The unveiling of the recent official portraits of President Obama and the First Lady, for the National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC, has been cause for a vigorous discussion (goggle ‘official Obama portraits’). The First Lady’s portrait was painted by Amy Sherald, an artist residing in Baltimore MD, while the President’s portrait was painted by Kelinde Wiley who is based in New York City. Continue reading →

Poetry is a different form of writing. In the context of a broad oversimplification, of the three basic forms of writing (there are more than three), that is, non-fiction, fiction, and poetry, each form can operate within its own unique modality. In general, non-fiction writing exists within a fact-based or research-based narrative structure, while fiction is a modal arc of explication or of storytelling, and finally poetry is an ephemeral snapshot of an idea or a person or a place or some compelling condition. Continue reading →

Column 01/2018

The sensation of birds, migratory waterfowl overhead, can vivify a leaden gray day in autumn. I image these birds might be the same ones that friends, in the southwest, encounter overhead, although weeks later. Migration, long-distance migration, is an annual seasonality movement of these birds, north to south, an instinctual process, that we can witness in the northwest USA and the southwest Canada. Waterfowl migrate because of shifting conditions of food supply and climate. They tend to return north in the spring for nesting and breeding purposes. Continue reading →

journal notes, october 2017 – Oregon

contrary to photographic evidence

the bodies of trees are fully alive

ever conscious, ready for discourse

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In 2008, on a tenacious summer day in sunny New Mexico, I strode into a Saturn automobile dealership and I left with a new Saturn Astra XE. The dealership was a sociable place to do business with but unfortunately the Saturn Corporation ceased operations in 2010. Continue reading →

.. spent the July of 2002 in Santiago Chile. But it was not the summer season there rather it was winter; a terse period of cold rain and temperatures in the 30s. My morning hours, I walked from an apartment hotel to the broad magnificent Avenida Libertador Bernardo O’Higgins and navigated my way, over the course of 25 to 30 minutes, to the Bellavista neighborhood for Spanish language classes. Continue reading →

Kristen Stewart became a household name, worldwide, on the strength of six top-grossing movies from 2008 – 2012. The five Twilight movies and Snow White & the Huntsman were international sensations. Continue reading →

How I wished I could have made it to Seattle last spring (2016); it is only 5 or 6 hours, via Interstate 5 north, from Portland/Salem. The Seattle Museum was hosting an exhibition of the work of Kehinde Wiley. Continue reading →

.. very few people are in the queue outside, this afternoon, at the cinema; a subdued somber solar light streams through the clouds; at least it is not raining. I am here to see Julieta, a subtle and beautifully crafted film which is the latest by Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar.

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Downtown Portland, rush hour.

The Hawthorne Street Bridge and the Morrison Street Bridge are two of several bridges that connect the city of Portland as it spans the Willamette River. Located near the east side entry of these two bridges, the Grand Avenue corridor, are two soaring examples of architectural sculptures. Continue reading →