Summer Tiny Letter, Portland edition
Crossing the great divide, cycling bias edition
As you may know, I have moved to Portland, Oregon, following a 7-day, 2,000 mile cross-country journey. Having a strong dislike for monotonous driving, which to me is most highway driving, I arranged my trip to require between 2-6 hours per day on the road, with lots of stops to explore cities en route. My journey took me through:
Mankato, MN
Mitchell, SD
Rapid City, SD
Billings, MT
Bozeman, MT
Missoula, MT
Spokane, WA
This is the longest trip I've ever taken, alone or in a group. I've had no life-changing insights during, but I've gotten slightly clearer picture of small-town life, and the contrasts between the more red and more blue areas of the country.
Best laid plans…
After an epic stint of packing a U-haul Box (i.e., pod) to the point where I had to use some body English on the door to get it shut, I spent my last morning in Madison cleaning my apartment and cramming my Prius to the brim with everything I thought I would need for the first week or two in town. Some things simply wouldn't fit, so a handful of stuff went to the curb, and I reached that point in every man's life where he is stuffing dirty laundry into every available crevice of his car—need to get on the road!
Mankato, MT
Approaching Mankato, the weather looks sketchy. I pulled into a Casey’s General Store, and asked if anyone had kept an eye on the weather. One of the clerks quickly led me into a conversation about weather, phone apps, and his work on a farm where obsessing about the weather is important. He was very knowledgeable about climate, tornadoes, and risk. I appreciate how a simple question led to an in-depth discussion with someone about their passion. After hanging out for an hour and learning a bit about cloud formations, the storms had passed, and I made it to Mankato. I met family friends the next morning, people I hadn't seen in several years. The visit was brief, but it was great to catch up.
Mitchell, SD
One of the antidotes for sitting on your ass, immobile, behind the steering wheel, is to get on a bike. I had mine on a rack, ready to go. The only attraction in Mitchell I could find was the Corn Palace. If you tell someone that you stopped in Mitchell, they will ask “did you see the Corn Palace?” I did not see the Corn Palace. I just took a ride around the lake, which I believe was called Lake Mitchell. In communities where almost no one uses a bicycle, motorists’ reactions tend towards the extremes. The decent ones will give you a very wide berth when passing, almost like they are showing respect to someone who made the radical, unprecedented, contrarian choice to power their own movement around town. The awful ones will come too close, yell at you, or roll coal*. Fortunately, I didn't encounter any of the latter. I can't say much more about Mitchell, sorry, Mitchell.
* Some pickups are illegally modified to allow the driver to blast black smoke from their tailpipe. I had never seen this before Oregon, and I hope to never see again.
Rapid City, SD
Car culture! Rinse, lather, and repeat. Here are some hotels. Over here are some restaurants you might want to enjoy. Now get in your car and drive 7 miles. Full employment for highway designers. I have nothing interesting to say about Rapid City. Onward.
Billings, SD
I stayed outside the city in an Airbnb in very small town called Laurel. My schedule allowed enough time to take the 2.5 hour bicycle round-trip into the city to get provisions. While the outskirts of the city have no cycling infrastructure, there is so little traffic, combined with the aforementioned wide berth given to cyclists, that I even felt comfortable riding on county roads. I could see there was some effort to create infrastructure within the city, but once again, I encountered almost no one on a bike.
Bozeman, MT
“Bozeangeles” is one of the city's nicknames. An upscale small-town with a lovely Main Street and lots of great outdoor activities, Bozeman was the first spot on my stop where I felt that hard-to-define psychological peace that is not necessarily guaranteed in a city. I did some brief single-track^ riding on a bike barely equipped for it, then wandered up and down Main Street.
The story should be familiar now, people with money either move to, or buy second homes in, a previously sleepy place, pushing up cost-of-living, bringing demand for boujie* food and fashion. You've gotta have at least one good Thai restaurant, and a few yoga studios, high end furniture/home decor. I would visit Bozeman again, mainly for the hiking and biking.
