The Narrative Image

In the middle of the night I go walking in my sleep Through the desert of truth To the river so deep - Billy Joel The River of Dreams I had this idea to paddle down the Willamette through the heart of Portland (actually, I got it from a canoeist I met at the Willamette Park boat ramp during a recent excursion to Ross Island )…but Monkey-Cam didn’t want to go. He and Naked Picasso think they’re going to Nepal to surprise Rudder Starboard. One of the advantages of being imaginary is that there are relatively fewer constraints regarding money and travel. Fortunately, a Facebook friend (Mr. T., but he doesn’t have a Mohawk) materialized into an actual corporeal kind of friend and we were able to set up a shuttle from the Willamette Park boat ramp to the boat ramp at the St. Johns bridge. Willamette Park Boat Ramp 01-30-11 This is the Willamette Park boat ramp at night. But it also pretty much serves to illustrate what the Willamette Park boat ...

At about eight in the morning (Sunday), low hanging, heavy and almost tangible gray clouds start, like malevolent peppermills, grinding out hard flakes. Squat dirty buildings cluster around the Morrison Bridge on-ramps as if to seek shelter with the rest of the unloved. …meanwhile, Sunday drivers discover that... ice is slippery. When you need flares, you can’t get them. A portion of the Eastbank Esplanade appears through drawn snow curtains. Evidence mounts that running is a kind of mental disorder. Even mannequins rush to the window to see the snow fall. The winter storm nearly succeeds in creating a cold, monochromatic world that demonstrates how little regard nature has for our dreams and desires, but one individual fights back with a bold red umbrella reserved for indomitable-spirit-of-mankind-metaphor-enactments. As dusk approaches, the stars come out on Broadway. Here and there, a warm oasis …or evidence of renewal Streetlights blink on to endure the night.