The big crash strikes; Eight studies of the young writer, Shoshana; fish greet us at Sakura Sushi

Two posts ago, I mentioned how I have reached a state in which my body just seems to have forgotten how to sleep - I go night after night with very little sleep until suddenly I just crash and sleep.

Such a crash happened that very night. I don't know what time I went to bed - somewhere between midnight and 1:00 AM, I believe. I felt so tired that my eyelids seemed to be falling to the floor and I could not think to compose even the simplest email or to return a Facebook message or comment.

So I went to bed and just zoned out. Cats came in and piled on top of me, adding a pleasant warmth to the blankets that covered me. I did wake up a few times, but only briefly and then went right back to sleep.

I did not wake up for good until afternoon.

AFTER NOON!!!

Just by a few minutes, but still afternoon.

And I woke up feeling somewhat pleasant, which felt very odd and not quite right. No. It did not feel right at all and it didn't last but that's how it was for several minutes.

I had a great deal of work ahead of me but I didn't do any of it - except to put up yesterday's blog post on Clark James Mishler, which went up much later than I had intended - not until 4:04 PM.

Immediately afterward, I jumped into the car and headed to Metro Cafe to buy my NPR - All Things Considered listening and driving coffee.

Shoshana greeted me at the window and I told her that I had not taken a single picture all day long and that I had better shoot some frames of her right now because darkness was setting down heavy and if I didn't, I might somehow not take a picture this entire day and that would not be good.

She was game for it, so I shot this series of Eight Studies of the Young Writer, Shoshana.

The above image, in case any reader has not already surmised, is Study # 1.

Eight Studies of the Young Writer, Shoshana: Study # 2

Eight Studies of the Young Writer, Shoshana: Study # 3

Eight Studies of the Young Writer, Shoshana: Study # 4

Eight Studies of the Young Writer, Shoshana: Study # 5

Eight Studies of the Young Writer, Shoshana: Study # 6

Eight Studies of the Young Writer, Shoshana: Study # 7

Eight Studies of the Young Writer, Shoshana: Study # 8

It is my hope that one day, far in the future, a researcher of some sort will be delving into all that took place in and concerning Wasilla, Alaska at this time in history and will conclude that while on the national scene Wasilla was a noisy place, what proved to be the most important event to concern this town was that a young writer named Shoshana quietly performed her job at Metro Cafe.

Perhaps The New Yorker will still be around, or there will some other publication of some sort or another that fills the same niche.

That publication will run these pictures and they will state, "Eight images of the noted author, Shoshana of Wasilla, Alaska, photographed by the erstwhile blogger, Bill Hess, when she was young and working at Metro Cafe."

Just before 2010 ended, I received an exceptionally generous donation from a reader who specified that I was to use to to take Margie out to a fine dinner. I figured this was the night to do it.

There is a new restaurant in Wasilla called Sakura Sushi. It took over the spot previously occupied by Wasilla's only Indian restaurant. I was a little dismayed by that, because I like to get Indian food now and then so that I can sit there, breathe in the familiar aromas, eat and remember India.

But I love Sushi, too, and so we decided to give it a try. We entered the door and were greeted by fish. 

Beyond the fish, people were gathering.

It was a very long wait, but so what? The company was good. I have never been able to convince Margie that raw fish is good, so when we go to a sushi place, she orders something else - on this night, teriyaki chicken and tempura shrimp and vegetables.

My sushi was served first, but I resisted and waited until she got her meal before I ate mine.

My first bite was of the roll on the upper right hand corner of the dish - dipped in wasabi and soy sauce.

Oooooooohhhh my! 

Heaven! Heaven! Heaven!

Heaven...

And every bite that followed was like heaven and this proved true for Margie, too.

It was well worth the wait.

To have a sushi restaurant of such quality, right here in Wasilla, Alaska...

If I were rich, I would eat here 30 times a week.

Or maybe twice.

Perhaps just once, so as not to render the experience commonplace.

But I would want to eat here 30 times a week.

Here is the master chef, O.B. I learned nothing of his history, but he did speak with a strong Japanese accent. I hope he loves Wasilla, because I do not want him to leave.

And here is our host and waitress, as I pay the bill. I did not catch their names.

