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My Life Aquatic

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They’re curious, the Ballard Locks. Here, Seattle’s main freshwater lakes, Lake Washington and Lake Union, mix and mingle with the salty inland sea of Puget Sound. The Ballard Locks connect the bodies. They are intricately engineered to move hulking commercial ships, tugs, and barges—as well as smaller pleasure crafts and kayaks, up and down a 26-foot elevation. But this infrastructure was also designed to prevent damage to the freshwater ecosystem and salmon. The locks are an important part of the region’s maritime history since 1916, and with more than a hundred thousand boats, over a million tons of transported cargo, and more than one million people visiting annually, the Ballard Locks are also an intricate mix and mingle of human life.

My Life Aquatic Read More »

They’re curious, the Ballard Locks. Here, Seattle’s main freshwater lakes, Lake Washington and Lake Union, mix and mingle with the salty inland sea of Puget Sound. The Ballard Locks connect the bodies. They are intricately engineered to move hulking commercial ships, tugs, and barges—as well as smaller pleasure crafts and kayaks, up and down a 26-foot elevation. But this infrastructure was also designed to prevent damage to the freshwater ecosystem and salmon. The locks are an important part of the region’s maritime history since 1916, and with more than a hundred thousand boats, over a million tons of transported cargo, and more than one million people visiting annually, the Ballard Locks are also an intricate mix and mingle of human life.

On “All the Wild That Remains”: An Interview with David Gessner

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Many environmentalist-minded readers believe the nature writer of today’s turbulent, climate-changing times should function as both artist and activist. If David Gessner’s All the Wild That Remains (Norton, April 2015) is any indicator, the modern nature writer indeed should embody both roles—and could even expand his or her repertoire and master memoir, essay, biography, travelogue, and/or literary criticism. Via these and more seamlessly braided forms, Gessner’s book calls readers to action, inspiring outdoors-appreciating-yet-non-activist readers like myself, for instance, to question our own sense of place in this world.

On “All the Wild That Remains”: An Interview with David Gessner Read More »

Many environmentalist-minded readers believe the nature writer of today’s turbulent, climate-changing times should function as both artist and activist. If David Gessner’s All the Wild That Remains (Norton, April 2015) is any indicator, the modern nature writer indeed should embody both roles—and could even expand his or her repertoire and master memoir, essay, biography, travelogue, and/or literary criticism. Via these and more seamlessly braided forms, Gessner’s book calls readers to action, inspiring outdoors-appreciating-yet-non-activist readers like myself, for instance, to question our own sense of place in this world.

wood duck chick

As Brave as Ducklings

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by Greg Schutz

“What if, looking at those ducklings, we saw not some reflection of human bravery, some mental state for which we already have the words, here and now, in our gas-guzzling postindustrial lives? What if, instead, we recognized the ducklings’ abandon, as Wendell Berry calls it—the wordless, mindless, absolute passion with which the need to leave the nest has been not merely accepted, but embraced?”

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by Greg Schutz

“What if, looking at those ducklings, we saw not some reflection of human bravery, some mental state for which we already have the words, here and now, in our gas-guzzling postindustrial lives? What if, instead, we recognized the ducklings’ abandon, as Wendell Berry calls it—the wordless, mindless, absolute passion with which the need to leave the nest has been not merely accepted, but embraced?”

Poetry by Cleopatra Mathis

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INTERSTICE

1. Between Grief and Sorrow

Grief staggers around the house

some thief has emptied.

It wants to tell you everything

all over again; blame is the story

grief hammers, hammering until your leg shakes,

your right foot won’t stop tapping.

It’s a dance for the shaken,

strung out with waiting, and now look

who’s back to guard the door:

Poetry by Cleopatra Mathis Read More »

INTERSTICE

1. Between Grief and Sorrow

Grief staggers around the house

some thief has emptied.

It wants to tell you everything

all over again; blame is the story

grief hammers, hammering until your leg shakes,

your right foot won’t stop tapping.

It’s a dance for the shaken,

strung out with waiting, and now look

who’s back to guard the door:

The Speed of Nature: Ben Rivers’ Two Years at Sea

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by Nicholas Johnson

Ben Rivers’ Two Years at Sea is a portrait of Jake, a man who lives a lone subsistence lifestyle in the wilds of Scotland. Rivers’ film is a silent plotless meditation on life at a different pace and begs of the cinema goer a different kind of attention. A piece of contemporary romanticism, filmed on old equipment, removed from society, almost anthropological in its depiction of a human who moves at the speed of nature.

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by Nicholas Johnson

Ben Rivers’ Two Years at Sea is a portrait of Jake, a man who lives a lone subsistence lifestyle in the wilds of Scotland. Rivers’ film is a silent plotless meditation on life at a different pace and begs of the cinema goer a different kind of attention. A piece of contemporary romanticism, filmed on old equipment, removed from society, almost anthropological in its depiction of a human who moves at the speed of nature.

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