Episode 16: Oregon - “Alis Volat Propriis”

Okay, great.

And I'm John Hodgman.

Welcome to Eat Flurbus Motto, the show that celebrates the official mottos, emblems, nuts, crustaceans, and more from around the Union.

Crustaceans, what are we even talking about?

Where are we going, Janet?

John Hodgman, we are off to the PNW

or the Pacific Northwest for the West.

Pretty initiated.

Pretty nice wolves.

Pretty nice wolves.

I'm acting like I know that it's called the BNW.

I've been to the Pacific Northwest many times.

I've never called it the PNW.

So I was also in an uninitiated.

I'm not sure.

I've noticed a wild trend on Instagram videos about restaurants in New York, which I am served regularly by the album.

I bet.

Uh-huh.

The young people are now referring to New York as NYC, which never ever came up in the 30 years that I've been living here.

I guess I've referred to it as NYC.

People say

this is the best Berea cheesesteak in all of NYC.

Yeah.

That's a food trend.

Berea and cheesesteak.

Yeah, Berea, Berea is alive and well for sure.

How much is it?

I'm probably in the NYCW.

Why are we talking about NYC?

Let's talk about the PNW.

I apologize.

Let's talk about the PNWs.

Okay, Greg.

PN Dubs.

We're going to showcase the nature-loving state of Oregon.

Don't say Oregon.

Not Oregon.

Oregon.

Not Oregano.

No, although that is where Oregon is where oregano comes from.

Well, that's not why it's called that.

And it's also not true.

Uh-huh, that's correct.

John Hodgman, what do you think?

Let's set oregano aside.

You say oregano, I say oregon.

We can't agree.

We need Oregon.

Let's set all of that aside.

Let's call all of that off.

Yeah.

I just want to know what comes to your mind when you think of the state of Oregon.

I'm sorry to say that mostly I think of Portland.

I have not spent a lot of time.

I know.

It's the same for me.

I did go see the Goonies Rock on Cannon Beach.

I did drive down the beautiful

Oregon.

Yeah.

But mostly as an imitation stand-up comedian and otherwise performer, you know, I'm going through Oregon, Portland,

or what they call Portland, Oregon,

to visit Powell's World of Books on book tour.

So glad you brought it up.

Or to do a show at Revolution Hall or the Aladdin Theater.

The Alberta Rose, I think, is one that I have done true.

Could be.

Could be.

I'm thinking of Seattle, in which case, don't at me.

I'm not trying to deny your lived experience.

Thank you.

Thank you.

But my lived experience of Portland, I mean, it opened my first time visiting Portland.

It was truly, and I think one of the most Portlandian things that ever happened to me.

I mean, it really introduced Portland to me.

First of all, I flew into the airport, so I saw that iconic seizure-inducing carpeting at

the Portland airport, aka P.

Boy, I haven't thought about it for a minute.

You're right.

It is seizure-inducing.

Pretty special.

And they're very proud of it.

I think you can get like t-shirts and tablecloths made out of that pattern.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then I was picked up.

It was me and Jonathan Colton.

We were touring my first book together.

He was accompanying me on guitar.

And we were picked up by a local host, a woman named Crofton,

who was about six feet tall and wore a straw baseball hat, grabbed all of our luggage, including Jonathan's guitar.

Oh, my God.

Somehow threw it all over her shoulder without breaking her stride, tossed it naturally into the back of her Subaru outback

and drove us through

or to, I should say, downtown Portland,

explaining to us that

the reason that she moved to Portland is that

the water table is so substantial and pure that when society collapses, this will be a good place to live.

And this was 20 years ago.

And I was like, society collapses.

Come on.

I think about Crofton a lot.

Yeah.

Oh, that is classic.

Everything about Crofton is classic Portland.

I agree.

And I love it.

And as soon as Crofton threw our luggage into the lobby of the Heathman Hotel where we were staying, which is a beautiful hotel, she was like, let's go get some food.

Do you want spicy noodles?

I'm like, yes.

Of course I do.

And we're walking through, and I believe it's, I mean, I know there's a Pioneer Square in Seattle.

There's a big square downtown in the historic downtown area.

I think it's Pioneer Square also.

I think it does, the second, yeah.

Yeah.

And I see someone that I have not seen in years.

Not someone that I know, but someone that I recognize.

Ah, okay.

From when I lived and was schooled at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.

He was not a student there, but he was a local fixture at the Daly Cafe where I used to get my coffee, and it was called the Daly Cafe.

Okay.

And I was like, what is that guy doing?

And the moment that I can, before I can conclude that inner sentence, Crofton hails him with a hearty hello and goes, Hello, Rex.

And indeed, it was Rex.

Wow.

Now,

those of you who lived in New Haven in the early 90s may remember Rex as the local Church of Satan member.

Oh, wonderful.

Bald guy.

Bald guy,

goatee,

would often sit with his very goth

partner

in the Daily Cafe.

And I also saw him once in a remarkable exchange.

One of the Christian groups at Yale had sponsored a guy to come in and talk about demonic influences in popular culture, which I was like, I'm going to that.

Sure, you are.

Don't be a fool.

And this guy comes in, and

it was a wild evening at Lindsley Chittenden Hall.

And he showed us a bunch of slides showing demonic illustrations on rock and roll albums, covers.

Great.

But I do remember this exchange because at one point,

the Christian youth group leader who was giving this talk, he'd been invited to give this talk.

He was not a member of the Yale faculty.

He says, So, as you know, one of the rules of the Church of Satan is, Do what thou wilt, shall be the whole of the law.

And all of a sudden, this alabaster pale arm raised from the audience a couple of rows in front of me and to my left.

And I turned and I saw that it was the Church of Satan guy from the cafe

who I've been spying for years and wondering about.

Yeah.

I did not know his name, but sure enough, the youth pastor did and he goes, hello, Rex.

Same as Crofton years later.

Perfect.

And I'm like, these guys know each other.

I'm like, it probably, probably tracks.

Probably Rex goes to all of these and goes, okay, Rex, what do you want to say?

He goes, that quote, do what thou will shall be the whole of the law, is actually a quote that was first said by Aleister Crowley,

who

practiced occult sex magic in England.

And he had his own church called Talima, I believe it was called.

But I want you to know that he was not affiliated with the Church of Satan in any way.

That is a misstatement

on your part.

And the youth pastor goes, yeah, you know what?

You're right, Rex.

Sorry about that.

Oh, he knew.

No, I mean,

he accepted the

that probably Rex was

probably more of an aficionado than he himself was.

And that was the last time I had seen Rex in probably a decade and a half

until Crofton said, hello, Rex, to him in Pioneer Square.

And

by the time I saw him then in Portland, he had added implants to his forehead so that he looked like he had horns.

Oh, good.

And

he has only further facially and bodily modified himself.

Okay.

Since then, based on this photo that I believe dates back to about 2016,

he now or then goes by Diabolus Rex.

Love it.

Founder and techno-mage of the Chaos Imperium and lead engineer of Black Sun occult engineering.

And design, the writings of Tesla, Dr.

Michael Aquino, and H.P.

Lovecraft have strong resonance with the now Portland-based sorcerer and artist,

who is currently developing the Ragnarok Engine Project, a controversial program that will open new doors into the dark thaumaturgy of Kali Yuga.

Rex's work can be viewed on Facebook.

Anyway, I don't know.

It's an advertisement for Rex.

I think we just spoke for five minutes about Rex and his sorcery.

It was just, you know, Portland is a magical place.

