Monday, October 15, 2007

Part of the highlight of going to InfoCamp this weekend was the act of getting away. and there were many highlights besides the day and a half in the sessions themselves.

West Seattle. Before this weekend I have hardly spent anytime on that side of the bridge. It reminds me a lot of the Westmoreland and Sellwood neighborhoods in Portland. It took a little while to get used to, but in this visit I discovered the importance of three main arterials: Delridge, 35th, and California. The latter full of cool and funky commerce, but still feeling very neighborhood-like.

I walked down to watch the end of a high school football game on an almost-crisp evening. The game had just ended. The victorious team's band was playing "Another One Bites the Dust."

I crossed the street and poked my head into a local watering hole where a cover band had mostly taken over a room with pool tables playing a cover of Santana's Evil Ways. ("Oh Girl, You have to Change, Baby") Somehow that is not what the evening called for.

Instead, I went back to the hotel and discovered a cable station called Classical Arts Showcase Once a week they put out an 8 hour clip show of mostly vintage classical music, opera, and dance performances. I let it play on the television most of the time I was in the room. My favorites were some Paul Robeson clips and the extravagant classical stagings from fifties television shows. I have to write various entities here at home and get this thing on one of our cable access bands.

I also completed Diana Abu-Jaber's memoir "The Langauge of Baklava" and was able to find a Greek restaurant on California and had their Saturday night lambchop special where chops were seasoned with lemon and herbs, similar to her descriptions in the book.

But maybe most memorable was a walk in the dawn fog at the West Seattle Golf Course. The heavy fog created a wonderful mood and it was quite amusing to watch the duffers tee off into a void of whiteness.
posted by well-executed buffet at 5:57 AM
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