…to so skillfully manipulate his wand that a beautiful girl ends up on her back, smiling angelically and floating beyond the bounds of earthly reality. (Found at the Pioneer Square Magic Shop.)

WHEN MCDONALD’S REOPENED its Third and Pine branch earlier this year (it was shut while the upstairs was remodeled into moderate-income housing units), they didn’t bring back the loud country music they’d formerly blasted out onto the sidewalk in a futile attempt to repel street loiterers. Instead, they had Ronald himself give a proxy warning.

(BTW: A fan site called McBurgers offers recipes it claims resemble the chain’s original formulae, and insists McD’s current market-share troubles would be solved if the company went back to the way it used to make things, before the efficiency experts and cost-cutters started messing everything up.)

A SURE SIGN OF SUMMER in the city: An elegant barefooted lady relaxing with her PowerBook.

Public displays of patriotic bombast were thankfully sparse at this year’s Fourth of Jul-Ivar’s gathering.

Perhaps it’s a positive sign that folks, at least around Seattle, have gotten bored by the past one-point-five years of force-fed flag-wavin’ and jingoism-spoutin’.

Abundant, however, were all the new massive condo projects just over the railroad tracks from Myrtle Edwards Park. Many of these glass boxes are still somewhat less than fully occupied.

It was a refreshingly ordinary Fourth, full of low-key people of all ages waiting around all day for a good view of the big boomies later that night. One disappointment: The musical bookings for the Fourth of Jul-Ivar’s were a lot less diverse than in prior years, emphasizing the rote-aggressive “blooze” bands that have been Seattle’s official establishment music since the ’70s.

I didn’t stay in Myrtle Edwards for the big blast, having been invited to a deck bash at a FIrst Hill condo, from which the rival Gas Works fireworks show could supposedly be seen.

But with the Metropolitan Park towers rising like twin cans of Spam (the meat product, not the email) between the condo and Lake Union, we could only see the largest or tallest of the fiery boom-booms. Still, a splendid, if cold and windy, time was had by all.

…this past First Thursday. Independent art vendors were moved one block north from Occidental Mall to Occidental Park, instead of getting banned altogether (which some of the corporate art galleries wanted).

So the unofficial, un-curated, anything-goes art bazaar continued, with more square footage and just as many buyers and sellers. The only police trouble came when Greg Kucera (one of the bigtime gallery operators who’d pushed for the indie art-sellers’ expulsion) was almost arrested while wearing a second-hand police uniform shirt.

Meanwhile, the kind of outdoor art sale the corporate gallery guys would prefer took place at the Harbor Steps development, west of First and Union. Everything was clean, slick, and quality-control-committee approved. Glass bowls and cutesy sculptures dominated. Surprisingly, it wasn’t all completely dull.

SOME MORE ENTRIES in our Space Available photo series.

…here’s something to remind you of the joys of winter, sort of.

…over spilled ranch dip.

Seattle officials are planning to crack down on the unofficial open-air art market along Occidental Avenue during the Pioneer Square First Thursday art walks. They’re talking with gallery owners and official neighborhood booster groups, but apparently not with the outdoor art vendors themselves (except to give ’em stern warnings not to come back in July without a permit).

The SeaTimes quoted gallery owner Greg Kucera as saying the unauthorized, un-curated, un-mediated art sales on the sidewalks “erases the work we’re trying to do” as per “trying to get people to understand the difference between good art, bad art, high art, low art.”

If you ask me, erasing such hierarchical boundaries is a Good Thing. We oughta encourage more of it.

If the street art’s popularity is overcrowding Occidental, then expand it into Occidental Park across the street. But don’t have screening committees or “quality control” bureaucrats deciding who gets to sell what. We don’t need another exclusive spot that only offers the same slicked-up, blanded-down, tourist-friendly “fine” art you can already find at every summertime street fair.

That mellow-but-meaningless image, of course, is precisely what’s caused so many hipster critics and scenesters to scoff at Seattle’s most commercial contribution to the art world, glass art. This week’s international Glass Art Society convention here in town, and all the associated local gallery shows, might be changing a few minds about this. COCA and Roq La Rue have found plenty of pieces to display that show typical COCA and Roq La Rue subject matter, only in glass. The pliable, moldable, clear or semi-opaque material can be utilized for a lot more than just prosaic giant bowls.

