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I, for one, refuse to become obsessed with worst-possible scenarios. Not just because it’s bad for the soul, but because I believe it’s realistic to think there won’t be an all-out global war with nukes and biological weapons turning the Earth into a desolate piece of rock–from which, 20,000 years later, a new race of fantasy-novel wizards and elves might emerge. (Yes, even in discussing why I won’t buy into it, I can’t help but scoff.)
Nor do I buy into the theory, currently spreading in some Christian-conservative circles, that this is the start of the global Apocalypse, originally believed to have been scheduled for Y2K but merely delayed due to inaccuracies in the human calendar.
You see, such an Armaggedon would require the willing participation of a helluva lot more players than just one elected-with-an-asterisk President and one or two small, impoverished dictatorships. The (presumably) wiser, cooler minds of Europe, Canada, Asia, and those Muslim states with dependencies upon the Western economy will, I predict, bring some relative sanity to the current war-bluster. One can at least imagine some Japanese and Germans who’d rather not see another huge intercontinental blow-up.
But a lot of icky things far short of all-out doom could still happen.
The worst of what I consider the plausible scenarios is for this to become an excuse for a Gulf War II–a drawn-out war of old-fashioned territorial conquest, whose ultimate, unofficial purpose would be to install oil-company-friendly regimes in Iraq and elsewhere. That would lead, among other things, to division in North America and Europe, bringing back so many of the worst aspects of the ’60s.
Another likely scenario is an attempted War on Terrorists operated just like the War on Drugs–a punitive, corrosive, futile, top-down militarized response to a diffuse, decentralized, stateless opponent. And since there is no one single unified terrorist organization (just like there was never really one “Mafia”), the U.S. warmongers would be able to keep this war going indefinitely, perhaps against a different devil-du-jour every year or two.
If the bombings were done by the type of gang the FBI currently claims did them, it’s less of an army and more of an informal association of self-styled crusaders; some with closer ties to like-minded warriors, others acting largely on their own. It can’t be completely neutralized. It can only fade away, with its pieces gathering fewer recruits and dwindling financial support.
And what might cause such a subculture to fade away? A dwidling sense of relevance, which could occur if nations (including Middle East nations and their respective sponsors) could somehow learn to stop fighting and start helping one another.
Peace really is the answer. An active, working peace, that is. The kind of peace that can be more difficult than war, because it’s tougher to conceive (or to conceive of).
PHIL AGRE WRITES:
“In an infrastructural world, security cannot be a force, something exerted from the outside, a lid kept down or a shield put up.
“…The important thing is to draw a distinction between military action, as the exercise within a framework of international law of the power of a legitimate democratic state, and war, as the imposition of a total social order that is the antithesis of democracy, and that, in the current technological conditions of war, has no end in sight.”
IRA CHERNUS WRITES:
“To ask about our share of responsibility does not in any way condone the evil. It does not lessen by one whit the responsibility of those who actually did the deed. In death as in life, they remain fully responsible for their own heinous choices.
“But pacifists cast the net of responsibility more widely because that is the only way to end the cycle of violence. If we go on putting all the blame on others, and thereby justifying vengeance, we simply perpetuate the suffering and anger that led to the violence.”
NAOMI KLEIN WRITES:
“The era of the video game war in which the U.S. is always at the controls has produced a blinding rage in many parts of the world, a rage at the persistent asymmetry of suffering. This is the context in which twisted revenge seekers make no other demand than that American citizens share their pain.
“…The illusion of war without casualties has been forever shattered. A blinking message is up on our collective video game console: Game Over.”
ROBERT FISK WRITES:
“Retaliation is a trap. In a world that was supposed to have learnt that the rule of law comes above revenge, President Bush appears to be heading for the very disaster that Osama bin Laden has laid down for him.”
AND LAWRENCE FREEDMAN WRITES:
“The first step is to agree a realistic description of the objective. The eradication of terrorism as a global phenomenon does not meet this test, because not only is the definition contested in many instances but also the phenomenon’s existence is bound up with numerous conflicts, many beyond immediate resolution.”
A UGANDA-BASED relief site offers a list of “Ways to Help America.”
AN EMAIL CORRESPONDENT passed along a quotation from David Foster Wallace’s novel Infinite Jest, concerning things one can learn in rehab:
“No single moment is in and of itself unendurable.”
P-I COLUMNIST ANTHONY ROBINSON WRITES:
“In the longer term, nobility and morality shall be found in restraint rather than in simply unleashing American power and violence in retaliation or retribution.”
OFFICIAL NOTICE: As of Monday, it’s officially OK to complain about Bush again.
