SO, DO YOU THINK I’ve got what it takes to become a church calendar photographer?

What to do with the sign from an abandoned used-book store.

Some of the Metro bus-shelter artists are quite elaborate. Case in point: “Migratory Habits,” at 85th and Aurora.

…in Four Columns Park on east Capitol Hill probably refers to a young man who died in a freak auto accident under the Alaskan Way Viaduct in early March. The photocopied essay taped to the barricade is a statement by the Dalai Lama, asking his followers to pray for the people of Tibet.

In happier events, dozens of fans gathered outside the Paramount Theater’s stage door Friday night, hoping for a glimpse of that pushing-40-but-still-hawt Eddie Vedder.

Who sez scientists are unsentimental? Not the Pacific Science Center bosses who lit up the arches for St. Patrick’s Day.

In the “it’s not a bug, it’s a feature” department, Greyhound’s boasting of a service “improvement” resulting from its recent axing of hundreds of small-town destinations, some of which now have no public transportation whatsoever.

…since we’ve posted pix here. To atone, here are some acquaintances who held a li’l conceptual-art spectacle called The Brides of March last Saturday, in front of what you must still call “The Bon Marche,” or at least “The Store Formerly Known as the Bon Marche.”

Yes, I’m absolutely certain the Moore Theatre management knew what it was doing by this juxtaposition of posters in its box-office window.

This mullet obsession is annoying enough in places, such as Seattle, where it’s a retro-ironic fad. But in other places, such as this warehouse near the Everett commuter-train station, the metalhead hairstyle never went away.

Just a couple of guys in miniskirts and deliberately torn stockings, dancing to the Fame soundtrack on Broadway last week.

And to conclude for today, something we ran years ago, in a reader-submitted photo. Now we have our own visual document of the mighty MISC shipping line. This stoic cargo ship was seen docked at the Interbay grain terminal, wihch is now operated by the Louis-Dreyfus Corp., commodity merchants and traders since the 1850s. (You might have heard of a certain heiress to that family fortune.)

THIS IS how it used to be, and how it still ought to be.

This is an outrage. An abomination. Something so totally beyond WRONG that the mind reels to find a similie. Worse than Led Zeppelin for Cadillac. Worse than Adam Ant on a Motown Records anniversary special. Worse than auditioning a new singer for INXS on a reality series. (Make up your own “worse than” here.)

AS THE GANG at Anthropologie take down the Xmas window displays, we mark the end of a damn-depressin’ year, both here at MISC Towers and out in the world at large.

But there have been some not-altogether-unpleasant events during it, particularly this past week or so.

On Christmas Eve Eve, the Wall of Sound folk put up a holiday fete starring the improvised vocal stylings of Les Voix Vulgaires (from left, King Leah, Detonator Beth Lawrence, and Amy Denio).

Then this past Tuesday, K Records held an intimate li’l CD release party at the Green Room bar in the Showbox building. It promoted reissue compilations by two early-’80s local “art-damage” bands, the Beakers and the Blackouts.

Ex-Beaker (and fellow Stranger refugee) Jim Anderson is shown above, introducing longtime local musician/producer Steve Fisk, who performed for the packed room on a vintage ARP synthesizer. Also in attendance: Ex-Blackout Bill Rieflin and ex-Beaker Francesca Sundsten, who’ve been a lovey-dovey couple for perhaps more years than they care to remember.

I have more memories of the Blackouts than of the Beakers (I saw more of the formers’ gigs, including several at the Showbox). In Loser, I marked the birth date of the “Seattle scene” as the date, in 1976, of the premier gig by the Blackouts’ previous incarnation, the Telepaths. The Beakers, meanwhile, were among the earliest incarnations of the Olympia scene’s indie-ideology purity shtick.

In the blurry mists of hindsight, both bands now seem to belong outside of their time and place. The bands they borrowed from (Pere Ubu, Gang of Four, the Pop Group) didn’t become VH1 nostalgia faves. Their sounds remain as brittly dissonant, yet strongly compelling, as ever.

But some retail institutions did not survive the holiday season. One was the second incarnation of Video Vertigo, East Pike Street’s own friendly neighborhood horror-and-porn video store.

Another was the Sam Goody music store at Third and Pine. It’s been there, under one chain-name or another, since the late ’70s. The building owners now want to carve the space into several smaller retail spots, possibly including (you guessed it) a Starbucks.

Remember: Monorail vote #4 is one of those “no-means-yes” dealies.

APPARENTLY, MOST OF THE BIG Halloween shidigs were on Saturday.

I, of course, went out on Sunday.

But I still found some nattily-dressed creatures who graciously allowed me to show to you.

This week, Capitol Hill’s food-shopping routines changed forever.

