seattle times

I repeat, J is famous. This photo appeared in the Seattle Times last Friday. Here is the whole article.

hiking in the northwest

For the past month or so, we have gone hiking almost every weekend. I used to hike incessantly during the summers I was in high school, and then I hiked a lot when I worked as a camp counselor. But the past couple of summers I haven't had much of a chance to hike. This summer, however, is going to be different. There are a lot of great trails close to our home, and I have decided that the Northwest is my favorite place to hike. Although I think Colorado and Utah are beautiful in their own way, I love how everything is verdant along the Northwest trails. I especially love the ferns, extremely tall trees, and lush moss. Plus, the best thing about hiking in Washington (as opposed to Utah or Colorado) is that the trails aren't dusty. It's so nice to breathe clearly as I make my way uphill (although I have to admit that breathing dry dirt (and consequentially having clods of dirt in my nose post-hike) is a part of Utah hiking which I will think of semi-nostalgically).

Here are some pics:

Twin Falls with Matt and Joanna
Remember how I talked about hiking incessantly during high school? Joanna was with me on most of those hikes. I'm so glad that she lives nearby - it's fun to be with her in the mountains again! (You can see a few more pics of the hike on Joanna's blog.)

The lower falls of Twin Falls

Rattlesnake Ridge
This is the ridge that is located next to Rattlesnake Lake (this is the lake that we visited on Memorial Day - can you see the old tree stumps in the lake below?)

J and Sam at the Talus Rocks/Bat Caves

Talus Rocks/Bat Caves

This hike is especially great because the trail goes in a loop - you don't have to turn around pass the same stuff on the return trip. There is a really pretty fern valley with some large mossy trees on the way down.

Apparently we need to teach Sam about nature appreciation

South Beach of Discovery Park
There are a lot of trails in this area and we plan on going back. We intended on going to the North Beach (since we parked in the North Parking Lot), but ended up going on a longer hike which eventually descended to the South Beach.

Have you gone hiking this summer? What's your favorite state/region for hiking? What trails would you recommend?

michael jackson

Anyone else shocked by this news? Wow. I'm so surprised. I guess that the King of Pop will never have his anticipated comeback.

I love the early Michael Jackson stuff, especially from when he was in the Jackson Five. Here's a clip of the first time that the song "ABC" was aired. What an amazing voice for such a small kid! I love his little dance moves too:



And I think that Thriller is one of the most fantastic albums of all time. Click here to watch the Thriller music video in all its awesome '80s-ness.

You can't beat Michael Jackson's early stuff. What a talented man.

sam as caboose

Sam loves the animal train that he got from his grandparents. I love how Sam waits for all of the train cars to move before he joins in the fun:

more memoirs

Earlier this month I posted some thoughts on "celebrity" memoirs. I guess memoirs have been on my mind lately. I just finished reading one and am trying to get J to read my favorite memoir. I feel like these two memoirs are different from "celebrity" memoirs, though. It seems like both of these authors are quite sincere in their desire to talk about their experiences - there doesn't seem to be motivation to regain the spotlight or popularity (which I feel is the case for some "celebrity" memoirs).

The memoir that I recently finished is Ruth Reichl's Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise. This is a fun story about a food critic for the New York Times who realized that she needed to dress up in disguises so that she wouldn't be noticed in restaurants around the city. By assuming different costumes (she even dressed up as her own mother one time), she learned more about her own personality. This is a fun book and a quick read. The only thing I didn't like is that when Reichl is conversing with friends, some of the leading questions addressed to Reichl are a little contrived - the questions are obviously planted to help Reichl introduce background information to the reader. I remember in one scene Reichl sits down with her friend Brenda at a restaurant, and her friend immediately queries something to the effect, "So...tell me about the chef that works here." And then Reichl proceeds to give Brenda (but really the reader) all of the necessary information about the chef. The use of leading questions is not a bad gimmick for writing a memoir, but I think Reichl's approach was a little too obvious. I had to roll my eyes once or twice.

And boy, does Reichl like food. A lot. I always thought that I appreciated good food, but I obviously don't in comparison with her. Wow.

This book also has fun gourmet and ethnic recipes that are easy to make at home. I'm not much of a cook, but I have several friends who I think would like to try the recipes in this book (such as my friend Kelly, who writes regularly on this cooking blog.)

