NOVEMBER 2017 ARTS COVERAGE LETTER TO THE SEATTLE TIMES

SEATTLE-TIMES

RE: SEATTLE ARTS/ THEATER

https://www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/seattle-fall-arts-2017/

https://www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/state-of-the-arts-how-seattles-growing-pains-are-impacting-the-arts-scene/

I am appalled at the shallow optimism & lack of even immediate hh istorical context of Brendan Kiley’s piece in particular and at the general coverage of the arts here.

To focus on an area a know a bit about: since I came to these part in the mid 90s at least ten theaters have bitten the dust, most importantly The Empty Space, The Intiman & Zaslove’s Bathhouse Theater & the Ahaha.

The most important work of the most important national and international dramatists is not and cannot even be done here – there are too few theaters left to do them.

Seattle’s claimed reputation as a theater town of any kind is entirely undeserved and ought to be confined to that brief aspirational period of the 70s to early 90s when what was called „the greening of America” also infused its color here, but evidently, for a host of reasons, without striking sufficient roots.

I have found the region to be fundamentally unconducive to artistic endeavor, as I carry on more specifically and at great length herehttp://artscritic.blogspot.com/2015/04/seattle-uconducive-to-artistic.html

No doubt the problem is not only a matter of tradition & psychology and of the cast of inadequate characters and the profound provincialitity of the audience but of economics and space pressure. Lacking also nearly entirely is a body of critics. There was such a one for a while in Roger Downey, in that respect a fellow of national talent, Misha Bernson was an adequote reviewer, and then there are a bunch of reporters. Moreover, there is a severe diminution in news outlets that is not compensated, best as I can tell by blog or social media discussion.

But let us not forget the best of the spaces and its inspirational foundation, Peter Brook doing theater in an empty basement space in post WW II Hamburg.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Empty_Space

The Stranger's 2017 Seattle Port Commission Endorsements

 i am a tad astonished at the simple-minded & insufficient reasoning behind The Stranger’s endorsement of several candidates for Port Commissioner;
http://www.thestranger.com/news/2017/07/12/25280819/the-strangers-endorsements-for-the-august-1-2017-primary-election#Calkins



http://www.thestranger.com/news/2017/07/12/25280819/the-strangers-endorsements-for-the-august-1-2017-primary-election#Abdi



http://www.thestranger.com/news/2017/07/12/25280819/the-strangers-endorsements-for-the-august-1-2017-primary-election#Shridhar

that is, The Stranger’s reasoning that the commission as a whole needs to be thrown out since Port Executive Fick turned out to be a fink! which is asking rather more foresight of a commission than can be expected: Fick had a stelar record until he lived up to what his name means when translated into English: he fucked up! 

The last time there was a call to throw the rascals out, to devolve the commission as a whole, in 2006, the time that Creigton got elected, some excellent commisioners bit the dust. the stellar alec Fisken was replaced by that swine Bill Bryant, as The Stranger itself realized in time

http://www.joc.com/port-news/us-ports/port-tacoma/fmc-gives-green-light-seattle-tacoma-port-alliance_20150722.html

and who reminded this one time new yorker ,who became thorougly acquainted with big time New York City & State corruption  (as compared to small potatoes Seattle,) of his very own Abscam congressman downtown sleaze the one time I encountered Bryant at a commissioner election forum.

Nob dwards, a sound Republican,  lost to a candidate who used her Port Commissioner status as a springboard to the legislature, a temptation it appears for many who vie for a Commissioner post. However, at that time, a decade or so ago, there was real reason for dissatisfction with the way the port was run; the state auditor found severe problems:

http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/state-audit-port-of-seattle-illegally-gave-out-47-million-in-raises/

Meanwhile that mess has been cleaned up & 
the Ports of Seattle and Tacoma have formed an alliance

http://www.joc.com/port-news/us-ports/port-tacoma/fmc-gives-green-light-seattle-tacoma-port-alliance_20150722.html

 I became intimately acquainted with the way matters worked at the Port and at the Commission backing a candidate who lost by a whisker to Pat Davis, the one Commissioner who ought to have been tossed &  I then did a first rate interview with the then executive Dinsmore, a formidable personage with a formidable record, and i have interviewed nobel prize winners, no one hereabouts seemed interested, and i have lots of other things to do than work as a freelance snoop. Lloyd Hara, too, was still an excellent commisson member, who has gone on to become  county assessor.  I  noticed that the reporters from the then two newspapers, the P.I.  & the Seattle Times did not ask questions during question time and were mere stenographers of the Ports reports!
i was not sold on Creighton at the time, who beat an ultra environmentalist for his post, but have noticed that he has grown and learned considerably since those days.  Longeviity has its uses! even a genius i doubt learns oversight of a complex such as the port of seattle  overnight. a more differentiated evaluation for these interesting positions and candidates would seem in order, a tad of sophistication will go a long way hereabouts,  especially from a weekly that claims to be the only real paper,  and in sad fact on occasion hereaabouts actually is.