Upside Down on Mars

My wife and I have a goal to walk across every bridge in Portland. One of PDX's plethora of nicknames being Bridgetown it just seems like a thing to do. We'd walked a couple by happenstance before I really formulated this goal, but once I did, I knew the Sellwood would have to be the bridge we walked first. A new bridge is being built to replace the Sellwood and there will be some sort of detour I don't really understand starting in January. This would be because the Sellwood Bridge is, in the words of a Yelp reviewer, a "deathtrap". (Yes. Bridges get reviewed on Yelp in Portland. There are probably individual trees, homeless camps, and rabid raccoons in Portland that are reviewed on Yelp.)¹

The Sellwood Bridge really is, however, something of a deathtrap. It's rated "two out of one hundred", and this is frequently repeated by people who never explain what it means precisely: "TWO out of a HUNDRED!!!" That certainly sounds bad, so I'm working under the assumption that those of us wanting to walk the Sellwood are racing against, not only it's planned demolition, but also it's unplanned collapse. Walking or driving it you just hope it doesn't fall down while you are on it. And you get the sense that, even in this most secular of American cities, the city leaders will be doing a lot of praying until January.

This is my (let's see, how pretentiously can I phrase this?) Photographic Essay about our walk across the Sellwood Bridge a few weeks ago.

If you approach the Sellwood Bridge from Sellwood Waterfront Park, as we did, you pass the Oaks Pioneer Church, formerly St. John's Episcopal Church. The historical marker on it says that it is the oldest Oregon church in continuous use and that it was dedicated on December 10, 1851. One of the two major uses of Oaks Pioneer Church today is to say a prayer before crossing the Sellwood Bridge and, if your prayer is sincere enough, the bridge might not fall down while you are on it. The other use is for weddings. It is traditional for the entire wedding party to jump up and down on Sellwood Bridge before the wedding. If this causes the Bridge to collapse and the entire wedding party to plunge into the pristine waters of the Willamette, it foretells woe for that marriage. But if the bridge doesn't fall down, you will have a happy marriage. Actaully, I made all of that up. It is true that about 75 couples a year get married in Oaks Pioneer Church and it is also true that none of them are allowed to consume alcoholic beverages while getting married in the Church. It's also a good idea not to consume alcoholic beverages while or before crossing the Sellwood Bridge. That could lead to a scenario in which the bridge doesn't fall down, but you do, and the sidewalks are very, very narrow. You would likely fall into traffic.

This is actually the sign on the other side of the bridge, but I am putting it here for the narrative flow of my pretentious Photographic Essay. The Sellwood Bridge has had a hard time of it ever since before it was built. It started its life in the shadow of SCANDAL! If you've seen the episode of Grimm in which Nick investigates the murder of a bridge construction contractor who is a beaver, by a building inspector who is a troll, it was kind of like that, only in this case the bridge designers did apparently in fact pay tribute to the trolls so they could design the Burnside Bridge, the Ross Island Bridge and the Sellwood Bridge. These particular trolls, three county commissioners called Rankin, Rudeen, and Walker, were eventually charged with "graft, bribery and malfeasance". Also, there is, according to the Sellwood Bridge website an "ancient and active landslide which is gradually pushing eastward from the West Hills." This should not have been a surprise to anyone, on account of the landslide being ancient and all, but apparently it was, and they kept having to shore up the structure and remove pieces from it to reduce stress almost from the beginning.

Rankin, Rudeen, and Walker. Seriously, don't these guys look like trolls?
(From SellwoodBridge.org)

This suicide hotline sign has been defaced. I'm thinking that whoever
defaced it understood that those on the Sellwood Bridge are pretty
much suicidal by definition and probably had the number memorized.

In this picture, you can see underneath the bridge, where
the trolls live. I didn't take a picture of it, but behind me is
an apartment complex that looks as if it will be partly
underneath the detour bridge or the new bridge or both. I'm
very confused about the construction process, but maybe
the trolls demanded nicer accommodations?

Damage to the Sellwood Bridge like this adds
to the thrill of crossing the bridge!

Why it's worth it: There are some great view of Downtown
Portland from the Sellwood Bridge. Nevertheless, I don't
plan on walking, or driving on it until the new one is built, and
buses aren't even allowed on it.

¹Here as everywhere, however, only malcontents review on Yelp. What they have to be so malcontent about here is often beyond me and I frequently daydream about sending the lot of them to Hobbs, New Mexico or Anthony, Texas. Those are places one can really work up a good malcontent about.

