Seattle Quotes

Take one famous example: arguments about property destruction after Seattle. Most of these, I think, were really arguments about capitalism. Those who decried window-breaking did so mainly because they wished to appeal to middle-class consumers to move towards global exchange-style green consumerism, and to ally with labor bureaucracies and social democrats abroad. This was not a path designed to provoke a direct confrontation with capitalism, and most of those who urged us to take this route were at least skeptical about the possibility that capitalism could ever really be defeated. Many were in fact in favor of capitalism, if in a significantly humanized form. Those who did break windows, on the other hand, didn't care if they offended suburban homeowners, because they did not figure that suburban homeowners were likely to ever become a significant element in any future revolutionary anticapitalist coalition. They were trying, in effect, to hijack the media to send a message that the system was vulnerable -- hoping to inspire similar insurrectionary acts on the part of those who might be considering entering a genuinely revolutionary alliance; alienated teenagers, oppressed people of color, undocumented workers, rank-and-file laborers impatient with union bureaucrats, the homeless, the unemployed, the criminalized, the radically discontent. If a militant anticapitalist movement was to begin, in America, it would have to start with people like these: people who don't need to ~ David Graeber

When I feel sad, I try to think of someone else in the world who is suffering worse than me. Like someone in Seattle, who is hurting so bad financially that instead of a vente coffee at Starbucks every morning, they have to downsize to grande. ~ Jarod Kintz

I do not see Windows Phones anywhere in the world except Seattle. ~ Robert Scoble

Irony is the disparity between what you expect will happen, and what does happen. So raining on your wedding day isn't ironic, it's just crappy. It would have been ironic if she had lived in a place like Seattle, and traveled to the desert of Mexico for a wedding and it ended up raining there, but not in Seattle. Alanis always gets the last laugh though. We all sit here, saying her song isn't ironic, but in fact, that's pretty ironic that she wrote a song called Ironic that wasn't really ironic. Those Canadians are pretty crafty. ~ Mo Rocca

Utensil

While feasting
On venison stew
After we buried my mother,
I recognized my spoon

And realized my family
Had been using it
For at least forty-two years.
How does one commemorate

The ordinary? I thanked
The spoon for being a spoon
And finished my stew.
How does one get through

A difficult time? How does
A son properly mourn his mother?
It helps to run the errands--
To get shit done. I washed

That spoon, dried it,
And put it back
In the drawer,
But I did it consciously,

Paying attention
To my hands, my wrists,
And the feel of steel
Against my fingertips.

Then my wife drove us back
Home to Seattle, where I wrote
This poem about ordinary
Grief. Thank you, poem,

For being a poem. Thank you,
Paper and ink, for being paper
And ink. Thank you, desk,
For being a desk. Thank you,

Mother, for being my mother.
Thank you for your imperfect love.
It almost worked. It mostly worked.
Or partly worked. It was almost enough. ~ Sherman Alexie

Vancouver is an amazing city and luckily, growing up in the Seattle area, I was able to immerse myself into the culture at a young age, traveling back and forth across the border for skating competitions as a youngster. ~ Apolo Ohno

In growing up in Seattle, I don't know a single family that didn't barbecue or cook on the weekends and make its own kind of simple, pared-down, what I call Pacific Northwest cooking. ~ Mario Batali

In Seattle you haven't had enough coffee until you can thread a sewing machine while it's running. ~ Jeff Bezos

I started with California, and I did not like it. I flew over to Seattle, and I did not like it much. I felt like Iowa is the place - I like the people and the environment. ~ Liang Chow

You look so out of your element. (Savitar)
I am out of my element. Much like you in a Seattle Goth club. (Acheron)
I'm never out of my element, Atlantean. And it must be dire indeed to get you in shorties, and on a board. One day I'm actually going to get you to say 'Rad four-mill steamer, dude! (Savitar) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

Your God is not our God! Your God loves your people and hates mine! He folds his strong protecting arms lovingly about the paleface and leads him by the hand as a father leads an infant son. ~ Chief Seattle

don't care where you live, but here in Seattle, our restaurants are better than your restaurants. "Hmmm, ~ Maria Semple

Oh, dear. He's a pimp and he's stupid, this is not good," Bev mutters. "Leon, leave it to you to find the only stupid pimp in Seattle. ~ Tara Sivec

We are all children of the Great Spirit, we all belong to Mother Earth. Our planet is in great trouble and if we keep carrying old grudges and do not work together, we will all die. ~ Chief Seattle

