Last week, I participated in a form of collaborative creative engagement that contributed to building cultural community. In lay terms: I played music with a band in a bar for beer.
My fellow music-makers and I (a.k.a. Bourbon Jockey) appeared at Roots Organic Brewing Company in Southeast Portland. We were the evening headliners, as evidenced by our name written prominently on the chalkboard by the door.
We had fun. We helped the establishment move some beer. The people who left when we started to play were planning to leave anyway, and good riddance to them. We kept the volume to a level that allowed amiable conversation by those who were willing to shout at each other. Friends, family and strangers mixed. No fights broke out.
In addition to myself (intrepid front man), Matthew Jones (on upright bass) and Alan Cole (on other guitar), we were accompanied by a young fellow we call “Conga Dave” on account of not knowing his full name. When we last played at Roots, Alan left the stage in the middle of a tune, announcing “I’m going to see if they have a conga drum somewhere.” He rooted around a storage closet and retrieved said drum, then called one of his Lewis & Clark students up on stage to join us. With that simple act, Bourbon Jockey acquired a drummer. We invited Conga Dave to play along last week, though we neglected to confirm whether the closet at Roots still contained a conga drum. It didn’t, so Dave improvised with a few buckets, a shaker and a tambourine played with his foot. In the parlance of musicologists, he employed idiophones rather than a membranophone, but we don't need to get technical about it.
I pulled some video from the bar's security cameras for the benefit and edification of fans who were too stove up to make it out on Thursday night.
1) This first one is a Tom Waits song from whence we derived our name: “Jockey Full of Bourbon.” Sorry about my massive cabeza filling the frame.
2) This next one captures the Bourbon Jockey spirit. While we were playing, we noticed a lone fellow in the corner playing along on a concertina. He was also dressed as a pirate. We coaxed him out front to join us in an impromptu rendition of the Hank Williams classic, “Jambalaya.”
3) A little blues and testifying, with our version of the T-Bone Walker tune, "Stormy Monday" in which I blow on a harmonica and yell.
4) You're still here? Well then here's our take on "Route 66."
If you're hankering for more (and who wouldn't be?) you can find a few more videos on YouTube. Search for "Bourbon Jockey Roots Brewing" to find them. Or not.
We'll be back sometime in June, so put a hold on your entire calendar for the month. I'll keep you posted.
Showing posts with label Portland free stuff. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Portland free stuff. Show all posts
Bourbon Jockey Live!
Did I mention that the amateur musical ensemble with which I make joyous music will be performing at Roots Organic Brewing Company on Thursday, May 20, 2010? You are invited to join the festivities anytime from 8:00 to 11:00 or so. This won't be a "concert," so don't worry about arriving on time, staying through the whole set, or even paying much attention to what we're doing. Consider our music to be a soundtrack to drinking beer and hanging out with friends.
We'll be wailing and caterwauling through an ever-growing list of songs from the Great American Honky Tonk Song Book. In honor of flooding and oil spills, we'll be singing tunes from Nashville and New Orleans. We'll cover everything from Hank Williams to Tom Waits, from Fats Domino to Fats Waller. We might even let you sing along. All are invited to become Bourbonites by joining our fan club, The Bourbon Dynasty. It'll be fun.
I usually don cowboy boots and hat for these gigs, but I'm thinking of showing up in this getup:
We'll be wailing and caterwauling through an ever-growing list of songs from the Great American Honky Tonk Song Book. In honor of flooding and oil spills, we'll be singing tunes from Nashville and New Orleans. We'll cover everything from Hank Williams to Tom Waits, from Fats Domino to Fats Waller. We might even let you sing along. All are invited to become Bourbonites by joining our fan club, The Bourbon Dynasty. It'll be fun.
I usually don cowboy boots and hat for these gigs, but I'm thinking of showing up in this getup:
In case you can't read the small print, here's the oh-so-sexy ad copy:
One easy piece.
Because one is enough, when it’s you. Show where you’re headed in the ultimate fashion climax.
Fits so tight it shows all you’ve got …you’re a walking turn-on. And treats your body as well as she does.
Easy on, easy off, quick as a flick of her tongue. Sexy cool crinkle cloth for those hot nights to come. Designed with your desires in mind …she’ll eat you alive in it.
The Big Zip in 50% polyester/50% cotton. Long-sleeved in rust, blue or black. Short-sleeved in natural, blue or camel.
Are you man enough to fill it?
$45
Of Your Assistance I Implore
Dearest fellow,
I humbly seek your most urgent attention for a matter of most import. To my attention has come news that a musical group of note by which is known as “Bourbon Jockey” will be performing at your city at the soonest Thursday night from this date. It has been my dream of my lifetime to enjoy such musical pleasure in the city of Portland Orgon.
My late-uncle, who was most fortunate to be Minister of Foreign Culture in the nation of Nigeria before his recent death, wished me to have this absurd pleasure. Having wished that for me and to assure such would take place, he placed a sum of $3,000,000 million US dollars in a secret account. This sum to be used to travel me to listen to your Bourbon Jockey, of which I am biggest fan, on May 20, 2010 at Roots Organic Brewing Company.
Having demised unfortunately of an accident, my uncle failed to leave instructions regarding the sending of this money to my account for the purpose of hearing Bourbon Jockey. My remaining relatives which are of evil intention have made to block me from my due right to this sum. More so, I am locked in a closet and prevented from all person contact except by the internets.
Of favor to me and in interest of your enjoyment of fine music, I am implore you to visit the Bourbon Jockey performance on May 20, 2010. It is of my knowledge that Bourbon Jockey makes western music of roots variety for the enjoyment of the people and the drinking of the beer.
I ask of your assistance to please attend this most important event for to write to me describing its wonders after its completion. This way I will have enjoyment too. Also, it would be of true assistance to also send me your bank account number and all codes which are necessary for making it of access to me.
For learning more, one may read of the famous Bourbon Jockey in this writing of blog from many months ago.
For learning more, one may read of the famous Bourbon Jockey in this writing of blog from many months ago.
Sincerely and with honest hope,
Mrs. Martha Kwesi Ubunde
WHO: BOURBON JOCKEY featuring Mighty Toy Cannon
WHEN: Thursday, May 20, 2010. From 8:00-ish to Whenever-ish
WHERE: Roots Organic Brewing Co., 1530 SE 7th, Portland OR
HOW: By the plucking of stringed instruments, vocalization and blowing of reeds.
WHY: Why not? You know you want to.
WHO, EXACTLY, IS BOURBON JOCKEY?
Ross McKeen (aka Mighty Toy Cannon): Vocal, Guitar, Harmonica
Matthew Jones (aka Mr. Jones): Bass
Alan Jones (aka The Perfesser): Guitar and harmony vocals
+ Mystery Guest Percussionist known only as Conga Dave
A day in the life ...
To avoid putting words in your mouth, your part in today's playlet will be voiced by Charlie Brown's teacher.
[LIGHTS COME UP ON A STREET CORNER]
ME: Oh, hi! It's been awhile.
YOU: Wah wah, wah wah wah.
ME: I know, I've been busy for the past week.
YOU: Wah wah!
ME: That long? Wow, a month sure goes by fast.
YOU: Wah wah wah?
ME: Not much. You know, stuff ... keeping busy.
YOU: Wah wha?
ME: Well we saw a great production of "Hamlet" at Coho last week. Oh, we also saw Avatar. Finally! The last ones in the world to see it.
YOU: Wha wah?
ME: Today? Today I had to work, even though it's President's Day. That sucks. But I did see five guys walking around in President masks today. Here, look: I took a picture on my cell phone.
