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The Space Needle
May 22, 2017 /Like most things in Seattle, the Space Needle began with a cup of coffee. To be fair, there was a napkin involved, too. It was the end of the 1950s, and Edward E. Carlson was relaxing in a coffee shop, idly doodling on a serviette. It’s impossible to say for sure whether or not the impending World’s Fair was on his mind when he originally sketched the city’s sci-fi pinnacle (for all we know, Carlson might have been dreaming about his dry cleaning whilst scribbling). What we can say is that Carlson’s design, etched onto scrap paper amidst a peppering of coffee stains, served as the inspiration for one of the Northwest’s most important monuments. It wasn’t completely Carlson’s brainchild, however. Left to his own devices, he would have designed a building resembling either a massive balloon tethered to the earth or an equally large balloon perched on top of a column (the man liked his balloons, it seems). It took architect John Graham and his dedicated team to translate Carlson’s initial inspiration into the flying saucer structure we have today. After successfully building the first suburban shopping mall in the country (which just so happens to be Seattle’s Northgate…Read more
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Rain, rain, (Don’t) Go Away
April 28, 2017 /I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Seattle’s had quite a lot of rain recently. For the second year in a row, Seattle has broken a century-plus record for rainfall, enduring almost 50 inches of rain since the beginning of October. Usually, the city gets just over 30 inches by this time, so it would be an understatement to suggest that it’s been moist lately. In fact, the whole of Western Washington seems to have been caught in the deluge. Quillayute in Clallam County, for instance, has received more than 100 inches of rain since the beginning of October, or more than 10 feet. To put that number in perspective, if you were to clone me (because why not?) and perch my double on top of my shoulders, our combined height would be only slightly taller than the amount of rain that’s fallen in Quillayute. Some of you (all the transplants from California, I expect) might balk at this veritable monsoon. However, I’ll take the opportunity to be bold and suggest that life in Seattle is at its finest when experienced under a constant curtain of drizzle. I’ve already written about how much I love rain in Seattle, so I…Read more
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Living in Washington State: Rain
May 13, 2016 /Back in high school, I had a peculiar winter routine: each morning, I woke up at 6 am (also known in layman's terms as Utter Darkness O’clock), tried to remember where I mislaid my socks, ate a piece of blackened toast in the kitchen, and then spent about half an hour trying to break into my own car. The problem, you see, with my car (which, it’s worth mentioning, was a ‘99 Geo Metro whose engine seemed inclined to explode once every six months) was that its doors’ wizened and decrepit locks froze overnight during the winter. As such, I spent each morning from the end of November to the end of February jamming my keys with Neolithic stupidity into the lock on the driver’s side door. Usually, I had to resort to prying open a rear passenger door (often with an unused coat hanger) and then, through a backbreaking series of acrobatics and advanced yoga poses, crawl into the front seat. Thankfully, I lived in the woods, and so was spared the embarrassment of performing this ritual in front of neighbors. I mention this elaborate routine because it was always accompanied by a lavishly icy rain. Indeed, it was…Read more
