Skip the bland for a hip-nik

Labor Day picnics get a bad rap. Too much trouble, too many bugs and too much mayonnaise are the typical culprits, but this is not the way it has to be.

Thanks to 7 's research into modern party science, you don't have to suffer through the same boring old burgers in the park. Like all scientific pursuits, the holiday weekend party can be perfected and a recent breakthrough has led to the development of something we're calling the "hip picnic" or "hip-nik." This type of Labor Day celebration transcends tradition and should provide you with a fresh alternative to the norm.

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Urban park hip-nik

Ideal for downtown resident or apartment-bound suburbanites.

Go retro and scare up neighbors for a block party in an apartment complex parking lot, or for bonus points, find any patch of grass not in a designated city park, The idea here is to create a living-room-like atmosphere in the middle of a public space so run extension cords out from the nearest building to power a wide array of table lamps and drag out the kitchen table if possible.

Suggested dish: Deviled eggs three ways. Make a batch of hard-cooked eggs (enough to provide each guest with three halves). Split the eggs and remove the yokes. For a nod to haute cuisine, mash the yoke with mayonnaise and minced chopped basil and pine nuts, canned chipotle peppers and orange zest or curry powder.

Suggested beverage: Sangria. The Spanish know how to make a cocktail for the masses, and the best part about sangria, or wine punch, is that the recipe is incredibly loose. Combine a bottle of red wine with a cup of orange juice or two teaspoons of honey, add chopped up cubes of whatever fresh fruit is handy and two shots of brandy or triple-sec. Toss the whole concoction in the fridge overnight and serve the next day with ice and two fingers of club soda, ginger ale or Collins mix in each glass.

Cross-cultural hip-nik

For the globe-trekking adventurer.

Find your plot outside and set up a tent with old bed sheets or whatever's handy. Spread out that old tapestry wall hanging you got in college, and suddenly you've got a first-rate Moroccan theme. Grill up some lamb and have a blast.

Suggested dish: Instead of cole slaw, make Moroccan carrot salad. Shred carrots into long, noodle-like strips with a vegetable peeler. Toss with lemon juice, olive oil, raisins, cumin, cilantro and a touch of honey. Making this dish is incredible easy, plus it's tasty and healthy.

Suggested beverage: Given the Muslim population, there aren't a lot of Moroccan cocktails, but you can take a cue from the region's flavors. Muddle a handful of mint with lemon and sugar in the bottom of a glass. Add two parts chilled unsweetened black tea and one part vodka. Top with lots of crushed ice.

Naturephobic hip-nik

Ideal for those with a strong distaste for anything organic or green.

Not everyone loves fresh air and sunshine. For these bug-hating, sunburn-prone partygoers, consider an indoor picnic. Spread out a tablecloth on the floor of the biggest room of your home and lay out the dinner spread. Toss down some cushions or pillows from the sofa.

For entertainment, throw your own miniature film festival with maximum guest participation. Pick a cinematic genre and invite guests to rent a favorite obscure foreign film, high school movie or 1980s action flick. You won't be able to see every film that every guest brings, so ask attendees to pitch their choices and then take votes.

Suggested dish: Movie house popcorn tastes better than microwave popcorn because it doesn't sit in a box on a shelf for years. You can duplicate that by picking up a jar of plain popcorn. If you've got an air popper then use it, but if not simply pop the kernels in a pan on your stove (the directions on the jar work great). Once you've got a bowl fully of fluffy white popcorn you can top with salt and real melted butter or get creative and toss with black pepper, grated parmesan cheese or cinnamon and sugar.

Suggested beverage: Rum and cokes are the ideal. Yes, this cocktail can be a sickly-sweet concoction, so avoid coconut and spiced rums, but it's also a natural compliment to the salty popcorn. For the cola or rum adverse, consider keeping some good beer in the fridge.

'Wizard Rock' casts spell on filmmakers

Forget about heavy metal, bubblegum pop and hip-hop. Two Spokane sisters are at the center of a new musical trend, with a rock documentary about a genre more at home in the public library than a bar – Wizard Rock.

For the musicians and fans who love music inspired by the Harry Potter books written by J.K. Rowling, unkempt hair wouldn't be the right statement without oversize glasses and a lightning-bolt-shape scar on the forehead.

