(July 9, 2014)
After visiting Black Coffee, I strolled down the street to visit the long-standing “Left Bank Books”. Thanks to a peculiar form of rent control, it was an oasis of bookish calm surrounded by the high-rent tourist destination of the Pike Street Market.
Of course, parts of the market weren’t bad.
Like this sign:
Or this chalk-graffiti pig:
Seattle has its own AT-AT style cranes too:
But eventually I had to travel back east to hang out at a(nother) feminist makerspace – the Seattle Attic.
I took to it from the start. Mercedes Lackey is awesome!
A look into the space:
Room 1:
Room 2:
The people here were, with a few exceptions, friendly and forthcoming. They were the sort people I hung out with in late middle school / early high school – earnest. Into knitting and books. Confident in an offbeat way. I felt at home
After the Seattle Attic (which the great Sumana tipped me off to), I headed to another space in Seattle – more of a hackerspace than a makerspace.
This was a quite different space. More men, of course. Seems like everyone there had a connection to Microsoft. A guy was showing off a project he was working on for over a year – a way to use the Kinect API to mix and remix sound instantaneously through hand signals. He called it Holofunk Danceparty. It was awesome.
Two different models: Mercedes Lackey vs Holofunk. Both felt comfortable, in their own way. But neither represents me or my aspirations any more. I still haven’t found a space or community that I’m truly at ease with. Onwards to more searching!
