AUTHOR ARCHIVES :

People I Saw at the Nine Inch Nails Show, Part One

So the Nine Inch Nails show last Friday was good. Great. Amazing. Really, I can’t say enough good things about it, so I’ll just refer you to someone else’s version of the same sentiment and leave it at that.

But the other great part of it, the part I didn’t anticipate? The people. My god, the people! You know that feeling when you’re walking toward a show, and you start recognizing your crowd as you get within a couple of blocks? The area around Key Arena was thick with it – a thousand men in black hoodies, battered 20-year-old NIN tour shirts worn with reverence, and so many people summoning their 1994 selves.

So while I loved the show – I loved the show! – the part that really turned my heart was the people watching. Everyone was having a stellar night.

I was so struck I came straight home (after cocktails, I mean) and drew. Here’s the first installment of two of People of Nine Inch Nails. (I can’t call it Nine Inch Nails Parking Lot, as I suspect a majority of us took the bus to get there.)

nin 1This is the first person I saw. Put me immediately at ease. Sometimes it’s nice to see someone and to have a good idea of about half of the contents of their bookshelves. Here, I see much Neil Gaiman, some obscure philosophy, and the earlier works of Anne Rice. Fine company in a diner for sure. Continue reading →

Why, Honolulu?

Hawaii Interstate SignWhat state does this interstate go to?

measles bus fishWhy was this cartoon fish given smallpox? Is it meant to be cute smallpox?

sheraton sand sculptureWhy don’t I live somewhere that has a regularly updated sand sculpture in the lobby? Where are my life choices lacking?

sheraton sandmanAnd just what is he smirking at?

conedWhy don’t all states use “coned” as a verb on street signs? It’s delightful.

diamond head end of trail signWho made this sign necessary?

dog in bagWhat this dog? Why? How?

honolulu statue of libertyWhose idea was this?

honolulu tourist busesAre the trolleys just to convey the most “Americaness” possible in a single mode of transportation? What cultural thing is it exactly that makes cartoon-covered open-air buses a preferred method of transportation? (This is one version of many.)

shooting clubWhat on earth must we look like to other countries?

hawaiian airlines safetyWhy are region/country-specific airlines so rad?

honolulu dog clothes 1How awesome is this dog?

dog clothes 2Seriously, how awesome?

hnl airport lei standWhat would it take for every airport to have a lei stand?

Whew.

Previously in Hawaii: Valuable Travel Tips for Your Waikiki Vacation and Hanauma Bay: The Most Dangerous Place on Earth. Still to come: in which we go hiking and get covered with mud.

Know Thyself

Since getting a camera in August (my beloved Canon PowerShot SX280, thank you), I’ve had regular and accumulating evidence of the things my eyes are drawn to. The shortlist:

  1. Trees, foliage, and other plant life
  2. Street art
  3. Birds
  4. Urban weirdness
  5. Repeating patterns
  6. Small, easily overlooked details

You can know these things about yourself. I’m a fairly visually oriented person and fairly self aware as well. Even so, you don’t quite get some things until you see them collected.

trees

1. Victoria Maple, 2. victoria branches, 3. Allen Library, UW, with foliage, 4. yellow, 5. Tree by Diamondhead, 6. UW campus, early Saturday morning

I likes trees. No, not those trees.* Just… trees. Looking up at them, all flora unfurling above me.

What else do I enjoy? Well.

We all have our preoccupations. I just hope yours bring you as much happiness as mine bring me.

P.S. This grid is brought to you by this handy little site. If Deviation Obligatoire becomes a plague of photo mosaic grids, you know who to blame. (Me.)

*Ok, those trees too, but that’s another subject altogether.

Hither and Thither #12

florentijn-hofman-partyaardvark-designboom-08Oh, let me count the ways.

  1. “the Dutch artist has envisioned ‘feestaardvarken’ (partyaardvark)”
  2. “a 30-meter-long concrete sculpture that can be climbed upon and interacted with”
  3. It has nipples
  4. And a literal party hat too

The world is better for this being out there.

Now: do I need to borrow a child when I go to see this, or can I just gallop up there myself?

Also, new goal (to add to my considerable list): have my own name in a headline even a tenth as devastatingly delightful as that one.

division squiggleA few years old, but always always always worth repeating: 15 Things Kurt Vonnegut Said Better Than Anyone Else Ever Has Or Will at the AV Club. Continue reading →

Forbidden Photos of Ancient Peru

Staring up at the lobby cars at the Seattle Art MuseumI can hear you from here. “My darling Standard Deviation, those cars are not Peruvian, ancient, or forbidden. What fresh hell is this?”

