dkSez : : : : : : Don Kahle’s blog

Fifth Friday Footnotes, Follow-Ups and Far-Flung Fripperies:
• Many have asked how our front yard neighborhood potluck went. Almost 20 attended the first “Sundays at Six,” plus a half dozen others who sent regrets. I invested only 40 minutes for set-up and 15 minutes of clean-up. It was simple and easy. Why not start one in your neighborhood?
• Fifty two weeks ago today, three Americans were hiking in northern Iraq and wandered into Iran, where they have been held as suspected spies since. I was in almost the same location one year earlier, but didn’t end up in the same spot. Please don’t forget them.
• When did the term “hippie heritage” stop being an oxymoron?
• My son bought a car with heated leather seats. By comparison, I drive a go-cart. I’d say we swapped generational places, except I never had a heated seated place.
• I have reason to believe Market of Choice is in league with some shadowy avocado cartel. How else could they have the lowest prices all the time? I ruled out the theory that they’ve made a pact with the devil. There’s no way Satan would allow all that good Lutheran church music instead of Muzak.
• Is it terrible that I recognize “almond” first as a color, second as a flavor and third as a nut? Yes, I think so.
• I don’t hear as well as I did when I was younger. I hope it’s not just that I care less what people are saying.
• It says something about you, but I don’t know what: if you turn the knob as you close a door.
• I hope someday to be bored enough to read every word on a Dr. Bonner soap container.
• “Nope” is due for a comeback.
• It was fun for a while, but now I feel scolded by the rhythmic “Wait” at our talking crosswalks. Can we record 100 different voices and loop them, like the automated library return slots?
• Next year I might try to watch the entire Eugene Marathon from a midpoint location. If I begin training now, I might have the necessary endurance by May.
• “For Sale” is a strange Britism (is that a word?). Our selling signs should say “Buy Me!”
• I’m beginning to resent when public toilets don’t automatically flush, relying on me to pull a lever. This can’t be good.
• For reasons I can’t explain, finding a parking place that doesn’t require me to back out of it gives me a quiet joy.
• Success and happiness are easily confused, but dangerously so when it’s your own. They share similar soil, but root from different places.
• Any recipe with “mock” in its name I’m likely to enjoy. I realize this says more about me than the recipe.
• You can explain political persuasions best with condiments. He who adds ketchup liberally nurtures a liberal optimism. She who scrimps and saves, leaving mustard for another day is being conservative.
• People who back into their own driveways are trying to tell us something.
• “Don” is both a noun and a verb. Hmmm.
• I’ve made myself hard to figure, not hard to find.
• I don’t “get” licorice. Anise bread at Anatolia is as far as I go.
• My mattress is made of memory foam, whatever that is. I just hope it misses me during the day.
• Some household items should be sold as subscriptions, replenishing themselves automatically. I’m thinking about sponges, flowers and toothbrushes, just for starters.
• Do you clip your toenails with your foot firmly against a surface or with your toes dangling in the air? I’m sorry, but those are the only two options.
• Can a polymath be good at many things, if math is not one of them?
• I hate to admit it, but I started almost enjoying the four-way stop at 29th and Willamette. It was slower, but neighborly. And when I was in a hurry, I could avoid the corner with a little forethought.
• Speech therapists will tell you their success always comes down to three factors: locution, locution, locution.
• Who was Saran and did we ever properly thank him or her for their Wrap?
• When and how did a person’s weight become so completely removed from their choices? If people insist they’re helpless, don’t they often end up hapless?
• Do you know where your hap is?
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Don Kahle (fridays@dksez.com) published the Comic News in Eugene for a decade. Now writes a weekly column for The Register-Guard and blogs, among other things.

