Northwest Poles

TOTEM TOUR: A week or so ago, CJ completed a report about totem poles currently on display in Seattle. The project involved our doing a fair amount of running around to track down said poles, so he could get original photos. Seeing them in person was much better than just reading about them online.

Below is his report. 

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Since time immemorial, Native American people and nations have crafted countless different works of art in many different styles and fashions across North and South America. In Seattle, a prominent form of Native American art is totem poles. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a totem pole is “A tall, usually wooden pole that is carved and painted with symbols, figures, or masks which represent different Native American tribes”.

In Pioneer Square, a historic spot in Downtown Seattle, there is a Tlingit totem pole. According to the National Park Service, the totem pole first appeared in 1899, after members of the Chamber of Commerce, on vacation in Alaska, stole it from Tlingit people. The men stole the totem pole because they wanted to advertise Seattle as the "Gateway to Alaska", a nickname given to Seattle because it was the closest and largest American continental city to Alaska. The Chamber of Commerce members brought the pole back to Seattle as a gift, but the Tlingit nation quickly sued the city government for two thousand dollars and demanded payment for damages. However, the city government would end up keeping the totem pole.

In 1938, the pole was subject to arson, and the remaining pieces were sent to descendants of the original carvers so they could make a replica, which would arrive in 1940. In 1972, the pole was refurbished, and the pole stands in Pioneer Square to this day.

The Red Mill Totem House (below) is a historic restaurant and landmark opened in 1939 in the neighborhood of Ballard. The Totem House is known for the tall totem pole at the front of the restaurant, which, according to the Burke Museum, is often attributed to Jimmy John, a Nuu-chah-nulth woodcarver from Vancouver Island's west coast.

While two of the watchmen figures inside the restaurant were likely carved by Jimmy John, more recent evidence shows that the totem pole at the front of the building is most likely a replica of a totem pole by a different carver made in 1939 by Totem House employee Leonard Porter, as well as J. Houston. The Red Mill Totem House's totem pole is most likely a replica of a totem pole made by a more obscure Haida artist, Zacherias Nicholas.

In Belvedere Park in West Seattle, there have been three totem poles, the Belvedere Point Park totem pole, Admiral totem pole and the Michael Halady story pole. According to the Southwest Seattle Historical Society, the first totem pole at Belvedere park was carved in 1901 by Native Americans living in the coastal region of British Columbia, but was brought to Seattle in 1939 by J.E. “Daddy” Standley, resident of the Admiral area of West Seattle and proprietor of the Ye Olde Curiosity Shop.

In 1966, as a result of severe deterioration over the prior sixty-five years, the original totem pole was replaced with the Admiral totem pole. The Admiral totem pole was a replica of the first Belvedere Point Park totem pole carved out of a tree from Schmitz Park by Michael Morgan and Bob Fleischmann, who were Boeing engineers.

The totem pole pictured above, the Admiral totem pole, stands in front of the Log Cabin Museum in West Seattle's Alki neighborhood.

Along the north shore of West Seattle stands the Admiral Viewpoint Story Pole. 

By 2006, the original Admiral totem pole had suffered deterioration, not unlike the first totem pole in Belvedere Point Park, and was replaced with the Michael Halady story pole (below), carved by Michael Halady, a fifth-generation descendant of Chief Seattle.

In 2014, the restoration of the Admiral totem pole was complete, and it was put on display at the Southwest Seattle Historical Society’s “Birthplace of Seattle” Log House Museum on a ceremony held on June 6, 2014.

                      

Located at Broad St. & Fourth Ave. N in Seattle is the Seattle Center Totem, which, according to Waymarking.com, was carved in 1970 by Duane Pasco, a Native American art teacher and, according to his own website, Korean War veteran, with the help of fellow woodcarvers Earl Muldon and Victor Mowatt. Pasco worked at the Gitanmaax (’Ksan) School of Northwest Coast Indian Art in Hazelton, B.C. while he was commissioned to carve the Seattle Center Totem. 

From the bottom of the totem pole to the top, the figures are an orca, a raven, a bear holding a salmon, and a hawk, watching over Seattle Center.

