I stumbled across this magnificent poster and realized that I’ve never posted on the potent Scottish tribal band Albannach. I love this sort of thing, as you know, and I listen regularly to several similar outfits. Bass drummer Jamesie Johnston is the driving force of the band — a man of boundless energy. And the lassies like him, so they do…
Unfortunately, I’ve never seen them venture beyond the eastern half of the USA. If they come to Oregon, I’m there.
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Quixotic Mainer posted a comment regarding 19th Century fashions becoming popular among the young folk, and the image of a HS prom at Bag End pleased me so much that I thought I should elaborate…
I happened to talk with a carload of younger gals a few weeks back whom I first thought were mennonites, due to the dresses and one bonnet. However, the necklines and skirt lengths made them look more like the high school prom being held at Bag End. They informed me that this is called “Cottage Core”. Who knew?
Who knew, indeed. Apparently Cottagecore became a trend during pandemic lockdowns, particularly in the UK. Its principles are simplicity, sustainability, slow living and harmony with nature. All of which I am completely down with.
I get a kick out of the way suffixes are hijacked for various trends — as in “hardcore” to “cottagecore.” For a while there, everything was “punk,” as in steampunk and dieselpunk. There’s just no elegant way to tag one on to Frontier Partisans, though. We just have to be our own thing.
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This just flat pisses me off — a cool place in Portland trashed by hooligans of the lowest sort:
Six masked vandals smashed up a coffee shop about 3 a.m. Wednesday in apparent retaliation for a planned “Coffee with a Cop” event that had drawn angry online comments, according to the proprietor. Alerted to the damage by neighbors immediately afterward, Bison Coffeehouse owner Loretta Guzman said she arrived at her Cully neighborhood cafe to find patrol cars parked outside and the shattered storefront’s plate glass windows still crackling. Guzman is an enrolled member of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes, and her father, Garry Guzman, operated East Side Motorcycle on the Cully Boulevard property for four decades. The attack lasted only a minute, Loretta Guzman said, but inflicted “thousands and thousands” of dollars in damage.
This is all the more outrageous given the background of Ms. Guzman. From Native Business:
The name Bison Coffeehouse came to Loretta Guzman in a dream, while she was ill in the hospital with stage 4B cancer. “I could feel myself dying,” she told Native Business.
“I dreamt of the bison,” said Guzman, a member of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes of Fort Hall, Idaho. “He kept trying to get closer and closer to me, until he was in my face. I told my family, and my dad said, ‘That’s your grandpa. You’ll get better. I’ve been praying to him in the spirit realm. He used to dance for the bison. He used to wear this buffalo hat.’ Then, I ended up going into remission and getting better.”
Today, a massive bison head looms over her coffee shop in Portland, Oregon.
I guarantee you that the hooligans who perpetrated this outrage — all too common in Portland — purport to have an ideological purpose. They are nothing but hateful scum. Here you have an entrepreneur of indigenous descent, who merely sought to facilitate a community dialogue, and she is attacked. This fills me with rage.
Matthew says
I guarantee you that the hooligans who perpetrated this outrage — all too common in Portland — purport to have an ideological purpose.—
Ideology is just surface. We are so many things deep inside some not so good. It doesn’t take much knowledge of human nature to know that people will use ideology for an excuse for their own sociopathic tendencies. I hope the hooligans get sent away a long time.
Ugly Hombre says
Cowardly Bastards, I can’t get my head around what is going on on our country now its too damn loco. The Bison would be a good place to read a book and drink coffee hot as hell and black as sin- no doubt.. A independent and cool Java hut, a woman trying to make it in the world and support the city. Losers made her life harder for nothing. You can bet none of them did anything good for anyone ever.
I used to go to China Town San Francisco in the 90’s quite a bit. Very little street crime there you could see the Tong guys on the corners over watching and keeping the thugs out and cooling them out if needed. Protecting the locals and tourists who made money for the community.
Don’t go there any more- but I wonder why are they not protecting Chinatown anymore? What happened? Street crime is off the charts. There is a local SF twitter page “Asian Crime Report”- its G.D. awful to see the crime in China Town now.
What happened to the good bad guys? Not just there but everywhere?
Like to find out.
JimC says
It’s going to come down to neighborhood protection — and in Portland that will be treated as fascist. The city is doomed.
Quixotic Mainer says
Hat tip to the hipster Cora Munros of the world, long may they grace our farmer’s markets and contra dances!
. Steampunk seems to have run it’s course, judging by the gradual vanishing of brass gears and goggles at CFDA events. I had a friend who was hard-core about his Civil War and cowboy shoot garb and that used to drive him to apoplexy.
I hope the community rallies around the coffee shop owner. If the investigator assigned the case happens to catch up with the vandals, it will still take grassroots to tell the political machine that these low grade terrorist acts aren’t acceptable.
JimC says
There was a Zoom townhall recently in which a woman told Mayor Ted Wheeler that she had moved to Portland for its progressive values and that downtown terrorism and vandalism are not progressive. Wheeler chuckled and said thanks for the input. I honestly don’t know what will move the political machine. Businesses are leaving – I know a couple who used to operate a restaurant at one of the swankier downtown hotels; they’re in Bend now. That’s got to be eroding the tax base. It’s really sad — what happened to this woman should be a clarion call, but I don’t hold out much hope.
John Maddox Roberts says
About 3 weeks ago I was driving south on highway N.M. 41 from Moriarty to my home in Estancia when a vision appeared: a woman on a bicycle, also heading south. This stretch is popular among bicyclists because the shoulders are 12′-15′ wide, ideal for cycling. What made this a vision is that it wasn’t just any bicycle. It was a penny-farthing, with a huge front wheel and a tiny back wheel, and the lady was dressed in full steampunk drag; black corset, boots, and topped with a goggle-adorned black top hat with a trailing veil tied around it. This on a remote stretch of rural road in one of the least populated areas of the world. I’ve wondered since if she was just passing from one dimension into the next.
JimC says
Let’s just go with that.
Chuck says
Albannach is great. They do make it to the huge Highland Games in Pleasanton, CA. Additionally, James offers walking and bus tours throughout Scotland 3-5 times a year. He will be a guest of the USA Kilts YouTube/ Facebook page today at noon PT.
Hmm break the windows of a shop owned by the daughter of a former motorcycle store owner who is First Nations member? Seems like the start of an old 70s movie / TV show with righteous retribution in the works.
JimC says
What now? Pleasanton, eh? That’s encouraging. Hell, that’s September. If we can give them another anchor at the Sisters Folk Festival, they can make a NW tour. I’m on this… Thanks.
Call Billy Jack. Crom! I would love to see that action. And join it…
Chuck says
Yes Billy Jack! His name escaped me.
I know they drove to Pleasanton. If they make Sisters, i sense a business trip to Bend in my future!
Update- unfortunately James had to reschedule his visit to USA Kilts, so he won’t be on the live video today.
Chuck says
I sent this article to James, he liked the write up!