Bailey Alexander

9/11 was a call to adventure.

9/11 meant different things to different people. Personally, it was a call to adventure. On the surface, after years of hard work, the rewards arrived, I was happily married, in good health, experiencing the American Dream.  I was lucky.

However, just beneath the surface, above the sub-conscious, where reality lurks and mischief begins, my country and my identity were amiss, incorrect; I heard the clarion call to adventure, answered and decided to leave. 

I felt deep shock, as did everyone, however, we didn't equally experience the paranoia and fear. 

Ramping up the fear is the last thing we need...

We have another food scare. OK, attenzione! So, why not start talking about food, learning about food, why not grow your own or perhaps share with another if you live in the city; several friends did this in Seattle.  

So sorry Seattle's Intiman theatre has closed.

Intiman theatre is officially closed for business. What a sad, dreary fact this is, and for so many different reasons.  I grew up in Seattle and we enjoyed season tickets @ The Seattle Rep, PNB, ACT and Intiman. Seattle had so much to offer on stage; don't laugh but many considered it a serious rival to New York.

The Seattle Rep managed to snag Daniel Sullivan from the Kennedy center, a major coup as he was a major force in NY. He was a neighbor of mine downtown; he was lovely and responsible for putting Seattle permanently on the national stage what with Heidi's Chronicles and all the joy that was Wendy Wasserstein.

However, Intiman gave us Angels in America, occupying its own distinct niche, serving the techie and edgy crowd. I listen to this news as it whispers something far more sinister than mere economics. I mourn the loss of jobs at Intiman, of course, as well as the loss of jobs for those wishing to attend but most importantly I mourn the very space that contained so many dreams. 

Just thinking about that black and magical space; capable of moving, instructing and inspiring such emotions. The debate, the philosophy, the deeply cynical voice of David Mamet and the rest. The caricature, the burlesque aspects, the parody and satire so much more satisfying than anything on t.v. I could forgive anyone almost anything if its done with wit and style, with words colliding in the way they only can on stage.

I'm so sorry to hear such news...The life and lessons, the love, the drama that unfolds, just like that; c'est fini.

 

 

 

 

 

Robin De Vick, you were loved.

I'm so sorry her talent's gone elsewhere.  Robin De Vick, a friend from the distant past, artistic, kind, extraordinarily talented, has recently passed, so young.  Why, one always asks, why....

A unique esprit, a prickly creature at times. Her face, pretty, open, often make-up free, when painted, looked identical to Marilyn Monroe.

Scaffolding of any kind defeats the power of your own mind....

Whether it's mickey's cure, searchin for insurance on sunday morning, or inhaling coco-cola from dawn til dusk, it seems increasingly difficult to search out highly funtioning minds, the kind that prove most powerful on their own, alone, sans scaffolding.  

Boing Boing has 1950's cartoon to remind how mainstream drugs have become, I can recall the time before I left the States, when prosaic, religious fetish and meth seemed pervasive, helping no one, touching everyone, negatively, quietly, completely.  

Must continue to search out peace and voices that ring apolitical, atypical, intense and true. Must stay intent on ideas, keep the deep curiosity alive...must...  

Without the Writ, the body; life is Kafkaesque

Social media means we're all an 'acquired taste', we're even more mysterious than ever to others as our cyber streams collide, swim alongside, then slide away.  I'm sure I appear more eccentric with the tribe of childhood friends I've re-connected with on Facebook or is it the other way 'round, who knows.

memory as process or repository

Writer's conference I attended was packed with people, ideas and inspiration, wonderful workshops full of precious pearls, helpful advice, so much I must write about it to relive it twice.

Thought oft about Proust's idea that memory is more process than repository; obviously it's a  fluid activity within his work. And with the various Q n A sessions full of publishers, agents and information, it was like a series of windows, reflections and phases...and if you're working on a memoir like I am, I'm reminded which windows to open for review, which frame to place around those parts, what light and dark issues shall be included or excluded, ultimately, hopefully, creating a pattern to effectively connect to the reader.  

I had an epiphany of sorts in one of the workshops, realizing water is a central theme in my book. I suppose that idea's been hanging about my sub-conscious as my recent dreams seem to be solving bits and pieces for me while I sleep.