^ Kind of like going on a roller coaster, but on your bike.
* How do you spell this? Using a ‘g’ suggests a hard G sound, but it’s pronounced “boo-jzj-ee.” One of my favorite words, an bastardization of “bourgeois.”
Missoula, MT
Montana is an enormous state, sparsely populated, spread out. It's also known for being very red. Lots of pickup trucks and RVs. Amidst this stands Missoula, a small college town surrounded by mountains. I only had a few hours there, but I immediately found a great place to eat, took an easy bike ride around town. I headed towards mountain trails, but lacking bear spray, I decided not to stray too far. (Bears are a real danger in some areas, you have to carry repellent.)
After rolling through Redville for so many hundreds of miles, stumbling onto a great meal and a Gay Pride parade was a nice change. Okay, it wasn't so much a parade as it was a ton of people in rainbow clothing standing around, with unbelievably loud dance music blaring from a stage, but no one dancing.
[I can hear the old-timers saying, “Back in my day, we didn't just stand around on our phones, we marched and danced! These gay kids today…”]
It could be heard for blocks. Missoula is gorgeous. It's very small, however, so living there could get old really quickly. But it looks like a great vacation destination, again focused on the outdoors.
Interlude
My sense of geography is poor, and fumbling with the phone is about one of the worst things one can do while navigating highway curves at 75 MPH, so I don't have photos for you. But I'm pretty sure it's the transition between Montana and Idaho that is among the most beautiful slices of geography and climate I've ever seen. Rain starts and stops, starts and stops again. Downpour, trickle, dry. Clouds appear in suspended animation, floating low to the ground. Temperature shifts, elevation shifts. I wish I had stopped more often to take in the view. But on the road, one reaches the point where one just wants to arrive—to stop moving.
Spokane, WA
I was pretty exhausted by the time I arrived in Spokane, I really only saw a few blocks of downtown. I don't have a strong impression in any direction.
Portland!
Since arriving, I've been pleasantly buoyed by the welcoming nature of people here. Folks are far more likely to strike up a conversation with a stranger, and very responsive to conversational entreaties. Many people who live here are not from here, so that makes things less insular, and you don't hear tiring questions like “So, where did you go to high school?” But the important thing is, it feels far more viable a place to make connections than the Midwest. And this is one of the key reasons I moved here after yakking everyone's ear off about it for so long.
I have too many observations to fit in anything approaching readable, so perhaps this will be an ongoing series. Let's start with infrastructure (don't yawn, this is really cool). So far, I don't know anything about the planning that went into this city, I only interact with the results. Let's give a quick rundown of what a non-expert notices:
Very low speed limits. Even on main roads, speed limits skew to the low end, like 20 or 25 mph. And it works!
Very short blocks. If something is 30 blocks away in Chicago, you’ve got some distance to cover. Here, 30 blocks is nothing. I was given two reasons for this: it creates more corner lots, which results in more property tax collection for houses on corners, and it increases visibility, presumably for both vehicle users and pedestrians.
Bikeways. These are residential streets that look much like any other, except every so often, an intersection is cut off for cars, while bikes can get through on a narrow sidewalk continue their journey. This has the effect of discouraging drive-through (not Taco Bell, but taking, for example, Tillamook Street for 20 blocks, because in a car, you simply can't).
Speed bumps. They are gentle, but they help enforce speed. Some people find these annoying, but the simple fact is, many people speed, and absent a cultural change (the hardest kind) speed bumps succeed at their job.
Speaking of culture: I've been told that Oregon is the only state where people routinely drive under the speed limit instead of over. I certainly see this in Portland, there seems to be less motorist impatience. I was also told that, if you are standing anywhere near a crosswalk or looking like you might, theoretically, plan to cross the street in the near future, cars will stop. Apparently you have to turn your back to traffic to avoid this.
The city has dedicated bike paths, the type that are completely isolated from the road. I've explored a few of those, and they are great. But I'm more interested in infrastructure that ties in with car traffic, and practices that allow everyone to share the road safely.
