Archive - Welcome.

Published on: August 28, 2020

Redmond Library Brings You: Nathan in 4 Helpings!

These events require no commute... because they're all online! How delightful. Grab a pair of jammies and another coffee and log in to Zoom for any of these 4 fun gatherings put on by the City of Redmond, Microsoft, and the Redmond Library as the culmination of their "One Book, One Summer, One Redmond" summer reading program. They've thrown together a roster of events I couldn't be more excited to be headlining, with a flavor for every angle on my book and its themes. Here's a breakdown:

These are, of course, all free. You don't even have to get off your sofa. Take your pick, or come to them all! If you've never had a chance to make it to any of my talks, they'll never be an easier time; check in for an hour, or maybe just a minute! Hope to see your smiling faces!!

1. When We Become Islands– How Advancements in Communication Have Made Us Lonely People
NOTE: This is the same speech I gave in February at MOHAI (image from that event above). It was a smash over there, and I can't wait to give it again. If you missed it, now's your chance!
Saturday, September 26, 2020
2:00PM – 4:00PM
Register and more here.

2. Meet the Author– Nathan Vass
Q&A, Discussion, Story readings. I try to have each of my book talks focus on something different, to keep things interesting if you've been to one of these before; I promise to do the same here!
Thursday, October 15, 2020
7:00PM – 8:30PM
Register and more here!

3. Discussing the Lines That Make Us: Stories From Nathan's Bus: Session 1
Diving deeper with facilitator (and author!) Dori Gilliam. We'll tackle some of the probing questions the book brings up about reaching out, and what that means today.
Saturday, October 17, 2020
2:00PM – 4:00PM
Register and more here.

4. Discussing the Lines That Make Us: Stories From Nathan's Bus: Session 2
Further deep diving with Dori and I. There's always more to discuss when it comes to community and stewardship in urban spaces.
Thursday, October 22, 2020
7:00PM – 8:30PM
Register and more here.

Published on: August 27, 2020

International Examiner Interview (Plus a word to my fellow Hapas!)

As an Asian-American, I'm particularly excited to be inducted into the annals of this excellent publication. Sharing pages alongside 김 진아, Fumiko Kimura and the Maruki Hiroshima Panels is a big deal to me. My being a person of color plays a sizable role in my interactions on the road, but rarely warrants a mention in the more affluent circles of art, publishing and filmmaking through which I move in my off hours. One day I'll have the perspective to write intelligently about it, as Seattle jazz giant Chris Icasiano (and childhood friend of mine) does here, or as fellow Korean-American singer Michelle Zauner does in her hauntingly insightful New Yorker essay, "Crying in H-Mart." For now I'll simply acknowledge my gratitude at being included in the publication, and offer a note to my fellow Hapas:

Multiracialism is usually discussed in negative contexts. Having an invisible culture, being rejected by both your cultures, being mistaken or slighted or ignored and so on. Without taking away from the validity of those points, I'd like to add how much it has benefited my experience in a positive way.

In belonging to no single culture and being actively rejected as a member of Korean culture, I've lived for so long with the sensation that I belong instead to all cultures. To a universal human culture. I feel belonging to no single tribe, but to the collective all of them. I imagine this plays a larger role than I'll ever know in my interactions with the folks. People consistently think I'm "half-whatever they are," in the sense that Dwayne Johnson's universal appeal mostly to do with his welcoming attitude on top of the fact that nobody can tell what his heritage is... Yes, you may feel invisible and I don't blame you, especially in the shadows of this city's history of internment; especially in the exclusionary derision in which various Korean staff laugh me out of the building when I speak my own family's language– with a perfect accent, no less– with them. You've felt such things too, I'm sure, and probably privately. These are not moments which get discussed, and they can fester, not least because the first rule of Asian-American identity isn't that you don't talk about it, but that no one else does, which usually– and ultimately– means you don't either.

But let's remember what is also true.

You have something tangibly in common with a much larger swath of humanity. This cab driver, that software developer, this dishwasher, that nurse, that ophthalmologist, gas station attendant, operator... You share the Asian immigrant tendency toward hard work, toward unglamorous working-class surfaces and humble rooms and faded family photos from far away, unused languages, formative traditions no one around you knows about... These are the echoing textures of your family's experience and an enormous host of people of all colors, white included.

