‘TWAS A PERFECT DAY for the low-key recreation of the Alki Landing that served as Seattle’s official 150th birthday rite. That is to say, there was heavy rain, wind, cold temperatures, high tide, moderately heavy waves, and a near-total greyout (no visible horizon).

Some 1,000 people and 800 umbrellas braved the elements to witness volunteers playing the Denny Party showing up on a restored clipper ship playing the schooler Exact, then taking a small rowboat to the beach (where the real pioneers had been met by nearly-nude natives, not Gore-Texed honky families enjoying freebie chicken wings and Starbucks coffee).

The scene then moved down the shore to the 1905 landing-memorial obelisk, for a ceremony dedicating two plaques just added to it honoring the landing-party’s women and the local natives.

Lame-duck mayor Paul Schell gave a short speech, comparing his appearance to that of Gen. Douglas MacArthur at the far-better-attended 1951 100th birthday: “We do have one thing in common. We were both asked to leave.”

ELECTION ’01 UPDATE: The absentee-vote counting resumed today after the Veteran’s Day holiday weekend. Our boy Greg Nickels still leads, but by fewer than 1,600 votes. Today’s count, however, still included a number of early absentees, who trend more conservative. It’ll be the makeup of the late absentees, some of which were counted today and more of which will be counted in the next two or three days, that will decide it all.

ELECTION ’00 UPDATE: The news-media recount of the Florida ballots has finally been announced. Most headlines about the unofficial recount claimed Bush won it. But buried in the stories (or played up in ‘alternative media’ analyses of the results), you find that Gore would’ve won under six of the nine possible recount scenarios, other than the one the Republican-dominated Supreme Court threw out.

In other words, one can still plausibly say the election may have been stolen by the GOP sleaze machine, now hard at work attempting to recreate the social conditions of the Cold War.

They were partying like it’s 1999 again last Friday when another WTO protest march took place. This one didn’t directly connote the anniversary of the Seattle trade-meeting debacle but rather noted this year’s meeting in Qatar, a land that doesn’t let such foolishness as freedom or democracy get in the way of making deals and bucks.

Of course, here in the U.S. it’s quite harder these days to demonize something with “World Trade” in its name, without giving an audience all sorts of other unfortunate memories. Thus the banner proclaiming WTC and WTO to be equally disastrous. The rest of the visuals in the march rehashed common protest topics not directly related to word trade (the Iraq sanctions, the drug war, and, of course, Mumia Abu-Jamal).

They’ve torn down the Flag Plaza Pavilion at Seattle Center. Another of the Center’s dwindling inventory of 1962 World’s Fair buildings, it hosted everything from cat shows and rave parties to the touring King Tut artifact show. Bulldozers are now at work preparing the lot for the replacement, Fisher Pavilion (KOMO’s parent company bought the naming rights).

The comforting sights of the Standard Time rainy season in the great PacNW include those of kids defiantly playing at the Center’s International Fountain and a Metro bus’s unwiped windshield portion glistening in another vehicle’s taillight.

THIS HALLOWEEN WAS as restrained and low-key as many media folks predicted it would be, at least at the places I and my crack team of MISC informants attended.

These pix are from the party at Consolidated Works’ (way unfinished) new space, behind Ducky’s Office Furniture on Mercer Street. There, and elsewhere, I and my informants saw the usual Batgirls and Xenas and male maids, plus a heckuva lot of Harry Potters. (Unfortunately, I didn’t get a successful image of the woman dressed as an anthrax envelope.)

The Rendezvous bar’s closing night (see prior item below) was also Wednesday. Our on-the-spot correspondent says it was also a quiet night, devoted more to reminiscences than to rowdiness.

…is this one at Phil Smart Mercedes-Benz. The big flag in the window is of the old 48-star variety. That was the type of flag this country had during a certain previous military conflict, one for which Mercedes-Benz manufactured equipment for this country’s chief opponent.

THIS HALLOWEEN NIGHT marks the demise of the historic Rendezvous restaurant and bar, and of its small but sumptuous Jewel Box Theater.