Except for casserole recipes, I don’t often look to the editors of Parade Magazine for inspiration. I thumb through it most Sundays as quickly as I can. I would ignore it altogether, but I can’t bear to waste any part of my newspaper. Come to think of it, that’s probably also why I find casseroles so satisfying. I admire new ways of using little bits of leftovers that otherwise would have gone to waste.
In May, Parade Magazine’s cover story featured clever and innovative housing designs. The editors rounded out the issue by gathering heartwarming stories of people meeting their neighbors. One of those sidebars caught my eye.
A neighborhood in Columbus, Ohio has an informal program they call “Wednesdays on the Porch.” A different resident each week hosts a potluck for the neighborhood from their front porch.
After eight years, 75 different participating families, and more than 130 porch parties, Doug Motz described his brainchild this way: “It’s a time for sharing — opinions on new restaurants, how to find good painters and home-repair people. And the nice thing is, the hosts don’t have to worry about cleaning up inside.”
Last month, I found myself beside one of my neighbors in a day-long meeting focused on building a deeper sense of community in Eugene. He and I agreed to start our version of a roaming neighborhood potluck — Sundays at Six.
We’re inviting anyone who lives on our small stretch of road between two Dari Marts, about a block and a half long. I’m hosting this Sunday, my neighbor and his wife will host the following Sunday, and we’ll see what happens after that. Ice and charcoal are all we’re providing, plus maybe a table or two. Since everyone attending will have come from very nearby, each of us will bring our own chairs and drinks and utensils. We’re not promising even bathroom privileges.
Our block has a mix of young families and retirees, renters and owners, bicyclists and SUV-drivers. If we were a recipe, we’d boast a wild array of flavors. But we don’t really mix. I hope Sundays at Six will stir things up.
“Six weeks is all you get,” my brother Bill insists. “If you haven’t had a new neighbor over at least twice in the first six weeks, there’s no hope. After that, somebody could always ask what took you so long — why now?” He lives in the south, where social rules are more rigid and less spoken, but his point still holds. We want to make it easier to connect with neighbors, long after that six-week grace period has expired.
Our neighborhood is just like yours, filled with busy, timid people. We don’t dislike our neighbors. But we secretly fear they may dislike us.
So all we’re sharing is our front yards, something we already share with anyone who passes by. I’ve donated a small Weber grill that has been painted gold, with bold lettering announcing “PARTY.” The grill will travel to front yard of the next Sunday’s host, as a subtle sign. Neighbors can simply walk down the block and look for the distinctive golden grill.
We hope that good things will follow naturally — borrowing a cup of sugar, carpooling to an event, sharing garden bounty, watching a neighbor’s house while they’re away.
Don’t confuse our hopes with an agenda. In fact, we’ve agreed that Sundays at Six may spawn but must itself never become so organized that it requires maintenance, governance and leadership. Whoever hosts this Sunday gets to choose who will host next Sunday, but that’s the extent of the structure.
If somebody brings a croquet set, maybe we’ll have a game. If somebody wants to play music, others may choose to listen. If we learn that one neighbor makes the best mustard, more of us might start bringing bratwursts.
It will be whatever we decide to make it, except without anyone doing the actual deciding.
As with any good casserole recipe, the whole will become greater than its parts. If my neighbors and I concoct something tasty and distinctive from all the ingredients we have close at hand, I’ll admit it started with something I clipped from Parade Magazine.
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Don Kahle (fridays@dksez.com) is executive director for the local chapter of American Institute of Architects. He writes a weekly column for The Register-Guard and blogs. Look for an amazing recipe for Savory Ginger Rosemary Squares. He clipped it from a newspaper.

