Concessions

On March 26 of 2000, I watched the Kingdome implode from some weird
overlook in West Seattle. I remember it clearly because: (1) Holy shit!
The Kingdome imploded! And (2) March 25, 2000, was the last time I
smoked pot. At the time, I wasn’t super into smoking pot, but, you
know, it seemed like an okay idea. I was at a party! They were going to
implode the Kingdome! But that night, the night before they imploded
the Kingdome, something odd happened to my brain, which we can go ahead
and call “hours and hours of nonstop crippling terror.” Time was moving
backward. What was happening to time? Where was my foot going? Was my
brain controlling me or was I controlling my brain? I had to curl up in
the fetal position on a lumpy loveseat and wait for morning.
Then we walked to that weird overlook, and then the Kingdome fell down.
My friend who was with me that night still likes to make fun of me:
“What’s the matter, Lindy? Are you afraid to walk backward because it’s
like you’re walking backward in time?” Anyway, pot sucks.

Friday night, at his screening at Vermillion Gallery, experimental
filmmaker Jon Behrens asked us to think about the Kingdome. When
they announced the implosion, he said, he knew he wanted to film it.
But he wanted to do something different—I believe he used the
word “Warholian.” He decided to film “like, the moments before the
actual implosion, for five minutes… then another five minutes of just
the dust cloud.” I laughed. He was not joking. And so, we sat, and we
watched a full five minutes of nothing happening to the Kingdome. He
instructed us to chat, as though we were watching it live. I thought
about walking backward in time. I wonder if there are birds in there, I
thought. I bet a lot of birds died when they imploded that shit. Then
the implosion, the dust cloud, another five minutes. “BIRDS! BIRDS!
BIRDS!” yelled a woman in the audience. I liked it. I was
surprised.

The rest of the program was less accessible. I guess, like most
pedestrian film watchers, I’m hopelessly attached to narrative. An
eyeball. The color magenta. Buildings. Cars in fast motion. A human
toe. CLANG! PING! BOOOOP! CLANG! Parts of it (particularly Behrens’s
hand-painted reels) were pretty and sinister and hypnotic—like I
might walk out and discover I’ve been made into a Scientologist or
something—but an equal amount (particularly the parts with the
eyeball “all looking to and fro! to and fro!” my friend
whispered) felt too close to parody. I couldn’t help thinking: I don’t
know how to tell the difference between this and that cuckoo boat
sequence in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory where
there’s no knowing where they’re rowing. It would probably help if I
smoked pot.

lindy@thestranger.com