Salvage Heart

A piece on corner groceries that I spent a few months researching finally ran on the cover of The Oregonian's weekly inPortland section, with lots of nice photos. If anyone can actually find the photos online...Pinkerton awaits your call.

The article looks at new ownership of a couple older stores...Cherry Sprout Produce Market, owned by two former employees of Big City Produce, and e.moreland market & kitchen, a neighborhood grocery since the 1920s.

The article also included a sidebar of other small groceries that run the gamut from for sale, to stable, to opening this fall.

It's been a longtime since , but if there's a time for the traditional neighborhood grocer to stage a comeback, it would appear to be now. Rising fuel, food, and shipping costs have undercut some price advantages by bigger stores. And, bigger chains are also looking to establish a 10,000 square foot model...with some even eyeballing the 3,000-5,000 s.f. range.

I don't think anyone I talked to relies exclusively on their corner market for all their goods, but I met a number of people who adapted their shopping behaviors to suit what was available locally--not just from farmers, but from their neighborhood grocer.

I had a photo of the Taylor Court Grocery, somewhere, but now can't find it.

Labels: groceries, journalism, neighborhoods, Oregonian, Portland

A long-delayed piece on the food cart lot in Sellwood finally ran in today's Oregonian. The article (attempts) to address some of the regulations that food carts have to deal with, and complaints that the rules are unclear, unevenly applied, and unfairly enforced.

Essentially, enforcement happens as a response to a complaint. Meanwhile, vendors can get the go-ahead to open and run their carts, only to find out after the fact that their factory-wired trailers are not in compliance with Portland code (though they may well work elsewhere).

Interesting issue, and an excuse to eat at Sellwood Corner lot a few times. Article includes a round-up of current vendors. Online version of roundup demonstrates miserable Oregonlive formating...no paragraph breaks or indents at all. COME ON!

Last Thursday, my profile of mobile knife sharpener Mike Kraft ran. I saw an ad for his services at Garden Fever one day. He didn't really want to do the piece, and when I called him to tell him it was running he said that work had been so busy he figured it had already run. Sorry Mike.

Finally, the saga of life on Northeast Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard continues, with this article by Oregonian real estate reporter Ryan Frank. The Portland Development Commission okayed a deal that will let developers get a new loan to pay off an old loan, with that being contingent on signing more leases for the Heritage Building property.

That's a tough sell, unless they plan on leasing themselves the property. Heritage is mid-block, with spaces large enough to make tenants want off-street parking (despite the ready availability of mass transit).

What the article doesn't mention is that the long period of time that it took to bring this project to market (compared with a privately financed arrangement), due to the public nature of the process, probably made matters worse. The longer it takes to get the deal done, the more likely the market is to shift in its preferences and needs. A similar situation has plagued Kings Crossing. And, both buildings got the go-ahead without anchor-tenant leases signed. This is public financing of private speculation, and it's a dicey game.

Labels: food carts, knives, MLK Blvd, Oregonian, Portland

Staff at Salvage Heart have been pursuing solo projects recently, including scrambling to make the mortgage, spending our way out of recession, trying to beat the heat, and trying balance caffeine and alcohol intake with OTC allergy meds.

Also, wondering who might like to purchase a travel article on Clatskanie/Cathlamet (note: need to update LinkedIn status).

Also, being pulled slowly but inexorably into the social networking abyss of facebook and linked in.
WHAT ARE YOU DOING RIGHT NOW?
I...don't...know....

So anyway, let's re-connect.

Iron Man, the movie: loved it. Big Robert Downey, Jr. fan, and not just because everyone else is. Other favorite RDJr films include
Wonder Boys
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
that one with Ryan O'Neal and Cybil Shepard (Chances Are)
http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi1790771481/

Mary Stuart Masterson...what's she up to these days? Thanks to a crummy Comcast connection, I can't search online and update this without Firefox freezing.

