Tag Archives: Culture Shock

Portland dresses up for the high-fashion parade

Joe Btfsplk, honorary grand marshal of Portland’s High Fashion Parade.

I was shocked — shocked! — this morning when I sat down to make my daily blog rounds and discovered Mighty Toy Cannon’s report at Culture Shock on Portland’s rankings in Travel + Leisure magazine’s latest assessment of America’s Favorite Cities.

Sitting in my plaid pajama bottoms and red T-shirt (not the best choice, granted, in a household with a 16-pound white lap cat) I tugged with frustration at my hair — which, all right, was already a trifle on the unkempt side, and three weeks overdue for a trim.

The nerve! There it was, as Mr. Cannon so indignantly pointed out: Portland, 17th out of 30 cities for “Attractive People.” As the magazine so delicately put it, Portlanders “… may not conform to most visitors’ standards of ‘normal’ beauty.”

Mrs. Scatter was lucky she’d departed for her spacious corner office overlooking the sartorial splendors of Northeast Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, or she’d have got an earful.

The larger of the young lunks known collectively as the Large Smelly Boys had taken his carefully curated rumpled clothing and his head of organic free-range pasturage off to high school. (His last haircut was in April or May; we believe he’s planning on attending Halloween functions as Cousin Itt.) The smaller lunk, also a few weeks tardy from the barber chair, is taking on a mildly stylish Prince Valiant look. He’s the fashion pate of the family: All of his T-shirts, the only kind of shirt he wears, must be single-colored and devoid of words or company logos.

The ultimate in Cleveland style./Wikimedia CommonsPortland didn’t do as badly as Cleveland, which rated this jab: “(T)here’s no getting around the fact that its residents are uniformly hideous to look upon.” Ouch! Except for a night spent sleeping on the grassy knoll of a freeway cloverleaf around 1970, I don’t know much about Cleveland. I do know Drew Carey and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame come from there, and I know Mr. Carey usually wears a nice suit and tie. (He still looks like Drew Carey, but he makes himself presentable, and what more should an upscale magazine ask?)

What do Travel + Leisure’s travelers and leisurites want, anyway? It’s not as if Portlanders were babes in the backwoods when it comes to fashion. Just last night Mrs. Scatter and I were driving through our Highly Cultured Pearl District when we spotted an Eddie Bauer outlet. “I thought they went Chapter 11,” I said. Yet, there they were, scant blocks from REI, “the world’s premiere outdoor gear store.” L.L. Bean catalogs arrive at the Scatter house regularly, and I eagerly flip through them to find out which plaids are in fashion this season. You won’t catch me visiting North Portland’s Paul Bunyan statue in last year’s lumberjack shirt.

I own a tuxedo, and I try to make sure to wear it once a year. It blends nicely, I think, with the black turtlenecks and berets at our more cutting-edge neo-Marxist coffee shops. Plus, how many cities can match Portland for the style and lavishness of our tattoo designs? “I like your arm,” I found myself saying the other morning to the newish barista at our neighborhood coffee joint.

She looked at me a little funny, but I assume that’s because she’s new to town.

League of Tough-Guy Arts Observers: Join the club!

1864_0227_discussion_280It’s not often that a person starts a full-fledged organization with a casual flick of a typing finger, but I appear to have done just that in an August 27 post in which I defended my fondness for a good chick flick.

I found myself typing the following throwaway sentence:

“Yes, I like the movies of Nora Ephron, and if that drums me out of the league of tough-guy arts observers, so be it.”

Mighty Toy Cannon, the Sage of Culture Shock, immediately took me to task for not capitalizing the phrase, and out of that finger-wagging the League of Tough-Guy Arts Observers was born.

advokater_avbildade_av_den_franske_konstnaren_honore_daumier_1808e280931879Some didacts will argue that it should be “Tough-guy,” on the basis that a hyphenated word is by definition a single word and a single word can have only a single capitalization. To them I say: “Tough-guy” looks dumb. Start your own club.

Since then both Mr. and Mrs. Scatter have been scattering references to the LTGAO in our maunderings, always linking them back to that original chick-flicks post. Trouble is, you have to check high and low in the chick-flick story to discover the coinage of the term.

And there are deeper problems, such as:

  1. What the heck is the League of Tough-Guy Arts Observers, anyway?
  2. Who’s in charge?
  3. Can I join?
  4. Can I join if I’m a Tough Gal?
  5. Is there a secret handshake?
  6. What is the official League drink?
  7. Is there an official League logo, and do I get a membership card?
  8. Where do I pay my annual dues?

