This piece is called Agent Mischief (of the Sprockettes, natch) and it's just one of the bike oriented pieces of art done by Tiago Denczuk (aka Tiago DeJerk) from the show "The Most Ridiculous People I know".

It's worth going out to Mt Scott to see!

Greens, water make Oregon foreign to us
By VALERIE SCHULTZ, contributing columnist
Friday, Aug 3 2007, The Bakersfield Californian

There is an abundance of water in and around Portland. Bridges span several rivers that form natural boundaries. As our gracious relatives apologized for the wet weather that greeted us, we turned our parched faces to the rain and laughed. What could be more unusual for us central Californians than summer rain? It is so wet in Portland that moss grows on the tree trunks. Later in the week, my sister and brother-in-law took us on a hike through a lush forest next to a rushing river, where blackberries grew like weeds. On our last day, my best childhood friend, who now lives in Portland, took us on a tour of the Columbia River Gorge waterfalls. We walked among smooth stones and greenery and mist, as water poured from the cliffs above us. We ended at the famous Multnomah Falls, which cascades and then cascades again, a two-part waterfall that plunges for 620 feet. So much water! I was again amazed, but, to my friend, the falls seemed a bit meager. "You should see them in the winter," she said.

This article appeared in the Miami Herald July 1, 2007, and is based on one of David Schargel's (founder of Portland Walking Tours), walking tours called ''Epicurean Excursions''. While the article gets our coffee connections dead wrong, the rest is quite amusing.

Give your taste buds a tour of Portland
BY CAROL PUCCI
The Seattle Times
...
Besides wine, beer and coffee, the city is known for tea. Oregon Chai, Stash Tea and Tazo Tea are all homegrown, and at least a half-dozen cafés around town specialize in exotic Asian blends. One is the Tea Zone, opened seven years ago in the Pearl District by husband-and-wife team Jhanne Jasmine and Grant Cull.

The weather was nice so we gathered at one of the sidewalk tables. Schargel passed out lemon cookies (acid to clear the palate from the mustard), and poured cups of a fragrant jasmine pearl, smoky oolong and a sweet black tea flavored with lychee fruit.

I was beginning to see that there was logical order to the foods we were sampling.

In Portland, the zen, and zany happily co-exist
By BETSA MARSH
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 05/27/07

Like a glacial breeze off Oregon's Mount Hood, Portland blows away the cobwebs of same-old travel.

Instead of dutifully slogging through museums, how about pulling up a chair at a sidewalk cafe, sipping chai or a microbrew and asking your server where he'd go? Or renting a bike and seeing how many neighborhoods you could breeze through before happy hour? And you have to love a city that embraces not one, but two, happy hours — from about 5 to 7 each evening and then a second-wind version from about 10 p.m. to midnight.
...
There's so much to do in this city of dual happy hours that it's easy to stay up most of the night, fueled by hard-core Stumptown coffee and Voodoo Doughnuts' best seller, the Bacon Maple Bar. The circumstances are totally different, of course, but Elizabeth Wood, a pioneer on the Oregon Trail in 1851, summed up the whirlwind of a modern Portland trip.

"A lazy person," she wrote, "should never think of going to Oregon."

photo by Jill Greenseth

So, why am I writing this? Just to remind you to buy where you shop. If you like the bricks and mortar experience, then support it.

Sure, it's fun to order online -- one click and you know there'll be a present brought to you at work by the hunky UPS guy. But if you like the experience of browsing, picking up the merchandise and feeling it, and having that lucky discovery of something new, then do the right thing.

Here's something that Tim O'Reilly wrote a couple years back that sums it up nicely (emphasis is mine, natch):

If you value the bookstore experience, my advice is this: buy where you shop. I buy lots of books online. I read about them on a blog or a mailing list, and buy with one click. But when I shop for books in bookstores, I buy them there, and so should you. Don't just look for the best price. Look for the best value. And if that value, for you, includes the ability to page through a book, support your local bookseller.

The title of this entry is the title of his article, and I was reminded of it in a O'Reilly Radar piece about the state of tech book publishing. He talks about how retail enables internet purchasing.

So, do the right thing. Support the stores that you frequent, which provide jobs here in Portland, which keeps the money you spend local.

