Polishing gems from my last road trip

I got back just over a week ago from Idaho. Filled my saddlebags with some fine specimens. On the road research in a new realm always fires me up, and the Gem State did not disappoint. Contrary to the often salty reputation ascribed to politics and other pursuits there, I found Idahoans to be almost invariably friendly and interesting. Without going into the details at this time, I'll offer a few summary pics - from the State Capitol to the southeastern hinterlands where I got scandalously lost and back. Now that I've got the proper pronunciation of Boise under my belt ("BOY-see" not the obvious outsider stumble of "boy-zee" I'd been using for decades) I'm prepped for a return. Hopefully sometime in the near term. And with better directions when I go barreling down dirt highways with a rental car that earned its stripes nonetheless marvelously well.

 

Rounding up recent offerings from MOHAI, Tartt and Eggers

I'm a big supporter of Seattle's Museum of History and Industry. MOHAI's ("mo high") almost-year-old digs in the old Armory Building on Seattle's South Lake Union shoreline are still evolving. Their influential neighbor Jeff Bezos serves as their most recognizable and heavily-invested champion. As evidence, there's the newly opened Bezos Center for Innovation - the newest and most curious piece of MOHAI that's not quite fully figured out its point yet, in my humble opinion.  But the orbiting constellation of small things at MOHAI stretch far and well.

 Case in point, they offer seminars for folks taking a serious interest in Seattle history. I attended one Saturday with the purpose of helping folks like me doing Seattle building(s) and business history projects. Taught by local writer and font of knowledge Rob Ketcherside, this latest DIY research class was nerd candy. Expansively useful. A taste of the whole buffet to follow. I'd already gone through MOHAI's archives and spoken with their staff about my own work. Still this class added to my burgeoning respect for what they do there. Seattle's cup runeth over with organizations worth supporting or simply visiting. Yet seldom do they empower their visitors and members quite so readily. Please check MOHAI out.

Shifting gears, I was recently asked if what I occasionally offer up here is meant to segway into a book/interview blog of some sort. Not really - a few posts do not a dedicated shift in purpose make. Yet given the fact I often attend author readings and seldom post reviews elsewhere, I will make more of a point of doing so here. Whether or not it directly applies to what I'm working on. 

Such as...Donna Tartt recently rolled through town. I joined a standing room only crowd in Seattle Central Library's main auditorium to see what sort of game she'd bring. Tartt arrived straight from the airport wearing a gray, 4-button suit, a striped shirt with french cuffs, accented by a purple-patterned tie and contrasting pocket square. She performed a theatrical reading - there's no other way to refer to such a nuanced and practiced reading. Obviously she's lived within so many revisions of her work over the past decade spent writing The Goldfinch that she knows the material like a Shakespeare scholar given the chance to read from the complete works rather than pull from memory. I'm increasingly seeing a Salinger-esque attachment to her first novel The Secret History from her legion of fans. I get it - that book rocks. I fall right in that line, and I'm even still mildly irritated with the friend I leant my copy to back in 1992 for never getting it back. Yet I wanted to find a personal or unscripted hook in Tartt's shtick. I used my mandated few minutes in the signing line to joke with her about her recently confessed love for the defunct publishing house, Loompanics. I also bought a pile of their silly little books on things such as lockpicking. But that's as far as we got. When I finish Tartt's Goldfinch, I will try to remember to return to this and say something of more substance. But merely on the level of style, I found her to be enigmatic and odd. Like a high-strung exotic bird poised to fly away at a moment's notice. But one I'm glad I was in the position to see when she landed on a nearby tree.

On the opposite end of the spectrum of author approachability - but who is ironically not doing a current tour for his new novel - is Dave Eggers. I'm entirely biased given that I got to know him a bit while volunteering for 826 Valencia in San Francisco for a few years in the middle of the Oh-Aughts. Eggers walks the walk of his philanthropic interests far more earnestly than anyone should expect given his widely cast and impressive volume of writerly pursuits. His new novel, The Circle, proves effective enough to have made me rethink my own Facebook and Twitter contributions to the global share-o-sphere. I wolfed down The Circle - it is propulsive, page-turning prose. Plot isn't the strength of this novel. It doesn't need to be. It functions well as satire with a purpose. Shouldn't all satire make us reconsider something we too readily do without considering the consequences? Of course, that's far more easily said than done. Eggers uses the novel's powerful frame to focus upon the way people increasingly communicate in this age of granular and transparent exposure.  By doing so, he freaked me out a little bit. Kudos for that.

 

A subtle reminder that I will soon begin work as the second assistant coach of my daughter's first basketball team. Or just an awesome old hoop seen this past summer's end in southern Washington State.

A subtle reminder that I will soon begin work as the second assistant coach of my daughter's first basketball team. Or just an awesome old hoop seen this past summer's end in southern Washington State.

