Happy Tuesday

Every Monday I post photos of guys smiling… except yesterday. So here it is a little late.

Vagina Menorah

In the last couple of years here on Caruthers Street, we’ve been investing in those expensive and ugly compact florescent bulbs. You know the ones; they’re curly; the light is greenish, and they are supposed to last forever.

Except, actually, they don’t. Ours have been burning out almost as fast as the cheap incandescent bulbs, and the kitchen light gave up the ghost a couple of days ago. Usually, out of sheer laziness, we just suffer in the dark for a while, at least in other rooms, but it’s hard to cook that way. So yesterday, I came home to find the kitchen romantically lit with candles. My housemate Becca’s girlfriend had made vegetarian chilli and needed the light.

It was lovely… until I glanced down to see, well, a girl part glowing at me. Becca’s former employer, a gentile potter, had given her a vagina shaped menorah as a gift a few years ago. Made by hand. Uh-huh.

I had heard about it, but never seen it before. (Hey, just like the real thing!) I’m not sure how accurate a likeness it is, but the sight of it inspired me to immediately change the light bulb and put the thing away. Becca said she usually only keeps her jewelry in it because she would feel sacriligious using it for Hanukkah. (Thank Yahweh!). See, it’s not so much the shape as the fact that there’s the wrong number of candles. In other words, it doesn’t have enough holes.

Pie-to-Guest Ratio

 My baby. Pumpkin pie #1.

Thanksgiving Day. Four at dinner. Five pies. That’s a pie-to-guest ratio of 1.25. Anything above one and you’re considered semi-pro.

I made that pumkin pie from the recipe at Cooking for Engineers, and it turned out just right. Also used “fresh,” organic, locally-grown, “pumpkin.” That’s two sets of quotes there for ya’. See, 1) it was actually frozen pulp from last fall, but from a real pumpkin that I baked and gutted. And 2) it wasn’t a pumpkin at all. Rather, it was a big blue Sweet Meat squash, which is what canned pumpkin comes from (I think). Anyway, tasted great. Much more interesting than the one from a can, which, actually, I don’t like at all.

Becca made sweet potato pie from my cousin’s step-grandmother’s recipe. And Cort made Jiggle Pie from a friend’s momma’s family recipe. Our other guest brought unfrosted cupcakes. Guess who’s not getting invited back next year.

Happy Monday

Every Monday I post photos of guys smiling.

Purple & Green

I’ve been picture happy lately. Nice weather has gotten me out of the house and looking around, and I’m finally acting on an idea that’s been on my mind for years. I’m “documenting” Portland’s dizzying array of purple and green houses.

 Fresh paint. Purple & green house in Southeast Portland.

Not purple or green houses, but houses that are both purple and green. Yes, at the same time. Yes, intentionally.

Almost as soon as I drove into town, I noticed them. Green houses are practically infinite here, and purple ones are also quite numerous. Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised then that purple and green houses are so common. What’s more, purple with green seems to be the city’s unofficial color sceme. Even the carpet at the airport is, you guessed it, purple & green.

  Purple & green carpet at Portland’s airport, PDX

How did this happen? What about those two particular colors represents the very essence of Portland? Vermont, for me, is sky blue and forest green, like a drawing on a Ben & Jerry’s carton. Mexico is blood red and warm gold, right off an old bullfighting poster. So where do we get purple & green?

I think it’s all around us here, the green is obvious and everywhere in the Northwest. Purple, though, is here too. The blackberries, marionberries, blueberries and plums. The rosemary and lavender flowers. The grapes and the wine they make. Flower, fruit and foliage: Purple and green. Whether you’re a family farmer or a yuppie oenophile or a back-to-the-Earth hippy, the generous fertility of the Willamette Valley is at the very heart of life and culture here.

 Purple & green Portland: Flowers & foliage, foundation & clapboard.

Speaking of granola types, might as well admit that purple and green are also hippie classics. No question that the persistence of the colors together carries with it the faint whif of patchouli, of keeping the psychedelic faith. The children of Gaia are still saving the planet… one paint swatch at a time. Namaste.

Funny that, because at one of the first houses where I was taking pictures, the owner came up to me and talked. Her husband was on a ladder in the backyard at that very moment, still painting on the new hues. “Honey,” she yelled, “there’s a guy here taking pictures of purple and green houses.”

“He would appreciate that.” she said after turning back to me, and we discussed how bright the new colors were turning out. She was hoping for something more subdued, more gray. She was awfully concerned about good taste, and thus she could not have been less of a hippy. In fact, she was as yuppie as they come, but here she was painting her house purple and green. So it looks like the Gaians may have won.

At flickr:
Check out this (as yet tiny) collection of purple & green houses at the new photostream I’ve dedicated to Portland’s “built environment.”

My Own “8 Mile”

Andy has posted a preview of my… uh, I mean his film, The Pull, on his news blog. Another friend refers to it as “your 8 Mile,” meaning the film about me and my theoretical struggle — the creation myth of my public persona. However, he’s recently redubbed it my Erin Brokovich, a designation whose full significance continues to elude me. Perhaps he is implying that it’s about my crusade for all that is right and good. I know it’s not because of how my jugs look in a spaghetti-strap tank top.

Anyway, just watch.