Read.Eat.Listen: Big Pictures

Another benefit to road-trips/tours is the capsule that the car becomes, be it for listening to music closely, having long conversations or reading. Last week's run up and down the 5, to Washington State and back for shows and family visits contained all of that. The passenger gets to be reader, sometimes to oneself, sometimes aloud, and much of my time on this trip was consumed with news and long-form essays on big picture issues. On the way North, it was climate change, on the way down I scared the bejesus out of us, reading aloud from the New Yorker article about the Cascadia Fault, while driving through the very landscape which would be irrevocably altered by a mega-earthquake. By the last day, we were in outer space, marvelling over the NASA reports about Pluto. I'm not sure why I'm seeking solace in geologic and space time, time where I'm small, a speck of animated dust just holding on like a bee in a hive, working for the honey. Part of it might be the sheer wow-factor: all this big science reminds me of how wondrous the facts, including our little lives, are. And part of it, I think, is that as much as I find the thought of huge earthquakes and tsunamis terrifying, I'm always glad to know the earth knows how to take care of itself even as we humans so often fail it.

Read: "The Earthquake That Will Devastate Seattle" by Kathryn Schulz, in The New Yorker. 
"When the End of Human Civilization Is Your Day Job"by John H Richardson, Esquire
A view of the worlds around us With the fly-by of Pluto, we now can visualize all of the planets in our solar system. Here's a two-minute tour of the sun and the nine planets. Posted by Los Angeles Times on Tuesday, July 14, 2015

Eat: Healthy eats at Harlow PDX

Portland was the food winner on this trip, and how nice we were staying walking distance from gluten-free veggie Harlow. Just read their menu and get the idea.

Listen: Kwame's brother Kwab Copeland is another fine musician writing and playing "raw, rustic verse set to rollicking badland bomp" (Chris Estey) out of Seattle. He, aka The Demon Rind, just released a winner in "Love Is Perfect":