Word: swanning
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...these diarists was James Gilchrist Swan, one of the first whites to spend a lifetime on Puget Sound. Jettisoning a young family and comfortable life in Boston, Swan followed the feverish impulse to scrap it all and go west. From 1858 until his death in 1900 he inhabited the Olympic Peninsula, beaching his canoe in Neah Bay or Port Townsend most of the time, trekking about as loiterer, notary public, drunk, author, woodcarver, schoolteacher, friend and student of Makah Indians, explorer, correspondent and collector for the Smithsonian, sketcher, hokumist, unsuccessful lover, misfit entrepreneur, and most of all, perpetual journal-scribbler...
Doig, like Swan, came west to Puget Sound. Raised on a rough succession of sheep and cattle ranches in Montana's high country and in those stark, one-street towns with a post office, filling-station, store, and three saloons, he felt drawn farther west--to Seattle with its more "workable," "soft-toned" winters, a better environment for a young journalist. After 20 years of magazine writing, Doig published his first book, This House of Sky, in 1978, composing it of memories of his early life in Montana with his father. He was surprised to find himself nominated...
...BOOK, an unusual linking of historical investigation and authorial reflection, Doig creatively re-imagines Swan's experiences by living his own life in close contact with the thousands of pages he is studying. In the process he moves to a new understanding of himself and what it means to be a westerner. For the 90 days of winter, 1978-79, Doig holed up with Swan's words in the most intimate of relationships, becoming his great admirer. As Doig writes of Swan's friendship with a young Makah chieftain, "Such a growth of regard sometimes will happen when two people...
Doig closely repeats Swan's travels, shares his observations, and wonders about the mind behind all those words, always patiently braiding their century-separated lives together until they become one. The book itself is another diary, a log that grows as Doig's embrace of his adopted kin from another century grows closer. Doig's thoughts, Swan's life, and the natural surroundings are organically fused into a new whole. This observation of the Hoh rainforest takes on deeper meanings as we read the book...
What's this? Big Bird doing Firebird, or perhaps Swan Lake? No, nothing that featherbrained. But Choreographer George Balanchine, 76, is planning to cast Muppets in a production of L'Enfant et les Sortilèges to be seen on public television next spring. Muppet Designer Kermit Love, who is creating the dancing puppets, invited the choreographer to the Sesame Street set to watch Muppetry in action...