"It seemed like a story that needed to be told," 22-year-old filmmaker Mallory Schuyler said of the hundreds of Potter tribute bands.

Now, just hours before the release of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," Mallory and twin sister Megan Schuyler are wrapping up a little more than a year of work interviewing the tribute bands and their fans around the country.Continued...

Much like Wizard Rock itself, their film "The Wizard Rockumentary: A Movie About Rocking and Rowling," is an independent production created out of passion and a desire to do something creative.

"In 2004 we were home from college and we saw a show of Harry and the Potters," Megan Schuyler said of one of the first bands in the Wizard Rock genre.

"Then in 2006, Mallory got into MySpace. There was this whole movement starting up and not a lot of Harry Potter fans knew about it."

Wizard Rock bands had built small fan bases, but the Internet was helping to turn them into a movement, Megan Schuyler said.

"I don't think a movement to this point could have existed without the Internet," she said. "People were going online and realizing they were part of a global community."

New York-based journalist Melissa Anelli started writing about Harry Potter books as a fan in 2000 and now considers it a full-time job. She said a single performance of Harry and the Potters in Massachusetts – intended as a joke – drew such excitement that the band started touring.

When Harry and the Potters snapped up more than 90,000 fans on MySpace, there was the explosion of other tribute bands.

"Suddenly, one day, there were 300 other Harry Potter bands," Anelli said.

The Schuylers stumbled upon the online community of musicians, with book-inspired band names like Draco and the Malfoys, The Whomping Willows and The Hermione Crookshanks Experience, and saw an opportunity to document a creative subculture.

"I just went kind of crazy and went on a downloading binge, trying to get as much of this music as I could," Mallory Schuyler said.

The pair sketched out a mission statement, pooled their savings and started shooting the documentary in their spare time.

"Before we could even think about it we had our first flight booked and a Web site up," Mallory Schuyler said.

The sisters hit concerts in New Jersey, Virginia, New York and Nevada. In the process, they saw something of themselves: young people developing creative work using digital tools and building alternative distribution networks.

"It's been a privilege to see how the community has progressed," Megan Schuyler said.

"These kids are learning how to book their own tours and produce their own CDs."

The Schuylers see the Wizard Rock musicians' creativity as also being driven by the richness of Rowling's characters. There are entire ballads written about secondary characters who barely speak a line in the Harry Potter films and Wizard Rock fans pride themselves on knowing minute details from the novels.

"It's like Mallory and I joke: We have our real lives and then we have our Harry Potter lives," Megan Schuyler said.

Those real lives also helped them prepare to shoot a film. Megan Schuyler is a producer and video editor for the Spokane-based production company North by Northwest and Mallory Schuyler is the book manager at Tinman Gallery.

Megan plans to shoot final sequences at a University of Washington midnight book release party in Seattle tonight and show a special 20-minute preview at the event. Meanwhile, Mallory will be hosting her own release party at the Tinman Gallery in Spokane.

The final cut will be finished by the end of the year and submitted to 2008 film festivals. Until the film is finished, fans will at least have something to read.

Be careful bringing back the '80s fashion

The fashion of the late '80s is stealthily slinking back, and what's appearing so far isn't exactly pretty in pink.

The first time I saw a fashion-conscious co-worker wearing black leggings, leg warmers and chunky gold earrings I almost did a spit-take. That's one of those movie scenes in which some startled chap spits milk or soda (whichever is funnier) all over a friend when he sees something unbelievable.

If someone younger than 25 was willingly wearing leggings, then apparently she was taking cues from my mother's closet circa 1987. When another friend showed up at a company dinner wearing a matching hot pink skirt and jacket with a Minnie Mouse T-shirt underneath, I knew something strange was happening.

Among the youth culture and the fashion set, the '80s revival trend is well under way.

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The cheerful hipster nostalgia for a Reagan-era childhood that surfaced in the early part of this decade has morphed into a bona fide fashion shift toward all things loudly colored and puffy. Gone are the Muppet T-shirts and trucker hats, and they've been replaced with horizontal black and white stripes and Op surf shirts.

For women Day-Glo is back with a vengeance. The fluorescent vogue thankfully seems limited to accent pieces, otherwise I might find myself needing sunglasses at night. Achieving the authentic '80s feminine look means that one needs to create what I am compelled to describe as an ice-cream-cone-silhouette: tapered jeans or tight leggings topped with puffy shirts, oversized vests and 4-inch wide belts. Anything involving Lycra is a must.

