View from a Hotel Window, 8/19/15: Seattle
Posted on August 19, 2015 Posted by John Scalzi 16 Comments
There is no place where the parking lots cannot reach!
Tonight: Seattle, at the Downtown Public Library, at 7pm. You know the downtown public library; it’s the one that looks all funky. Co-sponsored by the Elliot Bay Books. Come by, it’s going to be a lot of fun.
Tomorrow: Boise! For the first time ever, I am visiting you! I hope you will visit me too, at the Downtown Boise Public Library, at 7pm. See you there!
What’s on that roof over there? Where it’s sorta blue and there’s all this colorful stuff?
PS) The Seattle Public Library is so so cool. Love the architecture there… and I’ve never been there! I did include it in a book, though, so I looked at a ton of photos. I fell in love immediately.
I think I’m the only person on Earth that thinks SPL is hideous. The building, anyway. The program is excellent.
I’ll be there tonight. I’m planning to race home from work at 5:00, grabbing a pizza on the way to feed the family, then race back to the Light Rail station in Tukwila and ride the train downtown. It might be crowded with people headed to the Mariners game, which also starts at 7:00.
S. J. Pajona: The library is great, but I was a little disappointed the first time I went inside. The beams around all the little window panes are thicker than I expected them to be, so it wasn’t as “airy” feeling as I wanted it to be. It’s still a really nice space, though.
So enjoyed your stop in Oregon – super evening, with special music and reading. And great thanks to Powell’s Books for hosting
Jerome– Have you been inside? The outer shape is just a bit lumpy but the red arterial passage on the inside is amazing, and there’s some good places for readings– not to mention a coffee lounge, not that that’s a design choice.
Sorry I’ll miss you in Boise but I’ll meet you in Spokane!
Hope the area is not affected by the fire that is raging in Idaho.
Quite the lineup waiting for Scalzi. Must be getting famous,
Bleh… I live in Idaho for a decade and nobody interesting visits. I move to Hawaii and you decide to go to Boise… How come Honolulu isn’t on the schedule???
Looking forward to seeing you in Boise — if that actually happens. Honestly, I keep waiting for you to announce that your appearance here is a practical joke.
Jerome, yes, you are to be shunned. You will not have a place when our glorious Book Mothership ascends to the Heavens.
Nice seeing you again, Mr. Scalzi! I was the “old one” of two sisters. Hahaha.
John – sorry to have missed you last night. While I have been to your previous three visits, last night I just hit a wall and couldn’t head back out. I salute you with beer and pizza, in my underwear. (But how the beer and pizza got in my underwear, I’ll never know.)
Jerome – no, you are not the only one. Our difference though is that I think the outside looks fine but the inside (especially the spiral central interior) needs work. Once got completely lost in the stacks, and hot in a happy way. No maps and no solid definition of a “floor” is problematic.
Jerome – I don’t like it, either. And whoever thought up that red hallway outside the room Scalzi appeared in should be banished from hallway design forever. It was like The Shining come to life. The meeting room could have used better air circulation as well. It was pretty stuffy by the end of the appearance. I did enjoy the appearance, and was happy I went.
Yes, I’ve been inside. I spent many years working in both the 2 Union Square and US Bank buildings and would walk up there multiple times a week. It’s a library, and I love libraries, so that’s not it.
It’s just a hideous behemoth of a building. I think people feel obligated to ooh and ahh over it because the city spent so much getting it built, and went to such efforts to make it different. See also: The EMP.