10/86 ArtsFocus Misc.

Welcome, art lovers, to the fourth profundity-packed installment of Misc., the pop-culture column recommended by women who used to use powders.

So how ’bout that Moore sculpture in front of the old Seafirst building? Nobody knows who bought it, nobody knows who sold it, nobody knows who owns it now, and on the day it was to have disappeared, its creator did instead. It will be very fitting if the business leaders responsible for selling Seattle’s most famous privately-owned artwork get to remove it; for the absence of “Vertebrae” will show just how spineless they are.

In other news of public spaces without public input, Seattle Center director Ewen Dingwall recently tried to get members of the City Council to give the Disney theme-park people $250,000 to study Center re-development, without such pesky details as open bidding or public hearings — and to sign away to Disney first-refusal rights to any building projects its own study might recommend. Just because Florida gave Disney its own political fiefdom, it doesn’t mean they should expect us to.

LOCAL PUBLICATION OF THE MONTH: Neat Stuff. How could a cartoonist living here in Mellow City come up with such searing commentaries on American sleaze as the hopelessly gauche Bradley family and the definitively bad attitude of Girly-Girl? Perhaps Peter Bagge’s mind was affected for life from formerly living in New Jersey; more likely, though, is that it was affected for life from formerly living in Redmond. Available at all better comic book shops.

LOCAL JUNK FOOD OF THE MONTH: Imitation crab meat. Take some useless bottomfish, some potato paste, some “natural crab flavor,” flaking-and-shaping machines and good ol’ Northwest entrepreneurial spirit, and you’ve got an artificial delicacy worthy of an artificial king. Good with salads, pizza, burgers, Ritz crackers, or just as finger food.

My own hometown, Marysville, already the bingo capital of western Washington, may soon become its garbage capital too. There are two proposed sites for a garbage-burning plant on Tulalip reservation property — exempt from state environmental laws. By the way, my folks have this house that’s for sale….

Another gambling mecca, that cardroom and punchboard capital Vancouver USA, is now without its most famous industrial site and tourist attraction. The General Brewing Co. plant, home of Lucky and generic beer, has been closed and the equipment shipped to China. Wonder how those bottle-cap rebuses look in Cantonese….

The latest annual Erotic Art Show at Ballard’s Salty Dog Studio was a fine collection of over 50 2- and 3-D works, expressing the glories of human animals through witty, folksy points of view. Let’s just hope there’ll be more shows of its type. We need more of these intelligent, healthy rebuttals to the modern-day Anti-Sex Leagues.

Metro’s continuing, unannounced bus stop closures have spawned the latest excuse by cheatin’ lovers and undedicated employees. “I didn’t want to be late, but when I got to the old stop the bus went right by, and by the time I finally found a stop that was working the next bus had gone.”

FALL TV SEASON: Best new show, by far, is Pee-wee’s Playhouse…. USA Today reported that many of this year’s contestants onThe New Dating Game appeared last year on The New Newlywed Game (“the honeymoons didn’t last long”)…. With Cosmos now in syndication, Carl Sagan’s exquisite warnings against nuclear insanity are co-sponsored by Army recruiting.

HOME VIDEO TIP: Beany & Cecil. Eleven tapes of the late Bob Clampett’s early ’60s TV cartoons are now available, and the miracle is that RCA/Columbia Video didn’t run out of good segments in the early volumes. They’re all stunningly innovative, with great stories, characters, dialogue, animation and music (though the theme song repeats Clampett’s name as gratingly often as you may remember). They look especially great compared to the Hanna-Barbera shorts of the period (now on the USA Network), which Clampett savages on Volume 9 with a gangster character named Stogie Bear.

Spin magazine columnist Andrea ‘Enthal has a list of 1,000 Best/Worst Band Names available for a SASE from Box 4904, Panorama City, CA 91412. Local rock groups that made the list include the New Age Urban Squirrels, Prudence Dredge, Napalm Beach, Body Falling Downstairs, No Cheese Please, Nation of Milk, Alien Nation, and Lapses In Grammar (Afforded to Avoid Sexism). Not included: Danger Bunny, Idiot Culture, the Fartz, Springfield Flute, Color Twigs, Limp Richerds.

Finally, we are still looking for the ultimate Helga lookalike. Send a photo or drawing of a pose reminiscent of Andrew Wyeth’s mystery model to Misc., c/o Lincoln Arts, P.O. Box 31693, Seattle 98103-1693 by Oct. 17. The winning model and artist will receive University Cinema tickets. As with Elvis impersonators, the right attitude and grooming count more than physical resemblance.