you already know...

you already know... how this will end

I'm a little behind on reflecting upon the concerts I've been to in the last couple weeks, mainly because I've been on vacation and dealing with the ramifications of going on and having been on vacation, and now for the past few days, on an unfortunate deadline (pee-yoo).

That hasn't caused me to forget about the wonderful DeVotchKa show I went to this past weekend (Showbox SoDo). I've been to three or four or so concerts of theirs, and they never fail to entertain, in the bohemian/romantic/classically glamorous rock style that they have perfected as their own. It appears as though they've really come into their own, however, since I first saw them a few years ago.

The show was so tight... granted, it did appear as though they were filming some sort of band-ography as there was a camera hovering about onstage, so that might explain, somewhat, why the transitions between songs, and the lighting, and the choreography was all so smooth. Their usual blend of rock, gypsy, folk, latin, and punk-y sounds serve them well for a rockin' show. I must also say, that as a fan of strings, I was awed by the fact that the usual one violin (Tom Hagerman, you are amazing with your mastery of accordian, keyboard, and violin) multiplied to four and was a veritable symphony. This impressed me greatly. The bold, somewhat Feist-esque lighting also made the show feel grown-up in a posh and dramatic way. Their performance was flawless, so beautiful and moving... but I must say that I missed a little bit the what-the-hell attitude that their previous concerts had, with the copious red wine-drinking during the entire show by Nick (Urata, the lead), the continual thanking of the crowd between songs, the christmas lights on Jeanie's sousaphone, the egalitarian lighting (this time, it seemed to focus nearly exclusively on Nick), and his classic emptying of the remaining wine onto his suit at the end of the performance. I do miss these things, a little bit... However, I'm not sure that I would say they should replace or negate the power and the ambiance that the performance Saturday contained- there was something truly magical about being there. They played two encores, after the first one mesmerized the crowd with a curtain-climbing, Cirque de Solieil-esque, acrobat-ress, they came back for a second. (I was lucky enough to be in a good, close position to get a few good photos.) It was enchanting. They put on a great show, even as they mature along with their increased popularity.

It was just announced that DeVotchKa will be coming back to Seattle to headline the Capitol Hill Block Party in July. Might have to pick up some tickets for that.

As I finish writing this, the girls at the table next to me (I'm internetting away at Ladro as my free wireless disappeared a couple weeks ago), who are not able to see my screen, just randomly mentioned that "Devotchka does a really good job." TWILIGHT ZONE!!!

observation

cats who normally find the bathtub a haven of kitten-sized hideout space will likely be horrified to find it full of bubble bath suds.

new york i love you

(you aren't bringing me down)

When I came to this town for the first time last September, I had little to no preconceived notions or concrete expectations for what New York City would be. For all the opinions and impressions you hear from others of the city, it takes going to a place to understand it. I'm not sure if this makes more or less sense that I would become enamored, but that's how it played out.

Compared to other cities, New York is a constant festival of anything goes; of peoples of all cultures and colors, and backgrounds. The sheer variety of people, and the density with which they're at, is fascinating and lovely. On top of that, the setting is pretty cool; every imaginable type of urban neighborhood and architecture, connected by the subway network. And I'm not sure if it's the weak dollar and the cheap american goods, but there are French people EVERYWHERE right now, which was overstimulation for a francophile like me. At first it was exciting, and then it was just bizarre, having French seem equal to the background of constant English noise in Manhattan. Sure, I was hearing some Chinese, Japanese, Italian, and German, as well, but nothing like the onset of the French on the town. Love the diversity.

I started this post when I was there last week, and now things are a little blurred, unfortunately, and living as a fuzzy glow in a repository of memories. It was a wonderful break; meeting up with old and newer friends in the context of such a dynamic, lovely place. The weather was mostly beautiful, with the flowering cherries, redbuds, and apples in bloom in Central Park, and the whole world out promenading to see them and eachother. Apparently the weather had just turned in the week before my arrival, and the Northeast had just come out of hibernation. It certainly brought me out of hibernation.

I was lucky to leave a rainy Seattle and land in a warm and sunny New York, and leave in a torrential downpour to land in a clear, beautiful Seattle. The good times were following me. As it always should be...

landing and flying

The close to my cross-country flight from New York back to Seattle was lovely. After chasing the sun westward for hours over a smooth, milky atmosphere, it was finally clearly in the lead as the sky grew a deeper shade of blue, and the low angle of its rays from the horizon gleamed brightly on the front of the plane's wing and jet casing to the right out my window.

Though occasionally the plane of white below would thin to reveal a geometric, waffled landscape of mid-western hedgerows dusted with drifts of snow along their bases below, it wasn't until the 737 began its descent that the scene outside became anything more than a simple abstraction of a field of white below, blue beyond, and a sharp slice of metal piercing between (on the upturned tip of the wing, the airline's web address, for immediate reminding of how to arrange yourself such a wonderful experience again- regardless of the fact you won't be online soon, given you're stuck inside the plane). As we got lower, approaching western Washington, the pale of the atmosphere became richly defined: more and more so as we sunk toward it. It was like a children's cartoon, or a television advertisement for whipped yogurt or cream cheese. The blue of the sky and clouds, with the soft, peachy hues of the beginning of sunset, reminded me of a powder room decorated around nineteen-ninety, with colors you'd see in large floral patterns, or beach-themed schemes involving waves and the interior of a clamshell. Oddly, and astoundingly to me, it truly, and sadly unoriginal-soundingly resembled cotton candy. In both colors, pink and blue, the soft mounds were uncannily like the carnival snack, right down to the wispy, transparent tufts pulled gingerly first from the edges.