YOU: Wah wha wha wha?
ME: The second guy who looks like a black John Kerry? I think that's supposed to be Obama.
YOU: Wah wah wha.
ME: Right back atcha. Hey, I gotta get back to work.
[LIGHTS FADE TO BLACK]
[LIGHTS COME UP ON A STREET CORNER]
ME: Oh, hi! It's been awhile.
YOU: Wah wah, wah wah wah.
ME: I know, I've been busy for the past week.
YOU: Wah wah!
ME: That long? Wow, a month sure goes by fast.
YOU: Wah wah wah?
ME: Not much. You know, stuff ... keeping busy.
YOU: Wah wha?
ME: Well we saw a great production of "Hamlet" at Coho last week. Oh, we also saw Avatar. Finally! The last ones in the world to see it.
YOU: Wha wah?
ME: Today? Today I had to work, even though it's President's Day. That sucks. But I did see five guys walking around in President masks today. Here, look: I took a picture on my cell phone.
YOU: Wah wha wha wha?
ME: The second guy who looks like a black John Kerry? I think that's supposed to be Obama.
YOU: Wah wah wha.
ME: Right back atcha. Hey, I gotta get back to work.
[LIGHTS FADE TO BLACK]
Be There or Be Square
Ladies & Gentlemen
Aficionados of Fine Music and Satisfying Beer
Members of the Press
Step forward and prepare to be dazzled, stunned and stupefied as The Mighty Toy Cannon and the members of the acclaimed musical ensemble, Bourbon Jockey, regale you with feats of vocal virtuosity and strumming of stringed instruments in a manner most astonishing. Step back, there's no need to push, shove or jostle--there will be plenty of room for all of you without raising a ruckus.
Should you choose to partake of a Bourbon Jockey performance, you will be transported on a journey down lost highways and dusty byways of America where you will meet truck drivers, libertine women and deadbeat desperados in the throes of drunken sorrow. Accompanied by the joyous amalgam of melody, harmony and rhythm, you will be besotted by tales of heartbreak and redemption, hope and despair. The bass notes will rumble deep in your bowels whilst the high notes shall pierce the veil of heaven and wrap you as if by the gossamer wings of the very angels themselves.
FEAR NOT brave spectator! The burden of sadness and introspection thus launched in your heart and mind may be soothed by quaffing ales concocted through the alchemical magic of the artisans of Roots Organic Brewing Company of Southeast Portland, Oregon and poured with the steady hand of attentive servers dedicated to ministering to your needs and lubricating your parched throat with AMBROSIA.
How much would you expect to pay for an evening of entertainment that lifts the soul while edifying in such a potent fashion? What price the opportunity to hear stirring tales of sin and transgression without suffering the searing heat of BRIMSTONE upon your own reddened cheeks?
FEAR NOT brave spectator! The burden of sadness and introspection thus launched in your heart and mind may be soothed by quaffing ales concocted through the alchemical magic of the artisans of Roots Organic Brewing Company of Southeast Portland, Oregon and poured with the steady hand of attentive servers dedicated to ministering to your needs and lubricating your parched throat with AMBROSIA.
How much would you expect to pay for an evening of entertainment that lifts the soul while edifying in such a potent fashion? What price the opportunity to hear stirring tales of sin and transgression without suffering the searing heat of BRIMSTONE upon your own reddened cheeks?
Would you not gladly drop a treasury note adorned with the visage of Andrew Jackson into a collection plate for such a privilege? Would you not swoon upon being informed that the only cost of this extravaganza is the humble sacrifice of a token contribution--that is to say that the entry fee is just one thin dime? Two nickels are enough to swing aside the turnstile and afford you the opportunity to partake in the dulcet tones of this renowned ensemble of chamber players steeped in the vernacular of American roots music.
Would you not be further stunned to learn that this meager fee --one-tenth of an American dollar!--were to be fully and unconditionally rebated to you immediately, such that the true cost of this once-in-a-lifetime event is NOT A SINGLE PENNY (as long as you fully commit in your heart within the next ten minutes)?
Yes, you have not misheard us, ladies and gentlemen. But let us repeat this message for the weak-minded and slow of hearing: For the price of a small portion of your leisure and sporting time, you can experience one of the most FASCINATING and CURIOUS musical experiences of the year—indeed of your entire lifetime. Many years hence, your great-grandchildren will gather around your deathbed imploring you to sacrifice your FINAL breath to tell them about the night you heard Mighty Toy Cannon and Bourbon Jockey perform at Roots Organic Brewing Company in the early weeks of the year of Two Aught Ten. Can you fathom the ignomy of admitting to your progeny that you stayed home that evening to watch television?
Don’t take our word for it, heed the insights of others who have bathed in the euphonious river of glorious sound produced by this remarkable conspiracy of musical genius:
“I liked it. It was fun, I guess. The beer was real good. The band looked like they were having fun. I have to get up early tomorrow morning,” said one delighted spectator as he left the venue in the middle of Bourbon Jockey’s penultimate public performance last year.
“They seem to be having a good time up there,” reported another audience member as she plugged her ears, presumably to forestall an overload of joyous goodwill.
Another dumbstruck listener said, “I don’t know what to say. I guess I'll fall back on something my daddy always used to say, ‘Judge not, lest ye be judged.’ I mean, who am I to define what’s good? Look, I could tell you that it wasn’t horrible, but that’s really all I feel comfortable saying right now. Why are you writing this down? I liked the beer and the servers were nice. The band did seem to be having fun, and it’s not like I had anything better to do.”
One long-time fan proffers this advice: “Try to get there early in the set because the singer seems to forget the lyrics the later it gets. Unless you like a lot of humming, you might want to arrive before they’re all drunk, though there’s a better choice of seats after the first fifteen minutes.”
If you doubt the wisdom of your neighbors and common citizens, listen to what the experts have to say. Ethnomusicologist Humphrey Von Humphrey said this after listening to an acetate recording of Bourbon Jockey:
In an unpublished review, a noted cultural critic declared, "It's as if T-Bone Walker and Hank Williams had a baby. And that baby was born with withered arms and something wrong with its soft palate and was raised by, gosh I don't know, Patsy Cline. And maybe it has a hugely swollen tongue or something. Oh, and the baby is drunk too. Forget the baby analogy ... it's more like if Howling Wolf and George Jones were arm wrestling while Fats Domino and Fats Waller argued over which one of the two was fatter. Never mind. There's just a lot going on during a Bourbon Jockey concert and these are grown men who should know better."
Important Details:
Bourbon Jockey
Thursday, January 7, 2009
Yes, you have not misheard us, ladies and gentlemen. But let us repeat this message for the weak-minded and slow of hearing: For the price of a small portion of your leisure and sporting time, you can experience one of the most FASCINATING and CURIOUS musical experiences of the year—indeed of your entire lifetime. Many years hence, your great-grandchildren will gather around your deathbed imploring you to sacrifice your FINAL breath to tell them about the night you heard Mighty Toy Cannon and Bourbon Jockey perform at Roots Organic Brewing Company in the early weeks of the year of Two Aught Ten. Can you fathom the ignomy of admitting to your progeny that you stayed home that evening to watch television?
Don’t take our word for it, heed the insights of others who have bathed in the euphonious river of glorious sound produced by this remarkable conspiracy of musical genius:
“I liked it. It was fun, I guess. The beer was real good. The band looked like they were having fun. I have to get up early tomorrow morning,” said one delighted spectator as he left the venue in the middle of Bourbon Jockey’s penultimate public performance last year.
“They seem to be having a good time up there,” reported another audience member as she plugged her ears, presumably to forestall an overload of joyous goodwill.