Command and Control. As title, and stagecraft.

Eric Schlosser's book Fast Food Nation (2001) renewed the grand genre of socially-engaged, logically-enraged nonfiction. Few books cast a spell over me quite like that one. Which explains my excitement about his latest book (Command and Control). Schlosser spent six years researching nuclear weapons and the collective madness of keeping them around - always ready, but never used. The resulting book towers over everything else on my absolutely-must-read list for the fall.

Given the stature Seattle enjoys as big book tour draw, I had the pleasure of seeing Schlosser appear last night before a pleasantly full auditorium of brainy folks in Seattle's inspiring Central Library. I'm happy to report that when placed in the typical "author in front of the room" set-up, he's a coat-over-the-shoulder sort of fellow. His style relied upon a healthy give and take with the crowd. He proved humble, yet simmering with stories he couldn't wait to share. I can't recall the last "reading" I attended where the author felt no need to put his head down and read from his own text. Schlosser riffed, with a tone that suggested he could continue doing so for hours - whether testifying on a Congressional panel or while stirring the risotto on the stove. Those of you who know me won't be surprised that I aspire to carry myself in the same manner. What I saw last night was a clinic in how to command the stage, without being domineering. 

During the customary glad-handing and book signing time that followed, Schlosser proved himself even more generous with his one-on-one insights. When my time arose, I asked him about his craft - specifically how he approaches a big subject with years of research to codify. After offering a peek into his process, he showed interest in my current work. We talked a bit of shop, and he even offered an ancestral link to the core themes I'm pursuing. It was the sort of conversation that afforded me great hope and camaraderie. 

It's too early for me to offer a full review of Command and Control. But as Schlosser's book tour continues, I must say from experience that you simply won't find a more worthy big book event this season. Or a nicer guy at the center of it. Even if Schlosser's disconcerting subject matter leads to, for example, Googling the blast radius between you and the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons on the West Coast.

 

Getting radical with Jonathan Lethem

My nearest local bookstore (Third Place Books) hosted a fancy shmancy lunch with Jonathan Lethem last week. I treated myself to a ticket, joined 37 other attendees in the cozy space of the downstairs pub, and enjoyed it thoroughly. I went in wanting to talk with him about his family's left-leaning history along with that of the activists at the center of Lethem's engaging new novel, Dissident Gardens.  I left with some thought provoking leads. Along with a not necessarily healthy paranoia about asking questions that leave an electronic footprint. 

Lethem generously offered a long answer to my basic question - what interests you most about old-school commies gone to seed? Some of his answer echoed from what I'm finding in Dissident Gardens. Plenty of it, however, prompted me to reach out in pursuit elsewhere. Thanks to Edward Snowden, I'm now also just a teenie-weenie bit curious what sort of bells my random searching might sound like to NSA metadata mining operation(s) like PRISM.

More tangibly, Lethem uses the history of the Left (and, in particular, the American Communist Party) as the base layer of Dissident Gardens. His fascinating suggestions led me to search for background on writers like Vivian Gornick, "Marxist sportswriters," and brought me back to the massive FBI file of a source for my own work. Combined with all the other stuff I regularly read on the internet, is it ridiculous to think I've bumped askew someone's algorithmic profile of me? Only if you're unwilling to see the flip side of an otherwise innocent proposition. 

My takeaway might be that we are not a simple sum of the things we search for on the internet. Any more than our pre-internet ancestors were accurately measured by what newspapers they read or what meetings they attended. It's just a great deal easier to jump to conclusions these days. We're still a long way off from the ominous endgame used in "Minority Report" and similar "thought crime" sci-fi. Hopefully.

 

Just another 'zine seen during a July 2013 visit to Burning Books in Buffalo, NY

Just another 'zine seen during a July 2013 visit to Burning Books in Buffalo, NY

Learning from those taking old stories in new directions

A-list authors surely don't need my help to promote their work. Laura Hillenbrand, for example. She delivered two towering home runs with her nonfiction books (Seabisquit and Unbroken). In so doing, Hillenbrand entered that rarified realm of conversational awareness where she gets name-dropped from all sorts of tangents. Case in point, out at dinner with friends on Saturday, a story being re-told by my wife about the HBO Documentary on sportscaster Marty Glickman led the table to discuss Hillenbrand's Unbroken - the linkage is made through the amazing life of Louis Zamperini.

Without wanting to get too lost in those sub-references, I mean to instead logroll and commend Hillenbrand for her ability to sketch recognizable times in new ways. Mainly because she also nailed it with her piece about the 1930s in this month's 100th anniversary issue of "Vanity Fair" . If you haven't checked it out, I must insist that you do so. Out of all the decade-by-decade summary pieces, Hillenbrand's stands apart in my opinion. She brings something new to ground that's been covered often. Small, evocative details make all the difference.

