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EM! EM! EX! AYE, AYE!
Jan 1st, 2012 by Clark Humphrey

Once again, the Space Needle held a fireworks spectacular to ring in the new year. It almost makes me forgive ’em for their role in the Chihuly gallery fiasco.

This year’s boom-boom lasted a healthy eight minutes, with a vast array of colors and effects.

My wishes for the year to come:

  • Health and financial stability for you all.
  • Serious progress toward revenue reform in this state at last.
  • At least one local sports team with a winning season.
  • And the total repudiation of the Rabid Right this election season, nationally and in each state.

RANDOM LINKS FOR 10/27/11
Oct 26th, 2011 by Clark Humphrey

(Told you I wouldn’t necessarily be providing these headlines every day.)

  • Wednesday was drum n’ bass dance nite at Occupy Seattle!
  • Gavin Polone is a film/TV producer in L.A. who believes film and TV should mostly be made in L.A., not spread out across North America. Still, he makes a lucid point when he alleges state and provincial tax breaks for film producers (like the ones Wash. state just got rid of) benefit only the producers, not the states and provinces.
  • The real woman behind the book and TV movie Sibyl didn’t really have multiple personalities. But (and this is buried in the linked story) she really did have serious psychological/emotional issues, and believed she could only get the attention and help she desperately needed by exaggerating her condition.
  • Ex-Seattleite Emma Harris pleads for her fellow environmentalists to care about more places besides “pristine wilderness”—which she says doesn’t even exist.
  • Could the recently concluded CityArts Fest grow into the big regional music festival various entities have tried to launch from time to time but without really catching on?
  • Now it can be told: Steve Jobs called Fox News a “destructive force in our society” to Rupert Murdoch’s face, while he was negotiating to get Murdoch-owned entertainment content for iTunes.
  • Does the boss of BankAmeriCrap really believe all he has is an “image problem“? If so, he’s even more out of touch with reality than the average big-bank CEO. If not, he’s just another cynical spinmeister.
  • Even Forbes scorns the Oakland, CA police’s violent over-reaction to peaceful Occupy protesters.
  • Danny Westneat notices something we’ve known all along—Tim Eyman hates transit. So do right-wingers in general. They want people stuck in traffic, as captive audiences for the talk-radio goons.
A SPLENDID TIME WAS HAD BY ALL
Sep 24th, 2011 by Clark Humphrey

Some 50 people attended our fantabulous Walking Seattle event Saturday at the Elliott Bay Book Company.

At least half of those followed along as we took a short stroll through upper Pike/Pine during a lovely equinox early evening.

Thank you all.

BORDERLESS PRINTS
Sep 17th, 2011 by Clark Humphrey

The downtown Seattle Borders Books closed earlier this week after 17 years. (The Redmond store closes Sunday, among the busted chain’s final outlets to close.)

RANDOM LINKS FOR 9/17/11
Sep 17th, 2011 by Clark Humphrey

  • At Friday’s Park(ing) Day display at the Seattle Art Museum, a videographer from a Chinese-language cable access show tapes an interview using a Flip-like digital video cam, a mini spotlight, and a small Steadicam-like camera stabilizer.
  • Former P-I book critic John Marshall is still unemployed, and writes for the Atlantic about receiving his final unemployment check.
  • The Jo-Ann Fabric store in Olympia has a Halloween crafts section. It recently had a bat in it. A real bat. With rabies.
  • A survey co-sponsored by Microsoft’s MSN.com named Seattle North America’s sixth worst-dressed city. Vancouver was #3; the top spot went to Orlando.
  • Seahawks fans this Sunday will not only face a formidable opponent on the field (the dreaded Steelers) but also extreme frisking.
  • Another gay/lesbian event, another would-be censorious program printer.
  • Pierce County: Now with 35 percent less transit.
  • Netflix: Now with higher prices and 1 million fewer customers.
  • The corruption investigation against Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and his inner circle turns out to have begun with comments to blog posts.
  • Why didn’t anyone tell me there’s a Barbie Video Girl doll with “a video camera embedded in her chest”? You could use it to reenact the cult film Double Agent 73!

(Remember, my big book shindig is one week from today (Sept. 24). See the top of this page for all pertinent details.)

WHAT I DID LAST WEEKEND
Sep 12th, 2011 by Clark Humphrey

The place to be on a perfect mid-September day was the NEPO 5k Don’t Run. It was a series of art exhibits, installations, performances, and conceptual pieces strung along a three-mile route from Pioneer Square to the top of Beacon Hill.

The name came from the fact that the organizers couldn’t get a permit for a running event, which would have required a lot of street closures.

