Shobhit, being a Board member of SAG-AFTRA Seattle Local, which is a sponsor of the Seattle International Film Festival, received an invitation to attend a "SIFF Industry Party" last night. It was on Wednesday last week that Shobhit forwarded me the email and asked if I was interested in going, and when I saw that it was taking place at a 41-story Belltown high-rise (Arrivé) I was like, Hell yes!

Now, two Decembers ago I went with Shobhit to a Theatre Puget Sound event that took place at the 30-story Escala building (which happened to stand in for Christian Grey's building in the Fifty Shades of Grey film adaptation), because it was the building where their then-Executive Director lived—but, it was in an event space on the second floor. I knew it was very possible this event at the Arrivé Apartments would be the same kind of deal. But what if it wasn't? I couldn't pass up this kind of potential opportunity!

The event was scheduled kind of late, 8:30 to 10:30. Shobhit and I walked there from home, only about a mile and a half so it took us half an hour. When we were gathered in the lobby to wait to be escorted up the elevators I was delighted to find out the event was on the top floor! Holy shit!

So, as you can imagine, the 90 minutes or so that we spent up there was a total dream.

I just spent quite a lot of time today writing captions on every one of the 62 shots I kept from that event, so I suggest going through the photos in that album on Flickr for further details. I was mostly motivated to caption them all for the benefit of Alexia, whom I also just sent the link to, because the experience was so similar to when she and I toured the Cirrus Apartments, which are the exact same height, when we discovered we could do an open house tour after we did an Architecture Tour in late July 2024 (I can't believe that was almost two years ago already).

Two key details made this a better building to go up, though for the record I will take any and every opportunity to go up any building. The first is the far better location; Arrivé is much closer to the waterfront and thus has spectacular, unobstructed views of Elliott Bay and Puget Sound. The second is the time of day: we were up there exactly during the 90 minutes the sun was setting, on a beautiful day, so I got a ton of truly gorgeous shots from up there, during dusk both when it was lighter out and basically after dark. I did not have that opportunity at the Cirrus Apartments two years ago.

So, last night was very exciting for me; I was beyond thrilled. Shobhit did a lot more networking than I did, although I did meet a woman who I spoke with at length and who is about to have a novel published that I am quite eager to read as it sounds very much my jam, a kind of satire set during an apocalypse.

Anyway. Again: Click here for the full photo album on Flickr, where more detail (largely just about a ton of different Seattle skyscrapers) can be found in the captions.

[posted 7:00pm]