As the plane lowered to their level and grazed the stratosphere, we sliced through the clouds. As experienced and jaded a traveler as I am normally and tend to behave as, there was a bit of thrill in this experience. I watched the precipitation stick to the curve of the rim on the jet casing, and then streak back over the riveted sheet metal as we re-emerged from a cloud. At some points the voluminous cumulus clouds would stretch out into stratus and cirrus form, resembling unrolled batting waiting to become a quilt, or cotton pulled from a bottle of aspirin.

The light was changing and soon the sun was rocket-pop red, burning itself down into the horizon at a pace noticeable to the naked eye. A minute or so later we emerged beneath the clouds, and there it lay before me- a dusky, sleepy, Pacific Northwest. And something surprising occurred. Immediately after coming through the clouds, I saw the northern edge of what I guessed to be Lake Washington, and was able to identify absolutely everything as we flew over. Juanita beach at the top, Third Place Books nearby, Lake City Way reaching southwest, the Roosevelt Reservoir, North 65th Street, I-5, Greenlake, Woodland Park with floodlit baseball fields, Phinney Ridge, Aurora bridge and Ballard's fishing boats, Lake Union with Queen Anne hill behind, even my apartment building on its south slope thanks to the giant white retirement home two blocks downhill. Flying beyond the Space Needle, downtown, the Port of Seattle's red cranes and the Duwamish River, I truly realized something I'd been coming to for a while: after eight years here, I know this place entirely. It is my place; beautiful, comfortable, home; and full of people, customs, and places I understand.

But what I've also been coming to realize is that right now I need more. I need the new and different and something to learn from and about, before I come back home and let my life settle into a calm course for the long run. I walked off the plane and found out that I had been sitting directly behind the grandparents of a good friend from the town I'd grown up in an hour's drive away, and I thought, yes, it's time for a change. This will always be my home, and I'll come back, but perhaps it's time for me to try something new.

The City

I'm in NYC for the week. And it's way warm; I'm about to sleep in just a teeshirt, which beats the last week I had in Seattle with hail all over the place. A real spring in April, not bad. There are some loud tropical-sounding birds making all sorts of crazy tweets outside and I'm wondering, wow, really, this is New York City? I could handle this. But I'm not going to write any more, as I had four margaritas earlier and I'm not feeling very eloquent or skilled with the keyboard. Ciao for now...

have you wondered...

Or are you even aware...Queen Anne Mafia

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/359354_needle17.html

I've seen these little mysterious flyers around...and I like it. This is my type of people... don't take life, yourself, or your property values too seriously.

(What's also hilarious are the comments people made in response to the article...)

philosophe

An interesting Op/Ed discussion by Stanley Fish on French Theory, touching on some stuff I wonder about- philosophy, consciousness, and "truth" in the context of language, perception and semantics-

http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/french-theory-in-america/

it's all subjective...

so how about the weather

So as I've mentioned, some of us Seattlites joke about the warm weather arriving July 5th. We usually will get a random streak of days once or twice before then that's warm-ish, but we had this strange incident last weekend. Well, I think the whole west coast had a strange weather incident last weekend. It reached eighty here. I hear LA reached 105 or 110 or something crazy. Which, if it was the east coast at a similar latitude, I don't think 80 would be unusual, given their climate patterns and lovely springtimes. However it was low fifties the day before, and fifty the day after. Then, a couple days later, it snowed.

I, personally, am not comfortable with the climate leaping around like that. I'm not sure what's up with the Pacific's winds and pressure systems, but it's relatively unnerving to me. Not only is snow at the end of April annoying (snow before March is fun; after, depressing), wildly vacillating temperatures from day to day are so un-Seattle. Global warming? Perhaps, perhaps not... it's not as if we never had stuff like this happen before the concept was as widely discussed and accepted, but still, I'm used to the hold-out-and-be-stoic-in-the-rain-until-July mantra that Northwesterners adopt. We are stoic... and more prone to depression and suicide, but that's not the point.

It's not snowing here today as it was yesterday, it's actually quite pleasant, but god help me, it had better not get warm while I'm on the east coast next week. That would be sick and wrong, and just my luck.

Beirut

love him... listening to Nantes right now

Well it's been a long time, long time now
since I've seen you smile.
And I'll gamble away my fright.
And I'll gamble away my time.
And in a year, a year or so
this will slip into the sea
Well, it's been a long time, long time now
since I've seen you smile

Which reminds me that I want to go to Nantes, still; it's Seattle's French sister city, after all. Coastal, grey, a bit arty- supposed to be pretty cool.

http://travel.nytimes.com/travel/guides/europe/france/brittany/nantes/overview.html

Mexico vs China

There sure are a lot of people, mostly Latinos, looking for parking and anxiously awaiting the exhibition soccer game at street level. There are a lot of Mexican flags around, but I had to come look it up to know that it was China they were playing. Poor China; perhaps not the best time to be patriotic for them.

But then again Latinos, by nature, tend to be a leeetle more celebratory as a culture- it seems as though China is notsomuch a culture founded on flamboyance or standing out from the crowd, isitnot?