Month: September 2015

On the way to volunteering

The renovation of Eddie’s Flat Iron Pizza building has been going on since at least May.  I’m not sure why it’s taking so long.  Sometimes it’s hard to tell what the plan is, but for sure they are splitting the space into to spaces.  There was a lot of work going on on the right side of this picture, before it spread around to the front.  But I think they are also taking off the early 80s pink-ish tile and have some plan for a new surface.  But look what was underneath! I love to find old signage on buildings. IMG_4572

It used to be a place called the Ice Cream Bowl.  And I bet there used to be a stucco exterior and a lot of deco glass blocks once upon a time too.  IMG_4573

As an update on 9/23, I walked by and they have hacked away this entire porch/entrance structure.  The entrance is now flat with the tiled area.  I was disappointed to see it go, so much so that I didn’t take a picture.

Just up the  block you can see an unfortunate thing that happened over the summer.  I’m guessing fireworks, but I don’t know for sure.

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Three sentence movie reviews: The Wolfpack

wolfpackI went into this documentary thinking I would be angry at the situation these six brothers (and one sister) were put in by their parents, and indeed, their lives for a long time followed a path different than what I (and probably the majority of poeple) would choose for them.  However, the boys themselves displayed such resiliency on camera that I left the theater hopeful that they would find their way in this world, despite probably lacking a lot of basic skills.*  The film is worth watching just to see how striking they are when the venture out into New York City from their tiny, cramped apartment.

Cost: $4.00
Where watched: Laurelhurst Theater with S. North.

*But really?  The fact that children are allowed to be raised this way is disturbing.  There should be more oversight.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2015/wolfpack.html

Ursula K LeGuin at Powell’s

Guess how many people came to see the grand dame of the Portland literary scene?  Did you guess one million?  You weren’t far off.  Powell’s had to close the room.  I was very thankful that my friend Carrie wandered upstairs early and grabbed the last two seats.

This guy is filming a documentary about Ms. LeGuin.

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And here is Ursula K. LeGuin herself.  She spoke briefly about her revised book Steering the Craft, then opened for questions.  She also clued us into her experiment in teaching, Navigating the Ocean of Story.IMG_4558

Songs of summer 2015

Every summer I associate songs with the season.  This doesn’t happen in spring, fall or winter, for whatever reason.  Sometimes the songs I hear all summer are songs I hate, sometimes they are songs I love. Sometimes they are songs I grow tired of because they are played too much.  Back when things changed all the time–say when summer was a passing point between two different grades, or I had a different job every summer–it was easy to link specific songs with specific summers.  But now that one summer isn’t much different than any other they blur.  The summer of “We are Young” by fun (loved it!)  and “Somebody That I Used to Know” by Gotye (hated it!)?  Who knew when that was?  (Yes, the internet could easily tell me.)

So here is my scrapbook of songs from the summer of 2015.

Note that I interacted with all of these songs through the radio when I was driving around.  I’ve never watched any of the videos and until I was writing this post I had no idea who sang any of these songs, because radio stations rarely tell me, perhaps because the Shazam app can do that for them.  And perhaps because even though there are still local (sometimes “local”) radio stations, most of them have cut back significantly on their on-air talent.

Walk the Moon’s “Shut up and Dance”

This song was all over the pop stations this summer.  I find it vaguely rude and the slightest bit overly manufactured and obvious, but rarely changed the station when it was playing.

Elle King’s Ex’s & Oh’s

This was also all over pop stations and also 94.7, the alternative radio station.  Plus KINK liked it.  So basically every music station I listen to.

Vance Joy’s Mess is Mine

I think it was mostly KINK that loved this song.  Maybe the alternative music station now and then.

The very wordy named Andrew McMahon In the Wilderness’s “Cecilia and the Satellite”

Another across-the-preset favorite.  I liked singing along with this, while also finding it slightly cheesy.

It occurs to me I’m not really crazy about any of these, so I’ll add in one more that I adore, even though I started hearing it in the spring.

Vampire Weekend’s “Unbelievers”

I love the music, I love the words, I have watched this video and I like it also.  I would like it to be longer, but songs seem to be very short right now.  I think all of these are under four minutes.

This song is one that I also looked up the chords and figured out how to play on the piano.  It involved figuring out some chord inversions, but I was successful in my inversions and I felt very smart.

