This installment of Misc. is being written on a gorgeous, sturdy office table obtained dirt cheap at the old REI store’s after-closing fixture sale. While many of us working in the Pike/Pine corridor are thankful to no longer compete for parking with Suburbans from the suburbs, there’s still a certain feeling of loss over what was a solid, utilitarian place selling solid, utilitarian goods. REI began as an outgrowth of the ’30s Mountaineer movement, a quasi-bohemian subculture that believed communing with Nature could bring empowerment and even spiritual growth. These folks wanted a consumer-run resource for practical tools. That’s a ways from the mass-merchandising behemoth that is today’s REI, with its huge new Retail Theater Experience on Denny Way.

Another survivor of the pre-WWII co-op craze, Group Health, admits to being in merger negotiations with Kaiser Permanente, a huge HMO with operations in 18 states. Some news accounts questioned whether such a scheme could preserve Group Health’s “cooperative spirit.” I say without the actual practice of cooperative governance, such a “spirit” is little more than an image; and at organizations the size of today’s REI or Group Health, real hands-on co-op management might not even be possible. Speaking of forgotten populist dreams…

STEAMED OR FRIED?: TV commentators on Primary Night claimed to be mildly astounded by the size of Norm Rice’s loss in his run for governor. They attributed the defeat to his failure to get out the vote among his supposed core constituency of “urban liberals.” Nobody mentioned how Rice wrote off that vote before his second mayoral term started. From his status as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Nordstrom to his (or rather, the city’s) continued attempt to remake Seattle into a city where only upscale baby boomers are welcome, Rice had nothing to offer progressives and little to offer voters elsewhere in the state. He made no viable promises that he wouldn’t sell out the rural environment to Weyerhaeuser and agribusiness the way he’s tried to sell out the urban environment to the condo developers and Paul Allen. (Then there’s the way his development program as Seattle mayor played against the rest of the state, by vying for housing stock and nonindustrial jobs that might otherwise go to other jurisdictions.)

I knew several Rice campaign staffers; while they’re articulate, outgoing folks, they couldn’t tell me what Rice’s candidacy had to offer non-affluent and non-boomer voters. He might have had a chance running as a Dan Evans-style, mainstream, pro-business Republican, if that party were still run by sane people. Indeed, Demo primary victor Gary Locke is now running against GOP nominee Ellen Craswell as just that voice-O-moderation the GOP once claimed to be. Speaking of business and hype…

EXPOSED: You’ve seen corporate ads swipe graphic, type, and copy elements from home-published zines. You may have seen record-company promos made by professional design studios to look like the work of no-budget zinesters. But Hollywood Highballis an apparent first: a paid-circulation ($4.95) publication purporting to be a real street-level zine, sold at the same record and comix stores, but made by a national ad agency (Gyro Worldwide of Philadelphia, described in the NY Times as an outfit that “Prides Itself on Understanding Generation X”).

Subtitled “Indie-Rock’s Nudie Magazine,” its 48 pages combine retro “cocktail culture” lifestyle features, celebrity swipes (reserving any real negativity to dead celebs), parody cheesecake photos (black asterisks cover all bare nipples), and ads for Gyro’s regular clients–MTV, Reactor clothes, Goldschlager liquor, and especially Red Kamel cigarettes. The NYT quotes Gyro founder Steven Grasse about Highball, “It helps our agency’s image. If we say we understand urban hipsters, we have to continue to prove it.” Having ad execs running a magazine sure removes the danger of pesky content getting in the way of the ads (that’s one place you’ll never see an anti-smoking article). Even the concept’s advertiser-friendly–consumer hedonism disguised as a spoof of yesterday’s consumer hedonism, with the erotic aspect of the ’50s source material toned down to inoffensiveness.

This week at Misc. World HQ, we seek your suggestions for the ex-REI building.