HERE AT MISC. we can’t help but anticipate and enjoy the arrival of autumnal weather. I claim to be not really a weather person, but I can’t help but feel more comfortable when the outside changes from garishly bright 70mm Technicolor back to muted 16mm Eastmancolor.

THE MAILBAG: Responding to our recent praise of the yet un-hippified genre that is marching music, Liz Dreisbach writes in to plug a group she leads, the Ballard Sedentary Sousa Band. “It’s Americana at its best. Thirty players (ages 15 through 80), each wearing a radiant and different classic band jacket. We play nothing but old band tunes, mostly marches… We even have a sedentary majorette who twirls her baton sitting in her chair.” It next performs on Nov. 6, during a “Sousa Birthday Bash” at that hot new neo-vaudeville venue, Hokum Hall (7904 35th Ave. SW, West Seattle). In other old-timey spectacles…

FLIGHT OF FANCY: One event nearly ignored by the media this equinoxal season was the 50th birthday of Sea-Tac Airport. Airport management held a relatively low-key reception inside the main terminal recently: cake, mini-sausages, a kiddie choir, displays of ’40s-’50s flying memorabilia. The highlight was “stilt walker” Janet Raynor, dolled up in a ten-foot-tall version of a vintage-1967 Alaska Airlines flight-attendant’s dress. Raynor strode, pranced, and even danced in the long dress (which gave her the look of a mid-’70s Bon Marche fashion-ad illustration) while deftly fielding jokes from passers-by about which airline has the most legroom in business class. She also passed out reproductions of an old publicity photo with the dress’s original wearer standing beside the airline’s president. The guy in the photo’s just tall enough to provide the model with a degree of personal service not even Alaska Airlines is known for.

FEASTING ON A GRAND SALAMI: For as long as I could remember, Seattle was a sometimes-lovable loser of a city, whose “leaders” (mainly engineers, land developers, and steakhouse owners) wanted to become “world class” but usually muffed it. The Mariners, who played unspectacularly for so many years in that homely cement pit, matched this civic image perfectly. The same time Seattle became known as an assertive seller of software and coffee and sportswear, the Ms started becoming winners. This year, they not only won their division but had been widely expected to do so. Microsoft and Starbucks have become so dominant, they’ve generated ire within their respective industries as hyper-aggressive organizations bent on total domination. The Ms are a ways from that kind of rep, but how many consecutive seasons at or near the top would it take before they became as nationally reviled as the old-time Yankees? Just wondering.

HAVING A COMPLEX: The change of season often brings a reassessment of one’s life situation. If you’re feeling a little too much peace-‘n’-quiet in your personal world, here are some handy tips for voluntarily complicating your life:

• Start taking heroin.
• Start a relationship with someone who’s taking heroin.
• Develop a life-dominating crush on someone completely unavailable.
• Get a bank card. Max it out on cash advances. Blow the cash on Lotto tickets and/or “Make Money Fast!” multi-level marketing schemes.
• Get, or get someone, pregnant.
• Buy a “fixer upper” house, car, or boat.
• Become really, really fascinated by liquor, lap dancers, and/or rare books.
• Get a pet Siberian tiger.
• Settle for nothing less than the latest, most advanced PCs and/or VCRs.
• Decide your life’s too full to waste any time on some boring ol’ job.
• Become a feature filmmaker.
• Open your own private zoo.
• Start learning a performance skill worthy of a spot on the next Jim Rose Circus tour.

‘TIL NEXT TIME, cheer on the Ms, make sure you check out the truly-fine selection of Halloween party novelties at Chubby & Tubby (including the bleeding-hand candle with wicks on each finger, dripping blood-red wax to reveal plastic bones underneath), ponder the possibilities of a home life with the clear plastic inflatable furniture from Urban Outfitters (hint: better not have un-declawed cats or careless smokers around), and heed these words of the one-‘n’-only Liz Taylor: “There’s no deodorant like success.”