Maura's Illuminated Manuscript

I finally made it to the Modular monthly at Substation. Usually it's on a Sunday at 1700, but this time it was on a Saturday at 1900. It's exactly what the name suggests: a bunch of people pushing buttons and tweaking knobs on modular synthesizers. Yeah, you know that crowd was nerdy. And I'm pretty sure I wasn't the only trans lady there.

But did I like the choonz? Quite often, yeah! Honorable mention: local boy EZBOT, who reminded me by turns of Aphex Twin, drum & bass, and several others. I was a little ambivalent about club hopping to the Mercury after two of the eight (!) artists that they had lined up.

So why club hop to the Merc? Caturday, Pride edition, which I used as an excuse to wear my "I [Pride heart] [beaver graphic]" tank top. I was hoping to run into some of the trans girls from the other day. Instead, I saw a lady in a butterfly costume like the ones I saw in Sydney. In a fit of nostalgia, I went over to talk to her. Imagine my surprise when I realized it was Temptress.

Fun fact about me: like my mother, I have the world's worst poker face. I may have looked absolutely horrified at her, but only for a second. Had her vile boyfriend been with her, I wouldn't have even gone over there. I chatted about Sydney, maybe a bit nervously.

Despite being seriously caffeinated, I didn't make it to midnight. I did to a ton of bike riding and chores around the house on Saturday, so I don't feel like too much of a geezer. I have to get the Devil Girl House ready for Tacoma Girl on Saturday. (The joke here is that TG is probably the least judgy person I know.)

I hit the Blue Moon on a second Tuesday for the vinyl edition of DJs in a Dive Bar. (The fourth Tuesday is open decks with CDJs, etc.) Folks, those house grooves — literal grooves! — are my choonz. I shall not rest until I get at least one friend to join me.

I wasn't that social because like a trippin' fool I was staring at the hundreds or maybe thousands of stickers and other objects on the walls. My favorite? A paper USPS label with trans glyphs on it and, "Because fuck you, that's why" written on it in black Sharpie.

To diagram that for you, "Why?" as in, "Why transition?" or "Why are you trans?" is among the most common questions that trans people get asked. I promise you that we're all tired of it no matter how young we are. Good answers include:

1. If you have to ask, you'll never know.
2. It doesn't matter.
3. Why not? Those two questions have the same answer; it's just that cis people never think about the latter.

I impersonated a responsible adult and walked out the door around 2100. My bus timing was nearly perfect on the way there and the way home. I take that as a sign that it was meant to be. Metro magic.

T and I took two buses each way for the long trip to Equinox Studios. Yes, it's the same place I went with Dancer last month, but this time there were food trucks and bands.

Why something special ("Very Open House") in December? I've just answered my own question: many of the artists were selling at least a few Christmas-themed goodies. I wasn't there for holiday shopping, though; I was mainly there to hang out with T.

Speaking of T, she seems to be doing pretty well with dating. That's because she's working the apps but, as I told her on the southbound 132, every time I think about going back to the apps I also think, 'Do I have to?' She agrees that maybe now is not the time for me to do that.

But! T & I had a good time. We battled the crowds through the twisty maze that is Equinox to explore as thoroughly as we could manage. There were several times when I wished I had budget to buy and space to display things I saw there; I did collect a couple of business cards. There were eats from food trucks. And I believe that was the Chaotic Noise marching band that we heard, and they don't suck. Neither did any of the other bands I heard.

The weather, however, did suck at times. It's Seattle in December; waddaya want? Luckily, I was ready with The Coat, which garnered all the compliments, and my beat-up umbrella.

I had wanted to go to the Mercury afterward to see some rarely-appearing old friends, but by the time we got back to my house on the bus and I finished with on-call nonsense, it was 2245. I stayed home with my FOMO.

But! Yes, Equinox! Highly recommended for a friend date or a date date.

