WILLAMETTE WEEK PORTLAND’S NEWSWEEKLY
“KEEP YOUR FREAKING HANDS OFF MY BODY!” P. 4 wweek.com
VOL 40/04 11.27.2013
NEWS riot in the green streets. new columN WILLIE WEED books god is disappointed in you. P. 8
P. 24
P. 44
Two Oregonians found the perfect crime: falsely Promising vulnerable immigrants documents. Why are they not in prison? By Andrea Damewood p. 13
m a r ya n n a h o g g at t
GREEd CARD
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Willamette Week NOVEMBER 27, 2013 wweek.com
MISHA ASHTON MOORE
CONTENT
PLASTERED PODCAST: Drinking Scotch and talking theater. Page 41.
NEWS
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MUSIC
31
LEAD STORY
13
PERFORMANCE 41
CULTURE
24
MOVIES
45
FOOD & DRINK
28
CLASSIFIEDS
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STAFF Editor-in-Chief Mark Zusman EDITORIAL Managing Editor for News Brent Walth Arts & Culture Editor Martin Cizmar Staff Writers Andrea Damewood, Nigel Jaquiss, Aaron Mesh Copy Chief Rob Fernas Copy Editors Matt Buckingham, Jessica Pedrosa Stage & Screen Editor Rebecca Jacobson Music Editor Matthew Singer Projects Editor Matthew Korfhage Books Penelope Bass Classical Brett Campbell Dance Aaron Spencer Theater Rebecca Jacobson Visual Arts Richard Speer Editorial Interns Ramona DeNies, Ravleen Kaur, Alex Tomchak Scott
CONTRIBUTORS Emilee Booher, Ruth Brown, Nathan Carson, Rachel Graham Cody, Pete Cottell, Jordan Green, Jay Horton, AP Kryza, Nina Lary, Mitch Lillie, John Locanthi, Enid Spitz, Grace Stainback, Mark Stock, Michael C. Zusman PRODUCTION Production Manager Ben Kubany Art Director Kathleen Marie Graphic Designers Mitch Lillie, Amy Martin, Xel Moore, Dylan Serkin Production Interns Jerek Hollender, Kayla Nguyen ADVERTISING Director of Advertising Scott Wagner Display Account Executives Maria Boyer, Ginger Craft, Michael Donhowe, Kevin Friedman, Janet Norman, Kyle Owens, Sharri Miller Regan, Andrew Shenker Classifieds Account Executive Matt Plambeck Advertising Assistant Ashley Grether Marketing & Events Manager Carrie Henderson Give!Guide Director Nick Johnson
Our mission: Provide Portlanders with an independent and irreverent understanding of how their worlds work so they can make a difference. Though Willamette Week is free, please take just one copy. Anyone removing papers in bulk from our distribution points will be prosecuted, as they say, to the full extent of the law. Willamette Week is published weekly by City of Roses Newspaper Company 2220 NW Quimby St., Portland, OR 97210. Main line phone: (503) 243-2122 fax: (503) 243-1115 Classifieds phone: (503) 223-1500 fax: (503) 223-0388
DISTRIBUTION Circulation Director Mark Kirchmeier WWEEK.COM Web Production Brian Panganiban Web Editor Matthew Korfhage MUSICFESTNW Executive Director Trevor Solomon Associate Director Matt Manza OPERATIONS Accounting Manager Chris Petryszak Credit & Collections Shawn Wolf Office Manager/Receptionist Sam Cusumano A/P Clerk Andrea Iannone Manager of Information Systems Brian Panganiban Associate Publisher Jane Smith Publisher Richard H. Meeker
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INBOX YOGIS WITHOUT BOUNDARIES
Dentistry In The Pearl That’s Something To Smile About!
I go to a lot of yoga, and have for about 20 years. It is a big part of my life. You may not know it, because I am not an amazingly flexible or fit individual, but I use yoga regularly to keep my body and mind fluid and basically pain-free. When I step away from my practice for too long, I find that specific areas of pain return and I am less able to move through my life—emotionally and physically. Basically, I am a big fan of the philosophy and practice of yoga. However, I am not a big fan of an instructor—especially one who does not know me—coming up and putting their hands on me. This happens a lot and I just cannot figure out why so many instructors think this is OK. Verbal cues are great—I love them, keep them coming! I did not, however, approve your touch or your energy coming onto my body directly in this way. I know you may think your soothing voice in my ear and gentle yet firm touch are a bonus to my practice, but it is not. I stiffen. I almost always have an immediate somatic response that is negative, and my practice is interrupted completely. I know I am sensitive—I work as an acupuncturist and touch a lot of people every day. I am sensitive to the energies that are transmitted both with touch and just by simple proximity, and I don’t come to yoga to touch more people. I know I have work to do. I know this is my problem. I also know I am not the only one who feels this way. A yoga class is somewhere I should feel safe, not on guard. So alas, I implore you, yogis of the world—who have no idea how many thousands of hours I have practiced and how many hundreds of teachers I have learned from—keep your freaking hands off my body! At least until we have established some
kind of relationship. Seriously, do not assume that since I am in your class that I will take everything you say and internalize it, or that I am open to your every suggestion you make verbally or more aggressively with your hands. I appreciate you and the valuable work you are doing—and often for far less money than you deserve. I value that you are cultivating your own practice and sharing that with the community around you, even with those like me who can’t commit to a regularly scheduled practice and develop a real pupil-teacher relationship. I offer sincere thanks for that. But be nice and ask first, and please stop driving me away from this beautiful practice with your hands-on approach. —“Don’t f-ing touch me without asking nicely, and even then I might say no.”
