Even MORE shameless promotion

The Willamette Week just issued its annual Give!Guide, featuring 79 nonprofits doing great work in the community. The Give!Guide is an insert in this week's edition of the WW, but they've also created a website with lots of information about the listed organizations and the capacity to process donations directly. If you want to donate through the Give!Guide, you can select one or many organizations and make a donation online in a single transaction. ALL donated funds go to the designated organizations.

This year, the Give!Guide includes ten arts organizations – more than ever before. I like all of them:

Independent Publishing Resource Center
Literary Arts
Live Wire Radio
Newspace for Photography
Northwest Dance Project
NW Documentary
PDX Pop Now!
White Bird
Wordstock
Oregon Children’s Theatre

My particular favorite is Oregon Children’s Theatre. (Full disclosure: As my employer, Oregon Children’s Theatre is largely responsible for the fact that I haven’t been posting on Culture Shock lately). We’re proud to be in such august company. Of course, the Give!Guide also highlights organizations dedicated to social action, the environment, wellness, youth, animals and education.

The Give!Guide has three primary goals:

1) To encourage people 18-35 to get involved in philanthropy;
2) To attract new donors and/or volunteers to these causes; and,
3) To provide publicity and exposure for a variety of local non-profits.

To encourage giving, the Willamette Week has sprinkled in a lot of great incentives and rewards. On top of those, Oregon Children’s Theatre will be giving away ticket coupons and invitations to shop at the adidas Village Store with a 50% discount off retail prices. Also, the Collins Foundation will be matching all new contributions Oregon Children’s Theatre receives through the Give!Guide.

Shameless Promotion Edition

Excuse me while I plug Oregon Children’s Theatre, the performing arts company with which I am associated.

Tickets for the season opener, “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” are flying out the door like winged crepes at the annual All You Can Eat Flying Hotcake Festival . OCT’s Artistic Director, Stan Foote, has loaded the show with fun gags and whiz-bang effects. The characters are familiar yet distinct from what you remember from the two famous movie adaptations. The set is a knock-out, as are the incredible costumes created by Sarah Gahagan (equal to her Drammy Award-winning costumes for last year’s “James and the Giant Peach”). Two 5:00 shows have been added on November 14th and 21st.

Read the Oregonian review, which called it a "sweet dream of a production." We also loved this review from NW Kids, including an interview with a six year old audience member.

Tonight is opening night for the thespians from OCT's Young Professionals program. A cast of ten talented teenagers will perform “Dis/Troy” in the company's black box studio at the Galleria. The play by Yokanaan Kearns is a contemporary adaptation of Homer’s Iliad that blends silly humor with lots of physical action. This production features some kick-ass fight scenes choreographed by John Armour, the aptly named fight director who has been responsible for much of the violence and mayhem you may have seen on Portland’s stages over the years. The production is directed by OCT’s own Marcella Crowson, who manages the Educational Theatre Program in partnership with Kaiser Permanente. Theater folks in town know and love her from her time as a stage manager for many productions at Portland Center Stage. Marci describes “Dis/Troy” as “not your eighth-grade teacher’s version of the Iliad.”

The show plays this weekend and next, with 7:00 p.m. performances on Friday and Saturday and Sunday matinees at 2:00. Location: Galleria, 600 SW 10th Avenue, Third Floor. $5-10 Admission. Box Office: 503-228-9571. “Dis/Troy” will also be performed in the rotunda of Hatfield Hall (1111 SW Broadway) as part of the PCPA’s “Brown Bag Lunch Series.” That show will be free.

On Monday, November 9th (7:00-8:30) Marketplace Money and Oregon Public Broadcasting will be taping an episode titled, “Financial Futures: Talking money with your tykes, tweens and teens,” in the Winningstad Theatre. What does that have to do with OCT? As part of the reporting on kids and money, the show’s host, Tess Vigeland, will talk to the young actors from "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and from OCT's youth improv troupe, Impulse. Folks from Live Wire! Radio will be on deck as well. More information, including how to get tickets can be found here.

Speaking of money: OCT just learned that it will receive a $20,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts in support of its commission and production of a stage adaptation of "Small Steps." Novelist Louis Sachar has been working with Stan Foote to adapt his sequel to "Holes" for the stage. The play will feature original music by Karl Mansfield. I'll tell you more about it later. The money from the NEA is very helpful for the project, but so is the validation that the company is playing in the big leagues.

We're Back!

Where the hell have I been all this time?

