an old, early morning

i was trying to organize my desktop and came across a few pictures of sudan that i had meant, once upon a time, to post. this is one of them. it's pretty grainy, but i still find it beautiful. maybe it has something to do with nostalgia. i'm not sure. anyhow, i took this one very early morning when we'd gotten up to see the sun rise.

on display

this is part of a show at land, a quirky little gallery off mississippi street. the artist had mounted these stuffed animal heads to pretty great effect. in fact, i liked them so much that i bought the bison in the center. we're thinking of calling him sal.



frock (on alberta street) decked out its roof. i kinda really like it. terrible.

a mix for a fall spent in rainy, rainy, beautiful portland

breaking hearts with sounds too loud:
1) the king of carrot flowers, pt. 1 - neutral milk hotel
2) crash years - the new pornographers
3) down by the water - the drums
4) barnacle - lovers
6) live to tell the tale - passion pit
7) true affection - the blow
8) escape from the dragon house - dengue fever
9) bullfighter jacket - miniature tigers
10) dancing on my own - robyn
11) dance yrself clean - lcd soundsystem
12) let it out - girl talk

(for something in the flavor of summer, check this out.)

***after listening to this mix a few too many times, i felt it needed some edits. i took out the local natives and rilo kiley songs i had included and added 'king of carrot flowers, pt. 1' by neutral milk hotel to start it off. now, it sounds like fall to me.

the way we used to look

some images i caught on silver shade film via the impossible project:

megan outside valentine's in downtown portland.


inside the ace hotel in downtown portland.


casey parks outside valentine's.

how to carve a pumpkin in four easy steps:

1) assess the situation


2) make a rough sketch


3) start 'a cuttin'


4) display prominently

(for the record: mine is on the right.)

fireside

as part of that october retrospective i promised, some shots from a bonfire at kruger's farm:

at land's end

some friends were visiting this weekend and persuaded me to take them to the oregon coast on sunday. at first, i was dubious. thought the weather would be terrible. but we went, and i ended up seeing things like this:

brighter days

looks like the rain is coming. i'll miss looking out my window and seeing skies like this.

the shoes we wear when we are young

*not the actual shoes

i sent the following essay into sun magazine for their readers write section. the topic was 'shoes.'

I don’t remember the sound exactly. I do remember it would it came in two parts, two clicks -- like an echo. The first came as the pointed heel smacked the ground and the second as the rounded toe followed.

CLICK. click.

Something like that.

I also remember how much I loved this sound. It was the sound of my mom coming home from work. The sound of my mom’s red high heels meeting the kitchen’s tile floor.

My mom, back when I was a young, tow-headed boy in Spiderman underwear, had a pretty impressive shoe collection. Towers of plastic, see-through drawers climbed up one side of her walk-in closet. In each little box was a pair of shoes -- usually heels -- lying aside one another, almost like a couple sleeping .

When I was about three or so, I started making daily trips to her closet, finding the drawer with her two, candy-apple red high heels, slipping my too-small feet into them and stomping around the kitchen.

It became such a habit that on a visit from North Dakota, my grandpa, a farmer with far more tractors than shoes, was treated to an impromptu drag show of sorts. Of course, red high heels are not the sort of footwear a man like my grandpa would expect to see on his son’s son.

“Little boys don’t wear heels,” he told me and my mom. “It’s queer.”

“I think he likes the sound,” my mom said.

A day later, my grandpa handed me a box -- “an early birthday present,” I think he called it. I opened it up, and inside I found two card board-colored cowboy boots. I pulled them on and made a few laps around the kitchen.

There was something missing. Maybe the click wasn’t loud enough or the rhythm was off or the color wasn’t right. Maybe it wasn’t any of these things.

As soon as my grandpa left the house, though, I went about pulling the boots off and stepping into my mom’s well-worn heels.

two pandas and a bob dylan walk into a photobooth

october photo retrospective coming soon. i know, i know, y'all can't wait.

*photo scan ripped from casey parks' blog.