cyclotram

march magnolia

2012-04-20T01:29:00.004-07:00

april rosemary

2012-04-20T01:29:00.000-07:00

april tulip tree

2012-04-20T01:27:00.002-07:00

april cherry blossoms (ii)

2012-04-20T01:25:00.001-07:00

april tulips

2012-04-19T23:35:00.000-07:00

april cherry blossoms (i)

2012-04-19T23:32:00.001-07:00

april rhododendron

2012-04-19T23:29:00.003-07:00

spring berries

2012-04-19T23:28:00.000-07:00

West Side Market

2012-03-26T00:18:00.000-07:00

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More tourist photos from Cleveland, this time from the historic West Side Market, a bustling public market that dates back to 1840 (and to 1912 in the current building). I regret taking only still photos and no video; you don't get the full effect without seeing the place bustling. And even then you wouldn't get the full experience without being able to smell it. It smells of sausages and paprika and garlic the way Seattle's Pike Place Market smells of salmon and oysters and roasting coffee, if that gives you some idea.

On the sage advice of @dlayphoto, I picked up some beef jerky and smokies at the Czuchraj Meats counter. You're probably thinking, "Beef jerky? Seriously?" at this point; as there's also no way to send flavors or textures over the net, you're just going to have to trust me on this. It's nothing like the stuff you're familiar with. My assumption is there's a Slavic term for exactly what this is, and "beef jerky" is just the rough translation. But whatever it is, it's delicious.

Not pictured here are the market's produce stands, which are in a separate building built in an L shape around the main building; nor do you see either of the brewpubs within brief walking distance. The well-known Great Lakes Brewing pub is basically across the street, while the smaller Market Garden Brewery is located right next to the market itself. I'd originally planned to visit the Great Lakes pub, but there was a 45 minute wait so I went to Market Garden instead & had several tasty beers and a delicious plate of pierogies. And it turns out that Great Lakes has a location at the Cleveland Airport, so the net day I was able to try a few of their beers for lunch, and have another plate of delicious pierogies. Mmmm, beer... Mmm... pierogies....

Cleveland Arcade

2012-03-25T23:45:00.001-07:00

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Some photos of the historic Cleveland Arcade, an 1890 shopping mall said to be modeled on Milan's Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II. Before my whirlwind trip to Cleveland a couple of weeks ago I had no idea this existed. So naturally I had to stop and take a bunch of photos and generally wander around dazzled for a bit.

I should point out that it's a working shopping center and not just an architectural marvel, although it's not that big by modern mall standards, and the upper floors are now a Hyatt Regency hotel. Plus it seems to be set up to cater to downtown office workers, and not a lot was open on the weekend when I dropped by.

If the Arcade existed in a trendier, more tourist-oriented city it would be full of people 24/7, all gawking at the architecture and buying Cleveland Arcade t-shirts and snowglobes and knicknacks and so forth. If this existed in a very trendy city, the Vegas casino based on that city would include a carbon-copy Arcade, but full of slot machines and frozen daiquiri stands. But it's in Cleveland, a city in the un-trendy upper Midwest that's gotten a bad rap in recent decades for reasons I'll never understand. "How did I not know this existed?" was the reaction I kept having while wandering around town. So I'm going to go out on a limb and predict Cleveland will be fashionable someday. I won't go so far as to predict exactly when, but sooner or later the mainstream (i.e bicoastal) media will catch on and freak out like they've just discovered Atlantis or something. By which I mean they'll do the same exact thing they've been doing about Portland in recent years. Mark my words, it's just a matter of time.

Winter Rider No. 2

2012-03-25T18:41:00.000-07:00

The ongoing Transit Mall art thing continues with a visit to one of the more recent arrivals, Winter Rider No. 2, a 2003 sculpture by James Lee Hansen, the same guy who created Talos No. 2. Despite a quarter century gap, the two are unmistakably cousins. And as with the local Talos, Winter Rider No. 2 has an older sibling. The original Winter Rider dates to 1989 and was featured in a 1999 retrospective of Hansen's work.

Winter Rider No. 2 is located on SW 6th near Taylor, a couple of blocks south of Pioneer Courthouse Square.

Talos No. 2

2012-03-24T22:30:00.000-07:00

The occasional tour of Transit Mall art continues, with a visit to Talos No. 2, a 1977 sculpture by James Lee Hansen, now located at SW 6th & Stark. This abstract figure has always reminded me of a being you might see on the cover of a 1950s or 1960s science fiction paperback. (Here are a few classic examples.) And I mean that in a good way. I think.

The Talos of Greek mythology was a giant bronze robo-man who patrolled the island of Crete, protecting it from invaders. You may be familiar with Ray Harryhausen's scary Talos in his classic film "Jason and the Argonauts".

