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RANDOM LINKS FOR 2/13/13
Feb 13th, 2013 by Clark Humphrey

  • Welcome Valentine’s season with Mitch O’Connell’s array of 100 unintentionally “unerotic vintage pin-up modeling photos.” (Note: The hereby linked page is, as the kids say, “NSFW.”) Speaking of the un-erotic….
  • Emily Nussbaum at the New Yorker likes how HBO’s series Girls reinvents the late-night-cable sex scene, that most hackneyed of video tropes, into farcical pathos.
  • The John Keister/Pat Cashman “comeback” show The [206] disappeared after two episodes (which had been shot in one taping, as a pilot). But it will return in April.
  • Would you buy your coffee wherever “The Bitter Barista” works next? (He was fired after his employers found out about his blog.)
  • The Seattle Transit Blog explains when the new Car2Go company is a better value than Zipcar and vice versa.
  • It’s harder to sneak past the NY Times website’s paywall these days, but may are still trying.
  • Things people feel nostalgic for these days include VHS tapes and the manual paste-up of newspaper pages.
  • Sam Tanenhaus at the New Republic explains just how the Party of Lincoln became “the party of white people.”
  • Esquire‘s cover story about “The Man Who Shot Osama Bin Laden” didn’t mention that “the shooter” (the only name the article gives him) does have health care for the next five years, and would have had more benefits if he’d just retired a year and a half after he did.
  • On the 50th anniversary of Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique, Ashley Fetters at the Atlantic unearth’s bell hooks’s argument that the book treated the problems of white “leisure class” housewives as if they were the problems all women faced. Fetters then adds Daniel Horowitz’s 1998 snipe that Friedan, under her birth name Betty Goldstein, had been a prolific NYC radical essayist, and hence knew she was deliberately ignoring the plight of non-affluent women.
  • The Museum of Vancouver is opening an exhibit all about that city’s cultural history of sex. Yes, it includes the black-cat silhouette that signified adults-only movies in B.C.

THE STATE OF THE ART (BUSINESS)
Feb 4th, 2013 by Clark Humphrey

onesothebysrealty.com

Simon Doonan at Slate explains why the massive annual Art Basel Miami gallery convention epitomizes “Why the Art World Is So Loathsome.”

Among Doonan’s complaints: Everything’s become “cool” and distanced to the point of emotional irrelevance; big-money collectors have ruined art as a creative endeavor; pride in craft and skill have disappeared; visual puns and fashion-industry tie ins are overabundant; and “blood, poo, sacrilege, and porn” ceased being shocking ages ago.

And the latter isn’t just a gripe about passé fads. Doonan quotes Camille Paglia’s complaint that deliberately confrontative art simply plays into the hands of right-wing wannabe censors; to the point where…

…art has “allowed itself to be defined in the public eye as an arrogant, insular fraternity with frivolous tastes and debased standards.” As a result, the funding of school and civic arts programs has screeched to a halt and “American schoolchildren are paying the price for the art world’s delusional sense of entitlement.”

Guess what: UK ad exec Charles Saatchi, one of the biggest big-money collectors out there, agrees with most of Doonan’s rant!

This all makes me glad Seattle’s got Roq La Rue as its premier commercial contemporary-art gallery. Owner-curator Kirsten Anderson picks works made with exquisite precision, that express sincere emotions even in their “pop surrealist” tropes. And Anderson not only displays a lot of works by female artists, but works by men and women that display a thoroughly yin sensibility.

