The editor of The Stranger publicizes his latest book, "The Commitment," in a new interview with Boulder, Colorado's Dirt. Among other topics, Savage also discusses the process behind his weekly sex column, the kind of people he likes to hire at the Stranger, and why he thinks "newspapers are a graveyard for people who have lost their ambitions and passions."
"The Stranger is the Seattle weekly that sits in the back of the city in its black Chuck Taylors, snickering and swearing," according to Seattle Times columnist Nicole Brodeur. (Ed. note: And Seattle Weekly is the Seattle weekly whose managing editor is actually named Chuck Taylor.) Brodeur accepted an invitation to meet with The Stranger's arts editor, Christopher Frizzelle, even though she felt it was akin "to being invited into the bathroom by the Mean Girls ... You know you could come out with half your hair sheared off or your purse dumped, but you're intrigued." Turns out Frizzelle was merely flogging The Stranger's Genius Awards, in which the paper hands out $5,000 grants to four Seattle artists and an arts organization. The third-annual Genius Awards party will be held this weekend.
So says Brangien Davis in this lengthy feature previewing "The Commitment," due to be released later this month by Dutton. Among other topics, Davis talks to the sex columnist and editor of The Stranger about his family -- both old and new -- and gay marriage. Explaining why he doesn't feel that the family focus of "The Commitment" is philosophically at odds with his weekly sex column, Savage says, "If people are reading my column closely, I think they can see I'm conservatively pro-family. Most people have sex with their spouses, and being pro-sexual-pleasure is the way to keep that love alive."
AAN announced today that it had established a multi-pronged effort to provide immediate relief to employees of its New Orleans-based member paper who have been displaced by Hurricane Katrina. The centerpiece of the effort is a special fund that the association has established in its Alternative Newsweekly Foundation to accept charitable contributions from members who want to provide immediate assistance to Gambit Weekly employees. Several AAN-member companies have already announced significant contributions to the fund.
"Microsoft Caves on Gay Rights," published in the April 21 edition of the Seattle alt-weekly, accused the software giant of withdrawing its support for an anti-gay-discrimination bill in response to pressure from an evangelical Christian pastor. The New York Times followed the next day with front-page coverage of the story, and since then hundreds of publications around the globe have picked up The Stranger's scoop. Advocates of the legislation reacted with outrage -- vocally enough that Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates told the Seattle Times yesterday that the company might reconsider its stance toward such legislation.
Robinson Devor's film Police Beat, which chronicles a week in the life of an African-born Seattle bike cop, has been accepted for the 2005 Sundance Film Festival Dramatic Competition, reports the Seattle Times. Devor co-wrote the film with Charles Mudede, whose Police Beat column in The Stranger provided its inspiration. Zimbabwe-born Mudede would visit police precincts, scan the log for interesting stories, interview the cops involved and incorporate their stories into his column. The film was selected into the prestigious competition from more than 700 submissions. (Free registration required.)
Requests for the Nov. 11 edition of The Stranger are pouring into the Seattle alt-weekly's offices, largely from readers who found a degree of post-election solace in the issue's unorthodox cover, according to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. The cover features text in a series of colored bars that reads "Do not despair," before reassuring readers that they're part of a "diverse, dynamic, and progressive … urban archipelago" that voted overwhelmingly for Kerry. "People really responded to it," says editor Dan Savage, who wrote the cover text. Incoming requests for the issue number around 500, and that's just the beginning. "People want T-shirts, people want posters," says Savage.
Utne magazine has announced the nominees for its 2004 Independent Press Awards, and Association of Alternative Newsweeklies member papers dominate the "Local/Regional Coverage" category. Austin Chronicle, Chicago Reader, The Stranger, The Texas Observer and Westword all received nominations, as did Los Angeles CityBeat, an upstart alt-weekly that's only been publishing for 16 months. Nominees were chosen from among 2,000 alternative media sources. According to the Utne Web site, selection depended partly upon which publications were "most apt to go missing from the Utne library."
Seattle, Wash., alt-weekly The Stranger has tabbed five creative types for its annual Genius Awards, reports Regina Hackett of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. The awards, which Stranger editor-in-chief Dan Savage describes as a middle ground between the MacArthur and Publishers Clearinghouse Awards, debuted in 2003. Like last year, each of this year's winners receives a cake frosted with the words "You're a genius!" and a promise of $5,000. A party for the winners will be held Oct. 15 at Western Bridge, a Seattle art space.
