52WoLP #18: Sometimes rules suck, but dogs will be dogs

Sometimes rules suck, right?  And sometimes you just want to do what you want to do, regardless of others. But we live in a big city, with more people and more dogs all the time.  Like my Dad said when I threw a candy wrapper on the ground, what if everyone did that?

It’s a very valid question.

The dog rules are there because we live in a city with a lot of other people and because this park has wild and cultivated areas–areas we pay tax money to protect.

There’s the pick-up-after-your-dog rule, and people seem pretty much okay with that one.  Then there’s the no-off-leash-dogs thing, and the majority of dog walkers seem okay with that one.  After all, it’s not an off-leash park, it’s an everyone + wildlife park.  And then there’s the no-dogs-allowed part and I gotta say, this last one gets almost no attention at all.  There really are–no really– parts in the park where dogs aren’t allowed at all: the beach and the playfields.

sort of ironic, eh?

Lincoln Park is not only a leash-your-dog park, but the beach is a no-dog zone. Amazing but true.

These rules that for some impinge on the god-given rights of dogs to be dogs really upset some people.  A lot.  I sort of understand.  You come home from work, the dog is crazy to run…what are you going to do?

Here’s the deal behind the rules: there are way more dogs and people using the park than ever before.  Way more.  We share the beach with creatures that need it for nesting and life itself.  Dogs will always be dogs on the beach and will always have a hard time resisting the urge to go after that wildlife.  (full disclosure: I like dogs. A lot.)

The other one, playfields: the ballfields are pretty carefully maintained and protected for a specific purpose: ball games.  Dogs running, chasing, digging, and doing the things dogs do (pun intended) flies in the face of the tax-money you are paying to maintain that field.  Do us all a favor and keep your dogs off the playfields.

The park really and truly is a space we all share.  Runners and walkers who frequently prove an irresistible target for even the sweetest dogs; birds and creatures who provide the feeling of getting-away-from-it-all and sing those gorgeous songs that lift our hearts–they make their nests in those bushes where some people throw balls for their dogs to chase;  baby seals and ducks and grebes who need the habitat our beautiful beaches provide.

We all share this park.  There are dozens of offleash parks in the city.  Be a citizen dog-owner, do the right thing, we will all love you for it.

52 Weeks of Lincoln Park is a year long exploration and adoration of the loveliest gem of West Seattle.  Enjoy!

52WoLP #17: the first ever Celebrate LP & our keep-you-guessing weather

Well, last saturday at this time, the overnight temps were in the upper 30s and the day never cracked 50. Chilly winds, grey skies, threatening clouds all conspired to reduce the crowds to only the toughest souls at our first ever Celebrate Lincoln Park.

yours truly and Denise Dahn of ALPN, with Hugo of Orange Hat

Trileigh Tucker, also of ALPN and FCA, led nature and bird walks through the park

Enjoy!

52WoLP is a year long exploration of and fascination with all things Lincoln Park, West Seattle.

This saturday, a mere 7 days later, windows and doors will be propped open, temps will be 25 degrees or more higher, and we’ll all be out in droves.

But the show went on, and it was pretty cool.  We even had Park Rangers there in full regalia and I sort of felt like we were at a campground at some National Park, I loved it!

The Alliance for Lincoln Park Nature, ALPN, was there with nature and bird walks, art-in-the park table for water color sketching and writing.  We had a lot of fun with both the sketching and the writing–fast writing exercises on various park-related prompts, and there’s just nothing like sketching to see where you are.  It’s a beautiful thing.

Here are a coupla pics:

52WoLP #15: let us count the ways (Tuesday 4/23 and Saturday 4/27)

Backlit driftwood sculpture /Lincoln Park, by Sky Darwin

There’s the beach, and it asks a thing or two from you, like a bit of a hike, like a little bit of care at low tide, but in return, it gives plenty.  It’s a northwest beach, trees and stunning views, rocky and diverse–none of this namby-pamby white sand nonsense. It’s a sturdy beach, home to seals, urchins, clams, starfish, water birds and more;  inspiration to artists, sculptors and enlivened imaginations everywhere.

one of the playgrounds in LP

There are the playgrounds and ballfields, areas where families and kids and fans and athletes get to play in a setting that juts up against forest and just enough wildness to make the senses sit up and take notice.  The walk back to the car after a tournament or play date involves a stroll through shaded rambling paths, a chance to be in nature, to restore, relax, revive.

