My parents came for a brief visit two weeks ago and we spent some time showing them around Ballard, Bellevue, Snoquamie Falls and downtown Seattle. But I think the highlight of the trip was our drive out to Tacoma to see the Museum of Glass and Dale Chihuly's glass bridge. Inside that large cone is the Museum's Hot Shop where guest artists pull glass sculptures every day and do demos and educational talks for the public.



It's said that even Dale Chihuly is known to stop by and make some work. But we didn't see him on this visit. No photos allowed inside the general museum, but an excellent solo show currently of Native American glass artist Preston Singletary's work; and new acquisitions at the Glass Museum. After visitors see the galleries, they head upstairs to view the Bridge of Glass. It's not a glass bridge in the sense, like at the Grand Canyon, where you look down from where you are standing into the gorge. No, this is quite different.



The first part of the bridge is a wall of small to mid-size Chihuly sculptures encased in glass and displayed as in a gallery.



As you continue down the walkway, you enter another structure which also displays the artist's work, but this time you look up.



I was very lucky to have this time with my parents, to have the opportunity to make new memories together. Hopefully, they'll come to Texas for a long visit, and perhaps later, to stay.

I've been packing away the book shelves and this was one of the last books to go into a box. Mike gave me a copy of The Basin when I was in Port Townsend last December. I read the poems during my Centrum retreat with the intention of writing Mike a long letter about his poems. I reread the book this past week and slipped a letter in the post yesterday.

The Basin is a luminous and panoramic collection of poems written about Mike's experiences of living in Taipei in the 1980s. He explores the tension between the modern city and traditional culture and lifeways. One of my favorite poems in the collection is about a gift. The poet is sitting at his writing desk, unable to write, as his neighbor noisily pounds aluminum cans in preparation for taking them to the recycling plant where refunds are issued. When the poet walks out to talk to his neighbor, he is taken off guard when she surprises him with a box of bean cakes that her husband had driven all the way from Taichung. Like this poem, the entire collection that is The Basin is its own kind of gift to the reader and to the places and people of Taiwan. The poems celebrate deep friendships, affinities and affections, and a wonder at the interconnected - "all the rivers shining." Two of the poems in the collection also explore the power of the imagination and the poem to set the heart free - a narrative about a caged monkey and another about what could be unrequited love. In the poem about the monkey, the poet contemplates buying the monkey to set him free, just as Buddhist monks do - yet, the monkey would only be recaptured to be put back on display at market. The other poem is of a recognition of love that cannot be, though the heart is full with love in that recognition and moment of seeing.

What I love about this collection is the depiction of Taiwan in the poems - that the places, character, and images though frozen in a particular time in the poet's experience are still the sorts of experiences that can be encountered in Taiwan. The immediacy of experience in O'Connor's writing in The Basin and the beauty of the narrative voice shine and provide a deep counterpoint to the poet's recent prose memoir of Montesano, Washington.

Still to read and then pack: Red Pine's Zen Baggage and several Peter Levitt collections.

It's ninety degrees inside our house and all I can think about is what is going to happen to my silver gelatin photographs and their emulsion in this heat and humidity and our next place has got to have some cold storage.

Right intention

With the temps looming in the high nineties in Seattle, we keep the windows open around the clock to help move air thru the house. This has attracted flies, mosquitos and wasps indoors.

Yesterday, a wasp flew into my office and attached itself to the window that doesn't open located directly above my writing desk. It crawled around the surface of the glass which looks out over a tree and a patch of blue sky. Despite my best efforts to shoo the wasp with a sheet of paper to the open window on the opposite wall, it wouldn't budge. I thought, "Oh, boy. How am I going to get this wasp outside without getting stung?"

So I went to the kitchen which is in the middle of deconstruction and pulled out a small glass contained and lid and put the bowl of the container over the wasp on the window, while standing on my desk which is not made to accommodate a human being standing on top of it.

I talked to the wasp first and tried to encourage it to crawl into the bowl while holding it in the path of the wasp, so that I could quickly put a lid on it, but it wasn't willing to go down that path. So I had to put the bowl over the wasp on the glass. And this is when I stressed out and started sweating through my clothes. The wasp went around in circles around the perimeter of the entire bowl with increasing speed and agitation, feeling with its legs for breaks in the glass, for some escape route. Because the bowl was glass, I could see its movements, its panic, its suffering. At two points, I was able to slip a piece of paper over the bowl and turn it upright, but before I could get to the open window, the wasp would crawl back out and we'd be back at square one. So I continued to put the glass over the wasp and wondered if eventually it might slow down due to oxygen deprivation making it easier to catch and release. But its stress levels I thought. And where's the halothane when you need it - maybe not so much for the wasp but for me. My mind wandered to the Burke Museum mammologists on collecting trips euthanisizing their catches in the field.

I turned over the bowl and the wasp crawled along its rim. I took the lid of the bowl and tapped the wasp into the bowl and quickly covered it. Walked it over to the open window and crossed my fingers that it wouldn't release back into the room instead of flying to freedom. It flew.

