Charles Mudede

MONDAY 4/13 Author Talk: Ifrah F. Ahmed, Soomaaliya (FOOD) Somali-born chef, writer, recipe developer, and artist Ifrah F. Ahmed came to Seattle as a child in 1996. She and her family quickly became enmeshed in the local Somali community, and food was one of the biggest ways they connected to their culture. Today, Ahmed works […]

We must first wonder at the fact that it has taken so long for a book of this kind, a book about Seattle's graffiti culture, to make an appearance and some waves. But as the old saying goes, better late than never. Brandon Bye's More Paint contains photographs of tags and throw-ups taken by Bye between 2023 and 2025, the years when Seattle's former mayor, Bruce Harrell, was in the middle of his doomed war against one of the defining urban activities: graffiti. Bye's images also capture a city that's rapidly expanding. In the space of two years, Seattle added nearly 36,000 new residents and now has an estimated population of 816,000. Graffiti, however, is not an indication of increasing economic stress (which is truly the case for homelessness), but of the refusal to surrender urban spaces to the logic and determination of those who own and accumulate capital.

What to make of the tent that recently appeared in front of Seattle Central College, spraypainted to say “this is student housing”? If one looks at it through the eyes of a classical Marxist, they will see a disturbing connection between it and the idea that a post-capitalist society, as conceived by Karl Marx, will […]

The popular Broadway bar Bait Shop is officially looking for a new home. There has been some talk about this possibility for a while because, over two years ago, the owners, Mike Leifur and Jonah Bergman, were informed by their landlord, Redside Properties, that the century-old building they’ve called home for over a decade would […]

MONDAY 4/27 Choose Your Own Adventure (I CAN’T DECIDE) There is so much good stuff happening on Monday that even Garfield would change his mind about the loathed day of the week. Famed avant-garde composer William Basinski is playing a tiny show at Substation. The Paramount is screening 1926’s Faust as part of their beloved […]

Multiple shots were fired near a news conference that Mayor Katie Wilson held last night at Yesler Community Center to announce her plan to offer free breakfast and lunch to all Seattle Public School students, and expand free and low-cost childcare programs in the city. Seattle Times reports that police are presently “looking for three […]

Though hidden, the Lady Rainier statue is easy to find. She is right next to the northernmost building of the Old Rainier Brewery complex on Airport Way. A few steps from a parking lot lead you to her feet, which are planted on an orb. Her toes, particularly on the left foot, are the stuff […]

The idea to ban cars from Capitol Hill’s E. Barbara Bailey street, which encounters constant foot traffic from Cal Anderson Park, Capitol Hill Station, and the Capitol Hill Station Plaza, is a no-brainer. Cars should not be there. And an organization, Central Seattle Streets for All, is now pressing for the formal pedestrianization of the […]

Charles Mudede—who writes about film, books, music, and his life in Rhodesia, Zimbabwe, the USA, and the UK for The Stranger—was born near a steel plant in Kwe Kwe, Zimbabwe. He has no memory...

Meta keeps bleeding local jobs into the twilight of AI hype. The latest round of layoffs has eliminated 1,395 jobs in King County. Though some may think that AI itself is the cause of this escalating redundancy, a closer examination reveals that it is instead massive spending on AI infrastructure. But why are tech companies […]