Dear Friends

These are from a trip down to Portland to visit some of my favorite people.

One Look at Parkour

The Carter Family

The Carters are now three generations deep in puppeteering. Some 30 years ago, Stephen (left) and Chris began putting on shows. Their son, and now their son's son have grown up puppeteering, "its just family business" as Stephen pointed out. This picture has them warming up before the show for their Italian gypsy folk accompaniments. The accordion, of course, was a serendipitous find at a thrift shop. And just like good gypsies, the Carters are self-taught musicians, and good ones at that.

Manning the The Wacky Water Race

This is Robbie, who worked at the Wacky Water Race game booth at the county fair. I was amazed at his ability to remain in genuine pleasant (and marketable) spirits that helped him sell games, but also came with a certain nonchalant self-awareness which allowed him to perform and yet transcend his limited role as game-master (BTW, this is a graduated liberal arts mind at work). Self-conscious irony, sarcasm and double-talk, rather then reaching beyond the contingency of one's identity, leave one drooping pitifully, and often nihilistically into the dregs of this contingency (riff on DWF). But this light hearted (yet hearted, indeed) performance managed to do the trick of transcendence for the man at the wacky water race. But maybe its just me. I was mainly observing from behind a viewfinder, and most focal lengths do tend to have at least a little distortion.

Western Washington Football Practice

Dirty Dirty Dirt Bikes