And if you want a hint to what you might see, look below.

Take care. Be well…

I’m working on a piece for Real Change newspaper, where I work as assistant editor, about a family farm in Kent, WA, called Whistling Train Farm. Run by Mike and Shelly Verdi, it’s a 15-acre farm full of fennel, marjoram, carrots, green beans, basil, sunflowers and more. Plus, they’ve got a cow, some goats and pigs. I plan to follow a tiny seed of spinach as it grows into a leafy bunch of greens sold at a Seattle farmers market, weaving in the story of the farm, the magic of how food grows, Shelly and Mike’s history, the federal Farm Bill and more.

When I went for my first visit on 20 Aug 2012, with photographer Lucien Knuteson, I discovered a litter of piglets had been born a week before. Well, those little oinkers showed up right before we left, along with their 450-pound mama sow. Take a gander and see if you can spot the runt. When the article comes out, oh, sometime in November, I’ll have a more complete video. Until then, this’ll whet your appetite.

Take care…
R

Here are the specifics:

Date: Thursday, May 24th, 2012
Time: 6:00pm - 7:30pm
Place: Ballard Public Library (map)

Reservations are required for this event. Click here to RSVP via email to event coordinator Erin George, or give her a call at (206) 441-3247, x201.

Just in case you haven’t been reading, here’s a few more details about the “Gravity of Abuse”:

A young woman, fearful for her life and that of her baby, flees from the baby’s abusive father. But like many young mothers escaping domestic violence, she has now here to go.  Brandy’s story is captured by Real Change Assistant Editor Rosette Royale in a new multimedia project called “Gravity of Abuse.”  Nearly two years in the making, this dramatic four-part series is the result of Rosette’s 2010 Seattle University Journalism Fellowship on Family Homelessness.  The series began in Real Change May 9.

We hope to see you there!

Driving Directions

Take I-5 exit 169 and follow the N. 45th St. ramp. Turn left on 45th St. and stay with the arterial for 3½ miles to 22nd Ave. N.W. (Note: The arterial will become N. 46th St. and Market St. before reaching 22nd Ave. N.W.) Turn right on 22nd Ave. N.W. and go north 1 block to N.W. 56th St. The library is on the right.

Metro Bus Information

Served by Metro Bus Routes: 17, 18, 44, 46, 75

Parking

Free parking is available in the underground garage beneath the building. Entrance to parking garage is on N.W. 56th St. Library and Neighborhood Service Center parking only. Violators subject to impound.

In mid-April, I got a call from a man named Stephen Hoffman, who said he was a producer with Marketplace, a national radio program. Frankly, I’d never heard of it, but I played it cool and acted like I had. (When I looked it up, I learned that Marketplace, a program of American Public Media, gets 8 million listeners a week, which, well, is a lot of peeps.) Stephen said the program was coming to Seattle to do a special show on housing and he wanted to know if I’d be interested in doing a radio commentary. I was interested, but told him I’d never done one. He said he’d help me out, but to think it over and get back to him. So I thought, I got back and I said yes.

After a few suggestions from the production team, I decided to do a commentary on the people who, amidst the foreclosure crisis, have never had a house to lose in the first place. I planned to focus on this by telling the story of Isaac Chapiro, a man experiencing homelessness here in Seattle. I wrote up a script and after a few editing suggestions, I tightened it up and printed it out.

Usually, commentaries are recorded in a studio, but Stephen suggested, since I’d written about places outdoors, we record it outside. So, I met Stephen and the audio/tech producer, Josh Rogosin, on a cold, drizzly Seattle morning. I read from the printed script while the rain splattered the pages, with a microphone placed closed to my lip. And while I was nursing a back injury. Somehow, we pulled it off in a few takes.

So here it is, a link to my 2-plus minutes of incandescent, radio-centered fame. There are also some pix of me, looking like I just stepped out of a used clothing store in the woods. Just click under the first pic of me to give a listen to my commentary.

Those who never had a home to lose: Rosette Royale on Marketplace Money

Then something happened. When I was almost 17, a brood of 17-year cicadas came to visit. I lived in Maryland and, over the course of three weeks, millions upon millions of them dug themselves out of the ground, crawled up trees, poles, legs — anything — and issued a piercing, ear-splitting call that drowned out any other sound around. Honestly. You couldn’t even hear planes fly overhead.

M. septendecim calling by Joe Green from Cicada Mania on Vimeo.

The cicadas (called magicicada septendecim) live a 17-year lifecycle. Once they mate, the females lay eggs in little slits they make in tree limbs with an ovipositor. The adults die away. The eggs, shortly after, hatch and the grubs fall to the ground. They burrow in the earth where they molt for 17 years, crawling back out of the ground to start the process anew.