We all have more in common than we don't. I'm not qualified to be an expert on these subjects, but I can certainly speak for myself: perspectives that involve divisions and otherizing tend to hurt, and outlooks that involve coming together always help. When was tribalism ever a healthy solution? Let's think of where we overlap. I wouldn't be where I am without the sneaking sensation of comfort that comes from this very loneliness, which only you know about. You are an island with no harbor, sure. But you also have something in common with every harbor. Every island. You've got nothing... and everything, in a way no one else can lay claim to. You are not invisible, and as time passes you will only continue to be less so.

A big thank you to Roxanne, Jill, Alan, Tom and all the others who put this together. Pick up a copy, or click the link below!

INTERVIEW (text): "Positive energy has an interesting way of building on itself,” says Nathan Vass, artist, writer and route 7 Metro bus driver

Published on: August 25, 2020

On Laura's Book

Maybe you were there, this past February (before the world ended and began again). We were at MOHAI, in a room which won't be that packed full for a long time again. I was giving a talk with a surprise perspective on my bus life– how younger generations choose (not) to communicate, and how that affects them.

So why did I suddenly interject the proceedings with the eulogy of the Alaskan Way Viaduct? A friend would tell me afterward, "I liked everything. I even liked the graphs. I loved the graphs. But I don't see how the Viaduct thing fit in at all!"

I was reminded of a reading I once did at the Phinney Neighborhood Center, for their annual Bookfest event. I went with a plan: this was the story I was going to read. The Death story. The thematic climax of my book, the heaviest story and for me and the most resonant. But I had misread the room. This was a holiday bookselling festival. You were supposed to have a good time, joking with Garth Stein and trying out the book-cover cookies. Watch me biff the situation here.

Can I help it if Loss moves me more than laughter? If my way of finding the light involves staring death down, wrestling with the heaviest of thoughts to get through them, rather than looking the other way?

I felt foolish afterwards at Phinney; I should've chosen a funny story. I've certainly written plenty, and love surfing the wave of joy with a crowd. But that's not what drives me.

As a generation– and I'm referring to all of us alive today– we are unique in being forced to contend with a level of change most epochs don't have to experience. The lion's share of human history doesn't involve moments where you can't recognize the world you lived in ten years ago, let alone thirty, let alone that of your parents. For ninety percent of human history, you couldn't tell the difference between your time and a century earlier or later. The human organism is accustomed to being outlasted by objects, ideas, and surroundings. The multitude of rug-pulling change underway these decades is not natural to our souls, and the older spirits among us don't need further explanation to agree.

The elimination of the Viaduct represents for me a symbol of all that, and more: it was the last mega-sized vestige of the city we called Seattle. That was the word we used for a century and change, and though we may live at the same addresses now, today's New Money feels nearly as dismissive and different from its predecessors as Seattle was from the natives it so unfairly wrested land from. Or, as a passenger recently told me: "I done seen Seattle. And this shooooowww' ain't it!"

The book I mentioned in my MOHAI lecture, a collection of paintings by my fellow friend and artist Laura Hamje, has finally come to fruition. I'm featured within it as part of a collection of writings about the Viaduct and what its absence means. But even if I wasn't in its pages I'd still be stumping for her book, because it's really about the paintings; don't go to her September 5th reception event because of me, but for the remarkable quality of her work. Do I need to mention every single painting she did for her 2019 show, 53 Views of the Alaskan Way Viaduct, upon which this book is based, sold? Every last one? Or that, more importantly, they contain a beauty of perspective we can all learn from: a melancholic acceptance and peace with the forward flow of existence, as spoken by her elegiac compositions and somehow strangely appropriate energy, richness, color and verve of her brushwork... with art comes the calmness of new insight.

Death is the motivating engine not of death, but of Life. It allows creation. It is all growth, it is all forward, upward, nearer to understanding. In the Viaduct is a fuller comprehension of who we are, who we'll always and ever be: Works in progress.

You've been wanting to get out of the house. Perhaps now's the time.

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Book signing event for Laura's book on September 5, 2020 from 1pm - 4pm outside Arundel Books: 212 1st Ave S, Seattle, WA 98104. Prints of the paintings will also be available.

