Michael's Ross Island Table: From your captain and first mate

The Arca de Vida looks pale and empty since its excursion to Ross Island Lagoon--without its cargo of 21 passengers and 21 tons of support hardware. After that trip, boat rides and picnics will seem dull by comparison. What a wonderful table Michael made! Tim and I had a great time breaking bread with you, while the lightning and the talent flashed around us.

What we didn't say at the table was that our floating home community--where our boat ride began and ended--will soon be adding its own "spoils" to the moonscape we saw above the beach. Ten thousand tons of sand and silt that will have accumulated under our homes and docks will be removed, barged to Ross Island, and deposited either on the island itself, or--if the materials pass strict DEQ standards--in the lagoon, at a cost of many thousands of dollars. Ross Island actually makes it possible for us to go on living on the river, and we are grateful.

We hope you will all come this way again and take another boat ride with us.

Some more images from the evening here.

sudden evocations of place that came traveling by sound

first add to this picture the inspiration of songbirds in the deepening light, then the sound of the freeway, unseen somewhere to the west, in my left ear. where i grew up in Michigan the sound of freeways came as if from every direction-- walking from my front door i saw grass and trees but heard always the faint roar of I-275, I-96, M-5, I-696. full of such violence up close, their hushed sounding in the distance through forest and over field was a continuous and comforting presence, like the sound of water rushing, rivers. here on Ross Island i let my eyes rest on these grand infrastructure-creating tools floating lightly above the secret void of the lagoon and listened, remembering, to the hidden hushed freeway sound coming from the west into my left ear, through trees, over water. shortly thereafter, sitting at the table, Michael's civil defense siren recordings added the sound of a tornado siren 200 yards from my house that went off every Saturday at 1pm.


sudden evocations of place that came quietly and privately, traveling by sound, in the midst of the larger gathering.