Typical bewildering signpost
Typical bewildering signpost
  • New photos uploaded - Seattle
    • 03/11/2011
pike market seattlespace needlecentre of the universeMonorailingOccupying
  • Two days in Seattle
    • 23/10/2011
dammit i had a really good opening gambit.
what was it?!?!?!


woohoo wifi on the train! but not the luxurious spaciousness of the canadian one. its more of a commuter thing


so today started off in a miserable drizzle, but more interesting area of downtown.
To get out of the rain i stumbled into the library, which is an amazing building, with a continuous sloping spiral of dewe decimal system covering 10 stories of abstract diamond shaped metal and glass
so picked a couple of random books to read, actually one not so random, being in seattle a biography of bill gates seemed fitting. Although apparently he never gives interviews so who knows where all the authors insight came from!
Secondly a book of Man, Myths and Magic. Which was a very well written explanation of the origin of many cults, religions, rituals and traditions.

My favourite find in this town is the subversive sticker art. Usually keeping law abidingly on the back side of road signs, stickers with all sorts of cartoons and slogans and guerilla ad campaigns, some of political satire, some pleading, some just because, and many doodled over the top of fedex labels.
Second place goes to telegraph poles, which have all been carefully covered in posters from floor to about 10ft up.

Occupy Vancouver! People are pissed off, about all sorts of things, which the "Occupy" protests then gets criticised for not having a cohesive message.
As well as the main theme of the government being more interested in corporations than citizens, this seattle rally focused on police brutality and certain individuals killed in jail.
Big meeting down town (i say big, probably under 1000 people), and then a march, chanting their way around downtown. The police presence was disproportionate and given the anti-police sentiment amongst some of the crowd a little, uneasy? i dunno -
- a difficult situation to judge, i imagine 95% of the police on duty were just there to routinely keep the peace, but this time the demonstration is aimed at their behaviour.
And it raises a totalitarian dilemma, the people pay taxes which pays for the police, but yet the police beat the people down whenever they ask for the government to change something. And since it is fairly well established that corporations pay for goverment policy, (whereas the people pay for it be carried out against them), it all kinda sucks
I was given a newspaper by the communist party. Yup, thats what we're coming to, a situation akin to tsarist russia where all the property and rights are controlled by so few people that the proles rise up. Only the "comfortable" middle class is now bigger and harder to motivate, and the forces of government are infinitely more powerful.
Too many ordinary people still feel that they have something to lose at the moment, so why stand up. Now where getting into that old wisdom "they came to take my neighbour and i did nothing, etc etc, now they come for me and theres nobody else left to stand up"

SO what else did i do?
I've been to the centre of the universe! A signpost in Freemont marks the spot in a neighbourhood full of a diverse collection of outdoor art installations, including a rocket, a large troll eating a car, some topiary dinosaurs, and a queue of people who have been waiting for a bus for 50 years.
The city itself didn't really catch my imagination though (although i was only there for 2 days to be fair). Or maybe i'm just getting bored of the same old skyscrapers, docks, markets and malls.
Oh yeah Seattle has the iconic Space Needle!!! (which i did not go up since it was foggy) And the monorail (which i did go on). Both built for the world science fair in the 1960's, and still the most interesting thing about the city. And the monorail is only like a mile long.
Microsoft. Starbucks. Boeing. That's why Seattle is a prospering city.

And i went out with people from the hostel to see comedy, music, and drink beer.
One of them was a graduate from Notts uni who lived in Raliegh Park, who recently qualified as an accountantn and quit his job, who went to the Darlo matches at Wembley last year and the villa game in the FA cup, who has the same phone as me and plays guitar. But was called Andy. Not Stuart.

Now i'm on the train heading for Portland! Portland is growing in fame within the US and Canada for its music and beer scenes, so in theory i will like it...
  • Seattle
    • 22/10/2011
OK enough recapping, i will try to stay more up to date and in chronological order!


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