The boy will grow older, and over time there will be other songs – not many – ten or maybe twenty in a lifespan, that stand apart from the rest of the music he will discover. He will realise as he grows older still, and crosses the Canadian border and drives down into Seattle, that not only are these songs holy or sacred, they are hiding songs – what the Aztec Indians call carrion songs – that deal exclusively in darkness, obfuscation, concealment and secrecy. He will realize that, for him, the purpose of these songs has been to shut off the sun, to draw a long shadow down and protect him from the corrosive glare of the world. ~ Nick Cave

Special Super Bowl Wisdom of the Ages: "Marshawn Lynch" Not really shy. Still extremely embarrassed he believed you can't be charged for beating up on large groups of people-as long as you are carrying a football. ~ Matthew D. Heines

Kolchak nodded, 'Right, because that would make sense." He took off his hat and crumpled it against his hip. 'When I lived in Seattle, I met a man who had been killing people for a hundred years easily. I nearly got arrested painting on his portrait in the bank he owned, just to match his face to the hundred-year-old shot I had of him with a beard. It's possible.'

'Why didn't you just take a picture of the painting and scribble on the picture?'

'It was a gesture,' Kolchak wrung his hands, 'and anyway that's not the point.' ("Wet Dog of Galveston") ~ Jason Henderson

She ate with her fingers, as her father did, for the first time in months, for the first time in this new house in Seattle. Akash sat between them in his booster seat, wanting to eat with his fingers, too, but this was something Ruma had not taught him to do. ~ Anonymous

The water's murmur is the voice of my father's father. ~ Chief Seattle

Seattle? With Caine? In a hotel?
I'd either kill him or screw him again.
"Fuck."
"Alexa, the speakerphone is on," Caine's amused voice sounded from my desk.
Oh, balls. ~ Samantha Young

Vashon is an island, accessible by ferry from Seattle, mainly populated by NIMBY-ish hippies, NIMBY-ish yuppies, boutique farmers, and wizards riding recumbent bicycles. A full quarter of the children in Vashon schools are unvaccinated. ~ Lindy West

The goal has always been to stay in Seattle and continue to play for the Seahawks. ~ Richard Sherman

Your God loves your people and hates mine; he folds his strong arms lovingly around the white man and leads him as a father leads his infant son, but he has forsaken his red children; he makes your people wax strong every day, and soon they will fill the land; while my people are ebbing away like a fast-receding tide, that will never flow again. The white man's God cannot love his red children or he would protect them. They seem to be orphans who can look nowhere for help. ~ Chief Seattle

I've flown from Seattle just to see you, and the way you look right now, it was really worth the journey. ~ E.L. James

Most travel experts recommend that even if your final destination is Miami, it's better to fly to an airport in some other city - if necessary, Seattle - and take a cab from there. Or, as Savvy Air Traveler magazine suggests, 'simply jump out of the plane while it's still over the Atlantic'. ~ Dave Barry

If all the beasts were gone, men would die from a great loneliness of spirit, for whatever happens to the beasts also happens to the man. All things are connected. Whatever befalls the Earth befalls the sons of the Earth. ~ Chief Seattle

There's a food revolution going on throughout the country. And it doesn't matter if you're down south, up north in Maine, if you're out west in Portland or Seattle. ~ Tom Colicchio

So am I. I have stumbled enough. I am forgiven. I am abundant. I am certainly insouciant. I'm not your tar baby. You're the star, baby. Love the lucky well. MARIA SEMPLE wrote for television shows including Arrested Development, Mad About You, and Ellen. She has escaped from Los Angeles and lives with her family on an island off Seattle. This is her first ~ Maria Semple

Yeah. When you want what's real and you try to find that in high school, you might as well be looking for a mossy rock beside a babbling brook on the corner of Sixth and Pine in downtown Seattle. ~ Deb Caletti

Minneapolis doesn't benefit from a proximity to other rich cities and their intermingling of commerce. Instead, it's so far from other major metros that it's a singular magnet for regional talent. "There's basically nothing between us and Seattle, so we've historically had all these smaller cities in Iowa, Nebraska, the Dakotas, and Montana that are our satellites," Orfield told me. ~ Anonymous

I had no plan for that year but it wound up being one of the most important years of my football coaching career. It hit me along the way that I needed to really get at the heart of what's really true to myself. And then I was able to mold it and shape it in the years at SC to become the approach and the concept and the culture that we try to create here at Seattle. ~ Pete Carroll