RANDOM LINKS FOR 1/30/13
Jan 30th, 2013 by Clark Humphrey

ap via nwcn.com

  • Just like at the Ballard Locks, Oregon’s Willamette Falls is plagued by salmon-hungry sea lions. Local officials’ answer? “A boat crew armed with seal bombs and shotguns loaded with firecrackers.”
  • A Seattle Times headline labels “art” as a waste of state taxpayer money, right up there with legislators’ dry-cleaning bills. This is not the sort of objective reporting of which the Times claims to be a last bastion.
  • You want real spending waste, in a project about, well, waste? Then look no further than Seattle Public Utilities’ new south end transfer station, still not ready months after its ribbon cutting.
  • Another stupid shooting in another local nightspot. How utterly gross. (Here’s news of the benefit for the bar bouncer’s recovery.)
  • I seem to have found out about this story in progress, but the UW’s Women’s Action Commission has created its own theater piece in the tradition of The Vagina Monologues. Only this all-new work is called The ___ Monologues. The title is apparently an attempt to make the work “more trans-friendly.”
  • The Yankees don’t like A-Rod anymore.
  • Marijuana industry trade associations are now a thing.
  • The Wall St. Journal says Microsoft wouldn’t have to take a majority stake in Dell in order to have  a pivotal degree of influence in the beleagured PC maker.
  • The newest version of MS Office comes in a “cloud based” subscription version, which seems to essentially require you to have a never-interrupted Net connection (and, of course, to keep paying).
  • Boeing’s global-outsourcing craze is now, more or less officially, a “disaster.”
  • We must say goodbye to Regretsy, the site that pokes gentle fun at kooky craft products. Its operator April Winchell (yes, Dick Dastardly’s daughter) said the site’s concept had run its course (“now we’re just Bedazzling a dead horse”).
  • Last week, Twitter launched a new streaming-video site called Vine. The premise is people posting six-second, repeating GIF videos. Yes, it’s already been used for porn, and for people taping themselves taking bong hits.
  • Barnes & Noble plans to close perhaps 20 percent of its stores over the next decade. So much for the guys who were supposed to be taking over the industry and driving all the indie quirkiness out of the book biz.
  • Someone’s written a long, detailed critique of the cinematography in Les Miserables—in the character of the Incredible Hulk.
  • “Rei” at Daily Kos wants you to reconsider the Fox News story from last week about Iceland’s official baby-names list.
  • Speaking of which, while my masses-bashing “radical” leftist friends like to imagine Fox News as “the most popular TV channel,” its ratings among adults under 55 are the lowest they’ve been in more than a decade.
  • Jeb Boniakowski at The Awl would like a mega-McDonald’s in NYC’s Times Square, that would serve everything the chain serves everywhere else but not in this country.
  • Public radio’s idea of “humor,” at once bland and cloying, reaches a new nadir in a Chicago station’s make-believe plea for its listeners to breed more public-radio-listening babies.
  • Headline: “Ex-NFL player charged with beating boyfriend.” Comment: Yes, this is still what it takes to acknowledge the existence of gay athletes.
  • Jim Nabors had been rumored to be gay ever since his days of sitcom stardom. Now he’s finally publicly proclaimed it, by getting married in Seattle.
  • The NY Times has discovered something that’s been going on around here for some time—the “permanent temp” economy.
  • One of the last of its kind in the region, the Valley 6 Drive-In Theater in Auburn, will not reopen after its most recent seasonal shutdown. Even sadder, its longtime manager Kieth Kiehl passed on shortly after the decision to close was made. Both will be missed.

beth dorenkamp via grindhouse theater tacoma

ARE THE SONICS BACK YET? (DAY 21)
Jan 29th, 2013 by Clark Humphrey

steve bloom, the olympian via seattlepi.com

No. Though that hasn’t stopped the making of unofficial “WE’RE BACK” T-shirts (see above).

And it looks like the Sacramento city fathers appear to be having a hard time finding enough local money to make a viable competing bid for the Kings franchise.

Art Thiel speculates, though, that one such potential “whale” could be Oracle boss Larry Ellison. Ellison may also want to move the team, but only as far as San Jose. (Cue the Dionne Warwick jokes in five… four…)

Still, Seth Kolloen insists that “barring some unforeseen circumstance, the Kings will play here as the Sonics this fall.”

One of Mike Seely’s last tasks at Seattle Weekly is a speculative piece wondering if the neo-Sonics could field an all-Seattle-connected team (ex-Sonics, ex-Huskies, and local high school grads).