For men, the thin black tie and tightly tailored skinny jeans have once again become emblematic of rock aesthetic. The ideal falls somewhere between David Bowie and The Clash, and the use of a bandana-as-accessory is strongly encouraged.

As a child of the '80s I can say that this kind of fashion turns me slightly queasy. I may have only been in grade school at the time, but I can tell you that we're mining the wrong era for style notes. Yes, the music was great. The shoulder pads and pegged, pleated pants weren't so hot. One only has to watch "Back to the Future" to realize that. These were bad choices then, and they're bad choices now.

Fortunately, most of what I see strutting on the streets today isn't all that bad, especially because it's worn tongue-in-cheek. Leg warmers are chic precisely because they are so derided. White-rimmed sunglasses are fun, and I'll admit to a certain lust for slip-on Vans, but what I fear is the next mutation of the trend.

Right now, the '80s look is underground, but we could be looking at a full fledged fashion pandemic when crimped hair comes back in style and men start dressing like pastel pimps from "Miami Vice."

The style of the 1980s is basically an excessive anti-style: For 10 years we decided that anything we could think of doing we might as well do. That kind of attitude led to a fashion boom in making everything bigger, brighter and bolder. Eventually, Bill Cosby's sweaters were capable of being seen from space.

How could the nation spend the 1990s mocking '80s fashion and then hop back in bed with styles that seem dredged from a Wham! music video? That's not nostalgia, it's self-destructive amnesia.

Flagpole painter starts at the top, works way down

Warren Hinrichs' office has the best view in town.

It's 135 steps to the top of the Spokane County Courthouse's tower, 30 feet up rickety wooden ladders to a hatch in the pinnacle of the roof and another 50 feet up to where the 64-year-old Hinrichs perched on a wooden plank calmly painting the courthouse flagpole Tuesday and Wednesday

Hinrichs, a Spokane resident who paints flagpoles for a living, is continuing a family tradition of high-altitude painting. It started when his father needed work during the Great Depression.
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"My dad did this until he was 73," Hinrichs said before climbing the pole Wednesday.

"He said, 'This is the only job where you start at the top and work your way down.' "

As Hinrichs zigzags the country looking for weatherworn poles in need of fresh coats, his unique occupation attracts the attention of news outlets and passers-by.

"Folks look up to you," he said.

He's received so much press coverage on the job that he carries a three-inch binder filled with newspaper stories and photos from his 26 years in the business.

He doesn't wait for reporters to ask him questions – he tells a collection of one-line gags and anecdotes that compress his entire life into a 10-minute interview.

Yes, he's been struck by lightning, but only once.

"I was lucky to live through that the first time," he said.

He makes sure he goes to the bathroom before he gets up on the pole, and he worries more about stinging bees than birds pecking him.

"Everybody says, 'Have you ever fallen?' Well, I've only fallen once," he said.

Hinrichs said he was 8 years old the first time his father put him on a water tower, and he's never been afraid of heights.

He recalled one incident when his father, who theatrically wore gold-painted shoes while working, brought Henrichs – then a young man – to the top of the Space Needle's beacon in Seattle.

They were 40 feet above the roof and 607 feet above the ground.

"Dad had a helicopter and a photographer circle us, taking pictures of us as we stood there with our knees clamped around it, with a piece of conduit to hang on to – no safety belts, no guard rail," Hinrichs said. "I said, 'Dad, what if the helicopter blows us off here?' He said, 'Get down on your knees and hold on real tight.' And then he says, 'Get up on my shoulders – it'll make a better picture.' "

Hinrichs has a passion for Spokane's ornate Italian Renaissance-style courthouse, though it is much more difficult than his average job.

"This is one of the hardest but one of the most beautiful of the buildings. It's the most picturesque courthouse of all of them that I do," he said.

"I don't do many (flagpoles) up on top of buildings. What a view."

He charges $8 per foot for a single coat of silver paint and $10 per foot for a single coat of white paint, using a roller for the pole and cans of gold spray paint for the top ornaments. It usually takes 45 minutes to an hour to put one coat of paint on a flagpole. He raises the price for more precarious poles.