NONPROFIT’S LAND DEALS
Instead of trying to create controversy and scandal where none exists, WW should be highlighting the remarkable success the Native American Youth and Family Association has achieved in meeting the needs of some of our community’s most vulnerable children and families [“Losing Ground,” WW, Nov. 20, 2013]. Portland Public Schools is making thoughtful investments and sound decisions about the use of dormant property by partnering with an organization to serve children and families who have historically been tragically underserved. —“Rebecca Schroeder” LETTERS TO THE EDITOR must include the author’s street address and phone number for verification. Letters must be 250 or fewer words. Submit to: 2220 NW Quimby St., Portland, OR 97210. Fax: (503) 243-1115. Email: mzusman@wweek.com.
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Willamette Week NOVEMBER 27, 2013 wweek.com
I often hike in Forest Park and frequently see little plastic bags of dog poop, knotted shut and left at the side of the trail or even on top of a rock or stump. What is up with this? Is there some religious significance to these offerings? —Puzzled in the Parks
In ancient times, a shadowy race of druidic peoples trod the plashy fens of the Willamette Valley. No one knows who they were, or what they were doing, but their priests created carefully positioned poo monuments in such perfect alignment with Earth’s magnetic field and the rays of the setting sun that, for a few moments on each winter solstice, worshippers could smell Detroit. If there really were to be a modern resurgence of ancient pooidic rituals, God knows Portland is the place it’d happen. But I’m afraid the truth is more prosaic: People are public-spirited enough to bag their dog’s crap, but not quite so civicminded as to carry it to a trash can.
This half-measure is literally worse than nothing, since it turns what would have been a temporary, biodegradable annoyance into an immortal monument to short attention spans. But take heart: At least the offenders can get busted. The parks bureau’s Mark Ross says rangers can issue citations for up to $150 for dog-related offenses. (Though he then adds, rather distressingly, that “they’d be delighted if they never had to issue a single one,” suggesting a mollycoddling, forgive-and-forget attitude at odds with the thumbscrews-and-horsewhips regimen so plainly needed.) Ross also notes that the parks bureau is partnering with Portland Public Schools on an outreach program that will teach kids how not to do this kind of thing. (Adults are already lost causes, I guess.) So there you go, Puzzled; in just a few short generations, the problem will have solved itself. QUESTIONS? Send them to dr.know@wweek.com
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PUBLIC SCHOOLS: Is a private college pulling a land grab on PPS? CITY HALL: The environmental projects at stake in a water vote. HOTSEAT: Grant High teacher and House candidate Don Gavitte. COVER STORY: Oregon’s biggest notario fraud: still an open case.
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The race to replace disgraced former Multnomah County Chairman Jeff Cogen heated up last week when Deborah Kafoury unveiled an all-star list of endorsers, including Gov. John Kitzhaber. Her main opponent, Jim Francesconi, responded Nov. 22 by showing off his organized-labor credentials and announcing an endorsement by the Pacific Northwest Regional Council of KAFOURY Carpenters. What Francesconi’s campaign didn’t mention: He’s the attorney for the carpenters’ union. “They’ve been a client because they trust his judgment and values,” says Louis De Sitter, Francesconi’s campaign director. “In some ways, that makes it a greater honor.” Anti-TriMet blogger Lane Jensen pleaded not guilty Nov. 22 to 31 counts of telephonic harassment after he allegedly peppered TriMet spokeswoman Roberta Altstadt with text messages Oct. 15 (“A Visit From the TriMet Squad,” WW, Oct. 30, 2013). Multnomah County Circuit Court set his trial for Jan. 7, and ordered his laptop and cellphone—seized by transit police when he was arrested Oct. 17—returned to him. “Both in sound condition,” Jensen reports. City Commissioner Dan Saltzman has begun making changes at Portland Fire & Rescue since inheriting the bureau from former Commissioner Randy Leonard. Here’s one: He’s gotten equipment used to respond to disasters moved out of a building that would fall down in a major earthquake. The fire bureau has been storing two Mass Casualty Incident trailers in the Gideon Building, a 1907 warehouse at 1300 SE Gideon St., since 2008—even though the building doesn’t meet current building codes or seismic standards. Saltzman pointed out the equipment’s storage as a problem during an August tour of fire facilities, and the bureau moved the trailers Nov. 19. Staffer Matt Grumm says Saltzman’s experience with the Bureau of Development Services made him “pretty immersed in building codes and seismic updates. He was very attuned to that.” Fire Chief Erin Janssens says the bureau is still using the Gideon Building to store some equipment for disasters, including ladders and body bags. This Thanksgiving, please make WW’s Give!Guide part of your tradiIL K W tional celebration. Check out our new website (giveguide.org) and qualify for all manner of incentives—including ice cream, coffee, tacos and croissants. You might even get one of 2013 WW’s co-owners (Editor Mark Zusman or Publisher Richard Meeker) at your door with a special blue G!G reusable grocery bag full of goodies: A to Z pinot noir, grains from Bob’s Red Mill, Stumptown Coffee beans, tea from Steven Smith, and beer from Widmer Brothers. G!G has so far brought in $330,000 from 2,010 donors—nearly 700 of them under 36. We’re hopefully on the way to more than $2.1 million by our deadline, Dec. 31. ME LA
TTE W EE
GIVE! GUIDE
Read more Murmurs and daily scuttlebutt. 6
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COURTESY OF DEBORAH KAFOURY
NEWS TO COMFORT CRYING TIMBERS FANS.
