Looking outside from inside the new Guilder Cafe at Powell's

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This last weekend was the closest we had to a pre-pandemic weekend in over two years.

1st weekend day: killed time at the Midland Library; 2nd weekend day; hung out at Powell's, and had coffee.

We experienced, for the first time, the Powell's Coffee Room under its new holder-in-fief; Guilder Cafe. I already assayed the approach in this episode; well, as one may or may not know, it's open and you can finally go to Powells and sit in with your books or share a coffee with someone. 

Guilder Cafe (the sworn enemy of Florin, it will be remembered) is a whole 'nother world from what World Cup was.

The seating area is smaller and as differently-arranged as it is stylish. Gone are the big-lumber long tables in favor of a single long table in the middle about two-thirds as long as the old ones. Steel stools replace the old chairs. While you can sit and look out toward the street on the Burnside side, the similar seating along 11th Avenue is gone in favor of seating looking in and square tables which can be moved.

These tables do not wobble as the old ones did, so there's that.

The lighting is cooler (though not gloomy) and much more nuanced. And, in the northwest corner of the space, where there used to be a couple more aisles of book shelves, there is now this:

... a sort of 'bleacher' arrangement, steps up the sides and twelve large cushions to sit on. In front of this, a rather tasteful conversation-pit arrangement.

The coffee menu is high in quality and limited in offerings. You can have lattes, cold-brews, Americanos and the rest, but there are no flavored syrups. The menu (including the food fare) is here.  The only sweetenings available are simple syrup and stevia. You'll also be paying more (my Americano was $3.25, my wife's au lait was similar. This is in line with Guilder's ethos which aims to support small business (namely, in this case, Guilder) and the farmers who grow the coffee we love so much along with our books.

Hours currently are until 8 PM, which, on this Monday, felt a great deal like 10:00 PM did back in the day. 

Also, Arnold Drake the paper flower guy was there. So there is that. We shared some warmth as he left for the day; one member of the erstwhile regulars' club to another. It was worth the waiting for that. 

I won't lie; like a whole lot of us who've fretted about Powell's during the pandemic, I have dreamt of this happening again. At least it's happening in some way. If the increased pricing is a little off-putting then at least it pays off in a high-quality locally-roasted cup that's doing some good in the world (and letting us, in a very real way, support local business; it's a convenient way to walk that talk), and if the decreased seating area is a bit discouraging, at least it's spacious and allows for the maximum social distancing in such a space.

So, for me, it's a mixed bag, but it's a new world we have come to terms with. Whole new planet, really. I think most Powell's customers will find Guilder a good fit. 

It's What We Used To Do Every Week, Only Now, It Feels Awkward

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... but we will adjust. We always do.

The hours are slightly different but coffee's coming back. 

We can't have the same world we did before. But we will try and make the new one kind, if we can.

Coming Soon To Powell's: The Sworn Enemy of Florin

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One of the biggest, straight-up, sheerest heartbreaking disappointments of the plague time was the total unravelling of the weekly date-night I loved to call Book Church.

The scene, as I've hinted at elsewhen, was the Coffee Room at Powell's City of Books. Such a wonderful thing they had there; coffee, people browsing over the cool books they found, coffee, the occasional visit with and by Arnold Drake World, the paper flower guy, coffee, the weekly "Go" playing crowd, coffee, the Brown Eyed Girl, and coffee. And soooo many books. It was a kind corner of the world and in it we lived our best lives. 

I know Powell's just thought of it as a corner of their building. Sure, Powell's, you do you. 

Anyway, with the coming of the pandemic and the contraction of business everywhere, even Powells closed up tight. No place to go on our date-night. No place to soak up the city life, drink coffee, enjoy good books. Barren? You bet.

The pandemic, in its way, is still with us. Maybe we have, collectively, acclimated (not that it's become less lethal, mind). The commercial world seems to have been evolving back toward some semblance of what it once was, and this last weekend was the closest we had to a Classic Weekend in nearly two years: 

• Time at the library
• Time shopping for art supplies (IBF!)
• ... and time spent in Powells.

Now, at Powell's, even the Pearl Room, one of the many rooms of my personal temple, is open again. I need to browse Aisle 940 even if I don't wind up buying anything. Part of my soul lives there, it must.

And, soon, coffee will be available in the Coffee Room again, for this is what it looks like, now:

The mystery and suspense novels, whose shelves are still there, are separated by a temporary wall from the area being redone.

Did I want to push through that door? You bet. Just to get a glimpse. The exterior windows are papered over too, so no joy to be had there.