I feel as if I've had an unusually virtuous weekend what with all the mass transit and not much alcohol. I hereby resolve to be a party nun for the rest of the month. And boy howdy, will there be opportunities for that:

1. The latex gang is going out for drinks on both the 19th and the 26th.
2. A date with Dancer on the 20th.
3. I have a ticket to the mini-Cascadia festival right here in my neighborhood on the 21st.
4. There's also a fetish event the 21st, but I had to skip it.
5. B invited me to the Blue Moon on Christmas Eve. I may have to go just out of curiosity.
6. The night of the 25th is always off the hook at the Mercury.
7. I have... plans on the 28th. Ahem.
8. The Wildrose's 40th anniversary is the 30th.
9. The Tickler is coming up to go to the Keith Haring show with me on the 31st, followed by New Year's Eve at the Monkey Loft.
10. The annual gathering on New Year's Day at chez C.
11. The women's munch at the Wildrose is on the 2nd.

Madness!

I've bought the complete organ works of JS Bach. Total time: over eighteen hours. Price including tax: $44.13. Mom would definitely have approved.

In a way, it's an exercise in nostalgia. There's one particular piece that my first ever college roommate had a recording of. I loved it, and I haven't heard it since then. Well, I should definitely have a copy now; it'll just take me a lot of listening to find it.

My house is full of devil girls and church music. Perfect.

Update: the piece I was looking for is "Pastorale in F major BWV590". That's right: Bach was so prolific that somebody assigned ID numbers to his works, because many of them have duplicate titles.

On Sunday I put on the fiftieth birthday outfit only with comfier (but not quite comfy enough) boots, and headed down to agra. I ran into DJ Wrain Havoc from Seattle's own Mercury! She's been to WGT any number of times, and when she goes, she goes hard: three days into the festival, she'd slept maybe six hours. I told her that at my age, I just couldn't do that. Even if I could, I think it would detract from the total experience for me.

Wrain Havoc bought me some local absinthe with some of her last cash euros*. It tasted for all the world like Scope mouthwash. I'm positive it wasn't Scope because I watched the preparation, with sugar cube, right there. But that was probably the most astounding food or drink experience of the entire trip. Being an ethnic WASP, I drank the Scope and carried on.

Wrain Havoc was there to see Los Angeles band Diva Destruction, an artist who'd come off several years' hiatus. It was old school goth — not generally my bag — but what struck me about them was that their front woman sounded a lot like Anisa Romero of Seattle psychedelic band Sky Cries Mary from the '90s. I'm a big SCM fan to this day, so it was a surprise nostalgia trip for me.

Wrain Havoc bailed to see an artist elsewhere, leaving me alone for UK band Editors. They... were good, but they didn't grab me as much as I expected them to. I'm tempted to say that if U2 went dark, it would be something like Editors. That may be less charitable than they deserve, but that's what I was thinking.

Monday's outfit was Action Goth: tartan leggings, black top, black patent Docs. The only band I had listed as a must-see was Kirlian Camera. I showed up a band early for them, expecting to see Vive La Fête. But no, there was a substitution called Welle: Erdball ("Wave: Globe"). Not only are they German; they may be the most wholesomely German band active today.

They set up five vertical screens a little taller than a person. For the first song they played keyboards projected onto the screens. The two men were wearing black suits and black leather gloves. The two women were in little peach dresses that they removed partway through the show to reveal sparkly underwear. There were synchronized dance moves. People — just the women? — on turntables. Giant ballons and paper airplanes thrown into the audience, which was singing along. Inflatable angel wings; a stage hand carried the inflator in and we all watched the wings expand for several seconds.

What do they sound like? Synthpop. Cheezy synthpop. This band has been around for about thirty years, and they are clearly beloved in their native Germany. Their live show is 10km over the top, and probably impossible to translate into English. This was Germans not taking themselves seriously and having fun, and it was a beautiful thing: Eurovision, only longer and more substantial. I've bought an LP of theirs, natch.

I walked out of there thinking, 'What have I just seen?!' According to Zuck's data mine, several of my friends have been into them for years and I'm just the last to know as ever.

I saw the first third or so of Italian band Kirlian Camera. The goth bombast was well done, but that kind of thing is is much more cupcake_goth's thing than mine. I quit while I was ahead. Thanks, WGT, for surprising me.



*Mental note: go to her night and buy her a damn drink sometime. Yeah, it's a weeknight, but come on.

[Confession: While I was in Germany I used Zuckerberg's data mine as a microblogging platform and scratch pad. I could have typed up Dreamwidth entries on my phone, but I mainly couldn't be bothered. Much of what you're about to read here is based on what I put there. I'll be doing this in chronological order because it's just easier.]

