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…here again is the big news about our big art show opening this Thursday:
City Light, City Dark has been moved to the Nico Gallery, 619 Western Avenue, Second Floor (one floor lower than the previously advertised location, in the same building). It still opens next Thursday evening, March 6, 6-8 p.m.
The exhibit features grouped pairs of images depicting similar subjects. One photo in each pair is set in the tourists’ Seattle of sunny days and mellow smiles. The other photo takes place in the “other” Seattle of low overcasts, long nights, and defiant nightlife.
Be there. Aloha.
A FASHION DESIGNER of my acquaintance recently told me she thought antiwar protestors ought to dress up more smartly. She believes if you’re trying to persuade outsiders to your cause, you should be dressed to impress. Make a visual statement of your intelligence, dedication, and awareness. Nix-nix on the ragged jeans and stringy facial hair; oui-oui to happy, harmonious looks that say you demand a happier, more harmonious world.
This student, at a student-oriented antiwar protest Wednesday at Westlake Park, has the idea.
So, in her own silver-and-red way, does this young speaker.
The protest gathered young women and men from grade school to grad school and beyond, from throughout the metro area. They were informed; they were impassioned. They’d rather not have their own asses potentially put on the line for the benefit of a few billionaires, thank you.
This particular protestor really dressed up. The plaque reads, in part:
1 ring =
100 Iraqi children killed by
US bombs since 1991
Duration: one every second
for 100 minutes
IF YOU LIKE THE PHOTOS on my site, you should come to my art show (see above.) You’re also bound to love another Seattle photojournalism site, Buffonery. Despite the silly name, it’s a very accomplished site with gorgeous local architectural photography. It’s all done by Manuel Wanskasmith, a 22-year-old UW sociology grad, and it’s all fab.
UPDATE TO A LONG-AGO ITEM: A year and a half or so after we discussed the end of what had been my favorite Net-radio operation, Luxuria Music is back on line. Sort of.
Clear Channel Communications, the 8000-lb. gorilla of the broadcast radio biz, bought and promptly killed Luxuria, which played a sprightly mix of lounge, swing, space-age-bachelor-pad, and ’60s pop tuneage. One longstanding fan of the station later bought the domain name, and finally has a music stream online again.
The new Luxuria plays much the same sorts of cool stuff the old Luxuria played. But its post-dotcom–crash startup budget doesn’t allow for live DJs (a vital part of the old Lux mix). And its third-party server software has some stringent requirements (a Mac user such as myself can only access it via MS Internet Exploder) and seems to cut itself off, and crash your browser, after a half hour or so.
Still, it’s a start, or rather a re-start, for the kind of programming creativity you not only can’t get on commercial broadcast radio but you also can’t get on those highly-formatted commercial online, cable, and satellite music services.
FOR THE SECOND CONSECUTIVE YEAR, Pioneer Square was essentially declared an official No Fun Zone by city officials. Police permitted would-be revelers to enter and leave the three-block bar strip on First Avenue South, but not to linger on sidewalks or to make spectacles of themselves.
The above shot is the only “crowd” picture I could get. It was a close-up of the tiny stretch of sidewalk from the J&M to Larry’s Greenfront. Many PioSq bars were closed altogether; those that opened had little more than their regular lineup of “blooze” bands.
The “mandatory mellowness” attitude of the Seattle civic establishment never cared for rock n’ roll nor for festiveness. The 2001 Mardi Gras, a spontaneous and unplanned street party that begat several drunken fights and a fatal beating, only affirmed the anti-fun resolve. It will be up to We The People to take back the streets for revelry as well as for political speech. But it’d have to be thru an event that’s just organized enough as to prevent/discourage violence.
As I said after the ’01 debacle: Plan it, don’t ban it.
…City Light, City Dark, has been moved to the Nico Gallery, 619 Western Avenue, Second Floor (one door down from the previously advertised location). It still opens next Thursday evening, March 6, 6-8 p.m.
…should be at most subscribers’ postal receptacles in the next few days. If it isn’t, lemme know.
It’s also at Confounded Books (Belltown), J&S (formerly Steve’s) Broadway News (Broaday, natch), and M Coy Books (downtown). Further outlets should be online within the week.
THE ANTIWAR MOMENTUM keeps a-buildin’. The next big local event is on 2/15 (the Ides of February) at Westlake. Info’s at www.feb15.org.
UPDATE: The oh-so-long-awaited new-look print MISC will finally, knock on Formica, be out starting this Tuesday at select sales outlets around town. Subscribers should get it by the end of the week.