Besides, if you ran you’d miss the smaller, more intimate art along the way, such as Ollie Glatzer’s four Thread and Nail pieces installed on telephone poles.

Some of the art walked along with the walkin’ audience.

And some of the art involved the audience in little games, such as Encounters at the End of Hing Hay Park.

Unfortunately, the event’s official program did not list all the performers, including this dancer who worked with a twenty-foot train in the back of her costume.

(Update: Carrie Clogston’s blog Gingham and Gold identifies her as Keely Isaak Meehan.)

Once the walkers crossed the Jose Rizal (12th Avenue) Bridge, it was a sharp left turn onto the I-90 Trail. That’s where Amy Ellen Trefsger (also known as “Flatchestedmama”) performed A Good Reminder to Sign Your Work, a series of poems delivered via semaphore.

Erin Shafkind turned parts of Equality, a permanent work in the park (co-designed by my ol’ pal Rolon Bert Garner), into mini versions of the Mad Homes installation seen previously this summer on Capitol Hill.

Laura Dean and Ryan Worsley’s Flock of Disproven Theories Written as Facts comprised original black and white drawings pasted into hardcover books, which dangled from trees with plaques describing these theories dangling from the books. This work also included the Don’t Run’s only overtly political statement, as seen above.

Josh Peterson’s Tree-Map re-used audio chips from novelty greeting cards, which played sounds as triggered by the breeze.

As the trail turned left, walkers were instructed to take a soft right onto 18th Avenue South. This longest stretch of the Don’t Run was on a normally quiet residential street, where old and abandoned-looking houses sit next to ultramodern designer homes. Sarah Galvin read narrative poems in front of an unoccupied house. Behind her in the front yard, anonymous performers portrayed a dissolute man (drinking from a gasoline can), his quietly crying wife, and their grass-eating daughter.

Ken Turner’s Red Dot Genuflection Station invited the non-runners to place red dot stickers (the mark of a successful gallery sale) on an obelisk entitled Little i. It symbolized money as today’s only standard of success.

Mike Pham, clad in gold lame tights, smoked and drank and pranced on the roof of a ’50s Chrysler in L’apres-midi d’un Pham.

Another re-imagined vehicle was this pedal car, adapted from a 1982 Toyota pickup. By the 18th Avenue stretch, the pedalers needed a little help.

In another unannounced attraction, don’t-runners honked a series of old fashioned horns installed along a pipe at a child’s eye level.

Finally at the foot of 18th, one block actually was closed off, and don’t-runners were asked to run to the finish line—in slow motion.

Jessie Wilson’s You Are Here invited the gathering throng to place badges on a wires labeled with the spectrum of human emotion.

The end of the line was NEPO House (“open” spelled backwards). It’s the actual home of artist Karla Glosova and her family. Glosova has staged exhibits and events in and outside the house for more than a year now. This time, it held music acts and little performance shticks well into the night.

A splendid time was had by all.

And if it turned anyone on to the idea of urban walking adventures, well I’ve got a little something that can help in that regard….

SPACE EXPLORATION
Aug 29th, 2011 by Clark Humphrey

In CityArts, Vito’s and Hideout bar and Vital 5 Productions mogul Greg Lundgren says he wants to create “Walden Three,” a “stadium of the arts” in a “vacant building directly across from the Seattle Art Museum.”

He means the old Seven Seas Hotel building (where the Lusty Lady had been).

While that building’s facade should be kept (even if it doesn’t qualify for landmark status), the now totally unoccupied building (which straddles the steep hillside between First Avenue and Post Alley) could indeed hold the 25,000 square feet of space Lundgren envisions as…

A place where artists and thinkers can train, compete, experiment and perform. A beehive that can electrify our creative class and inspire its audience. An urban station that can constantly produce creative content.

It’s good, nay vital, to have art-making spaces. We need to keep replenishing and replacing the ones we lose (cf. 619 Western).

But Lundgren wants more than studio spaces and a contemporary-arts gallery in a high profile storefront location.

He wants cross-genre programming, and workshops, and performances, and multimedia events, and ongoing efforts to promote and publicize creative work.

And he wants to make a documentary film about it all. A big documentary film. One that would cover 10 years of the space’s development and operations.

Indeed, one of Lundgren’s plans is to budget the entire project, from the building remodel/restoration to the exhibits and workshops, as a film shoot, with the Seven Seas building as its “set.”

But if anybody in the local arts scene can put this ambitions scheme together, he can.

PAX, A WALLOP
Aug 28th, 2011 by Clark Humphrey

Another edition of PAX (Penny Arcade Expo) has come and gone at the Convention Center, proving once again that video game players can indeed go out and interact socially.