As someone who hopes to write thought-provoking, scene-setting prose about both the Depression and World War I, I'm hyper-curious about those who've done it well. This should also serve as a quick post to say how much I'm digging the early stages of A. Scott Berg's Wilson . Although I can't pick up that book without hearing Tom Hanks in "Castaway" yelling for his island companion. Shtick aside, the company I'm finding in Berg's longform storytelling shelters me for all the other small ball stories bouncing around currently. Here again, I strongly endorse someone who certainly isn't in need of my approval.

Getting my Weibo on

A story in yesterday's NYTimes about the Chinese government once again clamping down on their microblogging sites got me curious. I encountered pretty obvious censorship when I visited two years ago. Facebook and Twitter were unreachable. Same for Blogger and the extended utility of Google. Things loosened up when I left the Mainland for Hong Kong. It was nonetheless striking to encounter.  

Fast forward to today, and I was able to register for an account on the equivalent of Twitter in China - Sina's "Weibo" (which means, simply, "microblogging"). I have no idea whether I'll get bounced. I didn't think an English version was yet available, but by using the browser Chrome with Chinese translation enabled...well, I'm up and running. Feel free to check me out there. Or come back here to see if I learn anything good.  

I should mention that I have a book-related purpose in this long-distance trolling. In a nutshell, I'm looking for "Big V" people (meaning, verified, or vaguely influential). Those are the folks the government began clamping down upon, after what had struck me as a period of relatively progressive advances. As with most things China-related, we only have the smallest sense of the reality here. For now.  

"Cover Me Up" in old scene memories

I moved to Seattle 20 years ago this week. I saw more than my fair share of shows back in those days. Even though that era was so overburdened by a focus upon the Seattle scene, this City's clubs and bars filled me with memories. Those days continue to come up in conversation - fondly, more often than not. I just had a long sought after conversation with a source this week that largely began with us articulating our recollection of music and the scene here in the 90s. Whatever the style or the venue, those of us who grew up going to shows will probably always use those filters.

That's partly why it was such a delightful reminder to catch a show at Neumo's on Capitol Hill last night. Not because it was an epic show - Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit felt a bit deflated. Isbell admitted playing gigs both for Amazon and on "the radio" earlier in the day. Isbell's become a critical darling for his first solo effort. I was certainly there because I'd played that album ("Southeastern") dozens of times while roadtripping this summer. I didn't have a connection with Isbell's earlier band (Drive-By Truckers). But I surely recalled my prior sentiments about Neumo's. Hence the delight.

Jason Isbell at Neumo's. Unlike in the old Moe's, you'll only find clowns up near the stage in Neumo's (yours truly included in that particular nostalgia joke). Not that any of these guys were that bad...

Jason Isbell at Neumo's. Unlike in the old Moe's, you'll only find clowns up near the stage in Neumo's (yours truly included in that particular nostalgia joke). Not that any of these guys were that bad...

So if I have a point, it's somewhere amidst staying out until 1am on a school night,  seeing Neumo's through the filter of when it was just Moe's with the terrifying clown motif, thinking back to my recent research roadtrip when Isbell was on almost constant "shuffle/repeat," and just generally digging the energy of a nostalgic flashback. Since so many people on this particular day are focused upon a very different sort of look back, I'm glad to have a legitimate reason to look fondly backward. 

Smells like good journalism

I came across the work of a friend from grad school today. This reporter (M.L. Johnson, who works for the AP in Wisconsin), was the sort who really did her homework and asked all the interesting questions. Reflective of that recollection, Johnson's piece put a proper folksy spin on a story about cow poop research. What she does stands up as totally memorable for more than just the freely wafting - and maybe quite damaging - subject matter. It was the quality of the quotes she gathered that struck me and led me to make the personal link via the ol' Google machine. Kudos for a sharp, interesting story on current agricultural research. Johnson took an interesting premise and crossed over from academia to business, leading to a beneficial takeaway for the world at large. Not easy to do, and well worth a mention. I'm glad she's back on my radar.

 

I spent a long Labor Day Weekend on this farm with family and friends. Mt. Adams basks in the magic hour light to the north. 

I spent a long Labor Day Weekend on this farm with family and friends. Mt. Adams basks in the magic hour light to the north. 

Oh, and I say it often enough. So once more won't hurt. I plan to handle this blog a bit differently in the near-ish future. More snap, less volume (of content). Or merely shorter pieces. More photos, too. Things will migrate over to my Tumblr and back. Since school's back in session - and I'm focusing on bigger ideas back home in Seattle - the time seems right to learn something new. Again. I hope you'll check back to see what that might lead me to do here. 

Finding memories grown from a simple bacteria.

