october 2011, listed
I think I was out of Seattle more than I was in it during October and when I was here I was either touristing my parents or sleeping off the cold that my canadian cold caught on a flight to Los Angeles. All Tomorrow's Parties (I'll Be Your Mirror) was an excessively pleasant non-crowded music festival for grown ups that made me want to go to the resorty english one even more; I had a couple extra days in New York for the 99% and amazing upscale mexican dinner with friends; I took my parents to the magical island of deer; spent a week in Canada grateful that I ditched the conference hotels for a similarly priced but excessively more pleasant boutique in the Old City; saw some good shows (including a Ryan Adams laugh riot) at an in-city music festival; and ended the month at a conference in LA where I got to hang out with my cousin, experience warm weather, standstill highway traffic, race through a museum of lies, and see Kings of Convenience (omg); and completely skipped Halloween.
Places: Asbury Park, New York, Orcas Island, Montreal, Los Angeles
Music: Jeff Mangum, Bonnie Prince Billy, the Album Leaf, Awesome Tapes from Africa, Colin Stetson, Ultramagnetic MCs, Portishead, Battles, the Horrors, Beak>, Deerhoof, Robyn, Ryan Adams, Allen Stone, Grand Archives, The Hold Steady, Male Bonding, Kings of Convenience
Events: All Tomorrow's Parties, Occupy Wall Street, International Congress of Human Genetics, City Arts Fest, Maggie & Curtis's Wedding, CHARGE Investigator Meeting, Mom and Dad visit
Books: The Art of Fielding, The Marriage Plot
Hotels: Laingdon Hotel, West Beach Resort, Hotel St. Paul, Crowne Plaza Redondo Beach
Sites: Silverball Pinball Museum, The American Museum of Natural History, Zuccotti Park, Notre-Dame Basilica of Montreal (but not the light show), Bixi bike rentals, The Getty Center, The Museum of Jurassic Technology, Santa Monica Pier,
Notable Food Stops: Pizza Moto, Asia Dog (Brooklyn Flea in Asbury Park); Empellón, Nanoosh, Shake Shack (New York); L'Avenue (hilariously described to us by a conceirge as "French cuisine"), Fairmount Bagels, Olive et Gourmando (every day), Le Cartet, L'Auberge St-Gabriel (Montreal).