I did not see coming my emerging dub music fandom, but a radio show on KMHD called Homeward Bound has hooked me. youtu.be/WeZe-aUB6VE?...
Tommy McCook - Jamaica Bolero
YouTube video by dubkarlos
youtu.be
Brian Libby
@brianlibby.bsky.social
Architecture & arts journalist, author of In Search of Portland: Exploring a Transforming City • photographer and experimental filmmaker • fond of film noir, college football, cats, British panel shows, tennis, jazz, espresso, Columbo, democracy
Have you never thought how danger must surround power as shadow does light?
The wide shot in the post below occurs right before my all-time favorite moment in Columbo, and its most cinematic: the reflections in Robert Culp's eyeglasses show in flash-forward montage how he will dispose of the body of the woman he has just killed.
Columbo: Just one more frame...@justonemoreframe.bsky.social · 2d agoColumbo #S01E04 Death Lends a Hand 00:10:48
People move to Portland to get away from the bullying, greedy, pro-car Tom Dundon's of the world...
On my last Portland Art Museum visit, a handful of works caused me to linger for long stretches of time: paintings by Rothko and Cezanne, as well as photographs by Carleton Watkins. This 1867 shot of the Columbia River, from the Oregon Historical Society archive, is called “Passage of the Dalles.”
New from OSU Press in September is "In Search of Portland: Exploring a Transforming City" by Brian Libby (@brianlibby.bsky.social). Order today. Publication date: September 15, 2026. beav.es/YJJ #PortlandOregon #PortlandArchitecture #PortlandHistory #PortlandWalkingTours #ReadLocal
It’s happening! The author copies of my book were delivered yesterday. So excited! A moment nine years in the making.
Pleased to see a more upbeat take on present-day downtown Portland, even if the writer does mistakenly refer to Old Town as "Old City." monocle.com/affairs/urba...
Once the US’s kitschy capital in decline, Portland is bouncing back
After voting to professionalise the Oregon city’s government in 2022, Portlanders are reinvesting in the city with new shops, restaurants...
monocle.com
“You look at the painting and hear the hush of nighttime, you feel the coolness, smell the pine and redwood ... The piece is a quintessentially Northern California expression, whispering of Eastern mysticisms channeled into Western sensibilities…There are no words to describe its beauty.”
Brian Libby@brianlibby.bsky.social · last wk.Excited to share my new @orartswatch.org story about painter Mary Henry and the Portland Art Museum's retrospective. I adore her geometric abstractions, which have a kind of spiritual quality. And like a lot of women artists, Henry (1913-2009) arguably didn't get the recognition she deserved.
Excited to share my new @orartswatch.org story about painter Mary Henry and the Portland Art Museum's retrospective. I adore her geometric abstractions, which have a kind of spiritual quality. And like a lot of women artists, Henry (1913-2009) arguably didn't get the recognition she deserved.
Mary Henry: Geometry with soul • Oregon ArtsWatch
A Portland Art Museum retrospective of the Whidbey Island painter's remarkable 60-year career is an opportunity for rediscovery.
orartswatch.org
*whispers* you know we can do this cultural debate about art thing all the time, right? Websites and news organizations used to have culture critics on staff whose entire job was writing about books, movies, and TV. People read them and then discussed them. We have the technology to do this again.
Seriously…five and a half years ago we hit the cat jackpot.
Valarie Smith@valarie.bsky.social · last wk.Feeling her tiny, delicate cheek on my forefoot is heaven.
A song from Hiroshi Suzuki's sublime 1976 album Cat just came on the radio, and I'm never not pleased to hear it. I also love how the DJ described the record as "Suzuki basically just went home to Japan for a visit, and jammed with his homies for three days straight." www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFmH...
Hiroshi Suzuki-Romance
YouTube video by Cagri Yalcin
youtube.com
Start making plans for the release of @brianlibby.bsky.social's "In Search of Portland: Exploring a Transforming City" this September!
