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SINCE IT’S BEEN A FEW DAYS since we added to this site, here’s a few images that speak for themselves.
A FEW SIGHTS of the now-not-just-officially-but-really-done summer of ought-three…
…And a little preview of the weeks to come.
APPLE COMPUTER’S second company-owned store in the region opened last weekend in Seattle’s rapidly upscaling University Village shopping center.
As was the case with Apple’s Bellevue Square opening earlier this year, a line snaked out over the mall grounds on opening night. By the time the first customers were let in at six, guys (and it was almost all guys) at the end of the line would have more than an hour’s wait.
The new Apple Store, built from scratch on the onetime site of an A&P supermarket (remember those, anyone?), is much bigger than the Bellevue store, which had to be squeezed into an ex-Hallmark shop site. Thus, it more fully expresses the company’s aim of providing a real-world equivalent to the Mac OS’s clean, uncluttered, dignified aesthetic of cyberspace.
Live entertainment was provided on Friday by a subset of the UW Marching Band (above), and on Saturday with a 15-minute free set by Euro power-poppers the Raveonettes (below).
(Incidentally, the Apple Store’s free Wi-Fi signal reaches next door to the Ram sports bar, but just barely.)
Meanwhile, other businesses in the neighborhood have gotten into the cyber-craze, as seen in this exploitation of an already-tired Internet catch phrase.
I could add that I walked from the Village uphill to the University District late Saturday night, past the Greek Row where rowdy frat boys rioted after midnight. I left before that happened, but could sense a tension in the air, an angry and ornery sound of “fun” emanating from many of the fraternities and rental houses on the first Saturday night of the school year.
…has come and gone, alas, without a pennant, a division title, or even a lousy wild-card berth. And it’s all because of a half-dozen or so needless losses in August and September to teams we shoulda beat more often (Rangers, Orioles, Angels).
Now what? This might very well have been the final go-around for the current core M’s lineup. Edgar Martinez may very well be gone next year; so could Mike Cameron, Mark McLemore, Freddy Garcia, Carlos Guillen, and Joel Piniero. The ’04 Mariners could easily become a “rebuilding year” squad. The Supersonics have had seven rebuilding years in a row, so you know what that could mean.
On the other glove, the M’s just might acquire just the right just-before-their-peak young players and/or seasoned vets to finally get over the top. I hope for that, but expect otherwise.
AS PREVIOUSLY PROMISED, here’s the rest of our Puyallup Fair pix.
Yes, fair audiences are literate and informed about developments that affect their lives–such as environmental degredation, as with this big scale model of water drainage and flood plains
I’m not so sure it’s that bright an idea to promote a yellowish-colored liquid with an image of a dog.
The last building we visited that Friday was the “Hobby Center,” in which dozens of citizens displayed the results of their respective manias for collecting useless memorabilia of pop-cult sub-sub-genres. Not pictured here: The all-Pepsi-stuff display, the all-Picachu-stuff display, and the reproduction wooden plaque reading “Be Naughty, Give Santa a Rest.”
OVER THE NEXT FEW DAYS, you’ll all be treated to the sights of the most recent Western Washington Fair (aka “The Puyallup”)
In its 102nd year (not counting the WWII years when its site was used as a Japanese-American internment camp), the fair was its ever-lovin’ boot-stompin’ best, an entertainment and people-watchin’ spectacle at least equal to anything staged at Seattle Center.
(I suspect it’d even be a superior fun-time to that certain tres-overhyped googah in the desert Southwest if said googah didn’t have any nekkid people.)
My date for the afternoon was a devout vegan who, for some reason, didn’t know beforehand that the cows on display at the fair were likely to become next month’s filet mignon–until she ran into a Beef Marketing Board counter in the beef-cattle barn, offering free samples from some of the same breeds lolling about in the stalls.
On a more immediately practical level, my companion found nothing that met her strict dietary standards at the fair’s dozens of fast-food stands (all non-chain; many run by third-generation families that have become cozy insiders with fair management). If just a few of these ol’ standbys were asked to give up some of their multiple stands around the fairgrounds, other folk could join ’em with a wider variety of meal/snack offerings.
One could easily imagine an allegedly “healthy” food concessionaire who could hype their wares as part of the fair’s original mission of promoting agriculture in Washington. They could promote their entrees, salads, desserts, energy drinks, etc. as products from higher-profit-margin crops that could fiscally save some family farms.
Why heck, such a food stand could even cross-promote its wheatgrass shakes and veggie platters with the guys who hawk blenders and choppers in the Modern Living barns.
SATURDAY NIGHT WAS A BRIGHT NIGHT in Seattle’s unsung but rockin’ Georgetown neighborhood. Our fellow ex-Stranger hanger-on, illustrator-cartoonist-graphic designer Kathryn Rathke, unveiled a community-promo neon sign she’d designed.
