I tried to curb my excitement, remembering stories of people who allowed their joy to flow too freely and attracted the attention of angry spirits, stories of children named Worthless to protect them from jealous gods. I know the danger of anticipating a show too intensely; the more you expect, the greater the chance of disappointment. So I was nervous all day. My favorite band, Sólstafir, was going to play Seattle for the first time in their 20-year career. Read More
ByGD
Sólstafir at Seattle’s Barboza
ByGD
I Can’t Commit
At the first annual Iceland Writers Retreat, I got to take two workshops from Pulitzer prize-winning writer Geraldine Brooks. For each workshop, she asked us to bring a short piece of writing to introduce ourselves. Because “travel” was the loose theme of the retreat, one of the options was to write 300 words about your favorite place. Here is mine. Read More
ByGD
In Defense of Smell
On the bus this morning, I was reading Natasha Narayan’s book, The Maharajah’s Monkey. I enjoy the Kit Salter series about the Indiana Jones-like adventures of a bold Victorian-era tween even more than my daughter does. My mind was absorbed in the hunt for a missing French explorer when a new passenger boarded the bus in a miasma of herbal odor. Since the passage of I-502, such fragrance on the streets of Seattle is not unusual. But the smell of this particular gentleman’s variety was of an extreme skunk such as I hadn’t experienced since my own days in the subcontinent.
Everything smells more in India. Read More