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Showing posts from October, 2009

Dance in the Dark

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I suppose it's just a matter of time until something or someone you know well shows up on tabloid TV.  Given so many cable news (?) outlets,  so many versions of "talk" shows, and so many TV personality types looking for something to talk about daily, something close to home will show up eventually.   So it was with the upsetting news that a 15-year old girl was gang raped outside a dance on the Richmond H.S. campus.  Shocking, no.  Sadly, this event could have happened in a multitude of places. The pathological mentality and group behavior needed are on display in every socioeconomic level.   Having worked, and at one time, lived in this community, I've seen firsthand the conditions that comprise the Richmond area known as The Iron Triangle.  A tough neighborhood is way too lenient.  It's depravity at it's worst.  This is a poor, ill-served, physically deteriorating, extremely violent and therefore dangerous place.  BUT, as such, it is also home to far more h

Rocking with Rilke

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"The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things"    -Rilke Today was one of those dark rainy Portland mornings that screams stay home.  True we get a lot of rain here, and we like that, but not today.  It pounded down in sheets that flooded streets in seconds and left some neighborly custodians of the storm drains battling just to stand up.   Part of me just wanted to roll over an die.  I've been battling a nasty cold that moved from sore throat to deep in my lungs overnight.  I would have just rocked in my favorite rocking chair and hoped for sleep too (God I sound old!) but Katie had to babysit for her niece and I needed to get up and get her there and just b on stand-by.  She likes it that way, and we try to be there for one another in bad weather. So here I sit in a crowded little coffeehouse on the border between NE and N Portland.  Somehow in this hour or two of need I went to the web and found my old friend Rilke.  Even his profundity can be so

Sail On Soupy

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Sad day.  I just heard about the death of Soupy Sales.  Not sad for long.  It's impossible to talk or even think about Soupy without laughing.   Even the CBS Evening News had a piece about Soupy tonight.  For any Baby Boomer, the Soupy Sales Show was like no other.  Here's the thing: lots of slapstick, really bad jokes, two dogs for pets represented by huge white or black arms with claws.  (White Fang and Black Tooth)  Two puppets for friends (Pookie the lion and Hippie, a hippo.)  And lots of knocking on his door which usually ended in a shaving cream pie in the face. Soupy Sales made everybody laugh.  He was the perfect sucker, the perfect dupe, the grown up who acted like a kid.  His world was ridiculous.  That's why it worked.  If you came home in 1965 with Middle School angst, one episode of Soupy Sales would be all it took to release all those wonderful brain chemicals that come with laughter.   Case in point: Right in the middle of something his phone would ring.  &q

Show and Tell

http://showandtellgallery.org/

The Best Policy

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This morning on my local Public Broadcasting station I listened to a portion of a call-in show on class size as a crucial issue in education today. I'm sure some figures were recently released placing Oregon among the states with the highest class sizes. I'm sure too, that some socially conscious producer put together a panel of "experts" to discuss the issue and invite listeners at home to call in and make comments. I admit I only heard a portion of the program, but I feel compelled to comment on what I did hear. OK, I'll go straight to the point; what got my goat was a panel member who had taught for a little while and is now a "policy wonk." When this person was asked why she left the classroom, her answer skillfully moved from never giving any specific detail to a description of how policy was her real calling, to some other murky mumblings about other murky things. My point: how can someone who has never taught more than at least one decade b

Suddenly Sexist

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By the time I got to Wordstock, Portland's very own literary festival, it was Sunday. I'd carefully underlined all workshops and author presentations about memoir, because, let's face it, I'd still like to market my book in this economy. Seeing and hearing, and hopefully talking to some writers who had scored book deals would be inspirational, fun, beneficial. Most of what I thought might be useful was slated for Saturday. In the final analysis, I was not willing to give up the opportunity to watch some of the Breeder's Cup prep races, and, of course, Zenyatta win her 13th consecutive race. So here I was on Sunday, touring the booths, the book sellers, the opportunities from self-publishing, to all manner of MFA programs. At noon, I noticed a pairing of authors that had both recently published memoirs. Giulia Melucci and Andy Raskin are both Brooklyn born writers, but that's where the comparison ends. Both have books out about their love lives. Raskin

Whitopia at Sundown

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" By 2042, whites will no longer be the American majority. As immigrant populations -- largely people of color -- increase in cities and suburbs, more and more whites are moving to small towns and exurban areas that are predominately, even extremely, white. Rich Benjamin calls these enclaves "Whitopias" (pronounced: "White-o-pias"). A couple of days ago I listened with ever increasing interest to a program on NPR featuring Rich Benjamin, the author of the new book Whitopia. Benjamin a black journalist, went to live in 3 enclaves that are overwhelmingly white communities. Places like St. George, Utah or Couer d 'Alene, Idaho. His book looks at this phenomena and without any heavy handed message, simply asks some questions about how the changing demography of the U.S. will impact our lives. By the way, Benjamin was treated very well in these all-white communities, enjoyed playing golf, talking to people, and moving about without any problems. After the pro

The Met

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Spent the first two days of October on the Metolius river in central Oregon. This was my first time between July and December. I've seen the Metolius on triple digit days and covered with a white winter ground cloth. October brings the changing of the seasons to this miraculous topography. If you don't know the Metolious, be advised. It is like no other region in the world. It's silent beauty put the awe in awesome. With that comes it fragility. Nonetheless, the river and it's environs are protected by those who inhabit the area and the small hamlet of Camp Sherman. They know what they have; they get it. For fly fishers, the Metolious is uber unforgiving. That's part of it's charm. It takes more than luck or skill to catch fish there. It takes time. As in years. Even in the small tributary, Lake Creek, that I love to fish, I encountered nobody who caught anything. All were happy just to be there. If the fishing is difficult, the scenery more