Cracked Window

Despite Portland’s reputation for attracting artists, I’ve yet to encounter an abundance of street art depicting this level of flair and creativity. Maybe I don’t get around enough, but I mostly encounter incomprehensible graffiti. Much is gang messaging, a defacement uglier and longer lasting than cats peeing to mark their territory.

Some people are trying, judging from these photos. My own finds are here, including some on passing rail cars. An artist known as Cake, whose work has been featured in an Albany, New York gallery, apparently stopped in Portland and left behind two paintings.

I’m a big fan of my friend’s approach — temporary, portable, and free. In a story I wrote before we became friends, he said:

I’m letting go of dormant energy in my world and leaving it to other people to revive it if they want.

Few blog posts for many months means I’ve been crushed with work. But that’s a good thing in these trying economic times. The heaviest load has come from serving as guest curator for a just-opened exhibit at the Oregon Historical Society in Portland, called “Tall in the Saddle, the Pendleton Round-Up at 100.”

In May 2009, I began tracking down artifacts and other items for the 3,000-square-foot exhibit. What I thought would be the most challenging part of the project — persuading people and organizations to loan roughly 500 things — proved to be the easiest. The most gratifying part was meeting so many people who were so eager to help. The most difficult was crafting the story for a medium that was foreign to me.

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I’d been told that an acquaintance’s son had arrived home safe from Iraq, his first overseas Army stint. When I asked the acquaintance today about his son’s experience, he filled in the story with details, details that remind me of what we all know but rarely ponder: inches and seconds often add up to the difference between life and death.

The young man had been driving a Humvee. Moving slowly, the vehicle hit an IED. The blast hurled the front wheels more then 250 feet. This slowed the vehicle, and when another IED exploded a few seconds later, the force  was centered beneath the front of the Humvee rather than the occupants. The difference? A broken arm, concussion, and minor burns instead of dismemberment.

As the father told the story, a smile never left his face.

“I felt unfettered and alive.” That lyric from Joni Mitchell’s song, “Free Man in Paris,” sprang to mind during this video. Then came this thought: would I dare be an eagle for a day if given the chance?

Like most people, I’ve had dreams of flying. Even more vivid are dreams of jumping as gravity relaxes its grip. First I’m able to dunk a basketball, a feat impossible even in my youth. Then the jumps take me to treetops and views of a much larger world. Embracing this new power, I bound higher and higher, but with the certainty that I’ll land gently whenever I want. The joy of these moments transcends those of my waking life. In such dreams, however, fear inevitably sets in: what if gravity releases me, and I can’t return?

Maybe the unemployment picture is brightening. A very helpful sales clerk at Macy’s told me yesterday that there’s been a rush on men’s suits. Why? “Guys are suddenly getting job interviews, and they want to look good,” she said. “And they want the alterations immediately.” I was trying on a suit for a different reason. In the mirror, I noticed two men half my age looking at me as I checked out the fit. One nodded in approval, and the other gave me the thumbs up. So I had no choice but to do my part for the local economy.

Regardless of your opinion of Ted Kennedy, this eulogy by his oldest son is something you won’t soon forget. I heard it today, on my father’s 81st birthday, while driving home from Seattle. Hard to see the road through tears.