Just don’t ask why an event whose name is Latin for “peace” has so many images of guns and carnage and apocalyptic scenarios.

METRO IS SAVED (AGAIN)! (RANDOM LINKS FOR 8/16/11)
Aug 16th, 2011 by Clark Humphrey

j.p. at the pike place market centennial, 2007

  • J.P. Patches (sometimes also known as Chris Wedes), the beloved former local kid-vid star, has announced he has terminal cancer and will retire from public appearances in the next year.
  • For a time on Monday, the deal to save King County Metro transit with a car tab surcharge seemed in trouble. But enough Republican County Council members eventually came through. Yay!
  • Speaking of which, you know Metro’s Route #48? The long route that goes almost all over Seattle except downtown? The Bus Chick blog relates the route’s hidden history. It was the result of a ’60s community drive to bring more bus service to the Central District, particularly directly from there to the UW.
  • A book collector and an author claim storied frontier bank robber Butch Cassidy wasn’t killed in Bolivia but retired quietly to eastern Washington, where he lived until 1937. (Thankfully, that was long before the awful cartoon show that stole his name.)
  • Speaking of cartoons, Renton police believe they’ve identified, and have disciplined the officer who allegedly posted those web animations critical of the department.
  • The lady from suburban Detroit who got in trouble with her town council for having a vegetable garden in her front yard? She was in Seattle recently, and has some intriguing thoughts about what makes our city different from hers.
  • SeaTimes writer Jon Talton really doesn’t like that Washington Mutual’s execs won’t get prosecuted for their role in the housing-bubble fiasco.
  • Adventures in intellectual property: A heretofore obscure provision in the 1978 copyright law means recording artists can start reclaiming their rights to works from that era, away from the once mighty record labels, providing they give two years’ notice about it. Of course, the record labels interpret this part of the law far differently.
  • Warren Buffett wants folks in his tax bracket to pay more taxes. Which will happen as soon as folks in his tax bracket no longer control the election process.
RANDOM LINKS FOR 8/15/11
Aug 14th, 2011 by Clark Humphrey

2005 fremont solstice parade goers at the lenin statue

  • The Lenin statue in Fremont is privately owned, and is for sale. But nobody apparently wants to buy it.
  • Minorities: Bellevue’s got a lot more of ’em these days, sez the Census. Seattle’s got a lot fewer.
  • Art Thiel wants you to know the big Husky Stadium rebuild, to begin this winter, involves no taxpayer funds. Just private donations and bond issues to be repaid out of UW Athletics income.
  • Ex-State Rep Brendan Williams wants Washington state’s progressives to “get some backbone” about preserving vital services in the state budget.
  • Starbucks boss and Sonics seller Howard Schultz’s latest big idea: Big election-campaign donors like him should vow to boycott funding election campaigns. Of course, if Democratic donors like Schultz are the only ones doing the boycotting….
  • There’s a plan to create a “Jimi Hendrix Park,” next to the African American Museum at the old Coleman School. It would be the fifth Hendrix memorial of one type or another (not counting the Experience Music Project, which parted ways with the Hendrix heirs during its development). Cobain still has just that one unofficial park bench in Viretta Park and a city-limits sign in Aberdeen.
  • Rolling Stone put out a reader poll declaring the top punk acts of all time. The list put Green Day on top and included not a single female. FlavorWire has come to the side of justice with its own in-house listing of “15 Essential Women Punk Icons.” The NW’s own Kathleen Hanna, Beth Ditto, and Sleater-Kinney are on it, as is onetime Seattleite Courtney Love.
  • Many, many indie-label CDs were in a warehouse that burned during the London lootings. Some labels might not survive the blow.
  • Mike Elgan at Cult of Mac sez Apple’s invented all the big things it’s going to invent for a while. We’ve heard this one before.
  • And for those of you heading back into the working life (you lucky stiffs, you), take heed Peter Toohey’s thoughts (partly inspired by the late David Foster Wallace) on “the thrill of boredom:”

Boredom should not be abused, exploited, ignored, sneered at, rejected or talked down to as a product of laziness or of an idle, uninventive and boring mind. It’s there to help, and its advice should be welcomed and acted upon.

FARING THE SEA
Aug 8th, 2011 by Clark Humphrey

It was a corn-doggy sunny Sunday afternoon when I went to the Seafair hydro races.

Took the light rail to the Othello station, then a free shuttle bus to the southern end of Genessee Park. That got me to a lot of people milling about at fast food and military-recruiting booths.

