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The slopes of volcanic cone Mount Tabor are dotted with iconic lampposts—but only one is so whimsically placed that it recalls the children's books of C.S. Lewis. Fans of the Narnia stories—you know, the ones where a lion is Jesus—will remember that little Lucy Pevensie meets a talking faun called Mr. Tumnus beside a gas streetlamp in the middle of a forest. The lamp in Mount Tabor Park, planted above the city's Reservoir 5, is similarly remote: It marks the intersection of three steep trails in a glen of firs, with no other sign of habitation in sight.
Teenagers have long recognized this as a place of magic, scrawling messages on the concrete lamppost about the various illicit, hallucinogenic substances they have smoked there, along with a cartoon drawing of a giant squid. One visitor has left a message that is probably not a Christian allegory: "TXT ME DICK PICS!" AARON MESH.
Cars made Maywood Park, but bikes sustain it. In 1967, when I-205 was being plotted through residential areas around Portland, the inhabitants of a particularly nice subdivision in Portland's Parkrose neighborhood opposed the construction. Because the feds had promised not to build freeways through cities that didn't want them, the neighborhood incorporated into a separate city, called Maywood Park (cityofmaywoodpark.com). The scheme didn't work, and half the neighborhood was razed for the freeway.
But the 700-person burg left untouched behind a noise wall out-Portlanded Portland, erecting a glorious monument to passive-aggression along the only thoroughfare it wishes to claim, the bike path laid next to the hated freeway. To call Maywood Park's impeccably landscaped knolls the "nicest section of the bike path" is to undersell the city. This little Mayberry exists apart from everything around it, sitting comfortably on a soft carpet of grass, protected by thick hedges and shaded by towering old-growth trees. You ride through to find every home well-kept and every resident smiling. "You see that, Portland?" Maywood Park telegraphs over the soft din of freeway traffic. "We won." MARTIN CIZMAR.
Haters gonna hate—except when they spend 72 pages telling you about the things they like. Never fear, Internet trolls: Once this issue is off the stands, Willamette Week's staff of old cranks and cynical hipsters will resume shitting on everything. Sometimes, though, our disdain can be hard to decipher. @WWeekHatesIt, a Twitter page that appeared online in late May, cuts through all the big numbers and fancy talk and gets straight to the heart of exactly what it is we're turning up our noses at. "Campaigns spend money on things? Well, @wweek hates it!" read the first dispatch, linking to a story on pro-fluoride campaign contributions. "A bunch of bohemians suck at keeping order? Well, @wweek hates it!" went another tweet, in regard to a Web post about Mayor Charlie Hales' attempt to clean up Last Thursday.
Occasionally, our righteous indignation has been met with support: In response to a piece pranking bakeries that refused to serve gay couples, it was said that "@wweek AWESOMELY hates it!" Should we be offended that some armchair satirist is reducing 40 years of hard-nosed local journalism to blind curmudgeonry? Maybe. But in this modern age, imitation Twitter accounts are the sincerest form of flattery. @WWeekHatesIt? Well, WW likes it. And now, in atonement for that last sentence, I will write 3,500 words on why puppies are assholes. MATTHEW SINGER.
It took a toilet to finally convince me that robots will someday rule the world. Plunking down on a warm toilet seat is typically a bad sign when you're a lady: Warm usually also means wet. But after polishing off a 22-ounce Kirin Ichiban at Shigezo (910 SW Salmon St., 688-5202, shigezo-pdx.com), I learned that warm can also be wonderful, and that Japanese loos are magical. That night, the imported Toto Washlet was cradling my cheeks as I sat next to a potted plant and a piece of Asian art.
This Tempurpedic of toilets provides more controls than the average cockpit, with options for bidet and rear-end water streams that I fiddled with for perfect pressure. When done, an air fan softly dried my delicate bits. Both Shigezo locations have the Toto Washlet in the ladies' room; the newer Yataimura Maru spinoff on Southeast Division Street also has one in the men's room. To which I say, domo arigato. ANDREA DAMEWOOD.
WWeek 2015