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OtherRealms Issue 28 Part 05
Electronic OtherRealms #28
Fall, 1990
Part 5 of 18
Copyright 1990 by Chuq Von Rospach
All Rights Reserved.
OtherRealms may be distributed electronically only in the original
form and with copyrights, credits and return addresses intact.
OtherRealms may be reproduced in printed form only for your personal use.
No part of OtherRealms may be reprinted or used in any other
publication without permission of the author.
All rights to material published in OtherRealms hereby revert to the author.
Editor's Notebook [Part 5 of 5]
We didn't see all of Pike Street -- not even close. It's a continuing,
long-term adventure that changes before your eyes. But a number of
shops -- the crumpet shop, the Philadelphia deli, the cheese shops --
will get closer examination next time. I promise.
One thing that demands special notice at Pike Street is (surprise) a
bookstore. I fully expected when I walked into Collector's Bookstore
(1501 Pike Place Market, 432 Lower Level, Seattle, 98101 206-622-5182)
to see the same kind of bookstore you see in most touristy areas:
overpriced books on local flora and fauna, out of date tour books and
racks of Stephen King and Sidney Sheldon. I walked into this one and
ran straight into an entire collection of Arkham House editions. Even
more surprising, the rest of the store was full of lots of books that
showed there was a lot of love and care going into the inventory. I had
a chance to sit and talk to the people running the store a bit, and they
had a intelligent knowledge of both publishing in general and the SF
field. One of those unexpected little jewels of a store that sticks in
your mind -- and go back and spend even more money. If you're in the
area, this is a place to put on your list. It's not Powell's -- but it
carries stock that is in many ways complementary to Powell's, the
smaller, more obscure and interesting things that only a fellow
collector would know to have.
A quick note on the ferry. I found it somewhat disturbing to realize
that I could live in Winslow (where the ferry docks) or Poulsbo (an
enclave of Nordic people that have built a very charming city with nice
shopping that somehow has avoided the patina of tourism that tarnishes
Solvang down south) and use the ferry to commute to Seattle. The time
for this trip is about the same is the time to take BART (the San
Francisco commute subway) from Fremont. Fremont housing is middle-class
and not on the water, is still a LOT more expensive and built up at
that. The real pity, however, is that a round trip on BART is about
twice the cost of a round trip on the ferry.
On the other hand BART won't get you seriously seasick during winter
storms. It's also a lot cheaper to build a pair of docks and a couple
of ferry boats than it is to lay track for a light rail railroad, and
there is no way the ferry system can handle the kind of volume BART does --
but it does make you wonder about the economics of rapid transit and
whether there are options that just aren't being examined. On a
personal level, I ask the question "all other factors being the same,
would I rather live in Poulsbo or Fremont?"
Actually, that's a silly question. Given the chance, I'd be out of the
Bay Area in a shot.
Daytrip #2 was Victoria, British Columbia, billed as the closest thing
you'll come to England on the continent. They're right. It is, and it
somehow is both a major tourist attraction and avoids being blatantly
touristy at the same time. Unlike some places, like Las Vegas and
Catalina Island, Victoria has combined both a real city and the kind of
things that short-time visitors can enjoy without losing any
attractiveness for either. The ferry Coho makes four trips a day
(summer schedule) between Port Angeles and Victoria, with travel time
being about one and a half hours. I can see why Jack Chalker is such a
ferry fan -- they're almost an addicting form of transportation. The
large ferries in the Seattle/Vancouver/Victoria area hold about 200 cars
and up to 2000 passengers, include a snack bar, inside and outside
seating and wonderful views.
Customs was interesting. Washington state currently has a problem with
apple maggots, and Canada is very interested in keeping it Washington's
problem and not theirs, so most fruits and veggies were on the "don't be
silly" list. Americans don't need passports to visit (although it
doesn't hurt), only legal ID like a driver's license. Customs looked at
us (Laurie with purse, I with ubiquitous backpack for goodies), decided
there was no room for massive smuggling and asked us whether we were
carrying fruits, vegetables or weapons. (no, no and no). Then they
asked us whether we were carrying mace. (also no).
