Foggy street and trees,
uploaded by Bohonus.

If Seattle’s meteorologists were a sports team, they’d be winning national titles. We have some tremendous talent around  here, thanks to the Northwest’s ability to attract data-crunching nerds of all kinds. But over at KOMO, meteorologist Scott Sistek is about as native as it gets. Born in Port Angeles, he got his atmospheric sciences degree from the University of Washington. (Bow down, cirrostratus!)

Like the venerable Cliff Mass, Sistek also keeps a weather blog: Partly to Mostly Bloggin’, where he tracks things like “gloomiest days” and provides gift-giving ideas for meteorology bugs. He’s also a tweeter. 

Knowing he likes to talk weather, we thought we’d try to get the inside scoop on a few things, and Sistek delivered. 

Let’s talk coastal radar. It lets us see what’s coming Seattle’s way earlier, we know. Now that you’ve had the chance to work with it, can you describe the impact?

The best example I can think of where it was a big help was the January ice storm–we were able to actually see the area of low pressure on the radar and pick out its nuances to at least get an idea of how that snow/ice storm was evolving, because it wasn’t exactly following where the forecast models had indicated it would go.

It was easy to compare to a similar snow event that had happened in early 2011 before the radar was in where the snow managed to mainly miss downtown Seattle (yet dump 30 inches of snow in Mount Vernon). The exact position of that low created a large rain shadow (“snow shadow” in this case) over Seattle and Bremerton–something that was difficult to see without radar coverage.

But in a double benefit, having the radar has been helping our forecast models in providing a treasure trove of additional data for the models to use in their calculations–especially over the void waters of the Pacific Ocean near the coast as well.

It’s also been a big help in being able to track thunderstorms that move into the coast and sometimes into the Puget Sound region. It’s been an eye-opener for me to see how many thunderstorms roam around off the coast during cold, unstable weather patterns.

The Olympics still provide some interesting twists in our weather stories, as does the infamous Puget Sound Convergence Zone. Even with better radar, can you still get really fooled in the short-term?

Oh absolutely–especially with Convergence Zones. The coastal radar is great seeing a band of heavy rain that is offshore and knowing when that rain will reach us, but with Convergence Zones, they are their own beasts. We can get a good idea of when the pattern will form based on the expected low-level winds and roughly where it will be located, but sometimes they sneak up on your, and predicting how long they’ll last and how intense they’ll be–and still to a certain extent, where it will form–can create a few surprises. Make conditions marginal enough for lowland snow and now you’ve got all sorts of headaches.

And then there is the challenge of wording a forecast to nuance the convergence zone–even when we know it’s coming, trying to convey that some of you are going to get wet (or snowy) and others will get nothing. In fact, it’s not unusual to have clear skies 10-15 miles on either side of an active zone. So telling the Lynnwood person to prepare for 6 inches of snow while, in Seattle and Marysville, you’re getting squat, is a challenge–although as someone who lives in the Convergence Zone area myself, most of the longtime residents do understand that they get picked on.

It does make it more obvious when we’re wrong! Although we can give a pretty good short-term forecast based on radar trends, we’re not to the point where we can say, “It’ll rain in Tukwila in 8 hours and 12 minutes”–forecast models aren’t quite that precise yet and it’ll take some major additional advances in technology and computing power to get that precise that far out. So there is still a need for “scattered showers” Monday as opposed to “rain between 2 and 2:15 pm on Monday,” because the precision is not there yet beyond a few hours. We can get pretty good a day or two in advance for general time frames: “Steady rain in the morning, tapering to showers in the afternoon” but setting a watch by it is still some years away…unless the rain is like 20 minutes away.

Really the largest “gotcha” is when it’s a clear or dry period in the fall and winter, during the evenings and mornings, and the radar picks up migratory bird patterns. The radar will see those millions of birds and paint what looks like splotches of rain across the region when it’s obviously clear outside. We do get a few confused emails on it, and we try to explain what is going on. It only happens when the birds begin their trek north (spring) or south (fall) and during the early morning and late night hours. We can’t filter it out though because then the radar would also ignore legitimate rain.

Microclimates! Seattle must have them, but they don’t seem as prominent in public awareness as they are in, say, San Francisco where it can be both foggy-and-50 and clear-and-82. Discuss.

