Stump'd Notes

Summer Camp ads from the NYT magazine

Sun, 26 Feb 2012 17:53:32 -0500

I find Americans’ “Summer Camp” fascinating. My childhood school holidays were typically spent at the beach with my family, hanging out with my friends, or in later years, on the internet.

Here are some things that kids from New York will apparently do this summer:

How to run a successful Kickstarter campaign

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 22:29:00 -0500

I’ve written about Kickstarter before. The Boy pledges to a lot of projects. I pledge to some. Usually when there’s something on offer that I want. Very occasionally out of the goodness of my heart.

Matt Haughey recently wrote a good post about a bad experience he had with the site. I haven’t had anything bad happen (though I acknowledge there’s always a risk), but I have had a really good one, so let’s talk about that.

I rarely pledge to food-based projects. Even though I am obviously a confirmed fan of food, most of them tend to be people trying to start businesses without enough money. Food businesses don’t just need money to begin, they need excess money. Relying on donated funds just to open your business means you have no wiggle room if you don’t break even or make a profit straight away. Others just seem to be unoriginal ideas — you wanna make cookies or brew beer? Great, but there is basically no incentive for me to support you, as good bakeries and craft breweries are hardly in short supply here (though The Boy did help fund one micro brewery in return for a tshirt, and displaying the name of a brewery no one has heard seems to earn him kudos with beer nerds).

But here’s a food project I did pledge to, and I’m really glad. Lofty Pursuits is an old school soda fountain (apparently THE old school soda fountain; check out the graph pr0n here) in Tallahassee, Florida (no, I have no idea where that is) which also specialises in “Victorian era candy”. When I first saw it, I though, “Hmmph, just looks like boiled lollies to me.” And that’s because it is. Some backstory:

When public primary school kids from my home state of Victoria went on school camps, we’d inevitably go to some dinky little former gold (if you’re lucky) or coal (if you’re not) mining town where we’d spend a few days sleeping in cold dorms and eating terrible food and teasing the kid who has to bring plastic sheets. The one thing these towns usually have going for them is an “olde lolly shop” that sells traditional boiled sweets—humbugs, barley sugars, lemon acid drops (my favourite) and maybe some Castlemaine Rock if you happened to be in that part of the state. Our parents were allowed to give us a maximum of $5 to spend at this store.

I thought these sweets were all pretty standard. Apparently not. It turns out that Australia is one of the last places in the world that still practises this kind of lolly making.

So there’s this lolly store in Lake Mary, Florida (also have no idea where that is), with owners who learned to make boiled lollies in Australia. Then this kid ends up learning the trade from them, and eventually ends up working at Lofty Pursuits, where he now makes them as a sort of performance (and, of course, to sell and eat; because boiled lollies are delicious).

So the owner has been buying Victorian candy making equipment and restoring it to use in the store. And that was the point of the Kickstarter campaign.

This is one reason the campaign was cool (to me, at least). They have a successful business. They are experts at what they do (also, being an expert at soda drinks and candy making are such cool things to be an expert at). But they wanted to use both of these things on an unnecessary, but totally awesome project. It would be hard to read about what they wanted to and not want to help them do it.

So that’s part of it. But they also went about it in all the right ways.

They made a video. It’s not a great video, but it helps you see who they are and what they’re doing. When I wrote a story about Kickstarter a while back, Kickstarter’s former CTO told me that projects with videos are far, far more likely to succeed.
The rewards were really good. I’d have usually argued that there should have been another reward between the $5 and $25 mark — because $25 is a big commitment for many people — but basically anyone supporting this project probably wanted candy out of it, and that is not an unreasonable amount for rare, hand-made candy plus shipping, especially as a quick look at the donor list shows many people don’t live anywhere near the store.
They were asking for a reasonable amount of money. I have seen some projects in the tens of thousands get funded, but I instinctively ignore projects asking for huge amounts, because they seem unlikely to succeed. And again, if you’re asking for THAT much, I tend to question how viable your project is.
The page outlined exactly what the money would be used for. If I see a sizeable figure, but no breakdown of what it’s going to, I assume the person hasn’t actually done the maths on what they really need, and has just pulled a random figure out of their arse that sounds “about right”.
As soon as I pledged money, the store owner sent me a personal thank you message, and a detailed response to my reply, telling me some more historical info about the candy.
They provided regular, interesting updates as the project went on. Not just “hey thanks, we’re almost near our goal” updates, either — pictures and videos of machines they were working on, candy they were making, and other bits and pieces. These updates get sent as emails too, which really kept me following and rooting for the campaign to succeed, instead of just pledging and forgetting as I usually do.
They kept going once they met their goal. Once it became likely they would succeed, they offered to up the rewards if they hit an even higher goal, and detailed what they would do with that extra money.

