Friday, June 08, 2001

THE FIRST COMPLAINT: Over the past six months, I've shot pictures for our upcoming book City Light all over Our Formerly-Fair City, from Rainier Beach to Carkeek Park and from White Center to Lake City. Almost everybody I've talked to on my rounds loves the book idea.

Only a few, mild, expressions of disapproval have been given--a mall cop perturbed when I started snapping inside Northgate's parking lot, a couple of guys walking out of a tavern who thought I was a private eye hired by their wives, stuff like that.

OK, there was the day at Lake View Cemetery when I did the requisite gravesite tour (Bruce Lee, Doc Maynard, the Blethens, etc.) when a tall man with rasta hair boomed at me in a revival-preacher's voice: "Your pictures will never develop, because your heart is not pure!"

But a more direct verbal attack came yesterday. I was shooting away on the sunny shores of Lake Washington, at Mt. Baker beach, when a 40-ish lady strode up defiantly and sternly yelled, "You shouldn't ever do that!"

She'd decided that I wasn't taking scenic shots with comparatively small, faceless figures in them, but was really doing secret close-ups of young children, and refused to believe my denials.

"Don't you know," she scowled, "that the classic profile of a pedophile is a man, alone, taking pictures of other people's kids? Should I call the P.D. right now or what?"

I offered to show her the digital images I'd captured thus far, images with nothing more than tiny, shadowy silhouettes of kid and adult sunbathers against the bright vastness of lake and sky. She refused. I offered to hit the delete button on everything I'd taken at that site. She just repeated her "classic profile" speech. She stormed off to join two other women; I walked off toward my next shooting site of the afternoon, the Colman Park P-Patch.

She was right to care about children. She was wrong about me. And she's wrong to imagine the worst in other people. I could have told her that she, as a black woman, might have a little more sympathy for folks being unfairly "profiled," but I didn't. I could have also told her of at least two other still photographers who were in the vicinity of the beach whom I hadn't seen her go after, but I didn't.

Instead, I went along my rounds worried about what might happen if I were somehow arrested on suspicion and had my images searched for material someone could misinterpret to determine what sex-and-power kinks I might have. Would pictures of tunnels and underpasses mean I was straight? Would images of construction cranes mean I was gay? Would images from Woodland Park Zoo mean I was into bestiality? Would a scene of the Safeco Field roof sliding open mean I was a flasher? Would those gravesite shots imply necrophilia?

And what would a law-enforcement profiler think of my shot of the "golf ball" radar tower at Discovery Park in a rainstorm?

(This article's permanent link)

posted by clark 12:18 PM

Thursday, June 07, 2001

THE FINE PRINT (warning on the side of a Frosted Mini-Wheats box): "CONTAINS WHEAT INGREDIENTS."

IN OTHER WORDS (Rex Stout’s detective hero Nero Wolfe in Champagne for One, 1959): "Nothing is as pitiable as a man afraid of a woman."

ON OTHER SITES: Kindly reader Byron Jones typed "Clark" and "Misc." into a search engine, and found a long-lost dog....

FURTHER PRINT FUTURES: It's official. The print MISCmedia will be reborn as a broadsheet. That's right, a magazine with the page size of a daily newspaper. Not only is it cheaper to print, but it leads to many wild layout possibilities while expressing the show-bizzy punch I've been looking for (so as to balance the sometimes borderline-dry content I've been producing). Look for it later this summer.

posted by clark 2:55 PM

Wednesday, June 06, 2001

THE JENNA-INE ARTICLE: Should First (actually, second-born) Twin Daughter Jenna Bush really get a three-strikes mandatory jail stint for underage drinking in Austin, I'll be the first to sign up for her defense fund. I can see the slogans now:

• "Down a J&B For J.B."

• "I'm A Twin, So I'm Drinking for Two."

• "If You Had My Dad, You'd Be A Sot Too."