On the way out, we passed by the fish, who seemed unaware, contented enough.

Thank you, Michael P, for a wonderful dinner out with my wife.

Also let that future researcher also note that on this day, a master chef sliced up some excellent sushi in Wasilla, Alaska, and someone broke down on the side of an icy road, where someone else stopped to help.

As to sleep, now that the crash has come and gone, I am right back to the same place. I went to bed at 4:00 this morning and could not sleep a wink past 7:00 - and I didn't sleep all that great in between.

I did stay home, where I cooked oatmeal and ate it with berries and walnuts.

And this one from India:

A vendor in Ooty as photographed through the open window of our taxicab as our driver drove the newly-weds Soundarya and Anil, Vasanthi, Buddy, Melanie and me through the bustling street, where goats, horses and ox mingled with people driving motor bikes, cars, trucks and auto-rics.

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Clark James Mishler posted a daily portrait each day in 2010; Ranju - three studies

Earlier in the day, before I drove to the Anchorage Museum of History and Fine Art to see a 165 image slideshow edited down from Clark James Mishler's "2010 Portrait 365," I took my usual walk - now part of my preparation to get fit for this summer's upcoming Brooks Range hike.

As I walked, this raven flew overhead.

Come evening, I did not want to drive to Anchorage. I just wanted to stay home and edit pictures. I am so far behind on editing pictures, I don't know what to do. I could spend all day, every day, for the next couple of months editing pictures and I would still be far behind.

But I wanted to see Clark's pictures and to give his project a plug in this blog. As for Clark himself, he needs no plug. I doubt that there is a better known or more successful photographer working in Alaska than Clark James Mishler. In fact, I think I can say almost without a doubt that he is the most successful editorial and commercial photographer in the state. He is a hard-working, intelligent, superb shooter and a good business man. He has earned every bit of his success.

Clark, btw, is the fellow that the sharper focus is on. But don't let the fact that Bob Hallinen of the Anchorage Daily News is in the blur mislead you into thinking that he is less of a photographer than anyone. He isn't. 100 years from now, when someone figures out what photojournalist created the most powerful and important body of photojournalistic Alaska work from our time period, I predict that Bob's name will top the list.

He'll be dead and it won't do him any good, but people of the time will study, ponder, and be amazed.

And Bob loves ravens.

It's just that this night the focus was on Clark's "2010 Portrait 365" Project, so I put the focus on Clark. One day, when the opportunity presents itself, I will put the focus of this blog on Bob.

From my own experience as I stuggle to make a post on this blog every day, I can tell you what Clark did was absolutely amazing. Each day in 2010, no matter what he was working on or what he was doing, Clark shot at least one portrait and every day posted a new portrait on his blog.

He did not miss even one day - and he is carrying the effort over into this year.

There were times when the day was drawing to a close and Clark had nothing, but he would always make the effort, if neccessary, to go out and find someone, stop them, get the picture, or shoot an assitant, or perhaps even himself.

At least one day came to an end when the only portrait that he had was of a dog. He wondered if it was right to include a dog in the project, but decided it was.

Of course it was right! Never mind that the dog's tongue was a bit gross and slobbery - it was an excellent image and that dog deserved to be in the project - and that dog would not be the only one to be portraited in this project.

A cat would have been good, too.

Hey! That gives me an idea of project for my own! 

2012 Cat Portrait 365 project!

It is already too late to take on such a project for 2011. The problem is, sometimes I will go into a village and there will not be a single cat living there (yes, I always ask). I will want to spend some of my time in 2012 in villages. I can't discriminate against a village just because no cat lives there.

Speaking of which, I did not succeed in posting an image in all 365 days of 2010. I think I would have, but I got into places that the logistics made it difficult or even impossible to post.

Even under the best of circumstances, it is a huge challenge to post an image every day - especially when you it must be one specific type of image, in this case a portrait - but Clark did it.

Even more challenging is to post a good portrait every day. Clark did this, too - and many, many, many of the images are simply excellent. The breadth and depth that he has captured is phenomenal. 

After he showed us the 165 selections from his 2010 project, Clark put on a quick demonstration of how he often uses a very small, compact, portable lighting system that he can carry just about anywhere.

