Each fall, as the winds get going and leaf smush starts to accumulate, the hipster-industrial-fishing hamlet of Ballard, all the way out on Seattle’s upper west side, takes on additional responsibilities as one of the world’s more underappreciated musical arenas.
A raft of sea lions, well over a hundred, still huffin’ from a swim that started in California, lumbers onto a breakwall at the foot of Sunset Hill. Once in position, they start hollerin’ at the top of their 250 horsepower lungs like there’s no tomorrow, belting out a single a capella number that goes on for half a year. If there are intermissions, I’ve missed them. For us hill-dwellers, close enough to catch the show through closed windows, this is the house music of our winters.
And then all of a sudden, on an otherwise beautiful spring day, they’re just gone. All 100,000 pounds of them or what ever it is. Feels like something important has been unplugged…. Now what are we supposed to do?
Eight billion people on the planet have it worse, victims of geography and the limitations of sound travel, sadly unable to get even the smallest earful of this.
I’m happy to report that these problems have been solved.