He’s a geeky kid with a weird, stiff walk and goofy-looking glasses. We might have spotted him as bigger boys poke him with pencils, or witnessed him being tormented at the bus stop.

Yet we probably did nothing.

The relentless bullying of the 12-year-old boy in Sioux City, Iowa, is the heart-wrenching center of Bully, an intensely moving documentary that chronicles the 2009-10 school year in the lives of three harassed youths, and the tireless anti-bullying efforts of two families whose sons committed suicide.

It’s a disturbing, beautifully realized piece of advocacy filmmaking—an urgent call to action for students, educators and communities to deal with the challenges facing the reportedly more than 13 million American kids who are bullied every year.

Unfortunately, most of what we know about Bully comes from the distraction about the MPAA rating. To recap, the Motion Picture Association of America dug in its antiquated heels over an F-bomb quota, originally slapping Bully with an R. The studio trimmed out three so it could earn a PG-13. By doing so, they’ve made it much easier for young people to see it.

It’s ironic the controversy revolves around words since they—as the movie so stirringly illustrates—can draw blood.

Doubt it? I invite you to look into the red-rimmed eyes of David and Tina Long of Murray County, Ga., for proof. They’re the parents of Tyler, a 17-year-old who came home one day and hanged himself in a closet. The Longs turned their grief into action, preserving Tyler’s legacy by rattling indifferent educators and the community into acknowledging that steps need to be taken to prevent it from happening again.

We also see Kirk and Laura Smalley of Oklahoma become the unlikeliest of national advocates for change after their 11-year-old son takes his life. Kirk, who describes himself as “a nobody,” and his wife launched the anti-bullying group Stand for the Silent, organized via social media and recognized by President Obama.

In addition to Alex, who also has Asperger’s syndrome, we learn about 16-year-old Kelby—a lesbian—from Tuttle, Okla., and 14-year-old Ja’Meya—an African-American honors student from Yazoo County, Miss., who was so desperate to protect herself she brought a gun on a bus.

Ja’Meya was incarcerated in juvenile hall and hospitalized, and later released. Her story is perhaps the most haunting because the outcome could have been tragic. It’s also the one that feels the most incomplete since we don’t hear enough from her.

But it is Alex’s narrative that hits the hardest.

Here’s a sweet kid shunned by virtually everyone. By showing us life through his eyes, the filmmakers give us a palpable sense of how petrifying it is for him to go to school each day. We watch in horror as the harassment on a bus intensifies to the point that Hirsch—fearing for Alex’s safety—shows the footage of the abuse to educators and his family. Alex’s parents are stunned by what they see.

When they meet with an assistant principal about stopping it, there’s a sense she’s placating them with old-school thinking and not addressing their concerns. (A school investigation does follow and Alex is placed on another bus.)

As adults try to figure this all out, our hearts go out to Alex. Throughout his ordeal, you want to reach out and hug the kid, protect him and tell him that things will get better.

Bully wants to provide the building blocks to help Alex get there.

Now the onus is on all of us to play our part in making it happen.

But this isn’t just any summer. The Avengers, director Joss Whedon’s superhero spectacular, has already raked in record-setting revenue at the box office—records that are expected to stand only until the July 20 release of The Dark Knight Rises, easily the most-anticipated cinematic event in recent memory.

But other blockbusters lie in wait to carve out their piece of the lucrative summer box-office pie, and this guide, in order of release date, will help you get what you’ve got coming—at least as far as summer cinema is concerned.

The Avengers (April 24): This big-budget bonanza is clearly the standard-setter for this year’s crop of summer blockbusters. It Hulk smashed every box-office record in sight during its opening weekend, and even managed to accomplish that which is typically fairly difficult for movies of its ilk: garner universally positive reviews. Much credit for this goes to Nerd King Joss Whedon for capably helming a huge, multi-pronged affair from the beginning to its explosive, city-demolishing end.

Dark Shadows (May 11): The latest collaboration between director Tim Burton and his muse, Johnny Depp, this remake of the weird late-’70s television series shows this dynamic duo recording one of their rare misses. No matter. Even at their campy worst, Burton and Depp still captivate. Despite that, does anyone else think it might be time for this cinematic coupling to try on a temporary separation?

Battleship (May 18): This movie stars Rihanna and is based on the board game of the same name. I don’t know exactly know what to make of the former, but the latter pretty much guarantees at some point, someone will utter the phrase, “You sank my battleship.” Must miss.

The Dictator (May 18): I have no great love for Sacha Baron Cohen, but even I have to admit that he’s a force to be reckoned with, and with the creation of characters like Borat and Bruno, is possibly one of the better satirists of our time. However, judging by early previews of The Dictator, it seemed the capable Cohen may have made his first Hollywood misstep. But reviews don’t bear this out, and it seems his tale of an oppressive dictator who comes to the United States in order to deny his country democracy at all costs will be yet another success for the distinctive funnyman.

Men in Black III (May 25): Yeah, I wasn’t aware this franchise required another installment either, but Hollywood has never exactly troubled itself with questions as to what is necessary when it comes to green-lighting projects. As well, it’s pretty tough to deny the box-office draw of the ever-affable Will Smith, and with Tommy Lee Jones and Josh Brolin (who memorably shared the screen together in No Country for Old Men) both costarring as Agent K, Smith will have his hands full with more than just alien invaders.

Moonrise Kingdom (May 25): I realize the following statement will cause all of my minimal hipster cred to be revoked but here it is: I do not especially favor Wes Anderson. To me, his quirks seem more like annoying compulsions, and his style seems affected at best. I very badly want to like him, but, in reality, few filmmakers try my patience more. However, there is no doubt he’s inventive and engaging, and has a knack for brilliant casting. From all indications, Moonrise Kingdom seems to play directly to Anderson’s strengths, and you can’t beat a movie that has the good sense to cast Bill Murray, Bruce Willis, Edward Norton, and Tilda Swinton all at the same time. Will this be the Wes Anderson movie that finally steals my heart?

Snow White and the Huntsman (June 1): For whatever reason, Snow White is the trendiest fairytale heroine around these days. The second film this year based on the classic story, this one sees Snow White (played by Twilight’s Kristen Stewart) ditching the Seven Dwarves in favor of a huntsman (Thor’s Chris Hemsworth) and a righteous helping of girl power. If you’ve ever wanted to see this fair maiden throw down against the wicked queen (Charlize Theron) in a winner-take-all battle complete with eye-popping action sequences and fancy special effects, this is the fairytale for you.

Prometheus (June 8): Back when we all thought this Ridley Scott film was an unofficial prequel to Alien, we whipped ourselves into all kinds of a frenzy. Now we know that’s not the case, but that fact barely dampens the anticipation surrounding this release—and its killer preview featuring Michael Fassbender, Charlize Theron, and Noomi Rapace isn’t hurting anything either. No one brings dark style and bone-chilling scares like Scott, and he appears to be at the top of his mind-bending directorial game with this sci-fi creature feature.

