geography of seattle

I've had a couple people who have never been there ask me geography questions about Seattle -- "Where's this in relation to that?" sorts of things. But it's hard to explain anything about Seattle's geography without taking into account the big picture of the place and its unique qualities.

Seattle is defined by water. The salt water of Puget Sound to the west and the fresh water of enormous Lake Washington to the east are connected by the Lake Washington Ship Canal, which bisects the city and separates the top third from the rest. It's that top third that I'm most familiar with -- the Phinney Ridge and Greenwood neighborhoods, and to the east of the two north-south arterials, dreadful I-5 and good Old 99, the U District and the area around Ravenna Park.

Between those two sets of neighborhoods, the Phinney-Greenwood and University-Ravenna, and midway between the two busiest roads in the state lies an urban gem, beautiful little Green Lake. Its three-mile perimeter is perfect for walking, jogging, or biking, and you'll see a lot of all three on any pleasant afternoon from February right on through the end of October. The property in the Green Lake neighborhood is some of the most desirable in the city.

I'm a little less familiar with the old Scandinavian fishing enclave of Ballard, once an independent city, but I've noticed that some of the oldest and best-preserved parts of town are there.

I know dear old semi-suburban West Seattle very well, too, separated from the rest of the city by the Duwamish Waterway and the bridge over Harbor Island, and stuck out into Elliot Bay on its own little square-headed peninsula. That's where my daughter spent her earliest years.

Similarly, the Queen Anne and Magnolia neighborhoods are semi-isolated from the rest of town, on a peninsula defined by the Ship Canal to the north and the Sound on the south. My dad used to work on Queen Anne Hill and a friend lived there, but I don't know that part of town nearly as well as I do the north end.

The geographic semi-isolation of these various neighborhoods tends to foster a spirit of independence, separateness, and uniqueness. Whether they're out on a peninsula or cut off from other nearby enclaves by Interstate Five or the canal, the north-end neighborhoods as well as West Seattle are very different from one another, and their residents often point to those differences with pride.

Not much to say about downtown. It's intense, like any big city downtown, and its future at this point is uncertain because of the oncoming foreclosure crisis in commercial real estate.

The areas south and east of downtown -- Beacon Hill, Rainier Beach, Mount Baker, etc., are terra incognita to me: I know where they are but I never go there. Nearly anyplace outside the city limits, whether to the north, south, or east, is suburbs, and terra misericordia as far as I'm concerned.

move-in special

By now everybody knows we're living through hard times, and that this particular round of hard times is especially scary because there's no indication that things are going to get better any time soon.

However, for those who still have any kind of an income at all and aren't buried under mountains of debt, living through a depression isn't all bad. A depressed economy is a buyer's market, as well as a renter's opportunity.

"This market is really brutal," one ladlord said to me today as he arrived to show me a one-bedroom unit on Phinney Ridge. On the phone, he had already lowered his asking price from $950 to $800 without any prompting from me. I'd assumed the higher figure was non-negotiable, but when I told him I couldn't afford that he immediately backed it down. I was shocked, because that kind of flexibility in a property owner was something I'd never once experienced in all my years as a tenant.

Like I said, these is hard times, and it's a hard row for them as got as well as for them that don't.

As it turned out, the guy's place, though it was beautifully and tastefully decorated, was simply too small to live in, even for one person. No off-street parking, no storage space of any kind -- it was more of a cell than an apartment, albeit the kind of cell Martha Stewart might have arranged for herself if she'd had to stay in prison any longer than she did.

It was getting late, but I decided to put the dice back in the box for one more throw, and stop at the first place up the road I might happen upon with a sign out front and no overt evidence of slumlordism.

And that was all it took to hit the jackpot on my third throw of the day -- a fairly roomy standard-issue one bedroom apartment just north of the Phinny-Greenwood Neighborhood, for $650. Plus the security deposit -- waived. Plus the first month's rent -- also waived. Like the man said, it's a brutal market right now, which translates into a sweet market for renters.