PHOTO-REPORTAGE DEPT.: At Friday’s bombing memorial at Westlake, a man made and brought a matchstick model of the towers…
…while a woman took a ball-point pen to the manila envelope she was holding, and made an impromptu sign reading “AN EYE FOR AN EYE WILL MAKE THE WORLD BLIND.”
Later that afternoon, a bagpiper serenaded the people placing flowers at Alki Beach’s Statue of Liberty replica…
…where someone had left a desktop-published plea to “move forward and live well.”
At the firefighters’ memorial in Pioneer Square, more flowers honor the fallen NYC firefighters.
At the memorial floral display in the Seattle Center International Fountain, where hundreds brought flowers and displays, someone placed a homemade flag with the American Airlines logo…
…while a chalk artist made a plea to move beyond calls for vengeance.
RICH WEBB WRITES:
“…Now we have bin Laden set up to be our straw man. Hell, he might even actually be guilty. But I can’t help but think that we jump to this conclusion at our peril. Yet there will be calls to bomb his compounds, to seize his assets, to have him assassinated.”
SEATTLE WEEKLY CONTRIBUTOR GEOV PARRISH WRITES:
“Tuesday was a day of complete horror in the history of the United States; and the American public as well as its leaders will demand retribution. Let’s not forget, however, how we got to this day.”
SEUMAS MILNE writes in the British daily The Guardian:
“[Americans] can’t see why they are hated… Already, the Bush administration is assembling an international coalition for an Israeli-style war against terrorism, as if such counter-productive acts of outrage had an existence separate from the social conditions out of which they arise. But for every ‘terror network’ that is rooted out, another will emerge – until the injustices and inequalities that produce them are addressed.”
EVEN THE NAKED NEWS anchorladies are being serious. Chief MC Victoria Sinclair wears a plain black dress (and keeps it on) while reading her summary of the eastern U.S. grimness. Only after moving on to other topics do she and her Toronto-based colleagues return to celebrating the flesh (in their standing-up-straight, plain-speaking, non-lurid way).
CAPITOL HILL began to return to its normal rituals Thursday. The coffeehouse and bar chatter was again about interpersonal issues, money worries, and least-favorite bands, as well as that one overriding topic.
At Six Arms last night, a young woman came up to me bearing a big smile and intense blue eyes. She held my hand, looked compassionately into my eyes, and told me she could see that I, like a lot of people these past few days, are doing far too much worrying for our own good. She said we all need to stop fretting and replaying old fears; and to start giving love instead.
Then she tried to sell me on the Landmark Forum, the self-improvement course derived from Werner Erhard’s old “est.”
But even if her primary purpose with me was solicitacious, not altruistic, the first part of her message still holds. As some ’70s self-help book said, “Love is letting go of fear.”
Spread the love to all around you on these days of sorrow and remembrance, freely and unconditionally, without asking for anything back (including self-improvement-course signups).
JON CARROLL WRITES:
“There will be pressure to suspend our freedoms, to allow the government to invade our privacy and control our speech as part of the glossy new war. If terrorists force America to give up its freedoms, then they will have won.”
SCRIPTING NEWS quotes an email posted from a Seattle hotel room by John Perry Barlow, a pro-corporate Libertarian with whom I often disagree, but who here has a salient warning:
“…Nothing could serve those who believe that American “safety” is more important than American liberty better than something like this. Control freaks will dine on this day for the rest of our lives.
“Within a few hours, we will see beginning the most vigorous efforts to end what remains of freedom in America. Those of who are willing to sacrifice a little – largely illusory – safety in order to maintain our faith in the original ideals of America will have to fight for those ideals just as vigorously.
“I beg you to begin NOW to do whatever you can – whether writing your public officials, joining the ACLU or EFF [note: Electronic Frontiers Foundation, a group opposing Net censorship], taking to the streets, or living visibly free and fearless lives – to prevent the spasm of control mania from destroying the dreams that far more have died for over the last two hundred twenty five years than died this morning.
“Don’t let the terrorists or (their natural allies) the fascists win. Remember that the goal of terrorism is to create increasingly paralytic totalitarianism in the government it attacks. Don’t give them the satisfaction.
“Fear nothing. Live free.”
THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW site quotes David McReynolds of the War Resisters League:
“We urge Congress and George Bush
that whatever response or policy the U.S. develops it will be clear that
this nation will no longer target civilians, or accept any policy by any
nation which targets civilians. This would mean an end to the sanctions
against Iraq, which have caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of
civilians. It would mean not only a condemnation of terrorism by
Palestinians but also the policy of assassination against the Palestinian
leadership by Israel, and the ruthless repression of the Palestinian
population and the continuing occupation by Israel of the West Bank and
Gaza. The policies of militarism pursued by the United States have resulted
in millions of deaths, from the historic tragedy of the Indochina war,
through the funding of death squads in Central America and Colombia, to the
sanctions and air strikes against Iraq. This nation is the largest supplier
of “conventional weapons” in the world – and those weapons fuel the starkest
kind of terrorism from Indonesia to Africa. The early policy of support for
armed resistance in Afghanistan resulted in the victory of the Taliban – and
the creation of Osama Bin Laden.