Rock of Ages (June 15): I’m going to guess there may be more than one reason to see this movie, but this one is all I need: It’s a glam-rock musical that stars Tom Cruise. Yes, the correct response to that news is indeed, “OMFG.” See you in line for popcorn.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (June 22): Question: What do we love right now more than vampires? Answer: Nothing. Predicated upon a decidedly weird premise—that, along with saving the United States from itself by intelligently and compassionately shepherding the fledgling country through arguably the darkest time in its history, Abraham Lincoln also took time out to hunt vampires—this movie would get my most skeptical eye roll were it not for one thing: it is directed by Timur Bekmambetov, the man also responsible for Night Watch and Day Watch. The Great Emancipator gets gory.

Brave (June 22): Last year, the perfection palace known as Pixar made its first misstep with its critically drubbed sequel to Cars. I think we all knew their run of critically lauded instant animated classics couldn’t last forever—no matter how badly we might’ve wanted it to. But rather than licking their collective wound, animation’s foremost brain trust went to work on this story of a sassy Scottish lass who defies the customs of her kingdom, falls in with an eccentric witch and learns to watch what she wishes for. Will Brave be another feather in the animation studio’s already well-adorned cap? Probably. It is Pixar, after all.

To Rome with Love (June 22): Thanks to the unexpected but well-deserved success of Midnight in Paris, Woody Allen is, at 76 years old, currently a hot Hollywood property. This time, the locale is Rome, Woody appears both in front of the camera and behind it, and Jesse Eisenberg appears to be the actor Allen is passing his mantle of neuroses on to—who would seem to be a better fit for it than even Owen Wilson, which is saying something. Always a Tinseltown anomaly, the prolific filmmaker has spent the past several years producing the best work of his long career, and anticipation runs high for this effort.

Magic Mike (June 29): This is a movie about male strippers starring Channing Tatum (former male stripper) and Matthew McConaughey (clearly a man who favors a clothing-optional lifestyle) directed by Steven Soderbergh. Are you trying to seduce me, Hollywood? Because it’s working.

The Amazing Spider-Man (July 6): I think all would agree that, after the last installment in this franchise—a moneymaker, albeit a disappointing one—Sony could’ve let a sleeping superhero lie a little longer. However, with a new star (Andrew Garfield) and retooled style, the studio is hoping to strike a little summer blockbuster gold. Frankly, I have a hard time believing any superhero movie can compete with the one-two punch that is The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises, but maybe there’s enough box-office love to go around.

Savages (July 6): Few directors can pull off a topical, gritty thriller like Oliver Stone. The ever-controversial filmmaker trains his laserlike focus on the world of Mexican drug cartels seen through the lens of a pair of weed dealers that run afoul of one. Lest you forget, this is the director responsible for Midnight Express, which means this subject matter lies well within his comfort zone. And with a cast that includes Taylor Kitsch, John Travolta, Benicio Del Toro, and Uma Thurman, Stone has positioned himself well for cinematic success this summer.

The Dark Knight Rises (July 20): If I’d had any doubt (I didn’t) that this film is the Biggest Cinematic Event Ever, Ever, the reaction of the audience watching the just-released extended trailer for it during a sold-out opening-night showing of The Avengers more than confirmed that fact. It is impossible to overstate how visionary a director Christopher Nolan is, and in Christian Bale and a floundering Batman franchise, he found the perfect vehicle and outlet for that vision. With The Dark Knight, Nolan created the best superhero movie in existence and, in doing so, forever changed how superhero movies are both made and perceived. Expectations are sky high for Nolan’s swan song to the franchise he singlehandedly saved, but if that crowd-wowing preview is any indication, Nolan has the world’s expectations well in hand. Step aside, Avengers. The Dark Knight is about to rise.

The Bourne Legacy (Aug. 4): As a born skeptic, I also used to be a Bourne skeptic. I mean, Matt Damon as an action hero? At best, it seemed to be an egregious case of miscasting. Then I saw the first Bourne movie. And I understood both the inherent entertainment value in a smart, well-made thriller, and what a genius decision it was to tap the impossibly versatile Damon to anchor the Bourne series. Fast forward to the present day, to a time when Damon has called it quits as the Unlikeliest Action Hero, leaving a void to be filled and a franchise hanging in the balance. Again, an inspired casting call is made, and Jeremy Renner has now found himself the anchor of his own Hollywood megafranchise (his role in The Avengers notwithstanding). With a tagline of, “There was never just one,” and original Bourne screenwriter Tony Gilroy trying his capable hand at directing, a new Bourne is born.

Total Recall (Aug. 4): Every summer spawns a pointless rehash of a movie no one was hankering for a remake of, and this year Total Recall gets the reboot. I realize this film is all about what is real and what is invented, so it’s in that vein that I express my wish that I lived in a reality that didn’t see a need to reinvent this movie.

The Campaign (Aug. 10): It wouldn’t be a summer movie roundup without some talk of what the season’s breakout comedy will be. And while summer 2012 boasts some worthy contenders (read: everything featuring Steve Carrell), methinks this Jay Roach effort is the funny film to beat. First of all, the story—that of two rival politicians vying for the same congressional seat—lends itself well to a comedic treatment, and the stars in question—Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis—are just the men for this job. Add to that a script by Eastbound & Down’s Shawn Harwell and a supporting cast that includes Jason Sudeikis, John Lithgow, and Dan Aykroyd, this will be one comedic campaign trail.

The Expendables 2 (Aug. 10): After the success of The Expendables, I suppose I should’ve seen this coming. It stars a group of almost-washed-up action stars—Sylvester Stallone, Jet Li, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, and Dolph Lundgren (as well as the not-yet-washed-up Jason Statham)—as a group of almost-washed-up mercenaries. If you’d like to spend part of your summer with a mustachioed Stallone sweating through his action sequences and slurring out witty one-liners, be my guest. Even Statham’s always-enticing presence can’t lure me into the theater for this one.

Sparkle (Aug. 17): This movie—a remake of the 1976 movie of the same name—didn’t exactly have anyone salivating with anticipatory delight. However, it costars Whitney Houston and is pretty much the last thing she’d worked on before her sudden death, meaning our former semi-interest has coalesced into a more rabid form of curiosity. Houston—a woman the camera clearly loved (her stint on reality television show notwithstanding)—has hopefully crafted a swan song worthy of both her voice and the tremendous talent that came with it.

And when the Hub gets ripped off, the greater community as a whole feels the loss—which is why the greater community has shown a strong interest in helping the Hub right this wrong. Besides, we don’t much like heartless savages around here.

If you’d like to help out the Hub, it’s as simple as showing up to the Shakedown on Fri., May 18 (the same day as Bike to Work and School Day and the Hub’s yearly pancake feed) where Rhombus (the band for whom every show is their last), So Adult, Totalizer, and the Bellingham Circus Guild will be on hand to entertain you in the name of raising money so that the Hub can continue to do what it does so very well.

Strike a blow against heartless savages and win one for the Hub.

The Hub benefit takes place Fri., May 18 at the Shakedown, 1212 N. State St. Cost: $5-$10. More info: http://www.shakedownbellingham.com

The above words were written by Adrien, one of the many participants in photographer Molly Landreth’s far-reaching exhibit, “Embodiment: A Portrait of Queer Life in America.”

Although viewers don’t learn Adrien’s last name, Landreth includes the town he’s from—Washburn, Wis.—and the fact that the photo was taken in 2009. We also intuit that he used to be a woman, but now identifies as male.

