Bagdad Pub and Naked Clothing

Here's another place I could have gotten the laid-back virus. Hawthorn Street in Portland is home to the Bagdad Pub, Cafe and Theatre. It's a wonderful place to hang out and watch people, especially from the open-air tables along the street. Since in Missouri the weather is not so temperate, we have much fewer outdoor eating and drinking opportunities.

The Bagdad pub is a great place for discerning beer connoisseurs. Especially yummy and fattening is the Terminator Stout.

Bagdad was an old theater that was saved and rennovated in the 90's. I love it when people save cool old buildings! It's now a magnificant movie theater, and so we stayed late to watch Nacho Libre - so silly that it's funny.

I like going to musuems and galleries (and an afternoon at the Portland Art Museum was well worth the visit), but I even like more to find art in unexpected places. The rescued Bagdad Cafe and Theatre has art in every nook and cranny. This beautiful tree by Lyle Henn was painted on a bathroom door.

But a closer look reveals all kinds of unexpected and interesting details. There's another great place to lose a few hours right across the street from Bagdad -- Powell Books.

The Powell branch on Hawthorn Street had lots of interesting vintage sci-fi magazines. I meant to go back and buy some because I'm researching space travel for one of my next quilts, but got lost in the art department reading stuff like this. It mentions stuff like Andy's "New York City Diet" -- order lots of stuff you don't like to eat in a restaurant so you have something to play with while everyone else talks. Then ask for a to-go box so you can leave the food in a place where someone who might need it will find it. Maybe I should try it.

There are lots of other fun shops around. We spent lots of time in Naked City, which maybe a misnomer because they sell lots of cool clothes. Group shopping is fun because you get the vicarious thrills of others' finds -- Russ got several graphic t-shirts, my cousin got cherry-embossed flip-flops, her husband got a tie that looks like an ice cream cone, and I got a graphic 60-ish smoking lady t-shirt and white sunglasses to wear for yoga. (actually I don't need sunglasses to do yoga, I just thought they matched the shirt.)

By the way, when I was trying to find website for Naked City Clothing, I stumbled across this video. Did anyone know that Portland has a Naked Bike Parade? Don't be afraid to click on the link, you can't actually see anything x-rated. Just enough to remind you how crazy some people are! Shoot, we missed the parade by only a few weeks...