SUMNER DREAMS

Yesterday the child and I wandered some more. I wanted to take some pictures of the industrial warehouses that are cropping up in Sumner in the strip of land between West Valley Highway and West Valley Freeway. So we did. I initially became intrigued with this area after reading the previously mentioned article "Thirteen Ways of Seeing Nature in L.A." by Jenny Price. These industrial areas are surrounded by acre upon acre of wetland habitat, much of it also encompassing retaining ponds and bioswales. It is a wonderful place to view birds that favor wetlands and marsh habitat, especially red-winged blackbirds.

I am also intrigued by the new color schemes that seem to be prevalent in new warehouse and multi-family housing construction. There seems to be a color palette of earth tones that features mustard yellow, brick red, rust orange, tan, cocoa, gray, slate blue, and sage green. Some condominiums, such as those pictured above, incorporate the same colors, although of a richer intensity. They really are pleasing to me. The housing and warehouses feel like artificial streets of rowhouses, with pieces of buildings made to look as though they are separate structures.

in THE VIEWING ROOM
Crash directed by Paul Haggis
A disappointment for me. Yes, it did win the 2005 Oscar for Best Film. Nonetheless, although some of the scenes worked, the movie felt overly contrived to me. It tried too hard to show that we are all racists, but I felt that it actually reinforced stereotypes and forced conclusions upon me as a viewer. I felt that its portrayals were cartoonish, with little substance to the characters. A movie that tackled some of the same issues much better was 1989's Do the Right Thing by Spike Lee. The characters in it were caricatures, but their exaggerations and embellishments left room for character development, which ultimately gave their characters some depth. It made me care for them.

So, in review: cartoons in Crash-NO; caricatures in Do the Right Thing-YES.

on THE TAPHANDLE
Guinness Draught by St. James Gate Brewery
One of my favorite beers. It was the complement to a thick steak grilled in Montreal Steak Rub. Heaven!

WANDERINGS

The flânerie continued today. The child and I explored Tacoma by automobile, on foot, and by public transportation. First, we visited the Tacoma Public Library to read pieces in The Arcades Project by Walter Benjamin. It is an enormous collection of Benjamin's thoughts on various concepts related to the arcades of Paris in the nineteenth century. I specifically wanted to read more about the flâneur. At some point I am going to get hold of a used hardcover copy of the book. I need to poke around in it at a leisurely rate.

Afterwards we drove to the Tacoma Dome Parking Garage and hopped the Tacoma Link, a free lightrail tram that shuttles between the Tacoma Dome and the Theater District, with stops at Union Station, the Tacoma Convention Center, and the main downtown Tacoma transit terminal. We rode to the Tacoma Convention Center stop and then walked back to Union Station via sidewalks and parks, all the while taking low-resolution pictures of fascinating architectural pieces and public art. We played at the urban park outside of the Convention Center which is a semicircle of concrete steps and terraces that resembles a Roman amphitheatre. Along one side of it flows a manmade concrete "river" with water flowing from one shallow concrete box to another along a series of "waterfalls," as well as a ramp that "flows" alongside the river down to the sidewalk. The child especially enjoyed this portion of the day. We wandered on foot and with stroller around this park, seeing all that it has to offer. It would be a good place for some outdoor theater.

Then we wandered through Union Station looking at the Chihuly glass sculptures. Next we wandered across the Chihuly Bridge of Glass and down to the waterfront walkway next to the Museum of Glass. We snacked and drank water. We looked at boats. We took pictures of the Thea Foss Landing condominiums. When we started heading back to Union Station to catch Link and head home, the keychain digital camera "dumped" all of the pictures we had taken and reset to its default settings. So, the day's wanderings will have to live as experiences rather than as captured static moments. We did take a few pictures from the point of reset, but they don't feel the same as what I believe the others probably captured. Another day...

on THE TURNTABLE
3121 by Prince
Not a natural choice for me, but this is a great listen!

on THE TAPHANDLE
Fire Station 5 Brewing Company's Brush Fire Summer Ale
Crisp and refreshing. A nice accompaniment to homemade tacos.

on THE NIGHTSTAND
The Urban Ideal: Conversations with Paolo Soleri
His thoughts on architectural needs for environmental sustainability and realization of full human potential.

THE JOYS OF LIFE

SYSTEMATIC LANDSCAPES

Tonight, the child and I visited the Henry Art Gallery. We had two destinations upon our agenda: (1) Maya Lin's Systematic Landscapes sculptures and (2) James Turrell's Light Reign skyscape sculpture.

You are not allowed to photograph in the galleries, so we had to do some low-resolution undercover work. You can always visit the Henry Art Gallery website if you want the official photos, or you can enjoy our "guerilla" photo of 2x4 Landscape. We had to avoid quite a few security cameras as well as docents with walkie-talkies and clipboards. Fortunately, I was still dressed in work attire, minus the tie, and the child put on the charm and increased our collective cute factor. Then I held the camera against my torso and took a few clandestine shots.

