NY: 0

OK, SF and Chicago will come in due time, I just had to let you know where I am now: Death by Audio. That's where my acquaintance, Jason Amos, works and lives, and where I am staying. Check the About section to get some idea of the place.

LA in one post

Oh, lazy, distracted Jeremy! I am about to leave San Francisco for Chicago and I haven't even written about LA! That's OK, because there is not a lot to say on the matter. LA is a dirty, unappealing city, and I only went there to visit my friend Dain, who is originally from a small town in Texas, and so regards LA with a fair amount of contempt. But, he's in the music business, so it's the best place for him to earn money. He now gets paid to make music from woe to go: write, perform, record, edit, produce. He makes his own guitars to use in his songs, or includes a weird water instrument here and there. The music goes into a huge catalogue that TV producers choose from to go into their ads or whatever. All things considered, it's a pretty good living. He lives with his girlfriend Julie and their friend Ted, both also musicians. One of their dogs, Oscar, has a pretty interesting howl too.

LA was a roughly even mix of hanging out at their place, out with them and out by myself. Vintage shopping was a big fat zero. The only two decent shops I found had plenty for women but nothing or very little for men. I signed up on CouchSurfing.com and was promptly invited to an event at a nightclub in Hollywood. I went along, feeling a little nervous, wearing my new knickerbockers & vest outfit, and soon found myself inundated with meeting other Couch Surfers or randoms inquiring about my outfit. Everyone thinks I'm English, partially due to that outfit, but it happens even when I'm not wearing it. Even an Englishman thought I was English! So I met a few people, felt the vibe and went home. The club & music was certainly not my thing, but the CS people were very nice. On my last day, we went to the Museum of Jurassic Technology, in Culver City. Well, that was just the weirdest museum I have ever been to! There was a such a diverse range of curiosities that it is impractical to describe: from trailer parks to eye-of-the-needle sculptures, and mice on toast. I can't think about it any more without feelling woozy.

So that was LA. Ate some good Mexican food, drank some awful Mexican beer; watched a hilarious old Sinbad movie with excellent clay animation by some old master of the craft. Next, San Francisco...

Airports... eeuughhh!

My flight was at 1.00 pm and I checked in at about 12.00 pm, so I had a bit of time. On the way to the airport I'd realised that I had left my favourite pair of summer trousers behind, and I also still had to call Dain to let him know which flight I was getting. I couldn't get through to Dain, presumably because that was a long distance call, but I got through to Amelia and explained about my trousers and could she also call Dain for me. Done. Oh, before that, I'd gone to StarBucks for a tall mocha frappucino, with whip, in order to get some change. Really, that was the only reason. Then I went and joined the security check queue. A few pages of my book later, I get to the security check and look at my watch, which says 12.45 pm. I just expected that if I was close to missing my flight, they'd call out my name and rush me through or something, I don't know! I finish the security check and walk, very quickly, to my gate (C12), which takes forever, because it is literally the last gate in that direction. It's now about 12.50 pm and the gate door is closed. I smile at the ground staff and show them my boarding pass, they telephone the plane who report that they are closing the doors right now. Sorry. Dang! I remain calm, it's no big deal. Flights on that route leave hourly, so they just book me onto the next one at no cost and I can even get an exit-row seat this time, woohoo! So I take my new boarding pass, get comfortable and proceed to read my book for an hour. It's a very entertaining book, This Side of Paradise, I'm really getting into it. So it wasn't until 1.40 pm that I realised I was still sitting in front of a closed gate and there was hardly anyone else around. Mild panic. Looking at my new boarding pass, my new boarding gate turns out to be N3, not C12. Still too dignified to run, I stride off in search of N3, which turns out to be in another terminal--thus the different letter--and I have to make a quick ride on an automated light-rail car to get there. The car is delayed by several seconds when someone prevents the doors from closing by catching them at the last second, then we're off. I stride over to N3 and find the gate closed. I hand the ground staff my boarding pass but I can't produce a smile. They pick up the telephone and speak to the plane. They let me on. Airports... eeuughhh!

