I’ve been travelling this summer and I came across this amazing postcard in Bozeman, Montana. It reads “Bozeman Montana, where the past eats the present.” As I travelled South into Yellowstone National Park I couldn’t  help but think that, at least at Yellowstone, this is not as true. The present definitely eats the past. So I have a couple movies to recommend based off my experience there, but first let me tell you a little more about my experience.

I honestly thought Yellowstone would be a place where I would park the car, grab my gear and enter the wilderness to set up camp and I would probably run into a couple people along one of my hikes. This is not at all what it is!!! It’s a giant tourist attraction, much like Disneyland. People wait in lines and follow specially built pathways to experience nature. Actually most people don’t experience nature there, they just take a picture of it and move on. You can buy some ice cream right next to Old Faithful geyser as you wait for it to blow. Ever major stop on the route has a nice sized gift shop. My least favorite of all was everyone’s desire to “hunt for animals”… One person drives while the other people in the car will be on the lookout. “Oooh, there’s a deer, or is than an elk, or a moose? Quick stop the car!!!” The family pours out of their car, stand in the middle of the road and shoot pictures for a couple minutes before they hop back in and look for bison and bear. It’s a real wilderness experience, that’s for sure! After my initial bit of tourist shock I was able to allow myself to enjoy the park for what it was – an amazing display of nature. But here are the movies I recommend based off the tourist industry:

Jurassic Park (1993) and Grand Tour: Disaster In Time (1992)

I’ll start the recommendation with Jurassic Park because, chances are, you’ve already seen it so why make it the last movie you watch? But, it’s probably been a while. Grab a nice summery wheat beer that you’d take with you camping and get ready to enjoy the ride! This is the best account of the tourist industry gone wrong and reminds me very much of Yellowstone. The people in the movie are dying to see dinosaurs the way Yellowstoners are dying to see a grizzly bear. But with a little bit of luck, a little bit of chaos, a little bit of survival of the fittest, and a little bit of scheming, you’re tourists won’t know what hit em.

Grand Tour: Disaster in Time is much less known but is still a wonderful flick. For this movie you should grab yourself some trail mix for your journey. Get the healthy kind though please. So, in this movie beautiful people from the future travel back in time to watch horrible natural disasters because in the future everything is perfect and they love watching things go wrong. But you can’t watch something, even if from a distance, without changing it slightly right? Tourists from the future!!! How genius is that? It’s genius.

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I’ve long thought that Portland takes it’s local pub culture very seriously. But not too many people know about Dean’s Scene. Dean Pottle is a plumber by day, brewer by night and he has retrofitted his basement to be a microtopia for beer lovers. You can just barely see the neon light from the sidewalk, you have to know where to look, but if it’s on you can walk around back and enter a whole new world. Dean’s Scene is one of Portland’s best beer culture offerings, and most people miss it entirely. So, why is it one of the best places in Portland to drink a beer? It’s a top-secret, underground speakeasy for beer drinkers!

Down in his basement is a complete brewery and bar and it’s available to anyone who wants to come have a drink with Dean and his pals. He offers about four of his own homebrews on tap. You walk in, get yourself a glass and self-serve your beer. He’s constantly brewing new batches and he has a rule that he’ll never brew the same beer twice. He’s made friends with a lot of the brewers in town and he’s obviously a big collector of beer paraphenilia. It’s quite an exciting place to visit. He’s got a bunch of youtube videos where he’s brewing beer and talking politics with his friends here. Here’s a nice image of the brewery with the bar in the background: Here’s the cabinet with all the beer glasses:

It’s a real microbrewery. Sometimes he’ll open up any number of bottles of beer from around the world for you to taste with him. He’s built his own walk in fridge and he’s aging a lot of beer there. One time he opened up a 3 year old bottle of Stone Brewery’s Epic Ale (2006). That was tasty. Another time he opened up a Heater Allan Hefeweisen, a beer I had never seen before. Yesterday I walked in and he had just finished giving tastes of about 7 different beers that I had never had before. Just missed it!

