[PDX] Scenes From A Street Fair: Hawthorne Blvd, 2014

3129.

This last Sunday we sojourned over to the other side of the mountain (Mt. Tabor, that is), and went from our part of Hawthorne Blvd to the fashionable part of Hawthorne Blvd to see the people there.

Hawthorne Street Fair 2014 was happening this hot August day, and The Wife™ really wanted to go; me, I tend to stay away from human contact, having figured that, at this point, I've met all the people I need to. But, my love loves going out to these things … there are few things more quintessentially Portland than this … and I realize that she has the right of such things, as not being out in the world isn't really an option if one fancies themselves an artist.

And, besides, I haven't taken Photos on Sunday in a few weeks. That investment in time paid off, as follows in the scenes; one of the delights of curating one of these postings is I get to look at all the photos, re-experience the reality as the memory wells up. Coincidentally, it's one of the burdens as well – I end up sorting through so many pictures I get lost in selecting the ones that tell the story I want to tell.

The story is really the people and the surroundings. Now, mind, I'm not bagging on it, but the Hawthorne Street Fair is, at its nut, a bunch of people coming out to sell you things. I'm not criticizing it, here, but it is what it is.

That said, there's nothing wrong at all with it, it's got a bunch of great stuff and, in the Portland DIY tradition, all the best. We bought artisan soap from an entrepreneur who sold Scrumptious Suds (here's her website, and here's her Etsy shop). We stumbled upon a quite wonderful thing, a soap made with Ninkasi Oatis Oatmeal Stout, which smells a lot better than you'd think it did … warm, embracing, as The Wife™ said (I paraphrase) like a crisp autumn evening when the neighbors  have just stoked their fireplace, all that in the good way.

The old city-neighborhood feel of Hawthorne is endlessly enticing. Businesses have changed over the years … that Blue Star Doughnut shop, whose sign is just behind the telephone pole in the center of the picture there, used to be a Chinese food joint of some 30 years standing … but everything seems just as inviting as the first time, years ago, me and Wife got down Hawthorne and realized that These Were Our People-ish.

The merchants along Hawthorne in that area had stalls out in the street. The above display was apparently being marketed by the owner of the Potala import shop in the building directly opposite. I particularly loved that big glyph over the display of Tibetan impedimenta below.

As I've always said, you can always find your Om on Hawthorne.

The Peterson Building

The theme of the day is people and surroundings; this building has always delighted the eye. The Peterson Building, 3530 SE Hawthorne Blvd, just bursts with imaginative potential. That little niche balcony up there. The two bay-windows toward the building's corner (don't they just make you think of hard-boiled PI's offices?). The hand-painted sign over the main entry to the upper floor there. The individually-painted shop facades. Made my point here, I think.

Again, the people. If those two old lovers aren't as Portland as anything, then nothing is.

One of the merchants on the street. I found her quite beautiful in absolute terms.

Oh, the ubiquty … one of our legendary food carts. I have never met a fried egg I didn't enjoy, so I dug this name for a long time before I found out it was a pun on the title of one of the Cure's most popular songs. But then I never was big on the Cure. Just the way I roll there.

Whatever that old, rusted sign with the light-studded arrow (or it would be, if any power was going to it) ever held, I don't know. But it suggests so many stories.

Tall bikes are a thing here locally, and I saw a couple. This one …

… looked fairly adventurous, and I was duly impressed. But I was really blown away by this one…

… with a fellow Portlander alongside for scale. Seriously, look at that rig! It  has stairs on it. 

I'm not sure what this mute duo's act was, whether they were trying to sell something or just to perform. That costume must have been murder in the heat though … at least as it was beautiful to look at.

They were absolutely quiet. No words.

The beats were as heavy as the pavement was hot:

And it caused not a little bit of dancing.

This dancer, as you can see, she owned that beat.

The Bread and Ink Cafe,  SE 36th and Hawthorne, started out as the original location of the Hawthorne Fred Meyer store (as photos I've seen depict, but none I can find right now).

