bananas synchronicity
a crumpled heap of prosperity
hello portland. you are beautiful and i’m in love with you! you are so fine in june, when it’s not too hot yet & the grass is still green & the sky is blue & the strawberries are ripe & the peonies are blooming. i hope everyone reading this has three four flower bouquets on their kitchen table right now, like i do.
this past saturday i didn’t have any plans until the harry smith 100 year birthday celebration at the hollywood theatre1, so i thought i’d go for a walk, see the william matheson paintings at nationale2 , and buy the new miranda july book3
walking is how i think my thoughts. i had an idea of what i wanted to write to you about this week and i thought that while i was out walking i’d take some photos of the weston roses so i could tell you a little story. i thought it would be one story, but it ended up being another story because the world is a mystery & full of surprises, as you shall see.
have you noticed these roses around town? there’s nothing cool about them, except that roses are flowers and flowers are one of the top five coolest things on the earth. joseph weston, a real estate developer and property mogul, had them painted on his properties all over town, to commemorate his employees, friends, or family members and to deter graffiti.
the weston roses are in the background, creating the scene. you know you’re in portland when you see a weston rose. and maybe it’s portland 10 years ago, because now many of them have gotten quite shabby, or the buildings they were on have been torn down.
before i went out on my walk i was doing a little research and watched a video about joe weston and how he’s given millions of dollars away to charity. there’s a lot of wealth concentrated in just one man. who gives it all away to catholic charities. he will definitely go to heaven if that’s how heaven works, with a cover charge. (is a millionaire who gives away all his money so he can go to heaven much different from a billionaire who keeps all his money so he can go to mars? discuss.)
some of joe weston’s money even trickled down to me. a few thousand dollars of scholarship to pay for a year of community college during the precarious winter during the pandemic when i was working the pre-dawn shift at the amazon warehouse. a scholarship that helped me learn the names of birds and trees and how to measure them and put them on maps. which is how i make a living now, so it was a scholarship that pretty much changed my life.
while i was walking, i was thinking about joe weston. i am grateful for my scholarship, but it’s still very wrong that one person should own hundreds of millions of dollars worth of property in a city, where thousands of people live in cars, tents, or less. the conditions that create people in need are reinforced by the concentration of wealth by the few. philanthopy and charity will never change or reverse those conditions, no matter the scale. systems of philanthropy and charity rely on haves and have nots. mutual aid - each contributing what they can, and all having their needs met - is, in my mind and to my heart, a much better arrangement. (hence the friendship resume, etc). this take is as cold as clay, but i just want to be clear.
sometimes i dream of a world where we all just give each other little bits of money over and over until the entire economy crumples into a heap of prosperity. some kind of venmo revolution. i don’t know, i don’t really understand economics but i pretty much wouldn’t believe anyone who explained to me why this is impossible.
but i digress.
i was walking home, with my new book, taking some pictures and thinking about heaven and earth and i stopped at fred meyer to get some half&half. i checked out and as i was walking out of the store i shit you not , there’s joe weston. he was riding in a big cushy electric wheel chair pushed by a man with handlebar moustaches. after watching the documentary video about his philanthropy the night before i recognized his sloping bald head and false tooth half-smile instantly.
i looped around back into the store and caught up with him by the bananas. “are you joseph weston?” i said, insanely.
“yes, i am,” he said, implausibly.
i introduced myself, told him about my scholarship and how it’s made a big difference in my life. he asked me where i went to school. he told me, like a proud but ancient child, that he is 86 years old and that he and the moustashio’ed gentleman go to the grocery store every saturday.
i was so floored by the synchronicity of running into a millionaire at the grocery store during my walk in contemplation of his wealth that i didn’t mention my plan for crumpling the economy with little mutual donations. i also couldn’t bring myself to ask to take a picture with him to show you. but honestly, you don’t need to see a picture of him. he’s the spitting image of mr. potter from it’s a wonderful life, if mr. potter didn’t have that grumpy scowl on his face and maybe ate a few more mcdonald’s sandwiches.
as i left the store the armed guard by the door who checks everyone’s sales receipts waved me through. (people who don’t live in portland: do you have armed guards at your grocery stores? people who do live in portland: how do we come back from having armed guards at the grocery store? sound off in the comments.)
the world is weird, and weirdly connected under the surface. i won’t pretend to know the meaning of a synchronicity. but i usually tn they happen to me, i’m on the right path. thanks for being on the path with me.
treats for you (footnotes edition)
the portland sacred harp singing during the screening of seminole patchwork! a revelation of human patterns expressing the mystery behind all forms! i wept!
a few of these paintings really capture the light of wildfire-smoke filled skies. my favorite piece is a painting of the mausoleum from oaks bottom. at nationale until 6.29 .
i haven’t started reading all fours by miranda july yet, but i have a strong feeling i will finish it before next week. will it make me blush? will it ignite my group chats? will it DERAIL MY LIFE ?? i’ll let you know.