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Over the weekend I stopped in at the Varsity for District 13: Ultimatum, which gave me the chance to eat at Ruby's, closed for renovation the last time I visited the Ave. Just across the street from the Post Office, Ruby's used to look like a dorm basement that had fallen on bad times, but after being turned on to the rice bowls, I learned to ignore the sketchiness (which makes me just like 78 percent of visitors, I guess).

A few months after renovation, I almost didn't dare walk in. Why would such an upscale-seeming spot be serving my delicious rice bowls? A full bar gleamed. The lights were low. I was seated (another first!) and ordered a Manny's while I perused the menu. The tables, happily, were still mismatched....

A review in The New York Times from a couple days ago noted that in a recent radio interview, pianist Garrick Ohlsson said, "to be a little crass...Chopin sells."

Well, why shouldn't he? Chopin's compositions for piano pushed the art into new territory, and his work is known and beloved by even casual classical music listeners all over the world (to say nothing of Poland, which idolizes Chopin about as much as Pope John Paul II). Whatever the case, that "crass" logic is at work this week at the UW World Series, when Ohlsson returns for his second recital of Chopin's work, after an earlier appearance in January. (Tues., Feb. 9, 8 p.m.; tickets $20-$37.)...

ASU's Derek Glasser Gets the Dawgpack Treatment (Photo via Twitter, @UWDawgPack)

At Hec Edmundson Pavilion, with a full student section behind them, the Washington Husky basketballers are as dominant as John Wooden's UCLA teams. In Seattle, the Dawgs bombed Pac-10 leaders Cal by 15 points. They crushed Pac-10 second placers Arizona State by 23. They dropped a 56-point second half on cross-state rivals Wazzu, and a 123-point game on crosstowners Seattle U.

Washington has won 16 of 17 games at home this year. But something happens on the road. Away from Hec Ed, the Dawgs are winless in six games. That ASU team the Huskies crushed here Saturday? Lost to 'em by 17 in Tempe.

Why the difference? On the road, the Huskies start the same guys, have the same coaches, play by the same rules--and flop. The one principle difference, it would seem, is the Washington fans--specifically the rowdy student section that goes by the name "The Dawgpack." Pac-10 players generally agree that Washington has the best crowd in the league. Oregon coach Ernie Kent has called The Dawgpack the best student section in the country....

The reviews for Olivier Wevers' 3Seasons—the first full-length production by his company Whim W'him—last month were nearly all glowing and positive (including mine). A surrealist exploration of the consequences of consumer culture, executed with charming aplomb by Whim W'him's crew of Spectrum and PNB dancers, it largely won over audiences and critics alike.

Kaori Nakamura of Whim W'Him. Photo by Marc von Borstel.

One of the few dissenting voices was The Stranger's art (and sometimes dance) critic Jen Graves, who, in a Jan. 20 Slog post, criticized Wevers' representation of women in the piece, saying he was like a "novelist who can't quite write women, or who isn't that interested in trying." Aside from a guest post on the OtB blog by dancer/choreographer Catherine Cabeen, Graves was the only critic to tackle the piece from a feminist angle.

But yesterday, a big—and somewhat surprising—voice in the dance community threw down: Spectrum Dance's artistic director and choreographer Donald Byrd, who's been accused of sexist representations himself (as he admits). Writing in his blog on the Spectrum site, Byrd described (without directly naming the piece or the choreographer) his experience watching 3Seasons:

There were two moments in particular that were startling and caused me to gasp (and those of you that know me, know that it takes a lot to make me gasp). In the first, a woman was being violently “humped” by a man in the center of the stage just before the lights went to black ending one of the sections of the piece. The second involved the same woman being tossed upside down in a waste dumpster with her legs sticking straight up, just before another black out, this time signaling the end of the piece and the program.

Inside the dance community, based on a number of conversations I've had since 3Seasons ran, tongues have been wagging over these images and sequences, performed by PNB's Kaori Nakamura, who plays a sort of Mother Earth role and is frequently the object of abuse by the madcap consumers in the rest of the corps. Many described the "humping," performed by PNB's Lucien Postelwaite, as "rape," with which I agree (rape of Mother Earth, get it?). Byrd also fails to mention that Nakamura was smeared with fake blood before being dumped in the garbage can....

the evolution of a festival. sasquatch 2010.

