Coffee Klatch: National Coffee Day

Yesterday was National Coffee Day. Portland is a city of coffee. Stumptown roasters come from the eponymous northwest town in the corner of the United States, so dubbed because one hundred years ago it was full of stumps from the booming logging industry.

Ace Hotel, originally from Portland and now in New York and Palm Springs, serves a mean Stumptown espresso. Fresh Pot in the Mississippi neighborhood serves a Stumptown blend that the store's manager developed with local roasters for a mix that sits especially well with ice cubes. This brew is perfect for Portland's Indian summers, happily soaking the late sunshine before the onset of winter mist.

In the Pearl District and now on artsy Alberta, a new cafe called Barista offers a daily espresso selection. Among those offered was a Stumptown Santo Domingo bean, which the barista described as "floral" and "citrusy." I followed her recommendation and watched the brown drops fill the small cup. It was just the right temperature, and I lolled it on my tongue savoring the flavor garden. Just seven months old, this is just one of Portland's many independent coffee houses.

  So if I'm ever homesick, at least there's Stumptown in New York.

Daniel Adler's Uncle Todd

Daniel Adler met his uncle for the first time on his trip. He lives in Israel and lay on the bed in Granny's upstairs guest bedroom. He wore a black fleece beanie and black sunglasses in the style of the elderly. He had two days of salted-peppery stubble. He is tall, dark and thin, and walks quickly with the same stuttered steps of infants just learning the motion.

We began to speak of Nelson, BC, which is reputedly a small rastafarian-style community seven hours east of Vancouver. "They have the best shit in the world. The stuff you got me is crazy shit man, but the stuff they have in Nelson is sick." He bared his yellow teeth as he pronounced sick. "The Israeli police will kill you, they will bash your face in (he gesticulated as though he were holding a billy club) if they see you smoking one fucking joint." They will put you into jail and you will get killed by Arabs, he said.

Since Granny's passport expired we couldn't take the road trip; he was not deterred. He took the 27 hour bus ride to arrive in his dream town on Sunday. He has spoken of Nelson for ten years or so. It is hard to tell if the town is the paradise he makes it out to be, or if he is entirely deluded.

Todd knows about life. He is schizophrenic, though. It is easy to see that. When we went for a walk together he maintained a distance from everyone. He eats in the garage from kosher pots and pans. He won't eat from silver, preferring plastic.

He may be crazy, but he's no dummy. He knows that money rules the world and that there are societal norms that he has no chance or desire of fitting into. He's been partially living off of stipends from the Israeli and American government over the past twenty years. Money is power. He knows he's impotent. Money is a legacy. When rich people lose a lot of money, they may feel closer to their end.  I guess in that way he's pretty far removed from death.

A Weekend in Portland, OR

Today I went to the Portland Farmers Market. The late morning shadows filtered through the oaks and beeches, dappling the ground as we walked through the Portland State campus. Suddenly food stands arrived and clusters of people surrounded them, looking, sampling and buying.


There were purple peppers, golden cauliflowers, native oysters, chevre, pistachio pestos, elk jerkies, artisan breads, heirloom tomatoes, Jerusalem artichokes, squash, gourds, tables of chanterelles, red and yellow dahlias, dried cherries, huckleberries, ripe strawberries, jams, spicy jellies, cherry ciders, milk chocolates, honeycrisp apples, white rose peaches, and all of the transactions were cash. It was much like a medieval fair.

My mother led me to her favorite tables. We sampled the better stands, and we approvingly praised the products we didn't buy. She said, "They have the best carrots." Ed, who farms garlic, onions and what my mom calls Jimi Hendrix carrots, because they're purple and yellow, out in Joseph, Oregon, was a flabby cheeked old man. He wore plaid, wide square-lensed glasses, and a gray cowboy hat. His teeth were yellow and his jowls flapped when he spoke. He is there every Saturday. 

At the end of the strip were the food carts. Pine State Biscuits are crazy - they have perfectly non-greasy fried chicken sandwiched between two flaky crusty golden biscuits smothered in coarse yellow mustard, bread and butter pickles and honey. While I waited in line, Mom bought a couple of salsa drizzled tamales, artichoke and chicken.

