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My Blog Has Moved!

noreply@blogger.com (KM) — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 22:57:00 +0000

Check out my new blog on wordpress: http://kmazz.wordpress.com

Victoria: Top Eats V

noreply@blogger.com (KM) — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 20:47:00 +0000

OK, this is the last of my Victoria eats posts until my next trip (September, 2008). I haven't focused on serious restaurants because to be honest the ones we tried were not very good, albeit their fine reputations. But no matter, because there is plenty to imbibe and savor regardless.

You'll have to venture outside of Victoria for some of these. The Cowichan Valley, and notably Cobble Hill, is a haven of artisanal food and drink production. A 45-minute drive will get you there, an idyllic pastoral landscape of fields, forests, rivers and lakes. Hilary's creamery, several decent wineries, honey producers and cideries dot the hills and valleys. Many of the spirits producers have on site bistros so culinary tourists can take a leisurely break for refreshment and taste the fruit of the vine or orchard along with dishes created to complement flavors.

At Merridale Estate Cidery we sampled the eight varieties of the hard stuff, some with as much alcohol content as wine and with tastes that range from sweet to extra dry. The effervesence is slight, due to the natural process of fermenting the organically grown apples of which there are many varieties. (According to the pourer, other producers inject bigger bubbles into the drink to mask the taste of chemicals.) Read this for a view of the cider business elswhere. The Merridale is experimenting with apple brandy as well.

This is a tricky drink to produce and to store. The cider must stay refrigerated or it will continue to ferment in the bottle, so if like us you plan to take some home bring an ice-packed cooler. But the result of the high standards of production is a delicate taste, in some varieties punctuated with a snap of ginger or pepper, and in others sweetened with honey or berries.

As is the case with most of the artisanal producers, Merridale is fairly new and despite its very good product will probably improve with maturity and more trial and error. But its relative youth is not a strike against it; awards are already pouring in.

Victoria: Top Eats IV

noreply@blogger.com (KM) — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 22:17:00 +0000

Looks like my posts on "Victoria Eats" have largely been about drinks. So here's one on more solid matter.

Our tour through the Cowichan Valley and its vineyards and ciderworks also took us past Hilary Abbot's creamery. We weren't able to stop, but later that day we found ourselves on Cowichan Bay where Hilary's Deli offers a bountiful assortment of his cheeses (and those with provenance from elsewhere). Hilary is one of those intrepid artisans who is reviving the lost art of cheesemaking on the island. He's well on his way.

Here's a generous plate of washed rind and blue examples, with slices of baguette from the wonderful bakery next door. I'm used to what Portland considers a cheese plate: $15.00 for three tablespoon-sized dollops. You get a big, lingering mouthful at Hilary's.

Victoria: Top Eats Part III

noreply@blogger.com (KM) — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 17:36:00 +0000

Despite decades of cultural change and openness to more diversity, there is an unavoidable Anglophilia all over Canada. It is part of the country's cultural mosaic, but the one with the deepest roots.

You can find it in the many tea rooms, by watching cricketeers on Sundays, and in visits to pubs modeled on those found in the old country.

It's been eons since I've experienced the dark, low ceilinged and slightly claustrophic rooms of a hundred-years old English pub, which I can recall happily frequenting in my youth for its reassuring, ebullient din and its promise of camaraderie. Never mind the contemporary smoking ban and slightly newer digs of a new country locale, and you have the same experience again all over Victoria: darts, shepherd's pie, Queen's tartan signage and all.

As I discovered recently, not all locals enjoy a sunny summer day kayaking, hiking, biking, gardening or otherwise outdoors. The pubs start rocking early and by dinner hour are full to capacity.

For those who want the best of both worlds, as do I, here's your strategy. These pubs usually have lovely outdoor seating areas, so you can settle in after a summer day's activity, perhaps four-ish in the afternoon, to enjoy the late sun over a Ploughman's plate of local cheeses and a choice of English ales and lagers.

You'll also find wares from a slew of local breweries. My favorite:the lively and fresh tasting Victoria Pilsener from Vancouver Island Brewery. This summer, I also indulged in sampling the island's many hard ciders, a subject to be returned to soon.

