It’s that time again — time to honor the best and most exciting blog posts of the past month emerging from the Salem blogging scene.

Don’t hate me for being the curator. Just do it faster, better, harder!

1. EatSalem. I always tell my journalism students: “You can’t judge the success of a blog by its comments.”

Psshaw!

If your post gets 50+ comments, some level of success must be acknowledged. EatSalem posted this month about some changes to the Salem dining scene and got, in return, a fascinating, interactive conversation about the plight of the restaurateur and some insight into the fickle relationship between the Salem foodies and the businesses that serve them. And it was just a list!

2. Poetry and Popular Culture. Professor Mike posted what is perhaps the most interesting preview of the first-ever Salem Beer and Cider Festival. Far from just a be there, do this, see that kind of preview, his post was a homage to the natural connection between beer and poetry. And he makes the case for why Salem is actually reclaiming its beer culture mojo (with special thanks to Capital Taps for scaring up some of the history).

3. Creative Concepts and Contracting. If you are knew to the intricacies of selling real estate — or if you don’t watch HGTV — you will want to read this local business’s excellent blog about what it does to make messes into eye candy. Even better? Start with the recent post on stripping. That’s right, I said stripping. Margaret gets this month’s vote for “Post Most Likely to Be Read by New Readers.”

4. The Pringle Creek Community blog. If you’ve been following the news about Solarize Salem, you definitely want to check out this preview for the Salem Green + Solar Tour 2010. Among the projects featured in the tour, happening this Saturday, is Oregon’s first Passive House. This is something to be actively excited about.

5. Salem Treasure. Stuck in an office? The rainy season has started? Need some mid-day Zen but can’t get out? When the walls start to close in, turn to Salem Treasure for a play-by-play of a walk along Mill Creek. With ducks.

I wish I could tell you that the first-ever Salem Beer and Cider Festival was a smashing success, that the beer flowed like water, the conversation flowed like laughter, and a jolly good time was had by all.

But that just isn’t the case.

Personally, I had a great time. I was there with a baby – one of scores of babies in attendance — and walked in to find all of my closest Salem friends, some of whom don’t even know each other, sitting at the same table. It was a round table of excellent faces and I was overwhelmed by a feeling of possibly, actually, maybe having achieved a little bit of constancy in my new hometown.

But my husband, and some of his friends, oh, if I can place the blame on them… they just weren’t too thrilled with the event as a whole, crediting the festival’s opaque token system, inadequate beer storage facilities (some of the beers were served warmish), and an overall lack of people with a a rather ambivalent verdict:

Not as great as it could be.

On any other day, I’m sure that the Mission Mill spinning room would have been a fine location for such an enterprise, but on a hot day like last Saturday, the heat sent some fleeing for the windows or down the elevator shaft to the outdoors.

If you could find the room at all. Signs to the festival pointed visitors in the direction of the Beer and Wine Festival.

Live music? Great idea. But the acts we were there for were so loud and the reverb so bad in that space that we could barely hold a conversation on the other side of the room.

Some of our favorite vendors were lined up serving their specialties — Venti’s and Adam’s Rib come to mind. But was anyone buying food on a day like this?I hope it was worth it for them.

And where, oh where were all of the people? I for one felt like you can’t call yourself a beer-swilling Salemite and not show up, but I guess I’m in the minority.

We left at 6. I’d be curious to hear how things progressed in the evening.

Perhaps Capital Taps will weigh in on the finer points of beer tasting. Being there with baby, I didn’t even get a swig.

I hope some of these items get ironed out for next year. I hope there is a next year for the festival.

By the way, there were two great blog posts previews before the event at Capital Taps and Poetry and Popular Culture.

So a bunch of my readers have alerted me to my having been named the #82 most famous person in Salem by K. Williams Brown, the Statesman-Journal entertainment reporter.

First of all I’d like to say thank you.

Second of all, I’d like to protest that I don’t count. I have this idea in my head that people who are working in media, especially as reporters, don’t get to count as famous because they already possess the means to get their voices out there. Unfair — it is, it is! — to group me with the likes of Gerry Frank, Salem’s own Ace of Cakes, who ranked #1 on the list.

Third, notice my placement at #82. As adorably self-deprecating as Kelly’s column is, let us not forget that SHE IS MYLOCAL COLUMN-WRITING NEMESIS and wouldn’t dare rank me in the top 50.

What’s so great about Kelly’s column is the ridiculousness of there even being any Salem celebrities in the first place. Notice that she only actually names about a dozen people, assigning them almost random rankings (I kept expecting there to see a nod to Jon Heder, graduate of South Salem High School, and one-time tot-toting movie star of Napoleon Dynamite. Sigh, no dice).

I would also like to point out one more person who is as high profile as they come and didn’t warrant mention. That nice-looking crazy transvestite that roams the space between Savage Road, NE and the  I-5 underpass on Market Street. Love that guy. Um, gal.

Finally, I would argue that the sexiest people in Salem are the ones that guard their anonymity fiercely, like Salem’s own J.D. Salinger, the writer of the Capital Taps Beer Blog, who has never once aired his name or his dirty laundry in public. There is a genuine attractiveness to hiding behind the work you put out — especially if it’s good stuff.

As for me, maybe I’ll hide my big head behind this increasingly gorgeous muffin face.

The tone of the articles coming out about Oregon lawmakers mulling a system to reward establishments that pour accurate pints of beer would suggest that this is one of those silly, fun news stories that should be followed but not explored seriously.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Oregon has a well-developed beer culture and a closely-knit, world-renowned community of beer producers, drinkers and connoisseurs.

The attempt to assure an accurate pour represents no less than a watershed moment for Oregon’s beer culture.

Don’t believe me? Consider this: Germany, where beer is king, has had a “Society Against Deceptive Beer-Pouring” since 1970 and counts almost 4,000 people from around the world as members.

It helps that in Germany, the line is printed directly on the glass, assuring that even the consumer can see when a bartender shorts a pour.

But people get a little negligent when they start drinking. Enter the “Society Against Deceptive Beer-Pouring,” which sends out teams of beer detectives at Oktoberfest and other folk festivals to keep the bartenders honest.

This sounds like a joke, but it’s very real. Beer costs hard-earned money and beer drinkers should get what they pay for. Beer is, after all, the everyman’s drink.

I’m not sure a decal system, as proposed in the legislation and reported on in the article, is a good idea. Seems like it would be much easier to draw a line on the glass.

Whatever happens to the bill, I am tickled that Oregon takes its beer as seriously as the Germs.