The other memoir I mentioned is The Long Walk by Slavomir Rawicz. My friend Ry Ry gave me this book a few years ago, and I have reread it several times. I keep trying to get J to read it, and one time I remember sitting down and reading him parts out loud. He finally picked it up the other evening, so maybe he's coming around.

This book is the memoir of a Polish prisoner who escaped from a Soviet labor camp during 1941. Rawicz recounts how he and a small group of escapees marched out of Sibera, through China, the Gobi Desert, and the Himalayas to find freedom. This story is very engaging and well written. If anyone likes memoirs and adventure stories (or if anyone has an interest in WWII stories), I think you'll like this book.

Has anyone else read these books? What did you think? Do you know of any other great WWII memoirs?

the Yanni singer

A few years ago, my friend Rachelle offered to set me up with her friend Nathan Pacheco. Rachelle and I sang in BYU Women's Chorus together, and Nathan also was a singer. I met him a few times and thought he was a nice guy, but we never went out. Phew - and I'm sure glad! I just found out this morning that now Nathan Pacheco is one of the Yanni Singers!

Ha!

J kiddingly asked if now I have regrets for not going out with Nathan.

Uh...no. I think I'm okay with not being the wife of a famous Yanni singer. Plus, I kind of doubt that our common interest in singing would have gotten us very far - I have a feeling that we have very, uh, different tastes in music.

my famous sister

Speaking of singing, I thought I'd post this clip of my famous little sister, C. Now she can sing. This was her high school performance of Pirates of Penzance from a few years ago. She makes her entrance about 1:41 of this clip. Enjoy!

singing and reconnecting with music

I'm trying to get in a singing groove again. I've started practicing a few weeks ago, mostly because I was preparing a piece that I sang in church last Sunday. Now that performance is over, I'm trying to keep up the new habit and rededicate myself to singing.

One of the reasons that I want to sing is because I want to reconnect with music again. Music was such a big part of my life in high school and college. But since I got married, I don't listen to it very much (at least in comparison with how much I listened/sang before). In a way, I think that J has replaced any kind of void that music used to fill. But I want to get to know music again. And I want to stop sounding like a frog every time I open my mouth to sing.

I can tell that my voice is really rusty; it fatigues after about fifteen minutes of practice. And I have new tension in my vocal cords and other air flow problems that weren't an issue, oh, six years ago. I really have let my voice get incredibly out of shape.

Over the years, I have come up with a lot of excuses for why I can't practice singing. On my mission, I didn't want to sing because I worried that it would bother my companions and the neighbors that lived on the other side of our paper-thin walls. Admittedly, after my mission I did sing a lot, but only during the months that J was in London. But when he came back, I preferred his company over that of the HFAC practice rooms. And then I got swept into my Master's degree program, working 60+ hours a week between a museum and TA job, etc. I didn't have time to practice (or so I said). The excuses kept piling up. Probably the only valid excuse I ever had was when I was in the second and third trimester of my pregnancy with Sam. After all, one can't sing when their lungs are squished to the size of a grape.

But now, I've realized that I can't make excuses anymore. At first, I said that I couldn't practice because my only free time is when Sam is asleep. That's true, but I'll just have to practice while Sam is awake or when J is home. If I don't start now, I'm afraid that my cords are going to petrify.

These are the two songs that I've picked out to practice: "Deh vieni, non tardar" (Mozart, The Marriage of Figaro) and "Oh! had I Jubal's lyre" (Handel, Joshua).

Has anyone else gone through a phase in which they didn't feel like listening to music? How did you reconnect with music again?

sam's cake

Both J and I are not big fans of cake. We didn't even have a wedding cake. Instead, we had a really awesome dessert bar with lots of great pies (although, admittedly, we did offer a some cake slices for the guests who came expressly for the purpose of eating wedding cake). Anyhow, it seems that Sam is like his parents. He wasn't too interested in his birthday cupcake; he just nibbled on tiny crumbs and some frosting. Last night we tried to give him another bite of cake, and he just spit it out. (I'm sure that his grandma (my health-food loving mother) will be quite pleased to hear that!)

We had to coax him to even touch the thing.

target practice

J might be embarrassed that I'm posting so many pictures on my blog, but I'm quite proud of my husband. He's famous. Many artists can say that their work is on display in a museum, but not everyone can say that their work is on a museum. J recently completed doing all of the campaign signage for the Seattle Art Museum's forthcoming exhibition, "Target Practice."

