This past weekend, Robert Jamieson discovered Santarchy. The results are, as always with Jamieson, illuminating:
Usually the good folks at Seattle’s Lusty Lady would be ecstatic when Santa Claus drops in.
But Saturday afternoon, when about 200 giddy Santas stormed the lobby, Saint Nick’s “Ho, ho, ho,” left the staff thinking “Oh, no, no, no!”…
…Welcome to the wild and wacky world of “Santarchy” — “Santa” plus “anarchy” — which could be described as equal parts pub crawl, equal parts holiday celebration and a whole lot of fun.
Some commenters on the story are less than pleased.
Posted by Who is John Galt? at 12/20/08 9:40 p.m.
Whats next in the bag of tricks to keep the newspapers in print….a piece of investigative journalism on a fraternity hazing event? What a joke. No wonder newspapers across the country are failing with tripe like this seeing print. Looks like the news editor was asleep at the desk.
Posted by jem1 at 12/20/08 11:06 p.m.
The real horror is the reading public bombasted with the same lamebrain comments regarding this columnist. The same jerks wallowing in their stupid world of arrogant inanity.
It all reminds me of Charles Mudede’s great piece on Jamieson and who he’s writing for:
A writer writes to one person. His/her so-called audience is in fact a single soul. The specific system of words, images, rhythms, phrases that the writer molds and remolds have as their goal the most complete satisfaction of this one reader he/she has in mind. A writer without this goal—a person who reads what has been written just for him/her—does not exist. “This book’s purpose,” writes Ludwig Wittgenstein in the preface to Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, “is achieved if it gave pleasure to one person who read and understood it.” The achievement of that purpose is at the heart of any writing act.
Now that we have established this understanding (that every writer has a reader in mind), we can turn to the popular and award-winning Seattle P-I columnist Robert L. Jamieson Jr. and ask: Who is his one reader?
If you haven’t, you should read Charles’ story.
I thought Jamieson’s piece was poorly written, but very positive. Overall, Santa was pleased. The funniest thing about it was that the article was posted while Santa was still going on!
There’s a similar “dress up like Santa with 200 other people and terrorize – and by terrorize, I mean ANNOY – the streets” event here in San Francisco. It’s weird how Santa can bring out such contempt in all passerby’s, maybe its in their execution; booze, mob mentality, and the advantage of relative anonymity, makes for the most dooshtastic combination.
It’s not so much holiday cheer OR anarchy, but something in between a college sports riot and a Jack Johnson concert. Sorry Santas, even an old lady in my neighborhood asked “why are they doing that?” I don’t curse in front of little old ladies, so I could only shrug.
..or it’s just plain fun
…Until they start tipping an overworked and rightly cranky (most people don’t figure 100 people are showing up to their bar at noon) bartender with LUMPS OF COAL. True story.
Doug, can I get you a tissue.
Have you got anything better to do than talk to the old lady on your street?
I think myself and 1000s of of Santas around the country do.
Perhaps we should watch our TV, shop at WallMart.
I shouldn’t have made out with all those girls, I shouldn’t have travelled up and down the West coast, I should have steered away from the booze and sex.
Crusty old ladies are much more fun to hang out with.
You Rule Doug!
If you need an excuse to party that bad Jelly, go for it. The rest of us are doing just fine. Hope it’s all out of your system until New Years Eve when the REAL pros come back out and show us how it’s done!
Hmmm… no, I talk to all the old ladies on my street, they are very nice neighbors. “Wacky Disco Santas” (ESPECIALLY that one!) with bullhorns hassling locals and passerby’s, not so much. The Santa suit comes with certain obligation and responsibility, one of them is to NOT BE A TOTAL LIGHTWEIGHT… God knows what it took to get than group of’em kicked out a a certain Lower Haight bar, but they managed. Seems petty to hate on a bunch of Santas, but AT LEAST even Critical Mass has a freakin’ point, it’s someone elses turn to be the ire of EVERYONE.
My apologies to all those Santa’s and tipped well and were pleasant to all… that gave gifts and were polite to little kids and old ladies, etc. etc. etc. The rest of you – I’ll be putting together my army of Grinches and red and green paintball pellets*.
*not actually, I’m sure there was some good one’s in the bunch, everyone just finds a mob invading their neighborhood annoying. I was expecting to be flamed a hundred times by now.
Of course we know who Charles’s one reader is: himself, given his penchant for tortured, masturbatory prose.
I would apologize to anyone annoyed by our hundred santa presence…if I had an ounce of sympathy for individuals annoyed at anyone having a good time in their presence.
The one reader he’s writing for is the one reader every writer is writing for: himself, before he found out about what he’s writing about.
We’re just a bunch of pagans taking back our solstice holiday, from you consumers and you Christian thugs. Couldn’t you even create your own holiday? Damn you’re lame.
By the way I still haven’t forgiven you for what you did to my good friend, Galileo. Up yours!
Love,
Santa
Hey, at least he wrote about it! Where is the hard hitting Stranger coverage of the event?
Santacon is a blast! The organizers go out of their way to figure out a good route and to keep the Santi in line. It is good natured fun and my favorite winter tradition!