We were there Friday for a lovely show of dissonant art-noise starring horn meistro Wally Shoup and a group calling itself Gidrah. While they played, beautiful scenes from Toho Studios monster movies played on the Jewel Box’s silver screen.

The Rendezvous first opened in the ’20s, as an adjunct to a company in the same building that outfitted the interiors of movie theaters. (Second Avenue was Seattle’s “Film Row,” where the big studios had their regional distribution offices and warehouses). The Jewel Box inside the Rendezvous was both a showcase for the theater-building company’s wares and a screening room where theater operators would preview new films.

In recent years the Jewel Box has hosted art-film screenings, music-video shootings, fringe-theater shows, literary readings, band gigs of all imaginable types, and AA meetings.

The Rendezvous bar, meanwhile, became one of greater downtown’s last refuges for old-timers and blue-collar drinkers. The recently broken-up local band Dodi was named after the joint’s tuff-but-lovable, beehive-coiffed, longtime barmaid.

Former OK Hotel mastermind Steve Freeborn is taking over the place and promises to reopen it early next year, restored and brought up to code. He also plans some of the OK’s old brand of art exhibitions and progressive performance bookings at the new Rendezvous.

But it just won’t be the same.

…of the Stateside war hype this time around. Here, a woman strolls downtown in the type of full-body veil prescribed by the Taliban. This particular woman might be an actual conservative Muslim, or she might be trying to drum up war support by presenting an image of the Taliban’s repressiveness, or she might be another journalist on some “chador-for-a-day” assignment.

Elsewhere downtown, a dozen or so women stood up at Westlake carrying the name of “Women In Black,” an international group opposed to both the Taliban and the war.

While four blocks away, Deja Vu (a company, and an industry, that historically has depicted governments as censorious threats to porn-lovers’ civil rights) bares its patriotic support toward making the world safe for lap dances.

Some things seen around town recently, starting with longtime street musician Richard Peterson strolling through Pioneer Square and announcing (as he has done several times before) that “this is my last day on the streets.” I met him at the end of a tiring week schlepping print MISCs around town, and could instantly sympathize with the sentiment/threat.

You know that big white fabric rectangle on the back of the Bon Marche parking garage, that had a sign at the bottom apologizing that Salmon Streaming had been suspended due to the power shortage? Now we finally get to see what the heck Salmon Streaming is. It’s a short, looping, silent film projected onto the giant outdoor screen at night. Sponsored by Seattle City Light, it’s a promo film for fishery-restoration efforts near its Ross Dam project in the Skagit Valley. It’s also an odd bit of nature imagery in the heart of Seattle’s most urban-decay-looking block.

The Northwest Bookfest was held again this year in the Stadium Exhibition Center, and again failed to fill even the front room of that vast space. (Curtaining off sections of the room is apparently not practicable or feasible, because the center’s restrooms and concessions are situated along the side walls.)

The result: While attendance was apparently comparable to last year’s event (which had more touring big-name authors), the room energy (and, perhaps, consequently the booth sales) just wasn’t what it had been back when Bookfest took place in the cozy confines of Pier 48 (where, as I’ve oft mentioned, Alice Wheeler shot the cover of Loser at one of Nirvana’s last shows). The pier, alas, is no longer available for public rental. The State Convention Center, whose more flexible floors hosted the 1999 Bookfest, is apparently not available at the right time of year to land a lot of big-time touring authors.

Last year, I proposed revamping Bookfest to fit the space. Since it’s a space built for auto show-type events, I said Bookfest should become more like one of those–a World Of Words Literama, full of pomp and circumstance and balloons and gold lame jumpsuits.

The promoters did successfully attract a few new types of vendors (paper-ephemera dealers, f’rinstance), but still more could be sought out–home office supply stores, computer dealers, college writing programs, grey-sweater and tweed-jacket merchants, magazine publishers (Ed McMahon could even show up to give away some bucks!).