I was excited to find a google map about Portland incorporating Simpsons' facts. But then I looked at it, and it barely skimmed the surface of all the great Groening history here.

What? You think Springfield, Vermont is that Springfield? It does seem that quite a few folks think that, but we (you, me and Peter DeFazio) know better.

So, I know some of you are bored at work, and I know a lot of you are google map wizards. PLEASE! Make a Simpsons google map that would make us Portlanders proud. And then comment here with the URL.

I'll publicize your hard work -- it'll be great. No really. Please!!

What, you don't know all the significance of Groening's naming principles? Here are some links:

wikipedia.org
Matt Groening's Portland (Don Hamilton, Portland Tribune, July 19, 2002)
the map that accompanied Hamilton's article
Super Sam's Origin of the Names

Okay! Have it!

Photo by Matt Picio

As someone whose house is still post-dorm, I'm more than a little excited about IKEA. If nothing else, there's swedish meatballs, and a 99 cent breakfast served from 9:30-11am. And, I'm excited that it's on the MAX line, and that they have more bicycle parking than I have ever seen for a retail establishment in the US.

And that's how I'd recommend you get to IKEA: by public transport, or by bike. Yes, they do have a huge parking lot, but the Portland Police, and Port of Portland personnel expect that if you drive, at least in the next week or so, you'll get some extra time in your car to think about what you're looking for, and to have buyers remorse trying to get back to the freeway.

According to Anna Griffin's article in the July 19, 2007 Oregonian,

The company expects to welcome more than 150,000 Allen wrench aficionados over the first five days, and police and Port officials say the only question is whether our traffic jams will be as bad as those during other Ikea openings.

Seven years ago, the first Northern California Ikea caused a two-week gridlock. Two years ago in Stoughton, Mass., an Ikea debut backed up freeway traffic five miles.

The frenzy over inexpensive -- or cheap, depending on your taste -- Scandinavian sofas and storage bins has been worse overseas: In London three years ago, a half-dozen people went to the hospital for injuries when one grand opening turned into a riot. In 1995, three people died when the crowd stampeded into a new Saudi Arabian Ikea.

Portland police say they're ready, or at least as ready as they can be. The city usually sends four officers and one sergeant to control traffic outside Trail Blazers games; the team pays about $1,200 a game.

During the chain's first five days in Oregon, 40 Portland police officers will guide traffic toward and away from the store. The company's tab: $120,000.

So if you get to IKEA and fall in love with a couch, or a bookcase, you can always have it delivered to your residence. Here's what the IKEA FAQ says:

The IKEA store offers (or will refer you to) a home delivery service if you prefer. Home delivery is not included in the product price.

How sweet is that? (Now if only they'd also take it to the dump for you at the end of its short life...)

If you live or travel through NE Portland (or use Tom McCall Park), you have probably seen a series of names and dates, chalked onto the sidewalk ... or, the blur of them. That is the Iraqi Names Project. There is something especially compelling to me about the fact that the names, like our memories and attention towards the Iraq War, fade quickly.

The accompanying website is an excellent resource for seeing where Nancy Hiss and her folks are now. She also offers bios of some of the dead soldiers. (And, there's a video). And consider this: she's been chalking names since Memorial Day, and only came to the second year anniversary on July 29th. (The war began in March 2003. As of June 5th, the total US servicepeople killed in Iraq was 3,494.)

You can find her on weekdays from 7:15-8:15, and on weekends from 11-5.

Artist Nancy Hiss is creating an art work that consists of writing the names of all dead coalition men and women.

The names will thread their way through the fabric of Portland OR.

Only last names will be listed to honor the sacrifice of individuals & their families.

As you reflect on these names also remember the hundreds of thousands of nameless Iraqis and others who have been scared by this war.

The names will be listed chronologically by date of death.

As of this writing, Nancy and her gang are on NE Alberta Street, a little past 15th, heading east. They will definitely be out on Alberta for last Thursday. And a frequently updated map is online.

There's a nice article about Nancy and the project in the current Portland Observer and an older article in the Oregonian (Cambell, Jacqwi. Drawing notice to war's dead: Downtown, name by name, an artist meditates on soldiers fallen in Iraq, 06/06/2007, The Oregonian) that reminds you that, kids, chalking is illegal. Yeah, I'll get right on that.

