Seattle announces city-wide zoning plan for affordable housing
Faced with the fastest-rising housing prices in the nation, the city of Seattle announced its long awaited MHA (Mandatory Housing Affordability) plan, which would allow more height and density in selected urban centers. Curbed Seattle has details on the plan, which aims to create 6,000 new units. Explore an interactive map here.
Tribe to move schools, building out of tsunami zone
Cascadia, geologists tell us, is long overdue for a major earthquake and tsunami. Local governments have long known that schools and other critical buildings are in the danger zone, but few have taken any action. Tom Banse at Northwest Public Radio reports that the Quileute Tribe on the Washington coast is getting prepared for the Big One, with plans to relocate a tribal school and senior center to higher ground.
Cascadia negotiates its own climate agreement
At the UN conference on climate change in Bonn, the governors of Oregon and Washington announced they would ignore the Trump administration’s pull-out of the Paris treaty and negotiate their own reductions in carbon emissions with the governments of Canada and Mexico. Meanwhile, Vancouver activist David Suzuki observes in The Georgia Straight that a recent U.S. climate report offers a glimmer of hope that global warming is still being taken seriously by NASA, NOAA, the EPA, and Department of Defense, even as top officials deny it.
Exploring the history of Jewish art in Oregon
At Oregon Arts Watch, Bob Hicks reviews the show “I Am This” at the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education. Selected by former Portland Art Museum curator Bruce Guenther, the small but potent show displays early paintings by Mark Rothko (who graduated from Portland’s Lincoln High School) as well as work from sculptor Frederick Littmann. These and 11 other artists delve into issues of reconciling the culture of diaspora with contemporary North American life.
Playwright Marcus Youssef awarded Canada’s highest theater award
Vancouver playwright Marcus Youssef, know best for his play Winners and Losers, was recently awarded the Siminovitch Prize, a $100,000 award considered Canadian drama’s highest honor. Winners and Losers, which debuted in 2012 and played across North America, is a smart improv piece in which the playwright and an actor debate which aspects of pop culture are winning or losing. You can watch a scene here.
Moss interviews Shabazz Palaces’ Ishmael Butler
If you haven’t discovered the Seattle-based literary journal Moss, you need to check it out. The third issue is jam-backed with writing from the likes of Kathleen Flenniken, Donna Miscolta, Shawn Vestal, and Kristen Young. You can read a sampling online, including a fantastic interview with hip-hop artist Ishmael Butler, whose radically innovative work with Digable Planets and Shabazz Palaces redefines the form. Butler talks about politics, reading, and the importance of inspiration:
“I understood instinct as the only way to originality, which was my goal. Instinct unfiltered is gonna be original because it’s just you and your innate sensibilities.”
Photo of screen shot from “Winners and Losers” courtesy of Vimeo.