China

noreply@blogger.com (KM) — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 04:25:00 +0000

I haven't been to China in two years but after watching the Summer Olympics 2008 opening ceremony I want to return. Because in two years, it's become a different country. It is no longer an aspiring economic and political power as it was then; it now has arrived. Watching the ceremony inside the "bird's nest" stadium, which was designed to be the world's most technologically advanced stage, you could not help but realize that China has big plans to move beyond being the world's copy cat.

What struck me was not just the dazzling precision of the choreography and technical elements of stagecraft such as sound, music and lights. It was the grandeur of designer Zhang Yimou's vision, the power of his storytelling, and the enormous scale of the spectacle. Compare that to Italy's opening ceremony in Turin two years ago -- more like a tired fashion parade. A nice confection but not much underneath.

This was a very high standard of entertainment. Disney should be afraid. The Chinese have made it clear they have a grasp on a very contemporary brand of mass market magic.

Victoria: Top Eats Part II

noreply@blogger.com (KM) — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 20:01:00 +0000

High tea is on every tourist's to-do list when in Victoria, with the most famous spots being The Empress Hotel and The Blethering Place. The price for a full set can run in the environs of $60. I reject that.

Plus, although I love my tea I don't enjoy musty places no matter how authentic they may be.

A few years ago a local tea doyenne tipped us off to the White Heather, an off the beaten track spot in a commercial block on Oak Bay Drive. It was perfect, with its fresh and soothing seafoam-colored walls, crisp white linens, porcelain pots and shiny silver place settings. It's where you can walk away having spent as little as $8.00 or so for a single scone and tea, or up to $40 for the full "muckle" of tea sandwiches, oatcakes, cheese, Devon cream, pastries and more.

The owner, a Scottish lass who is always on site and audible by her throaty laugh, worked on the recipe for the puffy scones for years before opening up the shop and they're unlike any other. Not dense or sweet, they are a nice foil for butter, homemade jam, goat cheese or lemon curd. The White Heather's objective is to make you "more cuddly." I guarantee regular visits will make you so.

Cre8teCamp Portland

noreply@blogger.com (KM) — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 21:50:00 +0000

I attended Cre8te Camp yesterday, the first in what I hope will be many more un-conferences for the creative community.

What is the creative community? It can be interpreted narrowly, as members of creative enterprises like ad agencies and design studios, or broadly to include scientists and engineers as in the academic theory of Richard Florida. Cre8te Camp Portland included software programmers as well as film makers. Including me, there were a mere two PR people in attendance, but the other is also a jazz singer. I, on the other hand, make no claim to creativity except as a dilettante. Still, as a PR consultant to creative enterprises I was interested in what this group had to say and how I could contribute.

Portland is at a crossroads, a point at which some decisions need to be made regarding the character of its future growth. The city draws creatives like never before, but increasingly the talented young people are having a difficult time staying here due to the cost of living. We are in danger of losing what gives the city its dynamism and energy unless the city and state leaders decide once and for all that the creative economy is the linchpin to future prosperity.

As was pointed out at Cre8te Camp, the down economy is actually a good time to regroup, identify investments, and seed the foundation of future growth in areas of authentic interest to Portlanders, like sustainability. There was quite some talk about what should be the role of the city in growing the creative sector, with quite a few emphasizing that the role should be facilitator only and not driver. So much of what has bubbled up as creative energy in Portland has been organically driven, not policy driven, and getting the city involved in an ownership role would kill off the natural impulses in what should be a grass roots movement.

That means organizing all the disparate creative groups in Portland into an active entity encompassing all major groups - indie music and film, design, graphic arts, galleries, animation studios, architecture firms. That won't be easy.

It also means, as was talked about at length in a break out session, in strategically important sister cities that serve to broaden the base of ideas and innovation through collaboration and exchanges. One thought was to consider a Greater Cascadia creative sector, joining Portland, Vancouver, Boise, San Francisco. Another was to identify cities around the world that match Portland's DNA of independence, sustainability, DIY, craft and balance with which to work to expound on the values pertinent to creativity that have sustained Portland's economy for the last few decades.

My vote: Curitiba, Brazil.