Diners can now enjoy meals as well as draw on the tablecloths.

Of course, being Hawthorne and being Portland, there's other drawin's and art …

And, again, the surroundings: the building the Bagdad Theater's in has always been pleasant to the eye. Massive and sculpted.

I have a few more photos that I may share in subsequent postings.

But what I'll remember? Tiring … but a good tired. Glad I went. 

[print] Soylent News™'s New Calendar Strikes Again …

3128.

… but, on what day, it's kinda hard to tell. But then, isn't time an arbitrary thing, especially when NCA3 is doggedly, tirelessly, relentlessly redefining today's The Oregonian as a thing to be read?

We return to the scene of the crime, Library Day (accept no substitutes), and The Wife™, who is doing her usual weekly catch-up, and peeps it. Here's the wide-angle view:

So stipulated. And, now, the closeup.

Yep. As documented previously, there's been the Julian, the Gregorian, and now, the Oregonian Calendar. Didn't like the way Sunday, August 11th, 2014 worked out for you?

Don't worry, Soylent News™ is giving you a do-over on Monday, August 11th 2014.

But, as documented earlier, remember, it's always Tuesday at the new Fun-Size™Oregonian. 

And Tuesday is Soylent News™ day. 

[PDX] Joe Vithayathil: The Latter-Day Frank Bonnema

3127.

Old-school Portlandia, pure and simple.

Those of you who have any recollection about Back-in-the-Day around these parts know about Portland Wrestling. You are no doubt aware of modern pro-wrestling, with its flash and gloss and pyrotechnics, and its acknowledgement of kayfabe-as-dramatic-storyline.

I can't really get into it. I remember pro-wrestling as-it-was … regional circuits, a working-man's pastime at the fairground or at the armory, and every week, without fail, on KPTV-12, late at night on Saturday … it was Portland Wrestling. It was the kind of show that your babysitter would let you stay up much later than you should be (and don't tell Mom) to watch. Hailing from the Portland Sports Arena (which was a converted bowling alley, I'm told, up on North Chautauqua Blvd), we got a weekly diet of Tom Peterson Xonix TVs, Playboy Buddy Rose, Rowdy Roddy Piper when he was comin' up … and Frank Bonnema.

He didn't host Portland Wrestling. He was Portland Wrestling.

Joe Vithayathil, a/k/a Joe V, KPTV's feature reporter, is also a wrestling geek from 'way back. He is right now living the dream. He hosted the recent re-incarnation of Portland Wrestling, known as Portland Wrestling Uncut, which has been on hiatus for far too long. And he's still working it … we understand that he's debuted a book about Lynn Denton.

Those of you suitably informed will know this man as THE GRAPPLER:

Yours truly is the author (well, co-author technically) of Grappler: Memoirs of a Masked Madman. It’s the autobiography of my good friend Lynn Denton, better known to the pro wrestling world as “The Grappler”. As I have discussed before on this blog, I was a wrestling nerd for decades, dating all the way back to the mid-80s. In 2012, a childhood dream came true (at the age of 36) when I was given the opportunity to work on a local wrestling show with Lynn- who everyone calls Lenny- and WWE Hall of Famer Roddy Piper. I became close with both men, and it was clear to me that Lenny had a story to share with the world.

Like I said, livin' the dream.

Joe has a blog posting up about it all here: http://gdojoe.wordpress.com/2014/08/10/look-ma-i-wrote-a-book/.  He's working hard at following in the footsteps of Bonnema, and while they broke the mold when they made that guy. I'd say Joe has the passion to make himself the modern-day image of the man.

As Katherine Dunn proved, writing about warriors in the squared circle can be seen as poetry on its own. I certainly wish the best for this effort.

[PDX] Love Sellwood? Then There's a Bridge I'd Like To Sell You.

3126.

