Lost Luggage

Treasure Hunt: Rumors and Clues

Update: By our count, Team Jesse was leading the pack, having located four map sections. Team Jesse was followed closely by Team Thunder Cloud. A fifth map section will likely be discovered today. This piece can be reached by surveying the section from a high vantage point with a spyglass. Seekers who are tough enough to reach this map section from mud level, they will likely discover a bonus clue for their efforts.


For those of you catching up, there’s buried treasure on Vashon Island. Yep, that is the truth.

Treasure hunters amassed in Vashon’s town center last night, scouring for clues. They are looking for twelve fragments of an ancient map that will lead a lucky team to the prize, fabulous gems looted by Napoleon’s army.

Let us indulge in a bit of history: In 1812, Napoleon’s Grand Army entered Moscow. As winter approached, the Grand Army realized that they were running out of food. The army’s supply lines had been cut-off. The Russians had burned all the food in the city left the cupboards bare. They abandoned their city and hid in the countryside.

However, the sensible Russians left behind treasures and gold. After all, you can swallow a small sapphire but it doesn’t taste very good.

With the Russian winter coming, the Grand Army began to retreat. Some of the foolish soldiers thought they could carry looted gold bullion and other imperial treasures. It wasn’t long before Napoleon’s men discarded the heavy treasures as they tried to walk home to Paris.

In Napoleon’s Army was a group of Saxons. Fifty or so Saxons deserted Napoleon’s army during the retreat. With them, sewn into their clothes, were the Baranov gemstones.

Mason Bee and Chicken Assault !!

Saturday, March 28

At 2:15p.m. Saturday, March 28 after the Farmers Market closes, everyone is invited to Valise Gallery at 17622 Vashon Highway, one door south of Gusto Girls.

We are offering presentations by Jerry Gehrke on “Mason Bees on Vashon: Why, When, and How To” and Amy Beth Holmes and Toby Holmes, along with Sheryl Allen and Grace Hockley on “Having Chickens – a Local Pecking Party Panel.”

Amy Beth Holmes is the owner of Holmestead Farms along with her husband Toby. http://www.holmesteadfarms.com/. Questions are encouraged. Prizes will be awarded for the best chicken and Mason bee imitations.

Valise is a Vashon artist collective of 11 members who have dedicated the last week of each month’s art exhibition to community involvement. Currently, Britt Freda is exhibiting paintings of chickens, bees, and other animals, which sparked the idea for the offering of “Mason Bees and Chickens” to the community. Bring a cushion or folding chair to sit on!

Questions? Call Carol at 567-5907.

Valise Gallery Opens Tonight at 6 pm!

Please join us for the opening reception of:

Fowl Brood

Paintings by Britt Freda

First Friday, March 6, 6-9pm

Valise Gallery
(one door south of Gusto Girls)
17633 Vashon Hwy SW
fair Isle of Vashon

Bad Times, Inspiration for Artists

by Andrei Codrescu for NPR

I will be happy to see every American become a construction worker and a solar-panel installer. I mean, I will be happy to watch them do that because every American who won't put on a hard hat will have to do something easier and funnier — like Art.

The best art flourishes during two kinds of civic situations: 1. When everybody's at work and the artist is asleep; and 2. When everybody's depressed and there is a general depression and a whole lot of free time.

I've seen four decades of art-making in America. In 1968, there was art everywhere and there were artists on the streets and crashing on the floor, and there was new music, new poetry, new enthusiasm for secondhand clothes, street theater, and lots of love, not exactly free, but love anyway. There was also a recession and a stupid war started by pudgy-faced white men.

Then came the '70s, and there was a lot less art because there were a lot more police officers. There was also a lot less imagination going around because artists were being fished off the streets by the agents of God who descended to Earth in a mind-boggling variety of forms and drafted America's youth for nonprofit religious scams.

Then came the '80s, thank goodness, and art expanded again in a multihued explosion of expletive music and street action driven by raw rage and extreme amusement. Artists felt free not to give a hoot anymore and since nobody could make a living anyway, everybody felt free to manifest like a flaming phoenix wherever there was a spotlight. That's when new bohemians sprouted like fleas on dogs in every city. There was also a recovery and a new gentler police and a general makeover of the American image from snarling bully to smiling prosperity engine.

The smiles got so wide in the '90s, artists joined the general hallelujah chorus and quit making art with everything they had, preferring instead to produce precious saleable objects to contribute to the general esthetic health of the self-satisfied McMansion.

When all that ended, just a few months ago, artists started remembering again what they were for, which is to not be like anything else because they have a job making everything else both more interesting and more real. So it's art time in America again, because everybody's broke. And if everybody gets a hard hat, we should get one, too, to dodge, hopefully, what the citizens will be hurling at us.

Ontogeny Recapitulates Philogeny

Once upon a time, humans lived on family farms and in villages. Humans raised chickens for sustenance and pleasure. It was an honest relationship, built upon natural cycles.