Yes, it is.

It conjures and attracts

oddballs and interesting people of all kinds.

And that moment between the Satanist Diabolus Rex

and

the chatty,

crunchy super driving Amazon in the person of Crofton, who was also a documentary filmmaker, of course,

was my introduction to Portland.

And it has only gotten

stranger and more lovely ever since.

I also love it.

I'm so glad you brought up Powell's.

It's very famous.

Sometimes people who haven't even been to Portland have an awareness of Powell's because I think it also has a robust online presence.

It's a wonderful bookstore.

I will add, I'm going to talk a little bit more about Portland in a second, but I will extend out, before we talk a little bit more about Portland, I'm going to extend out my love of Oregon.

I also have driven some of the Oregon coast with me, Papa.

He does have a book.

I'm not going to, we spent a lot of time talking about my dad and his

when we were talking about New Mexico, so I'm not gonna go there today, but he you call him my papa, me papa.

I wish I did when you call him on the phone and say papa,

it's channel,

he comment savvants,

ghosts, le vid ghost,

respect,

ghost, mignon.

Okay, so he, yes, he has spent extensive time there.

He has, he is a big fan of the

wonderful Rails to Trails programs that exist, not just in Oregon, but wonderful,

no longer used

railroad tracks that are converted into like mountain biking paths and cycling and hiking paths, and has a deep love of Oregon.

He and I have driven it, but I too have not really spent time

outside of Portland other than to visit the beautiful Multnomah Falls, which I believe is to the east of

Portland.

Gorgeous waterfall.

I have a magnet.

I visited it almost 20 years ago.

I still have a magnet with an illustration of Multnomah Falls on my refrigerator.

Even as I say the words that are coming out of my mouth right now, I want to give a shout out to my friend Stefan, who has a Yerba Mate company in Ashland, Oregon.

And

I also,

I don't know if it still exists.

I should look it up,

but I'm not going to because we don't have time.

So someone can look at this up and see if it still exists.

But somehow, when I was in high school, and I don't know if it was my dad who brought it back to me, I almost feel like it was like a friend brought me a brochure.

for a very kind of folksy brochure, like a three, you know, fold, fold 11 and 8.5 by 11 paper and three

folksy brochure for a place called the Sylvia Beach Hotel located on Sylvia Beach in Portland, Oregon.

Are Are you going to look it up and see if it's still there?

And for

much of my teenagerhood,

I had this, I really wanted to go there, and I still have never been there.

And I don't know if it still exists, but Sylvia Beach is supposedly.

Hotel Sylvia.

Okay.

It says here.

Is it?

Now, let me ask you this: because why I wanted to go to the Sylvia Beach Hotel was that it had, it was the first time I ever heard of anything like this.

And of course, since then, I've heard of many and visited some.

But it had

each room was themed on a writer.

Author-themed rooms.

Okay, so it's still there?

It's still there.

Okay, wonderful.

There are author-themed rooms.

There are genre-themed rooms.

Yes.

Read me some of the author-themed rooms.

We'll see if they still.

I believe Edgar Allan Poe was one.

Of course.

Edgar Allan Poe is the home author of about 17 different stakes.

That's right.

I don't know the name of it.

That's right.

Yes, indeed, they do have author-themed rooms.

there is the Agatha Christie room yes who done it this includes

just just like in

the murder on the Orient Express it includes a private wraparound us in front balcony

there is a Maya Angelou room wonderful there is a Ernest Hemingway room on the nose

William Shakespeare room what's fascinating is

look I want to say the hotel Sylvia this is not a dig but it's time to update your webpage because the photos of each of these rooms are identical.

Uh-oh, uh-oh.

It's just like hotel room art.

Oh, no.

Is that the same painting every room?

They have the same photo for the Hemingway room, the Maya Angelou room.

Okay.

The Jane Austen room room.

Oh, I see.

I'm looking at it.

I couldn't resist.

Now I'm looking at it.

The C.S.

Lewis room.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And they are dog-friendly, which is perhaps not too surprising.

I have some kind of memory of seeing something maybe it couldn't have been in the Folksy Broche.

Maybe I looked up their website years ago, but and it would not have looked like this.

I feel like the Edgar Allan Poe room had like, you know, what you would think was a closet, and you would open it and it would be a brick wall.

I mean, they did it.

I feel like they did it well.

But I always wanted to go there.

I still haven't been, and now I know it's still on the table for me.

So I'm going to have to head there.

Shout out to you, Sylvia Hotel.

Hotel Sylvia.

Clifftop on a clifftop overlooking Nye Beach.

Doesn't that sound nice?

Nye?

Yes or nye.

I will say our trip down the Oregon coast was beautiful.

Yeah, it's gorgeous.

It's gorgeous.

I love a beach that when people warn me that a beach is not going to be great for like sunbathing, I'm like, great, that's my beach.

I'll see you there.

Because I don't mind if it's rocky.

I don't mind.

I don't mind if it's foggy.

I don't mind if it's misty, possibly even rainy.

I love a northwestern vibe when I'm looking out at the ocean.

So

tumultuous, I don't mind that.

I think that's wonderful.

So I will get there.

Storm tossed.

Storm tossed.

Exactly right.

One might say.

Exactly right.

Yeah.

Gorgeous.

But since you and I have principally had our experiences in Portland, and I do remember when we talked about the fact that we were going to be hitting Oregon next, you said home of the other Portland.

And I took mild umbrage of that, mostly because I've never been to other Portland, Portland, Maine.

And in my mind, I thought, how dare you?

There's no, they can both be named Portland, and they may not have anything to do with one another.

And then very quickly in my research, I discovered that indeed Portland, Oregon is 100% named after Portland, Maine.

Right.

The 50-50% owners of what was then called the Clearing, Frances Pettigrove and Asa Lovejoy.

Now, I did not know about Pettigrove.

Oh, it's Pettigrove and Lovejoy.

Worry not.

My favorite AMC legal drama.

Are you not?

There's no way that those two aren't British lawyers if you're going to make it a legal drama.

Pettigrove.

Pettigrove and Lovejoy.

And Lovejoy.

They each wanted to rename the clearing after their respective hometown.

And Pettigrove was from Portland, Maine.

Asa Lovejoy was from Boston.

So this controversy simply settled with that coin toss.

It was a two out of three.

A two out of three coin toss.

And that penny that they used to determine what the name would be is you can you can look at this coin

now called the Portland penny and it's on display at the headquarters of the Oregon Historical Society.

Yeah, it was a literal coin toss to determine the name of this.

It was a little three coin tosses.

Three coin tosses, best out of three.

Two out of three.

So that is, yeah, that is indeed why it's called Portland.

Fun fact, NYC was named NYC

after a two-day-long

rock, paper, scissors.

That's right.

That's right.

That's how all, many of the best names are that arbitrary.

I want to shout out the erstwhile Bridgetown Comedy Festival.

I went to many years in a row.

Is it erstwhile now?

It does not.

It no longer exists.

I had some wonderful times there.

Very much enjoyed it.

Very much enjoyed Bridgetown itself, which is also known as Stumptown because they cleared so many trees to build it that they referred to it as Stumptown.

Stumptown, very fun coffee.

Are you talking about the nicknames of Portland, Stumptown, Bridgetown, Roses?

The City of Roses, yeah.

City of Roses.

And you mentioned something that was very Portlandian.

And as we're talking about this, of course, we have to give a shout out to our mutual pals, Fred Armison and Carrie Brownstein, for their wonderful show, Portlandia.

