For Bastille Day 1970, Seattle’s gastronomical scene arranged a dinner party and parade to showcase their establishments, and a freak accident involving an antique cannon loaded with confetti, which during the route had dipped from its skyward trajectory and fired into the crowd resulted in the establishment of the city’s first disco—we learn via the New Shelton wet/dry an all inclusive space—yielding a triumph, fabulous but short-lived and returning to tragedy, from this mishap. 
Among the spectators was one Shelly Bauman, whom at close range sustained life-threatening injuries from the festive munitions and the eponymous (in the tradition of taverns of olde) leg had to be amputated. Confined to a wheelchair for the rest of her life, Bauman sued the municipality and event-planners for a settlement of several hundred thousand dollars and eventually used this as seed money to purchase a former hotel and turn it into a rather fabulous club scene and outreach centre, no expense spared and unapologetically gay, running from 1973 to 1977. Read more at the links above.
synchronoptica
one year ago: the Talking Heads’ second album (with synchronoptica), molecule of the month, social summaries plus misquoting Marie Antoinette
seven years ago: Trump in Paris, personality quizzes plus the composite photographs of Fong Qi Wei
eight years ago: but let us return to our sheep at hand
nine years ago: wiping out the buffalo, assorted links to revisit plus the Greek economic crisis
eleven years ago: making banking scary again plus a visit to Bad Homburg