SOME MAGAZINES are so desperate to fill their pages with sex-related texts, they end up hyping alleged “trends,” sometimes contradictory, sometimes in the same issue.
Case in point: New York mag, which in a recent issue declares NYC young-marrieds to be a stress-defeated “Generation Sexless,” yet also proclaims a new upsurge in casual sex thanks to online dating services giving women more anonymity and power within such situations.
OK OK, less married sex and more unmarried sex aren’t contradictory. Except another story in the mag claims more NY-ers now want to marry and are having less casual sex.
Meanwhile, USA Today claims to have discovered a vast trend of listless middle-aged husbands, incapable of satisfying wives who came of age in the sex-lib ’70s and who still want it as often as possible.
Confused? Hey, it’s an innately confusing topic to begin with. Live w/it.
Or maybe it’s not so confusing, if you try to wrap it all into a meta-trend.
Say, a grossly overgeneralized meta-trend of Women Who Want It All, or at least as much of It as can fit around other weekly tasks; facing dudes who can’t be the Sole Breadwinner anymore (and are often not winning any bread right now), who don’t know what role to play opposite assertive women, and some of whom (particularly in art-and-media cities) might feel intimidated by some of the “cute” and “funny” wholesale male bashing in contemporary pop-cult.
This ties in, tangentally, with this site’s “Peepees for Peace” campaign, advocating the deployment of passionate male energy in the quest toward a better world for all. This call for a metaphoric rebalancing in the public sphere can easily equate with a need for more literal rebalancing in the private sphere.
I’m not advocating male superiority but male equality. As John Cusak’s platonic ladyfriend says in Say Anything, “There are millions of guys. Be a man.”
This country needs men.
Not the prepubescent schoolyard bullies of the political right.
Not the self-emasculated gender-guilt trippers of the political left.
Not the bumbling dads and incompetent husbands of the sitcoms.
Not the Pavlovian dorks of Maxim and The Best Damn Sports Show Period.
We need men who are equally eager to learn how to rebuild a dying economy and to learn how to lick clit. Who can create both new opportunities and new fantasy-role games.
We need more of the positive masculine qualities of bravery, responsibility, zeal, intelligence, and perserverence; at home and in the outside world. (The fact that juxtaposing the words “positive” and “masculine” is so rare in alt-culture, even a seeming oxymoron, is but another symptom of our problem.)
We need men who are confident enough to work and live alongside strong women, neither as master nor as slave. Men who can give women the kind of attentive, soul-meshing love neither vibrators nor blue pills can give by themselves.
Such men are made, not born. How to make them? I wish I knew.
My last regular textual contribution to The Stranger, the Obits column, has been suspended as of three weeks ago. It might come back later, should the paper’s ad volume go back up.
THE MUCH BETTER NEWS: The new-look print MISC is finally ready, and should be back from the printer any day now.
It’s a regular-magazine sized,, 48-page volume just packed with exciting stuff to read and/or look at.
It’s the “Hipster Parents & Swingin’ Kids” issue. “Theme” stories include:
But that’s not all! The issue also contains these other great features:
And that’s still not all! There’s also news briefs, Ms. MISC, a David Lasky comic, a photo essay about autumn in the city, a funny In/Out list, a junk food review, recommendations of books, videos, and CDs, and even a few scattered typographical errors (can you find them all?).
The splendiforous MISC #118 will be available at select retail outlets starting in mid-January for a mere $3.95 US; or you can order it by sending a check or money order to MISC, 1400 Hubbell Place, #1314, Seattle WA 98101.
…is so darn late by now, mostly due to my own ambitions for it, that we’re gonna skip the quarter and call it a Winter issue.
This also means I’ve time to add a new reader survey.
I want your recommendations of the weirdest “children’s” or “teen” media (books, movies, TV, music) you’ve ever read/seen/heard. I’m not talking about mere wholesome dorkiness like Raffi; I mean true oddities like the Pac-Man musical album. Email your choices today.
The new, re-redesigned print MISC isn’t likely to be out before December. That means there won’t be an autumn issue; we’ll go straight from summer to winter, and then go from there. This also means there’s still a little time to write something for it. Email me for the particulars.
We’re also redoubling efforts to sell ads for the thing. The new print MISC will be a new and different type of local ad forum. It’s in a regular magazine size, on better paper, at lower ad rates than the previous newsprint format. Because it’s not a newsprint throwaway, your business’s message will work for you all quarter long. The new rates will be posted here on the site soon; until then, send in for the great new rates.
