How fascism works, and how to stop it: Dehumanizing people is the first and last step in a fascist society

Real Change
Solace in nature: Thoughtful book encourages making space for a break

By Tobias Coughlin-Bogue | July 27, 2022

BOOK REVIEW: ‘Six Walks: In the Footsteps of Henry David Thoreau’ By Ben Shattuck | 2022 | Hardcover, $23 | Nonfiction, memoir | Available at the Seattle Public Library

“Six Walks: In the Footsteps of Henry David Thoreau” is a memoir about relationships, history and nature. Author Ben Shattuck begins his story on a beach in Massachusetts where he reflects on a painful breakup with a girlfriend. During the course of the memoir, he meets a new girlfriend, gets married and moves to Los Angeles with his wife. ...
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Real Change
Shaping a more hopeful future

By Leinani Lucas | July 27, 2022

Afrofuturism harnesses the past to envision what’s next

On Jan. 29, 2018 — in the middle of the Trump presidency and an increasing rise of white nationalism — Marvel’s “Black Panther” hit the box office and introduced Afrofuturism into the mainstream zeitgeist. Director Ryan Coogler took Stan Lee’s concept of a futuristic African nation and channeled Wakanda through his artistic direction as a Black American man. ...
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Real Change
Seeing unseen sights: Mountaineering book explores the drive to exaggerate and the obsession to be the first

By Chris Halter | July 20, 2022

Each time I picked up “Imaginary Peaks: The Riesenstein Hoax and Other Mountain Dreams” over the numerous weeks it took me to read the 24-chapter mammoth, I never quite knew what to expect. The author, Katie Ives, who also acts as editor-in-chief of Alpinist Magazine, wrote the sprawling nonfiction novel over nearly a decade, and its detailed storytelling of the numerous events and people related to the Riesenstein hoax reads like three loosely related histories of human exploration. ...
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Real Change
Piecing together a Pacific NW spirit

By Andrea Kreidler | July 20, 2022

Fiber/multimedia artist Joey Veltkamp explores the duality of light and darkness inherent in both the Pacific Northwest and gay culture in his exhibit “SPIRIT!,” on view at the Bellevue Arts Museum. While some of his cheerful and colorful pieces can be enjoyed purely on a visual level, many are dense with symbolism personal to Veltkamp and tinged with darker undertones. ...
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Real Change
Cis het sadness: Author spells out why straight people need help

By Ashley Archibald | July 13, 2022

BOOK REVIEW: 'The Tragedy of Heterosexuality' | By Jane Ward | 2020 | Paperback, $15 | Nonfiction, sexuality | Available at the Seattle Public Library

Jane Ward is concerned about the straights.

Sure, they hold the cards when it comes to systemic power. Yes, their identities are considered so “normal” as to not exist, while the identities of others are hotly debated or criminalized. Of course, they are catered to, marketed to and held up as a paragon of what a right and virtuous family model should look like.

But my god, Ward says, they are miserable — especially the women involved. ...
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Real Change
First slow, then FAST: Expert in the field predicts how the second U.S. civil war could begin

By Dave Gamrath | July 7, 2022

BOOK REVIEW: ‘How Civil Wars Start: And How to Stop Them’ | By Barbara F. Walter | 2022 | Hardcover, $27 | Nonfiction, politics | Available at the Seattle Public Library

Civil war scholars who have been studying the occurrence of civil wars over the past century have identified predictable patterns that lead to national conflict, including genocide and civil wars. Could America be heading to a second civil war? The possibility seems far-fetched, even ridiculous. In “How Civil Wars Start: And How to Stop Them,” scholar Barbara F. Walter discusses and connects these data and patterns to recent circumstances in the U.S. ...
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Real Change
Awareness alone won’t stop climate change — but what can?

By Tobias Coughlin-Bogue | June 29, 2022

BOOK REVIEW: ‘Climate Change as Class War: Building Socialism on a Warming Planet’ By Matthew T. Huber | 2022 | Paperback, $27 | Nonfiction, climate | Available at the Seattle Public Library

Matthew T. Huber’s “Climate Change as Class War: Building Socialism on a Warming Planet” is, despite its exciting title, more of a battle to set the record straight than a call to storm superyachts. In it, Huber, a professor of geography at Syracuse University and frequent contributor to socialist magazine Jacobin, offers a strikingly precise analysis of how our current climate movement falls short.

To call Huber’s book timely would be an understatement. The apocalypse seems to have already arrived. ...
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Real Change
Necessary dispute: Essay collection teaches the value of avoiding compromise

By Susan Storer Clark | June 22, 2022

BOOK REVIEW: ‘On Compromise: Art, Politics, and the Fate of the American Ideal’ By Rachel Greenwald Smith | 2021 | Paperback, $16 | Nonfiction, politics | Available at the Seattle Public Library

From the beginning of “On Compromise: Art, Politics, and the Fate of an American Ideal,” a collection of essays by Rachel Greenwald Smith, it’s clear what she thinks of compromise.

She’s against it.

Mostly.

Smith does make it obvious that she’s not against everyday domestic compromises, such as when people take turns doing the chores nobody likes. It’s political compromise she finds objectionable, especially the tendency she sees in center-left Americans to see compromise as an idea in itself and an end rather than a means. ...
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Real Change
The ‘Bruce’ we deserve: Collaboration leads to triumph in new ‘Jaws’ musical

By Leinani Lucas | June 15, 2022

At Seattle Rep through July 3 | Music by Richard Oberacker | Book and lyrics by Robert Taylor and Richard Oberacker | Directed and choreographed by Donna Feore | Tickets $23–$99

On Friday, June 10, “Bruce” splashed into the Seattle Repertory’s Bagley Wright Theater. Set in 1974 Hollywood, this new original musical throws the audience into the maw of production chaos surrounding “Jaws.” Based on the book “The Jaws Log” by Carl Gottlieb, “Bruce” manages to inspire and surprise by playing with what’s not there, much in the same way the original film terrified viewers by keeping them always on edge and waiting for the final reveal. ...
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Real Change
How fascism works, and how to stop it: Dehumanizing people is the first and last step in a fascist society

By Dave Gamrath | June 8, 2022

BOOK REVIEW: ‘How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them’ By Jason Stanley | 2018 | Paperback, $17 | Nonfiction, politics | Available at the Seattle Public Library

In “How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them,” Yale professor of philosophy Jason Stanley explains the mechanics, strategies and tactics within fascism. In America, labeling a group or a person as “fascist” is typically considered an overreaction. America is the strongest democracy in the world, and fascism could never happen here! Stanley explains otherwise. ...
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