— पांच हजार सात सौ चौबीस —
Last night I attended a relatively exclusive, catered event in an event space at the
Escala building (2009, 330 ft, 30 floors) in Belltown—I delighted in informing the people at our table that this was the building featured in the movie adaptation of
Fifty Shades of Grey (I did not add that
the movie was bad); it's the building where Christian Grey lives.
Anyway, I think it was Shobhit who told me the attendance at this event was about 70. I had high hopes that the event space would be on an upper floor, if not at the very top. Alas, it was merely up a grand staircase in the lobby, and on the second floor. It was still a pretty cool space, though.
The event was called the "Gregory A. Falls Reception," in honor of Vivian Phillips, the woman long and widely association with arts in Seattle, who had won the "Gregory A. Falls Sustained Achievement Award" at the Gregory Awards I also went with Shobhit to attend
in October. It was explained last night, just as it had been at the Gregory Awards, that the first recipient of what had originally been called a "Lifetime Achievement" award did not like the implication that they were at the end of their career, so they changed the title to "Sustained Achievement." This is all hosted by Theatre Puget Sound, on which Shobhit is the Board Treasurer.
I never spoke to Vivian Phillips personally, but I would assume several of her friends were there. At least some present and former colleagues were acknowledged in her speech. As a "plus-one" with one of the TPS board members, it was also clear that a good portion of the crowd present were other Board members and their one guest.
I helped Shobhit decide on a table to sit at, and I chose one to the left when facing the podium, but otherwise closest to the front. I sat us on the far side of it
from the podium, but at the opposite end of that particular table, mostly just so I could get my own good angles for photos and not have to be turned around when looking at any speakers. In the end, there were two other TPS board members who sat at our eight-person table: Deanna; and Rebecca, along with her plus-one who appeared to be a local playwright friend. To my left, sitting at the end of the table opposite Deanna, was Crystal, the TPS Executive Director, whose plus-one was a guy named Justin, sitting to Crystal's left on the side of the table opposite Shobhit and me. The final person at my table was local SAG-AFTRA
Board President Deborah-H, [I'm omitting her full last name to lessen potential Google hits], who also happens to be a reporter for our local
one of our local TV news affiliates. I had already met her first at the SAG Awards viewing
last February; and she also MCed the "
MLK Labor Oscars" event at the Seattle Convention Center in May, where Seattle SAG-AFTRA was a (losing) nominee.
Deborah was super chatty. This would be the third time I was at an event where she was at, but the first time I had any opportunity to chat with her, and holy shit did we cover a lot of topics. We told each other about our experiences on 9/11, largely because she was very interested, as a reporter, to learn that I worked for a small community newspaper at the time (she seemed to feel she
should have known about the
Seattle Gay Standard, but as I said to her, it only lasted about a year). We also shared stories of where we were when the Nisqually earthquake happened in 2001 (the same year as 9/11, incidentally). Apparently she still lives in the same place in Pioneer Square that she lived in then, and her building was relatively unscathed even though Pioneer Square sustained by far the most damage of any neighborhood in Seattle. Many brick buildings had big chunks fall apart, and that happened to a building neighboring her. She said her apartment was a disaster. My apartment in Belltown had some open cabinet doors and that was about it.
We also talked about our mutual love of Seattle, and we very much agreed on how we continue to love Seattle in spite of—and in many cases because of—its many changes over the years. She said she came from the Northeast and she felt they were much stodier traditionalists, and she thinks of Seattle as, in her words, "a place of possibility."
I'm not sure if I really should have brought this up or not, but it seemed relevant: I asked her if it made any difference to her that Seattle is so White. She is a Black woman, after all, and I regularly hear—often from other Black people—that one of Seattle's detriments is how White it is (it's currently 62.2%, which is a lot less, actually, than the 73.7% it was in 1990—and Deborah told me she moved to Seattle in 1991). She told me that people often ask her about that, and that it's usually White people. White people in the Northeast brought it up to her before she moved, and her response was to point out: look around us right now. The group she was already in was mostly White. This is a fair point, and outside of certain places in the South, this is likely to be the general demographic mix in any random group around this country (which is, after all,
61.6% White).
This did lead to an interesting discussion between Deborah, and Crystal's plus-one, Justin, a 39-year-old Black man, about how people make assumptions of them based on the way they speak, which was clearly not, let's say, stereotypically "Black," in terms of either slang or even diction and tone. Deborah even told me she can be just as uncomfortable in all-Black spaces, and has had another Black person notice that she "talks the same, even on weekends." I had never heard that one before. But then, why would I? The gist of their conversation was that they are two people who don't really "code switch," nor do they particularly relate to it.
There's a hell of a lot more that could be mined there, of course, but by people of color and specifically Black people, so it's not my conversation to mine. In any event, my evening was greatly enhanced just by the random chance of sitting right next to Deborah-H.
— पांच हजार सात सौ चौबीस —
— पांच हजार सात सौ चौबीस —
The person I chatted with second-most, was probably Deanna, the TPS board member sitting at the other end of the able, and on the other side of Shobhit from me. I wound up giving her my website name for movie reviews (I suppose whether people go poking around enough her to find this personal blog is always a question, but whatever, this is public); we talked about how much I see and review movies; and we talked a great deal about the divide between leadership and union members in rapidly growing organizations—PCC in my case; Seattle Rep in hers (she's the
Education & Community Programs Director there). She noted Seattle Rep is a nonprofit; PCC is not (much as people want to act like we are, but co-ops still exist to turn a profit), but we still had a lot of common ground to talk about.