Meanwhile, now that the National Hockey League has come back from the dead (again), there’s talk that, instead of moving a failing Sunbelt team, the league could put an expansion franchise into Quebec City and maybe Seattle, or maybe Quebec and the Toronto suburbs. (Considering how the Toronto Maple Leafs have spent more than four decades fielding cheapskate teams, with team management sitting all fat and cozy in the sport’s largest market, a second team there would be intriguing. But not at Seattle’s expense, please.)

ARE THE SONICS BACK YET? (DAY 14)
Jan 22nd, 2013 by Clark Humphrey

via sportspressnw.com

No. And probably not for three more months (when the NBA’s team owners will probably vote on Chris Hansen buying nad moving the Sacramento Kings). But yesterday’s announcement that a tentative deal was in place led to a lot of unofficial celebration and chatter. Art Thiel describes the potential return of NBA basketball as a “guilty pleasure,” evoking “painful memories” of the original Sonics’ theft in 2008:

In a year or two, a relative few in this market are likely to remember that the team in green and gold used to be the Sacramento Kings. But for some of us, it will be equally hard to forget those thousands outside Seattle’s federal courthouse in the summer of 2008, reduced to helpless chanting in order to save a passion.

Seth Kolloen at The SunBreak looks back at the past five Sonics-less years and wonders if they’ll even be remembered, while he looks forward to the hoops-mania to come:

In the next few weeks, you may notice strange behaviors from local sports fans — penciling out season ticket budgets on envelopes, suddenly taking an interest in a confused 22-year-old named DeMarcus Cousins, standing wordlessly and worshipfully outside KeyArena. Our minds are in the future now too, instead of the past. In about nine months, we’ll be proud hoops parents.

ARE THE SONICS BACK YET? (DAY 9)
Jan 17th, 2013 by Clark Humphrey

No.

But NBA Commissioner David Stern has finally publicly talked about the possibility. He says no proposed sale of the Sacramento Kings to would-be team mover Chris Hansen has officially crossed his desk, and that Sacramento interests will have one last chance to buy and keep the team. That counter-offer may be presented as early as one week from today.

ARE THE SONICS BACK YET? (DAY 8)
Jan 15th, 2013 by Clark Humphrey

and nope, not *this* kind of sonic either.

No.

Though the rumor mill keeps a-grindin’ with word that Chris Hansen’s plan buy and move the Sacramento Kings has been submitted to the NBA’s Relocation Committee.

When, you might ask, would I answer the title question above with a “yes”?

When a sale and move, or a plan for a sale and move, has been publicly announced; then when such a two-part plan has been approved by the league’s Board of Governors (a.k.a. all the other team owners).

Until then, this department might not appear each day; only when there’s something to be said (seriously or otherwise) about the topic.

ARE THE SONICS BACK YET? (DAY 7)
Jan 15th, 2013 by Clark Humphrey

no, not *those* sonics either.

No.

But KIRO-FM, NBA.com, and other sources continue to spread the unattributed rumors of a “clear path” to bring the Sacramento Kings here. These stories also claim the Kings-owning Maloof brothers are “resigned” to not having a management role in the moved team; even though another rumor said Chris Hansen and co. would only buy 65 percent of the team’s stock.

Yet another unattributed story claims details of the proposed sale/move have been forwarded to the NBA’s relocation committee.

RANDOM LINKS FOR 1/15/13
Jan 15th, 2013 by Clark Humphrey

via archive.org

seattlerex.com

ARE THE SONICS BACK YET? (DAY 6)
Jan 13th, 2013 by Clark Humphrey

no, not *those* sonics. (via broadway center for the performing arts, tacoma)

No.

But the unconfirmed rumors continue to swirl. I’m even hearing from people who supposedly know people who work for NBA corporate sponsors/vendors, who’ve supposedly said all systems are go for a Seattle team this fall.