So if you're looking, don't take the first place you see, and don't settle for anything less than that very sweet move-in special deal. You deserve that kind of a deal, because if you've got money to spend, and no excess baggage such as a couple of large, aggressive, fur-bearing quadrupedal carbon units, you're a hot commodity. Just remember, with all the inventory that's lying around going begging, you'd be crazy to pay retail.

made for tv

The New York regional yoga championships?

Yes, I'm afraid it's true. Maybe you already saw this piece when it ran in the New York Times fashion and fitness section a few days back.

During the three-day workshop I took with Gary Kraftsow, the founder of American Viniyoga, in April of '08, I remember his saying several times that "this is not competitive, and it's not a performance art." But I guess there are some who would disagree.

Asana competitions, as they should be properly called*, are the brainchild of the Choudhurys, Mrs. Rajashree and Mr. Bikram, who are also the founders of a highly successful, trademarked and copyrighted sequence of 26 vigorous postures and two breath exercises, practiced in a room heated to 105 degrees and known as Bikram Yoga. They're originally from India, but have adapted extremely well to American cultural prerogatives and ways of doing business.

Considering the current and growing mass appeal of asana practice, I'm afraid that I and the Choudhurys both see where this is going: Think "American Idol" or "Dancing with the Stars."

And I suppose there's no real harm done, as long as there are those who are keeping the faith, and keeping it real. So even though my peers and I graduated from yoga school a couple nights ago, we have another assignment.

But I have to say, I always thought doing a vigorous asanas in a really hot room sounds like a weird idea.

This is one more example among many of the inherent corruption of contemporary American culture, for which I find the influence of television solely responsible. TV has established the template of public and private behavior in This Modern World, and demands that all activity be reduced to entertainment, even those activities traditionally defined as sacred or possessing inherent dignity. In this country today there is nothing so sacred that it can't be cheapened, and nothing so dignified that it can't be commoditized, in the manner of gymnastics competitions and beauty contests.

*Asana, or movement through a series of postures, is just one facet of yoga, which aims at the total integration of body, breath, mind, and spirit.

New York Times photo by James Estrin.

weather beaten

I can usually find a better purpose for a blog than using it to gripe about the weather, but ours has been unusually dreadful these past few days, even for a locale famous for the volume and frequency of its rain.

At the moment we're experiencing the third of three major rain-and-wind events occurring over the past five days. The first of them brought down trees and knocked out the electrical power in my little community. And there's more to come; tomorrow's forecast predicts another half inch of precipitation, but thankfully with diminished winds. After that things are supposed to improve, but long-term weather predictions around here are always a crap shoot at best.

Let's hope things get better though. Some Western Washington rivers have already flooded, more are about to, and if this keeps up much longer area roadways will begin washing out, in a region whose infrastructure is very well equipped to withstand the normal and considerable amounts of precipitation for which this part of the country is famous.

I don't know why I'm bothering to complain. The weather, as Mark Twain famously said, is something everybody talks about "but nobody ever does anything about it."

other voices, other rooms

What's the best way to combat the terrorism unleashed against us by Islamic fundamentalist jihadis? March in a very large, very well publicized anti-war protest, or maybe do some high-profile work with Amnesty International according to Glenn Greenwald.

Conversely, anyone wishing to encourage jihad and promote the spread of terrorism should do everything possible to assure that we escalate our hostilities in the Middle East, and that we send more armies and navies, drop more bombs, kill more civilians, and destroy their property and livestock. That policy has been working like a charm to grow terrorism ever since the days of Bill Clinton's intermittent bombing of Baghdad.

"At some point, a rational person has to wonder," Greenwald says, whether those who constantly yell for more violence and killing against one part or another of "the Muslim world aren't desirous of exactly that outcome." I've wondered that very thing myself, many times.

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Looming behind the topic of veganism, which I touched on recently on the other blog, is the realization that's been haunting conscious observers of the world scene for a long time now, like a huge nightmare hiding in the deepest layers of a subconscious mind. The stark fact of this earth's severe human overpopulation is well known, but up until now has hid below the radar, and is just now breaking into our collective awareness, conveying the shock of revelation.

