In your big weekend news dispatch: the end of Seattle Weekly as we know it; that Eastside state Senate race gets sleazier; defending Freeway Park’s original design; a four-point affordable housing plan.

MISCmedia MAIL has to say goodbye to the original “alt weekly,” being turned from a newspaper into merely a “brand.” We also discuss why Breitbart still has (some) ads; the accidental release of a ton of “fish farm” fish into public waters; a beautiful makeover to a pivotal local park; and how a school can be segregated without looking like it.

Your big weekend MISCmedia MAIL sees the outfit that sometimes calls itself “Seattle’s only newspaper” morph into something slicker but less frequent. Plus: An ex-MTV VJ now on Fox Business (!) gives an ill-informed rant against “commie” Seattle; Tim Eyman being his usual insufferable self; workers in the City of SeaTac still battle for their overdue back pay; thoughts about the meaning of Bastille Day; and the usual scads of weekend activity listings.

Your big weekend e-missive begins with an unexpected (but not undeserved) honor for one of our state’s greatest. We continue on to mention more mayoral-race and Murray-case developments; stories of people caught up in the big anti-immigrant scares; the close of the Burlington shooter’s sad life story; and the reasons we need Earth Day and the March for Science.

Stereotypically, the French (with a few exceptions, such as Alexis de Tocqueville) hate America, or at least much of America (with a few exceptions, such as jazz music and old B movies).

You can now add something else American that the French like. It’s li’l ol’ us.

And not the standard tourist-cliché Seattle of fish-throwin’ and whale-watchin’, either.

It’s the arts scene.

Yes, the Seattle visual-art world some of us oldsters remember as an intimate milieu of four or five museums, a couple dozen private galleries, some warehouse studio spaces, and CoCA.

This scene has now grown to finally become, as so many Seattle institutions aspire to become, “world class.”

At least, that’s what writer Paola Genone says, in Madame Figaro, a weekly magazine section of the major Paris daily Le Figaro.

The online version of her article is titled “Seattle, la nouvelle escale (“stopover”) arty américaine.”

The article’s print title is even more portentious, proclaiming Seattle to be a “Tete (head) de l’art.” (It’s a phrase with multiple historic meanings, which I don’t have room here to delineate. But it basically means something aesthetically significant.)

The story begins with a quick intro. Yes, it skims past many of your standard Seattle tourist/media reference points—Hendrix, Nirvana, Twin Peaks, Boeing, Microsoft, Amazon, rain.

But Genone then quickly segues into her principal theme, Seattle as “a capital of artistic renewal that loves mixing genres” and as “the hub of a new contemporary art and music…. Cool, eco-friendly, rock and high-tech, Seattle is astonishing by its freedom and eclecticism.”

Genone’s verbal tour of the local scene starts with two legacies of “the great geek” Paul Allen, the Seattle Art Fair and the Museum of Popular Culture (née EMP).

But Genone doesn’t stay in the realm of billionaires for long. Instead, she next calls Seattle “the city of women,” for the female directors of so many local institutions (SAM, TAM, the Frye, the Henry).

That’s followed by short photo-profiles of six local art n’ music movers n’ shakers:

• Martyr Space gallery owner Tariqa Waters (“La galeriste underground”). She creates self-portraits “with sharp colors, constantly transforming: aggressive, myserious, transgender, pop art.”
• Tacocat singer Emily Nokes (“L’égérie (muse) pop punk”). She’s the “worthy heiress to the pop punk of Courtney Love,” fronting a band whose music combines the Beach Boys’ surf guitar with “the burning hymns of Bikini Kill.”
• Collage artist Joe Rudko (“Le reveur aux ciseaux” (“the dreamer with scissors”)). His compositions, while “apparently abstract,” turn out to reveal “itineraries of thought, mysterious architectures, imaginary family albums,” and dreams of “an America open to diveristy and solidarity.”
• Photographer and multimedia artist Jennifer Zwick (“La photographe de l’étrange’). Her images appear “comme le caustic The Stranger” and elsewhere; while her installations explore “a fantastic universe of children, books, and everyday objects hijacked: installations inspired as much by the writings of WIlliam Blake and Jorge Juis Borges as by the comics of ‘Calvin and Hobbes.'”
• Hideout bar owner and Out of Sight festical curator Greg Lundgren (“Le Warhol de Seattle”). He’s called “a visionary at the head of utopian, committed, and large-scale projects,” which are all intended to support “galleries and artists of the city and to push them to flourish there. Successful bet.”
• Frye Art Museum director Jo-Anne Birnie Danzker (“La directrice de musée qui ose…” (“who dares”)). She “gave a voice to the artists of Seattle and encouraged experimentation,” along with “a lively dialogue between creators of all disciplines bringing their vision to the stakes of the contemporary world. “

