Bainbridge Island preservationists are up in arms over rumors claiming Jennifer Aniston and hubby Brad Pitt might move into one of the island’s multimillion-dollar “cabins,” thus turning the ferry suburb into a lala land affordable only by celebrities (instead of the lawyers and software execs crowding the place now).

If she finds a lousy reception here, maybe Aniston could still move to an island–the mysterious supervillain island where her soap-star dad is currently holed up.

“Agit-doc.”

…to filmdom’s ultimate slacker, Marlon Brando. And please pass the butter.

…just keeps getting shriller and dumber. Now, a prowar outfit is trying to pressure movie theaters into not showing Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11.

A quick Net check shows this group is led by one Howard Kaloogian. He recently ran for a US Senate seat in California, on an anti-immigration, anti-environmental, anti-abortion, anti-gay, pro-weapons platform. He also played some part in the gubernatorial recall campaign that put Schwarzenegger in the state house down there; other recall advocates allege he siphoned contributions from the recall drive to put into his own campaign.

Another principal in the drive is a Calif. campaign operative and former Reagan advisor named Sal Russo. Kaloogian and Russo previously co-ran the successful campaign to stop CBS from airing its Reagans miniseries.

As Frederick Sweet writes, the anti-Moore drive is no grassroots support-our-troops campaign but a smear tactic from high GOP sources. “The Bush Republicans are trying very hard to stop Americans from seeing Michael Moore’s movie. They are also trying to hide the fact that their campaign is attempting to smear Moore and pressure theater owners into not running his movie. Hopefully, the Republicans’ censorship and intimidation will fail and millions of Americans will soon learn how George Bush had a business relationship with the Bin Laden family. They will learn this just before the next presidential election.”

(via Eric Scharf):

“Seattle Library architect Rem Koolhaas is from the Netherlands. So is
this little film.Coincidence? I think no.”

(Here, by the way, is Scharf’s own library foto-essay, complete with cute child pix.)

…the 250-plus pix I took at the new library opening today. I’ll have some of ’em up later Monday. ‘Til then, ponder this list of the top 10 movies set in llibraries. Why this person chose UHF and not The Name of the Rose, I’ll never know.

David Kipen claims US studio blockbusters have become so loud and dumb because they’re not even made for North American audiences anymore, but for a global everywhere/nowhere.

A fellow Stranger refugee stopped me on the street the other evening. He said he still enjoyed my writing, my vocabulary, and my sense of style.

But he also said he thought I’d limited my vision by holding to a rose-colored nostalgia for “the old Seattle,” a viewpoint that’s ill-suited toward effectively discussing today’s city of high tech and hipsters.

I beg, as I do so darned often, to differ.

You can’t really know where you’re going until you know where you’ve been.

The mindset that created the Century 21 Exposition, f’rinstance, is with us still. The magnificent Space Needle was built with private money on land essentially donated by the city. The publicly-funded exhibit buildings were either cheap “multipurpose” constructions (just like most local government buildings between then and the late ’90s) or repurposed older structures that weren’t that distinguished to begin with.

The old Seattle had its progressive, even radical ideas, alongside plain old fashioned racism/sexism. Some of its citizens held both types of beliefs at once. (I’m thinking of labor organizers who appealed to anti-Chinese hysteria among their flocks, and of “New Left” rabblerousers who defined “women’s liberation” as the right to give blow jobs.)

Today, Seattle loves diversity. Or rather, it loves the idea that it loves diversity; just so long as its white female children don’t have to go to the same schools as black male children.

The old Seattle had civic leaders who tirelessly struggled to have their burg seen as “world class,” but always by someone else’s standards. (Hence the ’60s campaigns to bulldoze the Pike Place Market, Pioneer Square, and large swaths of the Arboretum for parking lots, office towers, and highway lanes respectively.)

In more recent years, Seattle had civic leaders who saw every problem as solvable by a construction project. That’s why we can build new libraries and arts facilities, but can’t afford to run them.

The old Seattle’s governmental gears could grind very slowly; just as they can now. It took the “foodie” restaurant revolution of the ’70s before the city legalized sidewalk cafes. Now, we need, but are less likely to get, a similar outspoken demand before the city will allow new strip clubs.

If I may switch metaphors for a moment: Leonard Maltin’s book Of Mice and Magic, an invaluable history of the early animation business, refers at one point to the Warner Bros. cartoon studio’s desire in the thirties to “keep up with Disney, and plagiarize him at the same time.” Seattle’s assorted drives over the years to become “world class,” by imitating all the things all the other would-be “world class” burgs do, have often been just as self-defeating.

Warners conquered the cartoon world when its directors and artists stopped aping Disney and started to create their own brand of humor. LIkewise, Seattle will come into its own as it develops its own ways of doing city things.

We don’t have to have a cars-only transportation plan, or sprawling McMansions devouring the countryside. We don’t have to give in to corporate job-blackmail shakedowns. We can lead, not follow.

That’s not the “old Seattle,” but it’d be a better Seattle.

…about the Feds’ current war against sex: “Mrs. Ashcroft should tie her husband up in front of a sinfully large television and make him watch Footloose. While drinking an Irish coffee.”

…a “new” celebrity category—the non-singing, non-dancing, music video model. I guess the NYT finally got cable, some two decades too late.

The Tribeca Film Festival in Manhattan’s running an online poll, asking fans to name their favorite “guilty pleasure” movie. The problem: Few, if any, of the 66 titles listed are all that “guilty.” Most are well-respected cult classics (Airplane!, Harold and Maude, Office Space, Dr. Strangelove, Repo Man, Young Frankenstein, etc.). The closest titles on the list to true guilty pleasures are Slap Shot and The Mack.

C’mon, guyz n’ galz: Where’s Revenge of the Cheerleaders? How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman? Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains? Santa Claus Conquers the Martians? Or at least Porky’s II: The Next Day?

For the record, my all-time G.P. film’s still Ring of Fire, which has been out of circulation, even on cable, for some years now alas.

…to our, and just about everyone’s, fave mondo-movie re-releaser, Mike Vraney of Something Weird Video, on the occasion of his really cute widower-and-son profile in the P-I today.

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.

ROGER EBERT defends Howard Stern:

“I find it strange that so many Americans describe themselves as patriotic when their values are anti-democratic and totalitarian. We are all familiar with Voltaire’s great cry: ”I may disagree with what you say, but I shall defend, to the death, your right to say it.’ Ideas like his helped form the emerging American republic. Today, the Federal Communications Commission operates under an alternative slogan: ‘Since a minority that is very important to this administration disagrees with what you say, shut up.'”

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.”