Already, Seattle is taking hold of her. She still holds Sedona in the dry tan of her skin and in her hair, but the fine mist of the Northwest is making its way to places she didn't know were parched. ~ Susan Wiggs

I spent a month up in Seattle last fall cowriting and producing with Leo Nash, an old friend of mine, for his band's new album. ~ Kristen Proby

In some cities, McDonald's rules, but Seattle is ruled by teriyaki joints. ~ Tom Douglas

I once heard of a murderer who propped his two victims up against a chess board in sporting attitudes and was able to get as far as Seattle before his crime was discovered. ~ Robert Benchley

I got to play with some of the best players in the game, from Victor Martinez and Travis Hafner and Grady Sizemore in Cleveland, to here with Ryan Howard, Chase Utley, Cole Hamels. Obviously, to Seattle with Ichiro and Felix Hernandez, and then to Texas with Josh Hamilton, Ian Kinsler, Mike Young. It was a great experience. Without being traded I never could have gotten to do any of that.? ~ Cliff Lee

When the green hills are covered with talking wires and the wolves no longer sing, what good will the money you paid for our land be then ~ Chief Seattle

At night, what you see is a city, because all you see is lights. By day, it doesn't look like a city at all. The trees out-number the houses. And that's completely typical of Seattle. You can't quite tell: is it a city, is it a suburb, is the forest growing back? ~ Jonathan Raban

Without fanfare, Starbucks was also going to open two coffee shops in Seattle that were not like any of our existing stores. Each would serve Starbucks coffee but be unique ~ Howard Schultz

I grew up in Seattle, where there isn't a lot of sun. ~ Josie Bissett

I got a scholarship to Seattle University and I was writing arrangements for singers and everybody. But the music course was too dry and I really wanted to get away from home. ~ Quincy Jones

I learned so much about playing and touring being on the road and in the studio with Jeff, but I'd always played a lot of gigs in Seattle even prior to joining the Fusion. ~ Kenny G

Merry Christmas. His would be without the Merry for sure. ~ Debbie Macomber

It was messed up, because in 1947 my family moved to Seattle and I had to get up at 5:00 o'clock in the morning to catch the ferry back to Bremerton every morning because I was Boys Club president. ~ Quincy Jones

When time permits, I try to see interesting people in the cities I visit. In Seattle, I met Paul Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft, who is shy in personality but flamboyant in his philanthropy. ~ Steven Pinker

The motto of this city should be the immortal words spoken by that French field marshal during the siege of Sebastopol, "J'y suis, j'y reste" - "I am here, and here I shall remain." People are born here, they grow up here, they go to the University of Washington, they work here, they die here. Nobody has any desire to leave. You ask them, "What is it again that you love so much about Seattle?" and they answer, "We have everything. The mountains and the water." This is their explanation, mountains and water. As much as I try not to engage people in the grocery checkout, I couldn't resist one day when I overheard one refer to Seattle as "cosmopolitan." Encouraged, I asked, "Really?" She said, Sure, Seattle is full of people from all over. "Like where?" Her answer, "Alaska. I have a ton of friends from Alaska." Whoomp, there it is. ~ Maria Semple

Contaminate your bed and you will one night suffocate in your own waste. ~ Chief Seattle

There are cities that take your breath away by their sheer size; some by the beat of their rhythmic culture, but Seattle gives you your breath back. Fills your lungs. I take it in and feel like I can breathe for the first time in my life. My God, it's like I've been looking for this place all along. My ~ Tarryn Fisher

I know what it's like to be from an incredibly small town and the oppressiveness of it and the desire to get out. But I didn't realize that readers in Seattle, New York, and San Francisco might not get that so instinctively. ~ John Corey Whaley

So if my ability to meditate was what was going to save the world, or at least save Portland, then I was pretty sure we should all think about moving to Seattle. ~ Devon Monk

How can i eat now? I'm going to Seattle by helicopter with Christian Gray..And he wants to bite my lip.. ~ E.L. James

Few things can mess you up as badly as trying to do your best. For the tender heart, the earnest heart, it is so discouraging to give all you have trying to do what you think Jesus would have you do, and find yourself falling short, sabotaging your own efforts at every turn. Discouragement and shame settle in like a long Seattle rain.
And this is what most Christians experience as the Christian life: Try harder; feel worse. ~ John Eldredge

This We Know. All Things Are Connected ~ Chief Seattle

All creation is one. What we do to one, we do to the entire web of life. ~ Chief Seattle