That stopped me a bit. I always figured that mace was a weapon, just
like a handgun is. Legally, you need permits for either, at least in
California and they're both no-no's under many circumstances (flying,
for instance). Evidently, however, some Americans will pack their mace
for a day trip to Canada and then not realize that when Canada says "no,
you can't carry personal weapons into this country" that their mace
applies.
I don't know about you, but I'm not sure I want THOSE folks carrying
mace. They might mace their foot or something.
Victoria is a place that you can spend a number of days at. We picked
up a flyer that listed 40 separate used or antiquarian bookstores alone
(if *that* isn't enough to get people up there, I don't know what is).
We checked out a couple and carried back a few more finds (this was a
good vacation for filling out our collection of stuff -- between
Westercon, Powell's, Victoria and a wonderful little bookstore in
Poulsbo, we picked up a lot of treasure, including a long-sought copy of
Damon Knight's Turning Points (a book of essays on SF from the 70s), a
1923 edition of Dumas' Three Musketeers and a Penguin Classic edition of
The Song of Roland).
Lunch was at a nice little restaurant/pub called Elephant and castle,
which featured British food and good Canadian beers and ale. I had the
shepherds pie and Laurie had a wonderful pork curry that we smelled from
the street and followed in the door. We also had some nice Canadian
beers (proof positive that Canada keeps its best brews at home and sends
us the rest -- this stuff puts Molson or Moosehead to shame).
The center piece of the harbor area are two buildings: the Parliament
house, which is the seat of Government, and the Empress Hotel. Both
were built in the late 1800's with the same overall style -- lots of
copper domes and windows. The inside of the Empress is impressive, and
they serve formal tea (which we didn't take this time around) and have
what looks like a wonderful restaurant (lots of nice curries and
things). It is *very* British and really helps set the feeling of
Victoria.
We visited a number of things in Victoria. Since we're big bird and
animal types, we had to visit the Crystal Garden, which wants to be a
high-class greenhouse/aviary/zoo. What it really is is a pretty small
building with a couple of dozen cages, a few exotics and some macaws and
other birds. It was nice to see the birds (we left ours at "summer
camp" with the people we bought Morgan from, and when we aren't around
her we miss having her around) but it's definitely not worth either the
price or the hype. On the other hand, the Royal British Columbia
Museum, a combination Natural and Cultural history museum, was worth the
couple of hours we put into it. Lots of displays of both the geology and
ecology of the British Columbia area and the people, places and history
that surrounds the area. Recreations of a typical city over various
periods of time, a look at farming, mining, seafaring and fishing
through the years, and, most importantly, a LOT of fascinating data on
the native Indian cultures including an authentic Big House and Pit
House (the Big House having actually been given to the museum by a
chieftain when he stopped using it). A great place for authorial-type
research and poking.
I was impressed with how the Canadians handled their Indian history.
Upfront about the abuses and realistic about the outcome. Much of
America really wants to believe that we didn't do things to the Indians
(or, at least, that they didn't believe). America, as a country, has
trouble accepting that it's not perfect -- just ask the WW II Japanese
or Amerinds (or read Dee Brown's "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" for the
American invasion from the Indian viewpoint. There's a book in there
somewhere....). Overall, the museum is a fine example of how to display
a culture to outsiders in an accessible, interesting way.
A place we didn't get was Butchart Gardens, since we weren't staying
over and didn't feel like taking a tour and returning on a late ferry.
Our next trip up will definitely be an overnight stay in Victoria,
though, and this is the top of my list. Butchart is about 50 acres of
displays of various flowers and plantings and is considered one of the
top formal gardens in the world and well worth a full afternoon to
itself. In retrospect, I wish we had taken a half-day tour up there,
but it's something to look forward to. Other places we missed (with
varying degree of unhappiness) included the Royal London Wax Museum,
featuring Queen Victoria herself, Sealand (aka Sea World in San Diego,
Marine World in Vallejo and dozens of other, similar places), Miniature
World (dozens of displays of miniature cities, towns and etc, housed
inside the Empress Hotel) and Undersea Gardens, an aquarium. Two days
seems to be a minimum to really see decent amounts of Victoria, and I
think I'd prefer three.
