November 19, 2011
Our near-downtown neighborhood buzzed all summer about the coyote. Facebook and blogs noted its daily (and nightly) moves with awe and fear. TV stations joined the chorus. It was if an alien had landed in our midst. The sightings advanced closer to our house, and one night my wife and I heard unfamiliar sounds growing louder. We realized it was the coyote yipping its way along our street, announcing its presence in the land of two-legged creatures. A few days later as I drove my son to afternoon swim lessons, the coyote padded slowly across the street a hundred feet in front of us. It appeared neither anxious or hurried.
The coyote’s demeanor left me wondering what the urban world looks like to wild animals. Are the sights and sounds and smells not only foreign but also alluring for reasons we don’t understand? Is the draw simply easier-to-find food and fewer predators or more than that? Consider what must have been coursing through the mind of another coyote discovered lounging on the train serving Portland International Airport.
These increasingly frequent intersections of two worlds, even in metropolises such as Chicago, are explored in “Domesticated,” an evocative series of images that photographer Amy Stein calls “modern dioramas of our new natural history.”
Within these scenes I explore our paradoxical relationship with the ‘wild’ and how our conflicting impulses continue to evolve and alter the behavior of both humans and animals. We at once seek connection with the mystery and freedom of the natural world, yet we continually strive to tame the wild around us and compulsively control the wild within our own nature.”
Stein’s photo “Howl,” displayed above with her permission, echoes for me long after our neighborhood coyote has departed. The cry in the night could be a lament, a warning, a greeting. Or proud pronouncement “I am home.” The mystery is we’ll never know, and that’s the connection.
The Killing, an intriguing new TV show on AMC, ranks high on my edginess scale. The storyline is stark and disturbing. Grief of the victim’s family is palpable. The setting, gray and wet Seattle, adds to foreboding that permeates the show. But the ceaseless torrential rain and thunder remind me of my many years in Florida, not the Northwest. The weather here in Portland is similar to that of Seattle, where it rains about 150 days of the year but only thirty-seven inches on average. Soaked-to-the-skin downpours and lightning are uncommon in both cities. Most rain is light or drizzly, and lightning occurs only several times annually. (Some years ago during a class at Portland State University, students rushed to the windows when thunder rattled the windows, as if it was a meteorological phenomenon.) So dramatic and loud is the weather in The Killing that it sometimes drowns out the dialogue. Message to series creator Veena Sud: the atmospherics simply are — forgive me — overkill.
The flowers are gone. So are the candles, hand-scrawled notes, and other remembrances that for months crowded the sidewalk beneath a sign advertising passport photos. But the story they told is still with me, replayed every time I pass the intersection of NW Glisan and Broadway in Portland. It’s where a TriMet bus ran down five pedestrians in the crosswalk just before midnight on a Saturday last April, pinning three beneath the bus. Two young women were killed and a young man was badly injured.
Passing through the intersection several times each week, I see the accident and its aftermath play out in my head as if filmed with an old hand-held camera, the images dark and flickering and grainy. The people in these frames had no inkling that tragedy was about to strike. The pedestrians and many others nearby had just left a comedy club. Laughter was in the night air. The bus driver was ending her shift. Soon, emergency workers found themselves comforting victims trapped beneath the 17-ton bus.
This morning as I glanced at the empty sidewalk where the memorial had stood for months, the sun was shining and people streamed by in cars and on bikes, everybody headed somewhere into futures they can’t foresee. I wondered how many, like me, saw a horrific past that is still very much present.
Two years ago, I was waiting in the hallway of a small Portland high school. I was there to interview students and a teacher for a story. As kids milled about in the din between classes, many hugged each other. Some embraces looked like reunions between dear friends who hadn’t seen each other for years. The hugging was so frequent and enthusiastic that I later mentioned it to my wife and a few others.
Drawing conclusions from a distance and without asking questions makes my other observations — or suspicions — suspect. Still, sincerity seemed lacking. At times the hugs appeared to be a new, more intimate way of saying hello. Some encounters struck me as intentionally over the top, contrived to attract attention. Read More
How to feel insignificant and awed at the same time: 23 stunning satellite photographs of Earth, courtesy NASA’s huge archive. Las Vegas looks more inhospitable than Antarctica. How would my city, Portland, fare from this lofty perspective?
Snow in downtown Portland is rare and scant enough to incite giddiness. Decades ago, however, blizzards buried the city. Doing historical research, I’ve come across microfilmed newspaper clippings from early in the last century that describe snowfall measured in feet, not inches. In some instances, the city was so paralyzed that food shortages occurred.
What arrived this morning may inconvenience some people but delights me. Not just the visual serenity but the joy in my little boy’s voice: “Daddy, it’s winter!” Or, “Daddy, snowflakes landed on my tongue!” Snowballs and a snowman are on the afternoon’s agenda. Read More
I‘m a terrorist. No doubt about it. I didn’t want to go over to the Dark Side, but some forces are too powerful to resist.
The Obama Fist Bump nailed me, or OFB as we converts call it.
It happened today on a Portland pedestrian bridge over Interstate 5. I was among throngs of people walking bikes across the Failing Street Bridge. We were part of Sunday Parkways, a trek along six miles of streets closed to cars for six hours.
Wheeling his bike toward me beneath a gray sky was a harmless looking dude. A skinny summer-time Santa with an Obama sign on his bike. Behind me, Suzame, my wife, saw the sign and yelled out the candidate’s name over the din of cars streaming past beneath us. Santa stopped next to me and held out his clenched fist. Read More
Portland being Portland, it’s not unusual to see pairs of shoes dangling from overhead wires. I imagine the fun some jokers had flinging footwear in the air until one of them got lucky. Somewhere in Northeast, where I live, I once saw high-heels similarly perched above the middle of a street, string looped around the heels.
Dangling shoes probably represent a secret code that I’m not hip to. . . an anarchist cabal’s communiques or a notice that on this block the really cool people reside.
Thinking about this prompted me to Google the expression “shoes dangling from wires.” I guess I shouldn’t be surprised a global shoe-dangling fixation appears to be spreading. Theories abound, as do of photos showing the creativity of this “art.” My favorite pictures are here and here. And, naturally, there’s a buzz word – shoefiti – and a web site by that name, featuring everything anyone would possibly want to know about the practice.Â
But what’s the meaning of a pair of black Converse All-Stars abandoned on a sidewalk along busy Northeast Broadway? A few days ago the shoes were positioned on either side of a metal pole, as if the wearer had been hugging it.
When I came back with my camera, the shoes were gone.