Excellent questions. I’ll answer them as well as I can.

  1. It’s whatever its members want it to be. Members may join earnestly or ironically, with a passion for flaying or a weakness for whimsy. Or even because they think it might improve their social standing.
  2. In charge? Does that imply responsibility?
  3. Of course you can join. Please do. Just leave a comment with your name and serial number and a confession of your deepest, darkest desires.
  4. Tough Gals are especially welcome. We mean “tough-guy” in an all-embracing way. Even mules are welcome to join, although they might find it tough to type those comments.
  5. I am hereby deputizing Commissar Mighty Toy Cannon to devise and photograph one. When he has completed his task, we’ll post the pictures of the process.
  6. You’re free to drink whatever you want. May I suggest bourbon and branch water?
  7. All you designers out there, get off your duffs and design us one. Thanks.
  8. The League of Tough-Guy Arts Observers is a democratic organization — anarchistic might be a better word — and like most everything else, membership payments are not required. Still, donations to the good cause are appreciated. Anyone wishing to help us fight the good fight is encouraged to transfer truckloads of cash to Mr. and Mrs. Scatter’s secret Swiss bank account. Contact us. We’ll give you the account number.

We’re also in the market for a good motto. Please give us your suggestions. Something better than, “I heap your pitiful effort with scorn, amateur boy!”

Come join our happy throng.

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Above: League of Tough-Guy Arts Observers official club illustrator Honore Daumier captures a couple of typical moments from League social gatherings.

Weekend scatter: taiko, missiles and OBT’s arts fair

Korekara, copyright Rich Iwasaki/2007

The Monday trifecta: Portland Taiko, a new CD, and sake. Photo: copyright Rich Iwasaki, 2007

The trouble with traveling is that you miss things at home. The trouble with home is that you miss things in other places, but that’s another story.

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During our August wanderings we’re missing a lot of stuff in Portland, including Portland Taiko‘s big-bash Rhythms of Change CD release party at Sake One. It’s been reskedded from Friday to Monday, Aug. 31, because of weather, but by that time we’ll have spent our 36 hours in Portland and be on the road again. Still, you might be able to make it. Check the details here. The CD is good! (I speak, mind you, as a Taiko board member. But I really do like this CD.)

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We’re missing Jerry Mouawad’s newest play, The Cuban Missile Tango, at Imago Theatre, which looks like a one-weekend shot, at least for now. Jerry’s been blogging about the process of putting this play together, and he gives some fascinating insights into how a creative person brings a vague idea into specific reality. It’s worth reading, here. The play looks at the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962, a “collision of two worlds” that came who knows how close to sparking World War III. But it looks at it through the lens of a Halloween party. Jerry wrote this in June, early in the process of assembling the play:

“I have an idea of a noisy swinging kitchen door inspired by Jacques Tati’s Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday. So with a big idea, the danger of World War III, I start with a couple of waiters and a swinging door.”

Looks like one show left at 2 this (Saturday) afternoon. Ten bucks at the door, 17 S.E. Eighth Ave.

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We’re very sorry to be missing Saturday’s free all-day arts fair, Fall.ART.Live, in the studio and parking lot of Oregon Ballet Theatre at 818 S.E. Sixth Ave. across the Morrison Bridge from downtown.

home_fall-art-live_770pxThe intrepid Mighty Toy Cannon has the story at Culture Shock; check it out. From Josie Mosley Dance and Northwest Dance Project to Portland Opera, Do Jump! and Portland Actors Conservatory, a lot of good-sounding stuff’s hitting the stages and the booths. Plus, fancy sandwiches and beer!

It’s a good thing for OBT to be doing now, after Portland and the national dance community stepped up in June to stave off its financial crisis. If the ballet has a newfound sense of being a vital part of Portland’s arts community, that’s terrific: Certainly the company’s dancers and artistic director Christopher Stowell did their part to help Conduit contemporary dance center in its more recent money crisis.

Mighty Toy Cannon points out that Portland Mercury writer Stephen Marc Baudoin took a more snippy view of the whole thing. We think he misses the point. On the other hand, maybe he’s just bucking for membership in the exclusive League of Tough-Guy Arts Observers.

While We Are Filling the Ice Bucket, The Large Smelly Boys Take Over the World (Act 1)

Martini makin's. Wikimedia Commons

Here at Art Scatter World Headquarters we’re madly preparing for a Gathering of the Blogbreaths by stocking up on two essential ingredients:

Gin

and

Vermouth.

