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Lonely Nights

This past weekend, Rachel and I checked out Amsterdam based company, Kassys’ KOMMER show at On The Boards. This great show about grief, stress, and loneliness is split into two parts – the first part is performed live, and portrays a group of 6 actors as they respond to the news of the death of a loved one.

The second part is a video performance of the actors in their ‘real life’. The camera follows the actors after they have finished the performance that we have just watched. We observe them in their ‘private’ lives, and witness their loneliness.

Watching the actors in their ‘private’ lives was really disturbing…

the frustrated stewardess destroying objects around her and finally passed out on the bed, in the depressing hotel room…

the lonely guy sitting on his bed, binging on anything and everything he found in his room….

and the older gentleman climbing the cluttered stairs to his living room, drinking tea, surround by piles of unpacked boxes, unopened mail, and more junk. I walked away from the show feeling sad, lonely, and depressed.

After KOMMER, Rachel and I headed to BalMar, a comfortable and stylish bar located in the heart of downtown Ballard at the intersection of Ballard Avenue and NW Market. BalMar serves yummy small plates in a two-story building with exposed brick walls. Both floors have a bar along with two pool tables on the top floor. The huge picture window on the top floor makes the BalMar an ideal spot to people watch.

Everything we ordered was delicious and prepared simply with the freshest ingredients. We shared slices of prosciutto on apricot bread with spicy olives, a house salad, spinach with golden raisins and garlic, crispy chicken breast served with vegetables, and persimmon flan.

The bottom floor was comfortably packed but the upstairs was chocked full. This place definitely is a hot spot on the weekends and caters to an older crowd. I won’t hang out here on the weekends but I’ll come back for happy hour during the week.

Congratulicious Lunch

Balt treated me to a most delicious lunch last Friday at Le Pichet to celebrate a retainer contract that I confirmed earlier in the week. Retainers are a good thing and so is Le Pichet. Le Pichet is one of my favorite restaurants in Seattle. The name is French for "pitcher" and refers to the traditional ceramic pitchers used for serving inexpensive French wines. It’s a casual place that screams Paris, 1934… slate tabletops, tile floors, and a rolled-zinc bar.

Although the food is equally good for lunch or dinner, I especially love dining at Le Pichet for lunch. The menu is rustic French and offers lots of small plates and appetizers. This is an ideal place to dine with a friend who enjoys sampling and sharing a variety of dishes.

We shared the Salade Verte, green salad with mustard and hazelnut vinaigrette, the Gratin Lyonnais, onion soup with crouton minus the gruyère cheese, and the Moules-Frites à la marinière et son fumet au jambon d'Espagne, Penn cove mussels sautéed with shallots, herbs, butter and a Spanish ham fumet, with fried potatoes. Everything was divine.

The mustard and hazelnut vinaigrette on the Salade Verte was perfect. The mustard isn’t overpowering and the pieces of toasted hazelnuts tossed in the dressing are a nice touch. You can’t find a more perfect and hearty Onion soup than the one offered at Le Pichet. The crouton - one thick, large slice of day old bread smack in the middle of the bowl that perfectly soaks up the broth. The sauce for the mussels is light and subtle which allows you to actually taste the mussels. And the generous side of fries… the perfect touch.

See Dick Jiggle

Sam and I had a busy Saturday night. We kicked off our evening at a holiday party at Bonzai Bistro in Pioneer Square.  When they opened 2 years ago, Bonzai Bistro was all the rage because they served sushi on naked women.

Bonzai Bistro no longer serves sushi on naked women but they’ve expanded and opened a bar/lounge next to the main dining room. The entire bar was reserved for the party and it’s a great layout for hosting a private event. The spread was amazing – loads of sushi, salmon cakes, chicken and beef teriyaki skewers, and lots of other tasty treats.  The best part – unlimited drinks of your choice. This is a sure fire way to guarantee a great time for everyone.

Next stop – Forced Entertainment's Bloody Mess Show at On The Boards.

 

Forced Entertainment is British based experimental theater company. A collective of individuals drawing from all forms of artistic expressions to push the themes of contemporary urban life in new performance and theatre forms.

