Keeping Portland Weird
Portland's always an interesting town. It's kind of a tale of two cities. Two virtual cities. One Portland is mild and straight laced. It is the middle-of-the-road Midwestern culture that settlers brought with them in their Conestoga wagons hundreds of years ago. I know people in/from Portland, and some of them are among the most boring people I can think of. But there's a second Portland that coexists with the first. That other Portland is... weird. It's an offbeat (but still usually polite) culture that features such things as the Unipiper, a fellow who rides a unicycle while dressed in a kilt and a Darth Vader, playing bagpipes that shoot bursts of flames.
I didn't encounter unicycling Darth Vader on this trip to Portland but I did see a few things that were more mildly offbeat.
First, there were the recycling bins. In many places there's just "trash". In others there are separate bins for recycling. I'm good with recycling. I like recycling. But Portland is one of those areas where recyclables are further subdivided into categories such as "food scraps", "recyclable paper", and "compost" and you're expected to know what goes where. There was a compost bin in the bathroom of my hotel room. I really don't want to think about what has gone into a compost bin next to the toilet. Especially one that's big, like they don't plan to empty it once a day.
Also offbeat (to me) were many of the people at the small conference I attended. The predominant fashion there could best be described as hipster lumberjack. Imagine flannel shirts and bushy beards paired with thick framed glasses, skinny jeans, and porkpie hats. Keepin' it weird, man.
Click to viewI didn't encounter unicycling Darth Vader on this trip to Portland but I did see a few things that were more mildly offbeat.
First, there were the recycling bins. In many places there's just "trash". In others there are separate bins for recycling. I'm good with recycling. I like recycling. But Portland is one of those areas where recyclables are further subdivided into categories such as "food scraps", "recyclable paper", and "compost" and you're expected to know what goes where. There was a compost bin in the bathroom of my hotel room. I really don't want to think about what has gone into a compost bin next to the toilet. Especially one that's big, like they don't plan to empty it once a day.
Also offbeat (to me) were many of the people at the small conference I attended. The predominant fashion there could best be described as hipster lumberjack. Imagine flannel shirts and bushy beards paired with thick framed glasses, skinny jeans, and porkpie hats. Keepin' it weird, man.