Another dumbstruck listener said, “I don’t know what to say. I guess I'll fall back on something my daddy always used to say, ‘Judge not, lest ye be judged.’ I mean, who am I to define what’s good? Look, I could tell you that it wasn’t horrible, but that’s really all I feel comfortable saying right now. Why are you writing this down? I liked the beer and the servers were nice. The band did seem to be having fun, and it’s not like I had anything better to do.”
One long-time fan proffers this advice: “Try to get there early in the set because the singer seems to forget the lyrics the later it gets. Unless you like a lot of humming, you might want to arrive before they’re all drunk, though there’s a better choice of seats after the first fifteen minutes.”
If you doubt the wisdom of your neighbors and common citizens, listen to what the experts have to say. Ethnomusicologist Humphrey Von Humphrey said this after listening to an acetate recording of Bourbon Jockey:
Their harmonies are wholly unique, not only within our traditional concepts of western music but, verily, to the entirety of world culture. Their choices of harmonic intervals – and their apparent ease in shifting those intervals at a microtonal level from moment-to-moment is astonishing. I can safely say that I’ve never heard anything quite like it. The jarring and unexpected microtonal dissonance carries into their instrumental work as well. I’m telling you that it is physically impossible to get that particular sound unless you intentionally fail to tune your instruments relative to each other. Of course, that would be crazy!
Another thing that intrigues me – perhaps 'baffles' is a better term-- is the band's artistic strategies with regard to shifting rhythmic patterns and its curious selection of tempo changes. As an ensemble, they display an uncanny knack for randomly speeding, then slowing the tempo– sometimes even within the traditional verse/chorus form. It’s simply remarkable that they all manage to end each song at approximately the same time—and here I’m talking about ending within at least two measures of each other. I’m reminded of the keening and wailing that accompanies the funeral rites of some tribal cultures, particularly the Oomaomao people who are, as a race, totally deaf.
Important Details:
Bourbon Jockey
Thursday, January 7, 2009
--starting at 8:00 pm going until they tire--
Roots Organic Brewing Company
Roots Organic Brewing Company
1530 SE 7th Avenue, Portland Oregon
No Admission Fee, Cover Charge or other Consideration
No Admission Fee, Cover Charge or other Consideration
Free Membership in the Bourbon Dynasty
(the exclusive Fan Club of Bourbon Jockey)
Recommended Dress: Classy Dungarees/Tube Tops
Bourbon Jockey is:
Ross McKeen (aka The Mighty Toy Cannon): Singin’, guitar slingin’ and harmonica blowin'.
Alan Cole (aka The Perfesser): Six string fireworks and harmony yelpin'.
Matthew Jones (aka Matthew): Upright bass thumpin' and gravitas.
Ross McKeen (aka The Mighty Toy Cannon): Singin’, guitar slingin’ and harmonica blowin'.
Alan Cole (aka The Perfesser): Six string fireworks and harmony yelpin'.
Matthew Jones (aka Matthew): Upright bass thumpin' and gravitas.
Fall.ART.Live ... Beer.DONUTS.Barbeque
This Saturday, Oregon Ballet Theatre (OBT) is hosting a free arts shindig “Fall-ART-Live” in its studio and out in the parking lot of its home base at 818 SE Sixth Avenue (between Belmont and Morrison).
The event will include short performances and studio workshops for both kids and adults. Most of the performances will be dance oriented (OBT, Polaris Dance, Linda Austin Dance, Josie Mosely Dance and Northwest Dance Project), though the Portland Opera is also on the roster. The workshops cover dance and theater. Do Jump! is in the mix, as is one of my favorites, Philip Cuomo (Portland Actors Conservatory and Third Rail) teaching “Body Imagination: An Intro to Physical Theatre.”
OBT has offered space and tables for other arts organizations to promote themselves and answer questions. Look for some of Culture Shock’s friends from Miracle Theatre, Portland Center Stage, Oregon Cultural Trust., Live Wire!, Mississippi Studios, White Bird and others. If you drop by in the afternoon between 2-3:30, I’ll be pulling a shift at the Oregon Children’s Theatre table. And if that’s not enough, you’ll find a beer garden (Bridgeport) and food from purveyors such as Bunk Sandwiches, Koi Fusion BBQ and the ubiquitous Voodoo Donuts.
OBT threw the event together quickly in the aftermath of its wildly successful Gala fundraiser and emergency appeal earlier this summer. The event is inspired by the organization’s new-found commitment to engaging the community, and is also intended to partially fill the gap created when it cancelled this year’s “OBT Exposed” which has been putting a rehearsal stage smack-dab in the middle of Portland’s Park Blocks for the past decade or more.
Over at the Mercury’s Blogtown site, Stephen Marc Beaudoin posted a jaded take on the event. Under the classy headline, “Fall.Art.(Dead?),” Mr. Beaudoin yawns and smirks at the whole thing. He seems to have gotten the impression that the OBT-initiated event is supposed to be a “new city-wide arts fest.” While OBT does call Fall-ART-Live a “festival,” nobody is seriously pretending that it’s anything more than a day-long arts fair and it's unfair to prejudge it as anything else.
In a follow-up comment Mr. Beaudoin points out that “many of the organizations hawking tickets at the event opted out of providing performers.” (In his post, these organizations are there to “pimp their wares”). Makes those organizations sound kind of sleazy and cheap, doesn’t it? Where do they get off not performing anyway?
How about if we try phrasing it this way: “Many of the organizations that were unable to perform are happy to have a chance to distribute information, meet the public and advocate for the arts.”
Dear readers, there’s a fine line between good-natured acerbic wit and just plain dickishness. Do me a favor and remind me when I step over that line. Which I will. Except that I'll claim it's just my world-weariness showing.
The event will include short performances and studio workshops for both kids and adults. Most of the performances will be dance oriented (OBT, Polaris Dance, Linda Austin Dance, Josie Mosely Dance and Northwest Dance Project), though the Portland Opera is also on the roster. The workshops cover dance and theater. Do Jump! is in the mix, as is one of my favorites, Philip Cuomo (Portland Actors Conservatory and Third Rail) teaching “Body Imagination: An Intro to Physical Theatre.”
OBT has offered space and tables for other arts organizations to promote themselves and answer questions. Look for some of Culture Shock’s friends from Miracle Theatre, Portland Center Stage, Oregon Cultural Trust., Live Wire!, Mississippi Studios, White Bird and others. If you drop by in the afternoon between 2-3:30, I’ll be pulling a shift at the Oregon Children’s Theatre table. And if that’s not enough, you’ll find a beer garden (Bridgeport) and food from purveyors such as Bunk Sandwiches, Koi Fusion BBQ and the ubiquitous Voodoo Donuts.
OBT threw the event together quickly in the aftermath of its wildly successful Gala fundraiser and emergency appeal earlier this summer. The event is inspired by the organization’s new-found commitment to engaging the community, and is also intended to partially fill the gap created when it cancelled this year’s “OBT Exposed” which has been putting a rehearsal stage smack-dab in the middle of Portland’s Park Blocks for the past decade or more.
Over at the Mercury’s Blogtown site, Stephen Marc Beaudoin posted a jaded take on the event. Under the classy headline, “Fall.Art.(Dead?),” Mr. Beaudoin yawns and smirks at the whole thing. He seems to have gotten the impression that the OBT-initiated event is supposed to be a “new city-wide arts fest.” While OBT does call Fall-ART-Live a “festival,” nobody is seriously pretending that it’s anything more than a day-long arts fair and it's unfair to prejudge it as anything else.
