Fuck the Mariners. Fuck Seattle. Fuck bullshit weather.

It's going to be really nice in Seattle tomorrow and Saturday. I was looking forward to going to a Saturday afternoon game--I'd come wearing shorts and sandals with an empty stomach ready to take in lots of beers and hot dogs. But the Mariners have a Saturday game at 7pm instead of an early afternoon game you'd expect on a weekend. And even though there will be a 1pm game on Sunday, it'll start to cool down and might not be warm enough to wear shorts.

It was a very tough winter in Seattle. Even though relatively warmer than the interior of the country, it's been unseasonably cold, cloudy and rainy for over six months--the Summit at Snoqualmie even has skiing this weekend! So a big F-U to Mariners for fucking up my baseball plans ;-) And F-U to Seattle! I'm moving to Florida this winter. Fuck this bullshit weather.

Beautiful!

Thoughts on Playa del Carmen and Mexico

My girlfriend and I just got back from a week-long vacation in Playa del Carmen in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. This beach town is about 50 or 60 miles southwest of Cancun. After doing some research we chose to stay there because it's close to the airport and seemed to be not as touristy as Cancun.

It took as an hour to get through Mexican customs at Cancun airport, which seemed like a long time until you realize how long visitors--and in some cases US citizens--have to wait to get through American customs when entering the US. There were no drinking fountains at the airport--apparently tap water is not drinkable anywhere in Mexico?--so we got ripped off getting a small bottle of water for 35 pesos.

We took a public bus to Playa del Carmen for 80 pesos, which is a good deal. The buses are more comfortable than Greyhound buses in the US. On the way there we spoke to an American tourist who told us of a cheap hotel in the main tourist area (5th Ave.) of Playa called Maya-Bric. It turned out to be a very nice hotel and we only paid 550 pesos per night which is a good price for the high season.

Besides getting cheaply-priced tequila and water at Wal-Mart (see map; BTW, most customers there are Mexican), we spent the first couple of days on the beach, which is free unless you want to rent a chair with a towel, which runs between $2 and $5 for the day depending on where you go). We found a small (and cheap) Mexican place for breakfast on 10th Ave. and Calle 8 or 10 (unfortunately I forgot the name but it has a wooden patio and is across from Ipanema's Steakhouse and O'Barzinho). For dinner we went to Yaxche and Parilla. Both are tourist traps but have good food and are not overly expensive (probably $25 each with a couple of drinks).

On our third day we rented a car at Hertz ($65 for a Jeep) and set out for the ancient Mayan ruins of Coba (we read over the Internet that they were much better than the ones at Tulum). Our experience renting the car was horrible. Hertz has an office right on 5th Ave and Calle 10, but they don't bring the car there. Instead, you have to take a 20 peso taxi to another office where the cars are. Once there, it took as about an hour to get the car. The office is small and inefficient. One of the employees there was in a shouting match with a couple of customers over something... OK, we finally got the car and headed out for Coba. The highway (route 307) was moderately dangerous. Gotta watch the shifting lanes--often not marked--and huge speed bumps right in the middle of the highway. No kidding, but at least they're well marked. Coba was great, I highly recommend it. The literal high-point of the trip was a ~150-foot climb up a pyramid called Nohoch Mul.

On the way back we stopped at a Pemex (the monopolized Mexican gas stations) to get some gas. The attendants, seeing that we were foreigners, immediately pounced on us. After they tanked us, we gave the guy a 500-peso bill. He came back a minute later and said he couldn't take it because it was torn on the edge. I didn't believe him and told him so. There happened to be an American nearby who could translate (my Spanish was not good enough for this instance). After a couple of minutes of arguing he took the bill. This was the low point of our experience in Playa, but I wasn't surprised because I read about the Pemex problem in Mexico before our trip. Watch out for these mo-fos!

The rest of the time we were on the beach and at local Mexican bars and restaurants (Salamandria for cheap drinks, HC Monterrey for the best meat ever, Dr.Taco for the best tacos, and our breakfast place for great omelets). You won't find many tourists there, but that's what made it fun. We met some really nice and great-to-hang-out-with Mexicans there. We conversed in a mixture of Spanish and English. You only have to attempt to speak some Spanish and people will open up to you.

