Visiting Whidbey Island

SPU’s Camp Casey

Pretty soon, the SPU MFA will have its first post-pandemic residency at Camp Casey on Whidbey Island, which means a band of ink-stained scribblers is about to approach that blessed ground for the first time. Visiting new places can be tricky, so I thought I, who have had the good fortune to spend a good bit of time there, might offer some tips, that your joy may be complete. Here then are some things you won’t want to miss.

Madrona Supply

This cute little gift shop is right off the ferry, and I mean you’ll disembark, drive for less than one minute, and see this place on your right. Part of you will want to press on, having just made landfall; another part of you will say I’ll hit it on the way back off the island, wanting to get to Casey as quickly as possible, but you won't! This is the chance to stop and see it; on the way out, you’ll be too concerned about making the ferry time to stop in. That would be a shame because there’s some really unique local crafts here.

Looking out at Admiralty Bay

Langley

Langley is the other adorable beachfront town on Whidbey and is worth a stop. Don’t take the direct route from the ferry, but save the turn till you hit Bayview Road. That will bring you past Whidbey Doughnuts (which also makes good breakfast sandwiches) near a whole complex of buildings that are fun and worth exploring including one dedicated to Shakespeare paraphernalia. But this still isn’t Langley; we’re just on the way! The shops in the town proper keep changing, and it’ll be obvious what to see when you get there, but make sure to check out the Whale Museum and Langley Kitchen which has the best food on the island. Think colorful organic salads, high-end soups and sandwiches, and a good wine selection.

On the Road

Next you’ll probably make your way to Camp Casey, but on the way you might be tempted to stop at Whidbey Ice Cream (amazing concoctions), which is right by Rocket Taco (the best of that genre in WA), and Whidbey Distillery (award-winning blackberry liquors, etc). All of these would be profitable diversions.

Sebastian on the beach at Casey

Coupeville

This is probably a trip best left for after you’ve gotten to Casey and dropped off your things. It’s the closest town to where we’ll be staying and it features a lovely bookstore, a solid eatery Front Street Grill (weirdly-great burgers here and clam chowder) and plenty of cute gift shops. Insider tip: you may be tempted to buy memorabilia from the gift shop at the end of the pier. Do not do this. It’s cheaply-made overseas and only exists for tricking tourists. The shops along the high-street, or at the land-side of the pier are legit. One place you may miss unless you are looking for it: Red Hen Bakery. The gem of the island, for me. I love everything they do. No place to sit down, so prepare for a picnic. Bonus: the toy shop also has a great vintage-style candy selection.

Port Townsend

One of the best things about Whidbey is how easy it is to get to Port Townsend, which is my favorite place in Washington state. This is what I would do on your free day. There’s a walk-on ferry right near campus and it drops you off right in the action. Once you get there, it’s obvious where to go: beautiful shops, eateries, movie theaters, abound. Make sure to stop in at William James Booksellers, my pick for best bookshop in the state. Also, make sure your walk along Water Street takes you all the way down to the Wooden Boat Foundation where you can see restorations taking place and get a good coffee and nautical gifts besides. Those prepared to go a little further afield may wish to visit the beautiful publishing house Copper Canyon Press, nearby.

Wild deer at the barracks

On the Way Out

Lastly, those who have time and the transport option may wish to drive off the island rather than ferry back if only to stop by Deception Pass. The state park is immense and beautiful, with a nice display from the Conservation Corps, but even just stopping roadside and walking across the bridge is worth it. Hang onto your hat!

I hope you all enjoy your time at Casey, but make sure to enjoy the journey as well. See you soon!

Visiting Seattle

Over at the SPU MFA program—the best writing program of its kind and not just because I teach in the poetry portion— we’re about to have our first residency on campus, having usually conducted them at Camp Casey on Whidbey Island. This will allow our writers to experience some of the cultural riches available in our fair city during the course of their program, rather than bypassing said cultural riches in quick exchange for the natural ones. But, I’d hate for anyone visiting from out-of-state, or from abroad, to put their foot wrong and so miss out on the big ones.

My first few visits to Seattle, I didn’t go the right places. I headed for the tall buildings thinking that’s where the action would be and found a hollow business core with nowhere to eat and nowhere to look but up. Since I am now a resident of this lovely place, here are some things I’d try to see while on oh, say, a ten-day visit which will be productive and full but will also feature some free time.