In Queen Anne, on the site former Washington State Senator Warren G. Magnuson's house, there is a totem pole from the Lummi Nation. 

According to the Seattle Times, the totem pole was a gift from Lummi people to Warren G. Magnuson, given to him for his seventieth birthday in 1975. 

When Warren's wife died in 2011, Gerry and Linda, a couple who had lived four blocks away from the Magnuson house, purchased the property, and with it, the totem pole. In 2014, Linda and Gerry sent the totem pole away from Queen Anne to be refurbished by a new carver, who later returned the refurbished version of the totem pole.

According to the City of Seattle's website, on Elliott Bay, there is a 1.25 mile long trail known as the Myrtle Edwards Park. At one point on the trail, there is a thirty-two-foot-tall Tlingit totem pole, which, according to a sign at the park, was crafted by Alaska Indian Arts, Inc. in 1975. 

The totem pole was crafted by woodcarvers John Hagen, Ed Kasko, and Cliff Thomas out of a cedar tree and using traditional Tlingit colors. In June of 2009, the totem pole was brought from Pier 48 to the Myrtle Edwards Park, where it stands today. Here is a part of the sign at the park, showing the various meanings behind the stages of the totem pole.

In West Seattle, placed at the address of 4622 35 Avenue Southwest, there is the Rotary View Point Park, managed by the Rotary Club of West Seattle. In the center of the park, there is an eighteen-foot-tall totem pole. 

 According to an interview by the West Seattle Blog with woodcarver Robin Young, he had carved the totem pole in the Summer of 1976. According to Robin, prior to carving the West Seattle totem pole, he had previously carved two totem poles for the Highline Community College, located in Des Moines.

According to the Seattle Times, on December 3, 2009, the totem pole went missing from its spot in the park! A week and a half later, West Seattle resident Charles Edward Jenks then 70 years old, was found to be likely connected to the theft of the pole and was arrested (with no charges filed), and the totem pole was found in the Salem, Oregon area, of all places. Prior to carving the West Seattle totem pole, Robin had previously carved two totem poles for the Highline Community College, located in Des Moines.

In Victor Steinbrueck park, located near the iconic Pike Place Market and named for the famous Seattle architect Victor Steinbrueck, there are two fifty-foot-tall totem poles present. The first one features carvings of a man and a woman at the top, and the second resembles a more traditional totem pole. 

According to the City of Seattle's website, both of the totem poles were designed by Victor Steinbrueck and carved by Native American artist James P. Bender in 1982. James, according to his own website, had been woodcarving for ten years prior.  Below is a photo of them from Wikimedia Commons.
          

On August 30, 2010, John T. Williams, a seventh-generation woodcarver of the Nuu-chah-nulth nation, was crossing the street when he was shot and killed by SPD officer Ian Birk. Many people, including his brother, workd on a memorial pole forhim. 

According to the Seattle Times, on February 26, 2012, the evening of what would've been Williams' fifty-second birthday, the thirty-four-foot-tall John T. Williams Memorial Totem Pole was carried half a mile by hand from Pier 57 to be raised in Seattle Center, just yards East of the Space Needle. Today, the totem pole rests at the Daybreak Star Indian Cultural Center in Discovery Park.

The Life Aquatic

BRAZILIAN BOWIE: Last night, we headed downtown after dark for a remarkable musical experience. We had the rare opportunity to see Brazilian-born artist Seu Jorge sing David Bowie classics in Portuguese. 

The enormous auditorium was nothing and everything but one man, a guitar, and Bowie's songs. We have motion picture director Wes Anderson to thank for it, because he sought out Jorge for the film "The Life Aquatic" to sing Bowie classics in Portuguese. That was in 2004. This year, the year Bowie left, was the first time Jorge has toured with these songs. 

We had cheap seats, but our seats ended up being rather amazing - box seats right atop the stage (look for the white arrow above).

The music - it was astounding. Amazing. But that's just my opinion. Let's see what the kids have to say about it. Annabelle up first ...

