Swing into the B & I Circus Store circa 1964 with guest Larry Johnston, who at age 13 became brother to a western lowland gorilla named Ivan—-the ape that became as emblematic of the Pacific Northwest as the legendary Sasquatch.
Larry narrates the tale of how his parents came to own the B & I pet store, thanks to Orca capturer Ted Griffin. He warmly remembers the store’s ever-changing menagerie, which included gibbons, jaguars, lions, seals, an elephant, exotic fish and even Amazonian parrots. Most poignantly, he shares stories of growing up with the young Ivan.
Join Larry on a journey that takes you from Hollywood movie sets to an unexpected encounter involving one of America’s most esteemed civil rights figures. Fast forward to today, where students from the Seattle Jewish Community School share questions from their reading of The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate.
Adding to our list of notable voices, Jodi Carrigan, the Curator of Primates at Zoo Atlanta, reflects on her relationship with Ivan in his later years. Rounding off our tale, Earl Borgert, grandson of B & I's founder Earl Irwin, presents the I.V.A.N. Foundation, dedicated to preserving wildlife habitats.
(To hear additional stories of the B & I Circus Store, tune in to Episode #40, “The Wizard of Earl," for a conversation with Ron Irwin, who ran the store for decades following the passing of his father, store founder Earl Irwin).
"He was…unique in so many ways. He loved to engage people. Ivan just relished making connection.” - Larry Johnston
Dive into the second episode of this two-part series as we continue our conversation with graphic designer, Art Chantry, whose stories sparkle as vibrantly as his colorful posters, offering original insights from Seattle’s grunge era.
These tales span Art’s diverse interests and influences: The allure of archaeology; Dadaism & Surrealism; old commercial art by overlooked masters, accidental inking errors. Chantry exposes the misguided muddling of fine art with graphic design and then explains how graphic design underscores propaganda and politics.
Art concludes by heralding a new book showcasing Estrus Records, home of bands like The Makers, Mono Men and The Mummies. He confesses that his posters and album covers for these bands were his most liberated. So, this publication is a faithful retrospective for a maverick homegrown genius whose impact is international.
"You are standing next to this pond that suddenly emerges and you throw a pebble into the water and this ripple would start. And it got bigger...and before you know, it's a tidal wave; then you hit the shoreline and it's a tsunami and it wipes out half of America; and it's like: 'Wow...I did that....' We were close enough where we could do things like that and actually watch it happen!” - Art Chantry
Join us in this episode (the first of a two-part series) for a conversation with graphic designer Art Chantry, a national treasure, whose posters are collected by The Smithsonian and The Louvre.Opening with childhood memories of Parkland on the fringes of Tacoma, Washington, Art describes a restless educational path that eventually brought him to Bellingham. He shares experiences of his subsequent arrival to Seattle in the 1980’s, including street observations that shaped his aesthetics. He tells of art directing the music biweekly magazine The Rocket on a shoestring budget before launching a one-man graphic design firm, churning out hundreds of posters, logos and album covers for rock bands including Soundgarden and Mudhoney associated with Sub Pop, Estrus and other home-grown record labels.Art’s stories reveal the genesis of a vital visual lexicon—subversive, populist and modern—that simultaneously reflected and transformed the Pacific Northwest: From a backwater for “losers,” to the forefront of global popular culture in the 1990’s and beyond.
"It’s black and white. It's scrappy. There’s not a straight line on the whole goddamn thing. It looks like it was cut and pasted together out of chunks of Xerox junk. It is just an atrocious mess. And it’s beautiful…. It’s so alive—You still look at it and it makes your heart jump!” - Art Chantry
Join us in this episode as we descend into the Graveyard of the Pacific with Matt McCauley, President of The Northwest Shipwreck Alliance and Sarah Haberstroh, Manager of Underwater Operations for Rockfish Inc.
Matt’s passion for deep-water marine salvage is intertwined with that of his friend Jeff Hummel. As scuba diving high schoolers on Mercer Island in the early 1980s, the two made headlines recovering World War II aircraft from the bottom of Lake Washington. In 2010 Matt returned from the East Coast to support Jeff’s lifelong quest to find the SS Pacific, a nearly 300-ft long transatlantic sidewheel steamer that sunk off Cape Flattery in 1875. At the time it was laden with gold from the Cassiar Mining District of NW British Columbia, near Alaska. The shipwreck drowned all but two of those onboard, which may have totaled as many as 500.
