Elsinore

Blipping is hard. We drove all the way to Estacada today, nearly a two-hour drive, to look at a vintage Airstream trailer (very cool, but small!), and I thought we'd get many good blipping opportunities. Nope. I settled on this shot of the back of the Elsinore Theater in downtown Salem, next to our Mexican restaurant of choice tonight. This mural is nearly 30 years old, and was painted by my former art professor at Western Oregon University, James Mattingly. The Elsinore has a rich theater history, and when they nearly demolished it in the 1980s, an effort rose to save it. Mattingly painted this mural, which must be 50 feet high by 60 wide, featuring Charlie Chaplin, Theda Bara, and W.C. Fields. Professor Mattingly, God rest his artistic soul, was an interesting cat. A good teacher, but his final still has me scratching my head.