In Seattle, the Belltown neighborhood used to be a warehouse-y, industrial district also inhabited by artists. There, the Penny University coffeehouse occupied a storefront on 2nd Avenue on the front edge of the first wave of gentrification before the Millennium. Sunday was avant garde jazz night; another night was open mic for musicians, and on Tuesday nights open mic for poets. Smoking wasn’t outlawed yet and so the room was a smoke-filled snow globe with sidewalk access; at the appointed hour it got shook up. Everyone gripped their leafy notebooks and—before cell phone culture—actually listened…