Sarah Haberstroh left a career in underwater warfare in the United States Navy last year to join the team searching for the SS Pacific. She maneuvers Rockfish’s remotely operated vehicles for the current recovery phase of the operation.
Matt and Sarah recount the ill-fated ship’s history. They talk of the bootstrapped technology, the gumshoe detective work and the perseverance required to locate it in its resting place 1,000 feet beneath the sea. Animating their endeavor—and today’s conversation—is a mission of recovering a complete collection of the vessel’s artifacts: Relics honoring those who died in the calamity.
"This tells a story. It is very rare that you can find a vessel from which you can extract all these artifacts and essentially have a time capsule from 1875." – Matt McCauley
Join us in this episode (the first of a two-part series) for stories of the B & I Circus Store, founded by Earl Irwin in 1945 in Lakewood, WA. Our guest today is Earl Irwin’s son, Ron Irwin, who ran the store for decades following his father’s passing. Ron is joined by Earl Borgert, the founder’s grandson, family archivist and President of The I.V.A.N. Foundation.
What began as a military surplus outlet housed in an unassuming 500 SF cinderblock storeroom became a prototype for the postwar American shopping mall, eventually expanding to over 300,000 SF. Under Irwin’s exuberant and tireless leadership, the B & I drew multitudes by transforming the store into a destination for extraordinary adventures.
Recently discovered reel-to-reel recordings allow us to enjoy Earl Irwin’s own voice for the first time since his death in the 70’s. Woven into this audio tapestry are voices of Power of Place listeners—all of whom visited the B & I as children—recalling endless hours of reverie: Whirling on a carousel, collecting autographs from their best-loved sports and movie heroes; and discovering a revolving menagerie, including the store’s resident lowland gorilla, Ivan.
Join us in this episode for a radiant musical memoir by pianist Dick Coolen.
Long before the city’s reputation as an international tech hub, Seattle achieved a globally relevant jazz culture. Here, bands who gathered in the basements of churches, modest homes, and schools…produced the likes of Ray Charles, Ernestine Anderson, and Quincy Jones. Reared in this milieu, our guest’s stories celebrate a free-range childhood in Seattle’s redlined Central District and the big band, bebop, and early rock and roll rhythms that filled its avenues.
Dick recounts jamming at Joe Brazil’s Black Academy of Music; of blowing baritone sax at Birdland on Madison. He savors memories of touring with Ike Cole and of collaborating with Dizzy Gillespie; of backing underground drag shows with showtunes; and of visits to a well-regarded violin maker at the Fisher Studios Building. Over the course of his jazz journey which eventually brought him to Port Orchard, Dick footed the family bills by working no fewer than 44 non-musical occupations—from paperboy to firefighter to brick mason.
Dick Coolen’s humility and commitment—qualities he attributes to his working class and Roman Catholic upbringing—offer lessons from an inspired life grounded in community and refined through the life-giving power of music.
This episode is dedicated to the memory of Jamie Winshall and to the continued success of his son Daniel.
Here is Dick & Edward recording in the studio at Jack Straw Cultural Center, January 2023:
Join us in this episode for the field trip of a century. Our guest, geologist-historian David B. Williams, illuminates the Pacific Northwest’s characteristic highlands and waterways as landscapes of perpetual transformation.
With a wry wink, this raconteur’s stories fuse the sensitivity of a naturalist with the diligence of a research geek. Amble through Seattle with David as he reveals his city’s subterranean secrets: A mosquito fleet schooner lost somewhere below downtown’s streets; old growth forests immersed under Lake Union; an art deco office tower whose foundation stones invite us to touch “deep time”—almost unimaginably greater than the time scale of human lives and human plans we hold so dear.
David’s tales animate the experiences of early Seattleites who swung picks and shot water cannons to forcefully reshape our glacially-formed landscape into a modern metropolis; a progression that continues today in response to climate change.
