I took a bunch of pictures. Twelve of them, with quasi-philosophical captions, are now up at Seattle PostGlobe.

I hope to create more of these slice-O-life photo pieces for PostGlobe. If you like this, you could consider a donation to that fledgling nonprofit news site.

…but retired from all public life? Ex-Seattleite cartoonist Ward Sutton ponders the possibilities.

Yr. humble scribe attended two private events in Belltown on Tuesday.

In the morning, the Escala condo project (Seattle’s last still-under-construction residential highrise) held a “topping off” ceremony on its roof, 31 floors above Fourth Avenue. A city official was there to praise the project as a key component in Mayor Nickels’s “center city strategy.” (Since when did we start calling our downtown “center city” anyway? Sounds like Norm Rice’s failed attempt to rebrand the waterfront as a “harborfront.”)

The ceremony was followed by a champagne toast down in the project’s sales office nearby. Two scale models of the finished building showed it as a shining beacon of quality living. A chart on one wall listed one third of the project’s 270-some units as sold. Another third are currently available. The rest are on hold, withdrawn from the market pending an upturn in conditions.

The second big event came that evening at the Crocodile. It was an invite-only bash honoring the 50th birthday of Kim Warnick, the legendary Fastbacks/Visqueen singer-bassist. The joint was packed with folks who’ve loved Warnick and her work. An all-star lineup of Seattle musicians paid tribute to her on stage.

Here’s the climactic moment of the evening, with Warnick joining in with her ol’ band members Kurt Bloch, Lulu Gargiulo, and Mike Musburger.

And here are more musical moments from the evening.

The contrast between that scene and the Escala fete reminded me of what Jonathan Raban said about NYC as a city of “street people” and “sky people.”

In his definition, “street people” weren’t just those who lived ON the streets but also those who walk and converse and meet friends on the sidewalks, who live in the street-level milieu of bars and shops and cafes.

The “sky people” of NY are those for whom, as Fran Lebowitz described it, “outside” is what’s in between the building you’re in and the building you’re going to. Sky people live in the rarified air of high rises, have household staffs to shop for them, and socialize at private clubs and exclusive bistros. The Escala will have a private club, the first new one in town in 20 years (I believe since the Columbia Tower Club).

Times have been tough for street-level citizens for several years.

Now, they’re becoming tough for sky people as well.

The thing is, we who live close to the ground know how to survive. And to have a helluva good time while doing so.

…to jump on the grunge-nostalgia bandwagon with a fabricated feature entitled “Soundgarden Inadvertently Reunites at Area Cinnabon.”

The piece’s author and editors might not have known there really was a Soundgarden partial reunion last week at the new Crocodile. Only instead of Chris Cornell (ex-hubby of one of the new Croc’s co-owners), who splits his time these days between Paris and Hollywood, the lead vocal role was assumed by the still charismatic-as-all-hell Tad Doyle.

…and partly answers, the musical question: “Grunge Bands: Where Are They Now?”

The Newspaper Guild’s looking into midwifing a Post-Intelligencer employee buyout, which, at the paper’s recently-announced financial burn rate, would obligate each of the paper’s current employees to $80,000 or so in annual losses. On the surface it sounds like a no-go from the get-go; but an employee buyout, perhaps with outside backing added, could be one way to keep the paper (or at least its Web site) alive through the long process of hashing a new business model together.

Meanwhile, Hearst is rumored to still be considering a small-staffed online P-I, but is still weeks away from announcing anything.

And, from way back in December, here’s David Byrne comparing what’s happening to the newspaper biz these days to what happened to the record biz in the ’80s and ’90s—consolidation, buyouts, corporate debt, layoffs, and an institutional death spiral.

I’m tempted to say the piped-in-music giant wouldn’t have gotten into this trouble if it had kept its HQ in Seattle. The reality is it was leveraged-bought-out, in a deal that saddled it with debt and coincidentally took its HQ out of Seattle.

…today to Blossom Dearie, the legendary jazz artist of the lilting vocals and the assertive piano playing, as heard in dozens of albums and several Schoolhouse Rock shorts.

Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready tells state legislators about his gastrointestinal sufferings.

“On A Wonderful Day Like Today” by Johnny Mathis.

(No, this probably won’t become a regular feature): Ultravox’s “One Small Day.”

The Dutchman band practice space and Calleye recording studio burned early Thursday morning. There’s a fund drive to help out its fiscally wiped-out owner.

…of Snowtopia ’08’s final flourish of flurries, we must say goodbye to Eartha Kitt, Ms. “Santa Baby” herself. I had the privilege of seeing her at Jazz Alley sometime in the mid-1990s. She was still as sultry and saucy as ever. I knew I was in the presence of a living goddess; and so did everyone else in the room.

…they could get away with appropriating the music of Bruce Springsteen and Jackson Browne. But now they’re learning a bigger lesson–you don’t mess with Ann and Nancy.

After all the hate-mongering on Wednesday, McCain himself showed up on Thursday evening with a semi-informal, drab sequence of remarks. Some of it was conciliatory and even “friendly.” But the basic branding was still there–more war, more drilling, more giveaways to the rich, 9/11 and POW fetishism, offers of “bipartisan” cooperation with anyone who’ll totally accede to the far-right agenda.

I felt like I was watching a victim of some delusional syndrome such as intermediate senility, occasionally lapsing into lucid human speech before reverting to nonsense.

(NO, this is not age-bashing. The late George Carlin was just a few months younger than Mr. McC., and maintained his wit and sensibility to the end. My mother’s older than Mr. McC., and could undoubtedly out-debate him.)