In a follow-up comment Mr. Beaudoin points out that “many of the organizations hawking tickets at the event opted out of providing performers.” (In his post, these organizations are there to “pimp their wares”). Makes those organizations sound kind of sleazy and cheap, doesn’t it? Where do they get off not performing anyway?
How about if we try phrasing it this way: “Many of the organizations that were unable to perform are happy to have a chance to distribute information, meet the public and advocate for the arts.”
Dear readers, there’s a fine line between good-natured acerbic wit and just plain dickishness. Do me a favor and remind me when I step over that line. Which I will. Except that I'll claim it's just my world-weariness showing.
Portland Adult Soapbox Derby Weekend!
Would Culture Shock be doing its job of keenly observing art and life in Portland if we didn’t mention that the 2009 Portland Adult Soapbox Derby is this Saturday (August 22, 2009)?
Since 1996, racers have been speeding down the twisty roads that flank Portland’s own volcano, Mt. Tabor, risking life, limb and dignity. What began as an impromptu guerilla event seems to have matured--though just a tiny bit. While there are now rules and a $100 entry fee to defray costs, it’s still a rambunctious affair. Fortunately, it has not taken on the stink of big corporate sponsorship; while PBR and New Deal Vodka have logos on the flyer, most of the sponsors are local.
The event rulebook mandates that vehicles have no fewer than three wheels making contact to the roadway (no maximum is specified), and that gravity is the sole power source. Vehicles must have functional brakes (the organizers clearly state "no Fred Flintstone brakes"). Builders are allowed to spend no more than $300 on each car. Perhaps most importantly, "no pyrotechnics, fire, or fireworks are allowed in the park or as part of any car." Water and water balloons are considered acceptable weapons for deployment against other cars.
On the registration form, entrants are asked to state a preference as follows:
Our car is on the side of (check one) . . .
Art: ___ Science: ___
Since 1996, racers have been speeding down the twisty roads that flank Portland’s own volcano, Mt. Tabor, risking life, limb and dignity. What began as an impromptu guerilla event seems to have matured--though just a tiny bit. While there are now rules and a $100 entry fee to defray costs, it’s still a rambunctious affair. Fortunately, it has not taken on the stink of big corporate sponsorship; while PBR and New Deal Vodka have logos on the flyer, most of the sponsors are local.
The event rulebook mandates that vehicles have no fewer than three wheels making contact to the roadway (no maximum is specified), and that gravity is the sole power source. Vehicles must have functional brakes (the organizers clearly state "no Fred Flintstone brakes"). Builders are allowed to spend no more than $300 on each car. Perhaps most importantly, "no pyrotechnics, fire, or fireworks are allowed in the park or as part of any car." Water and water balloons are considered acceptable weapons for deployment against other cars.
On the registration form, entrants are asked to state a preference as follows:
Our car is on the side of (check one) . . .
Art: ___ Science: ___
The racing starts with preliminary heats at 10:00. One fan recommends going early in the day if you want to see the more “colorful” and wacky cars – by the end of the day, only the fast cars are left in the competition.
For this event Portland Parks has made an exception to its standard “no alcohol” policy by allowing the organizers to set up a “beer garden.” You can bring wine and beer (no kegs) and consume your choice of refreshing beverage within ten feet of the race course. A map of the course and spectator areas is available at the event's website.
I haven't decided whether to put this on my own cultural calendar for the weekend; however, Portland's drinking water reservoirs are on Mt. Tabor and might need to be protected by the Miniscule Blue Helmets. *
* As of this afternoon, Blue Helmets have landed on the Eastbank Esplanade, the Oregon Coast, the Pearl District and Timberline Lodge. One is on his way to Alaska.
Blue Helmets: The Abridged Version
I realize that my recent post about the Miniscule Blue Helmets on a Massive Quest is a tad long for this attention-span deprived age of microblogging. I don't want the blue helmet quest to be stymied because my brain ran amok, so here's an abridged version:
Over a month ago, Lisa Radon tweeted about a project through which toy soldiers are being dispersed globally, their spread documented in photos and by flagging their positions on a world map at the project's website. She drew the comparison with Scott Wayne Indiana, a Portland artist who began tethering toy horses to the iron rings found on many Portland curbs. I was amused and intrigued by the project, and commented on Ms. Radon’s tweet, expressing my surprise that none of the blue helmeted soldiers had arrived in Portland.
Last week, I received a call from a former landlady telling me that a package addressed to me had arrived from the Netherlands. I had no idea what it might contain. On Saturday, I picked up the package to discover that it was a collection of nine toy soldiers in a variety of poses, and each sporting a blue helmet.
A postcard accompanying the package said:
Dear Mister Cannon,
twitter: ‘I’m surprised the mini blue helmets haven’t arr in PDX yet. Soon, perhaps.’
Well … here they are! Looking forward to your uploads.
Cheers, Pierre
Pierre Derks is the artist responsible for creating the “Miniscule Blue Helmets on a Massive Quest” project. He spotted my tweet response to Ms. Radon, tracked down my address (albeit one that is out-of-date) and enlisted me to the cause. His note quoted my original tweet.
My wife and I became co-conspirators in the project, sharing ideas of where to place and photograph the soldiers. We decided that Portland’s bridges not only need to be guarded, but are photogenic and iconic symbols of our city. We also decided to start with just one soldier in order to get Portland on the map without delay. We completed our first mission on Sunday afternoon. It was a lovely outing.
We plan to continue placing blue helmeted soldiers around town, perhaps guided with input from readers, perhaps by enlisting volunteers, and perhaps by sending toy soldiers to other cities. In fact, I understand that one blue helmeted soldier has taken up a post on the Oregon coast just this afternoon. [UPDATE: Mission accomplished--see above].
Here's a picture of our soldier at his final guard post:
Last night, I didn’t take care to include all the appropriate links I should have:
The home base of the Miniscule Blue Helmets on a Massive Quest is here.
My new Dutch pen-pal, Pierre Derks, has a website here.
A gallery with which Mr. Derks is associated, “Le Grand Crew” can be found here.
The image shown below is by Mr. Derks and promotes an exhibit titled, “La Grande Boucherie.” The image was on the postcard Pierre enclosed in the package.
Lisa Radon twitters as @lisaradon and is worth following if you’re at all interested in cultural policy and events. Recently, she launched a culture and arts blog for Portland Monthly titled, "Culturephile: Portland Arts." Bookmark it.
If you want to learn more about the sidewalk horses of Portland, visit this spot on Scott Wayne Indiana's website "39 Forks." You can also read more on this site created by fans, which includes photos, maps and a guest book.
I can’t blame you if you skipped my original, much longer account of the Blue Helmets or thought, "I'll come back to this later." (You won't). My first draft was even three times longer with such elements as:
(1) A car chase through Ladd’s Addition thwarted by a bicycle parade.
(2) A surprise early-morning visit from agents of Homeland Security.
(3) A mysterious ChrisCraft cabin cruiser with a telephoto lens poking out a porthole.
I may continue working on that version, if only for my own amusement and as a writing exercise.
A final note: I should point out that all dialogue attributed to my dear wife in that longer post was entirely made up by me.
UPDATE:
When posting about the Miniscule Blue Helmets via other social media, I’ve been linking to the post you’re now reading. If you’re intrigued by the Blue Helmets and don’t mind self-indulgent imaginative storytelling, I recommend these posts:
My original, long-form story of how I got involved in this mission.
A letter to home from Ingvar, a Blue Helmet from Sweden.
A plea for financial assistance from Charles Remmy, a Blue Helmet from the Benin Republic.
Should I add more reports of Blue Helmets, you can find them by clicking on the “Blue Helmets” label over in the right hand column.