Other possibilities to fill more of the vast room, or otherwise make the thing more exciting: More word-game and puzzle competitions; after-hours no-kiddies-allowed readings from the “good parts” of highbrow novels; Appalachian-style storytelling fests; banks of computers where visitors could add-a-line to ongoing stories; bulletin boards (real, not computerized) where visitors could post index-card-borne answers to pollster-type questions (favorite literary character, first book ever read, etc.); classic poems displayed on big LED-readout walls; maybe even a literary-character costume contest.

Yes, these suggestions go beyond Bookfest’s laid-back-and-mellow dictum of good taste, and that’s part of the point. Reading and (especially) writing are largely solitary pleasures. It’s good to get readers and writers in one big place to share their joys and receive one another’s support. And as a mid-October event, Bookfest marks the beginning of stay-inside season; thus it should be more festive and celebratory, the better to help its attendees stave off Seasonal Affective Disorder and remain cozy and happy thru the dreary months to come.

My ex-Floridian neighbor across the hall, who is wont to ring my doorbell at assorted hours for assorted reasons, rang early Thursday morning.

“Do you KNOW what it is outside?” she proclaimed with baited breath.

“It’s AUTUMN!!

“Do you KNOW how long it’s been since I experienced autumn? Fifteen YEARS! The air is so crisp and biting. It’s not hot. The leaves are becoming beautiful. It’s amazing. You’ve got to appreciate it.”

And I hope you appreciate it as well.

“Children of God Together,” Wednesday night’s peace march from St. Mark’s to St. James cathedrals, was as solemn, united, and respectful as any other of the many terror-attack memorials this past week. What made it different was its purpose. It brought thousands together, not just to remember the victims of the horror but also to try and prevent future horrors with future victims, here and/or overseas.

Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Moslems, Unitarians, a few Buddhists and Baha’is, and assorted others slowly trod the two miles between Seattle’s two most spectacular churches, holding candles and singing spirituals; while supportive bystanders all along Broadway and Madison lifted their arms or held up banners.

Their message is best expressed in this quote from one of the prayers recited by the overflow throng at St. Mark’s:

“Merciful God, we pray for our country, our city, and for Americans everywhere:

“That we may help one another heal from hurt and anger; that we may turn ot one another in love and compasison, rather than fear and misunderstanding; that we may not give in to a spirit of division and the desire to blame and to vilify; for unity and mutual love among peoples of all faith traditions; for strength and wisdom in our witness and service; that you will sustain us now and lead us through whatever lies ahead.”

For further thoughts on this topic, see ‘A religious response to terrorism.’

A UGANDA-BASED relief site offers a list of “Ways to Help America.”

AN EMAIL CORRESPONDENT passed along a quotation from David Foster Wallace’s novel Infinite Jest, concerning things one can learn in rehab:

“No single moment is in and of itself unendurable.”

P-I COLUMNIST ANTHONY ROBINSON WRITES:

“In the longer term, nobility and morality shall be found in restraint rather than in simply unleashing American power and violence in retaliation or retribution.”

OFFICIAL NOTICE: As of Monday, it’s officially OK to complain about Bush again.

PHOTO-REPORTAGE DEPT.: At Friday’s bombing memorial at Westlake, a man made and brought a matchstick model of the towers…

…while a woman took a ball-point pen to the manila envelope she was holding, and made an impromptu sign reading “AN EYE FOR AN EYE WILL MAKE THE WORLD BLIND.”

Later that afternoon, a bagpiper serenaded the people placing flowers at Alki Beach’s Statue of Liberty replica…

…where someone had left a desktop-published plea to “move forward and live well.”

At the firefighters’ memorial in Pioneer Square, more flowers honor the fallen NYC firefighters.

At the memorial floral display in the Seattle Center International Fountain, where hundreds brought flowers and displays, someone placed a homemade flag with the American Airlines logo…

…while a chalk artist made a plea to move beyond calls for vengeance.

PHOTO-REPORTAGE DEPT.: This closure sign at Toys In Babeland expresses the mood on Capitol Hill this evening. In the coffeehouses and bars, everybody’s reading the Times and P-I afternoon street extras, making the same kinds of probably futile speculations you’re probably making, and feeling very quiet and concerned.

