by David Burn | Oct 12, 2012 | Oregon, Place
Design is so much more than the look of things. Design is also the way things work, or conversely, don’t work. Portland, Oregon prides itself on being a place that does work, and the city has design and designers of every sort, throughout its history, to thank for that.
Last night, as part of Design Week Portland, we heard six Portland writers address significant designs born in Portland, and how the inventions, systems and objects created here helped to make the city the special place it is today.
Matthew Stadler opened the affair with a brief discussion regarding the formation of The Oregonian in 1850, largely as a civic action to boost Portland’s chances at becoming a viable city, in the face of competition from Milwaukie, Oregon City and Vancouver. Karla Starr presented a wealth of information about Vanport City, a massive and hastily constructed federal housing project near PDX, that was built to house shipyard workers during WWII. Starr noted it was the one time in Portland’s history when there were more jobs here than people.
I particularly appreciated the third presentation of the evening from Ziba writer and editor, Carl Alviani. His talk focused on “The Triggered Oscilloscope,” made by Tektronix in 1946. Alviani explained that this was the first time in our history that we could see and measure the electron world.
The invention of the Tektronix 511 led to myriad new inventions and helped Tektronix transform into a powerful company with 25,000 employees in the 1960s. But it wasn’t just Tektronik’s products or its impact on the local economy that made it such an important design development. The company set out to accomplish amazing things in a narrow field, and this helped it attract people who like to make discoveries, versus people who prefer to grow and manage a giant company like HP, Alviani noted.
Alviani said Tek sowed the seeds of today’s so-called “Creative Economy” and was “a social movement,” as well as a company. For instance, decades before it became routine, the company offered its workers profit sharing, free coffee, open offices and a relaxed atmosphere where individualism was honored. Alviani said, “the hippie engineer” found a home at Tek in the 1960s, and many local companies were born of Tek’s rib, Mentor Graphics being one of the more notable spinoffs to carry forward this special brand of Portland tech culture.
Portland Monthly editor-in-chief, Randy Gragg, shared some great material about Portland’s move to open space, and how San Francisco’s Larry Halprin, an influential American landscape architect and his wife Anna Halprin, a famous dancer, played a large role in “making the city safe for play.” Interestingly, the Halprins co-created the “RSVP Cycles”, a creative methodology that can be applied broadly across all disciplines.
The evening’s event, which was put together by Alviani, also featured two topics I was more familiar with. Chris Higgins shared the story of how the world’s first wiki was invented by Ward Cunningham, a former employee at Tektronix. Finally, my friend Rick Turoczy of Silicon Florist and Portland Incubator Experiment wrapped the session up with a look at beer’s role in shaping the city, from Henry Weinhard to the McMenamin and Widmer brothers.
Turoczy said that when people from other places visit the tech community here, they almost always make note of how every tech startup has a kegerator, sometimes several. Which is fitting. Portland’s makers want to celebrate their best work and the work of their friends, and the hand-crafted, heavily-hopped-but-still-working-class-brew is perfect beverage for that.
Illustration made by Jason Gurley
by David Burn | Oct 6, 2012 | Media, Politics
It’s political season again and the airwaves are full of polluted words. Presidential campaigning is a travesty, an official lie. And mainstream media is a diversion, at best. It’s enough to drive a person to drink. Thankfully, there are voices crying in the wilderness. Voices like Arun Gupta’s.
Gupta, a journalist and activist, spoke in Seattle, WA on August 23, 2012. The transcript of his talk, plus the audio file are available for purchase from AlternativeRadio.org. I plopped down my $3 to download the transcript after hearing a portion of Gupta’s talk on KBOO Community Radio, earlier this week.
As a radical independent, I enjoy hearing people eloquently make a case against the corporate, two party Babylon system. Gupta does it well. Let’s listen in…
The Democrats are a firmly right-wing party while the Republicans are a fanatical right-wing party. What we’ve had over the last 30 years or so is the Democrats take the right-wing radicalism and turn it into bipartisan consensus. So the next iteration of the right becomes more and more extreme. We do know, if the right does get into power, if Romney is elected, they will nominate extreme Supreme Court justices, they will viciously attack organized labor beyond what the Obama administration is doing, and they will, of course, viciously attack reproductive rights and access to birth control. So there is an argument to be made, yes, you should just go in the voting booth. But on a whole host of other issues it’s difficult to say who is going to be worse.
