By Bob Hicks
While Mrs. Scatter is off in the creeping undergrowth of the northern rainforest hunting gnomes, Mr. Scatter is sitting at home pondering the plausibility of the electric bicycle.
Nay, nay, not just a bicycle. An electric three-wheeler, with neat little wire basket in the rear, a vehicle fit for the odd grocery trek and the regular coffee-shop run. Could it be? Might Mr. Scatter don a plaid neck scarf and houndstooth riding cap and sport about town at a dashing 17 mph, shouting wild-eyed imprecations at crows and chihuahuas to clear out of his path if they value wing and limb? Might this be fitting familial payback for a garden suddenly lurking with warty-nosed painted gnomes?
Ah, one can dream, as Jack does in the play Jack Goes Boating, just opened at Artists Repertory Theatre. And sometimes, if a person dreams a dream that is simultaneously quite large and very small, that dream might come true.
Mr. Scatter is not speaking of Mrs. Scatter’s dream of being featured in an eight-page pictorial splash in Better Gnomes and Gardens. He is speaking of Jack’s simple yearning for his one true love, which, after all, is a common enough dream, if not one all that commonly fulfilled. And that Jack must endure unlikely trips to the hospital, a marital catfight by his two best friends and some excruciating swimming lessons with little relief other than a sturdy patience and the occasional hit off a mighty bong only goes to show that when grace arrives, it’s a good idea to be ready and willing to receive it.
© Rich Iwasaki 2008
One performance coming up is particularly close to me, because I serve on the board of 
Mr. Scatter noticed this pernicious form of marketing and advertising breathlessness beginning as a trickle a couple of years ago, and it’s become an all-taps-open flood. The most ubiquitous torrent is the “major motion picture event” — which means “movie that cost a lot to make and needs to make a whole lot more to recoup its costs,” or just plain “new movie” — but it’s spread to many other areas as well. A rainstorm is a “weather event.” A sale on socks at the mall is a “merchandising event.” A rational political speech is an “imaginary event.” Just kidding on that last one.
On the other hand, the Lord of the Dance 3D ad reminded Mr. Scatter that today is St. Patrick’s Day, and then he recalled where he was and what he was doing exactly three years ago: lying on a hospital operating table, his left leg splayed open like a flounder getting filleted, while a highly gifted surgeon inserted what is essentially an entirely new and artificial knee. Loyal readers might recall this post from March 17, 2009, 
Theoretically. Your canoe might get swamped, but the possibility of such a daring jaunt brings home the essential circularity of living with an 
Mr. Scatter recalls an east side cabaret space on Northeast Broadway between 14th and 15th, on the block where Peet’s Coffee is, and another cabaret on lower Hawthorne, around 20th, where people like Bonnie Raitt and the Flying Karamazov Brothers used to perform before they got famous. The old Sylvia’s Italian Restaurant on Northeast Sandy had a popular dinner theater operation for a while, and of course the legendary Storefront Theatre got its start in a little hole in the wall on North Russell. Maybe we’re missing something, but not much.
It’s not often we call attention to a front-page newspaper story — after all, it’s right there on the front page; how could you miss it? — but today we’re doing just that. If you haven’t looked at it yet, please read 
Read Dobrzynski’s several posts from March 3 and her followup from March 4: It’s a messy situation. And it helps answer a question we raised almost a month ago, in 
A bunch of Eastside galleries have 
There’s more than this to it, but isn’t there always? 
So let’s play catch-up.