detail, gus solomon courthouse

portland, neon

here's something weird

we now serve hot dog

the very best

Regents & Alameda

View Larger Map

Ok, one more post and we're done with the Tedious Tour of Alameda for the time being. The last nano-park on the tour is a puny triangle of land at the intersection of NE Regents, Alameda, and 29th Avenue. As with the last few, I found it mentioned briefly in a single city document and tracked it down, because apparently I had nothing better to do. This one isn't the site of picnics or mildly amusing snow videos (that I'm aware of), and there isn't any art, or a fountain, or any public stairs, or any other points of interest (that I'm aware of).

It does have a TriMet bus stop, #7306 a.k.a. "29th & Alameda", served by eastbound bus #9. So if you ever want or need to drop by this place for some reason, it's possible to do so without having to figure out the wacky Alameda street non-grid. The regular city street system breaks down here due to there being a ridge in the way, and instead you've got winding streets with names that occur nowhere else in town. The Alameda history site I linked to in a previous post has an interesting article about the origins of some of these names. I mean, the names are mostly those of real estate and business types who were involved in the Alameda development back in the early 20th Century, along with their friends and associates. That's one of the time-tested standard naming conventions for subdivisions, right up there with inoffensive nature themes.

If you'd prefer a somewhat less tedious tour of the area, the city's "Alameda Ridge and Stairs" walking map that covers basically the same territory as my recent series of posts does. You might also enjoy this poem about growing up in Alameda back in the 1940's or 50's.

An old Round the Roses piece from 1986 talks about the history of the area, and notes that the ridge was once known as "Gravelly Hill". The Alameda Ridge wikipedia article further explains that the ridge is, in fact, a gigantic gravel bar produced by the enormous ice age Missoula floods. So, ok, they don't have eyewitness accounts to prove it, but there's a humongous pile of gravel that looks like it was shaped by water, massive amounts of water, and there's only one known source for that much water in this part of the world. So it seems like a rather safe bet. I was surprised to learn about this gravel bar business actually; I tend to assume that anything around here that isn't flat must be volcanic or at least tectonic in origin, but apparently that's not the case this time.

The Cully Neighborhood Association (located a few miles east of Alameda) has a history page which mentions that Thomas Cully (their pioneer founder & namesake) died in a wagon accident while ascending Gravelly Hill. In many societies, such an event would beget an eternal blood feud between the two neighborhoods, but that doesn't seem to be the case here. I'm not actually trying to encourage such a thing, although I admit that as an outsider it would be kind of fun to watch. Possibly we could be semi-civilized about it, and channel the feuding into vicious inter-neighborhood competitions instead of actual vendettas, a la the Palio di Siena.

We couldn't do it as a horse race, obviously, because that would be inhumane. But bikes are an obvious Portland-friendly replacement. Each neighborhood association would sponsor a rider, and they'd all take part in a ridiculously dangerous, and helmetless, race around Pioneer Courthouse Square (including the part with the spiral ramp) every year, maybe during the Rose Festival. I could care less about the Rose Festival itself, but holding it then guarantees that it will rain, which makes the race more exciting. The winning neighborhood gets a big chunk of strings-free PDC money to spend as they like. The winning rider gets, I dunno, a case of PBR, or a bag of weed, or a new bike, or something. I don't really care what the riders get -- as with the original Palio, riders are strictly menial employees. They ride, and that's it. They don't need to have any ties to the neighborhood, and they're expendable if that's what it takes to win. Any casualties are easily replaced, as Portland receives a fresh crop of hipsters every summer, right after college graduation happens across the Midwest. And the survivors can write shoegazing indie emo songs about their fallen comrades and maybe get picked up by a major label, which is the main thing, obviously.

Crook County Courthouse, Prineville

View Larger Map

Here are few more old mini-roadtrip photos, this time of the Crook County Courthouse out in Prineville. It looked like a cool old building, so I stopped and took a few photos. Actually I also stopped to check out a sort of art & craft fair in the park next door, but I ended up not buying anything or taking any photos of that.