Victoria: Top Eats Part I

noreply@blogger.com (KM) — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 19:15:00 +0000

We are blessed to have our famous Portland food carts, serving up the most delectable ethnic and regional plates without which the city workforce would have few affordable and tasty lunch options. In Victoria, where prices are quite a bit higher for every single thing, the food cart craze has not yet landed, sad to say. However, there was one eatery shack we did find, and as it happens it was all we could have asked for.

redfish bluefish is open 11am to 7pm six days a week year 'round, rain or shine. That's good, because I will make the proverbial bee line for it every time I'm in town. Even now, I can easily indulge in the memory of its perfectly grilled hunk of wild salmon tucked inside a toasted bun moistened with just the right amount of dilled dijonnaise, a lovely dollop of fresh cole slaw and organic greens on the side. An order of dense hand cut fries, plain or curried, or a cup (4 oz.) of the chunky Pacific Rim Chowder with white fish, corn, garlic, chipotle and coconut milk and chances are you won't be hungry again fast enough in order to return for more.

The shack serves the obligatory fish and chips, tacos of salmon, scallops, tuna or white fish, fish "sloppy joe" and other plates of BBQ'd and spicy seafood. A nod to Victoria's English heritage is seen in the offer of Mushy Edamame ("our twist on mushy peas").

What makes this shack so popular? Well, the quality of the ingredients is one reason. The fish is wild and ocean friendly and much of the other elements are organic, fresh and local. But the experience is also a draw. On a sunny day no restaurant can compete with the seating: on the dock in view of the sea planes landing and whale boats departing.

Top Five Things to Do in Victoria

noreply@blogger.com (KM) — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 02:53:00 +0000

If you are lucky enough to visit Vancouver Island on a clear summer day, you'll think you are close to paradise. And that's where we were last week, visiting with friends from Vancouver and Italy and then taking off on our own for a tool around the environs. Not even an extra long drive home on Monday, lengthened by the inevitable road accident (no one died) between Tacoma and Olympia, marred the memory of perfect days.

Everyone has their favorite things to do in Victoria, which by the way is leaving its twee days slowly behind and embracing an edgier future of more diversity, more young people and a more varied local economy that includes software, slow food and sustainable industries. Victoria is getting more interesting, escaping the ossified fate that awaited it before the oil boom in Alberta brought in young money.

These are things I always do when in town:

See the Emily Carr paintings at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria. I was stunned upon discovering Carr about ten years ago and never tire of revisiting her works. The book store sells her autobiography which is worth a read. She was an independent creative spirit trapped in a Victorian small town with a repressive, authoritarian father. So she was a little angry. Nevertheless and against such odds, she found her way.

Discover excellent Canadian writers you've never heard of at Munro's book store. I like Munro's because of the historical building that houses it, but also because it once belonged to one of Canada's greatest contemporary writers, Alice Munro. I defy anyone to find a better writer in the English language. Her ex-husband still runs it.

Get out of the tourist-clogged Inner Harbour and take a 3-mile oceanside walk or bike ride (rentals available in town) on Dallas Road. You'll be watching marine birds, sailboats, commercial fishing boats, freighters and ferries on the Strait of Juan de Fuca with views of the craggy Olympic Range across the water in Washington state.

Taste and pick up a selection of organic tea leaves from all over the world at Special Teas on Fort Street. Nice Roobois!

Indulge in a muckle of tea at the White Heather on Oak Bay Avenue, and avoid the more famous spots where you are treated like one of the herd and charged double for the privilege. "Muckle" means "big" -- really, really high tea. The baker hails from Scotland and makes savory and sweet scones as authentic as can be and nothing like what you buy at Starbucks'. Reservations required. Don't let the non-descript shopping street facade keep you away, as it's what's inside that counts.

I'll expound on these and add another top five in a later post.

Shopping

noreply@blogger.com (KM) — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 18:58:00 +0000

There was a social critic, can't recall the name, who wrote years ago about the canny ability of Western capitalism to mediate and emasculate any confrontational social movement by merchandising it. Co-opt and reward. When Hip Hop leaves mean streets and wins Grammys, it's something else altogether. Take the blandly cheery "eep-opp" of Italy, for example.