A partly-buried, never-forgotten childhood mystery resurfaced for me this weekend. It happened at Viking Days, held at the Nordic Heritage Museum in Ballard. It was there - amidst the Danish aebelskivers, Valhalla jokesters, and battling metal (shrouded) heads - that I found the path to a simple recipe I once feared might have died nearly 30 years ago with my grandmother. 

As with most epic quests, the basic back story centers upon a rare form of homemade yogurt. Specifically-speaking - a traditionally Scandinavian, slightly sour version, with the barest of crusts on top that served to hold the sugar I was allowed to sprinkle on it as a child.  We called it "fee-lah-bunk," even though the word never appeared before my eyes and I often thought I'd mispronounced it once...and then just kept on repeating the mistake in perpetuity. Whatever semantic form this kefir-ish treat took, my Grandma Jennie made it. To do so, she used a bacterial starter I presumed was as guarded as the launch codes for the Cold War's nukes. However, the gathering of the milk used as the base was where the poetry came into play for me.

Whether or not you subscribe to the foodie revolution that's realized the benefits of raw foods, there's actually a full blown trend underway when it comes to using that form of milk. I'm sure there are people who need to run for the bathroom by merely thinking about or even walking down the aisle of their local specialty grocer that carries this unpasteurized elixir. I'm not sure what I think of it myself. Cow's milk straight from the udder is an acquired taste for any species other than a barn cat. Personally, I wouldn't be surprised to find a few hairs floating at the top of the bottle if I were to buy the stuff these days. I'll let the foodies and the vegans and the back-to-the-landers debate raw milk on the merits. I'm just riffing on the memory. For now.

So back in my day, we went right to the source. Growing up in the northern wilds of Wisconsin meant that there were dairy farms in every direction. On a dairy farm you'll invariably find some form of a "bulk tank" used to collect the recently gathered milk. The basic logistics of making "fee-lah-bunk" was to visit one of those farms, chat up the friendly farmer for the sake of proper neighborliness, and then fill a Mason jar or two with raw milk to take home to Jennie so that she could add her starter. It was this act of gathering that was so special to me. I can still remember riding on the big bench seat of my Dad's epic Ford(s) on this mission. It always seemed to be summertime, with the magic hour light turning everything a cooling down shade of orange. Those memories are coated in amber for me, including the ride back toward home with the warmth of the milk emanating from the glass of the jar into my little hands. I'd be given the big boy responsibility of hanging onto the milk all the way to Jennie's house. A few days later, the new "fee-la-bunk" would be ready. No food ever tasted sweeter in those elementary school years. With or without the added sugar. 

Fast forward a few decades, and buzz right on by the occasional conversations I've had about this yogurt-y treat. When it's come up, the answer from the befuddled random Scandinavian I'd ask would always be the same.

"Never heard of it." Or maybe, "how do you pronounce that again?"  

And so that memory faded, as they often do when covered over with Facebook status updates, online dinner reservations, and the endless stream of utterly forgettable data we've all seemed to concede to without actually agreeing is worth the distraction. 

That is until this past weekend's Viking Days. 

When I saw the various food vendors broken down by the nations of origin within the Pan-Scandinavian mix, I drew the memory of "fee-lah-bunk" up in my memory bucket. So I started asking around. As a last resort, I was pointed toward an older gentleman in a Swedish flag apron. "He's the only one who might know," I was told. So I laid it out for him. 

"I'm looking for the bacterial starter for a traditional yogurt my grandmother made. I think it was called 'fee-lah-bunk' but I've heard it called other things. Do you know about it and where I might find it?"

He replied, "I'm a Dane, and I was born on Queen Anne." In other words, he was a lovable local. And something of a fraud.   

I'd come up bupkis once again. Or so I thought. Until I heard a half-barrel-sized, gray-haired woman behind me say, "I'm a Finn. I live in the UP. I've got the starter. We call it 'villi.' I've never heard the 'bunk'. I can send you some."

So not only did this random, adorable Yooper know of what I spoke. She gave me a Finn's version of the origin story.

"You know how it came here from the old country, right?" 

I confessed that I didn't.  

"It came on a piece of cheesecloth." I've since imagined a forward-thinking Finn passing the time in steerage, thinking of all the lactose-intolerant immigrants who would benefit from this wonder yogurt passed down from generation to generation all thanks to the musty swatch she had tucked in her knickers.

Or maybe it was sent on a piece across the centuries and oceans via FedEx. Either way, it won't be long before I start looking for a package with a small town Michigan return address containing a supply of bacteria to make my very own strain of new memories. 

Oh, and I finally got the spelling right, too. It's "filbunke." For that, I credit Wikipedia. Because not every question need be answered at Viking Days. Just some of the really special ones I didn't realize I'd been carrying around with me all this time.