Underground a Beautiful City

Last day in Seattle; brilliantly sunny, which I logically celebrated by taking the Underground Tour , something I've always wanted to do. It seems that much of Pioneer Square (downhill from Downtown, along the shore) is a landfill on top of a tidal estuary . Unsurprisingly, it was consequently muddy, full of sinkholes, and when the tide would come in the seawater would travel up the sewage pipes and out people's Thomas Crapper toilets . The solution was to re-grade the entire neighborhood, raising it upwards of 32 feet. But business and city couldn't sort how this would be done -- so the city built retaining walls on either side of the road, filled them in, and built a new road 8 to 32 feet higher than the surrounding buildings and sidewalks. After a number of people died falling off the street, merchants began building sidewalks that connected the street with the second story of their buildings. The result was a network of old underground sidewalks at the original 'ground floor' level, with the occasional 'skylight' of glass prisims looming above .

Most cities have some underground network -- Chicago had a series of small tunnels built so that young boys (the tunnels being too small for grownups) could deliver carts of coals. Back in '92 the Chicago river carved its way into the tunnels, flooding them and all the buildings connected to these tunnels. Paris has its sewers, Boston now the Big Dig , and New York once had a whole underground society of theives living beneath the warves on platforms raised between the pililngs . I had realized how many of these things I knew some trivia about, from the old wooden water pipes in Boston to the underground flood in Chicago; strange thoughts about taking on an unusual hobby or book on Underground, something a bit darker than David Maccauly's amazing, amazing book . A childhood favorite -- something fascinating about knowing there is a whole system of tunnels and ideas and spaces running unseen and unoticed beneath us.

Some odd events today, including a conversation with a woman from Mexico about how the Anglican church differs (and is similar to) the Roman Catholic church. The Rev. Mary Ann Garret, in Oaxaca, often describes the Anglican church as the Catholic church of England -- accurate, even if Rome would strenously disagree. Although evidently leaving alone the titles of the original bishoprics (there is no R.C. Archbishop of Canterbury ), the sort of akwardness that makes the U.S. particularly baffling -- a major city may have easily a dozen bishops (Episcopal, Catholic, Lutheran, Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, Armenian Orthodox, et alia). But that way lies a digression longer than most underground tunnels...

Jibran is walking around the house in all his orangeness, happily oblivious to the fact that he will soon be put back in his carrier and taken by George and Andy -- OK, that isn't Andy Rees, but it's the image that shows up when you google his name -- to Boston, where a double bass player named Michael will pick him up at the airport and care for him until I arrive in Boston. A far better fate than spending 3000 miles in a car . Poor guy, though. He's been through a lot these last few weeks, from Rhino's death to boxes and furniture moving every day, and then this strange apartment -- and now a journey to a strange place with new people. Hope he forgives us some day.

Tomorrow, up to Lopez for then weekend, and then the open road!