…to Gwendolyn Knight, the grande dame of Seattle painters, whose work only received “serious” professional attention following the death of her more famous hubby Jacob Lawrence.
I GET TO SPEND this sunny Saturday all inside, giving a fourth thorough scrub-down to MISC Towers in preparation for its open showing on Sunday. Yes, you can view this lovely little jewel of a hi-rise condo, and then make it your very own. It’ll be open 1-4 p.m. There’s nothing worthwhile on TV then (I’ve checked); the ski slopes will all be mushy and gross; you’ve really no excuse not to come down. A professional representative of the real estate industry will be on hand to answer all of your concerns.
BILL WHITE BELIEVES “there needs to be a new genre created to describe Seattle’s country music. It is as different from Americana and alt-country as Burgundy is from Chablis. Closer to European folk music than the hard-kicking roots music of the South, [Jesse] Sykes and the Sweet Hereafter evoke a Scandinavian sense of dread that savagely denies itself the merriment of a Tennessee waltz.”
There’s a reason for this uniqueness, and it’s called Glitterhouse Records. Thanks to them, many of Seattle’s leading alt-country acts (the Walkabouts, Terry Lee Hale, et al.) have typically had great distribution in Europe but a spotty (if any) market presence on our own continent.
Thus, Seattle alt-country’s been defined less by attempts to re-create the pre-Opryland country sound, and more by an intellectualized, upscale, English-as-a-second-language Euro audience, and by Euro-influenced imagery of the American open road, American isolation, and American detachment. (Cf. the US-set films of Wim Wenders and Lars Von Trier.)
IT’S NOW A MONTH since my father died. I’ve got more to say about that, and might post it soon.
In the meantime, please be edified by this remembrance of the mother of an acquaintance of mine.
SOME REPUBLICAN LEGISLATORS are suggesting that Eastern Washington secede into a separate state. I wouldn’t mind that, actually. When the original Oregon Territory was split in two back in the mid-19th century, it should have been cut east-west instead of north-south. Under the new scheme, we’d keep our two U.S. Senators; the realm of Hanford and the Gorge Ampitheatre would get two of its own.
I’d also like to see statehood for Washington DC, and for certain “blue” territories that sometimes get dominated by their “red” outskirts in state and federal elections (NYC, Chicago, etc.).
