Salvage Heart

Wrote this up during my recent hospital stay at Providence in Portland. Four days and three nights. Not the best time I ever had.

There's a striking resemblance between how H.D. looks and I feel.

AWARDS: Hospitalized Edition

I'm Finished Waiting in the Waiting Room Award: Me, for puking in the waiting room garbage can after waiting for 45 minutes. Twice. Maybe three times. I was promptly ushered into an office!

Bedside Manner Award: Doctor #3, for his classic one-liner, "I have bad news." The punchline? He really DID have bad news.

Best Prep for Bad News Award: Nurse #7, for upselling me on a dose of Benadryl to go with two Vicodin. Whooooozyyyy! What's this about bad news? What do you mean the pharmacy sent the wrong stuff? Does my head look like it's falling off my neck?

Hasty Exit Award: The priest working the cardiac unit who popped into my room. Uh...see you later?

Best Color of Scrubs: Brown

Best Secret Menu Item Award: Milkshakes! Your choice of vanilla, chocolate, or strawberry. Wonder what else "isn't" on the menu....

Good Neighbor Award: The 99 yr old woman next door, who demanded that the nurse "get your hands off me you son of a bitch! HELP! HELP! Get those bitches out of here!"

The Remember It Could ALWAYS Be Worse Award: Me again, for very nearly having to share a semi-private room with one very angry 99 year old woman.

Most Unlikely Compliment Award: To nurse #5 who told me, "You have really nice arm hair." Maybe that's why she was so intent on taping it up.

The Very Special Bell Rings for Little Angel Wings Award: To the little chimes that go off every time a baby is born. So sweet. Even at 3 a.m.

And finally, a programming note: There's still nothing worth watching when you need to watch TV.

Labels: health care, Oregon, Portland

To quote a screen caption from My Blue Heaven, "Into each life a little rain must fall."

Here at this bend in the river, inhabitants mood as gloomy as stormfronts: billowing packs of grey toppling over the hills west of downtown. A gust of wind, a splash of rain.

Maybe with enough rain, something might sprout from this arid array of old nothings.

No news is still no news. Recent articles? Garden updates? A few and a few more, respectively.

Deadlines fade. Work comes, work goes. We wait for baby and scratch our heads for names.

Kids age in our Portland age.

To mood: To feel that precipitation post-Memorial Day vacation soaks in violation.

This evening, a view from a train crossing the Willamette: a rainbow, arched so low, its ends and pots of gold sunk down in the mud and mire.

And the rain, splattercast.

Labels: Portland, weather

As we close out 2008, we take a moment to remember Mr. Susan.

Of indiscriminate breeding, missing teeth, bad breath, and a lot of love.

No cat ever worked harder to climb onto a lap, arthritis and all. And that low center of gravity made him nearly impossible to remove once he got situated.

A neighbor called to say she'd seen our flier (LOST CAT), and that she'd seen a mutilated animal left in a front yard of some people nearby. Some renters. Perhaps a victim of just the sort of coyote attack plaguing the neighborhood. But the time frame was off by three weeks, and she was calling weeks later. It didn't sound like the kind of closure I was looking for. I didn't run down the lead.

So weeks go by, and months, and we last saw him in the triple-digit sweat of summer. Today snow mixes with ice. We've had other, bigger deals since then.

But at night, when I hear the tick-tick of little claws, the pause, then the leap, I can tell it's Mabel, the other cat. Mr. Susan climbed onto the bed by getting his claws hung in the covers, and then dragging himself onto the sheets. Then purring, he'd curl up to sleep on my back.

Male Domestic Shorthair. That's one way of looking at it.

Gone. That's another.

We miss you, Big Sue.

Labels: cat, Oregon, Portland

Here in the Northwest, our mild climate allows us to maintain some semblance of garden year-round.

Except, in my case, during the spring. Or early summer, for that matter. I mean, we put plants in, but they just didn't take. Is it a garden when you have two cilantro plants and one six-foot purple fennel that wintered over?

So, here we are, green tomatoes in mid-August, the cilantro gone, the basil barely hanging on, strawberries still occasionally forming and rotting.

I mean, the zucchini hasn't even gotten going.

So to the left, a map I made of the replants done this past weekend. 'X' marks existing plants. Three days later, the lettuce, arugula, and basil have all sprouted. The rest gets two weeks, and then I'm going to start midnight-gardening with a bucket full of Miracle-Gro.

And yes I amended the soil. The whole thing is a little embarrassing.

Labels: food, gardening, Portland

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've been a reluctant fan of Delta Airlines in recent years, mostly because they can get me from Portland to Cincinnati faster and cheaper than anyone else (and my parents get Delta miles, which they occasionally use to fly [one of] their deadbeat son and [mostly] lovely grandchildren in on).