The author meant this in a good way, as he was writing during the tumultuous early 1970s. Don't worry, he implied. We won't have a revolution because consumerism will make protests entertaining, not angry, events.

The merits of this argument can be debated. But it came to my mind as I read about the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints and the success of their Internet sales. If Fashion Avenue does embrace the prairie outfit, will that mean we won't see FLDS as the exploitative and unlawful force it really is? Will 12 year old girls continue to be married off to middle-aged church leaders?

Because it seems the law against polygamy is already pretty toothless when these communities have been allowed to thrive and prosper despite being illegal. And while we're debating the issue, what does this state of affairs say about what the US electorate supposedly believes about marriage -- one man, one woman?

Orchestre Baobab

noreply@blogger.com (KM) — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 14:56:00 +0000

At the end of a day of long light, when the sun shone for the first time in months and its warmth healed sore moods and old aches, the last thing anyone wanted to do was enter a musty, dusty old theater before dark. But tickets had been paid for weeks ago, and how often does Senegal's Orchestre Baobab play in Portland?

And how could I ever have thought twice about going? The dancing started right at 8pm in what passes for the mosh pit at the Aladdin and didn't stop for 2.5 hours. The Les Paul Deluxe wa-wa cried and rippled, the tenor sax scatted, the singer wailed and trilled, the three drummers pounded and got us jumping. (Can I say I coveted the band's brocaded and tie and died damask cloth shirts of indigo and white, azure and chocolate, cranberry and gold, sapphire and pink as things of beauty?) Local Senegalese in wax print shirts shouted in Wolof to the musicians and sang along. Money was balled up in a fist and then passed to the singers in effusive gratitude. Young children and babies, dressed up and with elaborate, decorated hair weaves, were shown off to the players. Twice a skinny and shy young boy joined the group on stage to applause. Everyone was lost in the dance and happiness was on every face. And to think the concert was just the evening's warm up for the band. You just know their local compatriots had some plans for them.

The music was at turns mesmerizing, wild, strange and familiar. If this was as much part of our lives as it is to West Africans, we'd have no need for aerobic workouts of any other sort. And we'd be happier, IMHO.

crimmigration

noreply@blogger.com (KM) — Sun, 25 May 2008 22:08:00 +0000

Update to my "Who are we?" post: a local blogger coined a new term that relates neatly.

Who are we?

noreply@blogger.com (KM) — Sat, 24 May 2008 17:19:00 +0000

Across Europe, filthy, fetid camps hold African, Albanian, and Asian illegal immigrants. Italy is rounding up gypsies again. In South Africa, Zimbabweans and Mozambicans are hunted by mobs and burned alive. In the U.S. we criminalize and now imprison Latin Americans. These people are being brutally punished for simply trying to live another day. Who among us would behave differently if in their straits? Of course immigration is a political and economic challenge. Of course the idea of immigrants en masse crossing borders requires a response. But did we always hate them so?

Social sustainability

noreply@blogger.com (KM) — Sat, 24 May 2008 16:43:00 +0000

It is a sad state of affairs when the passage through adolescence requires the loss of the humanizing ritual of mealtime. Let's face it, the Slow Food movement, which tries not only to restore that ritual before it is gone for good but connect people to the idea of sustainable agriculture and living, has an uphill battle.

I read about this problem today while still mulling over yesterday's PNCA + FIVE panel on Portland and sustainability. Susan Szenasy, editor in chief of one of my favorite magazines, Metropolis, moderated the discussion, touching on a few topics that merit much more attention, one of which is social sustainability.

We don't just want to preserve biological systems so that we live, but so that we live meaningfully. The loss of mealtime as a time to come together is a sign of a degraded social environment.

Biological and social sustainability are tightly interrelated because, simply put, if we don't have a reason to sit down and enjoy a meal with our kin and clan then we fail to feed our social instincts, which for eons have been the reason for our survival and the occasion for joy in living. Sustainable systems recognize the need for planning, architecture and infrastructure not just to preserve ecosystems but to bring people together in a way that supports our desire to mix and mingle.