If you need some factoids to be able to spiel out in conversation about how insanely green (in the ecological sense) that Portland is, here's your document. The first half is all about Portland; the second half, all about President Bush. Bet you can guess where that goes.

Climate Change? Try Regime Change
Portland Thrives, Bush Denies.
By Ted Reinstein
June 1, 2007
BOSTON -- I spent last week on assignment in Portland, Oregon. Smaller than both Seattle and San Francisco, Portland is a gem. A very green gem. And not merely because of its temperate climate, nearly 40 inches of annual rainfall, or the abundance of trees left to stand on its city streets.

Portland is a world leader—and way in front of all other American cities—when it comes to grappling with climate change, global warming, and general environmental awareness. And they love to talk about it. Others love to write about it. In fact, renewable resources (like trees) will need renewing considering how many articles about Portland have been published.

I feel like I've actually arrived, you know? Someone made an LOL cat of one of my photos. And that someone is the talented Sam Klein of Zehnkatzen Times. Thanks, Sam!

Grist Environmental News and Commentary recently published their list of 15 Green Cities.

These metropolises aren't literally the greenest places on earth -- they're not necessarily dense with foliage, for one, and some still have a long way to go down the path to sustainability. But all of the cities on this list deserve recognition for making impressive strides toward eco-friendliness, helping their many millions of residents live better, greener lives.

And coming in at number 2, behind Reykjavik, Iceland, is Portland, Oregon, USA:

Portland, Oregon, U.S.
The City of Roses' approach to urban planning and outdoor spaces has often earned it a spot on lists of the greenest places to live. Portland is the first U.S. city to enact a comprehensive plan to reduce CO2 emissions and has aggressively pushed green building initiatives. It also runs a comprehensive system of light rail, buses, and bike lanes to help keep cars off the roads, and it boasts 92,000 acres of green space and more than 74 miles of hiking, running, and biking trails.

The other 13 are Curitiba, Brazil; Malmo, Sweden; Vancouver, Canada; Copenhagen, Denmark; London, England; San Francisco, California US; Bahia de Caraquez, Ecuador; Sydney, Australia; Barcelona, Spain; Bogota, Colombia; Bangkok, Thailand; Kampala, Uganda; and, Austin, Texas, US.

Okay, so I got to get the print edition of this. I am absolutely loving every paragraph of this article, which skews Portland as some boho lotus land.

American Eden
Portland, Oregon has many sides. Tom Austin favors its idiosyncratic indie scene, where fair-trade cafes and strip clubs draw the same clientele, ethics are in, and music fuels the urban engine.
From August 2007, Travel+Leisure
By Tom Austin

(Thomas) Lauderdale lives and works in a converted commercial building close to Mary's (Club). Pink Martini's offices and rehearsal studios are on the ground floor, and their parties—attended by the likes of former Interview publisher Paige Powell, a Portland native who is devoted to causes like the Wildlife Rehab Center of the North Coast—tend to spill out into the street and mix with the after-hours set lurking around Voodoo Doughnut, last call for Red Bull doughnuts and "voodoo" weddings: $25 Intentional Commitment affairs as well as entirely legal ceremonies with doughnuts and coffee. After midnight, Voodoo Doughnut is always full of local musicians, and music, often driven by neopsychedelia conceits and smart lyrics, is the engine that drives this city: Portland has long since surpassed grunge-era Seattle as an indie cultural capital. One young alt-rock snot dismisses Portland as a "retirement home for indie rockers," though the local all-stars include members of Modest Mouse, Death Cab for Cutie, the Shins, the Decemberists, Spoon, and the Thermals. (Gino Vannelli, glam god of the 1980's, also lives in town for some reason.) Portland has even entered the Great American Songbook: in "I Will Buy You a New Life," Art Alexakis of Everclear promises to give his beloved a home in the West Hills, the Portland equivalent of Beverly Hills.

I love how the Pink Martini offices are suddenly right by Voodoo Donuts! Or that between Mary's and VD, you could have crowds overflow. Let's just ignore Big Pink. Don't let those 8 blocks stand in the way of a good story!! Anyways, it's a funny read.