The show is aptly named a Bloody Mess because it truly is a mess of 10 moving characters and their stories all mixed up in one show. Theses stories involve chaos and the desire for order, and the need to confess their secret thoughts.

It was a little long and a little painful to watch but really damn funny at times. There’s lots of swearing and even more male and female frontal nudity. I’m not sure what the nudity adds or if it helps or hurts the performances. I got wrapped up in the psychology of why I’m watching the naked man dance across the stage instead of the other 9 actors. Wondering if I’m focusing on naked dick because it involves the strongest story or because I can’t help not staring at a naked dick jiggle or if I’m understanding why the dick must jiggle.

After the Bloody Mess show we went to Neumos to meet up with Greg for the Sharon Jones show. I haven’t had a chance to hang out with Greg for over a year so it was nice to catch up with him. I’m glad I did because now I owe him for introducing me to the music of Sharon Jones and for putting me on his guest list. Greg dj’ed two sets, one before the opening act and one in between the opening act and Sharon Jones. If you have a chance, check out his weekly show, The Roadhouse, on KEXP featuring American Blues and Roots. It’s on every Wednesday night and the shows are archived so you can listen to past shows.

Sharon Jones is a badass women with a mean strut. You know what’s hot? A 60 year old woman rockin' a stage with pigtails. Her powerful voice and hot beats makes your body break a sweat from moving so fast and hard. Sharon Jones puts on an amazing show and from the moment she enters the stage, she’s on fire. A female version of James Brown –she dances and belts out lyrics like nobody’s business. It’s incredible. You get a live version of the history of dance when watching her perform  – she busted out The Tiger, The Mashed Potatoes, The Swimmer, The Chicken and so many more dance moves… love it.

I also love that she pulled several men on stage from the audience to dance with her. They loved getting freaky with her. If you ever get a chance to see her perform live – you must go.

After giving Sharon Jones a big hug and getting our cd's autographed, Greg, Sam, and I headed up the street to Barca for drinks. Why is last call at 1:30 am in this town? Can't it at least be 1:45 am? We were bummed that we didn't have time to finish our drinks. But whatever, we still had an amazing evening.

Technorati

My blog is showing up on blog search engines... pretty cool! Technorati is an awesome site all about blogs. I haven't signed up with them but one of their spiders found my blog. My "More Pancakes" and  "Back from DC" entries are posted on thier site. Check out I Putter on Technorati.

Earl

B-U-W-L Honkey. Have any of you watched the show, My Name Is Earl? It's some funny shit. All the characters are hilarious.

I love Randy. Watching him dance to his favorite song, "It Takes Two" by Rob Base, makes my day.

Jason Lee plays Earl. Jason started skating at 13 and made pro 5 years later. He started Stereo Skateboards with Chris Pastras and they closed shop in 1996 when Jason decided to pursue acting. Stereo Skateboards is back up and running and they are putting a team together. Can't wait to check out their new decks.

Suppa Night

Rachel and I have season tickets to On the Boards. Our friend, Brian, joined us for the Super Vision show created by The Builders Association in collaboration with dbox.

We started the evening with dinner at Shiki. A simple, small Japanese Restaurant in lower Queen Anne blocks away from OTB. Turns out that the owner, Ken Yamamoto, is an ex- Shiro’s chef. Love him or hate him, I dined at Shiro’s once with Dale Chihuly.

Rumor has it that Mr. Yamamoto turned down an invitation to appear on Iron Chef. I was impressed with the size and quality of the sushi and was even happier to discover that more than half the patrons dining in were Asian and that all the employees spoke Japanese. Brian noticed that the sushi was wasabi heavy. If wasabi can be over powering for you, ask for no wasabi on your order and just add what you like. If you’re looking for a traditional Japanese menu featuring super fresh and tasty food that’s reasonably priced – this place is a must.

The highlight of the evening was definitely the Super Vision Show!! The show questions all the “subtle and unseen forms of surveillance of the data that we create as we move through our daily lives.” What a brilliant show – the audio, the visual, the story lines… so amazing. I loved it. It’s mind blowing and really pushes 3D digital media, architecture, electronic music, and live performance. There is as much bad digital media as there is bad glass art in Seattle but TBA really makes you take notice.

