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Under the Needle is a look at people and issues in the area but outside mainstream news coverage, stories that try to say a little about Seattle today, where it has come from and where it is headed.
Updates from the blog
Deb Manuma's pending eviction wasn't her fault; her landlord defauted on his home loan. PI readers try ...
The first episode of Seattle-produced Space Losers, sort of Muppet Show meets Slackers, finally makes ...
Column archive
Writer Mike Lewis began working at the Seattle P-I in 2000. He has covered county politics, the fishing industry and general assignments that have taken him across Seattle, Washington state, Western Canada and Alaska. He began writing Under the Needle in late summer 2007.
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 7, 2009
Under the Needle: Building a foundation for future work
Among the signs of a slumped economy, there's John Morefield's. There it sits among at the Ballard Sunday farmers market. It reads like a wry joke: Architecture 5ยข.
FRIDAY, JANUARY 2, 2009
Under the Needle: Beer before the race, and other New Year's resolutions
On dipping in a cold lake and New Year's resolutions.
THURSDAY, JANUARY 1, 2009
Under the Needle: The old drinks are here with him in spirits
Paul Clarke knows rum and rye, bourbon and bitters, chartreuse and cachaca. He is Seattle's cocktail expert, its absinthe adept, its sambuca scholar during booze's hottest time of the year.
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 24, 2008
Under the Needle: An unlikely Santa spreads joy at hospitals
Howard Cohen knows that even some of his Jewish friends are perplexed at why this 53-year-old vice president of Clise Properties, this Macher Claus, is so devoted to playing Santa every year.
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2008
Under the Needle: Jobless benefits call centers a growth industry
Inside one of Seattle's fastest-growing businesses, the state Employment Security Department's call center, phone lines hum with 6,000 weekly calls, 20 new employees are in training monthly, and economic projections indicate expansion.
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2008
Under the Needle: Poetry thrives in a downturn
The good thing about being a poet is that it is impossible to have an economic downturn. That would mean at some point there might have been an upturn. Not that Ed Skoog is complaining.
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2008
Under the Needle: Law is on the landlord's side
Deb Manuma lived and paid rent for six years in a Beacon Hill house where she was a good tenant, but that doesn't matter now that her landlord has defaulted on her home's mortgage payments.
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2008
Under the Needle: Despite 53 years of pitching cars, even he can't sell this economy
Nothing compares to this, Ron Guyor said. Not the gas crises of 1973 or 1979. Not the rise of the Honda, the Toyota, the Datsun. Not the Boeing layoffs that gutted neighborhoods in 1972. Today is something else.
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2008
Under the Needle: Veterans find lots of support at Fisher House
Many start out the same way -- isolated -- after arriving at Fisher House. They seldom leave that way.
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2008
Under the Needle: Only one way Edward Jackson would leave 35 years of clutter
Edward Jackson, 89, often spent all day in his robe and slippers, picking through the narrow paths he'd cut like a corn maze through the heaps of boxes in his two-bedroom Capitol Hill apartment.
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2008
Under the Needle: In Obama, flower shop owner says she picked best of the bunch
Mary Wesley, owner of Flowers Just-4-U on Jackson and 23rd, got on the Barack Obama train before it left the station. And she's been riding it ever since -- to the delight and consternation of her customers.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2008
Under the Needle: Wooden Boats center artist chips away at deeper meaning
Saaduuts is a self-taught Haida carver and artist-in-residence at Seattle's Center for Wooden Boats.
MONDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2008
Under the Needle: The light's still bright in shining shoes
When George Johnson marks his 70th year on the planet Monday, he'll do what he's done dozens of times every workday, hundreds of times a week and thousands of times annually for 60 of those years.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2008
Under the Needle: Vacuum repair shop also serves as a de facto men's club
Almost every workday, Dick McDonnell stops by the Capitol Hill vacuum shop he founded nearly 50 years ago.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2008
Under the Needle: A vote for beer over politics
Terry Heckler, the man responsible for some of Seattle's most famous ads -- including the delightfully offbeat Rainier Beer TV commercials of the 1970s and 1980s -- says he never even was tempted to sell a political candidate.
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2008
Under the Needle: Stand for a 700 percent jump in rent in South Lake Union?
Two businesses that called South Lake Union home must find new space or close, because of new development that calls for higher rents.
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2008
Under the Needle: UW grad gives it all up for poker
University of Washington graduate Vivek Rajkumar is a whiz kid turned poker phenom.
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2008
Under the Needle: Food Network fame crowds regulars at Voula's
Food Network fame crowds out regulars at Voula's Offshore Cafe.
