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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.â€
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.
ap via nwcn.com
beth dorenkamp via grindhouse theater tacoma
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.)
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.
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.
and nope, not *this* kind of sonic either.
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.
no, not *those* sonics either.
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.
via archive.org
seattlerex.com
no, not *those* sonics. (via broadway center for the performing arts, tacoma)
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?
no, not *these* sonics; via fanpop.com
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.
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.”
chris hansen and mayor mcginn; mayor's office via crosscut.com
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.
jeremy repanich via vice.com
Not even any real announcements about a pending sale.
What we’d need to see, in approximate order:
(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.)
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.