GOT A GOOD TIP? CALL 503.445.1542, OR EMAIL NEWSHOUND@WWEEK.COM
N i c k Pat to N
NEWS
A LESSON IN SHARING NEIGHBORS FEAR A UNIVERSITY’S AMBITIONS WILL OVERWHELM A LOW-INCOME SCHOOL. By nig e l jaq ui ss
njaquiss@wweek.com
No shortage of excitement—or hyperbole—has greeted preparations for the first new school to be built with the nearly $500 million voters gave Portland Public Schools last year. “There’s nothing quite like this in the country,” architect Chris Linn told a design advisory group Nov. 21 at Faubion Elementary, a pre-K-8 school located at 3039 NE Rosa Parks Way, next to Concordia University. Faubion, a low-slung single-story building from 1950, will be demolished and replaced—the only new school to be built with the bond money. Most of the voter-approved revenue ($257 million out of $482 million) will go to renovate Grant, Franklin and Roosevelt high schools, with $27.5 million to be spent on Faubion, and the rest spread across 63 other schools. What’s unique about the new Faubion? Its partnership with Concordia’s education department. The two schools will share real estate, and Concordia students will work intensively with Faubion students. Concordia has pledged to raise at least $7.5 million for the project. But some parents at Faubion worry that the private Lutheran university is getting a taxpayer subsidy for its athletics department. Parents have only recently learned the scope of Concordia’s ambitions: The college wants to build an NCAA-
quality softball stadium at Faubion. And the discovery surprised even people involved in the planning. Ethan Jewett, a Faubion parent and member of the design advisory group, says neighbors became alarmed when preliminary renderings showed an elaborate softball stadium being plunked down on Faubion’s playground, which also serves as a neighborhood park. “Nobody that I know knows anything definitive about the genesis of the softball field or how it would be an amenity for Faubion students,” Jewett says. But Concordia executive vice president Gary Withers says the institutions are aligned. “I think our interests are the same,” he says. “What’s good for the community is good for the university.” Faubion is a high-poverty school—more than threequarters of its 487 students are eligible for free or reducedprice lunch—while Concordia is a fast-growing private university with a 10-campus network in 10 states. Concordia last year opened a law school in Boise, Idaho, and its Portland campus has doubled in the past 20 years to nearly 2,000 students. Faubion parents, meanwhile, worry about getting their kids into high school. Although Concordia officials have said the softball field is merely an option, neighbors note that Concordia’s softball coach and her team showed up at a Nov. 16 open house and lobbied hard for inclusion of the facility. And visitors to the university’s website see a description of Concordia’s 2015 jump from National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics to NCAA Division II—“moving to the big leagues,” the website says. Jewett says the skepticism about a softball field comes
from the presumption that kids and the community would not be granted access to a gated, artificial-turf softball field. He says Concordia’s new turf soccer field near Faubion is essentially off limits to neighborhood use. “The amenities they are proposing look like something off a Concordia strategic plan, not something our kids would ever use,” Jewett says. Last week’s meeting of the Faubion advisory group kicked off in curious fashion. Linn, the lead architect on the project, told staff and neighbors they were not allowed to discuss how the property would be used. “We’re not talking about the site,” said Linn, a principal at Boora Architects. “We won’t talk about the softball field.” Linn also banned discussion of what might happen to neighboring St. Michael’s Lutheran Church. (The church is independent of the university.) Concordia’s renderings show the church would be torn down and replaced by an auditorium that would occasionally be available for use by Faubion students. Withers, Concordia’s point man on the Faubion project, acknowledges both the softball field and demolishing the church are possibilities but neither is written in stone. Nor is a combination grocery store and wellness clinic, which the university is contemplating in some renderings. “We’re in the process of master planning now,” Withers says. “We’re a long way from definitive answers.” The university is also some distance from delivering its end of the project’s funding. Withers says he’s confident Concordia will raise its $7.5 million share. “We raised $14 million for our library and learning center in the depths of the recession,” he says. PPS spokesman Robb Cowie says the School Board will be the final arbiter of what gets built with bond dollars. But Jewett says he worries what the plan will look like when it gets to the School Board. “I think all of us parents are grateful for the partnership with Concordia,” Jewett says. “I just think their process hasn’t been transparent.” Willamette Week NOVEMBER 27, 2013 wweek.com
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CITY HALL B E T H L AY N E H A N S E N
SAVE THE SWALES!
ENVIROS TAKE THE WATER DISTRICT BATTLE TO THE GREEN STREETS. BY A A R O N M E S H
amesh@wweek .com
Southeast Clay Street doesn’t look like a political battleground. On a rainy a f ternoon, workers in hardhats are digging a hole deep into the sidewalk at the corner of Southeast 9th Avenue, a block south of Hawthorne Boulevard’s Helium Comedy Club. The hole will soon be fi lled with a stormwater planter—a pot of dirt and grass that collects and absorbs the Portland drizzle. But the planters are part of a 12-block, $2 million “green street” project that environmentalists say is threatened by businesses and activists trying to grab control of the city’s water and sewer bureaus. Backers of a ballot measure to create a public water district scored another victory this month when Mayor Charlie Hales admitted the city had misspent $70,000 in utility money to purchase a police building under Mayor Sam Adams. Supporters have gathered more than half the 30,000 voter signatures required to place the initiative on the ballot—outraged by the spending of ratepayer dollars on such pet projects as the Portland Loo (“Money Bucket,” WW, May 15, 2013). But that expense is a drop in the bucket compared to another legacy of the Adams administration: the city’s “Grey to Green” initiative, a $39 million grid of bioswales, green streets, newly planted trees and eco-roofs designed to reduce the flow of stormwater into the city’s sewer pipes. Grey to Green is one of a dozen Bureau of Environmental Ser vices programs singled out as violations of the city charter in a $127 million lawsuit fi led against the city last year by lawyer John DiLorenzo, an ally of the water district backers. Other items the lawsuit mentioned
BUDGET HOLES: Bureau of Environmental Services engineers say they plan to spend $100 million in the next five years on capital projects that include green infrastructure, like this “green street” being installed on Southeast Clay Street.