Checking out possible new digs

There are the forests themselves, some old growth, all holding the park together in living system that is rare in an urban setting–a gem indeed, and a treasure for us to enjoy.  The forests are home to birds and nests big and small, to squirrels, coyote and fox, flowers in every season, ancient sequoia and doug fir, hillsides of maple all brilliant green in the spring light.  So much goodness!

Colman Pool in the summertime!

There’s the pool.  The Colman Pool.  Salt water, beautiful turquoise glinting in the summer light, the Olympics to the west, forested hillsides to the east, it is a seasonal treat beyond compare.

Seattle’s urban forests make the cut!

History!  We have History, and tons of it, and we’re in the process of making more!  For example, did you know that Seattle ranks in the top 10 Cities for Urban Forests, along with–check it out!–New York, Austin, Denver, and other great urban centers–go read the article here.  This is our next frontier: holding onto, preserving and protecting what is truly unique in an urban setting. Let’s make some more history, let’s keep LP wild!

Oh, I could go on and on.  I could.  But instead, why not come out to Celebrate Lincoln Park hosted by the FCA at the Fauntleroy Community Center this coming Tuesday, April 23rd, and then again in LP itself, for all kinds of fun, creative, park-loving, beach playing ways to be in Lincoln Park.  Come on down!

52 Weeks of Lincoln Park is a year long project chronicling and loving the seasons of LP in beautiful West Seattle.

52 WoLP #13: Curvy is better than straight

It’s been rainy, and it’s muddy, but that also means water in the Lincoln Park stream, and water in the stream means runoff for the waterfall.  What waterfall?

Sometimes, since a lot of people visit LP in the summer, they don’t get to see the waterfall in action. Some don’t even know it’s a waterfall, or that there’s a stream.  But there is, it goes through the park and ends up at the beach.  Here’s a map, and the back-story of the falls right after:

Here’s a sketchy map of LP and the stream

The back story: back when the WPA was doing all kinds of things in LP, they made the excellent steps and stairways from the beach to the park, except one of those walkways crossed a runoff zone from the stream.  No problem, they’d just turn that runoff zone into a pretty waterfall and direct it under the walkway:

The original went cascading pretty much straight down the hillside

If you’ve ever seen the waterfall at full throttle in the winter, the original plan which had the stream running nearly straight down into a catch didn’t have a chance–a lot of water comes down during the rains and anyway, nature doesn’t play nice with straight lines, so either by its own design, or with the help of a few folks along the way, the waterfall achieved a nice curvy and cantilevered path with a better runway…although it still runs over the path in big rains, and makes a beautiful sound as it cascades down the incline.

52 Weeks of Lincoln Park is a year long project exploring this West Seattle Gem. Enjoy!!

 

52WoLP #11: the secret lives of Lincoln Park (Happy 1st Day of Spring)

There’s the beach trail and the bluff trail; the playgrounds, old fashion zip line, wading pool and picnic shelters; the ball fields and, of course, the Colman pool. These are the places we all know and use and appreciate. There are other places, a little bit secret, not so much for us humans, although we definitely benefit from them.

I was looking at a parks dept map of Lincoln Park the other day and was sort of impressed by the forest areas. Forest. Take a look at the list:

Lincoln Park Forests: notice particularly H, B, G and J

This is cool, because those areas are part of what makes LP the most excellent park it is. HBG and J are beautiful and sort of urban-wild. There are nicely tended trails through and around them, and at this time of year, those forested areas are extremely active…and their inhabitants particularly vulnerable. Why? Nesting. Lots and lots of nesting going on, nest building and baby making by the ones who sing beautiful songs, flit in and out of trees and bushes and make us feel a little bit more alive and in touch with nature. Here are a few of those creatures, maybe you’ve seen one or two?

Song sparrow (best singer on the slope!)

Northern flicker

Bewick’s wren

Spotted towhee

Red breasted nuthatch

Chestnut backed chicadee

House finch

American robin, bringing home dinner

And this is just a little tiny smidge of the secret lives happening in LP right now and through Spring/ Summer. So, keep an eye out, take it easy in areas H, B, G and J–we’re just visiting where they live. And many of them live pretty close to the ground, so if you are a dog walker, best to stay on paths, keep your dog on a leash and enjoy the beautiful music of the forests.