These days, I’ve become a bug lover. Show me an insect — wolf spider, unicorn beetle, honeybee — and I’m likely to stop and talk to it. I find insects incredibly beautiful. Like these insects. Photographed with their bodies covered in dew, they’re a sight to behold. Enough so, it can turn “Ewww” into “Wow.”

Of course, Snowball being a rabbit and me being a kid with little thought about mortality, I gave little thought to what lay in our future. On day, after an enormous thunderstorm, I wandered down to his big outdoor cage in the backyard. There, inside the still dripping chain-link cage, lay Snowball, soggy, limp and undeniably deceased. I wailed and sobbed, overwhelmed by grief for a creature I loved.

My poor mother, seeing me distraught, said she’d buy me another rabbit. And she did. But I got two, instead of one. Soon enough, there were little bunnies and, as their famed propensity for producing offspring foretold, those rabbits did it like rabbits, till we had so many they were squeezing out between the chain links. That was in the mid-70s and to this day, my mother’s yard still has rabbits hopping here and there.

My mind only turned momentarily to those little hoppers about a month ago, when I went out with a friend, Simone Lupson-Cook. Simone is a general falconer and keeps two hawks — a red-tailed and a goshawk — and I’d contacted her a short while before about heading out with her and the red-tailed, named Chase, to film her hunting with him. She agreed and not only brought Chase, but Cricket, a young goshawk. The day was gorgeous and for a couple of hours, they soared from her glove to tree limbs, dove to the ground and caught a rabbit (or at least, Chase did). It was a stupendous day, truly.

I took a good amount of video of the morning. I’m planning to turn it into a short film, but here’s a trailer, to whet the appetite. When it’s done, I’ll make sure I’ll post it, with apologies to Snowball.

I lived in Provincetown, MA, at the time, on Cape Cod, an area known for centuries for its whaling fleet (“Moby Dick,” which is such a fantastic book it doesn’t make sense, begins in New Bedford, MA, not too far away). But by the 90s, the tide had turned on whaling, as all manner of cetaceans found themselves on endangered and threatened lists. By the last decade of last century, whale watching was the way to go.

We set out on a beautiful day in late May and, in a word, the experience was astounding. Actually, make that humbling. North American right whales — so named because they were considered the “right” whale to hunt because, once killed, their bodies would float — came up to the boat. One swam alongside our non-motoring vessel for a good two minutes, on its side, an enormous eye checking us out as we all bent over to get a look. Another whale breeched in the near distance. Whales circled us for a good 15 minutes. I was in a state of awe: How could a creature so massive, so beautiful, so obviously intelligent actually exist? I felt so tiny, so inconsequential. On the ride back to land, I realized what a fortunate life I lived, to be able to experience a live whale, in a way most people haven’t. And I couldn’t believe that an intelligent animal killed in such great numbers by humans would still interact with us, and decide not to steer clear.

Since then, whales have been a big love of mine. That’s why when I hear, or see, anything about whales, I stop and listen or watch. And just the other day, I found this: Down in the Antarctic, Japanese whaling vessels have been battling it out with Bob Barker.  No, not the former “The Price is Right” host, but a ship named after him, that’s part of a fleet of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, which exists to protect marine life. Bob Barker has been rammed; water cannons have been fired from ship to ship. And, while most of us live our lives up here, down in the cold oceans near the South Pole, a battle wages for the lives of whales.

Say what you will about the society’s leader, Paul Watson, and his tactics, his organization makes it hard to ignore the reality of whales, the giants that exist in the watery sphere of our planet. And it’s hard for me to fault him too aggressively when I remember gazing into that whale’s eye and witnessing the worlds I saw contained within.

Philip, who had worked for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC, seemed to know everyone. And if he didn’t, he’d probably been around him or her. As proof, he had, in his study, a photo of him at a concert somewhere, standing off to the side, while in the foreground the rocker Patti Smith was in the process of smashing a chair to smithereens by hurling it to the ground. Watching the whole thing go down, Philip had a little smile on his face.

I loved that picture. Oh, did I love it. Looking at it, I always thought, Wow, she’s awesome. And, Damn, I want to meet Patti Smith.

I thought that in 97-98. Now, it’s 2010 and, somehow, that thought came true.

Just this past week, on Jan. 25, Patti Smith came to Seattle, to give a reading from her new book, “Just Kids,” about her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe. (Yep, him, the photog who took some unapologetically S&M-themed queer pix that drove Sen. Jesse Helms batty.) I’d contacted Seattle Arts and Lectures, to see if I could interview her. Unfortunately, she was too busy. But, I was asked, what about attending a champagne toast with Patti? I would have been a fool to say no. So I didn’t.