A lone protester in Westlake Park chats with passersby, trying to persuade them not to rush to blame the attack on the Afghans, the Iraqis, or Muslims in general. (Right-wing religious radio stations were reportedly spreading the totally untrue idea that Muslims believe they can’t get into Heaven unless they’ve killed an unbeliever.) The other side of the protester’s sign read, “Muslim People Are Good.”

Later that day, some people who’d already been planning a “Peace Day in Seattle” for Sept. 19 held a small rally at Westlake, of about 50-60 people.

A window at the evacuated Bon Marche, displaying the store’s school-fashion promotion and a retro T-shirt bearing a 1945 headline, inadvertantly say what I wish to say to you now.

Gotta have it. Peace.

For 31 of Seattle Center’s 39 years of existence, Bumbershoot: The Seattle Arts Festival has been its biggest annual event.

Devised from the start to encompass the entire former World’s Fair grounds (except the now separately-run Space Needle and Pacific Science Center), it’s also the last of Seattle’s annual lineup of big populist summer gatherings (starting in May with Opening Day of Boating Season and the Film Festival, then continuing with Folklife, the Bite of Seattle, and Seafair).

Bumbershoot’s premise: An all-you-can-eat Vegas buffet of culture. A book fair in one corner, short plays in another, contemporary art installations in another. At the big stages, bigname music celebs. At smaller stages scattered about, secondary performers of all types.

And between everything, the familiar sideshow attractions of Thai-food booths, street jugglers, balloon sellers, and fenced-off beer gardens.

In its early years, Bumbershoot was strictly aimed at a specific socioethnic caste then taking control of the city’s cultural identity–aging, increasingly square baby-boomers. Nonwhite performers were largely limited to boomer-friendly blues bands; mainstage shows were heavy on the likes of Bonnie Raitt and James Taylor.

In the late ’80s, that started to change slightly. Younger, hipper, and more diverse acts have steadily gained their way into the mix.

A bizarre P-I preview story called this year’s lineup “Bumberpalooza,” comparing it to the ’90s Lollapalooza rock package tours. I initially thought the article’s writer used the analogy to claim the festival was becoming more corporate-mainstream.

But the writer, still believing Lollapalooza’s original “alternative” hype, really wanted to say B’shoot had become edgier and more experimental. Fortunately, she was right.

With more hip-hop acts, a whole electronica stage, and a mainstage lineup ranging from Loretta Lynn to G. Love and Special Sauce, Bumbershoot 2001’s fulfilling its name’s promise of an all-covering umbrella of expression.

In these images: Happy crowds; the Book Fair (including, this year, only one small press with the word “heron” in its name!); local collectors’ caches of electric mixers and Harlequin Romance cover paintings; an information booth at the start of the slinking line into KeyArena; Posies legend Ken Stringfellow; a hula-hoop demonstration on the main lawn; and, below, our ex-Stranger colleague Inga Muscio.

Muscio, scheduled to perform on the Starbucks-sponsored literary stage, peppered her half-hour slot with plugs for smaller coffee brands. She ended it with a story about dreaming Starbucks boss Howard Schultz was her S&M slave.

Yeah, this is another piece about the Seattle mayoral election, whose primary round is three weeks away as of today.

Specifically, it’s about a very strange event last night at A Contemporary Theatre, a performance-art circus billed as a candidates’ forum on arts and cultural issues. How strange was it? KIRO-TV news guy Mike James was overheard saying, “This is the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen.”

It started normally enough, with 50 or so protesters staging a sit-in in front of ACT, criticizing city attorney/mayoral candidate Mark Sidran’s “civility laws,” including his ban on sitting on city sidewalks.

But the event inside got off-script once fringe candidate Richard Lee (producer-host of the cable access show Kurt Cobain Was Murdered) stepped on stage, wearing a dress and holding a video camcorder aimed at his own face.

