Sunday, January 21, 2007

Portland, Oregon


This picture is of The Natalies in the Oregonian newsroom. Thanks, Randy, for the great photo. Nat. M interned at this newspaper 10 years ago. We gave a talk, a brown-bag discussion to the newsroom about the writing process and Tyrone, and making the leap from newspaper writing to book writing. It was really well attended. Then we went out to dinner with a group of journalists as we've done in every city, to find out the latest gossip and trends in the industry. We are happy that the Oregonian seems to be doing better than many and they definitely have a cheerier disposition than most... Thanks for asking us to come in, George Rede!
The only regrets about the book-signing the next day at the Talking Drum bookstore in Portland was that we didn't get a chance to talk to Reggae Bob. The day before we hoped be a guest on his radio show "Good Times," but we got caught up at ETA. We had a great discussion with a school teacher in the audience, a white man who teaches mostly hip-hop-obsessed boys of color, who asked us to suggest some other books that he could share with his class.
We went out to Higgins which is run as a fully sustainable restaurant, featuring only local meat and seafood and outstanding service. Good environmental practices taste delicious..We also went to the famous Powell's Bookstore which did serious damage to our pocketbooks. As we checked out of the world's largest bookstore, the clerk asked us if we found everything we needed. After the Natalies dropped a C-note a piece, we had to say, yes, unfortunately, we did. We did get a cool Powell's shirt for Rudy which he seemed to like.
Thanks to our hosts Emily and Linda!

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