General, Laura Grimes, Poetry

Blog comes on little cat feet

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HELLO? MR. SCATTER? ANYBODY HOME?

to evewybody else: shhh! be vewy vewy qwiet. let’s see how long it takes mr. scatter to notice i’ve posted something.

(hey, what’s up with the dreadful new digs?)

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My timid, sneaky she-cat

Behold. My own blog sign-in. Not that I have bloglegs to go with it. I’ve had the superblogpower for a while and have been mulling over the perfect first post. Big? Little? Not that the passing days mattered a wit because I didn’t have time. As I kicked around ideas and poked in the cobwebs of my inner files, I kept coming back to a quiet little place I think of as a beginning. It’s my cat, really. My timid, sneaky she-cat.

It’s not my he-cat. He often lies in a basket next to me as I work. That is, when he’s not rubbing his white hair against my black pants and clawing my thigh. By most accounts, he’s a demanding brat. He’s big. And loud. Though I find his penchant for carrying around little stuffed animals adorable, I’m not so keen about his nosings-around on the kitchen counter.

She, on the other hand, takes off for days. She goes back to the old stomping grounds a few blocks away. Sometimes she walks home with me at night. But only if it’s really black outside. Even in the dark, she skirts the edges and the byways. She comes to me sideways and looks up past me. If she lets out a soft little trill my heart skips. Because it’s so hard to come by.

I pick her up and hug her to my cheek and smell poetry. Elusive. Mysterious. A silence like no other. A wellspring.

She disappears. But she always comes back to me. She bumps her forehead against mine. I smell the rich loam buried deep in her fur. This is how we say hello. She lets out a soft little trill.

She is where I started to write a few years ago.

A sweet little poem came out. And then a funny thing happened. It became a prelude. This is how it went.

Two cats: A prelude
One is strong and cocky.
He jumps on the counter
when he knows it’s wrong
and dines fine
in a beam even,
meowing loudly.
He rubs my thigh
broadside
and laps my love
no matter what.

The other is quiet and shy.
She slinks in under shadow
and finds food
in the dark.
Curled in a hollow,
she sleeps in the small space
pressed next to me,
speaking nothing.
In the night
when all is silent
I touch her softness
slowly
stroking
and she carefully
turns her belly bare
to meet my hand.

Bob Hicks, General, Music, Theater

Singing for Haiti: a Portland benefit

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Seems like every time something cataclysmic happens, artists show up to help out. Like a lot of other people they know they can’t do much, but they also know they can do something. And often, because this is what they do best, they put on a show.

A painting by Leslie Ann Butler will be used as cover art for the benefit CD "Portland Sings for Haiti."Especially when you’re talking about the local artists who are the heart and soul of any city’s arts scene, that often means that people who barely have two dimes to rub together are among the ones who jump in and get something done. They raise awareness (pardon Mr. Scatter for employing that overused phrase) and they raise money. I’m not sure why performing artists and restaurant people so often take the lead on this sort of thing, but maybe it’s because both work in businesses where they become acutely aware that nothing gets done right unless everyone works together.

The Oregonian’s Marty Hughley has announced one such benefit project, a benefit CD called Portland Sings for Haiti. Marty’s story is interesting, especially in relating how actor Patty Price-Yates got the thing rolling from her own sickbed, so click on the link. The CD, which features cuts by such leading lights as Storm Large, Susannah Mars, Julianne Johnson and Isaac Lamb, will be available Feb. 22, and you can pre-order at cd baby. The money will go to Mercy Corps for its efforts to help Haiti dig out from the rubble of its massive earthquakes.

Singer-actor Corey Brunish, a participant and one of the project’s organizers, reminds me that you can get a sneak peek (or an early ear) at the music starting at 7 tomorrow night, Thursday the 11th, at Wilf’s. Several of the CD’s musicians will be on hand for a cabaret-style show, and it’s a two-fer benefit. Proceeds from the $20 admission will benefit the musical-theater company Stumptown Stages. Plus, you can be one of the first people to buy the CD, and that money goes to Mercy Corps.