AS YOU MIGHT EXPECT, my mental energies have of late been focused upon one primary and apparently uncomfortable topic: What I can do for money (NOT things I could do that would be totally volunteer but really cool).
I’m aware I’m not the only US citizen in my current predicament, and I’m very aware I at least don’t have any kids depending on me. But that doesn’t mean I should just give up on my creative-career dreams and just send out 1,000 resumes a week for busboy jobs.
No, tuff times call for tuff thinking. I’m gonna get outside the envelope and start pushing the box (or is it the other way around?). I’m gonna find great new opportunities where others just find weed-strewn country ditches with a beater Camaro or two capsized and rusting away.
Areas I’ve looked into or thought about:
OK, some of these concepts are far less plausible than others. If I could only discern which ones they are. But at least I’m not trying to sell Internet stocks.
…is finally out at the 150-plus dropofff points around Seattle. Subscribers should get their copies any day now.
The Humid Summer Sex Issue is our hottest-yet collection of essays, reviews, memoirs, and other delightful entertainments. Among them:
Those in other locales or who don’t get out much can always subscribe, by following the instructions at this link.
THE SUMMER PRINT MISC is officially late (I’d wanted it out today), but it is coming.
As part of it, I’m writing an exhortive little essay entitled “No, Seattle Doesn’t Suck.”
For it, I’d like your participation. Tell me what you like about Seattle. (Only things that are actually in Seattle! Out-of-town scenery doesn’t count!)
Send it in to our handy email box, preferably before the end of the month. Thanx in advance.
THE NY TIMES quotes an Italian business analyst on the Enron-Arthur Andersen-WorldCom mess: “What is lacking in the U.S. is a culture of shame. No C.E.O. in the U.S. is considered a thief if he does something wrong. It is a kind of moral cancer.”
WHAT ADAM SMITH REALLY WROTE, as opposed to what the pro-corporate “libertarians” claim he wrote.
THE FREMONT SOLSTICE PARADE is tons-O-fun; equally zany (although only slightly more dressed) is the Coney Island Mermaid Parade.
The summer print MISC, which was supposed to be out next week, has been delayed; basically because certain freelance contributions have been slow or nonexistent. Think of this as YOUR opportunity. We need your essays, op-eds, and fun facts (800 words or shorter), particularly about the issue’s previously advertised theme: “More Sex, Less Gender.” E-mail for particulars.
TO OUR READERS #2: We get a lot of e-mails from folx who’d like this site to plug their new Net-based audiovisual technology doohickeys. For them, I have a simple six-word response: Wake me when it’s Mac-compatible.
AS PART OF my ongoing efforts to find gainful (paying) employment, I recently made my first voice-over demo recording. You can hear it at this link in the ever-popular MP3 format. Send it to anyone you know who might be responsible for casting commercials, industrial videos, documentaries, video-game soundtracks, etc., and be sure to send them this web address at the same time.
…for the forthcoming “More Sex, Less Gender” issue of the print MISC. Discuss great (or at least entertainingly absurd) sex scenes in books, movies, or your real life (pseudonymously if you prefer). Repeat a (successful) pickup line you’ve given or received. Share your idea of a really sexy sound, vision, food, or place. If you’re involved in a relationship or lifestyle some might consider “unusual,” we’d love to hear about that too. Send in your ideas today. (Remember, we prefer short and lively texts around here.)
IT’S SIX DAYS N’ COUNTING to our next glam-filled live event, The Clark Show, Monday nite at the redone Rendezvous lounge in Belltown. Be there.
PASSAGE (Former ACT Theater boss Gordon Edelstein in the NY Times, on his return to the NY tri-state area): “[In Seattle] when the curtain rises on a play, the audience is open, but their tacit agreement is that life is pretty good, it’s important to be comfortable, and that human beings actually can be healthy…. The curtain rises on a New York audience, and everybody agrees we’re basically sick and we want redemption and we want a good time but we’re not made uncomfortable by deeply disturbing news about our psyches. In fact, that feels like the truth to us.”
NICHOLAS MURRAY WRITES: “Nineteen Eighty-Four has never really arrived, but Brave New World is around us everywhere.”
JUST A WEEK AGO, I was cautiously optimistic but still slightly worried about the 2002 Mariners, who at the time were only 4-3. Since then, they’ve only won nine straight road games against division opponents. Oh, me of little faith…
THE SPRING PRINT MISC has now been distributed to almost all the local dropoff spots. If you still have trouble getting one, consider subscribing.
