Move to Portland and you’ll immediately encounter people’s obsession with weather. I’ve lived here nine years and joke about the obsession while enthusiastically contributing to it. The climate isn’t extreme, though the contrast between summer and winter is. But the weather obsession is less about reviling cold and rain and more about seeking connection to […]
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Exercising while listening to music and watching tragic news on CNN is a collision of dissonance. Picture the scene: two dozen bodies bouncing along on cardio equipment in front of six health club TVs. I’m on the elliptical machine. Music blaring from my ear buds drowns out all other sound, even my panting breaths. My […]
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I have this thing for gardening. Just me and plants and dirt. Creative yet mindless. Mixing and matching. Trial and error. Nobody telling me how to do it. My three-year-old son draws better than me, but the yard is a canvas on which I can paint something of merit. I say “I” as if it’s […]
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Hate knows no boundaries, judging from a map compiled by the Southern Poverty Law Center. It’s especially disconcerting to see the presence of hate groups in my city, Portland. But I’m not naïve about such matters. After all, I grew up mainly in the South. Not that racism wasn’t rampant in the Northwest. I’ve read […]
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Until HBO’s True Blood, I can’t recall a television series with an opening sequence more riveting than the show itself. A foreboding mix of lust, religion, and evil, the montage casts a memorable spell. With each viewing, I’m drawn deeper into the stark settings. While I enjoyed the series’ first season, which wrapped up Sunday, […]
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One of my favorite web sites is proof once again that simple ideas can produce breathtaking results. The Big Picture, a seven-month-old photo-journalistic blog of the Boston Globe, demonstrates how so-called old media can do a much better job via new media. Too bad that truth has taken so long to sink in. (I worked […]
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Think of Florida, and sprawling tourist venues like Walt Disney World spring to mind. But there was a time when Disney and its imitators didn’t exist, a time when quirky mom-and-pop tourist attractions dotted out-of-the-way places. One of them rose today from the recesses of my long-ago life. Maybe I thought of Dog Land because […]
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My forty-year high school reunion in September didn’t make me feel old. In fact, I felt young again surrounded by my long-lost friends. It’s always that way when I’m with my two brothers. In a way, we never age no matter how many lies the mirror tells and how far our attitudes diverge. How could […]
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I’m twittering about Twitter. Skeptical is the best description of my initial reaction to using this social media service. I was skeptical about sharing observations, random thoughts, and general announcements of what’s happening at any given moment in my life — in only 140 characters. (See examples on the right side of this blog’s home […]
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Some days some things jump out at me. This morning it was signs. I was traveling a familiar route, and three signs looked new to the urban landscape. “Keep Portland Weird!” cried out from the west side of Music Millenium, the only place I buy CDs in person. I knew the store on East Burnside […]
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A young man played bagpipes while riding a unicycle on one end of the Portland Farmers Market. On the other, protesters decried passage of the anti-gay marriage amendment in California. In between on the Park Blocks amid the produce and other foods was scene after scene that made my Saturday morning. Maybe the brisk bike […]
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