Just over our border in Fremont, this one sounds like it’s worth the trip under 99:
GrassRoutes Community BYO BBQ
August 10th, 6 – 8 pm at The Fremont Abbey Arts Center (4272 Fremont Ave North, Seattle)
Join one of Seattle’s hottest music events, The Round, GrassRoutes style! Emceed by GrassRoutes guidebook author Serena Bartlett, who created the series that “forges a new standard,” and Fremont Abbey founder Nathan Marion, this edition of The Round will bring together a great lineup of Seattle artists and celebrate the launch of the brand new GrassRoutes Seattle. Come early for the barbecue potluck with veggies from Full Circle Farms, and a chocolate and cheese tasting with our friends from Theo Chocolates and Beecher Cheese. Daniel Laing’s incredible illustrations will be on display, and you’ll be able to get signed copies of GrassRoutes books. Stay for the concert where there will be guide giveaways, a raffle for a signed print of Daniel’s drawing of the Fremont Troll, and the musical stylings of Bumbershoot bands like The Tripwires and People Eating People (plus slam poets Greg Bee and Katie from Youth Speaks, live painters, an improv band, and more).
Timely! According to Writer’s Almanac:
>>It was on this day 98 years ago that the word “grassroots” made its debut as a political term. On this day in 1912, Senator Albert Jeremiah Beveridge of Indiana was on stage at the Progressive Party Convention when he proclaimed: “This party has come from the grass roots. It has grown from the soil of people’s hard necessities.”
In the almost hundred years since, “grassroots” has become a popular buzzword and an influential campaign strategy. The word refers specifically, according to the OED, to the “rank and file of the electorate or of a political party.” With grassroots campaigns, you often see people standing on street corners holding clipboards, collecting signatures for petitions, or setting up information tables on college campuses and neighborhood farmers’ markets, or posting fliers around town, or holding political meetings at people’s houses, sometimes potluck-style.
There’s now even a term for faking a grassroots movement: It’s called “astroturfing,” after that artificial grass found at sports stadiums. It’s when powerful lobbyists masquerade as individual citizens, using the tactics of grassroots campaigns, but hiding their affiliation or real agenda. The term was coined by U.S. Senator Lloyd Bentsen, after he got a bunch of letters in the mail from concerned citizens urging him to promote the interests of the insurance industry.<<
Cool, thanks Sparky!