Check it out if you've never seen it.

It is charming, and it really does give you an awfully accurate sense of Portlandia, Portlandia, I almost called it, of Portland for all of its strangeness and all of its charm.

With all of these things in mind, John Hodgman, do you have a guess as to the general tone of Oregon's state motto?

And any guesses to what language we might be looking at here?

I mean, I was always the impression that the motto was in English and that it was, the motto of Oregon was, you have died of dysentery.

Yeah.

Is that not true?

It's not true.

Oh, no.

I'm sorry you got that impression.

I'm sure it came from a reasonable source, but it did not come from an official one.

Oh.

Well, I'm going to throw something else out.

Please.

Portland was named by Pettigrove and what was this, Montesquieu?

Pettigrove and Lovejoy.

Pettigrove and Lovejoy.

So they were British, but I mean, I know that there was a lot of fur trapping in the area, which tended to attract French, but that was more Eastern.

So I'm going to say English

is the language.

Am I wrong?

It's a Latin motto.

It's a Latin motto.

Aelis volat.

And I apologize, especially to you, Ben.

I believe you're a Latin teacher.

To all the dead Romans.

Well, we know we have at least one Latin teacher.

A lis volat propriis, which translates to she flies with her own wings.

Oh.

But John Hodgman.

What?

From 1957 to 87, for 30 years, it was officially changed to the words that are on the Oregon State seal.

I'm sorry.

Are you having a two words from the state?

Are you having an episode?

What are you saying?

I can't understand your words.

The union.

The union.

I'm saying the union.

The union.

Yeah.

Those two words?

That seemed important in 1957.

It seemed important to change this.

So, okay, our official state model should match what we have written on our state seal, which is simply the union.

And

I have a lot of thoughts about that, but one of them is...

Nobody needs to go back to

the days of why the seal said the union.

And I don't want to spend too much time on this because it's a huge bummer, but I do want to acknowledge that Oregon does have what many have determined to be a

sort of white separatist founding.

Oh, Oregon, and specifically Portland, but many other places in Oregon, including Ashland, known for progressive ideas and acceptance, although Portland itself still has, you know, kind of logging folks and people who are living a more rural and a life that doesn't necessarily reflect those values.

And

we all different, we all different.

It's gone through a lot.

And

i mean portland has gone through a lot of change too since since croft inhaled rex i mean yeah there's a lot of tech money in there there's a lot of sure you know a lot of the the weirdness has been chased away and the weirdness of course chased away a lot of the working class yeah logging community or you know yeah in industrial logging communities obviously but the so that's interesting so the yeah they changed their motto their original motto was she flies under her 57 they were like quickly let's change this to the union but the whole union It's not even a motto.

It's just a.

I know, I know.

It's an article and a noun.

And it's also just complicated because,

for example, in 1844, so this is the whole idea is like this weird association relationship to slavery and to black people in general.

So like, I'm just going to read this straight out of Wiki.

Read it out.

In December 1844, Oregon passed its first black exclusion law, which prohibited African Americans from entering the territory while simultaneously prohibiting slavery.

Slave owners who brought their slaves with them were given three years before they were forced to free them.

And then any African Americans in the region after the law was passed were forced to leave.

And those who did not comply were arrested and beaten.

So

this is like, no, no, no, we're against slavery.

So slave owners, if you come here,

right?

If you come here, you can't have slaves.

Although, by the way, you can keep them for three years and then you have to free them.

And then, when they're free, they can't stay here.

Yeah.

I mean, it's just one of those mind Fs where you're like, okay.

Weird.

So, I feel like the union is this like weird, begrudging kind of acknowledgement, like, whatever.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, the union.

Like, we're not in, yeah, we don't, we don't like slavery, but then it's also like, but also, white is right.

I'm glad they went back to the much more poetic other.

She flies with her own wings, capturing more of Oregon's independent spirit.

Yeah.

And then, of course, as long as we're acknowledging all of the many people who came in and

despite its no, that's what's complicated.

That's why it's so weird and complicated.

And obviously, even before any of that, there were and are many, many Indigenous tribes who were displaced, who were murdered.

Right.

I don't mean to laugh.

It's just this is, of course, we do this with every state.

We all understand the history of the United States is very ugly and very messy.

But yes, many French trappers, trapping, big, big deal.

British, a lot of people.

It had a similar reputation as the Barbary Coast, which is San Francisco, in that Portland was a port that was rife with crime and sort of, you know, anything goes, corruption and stuff.

But I will say that, and you can visit the Oregon Land Justice Project site, amongst others, to find out more about the nine federally recognized tribes in Oregon with more than 24,000 members total.

But

this is a robust amount of federally recognized tribes, as we've heard from other states we've covered, which some have a paltry zero.

Yeah.

So the Burns Paiute, the Confederated

tribes of Coos, the, and I'm so sorry if I'm mispronouncing some of this, the Lower Umpqua Indians, the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, and then also acknowledging Klamath tribes and all other tribes who share geography with the region.

But again, the Oregon Land Justice Project site is where I went to find out more, and they've got a lovely,

you can absolutely find out more about the wonderful tribes in this area.

And then, as we said, you know, this is a state in which there are a lot of conflicting ideas living side by side as far as the support progressive ideals.

In 94, Oregon was the first state to legalize physician-assisted suicide through the Oregon Death with Dignity Act.

Legalizing recreational marijuana was approved

in 2014.

It may have been the first place that I bought legal recreational marijuana.

There you go.

And when I was visiting,

like the Bridgetown Comedy Festival, the no longer extant XOXO conference.

Yeah.

I was visiting that to do a bit with our friend Gene Gray.

I climbed over a mountain of discarded short-term rental scooters

to go into the most stylish marijuana store I've ever seen in my life.

I'd never been in

a legal marijuana dispensary before, either medical or recreational, and this thing looked like they were, it looked like an apple store for weed.

And I'm like, oh, the future is here.

Oh, yeah.

No, I definitely have memories of being at the Bridgetown Comedy Festival and Reggie Watts like disappearing to go.

Oh, does he like marijuana?

Reggie?

Some really, really nice weed.

Some really, that was a big plus for many people going to that Bridgetown Comedy Festival.

I remember one time I was driving Reggie to the Solid Sound Festival in Western Massachusetts, the biannual

music and a little bit of comedy festival that Wilco hosts there.

And

Reggie and I were chatting along, and then I started telling him probably some boring story about Crofton and Diobilis Rex.

And I'm talking and talking and talking.

I look, and he's like, oh, he's been asleep for half an hour.

Bless him.

What a genius!

Love it, absolute genius.

Uh, what a what a wonderful man.

But we shouldn't be talking about him because he he's a Montanan and a Seattlean, and now

we're in a Los Angeles, so we'll have to hold on to it for future reference.

Uh, and then finally, just throwing out there that, uh, also a proponent of gay marriage, legalized gay marriage, is Oregon as well.

Uh, and then, yeah, the lesser discussed Salem, where neither one of us has been, the Catholic Capital.

Yeah, I have nothing to offer in person in terms of personal experience.

Salem, I'll get to you.

Salem, I'll see you.

Did you ever memorize the state capitals?

No.

Salem's a stumper.

People do not remember Salem.

Yeah.

That's one thing.

That's a surprise.

Olympia, Washington to a degree is as well.

I don't have a problem with that.

I can remember that all the time.

But you're right that Portland, you know, it's not exactly that Portland is an oasis of blue within a red state.