Rose City Reader is out of the running, celebrating her dad’s 70th birthday and entertaining The Bavarians. Mead Hunter of Blogorrhea fame is busy being all important at the Willamette Writers Conference.

We boldly (BOLDLY!) admit we’ve been caught with our pants down in full frontal nudity.

What to do but pour a strong one with some of our favorite compatriots: Barry “Remember Him?” Johnson (Portland Arts Watch), Martha Ullman “Superb As Always” West (frequent Art Scatter correspondent and probably the most highly paid) and Mighty Toy “Can’t Say Enough” Cannon (nee Mamet, of Culture Shock).

In the spirit of No, We Don’t Have Jobs But Can They Be Saved Anyway? we’re planning a little cocktail party, a blog summit, a throw-an-extra-olive-in-the Dirty-Little-Secret-Martini scheme of things. We know we get but a few comments per post. We assume No One will read What the Heck We Write. And yet we labor on with blind ambition and happy thoughts. The upside? Because we know no one cares, we free ourselves of self-conscious restraints and party merrily.

Today we drink. Tomorrow we drive.

So we offer these car games that have a HIGH LSB* rating.

While we’re busy being irresponsible, we’ve given over the blog reigns to one of the Large Smelly Boys (not to be confused with the Soggy Bottom Boys).

CAR GAME, ACT 1:

When we’re not playing What’s That Smell?** in the car, we take letters (often ripped right from license plates) and make up words to go with ’em. Most recently, we’ve come up with words for … MTC:

Mighty Terrible Contractions
Mo’ Tasty Cornbits
Marmalade Tooth Candies
Meat Thermometer Canal
Merry Ticklish Cows
My Teeny Chickadee
My Tiny Cockatoo
Moon Truck Chocolates
Mistaken Twin Cousin
Masculine Teen Car
Massage Therapist Candles
Monster Toasty Crayons
Mr. Two Cheeks
Morbid Toe Cheese
Mighty Tasty Chipmunks

Which conveniently brings us to …

CAR GAME, ACT 2: Stay tuned for tomorrow.

What crazy words do you think MTC stands for?

— Laura Grimes and Large Large Smelly Boy

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*Large Smelly Boys

**Another game the LSBs like to play in the car is to take off their shoes and see how long it takes us to notice. The longest has been 5 seconds.

Monday links: Romancing the Rose Quarter

TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALLET GAME: Remember the flap over Memorial Coliseum? Tear it down? Fix it up? Turn it into the doorway to a suburban-style, cookie-cutter entertainment and shopping complex? Build a minor-league baseball park in its place, with a concession stand serving grilled architects on a bun?

Portland Memorial ColiseumNiel DePonte has another idea, and you can read about it on this morning’s Oregonian editorial page, under the headline Imagine the Rose Quarter Performing Arts District. I can hear the wailing and gnashing of teeth at City Hall now. Or is that the sound of stonewalling?

But DePonte — Grammy-nominated percussionist for the Oregon Symphony, music director and conductor for Oregon Ballet Theatre, president and founder of MetroArts, Inc., which is helping to find and train the next generations of artists — has some good ideas. And right now the Coliseum in specific and the Rose Quarter in general need some good ideas. Give it a read. And if you like the idea, or parts of it, pass it along.

FAREWELL TO FRANK: This morning’s New York Times has a good appreciation of Frank McCourt, the New York Irish character and sweet writer who died Sunday at age 78. In 1996 McCourt published Angela’s Ashes, his harrowing yet tender memoir of Ireland and America and poverty and drink and survival, and it became a phenomenon, staying near the top of the best-seller lists for two years.

A lot of bad writing’s been committed in the name of memoir. Let’s take time, then, to celebrate a man who did it right — who told the tale more for his readers than himself, and told it with an innate understanding of what storytelling means.

MTC TURNS 100: … and we’d be not just remiss but downright dumb to not point out Mighty Toy Cannon‘s perky celebration of his first century of blogging at Culture Shock. He’s mighty frisky for an old guy. Some writers have got in trouble for misrepresenting the past. MTC niftily sidesteps that problem by brazenly misrepresenting the future. Or is he dead right? Check back in 2109, when our great-grandkids might be comparing him to Nostradamus. Congratulations, old-timer.