Sounds like a good night out.

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ILLUSTRATION: This painting by Leslie Ann Butler is cover art for the benefit CD “Portland Sings for Haiti.”

Bob Hicks, General, Journalism

My fellow Scatterers: the state of the blog

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English: Lithograph by Edward W. Clay. Praises Andrew Jackson for his destroying the Second Bank of the United States with his "Removal Notice" (removal of federal deposits). Nicolas Biddle portrayed as The Devil, along with several speculators and hirelings, flee as the bank collapses while Jackson's supporters cheer.

On this very day two years ago — on February 8, 2008 — a fine strapping lad was loosed upon the world, and immediately started yawping. Yes, its name was Art Scatter, and it was born right here in river city: in Puddletown, Oregon, brave bubble of liberality, Do It Yourself center of the universe, fearless exposer of itself to art, curious keeper of the weird.

Call us sentimental, but we’ve been thinking a lot about our friend Art, this thing we call a blog. For one thing, why is it still here?

A lot of blogs burn bright for a while and then flame out. Many are simply places to vent steam, or casual public diaries, or vanity projects. Well, almost all, including this one, are the latter at least to a certain degree. After all, nobody’s making any money out of this thing.

English: Father Time and Baby New Year from Frolic & Fun, 1897Art Scatter has changed a lot over its two years. It was the brainchild of Barry Johnson, my friend and longtime arts section compatriot at The Oregonian, who was looking for a way to explore new approaches to journalism outside of the print world. Barry brought me and his friend Vernon Peterson, a lawyer and talented literary critic, into the project, which was planned to be not too taxing on anyone because there would be three people to fill the virtual space.

Life moved on, and both Barry and Vernon departed for other projects. That left me wondering what to do with the thing, and wondering, sometimes, whether I was letting it eat up far too much of my time. In a very real sense my wife, Laura Grimes, saved the blog when she began to post her own witty and moving observations, eventually under the nom de plume of Mrs. Scatter. How could I not keep Art Scatter going? I was fascinated by how Mrs. Scatter’s adventures were going to turn out. Besides, she injected a bracing shot of humor into the blog, the humor that I have known and loved for more than twenty years.

Martha Ullman West, the noted dance critic who had written a couple of pieces for us, began to contribute more, and that added to the conversation. But I realized that if the thing was going to keep going, it was going to be largely up to me.

So. Why was I doing this?

  • First, writing’s a habit. I do it reflexively, if not always reflectively. Just can’t seem to help myself.
  • Second, it’s fun.
  • Third, it allows me scope to write about a lot of things in a lot of ways that were rarely possible during my years in daily journalism.
  • Fourth, it keeps me connected to my community and allows me to have a voice in a few things that go on in this little corner of the world. Good lord, I’ve made friends through this thing!
  • Fifth, it helps me discover my post-newspaper writing voice. I can feel that voice waking up inside me, gradually realizing that it’s no longer bound by the newspaper straitjacket unless it chooses to be. I can hear it trying out new things, even whooping it up now and again. Good for you, voice. Let ‘er rip.

Slowly, mostly accidentally, the blog has developed its own personality. The characters of Mr. and Mrs. Scatter just sort of announced themselves. The Large Smelly Boys pushed their way into the mix. OED, the Older Educated Daughter, made brief visits. We talked about word games and secret societies and oysters on the half-shell. The League of Tough-Guy Arts Observers had its brief day in the sunshine and then wandered off to sleep in a cave: perhaps it’ll wake up and elbow back into the action again. We found we were able to be serious, and flip, and amused, and reflective, and serious and amused again, and somehow get away with it. We began to take a very broad view of just what the word “culture” means.

I’m sure Art Scatter will continue to evolve. It’s already changed in surprising and often delightful ways. It’s opened doors. I know people will drop in and out. Mrs. Scatter’s day job has been busy lately, and I’ve been missing her brilliant reports. (I’m sure you have, too.) Can’t wait for them to return.