The eastern eastern half of the state is coastal and therefore, historically, like most places, coastal areas tend to be more

liberal and progressive.

And interior rural places tend to be a little bit or a lotta bit right-leaning and conservative.

And of course, Orida Potatoes

is so named because the

massive potato crops that are harvested on on the Oregon-Idaho border or Ida.

And of course,

it is sad to say that northern Idaho is a

sanctuary city, shall we perversely say, for white separatists.

So

it does get extremely right-wing leaning

in interior Oregon and then into Idaho as well.

And by the way, shout out to Boise, where I just was recently and felt very at home and saw many, many

all are welcome here signs and really, really loved it.

Yeah.

Janet, I have a question for you.

Uh-huh.

I mean, I've been to Portland.

I've been to Cannon Beach.

I have been to Eugene.

I've never been to Ashland, but I know in that southern part of Oregon, there's a lot of marijuana cultivation.

And I know that the actor Bruce Campbell in that general region with his wife Ida, at least used to have a lavender farm.

But for all of that, I don't know where Oregon is.

Well, you know that Idaho is to the east.

Oh, no, John.

Oh, no, it's not on the moon.

Oh, okay.

Is Idaho on the moon?

Maybe you don't know where Idaho is either.

Maybe you only know where those two states are in relationship to each other, but you don't know how they relate to the rest of the world.

I thought they might be twin moons

in geosynchronous orbit, circling each other as they circle a distant star.

You're so close.

Which would make them planets.

So close.

You're so so close.

Where is it in relation to other states, I guess?

Well,

let's put

Oregon in the state to the north.

Let's put it right in its place where it belongs.

To its north, we have the Columbia River

that on the other side, once you look on the other side of that Columbia River on the north, you will see Washington state.

It's directly across the river from the extremely confusingly named Vancouver, Washington.

Very, very confusing.

I feel like, yeah, there's just a lot of, there's a lot of that across the entire United States.

Speaking of Salem, the Snake River, beautiful Snake River with Idaho.

We get to Idaho.

I am very excited to talk about a couple of things

to do with the Snake River.

Too snakey.

The southern boundary is the 42-degree north parallel that it shares with Nevada and Nevada or Nevada and California.

And then to the west.

Nevada.

No, 40-degree to 42-degree north parallel.

I don't know.

Because we haven't talked about parallel, well, like hemispherical parallels up to this point, but that is the line of demarcation for this southern side of

the state of Oregon.

And then to the west, our first state who has its western border as the Pacific Ocean.

Oh, is that?

You made it all the way.

Well, that's, I mean, I'm just saying for us in our discussion, we haven't talked about a state yet

that has the Pacific as one of its borders.

So greetings to you, Pacific Ocean.

Within the union that we are assembling of states, commonwealths, et cetera, that we're cobbling together.

We have finally

manifested our destiny and reached the west of the continent.

Shortly before inevitably dying of dysentery.

That's right.

Which, of course, is a common phrase and a disappointing outcome in the

1980s.

I played it on my Apple II computer, not mine, but my school's Apple II computers, the Oregon Trail, which was a recreation or you know a simulation of what it was like to be in a wagon train going west to oregon as a settler and um boy was it depressing uh-huh well that was probably a pretty depressing life so maybe it was accurate maybe it was accurate yeah janet i love hearing about all these rivers except for that snake river

and the river of dysentery

i'm so sorry everyone but please don't turn me off what is what is the shape of Oregon?

What is the shape that we're looking at here?

Okay, well, why don't you take a look down at this shape?

I know you mentioned,

understandably so, when we talked about New Mexico, you said, you know, a lot of the shapes that you'll see more

on the west side are more square-shaped, and this is not an exception.

But can you find anything, is anything

manifesting itself to you as you stare at this shape?

Well, I mean, the bottom, or Lynn, that 42nd parallel there.

Yeah.

Intersecting at a very right angle with the eastern border with Idaho, the southern eastern border of Idaho.

That's right.

That's very squared off.

Yeah.

But then up above, it looks like a melting cube of jello.

Okay.

All right.

Yeah, that's all I got.

Because once you get above...

above Boise to the east, and obviously the whole west coast is pretty straight, but

it's variegated.

And above that, it just seems like a

collapsing souffle, maybe.

Yeah, yeah, I see that.

I'm, well, as you know, I like to push a little harder than you do to try to make things fit in terms of what a state looks like.

I would submit to you that right inside of a cardboard box that you see the bottom of on the southeastern corner is

a beaver.

I see a little beaver's head on the upper right, kind of poking its head out.

You can't really see its teeth, but there's a little nubbin where its teeth are down there.

It's got

a little paw.

That paw in there.

It's poking up to the northwest of Blaze City.

Yeah,

and then

on the left,

it's like its beaver tail has kind of been mushed into the box, so it's almost standing straight up.

But that's like a little, that's its little tail kind of poking up

on the Pacific Coast.

Yeah.

And its little head and profile is taking a little nibble at the Nez Perce Reservation.

Exactly.

Exactly.

In Idaho and Washington.

Exactly.

Gotcha.

And

I'm not just forcing that because it's an official nickname, because it does not have an official nickname, is the Beaver State.

But I genuinely thought that when I saw it, I was like, oh, that kind of looks like a little beaver.

But again, I didn't know.

I knew at that time.

So it was a confirmation bias situation where I knew it was the call of the beaver state.

And I thought, that kind of looks like a beaver in a box.

Now, we already talked about Wisconsin, where this movie comes from, but it is germane, and I'll mention it again.

Now, for the first time, or again, because I may have asked you then.

Or again, by the way, is not how you pronounce the name of the state either.

Have you seen the movie Hundreds of Beavers?

I have not.

Strongest recommend.

Oh, my God.

Okay, I'm writing it down right now.

It was made

by a small group of friends in Wisconsin, I believe.

What is it?

Hundreds of of beavers?

Hundreds of beavers is the name of the movie.

Okay, great.

You should watch it tonight.

I will.

Oh, I will.

Because I love beavers.

Okay.

And I did not know that Oregon was the beaver state, officially or unofficially.

It's a beaver state.

That is the unofficial nickname.

And that's probably because of the fur trapping industry that was in there for so long.

It is.

But I'd like to play a little game with you.

Now that we know the unofficial nickname of the beaver state, please tell me which of the following was not a tourist slogan for Oregon at some point.

Okay.

A, Oregon, where the roses bloom.

B, Oregon, we love dreamers.

C, Pacific Wonderland.

And D, things look different here.

E, none of the above, because the slogan was always,

we'll free your slaves and then expel them.

Unfortunately, that never made it into the Bureau of the Black.

All right, give it to me again.

There's only one that was not.

That was not.

Okay.

A, Oregon, where the roses bloom.

You don't have to say Oregon.

Okay.

I know.

Oregon, we love dreamers.

Yes.

C, Pacific Wonderland, or D, things look different here.

I'm going to say Pacific Wonderland.

Incorrect.

Oh.

That was one.

I made up Oregon where the roses bloom.

Where the roses bloom.

So actual ones, Oregon, we love dreamers.

Pacific Wonderland, and things look different here.

I love Pacific Wonderland.

I wish that that were the current tourism slogan.

I don't think that it has an official one right now.

Oh, there you go.

Well, where the roses bloom

is

got a chance then.

It's got a chance.

That also sounds like it could be like a flowers in the attic ripoff.

It reminds me of the wonderful Laura Cantrell version of the song When the Roses Bloom Again.

