It was a Marc Chagall kind of evening

Had an errand to deliver a box - a gift - from one set of friends to a mutual friend, Cynthia so we decided to hand it off over dinner at Pok Pok - a delightful Thai restaurant on SE Division Street here in Portland.    It's one of my favorite restaurants.  You sit outside in all weather.  In winter there are plastic curtains around the tables and a propane heater on each.  Quite cozy really.  Barbara and Brian took me there on my birthday on a rainy night in January.  

Cynthia is an even more adventuresome foodie than I am - she tried and liked  the drinking vinegars.  Plum.  It was interesting mixed with soda over ice.  Kind of sweet and plummy but definitely vinegar.  I stuck to my usual Campari and soda with lime.   We shared boar collar meat rubbed with garlic, coriander root and black pepper grilled and spiced with a chili-lime-garlic sauce.  Chinese mustard greens came on the side, chilled under crushed ice and a roasted game hen salad - the restaurant's signature game hen (leftovers perhaps) with long beans, cucumbers and cherry tomatoes with a chili-lime-garlic dressing.  Yum!  Chili peanuts on the side.  Sticky rice for Cynthia.  We were too stuffed to do dessert.

We got talking about our blogs and though I'd read Cynthia's posts about glass I hadn't known about her past writing as a restaurant critic or the posts about her colorful neighborhood out in the burbs of Southwest Portland.   She told me about Yuri the supposed house painter, whose wife sported couture clothes and a gigantic diamond ring.  They put their house up for sale and bought a condo in the Pearl.   

Cynthia went to check the house out when the realtor had it open. The decor was so dramatic - bold colors on the walls, red and black tile in the kitchen that didn't go with anything else in the room, red shag carpet with brown spots (maybe the furniture covered them when the house was occupied?) it was not an easy to sell house.   It was empty save a samovar and a painting bolted to the wall over the stairway, which upon inspection appeared to be a Chagall!  One of the horse and circus themed  paintings.  But it couldn't be.  Normal folks out in Beaverton don't own paintings worth millions that should be in museums.  Cynthia thought perhaps she'd misunderstood Yuri and he wasn't a house painter but a talented artist.  Why then was he channeling Chagall?  She remembers the painting exactly today - years later - spent a long time trying to find a reference to it amongst catalogues of Chagall's work.   

Yuri's house never sold so he had to sell the condo and move back.  Other neighbors confirmed that Yuri was indeed a house painter - and he'd done a terrible job painting theirs.  Spilled paint all over the carpets.  A mess.   Not exactly a skilled craftsman.  Perhaps the job was a cover?  They say that you can tell the ex-KGB agents from the Rolexes they wear.  Maybe Yuri chose a Chagall over the watch?

Cynthia had to go to make molds for a pate de verre demo this weekend so I went down to Holocene for Three Leg Torso by myself.  Great show!  The band hung out in the bar beforehand and I saw Courtney but he was talking with others and I was too shy to try to talk to him.   They played a brilliant set and the crowd wanted one more.  Courtney's mic hadn't worked the entire show - was funny he was giving his between song patter to Bela one line at a time to tell to us in his mic.  He found a functioning one to introduce the last song about his dog, Chagall, who had gone missing a day or two before.  It was a quiet, introspective tune - much in contrast with the exuberant set we'd just heard - and we were to be very quiet in case Chagall was outside looking for Courtney and could hear.

Marc Chagall was born on July 7th 121 years ago.  Perhaps July 7, 2008 was the day Courtney's dog went missing?

This is my favorite Chagall painting "Paris Through The Window" from 1913.   I have a poster of it that I carefully hauled back from Paris 14 years ago (odd of itself - 'cause the painting is in the collection of the Guggenheim in NY).  It's still in its tube, unframed.  I should get it out frame it and put it up.  Maybe Chagall the dog will come by?