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I'm referring to Ashland, Oregon, naturally, and something I found out from this article (via Jack Bog) (emphasis mine):

Ashland city ordinances allow nudity anywhere in town, but genitalia must be covered in city parks and the downtown commercial district.

I was pretty surprised when I read that; I don't remember a single naked person while in Ashland last year. But overall—that's pretty crazy; I had no idea it was that liberal of a town.

You can bet I'll be reading the Bend city code pretty closely the next few days to see what our local ordinances say about the subject.

(The article overall is about a fruitcake "activist" who likes to wander around around (nearly) nude, and the city of Ashland's refusal to allow her to be in their Fourth of July parade. She's claiming "discrimination" against her by the Ashland Chamber of Commerce, claims she's "not trying to get attention" (riiiiiiiiight), and for good measure even throws in a hint of creepy pedophilia in there. Seriously, she sounds mental. I'd deny her, too.)

We left Friday morning (just the wife and I; Grandma had the kids for the weekend) and headed down to southern Oregon for a play and a getaway. The weather turned out great, and the trip was largely a winery tour, among other things; we visited four wineries and ended up buying just over a case of wine.

The last time we'd been to Ashland was nine years ago, before the kids were born. Compared to Bend over the past decade, few things in the area have changed; both Medford and Ashland have remained pretty stable, and even though there are signs of growth, much of it (particularly downtown Ashland) is as I remember it.

(Holy smokes, this post got long.)

Click through to read on...

Over on Peter David's weblog is this post about Shakespeare. Since I like Shakespeare, I thought I'd link to it, it's a good post.

It's one of those topics where there seems to be little or no middle ground: either you dig Shakespeare, or you don't. Those who don't can be converted, but I ain't gonna bother with that here—I just thought I'd riff a bit and let everyone make up their own mind.

Back in college I took several Shakespeare courses: the typical English-course requirement-type class and another titled "Shakespeare in Ashland" which was a hands-on course in which we studied several plays and then went to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland to see them performed. It was a totally great class. All the courses were taught by the same professor, who—get this—had been a cop in Los Angeles before getting his degree and becoming a teacher. He was a cool guy, had a totally pragmatic approach to Shakespeare, not the usual "masterpiece of English literature" approach that turns so many off.

Speaking of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, I can't recommend it highly enough. If you ever get the opportunity to see a play performed there, jump all over it. It will likely be the best production of Shakespeare you will ever see, bar none. There's simply nothing like the experience of seeing it performed live, and performed well—especially if it's in the outdoor Elizabethan theater. I've been there a bunch of times and seen about half-a-dozen plays (Richard III and Henry IV Part I really stand out in my mind), and I'd go back anytime for more.

And I just checked the 2004 schedule: King Lear (I guarantee this will be awesome), Henry VI (all three parts, a ho-hum set of plays but I bet they do good with them anyway), The Comedy of Errors, and Much Ado About Nothing (another one that will be really good, I'll bet).

And finally, some gratuitous plugs for my ebooks: Hamlet Palm Reader .pdb file, and Macbeth Palm Reader .pdb file.