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Calling anything “the best” in Portland requires accepting that there are two kinds of bests. You can crown the most excellent performer in a given category, or you can applaud those who transcend category altogether.
Still, in this big little town, even a straightforward poll can’t help but resemble a Waldorf school’s alumni newsletter. Every year, our marketing department tallies the votes and ranks the city’s brightest yoga teachers and budtenders and mortgage loan officers, as well as its very best perfumeries, hair removal specialist and combat sports gyms.
It would be crude to say that we “make up” the categories for the editorial half of our annual Best of Portland Issue. But we do like to stretch the bounds of such narrow categorizations. Two kinds of bests! And we delight at the chance to craft a long list of—strictly nominal—awards for all that’s admirably novel and, ideally, strange and beautiful. Think of it as a yearbook for the city.
Being the only clown-themed rave that regularly operates in the secret back room of a Chinese restaurant certainly shouldn’t prevent you from being named the best clown-themed rave that regularly operates in the secret back room of a Chinese restaurant. Same goes for dentists who moonlight as comedians and make podcasts in which they interview people under the influence of laughing gas. Nonfunctioning fire hydrants, devotional candles dedicated to bygone Portland punk royalty, and majestic geese whose tragic love stories bring together small suburban communities—the city would be unrecognizable without every last one of ’em.
One last example: For her business Rowdy Airbrush, a project that reimagines the art of on-the-spot, bespoke airbrush painting—work typically relegated to the customizable trucker hats and tank tops hustled at amusement parks—Chloe Findtner is recognized for this year’s Best Fine Art Twist on a Carny Trade. And we hired her to paint one of our trusty blue distribution boxes for the cover. Nobody can vote you into that job. It requires somebody as singular as Portland itself.
