Nathan Vass
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.
I can still remember when the team from The Urbanist invited me on board. In true urbanist fashion we all arrived without using cars--Owen by bicycle, Ben on foot, myself by bus. The three of us took a corner table and devoured dim-sim the way college students demolish nachos....
Readers have been asking a book version of these bus stories of mine for some time now. You may remember that I'm represented by Eric Myers, of Myers Literary Management, in New York. Eric Myers is a mensch and a man ahead of the curve, because he believes, accurately, that what people...
This is a follow-up to a recent story on sleepers, newbies and working together. Click here for an addendum on sleepers; this follow-up is about newbie drivers and getting along!
I'd like to address some gripes regarding new operators and operations procedures. Usually you hear about these things in two contexts:
From those who don't...
This was going to be a footnote to my previous story, but it was getting too long– and too important! Sleepers are a major element of the bus world, and they deserve their own post.
If you do long routes at night, you'll get 'em. As I write above: "Waking them up can be...
She stepped aboard, wrinkling her nose. "What is that smell? Something's gone absolutely rancid in here!""Ooh, rancid," I said. "I love your word choice!""Well, that's what it is, ain't it?""You got that right, I s'pose."
I knew something was up, but I hadn't given it much thought. We were the 7. It's...
"Congratulations," a friend once told me, after I'd finally gotten a New York literary agent. "Let yourself feel it today, and breathe. You deserve this."
The thing is, I don't know how to do that.
Humility is one of the great human virtues, and maybe the final pit stop on the...
It's a waxing gibbous tonight, yellow, a sense of possibilities from high overhead. I'm done for the night– or almost done, seconds away from putting it in park and shutting off the lights, ready for the sound of the motor cutting into silence, the way the bus seems surprised...
It’s only a few minutes of faces I don't recognize, and then we have Andrew. Andrew's on his way to practice mountain climbing. Albert, whose name I won't know 'til the end of the trip, keeps butting in with tidbits on football and weather, but that's okay. Andrew's a...