Clark likes to play light against dark and that is what he did here, on the spot, with his simple lighting system.

While our fundamental subject is the same - Alaska and the people in it - Clark and I approach our work with philosophies that are in many ways the exact opposite of each other.

Clark is a sharp-shooter, and I am a quick-draw artist. I can sharp-shoot, and Clark can quick draw - as his photo of Joe Miller taking his one glance of the debate at which he otherwise refused to even look at Senator Murkowski so deftly proves. But basically, he shoots sharp and I quick draw.

Clark shoots with strobe and artificial light not only in his studio and at night but in broad, bright, daylight. In this way, he effectively creates a style that subdues the background and puts the emphasize sharply upon his subject. His colors are rich and vibrant, his contrast strong. He looks at a scene with an eye to making it look better and more visually interesting than it might appear to be at first glance.

While I have made a few exceptions, it has been almost dogma to me that I work only with the light that I find, as that is the light that the life I am photographing is taking place in. When the light grows dim and dingy, then my pictures grow dim and dingy and sometimes very noisy, too, because if I cannot properly expose an image at my highest ISO rating of 6400, then I will underexpose by one or two stops and then do what I can to recover the image from out of the dark frame.

Clark's images all seem to be perfectly exposed. He must blow one now and then, but it sure doesn't look like it.

As he showed his slides, I wondered just how wise I have been to stick so closely to this philosophy all these decades. The fact is, Clark had many excellent images in his slide show that, under my basic philosophy, I simply could not have taken.

I have this little project that I have begun on Iñupiat artists. I am thinking maybe I should artificially light much of it - but I do not want to carry big studio lights around. I think I will go visit Clark and see what more I can learn about his portable lighting system.

In this self portrait with me, Clark and Bob, I am reminded of western movies that depict the time period between 1890 and 1910 - you know, the movies where the cowboy, sheriffs and gun slingers that made their reputations in the days of the wild west have passed their prime and are headed toward old age.

But they don't know it. They don't accept the idea. They keep their guns loaded and woe be to the young hotshots who live by different rules and underestimate them.

A few minutes after the post-show conversations had concluded, I found myself sitting and waiting at a red light. My mind was elsewhere. I was unaware of my surroundings. Suddenly, I realized that this grader was about to flash through the intersection, ice flying.

Oh no! I was too late! There was no way I could get the shot! But I grabbed my camera from my lap and fired anyway.

Quick draw artist.

I would have hated to have missed this moment.

It was just too damned exciting.

And these three with Ranju of India:

I will stick to the theme of portraiture for my India pictures today: Sri Ranjani "Ranju" in the arms of her aunt, Sujitha Ravichandran, at the Bangalore wedding of Soundarya and Anil.

Ranju gets a better view of the world, thanks to Manoj Biradar, Suji's man.

Also in the picture is Bharathi Padmanabhan, Ranju's mom, and, at the right edge my daughter Melanie, who looked so beautiful in her Indian saree and, just barely, Brindha Padmanabhan. 

There is an event scheduled to happen between Manoj and Sujitha on February 28. I want to be there. Right now, it looks pretty impossible, but I am not ready to give up the hope just yet.

Bharathi and daughter Ranju.

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Two views of the cats on Charlie's t-shirts: full front and rear, too; Ketchup in an empty restaurant; big mid-winter meltdown; Ramz - the girl who defended the tiny goat

Charlie showed up wearing this t-shirt. This is the front view.

This is the rear view. Charlie suggested that we all go to Anchorage and stroll through the Fifth Avenue Mall together, drinking coffee from cat mugs, but none of the rest of us wanted to join him there.

It seems that I have lost the ability to sleep - except for those blessed moments when I just crash. I find myself typically going to bed between midnight and 2:00 AM. It takes me too long to go to sleep and after I do, I might sleep for close to an hour and then I wake up and just keep waking up, multiple times each hour until finally I just give up and get up.

So far this week, I have not felt like cooking and besides, the steel-cut oatmeal was gone and so were the frozen berries that I put in it.

Family Restaurant opens at 6:00 AM, so for the last two days in a row I have headed over there at that time.

Both days, I have found the restaurant eerily empty.

Just me and the ketchup.

And a waitress or two.

