Last Night

Party #1
P. and I attended the Artist Trust Awards Ceremony
at the Wright Exhibition Space -- a cavernous interior
with little sense of intimacy. We were fortunate
to meet Amy Denio, this year's winner of the Paul Goode
Ireland Residency. We are excited to send a musician
to Westport -- the small town of 4500 residents boasts
37 pubs, roughly one pub per 121 residents, and each one
with its own music scene. Amy Denio is even more excited
than we are -- and she's going during the darkest of dark times --
late January into February. She claims to love the gloom
and rain. I've not been to Ireland during the depths of winter,
but I hear that the impact on one's soul can be profound.
(Thus the pubs.) (That's what we lack here in Seattle.)
Let's see....if I put Seattle's population at a half million,
and divide by 121 (the number of residents per pub in
Westport), I come up with 4132 pubs. Make them all
family-friendly, and we're good to go!

Party #2
Our dear friend Herb celebrated his 50th birthday
at a friend's home on north Capitol Hill, on East Boston Terrace.
Impossible to find! This was not a house, but a chateau, complete
with turrets and triangle-leaded glass windows. Built on the edge
of the hillside above Montlake, windy views extended
to the north and west -- a panorama of city lights. Once inside
I felt as if I was inhabiting one of my dreams where there
were so many details a description of it defies imagination.
Winding hallways, framed art on every square inch of wall
ceiling-to-floor, in every room. (Curiously, the ceilings
were left vacant.) Every surface (and I mean every)
was crammed with bric-a-brac, collectibles, antique
this-and-thats. And then the books: hundred of thousands
of books, alphabetized, in every room, stacked and shelved
and piled, every imaginable author. And objets d'artes
on the shelves in front of the books where there was
(at some prior time) an available square inch of space:
the tiny bottle shelf, the Pez shelf, the salt-n-pepper shelf,
the elephant shelf, the PeeWee Herman shelf, tin-toy shelf,
etc. And no dust. Amazing.
It was a flea-market/museum/library in one.
Upstairs, waaaaay down a long wandering hallway,
past stacks and stacks of books, there was a bathroom
with a live turtle in the bathtub. There was a stuffed
musk-oxen head as well as two stuffed life-size bears
sporting hats. In the basement I saw drums and saw blades
and more, more, more books; a rather archaic- looking furnace
(scary -- surrounded by -- guess what -- books!)
but apparently I missed the wine cellar, where I'll quote Nelson
as saying "there was one dated 17--, hard to read
because it was so old." And I haven't even started in
on the refreshments yet! Phew!
French rose Champagne, a secret bottle
of Chateauneuf-du-Pape hidden in the kitchen (I was one
of the lucky ones to score a glass), countless (I'm not joking)
bottles of French reds set up on a table in the living room.
Beef tenderloin roasts (a bit too bloody for me) swooned over
by just about every man present, sliced Italian delicacies
from da Pino (down in my neck of the woods!), roasted salmon.
I swooned over dessert (what a surprise): a chocolate rum
mousse-cake and a coconut mousse-cake, and there was
a killer tiramisu, all made by Vic Taylor of Il Dolcino.
Desserts were served up with champagne glasses
of lovely, lovely Sauterne, or, if one chose, any variety
of single-malt Scotch or Irish whiskeys, all at least
15 years old. I had to be rolled out of the party
by my red velvet coat, the threads threatening to burst their seams.