September 3rd, 2008
Centro-matic | 1 a.m. Saturday, Doug Fir0 comments
September 3rd, 2008
Thao with the Get Down Stay Down | Midnight Saturday, Holocene 0 comments
September 3rd, 2008
Polvo | Midnight Saturday, Berbati’s
0 comments
September 3rd, 2008
Hot Water Music | 11 p.m. Saturday, Roseland0 comments
September 3rd, 2008
Fleet Foxes | 10 p.m. Saturday, Crystal Ballroom0 comments
September 3rd, 2008
Les Savy Fav | 7 p.m. Saturday, Wonder Ballroom: Nike.0 comments
September 3rd, 2008
Crooked Fingers | Midnight Friday, Doug Fir0 comments
September 3rd, 2008
The Night Marchers | Midnight Friday, Dante’s0 comments
September 3rd, 2008
TV on the Radio | 11:30 p.m. Friday, Roseland1 comment
September 3rd, 2008
Jedi Mind Tricks | 11 p.m. Friday, Hawthorne Theatre0 comments
[April 11th, 2007] Let's face it: Real estate is based on sales and marketing. This is not a bad thing, inherently. But sometimes real-estate agents get a little creative when it comes time to write the short, sunny description of the latest shack they have to flog.
Real-estate ad copy is a notoriously Orwellian, two-faced literary genre. It is written not to provide you, the buyer, with any real data but rather to bait you with smiley disinformation. Knowing what grim, moldy truths might lurk behind the chirp-chirp adjectives and randomly capitalized, surreally punctuated sales terms can save a lot of disappointment when that "Close-In Charming Cottage!" turns out to be a decommissioned meth lab in Troutdale.
As you scan the listings, check out this modest decoder ring—our attempt to put the "real" back in real estate.
| If the ad says: | It really means: |
| Up and Coming Neighborhood | Chain-link fence, cars on cinder blocks, pot-holed dirt roads. |
| Easy Freeway Access | Wedged up against Interstate 205. |
| West Irvington | Between a laundromat and an abandoned Alcoholics Anonymous meeting hall on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. |
| Near Sellwood | Milwaukie |
| Alberta Arts District | As far north as Columbia Boulevard, as far east as 82nd Avenue. |
| Close In | Gresham, Clackamas or Tigard. |
| Near Historic St. Johns | Next to the train tracks in the industrial no-man's land of North Portland. |
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The Plunge
Become Donald Trump in One Day!
A Renter's Survival Guide
I'm Buying a What?
Way of the Ninja
Guns for Hire
Cracking the Code
What the Hell Does $250K Buy, Anyway?
The Final Frontier
Sweat Equity?
Armed & Dangerous
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