Billy Thomas 
By NOAH SHACHAR Some movies win Academy Awards, are nearly forgotten and hardly spoken about again. Some movies are simply boring, while others are entertaining or insightful. But a few movies ignite themselves in a blazing pyre to emerge as a phoenix from smoldering ashes ever livelier, more passionate and mesmerizingly intriguing — growing and …
By Billy Thomas The Washington Center for the Performing Arts, one of Olympia’s premier performing arts spaces since 1985, has announced their recipient of the Anacker Scholarship for the Arts. The scholarship is provided each year to a graduating high school senior from Thurston County who plans to study and pursue a career in the …
By Molly Walsh Belfair – home to a population of about 4,000 – boasts quite an art scene, with the Salmon Center being no exception. As the headquarters for non-profit organization Hood Canal Salmon Enhancement Group, the 38-acre Salmon Center is a certified organic farm and hub of environmental education and art for North Mason …
By Ellis Boran Howl’s Moving Castle is about a girl named Sophie Pendragon who has her youth stolen from her by an evil witch. She then meets a magic scarecrow who is the result of a spell set by an evil entity’s henchman. The scarecrow leads Sophie to the mobile castle powered by a demon …
By Ellis Boran I’m Ellis Boran, and it is a pleasure to start my own film review column, “Cine-Files!” My first movie review will be on the new animated film Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse. Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse is about a young boy named Miles Morales who is intrigued and bewildered at becoming the new …
By JONAH BARRETT Intersectionality is not a new word — it was first coined by black, feminist scholar Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw in 1989 to describe how discussions of feminism and racism often left out black women — but it’s recently made its way into the mainstream vernacular. At least that’s true in queer spaces, especially …
By KAREN LUNDE Back in the mid-1920s, the Liberty Theatre, a vaudeville house, contained a Wurlitzer 2/9 theater pipe organ. After a renovation in 1948, the Liberty became the Olympic Theater. In the 1980s, it was completely rebuilt and evolved into The Washington Center for the Performing Arts. Throughout the building’s evolution, the mighty Wurlitzer …
By CHRISTIAN CARVAJAL Back in 1991, the population of Olympia was seven-tenths of what it is now, and stunning social paradigm shifts remained over the visible horizon. Legal, same-sex marriage in Washington State was a generation away — yet our town was already demonstrating its support of what came to be known as the queer …
By ALEC CLAYTON Capital City Pride will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots this summer with a parade from the Capitol steps to Heritage Park. Festivities include drag performances, food vendors, informational booths from area businesses and social organizations, music and speeches. Some 15,000 people are expected. The Stonewall Riots are acknowledged as …
By MOLLY GILMORE With her bright smile and warm personality, Jacque Dennee-Lee — who’ll serve as marshal of the Capital City Pride Parade on June 23 — helped many in Olympia find comfort with LGBTQ+ people. Dennee-Lee (whose first name is pronounced “Jackie”) worked from the early 1980s to 2010 as a bus driver with …