The Multnomah County Fair, 2024

4141We went to the fair on Saturday, which is a very very Memorial Day Weekend thing to do. But it was in Oregon's smallest and most urbanized county, that being Multnomah, which means it's not the same County Fair energy as, say, Clackamas, or Benton, or Marion, et al. 

It's not even like Lane, where the second, no, third, no, second, no, third-largest city in Oregon is located. The Multnomah County Fair is more than a century old, but as city covered what arable land Multnomah County had, and public money being what it usually is, the nature of the fair has changed.

The event is a small, friendly doing alongside Oaks Amusement Park, which provides a ready-made carnival midway. It's extremely budget-friendly, being free, except for parking your car, which is an extremely-reasonable fiver for the whole day you're there.

The fair itself comprises an event stage, a group of vendors along one of the paths from the parking area to the historic dance hall, and a section of small livestock exhibits, typically rabbits and chickens.

The rides of Oaks Park go a long way toward providing the classing County Fair atmosphere. 

The real place this sincere little event shines is in the exhibit hall, and it has that old-school County Fair vibe in full. I have pictures that I'll post in a subsequent entry. The rustic atmosphere of the Oaks Park dance hall go a long way there.

The stage this day had a lineup of local Latinx culture that was full of spirit and verve. Couldn't help but make me smile to look at.

There will be a few more pictures and ruminances next entry.

At Last, A Look Inside I've Been Framed

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This post is a looong time in coming; one pandemic wait plus one visit forgetting the camera.

I have never made any secret of my love for I've Been Framed, the Portland treasure of an art supply store that we visit on a semi-regular basis at 4950 SE Foster Road. We first went there in 2002, where I found a complete set of DaVinci gouache colors that I needed for an art course I was taking at PCC.

It's been a very satisfying relationship, which has become more than just a place we drop in on to get art supplies. We've taken to them and we fancy they've taken to us; they put up with our quirks as customers and we hit that place first when we're looking for something. They have been very good to us and we feel like they're more than a business we stop at but they're kind of our friends.

20 years a patron will do that for you, if you manage it right. 

The business was started by a fellow named Bob Brisack in 1955, powered by his love of wheeling and dealing art supplies. In about 2001 we went in there and I bought my first purchase, a proportional divider for drafting, which I still have. In 2003, the place was sold to his son, Mark. Mark was cool and a very welcoming person who was always very encouraging. Mark also saw the store through the tough beginning of the pandemic.

This last year, Mark retired in his turn, and the store was bought by Prairie Clark, who was running the store under Mark for a long time (at least as I understand it), and she's seeing the store through the pandemic (keeping it open and everyone employed and innovating a way to sell art supplies despite not being able to allow people in for browsing) and into its next era.

That era, having arrived, gives us a evolved IBF on Foster. In-store browsing is now fully enabled (to an occupancy level of 10 at a go) and there's been a retro-rebranding. It's all quite exciting.

In the below photo, which is taken from a spot roughly where the framing department was, the changes should be manifest.

There's more room to move about, better airflow, and rearranged departments. The counter that can be seen above describes an L-shape in the floorplan, behind which canvases and paper can be requested - you can't go back into the paper aisles any more but they'll get you whatever you want from them - and the collection of vintage art supplies, once limited to the glass cabinet marked as THE MUSEUM, has been greatly expanded.

Along the front windows there can be seen, from the right, the water color aisle, then the brushes, then the acrylic colors. Screenprinting inks are just out of frame on the left, and the oil colors have moved into the space once occupied by the childrens' art supplies.

Turning about, the store looks like this now:

There's modelling supplies immediately to our right; out of sight and to the right of the colored Canson paper rack there is the graphite drawing stock, which is actually more or less where it was before the floorplan revision. The generous space allowing for some social distancing is obvious here and the design of that is quite impressive.

The biggest change, outside of the new counter spanning the middle of the store, is the absence of the custom framing department. IBF still offers framing, by appointment, and the framing crew, I understand, has now fully relocated to the other IBF location, 2819 SE Ash St over in Laurelhurst.

This brings me to the real delightful detail of all this. I regard Prairie as a marketing genius for this, but she's done a bit of a throwback for branding this location.

I overheard Rosie, one of the retailers, answer the phone I've Been Framed, Art Supply Center. It clicked with me then. When Bob Brisack opened IBF its original name was simply that: Art Supply Center. IBF has two branches at present, and the functions have been sorted out between them so that now the Foster Road location has just art supplies. Why not reach back and reclaim some of that history? What a clever and delightful idea, in my blunt opinion.