Cooks in the back, cooking just for me, waiting for the crowd to start coming in.

I get in the car and leave to drive home. The fringe edge of the crowd has finally begun to arrive.

Corner of Seldon and Church Roads, on my way home from breakfast.

Despite the fact that I am peripatetic by nature, I have not had much energy for walking lately. Still, I must walk - especially since I have begun to lay the plans for a big Brooks Range hike this summer.

So I go walk, and this dog comes barking. Back in the trees, I hear a man shouting at the dog. He orders the dog to come back. The dog does not. The dog keeps following me, barking and barking.

The man keeps shouting orders, all of which the dog ignores.

In time, the man's voice fades into the trees.

The dog is still following, but barking less now.

The dog seems unsure of itself, now.

Maybe this is the farthest the dog has ever been away from home on its own.

The dog is probably wondering what it got itself into.

Soon, I will be home in my office with the cats, Jimmy and Pistol-Yero. 

They do not bark and they do not chase people down the road.

They just hang out in my office, knock things off my desk, counters and work table, spill my coffee, break my cups, prance across my keyboard when I am typing, interrupt my work and sit down on my lap every time I get on a roll. Sometimes, they even delete pictures!

So far (I think) I have always discovered each deletion in time to undo it.

They drink water from my fish tanks and throw up on the rug.

I sure do love these damn cats.

I see the tail of one them right now. It hangs down from the window sill beneath the cat, who is covered up the drape. He is looking outside at some creature that he would like to hunt - a raven, maybe. A moose, perhaps.

If so, that creature is damn lucky there is a pane of glass between it and the cat.

This is about as bad as a mid-winter warm-up can get. Well, not quite as bad. It hasn't rained all that much. The problem is, even through all the cold weather, we have had a dearth of snow and much of that had already been scoured away by the wind, even when the temperature was still cold, where it ought to be.

I read the part in the Anchorage Daily News that said this warmup was the result of Chinook winds. The Daily News is wrong. These winds have blown in off the Pacific. Chinook winds are caused when air flows down off mountains, warms up and spreads across a valley or plain.

My dad was a meteorologist, so I know these kind of things.

The Daily News is wrong.

This blog is right.

Here I am, on my 4:00 PM coffee break, which I got started on just a bit late. I have been to Metro. where Shoshana served me my Americano and cinnamon roll and told me that she and her boyfriend greatly enjoyed their New Year's jaunt to Chena Hot Springs, even if the temperature was 40 above instead of 40 below, where one would want it to be.

And here is one from India: Ramz my niece and Facebook friend

Recently, Ramz invited me to become one of her friends on Facebook. Ramz Iyer is Soundarya's cousin, but sisters is also a word they use.

I accepted the invitation, of course, and was very touched when I looked at all her profile pictures and saw one where she was hugging a small goat close to her chin and was smiling big. I have pictures like that of Soundarya, too.

Another of her Facebook friends, one closer to her own age, responded with this comment:

"dont u feel eeew!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Ramz retorted:

"i feel more eew wen ppl eat it ! rader dan carrying it ! i luve animals ! nd nyways .....it was neat nd tidy !"

The friend eventually replied:

"i was just kidding,"

Ramz stood her ground:

"but I was not !"

I was pleased and proud.

I just went and took another look at her page. Her new profile pic depicts her as a platinum blond with blue green tint in her hair, dark blue eyes and a tattoo on her pale face!

I remain: pleased and proud!

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What would you do if you found $50,000 lying in the road in an unmarked suitcase?

As 2010 drew to its close, Gilford Mongoyak, Jr. was driving near Sam & Lee's Restaurant in his hometown of Barrow when he saw a suitcase lying in the road. Gilford does not own a car, but he had rented this one so that he could take care of some year-end business. Before returning it, he thought that he would just take a nice little evening drive about Barrow and that is what he was doing when he came upon the suitcase.

There were other people out and about, on the road, walking, driving, but no one paid any attention to the suitcase. Gilford drove right past it himself, but then decided that he ought to check it out. He backed up, picked up the suitcase and examined the outside of it.

It carried no identification, so he drove home and took the suitcase inside and showed it to his wife. They did not want to open it, but they did want to return it to its rightful owner and so they opened it up to see if there was any ID inside.

