Cascadia Calling, 2025.12.22
we feel the chill north winds coarse through the home despite the locked and bolted doors / this is winter, which nonetheless brings its own delights.
My partner Brigid’s parents are in town for the holidays. This past week we had dinner at the Fairmont Olympic before a holiday surprise. Brigid is big on both Christmas and surprises. The Fairmont Olympic was packed, and the handsome lobby bar was decked out in wreathes and tinsel as it always is this time of year. In pride of place at the West end of the bar was a massive Christmas Tree, towering over the rowdy, well-dressed drinkers at its feet.
We got into the restaurant (called the George) right as it opened. When we mentioned to them that we were headed to a show and so would need to expedite our meal, the server lit up. Whether genuine or just an excellent expression of the kind of enthusiasm that every good waitress can muster, she gushed “oh fun, what are you seeing tonight?” This elicited Brigid to tell her, ruing the surprise that we had all already surmised from context clues.
The surprise ended up being a string quartet playing at the Arctic Club1. The main focus was Christmas carols. The carols themselves, many of them in medley form, were delightful and well-performed. The show was stolen, however, by the revelation that the lead violin turned out to be the magnificent Rachel Ellen Wong, who also lead the quartet in an incredible rendition of the “Winter” movement of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. Though even when playing “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen”, she radiated joy at being able to play seasonal folk songs for an intimate and appreciative audience.
In a recent essay for A Rabbit’s Foot (which I’ll be writing more about in the coming week), Charli XCX talked about her love for combining “low” and “high” art. One of the most interesting stories of contemporary culture is the blurring of “low” and “high” art to the point where the labels become almost impossible to apply. The notion of a distinction or even a spectrum between popular, accessible artistic endeavors and high-brow, serious, highly crafted works is dissolving. I think that this is, on balance, a great thing for our culture.
Christmas carols are a quintessential example of folk art, art originally created by ordinary folk and meant to be performed and consumed by non-artists, and yet the first time I’d really experienced them in years was in a “high” art setting. I was in a gorgeous, century-old building listening to some of the finest musicians in the world in a string quartet play them interspersed with Vivaldi. All of this brought to me by my partner seeing an ad for it on the Internet. That these kinds of experiences are discoverable and accessible to more people is a positive force in our culture.
On Saturday night, I experienced another lovely breakdown of the “low” vs “high” art divide—a lavish staging of the Lion King at the venerable Paramount Theater.2 It featured some of the best stage actors in the world in a bold stage adaptation of a children’s film by the Disney corporation. That stage acting itself only came to be considered high art during the early 20th century alongside the rise of film is itself an interesting facet here. Now it’s being used to elevate the “low” art artifact of a children’s movie.
The stage production, set design, and costuming were all incredible. The sound work left a bit to be desired (especially the younger members of the cast clearly had a bit of trouble projecting to the back of the house, through no fault of their own), but otherwise it was a stellar performance. I’d never given much thought to seeing Lion King on stage, as I’d, foolishly, thought it would be pretty much like rewatching the movie. One thing that floored me was the extreme craft and lavish attention to detail of the movements of the various puppets used to render the animals. The engineering feat of the masks that shifted as the actors changed from hominoid to lionine and back again was particularly impressive.
One standout performance was Mukelisiwe Goba in the role of Rafiki. She brought a puckish charm to the role that threatened to steal the scene, especially played off against the somber stature of Gilbert Domally’s Simba.
The craft and artistry that the whole cast and crew brought to the show convinced me that I need to be far less skeptical about these kinds of productions in the future. I always imagined myself as someone who was appropriately dismissive of the false low/high distinction, but clearly I need to do more to seek out areas where the distinction is blurred to the point of erasure.
There’s an entire essay to be written about the use of historical sites for art as a way to bring people into new spaces in their city. I love the Arctic Club, but had myself never been to the rotunda where the quarter played. I’m sure there were many in attendance who would have never experienced that part of Seattle’s historical and cultural history if they hadn’t come for the quartet that night.
Again, planned and tickets purchased by my lovely partner.