“Well,” my natural reply comes. “As those are Ford Tauruses, you are correct on all accounts. But I was able to take so few pictures of the main exhibit itself that I chose to use this as the title card instead.”

“Oh,” I hear you say. “Ok?”

Good enough.

Here are some things I don’t do as often as I’d like:

I could go on at length. But really, the list would just be a selection of likely upcoming blog posts for the next year, so I’ll spare you for now. What I’m saying is that there are basic cultural things I miss in the way of everyday life, same as most people. This past Sunday, I was reminded of how rad SAM is. Continue reading →

My Favorite Art in Capitol Hill

It’s on a wall facing the patio of the twice and possibly future Online Coffee on Olive Way, just north of Boylston.

I lived very close to here when I moved to Seattle in 2004, and I ended up at Online Coffee a fair amount as I worked to get my life set up – as I waited for my wireless router to arrive so that I could get actual internet access in my actual apartment.

Coming as I did from a place I regard as sterile and artificial, I felt it deeply when I looked up and saw this, just idly sitting next to people sipping lattes at metal patio tables.

i will always love the false image i had of you“My god,” I thought. “Look at this vibrant, kind of weird place I find myself, that I found for myself. I’m among other people who do things because they want to – and who think of things like this, and who want to put them somewhere public. To share.”

Here‘s a picture of it from 2003, minus the chip it currently sports.

I imagine a good 70-plus percent of the people who have seen this would be able to say what I’m about to say, but: it became part of my background, appreciated but benignly ignored, and then a few months after we were first introduced, it exploded with new and deeper resonance.

“Damn right,” I’d grumble. “We’re all fools, every one of us.”

21.

A conversation I’ve had with myself for the last couple of years has centered around two things: at what point will I make my departure from Capitol Hill? And what Capitol Hill mainstay would break my heart if it were pulled into the grind and churn of all the development?

I still don’t know the answer to the first. Maybe February. Or maybe later, when I decide to leave the city altogether.

The second has had a few answers. Six Arms, the Stumbling Monk? I like those places, and very much. Good memories there. My current yoga studio’s days seem numbered, but I soldier on, so it’s not that. The Egyptian, or Broadway Grill? Apparently not. This coffee shop, that store, that theater, that house’s perfect garden.

Nah, I think it’s this. One of the first things that told me I’d made the right choice and had a decent chance of finding my people.

I made this blog to explore, but also to see. Today I saw my past.

Cancel Your Plans for Tonight.

Go on. Get your phone. Tell your mom you can’t come over for dinner, cancel your Bible study group, and tell your sweetheart they’ll have to have a ménage à moi tonight. You have new plans for Saturday night, and here they are:

You are going to see shadow puppets tonight.*

“What?” you just said. I heard you. I’ll play along with you, even.

You are going to see shadow puppets tonight.

You see, the newest installment of the seriously-I-cannot-overstate-how-delightful-it-is Sgt. Rigsby series at the Theatre Off Jackson is closing tonight. Ignore what it says on the site and go with Brown Paper Tickets – tonight is the last night it is playing and you need to go see this.

Look, I even took a surreptitious picture of the set for you. Just look.

The set of Sgt. Rigsby at the Theatre Off JacksonOk, that doesn’t tell you much except that it’s neat. But you’ve got four voice actors on your right, voicing a cast of dozens and providing sound effects. You’ve got a pair of musicians on the left, providing mood music and the musical numbers liberally studded through this thing, and you have the salacious, wonderful story of Chicken Jenny, scrappy chanteuse and gal who simply cannot escape her own bad luck. And happens to be a chicken. There’s a rentboy lamb, multiple poisonings, topless mermaids, double- and triple-crossing, dreams come true, fallen priests, and more noir-style similes than I can even begin to recount here at this late hour.

Just go. Get a friend you like and trust, grab yourself a banana beer or lime rickey at the bar, and just go. And then wait eagerly with the rest of us for the next installment.

If you must, there are some snippets on YouTube. It’s late, so I haven’t vetted them, but the first several are relevant.

Make it a full night and take your friend to Harbor City around the corner first. You can order baskets of dim sum dumplings before waddling, full to the top, over to take in culture.

Go. Go! What else were you going to do, hand-wash your dainties and catch up on your Tivo? Get out of the house! Go see this thing! Laugh your ass off and thank me later.

*Assuming you are within reasonable distance of Seattle. Which, in this case, is up to a three-hour drive.