…acknowledges there are as many as 20 Seattle barber shops specializing in “hip-hop” dos. Upon which one does the paper choose to focus? You guessed it: The one that’s in the north end and owned by two white guys.

SAD NEWS IN CULTURELAND: Northwest Bookfest has thrown down its last galley of type, and won’t be back this fall. That just gives us book-lovers the opportunity to start over and launch a brand spankin’ new Lit-O-Rama weekend.

I’d say: Forget about staging it in a funky but remote location such as Sand Point. Use the new library for a scaled-down fair; or bring the neo-modern aesthetic of the new library into the Convention Center, the Trade Center, the Seahawks Exhibition Center, or Key Arena. Make it festive, celebratory. Make it a fun gathering for people who will be spending the winter curled up at home with books.

Finally saw a complete episode of American Idol. Like most “reality” shows, it constructs a very specific, detailed fictional “reality.” This particular show’s fabulist conceit is that the banal rehashing of ’70s soul music is, and always has been, the main and only form of popular vocal music in the U.S.

A few years back, some baby-boomer intellectual wrote a book in which she whined about Those Kids Today, whose music didn’t got the same soul as that old time rock n’ roll. I don’t know if that author’s an Idol viewer, but the show’s conceit might fit her idea of a musical utopia, in a “be careful what you wish for” way.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, KOMO-TV anchordude Dan Lewis has started each 11 p.m. newscast on the station’s roof. This serves no journalistic purpose. I can only imagine three non-journalistic purposes for the ongoing stunt:

• To make the broadcast seem Important and Relevant, even though it’s usually a rehash of the most gruesome personal events already exploited at 5 and 6:30;
• To show off how Lewis’s carefully sculpted hair can remain perfectly in place, no matter what the weather;
• To let Lewis repeatedly drop the name “Fisher Plaza,” the station owners’ block-long, massively under-occupied office development.

AS THREATENED YESTERDAY, yet more shots of the new downtown Seattle Public Library, designed by Dutch celebrity-architect Rem Koolhaas.

On one of the chartreuse escalators, a cute yet stunning public art piece awaits in hiding. In this image, you can just barely see a porthole, though which other patrons can peer out, and thus become a temporary part of the art itself.

I’ve heard only a few criticisms of the place thus far. One patron told me the place was louder than a library oughta be. Another, believing a Seattle public building should express a “Northwest” character, criticized a lack of wood on the walls.

And one woman said the Dutch architect didn’t understand American fears; otherwise, he wouldn’t have designed so many nooks and alcoves in which homeless child-abductors might hide.

I believe this fear to be grossly exaggerated. I’m also SO tired of the anti-homeless “jokes” I’ve heard, even from self-styled “radicals,” during the weeks before the new library’s opening.

Yes, we need a dedicated downtown drop-in and hygiene center; despite the consternations of merchants. We need to take care of our less-privileged citizens, not demonize them.

A library’s not the place for those functions. But it is a place for other aspects of rebuilding one’s life, including self-education and job research. The vastness of the new library’s public spaces makes this possible, with relative comfort for all of us.

WE’LL RUN LOTSA LIBRARY PIX over the course of the week. Be prepared.

It was a glorious day inside and out. Everyone seemed truly joyous; as if this magnificent cathedral of popular learning would herald a brighter future for our troubled region.

Seattle’s been called both a “city of readers” and a “city of engineers.” The new Seattle Public Library’s primarily a feat of stunning engineering, and secondly a tribute to reading and to the imagination.

More importantly, out of all the fancy-schmancy new PoMo monuments in this town, it’s the one that’s open to the public every week of the year with no cover charge.

(Now, if the city’d only commit enough funds to properly run the place…)

Head Librarian Deborah Jacobs (like me, a onetime Corvallis-ite), the mayor, and most of the City Council were on hand at the opening, along with several drum ensembles.

Welcoming patrons from inside the Fifth Avenue entrance: Everyone’s favorite Action Librarian, Nancy Pearl.

The sign adjacent to Pearl reveals:

(1) The Koolhaas team’s penchant for bold colors, especially chartreuse (named for a liqueur invented by “Chartist” monks, and hence perfectly appropriate for a contemplative place), and

(2) The team’s choice of Futura Extra Bold as the library’s official typeface. You can tell near the top left corner of this page that I’m also a Futura fan. More significantly, it was the official typeface of the Sub Pop Singles Club, which probably led the Dutch designers to think of it as a “Seattle” font.

I was elated to see the “writers’ room” near the top of the building’s co-named for our ol’ pal Carlo Scandiuzzi, who booked rock shows at the Showbox before becoming a movie actor-producer, and member of assorted local arts/humanities boards.

