Hill of Humongosity – Seattle Day 2
Usually a little walking does not daunt me. I walk at least an hour every day just to the subway and back and taking out the dogs. But the hill you climb from Pioneer Square to Capitol Hill and the Elliot Bay Bookstore is brutal. I got a ride downtown this time and skipped the light-rail then figured I’d just walk the thirty minutes to the bookstore.
How tough could it be? I walk fast. I figured I’d make it in 15 or 20 minutes max.
It was cool and misty but I was sweating heavily by the time I got to the top of Capital Hill and over onto 10th Avenue. Capital Hill shouldn’t be called a hill. The word just doesn’t suit it. Hill of death. Hill of humongosity. Ankle-break hill. Mountain called hill. Really.
Elliot Bay Bookstore is a big indi and I wanted to make an impression. I’m sure my disheveled look and the beads of perspiration rolling down my forehead did the trick. Bookseller Mathew was kind enough to take my book.
“Can I give you my pitch?” I asked.
“Not necessary,” he said.
He checked to make sure he could get it from Ingrams and to make sure it was not self-published (yes, these things do, in my experience over the last six months marketing my book, matter). Satisfied with both, he assured me he’d get it into the hands of their YA specialist. Then he kindly got me directions to the Club Auriol, Fencing Salle – just 30 minutes … down hill … north of where I started.
“Downhill?” I asked.
He nodded sagely.
“Well,” I said, “it’s better than up hill.” And off I went. Back to sweating.
I had planned to go to two fencing salles in two different parts of town but at 7:15pm I knew I would never make it to both. So I went for the closer of the two – Salle Auriol. And I figured I’d work the opposing muscles in my legs on the downward haul – always searching for balance.
Oxygen Debt and Yoga Surplus
I love Seattle. It’s not New York, but I love it just the same.
I’ve been to Seattle three times now. The first time was after I finished the Peace Corps and I traveled up the west coast to Alaska then across the country to New York (a 6-month trip). I stayed in Seattle for 11 days, a few on Bainbridge Island at the home of a family friend, the rest at a Hostel.Elliot Bay Bookstore was in Pioneer Square – far from it’s present 10th avenue location. I travelled up to Juno by ferry from there and stayed north for a month afterwards. It was sunny six out of eleven days in Seattle, even though everyone swears to me it’s never sunny there.
The second time I was in Seattle it was for the National Association of Drug Court Professionals national conference and I stayed four days – mostly at the conference center but one afternoon we got a tour of some parks on the outskirts of the City by the sister of a colleague. It was sunny every day. A Seattle resident told me, “Yeah we love the summer but we all hate the winter. It rains every day and we don’t get much daylight as the days so much shorter up here. Everyone goes on antidepressants to get through to the spring.”
This third time in Seattle was for only three days, but I definitely made the most of them. I rained every day and I didn’t see the sun.
Four things I noticed this time about what I consider to be a unique and beautiful city include:
- This time I walked, bussed, and light-railed a good part of the city and it is oxygen-debt-in-the-thighs hilly. It is also hard to figure out the bus lines but the men in yellow make it all easier than it should be. “Just ask the men in yellow if you get lost,” the hotel manager told me. “They’ll help you find your way.”
- In the neighborhoods outside downtown there are a lot of runners – I mean a lot. They run alone, in pairs, and in packs. They run in the rain and mist.
- The city overall is pretty clean – now remember I’m from New York City which is not.
- There are a lot of yoga studios, massage and wellness centers. This could have been the neighborhood I was in but I don’t think so. This is a city relaxed with the concept of new age.
- Booksellers are friendly at the indies. This should go without saying but… it doesn’t. But I had three for three good experiences at indies and that was cool.
Orca Pass – Seattle, Day 1 of 3
The next four entries are from last week in Seattle.
Facilitation Skills training in Seattle, teaching court practitioners how to facilitate training sessions around an online curriculum.
One day of travel.
One day of work.
One day of travel home.