**H/t to Trileigh for her bird notes and help
52 Weeks of Lincoln Park, a year long project: #11

52WoLP: week #9 and Animal Presence

I can’t help it. I’m still enveloped in the pleasure of swimming with green sea turtles in Hawaii for the past two weeks, and am not yet finished replaying the sensation over in my imagination.  Those great bodies moving so gracefully through blue green water, coming up for a gulp of air and a look at the odd but apparently harmless creature swimming alongside–I will not soon forget the glint in the turtle’s calm, accepting eye.

What does this have to do with Lincoln Park, you might ask. Well,  I was reminded of a post on the subject of animal presence by the eloquent Trileigh Tucker, intimate friend of Lincoln Park and all of nature. Her post is this week’s contemplation of LP, because it’s an awesome post, and because we are heading into a period of intense animal presence in and around the park.

How rare it is for us humans to be encountered in the wild by an animal who seems without fear of us, and even more powerfully, to whom we are of calm interest. To see ourselves in their eyes, to be recognized in some way as having a presence, perhaps even being of a kindred nature, perhaps, ultimately, with personhood — such an experience reminds us who we are….Some deep part of us yearns for this recognition.

Personally, I wait each year for the ruby crowned kinglets–skittish little lovelies with beautiful songs.  Yesterday I noted on WSB Facebook that a neighbor had seen a coyote on the perimeter of the park three days in a row, a seasonal presence to watch for. There are owls, bald eagles, wrens, tree creepers like nuthatches and browns, song sparrows and squirrels, of course. We can watch them, and there’s a sense that they might enjoy watching us.

May you be in the presence of the animals that make their home in LP; coexisting with them is deeply, deeply soothing to the soul.  Thanks Trileigh!

52WoLP, week 7: A most beautiful thing

This week in 52 Weeks of Lincoln Park, we meet Sky Darwin, a local artist you might see if you’re very lucky along the shores of the Salish Sea in Lincoln Park. He does beautiful things with driftwood. Beautiful. His sculptural works made me think of mandalas, because surely the delicately balanced pieces he was fine tuning would be washed away with the next high tide. And that, of course, only added to the pleasure of his creations. Take a gander:

Sculptural balance/Lincoln Park, by Sky Darwin

Driftwood fishsticks/Lincoln Park, by Sky Darwin

Driftwood fishsticks/Lincoln Park, by Sky Darwin

Delicate balancing act, driftwood sculpture/Sky Darwin

Backlit driftwood sculpture /Lincoln Park, by Sky Darwin

Driftwood sculpture/Lincoln Park, by Sky Darwin (1)

Sky studied at Cornish and has been working on these all-too-brief sculptural installations since Sept. 2012. He has a background in dance, music and design–all in evidence here. He took videos of the finished product but as yet they’re not up on vimeo or youtube. On the other hand, they are up on his facebook page so maybe look him up–the vids are great because you can hear kids marveling at the pieces moving gently in the sunset breeze.

These pieces were beautiful. And as predicted, I cruised by the spot where they were a day or so later, and they were gone. Beauty is fleeting.

Thanks Sky!

Addendum 3/4/13: Sky now has an official Facebook page–https//:www.facebook.m/ShiftwoodSculpture check it out, he put more pictures and videos there, and will keep it fresh with new stuff for our pure, unadulterated enjoyment. Live aloha!

52 Weeks of Lincoln Park (#3): Mystery Solved

Ok, so this is an obscure mystery, but still….When I was looking through the Seattle gov photo archives for stuff on Lincoln Park, I kept coming across a pix of a lily pond that was supposedly located in LP.  Except it had houses right behind it and it didn’t look like any part of LP I’d seen. Add to that the fact that Broadway Park on Cap Hill was called Lincoln Park before being renamed in 1922 and I figured: those lily pond pictures are from the other park, case closed.

the houses in the back, the clear space? mystery pond! (1936)

But recently, friend, fellow artist, and West Seattle native Kirsten Wilhelm happened to mention the old lily pond in Lincoln Park–how she used to love it as a kid.  What?!  Where is this thing!  Well, it’s at the northern edge of the park, right where there’s this odd clump of bamboo…look behind the bamboo, in the bramble and you’ll see the remains of the lily pad pond.  The boulders and landscaping are still visible, but it’s very much overgrown from its earlier incarnation…which is ok, imo, since a lily pond in the piney-cedary woods of our beloved LP is kind of a stretch.  But a lovely idea anyway.  Please let me know if you have faves or special tidbits about LP you’d like to share–cuz we all wanna know!

this might be the best shot I could get of the LP lily pond

you can see the boulders under the brush here

embankment on left, bamboo on right–near the north beach path

pardon the blur, it was tough in the bramble

Zipline in Lincoln Park? Thanks for the offer, but, uh…No Thanks.

