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Cascadia Magazine original: On an Open Field
Portland’s Dao Strom is an amazing artist on many levels. In a new collection of work called “On an Open Field” online at Cascadia Magazine, Strom combines photos, music, and text in an exploration of what it means to live between the cultures of Vietnam and America–in the context of a folk song by Vietnamese composer Pham Duy. You can also read an interview with Strom by Portland journalist and musician Lauren Kershner:
“The first time I went back I was 23. Since I’d left as a 2-year-old, I had no memories of Vietnam or of leaving. So the biggest thing I learned, on that first return, was that collective consciousness and inherited trauma are very real things.”
Oregon will be first state with rent control
OPB reports that the Oregon House passed a rent control bill, the first statewide set of limits in the US, and Gov. Kate Brown will sign the bill, which limits rent increases to 7 percent per year. Meanwhile, according to Crosscut, Seattle mayor Jenny Durkan supports federal tax breaks in “opportunity zones” as a way to build missing housing for Seattle’s middle class. Erica C. Barnett writes about the debate in Seattle over the city’s planned upzones to allow more apartments to be built. And housing activist Laura Loe argues that Mandatory Housing Affordability is an imperfect but necessary step toward making Seattle affordable for young renters and people of color.
New Democat leader Jagmeet Singh wins Burnaby by-election
National Observer reports that Jagmeet Singh, the national leader of Canada’s NDP, has won election to the House of Commons to represent the Vancouver suburb of Burnaby south. The Tyee has a detailed analysis of the rise of the NDP and how the results show that either the Liberal or Conservative Party may be on the way out. In other news about Cascadia leaders prominent in North American politics, Washington governor Jay Inslee is expected to announce a run for US president this week. The Washington Post profiles Inslee’s attempt to present himself as a candidate focused on climate change.
Amazon backs out of huge Seattle skyscraper project
GeekWire reports that Amazon is backing out of a huge skyscraper project in Seattle (the same one it threatened to leave if the city passed an employee tax to fund affordable housing). Charles Mudede at The Stranger notes that because of CEO Jeff Bezos’s fickle fandom for headquarter cities, New York finally knows where Seattle is.
Piece of sacred meteorite returned to Oregon tribe
A slice of of a huge meteorite kept in the American Museum of Natural History has been returned to the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde in Oregon, OPB reports. The 30,000-poud meteorite known as “Tomanowos,” discovered about a hundred years ago, is considered sacred to the Grand Ronde.
A master Suquamish basket-maker
Hakai Magazine’s Laura Trethewey has a gorgeous, well-crafted profile of Ed Carriere, a master Suquamish basket-maker who’s been practicing the ancient art of weaving red cedar bark since 1948. “A single basket can take hundreds of hours to make, from collecting to preparing to weaving, not to mention the thousands of hours a weaver has spent training.”
A podcast interview with Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore
Over at KBOO’s Between the Covers, David Naimon interviews Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, the Seattle-based author of Sketchtasy, a roller-coaster of a novel about drugs, club scenes, and gay culture in Boston in the 1990s.
Poetry by Shazia Hafiz Ramji
You can read Vancouver-based poet Shazia Hafiz Ramji’s “You and the Muezzin” online now at Poetry Northwest:
“I am far away from being able to ask
if you know what it’s like to not know
a gift…” Read the full poem here.
That’s today’s collection of news, arts and culture from the around the Pacific Northwest. Have a great evening, and Happy Birthday to Fiona E., who turned 16 today!! –Andrew Engelson Photo credits: Tomanowos (also known as Willamette) meteorite by Mike Cassno via Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA