Pacific Northwest fires from space...
Pacific Northwest fires from space... NASA

The "Old West-style" town of Winthrop is all sad because tourism is down, and tourism is down because the wildfires will not stop. The Seattle Times: "...smoke and fire have done what COVID-19 couldn't: clear the streets of town." The tune that best captures the mood of many towns in the capitalocene must surely be "Ghost Town" by The Specials. Indeed: "Do you remember the good old days before the ghost town? We danced and sang, and the music played inna de boomtown."

Well, let's all meet in an honorable bipartisan manner and do some talking about these here wildfires with the President of the United States himself. All this talking has got to do something one day.

CDC to a ton of Washington counties: "You had your chance and you blew it." (The Del the Funky Homosapien headz out there know what I'm talking about.) These are the counties that must now give up and go back to the mask.

Adams, Asotin, Benton, Chelan, Clallam, Clark, Columbia, Cowlitz, Douglas, Ferry, Franklin, Grant, Grays Harbor, Island, Jefferson, King, Kittitas, Lewis, Lincoln, Mason, Pacific, Pend Oreille, Pierce, Skagit, Snohomish, Spokane, Stevens, Thurston, Wahkiakum, Walla Walla, Whatcom, and Yakima.

And it's not black people saying no to the vaccine. Don't blame them for the fifth surge of this fucking virus. It's a whole lot of white people—and Trumpy white people.

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This story is getting so old: "This Mississippi woman's unvaccinated husband is battling Covid-19 in an ICU: 'I wouldn't want my worst enemy to go through this.'"

If you don't want the vaccine, then move to Idaho. Go to a place where you all can get sick together and show Trump as much love as you want.

You can also move to Anchorage, Alaska. That town even has an anti-vax mayor.

Cops saying they can't do and be themselves no more because of these new "black lives" liberal laws. That, if you want to know, is the essence of this KOMO story: "State Patrol says troopers were unable to pursue wrong way driver because of new law."

Guns are also clapping in Magnolia: "21-year-old shot in Magnolia, police looking for suspect." This shooting happened around 1:30 am. The victim's life is reported to be in stable condition. But doesn't Magnolia have its own private police forces or something like that?

And what is Seattle's very own Amanda Knox up to these fine free days? From her recent tweetstorm: "Does my name belong to me? My face? What about my life? My story? Why does my name refer to events I had no hand in? I return to these questions because others continue to profit off my name, face & story without my consent. Most recently, the film #STILLWATER." Good heavens, no. Is that what the movie is about? Matt Damon, what have you got to say for yourself? How did you not know Knox had feelings too? Fox News has the story.

The buyer of the box the Space Needle came in? Boston Properties. The price for the beautiful box: $465M. Brain Miller of the Daily Journal of Commerce has the story about the point at which the big money of today meets classical Miesian architecture of yesterday.

The word on the street is that Boston Properties has been throwing lots cash around lately:

The take in the armed robbery of a West Seattle pot business: "$14,000 in marijuana, $2,500 in cash and [some] cellphones." The robbery happened on July 19. The police believe the suspects are teenagers.

Man all the way from Tukwila found dead in Death Valley. He was trying to hike (which is walking to just walk in a place not good for walking), but the heat got him first. "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me; Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me..."

Crow/Owl beef on the increase:


In the war between crows and owls, I will always side with the owls. I mean, just think of this famous line by the early-18th century German philosopher Hegel: "When philosophy paints its grey in grey, then has a shape of life grown old. The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of dusk.” How ugly this poetic passage would be if Hegel had replaced the image of an owl with that of a crow or a murder of crows? The only right place for that noisy bird in art is that terrifying Hitchcock film.

Let's end with the musical equivalent of Miesian modernism, Robert Hood's classic Minimal Nation.