After all, it was while living on water my stable life became less so; while living in a large houseboat that a secret stumbled from one to the other, gasping for air, settling within the air between sender and recipient, slowly, awkward at first, then not, finally arriving, inspiring me to seek out water constantly, channeling and challenging me to confront its dangerous and passive nature; it's inability to stand still, even while living on top of a lake, or it's ability to terrify me while crossing the Atlantic ocean aboard out sailboat back in 2002.

Also, I'd received news of my biological daughter crossing the Atlantic when collecting and returning messages on our satellite phone.  Later on, blissfully living aboard MADI while parked, calm, at marina, comforted by the tranquility one acquires as a live-aboard. 

I'd blogged about that, but it wasn't until this conference came and went that I did actually comprehend how great a theme water has played in my adult life, my journey, our adventures, searching out otherly ways in which to live, multiple countries on which to reside, bank, and live long enough to argue with or simply become good friends with new neighbors in another language. 

Water, like life, evolves, impossible to capture for a minute, change so imminent, each second ticking away, teasing, allowing, opening us up....to yet another change...

Resquiat in pace dear John Vanderbeek

While visiting Salzburg, we took a detour to visit a cemetery in Bavaria where my husband's Germanic side of the family has laid several generations to rest, dating back to the 1700's. 

Unsportsmanlike behavior; Larry Ellison litigates his way to America's Cup

It may be the modern American way, this litigious disease, but for Larry Ellison to leverage the courts in New York by using their power to change the goalpost every few months is terribly irritating to the rest of the world.

Minarets, The Swiss, and the WTO, once again.

Relocating to Geneva reminds me of exactly one decade ago.  While living at the corner of Olive and Boren I enjoyed my salon in the sky for several blissful years.  I was single and very social, prior to meeting mio marito who would dictate a more conventional home, like buying a houseboat. 

A cartoon, a cosmic joke, or a country overwhelmed by its own pathologies.

Everything's sort of cartoonish, isn't it?  America's most popular movies are either animated and/or infused with so many special effects they affect a raving headache rather than make you think.  I can't handle the combination of audio and doomsday narrative and I'd rather watch something like Night of the Iguana anyway.

Such straightforward behavior makes me appreciate Italy's less than transparent ways

Persephone's myth, Malta's archipelago and sailing away from Calypso's imprisonment

We'd hoped for Sunday but Monday's just fine by me.  One should never, ever challenge the weather gods or the gods of fate when setting sail long distance. 

So now, tis time to bid adieu to persephone's myth near Mdina, to 7,000 yrs of Maltese history, to all that and all that jazz. 

Alas, I was taught that both a good entrance and a good exit by whom else, other than Muv. Speaking of, would loved to have set sail on Muv's b-day, but that's why we create pictorial blessays.

And here she is, escorted by my grandfather in their home in San Fran, Muv walks towards her betrothed, the man she would marry for some 55 yrs...

  The second is her last sketch, outlining her own exit; with style and strength; 

My biological realities, so much in evidence this past week as I spoke for the first time in 2 decades to my daughter.  We'd emailed and I'd provided the background to particulars surrounding her unique birth.  Even though she boasts a double degree from Univ of Washington, she opted to become a dancer in New York, a young women that proves both delightfully fierce and artistic, making her way into an all female dance company in the big city.  I sigh with wonder. I may have given her up for adoption while at University so long ago, but her DNA probably plays a part in the space in which she lives today.  The fact she studied in Argentina, speaking Spanish, simply completes the biological bookends, Basque et al.

Magic and mystery abounds, almost always.

So tomorrow, this time, when we set sail towards Sicily I'll pray to Calypso, documented as the first feminist, Homer's character of 2800 yrs ago that lived on the isle of Gozo, not far from Malta. 

I've never been in danger of placing a mirror to the nymph's mistakes but departing this patriarchal island and entering a more matriarchal spirit is more than a bit symbolic.

And if Muv was a bit proper, funnily enuf, she luved nothing more than painting La Nu.....

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The next/new 'American Revolution'; let the silly/scary season begin.

Re recent protests, I assumed the next american revolution would arrive in the form of a financial one. I thought the flavor would have a whiff of 'for the people' rather than 'for the corporate interest', via les lobbyists'.

But then, who are the people?  Are they the older, confused, quasi racist kind that are easily incited by FOX and Limbaugh?  The really racist guys who's brains were broken when Barry became Prez?   Are they the young, activist kids that helped elect Obama?  Are they the 'liberal media', or the propagandists on the right, the progressive bloggers, moderates or what? 

