I have only to contemplate the sun creeping lower in the sky and I can feel myself deflating. Then the daydreams start coming, every day, like clockwork. In one, I fly to Greece for the winter. In another, to Hawaii. In a fit of defiance, or maybe just desperation, I walk outside in my flimsy nightgown. And there, sitting on my deck high above Vine Street, I drink my cup of coffee as if I'm perched on a private lanai. A pitiful excuse for shameless misbehavior.
Samuel Beckett said, "Words are all we have." The latest studies suggest that men and women use close to 16,000 words every day, but do we always know what the words mean or where they came from? We toss out comments containing words that most of us would be hard-pressed to define, let alone identify the origin of. Now you can wow your friends the next time you play Trivial Pursuit with this small collection of recondite information."It doesn't make an iota of difference." Do we have any idea what an iota is?
Maxibel(le), my fecund bush bean plants, have produced - from 0.1 ounces of seed - 1 pound of tender, tasty beans, and the plants are just getting under way. This week the Food Bank plots at Interbay P-Patch will exceed 1,600 pounds of produce delivered to food banks this year. And last Sunday, the paper had a long article by Peter Steinbrueck celebrating Seattle's Pike Place Market's 100th Birthday. Calling the Market the heart and soul of the city, Peter tried his best to sing the praises of the Farmers Market, but what he wrote about was a dream rather than the current reality.<br
Professor Strunk might be, perhaps, in awe of Lachlan Huck. Strunk's 1918 little book, "The Elements of Style," is either Huck's catechism or Huck is simply an incredibly gifted wordsmith. E.B. White might echo Strunk, too.Huck's recent Queen Anne News feature, "Living in a historic house," was, frankly, the best pure writing I have ever read in the QA News (July 25).
I would like to help clarify and balance the coverage in the Magnolia News regarding "Family Matters" at Our Lady of Fatima (July 18 edition).I work directly with the shelter project in our parish and was disappointed that the front-page article seemed to represent our efforts as a whole.There are countless opportunities to serve not just the homeless but all poor and vulnerable in our city, and Our Lady of Fatima, as with all institutions and businesses, has limited resources.
Despite the looks of the photo inside this column I do try to stay youthful.No hair weaves, no sports car, no girdle or chin tucks - rather, daily exercise, an attempt to control drinking and smoking, and dating a few younger girls as a change of pace from my own age group.That's why it hurts to write this column. There's no way I'm NOT going to sound to at least some of my younger readers like an old fuddy-duddy. But you guys have, it seems to me, sold your souls to corporate devils.
Here is the most perplexing question in all of local Seattle politics, exceeding in oddness even queries like "How come nobody can decide what to do with the Alaskan Way viaduct?" and "Why do we have 643 different agencies running public transit?" It is this: Why does Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels despise nightclubs?Once Hizzonner's war on nightlife was declared, of course, it's easy to see why local media has played right along. TV news feeds on crime and on its viewers' fear of crime and on its viewers' fear of hundreds of intoxicated Negroes milling around the Wrong Neighborhoods at 2 a.m. on a Saturday and the Bad Things that can sometimes happen.
Caroline Mae Schweitzer, a Magnolia resident since 1957, passed away on July 15 at Swedish Medical Center due to complications from a severe infection, just days after surgery to remove a cancerous tumor from her colon. She was 73.
Work by Felix Espinoza, a painter and carver from Perú, is currently on exhibit at Seattle's Arthead Gallery along with that of Magnolia-based artist Brom Wikstrom. The artists are showing with several others at the gallery in the exhibit "Mouth and Foot Painters: 50 Years.""We will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Association of Mouth and Foot Painting Artists of the World," said Wikstrom, who owns Arthead Gallery. "We are both members of it."
Henry's 'Viewfinder' explores the framing of our natural visionIn celebration of its 80th birthday and the 10th anniversary of the museum's expansion, the Henry Art Gallery has mounted a show that it describes as "mind bending and eye popping" And they hit the mark. The show consists mostly of photographs, and many defy your expectations of what a photograph should be. All have been added to the Henry collection in the past decade. They are exhibited along with a few videos and other artworks
Matt Holmes says love of movies, masks has influenced his workApart from occasionally fooling around with Play-Doh as a child, sculpture was not part of Matt Holmes' artistic repertoire. Yet just a couple of years of sculpting experience has landed Holmes' hand-fashioned masks a spot on the walls of Marion Oliver McCaw Hall.Holmes, who is studying for his bachelor's degree in fine arts at Cornish College of the Arts, is featured in the August exhibition of Seattle Opera's New Visions art show. His work will be on view during Seattle Opera's upcoming production of Wagner's "The Flying Dutchman," from Aug. 4 through Aug. 25.
Seattle Opera tenor Jason Collins' career moves in a Wagnerian directionSEATTLE OPERA has been attracting its fair share of talented, up-and-coming young performers of late. Among those is Jason Collins, a young American tenor who is singing the role of the Steersman in Seattle Opera's production of Wagner's "The Flying Dutchman," opening Aug. 4.Collins has been busy since finishing a two-year hitch in the Pittsburgh Opera Center young artists program just two years ago. He had a banner year in 2005 when he made three mainstage debuts in the roles of Erik in Wagner's "Flying Dutchman" at Arizona Opera, Lensky in Tchaikovsky's "Eugene Onegin" and Zinovy in Shostakovich's "Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk."
Seattle Opera tenor Jason Collins' career moves in a Wagnerian directionSEATTLE OPERA has been attracting its fair share of talented, up-and-coming young performers of late. Among those is Jason Collins, a young American tenor who is singing the role of the Steersman in Seattle Opera's production of Wagner's "The Flying Dutchman," opening Aug. 4.Collins has been busy since finishing a two-year hitch in the Pittsburgh Opera Center young artists program just two years ago. He had a banner year in 2005 when he made three mainstage debuts in the roles of Erik in Wagner's "Flying Dutchman" at Arizona Opera, Lensky in Tchaikovsky's "Eugene Onegin" and Zinovy in Shostakovich's "Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk."
Apart from occasionally fooling around with Play-Doh as a child, sculpture was not part of Matt Holmes' artistic repertoire. Yet just a couple of years of sculpting experience has landed Holmes' hand-fashioned masks a spot on the walls of Marion Oliver McCaw Hall.Holmes, who lives on First Hill and is studying for his bachelor's degree in fine arts at Cornish College of the Arts, is featured in the August exhibition of Seattle Opera's New Visions art show. His work will be on view during Seattle Opera's upcoming production of Wagner's "The Flying Dutchman," from Saturday, Aug. 4, through Aug. 25.
Capitol Hill artist Sean Pecknold devoted more than a month to create a 60-second animated Web video for Bumbershoot. By the time he was done, he wanted a "making of" video to share the contributions of his fellow members of Milk, a collective of young video and film artists working out of a studio on the Hill."Most people just don't get how labor intensive this is. The technology is cheaper, so you can do this very low budget, but you still have to spend a lot of time on the computer," said Pecknold.