TO THE ACADEMY

Regarding Daniel Craig: please don't invite him back as a presenter. He seemed to be very unhappy in his role. Instead, let him sit in the audience and enjoy a few cocktails.

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I really liked the presentation format for the Actress in a Supporting Role, Actor in a Supporting Role, Actress in a Leading Role, and Actor in a Leading Role categories. It really highlighted acting as a creative act. It also highlighted actors as a community of individuals. I only wish you had done the same for directing.

Really: Reese Witherspoon?

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And it seems that you also shortchanged the category of Best Film, in the same manner that you shortchanged the category of Best Director. Yes, Steven Spielberg is a director, but couldn't you find five directors whose films has previously won in the Best Film category?

Or, perhaps, directors aren't the "pretty people" that you would like to have splashed across television screens.

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The camera work during the annual "remembrance of the dead" was atrocious. Half the time I couldn't read the name of the deceased individual. This would have been a good time for a static camera. Did Baz Luhrmann and his crew film this section?

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I liked "thinking through" the process of making a movie—pre-production, production, post-production—and tying it to the appropriate award categories.

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I was really hoping that Mickey Rourke would win Best Actor in a Leading Role for his work in The Wrestler. He didn't. But he did win Best Male Lead at Film Independent's Spirit Awards the night before, so all is good.

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Overall, it was a fairly good, if somewhat bland and subdued, celebration of the cinematic arts. I suppose this is the award ceremony we deserve during a time of economic turmoil and extended warfare.

META BOOKS

Meta Books is a relatively new tenant to the core retail storefronts of the University of Washington, Tacoma campus. It stocks used books in a variety of categories—including literature, poetry, cooking, travel, history, and Tacoma/Pacific Northwest.

The space was somewhat small and intimate. The shelves were somewhat sparsely filled. After another three months of business, I assume that there will be more stock on the shelves.

It was fun to poke around and see what they had on the shelves, although my inner bookseller wanted to keep facing books out to fill some of the empty space.

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It seems that Meta Books will be a nice complement to the new book offerings of the nearby UWT branch of the University Book Store. It also occupies a geographical middle ground between Tacoma Book Center and King's Books, which may allow it to thrive, although it won't keep me from patronizing either King's or TBC. In fact, I will still default to King's Books when looking for books in Tacoma.

But I will give Meta Books some time to grow and mature, hopefully gracefully so.

(1) Drain in the reflecting pool of the Museum of Glass.


(2) Remnants of artwork in the Woolworth Windows exhibition of Tacoma Contemporary (TaCo), which is currently between exhibitions.


(3) "Bike Jump: Life Defying Raditude : Gaytron the Imploder" at Tollbooth Gallery.


(4) Playbills and posters in the window of the Broadway Center for the Performing Arts.


(5) Four painted advertisements (restored by Ackerley Communications) on the side of the Pythian Temple, Commencement Lodge Number 7.


(6) Shortcut.


(7) "Windows" painted onto the side of a building, near Freighthouse Square.


(8) Detail of painted "windows."

RIVERWALK BOOKENDS

(1) Bookend #1. Trees at sunset, east end of Phase 2 of the Puyallup Riverwalk.


(2) Levi's 550s left to dry.


(3) Waist 40, length 30.


(4) Remnants of the New Year's flooding along the Puyallup River.


(5) One of the levees along Levee Road.


(6) Pipeline: do not anchor.


(7) Bookend #2. Trees at sunset, west end of Phase 2 of the Puyallup Riverwalk.

WORDS

The importance of words:

Tonight, after work (and my "late night" at work at that), I found myself driving 47 miles roundtrip over a period of one hour and fifteen minutes to retrieve my winter coat. I had left it at a cabin the day prior where the staff of my workplace had an all-day retreat.

But I didn't drive there and back to simply retrieve my coat. If I had only left my coat there, then I probably would have just bid it adieu. It is a good coat and serves me well, but I would have left it behind.

I wanted what was in its pocket. There lurked my small composition book. It is filled with notes taken at art exhibitions, notes taken during beer tastings, lists of books I have read, lists of books I hope to read, general observations, germs of ideas for poems and prose.

And now it is retrieved and home and safe once more.

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The bonus:

I had the opportunity to stand in the darkness at the edge of a lake peering up at the vast multitudes of stars and galaxies of the winter night sky. Whereas I normally only see a handful of lower magnitude stars due to the washout effect of suburban and urban lighting, I instead saw the sky filled with thousands upon thousands of stars. I felt small and lonely and alive.

BROWN SHUGGA'

"Ah, brown sugar, how come you taste so good?"
—from "Brown Sugar" by The Rolling Stones, as found on the album Sticky Fingers

Brown Shugga', a Barleywine by Lagunitas Brewing Company

Let's hear it for failed experiments that are given second lives! Hear, hear!

(According to the commercial description, this "aborted batch of [Lagunita's] Old Gnarleywine ended up tasting nearly as good as that they were hoping for, so they bottled it. God bless capitalism.")

Saturday night is steak night on the home front. New York steaks. Medium rare. A-1 sauce. Baked beans on the side. It doesn't get any better than this.