If you see any of these signs around downtown Seattle (or on buses), it's J's work.

I really like this poster. The thesis of this exhibition revolves around 20th century painters that created art in radical/unusual ways. Canvases were sliced, burned, etc. However, the artistic styles are all really diverse, which makes the show difficult to market with a specific image or work of art. I think J came up with a great way to convey the thesis of the show.

If you live in the Seattle area, you should check out this exhibition. It mounts this month and will be up for the whole summer.

adjunct lecturer

I'm slated to teach an introductory/survey course here next winter term! Yay for the Jesuits! I'm sure that I'll have no problems teaching at a private university, since I attended one as a student.

So, this course is set up a little differently than other survey courses that I've attended/taught/TA'ed. Instead of a broad scope of artists and works of art from 1400 - present, the art history program is structured to focus on "case studies" from each century (i.e. a specific artist or a few select works of art). It's an interesting idea and I'm excited to try teaching this way. I'll write more details about the course materials and structure later (probably on my art history blog).

Huzzah!

sam day

Today is Sam Day at our house. Sam is now one year old. I think my sister L will be sad she can't tell people anymore that her nephew is zero. She got a kick out of that.

Last week J and I came across a journal that J's mom kept while J was a baby. She recorded all of the funny things that he said and did when he was little. We got such a kick out of reading those stories and anecdotes, I thought I better start to write down more things about Sam. So, here goes:

Sam's first word was "Hi!" He probably said it first at about 10 months. He says it all the time and does this little floppy wave. He also knows:

"Bye!" (with floppy wave again)
"Daaa" = Dad
"Mom?" (He always says this like it's a question, and the sides of his mouth always turn down when he says it, which reminds me of the muppet Sam the Eagle. Maybe we should have named our Sam after the muppet.).
"DAT!!!" = "THAT!"
"Dut!" = duck

He also knows the meaning of "no," "up," "outside," "smile," "more," "book," "hug," and "ear."

It's fun to see him learning and growing. He's not walking yet, but he cruises around a lot and likes to walk with help. We like him. And we're glad he's in our family.

Anyhow, here are some pictures of Sam opening presents this morning:

Once he saw what was inside, he looked at me with the expression, "Do you see this?" He hasn't quite picked up on the idea that presents contain fun things. I also think he might have wondered if I would get upset with him for ripping paper.

Thanks for the fun toys, SJ, N1, N2, and Grandma! (And thanks to others for the fun presents that aren't pictured here!)

There is a small zoo located near our house that used to be a private animal collection. My mother-in-law said that because of zoning reasons, the family needed to turn their private collection into a zoological park. We went there last weekend as part of Sam's birthday celebration.

This parrot in the bird show kept waving to the audience

This weekend we'll be having cake and ice cream to celebrate little Sammy, which means that his birthday celebrations are spreading onto three different days. Phew. I hope he doesn't expect a multi-day extravaganza each year.

Sam we like. Like we Sam. With or without green eggs and ham. Happy birthday, little buddy!

baby + ravens = blueberry pancakes

Sam woke up at 4:30 this morning. J and I stayed in bed for a while, waiting to see if Sam would go back to sleep. But he didn't. Then we took turns going in Sam's room, but Sam WOULD. NOT. SLEEP. He was wide awake. Finally, an hour later, I picked Sam up and told J to go back to bed. Sam and I would just stay up.

J went back to bed. For five minutes. All of the sudden, a huge flock of ravens started to swarm around a tree near our yard, caw-ing really, really loud. J came downstairs and tried to shoo the birds away, but to no avail. It was crazy. Right after we pick up Sam and get him to stop screaming, the ravens kick in.

So, we were all awake. To make the situation a little more pleasant, I decided to make blueberry pancakes. I quite proud of my pancake recipe - I think it beats any pancake mix. And we have a tub of fresh blueberries. Mmm. Eating warm blueberries (either in muffins or pancakes) is one of the nicest things in the world, even when I'm ridiculously tired.

I wish I could have taken a picture of us, eating blueberry pancakes at 5:30 this morning while ravens caw-ed in the background. Sam couldn't have been happier as he munched away on his pancake bits. J and I were bleary-eyed, staring at the wall with expressionless faces as warm blueberry juice trickled down our throats.