"This pole took two coats so it'll be $2,000. That was what I charged them five years ago, but I forgot how hard this one is. Next time it'll be $3,000," he said.

Hinrichs said the courthouse flagpole was overdue for a fresh coat of paint; he normally recommends getting poles painted once every three years.

The necessary equipment is simple, but time-tested, he said.

He carries a plain bucket of paint. His homemade seat of wood, ropes, cable and duct tape is virtually unchanged from the design his father taught him.

Most of the time he solicits for business.

Making the rounds through small- or mid-sized cities, he approaches building owners and over time has painted everything from water towers and radio beacons to fire escapes and bridges.

"I find them. I come into town, I shake the tree and if a nut falls out, I paint it," Hinrichs said with a grin.

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For The Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Wa

Offering a fresh option

Peaches and peppery arugula, huckleberries and habaneras, corn and cantaloupe are all piled high.

Bethany Rafter comes to the Spokane Farmers' Market on Second Avenue every chance she gets to buy fresh produce for her family; her husband loves the carrots, and she can get vegetables and fruit for her young child.

"I like that I can get things besides my milk and eggs. I went to the store for basics yesterday, and it was $60," Rafter said.
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Helping the 21-year-old Spokane mother is a once-endangered subsidy program supplying free nutritional education and money for low-income families to spend on the market's bounty. A similar program provides the same benefits for the elderly.

Market organizers and community activists sought to spotlight the program this week by honoring state Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown, D-Spokane, who is credited with sparing the program from the budget ax. This year the WIC (Women, Infants and Children) Farmers Market Nutrition Program and the Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program were threatened after some federal funds were cut. Brown was able to secure funding in the 2005 legislative session to keep them running at previous levels of service.

The local WIC program, which provides $20 seasonal vouchers to more than 10,800 eligible individuals, has a strong presence at the Spokane market, which also benefits from the spending.

Together the statewide programs have pumped more than $1 million into small farm operations that rely on farmers markets to sell their fruit and produce.

"It's been great seed money for the market," Jeff Herman, Spokane Farmers' Market council president, said Wednesday. "The market has grown by 50 percent each year. This WIC thing has been good for all of us: bringing business to the market regularly, stabilizing income to the market and bringing fresh produce to these people."

Brown, who was introduced to the small crowd as a longtime supporter of the programs, said the political process works best when people believe in what they advocate.

"It's a win-win-win situation when mom and babies can get nutrients and seniors get fresh food and local farmers benefit," she said.

Diane Reuter, the Spokane market's coordinator, said she felt the same way about the programs.

"The vendors think it's great, and the older folks, they remember fresh produce, so they're thrilled," she said.

Many of the market booths sell organically grown products, and all vendors must grow their own goods.

"This market is all farmer-grown. This all about food – no crafts – and you have to grow it if you want to sell it," Herman said.

Reuter and Herman both said they expect growth in the program and in the market for fresh foods.

"I think people are becoming a little more aware of what people are putting in their bodies," Reuter said.

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For The Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Wa.

With family safe, he keeps cookin'

What if you lost everything in a natural disaster 2,000 miles away? Your home is gone, your family is fine – already on their way to meet you. But your source for alligator meat and crawfish etouffee is nowhere to be found. What would you do?

For Robert St. Thomas, 58, a Big Easy area resident since 1969 and owner of the New Orleans Cookery booth at the 2005 Pig Out in the Park, the response was to get back to business as usual. He put a bucket on his counter for donations, started cooking and even forced a few jokes about his scarce ingredients.
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"Alligators are busy chasing people now," he said, as he stirred seasoned onions on a steaming grill.

St. Thomas tours a circuit of special events with his crew of cooks, bringing Cajun cuisine around the country. At 9 a.m. Thursday his wife called from Texas to ask for some money – it was the first time she had been able to get through since Sunday.

"I was more than happy to do that," he said.

Usually he works his way back to Louisiana after traveling during the warm months, but the hurricane has modified his plans. He's not sure what he will do, but was happy his family is safe.

As the 26th annual Spokane food fest in Riverfront Park started Thursday, St. Thomas was handing out bowls of andouille sausage and rice. He said he was lucky to have a reserve of the smoked Cajun links to serve.

Pig Out founder and organizer Bill Burke has had St. Thomas and his Cajun cooking at the event for six years.