Brown Shugga' pours quiet and restrained, with little fanfare. The head is virtually nonexistent and leaves no lacing. This ale pours clear orangish-brown with an amber aura and a brief, thin skin of ivory.

The smell is very sweet—brown sugar, honey, and a sweet breadiness. The flavor is a little richer and more complex—brown sugar, cinnamon, ginger, white bread (Wonder!), and alcohol. A light bitterness finishes and carries the spices through once the sweetness falls away.

Overall, Brown Shugga' is slightly understated and mellow. I like it a lot. It is fun to smell and even more fun to drink. And it nicely complemented the steak and the baked beans.

Woo hoo!

FOOTHILLS TRAIL

The child and I needed to get out of the house. We needed to escape being cooped up with our colds. So we went and got the bicycle out, attached it to the back of the car via its rack, and set out for Orting. We were soon pedaling away on the Foothills Trail for a day of bicycling, picnicking, sightseeing, geocaching, and general wandering.


A cow on a nearby farm drinks water from a muddy pool. One of the highlights for the child!
47º 05.917 N, 122º 11.651 W


The Carbon River.
47º 05.215 N, 122º 10.809 W


A male mallard duck takes a bath.
47º 05.206 N, 122º 11.115 W


Table for two? TWT assumes it is a picnic table that was washed downriver during the recent flooding.


Getting ready to examine the contents of a geocache.
47º 05.740 N, 122º 09.302 W


A tree bone rests upon the river bank.


The orange "dood" rock.
47º 05.735 N, 122º 09.295 W



Our companion for part of the journey. The child was intrigued by this shepherd that decided to hang with us for some time.
47º 05.917 N, 122º 09.151 W


"If you hear the lahar sirens, move quickly to high ground (at least 50 feet off the valley floor). Assist other trail users as best you can." When you stand near this sign and look to see where the "high ground" is located, you realize that if a lahar does occur you may as well take a few moments to say goodbye to yourself.
47º 05.746 N, 122º 09.281 W


Crossing over the Carbon River via bridge.


Old Glory waves in front of a recently logged hill. It appears that power lines are coming soon to previous wilderness areas.

TRACES

I am reading Mario Vargas Llosa's The Bad Girl. I keep being reminded of Thomas Pynchon's V. and Steve Erickson's Zeroville. They are also stories of unrequited love that is perverse in its obsessiveness and power.

These two stories keep creeping into my consciousness, so much so that I turn to each. I thumb through them, searching for the passages that I seek. Zeroville is fairly easy because I read it less than a year ago and took notes.

V. is going to be more problematic. The Perennial Library paperback edition I have is just shy of 500 pages. Add to that, I never took notes or marked any pages in my book.


Normally, I would mark passages that struck me as interesting or important with Book Darts (as above left). That is because I don't write in books. (I never have and don't foresee a time when I will feel compelled to do such.) Instead, I slide one of the sleek copper darts next to the line or lines I am interested in and return to it later. Then I will type a set of notes, with page references, so that I can remove the book darts and use them in another book.

(That also allows me to read the book again and again, without being prejudiced by a previous reading, while still enjoying the luxury of notes to reference if I so desire.)

Except that as I thumbed through the pages of the novel, I realized that someone had lightly marked passages in pencil (as above right). The pencil marks are very light—a line running in the margins along a paragraph or a faint check mark. I bought the book years ago from Tacoma Book Center, one of the area's best purveyors of used books. It was in excellent condition.

I am certain that the pencil marks in the margins of V. were placed there by the previous owner. I don't remember noticing them before, but they had to have been present.

The amazing thing is that these traces of someone else's reading of the book are marking the passages that I was searching for. Over a section of twenty pages, a smattering of scattered marks highlight the sentences that connect my current reading of The Bad Girl with what I remember about V.

I usually cannot read a book or article if someone else has marked or highlighted passages because I feel like I am reading it through their biases, when I would rather read it through my own. But, in this case, it works perfectly.

Thank you, unknown previous owner of my book!

THE 9TH NORTHWEST BIENNIAL

Clockwise from upper left: (1) Promotion card for The 9th Northwest Biennial; (2) The 9th Northwest Biennial on the cover of City Arts Tacoma; (3) The 9th Northwest Biennial catalogue; and (4) The Clear Cut Future.

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I am stunned into silence by what I see. I am driving home with the radio off. My ears are ringing. I am swooning, near fainting.

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How does one explain the ephemeral? How does one capture or create a context?

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My speech is slurred. My thoughts stutter.

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Initial impressions of the works that speak strongest to me...

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Rick Araluce. The Outrage. The Fall. The Leap. Each is a small diorama of a room that was once possible filled with a strange violence. Araluce's attention to detail is meticulous. It as though the rooms have been shrunken in scale and left behind for their mysteries to be discovered. The aftermath of an event that has just occurred, or that occurred weeks ago, is frozen and presented. What detective skills do we bring to the scene?

In The Outrage, it appears that someone has kicked the door in. Were they pursuing someone? Were they looking for the box that is tucked in the attic crawlspace? Did someone witness the scene from the peephole in the other door?