As the multiday music festival era hit its inevitable saturation point, some have fallen (R.I.P., Rothbury) and others are doing whatever they can to help their announcements stand out in a crowded field. In the last week, Pitchfork opened the gates to ticket sales by releasing a slate of headliners for their affordable summer party in Chicago's Union Park and Bonnaroo promised to reveal its lineup live on the internet to fans little-by-little later this month.

Today, as part of the arms race on your summer weekends, Sasquatch announced a launch party to send their still-secret lineup out into the wide world....

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After writing about the progress of the Washington state Senate bill that would make cell phone use while driving a primary offense (and a $124 ticket), I got an email from the people behind PhonEnforcer, an app that simply turns your phone off when you're driving. When you've stopped, you can turn it back on.

The bill passed in the Senate (33-15), by the way, and is now in front of the House transportation committee. But Chris Morgan with PhonEnforcer makes a good point about whether a law alone will get the job done. Down in Torrance, CA, a "cell phone sting" brought in 41 distracted drivers in just over an hour. So that's a significant amount of behavior to change by writing tickets. People, after all, still speed....

(Photo: Lucas Anderson)

When you step onto a Metro bus operated by Nathan Vass, I guarantee you will step off smiling.

For Vass, a smile all he asks. Vass is a 23-year-old Metro operator, one of the youngest to win the Operator of the Month award in both age and seniority. He's also probably the most interesting young bus driver you will ever meet.

Not a lot of 21st birthday dreams consist of a Metro application, it's safe to say. But Vass had buses on his mind. (Twenty-one is the youngest a Metro operator can be, and his age was the last thing stopping him from fulfilling his dream.) "As a kid, the bus was a symbol of going wherever the hell you wanted to go," he explained....

From a celebration for Bob Marley's birthday--but something tells me they weren't singing "Happy Birthday to You." Love the stark contrast between red and blue in this shot, courtesy of Walsh from our Flickr pool.

Somehow, Alice in Chains never quite got its due. Of the "Big Four" bands to rise from Seattle's phenomenal grunge era, the more metal-leaning AIC sold millions of albums and scored multiple music award noms but didn't reach the success stratosphere of Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, or Nirvana. Perhaps the band's addiction-informed lyrics made Alice in Chains less accessible. Maybe its beautifully schizophrenic acoustic-electric album jumps (Dirt to Sap; Jar of Flies to Alice in Chains) threw people off. Or maybe the AIC guys just didn't have the extra luck that comes with looks; Cobain, Cornell, and Vedder each radiated virile creative darkness, while Jerry Cantrell and Layne Staley, Alice's pale, blonde harmonizing frontmen, seemed more distant and pitiable....

Back in November, I attended a wonderful short film festival called Couch Fest. Tomorrow, they will be holding a 90-minute screening of their best films at Northwest Film Forum.

The premise of Couch Fest is pretty simple: a few brave souls open up their homes to a slew of random strangers and show a series of short films. They vote for their favorites and sit next to each other in awkward silence or sharing timid conversations. Every hour, the strangers leave and a new batch strolls in.

For socially chilly Seattle, the festival is quite a departure from the stereotypical norm. Even this native Washingtonian found himself chatting with strangers about the short animation that just blew our minds or the awesome one-minute film of a lion roaring. For some reason, sharing a couch in a stranger's house (or garage) with a bunch of other strangers makes us a little less estranged.

To get a taste of how awesome this festival is (minus the couches), stop by the Northwest Film Forum at 1515 12th Ave, this Sunday at 3 p.m. Admission is free....

Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C. (All photos: Michael Austin)

While Cliff Mass explains why we just had our warmest January ever recorded, enjoy a picture of the blizzard that's blanketed Washington, D.C., courtesy of our D.C. bureau. The word is that it's bad...very bad....

On their blog, Estately makes a bold prediction about spring real estate sales (boldface is theirs):

Spring and summer of 2010 will be different! Every year, there is an annual increase in people searching for real estate from December to January. But this year we are seeing a much bigger bump – 80% bigger.  This year we are seeing 40% more people searching for homes on Estately in January than we were in December.

Seattle's seasonal bump in traffic is among the top, at 55 percent, Estately says. They expect a slow January, agreeing with the Seattle Bubble that the $8,000 homebuyer credit hoovered up a lot of future demand, as people decided to buy before the cut-off deadline (since extended)....

