(adding frequent updates and new pix through early evening – scroll to the bottom of this post)
That’s “Sonic Pezz” from the Rat City Rollergirls, at their dunk tank next to Shoofly Pie Company on the east side of California, north of Oregon. Meantime — three hours till the Street Dance – we’ll be here in the Information Booth at least till 7, then back to cover the Street Dance. Evening music interest is revving up, if the questions we’re getting here at the booth are any indication. Just had a lesson in “you never know who’s within earshot” — a booth visitor was asking some questions about West Seattle development, and where public input comes into the process, so we were giving a Cliff’s Notes explanation of the Design Review process – and then found out that Southwest Design Review Board member Deb Barker was standing barely inches away. (We didn’t misspeak about anything, Deb assures us.) Also dropping by moments ago: Michelle Edwards, former Hi-Yu Festival royalty (and daughter of Jim Edwards, who’s involved in tons of cool things from the West Seattle Big Band to next week’s American Legion Post 160-presented Grand Parade – we’ve got the list of entrants and we’ll post a few notes a little later). 5:27 PM UPDATE: Ryan Reese from Garlic Jim’s Pizza (WSB sponsor) is here talking with us and the Chamber folks now; our booth still has some shade on the east side. When WSB’s Patrick the Sales Guy brought back the RCRG dunk-tank pix you see above, he quipped, “The Rat City Rollergirls say it’s so hot, they’re now self-dunking!” 5:48 PM UPDATE: Not all the food booths are in the “food court” zone on the west side of Alaska – local venues along the street have stands too, like Husky Deli, where we caught owner Jack Miller working with the condiments:
And of course, the festival’s full of kids burning off energy – like the Junction Jam skateboard zone by Wells Fargo at 44th/Alaska:
Just realized we never posted this video clip from first thing this morning (9:30-ish) when Mayor Nickels and wife Sharon stopped by to say hi to Patti Mullen of the West Seattle Chamber, with whom we’re helping staff the Info Booth:
6:09 PM UPDATE: OK, tonight’s hot music act is clearly The Saturday Knights – more than a few people have stopped by the Info Booth (where we’ll be till about 7; the rest of the Info Team has cleared out) to ask when and where they’re playing. (Answer: South stage, at California/Edmunds, 6:45 pm. Beer gardens at both ends of Summer Fest, by the way). Forgot to mention yet another notable visitor from the past few hours — Scott from Central District News, one of the few other serious neighborhood-news sites in the city (Scott was one of the other guests during our KUOW appearance a couple weeks ago) – he joked he’s here to check out the neighborhood-festival competition. 6:45 PM UPDATE: More scenes from today – first, the rock-climbing “wall” that’s part of the kids’ fun zone on Alaska east of California:
Another local vendor we’ve spotted – these are the glass clams from Avalon Glass Works, whose proprietor Shannon Felix has a booth here:
And one more scene of the amazing lion dance/martial-arts demo we mentioned in our first update.
More Summer Fest updates to come … with the street dance tonight, The Junction will jump well into the night. 7:12 PM UPDATE: Spare battery’s about to die, we’re going home to switch gear out and come back for the big dance. More later, including a couple other non-Summer Fest events we covered today.
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