ALL LONGTIME READERS of this print-turned-online report have read of my early-childhood visit to, and continuing fascination with, the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair, a.k.a. the Century 21 Exposition.
Its theme: How wonderful everything was going to be in the 2000s.
At the time, I used my already blossoming mathematical skills to figure how old I was going to be in the year 2000 (nobody then used unelegant rubrics such as “Y2K”). Turned out I’d be in the alleged prime of my life. I could hardly wait.
Hence, when the big 0-0 finally approached, I knew exactly where I’d be. Despite having a paid-up credit card and no work or family obligations to speak of, I could only see myself being at the site of the fantasy Century 21 to celebrate the arrival of the real Century 21.
(And yes, I know there are literalists out there who insist the century doesn’t start ’til the following year. I treat these people with the same distanced acknowledgement with which I treat people who complain about explosions in outer-space movies making sounds.)
Only it ain’t happening.
Just like my folks used to announce cool vacation trips and then announce the week before that I couldn’t go along, Seattle Mayor Paul Schell cancelled the big free Seattle Center New Year’s bash on just three days’ notice.
The official reasoning: An international gadabout, with suspected terrorist ties, was caught trying to enter Wash. state from Canada on 12/14, with stuff in his car that might be useful in making bombs. He also turned out to have had a motel reservation near the Center for 12/31.
Since then, and despite highly media-publicized border crackdowns, no further evidence of any plot to blow up civilians in Seattle has been revealed. Nonetheless, and after several days of promising not to, Schell canceled New Year’s.
The free, open-to-the-public New Year’s, that is.
Paid-admittance events elsewhere in town, including some run by Schell’s pals in the local mover-‘n’-shaker community and costing from $50 to $500, will continue to occur.
If I were a conspiracy theorist (which I’m still not), I’d ponder whether Schell and his upscale-baby-boomer cohorts wanted to jump-start ticket sales at these costly commercial bashes; some of which are nowhere near selling out.
Or, I’d at least ponder whether the nouvelle cuisine-chompin’, Lexus-drivin’ corporate stooges surrounding Schell just didn’t really care about keeping a for-the-people New Year’s, as long as the hi-ticket private parties they’re going to stay on track.
The media spin on the cancellation, and Schell’s own official statement, are invoking the WTO-protest-response fiasco from Nov. 30 and Dec. 1 as a contributing factor to Schell’s decision.
In that disaster, you recall, Schell and his team over-reacted to a few deliberately-planned (and announced-in-advance) acts of “anarchist” property damage against big chain stores by sicking large goon squads, with tear gas and pepper spray, on non-vandalous protesters and civilian bystanders.
That was a panicky over-reaction; evidence of a lack of trust by the city’s elite toward its populace. So is this.
Despite this Grinchesque act, the new century will still start on time. I, for one, refuse to give up the dream of a better “World of Tomorrow.”
Already, before the terrorism hype, a friend had invited me to a private party in an apartment-building basement, to be redecorated as a mock Y2K-survivalist “concrete bunker.” I’ll probably go to it for a while. But I also insist we still have a public celebration, at the proper time if not at the proper place.
We should all gather as close to the Center as they’ll let us. Let’s surround the gated Center grounds with a human chain of defiant frivolity. No drinking or drugging or vandalism–just an insistence on enjoying a good loud midnight, whether the powers-that-be want us to have one or not.
I don’t expect Schell’s heart to grow three sizes that day, but it’s worth trying.
TOMORROW: Remembering the ’90s, a time segment lost in the century/millennium hype.
IN OTHER NEWS: Here’s a look at part of what was canned: Local art veteran Carl Smool’s Fire Celebration. It’s a funky, populist spectacle; and hence expendable in the eyes of the Brave New Seattle’s power structure.
ELSEWHERE:
