My lectures sound like this.
You may not think you like lectures, or maybe the word gives you college flashbacks too boring to recall, but I promise you that’s not what this is going to be. MOHAI’s a lovely outfit, and they’re letting me be, well, myself, and I’ve got some surprises for you. This is going to be a lil’ different from my other talks, in keeping with my tradition of having each of my events being unique in focus (so they continue to be interesting to show up to!), only more so.
No one’s ever asked me to give an hour-long lecture before, and believe you me, I’m going to take full advantage. In the same way that my cat speech is really a thirty-minute talk crammed into ten minutes, I’ve got a ton to share with you. We’re gonna dive deep. History is about more than the past, and buses are about more than transport. As in the image above, the talk is officially called “What Bus Lines Tell Us About Seattle,” but as it has evolved it might now more accurately be termed “What Bus Lines in Seattle Tell Us About Ourselves.” That’s right. Divin’ deep.
I’ll be exploring what we so often find ourselves thinking about when we’re moving about in the big city–communication, loneliness, cultural divides, generational shifts in perspective, how transit brings us together… What we do and don’t do and all the details and habits of daily life that history will fail to record, but which we knew were real. Let us celebrate the rich denseness of present existence as it passes before our eyes, unbeknownst to us because of how quickly we’re zipping through life.
Basically: let’s stop and smell the buses. Or something.
I’ll see you there. (Click here for a less poetic breakdown of the evening’s event here; also, books will be available for sale!)
MOHAI
860 Terry Ave N, Seattle, WA 98109
Wednesday, February 19, 2020
6:30 – 8pm
Free
Location, bus, and parking details here.
Nathan Vass is an artist, filmmaker, photographer, and author by day, and a Metro bus driver by night, where his community-building work has been showcased on TED, NPR, The Seattle Times, KING 5 and landed him a spot on Seattle Magazine’s 2018 list of the 35 Most Influential People in Seattle. He has shown in over forty photography shows is also the director of nine films, six of which have shown at festivals, and one of which premiered at Henry Art Gallery. His book, The Lines That Make Us, is a Seattle bestseller and 2019 WA State Book Awards finalist.