Portland

Violence of Spring

March 28, 2009

The ‘hood has changed after a week of violent crime only a short walk from my Northeast Portland house.
Count them: two stabbings in two gang fights at the Lloyd Center Mall, another gang fight at the Applebee’s restaurant across the street from the mall, a bank robbery, and a gang-related shooting at an Asian restaurant-bar [...]

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Tricycle Symbolism

March 21, 2009

Do two make a trend? I’ve now seen lone tricycles perpetually locked to sidewalk bike racks outside two Northeast Portland restaurants. They’re obviously in place for symbolic value, but symbolizing what?
One has been parked outside Tin Shed for at least a few years. A couple nights ago, a newer trike grabbed my attention. It’s outside [...]

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Humane Efficiency

March 20, 2009

Feel like the country is overrun with greed and inefficiency? Hard not to these days. So these numbers sprang off a whiteboard at the Oregon Humane Society today:
Animals adopted last year: 3,810 dogs, 5,197 cats, and 999 other (rabbits, hamsters, and similar small animals).
Adoption rates, respectively: 99, 95, and 92 percent. Only medical and behavioral [...]

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Mystery of the Mounds

March 14, 2009

Three mounds of black dirt sprouting droopy yellow flowers in a vacant lot. It’s raining and I almost don’t stop the car. But the sight is too incongruous in this expanse of green to pass up. The oddity warrants a photograph, I decide, and unsheathe my camera.

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History Lost

March 13, 2009

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 [...]

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Panhandlers for Obama

March 6, 2009

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 [...]

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Media Junk Food

March 6, 2009

Not only did we learn this week that Portland is the country’s unhappiest city, a new study says it’s among the least manly. But according to whose definition? These criteria aren’t my idea of manliness.
The Portland Business Journal reports that “cities scored higher based on the number of sports teams they have, the number of [...]

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Commode Commentary

March 6, 2009

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 [...]

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Amped Up on Live Music

March 5, 2009

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?

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Mixed-Up Portland

March 2, 2009

I’m confused. Portland, my home, is the fifth most popular destination among people moving from state to state. But it’s also the unhappiest city in the country, according to a new study.
Something’s amiss. Either the movers haven’t heard how forlorn we Portland residents supposedly are or the findings are wrong.

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Fate of Printed Pages

February 26, 2009

I spent a long time on the print side of newspapers and a good number of years starting and nurturing their online offspring. These days I’m online much of each day and night but still have this thing for the printed page.
It began, like many things, with a childhood ritual: plodding barefoot to the end [...]

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Graffiti and the Fartinator

February 22, 2009

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 [...]

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Simpsons Plot Fodder

February 12, 2009

Getting my hair cut always yields a story or two. That’s because the two barbers and their clients talk a lot. Today the friendly banter included my barber, Horace, recounting how he attended Portland’s Lincoln High School in the 1970s, overlapping for a year with Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons.
“We talked occasionally even though [...]

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