On the 14th, just minutes after my on-call shift ended, I left for Leipzig, Germany for Wave-Gotik Treffen, the goth & industrial music festival to end them all. Basically, a black-clad mass of thirty thousand takes over every venue in greater Leipzip with... music. And outfits, so many outfits. And a (very) little kinky stuff.

So how was the trip over? Nine hours in a coach-class seat, but at least not nearly as bouncy as across the tropical Pacific. I did get to see something interesting as we zipped over the Netherlands and north Germany: hundreds of windmills in rural areas. They're serious about renewables over there.

I never did really adjust to Central European Time, but that's just as well because I was staying up into the wee hours every night to see shows.

Getting my wristband was an adventure. I left my hotel room around noon on Thursday expecting to need to take the tram, which is free if you already have your wristband. But no! I was staying in the beautifully designed Adina Hotel just two blocks from Hauptbahnhof (main train station). Since that's the transpo nexus for the whole city, the WGT ("veh-geh-TEH") organizers wisely put a satellite box office there.

There was one trip through the line to figure out that I needed to get into the short line for ticket buyers, get the paper ticket that they won't mail overseas, then go through the line again to get my wristband. It all seemed a little bit cumbersome; I'm not sure whether that's German or not. They just didn't seem very well set up for people coming from outside Europe. To be fair, such people are a small minority of WGT attendees.

I was wearing my Pride-and-stars-and-stripes leggings, so I stood out in the sea of black. A video crew interviewed me during my first trip through the line, asking me why I was so brightly dressed. I told them the truth: I wanted to make myself visible to someone I was going to meet later.

And did I see that person? No, but I was in the appointed place and time for that, namely the Sadgoth gathering. The Sadgoths are a large group of goths from Anglosphere countries. The dude running it now is English. I should have hit the Sadgoth Facebook page more to be less lonely, escape the horrible feeling of being that dumb Auslander who doesn't speak any German, and maybe party ridiculously late into the night, but honestly, I just plain forgot to. That, and I didn't really want to punish my body any more than I had already. This trip was... a lot.

At the Ratskeller, i.e. the cellar of the "new" town hall (Neues Rathaus), I had a salad with sorbet & ricotta on top (?!) with a one-liter beer. Fear not: Germans are so old school about their beer that it's usually at most 5% alcohol, so large volumes don't put you under the table. I got some interesting info: there were to be a couple of official pre-funks, one at Felsenkeller.

And what was Felsenkeller like? It has about ten times the capacity of the Mercury and is more of a concert hall than a club, but otherwise it looked and felt familiar. I didn't feel the live act that was playing when I got there, but DJs in the basement, Paradroid and Puppe, really kicked butt! The basement dance floor was about half the size of the Merc's, and the Germans just kept on packing in. It warmed the cockles of my heart to see two girls making out on the dance floor; some things really are universal.

On to Friday! I hit the local equivalent of PCC because it was going to be a long weekend for Pentecost, and I therefore needed to stock my hotel fridge. Hey, I got to try gen-u-wine Müsli, and found it satisfactory.

Sometime on Friday I tried Currywurst. They could do with more curry. In general I found that the Germans could do with more spice and less salt.

I donned the Devil Girl outfit only with comfier boots and bopped over to the Kätz Club for a fetish night. It's a playspace cum dance club into which an awful lot of love, money, and thought has been poured. It's mostly in a basement and is divided into many small rooms. Each of these rooms is set up for a different kind of... activity. I had a couple of Schwarzbiers, watched some impromptu pole dancing, and headed for Ladytron at the largest venue, agra. Yes, lower case.

On the way to the tram I saw a much younger blonde woman who was an absolute vision in a black dress with a hoop skirt. I made the heart sign. After the obligatory "I don't know German", she asked me where I got the Devil Girl corset and I told her. Game recognizes game.

WGT attendees basically swarm the trams, especially line 11, the one between agra and Hauptbahnhof. That passes through a heavily graffiti'd neighborhood called Connewitz. The representative graffito that stuck in my memory is "Yuppies raus."

Agra looks like it used to be a hangar. Half of it was devoted to vendors, and it's a minor miracle that I didn't buy something bananas expensive there. My fave was a sculptor and furniture maker named Lucas Haupt. He welds together arthropod-shaped... things. Spider chairs. Face huggers from Alien. Lamps shaped like spiders perched on pistons. Giant molars with faces. Creatures inspired by Hieronymus Bosch.