Americans already have largely lost touch with the daily custom of coming together over the table, and it is no wonder kids don't know or care where their food comes from, or if it is really food at all. Our degraded environment is the result.

Biophony

noreply@blogger.com (KM) — Mon, 19 May 2008 03:43:00 +0000

I once heard an amateur field recording ornithologist mimic the song of a few tropical rain forest birds he had identified on various scientific expeditions. He was the late, great Ted Parker, and his passion for birds was such that he had memorized the distinct songs of more than 300 different bird species. Of all the voices of the earth, those of birds, as Ted demonstrated, carry an enormous power to delight us if we listen and hear.

All I have to compare is the ordinary cacophony of early morning wake up calls coming in my open window but I'm happy for it. The wonderful sound binds me to the natural world, and its ritualization of spring is a comfort. I wake, listen and strain to make sense of the chatter. And sometimes I wonder if the finches, jays, flickers and bushtits are raising their voices to be heard over the distant roar of the highway, airplanes and other unnatural sounds.

So does scientist Bernie Krause, according to Clive Thompson of Wired magazine. Krause says biophony -- the pristine sound of the world -- is being drowned out by anthrophony, or man made noise. It isn't just that birds and other animals need to shout, it is that the spectrum on which their calls operate is being interfered with and the flow of information among and between species is interrupted. This can mean life and death for these creatures.

To my mind, this situation isn't just a matter of what we lose. Given our altered ecology, what will arrive to take their place? More red ants?

BarCampPortland 2008

noreply@blogger.com (KM) — Wed, 07 May 2008 02:03:00 +0000

I've mentioned before how much I like being around designers and tech people. Their enthusiasm is infectious and their optimism seems of an appealingly innocent nature. So I really enjoyed BarCamp Portland, now in its second year. Here's what I noticed:

*More women this year. Yeah! There are a lot of gals who love to code, not just knit.
*More men in skirts this year. Seriously, the Utilikilt company in Seattle is getting a real following with geeks and, I've heard, with Burners (as in Burning Man).
*OpenID needs to build some steam. Last year, I succumbed to Twitter. This year, I'm checking out this tech to make my life signing on to web easier much easier. But there is no groundswell yet.
*Speaking of Twitter -- I thought I really knew about this stuff. Apparently there is advanced Twitter use of which I can only stand in awe.
*I got a new way of looking at Twitter, Google Reader, YouTube and feeds. They represent the rapid fragmentation of the Web and perhaps the rise of widgets as a means to content.

Next up: Ignite Portland 3.

The horror

noreply@blogger.com (KM) — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 01:13:00 +0000

I'm a little late posting this thought. It's been with me for a few weeks, ever since the news reports started appearing on Americans' lack of interest in Iraq themed movies.

Some say that's because Americans are so upbeat about the war's progress that any whiff of criticism doesn't resonate. Others seem to gloat about how patriotic Americans are snubbing the anti-mainstream, un-patriotic Hollywood depiction of a military behaving badly.

Pesonally, most of these movies I am not the least bit inclined to see, but not for a lack of interest in the theme but because they got bad reviews. However, "Stop Loss" received mostly good ones and it's on my list for when it is out on DVD or On Demand. I can't bear the ads and trailers at the Cineplex so tend to stick to HD at home.

At the same time that Americans are rejecting the Iraq war movies, they are rejecting horror porn. Any connection?

In the mid to late 1940s, a new genre of cinema emerged in post-war Italy that would influence filmmakers from France to Japan. The neo-realists shot films that were so raw in their depiction of the poverty and hard scrabble lives of society's powerless that few people could bear to watch. After WWII, upbeat American musicals made them feel better. And how could it have been any different?

Hollywood's body of work on Iraq is at this point far from the art and achievement of the neo-realists. But maybe the phenomenon of audiences staying away is the same. Spiderman, Pirates of the Caribbean, Harry Potter -- those are the winners at the box office today. No gore, all fantasy.

I wonder if there is something else going on. If there is any morality in this world, it would provide us with a collective guilt for sending so many to their deaths for no apparent good reason and with virtually no sacrifice of our own (yet). God forbid we should want to be reminded about that at the movies.