Seriously …

After nearly 90 years of public service, the Sellwood Bridge could have a new owner and a new home. The bridge has been designated a historic resource which requires it to be made available for historic reuse before it is removed to make way for the new Sellwood Bridge. Multnomah County is accepting proposals to buy the bridge until September 12, 2014.

This chapter of the Sellwood Bridge follies isn't facetious, though, it be for real. The old bridge has to go, and since it's (as the excerpt says) a 'historic resource', they have to put the ol' girl up for grabs. You want it, you can maybe get it.

It is a continuous steel truss, over 1,000 feet in length, and you have to take it away. So, it's like a spiffy piece of furniture in someone's front yard, with a sign saying 'best offer', and you have to move it.

Only muuuuuuuuch bigger.

So get your proposals together and get your financing in line by the 24th of next month.

One very historic bridge … such a deal!

Full details at http://www.sellwoodbridge.org/?e=554

Good luck. 

[PDX} Project Pabst Bites My Style

3125.

Recently, as in the last couple of weeks, I've seen a upcoming festival break in the press; a little thing called Project Pabst, a musical festival (a/k/a that voodoo we do so well) featuring a plethora of musical combos in a marketing love letter to a city that apparently made a beer I drank when I didn't care about quality cool again.

They've come up with a pretty cute badge for it … here, let' me give you a look at it:

Totes adorbs, right? But I wonder … where could they have gotten the idea to combine a unicorn with the Portland Oregon sign? Where, I wonder … hermmmmm … Oh! I know Maybe, maybe, I don't know, I never had any success at designing, but, back in March, 2009, I posted this to this very tower of cultural integrity …

Dang. Uncanny.

Oh, I know. Maybe they did, maybe they didn't. And maybe … just maybe … that foolie a few of us got in on back during those days to remind everyone that Portland is built on an ancient unicorn burial ground has longer legs than I thought and went deeper than we imagined it would. And it's easy enough to say they got the idea out of the same found objects pile that I did.

Still …

If it was the inspiration, a hat tip would've been nice. Just sayin' here.

(speaking of hat tips, thanks for pointing this out, Mike Vogel, and his little twitter dog, too)

[PDX] TriMet MAX: KATU Says It Runs On Magic

3124.

While we have always held that Portland is built over the site of an ancient unicorn burial ground, I had no idea how deeply that went.

Here, today, KATU-Channel 2 has put up an article (that might be edited by the time you look at it, but it's here) about delays caused by upcoming maintenance. Here's a screenshot:

Not the best time for service delays, what with the hothothot weather and all. But what's that there? Second 'graf …

There you have it. They're using witches to power MAX. It's right there, and you couldn't put it on the web if it t'warnt true. And here I thought public transit was ran by muggles all this time. Live and learn, I suppose.

But what kind of witch improvements? I'm thinking better and more powerful spells to provide more trains and more on-time service. Though, if I were improving my witches, I'd not necessarily ask TriMet for that sort of advice on it. They'd probably just figure out some way to lay them off, budgets being what they are, and you don't want to lay off witches without a very good reason.

I'd ask a unicorn … if they were still around.

Sorry to be a downer here … but it is what it is. Or they are what they were, more appropriately.

UPDATE, 2208 Monday: Amusingly enough, KATU has not edited the article. Go fig.

[print] It's Always Tuesday In The New Fun Size™ Oregonian

3123.

Changing calendars is nothing new, of course. The Julian calendar was upgraded to the Gregorian calendar, an in Ethiopia, they use a version of the calendar that includes leap days once every four years regardless (instead of omitting it in years evenly divisible by 400, as we do), resulting in the oddity (to us, anyway), that New Years Day, 2000, didn't happen for residents of Addis Abebe until September 11th, 2007. It is currently 2007 by the Ge'ez calendar.

However, in the West, we still keep to the Gregorian calendar, but here in the Beaver State, we've upgraded again … to The Oregonian Calendar.