When I got back I was thinking shit, what am I doing here in Seattle with this bullshit weather, I should be having an easier life in Mexico. I would consider living in Playa del Carmen, but I'm afraid that I'd get bored too quickly. Maybe it's becoming too touristy. The never-ending harangue from the shopkeepers--asking you to check out their merchandise--gets tiresome. What else.... You're not supposed to flush any toilet paper down the toilets (we didn't follow the rule) and of course you gotta watch out for the Pemex guys. But overall, if you can get used to Mexican inefficiency, I think it's possible to have a much easier lifestyle there than in the States. No bullshit about when and where you can drink or smoke. No worries about some bullshit terrorist threats, wars, politics, mortgage or car payments. Of course the bottom line is you have to have money to live there or find a way to make a living. I haven't figured that out yet, but if I do, I just might move there.

VIVA MEXICO!

Opening Night for the New SAM

My girlfriend and I decided to hit the town this past Saturday night for a special occasion: the 36-hour opening gala for the new expansion the Seattle Art Museum (a.k.a., SAM).

We left around midnight and got there 20 minutes later. We waited for our tickets (which were free) outside the museum at 1st Ave. & University St. for just a few minutes. There was even a person who informed us what time we would get our ticket for, which she said would be 1:20am, but by the time we got to the front of the line, they were sold out and our slot was for 1:40am. We considered going home, but instead went to the Alibi Room and hung out there for an hour before heading back to the museum.

The new expansion in terms of its architectural accomplishment is not much of an improvement over the existing building--the outside is quite ugly. It looks like The New-Age Ministry of Information. The only nice parts of the building are the white neon signs in my opinion.

Once we got inside, we were not any more optimistic about the new $100+ million expansion--while the first floor was very spacious, it's main attraction was four early 1990s Ford Tauruses. They were hanging from the ceiling and were also on display on the ground (one of the exhibits pictured here had a Taurus in the foreground with a widescreen showing a clip of Times Square in the background??). We really didn't get it, but perhaps we just weren't smart enough to figure out the artistic beauty of these particular retro-modern-art pieces... There was another strange quirk: also on the first floor there was a room where one could make custom buttons, paper

masks, and other memorabilia. The participants (pictured here) undoubtedly thought they were uber-cool and hip to be involved in such an ingenious act of modern artistry; we, however, found the task to be reminiscent of kindergarten.

Now, here comes the good part: once we got to the third and fourth level (the second floor looks onto the first), the various collections were amazing. From a porcelain collection to New Orleans old-fashioned dresses to Greek vases, every exhibit was designed with the utmost precision and presented beautifully.

So, overall we were very satisfied with our visit. The collections easily surpass the shortcomings of the 1st floor gallery and the sterile look of the outside of the building. Secondly, the event was very well organized and the employees and volunteers were very nice and welcoming.


Congratulations, SAM!

Amateur Night

I went to the Comedy Underground this past Monday. The last time I went there was in October with my girlfirend. The difference this time was that it was amateur night--the cover was only $4 and each act lasted only a minute or two. The show was from 8:30-10:00pm, so there must have been at least 30 or so comedians on the stage. Wow! A couple were really bad, most were mediocre, and a couple of guys were very funny. One of the better jokes I remember:

"I just read this study that masturbating five times a week can help avoid prostrate cancer. Shit, I got to cut back."

All-in-all, it wasn't a bad deal for $4, but it's also worth seeing a $15 show. Incidentally, the same very funny guy we saw in October, Jim Short, will be there again this weekend. Oh, and the waitresses are still as bad as last time. It took this one 15 minutes to notice us and the place wasn't even half full. The only good thing was that she forgot to ring up two of my beers (sadly, I don't think she was smart enough to undercharge to compensate for her mistake and hope for a bigger tip).

Poker Night

My girlfriend and I sometimes go to an Irish pub in Seattle called Fadó for trivia night. The goal is to correctly answer as many questions as possible. There is a host with a microphone who asks five questions in a row about a particular subject such as history or entertainment. The teams right down the answers on paper and hand them in at the end of each round. There are at least ten or fifteen rounds I think. It lasts at least two hours.