One of the first rumors last week said that no announcement would be made about a new Sonics team until after the Seahawks’ postseason was done. Now that that, sadly, is the case, will we get any real news about this?

ARE THE SONICS BACK YET? (DAY 5)
Jan 13th, 2013 by Clark Humphrey

no, not *these* sonics; via fanpop.com

No.

And still no official announcements by anybody.

But unsourced rumors keep a-swirlin’.

One says some local Sacramento CEOs are putting together an emergency last-minute bid for the Kings. Other Sacramento-area buyer groups have emerged, and been rebuffed, umpteen times in the past three to five years. Another rumor says the Kings’ owners, the Maloof brothers, would rather sue than give up at least some say in the team’s management.

Meanwhile, the Puget Sound Business Journal has unearthed an October interview with would-be Seattle buyer Chris Hansen. In it, Hansen says he wants to ultimately have between four and nine co-owning partners in the Sonics organization. This would, presumably, not include any Maloofs.

ARE THE SONICS BACK YET? (DAY 4)
Jan 12th, 2013 by Clark Humphrey

No.

But the wannabe team buyers released another set of sketches of their proposed arena. It would be complete with a grand entrance slope that could be also used for arts events and even snowboarding on trucked-in snow.

As the hype continues, here is a gallery of classic Sonics action shots. (Warning: this is on a site that also has naked-celebrity photo pages.)

And local freelancer Harry Cheadle writes at Vice.com that “the Sonics’ fate is now in the hands of the oligarchs.”

ARE THE SONICS BACK YET? (DAY 3)
Jan 11th, 2013 by Clark Humphrey

chris hansen and mayor mcginn; mayor's office via crosscut.com

No.

Just another promising but unconfirmed rumor thus far today.

And while there are still no official announcements, a newly-surfaced rumor claims the Sacramento Kings’ bumbling, serial-deal-breaking owners want to keep having a say in how the team is run, even after it’s sold. (Some folk just don’t know when to bow out gracefully.)

Meanwhile, Art Thiel commends Chris Hansen’s team for keeping the politicians largely out of the process, at least publicly.

ARE THE SONICS BACK YET? (DAY 2)
Jan 10th, 2013 by Clark Humphrey

jeremy repanich via vice.com

No.

Not even any real announcements about a pending sale.

What we’d need to see, in approximate order:

  • An official announcement of a pending sale, made by both the buyers and the sellers.
  • Approval of the team sale by NBA Commissioner David Stern, then by the league’s Board of Governors, then by a majority of the other 29 team owners.
  • Separate league approval of a request to move the team to Seattle, by all the above parties. That has to be formally requested by March 1 to take effect this next season.
  • An agreement to use KeyArena for home games for at least two seasons.
  • And, possibly, the league’s dismissal of any challenges by Sacramento city fathers.

(Environmental and legal approval of a new arena does not have to happen for the team to move; but the league would like to be assured that those are likely.)

‘ON THE LINE WITH US NOW FROM OUR WASHINGTON STUDIO’
Jan 8th, 2013 by Clark Humphrey

I’m currently watching, via DVR, the last 11:30 edition of Nightline.

After 33 years, some of them at #1 in the time slot, it’s being moved to 12:30 so Jimmy Kimmel Live can take the earlier slot. That’s happening on a Tuesday, so Kimmel’s “debut” wouldn’t clash with Monday night’s college football championship on ABC’s sister channel ESPN.

The last 11:30 Nightline’s big piece: Barbara Walters with Mariah Carey. The other segments: Making money selling unwanted Xmas presents, and a theater troupe’s one-hour condensed parody of all six Star Wars movies. At the end, cohost Cynthia McFadden simply asked viewers to join her and the gang at the new time slot, as if that new time slot were not in the post-midnight wee hours.

Not exactly a rousing sendoff to a series that began as a temporary series of bulletins about the Iran hostage crisis, and morphed into the Big Three networks’ second big documentary showcase after 60 Minutes. Nightline is being buried without a wake.

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