The god botherer of 43

On the 43 bus to downtown, where I would change to the bus for the airport, the archetypal vagabond preacher boarded not long after myself. He was very dirty, carrying weird stuff and had a lot on his mind. He barked out a question to no-one in particular, "Where's the social security office?" and when no-one answered him it gave him reason to lecture everyone within earshot on the bus that "we'd all be talking to our neighbour when a crisis comes" and blah blah blah. He invoked the lord repeatedly and loved the sound of his own voice. He went on about fast-food and the Depression and how we don't know what suffering is, etc. Although there were elements of truth to his diatribe, it was a very predictable, dogmatic script. A woman sitting right near him eventually answered back in a critical tone and they entered into a barbarous exchange. The woman called him a drunk, he called her a whore, the bus driver got mad, etc. Then the director called "Cut!" No, just kidding, but it felt like something from a movie. Ah, god bless America, where life imitates farce.

Last night in Seattle

Fine dining at The Dahlia Lounge, but not before we have a minor misadventure at The Seattle Center (aka the space needle). We arrived at the Seattle Center, which is an impressive architectural landmark, only to find that the restaurant was booked out. Ah well, no 360 degree views for us that night. (I had this weird feeling about the local surrounds of that place that were later confirmed for me by Dain that it is really freaking dodgy! America seem to have a habit of putting expensive, tourist-attracting buildings smack in the middle of ghettos. It's really weird.) We wandered out and caught the recently built above-ground monorail: the budget panoramic view of Seattle. It was actually pretty cool gliding in between the old buildings; retro-futuristic. I then led us in circles around 4th and Pine in search of a restaurant that I had picked out of the guide book simply by name, The Dahlia Lounge. It wasn't that difficult, because the restaurants were called The Grill Bar, or Sammy Jay's or something equally moronic. The Dahlia Lounge turned out to be beautiful. It had a seductively red tone to the decor, predominantly lit by lanterns strung across the ceiling complemented by mosaic columns and a timber ceiling. We sat in a booth next to a street-level window and ensconced ourselves in the atmosphere. The music, which is so often painfully neglected in otherwise tasteful venues, was pleasantly old-fashioned and non-invasive; early-mid twentieth century jazz vocalists and the like, adding to the faintly Parisian feeling of the place. Our wines were lovely, locally produced, I think. For an appetiser I had seared hamachi, new crop Akane apples, chanterelles, warm pancetta vinaigrette: the flesh was silky and firm, giving you just enough to chew on and the flavours from the, err, sauce were delicious and fairly strong. Sautéed Alaska halibut, cranberry bean succotash, sweet corn, green herb sauce, radish, citronette was my main dish and though it didn't have the aromatic impact that the other dishes had, the flavours were delicious. The side dish of carmelised broccoli, chili, garlic smelt great but was a little overcooked. Our wine was great too, can't recall where it was from.

Sophie and I talked about deep and meaningful stuff that we hadn't had a chance to talk about in ages and it all felt very... gezellig.

