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News & ArtsWednesday, December 28, 2011
Books The Future Ain't What It Used to Be
Posted by Paul Constant on Wed, Dec 28, 2011 at 5:29 PM
Future recounts in breathless, magazine-y prose all of the World's Fair's highlights, including famous visitors, (a parade of celebrities peaking, of course, with Elvis, and just about every politician in America at the time with the curious exception of President Kennedy, who only managed a quick drive-through before the fair even opened) attractions, (Belgian waffles became absurdly popular) and over ten million guests from around the globe. Longtime residents of Seattle should find it a wistful treat, and devoted Seattle transplants will enjoy the look at the Seattle that was. For what it is—an exploration of a time when the past became nostalgic for the future—it's just about perfect. (My only major nitpick: I could have used a few more maps of the grounds at the time, because I still don't have any real idea of how the fair was laid out in the space that we now know as Seattle Center.)
The end of Future is a crashing anticlimax. But that's not the book's fault—it's reality's fault. The Seattle Center today is an anticlimax, a hunk of the Fair's potential, wasted and left for tourist bait. In fact, the book leaves Seattlite readers with kind of an acrid taste in their mouths: It's a sad reminder of a time when a young, confident Seattle could create a world-class attraction in a few short years. Their vision of the future makes our present look tiny in comparison.
1
Try and do it today and you morons would be out protesting about the social injustice of a giant phallus needle and how it oppresses womyn of color. You people are what ruined Seattle.
Petty and incapable morons and your stupid identity politics.
Petty and incapable morons and your stupid identity politics.
3
I like looking at it and imagining all that could have been with the center. Nostalgic feelings indeed. I have to wonder why did they remove some things like the globe elevator only to replace it next year. I would like more photos and some extra maps wouldn't hurt either.
I've still got a couple of things from the fair that my mother had. At least I hope I still have them.
I've still got a couple of things from the fair that my mother had. At least I hope I still have them.
4
Not exactly On Topic, but I am watching "Magic Trip" in which they restored the archived footage that Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters took while travelling on the bus Further.
It was deemed unwatchable for decades because the sound sync was off, but now with super dooper computer editing, they made it work.
The tie in?
Their destination on the "trip" was the New York City World's Fair of '64-65...so it's a great number of dialectics...West Coast to East Coast...Small Tech (16mm) meets Big Tech (Unisphere).
Most of all for fans of the Electric Kool Aid it is the actual thing as it happened in real time, sort of (they space it out with a lot of trippiness).
http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/Magic_…
5
@4.. supreme.. i saw it on brownies last summer at a theater in ashland oregon and practically had to be hoisted and carried out when it was done.. magic trip indeed
6
Paul dear, Why are you so bitter this evening? Are you off your meds? Have you done something awful to the rest of the staff? Why is no one else posting?
As for the Seattle Center/c21 fairgrounds, it's really pretty obvious, even to this day, what went where, and that book (which is a real treat, btw) should fill in any blank spots for you. If you want, I'd be happy to put you in touch with the really quite extensive C21 archival information that is readily available on Seattle.gov
And as for the supposed "lost potential" of Seattle Center, just what would you have in its place? I will agree right here and now that the Ye Olde Chihuilly Gift Shoppe is the sort of tacky mistake that only the current clump of Seattle "business leaders" could think was a good idea, but what about the rest?
As for the Seattle Center/c21 fairgrounds, it's really pretty obvious, even to this day, what went where, and that book (which is a real treat, btw) should fill in any blank spots for you. If you want, I'd be happy to put you in touch with the really quite extensive C21 archival information that is readily available on Seattle.gov
And as for the supposed "lost potential" of Seattle Center, just what would you have in its place? I will agree right here and now that the Ye Olde Chihuilly Gift Shoppe is the sort of tacky mistake that only the current clump of Seattle "business leaders" could think was a good idea, but what about the rest?
7
@6, If the business leaders around here were really forward thinking, they would have build a real monorail that went to the Seattle Center as well as other neighborhoods around the city. That is the "lost potential".
Outside of IT, Seattle likes to pretend it is forward thinking, but can't act on it because its soul is myopic.
Outside of IT, Seattle likes to pretend it is forward thinking, but can't act on it because its soul is myopic.
8
Perhaps it's because I'm knee-deep in cocktail hour and feeling nostalgic, but Paul's post touches on something I've been thinking about for ages. What have any recent generations pulled together that accomplished anywhere near what was accomplished in the late fifties to late sixties?
Me and The Future Mrs. Dr. Awesome discuss this a lot, mostly because of the shocking eight-and-a-half year age difference between us. My parents' generation went to the fuckin' moon. With slide-rules, no less! And analog computers! An outstanding example of people uniting behind and supporting a shared idea that no one person would ever be able to achieve, but that together they made happen (and has not happened since).
Her parents' generation invented the Ford Pinto. And Disco.
She claims that the internet and the computer age are the acme of her generation's output, but I disagree. At least in the sixties there was a shared sense of pulling together to achieve a common (and truly magnificent) goal. But really, was creating the internet or Donkey Kong really a great example of people uniting together to create something no individual could ever hope to accomplish? Wasn't the computer age more a result of individuals working individually to make small parts happen; small parts that were not planned to ever mesh together into something great?
Is there anything recent generations have accomplished that is anywhere near the reach, the audacity, and the scope of landing men on the moon?
