Nathan Weinbender

If you’re anything like me, you’ve forgotten every mathematical theorem and scientific method you ever learned in school and yet can’t shake the endless stash of weird pop culture knowledge and insignificant factoids burrowed deep inside your brain. Ask me to name the chemical symbol for tin or to write down the quadratic formula or to rattle off the presidents in order – you know, useful information – and I seriously have to strain. But ask me about a band’s discography, a TV show’s cast of characters or a movie’s Oscar wins and you’re firmly in my wheelhouse.

The painted “Welcome” sign outside Lind, Washington, prominently displays a memorable message: “Drop In – Mt. St. Helens Did!” It intrigued Portland filmmakers Sue Arbuthnot and Richard Wilhelm enough to actually visit the small town and start documenting some of the people they met there. Ten years later, they had completed a documentary called “Dryland,” which is not only a personal snapshot of rural life but a look at the economic distress affecting small farming communities.

There’s something endearing about the handmade quality of a custom-made cassette. It’s not enough to just burn a bunch of MP3s to a blank disc – there’s no personality in that: Not only does an honest-to-God mix tape require you to sequence and time the songs just so, but you have to play out the whole track list while you’re transferring it to the tape. It’s a labor of love. So I’ve decided to make my own mix tape, long enough in two parts to fit on an hourlong cassette, to soundtrack the summer. It’d be too easy to find songs with “sunshine” or “summer” in the titles – no, I’ve collected 16 songs that evoke the summer months, the tunes that instantly transport me to June or July whenever I hear them.

When “Gypsy” first premiered 55 years ago, Ethel Merman tore up the stage as brash stage mother Mama Rose. Her big, brassy performance cemented her as a Broadway legend. But when Warner Bros. adapted the musical into a film in 1962, Merman was overlooked in favor of actress Rosalind Russell, whose voice wasn’t strong enough for the movie’s musical numbers and had to be dubbed over by another vocalist.

Steven Dietz’s “Becky’s New Car” begins as an occasionally hilarious screwball comedy and gives way to a disarmingly thoughtful drama about the nature of love, fidelity and second chances. Based on the play’s first act, which is snappy and broad and breathlessly paced, you wouldn’t imagine that it could transition so seamlessly into its touching closing scenes. It’s a tricky balancing act, but “Becky’s New Car,” crisply directed by Christopher Wooley, pulls it off. The show, which premiered this weekend at Spokane’s Civic Theatre, stars Kathie Doyle-Lipe as Becky Foster, who has been married to her loving husband, a roofer named Joe (Steven Blount), for nearly 30 years. At home she’s always picking up after her philosophizing grown son Chris (Michael Barfield) and waiting on delivery pizzas. At work she’s perpetually in over her head: As the office manager at a car dealership, she does a little bit of everything, juggling paperwork and angry customer phone calls and staying long past when the doors have been locked.

On a sleepy Sunday night in early April, there’s a small ruckus coming from a cordoned-off section at the back of the Saranac Public House. It’s the final meeting point for the 50 Hour Slam, a timed filmmaking competition that, now in its fourth year, puts local film auteurs under the gun. Here’s how it works: Participants have two days and two hours to write, produce and edit a 3- to 6-minute film, following specific criteria. For example, this year’s filmmakers had to incorporate a safety pin as a prop, had to solve one of two riddles that hinted at a downtown location they were required to use, and were given a historic Spokane-centric photo that had to somehow be referenced.

On a sleepy Sunday night in early April, there’s a small ruckus coming from a cordoned-off section at the back of the Saranac Public House. It’s the final meeting point for the 50 Hour Slam, a timed filmmaking competition that, now in its fourth year, puts local film auteurs under the gun. Here’s how it works: Participants have two days and two hours to write, produce and edit a 3- to 6-minute film, following specific criteria. For example, this year’s filmmakers had to incorporate a safety pin as a prop, had to solve one of two riddles that hinted at a downtown location they were required to use, and were given a historic Spokane-centric photo that had to somehow be referenced.

When he was 10 years old, Tommy Tallarico started putting on “video game concerts” for the kids in his neighborhood. He’d traipse down to the local arcade, armed with his father’s bulky cassette player, and record hours of the blips, bleeps and bloops emanating from his favorite wood-paneled machines. “I’d splice the tape together and invite my friends over,” Tallarico said, “and I’d jump in front of the TV set with my favorite games playing behind me, grab a guitar and pretend that I was putting on a show.”