GLASS CLOUDS

Glass clouds float over the Museum of Glass main plaza. Sunday 06 July 2014.

BEHIND THE GLASS

"Behind the Glass" by Troy's Work Table. Museum of Glass 12th Birthday Celebration. Sunday 06 July 2014.

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Tacoma's Museum of Glass celebrated it's twelfth anniversary in many ways, one being an invitation for the community to come down and chalk on the MoG's main plaza. So, TWT, The Wife, The Child, The Sister, and The Niece headed down to draw in the sun and heat.

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It was time to draw another Giant Pacific Octopus.

FROST PARK: I HEAR AMERICA SINGING

Detail of "I Hear America Singing" by Troy's Work Table . Frost Park Chalk Off 7:14. Friday 04 July 2014.

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TWT wanted to chalk patriotic for Independence Day, so he did.

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The "purple mountain majesty" of Mount Rainier turns to forest and then to the "fruited plains." Above the mountain, the night sky is filled with firework stars, which becomes the striped sky and sun (and the rest of the flag). Below the wall is Tacoma and Puget Sound, including a signature octopus and the White Whale.

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The title was borrowed from Walt Whitman's poem of the same name, even there are no people pictured in the chalk art. Instead the landscape was allowed to sing its "strong melodious songs."

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You can view more pictures of Frost Park Chalk Off 7:14, including a picture of the full "I Hear America Singing," HERE.

CURSIVE CAMP

Cursive camp begins.

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It seems that cursive handwriting is no longer taught in the schools. And yet there is so much to be gained by learning this skill, so The Child started "Cursive Camp" under the tutelage of Troy's Work Table.

The first lesson was "drawing" lower-case letters with fingers in a pie tin filled with cornmeal. Tactile memory is important.

The second lesson was drawing the lower-case letters, each a few times, until they were comfortable to draw. Repetition is likewise important.

 The third "lesson" was chosen by The Child and was additional repetition of each lower-case letter, without any prompting from the powers-that-be.

Cursive seems to be coming rather naturally to The Child, which makes teaching it all the easier.

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.