The Kickstarter campaign ended today, raising $7,172 — $1,322 above their goal — amongst 180 backers.

If you’re lucky, I will share my boiled lollies with you.

Things I'm doing at the moment...

Fri, 25 Nov 2011 23:24:00 -0500

It has been a while, hasn’t it?

Reading

Townie by Andre Dubus III

Reading about other people’s dysfunctional childhoods makes me realise how easy and white bred mine was.

The Monthly magazine

My folks got me a subscription for my birthday. I try to keep up generally with shit that’s going on in Australia, but it’s pretty hard when you’re not there to live it. Sitting back with a magazine every month is easier than trying to navigate the trainwreck that is The Age’s website every day.

Watching

The Slap
I, er, legally acquired the ABC TV series of the Christos Tsiolkas novel (which I never actually read). I thought it was generally excellent — great acting and script writing, the people and dialogue ran really true (though I did enjoy this Chaser parody — even if it dragged up a 10-year-old Big Brother joke — do middle class, inner city Melburnites use more cocaine than I realise?). Though I wasn’t entirely satisfied with the ending. Should there not have been more consequences for the girl lying about being raped?

Spy
Hulu is putting up new episodes of this great UK comedy series every Friday. Darren Boyd is brilliant. Everyone else seems to hate the kid, but I love him.

Playing

Boxing
I have started boxing. Again. This time more seriously at a real fight gym. After months of inaction, it kicked my arse doing exercise, but just three weeks in, I’m already seeing pretty big improvements in technique, speed and strength. Now I just have to start running again…

Cycling
It’s that time of year again, when the weather turns to shit, and all the fairweather cyclists leave the road. Not that I’m oh-so-hardcore, but I just have no other transportation method than my bike, so I cover myself in rain gear and get on with it.

Hearing

Kyuss Lives
Kyuss is probably one of my favourite bands — it certainly was when I was a teenager — and Kyuss Lives is Kyuss reunited minus lead guitarist Josh Homme. It played in Portland on Monday, so I felt I should go, even though I have mixed feelings about reunion shows. Most non-local bands I liked as a teenager were from before my time, and now every band that ever released an album is reuniting, I always feel I should go for the sake of it. But they’re often not quite… right. It feels like a tribute show rather than the real thing. I enjoyed Kyuss Lives, but I couldn’t say I loved it.

Mexico in photos

Sat, 15 Oct 2011 19:19:01 -0400

We’ve been in Mexico the past 10 days. First Oaxaca and now Mexico City. Today is our last day. I’ll do a full post eventually, but in the mean time here are some photos:

The Story of My Coffee Cup

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 21:39:20 -0400

There’s a bunch of cafes in Melbourne’s CBD called Blue Bag, several of which are close to my old office at Crikey. I used to call it “blue balls” because I’m 12. It sells pre-packed sandwiches, salads, soups and coffee (and by “coffee”, Americans, I mean “espresso”). At some point, the owners created these reusable plastic coffee cups called KeepCups that were shaped like paper coffee cups, so they fit under the espresso grouphead and kept your coffee warm. This was a good thing, because we went through an embarrassing amount of paper cups. So we all bought one, and every day, we would send the intern off to get coffee with our KeepCups, smug with non-Earth-destroying satisfaction.

Like most of my things, I left my KeepCup behind in Melbourne. And for a long time, I didn’t think of it, because I was mostly drinking coffee in cafes.