The children’s area is vast, raucously noisy, and right on the ground floor. It’s got lotsa large, angular concrete posts, which may remind some oldsters of past fun times at the Kingdome or the Coliseum. It’s got games, toys, fun props, kid-sized computer desks and chairs, and a semi-hidden “story hour room.”

One person I met compared the vast interior to a set from a Jacques Tati film. I was thinking more sci-fi. Indeed, it’ll be hard for Paul Allen’s new Science Fiction Museum to look more science-fictiony than parts of the library.

…on her website (and soon to be book) Class Matters, that there are more “Others” in this nation besides just upscale women and upscale gays.

…upon our recent piece on Seattle writing, Ryan Boudinot has submitted “A Primer: How to Write a Great Northwest Novel.”

LAST FRIDAY, a “Broken Record” party occurred at the Crespinel gallery space in Belltown.

It was a promo event for our ol’ pal Peter Blecha’s new book Taboo Tunes: A History of Banned Bands and Censored Songs. The book’s a scholarly, yet gripping, saga relating many of the myriad ways people have tried to silence other people’s creative expressions over the years.

Strictly speaking, Blecha doesn’t write about the censoring of “music” per se. He writes about the censoring of music-related creations—lyrics, band names, album art, and dancing.

At the exhibit (still up for the next week), the words and images associated with music are carefully preserved and protected, in the form of framed album covers, sheet-music covers, and posters. It’s the music itself that gets trashed, in the form of irreplacable 78s smashed around the gallery floor.

I disapprove of this destruction. I say: Be kind to your old 78s. You might be one yourself one day.

Among those who had a “smashing” time: Guest DJs Mark Arm and Krist Novoselic (above), Squirrels fun-popster Rob Morgan, and jazzman Maurice.

As most of you know I was an afficianado of Seattle-based writing since before there was much of it.

So I must start this piece by saying it’s great to have a lot more of it around these days—enough for a full-length anthology book.

I should also mention that Reading Seattle: The City in Prose, like Fred Moody’s Seattle and the Demons of Ambition, refers kindly to my body of work, for which I’m grateful.

I just wish Reading Seattle‘s editors, Peter Donahue and John Trombold, had done a more intriguing curatorial job.

Donahue (author of the fine short-story collection The Cornelius Arms) and John Trombold (a sometime Seattle U. prof) compiled passages from 41 fiction and narrative-nonfiction books. You get plenty (though not all) of Seatown’s big verbiage names (Emmett Watson, Richard Hugo, Roger Sale, Tom Robbins, Rebecca Brown, Sherman Alexie, Murray Morgan, Mary McCarthy, Betty McDonald, Earl Emerson, David Guterson, J.A. Jance, Thom Jones, Matthew Stadler). You also get some up-n’-comers (Michael Byers, Charles D’Ambrosio, Natalia Rachel Singer) and some unjustly neglected past prose-pros (Archie Binns, Mary Brinker Post, Josephine Herbst).

The book’s arranged into three chapters by eras: “1930s-1980s,” “1980s-1990s,” “and 1990s-Early 2000s.” This demarcation refers to when the fiction or essay excerpts were written, not when they were set. The settings of the excerpts go back and forth in time quite a bit. The sequence of pieces within the chapters appears to be thematic; though it can be hard to tell what exactly is the theme-link from one piece to the next.

For a town that un-ironically prides itself on ironic humor, there’s almost nothing funny in Reading Seattle. The cumulative emotional effect of some of the excerpts is the same somber, solemn, hyper-reverent tone found in hackneyed nature poetry; only in prose and about a city.

The challenge in Northwest writing has always been to draw portraits instead of landscapes. To draw attention to the cast, not just to the sets. Many of the full-length works excerpted in Reading Seattle achieve that. It’s just that too many of the excerpts themselves don’t.

Too many of the excerpts read as if one was watching a compilation of film clips consisting only of shots of actors walking across landscapes and entering buildings. As soon as they start acting, the scene’s cut off.

Some examples of this: A slice of Lynda Barry’s Cruddy consisting only of the heroine’s stroll down the waterfront; a similar stroll through the I.D. from Monica Sone’s Nisei Daughter; a sound bite from Jack Cady’s thriller Street pontificating on, well, streets.

Some exceptions to this pattern: Binns’ re-creation of what Chief Sealth’s famous speech might have really contained; a piece from John Okada’s No-No Boy about a Japanese American man’s less-than-welcome return home from the WWII internment; McDonald’s girlhood memory of her failure at door-to-door sales.

