The Adventure School » cori ready

We are so excited about our new store launch and so is the inimitable Seattle Metropolitan Magazine Style Editor and Editor-in-Chief at Seattle Metropolitan Bride and Groom Magazine, Laura Cassidy! She sat down for a chat with the store’s buyer, Erin Gainey and The Adventure School Founding Partner Aviva Palmer. See the article on the fabulous Wear What When. Homegirl’s got street cred and we are thrilled to count her as a fellow fashion adventurer.

Feast your eyes on this glorious screenshot but make sure to mosey over and catch the real thing. If you’re lucky Aviva will tell you fashion/party/adventure lifestyle tips for all your Trans-Siberian Needs in the comments section.

The Adventure School is proud to announce the opening of it’s new online Adventure Store, curated toward outfitting explorers of all kinds in lifestyle, celebration, and the expansion of horizons! This new venture will act as a platform on which creative, enterprising individuals come together to collaborate on a variety of projects. Get ready for new adventure-worthy products hitting the virtual shelves each month and pop-up shops around Seattle (and, perhaps, soon in your city!). Today, check out gorgeous handmade arrows by Brooklyn design duo Fredericks & Mae, and Ampersand As Apostrophe’s Aztec Bag.

For orders completed by midnight tonight, please enjoy 10% off of your total, by using the code BACKTOADVENTURE during checkout.

The store is also on the tweetmachine, belly up to the bar for interesting digital tidbits @ShopAdventure. Go explore the store and come back on the regular for new and interesting bits to take on your travels over the land, through the sky and in the sea!

All week long I will be answering any and all questions on beloved Seattle alternative weekly, The Stranger‘s Questionland. Come by and ask me things or if you are short on time just give me the old digital thumbs up. I actually totally love answering the questions, so if you have ever wondered where to get a righteous cake or what songs I would play at MY wedding, now’s your chance.

Happy Valentine’s Day! One of our favorite photographers of those pledging their everlasting love is one Mr. James Moes. Father and Husband, this man is a lover of kids, people, weddings, dancing, cool glasses and more! We asked him all the usual questions and we hope you will get to know him better today. If you are feeling romantic . . . and who isn’t? Then you should definitely check out his website to see tons of beautiful pictures of mostly young lovers and lovey feelsations. . .

2. Food and drink you don’t want to live without?
Eggs Benedict. Gin & Tonic.

3. The scariest thing you can think of?
Losing my sanity.

4. Your favorite party supply?
A nice pair of shoes.

5. Your favorite book of the moment?

Photography book: European Fields by Hans Van Der Meer. Great landscapes / documentation of low-level beer league soccer all around Europe.

6. Describe your dream party place.
A really big multi-level treehouse.

7. What is the evil version of you like?
Absolute.

8. What gives you confidence?
Hard work.

9. Name four essential elements of a good party.
People who want to dance + a DJ who know how to mix old and new + alcohol + hot eats at a late hour. And good lighting / location.

10. What do you appreciate most about a party host?
Ability to be personal with everyone, but still able to lose oneself in the party.

11. Favorite adventure supply?
Camera. Or my son Moses.

12. Describe the best party you ever a ended.
Nearly everybody jumped in the pool with or without their clothes and then returned wet to the dance floor.

13. Hotel room or campsite?
Campsite.

14. Do you have a style icon?
Erlend Øye

15. Where is your next adventure destination?
Joshua Tree. Then, Maui.

16. If you could teach a class about anything in the world ever, what would you teach?

A survey of historical figures exemplifying profound dimensions of love, co-suffering, compassion, struggle & sacrifice, mediation, and radical peacemaking.

17. What is your motto?
The truth will set you free.

18. What is your spirit animal?
I’m still trying to translate its noise. I’ve only heard its rumble/hunger and not seen its form. If you know my animal, and I know you are skilled in this, please do tell.

Like any other good self-respecting adventure-o-phile, I have a strong case of Thor Heyerdahl addiction. The guy does crazy stuff, JUST TO CHECK IT OUT. He mounts full-scale ship-building operations to see about crazy hunches. What is not to like? A self-assured Scandanavian like Heyerdahl? GIMME MORE! After having spent a fair amount of time thinking about the voyage of the Kon-Tiki and imagining that it was me, and not Thor spearing mighty fish in the sea and eating them for weeks on end with the salt spray in my hair, I forgot all about Heyerdahl and his antics.