And I’ve become convinced of one thing: The blog has to work with my writing career, not against it. I love the freedom and scope that Art Scatter gives me, and I love that it lets me try things out with a regular and forgiving readership. But I also need to make a living, and I do that by writing. This is not a hobby. It’s what I do. So if Art Scatter is my professional exploratory laboratory (and also the locus of a great deal of my pro bono work) I want it to look professional.

Which brings us to Modern, the new design theme that we’ve adopted, yes, today. And which wraps up this semi-impromptu State of the Blog address. Thank you, my fellow Scatterers. Good night, and God bless.

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Illustrations, from top:

  • Not Mr. Scatter delivering his State of the Blog address. Edward W. Clay’s lithograph celebrates President Andrew Jackson’s destruction of the Second Bank of the United States with his “Removal Notice” (removal of federal deposits). Well done, Andy! Wikimedia Commons.
  • Not Baby Art Scatter. Father Time and Baby New Year from Frolic & Fun, 1897. Wikimedia Commons.
Bob Hicks, General, Journalism

Art Scatter’s new look: We have a winner

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As you may have noticed, here at Art Scatter we’ve been stressing out lately about the way we look. We were feeling – frumpy. We wanted something fresh, something new, and came up with three possible visual themes to replace Artsemerging, the theme we’ve been using since the blog began two years ago.

Wikimedia CommonsWe asked for your advice, and a lot of you gave it. Thanks to Scatter friends and followers Charles Deemer, LaValle Linn, Charles Noble, Brett Campbell, Cynthia Kirk, Mighty Toy Cannon and others for chipping in with preferences and ideas. Each of the three candidates had its fans, and each had its detractors. I appreciate the energy that all of you put into this. And I appreciate that more than one of you noted that design isn’t why you visit Art Scatter, anyway: You come for the writing and the ideas. Special thanks to LaValle for her warning that Web designs can devour your time and sanity in the middle of the night if you let yourself get too deeply drawn into them: Perish that thought!

Still, we want the writing and ideas to be displayed well. The decision wasn’t easy. At least one of you listed the eventual choice as his least favorite.

And the winner is – Modern, designed by Ulf Pettersson, the design you’re looking at now.

It’s a clean, well-spaced, elegant design, a very professional-looking presentation, and that’s important. Its headlines are understated but big enough to stand out, and they look good running either one or two lines. Its serif type style moves serenely among bold, italic and roman type, making its point at each stop without leaping for your jugular. The type’s a little small in its pull quotes, but they still look good. The design handles splendidly such small but crucial matters as spacing and creating ample windows for inset illustrations: Nothing’s haphazard about it.

Is it too understated? We’ll see. If it turns out to be, we’ll switch again. Charles Noble touts the advantages of the premium design he chose for his blog Noble Viola, and it’s true that paying a little more can add a great deal more flexibility. I like the way that Charles’s blog can highlight several posts at once, for instance, and the way it can add “extras” such as promotional highlights and recent comments and still look crisp and inviting.

I’ve spent a lot of time inside these three designs, checking them out not just for looks but also for flexibility. When we began this journey I was drawn to the jazzy, stop-the-presses look of Copyblogger. (Mighty Toy Cannon points out its nice retro feel and homage to “legacy media,” meaning newspapers, the world from which both Mr. and Mrs. Scatter emerged). But although I liked its side panel perhaps the best of the lot, it had internal difficulties that made it hard to choose, including, but not limited to, poor spacing for its illustration windows, allowing type to bump right into the pictures.

In general I prefer serif types to sans serif types, although a good sans serif beats a bad serif. Veryplaintext 3.0 has my favorite typeface of any candidate, a distinctive and gorgeously assertive face. But it doesn’t like italic very much (what you see isn’t always what you get), and I consider italic type an integral tool in my presentational box. The real deal-buster, though, was its ragged, center-adjusted side panel, which to my eye (and LaValle’s, too!) looks haphazard and uncontained and, well, unprofessional. Too bad.