There wasn't, but there was something bundled up in white wrapping paper. "I opened that up," Gilford told me over the phone after I called him to find out this event that I had first learned about through Facebook had come to pass. "I found bills. I said to my wife, "it looks like $10,000."

They did not know what to do, so they started to talk.

"My hands kind of started really shaking with that kind of money right there," he says. "We say, really, what should we do? So my wife and I decided the best thing to do was to take it to Public Safety (Police Department)."

I took the above snapshot of Gilford day last August after I happened upon him as I walked through the Iñupiat Heritage Center in Barrow. I thought that it would be good to include Gilford in a project that I am working on and so I took this quick snapshot to remind me to go back and find him at later date when I had the time to do it right.

So Gilford and his wife took the suitcase to the Police Department. They entered to find a receptionist behind an opaque black window. They stated their business and then a police officer came out to see them.

"You won't believe what I found," Gilford remembers telling him, "look, it's $10,000."

The officer opened up the suitcase and studied the contents

"Then he took a look up at me and said, 'you know what? It's not $10,000. It's $50,000.'"

Gilford asked the officer if anyone was looking for $50,000. The officer told him yes, a woman from Osaka Restaurant.

Due to a back injury, Gilford is unable to work in the labor force that once sustained him. He supports himself primarily through the sale of his art. Here, he has set up in the Heritage Center. Some days, he does okay. Somedays, there are no sales.

Shortly after that, some other officers came in, as well as woman from Osaka who Gilford believes was the owner. I called Osaka to see if could find out who she was, talk to her and get more information, but was told that no one could talk to me about the matter. I also called the Police Department, where a spokesman told me that they could not comment at this time.

Gilford describes the woman as being very happy to get the money back and says she was wearing mink. He believes she had planned to leave on the evening flight south.

"She asked for my name and number. She was happy, shaking," he recalls. "I thought she would call me that night."

She never did call, so a couple of days later, Gilford called her. "I asked her if there is any reward. She said, 'I buy you dinner?'"

The offer did not appeal to him.

There were those who told him that instead of an offer for free meal, he could have kept the entire $50,000 and no one would ever have known.

"A lot of my friends told me that. But I was raised in a good Christian home with a good Christian mom and dad. They always taught me to do the right thing. I have friends who are saying that I was a good Samaritan. My daughter is proud of me." 

His sister, Claudia Mongoyak, who first informed me of Gilford's discovery is also proud of her brother. "I am honored to have such an honest and trustworthy brother," she told me on Facebook.

"My brother Gilford is unemployed due to back problems and makes a living out of selling his carvings and jewelry. He once found a wallker with $500 or $600 in it and called that person and that person was so appreciative to get her wallet back." 

As to the offer of a free dinner at Osaka, "I don't know what to say about that. LOL."

If he could have kept the money, one friend asked, what would he have done with it? "I would have bought a brand new washer and dryer. Our windows are no good. They let too much cold air in. I would have totally fixed the house up.

"I was rich for like 15 or 20 minutes," he laughed.

If anyone should care to learn more about Gilford and his art or to make a purchase, he can be contacted at gmongoyakjr@hotmail.com.

And this from Wasilla:

The holiday is over and the boys have returned to Anchorage to go to day care and be with their parents, but, before they did, Kalib grew bored with doorknobs. He decided the best way to get into a pantry is with his spatula.

When his mom arrived to pick him up, he raced to the window and kissed her through the glass.

Jobe was greatly amused by the walking fingers of his grandma.

Jobe and Kalib spend their last moments with this season's Christmas tree. I am very sad to say it, but next time they come out this tree will be gone.

The holiday season is over.

The carols will now fall silent.

That certain feeling that comes only at Christmas is gone and will not be back for nearly a year.

And this one from India:

About 35 or so miles south of the broiling city of Chennai sits the temple at Mamallapuram, cut entirely out of the rock face of a low cliff.

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A cat full of coffee and other New Year's tails

The New Year began with me sleepy and exhausted and I am sleepy and exhausted right now - too much so to write much with these pictures. So I will simply say that, with breakfast and such behind us, Margie and I are in the car, driving past Wasilla Lake, enroute to Anchorage to celebrate the New Year at Jacob and Lavina's house.

