Tag Archives: Keep Portland Weird

Powell’s Bookstore And Officer Jenkins For The Win

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From the “Keep Portland Weird” Facebook Page.

MAN ARRESTED AFTER BREAKING INTO A FAMOUS BOOKSTORE ON BURNSIDE AT MIDNIGHT TO FINISH A BOOK HE “WASN’T GOING TO BE ABLE TO SLEEP WITHOUT”

Leonard “Lenny” Whitaker, 67, of Portland, Oregon, was charged Tuesday with breaking and entering after slipping into a closed famous bookstore on Burnside through a propped emergency exit at 12:10 AM—all to finish the final 47 pages of a thriller he had been quietly working through in the armchair section for four straight afternoons.

According to the report, Whitaker discovered the book on day one, read for several hours, carefully re-shelved it spine-out for easy retrieval, and returned daily like it was a part-time job. On day four, he was politely asked to leave at closing with 47 pages left—at what he later described to officers as “an absolutely unacceptable emotional cliffhanger for a man my age.”

Details from the police report:
Located the book in complete darkness using his phone flashlight in under a minute (“muscle memory,” he claimed)
Returned to his exact armchair like a seasoned professional
Came prepared with reading glasses, a granola bar, and what officers described as “focus”
Finished the remaining 47 pages in 1 hour and 14 minutes
Re-shelved the book properly (alphabetically, no less)
Found seated calmly with the book closed in his lap, staring into the middle distance like he’d just unpacked something personal
When officers asked if he was okay, Whitaker replied,
“Yeah… I just thought it was going somewhere else.”
He declined to elaborate.

Officer Jenkins noted in the report, “He didn’t run. Didn’t panic. Just… needed closure. Honestly, we’ve all been there.”

The bookstore has declined to press charges, despite the abandoned granola bar wrapper, which management described as “mildly disappointing but understandable.”
The book has since been purchased by three customers. Whitaker has not returned.

He came for answers. He left with… complicated feelings.

Postscript: Alternative Title, “Powell’s Bookstore, Officer Jenkins, And Whomever Left The Emergency Door Propped Open For Whitaker For The Win”

On Travel 2

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Today, the Good Wife and I have been married for 29 years, 11 months, and 18 days. Fairly confident we’ll make it to three zero, we’re planning a celebration of marital endurance bliss for a week and a half from now. Given assorted responsibilities we can’t shake, we’re temporarily tabling a trip to a Spanish speaking country in favor of a nearby quick hit.

Meaning Portland, Oregon.

Read and/or watch the New York Times depiction of the Rose City and then dig this person’s comment which I’m assigning an “A+”:

“It’s a very pretty video. Please forgive my peeve. Some of us aren’t cheering.

It’s the weirdest feeling to have lived somewhere your whole life and suddenly feel like a stranger. The aggressively smug city in the video is not Portland as many of us know it (or knew–past tense–and loved it). Portland is unrecognizable to me, anymore. Portland was a decided introvert until fairly recently; a dark, foggy haven for privacy-loving people, many of them genuine eccentrics–not the braying and proud ‘Portland Weird’ of now.

The self-satisfied extrovert it has become is due mainly to hype and an internet-fed culture of rootlessness and restlessness (“I can do better!”), spawning quality-o’-life-seeking newcomers looking to reinvent themselves and put their stamp on what too many have regarded as a tabula rasa, ignoring what existed before they arrived to ‘improve’ it.

The noisy eagerness with which new lookalike (mostly white, mostly moneyed) arrivals and discoverers advertise and idealize the city feels like an extension of FB-fed narcissism and now-epidemic attention seeking. “I found it! I discovered it! Look what I did!” Portland makes a great FB post, a great tweet, a great NY Times feature. It reflects well on mememe. Aren’t we all clever for discovering this place? We are curators!

“Authentic” is not a word I’d use to describe Portland now. And I always thought relentless self congratulation was the antithesis of ‘cool.'”

How does one add to that? It’s not just a very thoughtful take-down of the NYT, it’s a trenchant critique of our penchant for superficial travel.