So, welcome on I've Been Framed's Art Supply Center, which is an art store as Portland as it gets.

I have a few more pictures to share and will, in a subsequent post anon (but not too far anon). In the mean time, go get you some art supplies.

I just told you where to do it.

The Signs Of The Times In Parkrose, Part 1

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I found this bit of prime foolishness nailed to a telephone pole adjacent to the La Mota on NE 99th in Parkrose. People are just too unwise somtimes.

Eat your landlord? Portlander, please. The wealthy are higher up the food chain than we proles are, and that's where the toxins concentrate.

Don't eat your landlord.

Compost your landlord.

I'll repeat this until you people start to listen. Because I am the nice one.

The City of Mind Controlling ... I Don't Know, Spiders Or Something

3592Just your average day in the average coffee shop out in the Foster-Powell nabe, and you want to use the restroom but you've got to wait for the mind-controlling spider to finish what it started with the guy who went in there first.

Or maybe it's a cybernetic ant, I don't know. But you know, it's the way people everywhere are.

What do you mean "no, not here?"

Music, Food, and Dancing in East Portland: Portlanders Stand With Immigrants and Refugees

3529A.

[Update, 19 Mar 2017: I have names to put to the Afghani dancer now and also the lady leading the Peruvian trio, for which thanks go to the lovely Sitara Razaqi Lones, who indeed happens to be the Afghani dancer. TA MUCHLY!]
[Update, 20 Mar 2017] Thanks also to Claudia Cuentas Oviedo, who shared the name of the other two thirds of her trio (see below)

Statistics show, or so I've heard, that my area of Portland, DavidDouglasLandia, Out 122nd Way, Portland's Heavy Eastside and That Part Of Portland East Of I-205, is the most diverse area of, probably, the whole state.

I think it likely. Of the places I have lived in Oregon, one seems more likely to see east Africans, Asians (eastern and western), than anywhere else. It's a real rainbow out here, and I'm pleased with this every day.

It's perhaps the ideal thing, then, that an evening celebration promoted by the City of Portland called Portland Stands with Immigrants and Refugees happened out here, at the East Portland Community Center, which stands just off SE Washington St on SE 106th Avenue. It was a simple thing, really: some great authentic food, dancing and singing by immigrant groups, and plays. It ran from 6PM to 9PM on Friday, and with only three hours there was a lot to cram in there. We didn't see everything but what we did see was delightful.

We enjoyed the food there (the wife had a chicken shawarma wrap and I had a beef burrito and both were immaculate) but there was a wait, but we couldn't be too sore; I knew the event was probably going to be popular but I had no idea it would be thronged.

The strawberry horchata? Superb.

The main event for us was the signing and dancing in the gym. I was at the end of a long day myself, but there was much happy energy and it kept me interested. Me and The Wife™ were both enchanted.

The first performer we saw was a lovely Afghani woman, Sitara Razaqi Lones, who did a passionate folk dance.

As the dance progressed she really got into the zone. The costume only added to the positive energy.

After that, a trio, led by Claudia Cuentas Oviedo, played Peruvian music, accompanied by Tanya Abernathy and Otto Gygax. The support system, a Mac laptop, was reluctant to come on board (at least that's what it looked like), so, when you're a creative performer, what do you do?

You get out the pretty flute and play. It worked.

But when they got underway, they were on. 

After that, we were treated to some really energizing Bollywood style dance. I was remiss in that, due to acoustics, I couldn't get a clear idea of who the other performers were, but thanks to the book of Face, I was able to figure that the dancers were led by Prashant Kakad, supported by dancers including Blake Schrein, Brittany Newton, Jasmine Jaramillo, and Kathy Nordskog.

Prashant is that stylish fellow in the ballcap in the middle. They had an energy that was infectious, and I can only speak for myself here, but watching a group of dancers like that doing such enthusiastic moves in such great synchronization is infectious, inflecting the spirit with happiness and causing even the most weary spectator to at least, at least, tap the foot and move while seated.

They looked great, they made one feel great, and when they got the crowd involved ...

... they really got involved. Everyone on the floor, regardless of who they were or what they looked like, looked good, looked beautiful. Art really connects.

And when they finish on a high note, everyone else gets to be there with them. I couldn't not feel glad I was there.