Monday

OK, I've caught up with myself now and can be a little more verbose. Still in Seattle, was going to go to San Francisco today but I left booking my accommodation till too late, so I'll book it for later and go to LA first. I'm trying to decide if I have any predictions about Melbourne based on Seattle, but I think they are actually so similar that they need to retain their differences as much as possible. Small differences are everywhere: you need a key to access the "restroom" in almost every cafe; coffee by default is served as a double-shot ristretto; tattoos are quite common, including on neck, fingers, etc; in most cafés there is no table service, you collect your coffee and take your dirty dishes back to the bar. There is a guy making a host of vulgar snorting noises right next to me, so.... [hours go by] ... and, we're back! I couldn't help buying some books in this bohemian little store called Spine and Crown; there's quite a few second-hand bookstores of that flavour in Seattle, but this one is smaller and seemed to have more carefully selected stock. I was drawn in by Sartre's Introduction to Existentialism but ended up settling for nerd value and picked up The Emperor's New Mind by Roger Penrose, Oxford Guide to the Mind and a cute little book from the seventies, Taxicab Geometry: An Adventure in Non-Euclidean Geometry by Eugene F. Krause, which turns out to be a serious learning tool disguised behind seventies fonts and page-long chapters. I told myself not to buy books until the end of my trip due to the weight, but I couldn't help myself. I also bougt a very handsome modern shirt, white with a decorative black stripe, that will look great with my forties trousers, I reckon. Also picked up a grey bow-tie with it, because... why not? :)

Sunday

Sunday morning we had a party in the arboretum for Charlotte's second birthday. Her new friends from the library and child care were there, Amelia made a cake, there were presents and party food, the weather was a pristine 24 degrees celsius, it was charming. I think we just had an afternoon nanna nap when we got back to the house. Went to another Value Village later where I bought an anniversary copy of East of Eden and read the first couple of pages out in the car, first in a mild Sean Connery accent then in a more appropriate American accent.

I've developed a liking for tall mocha frappucinos (with whip). When in Rome...

Saturday

In the morning, Sophie and I went to Frye Art Gallery. Some good paintings on the subject of voyeurism and the artist's eye but not much else; one of their galleries was closed for installation. The building itself is quite nice, the entrance being an almost empty vestibule of polished concrete, big glass windows to the outside and two impressive, intimidating doors that lead to the gallery proper.

In the evening I went to the The Stranger Genius Awards party at the Moore Theatre, a 100-year-old building. The 'live' music was a DJ or two, so I mostly stayed downstairs and danced to some '60s rock. Met some of Seattle's finest, whose earliest question was "So, had any good drugs since you've been here?" He had apparently been up for three days due to divorce proceedings. The night finished at 12 o'clock on the dot, which felt weird. Nice building.

Friday

This is what happens when I don't write frequently... I forget what I've done! What happened on Friday? I think it was a day of rest... I had a slight headache from the night before... we talked about going to a gallery but didn't go... shit, I forget. Maybe this was the day that I went and made my purchases from the antique store down the road; let's say it was. MR Johnson's Antiques has provided me with an interesting pair of cuff links: rectangular, grill pattern, divided in half and with a small glass/paste stone on either side of the division. $3. Mmmm, yeah. Men's sock garters from probably the 1940s or earlier; there were half a dozen shirt collars previously owned by the same person but unfortunately he was a size smaller than me. Some vintage postcards, couple of embroidered hankies, all under $5 each. Crazy. And a particularly old apron for Victoria, but I can't tell you any details about that here, except that it is very cute.

Common Market

I had arrived shortly before a supporting act that seemed to consist of kids finished; following them was an average rock band with a vocalist whose words I couldn't hear and had the range of a water pistol. The inter-band act was fun, though: two-piece (banjo & bass) country strummin' and yarnin'. Finally, the lights dimmed, the crowd cheered, two shadowy forms strode on stage and took their places. In a well-timed sequence the music, vocals and lights began. Big bass notes made the tip of my nose vibrate and the simple beats had a good groove. That lasted for a couple of songs, but somewhere along the way the big bass was dispensed with and the beats lost their groove. I was standing right near the back, which wasn't all that far, so I could see everyone else, and certainly everyone close to the front and a few around me were patting and chopping the air with their hands enthusiastically. The MC was a great performer, but due to my untrained ear and the average quality of the sound system, I could barely understand a word! I later found out that apparently love was the main theme of his work. The platonic kind, as you will see. After a few songs, this guy in a black suit, black shirt, black tie jumps on stage, grabs a mic and calls attention to himself. He takes command and he's got god on his mind and on his lips, evangelising about doing god's work, and that it's not easy work, etc. And the crowd are into it, whooping and yelling. The preacher finishes his tirade as a twelve-strong choir, also dressed in black, assembles at the rear of the stage. The concert continues with the backing vocals of the choir chiming in sonorously. All round very weird; I stared around at the crowd, suddenly feeling very alone. I still couldn't understand what they were singing about, but I had a clearer idea as to their sentiments. After a few songs the choir departed and a familiar riff appeared... something tense, something that even I knew the lyrics to... oh my god, they had remixed War Pigs by Black Sabbath! I felt suddenly like their Christian stage performance had turned into a musical altar of apocrypha. I still couldn't hear what they were singing, but I don't think it was the original lyrics as I think I would have recognised them. After a couple more songs I'd had enough and hit the exit.