Both parties are going to pursue austerity policies on Social Security and Medicare, neither party will address global warming, or, in fact, they will address it—they will make it worse. It’s “Drill, baby, drill.” Those have been Obama’s policies for the last four years. The wars will continue, the Islamophobia will continue, the targeted assassinations will continue, the police and prison industrial complex will continue, the assault on civil liberties, spying on Americans, and on and on and on. We know that it really doesn’t make a difference, because liberals do not provide any sort of oppositional force when the Democrats are in power.
Gupta admits there is “an argument to be made” for voting for the least offensive of the two corporate candidates. It’s an argument I am working over in my head, just in time for our Oregon ballots to arrive via snail mail. I have a history of voting for third party candidates for President, because I prefer to vote my heart. That’s my preference and my right, misguided as it sometimes seems. My problem this fall is I feel as disillusioned with “making a statement” when I vote — which is what voting third party largely is — as I do with voting for a Democrat.
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by David Burn | Sep 25, 2012 | Nebraska, Oregon, Place
I love American history and American culture. I love ‘merican people (especially our artists, writers and musicians) and ‘merican places. Therefore, it pains me to encounter geo-cultural ignorance. And sadly, I encounter it all too often in places populated by lots of “book smart” people.
Last Sunday, for instance, was a pleasant early-fall day. We played disc golf at Pier Park in St. John’s. The course, nestled among elder Doug Firs, was demanding but majestic. After our round, we boot scooted back to the car and headed to Breakside Brewery for the first time. I’ve been wanting to visit Breakside on NE Dekum for some time, so it was fun to finally arrive, find a place on the outside patio and order a Cucumber Gose. And an IPA to follow, washed down by a perfectly prepared blue cheeseburger.
A woman and her husband, both in their late forties or early fifties, approached the picnic table next to us and sat down. They minded their own business until Lucy emerged from our under table with a loud bark at another pooch passing by on the sidewalk. The lady — who wanted us to know she’s a native Portlander — started talking shit to Lucy and Lucy barked at her, which elicited more shit talking. A storm began to brew…
The banter from there went down the typical American superhighway. “Where do you live? Where are you from?”
West Linn. Omaha.
Full frontal scoff from the lady.
Darby says uh-oh. I say, I guess we’re done talking.
The lady wants to know where Darby’s from. Ohio and New York.
“Welcome to Oregon,” she says.
We’ve lived here four years.
In the years I spent living on the East Coast, and the years spent living in California and Oregon, I’ve noticed that coastal sophisticates sometimes feel sorry for people like Darby and me. We’re from Cleveland and Omaha – such unsexy places, they’re actually invisible to the “fly over” crowd.
News Flash! Yes, we have left our native grounds behind — as have our friends here in Oregon who migrated from Michigan, North Carolina, Arkansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Colorado, Iowa, New Jersey, Louisiana, Ohio, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Missouri and Minnesota — but we’re still proud of our homes, our histories, our friends and family that continue to grow their own American dreams, back home in the fertile soils of the south and middle.
by David Burn | Aug 29, 2012 | Music
My cousin Joshua is Tour Manager for The Band of Heathens, a rock band from Austin, TX. I’m glad he is, because it’s a cool job with an impressive band. Plus, it meant we were on the guest list Saturday night at Mississippi Studios in North Portland!
Knowing that Joshua has been working with this band, I’ve been checking out their music on Spotify and via free downloads from their site for the past few months. There’s also a great collection of live shows on Archive.org, many of them recorded and uploaded by Joshua, a.k.a. Joshua Cain.
They’re “kinda like if Rimbaud, Keats, and Rilke strapped on guitars and hooked up with a bad ass rhythm section… literary and sinfully cool,” says, Texas music legend Ray Wylie Hubbard, who produced the band’s first studio album. The Heathens were also voted “Best New Band” at the 2007 Austin Music Awards. And the band’s second and third albums–One Foot In The Ether and Top Hat Crown & the Clapmaster’s Son, respectively–have done particularly well on the Americana charts. In 2009, they appeared on Austin City Limits with Elvis Costello.
In other words, this outfit is going places. Now that we’ve seen them perform live in the cozy confines of Mississippi Studios, it’s easy to see why. Frontmen, Ed Jurdi and Gordy Quist are great singer/songwriters and performers. Keyboardist Trevor Nealon also made quite an impression. It was also fun for me to see Jurdi wearing a Dancing Bear patch on his jacket. I love how many musicians are influenced by Jerry Garcia, particularly so when it’s not obvious in their music. The Band of Heathens isn’t a jam band. It’s a rock band than jams a Texas-brand of country.
Speaking of jams, I love how they worked “Rain” by The Beatles into their Portland set on Saturday. Perfect song in the right place. I also totally enjoyed the band’s cover of Gillian Welch’s “Look at Miss Ohio” which appears on One Foot In The Ether. Their originals “Jackson Station,” “Hurricane” and “Medicine Man” also stood out.
If you like a music informed by gospel, Mississippi Delta blues, Texas hill country balladeers and psychedelic rock, give the Heathens a listen and look for them on tour. I didn’t get the full impact of their music until Saturday night, much like I didn’t get the full impact of Grateful Dead’s music until that fateful night at the Spectrum in 1985.
by David Burn | Aug 20, 2012 | Food & Beverage, The Environment
Food waste in America has grown 50% since 1974. Today, the average American household throws out 470 pounds of food every year, making it the largest component in our nation’s landfills.
Naturally, this speaks volumes about our culture. Just a few generations removed from war rationing and The Great Depression, Americans waste about 27% of food available for consumption, costing the average family of four roughly $600 a year, according to Supermarket News.
Supermarket News looked at Shelton Group’s Eco Pulse study and found that 39% of Americans feel guilty about wasting food. By comparison, only 7% felt guilty about not sticking to an energy-efficient thermostat setting, and just 6% felt guilty about using chemical lawn or plant fertilizers. So, we’re wasting an obscene amount of food and we feel bad about it.
Meanwhile, too many Americans are dying of obesity while others are starving. When will we learn to properly allocate our natural resources?
In related news, the decomposition of food waste in landfills produces methane, which is 21 times more powerful of a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.
Thankfully, there are real answers to all these problems. First, we can reduce food waste through careful shopping and meal planning. Second, the organic waste we do produce can be turned into energy by biogas plants, like the one being built in NE Portland.
by David Burn | Aug 6, 2012 | Advertising, Literature
In Spring of 1977, The Paris Review, published an interview with Kurt Vonnegut.
The interview is a composite of four question and answer sessions with the writer, and edited by Vonnegut himself. Therefore, what he has to say in this “interview” is not as off-the-cuff as it might seem. Rather, it’s intentional, as most text-based exercises are.
INTERVIEWER
You have been a public relations man and an advertising man—
VONNEGUT
Oh, I imagine.
INTERVIEWER
Was this painful? I mean—did you feel your talent was being wasted, being crippled?
VONNEGUT
No. That’s romance—that work of that sort damages a writer’s soul. At Iowa, Dick Yates and I used to give a lecture each year on the writer and the free-enterprise system. The students hated it. We would talk about all the hack jobs writers could take in case they found themselves starving to death, or in case they wanted to accumulate enough capital to finance the writing of a book. Since publishers aren’t putting money into first novels anymore, and since the magazines have died, and since television isn’t buying from young freelancers anymore, and since the foundations give grants only to old poops like me, young writers are going to have to support themselves as shameless hacks. Otherwise, we are soon going to find ourselves without a contemporary literature. There is only one genuinely ghastly thing hack jobs do to writers, and that is to waste their precious time.
After studying anthropology at University of Chicago, Vonnegut took a job working in PR for General Electric. His choice to earn is only one reason why I love him, but it is an important one. “It was dishonorable enough that I perverted art for money. I then topped that felony by becoming, as I say, fabulously well-to-do,” Vonnegut reflects.
