One Muse At A Time

Barbara Krohn - UW Communications Trailblazer

2010-04-12T17:42:00.000-07:00

May I humbly call your attention to a blog written by Seattle writer Jeff Christiansen February 12, 2009 on his blog at www.boiledmilk.com concerning the recent death of a long and very much admired mutual friend Seattle's Barbara A. Krohn, whose well-written paid obituary has just appeared in today's online edition of the Seattle Post Intelligencer.

Whether or not you ever had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of Krohn during her lifetime both blog and obituary are well worth reading. Her firm published the invaluable reference known as the Washington Education Directory for the Superintendent of Public Instruction for Washington State for over thirty five years.

The fact that Krohn's obituary can be accessed on the website of a newspaper entertaining the all to soon possibility of its own physical demise reflects in many ways the bold advances and dynamic transitions upon which the profession of print journalism to whom she gave many years of her life has been continually requested and is still being called upon to navigate.

Those of us whose membership in generations which arrived since - particularly females, are especially forever indebted to pioneers such as Krohn, who was the first woman named to be publisher of student publications at the University of Washington back in a day and age when a good many individuals felt comfortable thinking and saying aloud such an appointment would never come to pass!

As difficult as it is for some to image a date when just being a woman was considered to be a crippling handicap, to successfully compete and be selected to take positions such as this even among the ranks of enlightened institutions of higher learning, or that such blatant discrimination passed as normal were blessedly shattered specifically because of the determination and persistence displayed by hardy trailblazers like she.

The diligence showed by these women in both mental and physical realms ensured that their initial tracks through these virgin territories in both spheres could well be missed by crowds since lured to cruise along the densely occupied social and cultural highways which their initial forays began.

Krohn often credited the heritage bequeathed by pioneering grandparents who homesteaded land along the Columbia River in 1881 (eventually becoming a part of Washington State) for her faith, diligence and tenacity. The example of her parents in combination with her own upbringing served as well to enhance the talents she brought informing and expanding access to the press and other communication resources while encouraging her fellow man to establish their own links to the same empowering values and ideals.

Krohn's ultimate legacy (which includes milestones not listed here) will continue to be enjoyed and provide a lighted beacon of inspiration during the highly daunting challenge before us of learning to navigate transitions which have since popped up in the radar of our shared horizons.

Molting Boldly Into The Future

2010-04-12T16:33:00.000-07:00

Returning from a long time in the fog of self-examination and rediscovery prompted by a need to change my personal thinking about relationships - I'm going to hang out the "Open for business" sign at One Muse At A Time once again. I've been missing-in-action since July 2009 which doesn't seem so far away in the great scheme of things. It has however actually been a few months short of a year since I last put my fingers to the keyboard at this address. No doubt very few if any have actually missed my absence.

For those of you newbies who've noticed the blog after the posted date of this entry, my natural inborn inclination has always been to view time as one long continuum. Doesn't everybody? Apparently this is more true for Idealists.While I'm more than willing to plead guilty to that, if idealism is truly dead there would really be absolutely nothing to live for. So now I'm gettting used to the idea of seeing time as a series of hopefully sequential intervals, which is just the way a longtime acquaintances described our 30 plus year marriage.

Now he didn't exactly say the words "hopefully sequential" . Rationals don't express themselves so tentatively. I'm the one who inserted the word hopefully. For all these years I used to think everyone had hopes. But I was informed this is not an irrefutable fact. Apparently some people prefer to just stick with reality!

Beauty is in the Eye.....

2009-07-05T08:20:00.000-07:00

Having never tried my hand at photographing fireworks, I must secretly confess to be pleased as to even freeze a visible image. While my operational skills can be greatly improved I'm nevertheless delighted with the painterly shots my camera registered last night while watching Fourth of July fireworks with a crowd in Federal Way, WA. In my mind they truly capture the magic and mood of the evening. They also easily provide a great foundation for these very lovely "pastels of light" studies. And what do you think?

Above: Enthusiastic crowd watches a fireworks display in Federal Way, WA.
Copyright 2009 by Mizu Sugimura

Tired Eyes, Eyelids and Other Tales

2009-04-20T23:31:00.000-07:00

If there's a next time I sign up for any plastic surgery, I'll ask to hear every detail of the long version. This is because prior to my having a blepharosplasty to improve my peripheral vision the end of January, I had no idea that I would be still going back to my doctor for additional follow-up visits in this fourth month of 2009.

