On the day after the Seven Gables Theater burned, we look back on some recent local arts and culture stories, trends, and tales of survival.

Where poetry, programming, and Amazon intersect; train cars with crude oil catch fire; homeless-services group refutes KOMO’s depiction of it; a few of the big COVID relief bill’s various pieces and their various effects.

Timothy Egan on Lewis & Clark’s lessons for surviving a bleak winter; right-wing protesters try to break into Oregon’s capitol building; daytime flooded streets are followed by nighttime snow; some folks want a gondola to West Seattle instead of light rail.

Local home sports ‘Schitt’s Creek’ tribute Xmas decor; WA’s COVID curve may be ‘flattening’ again; Cal Anderson Park encampment hasn’t been swept (yet); Inslee issues new school-reopening guidelines.

Light sculptures on the waterfront depict ‘seeds for a future culture;’ UW scraps another football game; first local vaccine doses arrive; far-right extremists threaten state election officials.

Views of an empty Microsoft campus (except for construction crews); the state passes 200,000 COVID cases; the first vaccine doses are on the way; another shooting at another right-wing Olympia protest.

Inslee keeps restaurants, bars, etc. closed three more weeks (restaurant industry assn. doesn’t like it); Seattle School Supt. Denise Juneau won’t ask for another contract; big-biz group wants city’s big-biz payroll tax tossed out.

‘Cascadia’ group wants four big, all-new cities; City Council passes budget with some SPD cuts; a massive (but multi-day) state COVID case count; an appropriate Christmas carol for this ‘bleak” year.

A bizarre concept for an imagined futuristic high-rise; 737 MAX is approved to fly again; state budget forecast improves; state officials really want you to stay home for Thanksgiving.

Major fund campaign aims to keep live music spaces alive; Kshama Sawant fund campaign aims to fight recall drive; COVID cases still rising in King County and at UW; another month with no new Boeing plane orders.

A neighborhood church’s hidden simplicity; no, downtown’s not dead (and poor people didn’t kill it); escalating actions against police violence (and police violence in response); a big Storm win (oh, and Seahawks also won).

More snarking at AG William Barr’s anti-Seattle screed; City Council overrides Durkan budget veto; racism ‘rife’ among King County Corrections workers; Boeing’s ‘COVID-zapping wand’ goes mass-market.

Amazon’s big plans for Bellevue don’t mean it’s abandoning Seattle; remote school starts with some glitches; what SPD’s cutting to add to patrols; many area arts groups could go broke before year’s end.

SIFF cofounder Darryl McDonald dies; Mariners and Sounders postpone games to honor Jacob Blake protests; SPD escalates accusations against local protesters; why is BC faring so much better in the virus battle than Washington?

Two beloved cinemas’ dark-gritty sequels; bowling alleys (and oh yeah, museums) can now reopen; microbreweries face a can shortage; South Seattle’s possible arson spree goes on.