(Painting: Goya's Saturn)

Startupalooza PDX

noreply@blogger.com (KM) — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 22:17:00 +0000

Spent the day Saturday at the local Startupalooza, a social/business event showcasing small start-ups based in Portland. Lots of tweeps I'd never met before were there along with old pals from my old enterprise software PR days.

Observation: we will have a golden age of tech in Portland soon enough. There are more and more small companies producing ingeniously useful software being created by young and passionate people who move here to be Portlanders and who then intend to stay instead of shipping out to the Bay area, NYC or Boston.

I've already started using this creation and will soon download this one for my Facebook page.

Outsourcing U.S. clout

noreply@blogger.com (KM) — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 01:28:00 +0000

This is a recurring theme here. We overreact on security and apply tough measures in the wrong places, we scapegoat immigrants for our economic ills and crises of identity, and we risk ending up poorer and isolated. With any luck we'll have a President of USA in 2009 who will see the folly of the current situation and apply progressive policies to fix it.

Recently I spoke with the dean of a highly regarded business school in Canada, who has ambitions to raise the school's standing so it is at a level with the best of the US schools. He said the best thing that has happened to his plans to recruit internationally was the Bush administration. Students from all over the world who are accepted by Harvard and Stanford are told by INS that visas cannot be expedited. They give up and go to Canada or other countries. Their gain, our loss.

Solastalgia revisited

noreply@blogger.com (KM) — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 22:32:00 +0000

Some time ago I remarked on this term, which seemed to capture so well my feelings about changes in the landscape due to global climate change. Maybe it is
catching on. As this article states, solastalgia is a neologism that Glenn Albrecht, an environmental philosopher at the University of Newcastle’s School of Environmental and Life Sciences, created in 2003.

Now there is a new term, "psychoterratic illness" that labels the psychological response to climate change, of which solastagia is one form.

"Psychoterratic illness involves the psyche or mind and terra or earth. So a psychoterratic illness would be an earth-related mental illness, where both nostalgia and solastalgia are examples of people being made “mentally ill” by the severing of “healthy” links between themselves and their home or territory.

And ill physical health due to a degraded environment is:

"Somaterratic illness, on the other hand, involves soma or the body and relates to damage done to the human body, its physiology and/or genetics, as a result of the loss of ecosystem health by, for example, toxic pollution in any given area of land." I suppose the effect on humans of the dioxin found in mozzarella in parts of Italy recently would qualify.

Here is the part of the article that relates to what I wrote previously:

"SK: Do you see a relationship between the conquest of Indigenous peoples of the Americas and Australasia, the state of environmental degradation and the experience of loss that we are seeing today? If so, what is that relationship from your perspective and research?

GA: The answer is, yes, there is a relationship between the two colonial cultures: the two continents were colonized only by the systematic dispossession of complex and formerly sustainable Indigenous societies."

Read the rest to learn more.

Photo from today's New York Times of Haiti by Marc Lacey.

Obama

noreply@blogger.com (KM) — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 21:28:00 +0000

First cut: I went to the Obama rally here in PDX today. Got up at O'Dark to get in line early enough to get a good seat. Ate cheese sandwiches in the car on the drive down. It turned out we didn't really know where the Memorial Coliseum was, but we spotted a man walking with a sense of purpose in the general direction and he was headed there so we followed. We were about the 1000th persons to arrive and got in line. (In a sweet irony, I realized that in 1965 I had followed my older sister to our first Beatles concert in this arena.) Our seats were a couple of rows from the stage. The crowd was psyched. From the very young to senior citizens; Asians, blacks, caucasians; the well and shabbily dressed, a good cross section of PDX was present. (I just detest the TV commentators' query on whether or not Obama has the white vote; clearly he has a lot of it, at least as much as does Hillary or McCain.) Two hours later the photogs with their stylish hair cuts and huge cameras showed up, TV and other media got on their observation desks and eventually the DipDive video of Obama's speech set to song was broadcast. That was the cue. The photogs ran over to the corridor near an exit, crouched and pointed their cameras, so everyone in the crowd in the general area titled in that direction, hanging over the barricade in the direction of the doorway, cameras ready, too. As the DipDive video ended, the doorway coughed up some of the Obama entourage and then the man was there shaking hands, Bill Richardson in his shadow but gamely joining in.