She's the first member of that sorry family I've liked since Barbara the Elder (Barbara the Younger is Jenna's sis). The public knows little about her except her in-the-face-of-adversity smile (and the relatively understated portrayal of her on Comedy Central's That's My Bush!); yet much can be inferred or at least imagined from what little we've seen.

It's easy to see her as the classic Evil Twin, the one raised seething with (perhaps self-denied) resentment over the "prettier" first-born fraternal twin getting all the praise and attention, just waiting semi-subconsciously for the first chance to put the ol' patrician family into disgrace.

None of that, of course, is a reason for collegiate drinking, for which one needs no reason whatsoever. Why, even more college kids (of all genders, races, etc., both above and below the magic 21-year mark) drink booze than smoke pot. Jenna's done nothing tens of thousands of other dudes-'n'-dudettes do daily. She just had the misfortune, or ineptness, to get caught twice trying to buy the stuff with fake ID. (As if she weren't one of the most recognizable faces in town.) (And also as if she were in some rich-kids' college town where the authorities are regularly, unofficially told to look the other way at celeb minors' minor offenses.; instead of the mass-market U. of Texas where campus and municipal authorities have been known to behave like, well, like Texas cops.)

So let's form a We Love Jenna movement. And let's turn it into a call for a more rational, less punitive attitude toward 19 year olds who behave like, well, like 19 year olds.

(This article's permanent link)

posted by clark 10:46 AM

Tuesday, June 05, 2001

FROM KISLOVODSK WITH LOVE: I met a very nice lady from Russia after the Mariners game at a downtown sports bar. This is her website. She’s trying to encourage western tourism to her old hometown of Kislovodsk, an obscure resort city in the Caucases. If you’re not planning an overseas vacation this year, she’s also trying to sell hair-care products on the site.

Please do not laugh at her English language skills. That would be cruel to someone who’s trying to make it in an often cruel nation; who’s currently supporting herself via one of the cruelest jobs imaginable (telemarketing for Time-Life Books).

AMERICAN POLITICS EXPLAINED: Democrats want the world to be more like college. Republicans want the world to be more like high school. The latter wish is currently winning.

posted by clark 11:40 AM

Monday, June 04, 2001

Brave New Blog

AFTER WEEKS, nay months, of threatening to do this, I've finally moved the main page of yr. luscious online column to that increasingly popular "weblog" format. This should liven things up a bit, by reviving the hodgepodge of topics and item lengths that characterized the original MISC. print column in its various incarnations.

Since the beginning of this year, the online column had become more of a chore to write every day. While I'd once kept two or even three weeks ahead of my self-imposed deadlines, lately I found myself staying up late trying to find something to say that night that would fit my self-imposed format of 300-800 words a day on one topic.

And I knew if it was less fun for me to write, it would (at least gradually) become less fun for you to read.

I don't know how it'll evolve from here, but I know it should be an exciting ride.

AS FOR THE OTHER HALF of this site, the MISCmedia print mag, the last photocopy-zine issue will be out in two weeks. Some design consultants and I are toying with three possibilities for the new print format--a slick magazine, a paperback "literary joural" thang, and a giant broadsheet (i.e., daily-newspaper size) paper. More info will appear in time.

If you've any suggestions of your own, email me. When you do, lemme know if it's OK to quote your message on the site. We're discontinuing the separare discussion-board pages, which have seriously ebbed and flowed in activity.

AND THE BIG ART OPENING Saturday night was a blast. Folks loved my pix, drank wine, snacked on Tostitos and Belgian gourmet cookies, and had many enjoyable chats with one another.

My exhibition of vivid color photos is still up through July 5 at the Belltown Underground Art Gallery, 2211 1st Ave. in Seattle (just north of the Frontier Room), 10 am-4 pm Mon.-Sat.

posted by clark 12:29 PM

ARCHIVES:

• Past weblog entries.
• 2002, 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.
• Some slightly weird little fiction pieces.
• X-Word crossword puzzles, now with on-screen solving.
• Cyber Stuff, links to cool and/or useful sites.
• A listing of many Things I Like (and a few things I hate).
• The origin and future of MISCmedia.