It was revealed to us during our usual visit to the library. The Wife™goes through the week's Fun Size™ Oregonians which, as I've mentioned before, we never seem to have trouble getting, and she's frustrated, wondering where last Wednesday's paper was.

At last she lays it out day-by-day.

Oh, wait, what's this then?

Now, on my calendar, things don't run that way.

As our friend, the vintage Casio PV-S400 Pocket Viewer PDA will tell you, Monday the 21s is followed by Tuesday … the 22nd. The 23rd isn't supposed to come until Wendesday. 

Unless …

They've decided to upgrade our very calendar? Could that be? I mean, the modern The Oregonian is working hard to redefine our very idea of a newspaper as something to be read. Why not? But this isn't a calendar upgrade so much as a modern calendar levelling up, introducing new days in new sequences, without warning to the general population.

Kind of like reality until you find a Konami cheat for it.

But more research is called for. Stabilizing the test subject on the examining table, the patient is opened to examine the interior makeup … and IT'S STILL TUESDAY …

No need to panic. It was Tuesday, the 22nd, all along … they just hid it inside.

Of course, now Tuesday the 23rd follows Tuesday the 22nd. Mayhap Tuesday the 24th, after that, Tuesday the 25th, ad nauseam …  it's always Tuesday in Portland now. 

And it just stands to reason.

Tuesday is, after all, Soylent News™ day. 

[liff] No Message Other Than This Sunset

3122.

Have had little in the way of words to share latterly, but much pictures.

So be it.

This is the sunset tonight over Home Base, with the salmon color I've seen so much of latterly. There seems to be a different quality to it. Or maybe I've just not noticed it before.

Sailors' delight, so they say.

[liff] Buttermilk Sky Over Outer East Portlandia

3121.

Inspiration's been hard to come by the last week or so, but all one has to do in this glorious, not-to-be-duplicated Oregon environment, is … well, look up.

This is what I call a buttermilk sky, not so much because it looks like buttermilk, but the texture leaves an impression upon the psyche that my latent synesthetic sense converts into a the feeling that I had drinking buttermilk. I get a palimpsest-like impression in the mouth.

Funny thing is, I never liked buttermilk much. Wife™ loves the stuff. Never got that, never will, but then, I can't comprehend why some people are so avid about crustless sandwiches.

I don't know if the clotted cloud cover specifically heralds any sort of weather, but it will be noted, in the record, that the weather was quite warm and very fair and pleasant (well, if you're a sunpuppy, maybe. Along with buttermilk, one thing I'm not terribly fond of is hot humid weather over about 85F, which is our lot these June and July weeks).

While they weren't dramatic, the textural experience of looking in the clotted blue was impossible to resist. It was also impossible not to make fantasy geographies out of them, something I used to do all the time.

Earthsea? Here's skysea for you.

The Pig'n'Pancake … long time landmark at NE 122nd and Glisan. An old-school breakfast-and-lunch place, open in Outer East Portlandia until the mid-afternoon only … but breakfasts and lunches there are to die for.

They have a Mexican-style omelette that contains black beans. Along with buttermilk, too-hot too-humid days, and crustless sandwiches, black beans are something I don't understand not neither … but they can get me to eat them. So there's that.

Also under the buttermilk sky is what was Jody's Bar and Grill. it is, as the sign says CLOSED FOR NOW, only how now is defined is left open to interpretation. It's a Portland strip club, of which we are terminally over-endowed, so, maybe, oh, I don't know … more naked ladies in the near future? Who knows? Really, who cares? For now, PDX is down one strip club. I think the city will sustain itself on the more-than-50-less-one clubs that are here now compared to the more-than-50 we had then.

I mean you could go out to the Spearmint Rhino and tell us all if you actually spot one.

The character of the clouds, illuminated differently as you looked east, made them less ethereal if not loss dramatic. The above is looking east on Glisan from 122nd; that grove of trees in the distance is the approximate location of the Glendoveer Golf Course.

And another sunset; lately I've noticed a preponderance of this ruddy, salmon hue. Again, not sure if it presages anything at all, but it is impressive, and delicately beautiful.