I think what's beautiful when you're looking at artists like Macklemore and you're looking at artists like Ayron Jones, they're proud of Seattle and they're bringing it back. Seattle's a real music town. When you act ashamed of that, you should be pushed outta the game as far as I'm concerned. ~ Sir Mix-a-Lot

Well this week's all about Seattle, so we've been doing our best to prepare for the Seahawks. I'm doing that, our team's doing that and we'll be ready to go Sunday. That's our focus. ~ Bill Belichick

I think that everyone in Seattle, their daily existence, is enriched by all the charitable giving that is courtesy of Microsoft. ~ Maria Semple

If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them? ~ Chief Seattle

warriors. In 2007 Cooper fought a Chinese long-sword instructor on a Hong Kong rooftop - he never thought the experience would help him write battle scenes. In addition to being a member of the Mongoliad writing team, Cooper has written articles for various magazines. His autobiographical piece "Growing Up Black and White," published in Seattle Weekly, was awarded Social Issues Reporting Article of the Year by the ~ Neal Stephenson

What's silly is paying five bucks for hot milk and flavored syrup! But now I see what's really been going on all this time! They charge you all that money because they need it for the R & D! Somewhere on the outskirts of Seattle, there's a secret facility with higher security than Area 51, and inside there are men with poor eyesight and bad haircuts wearing white coats, and they're trying to make the Holy Grail of all coffee drinks.
The bacon latte?
No, Atticus, I already told you those exist! I'm talking about the prophecy! 'Out of the steam and the foam and the froth, a man in white with poor eyesight will craft a liquid paradox, and it shall be called the Triple Nonfat Double Bacon Five-Cheese Mocha!'
Oberon, what the F
? ~ Kevin Hearne

To Gulietta, indoor plumbing was the devil's device. Of all the follies of the modern world, that one struck her as the most unnecessary. There was something unnatural, foolish, and a little filthy about going indoors. Ont he European estates where she was reared, it was common practice for servant girls to lift their skirts outside. Gulietta had seen no reason to alter her habits in Seattle. Despite the difficulty there of doing one's natural duty without being rained upon or receiving from a blackberry bramble a bite as sharp as hemorrhoids, she felt comfortable--happy, even--when she could squat in fresh air. Besides, it was an opportune way to spy frogs. ~ Tom Robbins

Well, it was a million tiny little things that, when you added them all up, they meant we were supposed to be together ... and I knew it. I knew it the very first time I touched her. It was like coming home ... only to no home I'd ever known ... I was just taking her hand to help her out of a car and I knew. It was like ... magic.
- Sleepless in Seattle ~ Nora Ephron

Competitive rowing is an undertaking of extraordinary beauty preceded by brutal punishment. Unlike most sports, which draw primarily on particular muscle groups, rowing makes heavy and repeated use of virtually every muscle in the body, despite the fact that a rower, as Al Ulbrickson liked to put it, "scrimmages on his posterior annex." And rowing makes these muscular demands not at odd intervals but in rapid sequence, over a protracted period of time, repeatedly and without respite. On one occasion, after watching the Washington freshmen practice, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's Royal Brougham marveled at the relentlessness of the ~ Daniel James Brown

Their menu points out that: "It took Vikings many centuries to create the smorgasbord. It brings you the fish of the sea, the meats of the range... the fruits of the land and the wings of the sky in a gracious gesture of hospitality and welcomes you to the meal that follows.... ~ William C. Speidel Jr.

After driving 30-minutes East of Seattle, I expect to see a great bowling alley. But, as we pull into the parking lot, all I see are pot holes, a horse and Amish buggy, and no cars to speak of- broken down or otherwise. Even the building is in shambles, needs painted and looks a bit haunted. The old road sign reading- Flicker Lanes- is half-burnt out. Seeing the building's interior lights on, I'm reassured that the place is open- but then again, maybe they've been left on by mistake. "There's LOTS of NICE bowling alleys in SEATTLE," I said. "Why did we come ALL THIS WAY to go BOWLING?"
"I take it that you've never BEEN here before."
"I don't think ANYONE HAS. I don't even KNOW what PLANET we're on."
"I don't know what PLANET you're on either... but the rest of us are on your ANUS."
I half-smile, marveling at his wittiness. ~ Giorge Leedy

Language evolves and moves on. It is an organic thing. It is not stuck in an ivory tower, hung with expensive works of art and overlooking most of Seattle with a helipad stuck on its roof. ~ E.L. James

