It’s SIFF season! Seattle’s favorite film fest returns this month with 262 films over 11 days (April 14–24) screening both in-person and online. We’re rounding up some of our favorites. Every day, expect two more recommendations on Slog.

Vanishing black boys of Seattle… Courtesy Zia Mohajerjasbi

LA/206 director Zia Mohajerjasbi‘s debut feature Know Your Place is a film that everyone in Seattle (and all other major cities) should (must) watch. It is a packed work, and so unpacking it all is nothing but impossible within the obvious attentional limits imposed on blog posts. But, I will begin by saying the star of this film is, above all, Seattle. But this star

Gray Kauffman, one of the competitors representing Seattle this week. Nathan Lowe

After a pandemic-related hiatus, it’s game on for the 2022 U.S. Coffee Championships this week, and it’s a real big deal in the world of haute coffee. And this year, the competing baristas from Seattle, Sam Spillman and Gray Kauffman, both hail from local fancycoffee place Caffe Vita.

Sam took home the U.S. Barista Champion title in 2019 and will compete in the U.S. Brewers Cup category this year. She’s also coaching Gray, who’ll compete in Sam’s old category, U.S. Barista Champion. The other categories in the competition are Cup Tasters, Roaster Champion, Coffee in Good Spirits

It’s SIFF season, baby! Seattle’s favorite film fest returns this month with 262 films over 11 days (April 14–24) screening both in-person and online. We’re rounding up some of our favorites. Every day, expect two more recommendations on Slog.

God, volcanoes are so sexy. Courtesy of SIFF

Honestly, what’s more erotic—poetically, I mean—than a volcano? Pressure churning below the surface! An explosion into the atmosphere! Magma oozing out crevices in a bright orange river! The Earth spewing molten rock! It’s pure, geological, horny DRAMA, baby!!!

Director Sara Dosa plays with the connection between volcanoes and love with her buzzy documentary Fire of Love, recently acquired

WE’RE BACK BABY!! And we’ve got a whole bunch of HOT NEW STICKERS! In this episode of Sticker Patrol, we made our way to Fremont where we read aloud smutty stickers and whispered sweet nothings into the Troll’s ear. Featuring music from the one and only Erik Blood. Where should we go next?

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Dear Seattle,

It seems we have taken this 50 Shades of Gray thing a bit too far. Everywhere around me, every single new condo built or repainted in this last building boom is now a complete array of grays—all anemic variations of black and white. We desperately need a breakup with this kind of non-consensual sensory deprivation.

I suspect somewhere in the Architectural Digest reality, someone insisted this 50 Shades of Gray was sexy for sales. But as I look out at the latest bland addition to my “hot” neighborhood, it not only looks more drab than the usual Seattle gray sky, it

Apply this same energy to canceling student debt please and thank you. JOSHUA LOTT/GETTY IMAGES

Biden the Coward extends student loan pause through August 31: This is the third time the Biden administration has pushed back the payment restart date, which was set to expire May 1 this time around. Why he doesn’t just straight up cancel all federal student loans is beyond me—I mean, has he seen the price of literally everything right now? And by moving the date to September, it’s sure to become an even bigger topic ahead of midterms in November. Debt isn’t real! Fuck student loans ’til I die!

Speaking of the cost of living:

“I have lived through 12 different presidential administrations.” DENISTANGNEYJR / GETTY IMAGES

Hello hello hello and HAPPY TUESDAY, motherfuckers! Our evening news round-up, Slog PM, is off today (back to normal programming tomorrow). In the meantime, here’s The Trash Report, where our friend Elinor Jones from The Portland Mercury rummages around the back alleys of the internet to turn another man’s news trash into our reading treasure. See ya tomorrow! —Eds. Note
About the Oscars (But Not That Thing)

It’s been one hell of a week for people having lots of Strong Feelings About Celebrities. The best take has come from tiny wizard king Daniel Radcliffe:

Daniel Radcliffe got asked to

It’s SIFF season, baby! Seattle’s favorite film fest returns this month with 262 films over 11 days (April 14–24) screening both in-person and online. We’re rounding up some of our favorites. Every day, expect two more recommendations on Slog.

FINLANDIA
Spain, 2021, 92 min, Dir. Horacio Alcalà

This one’s got an operatic sensibility and opulent shots. Courtesy of SIFF

This film about a Spanish fashion designer traveling to Oaxaca to steal designs from Indigenous queer people holds many threads. There’s the immediate storyline (the tension between the designer and dress-makers), happening simultaneously against larger, more existential dramas (like a looming, devastating earthquake). Happily, all this narrative

A woman and her husband are getting into group sex. The catch? She’s newly pregnant. Should she disclose this to participants?

4 years ago, soon after a woman got together with her boyfriend, in a fit of paranoia, he checked to see if she was indeed doing what she said she would be doing with some friends. When she found out about this, she confronted him and he apologized. He’s never done anything like this since and their relationship is good. Still. Should she dump him for this past transgression?

On the Magnum, we welcome back our favorite ghost(ing) writer, Justine Ang

As all eyes watch Russia continue bomb Ukrainian, the Seattle Tigray Network noted a more energized response from local govts to the conflict there than they ever saw for Tigray. Seattle Tigray Network

On Saturday, hundreds of protestors marched from Yesler to Broadway, demanding swift action to prevent hundreds of thousands of Tigrayans from starving to death at the hands of the Ethiopian government. Despite over a year of demonstrations, many speakers at last weekend’s event said they felt all but ignored by every level of government, the media, and public discourse, especially compared to the recent outpouring of support for Ukraine.

“We are happy they are helping Ukraine –