I was only a little let down when the pilot played Enya over the comm as we lifted off for this chopper pass of Juneau because, after all, i was in the cockpit of an AStar-B2 and we were batting the air over Southeastern Alaska. I was riding shotgun. Z was in the back with Lou, who was shooting.

If i’d had my druthers, i’d have chosen this section of live audio of Jerry and the boys from MSG in September of 1991 so i threw this together quick-like in QTPro as a meager, self-indulgent attempt at redemption – special thanks to
http://vimeo.com/tweeprise

If we still lived in Juneau, this is where we’d still be parking our Subaru wagon.

Last week, the Soobi would have been buried under this:

Zach Falcon, 37, of Iowa City, earned the recognition for his story “The Malamute.” The honor came from the United Kingdom’s Bridport Prize, which will be announced today. The Press-Citizen received an embargoed copy of the announcement and originally posted it (this version has been edited for clarity):

“I was delighted. I know writers sometimes make too much of it being a lonely and solitary endeavor, so I don’t want to complain about it. Any sort of recognition is exciting,” Falcon said in a telephone interview.

The annual competition recognizes top submissions for stories and poetry. The contest is open internationally and received over 14,000 entries from more than 75 countries.

Falcon, who was born and raised in Alaska, is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, as well as the University of Michigan law school and Columbia University. After college, he returned to live in Alaska until he came to Iowa City to attend the Writers’ Workshop in 2007.

He graduated in May and stuck around to finish a collection of short stories and to work on a novel, he said.

“The Malamute” is set in his hometown of Kodiak, Alaska. The story explores the trials and tribulations of a small-town community.

“I was frankly surprised (the judge) selected it,” Falcon said. “It is a fairly grim story. It doesn’t have a lot of humor or levity. The (criterion) asked for something a little more lighthearted. I sent it anyway, and I am delighted she selected it.”

“The Malamute” will go into an anthology with the other winners, Falcon said. Falcon was pleased that the voice of an American, and more specifically an Alaskan, is being recognized in an international competition, he said.

“It’s a major award,” the local man said (no he didn’t)

Some comments from competition judge Ali Smith were included in press material about the prize.

“All good writing is about economy, edit, rhythm and precision; the short story form demonstrates this to the other literary forms. An end, when it comes, should always send you back to the beginning, because a good story, like any real art, demands revisitation. A good short story is lifelong,” Smith wrote.

Cheers to Randy Crow

Our pals have at last found a home for themselves in our old neighborhood of Juneau, Alaska.

Jorden and Bret close on this sweet pad on the 14th.

Congratulations!

Our pals, Sean and Becky Janes, gave Andy Summers and his son the tour of Southeast recently via their outfit Above and Beyond Alaska. That’s Sean on the right in the picture below.

Highly recommended if you’re thinking about making it out to the Last Frontier – but of course, we’re biased:

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Power is flowing from the Snettisham hydro dam once again!

Returning to the renewable energy source means Juneau folks no longer face the temporary increased cost of living [53 cents per kilowatt hour versus 11].

Since the avalanche in mid-April, Alaska Electric Light & Power has been supplying the entire city with electricity from diesel generators, thus, the dramatically increased rates.

Fortunately, this didn’t last as long as anticipated. What a good thing for both locals’ pocketbooks and lifestyles, which have been hamstrung in order to avoid electric bills that no one could afford. I can’t imagine paying upwards of $500 for what is usually around $100.

Now you can all plug everything back in and take energy for granted again like all the rest of us!

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Pollee and i head back to Juneau tomorrow to celebrate the wedding of our pals for a few days and suck up some of the air up there in the Great Northern latitudes.

The town has entered into a renaissance of sorts lately, in terms of folks coming together under a rather stressful situation.

As most of you have prolly read, an avalance on April 16th put the city into a conniption when power lines between Juneau and the hydroelectric power plant at Snettisham were severed, driving the price per kilowatt hour from 11 cents to 53.

From the New York Times article posted on Wednesday :

Conservationists swoon at the possibility of it all. Here in Alaska, where melting arctic ice and eroding coastlines have made global warming an urgent threat, this little city has cut its electricity use by more than 30 percent in a matter of weeks, instantly establishing itself as a role model for how to go green, and fast.

Comfort has been recalibrated. The public sauna has been closed and the lights have been dimmed at the indoor community pool. At the library, one of the two elevators was shut down after someone figured out it cost 20 cents for each round trip. The thermostat at the convention center was dialed down eight degrees, to 60. The marquee outside is dark.

Schoolchildren sacrifice Nintendo time and boast at show-and-tell of kilowatts saved. Hotels consult safety regulations to be sure they have not unscrewed too many light bulbs in the hallways. On a recent weekday, all but one of the dozens of television screens on display at the big Fred Meyer store were black — off, that is.

Yet even as they embrace a fluorescent future, the 31,000 residents of Juneau, the state capital, are not necessarily doing it for the greater good. They face a more local inconvenient truth. Electricity rates rocketed about 400 percent after an avalanche on April 16 destroyed several major transmission towers that delivered more than 80 percent of the city’s power from a hydroelectric dam about 40 miles south.

We are looking forward to the spartan spirit now thriving in our old neighborhood of 5 years and are anticipating that with more computers, TV and other gadgets turned off more often than on, we’ll be able to squeeze even more hang time out of this trip than usual.

It’s good to recalibrate our comfort amidst a culture that borders on sloth.

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