Casey Curran is a Seattle artist who’s ability to fuse thick old books and miles of wire is beyond crafty. Not only does he have the skills to rework wire into an etymologically perfect insect, many of his works feature a hand crank and moving parts on the background of several seamlessly connected, once loved books. Curran’s crafty works can be seen at Gallery IMA in Pioneer Square, and the link, where there is series of his work in glorious vintage (looking) motion.
Casey Curran on YouTube

[Editor’s Note: As in the print magazine’s Artist Portfolio, the blog feature will showcase exceptional visual talent in all mediums. Please send submissions to ali @ rivetmagazine.org.]

Casey Curran is a Seattle artist who’s ability to fuse thick old books and miles of wire is beyond crafty. Not only does he have the skills to rework wire into an etymologically perfect insect, many of his works feature a hand crank and moving parts on the background of several seamlessly connected, once loved books. Curran’s crafty works can be seen at Gallery IMA in Pioneer Square, and the link, where there is series of his work in glorious vintage (looking) motion.
Casey Curran on YouTube

[Editor’s Note: As in the print magazine’s Artist Portfolio, the blog feature will showcase exceptional visual talent in all mediums. Please send submissions to ali @ rivetmagazine.org.]

Casey Curran is a Seattle artist who’s ability to fuse thick old books and miles of wire is beyond crafty. Not only does he have the skills to rework wire into an etymologically perfect insect, many of his works feature a hand crank and moving parts on the background of several seamlessly connected, once loved books. Curran’s crafty works can be seen at Gallery IMA in Pioneer Square, and the link, where there is series of his work in glorious vintage (looking) motion.

1. Who or What is your biggest artistic inspiration?
Well that’s two questions. The answer to the first being Alexander Calder. I think of him as the seed that sowed the forest, and a more resent inspiration would be Arthur Gansen. Both are kinetic artists and I gained much of my mechanical inspiration from each. My biggest inspiration art-wise is antiquated knowledge. I like to rummage through old bookstores turning through time yellowed pages and the cracked spines of hard bound books. It’s interesting to read a book written over a hundred years ago and see how the values imbued there apply to the values of contemporary society.

2. What is your favorite local book store?
I do most of my art gathering at both Twice Told Tales and Half Price Books. Half Price Books has a better dumpster though.

3. Where is the best place to view art in Seattle?
You mean besides Gallery I.M.A. where I show my art right? I’d have to say Greg Kucera has consistently good shows but I really like what the Frye has been doing in the last year or so.

4. Best place to hide in public?
The best place to hide is in the open. More often than not when you’re having a really good hair day.

5. What is the best site or blog that we don’t know about yet?
I don’t read blogs, I just listen to NPR. You’ve heard of NPR right?

6. If you could go to any planet in our solar system which would it be?
I’d like to see what’s in the middle of Jupiter’s giant red spot. Of course I would see this from space in the safety of my rocket ship. I wouldn’t really be able to see it from the ground. In fact there really isn’t any ground to Jupiter, just gas eventually compressing to liquid.

Casey Curran on YouTube

[Editor’s Note: As in the print magazine’s Artist Portfolio, the blog feature will showcase exceptional visual talent in all mediums. Please send submissions to ali @ rivetmagazine.org.]

Today has been the first noticeably lighter 7AM walk. The dead of winter has passed, and though you wouldn’t know it from the tree branches, you can hear it in the bird calls.

Recently I’ve had some run-in’s with bird call curiosity. It turns out, that if you sit and listen to separate bird calls, it’s quite easy to identify the basics. I’m not entirely sure that there is any higher purpose to the identification than the satisfaction of the discovery. Though I wonder if sometimes the birds respond to human interpretations of their calls.

When I get back to Seattle I’m going to have to make a point to listen to city bird calls, because all I’ve ever really paid attention to are these Virginia woods. Memories of bird feeders with charts taped to the window: tufted titmice, warblers, hummingbirds and whatnot. And how the squirrels ended up ruining the party every time.
Meanwhile, we had a false start to spring last week, and as a result I see that the daffodil shoots have sprouted. These early harbingers of seasonal shifting are so gullible - this happens every year. Somehow they manage to stick it out until the real spring, where their warm tones bounce off the forsythias across the field, sprinkled by the dogwood blossoms in the background.