Classical ballet doesn't get more classical than The Sleeping Beauty, this production especially, which, as PNB's Doug Fullington explains it, has a lineage that extends right back to its original choreographer, Marius Petipa. When Kaori Nakamura, as Princess Aurora, balancing en pointe on a single foot, has each of her suitors turn her, hold, then release, four successive times, it's such an apotheosis of style that it's hard to believe a human ankle is involved. (PNB's production, running through February 14 at McCaw Hall, employs rotating casts, so your Princess Aurora may vary. Tickets are $25-$160.)

One of the humanizing qualities of such an idealized art form is that, even with notation, there's no better way to be sure of a choreographer's intent than seeing his work yourself. Ronald Hynd's wonderful version is just two choreographic generations from a 1921 Diaghilev production that toured to London, which gets you right back to St. Petersburg and Petipa.

Yet you don't think of The Sleeping Beauty as, narrative aside, slumbering unchanged for a hundred years. It exists, in Mircea Eliade's formulation, in illo tempore, in a once upon a time adjacent to the present. (On the other hand, this is a three-hour ballet with substantial action in pantomime, not a sing-along fairy tale, so while I can vouch for its immediacy, I can also vouch for the adorable little moppet behind me talking throughout, kicking seat backs, doing an impromptu dance break, beating time on an arm rest, and guzzling her way through a juice box.)

The rusting husk of Gasworks Park, a fitting metaphor for our elected government. Photo by our Flickr pool contributor feekner.

Late last month, I wrote about Oregon's special vote for Measures 66 and 67, two bills passed by the legislature and signed by the governor that were sent to the voters as a referendum, which raised taxes to help close a budget shortfall. One raised the minimum corporate tax for the first time since 1931, while the other was a modest increase in the income tax for high-earners (Oregon has an income tax but no sales tax). Both measures passed with substantial margins, with roughly 54 percent in favor to 46 percent opposed.

The vote was closely watched nationally because Oregon, like Washington, is a state known for its anti-tax fervor. Oregon had its own Tim Eyman, has caps on property tax increases, and has repeatedly rejected new tax increases. But faced with dramatic cuts to crucial services, Oregon voters banded together with their elected representatives and passed two very simple measures that kept the state working....

I was just reading Jon Talton's post about McGinn's learning curve: "Unfortunately, the cry for help seems to be coming from new Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn." In the list of related articles, this shows up at the top:

Chris Bushnell (photo via Facebook)

Not only did Publicola break a big story this week, they broke a political appointment: Chris Bushnell resigned yesterday from his position as a senior advisor to Mayor McGinn, a job he held for just over a week. And all the drama happened unbeknownst to Seattle Times readers, which never got around to reporting on the brouhaha until it was over.

Bushnell (aka Chris Haugen) was the previous week responsible for a possible conflict of interest regarding the seawall that led Mayor McGinn to scrap all four existing bids for seawall design and start over. (Bushnell's wife Megan, a marine biologist, works for a consulting firm that was associated with a bid on the seawall project.)

This week, Publicola reported the news that Bushnell had been misrepresenting himself as the holder of a doctorate in economics, both on business cards and on King County materials. (Bushnell's charmed political life as a convicted felon includes working for two years as a King County economist before he got his bachelor's degree in economics. In theory, that is--his University of Washington records are sealed and Bushnell faxed the Times only proof of enrollment.)...

This picket fence was around in 2007 when ozmafan snapped a picture of it; wonder if it's still around or if it lives on only in memory and The Sunbreak's Flickr pool. 

It goes without saying that if you liked it, then you should've put a ring on it.  With Valentine's Day right around the corner, those wise words are double-plus true.

With that in mind, the good people at Baronella have offered up some gift certificates for SunBreak readers to use on their jewelry. (Fellas, if you are thinking about giving your lady a cellphone for V-Day, please think again.) The SunBreak has three gift certificates, each worth $50 to give away.  Enter below for your chance to win.  We'll be drawing three winners' names Friday at noon....

From a t-shirt I found here.

On the same day that King County Superior Court Judge John Erlick ruled the state of Washington was not paying its fair share of education costs, his colleague, Judge Julie Spector, ruled the Seattle School Board must revisit its decision to use the Discovering Math series for math instruction.

Judge Erlick's money quote is: "State funding is not ample, it is not stable, it is not dependable. Local school districts continue to rely on local levies and other non-state resources to supplement state funding for a basic program of education."

