Locals tend to hate Seafair. It’s terrifyingly loud, it screws up traffic all over town, and it culminates in a multi-million-dollar military recruiting tool in the guise of family entertainment. Some Seattleites, especially those in the thick of it along Lake Washington go so far as to leave town, to purposely avoid these loud summer Seafair days.
Those people are fools. If you’re going to do Seafair, do it right. Flex your social networks, successfully ingratiate yourself to a couple living in Leschi with an amazing view, and climb on the roof to enjoy every single minute of the bombastic air show. Because it is awesome.
America, Fuck Yeah. (All photos Peter Majerle.)
Pulling up short. (All photos Peter Majerle.)
Loop de loop. (All photos Peter Majerle.)
On the way back down. (All photos Peter Majerle.)
In formation. (All photos Peter Majerle.)
In order to form a more perfect union. (All photos Peter Majerle.)
And the crowd goes wild. (All photos Peter Majerle.)
The neighbors ooohed and ahhed and took photos too, of course. (All photos Peter Majerle.)
Coming in close. (All photos Peter Majerle.)
Insert panoramic Bellevue shot here. (All photos Peter Majerle.)
(All photos Peter Majerle.)
Not to be outdone by some metal machines, a hummingbird got in the act. (All photos Peter Majerle.)
So as of 9:30 this morning, farewell to the Blue Angels for another year. Or as I overheard a dad explain to his son who was addled by all that sound barrier-breaking and in need of some comforting: “The pilots are going home. They’re going to watch Thomas and Friends and Dinosaur Train. Then they’ll drink their chocolate milk and take a nap.” After Sunday’s thrilling air show, the Blue Angels pilots have certainly earned some rest.
The Pacific Northwest–it’s the United States frontier still, populated in the continental imagination by lumberjacks, salmon fishermen, and prospectors readying for the Yukon. The weather is different. Visitors travel across the country to experience a temperate rain forest. Lately, the august New York Times has become fascinated by dam removal and silt.
But as the success of outdoor gear retailer REI, and its befleeced competitors, proves, residents too love to head for the hills…and lakes and rivers, forests and rocky beaches.
Yet, in 2013, as the Washington State Parks system celebrates its centennial, the Washington State Legislature hopes to have it off the books entirely. It’s an unprecedented refusal to fund a public good, which in this case is 117 parks, 33 heritage sites and interpretive centers, and more than 700 historic buildings on more than 120,000 acres, run by the fourth-oldest parks agency in the nation. During the 2007-09 biennium the state’s general fund provided about 66 percent of the parks budget; by 2011-13, that amount will have dropped to about twelve percent.
Even that isn’t enough: “With many areas of state government reeling from budget cuts, lawmakers in Olympia have given Washington’s parks system an unprecedented mandate to begin operating with no state funding beginning in 2013,” reports the Seattle Times.
Lawmakers have decided that the state parks need to act more like a business, and sustain themselves through demand for their services. Legislators frequently have strange ideas about business. No business would find it easy to reinvent themselves in just six years, which is the length of time that general fund support will have plummeted to $17 million from $100 million. A good way to kill a thriving business is to take away its primary revenue stream without letting it build a new one first.
This is setting aside the larger question of whether Washington residents have any problem with spending tax dollars on parks, to begin with. For the past hundred years, they haven’t. It’s not a question of personal usage: People like knowing the state parks are there. That’s true of the nation as a whole: “There is no state park system in the country that is self-supporting from fees and dedicated use taxes,” notes the State of State Parks 2012 draft report (pdf).
Times columnist Danny Westneat makes the point that people go to the wilderness as a reprieve from incessant capitalism, envisioning: “More cell towers. Solar arrays. Gravel extraction. Restaurants or breweries. Corporate naming rights. Utility lines. Higher fees, as well as pay amusements such as privately run zip lines and adventure parks.”
So does another Times (of New York) columnist Nicholas Kristof, who, with his daughter this summer, hiked 200 miles on the Pacific Crest Trail:
This trip, even more than most backpacking slogs, was a reminder that we humans are mere bricks in a vast natural cathedral. As we tumbled in snow pits, as rain fell on us, we mused that we’re not landlords of our planet, or even its prime tenants. We’re just guests.
In short, the wilderness humbled us, and that’s why it is indispensable.
The most public change so far has been the Discover Pass, a user fee that’s good for one day ($10) or one year ($30). As most of the state’s residents have been ignorant of the specifics of their legislators budget-axing, the fee has been greeted with pronounced animosity by people who believe their tax dollars already go to support the parks. The Discover Pass is a generic user fee; there are also fees for boat launching and mooring, Sno-Park use, camping, and holding weddings.
(Graph: State of State Parks 2012 draft report)
Legislators, as has been noted, have strange ideas about business: further evidence of this comes in the form of the projections for Discover Pass revenue upon its hasty, dead-of-the-night implementation (parks staff had five weeks to launch the program after the bill creating it was signed). It was supposed to raise $64 million between 2011 and 2013. A revised projection calls for $33 million. The service’s fee collection has been thwarted in part by the nature of state parks–many have no single entry point, which was never a problem when use was free, but now that means that it’s easy for people to evade a payment station.
Implementation still lags: A few weeks ago, I pulled into Saltwater State Park, south of Seattle, and the ranger asked if I’d like an annual Discovery Pass. I agreed, but the automated credit-card kiosk hadn’t been programmed for the annual version yet, so all I could buy was the $10 day pass, unless I had $30 in cash.
