Comments

1
At least your writing is clear enough not to need seven appositive and dependent commas in a sentence that includes additional punctuation to avoid yet more such commas, including a parenthetical, a semicolon and an em dash! Seriously, that sentence managed its way into the Times? I know they're tight on money, but did they lay off proofreaders?

I hope that helps, jealous man.
2
Not really because I write like that all the time. But thanks anyway.
3
Glad to see some props to the cart scene, and foodcartsportland.com
4
You'll get there, Matt! You can do it!!
5
Matt, thanks for this. Once again you have made me feel proud and happy to be living in this eccentric-friendly spot in the wilds of the Northwest.

Forget status anxiety, keep doing what you are doing, what would the commenters do on blogtown if you got to go sample the world day in and day out?

But if you have to be restless, start an "eccentrics travel blog", which celebrates the weird and interesting.
7
Kaleidoscope Portland...
...you can forget your wallet and get an IOU slip at New Seasons, because, everyone there is on some fairly mellow possibly weed-related wavelength...the older woman with dreadlock tresses dyed every shade of pink, purple, reads the WSJ... the family that bust up their sidewalk and used the concrete pieces to make a jagged border around the soil, now planted with crops...the person who made their porch siding out of crushed pop cans...the most amazing food carts in the US...bicycles everywhere, closest thing to Amsterdam and Paris in the US...even mayor on verge of recall wants a photo-op putting a vegetable garden in at city hall...

Portland has more of a Narnia/Bahia feel than any other big US city. May it endure.
8
Cary Clarke here, the Merc's local music columnist ("Our Town Could Be Your Life"). I can't make any claims to have met the dude that wrote the piece, or to have known about it before it hit the NYTimes site, but I do wonder - was The Mercury complicit in aspects of this story other than the Breedlove signing?

I was surprised and delighted to see the great local band What's Up mentioned in the NYTimes:

"I played 50-cent rounds of Addams Family pinball and drank $2.50 Sessions beer at Ground Kontrol, an ’80s-style video arcade, then walked around the corner to Backspace, a techno-geeky cafe-bar where I heard an almost-great local band called What’s Up?, which melded a cresting wave of sound with the burbling bleeps of eight-bit video game soundtracks. At the Laurelthirst pub, the bluegrass band Jackstraw jammed, and I wound up chatting with a white-haired man in a tie-dyed shirt. He was Richard Milsom, known as Millstone, and five minutes into our conversation, apropos of nothing, he offered me the use of his woodland cabin by Mount Hood National Forest."

I wrote about What's Up for that week's Merc, with the aforementioned Backspace show as the newspeg. They're not exactly the highest profile band in town, nor is Backspace the best-known venue, though both are wonderful.

So why did Matt Gross check out What's Up? Clearly, The Merc is calling the Arts & Culture shots for the NYTimes. Or, more likely, Gross just happened into Backspace. In any case, I'm glad he did, and gave the members of What's Up some deserved national ink, and a validating clipping that they can show their parents to prevent a few more "Why are you squandering your life?" conversations.
9
Bleh. I read this article, and have been seeing several other people reading it around here in NYC and Brooklyn.

Your part was a good contribution, but I'm so sick of the "Portland is the coolest/cheapest (insert adjective) town in the world, quick everyone move here now!" article that comes out every few months.

Come on, I love Portland and miss living there badly, but these writers need to stop acting like they've covering uncharted territories. And for the very least, quit alluring every annoying Williamsburgian-hipster into moving to Portland. It's so funny how Brooklyn has such a hard-on for Portland.

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