Linda Hodges Gallery will be showing the new paintings from the book in their upstairs space, Sept 3 - 26, 2020, just one block south of Arundel Books: 316 1st Ave S Seattle WA 98104 (Gallery Hours: Tuesday - Saturday, 10:30 am to 5:00 pm).

More on the book itself here. Further details on the event here.

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Watch my February MOHAI lecture here.

Published on: July 2, 2020

One Last Story (Video)

Well, here we are. I started this blogging journey eight years ago today with this piece. On March 1 of this year I detailed why I'm changing gears, here. And today I've got this treat for you– a video explaining what you can expect next from me, along with a story of the passenger who's impacted me the most over the course of my career, and not in ways I could have anticipated.

Thank you all so much for your enthusiastic support of my enthusiasm! Through all these years and moving forward, as I continue with new projects (which I'll keep you abreast of with this blog, along with, I'm sure, the occasional story). Without your support the burgeoning art, writing and film careers of mine wouldn't be happening. Thank you. No words are adequate.

Enjoy the video!

New to the site? This blog is 1,200 plus true stories of strangers being kind to each other on city buses I've driven. Click here for an index of the final 57 stories, plus highlights from the blog's earlier years.

Published on: July 1, 2020

The Final Flurry: Index

For eight years, I posted a few times a week. But for the last two months, I wanted something appropriately climactic, and dug deep into my notes for about one new story per day. Here's the resulting final lineup. They're presented in a narrative order building to a climax; feel free to enjoy it in sequence or pick and choose. Many of these were never posted to social media and will read as new. Enjoy!

(New to the site? This blog is 1,200 plus true stories of strangers being kind to each other on city buses I've driven. For a selection of highlights from 2018, click here. For earlier highlights, click here for the "Nathan Vass 101" crash course or explore the sidebar at right.)