And then . . . I picked up The Ra Expeditions, this time a friend gave me a battered and well-loved hard bound copy as he was leaving Seattle for the sunnier shores of Albania? It turns out to be a bit less of a page turner than Thor’s work regarding the Kon-Tiki but it is way more Summer of Love, Can’t We All Just Get Along chic. Published in 1971, The Ra Expeditions covers the 1969 and 1970 voyages of two separate Reed boats, RA I and RA II that Heyerdahl had built and sailed from Morocco across the Atlantic to (or to near) Barbados. 334 pages of Brotherhood of Man postulating and sea chat. I don’t want to say too much. But, if you have a thirst for adventure literature you would do well to check this book out. Yes, the politics can be a little heavy-handed, but in the great tradition of adventure books this one has all the intrigue and more, robbery, debauchery, civil conflict, open sea comradery, pet monkeys. . .

Thor explores the common ground of boat builders in disparate places around the world from Lake Chad in the Republic of Chad to Lake Titicaca in Bolivia. Heyerdahl attempted to show in these stories and expeditions that reed boats, found all over the world in ancient times and still sticking around a few places in contemporary times were quite seaworthy and a reliable means for ancient people to cross the world’s oceans.

In the copy of the book I read there are excellent photographs of the boat-builders, the boats that Heyerdahl had built and pics on the open seas of the RA I and RA II in action. Voyage forth and get your Heyerdahl on, gentle reader!

I turned 31, to celebrate I was taken to some awesome places. The first one was The Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden. This place is no joke. There was an art show up by Les Lalanne AND our boy Chihuly had some glass stuff lurking around in the tropical shadows. We took a tram ride around the entirety of the park which was awesome, we didn’t see any alligators of crocodiles, bummer. But, we did see a WHOLE lotta awesome including an entire garden full of plants from Madagascar. The tram ride was driven and narrated by a volunteer. A pretty great job for a retiree . . . talking plants all day to Japanese tourists and 31 year old birthday girls. She was way into telling us about how they filmed CSI: Miami in the park sometimes.

Then we went to a place called Knaus Berrry Farm which apparently used to be run by The Amish but now there are like Mercedes Benz everywhere and teens that definitely use the internet etc working the register. I drank a milkshake and we bought cinnamon rolls to go.

The berry farm led us to a very agricultural area near or in Homestead Florida. They have fruits galore. It is possible that I have never seen so many fruits. The fruit, vegetable, everything stand, Robert is Here is the next place we went. They have a petting zoo complete with goats, geese, chickens, donkeys, ducks, emus and more! The highlight of Robert is Here was seeing fruits that I had never heard of like, the ugli fruit. Robert is here also sells sugar cane, starfruit, key limes, tiny bananas, heirloom tomatoes and the list goes on. Here in Florida, they call Heirloom tomatoes “Ugly Tomatoes” must be a Floridian citrus sensibility coming through . . . round = good, not round – UGLY.

My birthday totally ruled and culminated in DELICIOUS Mexican cookies and a midnight showing of the Swan movie starring Princess Amidala. Stay tuned for some flicks taken with A REAL CAMERA by Bert Rodriguez. And, really, seriously look at the photo of that rainbow Eucalyptus tree. That is completely out of this world!

I assume, gentle readers, that many of you are unfamiliar with the ways of the Manatee. Well, since I have taken to wintering in Florida, I am taking a crash course. Yesterday, outside of The Adventure School HQ East there were a whopping NINE Manatees. For all of you who don’t live in Florida, this is in my experience, unprecedented. Sure, two, three maybe. Awesome. NINE!! Revolutionary. These aquatic Elephantine sweethearts with herbivorous lifestyles like to hang out below our balcony and play in the fresh water that escapes through pipes of the building into the bay. SO, that is part of the issue and by issue, I mean, our good fortune.

Here’s a sort of lay of the land (sea) view of the whole situation (taken later in the day then the actual Manatee pics). This is Biscayne Bay (it’s been featured before on this blog, I believe). Interestingly, those little islands were the same islands that Christo and Jean-Claude wrapped in pink in the 80′s. In 1983 they employed 6.5 million square feet of pink woven polypropylene fabric to cover the surface of the water, floating and extending out 200 feet from 11 little islands into the Bay. Some of which you see below.

But, let’s get back to the point, MANATEE INVASION 2011. See below, as I discovered, 9 Manatees are impossible to photograph up close. Why? Because they are TOO BIG! I’m sorry to subject you to camera phone photos but I mean, it’s difficult to plan for an invasion.

*This photo shows 7 visible Manatees, the other two must be hidden either by the muck clouds at the top of the picture or in the general free-for-all near the balcony.

Speaking of balconies, Manatees really like these underwater poles. They like to scratch barnacles off of their backs. They also like to come above water and breathe every few minutes.

I bet these photos have you wondering all about Manatees, well don’t fret here are some basic stats:

Number of offspring: 1 calf.
Calves are born weighing between 60 – 70 pounds and measuring about 3-4 feet. They nurse underwater.