The wind is howling and it is one of those horrible warm winds from the South Pacific that sometimes materialize this time of year and then ruin a good Alaska winter.

There is nothing to be done about it, though, so we just drive to Anchorage.

The New Year got off to a poor start for someone. On occassion, these guys in their patrol cars with their sirens, beepers and flashing lights unnerve me a bit, but I am damn glad they are there.

While I do not believe the US should enforce or coerce its ways upon any other nation, I just cannot help but to think that if in India they set up and enforced traffic laws, honestly, with no bribery, to the degree that they do here, I might have slept a lot better these past six weeks and three people who should still be breathing and walking on this earth would be doing so.

Yes, only two of them went by crash, but the third would not have followed had there been no accident in the first place.

So, yes, I appreciate these uniformed men and women who we call cops, these who we ask to risk their lives to keep us safe even as they sometimes suffer our abuse. Yes, there are some bad ones to be found here and there among them - the same is true of preachers, teachers, astronauts, photographers, and baseball players -but on the whole they do a pretty good job and get cussed at all too often.

Even if they pull me over later today and write me a ticket, I will appreciate them. I will swear and cuss when they walk back to their car, but still I will appreciate them.

When we arrived at Jacob and Lavina's house, we found a bag filled with something in the living room. It was kind of curious, because the bag was upside down.

I wondered, what could this bag be filled with?

Why, it was filled with Kalib!

Remember those dinosaurs Kalib had been surrounded by in yesterday's post? As part of his late birthday present, his parents let him pick one out.

This is the one he choose. They say that it was the most realistic out of the bunch. Some were bigger, they say, but Kalib went for realism over size.

I am jealous. I loved dinosaurs when I was little, too, but I never got to have one like this. I think the biggest dinosaur that I hever had stood maybe three inches tall and was made of hard plastic - and I only had that one because I found it lying in the road.

Jobe had been napping when we arrived, but soon he floated out to join us.

Jobe and his mom.

Did you know that my daughter, Lisa, carried a full semester worth of credits this past fall even as she worked full time, and also made the honor roll?

She did. 

I wonder who she is calling? Could it be me? Is it possible I placed my phone somewhere and could not find it?

I was lying on the floor, in front of the TV, feeling so exhausted that I could hardly move. Yet, I wanted to get a group New Year's day picture of everybody that was there. The light here is very dim, so I wanted to get them in front of the TV, both so that there would be a little more light on them and so I would not have to move from my position on the floor.

I called everybody over to pose.

I could see that it was going to be a challenge to get them to do so.

Still, I was determined to get the photo, and to do so from down on floor.

It took some doing, but finally I got it. You will notice that Caleb, Rex, Ama and Bryce are not here. Sometimes, you can get everybody together and sometimes you can't. So you take a group picture of those who you can.

I am in this picture, too - just on the other side of it, sprawled across the floor in front of the TV.

I was so exhausted I did not know how I was going to drive home. And Margie hates to drive at night, on black, slippery roads.

So Melanie poured me a cup of coffee from her cat thermos. "Charlie and I never go anywhere without a cat full of coffee," she explained. She also said that she was a chick-a-dee, and that in the winter she eats one-and-a-half times her weight everyday.

As for Lavina, she wound up with a cat full of... cat!

Just in case you were worried that with all the new Christmas and birthday toys Kalib might have forgotten about his beloved spatula...

Kalib and Jobe came home with us. Kalib feel asleep in the car. When I brought him into the house, he transferred his sleep to the couch. Then about 3:00 in the morning, he came in, climbed onto the bed and slept right by me.

Margie likes to collect rocks. She keeps some of them in this little basket. Looks like she needs to find a new place to keep the basket.

Jobe woke up maybe three times during the night, but went back to sleep after he dined on mother's milk stored in a bottle.

Looks like I wrote a little more than I though I would. I'm still sleepy and exhausted. I need to go back to Barrow before the sun rises, find a nice cubby hole somewhere, crawl into it, pull a quilt over my head and sleep for 20 days straight.

Hey - what would you do if you found a suitcase filled with $50,000 cash?

This actually happened to a friend of mine in Barrow. I will see if I can find him by phone or net and will make this the subject of my next post.

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