everyday magic in north portland

i thought this was beautiful, although also a little scary to be around.

let's look at the numbers, oregon

today, i saw a tweet on my twitter feed reading, "Urban League Study Not Encouraging For Oregon's Black Population," with a link to this link, an oregon public broadcasting article.

the article reviewed a study from the urban league of portland concerning the status of african-americans in oregon. the study found that:
"30 percent of African Americans in Oregon live in poverty -- compared to 13 percent of whites... whites are twice as likely to own a home... [and] that while 28 percent of whites hold a bachelor’s degree -- only 19 percent of blacks have a degree."

this does sound like sad news.

but let's really inspect these numbers.

according to some information from the census bureau, oregon's 2008 population can be estimated to be around 3,790,060. 90.3% of the population is white; 2.0% of the population in the state is black; and the rest of the population is of one of many other ethnicities or claims two ethnic backgrounds. 2% of the population is black. that means there are roughly 3,425,835 white people living in oregon and 75,801 black people.

if the study's percentages are correct, this means that 22,740 black live in poverty compared to 445,358 whites. it means 14,402 african-americans have college degrees (out of 75,000) in comparison to a mere 959,233 white people (out of almost 3.4 million!) isn't surreal that less than 1 million caucasian oregonians have degrees out of almost three and a half white oregonian adults? isn't it sad that combining the black and white populations of those oregonians with bachelor degrees, there may not even be one million college educated adults in this state?

and as the black population comprises on 2% of the population in this state, of course white oregonians are going to be be twice more likely to own homes. white adults constitute more than two times the population.

this study from the urban league doesn't say much about oregon's black population. and this not to say that oregon's black population is insignificant, can be overlooked due to its size. what it does say is that the state as a whole needs to address issues of poverty and education more actively. these are issues that are obviously affecting all oregonians and must be addressed at a state level.

sketchbook no. 5

booth, helen, and i went to the phil elverum performance last night at the white stag building downtown. elverum had been an "arist in residence" for the university of oregon in the white stag building this past year, and he had created an album for and "about" the white stag building. before elvrum performed, another sound artist showcased a sound and film project before there was a brief question period with the artists. listening to the strange, long-haired, idealistic hippie freak who presented the first piece of art talk about collecting sound from waterfalls in the columbia river gorge and then elverum talk about collecting sounds from the white stag building, i became fascinated with the idea of collecting sounds. all the sounds that no one else gets to hear unless they're intimate with a place. those sounds that are specific to a place and not cable of being reproduced.

and then broodthaers started to influence my thoughts. you know i love broodthaers. in mind mind i can foresee sound exhibitions or "museums." convention folding tables set up in the middle of a building or a field or a huge factory; tables set up with cassette players with microphones, something like what i would have used in grade school. and behind the players, cassette cases listed with labels in cursive script dates and perhaps subject matter. this would be a catalogue of all the sounds that comprise a place. i like the idea that after the exhibition closed, the cassettes could be neatly catalogued in a library.

genevieve and dragon

i dreamed i was reunited with my cat, genevieve, last night. we were standing on a wood dock in the middle of a large lake filled with water lilies and koi. we sat on the dock and talked together, laughing. then evian's cat dragon came and started splashing and swimming around us. genevieve and i laughed at the fat orange cat pouncing at carp in the pond. dragon was crouching in the water, concentrating on some fish, so i reached out to touch his body and scare him, when suddenly the cat turned into a golden crocodile and snapped at me, waking me from my dream.

how doth the little crocodile
improve his shining tail,
and pour the waters of the nile
on every single scale!

sketchbook no. 4

i'd like to make rubbings of every grave in the long fir cemetery with a crayon and newsprint or butcher paper. then i could bind all the rubbings into a huge book, a catalogue of all the faces of the gravestones. this project would take forever. and after ten or twenty years, i could do it again as experiment in how much the weather and time have changed the graves. do you think i could get a grant from an historical society to sit around all summer in the graveyard and do this? do you think it would ever get creepy? i have been on the halloween tour of lone fir murders. scary.

sketchbook no. 3

i could keep a pad of tracing paper with me at all times and trace out designs and images and textures and patterns and anything else i thought was interesting. then i could put each week's worth of tracings together into a book, with pretty little signatures of blue thread and a study cover. i could make a book each week for a month, or for a year.

sketchbook no. 2

hey remember how i wanted to play a day long game of one in one hundred during which i take one hundred photos of men i think attractive? you don't? oh well, yeah. i want to wander around portland and whenever i see someone attractive, i'll take a portrait of that person.

now i'm thinking it could be fun to adapt this idea and turn it into a zine. once a week or once a month, i'll wander around with my camera, take a picture of all the attractive guys i see, then print them in a simple little zine with captions listing where i saw these men. it'll be like an about town magazine for portland except only the cutest guys will be in it. no words, no distractions. just men.