Today's Tree - NE Shaver & 31st

Astute readers will notice this tree is located physically not too far away from the tree in our inaugural interview way back in July.

While we here at Urban Blog would normally frown at such shoddy representation, we have a good reason for this exception.

It turns out that today's tree is a big fan and actually requested the interview.

Hope you enjoy.




TREE: Thanks for coming out here; I'm so excited. I've been following your blog from the very beginning.

ME: That puts you in a minority, but it's great to hear. How did you find out about it? Is it a big topic amongst the trees?

TREE: A big topic? Hahahahahahahahaha. No, it couldn't be further from it. Other than me and the trees you have already interviewed, I don't think a tree in the world knows about your blog. And actually some of the ones you interviewed might have already forgotten.

ME: So how did you ever hear about it?

TREE: I saw you interviewing my neighbor a while back and got curious. I've been following it ever since.

ME: That's great. But...You're a tree. How do you even read a blog?

TREE: It's not that hard. So can you ask me some movie questions. I really like movies.

ME: Okay, sure. Um, did you see the Lord of the Rings movies? What did you think of the Ents?

TREE: The Ents looked cool, but the film they were introduced in [ed: The Two Towers] was was piss poor. The general feeling of us trees is that it loses out on not having the confrontation with Saruman, with Aragorn's pointless solo adventure and all the Arwen/Elrond crap which is just mesmerisingly dull. Sean Astin is a terrible actor and having him narrate the movie at the end made so sense.

ME: That's harsh.

TREE: I'm just getting started. Return of the King loses out for not having the Scouring (understandable from a timekeeping POV but it is thematically vital to the story) and for having Slimer and his buddies save the day at Minas Tirith, undermining the spirit and self-sacrifice of the humans and rendering the final act nonsensical (there is absolutely no reason whatsoever given why the Army of the Dead can't just go and kick the shit out of the orcs at the Morannon as well). The entire trilogy suffer from turning Legolas into a skater boi punk hero and Gimli into a walking cliche.

ME: Good points all.

TREE: Ooh, ask me another one.

ME: Sorry that's all the time for have for this week. Thanks and we'll see you all another time.

Today's Tree - Mt Hood Wilderness

URBAN PINE GOES RURAL

Mt. Hood Pine.

Rejoice, ye Urban Pine readers (both of you) for we have a special treat this week. By broadening the definition of "Urban Pine" so that it instead means "Any Pine," we bring to you an alpine guest. The moral of this week's interview? Even when you're green, the grass is always greener.

ME: Hey there, Mr. Rural Pine. What's it like up here in the forest?

TREE: Pretty, I guess. But cold. Guess what? It's August and I'm already covered in snow.

ME: I noticed that. So how does it compare to living in the city.

TREE: Man those city trees have it so easy. Up here, we have to worry about being buried in snow, about rain washing out our roots, about forest fires, about bears scratching us, beavers cutting us down, loggers, and I could go on. What is there to worry about for trees in the city? Man, they have it good. Those lucky lucky bastards.

ME: Well, you have your looks.

TREE: True, and thanks for noticing. Plus it's nice to be with my family. I do feel sorry for urban pines, separated from their seedlings and spread to who knows where. On the other hand, I bet they don't get snowed on in August.

ME: You're probably right. Well, that about wraps it up. Any last words for our readers?

TREE: I always like to encourage people to come out and see me. There's lots to do up here. My motto, if I had legs, would definitely be "Up a mountain, Down a beer."


Tune in next week for a return to the urban portion of urban pine!

Today's Tree - MT. TABOR PARK.

It's hard to believe that we, the hard-working staff at Urban Pine, are now marking our first month anniversary.

So far the accolades have been few and far between, but any day now we're thinking we can catch on. And I know I speak for all the trees out there when I say we're willing to sell out faster than the stuff-that-white-people-like dude.

A zombie suggested that I interview a tree outside of the NE territories I have limited myself to thusfar, so to mix things up I gave it a shot. And I'm glad I did, for I found the most interesting tree so far. Who knew zombies were so insightful?

This tree was interviewed on Saturday August 16 at Mt. Tabor during the Adult Soapbox Derby 2008. (For the record, the tree I interviewed is the one on the right, but I talked with the other two pictured and they were cool too).