Who are we, 'the people' in America, anyway? What faction of the 320 million souls deserve to have their voices heard above the rest? Can Paul Giamatti save any of these cold souls?

I dunno.  All I do know is that America's prosperity has hit a speed bump. The paperwork is confusing and the verbiage verbose, the litigious environment obvious and overwhelming, the christianists too easily co opted in their righteousness. The precious media vent their agenda, no longer independent, capable of separating fact from fiction or opinion, partially due to the pressure to entertain, or so they say.

The country's diversity is finally and widely represented.  This would be great for we're adroit at assimilation if anything, but now that people are losing jobs, security, maybe, not so great.

America stopped arguing towards the middle long ago but now they not only resent but seem to detest outside advice.  There's an extra dose of bitterness mixed into those pockets of anger and protests, it's overt and valid, even if the arguments are anything but.

So be it, let the silly and very scary season begin.

Cronkite and Carson both spoke for one United State of Mind

Whether or not you're a change agent, classicist or traditionalist, Cronkite's passing, like Carson, makes one pause, pine and ponder just why our country no longer swings back towards the middle.

Lovely, funny Johnny and now ebbulient Ed McMahon...

Ed McMahon passes on... a wee slice of my tvland childhood gone, passe, fini, expired.

Ed was so good natured, slightly forced, yes, yet adroit at creating the blueprint for sidekick.  Unlike Jerry Lewis, there was no threat to this powerful partnership, their roles were never fungible.  Only a satire like Larry Sanders properly provides a guide to how clever these kind of entertainers were....I've only seen 2 minutes of Conan's new platform.  I rooted for him in the beginning because he was funny with Andy, now maybe, not so much.

Dave Letterman is the last of the old guard, the old fashioned late nite American funnyman; stoic and silly, willing to play jester, yet stay contained.

I saw Leno live, twice, that's where he belonged, on 'the circuit', where people should and do pay to see you sweat it out for two hours, he was good at that, never found him funny on late nite.

Johnny, well, he played a large part, always had such a crush, we all did, and then Ed, enthusiastic Ed.

Arrivederci caro edwardo.

Anti-capitalist videos going viral and grassroots groups that simply inspire...

David Seaton's blessay suggests at least 6 million americans are awake, which is impressive and amazing considering I spoke with a Seattle colleague last nite who witnessed two more families exiting their homes at midnite. Current affairs feel peculiarly inhumane. What with the Italians not allowing asylum seekers to even reach land, escorting them back mid med, what with tens of thousands of Americans illegally evicted from their homes by banks insisting they've no corporate responsibility. What about fair market value. Mais non. Ciaociao. Arrivederci pal.

One of the many benefits of living on the right side of the pond? No Therapy Speak

No one's in therapy, or bragging about being in therapy, or talking like they just got out of a session.  I am so grateful for said fact. 

Lolita, life, near death and enuf metaphors to last a lifetime.

What a week, time for a break, from work, from everything, it's Friday night.

Calgon, take me away!!!

I draw the bath, search the library for something old and random and find a collection of essays, circa '87,  I slide right in, then begin to read about a German translator slated with the task of interpreting Lolita. 

Which is the most apt metaphor he wonders? "old Europe debauching young America?" or "young America debauching old Europe?".

Who cares, I prefer Nabokov's "Pnin", but it does invite the exercise. Or does it, I imagine the Economist has run out, and listening to commentators last week, none are memorable.  'Cept for the Scottish guy.

So Saturday arrives, finally, it's unseasonably warm and sunny, encouraging optimism, not to mention a day off.

We take our morning stroll, me, c n g, so content, relaxed, "c'est mignon, coucouc' and such endearing endearments, such a swell morning as we turn the corner and suddenly, that horrible sound of metal buckling, collapsing, occurs, so jarring to the ear,; a car has thrown a motorcyclist far from his vehicle. The poor guy is flat on his back, in shock, the crowd begins to surround, kneeling down, investigating the damage, life or death, shall be decided in a minutes. 

Now, there's a metaphor.

I luv the Frenchies but they are horrifically hopeless and should be labeled 'vehicularly challenged',  the most distracted drivers I've even seen.  When I am on my bike, w/ thuh muffins in the basket I am on the offensive at all times I tell you...

