Today I stood beneath a statue of Teddy Roosevelt astride a high-stepping horse. I was among 75 people in Portland’s South Park Blocks. Warmed in late afternoon sun, we protested plans to greatly reduce access to the Oregon Historical Society research library across the street.
Many people spoke of the library’s key role in their work — historians, writers, journalists, genealogists, and others. During the last two years, I spent innumerable hours there researching this book about the Pendleton Round-Up and desperately need it for my next big project. Read More
If better organized I would not have spent so many hours this month navigating the treacherous paper trail of my recent past.
Tax time triggered this journey through canceled checks, receipts, and cluttered file draws. Disgust with the disarray then led to wholesale purging and imposition of order.
But the paper trail also reconstructed much that I’d set aside in my mind: a gift bought here, a trip there. Numbers on paper conjured moving pictures of life so easily forgotten.
Without chaos, much would have been lost.
Long before The Sopranos, I learned about real-life Mafia from Gay Talese in his stunning 1971 book Honor Thy Father. So his recent byline in the New York Times‘ City Room blog caught my eye.
Talese recounts helping panhandlers improve their income by composing better-worded signs that invoke President Obama’s name.
Word gets around. Tonight, a man and woman camped on the sidewalk outside my neighborhood Safeway grocery brandished a sign with this spiel: “Obama Wants To Make A Lot Of Change! We Only Need A Little.”
It works, the woman said between bites of meatloaf.
The bathroom at Mississippi Studios in Portland is the home of succinct political commentary that summarizes the sentiments of many people these days.
A message typed on a sheet of paper taped to the wall above the toilet advises patrons to flush twice. Below the message someone has scrawled an addendum:
It’s a long way to the Republican Head Quarters.
Strange feeling, though not new, to look around a small-venue concert (my favorite) and see I’m the only one looking, well, old.
I wonder what the twenty-somethings think when they see my gray and white hair. Have they ever considered that love of live music doesn’t vanish when you hit thirty or well beyond? Read More
I might have been sitting in a dental school classroom, taking lecture notes on all the bad things that can happen in the mouth. But I was prone in my dentist’s chair, enthralled with a stream-of-conscious presentation the hygienist delivered while prodding gums and polishing teeth. Read More
Graffiti fascinates me. It’s hard to miss in Portland, especially east of the Willamette River where I live. Some is artistic. Most is illegible, as if space aliens scrawl communiques at night, unaware that their writings generally make no sense to Earthlings. And defacing property, no matter the creativity involved, is a crime costing major money to clean up.
Why then would a retail store inside a mall festoon its facade with unreadable graffiti? Even the font in the store name resembles taggers’ bold lettering. Read More
Finally, graffiti I can read. And it’s not only legible but painted in a flamboyant cursive script, conveys a simple but powerful admonition, and is brazenly displayed in the heart of one of Portland’s most-tagged neighborhoods. Read More
An amateur photographer obsessed with jet contrails snapped photographs from the Burnside Bridge about ten days ago. Later, while reviewing his images, he noticed two tiny circles of light above Oregon Health Sciences University.
He zoomed in on the circles and came away convinced that they were UFOs. Read More
Someone might question a father who posts a photo of his naked toddler online. But I’ve cropped it tastefully, which helps focus the viewer on Atticus’ intense gaze as he loses himself in shower-time “drawing.”
I captured the image last night not with my expensive Nikon but wimpy iPhone camera. Besides the photo’s unusual quality (to my untrained eye), I like how it celebrates the magic of children entertaining themselves with the simplest of things. I swear that boy would still be showering if the hot water lasted and I let him. Read More
I’ve come around to the view that Portland Mayor Sam Adams should not resign for lying about his relationship with another gay man. I say man because that’s how Beau Breedlove describes himself at age seventeen, though both say the sexual side of their brief relationship began when Breedlove turned eighteen.
As awful as Adam’s lies to the public have been, he’s the best person to run the city. Considering the deteriorating economic challenges we face, I’d rather have as mayor someone who’s progressive and pragmatic and proven. The only remaining question: can Adams be effective after all the shame he has brought upon himself. If he’s ineffective and a state investigation of his relationship with Breedlove discloses illegalities, then he can be recalled after his first six months in office. Read More
Sometimes you see something over and over without really seeing it. Then one day it registers more vividly and emotionally. The scene, static and benign before, comes alive.
That was my experience today at the Multnomah County Library in downtown Portland. I had popped in to check out a book. A library employee, whose makeup and attire and attitude reminded me of a surly Boy George, had to retrieve the book from storage. So I had fifteen minutes to kill and wandered the second and third floors. The tables and PCs were jammed with men wearing the scruffy, weathered look of the homeless. Read More
My day began with champagne and two friends, Benjamin Alexander Clarke and Kelley Burke, at an elbow-to-elbow cafe, Krakow Koffeehouse, where we watched President Obama sworn in. It ended with a neighborhood potluck dinner and never-to-forget, flag-waving march with 40 other people through the streets of Portland. Read More
