Seattle Culture
The Pulse: Shaking Off the Frost
Big ideas, jazzy teens, burger farewells, and dancing aluminum
By Sarah Stackhouse January 17, 2025

Seattle’s about to get a blast of icy air — and while I love the sharp clarity of a cold morning, it’s easy to romanticize when I’m indoors with a cup of coffee and my coziest socks. What’s your go-to for staying warm? Fleece-lined everything? A massive stack of library books? Let’s ride this cold snap together — here’s what’s happening this week.
Can a bear hug melt the Seattle Freeze?
Burgermaster’s first-ever location, a 73-year-old landmark, is closing its doors.
Design fans: Don’t miss Boliglaboratorium: A Danish Housing Lab at UW.
Seattle is putting $108 million toward affordable housing.
This new dance show looks so expressive. I love modern dance, especially when this description is attached: “The dancers move around in a horde on the floor, slithering, crouching, and kicking; coming together and pulling apart; leading each other, then crawling up bodies, animal-like and desperate.”
Four local high school jazz bands made the Essentially Ellington finals — congrats, Garfield, Bothell, Roosevelt, and Mountlake Terrace!
The L.A. wildfires have burned more than 37,830 acres — that’s 315 times larger than the Great Seattle Fire of 1889.
Tank and the Bangas are at Neumos next week — got my tickets already.
A new bar specializing in low-proof and zero-proof cocktails that hasn’t opened yet is already generating buzz.
Would you go see this show in Olympia? The bodies wiggling around in those tubes cracks me up.
An underwater volcano 300 miles off our coast is predicted to erupt by the end of the year. But don’t worry — it’s a mile underwater.
Seattle Humane is helping pets affected by the L.A. wildfire-affected find new homes.
Are you going to Seattle’s MLK Day march and rally?
There’s a new dessert bar coming to Capitol Hill, and the black sesame hazelnut thumbprints already have my attention.
And finally, a little levity from the comment section of our story Amazon Numbers Still Aren’t in, But Downtown is Again on the Upswing: “This has absolutely trashed the time it took to get my son to preschool. A previous 20-minute drive now takes 1 hr 20 min from Woodinville to Bellevue. Thanks 👍 Amazon.” — mrs.dunagan
What’s catching your eye this week? Let us know @seattlemag.