Other news: local elections, in which I discovered that the ballot initiative descriptions made more sense upside down. That is to say, I have not yet begun to file. But thanks to the candidate(s) who have stopped by and checked me off their clipboards.

What else? A slew of Oregonian articles, and some in the Business Journal (which I never see).

One was an update on progress along N.E. MLK Blvd. (apologies to our Uruguayan readership as we detour into local news for a moment...), in which I tried to cram a 3,000 word article (and several weeks of intermittent reporting) into 800 words or less. It doesn't work. Asked my spouse whether people I interviewed would be mad about the piece and she said yes, because no one got to make their full case.

So, more where than came from, but here's the piece.

And here's the Portland Development Commission video about the MLK project.


Other articles of note of late:
A review of Cynthia Ozick's Dictation
A profile of Portland writer Marc Acito
A piece about the PDX Fire Jam getting shut down
...and other news about a donut shop, an arboretum, a heritage tree, a bunch of new businesses, and who knows what else.

It's almost race time for The Preakness Stakes, which means that the horse racing conversation will grind to a halt just in time for Memorial Day, or will continue into summertime.

As someone who grew up around horses, I can tell you that they will find a way to get hurt if there is one. Thoroughbreds are spooky and skittish. And they'll run all day long.

Racing is like so many other businesses, where the model has shifted to a swing for the fence mentality. The fact that the owners at the big races are sheiks and hedge funds should tell you something about who can make money racing (very few). The industry has sold itself as a gambling venue. The only personalities are the handful of trainers whose stables have dozens of horses around the country.

Racing should be selling the experience, of standing at the rail when the horses go past, of the morning workouts, of the history. People love to cheer and bet (look at the popularity of the racing video screen icons at other events), but racing has to find them. Instead, it puts together a sloppy show (the increasingly embarrassing Derby broadcast), and disappears except for the Triple Crown and the Breeders Cup.

I remember watching John Henry, the famous gelding, race on network television. Local radio used to broadcast the races at Keeneland. Ask anyone whose ever been to one of the premier tracks what they thought, and if they'd go back: Churchill Downs, Keeneland, Del Mar, Saratoga. The allure of the sport's history is undeniable, but its path to the future unsustainable.

Anyway, it's almost post time.

Labels: horse racing, Iron Man, journalism, Marc Acito, movies, northeast, Oregonian, Portland, Portland Development Commission, Robert Downey Jr.

I recently reviewed Michael Pollan's new book, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto for The Oregonian. Liked it. We're making an effort to eat more collards and kale, and less meat. That seems like a good place to start. And we went out to the Hillsdale Farmers' Market last Sunday, where it was clear that he who skips church shall get all the good greens. We made off with some nice yellow onions and some old apples from October.

One thing that struck me about Pollan's book is that he places a lot of blame, but the one person who comes away unscathed and blameless is the consumer. Now, that may be because until recently eating locally grown food was not much of an option. Or it may be that we are unable to relent in the face of a multi-billion-dollar ad campaign to get us to buy processed things in boxes.

Maybe. But from here on out, I think we can consider ourselves warned. Eating right (and eating real foods) can safely be lumped in with "go get some exercise" as things we now know to do. Or can't pretend we don't know to do.

I also bought goggles and a swim suit this week, and signed my oldest up for swim lessons. I don't think I can lose a Huckabee Hundred, but maybe I can lose a Conservation District Dozen.

Labels: books, food, journalism, Michael Pollan, Oregonian

My article on small-scale winter farming ran in Tuesday's FoodDay, the Oregonian's food section. It ran in tandem with another piece, by Kathleen Bauer who writes the Good Stuff NW blog, on some of the local markets that go through winter.

Good story for me, in that I took a lot away that I didn't know before. Seems like ten degrees is the make-or-break temp for veggies outdoors, which means that some Willamette Valley crops are now broke. (I know the beet and turnip greens, mint, and other odds and ends still in my garden are pretty scroungy looking at this point).

