Fun_People Archive
22 Aug
Stadium Status -- A paradigm for the artistic hipness of the next

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From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Thu, 22 Aug 96 00:03:41 -0700
To: Fun_People
Subject: Stadium Status -- A paradigm for the artistic hipness of the next
	century

Forwarded-by: Dan Tenenbaum <dante@halcyon.com>
From: Letters to The Editor, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, August 5, 1996

STADIUM STATUS
Let's convert old Kingdome into hall for Bulgarian music

    How gracious of Paul Allen to point out all those lovely sites he's picked
out for us to build him a football palace on.
    Once I voted "no" on the idea of local taxpayers funding a baseball park,
but having been overruled by my Olympia misrepresentatives I see the tax till
is still open for looting.
    Very well; but let me, as Allen's American equal, offer an improved
scheme.  Football palaces become obsolete as soon as the next city
gouges its citizens for glitzier digs, so let's corner the market on a new
spectacle.  Make it artistic, multicultural and accessible to gender-neutral
participants of non-Herculean build.
    What could be more so than an annual competition for the Bulgarian
music championship? Bulgarian music far outshines Western culture in its
wealth of scales (about half a dozen, versus Western major and minor) and
rhythms (all the socket wrench sizes like 5/8 11/16 versus Western twos
and threes) and will supply a paradigm for the artistic hipness of the
next century.
    No problem with attendance figures, all the beautiful people will lead
the charge. And so economical! For just a few paltry millions, we can
convert the Kingdome to the Czardome by applying Byzantine architectural
doodads, which will accurately reflect the politics of stadium funding
in general.
    And to benefit the Seattle school system (which Allen's scheme does not),
let it hold the concession on pocket calculators that spectators will rent
to stay abreast of those splendid rhythms.

Hank Bradley
Seattle

© 1996 Peter Langston