But the food scene isn't the only thing going on in the P.

Last night we went to Holocene to see War Paint. With their watery indie sound, the girls were a perfect fit with the candlelit bar and $3 Rainier tall boys. The crowd had a little more trouble vibing with The Very Best. By one o clock, we were in the car bar around the corner. We drove back home on the I-5 epping with seven people in the car. After some Irish champagne for a nightcap, we smoked our farewell cigarettes and called it a night.

My Pledge to America: LGA

Americans sit and read in post postmodernism, play with their phones, hungrily eat heavily sugared treats. Different faces and colors, hairstyles and bodies, they wait for their time to be called by the airlines. A man with a weak jaw and a heavy droopy mustache walks along. Travellers more practiced look tired, less eager than patient. Others are vaguely excited to return home or see loved ones. Business people with tans, older couples walk.

Their shoes say most. Open toed sandals, fine black leather, boat shoes, running shoes, flip flops. People walk around and sometimes you can glimpse indicators of where they're from - a Grant Park bag, an Oakland sweatshirt. It is hard to resist identifying their attire, physiognomies, and style with where they are from. Others resist identification. They are floaters or are uprooted. Ungainly, they look about, wanting to be there already. There are plans to be made with business partners and family and friends. They walk back and forth on the terminal runway.

Everyone here is relatively comfortable. They have done this before. They are familiar with the routine of travel. I am. I know the waiting, the drawn out hours of in between, the pleasure of arrival and the imminence of departure.

Daniel Adler Goes Home

Dear Blog Audience,
Over the next two weeks, I will be in Oregon with my crazy uncle, my granny and her small Chinese Crested Powderpuff (above). Many adventures will follow. Although I have officially spent more of my life in New York, Oregon holds a place dear in my heart. In fact, the feminine protagonist of my forthcoming novel, Hot Love on the Wing, is from Portland, because, let's face it, all fiction is at least somewhat semi-autobiographical. Here is a passage that represents the wonder of this young woman, and her home, for the lovestruck hero:

Oregon. What was it like there? Ken Kesey was from Oregon. It rained there. They had good bud. He imagined lumberjacks and wet evergreen forests, mossy with glistening raindrops on ferns and hemlock, red cedars and rolling hills. He wanted to see that wild country. His taste of grand travel while driving through Europe made him reminisce about the vast experience he still needed in order to have a grasp on the world. He desired to leave New York while he was young enough to live elsewhere, and compare it to Shanghai, Amsterdam, Los Angeles, Melbourne, Beirut, Portland - he wanted to taste the world’s full course, and he viewed his country’s west coast as a substantive appetizer.

Pardon the mise en abyme, but that was a little appetizer wasn't it? Stay tuned. 

Love,

Daniel Adler

Stink Bugs and Apartments

The new home of Daniel Adler and family is 105 Grattan St. The area teems with young, individually minded people, and awaits imminent gentrification. Instead of the condescending, measuring looks people give when you're on Bedford Ave., the people here nod and, if you do, smile. They are locals, and because you know about this scene, they assume you are too.

Our apartment is exactly where I wanted to be. It's a quiet tree-and-brick-apartment-lined street that is in the middle of an industrial zone. There is lots of barbed wire, and caught, shredded plastic bags. Graffitti is the avant garde art, but there are a few local galleries too. Today, Roberta's had an Oktoberfest party with live music and brats.

A five step stoop leads you into the hallway and our front door, marked 1R in black lettering on gold tape. Julie will have the front well-lit room, off the cozy kitchen.  A long hallway leads past Matthew's dark middle room and through my room to the private backyard, equipped with lawn accessories (which the current tenants are kind enough to leave us). There are no stink bugs.

Julie, my cuz, was unsure at first, but one of the tenants reassured her about the neighborhood when he told her about "the best bar in America." And so the harvest begins.

PBR: Why It Is So Loved

Pabst Blue Ribbon is one of the shitty beers Brooklyn hipsters cherish. Now don’t get me wrong, I love PBR for all its $10 hangover-inducing glory, but for around a dollar a can, there are cheaper beers out there. But PBR is the cheapest, and most widely available. That means the drunkest.

