TENTACLES

Giant Pacific Octopus (and anemones) at Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium.

FLOWER TWINS

Flower twins, North Hill.

BRIAN DOYLE

"While our hearts and heads work, our job is to catch and share stories. Stories matter." 
—Brian Doyle.

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The Wife, The Child, and Troy's Work Table attended a book talk and reading by essayist and novelist Brian Doyle at the Puyallup Public Library on Thursday (6/12) evening. Mr. Doyle is a funny, wonderful storyteller with just a smidgen of ribaldry. He kicked off the adult summer reading program and he was an excellent choice for such.

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The pieces he read reminded me of Melville. Somewhat longish sentences, love of lists, tangential wanderings around a topic before winding back to where it began. 

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What I really loved about him, though, was how he was able to bring a sense of humanity to every story he told and every piece he read. There was a love of life woven into the words.

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King's Books was on hand so I picked up copies of his novels Mink River and The Plover. As he signed our copies of his novel, he continued to tell stories, and to ask The Child about school, and get The Child to tell stories about school. The wonder continued even in that small, simple moment.

POP TART TWINS

Can industrial food be art?

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When I pulled these two chocolate chip Pop Tarts out of their packaging, I was taken aback for a moment. I've never had two in the same package that had such a similar frosting drizzle pattern.

CEPHALOPOD APPRECIATION SOCIETY

The eighth annual meeting of the Cephalopod Appreciation Society is called to order.

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More than one-hundred fans of the octopus, the squid, the cuttlefish, and the chambered nautilus filled Hugo House this evening. They were gathered to shout out facts about their favorite cephalopod, to listen to poems about cephalopods be read, to hear original songs about cephalopods be performed, to watch short films about the octopus, and to sing along with "Octopus Garden" and "Drunken Sailor" as part of the Sea-Shantacular.

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It was a wonderful and magical literary event for most of the night. Toward the end, one of the performers (with her "impassioned speech") attempted to derail this all-ages event with a "speech" that was overly tangential, off topic, and rather profane. The profanity didn't fit with the story she was attempting to tell. And there was little to no passion in the telling of it, unless one confuses profanity for passion (which I don't).

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Seattle poet Sierra Nelson was the master of ceremonies and had plenty of students from one of her creative writing classes ("Creatures of the Sea") present to read new work inspired by one of the cephalopods.

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All in all, it was a wonder-filled evening of poetry, film, music, and art with a theme that allowed for as much flexibility as its subject(s).

BLOOM

The Puyallup Riverwalk Trail is alive with flowers in bloom.

CROW

Crow. Lunch time. Wright Park, Tacoma.

FROST PARK: TILT

Detail of "Tilt" by Troy's Work Table . Frost Park Chalk Off 7:10. Friday 06 June 2014.

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There was a theme for this Frost Park Chalk Off and it was "all things arcade." I chose to create my own Kraken pinball machine. It's rather cartoonish and simple, but I had a lot of fun chalking it.

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You can view more pictures of Frost Park Chalk Off 7:10, including a picture of the full "Tilt," HERE.

WE EXIST

Stencil graffiti of a jackalope along Meeker Street, Puyallup, Washington.

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"[W]e exist—we write, we read—so long as we're alive, and the only conclusion is death."

—Juan Antonio Masoliver Rodena, in "Between the Abyss and Misfortune," the prologue to Woes of the True Policeman by Roberto Bolaño.

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"You're down on your knees, begging us please, praying that we don't exist. But we exist. We exist. We exist. We exist. We exist."

—from "We Exist" as found on the album Reflektor by Arcade Fire.