Exactomundo.

Another little delight from Yoshinao Satoh, this one brought to my attention by @farsouthproject.bsky.social. Such a nice balance of rapid motion and clarity. youtu.be/aXxfeMQVUM4?...

YES!!!

Saw the 1991 experimental film Papers by Yoshinao Satoh for the first time this evening and was blown away. It’s a montage made from thousands of Japanese newspaper pages, and the Steve Reich music is an ideal match. youtu.be/1cmlaTIvd7I?...

Such a brilliant film.

I always say, autumn is my favorite two weeks of the year.

Saw this display on my walk and thought that in addition to Halloween, it also might work for July 4.

This house in my neighborhood has more pumpkins on display than I've ever seen, and fake cobwebs, even as it's shrouded in protective plastic sheeting for some kind of repair. Or wait...is the plastic part of the Halloween decor? I don't even know anymore.

Nothing is better musically for helping me stagger through the last two hours of a story-deadline day than Art Blakey. Just total swing and swagger and chops. Even as the personnel around him changed in the fifties and sixties, one great record after another.

Thinking about drummer Jack DeJohnette's death yesterday. He plays on many records I love, but I only recently discovered his solo work, which has a kind of serenity, even in a song like this from 1977's "Pictures," with nothing but drums for the first two minutes. www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RWR...

I enjoyed this article about items from Gene Hackman's home being auctioned off, including a painting he did that I think is pretty good, and his own Galaga game (which was always one of my favorites at the arcade.) www.nytimes.com/2025/10/24/m...

Visiting the Nyback Archive last night for a screening. After archivist-projectionist Dennis Nyback's death a couple years ago, a team of volunteers has kept this thousands-strong collection of 16mm films alive, and even created a fun microcinema. I loved hearing the sound of a projector again.

The many sides of Jenny...

I’m so pleased and proud we’ve had three truly great filmmakers choose to live in Portland—Gus Van Sant (great early in his career, occasionally mid-career), Todd Haynes and most recently Kelly Reichardt—none of them born here. www.theguardian.com/film/2025/oc...

I love this bookstore, not only for the great new banners, but for the endearing inconsistency of three different versions of the store's name on the facade, window and over the doorway.

Fall leaves, in my yard and peeking over the grocery store's rooftop parking lot.

My latest for Oregon ArtsWatch (@orartswatch.org) is a walk-through of the expanded Portland Art Museum with its director, Brian Ferriso, as he reaches the end of a 19-year tenure. www.orartswatch.org/touring-the-...

I'd been meaning to watch the 2012 Christian Petzold film Barbara ever since it came out, and finally did last night. What a lovely blend of quiet melancholy and simmering tension, with evocative cinematography, which makes wind in the trees a beautiful continuing motif.

After adding new data to our spreadsheet, our central estimate of turnout for the No Kings Day protests yesterday has risen to 5.5 million, with an upper bound of 8.7 www.gelliottmorris.com/p/second-no-...

Finally saw the 1975 movie Night Moves, by Arthur Penn and starring Gene Hackman. Really quite good: an existential murder mystery that makes a good companion to my favorite Hackman role, 1974’s Coppola masterpiece The Conversation. Any Night Moves fans out there?

Listening to Paul Simon’s The Rhythm of the Saints tonight while reading a book, I had to stop, put the book down, turn up the volume and give my full attention to “The Cool Cool River.” So great.

Photos of my great grandfather, Edward Lehman (1888-1974), and my great-great uncle, Charly Lehman (1881-1938), from an ancestral photo album put together by my aunt. Grandsons of Swiss immigrants, they migrated to Oregon in 1900 from Iowa.

From a haunting photography book by county coroner Robert Boltz, edited by Diane Keaton

An essay on three films by the great Jean-Pierre Melville? Yes please. This doesn’t touch upon Le Samourai, my all-time favorite movie. But everything by Melville is worth a watch. brightlightsfilm.com/jean-pierre-...