Burning Auto Wrecking Lot, NE Portland

3526A.

Been quiet around here of late, but about 1/2 mile west of where I work, there was a BIG fire. Old auto boneyard near NE 75th and Killingsworth. FIVE alarms.

Killingsworth closed west of 82nd. I took this picture from just east of 82nd.

As of now, the Portland Fire Bureau has a 1-mile 'shelter-in-place' zone centered on that wrecking lot. Mayhap I got out of there just in time.

Playing With The Panic Sign At SW 11th and Burnside

3511/A.

I think I've written about the Panic Sign ... the logo of the software developer Panic here in Portland, at the top corner of the building at the southwest corner of SW 11th Avenue and W Burnside St here in Portland ... before, but since I got a nifty little low-price, high-capability tablet computer for Christmas, which I'm enjoying with great gusto, I've made playing with the Panic Sign a bit more of a sacrament during weekly Book Church.

It's visible from the Coffee Room in Powell's Burnside, which has big windows opening onto the NE corner of the intersection. All you have to do is load the URL http://sign.panic.com, choose one color from the top row to fill the top/left side of the logo, one color from the bottom row to fill the bottom/right side, and touch the Change The Sign! button below to commit the change. When you do it from a table in the Coffee Room, you can see the change as close to instantly as makes no difference.

The colors in the interface are actually a little less vivid than those out on the sign, but you get the idea near enough.

The text on the page saith thus:

Founded in Portland in 1997, it took Panic 15 years to get a sign. We want it to be Portland’s sign, too. Come down to SW 11th & Burnside at night, and go on, change our colors!

It really is just that simple. We can relate. We too love Portland enough that we want to leave our mark on it in some way, in a good way (despite how problematical that seems to be becoming, Hail Eris). And since I have so much fun doing it, we are hereby declaring it an official sacrament of #BookChurchPDX. And anyone anywhere can do it, you just have to be down at SW 11th and West Burnside to see he (I'd suggest a webcam for this, Panic, how about it? As for us, Here we sit and load our page; we can do no other.

Scenes From A Southeast Portland Diner

3533.

Visted Tom's Restaurant and Bar at the corner of SE César E Chávez and Division. This is the third time for me and The Wife™, and this time it was the chili burger for me (which was superb). It's also a great place to simply watch the world go by, as on the CEC side of the building is a busy stop for the TriMet line 75.

The wind was brisk tonight and whipped the awning outside enough to make it feel like it was trying to come into the building. I don't blame it. It's in the 30s out there right now.

Two scenes:

The waitress diva doing her thing as we were cashing out. Tom's, according to the banner, has served Portland in this location from  1975, and it still kinda feels like 1987 in there, but totally in all the good and right ways.

They could totally make a killing with that clock on eBay, tell you what.

We definitely love this place. 13/10, would (and will) eat there again.

[EagleCreekFire] The Smoke Returns To The Rose City

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What a difference a day makes. I'm glad I got those pictures yesterday. Here's a comparison:

Downtown from the top of the Sellwood Bridge, yesterday afternoon:

Downtown from the KGW-TV Olympic Mills Skycam, captured just a few minutes ago:

The weather is forecast to turn to rain tomorrow evening. It can't come soon enough for us.

[pdx] Downtown Chevytown, Portland, USA

3492.

That little portion of the inner eastside of Portland that I gave a glimpse of in the last article has a heavy accent of the way all of eastern Portland used to feel, back in the day, and the area still hasn't exhumed the last of that feeling. It emanates because the terrior is, in some subliminal way, preserved. I feel it in the concrete and the sidewalk; in the fact that Andy and Bax is still a Portland thing; the Mediterranean restaurant next to that is still going great guns, and there's still a Wentworth Chevrolet.

courtesy Michael Long on Facebook

In the two-square-block bit of inner SE Portland encompassed by SE Ankeny and Ash Streets, stretching from SE MLK Jr Blvd to SE 6th Avenue, the western one-and-a-half blocks is occupied by the dealership that once fully reveled in the title Wentworth Chevytown. Up until 2013, there was a great and beloved sign over the lot at the corner of MLK and Ash, about four stories tall, with 10-foot-tall red letters reading WENTWORTH CHEVYTOWN. Alas, the dealership, apparently beleaguered by regulation (mostly, they say, having to do with safety regulations pertaining to the high-voltage power lines on Grand Avenue directly in front of the sign) that prevented regular maintenance, deemed it should come down. The Oregonian's Eliot Njus reported the details back in 2013.

