All posts by Wendi Dunlap

Editor of the Beacon Hill Blog.
Arts, Local Events

Tonight: Garden House Blues with Bonnie McCoy and Mary Flower

1 Comment

Tonight, another Garden House Blues night comes to the Garden House (2336 15th Avenue S.), featuring Bonnie McCoy and Mary Flower.

Bonnie McCoy, the niece of Memphis Minnie, is making her West Coast debut. Having grown up with the blues, she took time to raise a family, but now she is reaching for her dream of continuing the family blues tradition. Hear a clip of Bonnie McCoy here.

Guitarist and lap slide player Mary Flower specializes in “the intricate, harmonically subtle Piedmont style, with its good-timey, ragtime feel.” She was nominated for both “Best Acoustic Artist” and “Best Acoustic Album” in the 2012 Blues Music Awards in Memphis. See a clip of Mary Flower here.

All ages are welcome. The music starts at 8 p.m., with doors opening at 7 p.m. so you can come early and order dinners under $10 delivered to your table from Inay’s Kitchen and Travelers Thali House. Online ticket sales from Brown Paper Tickets are closed, but you can still buy tickets at the door with cash or check.

Crime

19-year-old gang member arrested for September drive-by shooting

1 Comment

A 19-year-old member of the Insane Boyz gang has been arrested for the drive-by wounding of a member of rival gang Tiny Raskal Gangsters on September 5, according to Seattle Police.

Police say that the two gangs have been violently battling for months. In the September 5 shooting, a 17-year-old youth was shot in the thigh while walking in the 5200 block of 29th Avenue South, a couple of blocks north of Dearborn Park.

The victim refused to co-operate with detectives, but police say they were able to find some evidence at the scene. Earlier this month, King County Prosecutors filed gun charges against the 19-year-old man, and then SPD gang detectives arrested him on a warrant. He then confessed to the shooting, according to police.

The accused shooter is being held on charges of assault, drive-by shooting, and unlawful possession of a firearm.

Health and Safety, Meetings, News

Airplane noise meeting veers off the path

10 Comments
David Suomi of the FAA spoke with the audience. Photo by Wendi Dunlap.

About 100 people from Beacon Hill and other neighborhoods came to Cleveland High School on Tuesday night for a meeting hosted by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the Port of Seattle, but the meeting did not go as planned.

The Port and FAA intended the meeting to “provide information on existing flight procedures into and out of Seattle-Tacoma International Airport and Boeing Field,” and started the evening with an introductory “Aviation 101” slide presentation. The crowd had other ideas.

Previously, the FAA had been criticized by some for the strictness of their meetings in Ballard and Federal Way, when residents were not given an opportunity to ask questions. This time, it was clear that they intended to let people ask questions, and ask they did.

During the presentation, people in the audience frequently broke in with shouted questions to ask about the topic that most were there for: airplane noise over Beacon Hill and other communities under the Sea-Tac flight path. There was no printed agenda available, so the neighbors in attendance were restless, and in no mood to wait through presentations to get a turn to speak.

The basic issue, said neighbor Tina Ray of the Quieter Skies Task Force with audible agreement from the crowd, is that flights overhead are “every 45 seconds to two minutes, and they are darn low. And it’s been going on for a year.”

The Port and FAA representatives would not commit to installation of more noise monitors on Beacon Hill, but promised to take residents’ concerns seriously. Some neighbors were skeptical.

Ray expressed the frustration many were feeling: “We’re not making it up; we haven’t dreamed this… This is what’s going on right now in Southeast Seattle. This is what the discussion needs to be.”

The crowd listening in the Cleveland High School auditorium. Photo by Wendi Dunlap.
Uncategorized

Poet Raúl Sánchez reads tonight at El Centro

Last night was the Beacon Bards poetry event, but it’s not the only poetic activity on the Hill this week. Tonight, November 15 at 6 p.m., the poetry moves to El Centro de la Raza, where Mexican-American poet Raúl Sánchez will read from his debut chapbook, All Our Brown-Skinned Angels. There will also be a book signing after the poetry reading.

The event is free, but if you are interested in attending, please RSVP to execasst@elcentrodelaraza.org or at 206-957-4605.

Here are some lines from a poem in All Our Brown-Skinned Angels, “My Father Was a Bracero”:

He didn’t want me to live
by my strong back, strong arms
but by my words

Arts, Local Events

Local poets reading at The Station Wednesday night

1 Comment
Kelli Russell Agodon
The Beacon Bards poetry series returns to The Station coffee house this Wednesday, November 14 at 7 p.m. with a reading by two local women poets, Kelli Russell Agodon and Annette Spaulding-Convy.

