Seattle mechanaphile has had sex with 700 cars

By Mona Goldwater, Social Mores Ed.

A story in The Mirror provides details of Edward Smith's love life as a mechanaphile:

"A man who has had sex with over 700 cars has revealed how he had his first physical experience of car love with a Volkswagen Beetle.

"Edward Smith, 63, told Phillip Schofield and Amanda Holden on This Morning how he was “tempted one night to step outside” to make love to the neighbour’s car as a young teen, having first become attracted to cars in 1965.

". . .Edward is sexually attracted to machines – and as well as having sex with cars, has also had a relationship with a helicopter and planes, claiming they are all better than women. 

“I began an interest in the beauty of cars when I was turning just 15 years of age,” revealed Edward, from Washington in the US.  Go here to read the entire article in The Mirror and see the brief video clip (SFW more or less).

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The paddle ball sculpture at Big Fish Games in Seattle

By Jack Brummet

I was at Big Fish Games for a meeting today.  The last time I was there must have been nearly ten years ago, when they were still pretty much in startup mode. Wow. Things have changed.  Really impressive offices.   The paddle ball sculpture in the parking lot was created by the artist Catherine Mayer in 2011.  

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The semi-drizzle of Seattle

By Jack Brummet

I've been loving the rain in Seattle tonight. Actually, it's not rain, but a notch below a drizzle and a couple of slots below a sprinkle. . .that misting, intermittent precipitation where you can almost count the raindrops. In the rain hierarchy, something between Defcon 4 and 5, where DefCon 5 is maybe a light fog.  (A friend wrote to me: That's the rain I loved when I lived in Seattle and have missed ever since. Never happens in Spokane).

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Well, slap my ass and call me Sally. The City Attorney of Seattle was one of the first people in line to buy leaf today.

By Jack Brummet, Seattle Metro Ed.

It is fascinating that the city attorney, Pete Holmes, of Seattle was in line to buy reefer at the Cannabis City opening today.

“I bought 2-2 gram bags of OG Pearl which was recommended,” said Holmes. “I’m keeping one bag for posterity and one for personal enjoyment at some point when it’s appropriate.”

Man, things have changed.  I didn't expect I'd ever live to see this.  Despite all the chaos, I hope it all works out.

You can find more detail and more from Pete Holmes here.

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JCBSUP? (Jesus Christ Built Seattle Under Protest)

by Jack Brummet, Seattle Metro Ed.

JCBSUP, a/k/a "Jesus Christ Built Seattle Under Protest" is a mnemonic allegedly used by taxi drivers to remember the order of Seattle streets in the downtown core, kind of from Pioneer Square up to Belltown.  You don't hear it so much now (I'm guessing because everyone has a map in their pocket on their "device."  The streets, south to north are:  Jefferson-->James-->Cherry-->Columbia-->Marion-->Madison-->Spring--> Seneca-->University-->Union-->Pike-->Pine.

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The end of the line for Tubs, a Seattle graffiti landmark

By Jack Brummet, Public Arts Editor

I'm going to miss this place. I know people are really divided on graffiti, but after living in NYC five years, my time in Bogota and Cartagena Colombia, The Mission in San Francisco, and even in Russia, I have come to feel that, in general, it improves far more than it detracts. Is it art? Of course it is; it's just not the art that might be hanging in your aunt's living room. Adios Tubs

We've known it was on the chopping block for seven years.  Yes, many/most people considered it urban blight; I always thought of it as an ever-changing and wonderful "eyesore."

Tubs, the amazing graffiti sandbox, has finally been demolished, after years of sitting idle, and many years as an ever-evolving and changing canvas for local spray paint artists.  After the hot tub club Tubs closed in 2007, it was scheduled for demolition.  Finally, seven years later, they actually did expunge it from the face of the earth.

We are sad to see it go, since we know it will either be replaced by a strip mall, or the dreaded condo development with bottom floor retail.  It was good while it lasted.  Fare thee well Tubs! On a conceptual continuity note, I went hot tubbing there a couple of times in the 80's, and it was great.  By the time of its closure, it had become a notoriously skeezy hotbed of lord knows what. . .

We wrote this piece and took some photos on our last visit to the site, on January 2, 2012.

In March 2009 The Free Sheep Foundation (I think these are the same guys who liberated the Bridge Motel on Aurora) occupied the Tubs building in Seattle's U District, which has been "slated for demolition" for a couple of years now.  It's become an wonderfully and continually changing canvas for whatever artist or tagger shows up.  Early on, people were outraged by all the painting, but over time, it has become a popular stopping by point.  I think every neighborhood needs a building like this. 

I like what you've done with the place.

I always stop by when I am in the neighborhood, but have never seen anyone at work.  I think they only come out at night?  I believe there is some kind of loophole in Seattle's graffiti law, in which "the authorities" are unable to do anything about the artistic improvements to this long abandoned building.