For the next two hours, no matter what question the moderator (James’s former KING colleague Lori Matsukawa) asked, Lee spent his alloted minutes and longer repeating the same rant–that he has supposed proof that Cobain was assassinated (or at least might have been), that city and county officials (including the three candidates at the forum currently in government employ) are involved in a cover-up conspiracy, and that anyone who declines to play along with his verbal attacks is also part of the conspiracy.

In one evening of tiresome theatrics, Lee destroyed any remaining credibility in himself or his “crusade.”

Worse, he made Sidran look sane.

Notwithstanding Lee’s histrionics, the forum’s other six candidates also frequently strayed from the questions at hand, into pre-prepared hype statements.

Sidran, smug and grating as ever, made his usual buzzwords about “civility” and “strong leadership.” His answer to a question about high housing costs pushing artists and arts groups out of town: Give more “incentives” (read: subsidies) to private developers, and improve the highways so it would be easier to push the non-wealthy out to Kent and Shoreline.

Incumbent Paul Schell and front-running challenger Greg Nickels made nearly identical, nearly meaningless smooth talk about supporting the arts as harbingers of cultural diversity in a cosmopolitan city at the dawn of a new millennium and so forth. The big difference between the two: Schell defended his veto of changes to the hated Teen Dance Ordinance, while Nickels called for new initiatives to promote safe live shows for under-21s.

Omari Tahir-Garrett, out on bail after charged with hitting Schell with a megaphone in July, repeatedly brought every response back to a call to recognize the problems of minorities, especially minority youth. Such statements, by themselves, would’ve been good toward reclaiming his credibility within the Af-Am community–but he usually segued straight from that line into his personal cause, the proposed African American Academy project that’s been years in the making and was taken out of his hands.

(This is an admittedly incomplete telling of what’s really a long story. Tahir-Garrett’s career, and his relationship within local black leadership, is much more complicated than that.)

Scott Kennedy, one of the two liberal-progressives in the race, showed up late and kept promoting his non-politician status. He insisted that as a small businessman, a rock musician, and a friend and colleage of artists and arts organizers, he’d be more sympathetic to the arts than other candidates, but didn’t specifically propose much on their behalf.

Charlie Chong, the race’s other left-of-center guy, was soft-spoken and down-to-earth, and stayed the closest to the topics of Matsukawa’s questions. Then, in his closing statement, he called himself an “anti-establishment candidate,” humorously said that a Seattle under Sidran would be like a Stephen King horror movie and a Seattle under Nickels would be like “four years of Bonanza reruns” (a probable reference to The Stranger nicknaming Nickels “Hoss” during the 1997 election), and apparently offerred his support to Schell, whom Chong fought hard against in ’97.

Yes, things can get weirder still. And they probably will.

Scott Kennedy, a software engineer who started the (lovely) BitStar Internet Cafe on Capitol Hill, launched his independent mayoral campaign Sunday evening with a short rally outside the former Denny Way car-rental office where he’s installed his campaign HQ. The 50 or so supporters did little to fill the huge parking lot in front of the office.

The advertised highlight was a gig by a Beatles cover band, the Nowhere Men, playing on the building’s roof. (The real Beatles, as you assuredly know, played on a London rooftop as their final joint public performance–not the right symbolism when you want to be starting something, such as a political career.) The arrangement of the band on the roof and the audience down below kept the audience from getting within 30 feet of the campaign building, except for one dancing fool of a four-year-old boy.

Kennedy’s speech at the event, also performed on the roof, showed inadequate preparation and the lack of seasoned campaign handlers on his team to coach him. He interrupted himself twice, to take some gum out of his mouth and to take an earpiece out of his ear. He didn’t have anyone introduce him (you know, someone who could give endearing personal remarks about a candidate which the candidate himself would pseudo-modestly then demure from).

I personally like many of Kennedy’s stated platforms and ideas, which you can read about on his own site. I just want him to become more effective at stating them, and at the basic nuts-‘n’-bolts of campaigning. After all, voters have always, at least partly, judged a candidate’s potential adeptness as an office-holder by his/her adeptness as an office-seeker.