Sic transit gloria, and all that. This writing is in 2017, of course, and what changes five years, yes? But Wentworth still abides; there is a Wentworth Subaru (Subaru because Portland) on the block north of that, East Burnside between MLK and Grand, and on the corner of SE Ankeny and Grand, at 134 SE Grand Avenue, the Chevytown mark can still be seen, in appropriate vintage signage.

It is, at least stylish and retro, which doesn't get you as far as it used to get you here in the Rose City, but is still good for something.

The lot in front is another blast from the past, an OK used car lot. These used to be seen pretty much everywhere, and I don't know if OK is still an operant badge for Chevy, but what it was, as Hemmings reports with a bittersweet tone, was Chev's brand for its dealership-sold used cars. And the signs still adorn the block of Grand between Ankeny and Ash.

It gives a certain cadence to the street scene which I greatly enjoy. There was a time when brand and marketing was just kind of a background wallpaper that didn't blare out and cover everything; this reminds me of that.

[art] Ink: Zoë At Peet's On Couch

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The Peet's coffee on NW Couch between 11th and 12th has begun to evolve into a pre-Powell's 'book church' stop for us. The coffee is good and we can get madeleines (most of the time … it was snickerdoodle this last Saturday) which have gone beyond a mere Proustian affectation to become something I have become simply mad about.

You don't have to love A la recerche du temps perdu to love madeleines, and dipped in the front of a salted caramel latte, they're celestially good.

Our barista today was this magnetically affable young woman named Zoë. Eventually, her lower arm tattoos caught my eye, I asked permission to photograph, and she granted this request.

The wide-screen view didn't work out, but the closeups, much better. This first one made me laugh inside because of its sheer irreverence with a dark tinge.

She said it was inspried by The X-Files. The truth is out there; it's that the show is timeless, at least so far. It was the other one that really touched my heart, though, in the best Oregon-emigrant sort of way:

The cartouche curls into the suggestion of an ocean wave. it merges into flora including a palm tree, then incongruously contains a sunrise over an evergreen forest, the skyline dominated by a snow capped mountain reminiscent of Wy'east. She explained this was to honor her homes; where she came from, San Diego, and where she calls home now … Portland.

Now, that's an Oregon-California merger I can get behind. Full of West Coast heart and soul. Delicious artwork, too.

We like Zoë, and we love that branch of Peet's Coffee. Next time you're in there, may we recommend two things: Donsuemor madeleines, and a hello to Zoë. And my thanks for letting me pict her ink. Quite an honor.

#PDX_liff : Meditation On The Blanding-Out Of Old Portland

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The closing of The Third Eye Shoppe has catalyzed a lot of observations into a clear picture of evolution and how things pass along during the years. Change is constant, and change is also bittersweet; you roll with the changes but the changes, sometimes, have no intention of rolling with you, indeed they are indifferent. And there is a little world-pain that comes with that. I suppose that it's something one much just acknowledge as best as they can and be as foxy and clever and find ways to be tenable in the evolved landscape.

I remember when me and Wife were new-again to Portland after spending a few years in Corvallis. We exploited every opportunity we could get to go downtown. Downtown was funky back then. They even had an Arctic Circle with a great view of Pioneer Courthouse Square (prole burgers and fries with a perch for the best people watching in town? Damn skippy!) There was a 'Dollar Chinese Food' place, a steam-table restaurant, in the first floor of the Portland Medical Center building at SW 10th and Washington. Django Records. Art Media for art supplies. Metro on Broadway at SW Broadway and Taylor, sort of a food-court-without-a-mall-attached.

Downtown has been sanitized and de-funked. When they wanted it as a live-in neighborhood, apparently they only wanted people earning north of $75K a year down there. Me and Wife fancy a trip downtown to see if there's anything interesting down there, but I think we know in the back of our minds there's nothing really worth going to any more.

Now, it's Hawthorne. Time was there wasn't a week where we didn't find some excuse to go down Hawthorne. Jambo World Crafts, Dollar Scholar, Muse Art + Design, those were our three regular stops, there was the big raggle taggle used bookstore at SE 33rd that morphed into a vintage shop, Murder By the Book, The Daily Grind, so much that was funky and welcoming. The only thing that would attract us anymore would maybe be Powell's on Hawthorne (actually eager to see how that's building out), and Zach's Shack and Pepinos (they always had the most fabulous steak and potato burritos). But Hawthorne is going the way of downtown, losing all move, groove, and attitude, and if the social push-out of the lower middle- and lower class out to Outer East wasn't real to any one yet, why, it should be now.

