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There’s a tiny white building on 15th Avenue NW in Ballard where every weekend you’ll see a line of people, all smiles, pushing their way inside the vintage lunchbox- and kitsch-swathed tiny dining room of Lunchbox Laboratory, home to some of the best burgers in Seattle. They’re truly gourmet. Restaurant-owner Scott Simpson ditched his gourmet digs to use his culinary training and homestyle inclinations to create high-end comfort food that spares no expense. 

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It’s right across the street from the Greenwood Space Travel Supply Co. Inside and out it’s a café that finds a perfect balance of sleepy and hip, busy and leisurely, with its baby blue interior fit with finished plywood cabinetry and rail station-style benches lining the back wall, complete with power strips every ten feet. Show posters cover the wall by the front door.

The mood at Neptune Coffee is pleasant and very workable: as I write this an enormous Mastiff named Oscar who came in with a young woman is making friends with a couple who are scratching his head asking, “Will you come home with us?” This is my kind of place.

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by Alex Russell

Driving by Seattle’s Town Hall a few minutes before the start of the debates between King County Executive candidates, I saw all the dramatics of a Seattle green event. There was the plastic bag guy and others in costume with flyers and imperatives to share. Men and women wearing posterboard with hastily-scrawled eco-messages front and back. Green issues today are reaching an interesting point–they are slipping from the fringes and coming to rest comfortably in the mainstream. Twenty years ago Earth Day was about all you could get for a mainstream environmental consciousness. Today politicians are finding it’s an easy and almost somewhat non-partisan way to earn votes from either side.

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by Alex Russell

There’s a lot of great street photography out there, and many of the outstanding street photographers are photojournalists, like Seattle-based Joe Owens, who know how to find not only compelling compositions and people, but also the stories behind the moments they capture. Street portrait photography is along these same lines but different.

While street photography seems to be about candid human moments, street portraiture focuses on human individuality and an individual’s humanity. While street photography is about capturing people, far too often the people captured are simply frozen objects in a compelling composition. There are, of course, exceptions, and they are many.

Street portraits take this possibility for objectification completely out of the equation since the primary subject of the photo is an individual, the picture taken in a way that encapsulates his or her individual character. It’s not about cataloguing facial types or fleeting moments; it’s about documenting life.

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by Alex Russell

About a third of the waste that goes into the local landfill is made up of paper or plastic. Every year people moving or cleaning out the garage discard used books, CDs and DVDs that eventually find their way into the trash. I’ve recently started as a Public Relations volunteer with Eco Encore, a Seattle-based non-profit that since 2002 has sold unwanted media online, keeping more paper and plastic out of landfills, and donated the proceeds to local environmental non-profits like Futurewise and the Washington Trails Association.

It’s a small non-profit, and its only paid staff in their SODO offices are the operations manager and assistant, both of which are on part-time. The organization thrives on its board and its volunteers, which means more money goes to the Eco Encore recipients rather than a receptionist and mail clerk and slick, high-powered PR guy.

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by Alex Russell

For the past couple weeks I’ve taken to the streets with my new digital SLR, trying to figure out a good way to do street photography. I’ve always been interested in photography, and I’ve always documented in words the people and world around me. Street photography seems like a perfect fit. But, of course there is some awkwardness to get over.

I found a video of Garry Winogrand and realize that the awkwardness never goes away when people see the camera and what matters is how you deal with it. Take a look at what he does:

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by Irving Rothstein

Memory
Stories of a past
The spice of a life well lived
But at times that spice
dosen’t taste so nice.
Time to take wing
and dream your thing.
–anonymous

The aroma of fresh brewed coffee. The buzz of voices. The three small tables are full and five are sitting elbow to elbow at the pocket size counter. Fifteen people are shoehorned into a space where ten are a crowd.

“Cool Beans” is a funky little cafe on California Street in San Francisco. It is small, so small that everything and everybody are close and personal. Sam and Henry. the owners, have learned the magic of transforming customers into friends. Pictures of their Calabash are all over the wall side by side with postcards from everywhere on the planet. Sam, a short wiry, olive skinned guy with a “hi how are you” smile delights in telling fellow track fans, “122 straight hurdle victories, two time Olympic gold medal winner, and I didn’t recognize Edwin Moses when he came in for coffee. He sat right there talking to his cousin and I, I coulda got his autograph on the wall there.”

And there was Marv Boutet, a for-real Crime Scene Investigator in San Francisco. Marv worked long hours, mostly nights, and loved every second of it. His dark brown eyes were always glazed over and sitting on dark circles. Marv was a matter of fact guy, a Sergeant Friday, the kind that talks very little, and when he does talk it’s as if he’s reciting a memorized menu. Our paths crossed every morning—Marv came in after work, when I was on my way to work.

Today, Marv’s voice had real feeling, as if a dam had broken over night and words were pouring out. “Blood and flesh all over place, he put a gun in his mouth and blooey. Everything was in place, the chairs and instruments were neatly arranged, even kept the magazines in the rack alphabetically, by title.”

He stared at me over the his coffee cup. His eyes were hound-dog sad, a word away from tears.

“Why do people get to killing themselves? You’re the teacher, tell me!”

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by Alex Russell

In the doldrums of interview transcription, and still almost six hours of audio left to go.

It’s amazing how much time it takes to transcribe interviews. Audio transcription is a profession, I know, and even with great interviews and a very interesting subject, it’s a struggle for me, a non-pro, to get through it. After the first hour of audio took me almost three hours to transcribe—time evaporates while doing this kind of work—I looked at Craigslist to see how much the pros charge. Even at $60 an hour it’s tempting to hire it out, looking at the 6,000-word file I’ve got so far, knowing how much more there is to transcribe. But I’m a writer, and therefore would rather spend my money on other things, like coffee and pizza and books.

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by Alex Russell

I’m not sure if it was the coyotes or wolves, but it was a chorus a half-mile away behind glass and electric wire, first one dappled cry then another until a cascade of wailing echoed through the trees. This is why I don’t go camping. This is why the closest I’ll get to wild animals is a place like NW Trek, a wildlife park about 25 miles from Tacoma, WA.

The park itself is just over 700 acres full of black bears, grizzly bears, caribou, moose, mountain goats and even bison. While their zoo-like enclosures hold wolves, coyotes, gold and bald eagles, even cougars and bobcats, the centerpiece of the park is it’s free-roaming area where you can ride a tram to be out there with the wildlife. As we rode along our driver/guide told us stories about the animals, how there are only herbivores in the free-range area because if there were carnivores there would not be herbivores for very long. We passed 3,000-pound buffalo lounging in the grass licking their noses. We saw deer graze in the fields. Mountain goats in the road paced us as we passed them by.

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by Alex Russell

Turning 30 marks the end to early youth. It’s a moment to take a step back and think seriously about the future coming faster into focus. Turning 30 feels like a step away from the freedom of the 20s. It marks an earnest if unwilling entry into adulthood, a moment to look around, maybe for the first time, and see just where everyone else is at 30 and what they have accomplished—maybe see for the first time how far you are behind them. Or instead a chance to assert once more no ageing at all has happened since turning 21.

I don’t think people these days put very much stock in turning 30. It seems the 30s are a lot like the 20s, with all the same activity and fun, but with more money to spend—and no roommates. People in their 30s seem the same as they were in their 20s, just with designer clothes and mixed-drink doubles replacing PBR and Bud.

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