“Other nations have also engaged in these policies. We have, in years past,
condemned the actions of the Russian government in areas such as Chechnya,
the violence on both sides in the Middle East, and in the Balkans. But our
nation must take responsibility for its own actions. Up until now we have
felt safe within our borders. To wake on a clear cool day to find our
largest city under siege reminds us that in a violent world, none are safe.
“Let us seek an end of the militarism which has characterized this nation for
decades. Let us seek a world in which security is gained through
disarmament, international cooperation, and social justice – not through
escalation and retaliation. We condemn without reservation attacks such as
those which occurred, which strike at thousands of civilians. May these
profound tragedies remind us of the impact U.S. policies have had on other
civilians in other lands. We are particularly aware of the fear which many
people of Middle Eastern descent, living in this country, may feel at this
time and urge special consideration for this community.
“We are one world. We shall live in a state of fear and terror or we shall
move toward a future in which we seek peaceful alternatives to conflict and
a more just distribution of the world’s resources. As we mourn the many
lives lost, our hearts call out for reconciliation, not revenge.”
PHOTO-REPORTAGE DEPT.: This closure sign at Toys In Babeland expresses the mood on Capitol Hill this evening. In the coffeehouses and bars, everybody’s reading the Times and P-I afternoon street extras, making the same kinds of probably futile speculations you’re probably making, and feeling very quiet and concerned.
A lone protester in Westlake Park chats with passersby, trying to persuade them not to rush to blame the attack on the Afghans, the Iraqis, or Muslims in general. (Right-wing religious radio stations were reportedly spreading the totally untrue idea that Muslims believe they can’t get into Heaven unless they’ve killed an unbeliever.) The other side of the protester’s sign read, “Muslim People Are Good.”
Later that day, some people who’d already been planning a “Peace Day in Seattle” for Sept. 19 held a small rally at Westlake, of about 50-60 people.
A window at the evacuated Bon Marche, displaying the store’s school-fashion promotion and a retro T-shirt bearing a 1945 headline, inadvertantly say what I wish to say to you now.
Gotta have it. Peace.
I LIKE FAST FOOD. Wanna make something of it?
Many do. (Want to make something of it, that is.)
Eric Schlosser’s new book Fast Food Nation is only the most recent example.
Schlosser’s tirade states, essentially, that all of America except for the Enlightened Few such as himself (and presumably his readers) are mindless sheep, being led to a metaphorica slaughter of obesity and cholesterol by greedy mega-corporations, callously out to rake in billions off of lethal meals at home and then to export this monolithic Americulture to the world.
At best, these arguments are misguided. At worst, they display a classist basis.
I like fast food (although I know it’s a pleasure best enjoyed, like so many other pleasures, in moderation). It’s cheap, tasty, unpretentious, and gets you back to your busy day. Feeding doesn’t have to be sit-down and from-scratch, any more than sex has to always involve a whole weekend at one of those dungeon B&Bs.
And fast food doesn’t necessarily have to be huge and corporate. Look at those tasty burger and gyros booths at street fairs, or at the feisty local drive-ins and hot-dog stands in most cities and towns.
And it sure doesn’t have to be a symbol of American cultural imperialism. Look at the feisty taco wagons of White Center and South Park, or the teriyaki and bento stands that are a modern fixture of most Northwest urban neighborhoods.
Fast food, or something like it, exists in nearly every society big enough to have urban dwellers on the go. (Although many of U.S. ethnic-restaurant favorites were actually invented here, by clever immigrant chefs.)
So get off your exclusionary-tribalist purity trip and have a fry. Or a spicy chicken bowl. Or a falafel-on-a-stick. Or some flying morning glory on fire.
IN OTHER NEWS: Had the privilege of meeting Floyd Schmoe, patriarch of the Seattle Quaker church and longtime peace activist, in 1991, around the time he started the Seattle Peace Park across from the Quaker center in the U District. He was in his mid-90s then, still alert and still a devout activist for pacifism. If I live as long as he (passing this week at age 105), I can only hope to have achieved half the good works he did.
NEXT: Images full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
ELSEWHERE:
YESTERDAY, we riffed on a vision of sexual liberation for a post-corporate era.
