Will Bryant invades Portland
Will Bryant is still in the city as I write this, but soon he’ll head back south to his lair in Austin, TX, and the gents over at Public School. During his visit he was kind enough to share some of his work in real-life with Portland up at Land Gallery on Mississippi Avenue. Walking into a room full of work I’d seen on the internet over the past few years was surreal! Chuck Norris, girls holding their breath, Bulls, all of the work that is so iconically Will, on a wall in NoPo! Go get it!
If you’ve ever heard stories about how nice will is, they’re all true. It’s pretty clear that Will’s personality comes out in his work and is true to his love/life/mind/soul. Basically Mr. Bryant exudes these colorful sentiments in everything he does, which is awesome to look at on the internet but also excellent to meet in person.
Obviously FORTPORT and Will are a match made in heaven. It didn’t take long for things to get chummy.
Well, take a look for yourself!
Typhoooooon
Man it’s been a while since I’ve written anything about music, or uploaded a playlist. That is to mean I haven’t had anything to say about the subject until I decided to spend a moment on Typhoon. Sparked, the other day, when I saw the band arrive (largely) intact into a dimly lit cinema where I was sitting and I realized, these people are in my life, why haven’t I posted about them? Happily, I gave a refrained shout out in-theatre with their moniker which was returned by the lead singer, Kyle, with an equally petit “yo.”
Alright the Portland music situation is documented to the point of exhaustion. So here’s some more, but rather than critique I’d love to present, support, and admire. It seems to be the natural response to a group of humans that are talented, and have aligned their purpose with their vision & discipline. Meet Typhoon:
If you live in Portland or Salem and have ears perhaps you’ve already heard of the masses that seem to make up this band. Sometimes there are 7 of them, sometimes 14, always bringing together a cacophony of sound behind a wall of poetry tied to their regional heritage.
I first saw these guys live when friend of the FORT Zachary Schomburg was reading live poetry at Holocene a while back. You may recall the series we did called Zach’s Road as he travelled across the country reading his little heart out. Typhoon was playing that night on the same stage with a vintage video loop on projector playing on top of them (to awesome effect). Immediate hook. These people had it. Emotion, restraint, nuance, vocal chorus, horns, soul. That’s what I was looking for, some Portland soul. Not in the genre, but behind the lyrics, and in the execution.
Of course it’s a group of this size making soul-galvanizing indie music, it’s the product of this city (err, territory?). Just look at them, they look like descendants of loggers and pioneers that picked up percussion and xylophone skills and are ready to jim jam with you. And they will, in houses, basements, Burgerville…
Recently Tyhpoon added a spot they did for Musicfest NW on their website. This is such a perfect representation of what you can expect with one of their albums. Perfect transitions from cascading instrumentalism to vocal stillnesses to the effect of crystal clear mental imagery. It’s so easy to daydream with Typhoon. It sounds true, meaty, and splendidly surprising. I especially love the sequence from 3:45 to 8:00.
Kyle’s vocal performance sounds like a man who is surprised by his own resonance. Like David when he first slung the rocks from his sling and surpassed the might of the giant. I’m sure he was surprised, shocked at his own magnetism. And then he followed that magnetism as fine as the needle in a compass. Empowerment, in vocal form.
“Be kind to all of your neighbors
because they’re just like you.
And you’re nothing special, unless they are too.”
“I had no water, nothing to eat
so I drank the soil from the golden chalice
I grated precious stones between my teeth.
And I regret it, in my lonesome palace.
I should have never listened to other’s tales.”
I’ve taken Typhoon with me to many places. It sounds best though in and around Portland, I think. Especially also at the coast. The song Belly of the Cave is a story that takes place “on the northern slopes of the coast range.” Earlier this year I went to Neahkahnie Mountain and took Typhoon with me as I clamored up the slopes, alone, but in concert with the band. Perhaps they were singing about this same peak? Perhaps they knew its history with the Native Americans and legendary buried European treasure at its base, lost since 1577? What an incredible experience as I reached the summit to this song. Typhoon, sometimes you are too much to handle. Don’t you dare stop.
The locals are winning
It’s safe to say you’re on Flickr. Most of us are, but do you geotag your photos? I started to, then I realized it was pretty high maintenance (at least for me). Well if you’ve taken a photo in a major city in the last year and geotagged it, it’s likely that one of these blue or red dots is yours.
Eric Fisher took it a step further, however, by organizing the photos into local vs. tourist photographs. The blue dots represent images taken by people that live in the city presented, and red ones from tourists. He tagged people as tourists if they took pictures in the city for less than a month. X, Y and T, awesome.
