There’s something about Salem « Desperately Seeking Salem

Archive for the ‘There’s something about Salem’ Category

Photo finish

Tuesday, May 25th, 2010

If you find a bill for $3.00 on your credit card statement and it says it’s from “Fantasy Photos” and offers you an 888 number to call, don’t punch your partner in the gut.

It’s from the time you stopped by that photo booth at the Salem Center mall downtown.

I’ve always been a sucker for photo booths, but I never imagined how difficult it would be to harange a husband and baby into the booth and try to get all of our faces in the shot. Who can think of smiling when you’re so worried about composition?

Ours turned out like our lives: messy, frantic-looking, glazy-eyed, and yes, deliriously happy.

This isn’t your most user-friendly of photo booths. You have to wade through about 356 backdrop images of “Hot Stuff” or “Gangsta” themes in order to get a classy black strip.

Also, this isn’t one of those booths that spill out gorgeous, perfectly colored and developed prints. They are glossy and blurry. But at least they give you two strips of them. Perfect for two 12-year-olds I guess.

We don’t go to the mall much. Seriously, we go so seldom it’s worth documenting.

Posted in Capital Shots, There's something about Salem | 2 Comments »

Welcome to the Secret Society

Friday, May 21st, 2010

I had to giggle a bit a while back when I got lumped into Salem’s new creative class, but that got me thinking. An influx of new creative folks into Salem’s affordable, sometimes charming, often grubby Northeast city section? Is there any legitimacy to that?

There is!

I’ve always held that stuff happens in Salem — it’s just laughlingly under-the-radar. Well… something is definitely afoot in the Northeast Salem neighborhoods.

All it took was one party at my friend the poet’s house (also in NE Salem) to determine that there are a lot of us small-housers out here milking the city for its historic properties and living large on a tiny footprint. In addition to me, my sculptor of a husband and my baby Dash, a.k.a. The Next Alexander Calder, we have:

Michael Chasar, a Poet with an Penchant for Pop

Stephanie Lenox, editor of Blood Orange Review, a well-received online literary mag

William Bragg, photographer - or you might know him as a champion for the underpriveleged

Jonathan Bucci, multimedia artist, and his writer wife, Rachel Bucci

Any more you can think of? Whom have I forgotten? Whom haven’t I met yet?

As far as I know, all of the people listed here have been in Salem for five years or less. Yay for new blood — and for E.B. White quotes that can lend themselves to cities other than New York.

Posted in Art, Celebrities, Home, Salem Mysteries: SOLVED!, There's something about Salem, These are the people in my neighborhood | 19 Comments »

A Clockwork Awesome

Sunday, May 16th, 2010

You were probably among the hundreds who gathered at a retooled space on Commercial Street last Friday to celebrate the opening of Clockwork’s Cafe and Cultural Center, a project dreamed up by Ryan Rogers and his merry men (and women) of Culture Shock.

I wasn’t.

I was throwing together dinner while preparing Dash for his oh so early 7 p.m. bedtime. But I heard it was a great party and I knew I had to get down there soon to see what’s brewing.

For one, Stumptown! Perhaps the best development for us coffee-addicted snooty sippers, the cafe is serving the country’s best coffee. Stumptown doesn’t let just any old coffee place serve its roasts. From what I hear from Ryan, they interview you. Clockworks must have been deemed worthy because I’m sipping some Indonesian varietal at this very moment.

As you can tell from the pictures, Clockworks isn’t your garden variety cafe that’s been thrown together with no concept. Opening as it does, just as the Steampunk aesthetic is reaching the mainstream, it’s got a clock fixture and found art sensibility that hasn’t been done well (if at all) in Salem before.

Clockworks is a nonprofit, and as such, it will be offering a wide program of events. I’d be tempted to say something for everyone, but I kind of throw up a little in my mouth everytime I read that, so I’ll just say that I might even want to offer my own writing class in its rocking spaces.