That, of course, presumes that such an era is imminent, or at least that one can imagine it to be imminent.
I know I’m far from the only observer who’d like the current socio-economic-political zeitgeist to change. And I can’t think of a better way to help it happen than by making positive affirmations that it already has.
In that spirit, let’s imagine the components of the ’90s nostalgia craze, sure to hit just as soon as the rest of the nation realizes how over the era is.
And as for that other form of techno-optimism, that John Perry Barlow-propagated idea that we should just let big businesses run everything (in the name of the Internet Revolution) took a rather substantial dip in credibility around late ’99 and early ’00.
Of course, my having listed these trends under the “nostalgia” rubric implies they’re not just going away, but will roar back with a vengeance. And with the ever-shortening revival cycles, you can expect them back sooner rather than later, ensconced with all layers of hip-ironic sensibility.
Consider yourself warned.
NEXT: The wrong way to turn an Internet startup into an established respectable firm.
Praying for Turkey, Part 2
by guest columnist Charlotte Quinn
(IN YESTERDAY’S INSTALLMENT: Our guest columnist travels to Samsun, Turkey to make a documentary about the Amazon warrior legends, and finds a country enmeshed in its own present-day wars–including the war against Kurdish separatist guerrillas, whose leader, Ocalan, has just been captured by Turkish authorities.)
ON THE KURDISH FRONT, a great deal of death and despair. Perhaps the worst part of the trip. That week, my hosts were informed that their friend, who was doing his mandatory military service, had lost an eye from a Kurdish mine in Batman, a city in southeast Turkey.
In an effort to soothe their grief and the impending doom of their own upcoming military service, I told them I’d read the war is almost over with the Kurds! Hadn’t they read that, from his prison cell, Ocalan asked his people to withdraw?
But the Turks shook their heads. The newspapers were lying, they said (yes, they know). Kurds and Turks are killing each other as much as before. All their friends are dying.
I asked, “What is the solution?” They said there is no solution. The war will continue forever, because the government and the Kurds won’t talk.
It was pretty fucking sad. I was sitting in a hotel lobby with five young men who had not yet served their 18 months (there’s no concienscious objection in Turkey). I sat there thinking they were going to die too, because of this war they don’t even believe in.
Strangely enough, the #1 song while I was in Turkey was by a Kurdish singer, Ibraham Tatlises. I think it speaks a lot about this generation. All the young Turks loved him. They even dance to him in the discotheques.
TARKAN ISN’T SO LUCKY. Tarkan is the Turkish equivalent of our Beck (or maybe our Ricky Martin, more truly, I guess, considering the corniness of Turkish pop). He fled the country to evade his military service. He’s now incredibly successful in Europe–especially in Paris, where they love really good looking ultra cool skinny young men who look good with eyeliner.
And although he’s still (strangely) greatly admired for his music, the Turks will tell you they don’t like Tarkan personally. He didn’t do his duty. It could be they were censoring themselves again, but here’s a story:
One night I was dancing at a discotheque and suddenly everyone cleared the floor. I kept dancing, thinking in my twisted American way that maybe everyone just wanted to watch the cool American. I found out later it was Tarkan’s song. Big mistake.
A really scary guy in a Don Johnson-type suit walked up to me and asked what country I was from. (A Turk wouldn’t have danced to Tarkan). Once it was established I was an ignorant American tourist, I was out of danger’s way. I wish Americans would do the same to Ricky Martin fans.
Did I mention discotheques in Turkey frisk for guns? (Just as easy to buy a gun in Turkey as America, but no high-school shootouts. Hmmm….)
THEY ARE ALL MUSLIMS. Five times a day, and very loudly, someone sings prayers to Allah from the nearest mosque. Sometimes there are many nearby mosques and the songs collide. It’s sweet, though, and loud. The electrical speakers really aren’t necessary; you can just hear them fine without the amps.
The Matrix was just coming out in the theaters. I was stuck in an ear-shattering prayer to Allah from a couple different speakers, and all I remember is Keanu Reeves’s life-size cutout gazing at me. Allah Akbar, they say. God is the greatest.
It was really something else, the prayers. We would be headed to some archaeological site and the people in the car would park at a mosque and go pray and come back and drive. I was embarrassed that they weren’t at all embarrassed at their own spirituality. In respect, I would pray in the car.
My prayer is always the same one.
“God, I pray that everyone prays.”
TOMORROW: From City Light to City Extra Light.
WITH THE LAUNCH OF MISCmedia MAGAZINE (copies should be in early subscribers’ mailboxes by today), it’s time to open up this site to the works of other commentators.