In rethinking yesterday's event, I thought about my intention throughout the whole process which was less - how do I reduce this insect's suffering and more of how do I avoid my suffering and physical injury. And I wonder had I set a different, clearer intention, if the event would have worked itself out much more quickly, and with less stress to all concerned parties.

Things I didn't know

Moving companies prohibit items that include:

- matches
- cleaning solvents
- motor oil
- nail polish
- paints
- household batteries
- aerosols
- plants

Basically, anything combustible or perishable.

Vaccuuming up dessicated spider parts from moving boxes and containers, packing books (the non-standard trim sizes of Mei-mei Berssenbrugge books are the bane of standard-sized packing boxes), drinking water, and trying to stay cool in 90 degree heat wave of past few days. In between packing, reading Crystal Wm's Lunatic, re-reading Mike O's The Basin, the history of Mexican photography by Oliver Debroise, a reader of John Graves' work; sorting out photographs to re-organize into albums. Finally going to take childhood photos out of nonarchival/adhesive album to try and slow down their deterioriation. Realizing I never take photographs of the apartments and houses where we live. Would like to have had photos of the house on Belmont in Watertown and now feel a pang of regret for not having taken a few photos of this place - particularly, since we painted it, but now that the deconstruction process has begun, the time has passed for taking pictures. The origami cranes are folded and boxed. Feeling nostalgic? Yes, it's summer. Major life transitions and upheaval always seem to happen between June and September.

In between breaks, I go to the library and check out DVDs of films I have never seen and watch them. I didn't like the voiceover in Little Children but was struck by everything else about the film. Two Days in Paris which was written by Julie Delpy, is amazingly good and funny. Half Nelson was complex and thought-provoking - a young teacher's innovative approach to getting his students to think about history, power, and privilege. His efforts to lead and be a strong model, despite a very serious drug addiction which brings him and one of his students closer together.

Robert Fontenot bought up a bunch of deaccessioned textile items from the LACMA and is reappropriating them for other uses. The concept behind the project is imaginative and creative, but it's painful to see a traditional Korean wedding dress reduced to a garment bag, and a hanbok made into aprons. Many of the items appear to be women's clothing, and as perhaps a clotheshorse and collector of vintage goods, I have a difficult time thinking of cutting up and altering some of these fabrics and garments. I would either wear them, or display them decoratively. But the trousers transformed into a boat sail is a great improvement.

I'm getting ready to cut and stamp a large shipment of Sightings to SPD. I am looking to lighten our load to Texas, so if you don't have a copy of Sightings and you want a copy of Sightings, and can send $2.50 to cover basic mailing costs (handful of stamps, book in trade, or whatever), leave me a comment with your mailing address and I will post a personalized copy off to you. Offer good 'til we depart on Aug. 18.

I'm glad that we don't live in Boston any more.

I am curious to see how this new Bravo show unfolds.

It's official. I start a new job at Texas State University San Marcos on August 31, as the new assistant curator of acquisitions for the amazing Wittliff Collections. The Collections encompass the Southwestern and Mexican Photography Collection and the Southwestern Writers Collection. We will depart Seattle in mid-August and get ourselves set up in San Marcos, which is about 20 miles outside of Austin, where the BF from childhood lives.

No Time to Lose

Pema Chodron taught this weekend from Shantideva's Way of the Bodhisattva, one of my favorite Buddhist texts. I never got to see or hear Ani Pema speak at Naropa, but always heard glowing reports. Ani Pema was married twice, has children and grandchildren, all before she became a nun in the Kagyu lineage. She is a big proponent of cultivating monasticism in the West and runs Gampo Abbey in rural Nova Scotia which sounds like an amazing place to take a retreat. I was charmed by Ani Pema's plainspokenness, good humor, and ability to make the teaching relevant to lay people. The teachings this weekend were about how to deal with disturbing feelings - getting angry, losing it, attachment to fixed perceptions and mind, projections onto people, aggression towards self and others, cultivating the awareness to slow down one's habitual patterns and to sit with discomfort, thus upping our individual ante, working more deeply with taming the mind. Meditation is a big piece of it - a practice that I struggle with.

I took voracious notes - one of the things that struck me was a woman who asked Ani Pema a question about a difficult work situation where loving kindness practice has not been enough to transform the circumstances of abuse and negative energy. Ani Pema said that we can still keep the person in our heart (i.e. continue to practice loving kindness, versus giving up on them) but put them out of the mind (not getting caught up in our own suffering and attachment to having circumstances a certain way.)

Getting irritated and losing it, gossipping - there can be a certain addictive pleasure in the negativity - or a "perverse pleasure of loathing."

Favorite quotes:

"My mind is like a bad neighborhood. I try to not to go there by myself."

"Fretting never made things better."

The practice is one of cultivating and practicing patience, versus engaging in habits that reinforce old fears and patterns. True nature, i.e. basic goodness is fundamental. Aggression and "sorrow-producing habits" are removable.

Thank you to Nalanda West for granting me a scholarship that made my attendance at the program possible.

