Mementos of my own formerly-fair city were everywhere in Stamford and NYC. Starbux stands and Microsoft ads were ubiquitous, of course; but there were also Seattle’s Best Coffee-serving restaurants and Eddie Bauer boutiques. (There’s supposedly a Nordstrom in some suburban mall outside NYC, but I didn’t see it.) The Virgin Megastore in the infamously Disneyfied Times Square stocked plenty of Seattle bands, even the semi-obscure ones. (F’rinstance, a Fartz CD was on prominent display!) One quasi-Seattle-related person, Fantagraphics cartoonist Chris Ware, had a huge display of his (fantastic) original art in the Whitney Museum’s 2002 Biennial exhibition. And the Tuesday edition of everyone’s favorite rabid-right tabloid included a positive review of the new CD by our ol’ pal Christy McWilson.

TRIP ASIDE #2: My flights both ways, as previously mentioned in this space, were on the airline soon to be formerly known as TWA. Thanks to the overcast conditions also previously mentioned in this space, both flights offered the comforting illusion of sailing on a sea of cotton fluff. Only the eastward flight offered a movie (K-PAX, displayed on LED video monitors).

Both flights included stops at the ol’ TWA hub in St. Louis. Right out the window, you could clearly see the old McDonnell-Douglas HQ complex at the other side of the main runways. The building now bears a big Boeing logo, even though it’s becoming increasingly clear that MD has staged a palace coup and essentially taken over Boeing.

TRIP ASIDE #3: I’ll try to scan some snapshot-camera pix I took of NYC, including Ground-0 (still an extremely quiet and solemn quarter-square-mile surrounded by the famous NYC bustle).