It’s the only bar in Portland you can smoke at. Really though, it’s not licensed, it’s just Dean opening his house to anyone who loves beer. I always give him a little cash to be nice. Dean’s Scene is on NE Fremont, between 47th and 48th, on the south side of the street.

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You may be wondering why I’ve not been posting lately. I’ve got some good news for you all…I’ve just graduated with my masters degree in fine art. So, the last couple months have been really fast-paced and I haven’t been able to keep up this blog as I’ve wanted to. BUT! I’ve got a lot to say and plan to say it soon! I’ve got a lot of unfinished business on this blog here. I’ve visited a lot of breweries, I’ve been thinking a lot about beer drinking and having a microtopian ethos, checking out utopian art projects, and I’ve been watching a lot of great sci-fi movies. I’m also going to be reading a couple sci-fi books which isn’t something I do regularly. And for those of you who like the larger variety of things I post about, I’ve been thinking a lot about radical education. Also, Jordan will finish up his micronation list soon and he’ll have a B-sides micronation list.

For now, I leave with an image of me at Laurelwood Brewery.

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Hello everyone,
I’m graduating in about two weeks and if you are a Portlander reading my blog I would like to invite you to my final graduate lecture on May 31st. I will be giving a presentation about alternative education and beer as they relate to my artwork. I would love to have some of my readers there! Afterward we will walk down the street to the Beulahland pub for drinks.

Sunday May 31st, 7:00pm
At the Pancake Clubhouse
906A NE 24th, PDX, OR 97232

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I know that most breweries pride themselves in the design of their beer labels and artwork. I really have to hand it to Deschutes Brewery with their two recent IPA’s from their Bond Street Series. The artwork shows an investment in the local and an understanding of the social role beer plays in culture. The Hop Henge IPA shows Stonehenge made out of bags of hops. I assume this image is alluding to the Stonehenge replica across the Columbia Gorge in Washington State. For the actual Stonehenge, the stones traveled well over 100 miles before they were set in place. The stones in this image are actually bags of hops that have been carried a similar distance and are the foundation of most Oregon beers. The Red Chair IPA has an image of a red gondola for carrying skiers and snowboards up the mountains near the Deschutes Brewery. Winter sports are extremely popular in this area. Near the chair is a log with a bottle of Deschutes beer and two pint glasses and the setting is a rustic cabin that you might find up in the woods. Deschutes has paired the local activities with the social act of drinking beer, making the two seem as if they go hand in hand…which they do. The images make the beer seem at once monumental while also casual and invested in the quieter, smaller settings.

Needless to say they are beautiful images as well.

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In the last twenty four hours I’ve had three encounters with the concept of evaluating work, leisure, and chilling out. I wanted to share them with you because lately I’ve been thinking about what it means to have a “microtopian ethos” where instead of working and striving for a larger utopian goal, you sit back to enjoy life in the “here and now” (as described in this article about Education As Art). So, here are the examples I have come across – The first is a quote by Throeau, the second comes from last night’s season finale of LOST, and the third was in an email about a person who teaches meditation and accidentally flipped someone off…

1. A quote my friend found:
The truly efficient labourer will not crowd his day with work, but saunter to the task surrounded by a wide halo of ease and leisure. – Henry David Thoreau

2. An example from the season finale of LOST last night:
An interesting thing happened on the season finale of Lost last night when Sawyer, Juliette, and Kate ran into their old friends Rose and Bernard. The younger group were on their way to stop Jack from blowing up a nuclear bomb buried on the island. Rose and Bernard offered the group some tea and showed them their house on the beach. When the group asked Rose and Bernard to help them stop Jack they shrugged it off and said that they were enjoying their life, they made a house for themselves and wanted to live slowly. They said something to the effect of “Even after travelling back in time 30 years you are still trying to find ways to shoot each other?” I believe Rose and Bernard have discovered that their obligations and sense of duty are self-imposed and/or societal constructs and that it’s important to reevaluate what you are doing and why. They were happy to sit back and allow the younger generation to learn their lesson; they no longer felt the need to choose sides, stop the bad guys, and save the world because it can become a futile and tiresome task. Maybe the better thing is to cultivate an atmosphere for friendship and togetherness and to enjoy the life you have.

