TO THE STRANGER: YOU NEED TO WAKE UP ALREADY!
ISSUE 1: "HOMETOWN" YUPPIE NEWS
First of all I would like to say that The Stranger does not represent the creative, alternative, avant-garde brilliance of the majority of art-infested Seattle. The only "hometown" it represents is the small and most likely stagnant group of people who write and upkeep the limited vision of the collective literary joke we call The Stranger.
Get some new insightful blood in that stew, guys. If it weren't for the interviews with occasionally interesting and proactive people, the repetitive and visionless jabber of most of the writers would be exposed. You guys need to make MUCH MORE of an effort to keep things REAL and NOT LET EVERY article drown out to some not serious attempt at dark humor or hopeless masochistic void.
ISSUE 2: THE COVER ART
Listen to this: Seattle is a land of artists and musicians galore with creativity like light rays, and the one newspaper that has a chance at recognizing and, God forbid, helping to promote local visual artists chooses to try and be like some kind of New York–art-scene-wannabe newspaper, catering and perpetuating the WANNABE mentality by selecting mostly out-of-state, internationally known artists and hideous graphic design, both of which hardly need to be seen. The WANNABE mentality is eternally perpetuated with the idea that what is necessary is not available and must be sought after.
Hence, YOU are the creators of a popular Northwest newspaper that has the attention of a very good group of people, and you fail to have TRUST in the SEATTLE VISUAL ARTISTS to provide unique and original cover art. HOW IRONIC! Refer to ISSUE ONE when you look for artists because latching onto the next heavily schooled Cornish art-school graduate's portfolio would hardly be an improvement. (Yuck!)
ISSUE 3: S-T-U-P-I-D ARTICLES
To be absolutely blunt, a trait of mine undoubtedly strengthened by reading your paper and the stupor and then rage that accompanies it. I want to say that the majority of the articles presented are S-T-U-P-I-D.
S = Scandalous, in a lacking-distinct-vision way. Good for a soap opera, but obnoxious for a publication with so much room for improvement.
T = Totally Not Fag for good or awesome.
U = Uninformative. (Biased and wordily whorish.)
P= Pretentious. You have some group of hyper-opinionated yuppies working there, huh?
I = Insincere. Fuck! If all of Seattle had their heads as far up their asses with consumeristic ideals as those who create and maintain the limited vision of The Stranger, Seattle wouldn't be Seattle. Get out of your groupies!
D = Documentations.
ISSUE 4: UNEVEN COVERAGE
Has it ever occurred to you that you have 20-some-odd pages of music coverage, and only 5-pages for coverage of the visual arts? You know what this UNSUCCESSFUL COVERAGE of visual arts says to me? IT SAYS:
A) You guys may be too busy maintaining some inside popularity contest to actually look out for or research existing interesting art forms and artists.
B) There could be a prevalent lack of understanding amongst Stranger employees as to what avant-garde, visionary art is and how to approach it.
SOLUTION: LOSE THE COOL ATTITUDE, ASK MORE QUESTIONS, EXPAND YOUR VISION.
Also, about the excessive coverage of musicians: Let's face it, not all pouty-mean-sounding INDIE-ROCK BOY BANDS deserve coverage.
ISSUE 5: SOLUTIONS
Get LOCAL artists on the cover every month! Seriously, it is the least you can do in producing a publication in the center of a LOCAL creative vortex.
GET SOME NEW REPORTERS, or revamp the old ones on: how to find and examine interesting, worldly, proactive, resourceful, social, philosophical, and environmental issues without destroying the sincerity or importance of the issue itself.
APPLY YOURSELF to what you are portraying. Take a closer look at the information, attitude, source, and influence that you are exuding. Are you really what you want your brothers and sisters to be listening to? Is what you write really how you feel? I find it infinitely hard to believe that you all are as shallow as the image that you portray.
If you can find no higher vision of literary documentation after looking in your center or creatively utilizing the discomfort that this Letter of Truth has brought you, you might all be better off abstaining from saying anything at all.
Julie Starling and Attila Morpheus
Seattle's Own Humble Artists of the New Millennium