Me and The Future Mrs. Dr. Awesome discuss this a lot, mostly because of the shocking eight-and-a-half year age difference between us. My parents' generation went to the fuckin' moon. With slide-rules, no less! And analog computers! An outstanding example of people uniting behind and supporting a shared idea that no one person would ever be able to achieve, but that together they made happen (and has not happened since).
Her parents' generation invented the Ford Pinto. And Disco.
She claims that the internet and the computer age are the acme of her generation's output, but I disagree. At least in the sixties there was a shared sense of pulling together to achieve a common (and truly magnificent) goal. But really, was creating the internet or Donkey Kong really a great example of people uniting together to create something no individual could ever hope to accomplish? Wasn't the computer age more a result of individuals working individually to make small parts happen; small parts that were not planned to ever mesh together into something great?
Is there anything recent generations have accomplished that is anywhere near the reach, the audacity, and the scope of landing men on the moon?
9
ALL downtown neighborhoods face sharp increases in traffic, speed hazards, congestion/gridlock with the DBT/MercerWest/AlaskanWay LACK of sensible engineering principles applied. It takes more than a few jerk engineers to mess things up this bad...
I'm afraid for your people who aren't terrified about the prospect of voids forming beneath downtown building foundations. Pro-DBT tunnel people are nuts, severely ignorant, misinformed wrongly, whatever.
More traffic (including freight truck) will traverse 'widened' Mercer Place hill pass homes, apartments and the commercial district that has too much traffic now. Denny Way gets the spillover from Mercer the Battery tunnel spillpver through Belltown, 1st to 5th, traffic before was off the streets. A lot more n/s thru-traffic. Alaskan Way will NOT function as proposed. Rail is imminently sensible there eventually to Interbay marina service, of course.
Your leaders, people, promote reckless, poorly done big DOT ideas that flop in catastrophic terms too f'n often. This is Wsdot's worst season of highway plans & "planners" since the AWV was built to a poor design, piece of shi%, but didn't pose near as much a f'n risk as the horrific risk with the DBT/MercerWest/Way excrement design. It is NOT too late, people....
I'm afraid for your people who aren't terrified about the prospect of voids forming beneath downtown building foundations. Pro-DBT tunnel people are nuts, severely ignorant, misinformed wrongly, whatever.
More traffic (including freight truck) will traverse 'widened' Mercer Place hill pass homes, apartments and the commercial district that has too much traffic now. Denny Way gets the spillover from Mercer the Battery tunnel spillpver through Belltown, 1st to 5th, traffic before was off the streets. A lot more n/s thru-traffic. Alaskan Way will NOT function as proposed. Rail is imminently sensible there eventually to Interbay marina service, of course.
Your leaders, people, promote reckless, poorly done big DOT ideas that flop in catastrophic terms too f'n often. This is Wsdot's worst season of highway plans & "planners" since the AWV was built to a poor design, piece of shi%, but didn't pose near as much a f'n risk as the horrific risk with the DBT/MercerWest/Way excrement design. It is NOT too late, people....
10
@8, it's worth noting that the race to the moon was fueled by massive expense in the name of a quite genuinely felt anticommunist hysteria. Looking back on those times as some oasis of the Best and the Brightest boldly going forth ignores that NASA was part and parcel of the massive public expenditures we happily paid out during that Dr. Strangelove era.
Lately we're not as willing to pay for Big Things, because we're simply nowhere near as fear-stricken as we were back then. On rare occasions we can still be frightened into hurling money at our problems: look at the laughably named War on Terror, for example. It's kept a strong claim on our public purse open for a solid decade, in order to stamp out, not a feeling of terror akin the nuclear armageddon of yore, but a feeling of being a bit anxious that we might have any more guerrilla attacks by fundies.
By and large, no matter how pundits and politicians (and commenters, as illustrated comically @9) try to twist us, we're simply nowhere near as frightenable. If that's not a good thing I don't know what one is.
P.S. The advancement of gay rights during my lifetime is my Man on the Moon, thank you.
Lately we're not as willing to pay for Big Things, because we're simply nowhere near as fear-stricken as we were back then. On rare occasions we can still be frightened into hurling money at our problems: look at the laughably named War on Terror, for example. It's kept a strong claim on our public purse open for a solid decade, in order to stamp out, not a feeling of terror akin the nuclear armageddon of yore, but a feeling of being a bit anxious that we might have any more guerrilla attacks by fundies.
By and large, no matter how pundits and politicians (and commenters, as illustrated comically @9) try to twist us, we're simply nowhere near as frightenable. If that's not a good thing I don't know what one is.
P.S. The advancement of gay rights during my lifetime is my Man on the Moon, thank you.
11
I think about this issue every time I get on the monorail. It was going to be the future of transportation. Now, it's a toy. Car culture is an absolute menace.
15
hey! i was six in 1962 and went to the fair all the time because my dad was one of the PR men. i loved it! belgian waffles and cool rides. looking forward to the 50th anniversary. AND i met Roy Rogers and Dale Evans.
16
Don't worry, Constant, that other republi-con you admire so much, President Obama, has already shown us the future:
Drones over Amerika!!!!
Your future, Constant, you wanted it and you got it, dood....
Drones over Amerika!!!!
Your future, Constant, you wanted it and you got it, dood....
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