He's ordered the state to determine how much money would be "ample," and to develop predictable funding sources. State attorneys have promised to appeal, if they can raise the legal fees from a bake sale.

In another decision, regarding Seattle schools using the Discovering Math textbook series, Judge Julie Spector found that "the board's decision to use the Discovering series was arbitrary and capricious," reports the Seattlepi.com. It was a win for advocates of math-based math, such as UW professor Cliff Mass, who argues that inquiry-based math study privileges students with better English skills....

Last week, I was too caught up in the Sundance bubble to pay attention to what was coming out on DVD (answer: nothing), so let's just focus on this week's releases, care of our good friends at Scarecrow Video. (And check out their take on Tuesday's Oscar noms for all your Academy Award-preparation needs.)

Woody Harrelson may have just received an Oscar nomination for The Messenger--as far as I'm concerned, he should've gotten one for No Country for Old Men--but his work in Zombieland is strong, too. Sure, it's a light-hearted action-horror-comedy, but Harrelson is so, so right as a hick who loves killing zombies. The flick as a whole is downright fun, and there's even a celebrity cameo in the latter half that delightfully has not yet been ruined for everyone by spoiler-happy critics (looking at you, Anthony Lane). ...

Friday, Feb. 5 at 7:30 p.m., SAM begins a three-part retrospective of the films of Richard Pryor with Silver Streak, a 1976 Hitchcockian spoof starring Gene Wilder as a publisher trying to relax by taking a train across the country, only to get caught up in a murder mystery. On Feb. 12, the series continues with Blue Collar, and closes up on Feb. 19 with the legendary Richard Pryor: Live on Sunset...

Regular readers of The SunBreak are aware that a friend of mine had a traumatic roll-of-quarters experience with the Chase branch in the University District, back in November:

He stopped by the branch in the University Village to pick up a roll of quarters because he's paranoid about using his credit card in parking meters. He bought a roll for ten dollars, stepped outside to open up the roll, and discovered that he'd also bought a number of dimes, nickels, pennies, and Phillipine centavos.

As it happened, this week brought a return visit to the same branch (via drive-thru) for quarters. The teller proffered (via the drive-thru transport device) one of the self-packed rolls that customers bring in, and my friend, remembering his last experience, balked....

I've been covering the progress of the marijuana legalization initiative, which has apparently gotten me on a high-level marijuana policy list. From way over in Richland, WA, comes this letter from the Three Rivers Collective, which makes the case for collectives for cannabis cultivation. Many of you probably think that since Washington allows medical marijuana use, patients have unfettered access to prescribed medicine. Chet R. Biggerstaff writes in to correct that.

Chet R. Biggerstaff

The people of Washington State decided back in 1998 that certain patients should be able to use and access cannabis without the fear of arrest and persecution. We passed an initiative that gave patients a legal defense in court only as anything more at the time would not have passed.

What this was supposed to have done was stop the arrests of very ill patients and to allow them to use cannabis as their medicine as well as to have access to it. It further allowed the patient to grow their own medicine or have a caregiver grow it for them. The spirit of the law was to make sure patients could use, access, and grow (or have grown by a caregiver) their medicine without fear of arrest or discrimination, but that is not what we have achieved. What we have now are patients that can’t get their medicine, and patients that are scared of their local police and officials.

Patients are supposed to grow their own or have a caregiver grow it for them. This was a good idea initially but has had some "unexpected" issues. Most patients can't grow their own for a number of reasons like a place to do so, or are too sick to do so. So the powers that be say you can have someone grow it for you. Well, this sounds good on paper but it does not work in practice in the current environment....

The various contributors to "Break a Heart" at On the Boards. Photo by Tim Summers.

Sleeping Beauty at Pacific Northwest Ballet (Feb. 4-14; tickets $25-$160). A masterpiece of Romantic ballet, with a score by Tchaikovsky, PNB's production of Sleeping Beauty is based on British choreographer Ronald Hynd's painstaking 1993 reconstruction of Marius Petipa's 1890 original. I sat in on the dress rehearsal last night, and was wowed (along with a dozen or so starry-eyed little girls) by the sumptuous production and Princess Aurora's glorious movement....

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs just released an update on the humanitarian situation in Haiti.  In sum, the UN OCHA states the following:

Over 3 million people were affected by the earthquake. Over 112,000 people are confirmed killed and another nearly 200,000 injured. The bottom line is that aid is flowing into Haiti, but it is still a challenge to reach everyone in need.