“It’s been an intense journey since then and looking back at the boy I was in that photograph, I know he has the strength to get through it,” reads Adrien’s statement that goes along with the portrait.

Landreth says she started collecting images for “Embodiment” in 2005 as her thesis project for a graduate program at the School of Visual Arts in New York.

“I did it out of a real need to see images of the queer community I could connect with,” Landreth says. “I started out taking pictures of friends in Brooklyn, New York, and Seattle, but once I graduated, I started thinking about it in a much broader way.”

Calling the exhibit a work in progress, Landreth says when she first started branching out, the project was pretty much funded out of her own pocketbook. If she knew she was going to be visiting Toronto, she’d do things like arrange to land in Ohio so she could shoot there for a few days before heading north—and photograph participants in Michigan on her way back to Ohio.

Once her portfolio was beefed up, Landreth applied for, and got, a few grants. She also waged a successful Kickstarter campaign, and relied on sales of prints from the exhibit to fund a 2009 tour across the United States.

“I decided to make it a national survey, in a personal way,” Landreth says. “As much as they are environmental portraits, they are also self-portraits. As I reached outside of my comfort zone—to those living in the Ozark mountains, for example—I realized I was shattering my own preconceptions of the project.”

Landreth hasn’t been taking as many photos for “Embodiment” these days, but is still focused on publicizing the exhibit and talking about why it’s important to draw attention to the men and women—and those who identify as one, the other or somewhere between—caught in her strong lens.

“I want it to be an archive of a moment of history in a big, diverse country,” she says. “A lot of the exhibit is looking at people living in places where we’re told queer people don’t exist or thrive. Part of the visibility I want to create is around that. Just people who are living day-to-day. It’s proof that this community is everywhere—and it’s also about understanding that queer people don’t live in one place or look one way.”

When Landreth speaks May 18 at Jinx Art Space, where part of the exhibit is currently on display, she says she’ll be open to questions about what she’s learned in the six-plus years she’s been seeking out those who’ve been brave enough to come along for the ride.

When asked if she thought Americans were coming around when related to the topic of equal rights for gays and lesbians, the discussion naturally turned to President Obama’s admission last week that he believed same-sex marriage should be legal.

Political move or not, Landreth says she’s on board with what he had to say. “I think it’s amazing,” she says. “There’s still so much more to be done, but I think these victories should be really celebrated. I think it was a really historic moment.”

While my sibling worked late hours at her nursing residency, I often spent my down time watching cable and wondering what the hell I was doing with my life.

One night, my channel surfing led me to an episode of COPS. As the folks in blue cuffed the perpetrator—on this night a drunk dude who was in trouble for slapping his baby mama and walking around outside without his pants on—I thought the surroundings looked familiar. I was right: When my sister walked in the door, she noted, “Oh, this is the episode that took place a few doors down from me.”

Suffice it to say I got my behind out of Tacoma soon after that. And now, years later, I can see the inherent humor in the situation.

While it’s true that in many cases law enforcement is no laughing matter, the brilliant minds behind the mockumentary Comedy Central show Reno 911 proved that, once in a while, poking fun at those who do stupid things and get arrested for it can make for good entertainment.

Of course, anyone who watched the now-defunct series knows the biggest laughs came from the parody of the cops, a perverse bunch of men and women who slept on the job, slept with others on the job, cursed, drank and generally proved themselves to be unfit for duty.

Which brings us to “COPS 911,” a show playing every Friday and Saturday through May at the Upfront Theatre. Like its predecessors, it brings the voyeurism that is reality television entertainment to the stage, while keeping the shenanigans of the inept badge-carriers intact. 

On a recent Friday night, after listening to a reminder that the show was not for young kids and there was a strong chance of “blue” language, the host for the evening—a guy in shady sunglasses and a sheriff’s badge—asked the audience for a list of misdemeanors. Among the gems were spitting, public intoxication, urination, peeping, public nudity, vandalism, possession of illegal substances and shoplifting. Someone yelled out “tax fraud!” but was quickly informed that particular crime didn’t make the cut.

Once the show got underway, it was soon clear the cops outnumbered the criminals, and those portraying the bad guys would have to pull double duty.

Keeping track of who was who was part of the fun, and I spent the next hour and a half watching the cops—one who complained incessantly that his uniform was too tight, another who dubbed his patrol car the “Phoenix” and bragged about his sexual exploits—respond to streakers at the Co-op, bomb threats, a spray-paint-wielding hooligan and, among other things, a hilarious scuffle between elderly inmates at a retirement center.

“He took my Jello!” one old man yelled as the guys with the badges tried to separate the dueling dodderers. “Well, he took my wife!” the other recounted.

Since the shows are improvised, each showing of “COPS 911” promises to be completely different from what came before it—so rest assured you’ll get a fresh batch of crimes and officer quirks each time around.

And, although it’s poking fun at the funny side of breaking the law, the show also gives props to those who work in the enforcement aspect of it. By flashing a real, or fake, badge at the door, you’ll get it for a measly $5. That’s so cheap, it’s almost a crime.

The neon mass is the Homeskillet, one of Bellingham’s most recent restaurant upstarts, and the loud décor follows you from the exterior to the interior, from the chicken fried steak with chorizo gravy to the flourless chocolate cake.

The joint’s modus operandi is good, cheap, fast food. With more than 50 years of cooking and restaurant experience between them—often in rough environments, including Antarctica—owners Tina and Kirby White are testing their personal relationship with a venture in the soul food biz.

“We purchased a fixer-upper when we moved to the Sunnyland area, and once we saw this space was for sale, we started brainstorming,” Tina, who acts as waitress, host, cook and chief decorator, says. (My favorite touch is the My Little Pony figurine positioned atop the fireplace mantle in the dining room.)

The location is marked by the silver Airstream trailer the couple owns, as well as co-owner Kirby’s vintage Mini Cooper, all of which signal the vintage diner feel they both were going for.

Taking a cue from its colorful exterior, Homeskillet’s radical palette reminds me what it would be like to live inside Joseph’s Technicolor Dreamcoat at an American diner. 

“Everything you see with acrylic on it was my wife’s doing,” Kirby says, as he reassures me that the menacing crow figures staring down at as us from the roof are actually statues.

On the other hand, once you move past the energetic color play, and the funky accessories (including a plastic Santa stuffed inside a chimney shoot), the focus is on the food.  Classic diner fare, combined with the culinary delights of the couple’s eclectic travels around the world, make for a tasty and assorted menu.

“We love food,” Tina says. “The real focus is being able to serve good, hearty meals to our friends and family, and use fresh, local ingredients whenever possible.”

After weeks of driving past the construction site in anticipation of the restaurant’s grand opening, I was finally able to indulge in some Homeskillet’s carte de jour, as promised by their tri-fold menu that was hanging for weeks in their front window.

Originally designed to be a breakfast, lunch and dinner spot, it wasn’t difficult to see why Kirby and Tina decided to scale back their hours and menu after my first, hectic visit.

The diner was empty when I arrived but quickly became awash with patrons and activity within just a few minutes upon ordering my drink—but not before Tina brought over “set-ups,” a term used for forks and knives typical of many classic American diners and cafes of yesteryear.