"I’m interested in connections…How are we influenced by the landscape around us? And then, it’s the connections between people and place." - David B. Williams
Here is David & Edward recording in the studio at Jack Straw Cultural Center, December 2022:
Join us in this episode and step inside the Ray Gibson Caballeros Club with Tim Person (President & CEO) and Ms. Ellen Smith (Manager).
In the 1950’s, two trailblazing African American men grew weary of exclusion from downtown Tacoma’s restaurants, concert halls and bars. They envisioned a member-owned, private club for the city’s Black community. A founders group next acquired real estate for this purpose in the form of an inconspicuous house on a dead-end street in Tacoma’s Hilltop neighborhood on acreage heralding sweeping views of Mount Rainier. About twenty benefactors soon mortgaged their private residences to fund expansion of that building into the Caballeros Club as we know it today; with splendid spaces supporting diversified membership that includes women.
If the “Cab’s” walls could speak, they would voice this episode’s heartwarming stories: Tales of dedicated civic leaders rubbing elbows at the downstairs bar for decades, of friends swaying to live music, of earnest charitable projects, of hearty food served with piquant cocktails…within a private Pacific Northwest haven abounding in joy and camaraderie.
"One of the things that makes us proud…is that it is our club—we are not renting the property. We’ve purchased it. So, it has the feeling of ownership; you are not going to take this away from us. This is ours.” - Ms. Ellen Smith
Here are Tim, Ellen, & Edward recording in the studio at Jack Straw Cultural Center, November 2022:
Join us in this episode as we explore the rural culture of Orcas Island with Craig Gibson, fourth-generation owner of North Beach Inn (NBI), located on the outskirts of the remote village of Eastsound.
Craig’s forebears acquired the 100-acre waterfront fruit farm in 1911. In 1932 they constructed a handful of the 16-rustic cottages now dotting NBI’s eight mile stretch of sandy beach, where panoramic sunsets brighten Canada’s Gulf Islands.
Craig explores the sources of NBI’s longevity, its reliance on word-of-mouth marketing, and the exceptional loyalty of its customers. Born out of his family’s Scottish heritage, the business has been shaped by an evolving ethos prioritizing good relationships with family, guests, workers, neighbors, and community.
Listen to an extraordinary saga of an Island family, as they steward and share the homestead into it’s second century. The episode concludes with an invitation for you to come and experience NBI yourself.
“The strangest thing that happened is we survived to the fourth generation. And they’ve done studies that say that… there’s a fifty percent chance of making it to the second generation. There’s six to ten percent chance of making it to the third generation…So that we’ve made it to the third, going on the fourth, going on the fifth…It’s quite remarkable. It is almost miraculous.” - Craig Gibson
Here are Craig & Edward recording in the studio at Jack Straw Cultural Center, October 2022:
Join us in this episode for a conversation with a wise friend about the deepest matters of the heart. Our guest is theologian, novelist, and mystic Mary Lane Potter.Mary’s quest for a closer relationship with the divine stretches from her childhood in an immigrant community steeped in the traditions of Christian Reform evangelism; to her Ph.D. at the University of Chicago Divinity School, then a life of service as a lay preacher and tenured academic; followed by a conversion to Judaism and a literary career.Mary has authored the novels Strangers and Sojourners: Stories from the Lowcountry and A Woman of Salt, as well as a spiritual autobiography Seeking God and Losing the Way: A Story of Love and Conversions. Her upcoming novel is based on the biblical character Miriam. An avid essayist, her work is published to diverse audiences, including Tablet, an online magazine of Jewish news and culture.Mary’s stories will whisk you off to Sri Lanka to step over moonstones, into the Sinai Peninsula on camelback, before returning to the oceanic Pacific Northwest just in time for the Jewish festival of Sukkot. We conclude with an open invitation for you to participate in building what Mary calls “a pop-up sacred space.”Mary’s storytelling—intimate yet prophetic—will illuminate the liminal spaces between the sacred and the profane in your daily life.
"What I knew as a child...and I’ve been spending my whole life trying to understand and articulate, is that we can experience the divine or the sacred; and we can experience something that is more-than; that something that is greater-than; something that is beyond us, and not know it." - Mary Lane Potter
Here are Mary & Edward recording in the studio at Jack Straw Cultural Center, October 2022:
