KEEPING PORTLAND SANCTIMONIOUS, part 3

there was lots of talk over "portlandia" this past week, most of it in keeping with the humble taste making expressed here last week. at least one person gave the show (or at least carrie brownstein) credit for taking aim one of her community's very sacred cows (not a local food joke). i also identified a personal connection to the bike that fred armisen rides in the "bicycle rights" promo at ifc.com. all in all, however, i'll suffice it to sum up the chatter by recapitulating a bit of conversation from thursday evening at the secret society on russel.

"that reminds me. there's that show. i haven't watched it yet, but..."

"don't." "no?"

"it isn't that funny. i mean, i'm going to watch them all, but."

"fucking janet weiss." (you can use that if you want, carrie.)

of course, now the new york times is weighing in, and well ahead of on time for that publication's starry eyed but late to the table coverage of portland culture -- ten days after everyone watched episode one on hulu and two days (three in print) after its ifc premiere. the times article, titled "can a city this self-serious take a joke?", knows exactly where it stands:

"for years, many residents here have reacted with practiced apathy and amusement toward the national fascination with portland. outsiders and media critics have glowed over everything from its restaurants to its ambitious transit system of streetcars and light rail. yet with "portlandia," the flattery has given way to mockery, however gently executed, of this liberal city’s deliberate differentness."

c'mon new york. do we sense perhaps a bit too much self-satisfaction? there's at least enough to rival our self-seriousness. and yeah, we can take a joke -- if only someone will help us out from under the heavy and clumsy hand of gentle execution to find a good one.

now, if you'll excuse me, i have something european to do. and i'm taking the bus.

HOW TO RETROFIT THE FUTURE; or, MILLION DOLLAR BABIES DON'T CRY

remember the vook? the upstart champion of the digital book revolution? it was the future in 2009. who wouldn't want to combine "amazing stories" with "powerful videos" for a cheap and distracting new reading experience?

i had very honestly forgotten about the concept until reading that the vook company had recently secured $5.25 million in new financing, which caused me to remember asking reif larsen, whose 2009 book the selected works of t.s. spivet is as close as you can get to a vook in print, what he thought about the incorporation of sound clips and videos into a text and what he thought those additions would do to writing. he answered something about his brother having different intelligences. (i think maybe he might have been unemployed.) i hesitatingly paid my share of support for larsen's historic $900000 advance and had him sign it. since then i've picked it up once to pack it for a move. i won't have a reader to watch the vook if ever it comes out, but i'd probably watch the trailer.

later in the afternoon, it cheered me up to see a man with a whole pig slung over his shoulder walking from a van to one of the few chinese restaurants left in china town. it's nice to see that some people understand the value of doing things the old way.

also, this post title is copyrighted. i'ma write a vook. does anyone have an in with hilary swank?

KEEPING PORTLAND SANCTIMONIOUS, part 2

all of the promotional material for "portlandia," fred armisen and carrie brownstein's new ifc sketch comedy about portland, advertises the show as beginning its television run this friday, january 21st, but the first full episode has been available at hulu and ifc.com since at least the fourteenth, which was also the day of the premiere party at @large films on ne couch for everyone in town who considered paying ten dollars to watch a twenty minute digital clip the ultimate expression of self-congratulation.

if any of the viewers at @large managed somehow not to be disappointed, i still hope that they were included beverages with their entry fees, because i imagine it would have been difficult to face the scoffing majority sober post-premiere. monique watched "portlandia" episode one, "the farm," on friday afternoon and asked if i had seen it when i saw her that evening. i hadn't. in fact, i didn't watch it until yesterday, after which i told monique that i hadn't thought it all that great, to which she responded that she'd reserved expressing her similar reaction until after i'd had a chance to pass judgment myself.

we have chickens. well, mostly monique has chickens, but they live at our same house. while on friday evening i was getting ready to leave to walk to the (ahem, locally owned) grocery store for a pick me up rotisserie chicken, monique joked that there were more local ones in the backyard. "the farm" uses a similar joke to drive armisen and brownstein's locavore foodie characters to the farm outside the city that produced the chicken they're thinking of ordering at a downtown restaurant for lunch while their waitress holds their table. ok. we get it. the joke is overplayed, but "portlandia" is sketch comedy. i don't, however, have any idea why the farm turns out to be a mennonite polygamy camp. there's a retirement community in albany called mennonite village, but that's all the internet got me.*

i liked that this first episode of "portlandia" featured a couple of locations in ne portland near my neighborhood (the feminist bookstore in other words and pcc cascade, both on killingsworth), and the two funniest bits of dialogue take place there. the non-actor old woman at the pcc library during the adult hide and seek competition was unchallenged for best performance. that woman is probably at the pcc library everyday, and i hope that the florida room offers to give her a special discount so that she can continue her exchanges with the students after they head to the bar.

the spoof of in other words didn't look for laughs anywhere beyond the cliché of the dowdy and grating feminist activist, and i was bored by the time that steve buscemi came into the sketch as a man trying to use the bookstore bathroom without making a purchase. carrie brownstein of all people should know that the feminist activists here don't need any glamour tips. in fact, there don't seem to be attractive young people of any persuasion in the show at all. you can't live the dream of the 90s without an infestation of underemployed twenty-somethings, can you? we may be just as simpering as armisen and brownstein play us in "portlandia," but we certainly don't look like that. to be honest, i'm surprised that steve buscemi got past airport security to make that cameo. before his arrival, though, one beautiful gem for the city that drinks to get through the winter and then drinks to celebrate the sun:

"addiction isn't funny."

"yes it is."

as a whole, "portlandia" could have been much better, and we didn't really like it. but we couldn't really, could we? and that's the paradoxical essence of our city that "portlandia" hasn't been able to capture. of course we'll keep watching. and we'll keep scoffing, but we won't miss an episode. is it too much of ourselves that we see in the show or not enough? either way, it's the our important nuance they're not getting, and people in general probably wouldn't get it anyway --though we don't really have time to worry about it. we've quirky and esoteric things to be doing. someone has to keep living the dream.

*a friend who lived and worked at a farm in cottage grove assured me that he and his farmmates only practiced polygamous abstinence.

ABOUT LAST NIGHT, part 3; or, HOW TO GO OUT OF YOUR WAY TO BE PATRONIZING

don't ask me. i was at the lesson last night, but i wasn't at all interested and am happy to have woken up, however late, without learning it.

it would have been a good idea to check if black star would be open on a sunday when i was there on friday, but i was frustrated that the door was locked in spite of the "open" banner flying in the window. my tearing shoulder bag isn't going to last another winter, and i would have given them cash. (i ended up saving the laundry for saturday.)

black star isn't open sundays, and the only reason i went to barista this afternoon was because it's close by and i'd been to random order before stopping at black star on friday. black star was closed, which meant that the rain i'd decided to tolerate for six blocks when i left barista ended up thoroughly soaking my shoes when i wasn't able to get back inside at the bag workshop and set home as my new destination.

but barista was not for naught. the new guy -- i knew because i heard another employee explaining to him where not to put clean glassware to avoid chipping -- was working the register, which faced away from where i was sitting at the back of the coffee bar. and damn. boy looked good in some pants. it wasn't easy to focus on my reading, but saturday's atrocities forgiven, the world was good.

