$50 and under
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Coffee-Table Art
(various prices)
Are you obsessed with the stickers of birds that mysteriously appear on billboards and street signs around Seattle? Annoyed yet intrigued by taggers' usage of the Priority Mail sticker? For five years, the U.K. design group Tak! kept a Web site, www.stickernation.net, updated with submissions of artistic vandalism from around the world, but while waiting for the defunct site to return with an archive of 30,000-plus images, get your fix with Sticker Graphics: All You Need Is . . . (BK&Acces, $49.95), a hulking yellow box embossed with various typefaces and designs. Inside, you'll find a 228-page book showcasing over 1,000 illustrations and character designs from the most visionary sticker artists you've never heard of, along with 50 actual stickers and a poster to start your own adventure in creative frivolity.
More impressive than peel-and-stick, stencil art done well makes a real impression. Themes and quality are as varied as communities, and though the medium is here today, gone tomorrow, Soft Skull Press' 2004 Stencil Pirates: A Global Study of the Street Stencil ($20) is still relevant for those who missed it last year or prize the snapshots of beautiful work—from the political to a life-size image of a couple embracing, painted in an appropriate corner—that likely no longer exists.
For a look at the pioneering street art of graffiti, legendary photographer Martha Cooper's 2004 book Hip Hop Files: Photographs 1979–1984 (From Here to Fame, $39.95) explores the art form in its New York heyday. Cooper's new photo book, We B*Girlz (PowerHouse, $24.95), looks at the scene through a contemporary lens. "Herstories," with old-school B-girls like N.Y.C.'s Rokafella and L.A.'s Asia One, pepper the book's anecdotes from dancers worldwide—and, of course, the pictures are packed with flavor.
Vinyl Will Kill: An Inside Look at the Designer Toy Phenomenon (Gingko Press, $39.95), edited by Jeremyville and Design Lab, attempts to demystify the process behind 3-D vinyl-figure production; like Sticker Graphics, it's packaged in a large box with a poster and trading cards. Interviews prod the minds of Gary Baseman, Dan Clowes, and Strangeco for the design-obsessed—the rest of you will enjoy the collected images of the ultimate high-concept knickknack.
This summer's Mix Tape: The Art of Cassette Culture (Universe, $22.50) by Thurston Moore, guitarist-singer for Sonic Youth, might be the prettiest thing to grace your coffee table since a $5 Pike Place Market bouquet. Sure to please unabashed romantics and admitted music snobs, Moore enlists a gaggle of musicians, actors, writers, and record-store clerks to tell the tales of their tapes. Photocopies of the original mixes' sleeves are icing on the cake; anyone interested in indie or tape culture will eat it right up. RACHEL SHIMP
GrooveTube
(Groovetube, $24.95–$44.95)
The Groovetube (www.groovetube.tv) is a clear plastic grid that suctions to your boob tube's screen, diffusing the colors into abstract, moving squares and effectively turning the thing into a "disco light show." The Tube's enigmatic, Seattle-based creator has set up massive installations at local restaurant the Alibi Room and at Fashion Week in Miami. You, too, can turn the talking heads into something more interesting: A small tube fits 13- to 15-inch TVs ($24.95), medium fits 19- to 22-inch ($34.95), and large fits 24- to 27-inch ($44.95). Just make sure you catch one loop of A Christmas Story on TBS before you start the dance party. RACHEL SHIMP
Dottyspeck ID Bracelets
(dottyspeck, $42)
Once the realm of childhood sweethearts and other romantics, ID bracelets—most often used these days by protective parents and medical patients—are making a return. Local artist Kim Williamson crafts traditional chain-link bracelets with two sizes of plates for you to embarrass your lover with, whether their nickname is "P-Nut," "Snookie," or worse. You could write just about anything you want, actually, as long as it's 12 characters or fewer. The 6-and-a-half-inch, 7-inch, and 7-and-a-half-inch bracelets are $42 each. See www.dottyspeck.com for retailers. RACHEL SHIMP
The Warriors
(Rockstar Games, for PS2 and Xbox, $49.99)
Finally, a video-game adaptation of a film that works: Walter Hill's 1979 cult flick gets slotted into a suitable beat-'em-up format (think the best imaginable edition of Double Dragon), and the film's off-kilter N.Y.C. street-gang-brawl aesthetic gets expanded in the process. Rockstar Games (of Grand Theft Auto infamy; www.rockstargames.com) concocts a striking prequel to the film's story line and nails the movie's sense of New York's '70s decay, rife with graffiti battles, car stereo–stealing mini-games, and a soundtrack crammed with disco magnificence (including, weirdly enough, Vivien Vee's ludicrous Italo-droid obscurity "Remember"). By the time you reach the last third of the game, where the events of the movie itself finally unfold, a somewhat goofy B-movie has become the missing link between post–Taxi Driver Gotham noir and Mad Max anarchy, not to mention a hell of a camp-classic take on the early days of hip-hop culture. NATE PATRIN
Seattle's Best Karaoke
($18 and up)
Seattle may not be Tokyo, and you won't have a view of some Blade Runner–esque skyline while singing "Sweet Caroline" or "Like a Prayer" at Seattle's Best Karaoke (1814 Minor Ave., 206-343-6599, www.sbkaraoke.com), but it's one of the only places in the city where you can approximate that dreamy, drunken Lost in Translation group-karaoke experience. An hour's stay in one of the two party rooms will cost three songbirds $18 before midnight and $24 after on Tuesdays through Thursdays; it's $30 an hour for up to eight people on weekend nights. It can get pricey, but the more bodies you pack in, the cheaper it gets—and it's totally worth it not to have to sit through 20 songs you didn't choose. Since alcohol is allowed with a banquet permit, there's no excuse for shy types to bow out. RACHEL SHIMP
$40 and Under