Day 5 and my knickers

Wore my new knickerbockers outfit today. Checked out the antique store down the road run by a very friendly Matt Johnson. Lot of nice stock at what seem to be very reasonable prices. Had to rush off to get the bus with the family so will go back today to make purchases of cufflinks and suspenders.

Went to Seattle Aquarium and lost Sophie within ten minutes of being there; didn't find her for another fifteen minutes. Spent most of my time watching and hearing about the giant octopus, which came up and spread itself over the curved perspex cage for all to see. Wow, pretty impressive. Saw some otters, which were very cute. A giant clam shell that was yonic beyond belief. The usual colourful fish, etc.

In the evening went to Neumos to a gig headlined by Common Market. I had been there only long enough to grab a beer and watch the band for five minutes when a hand tapped me on the shoulder. A plain-looking man in his forties queried me on my outfit, so I'll quickly detail it: white shirt w/brown pinstripe, blue knitted vest w/red diamonds and white zig-zag, blue cravat, light brown tweed knickerbockers and dark-light brown argyle long socks. He says to me, "That's a very distinctive outfit you're wearing, what is it, is it Scottish...? I wouldn't know, you see, I'm from Australia..." There's nothing worse than running into your native national pride when travelling; suddenly I was a bogan's best friend. I think from now on I'll say that I'm South African. I slipped away and made my way downstairs to better appreciate the music, which was fairly average no matter where I stood. At one point, a girl standing just near me was looking around and noticed my attire; she leant forward and shouted, "I love your knickers!" Classic.

Beyond Montlake (and my first vintage score)

Let's see, Monday we went to some op-shops in Kirkland (between Seattle and Redmond), Tuesday I led us to Capitol Hill in search of decent coffee at a place called Joe Bar. We then proceeded down Broadway and looked in a few shops. Jet-lag returned and we headed home, followed by dinner at the local Ale House in celebration of Charlotte's birthday. (Her party is later.) I had a couple of local American beers, neither of which I finished because they were both awful. On Wednesday, Sophie and I went unaccompanied (so far we had been driven by Amelia) to Capitol Hill again where I went back to Red Light Vintage. Interestingly, the layout there reminded me of Retrostar in Melbourne: the ground floor was quasi-vintage/rock/hipster/Brand Name clothing, and it's not until I went down into the basement that I found the 'real' vintage. That's where I found my woolen knickerbockers. Oh yeah. I also found a dress for Victoria on the "nifty '50s" rack of dresses. No "sporty '40s" or "dirty '30s" racks unfortunately. Amusingly, the sales assistant didn't know what a cravat was when I asked if they had anyway; bloody hipsters, maybe they should consider spending their money on relevant self-edification rather than groovy tattoos on their fingers, teehee.
Then we went on to 'Downtown' where we just wandered a bit, wandered into Macy's and wandered into some perfectly long argyle socks to go with my knickerbockers. The city streets are not as wide in Seattle compared to Melbourne, no doubt partially due to the absence of trams, so the buildings are closer together. This combined with each building's big stature and the generous population of big trees, gives downtown a dense, busy but not not claustrophobic atmosphere. The use of open spaces here helps too.