The Mt. Angel Abbey Library, about 45 minutes south of Portland. It's one of only two buildings in the United States designed by the great Finnish architect Alvar Alto (the other is at Harvard). These photos, taken in 2000, are still among the 20 most-viewed of nearly 11,000 on my Flickr page.

Any fans of the writer Guy Davenport out there? This essay collection is kind of blowing my mind. He’s brilliant at connecting a lot of dots between 19th/20th century literature & art with its classical and archaic roots.

A lovely autumn morning walk in Southeast Portland.

Ever wondered where all the Cheers title photos are from? I did. And I've gathered everything I can find into this post. That was fun. joelmorris.substack.com/p/where-nobo...

I love it: Oregon is no war zone....unless beer supremacy is at stake. I think I'll put a pFriem IPA in the fridge and a glass in the freezer. www.oregonlive.com/dining/2025/...

You can arrest us or pepper spray us or whatever, but we will make you look stupid and feel silly doing it because wanting to assert control is stupid. You want to assert control? Do it to an inflatable frog! So, it’s not just a meme thing, it’s a Portland cultural thing.

This week I visited my friend Randy's incredible basement library and I'm still thinking about it.

One of the more interesting Beatles covers I’ve heard, which I was introduced to on KMHD tonight. youtu.be/Kp0n-461fg8?...

At Mt. Tabor Park this afternoon, on a walk with a former editor of mine whom I hadn’t seen in 20 years, and who led me to different parts and vantage points of a park I thought I already knew.

Another shot from yesterday at Washington High School. Although I'm rooting for cloudy fall to arrive in full force, I do enjoy the effect sunny days have on this building's windows.

Paintings of Nobel chemistry prize and peace prize winner Linus Pauling, encountered today at Portland’s Washington High School, which Pauling attended. It’s now a mixed-use concert venue, bar and offices (including my chiropractor).

Gonna be thinking about this lede for a minute.

These are surreal dystopian times, but my sister is doing some amazing work out on the front lines telling the story.

I wonder if there could be a silver lining to federal troops being sent to incite violence in otherwise-peaceful Portland: a tsunami of love and appreciation for the city.

Laura Cumming gets Thiebald exactly right. “There are still days,” he told an interviewer more than 50 years later, “that start with the thought: This morning, I’d like to paint a pie.”

At my friend Avantika Bawa’s gallery show of architectural drawings tonight, featuring modernist landmarks in Portland, London and Chandigarh.

Portland:

Fun time today being interviewed by filmmaker Erika Bolstad for her upcoming documentary "Monumental," about Portland's toppled and removed monuments and the question of which ones to bring back. I talked mainly about the beloved Thompson Elk statue and fountain.

"Take this, that, those and these." "Thank you, doctor." "Oh, I'm not a doctor." Honorable mention: "Larry Flynt is right!" (In response to a cameo by Stephen Hawking.)

I suspect most people reading this are not Oregon Ducks fans or even college football fans. But I want to pay homage to the brilliant "Ducks vs. Them" series of mini documentaries. This one, following last Saturday's epic win over Penn State, gave me goosebumps. www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwSH...

Capital Cinema, Cologne, by August Sander, c. 1930.

Still considering various photos for my book cover, I came back around to this shot. I want to avoid any postcard-esque shot of a landmark, in favor of a pic that shows Portland's layers of history. Plus I've always loved this old '60s building on 10th Avenue with its checkerboard facade.

On the Willamette River yesterday (near the suburb of Wilsonville) with my friend Joel. He fished while I enjoyed the view.

Interesting story of a Japanese-immigrant photographer, Frank Masura, working in remote northeastern Washington near the Canadian border during the early 20th century, the subject of Beth Harrington's new documentary. Great photos, too: www.orartswatch.org/our-mr-matsu...

I'm considering a grid of several images for my upcoming book In Search of Portland, and came across this shot of The Old Church Concert Hall. Completed in 1882 in the Carpenter Gothic style, it's long been a performance venue. My photo cropped off the top of the building, but I still like the shot.