Da Tung, the Park Blocks Elephant

This is "Da Tung", the elephant statue in the North Park Blocks. An Oregonian article explains how it got here.

When I took these photos, I thought I'd do a sort of blind men meet elephant thing, and get close up enough to the statue that you can't immediately tell what it is from any one photo.

Incidentally, most versions of the story don't mention this, but eventually the elephant got annoyed and trampled all the wise men.

Elsewhere on the net, "Concelebratory Shoehorn Review" has a nice post all about the elephant, and "Portland (OR) Daily Photo" has a post about the north park blocks that mentions the elephant but has no photos of it. And for a really mind-blowing thing, check out this Etch-A-Sketch picture of the elephant. Wow. I can't even draw a straight line with one of those. Actually I'm not that great at drawing straight lines with pencil and paper, come to think of it. But I digress.

The elephant also appears in the Smithsonian's inventory of local public art, FWIW.

Other photos from around the intertubes:
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

Santa Cruz

Here are a few more vacation photos from the archives, this time from Santa Cruz, CA. We didn't stop there very long; this was really just a quick side trip so I could see if I could track down the original tree that the Old SCO corporate logo is based on. I found what sounded like specific directions, which even pointed to a then-recent map of the area, but it turns out that all cypress trees look about the same. Or more to the point, the SCO logo equally resembles a lot of cypress trees, and modern Google Maps didn't exist yet. So no dice on that, I think, but I at least got a few assorted photos out of the effort.

Updated: A rereading of those directions just now (2/1/23) suggests it might be the tree here, which looks a bit worse for wear as time and the elements have had their way with it. Which, frankly, happens to the best of us. Incidentally today is just a few weeks shy of the 20th anniversary of the original SCO vs IBM lawsuit being filed, which is a little crazy.

Monterey Bay

As I've mentioned at least once recently, the season for non-dreary photos is just about done for now, and (unless it snows) it's going to be nothing but bare trees until the crocuses come up, and that's months away. So I thought I'd go back and raid the archives for something a little sunnier.

So these are a few vacation photos from back in February, taken from our hotel balcony in Seaside, California, right next to Monterey Bay. Around that time, I'd gotten the notion that I didn't really need to do a blog post about every batch of photos I put up on Flickr. Which means, as it turns out, I don't need to immediately do a post when I put stuff on Flickr, but I may get around to it eventually.

Check out that sunshine. I remember sunshine...

the eternal cycle

...a tree budding out once again, even as it sheds its leaves...

a rainy november night

Lair Hill Park

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Today's adventure takes us to Lair Hill Park, off Barbur just south of downtown Portland. More precisely, we're mostly visiting "Land Form", another of those big rusty 70's sculptures people used to be mad for. I've mentioned it in passing before, in an old post about the tram, and I don't have a lot more to add now. It's just that I have photos this time, so enjoy, or whatever.



If you want to know anything more about the sculpture itself, Portland Public Art has a amusing post about it, its creator, and his other works around town. I linked to the same post last time, but the URL's since changed, and it's a fun read if you're interested in this sort of thing.



There is, obviously, more to the park than the sculpture here. It's actually tucked away in a less-used corner of the park, and it's kind of camouflaged due to its, uh, "organic" color, so you barely notice it's there unless you already know it's there.



The park also sports a playground, tennis courts, walking paths, lots of trees, and a vast army of squirrels. I'm not a tennis player, so there's not much for me to say about the tennis courts, and I don't have kids, so I don't really have an opinion about the playground either. If you're interested in that, I did come across what looks like a great review of the playground, with several good photos. The verdict: Not fabulous, and kind of outdated, although the "pesticide-free" bit is a definite plus.



People also walk dogs here a lot, but I don't have one of those either. Here's a cute photo of a dog here, right next to the sculpture. I bet dogs pee on "Land Form" a lot. I would, if I was a dog.



Back in the 60's and 70's, the park was apparently quite the hippie magnet, our own vastly smaller version of Golden Gate Park. The park's mentioned in a couple of great articles about that distant era: "Something Happening Here...From JDs to Hippies" and "Music on the Cusp: From Folk to Acid Rock in Portland Coffeehouses, 1967–1970".



If you happen to be of the Boomer persuasion, I can see how you might take issue with me calling it a "distant era". But, you know, the Oregon Historical Society is busy cataloging psychedelia. The Oregon freakin' Historical Society. And, look, it was 28 years from Pearl Harbor to Woodstock, and it's been another 39 from Woodstock to the present day. It's not that I'm coming out and calling you a geezer or anything. And if I was, I'm sure there's probably an upside of some sort to being a living fossil, like being able to semi-remember all sorts of trivia from the mists of time that nobody younger than you is even remotely interested in. That sort of thing.



One more useless factoid, and then we're done: There's no hill called "Lair Hill", here or anywhere else. The park, and surrounding neighborhood, are named after William Lair Hill, a lawyer/historian/editor of the pioneer era, who owned land around here for a while. So now you know. Amaze your friends! Confound your foes!

Or not.

Shemanski Fountain

A couple of photos of the Shemanski Fountain, at the north end of the South Park Blocks.

For some reason, I seem to have not taken any pics of the whole fountain, just of assorted architectural details on it. Which, as it turns out, are pretty much entirely female, which I think is typical of gaudy Beaux-Arts baubles like this.

