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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (March 13, 2015)
OPINION 4A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, MARCH 13, 2015 OPB’s ‘Astoria’ show fell short By MATT LOVE For The Daily Astorian A couple of days after watching OPB’s boring and clichéd Oregon Experience program about Astoria with my students at Astoria High School, I eavesdropped on a man talking on his phone and working on a laptop at 14th Street Coffee. He was an HBO producer of some kind, visiting Astoria for a break from his hectic production schedule of Chicago, New York and San Francisco. Apparently, he frequented Astoria to disappear, catch Matt up on personal Love correspondence, soak up inspiration and relax. He was going to be here for a week. That’s right, Astoria. As I listened in, utterly fascinated by his lush description of Astoria to someone who had never heard of the city, it occurred to me how badly OPB missed what’s happening in Astoria, particularly how its unique history informs and A logger family. animates present-day reality. Perfunctory. Intellectually lazy. The usual suspects. Trite. Tepid. Academic. Prudish. These are the words I use to describe OPB’s documentary about Astoria. It shocked me how a major Oregon media OPB’s Astoria ignored so much. Their outlet could produce such mediocre content about a rich story. In fact, I ignorance almost seemed willful. • Nothing about Astoria’s sinful, pre- would say OPB missed the wonderful complete story of Astoria altogether. Prohibition heyday that’s presented so well There is certainly a lot more to this place by the Clatsop County Historical Society’s than Lewis and Clark, the Astor fur men, Heritage Museum and Astor Street Opry ORJJLQJVDOPRQDQGWKHJUHDW¿UHRI Company. • Nothing about the city’s economic but you would never know that watching this show. Too bad the HBO guy wasn’t in OHWKDUJ\RIWKHODWHVDQGVXEVHTXHQW and ongoing renaissance. charge of the production. Where was that crucial Astoria is ripe for such a Perfunctory. story? Why not hear from treatment. Intellectually lazy. some of the entrepreneurs Sure, OPB only had 30 minutes to unfold The usual suspects. who helped repurpose this place? the story and some of • Nothing about beer, the Goonies or the the historical footage was awesome, but they lingered way too long on eccentric Flavels! • Nothing about how Astoria has a Astoria’s past and didn’t spend a single second on its dynamic present or future regular and fabulous drag show. • Nothing about members of the potential. Shouldn’t a documentary of a city’s history also depict current reality? prodigious creative class. Not one word Shouldn’t it explore how a city’s rugged from them. • Nothing about all the raw logs being history has unwittingly become critical to shipped to Asia. its future? • Nothing about the tension between the I moved to Astoria in the late fall of DQG KDYH VSHQW FRQVLGHUDEOH WLPH FRPPHUFLDODQGVSRUWV¿VKLQJLQGXVWULHV • Nothing about the Fisher Poets since then studying the city’s unique history and interacting with its residents, Gathering or Festival of Darks Arts, two many of them newcomers like me, drawn events without parallel in the region, or to this river town for creative inspiration. country for that matter. • Nothing about the threat of I was so enraptured with the stories I read or unearthed on my own, that I wrote JHQWUL¿FDWLRQ • Nothing from anyone under 50 years a book about Astoria, a book I didn’t envision when I moved here. (It will be old. There are young people here. I teach a lot of them, and their writing about out later this month.) Courtesy of Columbia River Maritime Museum W riter’s N otebook Courtesy of Columbia River Maritime Museum Cannery workers prepping tuna for packing. $VWRULD ZDV LQ¿QLWHO\ PRUH UHYHDOLQJ DQG entertaining than anything I saw from OPB. It was more HBO in nature. 7KLV ZDV GRFXPHQWDU\ ¿OPLQJ DW LWV worst: drive in, drive through, strip mine some clichés, interview a narrow range of people and package historical rehash anyone could have read on Wikipedia. All the people interviewed for the program were passionate and informative about Astoria’s past. The problem was, OPB left it at that. They barely probed. They were incurious. It would be analogous to me writing a book about Portland and only interview people who worked at the Oregon Historical Society. How authentic would that be? OPB did the unthinkable; they made Astoria look like a relic and a boring one at that. I don’t see this place as aggrieved or stuck in the past as some rural Oregon communities seem to be when faced with a dwindling natural resource-based economy. There is entrepreneurial and creative spirit here. There is also staggering history. Today, the new and old of a historic place