Note: there are many great ways to experience a city as complicated as this one. The following tips are meant for writers and artists visiting town who are staying in northern Queen Anne. Note 2: Seattle is a city of neighborhoods. You don’t go to see sites, particularly, but areas that are charming and funky and walkable. Get to a few of them and the riches will reveal themselves.

Upper Queen Anne

Atop the hill from SPU (take any of the buses on 3rd headed up) is a strip of businesses along Queen Anne Avenue. It’s pretty logical just to walk along finding cute places, but I’d be sure not to miss the following.

• Eden Hill Provisions Big Max Burger (they changed the name. Same place though)

  • unbelievable burgers, shakes, fries and an adorable picnic area on Crockett street.

• Blue Highway Games

  • this is a place to buy board games and puzzles and dice, but it’s super unique. They let you sit and play most of the games and the staff seems to know everything.

• Mail Dispatch

  • as it sounds, this is where we ship packages, but there’s a good selection of gifts and clothing and wool socks.

• Moonrise Bakery

  • recently opened bakery where everything is outstanding.

• Queen Anne Book Co.

  • our local spot, run by an alumnus. Tell them you’re an SPU student for a discount.

• Stuhlbergs

  • fancy gifts and cards and soaps and things.

• Hilltop Alehouse

  • best beers on tap in the area, a nice back patio, and pub food that doesn’t need to be great but is anyway.

Fremont

Just across the blue bridge from where we are is a compact neighborhood full of great eateries and drinkeries. It’s easy to understand, all falling in likely lines surrounding the PCC (local, organic produce), but if you go, make sure to see these places.

• Dusty Strings

  • a stringed instrument shop worth visiting even if you don’t play stringed instruments. They build guitars and harps right on the premises.

• Theo Chocolates

  • the best chocolate in the city is made right across the canal from campus. Stop in for copious samples, or even a factory tour is you have time.

• Fremont Used Books

  • a cozy little shop that has a good section of literary biographies in the basement and an upstairs reading nook that you can’t stand up in.

• Simply Deserts

  • get a piece of cake. Trust me.

• Aesop

  • a beautifully designed selection of personal care products . They usually have a copy of Paris Review or Poetry Northwest sitting around by the high-design chairs. Smell things. Wash your hands in their stone basin.

• Fremont Antique Mall

  • tucked in the alleyway, this is a large and funky collection of kitch and LP’s and all the other ephemera from eras past.

• Fremont Coffee House/ ETG

  • these places are opposite one another and both great. The former is an old house converted to a coffee shop; sit and linger on the broad front porch. The latter is a tiny closet that makes great biscuits and serves European-style espresso you drink in the courtyard nearby.

• Mischief

  • my second-favorite whiskey maker in the Pacific Northwest with a chic interior for hanging out with a wee dram.

Ballard

Anyone who visits Seattle without spending a morning in Ballard is getting ripped off. I’d do this before seeing the Space Needle or Pike Place Market. A working-class neighborhood suddenly made good featuring the city’s best food and drink. On Sundays, they have a Farmer’s market that’s huge. Basically, you want to see everything on Leary Way and Ballard Ave, but especially don’t miss these.

• Lucca

  • my favorite store anywhere. Writing papers and pencils, Italian aftershave, trinkets: this place is a whole argument for a certain kind of life.

• Clover Toys

  • This shop used to be much more beautiful than it is now, but it is still well-stocked with toys and clothes you wouldn’t see elsewhere.

• Ballard Locks

  • watch the ship traffic; see the Salmon jump if they’re running.

• Filson

  • Local outdoor outfitters set-up to equip the hopeful on their way to the Yukon gold rush. Still around and still making gorgeous things.

• Hot Cakes

  • Oh man, everything on their menu is incredible. A late-night desert spot. Try Butter-beer, if you’ve ever wondered.

Elsewhere in Town

Should you find yourselves wandering further afield, keep these spots in mind.

• Elliot Bay Books

  • best bookstore in the city. Used to be the best in the country in their former location. Extremely well-curated. In a cool area where you’ll find many diversions.

• Open Books

  • one of only two poetry-only bookstores in America. Heads up: they moved locations since you were last here.