In the Oregon woods, Natty Light is common. If you're around people who know the slight differences between shitty beers, you might be offered a Keystone Light. But when I find myself with  PBR in hand, I feel like I'm sipping royally. I am a happy camper.

Coors Light is for football games with the family, Bud Light is for the Bridge and Tunnel crowd at MacFadden's. But  2 PBRs for $5 at a bar? Mowrnow. I'll take 'em.

Why is PBR so good? Well, part of it comes from the fact that it’s so damn American. They sponsor rodeos, they’re from Milwaukee, and it’s not Lite. The can is red, white and blue for chrissakes! And that golden, hoppy flavor is arguably better than Budweiser or Coors. Since it’s cheaper, it’s the obvious winner among younger folks.

Being a writer means that I have to be familiar with all of the most singular details. We can discuss cabernet sauvignon, or American lagers. Right now, it seems like the latter makes more sense. 

The Meaning of September: Post Postmodernism and Change

September is the most popular birthday month. Surprised? You shoudn’t be. During those cold winter holidays, everyone couples up and huddles close.

Anyway, with all these babies being born, school starting again, and the beginning of the end of the year, you may feel that vague fear that comes before impending change, especially if you’re having a baby.

That’s the beginning of a post I wrote for Net Kids Wear. The best thing about my job is the free association and philosophizing. Like most writers, I incorporate my own sentiments into a translated version of what I’m paid for. Just before Little Matthew arrived, I often felt that vague fear – like I’m overlooking a precipitous drop. Not that the vertiginous view is  negative, it just happens that when you try to look into the future, you begin to get a little woozy. Better to just let it wash over you.  

So I’ll continue to let you know how this change affects the life of Daniel Adler, in a very post postmodern (bloggy) way. In the meanwhile, read some high literature, view some avant garde art, and watch the seasons change.

Sea of Consciousness Pt. II

Shimmer glisten sparkle.  Striated waves underneath a spectrum of blues. Plateaus of clouds and low lying moisture expand and drift like nebulae. The boat cruises on the waves and makes the magnified sound of wind blowing through reeds.

The way a small boy cries to let his older brother and his friends know they've gone too far - that waa, moving into a louder wail to show a parent that he's been hurt, and then the way he sits alone, despondently, regretfully wishing that he had been more of a man, able to withstand the pain and teasing better, that he had been born older, and not the little brother, the baby.

The sky is a spectrum, ranging from white blue at the horizon to baby at the cloudline, directly above and back the other way.

Daniel Adler thinks the the sea roils like green wine from the cask. A tender tendril of sand.

When Will Post Postmodernism Start Already???

 It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Dickens’ famous first sentence still resounds so clearly because of its universality – every age can apply it to their own. But that doesn’t mean we’re all vain; it means that we all need to focus on what makes our moment special.

Jonathan Franzen has won rave reviews for his new book Freedom, inspiring a new word – Franzenfreude – to describe the feelings of anger from mass entertainment writers as they deplore his Time cover and title of “Great American Novelist.” The book came out yesterday, but it seems to be special not for what it attempts to do, but for what it does. That is, there are no attempts toward a post postmodernism, or a stylistic avant garde art as he admitted there were in The Corrections, but instead, he depicts a culture through a novelistic lens.

That doesn’t mean that avant garde art doesn’t have a place in today’s society. The reason Franzen has been so widely lauded is that he has reverted to expressing human psychology simply – the way many of the best novels do. That doesn’t mean there’s not room for innovation. And while the specialization of last decade’s novels – the delving into ethnic family histories, the intricate layers of narrative and information – was arguably the end of postmodernism, the fact that Facebook Places has just been released as a way to update your exact physical presence means that we are still in the end of that movement, according to Frederic Jameson.

Everyone is in a tizzy, but we have still yet to fully embrace a new era, at least artistically. It seems that political revolution breeds artistic revolution. Modernism took at least the first 20 years of the 20th century to begin, and was a response  to a catastrophic war. Postmodernism was a response to JFK’s assassination and the race riots of the 60’s. Let’s hope that post postmodernism, or whatever they will call it, won’t need the same kind of catalyst.