If you're interested, there is a Flickr group that continually posts photos as the building evolves.  I took these seven photos on January 2, 2012.

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Sign from Seattle's now defunct Funhouse club

This is the sign from the Funhouse, a club located across the street from The Space Needle. It closed earlier this year.

Photo courtesy of Carol M. Highsmith's America, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

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Ballard Cedar mill, Seattle, 1919

By Mona Goldwater, Seattle History Ed.

Photo from the Seattle Museum of History & Industry 

The Seattle Cedar mill, just west of the Ballard Bridge, was the largest sawmill in Ballard. Logs were cut into lumber and then dried for nine months before being sold. The stacks of drying lumber were at least 50 feet high.

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The Fremont Rocket

By Jack Brummet, Start-up Ed.

I've been looking for office space, and today looked at one in the heart of Fremont--on the block with The Rocket. . .

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Alaska Yukon Pacific Exposition forestry building, circa 1909 in Seattle

By Jack Brummet, NW History Ed.


The Alaska Yukon Pacific Exposition forestry building, from the exposition held in Seattle in 1909.

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Thunder and lightning in Seattle

By Jack Brummet

Midnight, Friday:  What a great lightning storm tonight—from giant balls to hydra-limbed bolts raining down, and sometimes looking like they were shooting up—*from*, and not to, earth [1]. The lightning dances across the sky and I hear the muffled, slow-rolling thunder circle in the clouds overhead, and I'm swallowed up in the soft percussion of the warm falling rain.

[1] Someone just told me that lightning goes both up AND down.

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The Lake of Fire: a very short tale

By Jack Brummet [source: unknown]

A man died and found himself in limbo, waiting in a long line for judgment.

The man saw that some souls were allowed to march right through the pearly gates. Others were led over to Satan, who threw them into a lake of fire. Every so often, instead of hurling a condemned soul into the lake of fire, Satan would toss him or her off to one side.

After watching Satan do this several times, the men's curiosity got the better of him. He strolled over The Great Deceiver.

"Excuse me, there, Your Darkness," he said. "I'm waiting in line for judgment, and I couldn't help wondering why you toss some people off to the side instead of flinging them into the fires of hell with the others?"

"Ah," Satan said with a grin. "Those people are from Seattle. I'm just letting them dry out so they'll burn."

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1903 protest against the muddy streets in Seattle

The gum wall in Seattle's Pike Place Market

By Jack Brummet 

No trip to Seattle's Pike Place Market is complete without a visit to the gum wall in Post Alley.

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Seattle experiences 10.5" of rain (more than a quarter of its annual total) since November 9th

By Jack Brummet, Precipitation Editor

Seattle receives around 38" of rain a year (making us the 44th rainiest city in the U.S., even though many people would name Seattle No. 1). In the last 11 days, we've had 10.5" of rain..nearly 1/4 of all rain that will fall here this year. I'm still loving the rain festival.

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The Space Needle becomes a UFO above the clouds

A photo yesterday from KOMO-TV news.  You actually see this happen a few times every year, when we have low clouds.  And we have low clouds (and every other form of cloud) pretty often.

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Jack's aerial photos from north of San Francisco and Seattle

By Jack Brummet, Travel Editor

Of all the places I've flown over the last few years--in Asia, Europe, Mexico, and around the U.S.--I have never really thought about taking pictures from the plane. When I tried years ago, they never really turned out. I think I'll do this from now on. It's pretty fun.  You definitely get a foggy haze from having to shoot through two layers of plexiglas, but especially in Seattle, where you often swoop in low and close as you head east to the airport, you get some pretty amazing views.  It's always nice to fly home to Seattle.

Farms in Northern California. I always love those grids broken up by roads and curves

My plane home from SF today flew almost directly over my house, but I didn't whip the camera out until we were over Queen Anne/Downtown. Good view of the Needle, EMP, the arches at the Science Center, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (among many other buildings wharves, piers, streets, and parks).

 

Mount I don't know.  It must not be a giant--Mount Rainier, Shucksan, Baker, Hood, 

etc., are covered  in snow. That may even be a glacier along the top ridge (can't tell).

a slice of downtown Seattle and the waterfront

waterfront 

close up of Seattle Center/EMP/Gates Foundation 

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Seattle Drying Out Festival Begins (July 4 - ?)

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1960 photograph of Ballard and the Olympic Mountains

This 1960 photo is a view of Ballard in Seattle.  The Bardahl Manufacturing sign is still around...not sure about the WaMu sign (I suspect not) . In the background, beyond Bainbridge Island, are the Olympic Mountains. Photo courtesy of the Washington State Digital Archives.

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Photograph: 1935 - Battleships in Seattle's Elliott Bay

Photograph of the USS California (left) and the USS Tennessee (right) at anchor in Elliot Bay during summer maneuvers, ca. 1935.  Courtesy of the Washington State Digital Archives

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