OK, now we’re getting a little silly
May 19, 2008
Had the local Fox News on mostly for background noise while I worked tonight, and amidst all the hoohah (these guys give about five minutes of previews and setups for every 15 seconds of actual news) they announce that they’ll keep Oregon primary results off the air tomorrow night. That’s because they’re happening during American Idol, “and we don’t want you to miss a minute.”
Thank heavens they’re not going to let a little thing like a hotly contested US presidential primary interfere with the really important stuff.
In the interests of, I dunno, a sop to whatever journalistic conscience may exist at Fox, they WILL put the election results online. Assuming, of course, that somebody at “So You Think You Can Dance” doesn’t break a fingernail and thereby pre-empt the Web.
Sheesh.
Cereal photography
May 17, 2008
Did something I haven’t done in decades today: I re-entered the darkroom and re-imprinted developer fumes on my brain.
Actually, what I was doing was even more fundamental: Pinhole photography. For those of you who didn’t do this as kids, it’s quite possible to take good, even great, pictures WITHOUT a lens. Simply poke a tiny hole in a light-tight box, stick something with photosensitive emulsion inside the box, and uncover the hole. (There’s an excellent pinhole camera article on photo.net, well worth reading.)
I spent the day in a Newspace class, studying pinhole photography with 8 or 9 engineers, photographers, college-bound art students, and kids. We carefully stripped the labels off oatmeal cartons, created shutters of gaffer tape and sticky-backed aluminum duct sealer, and stuck a skinny needle through the tape to make an aperture.
Then we headed out into the hot sun with our cartons like so many Hare Krishna seeking cash..except that we were seeking good images. Given the industrial nature of the Newspace neighborhood, they weren’t hard to find.
Dining with the Queen of Sheba
May 15, 2008
- Restaurant website
- Location: Northeast Portland (past convention center)
- Cost to fill up two people for dinner: About $35-$40
If a restaurant could take an award for best people-watching, Queen of Sheba might top the list. Fortunately, the food (Ethiopian) is good, too.
Robyn and I took a seat by the window and watched a wondrous procession of dancers, bikers, dogwalkers, hip chicks, shirtless rock throwers, and one fellow in red flannel pajama tops whose Nike shorts continually slid to his ankles. Even the illustrious Ted Sawyer, Bullseye’s research director and wonderful glass artist in his own right, showed up.
And while we watched, we ate. [Read more]
Rocketmaniac
May 15, 2008
OK, file this one under “Seriously cool, especially if you’ve got a deathwish.” Yves Rossy just did the Icarus thing in Switzerland, i.e., he strapped on a pair of homemade wings and flew all over the countryside. Unlike Icarus, nothing melted or dropped like a rock.
Rossy’s stated goal is to fly “like a bird, or Superman,” according to interviews and his website. His team built a carbon composites wing, attached four small jets to the underside, and made sure that the straps holding the wing on Rossy’s back were nice and sturdy. (I guess it’d be kinda undignified to leap out of a plane and have your wings fly off without you.)
It takes a fair amount of confidence to strap on a 3-meter long wing filled with kerosene, jump out of a plane, and freefall for awhile until you level out and can start your engines. The wings also serve as brakes once Rossy runs out of fuel and needs to land (using a parachute).
Sounds like a lot of fun. The nice thing about using jet engines, aside from the comforting forward propulsion, is that they’ll mask the deafening noise of my screams on the way down.
Much less embarrassing that way.
Hacking photos and fighting glass
May 13, 2008
I spent the first half of last Sunday down at Newspace, having a ball, learning a lot, and getting another whomp upside the head.
For those of you who don’t know, Newspace is a non-profit photography center over on the southeast side of glassland, not too far from OMSI. They’re dedicated to promoting photographic art, and they offer classes, portfolio reviews and (best of all) some really cool studio, darkroom and gallery space.
I was there on Sunday to take a “digital cookbook” class. One of the problems with digital photography is that most people print the resulting photos with inkjet printers which, while offering pretty good quality, don’t really provide the depth and richness of old-fashioned darkroom prints. This class is about ways to hack printers, PhotoShop, and papers to get back to that quality level. [Read more]
Visuality speaks
May 9, 2008
If you wanna understand just how inadequate you are as a visual artist, go paint-your-plating with a bunch of graphic designers.
Actually, that’s not quite fair: I had a LOT of fun. Group I’m contracting with right now was nice enough to invite me out for a “team-building” exercise. I didn’t really belong (I’m not an employee, after all), but what the hey. [Read more]
Bread & Ink Cafe
May 8, 2008
- Bread & Ink Cafe website
- Location: SE Hawthorne district
- Price to fill up two people for dinner: About $70
The Spanish tapas place we aimed for had gone out of business, so Robyn and I strolled Hawthorne looking for the next best thing. I remembered reading about Bread & Ink somewhere, the menu was impressive, and so we gave it a shot.
In the end, it reminded me of the old rhyme: When she was good, she was very, very good, but when she was bad she wasn’t as good as I’d hoped (or something like that). The first half of our Bread & Ink meal was delicious, second half less so, and overall I give it a big, fat sorta.
Bread & Ink has been around since 1982 (which these days makes it a Portland antique, I suppose), and has one of the most eclectic menus I’ve seen in awhile: Waffle sundaes share space with mojitos and morels, you can have fiddleheads and fresh scallops on your spaghetti or chuck it all and have a burger.
We opted for the fancy menu, probably should have done what our fellow diners were doing and stuck with the burger. [Read more]
Anne Robinson: Casting Process Slideshow
May 7, 2008
Was bopping around the Web with a buddy and came upon venerated artist Anne Robinson’s site. Some lovely work there. I’ve seen her work online and in magazines but never in person; seeing it in context made me realize for the first time just how massive it is.
What interested me the most, though, was the slideshow she’s posted showing her casting process, step-by-step. A couple of stages surprised me a bit, but I’m sure not going to argue with her results. Definitely worth a peek.
Maria Wickwire Palensky
May 7, 2008
A friend and I spent some time with Maria this weekend, saw her sculptures up close, and came away enchanted, drained, and bemused. Very talented artist, definitely worth keeping an eye on. (You might get a better view of what she does at the Pacific Northwest Sculptors’ site, or hit up Lake Oswego, OR’s Gallery without Walls exhibit…)
Who Stole My Dead Husband?
May 3, 2008
- Dinner theatre website
- Location: SE Portland (Hawthorne district)
- Showtimes: Generally Fridays and Saturday nights (make reservations)
- Cost to fill up (and entertain) two people: $140 plus tip
And youse said I don’t got no cultcha. Ahhbviussly, you was wrong.
Robyn texted me Friday to ask if I wanted to see who stole her dead husband. I briefly debated sending flowers to my cousin Jeff’s funeral, but it turned out she was talking about a dinner theatre event I’d never heard of, in SE Portland. [Read more]