Thursday, September 13, 2012

the swift blackberry apocalypse

The short weeks between Labor Day and the Autumnal Equinox are, it turns out, a time of Fear and Loathing in Portland, Oregon. We arrived here in midsummer, when Oregon is a paradise unrivaled on Earth: Sunny, but not hot; humid, but not sweaty; green, and breezy. With weather like that the Oregonians are positively giddy. Ordinary citizens walk down the street smiling at the sky like they have Down's Syndrome, and-- I am not kidding about this-- spontaneously breaking out into song. Sunlight is well known to provide Vitamin D; in Oregon, it apparently also provides Vitamin E, the infamous MDMA, the rave drug Ecstasy.

And then Labor Day happens, or as I like to call it, the kickoff of Blackberry Panic. My awareness of Blackberry Panic began with this humble reminder on the Willamette Week's "It List: The Top 10 Things in Portland and the World"

3. Blackberries Eat them while you can, as they will soon be gone/obscenely priced for 10 months.

OK, that makes sense. Good advice I'll try to follow. Of course, living mostly in the southwest, the closest thing I've ever had to an in-season fruit or vegetable is a Hatch green chili, but I'm nothing if not up for new experiences.

But it didn't end there. Montana's supervisor, the Associate Dean, is a fellow beagle-companion-person. Her husband has a love-hate relationship with their beagle, Ruby. Yesterday it was mostly hate, because he left an entire container of blackberries on the kitchen table and Ruby leapt up on the table and ate them all. And then it was all over except for the

ZOMG! ALL THE BLACKBERRIES ARE GONE AND WE WILL HAVE NO MORE FOR AN ENTIRE YEAR WE'RE ALL DOOMED DOOMED DOOMED

So, we're watching from the roof of our building as crazed blackberry-hunters run panicked through the burning city streets like they are being chased by zombies crawling out of their very graves, and we get a text from our webfootted friend, Sonya:

OMG OMG OMG YOU HAVE TO COME OVER AND WATCH THE SWIFTS LIKE NOW!

The Swifts? Turns out watching the migrating Swifts is a northwest tradition. Every year, thousands of Swifts gather in Portland in preparation for migration to Central America and Venezuela. However, ominously,

THEY ARE ONLY HERE FOR LIKE A WEEK OMG OMG OMG

In Oregon, the leaves begin to turn and The Fear
arises in the Oregonians

So, there it is. All summer, as we raved about the temperate weather and complimented new acquaintances on their friendliness, we heard it, again and again and again: "Talk to me in February." The encroaching mists of winter are always there in Portland. Even in the sunny summer, they lurk somewhere outside the city like a bill you don't have quite enough money to pay. After Labor Day, Portlanders can feel the mist rising as in a Stephen King novel and they desperately clutch to what's left of the glorious summer-that-was . Swifts. Blackberries.

Myself, I don't fear the mist, at least not this first year. On the contrary, living in Texas, I learned to hate the sun. So, what I'm really looking forward to is next summer, when the sun comes out of the mist and I, too, can experience that druggy Vitamin D high. And, also and even, I look forward to running around a year from now, panicked, like I am being chased by the very Hounds of very Hell, looting every last blackberry and Swift I can find.

Friday, August 31, 2012

unrequited love among the downtown doggy set

Last Saturday, Powell's Books had a little street festival to celebrate their anniversary and we went up there to hang out for awhile. Part of the entertainment was a troupe called Mortified; they read/perform embarrassing pieces of writing that they did when they were younger. One performer read her angry letters to her fellow students when she was a "weirdo" teenager in San Antonio before coming to "weirdo central," Portland, Oregon. A man read his diary entries from 1987 in the voice of his Dungeons and Dragons character. And one lady read her embarrassing teenage diary entries and love letters to the "love of her life" when she was thirteen.

Austin longingly stares at himself in the mirror, wondering
if Giant Poodle thinks he's cute

Now, one of our beagles, Austin, is two, which is a teenager for a dog. And he faces similar issues. So, I would like to present for your entertainment Austin's mortifying letters to the Love of his Life:

GIANT POODLE! I love you, Giant Poodle. I do not know your name, because my parents are MEAN and they WILL NOT LET ME come over and sniff you. I pull and pull at my leash trying to get to you, but mom and dad say you are bigger than your companion person and she may not be able to control you on your leash if I got you excited. MY PARENTS ARE SO MEAN TO ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If you break off your leash, Giant Poodle, we could run away together. Maybe into the Big Park across the street. They would never find us there.

