THIS WEEK'S FEATURE

it was going to be on the "content" show. i'd scheduled myself for attendance on the second of october since reading a passing mention four? six? eight? weeks ago in a local press outlet, and even went so far as to invite a friend and local textile artist to attend with me -- we were both excited about dressing to our portland nines to necessarily juxtapose ourselves with the installations -- only to find out today, after three days of scouring the internet for information on the event (and trying desperately to contact zoe on her land line to admit that my finger was just as overexcited as the pulse of the portland scene that i was supposed to have it on) was canceled as a result of too many designers not wanting to front the money to reserve a space at the ace hotel.

the ace is an institution. a portland institution, and very much in the foucaultian sense. the hotel, which was the second of a chain to spread from seattle to portland to new york and to palm springs, was established from within the shell of the old clyde hotel at sw 10th and stark, one of portland's hundreds of storied residence hotels, at the eastern extremity of portland's old strip of gay bars, a once much seedier stretch of downtown that fostered a special brand of street theater combining the peacocking of drunken, carousing queens with the upheavals of the beneficiaries of the downtown social service establishment. my first apartment in portland was just up the street on 12th, and it was my roommate's uncle, a portland police officer who i first heard call vaseline alley by its local moniker.

since the ace, though -- and it was inevitable, i suppose, being that stark is just one block south of w burnside and the glistening high-rises of the pearl district -- the alley has lost all of its historic and eponymous sheen. the silverado, home of the weekend 2:30 sidewalk meat market and a fourth floor window shout from my old apartment, has moved to sw 3rd, and the bathhouse that occupied the three stories above it in the flatiron style building between 12th and where stark intersects burnside is finished. the building itself is under renovation, likely to be converted into something not too different from the ace. i think that i've heard that the old vaseline alley now hosts the most expensive pieces of real estate in the city. so i wasn't surprised, although i was certainly crestfallen, to see last month that the burger king on w burnside and broadway, unoccupied since i've lived here but very much trafficked, had been torn down to site new construction. the shanghai steakhouse across the street, a stiff pouring ugly old drag bar where the crackheads knew better than to insult the local color, shut its doors to become an improv theater two years ago.

but so it goes. a tale of a city not unlike the one where you live -- or the ones where you've always wanted to live and about which you watch scathing documentaries of coldhearted gentrification. i don't laud, but my lament is insincere. i'm a transplant myself, and as much as i hold dear my memories of that first year on vaseline alley, the clyde common, the haute northwest eatery at the ace named for the block's original tenant, is my favorite bar in portland. strangely, the steel of our ideals is both directly and inversely related to the making of exciting new friends. regardless, there's no better place for a celebratory champagne, a dinner with unfamiliar friends from out of town or to wax artistic after a screening at the film center. (alas, the new virginia cafe is a sad shadow of what it was before being priced out of its original location.) you'll see someone you know or that you want to. you probably won't talk to either. the scene is at an all time high. the press keeps telling us so. and did i mention foucault?

for better or for the worse, and because of the indecision, the "content" show couldn't have come off so well outside of the ace; and last year it was fantastic. two or three dozen local designers, jewelers, textile makers took over the second floor of the hotel, each given reign over one room to decorate and install as suited their visions or ambitions. we've got a fashion week here, but despite our reputation on "project runway" (canada hates your attitude, by the way, gretchen jones), runway shows in a city of the perennially underemployed aren't for now a scalable showcase for homegrown talent. "content" was an event perfectly suited to the quirk and innovation of portland's fashion scene, but also presented designers and attendees with an improvisational social space in which to interact with what was on display. entrance was affordable, and if you didn't like what you saw, you could push through the chaos of the narrow hall to the next room. plus, all of our friends were there.

duchess clothier, the woman owned and operated haberdasher, had their live models drinking around a dangerous looking card table. the ladies themselves, resplendently gender bending, presided over the spectacle at the back of the room. the luxury jones installation featured a frenetic big screen video of portlanders out on the town. stumbling nightlife in good shoes: heavy syrup, indeed. adam arnold, the darling of portland's indie press (who shouldn't need mention in an outlet so sophisticatedly beyond all that as this one -- except that for he stole the show), plastered his room with oversized film noir posters, which set the mood for his carefully curated (and very old portland) crime drama. visitors were treated to the first of his models, sitting bow legged on the toilet in the bathroom to the left of the entryway, with a slit through her neck dripping blood below her drooping head, and a mess of sideways bottles and glasses around her feet. her dress was absolutely the only thing that you'd imagine someone would wear to such an occasion. two smartly suited male models finished the room, one shot dead on the double mattress and the other suffocated with a bag over his head that was cinched tightly at his neck. (this year's "mad men" following would have died for it.) john blasioli's just had his clothes set around him on dummies, but the absence of drama in his room didn't stop me from commissioning a coat.

fashion week starts wednesday, but "content" isn't happening this year. again, from what i was told today, thankfully alongside zoe -- whose company i luckily came into two hours before we were set to get ready for the show -- too few designers wanted to pay what it cost to get a room at the ace for the night. i can only wonder who's going to afford a spot on the runway. maybe the payoff for the media exposure is greater there, or maybe portland fashion week just isn't going to show off the verve and creativity that have made portland designers so appealing to the media. myself, i'm not going to afford seeing any runway shows, and, of course, i've engagements this next week anyway. nonetheless, i wonder: what's the result, and who's the reaper? is portland's damn indie charm, the very thing that made us interesting and respectable, going to be the thing that damns us? whatever. that's what we say. strange, that the high-rises rise apace with the best of places, but fuck if anyone we know can afford the best of a local wardrobe.

whatever, again; and it didn't matter tonight. the show didn't happen. zoe and i talked about putting somethings nice on anyway, but no one at the bar on nw 21st where we went to catch the second half of oregon vs. stanford would have given a shit. we had the chance to talk about why canadians come south to steal american babies (zoe's form calgary): they're fat, and even if the only thing edible at the bar was french fries, we could dream about canadian foie gras. i'd have had to ride home and take the bus back across town, too. and there were future plans. zoe's making me a sweater, and arm warmers (think that john varvatos ad with the guy and the great danes). i'm making her dinner. we'll have enough to celebrate at the clyde in no time.

so home tonight, not any later than i would have been out had the show happened, and not any more sober. upon arriving i noted to myself that i should write something about how i could hear the train cars lumbering over the tracks from my bathroom. usually it's just noise from the highway, which we joke and also think genuinely is like the sound of the ocean. they're both far enough away. i look at the note and think it's nonsense, an aftereffect of waning intoxication. it's nonsense. but show or not, i still have enough time before bed to try on all of my clothes.