I Heart Carrie Brownstein

My friend Janell and I have some serious lady crushes on Carrie Brownstein. Being the great friend she is, Janell sent me this wonderful article on Carrie Brownstein from Willamette Week.  It's a great article on Carrie and makes me fall even more in love with her. I recommend you read it too if you want to fall in love.

What I also loved about the article was all the commentary on Portland culture:

Carrie explaining how she's not a typical Portland driver:

"For the record, I am not afraid to hit someone with  my car as an act of aggression.  I think polite drivers should be met only with aggression, to teach them a lesson. If I'm following someone whose [bumper sticker] says, 'A Rind is a Terrible Thing to Waste: Compost!' I just want to throw garbage out my window."

Carrie discussing the number of tattooed parents in Portland:

"There's so many kids, and their dads are covered in tattoos, and I just think the common question for a child in Portland is not 'Where are babies from?' but 'What is a tattoo? What is a panther leaping out of a rainbow? What does a mermaid sitting on an anchor symbolize to you, Dad?' I wonder how parents are dealing with the tattoo questions. That haunts me at night." 

Portlandia premieres on the Independent Film Channel in January, it will portray this city as a day camp for adults -- a town where tourists stand in line at Stumptown Coffee like it's a Disneyland ride, feminist booksellers teach classes on how to write journal entries, and diners prefer to eat at a restaurant only after they have visited each of its source farms

Much of the series' humor hinges on the perception of Portland as a haven for boutique lefty frivolity -- as [Fred] Armisen puts it, "Portland is where young people go to retire."

A finished sketch for the pilot shows Brownstein and Armisen playing retail artists who visit a North Mississippi Avenue store and customize every item on display with the same suggestions: "Put a bird on it!"

Also from the article:

FIVE FUNNY THINGS ABOUT PORTLAND By Carrie Brownstein

1. Portlanders are smug. My theory is that Portlanders are engaged in a perennial mock epic: Both our battles and our victories our real to us, but on a larger scale—or to outsiders—some of our struggles might come across as trivial. The smugness comes from our countless progressive victories (“We boycotted our daycare until they allowed boys to wear dresses!!!”). We win a lot here—just living in Portland sometimes feels like winning—so we feel really, really good nearly all the time. There should be days when people from Gresham, Hillsboro and Vancouver get to come into Portland and punch us. Oh, I’m sorry, I mean lightly tap us with a synthetic feather.

2. Because there is an assumption that Portlanders agree on broad political issues, what constitutes “doing good” takes on a hyper-specificity: I thought I was being good, or at the very least benign, by signing up with locally owned Umpqua Bank. But when I walked into the branch on Alberta Street, I saw a protest sign spray-painted on a sheet, hanging from the house across the street. Apparently, Umpqua should be boycotted: It has something to do with the logging of old-growth forest. For a moment, I thought maybe I should just give my money to a squirrel—they love trees!—but I went ahead and opened an account at Umpqua anyway.

3. At the Alberta Street Fair a few months back, a white, dreadlocked woman had a single tray of Rice Krispies treats for sale. She had a sign that said, “All Proceeds Go to Help Rwanda.” I really hoped that Rwanda was the chosen name of a friend of hers needing bus money, because I don’t think the country in Africa wanted her $3.

4. Whole Foods temporarily pulled kombucha from their shelves on account of the alcohol content. When they were able to restock the item, the store on East Burnside painted the words “Kombucha is Back” on its window. In any other city, something writ with such fervor would have said “Jesus Has Risen.”

5. I had a crush on a veterinarian whom I met when I had to take my cat to a heart specialist. He was a cardiologist. I was totally excited about the fact I was meeting someone not from the music world; someone with a “real job.” Within a few weeks of us getting to know each other, he had quit his job so he could work fewer hours and just do consulting at home. He started taking upright-bass lessons and was playing me Ramones songs in his living room. The trajectory of one’s life, work and maturity in Portland is the complete inverse of the norm.

Finally, I will conclude this entry with one of my favorite Portland skits from ThunderAnt (Fred Armisen & Carrie Brownstein): 

Portland

I read a travel piece from the New York Times on Portland that really seemed to get the essence of Portland, one of my favorite cities. Some highlights:

"...in Portland, Oregon, where outfits seem chosen to match the cloudy skies, fabrics tend toward the waterproof, and anything with buttons counts as formalwear. "

"I discerned a characteristic of Portland that would enchant me over the course of a week, as I explored restaurants and bars, artisanal cafes and mushrooming food carts, funky neighborhoods and weird little museums."

"There was a general indifference to wealth. In its place was a dedication to the things that really matter: hearty food and drink, cultural pursuits both high and low, days in the outdoors and evenings out with friends."

"I met my friend at a Scandinavian brunch spot on a quintessentially Portland section of Southeast Clinton Street. (Bike lane? Check. Brewery? Check. Discount art-house cinema? Vintage stores? Punk rock record shops? Check, check, check!)"

"I marveled again at how well Portlanders live on so little."