Results tagged “volunteerpark”

"Volunteer Park wading pool, 1936" by Seattle Municipal Archives, from our Flickr pool

Someone doesn't want you to know about Seattle's water supply--they yanked an interpretative display off the wall of the Volunteer Park Water Tower. But someone else does want you to know: his name is Stokely Towles, which we half-consider to be made-up. He describes his Waterlines installation (also at Volunteer Park, in a trailer on the road between SAAM and the Conservatory) like so:

     

We had a few minutes free this sunny Presidents Day afternoon, so we hopped on our bike and visited Volunteer Park, which as always was full of people with different afternoons in mind.

"SAM Seattle Asian Art Museum" by David Hogan

Saturday afternoon, feeling we should get out and enjoy the sun, we headed on up to Volunteer Park to pretend to be tourists, where we snapped this awesome photo of the sunset. And now, outside the old office windows (yes, we have to work on MLK Day!), the fog that rolled in just past midnight last night has finally risen, and another chilly but clear day is blossoming before our computer monitor-strained eyes. According to The Weather Channel's 10-Day forecast, we can look forward to clear days all throughout the week, so take the opportunity to get outside while you can, because as of Saturday, the winter's supposed to be back.

Dawdy tipped us off about the snowball throw-down on 15th Avenue East on Saturday night--it was Liberty vs. Smith denizens and it...was ugly. Especially for cars trying to thread their way between the opposing parties. There's also an escape attempt on skis that goes horribly wrong. Once again we repeat: the streets aren't safe in this condition. Better to stay inside.

Speaking of the gay, in case you haven't heard, tomorrow's the National Day of Protest Against Prop 8. Here in Seattle, the protesting festivities start early, with people gathering in Volunteer Park beginning at 10:30 a.m. and starting the march down to Westlake Center at noon. If you can't do that walk hungover, meet up at Westlake for the rally at 2 p.m. Please, make an effort to represent at some point tomorrow. For such an important issue, numbers matter.

It may look like the Redwoods, but it's really Volunteer Park. *blissed out sigh * We love this town. And we love our Seattlest Flickr Pool, join the love-in, why don't you?

PURE HILARIUM: Frank Entertainment Showcase brings Wits Up!, a showcase of its best and brightest talent to Town Hall. It's a lively night of 8 mini-performances by satirists, musical wizards, and solo artists--from jazz humorist Jay Leonhart to cabaret songwriter Ray Jessel to Stephanie Satie's solo shows about female American immigrants. Think Marvin Hamlisch meets Noel Coward meets Anna Deavere Smith, before they became the names that they are.

Yesterday morning we were biking up to Volunteer Park on sunny 14th Avenue when we saw what seemed like the aftermath of a huge accident: three tow trucks busy with cars, a motorcycle cop, cops in new, unmarked muscle cars, cops in new, marked muscle cars. A little farther down the street, we ran across a Cascade Bicycle Club tent, and our foggy memory kicked in. Ah, Car Free Day. Each block of 14th had a lone tent occupant: the Bicycle Club, Parks & Rec, someone with a stretch of astroturf and bocce balls. Two or three people walked by. It was post-apocalyptic. Then it started to rain, and rained for the rest of the day. The weather was just punctuation--whatever Car Free Day was supposed to be, this one wasn't going to be any fun.

• My Ballard is covering the search for a missing local swimmer at Golden Gardens. One swimmer had already been rescued from the water and taken to the hospital to be treated for hypothermia. As of 11 p.m., the Coast Guard and rescue divers were still looking for a second missing swimmer. UPDATE: The search for the missing swimmer has been called off. A recovery effort has begun to locate the missing swimmer's body.
• Blogging Georgetown has confirmed that an advertisement declaring the sale of a local restaurant is indeed about the beloved veggie and brew bar Georgetown Liquor Company.
• The ever-witty hyper-local Capitol Hill Seattle has a number of recommended activities for this weekend's car-free hours at Volunteer Park.

Seattlest Abbey is still recovering from a waterlogged Radiohead show, so we apologize for your morning news delay. We're going to let her sleep in, even if we're still jealous we didn't get to go. Happy morning news! ~Your Editor

         

Susan Robb's Warmth, Giant Black Toobs spent the day at Volunteer Park. Activated by the sun, they stirred and rose. Blown by the breeze, they knotted up. Kids shrieked and ducked under them, ran pell-mell to escape from Toob walls closing in on them. The Toobs got into wedding pictures. They impersonated anemones. Then they were balled up and the lawn was suddenly Toob-less again.

