I grew up in a small affluent town called Danville just 40 miles east of San Francisco and now I live in an even smaller town called Redmond. It's the kind of town most people in Danville would just as soon forget. But it's my home.
Redmond's been known in the past as the fastest growing city in Oregon, but it's not like that really. The scale of growth is probably extraordinary for someone who grew up here, but I think of growth in this small town as a blessing.
It means more restaurants, more bookstores, more interesting people - people already living here probably don't see the need.
Redmond is the big city compared to Prineville or Madras - it's all about perspective, that's all.
But I see something akin to Danville about 17 miles south of Redmond in Bend, which is where is more commonly known to the outside world.
I wonder what people who live in San Francisco or London would think about a place like Redmond. There's not much to do here in the classic, 25 to 35-year old sense of things to do.
There are no museums, people watching places, no places to spend any time or money. But that's okay, because I have neither time nor money.
All I have is my imagination.
Would someone who saw where I lived suppose that I am wasting my life, wasting my time?
I don't know, but I would have to say they would be wrong.
I have lived in some interesting places, like Madison, Wisc., Arcata, Calif., Seattle, Wash and Osaka, Japan. I would like to live somewhere else again someday, but there's nothing wrong with staying in one place for awhile. And while I'm at it, I might as well get to know the place where I live.
Because there are universalities of man that can be discovered and applied to life wherever you go. And Redmond is pretty much an interesting place to be. It's not like there's nothing happening here.
I've always thought I could live anywhere thanks to my ability to read, write and wonder.
What's going to happen in Redmond, Prineville, Madras, Sisters? I think Bend has already taken shape as far as what it wants to be. The same cannot be said for any other Central Oregon city.
My job keeps me busy. I've established a broad net of understanding with Redmond at the center of it all.
Today, I went to Sunriver, yesterday Prineville, Tuesday and Wednesday I spent in Redmond. Monday in Bend. Last Friday in Madras.
It's a holy circle that I believe will eventually make me understand the people of this region better than anyone else.
Redmond is at the geographic center, equidistant to all.
It is the place that most reminds me of the majority of the U.S. - proud of its decency, not too showy, down-to-earth Redmond. There's no pretense here. It's Flag City USA and Tree City USA and the proud supporter of a new Wal-Mart Supercenter all rolled up into one.
There's local excitement brewing up again about the emergence of downtown Redmond, but I'm not sure I'm buying it yet. I mean really, it's great to see a new bookstore, but two?
And how is the reroute going to help downtown businesses other than to take drive through traffic away ?????
That's what i love about owning a house in Redmond. Christ nobody knows how this market is going to play itself out. We could be talking about whether we're in a depression let alone a recession a year from now.
but I will have a firsthand eye on the entirety of the region, not just Bend, during my time here. I will speak face-to-face with merchants in all the cities of Central Oregon, not just one part of it.
And I will see answers to these questions as they happen in the next 12 to 18 months. Because nothing is inevitable. Anything is possible, and likely.
Friday, November 30, 2007
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Three books by Cormac McCarthy
This won't be a politics blog or a sports blog or a culture blog. I don't pretend to have any insider knowledge. I don't live in Washington D.C. I'm not following anything that closely. I don't even have cable television - though that may change here pretty soon.
I'm starting from scratch really. Maybe that's how it's done, by noticing little things that people say or do and posting them on my Blog.
It's about creating a universe, fictional or otherwise, that people find interesting. I do it for myself, but I do it for whoever takes the time to read.....maybe it's something I've read like three books by Cormac McCarthy.
I've always wanted to read McCarthy, but had trouble reading him until I took up The Road. I read the first lines to myself like a father reading directions on medicine for his sick child. After awhile, it became a kind of poetry and I got hooked.
Sometimes we live on the road where forces are conspiring to get us and hunger grows and desperation emerges.
But small moments carry us through the day, maybe it's the connection with a loved one or a piece of fruit.
Not that looked at literally anything in The Road could compare to contemporary America, approaching the end of 2007.
We don't have to scavenge our neighbor's food lockers or eat other people for that matter, although I did think about going down to Costco and buying one of those 2 month supply kits and a shotgun after reading this book.
But there was a different landscape in the book that exists for us in our current world - the human landscape.
The father and son survive unimaginable circumstances in a realistic way. Their dialog is just how a parent and child talk to each other in every day life, but the subject matter is so striking.
