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.
We were talking about a random sampling of things. "I'm goin' to the hospital tomorrow," she said. "I got an abscess in my cheek. It hurts real bad. Do you know my sister, Charlene?"
I like Melody. She's part of a crew of middle-aged Native Americans who log heavy hours...
It was the day after what was unquestionably the worst night in my entire bus-driving career. We're not going to talk about it, for reasons articulated in the now-legendary post from last year where I describe in detail what a tough bus-driving day feels like. Generally the bad days...
In filmmaking the edict is to show, not tell. That's why I won't summarize conversations here on the blog and merely tell you about them while lamenting, if only you could've been there. I'd rather you were there, by way of the writing, living the whole exchange instead of hearing vaguely about...
My notes are simply a diagram of a triangle with labels at each point for the three people who made it all happen. Race doesn't play a major role in the interaction, which was brief, but in the interest of countering stereotypes I'll specify them anyway.
A Caucasian man in casual business...
I couldn't quite make out what variety he specified, but I somehow knew his next word would be cancer. Him and his pet rabbit, whom he cuddled about his neck. The rain falls on the just and unjust alike.
"You shoulda seen me two months ago. I had lumps the size...
I didn't know him. But I wanted to talk to him. Most homeless folks are white men between thirty and sixty, and he was just such a fellow, sitting on the upper end of that age spectrum. I was stuck for something to say. Time to resort to the old...
Later that same night the trio from this story came back. The shortest of the group was now wearing a mask.
"Hey again!"
"Hey! I got my Orca card…."
"I remember you guys, it's all good," I said.
"You seen us already. Well, you haven't seen him I guess, in the mask." It was...
It all started somewhere northbound on Tenth Avenue East, as we drifted past Saint Mark's Cathedral. There's never any traffic here, but there was tonight. Whirling lights flashing up ahead, passersby on the sidewalk with cradled arms, hands on hips. We, in the bus, had just driven all the...