the Urban Archivist

On the route down to Pioneer Square, a trio of football fans gets on the bus in Eastlake. They are in their early 30s — one woman, two men, and three Seahawks sweatshirts between them. They find some disjunct, scarce seats at the front of the bus. One of them, unable to find a seat, holds on to the overhead bar. I ponder Standing Man’s attire for a moment, lamenting yet again about the unfortunate state of fashion for many men. He is wearing a wallet on a chain, which is fine except that his jeans are entirely too ill-fitting. This makes the chain wallet seem slovenly, sad, and unfortunate. Aside from that, though, it’s their conversation that is more intriguing, particularly the woman’s pontifications. She speaks with that somewhat sultry timbre that is quite possibly the gravelly-voiced result of several years of hard smoking.

“The place sucks,” she opines, referring to Bellevue, where she apparently works. She describes its vacuous landscape as “a strip mall surrounded by high-rises”. Finally, she offers perhaps the most succintly quote-worthy evaluation of the Eastside’s civic fabric: “It’s like they got their city planner from Pottery Barn.”

I’m sitting in Zeitgeist right now (my sincere apologies to All-City Coffee operatives reading this), working on my little paper. Outside are two men in cycling apparel, one of whom has the requisite high-visibility yellow windbreaker, having a lively discussion at a bistro table. Two tables in front of me, an impossibly thin woman in dark jeans and a black turtleneck sweater is reading a stack of papers and jotting some notes down (with a pencil! *swoon*).

But these are not what spurred this thought.

Just a few minutes ago, I caught sight of a Beautiful Hipster Boy who looked like he just walked out of an audition with The Strokes. Aside from the requisite black, post-coital mop atop his head, he wore a tan leather jacket over some sort of blue t-shirt-like thing. Girding his impeccably thin loins were medium brown trousers (that word makes me giggle). From the distance, they looked as though they could have been a very fine corduroy — with perhaps a 5-7% Lycra blend fabric. How else could they so lovingly envelop his shapely little butt? Slung over the jacket was a somewhat full satchel. Thankfully, it wasn’t a true messenger bag; that would have caused archetype to cross over into stereotype! Besides, its heft was decidedly un-Hip and, thus, would never have worked on a messenger bag. He walked with that slight forward lean that many caffeine-inspired hipsters-with-a-purpose are afflicted with. It is the kind of walk that drips a sweet sweet trail of excess sardonic wit.

He and the pony-tailed, blonde chickadee he was with walked in, surveyed the menu, and walked out within 23 seconds. They continued westward on Jackson as if this uncool detour never happened. No doubt they decided that Zeitgeist was a little too adult contemporary for them, for somewhat-Sting-like music is currently filling the cafe all the way up to its 20-foot, exposed rafter and HVAC ceiling.

I can only imagine that, at this very moment, Mr. Casablancas and his lady friend are sipping espressos down at Elliot Bay while checking out some new zines and perhaps deconstructing Richardsonian Romanesque architecture (why else would he be in Pioneer Square on a Sunday?)… from a post-modern perspective, of course.

I wonder if he ever tires of being that beautiful?