The third of three day trips might seem a little unusual to many. We
popped down to Tacoma (about an hour's drive) to spend the evening
watching the Phoenix Firebirds (AAA team of the San Francisco Giants)
beat the Tacoma Tigers (AAA team of the Oakland Athletics) 3-2. Laurie
and I have been going to minor league games in the Bay Area for a couple
of years (San Jose is home of the A level San Jose Giants, which is,
obviously, associated with the San Francisco team). Minor league ball
is a lot of fun and a lot less serious than the majors -- A league is
the lowest form of professional ball these days, and so the kids here
are making the adjustment from being the top kid in their high school or
college to being one of the junior players again. Many of them,
obviously, never make the transition or get good enough to get to the
majors at all (the reality is that at any level, only three or four on
the team will likely be promoted to the next level up -- the rest are
being paid to play catch with the prospects). An average San Jose game
can attract anywhere from 300-400 unless there's a strong draw (San Jose
is one place where S.F. players rehabilitate. Kelly Downs pitched
there last week (as I write) and it was essentially a sell-out in a
stadium that'll hold 2,500 or so. AAA is a lot more professional, with
crowds of 6,000 more typical, so a good part of the intimacy of A ball
is lost, but it's still a lot better than the 30,000 at San Francisco.
It also gives you a chance to see the stars of tomorrow -- Mark Leonard
hit a home run against Tampa (and later was promoted for a short time to
San Francisco, where he went about 1 for 11 before going back to
Phoenix. Good player, not quite ready). At the A level, there's a lot
of raw talent and enthusiasm but not a lot of skill. Baseball and
Hockey are my two special sports, but I've always had a soft spot for
college and amateur games over professional because the top-level
athletes (especially in the NBA) tend to make it so smooth and
machine-like that it becomes boring. The lower echelons are where
you'll see people still playing it as a game instead of a profession,
and where the stakes aren't so high that mistakes are unthinkable. Fun stuff.
The rest of the time we spent in Washington was spent either sitting,
walking or puttering in places like Poulsbo. Laurie and I both caught
up on a lot of reading, although I swear my to-be-read stack gave birth
to some books while I was on vacation because it doesn't *seem* any
smaller. We also spent a fair amount of time with the shortwave (A Sony
2010, another hobby of ours -- in fact this morning I went and bought a
Radio Shack Pro-34 scanner to upgrade my Pro-33. Next toy will be a
Kenwood R5000 desktop shortwave, maybe around the first of the year).
The Pacific Northwest is one of the best places to listen to Radio
Moscow, for instance, as well as being a good place for the Far East and
Australia.
Radio Moscow is as clear an indication of the fundamental changes going
on in the Soviet Union as you can get. What used to be an unending
stream of rhetoric, political posturing and field trips to fork
manufacturers in Kiev has shifted to a fascinating mix of politics,
relatively unbiased news (Boris Yeltsin was busily taking the Russian
Republic independent and sticking his tongue out at Gorbachev, and while
RM was critical of that situation, it wasn't ignoring it like previous
regimes did -- and it's being very open and frank about many of the
other problems the USSR is having, from miner strikes to toxic waste.
An amazing change of face for what was a political toy) and even,
believe it or not, Top 40 Rock and Roll (Saturday afternoons here on the
west coast, hosted by Gary Gears, a well-known Chicago DJ. They seem to
be taking a satellite feed from him and rebroadcasting it on their world
service. The first time I heard it I couldn't believe my ears -- I
thought a domestic station like WRNO was taking over a Russian Frequency).
We'd planned on doing a lot more in Washington, but vacation-ennui set
in. The thought of sitting and relaxing and sitting some more was so
attractive that we gave up playing tourist and recharged our batteries.
We thought about going and seeing the Everett Giants (Rookie league A
ball), and we thought about Vancouver (vetoed because of Westercon next
year) and tracking down a number of our friends in the area.
We'll do it next time. It's hard to beat sitting out on the deck and
watching the bald eagles fishing out in the sound. Vacations shouldn't
be so busy you go back to work to recuperate.
I can hardly wait for next summer.
[not continued]
------ End ------