I haven’t posted since October 18th. October was Culture Shock’s leanest month in … well, in months. At 11:55 pm on October 31st, I began a post about my Halloween night tour of Lone Fir Cemetery. I thought I'd finish writing it the next day and it would still appear as an October entry. I never finished it. That's a lie. I never started it. All I did was upload this picture:


By the way, that's not even a picture I took. I found it on the internet.

How embarrassing and pathetic. I hang my head in shame. Here is a pictoral representation of how I feel:

I wish I could tell you that I secured a lucrative publishing deal that prevents me from writing anything for free anymore. Or that my commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions prevents me from turning on the computer. Perhaps you thought I’d accepted Culture Shock’s generous buy-out offer and taken early retirement. Have you been worried that I’ve been stricken by swine flu?

The simple truth is I lost the momentum. The mojo wasn't there. Lassitude. Plus the start of the arts season, which means everything in my life is much busier. I’ll try to do better, but no promises. Now get off my case.

While we’re on the blogging beat, I have a few items to report:

Barry Johnson, friend of Culture Shock and one of this town’s most astute cultural observers and pontificators, has announced that he will be leaving the Oregonian next month. Sadly, our local daily rag continues to shed talent. Barry has opted for the paper's latest buy-out offer and plans to seek a new path in cultural journalism. We look forward to reading his insights in whatever form he chooses to share them. For our Facebooking friends, you can sign up to join “Oregonians for More Barry Johnson.” As for the Oregonian, we hope it finds a way out of its death spiral.

Tomorrow night, I’ll be attending Portland Opera’s opening night of the Philip Glass opera, Orphée. Unfortunately I won't be there as a member of the bloggercorps the Opera has recruited to generate on-the-spot commentary. That crew includes such weighty thinkers as Bob Hicks (of Art Scatter), Storm Large (of the Eight-Mile Wide Larges), Byron Beck (Portland’s Rona Barrett), and Cynthia Fuhrman (who?). Since I will be attending as a civilian, I’ll miss out on the drinking games (down a shot each time a musical phrase repeats). It also means I missed out on schmoozing with Philip Glass the other day, and I won’t get the backstage tour. Does it sound like I’m pouting?

The advantage is that I won’t be pressured to write anything interesting or informative. I suggest that you read what Bob Hicks has already written about Orphée (the man is doing his homework), then pretend that you read it here.

Sayonara!

As The Oregonian reported today, Portland Mayor Sam Adams is heading to Japan for six days. The reasons for this diplomatic visit are many, but the paper has distilled the mayor's mission down to two key points: bring Mitsubishi's zero-emission cars to Portland, and bring Pink Martini to Japan.

Like its competitor the Nissan Leaf, which will be sold in five U.S. markets including Oregon next fall, the Mitsubishi i-MiEV is powered solely by electricity, and can be recharged from a regular home socket. The four-seater vehicle can run up to 160 kilometers (100 miles) after charging seven hours at 200 volts. While any electric car is good news in my opinion, the part that I still don't understand is how the i-MiEV, at reported retail of $47,000, can compete with the Leaf, which most industry observers say will retail for $20,000 to $30,000. And there's no word yet on whether the Mayor plans to lobby Detroit to sell Portland a staging ground for the new Chevy Volt.

Whomever we are trying to woo, perhaps Thomas Lauderdale and friends can help. The Mayor is taking several autographed copies of Pink Martini CDs as gifts for Japanese dignitaries. After all, the French are in love with them, and Pink Martini has dabbled in Japanese a fair amount.


Sympathique features “Song of the Black Lizard," taken from the soundtrack of a Japanese cult film of the same name, and Hey Eugene! includes a Japanese-language track, "Taya Tan." In a reworking of the Japanese song “Kikuchiyo to Mohshimasu” for Hang on Little Tomato, Pink Martini collaborated and recorded in Japan with Hiroshi Wada, the slide guitarist whose group originally recorded and released the song 40 years ago. Splendor in the Grass doesn't have any Japanese inspired music, so we can only hope that our Japanese friends won't take it personally that critics are calling this the best and prettiest album of them all.

The Mayor will also be giving away Japanese-inspired blown glass orbs and vases from Portland artist Andy Paiko, and framed woodblock prints (you know, the Japanese printmaking process) by Carole Zoom. For our sister City of Sapporo, the Mayor is bringing a 1985 hand-colored etching by George Johanson. It's called "Waiting for the Parade I," and captures the true character of our world-famous Rose Festival better than most glossy photos.


The Mayor's office also tells me that Portland jazz performer Patrick Lamb is playing (or, played) in Sapporo tonight, and provided tickets to the U.S. Consulate General Sapporo as a pre-thank you for the Mayor’s hosted dinner there.