The trivia tournament is on Wednesday nights. Some time ago I read about a weekly poker tournament on Fadó's Web site but for some reason I never bothered to check it out. I used to play poker every night for a few weeks a couple of years ago on Yahoo Games but haven't since. I was taking a break from work yesterday afternoon and saw the tournament was on in the evening and decided to give it a shot. It starts at 6:30 so at 5:00 I went online to refresh my game-play. I got into it again after a few tries.

I got to the pub just before 6:30 and grabbed a seat at one of the three or four available tables. Each table has eight players so I think there is a maximum of 32 players. I think there are probably 25-28 players. Each player gets $500 in chips and the play continues until there are 16 players left. Actually a player can move to a different table at anytime because some tables might empty out sooner and moving evens out the number of player/table.

I started out slow and lost a few bucks the first few rounds but was soon winning a few. There are no staffed dealers at the table--the players take turns dealing. I was a little shaky doing that since I've never done it before and needed assistance from other players. Most of the guys and gals there were pretty nice although there were a couple of stiffs who actually cared about nothing else but winning the grand prize of a $25 gift certificate! I don't think they were having too much fun. One big baboon got mad at me for beating him because he thought I was playing dumb, which I was at times just to make it more fun.

I was probably second in the money count at our table when we split up to join the two final tables. I lost the first hand when the guy who was ahead of me went all in on a pair of kings. I had one ace and was hoping for another one on the final two cards. I didn't get it. Oh well. By that time I had played for 2 hours. So I think the play could have lasted at least another hour and a half. That's a lot of poker, but the time goes by really fast. I enjoyed it and I'll be back hopefully next week.

By the way, Fadó is a chain, which surprised me when I found out that it was one because it doesn't feel like it. Part of it is because it's downtown and on the first floor of a larger building; it's also well done inside (lots of wood) and feels hospitable.

Fuck Organic

I am sick of the organic bullshit. Seriously, the whole thing is now being overplayed. I went to PCC the other day and organic on-the-vine tomatoes were selling for $6.99/lb.! What the fuck is that? Now, I don't mean to pick on PCC, but everything seems to be at least twice as expensive as in a regular store. Organic soda???

I've written about this issue before, and my stance back then was that I thought that I'd try to avoid eating artificial ingredients but I was skeptical about some aspects of marketing organic products. I still think that, but I am now even more skeptical. If I give my dog organic products is he/she going to live longer? Well, the same applies to humans. I'm still going to avoid eating shit food (for example: fast-food, too much meat), but I still believe that food plays a secondary role to genetics and exercise (staying thin), provided that you don't have a malnutrition problem. That's my rant for tonight...

Comedy Improv

We went to a comedy "improv" show in the U-District last Friday. We've never been to one before and we had nothing to do so we drove there for the 10:30pm show. We had about fifteen minutes to spare so we stopped at the Irish Emigrant. Not really a very special bar--it's almost a sports bar--but it was close by and we needed the beer. The female bartender had the voice and attitude of a sorority girl: a crackly voice and a demeanor slightly on the rude side; acting a little bit masculine by pretending to like sports ("I love to wear baseball hats" + the crackly voice) , but not too much where it'll turn the guys off. Well, everybody's got to do what they got to do...

Back to the theater where we got there just on time. There's actually a bar there and we were going to drink there before the show but it is very small and right next to the entrance where someone is always coming in or out. The good news is that you can get a drink anytime during the show. We took full advantage of that unusual (in the U.S.) perk.

An improv comedy show is just what it suggests: the comedy is improvised based on audience suggestions. For example, a few of the skits involved asking the audience random questions such as "What's in the room?". My girlfriend yelled out "elephant" and so one of the words to be used was elephant. A member of the comedy group would wait outside until there were five or six such random words and then he (unfortunately there were no female performers) would have to guess what the words were in a two minute game of pictionary. The difference between a regular game and this one was that they had to do it in the form of a conversation.