I think you're asking too much. You know what I have? Toward this Pris android?"
"Empathy," he said.
"Something like that. Identification; there goes I. My god; maybe that's what'll happen. In the confusion you'll retire me, not her. And she can go back to Seattle and live my life. I never felt this way before. We are machines, stamped out like bottle caps. It's an illusion that I - I personally - really exist; I'm just representative of a type."
He could not help being amused; Rachael had become so mawkishly morose. "Ants don't feel like that," he said, "and they're physically identical."
"Ants. They don't feel period."
"Identical human twins. They don't - "
"But they identify with each other; I understand they have an empathic, special bond. ~ Philip K. Dick

My mom was an actress in the local Seattle theater doing experimental plays. ~ Rainn Wilson

A Seattle lawyer once interrupted his lengthy cross-examination of a witness and exclaimed, "Your Honor, one of the jurors is asleep." "You put him to sleep," replied the judge. "Suppose you wake him up." ~ James Keller

I attended schools in Seattle through the University of Washington, from which I was graduated in 1931. I spent the next year at Northwestern University. ~ George Stigler

He'd done it again. Screwed up in a social situation and dragged the whole team down with hm. His new team. The ones who were counting on him to be a leader on and off the field. He'd led them, all right, almost into a brawl. ~ Jami Davenport

It was not until I got my first job, at the University of Washington in Seattle, and began playing chess with Don Gordon, a brilliant young theorist, that I learned economic theory. ~ Douglass North

I never thought I would be the oldest quarterback in the National Football League at one point, not in a million years. I never thought I would play as long as I did, either, seventeen years from start to finish, with stops in Houston, Minnesota, Seattle, and Kansas City. ~ Warren Moon

My parents are very successful, and I went to the nicest private school in the Seattle area. I was lucky. But I never had any trust funds of any kind, though my dad did pay my tuition at Harvard, which was quite expensive. ~ Bill Gates

That time in Seattle - during the lawsuit - was a fucking nightmare. I came out of it dead broke, without a house, without anything except a girlfriend and a knowledge of UNIX." "Well, that's something," Avi says. "Normally those two are mutually exclusive. ~ Neal Stephenson

This is a temporary setback, not a failure. Let it be a challenge for you. If you want to be a teacher, your can do it. If you want to be a wife and a mother, you can do that too. If you want to be a teacher, a wife, and a mother, all at the same time, try your hardest! ~ Dawn Klinge

Seattle is like a global gumbo, a melting pot with all kinds of people - the rich, the poor, white people, some Chinese, Filipino, Jewish and black people - they're all here. ~ Quincy Jones

Will you teach your children what we have taught our children? That the earth is our mother? What befalls the earth befalls all the sons of the earth. This we know: the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself. One thing we know: our god is also your god. The earth is precious to him and to harm the earth is to heap contempt on its creator. ~ Chief Seattle

The 808 kick drum makes the girlies get dumb,
We're rollin' Rainier, and the jealous wanna get some.
Every time we do the sucka MC's wanna battle,
I'm the man they love to hate, the J.R. Ewing of Seattle ... ~ Sir Mix-a-Lot

Nick, You know, The first guy I met when I first got to Seattle, As an eighteen year old, You took me in. You believed in me from the beginning. You knew that I had potential. And every single day I know I could look at you And know that you respect me As a man, As a player, And you gonna ride with me to the end. I thank you. ~ Kevin Durant

When I retired and told my wife I wanted to go back to Bozeman and fight political corruption and get involved in politics, she decided to stay in Seattle. ~ Stan Jones

Growing up in Seattle, I was always that kid who didn't subscribe to what everyone else was wearing. ~ Chris Benz

Seattle, I get a call from Ben. ~ Gayle Forman

Around the time I opened my second restaurant, Etta's, I had just finished judging at the Jack Daniels World Invitational BBQ Championship in Lynchburg, Tennessee. Back home in Seattle, my goal was to recreate the sweet and smoky taste of that BBQ using our local wild king salmon instead of pig. ~ Tom Douglas

When I lived in Seattle and Oregon, we partied, which is a large reason I don't know drugs or alcohol now because I saw the Destruction of so many great musicians and artists. ~ Meredith Brooks

Enough bickering, ladies," Zack said. "Let's - hey, is that blood?" He asked, pointing to my jeans. Attention span of a moth…