An appetizer of tater tots ($2) seemed fitting as a starter for my friend and I. After a nostalgic trip back in time to my elementary school cafeteria, I decided on the daily special of salmon cakes ($8.50) and my friend ordered the pulled turkey sandwich ($7.50).

As eager foodies continued to insert themselves into the landscape, I overheard our waitress—who, remember, is also the owner, line-cook and cashier—repeat that several menu items were out of stock. A credit to good marketing, but a tall order for a two-person show, especially when attempting to satisfy the time standards of “fast food” and the lofty expectations of Bellingham’s foodie crowd.

Ultimately, after a few missed orders and a bees nest of a dining room, the food we ordered was simply lovely. My salmon cakes were creamy, not heavy, and my salad with edible flowers was as tasty as it was attractive. Likewise was my friend’s turkey sandwich I stole a few bites of—a scrumptious diner spin on pulled pork, no doubt.

Days later, I rode by the colorful Sunnyland spot, and noticed a sign with Homeskillet’s new hours. After a hectic first week, the Whites made the executive decision their efforts will be best served through breakfast and lunch. I applaud their decision. Breakfast and lunch are best served with a side of local hospitality, good eats and a PBR tallboy.

It goes without saying that a person can’t keep tabs on all bands at all times, so the guilt I feel about the Metric-sized hole in my musical knowledge is minimal, at best. It simply meant I had some catching up to do.

Although I’d been aware of Metric as one of the many bands orbiting the musical sun known as Canada’s Broken Social Scene (singer Emily Haines and guitarist James Shaw both do time in that collective when they’re not busy being half of Metric), that was pretty much where my knowledge—or my ignorance, if you want to view it that way—of the band began and ended.

That is, until their song “Gold Guns Girls” ended up in heavy rotation on any number of so-called “alternative” radio stations. With its distinctive opening salvo of “All the gold and the guns in the world couldn’t get you off” sung out in Haines’ serenely self-assured style and set to a backdrop of danceable synth pop, the song was perfect light radio fare—but also boasted a lyrical bent that was decidedly darker (the song was reportedly inspired by Scarface).

The song was, I would come to find out, a proper introduction to this distinctive band.

As introductions go, this was a late one, as Metric has actually been around since the late ’90s, when Haines and Shaw first met in Toronto through mutual friends in that music scene. Both had been active musicians for years, each befriending and playing separately with various members of the soon-to-be-formed powerhouse musical collective Broken Social Scene. He was born in the UK and educated at Julliard. She was born to a poet father in India and raised in Canada. Together, they found themselves to be artistically simpatico and part of a music scene that encouraged collaboration early and often. They’ve been together and making music as Metric ever since.

Shortly after they discovered each other, Haines and Shaw moved to New York City where they became more famous for sharing an apartment with the up-and-coming Yeah Yeah Yeahs than they were for their music.

But that would all change soon enough.

After making geographical changes and courting labels and engaging in other seemingly music-related activities that serve to distract fledging bands from the business of actually making music, Metric got serious about their craft. They worked on and recorded an album they dubbed Grow Up and Blow Away in 2001, but a dispute with their record label saw that album shelved for more than six years.

No matter. Haines and Shaw had more than just one album’s worth of music up their sleeves—and they were about to double in size.

Although Metric’s layered, synth-pop sound overlaid with Haines’ lovely vocals sounded great in the studio, it was tough for the duo to translate that experience into a dynamic live show. Using synth tracks and drum machines live made for a bogged-down stage show, and Metric’s onstage appearance didn’t exactly match their sound. Time to add a drummer. And a bass player because, well, why not? Which is how drummer Joules Scott-Key and bass player Josh Winstead became full-fledged Metric members.

The timing of Metric’s personnel increase couldn’t have been better, as the band was enjoying an uptick in popularity owing to their having sold a song for use in a Polaroid commercial. The song, “Grow Up and Fly Away,” probably served to draw more fans to the band than the product their music was supposed to push—an unintended victory for a band that was becoming increasingly well-known for their anti-consumerist stance and unconventionally successful DIY approach to handling their artistic output.

During the next several years, Metric would only build on this success, releasing a couple of albums—Live It Out and the previously shelved Grow Up and Blow Away—to critical acclaim and platinum-selling success in Canada. As well, the band that had once struggled to convey their sound live had now become an onstage force to be reckoned with, and the next few years would see them touring nonstop, bringing their music to nearly every corner of the globe.

Then came the album that forced Metric into my orbit. Tracks from the album, which would eventually be titled Fantasies, began to emerge live as early as spring 2008. Later that year, under the guise of a Haines solo show, Haines and Shaw played all 10 tracks from the album at an acoustic outing in Brooklyn, NY. By the time Fantasies finally dropped in April 2009, fans were more than ready to receive it.

Fantasies, which features more personal lyrical content and a further refinement of Metric’s engaging synth-pop sound, has won the band some Juno awards, and led them to an opening slot on a Muse tour. As well, songs like the aforementioned “Gold Guns Girls” and “Sick Muse” have helped Metric’s reach grow farther and wider than ever before.

Currently, the band has another album in the hopper—current working title, Synthetica—slated for a release just a few weeks after their May 24 show at WWU’s Viking Union. And this time, when the party starts, I won’t be late.

Some of them are clad head-to-toe in Spandex and enough assorted gear to bankrupt a small nation. Others dress for success and cinch up their work slacks so as not to get them caught in the spokes of their handy conveyances. Then there are those who ride as if they’re perpetually on the way to the beach—shorts, flip-flops and as little clothing as possible (if the sun is out, it doesn’t seem to matter that it’s only 55 degrees).

However they’re dressed, one thing is certain: Around here, people like to get on their bikes and go. Whether it’s a short jaunt to the Farmers Market or a roller-coaster ride down Galbraith, if it’s a sunny spring or summer day, you should expect to share the roads and trails with those ambulating on two wheels.

It doesn’t matter if you’re an everyday biker, a sometimes-rider or someone who’s been thinking about dusting off the vintage cruiser in the garage and joining the cycling hordes—there are plenty of events right around the corner that can make it easier to be a part of the biking community.

As part of National Bike Month, Whatcom County will be more than ready for Bike to Work & School Day, which kicks off from 6:30-9:30am Fri., May 18 at approximately 30 “celebration stations” in the area. While the bulk of them are located in Bellingham—everywhere from Sehome Village to Marine Drive to Whatcom Community College—there’ll also be welcoming committees at the Lummi Fitness Center, Lynden Public Library, Blaine Schools, the C Shop in Birch Bay, Ferndale’s Main St., and at the Nooksack Valley Middle School.

Even if you don’t have time to stick around at one of the stations for complimentary treats and beverages, pause for at least a minute or two in order to be counted. The numbers will come in handy next year, when organizers can demonstrate to nonbelievers (and city planners) just how many people in our community are biking or walking for transportation.

Additional activities will happen throughout the day, including a tricycle race at noon at Bellingham City Hall and, beginning at 5pm, an after party at the Chuckanut Brewery & Kitchen.