Probably the biggest surprise to me was the prevalence of winter shares in Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) programs...and the number of farms who have added or will add them in the next year or so. A good resource for finding what's close is the Local Harvest site.

I visited (and clumsily photographed) Shari Sirkin's Dancing Roots Farm, out at the mouth of the Columbia River Gorge, and took some pictures. She's raising greens in a couple unheated greenhouses (hoop frames), and the rest is out in the open.

Labels: agriculture, farm, farmers markets, food, journalism, Oregonian, Portland, winter

As a preview to tonight's screening of Runnin' Down a Dream: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, I interviewed the film's director, Peter Bogdanovich.

The interview focuses on his work on this film and can be found at The Oregonian's Web site, here.

The film is part of the 25th annual Reel Music Festival sponsored by the NW Film Center, and is excellent.

Check out the trailer below--the film screens at 253 minutes (!) plus intermission.

Labels: film, interview, Oregonian, Peter Bogdanovich, Portland, review, Runnin' Down a Dream, Tom Petty

A piece on the Irvington Squire condo project ran in this week's inPortland section of The Oregonian. Good example of a project that meets code, but not (necessarily) the design hopes and dreams of (some) neighbors. Particularly next-door neighbors.

A discussion on the proposal drew over 130 people to the Irvington school cafeteria last Saturday to talk zoning.

The issue is in part a legacy of the 1993 Albina Community Plan, which called for increased density (by 10%), as the flight to the suburbs continued from north and northeast Portland.

Different times. A Bureau of Planning rep told the crowd that this tension (density...or destiny) is happening all over the city. When it comes time to re-work the comprehensive Portland Plan (and it's time is nigh), the city will likely revise the way it looks at density to accommodate a 3-D perspective (beyond just height and mass).

Meanwhile, Irvington may follow the Alphabet District's lead in NW Portland and strike out for historic status. Being a Conservation District, it turns out, doesn't carry quite as much weight as some Irvingtonists would like it to.

Labels: historic, Irvington, journalism, Oregon, Oregonian, planning, Portland, real estate

With the bar set admittedly low, Parade, the Sunday circular that appears in newspapers across the nation (including The Oregonian, featured a story on January 6, 2008, that must've appeared timely and insightful when first assigned, when turned in, when pasted up.

A cover profile on Pakistan's Benazir Bhutto: who she is, why she's important, and what her election might mean for the country.

The piece did omit one minor detail, however: She's dead. In fact, she's been dead since her assassination on December 27.

In its only concession, the piece did allow that there was more information available at the Parade Web site.

Sure enough, readers will find explanations from the editors that the piece went to print on Dec 19, and that they had alerted the newspapers to perhaps run a story about that. Also, that Parade posted the entire piece in advance online.

What I didn't see? A Howard Huge archive. Boy is he big!

In a telling episode (and movie) of the Family Guy, in which the megalomaniacal Baby Stewie meets his adult self, he is horrified to discover this: "You read Parade?!"

Hey, Parade? Stop the presses.

Labels: Benazir Bhutto, Family Guy, Howard the Huge, journalism, Oregonian, Parade

Spent some time this fall in the Woodlawn neighborhood, along NE Dekum west of Woodlawn Park, a fallen down commercial strip that you could drive past and almost see something happening at.

Now it's happening. A piece I wrote for The Oregonian on Dec. 6th barely scratches the surface.

I stumbled into the story while checking on a liquor license application for Good Neighbor Pizza, where they were finishing up build out and getting ready to host a neighborhood meeting. I came back a few days later to find almost 100 people packed in to try the new pizza and discuss neighborhood issues...at noon on a Saturday.

What's interesting is that much of this development is happening outside of "urban renewal" areas, at least as defined by the Portland Development Commission, although the PDC has extended its storefront improvement program to this part of the neighborhood.