Three sentence movie reviews: Straight Otta Compton

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While there is a dearth of women-who-aren’t-objects in this movie, what it does have is a ton of good acting by males, particularly Jason Mitchell as Easy-E.  Though I was the right age to be a fan, the rock/rap divide was a chasm on the time and I was standing firmly on the heavy metal side,* so I was watching this for the story (it delivered) rather than the music.  I found myself questioning if having all the members of NWA sign off on this movie meant that some things were portrayed in a more rosy light than maybe actual events that occurred, but ultimately enjoyed this motion picture.**

Cost: $5.00
Where watched:  Hollywood Theater with Kelly***

*For instance, when I hear the phrase “straight outta Compton”, I think not of NWA, but the line from the Kid Rock song “Cowboy”: I ain’t straight outta Compton, I’m straight out the trailer.
**Also, I found myself marveling at just how BIG t-shirts in the 80s were.  I mean, I was wearing them too, but in comparison to now, the actors were swimming in them.
***Note that Kelly and I began the summer with a movie featuring Paul Giamatti taking advantage of a musician and we ended the summer with a movie where Paul Giamatti took advantage of multiple musicians.  Crazy.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2015/wolfpack.html

 

Neither unit rented? Hmmm.

Such is the state of the housing market in Portland that I begin to get nervous when a house is vacant for too long, especially in this hot rental market.  This beautiful specimen is one block north of me and has two rental units. They’ve always been occupied and the property has been kept up very well.IMG_4554

Right now they are not occupied and haven’t been for a few months. Judging from past rental notices posted the house is managed by an individual owner, not a property management service.  The rates have always seemed quite reasonable for the neighborhood which makes me worry that whoever owned this property has died and the heirs are looking to make a killing selling the lot for someone to tear down what is there and build a monstrosity.  IMG_4555I mean, really, look at how big the lot is!  You could fit an 8-plex in there, easy.  Plus, see how they’ve covered something up with raw plywood?  Another not-good sign.  If the house has to go, I hope the huge oak tree survives.

I just looked up the property on PortlandMaps.com.  It’s owned by a trust.  Grrrr.  Not a good sign at all. Also?  Frank A Morse bought the house in 1988 for $29,000.  That trust is going to be making some money there.  Sigh.

Miraculous transformation

 I took a walk this morning to return a library book and was astounded to see an amazing transformation in downtown Kenton.  Right next to the library, there’s a storefront that is empty and decrepit looking.  It’s owned by a former Blazer who hasn’t been interested in renting the space, which means there is an ugly hole between the bustling library and a very popular coffee shop.  This vacancy annoys and offends people, and sometimes they do things like post signs on the door saying the owner is not being responsible.  Though I don’t have strong feelings, I wouldn’t mind if something was there.

So, wow, was I blown away to see that suddenly something was there.  A furniture shop and and clothing store and a camping/outdoor store? I was just here on Tuesday and there was no sign of any of this.  But now three new shops in one fell swoop? I crossed the street to investigate.

IMG_4552I started by looking in the windows of the furniture shop.  It was kind of weird that there was no main entrance.  I moved on to peeking into the clothing store.  It was pretty and hip, but I thought it was weird that they had installed walls that made the space tiny.  Because the shop spaces have been open and vacant for so long, I know that this shopfront is a big room of at least 30 or 40 feet in length.  But both the furniture store and the clothing shop were only about 12 feet deep.  Very strange.  Also, there were no hours posted on the door to the dress shop, nor any sort of signage to indicate the business was new to the neighborhood.

Moving onto the camping/outdoor store I saw that it, too was quite shallow.  I spent some time trying to figure out if there was more merchandise behind the partitions.  How were these stores ever going to make any money?

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It was when I stepped back and looked at the door next to the camping store that things became clear.  It was the standard Grimm notice I’ve grown used to seeing both downtown where I work and also in the Kenton neighborhood.  Grimm is a TV show that is filmed all around Portland, so we’ve grown used to seeing their crews everywhere.  And they must need some storefronts or stores for their latest season.  This was all smoke and mirrors for the sake of television.

As I was coming to this realization, another looky-loo came up and told me that she had done set dressing and noticed that everything in the furniture store was on clearance from Target. She guessed they would return it after they finished filming.  We both agreed the building looked much better with the fake stores.

A security guard, clearly enjoying the amount of attention these stores were causing, said, “If you like those stores, wait until you see the flower shop!”  And indeed, around the corner, the window of Fang and Feather, our neighborhood pet supply place, had been transformed into Ken’s Flowers.

IMG_4550Interestingly, Ken’s Flowers actually exists. It’s located in downtown Portland.  It was in the basement of the building where I had my first studio apartment.  When that building was torn down to make “luxury” apartments, the shop moved around the corner during construction of the gaudy new place and, when construction was finished, took up residence in the new building, on the exact same corner.