A page at the Oregon State Archives describes the building thusly:

The first courthouse was a one story wooden structure at the corner of West 5th and Main Streets. In 1885 a two story wooden structure was built for $5,474. By 1905 this building was considered unsafe to store the county's records, and a $16,526 bid was accepted to erect a new, brick and stone courthouse. The building was completed in 1909, at a cost $48,590, and remodeled in the early 1990s with structural enhancements.

So it cost three times the original bid value. I'd call that a serious cost overrun. There's probably a fascinating and scandalous tale behind this, and I'd gladly pass it along if I knew what it was. But I don't, and I'm sorry. I could probably ask the local history museum if I was so inclined. I mean, unless it's a matter they don't discuss with outsiders.

droplets (ii)

More winter raindrops. Lens: Noritar 250/4.5, a big chunky lens I haven't found any info about. Pretty much all I know is that it was $19.95 at Goodwill a while back.

droplets (i)

Raindrops on a gray January afternoon. Lens: vintage preset Takumar 135/3.5 @f/3.5, made circa 1957. Lots of info about early Pentax lenses (with photos) here, if you're interested...

Wistaria & 41st

View Larger Map

So here's another whistlestop on the Great Alameda Photo Freakout of '09, this time the landscaped nano-parklet at NE 41st & Wistaria. Ok, "whistlestop" is an exaggeration, since I didn't actually stop As with the others, I just sort of rolled by and snapped a handful of photos as best I could. Sure, I could've taken better photos, but I would have had to take the other hand off the steering wheel and probably run over some pedestrians or something, which I'm generally opposed to, unless maybe it was Pat Robertson, and I was driving a rental car. And even then it would be a bad idea; I've heard that car rental companies really ding you for body damage caused by caustic demon guts.

So I've only got two photos this time, and basically no material to go along with them. I kind of figured there's be no material at all, actually. But it turns out that during last December's mini-snowpocalypse, a brave passerby shot some video of cars and buses struggling to get up the hill. The angle's a little different than mine and it's hard to place where the viewer who filmed this was standing. Still, I figured I'd pass it along, because watching Portlanders try to drive in snow is always good for a laugh.

Of course the classic of the genre is still "Snow Driving Fail", from the big snowstorm in January '07. It's kinda like air hockey, but on a hill, with SUVs. Hee-larious. Unless you're an insurance company, I guess.

Wistaria & 49th

View Larger Map

More photos from the (Not Very) Great Alameda Photo Freakout of '09. Said event being the morning I tracked down the Vernon Ross Veterans Memorial and the nano-parklet at Alameda & 38th, and assorted other spots nobody but me cares about. Well, me and a few loyal Gentle Readers, plus the occasional Google hit that's often the result of someone searching on an unrelated topic -- and typically they don't stay long. I kind of enjoy tracking down really obscure places and things around town, but the downside is that pretty much by definition I don't get a flood of visitors searching for the things I cover. Which is fine, I mean, if it really bothered me I'd stop and do something else.

Still, this is one of those times when I stop and wring my hands and wonder aloud just how far down this particular rabbit hole I intend to go. The "park" at Wistaria & 49th shows up alongside the aforementioned two places in an obscure city document I keep linking to. But it's not really much of a park, is it? It's a steep, narrow, unbuildable strip of land, the result of the city street grid bonking up against the side of the Alameda Ridge. There isn't even a decaying statue of a forgotten politician to hold our interest here. So I'm starting to wonder if I've wandered off the far side of esoteric into... whatever's over there, I'm not sure what that would be. One of these days, I'll be taking third rate photos of some nondescript weedy highway median somewhere, and a white van full of anorak-clad British trainspotters will drive by, and they'll laugh at me and call me a nerd. And it's not like I'll be in a position to argue with them.