If I remember correctly - and there’s little chance of that - it is around this time that the cardinals and the blue jays take over.

My hair has frozen stiff, reminding me that this is all yet to arrive. Time to go inside and thaw, which I know I can do much faster than the ground.

I’ve been studying Literary Hypermedia, and seeing as how this blog is one form thereof I thought it an appropriate vehicle to continue the discussion started elsewhere by others. In the early-to-mid Nineties, when the world looked to the infinite future, the Internet seemed to be the apparatus with which this future would be realized. We all remember a thousand ugly webpages, in garish websafe colors, with text rendered in serif fonts, and it’s hard not to wonder how we were all alright with the future looking so bad.

Of more interest to me, however, is the demise of some of those dreams for the potential of the medium. I’m speaking in particular of Hypertext Fiction. This is more than the process of translating printed word into digitized word. As informed by critical theory (don’t worry, I promise not to quote any), Hypertext is [was?] a new form of literature - a multidiscursive, decentered narrative in which the term “narrative” is misleading. Put simply, the text doesn’t flow forward in a linear matter, allowing the reader to jump around in an order established by the reader. There are obvious problems with this concept, outside of the ideal theoretical realm in which it was imagined. A story without a story can hardly be called a story.

Around 1995, and even before, there were a number of writers experimenting with the form, struggling through their ignorance of web and graphic design to locate the end product of the medium’s potential. But when I conducted a recent Google search for variations of “Hypertext Fiction” and “Literary Hypermedia” I discovered that almost all web-based hypertextual works of fiction were those leftover from this initial period of experimentation, and that half of those links returned by Google were dead.

I’ve rambled on here for quite a while without being interesting and/or funny, but let me sum this up by saying that I think hypertext deserves a period of re-exploration. While early attempts probably failed to discover the broader ramifications of the combination of fiction and the internet, there is still great potential, and somebody out there is going to discover the power of hypertext and be friggin’ famous because they do. Why shouldn’t that be one of us?

As everyone knows, February is International Kung Fu Month, so in the spirit of this complete fabrication of a remembrance, here are my favorite all-time Kung Fu movies. I’m something of an expert on the subject.

#5 – Enter the Dragon (1973)/Return of the Dragon (1972) – Neither of these movies are exceptional except insomuch as Bruce Lee is the reason we all know what Kung Fu is. And honestly, one has a handless guy who straps a knife-claw to his nub, and the other one has Chuck Norris. Score!

#4 – A Touch of Zen (1969) – This movie was Crouching Tiger long before there was a Crouching Tiger. Every element in every subsequent Kung Fu art movie owes to the cinematography here.

#3 – Hero (2002) – The plot is convoluted, but that’s incidental to things looking pretty and people wielding swords. The first fight, between the Jet Li and Donnie Yen, is one of the finest ever.

#2 – The Five Deadly Venoms (1978) – This is the quintessential Shaw Brothers movie. Shaw Brothers movies are at once terrible and spectacular, but the charisma of the actors who play the venoms (and who would reunite in countless films), and their martial arts prowess make this the one to watch.

#1 – Mystery of Chess Boxing (1979) – This film is sometimes titled as Ninja Checkmate for American audiences, despite the distinct lack of ninjas. Stupid Americans. Normal Kung Fu plot. Normal training to defeat the super Kung Fu villain. Oh, but what a villain. Ghost Faced Killer (yes, this is where the rapper got his name) is the best villain in the long, celebrated history of villainy.

For those of you wishing to increase your Kung Fu I.Q., here are a few honorable mentions: The 36 Chambers of Shao Lin (1978), Dragon Inn (1992), Iron Monkey (1993), Once Upon a Time in China I & II (1991 & 1992), Drunken Master II (1993), Fearless (2006), Master of the Flying Guillotine (1978). That should get you started.

In any city, Broadway is probably pretty much the same. Neon lights, garish displays of tourist-trap memorabilia, and bars. I’m willing to bet that every Broadway has a buzzing nightlife. Broadway is known for its happy hour specials, late night munchies, colorful characters. It is either the center or the former center of a city’s social landscape, and either way you’ll find it packed with people on a Friday night.