I actually thought about titling this post "The Girls of Shemanski Fountain", but I thought that might be a little crass. I'm sure it would drive page views, though, so if I was trying to sell banner ad space here, I might've gone for it anyway...

So it's clear, the structure as a whole is the Shemanski Fountain, and the bronze statue in the center is called Rebecca at the Well. "Rebecca" in this case being a character in the Book of Genesis, and thus the subject of overwrought devotional art right up to the present day.

The National Gallery of Art in DC has a painting by Veronese on the theme, for example. I could track down more, I'm sure, but you get the idea.

The Smithsonian's Art Inventories Catalog has a page about both the fountain and the statue here, if you like more factual info about either.

It amuses me that if someone proposed to donate this exact fountain to the city now, we'd have to refuse the offer, as it offends on both religious and nekkidness grounds. Which you have to admit is quite an aesthetic feat.

Oliver Barrett, the sculptor behind Rebecca, is apparently the same guy who was later responsible for Portland's short-lived Teddy Roosevelt / Spanish-American War memorial next to Harbor Drive, where Waterfront Park is now. Cafe Unknown has a photo in a great post about various Roosevelt-related mysteries. Somewhere between 1926 and 1939, Barrett seems to have switched over from Beaux-Arts trifles to massive, severe Art Deco edifices. I'm not entirely convinced that was a good idea, although I suppose the market for Beaux Arts had kind of dried up by 1939. And being the Depression and all, I guess you'd want to jump at any possible commissions, even if they involve killer androids with swords.

Now here's the part where I rant about metal-thieving meth tweakers again. Rebecca's been repeatedly targeted by metal thieves. Last year someone tried and failed to steal the whole statue, seriously damaging it in the process. (Cafe Unknown mentioned that incident here.) The fountain was eventually repaired, but in August someone stole the brass nozzles off the fountain. Someone's clearly pretty bound and determined here. And yet, has anyone tried to steal Facing the Crowd? Or Leland One (a.k.a. "Rusting Chunks #5")? Not that I know of. Maybe they're just too big, or maybe tweakers feel a natural affinity for ugliness and creepiness, so they leave certain things alone out of professional courtesy. I dunno. It's a theory.

More (and probably better) photos at Waymarking, PortlandBridges and the city, plus one on Pbase and another on Flickr.

Facing the Crowd

Here are a few photos of Facing the Crowd, the huge creepy face sculptures outside PGE Park. There are two faces, one in front of each entrance to the stadium, to guarantee that all visitors get creeped out before the big game starts. This one's at the east entrance, and is supposed to evoke a child's face. Which it totally does. Just like Chucky. Run away!!!

Portland Public Art rants about the faces in "Results of 'informal' and 'murky'" and a followup, "Government + art = oil + water"

The faces are also #24 at Things About Portland That Suck.

A Willamette Week editorial suggested the faces could use $1000 worth of dynamite. Although that still seems like a waste of taxpayer money to me -- there's got to be a way to solve the problem for free. This city's full of meth-addled metal thieves, after all. Where the hell are they when you need 'em for once?

And in what may be the most fitting use of the faces, they got a visit during Santacon, our fair city's annual rampaging mob of drunk Santas. There's a larger photo here.

For an alternate take on the faces, the artist's website discusses them here, and they're mentioned at Art on File and Arts USA.

PGE Park simply calls them a "unique feature", and a couple of blog posts mention the faces in passing.

Oh, and the New York Times had to mention them too. After the way they've been fawning over Portland and telling the world how fabulous we are, maybe this is their attempt to balance things out a little...

If you can't get enough of the faces, if you find them hypnotic for some reason, if you feel compelled to rise and do their bidding, or whatever, here are more photos from all around the interwebs:
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]

Scott Triangle

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So this is "Scott Triangle", a tiny grassy bit at the corner of SE 64th & Scott Drive, just north of Mt. Tabor Park. I made a quick side trip here after tracking down Stark Street Island, after seeing a mention of it in a May '08 Urban Adventure League post. As is their usual m.o., they rode here and had a nice meatless potluck. Since it was May, I'm not sure the weather would've been any better than it is now. Imagine, a pack of bike hipsters gnawing on tofu in the rain. I wonder what the neighbors thought?

I agree the place isn't spectacular. And I also agree that my photos of it aren't spectacular. What's more, I don't have much of anything to say about the place. On the bright side, it means it didn't take long to bust out this post. On the other hand, it also raises the eternal question of "Why?"

I ask myself that a lot, actually.

Beryl Triangle

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So we're rifling through the end-of-season dregs and outtakes and such, I guess, which takes us to "Beryl Triangle", a tiny, uh, triangular bit of land at the intersection of NE 84th Ave., Davis St., and Beryl Terrace (hence the name). I don't think it actually has an official name, but "Beryl Triangle" is the name the Urban Adventure League people used when they had a picnic there back in July '07. As far as I can tell, that's the only mention of it on the net anywhere. Until now, obviously. And I don't really have much to add about the place

I didn't actually get out of the car to take these pics. It was raining, and the triangle looked kind of unpromising. Grass, one tree, one utility pole. Judging by the amount of fallen leaves beneath the park's sole tree, it was probably beautiful a couple of weeks ago. Oh, well.