The thing was funded by a Seattle Arts Commission grant for a public artwork that would service a community need. In Georgetown’s case, the need is to have its very existence acknowledged, as a residential outpost surrounded by industry and heavy transportation. The project took some two years to execute, what with bureaucratic “process,” legal tie-ups involving the building’s owner and lessee, design submissions and re-submissions, etc.
But finally it all came together, and is mounted on the south side (facing a freeway on-ramp) of the building housing All City Coffee, the Nine Pound Hammer bar, and the occasionally-active Jem Studios Georgetown and Twilight Theater.
The shushing lady atop the image might be referring to the Boeing Field air traffic, or to Georgetown’s forgotten-neighborhood status. The sign’s middle tier includes some of the area’s spectacular old architecture, including the classic Hat & Boots gas station (still slated to be moved and renovated as part of a park).
As a mariachi band played and the donated keg of Manny’s Georgetown Ale emptied, revelers rejoiced in their new civic symbol. Georgetown still lacks a grocery store, a library, and City Hall’s attention. But at least it has a new mark of pride.
IT’S BEEN WEEKS since we uploaded some of our random images found around town. So here are a few.
…independent artists hawked their wares in Occidental Mall on First Thursday. And once again, the bigshot corporate gallery owners made bluster in the daily papers about wanting the non-represented riffraff out of Pioneer Square for good. One gallery boss was quoted smearing the indies’ works as mere “flea market trinkets” that don’t deserve to exist in the same neighborhood with, say, expensive glass bowls. Thus, defenders of the li’l guyz sported T-shirts scoffing at the scoffers.
FUN WITH ELECTRICITY: When first we heard of the Calif. megastore chain Fry’s Electronics coming to Renton, we scoffed. We’d heard so many times of Northern Calif. institutions whose reputations turned out to have been due to little more than being from Northern Calif., that hubris-capital of North America.
But Fry’s turns out to be worth the hype, I must say.
It’s not just another Circuit City/Best Buy clone grown to Goliath size. It’s been designed from step one as Techno-Geek Heaven. Acres of hardware, software, parts and pieces (yep, even that Torx-6 screwdriver I’ve been looking for). Prices aren’t all that great, except for a few loss leader specials. It’s the selection that makes it different, that and the whole vastness of the joint, and the staff that speaks Geekspeak like natives.
While it’s not in an established strip-mall zone, it’s easy to get to by public transport because it’s reasonably close to the main Boeing Renton bus stop. (Not that Fry’s is all that keen on non-drivers shopping there; its delivery fees are tremendous, and staffers write down the serial numbers of anything customers bring in in backpacks that’s even close to merchandise Fry’s sells.)
Between Boeing and the also-nearby Kenworth truck plant, it’s right in the heart of our industrial heritage. But the fourth big institution in the neighborhood, the giant Cirque du Soleil tent complex, heralds a postmodern, postindustrial, upscaled culture built from the forms of populist working-class entertainments of olden days.
Fry’s is intended for “knowledge workers,” for engineers and designers and coders, not for assembly-line grunts. You can find U.S.-built products in the store, but they’re more readily found in cheaper categories (DVD discs) than in expensive ones (DVD players). No, Fry’s is a store for an America that, to quote an old Doonesbury line, “doesn’t have to make anything anymore—except SUCCESS.”
AS PROMISED, here are the last of my Bumbershoot Ought-Three pix, at the big R.E.M./Wilco gig in High School Memorial Stadium. (No, the stadium’s not named in honor of dead high schools, even though Seattle’s got two or three of those.)
This year’s stadium “stage sponsor” was Comcast, the local-monopoly cable company (formerly AT&T, formerly TCI, formerly Group W, formerly TelePrompTer). Several of these successive companies have had logos that matched their business models.
TCI, you might recall, had a symbol of a sun (or satellite) beaming a signal to the Earth, exemplifying the old-media premise of everybody getting their entertainment/news/culture from one central source.
AT&T’s ringed circle visualized the company’s post-Bell System dream of wiring the world, back in the days before wireless-mania.
And Comcast has a stylized version of the circle-C copyright symbol, that icon of reverence to an increasingly concentrated (and increasingly vilified) intellectual-property industry.
The two acts on stage Monday night bridged one or two generation gaps, and cut across subcultural niche-appeal.
Wilco’s act, if described literally, would read like the description of an early-’70s “country rock” band. Wilco’s not like that. It’s simply a great, intelligent, inventive pop and rock group, which doesn’t “cross over” between categories so much as it defies easy categorization. (No wonder their record label dropped them just as they made their best record to date, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, as depicted in the documentary I Am Trying to Break Your Heart.)
Little new seems to be sayable about the livin’ legends of R.E.M., except that (1) they’re more or less a Seattle band these days, and (2) they still make beautiful-sad-upbeat-energetic-soft-hard-fast-slow-memorable music, even in the promlematic environment of a stadium show.
…will be posted in two installments. Watch this space later this week for some quaint human-interest studies at the R.E.M. gig.
But for today, some of Labor Day’s other Seattle Center sights.
