Seattle 3 September 2015

Walking Seattle

The Goliath Beetle is an enormous, strong, predatory beetle ... with a little beetle brain. It runs up to its prey, and quite often, right before it gets there, it stops dead. Entomologists were mystified until brain imaging showed the the beetle's big eyes took in so much information, it overloaded it brain, and it had to stop to process and reset.

Perhaps this explains why tourists stand immobilized and dumbfounded in the midst of the plenty of the Market. 

This is one of the themes for the day.

We noticed that the only line longer than the one at Le Panier (a superb French bakery on the street to the market) was the line at Starbucks*.

We pushed through, and got a savory crêpe at Crêpe de France for breakfast. Except for the staff, we were the only ones there.

* Q: How many Starbucks are there in Seattle?

   A: 424.

On to the SAM -- Seattle Art Museum. Half off on first Thursday! The very first display was a case of Dale Chihuly's glass. A Tacoma native and one of the best known and honored living artists in the US -- there's even a Chihuly museum and glass garden at the foot of the Space Needle, considered by TripAdvisor to be Seattle's #1 attraction!

It's the job of a museum to report the hype, and then put it in perspective. Just a bit along, the work of 3rd Century glassblower Julius Alexander. These elegant, serviceable items were lovingly placed in his tomb, including (far back) the glass hairpin put by his head by his wife. 

And the wonders continued, too many and disparate to detail. No human story here, except perhaps the interesting progression back in time of art from Chihuly and kin to the earliest.

...and then the Seattle Aquarium. It's old, battered, and like most of the rest of Seattle's 'tourist attractions,' grievously overpriced. The corporations that make their homes in Seattle should be ashamed!

The Aquarium has a spectacular collection of tropicals, corals in particular, and a couple of huge Giant Clams that have been here since the beginning.

Back through Pike Place Market for a selection of sausages from Uli's, corn and basil to make a Caprese with some of our remaining baby heirloom tomatoes and the cheese curd from Beecher's, another salad, fresh corn, and for dessert, apricot and marionberry torte slices from Le Panier. Yum. Six home-made dinners on the road so far.

Two other themes for the day. One: Seattle's Tools for Separating Tourists from their Money are needlessly sharp, especially when the wealth of Seattle's corporations (Boeing, Micro$oft, Starbucks, and many many more) are taken into account. Even the good ol' SAM, if it hadn't been First Thursday, would have been over-priced. Aquariums and Civic Art Galleries don't need to be profit centers ...even if they can be. 

NFL is EVIL

The third theme is the degree to which Seattle is remaking itself in the image of its mean-spirited, dirty-playing pro football team. It's not healthy. What used to be a friendly, open-hearted city has begun to emulate the barely legal, ugly gameday behavior of their team. Successful pro sports teams often shape their cities -- look at Boston, Green Bay, and San Francisco during the glory years. Where we don't mind Bostonians under-inflating their tires and forgive little Green Bay for their bigster cheesehead pride, we admired and copied the 49ers under Joe Montana: civilized, polite, well organized domination. Here in Seattle, overweight Seahawks-shirted bozos of both sexes waddle down the middle of the sidewalks like a defensive line, knocking people into the gutters with nary a 'pardon.' Sadly, the incivility goes with the self-centeredness of a cell-phone-dominated culture (that Seattle is, also, more than elsewhere.) The city is losing its charm and humanity, and it makes me sad.