5/1. Bravado. Charles reveals his vulnerability, and tries to cover it up. On the conflict between masculinity and sensitivity.
5/2. Nathan Interviewed by TransitCenter. TransitCenter's Kapish Singla interviews Nathan from New York on viruses, microns, passengers, his book, and more. Audio and transcript.
5/4. Talking it Out, Together. A young black man muses on being verbally assaulted by a white woman in, oddly, his home turf of Rainier Valley.
5/5. Go Forth. A man recently released from jail is unable to hide his happiness.
5/6. Freedom From. An elderly female passenger reflects on Third and Pike. On how America can look to outsiders.
5/7. Nathan Vass: NRFF Artist of the Month (Interview). Anya Patel gives perhaps the most thoughtful, organized, and deep-researched interview I've ever had the pleasure of receiving. Complete with links and videos on me which she compiled.
5/9. Helpers in the Night. A female passenger, a sherriff, and a fancy couple all behave very differently from how we might assume.
5/11. The Wave Has Landed. Fourth-Wave feminism has landed– even in the 'hood. Here's what it sounds like.
5/12. She Strong. A man praises his mother, unknown to most of the world, for her remarkable quality.
5/13. Zen and the Art of Driving the 7. This job is above all a test of the mind. Some thoughts on how to think when driving the 7.
5/14. Slow Healer. On processing trauma, restoring confidence, and functioning on the job after receiving life's blows.
5/15. For Night Operators: Tips on Sleepers. It's a more complicated issue than it seems.
5/16. How to Drive the 7, Pt I of IV: 7S, Jackson to Henderson. Everything you'd want to know. This post includes suggestions on waiting for runners, resetting poles, and the Henderson layover.
5/17. How to Drive the 7, Pt II of IV: 7N, Henderson to Pike. This one includes material on both types of skip-stopping, including coach placement for every block of northbound Third.
5/20. How to Drive the 7, Pt III of IV: Route 49 Northbound. Includes Nathan on Ubers and lyfts, plus how to cross the University Bridge.
5/23. How to Drive the 7, Pt IV of IV: Route 49 Southbound. Includes coach positioning for every block of southbound Third.
5/24. How to Drive the 7: The Complete Care Package. Everything I can offer from my own personal experience– the driving directions above, tips on fights, sleepers, assaults, fear, morale, and more.
5/25. Eric, Fully, II: John. Quick moment with a fellow I totally thought was named Eric.
5/28. Vern One. Vern makes me happy. We discuss mortality without saying it out loud, and touch on its salve.
5/29. Name Caller: Final Edition. People call me all sorts of things. here's a list of favorites.
5/31. The United States of Floyd. Nathan on everything George Floyd.
6/3. CJ Rising. I see a young man I never thought I'd see again– and in far better shape.
6/4. Our Lady of Context. The first of three conversations with a niqab-clad friendly spirit.
6/5. The Good Neighbor. Sometimes people help out for no other reason than that it's part of who they are.
6/6. Nathan Converses With His Colleagues: VII. Nathan and Thomas being silly in the wee hours.
6/7. Friends and Strangers and Friends. It pays to be nice to everyone; you never quite know who you're talking to.
6/9. About the Gesture. A gesture of respect from two south-end teens.
6/11. Late-Night Glimpses. A collection of brief memories from late-night driving.
6/12. Sunset (Napszállta): a Reappraisal. One of the best films of 2018-9, and no one knows about it. This might be the only in-depth scholarly rave of Sunset online. With 3,800 words and 29 images.
6/14. Pacing to a New Beat. A youngster on the 5 gets invigorated.
6/15. Our Lady of Miracles. The woman from the 6/4 story shows up again with great news.
6/16. More Film, More Book! Updates on Men I Trust landing notices on the festival circuit, and The Lines That Make Us getting selected as Redmond Library's, Microsoft's, and the City of Redmond's single title for their Summer Reading Program.
6/18. Redmond Summer Reading Program: Meet the Author (Video). Nathan interviewed on why he wrote The Lines That Make Us.
6/22. In the Before. A humorous moment on the 5 inspires thoughts on time's linearity.
6/23. Nathan Converses With His Colleagues: About That 65. It's every North Base operator's least favorite route– and not because of the routing, people, neighborhood, or coach type.
6/24. Our Lady III: Lows and Highs. A final moment with our friend from 6/4 and 6/15.
6/24. To Thrive, Meanwhile. A young father and I confront his recent diabetes diagnosis.
6/24. The Righteous Hustle. John insisted on a trial, and it paid off.
6/25. The Light (Lamlam 1). This conversation is based on notes I took down in 2014. Only now have I figured out how to write about it.
6/26. MOHAI's History Cafe: Nathan Vass on Generationally Specific Behavioral Shifts in Communication (Video). My February 2020 lecture on video, with Q&A and source list.
6/27. She's on Fire. I find things to admire in a loudmouthed, angry, profane woman who tells it like it is.
6/27. The Barista. A former passenger makes my day after I tell her of my appearance in Seattle Magazine's 2018 List.
6/27. Lessons Learned on the 5. Some things I've mellowed out on.
6/28. Just the Two of Us, Gruffly. Sometimes manly men open up with each other, become vulnerable, and recognize sensitivity. Don't you love it when that happens?
6/28. Nathan Converses With His Colleagues, Part VIII. I talk with one of the happiest drivers about one of the unhappiest drivers.
6/28. It's Called Working. Bus drivers behaving badly, and what we as operators can do about it.
6/28. The Friendly 5. We make the 5 feel like a communcal living room.
6/28. Burning. There's no other film like Lee Chang-Dong's masterpiece, which ought to have taken the Palme d'or in 2018.
6/29. Why So Serious?? A hilariously harsh critique of the pimp-roll swagger, from a perhaps unexpected source.
6/29. Vern Two. Our friend from 5/28 gets a wave, and this young man doesn't laugh me out of town for it. Quite the opposite!
6/29. In Napoli. Making each other feel loved on the other side of the world.
6/29. Curae Aude. Dare to Care! On black lives in 2020, and how others doing well benefits rather than detracts from our own welfare.
6/29. Lamlam 2. Isn't she wonderful? We met her in the 6/25 post. Here she is again, six years later.
6/30. Yes, I’ve Been Assaulted. The big question is how to think about it afterwards.
6/30. Ed, Remembered. This one's for you, Patricia. The impact people can have on us.
6/30. Felt From a Distance. Being grateful for moments across a career I hope I still remember in old age.
6/30. One Final Story (VIDEO). I pour my heart and mind out in this 29-minute story of a passenger who taught me more than I ever expected.