Missing the ballet: Looks like it was a barn burner

danceunited_finalbows

I’ve been out of town but eagerly scanning for news on Dance United, Friday night’s gala benefit to help Oregon Ballet Theatre dig out of its financial hole. According to these front-line reports from Culture Jock at Culture Shock and Barry Johnson at Portland Arts Watch, it was boffo — an absolute night to remember.

And, they report, it was announced at the gala that OBT’s emergency fund drive had hit $690,000 of its $750,000 goal, which makes it highly likely that it will have hit the goal and, if all goes well, more by its June 30 deadline. That’s excellent news — and everyone needs to understand that this is just the beginning, the even-ing of the keel so the tough, unending work can begin of raising enough money on a consistent basis to provide the economic stability and means for growth that this excellent artistic organization needs and deserves. There’ll be lots more news out of OBT in the months to come.

I know that dance writer Martha Ullman West, a charter Friend of Art Scatter, will have extensive coverage of the Dance United gala in Monday’s editions of The Oregonian. Look for it then in print and online at Oregon Live.

In the meantime, Friday night was spectacular, as Blaine Truitt Covert’s photo above, from the grand finale curtain call (that’s OBT artistic director Christopher Stowell in the center with the dancers) attests. Those are some happy faces!

Congratulations to all. Thanks to all the big-time companies from across North America that sent dancers to perform. And many happier days to come.

Rose Quarter/Coliseum: Is K.C. the sunshine gang?

Broadway & 42nd Street, New York, 1880/Wikimedia CommonsA quick followup on our last post about Memorial Coliseum and how it fits or doesn’t fit into plans for a revamped Rose Quarter. In this morning’s Oregonian, Ted Sickinger files this fascinating report from Kansas City and its  Power & Light District, a glitzy entertainment district developed by the Cordish Co., which also wants to redevelop Portland’s Rose Quarter in partnership with the city and the Trail Blazers. It’s a good, balanced read that talks clearly about money, about the differences between Portland and Kansas City (Kansas City’s downtown was pretty much wiped out and any fix looked good), and about the audience for the new K.C. entertainment zone — pretty much suburbanites and out-of-towners.

Question: Is the city’s goal to set aside a chunk of prime real estate as a lure for out-of-town spenders, like Vancouver, B.C.’s Gastown or New York’s recently sanitized Times Square? Is that good policy? How will it help or harm already existing businesses and nearby neighborhoods in Portland? Will any Portland businesses be part of the deal? Sickinger points out that several of the Kansas City development’s prime tenants are owned by a subsidiary of Cordish — a cozy arrangement that suggests this will be a dropped-from-the-sky project, not an organically grown development.

And over at Culture Shock, Mighty Toy Cannon gives this blistering analysis of the Coliseum situation, connecting a lot of dots that needed to be connected. It’s highly recommended reading.

Memorial Coliseum: The empire strikes back

portlandmemorialcolWell, damn those architects’ pointy little heads. What right do they have to protest the demolition of a historically important building when a billionaire’s profits are on the line?

Astonishingly, that seems to be the subtext of this morning’s banner story in The Oregonian, under the reductionist headline, Save the coliseum, but for what? Unlike the paper’s previous reporting on the issue of razing or saving Memorial Coliseum, which has been solid, this piece feels like it belongs on the op-ed page. Even then, it’s poorly thought out — mainly, in its thrust, a repetition of the Portland Trail Blazer/City of Portland talking points and a flicking-away of the several legitimate counterproposals that have been made for use of the building. Now that Mayor Sam Adams has given the Coliseum at least a temporary reprieve, this morning’s story reads like the first strike in a counter-campaign to get it torn down, after all. That’s a legitimate goal for an opinion-page story, even though I happen to think it’s the wrong choice. But why am I reading it on the front page, in the guise of a news story?

I won’t get into the arguments in favor of preserving the Coliseum, which have been made well and often in several places (among them Portland Arts Watch, Burnside Blog, Portland Architecture and Culture Shock), except to say this: For all of Portland’s vaunted reputation as a well-planned city, it’s hardly overloaded with buildings of real architectural distinction, and that makes the potential loss of any excellent work of architecture a matter for deep public concern. I’m not an architect, and the International Style is hardly my favorite — indeed, I have a lot of issues with it — but you save what you have, and in the case of Memorial Coliseum, what Portland has is an elegant, almost startlingly pure expression of the International ethos. We’re not talking about an abandoned Home Depot here, in spite of City Commissioner Randy Leonard’s unfortunate stab at architecture criticism.