• Le Pichet

  • if you’re going to do the Pike Place Market thing, do yourself a favor and have a little something here while you’re in the area. A little bit of France downtown.

• General Porpoise

  • the best doughnuts you’ve ever had. Two, maybe three locations now.

• Citizen

  • if going to the Space Needle, this is the best food in the vicinity. Lots of outdoor seating and good coffee.

• Central Library

  • a building worth seeing both from the inside and out.

There is much, much more, obviously, but this list should get the curious traveller started. Feel free to flag me down for more details or tips. And have a good trip.

Road Trip 2020

The Slow Road

Down the Coast in Corona-tide

“Home drive. High beams shearing the bromegrass,
blackcaps, brambles by the roadside;
red stems siphon frozen ground
grown soft, a bruise beneath the smooth suede
winter peach that rolls across
the dashboard.”

— Richard Kenney, "Driving Sleeping People"

Cliff-side, OR

AFTER ALL THE STAYING INDOORS THAT EVERYONE’S DONE we just had to get out. Our family had quarantined with the best of them, but our two highly-energetic children were exploding in the house, and we thought, if we’re just awaiting the apocalypse anyway, we might as well do it poolside. By driving to Arizona, we encountered many fewer people than we would have in the course of our normal routines here in the middle of a big city. There, people stay inside in summer anyway, moving from pool, to grill, to television, which seemed better than cursing and muttering that all the shops in Seattle were closed, and the parks, and libraries. Our Lucca had been waiting all year to swim in her grandparent’s pool, so with nothing on the schedules, we set out.

I used to make the WA > AZ drive a lot as a kid, when my family lived in Lake Stevens and my grandmother in Scottsdale, but then, we balled through as quickly as we could on the I-5; my only memories of those trips were the orange groves in AZ that signaled we were close and the funny place names on the map I consulted: Yelm, Eureka, Blythe. Our kids are too little to stay strapped in to a seat all day, so we took it slow and opted for the more scenic road.

The children playing, Cannon Beach, OR

We stopped at the capital in Olympia to stretch, but the first days’ goal was to make Astoria for dinner and then Seaside for sleep. The former I’d never seen, but was eager to after having read a history of the city a while back. I love every bit of Washington, but my does Oregon have us beat when it comes to beaches. I was not at all expecting such light, such shapes, such arrangements of space.

---

We did touristy things: like paying to see concrete dinosaurs from the 1950’s, but also playing on the sand dunes, hiking in the redwoods, but those things are draws for a reason; they give us the world afresh. They give us ourselves in our proper size.

We arrived in Arizona a little exhausted after 5 days on the road, but we were full of rich encounters that made things seem, if not normal, at least worth the effort. Plus, it was nice to get my camera out again, as I also have recently pulled out again my guitar after so long with so little use. If I was impressed with the natural beauty of the West as always, I was this time struck over and again at the ingenuity required to let us see it: the bridges, roadways, and all of the other invisible, or often-taken-for-granted, infrastructure, accomplishments so great they seem, to me anyway, almost as magnificent as the terrain through which they pass.

Canyon near Navajo Bridge, AZ

Roman Hours vol. 2.1

Tiburtina Station RedesignAfter a layover in Rome's newly re-imagined Tiburtina--and what times these Romans have ahead of them! Finally, a station worthy of its approach!--my wife and I boarded the new train line, Italo Treno, for Naples.  Since the service just launched this Summer, they're offering 20 euro fares to all the major cities they visit (adding Venice and Turin soon). Though my seat faced backwards, which meant I was curled up in the aisle facing front (motion sickness, see?), how nice it was to find oneself on a clean and modern train, to have waited for it in an air-conditioned lounge with free wi-fi before boarding, to have booked tickets from a beautiful, simple website, and to have been aided by an army of young, smartly-dressed attendants.  

It's only a little disconcerting how much I look like the people here.  Features which one took to be his own turn out all along to have been regional markers: the slightly recessed mouth, downturned eyes, Roman nose (obviously), hairstyle (such as it is), and even particular shade of eye-color were apparently motivated by--the food from this earth? These winds?--this stock and ground.