Now go get us some electric cars!

The Foundation Heimlich Maneuver

In announcing their October grant awards, the Meyer Memorial Trust made an interesting statement about their intentions to support Portland's five major arts organizations at roughly 1% of their budgets for the next 2-4 years.

Specifically, the Trust has just awarded $300,000 over two years to the Oregon Symphony, $260,000 over an unspecified period to the Portland Art Museum, and $200,000 to PCS over two years. Presumably the Opera's and Ballet's proposals are still pending, because the announcement came with this explanatory statement:

While 60% of MMT's funding has gone to organizations addressing rising demand for health and human services during this economically challenging time, we recognize the importance of supporting arts and culture groups, which contribute to the quality of life of our communities and region with both cultural and economic contributions.

Historically, MMT has been a relatively strong funder of Portland's five largest arts organizations, with a total of nearly $21 million collectively awarded to Portland Art Museum, Oregon Symphony, Portland Center Stage, Portland Opera, and Oregon Ballet Theatre since 1982. Foundation support has represented a larger portion of these arts organization's budgets because until recently, Oregon was ranked 53rd among states and territories (behind Guam and American Samoa) in government support of the arts per capita. (Oregon now ranks 40th.)

Two years ago, MMT and other area arts funders began to converse with Portland's five largest arts organizations to better understand their business models and what they need to achieve financial stability, in addition to artistic excellence. As a result of these discussions and a study by a nationally recognized arts consultant, MMT has determined it can most appropriately assist the groups with two years of operating support limited to approximately 1% of the organizations' operating budgets, with the possibility of an additional two years. During this period, MMT will not entertain additional proposals for operating and project support from these five groups.

Now before all of the other arts organizations start asking what about me, I would like to point out that the majors have been part of some difficult conversations over the past year with MMT and other grantmakers (including RACC) who have been concerned about the long-range sustainability of these groups. At the foundations' request, each organization has worked diligently to produce a plan that helps satisfy the concerns of trustees everywhere who are no longer willing to invest in organizations with chronic deficit problems. However, it is important to note that each organizations' debt situation is different, and granted some organizations are in worse shape than others, but suffice it to say that conservative lenders have legitimate and reasonable concerns about investing in any of these organizations right now, which is why they all had some 'splaining to do.

Imagine, if you've been the trustee of a foundation for the last 25 years, how many times you have heard an arts organization say that it has finally identified the formula for sustainability, only to fall back into a deficit a few years later, sometimes chronically so. And then they'll tell you, you all just need to give us more money, so they'll build a budget that assumes the contributions will magically come flowing in because their board is newly motivated to raise millions of dollars, only to find that a recession or a snowstorm or a death in the family prevents them from achieving their goal. OK, maybe that happens in one year, that's understandable. But if a board lets that behavior go on for two years, three, ten -- you can see how a foundation trustee could start banging his or her head against the wall and declare, Not another dime for this madness!

Fortunately for our arts organizations, the foundations wanted to be part of the solution. So they brought in technical assistance providers and convened arts organizations to let them know what they needed to do in order to satisfy their increasingly skeptical trustees. They asked them to demonstrate an ability to raise money at historically proven levels before moving toward bigger budgets. They asked them for evidence that they were taking their deficits seriously, with viable plans for repaying their debts. And they asked each board to be more aware of its organization's finances so that they could address the real problems together -- it's not helping anyone to sweep little messes under the rug and hide financial concerns in the balance sheet. These foundations did NOT ask them to cut their product, only to demonstrate that the product can be scaled match what the public is willing to pay for. I think of it as attempting the Heimlich Maneuver before jumping into CPR.

Fortunately, the arts organizations are coming through with strong and convincing cases. Which leads me to why I think this is a rising tide that will float all ships. For MMT to philosophically set aside funding at 1% of arts organizations budgets is a good start, but we don't know what happens after these 2-4 years have expired. Presumably, hopefully, arts organizations will then be able to apply for larger grants, not smaller ones, for unique needs they'll have in the years ahead, having demonstrated themselves as completely viable organizations with net assets on the rise. Meanwhile, smaller arts organizations are still applying for and receiving grants from MMT that represent a much larger percentage of their own budgets, sometimes as much as 20%, although these are highly competitive grants that are difficult for many to compete for given MMT's emphasis on social change and problem-solving. This is my biggest concern, does a small arts organization really have to solve a problem in order to be considered a vital charitable organization in our community?