There you go.

Yeah.

Yeah, maybe Julian can play that as our music as we go to the break.

Well, they're strolling in the

After the break, we'll discuss some flora and fauna that didn't make the list of official state symbols of Oregon, and also some that did.

It's all coming up on E.

Cluribus Motto.

Janet, your attention, please.

It says here that we have a bulletin board.

Bulletin board!

This week's bulletin board comes from Folklord.

They're the makers of high-performance athletic apparel for legendary days.

Yes, Folklord features limited run hand illustrated designs, which I love, that are inspired by myths, legends, tall tales, cryptids even?

Yes.

And all manner of creatures in the wild.

You know what?

It's like, it's the opposite of athleisure.

It's um, let's wait for it, liegeletic.

It's ligeletic.

Like leisure and athletic yeah i'm glad i waited for that every folklore item is designed to look like everyday wear but built for an all-day adventure whether you're walking across the streets of portland oregon or through one of the lovely national parks of that very state you're moving your your your body's breathing you are stretching your everything you're wearing a shirt for a nut full of narwhals and you look great i'm going to go ahead and say even though uh this wonderful company is based in portland you could wear this in portland main hodgman because you can go right to their website.

It's that simple.

How do you get there?

Do I go to wearfolklord.com?

You 100% do.

That's W-E-A-R-F-O-L-K-L-O-R-D.com and at Wear Folklord on Instagram.

See you out there, maybe, as long as there's no cryptids in those woods.

Oh, please, you're going out to the woods to find cryptids and you know it.

You're right, Janet.

When I'm hunting for Bigfoots in the Maine woods, you know I want to be wearing a shirt that's got a bunch of narwhals on it, and Folklord has a beautiful narwhal shirt that I'm going to buy.

Me too.

If you've got a small business you'd like to showcase in one of our upcoming states, visit us at maximumfun.org slash bulletin board.

Hey, everybody, I'm Jeremy.

I'm Oscar.

I'm Dimitri.

And we are the Euro Evangelists.

We're a weekly podcast spreading the word of the Eurovision Song Contest, the most important music competition in the world.

Maybe you already heard Glenn Weldon of NPR's pop culture happy hour talk up our coverage of this year's contest.

But what do we talk about in the offseason?

The rest of Eurovision, duh.

There are nearly seven decades of pop music history to cover.

We've got thousands of amazing songs, inspiring competitors, and so much drama to discuss.

And let me tell you, the drama is juicy.

Plus, all the gorillas and bread-bacon grandmas that make Eurovision so special.

Check out Euro Evangelists available everywhere you get podcasts.

And you could be a Euro Evangelist too.

Ooh, I want to be one.

You already are.

It's that easy.

Okay, cool.

Welcome back to e Pluribus Moto.

I'm John Hodgman.

And I'm Janet Varney.

John Hodgman, the state of Oregon is what we here on ePluribus Moto call a mammal-rich state.

Yeah.

We've always called states mammal-rich.

This is a mammal-rich state.

A lot of mammals.

A lot of mammals.

And while I appreciate many of the creatures who have been elevated to official state symbols, I do feel we owe some love to some that have not.

So I'm going to continue the little game.

I love these games before we went.

I know, I thought, you know what?

I'm going to introduce some games

for this episode.

So, John Hodgman, tell me which one of these does not live in Oregon.

A, the Ords kangaroo rat, B, the chisel-toothed kangaroo rat, C, the red-rumped kangaroo rat, or D, the California kangaroo rat.

Which does not live in Oregon?

What was the first one?

Ords.

O-R-D-S.

Short for ordinary.

I'm going to go.

I like red rumps, and I cannot lie.

Oh, save that one for Washington.

Seattle zones her mix a lot.

But I'll say Chiseltooth.

Incorrect.

I made up the red rump.

The red rum.

I like that after I wrote it, I was like, that kind of sounds like red rum.

Like, I'm getting super into the shining for some reason.

Oh, well, I like the red rum.

And the exteriors

of the hotel in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining were shot in Oregon.

Correct.

At the Something Line Hotel.

Yep.

I can't remember.

But yes, you're right.

Okay.

Tell me.

Timberline.

Timberline.

Timberline.

There you go.

Well, that certainly makes sense.

Did it?

Tell me, good job.

Tell me which one of these.

Tell me which one of these does not live in Oregon.

A rufous hummingbirds B wall-eyed poor wills C American widgeons

D pilated woodpeckers well none of them have a red rump which is your classic tale I know

the third one

American widgeons instead of pigeons yeah what's a widgeon even

I don't know but unfortunately they do live in Oregon I'm made up wall-eyed poor wills.

Wall-eyed poor wills.

Is a poor will a thing?

A poor will is a thing.

But they rarely have a walleye.

To my knowledge, they do not.

A widgeon is a water bird.

Oh, there you go.

They're dabbling ducks, it says here.

Cute.

Currently classified in the genus Mareka.

Currently.

What are they making a plan?

They're forming a union.

How about that?

A union.

Okay, so answered, asked and answered.

Okay, which of the following is not harvested in Oregon?

A, blueberries.

B, cane berries.

C, dewberries, or D, dogberries.

Can I ask a question?

Are these all real berries?

Yes.

Okay, see, these are all existing.

They're not like red rumors.

They're all existing berries.

Yeah, there's no trick in this one.

I'm going to say blueberries.

Incorrect.

Blueberries are harvested there.

Cane berries, which I guess include, I didn't know this.

I was like, cane berries.

And then I looked it up and it's like

berries that are like, you know, blackberries, raspberries, those little, those little kinds of berries.

Dewberries are also harvested there.

Dogberries are not harvested there.

And I'll be honest with you.

Dogberries are hard to do.

I thought I was making up dogberries because I remember the dogberry is a character in Much You Do About Nothing.

And then after I wrote this, I looked it up and I was like, oh no, dogberries are totally real.

Maybe this is one of those things that William Shakespeare willed into existence.

He may have.

He may have.

They might have been like, well, might as well name a dogberry.

That's a name we've heard.

Tell you another berry that's not

harvested in Oregon.

I bet I know what it is.

I bet I know what it is.

I bet you don't.

Oh, yeah?

How much do you want to bet?

A Portland penny?

I'll bet you a Portland penny.

I'll bet you the Portland penny.

Whoever loses has to go steal it for the other from the Oregon.

It's going to be a heist.

A Bet Settlin heist.

Yeah.

John Smallberries.

What?

What's a John Smallberry?

What's What's that?

It's a quote from Buck Rubanzai Across the Fifth Dimension.

Shout out to the weirdo Peter Weller.

One of the top weirdos and the weirdo, W.D.

Richter, and

the yeah, everyone involved.

But yes,

all the aliens who work at Yo-Yudine Propulsion System

are named John something.

Gotcha.

John Bigboute.

And then at one point, the

side catches them.

So childish.

And he's like, let me see your ID.

He goes, all right, John Big Booty.

And he goes, Big Booty.

He goes, John Yahya.

John Smallberry's.

I'll never stop thinking about it.

I can't believe I said how childish when, and I could be honest.

I could, I could, well, listen, I own the fact that I was wrong.

I do have to go steal that Portland penny and give it to you.

So

I'll call you from prison if I don't die of disposition.

No, you're going to put together a crack team and get it.

I was wrong.

I can't believe I'm making fun of how childish

the names that you just gave me from Buckarubans I are when I thought you were going to say Dingleberry.

Okay.

Dingleberry, yeah.