And it was conversation that was really the highlight of the show. The audience would choose a random topic--one was taxidermy--and the members would strike up a conversation. Five were lined up facing the stage and one was in front of them and facing them. After one of them started talking about the topic at hand, he would randomly point to anyone else who had to immediately pick up the storyline without pausing (even when in the middle of a word!) and without straying off course to the point where the story no longer made sense. That takes a lot of talent and they were all very very good. Is it as funny as regular stand-up comedy? I think so, but I could see myself going to see a different comedian almost every week, whereas I'd probably get bored seeing improv too often in succession.

After the show, we stopped at another bar for a couple more. This was a punk kind of place so we were not dressed accordingly, but we didn't care. We talked about whether the people there were dressed like that because that was their style or because it was to fit in. I think they think they're original, but the power of the latter is frequently underestimated: I believe that probably less than 5% of the population truly doesn't care what other people think and isn't influenced by others (at least in terms of choice of wardrobe). If that wasn't the case, why would they all kind of look the same (at this bar or most other bars, workplaces, etc.)?

I saw a concert today at the Seattle Public Library:

"Susan Strick, soprano, with Johanna Mastenbrook, piano, will sing songs by Purcell, Schubert and Schumann, and Jensina Byington will play piano pieces by Rachmaninoff and Brahms, including his sublime Intermezzos."

It was pretty good and I enjoyed just sitting and listening, although I don't really like the layout of the Microsoft auditorium. The seats are somewhat uncomfortable (as they are throughout the library--the cause is "modern architecture" ) and the slabs of concrete on the sides of the stage really don't do anything to help the visual experience either.

Later in the evening, there was a heavy snow storm, which is unusual for Seattle, although we do get a lot of snow in the Cascades. I took a picture downtown with my cell phone and another one at home with my girlfriend and dog. We built a snowwoman!

Looks like the layout didn't come out so great ;-)

A Personal Encounter with Religion

I was working this morning at home when I heard knocking on the door. I ran downstairs--I though it my be my girlfriend who had just left--to see the faces of two men. One of them looked like a friend from New York so I thought it might be him because he's coming to Seattle at the end of the month. He wasn't--it was two Jehovah's Witnesses. I recognized the other guy who came by with someone else a couple of weeks ago. I wasn't very welcoming this time, nor the last time, but I didn't turn them away. I told him I didn't have a chance to read the pamphlets he gave me--they are called "Awake!^®" and "Watchtower", and according to the pamphlet the current average printing for the former is 34,267,000 in 81 languages!--but I was interested in religion and would like to discuss it with them next time. He asked me when I am usually home. I told him I am in and out all the time but that he can "try to stop by the same time next week." I am sure that didn't sound too encouraging from his point of view (not that I care since he is imposing himself on me).

I had some time today to read a portion of the first pamphlet the focused on health and religion. The title of the piece is, "When sickness is no more!" and is preceded by another article called "Will science cure the world?" that discusses recent and current advances in health-related issues such as nanomedicine and genomics. This piece is very general and basic but provides a list of some key advances as well as the challenges that remain--specifically diseases such as measles, HIV, malaria, etc.

The message of the articles is that while science is "achieving great things in the fight against sickness...the cause of disease has proved too complex for science to resolve fully." According to the article, "the real cause of sickness" is that Adam and Eve "were designed to live on earth forever but "it was not until they willfully rebelled against God that their bodies became susceptible to disease. (Genesis 3:17-19) By rejecting God's authority they severed their ties with the Creator, the Source of their perfect life. They became defective. As a result, they got sick and died, just as God had warned them they would. -Genesis 2:16, 17; 5:5. After their rebellion Adam and Eve could only pass on imperfection to their children. (Romans 5:12) As mentioned in the preceding article, scientists today recognize that there are inherited malfunction that contribute to sickness and death. After extensive research, a group of scientists recently concluded: 'It is an inescapable biological reality that once the engine of life switches on, the body inevitably sows the sees of its own destruction.'"

