Today's A 2 Z

A: Angry Asian Man
B: Blogorrhea
C: Chocolate, dark and bitter is good
D: Dr. Horrible
E: Elliot Smith
F: Fonts
G: Grace Lee Boggs
H: Hamblog
I: Improvisation
J: Juice, carrot-orange
K: KBOO
L: Lost, yes I'm enjoying it again
M: Colectivo La Malagua
N: Naomi Iizuka
O: Octavia Butler
P: Parks
Q: Quince paste and manchego cheese on a nice cracker
R: Racialicious
S: Spectacles
T: T, the letter
U: Ursula K. LeGuin
V: Vernal equinox
W: Word games, puzzles
X: Malcolm X
Y: Yam, roasted, but not candied
Z: Ruth Zaporah

donut wedding

My friend Lena just moved here from Boston. Her sweetie Paul just, just moved here from London. Today they got hitched in true Portlandia style - at the legendary Voodoo Donuts. Proprietor Tres Shannon did the honors. There were kazoos, a pirate and of course, lots of donuts. It was very sweet!

Here's a few photos. More on flickr.

Seth's Quake

Here's a short story I wrote a few years ago. I had developed this exercise inspired by some work Matt and I were doing at the time. "Oppstacles" we called them - opportunity-obstacles. I created four buckets to inspire some flash fiction - 1) Word/Object, 2) Place, 3) Relationship/Character, and 4) Song (lyrics). For this particular piece, my randomly chosen items from these oppstacle buckets were: quake, parking lot, obsessed, Bizarre Love Triangle.

Seth's Quake
Seth was sick and tired of being the “bad” brother. Sure, Osi was righteous and all that, but geez can a brother get a break? Osi has a beautiful wife and a son, and what about Seth? Nothing. Torrents. Terror. Destruction. Again, he’s lonely sitting here at the Costco parking lot for the 100th day in a row. Why? To see if Isis will appear again. She doesn’t show herself often, but Seth knows that Isis can hardly resist the wholesale quantities like a crate of fresh strawberries or that 24 pack of toilet paper. Seth has loved his brother’s wife since third grade when her voice cut through the torrent of anger and humiliation he endured as Osi yet again found victory at the school spelling bee. Isis told Seth, “You spell fine, but your real talent is to move the earth with your heart.” And from that point on, Seth did just that. His first natural disaster was a landslide in Peru. 18,000 died. Another kicker was the monsoons in Thailand. 10,000 died. Seth felt great power and shame. Osi, meanwhile brought food to drought stricken Ethiopia. He clothed poor in China. He built houses for homeless in Guatemala. Seth and Osi were like two sides of the same coin. One couldn’t exist without the other. It’s just that Seth’s side got such a bad rap. How can being so good at something be so bad? Finally, in the 23rd hour of the 100th day of waiting, lovely Isis appeared with her perpetual baby boy in a sling. Seth slowly rose up from his waiting spot in parking space 301. Each movement from Seth snowballed into a thundering rumble and shaking of the ground, as he reached forth to his unrequited. Before he could reach her to tell her of his undying love, she fell through the cracks of the broken ground slowly floating, like a feather in the wind. She waved as she always did, the broken record of missed connection between one who loves and one who is loved.

Day 8 NaBloPoMo done. Quarter of the way there.

zombie haiku

apparently haiku is a favorite form on twitter. i recently discovered a special niche - zombie haiku (#zombiehaiku). here are a few of my picks:

Oh, friend, lasting friend, you have taken a mouthful. I am whole no more. @lamusique

Silent morning air / still as a lonely graveyard / morning rendezvous @Christwitery

rigor mortis pain / the living all move too fast / a zombie's lament @kristen_pfaff

With a strong sucking, they pop right into my mouth. Eyeballs taste like grapes. @WootiesDotNet

i am grey on the outside, blue inside, dead all over so sue me @t_love_pdx (yes, that's me)

the boneyard

When Matt and I went to Las Vegas back in March, the one thing I wanted to be sure and see was the Boneyard. It's part of the collection of the Neon Museum, an organization preserving, salvaging and restoring old signs so they just don't end up in the dump. They are also all about celebrating the "neon sign" as a uniquely Las Vegas artform. For now, the Boneyard is a big lot (actually two lots) where they store all the signs that they've salvaged. In addition to neon signs (many of which also also use incandescent bulbs) the museum ends up salvaging all kinds of other large signs. I thought it was pretty dang groovy, and a great Vegas activity if you're not much of a gambler or need time away from the regular action. You can only visit by appointment only, so don't forget to call at least a week before you want to go.

Here's a few of my favorite photos from the Boneyard. My whole set is up at flickr.


Next time, I'll be hitting the Liberace Museum.

reading list

In an effort to create better life balance, I've made time to read more lately. I'm really into sci-fi right now, especially women authors. Any other recommendations are welcome! And please share your reading lists, too.

t-love's Reading List May 2009

Current

• Neuromancer by William Gibson
• Standing Up To the Madness: Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary Times by Amy Goodman and David Goodman
• The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2006 edited by Dave Eggers

Recently finished

• Zahrah the Windseeker by Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu
• Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
• The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. LeGuin

On deck

• Tales From Earthsea by Ursula K. LeGuin
• Storycatcher by Christina Baldwin

NaBloPoMo day 5.

news roundup

It's May 4, which means Day 4 of my NaBloPoMo month. Only 27 days to go...

Here are some random news and headlines that have caught my eye over the past few days:

When Coffee Wars Get Bitter: The Floyd's Saga - There's some shady stuff happening with one of my local coffee shops. Our PDX explains how Floyd's, the cool drive-thru coffee shop, were forced out of their space. Photo courtesy of One True b!x on flickr.

R.I.P. Al Robles and Manong Al Has Left the Building- Longtime Filipino-American community activist and poet Al Robles passed away. He's best known for his work around the closing of the I-Hotel in San Francisco, a former low-income residence for lots of Asian American elders that got torn down amidst lots of controversy and not-without a huge resistance from the community. He is featured in Curtis Choy's classic documentary Fall of the I Hotel as well as his latest film Manilatown is in the Heart, currently hitting the film festival circuit. Hyphen and Racewire report.


Brazilian theater director August Boal dies - Another sad loss for the community. Boal is the founder of Theater of the Oppressed, which he continued to teach until now. His work has been incredible in empowering communities to communicate and make powerful change. Photo courtesy of Teia 2007 on flickr.

If Pigs Could Fly: Traveling in the Time of Swine Flu - Interesting commentary from Sandip Roy at New American Media about America's new-found role in the swine fly scare.

Highest Paid CEOs for 2008 - In case you're not pissed off enough already. Based on AP research here's an unfuriating list of some folks who've made off well, despite the rest of us struggling. And yes, 4 of the top 10 are from our friendly banks.