So that brings us back to Modern, which has an elegant look and seems the best compromise. Unfortunately, Mrs. Scatter hates it, and I understand her reasons. The blog title is small and pushed far to the right, and that bothers her. I’d prefer its type a little bigger, but its placement doesn’t bother me. She hates all gray boxes – that’s one of the reasons we defected from Artsemerging, which has a prominent gray screen – and Modern’s side panel is shaded gray. Plus, the panel’s wide, eating up a lot of space that could go instead to the relatively narrow main column. Like Mrs. Scatter, I’d like the side panel to include links to recent posts and possibly recent comments, and in general to be more flexible. Perhaps I can play around with it a bit and get some of those things to happen.

I deeply, sincerely hope this design grows on Mrs. Scatter – believe me, I deeply and sincerely hope this! – and I hope the design doesn’t prove to be too sedate. I’m convinced that it’s a stylish, visually pleasing design. Time will tell if it’s right for Art Scatter. For now, at least, it’s won the day.

Bob Hicks, General, Theater

Watching paint dry? Taking my Foote out of my mouth

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From left: Val Landrum, Jane Fellows and Jacklyn Maddux in "The Carpetbagger's Children" at Profile Theater. Photo: Jamie Bosworth

Here’s a story about the playwright Horton Foote, told by his daughter Daisy Foote and reprinted in the program for Profile Theatre‘s new production of his play The Carpetbagger’s Children, which opened Saturday night:

A few years ago a playwright friend and I were having dinner with my father. My friend had just seen “The Carpetbagger’s Children” at Lincoln Center Theater, and he casually asked my dad how long it took him to write the play. My father, even more casually, answered that it took him all of ten days. At that point, my friend looked like he might throw up all over the table and I might start crying, so my father took pity on us and added, “But I had been thinking about it for a very long time.”

Well, of course.

Stories take time — a lifetime, sometimes — and the actual setting down of them can be simply the culmination of a very long process, the plucking of the fruit from a tree that took years to mature and finally produce. It’s a little like the oft-told story of the “overnight success” that took twenty years to achieve.

But in Foote’s case (he died last March, 10 days shy of his 93rd birthday) it’s not just a matter of long experience bringing forth a story. It’s a matter of long experience in learning how flexible the theater can be, too. The Carpetbagger’s Children, for all its apparent traditionalism, breaks all sorts of rules about the stage — and it breaks them exceptionally because it’s learned the exceptions to the rules.

This is a memory play, and it’s told by three actresses, and “told” is the correct word: They take turns delivering long, carefully wrought soliloquies, speeches that overlap in theme and content (told by each sister from a slightly different point of view) but never overlapping in delivery. There is no dialogue, no pretension of ordinary conversational speech patterns, no give and take, except in the incidental clashes in the way the stories are told.

How could something so “undramatic” be so gripping? Because Foote knew story, and he knew the surprising elasticity of the theater, and he trusted that good performers would know how to bring life into the words that he put down. Remember, this is the guy who wrote the screenplays for To Kill a Mockingbird and Tender Mercies. Not ordinary tales. But that’s the beauty of the things.

I once commented in exasperation that watching a Horton Foote play was like watching paint dry. I don’t think I ever actually wrote those words for print, which is a good thing. I don’t even remember what particular incident inspired them. It must have been, I can only hope, a particularly ham-fisted production of one of his plays. Because although nothing much “happens” in a Foote play, at least in the sense of slam-bang Hollywood action, worlds turn, as they do in Chekhov.

The director of Profile’s production, Jon Kretzu, has a longtime affinity for Chekhov, and it shows in the way these three able actresses turn softly (and sometimes harshly) on a dime. If the journeys they take are largely internal, they have external effects. This is the story, in a way, of a Southern empire crumbling, more quietly than the crumbling empire of Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (which opens in revival later this month at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival) but crumbling nonetheless. And that’s a fascinating, troubling, sometimes even exciting thing to see.