"celebrity" memoirs

I've been thinking today about memoirs written by celebrities and "celebrities" (the "celebrities" = has-been celebrities). I found out yesterday that Melissa Gilbert recently wrote a memoir called Prairie Tales. I loved watching "Little House on the Prairie" when I was little, and even recently I wondered what became of Gilbert after the series ended (and after she appeared in "The Snow Queen" episode of Shelley Duvall's Faerie Tale Theatre). However, when I heard about this memoir, I couldn't help but feel bad for Gilbert.

In my opinion, celebrity memoirs fall into two camps. The first group consists of successful actors and actresses who have interesting and inspiring things to write in a memoir of their life experiences.(Even though I haven't read Julie Andrew's Home, I would automatically think that it falls into this first group.) The second (and larger) group of memoirs are different: they are written by has-been celebrities that sometimes advertise their memoir as a as "tell-all." In my opinion, these books range from semi-inspiring to uninspiring (and generally are not worth reading). When reading reviews, I feel like these books appear to be nothing more than extended articles on celebrity gossip. Gilbert's memoir seems to fall into this category (you can see an article describing the "tell-all" here).

I wonder what motivates these "celebrities" to write a memoir. Some of the ideas I came up with were:

1 - The "celebrity" wants to become a celebrity. The memoir is an attempt at regaining the spotlight.
2 - The memoir is a way to make money.
3 - The "celebrity" feels that the public needs to view him/her in a new light. (Perhaps Gilbert doesn't want people to view her as the wholesome pioneer girl that she played on TV? Although I haven't read "Surviving Marcia Brady and Finding My True Voice," it seems like this reason was part of Maureen McCormick's motivation for writing her book.
4 - A combination of the above (probably the case in most instances)

Any other things to add to the list?

But I'm sure that many successful celebrities-cum-writers also have these same motivations to write. So is my attitude the only thing that truly classifies these two types of memoirs? Am I being too harsh on "celebrity" memoirs or do people agree with me? Has anyone read the aforementioned books and wants to agree/disagree with my stereotypes and blatant generalizations?

the royal historian of oz

When I was younger, I loved reading the Oz books. Every time I went to the library, I would immediately go to the "Baum" shelf and see if I could find any books that I hadn't read. When I finished reading the original series by L. Frank Baum, I started to dabble in the Oz books continued by other authors like Ruth Plumly Thompson. However, I never enjoyed these books as much as the original series, and I soon gave up on reading the later Oz stories.

My love for the Oz books prompted me to read Katharine M. Roger's biography of L. Frank Baum. If you love the Oz books, you really should read this book. It was fascinating to learn about the different social/historical factors that influenced Baum's writing. For example, Baum was married to Maud Gage, a feminist and suffragette. Maud's mother, Matilda Gage, also was a leader in the movement for women's rights. It is interesting to see how Baum was affected by the idea of a matriarchal society and the role of women in government - only female witches have power in Oz, and the only magical male leader (the Wizard) is actually a humbug.¹

I also learned in this book that Baum was a theosophist. This was particularly interesting to me and helped me place Baum within a better historical context - I already knew that theosophy was a popular religious philosophy in the late 19th/early 20th centuries (it attracted artists like Kandinsky and Mondrian). This discovery made me realize that I've never tried to place Baum in a historical context before; I've always thought of Oz books (and Baum as the "Royal Historian of Oz") as being timeless like Oz itself.

There are so many other interesting things I learned in this book: "Gump" was a slang term for "fool" between 1865 and 1920; the Woozy character was inspired by Cubism and based off of Marcel Duchamp's painting Nude Descending a Staircase; Baum was passionate about breeding fancy poultry, which ultimately influenced his development of the character Billina.²

This biography has got me excited about the Oz books once again, and I am also interested in reading the other books discussed by Rogers, particularly Baum's novels for adults and the various books he published under pseudonyms. First I think I will read The Fate of a Crown, a novel set during the 1889 revolution in Brazil (published until the pseudonym Schuyler Staunton).

Did you read the Oz books as a child? Who were your favorite characters? My favorites were Polychrome, Button Bright, and Ozma.

1 Katharine M. Rogers, "L. Frank Baum: Creator of Oz," (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2002), 79.

2 Ibid., 7, 125, 194.