What's also interesting is that no one major entity is driving it, and that the city is now coming in to support efforts already underway (mostly traffic and streetscape issues) with architect Stuart Emmons lending a hand.

I won't pretend to understand design issues here (we'll leave that for my reporting!), but the area is a conservation district, which is a sort of watered-down version of a historic district. So, buildings need to blend in...no ultra-modern condos here.

If there is a major player, it's Sakura Urban Concepts, a development company that owns a half-dozen properties along Dekum between MLK and the park. Most are mothballed until their mixed-use condo project gets going (Kadoya Lofts, see image at left). Or, succeeds.

There's a box factory nearby, a large parcel that now sits outside the conservation district (meaning that redevelopment--and the need to include 50% housing in any mixed use...I think--does not have to adhere to design guidelines such as the Western Storefront model. Worth watching to see whether someone picks that up.

Labels: development, Oregonian, Portland, real estate, restaurant, Woodlawn

A few articles piled up now that I wanted to post, but have not gotten around to getting around to yet.

But, as coffee talk continues to brew in the new year here in Stumptown, I thought I'd link to this piece on Courier Coffee Roaster's Joel Domreis, which ran in The Oregonian a few weeks back (Nov 29?). Plus pictures, which I thought were cool, but were too dark for the newsprint edition.

Labels: bike, coffee, Courier Coffee Roasters, journalism, Little Red Bike Cafe, Oregonian, Portland

My article on the return of letterpress ran in The Oregonian on December 31st, with a nice photo of Jean Sammis at Lark Press. What I submitted was too long (sometimes you roll the dice), and so a few paragraphs were cut, including an interview with Carye Bye, of Red Bat Press and the coordinator for the Independent Publishing Resource Center in downtown Portland.

The IPRC's letterpress workshops are the most popular of any it offers, and it also has open studio hours a few times a week for people to come in and press their hearts out. Some, Bye says, come in for a single invitation project. Others use it to launch a business (as she did).

Inge Bruggeman, who runs Textura Printing and teaches at the Oregon College of Art and Craft (the temptation to put an 's' on one of those words is almost too much to bear), points out that the fine arts wing is also starting to co-opt letterpress. She is co-curating an exhibit at OCAC for the end of February. In doing so, it places the work in a context, historically...letterpress signals a certain time and place. Coming to a biennial soon?

The piece I wrote was based on a personal interest in the subject, and the "Let Her Press" show at OFFICE PDX right now (thanks to Kelly for the image, which I tweaked in Preview). Since I am forbidden to bring home any more stuff (something about 27 boxes of vinyl records tipped the scales...Winston Churchill speeches anyone? Scott Joplin's Treemonisha?) I have to live vicariously.

Labels: journalism, letterpress, Oregonian, Portland, printing

Not exactly hot off the press at this time, but I profiled Taylor Clark, author of Starbucked: A Double Tall Tale of Caffeine, Commerce and Culture in last(!) Sunday's Oregonian. Clark worked for Willamette Week for a couple years before striking out on his own.

We talked about his book and life as a freelancer sitting in the lone Starbucks of Beaumont Village; he drank Earl Grey by Tazo and I, the Grande Americano With Room that I no longer drink twice daily. Two better coffee shops sat nearby, but Clark didn't write books about them.

This piece happened to coincide with another coffee piece that I figured would have run last Thursday (but is instead buried somewhere in the Oregonian's pipes). More on that (and the photos that were too dark to use) maybe Thursday. Hold your collective breath, Reader.

Labels: authors, coffee, Oregonian, Portland, Starbucked, Taylor Clark

A brief review in the Oregonian today, of Edward Ugel's Money for Nothing: One Man's Journey Through the Dark Side of Lottery Millions. Ugel will be back in Portland tomorrow evening for a 7:30 p.m. reading at Powell's, just down the street from where he first got hooked on gambling himself: the video poker machines at Claudia's, a sports bar on S.E. Hawthorne.