Briefly: A young Union soldier, fighting against the Confederates in Texas during the Civil War, likes what he sees and comes back, after the war, as a reconstructionist. Through shrewd business dealings and the aid of the triumphant Republican apparatus, he amasses a fortune in money and land, which he considers his offsprings’ duty to hold together. It’s up to sisters Cornelia (Jane Fellows), Grace Anne (Jacklyn Maddux) and Sissie (Val Landrum) to achieve that as the decades roll on.

Well, they can’t. Surprised? But the effort shapes each, and several other characters alluded to, in intense and often warping ways. That’s the way of the world. And without going into more detail, the plain old brutal way of the world is what the play’s about.

With Tim Stapleton’s simple but familiarly domestic in-the-round setting and DeeDee Remington’s spot-on costumes, it’s a handsome production. The three stars settle with warm fury into their characters. Nothing much “happens” except life and death themselves.  And paint does not dry.

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PICTURED: Val Landrum (left), Jane Fellows (center) and Jacklyn Maddux: the carpetbagger’s daughters. Photo: Jamie Bosworth

Bob Hicks, Books, General, Theater

A gay old time on Super Globe Sunday

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Mr. Scatter understands an American football match of some importance is to take place this very afternoon. Squadrons from the midsized cities of Indianapolis, Indiana, and New Orleans, Louisiana will battle it out on a field called a gridiron to claim rights of municipal supremacy for the coming year.

picture-16All very manly. But Mr. Scatter would like to offer you as an alternative pastime a chance to read his review of The Lunatic, the Lover, and the Poet that is printed in the O! section of today’s Sunday Oregonian.

The new novel, by Portland writer Myrlin A. Hermes, is a smart and witty reimagining of some of the great literary mysteries of our time. (The mysterious events take place in Elizabethan times, but it’s our time that gets all hot and bothered about them.)

To wit:

  • Who was this William Shakespeare?
  • Who was this Dark Lady of the Sonnets?
  • Who was this Melancholy Dane?
  • How did Mr. Shakespeare become Mr. Shakespeare?

Drolleries abound, along with intellectual, historical and emotional insights. It is not giving away too much to reveal that in this fictional universe Hamlet is as gay as a caballero going to Rio de Janeiro, and maybe Shakespeare is, too. No Super Bowl rings for them. But they find their compensations.

Enjoy the game. Whichever one you prefer.

Bob Hicks, General

Art Scatter redesign: a look at the candidates

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Thanks to Charles Noble, maestro of the terrific blog Noble Viola, and music writer extraordinaire Brett Campbell, for teaching Mr. Scatter how to take a screenshot on his Mac. (It’s easy!) This allows us to show you samples of how Art Scatter would look using the Web themes Veryplaintext 3.0 (the top series of photos) and Copyblogger (the lower series). The third candidate for a redesign, Modern, is the format you’re looking at now. Thanks, Charles and Brett!

VERYPLAINTEXT 3.0 SCREENSHOTS:

picture-91

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picture-10

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picture-11

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picture-13

… AND COPYBLOGGER SCREENSHOTS:

picture-4

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picture-5

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picture-8

Bob Hicks, General

Art Scatter new looks: a fuzzy stab at comparison

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Try as he might, Mr. Scatter can’t figure out a good way to let you look at the three redesign possibilities we’re considering for Art Scatter.

Copyblogger Web themeRegulars Brett and Charles have both asked for such a thing, and it’s not just a reasonable request, it’s a no-brainer. Unfortunately Mr. Scatter’s brain just says no when he tries to figure out how to make it happen.

Veryplaintext 3.0 Web themeThe best he can manage is a fuzzy screen photo of each candidate taken with his inadequate Blackberry phone, in the hopes that the pictures will help jog your memories back to what you saw in the last couple of days.

Artsemerging Web themeWhat you see, from the top, is:

Copyblogger, the jazziest of the candidates, with red headlines and a tabloidy staccato feel.

Veryplaintext 3.0, with a crisp, beautifully design serif type and an old-newspaper feel.

Artemerging, the theme Art Scatter has had since its birth but is getting ready to shed.

