CHALK THE WALK: MOBY-DICK EDITION

The Child and TWT wandered down to the Puyallup Public Library to participate in the 2010 Chalk the Walk event.


We decided to use Moby-Dick as a unifying theme. I had earlier decided to portray a female sperm whale and its calf (a young Moby Dick) as a further imagining of Melville's chapter 87, "The Grand Armada." The Child then decided that the climactic scene of Moby Dick ramming the Pequod from "The Chase" was in order.


"The Grand Armada" by Troy's Work Table.


"The Chase" by The Child (lower panels) and Troy's Work Table (upper panel).

TOPPENISH DREAMS

Colors dashed upon brickwork. Yakama. European. Hispanic. History of the Lower Yakima Valley. Identifying a community through a dedication to the creation of murals, at least one per year.



Stick games and polo and pranks. Harvesting the land, hauling to market, hops. Historical advertisements and historical figures, looming large over the core of downtown.


Trompe l'oeil. The illusion of masonry on a flat stucco wall. The illusion of a golden age.

LAKE.COM

A self-explanatory dream.

YAKIMA DREAMS

We walk the Yakima Greenway and wander the grounds of the Arboretum & Botanical Garden. Rushing river, swallows darting over the rapids, missing us by mere inches. The calls of magpies. Courtesy carts driven by grandmotherly types stopping, the women inquiring if we need water and moving on to the next group of walkers when we hold up our water bottles.



Frogs and 911 and roses and dogwood blooms.


Sitting in a gazebo, watching clouds drift through the brilliant blue sky. Silence. We watch the shadow on a sundial stand still, trying to perceive its movement. Thankfully, we fail and sit some more. We wander again. We grow in the warmth of the sun, redden. We dream.

ELLENSBURG DREAMS

Farmland outside of Ellensburg, Washington, dotted with homes and barns. Windmills on the crests of hills. Sunshine and wind.

LEVIATHAN

TWT is now an official member of The Melville Society. His first issue of Leviathan: A Journal of Melville Studies arrived in his mailbox today and he is ecstatic.

Highlights of this particular issue include an article on Moby-Dick abridgments, which is what rekindled his love for the book and the author (and precipitated a year-long Moby-Dick reading project); and an interview with painter George Klauba.

It is time to read and escape and read some more. Good night.

CRAB PATROL

We wander Titlow Beach, turning over rocks, exposing crabs to the light of day, before returning them to their shadows and safety.

Gulls fly overhead, searching for armored beasts to snatch, to tear limb from limb, to deconstruct and scatter about the sand.

We clack our own claws, lifting them before our mouths, grasping at breaths of warm air and pulling them close, protesting the laughter of the birds that close in.

WHITE RIVER DGC

Hole #1 drive: focus. (Discraft Elite Z Stalker.)
Photograph by The Child.


Hole #1 drive: throw. (Discraft Elite Z Stalker.)
Photograph by The Child.


Hole #1 putt: in for par. (Latitude 64º Sinus SP.)
Photograph by The Child.

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The sun finally decides to cooperate with TWT's days off, which means disc golf without rain. The ground is still rather muddy due to being oversatuated from the days prior, but that is okay; at least we can play and be dry.

White River Disc Golf Course beckons and we respond.

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Hole 1 - 3
Hole 2 - 4
Hole 3 - 4
Hole 4 - 3
Hole 5 - 3
Hole 6 - 3
Hole 7 - 3
Hole 8 - 3
Hole 9 - 4
Front nine - 30 (+3)

Hole 10 - 4
Hole 11 - 3
Hole 12 - 4
Hole 13 - 4
Hole 14 - 4
Hole 15 - 3
Hole 16 - 3
Hole 17 - 3
Hole 18 - 3
Back nine - 31 (+4)

Total - 61 (+7)

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My drives feel good today. They are solid and straight. I am especially happy with my initial drives on holes 6, 8, 13, 14, and 17. Hole #8 almost sees me get a birdie with my 150-gram Valkyrie driver. Hole #17 is the longest drive I have had to date, and it was beautiful.

I just need to focus on tightening up my putts and I will be in great shape, at least at White River.

WEATHER DREAMS

Sun peeks through thick clouds of gray and white, steel and ivory, in fits and starts. He struggles to make his warmth known. He dreams of delivering rays to be transformed into vitamin D. He dreams of the joy of painting in broad strokes of photosynthesis.

THE BACKUP PLAN

The electric Lawn Hog lawn mower died today, which meant that the manual Classic lawn mower was allowed to leave the shed and go to work.

The cooking of dinner also proved to be somewhat of a challenge today.

It was a day of backup plans. Fortunately, no Plan C was ever necessary.

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Elements of the backup plans and/or other backup plans:

Human powered and mechanical rather than fossil fuel powered and electrical.

Ditalina pasta rather than rice.

Mission of Burma (1982) and Hüsker Dü (1987) rather than Jonas Brothers (2008) and Justin Bieber (2010). (Okay, that one is unfair, in that, none of the JBs was ever a Plan A!)

Reading rather than viewing (television, cinema).

Tangible, physical book rather than electronic book.

Biking rather than driving.

Walking rather than biking.

Worrying about today, this moment, rather than worrying about a potentially-never-arriving, dystopic, apocalyptic future.

Comfortable rather than prim and proper.

Chuck Taylor All-Stars rather than most other shoes.

Microbrew rather than macrobrew.

Imperial IPA rather than IPA.

For that matter, Imperial ——— rather than ———.

Plain rather than peanut.

Top hat rather than top kill.

TROY'S WORK TABLE

Today was a Troy's Work Table kind of day. It involved all of the TWT major categories—books, art, beer, and wandering.

BOOKS:
*A visit to the Capitol Hill branch of the Seattle Public Library.
*A visit to the new location of Elliott Bay Book Company.
*A visit to Pilot Books to pick up poetry chapbooks by Joel Felix (Catch & Release) and Thomas Hummel (Stands as Mediation).
*A visit to Puyallup Public Library to check out The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams (Volume I: 1909–1939 and Volume II: 1939–1962).

ART:
*Picking up a copy of the album Vs. by Mission of Burma at Everyday Music.
*Viewing concert footage of a 1983 Mission of Burma concert on the accompanying DVD.
*Viewing short films directed by Karpo Godina, courtesy of the 2010 Film Issue of The Believer (issue #70, March/April 2010).
*The Child and TWT posing for pictures with the Jimi Hendrix statue on Broadway.

BEER:
*Taking notes on and enjoying a Single-Wide IPA from Boulevard Brewing Company with dinner.
*Enjoying a half-pint of Dogzilla Black IPA from Laughing Dog Brewing with 100% natural vanilla ice cream.

WANDERING:
*Traipsing around Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood.

SUNSHINE DREAMS

June resembles February. Winter replaced spring. The string bean sprouts have died from too much rain and too little sun. The cantaloupe seeds and pumpkin starts rotted in their mounds of wet soil. The tomatoes drowned and now lean against their cages. The garden is disaster. Only the weeds have thrived, their obstinance and endurance sustaining them. I pluck them out one by one and till the soil again.


I wait for dry and warm.