I will find some examples::::
Then I read the first of McCarthy's Border Trilogy - All the Pretty Horses.
John Grady Cole is similar to the unnamed father in The Road because both go to places where most people would resort to lesser human forms -like cannibalism- but both refuse to go there.
Not even after he's (spoiler) been kicked around a Mexican jail and denied one last time by his Mexican flame. Cole learns that it doesn't matter whether you get the girl, or get the money, but there's no damn way they can take away your horse. Or your friends' horses, for that matter.
After reading The Road and All the Pretty Horses, I skipped ahead to No Country for Old Men, which recently became an Ethan and Joel Coen Bros. movie, with a screenplay written by another of my favorite Western writers - Larry McMurtry.
I think I got the book pretty well. It's essentially a violent book that doesn't let you get too attached to any one character because they keep getting dead.
His characters go the opposite direction of The Road and All the Pretty Horses - towards the diabolical. There's an undercurrent of pure evil that has taken over in this book. Maybe the aging sheriff is the last one that can save it. Maybe he's too late.
I found the sheriff's voice-over narration (in the book) annoying. Overall, a good read that kept the pages turning, but a disappointing ending so much that I skipped a few pages of it.
I read the book thinking about how it could be made into a Coen Bros movie. I'm hoping it's better.
I'm starting from scratch really. Maybe that's how it's done, by noticing little things that people say or do and posting them on my Blog.
It's about creating a universe, fictional or otherwise, that people find interesting. I do it for myself, but I do it for whoever takes the time to read.....maybe it's something I've read like three books by Cormac McCarthy.
I've always wanted to read McCarthy, but had trouble reading him until I took up The Road. I read the first lines to myself like a father reading directions on medicine for his sick child. After awhile, it became a kind of poetry and I got hooked.
Sometimes we live on the road where forces are conspiring to get us and hunger grows and desperation emerges.
But small moments carry us through the day, maybe it's the connection with a loved one or a piece of fruit.
Not that looked at literally anything in The Road could compare to contemporary America, approaching the end of 2007.
We don't have to scavenge our neighbor's food lockers or eat other people for that matter, although I did think about going down to Costco and buying one of those 2 month supply kits and a shotgun after reading this book.
But there was a different landscape in the book that exists for us in our current world - the human landscape.
The father and son survive unimaginable circumstances in a realistic way. Their dialog is just how a parent and child talk to each other in every day life, but the subject matter is so striking.
I will find some examples::::
Then I read the first of McCarthy's Border Trilogy - All the Pretty Horses.
John Grady Cole is similar to the unnamed father in The Road because both go to places where most people would resort to lesser human forms -like cannibalism- but both refuse to go there.
Not even after he's (spoiler) been kicked around a Mexican jail and denied one last time by his Mexican flame. Cole learns that it doesn't matter whether you get the girl, or get the money, but there's no damn way they can take away your horse. Or your friends' horses, for that matter.
After reading The Road and All the Pretty Horses, I skipped ahead to No Country for Old Men, which recently became an Ethan and Joel Coen Bros. movie, with a screenplay written by another of my favorite Western writers - Larry McMurtry.
I think I got the book pretty well. It's essentially a violent book that doesn't let you get too attached to any one character because they keep getting dead.
His characters go the opposite direction of The Road and All the Pretty Horses - towards the diabolical. There's an undercurrent of pure evil that has taken over in this book. Maybe the aging sheriff is the last one that can save it. Maybe he's too late.
I found the sheriff's voice-over narration (in the book) annoying. Overall, a good read that kept the pages turning, but a disappointing ending so much that I skipped a few pages of it.
I read the book thinking about how it could be made into a Coen Bros movie. I'm hoping it's better.
It's going to be interesting as the election year heats up which aspect of Bush's performance takes greater heat. His dismal handling of the economy - the tax cuts and the drain on the treasury that the war has created - or his impeachable offenses, like his involvement in the Valerie Plame leak case or illegal wiretapping.
People hear Abu Ghraib, Mission Accomplished and Halliburton, and they think of this administration's hubris and incompetence, but when their houses are being repossessed and their credit lines cut off, there could be some chaos in the streets.
That is what has rekindled this Blog. I'm not sure where it will go, but looking ahead to 2008, there is no shortage of material.