Brian Libby@brianlibby.bsky.social · 2w agoThis is exciting: My September photography exhibit at Weedman Design Partners gallery has been posted online. It features about 30 of the 75 photos from my upcoming book, In Search of Portland: Exploring a Transforming City. Join us for the 9/12 opening! www.weedmandesignpartners.com/gallery/bria...
I’ve been working for weeks on a long article about painter Mary Henry, the subject of a Portland Art Museum retrospective. Her geometric abstractions are so great! A local collector just sent me images of these two paintings he owns, 1997’s Lament for Icarus and 1995’s Gavotte or What.
It’s too broad-brushed an overreaction on my part, yet I have become wary when I see any kind of Instagram or Facebook post with a random person talking in the corner of the frame, their self-filmed comments superimposed over some other existing video, with the borders between videos flickering.
One of my favorite career moments was having lunch with Van Sant at Portland's Byways Cafe to interview him about this movie and Elephant, which had just won Cannes. I remember he ordered a veggie burger.
Marie Ruiz-Vidal@ruizvidal7.bsky.social · 2w ago'Gerry', Gus Van Sant, 2002 Poème beckettien, magnifique film sombre sur l'amitié dans une nature terriblement hostile, bouleversant 🖤
This is exciting: My September photography exhibit at Weedman Design Partners gallery has been posted online. It features about 30 of the 75 photos from my upcoming book, In Search of Portland: Exploring a Transforming City. Join us for the 9/12 opening! www.weedmandesignpartners.com/gallery/bria...
In Search of Portland by Brian Libby | Weedman Design Partners
A photographic look at a transforming Portland through the lens of journalist Brian Libby, on view at Weedman Design Partners as part of his book launch.
weedmandesignpartners.com
Terence Stamp, 1964 for The New York Times, by Richard Saunders
It was three years ago yesterday that @saralibby.bsky.social and I attended the world track & field championships in Eugene, getting to see early heats involving greats like Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone and Noah Lyles, plus the men's 1500 final. Such a cool memory, and a great 50th birthday present.
A seven-minute film chronicling a 2004 daytrip I took via Shinkansen bullet train from Tokyo to Kyoto and back, nominally for a story interview but really to get my first glimpse of Kyoto’s temples and shrines. Can’t believe it’s been 22 years. vimeo.com/22789675
Japan Series: Nozomi Express
A daytrip from Tokyo to Kyoto and back on the Nozomi Super Express Shinkanzen bullet train, filmed in 2004
vimeo.com
Rewatches basically don’t get any better than this. boxd.it/fk2Pu1
A ★★★★★ review of Point Blank (1967)
Rewatching this movie last night, I was more blown away than ever. It starts with the way the narrative eliminates any unnecessary elements, like a series of jump cuts, to the extent it’s willing to k...
boxd.it
The Trail Blazers ownership group continues to behave like moving to another city is their preferred outcome, but strategically they've decided to first bully and bluster their way in bad faith through a series of non-negotiations, so they can unfairly blame the city on their way out the door.
Mitch Green@councilorgreen.bsky.social · 3w agoSome media outlets are reporting on the Moda term sheet with some framing that is suggesting that Council sent it terms. Not the case. Let me clarify what happened yesterday 🧵
It’s already worth the read just learning that Point Blank’s cinematographer, Philip Lathrop, was the camera operator for the iconic 12-minute crane shot that opens Touch of Evil by Orson Welles.
Brian Libby@brianlibby.bsky.social · 3w agoI think I will have read this book in two sittings. And I can’t wait to watch this stone-cold masterpiece of a movie again. I can already hear the rhythm of Lee Marvin’s determined, angry footsteps as he marches down the hallway.
It's a rare gift, to know where you need to be, before you've been to all the places you don't need to be.
Any Cibo Matto fans left out there? I revisited this second album on a recent car trip and since then have been replaying it often. Always a bit surprised that I reach for this over their debut, produced by the great Mitchell Froom and also excellent. But Stereo Type A just has a fun bounce to it.