J.M. Friedman. Succubus in Seattle (Kindle Locations 382-383). ~ J.R. Thorn

All things share the same breath - the beast, the tree, the man. The air shares its spirit with all the life it supports. ~ Chief Seattle

The deployment of geolocating tags attached to ordinary garbage could paint a surprising picture of the waste management system, as trash is shipped throughout the country in a maze-like disposal process - as we saw in Seattle with our own Trash Track project. ~ Carlo Ratti

I moved to L.A. right out of high school, but not to act. I think I chose it because it was on the same time zone as Seattle, where I'm from. ~ Cam Gigandet

I realized I really enjoyed theatre, so I did shows up in Seattle like 'To Kill a Mockingbird' and 'Lost in Yonkers.' ~ Nick Robinson

Seattle rain smells different from New Orleans rain ... New Orleans rain smells of sulfur and hibiscus, trumpet metal, thunder and sweat. Seattle rain, the widespread rain of the Great Northwest, smells of green ice and sumi ink, of geology and silence and minnow breath. ~ Tom Robbins

I confess to loving a good murder mystery - anything by Scott Turow or John Grisham. Maybe it's a holdover from my days as a criminal prosecutor in Seattle. ~ Gary Locke

Upwell is one of the most terrifyingly great bands I have ever known out of Seattle. Their musicianship and songwriting is monstrous ... They're heavy like Soundgarden or Zeppelin with killer female vocals, but with their own unique style. ~ Jack Endino

I thought Denver and Seattle was a big game but Houston and Dallas is the kind of game that as players, we want to play in. I haven't missed playing in the National Football League, but every year there are one or two games that makes me wish I could tee it up in that game one more time. ~ Sterling Sharpe

I conducted an off-site consisting of 25 parents in the Seattle area with an income of $200K+ and whose children are entering kindergarten. The headline is that Galer Street is considered a second-tier school, a fallback option for those who don't get accepted to their first-choice school. Our objective is to move the needle on Galer Street and kick it up into the First-Choice Cluster (FCC) for Seattle's elite. How do we achieve this? What is the secret sauce? ~ Maria Semple

For generations, people have come to U.S. shores to seek opportunity. It's what my grandfather did a century ago, when he came to Seattle, and worked as a houseboy just one mile from the Washington State governor's mansion that I was privileged to inhabit for eight years. ~ Gary Locke

My grandfather was hit over the head by a crane boom in Seattle. Some of the family claimed he was never a violent, crazy person before that. Some say he was. It depends who you believe. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

Take nothing but memories, leave nothing but footprints! ~ Chief Seattle

This is the part they don't tell you about in the movies. Or in On the Road. This is not rock 'n' roll.

You are not William Burroughs, and it doesn't make a damn bit of difference if Kurt Cobain was slumped over in an alleyway in Seattle the day Bleach came out. There is no junkie chic. This is not Soho and you are not Sid Vicious. You are not a drugstore cowboy and you are not spotting trains. You are not a part of anything - no underground sect, no counter-culture movement, no music scene, nothing. You have just been released from jail and are walking down Mission Street, alternating between taking a hit off a cigarette and puking, looking for coins on the ground so you can catch a bus as you shit yourself. ~ Joe Clifford

Yes, I hate blown glass art and I happen to live in the blown glass art capital of the world, Seattle, Washington. Being a part of the Seattle artistic community, I often get invited to galleries that are displaying the latest glass sculptures by some amazing new/old/mid-career glass blower. I never go. Abstract art leaves me feeling stupid and bored. Perhaps it's because I grew up inside a tribal culture, on a reservation where every song and dance had specific ownership, specific meaning, and specific historical context. Moreover, every work of art had use - art as tool: art to heal; art to honor, art to grieve. I think of the Spanish word carnal, defined as, 'Of the appetites and passions of the body.' And I think of Gertrude Stein's line, 'Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.' When asked what that line meant, Stein said, 'The poet could use the name of the thing and the thing was really there.' So when I say drum, the drum is really being pounded in this poem; when I say fancydancer, the fancydancer is really spinning inside this poem; when I say Indian singer, that singer is really wailing inside this poem. But when it comes to abstract art - when it comes to studying an organically shaped giant piece of multi-colored glass - I end up thinking, 'That looks like my kidney. Anybody's kidney, really. And frankly, there can be no kidney-shaped art more beautiful - more useful and closer to our Creator - than the kidney itself. And beyond that, this glass isn't funny. There's ~ Sherman Alexie