My pal, Jessica, is now doing BootsnAll's Portland Logue (yay!!), and that's how I know about this

Fast Company names Portland one of its Fast Cities 2007. There are nine different categories with 3-4 cities in each. I might have expected we'd be named a Start-Up Hub or a Creative Class Mecca, but in fact we are Green Leaders like Chicago, Stockholm and Vancouver BC.

Three decades ago, Portland became a case study on how to stuff sprawl when it enacted strict limits on urban growth. Today, it's at the forefront of the "eat local" revolution, in which individuals and restaurants buy directly from area farmers to preserve livelihoods and open space. With 13 farmer's markets, and nearby world-class vineyards, residents not only buy local but they eat and drink well too.

Though many people consider Portland, Oregon, a model of 21st-century urban planning, the region's integrated land-use and transportation plans have greatly reduced the area's livability. To halt urban sprawl and reduce people's dependence on the automobile, Portland's plans use an urban-growth boundary to greatly increase the area's population density, spend most of the region's transportation funds on various rail transit projects, and promote construction of scores of high-density, mixed-use developments.

When judged by the results rather than the intentions, the costs of Portland's planning far outweigh the benefits. Planners made housing unaffordable to force more people to live in multifamily housing or in homes on tiny lots. They allowed congestion to increase to near-gridlock levels to force more people to ride the region's expensive rail transit lines. They diverted billions of dollars of taxes from schools, fire, public health, and other essential services to subsidize the construction of transit and high-density housing projects.
...
These problems are all the predictable result of a process that gives a few people enormous power over an entire urban area. Portland should dismantle its planning programs, and other cities that want to maintain their livability would do well to study Portland as an example of how not to plan.

I was excited this am to see in the Periscope Blog that Publishers Weekly did an article on Periscope Comics Studio, right here in Portland (disclosure: I'm friends with one of the Periscopers, Steve Lieber).

Portland's Periscope Is Up
By Douglas Wolk -- Publishers Weekly, 8/7/2007

The largest comics studio in the U.S. isn't in New York or L.A.—it's in Portland, Ore.. The members of Periscope Studio—which recently changed its name from Mercury Studio after years of being confused with a local alt-weekly—produce an enormous range and quantity of material, from mainstream and indie comics to theatrical design to commercial, promotional and educational work. ...

"There's a lot of good-sized cities out there where you couldn't name 20 cartoonists, much less get 'em all into the same room," Lieber notes. "It's possible here because we're in Portland, which is the most cartoonist-rich environment anywhere in the English-speaking world. It's the last affordable city on the West Coast, it's an incredibly literate city, it's got crappy weather that keeps people inside and great coffee to keep them motivated—people come to a place like Portland and they do stuff."

... Even when they're not officially working on projects together, the Periscope artists always seem to be beckoning each other over to their drawing boards to share tips and critiques. They've got a reputation for meeting their deadlines, too. "An attitude that everyone who's come in picks up quickly is that when you're drawing professionally, you're no longer depending upon being in the mood to create," Lieber said. "If you're not feeling inspired, you've got however many years of technical skill to stand in for inspiration, and it's really hard to not produce when everybody else is producing around you. It's a constant energy source that way. And once you're in the room, you really don't want to leave, because you're afraid you're going to miss something cool. That's been my experience. "

This just in from the New York Times:
City That Loves Mass Transit Looks to the Sky for More
by William Yardley

More tangibly, the tram is supposed to help develop former industrial land along the Willamette long hemmed in by highways. It is meant to be a critical link between the university and the South Waterfront, now home to condominium projects and the university's Center for Health and Healing.

The tram makes the trip from the main university campus in less than 5 minutes, while driving can take 15 minutes or longer. Though the tram opened to the public this weekend, doctors and hospital staff members have been using it since late last year to travel between the main campus on the hill and clinics and a gym at the waterfront, where the university hopes one day to move its medical schools.
...
But few riders seemed jaded this weekend.

Kaitlyn Ni Donovan, 37, and Jonathan Drews, 38, rode a scooter to the tram on Saturday. The couple, both musicians, stood at the front of one cabin as it descended, with snow-clad Mount Hood at sunset.