After finding our hotel (scary from the outside, plesant within) we headed we headed into the last golden splash of daylight for a semblance of a stroll, but really we were so hungry it was more of a hunt.  Good thing then that I accidentally took us to the best strip of pizzerias around.  Amber read a sign out loud "dal 1923" which I remembered from some local blog I'd seen as the identifier of her favorite pizzeria.  We rolled and won on a Pizza Lasagna which was terrific, and afterward had the best gelato really, probably of my whole life. 

Naples feels dangerous at every turn, like the end of the world, or the beginning, or a ruin mid-definition.  It throbs with life and excitment though, and I wonder if sometimes the locals don't prefer to keep the trash in the street just to stay the tourist horde from overtaking, as they surely would, in this Rome-on-the-Sea-but-20 Degrees-Cooler-and-with-Better-Food.

I can't help but love it here, even while I can't help but think that someone with a power-washer and a pot of flowers could be Mayor, raising the city to it's quattrocento glory simply by tidying up. 

Travel Tip: Getting to Rome

The train ride from Roma Fuimincino Airport has been bad for decades, but it's gotten worse recently, and now ranks among the worst things to be experienced by the sensual animal. Everything grates: it's filthy as a port-a-john, there's plastic everywhere and graffiti on that; all alert systems are red since it feels both crowded and dangerous. What's more, the A/C is broken, and has been on all five of my trips to Rome, and, somehow, psychotically, they've bolted all the windows shut. The temperature inside hovers around 100 and one thinks she can imagine the smell, but is still surprised experiencing it. And it's slow. And takes you through the worst part of town. And it's expensive: between 8 and 25 euro depending on which line you get in and whether the man working the desk thinks you look like prey. And th ensigns directing you to the "station" are held up with tape. You get the idea. Half of the visitors' Roman dreams are dashed in sweaty Satanic reality before one even crosses the Flaminian gate.

Hence, this tip. When you arrive at FCO, don't follow the signs that say "In Centro," or "Rome," or "Metro" or "All Trains," or anything else that suggests "You Should Come this Way." That is the broad way that leads to death (Matt 7:13). Instead, go out to the curb where the cabs come, then get to Terminal 1. It's an easy walk from 2 or 3, and a free tram ride from anywhere else (also picking up on the curb). Once there, stand on said curb, enjoying the fresh air, and go to the small sign that says airport shuttle. There are many that operate--one by AiItalia and another that just says 7 Euro" on the side. They're all 7 euro, and clean, modern buses, that stow your luggage, are air-conditioned, and drive straight to Termini (no stops between) via what looks like a tour bus route: you'll see EUR, Colosseum, Forum, St. Giovanni in Laterno, and many other landmarks, just on your way into the city, where you arrive refreshed, relaxed, dry, and excited to begin your pilgrimage.

Dresden + Berlin

If Dresden had an unreal quality to it, it wasn't because one felt like he was (the troll or the prince?) walking around in a fairy tale, though once it would have felt just that way, awash in Baroque exuberance.  Rather, despite its small beauty and typically European good sense, its unreality, its sense of foreignness came from the open space and new construction that made the whole city into an open-air shopping mall.  So many perfect surfaces disinvite the imperfect creature from resting, even visually, in the townscape, the way insects feel out-of-place in a clean room.

The vacation began, for me at least, in the Berlin Hauptbanhoff, a new technological and civic splendor, set in the middle of what might be a war zone in some forgotten Eastern European kleptocracy, rather than in the economic engine of the West.  Every building was scaffolded outside--even Rome, in the run-up to the Jubilee was less under-construction--and the street itself plowed through like a furrow.  It was like landing on Mars.

We walked too far and I carried the bags, and then we found our cool hotel, the Tryp Mitte, along another depressed street and went out into the city to find it full of style and charm of the big-city sort that shuns the Belle Epoque. Everything looked done by the Soviets (much of it was) or the Americans, the two worst guardians of town-planning imaginable, beating their hammers of industry in alternating blows on poor blasted Berlin. 

For all that though, there are artists here, and where there are artists, there is flourishing: coffee shops, bookstores, good ethnic food. I could easily see us living here, and in a sense, I'm glad we weren't stationed in such a vital place, because it would make our homecoming less likely, or less satisfying.  

We saw mostly the exteriors of buildings, its being Monday and nearly everything major closed, but had a good time of it anyway, thanks in large part to the excellent food and cute shops for pottering about in. 