But the MMT is re-evaluating their role, and for that I give them much credit. For the record I still think the Meyer Memorial Trust could and should invest much more money in the local arts community, but this statement about the major arts organizations is a critical first step. The performance of these five groups over the next five years could greatly influence the future of arts funding in Portland, and we are counting on them all to demonstrate extraordinary returns on investment rather than becoming just another black hole of arts funding. Let's consider this a pilot in MMT's own internal conversations about whether or not they should be supporting more arts organizations with general support in the future.

Gonna Fly Like an Eagle

A short story inspired by recent events.

“Boy! How many times do I gotta tell you to get away from the goddamned aircraft!”

“I ain’t touchin’ it. I’m just lookin’ at it,” the boy yelled back as he kicked at a dirt clod. “Besides,” he muttered, “it’s not an aircraft, it’s just a big stupid balloon.”

“What d’you say?”

“Nothing.” The boy spit on the ground.

“You better not be talking trash about that project, boy. You know what that aircraft means, don’t you.”

“Yeah, I know … it means freedom.”

“That’s right and don’t you forget it. That aircraft you’re messin’ with is our ticket out of this shithole,” the father said as he finished his beer and tossed the can on a growing pile. He scratched his ankle where the electronic monitor had rubbed a spot raw.

The screen door slammed as the father went into the kitchen to get another beer. The boy found a stick in the brown grass and poked the side of the balloon with it. He watched the silvery surface ripple and poked it again. “Stupid balloon.”

The boy’s older brother charged into the yard and skidded his bike to a stop in a spray of dirt. He picked up a rock and chucked it at the boy. “Hey doofus! Dad’s gonna kick your ass if he sees you messing with the craft.”

“Shut your face, dickweed,” the boy yelled back, already knowing it was a mistake. “I ain’t doing nothing that’s any of your business,” he shouted as he ran toward his hiding place in the garage. He tripped on a tangled garden hose and stumbled. His brother grabbed the back of his shirt, wrestled him to the ground and pushed his face into the dirt while twisting one arm behind his back.

“I’ll tell you what my business is, you stupid asswipe,” the older boy said as he got up and kicked his brother in the ribs. Before he could kick him again, their father came out of the house with a cold beer.

“Leave the boy alone,” he yelled. “And if either of the two of you touch that thing again, you’re gonna be as sorry as you ever been.”

The older boy sped off on his bike, popping a wheelie on his way down the driveway. The father was glad to see him go. He always told himself that he loved both his boys, but he was having a hard time seeing what the point of the older one was. The younger boy still had some spunk. He was a dreamer.

The father settled into his folding camp chair with a grunt, fitted his beer can into the cup-holder and started reading the new issue of Popular Science. He liked being an inventor a whole lot more than working at the filling station. If only he could make just one great invention before his unemployment ran out ... but ever since the hovercraft project caught fire and singed his eyebrows right off, he was finding it difficult to finish things. Now that the balloon was almost ready to launch, he could feel his interest starting to wane.

His third wife was evermore giving him a hard time about his failed projects. “They oughta do one of those reality TV shows about you,” she’d said that morning. “They could call it ‘The Biggest Loser’.”

“They already got a show with that name,” he said. “It’s about fat people and I ain’t that, so why don’t you just shut your mouth, because that’s what’s fat around here.” He smiled at his quick comeback.

“Okay then, smartass,” she said. “If you’re so sure that’s the case, maybe my mouth is too fat to cook you breakfast anymore.”

“That don’t make no sense,” he said. “What’s that got to do with anything anyways?”

He was ready to argue the point, but she’d already grabbed her car keys off the counter and slammed her way out to the driveway. As the Kia’s tires squealed down the street, he was rooting around the refrigerator looking for something to eat. He found a baggie with two turkey franks in it and, after rinsing them under the kitchen tap, dipped them, one after the other, in a jar of mayonnaise and ate them cold.

Now, a few hours later, he was hungry again. “Hey! I need a little help here,” he called, hoping he could get the boy to fetch him something. The only sound was somebody’s leaf blower and his neighbor’s dog yapping. “Boy! Where the hell did you get to?”

He heaved himself out of the camp chair, tipping it over and spilling his beer. “Goddammit all to hell,” he said as he watched the beer soak into the dry ground. He looked around to see if anyone had witnessed his clumsy move, but the yard was empty.

Back in the kitchen, he found a can of Pringles tucked behind a sack of flour. He ate the chips in stacks of three and washed them down with a fresh beer. The television on the counter was on with the sound turned down. For a minute he watched Oprah jumping around excited about something, but by the time he got the volume turned up it was a commercial and he'd missed the story. “Shit, they should have me on Oprah. Now that would be fascinating,” he thought as he wiped the orange powder from his fingers.

