There is great noise outside my hotel room. Explosions. Fireworks, resonating against buildings and river banks, and in my imagination, distant mountains. I have been now to the Multnomah County Library, although I paid no fines. I've existed in this city now for about 10 hours. It's a pleasant place, green but with the machinations of men all around. Bridges and stone cut buildings and boats and factories and trains. Trains everywhere, only drowned out by the continuing fireworks. I'm not sure I really have the feel of the place. It's resolutely casual, oddly androgynous and conforming in its non-conformity. But everyone smiles here, just like in the Midwest. Even the harsh looking skater who guessed my feint to the right would ...