Some things one might do at Clockworks:

Take a class (perhaps even by yours truly, more on that to come) at C4 Academy
Give a class (Salem creatives, contact Christy Seehey, 503-399-7076)
Learn how to dance
Rock out, slam towards, puppet over, laugh in on the Clockworks stage (seen above)
Make out in the huge barrel at the back of the main room
Let your kids play in the kids space in the mezzanine
Cut some digital audio once the sound room is finished
Find some space to clear your head in the little writing nook
Hang with friends in the (actually very cool) lounging area
Read a book in a pillow-laden bathtub (to come!)

Something for everyone? (Blech! Sorry…) Perhaps not. There’s definitely nothing for the Keep Salem Lame-r’s here, but they’ll just stay at home anyway.

Posted in Art, Coffee, There's something about Salem, These are the people in my neighborhood, Uncategorized | 6 Comments »

Statesman Journal's Best Of's – Where the Masses Get it Wrong

Monday, May 3rd, 2010

It’s that time of year again, folks. It’s time to furrow your brow and shake your fist and cluck incredulously at how the public in Salem so often gets many of its own Best-of’s wrong. Say what you will, James Surowiecki, about the Wisdom of Crowds, but there are areas in our lives where it really helps to have a real taste maker tell you where to go and what to eat, what to see and what to do. Otherwise you might just end up eating your Cheap Eats in the charming digs of Costco instead of at La Perla downtown.

Some categories of the Statesman Journal’s annual best-of’s are obviously spot-on. Word of Mouth wins Best Breakfast? Yeah, I’ll agree with that one.

But man, are there some hilarious entries and hilarious winners in this year’s poll.

Best Place to Give Birth:

1. Silverton Hospital
2. Salem Hospital
3. At-home with midwife

What’s number 4? In the the back of your Subaru on the way to the hospital? Under the rotunda at the State Capitol building? Spontaneously in line at Fred Meyer?

Best Hot Dog

1. Casey’s
2. Costco
3. Mt. Angel Sausage Co.

I love a hot dog, but does the hot dog really warrant its own category? A better bet would be best grilled cheese. Casey’s would win that, too.

Best Coffee Shop

1. Dutch Bros.
2. The Grind
3. Starbucks

Love me some Dutch Bros. on the way down to Eugene to work sometimes, but people people PLEASE!, Dutch Bros. is not a coffee shop, unless you consider sitting outside on a lawn chair next to the water feature a coffee shop experience. Best coffee shop is the Beanery downtown. Best coffee SHACK is Salem’s Latte.

Best Food Cart

1. Casey’s Cafe
2. Capitol Dog
3. Adam’s Rib Smokhouse

Do these restaurants really have food carts or are they just selling food cart food? Someone please enlighten me. Where are the Salem food carts? I know there are a few on Silverton, and there’s a Latino fruit cart that parks sometimes on Savage Road. Can we count Canby Asparagus Farms at the Chemeketa St. Farmer’s Market as being a food cart? If so, they win.

Best Bookstore

1. Borders
2. Book Bin
3. Tea Party Bookstore

I’m done talking about how much Borders sucks. But here’s a note in case you’ve forgotten. My friend and I meet often at Borders for our Bored Meetings. Can’t find a book there because they never have what I want or need. I heard they carry Twilight, though.

Best Adult-related Business

1. Santiam Wine Co.
2. Enigma Adult Toy Boutique
3. Eve’s Boutique

That’s not a best-of list, that’s a recipe for a kinky Saturday night!

Ah, best-of’s. You say so much about Salem. I’m nominating this mobile from our nursery for Best Sculpture AND Best Zoo.

Posted in Books, Capital Shots, Coffee, Emily: Angry!, Food, Media, There's something about Salem, You are what you read | 13 Comments »

Almost Famous

Tuesday, April 27th, 2010

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.

Posted in Beer: It's what's for dinner, There's something about Salem, These are the people in my neighborhood | 6 Comments »

New Growth Forest

Monday, April 5th, 2010

I rarely admit to loving television commercials, but I’ve got a soft spot for that Subaru short where the driver gets his Outback all sexy muddy and then waits for it to rain, calling it a Subaru carwash. Clearly, this is a spot that has reached its intended audience — lazy old me, who is only happy when it rains and who connects with her forest green Impreza on a level that some might call intimate.