• The Daily Weekly reports that the City of Seattle has successfully sold its scandalous public toilets on EBay....for over $80,000 less per toilet than they'd hoped.
• While we know it means our Seattle Native card could be revoked, we are still less than thrilled that a new clown statue in honor of JP Patches is set to be unveiled this Sunday. We hate clowns, we always have, and since JP Patches was the big local clown during our childhood, we kinda blame him. The idea of having to walk by a creepy clown statue while drunk in Fremont gives us the shivers.
• My Ballard has photographic proof that bike lanes have been painted on 8th Avenue between Market and Leary.

That's really all we wanted to tell you. You got your Shakespeare, your Alice in Wonderland, your Wind in the Willows. It's all free, up in your Volunteer Park. We posted about it all here. The weather is supposed to great, so remember to pack lots of water, slather on the SPF, and maybe even wear a hat if you're catching an afternoon show. Two or three hours sitting still in the sun can really take it out of you.

If you've been alarmed by the groups of people shouting at each other in Volunteer Park recently, it's for a good cause: those are actors rehearsing and, believe us, it's better if they rehearse.

One of the nicest things about summer is that there are outdoor events, concerts, plays, and all manner of public park activity. This year, every weekend for almost a month in Volunteer Park, Open Circle Theater will be presenting Alice in Wonderland. What's more, the whole thing is free and only an hour long—perfect for the little ones (and, let's face it, some of us big ones, too) who lack any real attention span. The press release promises "gales of laughter." That's all we know for now, but you bet Seattlest will be there to fill you in on how it goes, once it all gets underway.

We hadn't been to the Twilight Exit since they moved across the street to the other side of Madison. We weren't mad at them, we just had moved ourselves at the same time, and they weren't as close. But last Friday we stopped in and had some of the best fish and chips that we've ever had in Seattle -- wonderful golden brown, Guiness-battered fish and chips that leave your fingers shiny and your digestive system well-oiled. Yelpers like the joint, too. We'd been on a run of terrible gooey, breaded fish and chips that left us so nauseous it put us off our Guinness; it was good to see someone still knows how to make this essential pub dish.

Tonight will be the final live performance version of Guy Maddin's Brand Upon the Brain at the Cinerama, this time with Maddin in person as narrator, (instead of Karen Black, who we saw Wednesday night), backed up by the live orchestra and the "the Aono Jikken Ensemble" sound engineers providing weird, old timey Maddinesque style sound effects. After tonight, the film will be shown at the NWFF with a recorded soundtrack. This is part of the Local Sightings thing we mentioned earlier.

Because we know you want to know, it's your weekly look at what is keeping Seattlest engaged this weekend.

It's Shakespeare, so you can't complain. That's just "Shakespearean language." Here it is, Act III, Scene 1 from The Merchant of Venice:

If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die?

The cholesterol in butter, whole milk and organ meats is good for you, nothing short of brain food, while industrial food makes you sick.

Okay, okay. So Pride is actually going to happen. Even now, on the precipice of this extraordinary weekend celebration o' gayness, all our friends have no effing clue what's going on. If they, in all their gay glory, don't have a clue, we figured maybe you don't either. But Seattlest is here for you in these tough times and that's why we're gonna break it down all easy-like and tell you what we think is worth bothering with.

We're trying to decide if we're panicked about the bees. The other day -- sunny, warm -- we were in Volunteer Park in the middle of a patch of clover and it was completely bee-free. It would have been chilling except, like we say, the sun was out and it was in the 80s. We have a lot of respect for bees, and not just because a dead one stuck in some honeycomb took revenge on us from beyond the bee-grave. It's because they always seem to be busy getting stuff done. You rarely spot a bee just fucking around out there.

But let's not lose sight of another change that's proved another vast improvement: Pentagram's reworking of SAM's brand identity.

More to the point, the menu (pdf) alerts us to Chicken Noodle Soup with Matzo Dumplings. Holy shii--! as they say on TV. They also sell wine. We're sold. They're at 17th and Galer, just east of the north end of Volunteer Park.