GIANT POODLE! I love you, Giant Poodle. I WILL NEVER FORGET TODAY!!!!!!! Today, we ran into you and I got to sniff you!!!!!! I am SO excited. Did you like how I smell, Giant Poodle???? You must have! You got so excited that you peed on the sidewalk and your mom acted all embarrassed. Humans are SO STUPID sometimes. THEY JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND OUR ETERNAL LOVE!!!!!

GIANT POODLE! I LOVE YOU, Giant Poodle. Today, my dad walked me over where you walk and I smelled your beautiful presence. I peed on the grass there so you would know I'd been there. Oh, Giant Poodle. When can I sniff you again, Giant Poodle?

GIANT POODLE! I haven't seen you in TWO days!!!! WHERE ARE YOU???? WHY WON'T YOU RETURN MY LETTERS???

GIANT POODLE! I saw you out the window today. I looked down eight stories and there you were on the sidewalk. It was like an ETERNAL distance of my longing heart. I just stared and stared and then I barked a little and then I saw ANOTHER DOG come up and sniff you and you sniffed him. OH, GIANT POODLE. Why do you play with my heart?

At this writing, Austin is trying to get his brother Clyde to ask Giant Poodle if she likes him.

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

The devil over my shoulder wishes we had never moved to Portland

One of the positive side effects of Portlanders' Funhouse Mirror^TM perception of their city is the phenomenon that, no matter how awesome the quality of life here may be, Portlanders will find a cause to band together around, to MAKE IT EVEN AWESOMER. Today was an idyllic day: a cool 72 degrees, a slight breeze, sunshine, and the ten-day forecast holding out the promise of cool days all the way to September. (Since August is maintained to be "the most hellishly hot ZOMG NIGHTMARE NIGHTMARE NIGHTMARE" month, this could suggest that our horrifyingly horrible six days of 90-degree weather might have come to an end.) I walked the dogs over to Lovejoy Fountain. Lovejoy Fountain is part of a supercool pedestrian mall which goes on for several blocks of downtown and includes several fountains. Now, Lovejoy isn't in a grassy park like the Ira Keller fountain. There are several trees, but also (ominous chords) concrete.

Walking through the area¹, I saw the usual mix of lunch-breaking downtown workers-- it was 2:45 pm, but, hell, they don't call PDX the "City Different" for nothing. Wait: they call Santa Fe the "City Different". Ah, well, if we can steal "weird" from Austin, we can certainly steal "Different" from Santa Fe. GO GO GO PDX, what I like to call the "city that never sleeps," "that toddlin' town," "the Big Easy".

Where was I? Oh, yeah, "I saw the usual mix of lunchbreaking downtown workers, kids playing in the fountain, nannys nannying, dogs dogs dogs, and a sign affixed to the Lovejoy Fountain sign that read, 'This used to be Lovejoy Fountain.'" Right, okay, except the sign wasn't, you know, part of the usual mix. It also wasn't the only sign. Giant pieces of-- well, it looked liked butcher paper to me, because I'm a teacher. Why do they still call it butcher paper, anyway? They should call it "teacher paper". But, I digress! Giant pieces of teacher paper proclaimed the fountain to be "a waterfall," the waters below to be "a lake," and the concrete wall behind to be "a mountain".

It was very curious! I walked the dogs around the "waterfall," and by the "lake," but did not try to climb the "mountain". Mainly because its vertical ascent approached 90 degrees.

Then I saw a youthful Portlander with (ominous chord) teacher paper. The teacher paper read, "This is a field," and he was carefully placing it on a square-shaped concrete bench. I maneuvered the dogs over to his vicinity and said something clever like, "What's up with the signs?"²

"Oh!" he replied. "We are trying to raise awareness that there is no grass in this park." I looked around. I had been laboring under the mistaken understanding that I was already aware of that. "Well," he went on,"no nature. Unfortunately, there's not a field here. Unfortunately, there's not a mountain. So we just have to imagine them. We're trying to get the city to consider putting some green space here. We have a petition. We brought our own grass." He gestured over at his friend, who sat forlornly on two squares of turf with a clipboard. He looked at me with Beagle Eyes. My beagles looked up at me with Beagle Eyes.

