Beer/Wine/Spirits

Hence The Cabbage by Akira Ohiso

The Ballard Bridge is closed for construction again this weekend, which quiets down the neighborhood and Brewery District. Today, I passed the same unhoused man three times: once at Fred Meyer, once on the corner of Market and 15th, and once near Gemenskap Park.

El and I go to Obec for a beer and grub from a Salvadoran food truck. She notices a slaw dish, curtido, served with pupusas and wonders if it originates from Europe.

The conversation turned to Adolph Eichmann, a nazi who was responsible for the deportation and death of over 400,000 Hungarian Jews. After the war, he escaped to Argentina, so that is why we thought, perhaps, escaping Jews and nazis may have settled in El Salvador -hence the cabbage.

Curtido’s origins date to the Indigenous Pipil and Lenca tribes, who made curtido to ferment vegetables and preserve foods before refrigeration. Various vegetables are used, some influenced by Spanish colonizers over the centuries. Cabbage is a modern ingredient influenced by European settlers in the last century.

In 1960, Eichmann was captured outside his San Fernando home, a town outside Buenos Aires, and brought to justice, his SS tattoo surgically erased from his body. A Nazi scar remained.

Zombie Pharmacy by Akira Ohiso

The retail space on Market Street, which the former Bartells occupied for years, will become a Planet Fitness. The area around the former drugstore was deactivated as fewer people used the parking garage and connecting walkthrough to shopping. A vacancy signals that dead security cams will monitor the space. Corporate is not watching when the merch is gone.

It seems this pharmacy will not zombify with its giant, unrentable space for small businesses. The Target space across 15th is still vacant but protected from zombification because it's in a lobby office building. CVS across the Market would zombify if it closed. The old FedEx space, which is a few blocks up, has turned.

The roar of fighter jets above the clouds is practice for Seafair, or one of our many enemies attacking us. I walk with Ellie to the FedEx in Ballard Blocks. We take 11th Ave NW and cross at Market Street instead of 14th because we don't want to walk by people shooting up in their legs or wherever they have a usable vein.

Primary Day is Tuesday, and many moderate candidates are running on public safety and homelessness issues. Near the Blocks, posters on poles say, “Violence happened here,” in response to sweeps along 14th. Requiring people to move while providing resources and emergency housing is not “violence.” It’s an imperfect choice, but one that is working to support people towards long-term safety and stability, one slow case at a time.

The King County Coroner’s office has a public daily decedent list. Each day, it is noticeable how many deaths are drug-related. The fentanyl and drug epidemic is part of the problem. Addiction recovery takes many starts and stops and ongoing support, not one-off grants and interventions. You could make the argument that doing nothing is “violence” or more accurately “civic neglect.”

After FedEx, we eat lunch at Trail Bend, a local taproom and eatery. August days seem to keep people inside, and the industrial zone has fewer trees, so walking here is uncomfortable. We walk full-block stretches of cement buildings and razor wire perimeters protecting heavy equipment and stacks of wood pallets.

As we pass Urban Family and Stoup, more people are ordering from food trucks and sitting under pandemic-era outdoor seating.

We notice new parents trying to fit their newborn into a lifestyle that has passed but don't know it yet. Ellie and I talk about our kids growing older and the grief we feel. It took some time and denial, but we are starting to accept the transition of our family dynamic.

When our oldest is at college, our younger kids will also feel the change.

On an empty side street, a drug-addled man folds in half and clambers without a destination. Another man sleeps on a strip of grass roasting in the sun. His belongings scattered around him: crinkled dollar bills, a lighter, loose change, an Arizona iced tea can, an unknown piece of greasy machinery, and 7-11 nachos.

Crows hover and snatch nachos on the periphery of the wheezing, sun-burned human.

Behind Ballard Market, a couch cushion is next to a halved watermelon. A security guard walks around the store, locked and loaded, but talks to someone familiar on his cell phone with domesticated nonchalance.

38,703.27USD

-1,033.99(2.60%)🔽

Escape The Vault by Akira Ohiso

Metal support wire angles up a utility pole attached to a stake in the ground. Vines have cybernetically grown in and through the metal wire and yellow covering like a cyborg appendage.

We are partially made of plastic. Recycling won’t save us. Only stopping the source will. There are innovative start-ups like Timeplast that are creating plastic-like materials that can be programmed to dissolve in water with specific life spans: 30 minutes, a month, a year.

In David Cronenberg’s film Crimes of the Future , a group of evolutionists modify their digestive systems to be able to ingest plastics and other materials via a candy bar supplement.

It reminds me of another human-made technology with unforeseen consequences - the smartphone. Initially a tool to improve our lives, it is now rewiring our brain chemistry to become isolated, angry, fearful, and depressed humans. We are now seeing the mental health crisis of young people due to social media and its years of inculcation. Self-harm and suicide are rising, facts and fundamental truths can be destroyed with memes, and our country is on the verge of a dictatorship.

When I engage with my phone, I cling to lies of journalistic lies to assuage anxiety and fear. That’s what the media has done. Without facts, we are all just pushing opinions. And opinions are like assholes; we all smell like shit. The choose-your-own-reality of online content will destroy society. It already is.

I walk West Woodland's sidewalks. This is the antidote for me: embodied experiences using all five senses. A new brewery opened in the industrial zone as glacial zoning laws change with the death of old Ballard.

I walk in, and beer drinkers socialize among the stainless steel stills. I enjoy the non-hipster ambiance. I buy an IPA 4-Pack called “Escape The Vault.” The can says, “Quit your day job and escape the vault!”