Which of the following is not true about Oregon?

A, it has the nation's deepest lake.

B, it has the city with the most breweries of any city in the world.

C, it has the largest system of sea caves in the nation.

Or D, it's home to the single largest organism in the world.

The world's deepest lake?

The nation's deepest lake.

I think that's got to be Lake Superior.

I'm going to say it does not have the deepest lake.

Incorrect.

It has the nation's deepest lake, Crater Lake.

Crater Lake is in Oregon.

Yeah.

Now, that being said,

I lied.

They're all true.

Oh.

As a trick question.

As a trick question.

I know.

Crater Lake.

Crater Lake is the deepest.

The city with the most breweries in any city in the world is Portland.

That tracks.

But I'll say Portland, Maine, is gaining on them.

Well, there you go.

Yeah.

It's always going to be between the two Portlands.

It has the largest system of sea caves in the nation, the Sea Lion Caves.

Okay.

And it is home to the single largest organism in the world.

Which is a mushroom.

It is.

It is.

It absolutely is.

Armillaria

ostoyae.

It is a fungus that runs beneath 2,200 acres of the Malora National Forest.

This organism is estimated to be some 8,000 years old and may weigh as much as 35,000 tons.

You're going to tell me that this thing that's that big, that weighs that much, is that old,

is not super smart.

It's got to be smart.

It's communicating with,

it's community.

I mean, fungi are very fascinating, wonderful.

There it is out there.

And when it shoots up its little edible mushrooms that you can eat, people do.

Yeah.

And yet, the state mushroom is the Pacific Golden Chanterella.

I love eating one of those mushrooms from that thing because I know that I'm causing pain.

That's right.

Hundreds of miles away.

Hundreds of miles away.

How big is it?

How much is it?

Thousands of years old.

How big is it?

But I mean, it runs beneath 2,200 acres.

2,200 acres.

I wish I knew what an acre was.

I think it's like, well, it's almost nine square kilometers.

So it's.

yeah mushrooms are freaky i remember i saw paul stamitz the famous mycologist give a talk at the ted conference a long time ago

and uh and and uh he's been very influential in in the development of the new mike judge show um

uh common side effects on adult swim which is a terrific show that's like brandon's favorite show yeah he interviewed he he pitched a story to kcrw just so that he could interview them and meet them and he got to do it and now they're pals.

And he's, yeah, it's awesome.

Oh, terrific.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Wonderful.

Well, I can't wait to eat that giant mushroom.

I'm going to eat it up.

It's going to make you so smart and old.

All right.

Look, I'm already heavy.

Already halfway to one of them.

Okay, let's talk about some of the other many state symbols of Oregon.

We got to just quickly, I'm just going to look at the flag real quick.

The flag has two sides.

It's a sort of royal blue, and it says the state of Oregon on one side with 1859 at the bottom, official statement.

And it's got a covered wagon in the middle of it.

It truly looks like

the splash screen for the state seal.

Oregon Trail.

That's a state seal.

And then on the other side, just a beaver on a log.

That's all.

That's the

flag.

I'm going to say this is a great flag.

Yeah, it's not bad.

Really beautiful.

That being said, in 1976, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art had a nationwide contest for flags of various states and entities.

a lot of people wanted to redesign the Oregon flag.

And there were a bunch of finalists.

And we've got all the finalists here below for you to see.

Courtesy, Julian Brella, our wonderful producer.

Thank you, Julie.

If you look at them, there's a lot of really fun ones in here.

No, they all stink.

All right.

Well, guess what?

That's what the Oregonian also thought because they added the option of none of the above and not received the most.

No, they're pretty.

I mean, look, they're all very pretty.

And some of them, like, there's Flag E

John Mother's Head designed a very

state of Maryland sort of like makes your eyes water flat.

Dazzle, yeah, dazzle you.

You put it on a ship so you can't tell how big it is.

And I love Thomas Lincoln's, you know, a royal blue field with a...

a single beaver up in the top.

More simplified.

A more simplified version of what we currently see.

We have a lot that are kind of paying tribute to the Douglas fir, which is the state tree.

None of them stink.

I'm retracting my statement.

I'll say, they're all quite pretty.

But you're like, we don't need it.

You like the flag that exists.

I like the one they got.

I like that it has two sides.

I like that it has that nice little beaver right in the middle, and he's very cute and plump, and he's on a log.

Although, you know, obviously with that covered wagon, it represents

European invasion, but okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But I think it has a classy look, honestly.

Yeah.

It's not too bad.

It's not too bad.

The North American beaver state mammal, no surprise there.

We know that it is nicknamed the beaver state.

That's also, by the way, if we recall, the state animal of New York.

So they're trying to horn in on that beaver territory.

And I may have mentioned it in our New York episode, but

the Maximum Fun podcast, Secretly Incredible, Fascinating.

If you're listening to this podcast and not that one, then you've made a mistake.

Yeah.

Yeah, because that is an amazing podcast about

it.

Obscure facts.

And when I was on it, we covered beavers, and there are so many wonderful, wonderful facts about beavers.

They're really interesting, funny, smart animals.

So, absolutely.

And this little picture that we're looking at, this guy is sitting on his own tail.

Come on.

I know.

Adorable.

I know.

Cute as can be.

And they're,

well, we could go listen to that episode because that's where you need to find it.

Find out.

You can find out so many things about beavers.

We won't go into it here because you absolutely should go over and listen to it there.

Including how their tails taste.

And

the fact that their teeth just keep growing.

They just keep growing.

The state bird is the beautiful western meadowlark.

That's a nice name.

Which was chosen by school children in 1927.

That's fine.

We're okay with it.

Yeah, I mean, children in 1927,

I mean, basically, they're all dying of dysentery at that point anyway.

Like, you got to give them something.

Like, the ban on school children nominating state symbols, that makes more sense in the 80s, 90s, and 2000s when, you know, kids should be playing video games and not.

bothering state legislators.

But, you know, what else are kids going to do but name state birds in 1927?

Another symbol chosen by school children, this happened in 2009.

Okay.

Which falls right snuggly into the era that you said it doesn't need to be happening.

That's how they selected the state crustacean, which is the dungeness crab.

Here's a little crab looking pretty cranky.

Pick that picture for you.

It says looking pretty cranky.

Now,

I'll say this.

I don't know if you've picked a state cryptid to talk about, Janet.

I have not.

Yeah, it's hard because.

I'm waiting for you.

I thought you would have one.

I mean, Sasquatch, we ceded to California.

And that's controversial, of course.

It is.

It is.

Because the Sasquatch doesn't care about borders.

Bigfoot doesn't care.

42nd parallel?

Who cares?

Yeah,

he doesn't even know what parallel means.

Or she, or they.

They often travel in pods.

But the Sasquatch is beloved all the way up the Pacific Northwest.

It's part of the net sort of

popular cultural identity of Oregon and Washington and Vancouver, British Columbia.

Indeed, at

PDX, that airport with the wonderful carpet, I always like to take the Sasquatch elevators in the parking structure.

There you go.

It has a big picture of Sasquatch on it.

But if you want a pure, speaking of a dungeonous crab, you want a pure Oregon shared with no one, cryptid.

We need one.

We need one.

The giant crabs of Walloa Lake.

Wonderful.

How giant?

They're

giant fresh.

This is according to Crypted Wiki.

Great.

They are giant crustaceans inhabiting the area in and around Walloa Wake,

appearing heavily in the tales of early settlers of Oregon.

