Something Is Worrying Me

To get to the point - why is the thought of ocean acidification not making everybody crazy?

http://discovermagazine.com/2008/jul/16-ocean-acidification-a-global-case-of-osteoporosis

Bamboo Post-Thanksgiving Ninja Ramble

My father and I walked through a bamboo forest not so long ago. We listened to the clatter echo of wind through the tall living pole trees and closed our eyes. We memorized the sound. We knew--should we ever be captured by ninjas and led away blindfolded into the world--that (at least) we would always know this one environment simply by it's sound.

As my dear pa preps for another eye surgery I must say I am so so so so thankful that we two also know this environment by sight.

There are so many things I am thankful for. So many experiences. So many people. So many things that--as I am all too often led away by my own internal ninjas blindfolded into the unknown--to have inside me.

Meaning changes. It hovers vague and unreliable around objects, experiences, memories, people. It dances and and dissolves and reappears again ever unsubstantial. It is hard to have faith in a world that is so malleable. It is hard to love people in a world that is so wildly effervescent. It is hard to think thoughts and come to the same conclusions when time refuses to pause and persist.

I am thankful, therefore, to know that I now have my father... eyes closed... listening to a bamboo forest song... (beautiful charm against black garbed anomie)... providing another axis for all the kenematic entropy inside my own head. I think "good" might find a wealth of expression as it dervish whirls around that one small greenpeaceful focused point.

Hazards of a Public Radio Pledge Drive

I sometimes wonder how much of my brain has been constructed around the stories and soundbytes of public radio. I Iisten all the time. I end up in the audiences of live NPR star visitations. I use the miscellany of novel radio facts to instill my own conversations with (hastily appropriated) substance and a (all too thin) veneer of worldly sophistication. Knowing this... its pretty easy to understand why I end up twice a year manning a telephone at the pledge drive of my local public radio station. The pledge drive volunteers are all addicts/junkies/users like me. Pledge drive volunteers have the best conversations. That little room of volunteers packed around a phone bank all subsist on the same snippets of stimulus and aural brian candy. So, whenever you are working a pledge drive shift, you are surrounded by a constant stream of lively chatter oozing with indoctrinated affection for our preferred worldview provider.

And... consequently... when you are in the throws of it all - jacked up on the loving intellectual refrains of YOUR VERY OWN local public radio junkie community - and get a call that goes like this:

Me: "Thank you for calling the KUOW pledge drive. How much would you like to donate tonight?"

Cranky Old Lady: "Not a cent! I think you are a liberal left-wing organization and I hope you go broke!" CLICK.

Well... I have to admit... you giggle. Quietly at first... and then a little more loudly... and then - after telling the rest of the pledge drive volunteers around you what just happened- amplified by a chorus and company of your npr-loving peers.

Sure glad they give you earplugs. It got a kinda loud in there. :]

A Much Delayed Commentary on the MOBA Curator Visitation to Seattle

PART 1: THE DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

Here it is: I HEART bARTersauce!

I can not deny that I have an irrational adoration for my pal Rosalie & her online trading experiment. If you haven’t already, you MUST spend some time on Rosalie’s online community of funkballs (www.bartersauce.com). In this fanciful online kingdom, Rosalie reigns over the irregular-ated free trade of stories, art and other oddities. And we—the plebiscite traders-for-life who make up her subjects—honor her with a persistent feverish glee and enthusiasm for participation rare to the flashpan world of community arts.

Consequently, when Rosalie hosted a visit and presentation from the Museum of Bad Art’s Curator-in-Chief Mike Frank, of course I went! And, of course I loved every moment of it! And, of course I will write nothing critical of such an event in this review! I HEART bARTersauce! I HEART bARTersauce! I HEART bARTersauce!

Ok… I’m sure you get the idea…

That being said, let’s get down to business. Here (finally GOD… as I’m sure you are now thinking)—for your reading pleasure—is my 226 word review of the MOBA event held August 7th at the Stir studio under the Alaskan Way viaduct in Pioneer Square.

PART II: THE MOBA EVENT REVIEW

A delightfully conflicted mix of First Thursday artwalkers and their antiartwalk opposites stuffed themselves enthusiastically into the tiny Stir studio to get a glimpse at some truly terrible art this August. Word that Mike Frank, Curator-In-Chief of the Boston based Museum of Bad Art, was going to be in town for 1 NIGHT ONLY had obviously gotten around.

Cognizant of the carefree and lazy drifting that characterizes the staid tradition of the once-a-month-visual-arts-orgy, Frank’s presentation began when the space was full… when everyone had settled in… and (fingers-crossed) had maybe even purchased some of the wonderfully warped shower art that the Ugly Baby artists that occupy the Stir gallery space are known for.

