"Thank you for staying on the path" signs are planted on each barren patch of paltry scrub. "PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH. TOUCHING CAN HARM THE ART" is proclaimed in front of every monolithic piece of metallic sculpture.

Add to this a major thoroughfare, Elliot Avenue, wafting carbon dioxide into your lungs non-stop, and a hot summer sun pouring down on you, and you have a very unfortunate experience. No one leaves this place smiling, especially not the kids.

I knew when I saw the little signs that I would not be the only Seattleite that disliked it. In the words of an Italian guy from South Philly I once knew, "Seattleites are intolerant to intolerance." And those signs, repeatedly strewn throughout the park (we got it the first time we read it) are intolerant. It is ridiculous to tell people not to the touch public sculpture. Even in New York they don't tell this to people. Kids climb all over the art in Central Park. In Chicago children climb into Picasso's huge horse, "Da Picasso", and actually slide down it. The Seattle Center Fountain, whose spouts don't jet out anymore-before they were perfect for climbing up and projecting paper cups at oblivious tourists. If you are a kid in a city full of public sculpture, you are lucky. Unless you live in Seattle, where my six-year-old kid was told how the natural oils on his hands can harm art.

I had an eye-opening talk with one of the 24-hour security guards, punctuated with loud (yet polite) "Please do not touch the sculpture" every few minutes to random touchers. After a couple minutes it is obvious-the problem is not the people touching the sculpture, it's the guy shouting at them to not touch it. It scares the kids. It detracts from the art.

The guard explains to us how the surveillance cameras can zoom in on a miniscule pimple on my chin. This also kind of bugs me. I explain to the guard how Richard Serra is the kind of artist who wouldn't mind if his rusty patina were touched. The guard reminds me this is private property. The Seattle Art Museum is a non-profit organization, but a private one. I am not on a public space. It all comes together for me.

I wonder why there are only favorable reviews among the critics in Seattle, regarding this private space. I've come to the conclusion that it is sort of an Emperor's New Clothes thing. The Seattle Art Museum is the King here, and the great new gown is the park itself, and the appeasing crowd is us overly politically-correct Seattlites.

The art is world renowned. You can't really say anything negative about that Typewriter Eraser, Scale X, for example. (It's by Claes Oldenburg, don't-you-know.) True, it looks like its going to fall off the side of the hill onto oncoming traffic, but hey, Seattle has an Oldenburg! At least it's on the side of the park where the Great Unwashed can't put their grubby hands on it. Along Elliot and the train tracks there are globby ugly slabs of concrete, holding up the new embankment. Here is how the Stranger's Jen Graves describes them: "They are unprecious concrete slabs stacked and leaning against one another, like a hand of playing cards unfurled... detailed, angled cuts between each of the slabs form a satisfying secret layer of skewed shapes, sculpted gaps."

Oh, come on! The concrete is ugly! It is prison like and ugly, and it will be uglier in August when the unrelenting sun is beating down on us and we realize we have to walk another 15 minutes to shade or an ocean breeze, through the barren Z-shaped gravel path, apparently designed to give the feeling of a "slow transition" between the city and waterfront. It's slow all right. Along the way my kid jumps up on a grey gate, climbs it, and says, "Look mommy, I'm in jail!"

Architect Robert Venturi, in the book Learning from Las Vegas, wrote that the people just want a Disneyland. A colorful, amusing, aesthetically pleasing place, friendly to the family. Modern art cannot just give people this. I understand, and I'm not asking for a mini-Disneyland, but this does not have to be a sad horrid place either. I get that modern art is conceptual, and non-narrative, sure, but this place needs shade; even a temporary tent would work. At least don't yell at us while we're there. (This is Seattle; we don't even honk at each other.)

It is so very un-Seattle-like; there is no characteristic sense of humor. And what is the theme here? I see an office eraser, a rusty monolith depicting a wake, and Paul Bunyan; what do these things have in common? Are these things that people outside of Seattle think of Seattlites? Wait, I'm not done-Where are the local artists? If we are doing some immense project, which spells out our city in sculpture, shouldn't we create it? Why did someone from Minneapolis curate it? Why did a New York firm design it? We don't think of Seattle as offices, Paul Bunyans, and rusty metal. We could have had the Hat and Boots moved here! Perhaps Fremont's troll? A totem pole, the old Lincoln's Toe Truck even. There could have been a waterfall, trees, some shade, and (dare I say?)... beauty.

This is worse than the EMP and the new library combined. Seattle is being untrue to itself. We are, once again, trying to be a "metropolis," but as generically as possible, so as not to offend. Because of this, we do it worse than a real metropolis; and since no one from Seattle is representing us, we do it all wrong.

This could only occur in a place where people are just too "polite" to say no to big-city people. They must be right. These people say that the emperor has on a beautiful frock, which can only be seen by those pure of heart.