Seattle has dozens of microclimates and I’d say we challenge San Francisco as far as number, only ours aren’t quite as stark. However, San Francisco cheats a bit in that their population spreads out further. Imagine if the mountain passes were a flat freeway and Wenatchee and Ellensburg were considered in the Seattle metro area–now you’ve got similar microclimates in the “Seattle area” that San Francisco does.

But as far as west of the mountains, you’ve got the rain shadow that has Sequim at 18 inches of rain a year as opposed to Forks at 120 inches, Seattle at 37 and Olympia pushing 50. The Convergence Zone areas of Snohomish County on average get 10-30 days more rain a year than just 20 miles away in Seattle.

On stormy days, winds can gust to 60 mph on the coast, 55 mph on Whidbey Island, but it’ll “only” gust 30-35 mph in Seattle–and be dead calm in Port Angeles and Sequim. Meanwhile in the late fall and winter, you can get an east wind event where even though it’s blazingly sunny outside, winds will roar 50-70 mph in places like Enumclaw, Gold Bar, and North Bend, and gust 30-40 mph in Renton and South Seattle, but be nearly calm North Seattle.

We’ve had recent weather systems where warm air pushed into the South Sound and bought temperatures into the upper 60s while just 45 miles away in Everett it was in the 40s. Even at nights in the winter, it’s routine for outlying areas to drop into the mid 20s while Seattle proper stays above freezing. But in the summer, spots near the water can be in the upper 70s, while it’ll be in the low-mid 80s just away from the water, and perhaps pushing 90 in the foothills. While on the coast, it’s foggy and in the upper 50s to low 60s.

You can see the challenge we have trying to squeeze that into a simple forecast!

Yes, a great day for me is in the 50s or 60s in the summer. It is amazing that this area has those who love the sunshine as you’d expect, but there is also a very large contingent of “rain fans,” as I call them, who like me really enjoy a cloudy, rainy day. I can’t say exactly what it is, something about rain I find soothing. Those days when it’s a low overcast and the fog is drifting through the tree tops and it’s the drip-drip of rain amid a cool breeze is really refreshing.

But I certainly understand those who are not big fans of that weather and want to dust off the flip-flops from time to time would struggle with our climate, just as I’m sure I’d struggle living on the East Coast in that climate (actually, I have briefly lived there and…no thanks).

I do not let the rain coop me up inside, I think you just learn to not let it bother you. It’s why many locals eschew umbrellas. I will say that our rain here is generally pretty wimpy — it’s usually fairly light and the drops are small so you might get a little wet but you dry off pretty quick. (I always joke that, sure, it rains in Seattle a lot, but it’s adry rain.) You’ll also find if you try to put off projects for a blazingly sunny day, that for much of the year, it’ll never get done. So you mow the lawn in the drizzle, or this week, put up Christmas lights amid the showers and move on.

So for those new here, I’d say don’t let the rain fool you–it’s lighter than you think and it doesn’t rain all the time, it just looks like it will. And the payoff in the summer–there is no way to argue that we don’t have the best summers in the U.S., possibly the world, there, I said it–should be worth it. So don’t stay hiding inside the house fearing the rain. Go be outside and you’ll soon learn that it’s not that bad, and it’s many times not that wet. There is a reason Seattle gets less annual rain than many other cities like New York or Chicago or Houston–it’s usually not a soaking rain.

In that regard, I really don’t change my wardrobe much based on sun vs. rain (then again, I’m mainly inside either way) but even if I had to walk outside a distance, I’d just soldier on. If I’m going to be outside for an extended period in the rain, a light rain jacket usually suffices–just make sure it has a hood because…you can’t be caught dead carrying an umbrella.

The SunBreak is an online magazine of news & culture. A conversation about the things on Seattle’s mind.

Saturday afternoon, the Northwest’s mid-November rains will push in, preceded by winds announcing the change of regime.

“A succession of frontal systems will plow through the region every day or two, Sunday through Thanksgiving Day, for more rain…wind…and mountain snow,” forecasts the National Weather Service.

Northwestern California and western Oregon will get the worst of the rainy drubbing, says UW meteorologist Cliff Mass, with some wet spots collecting more than ten inches. Seattle looks to duck that kind of downpour, at least at this point in the weather modeling, but it’s going to rain pretty consistently, you know, forever.

