Newcomers to Seattle love the variety of neighborhoods. We’re a counterpane of livable places with modest and grand homes often tucked together in a green and pleasant landscape. It’s a residential smorgasbord of cultures, home styles and enclaves, from houseboats to high-rises, bungalows to classic boxes. But that excitement of choice wasn’t always there for…

Arts and culture editor Brangien Davis picks the top shows coming to Seattle this spring. Get recommendations for shows, performances, readings and more, featuring rebooted classics, empowered leading ladies and inventive new takes on old favorites. Follow the links for detailed listings in each of the following categories: Editor’s PicksAbsolute must-sees in a variety of…

It’s rumored that Danish poet and paper-cutting artist Hans Christian Andersen always kept a small pair of scissors on his person, just in case he was suddenly struck by the urge to snip out a scene. Called psaligraphy, the art of paper cutting has long been a tradition in Denmark, where every spring, sweethearts exchange…

Saying Joyce Carol Oates has a new novel out (Daddy Love, a riveting story of child abduction) is like saying a Kardashian made the cover of People magazine. She’s phenomenally prolific, but Oates also happens to be tremendously skilled at crafting compelling stories. Ask her how she excels at both quantity and quality during this…

Walden Three If you build it, they will come, right? What if you get a schematic of the place drawn up, build a website for it and write blog posts reporting on (fictional) arts events that (never) took place at the (imagined) space? Then will they come? Seattle’s Greg Lundgren aims to find out with…

LA Rebellion: Creating a New Black Cinema Starting in the late 1960s, amid tremendous social unrest, black Americans entered the UCLA film program in unprecedented numbers and began developing a new “black cinema.” These unheralded films—experimental, narrative, documentary—reveal uniquely artful attention to issues of class, history and culture. 3/1–3/24. Times and prices vary. Northwest Film…

Dateline: Paris, 1913. Russian composer Igor Stravinsky debuts his orchestral ballet The Rite of Spring (with choreography by Vaslav Nijinsky) to a packed and eagerly awaiting house at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. But the audience is reportedly so confused and infuriated by the dissonant chords, unusual time signatures and freaky tonal structures that it begins…

A growing distilling scene like ours in Washington goes through a series of stages. First, everyone’s excited about what might become available. Next, the clear spirits show up, the gins and vodkas, followed by the darker numbers, the brandies, liqueurs and whiskeys. After that, though, the individual distilleries personalities really begin to shine. This is…