There's something about hard times — or all this talk of it — that makes me want to hit the road. To get out in it. Away from bad news...
By Danny Westneat, Seattle Times Columnist
Away from bad news, yes, but not to run or hide. More like wandering after a different story line, or new ways of seeing this financial mess, this epic election.
I'm not alone. Lately there have been a number of essays from writers who got behind the wheel seeking to describe the essence of our state. As if things are getting iffy out there, so we'd better get what's real down on paper.
Some find nature.
"If you're standing, say, on Orcas Island, you can see whales cavorting in viridian waves," writes UW author Charles Johnson in last month's Smithsonian Magazine.
"The air out there on the islands is so clear, so clean, that each breath you draw feels like some sort of blessing. This sort of Northwest experience helps me take the long view on life's ephemeral problems."
I don't know what "viridian" means. But I know exactly what he's talking about.
Two weeks ago I camped on Third Beach, an Olympic Park wilderness area near La Push, Clallam County. You hike there through a fern-carpeted old-growth forest.
Being exposed to the ocean's power on the edge of the world in the shimmer of a full moon — well, it made our problems, from fiscal freeze-up to broken politics, seem not only ephemeral. Overblown.
"The Washington frontier has been merely subdued" is how Carrie Brownstein puts it in her essay in the new anthology "State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America."
This book features 50 writers on 50 states. It's an homage to the Depression-era Federal Writers' Project. In the 1930s the government hired 6,000 writers to ride the "highways and byways" in order to "describe America to Americans."
What for? Partly to make work. But also because, one historian said, in hard times we have a curious "need for self-definition."
I met Brownstein — once a guitarist for the rock group Sleater-Kinney — at a reading the other night. She said the 1941 Writers' Project book on our state was more of a road guide. She, in turn, was trying to describe Washington's "internal landscape."
"Except the line between inside and out gets a little blurry here," she said.
That sounds like the Washington I know. Or I should say, the one I think I know.
So, with a curious need for self-definition, I'm hitting the highways, too. Starting today, photographer Ken Lambert and I are off to road-trip the state.
Why? Because even if times aren't that tough, they are tumultuous. I can't recall a season stuffed with so many momentous issues. Depression. War. An election that will break aged barriers of race or gender.
Also there's epic distrust. Of Wall Street, the government, the media, the election itself.
What do people think of it all? What should we do? Who is this state, anyway?
Each day we'll file reports to seattletimes.com. And I'll write my regular columns.
Come along, by sending questions or tips on whom to meet in your part of the state. We're off to the coulees and wheat fields of Eastern Washington first.
Danny Westneat's column appears Wednesday and Sunday. Reach him at dwestneat@seattletimes.com
Copyright © 2008 The Seattle Times Company
October 1, 2008
USA: Setting out to find what's real
.
SEATTLE, Washington (The Seattle Times), October 1, 2008:
There's something about hard times — or all this talk of it — that makes me want to hit the road. To get out in it. Away from bad news...
By Danny Westneat, Seattle Times Columnist
Away from bad news, yes, but not to run or hide. More like wandering after a different story line, or new ways of seeing this financial mess, this epic election.
I'm not alone. Lately there have been a number of essays from writers who got behind the wheel seeking to describe the essence of our state. As if things are getting iffy out there, so we'd better get what's real down on paper.
Some find nature.
"If you're standing, say, on Orcas Island, you can see whales cavorting in viridian waves," writes UW author Charles Johnson in last month's Smithsonian Magazine.
"The air out there on the islands is so clear, so clean, that each breath you draw feels like some sort of blessing. This sort of Northwest experience helps me take the long view on life's ephemeral problems."
I don't know what "viridian" means. But I know exactly what he's talking about.
Two weeks ago I camped on Third Beach, an Olympic Park wilderness area near La Push, Clallam County. You hike there through a fern-carpeted old-growth forest.
Being exposed to the ocean's power on the edge of the world in the shimmer of a full moon — well, it made our problems, from fiscal freeze-up to broken politics, seem not only ephemeral. Overblown.
"The Washington frontier has been merely subdued" is how Carrie Brownstein puts it in her essay in the new anthology "State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America."