The show had me from the opening scene and how the stage is built before your eyes. Partial screens slide across the stage, digital images are projected from front and back to create multiple layered sets that float in the air, and the actors interact perfectly with the imaginary and real elements of the set.

After the show we went next door to The Sitting Room. It’s a super convenient location and kind of charming. The lighting and furniture kind of works in creating a semi-cozy feel but the ceilings are too high, and the space still feels cold. It wasn’t the best place for us to hang out to discuss the show. We only lasted for one cocktail since we were practically yelling at each other.

We never made it to Mcmenamins for another drink. We ended up at Fenomen A, a gallery/wine bar.

Our waiter explained that it’s purposely spelt with the ‘F’ and ‘A’ for fine art.  It’s a simple place with a great idea… enjoy fine drinks and food in the company of good art. This is something you’d find in New York City -  not Seattle. Maybe that’s why we had the entire spot to ourselves on a Saturday night?

A couple, Ksenya, the Russian wife, and her Israeli husband own Fenomen A. This spot focuses on Israeli and Russian artists, wine and eats. Fenomen A is only two months old and definitely feels young and still could use some finessing. I don’t like how the oversized digital print outs from the current show, YOSSI VEISSID :  Architectural Dreamscapes, are hung with binder clips.

I also don’t care for how they arranged the artwork. Several walls seemed off balance especially the columns hung with paintings. But the line drawings are amazing and the detail is incredible. It's just too bad the space doesn't showcase Mr. Veissid's work better. 

Rachel, Brian, and I were planning on sharing a bottle of wine. But we couldn’t all decide on one. Actually, I couldn’t. The first bottle, a red blend from Israel, the 2003 Yarden Mt. Hermon, was described as a full, complex wine but it was more like a basic red table wine. The next bottle, a red from Georgia, the 2002 Kindsmaruli Semi-Sweet, was described as a port like wine. It had more body but definitely far from a port but what turned me off was it's smell. It smelled like a bottle that had been corked and kind of tasted like it had. We then tried the 2001 Khvanchkara Semi-Sweet, another port like option, but it tasted flat and didn't do anything for me.

I decided to skip wine and chose the Baltika Porter.

In addition to our drinks, Brian had our favorite dessert of the night, the Napoleon cake, Rachel ordered Rugalachs, and I chose the Chocolate & Rum Rolls.

Vancouver Art Gallery

Before dinner, I checked out Vancouver Art Gallery’s Friday Night event, Fuse. Fuse is hosted one Friday a month and the museum extends it's hours till 11 pm. Fuse features live dj’s, special performances, art lectures, activities, and free cocktails at the Gallery Café. All this for a discounted price of $10 instead of the regular admission cost of $15.

I was stoked to see a packed museum of hip and fun looking people checking out interesting art on a Friday night. The next Fuse event is November 25th. If any of you Seattlelites don’t have any Thanksgiving plans, this would be a great weekend to head up to Van City for a mini-vacation.

I loved the Classifed Materials Exhibit!! How could I not – I collect, classify, and archive almost everything in my life and my life! Everyday I archive my life in a minimum of 3 of 4 formats. Why do you think I love Japanese magazines so much… they love to collect, classify, and archive everything. Magazines after magazines have 2 page spreads showcasing every possible variation of one item… from yakisoba to restaurant chairs, from sneakers to Cartier watches, from pencils to pencil sharpeners… I LOVE it. When I was in the 2nd grade I started my own filing system for all my books. In the upper right hand corner of the book’s 1st page, I would write in the book’s reference number, along with year I received the book, and my name.

Classified Materials Exhibit “examines some of the ways in which artists employ, transform or challenge the processes of ordering and classifying through which conceptions of the world, and our individual positions in it, are deeply embedded.”

I loved Ellen Gallagher’s pieces that address racial identity and it’s social consequences. She creates mixed-media pieces using advertisements found in mid-century black culture magazines that she deconstructs by defacing the models and original text then rebuilds by layering different materials to portions of the models and creates new messages by combining some of the original text with text from other advertisements. Did anyone check out Ellen Gallagher’s solo show at the Henry back in February 2004?