Me: Hello Mt Tabor Tree. Thanks for meeting me here. What do you think of this crazy derby thing?

TREE: I like it. I like the bustle. I like the cars. And I like the costumes especially. One guy was wearing tights so tight I could tell what religion he was.

ME: What religion are you?

Tree: Atheist.

Me: Wait a minute. An atheist? So you're saying you hate god?

Tree: Not exactly. I hate god as much as you hate leprechauns, unicorns, and martians.

Me: Wait a minute, those don't even exist. Oh, I see what you did there. Clever.

Tree: Thank you. I hope you enjoy the rest of your day and have a fine weekend. You should come back to Mt. Tabor soon.

Me: Thanks tree! You're awesome!

Today's Tree: 32 and Going

Today's tree is here in the Plantation part of the city, between Fremont and Alberta. I found that trees around here very smart, way too smart for me to ever want to interview again. My head still smarts from this one.

ME: Good afternoon. So what's it like, being a tree?

TREE: This is a difficult question for me to answer, being as my default state is that of 'treeness'. I couldn't very well ask you what's it like to be a human, not if I expected some sort of cognizant response.

ME: Cogniz-wha?

TREE: And another thing. What is with the way humans speak? I realize language is a fundamental topic of interest in cognitive neuroscience, and modern brain imaging techniques have contributed greatly to a growing understanding of the anatomical organization of linguistic functions. Unfortunately, the techniques do not allow for high temporal resolution of brain activity as the comprehension or production of sentences unfolds. As temporal resolution is of utmost importance in these questions, researchers also employ the gross electrophysiological techniques. Consequently, EEG and MEG are used primarily to inform theories of the cognitive/computational architecture of language, without regard to their precise neurobiological implementation. For example, one might suspect that out of three categories of words that could end a sentence, two are actually tapping into the same mechanism, but the third is represented differently. Showing that these two categories elicit an identical electrophysiological response different from that of the third would support such a hypothesis.

ME: Nerd!

TREE: Your blatant attempts at stereotyping are quite frankly insipid and I find your vocabulary appalling. Have you ever even looked at a dictionary?

ME: Heh, you said "dick."

TREE: You're an idiot.

ME: Yeah, well your needles are ugly.

TREE: Leave now.

ME: Okay.

Today's Tree - NE MISSISSIPPI

Today's tree is from my sisters new neighborhood. I approached it for an interview and found that the trees in her hood are not always the nicest. But I'll let you see for yourself.




Me: Greetings tree. How is your summer going?


Tree: Hot, I guess. I'm bored with that question already.


Me: Ah, okay. What do you think of my sister moving into your neighborhood?


Tree: To be perfectly honest, I can't see it affecting my life all that much. I'm not trying to be a jerk, but really I couldn't care less.


Me: Fair enough. Final question: Who do you think is the biggest band in America today?


Tree: Again, I gotta tell you I don't really follow music that much. I'm a tree, after all. But when I had fewer rings there were some hippies that lived by me. I liked some of their stuff. Whatever happened to the Beatles?

Me: Half of them died, the other half aren't up to much.

Tree: That's a shame. What about the Doors?

Me: Lead singer died, the rest not up to much.

Tree: Wow, I had no idea. What about the Who?

Me: Drummer and Bassist died. The rest ... not up to much.

Tree: You humans are certainly short lived! I guess I can assume all the Rolling Stones are dead?

Me: No, actually they're still alive. All of 'em.

Tree: You know, even after four hundred years, you humans can still surprise me.

Today's tree: located at NE SHAVER and 32nd

A pine tree. As we will be doing throughout this blog, we interview random pines throughout the city and see how they feel.
Today's three questions:

Q: Have you seen the new Batman movie? What do you think of Heath Ledger's Performance?

PINE: Heath who? Listen, I can't really tell you meatbags apart. That movie was terrible, not a single tree or plant in the entire 2/1/2 hours! Would it kill Christopher Nolan to have Batman get a spiderplant or something?

Q: What do you think about the upcoming Presidential Election? Mccain or Obama?

PINE: I am not registered, but if I were I would only vote the Green Party.

Q: What is your favorite color?

PINE: Blue. No Yellow! Shit Shit Shit!