as possible misuses of city money? Any “green street” expenses associated with bike boulevards; money spent on trees and greenspaces “under the pretext of stormwater management”; the sewer bureau’s contribution to the River Plan, which tried to implement new environmental rules for the Willamette River; and costs of the Portland Harbor Superfund investigation. Environmental advocates look at that list and see a full-scale assault on the city’s programs to separate stormwater from sewage and clean up the Portland Harbor. “Portland’s put a tremendous amount of work into proving these strategies are greener, cheaper and more effective than traditional pipe-based strategies,” says Bob Sallinger, conservation director for the Audubon Society of Portland. “The way we read this lawsuit, and the rhetoric of the
campaign since it began, is a direct attack on the core green programs of the city.” Kent Craford, co-petitioner for the water district initiative, says the district wouldn’t touch green streets and bioswales. He says the lawsuit seeks only to identify improper uses of ratepayer money—like tax breaks for eco-roofs. “The whole allegation is really a big straw man,” Craford says. “We’ve never taken issue with green streets. The insiders that are sucking on the sewer trough, they want to keep the gravy train going.” But Craford says the new district would stop using sewer bills to pay Superfund investigation costs. “Is a family in East Portland responsible for the PCBs put into the river 120 years ago?” he asks. The amount of money at stake is huge.
Bombshell Vintage 811 E. Burnside 8
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The Bureau of Environmental Services has spent $25.7 million since 2008 investigating the scope of a federally mandated Superfund cleanup in Portland Harbor. It spent another $80 million on “Tabor to the River,” a grid of green streets, bioswales and street trees installed throughout Southeast Portland. In a 2000 study, the city found it could shave $64 million off a $144 million price tag by installing green infrastructure in Southeast Portland instead of wider sewer pipes. “I can’t really comment on the political aspects of it,” says Bill Ryan, the bureau’s chief engineer. “But just to not do green infrastructure because you’re nervous about it and don’t understand it will cost the ratepayers a tremendous amount of money.”
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EDUCATION W W S TA F F
NEWS
DON GAVITTE A FED-UP PORTLAND TEACHER CAMPAIGNS TO TAKE SALEM TO SCHOOL. BY R AC H E L G R A H A M CO DY
Do you think the union is doing a fair job representing your interests? It enrages me when I hear people say, “Who do these teachers think they are?” At the end of the day, we are pretty timid. We just want to grade papers, get through the day, for our students to do well, and not to get yelled at. People begrudge us for being the last ones standing with any benefits, but everyone should have those. People spit out the word “union” like “child molester,” but some could use a little union in their lives. My mother was in a food workers’ union and worked in a supermarket for 10 years and got a pension. Nobody gets that anymore.
rcody@wweek.com
Don Gavitte’s classroom walls are covered in college pennants: Stanford, Marquette, Hunter, Barnard, Oregon. All sent by grateful former students. They are banners of Gavitte’s success. Gavitte, 45, has been teaching history, philosophy and government for over 20 years, 13 of them at Grant High School. He’s a rock-star teacher, according to students, parents and peers. After exhorting students to make a difference, Gavitte is taking his own teachings to heart. He’s running in the Democratic primary for the Oregon House seat being vacated by Rep. Jules Bailey (D-Portland), who is running for Multnomah County Board of Commissioners. Gavitte protested cuts to school spending in 2012 by forming Underfunded Parents, Students, Educators Together (UPSET), to show budget cuts’ damage to schools. WW talked with Gavitte about what it’s like inside Portland Public Schools with a teachers’ strike looming, why a lack of trust is killing public education, and how the profession he loves has made him a subversive. WW: Why are you running for office? Don Gavitte: There should be a working teacher in Salem helping to make testing and curriculum decisions. And there’s a continual fight for funding. We’ve got to make higher ed more affordable. It’s devastating when [students] get accepted to these incredible places and can’t afford to go. How did you decide to form UPSET? Our principal said we were going to cut 10 more teachers because of funding cuts. We were already thinking about how can we fulfill state mandates on this budget. Many parents asked me straight up, “Is this a union group?” There are plenty of union people in it, but we did it ourselves. UPSET was 80 percent kids. Were you politically active before forming UPSET? I’m the guy who wrote hopefully provocative letters to the
What is it like teaching with the threat of a strike looming? There are School Board members who are biting their tongues in half over the contract fight. Some want this because they think it will lead to budget nirvana. I simply don’t understand why PPS does things that are directly enraging to teachers, like hiring a $15,000-a-month consultant to handle negotiations. Teachers do not want a strike. We love these schools, and nobody wants to walk.
GAVITTE: “With so many of us [teachers], we are kind of taken advantage of,” says the veteran Grant High School teacher, who is now running for the Oregon House. “People know we love teaching.... None of us are in it for the money.”
editor. But for the most part, I’ve been the guy at the cocktail party who’s super into local and national politics. How do your students view government? With cynicism. As far as they are concerned, adults can’t get it together. Teenagers have the most in-tune and accurate BS meters out there. That’s why I could be a strong candidate; I’ve been in front of them most of my adult life. What do you teach your students about compromise and politics? The best conversations about politics come out in philosophy class. Plato believed only an elite few could govern because the rest are self-absorbed idiots. We are proving this to Plato. The philosophy class I teach is a semester-long quest for truth. Why we don’t require kids to take philosophy, I don’t know. Probably because you can’t measure it. How has your teaching evolved? I’m older and crankier, so I can be more subversive. I fi ll out the form and say I’m doing one thing but do something else in the classroom. Years ago, the district got all fi red up about having “anchor assignments.” I told my students to draw an anchor on top of their papers. I wanted someone to challenge me, to get that I was being sarcastic. The only response I got was that I hadn’t fi lled out my cover letter correctly.
