On my way back from my short hiatus, I ran into our next Iconic Convos interviewees, Hat n’ Boots at Oxbow Park in Georgetown. At 22-feet high (Boots) and 44-feet wide (Hat), these two are hard to ignore.

Nicole Bearden (NB): In honor of Seattle’s Faux Spring weather last week, I decided it was time to have a confab with one of my personal favorite Seattle Icons: A Sound Garden. Located on the NOAA campus near Magnuson Park, between Piers 15 and 17 on Lake Washington, A Sound Garden reverberates with hauntingly atmospheric intonations as the wind blows through artist Douglas Hollis’ twelve, 21-foot high, steel tower sculptures. Sound Garden, I appreciate your presence today.

A Sound Garden (SG): a chorus of metallic hums breezing through the air We are delighted to converse with you.

Nicole Bearden (NB): Hello, and welcome to another Iconic Convo with Seattle’s most recognizable icons. Today we are speaking with the Fremont Troll. We appreciate you spending time with us today, Fremont Troll. 

Fremont Troll (FT): Grunts, and nods slowly as dust drifts from his head to float through the air

NB: Now, you’ve been around since 1990. How have you noticed that the city has changed over the past 35 years?

Nicole Bearden: Zdravstvuyte, today we are speaking with the Fremont Lenin statue. (I don’t speak Russian, but I learned the phrase for “hello”, just for today).

Lenin Statue: Hello. I do not speak Russian.

NB: Aren’t you a Lenin statue? I thought Lenin was Russian?

LS: Lenin was Russian. My nationality is more complicated. I was created by a Bulgarian, for Czechoslovakia, and have now been in the Capitalist States of America since the ‘90s. What is nationality anyway? What are borders, but arbitrary lines assigned to take power from the many and funnel it to the wealthy?

BS: The more people change, the more they remain the same. People, seasons, time—they all cycle, they all come back to incipience.

I bear witness to the spinning wheels of time, the turning clock of seasons, and the joys and sorrows of man—I bear it all and it is both a heavy burden, and a lightsome ecstasy. 

A trio of squirrels playing tag in my tree friends' branches. The cries of a woman brought to regret by a loathsome monster. And in between are the mediocre events, such as life and death which keep us turning—I see all.