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Tuesday, the 28th of May, 2002

There's a theatre on 6th and Blanchard that has been sitting empty as long as I've lived in Seattle. It's a small place, two screens on a bit less than a quarter of a square block; the main screen sits under a large dome visible from several blocks away. I think it'd make a great nightclub.

It wouldn't take much modification. I'd divide the lobby in thirds, each with its own set of doors. The concessions area would become a small cafe/restaurant, linked to the club to satisfy the liquor board. The middle third with the main doors would lead to the club, and the left could be subleased as a record store, bookstore, or some other small shop. Each screen would become one dance area. I'd rip out the seats and install a flat dance floor, but leave in the screens, stairwells, doors, and sound systems. The projection booth would become the deejay's alcove. The bar would be set up in part of the lobby, thus adjoining both dance rooms and the restauraunt.

The neighborhood isn't a big nightspot right now; the King Kat Theatre sits across the street, and the Sit & Spin and Crocodile Cafe are two and four blocks away, respectively, but there's not a lot of pedestrian traffic around the spot I have my eye on. Still, Seattle is clearly growing northward into Belltown, which itself is growing eastward as new upscale and late-night-friendly restaurants pop up on 3rd and 4th. Perhaps people would appreciate the availability of parking and the distance from the less entertaining parts of Pioneer Square. The theatre is also at least one block from residential buildings in every direction, which should make the noise and activity less of a problem. I also imagine running a small shuttle service: a van up to Capitol Hill, down to Pioneer Square, and back to the club, perhaps once every twenty minutes, allowing club-hoppers to include my spot in their night out.

This hypothetical club would have a lot of capacity to fill, but with two floors it should be able to accomodate a diverse crowd. I can see the big room playing more uptempo stuff with the smaller one serving as a chill space, for example, or using the smaller room for a regular club crowd while putting on Friday and Saturday concerts on a stage under the dome.

This dream sprung into my head nearly fullgrown last fall. I can see the club's decor, the lighting systems, the scheduling, even the cafe's menu. A theatre already has most of the infrastructure a club would need, so the conversion shouldn't be prohibitively expensive.

But there's no way it'll happen. A "For Lease" sign finally appeared last week, and of course I'm tempted - but this is Seattle, and nightclubs aren't wanted here. A club is a risky proposition to begin with; add in an uncooperative liquor board and an unsympathetic police department, and there's no way I'm going to risk anything on the idea.

It's too bad - I'd love to visit the place.

The idea of getting a tattoo has tempted me for years. I've had vague ideas about symbology, but the main draw is simply personal adornment. Still, for lack of any solid design idea and because of a general reluctance to make permanent body modifications without due consideration I've never let the idea do more than tempt me.

My first thought was to draw a Celtic knotwork-interlace design and use it as a band around my upper arm, but that didn't seem quite unique enough (heaven forbid I ever do anything anyone else has ever done, of course...) and I never came up with a design that really seemed to work. In any case, the influence of the medieval Irish church illustrators on my design sense waxes and wanes, so I'm not sure I want to commit myself to that style.

A new idea came to me while hiking through the rain forest in Costa Rica. I love maps, particularly old ones from the great age of exploration. While I will stare at any map for what seems to be hours, the idea of a map as a piece of creativity, as an expression of an individual and imperfect understanding of the earth, has a special appeal. As a symbol of cartography, a traveller's tool, and an expression of the mapmaker's whimsy, the compass rose seems an excellent tattoo subject. It is a precise geometric figure with the crisp black lines and solid colours I love; its long history and vague mythological connections give it a solid artistic background to draw from, yet its functional nature keeps it from flying too far away from earth.

I don't know if this idea will go any farther than previous ones have, but it has hold of my imagination for the moment, and if nothing else it's a good excuse for another design project. I've crawled the web looking for interesting source images and information about the history of this device. Here are some of my favourites:

Wednesday, the 22nd of May, 2002

It's been a relaxing day, and thus a boring one, though the sacrifice is made in the interest of recovered health. My arms are sunburnt, my back sore; I've an assortment of bites from insects unknown and a gash down my back from a surfboard's fin. I am less tired, however, than I'd feared I would be and I will return to work as usual tomorrow morning.