Down the road, I'd love to attend a Pecha Kucha or Nerd Nite (lightning round presentation) on this topic, I know there's lots to learn.
Prank-o-matic
I live on a lively and active block. There are many types of noise, let's break them down.
Good noise: jazz music from the club next door, laughter, conversations, bicycle bells, musicians busking.
Bad noise: boom cars, “oops, I forgot to put a muffler on my car,” 1 AM arguments just outside the window.
I can't justify spending a lot of time fiddling with Photoshop, but I will make the occasional visual aid for fun. This one only took a few minutes. I slap them on the light post next to flyers for yoga workshops and upcoming music shows. I hope they bring a smile, a frown, or a deer-in-the-headlights look to passerby.
In my dream vision, this law actually gets enforced. Every now and then, I stroll past in the finest Los Angeles-style suit jacket and jeans, peek in on the music education class, and smile. I wonder how much one would have to donate to a politician's war chest in order to get this through. What if we gathered thousands of small donations, like Bernie Sanders' campaign?
Since I've arrived, the jungle-like, untamed region of my brain responsible for idea generation has gone wild. I'll share more later.
The Women Who Built Grunge
Bands like L7 and Heavens to Betsy were instrumental to the birth of the grunge scene, but for decades were treated like novelties and sex objects. Thirty years later, it’s time to reassess their legacy.
I haven't read this yet, but I plan to. It should be a nice complement to the Carrie Brownstein biography I enjoyed a few months ago.
Studying the means and methods of conspiracy theories
Before you skip this one, note that it is not about vaccines. The authors watched a ton of flat earther videos, and took good notes. This article is short, concise, and very useful at unpacking how conspiracy theories work, and the types of arguments people engage in to promote them.
https://thenextweb.com/news/flat-earth-videos-learn-how-conspiracy-theories-spreadAround the world, and against all scientific evidence, a segment of the population believes that Earth’s round shape is either an unproven theory or an elaborate hoax. Polls by YouGov America in 2018 and FDU in 2022 found that as many as 11% of Americans believe the Earth might be flat.
While it is tempting to dismiss “flat Earthers” as mildly amusing, we ignore their arguments at our peril. Polling shows that there is an overlap between conspiracy theories, some of which can act as gateways for radicalization. QAnon and the great replacement theory, for example, have proved deadly more than once.
By studying how flat Earthers talk about their beliefs, we can learn how they make their arguments engaging to their audience, and in turn, learn what makes disinformation spread online.
Ok, and this one is about vaccines…
I recently met someone who I genuinely like, who also happens to be in the anti-vaccine camp. We got on to the subject by accident, and then ended up discussing it for quite some time. I generally don't seek out these discussions, but I also don't avoid them completely, and if I think someone is receptive to a respectful conversation, I may have it. Stay with me…
Ben, the rebel
I was quite a handful as a kid. Can you imagine that? So were my sister and brother. We all got in trouble with school authorities, at varying times and to various degrees. I used to wear a homemade shirt that said "No egos," was fervently anti-drug and anti-alcohol, not so much because of their dangers, but because I felt my peers were using these substances strictly out of conformity. I thought many people were conformist, and often made my feelings known. While some of my grievances had validity, I was very much driven by an oppositional narrative: most everyone else is wrong, they can't see what I see, they are lame conformists, and I'm the rebel doing his own thing. This of course is typical teenage thinking and behavior. Some form of rebellion seems to be baked into American adolescence and early adulthood.
And of course, I grew up. Now, I still recognize the many broken aspects of American government, culture, and values, and I still believe that many of our problems are tied to conformity, failure of imagination, and unwillingness to do anything which might cause personal discomfort or inconvenience, in the interest of the common good. But I no longer see things through the lens of an awkward teenager. And I'm glad for that. Note to younger self: someday you won't be this awkward.