“Why so much rain?” asks Mass, rhetorically. “A large, cold trough will form over the eastern Pacific, establishing a persistent flow of moist air from the west and southwest.” This isn’t that balmy Pineapple Express, so temperatures will reach the upper 40s, maybe 50.

In short, it’s a good time to invest in rubber boots (maybe even duck boots) and go to the movies. SIFF Cinema’s Italian movie festival is underway, and the Northwest Film Forum is screening The Sheik and I, in which Caveh “I Am a Sex Addict” Zahedi earns a fatwa.

Winter is coming, says Cliff Mass. The University of Washington meteorologist has a vested interest in preparedness since he gets stuck in the snow just like everyone else, and is a vocal member of the salt-and-snow-plow lobby.

That, apparently, is a strong lobby since Thursday morning SDOT announced it has 3,800 tons of granular salt and 47,000 gallons anti-icing storage capacity, “roughly three times more granular salt storage than last season,” in addition to 40 snowplows and four anti-icing vehicles.

But Mass and fellow UW meteorologist Phil Regulski have also been driving forces behind a suite of online weather sources that let the average Seattleite know what’s happening out of doors. In partnership with city agencies (Seattle Public Utilities, Seattle City Light, Seattle Department of Transportation) they have rolled out Rainwatch, to tracks storms and forecast rain at the neighborhood level; Snowwatch, to estimate and predict snowfall; and Windwatch, which forecasts high winds.

Plus, Seattle City Light’s Outage Map keeps tabs on power outages across Seattle, noting the size of the outage and anticipated return of power. At a presentation this morning, Mayor McGinn also drew attention to SDOT’s Winter Weather Response Map, combines real-time data from traffic cameras and snow ploy deployment to let residents know which roads are cleared.

To help with that deployment, the city has also installed 11 new roadway surface temperature sensors, so it can prioritize getting to the coldest streets first.

As this is Disaster Week on The SunBreak, we’ll also print this readiness list from the city:

• Residents should always have a three-day supply of water and food that does not need to be cooked;
• Have extra blankets on hand and close the doors to rooms you aren’t using to help keep warm;
• Don’t bring your barbecue or any fossil fuel burning stove inside your house to cook when the power goes out – this could cause carbon monoxide poisoning;
• A hand-crank radio and a hand-crank flashlight should be available – please don’t use open flames such as candles;
• The City of Seattle is a partner in the regional Take Winter By Storm effort – residents are encouraged to visit www.takewinterbystorm.org for more tips on being prepared for winter;
• Call 206-684-7400 to report a power outage, to find out about reported outages and to asked to have call-back when your power is restored. Seattle City Light needs your current phone number – both home and cell – in order to respond to your call.
• Tips for what to do when the power goes out are available at http://seattle.gov/light/neighborhoods/nh4_pout.htm.

Fresh off our red flag fire warnings of late, late summer, Seattle has gotten three inches of rain in October. But don’t get used to it, cautions the Seattle branch of the National Weather Service. The trend is for a weak El Niño winter, or even a neutral winter, and that “indicates an increased likelihood of below-median precipitation for the Pacific Northwest.” A wildcard, they say, is the Arctic Oscillation, which could cool things off…or not.

Another caveat is that “below-median precipitation” doesn’t preclude floods from errant Pineapple Expresses.

University of Washington meteorologist Cliff Mass welcomes a neutral winter. Though very big storms are rare in the Northwest, he says, they tend to occur most often during neutral winters. Flourishing a plot-map, Mass announces:

The red squares indicate a major windstorm year (like the 1962 Columbus Day Storm or the 1993 Inauguration Day Storm). All of them are associated with temperature anomalies in the tropical Pacific between plus or minus one. This year will be in that range!

What were those storms like, you might ask, if you are newer to town, or to life in general. It’s all chronicled on the internet for you.

1. Columbus Day Storm: In sheer gustiness of wind, as indicated by the ratio of maximum gust speed to sustained wind speed, called the gust factor, the Columbus Day Storm behaved more like a hurricane than a typical midlatitude cyclone
2. Inauguration Day Storm: At least 79 homes were destroyed, 581 suffered major damage, and 1,702 experienced minor damage. Power was terminated to about 750,000 customers in the Puget Sound Area.

“I could show you a similar figure for floods or snowstorms, but that would only scare you,” concludes Mass, emphasizing once more, though, that a neutral winter doesn’t always bring this kind of excitement. (In the 47 years from 1949-50 to 1995-96, there were 14 neutral winters.) Most often, it brings what’s known as a “normal” winter, though with the weather acting as it has of late, you can be forgiven for not knowing what normal is anymore. Maybe the most reassuring thing is that whatever’s coming, with coastal radar, we’re better able to see it in time.

The SunBreak is an online magazine of news & culture. A conversation about the things on Seattle’s mind.

The great thing about Meg Miroshnik‘s play, The Fairytale Lives of Russian Girls (at Washington Ensemble Theatre through October 22; tickets), is the way it veers unapologetically into fairytale, just at the moment some crushingly grim reality would otherwise have to be faced. As Miroshnik portrays it, this isn’t regression or denial, but a way of staying focused on what needs to be done. It’s fairytale as survival pod: When things get out of hand, you strap yourself in and follow directions.

Miroshnik pulls these border-crossings off winningly for about two-thirds of the play (the correlations are aptly updated, with fatalistic Russian asides), but under the pressure to wrap things up her fairytales give way to cartoonish axe-wielding. WET’s intriguing production–featuring Amiya Brown’s seemingly infinitely reconfigurable set, with taxidermy that embraces the audience, and Megan Tuschhoff’s shadow puppets, recalling a less-baroque Prince Achmed–is riveting though, as are the (unpictured here) performances of Aimée Bruneau and Macall Gordon.

Set in 2005 Russia, Fairytale Lives follows innocent-abroad Annie (Samie Spring Detzer) on her trip back to the newly old country. She’s a twenty-year-old student, there to improve her Russian accent and learn business vocabulary. After settling in with an old “friend” of the family, she meets Masha (Libby Barnard) from across the dimly lit hall (Marnie Cumings, light design); Masha’s friend Katya (Shannon Olivia Campbell), mistress of a powerful, married bureaucrat; and Nastya (Leah Pfenning, who also plays the bureaucrat’s daughter), an “apartment prostitute” that Masha and Katya see less of these days.

Annie’s from California, and Detzer perfectly captures her obliviousness to social cues, while blithely telling new acquaintances that her Russian is rust. (Happily, everyone in the cast has benefitted from Hannah Victoria Franklin’s dialect coaching.) With her new clique established, you might think this was a girls vs. guys story–there’s that government czar, and Masha’s controlling “bear” is holed up with a vodka bottle–but it’s not simply that. The conflict is also intergenerational: Bright and capable Katya, Nastya, and Masha turn their sex appeal up to eleven (stilettos and barely-there hemlines) on nights out as they try to grab what they can, while they can.

“I saw these iconic images–teenage girls standing in the snow and old women with headscarves at the market–and I was interested in colliding this world of women with both the present and past,” Miroshnik said in an interview. Here, Seattle audiences get a double-shot of veteran stagecraft, in the form of Aimée Bruneau (who plays Annie’s track-suited mom Olga and an apple-dieting bitch-mother called Valentina) and Macall Gordon (“auntie” Yaroslava, who took over Annie’s family’s apartment back in the day and her alter-ego Baba Yaga, who naturally wants to fatten Annie up for a feast).

If Katie Hegarty’s costumes for Campbell’s Katya and Pfenning’s Nastya leave an indelibly long-legged mark, Bruneau (calculating her apple calories) and Gordon (wincing at every girlish inquiry) drive home a different perspective, which is that at some point, when you’ve gotten what you want, your task then becomes to figure out how to keep it. Director Ali El-Gasseir, who stages the schemings of  hot young things with such élan, also keeps the pot boiling during their face-offs with the old guard.

I can’t finish without mentioning the skillful sound design of James Schreck, who has woven music and incidental effects into what feels like the physical texture of the production. The Moscow street sounds like the street, the nightclub, a nightclub–you never stop to notice that it’s being piped in for you.

The SunBreak is an online magazine of news & culture. A conversation about the things on Seattle’s mind.

Back in April of 2010, the Seattle Housing Authority was reviewing public/private development plans for Seattle’s Yesler Terrace, the 22 acres home of some 1,200 low-income residents. “If all goes smoothly,” we said, “construction could start by late 2012.” That wasn’t a given, though, since the redevelopment options involved selling public lands to private developers, and moving existing residents out during construction.

On September 4 of this year, the City Council approved  a land-use legislation package and a Cooperative Agreement for Yesler Terrace’s redevelopment. Broadly, the package calls for the SHA to replace 561 units of very-low-income housing for current Yesler residents (everyone gets a right-of-return certificate), and to add more than 1,200 new, income-restricted units.

But 2,700 new units could be built for availability at market rates. Their inhabitants can take advantage of the up to 900,000 square feet of new office and medical service space, and lodging, SHA is allowed, as well as 150,000 square feet of retail and services. If, in selling its land the SHA realizes more gains than expected, they are directed to build up to 100 more very-low-income units. (Preference in hiring construction workers will be given to SHA residents, as well.)

This week, a half-acre of former SHA property (official sale price: $2.88 million) at 12th Avenue and East Yesler Way is on the way to private hands–private Canadian hands, in fact, since the new owners are Gracorp Capital Advisors Ltd. of Calgary, Canada. They’re partnering locally with Spectrum Development Solutions, who have been very busy around Seattle providing housing for college students. Projects include a number of University of Washington sites, and The Douglas at Seattle University.

Gracorp says the 116,000-square-foot project will provide about 120 apartments with commercial space on the ground floor totaling some 3,000 square feet. “All of the apartments are intended to be workforce housing, with 25 percent of the units committed for twenty years to households earning 80 percent or less of area median income (AMI).” That is, these 30 controlled-rate apartments could rent for more than the vast majority of SHA residents can afford.

SHA handles housing for more than 26,000 Seattle residents, and about 84 percent earn less than 30 percent of the area median income. For King County, HUD estimates that an 80-percenter can pay $1,232 in rent; a 30-percenter could manage just $463 per month.

But this is by design–the redevelopment of Yesler Terrace is supposed to dispel the image of public housing as creating basins of chronic poverty in the urban demographic topography. The new development’s studio, and one- and two-bedroom apartments are supposed to introduce a workforce population (nurses, teachers, policeman, fireman, civil servants) to Yesler Terrace who can afford to shop in the associated commercial spaces. Also, they are believed to be good candidates for ridership on gondolas the new 12th Avenue streetcar.  There will be just 52 stalls of parking for the 120 units.

The project architect is Mithun (who are looking for project architects interested in “dense urban residential”). Here is an example of what they feel to be a “national example for sustainable, mixed-income, urban housing by utilizing an integrated design process”: their South Quarter development in Minneapolis. They’re a bit more committed to sustainability than aesthetics, you could say. Mithun will be pursuing LEED Silver Certification for the Yesler project. “The construction type will be Type V over I with five levels of wood frame over a concrete podium level,” notes a fact sheet.

Slowly but surely, Seattle is waking up to coal trains. Normally, the Pacific Northwest crows about its trade relationships with China, but in the case of coal shipments, the crowing has become more of a dry, irritated cough.

Political fights over new terminals dedicated to coalwere the first to crop up. But as people have had the chance to see the mile-plus-long trains click-clacking by, cars uncovered so that coal dust can blow off along the whole route, opposition to the whole prospect has stiffened.

In August, the Seattle City Council came out in favor of Congressman Jim McDermott’s proposal to form a Coal Mitigation Trust Fund–a $10 excise tax on every ton of coal mined in the U.S. would go to pay for “adverse impacts.”

Earlier, in May, the Council passed a resolution to the effect that they wanted nothing to do with coal trains and terminals, and that they’ll be watching very closely to determine if there are issues with public safety. Now, Mayor McGinn is putting pressure on the Port of Seattle to address the “environmental, health, and economic harms” he says the coal trains bring with them.

Coal trains also made an unlikely appearance during the Great Arena Debate of 2012, when arena proponents wondered why the Port was so little concerned with the traffic impacts of, as Publicola summed it up, “16 and 18 trains per day (one every 75 to 90 min, basically), each potentially 1.5 miles long, taking roughly three to seven minutes to pass through the seven train crossings—from Spokane Street to Wall Street—in Seattle.”

Even sleepy Ballard has gotten into the act. A story in the Ballard News-Tribune noted that the coal trains “would be passing through Sodo, the Olympic Sculpture Park, up Interbay, across the Ship Canal by Ballard Locks and past Golden Gardens and beyond. Estimates say that it would stop traffic for an extra two hours a day.” (BNSF wrote in asking for corrections to the story: For one thing, they said, they’re already shipping tons and tons of coal through town on its way to Canada and it’s never bothered anyone; it would only be 18 trains, not 20; and some trains might not go through Ballard at all.)

The sustainability-pushers over at Sightline, besides exploding the “low-carbon coal” terminology, help explain why shipping coal to China has taken on such urgency. Thedomestic market for coal has taken a huge hit as energy-producers switch to cleaner natural gas. Reports Clark Williams-Derry, “the nation’s electric utilities used 18 percent less coal in the first half of 2012 than they did in 2011, and 27 percent less than they did during the peak year, 2008.”

The SunBreak is an online magazine of news & culture. A conversation about the things on Seattle’s mind.

On September 29, 2012, there will no longer be a Ride Free Area in downtown Seattle, for passengers of King County Metro. It’s primarily a cost-cutting change to help deal with Metro’s budget woes. Metro can’t afford to forego all those fare dollars from people who might otherwise pay.

Even if you are not downtown taking a bus on Saturday, you may notice the change, because the perplexing “Do I pay as I get on or as I get off?” question will have vanished as well. From the 29th on, you will pay as you enter the bus by the front door.

If you’re standing at a congested bus stop, that may add time to the boarding procedure; if you’re lucky, everyone will already have their ORCA card. In the future, Metro will likely add fare readers at high-traffic spots, similar to the ones at Link light rail stations.

Not everyone is delighted by the disappearance of the Ride Free Area, and they plan to march funereally down Third Avenue to let everyone know: “The Transit Riders Unionplans the march and rally on Friday, Sept. 28, the day before King County Metro Transit ends the downtown Ride Free Area,” reports Seattlepi.com.

The Ride Free Area’s service to low-income passengers will continue in the form of aSolid Ground downtown connector. This free bus service begins Monday, October 1, 2012, and travels around the downtown core every 30 minutes, with stops at food banks, shelters, and medical services. At the outset, the connector will make its first run at 7 a.m. and leave for its last loop at 4 p.m.

The Seattle Times has a link to a Solid Ground connector flyer, with more information.

The SunBreak is an online magazine of news & culture. A conversation about the things on Seattle’s mind.

Ate9 dancers Genna Moroni, Ariana Daub, Taylor Knight, and Chantael Duke (Image: Danielle Agami)

Friday night at the Century Ballroom, Seattle audiences witnessed “Sally meets Stu”, a new dance work from newcomer to Seattle Danielle Agami. Agami was previously with Israel’s Batsheva Dance Company, before a brief Gaga stopover in New York led her to the West Coast and a summer residency with Velocity.

In pulling together a troupe of dancers for her new work, Agami found a new dance company, Ate9, had crystallized–there’s something about Seattle, she says, that makes you want to take risks. (Seattle dancers Kate Wallich, Matt Drews, Erica Badgeley, Sarah Butler, and Chantael Duke have already signed on.)

Agami

“Sally meets Stu” is not really about a Sally and a Stu, not even in terms of its text by Nadav Heyman, a 6′ 2″ former point guard for Corvallis High School, described even then as a “cerebral” player. (He also played at the University of Puget Sound.) The stories he tells are concerned with contingency and ramification: “all the alternative routes that romantic relationships might take over a lifetime,” as Michael Upchurch puts it. Heyman recites, and dances as well.

Agami claims she’s learned English mainly from watching TV, which perhaps accounts for her unselfconscious poetry when she says the dance is about finding “the edges of the human body.” She means tracking down the multitude of states we’re capable of, not just the usual buttons. She muses about a quiet alertness, “like an animal before it attacks.”

What dance can show us, she argues, is the way the dramatic climaxes to life are located in the body. In “Sally meets Stu,” some of that external setting of scene is provided by Heyman’s words, but the focus is on the performers’ expressions and responses: the elasticity of one woman, the bitchy shell of another.  ”Simplicity is the best option,” she says, talking about her goal of a “perfect clear moment.” We can be too busy to notice, she muses, the “shock of subtlety.”

In “Sally meets Stu” rehearsals, Agami keeps slicing away at the extraneous–which often means that music vanishes, it’s just the dancers and the audience members. Maybe two men heave a woman back and forth like an encumbering sack of potatoes. Maybe a series of women run and leap into a partner’s arms–just that moment, so that your stomach lightens with fear and exhilaration.

But then, from somewhere, music and an ensemble dance erupts, a line of dancers stepping along, hands lightly forward of the pelvis, as if holding reins, weight back behind the heels. Maybe the ensemble arranges itself in three levels, like a soccer team with four defensive backs, and the lines thread between each other. It is unpredictable.

The troupe trains every day in Gaga, the movement language from Ohad Naharin, which challenges people to keep constantly in motion for up to 75 minutes at a time. Naharin has said it’s a healing practice, a way to break the rigidity of habit (and other trainings) and discover where atrophy has set in. The constant flow is a way of keeping your head out of it. The result in the Ate9 troupe is that each dancer has a distinct idiom, a movement personality, but there’s also a delight in group movements, where the choreography seems lit from within.

Gaga-inspired choreography is “less formal,” Agami says, more prompted by “emotion, tension, intention”–and from each dancer “shapes arise.” (She’s teaching Gaga to dancers and non-dancers at Velocity.) Putting on “Sally meets Stu” at Century Ballroom, where thousands have twirled and tangoed, felt right to her immediately. Here are two videos of the creative process:

The SunBreak is an online magazine of news & culture. A conversation about the things on Seattle’s mind.

Out on the Parkway, originally uploaded by sea turtle.

Apparently, the message is that you had better be in good hands if you’re driving in Seattle, because you’re more likely to get into an accident. Out of a field of 200 U.S. cities, Seattle comes in 154th. Where the national average for car accidents is one every ten years, in Seattle, the average driver will collide–or be collided with–every 7.9 years. (Whereas an average Sioux Falls driver, in the top spot, will go almost 14 years between smashups.)

The Eighth Annual “Allstate America’s Best Drivers Report” is not supposed to be a shaming document. “We don’t want drivers in Seattle to be discouraged by their ranking. Instead, we want the report to challenge drivers in Seattle to make positive changes to their driving habits that will in turn make the city a safer place to live, work and raise families,” is the diplomatic framing of Shauna McBride, Allstate’s Regional Spokesperson.

But let’s go ahead and note right here that Tacoma is worse–in 156th place. Thosepeople drive like maniacs. Around the Northwest, Spokane comes in 43rd, slightly bettering the national average, at 10.6 years between bent fenders. But Boise, Idaho, is the real star, coming in second, just a hair behind Sioux Falls. Boise! We throw up our hands.

As Allstate’s tips on safer driving boil down to “drive more safely,” they may be of limited use. One might reasonably assume that people who drive in a rush, distractedly, without a clear idea of where they’re headed, tailgating, unaware of the rules of the road, speeding, and without looking for pedestrians have been told, repeatedly, to be more careful already, without it sinking in. And actually, all of those sound like Seattle driving behaviors, except for the not watching for pedestrians part. (Not that people aren’t run down and killed even so.)

All that is needed now is an overlay of smart phone penetration in U.S. cities, so we can see the relationship between distracted driving and collisions. (Or, to triage the problem, distracted driving and fatalities.) “Sending or receiving a text takes a driver’s eyes from the road for an average of 4.6 seconds, the equivalent-at 55 mph-of driving the length of an entire football field, blind,” says the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute.

For you statistical wonks, here is some background on the Allstate report’s reliability:

A weighted average of the two-year numbers determined the annual percentages. The report defines an auto crash as any collision resulting in a property damage claim. Allstate’s auto policies represent about 10 percent of all U.S. auto policies, making this report a realistic snapshot of what’s happening on America’s roadways.

The SunBreak is an online magazine of news & culture. A conversation about the things on Seattle’s mind.