3.A story I received in an email:
An interesting thing happened as I was arriving to teach class this past Sunday.  My car was parked right in front of the store and I was (street side), getting my things I needed out for class.  As I was doing so, someone drove past me and honked–obviously trying to tell me that somehow he thought I was in his way.  Without even thinking about it, my arm raised in the air and I gave the guy the finger–yes, the middle finger.  Perhaps, as I was raised outside of Chicago, or that I spent a few years living in NYC, this was just natural gut instinct, I’m not sure.  Just as soon as I noticed my middle finger pointing upwards towards my west bound assailant, I realized (as if I forgot) I was parked in front of the building that I was scheduled to teach a meditation class in just a few minutes.  Needless to say, I had a moment of embarrassment and doubt, asking myself what kind of person does this and then goes and teaches a meditation class?  And as I walked into the store, I just had to smile at the absurdity of the juxtaposition of events.

So, what is this leading to–a public confession?  Not exactly.  From my perspective, everything and everyone is our teacher.  What I realized through this event is that we are much more than the sum of our actions.  With that, it is not so much the things we do that hurt us, but rather the judgement we impose on ourselves.  When young children get punished for doing something wrong, maybe they cry for a bit, but then it’s over; completely forgotten and perhaps they learned not to do that again.  Kids have an incredible lucidness and resiliency to them. But as we get older, we err on the side of solidity and we have to tell ourselves the story of ‘what a bad person I was’ and then we tell that story over and over, again and again until it firmly sets in and we actually believe that it is true.  If I choose to, I could still be beating myself up over that unfortunate incident on the street.  But as soon as I walked into the store, I completely let it go.  In other words, I didn’t take it personally.  I wasn’t proud of it, but I didn’t mistake me for my action.

We make mistakes and we do things that don’t always reflect our highest selves–and sometimes we just embarrass ourselves.  But nothing could be more futile than beating ourselves up.  In this scenario, the incident was the lesson and the punishment–my karma was instantaneous….  If you touch the hot stove when your mother told you not to, it burns.  But if you keep telling yourself how you stupid you were for doing it, you just keep scalding the wound.

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History Pub is a history lesson series that takes place outside of your typical classroom setting, giving you the opportunity hear “a presentation by a humanities expert from fields including history, journalism, law, and women’s studies” while drinking a pint at Kennedy School, one of the most majestic pubs you’ll ever sit in. Whenever possible, individuals who participated in or were affected by the events share their memories as part of the program. It’s a collaboration between the Holy Names Heritage Center and McMenamins Kennedy School Pub and Brewery.

The History Pub’s next event is about Vanport, Oregon, a makeshift city that was build to house war veterans and was one of only two wartime housing facilities in all of Oregon that would house African-Americans. On May 30, 1948, a massive flood destroyed the city, killing an estimated 20 people and leaving thousands homeless. Donna Sinclair will discuss the city’s “de-facto” segregation and newly discovered information about the flood. Ed Washington and Allen Cummings, former Vanport residents, will share their memories of the flood.

Next event:
May 18th, 7:00pm
Kennedy School Pub – 5736 N.E. 33rd Ave. Portland, OR

Picture of Vanport, Oregon in the 1940’s

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I recently attended a lecture at Powell’s Bookstore by renowned paleontologist Peter Ward about the end of life. I thought some of my post-apocalyptic readers might find him to be an interesting guy. He’s written a few books, including the Medea Hypothesis, which is what his lecture was about at Powell’s and what I hope to explain here in this post. He made Animal Armaggedon, a mini-series on Animal Planet about animal mass extinctions. He doesn’t believe that humans are an infection on the planet but that we are a part of nature and nature has cycles where mass extinction happens. As humans we can prolong the current life-expectancy of all animal and plant life on earth if we get smart.