I celebrate Do It Yourself Diversity Day each July, but this year’s version had a special spiritual twist.
Sunday, July 11, 2010, 6:15 a.m. The alarm won’t go off for another fifteen minutes, but I’m awake with a list of details in my head. Preparation is key.
6:45 a.m. I’m showered and dressed. Hawaiian shirt. Parachute pants are dust colored (that will be handy), they unzip into shorts for the midday sun, and they have as many pockets as a clown suit. Plenty of time left for tea and newspaper reading. At least something about this day will be normal.
7:35 a.m. The Episcopal church up the hill has what they used to call the golfers’ service. I’m hoping to hear John Brombaugh’s last local pipe organ. I’ve left enough time to walk there.
8:00 a.m. The early light plays tricks with the stained glass facing east and a cat is wandering between the pews. The service is quiet, attendance sparse. No organ music. “We hug at eight o’clock,” a parishioner explains, during the passing of the peace.
8:55 a.m. I needed a partner for the day willing to tolerate the unexpected. Laurene Larson is a guidance counselor at South Eugene High School, so that sounds to her like a day at the office. I promised to meet her at 9:45. I walk fast.
9:44 a.m. In line at the downtown LTD station, waiting for a bus and Laurene, whichever comes second. Jubilant Fairgoers stand in line, comparing sun block ratings with strangers. Laurene arrives second, so the first bus leaves without us.
10:10 a.m. We get seats on the second bus to the Oregon Country Fair, but they are not together. I ask the fellow sitting beside me if he’d be willing to switch with Laurene. She waves; seats exchanged. The Fair makes it easy for strangers to ask and receive. Hugging is allowed, but optional.
10:40 a.m. Off the bus and in line again, this time to enter the Fair. Will they hold us there for twenty minutes? The Fair opens at 11. Nah, they let us in early. Rules are barely an impediment at the Fair. Speaking of rules, “Is it OK if I use your name in the newspaper?” I ask Laurene. She smiles. “Of course, use it five times!” Lucky for me — I’d already used it four times.
12:40 p.m. Dr. Patch Adams is on stage talking about mental health care reform. He and his colleague Dr. Carl Hammerschlag effuse about community’s contribution for achieving mental health. An involuntary “Amen” slips out of my mouth. Twice. Both these M.D.s are wearing clown pants. I wonder how many pockets they have.
2:02 p.m. On the bus back to Eugene.
2:46 p.m. Walking into the air-conditioned Hult Center, exactly on time. The Oregon Bach Festival crowd wears just as much make-up as they do at the Fair, but applied to different body parts. The smell of patchouli is gone. In its place is a mixture of Chanel No. 5 and assorted talcs.
2:57 p.m. In our seats, feeling like Dorothy of Oz, only in reverse. Fair musicians wear every color invented, plus a few that have no names. The Festival orchestra is a strict black-and-white affair. But the jubilation is much the same.
4:15 p.m. Two curtain calls and cryptic program notes leads me to believe “Elijah” is shorter than I recall. We step outside, pass Kesey’s statue downtown, pretend to snap his suspenders for good luck, and hop a bus back to the Fair.
6:57 p.m. We’ve spent half the extra time at the Fair, and half on the busses back and forth. Does LTD employ a “sparkle sweeper” to prepare their vehicles for everyday life on Monday?
7:04 p.m. We enter First Christian Church a few minutes late for the 107th interfaith service commemorating 9/11. The spirit here is deeply akin to what I’ve seen everywhere today. “The remedy of fear is awe and curiosity.”
8:39 p.m. I used almost all the day’s sunlight to view spirituality from diverse angles. I empty my pockets. My son is curious (if not awed): “How was it?” I smile.
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Don Kahle (fridays@dksez.com) writes a weekly column for The Register-Guard and blogs. This weekend, he will be emceeing the Graand Kinetic Challenge at daVinci Days in Corvallis.

Brian Logan never wears pants. The former general manager and still barista bravissimo of Theo’s Coffeehouse spends his days behind a serving counter, so you may not have noticed that he always wears shorts.
“I don’t even own any long pants anymore,” he admits. He’s not militant about his clothing choices. He keeps a pair of dress pants in case he gets invited to a wedding, for instance, but he hasn’t worn them in five years. He doesn’t know if they still fit.
“Maybe I’d have to borrow a pair.” He clearly isn’t seeing long pants in his long future. But what about those few days when it gets really cold? “Wool socks, layers, a scarf.” Even his answers are short.
I asked Brian whether he notices others who eschew long pants year round. “No, not really,” he answers, then pauses, as if a new idea had just entered his head.
When out-of-town friends test my contention that we have the perfect climate, I tell them on any day of the year, I can show them men in shorts and women with jackets.
We celebrate a diversity of dress codes in Lane County. Look over a symphony audience and you’ll find the occasional tie dye, but if you look harder, you might be surprised to see how many are wearing sandals.
For years, meteorologist John Fischer wore standard newscaster garb on KEZI, knowing the camera would never catch his naked toes peeping out his Birkenstocks.
On the other foot, you can wander through Saturday Market wearing neatly pressed duds, but people are likely to suspect you’re either a visitor or Up To Something.
If we sometimes take ourselves too seriously, you wouldn’t know it by how we dress. We’re more honest than most in this fashion, wearing our hearts on our sleeves, or on our lack of sleeves.
But tolerance is tested at the extremes, and I could feel my own getting wobbly when Shirley Gauthier called. She’s a committee chair for the Willamettans Family Nudist Resort near Marcola. They and their affiliates across the country are attempting to stage the world’s largest skinny dip this Saturday, Guinness requires witnesses, and so came the invitation.
“Do I have to look?” I asked, after first establishing that I would be allowed to remain fully clothed.
“The word they use is ‘witness’,” Shirley replied, as if deferring to my wordsmithery skills. We know from following criminal justice that witnesses often are not very observant, so the bar was set comfortably low. I won’t be required to count; only attest that I was there and that the event occurred.
Judging is not appropriate for an event where all the pretense of clothing is dropped. You cannot dress down those who are not dressed. We differentiate ourselves by what we wear, so without it there’s only who we are. And so my role seemed more of a bystander than any sort of overseer.
My friend Linda encouraged me. “Please DO observe! What an opportunity! To see the diversity of skin-encased beings, from the young to old, obese to sleek and tanned, from the apple shape, to bean, pear and plum.” She made it seem more like a fruit salad than a parade of humanity. And who doesn’t love fruit salad?
I accepted. And the best part? They’re giving me a commemorative T-shirt, which seems as appropriate as a gold-plated hot fudge sundae for a Weight Watchers convention or an engraved crutch for winning a track meet. But hey, it’s their party. I’m only there to watch, or observe, or witness.
Never mind this weekend’s event will likely attract fewer nudists than a different fete west of town. They will have plenty of witnesses near Veneta.
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Don Kahle (fridays@dksez.com) writes a weekly column for The Register-Guard and blogs at www.dksez.com. Saturday’s skinny dip is free for visitors. Registration begins at 10 AM. The skinny dip is scheduled for noon. The Willamettans is a year-round licensed RV park with a pool, hot tub, sauna, volleyball, tennis, rentals and camping areas. More information at www.willamettans.com or 541-933-2809.

