9 posts tagged “seattle”

A vivid reminder of why I love Seattle came in the form of a lovely sunny day. Granted, with the sun came cold as there were no clouds to encapsulate our fair city, but beautiful vistas were a welcome reminder why I need to pull my head out of the 'funk' clouds.

I found my Remedy on 15th avenue in the form of an eatery/tea shop/lounge/comic library that offers edible and drinkable treats. If you live in Seattle, you should check it out. Go ahead, you deserve it.

 

 

I command thee to check out this website: http://www.sugardelights.com.

 

While you are there, buy a pie. It's for the best of causes: a friend and his wife own a bakery in West Seattle. Being self-employed and getting diagnosed with cancer does not bode well, so they are selling pies to help shoulder the costs of his cancer treatments. John and Steph are amazing, giving folks and it's nice to help them out.

 

If you are:

a) a person that can't eat pie

b) a person that doesn't live in Seattle

c) a decent human being

you can still donate at their website.

 

Go forth and spread good will!

Thanks to my lovely Dylan for summarizing our experience at Decibel Fest, I have one blogging chore marked off the to-do list.

Besides meeting lots of cool people, seeing some amazing music, working to give us a behind-the-scenes peek and a great appreciation for the planning behind the event, one of the funnest parts was getting to witness some interesting fashions. So I'll cut the verbose, wordy bit and just show you some photos I snapped throughout the weekend.

I am so happy the weather has taken a turn for the "worst" in Seattle. I happily welcome back sweater weather with open arms.

Naysayer's say wait until you have lived here for a year. I may still have my newlywed love affair with Seattle, but I know this weather from growing up in the area until middle school and revisited it in my brief, but lovely, two years living in Portland. I am comfortable saying this weather suits me. Don't get me wrong - sunny days lounging in a park are wonderful. But I am happy wrapped up in a blanket reading all the same.

I do have this nagging suspicion though that this weather shift is to blame for making life hard today. Because, well, life is hard today. No need for public theatrics, but I think we all have those days. So when I get home I'll put on a big fluffy sweater, make some tea, play some Katamari, and let this day fade into oblivion.

Ellen Forney, the Capitol Hill and The Stranger (Seattle's alt-weekly) comic darling, presented her book I Love Led Zeppelin to a fully packed and enthusiastic crowd at Bailey Coy Books. Her book, put out by Seattle's own Fantagraphic Books, is a collection of pieces she's done from 1992 to the present, featuring collaborations and autobiographical pieces.

Other comic artists may just do a signing to celebrate and introduce their work. Some artists may book a large town hall for a Q&A and signing (a la Marjane Satrapi in her "Seattle Reads Persepolis" event at Town Hall in June). But no one that I know has ever done something like Ellen. With an admirable amount of gusto she sauntered out in a very tiny skirt with guns in holsters printed on the fabric indirectly announcing how bad ass she is and how everyone should listen up. Everything about her is accessible in her comics: her hairstyle, her love of muscle cars, her love of Led Zeppelin, and her biting sense of humor. But one thing she could never portray is how expressive and commanding she is in performance.

What Ellen did was nothing short of theatrical genius: she acted out four of her stories from her book. With animation of her work. And loud music.

The first vignette was of her piece "The Final Soundtrack". The story is about a dramatic, glamorous death and what should be playing from the crumpled car's stereo, from the perspective of the innocent bystander stumbling across this scene straight from film noir. Ideally, the music blaring should be something grand and dramatic, like Led Zeppelin. But as we all know, there is a small, inexcusable chance you could be listening to something sucky and secretly loved, like Sheryl Crow or Berlin. And through use of various audio tracks and animated scenes of the fiery car crash, Ellen expertly tapped into her inner actress to express the woe and embarrassment of such a tragedy.

Following her first act was her exploration of Seattle's erotic landmarks, like the phallic Key Tower building on Cherry Street and the now retired "Magic Pussy" glowing blue flame on top of the Puget Energy Building. This slightly perverted and sweet ode to Seattle touch many fans in the audience.

Next up was her version of a date with Camille Paglia. Failing in her quest to collaborate with Ms. Paglia, her consolation prize was a date request from the woman who thinks female genitalia resembles a smelly primal swamp. The use of "Immigrant Song" every time her image was on screen was hilarious and well thought out.
Wrapping up the circus was her Margret Cho collaboration, "How to be a Fabulous Fag Hag." Through the wiping of tears through the recounting of always having a back up ride home and occasionally hanging out with someone who wants to sleep with you, it definitely was appropriate for this audience.

Perhaps it was because I knew this was the first of many presentations, I couldn't shake the feeling of this being a momentous moment in Ms. Forney's career. In a field which most disregard as an irreverent art form, she is blazing a new trails by combining theater with art with writing with comedy with music. It's certainly not something every comic artist could pull off, but using her love of performing and laughter to her advantage is nothing short of brilliant and I hope it takes her very, very far.

