In recent years, with the Seattle area financially flush and demand for public transit rising by the week, there hasn’t been much mystery to Metro service changes. Each one has added just a few more service hours, devoted to some combination of improving the network and backfilling for construction-related headaches. And the next one, which starts this Saturday, September 21, is no exception.

Happily, after Seattle Squeeze impacts ate most of last March’s added hours, Metro had a bit more latitude this time to make improvements that riders can see. There are no major route changes, but a generous helping of “peanut butter”-style frequency and span improvements continue the trend toward a better frequent network. The Sunday improvements in Seattle are particularly welcome, and we hope they continue. It would be really nice to stop saying “It’s Sunday. Let’s not take the bus.”

Martin asked me to cover Sound Transit service changes as well, but there is almost nothing changing about Sound Transit service. The very few changes are mixed in below.

All-Day Frequency Improvements

The RapidRide E Line expands its span of at least 10-minute frequency on weekdays from 5:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Weekend frequency remains at 12 minutes (Saturday) or 15 minutes (Sunday).

Routes 1 and 14, which are through-routed with each other, gain 15-minute frequency on weekdays. The improvement to route 14 is a key part of rationalizing service to the southern Central District; I hope weekends, which retain 20- to 30-minute frequency for the moment, can follow suit soon.

Route 21, serving the 35th Av SW corridor, expands its span of 15-minute frequency on Saturday to 10 p.m.

Route 40 finally gets 15-minute frequency all day on Sunday, together with a few extra trips on weekdays and Saturdays to improve the span of 15-minute service, which now lasts from approximately 6 a.m. to 11 p.m.

Route 41 expands its span of at least 15-minute frequency from 6 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. (10 p.m. on Sunday). It’s nice to see continued effort to improve service to Northgate even though Link will replace this route soon.

Route 44, the city’s busiest east-west route, improves from 15-minute to 12-minute frequency on Sunday… curiously, only in the morning. Afternoon and evening service frequency on Sunday remains at 15 minutes.

Route 48 in the 23rd Ave corridor expands its span of at least 15-minute frequency from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. (10 p.m. on Sunday).

Routes 60 and 107 don’t get all-day frequency improvements on their own. But they finally get coordinated scheduling, to create effective 15-minute frequency over a very wide span in their combined corridor along 15th Av S, between Beacon Hill Station and Georgetown. Riders in this corridor can expect a bus at least every 15 minutes every day from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m.

Routes 65 and 67 serving North Seattle, which are through-routed with each other, get 15-minute frequency all day on Sunday, and expand their span of at least 15-minute frequency to 11 p.m. on weekdays and 10 p.m. on weekends.

Route 101 trunk service to Renton gets a longer span of service, adding trips to provide hourly service until midnight.

Route 105 in the Renton Highlands gets 30-minute service on Sunday, to match its current weekday and Saturday schedules.

Route 120 through the Delridge and Ambaum corridors expands its span of at least 15-minute frequency from 5:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. on weekdays and 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekends.

Route 150 trunk service to Kent gets one “owl” trip per night, departing Seattle at 2:15 a.m.

Route 164, connecting Kent and Green River College, gets 30-minute service on Saturday, and a later span of 30-minute service (until 10:30 p.m.) on weekdays. Curiously given its high ridership, the route still has no service at all on Sunday.

Route 183, a coverage route in southwest Kent, gets 30-minute service on Saturday.

Route 346 serving the Meridian Ave N corridor expands its span of 30-minute service until 9 p.m. on weekdays, which also has the effect of extending the route’s 15-minute common corridor with route 345, serving North Seattle College and Northwest Hospital, until 9 p.m.

DART route 906 connecting Southcenter and Fairwood (which replaced regular route 155, for those with long memories) gets 30-minute frequency all day on weekdays, over a span from 7 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

The Des Moines Community Shuttle adds half-hourly service weekday middays and Saturdays.

Peak-Hour Overcrowding Fixes

Consistent with its practice in recent years, Metro is addressing all of the overcrowding needs identified in the most recent Route Performance Report. The peak-hour improvements are the following:

• RapidRide C Line gets three new morning and two new evening trips.
• RapidRide D Line gets three new evening trips.
• The Queen Anne end of route 3 gets two new inbound morning trips.
• Route 5 gets three new morning and three new evening trips.
• Route 11 gets two new round-trips in the morning and one in the afternoon, eliminating some minor “gaps” in the 15-minute service pattern.
• Route 17 gets one new evening trip.
• Route 28 gets one new morning trip.
• Route 36 gets two new morning and two new evening trips.
• Route 43 gets two new morning trips headed toward the University of Washington.
• Route 44 gets two new morning trips.
• Route 107 gets one new evening trip.
• Route 218 gets one new trip in each direction.
• Route 252 gets one new morning trip.
• Route 255 gets one new evening trip.
• Route 271 gets one new evening trip.
• Route 311 gets one new morning trip.
• Route 372 gets two new evening trips.
• Route 373 gets two new evening trips.
• Sound Transit route 522 adds one new morning trip, but pays for it by removing the very last night trip westbound.
• Sound Transit route 542 adds one new eastbound morning trip.

