Portland Style, Late Aughts

[Updated!]

When you look at pictures of people in Portland, Oregon in the 1970s, you see fashion half way between logger and hippie. You might also see Volkswagens or pick-ups. Thirty-five years from now, when people look for iconic pictures of our era, they could do worse than the one I snapped this afternoon, annotated for posterity (click to enlarge):



  1. Rainy pavement (some things never change).
  2. Horse hitching rings, suggestive of transportation circa 1900.
  3. Bicycle, suggestive of transportation 2010.
  4. Prius, the VW bug of 2010.
  5. Fashionable cyclist, with accoutrement (keys on carabiner, shoulder bag, pocket lock, shorts in late October, tattoo).
  6. [Per insightful comments, blended] "Telephone pole with 11 million staples and the fragments of every local band flyer for the last 25 years of hardcore bands playing shows for no money at Satyricon."
Unfortunately, this cyclist has chosen a Pabst Blue Ribbon tattoo, which may ignite a debate among future scholars about the actual popularity of local microbrews.