I first heard about this on "This American Life" last spring I think, and was struck by the story, elaborated upon here, of companies that basically buyout lottery winnings. In short, the result is a good book, very entertaining, though a little light at times on number details (which could owe to certain legalities that also necessitated the changing of most names).


The book title also reminds me of one of John Cusack's underappreciated works: Money for Nothing, which I had forgotten was based on a Mark Bowden article. This is a similar unemployed dockworker oeuvre that echoes throughout season two of HBO's "The Wire." Does Cusack come across as a more desperate loser than Pablo Schreiber, a.k.a. Nick Sobotka? Hard to say. Is Cusack girl Debi Mazar hotter than Nick's Aimee (Kristin Proctor)? I don't know...both were worth looking up the names on though.

Cusack was recently quoted as saying that he'd made ten good movies, and everyone knows which ones they are. Was Money for Nothing? Probably. Is his new one, with the Martian? Uh....

Labels: books, Edward Ugel, John Cusack, Money for Nothing, Oregonian, Powell's, The Wire

Couple of bylined items in today's inPortland section of The Oregonian....

• An update on the SunRose condo project, on the half-block where the Hungry Tiger once growled. Local developer Randy Rapaport was consulting on it...and now he is not. The project is a go, though, says everyone still on board, including Ann Cohen, who represents the Wong Family. Should be interesting to watch develop, particularly if it doesn't start construction by Thanksgiving, which was the latest planned date. Probably more to this story, but probably not much more that could appear (attributed) in print.
• Also, the Storefronts feature, with new businesses galore (if you call "seven or eight" galore). Features Seven Virtues, at N.E. 60th and Glisan. (And feel free to click on that storefront link...I spent about 15 minutes trying to find the right OregonLive front door that actually listed the inPortland section...maddening.)
• One other note: I'm now serving as the Northeast Portland correspondent for inPortland, which means I'm looking for interesting items about NE Portland, out to about 82nd (which will be covered by someone else). Hot tips welcomed.
  

Labels: journalism, Oregonian, Portland, Randy Rapaport, storefronts, SunRose

Meant to post this sooner, but my interview with the newish executive director at the Oregon Council for the Humanities, Cara Ungar-Gutierrez, ran in The Oregonian this past Sunday.

By "interview ran," I mean that probably less than ten-percent of the interview ran. Now, part of what didn't run was meta-interview (is the red light on? Can you see it?). But there were some interesting parts that also didn't make it.

One thing is that she had previously applied to work at OCH, as a development person, but had no experience raising money. She ended up at the Oregon Historical Society, which gave her a chance to "become human," as she put it, by virtue of being around people rather than academics (she had just finished her dissertation for a PhD in rhetoric), and then replaced Christopher Zinn (or, replaced the interim, Carrie Hoops, who filled in when Zinn left).

OCH is currently embarking on a two-year program called "Borders and Boundaries," sponsored in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities, that will lead in to the Oregon sesquicentennial in 2009. Look for that theme to stretch across the magazine that they publish (Oregon Humanities, which is going to publish three times/year rather than twice, and will incorporate the OCH newsletter), as well as lectures like Commonplace. It may even have some bearing on the somewhat-lackluster Chautauqua lectures.

This Friday, Mark Trahant (who edits the editorial page at the Seattle P-I) will give the season's first Commonplace lecture at Portland State University's Native American Student and Community Center. He will discuss the plight of the urban Indian, and why anyone should care: "Roads, Interstates, and the Oregon Trail: The Urban Indian Experience in the Rural West." The lecture ties in with the second edition of the book The First Oregonians.

Ungar-Gutierrez also noted that she'd been interviewed by a couple of nondaily papers, both of which seemed more interested in her husband, who goes by the moniker DJ Rafa, and who djs around town. She laughed about it, but when I called to fact-check one thing (his name), I don't know that she was feeling the third time as a charm.