Once you’ve biked to work and proven you can do it, the choices for social riding just keep coming. For example, even though the seasons haven’t technically changed over just yet, Everybody Bike’s Summer Rides series has already kicked off, and doesn’t show signs of slowing down until the end of August.

For those who didn’t catch wind of the series last year, the free, guided rides focus on different places and themes each week. Whether it’s the Petite Parks Tour featuring small parks and led by a Whatcom Museum historian (May 20), a Diva Ride (June 8), a Ferndale River Ride (June 17), a Birch Bay Beach Pedal (July 22), or a Lynden-based Dutch Treat Bike Ride (Aug. 5), each excursion brings with it a brand new experience.
“The real story behind these themed bike rides is that it gives an opportunity for cyclists of any skill level to participate in learning how to safely navigate our city streets with a group of other cyclists in a non-competitive guided ride,” says outreach coordinator Linda Blake. “All the rides include routes that encourage riders to explore local businesses, connecting city trails, parks and historic elements of Bellingham.”

The rides are all free and don’t require registration, so simply pick a themed outing of your choice and show up on time. As to how you dress, well, the possibilities are endless.

While the increase admittedly does not guarantee good decisions, it perhaps stalls bad decisions. Given a dysfunctional port authority, that is no doubt a preferred outcome.

At their creation, port commissions by default have three members. State law enacted in the early 1990s allows voters to add representatives, creating five-member commissions. Former state Sen. Harriet Spanel, who sponsored the original legislation, attempted to explain its intricacies to a confused commission on Monday.

Under the law, the commission can place the option on a ballot for consideration by voters. Citizens also have the option to collect signatures, and force the question on to a ballot by initiative. A citizen’s initiative would require about 7,000 signatures to qualify for the ballot, the auditor explained.

Civic leaders—former mayors, activists, and board and commission members—spoke in favor of the measure introduced by McAuley, urging the commission to action.

While Jorgensen and McAuley untangled their tackle, Commission President Scott Walker chummed the waters with red herrings aplenty. Opposed to the expansion, Walker suggested supporters go right on gathering signatures in an effort to demonstrate depth of support for the idea—as if tendering the matter to Whatcom voters was an insufficiently high bar.

“I don’t see how this makes us any more accountable to the public,” Walker complained. “It just means we’d be subject to more lobbying” and decisions would take longer.

Evidently, throwing obstacles in the way of the public’s control of their commission—in the form of dissembling non-sequiturs, misleading arguments and procedural obstructions—is Commissar Walker’s way of improving the commission’s accountability to said public.

Yet inefficiency in decision-making, which creates time and opportunity to attempt to persuade (“lobby”) elected leaders, is the public’s guarantee—the only guarantee, really—of accountability in government. Small inefficiencies (we call them checks and balances) are in the very gears of our Madisonian instruments of government, as brakes to machinery. A decision to structurally improve the port commission—to in effect make it a more representative, more deliberative, more responsive body—extends far beyond trying to overwhelm one commissar’s obsessive experiments in micromanagement of port operations. As one commenter wryly noted, the only thing more efficient than a commission of three is a dictatorship of one.

Under the current structure, Commissar Walker need only twist the feeble arm of one other commissioner to gin up a series of disasters that have rocked the agency in recent weeks. Two can negate one. Under an expanded commission, a commissar would have to manipulate at least two others to achieve the same mischief. Other commissioners could cross-check the details of the blind con, without breaking state sunshine laws. But beyond that, and long after the peculiar mischief of any single commissioner is long forgotten, better structure invites better government.

Commissioners and petitioners also have the option of creating an expanded commission in different flavors: Easiest is a commission with two at-large representatives, commissioners not tied geographically to one of the county’s three legislative districts. More cumbersome, the port commission could draw its own five districts, based on voting populations, and require one commissioner of each distinct district.

The added complication of flavors appeared to stir apprehension in Jorgensen. The Blaine resident expressed unease representation could become heavily weighted by Bellingham. Yet there’s no malady for the cure: Ultimately, all county elections in Whatcom County involve all county voters, and Bellingham—as the county’s population center—will inevitably produce a surfeit of candidates for office. Moreover, by reason and design, Bellingham is pieced and parceled out to every county legislative district.

At sea, Jorgensen’s waters were further chummed by the port’s legal counsel, Frank Chmelik, who—appearing to read the governing statutes for the first time—saw these flavors as mutually excluding one another. One path chosen, he suggested, would prevent the commission from considering the other. Chmelik’s hesitant herrings nearly swamped the commissioner’s resolve. But, in fact, the law allows for the commission to readily adopt either flavor, or for petitioners—again, in the law’s symmetry—to force a preference on to a future ballot.

Listeners urged commissioners to expand the commission now, and allow the expanded commission itself to sort out the preferred details of representation.

While time permits the proposed expansion to appear on the coming August primary ballot, McAuley expressed his preference that the measure appear in November’s general election, where more voters may participate.

“There it will receive far more attention, far more participation by voters,” he reasoned.

Yet even that produces a prickly outcome: While it’s true more people may be involved in the decision to change the commission’s structure in November, fewer will vote on the commission’s actual representatives in a special election in February. Given the latter will have a much more profound effect on the commission and its decisions, a November election might’ve yielded a better balance of competing imperatives.

If approved by voters, the top vote-getter in the special election will serve through 2015. The candidate in second place could stand for re-election to a full four-year term in the fall of 2013.

“Washington state has a track record of electing strong, progressive women candidates, and for more than a decade we led the country in electing women to office,” Vanessa Blackburn said. The former editor of Bellingham Business Journal managed the campaign of one of those success stories, the election of Kelli Linville as Bellingham’s first woman mayor.

The state is richly represented by women, with a governor and two formidable United States senators. Washington’s congressional delegates shakily approach a plurality of representation, as do both state houses in Olympia. And Washington is among the first states to have a majority of women seated as justices on the Supreme Court.

At the most local level, though, Bellingham remains underrepresented by women.

“In the past several years, the state has been losing ground on the number of women in local and state government,” Blackburn commented. “Locally, Bellingham has only one female representative on Bellingham City Council, Cathy Lehman.”

“Women are underrepresented in most positions of power, frankly—in business, in the military, in law,” Lehman admitted. “Government is just another area. Fifty-one percent of our population is female, so it would be great to pursue that as a goal for our representatives.

“It’s worth adding that we don’t have a lot of racial diversity in city government, or diversity in sexual orientation, or age diversity, so we have a way to go to make our government look like the people it represents,” Lehman said. “There are many areas for improvement.”

For women in particular, powerful cultural forces and media messages intone that a woman’s value lies primarily in her youth, beauty and sexuality, not in her capacity to lead. While women have made great strides in leadership over the past few decades, the United States is still 90th in the world for women in national legislatures, and women hold only 3 percent of influential positions in mainstream media.

The corrosive effects of such messages, and efforts to overcome them, are explored in a documentary that premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. Miss Representation uncovers a glaring reality we live with every day but fail to see.

Written and directed by Jennifer Siebel Newsom, the film exposes how mainstream media contribute to the under-representation of women in positions of power and influence in America.

The film challenges the media’s limited and often disparaging portrayals of women and girls, which make it difficult for women to achieve leadership positions and for the average woman to feel powerful herself.