He talked about mass-extinctions and how many people now think that they have been caused by meteors hitting the earth. He showed us the Manicouagan Crater, which is 1,000 kilometers wide but caused no species extinction whatsoever (click on picture above for larger picture). Apparently there are many cases of meteors hitting the planet without causing extinctions. He goes on to show that out of fifteen mass extinctions, fourteen of them were NOT caused by meteors. They were caused by living things – by the coming and going of carbon dioxide and the natural production of hydrogen sulfide.

Ward said that overall there is a disappearing of carbon dioxide which, when it disappears enough, will snuff out life on earth altogether. That is the overall trend that has been happening over large amounts of time. But within our own short history co2 levels are rising fast enough (global warming) to melt off our polar ice caps. When that poles disappear there will be more of an equillibrium of temperature around the globe and there won’t be enough temperature difference to move the tradewinds. As wind movement stops and water becomes stagnant, a larger production of hydrogen sulfide starts, as was the case on the coast of Namibia. Hydrogen sulfide kills off the life around it. Life itself, or living things, cause the rise and fall of co2 levels and sets the production of hydrogen sulfide in motion. Mass extinctions are caused by life itself, so life has brought itself to the precipace of extinction numerous times in the past.

That’s all I have for you. I thought it was interesting and I just wanted to share it with you. I hope this was interesting for my readers, especially my post-apocalyptic readers. I don’t necessarily believe everything I hear but I think it’s good to be thinking about energy production, where it comes from and what you should do about it. It’s all part of making the world you want to live in. I doubt I’ll be posting very many articles related to this so if you are more interested, here is a wonderful conversation chain that Peter Ward has been a part of.

The talk was a little hard for me to follow as I’m not a scientist or paleontologist, so there might be holes in this. Also, I don’t know if this information is old news, if people have known about this for a long time, or if this is fresh off the press.

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Today I gave a lecture in a Pop Culture class about how artists are using social media. We began talking about memes and then eventually the conversation led to talk about the Swine Flu and whether or not the media has made this a bigger issue than it needs to be. In lieu of that conversation, I thought I would give you a couple movies that will help cure your Swine Flu Blues. By watching the movies you will not only be in doors and out of harm’s way, but you will be able to tell the difference between someone who’s been “bit” by the bug and someone who’s still just your normal, healthy pedestrian.

Night of the Comet (1984) – Night of the Comet is one of those post-apocalyptic movies that remind us of how important it is to isolate yourself and surround yourself by walls of steel in order to avoid the coming plague. In this case, the plague disintegrates most people but a few unlucky ones turn to zombies. You need to avoid becoming a zombie yourself, so do what you’re told and sit at least three feet away from the other people watching the movie with you.

Black Sheep (2007) – Okay, Black Sheep aren’t swine by any stretch of the imagination, but I heard a rumor that there is no evidence that swine flu is even linked to pigs in the first place! I mean how do we know for sure? It could be the sheep for all we know. Either way, this movie will help you determine who’s a sheep, and who’s a bad sheep. It’s a bit gruesome, humorous, and gross-out but if you can get past the initial scares you just might make it to the end.

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I know I could get in trouble posting about coffee instead of beer so I promise my beer readers that I won’t post too much about this stuff. But, let’s face it coffee has incredibly complex flavors just as good beer does. The quality of coffee can be judged by it’s aroma, fragrance, body, acidity, flavor, etc. Sound familiar? So, if you don’t enjoy drinking a great beer first thing in the morning, maybe coffee is a good breakfast alternative?

Portlanders love to boast about their Stumptown Coffee. The Stumptown Annex in SE Portland offers free tasting sessions every single day at 11:00am and 3:00pm. They require their employees to go to a tasting session at least once a month so that they can asnwer customers questions about varieties and all the new coffee they get in.

We learned how to smell different aromas at different parts of the tasting process. You have to keep your mouth open when you sniff the coffee so that you have greater oxygen flow.

When the coffee cools down you begin tasting it. You can spit it out or else you might get a caffeine high. You taste it a number times as it cools down because the flavor changes as it reaches room temperature.