"It's so futuristic for a city that's so green," Ms. Ni Donovan said. "I'd like it even more if it was 20 times slower and they served cocktails."

This time, The Lede, the Notes on News blog at the New York Times is highly amused at our own water department. I guess it's not enough to claim the water bureau has Seven Wonders, but the fact that they are naming names and posting pictures of the kids who add soap to the fountains -- well, is it a slow news day or what?

Yes, putting soap in fountains is amusing, but it also costs about a thousand bucks worth of water, plus a couple of days with that fountain closed for clean up. So I can certainly understand why the water bureau gets upset. It's just funny that the NYT noticed, you know?

I found this on the always informative and amusing Blogtown USA.

I guess there's a guy running for City Council who's come up with a shrewd publicity move.

Colbert show fans remember (very recently) when Colbert's book, I am America (and so can you) came out. Colbert showed footage of the book release party that Powell's threw at the Blitz Bar, and then became incensed that Powell's was ripping him off by offering his book at a discount.

Well, not only that, he called Portland a hippie stronghold and that we're communist! (the footage is on the Powell's Blog if you haven't seen it)

Powell's, by the way, sent Colbert $8 (the amount he was "ripped off") and a People's Republic of Portland t-shirt. Now, Powell's doesn't have a People's Republic of Portland t-shirt, and so I am on a quest: I must have one! Is anyone making them? Please, someone, tell me! The comments are now working (I hope). I don't want to have to get into the t-shirt making business!!

Anyways, Charles Lewis (the City Council candidate) baits Colbert with one of his favorite creatures: a bear!

I know the conspiracy theorists are going to have a field day with this one, just like they did with the one earlier this year. Here's the deal (emphasis of course is mine):

This year's TOPOFF will build on lessons learned from previous exercises, according to the Homeland Security Department, which runs the program. The agency said the Oct. 15-19 exercise would be "the largest and most comprehensive" to date.

According to an internal department briefing of the coming exercise obtained by AP, a dirty bomb will go off at a Cabras power plant in Guam; another dirty bomb will explode on the Steel Bridge in Portland, Ore., impacting major transportation systems, and a third dirty bomb will explode at the intersection of busy routes 101 and 202 near Phoenix.

Now, I didn't notice anything untoward in the last exercises, but I got to ask: why Portland? why us? This is the second terrorism exercise in less than a year. Doesn't it seem odd that we'd be targeted twice in one year?

So I have to ask, is it just because we're Little Beirut? Just because we've had the largest anti-Iraqi war protests in the nation? Just because we don't participate in the Joint Terrorism Task Force? Or is it because everyone here has three lives like the CPA who does ecstatic dance and studies oil painting with a maestro? Just curious.

UPDATE: Check out the comments for Inger's, which has a lot of background info about the various emergency preparedness actions that have been going on in town. It's really very cool. And I was totally wrong -- we're not being punished. We asked for it. Really...

I just saw this in the wonderful Ultra: Fashion. Design. Culture. blog: Portland Design Gets Love From NYT T: Design Mag

It looks like we get a couple pages in the glossy T:Design Magazine that will be in the Sunday New York Times, all about cool things to eat and see and buy in Portland. Ultra has the sneak preview so check it out if you're inclined.

Is anyone else thinking what I'm thinking?

Where did POVA get the money to so entirely buy off the New York Times?? I mean, I don't get it. Yeah, Portland's coming around as a food town, but do you have to tell everybody about it?

Let's do a name check, shall we? Andy Ricker, Pok Pok. Vitaly Paley, Paley's Place. Gabriel Rucker, Le Pigeon. Dave Machado, Lauro Kitchen/Vindalho. Ken Forkish, Ken's Artisan Bakery/Ken's Artisan Pizza. Pascal Sauton, Carafe. Jason Barwikowski, Clyde Common.

(You'll note just slightly over half of these restaurants are on the east side. Hmm, coincidence?)

Still, I gotta appreciate this quote that almost closes this article.

"Portland may be over-hyped in some ways," said Dave Machado, who after 16 years in Portland is a respected old guard chef. "A big city with an international component is always going to have crisper service. We have a regional class of service here."

Damn straight, Mr. Machado, damn straight.