Findings for July 4 2025

Hi! The news has been depressing. I want to try something new, something creative. So, this is an attempt to remember, explore, and share things that engaged my curiosity this week.

Los Cedros

I started the book Is a River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane recently. I’m taking it slow — it’s one of those books it’s hard to read quickly because it’s so thought provoking — I keep putting it down and staring off to have a think! One of the opening chapters discusses the provisions included in the Ecuadorian Constitution of 2008 granting legal rights to natural entities. The author travels high into the Los Cedros cloud forest, and his description of the lush sounds and sights is wonderful and recalls my memories of Podocarpus National Park, which I had the great fortune to get to visit with a dear friend in 2009.

Deciding to See

Seattle bus driver, author, and photographer Nathan Vass has a new book out. It’s called Deciding to See: The View from Nathan’s Bus and it’s a collection of essays, most reflecting on the people he sees and gets to know driving the bus in Seattle. Nathan’s first book The Lines that Make Us was deeply moving. The hardest thing about living in the city is the habit of ignoring people around us, especially people in distress. It’s an awful thing to do and I think it does slowly poison the soul. The antidote is to intentionally choose to take some time, energy, care, to open up and relate and if it makes sense, try to help. But most importantly to relate, to connect as one human to another. Nathan makes an epic practice of it in his work. Most of us by choice or necessity have erected much larger barriers than Nathan, to protect ourselves and enable us to do our daily tasks. But we can still take time to lower the drawbridge sometimes, and we’ll be better for it. Read Andrea Kreidler’s lovely review of the new book here: https://www.realchangenews.org/news/2025/06/25/deciding-see-view-nathans-bus

Review of Books

I’ve got a subscription to the New York Review of Books again and I’m so glad. It comes in the mail every two weeks and is chock full of well-written reviews of an incredible range of books, often combining two or more related books. I get to appreciate the books, learn about their context and read something engrossing and current without the epic stress and futility of the News. I love having a bunch of them around, several in different rooms one one at work, that I can just pick up and open randomly and read instead of looking at my phone. This week I read great reviews on the art and craft of translation, a documentary-style memoir of a family history with zionism, and of the new movie Drop Dead City (they review non-book stuff sometimes too).

Medium cats

There are 41 “cat” species, or species in the family Felidae. I could only name 10 or so off the top of my head: Lion, tiger, jaguar, cougar, cheetah, leopard, snow leopard, bobcat, lynx (let’s say Canada lynx), and of course domestic cat. But there’s another 31, most of which I’ve never heard of! Many, like bobcats, are somewhere between a house cat the big guys. I like thinking about this category, the medium-sized wild cats. They’re out there, sleeker and deadlier and usually cooler looking than your home puss, in the woods or mountains silently stalking and hunting and napping and raising little kittens. And we, going about our silly human lives, have no idea, we don’t even know most of them exist. Many of these species aren’t even endangered!

So I made a list and ranked them by size and weight. Here are the fourteen I’m calling medium-sized cats, ranging from about twice to ten times as large as a house cat. I had the pleasure of seeing a bobcat for the first time last summer at the Olympic coast. They’re just rad.

Good budget chart

The recently passed omni-bill is horrific, and I’m struggling to deal with it. But, I did find this chart about the main components of the federal budget, and how they’ve changed over time since the mid-70’s to be enlightening. Source: How Bad Is This Bill? The Answer in 10 Charts. Rattner, NYT

Good communication on housing in NYC

I’ve been a YIMBY since that was a thing. For a long time the pro-housing movement has struggled to communicate effectively with the left, but if feels that’s changed recently, especially in New York City where councilmember Chi Osse has an awesome series of TikTok videos on the subject (including with guest Ilana Glazer)

Learn the geology

Among the hundreds of beautiful water colors my late former boss and mentor John Owen left behind is a stunning vision of Mont Sainte Victoire in southern France. Written below is this quote from Paul Cezanne:

“In order to paint a landscape correctly, first I have to discover the geographic strata…. I need to know geology, how Sainte Victoire is attached to the earth…”

John had incredibly broad interests, but his interest in geology came through in many of his drawings, some of which incorporated actual stratigraphy diagrams showing the different layers of rock. I’d been curious about this quote when I first saw it — that was four years ago as we were preparing the prints for his awe-inspiring gallery show at UW. But Cezzane has been a blind spot in my art history knowledge. So, I really enjoyed this fun scrolling image rich piece by Jason Farago on Cezanne, painting, life, and geology, that puts the quote in context of Cezanne’s life and work: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/06/30/arts/cezanne-bibemus-quarry.html

Tshawytscha

This is the Latin name for Chinook salmon and I just love trying to say it. Also I was reminded when looking into cats that the latin species name for the domestic cat is “catus”, so that’s great.

The UrbMonger