Be assured I don't look quite so ghastly as I did to myself when I first looked in the mirror after the operation. For most intents and purposes, I look fine right now, unless you get more or less right in my face. To some extent, this cannot be predicted as this is often where those factors that set us apart from each other as individuals come into play. Sigh...

Vashon Island's Blue Heron Art Center Inspires

2009-03-22T01:11:00.000-07:00

Left: Aya Clark.

Using resources available on hand is a lesson that small arts organizations and larger communities can possibly learn from Vashon Island's Blue Heron Art Center. The center which once served as a meeting hall for a local chapter of the Independent Order of Oddfellows, provided a cozy and suitably intimate setting for a special performance of "From The Heart", a one-woman show by award-winning playwright Jude Narita.

I caught the ferry to Vashon while a passenger in an automobile driven by my long-time and talented theater buddy Aya Hashiguchi Clark. Clark may be known to many enthusiastic fans of Seattle and South Sound community theater for numerous appearances in front of audiences as an actress and behind the curtain as a director and producer.

Ms. Clark has also written occasional theater reviews for a number of local publications and has started her own blog. I have had the pleasure of becoming acquainted with Clark since looking her up in the phone book after enjoying one of her earlier journalistic efforts while reading a regional shopper many years ago.

We also shared membership in the same generational tier (Sansei) third-generation Americans of Japanese ancestry all of whose immigrant grandparents for the most part arrived in the United States in the early 1900's. Additonally, we share the sad fact people on both our mother's and father's side were forced into US government internment camps during World War II. As the early communities were essentially blown to bits physically and emotionally during this period of forcible dispursement, it's become highly unusual outside of a handful of communities in the State of California for both of us to ever run across, much less into another Japanese-American at all.

While we were on the island just happened to learn Ms. Narita's local hosts were none other than the Shiosaki's, another local family of Japanese-American heritage of who were formerly close neighbors of Clark when she was a girl and residing in Renton, WA at the southern tip of Lake Washington. The world is small indeed!

More About Barbara Krohn

2009-03-01T21:25:00.000-08:00

Last year I had occasion to write about Barbara Krohn in several columns published in the Federal Way Mirror including this piece ("Tearing down walls: Japanese "camps" in WW II", November 5, 2008) which can be accessed using this link. A few other websites of note with links to Krohn can be accessed by clicking here and here.

Remembering Barbara

2009-03-01T18:18:00.000-08:00

Above: Photo and art collage by Mizu Sugimura
copyright 2009.

Barbara A. Krohn,

Writer, Editor, Publisher, Historian,
Preservationist and Humanitarian,

August 23, 1925 - February 8, 2009.

"As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives. " - Henry David Thoreau

Update - Recognizable Changes Will Take More Time

2009-02-02T22:40:00.000-08:00

I went for a follow-up appointment with the local medical magicians who are supervising the transformation of my eyelids to improve my vision. The correct medical terminology for the procedure is called a blepharosplasty.

Not a word you find yourself using in daily conversation isn't it? And while I prefer to call them magicians, they rely on their skill and experience and not mumbo jumbo or hocus pocus which I secretly desired prior to my scheduled surgery.

The follow-up this afternoon went very well and I'm scheduled for a second visit in a week or so to have all the stitches that were made to facilitate the transformation of both eyelids completely removed, an event that all-by-itself could justify some sort of celebratory libation.

Most likely I'll pass on any alcohol and celebrate soberly with a non-alcoholic beverage of choice. Perhaps I'll help my favorite local ailing corporate favorite Starbucks with a quick sale and kill off a pair of those two proverbial birds once and for all.

Should you be interested in reading more about what goes into a blepharoplasty click here.

(Edt. note: For all of those animal and bird lovers out there - about killing the birds, that's just talk. Birders are among my dearest friends and as very fond as they are of me, the truth is I don't want to put them in a position where they'd regretfully have to make a choice...)

During a difficult transition, sometimes it's hard to still recognize yourself

2009-02-01T00:47:00.000-08:00

AUUGGH! Do not adjust your computer! No it's not Halloween. I haven't got rapid aging disease and even though I resemble a semi-finalist in a "Frankenstein's Bride" reality show competition, it wasn't my original intention to finagle a perfect match to the pioneering literary and silver-screen science fiction mega star.