Old Portland can still be found, multicolored and funky, out 122nd way, out in what the kids call 'The Numbers' … for a while, anyhow. 

[pdx] Hawthorne To Lose A Little More Funk: Goodbye to The Third Eye Shoppe

3463.

It's gettin' tough out there, campers. This just in from Willamette Week: The Third Eye Shoppe, one of Portland's granddaddies of the funky culture that used to rule Hawthorne, is also going away:

Third Eye Shoppe, one of the city's oldest head shops, will close at the end of the month.This morning, shop owner Mark Herer, son of late cannabis legend Jack Herer, who co-founded Third Eye Shoppe in 1987, sent a text message to their glassblowers and vendors to announce that their last day in business will be March 31.

It was a head shop and sold a lot of custom, functional glass, but they had all sorts of psychedelia, posters, t-shirts, and incense. We stopped there a couple of times for the incense because The Wife™ is an incense nut.

They're going to have a big, funky, stupid party the last week of business, and if that's your sort of thing you might want to stop on by. Follow the link to the article in the pull-quote, or just visit

The blanding of Hawthorne Blvd continues, we fear.

Facebook 'em at https://www.facebook.com/ThirdEyeShoppe/.

[PDX_liff] The Temporary Lakes We Grow Out Here

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A local friend and author, Cyn Ley, gave me permission to share this with you all … here in Outer East Portlandia, and especially with the glandular rainfalls we've been getting lately, for being an area nowhere near a creek or a brook or a stream, we seem to have our share of seasonal lakes in streets and parking lots (and basements) and some pretty cockamamie reasons for them occurring …

Every time it rains significantly, the parking lot of our local Post Office develops a lake. No small seasonal depression, this; this miracle of Nature is at least a foot deep, and will most happily dampen your axles as well as your mood. Known affectionately as Russellville Lake, it is a wonder to behold. When the weather is dry, it takes several days to return to the skies from whence it came, unless it rains more.
Here's the odd thing: it develops over a sizable storm drain.
The other day, I visited the Post Office thinking to get stamps, and the subject came up. It turned out that one of the mail clerks knew the secret of this precipitous wonder.
For reasons as yet undetermined, someone had blocked the drain in years past with a concrete slab.There's no moral to this story, only a possible future inquiry into the mind of Man regarding the proper functioning of storm drains. As yet, no trout have been spotted in the lake.

But, if there's any time when there is trout in the lake, we may be there to report it for you. Because in Outer East Portlandia, that's our kind of quirk.

Thank you to Cyn for allowing us to post this. 

[pdx_liff] Me Talk Portland One Day

3447.

Stumbled on this at Oregonlive.

It's not a comprehensive list, but there are certain tells that alert the local Oregonian that You're Not From Here. We don't say "the" before the freeway number, we don't say "on line", and Jo-Jo's are a delicious potato thing you can get at the convenience store (well, at least you could in the 80s and 90s).

The Oregonian gives you a basic Oregon-English/English-Oregon dictionary at this link.

[pdx_liff] Welcome To Portland. Please Drive Tenderly.

3441.

Seen late Sunday night, eastbound on E Burnside St, just coming up to the Laurelhurst gateway at E. 32nd Avenue:

I'd never seen that one before.

Now, I know heartbreak is different for everyone. But what's just ahead is Portland's legendary Music Millenninum store (as called out by the sign), and just beyond the traffic signal, deepest, darkest Laurelhurst. I don't see how MM is anything like a heartbreak, but Laurelhurst may be one if interest rates are your monkey.

I do know that "Danger Heartbreak Dead Ahead" is the title of a hit pop music single first interpreted by the Marvelettes in October 1965, but just because it's just down the street from MM, that must be coincidence.

Still, drive tenderly, Portlanders. The love you save may be your own. And buckle up.

[pdx_liff] Powell's Books = Our Personal Sacrament

3433.

We have a nickname for our regular Sunday night sojourn to Powell's City'o'Books, or I do, anyway:

Book Church.

