Urban poetry

Another overlooked shot from Seattle.

I thought I had seldom seen a less promising venue for the creation and/or consumption of quality beer, but I looked at the website, and it is much more charming when it's open for business.

What qualifies it as true urban poetry though is this:

At Peddler, we strive to be a gathering place for beer lovers and support bicycling as an awesome way to get around our beautiful city.

Beer and bicycling!

Saturday reflections

Seattle.

While enjoying my staycation this week, I realized that this is the first year since I was able to start traveling again that I never actually left the United States.

But even though you don't need a passport to go there, I think Alaska really should count as a foreign country. So far away -- I could fly to several places in Europe faster than I could get back to Fairbanks -- so beautiful, so strange.

I'm already looking forward to a new year in travel though -- starting with a most unexpected opportunity to visit Istanbul and points east in April, and a tentative return to Scotland (yes, I've been watching Outlander, and I want to see more of the Highlands) in September.

Urban poetry

I think we can all agree that every bridge (or overpass) ought to have a troll living underneath, but in Seattle they've done something about it.

My sympathies to anyone attempting to fly around the United States today. Although the big storm moved a little more out to sea than expected and we will not be having a white Thanksgiving after all, it was a chilly day with precipitation that couldn't make up its mind between rain and snow and just gave us both, in enormous quantities, from morning to early evening.

Trolls may prefer cold damp hiding places (at least if there are a few delicious billy goats to snack on) but I spent a completely useless afternoon wallowing in the luxury of having nowhere I had to be,  with tea and a fat book and a blanket, and I can assure you I look much happier than this guy.

Saturday reflections

Windows on the waterfront, in Seattle.

Street photography

I took so many pictures in Alaska that I never quite finished going through the Seattle folder.

Here's one I missed. I love how completely unimpressed this man looks, standing in front of the beautiful window display and that gorgeous red dress.

Geometries

Because every building has to have a back door -- how else are the staff going to sneak out for smokes?

Here's the Frank Gehry version, from EMP in Seattle.

Urban poetry

A tangle of trolley lines in Seattle.

Urban poetry

Seattle.

I'm thinking they had some excellent refreshments available at that street fair.

Urban poetry

Seattle.

At first I thought this was an upscale travel agency. Instead, it's the sleekest, most glamorous bail bonds office ever.

Walruses

I've been staying at the Arctic Club, which is now a Hilton, but which was once an actual club.

According to Wikipedia, it was a fraternal men's club for businessmen with Gold Rush or Alaska connections, but it doesn't mention when it disbanded. The building, complete with terra cotta walruses, was built in 1916 but has been a hotel since 2008.

The walrus theme is everywhere, along with a giant polar bear in the lobby and framed portraits of (I presume) the club members -- many of whom look as though they wouldn't survive very long in the Arctic -- lining the walls.

It's a nice hotel. It is, however, very brown.

Pike's

Here's some of what all that money can buy: seafood at the famous fish market in Pike's Place.

This was my favorite place in Seattle -- hundreds of stores selling everything from artisanal pastas, cheeses or sausages, fresh flowers, beautiful produce to every kind of prepared food you can think of.

It's dizzying. I felt very unimaginative buying some peaches and -- well, this is embarrassing -- a sandwich.

Money money money

Every wealthy city is wealthy in its own way.

When I think of Seattle money, I think of technology. I think of Microsoft. And that money is prominent, not just in vanities like EMP, but also Paul Allen's Institute for Brain Science and the Gates Foundation. Geeky guys have geeky philanthropies.

But the big money in Seattle right now isn't Microsoft, it's Amazon. Boeing is still the biggest employer, but Amazon is hiring thousands of new employees and building ten -- yes, ten -- new buildings to put them in. There's now an entire neighborhood called Amazonia. It's made Seattle the fastest-growing city in the United States.

But it's interesting that Seattle doesn't feel wealthy the way London does, or New York. There's no sense of flash, of flaunting, of throwing money around because you can. Money buys exquisite produce and excellent beer, but so much of this city still feels a little scruffy.

I'm sorry I missed this

I like that extra "e" at the end of Faire, which gives it that nice vintage touch. I picture attendees roaming around in elaborate costumes of DOS prompts and 5-1/4" floppy disks.

Urban poetry

I love these manhole covers.

The bathrooms are also fun

Inside EMP

Here are two not great shots of the interior. I didn't actually visit the exhibits; that will have to wait for a return visit when I have more time. Instead I had a nutritious lunch of garlic parmesan fries at the restaurant while I waited for the hop on trolley to take me back to downtown.

Paul Allen does seem to have more fun being a billionaire than anyone else I can think of.

"How about a museum dedicated to music?"

"And how about if we also cover fantasy and sci-fi?" 

"And let's hire Frank Gehry to design it!"

"Cool. Here's a couple hundred million. Make it so."

Grass Blades

I don't like the EMP building that much -- its "in your face" quality, especially in the front, is wildly appropriate as a structure to honor pop culture, but it's exhausting to look at.

This public art installation across the street, on the other hand, I love. It's called Grass Blades, designed by John Fleming, and consists of strands of steel painted to resemble bamboo. It complements the steel curves of the less ostentatious side view of EMP perfectly.

More Space Needle

Here are two very different looks at the Needle: peering out from behind the busyness of the EMP front facade, and reflected twice on the hood and back window of a parked car.

Seattle, take two

I was not myself yesterday.

I was tired, my foot ached from the stupid hills in this stupid city, and I was very upset about one of my co-workers, one of the sweetest people I know, who was badly beaten in a mugging and is in the hospital. (Prayers for a quick recovery, Tom.)

I spent more time looking at my phone to see if there were any updates or if his father had called me back than I did looking around me. Which is absolutely the right reaction, I know -- Tom being okay is much more important than whether I get a good photo of the Seattle skyline. But I also felt that I wasted the entire day yesterday because I didn't really look at the things around me.

So today, I retraced my steps, and went back to most of the places I went to yesterday. This time I actually saw them, and I liked the city so much more. And no surprise, paying attention meant that the pictures I took were better as well.

Here's the space needle again, this time rising behind the unmistakably Frank Gehry-ian curves of Paul Allen's EMP Museum.

This also cracked me up

The mechanical billboard with an appropriately hokey ad for Jersey Mike's subs -- which I'm sure are as good for you as the name suggests -- flipped over to reveal the ad below, for what is apparently one of the offerings in the medical marijuana market. I love how it suggests healthy living and that outdoors Northwest lifestyle; I honestly thought it was an ad for yogurt at first because the yellow "cannabis" was so hard to read.