HERE AT MISC. we’re trying to make sense of Nike’s reported flat sales trends, after years of huge growth. Is it the shoes? Is it the controversy over sub-subsistence pay for foreign laborers? Maybe it’s the ads that don’t try to sell any products, just the logo (not even the name!).
SIGN OF THE WEEK (one of the “Rules of Conduct” at the Wizards of the Coast Game Center): “#6. We want our guests to feel at home in the Game Center, so please practice daily hygeine and tidy up after yourself.”
LOCAL PUBLICATION OF THE WEEK: Issue #2 of the industrial-culture rag Voltage profiles three highly diverse Seattle bands–the ethereal Faith & Disease, the dark-techno Kill Switch… Klick, and the piously noisesome ¡TchKung! Even better is a piece on Project HAARP, the Army’s secret radiotransmitter base in Alaska. It’s equally skeptical of conspiracy theorists’ claims about the project and of the Pentagon’s denials. Free at the usual outlets or from P.O. Box 4127, Seattle 98104-4127.
FLAKING OUT: Never thought I’d see it, but even the beloved institution of cereal has fallen to the horrid force that is “collectibles” speculation. Fueled by a couple of shrewd promoters trying to turn box collecting into the next big hoarding boom (to be surely followed by the inevitable bust, when foolish hoarders realize they’ll never unload their hoards for profit onto bigger fools), manufacturers have been toying with limited-run box designs, using some of the same tricks (like foil embossing) already used on comic books and sports cards. Now General Mills has come out with a Jurassic Park Crunch cereal (really Lucky Charms with dino shaped marshmallow bits), actually shouting on the box “Limited Collector’s Edition!” At least with all the BHT “added to packaging material to preserve freshness,” any unlucky box-hoarders will eventually be able to eat their losses.
GINSBERG WITHOUT TEARS: The local aging-boomer litzine Point No Point just came out with an Allen Ginsberg tribute by Stephen Thomas, who claimed “every left-of-center social movement since the ’50s is traceable back through Ginsberg’s poetic vision.” For good or ill, Thomas might be right.
In the months since his demise, I only found one obit (in The Nation) that emphasized his writing instead of just how cool a dood he was. This may be how he’d want to be remembered. He exemplified many annoying hipster trends: the incessant self-promotion, the championing of celebrity above artistry, the simplistic Hip vs. Square dichotomy, the concept of culture as something created exclusively in NY/LA/SF and merely consumed elsewhere. No wonder the folks at MTV loved him. He had the same business plan!
But there was more to Ginsberg than his carefully groomed icon-hood. There was his actual work–writings, speeches, performances. He championed not just gay rights but gay life. During the post-McCarthy nadir of American discourse, he wrote about forgotten or suppressed details of U.S. history. His pieces often lacked craftsmanship and “quality control” but oozed with exuberance, and thus at least indirectly inspired the punk/ DIY universe.
RAMPING UP: We’ll always remember the long-awaited opening of Moe’s in 1/94 as a special night. After almost two decades of playing mostly in tiny bars, rundown ballrooms, and basements, the “Seattle music scene” had a veritable palace, expensively built just for it. But all scenes change, and so it is here, with Moe’s life as a rock club ending next week. On the upside, the formerly much less palatial Off Ramp club’s about to reopen (pending those pesky Liquor Board bureaucrats) as the Sub Zero. When last written about in this space, it was announced the joint’s sale, remodeling, and reopening would take a little longer than first expected. As it turns out, a year longer. But much was done–it’s clean, and (thanx partly to an all-new floor) no longer smells of stale beer! The cafe part’s open; drinks and bands might commence any week now.
(If you attend only one column-anniversary bash this season, let it be the fantabuloso Misc.@11 party Sunday, June 8, 7:30 p.m. at Ace Studios Gallery, 619 Western Ave., Third Floor.)
