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Bicycle insanity, Portland OR, August 15, 209

…certainly seemed like it while I was there. Slightly (only slightly) more of my Oregon trip is available on Flickr.

Full Twitter digest after the jump…

• @mymble05 welcome to the neighborhood, from a Minnesotan who agrees. in reply to mymble05 #
• Poor @nytimes fact checking led me to tweet on Swedish "Cronkiters." @NPR has debunked this. @erikmoe regrets the error. http://ow.ly/juDS #
• NOW: Birthday beverages at L'Enfant with you. Thugs welcome (if they support my 34th year being awesome). #
• @_taylor_ Will be in MSP aug 19-23. Let's talk about how Mediation and Flak Radio will turn the tide. #
• @iteeth it's on! #
• Yikes. Oakland fan tazed in the stands. Centrists' comment: "this would never happen in the AL Central." http://ow.ly/jJHL #
• Another important issue for Obama to address: http://ow.ly/jJPC (via @captain_tenille @josh_bomb ) #
• SEIU's L. Toni Lewis on MSNBC now talking health care #
• Canada ≠ U.K. http://ow.ly/jLhk #
• RT @dcwumpus everyone needs a little @erikmoe on their shoulder #
• …technically that was a pre-tweet, not a re-tweet #
• RT @MNProgressive: #nn09 It's not too early to offer suggestions: Bring #NN10 to the Twin Cities! #
• The following tweets concern Portland, Oregon and environs. #PDX #
• I can tell already that I will not be able to eat all the good food in #PDX #
• Every street in PDX at all times, apparently. http://twitpic.com/e0k1y #
• Overheard: multiple conversations about sauces on the street in PDX. Including a "parsnip sauce" #
• Observed: The word "gnarly" occurs more frequently and generally unironically here. #
• So this happened. http://twitpic.com/eayw7 #
• What are people excited about in Minneapolis St. Paul #MSP #twincy Twin Cities #twincities Minnesota MN this weekend. Let's get it going! #
• (preceding tweet and those that follow concern the beautiful twin cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota and environs) #
• @robinmarty Hmm… Did you mean Geek fest / you're a geek? Or Greek fest you're a Greek? Or no typos? Or Geek/Greek #
• @bretjacobson in my quick survey I found nothing not awesome about Portland in reply to bretjacobson #
• @robinmarty Good. I'm sick of geekfests. Let me know when you're going. in reply to robinmarty #
• @iteeth @_taylor_ beer friday or saturday? #
• @dcwumpus soon in reply to dcwumpus #
• 24 hrs left in MSP. Gorgeous weather, bikes, art, street festivals, outdoor music. It's all a bit much really. #
• Minneapolis seems to be doing just fine. Thanks for everything mntweeps. #
• Weird to be back in a place where blowing through crosswalks at high speeds is socially acceptable. Can we work on this, DC? #
• Crazy use of Megatouch game machine at Townhouse Tavern http://ow.ly/lj4s #
• I could have been replaced with this flowchart at some of my early places of employment http://ow.ly/ljwR #
• Ang Lee's "Taking Woodstock" = not recommended #
• all the suggestions to raise a pint for Teddy = recommended #
• Watch. This. Cartoon. I love my government run socialized universal fire insurance. Can I have it for health, too? http://ow.ly/lz49 #
• RT @markosm: Name the Public Option after Kennedy, not the bill. http://ow.ly/lzVD #
• Afternoon entertainment: @dustytrice is livetweeting Michelle Bachmann's townhall #
• .@michaelwhitney sporting his parting gift. http://twitpic.com/fhjm3 #
• One more with @michaelwhitney and @glennbeck http://twitpic.com/fhkhk #
• Use of the minotaur maze was clearly torture. Those responsible must be prosecuted. http://ow.ly/lBwb (via @youngamerican ) #
• Pony up! Clear health care explanations don't animate themselves. $5k is cheap. http://ow.ly/lCLC #
• petition @michaelwhitney to take a shot with everyone at his Bourbon party tonight http://act.ly/gv RT to sign #actly #
• Michelle Bachmann crop art! http://ow.ly/mDi8 #
• There will be grilling and porch-sitting in Eckington tonight. Stop by. #
• Interesting. Nine-pitch triple-strikeout innings are getting more common. http://ow.ly/ndd5 #
• Corn http://twitpic.com/frz23 #