Then there was Rebecca, the third Board member at our table, who sat directly across from me. Justin was to her right; her playwright friend whose name I forget—no, wait! It was Andrew!—to her left, across from Shobhit. There was somewhat of an array of dietary restrictions at our table: Deborah eats fish but no other meat; Shobhit and I are both vegetarian but not vegan; Rebecca is vegan but said she might have to cheat tonight. She was delighted to discover the caterers had a vegan option available to bring from the kitchen—it was not readily available at the buffet—and they brought her a plate with an eggplant dish that she declared "surprisingly good."
Crystal, the TPS Executive Director, was kind of up and down from her end of the table, opposite Deanna. She got up to make introductory remarks a few times.
A couple of other people there to mention. Shobhit thought the Mayor might be there, but he was not. I can't remember for sure but I
think he said he had invited Joy, our District 3 City Council member (who won the election last year that Shobhit ran in), and she did show up. Shortly after we sat at our table, Joy came over to say hi to Deborah, so she was quite close by. I might have even said hi to her then, but I was deep in conversation with Deanna. Shobhit did more active mingling through the evening than I did, so I know he chatted with Joy a bit later. My only interaction with her was when she left at the end of the event and said "It was great seeing you."
Then there was Ry, who had
also run (and also lost) in the Seattle City Countil primary with Shobhit last year; is also on the TPS board with Shobhit. I know Ry was involved with SAG-AFTRA at some point too but I don't currently see that name on the Seattle Chapter SAG-AFTRA board list. Maybe they were on it once but aren't anymore?
Ry uses they/them pronouns, something you'd think someone like me would be used to by now but I'm kind of not (my disinclination to insist people use gender neutral pronouns for me, in spite of my decades-long gender noncomformity, is probably relevant here). They walked home with us, having moved entirely by chance to a condo in the West building in The Braeburn just a few months ago, and I accidentally used "he" during conversation while walking. Dammit! Shobhit makes no effort at this type of thing when we're at home, but he did correct himself and use "they" when referring to Ry to someone else at the dinner last night, something I don't think I had ever seen him do before.
Anyway, Ry also made a few remarks at the podium, including running up to lead us all in singing "Happy Birthday" to
Gülgün,
Director of Seattle Office of Arts & Culture, and presumably also Vivian's daughter, who someone found out was also celebrating a birthday yesterday. I don't know that said daughter was even there, but, whatever.
Certainly there were other "local notables" at the event. I just don't know them because I didn't do any real schmoozing and thus had no other introductions. I only met Gülgün (the name is Turkish, I learned) because she was there when Shobhit and I arrived, and we ordered drinks at the open bar—!—at roughly the same time. She was very interested in a pomegranate martini and openly disappointed in how difficult they are to find even though they are in season. The bartender found a cranberry pomegranate juice mix as the closest she could get to it, and Gülgün seemed satisfied with that.
Shobhit and I both had two cocktails at that open bar. His were a martini and mine were Moscow Mules, quite tasty. Honestly, the open bar wasn't anywhere near as much of a concern as the food buffets. Even as vegetarians, we had mushroom risotto, parmesan mashed potatoes, and grilled asaparagus to eat. Then the dessert spread was nuts: frosted cinnamon rolls cut into quarters; cookies cut into quarters; mochi donuts cut into quarters. I had a lot of quarters—so much so that, when I came back to my seat with a plate of sweets, Deborah said, "You didn't get much," and was clearly being facetious. There was also a kind of chocolate mousse cake that Shobhit took a slice of, and I helped him eat that.
I ate way too much. I am never not shameless about this, though. It's probably pretty tacky for me to say out loud at an event like this, "I never turn down free food," but I don't care. Cue the music!
I gooootta be meeee . . .
I took a pretty good number of photos:
24 shots, with a 25th added when I downloaded a photo someone else posted to Facebook with Shobhit in it. I didn't get any of the high-floor high-rise views I wanted, but the space itself was quite nice in its own right. I went looking for the bathroom and found the building's
theater room—it seats 14, just like the Braeburn! Just with far, far nicer seats, more like leather couches and lounge chairs rather than the theater-style chairs we have.
Crystal lives in the building, which was no doubt how the event wound up in that space. Shobhit kept wondering what the HOA dues are there. I wondered how competitive it was to reserve that theater for movie viewing, with no doubt many more units in that building than at the Braeburn. These are all people in a presumably much higher tax bracket, though, so I have no idea whether that lowers the average demand for something like a rentable theater space. They probably have a lot of perfectly great home theater setups. But, who knows.
This event didn't even start until 7:30. It was semi-formal, so I changed out of my jeans and into a pair of slacks, but didn't bother with a dinner jacket like Shobhit did. Plenty of others there had similar outfits on without jackets, aside from actual coats. The last photo I took, on our way out, was taken at 10:12.
As I already noted, Ry walked home with us. Ry is very tall, walking between Shobhit and me like some kind of human lighthouse, wearing a somewhat slimming sort of trench coat that made them look even taller. It was maybe around 10:35 when we finally reached the Braeburn. I got to sleep a lot later than usual, but it was worth it. I had a very nice time last night.
— पांच हजार सात सौ चौबीस —
[posted 12:32 pm]