And, from 3/1, the announcement of the blog's transition and detailed explanation for why all of this is happening: Expansion (or Why I'm "Ending" the Blog).

Published on: June 30, 2020

Felt From a Distance

This post is a thematic sister to this post.

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I will look back on these days with wonder. I will remember the texture of the everyday, the pleasing baseline of where we came from, what made a thing stand out.

What is called ordinary now, which our future selves will wish we more deeply immortalized?

I will remember the Camera Crew, two enthusiastic youngsters who remind me of myself in earlier times; I have a passion for people and cinema. They have a passion for taking pictures of unusual coach assignments. KING 5 did a piece on them and couldn’t get to the bottom of why they love taking bus photos so much. How could they? Passions need no explanation. Some may laugh at them, but I admire that they know what they like, what feeds their existence, and they simply do it. I will remember seeing them here, there, all around, cameras in hand waiting for the elusive shot, equal parts CIA surveillance and bird watcher.

I will remember running for buses, and missing them. Making them. The involuntary smile of a person who just barely makes a bus. Isn't it lovely, how they always smile?

The way the working man runs across the rainy sidewalk, artfully, holding a newspaper or book over their head from the drops above. Seeing a street fellow do the same, but with a seat cushion instead of the Times.

I will remember the things we complained about. Have you noticed how some people express their joy through complaint? Schedules, runcards, route planning. Why the express lanes are closed today but not yesterday. Grumbling sarcasm unable to stay down for too long, manifesting as exaggerated jokes, chuckles over the things we tolerate.

Looking at the ceiling of the Deca Hotel.

Looking forward in the old Bus Tunnel, using your periphery to mind the narrow gap on either side while driving your 41 through the tubes. Do you remember the platform curbs before the rail retrofit, simple and easy to pull up to as any sidewalk?

A 62 driver who’d driven me on an 8 the day before, she and I chuckling, me embarrassed I’d forgotten her name. I watch her walk down Mercer toward a comfort station from my day off, sitting in a cafe. I wonder how her day’s going, what thoughts live in her mind. How many times has someone we know seen us from afar, wishing they could say hello?

The Chinese man playing the erhu in Westlake Station’s mezzanine, echoing the timeless sounds off the marble walls. I’ve seen him since childhood. Some say he has a twin brother who plays in the International District; others insist it’s the same man just making the rounds. Wonder if I’ll ever know.

Young Gordon waving as I drive by his place, him and Bruce getting out of their car. A wave at night; you know who it is based on the block and time. I smile to myself in the dark.

Geo, a friendly passenger, reading my book in the back of my own bus. To see that volume in her hands as she sits on the back bench, which I put so much into, my baby– as I do the very thing she’s reading about! Uncanny.

Late one quiet night at the base, standing around under high ceilings. Satinder (called Bob) looks up at a few of us driver friends while filling out paperwork. He said, "I can't explain it, but I just had the strangest realization. For some reason I feel very confident that right now, today, is the halfway point of my life. I'm forty-seven years old, and I'm going to live another forty-seven years." There was a silent mystery in his tone, hovering behind the words. We believed him.

On the 7 again after a stint away, making the route’s first turn after the Rainier Beach layover. A gaggle of youngsters on the sidewalk turn as I pass by, concentrating on driving. I don’t notice, but Brittany, standing next to me, does: “They recognized you!”
“Really?”
“Yeah, I heard them say, ‘Hey, Nathan's back!’”

I have a feeling these are the sorts of flashes I’ll return to as I lay in bed, older, considering the ceiling markings and dim blue light from the windows. Life will shift in tempo, and a greater handful of thoughts will require too much energy to say aloud. I will slip away from myself, redolent with the weight of a past larger than my future, able to remember events but not their order. The last thing I will be able to do is think, and I know that in between thoughts of loved ones and the events which involved them, in between emptiness and loneliness and present solace, I will think of the masses who kept me company through these cluttered halcyon years. I spend more time with them per waking hour than anyone else, and I don't feel bad about that.

There was something we shared, that spark in your eye, something ineffable and true and good. It was there the entire time. My future self will lie in bed and take comfort, smiling alone to my closing eyes, eased by the thought: I sensed the value of these workaday nothings not after it was too late but while they were happening. I knew the good time was good and how, and I am grateful.