There is one point of interest here, which you can see in the top photo. The Alameda area is home to a fair number of public stairs, and one of these staircases forms the short side of the park here. I was doing a public stairs project a while back, until I ran out of examples that I knew the location of. Not knowing Alameda very well, I never covered anything in this part of town. I really ought to have stopped and taken a few shots of just the stairs while I was here, but I'd forgotten all about the old stairs project. I suppose I could go back and take care of that at some point. Which sounds kind of silly, but I'm not going to absolutely rule it out.

The stairs appear on a couple of walking maps, and they point out a number of the other staircases in the area. So I could probably ramp the stairs project back up again if I was so inclined. I can't absolutely rule that out either.

So to address the rabbit hole question: The answer is this far, and a little further. There are two more stops left on the Great Photo Freakout after this one, and they don't even have stairs to make them, uh, interesting.

In my defense, I do have a few posts about actual interesting places and things lying around in my drafts folder. But the boring places are low hanging fruit. The fact that there's nothing much here makes the research part really easy. So I guess it's got that going for it, at least.

multimorphic chunks

Ok, so here's a silly experiment I've wanted to try for a while. Over the years I've picked up a variety of thrift store photo doodads of widely varying usefulness, including a few now deeply unfashionable doodads from the groovy 70's. Among the uber-grooviest are a couple of multiple image filters I sorta-overpaid for about a year ago. I posted some photos of "Rusting Chunks #5" with one of them around that time, and warned that I might be posting "more multiple image pics here than strictly necessary". Turns out I haven't actually posted any more since then. Although as of this post I've done it twice, and that may still count as more than strictly necessary.

That time I used the Mirage 5F, this time it's the Mirage 3FP, so it's three images in a row instead of five arrayed in a circle. The effect isn't quite as dramatic as with the 5F, so for most of these pics I broke out a second widget, the Optivision anamorphic lens previously seen in this batch of cat photos.

And what better (or more convenient) subject for 70's-style photos than our old friend the Rusting Chunks? I couldn't think of a better subject, and as it turns out there aren't very many things that easily lend themselves to the multiple-image and/or the anamorphic gimmicks. And it's not for lack of looking. It's worth noting that the multiple image fad died out around the photo world started moving to zoom lenses, in place of the ~50mm prime lenses that had been the standard up until then (in the 35mm film world, I mean). A multiple image filter doesn't zoom with the lens, and pretty much only works as designed at focal lengths around 50mm, or the crop-sensor equivalent (and then not quite as well). Go longer, and you quickly lose the side images, so the filter becomes sort of pointless. Go wider, and the filter vignettes badly due to the thick rim of the filter.



It's easy to imagine someone taking photos just like these circa 1978. I can see it now. He was probably some sweaty chauvinist-pig type named Stan or Marv or something, who always wore a shiny brown leisure suit, a gold medallion, and cologne by the gallon. He'd heard that chicks really dug photographers, and besides photo gear was the latest trendy form of conspicuous consumption. He picked up a couple of multiple image filters thinking they'd help him take hip, with-it, happening pictures. When a woman fell for his cheesy pickup lines down at the singles bar, he'd invite her back to his place to check out his slides and perhaps have a glass of Riunite on ice and possibly fire up some romantic disco tunes on the ol' 8 Track. Having served their purpose, the multiple image filters went back in a drawer and sat unused for 30 years. And now they're mine, mwhahahah....



Speaking of Riunite on ice, we were messing around on YouTube a while back and ran into a bunch of vintage Riunite commercials, with that damn jingle you can't get out of your head. I think I like the skiing one the best of the bunch, although it's a tough call. Anyway, that naturally led to "whatever happened to", and the surprising discovery that it still exists. In fact, you can even be Riunite's friend on Twitter. Which led to, I wonder if it's available here in Portland. Not long after that, I found it and bought some. The Zupan's on Macadam has it, on the bottom shelf in the sparkling wine section, in case you're so inclined. A great thing about Riunite commercials is that, along with the music and happy 70's people, you also get food pairings. Ok, pairings with 70's food. The skiing commercial suggests fondue, so we thought we'd try that. And... it was actually nice. We liked it. Ok, it's kind of sweet, and lightly fizzy, and that's something that Modern Wine Experts regard with the very deepest disdain. But it would be nice on a hot day, as an alternative to beer or soda, assuming the weather ever improves. And if the weather doesn't improve, it also pairs nicely with chicken fried steak (which we verified with bottle #2).