A sign on the wall going in, you'll see it if you refer the first picture above, tells you the intended tenant. I've mentioned it before here, I thing. Guilder Cafe. That's Guilder, as in The Princess Bride, as in THE SWORN ENEMY OF FLORIN. They have a website here, and it's purest Portland. At the end of the "About us" page they state "We want you to consider it your second home, and welcome you into our extended family and hope to be welcomed into your family." which bodes well for something we hope to make into a regular destination.

And, at the end of every page on their website, the simple declaration:

It sure seems like a good fit. 

Immortality Assured Via Apple Look Around

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Look at what the Brown Eyed Girl peeped and pointed me at yesterday, on NW 11th Avenue adjacent to Powell's: 

 

She saw it from back in the Orange Room approaching the checkout; from a distance it looked like a Google Maps Street View car. This is what I found when I got out there though: note the text on the rear door.

It had California plates, which is appropriate.

I learned that Apple is rolling out a feature for Apple Maps, similar to Google's Street View, called Look Around. Unlike Google Maps, Apple Maps doesn't have a web portal though, so if you want to see me taking a picture of them taking a picture of me taking a picture of them, you'll have to employ your mobile device.

I don't know when to expect my image to show up on Apple Maps, as I don't recall how long it takes digital pictures to be developed these days. 

And so it goes.

Northwest 11th by Powells On Any Given Late Afternoon In The Long Ago

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This one tugged at the heartstrings, you know, now that we're all in search of lost time.

The point of view is the units block of NW 11th Avenue, between Couch and Burnside. I'm facing north-northwest. Powell's Books is at my back and on the right. The building you're looking at is called the M Financial Center, which impresses me in as much as I know of no other letter of the alphabet that has so much finance devoted to it.

The intersection in view is that of NW 11th Avenue and Couch St.

NW 11th and Couch is unique amongst Portland intersections is that it is the only place in the city of Portland and indeed the state of Oregon where the so-called 'scramble' crossing is implemented. Couch traffic goes and Couch pedestrians can cross; then 11th Avenue traffic goes and 11th Avenue pedestrians cross; then all traffic on the streets stop and the six cross walks (two for each street and two diagonals crossing the middle) flow. It's an innovative thing and maybe it's the mad dash of everyone toward the Powell's entry on 11th and Couch convinced the city to put it there, I don't know. It's been three years and more since it's been put in and I hear nothing about it being put elsewhere, which is strange in our town where traffic patterns seem disrupted on the basis of wish and whimsy in these latter days.

Indeed, the streets there are so very narrow it's hard to see who, if anyone, is really saving any time by cutting across.

Quite a few years ago, as a teenager in Salem, I remember the city there piloting the idea at the corner of High and Center Streets, and in Salem that makes sense as the street widths there amount to a considerable hike. Surprising therefore that it never caught on there. I guess we love it here, we inscrutable, quirky Portlanders who do things, I guess, just for the sake of being seen doing 'em.

Anyway, that was then and this is now and Powell's is still not opening, not yet. We remain hopeful but understand why this is.

So it goes.

Southwest Oak And West Burnside, February 2020, from Powell's

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Our next stop on the daily photo log adventure comes from only two months ago.

Two months ago. Seems like twenty years ago. I see other on-line humans calling it "the time before" and I mean, say what you want about pop culture, I see where this is all coming from and I'm endlessly impressed with the average person's mind's ability to MacGyver coping with a chaotically shifting zeitgeist on the fly. I mean, cultural literacy won't get you through every emergency, no, but when the order of the day is that which we accept as read today might get rewritten in our faces tomorrow, and the day after may contradict that, well, it's no small tool. Intellectually, it can be a swiss army knife.

Anyway, about two-and-a-half months ago. Coffee Room. #BookChurchPDX. Powell's. 11th and West Burnside. Lookin' out the fishbowl. There is, for those of you who are unfamiliar with Portland's skyline, a building at the corner of Southwest Broadway and Washington. Back in the day I knew it as the Bank of California building. It's now called the Union Bank building after its parent company merged a few times. And it's visually notable for the way it's lit at night, with spotlights pointing down the flutes in the building's architecture.

The Brown Eyed Girl looked out the window across West Burnside where Southwest Oak Street split off between 11th and 10th. The Union Bank tower's the tallest and the lighting made it stand out, and she loved the view, and insisted I take a pic.

When someone with good taste insists, one does not demur. So.