(You can submit proposed items if you wish. Just remember: This site does have a scope of subject matter, no matter how vague; so don’t be miffed if your submission isn’t used.)
Our first such installment comes in the form of a travelogue.
Praying for Turkey
I WENT TO TURKEY to film a documentary about the Amazons. I know, I know there was a big earthquake there and why would anyone do that?
Well, I’ve been wanting to go to Turkey for many years.
A few years ago I would’ve gone but we were (are) at war with Iraq (Turkey’s neighbor). Then there was all the confusing horror of the Balkans, just kissing Turkey to the northwest. Meanwhile, there’s the escalating civil war with the Kurds to the southeast (still going strong). There had been terrorist bombs in tourist sites all over Turkey due to the capture of Ocalan, the Kurdish leader. To the southwest, tensions with the Greeks were mounting into perhaps a larger dispute over Cyprus. I kept postponing, praying, waiting for a peaceful time to go see Turkey.
When the earthquake hit, I guess I realized that five years was enough. I prayed real loud, and, as usual, no one answered.
SO I WENT TO TURKEY. To Samsun, about 600 miles east of the epicenter. From there I explored the wild and dangerous Black Sea coast in search of Themiscrya, the supposed ancient homeland of the Amazons.
Did they talk about the earthquake in Samsun? Not much. It was in the air; and, from what I could gather in three weeks, the Turks suffer loudly and animatedly, but not for long. The earthquake would come up once in a while and everyone would say it was bad and unfortunate (two words I heard over and over again), and thank God for the Americans, and the Iraqis, and even the Greeks for helping out, and then there would be a deep silence until someone would mention how unlikely an earthquake would be in Samsun. On to the next subject.
They realized I was the representative of the tourist industry. Nothing negative, oh, no. One person said, “You gave us 10 million dollars, but Iraq gave us 20 million in oil.” That’s kind of embarrassing, considering I think we have some airbase in Turkey from which we are refueling to bomb Iraq.
Just before I left for Turkey a news story struck my attention from the back pages of the newspaper. Americans had mistakenly launched a missile at an entire Muslim family’s home in Iraq. They were murdered while they slept. Mothers, uncles, children–everyone was dead. Two cousins who were outside at the well survived. This was brought up in conversation while I was in Turkey. I felt too humiliated by my own country to say anything. Most Americans, I wanted to tell them, don’t know we are still bombing Iraq at all.
I HAD READ IN MY LONELY PLANET GUIDEBOOK not to discuss politics with the Turks. Turns out the people I talked to were not at all opposed to arguing politics. We shared our unhappiness and frustration about nearly every country. (America shouldn’t be bombing Iraq to hell, we decided). I argued for the legalization of prostitution; they didnt agree.
This is from a society which is highly censored. You can’t speak against the government.You can’t say anything negative about Ataturk, the man who westernized Turkey in the 20s. If you do, it’s straight to jail. And the Turkish police are not opposed to torture; although since Midnight Express they are really really nice to Americans. I’m not kidding.
While most unmarried turkish couples can’t get a hotel room, even in Istanbul, tourists can be an heathen as they like. In a country which needs tourists more than ever now, there is a great deal of pressure on the whole country to treat tourists like royalty.
STILL, DON’T PUT DOWN ATATURK. On every pedistal, in every town square, every school, mosque, etc. there is Ataturk, who gave the Turks their last names, their westernized letters, and their secular goverment. You can go to prison for criticizing him. I made an off joke, saying something like, “Oh, another Ataturk statue”, and I noticed some self-censorship on the part of my friends. Laughter was stiffled, heads were turned, the subject was changed. Best to avoid Ataturk altogether.
TOMORROW: Some more of this.
MISC. WORLD, the online column that still hasn’t seen the new Star Wars, has read the hereby-linked, viciously beautiful review of the movie by that much-acclaimed, recently-crashed, Time art critic Robt. Hughes (Time wouldn’t run it, so the NY Daily News picked it up).
UPDATE: The Big Book of MISC. is now in the heat of production. By the time you read this, the covers should be printed and the insides should be ready to roll. Online ordering’s now available at this link.
Actual copies of the book should be ready for the big pre-release party and annual Misc.-O-Rama, the evening of Tuesday, June 8 at the new Ditto Tavern, 2303 5th Avenue near Bell Street (across from the back of the Cadillac lot). There’ll be outrageous snack treats, videos, strange DJ music, games, surveys, a live demonstration, and lots lots more. Free admission; 21 and over. Be there. Aloha.
RIDDLE: What do you call the last pint of Hefeweizen that causes a yuppie to total her fancy-ass luxury car? (Answer next week.)
