MISCmedia for 12/8/00
City Lite (Tentative Title)

SOME SHORTS TODAY, starting with some great news.

THE NEXT MISCmedia book project is provisionally entitled City Lite (until we think of something better).

It's my tribute to the city I have a lifelong lover's quarrel with, in words (by me) and pictures (by hotshot photog Lori Mason).

It'll be a personally guided tour-in-print of Seattle's people, places, things, group gatherings, workdays, and playtimes.

With any luck, it'll be out in time to coincide with Seattle's 150th birthday in September 2001. If we can get the right financial backing, it'll even be in color.

What we need from you now: Please feel free to send in your ideas of what images, scenes, scenic views, buildings, personalities, signs, and spectacles ought to be in it. Leave your suggestions by email to clark@speakeasy.org or on our luscious MISCtalk discussion boards.

HEY KIDS, WHAT TIME IS IT?: Yep, time for the annual MISCmedia In/Out List, another chance to ask your input. Send in your nominations for the people, places, things, fads, fashions, foods, and socioeconomic constructs you predict will rise or fall in prominence over the coming year (not necessarily what's hot or not-so-hot right now).

NEWSPAPER STRIKE WATCH: The scab dailies are veering further and further rightward. Most blatant example: A Seattle Scab Post-Intelligencer front-page piece on Wednesday which began by quoting a few leftys who'd like a WTO-anniversary event every year--then, after the story jumped inside, audaciously compared it to Detroit's once-annual arson sprees! (As if to imply the WTO protestors were out to destroy stuff, not to construct a more democratic or eco-friendly society.)

All character-defamation aside, an annual celebration of global solidarity/economic democracy/eco-awareness/worker rights/etc., celebrated here and wherever else enough gatherers can gather, could be a great thing. It needn't, and shouldn't, directly have to do with the WTO protests; but can instead use "N30" simply as a convenient date on which to publicly question the machinations of Global Business and to renew the spirit of empowerment and action. In a generation or two, it could even become the next big national holiday.

MONDAY: The rearing of Generation S&M.

ELSEWHERE:

• No products, no employees, no customers, no business plans; nothing but domain names for sale on eBay, all promising smash revenues...
• How would Machiavelli view Recount 2000?...

RECENT HIGHLIGHTS:

• Remembering the Japanese economic threat.
• Remembering the good old days of computer nerddom.
• A guest columnist tries to not get arrested.
• Parts one, two, and three of our WTO-anniversary piece.
• The pioneering electronic music of Raymond Scott.
• A parable in how not to face potential unemployment.
• A short list of of people who aren't automatically better than you.
• A short list of of Things I Like.
• 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.

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