In a town with this much love for vintage, it comes as little surprise that there's a photo studio that caters specifically to fans of retro-style pin-up photography, in that they have a huge studio, an enormous wealth of wardrobe, hair and makeup services, and experienced assistance to help you model for your own classic pin-up style portraits. It's called Pop Art Pinup, and I recently had the goofy-fun pleasure of sampling the experience, which you can read all about over on MOD.

• Tony Mancini

A very simple and effective sticker has popped up in Old Town:

Someone spotted the poop-aganda campaign at the Joan of Arc statue in the Laurelhurst neighborhood, too.

The Belmont Bodega on SE 25th and Belmont always has excellent phrases stuck across its front window. I liked their wisdom on New Years' Eve.

I went to the brand-new Portland Aquarium last week expecting it to be an abysmal scam, instead finding it to be a surprisingly cute and interactive place that was marginally better than what I expected from an aquarium built in six months in a former steakhouse.

But I want to post an excerpt from a letter written by reader Guilyn Maros because it's a worthwhile assessment of the place from someone with higher expectations. The aquarium is a good little wonderland for kids, but it's not really an aquarium. "Rather unregulated fish petting zoo" is a much better description.

From Guilyn Maros:

I was SO excited for an Aquarium to open up in Portland, eagerly bought a living social family membership, and went for the first time with my toddler.

I was pretty horrified with what I saw. Even on their facebook page, they refer to themselves as a 'petting zoo'—and that is what they are: a fish petting zoo.

I was shocked that kids could touch all the animals in so many of the super tiny 'tanks'—with not only no hand washing (how is this healthy for the animals??), there is also no supervision of the numerous children touching the creatures. There was a little boy in front of me who ripped a sea anemone off the wall, and squeezed it so hard in his hand that it flew out of his grip, and slammed into the wall (not exaggerating). The seahorses in another tank were floating dead at the top of their tank. Don't get me wrong—my toddler loved his visit there. But I was horrified at the conditions for the creatures, and can't in good conscience support a business like that who is obviously more concerned about making money than it is about the well being of the creatures there.

On my visit, I asked about the wisdom of letting kids poke their hands into the tanks and was told that powerful filters keep the water clean. There's also staff in every room, but I could definitely see how on a busy day, a kid among the crowd could squeeze an anemone to death unseen.

Most of the big, local-focused shopping fairs have come and gone, so if you're still struggling to finish your last-minute shopping (or looking for some special dranks for the big day(s)), here's one of your very last chances, for real this time.

Producers Portland is a small clutch of micro producers trafficking in wine, booze, coffee, and textiles. All under one roof, the group includes Marigold Coffee, Nell & Mary, Stone Barn Brandyworks, Make It Good, Alchemy Wine Productions, and Precision Craft. On Friday they'll open their doors at 3315 SE 19th from 4-10 pm, perfectly timed to propel your after-work momentum into getting that gift shit done.

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• Nell & Mary's pile o' pillows.

A few weeks back, I attended the PDX Strippies, an annual performance and awards show celebrating the people—not just dancers, but the cooks, DJs and cocktail servers, too—who make Portland's strip club industry tick. As is reflected in the clubs, the majority of the performers who danced in between award announcements were women. However, just before the bestowment of a prize for male dancing, a certain Jon Dutch took the stage.

It's probably been too long since I last saw male stripping in Portland, and Dutch's set was hilarious. He started dressed in a panda suit, then stripped that off to reveal a Duffman costume, was at one point dancing to the theme of Team America: World Police, and had shaved a faux six-pack into the hair on his torso. As funny as he was, he was also clearly experienced and agile on the pole. I couldn't tell if he was an actual stripper or not, so I made some inquiries that eventually resulted in no fewer than six long emails filled with the fascinating details of a Portland performer who, it turns out, has been published in the Mercury three times in his underwear, is the ride marshall for the World Naked Bike Ride, has a day job as a circus performer and acrobat, and also cross-trains high level pole dancers in preparation for competitions.

Click the cut for a lengthy Q&A in which I ask important journalistic questions like, "What the fuck is up with tall bikes?"

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From the John Fluevog store on SW 12th and Stark:

Spotted by veganidiot!