The union, the Portland Association of Teachers, says the struggle isn’t over money but working conditions. Last time [when teachers almost had a strike in 2000], teachers agreed to work two weeks for free. We’d just moved into our house and had massive mortgage payments. I lost half a paycheck for a month. I’d love to end this dance of doom. What’s the impact of impasse? Kids are asking me about money because they think we’ll strike because we want more money. That upsets me even more. Have you ever considered giving up teaching? It took me five years to make as much money teaching as I was bartending, but it’s like any stressful job—ER nurse, ambulance driver. You say, “I can’t do it anymore,” leave it and then come back. You’ve done it for so long for a reason. If you are a dedicated good teacher, you think about quitting all the time. There are easier ways to make a living, but they aren’t what you want to do. You do it for the kid who writes the letter that says, “You changed my life.” You don’t get that tending bar. Is there much of a relationship between the School Board and teachers? I never remember seeing School Board members in schools I’ve worked at. They make pronouncements, and you think, “Whatever.” Every once in a while they have our lives in their hands. Then we pay attention. I sometimes envy small districts, because nobody can escape each other. Everybody’s in it together.
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Willamette Week NOVEMBER 27, 2013 wweek.com
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m a r ya n n a h o g g at t
GREED CARD TWO OREGONIANS FOUND THE PERFECT CRIME: FALSELY PROMISING VULNERABLE IMMIGRANTS DOCUMENTS. WHY ARE THEY NOT IN PRISON?
By A N D R E A DA M E WO O D
ad amewood @w week .com
Ignacio Estevez was 16 when he came to the United States from Guatemala in 1987 to pluck pistachios in California for 20 cents a barrel. He’s since sweated his way into a construction job with benefits and lives in Forest Grove in a mobile home off Pacific Highway. “From the first day I come here,” he says in English still influenced by his Central American roots, “I no stop working.” Estevez originally entered the U.S. without proper papers and has not left the country since. He married, and has two daughters. Estevez’s mother lives in Oaxaca, Mexico, and is aging. Without citizenship, he can’t risk a trip to see her. If caught coming back into the U.S., Estevez could be barred from the country for at least 10 years. “Oh yeah, I miss her,” Estevez says. “I don’t know how many years I have left to visit her.” So when a co-worker told Estevez there was a miracle worker in Medford who could get him his citizenship in a snap, he leapt at the idea. The pair drove five hours south in January 2009, arriving at a small house converted into an office for a business called Immigration Solutions. cont. on page 14
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GREED CARD
cont.
homeWard unbound: Ignacio estevez says he paid patrick snyder $7,000 to help him remain in the united states legally, partly so he could visit his aging mother in mexico. Instead, he says, the false forms snyder filed have made it more difficult and expensive for him to get a real visa.
AndreA dAmewood
Immigration lawyers say Snyder and Vega plied Interstate 5 from Portland to Los Angeles for four years, assuring undocumented immigrants they would help them earn work visas and citizenship quick—an appealing scenario for a process that usually takes years. Instead, victims say Snyder and Vega made promises they didn’t keep, filing false documents or doing nothing at all while milking them for as much money as possible. Immigration Solutions recruited immigrants at churches and through word-of-mouth. Snyder would wear fake badges and show up in fancy black cars to burnish his image as a government agent. When promised documents failed to come through, Vega would make excuses for Snyder, before both eventually stopped returning victims’ frantic calls. Lawyers familiar with the case tell WW the pair duped at least 80 people—including dozens in the Portland and Salem areas—but the actual number isn’t known. The lawyers estimate the pair made off with between $500,000 and $1 million. Most victims of what’s known in immigration circles as “notario fraud” never come forward, terrified that if they speak to police about the crime, they’ll be deported. Immigration Solutions has been under investigation by state and federal authorities since 2011, even as Snyder and Vega continued to operate through mid-2012. Immigration lawyers who have provided the FBI and the U.S. Attorneys with notebooks of evidence are outraged by the lack of action. “What more do you need?” asks Teresa Statler, a longtime Portland immigration lawyer. If this scam were pulled on the elderly or the middle class, Statler adds, “They would be finding Snyder and Vega and prosecuting them.” Which, it turns out, isn’t that difficult. While Snyder is officially wanted on unrelated charges, officials say they know where he is. And WW had no problem finding and speaking to Vega at his church near Medford. As Congress gears up for major immigration reform, advocates say authorities need to step up and protect the estimated 160,000 undocumented immigrants in Oregon. “We are talking about one of the most vulnerable populations out there,” says John Marandas, a partner in Marandas & McClellan Immigration Law, whose Lake Oswego firm has seen more than 25 of Snyder and Vega’s victims. “When they get the hope of some type of solution, they are gullible. They need extra protection and help.” Estevez says he lost $7,000 to Snyder—who threatened to deport him if he went to the cops. He separated from his wife, and the false documents Snyder filed on his behalf have made his case more complicated, and expensive, for a real lawyer to fix. Estevez says he’s now on his way to gaining citizenship—but wants Snyder held accountable. “I want that guy to give me my money back,” Estevez says, “or go to jail.”
AndreA dAmewood
Inside, they met Patrick Snyder—a formidable 6-foot-1 and 200 pounds in a nice suit—and a translator, Juvenal Vega. Estevez says Vega, a Mexican-American with salt-andpepper hair, did all the talking. He told Estevez that Snyder worked for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and had ties to the FBI. Snyder could pull strings and would guarantee Estevez a work visa and green card—if not citizenship—fast. Estevez was wowed by promises and the official-looking documents flashed in front of him. “He say, ‘I understand all the areas of immigration,’” Estevez says of Snyder. “I believed him because he a nice person.” Snyder’s help would cost $5,000. Cash. Estevez borrowed the money from a bank, forked it over to Snyder and became one of a long list of victims of Immigration Solutions, what lawyers are calling the largest known case of immigration fraud in Oregon history.