Back home it's been work and reading, which is nice, as Spring--the shyest girl at the party!--blinks her eyes in the corner, hoping to be noticed. 

Upon Arrival

 
After being squeezed from the great sausage-casing in the sky that is modern air transport, what one notices upon landing is the first thing one sees, that is, what he can't help but notice: the airport.  Our wildest movies about future utopias don't equal the present good sense and design featured even in 2nd-rate cities like Stuttgart.  Immediately, everything is calm and beautiful.  The passport control officer is kind and gentle, without the trace of sarcasm and suspicion and boredom that mark his American counterpart.

But the goodness starts even before that transaction.  Here, the boarding gate--what is that tube called that rolls up to an aircraft door?-- has windows and smart metal railings so that, instead of the anxious shuffle toward who-know-what-fate, the passengers disembark in a leisurely cantor, looking up at the sky, watching the men at work below.

And even before that, we knew that entering the EU was entering a different sort of place; seen from the sky over Baden-Wurttemberg, villages huddle in crevices and along rivers without a trace of sprawl, and this is not some romantic idyll, or town treasured for being picaresque.  Stuttgart is a manufacturing hub: the head of Mercedes, Porche, Siemens, Bosch, and several other international conglomerates.  What would be in America a huge warehouse district is here perfectly-squared fields.  There is literally corn growing right up to the edge of the tarmac. 


Once off the plane it is all leather seats and trim people in sexy clothes, glass walls and orderliness everywhere.  Instead of a McDonald's, there are fresh sandwich shops with subs piled up, overfilled with colorful vegetables.  All things bright and beautiful, indeed.  Then, the stupefyingly gorgeous car rental stands, then the sane and talented drivers--quick and controlled--as our cab (itself a Mercedes; they all are here) whipped us out to suburban Bad Canstatt, where our sensible, if a bit rural, hostel is found.  


They let us check in five hours early and we use all of them for sleep.

City Library

On Friday, Amber and I went into Stuttgart to see the Opera, about which more later, and made a detour en route to visit the newly remodeled Stuttgart City Library.  I knew, depute the lack of directional specificity on the part of Broom-Helga the Wicked, our typically-Swabian helper at the tourist office, that we had the right building because I'd seen the drawings from

The Coolist

, but we approached the glowing stack of blue cubes with some hesitation, not only because it looked so little like a library, and not only because it was raining and we didn't want to wander too far into what looked like a construction zone cum office park, but because the only markings on the building's exterior were some three characters in Arabic, carved into the white stone.  If I've seen a less-reassuring approach, I'm sure I couldn't name it.  

Once inside though, all is well.  Or, nearly all: there aren't any books for awhile.  They begin on the fourth floor.  The first few floors are given over to "media," which is usually done badly, but which Stuttgart manages to do pretty well here. There are rows of flatscreen TV's, listening stations for the vast music library (this is Germany after all) including private listening rooms full of couches and pretty-serious equipment, and various adolescents strewn about like shwarma wrappers plugged into the laptops one can rent from the desk for less admirable forms of "research."  

The central receiving room is a giant cube, white and undecorated, without furniture or markings, and while this enthusiast appreciates the grand gesture, the space does feel a little wasted in this case.  What do we need all that absence

for

, in a space like this?  Libraries are for contemplation, sure, but isn't it active contemplation we're after, rather than the absence one hopes for in a cloister?

When, having wound around the exterior up four flights of white tunneling, and having shaken off the suspicious feeling that someone might be above, watching and promising cheese, the books appear and color explodes everywhere.  

Another experiment in the linearity of libraries, not unlike Rem Koolhaas' stunning (and similarly difficult) glass refraction in downtown Seattle, the Biblio anchors a developing area off the Schlossplatz that attempts to lure both tourists and residents through the sleek, if over-planned, spaces between the skyscrapers, towards a feeling for the real daily life of this sturdy and serious place. 

Building by 

Yi Architects

What it's Like Living in a 500-year-old Building

When my wife and I first moved to Germany, we thought we might live in Stuttgart, the main metropolis in Baden-Wurttemberg, and that I would commute to Tuebingen to teach classes.  Once we saw the sleepy, lovely, medieval college-town of Tuebingen though, we knew immediately that it would make a better home base.  Unfortunately, everyone else seems to have had the same idea and so the small town was experiencing an unprecedented housing shortage.  Students literally dropped out of the University because they couldn't find a place to live.

