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
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• 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.
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entertaining than anything I saw from OPB.
It was more HBO in nature.
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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,
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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
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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
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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
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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-
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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,”
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feet or higher in some places.
The Planning Commission,
following the intention of the
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1LFKROVRQ¶V
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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
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