London seems to be its own biggest fan of all the cities shown. They clearly love their home and want to share it with the internet (or Flickr, at least).
Perhaps there’s something off the Thames that tourists should be seeing, but aren’t. Especially in the Shoreditch/Hoxton district, clearly there are things worth photographing. Interesting that this could now read as a guidebook on where not to get stuck in a crowd of camera-toting tourists. Instead you can re-route your trip to be stuck in a crowd of camera-toting locals. It’s safe to say the local version of this scenario is superior. Way off to the left few tourists are making it out to the Kew Royal Botanical Gardens, obviously it’s worth the trip with its treetop canopy walkway and Victorian glass Palm House.
What about the west coast?
Here’s Vancouver, BC:
A few tourists are making it out to the University of British Columbia but it looks like only tourists are venturing into Stanley Park. This seems odd, every time I’m in that park it seems like neighborhood joggers are filling the sidewalks. Perhaps they just don’t feel the need to photograph. And what is the major attraction with Commercial Drive heading into Chinatown? So many things can be said about a city looking at these diagrams!
Here’s Seattle:
What a perfect local outline of Green Lake. Capitol Hill lovers really love their neighborhood. Awesome, I find it invigorating that residents are sharing their local attractions with such ferocity. Loving where you live is such a huge part of being human. Bellevue, you get a shout out also, nice work guys. Although no one from out-of-town is visiting you (far right).
Ok, Portland time. This is awesome:
Alright, let’s take a look at this guy. You can see pretty much every bridge in downtown clearly, we love our own waterfront, and there is a surprising local affection for NoPo. We love going to our own Zoo, and we also really like Reed College. As many locals as tourists photographed the aerial OHSU tram (must be the docs), and the people of St. Johns absolutely love their bridge. What else? Oh, no one in Portland is going to the Rose Gardens these days. Sad.
Check to see if your city is detailed, and once you click, Flickr users have been nice enough to tag the photos with all the locations being photographed. Great little study.
Ultimate outdoor school
They call themselves 2 CRPG which means 2nd Group of the Canadian Ranger Patrol (the acronym makes better sense in the original French 2e Groupe de patrouilles des Rangers canadiens). In the sparsely populated area of extreme northern Quebec, something wonderful is happening among a group of rangers, and they have cameras!
In this wide swath of land stretching from the Maritimes on up and around Hudson Bay, 696 Rangers and 585 Junior Canadian Rangers coalesce around 27 patrols and communities. What this means is basically the most ultimate year-round outdoor school cadet/scout program anyone could image. But there’s more. This region is incredibly diverse with five major languages intermixing (English, French, Inuktitut, Cree, and Montaganis) and each communities’ demographics vary from the next. Often, according to their videos, 2 GRPG ends up a mix of Inuit, white, and minority tribal peoples of which some are trilingual, and learning how to become rangers together.
Some of the names of the communities are incredible: Akulivik, Kuujjuaq, Puvirgnituq, St. Paul’s River.
Alright, big deal, a bunch of people up north doing what rangers do. Here is the beauty in the numbers listed above – those 595 Junior Canadian Rangers, they’re kids. Preteens. Teenagers. Young adults. Some of them are in leadership within their age brackets, others aren’t Rangers but staff, and you can imagine how many volunteers this sort of program takes.
Take a look at white teens learning from Inuit teens how to cook, sew nets, and carve wood:
It’s no secret that I adore everything Canadian, but this is incredible. 2 CRPG holds pow wows back to back with bagpipe exhibitions. They run obstacle courses and teach each other how to throat sing. They do everything an Eagle Scout might accomplish in his or her full scout experience, but layer in the indigenous (and clearly vibrant) cultures, languages and traditions. This would be like sending your children upriver one summer where the Army Corps of Engineers holds a leadership camp facilitated by elders of the Cherokee nation, while learning foreign languages, how to survive in the wilderness, and work in a diverse team environment. Training & experience like this can have no price tag.
Here, two adolescent Inuit girls throat sing with one another. This ancient form of singing is done arm-in-arm and originally was used to convey news and stories. This is something most people rarely if ever have a chance to see or experience in their lifetimes. At 2 CRPG though, it’s giggletime.
If I experienced this as a child I would remember it for the rest of my life. I haven’t even been there and I cherish what is happening in northern Quebec. I feel like after I watch their videos my eyeballs and brains are clean. We can coexist! Funny, how I bet no one there is talking about coexisting. Because they are doing it.