Try it at this time of day, however, and all is a different story. Bars and things are obviously shut down, chairs all on top of tables, lights off, not a soul in sight. Not a soul. Kitsch stores have yet to open for the day’s tourist crowd, and with the lights off, their window displays are shadowy versions of the dark side of nowhere - a jungle of ambiguous silhouettes.

And of the neon lights: left on, they bleat like a baby lamb left out in the cold, but turned off they become dead relics. In fact this whole street feels too damn silent. It needs the blasting music or else it’s just a picture in newsprint.

The people, it goes without saying, are elsewhere. Maybe in the cars, headed to work via a nearby highway. Maybe in bed - after all, this is Music City and musicians get to work when the sun goes down. Most likely they were just visiting and they’ve returned to their dorm room or their regular job in a nearby state like Missouri.

Well I’ve never been to Missouri so I don’t know about any Broadways there.

“Death On The Breeze”
A Danny Stark Mystery
by James Walling

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Jimmy Elmer rested his hand on Jillian’s bare knee as he drove. She became still, a statuette of total ambivalence, caught midway between responding to a wave of revulsion and a baser, animalistic thrill.

Her natural aversion faded and the physical response gave way to a kind of primal dread as they wended their way down the highway, leaving civilization farther and farther behind.

“Hauling me back to your cave?” she asked softly. Her voice was thick with drink, despite the sobering effect of her mounting apprehension.

Jimmy smiled knowingly and pushed the gas pedal closer to the floor. His hand left her knee long enough for him to shift and then resumed its measured advance up her leg.

Jillian clung to the hope that Danny and Fox were following some distance behind them, waiting for Jimmy’s Charger to pull off the road. The trouble was she couldn’t be sure. The headlights in the rearview mirror could belong to anybody. The comforting rumble of Fox’s Harley was faint enough to have become nothing more than the product of her over-active imagination.

Jimmy’s fingers ventured beneath the hemline of her skirt and traced circles on the pale flesh of her thigh.

“Place like Nick’s,” he said, “you could maybe end up running with the wrong sort.” His voice was soothing, even pleasantly distracting. “Folks around here tend to steer clear of the place, except for the occasional bump.”

The sonofabitch killed my sister’s husband, she reminded herself. He attacked a blind man and a teenage boy…

Jillian’s heart raced and she tried in vain to ignore the subtle pressure of his fingertips.

“You oughta be more careful,” he went on. His caresses seemed almost automatic, absent minded somehow, as though his intentions were less predatory than the scenario warranted.

Jillian kissed his neck suddenly in an attempt to hide her fear. Alarm merged with shame and adrenalin in a whirl of confusion and self-doubt.

Jimmy calmly assented, taking her chin in the palm of his hand and kissing her lightly on the lips.

This isn’t getting any safer the farther we get from town, she reflected to herself with increasing anxiety.

A new sensation, a surge of abandon and recklessness, overwhelmed her. She reached across Jimmy’s lap unbuckled his seatbelt. Leaning over, she whispered into his ear.

“You don’t pull this thing over pretty quick,” she said, “a girl could lose her nerve.”

Jimmy slowed to a crawl and aimed the Charger onto a numbered logging road scattered with gravel. He turned the engine off after about a hundred yards and switched off the lights. Jillian noticed with a certain amount of panic that no headlights had followed them at the turnoff.

Jimmy reached out for her and kissed her hard. He was upon her in an instant, ushering her into the backseat, and she had a struggle rolling him onto his back in order to retain the upper hand.

She silenced any lingering doubts by pulling her tank top off over her head.

She smiled lewdly and reached behind her to unsnap her bra.

“Hold on a minute,” Jimmy said reluctantly. Jillian frowned in mock consternation.

Jimmy sighed and smiled apologetically.

“You can drop the act,” he said, not unkindly.

Jillian flushed, but said nothing.

“I don’t mean to look a gift horse,” he said, “but you ain’t foolin’ nobody. You’re that Schaller widow’s sister. You been seeing that blind motherfucker came to my mother’s house.”

“I-I don’t know what—“

“Come off it,” Jimmy muttered. “How many good looking women happen through this burg, you think? People tend to notice.”

