Dry Ice Factory

Last night I got together with wrdnrd and the_andy at Showa, a sake bar -- or izakaya -- in Fremont. I had mentioned it to wrdnrd when she posted about her love of sake on her blog. Suffice it to say that they know a lot more about sake then I do, and they gave me a primer over the first glass. The main thing I remember, other than typical alcohol content, is that the more polished the rice used to make it, the better the sake.

Showa is a cozy little place right above Chiso. As the website says, along with sake and cocktails they serve little food plates "like a tapas bar." We got a bowl of pickled vegetables and a couple of skewers of pork belly. I don't remember what the first bottle of sake was, but the second was unfiltered, so it was cloudy and sweeter than the first.

Conversation was good fun, and they told me about a couple of road trips, including the time they drove to Portland in their scooter and sidecar. Took ten hours. Oy. Crazy kids.

Well, more fun to talk about than to do, I suppose. I'd happily do that again. Showa was doing good business last night, so hopefully it'll stick around long enough for us to do a reunion tour.

I woke up in a crappy mood yesterday, but nonetheless I got a fair bit done in the morning, including some writing, hurrah. As usual, I started off with breakfast at Roxy's, and the streets of Fremont were already lined with chairs and blankets that people were laying down in anticipation of the Solstice Parade. It was raining. I was in a crappy mood. Let's call the whole thing off?

The neighbors were setting up down by Nectar, which was too jammed with people for my taste, so when time I wandered down Albion to the same intersection where I've watched many an edition of the parade. The rain had relented, but I was irritated by all the people being people -- saying stupid things, wanting to walk through the space where I was standing, and having a good time when I was not. I had also come down late enough that I missed the nude bicyclists but early enough that I had to wait 45 minutes for the parade to get there. Still, after all that, the parade was the usual fun and worked a bit of magic on my mood. Probably the standout float was a Yellow Submarine, with a full complement of Blue Meanies and Beatles (including one cross-dresser, of course) singing songs from the movie. There was also a pretty great Shakespeare puppet advertising Shakespeare in the Park. I spotted Sarah, who used to be a barista at Bulldog but quit to focus on her acting career -- which includes doing Shakespeare in the Park this summer. Before she quit she invited me to come see Romeo and Juliet, in which she's playing Lady Capulet. Sounds like fun.

After the parade I went to the neighbors' for a BBQ. (This meant I had to miss jackwilliambell's tiki birthday party, for which I apologize, but it seemed like a good day to stay close to home.) The other guests this year were other parents and children from the school the neighbors' daughter attends. With my crappy mood and all, I was dubious about hanging out with strangers, but it was fine. The mothers were all a kick in the pants, in fact, full of bawdy good humor and good-natured flirtation. It was interesting to watch them parenting, as well, as the various kids went through their various spats and stumbles. Other than the almost chilly weather, it was a perfectly pleasant way to spend a few hours out on the back deck. Probably good for me to get out of my comfort zone and rediscover that I can do just fine out there, even if the lives these people lead and responsibilities they deal with are far beyond my capacity. I guess the charismatic drunken uncle role I've learned to play comes in handy in other situations too.

After the BBQ I watched Julie Taymor's Titus (1999) all the way through for the second time (the first was in the theater -- a special showing at the Cinerama with Taymor in attendance). This is her adaptation of Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus, and I can't say I like the story much. I've never read the play or seen another production, so I can't really compare the movie to anything. It's visually gorgeous, and there are a number of powerful scenes. However, the villains are so over the top that I find them very hard to take, and Titus is just about as difficult as Lear to sympathize with. The only truly sympathetic character is Lavinia, and even she is a bit unfeeling in her comments to the Goths just before they exact their revenge on Titus against her. Still, an amazing scene when she begs Tamora to kill her rather than let her sons rape her. But the series of savage atrocities wears on me as it goes on. Terrible people doing terrible things to each other, and a villainous Moor giving mwa-ha-ha speeches worthy of a comic book. Not sure what to make of the final image either. New day rising? Whence this sense of hope and renewal? Well, I give Taymor a lot of credit for taking on such a challenging, difficult project as her calling card in the film world.

The Fremont Universe blog reports that the building housing the Dubliner (an Irish bar) and 23 apartments above has been sold for $4 million (!) and that the buyer is saying they will develop the apartments into a hostel or pensione-style hotel. That could be a potentially very cool development, although I'm curious what kind of demand there is for hotel rooms in Fremont. Would it be aimed at business people? Tourists? People who are in town visiting friends for the weekend?

It seemed to me that a lot more people had already staked out places along the parade route as I made my way to Roxy's Diner this morning at 8am than had done so by the same time last year. The guys who had hauled six couches down to the curbside looked like they had camped on the couches overnight. Yes, it's time for the annual Fremont Solstice Parade (NSFW). An air of happy anticipation is building in the neighborhood. One guy I passed gave me the Hawai'ian shaka sign and said, "Aloha!" Roxy's was already humming with business, and I told the waitresses that I would pray for them. It's going to be a crazy day there at the heart of the storm.

Meanwhile, I'm printing the cover for AmaZed and CorfluZed #4, the Corflu Zed regress report. The plan is to mail paper copies to every member of the convention, including supporting and one-day members. Once the paper is mailed out, the PDF will go up on efanzines.com. I'm really pleased with the zine, which is a good memorial to the convention. I'll post a notice here when the PDF goes up.

It rained hard yesterday evening, but the sun is peeking out now. Maybe it won't rain on the solstice parade. Time to pick some raspberries!