The film, which promises to layer facts and statistics that will leave the audience shaken and armed with a new perspective, screens this week at the Pickford Film Center.

“Every woman in that room is going to have her mind blown by the content of that film,” Lehman predicted. “It is amazing how much media affects and reinforces the disempowerment women experience, and how many barriers women in positions of leadership really do face.

Indoctrination starts early, Lehman said.

“Research has shown that until second grade, both girls and boys equally identify with the statement, ‘I can be president.’ But after second grade, girls pretty much just plummet,” she said.

“They just stop saying it entirely.

“We all are responsible for doing something about it if we want the system to change.”

The film will be followed by a panel discussion led by political consultant Cathy Allen. Allen is in no small measure responsible for the state’s early successes in improving the ratio of women in elected positions. Eighteen years ago,

Allen opened one of the first political consulting companies focused on electing women to office. Some 650 winning campaigns later, her Seattle-based company has helped elect record-setting numbers of women in the Middle East, Africa, Mexico, and South America, Canada.

Titled, “DeMisstifying: Why I shouldn’t have run for office but did anyway. And I won!”, the panel features a number of notable current and past representatives, including Mayor Linville, Lehman, Seattle City Council member Jean Godden, and Rep. Kris Lytton, who works tirelessly on education and social justice issues in Olympia. Lytton is seeking re-election in November.

Office seekers and hopefuls will also be in attendance, including Christina Maginnis, whose first run for office nearly toppled longtime Whatcom County Council member Sam Crawford last fall.

The events are sponsored by Represent!, activists and organizers who hope to develop support for leaders who seek elected public office.

“The goal of the May 12 event is to engage local women to discuss how to foster and support more women in leadership in our community,” Blackburn said.

“Research has shown that women need to be asked to run for office, asked an average of three times before they will consider running for office,”

Lehman commented. “People consider me a pretty strong, well-rounded woman, but I have to admit, this was true of me. I only ran for office because I was asked. Men don’t seem to have the same requirement. If they want to run for office, they just do it.”

By contrast, “Women seem to believe that they need to know more or achieve more, or accomplish more or be recognized more, before they will consider running for office,” Lehman said. “Men tend to consider gaining positions of power and leadership first, as a means to achieve other goals.”

Event organizers hope the events may serve to encourage more participation at all levels of public life.

“There are many ways women can begin to enter more positions of power and leadership in our community,” Lehman said. “They can manage campaigns, serve on commissions and boards like the PTA. We might inspire women, ask women, to consider stepping into roles they’ve already been considering. We might inspire women to step up and run.”

Today, the same underlying fears and misconceptions are still driving American lawmakers and the same types of politicians are exploiting those fears for their benefit. This was the main message delivered at a recent conference at Fairhaven College titled “Confronting Islamophobia,” organized by a group of local religious and community leaders to improve dialogue and cooperation between Muslims and the greater community.

From misguided vandalism at a Sikh temple to a blatantly racist insult “Camel Jockey” hurled at an unsuspecting young Pakistani-American woman in a Birch Bay restaurant, Islamophobia is alive and well in Whatcom County.  But speaker Jafar “Jeff” Siddiqui, a writer, political analyst, commentator and civil rights activist who spoke at the event, sees these incidents as stemming from a more systematic problem—a culture of fear, fueled by power-hungry politicians who care more about harnessing the votes of their constituency than upholding the values of freedom and diversity that make the American ideal great.

Siddiqui is the former chair of the Islamic School of Seattle, founding member of the American Muslims of Puget Sound and the first Muslim to be appointed to the Electoral College. A native of Pakistan, he moved to the United States in the 1970s to pursue a master’s degree in industrial engineering at the University of Washington. After becoming an elector to the Electoral College in 2008, he pledged to “fight hate and bigotry that is being promoted in this country and counteract the image of Muslims as fanatical terrorists and extremists,” an image that, he said, is being propagated in the media, popular culture, and even the government.

Cascadia Weekly: Following the events surrounding Sept. 11, 2001, there seemed to be a lot of fear-mongering about Muslims and Islam in general. How much of this is still a problem, and have things gotten better or worse?

Jeff Siddiqui: They’ve gotten significantly worse. For centuries, there has been a low-grade hostility toward Muslims from the West but after 9/11, it became open hunting season. It’s as if it’s become a matter of patriotism to display hostility to Muslims, and it’s almost become a badge of honor among right wing politicians. You’d think they’d have other things to worry about, like the economy or health care or education, but then again, those things actually cost money. So now we have a lot of self-proclaimed experts on the Middle East saying Muslims and Islam hold the greatest threat possible to the Western world. An incredible number of people seem to be paying attention to those figures and they tend to play into the hands of election campaigns. And it’s not just happening in America. The country of Switzerland, which we like to think about as being neutral, just passed a law saying they cannot build a minaret or domed building. These are people being O.K. with Nazis having bank accounts but not Muslims building a religious structure. These things would be hilarious if not for the seriousness of it all. If someone would be sitting on the moon watching, they would be laughing at how silly we can be.

CW: You spoke about a particularly bad experience crossing the U.S./Canadian border in which, upon seeing your Pakistani passport, the agent became very rude and asked if you had any terrorist weapons in the vehicle. What kind of emotional reaction do you have when you experience things like that, and how do you deal with it?

JS: That was just one of a lot of experiences, but I don’t have personal feelings toward the person who directs those kind of comments. I regard them all as honest, sincere people trying to do their job. My concerns come from top-level training, such as when the FBI decides who to hire as a trainer with self-styled experts who choose to say Muslims are the target. I absolutely hold those top level people responsible because they are the ones who know what’s going on. And those are the people we’re trying to get the attention of. Right now, we’re seeing more and more top-level leadership pay attention to this issue, but we’re still holding our breath. At this point, I don’t see a lot of action, I just see a lot of rhetoric. Most of us are first-generation immigrants, we come from oppressive regimes, so we don’t want to stick our heads out in fear we’ll get our heads cut off. So we keep their heads down and mouths shut. We have to stand up. If we do nothing, it will get worse.

CW: It seems like a lot of people still misinterpret the meaning of the word “jihad.” Can you explain its true meaning?

JS: Jihad comes from the Arabic word Jhd which means “struggle.” At the core, it is the struggle of the self to overcome internal negative predispositions like greed, envy, jealousy, rage, murder, etc. Then there is the jihad of environment, which means it is the duty of every Muslim to work to make the world a better place. This includes helping someone who needs help, picking up trash, helping the homeless, feeding the hungry, fighting illiteracy—all these things that make our world a better place. That is the second level of jihad. The jihad of battle is the bottom level of jihad, which, unfortunately, is the only part of jihad the mass media has chose to use to define it. But that level of jihad is for use only when you have absolutely no choice and you know the enemy is going to kill you no matter what. Even then, you can’t just go crazy, you only fight back to stop the attack and arrive at a point where both parties can be at peace and preserve justice, that is the goal of jihad.

CW: You suggested citizens pay more attention to a candidate’s actions as opposed to the party they belong to.