TIMES OF THE SIGNS: There actually is one and only one piece of signage at the Broadway and U District Taco Bell outlets that’s in Spanish–the bottom half of the front-door warning sticker boasting of the joint’s anti-robbery systems.
SAY WHAT?: US West TV spots are currently promoting Caller ID boxes as ways to avoid those annoying life interruptions from pesky telemarketing calls. Besides the commercials, can you guess one other method the company’s using to try and sell the service? That’s right.
ON THE EDGE: Hope some of you noticed the name of the apartment-redevelopment company charged (as shown on both KIRO’s and KING’s late news Wednesday) with violating even Seattle’s wimpy tenant-rights laws: “No Boundaries.” The logo on the company’s possibly-illegal notices of eviction and attempted rate-hike retaliations against protesting tenants, as seen on the newscasts, looks just like the letterhead of some sci-fi video-game company. There’s some lesson somewhere here about today’s money-and-power mentality, in which strong-arm business tactics are mistaken for acts of daring rebellion by self-worshipping hotshots who can’t stand the idea of having to do anything they don’t want to.
(“No Boundaries” also happens to be the title of a new benefit CD for Kosovo refugees, with two Pearl Jam tracks.)
ADULT RESPONSIBILITIES, AND OTHER EXPANSIONS: An LA Times story claims the latest thing in La-La land is affluent high-school girls asking for breast implants as graduation gifts, or paying themsleves for the procedure as soon as (or even a few months before) they reach legal adulthood. The article quoted a couple of doctors who noted some women are still well within the developmental process at age 17 or even 18, but an increasing number are just so darned vain and body-conscious as to want to immediately achieve the ol’ top-heavy look.
If I were still working in the realm of “alternative” weekly urban tabloids, I’d probably be expected to sneer at these women–or, even worse, condescendingly treat them as mindless victims of the fashion industry (the same fashion industry that’s recently been enamored of unbusty petite model looks, not that the industry’s critics ever notice).
The same urban-tribal folks who most loudly scoff at implants might themselves have tattoos, piercings, even (as a particularly exploitive KING-TV piece last Monday noted) brandings. Some of these critics might seem hypocrites on at least some level; but on another level, it’s perfectly OK to believe in the general concept of body-modification while having well-defined personal tastes about which modifications one prefers to have or to see on others.
I personally don’t viscerally care for the over-augmented look, but I can understand that certain women might wish it. A big bust projects you out and demands attention (along with the sneers from other women you can interpret as jealousy). But a large fake bust is also a shield, a kind of permanent garment keeping all others firmly away from your heart (and other vital organs).
LOCAL PUBLICATION OF THE WEEK: Instant Planet isn’t just another new age tabloid. For one thing, it promises regular coverage of issues facing some of those indigenous peoples that the white new-agers love to take inspiration from. For another, it’s got some first-rate contributors, including master collage-illustrator James Koehnline and my former yoga trainer Kirby Jacobsen. Free at the usual dropoff spots, or $16/4 issues from P.O. Box 85777, Seattle 98145.
JUNK FOOD OF THE WEEK: The Seattle-based New Athens Corp. has jumped on the herbal-beverage bandwagon with two odd-tasting concoctions. “Kick Start” promises to help you get “a robust, active feeling” with Gotu Kola, Ginkgo Bilboa, Guarana, Kava Kava, and ginseng, There’s also “No Worries,” a drink that’s supposed to “produce a relaxing effect that soothes and quiets your mood.” Both taste like Coke’s old OK Soda with a touch of peach flavoring. But unlike other pops marketed as all-ages treats, these have a label disclaimer: “Not intended for children under 6 or pregnant or nursing mothers.” Elsewhere in foodland…
Q BALLS: While small indie supermarkets in other neighborhoods have fallen with little more than a shrug of inevitability from area residents, the citizens of Wedgwood have rallied ’round to valiantly (and, apparently, futilely) defend Matthew’s Red Apple Market, set to close in less than two weeks after its landlord struck a deal to let the Kroger-owned QFC circuit take over the site.
At first peep, a media observer used to the recent unwritten rule that everything in Seattle had to be “unique” (in exactly the same way, of course) might not see what all the fuss is supposed to be about.
Matthew’s doesn’t have the fun neon of the old Wallingford Food Giant or the odd mix of food and variety departments of the old Holman Road Art’s Family Center (both of which were QFC bought up directly, rather than arranging for their eviction like it’s doing with Matthew’s).
Matthew’s doesn’t make a big fuss about a lot of those higher-profit-margin items and departments QFC and Larry’s lavish attention on (salad bars, hot take-out items, wine, cell phones, live lobster, “health” foods, etc. etc.)
