The Seattle Town Hall is officially On Notice, for having the Elizabeth Kolbert Science Series lecture in the basement. Far too many people were interested in her lecture based on her climate change writing--we were third in line when they locked the doors and turned us away, and the line was still snaking around the corner. They're not quite Dead to Me, because Seattle Channel is filming Kolbert's talk, and will broadcast it online sometime soon for all to see for free.
We're still not sure which would have been worse, however: suffering through the lecture without having eaten anything, or getting those yummy spring rolls from the Thai hole in the wall on Boren and therefore missing the lecture. Either way, we stuck with the hole theme and decided to drown our heretofore unenlightened sorrows in a tuna melt at the Honey Hole. In the spirit of Kolbert's talk, we chose the Fish Tale organic IPA from Olympia to wash it down, and that led to a conversation with the guy next to us about how the concept of organic beer at first struck us as a bit goofy, but we conceded eventually it was a fine way to do our part for the planet. At which point said barfly mentions the very Kolbert talk we just got ousted from. Funny, that. And a good lesson about judging a book by its cover, because this guy didn't look like the Town Hall type.
We had a remarkably enjoyable conversation about just who the Town Hall Type is, but slowly somewhere along the way, Seattlest started to smell crazy. The conversation tilted towards goverment agencies and corporate corruption, and then spun manically out of control into a mad spree covering all the presidents from Reagan to George the Second, Nafta, the WTO, and oh so much more. We can tell you one thing, dear Seattlest reader: this guy was on something. Likely a few things.
And the tuna melt from the Honey Hole? Oh. Yes. Right there.
Confidential to the uptight woman behind me in line: An attitude like that will get you nowhere, honey. It certainly won't part the velvet ropes of Town Hall. No they won't let us in past fire code capacity no matter how much you whine, Yes that old man with the cane that they let in ahead of us actually was a Town Hall member, Yes we too have to "work for a living" and couldn't get there at 6:30 to ensure we got tickets, and for the love of God, No they won't reimburse the $5 you paid for parking (there was plenty free on the street north of Boren). We hope you went and got a stiff drink or three, you desperately needed it.
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Oh, Courtney. Seattlest does not wait outside. That way is not the rolling way of Seattlest. I mean, they let someone from the Stranger in, for heaven's sake. You gotta throw down.
That's funny, because reading the Stranger review makes me feel a wee bit better. The more amusing part of the conversation with the guy at the bar is how I explaind to him that I fully expect that someone doing a lecture tour should come prepared to entertain the crowd. He thought, at this point in our little chat, that I was nuts. Who makes science entertaining? PEOPLE WHO GO ON LECTURE TOURS SHOULD MAKE SCIENCE ENTERTAINING. Otherwise, they should just stay the hell home. They don't have to do stand-up, but as my drinking compatriot pointed out, you could "just fucking read the book" instead of going to a boring talk. I'm sad to hear Kolbert lived down to his expectations.