No true lobsters live on the Pacific coast, only spiny lobsters or langoosts.

But there are many large crabs.

Dungeness crab is no small crab.

But these crabs of legend, these giant crabs of legend, were freshwater clabs supposedly, and they were larger than the largest crab in the world, which is the Japanese spider crab with a leg span of up to 12 feet.

Those little creatures are very large.

And Waloa Lake is also home to the Waloa Lake Monster, which is a different

span.

Yeah.

I mean,

who came first?

The giant crab or the monster monster?

Who wants to see those two battle it out in claymation form?

I mean, look, the guys who made hundreds of beavers could surely make lake monster versus giant crab.

Get on it.

All right, okay, the giant crab.

And if you are wondering, it is true that Sufjong Stevens wrote a song called Waloa Lake Monster about that monster.

Oh, he's come back up.

There are probably other homegrown Oregon cryptids.

Let us know if we missed them.

You know how to reach us.

Email Pluribus Motto at maximumfund.org.

And why didn't you tell us about this for our cryptids episode?

If you have one that isn't either of those two, don't sleep on it a moment longer.

We need to know.

Please let us know.

So I don't know if they're giant dungenous crabs or a giant different kind of crab, but there you go.

Great.

I'm so glad that you brought a cryptid to the table.

I'll always bring a cryptid to the table.

I was only going to talk about Sasquatch, and I knew.

Especially if it's a giant, delicious crab.

Sure.

You know what I'm going to do?

Is I'm going to saute up some of that giant mushroom.

Oh, there you go.

And eat it with some of that giant crab.

Eat it with a giant fork and knife.

Do you eat it?

A novelty fork and knife.

Do you eat seafood?

Yeah, I was going to ask you the same thing, except I know the answer, but I was going to say, so are you a big crabhead?

In many ways,

I love crabs and I often get crabs

on your head.

Delice lice.

I do love seafood.

I am, you know, I'm a West Coaster.

I tend to, I tend more towards like the sushi, the Japanese,

cooked, I like baked cod.

Yeah.

Love the sushi.

And I, and I like a, I like some crab.

For me,

well, for me, both lobster and crab, I never like scallops because it's just a texture thing.

Yeah.

But lobster and crab, sometimes I'm in the mood for it.

And when I am, it tastes great.

And if I am not in the mood or I don't know whether I'm in the mood and I take a bite of crab, sometimes I'm like, absolutely not.

My body does not want this right now.

I don't know why it's such a strong reaction, but crab and lobster are both very much that for me.

You know what?

Nope, nope.

I thought I wanted it.

I do not.

You know what?

That's very common.

And you know the motto of the National Crab and Lobster Association is

listen to your body.

Maybe you don't want to eat this.

That's really nice.

Wow.

Thanks for giving that freedom to me.

I appreciate that.

I'm looking, look, not too long from now, I think it might be our last one or two episodes of this season.

I will be recording from Maine.

Because I'm getting ready to go up there and I'm getting ready to eat a crab roll, which I love more than a lobster roll.

Yeah.

I prefer crab to lobster for sure.

Well, lobster is often overcooked and thus rubbery.

Yeah.

But we digress.

Let us return from Portland, Maine to Portland, Oregon and the surrounding area.

What's the state tree?

You mentioned it before.

We talked about that Douglas fir.

It's a beautiful tree, magnificent and emblem, grows tall and wide.

Very nice looking tree.

R.I.P.

to the old music venue Doug Fir in Portland.

I think they're relocating it.

I don't think it's gone forever.

But that's where I first saw.

Rest in moving.

Yeah, that's where I first saw Tao and the get-down stay-down.

And what a concert that was.

Oh, Tao is amazing.

Yeah.

Okay, state flower, the Oregon grape, which they then

on the website show you a picture of the grapes instead of the flower before it becomes a grape, I guess.

I don't know.

A lot of vineyards in

parts of Oregon.

Oh, my God.

I almost called the entire state of Oregon Portland.

I'm going to be raked over the coals for this.

You know,

their raking is very gentle because they get tired and take naps due to marriage.

And I love the state of Oregon, y'all.

Okay.

Of course.

The Oregon grape.

The state rock, John Hodgman, is the Thunder Egg.

Thunder Egg, Thunder Egg, Thunder Egg.

What is a Thunder Egg?

It's similar to a geode.

It's like a rough sphere that you would find throughout Oregon.

I love a rough sphere.

And, you know,

if you look up a picture,

the picture that they give on the state symbol website is this sort of, it does look like a geode, if you're familiar with a geode, but it's got kind of a milky stone texture in the middle.

It's very interesting looking.

So it's a rock with a milky exterior.

Two great tastes that go great together.

Love it.

Speaking of cryptids, and I'm not sure this is a cryptid so much as it is a...

a mythical and important

animal in Native American folklore.

I believe the thunder eggs are believed to be the eggs of the thunderbirds.

Oh, well, there you go.

Thunderbirds being

in native folklore, massive, well, birds

that were inhabited by the thunder spirits.

Yeah, that comes, thunderbirds come up a lot in Native culture that I was sort of raised around in Arizona, but I don't think we ever talked about thunder eggs.

So maybe that's more specific to when you're up in an area where you can find those beautiful eggs with the milky interior, which does not in any way make it okay that the state drink of Oregon is milk.

Is it really?

It is.

It's milk.

With all those breweries, honestly?

Well, listen, instead of making

by this point it's CBD-infused seltzer, but okay.

That's right, that's right.

Instead of making a state beverage beer, they went ahead and left it milk, but then assigned a state microbe, which is brewer's yeast.

Okay.

Nod to the industry.

State microbe.

Brewer's yeast.

I think that is the

state microbe.

Youngest, newest assigned state, official state symbol, brewer's yeast.

State vegetable, you talked about it, or Idaho.

Oregon.

Talk about Idaho potatoes.

The Idaho potato is the official state vegetable of Oregon.

It could come from Oregon or Idaho.

Or Idaho.

It's the official state vegetable.

Is it really?

It sure is.

How about that?

It sure is.

Watch out, Idaho!

You know,

I followed your link here to other state symbols, and I see here that the official state raptor

is the osprey, which is a wonderful bird of prey.

Beautiful bird of prey.

Beautiful,

lifelong monogamous bird of prey that returns to its nest year after year after year.

How do I know that?

Because there are multiple osprey condos that I know very well.

In Maine, there's a lot of connection between our Pacific Northwestern and Atlantic Northeastern states here because Maine,

I don't know, I don't know what to say.

Follow the parallels.

You know what I mean?

There are parallels there between them.

The Portland Penny knew exactly what it was doing.

The Portland Penny knew what it was doing.

All right, let's take another break.

When we come back, we will discuss the official state song with help from one listener email and read another from someone aptly named for this task at hand.

Plus, you'll see in a moment.

Plus, it is time to rate the state mock toes.

ePlurbus Motto will be back after this.

Whispered.

After this.

Welcome back to EPLURBUS MATTO.

I'm Janet Varney.

And I'm John Hodgman.

But enough about John Hodgman and Janet Varney.

Let's hear from you, the listeners.

That's right.

First up, we have Nessa E., who was born and raised in Oregon, who drew our attention to the Oregon state song and its lyrics.

The state song is Oregon, My Oregon.

I will say I hate almost all of the lyrics.

I bet you can tell which ones I hate and which ones I like.

Land of the Empire Builders, boo.

Land of the Golden West, okay.

Conquered and held by free man, boo.