Keep looking up.

[pdx] Lava Lite Sunrise, Industrial NE Portland

3120.

Now that we're out of the Easy Bake Oven (103F in our back yard? OUCH) the sunrises from my part of the world look lovely.

I'm not 100 per cent pleased with that one above. I had only a few seconds, a few minutes, to get the shot, and I wasn't able to get the skill I needed together to make it happen. That clipped ziggurat on the horizon is Mt. St. Helens, and the sunlight reflecting on the clouds made it look positively Infernal. There were wisps and curlicues in the clouds that are lost. Sad.

The electric neon color's a winner, though, sure enough.

[liff_in_OR] Newberg's Classic Dairy Queen Sign

3119.

Newberg is the first town you get into after leaving the Portland Metroplex going south on Oregon State Hwy 99W. It's the vanguard of wine country, the sentinel admitting you to that charming area known as Yamhill County.

At the entrance to the center of town, the highway splits into a couplet made up of First Street and Hancock, and this continues for about ten or twelve city blocks. At the west end, the two streets snap back together, cross the railroad tracks, and head on southwest to the land of the eternal traffic jam, Dundee. And, if you didn't look quickly, you'll have missed it.

404 West First Street. It's a DQ that looks quite a bit like just about every other DQ you're likely to see; cream-colored walls, red mansard roof.  But there's something that might catch the eye a little more than other things, especially if you have an eye for the classics.

Some ten-fifteen years back, the DQ wasn't the commodious sit-in place it was, it was a traditional drive-up. Anyone familiar with the adorbs little DQ drive-up and sit-out at SE 56th and Division here in Portland will be able to picture this. It was quite a bit the same. Well, about ten or fifteen years back, the Newberg DQ decided to give its patrons the inside-dining experience. I was sad, a little. It's nice to sit inside with your burger, but the old-fashioned burger driveups have a charm that can't be denied or resisted.

But they kept the old sign. Standing fifteen or twenty feet up, on a stout pole that shows a bit of rust, the stylized ice-cream cone keeps happy watch on the western entry to Newberg, taking in the equipment rental place, a Dutch Bros, a trailer court across the way, and a 100% Hispanic tire-seller across the street.

Whether or not you'd ever live in Newberg, there's a definite American-small-townness that recalls the rosy memories of prim little farming towns. The past wasn't perfect, but certain facets were adorable.

In Newberg, some of it can be found under the sign of DQ. Roadside neon, the way it used to be … and still is.

[liff] The Scrub Jays Of McMinnville

3118.

There is a bit of property down in McMinnville that we are obliged to maintain, for reasons which are not germane to the following discussion. Suffice to say that we have to do a couple of very hard jobs down that way at least once a year. Money is expended, Gatorade is consumed. It's typically hot work, though this iteration, while it happened on the official first day of summer, happened during weather that was fine yet temperate – occasional clouds, some overcast holding off the heat of the day 'til the mid-afternoon. Best for landscaping a tough job.

Over the past several years, we've had bird visitation. Typically after the long grass gets cut down and before the creatures who exist on the dirt surface had a chance to get underground, the jays came.

California Scrub Jays, they call them. Here's a handsome fellow scouting the just-cut grass for nommage:

We've noticed that they happen each time. It's not a visit unless we see some jays, really. They're like friends, in a way. This time, we had a few moments to look and observe … and we saw some family behavior there that was quite delightful.

A couple of jays were visible at most times in the sweetgum maple that exists at the front of the property. At first we thought it was simply a mom and dad bird protecting the nest.

But it became evident when we saw the fluffy down on some bird butts that what we probably had was at least two adolescent fledgelings taking some first flights. There was at least one adult that seemed to be keeping tabs on the kids, who perched on the wires and yelled at us to get out of their yard.