This short and simple selective application of science to religion in the article is comedic. It's funny because it's extremely stupid--an average third grader should be able to recognize it as such. Now I know why I'm sick! It's because Adam and Eve were bad and so they got sick, and then passed on their sickness to their children (us). This comes from the Bible, which is the authoritative word of God. And wait, that's not all! It is also collaborated by science, which has advanced so much recently, and shows that disease is often inherited!!! However, as the Bible states, man cannot cure sickness by himself because God says "Do not put your trust in nobles, nor in the son of earthling man, to whom no salvation belongs."-Psalm 146:3. But, here's the good news, according to the article:

"However, as the Bible declares, 'the things impossible with men are possible with God.' (Luke 18:27) Jehovah God can undo the cause of sickness. He will heal all our maladies. (Psalm 103:3) He inspired Word promises: 'Look! The tend of God is with mankind, and he will reside with them, and they will be his peoples. And God himself will be with them. And he will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be anymore. The former things have passed away.'-Revelation 21:3,4."

So when will "sickness be no more?" The article doesn't answer that question, but says that "while you await the future when sickness will be no more, the wisdom and reasonableness found in the Bible can help you to remain balanced in your pursuit of good health."

This article and the sad reality that so many people believe in it shows how gullible humans are to believing in something simply because they don't know any better. I understand if someone believed in this story a few centuries ago when we didn't have knowledge of evolution and genetics. But today the information is out there. Every scientist knows that disease happens because microbes are our Darwinian competitors, and affects probably every single animal and plant species on the planet. It's not Adam and Eve, and on a tangent, even if you didn't have any knowledge of evolutionary biology, why would you believe every scripture in the Bible if you know that there are many other religions that hold a different point of view? At the very least, that knowledge should make a person agnostic. I plan to discuss the scientific point of view--which is in part answered in this excellent article from the Scientific American--the next time I see them (in short, disease is inevitable and people will always be sick).

Incidentally, I was in Nashville for Christmas and found these church offices within a mall! I guess it's good that the marketplace for religion is alive and well.

Lights Out

The electricity and Internet service are back on again--we've been just over 2 days without the former and over 4 days for the latter because of the wind storm last Thursday night. Those two days were pretty tough. The temperature inside the house got down to 47 degrees and we had some minor flooding in the basement because it rained almost two inches in a few hours before the winds rolled in. My girlfriend and I spent as much of our time as possible outside the house and when we came back inside we stayed warm with vodka (it works really well)! On Friday night we went out for a walk around Seward Park. There was not a single person there and there were many fallen trees and branches along the main trail. You can't see this really well because it was dark, but here is a picture of one. It was nice to walk in the dark--it felt like we were out in the country somewhere, far away from civilization. And on top of that, it was the first time we could see so many stars.

Snow in Seattle!

While common in the Cascades, it's pretty rare here :-)

Geek Time=Fun Time

But only with my girlfriend. And she is better because she doesn't care about going after the points sometimes. :-)

Aaaahhhhaha, hahahaha, aahaha, ha

My girlfriend and I opted for comedy last Friday and it turned out to be a good choice. We looked up the schedule in the Seattle Weekly and chose the Comedy Underground near Pioneer Square. The place was almost full but we managed to get decent seats 15 feet from the center of the stage.

The first guy--we forgot his name--talked mostly about differences between eastern Washington and Seattle on the Iraq issue. His bumper sticker changed from "Bring back the troops" to "I support our troops" to "Send our troops to Iraq". Something along those lines (as you can see, or will shortly see, telling good jokes is not my speciality:-).

The next act was Tina Kim (pictured above). She had some really funny jokes about her Korean mother. What I remember most is her story about being short on cash and going on Craigslist where a guy offered to buy her underwear for $300. She met him, paid her the dough, but then never wrote back. So she's thinking, what the hell, why isn't this guy writing back? What did he think of my underwear? So she ended up writing to him. He finally answered that it didn't enough. Something along those lines...

The next guy, Jim Short (pictured above), an Australian living in San Francisco, was the funniest (my girlfriend preferred Tina Kim). Honestly, I don't remember any of his jokes, I just know that I was laughing hysterically. True, I already had three beers by the middle of his show, but my judgement is known to be... judicious when under the influence. Wait, wait, I got one: he used to live in Texas and he told people he was from Australia. They'd say, that's like in England, right? Pretty close, only it's about a hemisphere away. Something along those lines...