First stop: The new Safeway at 21st and Madison. It’s part of a “mixed use” retail-apartment megaplex, urged on by city officials eager to gentrify (i.e., white-ify) one of the last blocks of minority-owned retail north of Yesler Way. It’s across from Oscar’s II, the Af-Am restaurant/lounge that was infamously targeted for closure by former City Attorney Mark Sidran.

The new Safeway itself is large, of course, and designed to be a true “urban” shopping target. The ramp for the underground parking’s in the back. The building’s main corner entails a grand pedestrian entrance. In keeping with the L-shaped block it’s built on, the store’s been designed with alcoves and corners, breaking from the seven-decade tradition of the supermarket interior as a plain rectangle.

Even more un-square: The new Broadway Market QFC, which opened Sunday after a four-month remodel of the former urban mini-mall.

Because it was built from what had been several different retail spaces (Fred Meyer, Gap, Gravity Bar, Zebraclub, African Imports) and the central mall corridor, the new Q couldn’t help but pick up some of the old Nordstrom, collection-of-boutiques vibe. (Crossed, of course, with that Whole Foods luxury-nutrition vibe.)

The big surprise: The former downstairs Fred Meyer variety-store section was retained, as “QFC Home.” It’s better organized than it had been under Freddy’s, and retains most of the merchandise lines Freddy’s had had. (Among the missing: Paint, toys, TV/video, family apparel, underwear.)

The old Broadway QFC (above), and the old Broadway Safeway (below), along with the old Bartell Drugs next to the old QFC, stand vacant and awaiting redevelopment. There are enough people in this neighborhood with money and retail experience. Let’s put something together.

The old QFC/Bartell’s buildings add up to almost a full half block. Let’s start up a home/hardware/variety store there, along the lines of the old City People’s Mercantile with home electronics added.

At the old Safeway site, let’s have a no-frills apparel shop for ladies, gents, and kids. Jeans, tops, dresses, undies, casual shoes, hats, handbags, some local-designer consignments.

AS A BREAK from the potentially-tedious rites of politics, enjoy these images from the Seattle Storm’s victory rally last Friday in Westlake Park.

Here’s a sign of hope for the future—boys rooting for girls!

The Northwest Film Forum opened its spacious new digs Thursday night with a surrealistic, nearly Fellini-esque party.

Outside, there were big searchlights, a small red carpet, and a dozen beauty-queen hostesses. Each wore a sash reading “Welcome to NWFF” in a different language. Inside, the smaller of the two auditoria displayed short, strange film clips played at half-speed. In the tall-ceilinged but somehow claustrophobic lobby, big-bucks donors hobnobbed with scruffy artist types.

Among the live performers: Drag-queen rock band Cross Dress for Less (above), and our current fave Japanese-inspired pop combo the Buttersprites.

The new space is a big achievement for NWFF, whose operations had been split among two or three smaller storefronts. It originally began as WigglyWorld Studios, which took over the film production and editing equipment of 911 Media Arts when that longstanding cultural-empowerment group decided to phase out that side of its operation.

The 911 folks chose to concentrate on video production, particularly digital video. Their choice seems to have been wise, from the standpoint of supporting DIY creativity. Across North America, digital video has become the overwhelming format of choice for documentaries, no-budget shorts, and at least a few indie feature films, such as Thirteen.

The new NWFF’s theaters are equipped for both film and video projection. But its production/editing facilities, classes, grant program, and forthcoming distribution entity (The Film Company) are religiously devoted to celluloid.

Even here in Software City USA, communities of artisans continue to preserve older ways of making things, such as letterpress printing and analog music recording. Motion-picture film is another technology that’s more cumbersome than its modern successors, but which offers its own distinct qualities.

Film’s lighting and exposure settings are more persnickety than those of digital video, but can produce more stunning results. Film’s slower frame rate gives it a less realistic, more fantastical quality. Most pairs of eyes can tell the difference between film and video, and most still associate the look of film with the look of “a real movie.” Shooting on film, when it’s done right, can give an indie director more credibility, both among audiences and within the marketplace.

Film remains a viable option for moviemakers. But it’s among the most complex art forms around, with many different skills and disciplines to be learned. So it needs places where its secrets can be passed on, where its aesthetics can be learned. Places like the Northwest Film Forum.

As a sidebar, the new NWFF is an anchor for an emerging “arts strip” along Twelfth Avenue on Capitol Hill. Indeed, the Buttersprites followed their NWFF opening-night gig by performing the same set an hour later, a block away, at the Capitol Hill Arts Center. The Photographic Center Northwest and Aftermath Gallery are a few blocks south of NWFF; the offices of Artist Trust are two blocks north. Richard Hugo House holds its literary events and programs a block away on Eleventh. Several storefront galleries have opened nearby on Pike and Pine streets.

