~Anne Sexton

* East West Bookshop doesn’t host many authors, but those tend to be interesting. Tonight East West welcomes Robert Krull, author of Solitude: Seeking Wisdom in Extremes, 7:00 – 8:30 PM. He will be in-store to talk about the year-long vision quest that resulted in this book. LINK

* Tonight, at 7:30 PM, poet Jane Mead will be reading from The Usable Field, her most recent collection, at Open Books in Wallingford. Ask Ms. Mead about her bone collection. LINK

* I love food. I love books. I love books about food. (If I could find food about books, I could die happy.) But I’m on the fence about Kathleen Flinn’s memoir The Sharper Your Knife, The Less You Cry: Love, Laughter, and Tears at the World’s Most Famous Cooking School; PW says “cooking features as a metaphor for self-discovery.” I don’t love voyages of self-discovery. Elliott Bay Books is hosting the paperback signing at 7:30 PM tonight, and there will be tasty tidbits. Two out of three ain’t bad. LINK

* NPR had an interview with the editors of State By State: A Panoramic Portrait of America over the weekend; tonight, one of them, Sean Wilsey, and contributing writer Carrie Brownstein will be at Town Hall to talk about the project and preview the movie Out of the Book, Volume 3, State By State. Inspired by the WPA American Guide series, Wilsey and co-editor Matt Weiland asked 50 writers to contribute essays about “their” state. I can’t wait to read this, it sounds fascinating. 7:30 – 9:00 PM, downstairs, $5. LINK

Friday:

Underwhelming experience at Tease-o-Rama, the burlesque show at The Triple Door. Too many lame dick jokes.

Had a caramel latte at the new Vivace. I miss their stools, but the decor was still lovely.

Danced my ass off at Decibel. Felt old for not knowing any of the DJs and for forgetting my earplugs.

Saturday:

Recharged at the Teapot in Queen Anne. Looking forward to their newer and bigger digs come fall 08.

Walked to Kinnear Park for the first time, got scared by the amount of bums and drug deals and ran back home.

Went with the bf to a Mariners game. Took awhile to find a spot because of bums, finally found one and enjoyed the beautiful day as the Mariners kicked the Oakland A’s asses.

Sunday:

Went swimming at the Ballard Pool.

Went to the Sustainable Ballard Festival, where I couldn’t get any straight answers from the people manning the booths but I did leave with a reusable bag I sewed up myself and a great big Chinook coupon book!

Sorry for not providing links to anything. I was eating the most delicious Honeycrisp apple from Pike Place Market and typing with one hand up until this sentence. And now I want to go outside for the remainder of my lunch hour.

Hope you guys had a great sunny weekend. It could be our last.

If you live in the Northwest and enjoy tea, this is a very good week for you as the Northwest Tea Festival opens this week at local restaurants, SIFF Cinema and the Northwest Rooms of the Seattle Center.

Thursday, October 2, is the opening tea dinner for the festival, held at 94 Stewart Restaurant. The festival proper starts on the 4th at 10:00 a.m. and runs through Sunday, October 5th at 4:00 pm. At the festival, you will be able to sample teas from all over the world, participate in cooking with tea demonstrations, take tea-related classes, check out tea-related art, learn about the history of tea and more. Some of the special events happening include the instructional “Tea 101″, led by Ken Rudee of Barnes & Watson Fine Teas, “Putting on an Afternoon Tea” by Julee Rosanoff of Perennial Team Room, and “Teas of Taiwan” by Shiuwen Tai of Floating Leaves Tea.

SIFF Cinema gets in on the act by hosting two films: Saturday’s The Meaning of Tea and Sunday’s All In This Tea. Panel discussions follow both panels.

The festival concludes Sunday night at Wild Ginger with a closing tea dinner.

Besides water, tea is the world’s most popular beverage and is a big part of culture all around the world, except in America where it is generally considered an afterthought of a beverage by the general population. The NW Tea Festival hopes to change that perception by offering up the opportunity to get to know tea a whole lot better. The festival certainly appeals to those of us who are already tea lovers but the festival seeks to do more than simply preach to the choir. The programming is designed to appeal to all levels of tea knowledge, including none, so that even those people whose only experience with tea is the random cup made with Lipton or Red Rose tea bags will find the festival instructive and fun.