And I have something nice to say about my recent PDX-CVG-PDX trip last week.

But first, something not so nice about somewhere usually so nice: Portland International Airport. This lovely airport, with so many shops at such reasonable prices, is the kind of airport you want to get stuck at (versus Phoenix). But recent upgrades now force taxis to the outer drop-off, meaning you then have to hike to a cross walk from the taxi stand, then cross four lanes of traffic to get to the curbside check-in. Which is something that you notice when left on the sidewalk with three children and seven bags (including two carseats).

Then, the curbside check-in, where you are now charged $2 per bag, and where my wife was reminded (in LA recently ) that this charge does not include gratuity. And reminded again.

So, we figured we'd beat the charge and go inside to the counter, where the self-check kiosk didn't work, and the nice woman at the counter informed us that the plastic bags you put your car seats in (so that you don't drag them on the plan or gangway), are $3 apiece, and can't be re-used.

Nickel and dime. And that's before you get on the plane, where they can shave 20 minutes off the four hour flight with a good tailwind, but no longer serve any free food above a pack of crackers or peanuts. None. Not event that blue ENJOY package with the Oreos and what-not. And don't even get me started on having to sit around in the damn dark so that every fifth person can watch reruns of Mad About You and some movie that you either wouldn't want to see or would rather your children didn't see.

BUT, on the flight from Cincy to Portland (more like five hours, thanks to a headwind), all seats had built in players, with choices of movies, HBO programming, free television stations, and actual album selections as well as those improving-but-still-lame in-flight music channels.

And let me tell you, I was shocked SHOCKED to find Sam Cooke's Live at the Harlem Square Club among my choices. I was excited CONFUSED to click on Meet the Smithereens only to find a bunch of Beatles songs, and then I was RELIEVED of having to pick what to listen to by a toddler who kept yanking the ear phone plug out of the ear phone hole.

I can only imagine how it might have sounded.

Labels: family, music, Portland, Sam Cooke, Smithereens, travel

A weekend trip to OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science & Industry) is best attempted at the opening bell. By 10:30 a.m. on Sunday, the building is teeming with parents and children, some drawn today to the dinosaurs exhibit. Lots of dads (or men with cameras at least) snapping pictures of their kids. It's an occurrence that generates some tension in our household...why am I not at OMSI with the kids while Mother does whatever she does when the kids aren't around (give birth, I think, or sleep?).

Wandering around the second floor today in the preschool room, I watched my 2.5-year-old daughter run from station to station while the 10-month-old crawled his way around the toddler pen. And I checked out the other parents staggered between all these children, perhaps a hundred or more in this room.

All white. Or, all White. Holy Anglos!

Really? I took another look. Okay, not all white. There were a few people of Asian heritage (and that includes the India sub-continent). One giant of a man we might call American Indian, or Native American, or by his first name if we'd asked.

But no black people. No Hispanics either, for that matter, but for the purposes of this discussion, we'll limit ourselves to black and white. Black and White.

We went downstairs, toured the main dinosaur hall, ate lunch (skipped the Turbine Hall...is that where all the black people were? Or in the gift shop? The planetarium?)...white people.

But why? Granted, the pasty demographics of Portland are such that you can go through the day in most parts of town, and black is the minority (less than 7% in 2000, and I'll bet much lower by the time the 2010 U.S. Census rolls around).

Could be, that in this unchurched region, a disproportionately large number of Sunday parishioners are black. So, at church? Or do the demographics of Portland-area African Americans tend to poorer, larger families than whites? Is this a sociographic issue? Or does OMSI just fall into that very Portland category of Stuff White People Like? Do dinosaurs?

I have no doubt (or no inclination to doubt) that OMSI manages significant outreach to a diverse range of communities. And I don't know how being in a group of whiteys impacted my museum-going experience. If anything, I'd like to have seen fewer people, regardless of color....

I've been thinking what it would mean to heed Sen. Barack Obama's call to engage in a discussion on race, although parsing a Sunday morning museum headcount (I estimated 500 or so present by noon) hardly serves as substantive discussion. And in fairness, I did eventually see a few black people: One man down by the Willamette River, waiting for a chance to see the museum's submarine. One girl, with a white man, running, but also outside.

And a well-dressed older couple (post-church?) who we greeted as we exited the building through a sidedoor that put us out on the Eastbank Esplanade (thank you Vera Katz).

We exchanged hellos, and they asked how OMSI had been. Great, I told them.

We should go sometime, they said to one another. "I didn't even know that this building was here," said the woman, with a smile, and walked on.

