The Experience

I can't help but think of Mircea Eliade's discussion of epiphanies--those moments where the sacred is revealed to us and we are transformed and transported by the sudden presence of the divine. Such moments aren't necessarily religious (and this is the elegance of Eliade's definition) but rather magical moments separate from our everyday profane existence. And as relics of those moments, memorabilia become strong magnets in the profane world, luring us back--in illo tempore--to that epiphanal instance.

Picture this: it's 1970 and it's raining in Seattle. Jimi Hendrix is playing his last hometown performance. The crew are trying to erect a plastic tarp on the stage to shield the musician from the rain, but he's ignoring them. Standing at the end of the stage, head bent over his guitar, Jimi is lost in his music. His clothing is soaked, sticking to his skin, and the rain is running off his guitar. For a young Paul Allen, standing below in the close press of the audience, the sky has truly opened.

Epiphanies. People build Temples after being witness to such events. Can you blame them?

I am callous to be dismissive after an introduction like that because as much as there are some aspects of the Experience Music Project that strike me as too carefully calculated and tawdry, there is still that moment--thirty years later--carrying resonance for Paul. And you know his staff each has their own epiphany that carries them through the day. God knows I've got mine. And this is probably the crux of why I am torn about EMP. You can't kick a man for being inspired to create. You can't knock him about for driving others to create. You can't fault a man for desiring to build a monument to that singular moment when he wanted to touch the sky.

Frank Gehry was in residence over the weekend, even deigning to mingle with the common folk for a signing of his new book at the EMP shop. This huge, wrist-fracturing tome is chock full of pictures which allow one to come to the conclusion that, while Gehry is a phenomenally gifted architect and visualist, EMP is not going to be remembered as his finest work. Of course, it is pretty damn near impossible to top the Guggenheim in Bilbao, Spain, and we should be glad he didn't attempt that feat. EMP is the next evolutionary step in Gehry's designs--finally breaking free of the conformity of the straight edge and squared corners. Confounding our understanding of traditional structures, the EMP edifice is a new form--an Ideal that our brains and cultures need some time to include in our definition of "building." By the time this adjustment takes place, Gehry--and others who follow his lead--will have moved on. EMP is the first design of truly 21st century architecture.

My totally unscientific random poll of visitors to EMP found a common thread--the sky blue paneling was the least favorite aspect of the exterior coloration. Surrounded by the fantastically light-responsive purple of the Sky Church outline and the burnished bronze swoops of the southern edge, the sky blue bulb just sits wrong and anchors the building in a way that is unsettling. And the physical locality of EMP is a hard sell as well. Bounded by the Seattle Center amusement park, the tree-lined edges of Fifth Avenue, Memorial Stadium and the Space Needle, EMP is nearly hidden from view until you've pulled out of the drive-thru at the McDonald's across the street. As evidenced by the museum in Bilbao, Gehry's designs benefit from space and EMP does not have space. The structure is graceful in its curves as you wander beneath it, but you can't really get a sense of its impact walking under the fold of the outer arms of the building. It is always going to look like a terrifying lump of melted crayons puddled at the base of the Space Needle.

The building gives us something to talk about. And not just talk, but to be passionate about. There is an inherent public relations boon in controversy. Regardless of how you like or dislike an object or a book or an event, the spawning of controversy is a Marketing Director's wet dream. Not a dime has to be spent, yet everyone is talking about your project. And Seattle is definitely talking.

For those who haven't driven past EMP during the three years of construction, you haven't had the opportunity to be confounded by the fact that, until about two months ago, the building looked like it was just going to be the hulk of a derelict spaceship. The enclosing hull of metal plates--each one individually shaped and riveted in place by brass rivets--went on last and before those were in place, we weren't sure just what was being slapped into the architectural sky line of Seattle. Now we know; and, with the Mariners not only surviving without Junior, but playing well, we hadn't really had anything to bitch about. Well, now we do.

The positive benefit of all this kvetching is the outgrowth of curiosity. The next thing you realize is that you're standing on the street corner just beneath the elongated key-shaped window at the northern end of EMP, getting your picture taken with a silver bag of swag from the shop clutched in your paws, wondering where in the hell your Saturday afternoon got to.

But--and this is why he really deserves the honorific of "Visionary"--he's got us paying an admission fee to his Temple. I'm paying, you're paying, we're all paying, and we're going to do so happily. Witness all those folk who bitched about Safeco Field and who can now be found down along the first base line sucking down a brewski as they order nachos and a hot dog during any sunny day this summer. And it's not just an entry fee. The local Seattle paper ran a miniscule sidebar during the opening weekend where they calculated that the average family of 4 would spend over two hundred dollars at their EMP visit.

