pdx cheer

it’s true what hmc said to xz and danger before they went off to wellington: “it’s probably like portland .”

we stayed at the jupiter hotel, which is actually a gussied-up motel and not anywhere as big as the largest planet in the solar system. even the new “edited” solar system. thank goodness we weren’t staying in the pluto hotel. it’s connected to the doug fir, which is one of the main musical venues/bars in portland, which meant that it was very happening/loud, which also translates to us being very irritable/old. no, not really; it was fine and in fact the air conditioner was actually louder than the crowd, although i can’t imagine staying in one of the rooms next to the outdoor lounge. oh, those crazy rocker kids!

it’s rumored that portland has the most strip clubs per capita of any city in america. so what did we do all weekend? go to the parks, of course! we mostly hung out with our friends andy and midori who moved there last year, so that meant shopping in the saturday farmer’s market, going out to the lovely japanese garden in washington park, and then tramping through a tiny portion of the wonderfully huge forest park just a few blocks from town. and the requisite eating and drinking and talking, of course.

and yes, there was the legendary powell’s books, in which we spent far too little time (although you could take days and days if you permitted) but still loved. i was sorely tempted by the new compilation of haruki murakami stories, but for space’s sake i decided on a paperback copy of david mitchell’s cloud atlas. which i love so far. hmc found some long out-of-print mr. lunch notebooks and bought up the whole lot.

one thing we noticed about portland was that it seemed, well, very white. yet we couldn’t quite put our finger on it: what was it about portland that made it seem so? we were sitting in the doug fir diner waiting for our food at 1am, and there certainly were minorities around: a couple of asians, an indian chick, a couple of african-american guys, so it wasn’t that they weren’t there. but then we realized what it was— it wasn’t that everyone was white, but it was that the whites were whiter. not just pale because of the lack of sun, although we did see some people whose complexion just stepped straight out of a victorian painting, but just somehow really fucking white. like look up “white guy” in wikipedia, and you’d find a flickr link to a picture of some dude in portland.

not that it was a big deal or anything, as the city was very pleasant (although it didn’t rain once, so that certainly helped) and nice to be in.

and there’s always the strippers.

hypothetically.

Posted at September 4, 2006 10:39 PM