One of the beans we got to try was one that they are charging $90.00 per pound retail price. Seems a bit pricey but it was my clear favorite. Apparently it’s a super difficult bean to grow and it only grows in very small pockets of the world. Maybe you’ll get to try this one too if you stop in.

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I’ve been thinking about science fiction and activism lately and how the two can come together in some way. My recent art exhibition, Building in the Post-Apocalypse addresses alternative and radical education in a society that desperately needs it. I will show you photos of that soon. I don’t claim to be an activist, but I think that many of my socially engaged art projects have activist elements tied into them. I’ve been trying to view a lot of my projects through the lens of science fiction – topics such as the blurry lines between utopia and dystopia and surviving an economic apocalypse by creating alternative, generosity-based communities, etc.

Here are a couple interesting links where I see activism and science fiction mixing it up in different ways:

Think Galactic – “Think Galactic is a Chicago-based reading group that seeks to discuss speculative fiction from a radical left perspective. Discussing SF lets us have fun *and* explore issues of oppressive hierarchies, confronting topics of race, gender, sexuality, class and more.” I don’t actually read a whole lot of science fiction, I just watch movies, but the descriptions of some of the books on their reading list are really amazing and I decided to order a couple and read them. If they are interesting I will blog about them. I think I will try to visit this reading group if I’m in Chicago some time.

Sleep Dealer – An indie science fiction movie that deals with issues of Mexican border control, the fight and control of other countries natural resources, and what seems to me to be problems of so-called globalization. I haven’t seen it yet, but this is my take based on what I’ve read. The movie opened this week in limited theaters in only New York and Los Angeles, so I’m super super pumped about seeing it on DVD soon.

Public Social University – A group that organizes free forums and classes as an act of radical education for the people by the people. As part of the art exhibition, Building in the Post-Apocalypse, Public Social University created an event called “Apocalypse.” They had participants play Destrukto a drawing game where you create and destroy over and over. They organized a discussion about whether or not we are currently in an apocalypse and they had someone lead a participatory dance session that explored, in form, the idea of destruction and rebuilding. Next an Urban Planning student talked about rethinking public space and the event finished with a forum of ideas on living more sustainably and re-invisioning social space.

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As part of my exhibition, Building in the Post-Apocalypse, I will have a series of events that range from sci-fi movie screenings to building tours to alternative education workshops. This is my “final MFA Graduate exhibition” and I believe it is a very strong show. Please come see it if you are in Portland. Here is a list of the activities and posters if you would like to spread them around to your friends.

MK GALLERY

2000 SW 5th (2nd Floor) Portland, Oregon

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS:

Check back for updates.
Some events appear twice because they are in multiple categories…

GALLERY HOURS:
Monday – Thursday 10-5
Saturday April 18th, 12-4

ARTISTS RECEPTION:
Thursday April, 16th
3-6pm – Public Social University event
6-9pm – Exhibition Reception
9-12pm – Sci-Fi Screening: Panic in the Year Zero & The Man From Earth

SCHEDULED ACTIVITIES:
April 13th – Monday – 1:30pm – Subjectivity Excercise with the Morphology Chart
April 13th – Monday – 10pm – Sci-Fi Screening – The Man Who Could Work Miracles
April 16th – Thursday – 3-6pm – Public Social University event
April 16th – Thursday – 6-9pm – Exhibition Reception
April 16th – Thursday – 9-12pm – Sci-Fi Double Feature (see above for titles)
April 21st – Tuesday – 12:30pm – Visions of the Art Building (tour starts in lobby)
MOVIE SCHEDULE:
Daily movies subject to change:
April 13th – Mon. – playing all day – The Lathe of Heaven
April 13th – Mon. – 10pm screening – The Man Who Could Work Miracles
April 14th – Tues. – playing all day – The Man Who Could Work Miracles
April 15th – Wed. – playing all day – Fantastic Planet
April 16th – Thu. – playing until 3:00 – The Man From Earth
April 16th – Thu. – 9-12pm screening – Panic in the Year Zero & The Man From Earth
April 18th – Sat. – playing 12-4pm – Panic in the Year Zero
April 20th – Mon. – playing all day – Creation of the Humanoids
April 21st – Tues. – playing all day – A Boy and His Dog
April 22nd – Wed. – playing all day – Silent Running
April 23rd – Thurs. – playing all day – Logan’s Run

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And we’re back! Over the last few weeks I have been posting what I find to be the top five most interesting micronations. This post contains #2 of 5. The others, so far, are #5, #4, and #3.