The festival is free to the public; a $5 donation is requested and I strongly suggest paying it since you’re going to get way more than $5 worth of value at this festival.

Leavenworth’s Autumn Festival

Like Wesa, I also took the opportunity this weekend to do something that had been on my Seattle to-do list: Visiting Leavenworth.

Leavenworth is a small town on the other side of the Cascades who re-invented themselves in the 1960s as a mock Bavarian village. The town is most famous for its Oktoberfest, a three-weekend long festival that is supposedly one of the most well-attended in the world outside of Germany.

One thing we didn’t realize about Leavenworth was just how much of a tourist town it was- granted, it is a town devoted entirely to tourism, but this weekend was their Autumn Leaf Festival. The next three weeks are Oktoberfest. After that there’s a Christkindelmarkt, then the Christmas Lighting Festival, then the Ice Festival, then the… you get the idea. It makes you wonder when the 2,000+ residents of the town ever get any sleep. They have pottery festivals, choral festivals, ale festivals, accordion festivals, bird festivals… it’s a bit overwhelming.

The town itself, with all its activities is a little overwhelming, but the drive there is gorgeous. And besides, where else can you see pirates jesting with leaf-bedecked cheerleaders or Bavarian-themed Chinese restaurants? Even the McDonald’s looks like it dropped straight out of Munich.

When a band gets too popular and its hipster fans get a little put out, it always seems that the new music gets denigrated due to its commercial success by its fickle fans. So while the old Vivace on Broadway was special, charming, etc., let’s take some time to judge the new location in the Brix condos on its own merits. I agree with Voracious that they did a good job of retaining the feel and decor of the old place, especially keeping in mind that retail in condo buildings usually means Quiznos.

Yesterday was the first day of business; when I showed up at 10am their was a minor glitch that only permitted them to pour shots, so they offered me a gratis espresso. (Thank you, Vivace.) I came back later for an americano and all was well. So what do you think?

Espresso Vivace
700 Broadway E

I finally went kayaking on Lake Union today, something that’s been on my “Seattle To Do” list for years. What do you do on your weekends? Bonus points for photos.

I drive by this house in Madison Valley almost every day, and we’ve been watching intently over the past few weeks as they’ve jacked it up and excavated the hillside below. Looks like it’s just about ready to head out. Wonder if this one will go in the dark of night too?

Click on this website, fill out your information, and print the coupon for free admission to The Museum of Flight and the Wing Luke Asian Museum.

• If you missed the free screening of The Corporal’s Diary, a locally-produced film with an intimate focus on the life and death of a young serviceman from Bellinghman, earlier this week, never fear: you can catch it at the Grand Illusion starting Friday, September 26. Combining film shot by Corporal Jonathan Santos during his tragically brief tour of Iraq with footage of his mother’s visits to families who have also lost loved ones in the war, The Corporal’s Diary is a moving meditation.
• Late night at the Grand Illusion this weekend: the delightlfully bizarre Repo Man in which Emilio Estevez’s portrayal of the title character presents a snarky view of youthful alienation in the Reagan-era, all played out to the tune of what might be the greatest punk rock movie soundtrack ever.
• Late night at the Egyptian this weekend is a darkly-satiric thriller of a different sort. The Host is a thoughtful horror story about a mysterious and terrifying creature in which a father takes desperate action to save his captive daughter.
• Decibel celebrates their fifth year of exploring the tight relationship between visual art and electronic music this weekend at Northwest Film Forum with two multimedia showcases featuring artists like William Basinski, Library Tapes, Carole Kim and Son of Rose.
• If you liked Up the Yangtze at SIFF this festival past, you’ll probably like Still Life which opens at SIFF Cinema on Friday as they share a similar view of the same subject. Having seen the former isn’t a presquisite for seeing the latter; indeed, anyone might want to take in a showing of Still Life, a considerate and aware look at life for those trailing in the dust of modernization in the shadow of China’s Three Gorges hydro project.
• If the idea of a so-bad-it’s-good movie with a schlocky plot and trite, mediocre plot enlivened by a catcy soundtrack and some cool choreography accompanied by pizze and beer sounds good to you, get yourself down to Central Cinema for Dirty Dancing.