In her exhibit, Fowl Brood, Seattle painter Britt Freda celebrates the chicken, Gallus gallus. The show opens March 6 at Vashon Island’s new gallery, VALISE, at 17633 Vashon Highway SW.



Ms. Freda’s paintings depict exquisite birds, like the Belgian Mille Fleur and the Cochin Blue. The ancient breeds were as culturally distinctive as our ancestors. But this exhibit is more than an Ah-Shucks! homage to our feathered flocks.

I paint an up-close perspective of insects (honeybees) and agricultural animals, central to our human food chain, whose existence, evolution and future are being jeopardized by our cultural addiction to abundant consumption. Nature is bountiful, a land flowing with milk and honey, and resilient, but pushed out of balance essential components of our ecosystem are rapidly dying.

In a nod of approval to our provincial kin, Ms. Freda’s paintings contemplate chickens as symbols of self-reliance. Will we allow ourselves to become human versions of the industrial Leghorn broiler, living unfulfilled in cages? Or can we re-evolve to virtuous creatures?

I believe that the cracks in life are stuffed with surprise and the simplest of things, sometimes even chickens, are secretly studded with precious gems, tangible only to those who take the time to stumble. I believe that wealth is abundant when the common black of night, or an inky rooster, is jeweled by the light of places we imagine.

This is a show about the beauty of truth and our own natural cycles. The show runs through March.

Britt Freda - March 6 at Valise

The Fall of Zamfir?

DRESDEN – A senior investment banker with Credit Suisse First Boston has been arrested in Germany on charges of commercial espionage, prosecutors said Wednesday. A Bulgarian and two Romanian privatization officials have also been detained.

Vadim Benyatov, managing director in the investment banking department of Credit Suisse First Boston Europe in London, and Ramos Zamfir, a consultant working for CSFB, had been detained. Benyatov is responsible for the bank's business in central and Eastern Europe.

Two Romanian officials – Mihai Dorinel Mucea, who heads a state privatization department, and Radu Mihai Donciu, a former adviser to the Minister for Communications – have been detained on the same charges. Four other people, including another privatization official, are also being investigated in the case but have not been detained.

Prosecutors say the group, allegedly led by Zamfir, obtained secret commercial documents which they provided to foreign companies participating in the sale of Romanian state-owned tobacco companies.

Credit Suisse said in a statement sent to The Associated Press that the bank had “no reason to believe that any Credit Suisse employee has acted inappropriately” adding it would cooperate fully with the investigation. The statement said the bank would not comment further until “we have a clear understanding of the basis for these allegations.”

Unclaimed Luggage No Longer a Fear

For Immediate Release
Vashon, February 19, 2009.

New Gallery Opens March 6

A collective of artists have reclaimed the gallery space occupied one door south of Gusto Girls. The new gallery will be called VALISE. A valise is a traveling bag, a suitcase that hints of mystery and adventure. What’s inside? Where has it been? Where is it going? The bag is curiously anonymous, nostalgic, and worthy of a closer inspection.

VALISE stands for Vashon Artists Linked in Social Engagement. We chose these words for their humorous, ironic, and activist bent. The Ramos Zamfir Project is an example of artists linked in social engagement, a conspiracy of humor to be shared by all.

The artist for February’s smoke shop project is Vic Monchego. As a writer, interested in social commentary, he wanted to create “a fictional narrative that speaks to reverse gentrification, economic downturns, George Bailey’s Pottersville, xenophobia, and the dreams of immigrants.”

VALISE will be operated as an artist collective, by member artists. The gallery will be dedicated to presenting subjects and media that are daring, unexpected and emergent. We want to stir our audiences. We want to challenge members to initiate fresh work. We want to share the venue with the community and tempt new ideas.

Collective members will show about half the time, and artists from outside the Vashon Autonomous Zone will show the other half. VALISE hopes to be an important and accessible art venue for the community.

What’s inside?

VALISE will open March 6, 2009. The gallery’s first show will feature Seattle artist, Britt Freda. Ms. Freda’s show is titled “Fowl Brood.”

Cicero Interviews Monchego

Writer Noah Cicero Interviews Vic Monchego about “The Zamfir Project” at Monkey Tree Cafe

NC: So you think you’re an artist, do ya?

VBM: (laughes nervously) I dunno. Are you going to eat the rest of that coffee cake?

NC: Tell me about the origin of the Zamfir project.

VBM: Sure. Around Christmas time I was thinking about George Bailey and Pottersville and Bedford Falls. Pottersville doesn’t look so bad. The restaurants and clubs are full. People are out on the streets having fun. They still have a library. I think many dying American towns would kill to be as lively and exciting as Pottersville. Take Youngstown, Ohio as an example.

NC: Are you picking on Youngstown? If you are, I’m going to punch you in the head.

VBM: Ever been to the Jolly Bar? Youngstown is a blight, a boil, a bubo on the butt of the Buckeye State. Dusk in Youngstown smells of perpetual despair.