I needed to caffeinate because Ladytron wasn't to take the stage until 0100. This was where I first applied my knowledge of the Pfand that I gained at the Ratskeller. And what's a Pfand, you ask? A deposit that bars & cafes charge for the use of their reusable glassware, typically one euro. Much of my caffeine intake on this trip was in the form of Irish coffee at agra.

But on to Ladytron! I'd missed this band in Seattle at least twice, so this was my revenge, and sweet revenge it was. They sounded fabulous, and I felt a bit guilty for not buying their entire catalog and listening to it constantly. They seemed to have changed some of the arrangements to appeal to gothier tastes. Near the end of the show, their drummer burst the head of his kick drum. As the stagehands replaced it, Helen Marnie joked, "That's why they call him the Highland Hammer." When I laughed, I was the only one within earshot who did. Take that, Germans.

How did I get back to my hotel? By tram, of course. At 0233. Not only does Leipzig let WGT attendees use their trams prepaid; it runs the 11 at high frequency late into the night. God bless 'em.

Am I going to write up the wrest of WGT tonight? Hell no. There will be at least one more entry tomorrow, though, and I have pics that I'll put up.

I ended up walking from the Devil Girl House to Substation in Ballard. Why walk, you ask? Because the bus that would go right there from my neighborhood doesn't run very often after 2100. Harrumph. Ah well, at least I got to see some lovely houses on the west side of the ridge.

The first DJ I heard was local lady GriffinGrrl, who always scratches me right in my groove spot. Seriously, I don't think I've ever heard a set of hers that I didn't love. Balm for the soul.

But in the big, rectangular back room was Mark Farina, of whom I've been a fan for twenty years. He started out kind of minimal, and I thought, 'I hope the whole set isn't like this.' Fortunately, it wasn't. I think I've finally figured out where his crisp on-the-beatness comes from: old school hip hop, a la Run-D.M.C. Farina (and I) are of a generation that would appreciate it. So yeah, imagine old school hip hop party people who've travelled to the future, and you've got Mark Farina.

A note about the visuals behind Farina: they featured old footage of airline travel, and also mushrooms. Years ago he put out an LP called Air Farina, and he's done a big downtempo series called Mushroom Jazz*. I thought that was clever. Did the visual artists ask him for themes, or are they fans?

I also think I figured out where Farina's minimalism came from. Doc Martin came on at 0200 with that kind of sound. Even though one of the reasons I came was to hear him, he satisfied my curiosity quickly and I called it a night. Yeah, minimal and acidic can be nice, but somehow I wasn't feeling his sound right then.

I did not walk home because that would have been a long walk uphill, and the shortest way is awfully dark at night.

Yes, I abused caffeine. No, I didn't get nearly enough sleep. Je ne regrette rien.

Notes about Substation: its owners have consistently invested in the place since it started. Signage. Video monitors for the bar offerings. A coat check. And a pro tip courtesy of promoter & DJ Ramiro Gutierrez: there's a second pair of restrooms attached to the back room where the line for the ladies' is much shorter than the one near the front.



*I have Air Farina and three of the seven Mushroom Jazz LPs. I recommend the latter especially. My fave Farina record of all time, though? I think it's still San Francisco Sessions Vol. 1. Jazz-flavored sunshine; bop 'til you drop.

I went to see Leeni last night at Chop Suey – not to be confused with leenerella. I heard about her years ago from R. Imagine 8-bit, chiptune synthpop made by a woman who can sing. She sang a surprising number of... ballads? Is that what they were? About romantic love, feelings, and bleepiness. Thumbs up!

Because she's a synthesizer nerd, I have to tell you what her gear was: a Sequential Prophet Rev 2, a Roland that I think was a Juno-X, and a Nintendo Gameboy in which she changed cartridges mid-show. Wearing a black hoodie, a short black skirt, blue eye shadow with serious winged eyeliner, and orange animal print docs. She seems kind of shy, both as a performer and a person. Yes, I introduced myself. Yes, she's kind of cute & Mediterranean-looking. Shut up.

The band after her, L80 (pronounced "lady"), had a trans (?) performer. They were campy and Hedwig-esque. Not as much my jam as Leeni, so I went home at a reasonable hour. I didn't stick around for Ghost Fetish.

