YESTERDAY, we discussed how Y2K survivalists are becoming less communitarian and more capitalistic.

In a way, it's a hopeful sign that more folks are seeing the supposed global computer crash (which I don't think will happen on the scale the scaremonges hope for) not as the end of the world but as just another opportunity to sell stuff.

But I'm still longing for an older, more optimistic future.

The future we were promised at the 1962 Seattle World's Fair, a.k.a. the Century 21 Exposition.

I'm far from the only one with such retro-futuristic longings. Manray, a new predominantly-gay "video nightclub" on Seattle's Capitol Hill (one of several clubs started this year to siphon audiences from ARO.Space), takes its logo from a slightly-altered version of the Fair's logo, an oval with an "arrow of progress" pointing up. (Local label Up Records also uses a version of the fair's symbol.)

Alas, the Manray folks tell me most customers think the logo's just a "male" symbol. But the thought's still there, and that's what counts.

The rest of the bar's equally Jetsonian, by the way, with recessed white lighting, Eames-esque furnishings, and curves instead of corners just about everywhere.

IN OTHER SPACE-Y NEWS, I recently attended what might be the last "Gothic Surf Shop" art party, at a group of four houses in Lower Queen Anne all occupied by visual artists (painters, photographers, installation-builders, and at least one car customizer) and sharing a common back yard.

You can guess the story here: At least one of the houses is being threatened with condo-replacement. The Gothic Surf artists are hoping to pitch in and buy the place, but nothing's certain yet.

Anyhoo, the Gothic Surf complex is a simply gorgeous hidden treasure in the heart of the city. Between the different plywood-based installation pieces, the gardens, the "art cars" parked in front, the separate bar building (reused from an old COCA installation), the woodshop/studio in an old carriage house, and the many art collections inside the houses (including both the residents' own works and collections of such artifacts as bakelite radios and Asian masks), it's a site that should be saved.

It's also a potential harbinger of the future. As the yupscale "urban revival" continues apace, here and in select other urbs across North America, less-than-wealthy creative types may end up living in the older suburbs, the already-decaying beige-rambler subdivisions surrounding airports and ex-industrial sites. It's easy to imagine artsy folk combining their resources to buy up several adjoining cul-de-sac properties and spending the rest of their lives transforming them into neo-art-colony spaces, with folk or "naive" art decorations and self-built alterations all over.

(You can see some other examples of the endangered species that is local, affordable artist's space during next weekend's "Art Detour," a program of self-guided studio tours around town.)

TOMORROW: Some more of this, plus the lost art of seductive architecture.

PITCH IN: This time, I'm looking for cultural artifacts today's young adults never knew (i.e., dial phones, non-inline skates, and three-network TV). Make your nominations at our MISC. Talk discussion boards.

IN OTHER NEWS: Buried in a Macworld story is the factoid that commercial printers these days are making fewer huge press runs, instead churning out "a greater number of small- and medium-volume projects than ever before." Cultural decentralization continues.... Buy a magazine, help a struggling neighborhood institution....

ELSEWHERE: The Virtual Talking Mom (found by Bifurcated Rivets) is ready to give you a virtual scolding any time of the day or night.... The last days of the original Prodigy, inventor of the Banner Ad and the censored chatroom.... Musings on the real nature of creativity....

(For an explanation of the above, look here.)

Recent highlights:

• Y2K scaremongers morph into good-old-fashioned capitalists.
• Some of the supposed worst writers taught to teens; and a few examples of great writing they could be taught instead.
• How to fix baseball? Add another whole league.
• We play with our food again.
• Predictions for next Halloween's top costumes.
• If Olympic athletes can be called "amateurs," so can certain Web-porn models.
• I wouldn't blame Limp Bizkit for the Woodstock rapes, but...
• Some words to live by.
• A 'breast man' faces a loved one's breast cancer.
• How prejudiced are YOU?