Actually, the accompanying picture represents the mid-recovery phase of medical wizardry to tackle a condition informally known as droopy eyelids for which those belonging to me had apparently been endeavoring to create for some years.

In my case the phenomena had resulted in considerably reducing my level of peripheral vision. This fact taken in combination with a longtime prescription led to consultation with local plastic surgeons for possible improvement via surgery...

My biological ancestry comes directly from the great island nation of Japan circa the Meiji era (1868-1912) and I have a sneaking suspicion that several relatives on my mother's side of the family may have generously bequeathed a tendency to this condition along with other prominent genes.

It's equally possible that my father's family who share the same rich heritage might have made a small deposit. Meanwhile, throw in a percentage of normal wear and tear gained while the odd drummer and I beat our instruments and marched down the road of life with time and the earth's gravity as bonny companions.

Looking at my present visage in the mirror (see accompanying photo) it may take somewhat of a stretch to visualize any improvement, but I have been assured by my professional caregivers that the process is in hand.

Stay tuned for more details ....

Reconnecting With Books

2009-01-13T21:35:00.000-08:00

In recent years the calendar has been dominated by personal projects, some of which have all too completely absorbed the number of hours which pass for the waking interval of my attention span. Indulging in the pleasure of reading for purely it's own sake is also a luxury I have for the most part denied myself during this same period as a middle-aged woman dealing with ADHD, as not to break the all important and precious focus which I've been able to apply for the first time in certain cases to successfully bring to a number of these projects to a marvelously delightful and miraculous fruition!

If fairly recent events in my family life had not developed along the lines of the ambiguous script which is slowly playing out as this is being written, my reunion with the concept of unwinding with a book at the end of the day might have continued to be a stillborn infant for another quite unknown slate of a few more years. I am today to recognize a small list of books old and new which have as they say "hit the spot", launched me off happily to embrace their comfort and enveloping embrace and whom to the last author and tome I can fully and heartily recommend.

Depending upon your own reading preferences the list of books which have caught my eye may appear to be less than electric. To this I will answer with this confession, there has been a deliberate choice to counter the heady and circuitous chaos to which I now find myself, and my choice of escape is less of an adventure and more of a cocoon! Most prominent is the lack of any single novel on the entire list. And while every writer has in their time been included on some sort of listing of authors or celebrities of popular note, only two of them Sarah Ban Breathnach and Nora Ephron, might possibly qualify for membership on the rolls of current bestselling authors.

A) A Hotel Is A Place, Shelley Berman, copyright 1972 Shelley Berman, published by Price/Stern/Sloan Publishers. 108 pages.

B) The It-Doesn't Matter Suit, Sylvia Plath, copyright 1976 Frieda and Nicholas Hughes,
published by Farber and Farber Limited. 41 pages.

C) Moving On, Sarah Ban Breathnach, copyright 2006 Sarah Ban Breathnach, published by Meredith Books. 284 pages.

D) My Life As A Small Boy, Wally Cox, copyright 1961 Wally Cox, published by Simon and Schuster, Inc. 128 pages.

E) I Feel Bad About My Neck And Other Thoughts About Being A Woman, Nora Ephron, copyright 2006 Heartburn Enterprises, Inc., published by Alfred A. Knopf. 137 pages.

Reunite abandoned store carts with their families!

2009-01-04T09:57:00.000-08:00

If the residential area where you live has become anything like mine, you've noticed orphan shopping carts have popped-up by the roadside miles and miles from their habitual home base. During an idle search on the Internet a few years back I discovered a sampling of some of the myriad and truly creative solutions individuals in communities in all part of the world have come up with (the actual data may be revealed in another post) to try and deal with these wandering spawn of global commerce.

While I won't claim the idea sketched out in two and three dimensional form in the picture above is among anyone's Top Ten, if the powers-that-be in my own community would put the imagination up in their grey matter to work and what resources they have in hand today into motion it's quite likely we'd already have a more effective solution than our present bandage.

I just want to show visually that the germ of a city-wide publicity campaign can be pulled together by ordinary citizens working in the homes with scrap materials on hand.