The shaft of afternoon sunlight beaming through the window flickered briefly as if a cloud had passed by. The father glanced up from the television and saw a quick flash of silver. Only a moment passed before he realized what he had just witnessed.

“Jesus H. Christ,” he shouted as he banged the screen door open and ran into the yard. The 22-foot diameter helium-filled weather-balloon he had constructed out of mylar, duct tape and some old paneling from the basement was already 25 feet up in the air and rising rapidly into the bright October sky. The lengths of clothesline that had tethered it to his old Ranchero were dangling out of his reach. He watched it float away, the sun glinting from the mirrored surface.

The older boy wheeled back into the yard. “I told him to quit his messing around,” he shouted into the sky. “I knew somethin’ bad was gonna happen. It’s not my fault. I didn’t do nothing. It’s the brat’s fault.” He was pleading now, and starting to cry.

“What the hell are you talking about?” the father asked.

“He was messin’ with the tie-downs. Then he said he was gonna climb inside and fly away from here and never come back.”

The father didn’t answer. He just watched the silver craft as it became smaller and started drifting toward the south. He thought about calling for help, but who do you call when your giant balloon is drifting away with your offspring inside?

Then he thought about that storybook he’d read to the boy. It was one of those ancient stories about a father who built a set of wings out of feathers and beeswax and gave them to his boy. What was it he told that boy? Keep flying toward the sun? Yeah, that was it.

“Keep flying toward the sun, boy,” he said as he watched the balloon float out of sight. "Just like your old man, keep flying toward the sun."

***
Cue Soundtrack: Guitarist (and part-time pirate) Yngwie Malmsteen performs his soaring composition, “Icarus Dream Fanfare,” with the New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra.



Image: “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus” by Pieter Bruegel the elder (ca. 1558).

A mannish motorcycle with awesome yang power!

Do you enjoy watching movies that are so bad that they’re good? I love watching a disaster movie full of bargain-basement special effects, predictable character-types and a preposterous plot. The best of the genre features a B-list character actor in a heroic role, and you just know that his agent told him, “Sure the script is corny, but you haven’t worked for months, and look what Pulp Fiction did for Travolta.”

I feel the same way about really bad writing. In my career as an arts administrator and freelance grant writer, I’ve read and edited lots of text loaded with jargon, redundancies and nouns turned into verbs. Sometimes it gets so bad that all you can do is laugh.

The other night I ran across a particularly sweet example of horrible copywriting after spotting a photo of this motorcycle called "The Wraith":

Out of curiosity, I visited the website of the motorcycle's builder, Confederate Motorcycles, where I discovered a priceless collection of pretentious copywriting. When I read a few examples out loud, my wife asked, “Are you sure this isn’t just a bad translation?”

Savor this, for example:

We are 100% focused on creating the ultimate street motorcycle experience. From the outset, this has driven our interpretation of perfect two-wheeled motoring. Real world reaction time will be world class. There will be no hint of your machine becoming unsettled. The machine will take whatever the road has in store for it with relaxed professional aplomb. There will be nothing between yourself and the fate of what your road has in store except honest world leading street motoring quality of information. Each component, down to the washers which live on your bolts, is specified for one reason only – because it is the best in the world for application upon your machine.

Let’s review some highlights:

“There will be no hint of your machine becoming unsettled.”

Are we talking about a motorcycle or a robot?

“The machine will take whatever the road has in store for it with relaxed professional aplomb.”

God knows, you don’t want to be riding a motorcycle that reacts with amateurish discomfort.

“There will be nothing between yourself and the fate of what your road has in store except honest world leading street motoring quality of information …”

I’m guessing this means you’ll feel every bump in the road.

“… down to the washers which live on your bolts …”

Daddy, what are those circle things with the holes in them? Why those are the washers which live on the bolts.

The website's description of the "P120 Fighter Combat" model starts with a statement that would make for a fine personal motto: “Clarify opaqueness and nullify hype with straight-forward true to concept certitude.”

The Fighter clarifies opaqueness and nullifies hype with straight-forward true to concept certitude. At the source is a classic right triangle. Proportion is classically derived. Scale is middle way. Bearing exudes structural permanence.Human integration deploys yang energy, vitality, and power in the most simple, pure and direct form. Geometry is optimized for the medium and/or long disciplined journey of sensory heightened motion. Torque to weight is maximized. Engine, suspension and ergonomic luxury and ease of use is optimized. Materials utilization is the finest. Individual piece and component specification is highest and best. Craft preparation and specification is uncompromised. The aesthetic is fresh, industrial, sculptural, holistic and honest. The saddle of the Fighter is your place for those outings which require extended time, geography, meditation and distance. Personal liberation will result!

