Sunday, September 19, 2010

Touring Seattle

No writing this week; my son and daughter-in-law are visiting Seattle. As with most residents, Seattleites mostly see the city's attractions when there are tourists to show them to. Yesterday was the zoo, a very nice environment-based zoo in which animals are not in cages but rather in enclosed areas simulating "savannas," etc. The giraffes and zebras mingle, along with wildebeest (although not with the lions, for obvious reasons).




We also visited the Fremont Troll. This art installation sits under a bridge. Made of concrete, it holds an actual, concrete-covered VW under one paw. Its one glittering eye is a hubcap. Here is Jack "caught" by the troll:

The troll has also been used in a number of urban fantasies set in Seattle. Seattle seems a popular setting for fantasy, including this year's Locus Award winner, Cherie Priest's BONESHAKER. Certain cities are good for fiction. Very few novels are, for instance, set in East Lansing, Michigan.

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5 comments:

  1. ChrisSeptember 19, 2010 at 1:00 PM

    We love Fremont, especially the troll. It's a regular stop if we're heading through from Vancouver.

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  2. Bryan H. BellSeptember 19, 2010 at 2:20 PM

    Don't forget to take your family on the Underground Tour.

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  3. OzSeptember 19, 2010 at 3:58 PM

    It's very weird. I haven't been in Seattle since 1981. The troll was installed after that. But I took one look at that location and thought "I know where that is." And then had to google it to be sure. Because, of course, I forget where the Fremont district is. But I used to be able to see that bridge from our apartment on Eastlake that looked across Lake Union. And while we didn't own a car then (poor grad students), we got around on the bus sometimes and beyond the U district. How funny memory is.

    My favorite statue in DC, aside from the statue of Albert Einstein, is The Awakening. It's in a new location, but is a wonderful statue of a giant coming out of the earth, hands, legs, head.

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  4. Sean CravenSeptember 20, 2010 at 1:28 AM

    I dunno... I think there's also a certain charm to your East Lansings. Look at Harvey Pekar's Cleveland, Gore Vidal's Duluth, and Phillip Jose Farmer's Peoria.

    Of course, they did it on purpose.

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  5. TheOFloinnSeptember 20, 2010 at 4:47 AM

    The Yoopers - those of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan - refer to the denizens of the lower peninsula as "trolls" because they live "below" the Saginaw Bridge.

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