Wallingford, Seattle

Wallyhood heard the claim made that Tweedy and Popp, opened in 1920, is the oldest continuously operated business in Seattle. Always one to check our facts, we decided to ask The Google. Unfortunately, there seem to be a handful of better placed claimants dating back to the 1860's, with the now doomed Seattle Post-Intelligencer ultimately taking the prize (1867). The oldest business in Wallingford, then.As long as we're dispelling myths, we had also been told Murphy's Pub was one of the…

Amber from Hollow Earth Radio (whom we covered in January) dropped us a line to let us know they're applying to the Small and Simple Projects Fund, a Seattle program that awards up to $15,000 to neighborhood group projects. She'd like to get equipment to record the closet musicians of Wallingford.We think more Walllingfordites should be applying. Projects must fit into certain classes defined by the fund, such as Race Relations or Social Justice, Neighborhood Climate Protection, and Neighborhood Planning and/or…

Wallyhood received a plea from lower Wallingfordite Jay yesterday that's beginning to sound very familiar: I've lived in more well-off neighborhoods and impoverished neighborhoods and never have I seen so much crime in my neighborhood. Most of this crime in Wallyhood is attributable to all of the broken windows I've seen on my street (I live at 36th & Bagley and walk to 40th to catch the bus). Since the beginning of December I've counted at least 10 cars that have…

Have you received every received one of those spam messages where they've just taken a bunch of words and strung them together randomly to make it seem to the spam filters as if the message is about something other than V1aGra? It's like electronic schizophasia, some sort of auto-generated word salad.So, anyway, apropos of nothing, here's how the publisher describes "The Sound Mirror", a recent book of Andrew Joron, one of the two authors who will be reading this Friday at…

I've tried to start this entry a dozen times now, but the depth and breadth of complexity that is the Israel - Palestinian crisis defies the constraints of a blog post. There are so many psychological and historical forces at play, so much sadness, so many lost opportunities, that it's impossible to do even a single aspect justice.I will say that what happens grieves me.This week's "Friday Night at the Meaningful Movies" sponsored by Wallingford Neighbors for Peace and Justice is…

Garrett tipped us off to the Love 'Em or Leave 'Em Valentine's Day Dash, a 5K fun run to be held this Sunday at Greenlake, "the Puget Sound Region's unofficial headquarters for athletically focused romantic encounters". They're expecting 2,400 participants, which features costumes, prizes, and vendors. Full details at the Love 'em of Leave 'Em web site.Wallyhood isn't quite sure what "athletically focused romantic encounters" means, but we're pretty sure they're sweaty.

As promised, we went to the Wallingford Neighborhood Council meeting tonight and, we are sad to report, there were no displays of supernatural strangling (although we admit to a brief daydream involving our outstretched hand and one muttering nutjob). On the bright side, Council President Mary Heim confided that she dressed in black in the hopes of living up to our vision of her in the Vader role.Wallyhood will now seek to earn our keep and boil down the main topic…