Here’s the capper:

"Production of this model is limited to fifty motorcycles. 25 Roman numeral and 25 Arabic numeral models will be produced."

I sure hope I can save up $75,000 before the Roman numeral versions are all sold out!

The effete gentleman wearing the glasses in the company's artsy promotional video below is its founder, Matt Chambers. I may be wrong, but I have a sneaking suspicion that he wrote all the copy--especially the line about "awesome yang power."

Missing in Action

I've been absent quite a bit from this blog lately, but that's not all. I completely missed both the TBA Festival and Wordstock. I have yet to take in Ragtime and China Design Now. And god only knows if I'll make it to the Emerald Retrospective or the Oregon Symphony anytime soon.

For what? A myriad of excuses. I haven't caught the swine flu but I think I coughed up part of my lung last weekend. I love the fall but who wants to go out in some of this weather? I'm not addicted to television but it sure is comfortable watching Glee and Mad Men from my La-z-boy recliner.

We've also been hard at work raising Work for Art dollars and overhauling the RACC website, which was no small task. Suffice it to say that spending this much time in front of the computer at work makes it really hard to spend any time in front of the computer at home, blogging or otherwise. And although this isn't the ultimate purpose of this post I would be remiss if I didn't use this paragraph to acknowledge the fine work of the design team at Davison/Blackheart, CultureShock commenter Shobiz, and the great staff at RACC for producing such a handsome site with volumes of valuable content for the arts community. Blogger's prerogative, no matter how infrequently he writes.

My related arts observation for today comes from Hilary Pfeifer, whose temporary installation "Vertical Garden" is currently featured on our homepage. She wrote to let us know that the piece, which was originally created for the Portland Building Installation Series several years ago, was recently sold to a Pixar executive in Marin. I thought you might enjoy her blog entry on installing the piece in his home, as I did. Congratulations, Hilary!

If you know any artists who are looking to get a temporary installation gig for themselves, RACC is accepting proposals through November 16.

Portland Ugly

Travel + Leisure recently issued its report on “America’s Favorite Cities” – a ranking of thirty cities across the nation based on the merits of each as a travel destination. I suspect that residents in each and every one of those cities are now griping about the injustice of the scoring. The online report cleverly avoids describing the top secret research methods used to derive the scores.

I’m sorry to report that Portland fell short on many important measures. But first the good news: Once again, our rugged outdoorsy, green “brand” earned us top ratings in the following categories:

#1 Public Parks/Access to Outdoors

#1 Environmental Friendliness

#1 Summer Vacation

#1 Safety

#1 Public Transportation and Pedestrian Friendliness

We came in a respectable second place for being “Athletic/Active” and in the "Farmer’s Markets" competition. We placed third for cafes/coffee bars and scored a decent #5 ranking for “Peace and Quiet.” What’s so funny is that they didn’t give scores for “Love” and “Understanding" (yes, that is a clumsy Elvis Costello reference). We are the fourth most intelligent city.

Since we only scored tenth in the "Friendliest" category, I feel justified in saying, "Suck it, St. Louis!"

It is on the cultural front where our deepest shame is apparent. Portland landed at #19 for theater. Even Cleveland was ahead of us in the 12th place slot. Seattle only made it to #14 (behind Las Vegas at #11, even though that city received the lowest score for "Intelligence" ). Our “Classical Music” score was a middling #16, while Museum/Galleries and Historical Sites/Monuments slunk in at the bottom with scores of #23 and #24 respectively.

What really hurts is our #17 placement for “Attractive People.” Worse than the numerical score is this inane description:

“Portland’s well-documented alternative lifestyle, which may account for its [top ranking] for overall quality of life/visitor experience… may not conform to most visitors’ standards of ‘normal’ beauty.”

Translation: Portlanders are freaks.
At least we didn’t get this comment:

“Cleveland may be internationally recognized for its #1 ranking in affordability, but there’s no getting around the fact that its residents are uniformly hideous to look upon. Visitors to Cleveland may want to take advantage of the city’s #2 ranking for classical music; closing your eyes while listening to the Cleveland Orchestra provides a welcome respite from the monstrous appearance of local residents.”

Okay, so I made that one up. My point is that the one thing worse than annual city ratings by travel magazines is the writing in those magazines.

Laramie Project: Ten Years Later

Tonight (October 12, 2009), Portland will be one of at least 150 cities to participate in a project to premiere “The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later, An Epilogue.”