And let me tell you: Patti is just about the sweetest person you’d ever wanna meet. She walked right up to me, all nonchalant, and said, “Hi, my name’s Patti.” Like she needed an introduction. Then she posed for pix with me — and everyone else there — and, when she found out I worked for Real Change, she said, “The homeless, they’re our people.”

She went on stage a short while later, read from “Just Kids” (which, I gotta say, sounds great), did a Q-n-A with rock journalist Charles R. Cross, then sang. And since she can only play six chords on the gee-tar (?!?!), she led the audience in a rousing a cappella version of “Because the Night.”

And seeing her, listening to her, it was hard not to feel that the does indeed belong to us. All of us.

That communication led to a short e-chat, where I asked if she knew anyone in the Seattle area who could tell me about falconry. She directed me to a woman named Simone. After a short e-communication with her, Simone invited me out with here and Chase, her red-tailed hawk.

We met and, the moment she took Chase out of the large corrugated plastic box she carried him in, I just about fell over: Chase was so beautiful, regal, dynamic. Chase sat on her glove and then flew off into a tree. With long sticks, Simone, another person and I beat blackberry brambles to flush out rabbits. Above us, Chase sat in a tree. And then he dove, straight to the ground, landing on top of a rabbit. Simone — who just happens to be a vegetarian — caught up to him and broke the rabbit’s neck and Chase began to feed.

I couldn’t move. The scene felt so primal. You could see fur and blood as Chase ate. We all just stood and watched. And it may sound strange, even heartless to say, but: I couldn’t believe how beautiful it was. Not the gore, but the entire experience: a young woman, with her hawk, out in the suburbs of Seattle, hunting a rabbit. I told myself if I ever got the chance again, I’d do some sort of project with Simone and Chase.

Fast forward to Jan. 2010: Just a few days ago, I went out with Simone and Chase and her newest addition, Cricket, a European goshawk. I took pix and video of the rabbit hunt. I’m turning it into a video profile. When it’s done, I’ll let you know.

But to whet your appetite, here’s a pic of Simone and Cricket. All I’ll say now is the experience was incredible. And I’m gonna do my best, with the vid, to do justice to what happened that day.

One such person was Larry Kramer. What’s that? Don’t know him? In the late 80’s and early 90’s, it was hard not to. Larry was a pivotal figure during that time, when AIDS seemed in the forefront of everyone’s mind (except Ronald Reagan’s). A man who never stopped demanding that gay people be afforded respect and that the health crisis affecting them be taken seriously by the healthcare industry, he angered a lot of people. But he wrote a seminal, polemical novel “Faggots”  (and how’s that for a title?); he penned the play “A Normal Heart.” He helped start the Gay Men’s Health Crisis in NYC and ACT UP, that activist that staged die-ins to grab the attention of those who were ignoring the death of so many people to complications from AIDS. So no surprise: Larry came to P’town.

By some chance of Fate, I got to interview him. I’d love to link to that article now but, alas, poor Yorick, the Banner’s online archive doesn’t go back that far. Or maybe that’s not so bad: I had no idea what to ask him and essentially, I just let him talk, which was like giving a child a key to candy store. He pretty much ran away with the convo. Still, I loved and turned it into an article.

I bring it up because, a little while ago, New York magazine printed a GREAT profile on Larry Kramer, who, at 74, is still out there. Even if most people don’t recall his name.

And then today, I came across a video interview with him on the NYTimes website. It’s called “Abraham Lincoln was Gay,” which I think pretty much sums it up. Take your pick. Both are great. And both reveal a man who, decades ago, led hundreds of people to the streets to fight to be heard and these days, is barely remembered.

Ahhh, history…

One good thing about Xmas is that you can catch a lot of great cartoons: There’s the “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.” You can try “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” where they all get down. Or, my personal fav, “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”

Or, it was my fav. Then I saw Judy Garland, the poster child for all things theatrical and tragical (can you believe that’s a word?). Here she is in 1968, on The Tonight Show,” with Johnny Carson, singing, “After the Holidays.” Frankly, she looks a wreck. Seeing her, I actually got teary. It makes you wonder if Johnny helped her after the show. And whether he did or not, it probably matters little: She died some 6 months later, on June 22, 1969, and the Stonewall riots began, and well, allthe rest…

Enjoy this sad, but kinda wonderful, little stocking stuffer. And have a Merry…

I’ve been thinking about this recently because I just watched this BBC/National Geographic Channel special called “Earth: A Biography.”  When I saw it at the library I thought, ‘Why not, it’s free,’ and picked it up. I’m glad I did.