After a few (very expensive) days in a University Guest House, during which we tried to figure out a) the German housing market b) the German phone system--note: you can't just put coins in and make calls--and c) the locker-rental scheme at the train station, which held all our worldly belongings, including, interestingly, Amber's guitar, we found a half-timbered building directly on the Neckar river facing the park.  Built in 1478.

It was beautiful: perfectly-located about a mile from my offices and directly above a bakery.  It was also the filthiest place I've ever seen.  The man showing it to us cringed when we said we'd take it.  "Really?" he asked, incredulous.  Imagine Mrs. Havisham's place from

Great Expectations

 and you more or less have it.  The house hadn't seen a broom since the 1970's, from which era there were (and are) piles of magazines to attest to the proprietor's war on hygienic living.

We cleaned for days. We threw things out with righteous zeal. 

We put furniture in the attic, for which we were later reprimanded, and pulled down others and dusted, rolled, tipped, stored, piled and otherwise organized where we could, holding everything in pinched fingers as if it might be contagious.  It's one of the more disgusting projects I've been a part of, and I'm saying this as a former part-time janitor at an elementary school, who knows whereof he speaks. 

Everything slants at whimsical angles; there are splints holding up every furnishing that isn't nailed to the sometime floor.  The wiring is mostly electrical tape and the lighting (who plans ahead for lighting in the 15th century?)  bare bulbs hanging from strings.  Some of the installation is crumpled up paper sacks from the grocery, which I know because I thought of pulling one down in one of my more zealous fits.  None of this would matter, of couse, had the place been decently cared-for, which finally--the house creaks like mad, but can it sigh in relief?--for this year at least, it will be.

The effort was worth it. We now have a charming flat in the center of town in a building that's literally post-card perfect; it is featured in every advertisement for the town of Tuebingen, and has come quite a way in these last months, now a serene escape along the river's bend from whose windows we watch swans and tourists, the latter pointing their cameras at our half-timbered tumble-down home.

After:

Places: Versailles

As with nearly every other spot on the ever expanding tourist map, Versailles is a place no longer to be beheld, still less to be awed by, or disgusted by–depending on the strength go one’s constitution, and the romance attached to her sense of history–but a place to be captured, recorded, digitized, and filed: less under the heading I was here, than under veni vidi, vici. 

It is not a matter of course, though perhaps it is not surprising to hear the Versailles defies such capture, if not by its opulence, which can be rendered through a pictorial study of it’s minutiae, but by its sheer size.  Even 1300 frames of similarly-proportioned gilt chambers do not convey the monstrosity, the monotony even, of winding through its miles of royal residence. Still, ten million visitors every year try, and if the mob on the day of my visit is indicative, 95% do not remove their eyes from the viewfinders of their handheld recording devices.  

Versailles is an interesting place because for all its attempts at intimidation–it was a state headquarters designed in large part to reign in rogue nobles–it is surprisingly un-monumental.  For all its marble and gold, it is surprisingly homey; cute even.  Given all this, Bernard Venet is a pretty smart choice as this year’s artist-in-residence to display on the grounds.  Unlike the Jeff Koons exhibit last year, which was, as always, an awful, tacky, and wierd-ly perfect sprinkling of the proverbial confettii (life is a cabaret!), Venet’s work seeks first to understand and then to participant in that enormity.  

Aesthetic intimidation isn’t much a tactic the modern mind is overwhelmed by anymore…seeing the Sun-king on a gold horse at the entry of the gates feels kind of royal, but not exactly impressive, still less god-like, or sublime.  Venet has gone about his project in a smart way then, by re-interpreting the scale of Versailles in standards that still provoke: if 1300 rooms in a row doesn’t make the jaw drop, 1300 tons of unfinished steel still can.  A rusted arch large enough to cradle a suburban house says something about scale that was once conveyed by two enclosed stories in stone.  In the age of the discount skyscraper, no one thinks “wow!” when confronted with the spectacle of a three story building, no matter how much gold tops the fence without, but set in the lens of Venet’s concentric arches, piled up in corners of the gardens like Valhallan horseshoes, one shivers with the original excess thinking at once, all that weight, all that waste, what’s the point and wow, which is what you’re supposed to have been saying all along.