Very good.

Extended content warning.

Boo.

Onward and upward ever, forward, on and on, forward and on and on.

Hail to thee, land of the heroes, my Oregon.

No.

Land of the rose and sunshine, fine.

Land of the summer's breeze, fine.

Land laden with health and vigor,

fresh from the western seas, blessed by the blood of martyrs, boo.

Land of the setting sun.

Hail to thee, land of promise, my oregon.

That was a real line-by-line, deep-text analysis of the official state song of Oregon.

They're not great.

Well, I wanted to read it all because,

as a child, Nessa knew that these lyrics were BS.

She knew exactly what to do about a travesty like this.

She wrote new lyrics.

So when she was 10 years old,

she and some friends penned some new ones, and I gotta say, the 13, 14, 15-year-old Goth in me is real into them.

Land of depressing weather, land of the rain and fog, land of the towering factories producing all our smog.

Land where we die of pollution, killing us one by one.

Let's all die together in Origen.

10 years old, Nessa.

Yeah.

10 years old.

Yeah, absolutely.

That captures the spirit of the state very nicely.

Oh, my goodness.

We love, I love a parody.

I love a parody song.

So thank you, Nessa, for writing that in and for sharing those extremely grim lyrics.

Yeah, look, if you've got a submission for a good Oregon state song, I mean, a lot of incredible, I mean, talk, talk about, uh, talk about, uh, Carrie Brownstein.

What about, uh, Slater Kinney?

There's got to be a Slater Kinney song you put in there.

A lot of great Oregon bands

that

we could honor with making their song the official state song of Oregon.

If you've got a nominee, you know where to reach us.

Yes.

Email PluribusMotto at maximumfund.org or go to speakpipe.com slash ePluribusmato.

But we have a letter now from a person named for the state mammal.

It's Rebecca Beaver.

Oh,

she may not have been named for the state mammal.

Becky Beaver says, I would love, love, love it if you would talk about Oregon City.

That was my hometown growing up.

It's not too far from Portland, but not many people seem to know about Oregon City.

I had never heard of it.

Thank you, Rebecca.

Neither had I, but it is the official end of the Oregon Trail.

That was a big thing you learned about in elementary school growing up there.

And may I also say in Brookline, Massachusetts.

We have an Oregon Trail Museum, which have giant covered wagons that lost their covers a long time ago and never seem to have been replaced.

The classic museum.

If you want to learn more, go to historicOregonCity.org.

Rebecca Beaver goes on to say, I feel like most people in the United States know of the Oregon Trail from the popular computer game.

There it is.

You brought it up earlier.

No one knows about the town it ended in.

Yeah, that's because none of us ever reached it because we all died of dysentery.

We have a wonderfully weird historic elevator.

that was used back in the day to take people from the lower part of town by the Willamette River.

That's how you say it, not Willamette, Willamette River,

to the upper part of town

because Oregon City is very hilly.

And Rebecca Beaver sent a photo of this wonderful space.

It looks like a mini space needle.

It does look like a mini space needle.

Yeah, and it takes

low Oregon City to high Oregon City.

Very cool looking.

That's so strange and cool.

According to the internet, the Oregon City Municipal Elevator continues to to operate of one of only four municipal elevators in the world.

And Elevator Street remains the only vertical street in North America.

I guess the elevator counts as a street.

That's so funny.

I love it.

Oregon City was the first incorporated city

west of the Rockies.

And it was the capital.

Uh-oh.

The capital moved to Salem.

How about that?

How about that indeed?

Rebecca, Beaver, thank you so much for sending this.

I can't believe your last name is Beaver.

You knew exactly how charming that would be when you sent something to email Pluribus Mott at maximumfon.org.

Thank you so much for sharing that with us.

Oregon City, I'm going to get you.

I'll be there.

Salem, I may have put you to the back burner.

Just like that.

Everyone in Oregon should keep an eye out for Janet Varney visiting your state because you know that she's there to steal that penny.

And make sure to save me one of those t-shirts.

I'm sure you have.

Oregon City, I went on Elevator Street and all I got was this lousy altitude sickness.

And all I got was this smell of stale urine.

Oh, I'm confusing it with the elevators in New York City.

Oh, the NYC subway.

Thank you.

All right.

Is that it for Oregon?

Well, we got to rank the mottos.

Oh.

To rank the mottos.

Do we?

We do.

I want to.

I want to know.

Both the Latin alis volat prop proprio.

I just realized, I just pictured like us going like, yeah, let's blow it off.

And then some listener with a spreadsheet is so mad at at us.

Never.

Yeah.

They've been very carefully and graciously compiling all the stats.

Don't forget our wiki that will happen one day.

She flies by her own wings.

Let's rank them by thunder eggs.

I love it.

How many one to ten thunder eggs?

Let's rank.

Ten being the best number of thunder eggs and one.

That's right.

Might as well not have any thunder eggs at all.

That's right.

She flies with her own wings and

the union.

The union gets negative one thunder eggs.

Agree.

Not only because of its connection to the racist past of this country and Oregon as well.

It's tied to something very specific that is not cool.

And it's not a motto.

I mean, it's just two words.

So that's negative one.

She flies with her own wings.

I'll give that a...

an eight.

I'll give it an eight.

I don't know 100%

exactly how it ties into Oregon, other than that Oregon has an independent spirit, which I appreciate.

Right.

But on sheer beauty alone, what a lovely,

very pretty movie.

You really imagine flying with your own wings.

It's beautiful.

All right, that is going to be it for Oregon.

Obviously, we couldn't cover everything if there's something we missed that isn't a state cryptid, which we've already requested from you, or your rendition.

I hope you will go to speakpipe.com/slash epluribus motto and sing your, sing sing a snippet of who you think should have the official state song when we replace Oregon by Oregon.

Let us know if it's something else.

Email pluribusmato maximumfun.org.

What's more, you can let us know something about a state that we haven't covered yet but are covering this season.

There aren't a lot left.

We've got Nevada, we've got Pennsylvania, we've got District of Columbia.

If you've got something interesting you'd like to share about those states because you like them or you live there, email us, won't you, at emailpluribusmato at maximumfun.org or drop drop us a voicemail at speakpipe.com slash ePluribus Motto.

That does it for this episode of ePluribus Motto.

The show was hosted by John Hodgman along with me, Janet Farney.

The show is produced and edited by Julian Burrell.

Thanks, Julian.

Senior producer at Maximum Fun is Laura Swisher.

Thanks, Laura.

Our theme music was composed by Zach Burba.

Thanks, Burbs.

Thanks, Zach.

Our show art was created by the great Paul G.

Hammond.

Thanks.

And you can also find us on TikTok and Instagram to tell us more about the states we've talked about so far.

John, where are we headed next time on E Plurba's Motto?

Janet, it's the state that everyone's been waiting for.

It's time to put the spotlight on

home of the Writer's Workshop.

That's right, Iowa.

Oh,

everyone's been waiting for it.

Wonderful.

But until then, everyone, please remember our motto.

Listen to your body.

Maybe you don't want to eat it.

Listen to your body.

Listen to your body.

Bye.

Bye.

I had to reinvent the first couple of lines of this because I couldn't remember.

This was a song a friend of mine and I made up when we were 10 in 1968

that is using the melody of the Oregon State anthem

And here's our version

Land

of depressing weather

land of the rain and fog

Land

of the towering factories producing all our smug

land where we die of pollution,

killing us one by one.

Let's all die together

in Orian.

That's it

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