MISCmedia for 11/24/00
Things I Like

IT'S BEEN A WHILE since I did an all-list column, but this and the next will be such.

Today, in a post-Thanksgiving gesture of sorts, are as many Things I Like as I can think of right now (just to placate those readers who falsely complain that I never seem to like anything), in no particular order:

• Snow. Hope we get some in Seattle this winter.

• Discovering a great new band, such as the one listed to the right today.

• Luxuria Music, a streaming net-radio station playing a mix of lounge, jazz, surf, bebop, soundtracks, and other "music to stimulate the entire organism." It's co-curated by The Millionaire, formerly co-leader of cocktail nation faves Combustible Edison.

• Brave New Waves, a nightly program of experimental and just plain odd music from the CBC (and streamed online at 9 p.m. PT).

• The inventive products of North America's packaged-food and fast-food industries.

• Sex. (Well, duh....) Specifically, the kind of sex that brings two people closer together on psychic-emotional-physical levels.

  (Though there's also much to be said for daydreamt fantasies involving Adrienne Shelly in a private railroad car with piped-in Bollywood movie music and a few cases of Reddi-Wip.)

• Harper's Magazine.

• Collecting old magazines, especially the kinds that aren't normally collected (Time, Seventeen, Family Circle).

• Pre-1970 nudist books and magazines. Hard to tell which aspect of these images is more worldview-skewing: The sight of pre-hippie-era grownups (of all ages, genders, and physiques) unabashedly nude, the sight of unabashedly nude grownups in deliberatley non-erotic (sometimes even anti-erotic) poses, or the accompanying text sermons defending the lifestyle as being just as clean, wholesome, and sexually repressed as any deserving aspect of mainstream American life.

  (The new "Imagined Landscapes" show at Consolidated Works includes a group of three hyperrealistic paintings by NY artist Peter Drake based on '50s nudist-mag images, only with suburban front yards for backgrounds instead of open picnic grounds.)

• The new Office Depot at 4th and Pike.

• Unexpected phone calls from people I personally know who aren't trying to sell me something.

• The recent election mess. No, really. It was one of those fun interruptions of the daily grind, and it kept going into ever-further absurdity levels like an Absolutely Fabulous script.

• Glow-in-the-dark green plastic. You can get it in everything from yo-yos to toothbrushes to Burger King promo toys. Heck, you can even get an Apple iBook in it!

• Grocery deliveries.

• Online reference libraries.

• Pyramid Snow Cap Ale.

• Digital video camcorders. The devices which just might yet kill Hollywood. (You're getting me one for Christmas, right?)

• The recent Pac-10 football season, which came down to the last weekend with three (count 'em!) of the conference's four Northwest teams battling it out for the championship--including the long-humbled, now-proud Oregon State Beavers!

• The conveniences of modern life; including but not limited to indoor plumbing, electricity, telephone service, public transportation, trash pickup, a division-of-labor setup wherein many of us don't have to toil out in the fields tending crops unless we want to, digital cable, photocopiers, and electronic bill paying.

• Truly wacky '70s movies, such as Lisa and the Devil or Dolemite.

• Money. Just love the stuff. Wish I had some now.

(If this amused you, there's also a separate Things I Like page on this site, which duplicates almost none of the items on this list.)

MONDAY: Another list, this one of people who aren't really better than you.

IN OTHER NEWS: Thursday saw a skinny scab-edition P-I but no Times, at least not in the downtown, Capitol Hill, and North End neighborhoods of my holiday travels. Today will likely see no Friday entertainment sections; causing movie-time-seeking readers to grab for weekly or suburban papers. What will the Sunday Times look like, aside from preprinted feature sections? We'll find out.

ELSEWHERE:

• A former member of fun-punkers the Dead Milkmen talks about his lifelong appreciation for dumb children's records....
• Too many chain stores?...

RECENT HIGHLIGHTS:

• The Net newscast of complete disclosure.
• How Seattle's big newspaper strike might affect the local media landscape.
• Our fictional sullen barista keeps a secret.
• Target comes to town.
• The coming post-Napster chaos.
• Imagining what could not even possibly be entertaining.
• Hollywood gets even more scared and stupid.
• Why people write, and read, book reviews.
• We meet some of our new fictional alter egos.
• Imagining what might happen if bigtime sports went coed.
• The war on drugs as a drug.
• The election aftermath.
• Should we pity the San Franciscans yet?
• Our first annual pre-election rant.
• The Clash, Motown, and indie-pop ideology.
• A sort-of defense of negative campaign ads.
• Parts one and two of a Halloween look at Bremerton's graveyards and pit-bull factories.
• Pondering why old fake architecture is more fun than new fake architecture.
• The war on drugs as a drug.
• What's to like about Northwest Bookfest.

ARCHIVES:

• 2001, 2000, 1999, 1998, 1997, 1996, 1995, and 1986-94 columns
• Reviews of literature & art, nonfiction & culture criticism, movies & videos, and music & noise
• Longer articles and essays
• The origin and future of MISCmedia