pacific northwest

Outposts

When it’s almost dark you can hear the wind picking up across the desert. Maybe a flagpole clanking, some far-off dogs, the day’s last birds. We are in a new development surrounded by farmlands and distant mountains. The ground is… Read More ›

No more the mystery

Automating music discovery through algorithms has forever changed the way we learn about and consume new music. But have we lost something precious along the way? I moved to Seattle in the summer of ’96 and left just after a… Read More ›

Farmers’ almanac

I read the weather forecast and despite the gloom, felt good about living in the Pacific Northwest again. The mild winters, the sing-song pattern to the forecasts: rain changing to showers, showers changing to rain. Heavy rain tapering off before… Read More ›

MELT

In the morning I checked the weather report but felt some distance from it, like it was talking about a place I was supposed to be but wasn’t. The rain made the snow melt, a mixture of solemnness and hope,… Read More ›

Concourse A

Let me curl up with this book, Let me fold in on myself, Let me carve out a sliver of comfort in the corner Of this goddamned airport Oh to the sounds of the airport waiting to be somewhere else… Read More ›

This ocean size

I went back to Forks, the small logging town on the Washington coast, back to the gas station with the sandwich shop and the formica booth out front beneath the mossy overhang, the old sign with 1960s font that says… Read More ›