After establishing the impracticality of the architectural trade in general (why, you’d almost think they were college professors!), The Oregonian’s story gets down to business: The Coliseum is a money-loser. An accompanying bar chart reveals that, yes, for the past three years it’s lost money, mainly because the city’s spent close to $2 million in that time period on needed upkeep (the bill’s been $3.2 million since 2000). And it could cost another $13 million or more to make up for years of neglect and get the place in really good shape again.

Fair enough, although the chart also reveals that in the three immediately preceding years the Coliseum stacked up profits of $243,000, $338,000 and $275,000 — even though the Blazers, who have the sole right to manage and book the building even though it’s city-owned, haven’t had a lot of incentive to push the Coliseum to the detriment of their own Rose Garden a quick jog away.

Continue reading Memorial Coliseum: The empire strikes back

Cut to the quick: PCS axes Mead Hunter, four others

Mead Hunter, portrait by Gwenn SeemelI come home from a few days in the rainylands to the north to discover that it’s been pouring in Portland — not just rain, but bad news.

Portland Center Stage, the city’s flagship theater company, has laid off five people, including literary manager Mead Hunter, one of the most popular and respected people in the city’s theater scene.

Mead’s assistant, Megan Ward, also got the pink slip, as did workers in the box office, information technology and facilities departments. At a company that has staked its identity largely on its commitment to developing new plays, Hunter and Ward were the entire literary department. It ain’t no more. I’m not sure this is what Samuel Beckett had in mind when he came up with Endgame, but the word does have its applications.

And the economic hurricane keeps howling on.
On his Web site Blogorrhea, one of our favorites, Mead gave the reason for the layoffs as “disastrous budgeting miscalculations paired with the moribund global economy.” Trouble is, the moribund (a kind word, given the circumstances) global economy has rendered budgeting calculations disastrous all over the place. This story is being repeated over and over, with adjustments in the details. To all of those people who think the arts are expendable frills that can be cut without harming anyone: a laid-off teacher or automotive worker or line cook or newspaper editor or mill worker or theater employee are the same. Not a one of them has a job any more, and unless they had the luck to nab a tinted parachute of some sort, not a one has an income.

Mead Hunter’s name doesn’t mean much to the theatergoing public. He’s not an actor. He’s not a director. He doesn’t run the company or give curtain speeches. But every business has its insiders, the people who know how things work, who get things done, who put things together, who teach and support and reach out and sometimes keep things loose by cracking exactly the right joke at exactly the right time. In Portland theater, Hunter was that guy. People in the business know him, and respect him, and like him very much, and a lot of them have him to thank for nudges he’s given their careers, in subtle and sometimes prominent ways.

Hunter’s role has been far bigger than his title. Portland Center Stage is the elephant in the living room of Portland theater, the great big company that gets all the attention, and almost inevitably that has bred resentment among others on the scene. Mead may have been the company’s finest ambassador. He paid attention to the rest of the city’s theaters and theater people, took them seriously, lent his services, nurtured them when he could, always with gentlemanly courtesy and competence. You can’t buy public relations like that. Sometimes you can’t pay for it, either.

This is a tough day for Hunter, and his four laid-off co-workers, and Portland Center Stage, and the city’s theater scene in general. In one sense the layoffs are a modest cut, especially compared to the huge slashes that have rocked some other industries: Center Stage had 105 names on its staff roster before the cuts, which makes the reduction less than 5 percent. But in every organization, a few people represent the soul of the place, and when you lose them you lose something indefinable but vital. Read the comments on Hunter’s Web site — well over 40 the last time I looked — and you’ll get a sense of what I mean.

For other good perspectives, see this post on Culture Shock by CS regular Cynthia Fuhrman, Center Stage’s marketing and communications chief, and these comments by fellow Scatterer Barry Johnson on his Oregonian blog, Portland Arts Watch.

The choir sings: Let’s kiss and make up

The angelic choir/Gustave Dore for "The Divine Comedy"Here at Art Scatter we just love a heavenly chorus. Harmony’s our thing, and we’re fond of kittens, too.

So why do we find ourselves hesitating to lend our voice to the call for a new song of reconciliation with the Oregon Legislature over its co-option of $1.8 million from the Oregon Cultural Trust? Maybe we just don’t like the tune. And maybe we think it’s not all that great an idea for everyone to be singing the same song.