I always wondered about birds and wires. They take to them so naturally. I always thought that birds like this had a cosmology, and just as some of us monkeys think that since the Universe made us possible that the Universe evolved for us, I figured birds knew that us humans existed so that wires would develop for their perching.

But we figure we have occupants on the place that take care of it for us, at least, in that birdy way. 

[pdx] Photos On Sunday: SE 122nd And Division - Distressed Neighborhood Central

3117.

They call my area of town 'distressed'.

It sounds like a sort of concern, and I'm sure it's well-intentioned. I'm wiling to give it that much of the benefit of the doubt. I'm a pretty big fool, however, I'm not that big of a fool, and I've noticed that the dubbing of a Portland neighborhood as being distressed is usually something of a prelude to it being shined and polished up and made 'livable', but, somehow, not affordable to the people that, at one time, had been the heart and soul of the neighborhood.

So, 122nd and Division - heart of an area evolving the name Midway, called by some of us Democrats Bedrock, and thought of by many Portlanders west of 82nd Avenue as Gresham, is 'distressed'.

There is 'concern'. And, while it's true that the area east of I-205 tends to get less of the public weal than the more fashionable areas of town, it seems when the attention is finally paid, it always seems to end in tears for the people who have always been out here. We do notice, with some satisfaction, that the densities called for in the 1996 Outer Southeast Community plan are being toned down a bit, with an eye toward leaving the single-family-home character of areas around SE 122nd Avenue and SE 136th Avenue alone, though the damage has already been done along SE 136th, which is having to grow up fast in the wake of the death of Morgan Maynard-Cook last February.

Look at all that distress

Areas like Powellhurst-Gilbert, Hazelwood, and Mill Park are studies in contrasts.  Highly-travelled neighborhood collectors with the uncurbed character of country roads serve thickly-populated residential areas. Intersections have beautifully-designed corners with modern curb-cuts that lead to no sidewalks at all. Infill housing sets cheek-by-jowl with homes that have existed for 40 or 50 years, if not more, all laced through by thronging boulevards such as SE Divsion Street and SE Stark Street, lined with businesses ranging from the swanky to the shabby. But, mere blocks off any of these arterials, and it's as quiet and prim as any upscale westside back street.

It is also very diverse in my area of town. Several businesses catering to the Latino population operate near SE Stark and 122nd and SE Market and 122nd. The tienda next to the 7-Eleven at 122nd and Market is a glory to visit, and if you want pan dulce, my friend, this is your place. The Mingala Halal market in the shopping center at Division has every packaged noodle soup you could ever want (and some you'd not be entirely sure about but you just have to try, to say you've done it).

I see people who dress differently than me and speak differently than me and I'm in love with this. This is Oregon; if I wanted to be surrounded by white people and never challenged by a single thing, it's not hard to go to a place to find People Like Me. But who needs that? Besides, our travel budget rarely supports a jaunt outside the city limits these days. Home is like travelling around the world without having to leave my back yard.

The skies are just as blue out here, the trees, just as green. Maybe they're using some definition of the word distressed that makes sense to someone who sees a ton of money to be made amongst the aging apartment complexes, scattered vacant lots, and wide pounded boulevards of Outer East Portlandia.

Oh, I don't refuse to see that this area of town has its problems, and a misguided city planning policy 
has exacerbated them to a degree. But where some fret, I find a certain sort of ragged beauty. Sure, a few places could use a bit of spruce. But to be condescending in concern is to continue to treat this area as Portland's red-headed stepkid, which has been the problem all along.

This area is just as much Portland as the fashionable parts are.

This is the idea that Those Who Wish To Reinvent Us must proceed from. No Portland City Commissioner comes from anywhere east of César E Chávez Blvd, and sometimes, though I like most of them very much, boy, does it show sometimes.

Yes, it's another snap of Mt Hood as seen through telephone
poles. Deal, people, deal.

[#liff] Meanwhile, In The Triffid Patch, a/k/a Our Back Yard

3116.

