Portland
My newly immigrated friends and I were talking about it this morning over coffee as the weather oscillated from drizzle to sun, to cloudy, to breezy, to hot, to cold. Portland is really cozy. It is a city of nooks, Marc said. There are all these little independent coffee shops, bars, and art galleries. It seems Portlanders spend much of the rainy, chilly winter drinking local beer and good coffee in a vast array of random, small independently owned bars and coffee shops.
After a long night of art gallery openings, and dancing to Indian club music we wondered out to the "Bipartisan Cafe," a coffee shop covered with historic political propaganda, and portraits of various historic American political figures.They had a life sized cut-out of Obama and served a coffee brew called "The McCain Blend," coffee from Panama. Apparently McCain was born on a military base in Panama.
Another thing that is really popular is second run theaters that sell beer and pizza. For about six bucks you can watch an art film, or a movie that has been out for a month or two and eat pizza and beer (for an additional fee). We saw a strange movie, "My Winnipeg" made by a guy trying to understand his hometown Winnipeg, and his childhood, and his crazy mother. He sees himself and the darkness in his life tied intimately with the many local institutions that were destroyed in the name of progress by eager city planners. While I can't encourage you to watch it, it did leave an impression on me. I think if I'm ever up north I'd check out the town. It is, well, at least from his perspective, morbid and strangely intriguing.
The movie, and the city of Portland both share a resistance to the modern, mega-chain saturation of our country. Funny how Capitalism has finally brought us the same crushing uniformity of cultural establishments in so much of this country that the quasi-Communist USSR achieved so quickly by authoritarian decree. Even stranger that so many of the people in this country don't seem to mind. If our government mandated that we could only have square tables, and made the construction of round ones illegal people would riot in the streets. But when the only coffee shop available in a 30 mile radius is Sarbucks people embrace their Frappuccino (tm) with glee.
But while I feel a strong connection to the ideals and aesthetics of the people of Portland it is by no means a utopia. In many ways it reminds me a lot of my home town Tacoma Park, and some areas of Washington DC. The climate is similar to Maryland, although while it does get a lot of rain, the humidity is not as bad. But, like Maryland the trees and surrounding landscape have that wonderful lush greenness that Colorado lacks.
After a long night of art gallery openings, and dancing to Indian club music we wondered out to the "Bipartisan Cafe," a coffee shop covered with historic political propaganda, and portraits of various historic American political figures.They had a life sized cut-out of Obama and served a coffee brew called "The McCain Blend," coffee from Panama. Apparently McCain was born on a military base in Panama.
Another thing that is really popular is second run theaters that sell beer and pizza. For about six bucks you can watch an art film, or a movie that has been out for a month or two and eat pizza and beer (for an additional fee). We saw a strange movie, "My Winnipeg" made by a guy trying to understand his hometown Winnipeg, and his childhood, and his crazy mother. He sees himself and the darkness in his life tied intimately with the many local institutions that were destroyed in the name of progress by eager city planners. While I can't encourage you to watch it, it did leave an impression on me. I think if I'm ever up north I'd check out the town. It is, well, at least from his perspective, morbid and strangely intriguing.
The movie, and the city of Portland both share a resistance to the modern, mega-chain saturation of our country. Funny how Capitalism has finally brought us the same crushing uniformity of cultural establishments in so much of this country that the quasi-Communist USSR achieved so quickly by authoritarian decree. Even stranger that so many of the people in this country don't seem to mind. If our government mandated that we could only have square tables, and made the construction of round ones illegal people would riot in the streets. But when the only coffee shop available in a 30 mile radius is Sarbucks people embrace their Frappuccino (tm) with glee.
But while I feel a strong connection to the ideals and aesthetics of the people of Portland it is by no means a utopia. In many ways it reminds me a lot of my home town Tacoma Park, and some areas of Washington DC. The climate is similar to Maryland, although while it does get a lot of rain, the humidity is not as bad. But, like Maryland the trees and surrounding landscape have that wonderful lush greenness that Colorado lacks.