Inside the admission gates, initially, were more of the same. Then approaching the lakefront you got the bigger sideshow attractions, such as the Seafair Pirates.

One of these attractions was a daylong demonstration of something called “Hyperlite,” a water skiing experience using ropes and pulleys instead of a tow boat. (Yes, that was my excuse to ask you to say “tow boat” five times fast.)

Oh yeah, there was that highly publicized intermission act, which newbies increasingly mistake for the star attraction. It’s loud. It’s fast. It’s shiny. It’s simple to “get.”

But for Seafair’s steadfast true believers, it’s not the big thing.

This is.

The combination of subtlety and power, of quiet water and loud machinery, of stillness and speed, of steamlined curves and pure aggression, of hand craftsmanship and industrial might.

Here’s the Graham Real Ventures boat. It’s one of the “Unlimited Lights,” the smaller class of boats that raced on Seafair Weekend. Yes, I know “Unlimited Lights” is an oxymoron derived from a misnomer. (The bigger boats have long been under various size and horsepower restrictions for safety’s sake.)

But they’re still fast and exciting. And because they use piston engines, they generate the kind of noise that old timers like me find comforting, not annoying.

Above is the boat of Kayleigh Perkins, the only female driver in this past weekend’s lineup.

And this is her boat after it flipped over in the air during the lights’ championship heat, the only accident of the day. (She got out of the boat safely and was apparently fine.)

With Budweiser’s departure from the circuit, the Oberto beef jerky-sponsored team has been the team to beat in recent years.

But it wasn’t the only boat out there.

I happened to be positioned near a group of loyal Oberto fans. Would they find themselves satisfied at the end of the championship round?

Why yes, they would.

As for me, I sunburned through my shirt and had to have a long nap once I got hope. And it was completely worth it.

FIRST THURSDAY ROUNDUP
Aug 5th, 2011 by Clark Humphrey

Some of the soon to be exiled 619 Western artists held a hastily arranged art sale in the parking lot outside the doomed studio building. Almost as much fun as the real studio experience. Almost.

Meanwhile in Belltown, CoCA exhibited all 100 pieces of Indonesian artist Haris Purnomo’s work Visitation. These identical white infants with tattoos on their faces and knife blades emerging from their wraps had previously been displayed, partly, at CoCA’s little side street showcase booth near the Olympic Sculpture Park. The whole installation goes next to the Saatchi Gallery in London.

THE ART OF OBSOLESCENCE
Aug 4th, 2011 by Clark Humphrey

You still have a chance to view the five “MadHomes” along Bellevue Avenue E. They’re open to the public until this Sunday, Aug. 7, noon to 7 p.m. each day.

These house-sized art installations are the brainchild of Alison Milliman. Her organization, MadArt, is dedicated (according to its web site, madartseattle.com) “to bring art into our lives in unexpected ways, and to create community involvement in the arts.”

MadArt curated last year’s sculpture show in Cal Anderson Park and a store-window art display in Madison Park.

But MadHomes vastly outscales either of those projects.

The show’s contributing artists have taken the outsides of the four houses and the insides of three of them (one was still occupied as a residence), plus their front yards and side setbacks, as a three-dimensional canvas, as a setting for “site specific” and interactive works meant to last only three weeks.

And because the houses are going away (to be replaced by a long-delayed condo project). the artists didn’t have to leave the structures the same way they found them.

This meant Allan Packer, one of the show’s artists, could cut holes in floors, walls, and ceilings, from which his cut-out animal figures emerge to greet visitors (as aided by large mechanical devices mainly hidden in the basement).

It also meant Meg Hartwig could freely nail big wood scraps to both a house and to a tree in front of it (which will also be lost to the condo project).

You’ll also see a lot of work that plays in less “invasive” ways with its setting.

These include the SuttonBeresCuller trio’s “Ties That Bind,” comprising 12,000 feet of red straps winding back and forth through one house and along a setback to a second house, creating a labyrinth through the side yard.

They also include Troy Gua’s “Chrysalis (Contents May Shift In Transit),” in which one house has been entirely covered in shrink wrap with a giant bar code sticker.

There are also pieces that could theoretically be re-installed elsewhere upon MadHomes’ conclusion.

One of these is Allyce Wood’s “Habitancy.” She’s mounted “tension-wound” string on and between upstairs walls in one of the houses, depicting silhouettes of imagined former occupants (including at least one dog).

Another is Laura Ward’s “Skin.” Ward painted one of the houses with latex rubber, then peeled it off, then stitched those molded pieces into a smaller replica of the house, placed over a tent-like frame.