In the foreground is a little walk-through mall with tiny retail spaces called Union Way. The passage goes through to Southwest Stark/Harvey Milk Street. The building immediately net door was a branch of Car Toys for years; what it is now I can't recall. The shorter building was the Federal Reserve Bank Branch in Portland for a long time and was, a short while ago, the home of Jive Software before the vicissitudes of intellectual property and corporate merger sharked that away from Oregon. And over that is the Union Bank building in night dress.

All this from the window of the Cathedral of Saint Ursula in Portland, the Coffee Room at Powells, where we would be tonight If Only.

And so it goes.

Plague Year Diary: A Deserted City of Books

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And, as we came west from the freeway overpass, what trip downtown would be complete without a stop at Powell's?

No stop here today, or for a while yet. Alas.

And so it goes.

Veni, Vidi, Legere

3582Art on the chalkboards at Powell's City of Books is always splendid. This I enjoyed Imperially.

 

This board is on the stairwell going from the Gold Room to the Pearl Room, which is heaven because that's where the art instruction books are and it's wholly proper to ascend as unto heaven for that biz, and will doubtless be up for about two more weeks. 

Playing With The Panic Sign At SW 11th and Burnside

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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.

How We Found Out Dan Rather Was In Town

3535.

We found out Dan Rather was at Powell's Books last night.

He's a very popular guy, apparently.

Bob Schieffer was not there. He did not file this report.
Sightings of Scott Pelley in the Red Room are unconfirmed as of press time, though I did get to browse my beloved Aisle 320 by about 8:15 PM, so it wasn't a total loss. Unlike other celebs, though, Dan apparently went out through another entry, so I was unable to get a picture.

And that's the way it was.

[pdx] Arnold Drake World, Magic Paper Flower Man

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I've written before about Arnold Drake World, the man who does the exquisite paper flowers, lilies and roses, and does his Zen meditations in the Powell's Burnside Coffee Room, time and oft when we too camp out there. Last Saturday we saw him there and he had clearly added another trick to his already-impressive repertoire. Here's him:

Note the little white thing underneath his hands. that's one of those long folds of paper he usually has doing a ballet in the air between his hands before he transmutes it into a part of one of his creations. And that's impressive enough; if I looked up dexterity in the dictionary and didn't see his picture next to the definition, I'd be disappointed.

But he's doing more than that this time. He's got a bit of the old-school prestige going on here. He was totally levitating that piece of paper, hands flashing above and below, one side to the other. Performing, as usual, for nobody, and everybody.

If you don't admire that man's style, man, I gotta check your pulse. You can't be alive and not be moved.

[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.

[liff] Mackenzie Phillips at Powell's Books

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Seen in passing: During our usual Sunday night sacrament at Powell's Books, the actress Mackenzie Phillips appeared to promote her latest book, a series of essays on life, recovery, and addiction titled Hopeful Healing. 

I was up in Pearl browsing the art books, as is my wont; The Wife™ was mildly apprehensive that I would be invading a closed level, as celebrities such as Mackenzie create rather a stir in our still-parochial burg.

But there was no problem. Indeed, the few moments I spent seeing someone I used to crush on on TV when I was much younger than I am now were rather calming. The audience was attentive and she was engaged with them. There seemed to be a calm chemistry going on between them all.

I always thought that it was ironic that someone should speak so authoritatively on addiction and recovery should have once played in a production titled One Day At A Time. 

It was an interesting moment. There really was a sort of serenity emanating from the group that was calming. I didn't stay long, but I'm glad I went by.

Brush with greatness again, my friends.

[pdx_liff] Arnold World, Paper Flower Man, In Silent Concert

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I mentioned, in the last missive, the pleasure of watching Arnold World, he of the exquisite paper flowers, do his art in the middle of Powell's Coffee Room.

It's truly a treat. Submerged in his jam, he moves with he music and the world (or perhaps the world moves with him) and paper flies back and forth across his presence, almost as though they were blithe spirits of their own, being not so much made as negotiated to his inimitable, eventually irresistible will.

It's a public performance that's impossible not to watch.



And if you introduce yourself to him while he's working, he just might give you a blossom.

He also has a website: It's WorldPaperFlowers.com.

[pdx_liff] Powell's Books = Our Personal Sacrament

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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. 

[art_in_PDX] Dianna Ahearn, Creating In Powell's Coffee Room

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The Coffee Room at Powell's City of Books has become an addiction to us not merely because of the caffeine content and that you have to go through the rest of Powell's just to get there, though those are very powerful draws. No, I've seen art in its many manifestations there. The last missive is one good example. I've seen people doing art and people who are works of art themselves.