Our host is a man named Dr. Iain Stewart, who has just about the best Scottish accent I’ve heard in a while. Like all intrepid TV nature special people, he dons wetsuits and parkas and khaki pants to present the world in five segments: volcanoes, atmosphere, ice, oceans and rare planet. You can even learn about how little water there actually is on earth, in relation to the entire planet.

There’s a lot of beauty to behold in these specials, though one of my favorite moments is when Dr. Stewart — or Stew, as I took to calling him — went snorkeling in Southeast Asia in this colony of non-poisonous jellyfish. The scene is so surreal: hundreds upon hundreds of these pulsing, near-diaphanous creatures, a man and the ocean’s great blue. It was stunning.

And so are these pix from the NY Times, from its science page. It starts off with pix of jellyfish, then moves on, to crocodiles and a tiger. There great shots. And they’re a great invitation to help you feel thankful for this fantastic place we call home.

But earlier this year, I read a great book: “Summer World: A Season of Bounty,” by Bernd Heinrich. It’s a lovely little book wherein Heinrich, a nature writer living in Vermont, tells stories about — and draws pictures of — the flora and fauna nearby. Wasps parastizing other insects, frogs overcome with passion, woodpeckers looking for love: he writes about it beautifully.

One thing I learned from him that I never knew was that some deciduous trees, once they’ve leafed out in the summer, create a second set of buds. These buds stay on the tree all summer, throughout the fall and in winter, and then, when the spring rolls around, the buds leaf out. This allows the plant to produce buds when it has the most reserves. And the earlier the buds unfurl their leaves, the sooner it can hop aboard the photosynthesis train.

At least, that’s what Heinrich said. I wasn’t sure I believed him. But then, with the leaves gone from the lilac bush next to the house during this “Longtime Rain” season, I saw the buds he spoke of, already formed, waiting for spring. Then I noticed them on the horse chestnut tree. I couldn’t believe, all these years I’ve been looking at trees, I’d missed it. I ate several slices of humble-berry pie.

But the tree-show got me thinking about evolution and how the world’s living creatures, over millennia, have created ways for themselves that help perpetuate their long-term survival. Lucky for me, I found images that spoke to this: pix from the “Darwin Photo Competition.” Here, you can see frogs and lichens and spiders and a tulip and more, all beautifully rendered, all fantastically glorious in their representations of our ever-continual season of discovery.

But sometimes, there’s stuff that nobody should wear (including “Qiana” shirts). Here’s a case in point, brought to you by Alexander McQueen.

What’s that: You say you don’t know him? He’s a high-end fashion designer, for the haute couture set. Frankly, if you don’t go to Fashion Week in NYC or Paris or Rome, you probably don’t know him. And once you see this, you might wonder how he keeps a job.

What’s more interesting to me aren’t so much the clothes — which are hard on the eyes, to be honest — but what people say about clothes. One woman makes a comment about “Little” Edie Beale, from the doc “Grey Gardens,” and her penchant for recycling clothes. But I work with homeless people, and they recycle clothes, though I doubt that they’d ever make it on the runway, even when some of them have real style. More than I’ll ever have. And definitely more than this…

http://www.style.com/video/fashion-shows-by-season/fall-2009-rtw/12062822001/alexander-mcqueen-fall-2009-rtw/15404479001

I’d never been to a place where I saw so many stars before. It was humbling, how small the great expanse of the pin-pricked heavens made you feel. I realized that light pollution, it’s done a number on most of us here in the U.S., in urban environs. But out in rural Uganda, it was you and the sky. And your imagination.

This recollection is an intro to the heavens — the stars, the dust, the planets, the infinitude — that are easy to forget, even though they’re above us. Luckily, I get a reminder every 24 hours: Astronomy Picture of the Day provides you with a pic of some stellar/astral phenom. And it comes with a great explanation (honestly: sometimes, there read like poetry,) Today’s shot: Blue Sun Bristling. (And don’t forget to sign up, for daily alerts.)

Enjoy.

Every morning, before I arise, I listen to the little twits and trilips and brrlls from the other side of the window. The most consistent call this time of year, however, is more bzzzz than tweet. It’s a rufous hummingbird, I believe. Which is surprising, because I wonder: What does he eat this time of year? The flowers are all but gone. But there he is, outside the southern bedroom window, in the upper branches of a massive cedar tree.

Still, as beautiful as he is, he’s got a rival. From Peru. Check him out, as he does his best to impress the lady hummer nearby. Brother-birdman is WORKING…

Needless to say that when I saw that call, I thought: Hmmmm, I’d love to do that. So, as an audition, I did a little audio demo. Sean loved it. Unfortunately, I couldn’t commit to the show, because the live broadcast happened while I was at work. So… I had to let that go.

