I’m a big fan of Dan Kois’ writing, and so for once I’m not gonna groan about seeing a story about Portland in the New York Times.
Even if that story—about Portland’s popular Baby Ketten karaoke—does pose the question: “Is it possible that one of the most exciting music scenes in America is happening right now in Portland, and it doesn’t feature a single person playing an actual instrument?”
No, I don’t think that’s really possible, for the simple reason that I’m not sure a scene is defined solely by its participants, and karaoke isn’t much of a spectator sport. A karaoke crowd is like a terrible conversationalist, never listening, always waiting for her turn to talk. But I like this piece, because it makes Portland’s nightlife sound goofy and fun, instead of smug and elitist and full of people who bike-churn their own butter, which is how the New York Times usually makes us sound.
I’ve spent my fair share of time at Portland’s karaoke bars—as an accomplice to Laura Hudson’s 7-Day Karaoke-A-Thon Blogtown series—and on the periphery of the admittedly cult-like Baby Ketten scene. (Laura—whose social media updates about Portland karaoke inspired Kois’ trip to Portland—also profiled Baby Ketten’s John Brophy.) Kois perfectly captures the weird, fleeting euphoria of a fun karaoke night, as well as the way karaoke becomes a curiously self-affirming pursuit for some people. If there isn’t already a karaoke-based self-help book out there… well, give it a year.
But I do have one question: How does any article about Portland karaoke fail to include mention of my boss Wm. Steven Humphrey’s rendition of Taylor Swift’s “Never Getting Back Together”???? You better believe I’m working on a letter to the editor.
In the mean time, can we have this printed on our state flag?
Mulkern swept his long hair over his shoulders and put his top hat back on. “People in Portland,” he declared, “are sillier than in other places.”
“Is it possible that one of the most exciting music scenes in America is happening right now in Portland, and it doesn’t feature a single person playing an actual instrument?”
Maybe he should he gone to Karaoke From Hell.
He did! Read the piece. It’s good.
GOD FUCKING DAMMIT.
Allow me to elaborate. I read the piece. While well-written, it does not deviate from the NYT formula of fawning over some just-ever-so-quirky-and-precious-thing-about-Portland, and it falls into the same trap all of those articles do: pretending that this is both somehow unique to Portland as a place, and trying to convince the reader that this is also a cultural scion in this community that binds people together in some profound way.
But it’s KARAOKE. Before that it was coffee, before that it was craft brewing, before that it was planning, before that it was food-not-lawns and so on. The tone that these articles inevitably take on is just so insufferably doting that there ends up being no there there. There isn’t a look at how this fits into a cultural scene that has many, many stratifications and unifying factors, and there isn’t a good reason why karaoke in Portland merits a magazine feature.
I just don’t buy it, and good writing won’t change that. It’s not the old golden journalistic goose of taking a boring story and making it interesting but rather taking something the writer or his editor thinks is WAY FUCKING NEAT and turning it into a glowing puff piece that oversells its subject matter without the subject being given the opportunity to tell its own story.
So, counterpoint, Alison.
Twee4Lyfe, muthafuckas.
This piece surprised me. I braced for impact against another cloying and heavy-handed piece from the NYTimes “discovering” Portland and then it was… not that. It was, actually good. I enjoyed the feeling of reading it. That felt a little weird, but not unpleasant.
Agree with the Rev, also liked: “Portland is the capital of America’s small ponds.”
And as long as we’re all doing the most Portland thing we can do (i.e. talk endlessly about Portland), we’re all winners.
D&W – But Kois’ enthusiasm for Portland’s karaoke scene is so genuine, and it’s mixed up with this wistfulness about how Friday nights just ain’t what they used to be—that’s what I like about it. He’s getting old and he lives in boring Virginia now, and he came to Portland and hung out with weird karaoke kids and just had the BEST TIME. Does our karaoke scene reflect something real and true about the character of the city? Probably not. Who cares. But I like this piece quite a bit as a travelogue. Also I just turned 30 so I’m really into articles where writers reflect on their lost youth :/
Fair enough. I did appreciate the enthusiasm for it, and how excited he was about it.
To be honest, too, these articles always remind me of Agent Cooper arriving in Twin Peaks and finding out just HOW AMAZING this pie is.
I LOVE karaoke, but I always feel like I’m not cool enough when I go to Baby Ketten, which probably has more to say about me than about Ketten.