Mockingbird Books
Sue Nevins at Mockingbird Books
I stayed at a hotel in the South Center, near the airport so I had to really work to get downtown. Shuttle to the airport. Light rail to the last stop. A bus and some walking took me to Mockingbird Books.
Sue Nevins was prepared for me, having looked up information about Open Wounds on my website. This has never happened before. I don’t have to pitch. She has questions already ready for me about where to place the book shelf-wise based on language and content. Sue is incredible.
The store is a beautiful bookstore thriving selling children’s books, with a small café and children’s play area. If we lived in Seattle we’d be hanging out at Mockingbird. And Sue knows her books. For almost half an hour she gave me a tour of books that my son might like. I left with four. He got Amulet: Stonekeeper Book 1 (a beautiful graphic novel of mystery, spookiness, and adventure), Sticky Burr: The Prickly Peril (graphic novel about burrs – work with me on this it’s very funny and cute and good for budding artists with graphic novel potential), Merlin (Merlin’s story at the age of 12) and Virus on Orbis One (science fiction to give my son something a little different for him to chew on).
I should do a better job of planning these things out. My publicist (JKS in the hands of Sami Lien who does all the finding of bookstores I should hit and contacts them to see if they’ll take a visit with a smile and calls the fencing salles too) draws a big net. I’m ambitious but come up against the constraints of time and transportation every trip.
Sue told me I should go to Third Place Books also because it was in walking distance – only about twenty minutes – and they had a good pub underneath them. I was thirsty and I needed to eat dinner. The three-hour time difference was knocking me out.
At Third Place I talked to the owner, Michael Ravena, and he seemed pleased both at Sue’s referral and to listen to me talk briefly about Open Wounds. He read a few pages of different parts of the book while I watched, and smiled at a description of Nicolai Varvarinski. “That’s great,” he said. With a handshake and a thank you, I asked for directions to the pub.
The beer (Seattle has a lot of home local brews) was good and the food was even better. The World Series was on the television – no world cup rugby but that can wait until early Sunday morning when France and New Zealand will remake the clash of the titans.
Resonate…
… as in evocative of past memories.
CW Post LIU Reading
The reading at CWPost was great. At least I had a good time. I think the students did also. As my friend and professor from undergraduate days, Dr. Joan Digby said, “There were a lot of people asking questions so that’s a good sign that you didn’t scare them away.”
I’ll get to the student’s questions and my answers over the next few day’s posts. Today it’s about the pictures and what resonates for me.
I went to Post as an undergrad and Dr. Digby (who is in charge of the honors program and has been so since I was there) has since invited me back a number of times to read short stories and talk about my various careers to students. It’s great to have a teacher believe in you especially long after your class-taking days are over. I’m taking her to lunch next time we get together. This kind of faith keeps a writer writing.
Art Museum at CW Post
So the reading, in the art museum at Post, as the inaugural event for their newly opened poetry center, was very cool. There was standing room only with over 70 folks in attendance – young adults to older adults pretty much 18 and up. It was something to stand there with my book in front of me and speak to folks who were in my seat thirty years ago.
It resonated like a long, loud, ringing, Om.
Post Toastie – Reading
I’m off to CWPost tomorrow, my alma matter, to do a reading at the new Poetry Center. The head of the Honors Program, Dr. Joan Digby (I get to call her Joan and not Dr. Digby these days and I still can’t get used to it) has been a supportive presence in my writing life since I was an undergrad with her in her newly started honors program way way back when.
She taught me one of my first and really powerful lessons as a writer. In a tutorial with her on writing we spent a whole semester rewriting and reviewing one short story that I wrote.
I rewrote is 16 times.
I counted.
And I still remember each of the 16 times.
This taught me the importance of rewriting – what it can do and how it can change and improve a manuscript. I’ll have to tell that story at the reading. It runs from 12:30-1:20. Here’s a link to the event at Post on their Greenvale LIU campus: Poetry Center.
Lunievicz 