So how happy was I when my husband pointed out that we had a small tuft of moss growing right behind my left front wheel. Am I a bad or neglectful car owner for wanting to watch this little patch GROW GROW GROW its way into the thick carpet that blankets my front walk?

It’s like a big fuzzy green Muppet eyebrow for my wheels!

Your attachment to most might depend on how long you have considered yourself an Oregonian. Most people I talk to hate the moss that creeps stealthily up to their roofs. Moss, like the lowly dandelion, is an unwelcome guest at many house parties.

But hey, we rent our house, so for now, we say bring it on, moss. Go ahead and build yourself up in accumulations that begin, ever so slightly but powerfully, to make me think I’m sharing a house with more than just a husband, a baby and two cats.

Posted in There's something about Salem, These are the people in my neighborhood | 1 Comment »

Is This Your Bunny We Found Hustling D Street?

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009

Bunny 001

For months I have walked by a house in my neighborhood where two bunnies, one brown and one white, frolicked on the lawn.

Lawn bunnies.

I assumed they were somebody’s pets — that the homeowners had domesticated their bunnies so well that they let them roam freely in their front yard.

Free-range bunnies.

Until tonight.

Tonight a highschooler from South Salem stopped on our front doorstep, rang the door, and stood there, holding a small, quivering white bunny with red eyes.

She had been knocking on doors up and down the street and happened to land with us. Good thing, too, because we are, I assure you, the nicest people on the block.

We’re calling him Buster.

Bartholomew was another contender.

Anyway, after knocking on quite a few doors ourselves, we learned that there is actually a mythical race of free-range bunnies roaming around our neighborhood. No one is claiming them as pets, and all of the homeowners we talked to insisted that the bunnies are, in fact, wild.

Dear Readers, if you saw this little quivering bunny on D Street, you’d know it wasn’t wild. Someone come pick up your pet at the Willamette Humane Society, because that’s where this buster is going tomorrow.

Come on folks, let’s not lose another bunny to the mean streets of Salem.

Posted in There's something about Salem | 12 Comments »

Traveling the Globe in Salem

Saturday, October 17th, 2009

Italy I love a good self-mythologizer. Heck, if you read this blog, you might argue that I am one.

But when the impulse to craft one’s own story starts sounding like a none-too-stealthy marketing campaign — and a slightly ridiculous one at that – I can’t help but call shenanigans.

Today I’m calling out Christo’s, Salem’s generally awesome, family-owned pizza restaurant, which opened at a new location on Broadway earlier this year.

Now, Christo’s pizza is arguably Salem’s best. The hand-thrown crust is crisp, the sauce rocks, and I’m pretty sure I saw a couple at a table next to us last night eating a pizza that could have been baked in a joint on the trash-strewn streets of Naples.

Also, the place employs a completely brilliant performer and voice coach who moonlights as a server there and who is inclined to break out into Verdi’s “La Donna è mobile,” filling the place with song and shaking everyone out of their rainy-night duldrums. (Watch that video and then try not to think of Stella d’Oro bread sticks…).

But flip over the menu and you might find something curious. A map of sorts. A message indeed. A little graphic that shows an Italian boot placed smack over Salem’s newest revitalized neighborhood and calling that ‘hood “Salem’s Little Italy.”

Now, we’ve all wondered about the name of this new neighborhood before. And I’ve tipped my hat towards something more original than the “Broadway District,” or anything else that borrows mythologies from other cities.

But “Little Italy” poses an exceptional problem, not least because Christo’s isn’t really a neighborhood filled will Italian immigrants. Does one restaurant a diminutive country make?

If that’s acceptable, than may I also propose the following.

Salem’s Chinatown: The block occupied by Kwan’s.

Salem’s Russian Village: That store tucked into the Northeast Lancaster Drive strip mall that claims to be a European gift store but whose pickles and tea suggest an audience of Russian immigrants.