Then when I went to London, I stopped for coffee in an Aussie/New Zealand-run cafe called Flat White (it’s named after an espresso drink in Australia and New Zealand; it’s kind of a cross between a latte and a cappuccino) and, lo and behold, it was selling KeepCups. “Wouldn’t it be funny to have a cup with ‘Flat White’ written on it?” I thought, because smart arse baristas in the US are always saying, “Aha, do you want a flat white?” (No, I want the drink I ordered….) So I bought one and brought it back.

Then like a week later I lost it.

I was annoyed but didn’t really think much about it until three things happened: 1. I started working in an office 2. There are no decent coffee shops within walking distance of my office so I was often riding to work with one hand on the handlebars and the other holding a coffee, so one of my workmates bought me a coffee-cup holder for my bike, but it was too big for the average sized espresso cup, and 3. Some friends from Melbourne came to Portland and brought their KeepCups with them and used them everywhere and I was jealous.

By that point, just two years after that little Melbourne cafe started selling colourful plastic coffee cups, they were being sold all over the world. You could buy them at the Whole Foods across the road from our apartment and you could buy them on Amazon. But I wanted my Flat White one. Fortunately, The Boy was going to London for work, so I wrote down the address and gave him instructions.

A few weeks later, he returned home with a Flat White cup. Even better, he had told the barista the story, and they’d thrown in a free coffee next time I’m in London. Even better, it fits perfectly in my bike’s coffee cup holder.

Now I can buy a good coffee in the morning and carry it on my handlebars to work. Like a total wanker.

Things I'm doing at the moment...

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 00:46:28 -0400

Playing
Doodle or DieThis game is so freaking addictive. It’s like Chinese whispers, but with drawings. It’s annoying when people interrupt the flow of the game with pictures of cocks, but other than that: massive time suck. Beware. Watching
AuntieI thought all the ABC’s online content was geolocked, but recently discovered the ABC 24 stuff isn’t, so I’m eating that up because I feel stupid and ignorant over here.
GleeUgh, I know. I avoided it so long, too. Then I got bored and watched the whole first two seasons in one weekend. I was actually looking forward to the start of season 3 the other day. Lame.
Drinking
Too MuchThe Boy’s cousin was in town this past week and we went drinking almost every night. Good times, but ouch. I had something good with tequila at Kask and something else with spicy vodka at a new joint called Dig a Pony, which I reviewed here. Really nice place; brought a pretty eclectic group in and everyone liked it.
Eating
Banh Mi OpThere’s a new banh mi place near my work, Lela’s Bistro. It’s far from the best banh mi around, but it’s easily the best around this side of town. It does one with a sunnyside-up egg which I seem to crave for lunch multiple times a week. It’s $4 and the egg splooshes out everywhere.

Trash Talk

Mon, 12 Sep 2011 00:04:07 -0400

About a year ago, I bought a box of 50 garbage bags. I remember buying them, because I usually buy small amounts of things at a time (one tube of toothpaste, one can of beans), even when it’s clear we will run out eventually and I’ll just need to buy more. I don’t know why I do this. But this time, I talked myself into buying the 50 bag box of garbage bags and I was inordinately pleased with myself, because there’s nothing worse than when you run out of garbage bags but have something stinky to throw away (yes, nothing worse; war, disease, famine—these things are all secondary), and I knew this would not come for some time.

And finally it has come, a year later. That seems a pretty long time to go through 50 garbage bags. It’s less than one a week, and we have a pretty small bin. I’d like to think it’s because we’re not wasteful, but that can’t be true. I think we are more wasteful in America than we were in Australia. Things come in more packaging. We buy food more often than make it. We definitely do more than one bag of recycling a week: cans, bottles, newspapers, boxes, junk mail, food containers. I guess recycling is better than trash.

I hate a lot of things about living in an apartment building, but one I like is the trash shoot. When the bin gets full, I take the bag to the trash shoot and drop it into a black hole and, I assume, someone else takes care of it. I don’t have to sneak garbage bags into the neighbours’ bins after forgetting to put our bins out for the garbage man and running out of space. I used to do that a lot.

Recycling here is separated into glass in one bin and paper and plastic in the other. In Melbourne, it all went into one bin. Houses also get a bin for green waste and in November, they will also get a composting bin. I think that’s neat.

