so i leave town and Christchurch is struck by a major earthquake. nice. of course the 2 events are directly related. i was standing in the long line at customs in San Francisco and tuned into the local NPR station on my iPod and that's the first thing i hear on the news. it was also on the front page of the Seattle Times on Saturday.
first impression of seattle (and i will post pics when i get a chance to load them) . absolutely stunning from the air. the pics may not do it justice but then neither will my words but it really does live up to the State's moniker as the Evergreen State. Mt Rainer looks like a volcano ought to look, y'know like the ones you made out of papier mache at primary school. as for the downtown area, i like it ok.
i met my Canadian acquaintances at a bar called Shorty's on Friday night. the booth tables are made from old pinball machines. we didn't stay there to eat but went to a Japanese grill place which was fine. i was so hungry i was prepared to eat almost anything. after dinner we wandered around downtown a bit and ended up at a bar in a building built in 1889. the doorman shone his torch on my driver's license and said "you gotta be 21 to get in to bars sweetheart". that's the date the license was issued sweetheart. ok i didn't say that. he let me in. some 80s cover band was playing. the real entertainment was on the dance floor. crazies.
i went to bed around 11, lay awake for a very long time despite being exhausted and woke at 11am (i lost my phone at auckland airport so i had no alarm clock) . missed the free breakfast so i went to Starbucks. not really. i went to Zeitgeist coffee and had a 12oz which didn't really get me out of my 'way too much sleep' stupor. then i stumbled around Pioneer Square (if you've seen the 90s grunge flick "Singles" it's in that) looking for a specific ice cream truck which i couldn't see so i jumped on the free bus and headed uptown. bought a phone/alarm clock at Radio Shack for super cheap and then jumped on the monorail to get to the Bumbershoot Festival which was being held at the very tired looking Seattle Center. the line for picking up tickets (they call it Will Call) was about an hour long. many were bemoaning the fact that they'd been 2, 3 or 5 blocks away the day before and could've picked them up then. other than that everyone was chilled and the line seem to move pretty quick. inside were many stalls selling hippie junk and bad street food. nothing compared to Hey Sausage!! i went and checked out Flatstock, a concert poster show featuring the artists and their work. which is for sale. so i'm probably going to end up with a 4th Neko Case print. some really cool stuff. the first musical act I saw was son of Steve, namesake of Van Zandt, Justin Townes Earle. to my ears he didn't start off great but he got better and then i left to go see/hear the author of one of my favourite books and films Rick Moody (The Ice Storm). i thought there'd be loads of people there but there weren't. missed out big time. he was great. started off showing some of some B grade horror flick called The Crawling Hand (his latest novel The Four Fingers of Death is inspired by it) then he read from the new novel and then chatted with the host some prosecutor/lawyer whose name i don't remember and answered questions from the audience. the standard author talk gig. lastly i headed to the mainstage to see Neko Case, who doesn't get the greatest reviews for her live shows but i loved it. actually that would be my 4th time seeing her so seems only fitting that i get a 4th poster. then there was Bob. Dylan. who was cool and very much electrified and who played Tangled Up In Blue and Just Like A Woman and a bunch of other stuff I don't remember or didn't recognise.
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