
Or, “How Others See Us.” It was taken at Beth’s Cafe on Sunday afternoon.
Beth’s is a 24-hour greasy spoon, the kind of place where club kids go at four a.m to share fries and 12-egg omelettes, but also where local biz people pop in for a quick sandwich lunch and hipsters go to feel like they’re walking on the wild side. Ha! Maybe 15 yrs ago… Yes, it’s on Aurora: what, in the northern half of the city, passed for the Bad Part of Town (prostitution and drugs mainly). Yes, it’s by Butch’s Gun Shop, a body-piercing place, and Andy’s Auto Repair. Yes, there are store front martial arts emporia, check-cashing establishments and Korean nail parlours. But gentrification has crept along Aurora from Green Lake, and the hot pillow joints have moved 20 blocks north. Now there’s a PCC, the Duck Island Ale House, a chocolatier, and Seattle laptop. The occasional parked–as opposed to motor-running, dealing through the window–BMW or Mercedes or Lexus is not uncommon.
Beth’s encourages patrons to draw, to take photos, to put their stuff on the walls. This one caught my attention. I was particularly struck by the pocket full of pens, the soul patch, and the unibrow. Then there’s the rigid parting, the starting eyes, the, ah, complexion. It seemed very specific, most particular and finely observed. Clearly there’s a story…
Ooo–Beth's! Best place to get a huge plate of hash browns crowned with pork chops at 4am in Seattle. (But it wasn't especially wild even 25 years ago, iirc.)
Phoenix, I wasn't here 25 yrs ago, but I was 15 yrs ago–and then it was, hm, more grungy than dangerous. Then there was the fire (10 yrs ago?) that burnt it all clean.
Nothing like the after-hours places I used to haunt in Leeds: Terry's All Time, and the Rendezvous. But, oh, that's definitely another story.
Yes! Definitely a story there.
Best/most interesting Beth's drawing I've ever seen.
Someone could make a book out of those things…
jennifer, y'know, that might make a very interesting collaborative project: a website, with music, poetry, video, stories…
Hey, let's think about that at some point. When we both have some of that Free Time stuff I hear exists for some people in some dimensions :)
Oh good idea! But I can see that we'll be starting that right away…
I've about decided that “free time” is a rumor created by authors of science fiction and/or fantasy novels.
Intriguing drawings loose in the universe caught by the attentive eyes of photographers and writers: definitely worth archiving. And wasn't Lynda Barry talking on NPR today about the reach to write and the reach to draw arriving from tangled sources of wisdom inside hearts and minds. (Oh, and Beth's 'sister' on the east coast might be Becky's in Portland, Maine.)