Less neat is the lack of bins on Portland’s streets, especially recycling bins. There’s a pod of about 40 food carts near our building and a park next to that pod where everyone eats their meals when the sun is out. That park has two bins and no recycling bins, even though many of the food containers and utensils are recyclable. The bins fill up quickly and overflow. The City is otherwise obsessive about cleanliness. People clean the downtown streets in the middle of the night and it’s pretty much spotless by morning. There is almost no graffiti (which is a shame, in my opinion, but that’s a post for another time). But there is a serious lack of bins, and every Australian friend and family member who has come to visit us here has commented on it.

Today I bought a box of 78 garbage bags.

Postcards from strangers

Fri, 02 Sep 2011 00:08:21 -0400

The Boy really likes Kickstarter. We both do, but he pledges to far more projects than I do. So many, he forgets who’s who. Every few days in the mail, he receives postcards thanking him for his support to so and so project. By the time they arrive, he has often forgotten exactly what the project was. And so we get mystery postcards from mystery people. It’s fun to guess what the project was from the picture.

Here are a few postcards we’ve received recently:

Things that shit me on Twitter

Thu, 25 Aug 2011 05:07:16 -0400

People who tweet conferences. Speeches can’t typically condensed into 140 characters. The reason a speech is good is largely because the SPEAKER is good. They’re rarely conveying ground-breaking information. It’s usually just a pretty simple point, well presented.

“@speaker says newspaprs r vital”

“@speaker says media is not dead yet”

Just watch the fucking speech you company coughed up $1,500 for you to watch.

People who tweet all their meals. Yeah, tweet a great/funny/terrible dish once in a while, but unless you’re eating at El Bulli (which, you’re not, obviously), no one wants to see grainy, dark photos of each plate in your ten-course degustation.

People who thank other people for re-tweeting them by re-tweeting their re-tweets. It just seems so desperate and self-congratulatory and redundant. I think it goes without saying that everyone is appreciative when they’re re-tweeted. Stop clogging up my feed.

Follow Friday.

Twibbons.

Four Australian films on Netflix Instant worth watching

Mon, 08 Aug 2011 03:05:25 -0400

This is one for the Americans:

Lately, Netflix Instant has put a heap of Australian films. Cheap I guess. Some of them are good ones. I really have no idea what made it to these shores and what didn’t, but here are the ones worth a look:

He Died With a Felafel In His Hand: This is based loosely on a book of true(ish) stories of share-house living in Australia by John Birmingham, who now writes more serious shit (and a great newspaper column). The stories are from a golden time when pretty much any layabout kid and student could get the dole, which was well over by the time I was at uni and living in filthy share houses, but the stories and characters still ring scarily true. The film stars Noah Taylor, who often plays British characters in supporting roles in US films.

Two Hands: This was Heath Ledger’s breakout Australian role just before Ten Things I Hate About You (and to a lesser extent, Rose Byrnes’). It’s a good little film. The scenes in Pando’s house crack me up, as do the kid’s pin-up Adidas pants.

Cosi: This film is the film version of a play written by Louis Nowra, who was probably the only notable alumni (other than me, of course) from my high school. The play was set at a psychiatric hospital right near the school (it’s now a bunch of McMansions), though the film has been moved to Sydney and in a more modern setting. It has David Wenham playing a sex-crazed pyromaniac, as well as Toni Colette and Rachel Griffiths before they were so famous.

The Sum of Us: Also based on a play, a young Russell Crowe is gay and not as objectionable as you now believe him to be. Go Russell!

For bonus point, Netflix also has what many consider to be the worst Australian film ever made, Deck Dogz.

"Smile!" Get fucked.

Mon, 25 Jul 2011 04:23:50 -0400

I have been in LA for the past few days on a weekend holiday. I’m currently stuck in LAX airport (kill me) so I’m going to pass the time with a little venting:

In the time I’ve been here, two different strangers on the street have said, “Smile!” to me.

This has been happening my whole life, but curiously has never happened in Portland (theories why?) so after a year-long hiatus, it reminded just how much it bothers me.

