Old art

I like art. I go to the SAM all the time, especially when there are drinks, or models (OK, one in particular) there. So today we went to some museums. Its late here, so I will make this short

Rodin Sculpture Garden

Photos: Chris Eager

Here are a few thousand words.
They forbid photos at the Museum D'Orsay
so you know Marissa only took one or two there.

The Thinker. Rodin Museum Gardens

Dinner in Paris

My three euro Bordeaux of the day...

The apartment has a small kitchen. A galley really. Dinner begins in the street. I stop for wine in tiny groceries, mom has found some beautiful avocados and butter lettuce while shopping in Les Puces. There are of course bagettes. Just around the corner is an artisan butcher and the pates are incredible (and the variety of them is piling up in the fridge) Oh, and fantastic cheeses...so many cheeses. We choose our wines by price, staying under 5 euros. I drizzle oil and balsamic on the lettuce and slice apples. Corks come out. We talk about all we have seen today, then watch a show of Marissa's talented shots of the day.

Left to right: Au Poivre, Chicken Orang' and Jambon Pistachio

An Evening of Awe and wonder

There is a humming. For most of the short walk we have been looking up. Tourists look up and we are tourists. Marissa reminds me to slow my walk and I do. Glimpses through windows reveal ceilings of moldings, some elegantly filigreed with chipping paint. Chandeliers. The Eiffel Tower gives off a tallow candle light, dominating and hiding in equal measure.
The humming grows and as we turn the corner there are people: reclining and walking, standing, kissing. Sprawled out on the grass in the cool night, drinking from bottles of wine, passing cameras and food to one another. Laughing at the moment the tower begins to sparkle, a mirthful cheer rising in the charged air.

It is our first night in Paris.  

The Eiffel Tower, 3:36pm Seattle Time...12:36am Paris
Photo: Marissa Quimby

A Belltowner afield: New Amsterdam aka NYC

Sometimes the best way to get to know your own space is to get out of it. I've been in New York for the past few days and what I have seen and experienced here puts a whole new frame around Belltown for me. How is New York somehow quieter than Belltown? What this place needs is a Tia Lou's. But then again I keep seeing signs stating that it is illegal to honk. Really. There's a big fine. I'm sure mayor McGinn would agree that keeping people from honking is a clear violation of civil rights. I don't know about you but I don't know if I want to live under such oppression and cruel suppression of my liberties: Imagine living in a place where you can't honk in neighborhoods where people live and sleep? Seattle: have you heard that many of the coffee shops here ban laptop use? How is one supposed to sit and crank out thousands of pages of emo blog text if he can't look up once in a while and see others also pouring their souls out like so much silt from a french press? Unheard of. And a blatant disregard for the rules, far as I am concerned. I would go to a coffee shop to write one thousand words on the subject, but alas! And subways. How come no one wants my money here. In three days I have been asked for money in -count 'em- ONE time. People here must make a lot of money, bums included because I can't walk to Bedlam without someone wanting a dollar back in Belltown. What's with bags and bags of garbage on the sidewalks here? And the quiet organized way in which that garbage gets collected. Weird and a little smelly. Don't you have any alleys? No wonder there's no crackheads, where would they stand and rant? Great food this trip, had an incredible spread of dim sum yesterday for $16 dollars, just about half the price of a rolex. Seattle has a fairly decent skyline, I have to say. The other afternoon we walked down to the water to see the skyline and it was stunning. Our 520 bridge is a little underwhelming when compared to--well just about anything, but this place has some great bridges. Lets get on that. Anyway, The skyline here is broad and dense, but Seattle has the hills, and it makes our buildings look enormously tall. Sort of like being the only guy in class doing downward dog. Awesome. Ok, I'm going to Paris now.

Thursday night yacht races...

Seattle I love you.

Coach begins “urban camping” class in Belltown, sparks an exercise revolution.

The summer always gets people into the mood to get fit and go outside. Even now that Global Warming has done away with what our forefathers thought of as “summer” the innate desire lingers. Each year, Personal Trainer Jason Squatenhold sees enrollment in his outdoor “boot camp” classes soar early in May in anticipation of the legendary sun’s appearance and this year was no different. Except this year, Mr. Squatenhold had an idea that he says is catching on throughout the country now.

Urban Camp

Jason describes how the idea of “Urban Camp” came to him.
“The ideal of beauty in our society is to be tan and ripped, everyone is trying to get to that place where they look like they spend a lot of time outdoors. Staying thin is very important to the style conscious. I hold my boot camp classes in area parks. In Seattle the homeless are encouraged to occupy the parks as well as streets in front of Nordstrom. What I was seeing was that my clients were all chunky and pale, even more so in comparison to the homeless men leering at them. That’s when I came up with Urban Camping.
The Seattle motif is to be at one with the outdoors, recycling and roughing it, and no one does it quite like the homeless. They literally never go indoors. Harnessing this, Mr. Squatenhold’s clients go through the motions of typical homeless activities.
Client Marsha Mellow says she can feel her core burn when she does the “cigarette butt bends” a move where the class simulates picking up used cigarettes from the ground. Jason makes the class do hundreds of this exercise in a class.
Other exercises include “Spinning in a circle shouting at the sky” a move Coach Squatenhold says is a great way to prevent chin muscles from sagging and an excellent method for getting that sun kissed glow on your face.
"There are no lockers here, in the first class I send every one of my students back to their cars to collect the contents of their trunks, they have to carry everything, including the spare, the duration of the class.”
Naturally you can find a Groupon for “Urban Camp” classes so you can try it out yourself, but the savings don’t end there. “Thursday a German tourist gave me $5 out of nowhere,” stated die-hard Urban Camper Dave Flanders.

City Council to approve several initiatives aimed at helping Belltown homeless.

New data shows that Seattle's single family recycling rate is over 70%, Mayor McGinn now wants bars and restaurants to help the homeless help themselves by introducing a double header "Recycling Initiative"
In a move similar to the aggressive pro-panhandling support Mayor McGinn handed out to the homeless and Children International last Spring, the proposed "Trickle Down Recycling" bill has local restaurants, bars and fishmongers throwing more than fish. Part one of the new law would require Pike Place Market businesses use only Real Change newspapers to wrap fish, meat and poultry. No word as to if fruit vendors or hippies selling pottery would be subject to this legislation. Citing the weird guilt and awkward conversation one must have when refusing to buy the paper and his disappointment with his agent at not being cast in one of the explosion of shows like Deadliest Catch and Swords: Life on the Line that have decimated the number of actual fishermen willing to work at Pike Place. "Can we just buy a pile of them and then have the guy go away? asked Noord Jergensonsonson, "You know, its bad enough that I'm not on a fishing show, and now this?"
Bartenders have similar issues with the new initiative. Part two of the law requires that cans and bottles be separate. "If we can help the homeless by separating the cans from the bottles, they will no longer tear open every bag in the alley looking for cans," said Council member Jean Godden, " This will promote cleaner alleyways. A Belltown man who calls himself Cigs was urinating and smoking from an old bic pen between two recycle bins early Sunday morning when this reporter found him. I asked him what he thought of the new law. "Man, can you give me some spare change?"