Got plants? We do. Our back yard is a little cultured and a little wild; thanks to an off-hand remark The Wife™made last night, I now call it the Triffid Patch.

It's appropriate.

We're … ah, casual gardeners. We have a few vegetable plants in containers, the yard is kinda overrun with dandelions, and in the decade-plus we've lived here, we've had roses.

In as much as the container plants go, I'm working my way up. First two tomato plants and a green bell pepper. Then two tomato plants and 2 peppers - the green bell and a jalapeño. This year, three tomatoes, a green pepper, and a Yummy mix sweet pepper plant.

The jalapeños didn't fare so well. And one of the pepper plants got savaged in the night by … something. We know not what, nor are we sure we wish to. Chupacabra? Zanti misifits? Republicans? I don't know. We'll let the night maintain its secrets. We shall not, as they say, go there.

The roses were a bequest from the previous owners, who apparently cultivated them for show. We were nowhere near that hep on it, and had intended to have them taken out and rehomed at people so inclined to keep them. We still may. But for now, we've watched them go through some interesting evolution. It would seem that grafts have been placed onto other rosebush stocks; they would exhibit some different blossoms, but that seems to be breeding out as time goes on.

The blossoms that have survived have been quirky and beautiful, in a wild way. Deep rich color, as in the above … or attenuated, delicate shadings, as this one below.

A couple of bushes along the north fence, however, have this deep, deep, deep, red color. The eye looks upon this ultra saturated thing, and thinks velvet. That must feel like velvet if touched. 

As it is, the eye cannot look at it without the vibrant red pushing some of the eye's own receptors into near-overload. I can almost sense it as a palpable physical sensation myself.

It's a bit like frozen flame.

[#art] All Over Coffee with Paul Madonna

3115.

Add this man to the list of artists without which I cannot do.

Paul Madonna is a SF-based artist who does one of the most singular comics out there. All Over Coffee is a impressionistic masterpiece, with moody, visually-delicious drawings of San Francisco street scenes with bits of text strewn within. The text itself is, at best, tangentially referential to the picture; the text seems to provide a sound track to what is happening within the picture, kinda. 

It's very subjective. You can imagine the text as someone thinking to themselves about something that something in the picture referenced; a snatch of a distant conversation heard by the person at the POV; or just text living in the picture.

It's the perfect blend of word and picture, forming a poetry and music of its own. Sometimes the words live within the picture, forming a grim, yet funny existential punchline.

Ultimately what a person sees within an All Over Coffee strip is what they find there; you will probably see what you bring to the experience. And, to be sure, the idea of putting only-vaguely-sequitur words with images is hardly something new or unusual. The way Madonna does it, though, is unique … though it defies embodiment in something as surly as mere words, it certainly is there. There's something approaching vulnerability there, the artist's vulnerability, his love of his hometown, and the pure liberating passion of drawing that make the series absolutely beguiling, and once seen, never to be forgotten.

I've lusted for Madonna's  first eponymously-named collection for quite some time, drawn in by the beguilement that cannot be quite expressed in print. Some weeks ago, I found a copy at Powell's, only to be disappointed that someone had razored-out a single page. Bad human! but at our last visit, last Sunday evening, there was a copy, at a price.

All Over Coffee is now mine to leaf through whenever I want. They have a copy at +Multnomah County Library, and I encourage any of you all to check it out when you can. There's a second volume of AOC collected, Everything Is Its Own Reward, which I shall lust over perforce.

[#logo] The Vincent Price Legacy Logo - Best Thing I've Seen Today

3114.

Or maybe I'm in a macabre mood, maybe that's it.

To anyone with a horror-movie bent (or maybe hunch-back, if you prefer), Vincent Price is an icon amongst icons. I remember growing up during the latter half of his career, just after he'd made is greats and was doing more television work than film. Funny thing about Vincent, though … he could star in the most throwaway piece of TV tripe but just having him there made the whole thing watchable. He was rocking the idea of being an past-one's-peak actor long before William Shatner even started to make it fashionable.