This is my face. My mouth (apparently; I don’t spend much time studying it) naturally turns down in a way that evidently makes it look like I’m frowning. I’m not. This is my face.

I got these comments most when I was bartending. “Gi’us a smile, love!” “It can’t be that bad!” “I’ll have a beer and a smile!” I had customers I’d never even served say “Oh, you’re that angry one, aren’t you?” “Oh, you’re the bitchy one.” Apparently just looking at my face was enough to “know” that I was a bitch. I almost got fired for it.

I’d like to think that anyone who knows me can attest that — despite the general sarcasm and the fact that a swear like a sea captain with Tourette’s and the occasional snarky blog post — I’m usually a pretty happy, friendly person. I laugh a lot, I joke a lot. I’m sorry if my face doesn’t reflect that, but there’s not much I can do about it, other than fake a smile (and I have a horrible photo-ruining fake smile).

But what really bothers me about it is: What if I really was angry or upset? What if someone I knew had just died? What if I had just been dumped? How inappropriate would it be to come up to me on the street then and say “Oh it can’t be that bad! Give us a smile!”

And even if it’s not that case, it’s basically still walking up to a total stranger and saying, “I don’t like the way your face looks. Change your appearance to please me.”

Because those are the two reasons people are frowning: either something bad has happened, or their face just looks like that. That’s it. No one actively frowns for fun, unless they’re a toddler.

I know it’s usually meant well (except sometimes in bars, when it’s a come on), but it actually upsets me when someone on the street is so bothered by the way I look that they feel compelled to let me know, and tell me how my face should look. Then I actually do frown.

Stupid email

Thu, 07 Jul 2011 18:19:23 -0400

My work email address has apparently found its way to some big PR databases, and so I now receive lots of press releases about things that are totally irrelevant to anything I write or care about. They amuse me, though, because publicist speak is so weird and they’re funny to read aloud.

Now I’m working at home again, I have no one to read stupid press releases to. So here are some opening lines from recent ones that you can read aloud to yourself:

“Menopause is not contagious”

“Don Lemon is a well-recognized face – not just in his Anchor position at CNN, but by the ground-breaking announcement he made last month that he is gay.”

“You can get more people to tell you about their latest sexual antics than to tell you how much they make. This same kind of prissy secrecy prevails when you start talking about pricing your ebook.”

“Set in the Wild, Wild West, immediately after the Civil War, Robert Strzalko’s A Bullet for Two decidedly reels in the audience with a shocking rape in the opening paragraphs.”

“Welcome into a photographic and historic journey of the legendary 20th century costume balls.”

Learning to Love You More

Wed, 06 Jul 2011 00:04:33 -0400

I’m back from San Fran, which was excellent fun, as always. I may write more on it soon.

When we were at the SF Museum of Modern Art, I came across a little exhibit about the website Learning to Love You More, which was an online art project thing by Miranda July and some other artist that ran from 2002 to 2009.

I had totally forgotten it existed. I came across it very early on. I was a teenager. I’d never seen anything like it on the web — interesting little projects you could do in an afternoon then upload to the site. I loved how pointless and fascinating it was and I had to do one of them.

I did Project #16: Make a paper replica of your bed.

Here is my bed, from sometime in 2002 or 2003. I lived at home and it was a futon.

The replica was made with card stock and Paddlepop sticks (popsicle sticks) covered in masking tape.

Things I'm doing at the moment... San Francisco edition

Sat, 02 Jul 2011 03:44:00 -0400

I am in San Francisco hanging out with my folks. This is my favourite city in the US. I have fun every time I come here.

Reading

Skippy Dies

I started reading this a while back then forgot, so I had to start again. It’s funny and well written and clever but a breeze to read. I like that it’s set in Dublin. I am fond of books set in countries other than Australia or the US. The language is simultaneously familiar and surprising.

The Psychopath Test

I read this on a flight from Chicago back to Portland. It’s Jon Ronson’s (of Men Who Stare At Goats) look into mental illness and the psychotherapy industry. It is, of course, very entertaining and there’s some genuinely fascinating stuff about psychopaths, but it looses focus a bit towards the end. Still totally worth reading — for at least 60% of the book, you’ll be hanging off every word.