Immigration Solutions is part of what authorities worry is an exploding rise in businesses that say they’ll help immicont. on page 17 14
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up close and personal: patrick snyder, his victims say, asked for all their private information to fill out forms. When he disappeared, so did their personal documents, such as birth and marriage certificates.
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GREED CARD ANDREA DAMEWOOD
CONT.
CLEANED OUT: Jerry Jimenez attends the same fundamentalist Christian church as Juvenal Vega. He says he leveraged his Medford housecleaning business to pay Snyder—and seeing his accomplice, Vega, at services is excruciating.
grants with their applications for legal status. Often, they use the term “notarios públicos,” which in Latin America means a lawyer, but in the U.S. just means notary public. Some notarios are well-meaning, hoping to earn a little money while offering real help, whereas others are predatory scam artists. But in the U.S., unless a person is a lawyer or agent accredited by the federal Department of Justice’s Board of Immigration Appeals, they are forbidden from aiding others to navigate the excruciatingly complex immigration process. Immigration lawyers say notario fraud is rarely prosecuted as a crime. It’s usually treated as a civil matter, if state and federal authorities pay any attention to it at all. The Oregon State Bar can send cease-anddesist letters for the unlawful practice of law to suspected notarios, and victims can also call the Oregon Department of Justice, which goes after notarios through its civil division. Brent Renison, chairman of the Oregon chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, says the fraud committed by notarios is clearly a crime. “They get a letter for practicing law without a license? What the heck?” Renison says. “If you shoplift a candy bar from Wal-Mart, you’re going to jail.” Medford police detectives and the Jackson County District Attorney’s Office handled the initial claims of theft committed by Snyder and Vega. As local authorities learned this might be a multistate crime, they provided evidence to the FBI in 2011. The case floundered there. The Oregon DOJ fielded a complaint against Immigration Solutions that year, says a spokesman, but passed it up when it learned the FBI was investigating. “That’s the problem,” Statler says. “It’s everybody’s baby, so it’s nobody’s baby.” FBI agents have met with victims, obtained phone recordings and collected dozens of receipts detailing payments to Snyder and false forms he allegedly created. Sam Reese, an accredited representative for
the nonprofit Immigration Counseling Service in downtown Portland, represents several of Snyder and Vega’s alleged victims. He says the FBI has failed to follow up on evidence he’s offered them. “To steal from people who have to borrow, visit soup kitchens and work extra hours at minimum wage is so much more tangible” than faceless crimes such as bank robbery that garner jail time, Reese says. “And yet the arrests don’t happen.” Amanda Marshall, the U.S. Attorney for Oregon, tells WW she cannot talk about an investigation against Snyder or Vega. But she says notario fraud is a priority for her office. “If there are 50 or more victims of notario fraud, and the evidence supports the fact it is a federal crime,” Marshall says, “that would be a case we would be incredibly motivated to bring.” However, since Marshall took over as U.S. Attorney in 2011, her office has not brought a single notario case. WW spoke with 10 people who say they were victimized by Snyder and Vega. They describe a con job akin to a pyramid scheme. State records show Snyder registered both Immigration Solutions and Elite Investigations as businesses in 2009, but let the registries lapse. It isn’t clear where Snyder, 37, grew up, but public records show he had been in Southern Oregon for about 15 years before he allegedly started his notario business. He was a petty criminal who faced allegations of abuse from a number of women. In 2007, his then-wife, Kayla Snyder—with whom he has two sons, ages 10 and 8—sought a restraining order based on allegations Snyder pushed her down, pulled her hair and threw her into her Jeep face first. Another woman, Kristina Maria Espinoza, sought a restraining order in Douglas County the next year, alleging Snyder had threatened to kill her.
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GREED CARD ANDREA DAMEWOOD
CONT.
DOUGLAS COUNTY
ANDREA DAMEWOOD
UNHOLY TRUTH: Juvenal Vega (with microphone) gives a blessing before the congregation at Apostolica Unida Rios de Agua Viva.
NOTORIOUS NOTARIO: Patrick Snyder (left) in a 2007 Douglas County mugshot for felony theft. Snyder registered his Immigration Solutions business at this building (right) along Crater Lake Highway in Medford.