In other words, glass artists don’t always blow.

…during my enforced absence from Broadband Nation (not in chronological order):

Attended the informal outdoor wedding of print MISC contributor Michael Thomas and Sherry Wooten, with their precocious li’l one expressing approval of the whole proceeding.

Attended the Edmonds Waterfront Festival, a simple and unpretentious small-town fair with all the standard carny rides, craft booths, fast-food fads, beer gardens, and generic “blooze” bands.

Witnessed some of the commotion at the Convention Center on the day of Oprah WInfrey’s big $180-a-seat self-help seminar. The few other males on the scene included the crew of long-running cable access show Music Inner City, complete with “Oprah for President” stickers.

…to Raymond “Ras Bongo” Lindsay, the Lake City music-store owner and longtime staple of the local roots-music circuit, who was slain in an apparent domestic dispute. I’d only met Bongo offstage once, at his store (see above), but instantly sensed him as a gentle man of a centered sensibility.

TO AVE AND AVE NOT DEPT.: Last weekend’s University District Street Fair was supposed to have been the coming-out party for the completely rebuilt University Way. But, in traditional best-laid-plans fashion, the Ave’s northernmost big block (47th to 50th) remained closed and unpaved.

Ergo, the fair was shrunk to about 70 percent of its normal size. The audience’s size, and energy level, seemed even further reduced, despite decent weather. This may have befitted a neighborhood that was already stuck in the retail doldrums even before the totally traffic-closing construction scheme made it worse.

Some UW design students had a big display in the former Tower Records storefront, full of schemes to redo the Ave’s storefronts so they’d look all fresh and Euro-modern, not the funky/rundown amalgamation of low-rise architectures we all know and love.

Still, there’s something to be said for a reinvent-the-Ave campaign that comes out of a sense of creativity, that asks young adults (rather than corporate consulting firms) what a young-adult shopping street should look like, and that imagines plenty of spaces for independent businesses instead of the same ol’ dorky chains.

…since Planet Hollywood opened its first in-town Seattle outlet on Tuesday, run by the same regional franchisee whose Issaquah store’s become the target of sexual-harassment and racial-discriminaiton suits by Hispanic employees. I’ve no way of knowing whether the controversy dampened the Aurora branch’s opening-day hoopla, but I only had to stand in line 15 minutes (most of that time protected from the elements inside a logo-merchandise-filled tent).

Once inside, everyone got a free example of the chain’s signature product, the hot-glazed grease-and-sugar circle, fresh from the massive all-automated production line. It turns out to really be an extraordinary product, a ring of melt-away gooeyness that bears only a visual resemblance to a supermarket donut. (We refuse the pretentious “doughnut” for such an unpretentious product. We also don’t like how the flyer passed out to the patrons in line referred to the restaurant’s coffee-and-pop menu as a “beverage program.”) The same product, when served at room temperature, becomes a fluffy semisolid that hits you with a pronounced sugar rush after three bites.

Thus, it shouldn’t have been so surprising that the “greeter” lady who saw customers out the door reminded everyone that the store’s got a special unglazed version for diabetics.

The Krispy Kreme hype campaign is more than a publicity gimmick. It’s a vital aspect of the chain’s business plan as it expands from a cult-classic Southern regional circuit into a national powerhouse. The lowly donut stand has been a part of roadside and urban America for decades, but mainly in the form of independent operations (often immigrant-owned) or small regional chains. (Winchell’s and Dunkin’ Donuts have either scaled back or pulled out of their Norhwest regional operations.) Krispy Kreme has supersized the donut stand into a behemoth of relative Wal-Mart proportions (though each outlet is still little larger than McDonald’s largest urban branches). Everything about the restaurant, from the bright lighting to the cutesy T-shirts, reflects this re-imaging of a little ring of flour and lard into a destination entertainment experience.

Of course, the entertainment experience is taken to a new level by the franchisee’s current scandal. The combination of donuts and sleazy sex is such a rife opportunity for snickering jokes, which you are hereby allowed to imagine on your own. (Suggested premises: Holes, frosting, batter, mixers, beaters, roundness, crullers, dough, self-rising, “for here or to go,” drive-thru, cream filling, plain vs. chocolate, and, of course, sprinkles.)