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Anna Saner-Ott has recently stepped down from her chair at Embellish Multispace Salon and started cutting hair in the south wing of her house. She calls this cozy room “The Parlor” and nearly every one of her 200 or so regular clients has followed her to her new local. There
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Rankos’ Pharmacy is among the few places the centralized Tacoman can walk to for those slightly less public purchases. Opened in 1924, this third generation, local family-owned store is working hard to meet the demands of a changing clientele. Recently offering nutritional information, organic and earth-friendly products such as Tom’s
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Ty Cline is a wine man, and I don’t mean the kind that jumps trains in order to get to moderate climates. That would be a wino. No, Cline is a connoisseur. His impeccable taste is combined with the ability to communicate why what he is pouring in your crystal
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I don’t really care to drink at places where everyone knows my name. If they know my name it means they know my reputation as a dart master, and board or no board, inevitably I will be challenged to “huck some sharps.” I do, however, like to drink where the
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Every month or two the walls of the much celebrated Black Water Cafe sport a new collection of work from a local artist. The latest set is the work of a newcomer to the Tacoma art world, Maria Jost. Loosely titled This is a Storytale the artist statement reads, “This
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I first heard about the work and retail of Lisa Kinoshita a few years ago from glass blower and embroidery genius Shannon Eakins. Since then I have heard her named dropped here and there, always with a sense of reverence attributed to “true” artists. Having encountered her work on the
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Joel Myers was trained in classical dance and modern dance entirely on scholarship in a studio in Auburn. Kinetically gifted from an early age, Myers was first attracted to martial arts as a means of disciplining his body to function at higher levels of majesty and grace. Now somewhat of a
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Paul Sparks is a relational scientist and a student of social bonds. He is obsessed with the notion of what he calls “relational community.” Sparks is also a social being, making him a subject of his own studies; ergo the relationships he forms are his greatest source of theory. While
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It is difficult for me to talk about Valhalla Coffee Company without looking over my shoulder for some axe wielding Viking lesser-god hunting me down to cleave my spinal chord in two with a deft twist of his frost weathered wrist. Our black-metal winters have me just a little paranoid,
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In the modern domesticated world, animal companions are a phenomenon that often boggles me with complex riddles of evolution and human psychology. No other species has evolved the need for interspecies companionship, (excluding parasites) and it is fascinating if we see the types of species that have evolved to meet
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Hold on children. It’s time to go explore the Collectors Nook. Next door to the also eccentrically houred Pure Clothing on I Street, this nearly invisible dusty shelved second hand is, at the very least, worth the trip around the corner from your French press at Satellite Coffee. Perceptively named,
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Dip into the myth of the stag bunny; drink the milk of the horned rabbit. Eleven young musicians have gathered to a common table. They began on Thanksgiving Day in the year of two thousand and six. They are calling themselves Dear Records, the music is good, and the image
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A female friend of mine, who will remain unnamed, recently informed me of her new career as a dominatrix. In the old days, if a man wanted a woman to tie him to a bed he had to go out after dark into the most dangerous places his city had
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This Sunday is the fourth annual Tacoma Urban Art Festival. For those of us who have watched the art “underground” begin to push its little fronds up through the cracked pavement of this blue-collar dream, there is perhaps a sense of anticipatory stress and bewilderment surrounding the success of grassroots
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Kate Monthy is a dancer. She looks like a dancer, she walks like a dancer, and she speaks as if conversation were a carefully choreographed partnership in articulation. “MLKBallet is an organization that produces and teaches dance,” she says curtly of her organization, and then with a little bow of
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The Artist formerly known as the glassblower Oliver Doriss is currently known as the Viceroy of Hilltop for a reason (somewhere in the background several voices are whispering the word “timeless”). “I was born in Davenport, Iowa, but I’m from Massachusetts”, says the local gallery tycoon who purchased a building
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The Urban Art Festival is a community driven event with roots in the community its founders discovered in the electronic and psychedelic music scene. June 29 will mark the third annual Urban Art Festival at Fireman’s Park in downtown Tacoma, but these kids have brought the party to Tacoma for
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BioIntegra is a business concerned with the future lifestyles of the American people. Based in downtown Tacoma, this home construction startup is breaking ground in most every green sector imaginable. Chiefly promoting a wonder product called Air Kreete, via greeninsulation.net, they provide fireproof home insulation that is more energy efficient
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Veritas Mortgage, sandwiched between the Helm Gallery and Tully’s on Broadway in downtown Tacoma, is weathering the troubling housing market with grace and poise. Their friendly nature stretches beyond the need to serve a house to you on a silver platter; this community-based brokerage is fighting for a slightly more
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Looking good is harder than it seems. I don’t always look good, that’s impossible. Having an easy-to-manage yet hard-to-copy haircut helps me quite a bit. It makes me look good to myself, and that is all that really matters. The people at Embellish Multispace Salon are interested in what helps