Capitol Hill may have lost Cornish College and Fred Meyer this past year, but at least it’s still the heart of Seattle’s arts infrastructure.

A PLEASANTLY STIMULATING AFTERNOON was had last Sunday by the several hundred attendees of the first Pony Boy Records Jazz Picnic at Magnuson Park. It was no substitute for Northwest Bookfest, now disappeared from the site, but it stirred minds in its own way.

The musicians and volunteers enjoyed a green-room snack table including the balanced diet of apples, carrots, and Hostess Zingers.

Greg Williamson, founder of the local record label, emceed the six-hour concert, and sat in on drums during most of the acts, including his own Big Bad Groove Society (below).

My personal favorite moment of the day: Singer H.B. Radke. He’s sassy, saucy, and satirical, and a totally “on” performer to boot.

Other acts included the Hans Brehmer Trio (above), Carolyn Graye (below),…

Randy Halberstadt (above), and Chris Stover’s Mini Narcissism (below).

…is finally at hand, thankfully. It can be a mighty tiring time, as this gent and his plastic horses would agree.

Seattle’s very own all-you-can-eat culture buffet began in 1970. It was originally a free festival, devised to employ baby-boomer artist types and their favorite bar-blues bands. It was also designed to utilize the whole of the Seattle Center grounds for one big thang, for the first time since the 1962 World’s Fair.

Over the years, its organizers realized the drawing power of current big-name rock bands. These “mainstage” gigs became the metaphoric tail wagging the “dog” of the festival’s local-artists’ exposure.

The fees for major rock stars escalated in the ’80s, and skyrocketed in the ’90s. (The additional income went not to the musicians, but to assorted parasitic middlemen). To pay these higher costs, Bumbershoot started charging admission fees; first modest, then a little less modest.

To draw a Center full of patrons at these prices, organizers had to keep bidding on the top touring bands, driving the costs up further. Ticket prices rose from $0 for all four days to $20 per day.

Eventually this cycle will have to slow down. Already there are signs that the mega-concert industry’s teetering on the fiscal brink, due to the greed of monopolistic promoters pushing prices beyond what the market will bear.

And Bumbershoot learned in the past two years that it can get along just fine with alterna-rock reunion acts—who just might be among the first touring giants to attempt to break off from the likes of Clear Channel.

Fortunately, the original Bumbershoot spirit of mass play has survived, with tens of thousands gathering to share one last summer blast.

…occurred Thursday night at Westlake Center. ‘Twas a quiet, somber affair, befitting the event it commemorated—the 1,000th US death in Iraq.

We’ll have a fourth installment of Bumbershoot ’04 pix after this one.

Captions today will be short, partly because many of today’s pix speak for themselves.

This sign, mounted on two film-projector spools, reads: “Support the Washington State Independent Film Industry, Manufacturers of Motion Pictures.” I heartily agree with the sentiment.

Today’s batch starts with the big alterna-comix emphasis at this year’s festival, which culminated in a rather rambling panel discussion among our ol’ pals Harvey Pekar, Peter Bagge, Gary Groth, Jessica Abel, and Gilbert Hernandez.

Back when I was a grunt laborer for Groth, I quickly learned that cartoonists seldom speak in the taut word-balloon language in which they write. They ramble. sometimes they get to their intended point; sometimes (particularly in the case of the beloved Mr. Pekar) they end up somewhere else entirely.

So I wasn’t surprised when the conversation wandered off topic often. Still, the panel made several cogent statements. It concluded that after many years of bitter struggle, “graphic novels” (whatever the heck that term means) have gained a foothold in the mainstream book biz. Of course, that just means there are more of those titles out there, which means a lot more chaff (repackaged superhero crap, comics written to be sold to the movies) as well as a little more wheat.

Artis the Spoonman is now also Artis the Slam Poet, ranting about five centuries of oppression against the true human spirit.

I didn’t get to a lot of the great bands that played over the four days, including Aveo, the Killers, the Girls, and Drive By Truckers. But I did enjoy the thoroughly rockin’ sets by the Witness (above) and the Turn-Ons.

My sometime alterna-journalism colleagues in Harvey Danger have re-formed, and played their first all-ages gig in five years. Sean Nelson, bless him, still looks like a journalist, but his singing voice is stronger than ever.

From the above image, I won’t have to tell you that wristbands for the nighttime stadium rock show were gone within an hour and a half on Monday. Built to Spill singer-songwriter Doug Martsch (below) sounded more Michael Stipe-like than ever.

The reunited Pixies, however, sounded just the same (marvelous) as they ever did. They played all their should-have-been-hits and then some, in a tight hour-and-a-half show. Few singers can make me so happy, singing about such bleak topics, as Mr. Black and Ms. Deal can.

One more set of these pix to come.