Vignettes: Bumbershoot heats up

To New York comedy trio Underdog, the festival was "one big crazy street fair" composed of everyone who had the weekend off and couldn't afford to leave town.

BUMBERSHOOT

THE SEATTLE ARTS FESTIVAL

WHEN: Concluding today, with grounds open

at 11 a.m.

WHERE: The Seattle Center

TICKETS: $20 a day; children and youths 5-12 and seniors 65 and up, $3

a day. Tickets available at Ticketmaster, www.bumbershoot.org and all festival gates

From the stage at the Intiman Theatre, they poked fun at Bumberers as stilt-walking-catsuit-wearing-hemp-suited-hennaed hippies (as some sure were), but said they liked its pace better than big-time shows like Lollapalooza.

It wasn't just non-stop music under broiling heat, they said, but a case of "That was a nice little show, now let's go and have an elephant ear."

Here are some more scenes of this year's Bumbershoot Experience from the festival grounds:

At the folding chair that served as the booth of the Advice People (5-cent minimum donation), Scott Allison listened patiently to the burning questions of the day.

He and two partners set up their chairs -- a kinder version of Lucy's psychiatric booth -- on Broadway Avenue regularly, and provide their thoughtful musings at festivals. Bumbershoot questions are like those at most venues, Allison said -- every third person wants to know how to find romance.

Chloe Akers of Bellingham, though, only wanted to know what she should drink on the hot Saturday afternoon. Allison thought it should be iced coffee. It sounded good to her.

He also offered general advice to her friend Carly Jondron, 20, telling her to go on a "vision quest" and find out what it is she wants to do.

"Is this what your vision is?" Jondron asked, gesturing at his chair.

"Somewhat," he said. "Yeah, I guess so. I try to help people in many ways."

If Seattle didn't have Anu Garg, we would have to invent him. Fortunately, the computer programmer and creator of the cult-following "A Word a Day" e-mail list, moved to our bibliophilic city last year and gave a talk on his love of words to an Alki Room crowd.

Where else would the audience rollick in laughter to a slide-show lecture that included gems on spoonerisms, malapropisms and other literary curiosities?

And there was Garg -- who sends out a daily e-mail to about half-million subscribers now with a daily word and its etymology -- letting the world know it's OK to love language.


		Joshua Trujillo / P-I
	On another sunny and warm day at Bumbershoot yesterday, music fans are cooled down at the Comcast Mainstage between acts.

Increasing your vocabulary is not esoteric or arrogant, he said; instead, it's like an artist gaining a vast palette so that he can use just the perfect shade. And words are like the air we breathe, he said: "They are all around us, even though we don't realize it."

Resting on the grass with a sign that read "stranded," a tired, blond 17-year-old named Gustav said he was trying to raise enough gas money to make it to Ellensburg.

The teen said he had been in Seattle for a few days looking for work, but jobs were nil and expenses were high. He has cousins in Central Washington who might help, and slipped into the Seattle Center to make a Bumbershoot pitch.

"I figured there were a lot of people here, and I just kind of wandered in," he said. No one asked him for the $20 entrance fee, and he couldn't have paid it even after his hours on the grass.

"I have made exactly $5, from one person," he said.

Wasn't the Seattle Center created for moments like this? Seven-year-old Russell Loube of Seattle wandered up on the grass carrying a little pack of sour candy, and, oblivious to the official entertainment booths around him, transformed it into a makeshift baseball. He threw a fancy shot under his leg to his father, Dan. He wound up for a fastball. Then he changed the game without notice, kicking the candy with such determined verve that you had to be close to tell it wasn't a real hackysack. Dan Loube said it was the second Bumbershoot year for his son (who, yes, is a Mariners fan).

Nicole Wyatt didn't know it, but she was coming to Bumbershoot to see Betty Sullivan.

With a stylish cap and eye-catching tattoos peeking through her shirt, Wyatt announced, "OK! We're going to register to vote!" as she headed for Sullivan at the League of Women Voters registration table.

"Let me give you a political directory," Sullivan said after Wyatt filled out the forms.

"Awesome," the 26-year-old replied.

Wyatt, of Seattle, said she's never voted before, but she has been wanting to register before next year's elections to support Democratic presidential hopeful Howard Dean. "He has the jam," she said.

Sullivan said the League has courted voters at Bumbershoot for at least the 12 to 14 years she's been volunteering -- hoping to capture its young demographic, which has a disproportionately low turnout -- and that she was encouraged by this year's sizzling sign-ups.


		Karen Ducey / P-I
	Isabelle Ellenthal of Seattle has her face painted by Irina Filatova of New Orleans.

"Young people have a big stake in things, and they need to be voting," she said.

One of the most satisfying parts of Bumbering is randomly picking out interesting unknown acts, but a little organization makes it more comfortable: Thom and Sue Vader of Whidbey Island were watching a Le Petit Cirque show near the International Fountain when they noticed the signs for the busker stage and wondered what the heck it was. They set down portable fabric lawn chairs and watched the Reggie Miles show without so much as a grass stain, smiling at each other through the music. They've been attending the festival for some 25 years.

For the music, of course.

"And, to celebrate the end of summer."

More headlines and info from Belltown, Queen Anne.