And, you’re reading this in Modern, the third candidate and today’s theme.

Mr. Scatter sincerely hopes this helps. And he promises not only to make a decision soon, but to explain how and why.

Bob Hicks, General, Music, Theater

This ‘Cosi’ is a farce. You got a problem with that?

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Cosi fan Tutti. Photo: Portland Opera/Cory Weaver

Chatting with a friend in the lobby of Keller Auditorium during halftime of Portland Opera’s Cosi fan tutte on Friday night, Mr. Scatter became aware of a controversy he hadn’t realized existed.

“Audiences tend to love this production,” my friend, an exceptionally knowledgeable follower of the opera world, sighed. “And critics tend to hate it.”

Up to this point I’d been having a rather jolly time myself, although I knew the production, which originated in 2003 at Santa Fe Opera and emphasizes brisk farcical shtick, wasn’t strictly traditional. So I stuck his comment in the back of my mind, returned to my seat for the second act, and continued to have a jolly time along with the rest of the audience, right up to the curtain call.

And this morning I did a little researching. It’s true. A lot of critics (though by no means all) have found this Cosi distressingly populist. “A gag-filled, vulgar romp,” J.A. Van Sant wrote in Opera Today, reviewing Santa Fe’s 2007 revival. That might sound like a good ad quote, but he didn’t mean it as a compliment.

Since Van Sant seems to speak for a lot of other critics, let’s give him a little more room to explain himself:

Politely put, (stage director James) Robinson’s Cosi was a gag-filled, vulgar romp. Such is not Mozart’s Cosi, an elegant, ironic comedy – not an ambiguous study of human nature requiring Regietheatre treatment, as is the present day style with this piece. To make Cosi into slapstick comedy combined with faux psychological exploration of the characters is to miss the point.

Essentially a bittersweet comedy of character types, set to some of Mozart’s most exhilarating and beautiful music, Cosi indeed has dark edges that serve to heighten amusement over the foibles of human nature.

You shouldn’t overdo the darkness, Van Sant continued, but you shouldn’t sacrifice the elegance to showy gimmicks, either.

A couple of other points emerged from other critics.

  • First, the not-too-reluctantly philandering sisters in this play (the story is by Lorenzo da Ponte, who also wrote the librettos for Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni) and their gentleman-and-an-officer lovers have traditionally been played by older singers, suggesting that these erotic foibles are less the result of sheer youthful exuberance and more of something innate in human nature.
  • Second, the play is very much about social convention at a level of society in which adherence to social convention is extremely important. These characters, if they’re going to sin, would do so cautiously, with a sense of decorum, not with casual friskiness. To give Cosi the sheen of 1950s naughtiness that this production does is historically misleading and saps some of the intellectual vigor from an opera that has a far subtler soul.

Objections noted. And on this one, I’m going to side with the audience.

Continue reading This ‘Cosi’ is a farce. You got a problem with that? →

Bob Hicks, General

Art Scatter’s new look, Variation 3

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Call us vain, but here at Art Scatter World Headquarters we’re still obsessing over the way we look.

Photo: Max Wehite/Wikimedia CommonsDoes this typeface go with our headline style? Should we go Friday casual, sober-suited, country corduroy or maybe uptown funk? Do we want to look reliable, or available, or maybe flirtatious but with strict limits?

Today we’re feeling sleek. And no wonder, after trying on the last of three costumes we’ve been contemplating, a Web presentation theme called Modern. Yesterday we showed you the jazzier Copyblogger, and Thursday we kicked off with the simple but typographically elegant Veryplaintext 3.0.

One of these three designs will replace the format we’ve been using since Art Scatter was a newborn in February 2008, Artsemerging. Why? Because we feel like a change. But we want to make sure it’s the right change.

So, here you have it. Three new suits. Each with strengths, each with weaknesses. Let us know which one appeals to you and why — and if one of them really grosses you out, let us know that. too. After all, we just make this stuff up. You’re the ones who read it.

Hit that comment button and let us know what you think.

a Portland-centric arts and culture blog