I want to support these people, and people like this. Whomever pulls this together every year thank you and may you have a long and healthy rule. What an inspiration. Eighteen awesome videos on their vimeo channel are waiting for you, check it if you want it.
Long ago I myself was an outdoor school counselor. Camp Tadmore, Oregon, played host to two years of my efforts with groups of insane sixth graders often out of their parents clutch for the first time over long weekends. It was incredible for me, because I remember when I went to outdoor school myself in the exact same place when I was a sixth grader. The legends, the spooky woods, the squeal-worthy adventures. Beyond the fact that my nickname after my second year as a counselor was Barn Burner (I may or may not have accidentally set my cabin on fire, with all the kids sleeping in it), it was something I will never forget. I can only imagine the magnitude of the experience here with this program.
Here, camp counselors and staff prepare for the coming junior rangers by brushing up on their kayak skills and strengthening their bonds in preparation. Looks like an awesome team of humans.
Just a little candor
Seventeen years ago Jurassic Park was released to the world in video form (don’t worry, this is not a fan post about Jurassic Park). Easily the most made fun-of/irksome character was Dr. Ian Malcolm. No one wanted to talk about chaos theory, they just wanted to see some dinosaurs, twisted steel, and screaming tweens. I don’t want to talk about chaos theory either, but let me pull something totally out of context that he says and put in in a new one, so long as I am clear with my intent.
When the group sits down and talks about the marketing possibilities of the Park, Ian interjects with some principled objections. Party killer, right? Obviously he was ignored at the time, but two scream-heavy sequels later we find out he was right.
I’ll tell you the problem with the scientific power that you’re using here: it didn’t require any discipline to attain it. You read what others had done and you took the next step. You didn’t earn the knowledge for yourselves, so you don’t take any responsibility… for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could and before you even knew what you had you patented it and packaged it and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox, and now… [pounds table with fists] you’re selling it, [pounds table again] you want to sell it!Or, if you don’t like reading entire paragraphs set in italic, in video form (though applied to the context of Alice in Wonderland 3D, which is also appropriate):
So what is this?
Yah, a principle post. But from ground level. No tall (high) horses allowed, just the stuff that used to kill parties. That was 1993, we can talk about this now.
So shall I call it out? I won’t use names, I promise, but the principle should apply to every field. That’s where we’re going, right? That’s why flight attendants won’t take your crap anymore, right? They’ll push back against unprincipled entitlements, and being treated like under-humans. That’s why girls quit their jobs when CEO’s sexually demoralize them, and post it all online. It’s why we brands are getting rewarded more handsomely than me brands. It’s why cold corporatism has jumped the shark. We’re barrel racing towards principle, but guess what, the old system is pushing back just as hard.
Alright, back to Dr. Malcolm. Now back to me (that was an accident, but fits in so perfectly) – don’t you wish those commercials were for more than an armpit deodorizer? Imagine the power of Mr. Mustafa if, say, it was an ad for TEDxChange. Yeah, Aaron, shut up and just enjoy the creativity of it.
Ok, ok, see I promised no tall horses.
It’s not that I don’t enjoy the creativity of something marketed to sell me useless plastic crap shipped from more than 3,000 miles away. It’s that it’s crazy not to talk about principle in our field. To sit down and make the decision to design something over and over again but not be able to say wether or not it nourishes the world in any way, shape, or form, sounds crazy to me. As an industry, let’s talk about it.
We need jobs, it’s hard for a first-year graduate struggling to find work to even think about not taking a job on principle. But if there were more principled firms & clients out there, then we’d probably be talking about it.
If creativity is a gift, then lets re-gift it. Don’t reduce George Washington & the idea of freedom to an ephemeral Dodge commercial. Don’t steal Terrence Malick’s screenplay and slap your logo on it, touting American workers while manufacturing your products in factories overseas. Don’t think it’s crazy to want more from the ads that try to manipulate you. Demand more, and by more I mean value. Basically, find your principle. Interestingly, originality & a flourish of fresh, creative content will likely follow, because principle compliments discipline, and discipline is honest. As is work.
Dr. Malcolm said that it was a lack of discipline that lead to the catastrophe of Jurassic Park because they didn’t take responsibility for the work they’d appropriated. In the same way, our field will be less if we don’t apply principle to our discipline. Ask of the nature of the value of the thing before you make the thing. Here we are, saying beauty is not enough. Nor is simply lining the pockets of the people who pay us. Big tasks here, and likely impossible for many. It seems worth the tackle.