JS: Unfortunately, politics in America have sunk to the lowest common denominator. Nobody wants to say they want to make vague promises because they don’t want to offend anyone. That cycle has to break. They have learned to take the default voters as default voters—they know they’ve got a certain population committed to voting Democrat or Republican, so why pay attention to what they want. The bottom line is, when the time comes to vote, they vote according to their party affiliation and they really only pay attention to the companies that are paying for their campaign. So it’s no surprise that civil rights and social programs are getting slashed. One of the problems, as Muslims, we have no political movement or significance. So as far as politicians are concerned, we don’t exist. That makes it really easy to take bashes at us. We’re just sitting there with a gigantic bullseye painted on our back. That’s something we need to work on. But Muslims are not the only ones to be hurt in these political backlashes. Our politicians need to understand we will vote them out of office if they don’t act out of our own best interest, not just the interest of the free market. I’m not against the free market, but the free market is not more important than human values. We should be willing to vote according to our demands. We would only need to do this a few election cycles and they will start paying attention to what’s good for America.

CW: After the National Defense Authorization Act was passed last year, you confronted Washington State representative Adam Smith (D-Tacoma), a co-sponsor of the bill, and asked him how he could support such a measure. Can you talk about that?

JS: Essentially, the NDAA gives the U.S. military the ability to look at anybody and say, “We suspect you’re a terrorist or a terrorist supporter” and then lock them up indefinitely without charges. After the bill passed, Representative Smith held a public meeting to which he invited influential members of the local community, including myself and one other Muslim. It was then I asked him, “What on Earth would make you want to cosign that?” And to his credit, he got what I was saying and he is now working to neutralize the bite of the NDAA by drafting an amendment that would prevent the military from locking anyone up without charges or a trial. We also asked him to sign a pledge that stated everyone in the United States has an equal right to equal protection under the Constitution, including Arabs and Muslims. It’s that last part that poses a problem with most lawmakers. The second part is a promise to repudiate, reject and condemn publicly any act or speech of bigotry against any race religion, ethnic group or minority they encounter in their area of influence. Adam Smith went for it; he signed it completely. In return, they would be more likely to win the vote of the Muslim community. I would also urge individuals to download a copy of the statement and send it to their representatives to sign. If they don’t sign it, they don’t have to vote for them in the next election. The statement is available on my website at http://www.penjihad.com and is a very reasonable one—we’re not asking them to do anything special for anybody. We’re just asking them to protect everybody equally.

The damsels of the title are Violet, Heather, and Rose (Greta Gerwig, Carrie MacLemore, and Megalyn Echikunwoke), New England coeds with Audrey Hepburn fashion sensibilities. The new flower in the bouquet is Lily (Analeigh Tipton), a transfer student in jeans and black Chucks, ripe for a wardrobe and behavioral makeover. Their distress is the school’s frat pack, barbarians of awe-inspiring stupidity.

The girls are lovely anachronisms, ostentatious in their gentility (prudish Rose, in her prim English accent, warns newcomer Lily against the campus “playboys and operators”). They are retro-classy, Philadelphia Story girls in a Jersey Shore world. They see their appalling male counterparts as unfortunates to be helped, not mocked.

Violet explains her strategy of dating men who are not her intellectual equals in the language of charity. She leads her clique to volunteer service at the campus Suicide Prevention Center, offering donuts, tap-dance lessons and pleasantly scented soaps to the forlorn visitors. “We’re trying to make a difference in people’s lives,” she explains, “and one way to do that is to prevent them from killing themselves.” Violet’s life goal is to lift the world’s spirits by creating a dance craze, an antidepressant that’s free for everyone.

The film ironically deflates that cockeyed do-gooderism (Stillman’s sentiments are unashamedly conservative), but we never question Violet’s sincerity. Stillman’s renderings of his characters have more the quality of portrait sketches than of caricature. He writes for women wonderfully and clearly adores his actresses.

Violet is part Miss Jean Brodie, part Stepford wife and all twit, but with Gerwig’s help Stillman gives her every virtue a twit can have—cheerfulness, modesty, kindness, self-reliance and boundless courage. Even at her lowest ebb, when her oafish “fixer-upper” boyfriend Frank (Ryan Metcalf) somehow seduces another girl, she keeps her chin up. “I don’t really like the word ‘depressed,’” she says. “I prefer to say that I’m in a tailspin.”

You can’t help but love her. Even female characters that zip by and disappear, like Aubrey Plaza as a grouchy suicide-center client, are little shards of pleasure.

Stillman’s efforts at broad comedy are pretty stiff. The No. 1 campus dummy, Thor (Billy Magnussen), is so thickheaded he hasn’t learned his colors yet. The campus paper is the Daily Complainer. The school’s dejected education majors fling themselves from the roof of the Ed. Building, which is only two stories high. Such creaky gibes feel out of place in the overall scheme of the film, which is about the casting off of one’s self-invented persona to become authentic.

When the various romantic knots are untied, the cast reunites in a buoyantly artificial musical finale. Stillman even diagrams the steps if you want to dance along.

In a sea of mean-spirited comedies, how wonderful to find one that openheartedly endorses happiness.

I’d gone to let our four chickens out of their coop to discover we’d accidentally left the door to their run wide open during the night. Fearing the worst, I went out to the backyard armed with scratch—also known as “crack for poultry”—to get them to come running.

One by one, the ladies emerged from their resting place under the deck ready for an early-morning snack. After doing a quick headcount, I breathed a sigh of relief, then went to check on the rabbit.

He was nowhere to be found. A few days after building a space specifically so Fuzzy could hop freely—or as free as he could get in a 10-foot-long enclosure—the bunny appeared to have found a chink in the cage my boyfriend had thoughtfully, and carefully, crafted for him over the course of a number of days last week. After a cursory glance assured me he wasn’t nearby, I went to alert my fella, who, after pausing to get a pot of coffee brewing, pulled on his pants and went outside to take a look.

Now for the bad news. A few minutes after the search for Fuzzy began, the rabbit was found in a mangled, bloody heap near the back gate with his head nearly decapitated and his lifeless body already gone stiff. Judging by the amount of trauma inflicted on his (incredibly soft) little body, it’s suspected that a hungry raccoon was the culprit.

When I heard the news, I burst into tears. How could he be dead, I sobbed, when just last night he was bounding so very joyfully in his new digs? My guy hugged me and said all the right things, but his cheeks were dry and I could tell he wasn’t as torn up about the massacre as I was.

A number of hours have passed since Fuzzy’s death was confirmed, and I’m only now beginning to see that, in order to be a true urban farmer, I’m going to have to learn how to deal with this kind of loss if I want to continue to live off the land.

My boyfriend had gotten Fuzzy with the intent of breeding him to make more rabbits to put on the dinner plate, so it wasn’t like our urban farm was ever going to be a place where old Easter Bunnies came to spend their retirement years soaking up sun and playing golf.

The meat bunny dynasty hadn’t materialized yet, however—in fact, it was just last week we figured out Fuzzy was a boy—and I’d been content to watch his adorable antics from my big chair in the kitchen.

In short, I shouldn’t have gotten attached to the little guy. In fact, when a new crop of rabbits takes up residence in the fortified hutch, I’m going to have to do my best to remember that there’s a good chance they’ll be making a debut on a dinner plate someday.