The play is being performed on the same night on stages in all fifty states, Canada, Great Britain, Spain, Hong Kong and Australia. Portland’s edition will be a reading held in the Newmark Theatre, with a cast comprised of a “Who’s Who” of theater artists. Stan Foote, Artistic Director of Oregon Children’s Theatre is directing and Byron Beck, Portland's biggest gossip hound, will serve as narrator.

You all know the story, but here’s a recap: In October 1998, Matthew Shepard was beaten and left to die in the outskirts of Laramie, Wyoming. A month after his murder, playwright Moisés Kaufman and members of the Tectonic Theater Project traveled to Laramie, where they conducted interviews with residents. Out of those interviews, they wrote the play “The Laramie Project,” which was later made into a film. The play and film have been seen by more than 30 million people.

Ten years later, Kaufman and the Tectonic Theater Project returned to Laramie to conduct new interviews. How had the community changed in the intervening decade? How is the event being reinterpreted over time? In addition to re-interviewing many residents, the team interviewed Matthew Shepard’s mother, Judy Shepard, and his murderer Aaron McKinney, who is serving two consecutive life sentences. The resulting play examines how the murder continues to reverberate in the community. Tectonic Theater Project has set up an "Online Community" website to collect blog posts, videos and photos of the event.

Tonight’s performance at the Newmark will be a reading without staging. Stan has assembled a cast comprised of many of his colleagues and talented theater artists and local figures. In addition to Byron Beck, the cast is:

Allen Nause (Artistic Director, Artists Repertory Theatre)
Scott Yarbrough (Artistic Director, Third Rail Repertory)
Beth Harper (Artistic Director, Portland Actors Conservatory)
Dan Murphy (Founding General Manager, Broadway Rose Theatre)
Rose Riordan (Associate Artistic Director, Portland Center Stage)
Helen Raptis (Host of AM Northwest, KATU)
Chris Murray
Paul Glazier
Sharonlee McLean
Troy Lakey
Kelley Marchant
Kathleen Cafiero
Jake Michels
Katie Sundt

The reading is a fundraising benefit for The Matthew Shepard Foundation and Basic Rights Oregon, and is sponsored by Bling Dental. The New Century Players, based in Milwaukie, Oregon is a producing partner. The New Century Players will be presenting a three-week run of the original production of “The Laramie Project” from October 16-31st.

When: Monday October 12, 2009

Where: Newmark Theater, PCPA, 1111 SW Broadway, Portland OR 97205

General Admission: $20, Student Discount Available, $50 VIP Ticket includes entrance to BLING VIP Party at Ten 01 with food by Tabla Mediterranean Bistro.

Tickets are on sale in person at the Portland Center for the Performing Arts Box Office and all Ticketmaster outlets.

By phone: call Ticketmaster at 1-800-745-3000. Or online at www.ticketmaster.com

Saturday Semiotics (a.k.a. Signtology).

Okay. I promise to actually write something this weekend. Until then, here's a little sign taped to a mirrored window facing SW 10th Avenue in downtown Portland.

Words Escape Me.

I thought I might finish a blog post this evening. But then I got to thinking about NASA bombing the moon and thought, "What's the point?"

Instead, here are two photographs taken from my living room window in two different seasons.

Love Ridiculous

A Cat Named Eli

Fall is the dying season. A time of transition and letting go. A shifting of energy that always leaves me sad and introspective. So it is fitting, I suppose, that today marks the one year anniversary of the death of my cat Eli.

I adopted Eli and his brother Mica when they were eight weeks old. Their mama was a gorgeous Birman named Moon. Their fathers were two different tom cats. We got the call on the night they were born and visited them in their early weeks. They came home with us, shy and afraid. My job, as I saw it, was to love them and make them feel secure. Their job? To simply be cats. We’d take it from there. We bonded from the start.

At first, Eli did not know how to purr. For weeks, he’d struggle with halting little rumbles, until one day he figured it out, loud and strong. And, from then on, he purred me to sleep nearly every night.

Eli was independent, yet loved people. He was incredibly mellow, but other cats in the neighborhood knew not to mess with him. In the early days, whenever we sat near each other, I always kept a hand on the cats. It was my way of saying to them, “I'm here with you. You're safe”. Eli picked up the habit. Any time he cuddled me, which was anytime he could, he always made a point of putting a paw on my hand. If I shifted, that paw followed me.

It is easy to undervalue the relationships we form with our pets. But they are true; more honest, in fact, than many person to person relationships. I always think that these bonds with animals are all the more special and amazing because of our differences. It takes a lot to cross that language barrier and the issues of trust and love.

