Street Books has had a fantastic Summer. In fact, I think the project went so much better than Laura expected that she and her and her co-conspirators (Sue Zalokar, among others) have decided to turn it into a year round project.

One of the things I’m most excited about in the long-term project is converting existing patrons into paid librarians. Totally awesome.

In order to get a start with funding, they’ve started a Kickstarter project:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/streetbooks/street-books-a-bicycle-powered-library-for-people

Check it out!

Also: if you’re in Portland, tonight’s the reception.

Today is voting day in PDX, and there’s a measure on the ballot that affects us quite a lot. The sum is huge to support the school bond ($548 million), but Portland Schools, as per the Mercury, are an embarassment.

PORTLAND’S PUBLIC SCHOOLS are an embarrassment: Only 53 percent of students graduate on time, and the average age of our buildings is 65 years. We’re outpaced by suburbs like Lake Oswego and Beaverton, which have lower dropout rates and better facilities.

…Our schools are falling apart. (We’re talking asbestos-coated pipes, oil furnaces that are time bombs for fire, and kids taking turns plugging in computers because of shoddy wiring.) They’ll be even worse in two years. And with the state mired in a budget apocalypse, it’s our responsibility to fix them. Now. Before a major disaster or tragedy makes us wish we’d voted yes.

Portland Mercury Endorses School Bond

We live across the street from an elementary school that both of my kids will go through. It’s old and extremely crowded — sometimes classes are conducted in the halls, but most often every year they get a new double-wide trailer that sits on the land where they conduct classes (without running water, etc)

It feels like hard timing, with the recession still upon us, but I believe this is an excellent investment in the future, will bring new life to PDX schools and new businesses to the city, and I will be voting yes.

See her Etsy store here.

I remember seeing, among others, Jim Harrison read there — his book of poetry Letters to Yesenin was very influential on me at a time I needed it. 

23rd Ave Books will be missed.

Weather.gov has a warning for just such a thing here – yet the weather underground claims we haven’t quite hit that – though having just spent 10 minutes outside, I beg to differ. 

At any rate – having lost a tree earlier this week (we live next to a field, and all the wind seems to end up in our yard) we’re taking it seriously by making sure we have emergency supplies and a well-stocked alcohol cabinet.

Here are a few pics I took — hard to know the best way to take pics in this, as they look nothing like what I see with my eyes. 

(click a thumbnail for a larger view)

We seem to be headed for the same weather in the next few days.

The ice is really amazing. I grew up in Spokane, WA which gets a decent amount of snow – but the ice in Portland is of a completely different level. Think of it like an entire city being coated in a solid inch of oil-covered glass. It’s that strong and that slippery. You can scarcely walk outside of your house.

Here are pics I took about 5 years ago:

Entitled: Rwriting on School Propty. 

Photographed at Rigler Elementary School.

I’ve always wanted to photograph lightning. Tonight I finally got a few pics – 4 with lightning in them, to be exact, out of the ~1100 photos I snapped.

I took them all from my front porch – not the most spectacular view of the sky, what with criss-crossing telephone wires, etc. There’s no award winning shots here, but I’m mighty proud all the same. Click to see these at a larger size.

This last picture is an in-progress shot of a Black Magic Insurance project I’m working on – yes, that’s a gbp machine gone ominous.

The setup is this:

The theme is ‘The Future’

Each week we get our assignment, which includes four words we must use – this week they are: granular, montage, tablecloth, and spurn and one phrase: “And the thing I most fear may come to pass, that”

Assignments are due on Sunday night (or punishable by…?). It’s awesome fun writing under these kinds of bonds. Your story is half yours, yet at the same time you look for ways to wickedly foil the assigner – can I use all 4 words and the phrase in a single sentence? What if a dog bargs and the main character thinks it’s saying “Spurn! Spurn!” etc

If you are unfamiliar with the art of word counting, it’s a sort of addiction – however in writing novels I always count in the opposite direction. A 5,000 word day is a total blow-out that needs later the tender care of black licorice and bourbon to bring the brain back from the brink. For me, 1,000 – 1,500 words is a solid day’s work. If I hit 300-400 words only, they better be well done.

Trying to write 250 words is a tremendous challenge. I’m a long distance runner, not a sprinter, I guess. And so each week after we get our assignments I easily bang out 600 or 900 or 1200 words, and then I spend the rest of the week fretting and deleting and fretting and removing ideas and removing characters and jettisoning the garbage and so on.

Secondly, it’s my first all-out 100% science fiction attempt, and it’s a blast.

The reading will be at Maiden in the Mist, 639 SE Morrison St., Portland, OR in the first week or so of March. I’ll post date, etc. when it gets closer.