• US forces 700,000 citizens into bankruptcy annually because of medical bills. Japan, UK, France, Germany: zero http://ow.ly/lBpa #
• theory: Brett Farve forced to come out of retirement for employer-provided health care #
• Norm MacDonald tells a joke about a moth (h/t @youngamerican) http://bit.ly/4GIsv #
• Glenn Beck is doing a quick recap of my 20th Century Art History lectures. He's skipping a few points though. #
• The saga of the perpetually not-quite-repaired bicycle may finally be over. Just in time for autumn. The best season for biking in DC. #
• Last night for Truffaut retrospective at @afisilver – All true #dcfilm geeks will be in attendance #
• Put this man in the Senate! http://ow.ly/o0IZ #
• Go blue for healthcare! http://ow.ly/o84o #
• Oh nice. @heavytable 's James Norton and Becca Dilley have a new book about cheese. http://ow.ly/o79M #
• Congrats, great vid. RT @dustytrice Franken video at 233,000 views, front page of YouTube. Amazing! http://bit.ly/Os7yr #
• Labor Day weekend underway: Start of #dcfilm Resnais retrospective at Natl. Gallery, Blobs Park, river tubing, grillout(s), farmers markets #
• @rosswallen Welcome to DC! #
• Polka band for the win! http://twitpic.com/gnt15 #
• Quick question: Anybody else ever find an egg wrapped in paper that's been set on fire in their mailbox? #
• Power to the Poster! Great advocacy posters here. http://ow.ly/otMw #
• It's this simple, folks! Robert Reich explains the public option http://ow.ly/oBo4 (h/t @_taylor_ ) #
• Sad day. Yosi Sergant, ally of artists out at NEA. http://ow.ly/oQmv #
• New crimes @glennbeck is tracking: biking to work and not wearing logos #
• Coffee and magazines, Autumn Saturday http://twitpic.com/hgkwf #
• Lots of Tea Partiers riding the Socialist DC Metro red line tonight #
• …AND just 10 minutes later same teabaggers were hating DC metro for not being as fast or efficient as the high speed rail in China #
• Always an important question. http://twitpic.com/hlf7z #
• "Spirit of the Beehive" (1973) = Gorgeous & highly recommended. Shows again Tues night at @afisilver "Cinema & the Spanish Civil War" series #
• Is Twitter down for everyone or just me? All I'm getting is a list of athletes, pro sports teams and exclamation points. Weird. #
• Failure to eat farmers market peaches yesterday or at lunch means they are available for porchfront grilling tonight. #
• Porch status: crowded, corn, dogs on grill #
• grilled peaches = recommended #
• @elliebelly13 More people are famous, more famous people are dying http://ow.ly/po9v in reply to elliebelly13 #
• When you instill a culture of outlandish BS, you might become blind to outlandish BS http://ow.ly/pCCH via @mbrownerhamlin #
• Now following Baltimore's delicious Woodberry Kitchen: @WoodberryVoice / See also this list of DC restaurants on Twitter: http://ow.ly/pDio #
• Hoping the DC skies clear before lunch and the 1pm debut of White House farmers market. #
• Yo La Tengo tonight at 9:30 Club. Who else is going? Pre-show plans? http://ow.ly/pNmn #
• WH farmers market not open til 3? Crowd for opening ceremony, but I'm hungry now. Next week? http://twitpic.com/i2faj #
• …and @fojolbros out of veggie fare. #lunchfail #
• Only(?) major brand advertising on @glennbeck today: Allstate. Actor in those ads: Dennis Haysbert, big Obama/Dean donor http://ow.ly/pSZz #
• @allsongs thanks for the warning. Will not hurry over just yet. #
• Apparently I know cheese and fonts equally well (not well at all). Maybe I should go into cheese design. http://cheeseorfont.com #
• Sad to have missed @parkingdaydc – spotted the teardown while biking past tonight. #
• Beautiful night for biking in DC. What are people up to? #
• Nice. Lucinda Williams got married Hank Williams-style on stage during her show at First Avenue last night. http://ow.ly/q6Sf #
• Biking down to check out this alleged H Street Festival #
• Wow. Big turnout on H Street! http://twitpic.com/ibybx #
• Oh man. Kid just learned the hard way what happens when you bite a balloon. #
• Finally, delicious success with @fojolbros (who have a good memory) #
• Porch status: dogs are restless. #