Seu Jorge is a Brazilian musician who, most famously, performed the music for a movie called "The Life Aquatic." He played the music on his guitar and sung in his native Portuguese. The songs on the the soundtrack were his covers of David Bowie songs, which he is most famous for. He covered many Bowie classics such as “Rebel Rebel”, “Lady Stardust” and others. He has a hard time speaking English, but when he makes renditions of these songs in Portuguese, it sounds amazing. You can really tell that he enjoys this music, even if he has a hard time understanding it. We had the rare chance to see him in concert, and it was truly amazing. I wish we could see him play again, because it is definitely worth it, and it’s amazing to hear the music in real life.A

 And here is CJ's take ... 

In 2004, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, a strange parody film poking fun at ocean documentary films in the vein of those of Jaques Cousteau, was released. While it was a critical disappointment and a commercial disaster at the box office, film would go on to gain a cult following. One of the things that The Life Aquatic would become known for was its soundtrack recorded by Seu Jorge, a Brazilian musician and songwriter. The soundtrack of The Life Aquatic, known as "The Life Aquatic Studio Sessions", was mostly composed of covers of David Bowie songs sung in Portuguese. For more than 35 years by that point, David Bowie had been a world-famous songwriter and performer from England, known for his androgynous "Ziggy Stardust" on-stage persona that he used in the 1970s.

While I'll probably never know why the makers of The Life Aquatic chose an obscure Brazilian man to record Portuguese covers of David Bowie music for their aquatic parody film, I do know that the covers of the songs are very nice, even when they sound very different from the source material (as in the case of Seu Jorge's cover of Rebel Rebel). Right now, I am writing about Seu Jorge because I actually attended a concert of his at Benaroya Hall in downtown Seattle. This was my second visit to Benaroya Hall, and my first visit was for a National Geographic presentation about travelling in Antarctica, covered in an earlier report of mine. This event was very different, and I enjoyed it for different reasons.

For most of the songs, while I didn't and don't know a word of Portuguese, I was able to figure out what particular words or phrases in the songs he was saying. However, there is a possibility that Seu Jorge's covers do not contain literal translations of the lyrics of the original versions, so I probably won't know unless I learn Portuguese. Seu Jorge played with an acoustic guitar for the entirety of the performance, so they sometimes sound different than the original songs, as stated before. Also, Jorge, between songs, would tell stories in very hard-to-understand English, which sometimes elicited laughs from the audience (the things he was saying elicited laughs from the audience, not his difficult-to-understand English). At one point, Seu Jorge told us that he did not practice English very much, which is presumably the reason for the tough-to-understand pronunciation.

Near the end of the concert, they rolled a large projector screen behind Seu Jorge, where what I assume to be clips from The Life Aquatic were projected. I did notice the already severely-dated CGI fish and sea creatures, but it's still interesting seeing what came out of the minds of the makers of The Life Aquatic.

Jorge was a charming storyteller. Yes, it was a struggle to understand him, but the effort was worth it. He seemed genuinely surprised and overwhelmed by the crowd and its positive feedback. 

If you'd like to hear some of his magic, check out the link below. He plays a Brazilian song first. The Bowe starts around the 4:30 mark. 

Wimpy Kids

DEAR DIARY: Sunday afternoon, we headed to Lake Forest Park (northeast of Seattle) for a special event - a presentation and autograph session with wildly popular Jeff Kinney, creator of the best-selling "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" book series. 

We got into line at about 3:30 for the event. Doors were opening at 4, to let us in to get seats for the 5 p.m. appearance. There was a light rain, but the kids didn't mind, making good use of of all of the line and waiting in seats time to read - and finish! - the newest "Diary ..." book, "Double Down."

Big, illuminated balloons outside the store, Third Place Books, made it more festive, for sure!

Once inside, the large crowd packed the venue, per this photo from Twitter. 

Fortunately, we were in the third row, and could see it all!

I'll let Annabelle tell you a bit about it ...

Yesterday, Jeff Kinney had a book release and presentation at Third Place Books. The book released was Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Double Down. When you enter the door, you get your own copy of the book and then head to the stage for the presentation.