He’s currently a fugitive on a 2007 theft case in Douglas County (he ran up $7,549 in fraudulent checks at auto-parts shops and a Ray’s Food Place in Roseburg) and was convicted for theft in Jackson County in 2009. Vega, 51, has lived in Southern Oregon for decades and is a U.S. citizen. He and his wife, Silvia, have three grown children. Vega is a longtime employee of the Boise Cascade mill in Medford, and has been involved with several local churches, including as the former pastor of a Pentecostal church that’s now closed. Vega would show up at churches from Ashland to Portland singing the praises of Immigration Solutions to the congregants. He allegedly targeted fundamental Christian churches with Hispanic congregations, including the Apostolic Church of Salem and Apostolic Lighthouse in Klamath Falls. Once Snyder and Vega signed a client, they would offer the client money for bringing in new clients. Lawyers familiar with the cases say Snyder made it appear he was pursuing help for clients: signing documents, filing reports (some false) and going so far as to send some clients to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in Portland to be fingerprinted. According to victims of the scam, Vega translated all of it. One of Immigration Solutions’ many victims is Veronica, who is not in the U.S. legally and asked that her last name not be used. Veronica, 29, who lives in Yamhill County, came to the United States as a small girl, crossing the border with her family from Juarez, Mexico, in 1989. She grew up in Texas and California, graduating from high school in 2002 before she met and married her husband, Manuel, who is
also undocumented. She couldn’t find work without papers, and Manuel also wanted legal status. Veronica says she desperately wanted a career, and to be legal to ensure she could stay with their son, who is now 6. She says she first saw Vega in December 2010, when he took the microphone at the Apostolic Church of Salem. Vega told the congregation in Spanish he was a minister who could help with immigration. He returned a few months later with Snyder, whom Vega introduced as an employee with Homeland Security—and as a private investigator and lawyer. “We thought this man was for real,” Veronica says of Snyder. “We talked about it and said, ‘Well, it’s a good opportunity for us to get our papers, to get our residency.’ We had dreams, that we can get good jobs and buy ourselves a car and make that dream come true.” The couple drove to Immigration Solutions in Medford on May 11, 2011. Vega was dressed casually and Snyder sat smoking a cigarette, wearing shorts and a T-shirt, Veronica says. After hearing the sales pitch, Veronica and Manuel pulled together $10,000 in cash to help them both. Snyder soon called to tell Veronica her application for a work permit was more complicated than he had expected. He needed more money. The couple went back to Medford, where Snyder appeared driving a black Pontiac GTO and wearing a suit and Homeland Security and immigration badges. “He looked sort of like a general,” she says. They gave Snyder another $3,000, borrowed from Veronica’s brother. Snyder told Veronica and Manuel they could CONT. on page 21 Willamette Week NOVEMBER 27, 2013 wweek.com
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GREED CARD
make money—$5,000 toward their bill—by referring four friends and family members to Immigration Solutions, she says. Plus, they thought they were helping people. She estimates more than 50 members from the Salem church gave money to Snyder and Vega. But when Vega called in the fall of 2011 to say Snyder needed another $765, they got suspicious. Manuel checked online with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and found no record that Snyder had filed any paperwork. He called Vega and demanded answers. Veronica— who speaks English while her husband does not—tells WW her husband instead received a threat. “He told us to stop talking about Patrick Snyder,” Veronica says, “because we can be deported or something can happen to our family.” Veronica says it was terrifying to approach authorities with her case. Like other victims, she says her trust in others has been shattered. The only reason she can think of that Snyder is still free is that he actually does have ties to the FBI. “[Police] can’t get Patrick because why? Is he protected? Is something going on?” Veronica asks. “Is Patrick Snyder protected from the FBI? Does he have somebody who is protecting him?”
“POLICE CAN’T GET PATRICK BECAUSE WHY? IS HE PROTECTED? IS SOMETHING GOING ON? IS HE PROTECTED FROM THE FBI? DOES HE HAVE SOMEBODY PROTECTING HIM?”—VERONICA On a Sunday afternoon earlier this month, Vega places his hands on the forehead of a young woman, who immediately drops to her knees, slain in the spirit, and flaps her hands as if she might take flight. Vega—one of the two alleged ringleaders of the Immigrations Solutions fraud—stands in the middle of the sanctuary of Apostolica Unida Rios de Agua Viva (the Apostolic Church of Living Waters) in Phoenix, Ore., a small town about five miles southeast of Medford. Latin gospel music from a five-piece band wearing matching blue suit jackets booms from two massive speakers mounted to the wood-raftered ceiling. Vega, an assistant pastor at the church, prays furiously over the woman, who, like all the other women in attendance, has covered her hair with a lace veil. Gerardo “Jerry” Jimenez works the sound system. He says it’s often impossible to watch Vega lay hands or give a blessing and not want to punch him. Jimenez says he knows of four other church members who paid Snyder for help with their immigration cases. Jimenez says he ended up paying $6,950 over a year’s time. In the end, nothing happened with his case. Vega ducked Jimenez’s calls, and said Snyder was always out of town or unavailable. “They robbed me,” says Jimenez, one of the original victims who went to Medford police. Today, Vega says he too was drawn in by Snyder’s charm— and that he’s a victim as well. Vega agreed to speak with WW on Nov. 2 following Sunday services at Apostolica Unida Rios de Agua Viva. He and his wife sat in the pastor’s private office. His son, also named Juvenal Vega, has a long string of methamphetamine- and gang-related arrests. He’s been in and out of jail for several years, including for taking part in a 20-person riot in 2011 involving knives, bats and clubs. That’s how Vega says he first met Snyder, who presented himself as an investigator who could help the Vegas beat their son’s Measure 11 charges. Vega says he and his wife paid Snyder’s company, Elite Investigations, $13,500. (A search of state Department of Public Safety and Oregon Board of Investigators records shows Snyder has never applied for a private investigator license in Oregon.) Soon, Vega says, Snyder was asking him to help translate for Immigration Solutions. Vega says he wanted to help people get CONT. on page 23
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ANDREA DAMEWOOD
their citizenship, and he also believed Snyder was an immigration insider. But Vega says Snyder conned him. He says Snyder did nothing to help his son. Vega also showed WW receipts made out to Snyder for $30,000, which he promised to invest for the couple. That money is also gone, Vega says. “Patrick used me, he played me,” Vega says. “I’ve been a victim too.” As the calls from Snyder’s victims to Vega grew more frequent and frantic, Vega says he kept the faith. He says he never got any of the money he was promised by Snyder. “A lot of people, only because I translate for them, only because they saw me with him, they think I took their money too,” Vega says. “Now he is gone and I have to face the people.” Snyder disappeared late last year. Vega says he’s embarrassed by the looks and accusations he and his wife receive in church and around town. “A lot of people say stuff because they are mad,” Vega says. “I feel bad, but what are we supposed to do?” Many of Immigration Solutions’ victims don’t buy it. Some say Vega mocked them during conversations. Others say they never spoke to Snyder, just to Vega, about their immigration issues. “I do not understand that guy in a church,” says Estevez, the construction worker from Forest Grove who lost thousands. “Because he’s a liar.”