Salem’s Japantown: That cafeteria at Willamette where Japanese students from the Tokyo University hang out.

Salem’s Czech Village: the Kafkaesque corridors of the City Police station.

The French Quarter: The span of road between La Capitale and Napoleon’s. Alternately: The parking lot housing the French Press and Bakery L’Amour.

What others are there?

I have this idea that for a city to achieve greatness in character it has to create its own stories, not borrow them.

Posted in Food, Music to my ears, There's something about Salem | 16 Comments »

Salem's Attempt to Raise the Dead

Saturday, October 3rd, 2009

HalloweenPosterFinal

I hate to say this — especially since I have two stories there this month, my column and a preview of the Diana Gabaldon reading – but the most interesting thing in the October Salem Monthly is a back-page ad.

Man, is it a hair-raiser. Especially if you love Halloween and/or if zombies really get you going.

Among the Halloween-themed events being touted in the ad, placed by Salem’s Culture Shock Community Project and called the “13 Days of Halloween,” is a Zombie parade, Zombie yoga, a Halloween art show, an Ed Wood film festival courtesy of the Salem Cinema, a costume exchange (not unlike what I wrote about in my column), pumpkin carving, a Haunted Salem presentation by Salem Paranormal Investigators, a screening of Rocky Horror, and a Monster Mash costume party at Venti’s.

Whew! Big breath.

And I thought I might have to settle with throwing my own Halloween party and serving eyeball highballs.

I’ve pledged to go as a zombie Emily Dickinson for Halloween, but now I’m wondering how many big-bellied, scary mama digs I can come up with over the next month. Adam says I’d make a great bumble bee, but that might just be too darling for this holiday.

That’s me in the corner… that’s me in the spotlight, dragging my foot and drooling out of the left corner of my mouth…

Posted in Media, There's something about Salem | No Comments »

Leap for the Backyard Chicken – into the NYer

Friday, October 2nd, 2009

hens

You know the backyard chicken has come into its own when it makes the leap to the illustrious pages of the New Yorker, still the best-reported and best-edited magazine being produced in the United States.

And the story is by none of other than Susan Orlean, the very writer most young female nonfiction writers want to be (it used to be Joan Didion).

Orlean has a story out in the mag’s September 28, 2009 issue, on p. 26, which chronicles not just her own adventures in chicken-keeping — she’s been doing it for several years now — but the nation’s on-again, 0ff-again love affair with the chicken. If you want to read it in full, you’ll have to track down a paper copy at the library or subscribe to the online edition.

The piece taps into many of the larger, big-picture elements that the urban chicken keepers in Salem have been explaining to the Salem City Council for months now:

“Chickens seem to be a perfect convergence of the economic, environmental, gastronomic, and emotional matters of the moment. In the past few years they have undergone an image rehabilitation so astounding that it should be studied by marketing consultants.”

Orlean certainly makes the case for the personal pleasures of chicken keeping. She bookends a couple of thousand words on the cultural history of the chicken with the story of her own chicken obsession, which came nearly out of the blue and which has caused her to view her egg-layers more as pets than as livestock.

But it you’ve been following the saga of “Chicken O.,” about the author’s lovable, gentle and endearing hen who came down with Marek’s disease, on the author’s frequent Twitter updates, you may be surprised, as I was, that the New Yorker story carries neither the high drama nor the emotional gut punch of the Twitter story.

I’m not sure whether the New Yorker story will help or hurt Salem’s chances for allowing chickens — she kind of cements the image of the would-be chicken-keeper as well-educated, affluent, erudite and emotionally invested — but for me it has proven that a Twitter story can pluck all the feathers out of a New Yorker piece.

Who knew?

Orlean also makes a suggestion as to what the next twee agri-fad might be: the backyard goat.

Incidentally, the über-modern Eglu chicken coop mentioned in the piece has been a hit in Europe for years. The hens pictured above, from my host family in Germany, reside in one.

Posted in Media, There's something about Salem | 4 Comments »

Desperately Seeking Salem