Conversations overheard during this time hinted at the collective longing of the individual strangers standing shoulder to shoulder in that little room—a palpable anticipation for the moment when it would be socially acceptable to denounce, mock and ridicule that snotty (yet infinitely lovable) little three letter word: art.

The crowd was rewarded. Frank hurled affectionate thoughtful invective at objects with rich tall tale histories and invited his audience to do the same. What, I ask you, could possibly be more fun?

The MOBA event at Stir was a great silly event full of expansive ideas born from an intimate and ridiculous conversation… guilelessly urbane… faux pretentious… and I loved every moment of it.

xoxo, brit

That concludes my love letter. What else did you expect me to say? I HEART bARTersauce!

4 Dogs & 5 Oregon Coast Surfer Girls

The next time my father and I chat I'm going to ask him if the reason he used to surf growing up in Southern California was because all the dogs at the beach made him smile... or because he just couldn't help himself with all the insanely smart and spirited surfergirls that used to toss along beside him atop the momentum of the briny waves. I suppose that, it being sunny Southern California and all, the bikinis involved might have also been a factor. However, I must say--even surfing in the cold cold waters off of Manzanita, OR... where every inch of body at the beach gets tucked into tight layers of neoprene--you can't deny the charm of being immersed in sea and the good energy of strong brilliant women and beach-romping dog pals.

The Things They Do On Tahoma Creek Trail

That lovely girl I know and I hiked up a washed out Tahoma Creek trail this Labor Day weekend in a desperate hunt for the last few sunny tendrils of summer. The news of Indian Henry's snow-- reported by rangers along the way--was a somber reminder that August's few moments of potency and verility had been ephemeral affairs indeed. In odd and ironic counterpoint to this sense of impending molecular deacceleration, however, was an alien conflagration of the like that I am unlikely to ever encounter again. On the way home--wrapped together in a briliant burst of sunlight--we found a couple in flagrante... the man on bended knee...a woman being weighted down by a sparkly new hand rock. "She said yes!" he exclaimed as he leapt to his feet... and we two were obliged to stumble past muttering congratulations under our breath.

Waves & Nations

Paul told me the other day that "we ride our own karmic wave". I'm fairly certain this statement was entwined within a discussion of ancient Sumerian achievements and Par Lagerkvist novels. 10 minute conversations with Paul can be like that sometimes...

Anyway... I liked the idea. A wave... something inherently ocillatory. Something you can increase the range/frequency of by adding more energy to the system. Something that radiates out from the forceful introduction of a momentarily foreign object into the encompassing sea of time and space.

It has been a meditative tool all week. Good for both the micro and macro landscapes of the moment.

At a personal level... found out a good friend may have cancer, my bike got stolen, locked myself out of my truck. But... after that... perspective (and carnations) from Paul, a new (faster) bike, and the exploration of new human intimacies.

At a macro level... Russia has just invaded Georgia, is threatening punishment of the Polish/US missile defense installation... and I now fear that the new militant era of global resource consolidation has just announced it's second major offensive player. In optimistic naivite I cross my fingers and wonder if this might further promote the embrace of non carbon-based energies. But, who knows, maybe it just means we are closer to wiping mankind off the planet alogether. Hmmm... ever notice that it get's harder to define the baseline for positive & negative the farther you extrapolate from yourself?

What I Might Have Done For Science If It Weren't for Polish Grandmas

My grandmother taught me how to say the following in Polish one day while the two of us were standing around alone in the kitchen over a pot of boiling soup:
"I like you... I love you... but I won't give it to you till we're married."

With my terrible accent (that does in fact make true Polish speakers wince) it sounds something like: "Ya-che ko-hum. Ya-che leeb-ya. Ya-che nya dum aush bay shlieb ya."

And... TRULY... I would encourage any and all readers of this blog to learn this phrase by heart. It turns out that it is in fact INCREDIBLY useful! You never know when you might find yourself seated among an honesttoGod table full of sailors... two of which are either from Poland or Moldova... and desperately in need of a Polish phrase that asserts the finer points of your moral character.

Not that the Polish/Moldovan sailors were doing anything to compromise my moral character... no... they were very polite... as was the small Somoan, the ExMarine Doc, and the oftelutrocuted watercraft electrician.

Actually... the sailors were just fine. The trouble makers were those two smahtypants in the corner (aka my friends) trying to convince me to do silly and slightly unhygienic things "for science". Jeesh.

"Spo-co" said the sailors. "Spo-co" I repeated to the smahtypants.

Not exactly sure what I said... but it's written down on a napkin for reference (just in case I ever meet another Polish grandma.)