If you are like me, then you have never before spent a Saturday night at the Space Needle. But given the right company and the right reason, you totally would. Because the Space Needle, all distasteful trappings of touristic enterprise aside, is the most marvelous marvel of kitsch the world has ever known.*

This is why I'm furtively excited about Satellite tomorrow night—it feels a little like an infiltration, a combination of glitz and substance. It's a party to raise money for the Stranger Genius Awards*, and general admission is sold out but there are still a few VIP tickets. They're 75 bucks, but for that, you get not just a ride up to the top of the city. You also get unlimited drinks, a stool at an absinthe bar, performances by Geniuses including Lead Pencil Studio and Lesley Hazleton, and something called a "VIP art bag," whose contents I would like to see.

But even if you will not join me tomorrow night, here is a poem about the Space Needle, written by Kristin Fogdall and published a few years ago by Slate poetry editor Robert Pinsky. I will be thinking about it as I look out those high windows Saturday night. Either you will be up there with me, or I will be looking out to where you are. I'll wave. Look for me.

^{*This is really only slightly exaggerating.}

^{*Genius Awards: We give $25,000 in unrestricted cash every year to artists in five disciplines (art, theater, books, film, and music). Then we celebrate them with a giant party.}