But is EMP worth the withering path of destruction that it carves through your wallet? If rock and roll has any kind of impact on you, the Top Ramen lifestyle you have to adopt for the rest of the month following your visit may very well be an acceptable price. Thirteen thousand artifacts on display, another 72,000+ in storage. Interactive handheld tour guide systems (fetchingly called "MEG") that are sending the local digerati to Harborview as they drown in their own jealous slaver. (Supposedly over 50 technology patents are pending for innovations that EMP has pioneered in their attempt to bring you the latest in "interactivity.") Disneyland-style flight simulator rides (for the six of us who haven't been to Star Tours yet). An imaging system where you can participate in a rock and roll concert as well as a series of consoles and rooms where you have the opportunity to play on real instruments. From the smashed guitar inspiration of Frank Gehry's design to the gigantic stroboscopic effect of Sky Church, you can't help but be cognizant that EMP exists because rock and roll was more than just a couple of old vinyl records that were played so much that the grooves were nearly worn down. At every kiosk and display, you can see and feel the creation that rock and roll has prompted.

But it is just rock and roll. There is some nod to the blues and to hip-hop, but predominantly the focus at EMP is on rock music. The EMP mission statement is fairly unabashed about the niche it has elected to cover. And--for better or worse--they cover it well. Maybe a little North American-centric, but they do cover it well. I would hope that somewhere in their archives are a few pieces of memorabilia from the Beatles or Led Zeppelin. Rock and roll has certainly contributed to the destruction of barriers between different cultures in the world and it seems somewhat narrow-minded that a Temple to rock music doesn't really give much consideration to the globetrotting nature of the musical genre.

It may be too early to dismiss EMP as a clearinghouse of Pacific Northwest rock memorabilia. The idea grew out of Visionary Paul's desire to share his gargantuan collection of Hendrix memorabilia with the world, so you can imagine that--at the start--the collection will be shifted a little heavily towards the guitarist and those who followed him in our little swatch of the musical landscape. The Hendrix collection is phenomenal. Me, I'm all for throwing shit out when it starts to impede your progress from the couch to the refrigerator, but there are enough folks out there with an impassioned desire to accumulate and/or press their noses up against the glass cases surrounding stuff; for an exhibit that didn't really have any moving parts or flashing lights, there certainly was quite the line for the Hendrix room. And they probably weren't queuing up to see the handwriting translation kiosk.

This little guy is a wonderful innovation in the means of transmitting information about the gathered artifacts, but it is also the bane of any real enjoyment of the journey. I was constantly surrounded by people completely oblivious to the artifacts in front of them because they were too busy staring at their MEG and downloading sound files to their headphones. It's like going to the Louvre and walking through all the galleries with a video camera viewfinder socked up to your eyeball. People are too busy recording events or gathering data to simply have a reflective and possibly transformative moment with a piece of art.

Which Visionary Paul knew was a potential issue with his patrons. Which is why half of the upper floor is taken up by the On Stage digital venture and the interactive Sound Labs. One of the guiding tenets behind EMP is to re-create the explosive creativity of rock and roll. Through the magic of digital video technology, On Stage allows you to pretend that you are the rock star and thousands of screaming fans are crawling all over themselves to hear you sing "Wild Thing." On Stage seeks to approximate the adrenaline-fueled moment of performance without having to pay a thousand itinerant SAG extras to go Moon-Pie over your lip-syncing. Whisk the kiddies (and I'm not just talking about the little ones) into Sound Labs and let them explore musical instruments with cooing, HAL-like computer stations that purport to be able to teach anyone to play an instrument in a few short minutes. Bring some friends and have a jam session. The dusty connotations of "museum" are brushed aside by the Toon Town physicality of the Sound Labs.

But banging on a drum or strumming wildly on a guitar at the direction of a computer screen is not exactly playing in a rock band. As much as these activities try to give you a sense of the real experience of being a rock star, they are but pale imitators. A thousand digitized audience members screaming out for you to sing "Wild Thing" can't really help you sing on-key. Having a computer instruct you in basic chord structure doesn't make you ready to challenge Steve Vai to a crossroads-style showdown. These activities mimic the musical experience, but don't really lend any real sense of why musicians take the road they do. As much as EMP tries to live up to its "Have you ever?" mantra, it misses the mark by failing to realize that as much as our technology will allow us to recreate an experience, it is a recreation and, by definition, a simpler fantasy of the real event.

Maybe as a writer, the allure is lost on me. I'm not a musician--the best I can claim is "failed"--and so perhaps the draw of these artifacts and the reverence afforded them might be lost to me. I try to put it in perspective; I try to consider what might draw me to make a pilgrimage. A dusty house with Joyce's writing desk, a room filled with Shakespeare's pen nibs, the chair Eliot used to sit in and stare out at the garden, the pen Hemingway used to grip so firmly after coming in from shooting his rifle. But even these things have no real impact. They may speak to me of the creative act, but they don't replace it. Creativity is something innate--you're wired for it or not. EMP, glorious temple to rock and roll as it may be, will never replace the creative act. But its final historical impact may simply be this: in fifteen years, the next Kurt Cobain will be in an interview with Kurt Loder from the AOL-MTV-MP3.com music conglomerate and he'll be asked the question of when he knew he wanted to be a rock and roll star. And he'll respond, "At EMP. When I first touched a guitar in Sound Labs and saw what I could do on the computer screen."

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