AND BEHOLD, we have a calf! So giant and so cute. Hardly any defining features, tiny eyes and and a downward pointing primarily underwater snout. Adorable tail. It was a real treat to see this little guy or gal and a first for me.

I will leave you with this image. Pure sea-cow madness. A veritable dog-pile of four Manatees. As always, I am available for questions. Email me.

One of the key things about Art Basel Miami Beach is that it is the most partyin’est time of the YEAR! It’s like ten New Year’s Eves packed into one weekend. So we hit up some parties with our faithful houseguest and bestie, Kenny, (pictured below in a summer suit) to whom we owe for most all of the following party pics. In fact, we took very few pictures because I mean, I didn’t want to like give myself away to anyone and let them know I was struck by their art celebritude and I didn’t want to lose my phone after the 40th cocktail at the Rubell Family’s opening night bash. We almost crashed into Jeffrey Deitch in the street with our car and I definitely eaves-dropped on Perry Farrell. Fun! So fun that it’s exhausting, but we made sure to get some chill-out time at The Standard. This year FriendsWithYou took over the Design District and remade it in their own image with Rainbow City. Susan Sarandon took over the Delano and filled it with Ping Pong enthusiasm. Peaches had her sexy naked tranny friend help her create lazer music just after Nate Lowman DJ’ed at the Bally party and we went to the Miami Art Museum’s Ball, which was waaaaay less filled with Pucci dresses than I thought it would be, but it was waaaaaay more filled with people picking up their Bentley’s from the valet than I could have ever imagined possible. I think in Miami a Bentley is sort of akin to a Subaru in Seattle, well, their ubiquity stands out during the early days of my ongoing investigation (will keep you posted). Next year I resolve to hold to our party schedule with military precision and wear more thigh high leather boots like some of the socialite moms I saw shopping for the arts.

When people talk about Art Basel or Miami, they usually mean the whole big she-bang, the twenty million satellite fairs and parties and booze and Kanye walking around and art and seeing John Baldessari drinking a pina colada or whatever. BUT ACTUALLY, it’s just a convention center filled with Millions and Millions of dollars worth of the world’s most NOWest art and also, filled with people who can actually afford to buy it. It’s crazy, I practically sprained my ankle walking around that joint for days. But, soooooo amazing. The ART MALL OF THE UNIVERSE. Behold!

Book Review: NEW COLUMN!! is a column where we review BOOKS!!! Yes, kids, it is holiday time. TIME TO CURL UP WITH A GOOD BOOK. Today’s book is a business book! Or at least WE consider it a business book. I think for the most part, I will be reviewing adventure books up in here but I have recently taken the plunge into reading a bunch of books about innovation, what business is now, and the intertwining of everything in our internet/twitter/i-chatting age.

The book of the hour is Steven Johnson’s Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation. The book is fun to read, if you like reading books by Malcolm Gladwell and Michael Pollan then you will like Johnson’s easy breezy science-y mish-mash of the histories of chemistry, geography, the internet and more. I read this book over the holiday weekend and its chapter titles: The Adjacent Possible, Liquid Networks, The Slow Hunch, Serendipity etc. etc. really lend themselves to a simple examination of one’s OWN business life! Awesome, an unexpected side-effect of reading this book. Other unexpected bonuses include appendices that include a Chronology of Key Innovation from 1400 to 2000. Invention of pencil (1560). The story of the creation of GPS? See page 183, you’ll never guess how that got cooking (unless you actually think about things like satellites a lot, which I definitely don’t). Besides simple histories, the book asks us to look into the potential unlocked by each and every connection we make, by the inspirational quotes we jot down and good old fashioned long coffee breaks talking about solutions to work problems with colleagues.

I recently watched the Rush documentary, Beyond the Lighted Stage. In the special features section, the documentarians take us on a whimsical- almost boring- but not quite, examination of the hobbies of Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson and Neil Peart (Baseball memorabilia collecting, golfing and motorcycling in that order). While for Rush ultra-fans this hobby-based, mini-film is the chance to see what Geddy Lee’s study looks like, but for me, a light bulb went off . . . to be an innovator in your field, you need to open yourself up to the expansiveness of the universe and train your mind and heart to wrap around as much stuff as possible, get obsessed with the stuff you love the most and then stick with that stuff forever, weaving information from all of the things you know and love together forever. Steven Johnson and Geddy Lee are on the same page! If Tim Berners-Lee wants to learn to really shred (or invent the internet) then he needs to take advantage of Google’s Innovation Time Off (or work at a firm that allows him time and space to tinker with his own highly intricate projects). In other words, be your own Charles Darwin and connect the dots! See you guys next time for BOOK REVIEW: NEW COLUMN!!

newsletter