work in concert with each other like no other rural town in Oregon. I can’t believe OPB didn’t get that. It’s everywhere around here. (OPB’s documentary on Astoria streams for free at http://bit.ly/185bWbO) Matt Love lives in Astoria and is the pub- lisher of Nestucca Spit Press. He is the au- thor/editor of 13 books about Oregon. They are available at coastal bookstores and through www.nestuccaspitpress.com Open forum Consequences M y last motorcycle helmet, ZLWK WKDW LQFK FUDWHU on its left side, is kept in re- membrance of that last ride. The man in the car stopped at the intersection, looking both ways and still not seeing me as I come toward him from his right. He starts forward and I KLWKLPEURDGVLGHÀLSSLQJRYHU the top of his car and landing, hip, shoulder, then head on the other side. I just read in The Daily Astorian that Betsy Johnson is sponsoring Oregon House %LOO ZKLFK ZRXOG DOORZ adults to ride their motorcycles without helmets, as long as they have the insurance to cover the costs of any injuries (“Betsy’s ELOOV´)HE It’s required that I buckle up while driving my car, though I am encased in a body of metal. But don’t let anything come be- tween a bike rider and his con- nection to the very hard surface of the open road, or a tree, or a car, as long as he can pay for the consequences. JULIE SNYDER Astoria/Brownsmead 'H¿QHVWHZDUGVKLS E ver since reading about the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers plan to kill 11,000 cormorants on an island the Corps created, I have been go- ing about with a sense of dread and shame. I’ve been praying that the Corps would come up with another solution to this so-called managing of two spe- cies. Birds slaughtered by the thousands? Is this kind of car- QDJH RXU GH¿QLWLRQ RI VWHZ- ardship? Have there been, are there now other ideologies that employ this reasoning? Those who support the kill- ing may say, “This isn’t the same.” I think it is. The operat- ing principle is: Wipe out what you don’t like, what you don’t understand or can’t control — solving a perceived problem by wholesale, unremitting destruc- tion. I imagine this ruthless expe- dience will seem like business as usual to those who are the SURGXFW RI WKLV FRXQWU\¶V WK century philosophy, arrogant- ly termed “manifest destiny.” This doctrine and its implica- tions have made inroads into all forms of subjugation. But I don’t believe the de- liberate extermination of these birds will be a matter of indif- T HE ference to the One who, (as a poet has written, )”by a unique ordering, so fashioned man an intellectual being whose singu- lar delight would be to conspire with Him to help each creature attain its end the more abun- dantly.” RAE MARIE ZIMMERLING Gearhart 'LVUHJDUGWKHUXOHV E rick Bengel’s article in- dicates how the Cannon Beach City Council gob- smacked many citizens of Cannon Beach by its March 3 four to one decision to grant Jeff Nicholson, a poor rich man who pumped $1 million into a risky project, his request to build four houses on property zoned for one (“Cannon Beach D AILY A STORIAN Founded in 1873 OKs development, denies dune grading bid,” The Daily Astori- an, March 4). After citizens had been SURPLVHGWKH\FRXOGKDYH¿YH minutes at the beginning of the meeting to deliver their objec- tion to the project, they were insulted by the city’s land use attorney when he advised the councilors not to allow any tes- WLPRQ\EHIRUHWKHLU¿QDOYRWH With this decision, the City Council will allow four houses and a so-called “living wall” which will destroy one of the city’s nicest natural slopes. The “living wall,” which should have been “dead on arrival,” ZLOOH[WHQGIHHWDQGEH feet or higher in some places. The Planning Commission, following the intention of the FLW\ FRGH YRWHG WR DJDLQVW 1LFKROVRQ¶V SUR¿WPDNLQJ project. But the land use attor- ney hired by the City Council seemed more interested in Nich- olson’s investment, which need- ed more seed money through the sale of three of the houses, than he was in the city code. This leaves only one con- clusion: In order to help a man so poor that all he owns is mon- ey, the City Council has cho- sen to help him make more by granting his request to change the code and set a precedent for further development. Every person has a right to develop land; but in Nichol- son’s case, development has eclipsed the land. Such blatant disregard for the rules has left the City Council’s decision echoing the old saw, “The world ain’t round it’s crooked.” REX AMOS Cannon Beach STEPHEN A. FORRESTER, Editor & Publisher • LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor BETTY SMITH, Advertising Manager • CARL EARL, Systems Manager JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager • DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager SAMANTHA MCLAREN, Circulation Manager