A Note on Friday
The lazy days of summer have revealed themselves to me of late, as you can all tell by my lack of participation in blogging these past two weeks. I want to thank Mighty Toy Cannon for his continued ability to entertain us with some top-notch posts; many of you who read him here have cited him as one of your favorite bloggers in Portland, and I agree!
It's just that this arts administration stuff is hard work, especially during the summer where much time is spent contemplating, brainstorming, evaluating, writing, fundraising, and preparing for the future. All my mental energies and creative juices have been spent at this work, leaving precious little energy to explore nuggets of creativity on this blog. Hell, I couldn't even muster a review of the shows I recently saw in Ashland. That's so unlike me. My secret hope is that next weekend's JAW festivities will incite in me some kind of renewed enthusiasm for rampant creativity that I cannot help but contribute here to the conversations that are sure to take place there.
We did have a fun time at Art Spark last night. Filmmaker Andy Blubaugh was shooting a "scene" with all of the partygoers on the roof of the Hotel Deluxe parking garage. Down the street at City Hall, PDX Pop Now was kicking off their summer series, and Literary Arts staged a benefit for their Writers in the Schools program with poetry and fiction readings inside the cool Newmark Theater. (Did you hear the Dickman brothers on OPB earlier in the day?) Over in the Pearl, PCS was wrapping up its Made in Oregon series, part of the larger JAW festival that continues with more readings next weekend.
Yes, being part of it all IS hard work, and I labored for a full five days this week -- oy! As I anticipate the weekend I am reminded of a jingle that my grandfather wrote many, many years ago. It's a catchy little tune, actually, but since I cannot sing it to you, and I'm not about to make a You Tube video of myself doing so, I suggest you read it plainly and fight the impulse to fit it into The Mamas and the Papas' Monday Monday melody. My grandfather's simple sentiments on Friday came first, and he's more of the vaudeville type than a hippie.
Friday, Friday
Friday is my favorite day
Friday, Friday
Always been my favorite day
Monday is bummer
Tuesday’s only fair
Wednesday’s getting better
Thursday’s almost there
But Friday, Friday
Friday is my favorite
Always been my favorite
Friday is my favorite day
E(art)h Day
Happy Earth Day!
News today that a local sustainability engineering firm, Glumac, is putting up cash and leading a community fundraising effort to establish an annual "Earth Day Art" celebration. Each year, a new piece of public art with links to sustainability will be dedicated in honor of someone who has helped pioneer the sustainability movement in Portland.
The inaugural sculpture in this effort is entitled "Bows to Blows -- Sentinels for Peace and Sustainability," commissioned of Seattle artist Buster Simpson, whose most noteworthy piece of Portland public art is the "Host Analog" outside of the Oregon Convention Center. Buster's new sculpture, to be installed along the South Waterfront Greenway, will feature two salvaged (dare I say "repurposed?") WWII Liberty Ship bow remnants. From the artist's statement:
Portland City Commissioner Nick Fish will dedicate the artwork and reveal this year's honoree at a public ceremony in SoWa this evening at 5PM. Just take the streetcar to the SW Bond & Lane stop and stroll down the bike path to the river. The piece is still being created but there is an artistic rending of the sculpture at the site.
While you're there, stay for the launch of U of O's South Waterfront artist in residence program, 6 to 8PM at the John Ross Plaza Studio.
News today that a local sustainability engineering firm, Glumac, is putting up cash and leading a community fundraising effort to establish an annual "Earth Day Art" celebration. Each year, a new piece of public art with links to sustainability will be dedicated in honor of someone who has helped pioneer the sustainability movement in Portland.
The inaugural sculpture in this effort is entitled "Bows to Blows -- Sentinels for Peace and Sustainability," commissioned of Seattle artist Buster Simpson, whose most noteworthy piece of Portland public art is the "Host Analog" outside of the Oregon Convention Center. Buster's new sculpture, to be installed along the South Waterfront Greenway, will feature two salvaged (dare I say "repurposed?") WWII Liberty Ship bow remnants. From the artist's statement:
Sculpturally, these elements represent the transfer and acceptance of gravity and the embrace of mass and suggest shipyard inventory either during their making or their dismantling along the Willamette River. To inspire an ethic of environmental responsibility, a hand operated “stewardship bilge pump” offers reclaimed water to the adjacent river habitat. The pair of bows and the bilge pump stand to remind us of the utility and grace of transforming “swords into plowshares” for the healing of the earth.
Portland City Commissioner Nick Fish will dedicate the artwork and reveal this year's honoree at a public ceremony in SoWa this evening at 5PM. Just take the streetcar to the SW Bond & Lane stop and stroll down the bike path to the river. The piece is still being created but there is an artistic rending of the sculpture at the site.
While you're there, stay for the launch of U of O's South Waterfront artist in residence program, 6 to 8PM at the John Ross Plaza Studio.
24/7: 24 Concerts in One Day to Mark Seven Years of War
For a few moments, let's step away from the savaging of the Oregon Cultural Trust and the gloom of the coming budget battles. I just learned of an event which is as timely as it is important. The following is from the organizer's press release:
By mid-March, the United States will have been at war in Afghanistan and Iraq for seven years, yet one hardly hears that fact mentioned. To mark this important, if tragic, anniversary, over 150 of the Portland area's best classical musicians are uniting to make a giant musical gift to the city and region. Event curators Bill Crane and Thomas Lauderdale have recruited an amazing roster of performers. The public is invited.
Titled simply "24/7," it will be a series of 24 dramatic concerts, each starting upon the hour, from 7:00 p.m. Saturday, March 21, and continuing through to 7:00 p.m., Sunday, March 22.
All 24 concerts are free and will take place in the auditorium of the Wieden+Kennedy building, 224 Northwest 13th Avenue, between Davis and Everett Streets, in Portland's Pearl District. Wieden+Kennedy join the performing artists to invite sincerely all area residents of good will to these concerts. No tickets are required.
Neither a protest nor a memorial, "24/7" nonetheless is a profound calling by its performers to their fellow citizens to remember that we are a nation at war. The musicians creating 24/7 hope to move their neighbors by their music to "do what must be done" as our city, region, and nation face many challenges. This will be music of encouragement as well as entertainment.
To add to the conviviality of this big occasion, the popular and award-winning restaurant Bluehour, next door to the concert venue, will be open all night and the following day. Restaurateur Bruce Carey and chef de cuisine Kenny Giambalvo are planning a special bar menu just for 24/7 performers and audience members.
"It will be an honor to have these music lovers join us for refreshments before, after, or between the concerts. We are having so much fun planning a menu to go with that much music!," said says Bruce Carey as he considered what it will mean for his restaurant team.
And, what of the planned music itself? --
"I am heartened, thrilled, and humbled by the unparalleled enthusiasm of my musical colleagues to create this musical gift. What a 'Portland' thing to do! Everyone is working so hard and being so creative in their programming. Every program that our audience friends attends will be great" said Bill Crane as he headed off to yet another rehearsal.
Some of the 24/7 performances will be broadcast on Wieden+Kennedy’s new Global Internet radio station, WK Radio, at www.wk.com/radio. The radio station launched in January 2009 and exists to inspire provocative conversations, interviews, and artistic expressions relating to the arts, culture, music and media.
Final scheduling is still somewhat in the works and will be posted in www.wk.com/radio when confirmed, but here are highlights that have been nailed down:
By mid-March, the United States will have been at war in Afghanistan and Iraq for seven years, yet one hardly hears that fact mentioned. To mark this important, if tragic, anniversary, over 150 of the Portland area's best classical musicians are uniting to make a giant musical gift to the city and region. Event curators Bill Crane and Thomas Lauderdale have recruited an amazing roster of performers. The public is invited.