THE VAIN ALTERNA-HAIR SALON had a booth selling, among other products and services, this retro Joan Jett purse. I attracted the awe and respect of everyone working the booth when I told ’em I’d seen Joan Jett perform at Wrex, the old new-wave bar where Vain is now.
THE EMP SKY CHURCH SPACE, wide and very tall yet relatively shallow, remains one of the wonders of the rock world. No wonder VH1’s shooting an entire concert series there. Here, Lesli Wood of the loud-fast combo Ms. Led.
In the where-be-they-now corner, Mary Lou Lord (once the darling of KNDD’s old Loudspeaker show) continues to patiently ply her trade, major-label offers or no major-label offers.
My fave act of the day, though, was the harmonic driving pop of the New Pornographers, featuring several Vancouverites and ex-Tacoman Neko Case (center). I could spend a lifetime in the universe of their happy/skeptical tuneage.
…at least until today. Here, some random action shots from Sunday. Above: “Le Petite Cirque.” Below: A break-dance contestant practicing prior to his turn onstage.
And some civilians getting in on the act on the big lawn.
Following all this, I saw two and a half sets of the One Reel Film Festival. In these days since the rise and fall of movie dot-coms like AtomFilm, modern U.S. live-action shorts, at least the ones booked for this series, mostly fall into a few main categories, including but not limited to:
The cliches were particularly fast-n’-furious in the “Sex Ed” set, five unsubtle films in which I learned that:
There’ve gotta be better up-n’-comin’ film and videomakers out there, and I hope to find some.
FROM THE RIDICULOUS to the sublime, Sunday was the last night for the grand old Sorry Charlie’s piano bar. The space has been bought by some hipster capitalists who plan to revamp it into something nice and retro-elegant, but it just won’t be the same.
On closing night, the place was jammed with fans ranging in age from the barley legal to the barely walking. We were united in our love for the place, for the participatory good times shared over the years, and especially for the artistry and geniality of our host lo these many years, the great Howard Fulson. He’s been a piano player with good taste, in a dive bar that tasted good.
I’M CONTINUING TO FEEL relatively energetic after my recent physical unfortunateness, so I’m hoping that was just a one-off thang.
So, it was back to Bumbershoot on Saturday.
The performance-art group Mass Ensemble strung its giant “Earth Harp” from the Space Needle, where LA dancer/singer/yoga teacher Andrea Brook attracted attention from all with her acrobatic musicianship.
Then it was off to Flatstock 3, an annual showcase of rock-poster art and the artists who make it, held in a different city each year. Since each poster was designed to shout for your attention on a wall or a light pole, the sight of hundreds of them at once leads to a not-unpleasant-at-all kind of sensory overload, much like that of the best rock n’ roll itself.
Above, local poster-maker Shawn Wolfe (the artist formerly known as Beatkit).
Below, ex-local poster-maker Jermaine Rogers wears an inside joke about our ol’ pal Art Chantry, the most famous current poster boy to refuse to attend Flatstock. (Chantry has always insisted he hates computer graphics.)
Once night falls, the slam poets come out.
I’M STILL FEELING ERRATIC ACHES and dizzy spells at varying times of the day following my recent panic-type episode. (I’m still waiting for at least one reader to email their sympathies.)
But I did get to spend most of Friday at Bumbershoot.
Firstly, I spotted this loving pair on the way to what band’s set? (C’mon, it’s an E-Z guess.) (OK, the answer’s at the bottom of this post.)
Prior to that, however, I got to see plenty-O-rockin’-action at the Exhibition Hall, starting with the wonderful Visqueen.
Later, during The Divorce’s set in the same space, I finally got my very own Charles Peterson moment.
Beer gardens are everywhere on the B-shoot grounds, in keeping with the festival’s ongoing capitulation to the national mania for revenue enhancement. The Ex Hall’s beer garden is festooned with lovely Lava Lites and similar products.
Jessica Lurie performed a typical mind-blastin’ set with her ensemble at the Northwest Court stage.
The Bumbrella Stage’s banners include plugs for two sponsors I’d never expected to see on the same piece of screen-printed fabric.
One big change this year: The Small Press Book Fair was turned into the Ink Spot. Its aesthetic premise was also changed, from circa 1973 (Port Townsend-esque nature poetry) to circa 1983 (punk zines). Above, local zine vet Gregory Hischack (Farm Pulp).
(Answer: Modest Mouse, of course.)
…I’d even do what this guy’s doing.
ONE OF THE TEMPORARILY-REVEALED old advertising signs on the north face of the Commodore Hotel on Second Avenue, during the construction of the condo tower where Bethel Temple had been.
SOMETIME NEXT MONTH, Belltown’s first worthy cyber-cafe successor to the burnt-down Speakeasy Cafe will come in the form of the new Zeitgeist/Top Pot branch on Fifth Avenue. Coffee, donuts, free Wi-Fi, art, and a large meeting space.