Update: Drums in the distance. The natives are restless.

Okay, this is an example of another thing that drives me crazy. Fremont Universe announces that the Triangle Tavern is closing and being replaced by a '20s-gangster-theme-bar called 9 Million in Unmarked Bills. Now, admittedly this new bar sounds like a place I will stay far away from. But you know, I've stayed far away from the Triangle lately too.

However, the thing that drives me crazy is the comments: "I think my neighborhood is starting to slip away from me." "The Triangle was doomed when Fremont was transformed into a yuppie corporate office park." "This neighborhood is falling apart."

I'm trying to remember when these complaints about Fremont started. It was sometime in the '90s, I think, probably around the time that property prices started going through the roof. In short, it's been going on for well over a decade now. I'm not sure which is more maddening: that these same comments have been repeated over and over for fifteen years, or that the people making the comments on this post have probably only been living in the neighborhood for five years.

It's true that Fremont has been gentrified. The thing is, it's been true for so long it is no longer worth commenting on! This longing for the golden past before gentrification is really, really tired. From a personal standpoint, it's also tiresome because I actually prefer the gentrified Fremont to the golden age Fremont. I like having restaurants and bars and bookstores and record stores (well, only one now) that I can walk to. We could use a movie theater too, damn it. But that's just me. The main point is that Fremont is not slipping away or falling apart. It is gentrified, plain and simple, and has been for quite a while. Get over it.

As I was walking down to Roxy's Deli for breakfast this morning, a guy in a pickup at a stoplight yelled at me, "Hey, isn't there a statue of you right over there?"

"Yeah," I said, "that's me."

We laughed, and he gave me the thumbs up.

In my own really rather surprisingly daring gesture of inner exhibitionism, I went commando to the Fremont Fair today. (I just learned this meaning of "commando" in the past couple of weeks and have been dying for a chance to use it. The things I'll do to exercise my vocabulary!) In that context, it was pretty funny to hear the guys hawking utilikilts claim that it's just like goldfish, if you put them in a bigger bowl, they grow bigger. "C'mon, fellas! Set yourself free. Give yourself some more room. It's just like goldfish!"

My two goals for the day were to eat a Ballard Bros. Cajun salmon burger and to spend some quality time with Art Widner, who was up here with his aboriginal art car to participate in the Art Car Blow-Out. I accomplished both goals, and Art told me a couple of great stories about Francis Towner Laney and Charles Burbee and Elmer Perdue and about the infamous '64 Baycon and the Breendoggle, when Walter Breen was banned from the convention after accusations of pedophilia, and all fandom was plunged into war, and about teh gays in LASFS in the '40s (which I asked about in the midst of talking about Laney's homophobia and sexual insecurity). On top of all that -- the icing on the cake, as it were -- I also saw holyoutlaw and juliebata, Elinor Busby, Marci M., and, right at the end, Art's granddaugther, Magenta, and great grandson, Gus. It always amazes me that I rarely run into people I work with at the fair, although I did spot one from afar today. Good thing she didn't see me letting everything hang out!

The fair actually seemed relatively depopulated today. Even the beer gardens were pretty empty. Quite the contrast from yesterday, I was told, when everybody came for the parade and stayed for the fair. It was pretty danged nice to hang out with friends on a sunny Sunday afternoon at the fair.

Some of the local yokels might be interested in what's going on with the great big pit at 40th and Stone Way. What I didn't realize is that there's also a proposal for a four-story mixed residential and retail building at 39th and Stone Way. It's described as being kittycorner to the pit, so I'm guessing it's that property that has been an endless revolving door of businesses over the past few years. Maybe it's an indoor plant place now? Nothing ever seems to last there.

Interesting, if puffy, piece about Google's new office in my neighborhood of Seattle, Fremont. I think I had heard they were opening an office there, but had forgotten. Not noted in the article, which notes that "more than a half-dozen companies -- ranging from Adobe to startups such as All Star Directories -- have offices on North 34th Street" (I live on 36th), is that Adobe is actually building a whole new building on their campus for further expansion. Also not noted is that the South Lake Union neighborhood (a.k.a. Allentown) is actively courting Microsoft and Amazon, partly because the insanity of the cross-lake commute ("Kirkland is a schlep") is getting worse and worse. The tech companies seem to be looking more favorably at opening offices in Seattle itself. Perhaps it's also because the rents on the Eastside are no longer cheaper than those in the city.

Deep in the puffery about all the "perks" Google offers, we find the reason why I would never want to work for them (or any other high tech company, probably): '"When you spend so much time at work, you should have some input on what it is like," said Peter Wilson, engineering director and director of the Kirkland office.'

To my mind, when you spend so much time at work, you should look for another job. Ha!

This morning as I was walking up 36th after getting a double short latte at Espresso To Go, I ran into a mother walking with her young daughter, who was looking like the whole walking skillset was still under development. The little girl gave me a shy smile, and I smiled back. The mother gave me a big, proud smile. My daughter can walk! About twenty feet onwards, I ran into another mother carrying a child of about the same age as the little girl. About twenty feet after that, I saw a worried, scowling mother with a child of about the same age in a stroller. About fifty feet beyond, I ran into a mother walking with a child who was barely capable of it at all and was definitely getting help at maintaining verticality. Across the street, two parents with a small child, and down the sidewalk another mother and child. Okay, this could not be a coincidence! Must be some kind of toddlers convention in Fremont, perhaps at the Baptist church on 36th. Man, I bet the consuite is a mess!