I could live a happy life in Costa Rica. It would be a different life, and I would eventually be a different me, but no less fulfilled for it.

Sunday, the 19th of May, 2002

Costa Rica is a great country.

We spent the afternoon on a soft sand beach curving around a coral lagoon here at Manuel Antonio national park. Hermit crabs, iguanas, some birds, the sea clear aquamarine... what more could you ask for?

I rented a surfboard and spent a couple hours in the waves. It was a glorious many-coloured sunset and there were lots of nice medium sized waves... bliss. If I could bottle the feeling and sell it, the DEA would shut me down in a week.

Tomorrow we go river rafting - Class IV, Rio Savegre...

Monday, the 13th of May, 2002

Tomorrow morning, very early, Kelly and I are leaving for Costa Rica. We'll spend eight days there, touring the countryside in a small jeep. We're focusing on natural areas: national parks, wildlife preserves, volcanos, and the ocean. We plan to hike up the slopes of Arenal volcano, raft some class-IV whitewater, and tour the cloudforest canopy. Costa Rica is a beautiful green country with abundant, fast-growing plants, ragged new-born cliffs, and changeable weather; I'm sure we will take lots of pictures.

Last year's trip with Real Software gave us only three full days in the country, but we packed our time full. I'm sure the experience will be somewhat different with more time and less driving around. I just hope it's not too "relaxing" - I don't want to rest, I want to LIVE. My idea of a good vacation is one that fools me into thinking I'm not on vacation: that I really exist, wherever I am, and am not just pretending to be there for a few days. I want to come home with aching muscles and a spinning brain, full of new experiences. It is easier to sustain the fantasy that I live an interesting life that way...

Sunday, the 12th of May, 2002

The Manx flag is a red banner bearing a curious device called the trinacria, consisting of three legs joined at the base. Its use dates back to antiquity and apparently nobody is entirely sure what it means or where it came from. Oddly, the same symbol is popular in Sicily.

The Manx Parliament, called the Tynwald, has existed for over a thousand years and is believed to be the oldest continuously operating parliament in the world.

Saturday, the 11th of May, 2002

My current craft-project is a pair of platform boots, picked up very cheap from Value Village. They are good-looking, serviceable boots except for the fact that their toes are crushed in and scuffed. I am turning them into rivetgrrl accessories for Kelly by armoring them with steel chain-mail caps for toe and heel. The metal covers up the scuffed toe and gives a good strong retro-future look.

This has been a fun project. I'm using 16-gauge steel wire coiled around a 6.5 mm crochet hook. This makes a nice tight 6-1 pattern; it's thick and quite sturdy but still flexible. I've completed the right boot; it required 393 rings, which is between 30-35 feet of wire. After developing a blister on my right ring finger I gave up on the trusty wire cutters. I bought a tin snip and filed down one of its jaws so that it would fit inside the wire coil. Cutting rings is still a fair bit of work, but this approach hurts a lot less than the wire cutters did.

Tuesday, the 7th of May, 2002

Here's another of yesterday's glyph-projects.

I like sharp lines and crisp edges; distinct colour-regions tracing out clearly defined paths. There's often more ambiguity in the obvious than in the deliberately obscure.

Inspiration struck yesterday.

Sunday, the 5th of May, 2002

I've uploaded a digital version of this winter's art project. The original idea was to lay out the black-line layer in Illustrator, then have a plate made and thermograph it onto some good paper. From there I'd paint in the colour with acrylics and watercolours.

The digital side of the project went smoothly, but the printing process turned out to be more difficult than I'd expected. I may still create the painted version of this image eventually, but for now I'm going to put this project aside.

The image is scaled down substantially - the original is 9 by 16 inches.

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