DUENDE DE LORCA?

the first time i saw "cabaret" on stage was at the river theater in astoria, oregon in 2005. the production was well cast, and the intimacy of the small theater was fitly evocative of the experience of the kit kat club and the parlor scenes of interwar berlin. sadly, but not surprising for a regional act, the river theater was gone from astoria the next time i visited. even with a schedule of well known or well liked shows, a small theater has its work cut out for it in keeping the show going. small shows still cost money, and the people aren't many who will regularly pay to go to the theater without the guarantee of the grand spectacle that often only larger theaters can provide.

the stated mission of the miracle theater in portland is to present "quality hispanic theater, arts and cultural experiences for the northwest's urban and rural communities." it's teatro milagro tours the country with original bilingual theater productions, one of which, "duende de lorca," a play in one act about its titular character the spanish poet and dramatist federico garcía lorca, began its debut run at the miracle this weekend. although the official world premiere was scheduled for tonight, the company did a preview of the show on thursday, january 13. i'd had lorca on my mind for a few days since reading a mention of his assassination during the spanish civil war in a novel, and so, after finding out that a couple of friends were planning to attend the preview for credit in a spanish class, i decided to give the miracle theater my fifteen dollars.

"duende de lorca" begins in the late 1920s after the production of lorca's first commercially successful play and follows the poet from spain to new york to cuba, ending with lorca's dismissal from that country following his public recital of an incendiary ode to walt whitman. the play focuses keenly on lorca's frustrated homosexuality and evokes his desire for its sincere expression and his passion for the avant garde through the weaving of his verse into the script. lorca was significantly influenced by the culture of andalusia in southern spain, and the spirit of evocation intrinsic to el duende is closely tied to the performing arts of that region, specifically flamenco.

in lorca's own words (included in the playbill): "the duende...is a power, not a work. it is a struggle, not a thought...it is not a question of ability, but of true, living style, of blood, of the most ancient culture, of spontaneous creation." surely, then, a play called "duende de lorca" would aspire to affect that struggle and spontaneity? apparently not.

although the "duende de lorca" does an acceptable job of showing the poet as a man, very much moved by the force of his living blood, it is constantly weighed down by traditional theatrical style. even during a scene depicting the conflict between two cockroaches and a butterfly (an allusion to the failure of lorca's first play, "the butterfly's evil spell"), the entire script is obsessively acted. the actors on thursday performed unfeelingly, their movements static between rigid blocking. in addition to lorca, who remains on stage for the entirety of the production, the characters are played by only three other performers, two men and one woman. masks and costume changes are incorporated into different scenes to assist the dialogue in indicating an actor's role changes, but the actors' performances themselves seemed hardly to change. (that was supposed to be dalí?) the bilingual dialogue is impressively written, but its rapid fire delivery doesn't help the confusion. as for lorca himself, he was an ugly caricature of the young, neurotic, homosexual artist. his obsessive limp wristed hand wringing and lip quivering, if not downright offensive, were persistently distracting.

the show also -- as if that weren't enough -- disappoints in its two musical numbers. lorca was a passionate devotee of cante jondo, the powerful "deep song" of flamenco, and was instrumental in the opening of a festival dedicated to it at granada in 1922. the two songs sung in "duende de lorca" could have been an opportunity for the play to showcase that style as it pertained to the life and work of the artist. instead, the male lead sang them effetely under the spotlight in a style that bore no distinction from what you'd hear in a show like, say, "cabaret." the miracle theater has presented flamenco music in the past, surely they could have consulted a local cante artist.

the miracle theater's effort in staging a production like "duende de lorca" is commendable. if nothing else, it demonstrates the important place of small scale theaters in the avante garde and the introduction of new works. but however much the script of "duende de lorca" may be challenging and innovative, its performance by teatro milagro is stale and uninspired. there is no duende in "duende de lorca." my urge is to call the effort herculean, but thursday night's show had more in common with the myth of sisyphus.

so after all of it i was excited to throw up my hands and rejoin my friends for a bit of revelry -- and the miracle theater had one last chance at redemption. technically, thursday's performance was a final dress rehearsal, but it was, also technically (there was an audience, after all), the world premiere. and in the lobby after the show? not a drop of champagne.