We wait, watch, it appears he may be fine, but who really knows.

I deposit C n G to bask in the sun pouring throughout the flat while I head uphill towards the Luxembourg Gardens.  As I exit the outer peripheral, ideal for joggers and speed walkers, I walk by my favorite part, the reflecting pool, towards the central section, Stevie Wonder's 'As' is playing on the Ipod but you have to view this in silence; the gravel looks so very white, as if mirage, maybe, against the bright sun, a very black and absolutely glamorous wedding party is walking towards me, I'm trying to adjust my eyes....

I step to the side, as I should, in honour, smiling, how can you not, the bride is clothed in white satin avec simple white floral arrangement, lovely, with 12 groomsmen carrying her satin and lace train, they are clothed in oyster colored suits, impeccable tailoring, you can tell from afar, 8 bridesmaids following the men, dressed in the softest celadon satin green, delicate gowns, so soft and long, hanging off beautifully shaped bodies, so much contrast, the flowers, the statues, the austerity, everywhere, want to take a pic, but can't, no camera, per usual, but it's just one of those moments, so hopeful...

Then, when I get home I receive an email re Gail, a gal I'd called just last week, I've blogged about often, one of my special uber idols, a friend who'd just visited chez bay, or so it feels, I'd just stayed with in Seattle, or so it feels, the email is from her husband, Ren:

Gail’s bilateral mastectomy went “exceedingly well” yesterday. It was a long day for her having arrived at 7:30am and finally getting to her room at 6pm last night. Dr Clarfeld was a fabulous surgeon (the surgery itself was almost 5 hours long) and expressed nothing but praise for how well she did.

She will be coming home later this afternoon and I (in my role as Nurse Cratchit) will make sure she gets all the TLC she needs.

Thanks to all of you for your prayers – it looks like the “Big Guy” upstairs has responded positively.

I start crying because I'm so happy for her....I'm so grateful for the world putting it all in perspective, but I think i need a bit of a breather...

Calgon, take me away....

Minister Joan puts things in perspective

My week finds me wearing my recruiting chapeau, stylishly tipped to the side, firmly ensconced, when suddenly, feeling stylishly insecure for the first time since the 80's, my milliner suggests something more philanthropic, a softer shape and shade, I whine Why? then sigh when I see what he's seen; an email from Minister Joan

Encore, inspired to move the dial, blissfully shift from Gordon Grecco greed to non-profit kindness....was so focused on finding Joan's husband, and other IT types, brokering CV's to companies, but Joan demanded my attention as she should; they are both dear and special to me and their community.   i've sent my check, small as it tis, knowing it'll make a difference for these women. I've sat on the New Beginning's Board, a shelter and program to eliminate domestic violence, learned so much, once again, time to give again and focus less on immediate tedious troubles, or rather, put them in perspective.

Must post as several Emerald City dweller hit cyber Chez Bay

So what are the party particulars.....

When:   Sat, October 25th, 2-4,
Where: Mary Magdalene Place
Mercer Island Presbyterian Church
3605 84th Ave SE, MI, 98040
What: Hats and Tea Fundraiser to raise funds for homeless women.
Joan Henjum is the minister and contact.
Why:  To support a holistic spiritually-based center that supports homeless women by offering love and hope. The Church of Mary Magdalene / Mary’s Place is a church on Saturdays and a day center during the week for homeless and formerly homeless women in Seattle. It is a place where women can be safe and:
Meet their basic needs (two meals, shower, laundry, phone, health care— including Bastyr naturopaths)
Get support for taking their next step (from staff, social worker, counselors) Reflect on and celebrate their journey, examine their patterns, learn with others, party, contribute (they do chores, generate field trips, pray for the world).

Did you hear that, readers, THEY PRAY FOR THE WORLD!!!!  We need that.

There is a $25 cost to attend. RSVP to Joan at 206 621 8474 or pastor@churchofmarymagdalene.org Or call with questions, counter offers, fun ideas! Joan is a 61yo adventurer who was just ordained last year in the United Church of Christ (Obama’s church!!!). She likes parties, hiking, baseball, scotch.

I knew she liked a good party, she came to my last soiree in Seattle, but the Scotch bit, well, forget the northwest varietals, I'll spring out the Chivas next time...