a picture is worth what?

2010-04-20T23:08:00.000-07:00

2009-08-13T21:19:00.000-07:00

the year so far.....

2009-04-12T14:46:00.000-07:00

blurry Blazers beating the Bucks......

2008-11-05T23:13:00.000-08:00

2008-10-16T20:52:00.000-07:00

2008-05-17T22:41:00.000-07:00

just don't let the human factor fail to be a factor at all....

2008-03-06T22:15:00.000-08:00

2007-12-01T22:39:00.000-08:00

and in this life you're lucky to have even one good friend...

2007-11-21T20:35:00.000-08:00

time has told me, you're a rare rare find.

2007-11-08T20:53:00.000-08:00

until I found a way to understand this wonderful pain, feel it every day....

2007-10-27T21:50:00.000-07:00

waiting in the not-light not-night

2007-10-22T22:34:00.000-07:00

neglectful, bashful, and burnt out

2007-10-16T18:22:00.000-07:00

The picture I'm posting (after skipping almost two weeks, sorry) isn't the picture I'd like to post. The picture I'd like to post doesn't exist, because I forgot my camera. I'm not accustomed to taking it everywhere with me, and I find the best shots are the ones I never get.

Last Thursday I went to see a show at my favorite coffeeshop. I was with my favorite person, and my favorite couple. There is a low stage set up at the coffeeshop, in front of the huge picture windows overlooking the street. The coffeeshop is in Oldtown/Chinatown, an area known for diverse streetlife.

We missed the first opening band, which apparently were quite good. The second act was a slight boyish girl who sat on the stage, intent on her guitar, looping pedal and drone-like singing. I noticed about halfway through her set there was a gentleman in a leather jacket smoking and sitting at one of the tables outside. He was directly behind her, and watching her from the other side of the window as intently as she was playing her music. It would have made a nice shot.

The final band took the stage near 11 p.m., and they put on a good rock show. At first, the lead singer had a bit too much attitude for me. She was a little too into that "I'm a rock star" thing, with showy obvious rockstar moves that highlighted her awareness of putting on a show. I like it better when musicians forget there is an audience. I like it better when it seems like the music is a force that has to be expelled or they will explode trying to keep it all inside. I like it when the music is desperate to make itself heard.

Perhaps 2/3 of the way through the show, she loosened up and finally let herself go. Crazy thrash dance guitar playing howling shaking can't stop if life depended on it under red stage lights and I thought yet again, "fuuuuuuck, why did I forget my camera?" A crowd of men, who looked as they were sleeping rough that night maybe every night, gathered outside and watched her. It was an amazing moment to be a witness to.

So you don't get to see those pictures, they exist only in my head. And maybe in the heads of everyone else at the show that night, if they noticed the same things I did.

Instead, you get to see Elvis. Friday night I walked to have dinner with my friend and came across Elvis lounging on 23rd Street. He had an amplifier, a pipe, and a fantastic belt buckle he felt the need to point to when I pulled out my camera. I love to walk down 23rd, there is always something interesting to see there. And it's never a bad thing when Elvis flirts with you.

little birdies swiftly swoop and swallow

2007-09-28T19:40:00.000-07:00

Every fall, hundreds of Vaux's swifts (Chaetura family) make their way through Portland as they migrate south. Well, actually they arrive here in late spring but by the end of August they start to gather in large clouds, intent on making their way to Central America. They are tiny, cigar-shaped birds. Very speedy in flight (hence the common name swift), they are amazing aerial acrobats who spend their nights resting in chimneys or similar empty towers.

There is an elementary school in my neighborhood with a large chimney. The swifts discovered it many years ago and it has become an important annual gathering spot for them. Each September dusk they meet up, swirl around the sky and dive into the brick chimney for a quiet evening. Hundreds of people sit on the lawns and enjoy this nightly spectacle. Picnics are packed, neighbors are hailed in the brotherly spirit of community and children chase their tails while the birds provide a show. And it is a spectacular show. One that should not be missed.

About ten minutes after the sun sets, the great cloud of swifts moves as one and they drop into the chimney likes stones in a well. The show over, the neighborhood packs up and calls it a night.

When the school realized their chimney was an annual stop along the migration route, they raised the funds for a new heating system. The chimney used by the swifts is now inactive, a safe haven for the thousands of tiny birds making their way home.

To me, this is a shining example of nature and urban space working together. As a (future) biologist, the interaction between the wild world and the world we've created is extremely important to me. Our way of life is killing the world around us, it is crucial we find ways to save every tiny scrap of it we can.

And if we get to enjoy a show along the way, all the better.

Days off are lovely days indeed.

2007-09-20T18:41:00.000-07:00

pretty pretty pink plastic pony

2007-09-14T18:47:00.000-07:00

Little did I know the ponies and I share a Portland history.

The first pony appeared tethered to the horse rings scattered around the city back in the fall of 2005. The Horse Project was the idea of artist Scott Wayne Indiana; you can read all about it here: http://www.horseproject.net/.

I first appeared scattered around the city also back in the fall of 2005. I moved to Portland for school, for something different.

I don’t remember where or when I first saw the plastic horses but I immediately fell in love. I never quite outgrew the crazy wild horse fever every girl I’ve ever met suffers through as a child.

I captured this pony while taking pictures of my new hometown for family back in the Midwest. There was just something about that pink scarf that caught my eye. So jaunty, so feisty, so free. Somehow the scarf became a symbol of all that my new life could be here in Portland. The pink scarf reminded me I could be whoever and whatever I wanted to be.

Since I don’t recall exactly where the horse was, I haven’t been able to go back to visit and share stories from my new life or even to see if the horse and scarf are still there. In the past two years I’ve seen many a plastic horse tied up around the city, and taken many a portrait. Unfortunately a large number seem to be “liberated” all too quickly. I hate to think anything has happened to the unofficial mascot to my new life.