LA POETA EN PORTLAND

this morning i read a piece of tuesday's news from the guardian announcing the discovery at the library of congress' music division of an original draft of the poem "office and denunciation" by federico garcía lorca. looking good in pants means being incredibly rich in dumb luck, and so it was that the re-whetting of my curiosity for lorca was also a well timed prelude to the opening of "duende de lorca," an original, bilingual stage production that previews tonight at teatro milagro on se 6th and stark. i want to go home tonight and finish zone, but if i care about the book and its implications then maybe i should take that it mentioned lorca's assassination by the right during the spanish civil war as another sign. even more, i should consider the significance of lorca's passion for cante jondo, the deepest and most serious form of flamenco music, which was very much evocative of my mood after flamenco class last night -- and ironic because i was upset at having floundered through my tientos. the temperature yesterday was twenty degrees higher than it had been on tuesday, and in the evening the rain had given way to a low hanging fog that coated the top of the river to just under the bridges, which was beautiful but eerie and foreboding as i rode through the warm air and across the lower deck of the steel bridge looking left and right to the broadway and the burnside. on the wildness of the city, from "office and denunciation," the poet: "this is not hell. it is the street."

POST-HOLIDAYS ON ICE

the temperature had risen to well above freezing by the time i left the house this morning, so the wetness on the front stairs (which was of the standard rainy january variety) didn't pose any slipping hazard, but i was cautious nonetheless. the scrapes on my left ankle have only just healed from the last time, and those same stairs had been decidedly slick when i carried my bike up them early this morning.

the weather forecast had called for tuesday afternoon to evening snow since sunday. i was hopeful until mid-afternoon, and apparently there were actual flakes at slightly higher elevations away from the river and downtown, but by the time i left the indoors to get on riding at 6:45, whatever snow had been falling had turned citywide to the "ice pellets" that the online weather services were broadcasting as the current condition, the reality of which was stung into my face with every pellet that hit it.

having flaked on her on friday, i felt under incontrovertible obligation to visit a friend where she was working at the concordia ale house and headed there after a couple of hours respite from the weather in the kitchen over the stove and next to the oven. not that i needed an excuse for hot chocolate and roasted dinner, but the old gas furnace has to work expensively hard when the outside temperature gets to freezing, and i needed something in me for the three and a half mile push to 33rd and killingsworth.

it wasn't snow, and it didn't warm up by midnight like the weathermen predicted, so when caroline and i left the ale house to ride each other home i found my bicycle completely frozen over. so it wasn't snow, but it had the effect that the snow does to some extent anywhere but especially in cities like portland that don't usually experience it, which is just to say that the ice made things different, and despite the danger it posed for cycling, it was also a detour from the routine, and as such brought with it a feeling of calm at being resigned to the limitations of the weather.

most of the rest of the city had let itself be limited, too, and the streets were all but empty, so caroline and i abandoned walking and braved the roads -- but didn't abandon our plan to stop inside somewhere on the way back to the neighborhood to warm up. forward momentum and no sudden turns. only two cars passed us on alberta between 30th and 11th, and i wished that they'd been more discourteous, or at least more exacting in their judgments and not slowed down when they came up behind us, because despite the calm and our world on hold lightheartedness, still neither of us wanted to be slid into by a braking car.

whiskey seemed warmer, but sticking to beer seemed more advisable, and the bye and bye has a cascadian dark on draft now. they have unique and delicious hot cocktails too, but what's more freezing midnight in the pacific northwest than a roasted malt ipa? but just one; and, yes, we'll be safe, we're professionals.

it didn't seem likely from the state of the roads on the second leg of the return trip that morning driving would be easy if even possible, most of the parked cars having been completely frozen over -- as had been our bikes, again, and down to their chains in the forty-five minutes we spent at our waylay. be careful on the hill, it's probably better to get off alberta before 7th, mlk, williams and vancouver; and be careful going up the front steps. even if we wouldn't get a snow day (which we didn't; though neither did new york, and they got another proper snow), the moment was enough to make me want to find coffee and stay up all night reading. i made it up the steps, carefully, and made it to my book. zone is one of those that demands (or elicits the desire for) unbroken stretches of serious engagement. but there wasn't any coffee. and apparently i fell asleep.