There is a proposal to install a Zipline and ropes course amusement area in Lincoln Park (you can learn more about it here on WSB, Tracy’s article garnered more comments than any in the history of the blog).  There is a wave of activism against this proposal and this coming week will include a presentation by the offending developers to the Fauntleroy Community Association Tuesday at 7pm, Fauntleroy Hall.  More informal meetings of outraged west seattleites are happening throughout the week.

Lincoln Park in West Seattle is a pristine old growth forest in an urban setting, a unique gem on the Salish Sea

There are two Facebook Groups you can join, just search on Zipline Lincoln Park or anything like that and you’ll find them.

There are a few blogs springing up in an effort to get the word out, such as this great one.

Here are a few things I’m thinking about regarding the numbskull idea:

–Go Ape says the park will handle *only* 14 riders per hour.  14.  That’s likely 20-30 more cars at any given point during the day in the parking lot, if you consider the inevitable wait lines for riders.  There is talk that this will necessitate a new parking lot in the park.

–No trees will be harmed in the process of building and maintaining the park, the developers say.  It only impacts the tree tops.  THE TREE TOPS, where our eagles, hawks, owls, herons and other large birds roost and hang out.  Loss of predator birds will result in a burgeoning rat infestation, which will be helped along vigorously by the waste and trash produced by the concession stands.

–Traffic along Fauntleroy—do we really need to discuss this?  Sometimes the ferry lines stretch back 4 or 5 miles.

–No alternative revenue ideas to help defray the costs of maintaining the park have been investigated or attempted.

There are many communities that have successfully pushed back on these development plans and specifically against Go Ape.  A few are:

Napa Valley
Monterey County
Woodinville WA

Let’s all just say No.

Responsibility to a greater good

Responsibility to a greater whole.

This is a really wonderful, heartfelt post about sharing and taking an active part in one’s community.  Particularly thought provoking is the recollection of “required community time” in high school, the feeling that it was akin to a prison sentence…and then how it came to impact the rest of her life.  Worth reading.

PS, the book Blessed Unrest is a highly recommended read, especially right now.  Thanks Larisa!

Better Off: one year, two people, zero watts

I just finished reading Better Off by Eric Brende who, a decade ago as part of a graduate project, went from MIT to OTG (off-the-grid) for 18 months with his wife, and amidst it all, new baby.

The book is based on his journals from that 18 month period and has a ton of really interesting anecdotes and observations.  Bottom line: he really never came back to the machine-and-technology world.  He didn’t stay in the zero-watt Mennonite community he joined for the project, but he and his family learned they quite liked a life with very little technology and have over the years built a lifestyle that suits them really well.

The end of the book has an epilogue that is markedly different in tone from the rest of the book in that it takes a sober look at his conclusions–no folksy tales about how and who and why and when in the country. A very stripped down appraisal of the True Cost of how we live–and the True Cost is high, make no mistake.

Interestingly, he gives a nod to the internet he uses at the library and how it allows him to reach a larger audience for trades, barters and such.

It’s worth the read.

Take the time: Nick Werle on Free Markets and Nature

We tell ourselves stories, and sometimes we can see with frightening clarity the impact of those stories on our behavior.

A recent essay in 3 Quarks Daily by Nick Werle (Competing to Live: On Planet Earth and Being in Nature) takes a careful but wide ranging look at the many stories we tell ourselves about Nature.  He looks at David Attenborough’s Planet Earth series and the focus on the delicate balance in nature…and its requirements.  He looks at Darwin’s story in The Origin and sees similar threads regarding competition and the urge to survive. They both have a keen interest in understanding the mechanism of competition.

“In the rain forest, which we have seen has both high productivity and unceasing conflict, ‘competition for resources ensures that no one species dominates the jungle.’”

David Attenborough, Planet Earth

All of Nature is Regulated and Interconnected…and we are part of Nature

At the end he raises the obvious question of how we humans, the closest relative to the marauding gangs of chimpanzees that are depicted wrecking havoc in the jungle, care or alternately don’t seem to care about our place in the balance of nature.  Deregulationism has at its core a willful faith that the market will balance out all transgressions, that it is a marvelous–nay, Magic–self-regulating machine that is well within the bounds of Nature itself. It is a faith that ignores the obvious issue of interconnectedness.  Witness the global concern over Japan’s under-regulated, under-managed, growth focused nuclear program in the last month.  Earthquakes and tsunamis are natural disasters; nuclear meltdowns as a result of deregulation are not, and no market forces  can adjust the damage done.

