Seattle Center - 27 May 2016

This morning, we headed back to the Seattle Center to visit the EMP (Experience Music Project) Museum. This was founded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen to showcase exhibits of contemporary popular culture. We went because there was an Star Trek exhibit that looked interesting.

The architecture of the building is quite interesting - it is a Frank Gehry creation and has some similarity to the Walt Disney Concert Hall and other designs of his. Forbes magazine called it one of the world's 10 ugliest buildings and others have likewise derided it. The monorail runs through the building and it is rather startling to see it go overhead while standing in the lobby of the museum.

Except for the Star Trek exhibit, I was not that impressed with most of the museum exhibits.  They seemed to be just collections of items with little integration in the storytelling. The exhibit on Indie video games had several stations for people to sit at and experiment with creating a game, but it seemed that most people struggled with the concepts being explained.  The Star Trek exhibit focused on a theme of diversity and how Star Trek was a maverick in the TV industry by showing mixed race and species teams, same sex attractions and general tolerance of differences.

We walked around the Seattle Center grounds to check out some of the sculptures and the International Fountain. We ran into a festival that included craft booths, food and several music stages. The Armory Building has been converted into a huge food court, stage area and children's museum. The festival was hosting several music groups on this stage and we came just at the end of a big band group's performance.  Quite an eclectic group of people of all ages and styles were having a great time swing dancing - great fun to watch.

A view of the EMP Museum and the monorail rail on our way into the entrance.

Russ is practicing his captaining skills at the Con.

I always thought Picard looked very menacing as a Borg - a close-up view reinforced that thought.

Gorms are such dorks!

The costumes used cheap looking fabric and the chairs on the bridge were just cheap office chairs covered with foam padding.  Amazing that TV of the day blurred the view enough to make the props seem high tech.  Don't think HD is as forgiving.



Several of the actual models used in the filming of the Star Trek franchise were on display. This is the Deep Space Nine station.



More than 500 instruments and 30 computers were used to create this tower - If VI WAS IX. Headphones are available to listen to the music that gets created.

Adding to the eclectic mix of exhibits, one room was a homage to the Sea Hawks and their fans. This is the Vince Lombardi trophy - awarded to Super Bowl champs.

An exhibit dedicated to Science Fiction movies included costumes like Mork's from Mork and Mindy.



The stage in the Armory Building displayed a beautiful large quilt with a music theme.



One of several street performing groups scattered around the festival.

The International Fountain was built for the 1962 World Fair. It is programmed to send out interesting patterns of water spray.  This would be a great place to get cool on a hot day (if those ever happen up here.)