The first thing he talked about in his presentation is that this book, being the 11^th in the series, is almost like restarting from 1. Jeff Kinney said that in ways, he wanted to make this book somewhat like a redo of the first. The story has many similarities, but just like every other book in the series, the main connection is its 217 page count.

The main part of the presentation was about Jeff Kinney’s drawing process and how he always wanted to become a cartoonist. It all started when he contacted the writer for the comic and book series Big Nate about his character “Igdoof”, and how he’d like it to be included in a comic. When Igdoof was included (albeit small and on a sticker sheet) that’s what prompted Jeff Kinney to become a cartoonist.
He demonstrated that being a cartoonist is great, because your illustrations can be simple and your characters don’t have to age. He demonstrated how drawing Greg, the main character, was very simple. You draw two dots for eyes, a nose, and a circle. All that’s left to do is draw his hair, 3 lines at the top of his head. And, with a little expression change and a new hair-do, suddenly you’ve drawn Greg’s brother, Roderick. It’s a great trick to make characters very similar to show relation, or just for simplicity. He also explained how he uses Adobe Flash to draw, and that it can make many hours to complete a full drawing, despite how simplistic it may seem.

It’s really interesting to see his process and what makes a “Diary”. Plus, we got a signed book out of the deal!

Next up, CJ's impressions ...

"It's going to be about 217 pages." -Jeff Kinney, when asked about the plot of the next Diary of a Wimpy Kid book

For 10 years, Jeff Kinney has been a very successful author all around the world, from his home country of the U.S. to India to Brazil. Jeff Kinney is most well-known for authoring the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, which is primarily about the life of Greg Heffley, a weak middle school student who is partially inspired by Jeff Kinney's own childhood (To paraphrase the author, we've all been wimpy kids at some point).

The books are written from Greg's perspective. Since the first book's release in 2007, they have sold millions of copies and have been localized in literally dozens of languages. In what I presume is a celebration of the series' tenth anniversary, Jeff Kinney recently began the Wimpy Kid Double Down Global Tour, where he will make 15 stops across the globe from November 1 to December 13.

On November 10, he made a stop in Seattle, and we were lucky enough to get tickets (they were apparently some of the last tickets for that event). One of the things I learned about the series at the event was that the first book in the series actually spent several years in development.

In the early 1990s, Jeff Kinney was an amateur cartoonist working at the University of Maryland, College Park. He conceived a character known as "Igdoof", a goofy-looking illustrated character who would become Greg Heffley. In 1998, Jeff Kinney drew a picture of Greg on a piece of tissue paper, which in my opinion, is the first incarnation of him that bears a significant resemblance to Greg in the books. Jeff purchased a notebook, where he decided to write down versions of silly things and strange things that happened to him during his youth. From 1998, this took him 8 years to fill, and the final page of the notebook is apparently crammed full of ideas and sketches for what would become the Wimpy Kid books.

If I remember correctly, in 2006, he tried pitching his idea to Amulet Books, and his request was fulfilled. The original Diary of a Wimpy Kid book was published the next year and became a commercial success, and would be the root more multiple more books to come. I also learned that there are some minor alterations to the books in the international versions (usually having to do with the text). For example, in Germany, the book series is known as "Greg's Journal", because there is literally no word for "wimp" in German. Also, in Brazil, Greg is apparently known as the "Banana Boy", strangely enough. Also, in the Japanese versions of the books, Greg has five fingers on his hands instead of the normal cartoon four, likely due to the pinky-chopping practices of local Yakuza gangs.

Lastly, at the event, I was able to get my copy of the newest book, "Double Down", signed by Jeff Kinney. Also, they're apparently in the post-production phases of the fourth Wimpy Kid movie, "The Long Haul", where everybody has been recast.

WE COME IN PEACE: Saturday midday, with light rain falling, we headed to Green Lake for a gathering of friends, strangers, families and anyone searching for some post-election peace, love and understanding. 

The thought behind the gathering was that hopefully enough people would turn out to encircle the entire lake (about a three-mile perimeter) in an inclusive circle of solidarity.

It was fun looking across the lake and seeing tiny specks strung together for as far as the eye could see.  (The photo below is not mine, it was gleaned from social media.)