It’s wonderful to know that Vonnegut thinks having a hack job doesn’t hurt your writing, it just sucks up your time. One might argue then, that a writer with a hack job merely needs to make time for their real work, while simultaneously performing the tasks that pay. I might add here that a writer can also work to transcend the hackery. Sure, it can become a head-banger of a challenge to write ad copy, or news copy, that does its job and delivers on craft and artfulness. But it’s a pursuit that strengthens the writer, in my opinion.
I can see where Vonnegut, or another writer, might claim that transcending the hackery isn’t the point, the point is simply to make money and return home to your family and the book that’s growing there, trying desperately to be born. My counterpoint is why make such harsh lines between real writing and writing merely to earn? Why not write it all with great care?
by David Burn | Jul 9, 2012 | Digital culture, Media
Newspaper readers don’t have the kind of relationship with newspaper reporters that they do with famous columnists, authors or the talking heads on TV. As far as readers are concerned, newspaper reporters are pretty much anonymous. So what’s the big deal, if some of the nation’s best newspapers including The Chicago Tribune, The Chicago Sun-Times, The Houston Chronicle and The San Francisco Chronicle are running articles written by offshore “reporters” and publishing them with a fake byline?
I guess it depends on your point of view. It’s clearly a big deal for journalists. One of the best in the business, David Carr of The Times, notes, “while the rest of us were burning hot dogs on the grill last week, the newspaper industry seemed to be lighting itself on fire.”
Clearly one of the brightest coals in that fire, is the This American Life piece on Journatic, a content farm owned in part by the Tribune Company.
The Journatic employee, Ryan Smith, who spoke to This American Life, describes how he pretended to be from the Houston Chronicle when speaking to a source in Texas for a story. He also describes how much of the copy he was tasked with editing originated in the Philippines and was full of grammatical errors. Smith also wrote a confessional for The Guardian about his experience at the company.
My stomach turned and my guilt grew. The company I was working for was harming journalism: real reporters were getting laid off and were being replaced by overseas writer-bots.
Naturally, Journatic’s CEO Brian Timpone, has another story to tell. “We were writing things that were controversial. Our writers were being threatened individually by the subjects of stories. We did it to protect them from the threats.”
He also notes that the articles in question needed to have bylines so they would show up in Google News results. Uh huh.
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by David Burn | Jun 21, 2012 | Digital culture, Media, Place
As a writer, I am a knowledge worker and member of the Creative Class. Which is to say, I am busy developing not only words that make meaning, but dollars that make ends meet.
That’s the deal with the Creative Class. Creative people gather in special places, and through the power of our collective ingenuity we create wealth for ourselves and the communities we call home.
But not so fast. “The Rise of the Creative Class is filled with self-indulgent forms of amateur microsociology and crass celebrations of hipster embourgeoisement,” argues Jamie Peck, a geography professor and vocal critic of Richard Florida’s theories.
Freelance writer Frank Bures of Minneapolis shared that gem in Thirty Two, a new bi-monthly magazine for the Twin Cities. Like me, Bures was seduced by the idea that we aren’t alone in a world where writers are not highly prized. No, we’re members of a club. No, not a club, a class. Yes, we are in a class where we’re always learning and striving, and the future is bright.
Bures suggests that Florida “took our anxiety about place and turned it into a product. He found a way to capitalize on our nagging sense that there is always somewhere out there more creative, more fun, more diverse, more gay, and just plain better than the one where we happen to be.” Given how dreamy writers and entrepreneurs can be, it was an easy sell.
Bures also recounts conversations with Brazen Careerist, Penelope Trunk, on the topic. Bures calls her an “apostle of Floridian doctrine.” Nevertheless Trunk points out, “If you want to look at a city that’s best for your career, it’s New York, San Francisco or London. If you’re not looking for your career, it doesn’t really matter. There’s no difference. It’s splitting hairs. The whole conversation about where to live is bullshit.”
Of course, “One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit,” notes Harry G. Frankfurt. Which makes me want to point to other popular tropes that are really just steaming piles of fecal matter.
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by David Burn | Jun 8, 2012 | Media, Politics
It’s been 40 years since Nixon’s second successful bid for The White House.