Movie posters for Food Inc, Fresh, King Corn, and Julie and Julia

I’m not going to defend Nora Ephron’s Julie & Julia as Oscar-worthy when that season comes around, but I think it has an important lesson for Documentary filmmakers. Watching it made me a lot more excited about eating good food than any food-policy documentary I’ve seen. I’m thinking specifically of Robert Kenner’s Food, Inc., Ana Sofia Joanes’ Fresh, and Aaron Woolf’s King Corn. With various degrees of success, each aims to educate Americans on the ills of industrial agriculture by weaving a storyline or four around an interview with Michael Pollan.

Julie & Julia does not mention corn subsidies or perhaps even the word organic. It simply tells two true stories about people who love food. It makes you want to go home and cook something wonderful in your kitchen. This is the radical action that the food docs (and Michael Pollan) aim to accomplish. If you get excited about cooking, it won’t be long before you start seeking out fresh vegetables at your local farmers market and learning about evil corn lobbyists.

Cinema (especially activist nonfiction) succeeds when it remains focused on showing through storytelling.

T-Shirt by Print Liberation

• "Funny People" = recommended #
• WTF? http://twitpic.com/cpdx9 #
• @bradlevinson disagree #
• Another coffee tweet, this time for NYC: Doug Takeshi Wolfe & La Colombe's 2nd NYC shop: http://ow.ly/j31r They were my go-to spot in Philly #
• SENSATION! See the amazing Derik Gores artwork that has conservatives Twitter-enraged! http://ow.ly/j55C #
• Emerging Twitter directories for #BloomingdaleDC and surrounding neighborhoods http://ow.ly/j4Dq #
• Don't eff with designers http://bit.ly/2pXGJW #
• Porch status: I think the new house for underground punk shows is down the block all of a sudden. #
• Belated film note: "(500) Days of Summer" = Recommended #
• DC DMV website is a car wreck of poor information architecture and typos. #
• Let's all just wear this t-shirt until we get the job done. http://bit.ly/35U31l #
• Tweet #1000 – My b-day is next week. Suggestion: Find & fund a project at DonorsChoose. Gates Foundation will match you. http://ow.ly/jepu #
• Took @katiebisbee's suggestion and set up birthday giving page: http://ow.ly/jiHF #
• RT @SEIU: Stop the violence at healthcare townhalls. Watch the video, sign the pledge: http://ow.ly/jnTJ #
• "Séraphine" = highly recommended http://ow.ly/jnRz #
• "Julie & Julia" = audience literally applauded the chopping of an onion = recommended #

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Sally Grossman and Bob Dylan as featured on the cover of the 1965 Dylan album Bringing It All Back Home

Over the past couple of years my undying need to share with you, dear reader, has increasingly been occurring elsewhere. Facebook friends get updates targeted to a small audience. Google Reader users get shared articles and comment threads (links available on the front sidebar of this blog).

Both of these are indispensable in their own very specific ways, but the tool I turn to most often for sharing ideas and creative outbursts is Twitter. Easy mobile use and mandatory brevity have proven to be a powerful combination. As I near my 1,000th Tweet (née update) I’m realizing that a scary amount of my travel documentation, creative output, political commentary, and electronic shout-outs over the past three years have been taking place over there. Yes, most of these are nanostories of marginal interest given a few days’ (hours?) hindsight. Of the rest, I’m hoping a lightly-edited weekly Twitter digest will spark an occasional item of longer than 140 characters. If not, at least I’m archiving these ideas far from the reach of the hated fail whale.

Note: Many thanks to Alex King and his excellent Twitter Tools plugin for Wordpress.

Fire tears through long-neglected building at 4th and Rhode Island NE. Photo via Eckington listserve.

