Weekend In Portland, Oregon -- Nothing About The Bakken -- Saturday, April 29, 2017

Robert M  Pirsig

1928 - 2017

From The Wall Street Journal:

Robert M. Pirsig, whose novel “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” came out in 1974, for a time declined to be more specific about his address than “somewhere in New England.” Yet he surfaced now and then long enough to lament the world’s failure to take his philosophy more seriously.  His second and final novel, “Lila,” published in 1991, was an elaboration of the ideas presented more breezily in the first.

Mr. Pirsig’s philosophy, which he called the Metaphysics of Quality, offered “shortcuts to living right” and sought to topple barriers between art and science. Academic philosophers, he complained in a 2006 interview with the Times of London, reacted with “zero support and great hostility.” He added, “I think this philosophy could address a lot of the problems we have in the world today. Just so long as people know about it.”

Mr. Pirsig died April 24 at his home in South Berwick, Maine. He was 88.

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Portland, OR

How coincidental. I just got back from a week in Portland, Oregon. I see The WSJ has an article on a four-day weekend in Portland. At this link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-freewheeling-long-weekend-in-portland-ore-1493303897.

I assume a subscription is needed. Try googling something from the lede:

BEFORE PORTLAND, ORE., established itself as a hipster utopia and beleaguered punch line—a land of vegan tattoos, fastidious food-truck chefs and all things crafty and pickled—visitors were already taken with its abundant natural attributes. The Willamette River divides the city, forest trails wind throughout it, and Mount Hood and the coast each sit just over an hour’s drive away. A cleverly planned long weekend in Portland will tap both aspects: sampling urban obsessiveness and the abundant verdure of the Pacific Northwest. 

It is interesting. During my week to one of the craft brewery capitals in the US, I had two beers. One of them was an Ecliptic. That craft brewery was mentioned prominently in The WSJ article. If I had to recommend one place in Portland to eat where one had 90+ craft brews to choose from it would be Old Chicago Pizza and Taproom. I assume there are two or three in the city.

I told my brother-in-law that I would return next summer and stay until I had tasted one craft beer/day at Old Chicago. With 90+ beers I would be in Portland for the entire summer. He said that was fine.