But not the audio. Here it is: An aural tale about a trip on the light rail one morning to work, and the superstar who sat across from me.

On Tues, Oct. 20, she was at the Seattle Asian Art Museum with Trio M: Mark Dresser, bass; Matt Wilson, drums; Myra, keys. The Asian Art Mu’s got a nice little theater space — who knew? — that, when I walked in, looked like it had some pretty good acoustics. It didn’t take long to have that assumption corrected. The place has great acoustics.

I can say this for sure because, that show… oh, that show. It killed. It was dynamite. I’m talking, head-shaking, toe-tapping, eye-smiling (and, if you’re me, laugh-inducing) jazz, of the free jazz sort. I mean, it was stupendous. Those 90 mins, they flew by like nothing. I could’ve gone on all night.

Unfortunately, there were only about 70 or so people there. I say “unfortunately,” because I wish more people could have heard it. Of course, there’s one way: visit the Trio M MySpace page. And enjoy.

On Sept. 17, I flew from Seattle to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. My destination was a resort, Santa María, outside the town small town of Santa María del Oro. After a 3.5-hour bus ride, I arrived at the resort, set on the shores of a mile-wide lake, the lake ringed by green mountains. Calling the place beautiful doesn’t even come close: It might be one of the most incredible places I’ve ever seen.

I’d been drawn there to see an initiation of people from across the U.S. who had received training in the ways of the Huichol (or Wixáritari) people. The Huichol, if you’ve never heard of them, are an indigenous Native American tribe who make their home in the mountains of western central Mexico. While many natives of the area fell under the influence of Christian ideologies soon after the Spanish invasion in the early 1500s, the Huichol didn’t. A lot can be said about the Huichol — more than I claim knowledge to — but along with a resistance to Western religion, they are known for their yarn paintings, tripped out “paintings” of colored string/yarn pressed into a wax-covered board.

Attending this ceremony, selling his own yarn paintings was a Huichol man named Cristobal Gonzalez. His artwork — full of color so intense, the reds and blues and oranges made my eyes vibrate — just about stopped me in my tracks with its beauty. It was a perfect complement to the setting.

Also at this ceremony was a man named Jonathan Merritt, editor of Sacred Fire Magazine. Jonathan wanted to have an article about Cristobal in Sacred Fire and asked if I’d interview him. You know I said yes. Not knowing Spanish, a fantastic woman named Laura Andrade acted as translator.

So one morning, not long after sunrise, Cristobal, Laura and I spent almost three hours talking about some of his work. Each piece, he told us, is a story. But really, it’s a story within a story within a story, full of the cosmology of the Huichol.

One impressive piece he’d brought along told the story of the Wind Tree. I could tell you about, but why not let Cristobal explain it as he speaks himself. If you don’t know Spanish, don’t worry: Laura translated into English.

This link provides Part 1 of the audio.  Pix provide the visuals (and captions) for his words about the Sun

and the marakamés (shamans in the Huichol tradition)...

While this link to Part 2 tells the story of the wolf

and the deities who live in the mountains.

Again, the pix go along with the audio. All you have to do is follow along…

Now that I’m back from Mexico, the posts continue. And the stories abound. But which to tell? How about a highlight of each and more fleshing out in the next few days. And each story involves an interview.

First, while spending just under a week outside of a lovely Mexican town, Santa Maria del Oro, I met a man named Cristobal Gonzalez. Actually… let’s call him an artist. A great artist. His medium is yarn painting, a craft particular to the Huichol people, an indigenous tribe in western central Mexico. Through a translator, I spent a good 2.5 hrs with Cristobal, talking art, Huichol cosmology and eagles that fly under the ground. It was amazing.

Then, upon returning to Seattle, I had two interviews for future issues of Real Change. On Wed., Sept. 23, I talked to Rick Steves, known to PBS viewers for his show, “Rick Steves: Europe through the Back Door.” We talked class, Iran, traveling as a political act. Oh. And marijuana.

And today,, Thurs., Sept. 24, I interviewed liberal blogger and YouTube-r Max Blumenthal. Max has got a new book out, Republican Gomorrah, and we sat down and had a late breakfast together before he had a speaking engagement later that evening. But not before we hashed out Sarah Palin and Prop. 8, over omelets and hash browns.

Each one of these interviews offered great insights. And within, or after, the actual interviewing that took place, a pretty interesting story revealed itself. Those, I will share. Soon. But just wanted to check in. And say, Hey… I’m back…

Later. Peace….