The Portland Diaries, Part II: Shining City On The Hill

 Around The World
Dec 042011
 

This is part II of my series of trying to convince Winnipeggers that we need to look to Portland, Oregon as a model for our future. Part I is here. I am no synaesthete, but when I think of Portland, the word is green. Oregon looks like what I imagine the Cretaceous looked like: huge and deep and dense with life, but somehow just a touch unfinished. Like some cosmic painter decided to go big or go home, but then — when the job was nearly done — packed up his paintbrush and hit the pub instead. At least he [...click for more...]

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The Portland Diaries, Part I: Street Eat Supreme

 Around The World
Dec 012011
 

On a crisp November day, paradise descends, somewhat unexpectedly, onto a Portland park bench. It’s near to 3 p.m, and the Willamette Valley skies are dried into a blank eggshell slate. Underneath the metal lip of a cluttered red-and-yellow food truck, a Thai woman hauls a portable heater from her kitchen shelves. “For your hands!” she says, smile breaking wider than the Columbia River.  “It’s so cold.” This little Canadian doesn’t break it to her that the 10 C weather feels balmy. But this is what really warms my heart: there are but a handful of surface parking lots in [...click for more...]

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