Lest you take me for a complete barbarian, the quest for Riunite led me to take a good look at the sparkling wine aisle, something I don't typically do. So I thought, this year I'll do something different and get some proper from-Champagne champagne for New Years. So the Taittinger was kind of fabulous, and right now I have a bottle of something else in the fridge, and I'm looking for a flimsy excuse to pop the cork.

And all of this started with messing around aimlessly on YouTube. O, how I love thee, interwebs...

"The Responsibility of Raising a Child"

Today's episode of "Weird Transit Mall Art" takes us to the corner of SW 5th & Taylor, right outside the escalators to the Pioneer Place food court. As part of the MAX Green Line project, this spot is now home to the peculiar object you see here, inscrutably titled "The Responsibility of Raising a Child" (the full title is the equally inscrutable "From the Mad River to the Little Salmon River - or The Responsibility of Raising a Child"). Whatever the name, it's by Rick Bartow, a local Native America artist. Yes, that's a Wikipedia article. For more about him, along with photos of various other works:

• Froelick Gallery profile
• Art Scatter: "Grace, Falling Like Rain: Rick Bartow, the original story"
• harbinger Northwest profile
• Examiner: "Drawing Myself Straight"

Apparently there are ten copies of this piece out there, and the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian owns one of them. That one appeared at the NMAI's Heye Center branch in New York City in 2006, and the New York Times review of the show singled it out as something they didn't care for:

The only jarring note is a bronze sculpture, a vertical pileup of elements from traditional native stories, made in 2005 by Rick Bartow of the Wiyot tribe in Northern California and titled “From the Mad River to the Little Salmon River, or the Responsibility of Raising a Child.” It stands at the entrance to the new pavilion, but it’s not up to what’s inside.

I'm not really trying to bash the thing here, but "jarring" is a rather apt description. You're walking along, minding your own business, and suddenly here's this mass of faces and skulls and contorted birds and animals and whatnot. I understand it's supposed to be the artist's very personal twist on various Northwest tribal themes. I get that, I really do. But I only know that because I saw it, went "WTF!?", and searched the interwebs to figure out what on earth it was supposed to be. I think it would be fair to assume that most people who see it will just stop at the "WTF!?" part.

If you saw it and then looked at the title, you might reasonably assume it's supposed to be a comment on, well, raising children. And from the look of it, the message would seem to be that having children is really freakin' nightmarish. You might also assume, fairly, that it's located where it is as a stern warning to randy mall-going teens. But I'm reasonably certain that's not what it's supposed to be about. I think. Although I've been wrong before.

The reason it's here on our transit mall becomes apparent when you notice the salmon. Look closer, it's wrapped around the coffee mug on the dog-creature's back. A while back, I drew attention to our fair city's Law of Salmon, whereby the Powers That Be will buy just about anything so long as it comes with a salmon attached. I think the idea here is that salmon show how amazingly special we are because they're a uniquely Northwestern fish, um, except for those on the East Coast and in much of Europe and East Asia. We're also supposed to learn all sorts of important life lessons from salmon, apparently, and put them into practice in our own lives. But I've never been clear on what these lessons are supposed to be. I guess it's something along the lines of "You're forever tied to your stream of origin, and it's better to be pureed by a dam than look for a different stream", or "Your sole goal in life should be to spawn once with an anonymous stranger and then drop dead." So this life lesson thing isn't really working for me, I have to say. In short, the Law of Salmon isn't a very good law. But certain things (like the subject of this post) make a lot more sense once you know the law exists.

New York, New York, Las Vegas

Photos of the New York, New York casino in Las Vegas. It's a nice, clean, safe, sanitized, family-friendly cartoon version of New York City. In other words, it's just like the real 21st Century New York, according to certain longtime (and thus cynical) New Yorkers.

snow day, hawthorne bridge