Ex called this morning, wanting the Wendling's SSN and voter registration address. She's, well, she's lost her mother. She says she wants to eat everything and vomit at the same time. I asked if she's pregnant.

She's fixated on estate planning now, and characteristically of both herself and her mother, she's trying to tell me how I should do it especially in regards to our son. I did not respond, and I'm not doing it her way. You're welcome, kiddo. Don't mess it up.

Last night I went to the much-postponed show at the Climate Pledge Arena for Pet Shop Boys and New Order. Yeah, I was especially there for the former. TL;DR: Ossum nostalgia!

Pet Shop boys brought costumes, masks, medleys, sets – a couple of street lamps – and some serious lighting. They also brought the gay stuff, of which I approve highly. No, they didn't play "Go West" to my mild disappointment, but their second song was "Can You Forgive Her?". How could any adult hear that song and not realize that Neil Tenant has the kind of detailed knowledge of what it's like to be gay that no one ever gets second hand?

Yeah, they played "Opportunities" and "West End Girls" because how could they not?

And I must say that Tenant has aged gracefully in the grandest gay boy tradition. We should all be so lucky, but I doubt that luck has everything to do with it. The live versions of many of their songs were oh so close to the ones recorded over thirty years ago; Tenant's voice was up to the task.

New Order is very much post-punk rock 'n roll. They don't do theatrics, but they do several goth club standards with awful purdy synthesizers courtesy of an actual woman, Gillian Gilbert. (Was that a vintage Roland she was playing?) Back in the day, i.e. the aughts, I used to go clubbing where cupcake_goth would be holding court. There were several songs to which she would do interpretive chair dances, and New Order was heavily represented among the artists of those songs.

Their encore? A couple of songs by their late front man Ian Curtis, naturally enough. I overheard that that's how they close every single show. Given the messed up nature of his death, can I blame them?

It must be said that Bernard Summer has not aged as well as Neil Tenant; I'm guessing the former is het'rosexual. Sorry, dude.

A note about accents: Summer is audibly from Oop North in England. Tenant is from the south – Pet Shop Boys songs abound with references to London – but he sure sounds like someone who's spent a lot of time in the US.

A note about Key Climate Pledge Arena and Ticketbastardmaster: Ticketmaster sent email advising iPhone users to put their electronic tickets in their Apple Wallet so they could use Bluetooth to cruise on into the venue. But arena staff and possibly equipment wasn't having that. I had to fumble with the unfamiliar app and pull up the bar code. So Ticketmaster is a bunch of liars in addition to monopolists and extortionists.

I heard about a rave that was a little on the downlow a few days ago, starting at midnight last night, so I decided to go. It was at an address in Sodo that I figured was one of the numerous light industrial spaces there that have been taken over by artists.

Wrong. After much walking from the light rail, hearing clubbers near the Monkey Loft whine about vaccination proof requirements, getting stuck waiting for a freight train that stopped twice, and being misdirected by Google Maps, I followed my ears: I heard rawk coming from an area that fit the ravers' description.

It was a punk show at a skate park underneath a viaduct for SR 99 that I never even suspected existed. There were, of course, skateboarders and slam dancers. There were people being sociable in the gravel parking lot. There were people selling merch and beer. There was an older dude – for "dude" is the correct word here – who told me about the skate park's founding in '04, as attested by some of the copious art on the walls. I'm pretty sure I was the oldest person there.

Was the music to my taste? Wayell, no, but it warmed the cockles of my heart to see a bit of the old Seattle that I love being itself on what would otherwise have been a patch of waste ground.

One thing this site lacks, alas, is any kind of toilet, even a porto. I asked a woman about it, and she indicated a tree across the street. I noped out of that.

So I started walking east toward civilization 1st Ave. S and found myself surprisingly close to the Monkey Loft. There was a DJ playing there whose mix from years ago I have. I waved hi to a local house luminary. There were dolled up women. But I was very much dressed for an outdoor show, and wearing something kind of ridiculous underneath my Dracula Clothing coat. It was also 0030. And I still needed to pee with increasing desperation.

I wasn't feeling it. I called a Lyft, got home, peed longer than I thought possible, ate leftover ma po tofu, and went to bed. I'm low on sleep now. I'd be really out of it if I'd stayed at the Monkey Loft. The evening might not have ended well, but it had its moments.