*************

Post-script reads: "Anglosaurus" is a joke. In the event that an actual Anglosaurus exists (at least in fossil format), I'd like to apologize. Also, if readers found this post to be offensive, I'd like them to think I might apologize. I'd like to think there might be readers, rather than Blogger users stumbling across Salvage Heart while hitting the "Next Blog" button.

Oh, and if an OMSI representative should decide to contact me, the membership expires tomorrow. I know. I KNOW.

Labels: demographics, OMSI, Portland

The Roseway Theater (7229 NE Sandy Blvd., Portland, OR) is that rare first-run, single screen moviehouse, everything about which screams relic: the art-deco decor, the glamor shots of old movie stars in a display case out front, the funky downstairs restrooms, the closed upstairs balcony, the giant screen, the 550 seats, each in its own half-life of disrepair.

Peering in the ticket booth on a Friday night, a Rolodex sits open, a single card laid out with the current film. There Will Be Blood, 160 min., R. The showtimes are listed below, in pencil.

The theater sits dead-center in northeast Portland's Roseway neighborhood, at the intersection of Fremont and Sandy. Nearby: a pharmacy with a soda fountain (or at least milkshakes), an appliance repair shop, an old barber shop, next to a beauty salon, a doughnut shop. Above the Roseway's marquee is a neon rose, a tip to boosters' plans to line Sandy Boulevard with rose bushes, that, if it came to fruition, has since been paved over.

The theater closed last week. Friday evening the marquee said, simply, Closed. No explanation posted on the doors. No notice. Hearsay would have that the theater was sold last year, and perhaps it is just shuttered for renovations. But a quick scan back at articles over the last 15 years or so shows a constant struggle to fill 50, let alone 550 seats.

Tickets were $6 I think. Reasonable enough. Maybe a renovation will implement a beer-and-pizza model that seems to work for other theaters, and might help it compete...there's not much nearby that you can walk to for dinner before or after, and there's not much foot traffic to attract on a lazy, rainy Saturday.

Surprisingly little notice has been given this...haven't seen any postings online. Could be that those who care already know it's temporary, but if it's temporary, why have the phone and web site been disconnected?

Labels: northeast, Portland, Roseway

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

For those passing through the neighborhood who thought this was going to be some sort of reclaimed brick warehouse, wrong. The exposed brick was just getting its lead paint off. And now it's coming down.

We'll always have superheros and snack cakes though.

Here's a piece that I wrote about it, but that didn't run.

The snack cakes have outlasted the warehouse.

The one-time Hostess distribution facility at 103 N. Ivy St. gave way in
mid-January to demolition equipment, but what will replace it remains in question.

Owner Ivy Street Partners LLC, of Woodinville, Wash., had envisioned a mixed-use development blending condominiums, apartments and retail space when it purchased the site in 2006.

But with “market conditions changing,” the project has shifted to an apartment-retail model, says Brendan Lawrence, development manager for the project. Current plans call for approximately 350 units.

The grocery outlet, hailing North Vancouver Street’s morning commuters with discount powdered doughnuts, still stands for now. Hostess has the retail space leased through March 2008, after which time the new owners may tear the store down or use it for construction offices.

Lawrence says that plans could change again, depending on the market, but that the company hopes to go before the city’s Design Review board by late spring.


So anyway...favorite Hostess product? I think I've just discovered a preference for Dolly Madison...Zingers and Donut Gems. And who makes those Orange Cup Cakes (and the baseball-themed ones in summer)? Little Debbie?

Maybe we'll open a separate thread on snack crackers packs. Nekots, anyone?

Labels: Hostess, journalism, Portland, real estate

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

A piece on Marco Shaw that I've had simmering for awhile (on my assignment list and then in the editor's queue) finally ran today, in the inPortland section of The Oregonian.

Shaw is the owner and chef at Fife, co-owner of a relatively new take-out place called Full Plate, and has plans to open Hard Shell in the Vanport Square Development down on MLK sometime this spring...hopefully.

I'm hardly the first to write about him (Nancy Rommelmann did a really nice interview that ran on Portland Food and Drink, back in Feb '06), but I've watched that restaurant since its build-out in 2002, and have spoken with Shaw (and interviewed) a number of times. In this era of celebrity and hysteria, his solid, straightforward style paradoxically stands out.

Labels: Fife, food, Full Plate, Hard Shell, journalism, Marco Shaw, Oregon, Portland, restaurant

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

You had to put Frosty on the edge
before you pretended to care.

Courtesy of the rooftop decor at Frock on NE Alberta.

Labels: northeast, Portland, snow, snowman, winter

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