Montlake

The first day or so were spent recovering from jet-lag and seeing the local surrounds. There is a spectacular arboretum just walking distance away, accessed by crossing an overgrown art deco bridge. It's true what they say about everything being bigger in America and the trees are no exception: the effect is quite enchanting. As we walked back we saw a couple of squirrels running about: very cute. I also heard a squirrel making noise from a tree: not so cute, basically a high-pitched possum.

Home

Amelia and Tim have bought a house in Montlake, Seattle! It's of the Craftsman style, built in 1924, on a corner block and next door to the public library. (Close enough, in fact, to make use of their free wireless!) It's a lovely house apart from the 1970s-renovated kitchen and bathroom, which they are going to have renovated. Lots of light spills into the house from the many windows in all directions, and the only way to get any privacy is to close the blinds due to the absence of fences.
It's really lovely being here with the family. I've had Sophie in regular hysterics and Amelia has found plenty of things to chide me about. Tim stands by grinning with amusement and makes the odd dry comment.

Getting there

My flight was twice as late as I was that morning, so I killed some time at Hudson's on my XO. Despite the limp coffee they served I was feeling strong in resolve, ready to take on the procession of queues and waits that were best overcome with the least resistance, the least attempt to fight them. The clouds through which my delayed flight descended had a silver lining: everyone else had checked in already, so there were no queues from concourse to gate lounge.

We took our seats on the flight and I soon fell into polite conversation with my neighbour, Adrian. The engines on the great metal bird whined and thundered and we were off. Adrian had a great interest in digital media, so between movies, naps and meals we shared stories variously about my planned educational computer games and his lecturing work at Deakin.

I also met Dana from the seat in front of me whilst congregating outside the restrooms like we weren't meant to according to the (in)security announcement. She was on her way to Seattle like me, to take up an internship with Amazon.com as a break from her computer science PhD. We supported each other through the tiresomeness at LAX whilst transferring to our connecting flight. Danna received her boarding pass in no time and came over to see what was taking me so long. The 'agent' serving me looked at her screen and said "It won't let me print it." whilst I quietly died inside. At the last minute, when I was about to leave on my errand to the QANTAS desk for my proof of ticket, another agent used her mystical powers of insight to look at the ticket number on my old boarding pass and show that it could be used to issue a new one. Needless and frustrating task averted; "Yes." I sighed mentally.

I had a Coney Dog at some grid iron-infatuated restaurant bar where another customer suggested I get some 'silverware' that turned out to be black plastic cutlery. I drifted in and out of lucidity on the two-hour flight. I walked placidly to luggage collection unaware of what had happened to Dana. I saw her again at the carousel and bid farewell as her luggage promptly appeared. Half an hour of watching the carousel and visiting the bathroom later, I started to inquire about my own. The third agent--or could they have been an 'officer'--to participate in my inquiry miraculously located my luggage, unceremoniously deposited three carousels away. I made my phone-call, and waited.

The cravat is back

It's been a couple of years since Cravat Infidel knotted his tie and boldly strode the streets of foreign cities, following his curiosity and stomach whither it lead him (predictably into strange restaurants).

This journey is for the occasion of my niece Charlotte's 2nd birthday, with my sister Amelia and her husband Tim at their charming new home in Montlake, Seattle. Our dear mother Sophie--whom we have not seen for several months--has also flown over from Muscat, so it is a real family reunion. None of us a year ago would have predicted this! As I said, their new home is charming, and Amelia has worked her uncanny shopping powers to furnish the house almost entirely! Couches, beds, chairs, linen, lamps, washer, dryer, etc, all from garage sales and op-shops. Not to mention quilts!

My rough itinerary is Seattle-San Francisco-Los Angeles-Chicago-New York City. The exchange rate is not as good as it was a month ago, so it looks like I won't be doing quite as much shopping as I had planned.