Pop Culture Petri Dish

For the first time in eons, yours truly hit Bumbershoot, Seattle's biggest Music and Arts Festival, on Labor Day (Monday, September 3) with pals Bob Suh and Bob Bohan in tow. And a good time was had by all. We were each bound and determined to get our $35 worth (I'm geezer enough to remember balking at a $15 all-day ticket: Ouch), and blessedly, we did. It was a textbook Bumber-experience in almost all the right ways. We enjoyed an only mildly patience-eroding stay in line. Strange/wonderful art/hobby displays (in particular, some nifty Lego constructions by a Seattle Lego-builders' Club) awaited. God bless America, and God Bless strange performance art. Then there was the music... The wait at Memorial Stadium for Brit soul prodigy Joss Stone had most of the crowd (us included) sweating like pigs, but her cool soul stylings were worth the wait . She's barely old enough to legally buy a beer here in the states, but possesses a set of elastic, soulful pipes that owe more