Perhaps it's just me, but I don't see the merit in sitting around at talking about Project Runway or Rockstar Supernova or whatever reality show is the object d'amor of the week. My co-workers bleed suburban: they all commute into Seattle and after work drive an hour to their safe enclaves of Renton or Burien or Kent. They love their Costco and their Target and their bland ethnic restaurant around the corner that they drive six blocks to pick up their take out dinners to their little boxes of a house that is sturdy and boring. I am not being elitist or even presumputious - these bits are all actually taken out of various conversations I've had with people here.

Maybe I'm jaded because I've lived that life. Or what felt like it anyway. Albuquerque, to me, feels like a sprawling suburb complete with strip malls and gas station convienence stores and bad restaurants with small pockets of interesting things to do and see. The suffocating feeling of being surrounded by bland, boring things made me move to Chicago right after high school, in a desperate move to infuse myself with some culture. Ends up, the college in Chicago was also in a suburb so I high-tailed it out of there too.

Suburban sprawl scares me. The movement of people out of the epicenter of a city to a smaller, less dense, less supported town seems disasterous to me. Thankfully, Seattle always has an influx of people moving from out-of-state to replace the Suburbanites and the city never feels incomplete. I understand the desire to raise your kids in a safe environment and wanting to stretch your dollar a bit more, but what about having your child go to a school with some ethnicity and character? How about NOT using your money to get a cookie-cutter house with a giant yard that will be covered with weeds and go unused, and instead buy-in to a historical building that has some flavor and interesing architecture?

In this place we call home (Capitol Hill, Seattle, Washington) there is an annual festival. It celebrates how awesome we are and how much cool stuff is in our neighborhood. As a relative newbie, I can't necessarily go around saying where I live is better than everywhere else, so this party does it for me. This two day party goes by the name of Captiol Hill Block Party.

To be honest, I wasn't totally excited to go. While walking home from work I noticed helicopters hovering over the Jewish Center, where a very tragic afternoon unfolded. It was a bummer and I wasn't in the partying spirit. And the sky was overcast and seemed like it was reflecting my mood. But I had to buy a ticket for a friend and I wanted to see Band of Horses. So off we went.

We sat on the curb of Pike and 10th being stunned by the metal from HIMSA and did some serious people watching. After an awful cocktail at the Satellite Lounge and worrying about my friend making it on time to see Band of Horses, we ended up running down Pine to get her inside on time. We ended up sneaking her in to bypass the crazy lines while we heard Band of Horses' set start. We pushed our way through the crowd (I know it's a faux pas, but she really likes them) to see the band. If you don't know Band of Horses are Sub Pop and college radio darlings, and I wanted to see them live after hearing a tease of them live during their rehersal for their CD release party at Neumo's back in April during my self-defense class at Home Alive. They ended up being really great live, and ended their set by bringing up saxophone player Kim Gordon to play a Rolling Stones cover.

 

To kill time before Pretty Girls Make Graves we decided to check out a fairly new gay bar named Sugar. It's hard to miss while driving down Pike, with it's gleaming white facade among a row of plain brick buildings. I was previously unsure about it from reading The Stranger's Slog, where the general opinion was it was overhyped and full of suburban women wanting to rub elbows with the fabulous gay men of Capitol Hill. But who can turn down free cover, cute gay men, flashy lights, and a great view of the stage from a second story window table?

With a good amount of cocktails in our system, we enjoyed Pretty Girls Make Graves from our perch above the crowd. Our vantage point gave us the perfect opportunity to mock the hipsters, laugh at the drag queen who danced with the band during their set, and try to play "point at the famous people" in the closed off VIP lounge that we could peer into.

The night ended with the best damn Belgian frites in the world complete with a wallet lost-and-found experience and a street-side serenade by a bespectacled accordian player and a cute guitar player.

Now I'm off for Day 2.

What's the most extreme weather you've been in? A memorable storm? Heat wave? Or something else?

I grew up partly in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I spent a bit of middle school, all four years of high school,  and two years after college being well adjusted to the dry summer heat. The thing about Albuquerque heat is that the dryness makes it totally livable. Except in July. Monsoon season. Out of nowhere a big black cloud will piss over Albuquerque for anywhere from five minutes to an hour. And then as quickly as it came, it would go away again. While the unbearable humidy followed, it usually all evaporated within a few hours. The streets would be dry and the people of Albuquerque would go on about their business forgetting the dramatic weather change of the day.

This all sets the stage for the story I am about to tell you.

SEATTLE IS HOT AS BALLS.

There. I said it. After getting out of work yesterday this wall of hot, humid air immediately took the wind out of me. I usually walk home - it's less than a mile away. Though it's uphill, I figure the exersize is good for me. But yesterday I decided the heat was too much as I slogged my way to the bus stop.  A miserable forty minutes later, covered with the sweaty funk of the other bus riders, I collapsed on my bed in front of my sad fan doing it's best to cool my cranky ass down.

And today? It's still hot as balls.

I think it's time for a mojito.

I have no