bellwether

As also reported by

morganlf, we had a fantastic weekend. For the most part, we've been hermits since moving up here, and it's been depressing! This weekend we shook things up a bit and have been out more than we've been home. It's been great to hang out with people and get out and about Seattle a bit.

Saturday:
We got together with with

optic and his girlfriend downtown to grab lunch and see The Dark Knight at the Cinerama. We had lunch at Serious Pie, which is a gourmet pizza place. So far, I've been pretty impressed with the quality of pizza in Seattle! I really like Talarico's in West Seattle, as well as the ubiquitous Pagliacci's. Serious Pie was no exception--the selection of toppings was great--in addition to the yukon gold pizza that

morganlf mentioned, I also really enjoyed the cherry bomb pepper pizza with sweet fennel sausage. We had a good time chatting about food, movies, etc.

The movie itself was a bit disappointing to me. Don't get me wrong--I really, really enjoyed it. It was a great Batman film. It wasn't quite the Batman film I was expecting, but it was a great film. I absolutely loved Batman Begins, and I had hoped for more of the same, which I'm now realizing was pretty naive. It couldn't possibly be the same, since what I loved most about Batman Begins was that it was an origin story. I love seeing heroes evolve out of normal people. In the Dark Knight, we're seeing Bruce Wayne evolve as hero and as a man, accepting the fact that Batman sometimes has to be the boogieman in the night in order to protect against greater evils. The Joker shows us that evil doesn't have to have an agenda, and chaos and anarchy is a hell of a lot more frightening than a man with a plan. Capturing that was an impressive effort, and Ledger's Joker is incredible. Harvey Dent/Aaron Eckhart though really steals the screen, IMO, as he goes through his transformation from city defender to agent of chaos. Two Face was one of the more terrifying screen villians that we've seen in a long time. Anyway. The more I think about it, the more I enjoy the film.

Later Saturday, A and I frantically cleaned and re-arranged our living room to accomodate our upstair neighbor (and landlord) who was coming over to watch UFC. We're not big sports fans, but it was fun to have a few drinks and chat over the fight....

Sunday:

Today we got together with P, an acquaintance of A's from her Riverside days, and we grabbed a quick coffee and bagel at Zeitgeist Coffee near my office. We chatted for a while, before meandering up to Pacific Place Theatre to catch Hellboy 2. The contrast between HB2 and TDK was interesting. Hellboy was fun, but felt unfocused in places. However, a singing duet between Abe and Hellboy will go down as one of my personal movie favorites. I couldn't stop laughing. :)

After the movie, A and I grabbed more than decent Ethiopian food at the Pan African Market near Pike Place Market. We had a fabulous chicken curry and lentils. I think we'll definitely go back--portion sizes were excellent, and the prices were incredibly reasonable. We started walking back to the car, when we passed by SAM, the Seattle Art Museum. A has been wanting to see the impressionist exhibit, so we decided to swing by since it was still early.... I'm overwhelmed by the Monets, Manets, Cezannes, and Renoirs--not to mention paintings by El Greco, Pizarro, Rubens, and Rafael. If you're local and haven't seen it yet, it's a fantastic exhibit. It's been staged very well by the SAM curator, displaying the classic Italian, French, and Dutch paintings that inspired the impressionists juxtaposed with the later images.

In particular, I loved this Renoir. A posted it as well, so I'm cutting it, but I did want to post it here to remember it! This reminds me of winter in Minnesota!