When the New Car Gets Its First Scratch

Owning a new car is pleasurable and exciting–but it comes with an undercurrent of anxiety. You see it sitting out there on the street, and it looks like a magnet for mayhem. Anything could happen to it. You find yourself watching over it like a hen minds her eggs. Eventually, though, something does happen–a rock chips the paint, someone rams it with a shopping cart, you spill coffee over the front seat–and the bubble of anxiety bursts. The scratch allows you to move along.

After a week of extremely nice reviews (please look at Brian Yaeger’s post in the Portland Mercury; this piece at the UW student newspaper is also great), I’ve gotten my first pan. A “sad rehashing of previous efforts.” Ouch! More:

While Alworth lists Portland, Oregon as his residence his selection of beers in the “Beers to Know” listings is a bizarre collection seemingly devoid of any concern to the availability of the beer and its contribution to the brewing art. Alworth’s book, in my view, is a classic exampl

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