And the old cynical Barry, the devil over my shoulder, says, of course, you have a petition. It's Portland. I'm sure there was a petition when the clock on Jackson Tower stopped functioning and, now that it hasn't functioned for awhile, I'm sure there'd be a petition if it ever started working again. Coming from a town where, like, one-tenth of one-percent of the electorate votes in city elections, it's just weird to see people so engaged.

An unidentified male sits on grass by Lovejoy Fountain. Unfortunately,
he had to bring his own grass. Please help us right this wrong!

Lovejoy is okay with me as it is. I like Lovejoy. Also, I wasn't convinced that the fact that there was no mountain in downtown Portland was "unfortunate".³ But the angel over my other shoulder won out, and I signed the petition. Engaged Portlanders may be. Weird they may be. (Sorry, Austin, we stole the slogan, but we deserve it.) But Portlanders are also earnest, and how can you say no to Beagle Eyes?
¹It will become clear, momentarily, why I refer to Lovejoy as an area and not a park.

²I also did not ask his name, his friend's name, or if they had an organization I could credit in this narrative. I'm just going to do what I usually do when I totally forget social niceties and pretend I have Asperger's.

³ Because, walkin' heah!

UPDATE: "Youthful Portlander" identified. Also, here.

Friday, August 17, 2012

This one goes out to the people of Amarillo

Hello, Amarillo! Are you ready to rock-and-roll?!

Listen to me, people of Amarillo: I have an idea for a business. When Montana and I left your city, we had to get rid of a lot of stuff in some pretty unsavory ways. For example, I left a box of old electronics at a thrift store and drove away really fast. We guilted friends into taking books and other things they didn't really need away from my house. We also (gulp!) just threw a lot of stuff away!

In my new city, where the trash can fills up so-- freaking-- slowly-- compared to the recycling and composting bins, the thought of Throwing Stuff Away already begins to fill me with horror. No telling what horrors await in the dumpster labeled "Garbage" (or sometimes, more guilt-inducingly, "Stuff You Have Chosen to Waste, You Bad, Bad Person-- Oh, Well, I Guess Some Of Us Just Make Poor Choices Whaddaya Gonna Do?") Yeah, no telling what will pop out if I lift that lid. Maybe Cthulu lives down there!

So, anyway, after attending several street fairs and art walks here in PDX, I have come to the conclusion that Portland is facing a crisis in the very near future. The supply of repurposable waste material that can be used to make cork boards, and cake stands, and butterfly pins will surely dry up here, and soon. Already things grow ugly in the Goodwill stores, as evidenced by the rage in "I, Anonymous" (the column where you look into the id of Portland and are all like, "Oh, honey, is that as mean as you can be?")

But, we can solve the problems of both towns! As the possibilities for even simple 1990s-style recycling dry up in the 806, Amarillo is virtually overflowing with repurposable waste. You can send it to us! All we need is some transport. Who's willing to drive a truck filled with used electronics and scraps of fabric to the West Coast? I'll check and see if the domain sendusyourcrapamarillo.com is available.

Love you guys! See you next time! Rock and Roll!

Barry

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Portland's funhouse mirror, part 2

"The Grid" is another way that Portlanders suffer from a chronic inability to see Portland clearly. Zinester's Guide to Portland discusses PDX's "beloved grid" several times and most Portlanders seem to take for granted that their streets are (for better or worse; this being Portland, there naturally is considerable debate about this) laid out in a perfectly square pattern.

Here's the problem: There's no freaking grid!

Look at this figure from a scholarly analysis of whether Portland's grid is "worthy of adulation". (Really!) The middle illustration is what Portlanders think their streets look like:

Now look at a Google map. There's no freaking grid!

Okay. A tiny section of Northwest has alphabetized streets and the numbered streets count up from the river. But:

1. Broadway runs vaguely northeast where I live, then turns straight north, then turns northeast again and becomes a bridge, then turns straight east across the river. South of my apartment Broadway twists west into the Southwest Hills.

2. The streets in Ladd's Addition form an "X" that jumps out at you on a map like a crop circle. Admittedly (and weirdly), this is said to upset some people considerably because it violates "The Grid," but if they are upset about this, they should be also upset about the other parts of town that violate the grid. Like 90% of our streets.

3. South of my apartment, SW 6th becomes either Jackson Park Road or twists around to become Terwilliger, which then follows a snakelike path through Southwest Portland.

There are numerous other examples. Coming from a town where all the streets pretty much did run straight north or south this consensual hallucination of a grid is just about the weirdest thing I've encountered about Portland so far. And that's saying a lot.