Charm, though. Charming. Fun to talk to, lots of good ideas, and an implementation that will no doubt tread softly but assuredly.

Labels: journalism, Oregon Council for the Humanities, Oregonian

As mentioned in the Little Red Bike Cafe post (I continually want to call it "Little Red Wagon"), I'm now the Storefronts correspondent for the inPortland section of The Oregonian, which runs on Thursdays.

This week's featured shop is Blackbird Wineshop, very nice, with the added bonus of tremendous art, hanging by the co-owner Amelia Craigen.

Feel free to pass tips along on new businesses in the Portland area: restaurants, bars, retail outlets, and other places that have opened in the last month or so (or better yet, are going to open in the next month or so). E-mail them to the paper, and they'll pass them to me. That seems direct, doesn't it?

Labels: journalism, Oregonian, Portland, storefronts

In week three of the home office era, a story finally runs:
"Qi whiz--acupuncture made more affordable," The Oregonian, 9/27/07

I interviewed folks at Working Class Acupuncture and a couple other clinics here in Portland.

Lots more "around town" stuff where that came from, though productive ground to a standstill as a virus wiped out the office staff this week.

Labels: journalism, Oregonian

For the first time since 1999, I don't have a job to go to this morning.

Or, I have a job, and at 6 a.m., I'm there.

It's the beauty of self-employment and the luxury of a home office, and today they are mine.

Last day at the day job was this past Friday. A nice send-off: gifts, bowling (they let me win with a 168, including my first turkey), and so forth. Lots of people grabbing my sleeve whispering where you are going is there room for me?

I'm going nowhere, and no, there's only room for one in this back office.

Here we go. The launch of a career writing. Or, "writing career" as our high school guidance counselors clarify, shaking their heads.

So what better time than now to show off our latest fashions:
A review of Sherman Alexie's new young adult novel: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, in the September 9, 2007 Oregonian;
A feature on the Portland Fruit Tree Project, in the September 6, 2007 Oregonian (also featuring my own photography, which is what you get with last-minute articles);
An update on the commercial condo market in Portland (please, control yourself) for the August 31, 2007 Portland Business Journal.

Lots more in the pipeline. But, will it be enough to keep shoes on Baby? And his older sister? And their older brother? And the two little ones' mother? And me? And, Abraham Lincoln shoe-boiling fables aside, what about groceries, and health care, and all those other bills?

Labels: Business Journal, career, journalism, Oregonian, Portland, reviews, Sherman Alexie, writing

It's a minor piece, but a harbinger of things to come: return of Talk of the Book Town in The Oregonian, after a few months hiatus. This past Monday, a writeup of Willy Vlautin (Motel Life) and Jonathan Selwood (Pinball Theory of the Apocalypse). Both debuts, both published by Harper Perennial.

Nice event, with beer and cocktails (no host) prior at The Cleaners at the Ace Hotel, a street-level gallery where young something-somethings ogle as they past at a party to which they feel entitled and to which they lack (yet don't need) an invite.

"Drinking in Authors' Words," The Oregonian, Monday, August27, 2007

There's more where this came from soon enough. One more week as a moonlighter, and then it's freelance writing 24/7. Or 7/5. Whichever comes first.

Labels: authors, Jonathan Selwood, Oregonian, Talk of the Book Town, Willy Vlautin

My profile on Matthew Stadler, man behind Back Room, founder of Clear Cut Press, author, etc., ran in today's Oregonian. It's a piece that I spent a lot of time on, and one that at 1,500 or so words, left a lot on the cutting-room floor. Thanks to those who took time to speak with me, even if you didn't appear in print.

The article can be viewed here>>
http://www.oregonlive.com/oregonian/stories/index.ssf?/base/entertainment/1181163316186660.xml&coll=7

Labels: authors, Clear Cut Press, fiction, journalism, Matthew Stadler, Oregonian