Arts & Culture

  • Baseball Culture in Cuba

    Stateside we sometimes say that baseball is as American as apple pie. Baseball is also the Cuban national sport, so you might say as Cuban as the national dish, ropa vieja. How did it start there? In the USA, we have our myth of Abner Doubleday laying out the ballfield and explaining the rules to… Continue reading

  • Hungry Like a (Dire) Wolf: Cookbooks Inspired by Our Fandoms

    It all starts with a good book. Then a book series. Then, inevitably, a television series or a film. Your fandom is growing, but how can you satiate the hunger? Maybe you seek out your fandom at a convention, and try out cosplaying… What’s left?! What else can you do?! Fanfic, sure, sure. But you’re… Continue reading

  • Never mind Hallowe’en: Christmas is the Original Haunted Holiday.

    It’s that time of year again – a time of ghosts and goblins, of sudden chills and flickering candle flames at the stroke of midnight, of frights and haunts and things that go bump in the night. No, this isn’t a leftover post from Hallowe’en. For the Victorians, the spookiest holiday of the year was… Continue reading

  • Burlesque 101

    Join us November 18th at Timbre Room, 7-8:30pm, for Carnal Knowledge, a burlesque show designed to educate and entertain. Performances featuring Miss Kitty Baby, The Marquis Façade, Mx. Pucks A’Plenty and more! Hosted by Donatella Howe this show will explore the forms and functions of the art and the local history of burlesque. This event is 21+.… Continue reading

  • Seattle Rep’s THE HUMANS: Beyond the Theatre

    Seattle Rep’s THE HUMANS: Beyond the Theatre

    Seattle Repertory Theatre presents Stephen Karam’s THE HUMANS from November 17 to December 17, 2017. Stephen Karam’s THE HUMANS is an uproarious, hopeful, and heartbreaking play that takes place over the course of a family dinner on Thanksgiving. Breaking with tradition, Erik Blake has brought his Pennsylvania family to celebrate and give thanks at his… Continue reading

  • The Artist in Fiction or Creating Your Own Story

    Sometimes it is hard to separate the two, don’t you think? I mean the hard-baked idea of what an artist is or is not. The journey of an artist becoming an artist may be singular, but it is accompanied by a lot of noise! Do you chart your own path or are you casting about… Continue reading

  • THE CRUCIBLE: Beyond the Theatre

    ACT (A Contemporary Theatre) presents THE CRUCIBLE by Arthur Miller from October 13 to November 12, 2017. THE CRUCIBLE is Miller’s powerful, classic play about the Salem witch trials and a compelling allegory for the political repression of the McCarthy era. Librarians at Seattle Public Library created this list of books and films to enhance… Continue reading

  • Intiman’s Dragon Lady and Philippine Migration

    The migration of a family from the Philippines to America has been explored in colorful form by Sara Porkalob in Dragon Lady, a one woman show at the Intiman Theater, closing October 1st. She revisits the arc of Philippine culture and assimilation from her grandmother’s time to her own, as she portrays three generations of her family members.… Continue reading

  • BOOKTOBERFEST 2017 IS HERE!

    That familiar chill in the air, those reddish tints starting to appear in the leaves, that playful note of pumpkin spice latte asserting itself amidst the less seasonal scents of marijuana and Axe body spray on city streets: it can only mean one thing. Another Booktoberfest has arrived! Each October, dazed and confused from the flurry of… Continue reading

  • Page to Screen: Never mind The Dark Tower – here comes IT!

    Okay, so the new film adaptation of Stephen King’s Dark Tower series wasn’t quite what we’d hoped for. Many fans of the books feel the film entirely missed the mark, while newcomers to King’s elaborate mythos wonder what all the fuss was about. As a film sequel seems unlikely and it may be some time… Continue reading

  • Here’s Looking at You!: Documentary Films about Artists

    An artist’s life can be as compelling as the work they produce. A documentary, at best, strives to render a portrait of the artist as honestly as possible. This, of course, is as close as any of us will get to being in the same room with a person whose life and work draws us… Continue reading

  • ACT’s ALEX & ARIS: Beyond the Theatre

    ACT (A Contemporary Theatre) presents the world premiere of ALEX & ARIS by Moby Pomerance from July 14 to August 6, 2017. ALEX & ARIS is the story of a young prince (who would go on to become Alexander the Great) and his time as a pupil of the great philosopher Aristotle. Librarians at Seattle… Continue reading

  • #BookBingoNW2017: Art and Artists

    What is art, anyway? Merriam-Webster defines it as “the conscious use of skill and creative imagination especially in the production of aesthetic objects.” With such a broad definition, there are many different directions readers can go with this particular Book Bingo square. Here are a few strategies for filling this square: Fiction A few authors,… Continue reading

  • Pride Month: Queer Cinema by Queer Directors

    “There have never been lesbians or gay men in Hollywood. Only homosexuals.” With this final despairing statement, gay film historian and activist Vito Russo ends The Celluloid Closet, his landmark study of representations of LGBTQ people in film. When Russo first published The Celluloid Closet in 1981, he could not imagine that over a decade… Continue reading

  • Page to Screen: My Cousin Rachel.

    It was my idea, after all. Lately as we’ve seen readers and filmgoers gobbling up great twisty psychological suspense such as Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train, I kept thinking they should make a fresh version Daphne Du Maurier’s classic tale of the devious anti-heroine known as My Cousin Rachel. Sixty-five years after its original… Continue reading

  • All’s Fair in Festival Air

    Summertime and the living is breezy. Warmed by a wondrous sun, the everywhere air urges us to partake of the season. Don’t you wish it would last! There are eye-catching, ear lapping sights and sounds the whole city round. Fairs, festivals and fests abound! Take to the streets! Come to the Fairs!  The city sports… Continue reading

  • Theater in the Library: The Dybbuk

    Seattle Jewish Theater Company and The Seattle Public Library will present a performance of S. Ansky’s classic Jewish drama The Dybbuk on Sunday, April 30 at 2:00 p.m. in the Microsoft Auditorium at Central Library. The play is directed by SJTC artistic director Art Feinglass and will be performed in English. The performance will be… Continue reading

  • Seattle Rep’s HERE LIES LOVE: Beyond the Theater

    Seattle Repertory Theatre presents HERE LIES LOVE by David Byrne and Fatboy Slim from April 7 to May 28, 2017. Librarians at Seattle Public Library created this list of books, CDs and films to enhance your experience of the show: Seattle Rep’s HERE LIES LOVE: Beyond the Theatre. Seattle Rep will transform into a wild… Continue reading