Narratives and identity
Increasingly, I see much of the world and people's viewpoints through the lens of a narratives. People find, or are given, a narrative, and they align themselves with it. Sometimes loosely, and sometimes fiercely. This overlaps with identity of course, though they are not the same thing.
Much opposition to the covid vaccine follows a similar narrative. It's a classic, "what THEY don't want you to know" scenario. A lot of anecdotes, studies taken out of context, along with a powerful distrust of big pharma (certainly they have done some things to earn that) and government (also lacking a stellar track record).
My new acquaintance related that being on her side of the issue had been very hard on relationships, and that people would demonize her for her stance, some family became estranged. I found myself oddly sympathetic to this experience. I believe she is a genuinely good person, one who cares about herself and others, and is also profoundly wrong about a matter of personal, and very importantly, public health. And as we should all know by now, refusing to get vaccinated is not just a personal choice that stays in the bubble of you. It affects your community in profound ways, and this opposition has a magnifying effect, one that has left this country, at least, in a sort of pandemic limbo. While some other countries got with the program, so to speak, we couldn't do it. This means worse outcomes for just about everyone.
Men in dresses, etc., yawn
But I digress. Back to the narrative idea. Here in Portland, you find all kinds of people. Truly, all kinds of people. The novel stops being novel very quickly. At a recent supermarket visit, I observed a man dressed in something akin to a woman's swimsuit/dress, heavily tattooed, wearing a mask. I thought to myself, well, that is a bit strange, but I'm glad he cares about public health.
I signed up for an improv class, and as we went around the room to introduce ourselves, we were asked to give our pronouns. I'm still mixed on my feelings about this, but I didn't see any harm in it, so I gave mine along with everyone else. It felt like an effort to be more inclusive, and it didn't cost me anything.
With the perhaps unnecessary and obvious caveat that I believe people can dress however they like, identify however they like, sleep with whoever they like in a consensual fashion, etc., I also believe that sometimes, some aspects of identity are not just about a strong internal feeling of who one is, but about getting attention. I'm sure for some on the far left this is sacrilegious to say, but this is my newsletter with its huge subscriber base and massive monetization scheme, so I will say what I like. :-)
Give me attention!
Unusual fashion, tattoos, piercings, along with any and every aspect of identity can attract attention. Let's be honest, we all do things to attract attention, sometimes knowingly, and sometimes without realizing it. I like to design and wear what I consider to be clever t-shirts with obscure, inside jokes on them, and hope that people recognize my unique sense of humor. If they don't, but they're curious, I will literally tell them what the shirt means, though explaining a joke takes most of the joy out of it. It's the same with dressing up, or dressing down. Wearing a killer pair of heels, or vintage tie of a style no one has ever seen before.
Leading back to the original topic, I believe that people with a strong anti-covid vaccine stance have turned it into part of their identity. And when they perceive others being unkind to them, looking down on them, questioning their intelligence or judgment, this doesn't land well. They dig in further. Now, I did not do any of this while speaking with my new acquaintance. I thought it, of course, but I didn't say it. It's good to have a filter. And I could tell that she was quite pained by the experience of ostracization in reaction to her stance.
I'm kind of hearing Paul in my head right now, as he is fond of reminding me of his conversations with extremely conservative relatives, where he does his sweet Socratic method thing, leaving everyone to still think of him as a pleasant fellow, which he is.
Did I draw any conclusion from this conversation? Well, I think one important key to countering anti-vaccine sentiment is to deconstruct the narrative instead of the people who follow it. It's clear you can't do this with simple facts. If all these folks shouting "do your own research!" actually spent time on PubMed reading meta studies, they would have to walk back their claims. You can't counter a narrative by just giving people facts. The studies are there to read. You need to dismember the narrative.
Looking at the big picture
Acknowledge people's concerns, fears, and the major and often unaddressed tyranny and misbehavior of corporations and government. I don't have any stellar analogies or examples to cite here, but there is one quote I still remember.