2x4 Landscape was my favorite piece of Maya Lin's work. It consists of 65,000 2x4 boards of varying lengths stood on end to form a topographic relief of a hill. You can walk around the edges of the entire structure. Each angle gives you a different view of the hill. It is a 50 foot by 50 foot square that rises to about twelve feet in height. You could also view it from above on one side of the mezzanine level. My other favorite set of her sculptures was the Bodies of Water Series that consisted of Baltic birch plywood topographic reliefs of the Caspian, Black, and Red Seas.

I was also quite excited to see the James Turrell Skyscape. The lower portion of the oval room and the bench that runs along the interior wall are dark, richly colored hardwood slats. The upper wall is painted an off-white and has a small shelf that hides interior lights that give the walls a moody whitewash effect. The ceiling aperture is an oval that opens upon the sky. It has a dome that can be closed during inclement weather, which then provides artificial light. The effect this evening was spectacular, with the cloudless, eggshell blue oval of sky as a seamless part of the room. I found it difficult to even see where the aperture and the sky met. James Turrell has built other skyscapes but I have never viewed one until now. A great experience.

What spurred some of my interest in these artistic and architectural sculptures are some of my recent readings. The first piece that helped me discover some new paths of thinking about my environment and how I interact with it was a two-part article that ran in two consecutive issues of The Believer. "Thirteen Ways of Seeing Nature in L.A." by Jenny Price examines the L.A. River and its 51-mile path through the city of L.A., and how some people are helping to change it from a glorified concrete drainage ditch to a multi-use green space in a city sorely lacking in adequate parks. The second piece consisted of three short essays by poet Lisa Robertson in The Clear Cut Future by Clear Cut Press. Operating under the moniker The Office for Soft Architecture, Robertson uses the languages of art and architecture to reveal the world around her. In these works, also found in her book Occasional Work and Seven Walks from the Office for Soft Architecture, she examines the Himalayan blackberry as used in ornamental gardening ("A Common Architectural Decorative Motif in the Temperate Mesophytic Region: Rubus Amerniacus"); the use of color in architecture and army uniforms ("How to Colour"); and meditates upon the use of scaffolding when working on buildings ("Doubt and the History of Scaffolding"). They are fascinating glimpses of the dialogue that occurs between us and our environment. The third piece, and perhaps most new for me, was my haphazard discovery of a locally published journal, Arcade: Architecture/Design in the Northwest. The summer 2006 issue is primarily concerned with the concept of the flâneur, the city wanderer. And, this is what the child and I have become on our "adventure days." We have taken to wandering the streets of Puyallup and Tacoma, not to buy anything, but to take low-resolution pictures of things and events that catch our fancy, as well as observing people, buildings, and "happenings" around us.

This wandering, and reveling in viewing art and archictectural designs and motifs, has allowed us to view some interesting things. We have watched construction on new condominiums in downtown Puyallup, been at the edge of a massive bicycle road race, discovered some quaint little retail shops, looked at Mickey Mouse stuffed dolls in antique stores, visited various parks and play areas, and walked through the building and campus of the Univerity of Washington Tacoma just for fun. We have looked at siamangs, Chihuly glass art, and homeless youth making out on the sidewalk. We have drank coffee, eaten bunny graham crackers, and sipped water from various drinking fountains. We have taken pictures of trees, public art, buildings, garbage receptacles, graffiti, playground equipment, furniture, fixtures, clouds, and cars. And, ultimately, the reading, reflection, and wandering led us to the Henry Art Gallery, a place I have always wanted to visit, where we interacted with art and architecture that intrigued us and then took some photographs of it.

BOCCE BALL

Tonight I played bocce ball on an actual court. I have always played it as "extreme" bocce ball, without any (or at least limited or fluid) boundaries. My wife took the child and I to Les Gove Park in Auburn so that the child could play in the water park and that she and I could play bocce ball. It is a lot different playing on a packed oyster shell court with actual sides and back. I played horribly. My wife was easily the victor because I could not get any kind of rhythm down and we were also being pestered by two local children. And, I simply could not roll the ball light enough or slow enough. The compacted shell really moved the ball along. And, with the additional rules of (1) the pallino having to be initially thrown beyond midcourt and (2) stopping at least twelve inches from a side, as well as (3) a ball being dead if it contacts the back wall unless it contacts another ball, I was doomed from the beginning. The ninety foot long court did not seem as long as it initially did once the balls started rolling. I will definitely have to make some return visits!

NUCLEAR DREAMS

I dream of the abyss. Not because I want to but because it is there, because it makes itself known. I dream of the abyss because it has loomed over my entire life. I have never known the world without The Bomb, without the power of The Atom. I can hear it singing to me at night through the darkness of the room. It signals me from the nightstand in the neon red glow of the clock radio, the numbers blurred when viewed through bleary eyes.