This book features 50 writers on 50 states. It's an homage to the Depression-era Federal Writers' Project. In the 1930s the government hired 6,000 writers to ride the "highways and byways" in order to "describe America to Americans."
What for? Partly to make work. But also because, one historian said, in hard times we have a curious "need for self-definition."
I met Brownstein — once a guitarist for the rock group Sleater-Kinney — at a reading the other night. She said the 1941 Writers' Project book on our state was more of a road guide. She, in turn, was trying to describe Washington's "internal landscape."
"Except the line between inside and out gets a little blurry here," she said.
That sounds like the Washington I know. Or I should say, the one I think I know.
So, with a curious need for self-definition, I'm hitting the highways, too. Starting today, photographer Ken Lambert and I are off to road-trip the state.
Why? Because even if times aren't that tough, they are tumultuous. I can't recall a season stuffed with so many momentous issues. Depression. War. An election that will break aged barriers of race or gender.
Also there's epic distrust. Of Wall Street, the government, the media, the election itself.
What do people think of it all? What should we do? Who is this state, anyway?
Each day we'll file reports to seattletimes.com. And I'll write my regular columns.
Come along, by sending questions or tips on whom to meet in your part of the state. We're off to the coulees and wheat fields of Eastern Washington first.
Danny Westneat's column appears Wednesday and Sunday. Reach him at dwestneat@seattletimes.com
Copyright © 2008 The Seattle Times Company
There's something about hard times — or all this talk of it — that makes me want to hit the road. To get out in it. Away from bad news...
By Danny Westneat, Seattle Times Columnist
Away from bad news, yes, but not to run or hide. More like wandering after a different story line, or new ways of seeing this financial mess, this epic election.
I'm not alone. Lately there have been a number of essays from writers who got behind the wheel seeking to describe the essence of our state. As if things are getting iffy out there, so we'd better get what's real down on paper.
Some find nature.
"If you're standing, say, on Orcas Island, you can see whales cavorting in viridian waves," writes UW author Charles Johnson in last month's Smithsonian Magazine.
"The air out there on the islands is so clear, so clean, that each breath you draw feels like some sort of blessing. This sort of Northwest experience helps me take the long view on life's ephemeral problems."
I don't know what "viridian" means. But I know exactly what he's talking about.
Two weeks ago I camped on Third Beach, an Olympic Park wilderness area near La Push, Clallam County. You hike there through a fern-carpeted old-growth forest.
Being exposed to the ocean's power on the edge of the world in the shimmer of a full moon — well, it made our problems, from fiscal freeze-up to broken politics, seem not only ephemeral. Overblown.
"The Washington frontier has been merely subdued" is how Carrie Brownstein puts it in her essay in the new anthology "State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America."
This book features 50 writers on 50 states. It's an homage to the Depression-era Federal Writers' Project. In the 1930s the government hired 6,000 writers to ride the "highways and byways" in order to "describe America to Americans."
What for? Partly to make work. But also because, one historian said, in hard times we have a curious "need for self-definition."
I met Brownstein — once a guitarist for the rock group Sleater-Kinney — at a reading the other night. She said the 1941 Writers' Project book on our state was more of a road guide. She, in turn, was trying to describe Washington's "internal landscape."
"Except the line between inside and out gets a little blurry here," she said.
That sounds like the Washington I know. Or I should say, the one I think I know.
So, with a curious need for self-definition, I'm hitting the highways, too. Starting today, photographer Ken Lambert and I are off to road-trip the state.
Why? Because even if times aren't that tough, they are tumultuous. I can't recall a season stuffed with so many momentous issues. Depression. War. An election that will break aged barriers of race or gender.
Also there's epic distrust. Of Wall Street, the government, the media, the election itself.
What do people think of it all? What should we do? Who is this state, anyway?
Each day we'll file reports to seattletimes.com. And I'll write my regular columns.
Come along, by sending questions or tips on whom to meet in your part of the state. We're off to the coulees and wheat fields of Eastern Washington first.
Danny Westneat's column appears Wednesday and Sunday. Reach him at dwestneat@seattletimes.com
Copyright © 2008 The Seattle Times Company