Name: Republic of Molossia
Location: There are currently three provinces included in the Republic of Molossia: one in Nevada, one in southern California, and one in Pennsylvania. The country also claims to have territory on part of the ocean floor, and part of a crater on the planet Venus.
Ruler: President Kevin Baugh
About this Micronation: Some may think that President Baugh might be crazy and a little too fanatical about this micronation, but that is what adds to the lure of this strange and mostly imaginatory state.  Keven Baugh says, on his website, that the nation was established in 1977 as a kingdom, but that in 1999 it changed to the Republic and has remained that way to this day. The country had many holidays, it’s own holidays, its own armed forces, and even its own national anthem. There has been a lot of thought put into this micronation, but unlike many of the other nations that I have shared with you this nation seems mostly all made up; all of the provinces are either within the boundaries of the United States, or in places that are inaccessable (Venus and the ocean floor).

The President with a peace pole.

Overall I think this is a very interesting nation because of its strong root in reality, but not really having any reality to base all the ideas they come up with in. There is a lot of information on the countries web pages, and if you are interesting in learning more I would highly suggest going there and doing some more digging around!
http://www.molossia.org/

I shall see you at #1

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I missed this the other day. Bummer!

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Beer Wars seems like a movie  worth watching. It’s a documentary about quality beer and the struggle to show the United States how good beer can be. Not that I’m not already convinced about microbreweries, but this sounds right up my alley. Here is the trailer:

From the trailer I didn’t see any Oregon breweries, but I saw some the great well known larger breweries like Stone and New Belgium. We’ll see what happens, but since there wasn’t any mention of them in the trailer, I’ll tell you about a little brewery that I visited about a week ago.

Double Mountain Brewery is set in Hood River, up the beautiful Columbia Gorge, and is located about 3 blocks from the large Full Sail Brewery. Employee Owners of Full Sail started Double Mountain. Last weekend they were celebrating their 2nd anniversary and I traveled 60 miles to attend. I knew they had really great Oregon-style hoppy beer like the India Red Ale, the Hop Lava, and the winter seasonal Fa-La-La-La-La, and even their Kölsch has some hop kick, but I had no clue that they have a whole arsenal of really great brews ranging from German malt beers to crazy bourbon aged browns. They were serving thirteen of some of the best tasting beers I’ve had. Here is a picture of the beautiful drive:

It’s beautiful out here all seasons. Okay, here’s a couple pictures of the brewery, click the image to see it larger:

Do you think that hop poster inspired my recent poster? Possibly subconsciously…

And you know you’re in a good Oregon brewery when you have a folk band like Chickweed on stage under a giant tent because it’s raining.

But what it all boils down to is that Double Mountain is brewing up some of the best tasting beer I’ve had. I decided not to buy the IRA even though it would have been nice to have on tap from the source, but it is probably the beer I order the most. Here’s a list of what I drank in clockwise order from the top:
-Kölsh
-Black Irish – Dublin Style Stout
-Brett-Devil – Fermented an under-hopped IRA wort with 100 percent Brettanomyces yeast that produced some insane flavors including apple and pear. 9+%.
-Fa La La La La – Winter 2008 Reserve
-Standard Porter – Brewed with Gambrinus Organic Pilsner malt, among others.
-Das Boot – Dry Hopped Altbier – A hoppy German dark ale that they’ve made a tad “bigger” in every respect…”but that’s just how [they] roll.”
-Alpenbrew – Light nuttiness with spicy/herbal hops and some fruitiness

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