Grab Bag

As always, there are a few small but noteworthy items tucked into the package.

Route 22 will be rerouted in the south Delridge area, to use Delridge Way instead of the narrow, residential 24th Av SW.

Sound Transit route 554 will revise its eastbound routing to use S Jackson St in the International District, which allows a new eastbound stop at Maynard Av S.

DART route 903 will be truncated to end at the King/Pierce county line at 39th Av SW, with its low-ridership service to Northeast Tacoma deleted. Some replacement service is being provided by an extension of peak-only Pierce Transit route 63, running express to Tacoma.

More than 40 years ago, food enthusiast and artist Salvador Dali published a cookbook called Les Diners de Gala. The book mixes Dali’s surrealist imagery and with dozens of recipes, including some that originated from the top restaurants in Paris at that time. The original book is quite rare and valuable now, but Taschen is reprinting it; it’s available for pre-order here.

This reprint features all 136 recipes over 12 chapters, specially illustrated by Dal’i, and organized by meal courses, including aphrodisiacs. The illustrations and recipes are accompanied by Dal’i’s extravagant musings on subjects such as dinner conversation: “The jaw is our best tool to grasp philosophical knowledge.”

See also The Artists’ and Writers’ Cookbook. (via colossal)

Tags: art   books   cooking   food   Les Diners de Gala   Salvador Dali

Hi, everybody! Tim Carmody here, guest-hosting for Jason this week.

July 25 was probably the 25th anniversary of Beastie Boys' Paul's Boutique. (Google and a few other sources say the release date was actually June 25, but July 25 is the consensus.) There's a new mural of the group, painted by Danielle Mastrion, at the corner of Ludlow and Rivington, on New York's Lower East Side, where the album cover was shot.

This remix of Paul's Boutique, released a few years ago, has also been recirculating on Twitter and Soundcloud. Caught in the Middle of a Three-Way Mix, by DJ Cheeba, DJ Moneyshot, and DJ Food, recombines the album's original source tracks and a capella verses with audio commentaries and a handful of newer songs.

The remix is fun to listen to, but mostly, it just reminds you that Paul's Boutique sounds amazing because its sampled sources were amazing. Like De La Soul's Three Feet High and Rising, released the same year, Paul's Boutique lifts tracks that would cost a small mint to borrow from today. (Three Feet High has never had an official digital release because the rights holders still can't sort out the royalties.) The Beatles, The Supremes, The Ramones, Curtis Mayfield, Dylan, Hendrix, Sly, Bernard Hermann, and James Brown (of course) are all there. But mostly, it's a love letter to old-school New York City hip hop: Kurtis Blow, Afrika Bambaataa and the Jazzy 5, The Sugarhill Gang, The Funky 4 +1, and contemporaries like Run-DMC, Boogie Down Productions, and Public Enemy are the glue that holds the whole project together.

Now, if you know Paul's Boutique well, you can't hear those older songs any more without hearing Paul's Boutique. There's specific moments in those songs that hide there waiting for you to trip over them, like quotations of ancient Greek in an Ezra Pound or TS Eliot poem. Beastie Boys didn't just find a way to make older music sound new; they found a way to invent their own precursors.

It's still wonderful to go back to the roots. In 2012, I found tracks from a handful of playlists and website listings and edited them together to make a Spotify playlist that I called "Paul's Boutique Without Paul's Boutique." (Later, I updated it using Benjamin Wintle's comprehensive playlist, which is really the base here -- he did an amazing job tracking down these songs.) It's just the sampled songs, roughly in the order they appear on the album. It's ridiculously fun. I like it better than the three-DJ mix, and I might like it even better than the Beasties' album.

It feels like you're at an amazing party at Adam Yauch's house, the Dust Brothers have control of the record player, and Mike D and Adam Horowitz are watching TV and telling you jokes the whole time. I never want it to end.

Update: Scott Orchard made a version of this playlist on Rdio, for the Rdio fans in the house.

Tags: Beastie Boys   music   Paul's Boutique

All Terrain

Swiss Wine Promotion is an association of various regional offices to promote wines. It brings together the various regional offices to promote wines, the company exporters of Swiss wines (SWEA) and Interprofessional Vine and Swiss wines (IVVS). Swiss Wine Promotion currently has 9 members, that is to say the 6 regional offices to promote wines covering the entire Swiss vineyard, each office is represented by one member on the committee, the SWEA is currently represented by a member and IVVS by 2 members.

Design by: Winkreative (Zurich)

Opinion/Notes: The most remarkable thing about this logo and identity is that there is no Swiss cross. Instead, the logo celebrates the Switzerland territory and the composition of its vineyards. The resulting logo may not scream "wine" or "Swiss" but it is an attractive graphic with a nice story to tell. There is also something refreshing about a Swiss logo being relatively "messy".

Related Links: Ellen Wine's World story (best coverage)
Werbewoche story

---