It’s just a plain-looking, small supermarket in a slightly-run-down building, with a fried-chicken deli counter and fresh flowers and a Lotto machine.
But that’s the whole point. In a town increasingly weighted down by the expectation of pretentious “uniqueness,” and in a national retail landscape increasingly overrun by big-chain consolidations, Matthew’s is loved by its customers precisely because it’s just a good ol’ fashioned neighborhood indie grocery.
(“Red Apple,” by the way, is merely a franchised name belonging to Associated Grocers, the wholesale consortium to which Matthew’s and 200 or so other Northwest stores belong, including, at least for the time being, QFC.)
Matthew’s might not stock 17 different kinds of cilantro, but it more than makes up for that in that unstockable, uncatalogable quality known as community spirit. It’s different precisely because it’s refused to conform to the current-day standards of “uniqueness.”
The Wedgwood area’s well-stocked with well-off folks, some of whom offered to outbid QFC for the lease on the Matthew’s block. When that initially failed, the store’s supporters then offered to help Matthew’s find a new site. But usable commercial blocks are scarce in that dense residential area.
(One of the few supermarket-sized tracts in the area not currently used for retail is the Samuel Stroum Jewish Community Center, co-funded by and named for a longtime QFC exec.)
So this particular battle against the Forces of Consolidation may be lost–unless someone could design a Matthew’s-like store on a smaller real-estate footprint, a la Ken’s Markets or Trader Joe’s.
(Current status: Matthew’s management sez it stands a good chance of winning at least a little more time in court. It’s asking friends and neighbors to keep signing the petitions and engaging in nonviolent protests, while asking customers to bear with spot shortages of stuff on some of the shelves (it held off on ordering new stock while waiting for the legal action to progress.)
WE’RE STILL LOOKING for your ideas on What This Town Needs. Suggest yours at our fantabulous Misc. Talk discussion boards. Until then, check out my page in the June Seattle magazine, work for peace, and consider the words of Marshall McLuhan: “I don’t necessarily agree with everything I say.”
MISC. HAS FAIRLY GOOD local news and confusing/depressing international news to comment upon this week, but first your update about the best-of-Misc. book (titled, for the time being, The Misc. Book). Layout and proofreading are proceeding apace; a couple different potential cover designs are being worked on; distribution arrangements are being negotiated. Right now, we’re aiming for a June release. As for the reissue of the old book Loser: The Real Seattle Music Story, that might come a month or two later. More details forthcoming. (In the meantime, please suggest which local musical acts of the past four years should be in the new edition; via email or at our plangent Misc. Talk discussion boards.
ON THE STREET: Misc. was momentarily confused by the proliferation of street posters up on E. Pike Street (pasted onto plywood construction scaffolds, not light poles) for TheStreet.com. When I showed this to someone who’d just moved here last year, she said “only in Seattle,” with its now-mythical corps of under-30 techno-rich, would bohos perusing this form of sidewalk commercial-graffiti be considered potential clients of an online stock brokerage and investment-advice site. I’m not so sure about the “only” part. If anything, Seattle has (or used to have) fewer trust-fund hipsters than the larger media towns. Now, though, with the cost of living around Capitol Hill creeping toward NYC levels, it might be getting to the point where you have to have money in order to live the antimaterialist ideology. Either that, or the posters were aimed at the upscale gay-dance-club clientele also swarming the Pike-Pine corridor these days. Speaking of which…
NOSTALGIA FOR THINGS NOT ALL THAT WORTHY OF REMEMBERING: The ARO.Space club recently promoted an ’80s-nostalgia dance night under the moniker “Star 80.” As if anybody who remembers the era would find exciting, joyous connotations from that sleazy movie (which starred Mariel Hemingway as a real-life Vancouver model-actress stalked and slain by the sicko hubby she’d left behind).
SUCH OCCASIONAL LAPSES OF TASTE ASIDE, though, the one-year anniversary of ARO.Space (in a club climate, particularly a dance-club climate, where high-budgeted spaces sometimes go under interior construction for eight months only to close after three) means something. Last week I ran into the Dutch journalist who interviewed me about the post-“grunge” aftermath last year; among other recent insights, she said she was surprised ARO.Space had apparently succeeded despite being so unlike anything in “The Seattle Scene.” I begged to differ. First of all, there’s always been an audience of inferiority-complexed hipster wannabes here who’ll rush to anything billed as an authentic copy of whatever’s hot in NY/SF. Of course, to get them to keep coming back means you have to have something they’ll actually like on a non-imitative level.