“Fireworks are a very important part of our tradition.” Was Bryan Beeban speaking as the assistant general manager for the Eugene Emeralds, or simply as an American? No matter.
Yes, these are hard times. But we’ve seen harder. Not you and I specifically, of course. But our nation has been through darker periods than this one. And if darkness is good for anything, it’s good for writing your name in the air with a sparkler, or oohing and aahing at a colorful burst exploding overhead.
The Emeralds have ended their early-July ball games with a bang every year since 1987 and this year will be no different, except for the fact that it will be.
Beeban again: “This year, the Eugene Active 20-30 Club will be doing their show from Alton Baker Park at the same time as we’ll be doing our show. Since they are only a quarter mile away from PK Park—”
Let me interrupt Beeban in the middle of his sentence to interject that anyone needing hard evidence that the center of Eugene is moving northward should consider the city’s fireworks displays. For decades, the best shows originated at Civic Stadium and the Lane County Fairgrounds. Now they’ve both hopped the river. OK, back to Beeban.
“—everybody will be getting two shows for the price of one.”
Or for the price of none. Call it the rooftop factor. Anyone for miles around whose neck works properly can watch “the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air” for free.
Fireworks displays are not inexpensive. The Ems’ show costs more than $12,000, but pyrotechnics — now the featured coda to every Friday night game — brings more fans through the gate. Other fireworks displays have a harder time meeting expenses.
The Eugene Active 20-30 Club’s display — their 64th in a row — costs roughly the same as the Ems’. They will distribute postcards to those watching the show from outside the gates of Arts and the Vineyard, directing them to a paypal link to donate for the show.
“People may not understand that our fireworks display is actually a fundraiser for the children’s charities our club supports,” Keith Engel told me. He’s the 20-30 Club’s Freedom Festival Sponsorship Chair. “We’ll have volunteers in the field making sure people stay out of the drop zone, so it shouldn’t be hard to give them these cards as well. I don’t think we have enough volunteers to ‘pass the boot’ and collect cash donations, the way the fire department does for its fundraisers.”
Funny he should mention the “pass the boot” technique. That’s just what you might see if you’re driving on Route 1 north of Reedsport late Sunday night. Gardiner’s leaders are seeking permission to do exactly that to pay for their show.
“Every year we manage to raise the money,” says part-time Gardiner resident Mike Quartararo. “Sometimes it’s a miracle, but it always happens. We tried donation jars by cash registers, but that didn’t bring in much. Rounding up $3,000 in a town of 283 people can be a challenge.”
Funny he should mention “can be,” because that’s where Oregon fireworks come from. Heather Gobet, Marketing Director for Western Display Fireworks, described her office in Canby, Oregon as “pretty crazy.” She then told me exactly how crazy. Their staff will stage 300 displays in four states this weekend.
Her great grandparents started the company 62 years ago. Her 16-year old son, David, is helping out in the shop this summer, marking five generations of putting the “works” in fireworks.
Gobet can tell you where all the sky shows are happening across the state. The biggest this weekend will be at the Waterfront Blues Festival in Portland and the Mill Casino in Coos Bay. Shows also have been purchased by Florence, Creswell, Brownsville, and Oakridge, just to name a few.
You may not care. If your plan for Sunday night is to tote lawn chairs on to your roof and exercise your neck, here’s the link for donations to the Eugene Active 20-30 Club: http://www.eugene2030.org/donation.html.
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Don Kahle (fridays@dksez.com) grew up near Chicago, chasing lightning bugs. The Eugene Active 20-30 Club also welcomes donations mailed to P.O. Box 365, Eugene, OR 97440.