Unless the Apocalypse comes, however, I’m not sure I can be the one to execute any of our farm animals. I look at my arrangement with the chickens as a reciprocal one—they provide me with fresh, delicious eggs and I return the favor with food, water and unfettered access to the grass, insects and worms in the backyard—and can’t imagine lopping off their heads. Same goes for bunnies.

I’ve been growing things to eat in my backyard for many years now, but the addition of animals on my double lot has made me feel like a real farmer. After the loss this morning, though, I may have to reevaluate my status. Would a real farmer cry at the sight of a single soft ear dangling from a lifeless rabbit or hesitate to end the life of a chicken in order to help feed his or her family?

I don’t know the answers to these questions, but I’m realizing that having an urban farm is more than just a way to provide our household with fresh victuals. After what happened today, I’m seeing that it provides food for thought, as well.

Cascadia Weekly: How did you go from being a tattoo artist to a potter and mixed-media maven?

Clarissa Callesen: I started tattooing and running my own business at 21, and it taught me so many valuable lessons. One of the most important was the discipline of making art every day. I tattooed the past owner of Good Earth Pottery on her 40th birthday, and that tattoo led to me becoming a potter and a co-owner of Good Earth Pottery and a lifelong friendship.

CW: Those dolls you make are spooky and beautiful. What’s the process of creating them?
CC: Building each doll is a journey. They start as traditional, often horribly tacky dolls from Goodwill or a yard sale, and end as far from that as possible. They are transformed with the help of paint and a blowtorch, dressed with hand-dyed fabrics, embellished with found objects and then brought to life by an original, hand-painted face.

CW: Where else do you discover your found and recycled objects?
CC: The RE Store has been a great source of materials for me over the years. Then, once people really discovered I made use of junk, it started showing up on my doorstep. Lots of friends and acquaintances have a Clarissa box they save random treasures in for me throughout the year.

CW: Your bio says you’ve been fortunate to work all of your adult life as a self-employed artist. What’s been exciting about that, and what are the challenges?
CC: It gives me the freedom to make my own artistic choices, but along with that freedom comes a lot of responsibility. As a self-employed artist, you have to not only make the artwork, but also photograph it, display it, blog about it, market it and file the taxes. To keep up, I have had to really broaden my skill set.

CW: What can people find at your new gallery?
CC: My new space is a combined studio and gallery. People can see where I work and some of my works in progress, as well as finished pieces on display. It also creates a much-needed space for me to teach larger groups of people. It also allows people interested in shopping for new art pieces to see my work on display.

CW: What do you enjoy most about what you do?
CC: I love the Zen-like space that is created when I have paint and rusty metal in front of me. I stop thinking and just live in the moment of putting color here or an object there, and I try to be grateful that I don’t have to squeeze my creativity into a small window of time between dinner and the news.

CW: If you were to describe your art to somebody who hadn’t seen it yet, what would you say?

CC: My work isn’t like anything else you will see; I draw from many sources of inspiration, but create something unique. I find and try to express the beauty of old things, of discarded things, of things that are often overlooked. Each piece tells a story that is unique to the viewer.

In the past, I?ve been only too quick to assert my love for all things spectacle—lights, costumes, general shtick that goes above and beyond the simple performance of songs—but as the years have gone by, my opinions have grown more judicious (read: jaded) with regard to the topic. I?m just as likely to react with eye-rolling as with anticipation when I see a band set up a smoke machine along with their instruments, and I?m less tolerant of theatrics that seem to exist just for the sake of, well, being theatrical.

I guess, for me, when it comes to the makings of an enhanced entertainment experience, the question is: At what point do the extraneous trappings of a show serve and even enhance the music, and, conversely, at what point do they distract or even detract from the aural experience?

In short, when it comes to a spectacle, how much is too much?

I?m guessing this is not a debate that troubles the members of Ghostland Observatory.

But when your musical ?collective? (they?d rather not call themselves a band) features two people and one of them takes the stage wearing a cape, you?re not exactly taking a look at a big, bombastic, occasionally messy spectacle and turning and running the other way.

And I haven?t talked about the lasers yet.

If you?re getting the impression Ghostland Observatory isn?t exactly your standard indie rock outfit, you?d be only too right. This Austin, Texas duo—comprised of Thomas Turner and Aaron Behrens—aren?t so much trying to elevate the much-maligned genre of electro rock as they are trying to create an experience too grandiosely excessive to ignore—all the while daring audiences to not give themselves over to the lights and smoke and sheer drama of it all. What I?m trying to say is, while it may be possible to attend a Ghostland Observatory show and not have a good time, odds are you?d probably have to work at it.

But while audiences have long embraced this two-man not-band, critics haven?t quite been so kind.

Along with the live spectacle that has made them famous, Ghostland Observatory has earned a certain amount of notoriety for the venom with which they?ve been vilified by music?s critical illuminati. Critics haven?t just hated Ghostland Observatory?s last two albums, Robotique Majestique and Codename: Rondo, some actually seemed to be downright offended by them. They?ve attacked everything from the music itself (too derivative, too sloppy, too unfocused, not clever or complex enough) to the pair?s do-anything-as-long-as-it?s-fun ethos (too unserious, too much party).

Sure, Turner?s synth-pop beats overlaid by Behrens? bluesy wail may be familiar sounding, and may bring to mind such likeminded groups as MGMT, Scissor Sisters, or even the mighty Daft Punk. And maybe Ghostland?s recorded output doesn?t quite possess the layers of sound or the polish of those bands, but it hardly matters. And the critical disclaim surrounding Ghostland Observatory is so strong and so strongly worded, it?s enough to make a person wonder if this particular critical mass is missing the point on purpose—because they?ve surely missed the point of Ghostland Observatory, time and again.

The point that all these naysayers seem to be missing is that Ghostland Observatory is not a band meant to be listened to at home, alone, while a person folds laundry or pays bills or goes about their other domestic-type business. In fact, I?m of the mind that Ghostland is really only appropriate for home use in a late-night dance-party-type scenario. The beauty of this ?band? comes from their over-the-top live shows, which they?ve taken from coast to coast, playing very nearly every festival you?ve ever heard of and blowing the minds of their audiences everywhere they go.

And it?s due, in no small part to the lasers. Yes, it?s finally time to talk about the lasers.

In the realm of spectacle, few bands (or ?collectives,? as the case may be) bring it bigger than Ghostland Observatory. To say the laser light show they travel with is elaborate is to understate the obvious. Put together by a Pittsburgh company called Lightwave International in 2007 as a last-minute addition to a sold-out show at the University of Texas, the lasers—and there are a lot of them these days—have been an integral part of the Ghostland experience ever since. Turner and Behrens perform inside an eye-popping ?laser cage? onstage, while other lasers shoot over and pulse right along with dancing audiences. All of it—the eminently danceable beats, Behrens? theatrical vocals and onstage strut, and those many dazzling bands of light—comes together to create a live happening that audiences can?t get enough of.

When it comes the question of how much is too much with regard to the spectacle that is Ghostland Observatory, my answer is simply this: Who cares? Sometimes, it?s impossible to tell where a spectacle leaves off and a band begins. And sometimes, I?m more than O.K. with that.