He did it by being a compleat personality. There was Vincent the aesthete, Vincent the intellectual, Vincent the style maven, and - most notably - Victor the gourmet cook and author, doing his small and stylish part to make the world safe for the modern foodie.

It's a bit unfair, though not inappropriate, to think of him as merely a horror film icon.

Toward the latter period of his life, he lent his considerable mind toward art. There is a museum of art and his legacy that exist in his name. The Vincent Price Legacy, http://vincentprice.com, is where you connect to all that awesomeness. But what's got me enthused today is that I stumbled on this pitch-perfect logo, which encapsulates all the sophistication, charm, wit, and style of the great man:

This is the first  time I've seen it and it is sooooo perfect.  Understated and urbane …

What I usually say?

Wish I'd of thought of it.

[#design] The Official "Portland In 2016" Westercon Bid Ad

3113.

I'm kind of the junior partner in this arrangement, but I'm thrilled just to be along for the ride. Far too infrequently do I get to look at awesome up close.

What you see, here, is the official ad for the "Portland in 2016" bid effort to land Westercon 69 for the Rose City, which will appear in the program book for at Westercon 67:

Quite the thing, neh? And I get to say that I contributed.

A precis:

The design suprema here is Meredith Cook. She has the sharpest design mind I've come across lately and I've found her incredibly inspiring. She's guided the the design effort so far and planted the seed (and did the hard beginning work) that grew into the goodness that is, and is sure to come. The general artistic appearance of that logo comes from her. I contributed a few ideas that serve to give it a little more character; it may or may not be what it is because of the bits I suggested, but it wouldn't have been at all if it weren't for her.

The base photo, that of that night-time Portland skyline, is my own work (as I detailed here). By making the bid effort logo circular, Meredith's design has enabled it to be used in the cleverest way …  the moon-over-town, lighting and illuminating a sky full of things that we love about Portland, and that sell Portland as the place for the envisioned Westercon 69. the whole effect is pure visual poetry to me, because as a place for fandom, Portland needs not too much more selling (at least in my personal, fairly smug opinion).

Westercon 67 is taking place in Salt Lake City this next month. That is where the vote will happen; anyone who wants to support our effort is welcome to do so (there's even a Pre-opposing contribution option, for those sufficiently perverse).

Portland in 2016 has Facebook and Twitter presences for those of you so inclined:

• On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Portlandin2016
• On Twitter: https://twitter.com/Portlandin2016

So, go support. Who knows … you might win a date with a unicorn!*

*Maybe, I guess. I don't know from who, but anything's possible … if you believe!

[#art] A Change of Carrier

3112.

I've decided to join the messenger-bag generation.

It's cool. I'm usually a few years late to just about any party, anyway.

If you don't know if I'm hangin' around or not, you can usually tell that I'm here if you see my backpack. It's a habit I picked up never-you-mind how many years ago and I've probably kept too long, but in an unfriendly world that don't love you back no matter how hard you love it, you have to have your security blanket.

We all do, I think. I fancy I'm just a bit more honest about it than some. Then, I care less and less what anyone thinks about what I do as I move through this part of my life; I'll do what I can to cope.

My backpack has been part of my identity for a long time. It holds a lot of things that are important to me that I want to keep near; the sketchbook I'm not drawing in; the book on creativity I'm not reading or using, the art supplies I'm apparently hoarding up against the apocalypse. But backpacks encourage a sort-of hermit crabbish-ness, in which I carry my notional studio on my back. As long as my right shoulder isn't killing me (how I've avoided tendonitis all these years, I can't tell you) I figure I can carry anything. Or everything.

Whether or not I can kickstart my own engine, a touch of parsimony is called for, I think. Will it improve my creativity at all if I don't figure I have everything I need and inspiration will spontaneously combust from inside the recesses of the thing?

I don't know.  Anything's worth trying once.

I also have a taijtu (see illo) patch that will simply look stunning on the flap.

And so it goes.