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A nurse log is a fallen tree that facilitates the growth of seedlings as it decays. This stump is providing the same service. We took this picture on a camping trip, but you can see a beautiful example of a nurse log at Seattle Art Museum’s Olympic Sculpture Park in downtown Seattle.
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Photo by Chris Bennion
To quote Nick Cave, “I don’t believe in the myth of a personal God,” but sometimes it really does seem as if a higher power is pushing you to do something. First, my editor asked me if I wanted to cover Brooklyn Bridge at Seattle Children’s Theatre at the last minute. I was too swamped with work and personal commitments to take the assignment. Then a neighbor had spare tickets, but we were already cocooned for the evening with a video and snacks. When a good friend I see too seldom told me she had an extra ticket for a Tuesday noon performance, I finally took the cosmic hint and agreed to go – if I could get away from work. After all, Brooklyn Bridge is more than a play about a famous bridge, it’s about writing. Well, it’s also about communities and found family, but let’s focus on writing, since that makes my attendance less like skipping work and more like research. Read More
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In a country with no true forest, where volcanic activity has only recently allowed plants to begin to colonize many parts of the country, moss takes on special importance. Perhaps that explains this wall of Reykjavik’s City Hall building, where, on the day I visited, the dripping fibers of the moss had frozen overnight for the first time that fall.
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On my last day of my first trip to Iceland, I wandered the Reykjavik Art Museum. I had already noticed an Icelandic tendency to treat words as both ideas and art (a recording studio with text wallpaper, decoupaged newspapers ornamenting hostel bathroom stalls). But this temporary exhibit, in which a foreign artist (I’m sorry I’ve lost his name – someone please fill me in) had scribbled messages in black marker all over the gallery walls. I was sad to be leaving Iceland, and the quirky designs cheered me up. The messages themselves felt like answers to an unspoken question.
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The young emo Composer (Kate Lindsey). Alan Alabastro photo courtesy of Seattle Opera.
Long story short: A rich man has commissioned a tragic opera, “Ariadne auf Naxos,” to be performed at his party. He has also hired a commedia dell’arte troupe. At the last minute, he decides the program is too long and the two performances must be merged. Hijinks ensue. Read More