Eating

Burritos and banh mi

SF does both Mexican and Vietnamese better than Portland. I got in late Thursday night without having eaten dinner. There’s a decent but not amazing taqueria near the Civic Center (Taqueria Cancun) where I got a huge burrito for like $5. Even just a decent burrito here is pretty great — it was packed with coriander and the salsas were fresh and spicy. I’m going to take my folks to the Mission soon for some of the good stuff. Growing up, they would make us hard shell Old El Paso tacos with biodynamic low-fat yogurt and shredded Coon cheese.

For lunch today we went to Saigon Sandwich in Little Saigon for banh mi. You have to know it’s there — it’s tiny and away from most of the other sandwich places. There’s no seating, just these old women taking orders and making banh mi like machines. The woman at the counter commands “Order sandwich!” but otherwise, they are silent. The entire menu is six sandwiches, all around $3.25. All the customers pack in sweatily into the tiny old shop waiting. It’s not quite as good as the best banh mi in Melbourne, but it’s close. We sat in the park outside city hall and ate them messily in the sun.

Vegan food

On Tuesday, I met up with Melbourne vegan bloggers K and Toby from In the Mood for Noodles, who were in Portland on holidays. We went to Taqueria Los Gorditos, because I think it has the best vegan Mexican food in Portland (maybe El Nutri Taco, though), and I also knew it had gluten free stuff. I wanted to try something new, so I had gorditas, which are like little pockets of corn masa stuffed with, in this case, soyrizo, sour cream, avocado and jalapenos. They were surprisingly spicy and entirely delicious. I think K and Toby dug their food. They had eaten a lot of Mexican on their trip around the US, but it’s totally understandable, as Mexican food in Melbourne — what there is of it — isn’t great and tastes even worse after visiting this continent. After dinner, we went across the road to Portabello for dessert and I had a towering piece of vegan tiramisu. It’s an entirely vegan Italian restaurant, but I know plenty of omnivores who love it. The pizza crusts are fantastic. Meeting new people is super, and I like (attempting) to help people have fun times in Portland when they visit, because it CAN be a really fun city if you know where to go, but if you don’t, you’ll end up at the Saturday Market or City Grill and that would be a tragedy.

Watching

Page One

On Wednesday night, I saw Page One, the new documentary about the New York Times. It was a fascinating look inside the paper, though the film itself meandered a little. It was shot from 2009-2010, when lots of newspapers were shutting down and the big Wikileaks thing dropped. I remember that period well — I was at Crikey and it was an exciting time for online media. We didn’t like to see papers die, but at the time, it really felt like the whole newspaper industry might collapse at any minute. 2010-2011 was less eventful in that respect, so the film feels a little dated. The sense of emergency captured on screen has died off a bit in reality, even if things are probably still pretty critical. The film also focuses disproportionately on David Carr. There’s a reason — he’s engaging and hilarious — but you could hardly call it “rounded”. I think it probably hammers home the importance of professional media outlets with high journalistic standards, though it does so by comparing it only to the most scrupleless blogs and websites, as if there aren’t any online outlets practising good journalism. Still, I would encourage everyone to see it, because the future of the media — the importance of them medie — is something every informed citizen should be thinking about right now, and it raises a lot of important questions. I also think it will be a totally fascinating time capsule to look back on in 50 years.

Hearing

There is a guy outside my hotel playing trumpet. I wish he’d stop — it’s past midnight.

Coffee, coffee, coffee

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 00:58:10 -0400

Well I’ve been lazy here, haven’t I? But I finished up my gig at Willamette Week today and finally have a spare second to catch up on what I’ve been doing:

A lot of my time was taken up writing about the rather controversial sale of Stumptown Coffee. It started with this, which turned into this, which was followed by this. Chasing down sources and leaks and documents reminded me of being back at Crikey. I was really happy with our coverage of this story, not just because we scooped the mainstream media, but because a lot of feedback was that the coverage was even-handed and thorough. People love to accuse independent media of being biased and unprofessional — even when it isn’t true — and it makes me feel warm and fuzzy when readers recognise the important role indie media outfits can play in reporting.