Additionally, the parks service has traded guaranteed funding for operations, which can be parceled out, for something much more volatile. June 2012’s persistent gray and rain kept visitors out of state parks but June’s bills still needed to be paid. The parks service has shifted to seasonal staffing, given rangers more ground to cover, and even transferred Wenberg, Osoyoos, Fort Okanogan, Fort Ward, and Fay Bainbridge state parks into other hands. Rangers who can’t make ends meet on seasonal pay have left the service, and maintenance is being deferred because it was mostly done during seasonal slow periods.
In conclusion, says the Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission, the “goal of 100 percent operational self-support is impractical. A stable and durable self-supporting state park system is unprecedented and, in the Commission’s view, unachievable.” So why go through this shock treatment? Why did this bill–with its draconian cuts–pass? Why would a majority in the Legislature think that a hundred years of stewardship wasn’t worth fighting for? Doing away with that because of a Great Recession is like clearcutting old growth because IKEA raised prices in its spring catalog.
These are the names of the Senators and Representatives that passed legislation so radical that it’s put the survival of the Washington State Parks, as it previously existed, at risk:
Looking for a way to experience the Blue Angels without the heat, noise, and crowds? Look no further than GregPierceImages’ capture above. Peaceful, almost…
A look inside the store, where you'll find coffee, cupcakes, ice cream, and more.
Confections at the counter.
A nice assortment of cookies.
Babycakes. Small, so you can eat more!
The popular Red Velvet cupcakes. Cupcakes are added, frosting and all, during the extraction process of the ice cream-making.
Red Velvet ice cream on top with Bananza below, which has bursts of roasted banana flavor, caramel, rum, and chewy chunks of chocolate brownie. I got this in—what else?—a Red Velvet cone.
The ice cream menu.
Can't get enough ice cream? Get pints to go.
Sit in the cafe, or take your cone to the sidewalk.
Serious Eats just published my list of favorite frozen treats in Seattle. Just after compiling the list, Food & Wine Magazine unveiled its 25 “Best Ice Creams Spots in the U.S.” Two local picks made it into the list by Food & Wine, but not mine.
I applauded Food & Wine’s choice of Mora Iced Creamery and only excluded it as one of my favorites because it’s on Bainbridge Island, and not in Seattle. (Incidentally, a couple of years ago I named Mallard Ice Cream in Bellingham as one of the great ice cream shops in the state for a USA Today article.) Food & Wine’s other local pick was Molly Moon’s. While I admire Molly Moon’s success, I prefer places with homemade bases, and I find MM’s ice cream to be a little too sweet.
Some may be surprised that I chose to include Cupcake Royale, brand new to the world of ice cream. As I reflected on my month of ice cream bingeing, I recalled Cupcake Royale as just plain fun–with quality to back it up. No surprise, since founder and owner Jody Hall consulted with the fabulous Salt & Straw in Portland in developing her ice cream recipes.
Hall recently opened her sixth cupcake bakery at 108 Pine Street in downtown Seattle, and combined it with an ice creamery for double the fun. As with the cupcakes, the ice cream is made with local, seasonal, and natural ingredients. And lest you think the cupcakes and ice cream are separate products, the menu contains a signature line of Cupcakes ‘n’ Cream ice cream (such as Dance Party with Holly Hobbie), plus a number of bakeshop-inspired flavors (like Whiskey Maple Bacon Crack). For a closer look, check out the slideshow above.
Somewhere in Seattle, this dog stopped to smell the sweet peas. Don’t forget to do the same yourself during this warm (90?!?) and loud (Blue Angels!) weekend. Thanks to Jo & Joey for the canine capture.
The SunBreak ran into Gerald Alejandro Ford in 2011, and asked him Five Questions, which is when we first heard about El Ultimo Coconut (at Annex Theatre through August 22; tickets: $10), his one-man performance developed as a Cornish senior project. “It was about a Mexican American teen who was socially awkward and addicted to World of Warcraft,” Ford told us.
As part of his “last hurrah in Seattle,” Ford has brought the show back, in an hour-long production designed by Ian Johnston, with sound by Catherine Blake Smith and video by Lonnie Tristan Renteria. It’s not autobiographical, but it feels genuinely rooted in Ford’s childhood Tucson. Ford plays a multitude of characters with uncanny precision in vocal tone and rhythm, gesture, posture–he’s a kind of solo-performer savant.
The narrative arc is a little kitchen-sink drama, a little USA Network. “Coco”–the protagonist’s unfortunate nickname happens to function as a Mexican variant of Oreo–is a gamer with a blog (which allows Ford to blog at the audience, his “minions”) who does not have that much in common with his family, let alone a social circle. Coco is an egotist about his smarts, insecure in his cultural identity (he doesn’t really speak Spanish), and tormented by his seemingly thuggy twin brother, who wishes he’d man up.
His fish-out-of-water antics and double-takes provide many of the laughs, which burble forth throughout, but the howls of laughter come from his mom’s demand, when she has something weighty to say, that Coco sit in his chair. Without going into it, the chair has a way of symbolizing the way moms the world over fight the future in which their children have grown.
Because Ford is so adept at characterization, the performance is strongest when he’s introducing each character, and detailing their interactions in their home. A south-of-the-border strip club scene is also strong, but it feels rushed, and the succeeding events begin to feel more like commentary, or a sort of comic parable. (A wonderful, projected-video fever hallucination plumbs the images of Coco’s soul.)
Most of the faults are likely due to the difficulty of self-directing, and being able to see when a character transition “reads,” or when the audience needs a beat, or a blackout. The strength of the show lies in how packed it is with candid observations of daily life for a Mexican-American family living in Arizona, and the multitude of borders jammed into a single living room.