That’s the place’s genius: It seems alien, not at all like “The Seattle Scene,” yet it fits right in. The Nordic-cool furnishings, the MS “new money” feel, the sleek blandness, the polite aloofness of the place, all complement the current and the classic Seattle-bourgeois zeitgeist. They complement different aspects of that zeitgeist than the grungers did, but then again the grungers were, at least on one level, rebelling against the affluent, self-satisfied mindset ARO.Space gloriously celebrates. I wrote when the place opened that, on one level, it looked like the product of gay men trying to assimillate into regular upper-middle-class society. I’ve since realized it’s more like the product of gay men taking their rightful place among the taste-definers of regular upper-middle-class society.
It’s taken time, a long time, for me to accept this, but modern-day affluent Seattle really is a lot more like the fictional universe of TV’s Frasier than I’ve ever wanted to admit. Its cold aloofness can seem to outsiders as arrogance, though it’s really due more to emotional repression. It wallows in superficial benchmarks of “good taste,” often involving gourmet dining and starchy social propriety. It believes in stark, spare design, complete with pastel shades not found in nature. It defines itself by its consumer choices (even the “anti-consumerists” and the “downshifters”). And while it’s proud as heck of its town, it’s afraid to try to do its own thing. So a place that promises the hottest, beat-iest imported dance-music fads, in seemingly bold yet ultimately retro-modern surroundings, is more comfortably, reassuringly “Seattle style” than it might seem.
(Its owners should’ve been expected from the start to know this. ARO.Space’s owners are part of the informal clique of local hip-capitalists whose various members, in various combinations and partnerships, have various stakes in Tasty Shows, Sweet Mother Records, Linda’s, the Capitol Club, the Baltic Room, Bimbo’s Bitchen Burrito Kitchen and Cha Cha Lounge, Rudy’s Barber Shops, and the soon-to-open Ace Hotel.)
This also means (not as ironically as it might seem) that the dance-music scene isn’t as un-Seattle as its biggest local fans might wish it to be. Passive-aggressive consumption of imported sounds, looks, and attitudes is as endemic to Seattle as it is to any city in the “other 48” states. In an age of corporate-media consolidation, nothing’s more timely (or less “alternative”) than “live” entertainment that’s all “in the can” (or on CDs and 12-inch vinyl records), whose only human components (the DJ/curators) are themselves often NY/Calif. fly-ins. What would be out of place in this particular aspect of Seattle would be to develop dance musicians, DJs, and audiences who were less afraid of trying to create their own sounds.
ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER WAR: That’s how it seemed this week. The town was collectively bored by the Sonics’ irregular performance during the NBA’s irregular regular season, and indeed generally blase; as the long dreary winter refused to completely go away. The Fringe Festival had come and gone, leaving the small-time theatrical promoters exhausted and burned-out. Downtown, more excitement came from a high speed chase on Friday (cop cars had followed a carful of bank robbers all the way from Shoreline to the GameWorks block) than from the now-familiar ritual of antiwar protests. It just might be that Clinton’s lite-right Pentagon-coddling has finally succeeded in silencing the pacifist left and the isolationist right (or, rather, cowering them into a stance of hopelessness to change the situation).
This means this president (and probably the next one) will get to use the last-remaining-superpower-blah-blah-blah not to “fight two major wars simultaneously” (the Pentagon planners’ latest excuse for ever-escalating weapons budgets) but to push around any little regime anywhere, within carnage-levels the domestic opinion polls say the U.S. voting public will tacitly accept, and when and where it’s deemed strategically valuable to do so. It’s true the Serb regime’s despotic and genocidal.
It’s also true the Kosovo war is essentially a war of secession, like the U.S. Revolutionary and Civil wars (and Chechnya, Bangladesh, Tibet, East Timor, Eritrea, and other wars in which the White House either stayed out or supported the existing regimes). So, after a decade of Serbs and their vassals and ex-vassals fighting and killing and retaliating with too-little-too-late U.S./UN/NATO involvement, why bomb Belgrade now? Maybe becuase it’s politically feasible now. Maybe because the realpolitik gamers decided to take down one of Europe’s last vestiges of Soviet-style rule. Maybe because the realpolitik guys felt they needed to support a Muslim-dominated self-rule movement for a change, after verbally or physically bashing Islamic fundamentalists in so many other lands. And maybe because our leaders could somehow identify with the Kosovars’ plight to an extent they couldn’t with the Timorese or the Eritreans.
But now that the bombs have fallen, the situation can’t help but keep getting stickier and bloodier and more intractable. The bombing strafes might be promoted as clean, modern warfare minimizing potential U.S. casualties, but war’s never as clean in real life as it seems on paper (or in role-playing games).
UNTIL NEXT TIME, when we hope there’ll be happier news to report, ponder these thoughts from Aldous Huxley: “Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards..”