As we have seen with increasing regularity, our wave of deregulation–from bubble to bust, from drilling and chemicals to “clean-ups,” implosions,  and overpopulation, we are not living in balance with the planet we call home.

We have managed to upset the balance of so many systems that it seems to me we are now living well outside of nature.  Plastic may well be the iconic metaphor for all we have become. The story we tell ourselves, and what we are actually doing, are not concordant, even as they could be.  Attenborough makes an argument that yes, we are part of Nature, and our particular playing field is uniquely human, but is nonetheless part of the large balance we would do well to have an interest in. The point Attendborough makes is more subtle than those put forth by deregulationists:

It positions humanity not as an alien force superimposed on an independently existing natural world but as a part of the same precariously balance system. The argument is so affective because it refuses to plead. Instead it suggests that we reconsider the boundaries we draw between systems we hope to keep in balance.

Instead of defining the jungle as the wild and unthinkable state of nature, this naturalist approach seeks to fuse man’s understanding of himself with the complexities of Nature in order to ensure that Planet Earth never becomes a stunning monument to irrecoverable beauty.

Running on ice + Naomi Klein and when “being against” is better than “being for”

Yesterday I got up thinking: this snow ain’t got nuthin on me.  I’m running today, no way I’m not running.  Well, some things got in the way, like a broken furnace (now fixed, happily) and a number of other tasks.  It all worked out well, though, because in the back of my mind I was plotting my escape.

I figured that if I could just get down to the beach walk in the park near our house, I’d find a sun dried stretch of running ground that I could just loop back and forth on.  That plan was true–but getting down there was a trick.  What I found was that the process of running in ice and snow makes the run intense and focused–no gawking at scenery–but a real meditative eye towards where your next step will land.  Once on the dry walk by the beach, I could take in the sights, but getting in and getting out was a mind focusing exercise–and lovely!  3.75+ miles, my first good run since my cold.  Can’t wait to repeat today.

Naomi Klein is profiled in the New Yorker (Dec 8th) and it’s well worth spending some time on.  She’s an amazing woman with an honest, clear eye on the scoundrels who would fix the game of life in their favor at every turn. I first learned about her way back with her first book, No Logo and really resonated with her approach. Her new book, The Shock Doctrine, takes apart the Milton Friedman theory of “free markets” (good lord, has there ever been a more insidious example of double speak?) that has evolved over the last 30 years into a manipulated game in which disruptive events are either created or alternately seized upon in order to push through a whole slew of market deregulating legislations and market focused actions.

Examples:

Southeast Asia post-tsunami: the shoreline which was once inhabited by local populations is now sold off to Resorts, with a capital R.  Ditto Katrina.

Terrorist attacks of 911: the list is too numerous, but think broadly about the Patriot Act, the stike-first declaration of war, the appointment of czars and outsourcers like Blackwater.  Too numerous.

The subprime and Big Three bailout: we’re in the middle of a very nasty hostage crisis wherein we’re being told the end of the world will come if we don’t pay up.  To some degree, of course, very bad things will happen if these companies collapse, and those bad things will hit us hard.  But the thing is: seems like those bad things are happening anyway and we’re getting hit hard–so, what’s up?

Klein believes we’re beginning to learn, we’re beginning to recognize and pay attention to that little voice that says, Hmm, haven’t we been here before?

The New Yorker article reflects on her life and approach, and there’s an interesting section which explores the benefit of recognizing a bad approach and working to change it, while avoiding the trap of being stuck in “favor” of anything.  That alone is worth meditating on.

Her new book, which is definitely on my wish list, is The Shock Doctrine.

Craigslist for Service (reprinted from The CX Blog)

Craig Newmark, the founder of Craiglist.org, is by his own admission the Customer-Service-Agent-in-Chief of Craigslist. I’ve admired this guy for a long time and for all the reasons we all admire him, but I simply swooned with admiration when he posted his service manifesto on Change This back 2005 and eloquently laid out his philosophy of service and community.

He has begun to lay out a plan for creating a Craigslist for Service, and you can read the full article over at Huffington Post--it’s a good read.  There’s actually a good deal of discussion of this idea, but coming from the original Craig, maybe we’ll get some good traction here.