NC: So you wanted to re-make downtown Vashon into a Pottersville?

VBM: Something like that. These are interesting times. A period of anti-gentrification. I think that is a good thing in the long run. We were all getting too uppity, too concerned about aesthetics.

NC: Ramos is the cousin of Gheorghe Zamfir, Master of the pan flute.

VBM: I love Zamfir’s music. Especially when you hear it in an unexpected context. ‘The Lonely Shepherd” song in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill is brilliant.

NC: So Ramos is Romanian?

VBM: In hard, economic times, immigrants always get vilified. I wanted a Balkan. Nobody understands the Balkans. But Ray embodies the American dream. He escaped Nicolae Ceausecu’s Romania, came to America penniless and built an empire of pawn shops and cash centers.

NC: How do you feel about punking the local paper? Feel guility?

VBM: (laughs nervously) Actually, yes. A little bit. I’m not sure we really punked the paper. I hope at some level they knew a hoax was in the air and they were just playing along. I didn’t mean to be deceptive, manipulative. I just wanted folks to laugh. The paper can be kind of dull sometimes, especially the crime report. Besides, the article was well-researched and accurate. I think Leslie did a fantastic job. I’ll bring her some flowers. I hope there are no hard feelings.

NC: What happened to Ramos Zamfir?

VBM: He is being detained in Dresden after smuggling counterfeit cigarettes into Germany.

NC: What’s in the suitcase?

VBM: It’s a valise.

Noah Cicero is a writer and cultural critic. He lives in Youngstown, Ohio, and is the author of four books of fiction.

Zamfir Comes to Town

18 FéVRIER 2009

A payday loan and pawn shop that will also sell luxury tobacco and snuff is slated to open March 1 at the former site of the 070 Gallery, according to a news release issued last month.

The circumstances around the shop’s opening, however, appear murky, and no one seems to know anything about its alleged owners, Peter and Ramos Zamfir. Efforts to reach them have proven unsuccessful.“If you are calling about the Black Russian Sobranies, our next shipment should clear customs on March 6,” a voicemail message on the phone number listed in their news release says.

The news release, slipped through the Beachcomber’s mail slot in the middle of the day, says the shop — Zamfir’s Micro — will offer up “micro pawn brokerage,” specializing “in small valuables such as jewelry and rare coins.” The shop will also offer an “assortment of tobacco and snuff from around the globe” as well as “an easy and confidential way to borrow money,” the release states.

Few seem to know anything about the Zamfirs, however, or, if they do, would not discuss the new business with a Beachcomber reporter. The building where Zamfir’s Micro would be located is owned by Chuck and Mary Robinson. But when contacted about the new tenant, Mary Robinson sounded shocked to hear a pawn broker was moving in next door. “I thought it was an artist,” she said.

She then referred all questions to Chuck, but when he did not return calls, The Beachcomber went to Robinson’s Furniture to discuss his new tenant. He declined to come out from a back room.“He doesn’t want to discuss his tenants with a reporter,” Mary Robinson told The Beachcomber.

Other immediate neighbors of the new pawn shop seemed puzzled or uncertain about the developments. Jeff Lewis at Winterbrook Realty said he believed the new tenant is an artist and that the sign is a joke, but at Vashon IT, next door, the owner and an employee shrugged their shoulders and looked at a Beachcomber reporter quizzically when asked about it. “All I know is what’s in the press release,” the employee said.

The Beachcomber then e-mailed Ramos Zamfir, whose e-mail address was included in the news release. He answered a few days later, saying he was headed to Germany but offering up this piece of information: “Our micro will be a jewelry pawn and we have many exotic tobacco products also. I wish to rent a larger warehouse by the market west of town. I think Troy Kindred will help us.” The Beachcomber then called Kindred, who said he’d never heard of Ramos Zamfir. “I walked past the old 070 Gallery and saw the sign in the window, and at first I thought it was a joke,” Kindred said. “But now I don’t, only because the world is upside down. Napa and Back Bay closing. A tattoo shop in the Old Fuller Store. You know, times they are a-changing.”

According to the news release, the Zamfir family also owns Midwest Money Centers in Youngstown, Ohio. But a Google search suggested that the owner is actually Michael Dohar, who has four shops in the Youngstown area. Reached by phone in Youngstown, Dohar said he’d never heard of the Zamfirs. What’s more, he added, his shops are all payday loan shops; he has a pawn brokerage license but hasn’t used it in years. He doesn’t sell tobacco, he added.

Might there be another Midwest Money Center? “I’m pretty sure we’re the only one,” he said. “We’ve got a corporate name.”And how does he feel about the fact that someone in Washington state is using his company’s name?“At least my name’s out on the coast,” Dohar answered. “As long as it’s name only … it’s no skin off my ass. We’re just a small, local operation.”

Source : http://www.pnwlocalnews.com/

The Collective's Theme Song (Zamfir's Lonely Shepherd)