I had a moment of realization this morning when I was in the Kinokuniya bookstore waiting for my oral history interview at the Wing Luke. I was browsing through cute imported stationary and writing aids from Japan when I realized that San Marcos isn't going to have a Japanese imports store, which led me to compulsively drop twenty bucks on plastic report covers and business card holders which felt ridiculous but necessary.

Things and people I will miss about Seattle:
- The I-District
- Green Lake
- Molly Moon's
- Whiting Tennis concerts
- Whiting's shows at the Kucera Gallery
- Carol and Geo's view of the Puget Sound
- Carol and Geo
- Linh and Andy
- Marcus and his houseboat
- the writing group
- The thrift shops (Felipa's!)
- Cupcake Royale
- Whole Foods
- The fall farms tour
- U-District farmer's market
- the nice people at Camera Techs
- Open Books and John and Christine
- The Turrell skyspace at the Henry

On China

E X P O S I T I O N


In a documentary on the Yellow River, the filmmaker charts progress, mapping changes shaped by Three Gorges Dam

follows “Jerry” Bo Yu Chen & “Cindy” Yu Shui
  working-class laborers in China’s hospitality industry,
   pleasure-boat tours of Old China catering to Westerners

Jerry & Cindy parroting, “It’s my pleasure.”

*

To prep for Beijing, I vaccinate, pack host gifts,
check garments for holes & tears,
book a date at the beauty school where a fresh class of
  trainees choose names like costume jewelry
 Gwyneth & Eli; Emu & Stella
girls that curl cut & color

in the mirror I watch a woman
pluck a cell phone & cash
from her cleavage

*
In the desert far from water, a hotel rises from the Gobi
Men in suits & pencil-skirted women
greet guests Good evening! Good morning!
Breakfast is on the roof.

The view of The Taklamakan as surreal as painted stage sets.

*

What’s not stocked at markets, off-season in May:

winter melon, new year’s lanterns, ripened pineapple




Banners touting Olympic tourism canvas streets.

*

Holidays, war, & packaged events produce Kong Ming candles

hand-scripted with prayers

wishes on display, I watch
witnesses disengage:

BBQ chefs tending cook-fires,
wait-staff lighting fuel cells
launch heart-shaped lamps - let go

*

the true & the staged

At midnight a white peony explodes in the sky
cascading waterfalls of magnesium and aluminum light
mark a marriage on the dunes


*

Such distance between unplanned feeling, heart’s memory.

Time is escaping me. Suddenly it's moving estimators, pre-approval applications for mortgages, realtors, and planning my parents' visit to Seattle next week.

I need to cut the sugar from my diet to decrease the edge.

Here are some photos of the Center for Creative Connections at the Dallas Museum of Art.


The DMA got a huge grant a couple years ago to create an interactive learning space. This is the Center for Creative Connections, aka C3. The space incorporates a number of "talk-back" methods to engage audiences and to gather feedback that include a scrapbook that goes along with this Dorothea Tanning velvet sculpture.


This is a Janine Antoni piece - busts of the artist made of soap and chocolate. The choco bust was made by licking the chocolate mass. The soap bust was made by rubbing on the body. The busts appear alongside samples of soap and chocolate which can be smelled. Also, there is a magnetic poetry area beneath the busts where visitors can leave their poetic impressions.


Lots of people, young..


and not so young use the space to experiment with materials, forms, shapes and making. I saw one girl leaving the building with an incredible handbag fashioned of cardboard scraps and discarded materials.


And this is one of the talk-back walls. Visitors leave their impressions of materials on post-its.

Which seems not unlike what Nina Simon's Social Tech class at UW tried to achieve with its exhibition on Advice.


My final budget for the UW Museology program is done. Kort still has moustache. I was inspired by the kind, committed, and smart people at the Wittliff Collections which I visited last week in San Marcos. My best friend was just invited to join a roller derby team in Austin. I need to focus now and write some poems about my China experience before the July 15 deadline for the LOD program.

We are moving to Texas in late August! More on that soon.

Currently in Dallas, where the weather hovers in the high 90s.

Saw a cinematic and poetic Willie Doherty show at the DMA this afternoon, and some new video pieces by Wm Kentridge and Rineke Djikstra.

Half way through final budget assignment for Wilson's class.

Things to do before leaving Seattle:

- wrap up last oral history interviews for chop suey project for 4Culture contract
- write 50 lines of poetry for Life of Discovery/China program
- Iyengar classes or fitness boot camp
- find a moving company
- find a temporary home in San Marcos/Austin
- find a home for Mimi Kahn's desk
- Neah Bay
- Mighty Tieton

listening to him hiccup from another room

at the hair salon, I watch
a well-endowed woman pluck a cell
phone from her cleavage

New recipes committed to memory:

- chicken and mushroom enchiladas
- cucumber gazpacho
- cantaloupe agua fresca
- pesto pizza
- dijon-marinated tofu w/ basil

New recipes to try making this week:
- blueberry bread pudding

A Post for Amy

my friend from adolescence who reads this blog from Oakland, CA... thanks for visiting Seattle!