It's a sacrament, a worship. It can be as spiritual as you want, as worldly, or as profane. The Wife™ dabbles in metaphysics, humanity and puzzles, and I ascend, without fail, to the summit, to commune with all the art teachers in the art techniques aisle in the Pearl Room.

I adore the way this couple just hunkered in the corner of the landing going up from the Rose Room to the Pearl Room. So ineffably romantic.

… but then, Powell's exists for you to love and it loves you back, if you respect it. It's a store, and it's also a place to hang and absorb. Buch luft macht frei.

The Rose room landing area has gone through a bit of a rethink lately. The big rack of travel accessories at the landing is gone and the maps have moved about a bit, and instead of the old big desk the customer service people sat behind, there's this open, moddish S-curve now:

All Powell's employees are beautiful, of course. This woman's hairdo is one of the neatest things I can think of. Retro in the good way.

After I browse the Pearl Room (the afterlife should look like the Pearl Room, I should hope), I come down the stairs into the Rose Room ...

… and the next 'station of the cross' is the Blue Room, where literature is found. Here is where I met Marcel Proust, Annie Lamott, Adam Gnade, Raymond Carver …

And then it's rendezvous in the Coffee Room, where The Wife™ and myself have caffiene communion. Occasionally we share a shortbread host.

… and, sometimes, if we're lucky, Arnold World, the patron Saint of Paper Flowers, is coaxing paper towels into blossoms.

Our officiants now are hard at work behind the altar … a young woman with a delightful Commonwealth accent:

And a pleasant, intense fellah with remarkable ink.

We all take our God whene we find him.
To us, anything from Powell's is ex cathedra. 

[pdx_liff] Portland: We Have Theremins In the Libraries

3429.

Here's one way you can tell you're in greater Portland: in Hillsboro, our neighbor city about 20 miles to the west on the edge of the greater Portland urban disk, the public library will let you check out a theremin.



It's part of the Hillsboro Public Library's "Library of Things" program, where they enable lifelong learning and exploration by providing access to more than just books. Dozens of items from tech to musical instruments to kitchenware are available.

But to me, nothing is more Portland than having a theremin available for checking out from the library.

Presumably, theremin player available separately.

What other nifties does the Hillsboro Public Library have in its Library of Things? Hie thee hence to YouTube and find out via video.

[art_in_PDX] Sharpie Art Cartoons in Powell's City Of Books

3417.

Right now, on one of the endcaps on one of the aisles of graphic novel and comics rows in the Coffee Room of Powell's City of Books, there are 6 roughly drawn yet thoughtfully-done and skillfully-executed cartoons. Here's one set.

There are six of them (they're still there as of last weekend), three on one side, three on the other. They appear to be drawn on imprecisely-trimmed foamcore board with a Sharpie. They seem to be very zeitgeist inspired, some obviously, others more indirectly.

Here's the other set:

Let's take 'em one-by-one. Top, left:

BLM. No explanation needed by now, I trust.

Next:

The Political Is Personal. For a variety of reasons I won't expound upon here (though I will eventually elsewhere) I have learned this to the bone over the last year: to the bone. Not just last week's presidential spasm, but a variety of events, votes both local and national have tied the political to the personal in my life like never before.

Thanks to 2016, I'll never look at politics quite the same way again.

This next one is enigmatic, and I'll leave the meaning for the inconstant reader to decode for themselves:

A lot of emotional responses obtain for that one above. None of which I can really put into words, but then, sometimes, art should do that to you.

That was the left side. Top right, now:

A young, hip, modern woman reads from a book on whose cover are the rubrics IMMIGRATION, SAME-SEX MARRIAGE, TRANSGENDER, CLIMATE CHANGE, EDUCATION, ABORTION, WAR. 
Important issues before. Even more, after. It's fitting that a woman should be reading them, because I think we should be hearing more from women about things like this. We know they know a lot, but the last election strongly suggested that we don't really want to hear what they have to say.

I wish that would change. I think we're collectively going to be sorry that it isn't.

Another enigmatic one. Decode the meaning for oneself:

And this last one also spoke very loudly to me. I once aspired to cartooning; editorial cartoonists have long been heroes of mine, and I've gone on to be fortunate enough to get to know a few astoundingly well on Facebook (never let it be said that Facebook never did anything for me). And this is what they do.

A revolutionary act. Especially considering the info-tainment and ratings center that modern news seems to be evolving into.

A tiny, vital art gallery, in the coffee room at Powell's. Meditation during book church.
I highly commend it to you.