The book’s editors, and seven of its contributing authors, appeared in a panel discussion last week at Seattle U. The ninety-minute chat didn’t lead to any big statements. They mainly mentioned the usual stuff about Seattle having rain and clouds and hills and water and distinct neighborhoods and moderate/progressive politics and a sense of community, and about it not being New York.

Among the panel’s more interesting statements:

• Tim Egan’s claim that “there’s a noir-ish, dark quality to our writing.”
• Lydia Minatoya’s observation of Seattle as “a metaphor for America; the shining frontier, the big dreams, but also the denial of racism and the other unpleasant facts.”
• Our ol’ pal Jonathan Raban quipping that this is “both a hard community and a soft community,” and “still a town of immigrants and dreamers.”

Seattle writing, unlike Seattle tourist promotion, should feel no need to strive for the “unique.” This is a human settlement like any other, in which men and women, boys and girls, eat, sleep, work, love, play, fight, travel, talk, think, create, are born, die, and all the rest.

It’s HOW individuals, by themselves and in communities, do all these things that make for fascinating stories.

The Great Seattle Novel has yet to be written. (My own new novel sure ain’t it.) And the Great Seattle Literary Anthology has yet to be compiled.

But that’s just one more challenge for a young city built on challenges.

PHOTO PHRIDAY TODAY begins with some standard beautiful cityscapes.

I’ll miss University Used and Rare Books, closing after 40 years. It was your classic college-town used-book store, complete with tall shelves, cats, grizzled customers, and that amazing out-of-print cult classic you’d never seen before.

(via Arthur Marriott):

“Your mention on the ‘Misc’ page of Boeing and the 7E7 reminded me of two things that occurred to me when I read the piece about the first 7E7 order last week in the Times.The first was that there was a photograph of and quote from one Ellen Piasecki, who’s some sort of marketing VP at Boeing. I’ll bet there’s a whole story there.

Piasecki Aircraft was the original name of the East Coast company that eventually became the core of Boeing’s helicopter division. Their specialty was always big heavy-lift ‘copters with two main rotors instead of a ‘tail boom’–their Korean-War ‘flying banana’ was the precursor to the present-day Chinook. What would you bet that she was born into that family, with aviation in her blood, and that eventually led to what she’s doing now?

The other thing I perceived was more ominous. The rendering of the 7E7 in All Nippon Airways colors accompanying the article showed only one person in the cockpit.

Over the last several decades, we’ve seen the flight crew of large airliners reduced from three to two as the flight engineer was automated the way of the railroad fireman. The effect of this on safety has been open to question, as evidenced by reading John Nance’s first major book–when things break, it helps to have more brain power at work and more hands to manipulate whatever controls are still working.

However, economic forces and corporate and technological arrogance may be leading to the day when it’s assumed that the aircraft can flawlessly run itself, and having a token ‘attendant’ sitting up front will be a transition to putting hundreds of passengers in a pilotless aircraft. At that point, I don’t think I’ll be flying anymore.”

Sometimes, our present-day life in occupied America seems like a bad science fiction novel.

By “bad science fiction novel,” I don’t mean a brisk, high-energy pulp adventure story of 1950s vintage.

I mean a ponderous, relentlessly grim-n’-geeky, multi-volume saga of 1980s vintage.

You know, those thousand-page trilogies that tried to shoehorn in all possible fan-favorite elements in the same story—”hard” science, magic, sword and sorcery, palace infighting. monsters, and a sniggering teen-nerd sexuality; all delivered in an ultra-humorless tone, with extraneous sublots and sub-subplots dangling every which where, distracting readers away from the lack of a compelling main narrative.

Sci-fi trilogies of the pre-cyberpunk years often depict scary, foreboding worlds. Similarly, the geeks running today’s conservative establishment posit a vision of a scary, foreboding America, eternally besieged within an even scarier, more foreboding world.

Trilogies are full of near-incomprehensible jargon, catch words, acronyms, and bureaucratic geekspeak phrases that often conceal more than they reveal. So does today’s U.S. federal government, with its straight-faced doubletalk about “weapons of mass destruction related program activities” and such.

Trilogies depict freakishly misunderstood stereotypes of human behavior and interaction, and demand the reader accept them as just the way things are in this fictional universe, with no questioning allowed. So do the likes of Karl Rove, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, et al., who, with their incessant screeching and posturing, insist that we can make the rest of the world adore us by shoving them around, that we can defend “freedom” by destroying it, and that anybody who disagrees with this is a terrorist.

