the council passed an amendment from Hollingsworth, Foster, and Rivera (she added herself as co-sponsor before the final buzzer) in yesterday’s committee meeting that pushed back Wilson’s plan to fund a new means-tested food vouchers program for food-insecure youth on weekends and school breaks. Foster insisted the vouchers aren’t means-tested—but they require school staff to determine which kids get them based on their family’s annual household income (which is by definition a means test).

As we’ve reported, public commenters were pissed and food security advocates were divided about which hungry kids we should be feeding first. Most sided with Wilson, but there was basically consensus that the City would need a combination of targeted programs and universal programs to end hunger. That’s what Hollingsworth, Strauss, and Foster now want to deliver, which is good, but did it require the food fight? (Is a world where the council members handle their disagreements in private and avoid a costly political controversy possible?) 

To do it and save a little political face, they plan to amend Seattle’s mid-year supplemental budget to funnel money towards universal school meals. The mayor’s office estimates the cost of free school meals is about $3.6 million annually. That money shouldn’t be hard to find. At yesterday’s meeting, progressive Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck noted several controversial city programs, such as homeless encampment sweeps and the Seattle Police Department cameras, cost more than funding universal school meals.

But it might not be that easy as Wilson pointed out in an emailed statement.

“Now Council is proposing to pull this funding from our general fund, which is already facing a $175 million deficit,” Wilson said. “I look forward to seeing which critical services they plan to cut from the general fund to make their numbers work. I ask them to reconsider the fiscally responsible approach my office originally put forward. Feeding every student in Seattle is a goal we share, and my office is eager to work with the Council to find the best path forward.”

The city council’s Finance, Native Communities & Tribal Governments Committee will meet on Tuesday, August 4, at 9:30 am to vote on this new proposal.

So what was the point of all this? Who knows. At least we may fill the kids’ tummies.

This story has been updated to include statement from Mayor Katie Wilson.

The post Seattle City Council Revives Universal School Meals appeared first on The Stranger.

We’re back with ticket drops to help you look forward to future fun. English pop legend Lily Allen comes through town in September to support her sharp-tongued divorce album, West End Girl, in its entirety. Memed teen-turned-hyperpop star Rebecca Black announced a new record due out this fall and accompanying North American tour. Plus, rising Japanese hip-hop artist Yuki Chiba headlines his first US tour later this year. Read on for details on those and other newly announced events, plus some news you can use.

Tickets go on sale at 10 am unless otherwise noted.

ON SALE FRIDAY, JULY 24

MUSIC

ARTMS
Showbox SoDo (Sun Oct 25)
On sale at 9 am

The Bouncing Souls: Born To Be Tour
Neptune Theatre (Feb 20, 2027)

Emma Ruth Rundle – These Killing Times
Neumos (Tues Nov 24)

See more on EverOut!

The post Ticket Alert: Lily Allen, Rebecca Black, and More Seattle Events Going On Sale This Week appeared first on The Stranger.