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    Men I Trust, as Reviewed by Film Threat, UK Film Review, and Indy Reviews

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    "A touching story about grief and loss... does a fantastic job getting right to the issues of life, death, and legacy."
    -Alan Ng, Film Threat (click here for full review)

    "Sophisticated... a very accomplished piece of filmmaking and storytelling."
    -Chris Buick, UK Film Review (click here for full review)

    "Supported by excellent writing, cinematography and an impeccable cast, Men I Trust is a beautiful homage to life and love itself."
    -Olivia Ballington, Indy Reviews (click here for full review)

    I blush, reader. It's not out of any desire to alter your estimation of me that I share these, but that in doing so these reviews might shine more light on the excellent work done by all the artists who contributed to the film. Every word of praise sent their way– to the actors, camera, sound, technicians, extras and more– is deserved. Bravo Eleanor, Marty, Meagan, Seth, Brian, Daniel, and all the rest. The text layout of the poster above is accurate– it really is a film not just by me but all of those names, who got up early, memorized lines, worked for less, and went the extra mile.

    Thanks also to the reviewers, particularly Ms. Ballington for her in-depth appraisal. Read/watch/learn more about Men I Trust at its official page, here.

    Stay tuned for more!
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    Nathan on Seattle's Waterfront: Before and After

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    Painting by Laura Hamje. Photograph by Nathan Vass.

    I was honored to be asked to write two pieces on Seattle's waterfront for Laura Hamje's art book, discussed by me here and available for purchase here (9/5 book launch details here!). Only one piece made it into the book, however, and in edited form at that; I wanted to share the original pieces with you, not to upstage the wonderfully curated book but to compliment it. As I know all too well, authors never get to squeeze everything they want into published books. Thank goodness for the internet.

    The first reads as an elegy of sorts, and articulating those pangs of longing was easy for me; the piece practically wrote itself. But I most appreciate being tasked with writing the second one, even if it never made it into the book. It was a test, in the sense of: dare yourself to see the positive in losing of past. Dare yourself to think on a broader scale, to understand time on a plane beyond the personal. This is a healing perspective, and a skill we could all benefit from honing, myself most of all. Life is not merely a series of ever-escalating losses, as is so tempting to think in our worst moments; but something calmer, deeper, more renewable. Read on.


    Eternity
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    It is easy to forget that objects outlast loved ones.

    They live longer than people, and carry with them the bodied memories of a thousand ordinary days, the days when that person still wandered about the house, called you, whisper-chuckled in your ears. Objects stick around, long after your spouse, parent, whomever– has drifted out of your life, a casualty of death and time. You look at things differently now. Cheap chinaware, from when your family spoke another language. Your child's drawings. They comfort us, objects do, defying mortality and proving real our memories.

    It is a bizarre thing to outlive an object.

    To witness the destruction and sudden absence of this massive, city-defining edifice is to be unmoored. We are as children who have lost our ancient tree, the old church or schoolyard... Things seen against the sky, which fulfilled all our definitions for what is everlasting.

    This is what the Viaduct was for those of us who were there. With shadows and stone it reminded us of what used to be obvious, felt and known: Seattle was a frontier town, built from earth and industry and fire, by hard men and resilient women redolent with the grit-grime texture of a life you could actually touch. You felt their pioneer spirit when you drove on a structure you knew might collapse at any moment, negotiated its awkward merges or stumbled about in awe beneath its roaring and cavernous underbellies. For the price of bus fare, anyone and their aunt Martha could have the best view of both the Sound and the skyline at the drop of a hat. That will never be true again.

    There is a look in the eye of every Seattleite who knew the city pre-Amazon. We don't need to explain it to each other, and it's invisible to everyone else. We have outlived the objects that gave us an anchor in our own home.
    Do you know what that feels like?

    At the close of every long day, and the start of each fresh one, in the sweet halfway house between dreams and waking life, we forget what's happened and remember the Seattle that made Seattle, the concrete, evergreen, Japanese, two-story, lumberjack fisherman rail-tie Boeing that was Seattle. We see it as if it's still right outside, all connected by the great Viaduct, that monolith that defined us, an engineering marvel for which we were rightly proud, which we praised and loved to lament.

    For just a moment, the memory feels so possible. You can almost touch it, the past you learned too late to treasure. Another cloudy morning on the upper level, car windows down, feeling that stiff saltwater breeze blast you just the way you like it, enjoying the mighty din of freeway traffic, the only manmade sound that contains all of human life.
    We were there.


    So Now Then
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    Will we forget it was once there? Or will we slowly rebirth what we used to feel, attaching a growing sacredness to as-yet unconstructed beltways and parks?

    This is what we have to do, as humans. It is how we complete the world, give a name and face to history. On a long enough timeline we begin to understand– it isn't the structure itself, nor its peculiarities, but rather what those specifics do for us. In the stories we live out, the emotions and comforts of what we’ve known, we take solace.

    Knowing the Viaduct is now a pleasant citywide secret, a melancholic pastime that allows us to prove we existed. We take pride in our memories, recognizing the heft they afford, never mind whether bright or sad. We seek dimension.

    For this we will take our families and lovers to the new greenbelt, dine with our colleagues and wander the virgin sidewalks amid the silent echo of earlier times, hoping to convince ourselves that though the worlds we traverse may now have shorter lifespans than our own, we can at least outwit the rushing pace of things by making memories which hold still.

    We Seattleites today walk beneath now-absent structures in reflection. Why the headlong rush to rebuild? American cities are unique in their allergy to the past. We strenuously work to hide the existence of time, of history, because time proves death. Do-overs absolve us of the pain of preserving, because it is easier to replace than to treasure.

    The Viaduct taught us, among other things, to enjoy the journey as destination. Who didn’t covertly marvel at the sunswept magic hour of afternoon stop-and-go, a reason to be thankful our city faces west? The newfound absence and the slow, rumbling process of development extrapolate that notion into life; we are reminded that the only true constant is a state of flux.

    The waterfront, and the city at large, like all cities, will never be complete. We yearn for finality and steady states because we are all of us young, all of us here living life for the very first time. It is simpler to mourn what we knew than embrace the strangeness of new worlds.

    But someday we'll be able to find peace in what we already know: that the fullest, most complete expression of existence is in this unfinished birthing we walk through today, cranes and tubes and signage, a half-laundered wasteland of scaffolding and civic dreams, the most perfect metaphor for the definition of Being:

    The act of Ever Becoming.
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    Redmond Library Brings You: Nathan in 4 Helpings!

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

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    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
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    On Laura's Book

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    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.

    ---

    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.
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    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.