Shobhit and I went to the Northwest Folklife Festival this year, the first time we have ever gone together. I went to it once myself, eons ago, either before I met Shobhit or perhaps during the years he lived in New York or Los Angeles. I think maybe the former. But I don't remember for sure; I didn't take any pictures. Actually the fact that I didn't take any pictures very much suggests it was before Shobhit.
And: I thought it was all right. Same goes for this past weekend, actually. This would be the reason I have never prioritized it as an annual event. I will say, though, that the two different days we attended this weekend did have some highlights.
The reason we went this year was due to Shobhit's involvement with Theater Puget Sound, for whom he is now the Finance Manager. We saw a panel yesterday that included the festival's Artistic Director—who turned out to be the partner (husband? baby daddy? I need to get specifics here) of a woman who works at PCC; I also saw her briefly yesterday—and he noted that Seattle Center provides $2 million in rentable space to the festival every year. This would include Theater Puget Sound, which has venues on the Seattle Center grounds, and I guess cannot use most of it over the weekend. This, in essence, makes TPS a sponsor of the festival, and as such Shobhit was given access to the "Friends of Folklife Lounge." This included an open bar and free snacks, so of course we were like: we're there!
So, Shobhit met met at my office at 4:30 on Friday, and we walked over to Seattle Center together. The crowds were much thinner at that time, as it was early on the first day of the festival, before most people even leave work. We walked around the festival first, though we were a bit confused trying to find this "lounge," to which Shobhit had digiti QR code tickets. Nobody he asked had any idea what Shobhit was talking about.
The tickets said it was located at Fisher Pavilion, but was not more specific than that. We thought maybe that meant it was inside the building. Nope. Then we thought maybe it referred to the giant beer garden space outside the building. Nope—although there was a band there that I thought for a moment might be Sky Cries Mary, a Seattle band Gabriel introduced me to in the nineties that I loved, because they appeared to be performing one of their songs. But the band members were way too young for it to be them. I enjoyed them, though, and we stayed and sat in the grass there for a while.
After a bit, we got up again, and after getting some context clues from
a festival Facebook post and then looking more closely at the map on the festival program, we thought maybe the lounge was actually located in the public space
above—as in, on top of—Fisher Pavilion. We did finally find a stage there labeled "Friends of Folklife Stage," and right next to it was a huge canopy that really just looked like another beer garden. But, this was indeed the "Friends of Folklife Lounge," and we finally gained access to this space. It seemed mostly to exist as a space of appreciation for festival volunteers, and in some cases, staff.
The spread was pretty simple: a couple crackers and cheese plates; a big bowl of tortilla strips; some fruit. Shobhit and I shared a plate. We also both had a couple of small cocktails from the open bar, on Friday served in small white bowls. I had pineapple juice with tequila. Twice.
Perhaps most notably, we were in there during the performance, on the adjacent stage, of a folk-rock artist named
Morgan McHugh. I later learned he's from Colorado, and I listened to his EP on Apple Music, of tracks recorded with a full band, and I liked them a lot. I already quite enjoyed his very pared-down performance onstage, just him, his voice, his guitar, and accompanying woman on violin. I had enjoyed that enough to seek out his music later. He was selling CDs for ten bucks, and obviously it would have made a far bigger difference had I bought one rather than just streaming the tracks, but my budget is just super tight. Plus I did scan a QR code at our table so I could donate $20 to the festival. And that, with fees, cost me nearly $24 which seems a little ridiculous to me but whatever.
I did not donate to the festival again when we returned yesterday.
I took three photos on Friday, but after returning again yesterday, when we spend a bit more time there (roughly two hours versus about 90 minutes on Friday), I took another 9 shots. This totaled 12 shots, so today I thought, what the hell, I'll make
a dedicated photo album out of it.
The lounge was a bit better stocked yesterday. We ate a bit more. I do love me some crackers and cheese. Also, the bartender was the same guy, a slightly scruffy-hippie looking due who was think and cute but almost certainly straight. Shobhit ordered me a cocktail from him and came back with
a much bigger one.
I was a bit disappointed to find no musical performances on the Friends of Folklife Lounge yesterday. The panel discussion we saw was still pretty interesting. This was where we saw the woman from PCC. I wish I could remember her name. I was confusing her with a woman in IT, and now I'm not even certain this woman is still at PCC. It's so hard to keep track when so few people work in-office regularly. I just know she had a little boy, who she later took out of the canopy in a collapsible wagon, and the aforementioned Artistic Director said goodbye to them and then noted to us all that the boy was his son.
Shobhit and I killed some time after that browsing more of the booths. I was really tired too, and for a bit we actually lay in the grass near the International Fountain and I actually took a nap. So did Shobhit, though for not as long. Then, and this
really killed some time, we got in line at a Mexican food booth and got an order of a bean-stuffed gordita that took forever to get prepared but was still worth the wait.
We ate it while walking over to SIFF Cinema at the Uptown, where we got in line for the single SIFF festival movie I saw this year—
Twinless, which I really liked, in spite of a twist in the premise in the second act that I found very disappointing. Anyway, we got in line a solid hour early, which was what I had been hoping for.
This was also something I did not have to pay for: I usually buy a 6-pack of tickets for the Seattle International Film Festival, but had decided to write off the festival this year, for both scheduling and budgetary reasons. But, Shobhit was offered two passes to one movie by local SAG-AFTRA (of which he's still on the board; Shobhit's local connections and hookups never cease). He had asked if I wanted to take them up on the offer, and I was like, hell yeah! Especially when I looked up queer films on the schedule and saw that
Twinless was on it. I heard about this film months ago and have been really eager to see it. I looked it up today and the regular theatrical release isn't even until September. I'll probably go see it again, that time likely with Laney.
Speaking of Laney, we improvised our plans on Saturday, when we had planned to meet at the Braeburn Condos theater for a double feature of
28 Days Later and
28 Weeks Later. Laney's cold still had her feeling not up for going out, but we decided we would watch the films at the same time and text—just like I did watching
Rogue One with Gabriel the previous weekend. I didn't want to waste the theater reservation, so I still went down there for the movies, and just sat in there by myself. Shobhit wasn't all that interested, and as it was a sunny and warm day, he went down to the nude beach at Howell Park on Lake Washington instead. When the movies were done, at his request, I drove out to pick him up. (He had walked there.)
Anyway. These movies weren't quite as good as I remembered, but I still enjoyed them. Laney and I spent a lot of time texting back and forth picking them apart. We're both still really looking forward to going to see the new one,
28 Years Later, next month. And, we did get on the phone for a bit, to chat about each movie after they finished. We also did a countdown on the phone to coordinate starting the movies in our respective locations. In any case, we were both glad to find a way to make the plan still work.
We're about to do the same thing in just a few minutes here, to watch
M3GAN, since she has agreed also to go to this one's sequel also coming out next month. We're still going to meet for Happy Hour afterward, but she was only up for going out to one location rather than two today, so we're just coordinating the movie watch again. I'll have to tell you about
that tomorrow. I just wanted to knock this post out separately, so I didn't have the entirety of a three-day weekend to cover in my post tomorrow.
[posted 2:11pm]
