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 went to the Valley. We went back through town. We came up here. How hard can this last leg be? Well, as it turns out, it’s never over 'til it’s over. It might all blow up in your face in the last five minutes, and you want to...
Where were we. That’s right. We’d just come all the way up from Rainier, and are now in the middle of the right turn onto Pike from 3rd. You activate the switch as detailed in the previous post, and are now ready to do the deed.
Turning onto Pike
There are 2...
Okay, let’s get out of here. You got down here okay. Now let’s go back up. (this is the second in a series of posts detailing driving maneuvers on the 7/49. Click here for Part I: the southbound 7 and explanation of terms and assumptions).
Henderson
You leave the terminal slowly, getting...
This one's about the physical act of driving the thing. It's time for tech talk!Two recent posts dealt with psychological and existential problems of doing this route.Another post offers tips on fights and other security issues.
IntroductionI first drove it in 2009, and have stuck regularly to it since, including several stints of consecutive years driving...
He was smiling so hard I had to laugh.
It was infectious. I’m guessing he was older than he looked; the sort who says it's good genes that are responsible for their looks, but you know it’s as much their beaming attitude as anything else. Confident happiness is more attractive...
My favorite part of the 5 is the slight right onto northbound Fremont Avenue. You’ve just come all the way from West Seattle, through town, up Aurora, and now you’re coming down Fremont Way preparing for that dip and right, getting onto the uphill.
Do it slowly, relishing how this...
“Here is really shitty,” she said.
It was an appraisal of frankness I wouldn’t have expected given her appearance—older than my parents’ generation, possibly much older, with an accent hailing from somewhere far away—maybe one of those hidden countries, the kind we forget to remember. She seemed rich with unseen...
I used to see these two often. Neighborhood stalwarts both, who each single-handedly elevated the community. Solomon, from Ethiopia, a fifty-something jolly fellow who wasn’t quite chubby, always with a ready smile, worked in catering, generally for high-end hotels. He had a lot of stories.
Ed was similar in age...