by Jas Keimig
2024 is practically breathing down our necks, and there’s no shortage of art to take in this December. From an all-new holiday musical at ArtsWest to the return and reimagining of Langston Hughes’ Black Nativity at Intiman Theatre, this season is the perfect time to rejoice in traditions new and old with those you love most.
Think we missed something? Let us know at Arts@SeattleEmerald.org.
Continue reading Arts in the South End: December Roundupby Jas Keimig, photos by Susan Fried
On the evening of Friday, Nov. 17, Paccar Hall at the Olympic Sculpture Park hosted the eighth annual Legendary Children. Featuring the superstars of Seattle’s drag and ballroom scenes, it is an annual celebration of Indigenous, Black, and Brown queer and trans people and legacies that’s been going strong since 2015. On this night, attendees arrived in sparkly tops, sky-high heels, bright-pink fur coats, and perfectly coiffed ’dos to show off on the public runway and to each other. The event was co-organized with The Seattle Public Library (SPL) and the Seattle Art Museum, and the crowd perused SPL tables, sipped bevvies, looked at books from the Legendary Children library courtesy of Loving Room, and hooped and hollered the house down.
Continue reading PHOTO ESSAY | 2023 Legendary Children Brought the House Downby Jas Keimig
On a recent drippy Sunday afternoon, dozens of Seattleites made their way from the street onto the bouncy soil of the luscious Rainier Beach Urban Farm and Wetlands. As people sipped water infused with salad burnet (an herbaceous plant that tastes exactly like cucumber) and hot tea, the congregants settled around sheltered tables outside — they came to eat, listen, and learn.
Continue reading Jason Vickers’ Indigenous Takeover of Tilth Alliance’s Community Kitchen Brought Native Food to the Tableby Jas Keimig
Since 2020, comedian and political cartoonist Brett Hamil has been faithfully skewering Seattle politicians and cranks every week for the South Seattle Emerald in his “Sunday Comix” column. From City Hall gadflies who are obsessed with abiding by the infuriatingly slow Seattle process to Seattle police officers who want no consequences and all the funding, Hamil’s work has documented a turbulent and weird past couple of years for our so-called progressive city. Now, he’s compiled all 152 comic strips into a new book Airhorn of Truth: The COMPLETE Sunday Comix which serves as a hilarious and potent reminder of how far Seattle has to go. I called up Hamil this week to chat about the recent City Council election results, his cartooning process, and what hope he has for our mossy city.
Continue reading Beware the ‘Airhorn of Truth’by Jas Keimig
As the year begins to wind down, events in Seattle are only winding up. You can spend November picking up some DIY zines at Short Run Comix & Arts Festival, listening to carefully collected oral histories of Seattle’s Black community at Wa Na Wari, and catching a free screening of the excellent 2020 documentary Crip Camp at Town Hall.
Think we missed something? Let us know at Arts@SeattleEmerald.org.
Continue reading Arts in the South End: November 2023by Jas Keimig
The sight of ferries disappearing into the Puget Sound horizon. Savoring the last raspberries of summer. COVID spreading rampantly through elementary classrooms and schools. In their new comic book Less Desolate published by Blue Cactus Press, poet Shin Yu Pai and illustrator Justin Rueff capture the splendors of living in the Pacific Northwest as well as the profound isolation and social unrest during the pandemic by using an interesting, little-known artform — the haiku comic.
Continue reading Haiku Comics Provide a Way of Feeling ‘Less Desolate’by Jas Keimig
November is Native American Heritage Month and a time to celebrate and uplift the diverse Indigenous communities both here, and across the continent. In Washington State, there are over 30 tribes, including Colville Confederated Tribes, The Confederated Tribes Of The Chehalis Reservation, Confederated Tribes Of The Yakama Nation, Duwamish, Jamestown S’Klallam, Hoh, Cowlitz, Lower Elwha Klallam, Kalispel, Lummi, Nisqually, Makah Nation, Muckleshoot, Puyallup, Nooksack, Port Gamble S’Klallam, Quileute, Quinault Nation, Samish Nation, Sauk-Suiattle, Skokomish, Shoalwater Bay, Spokane, Squaxin Island, Snoqualmie, Stillaguamish, Swinomish, Suquamish, Tulalip, and Upper Skagit.
As we work to tear down the colonial narratives and structures around Thanksgiving, November is also an opportunity to give back, learn from, and listen to Native peoples in the Seattle area. With Native American Heritage Day falling on Nov. 24, there are lots of opportunities throughout the entire month to eat Indigenous foods, buy gifts from Indigenous craft markets, and watch Indigenous films. We assembled a list of events in the Seattle area to mark down on your (rapidly filling!) November calendar.
Continue reading The Emerald Roundup of Native American Heritage Month Events in the Seattle Areaby Jas Keimig
Music fans have been bombarded with so much recently. Whether it’s fake Drake tracks composed by artificial intelligence or two-minute TikTok viral mashups of Baby Keem and Mazzy Star, music production and consumption seem to be on a hyper-highway of profit and frivolousness. That’s why it is a huge relief that Seattle-based Ishmael Butler’s music project Shabazz Palaces is dropping a new record steeped in its iconic brand of flagrant wisdom, charting a course through the future that feels authentic, embodied, and fly as hell.
Continue reading All Aboard the Shabazz Palaces Spaceshipby Jas Keimig
Last Updated on October 27, 2023, 3:26 pm.
BOOOOO!
Did I scare ya? It’s that time of year when every glimpse of the moon, every branch scratching against a window, and every bump in the night takes on an unnerving implication. Halloween is bearing down on us and there’s no shortage of ghostly celebrations going down in the South End.
Continue reading A Haunted Guide to Halloween 2023 in the South Endby Jas Keimig
Since the release of his critically acclaimed 2021 album, Deacon, multi-hyphenate electronic musician serpentwithfeet has been hard at work.
He’s been in the studio, writing and recording an entirely new album, Grip, which he just announced will drop in February. And he’s also been onstage, creating a theatrical production called Heart of Brick with a cohort of talented artists. The musical follows a fictionalized serpentwithfeet as he mentally hypes himself up to hit the club, fearing a run-in with his ex-lover. Instead, serpent meets Brick, the enigmatic club owner, and the two instantly fall in love. Through dance, text, and old and new songs off his upcoming record, serpentwithfeet’s Heart of Brick tells the story of two gay Black men falling in love and the solace they find within the Black queer community.
Continue reading serpentwithfeet Comes to Seattle With His Musical, ‘Heart of Brick’
