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"Portland" is a short story about an architect, and an odd one

2017-07-15T15:43:00-04:00

But it’s the tattoo that holds him. It runs from her wrist up her right arm, covering it wholly, and disappears into the shoulder of the dress, a complicated design in fresh, bright colors he cannot make out in a single glance.

"Portland" is a short story about an architect, and an odd one. While set in Portland, Boullée's Cenotaph for Sir Isaac Newton is visited, along with an elaborate tattoo. Another excerpt:

He is—or was—an architect for a large firm with a reputation in San Jose that has had several scores with the tech industry. He entered work with goals and with passion, but those dissipated over the years in the long hours, the manic schedules, the endless compromises, the suspicions, the not talking among his superiors and colleagues beneath the veneer of the firm’s professed creative community. He wasn’t especially proud of anything he did nor felt he made any dent in the architecture there, construction that looked forward without looking at anything, buildings without identity or architectural distinction. Above, beyond, or somewhere, the invisible spirit of Silicon Valley, its ceaseless wonder.

Homeboy travels far and edges on

2014-08-06T16:46:00-04:00

“Enough said... Some of you will know this is the open country. In it, you need small and big ideas. I like big cars and the universe is made from small things. There shouldn't be any speed limits on a thousand high plains.”

“Some will know architecture is like the universe, made from small parts.”

“Some will know even the big parts are small in relative thinking... How do I know..?

“Fundamentally speaking, not because I see a lot of walls, windows and ceilings from the water's edge."

“Not because my mind is like the ocean"

“And not because I can speak and script,"

“and jump.”

“I don't know.., maybe because I'm Homeboy from the plateaus.”

Photographs: Michael Rotondi
Story: Orhan Ayyüce

Previously: Homeboy on Tupperville

Homeboy on Tupperville

2011-02-08T12:30:00-05:00

Homeboy on Tupperville

Photographs: Michael Rotondi
Story: Orhan Ayyüce