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Graphic design, art & creative studio in Portland, Oregon.
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MAIN: POP NOW! FESTIVAL.
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HAPPENINGS
AUGUST 2008 |
"...The models will have children, we'll get a divorce. We'll find some other models, everything must run its course..." ANDREW - MGMT
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>> Recently I saw Son Ambulance play the Doug Fir; here's a video and pictures from the night. >> Edition Magazine has released its third issue. More. >> We're currently working on some fun projects, including an animation soundtrack. Details soon. |
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LONG SHADOWS |
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PORTLAND, FALL.
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These days I live in Portland. I came to Oregon once before about four years ago in the Fall. I'd been living in a small Canadian village for most of that year. We'd be up early each day clambering for gear in the dark, hungover most times, hardly uttering a word - not that we weren't on speaking terms - just ingrained in the routine of it all. Then we'd pile onto a bus with everyone else in town keeping quiet right up until the incline. That's when people really woke up, when they could see the first sight of the evening's snow fall. Workmen laying road signs and trucks moving logs if the night had been a rough one. Then we'd snowboard all day. Great long unending days - then we'd be talking non-stop - about nothing but The Mountain. Some days I'd be making muffins in the village while the others made first tracks. (On slow days Jennie would come out back and tell me I could "go off and snowboard for Pete's sake!")
Then one day The Mountain closed. It was the end of Spring and then the end of Summer. I was tired and out of pocket, and the beat up old van we'd taken to Alaska was good for nothing now but scrap metal. We'd landed in Vancouver once more by default. It seemed a shame to end things there, where skyscrapers instead of mountains reached into the sky and no deer or bear could be found. But anyplace would have produced that empty feeling as our friends flew home. Then all of the sudden Portland came into the frame. Cozy but energized somehow with a sea breeze and wet forest smell. As we rolled in on a Greyhound the sky was new. The sun angled down gently, with just enough light to make everything seem fake somehow, and yet more real. Shadows so long I felt young again - like a child surrounded by big things. Portland had been an entirely unplanned leg and our temporary visas were up just about as soon they started, so before I knew it I was off to London all gray and flat (where were the snow capped mountains?), then taxis and airports and x-rays and taxis and suddenly I was home in Sydney. It was as if the sun never really set in Portland. It just kind of rode the curve of the earth, the street lights barely flickering on before the day was done. |
On a busy Tuesday walking the somewhat quieter route on Sydney's busy streets some years later the buses rattled past as I hugged the walls of China Town. I felt my phone vibrating: "I'm calling from the --- in Kentucky... " the accent was strong and seemed put on "...you've won a Green Card sir and we haven't heard a word from you!" Buses pulling in and out and rushing past "I'm sorry? The line's bad, there's a lot of noise here. I didn't catch where you're calling from?" "You should have received a letter from us?" "I wasn't sure if it was real?" "Yes sir this is real! Welcome to the United States..." Another bus and then the line was dead. Then months of paperwork and formalities and questions. From that messy phone call to the goodbyes and itineraries and taxis and more and more paperwork life was in fast motion, as if in miniature. Like ants.
Then before you know it I was in a dingy Customs booth at PDX airport. A tall blond woman with perfect teeth handed me my files and said "Welcome To America". I can't say with any real conviction what I'm doing here now but it feels good to be back with an open-ended visa. Today when I was on Clinton Street reading for hours in a cafe, the sun rose and the dappled light crawled through an open window and onto the page. I looked out of the shadows and into the street and realized I was sitting on the other side of the world again. |
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Site & content copyright Mote Republic 2008.
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