If your doctor smokes two packs of cigarettes a day and has a terrible raspy cough, and she tells you that you should stop smoking because it's bad for your health, she's still right.
If a corporation with a long history of monopolist behavior and mistreating its employees says they are equipped to deliver 50 million covid test kits in 7 days, and they also have the logistical experience to back this up, they may also be right. In other words, there are lots of valid reasons to view Amazon with disgust, even hatred. But that doesn't change the facts of their savvy in logistics and delivery. And maybe, if you need those test kits delivered, you hold your nose and hire Amazon to do it.
Similarly, maybe you hate Pfizer because your grandmother died of preventable cancer because she couldn't afford their $50,000 a month biologic medicine, they have a monopoly, and the family doesn't have that kind of money. I would say that's a pretty good reason to hate them. But when Pfizer makes the vaccine that can save millions of lives and keep millions more out of the hospital and avoiding long-term covid complications, you hold your nose and get the vaccine. Then you can go back to hating Pfizer.
I think folks like my new acquaintance also believe in the greater good, but they’ve been overwhelmed by the one-two punch of a tsunami of misinformation narrative, plus the reactions of disgust and even hatred from friends and family.
Another thing that makes this issue challenging is the lack of immediacy. If someone speeds down your block, stops at the corner, and you wrap on the window and yell at them, “hey, my kids play in the street, you're going way too fast, you could hit someone,” if you're lucky, the driver will recognize their error in the moment and apologize. Or even if they don't, they may reflect on it and change their behavior later. Hopefully.
By contrast, covid spreads in a much more diffuse and (literally) invisible way. We can't usually see directly the harm we are doing or may do to others, and so we kind of wish it away. I think even most anti-vaxxers would avoid visiting their elderly relatives if they were themselves showing major symptoms. Just like they wouldn't want to give their elderly relatives the flu. But because of the timing and space around covid, we just don't see it in a direct cause and effect way like the speeding motorist situation. And you can explain this till you are blue in the face, but it doesn't register.
Personal experience versus statistics
One more bit and then I will put this to rest and bring you up with a music recommendation or something. Among the anti-vaccine crowd, and others aligned with similar narratives, there is a strong sense of personal experience standing in for statistics and data. For example, “I had covid and it wasn't so bad, so I'm not worried, and I'm not going to get that dangerous vaccine.” Or, “none of my friends have gotten covid.” Or the inverse, “my friend got the vaccine and she was sick for 3 weeks and now her big toes are swollen and her blood is magnetic. I don't want to go through that.”
It's all about what happens within someone's circle, not what the actual risks and rewards are, statistically. Certainly, relying on personal experience for low stakes choices like where to eat or what movie to see, are totally fine. But once again, these same people who rely on personal experience ahead of good science and public health practice, will spend hours researching something great detail before spending money on it. Like shopping for a car, or choosing a vacation. People can be downright anal about their choices in these regards, and they are very much relying on statistics and expertise.
One aside
My colleague Aidann tells me a story of a relative who got the AstraZeneca vaccine and had blood clots as a side effect. This rare, but very real, side effect will compromise her health for the rest of her life. This would make anyone resentful, and give them ample reason to be furious with vaccine makers and advocates. Statistics are comforting until you become the outlier. But I was happy to learn that she got the vaccine because she considered the big picture, and recognizes that despite her individual outcome, it is worth the risk.
Orchestra hits!
I don't know why I love orchestra hits so much, I was kind of obsessed with them as a kid. Probably because in that era, it was much harder to find the sources of samples. I'm not sure if Vox still makes these explainers, but they are quite in-depth, and enjoyable. This one is about the opening blast of a Stravinsky piece which found its way into hundreds of pop songs via one of the first commercial digital samplers.
Negative reviews of national parks
Designer Amber Share created these posters based on negative reviews of national parks.
..and so much more. I've accumulated so many links and ideas that I will have to save the rest for a future newsletter.
Closing quote
“Disappointment is a beautiful woman reading Ayn Rand.”
— Source unknown