Titled simply "24/7," it will be a series of 24 dramatic concerts, each starting upon the hour, from 7:00 p.m. Saturday, March 21, and continuing through to 7:00 p.m., Sunday, March 22.
All 24 concerts are free and will take place in the auditorium of the Wieden+Kennedy building, 224 Northwest 13th Avenue, between Davis and Everett Streets, in Portland's Pearl District. Wieden+Kennedy join the performing artists to invite sincerely all area residents of good will to these concerts. No tickets are required.
Neither a protest nor a memorial, "24/7" nonetheless is a profound calling by its performers to their fellow citizens to remember that we are a nation at war. The musicians creating 24/7 hope to move their neighbors by their music to "do what must be done" as our city, region, and nation face many challenges. This will be music of encouragement as well as entertainment.
To add to the conviviality of this big occasion, the popular and award-winning restaurant Bluehour, next door to the concert venue, will be open all night and the following day. Restaurateur Bruce Carey and chef de cuisine Kenny Giambalvo are planning a special bar menu just for 24/7 performers and audience members.
"It will be an honor to have these music lovers join us for refreshments before, after, or between the concerts. We are having so much fun planning a menu to go with that much music!," said says Bruce Carey as he considered what it will mean for his restaurant team.
And, what of the planned music itself? --
"I am heartened, thrilled, and humbled by the unparalleled enthusiasm of my musical colleagues to create this musical gift. What a 'Portland' thing to do! Everyone is working so hard and being so creative in their programming. Every program that our audience friends attends will be great" said Bill Crane as he headed off to yet another rehearsal.
Some of the 24/7 performances will be broadcast on Wieden+Kennedy’s new Global Internet radio station, WK Radio, at www.wk.com/radio. The radio station launched in January 2009 and exists to inspire provocative conversations, interviews, and artistic expressions relating to the arts, culture, music and media.
Final scheduling is still somewhat in the works and will be posted in www.wk.com/radio when confirmed, but here are highlights that have been nailed down:
Saturday, March 21
The first program (Sat., 3/21, 7:00 p.m. sharp) A huge ensemble of brass and percussion players opens with Aaron Copland's famous "Fanfare for the Common Man" and continues with music of Gabrieli, Richard Strauss, and others.
Second up (Sat., 3/21, 8:00 p.m.) is the astonishing 17-year year-old virtuoso pianist Rosa Li, most recently heard in Portland in Mendelssohn's First Concerto with the Portland Columbia Symphony Orchestra. Her solo program will include works of Ginastera, Prokofiev, and Chopin.
At 9:00 p.m., the Portland Gay Men's Chorus, Bob Mensel, music director, will take the stage to present the critically acclaimed extended work "BraveSouls and Dreamers" of composer Robert Seeley.
Other highlights include three hours of particularly adventuresome programming by area new-music ensembles playing in succession:
11:00 p.m., Fear No Music
11:00 p.m., Fear No Music
12:00 midnight, Melegari Chamber Music Ensemble
1:00 a.m., Third Angle New Music Ensemble
Programs in the middle of the night will range from wild to mild:
3:00 a.m., . Thomas Lauderdale of "Pink Martini" in a special, extravagant program;
6:00 a.m., Pianist Ron Potts in an exceptional recital of Scarlatti, Schumann, Ravel, and Bartok.
7:00 a.m., Obo Addy, world beat drummer, in a solo frenzy and Gregory Dubay, cellist, and Bill Crane, pianist, in music of Brahms and Schubert.
And, as the day (Sunday) goes on:
8:00 a.m., Tamara Still, pianist, with Bach's "Goldberg Variations."
11:00 a.m., Pianist Jeffrey Payne of Fear No Music with ten movements from Olivier Messiaen's monumental "Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant Jésus."
12:00 noon, Vancouver tenor Les Green in a recital of French art song, including little- known works of Saint-Saëns and Fauré.
1:00 p.m., Soprano Lisa Mooyman and Mezzo-soprano Sherry Olson with Clarinetist David Hattner in a varied program, including the famous "Lakme" duet and Schubert's "Shepherd on the Rock."
4:00 p.m., Alto Angela Niederloh, pianist Janet Coleman, and violinist Julie Coleman in a wide-ranging program best described as "rip-roaring."
5:00 p.m., Violinist Carol Sindell and pianist Janet Guggenheim (two-thirds of The Florestan Trio) in a recital to include both the Franck and Debussy sonatas.
6:00 p.m. All 24/7 artists and other invited musicians will join in the final program to present the last movement of Beethoven's 9th Symphony, the "Ode to Joy." David Hattner, the new music director of the Portland Youth Philharmonic, will conduct the assembled forces, including many singers from the Portland Symphonic Choir and instrumentalists from the Oregon Symphony and other ensembles.
Still shaking out just "who will be when" are these splendid acts to be scheduled:
Portland Taiko, thunderous Japanese drumming;
Cellists Justin Kagan, Adriene Welch, Irving Levin, Gregory Dubay, and Lizzie Adelsheim
Flutist Abby Mages
Violinists Paloma Griffin, Sara Watts, Ron Blessinger, Greg Ewer, Julie Coleman, and Nick Crosa
Sopranos Ida Rae Cahana, Lisa Mooyman, Peggie Schwarz, and Marie Fiorillo
Trombonists John Walling and Robert Taylor
Pianists Carol Rich, Jon Stuber, Jeffrey Payne, Chad Heltzel, Susan Chan, Mike and Elizabeth Strickland, Janet Coleman, Jerry Deckelbaum, Win Hall, and Thomas Mark
I'll post schedule updates as the event approaches.
Piss Off
A couple months ago we were talking here about the relevance of newspapers and the shift to online content. Since that conversation I have come to realize how little I turn to The Portland Tribune anymore, even though they "publish" an online daily. Well, there's something I just hate about the online version, and it's the same thing I dislike about most online news sites: no matter how hard I try, I can't help but get sucked in and summarily pissed off by the "comments" section of any given article.
I recognize this is a strange sentiment for a blogger such as myself (however infrequent) to express -- on his blog of all places. As authors on the interweb, our egos rely upon feedback from readers (how else are we to know that you're out there?), and when a young blog like ours hits 5 comments or more we feel like we've hit the motherload of topics. (Not that we want to fall into the trap of posting topics for the sole purpose of accumulating responses.)
But here's the thing. The comments posted on Culture Shock, like most blogs I read, are wonderfully constructive and genuinely collaborative in nature. Blog commentators (commentors?) tend to lend unique insights to the topic at hand, ask wonderful follow-up questions, and can move a blogger's "article" into a wonderful conversation. On news sites like the Tribune, however, the comment section is invariably saturated with poorly crafted rhetorical statements against whatever the author has just written about. For the Trib, which tends to write more about the goings-on at City Hall than even The Oregonian, the online version tends to go something like this:
Tribune: City Commissioners enact ______________.
42 Comments: City Commissioners are stupid tax-and-spend liberals. I'm so glad I live in ________ instead of Portland.
At first these comments can be enjoyed for the humor and irony they provide, and there is one person in particular who has the unique ability to turn the focus of any article on any subject (for example: the mental health care crisis) into a diatribe against public art. Over time, however, these relentless commentaries become tiresome enough so as to discourage me from visiting what would otherwise be a decent reporting of City Hall activities. For me it's become like watching Fox news -- you can only laugh it off until you realize that these people are serious.
For this reason alone, I haven't turned to www.portlandtribune.com for several weeks, but today I was looking for something else and stumbled upon another perfect example. One of today's articles is about Randy Leonard's new loo, with some well-quoted humorous banter (albeit still slightly awkward) back and forth between he and Mayor-Elect Sam Adams, who had the honor of the first flush. Anyway. Plenty of opportunity to have intelligent conversation about whether or not the City of Portland should be investing $100-$140K per public toilet, and to speculate whether they'll be maintained satisfactorily -- right? But soon enough the comments devolve into the same old refrain.
Sam Adams has just spent the equivalent of an Intel executive's base salary on a public urinal. What does he care? It's not his money.and
You have got to love this! Portland City Hall is a laugh a day. Now I see why the citizens of Portland keep electing jokers, they are too funny! First Portland goes Green, now it's GO Brown! As an added benefit Portland can fill the pot holes in the roads with the sludge.
Then someone says they kinda like the loos, and so now THEY become the target.
By the way there Dale, what do you do? 1. A bobblehead city hall staffer, 2. a teacher, giving little skulls of mush a better way, 3. An "local artist," 4. A rich snobby lawyer are my guess's. [all sic]Kinda funny, right? And yet not really, as it reveals the frightening thought process of people around us, and reminds us how easy it is to insult people when you cannot think of a more intelligent way to disagree with them. And as I'm reading these comments, I'm thinking to myself, "wait for it..." and sure enough:
Did this loo come equipped with some public art? That could be a follow-up story.
Alright. I'm just going to tackle that one head on, and give you the follow-up story right now: No, the loo did not come with public art. As if that were the stupidest idea ever. I wish there were public art associated with these toilets -- 2% of $140K would give us $2,800 to work with, which is a decent amount for starters. Let me show you some toilet-inspired works of art to get your creative juices flowing.
(This last photo was a temporary installation that appeared in the Portland Building in 2001, "Inheritance VII" by Heidi Fletcher. Click here for the artist's statement.)
And with that, I hope that some will comment on the pros and cons of the "comment" button, and/or the practicality of public art associated with public restrooms. Of course we welcome (and even seek out) comments from those who disagree, because Culture Shock readers and other blogging practitioners know how to disagree intelligently.
A Tale of Two Cities' Parks
Portland is widely regarded as having the most parks per capita of any American city. Or, at least I think that's right. Maybe it's most acres of parkland. Or, at the very least, we have both the biggest and the smallest parks of any U.S. city. I'm pretty sure that's true, because it is stated on a framed Portland promotional poster that I often see at my workplace. In the restroom, for some reason.
Anyway, it sure makes Portland sound like a great place. More parks must mean more places to relax, recreate, enjoy (or, possibly, insulate) oneself from the urban scenery, right? And I think that's all true and good. But, really, there's so much more to it than that.
Let me first explain that I grew up in a suburb of Denver known as Aurora. Aurora has plenty of parks. Even more so, Aurora has plenty of greenbelts. For those of you who did not spend half your lives out in some analogous McMansionburg, a greenbelt is typically a multi-acre swath of arid (at least in Aurora) land that has been set aside by the local municipality to be sodded with non-native grass, rigged with a sprinkler system, then mowed and manicured, by teams of groundskeepers on a weekly basis, into a state of lush perfection.
It goes without saying that all this watering and maintenance costs taxpayer money that some would argue could be better spent on schools and/or social services, but I digress. The establishment of these greenbelt areas is done, ostensibly, to keep the viral accretion of housing developments from covering every last square foot of available land, which would thereby render the suburbs so densely overbuilt as to be almost indistinguishable to its inhabitants from the more urban environs they left behind in the first place. (It's worth noting that even our most densely built and populated cities are regarded by some foreigners as spacious and full of breathing room. But again, I digress.)
So, Portland has lots of parks, and unlike those in my native Aurora, most of them here are truly great. As the father of a four-year-old, I have had many opportunities to appreciate how great so many of them are. However, within the past few days, I've had a couple of experiences that have taken that appreciation to a new -- dare I say, "arts & cultural" -- level.
First, on Saturday 8/23, I took my daughter, Ella, with some friends to the free Oregon Symphony in the Neighborhoods concert at Mt. Scott Park. It turned out that there was a lot more to see and do there than just the symphony. We saw and heard other kinds of music, played on the playground equipment, ate bratwurst and shave ice, joked and chatted with fellow Portlanders, and enjoyed the late-summer weather. But for me, the highlight was when I sat with my friends and watched Ella and several other young kids dancing in front of the Portland Taiko stage, the late evening sun streaming through the branches of tall conifers. It reminded me again why I'm so happy to be raising my daughter in a place so unlike that uncultured suburb where I grew up. It was incredible to see her exposed to the music of multiple cultures in the span of a few hours, while also reinforcing for her the feeling of being part of a community. Public shool funding issues notwithstanding, I can't imagine a better environment to raise a child.
If this were an unusual occurrence, I wouldn't make such a claim, but the truth is, Portland affords kids and adults these kinds of opportunities all the time. I can't believe how often we've found ourselves at street fairs, waterfront festivals or neighborhood celebrations, watching local musicians and performers, and feeling so grateful for the community we live in. There was even a rather touching article about the Mt. Scott event in The Oregonian, which featured a photo of Ella dancing her taiko dance.
A similarly sublime feeling came over me again tonight, when the Regional Arts & Culture Council held its annual staff picnic in Irving Park. This is yet another beautifully wooded park, in this case filled with stately old oaks, which served as a positively lovely place for our growing family of RACC staff members and their spouses/partners and children to relax, have fun, and reflect on the past year's accomplishments together. There was ample well-maintained space for the kids to frolic, for the adults to enjoy treats of the charcoal-grilled as well as ethanol-enhanced variety, and for everyone to feel content to let their hair down on a temperate August evening.
As with the greenbelts and parks of Aurora, Colorado, I am sure we pay a sizeable chunk of our taxes to keep these urban oases safe and in good condition. But on those broad, vacant suburban greenbelts, I never once saw musicians playing, kids dancing, or people enjoying a summer evening in the company of their friends and fellow citizens. I couldn't be happier or more proud to be a resident of Portland for going on ten years now, and hopefully for many more to come.
Updated 08-27-08: I think I may have defined the term "greenbelt" incorrectly. Having read something about greenbelts today, I found that the term usually applies to urban or urban-adjacent land that remains largely undeveloped for various ecological purposes. That actually sounds like a great idea, but it leaves me even more confused about the large stretches of well-maintained lawn that I've seen in some suburban areas, usually running alongside roads or canals. They don't quite qualify as parks, so what are they? Maybe they're "greenways," although I'm also fuzzy on what that means exactly. My qwest for knowledge continues....
Anyway, it sure makes Portland sound like a great place. More parks must mean more places to relax, recreate, enjoy (or, possibly, insulate) oneself from the urban scenery, right? And I think that's all true and good. But, really, there's so much more to it than that.
Let me first explain that I grew up in a suburb of Denver known as Aurora. Aurora has plenty of parks. Even more so, Aurora has plenty of greenbelts. For those of you who did not spend half your lives out in some analogous McMansionburg, a greenbelt is typically a multi-acre swath of arid (at least in Aurora) land that has been set aside by the local municipality to be sodded with non-native grass, rigged with a sprinkler system, then mowed and manicured, by teams of groundskeepers on a weekly basis, into a state of lush perfection.