In The Fall, a lightbulb has fallen from its socket and left a crater in the floor without breaking. While it has not shattered, it has heavily damaged a concrete floor. How? It is realistic yet implausible.

In The Leap, a scene similar to The Fall has occurred. A teacup has rolled (leapt?) from a shelf upon the wall to the floor below. It has left its own crater, breaking boards of a hardwood floor. It has also survived its descent. The mind boggles at the apparent force that is needed to cause this much damage, yet without consequence to the porcelain cup.

I am fascinated by the detail, by the scale, by the craftsmanship, by the love of the artist for his scenes and ambiguous narratives, by the surreality, by being unnerved by the contradictions of the scenes.

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Michael Brophy. Firewall series. Kitchen Painting series. There is a lushness to these 25 gouache paintings. They look as though panels in a graphic novel. They make don't quite make sense as a series if "read" from left to right, top to bottom. Yet there is a story to discern in the juxtaposition of one picture in the grid to it surrounding pictures—nonlinear perhaps, but present nonetheless.

They are also intensely personal, depicting his home and studio before and after it was destroyed by a fire that almost took his life. It positions me as voyeur, which makes me uncomfortable. I am forced into the role of "ambulance chaser." I want to look away, but the beauty of the flames call to me as though I am a moth. I suppose I will likewise go up in flames.

(One of the Kitchen Paintings graces the cover of the February 2009 issue of City Arts Tacoma, as seen above.)

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The 5 x 5 grid of Michael Brophy paintings echo another 5 x 5 grid across the gallery. These are the ambrotypes of Susan Seubert that depict abandoned and collected bird nests. They are very different in scope but their similar layout keeps me searching for a pattern that marries the two, something that connects them.

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Chang-Ae Song. Mass—Cloud series.

There are two sets of these paintings in the gallery. The first set includes numbers 2, 5, 3, and 6. They are composed of graphite, acrylic (red and white), and photocopied collage on paper. The graphite forms appear to be human forms—primarily legs, but also buttocks, breasts, vaginas. Do they depict births? Do they depict rapes? Do they depict body parts on a battlefield?

The second set includes numbers 22, 18, and 20. These are composed of graphite and acrylic (red) on paper. They are larger and feel more violent to me. There are still graphite forms, but they are less distinct. The acrylic paint has been applied more violently.

Viewing these paintings and thinking about their series title adds another layer of confusion and mystery for me. "Mass" implies weight to me. It implies a tumor. "Cloud" implies obfuscation. It implies haziness and a lack of clarity. It implies moisture. Both words fluctuate between their various denotations and connotations in the same way that the pencil, the paint, and the organic forms do.

"Mass" and "cloud" could mean so many things, especially in conjunction with one another. The weight of a body, the body, perhaps.

I am left unsettled.

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Isaac Layman. Self Portrait. Asleep 4.5 Minutes. Tools. I first encountered these three pieces as part of an Isaac Layman exhibit at Lawrimore Project. Although I am not as personally intrigued by Self Portrait and Asleep 4.5 Minutes as I am by Tools, they are still wonderful works. They are enormous inkjet prints that depict a hyperreal scene that could not have been taken by traditional methods of photography. And their origins in digital photography and "scanning technology" are apparent upon close inspection as the time needed to take the photograph has been captured by the camera.

Tools is my favorite of these three for the banality that it depicts in such precise detail and vivid color. I also like the playfulness of its commentary. The tools displayed on the workbench are not only wrenches and pliers and screwdrivers, but also bottles of tequila and dry gin. There is beauty on display here, although it also masks masculine violence.

Tools also reminds me of some of my other favorite Layman photos that were part of his Photographs from Inside a Whale exhibit—Sink, Sink with Lettuce, and Stove. These three archival inkjet prints also depict the beauty of the banal and ordinary.

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The Isaac Layman photographs also speak to me because I was able to have a conversation with Scott Lawrimore, owner and impresario of Lawrimore Project, and Layman himself about the works when Layman happened to stop by the Lawrimore gallery when I was there. It was interesting to hear firsthand some of the personal history and contexts that influenced the various pieces.

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I begin to remember things that I cannot quite place, at least in the immediate. I will shortly.

I have met some of the people associated with The 9th Northwest Biennial before.

I first encountered images of some of Michael Brophy's gouache paintings in The Clear Cut Future. They were from his The Chinook Jargon series, but the brushstrokes and colors are similar to the Firewall and Kitchen Paintings series.

The design work of Tae Won Yu for the Biennial logo (designed for The 8th Northwest Biennial and retained in the design work of Pei Pei Sung for number 9) echoes the design work he did for the cover of The Clear Cut Future.

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Now, I am sitting at home, reading pieces from The Clear Cut Future again. I am perusing the show catalogue of The 9th Northwest Biennial. I am meditating on the violence that is explicit and implicit in the works that grabbed me by the throat and threw to the floor of Tacoma Art Museum's Annette B. Weyerhauser's Gallery.

I am planning my next few visits to the exhibit.

DEVO

Mark Mothersbaugh sings, Puyallup Fairgrounds, 09/21/2007.
Photograph by Troy's Work Table.
Poster created at Obamicon.Me