The article doesn’t mention the hyper-inflating rents currently driving many artists and small-scale galleries out of town. Nor does it discuss the local “new money” techies who aren’t collecting much art (yet); or the local “old money” collectors who, for the longest time, preferred to do their art buying out of town.

But face it: it’s hard to bring up the harsher realities of a place when you’re hyping it as a global Next Big Thing.

(Translations by Google. Cross-posted with City Living Seattle.)

We remember the April Fool’s editions of college newspapers, and the “funny fake news” industry they birthed (not to be confused with the “deadly-serious fake news” industry). We also examine a solemn anniversary on Bainbridge; Bill Nye as the least-cool co-chair of the March for Science; a save-the-salmon video game; and the usual cornucopia of weekend events.

The “ZAPP” archive of self-published zines, originally assembled by volunteers working out of Hugo House, has a new and safe home; though the ZAPP folks apparently had no say in it. As they say, it’s “complicated.” We also examine the need to re-re-clean-up Gas Works Park; Bill Gates vs. the proposed federal budget; a new “health scare of the week;” and national recognition to a great local artist.

Life During (domestic) Wartime begins here with some vital guidance on making an effective, long-term opposition to bigotry and brutality, and many protest/reaction event listings. Plus: A lawsuit against encampment “sweeps;” a chance to end GOP control of the state Senate; and whither the band name “Thunderpussy”?

We need all the socio-political allies we can get these days, even within the pages of Teen Vogue! We look as well at Amazon’s at-long-last charitable streak; a church sex-abuse victim who doesn’t like what the church said about her legal fight; the governor proposing a “carbon tax” while a state investment board puts money into the petrochemical biz; and a (justly) long-forgotten novelty sport.

If Eastern Washington ever does become a separate state, as some Republican politicians want, it would help the national Republican Party but hurt the people living there. (But then again, what political trends in America these days wouldn’t do that?) And we also discuss the attempt to rehabilitate the image of Pepe the comics frog; still more Seattle Times layoffs; an ex-Seahawk’s gender talk and its discontents; and whether or not Snowmaggedon ’16 will finally occur.

One of Seattle’s last indie pharmacies will soon reach its expiration date with no refills. We speak as well about a UW minimum-wage analyst’s alleged conflict-O-interest; public schools filled to overflowing (again); Marshawn Lynch talking more about social justice than about his own business ventures; another potential Boeing “tax windfall”; and the Storm season’s sudden end.

We begin with three lists totaling 100 all-time Northwest indie-rock records. We continue from there with (alas) false state-income-tax allegations; anti-Muslim bigotry hitting home; what the costly homelessness consultant didn’t directly look into; a former “Drunk of the Week” (or was she?) suing; and the Mariners’ streak continuing.

The Mariners were down by 10 runs for the second night in a row. For the first night in a row, that’s not how it ended. Our weekend report also includes: New art-life for a closed gallery space; a Blue Angels flight ends tragically; a planned “bicycle of the future” will have to wait a while; the dorkiest media-company name you ever heard of; and scores of weekend activities.

A big weekend for KEXP listeners, taxpayers, and others begins, as always, with our big list-O-stuff-to-do. Also: denying true respect for a murdered individual; the “Montlake spite house” can again be yours; teaching compassion to Magnolia NIMBYs; UW wins a round vs. city preservationists; whether Puget Sound whales are too “screwed up.”

Your 100-percent Star Wars-free MISCmedia MAIL discusses how extreme climate change would look like around here; the African-American exurban diaspora; the wrongness of calling an Asian-American woman a white man’s “sidekick;” and tons of weekend activity listings.