I know sometimes it seems that this entry is degenerating to nothing but different versions of Queen and Liszt but this one is fun. My opinions about the new Battlestar Galactica are… mixed. I enjoyed the first two seasons after that I felt it deserved all of the mockery it got… Like this video here.
Today’s sketch is of the painting “Boys Blowing Bubbles” a Flemish painting attributed to Michelaena Woutiers (The best article I could find on her was in Dutch, Sorry) Done in the 1640s in oil and is one of the Museum’s better examples of Chiaroscuro. A and a nice example of Flemish artists tendency to focus on slice of life scenes. In this case two boys playing (or at least one boy playing.. based on his facial features I have the sneaking suspicion that the other boy is a dwarf.)
When I was doing a little bit of research on this piece I stumbled over an interesting article from the Stranger about it. Until 2002 it had been attributed to Jacob van Oost, a 17th-century painter from Bruges. Regrettably little is known about Woutiers, one of the rare female court artists at the time, and credit was given to the slightly better known Van Oost. 
I’ve been thinking a lot about biking lately. I’ve been biking as a form of transportation for a long time. But for the longest time I’ve been a complete wimp about it. The instant there was so much a drop of rain (and in Seattle that happens quite a bit) I’d walk or take the bus, and usually I would pack the bike away once fall started.
But last year I had an epiphany. I had been house sitting for a friend and one of the fringe benefits I got out of it was getting to use his SUV. I hadn’t driven for years and so it was nice to have the luxury of going beyond my usual area of travel and do some errands for items that did not fit in my backpack. But the real great thing that became apparent over the week was that not counting anything that involved the highway that once you considered things like congestion and parking there really wasn’t that much difference between riding a bicycle time wise.
So I decided that this year I would not stop biking when the weather started getting bad. And taking the bus would be reserved for going downtown and pouring rain. It wasn’t pretty while contrary to popular belief rarely pours here it does just about everything else. While I refuse to whine about it let’s just say I became a master of waterproofing my backpack and it rarely gets that cold in this town my Yankee knowledge of layering has come in handy time and time again.
And despite the hardships it definitely began to pay off before I knew it I was biking places I had normally taken relaxed hikes to and found myself very surprised that I had an extra hour of free time to use on my way their. Soon I was biking everywhere north of the Ship Canal and felt safe going as far south as Mercer Ave. And of course now that busfare is up to 2.25$ I’m saving a fortune.
Now that the weather has finally turned around it’s nice for it to be a luxury yet again.
This weekend I took the next step. As I said earlier I decided to try biking to the Seattle Center for the Folklife festival. It turned out to be a great success and I ended up commuting on my bike for the rest of the weekend (16 miles round trip) While I think I regret it slightly I’m still a bit stiff right now I know if I keep it up (easier said than done working in a home office I don’t have to go anywhere every day) I can improve exponentially.
More thoughts on this to come.
Well naturally on the final day of Folklife I managed to drag myself out the door at a timely manner. I had a good reason, the “Big Jewish Show” began at eleven at the Bagely Wright Theater and I wanted to catch the whole thing (as I’ve said before I like Klezmer.) I got there just in time and it was as good as usual with my favorite being a group called Klezkids. It was a full orchestra with a girls chorus which kept me thinking of a Yiddish version of the opening song from Lilo and Stitch. The kids sounded very new at singing and the way the mics were set up their voices didn’t hold up against the instrumental as it should have but still there was a haunting honesty about their performance that I found very appealing. One of the girls, an eight year old in a purple dress performed the bottle dance which was extremely cute… Somehow I think using a plastic bottle of mineral water somehow effects the context.
When I got out Nothing was really on my list for things I wanted to see so most of the afternoon was spent people watching, drawing, browsing in craft booths and catching of music. In this way the day went fairly quickly. I ran into a few friends and had some nice conversations. I finished the day listening to a very good zydeco band called the New Iberian Zydeco Blues Band and a “Accoustic Grassrock” Band called Creeping time. After that I headed home.
All in all I enjoyed my annual Folklife marathon as much as any other. This year the long weekend seemed to go by especially fast and I’m not quite sure why. Perhaps it was because there weren’t quite as many bands that fit my specific tastes so I spent more time drifting through the festival… but not in a bad way.
I got a late start today for better or worse and arrived at Seattle Center by 12:30 (did it in 49 minutes on the Bike) Once I got there I started the day with a few scottish fiddler bands at the Northwest Stage after that I went to the Mural Amphitheater where a group of Zimbabwe Pop bands were performing. Once again I spent as much time people watching as I did listening to music. Frequently I’m more than happy just to drift around the entire day taking in all the little snippets of human interest.
As well as this there was also a very interesting exhibit commemorating the Seattle Center’s 50th anniversary which included some very nice art deco pieces including a poster promoting the digging of the Panama Canal by Perham W Nahl.
I finished the day with more Celtic Fiddling and some Zydeco. As well as some pleasant socializing with friends I ran into at the Northwest stage.
Well the second day went well. This was my second day biking to Seattle Center and I made it in 51 minutes. I had planned ahead a bit more than I had the day before and I had several venues chosen. For the most part it was just a group of suggestions which I didn’t follow that closely. Most of the Bluegrass was of the old time variety and thus a lot tamer than the stuff I like. For the most part I spent most of the day people watching. I also finally started getting into my grove sketching performers including Aeon Now, Finale Exhaust, The Ten Man Brass Band and The Small Time String Band.