"He came over and did alligator, and now he's got this great jambalaya and gumbo," he said. "Robert's a wonderful man. You can see that he's physically shaken by his concern for his family."

Burke called St. Thomas a true traveling vendor and said he would pick up a lot of business over the course of the five-day event.

Vendors have come from as far as Florida and Hawaii. Although 33 of the 45 vendors are local, Burke said it makes financial sense for cooks who make the investment to bring their restaurants outdoors to travel to as many events as possible.

"We'll see about 85,000 people walk through here in five days – that's a good crowd in Spokane," Burke said.

He said the community of vendors and sponsors had already started to rally for those affected by Katrina. He said singer John Cleary, who is performing Thursday evening, was also from New Orleans.

This year Burke has promoted the live entertainment, which he said makes Pig Out the city's biggest outdoor event, even though food remains main focus.

Desiree Burke has been running the event with her husband since Pig Out premiered 27 years ago, when smoky, noisy gas generators provided the power. Back then the food-centric festival didn't have its now-familiar porcine pseudonym, and Azar's Express – now one of the most popular vendors – cooked with only a single toaster, she said.Today the event boasts 45 food booths with more than 250 menu items and 56 entertainment acts spread over the festival. The spectacle, which Bill Burke said serves 140,000 to 150,000 plates of food, has become well-known outside the city.

"When I meet people, not even from Spokane, and say 'My husband puts on Pig Out in the Park,' people say, 'Oh my gosh, I love that,' " she said.

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For The Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Wa.

Katrina could prove to be a disaster for finances of local Red Cross chapters

From the Sept. 11 terrorist strikes to tsunamis, disasters inspire the public to dig into pocketbooks and donate to relief organizations to provide food and shelter to disaster victims.

While last year's hurricanes and the tsunami in Asia prompted impressive generosity from Northwest residents, American Red Cross chapters in Washington and Idaho are suffering for it.
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Earlier this year, the Coeur d'Alene office of the Red Cross closed, and two other offices in Idaho scaled back services. The cutbacks were a direct result of Idahoans choosing to donate nationally or internationally, Red Cross officials. said.

Pat Moseley, executive director of the Inland Northwest chapter in Spokane, said most donors don't realize that all donations earmarked for disasters are allocated entirely to that fund. Not a penny is held back for branch offices that provide aid to victims of local structure fires, floods and wildfires, she said.

Now, Moseley fears that donations for Hurricane Katrina victims will further harm fund-raising efforts here.

"I'm really stuck between a rock and a hard place," Moseley said. "Mississippi and Louisiana are not going to have the money to support that (the hurricane). That's probably going to be a $1 billion operation just for the Red Cross."

Moseley said she knows that her office, which covers nine counties and has a permanent staff of nine, would have a hard time raising funds this fall because most donors believe they have already donated.

As the country reels from Katrina's widespread devastation, Red Cross chapters are asking that donors split their money between national and state disaster relief funds.

A note on the memo line of a personal check is all that's necessary to indicate how much of the donation should go to national disaster relief and how much to the state chapter, Red Cross officials said.

"When the hurricane season kicks off we want to help people outside our state, but there are people right here in the state of Idaho who need assistance as well," said Polly Gorley, spokeswoman for American Red Cross of Greater Idaho.

Because its territory covers southeastern Washington, the Idaho chapter was the lead relief organization for this month's School Fire near Pomeroy, Wash. It also worked with flash-flood victims in Idaho's Wood River Valley earlier this year. But fires that put people out of their homes happen every other day, Gorley said.

"Last year we had 240 to 250 disasters," she said. But the Red Cross disaster relief fund in Idaho is so low that for every disaster the state chapter has to go out and raise money, she said.

The Red Cross is bound not only by duty to aid victims of natural disasters, but also by a Congressional mandate, Moseley said. Despite that, the federal government provides no money to the organization.

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For The Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Wa

Disaster relief on the way from Inland Northwest

At noon today, Coeur d'Alene's Steve Kukuruza is scheduled to report to the Hurricane Katrina disaster field office headquarters in Baton Rouge, La.

As a Federal Emergency Management Agency reservist, he was waiting since Friday to be deployed, and expects to live out of a Motel 6 in Baton Rouge for at least the next month.