Attractions
Winters in the Pacific Northwest might not be as harsh as those of neighboring states (you can keep all that snow to yourself, Idaho and Montana), but they're still long and brisk enough to keep many of us indoors, staring wistfully out the window. Joint Base Lewis-McChord's Family & Morale,
Stage
It's become a cliché to say this, but Georges Bizet's Carmen is an opera custom-made for people who say they don't like opera. It's an opéra comique -- a form in which choruses and arias are separated by spoken dialogue, ancestral to American-style musical theater -- based on a short
Stage
The Pulitzer and Tony Award-winning I Am My Own Wife by Doug Wright is a strange and mesmerizing play based on the true-life story of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, a German transvestite and LGBTQ activist who survived the Nazis, lived through the East German Communist regime, and founded and ran not
Features
Shake Shake Shake's sister store, Fish Fish Fish has been one of the most highly anticipated South Sound restaurant openings for some time now. Luckily, for those salivating in excitement as they zip by the 6th Ave. locale, the establishment is expected to open in just a few weeks, seriously.
Arts
An exhibition of art about food is a delightful concept -- lighthearted and lightweight. Most of the art in the "Food in Art" exhibition at Tacoma Community College consists of pop-style paintings of food, many of which are clever and funny, such as Diane Fairbanks' "Deception Pass Doughnut," a painting
Music
There's an unusual phenomenon that can sometimes happen when it comes to compiling and distributing music. The act of putting a collection of unrelated songs on one release has the ability to retroactively link the songs forever, and in the process, create a new subgenre. While this is a rare
Travel
The Armed Forces Vacation Club (AFVC) offers space-available vacations to members of the U.S. military in time-shares around the world for a fixed price of just $349 per week. That works out to less than $50 a night. These units are much bigger than hotel rooms and often have a
South Sound Cinema
Hey! You! You're reading Three Easy Pieces, where I break down a pop culture trope from its birth to how it looks today. This month, you'll be boning up on breaking the fourth wall; what started as a theatrical term has come to be defined, in film, as tearing down
Reviews
ANNOUNCER: Dutch and Jackie were talking shop, as they often do, when Dutch said something about bacon-wrapped burritos. The obvious next stop in their grub adventure was gas station dining gem, Taco Rico, in Edgewood. Because, bacon. JACKIE: I plugged the address into my Waze app and let my smartphone
Outdoors
You don't have to travel all the way to Paris or Prague to declare your love with a padlock. Pierce County has its very own love locks bridge at Chambers Creek Regional Park in University Place. Built in 2010, the pedestrian bridge curves over the railroad tracks providing safe passage to
Music
When editor Bill White assigned this article, he added, "Try not to cry when describing some of the music." He was cracking wise, of course, but he was closer to the truth than he knew. Return with us now to those totally tubular days of yesteryear, specifically the early 1980s. It
Stage
As the program note in Tacoma Musical Playhouse's production of My Way: A Musical Tribute to Frank Sinatra warns you, do not come to this show seeing someone depict Sinatra's life. Unlike Buddy -- The Buddy Holly Story, which was previously put up at TMP, My Way is not a biography; instead of seeing big
Reviews
ANNOUNCER: Dutch and Jackie this week let their stomach and hearts lead them across the South Sound with each sharing their favorite go-to spots for a romantic evening.DUTCH: An intimate setting is a great start for a romantic night out with the one you love. A loud and crowded location
Features
Imagine this. You're in rush hour traffic, inching towards home when you realize it. It's the big day, Valentine's Day. You rush to your nearest grocery store and grab that bright red, cellophane wrapped, heart-shaped box of sweets and a bouquet of blossoms, whisk them home and stride through the
Arts
Much as been written online and elsewhere about Minoosh Zomorodinia's "Colonial Walk," an art installation and gallery exhibition, parts of which are on display at Feast Arts Center. According to the gallery website, it is a project in process that investigates the relationship between the self and the natural environment,
Music
It's easy for a city's music scene to fall into complacency, for bands to break up or slow down, for audiences to find themselves too busy to come out in support of artists, for everything to start a scene collectively melting into the couch for months at a time. As
Travel
Medford is a great base for a visit to Southern Oregon to explore Crater Lake National Park and the Rogue Valley. Downtown Medford is a farm-to-table heaven that is surprisingly affordable. There are more than 30 culinary destinations with everything from fine dining to brew pubs. The town is known
Features
It's often the smallest acts of kindness that set the tone for our workdays, including something as simple as a stranger buying us a hot cup of coffee. For uniformed civil servants, especially, the seemingly-insignificant act can serve as a reminder that the community appreciates what you do. That sentiment
Travel
Crater Lake National Park has a haunting beauty in the winter months when storms from the Pacific Ocean dump an average of 43 feet of snow. Plan a full day from your lodgings in Medford to tour the park. It is about an hour-and-a-half drive on Route 62 to the
South Sound Cinema
Beginning in fall, the quality of movies in theaters increases exponentially, and as pageants like the Golden Globes and the Academy Awards approach in the spring, ambitious and beautiful movies are suddenly on the tips of everyone's tongues. Here in Tacoma, the Destiny City Film Festival began its life as an