color shuffle
Last night was this year's first Seattle International Film Festival movie screening for me, an incredible documentary called Three Identical Strangers, which I intend to champion as much as I can. I have no idea when it might get local release in regular theatres, but when it does, if you see any documentary this year, it's got to be this one.
I was home about an hour before getting in line for this movie an hour early, par for the course with SIFF so I can get a decent seat. This way I finally started reading my library book, Michelle McNamara's I'll Be Gone In the Dark, which I thought might terrify me -- but honestly, the first 15 pages have already reassured me. I mean, it still makes clear how horrific the murders were, but right with the first murder she discusses, instead of giving a detailed account of the attack, McNamara gives a detailed account of the investigation and forensics in the immediate aftermath of the attack. I quite like this approach, because it avoids the pitfalls of titillation of sensationalizing that can feel part of telling the story of an attack, and places the emphasis squarely on finding the attacker. I'm impressed with the book already and I just started it.
Shobhit did not make dinner yesterday, which was fine, and he suggested I make myself a sandwich for dinner, which I took, even though we used up the entire packet of veggie ham for sandwiches with Uncle David and Mary Ann on Saturday afternoon. I just had mozzarella cheese and pickles and spinach with mayo and mustard on slices of one of the three Grand Central Bakery loaves Shobhit bought on Saturday -- and although it would have been better with the veggie ham, it was still delicious. Very satisfying. Also, I don't have a lot to say today, clearly, so I'm filling space with this entire paragraph about what I had for dinner.
I watched half of Tig Notaro's Netflix comedy special that was released yesterday in the bedroom while I ate, and then I was off to the Egyptian Theatre, only six blocks away.
There was some back and forth regarding whether Gabriel would be coming up from Tacoma to have drinks with me in Seattle after the movie. I actually thought he'd be in town by the movie let out, but when I got out of the theatre, he was nowhere to be found, nor was he answering phone calls or texts. I wondered if I should be worried and then decided not to be. Finally, right after I texted him that I was headed home and to call me if he was nearby, he called -- and was still in Federal Way. He had to stop by Stephanie's house to say goodnight to Tess. He was still talking about heading up to hang out for a bit, and balked at my prediction that this would take at least an hour -- I'm still convinced it would have. But, I said if he got here by 10:00 I'd still give him an hour. I am a very generous person.
I went home and figured, okay, I'd start working on my review, and just stop in the middle to finish this morning if necessary. But then he texted me he wasn't going to make it after all, which I figured was relatively likely to happy anyway; he hit some delaying snags at Stephanie's. I'm going to see him tomorrow anyway; that's when Solo has its first showings and I'll be headed to Tacoma to see it with him and Tess, as I have done opening night of every one of this decade's Star Wars movies. I think it might even qualify now as a legitimate tradition for us. We should get plenty of time to hang out then; I even plan to leave work a bit early.
So, I was able to finish my review last night. And then I got to bed at a decent time. I still hope to get to bed early tonight as I'll definitely be out late tomorrow.
Okay, so there actually is relatively big news at work today: it's the grand opening of our Burien store. As of today, we are back to 11 concurrently operating stores, five within Seattle proper (View Ridge, Greenlake Village, Greenlake Aurora, Fremont, Columbia City) and six in the surrounding areas (Kirkland, Issaquah, Redmond, Edmonds, Bothell, Burien). I say "back to" because the West Seattle store had to close last year for the site to be redeveloped, but it will re-open with the redevelopment on the same location next year. A lot of West Seattle shoppers moved to the Columbia City store and the expectation now is that a good portion of them will start shopping at the Burien store -- which is just blocks from SeaTac Airport.
Anyway, I always like to track social media mentions on store opening days because it's usually a lot of fun seeing customers people excited about a new store. I have trouble deciding how to feel about this one, though:
.@PCC Just returned from the grand opening of your beautiful store in Burien Wa. Wondering why, given the rich diversity of the area, it appears 99% of those union jobs you promised the community, have gone to White people? #rockystart pic.twitter.com/bNjvCQVyND
— WhiteNonsenseRoundup (@nowhitenonsense) May 23, 2018
The thing that gets to me about it, honestly, is this "WhiteNonsenseRoundup" account bio, which reads:
White Nonsense Roundup (WNR) was created by white people, for white people, to address our inherently racist society.
. . . And this is my take:
There's a fine line between "useful white liberal" and "wanting a pat on the back for being a white liberal."
— It's Matthew (@fcakenterprises) May 23, 2018
That said, the person who posted that criticism of our store's lack of diversity may have a point. To what degree they have a point, I don't know. How many people of color even applied to work there, I wonder? Was there any kind of outreach done on the part of PCC? (I sort of doubt it.) Are there people of color actually on staff, that the person taking photos did not see? It's true that Burien is more diverse an area than many others around here -- check out this photo of customers milling about the Produce section -- out of 16 people in the shot, at least 4 (a full quarter, minimum) are visibly non-white.
It's still difficult not to chafe at the tweet critical of Burien's apparent too-white-ness, considering at least four of the people photographed as clear PCC employees are not store employees; they work at the office. Not that the office staff is especially diverse either, mind you (save for something fairly close to gender parity), but it could be argued that office staff, while not quite there, is closer to reflective of Seattle overall than the Burien store staff appears to be reflective of Burien (which is 63.5% white, as compared to Seattle's . . . oh, hold on. I guess it was 69.5% white as of the 2010 census, but that has estimated to have gone down to 65.7%. That's not a huge difference from Burien, actually. Forget everything I just said!
I guess Seattle, long notorious for its whiteness, is getting less white. Certainly some neighborhoods aren't, but the overall demographics are clearly changing.
[posted 12:39 pm]