When I was young, I was certain that the world was going to disappear in mushroom clouds. I lived in a maelstrom of crosshairs: Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Bangor Submarine Base, Keyport, McChord Air Force Base, Fort Lewis. I had a plan to grab a lawnchair and sit out on the roof of my family's house, put on sunglasses, open a soda, eat some potato chips, and melt away in the wave of fire and heat that I knew was surely coming.

On the Saturday morning that my lung collapsed in spontaneous pneumothorax, in my seventeenth year of life, the radioactive cloud from Chernobyl was heading toward the United States. I assumed that this was the new way to go: when my body was at its weakest, my lungs compromised, that The Cloud would have its way with me. And yet... And yet... I am still here. But that is little consolation.

What of those who have tasted of death from The Elements? I have had the opportunity to read two books that are eyewitness accounts to the very abyss that I have feared. The first, Hiroshima Diary: The Journal of a Japanese Physician: August 6 - September 30, 1945 by Dr. Michihiko Hachiya, is the diary of someone on the ground in Hiroshima the day that the United States, the only country to use a nuclear weapon in warfare, dropped the first atomic bomb. It was extensively quoted in the recent book Shockwave: Countdown to Hiroshima by Steven Walker who nicely balances the countdown to the bombing and its aftermath from the viewpoints of various persons involved in the event. Shockwave only gave glimpses into the horror that Dr. Hachiya experienced though. When I found Hiroshima Diary with the bargain books at Barnes & Noble, I knew that I would have to read it. Not to ambulance chase, but to hear Dr. Hachiya speak to me, calmly, quietly, about his life, his experience, his horror, his nightmare. I have not read the whole thing yet, but am reading it in small portions, and allowing the enormity of the event, of the experience, sink deep into the marrow of my soul.

The second book, a collection of eyewitness accounts of those living in The Zone around Chernobyl, Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster by Svetlana Alexievich, captures the horror of belief and faith in systems that destroy us. Many of the monologues from the victims of Chernobyl express the faith in the Soviet system, the faith in The State, even as it operates in opposition to their personal welfare. I have read the book twice, and am starting a third time, in order to understand why we as humans want to hold such great trust in our ability to control things that are perhaps ultimately beyond our control, things that are perhaps better left in the hands of God. And, as the coup de grace, the author Alexievich, during the three years she spent interviewing victims and officials she put her own life in jeopardy. In fact, she now suffers from an immune disorder most likely "contracted" due to time in The Zone.

And, why should we care? Because these voices are our voices. Or, they could be. Another book that should really be read by a larger audience is Mother Country: Britain, the Welfare State, and Nuclear Pollution by Marilynne Robinson. It examines the blatant disregard that nation-states, in this case Great Britain, have for their citizens, especially those who are poor. You have to read this book to see what the future holds for us if the hints in The New York Times Magazine article "Atomic Balm?" (July 16, 2006 - by Jon Gertner) are indicators of what is coming. Mother Country is a difficult book to find, however. You most likely won't find it as backstock on your local bookstore's shelves. When I special ordered it, it took me three attempts. Barnes & Noble couldn't seem to obtain it both times I tried, but Amazon finally procured a copy for me. And, if you actually live in Britain then good luck. Greenpeace (yes, the environmental group supposedly opposed to nuclear weaponry and nuclear reactors) sued Robinson for slander and won. Therefore, the book cannot be sold in Britain. Greenpeace merely had to show that the book could potentially damage them and slander would be proven, which it was. Robinson definitely does not paint a good picture of Greenpeace, but, hey, when there are funds to raise to keep your organization viable then by any means necessary. Right?

The Bomb is not going to go away. If anything, we should be worried now more than ever. Iran and North Korea are saber rattling as they move ever closer to developing The Bomb; Israel, which may have The Bomb, is running rampant over its neighbor Lebanon and its Palestinian citizens in Gaza and The West Bank; and the United States has considered using tactical nuclear weapons against bunkers in a potential invasion of Iran. It amazes me that the only country to use an atomic weapon in war would even consider it again. Maybe some of the planners need to sit down with some of my suggested summer reading...

So, I dream of the abyss again. I listen to the faint ticking sound of The Elements as they decay in the earth outside the concrete of my basement bedroom's wall. The atomic lullaby brings me ever closer to slumber. Eternal. Final. Forever and ever. Amen.

A BEGINNING

A beginning: I reflect on where I am in life. I am 38 years old. If I had been born one hundred, or even fifty, years earlier, I would have probably only lived to be half as old. With the spontaneous collapse of my lung at age seventeen, and the subsequent years of pneumonia and bronchitis, I would have likely died in my late teens. Or, perhaps contracted tuberculosis.

Therefore, when I romanticize earlier ages, with their lack of modern medicine, with their very real barbarisms of war and squalor and violence, with their absence of modern conveniences, I need to remember that where I am and what I am and when I am makes me who I am.