“Festivals are important to the life of a city,” said Ethan Seltzer, a professor at Portland State University’s School of Urban Studies and Planning, “because they are inherently optimistic.” Seltzer was discussing “livability and localism” last Sunday during a panel discussion that was itself part of a festival — the 15th annual International Festival of Arts & Ideas in New Haven, Conn.

New Haven’s unemployment rate exceeds the national average, and its population of chronically unemployed remains stubbornly near tragic. “During these difficult financial times, we resolved to maintain our festival,” said IFAI Executive Director Mary Lou Aleskie. “If anything, we wanted to have more choices, more activities, more free events.” They cut expenses 30 percent this year, but have maintained a full schedule.

“The object is to create an immersive experience,” Seltzer continued. “I could describe the ideal, but how many of you were on the New Haven green last night for that gospel music concert?” A third of the room’s hands went up, including mine. “Then you know! The Blind Boys of Alabama got the crowd going, and did you notice how people relaxed their usual boundaries?”

When people are having that much fun, they stop caring how close they are to strangers. Caught up in the moment, I’d say “Amen.”

A middle-aged couple approached our patch of lawn and asked if they could claim the open space between our picnic blanket and the stage. We welcomed Mara and Hayne, after they assured us they had not brought lawn chairs. We bantered good-naturedly about the “chair people” and the “blanket people,” wishing that there was height-limitation zoning for free concerts. But the truth is, the lack of rules heightened our enjoyment.

If we’d wanted a safer experience, we could have chosen a restaurant or stayed at the house. Instead, we made new friends. We mixed our dips with their chips. Seltzer calls it “surprise without fear.”

“Cities are a fundamental human achievement.” These ideas ooze from Seltzer’s pores. “Citizens must be empowered to solve their own problems when they can, and that often requires dealing with strangers who live nearby. Having fun together helps that enormously. Livability is socially constructed. Livability is a legacy for a lifetime.”

And so, let us turn our attention to Eugene’s own festival, celebrating its 40th year. For the late-night crowd, the Oregon Bach Festival began last night at downtown’s newest restaurant-club, “Cowfish.” The Bach Remix started at 10 p.m. and who knows when they finished. (Register-Guard entertainment reporter Serena Markstrom was probably there, tweeting.)

George Evano, Director of Communications for the Oregon Bach Festival, refers to the hip-hop pre-opening as “broadening the concept.” OBF has become more expansive, precisely because it knows what it’s about.

“Three things,” Evano told me. I imagined his digits extending as he counted. “First, Johann Sebastian Bach — old guy in a musty wig, right? Well, look closer and you see a man driven by inspiration and creativity, freely adapting from popular culture. He was shameless. I mean, the man stole from himself!” So OBF has adopted Bach’s penchant for borrowing the best from anywhere they find it.

“Second, a vertical approach to education.” Evano is ever mindful that the festival grew out of the University of Oregon. Free lectures with Q&A are the entry level for education, and it builds from there. High school choral programs, master classes for professionals, and special programs for seniors. It all fits inside OBF’s identity.

“Third (and maybe this should have been first), a commitment to performance at the highest level.” Evano didn’t actually say the part in parentheses, but I’m pretty sure I heard it. Pink Martini and Bobby McFerrin fit here, to the delight of audiences every year.

Surprise without fear.

Executive Director John Evans has added a fourth broadening, and that’s geographic. “He really wants to emphasize that the Oregon Bach Festival is for all of Oregon,” Evano said. This year again there will be events in Portland, but now also one in Bend.

The Opening Ceremonies will fill the Hult Center lobby tonight (6:45 p.m., free), followed by Verdi’s “Requiem,” with Helmuth Rilling wielding his baton for the 40th year in Eugene.