Jimmy held Jillian’s shirt up to her like an olive branch.

All at once she realized that she was straddling a homicidal maniac in nothing but a short skirt and a few pieces of underwear.

She jumped off him and slid into the front seat, simultaneously covering what little flesh she could and trying to create some space between them.

“Why’d you let me go on then, you sonofabitch?”

Jimmy laughed and shrugged good-naturedly.

“Can you blame me?” he asked.

She assessed herself for panic and realized with a start that she was more embarrassed than afraid.

An awkward silence passed between them. Finally, Jimmy spoke.

“You gonna tell me what this act is all about,” he asked.

“By this act—“

“I’d be referring to the lady of the evening routine.”

Jillian didn’t know why, but she decided to level with him.

“It was supposed to be a trap,” she said.

“No shit.”

“Danny and Fox were gonna ask you some questions.”

“Yeah, like they did at my mom’s place?”

Jillian smiled acidly.

“You shot at them,” she said.

“Actually, my mother did the shooting…”

Before he could finish his sentence, Fox’s menacing profile emerged from the shadows and the sight stopped him cold.

“Here we go—“

Fox had the door open in a flash and the two men were brawling before Jillian could get a word in edgewise.

She spotted Danny on the edge of the road and ran to him.

“This is all wrong,” she said.

“You’re telling me,” Danny said, touching her bare shoulder.

Jimmy was tearing into Fox like a wildcat, for all the good it did him. He took a heavy blow for every three he gave, but the balance of damage was clearly in Fox’s favor.

“Hold him,” Danny snapped.

Fox reeled with a series of blows to the stomach.

Danny took his silence for a bad sign and stepped toward the sounds of the scuffle.

It was a mistake.

Just as Danny came within reach, Jimmy pulled a short knife from a sheath attached to his belt and slashed out at Danny’s ribs. The blade found its mark and Danny went down hard.

Jillian screamed and ran toward them. Fox pushed her back and Jimmy took the opportunity to break free.

Fox ran after him into the deepening darkness of the woods. Jillian followed closely, leaving Danny sprawled on the ground.

Fox caught up with Jimmy at the edge of a shallow ravine. Jimmy seemed to have tossed the knife, because he met the man with closed fists.

“I didn’t hurt her,” Jimmy grunted. “I was just havin’ some fun—“ He landed a hard right that knocked Fox backward into the ravine. The two men tumbled downhill together, picking up where they left off at the edge of a black pool that served as a water cache for one of the nearby farms.

Realization dawned on Jillian an instant too late.

Fox ducked another well-aimed right and pulled Jimmy into the water with all his remaining strength, holding him under. Jimmy kicked and struggled in vain.

“He didn’t do it!” Jillian shouted in a voice touched with horror. “He didn’t kill Herb! He didn’t do it!”

Fox let go of Jimmy’s collar and stumbled backward from edge of the pool.

The boy lay motionless beneath the surface of the water. Somewhere off in the distance Danny cried out in pain.

When you find yourself wandering historic grounds, you submit to a certain amount of nostalgia and respect for an older, presumably wiser world. When the historic grounds happen to also be your former place of residence, the narcissistic nostalgia overpowers almost anything else. Your own past becomes part of an ancestral history; your own adventures in that place become legend, if no where else than in your mind.

So this is where I am on today’s lovely Monday morning. Strolling the pathways along the brick and columns, no more a stranger than anyone else there is to see. There are few to see. At 7AM, I remember now, college kids are most likely dreaming their college kid dreams, hitting the snooze button, or figuring out how to sober up in time for their 9AM Econ class. And yet I am pausing in every doorway, making sure that certain things are still where I remember them, just in case.

Last night’s concert was so perfect. The performers (Devon and Paul) spent what probably added up to 30% of the time making sure their guitars were in tune. Unlike most situations, it was a pleasure to watch and to hear. Putting the pieces together in tiny parts that you hope are going to end up sounding just so. This morning, the campus feels like an entire population of folks who are tuning up as well. The sunlight creeps up the side of the buildings, turning the centuries-old brick into fire, as the echoing voices of students begin to approach. This sound, too, is quite pleasing.