Festival Gypsies and Ferries

While working/volunteering at the Seattle International Film Festival I've run across all of these various people that work at all kinds of different festivals. Aaron goes from the Palm Springs festival, to the Independent Spirit Awards to Seattle. Riley works at Sundance, Tri-Becca and then Seattle. They're called Festival Gypsies and they're a unique group of people. As one of them explained to me "It takes a special person to know how to handle patrons, film goers, sponsors, movie stars, etc. Working at all of these different festivals gives you that opportunity." And there are tons of them! Everything from the tech guys to the venue managers, from the print traffic team to the mechandise people. It so very cool.... It's one of those jobs you wish you had known about when you were 22, fresh out of college and trying to break into the local arts scene.

I took a ferry from Mukilteo to Clinton (on Whidbey Island) yesterday to visit some people for work. It was just beautiful! The Pacific Northwest is astonishing anyway with the mountains on both sides of you as your ferry smoothly speeds across the salty Sound. Whidbey Island itself was wonderful, wooded and full of summer life. It was 10 degrees warmer, not even raining as I sped around the 50 mile long island. It has a very diverse community with an army base to the north and a hippy/arts community in the south (or nowadays, 30 something pajama commuters). It's not paradise as the woman I met with explained. It's got it's own problem with meth labs in the forests, elderly neglect, hugely inflated housing prices, etc. But it has a great arts community and was a perfect day to be hopping around the island. A day trip exploring the forests in the North and sipping wine at an art walk in the South is in order sometime this summer.