• "In the Loop" = highly recommended. Thx to @youngamerican for excellent TSOYA with director. #
• Preparing to dominate at Commonwealth pub quiz #
• Porch status: gimpy chocolate lab #
• Porch status: torrential downpour http://twitpic.com/bvfuh #
• Veggie bibimbap from cart at 14 & L = recommended http://twitpic.com/bxlnv #
• Porch status: muggy with vines starting to poke through the floorboards. #
• I shot a man in Reno http://digg.com/d1ysK0 #
• NextBus gave me just enough time to visit the new Chinatown Coffee Co. Intelligentsia beans! http://twitpic.com/c2o60 #
• DDOT is now twitpic-ing accidents so you don't have to http://ow.ly/iBu3 (and yikes!) #
• Pinkomag gets quite a tip, re: Obama's (alleged) birth: http://ow.ly/iC1Z #
• @emilysaysso lots of variables. My commute is 20 blocks and = 15 mins. in reply to emilysaysso #
• Long-neglected building on fire in Eckington, 4th & Rhode Island NE http://twitpic.com/c7dlm #
• …fire is under control. Oddly, the Eckington listserve just had a thread about this building's tax debt. #
• OBSERVED: Protagonist in Truffaut's "The Soft Skin" looks very much like @hodgman – This makes the film much zanier than it used to be. #
• Wishing Sen. Dodd a speedy recovery http://ow.ly/iHXz #
• Quality preventive care led to diagnosis. Expect Dodd to redouble his commitment to quality HC for everyone via @mbrownerhamlin @Taylor_West #
• Orlando Cabrera to Twins? Interesting. Wasn't expecting any deadline deals. #
• @Dave_WISC_olson Let's hope that's the difference between second and first! in reply to Dave_WISC_olson #
• Lovely evening with Indian food and old friends on Baltimore rooftop. Waiting for the train back in to DC. #
• Porch status: total silence alternates with extreme bass at intervals equal to those of left turn arrow at rhode island avenue #
• @bigbearcafe Exciting! But I wonder how well those mixing boards will hold up to all those spilled cups of coffee. #
• Mid-city cafe now open above Miss Pixies on 14th/R! Getting dizzy from all the new coffee options DC suddenly has. (h/t @bigbearcafe) #

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Questionable approach to marketing. Found at Connecticut Ave. and Dupont Circle

• Nice. Bike lanes now painted on Eckington pl. #
• http://twitpic.com/b2kif – Awkward. Really hope this ad campaign for Phillips exhibit "Paint Made Flesh" comes in shades other than pink … #
• I know I've been busy folks, so maybe you should try this guy: http://twitpic.com/b4pjf #
• Did Michelle Bachmann's son voluntarily sign up for an Americorps "re-education camp?" http://bit.ly/10vuHK (via @BlueMojoWireMN ) #
• Apparently chose rainiest 12 minutes of the morning to bike from coffeeshop to work. Should have had one more cup of coffee. #
• Not perfect: http://twurl.nl/alf885 #
• Samuel Alito famously ate pizza here http://twitpic.com/beela #
• "We completely understand the public’s concern about futuristic robots feeding on the human population" http://twurl.nl/fp6rsj #
• You know a website's been around awhile when one of the navigation items is ASCII art http://twurl.nl/44cbro #
• …link to said art: http://twurl.nl/judula #
• Kennedy the dog knows the difference between bike maintenance and bike use. She hates bike maintenance. #
• Porch status: tall glass of water #
• Nice (probably fictional) follow-up to last week's visit. Coney Island and Freud: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/26/arts/design/26strau.html #

Apparently the President will be there. Another possibility is that Barack Obama clip art can sell anything. I’m buying my ticket now.

Pictured: Excerpt from Kindle version of Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road”

I’ve been reading an unending stream of tweets, emails and blog posts on screen for years. Making the leap to actual literature (no offense to your Twitter skills, dear reader) actually provides a welcome disconnect from the limitless distractions the iPhone offers.

I love paper and there will always be a place for it, but with three (e)books finished in rapid succession on iPhone I consider the experience of digesting strings of letters arranged into words, sentences, paragraphs and chapters to be more-or-less conquered.