In case you were wondering about the "No. 2" in the name of Portland's Talos, the mythological one isn't counted as "No. 1". Hansen's original Talos (1961) isn't in Crete, but in Fresno of all places. It once graced the downtown Fulton Mall, before being seriously vandalized a few years ago. It looks, or looked, a lot like ours, and you wouldn't suspect they were created 16 years apart. In any case, the public radio station at Cal State Fresno has an interesting interview with the sculptor that touches on their local Talos among other things.

Dawson Park Expedition

2012-03-24T19:57:00.000-07:00

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A few photos of NE Portland's Dawson Park, on Williams Ave. near Emmanuel Hospital. It's your basic small city park, with one unusual detail. The ornate cupola on the park's gazebo was salvaged from the nearby Hill Block Building, which was demolished in 1969 for an urban renewal project that was cancelled shortly thereafter.

Bulldozing ethnic neighborhoods in the name of urban renewal was standard practice here in the 1950s and 1960s, particularly the Jewish & Italian neighborhoods south of downtown Portland, and the African-American neighborhoods on the eastside, including the Russell St. business district near Dawson Park. The standard narrative is that the city became more enlightened over time and eventually decided this was a bad idea. And it's a pure, unrelated coincidence that the bulldozers stopped right when federal urban renewal money dried up during the Nixon Administration. Riiight.

Dawson Park had a bad reputation for crime and drugs during the 80s, 90s, and into the 2000s, and the city more or less neglected it right up until gentrification reached this part of town. Now that the area's become popular with young hip upscale homebuyers -- in what's surely a second amazing coincidence -- the city now has big plans to revitalize the park, starting later this year. Complete with an extra helping of super-noble liberal guilt about the whole urban renewal and neglect and gentrification thing. Sure is weird how that always takes the form of high-minded conceptual art features and avant-garde architectural concepts, and never involves improving the local schools or bringing more jobs to the area.

Willamette Greenway Trail

2012-03-24T18:21:00.000-07:00

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Some old photos from the Willamette Greenway Trail in the Johns Landing neighborhood. As I recall, it was a nice day and I was between projects at the office and I thought I'd wander of the office for a bit. It was a pleasant walk and I ended up at the Fulton Pub near Willamette Park; any walk that ends with tater tots is pleasant by definition if you ask me. Speaking of which, I'm not sure I've actually repeated this excursion since I took these photos, and it may be overdue. Mmm, tater tots...

Launch Complex 34

2012-03-24T12:22:00.000-07:00

A few photos of Cape Canaveral's Launch Complex 34, site of the Apollo 1 fire in 1967. Our tour guide described the place as "spooky" and "haunted" before we got there, so I realize was sort of primed to see it that way. But I think there's also something innately spooky, sort of Stonehenge-like, about the place even if you have no idea what it is or what happened here. Visiting at sunset probably helped. I keep thinking it was cold and windy at the time too, although I suspect it was actually around 70 degrees, this being Florida and all.

spring 2012: daffodils & crocuses

2012-03-17T13:55:00.000-07:00

spring 2012: cherry blossoms

2012-03-17T13:54:00.000-07:00

Hope Memorial Bridge

2012-03-11T16:54:00.000-07:00

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A few photos of Cleveland's Hope Memorial Bridge, previously (and better) known as the Lorain-Carnegie Bridge, which crosses the Cuyahoga River near the city's downtown. I don't have any good photos of the bridge from the side or below, unfortunately, and I didn't actually walk all the way across the thing (which is something I usually try to do with bridges). But what I do have are photos of several of the eight enormous "Guardians of Transportation" that protect the bridge from... something. (Dragons, perhaps?) If you need proof of the awesomeness -- and weirdness -- of Depression-era Art Deco, look no further; these guys are Exhibit A.

I was merely a weekend visitor to Cleveland and I wouldn't claim to be an expert on the history of the bridge, or of anything else in town really, so if you're intrigued by the bridge and its Guardians you might check out the Wikipedia page for the bridge, and a few other sites I came across with more info, historical photos, and so forth:

Encyclopedia of Cleveland History at Case Western Reserve University
HistoricBridges.org
Cleveland Memory at Cleveland State University
CSU Digital Humanities
Cleveland Historical

Freshwater Stingrays, Greater Cleveland Aquarium

2012-03-03T22:15:00.000-08:00

A couple of video clips of freshwater stingrays at the shiny new Greater Cleveland Aquarium. I thought I'd taken a photo of the sign so I could remember just what sort of stingrays these are, but I can't find any evidence of that actually happening. I do recall the sign pointing out these are freshwater stingrays, so we know that at least, if it helps.