No surprise that he’s thinking big, inclusive thoughts about what Obama has called a Craigslist for Service. Craig supposes Obama might be using craigslist as a metaphor for something that doesn’t exist yet, but he’s all over the idea because it makes such perfect sense.  He’s thinking of channels into and out of this proposed center of service activity:

Here are four possible aspects of “a craigslist for service.”

1. If you have the time and inclination to get out, you might volunteer for an existing service organization, probably a recognized for-profit. There are sites which make this relatively easy, the most effective of which is VolunteerMatch.org.

2. You might have some cash you’d like to pool with others to get something done. Sites which make that happen include DonorsChoose.org, funding classroom projects, or Kiva.org, which provides micro-finance loans to small businesspeople.

3. You might have the time for traditional civic engagement, where you participate in local governance. For example, you might join the PTA, or just attend local city council or board of education meetings, or join the board of a small non-profit. That’s traditional grass-roots democracy, an important American tradition.

4. Online, you might get involved in the new grass-roots democracy, where you get increasingly smart about some aspect of national governance.

I’d recommend taking a look at change.gov, specifically the discussion of healthcare. It’s a great first step towards real networked, grassroots democracy.

Check out SunlightFoundation.com, which fosters sites which provides checks and balances on government. The Sunlight sites are about government transparency, like how money is used, and abused in government. I’d like people to get smart about some specific area, keep an eye on that, and report… problems.

Also, if you’re a technology fan, check out peertopatent.org, an existing program where you can help patent examiners check out new inventions.

5. To make this really happen, people need to declare themselves publicly, to commitment to some form of service, and follow through. This is like the pledge system of the Clinton Global Initiative, or pledgebank.com, or thepoint.com. We’ll need something which scales to the tens of millions, which also plugs into the social networking tools people actually use.

(Yes, that was five.)

Is there a cabinet post for Service?  There should be.

Me ‘n Jack Bauer: My 24 Marathon

24 Season 7 Trailer

A dear friend of mine who loves Jack Bauer more than even the other Jack is–as one might expect–very excited about the upcoming season premier. So excited that he’s having a small party of like minded friends to come over and share the moment with him…I think that’s very sweet and I wouldn’t miss it for the world.

Except….except, I don’t really know anything about 24. When he talks about Jack, I nod knowingly but I’ve just been faking it.

So, cuz I love my friend, I decided to become conversant with–nay, knowledgeable about, familiar with, aware of–that man of action with a truckload of personal problems, Jack Bauer. And I was going to do it before the season premier. Too bad I made that vow and accepted the invitation before I realized there were 6 seasons.

I ordered them all from the Seattle Public Library, and lucky me! They all came in at once. My mission now: finish all 24 episodes in two weeks, the due date for all six seasons. Do you realize what that means? That’s like 150 hours of tv watching or something–and this is someone who doesn’t watch a whole lot of TV. Okay, Rachel Maddow, but that’s different.

After the first few hours of the first season, I was a little horrified by the prospect.  I don’t know what I thought…I guess I never really thought about it at all: 24 means twenty-four hours. Each season is 24 hours long. Hello?

So I started to strategize–first seek patterns, then figure a path to completion. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

I’m now in Season 3 and here’s what I’ve learned (probably every first year film student at USC knows this but it was news to me): You must watch the first episode. They lay down the main players, the crisis, the complicating factors that will be in play for the whole season. You may have to watch a good chunk of the second episode as well. But then you’ll want to go into full speed-view mode which on my laptop consists of this:

• keep the menu bar open on the full screen view–you’ll need it for fast action forwarding
• each episode consists of the following three things: What, How, Twist
  • The What: that moves each plot thread forward
  • The How: you can skip most of this, it’s the filler we watch really intently even though all we really want to know is the What
  • The Twist: that’s the unexpected thing they throw in right before the chapter ends that you can probably catch up on in the next chapter’s opening What
• After the first couple minutes of the chapter, click the forward button. You’ve got the What and you can skip to the next chapter.

If you do this quickly, it’s like one of those old fashioned cartoon flip books that you pfffftttt through really fast and see the characters actually move. Watching 24 like this has the same effect: if you watch 24 like Jack Bauer would watch 24–moving very quickly and intuitively from the first few minutes to the next chapter, you can watch an entire season in under two hours.

It’s still too long, and I may well skip an entire season or two if they don’t grab me in the first 5 minutes of the season premier, but I’m becoming quite fond of Jack–and am feeling confidently conversant about him. He’s a complex guy.

Funny what we happily do for dear friends.