MASEEOOHFWNCBA

"Just another normal afternoon in NE Portland."

This post's title is what a photographer posted for this photo. Hey, maybe this is a lawn cutting service! If so, its motto could be "Pony up for your yard care."

If you see a lot of bicyclists around, it's because they multiply like...

Want to read a really funny article I wrote?

Too bad! All I have is this lousy one that was in the Oregonian this weekend.

Darth Vader plays the Star Wars theme on his bagpipes, while riding his unicycle.

It's Not the Heat, It's the Stupidity

What are the odds that the A.C. will conk out right in the middle of Portland's biggest heat wave?

Pretty good, actually!

Literary Look-Alikes

Portland’s annual literary festival, Wordstock, was held the other week. Its volunteers hosted an impressive diversity of authors and bookish offerings. For instance, let’s say that you like your get-togethers populated with Star Wars stormtroopers, Elvis impersonators, and Ovaltine samples. Wordstock had you covered!

Below: Star Wars writer Steve Perry, an Ovaltine enthusiast, and Elvis.

But if I can offer a modest suggestion, perhaps Wordstock could profit from the example set by the Florida bar known as Sloppy Joe’s. Since 1981, Sloppy Joe’s has hosted one of the most prestigious literary awards in the nation. Yes, I’m referring to its annual Ernest Hemingway Look-Alike Contest.

What authors have the distinctive appearance and name recognition to merit a look-alike contest hereabouts? Oregon-based possibilities might include locals like Ken Kesey, Ursula LeGuin and Chuck Palahniuk (below, left).

Last Look-Alike Listing: Charlie Chaplin's distinctive walk, mustache, and appearance led to a number of Charlie Chaplin look-alike contests in the early days of motion pictures.

Just for kicks, Chaplin entered a Chaplin look-alike contest in San Francisco. He didn’t even make it to the finals!

Blogging While Adulterated

Yep, I’m writing this in an adulterated state.

Actually, I write everything this way, but I didn’t realize it until this morning. That’s when I read about Portland bicyclist Michael "Bobby" Hammond, who was just cleared of criminal charges for nude cycling. (Hammond celebrates, above.) Hammond did this to support bike riding and to protest against little things like "cars, foreign oil, the Iraq war and air pollution.”

My favorite part of the story, which ran in the Oregonian:
"[Hammond] stripped off all his clothes and hopped on his vintage 1970s 10-speed — in an effort, he says, to make clear that nothing was powering his mode of transportation but his own unadulterated body."
I’ve long suspected that adulterated bicyclists —that is, the ones with clothes— might be using something to power their bikes. Whether it’s a small electric motor strapped beneath a pant leg or a petite internal combustion engine up their sleeve, there’s something fishy about the whole corrupt spectacle of bikers with clothes.

My fears are laid to rest each June, when the World Naked Bike Ride rolls around. Over 1,000 unadulterated Portland bikers took part in the last one, something that Judge Jerome LaBarre noted in Hammond’s case. The judge said that the symbolic protest of naked bike riding is a "well-established tradition" here in the Pacific Northwest.

Just not in the winter.

Herpetological Favoritism: Lost Frogs and Beloved Turtles

In these troubled times, it’s nice to think back on a simpler, gentler age.

Unfortunately, I can’t. I’m stuck with what happened on May 31, 2007. With Portland’s Rose Festival in full swing, a young Jonathon Ware became a flesh-eating zombie.

That is to say that Jonathon had just had been face-painted as a zombie when a local TV newsperson swooped upon him for a real-time interview. We all know what happened next.

Just as a song can get caught in your head, the image of Jonathan’s 1,000-yard zombie stare and the masterful way he stunned the reporter has been stuck in my mind. I'm hoping to exorcise this viral today... and just to be safe, I’m going with the Bill O’Reilly mash-up of the episode too.

The idea of taking a child's touching or funny non sequitur and then riffing on it has an appeal. Take the website LostFrog.org, which takes a child-created "Lost frog" flyer and runs with it. Here's the original graphic; click through the site to see its permutation.
P.S. I'll find my frog.

“Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt.”

When Herman Melville created the tattooed character of Queequeg in his 1851 novel Moby-Dick, he helped introduce skin art to American literature. I was reminded of this at an author's reading at a local bookstore. But forget the presentation; I was busy trying to read the back of the woman’s neck in front of me.

There was a sentence tattooed there, but I couldn’t quite make it out. The words “yes” and “will” were visible, but her hair blocked the rest, and she left before I understood what statement her neck was making.

I was left pondering how one-in-four U.S. adults has a tattoo, including nearly 40% of people between the ages of 25 and 29. Once linked with risky behavior patterns, tattoos are now common even among mild-mannered literary types. (No doubt a librarian somewhere is getting the phrase “Live to Read, Read to Live” inked on his or her arm at this very moment.)

With its legions of readers, Portland is a place where words frequently leap from pen to needle and from paper to skin. But since a human is a difficult manuscript to edit, due care must go into choosing a literary tattoo. What words get under a person’s skin to the point where they have to be on top of it as well? And what authors are particular favorites?

Wordy authors are disqualified as tattoo sources. It would take your entire back to do justice to someone like Virginia Woolf or Umberto Eco. A website devoted to readers who get inked, Contrariwise, reveals that a particular tattoo favorite is the Kurt Vonnegut quote heading this blog entry (it’s from Slaughterhouse 5). Also notable is the preponderance of selections in Tolkein’s Elvish, and quotes from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s Le Petit Prince, and my own The Pocket Guide to Mischief.

Herman Melville described Queequeg’s tattoos as “mysteries not even himself could read, though his own live heart beat against them.” That’s why a poet’s brief, vivid lines provide such excellent material; there’s more to the words than meets the eye.

I did eventually discover the source of the neck tattoo I spied at that book reading. It’s from the end of James Joyce’s Ulysses, and it relates the character Molly Bloom’s train of thought. The quote reads “yes I said yes I will Yes [sic].” (If you’re wondering what Molly was so positive about, leaf through Ulysses yourself; don’t worry, It’s a quick read.)

But for genuine self-expression, why use the words of another? Why not self-publish? For one thing, the writer gets to know his or her readers quite well. And there is another particularly satisfying bonus to self-publishing on your own skin: You probably won’t go out of print anytime soon.
As for me, I’m holding off until I find the perfect quote to extract from this year’s best book.

Other links of interest: A recent Oregonian piece, and a less-recent Telegraph article. (The latter will give the literary sources employed in the above photos.)
My sources are here.
Photo credits (from the top): Colleen AF Venable, smallestbones, mass romantic, Jun Cruz Na Ligas, poetnicole, unknown.

The 2008 US City Rankings Are Here!

"Ranked according to what?" you ask.

Why, sustainability, of course. And according to SustainLane.com, the most sustainable American city is Portland, Oregon. (The next four cities this year were San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, and New York.) Portland's top spot isn't a big surprise since the city has topped this list since it was invented in 2005.

Sustainability can be a slippery word to define, so SustainLane's methodology is here. And a lively debate over how relevant and accurate these rankings are can be found here. But you won't find many Portlanders engaging in petty bickering about our exalted status. We're too busy pedaling past xeriscaped front yards on our way to the community garden.