It’s also been 40 years since the Committee for the Re-Election of the President (CREEP) sent a group of rubber-gloved thugs to break in to Democratic National Committee headquarters at The Watergate.
Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward of The Washington Post, who won The Pulitzer Prize in 1973 for their coverage of the break-in and political conspiracy, have a new piece in the Post that paints Nixon in severely dark tones.
In a tape from the Oval Office on Feb. 22, 1971, Nixon said, “In the short run, it would be so much easier, wouldn’t it, to run this war in a dictatorial way, kill all the reporters and carry on the war.”
“The press is your enemy,” Nixon explained five days later in a meeting with Adm. Thomas H. Moorer, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, according to another tape. “Enemies. Understand that? . . . Now, never act that way . . . give them a drink, you know, treat them nice, you just love it, you’re trying to be helpful. But don’t help the bastards. Ever. Because they’re trying to stick the knife right in our groin.”
This reflective piece from Woodward and Bernstein comes, for me, on the heels of my first reading of The Boys On The Bus by Rolling Stone reporter Timothy Crouse. His behind-the-scenes look at the media and the coverage provided during the 1972 Presidential campaign is a critical read. While it too is 40 years old, the narrative is far from dated.
Crouse argues that Nixon and his team played the press like a violin during the campaign, feeding them an official story of the day and running them here and there, all the while keeping Nixon almost totally out of sight. The team included H.R. Halderman, Nixon’s White House Cheif of Staff, who worked at J. Walter Thompson in NYC and LA for 20 years before joining the White House team. Halderman also brought Ron Ziegler, Nixon’s White House Press Secretary, with him from JWT.
Not surprisingly, Halderman and Ziegler had a well defined media and brand strategy, and they executed it perfectly. Consider that The Watergate break-in happened on June 17, nearly five months ahead of the election, and it had no impact whatsoever on the election. In fact, Nixon won a majority vote in 49 states, including McGovern’s home state of South Dakota.
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by David Burn | May 29, 2012 | Advertising, Digital culture, Media, Nebraska
Warren Buffett, the greatest investor the modern world has ever known, just ponied up $142 million to add Richmond, Virgina-based Media General to his list of prized companies.
Media General operates 18 network-affiliated television stations and their associated websites, plus several dozen community newspapers across the Southeastern part of the U.S. Titles like Richmond Times-Dispatch and Winston-Salem Journal are well known, but most of the others like The Goochland Gazette and The Bland County Messenger have small circulations in the range of 5,000 – 25,000, according to paidContent.
Is the old man getting sentimental, or is this truly a wise investment? Both, I reckon.
“I’ve loved newspapers all of my life — and always will,” Buffett, who delivered newspapers as a boy, wrote in a letter introducing himself and his newly formed BH Media Group to the Media General team.
Berkshire Hathaway purchased The Omaha World Herald, its hometown newspaper last year, and has owned the Buffalo News since 1977. Buffett has also been on the board of The Washington Post and owned a large share of that national paper for years. One might say he’s making Omaha something of a genuine media town now. As a native of the hilly river city, I’m happy about that.
Of course, there are others with other more important media matters on their minds. Professor, consultant and writer Clay Shirky, for one. He argues that “ordinary citizens don’t pay for news. What we paid for, when we used to buy the paper, was a bundle of news and sports and coupons and job listings, printed together and delivered to our doorstep.” Shirky believes that news has always been a loss leader subsidized by advertisers. And now those advertisers are off to greener pastures. “Ad dollars lost to competing content creators can be fought for; ad dollars that no longer subsidize content at all are never coming back,” he contends.
GigaOm writer, Mathew Ingram, adds that “the subscription price of a newspaper and circulation revenues in general have historically only accounted for a small proportion of a media company’s overall revenue. In most cases, the bulk of that revenue comes from advertising.”
I’m a fan of both Shirky and Ingram, but I don’t agree that all the value is in the platform. The Oracle of Omaha believes there’s value in content and he wants his new newspaper managers to find ways to maximize that value for readers (who will be asked to pay for the content, regardless of the platform). “It’s your job to make your paper indispensable to anyone who cares about what is going on in your city or town,” Buffett outlines.
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