I did a great Q&A (well the conversation was great, whether the Q&A itself is great isn’t up to me) with a fascinating guy who researches the history of technology and the internet. We talked a lot about spam (computer spam, not food spam), which is a remarkably interesting topic.

This week was WW’s annual Summer Guide. Last year, I didn’t get why people lost their shit so much over summer and were so obsessed with hiking and trail riding and such. Now I get it. Nine months of grey and rain outside while you sit inside drinking really makes you do something physical and outdoors. Huh. My folks are in town from Australia this week, and I’ve been raiding the guide for things to do with them — I am looking forward to spending the week going to markets and mountains and parks. If you’d told me that a year ago, I’d have laughed in your face. Anyway, my contribution (well, co-contribution with an intern) was a guide to consuming coffee in the heat. Nothing says “Portland” like small batch artisan ice cream flavoured with locally roasted single origin coffee.

And of course, there has been lots of tast testing. I tried a bunch of energy bars for our bike edition (conclusion: all gross), we tasted a bunch of different ciders for a cider festival, and we sampled a heart-aching amount of croissants to find the best in the city.

Lots of food

Mon, 23 May 2011 23:18:46 -0400

Here is an article I did last week with a guy making his own chocolate. Thoroughly enjoyed spending that morning sitting out on his deck eating and discussing chocolate. I’ve spent the last few months mostly inside, not speaking with many people face to face. Fucking delicious chocolate, too.

WW’s Devour Guide also came out last week, which is easily my favourite special section the paper does — essentially a food shopping guide to Portland, with every good grocery store, ethnic market, baker, butcher, etc. You can find some of my write-ups scattered throughout. As a follow up, I did a guide on the site to finding Australian food in Portland. I’m mostly proud to have got the term “ridgy didge” into the US media.

I also wrote this blog post the other week, comparing the number of Thai restaurants in Portland with the size of the Thai community. There was maths involved, which puts it dangerously close to seriou journalism for me. Some people got pissy about it, as if it was some racial commentary. Really, I’m just fascinated why there are SO many Thai restaurants here (and so many bad ones).

RIP Arthouse

Sat, 30 Apr 2011 23:08:56 -0400

So I hear the Arthouse has closed. I’m not too into mourning the death of music venues. I mean, it’s sad, but it happens, circle of life, etc. I know people who still moan about the loss of the Punter’s, almost a decade after the fact, and it’s stupid and pointless.

That said, the Arty holds a lot of fond memories for me, and as I didn’t get the chance to visit one last time and say goodbye, I feel like I should say a few words:

I played my first real gig at the Arthouse. I was about 13 or 14, in a band called The Drapes. I didn’t want to play, but RnRHS organised it and didn’t give us much choice. Most adult bands played their first gig at the Arty, but most underage bands played their first gig at the Barleycorn (who would book anyone) or, worse, some sort of FReeZA show in the burbs, so I count myself lucky.

Back then, the Arty didn’t care much about checking IDs, and actually most venues were pretty content as long as you said your mixer or whatever random adult you could find was your dad.

I wish I remembered more of the show itself. It was a Tuesday or Wednesday. I didn’t let my parents come, though they dropped me off and picked me up in the family station wagon. Our drummer was supposed to sing, but wussed out before the gig and refused to do it, so I had to do most of the vocals. We had a song about the movie Labyrinth and one about Telstra called “Star Ten Hash” and a sort of rap-metal one about the Sydney Olympics. We did a cover of “Feed my Frankenstein” by Alice Cooper and “Digging the Grave” by Faith No More.

Everyone was lovely to us. They let me drink a beer. The bartender nodded his head along to the whole set, so I just stared at him for the entire show, convinced we were rocking the shit out of that pub and the ten people watching us.

Afterwards, I worked the door and met some of the skeevy people who lived upstairs.

I went to bed that night with a big smile on my face and terrible ringing in my ears. The next morning, I showered very carefully so the stamp wouldn’t wash off the inside of my wrist so the kids at school would ask, “What’s that?” but no one asked.