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Don Kahle (fridays@dksez.com) returned from the east coast just in time. He writes a weekly column for The Register-Guard and blogs.

… Enjoying The Blind Boys of Alabama on the New Haven Green. Hundreds jiving to their gospel music. But is the standing ovation wasted?

See? RT @errolmorris: Is it possible to write an essay on stupidity w/o looking stupid? (I doubt it. Am I too stupid to realize that fact?)

… Watching an Errol Morris film in New Haven, where he was scheduled to speak. I’m also reading his tweets about his Monday NYTs essay.

Eugene has always looked to Portland for ideas and inspiration, but the blade cuts too often the wrong way. Eugene suffers from brain drain, as its best are drawn northward where opportunities abound for cutting-edge thinkers. Call it “bright flight.”

I think I’ve located the problem. That Portland’s ocean is on the wrong side. America is bookended with Portlands, but don’t call the smaller Portland the “other Portland.” Oregon’s Portland followed Maine’s.

Portland, Maine is a city with half Eugene’s population and double its pride. Forbes Magazine in 2009 rated it America’s Most Livable City. Note that nobody complained about the last word in that title. As a city, it’s comfortable in its own skin.

Comfort comes with age. Portland’s Euro-American history started with a land grant of 6,000 acres from King Charles I in 1623. Eugene’s transportation engineers could visit this smaller Portland for an ingenious traffic-calming strategy called cobblestone. Shopkeepers love it. These original rough-hewn roads seem to shake the money directly out of visitors’ pockets.

The abundance of quaint buildings and a charmingly hurly burly road design point to a city that managed its growth a long time ago. Portland, Maine stopped growing during the Great Depression. The advent of a national railroad network supplanted waterways as the most efficient mode for moving goods, so their ice-free harbor lost commerce.

Hope for Eugene is embedded in this Portland’s history. At the turn of the previous century, Portland realized too late they had backed the wrong (iron) horse. The city fathers were laying railroad track as fast as they could, but they chose narrow-gauge track for its versatility and economy. It wasn’t until well into the 1900s that narrow-gauge railroads became that era’s Betamax — a smarter solution that lost in the market.

America’s largest museum for narrow-gauge railroading is in Portland, so they didn’t come away completely empty.

They bet and they lost. And then they waited. Things eventually come back around. As water lost its utility as a transportation corridor, it gained romance as a respite from all that. Eugene’s waterways have a more angry history, unless you count warships and oil tankers, which you probably should.

We’ve been slower to embrace our water as a magnet for human activity. But the water will wait for us, and we’ll know where to find it when we’re ready.

Most of Portland burned to the ground when a city celebration on July 4, 1866 went awry. No wonder its alternative weekly newspaper is called The Phoenix. Fires dot Portland’s history how floods dot our own.

Portland has a vibrant downtown — more than one. Its original main street (the one with cobblestone) is lined with small shops. Portland boasts the highest per capita of independent businesses in America. Inc. Magazine included Portland in its 2006 list of “Hottest Cities for Entrepreneurs.” Portland’s Buy Local campaign has connected more than 300 independent businesses with the local pride of its residents.

The wharfs along the waterfront have risen from a gritty past to become another enterprising zone for restaurants, tour boats and condominiums. I stopped in at the Lobster Pound, but they wouldn’t allow me to adopt one. I guess I shouldn’t have worn the bib.

The arts district has become a third hub around downtown, built with tax increment financing, and anchored by one of the city’s five colleges’ downtown campus. Creative Portland Corporation has been formed to reinvest the tax increment gains to entice, support and celebrate artists living and making a living in Portland.

“I moved to Portland because of the school’s location,” admits Adriane Herman, who teaches printmaking at the Maine College of Art. “My students can step outside the school’s door and find an instant audience. That matters to me as a teacher.”

The city created an arts district to catalyze the school’s investment. The school opened its downtown doors in 1997. Art galleries followed. Then came an L.L. Bean outlet. Performance halls filled in some of the larger spaces, and now the area is alive again. Their First Friday gallery walk this month had 77 stops.

Portland, Maine has bet its next future on what urbanists call the creative economy. If it fails, they’ll build another museum.

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Don Kahle (fridays@dksez.com) writes a weekly column for The Register-Guard and blogs. Learn more about Portland, Maine’s creative economy initiatives at www.liveworkportland.com.