Bikes and Ballet

Tonight I was going to blog about the new Zoobomb sculpture that is scheduled to be unveiled dedicated late Friday afternoon at the corner of SW 13th and Burnside. Art, Stark Street, and happy hour... three of my favorite things, right? But I see that the Portland Mercury is doing an excellent job of covering this, and (Spoiler Alert!) the BikePortland.org even has a sneak peek at the new piece, so please just click through to see their coverage. You might even be enticed to take the Zoobombers up on their invitation to don one of those animal costumes you've got laying around and come join the festivities.

But speaking of The Mercury's good coverage. Is it just me, or are the arts like the center of the media universe lately? Juicy little cross-over stories of late have helped, like the Arts Mayor Scandal and the great Coliseum debate. But also, in general, interest in the arts seems on an uptick, and dozens of fantastic arts-centric blogs are certainly contributing to the phenomenon. But I'm not just talking not just about the authors of these stories, it's also about the readers.

Oh, the readers. Have you seen the batshit crazy going on in the comments section of Barry Johnson's OBT story?!? Wow. People are really into this. Even Lars Larson is monitoring the situation, lord help us all. And even though half or more of the public's online comments are regrettable, I think they are actually helping motivate folks who might have otherwise stayed detached, stirring them to stand with the ballet and fight for all things symbolic of art and artistic excellence in our community.

The rising sentiment on the street and in the blogosphere seems to be that if we can just save the ballet now, we/they can fix it to be a better business in the fall. And I'm beginning to think there's enough willpower brewing to pull it all off.