A New Leaf

Last week my friend Patricia and I went for an evening walk in the Union Bay Natural Area, which is an area along the shore of Lake Washington a bit north of Husky Stadium behind the UW playing fields.  It's a wonderful place to walk without many other people around.  The area is a former landfill that has been/is being restored to a more natural state with rustling grassland, big trees, wetlands, and is full of wildlife, especially waterfowl: ducks, geese, eagles, osprey, and herons.  We saw a blue heron catch and swallow a fish, which bulged in its throat as it went down.  We also saw a beaver swimming in the lake, many rabbits,  and a large gathering of crows having a party.

We took a short jog off the main trail to get closer to the water's edge and this is what we saw:

 

Photos by Patricia Spencer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two leaves were floating on the green surface of the shallows and they appeared to have writing on them....  I found a stick and was able to use it to pull these found poems out of the water.  They both had the same love poem written on them in tiny black printing.

"Your body undulates in generous curves"

In the language of books, a leaf "refers to the smallest, standard physical unit of paper in a printed piece; in the case of books and pamphlets, usually with a printed page on each side of a leaf; a broadside is printed on a single side of a single leaf."  (ABAA Glossary of book terms.)

 

Heart-shaped miniature broadsides.

Typographic Awareness

This is a really cool set of three staple-bound books of black and white photographs of street images containing lettering.  The books have no publishing information, except for the title and this note printed around the edge of the front cover in English and in French:  "little things you may have missed while on your way to work - typographic awareness series - esler's commissioned errol etienne to create & execute this series / regarder sans voir... une activité quotidienne - la collection éveil typographique."

I like how the French words "regarder sans voir" translate as "to look without seeing" - how often do we do that?  Well, it's "une activite quotidienne," or in English, daily activity.

The images depicted on the covers of the three books are an ampersand, a thermometer, and a manhole cover. Here are some images:

I did find this about the artist on Wikipedia: 

Errol Herbert Russel Étienne (1941 - 2011) was an artist in many media including watercolor, oil and acrylic painting. His watercolors can be found in museums, travelling exhibitions as well as in private collections. Much of his bright and animated work was inspired by his time living in the Florida Keys."

 These publications truly inspire typographic awareness - now look and see, as well.

Stairs and Beavers

Last weekend, Sean, our friend Jackie, and I went on a group walk organized by Feet First, an organization that promotes walkable communities, to celebrate the publication of a book Seattle Stairway Walks:  An Up-and-Down Guide to City Neighborhoods  (The Mountaineers Books) by Jake and Cathy Jaramillo:  "For one day, for two hours Feet First Neighborhood Walking Ambassadors led [fifteen] free simultaneous stairway walks to celebrate the Puget Sound Region's amazing elevation changes and the individual characteristics and historical context of our local stairways."

The route we went on was the Maple Leaf and Thornton Creek walk, near Northgate Mall, where a creek runs through more than 700 backyards, 15 parks and natural areas, finally making its way to Lake Washington. Ironically, our particular walk did not include many stairs, or so it seemed.  The guide book said there were 326 steps down, and 136 steps up.  The Maple Leaf area is a largely residential area with big evergreen trees, split level houses, and no sidewalks, feeling quite suburban.  About twenty people made up the walking group, which was led by a very nice school-teacherly lady who stopped frequently to talk about the features we passed on the walk, and who quickly learned Sean's name, as he immediately became the front walker/troublemaker amongst our slower cohorts.  Sean and I had a copy of the book with the route, so we went ahead at our own pace, stopping at the best spots and waiting for everyone else to catch up.

The most amazing feature of this walk was the Beaver Pond Natural Area.  This area, located right in the middle of houses and apartment buildings, was purchased by the city in the late 1970's and restored by volunteers who cleared invasive plants from the bank of Thornton Creek, and replanted native plants.  In 2008 beavers felled trees and built a dam.  Although the book has a short history of this area it doesn't explain where the beavers came from.  "The raised water level and felled trees established new habitat for other plants and animals, which is why beavers are called 'keystone species.'  They have made the area hospitable to mallards, hooded mergansers, great blue herons, and fish, including numerous cutthroat trout."  We did not see an actual beavers, but we did see the beaver dam, lodge, a great blue heron, and many ducks.

Which brings me to another fun book I just cataloged, and which sold almost immediately:  Chip:  The Dam Builder by Jim Kjelgaard, who wrote many children's books about animals, especially dogs.  The one I remember from my childhood is Big Red.  The wonderful illustrations are by Ralph Ray.

I love the drawing of the attacking/floating lynx; so statuesque.