•

None of this would have been possible without the gracious cooperation of the houses’ current owner, the development company Point32. That company’s going to turn the quarter-block into one long three-story building and an adjoining six-story building at the lot’s north side. The project will adjoin and incorporate the existing Bel Roy Apartments at the northeast corner of Bellevue and East Roy Street.

MadHomes has also drawn the approval of the lot’s previous owner, Walt Riehl. He happens to be an arts supporter and a member of the Pratt Fine Arts Center’s board.

•

Besides being a fun and creative big spectacle, MadHomes means something.

It’s a call for more whimsy and joy in the everyday urban landscape.

Especially now that the new-construction boom has resumed after a two-plus year pause, at least on Capitol Hill.

So many of the big residential and mixed-use projects built on the Hill in the previous decade lack these very elements.

Oh sure, a lot of them are all modern and upscale looking, with clean lines, snazzy cladding, and exterior patterns that make every effort to hide the buildings’ boxy essences.

But there’s something missing in a lot of these places. That something could be described as adventure, delight, or fun.

I’m not asking for huge conceptual art components, of a MadHomes scale, installed into every new development. That wouldn’t be practical.

But there could be little touches that attract a passing eye and give a momentary lift to a tired soul.

•

POSTSCRIPT: Eugenia Woo sees MadHomes as not a temporary artistic triumph but an urban preservation defeat. At the blog Main 2 (named for an old Seattle telephone exchange), Woo states that the homes, while under-maintained in recent years, could and should have been kept:

Everyday (vernacular) houses for everyday people represent Seattle’s neighborhoods. The drive for increase urban density does not always have to come at the price of preservation and neighborhood character.

(Cross posted with the Capitol Hill Times. Thanks to Marlow Harris of SeattleTwist.com.)

SEE FARE
Aug 1st, 2011 by Clark Humphrey

Another summer, another Seafair Torchlight Parade, the oldest, biggest, and (alas) clothed-est of Seattle’s three big summer parades.

It’s been billed by some local wags as a taste of the suburbs in the middle of town. But that’s not quite the case. A lot of the “forgotten Seattle” shows up too. Working families, even with children. Public school children even.

Some attendees chose to forego the standard T-shirts and shorts uniform.

Teachers’ union picketers showed up to appeal to the family friendly crowd, campaigning for increased school funding and fewer state-mandated tests.

Then the parade itself got underway with its new title sponsor, Alaska Airlines (replacing rival Southwest). In keeping with nostalgia for pre-TSA era air travel, Alaska featured an all-flight-attendant drill team.

Mr. Drew Carey was a thorough professional, shaking hands, kissing babies, selling soccer scarves.

Then, at last, came the real entertainment. The drill teams.

The marching bands.

The floats.

The Clowns and the Pirates.

Yes, the parade could become “hipper” (even while remaining G rated).

But why should it?

Squares need some celebration in their lives too.

AS THE SUN SINKS SLOWLY IN THE WEST(ERN)
Jul 29th, 2011 by Clark Humphrey

Thursday was “Last Thursday” at the beloved 619 Western art studios. This low-key ending came after 30 years of magic and memories (including two events curated by this web-correspondent), and about a year of wrangling with the city and the state. (The latter wants to drill its viaduct replacement tunnel under the building, and claims the 1910 warehouse structure’s too unsound, in its current condition, to withstand being dug under.)

The 100-some tenants in the building’s six floors thought they had an agreement to get out of the building by next February, while the city offered relocation assistance. Any hope of actually preserving 619 for artists, during or after any rehab, seemed to dissolve away during these negotiations.

Then, earlier this month, came the surprise. The city decided the whole place was just too unsafe even for short-term occupancy. Everybody had to be out by October 1. Public events in the building were banned effective Aug. 1.

One final “First Thursday” was hastily scheduled, retitled “Last Thursday.”

One last chance to ride Seattle’s third coolest elevator.

One last chance to pay respects to the memory of Su Job, the building’s heart and soul for so many years.

One last chance to admire the familiar rickety stairwells.

One last chance to admire, and buy, locally-produced art in the corridors and the studios. (Only some of the building’s spaces were open this final night. Many tenants were already packed or packing up.)

Yes, 619’s got structural damage.

Yes, it needs shoring up, even if the tunnel project’s stopped.

And maybe its occupants would have to split the premises during a rehab, if not sooner.

But it still didn’t have to go down like this.

And I still want the place preserved, as an artist space.

(Some artists will sell their wares outside 619 next First Thursday, Aug. 4. That same evening, a tribute show to the building, Works of History: 30 Years of Anarchy, opens at Trabant Coffee, 602 2nd Ave.)

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