Agodon is the author of Letters From the Emily Dickinson Room, winner of the ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Prize in Poetry, and a finalist for the Washington State Book Award. Her other credits include Small Knots, Geography, and co-editing Fire On Her Tongue: an eBook Anthology of Contemporary Women’s Poetry. Kelli is a co-editor of the Seattle literary journal Crab Creek Review, and the co-founder of Two Sylvias Press.

Annette Spaulding-Convy.
Annette Spaulding-Convy‘s collection In Broken Latin is a finalist for the Miller Williams Poetry Prize. She previously wrote the chapbook In The Convent We Become Clouds, which won the 2006 Floating Bridge Press Chapbook Award and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Along with Kelli Russell Agodon she is a co-editor of Crab Creek Review, co-founder and co-editor of Two Sylvias Press, and co-editor of the Fire On Her Tongue anthology.

Health and Safety, Meetings

FAA/Port to meet with community tonight

Photo by Dr. Wendy Longo via Creative Commons/Flickr.

Reposting this as a reminder: the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Port of Seattle meeting originally scheduled for October 23 has been rescheduled for tonight, November 13, from 6:30 – 8:30 p.m. at Cleveland High School, 5511 15th Ave. S. on Beacon Hill.

The FAA, Port, and Boeing Field representatives are holding the meeting, they say, to “provide information on existing flight procedures into and out of Seattle-Tacoma International Airport and Boeing Field.”

Members of the Quieter Skies Task Force, a group of Beacon Hill and other Southeast Seattle neighbors, plan to be at the meeting in force, bringing concerns about recent and planned future airplane noise over our neighborhoods, and a petition signed by more than 300 neighbors. See our earlier post about the original October 23 meeting.

Uncategorized

Have you seen this bike?

Neighbor Claudia writes,

This bike was stolen out of our yard on Friday night 11/9/12. My housemate is very distraught and I was hoping that the good good people of Beacon Hill could keep an eye out for it?

Here are the details on it.
The paniers were not on it.
Steel frame, carbon fork.
good quality accessories and parts.
Old Man Mountain rack, rigged up nice.
Rocky Mountain frame, No stickers.
Little Canadian flag sticker on frame.

Please contact claudia.loves.food@gmail.com if you can help.

Health and Safety, Local Events

Breakthrough Research: Dr. Rachel Ceballos at Beacon Hill Library

Dr. Rachel Ceballos.

Dr. Rachel Ceballos of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center will visit the Beacon Hill Library (2821 Beacon Ave. S.) on Tuesday, November 13, for “Breakthrough Research,” a Science in the Community event to discuss what can be done in our communities to ensure the best possible quality of life for everyone while minimizing cancer health disparities.

Dr. Ceballos uses her expertise in stress and health-related outcomes to work with community partners to address distress in cancer survivors. Cancer survivors need effective physical and psychological interventions to ensure a high quality of life, and such interventions may be affected by cultural factors.

To RSVP for this event, contact Juan Cotto, 206-667-1246 or jcotto@fhcrc.org.

Help Wanted

Help wanted: Co-teacher needed at Rainier Valley Cooperative Preschool

1 Comment

Rainier Valley Cooperative Preschool (which, despite the name, is on top of Beacon Hill) is hiring a replacement co-teacher.

The listing says, “We are looking for a teacher with strengths in teaching tools and skills to young children in the following areas: emotion management, self-regulation, problem solving and communication. The teacher will be given training and mentoring while co-teaching full-time in the classroom.”

If this sounds like you, find more information and application instructions here.

Arts, Local Events

String comes to the Garden House to entertain, challenge preschoolers

2 Comments

String, a dance and object theatre show for children ages 2-6, will come to Beacon Hill next week for five showings at 9:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday and Thursday, November 14 and 15, and at 9:30 a.m. on Friday, November 16. The 35-minute show will be followed by a Q&A session with performer Mary Margaret Moore.

The show’s website describes String thusly:

“Every time that we witness 40 children focusing on the noise of a paper bag, we are deeply touched. Their deep concentration is truly magical.

“To create for children is to challenge them. In String, we stretch their capacity to decipher emotions. Small details, a raised eyebrow, a pinky movement, is enough to convey an emotion.”

Preschool classes from Beacon Hill’s Denise Louie Education Center and José Martí Child Development Center will attend the shows, but there are seats open to the public at each performance. Tickets are free, however, you must reserve a seat through Brown Paper Tickets.

If you can’t attend next week’s show, mark December 27 and 30 on your calendar, when the show will return to the Garden House. Watch the String website for details.