Mica and Eli were there with us when we bought our first house, got married, had children. They cemented our status as a family before we even realized it. They taught us to give, love purely, and savor quiet moments.

I was three months pregnant when Eli got sick. He began to hide out, taking space for himself. The vet suspected a rare form of cancer. Eli quickly lost weight and strength. I took him to a series of vet appointments, hand fed him from a syringe every few hours, weighed the decisions between his quality of life and my own selfishness, and finally took him to Dove Lewis.

Throughout all this I had my toddler in tow and I tried to prepare him: “Eli is very sick. I’m feeling really sad. I’m worried he might die. My heart is breaking.” When the vet took a look at him, now so weak and wasted away, she said, “Wow, he must have been formidable.” He was.

Dove Lewis couldn’t do much for him. We decided to take him home and put him to sleep in a place that was familiar and comfortable. The night before he died, I woke to a thud in the bathroom. It was Eli, trying to climb into the tub to drink from the tap. I picked him up and lay him down near the faucet. He had a long drink. Then he wet himself. I cleaned him up, carefully dried him, and wrapped him in towels. We lay down together on the bathroom floor. I curled my hand around him and he purred for the first time in days.

The next day, I held him as he died. The last wisp of breath left his body and I felt him let go. I had to let go too.

Now it’s been a year. I have a six month old that Eli never met. My toddler is now four; his memories of Eli beginning to fade. I still have Mica, who cuddles me every night. And I have memories of a dear, dear friend. A cat named Eli.

Household Tips Edition

You know what Culture Shock has been missing? A regular feature in which we share household tips, that's what.

This afternoon, Courtenay Hameister (@wisenheimer on Twitter), funny writer and host of Live Wire Radio (everybody’s favorite Portland-centric radio show), tweeted this admission: “Just had Miracle Whip for the first time in years, and while ‘miracle’ is a bit of an oversell, it was deliciously tangy.”

That reminded me of having once read that the “miracle” in Miracle Whip is its many uses beyond sandwich and salad lubricant. A quick Google search located several nifty ideas, which I’ve edited just a teeny bit.

Removing dead skin from the feet

Rub a generous amount of Miracle Whip all over your feet with a soft washcloth to remove tired, dead skin. Let the Miracle Whip set for five minutes and rinse off with warm water. Do not reuse the Miracle Whip. Not effective on gangrenous flesh.

Polishing metals

Rub a generous amount of Miracle Whip onto your metals including candleholders, brass lamps, brass knuckles, car bumpers, sink fixtures, metallic gizmos, firearms, robots and jewelry. Leave the Miracle Whip on your metal surface for twenty minutes and wipe with a soft cloth while cooing softly.

Remove cigarette smoke stains from walls

Rub a generous amount of Miracle Whip all over your walls to remove cigarette smoke stains. Rub Miracle Whip all over yourself while doing this. Let the Miracle Whip set for one hour on the wall. Wipe away with a soft buffing cloth. Be sure to leave your windows open so that the odor of the Miracle Whip doesn't overtake your home. Your walls will be restored to their natural, smoke-free beauty. Rub leftover Miracle Whip on your smoke-stained teeth and buff with soft pumice stone.

Condition your Hair

Apply a generous amount of Miracle Whip once a day to condition and shine your hair. Leave the Miracle Whip in your hair for forty-five minutes. Garnish with parsley for a fresh look. Rinse the Miracle Whip from your hair thoroughly and wash with your usual shampoo, or not.

Remove Chewing Gum

If you're ever unfortunate enough to get chewing gum in your hair or your child's hair, just apply a generous amount of Miracle Whip to loosen it (the gum, not the hair...well, maybe the hair). Be sure to discard the gum!

Use as a facial

Apply Miracle Whip to your face and leave it on for about 30 minutes before rinsing it off with warm water, followed by a cool water rinse. This will moisturize your face while restoring it to its natural, smoke-free beauty.

Remove head lice

Apply Miracle Whip to your scalp and the roots of your hair. Apply it to the edges in front, the sides and the back. Place a plastic hair bag (not a bag of plastic hair) over your hair and leave it on for one hour. Rinse the Miracle Whip from your hair using a comb and warm water. Then wash your hair twice to remove the residue from the Miracle Whip. You can also add a few drops of peppermint oil into your shampoo to mask the smell of shame. Repeat this procedure every ten days, or ten times daily depending on your supply of Miracle Whip.

Okay, that gives us 20 posts for the month of September--a respectable number. Goodnight.