Tonight, this was hard to miss. Here, in the middle of an off-night session of Book Church, the easel on the long table against the 11th Avenue window was impossible to miss.

This portrait of Bernie Sanders on black-painted wood was done, I found, entirely in acrylics. Working in monochrome is challenging, in a different way, than working in color.

The deail is quite wonderful and shows a skillful hand.

Here's the owner of that hand, who graciously consented to allowing me a picture:

This is Dianna Ahearn, and she has a Facebook presence at https://www.facebook.com/ohtheplacesyoullgooo. I love anyone who puts the hard work on display in public. It's one of the thrills of visiting Powell's on a regular basis.

So it goes. 

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

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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. 

[drawing liff] Figure Drawing For All It's Worth At A Price. Just One Condition …

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Now, amongst all my interests I do flash searches for when on the premises at Powell's City o' Books, is Andrew Loomis. In one of my recent missives I did note that you can find some of his earlier works there in vintage collectible volumes, and a particular Walter Foster release of his, originally priced at $1.00, was on sale for $45.00.

I don't criticize here. I handled it most thoughtfully. Its condition was immaculate.

So, when I did a customer lookup for Loomis and found that Figure Drawing For All It's Worth was on sale for the unexpectedly delightful bargain price of $14.95, you know I had to look that stuff up! I noticed, though, it was trade paperback, in the Red Room, Japanese language-generic.

Hmm. The hunt, however, was on. It was more difficult than anticipated, or maybe as difficult as anticipated, because its size and cover design made it blend in with the rest of the Japanese books, which all share a similar design and color grammar. But I did find it. And here it is:

And it would have gone home with me, at that price, but the value of Loomis' texts is that there's a wealth of warmth, humor, and knowledge in the words, and with me being absolutely illiterate in Japanese, it would never be more than an interesting bagatelle around here.

If you read Nihongo, and love drawing, though, there's a treat for you waiting at Powell's right now. They have just the one copy.

[pdx_liff] Powell's City of Books On The Afternoon Of Pride Weekend

3332.

Sunday evening was, as usual, church for us, and by church, I mean hanging out Powells City of Books drinking coffee (well, iced tea that day ... it's been warming up) and looking through books we will either purchase or bookmark for future acquisition, and watching the world go by on 11th and West Burnside.

W Burnside looking east toward Oak

Of course, it's been Pride Weekend here in Portland, and it was wild, a good time had by all. We didn't go ourselves, not only did we have a sort of a mixed-up weekend, but the last thing our LGBTQ friends need is a cis het culture vulturing it. It's their space. I respect this.

But there was a lot of people thronging Powell's, as is the case whenever there's a big event in town. A lot of beautiful, beautiful people, and I think the beauty was probably multiplied by it being Pride. After all, what else can happen when you have an entire day dedicated to stepping aside and concentrating on remaking ones'-self into a person who lives and lets other people live?

Oh, I'm not talking about queer people. They seem pretty cool about themselves already. I'm talking about us straights who still have a little evolution to do. I'm working on mine. Are you working on yours?

So, this year's Pride is symbolized and sanctified by this picture. I was in the coffee room waiting on The Wife™ to catch up to me when I saw this person. Absolutely loved the countenance. Very beautiful and artistic. And so I requested permission to pict, and she gracefully granted.

Most beatific. Glad to be here.

Completing the tableau, the prettiest ugly car you ever saw, a classic VW Karmann Ghia, or what happened when VW decided to design a sports car. When I was a kid, I thought they were pretty ugly. Now, I have the attitude best encompassed by the person who described the actor Richard Boone, back during the Paladin days, which I paraphrase here:

The car is so ugly, it's beautiful.

The picture is blurred because my camera decided to be a brat and focus on the plate glass rather than the object in the street. The passenger was thrilled to be lensed, though. That much was apparent from the look on her face.

If you drive a classic VW, people are going to look. Know that going in, Homo sapiens volkswageniensis. 

[pdx] Powell's Friends and Family Sale … This Sunday

3270.

Powell's Friends and Family sale, in case you haven't heard of it, happens this weekend. All you have to do is flash the Friends and Family coupon to get the 30% discount from your entire purchase.

You don't need a thneed, you need this, manifestly. There's never been a friends and family circle it's been so easy to get into.

To get the coupon, all you have to do is sign up for the Powell's Newsletter, by going to http://www.powells.com/ff2016 and following the destructions.

The next step, padawan, is yours.