Grim sci-fi, just as much as the less pretentious pulp sci-fi, wallows in physical impossibilities portrayed as hard science. Exploding spaceships might not make noises in trilogy novels (as they wouldn’t in real life); but the writers do play havoc with accepted real-life laws of mass, energy, and matter; often coming up with convoluted pseudo-explanatory excuses for doing so. Likewise, the right wing’s yarn-spinners insist to us, with no hint of irony permitted, that monopolies are good for competition, imperial invasions are good for democracy, pollution is good for the environment, conservative-only talk TV is “fair and balanced,” bigotry is Christlike, and the best way to persuade others toward your point of view is to insult and belittle them.

And most importantly, grim SF offers up a skewed definition of heroism and/or antiheroism. Grim-SF protagonists don’t have to be noble, inspiring, or all that heroic. They’re the good guys because the writers say they are; they can do evil things and it’s still OK. And in our century, we’ve got a ruthless gang of powermongers who regularly whore themselves out to big campaign contributors, who put the greed of the few ahead of the need of the many, who deliberately consign the domestic economy and the global environment to the figurative toilet, and who still, with total sincerity, believe themselves to be the noblest, most righteous figures on our planet.

Oh yeah—grim SF “trilogies” don’t always top out at three volumes. They can go on for seemingly ever, spreading their joyless aesthetic of bitter struggle, until people stop buying them.

Let’s hope people stop buying the fictions of our federal storytellers soon.

…why “Books Are the Hot Medium,” specifically referring to the current deluge of White House insider scandal tales.

One answer: With modern production technology, a hardcover tome can be rushed to the stores as quickly as a monthly magazine.

Another: Interviews with authors (and with govt. officials on the receiving end of authors’ accusations) can cheaply fill some of the unlimited time the cable news channels have to fill.

A third reason, which the NYT story doesn’t give: As we head into the dawn of a long-attention-span generation, books simply seem to be more worthy of one’s time. Classic “short-form” TV programming keeps losing viewers, while feature films on DVD have become the US consumer market’s most successful new product. Even video games have evolved from pinball-length short entertainments into 45-hour-long epics of level after level. When today’s children-not-left-behind graduate into adolescence and adulthood from years of relentless studying for standardized tests, a long, hefty read will seem even more like a natural way to relax at the end of the working day.

I’m not completely thrilled by all this. For nearly two decades, my local professional reputation has been that of a writer specializing in short, sharp shocks. With the ascencion of Jean Godden from the Seattle Times to the Seattle City Council, my li’l monthly half-page in the Belltown Messenger is the only three-dot column left in local print media.

So I’m moving into books. They’ve got higher profit margins and longer shelf lives than periodicals. (A fourth reason why books are “hot.”)

It’s a whole different type of work, requiring stronger legs and a sturdier torso. You can’t just stretch a short topic to feature length, no more than you can enlarge a spindly-legged spider to movie-monster size. But it’s where the flow is going, and all the self-help books say I gotta go with the darned flow.

I speak, of course, of the developer of California’s Madonna Inn, the fantastic and beloved pop-fantasy motel depicted in the film Aria and the Umberto Eco book Travels in Hyperreality.

Heather Rogers, who derives more enjoyment from drag shows than I do, contributes the following second installment of personal entertainment recommendations:

“Hello you pretty people,

Today’s Earth Day, so cut the whole “I’m so over the whole PC thing… I gave up recycling in ’94 along with my Birks” attitude. Today’s a great day to do something good. Like make a window box of flowers. Or get your soil tested for lead and arsenic and report the results to the city (it’ll help you with your lawsuit later on!). And you know what—you’re helping the environment RIGHT NOW—by reading fabulous online media (although I know a lot of you print out my column so you can read it in the bathtub while touching your “special place”. But I forgive you, you dirty doggies!)

Speaking of special places, you need to read Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. It’s Hedwig chilled and served with a slice of baklava. It’s a fuller Bildungsroman. It’s fabulous. I know I mentioned it last time, but I don’t think enough of you are actually reading it yet. Plus if you want to be part of Nerd Out book club, you need to read it. Our next meeting is May 9 at 3 pm. There will be a special screening of Hedwig following the meeting, featuring erotic food. Email me for more details at slowdiva@yahoo.com.

Now, onwards to what the hell are you going to do this weekend:

Make time this weekend for the MC5 True Testimonial film at the Little Theatre. It’s playing April 23-29 (no show Mon.) at 608 19th Avenue East, $7. Dir: David C. Thomas. This will also go along great with Middlesex because it, too, will Detroit race riots in the late ‘60s, albeit from a very different perspective. Plus, a rare MC5 photo show following the film Dial 206- 675-2055 for more info.

Tonight: Rest up—you’ve got a busy weekend ahead of you.