It goes without saying that all this watering and maintenance costs taxpayer money that some would argue could be better spent on schools and/or social services, but I digress. The establishment of these greenbelt areas is done, ostensibly, to keep the viral accretion of housing developments from covering every last square foot of available land, which would thereby render the suburbs so densely overbuilt as to be almost indistinguishable to its inhabitants from the more urban environs they left behind in the first place. (It's worth noting that even our most densely built and populated cities are regarded by some foreigners as spacious and full of breathing room. But again, I digress.)
So, Portland has lots of parks, and unlike those in my native Aurora, most of them here are truly great. As the father of a four-year-old, I have had many opportunities to appreciate how great so many of them are. However, within the past few days, I've had a couple of experiences that have taken that appreciation to a new -- dare I say, "arts & cultural" -- level.
First, on Saturday 8/23, I took my daughter, Ella, with some friends to the free Oregon Symphony in the Neighborhoods concert at Mt. Scott Park. It turned out that there was a lot more to see and do there than just the symphony. We saw and heard other kinds of music, played on the playground equipment, ate bratwurst and shave ice, joked and chatted with fellow Portlanders, and enjoyed the late-summer weather. But for me, the highlight was when I sat with my friends and watched Ella and several other young kids dancing in front of the Portland Taiko stage, the late evening sun streaming through the branches of tall conifers. It reminded me again why I'm so happy to be raising my daughter in a place so unlike that uncultured suburb where I grew up. It was incredible to see her exposed to the music of multiple cultures in the span of a few hours, while also reinforcing for her the feeling of being part of a community. Public shool funding issues notwithstanding, I can't imagine a better environment to raise a child.
If this were an unusual occurrence, I wouldn't make such a claim, but the truth is, Portland affords kids and adults these kinds of opportunities all the time. I can't believe how often we've found ourselves at street fairs, waterfront festivals or neighborhood celebrations, watching local musicians and performers, and feeling so grateful for the community we live in. There was even a rather touching article about the Mt. Scott event in The Oregonian, which featured a photo of Ella dancing her taiko dance.
A similarly sublime feeling came over me again tonight, when the Regional Arts & Culture Council held its annual staff picnic in Irving Park. This is yet another beautifully wooded park, in this case filled with stately old oaks, which served as a positively lovely place for our growing family of RACC staff members and their spouses/partners and children to relax, have fun, and reflect on the past year's accomplishments together. There was ample well-maintained space for the kids to frolic, for the adults to enjoy treats of the charcoal-grilled as well as ethanol-enhanced variety, and for everyone to feel content to let their hair down on a temperate August evening.
As with the greenbelts and parks of Aurora, Colorado, I am sure we pay a sizeable chunk of our taxes to keep these urban oases safe and in good condition. But on those broad, vacant suburban greenbelts, I never once saw musicians playing, kids dancing, or people enjoying a summer evening in the company of their friends and fellow citizens. I couldn't be happier or more proud to be a resident of Portland for going on ten years now, and hopefully for many more to come.
Updated 08-27-08: I think I may have defined the term "greenbelt" incorrectly. Having read something about greenbelts today, I found that the term usually applies to urban or urban-adjacent land that remains largely undeveloped for various ecological purposes. That actually sounds like a great idea, but it leaves me even more confused about the large stretches of well-maintained lawn that I've seen in some suburban areas, usually running alongside roads or canals. They don't quite qualify as parks, so what are they? Maybe they're "greenways," although I'm also fuzzy on what that means exactly. My qwest for knowledge continues....
The Artful Ticket Dodger, Rose City style
Earlier this week, the Guardian newspaper in London ran a piece by a man who decided to cram as much of London’s cultural offerings into his life as he could, for one week, but limited his budget to only £50. Cool, I thought. I know London pretty well so thought it would be fun to track his week and see where he went and what he saw. When I realized that £50 also had to cover transportation and food and drink consumed while on his cultural junket, it got interesting. London is outrageously expensive!
The link to the article is here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/jul/29/classicalmusicandopera.museums
But of course, once I finished reading this (and was exhausted just thinking about how many miles of pavement pounding he did to avoid the tube fares!), I of course thought about how you could do this in Portland. The equivalent amount of money in US currency is $100; but I don’t think you’d need that much to have a great week in Portland culture! I think $50 would be a great test.
I just think about the past 10 days I spent in Portland without even consciously trying to make it a cultural junket experiment. I attended 4 free play readings; three were part of the JAW Festival at PCS, where I happen to work, but the readings were FREE to all and everyone. Of the three workshops I attended at JAW, one was a preview of Storm Large’s autobiographical piece Crazy Enough, slated for full production next spring. And hey, people lined up around the block to get in, and it was a free performance by one of Portland’s hottest singer/actors. And the fourth was a fascinating new adaptation of Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens presented at Artists Rep by the Upon these Boards company. It featured 17 amazing actors (and was practically a family reunion of people who worked at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in the 1980s and 1990s), and was a resonant and relevant reworking of one of the Bard’s least known plays.
In addition, I enjoyed two happy hour evenings (one at Fenouil, one at the Deluxe Hotel) where cocktails and some delicious happy hour snacks didn’t break my bank, and would have come in well under the experimental budget.
Then there was the free Music on Main concert offered by the Portland Center for the Performing Arts which, admittedly, I just strolled by, pausing briefly to enjoy the music. But if I HAD been on a culture experiment…well, you get the picture. I could have also attended a performance of the free Shakespeare in the Parks production of Two Gentlemen of Verona which just got a pretty nice review in the Oregonian; and with our abundance of public art, picking up a public art map guide and taking a walk around the city (much more compact than London, and much less traffic!) to view it would save even more dollars for…another happy hour.
Now, I happen to think culture is worth spending my money on, but I also love to think that the option is abundantly present to enjoy Portland's cultural offerings even when the wallet is feeling a little bit thin...
Ain’t art grand?
The link to the article is here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/jul/29/classicalmusicandopera.museums
But of course, once I finished reading this (and was exhausted just thinking about how many miles of pavement pounding he did to avoid the tube fares!), I of course thought about how you could do this in Portland. The equivalent amount of money in US currency is $100; but I don’t think you’d need that much to have a great week in Portland culture! I think $50 would be a great test.
I just think about the past 10 days I spent in Portland without even consciously trying to make it a cultural junket experiment. I attended 4 free play readings; three were part of the JAW Festival at PCS, where I happen to work, but the readings were FREE to all and everyone. Of the three workshops I attended at JAW, one was a preview of Storm Large’s autobiographical piece Crazy Enough, slated for full production next spring. And hey, people lined up around the block to get in, and it was a free performance by one of Portland’s hottest singer/actors. And the fourth was a fascinating new adaptation of Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens presented at Artists Rep by the Upon these Boards company. It featured 17 amazing actors (and was practically a family reunion of people who worked at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in the 1980s and 1990s), and was a resonant and relevant reworking of one of the Bard’s least known plays.
In addition, I enjoyed two happy hour evenings (one at Fenouil, one at the Deluxe Hotel) where cocktails and some delicious happy hour snacks didn’t break my bank, and would have come in well under the experimental budget.
Then there was the free Music on Main concert offered by the Portland Center for the Performing Arts which, admittedly, I just strolled by, pausing briefly to enjoy the music. But if I HAD been on a culture experiment…well, you get the picture. I could have also attended a performance of the free Shakespeare in the Parks production of Two Gentlemen of Verona which just got a pretty nice review in the Oregonian; and with our abundance of public art, picking up a public art map guide and taking a walk around the city (much more compact than London, and much less traffic!) to view it would save even more dollars for…another happy hour.
Now, I happen to think culture is worth spending my money on, but I also love to think that the option is abundantly present to enjoy Portland's cultural offerings even when the wallet is feeling a little bit thin...
Ain’t art grand?
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