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Skylab 3

2012-03-02T18:36:00.000-08:00

A couple of photos of the Apollo capsule used in the Skylab 3 mission back in 1973. This is at the NASA Glenn Research Center's Visitor Center, which is now part of the Great Lakes Science Center in downtown Cleveland, Ohio.

From the archives: Willamette Park

2012-02-22T00:05:00.000-08:00

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A few old photos from Willamette Park, on the river south of downtown, just north of the Sellwood Bridge. The park's home to a popular boat ramp and hosts lots of big group picnics, softball games, etc. And that's nice and all, but it doesn't offer a lot in the way of hip quirkiness, quirky hipness, or other blogworthy qualities. That's probably why these 2007 photos haven't made it into a post until now. And now I have to admit this post is mostly to fill a gaping hole in this humble blog's map of geotagged posts. Which is a pretty poor reason, and one of no probable interest to anyone other than myself. I figured I'd go hit the Oregonian Historical Archive and find some fascinating historical anecdotes, but park's generic name works against us here, and sadly I have no anecdotes of interest to share. Such tales may exist somewhere, but I'm afraid my Oregonian-fu has failed me this time around..

"TriMet" (sculpture)

2012-02-21T20:59:00.001-08:00

Today's stop on our ongoing tour of Portland's transit mall art is a piece called simply "TriMet", by the sculptor Robert Maki. As you can probably tell from the angular Cor-Ten steel and so forth, it's yet another mid-1970s holdover from when the bus mall first went in, but this one is not in its original form. Prior to MAX construction, it was the centerpiece of the large so-called "Bathtub Fountain", one of several fountains along 5th & 6th Avenues that were permanently removed when MAX went in. Now the sculpture sits by itself in front of the Standard Plaza building. (Ring of Time is in front of the building's 6th Avenue entrance, if that rings a bell at all.)

Or I should say "sat" rather than "sits". I'm not sure when it left, but "TriMet" is gone right now. I don't know whether this is permanent or temporary, but either way it's not there, and it hasn't simply moved to another spot on the bus mall as far as I know. I mention this by way of an apology for the fair-to-middling Blackberry camera phone photos. I went back later with a Real Camera, but the thing was already gone by then.

Wahclella Falls

2012-02-20T00:23:00.000-08:00

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A few photos of Wahclella Falls, one of my favorite waterfalls in the Columbia Gorge. At some point last year I realized I hadn't been there in quite a few years, and had precisely zero photos of the falls, so I made the trip, did the easy hike in to the falls, and took way too many photos. And as is usual when I take too many photos, when I start trying to sort through and pick a few to post, I get a headache and quit iPhoto and don't look at them again for six months or a year. Which is more or less what happened here.

The one upside to this is that I always have a backlog of reasonably bloggable photos sitting around for times like this when I feel like doing a new post, but the trees are bare and grey and the weather's uncooperative. So there's that. I mean, some people might take this opportunity to go without photos and write about life, art, or politics instead. But I've already tried the political blogging thing once and I found it stressful and unrewarding. Meanwhile life is pleasantly boring, generally speaking, and would make for blog posts even more uninteresting than the stuff I do post about. And I always seem to need photos when I talk about art here (and those photos tend to sit around in iPhoto for months first, just like everything else).

So anyway, Wahclella Falls at the same exit off I-84 as Bonneville Dam, but on the opposite side of the freeway. A short drive gets you to a Forest Service parking lot, which has a fee of a few dollars. It's annoying, and I should point out that they do actually check now and then whether you're parked legally. Besides, if the Forest Service has a revenue shortfall, the difference just gets tacked on to the federal debt; you'll end up paying eventually one way or the other, so you might as well just pay now.

The initial segment of the hike is on a flat service road, until you get to a weir or flood control widget of some sort. After that it's a regular old trail. You'll pass little Munra Falls early on. Then you continue hiking in until you get to the main event, where the trail ends. There are a couple of forks in the trail, but they all end up in the same place and form a loop. It's really that simple. There aren't intersections with other trails to worry about, or any steep technical sections, and it's only 2 miles in and back, and the scenery stays interesting. I did it as a kid a few times & never thought it was a big deal. What's more, the place gets overlooked a lot, and I don't recall it ever being remotely crowded when I was there. And I can say with a fair bit of confidence that nothing has ever become fashionable or popular after I wrote about it here in the 6+ years this humble blog has graced the interwebs. So it's likely to still be uncrowded if you take my advice and go.

alarm, o'bryant square

2012-02-05T17:19:00.001-08:00

park & couch

2012-02-05T17:18:00.001-08:00