Obama did his usual stump speech without betraying any of the fatigue he must be experiencing. I was reminded again how serious and almost tragic an expression he sometimes carries. It goes beyond a Lincoln-esque melancholy, but something like what I've noticed in the face of a Michelangelo Madonna and child, that ineffable sense of grave portent.

PDX Art

noreply@blogger.com (KM) — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 21:20:00 +0000

I know Portland isn't on a par culturally with Berlin, Shanghai, New York etc. But when international cultural figures come here, we really turn out for them. A more appreciative crowd there cannot be.

And generally, artists and thinkers of a high caliber are more accessible when they are in Portland, partly because the venues and vibe are low key and less crowded, and the audience less star struck.

So it was that over this weekend I was able to hear jazz great Ornette Coleman and even get a few hours' chat with him, and hear James Turrell speak for a couple of hours at PNCA.

Turrell is an artist of light, and as he put it himself an artistic descendant of Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Monet and others who have created progressive art theories around light. However, Turrell is certainly one of the most scientific, with a degree in perceptual psychology and with a knowledge of the retinal and ocular that surely would stump most of the rest of us.

And it struck me listening to his talk how much science informs really great art today. Ornette Coleman's music is about ideas of sound, ergo, his "Sound Grammer" theses. It's not an original thought to point out that there is beauty in science, but these artists do it with a divine touch.

Ornette Coleman hearts Portland

noreply@blogger.com (KM) — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 17:52:00 +0000

After a long trying day full of situations that were fubar and snafu'd, we were rewarded with an evening with a living treasure, jazz Hall of Famer Ornette Coleman.

The Schnitz was packed to the point of overheating, and that was before Ornette's band started playing bits from "Sound Grammar." Ornette writes an extreme form of intellectual music, one that is, in his own words, about ideas.

I'm not ashamed to admit that Ornette's invention, free jazz, is not what I normally gravitate to, as it is quite challenging. But it is also plain astounding in its ultra expression of the essence of jazz.

And Portland was most appreciative. Post-concert, we sat with Ornette, invited to visit with him by our friend who was part of the musician's entourage. Ornette (and what a nice name) seems to be one of those greats who became an outsized genius out of an inner urge to explore originality, humbly, at the feet of the masters. In Ornette's case, these were Charlie Parker and Thelonius Monk among others. He speaks softly and with a touching sincerity.

On Portland: "People here are so nice. So nice. I just can't get over it. So nice."
On his performance: "At first I was a little nervous, but after feeling that the audience was so nice, so quiet, I knew I could try any idea I could think of, and so I did."
On his music: "Improv isn't a style; it's an idea."

He is the Picasso or the Pollock of music.

Recovery culture

noreply@blogger.com (KM) — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 17:34:00 +0000

Here's the gut-wrenching line from the Joe Nocera business column in today's NYT:

"Are you ready to face a world in which your two biggest assets, your retirement account and your home, don't automatically go up?"

As he points, there was a time a generation ago when Americans didn't need the stock market or home appreciation to live well. "Now we do."

The economy runs on spending, and borrowing against those assets, to spend more than we make (I use the "we" figuratively, btw) and keep those assets humming along.

We may be on the threshold of a massive, countrywide cold turkey withdrawal from the addiction of shopping.

No Crying

noreply@blogger.com (KM) — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 17:17:00 +0000

Several posts ago, I wrote about my concern of the, well, Argentina-ization of the U.S. economy. OK, I was exaggerating to make a point, but the point is still valid. My point is that the U.S. could, through mismanagement of our economy, squander our riches and create an institutional rut of impoverishment that would remake our society, none for the better.

Here's another parallel: boom and bust cycles.

The causes are different in the U.S. and Argentina cases but the crippling boom and bust cycle of Latin American economies of the 20th century could see a parallel in today's bubble and pop cycles. The question to ask: is our economy now structurally dependent on these cycles? Economists would probably laugh their heads off at what I am writing here, but the issue is one that worries people more erudite and knowledgeable than I.