I almost forgot (again): our waitress was a blond-haired stuck-up bitch! She'd first tell us to watch our chairs because they were (supposedly) blocking her path to other customers. Then when she took our order she'd get down on her knees so as to give the impression that she was paying close attention to our needs, and to show off her breasts (nothing special) in hope of a bigger tip from me. Then she charged as $32 for 4 beers and one dirty vodka martini. She said the martini was $12 because it was a double shot. I didn't contest the charge and actually gave her a tip. My girlfriend was asking why did you give her a tip? I said it was only $4. That's over 10%, she said. Then I realized my folly: the bitch had successfully worked her tricks on me!

I plan on going back because the comedy is great, so blond-hair bitch: that ain't gonna work again. In the words of George W. Bush, "Fool me once, shame on.... shame on you."

Underpants

Two nights ago I went to see Underpants--a comedic play adapted by Steve Martin from Carl Sternheim's 1910 original--with my girlfriend at the ACT Theatre here in Seattle. The set is a living room/kitchen of a middle-aged man and his wife in circa 1900 Germany.

One man, and then another, show up to rent a room at Theo and Louise Maske's house. We soon learn that the reason for their appearance is the wife--she accidentally shows her underpants during a parade by the king. The fiasco then starts in earnest as sexual desire, ambition, and cunning show themselves in full force.

The play is very funny (my girlfriend noticed that women laughed more than men; I think the shrewdness of the jokes was confusing for the men :-) and performed brilliantly by the cast--Julie Briskman, Richard Ziman, David Pichette, Matthew Floyd Miller, Marianne Owen and Wesley Rice. I was especially impressed with the performance of David Pichette (photograph from another play). My girlfriend liked Julie Briskman (photograph) and Marianne Owen.

What I really like about ACT is that you have a great view no matter where you sit because the seats encircle the stage. Interestingly, my girlfriend and I were among the youngest in the crowd. I think the theater demographic is different in Seattle than in New York where I found the theater-going crowd to be much younger. Perhaps that's because not that many young people live downtown yet.

Free Bikes in Copanhagen and Amsterdam

I was watching Steve Rick's Europe the other day. The episode was about Copenhagen. It looks like a beautiful city. What I found especially interesting was the bicycle culture there. The city has built an extensive bike lane infrastructure over the last couple of decades. There are bike racks all over the city and even more amazingly, they're stocked with free public bikes. All you need is a coin to unlock the bike and then at your destination you get the lock back. Because the bikes are unique and contain components unavailable in other bikes, theft is rare. The bikes are paid for by companies who place advertisements on them.

A friend told me that Amsterdam has a similar setup. Seattle, while it has a good infrastructure for leisure riding, is not a good city to commute by bicycle. Just as in almost every big city in America, it's dangerous to ride on streets where cars rule the road and drivers are oblivious to bicycles. The biggest problem is that there are not enough bike lanes.

I found a few good articles on the issue:

• Daily Commerce Article: Sharing the road with bikes: How does Copenhagen do it?
  My comment: one idea that I know will not work here is raising taxes on automobile purchases. Europeans can muster high taxes, but the idea is just too un-American.
• Seattle Weekly Article: Breaking the Vicious Cycle A good article about the problems bicycle commuters have in Seattle. The good news: The City of Seattle, i.e., its government, is coming out with a "master plan" for a bicycle infrastructure.
• City of Cyclists: Copenhagen's government Web site about its bicycle infrastructure.

Cool Dude?

I was crossing the street today in Belltown. On the other side of the street was a guy with straight long hair, sunglasses, and tattoos on his arms. He was wearing dark jeans, a t-shirt, and an iPod. Pretty cool dude. The only problem was he was waiting for the pedestrian signal to change to "walk" from "don't walk" when there was absolutely not a single moving vehicle in the vicinity. Cool dude: try using your head a little bit more. You can do it!

That's the place I went to last night. When I got there at about 10:30, it felt a little like one the Hollywood parties Charles Bukowski went to during the shooting of the movie Barfly, as he described in the book Hollywood: a splintered party.

This place was definitely not a dive (thus the name High Dive?). Everyone was standing around talking in little groups, dressed casually. First order of business: beer, at the rear-end of the bar. A little conversation with my girlfriend about vodka--I told her French vodka is bullshit, and Polish vodka is the best. I don't understand how people can buy French vodka. It's like buying Polish wine. Doesn't make sense, right?