Currently clocked at just under seven billion, there can no longer be any doubt that the numbers of humanity are now several times beyond any acceptable number suited for optimum "carrying capacity," and that our overrunning of the planet is responsible not only for global warming, but the Auschwitz-for-animals conditions on factory farms and in feedlots and slaughterhouses. In fact, the two concerns are closely related because the fecal contamination produced by such farms is one of the most significant factors accelerating climate change.

"Men," says the preacher Ecclesiastes, with God's help "might see that they themselves are beasts. For that which befalls the sons of men befalls beasts...as the one dies, so dies the other; yes, they all have one breath, so that a man has no pre-eminence over a beast; for all is vanity" (III: 18-19).

James Howard Kunstler touches on the ramifications of overpopulation and lots of other things besides this week in a typically intense and profound Monday morning essay. "We may still be driving around in Ford F-150s, but the Pale Rider is just over the horizon beating a path to our parking-lot-of-the-soul," Kunstler remarks with his trademark sang-froid exuberance.

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Finally, it's a cliché among clichés, but click on the photograph accompanying this post for a large, spectacular, and always-inspiring view of the Golden Gate about an hour before sunset. The large picture also shows, at some distance but very clearly and nicely centered, San Francisco's weirdest, least-known, and least-loved landmark, Sutro Tower, which rises awkwardly from a hilltop just above Cole Valley.

soup!

The vegan-style soup I made yesterday turned out so well I thought I should share it with everyone. You may or may not be a vegan, but even meat and dairy eaters are going to love this flavorful and filling winter soup. The recipe serves two, and does require some kind of food processor.

Wash two cups of black beans and stir them into six cups of boiling water. Lower heat and cover; simmer for an hour.

Core, seed, and dice two ripe red bell peppers. Drop the pieces into two tablespoons of olive oil in a shallow baking dish, and roast uncovered at about 325 degrees for an hour.

When the peppers are done, take a little of the liquid from the soup and put it in the food mill along with the cooked, diced peppers. Process until you get a puree-thickness sludgy liquid. Give the beans a quick once-over with some kind of masher -- a potato masher will do. Not all the beans need to be squashed, but you'll want to break them down enough so the soup thickens. Stir in the pepper sludge.

Add a teaspoon or more of salt (to taste), a quarter teaspoon of black pepper, a quarter teaspoon of Cayenne, either two teaspoons of garlic powder or two crushed garlic cloves. Cook for another half hour to an hour, or until beans are very tender and/or liquefied.

Serve hot with crackers.

Happy eating.

stillness

It's a very still day here, pleasant enough outside because it's not raining, but very cold. The air is still, the water is still, and since the Saturday-morning errand rush ended there's been less-than-continuous traffic going by on the road, which lies about 100 yards distant.

It's all the quieter because there's nobody else around. This is a four-unit condominium building, but I'm the only living creature in it these past few days, save for whatever rodents and insects have got under the roof and behind the walls, sheltering against the frigid air outdoors.

I decided it's a good day to light a fire, since electric heating is expensive and the heater in this place is noisy and clanky. So now the heater is off, and I've got a nice bed of embers going in the otherwise-darkened room, which adds to the stillness. I sat for a time watching the flames and simply breathing -- something I no longer take for granted!

On YouTube I dialed up a 10-minute video of a shot of the ocean accompanied by an Indian Devanagari four-string drone, the tambura that accompanies nearly all Indian classical music, because it's one of those rare sounds that adds to the stillness.

My life will be noisy and active soon enough; this coming Thursday I graduate from teacher training, and right after that the process of moving to the city begins. Then it's setting up the Facebook page, making the calls, meeting the contacts, etc. I don't plan to let all that training go to waste.

I'm cooking a pot of black beans, and roasting a red bell pepper in olive oil, to put through the food processor and add to the soup. With a little salt, black pepper, and cayenne it should be, if not a meal, an appetizer fit for a king.

I'll miss the stillness of this place after I'm gone.