…a parade theme than “Horray for Hollywood,” the theme of last week’s Seafair parade in downtown Seattle. If the organizers hope to stem the institution’s long slide into irrelevance, they’d better think of something more exciting than a couple of Darth Vader costumes.

RANDOM PHOTO PHRIDAY returns after an absence of way too many months.

To begin, this recently-opened used car lot on Aurora takes its sign letters from a prior business further up the street, Sure-Fit Seat Covers. You can’t tell in this shot, but the “A” is an upside-down “U.”

I know I read somewhere what company this airship is advertising. But the article ran in a daily paper several days ago, and I’ve already forgotten it.

YES, EVEN upscale megamalls can experience the occasional identity crisis.

BAT NIGHT returned to Safeco Field this past Tuesday. Thanks to that paradisical attitude sometimes derided as “Seattle Nice,” no fan-given bats were used to incite riots after the Ms snatched defeat from the jaws of victory yet again.

WE MUST SAY GOODBYE to Seattle Art Supply, most recently of Western Avenue, which had kept local image-makers outfitted with X-Acto blades, rubber cement, framing mattes, and paint brushes since 1892. It promises to resurface as an online-only retailer sometime later this year.

…the anniversary of the original French Revolution, was celebrated on Thursday in Post Alley by the kind folk at Cafe Campagne.

Highlighting the spirited fate was a rousing cancan dance show by members of the Atomic Bombshells burlesque troupe. Their spirited, athletic performance totally belied a recent Stranger essay that defined neo-burlesque as primarily a tool for boosting the performers’ egos, not for entertaining audiences. These dancers are pure entertainers of the highest order.

Please remember two things about France:

• They helped us in the Revolutionary War, and really tried to dissuade us from the mega-folly that is the current war-without-end;
• They gained and lost democracy a couple of times. Let’s not let that happen here.

…an electrical fire closed the Speakeasy Cafe forever, the building that housed Seattle’s first Internet cafe (and the final incarnation of the 211 Club billiard parlor) was finally demolished.

According to street rumors, the building owners had made every attempt at a rehab/reconstruction plan. But, as these pix show, the ol’ structure was too far gone. In its place will come yet another mixed-use development.

…in the Pike Place Market a lot lately. Here are some shots from a recent “Sunset Thursday” promotion.

This same evening was the Pioneer Square art crawl, which included this promo performance by part of the Circus Contraption troupe.

…is supposed to be the Next-Big-Cyberthing, if you believe what you read in the papers. Never one to let a passing fad go by untended to, here’s a whole batch of phun-photo phabulousness.

We begin with the traditional Fourth of July blowin’-stuff-up celebrations, which in this town included lighting the decorative columns of Qwest Field in what looked more like the French tricolors.

The previous weekend saw the perhaps-last Broadway edition of the Gay Pride parade. I’ve got more to say about that this week in the Capitol Hill Times.

The weekend before that, the Fremont Solstice Parade attracted even more naked and body-painted bicyclists than ever before.

What was missing were the political-protest conceptual art pieces that had highlighted the parade during the previous few years. It was as if Seattle’s lefty-art community had collectively given up.

One protest that made the parade: An body-modification troupe got to silently complain that the parade hadn’t let them put on an extreme piercing-and-suspension act.

Then there was this charming exhibit of hedonism, in which bar customers got to swallow shots of alcohol from a block of ice.

…has arrived in Seattle with force. Herewith, some of the sights under the sun downtown, on Broadway, and on University Way.

They had another of those University District Street Fairs last weekend, as they’ve had each year at this time for the past 37 years.

After all this time, there’s darned little to say about the event. Musicians played. Crafts items were sold. Political petitions were shoved in passersby’s faces. Food and beverages were consumed. Alternative-medical disciplines were hyped.

I hadn’t seen these craft items before–candles whch look like plastic replicas of food items (as seen in Japanese restaurant windows), and which smell like the original foods.

The U District Chamber of Commerce staged its first street fair way back in ’69. The intent was to show the rest of the city that The Ave was still an OK place, despite the presence of those longhair oddball types who looked like nothing many people had ever seen.

Today, the intent is to show the rest of the city that The Ave is still an OK place, despite the presence of pierced and spiky-haired kids who look almost precisely like pierced and spiky-haired kids looked in 1981.

Breakdancing wasn’t around when the street fair began lo those many years ago. But it’s become its own tradition by now.

The giant posterized face of Rashard Lewis peers down at Sonics fans, prior to the start of what would be the team’s last game of the postseason, as if to apologize for the debilitating foot injury that kept him out of the second-round series.

The team fought mightily and valiantly. But without one of its pivotal star players, the Sonics found themselves ousted by San Antonio at the last half-second of game six.

But look on the bright side: Nobody expected this Seattle team to even make the playoffs, let alone almost make the conference finals. And the Lucking Fakers aren’t even in the dance this year!

A lot took place, including the fabulous Pike Place Market Cheese Festival. (I refrained from singing “Pinky’s Cheese Roll Call” during the festivities.)

Then came Ballard Bikefest, a tribute to all things wheeled, with or without motors.

The event was sponsored in part by the Sunset (officially no longer a “tavern”), and coincided with the monthly Second Saturday Art Walk on and around Ballard Avenue.

The above depicts a contest to change a race-car tire in the shortest possible time.

Our ol’ pals at the Live Girls Cabaret (not pictured here) also opened their new Market Street performance space that night. It’s a huge, lovely space, for some brash n’ bountiful performers. (Think sketch comedy, with a neo-burlesque attitude.)

But leaving Ballard, and (at least for now) Seattle, that night was the above-pictured Larry Barrett, alt-country singer-songwriter and, most recently, big guy at Hattie’s Hat. He’s off to housesit in Tucson, something I wouldn’t do over the scorchy summer unless I were paid.

…outside my old place. I’ve had worse views in the past (parking lots, alleys, brick walls); but for a space near the top of a hi-rise condo tower, this was rather generic.

This is a portion of the view from my new place. I prefer it much better. Would you?