Our friends at Culture Shock are taking the lead at keeping the Trust issue out in the open. Their latest reports are here and here, and they’re well worth reading, including the comments. Among other things, Culture Shock passes along in full yesterday’s tactic-shifting statement from the Oregon Cultural Advocacy Coalition on behalf of the Trust, a statement that includes this key passage:

Now is the time to change gears and recognize the difficult work of leadership. Legislators completed a brutal week where they voted on a package of bills that contained items they all personally disliked. They took votes that hurt and feel they did their best with few alternative options. They need some breathing room to get beyond the budget rebalance and focus on issues of the 2009 session.

In other words: The deal’s done, the point’s been made, and now the smart thing to do is back off, be team players, and work behind the scenes so we can get it back in the future and not lose even more. That’s the way politics works.

But that’s not the only way politics works. It also works by making noise. And if you’re lucky, the noisemakers and the peacemakers work in concert, each checking the other’s extremes and keeping them on course.

A little background, if you’re just checking in on this: The Oregon Legislature, in an attempt to fill an $855 million hole in the state’s current budget, made cuts across the board — including $1.8 million from the Oregon Cultural Trust, a state-administered fund that distributes grants to a variety of arts, cultural, historical, educational and tribal organizations in every Oregon county. Scroll down at Art Scatter and you’ll find several previous postings.

Unfortunately for the Legislature’s budget-balancers, the Trust’s money doesn’t come out of the state’s general fund: It’s donated by citizens directly and specifically for the Trust’s purpose. (In this case, the money came from sales of Oregon cultural license plates for people’s cars.) In normal circumstances — and certainly in private exchanges — money in a trust fund is inviolable: It can’t be grabbed for other purposes. To do so is, literally, a violation of trust, and that’s been the focus of this controversy.

So. Done deal or not — and I believe it is — the snatching of the Trust money has long-term implications, no matter how benevolent the Legislature’s short-term goals were. It’s still a violation of trust, its legality is still questionable, and it still raises the possibility that people will simply stop donating money to the trust because they have no assurance that their money will be used for the purposes they gave it. You can’t sweep that sort of stuff away. And you can’t sing it away.

You can work out compromises, using that old political one-two combo of kicking and kissing. Culture Shock’s Culture Jock passes along a KGW-TV news report that suggests Sen. Betsy Johnson, D-Scappoose, is leading an effort to translate the hijacking of the Trust money into a loan. That’s a promising development, and worth tracking.

Culture Shock’s Mighty Toy Cannon points out in a comment on one of his site’s recent posts that “the Legislature’s ‘brutal week’ [to quote the Cultural Advocacy Coalition’s Wednesday statement] began with a caucus at which party leadership banned negotiation on individual items on the sweep list.” That’s important to keep in mind. This was a lockstep vote by state Democrats, who agreed beforehand that the budget sweep was an all-or-nothing deal — and because they know how to count, they knew it would be “all.”

To certain key segments of the state’s cultural interests, political reality now says “It’s time to kiss and make up.” These are mostly the people, including those at the Trust, who have to play in the political arena all the time; people whose overall effectiveness relies on their ability to maintain good working relationships with the politicians whose votes ultimately decide these things. This is, indeed, the song they need to sing.

That doesn’t mean YOU need to kiss and make up, or that it’s a good idea for you to do so. In fact, it’s a very good idea for a whole lot of people to stay on the offensive on this issue. A cardinal rule of politics is, if you don’t make noise, you get forgotten. Stay quiet, and the raiding of the Trust will be both history and precedent. It’ll be easier next time. The Legislature needs to be consistently reminded that the public knows what it did was wrong, and that people will remember — and that votes are attached to those feelings.

So, choose for yourself where you line up now. If you think that tactically it’s time to play nice, by all means, do so. If you think it’s better strategy, and truer to your gut, to kick up a fuss, keep kicking.

The Legislature can act in lockstep if it wants to. That doesn’t mean the public — especially the public in a healthy representative democracy — has to do the same.

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Postscript: I appeared Tuesday morning on KOPB public radio’s Think Out Loud public-issues show to talk about the Trust issue. Paul King of White Bird Dance and I were studio guests. Rep. Mary Nolan, D-Portland and Oregon House majority leader, spoke at length via phone, explaining the Legislature’s point of view, and Christine D’Arcy, executive director of the Oregon Arts Commission and the Oregon Cultural Trust, also spoke via phone. Other phone-in guests included Steve Dennis, owner of Earthworks Gallery on the Oregon coast, and Greg Phillips, executive director of Portland Center Stage. The discussion was lively, and you can download the show from the Think Out Loud site.