Scenes from Port Townsend, WA

May 29, 2014 Comments Off read Pacific, Travel, USA, Washington, West

My dear friends Aisling and Chris got married in Port Townsend, which was an excellent excuse to poke around the town when we weren’t otherwise occupied with festivities. This wasn’t my first trip to Port Townsend, but the last time was a day trip for the Wooden Boat Festival, and I spent the majority of it playing sea captain. Downtown Port Townsend is cute in a carefully cultivated in order to appeal to tourists way; I can’t envision the locals providing enough business to keep the combination pirate and steampunk store open. Outside of downtown, things get real pretty quickly. Our hotel, booked sight unseen as they were the only one that took online reservations, looked like the spiritual sister to the Breaking Bad hooker motel; we could hear every bump and shuffle in the surrounding rooms, which meant that they, in turn, were treated to my yowling rendition of “Roxanne” every time I turned on the red light in the triangular bathroom. The rehearsal dinner was at The Pourhouse, and in addition to their great selection of beer, cider, and wine, they have a killer patio and the best policy with regards to food: they encourage you to bring in outside food and/or have food delivered, so you get to pair what you want to pair with your beer instead of being stuck with bar food. It’s a policy I wish more taphouses would adopt! They also allow dogs on the patio, and I was completely taken with a patron’s puppy. I kept sneaking peeks at it from across the patio, and it was almost always looking back at me…and so was its owner, so I suppose I understand why he left because he probably thought I was about to attempt a googly-eyed dognapping. Another delicious Fire and Blood beer and I might have considered it.

Fantasy Worlds of Myth & Magic at EMP Seattle

May 12, 2014 Comments Off read Attractions, Pacific, Travel, USA, Washington, West

One of the current exhibits at the EMP is Fantasy Worlds of Myth and Magic, a place to see costumes and other memorabilia from various fantasy movies and tv shows, and more importantly, when I visited, they had an Iron Throne you could sit on. There was no way I wasn’t bringing my Stark cloak with me, but as I pulled it out of my bag, I became very self-conscious. Would the people in line behind me laugh at me? Snicker at Captain Dork? I needn’t have worried: after Beth and I finished taking pictures, I turned to the girls behind us and asked if they wanted to wear it and they couldn’t have been more excited about it, saying they had wanted to ask me if they could wear it but were too afraid to do so. In the Fantasy Worlds of Myth & Magic, we’re ALL Captain Dork.

Inside the exhibit, they have a test to determine what fantasy archetype suits you. Is anyone at all surprised I was categorized as a witch? I don’t recall the exact description, but it was probably something like “Self centered jerk, eater of the cute, hater of children, wearer of inappropriately dark and heavy clothing in summer”. And this is only because they didn’t have a lazy slob archetype, which is the witch only with more crumbs and less leaving of the house.

Speaking of witches, they had the amazing feather cloak from Snow White and the Huntsman on display. Just like at another museum with another covetable cloak, I was tempted to break my way in there and stride out cloaked to the nines, but I again barely resisted the impulse. Of course, owing to the fantasy setting, everything was dimly lit and it was impossible to get a decent photo, which is one of my bigger gripes about the exhibit: it’s often too dim to see any of the details, and when I come to see a display of costumes, I want to see all the details. I want to see the hand stitching, the beading, the things that weren’t caught or conveyed by the camera. When you stick a dark feather cloak into a dark case behind reflective glass, all you really see is your own dark reflection looking back at you.

They also have an interactive “create your own fantasy map” display; you can create a pirate, anime, or wizard map inside the exhibit, save it to a card, and print it out at the gift shop. Since I’ve had some form of pirate-themed bathroom for a decade, the choice was obvious. While I did end up printing mine (but not hanging it), the amount of time you’re given to create a map is too short, and I wasn’t able to make it as detailed as I’d have liked: two of my islands have nothing but trees on them. I understand they have to keep the line moving on busy days, but when I went, there was no one waiting behind me, and it would be nice if the system were more flexible.

In addition to Fantasy Worlds of Myth and Magic, they are concurrently running an exhibit about the lure of horror films, complete with an Alien costume and facehugger from “Alien”, Jack Torrance’s axe from “The Shining” and a number of videos featuring Roger Corman, John Landis, and Eli Roth talking about their favorite horror films and how they personally approach the genre. They also had a soundproof “scream booth” where you’re photographed giving your most bloodcurdling scream and you become part of the exhibit. I may have blown one of poor Beth’s eardrums because “tone it down a notch” isn’t something of which I’m capable.

If you’re in the area, both exhibits are running indefinitely. If you’re not, there are tons of great screams on the EMP’s Flickr stream.

The Worst Hair Day

April 29, 2014 2 Comments read Everything is Terrible

While at the Buffalo Bill museum, I couldn’t help but notice his son Kit’s extremely unfortunate hairstyle, which, even for the time period, he looks very unhappy about. Kit, I feel your pain, as this reminded me of the worst forced haircut of my youth. In the summer of 1994 before 7th grade, my mom, unhappy with her own short haircut, badgered me into getting my own hair cut short so we’d “be twins”. At twelve, I was hardly the paragon of obstinacy that I am today, and eventually I was dragged into “HairCrafters” (don’t think elite master of a craft when you see the word “crafters”, instead picture the hodgepodge glitterglue kind and you’ll be more on track) with a picture of Ellen DeGeneres. I was parked in a chair, my mom pointed at the picture and instructed the stylist to “give [me] that” and eighteen dollars plus tip later, I was just at the beginning of a three year long nightmare hair journey, although I didn’t realize it at the time.

Mom, proud of what she’d wrought, proceeded to take me from house to house in the neighborhood to show off our new twin status. I stood there in the summer sun while my mom chatted with the neighbors and the kids, normal kids, splashed in the pool and had fun. Although I was invited to join, my mom told me I shouldn’t because she didn’t want me getting it wet and ruining “the cute style”.

She had me so convinced that I looked great that the rest of the afternoon, I rode around on my bike with my helmet carefully strapped on, the better to surprise reveal to my friends when they came to their doors. Publisher’s Clearing House, I wasn’t, and I couldn’t quite understand their nonplussed reactions. Later, when I arrived at home, I’d found that in a hot afternoon of summer bike riding with a helmet, the sweat and immense amounts of hair product had plastered my new short locks onto my head, like a shiny, sticky skullcap.

Short hair and I were never meant to get along: my hair has that natural sort of half-assed wave, is possibly sentient, and if so, is definitely an asshole, and what looked cute on Ellen looked horrific on me. This was also the period of time when the crunchy bang wave hit Wisconsin, and I really, really wanted to fit in with my peers, so each morning, I carefully hairsprayed and gelled my bangs into the crunchiest wave I could muster, the humidity taking its toll on the style no fewer than five minutes later, allowing random pieces to escape and curl across my forehead in a particularly uncool manner. Add to this the fact that I had braces, owl glasses, and my mom still dressed me (to this day I cannot look at a pair of patterned leggings or a beaded vest without breaking out into a sweat), and we had the perfect storm for yearbook photo day. That is the oldest looking twelve year old I have ever seen. When I signed my friends’ yearbooks that year, I actually drew on more hair to hide that solitary forehead bang, like they couldn’t see my solitary forehead bang glaring at them in real life at that very moment. It took three years to grow that hot mess out, and then it started falling out, so where there was once a crunchy bang wave, I now have a bald spot. Hair, you are SUCH an asshole.