I probably didn’t go back for a year or two, when I was in my next band, Absinthe. We went to lots of grindcore and trashy rock shows. We were never IDd. Not that we could afford to get drunk anyway. My pocket money was usually enough for a few pots of Carlton. We played there a few times, too, but I can’t remember much. I remember the bartender wanting us to go on early so he could catch the last tram home and we wouldn’t. I remember the doorbitch inviting us to play a show at a bar across the road and we agreed and it turned out to be a bondage club. I remember the rider was pretty decent, and they usually gave you a few extra freebies.

I remember it was always dark and there were never any seats and the beer was always cheap and the jukebox was great and the pool table was… there.

But mostly I remember it as the place that let a bunch of preteen girls act like rock stars on a school night. Vale.

Things I'm doing at the moment...

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 02:18:32 -0400

It has been too long, no?

Eating

Kimchi

When the farmers market returned, it brought with it a new vendor selling kimchi. This lovely Korean family who make napa cabbage, white cabbage and bok choy variations, as well as awesome pickled radish. I make Koi Fusion-inspired kimchi quesadillas with it.

Hot cross buns

I made hot cross buns for Easter, as few bakeries make them here and the ones I tried were pretty woeful. I used this recipe. It was pretty good — I would up the spices and sugar a bit next time and work harder to locate some mixed peel. Hot cross buns being toasted just smells like Easter to me. I remember going to the Convent to get hot cross buns with a good friend and also eating Babka ones with my brother and niece not long before I left Melbourne last year. Seems crazy it was only a year ago.

Drinking

Punch

I went to the opening of the new McMenamins hotel the other night (I’m not explaining McMenamins to the non-Portlanders, just read this). Not usually my sort of joint, but they were serving some really tasty punch. A few bars around town serve punch. I wish more would. It cuts down on wait time and is delicious.

Listening

Low, C’mon

Really enjoying the new Low album. I’m trying to remember the last time I saw them… I think it was the East Brunswick Club a few years back. Low is a band that just consistently sends shivers down my spine. I know, slow songs, pounding drums, sparse vocals — it’s kind of the formula for that sort of thing. This album involves more multilayered instrumentation and is a bit “happier” (happier sounding, anyway — I don’t often listen to lyrics) then previous efforts, and some of the instrumental lines are really addictive. Here is the “trailer” (albums have trailers now? I get sent trailers for books, too):

Reading

Just Food: How Locavores are Endangering the Future of Food and How We Can Truly Eat Responsibly

I read this ahead of this interview with the author last week. A really interesting challenge to the concept of “food miles”, the whole culture of the “locavore” movement and a wake-up call about the worsening situation of global food supplies. The locavore thing is pretty all-consuming in Portland, and while I think it’s excellent, people can miss the forest for the trees a bit. I’ve always hated the term “think global, act local”, because most of the time, what I do in my confortable little first world, middle class world has bugger-all positive impact in the areas that need the most help.

OMFG WTF LOL BBQ

Wed, 27 Apr 2011 23:53:47 -0400

I’m really happy with this article I did with local designers OMFG. It started because I couldn’t work out why I wanted to visit the sports bar mentioned in the article, Spirit of 77. I hate sport. I realised I knew it would be inherently ‘cool’, and then I got thinking about what makes places cool, and then WHO makes places cool. It was a really fascinating poke behind the scenes.

Coffee and bestiality

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 03:46:42 -0400

Last week, WW’s cover was a big feature on coffee. Coffee has usually come under the regular cafe reviews, but the scene has just gotten so crazy here in such a short amount of time—the number of micro-roasters and specialty coffee stores per capita now surely eclipses that of Seattle or San Fran (I can walk to eight different specialty coffee houses from my apartment, four of whom roast their own)—that I reckon it deserves to be covered in its own right. Anyway, I did that story linked to above (which elicited a surprising amount of vitriol) and also a few reviews. But my favourite bit — which I had zero to do with — was this visual break-down of the cost of a cup of coffee. I love graph pr0n. Despite their coffee obsessions, people here are always whining about the price. Shut up, whingers, it’s like three fucking dollars.

I also watched many videos of Isabella Rossellini having sex with cartoon animals.