I also loved Steven Shearer’s work. He addresses youth and alienation by creating collages of death-metal rockers inspired by found images taken from 1970’s teen magazines, discarded photo albums and downloaded images from the web. The collages were hilarious and sometimes sad. Lots and lots of photos of blue collar rockers, ass shots of nude rockers, and long, ‘rocker’ hair. One of his pieces is a ceiling covered in rock band posters complete with a bed. In order to fully appreciate the posters, you have to tilt your head way back. I couldn’t help but notice patrons viewing this piece had to strike a classic rocker pose… only things missing are a guitar and belting out Black Sabbath lyrics.

Opus Bar

After dinner I enjoyed one drink at the Opus Bar.

The bar is next to the hotel receptionist area. It’s a smallish space and boy is it ever packed!! It was packed from 5 pm till the rest of the evening. Both Elixir and Opus Bar are hot, hot, hot spots in Vancouver. I tried the Opus cocktail because I’m a sucker for a drink that’s named after the bar/restaurant. It’s their specially and might as well find out if it’s worth the namesake. The Opus cocktail was very tasty... sweet but not too sweet.

Elixir

I enjoyed dinner at Opus’s restaurant, Elixir.

It is amazing... so French and so yummy. Classic bistro set in vintage Montparnassea. Traditional bistro style chairs with updated backs... the center of the chair backs pivot to conform to your back.

The restaurant manager and waitress were super nice. I wonder if they felt bad that I was dining in such an upscale restaurant by myself... I wonder if they felt that I was stood up? In any case, service was impeccable. Very prompt and everything was timed well. Very tasty salad with red wine infused pears and candied ginger on top of watercress and endive. The halibut was also tasty but I liked my side of asparagus, spinach, and baby carrots best. The veggies were in replace of a cheese piece that I didn't care for and they were perfectly cooked with a tad bit of seasoning that added a nice touch.

Opus Hotel

I love staying at boutique hotels... I love checking out the design and layout of the building(s), the furniture, their application of their brand, the hotel amenities, the robes, the linens, their bar and restaurant, their gym, and their complimentary services. I especially love sleeping in fresh, comfy sheets without having to make my bed the next morning.

Opus Hotel is at the top of my list of luxury, boutique hotels. They have modern, yet comfortable furniture and decor. Most modern hotels are either all white and chrome with stylish furniture that is terribly uncomfortable or they have a bright and loud color scheme with over-sided furniture covered in ridiculous patterns.

Opus has four color schemes for their rooms and each color is paired with one of their ‘lifestyle concierges'. Aside from the standards that I check out, I also like discovering what each hotel does to set themselves apart from others. Most hotels recommendations for dining and activities are standard and always a miss with me. And few go so far as creating recommendations geared to specific lifestyles.

I am totally Susan and coincidentally I was given a blue room. They nailed this lifestyle. Most of these places I frequented when I used to live in Van City... dined at Glowbal, shopped at Holt Renfrew and South Granville, lived in the Kits area before moving to Davie Street, book shopping at Vancouver Art Gallery, and yes... drank Starbuck’s lattes.

What I love most about Opus Hotel is that the entire staff is super friendly and helpful. This is huge for me because I often make lots of requests... extra towels, extra amenities, overnight kit, my two wake up calls set 15 minutes apart, help with luggage to and from the room, dinner reservations (revised it 3 times), late check out, business facilities, and so much more. Plus, who wants to stay at a hotel where you aren't treated like a guest?

I also love that they offer in-town complimentary rides in their brand spanking new black 7 Series BMW. I enjoyed a ride to and from the Vancouver Art Gallery. When I called to arrange my pick up from the VAG, I was pleased that they specifically asked me where I would be standing to avoid confusion. Bonus points. You would think this is common sense but how many times have you arranged a date and then later discovered that you don’t know what side/entrance/exit to meet at?

Opus Hotel also offers the most uncommon amenity that I’ve ever received from a hotel – personal oxygen.

I guess they've got something for everyone.