We went to the front of the bar where we eventually managed to secure a table just to the left of the stage. As the next band played (pictured above; I don't know their name), a few girls in hippy outfits--except for one who looked like she was dressed for ballroom dancing--started dancing in the front. Meanwhile everyone else was standing and watching, and not right next to them, but about ten feet behind them. If you looked down from the bar's ceiling you would see this big gaping hole as if there was a toxic spill there. It looked very bizarre to me but then I was on my 3rd or 4th beer.

We danced a little bit and it was a lot of fun (6th beer).

We played some pinball before we left. A girl came up and asked if she could slap my girlfriend's ass. I said sure, and you can slap mine too. Satisfied, she left. When I went to the bathroom I looked for her but couldn't find her. My girlfriend and I got in a fight about that on the way back. I guess I was trying to steal a trick or two from Bukowski...

------------------

I liked Hollywood a lot. It's another of Bukowski's books that you flow through, although it's much softer in tone. It's all about his experience--and he really shows the inside of Hollywood--during the making of the movie Barfly, which was also good, but I see why it wasn't a huge box-office hit and it took three phone calls to find it in a video store. It's a story about a drunk: Charles Bukowski. Most people, myself not included, don't find that interesting. I think one has to be a fan of Bukowski to really like it. Micky Rourke and Faye Dunaway give really good performances. I'm glad I saw the movie first, and then read the book--I sometimes prefer the opposite order.

Theater in Seattle

I'm not an expert on it, but on Saturday I went to see A Number, a play about human cloning . It features two actors and four characters. The latter are a father and three sons, of which two are human clones. The sons are played by Peter Crook, who I thought did a good job given that he had to play three different characters. What really impressed me however, was the performance of the father (named Salter) played by Kevin Tighe. He has a very distinct face and I knew I've seen it before, so when I read his biography in the play program I wasn't surprised that he was in three episodes of Lost.

Not only is the story very interesting, but so is the format. It is at ACT Theatre downtown played on a fairly small circular stage that is situated in the middle of the stands/seats that are also cirularily shaped. The whole play consists of three one-on-one conversations between Salter and one of his sons. There are only 30-second or so pauses between each conversation and the dialogue continues for almost an hour straight. I highly recommend seeing it!

Old School

When I was at the Seattle Public Library (a.k.a Central Library) and reading Tom Wolfe's From Bauhaus to Our House a couple of weeks ago, I couldn't help but think of the architectural style of the building. I like the SPL: it's 10 stories tall, has a big collection, and is of course architecturally... intriguing. I think that was my initial reaction when I first saw it. It's very modern, colorful and gray, and definitely industrial. It was designed by Rem Koolhaas.

Now, here's the interesting part. After spending some time in the reading room of the library, I realized the following: it's not as pleasing to spend time there as in the reading rooms of some of the other libraries I've been to that were build in the late 1800s or early 1900s. The New York Public Library comes to mind and is the best example of what I call "old school" architecture: masonry or brick buildings, tall ceilings, and lots of wood on the inside. They don't necessarily have to be in the Beaux Arts style to be to my liking - - brownstones are probably my favorite buildings.

What's in common with these older buildings is that they're physiologically more pleasant to spend time in -- when I look around, I get a feeling of grandiosity, master craftsmanship, sturdiness, and knowledge, especially when surrounded by wooden furniture and books. As to why I prefer these older architectural styles, I think it's a matter of preference, but as Tom Wolfe pointed out, many people hated buildings built on the Bauhaus legacy, yet their construction continued. I believe that steel is just one of those materials that the human brain doesn't like very much perhaps especially when combined with very geometric shapes. Wood, on the other hand is part of nature and I think that we have a genetic predisposition to "liking" wood. As for the Beaux Arts style, there's more artistry and less rigidness, which again provoke a positive response in the brain.

Now, I don't think that the Seattle Public Library is ugly. It actually looks cool from the outside and the inside. It feels cool to surf the Web on a laptop via Wi-Fi. I don't think I'd get that feeling in the New York Public Library (I haven't tried it). As for sitting and reading, you can't beat the old school.