There needs to be some accountability for the current regime in Washington D.C., but at least there are voices out there calling for impeachment including Dennis Kucinich and this columnist in today's Seattle Post-Intelligencer. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/340904_focusimpeachment25.html
There are many articles this week were focused on the coming U.S. financial crisis, including:
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/12/bush200712
The president has not driven the United States into a recession during his almost seven years in office. Unemployment stands at a respectable 4.6 percent. But the other side of the ledger groans with distress: a tax code that has become hideously biased in favor of the rich; a national debt that will probably have grown 70 percent by the time this president leaves Washington; a swelling cascade of mortgage defaults; a record near-$850 billion trade deficit; oil prices that are higher than they have ever been; and a dollar so weak that for an American to buy a cup of coffee in London or Paris—or even the Yukon—becomes a venture in high finance.
My thoughts are that regardless of what happens, it looks like 2008 will be an interesting year to watch in the U.S.
Top stories in my opinion that deserve attention - winner of the B.C.S. NCAA football game notwithstanding:
How the election plays out - I mean, could Americans really ever vote another modern-day Republican into national office. I mean really. But you see the attack machine already greasing its wheels, don't you?
How the U.S. economy responds to simultaneous rise in crude oil prices, the collapsing housing market and rising deficit and war costs.
Better question: how will the U.S. consumer respond when no more credit is available and bad debts are called for payment?
Will $4 per gallon gas become a reality and what does it mean? Could it be a good thing?
How will the U.S. dollar fare against the Euro and what will a rise in prices do to the marketplace?
Will there be a surprise attack on Iran to sidestep what could be an impeachment year?
I don't think of anything as inevitable because history is not inevitable. There are forces and responses to those forces, but the Republican Party has taught me that anything is possible and the Democratic Party has taught me that anything (in an election year) can be messed up.
People hear Abu Ghraib, Mission Accomplished and Halliburton, and they think of this administration's hubris and incompetence, but when their houses are being repossessed and their credit lines cut off, there could be some chaos in the streets.
That is what has rekindled this Blog. I'm not sure where it will go, but looking ahead to 2008, there is no shortage of material.
There needs to be some accountability for the current regime in Washington D.C., but at least there are voices out there calling for impeachment including Dennis Kucinich and this columnist in today's Seattle Post-Intelligencer. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/340904_focusimpeachment25.html
There are many articles this week were focused on the coming U.S. financial crisis, including:
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/12/bush200712
The president has not driven the United States into a recession during his almost seven years in office. Unemployment stands at a respectable 4.6 percent. But the other side of the ledger groans with distress: a tax code that has become hideously biased in favor of the rich; a national debt that will probably have grown 70 percent by the time this president leaves Washington; a swelling cascade of mortgage defaults; a record near-$850 billion trade deficit; oil prices that are higher than they have ever been; and a dollar so weak that for an American to buy a cup of coffee in London or Paris—or even the Yukon—becomes a venture in high finance.
My thoughts are that regardless of what happens, it looks like 2008 will be an interesting year to watch in the U.S.
Top stories in my opinion that deserve attention - winner of the B.C.S. NCAA football game notwithstanding:
How the election plays out - I mean, could Americans really ever vote another modern-day Republican into national office. I mean really. But you see the attack machine already greasing its wheels, don't you?
How the U.S. economy responds to simultaneous rise in crude oil prices, the collapsing housing market and rising deficit and war costs.
Better question: how will the U.S. consumer respond when no more credit is available and bad debts are called for payment?
Will $4 per gallon gas become a reality and what does it mean? Could it be a good thing?
How will the U.S. dollar fare against the Euro and what will a rise in prices do to the marketplace?
Will there be a surprise attack on Iran to sidestep what could be an impeachment year?
I don't think of anything as inevitable because history is not inevitable. There are forces and responses to those forces, but the Republican Party has taught me that anything is possible and the Democratic Party has taught me that anything (in an election year) can be messed up.
Sunday, November 25, 2007
thanksgiving turkeys
Thanksgiving is a strong family holiday in America, and this year has a greater sense of the importance of family and friends as our country languishes under Bush rule.
Turkey time provided some good feastings and football at the homestead, with lots of litluns running around and grownups dancing with glee at the sight of their alma mater's college football victory.
Turkey time provided some good feastings and football at the homestead, with lots of litluns running around and grownups dancing with glee at the sight of their alma mater's college football victory.
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