FRIDAY NIGHT, the favorite choice is the BIG GAY DANCE NIGHT at Chop Suey. Or you could check out the Turn-Ons and Film School at the Croc. But I think we all need a little big gay dancing right now. (Oh, underagers—you could go see a cool band called Holy Ghost Revival at the Old Firehouse. But I’m mean and don’t like that venue, and I don’t go to the Eastside. Sorry! I’m a West End Girl now (see below for details).)

SATURDAY NIGHT, the music isn’t really making my slot go ca-ching, but I know what will… and you heard it hear first. Check out the window peep show at Salon Dewi, right by the Baltic Room. Travis the Waxing Diva will wax a girl’s private area (that is, PUSSY!) in public. Ooh, Naughty Naughty. Anyway, it starts at 10 pm and it’s free. Perfect—you have some din-dins over at Machiavelli, then watch some poor innocent girl (he always seems to talk some clueless little thing from the suburbs into this action—it reminds me of that sexy ravishing-of-the-innocent-girl scene in Interview with the Vampire. Yum.) have her icky old hair removed, exposing her oh-so-tender, flushed, peachy flesh… Then go to the Baltic Room after you’re all charged up and dance sweatily to house music with someone hot. OK!

Monday is actually the BIG NIGHT this weekend (or week, whatever). You have to choose between Kraftwerk at the Paramount and BLACK REBEL MOTORCYCLE CLUB and the Rapture at the Showbox. Whatcha gonna do now?  Huh?  (Tho’ I love BRMC and the Rapture, the correct choice is obviously KRAFTWERK. Duh. They’re playing only three American cities, I heard).

So, I’m moving to West Seattle this weekend, so I’m going to rely on my gentle (and rough) readers to give me the skinny, because though my ear will still be to the ground, the vibrations will have to travel farther to get to me. So, fork over your fab events and if it sounds cool, I’ll tell everyone.

You know what? I love you. I really, really do.”

Heather Rogers has offered to post a weekly entertainment guide on this site. Here’s a sample she whipped up. Lemme know if you find it useful, and if you’d like more of its type:

“To-Do: Kill Bill Vol. 2 + shards of melted glass

OK. I admit it. I copped out. There were so many amazing things going on the past couple weeks that I just decided against ALL of them and stayed in reading Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, which is wonderful, by the way. I hope you had fun doing your whatever it was you were doing. And happy birthday to NOLAN REYES (former promoter of Start! and good friend of mine)! That’s my one regret-not making it to Nolan’s b-day/welcome back from the Bay area deal last night. Sorry No-No-Nolan… school night.

Anyway, now I know you want to know what’s going on this weekend! So I’m gonna tell ya!

Well, tonight is a big night. There are a ton of fun things going on. But a can’t miss for me is Kill Bill Vol. 2. Kill Bill Vol. 1 was my absolute favorite by QT to date, so I’m thinking tonight will be super fun fun fun! I hope to go en masse with my crew, so if anyone’s planless, do give a ring-a-ding.

Continuing the theme of fab film, after Kill Bill Vol. 2, how about heading to the lovely Majestic Bay Theatres (2044 NW Market St in Ballard) at midnight to see a hilarious collection of shorts? I know you’ll want to see David Miller’s “Pickup,” which is a short adapted from his longer film “Shoot the Girl” (of which I’m a huge fan). It’s one of about 15 or so terrific pieces by respected and/or emerging and/or none-of-the-above artists. It’s $10 gen admission. For more info, check out http://www.artisttrust.org/events/Reel-movie-poster.gif. I’m such the early bird these days–hope I can stay up because I know it will be well worth it. Hey, SHORTS–much better than longs. If one should happen (which it won’t) to be boring, it’ll be over and on to the next thing in what, two minutes?

So, Saturday night, I’m going to the ‘secret’ U.S.E. house-party. (It’s like that stupid joke: how many Cha-Cha patrons does it take to screw in a light bulb? What, you don’t already know????) So, I’ve been instructed not to post the address all over hell ‘n halfa Georgia, but if you email a request to me, I’ll probably tell ya. Oh, and in case you wonder what U.S.E. is – wake up and go request United State of Electronica from KEXP or come to this party. They are literally the funnest band in Seattle to date.

Oh, and if that gets too crowded, Mama Casserole is spinning at Kicks! at the Twilight Exit. It’s free, 21+ and it’s always a good time, huh kids?

I’m sure there’s plenty of other things to do, but you’d have to be a goddamned moron not to want to do the aforementioned things. Because I’m pretty sure it’s all going to blow our minds to tiny little shards of melted glass before it’s all over.

Love ‘n lovin,

Heather Rogers”