BLOOD MONEY: Juvenal Vega’s sister, Sarita, says she and her husband also lost money to Patrick Snyder. Sarita Vega says her brother never would have referred his own family to Snyder if he thought he was a fake.
The last time Snyder surfaced, Vega says, was last year after Vega’s sister, Sarita, questioned why there had been no progress with her husband’s immigration paperwork, which they paid him $3,295 to file. Sarita Vega tells WW that Snyder told her he carries a .45 Magnum pistol and if she came to his house, he’d shoot her. “That was the last I heard of him,” she says. After that, Juvenal Vega says he got a text message from someone claiming to be Snyder’s girlfriend, saying he was dead. He isn’t. In September, Snyder had charges for parole violation dropped in Jackson County Circuit Court. The deputy district attorney, Mandi Gould, said in a filing that Snyder “is in a long-term nursing rehabilitation center and non-ambulatory.” State Department of Justice emails obtained by WW say Snyder was rendered disabled by a series of “drug-related strokes.” The emails also say he no longer has any assets. WW tracked Snyder to the Royale Gardens Health & Rehabilitation Center in Grants Pass, which confirmed he was a resident there until about a month ago. The center does not know where he is now. Law enforcement officials confirm they know where Snyder is. But they won’t say why he has thus far gotten away with his crimes. Lawyers who have followed the case say they’re appalled that a reporter could find ample evidence of the crime, and even interview an alleged perpetrator, in a few months while federal officials have stalled for two years. “I’m dumbfounded,” says Statler, a Portland immigration lawyer. “They need to put this to bed to give these people some sense of security in their lives.” Willamette Week NOVEMBER 27, 2013 wweek.com
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CULTURE
WILLIE WEED
WEED SHALL OVERCOME DEEP IN MY HEART, I DO BELIEVE... BY WM. WILLA R D GR EEN E
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WILLIE@WWEEK.COM
Very soon, on what is likely to be a cloudy day, storefronts across Portland’s plucky northernmost suburb will be front and center for one of America’s newest and nuttiest experiments. The question on some minds: Can marijuana use occur without humans devolving into rage-fueled cannibalism? The question on everyone else’s: Why did it take so long? Of course, we Oregonians will be adjacent to the action, heads bowed in silent shame as Washington passes a glittery glass piece from Ilwaco to Colville. Oregon was the first state to decriminalize marijuana, but this time those Appleheads out-pioneered us, and out-pioneered us good. Which makes it a little odd that, for the first time in its 40-year history, Willamette Week is rolling out a marijuana column. (This is that column.) Why not wait until marijuana is legal in, say, Portland proper? Weed will be legally and openly sold a short drive away in only a few weeks. And we won’t have long to wait before it’s permitted here, too. A new legalization measure will almost certainly be on next year’s ballot, and there’s hint of the Oregon Legislature going no-huddle and passing a law earlier. Washington’s approval of Initiative 502 conjures images of hangdog Oregonians trudging north for supplies in much the way our forefathers relied on Fort Vancouver for huggable beaver pelts. We’ll be paying weed taxes to Sounders fans, and paying their regressive sales tax on Juanita’s Chilipeño chips because it’s just so far back across the river and I’m hungry now, damn it. And you know how much of that tax revenue will go toward building a bridge with light rail across the Columbia? Zero-point-zero percent. Oregon’s growers and purveyors aren’t worried about mass exodus, though. Lax residency laws allow many to supply Washington dispensaries and benefit from the new laws anyway, and a hefty tax on recreational purchases probably won’t attract Portlanders with medical licenses or established connections. And have you tried crossing into Washington lately during rush hour? It’s a waking night terror. Mainly, this I-502 thing is a blow to Oregon’s trailblazing ego. But our hesitance is not without advantages. First, we can learn from Washington and Colorado missteps and build a better, more Oregonian system. Also, we grow some of the nation’s best product. It seems esoteric until you consider the numbers. Right now, cannabis is
estimated as the fastest-growing market in the United States. Faster than smartphones. Faster than goat meat. Faster than capri pants! Marijuana is currently Oregon’s fourth-largest cash crop, and one major grower assured me it could easily become No. 1. Many people who’ve been growing and selling for decades now face a drastic market change. The Willamette Valley’s revered climate and reputation for cannabis-growing talent make it a natural center for the burgeoning industry. We’ll get ours, is what I’m saying. There is no precedent for the cultural shift that will occur once cannabis becomes legal across the West Coast in the next few years. The most commonly cited analogies are (A) the present legalization of marijuana in countries around the world, like the Netherlands, which breaks down because Americans are generally not as cool as the Dutch, and (2) the end of Prohibition, which doesn’t jibe since liquor had been legal just 14 years earlier and, as we’ll discuss in future installments, cannabis is not alcohol. As weed slips into the mainstream, there will be resistance. Drug companies and traditional vice purveyors like Philip Morris will defend their interests or buy up what they can’t control. There are family members to convince. There’s a Bible Belt to deal with. And then, of course, there are stoners themselves, who have long been their own worst enemy in the quest to legalize. There’s no way around the fact weed culture is weird. Pothead sensibilities are etched into the national landscape like 4:20 carvings on a school desk. The stereotypes aren’t usually positive—would Oregon brewers pick Andy Capp as a spokesman? Weed culture may be full of eccentric lingo and strain titles like Chemdawg and Alaskan Thunderfuck, but it’s cheeb-sniffers who kept weed alive, sustaining the gift of cannabis under penalty of imprisonment. Basically, this column exists to chronicle the first official forays into a massive cultural upheaval, and provide an entry-level tour of a subculture that has been swelling from America’s fringes for decades. In the not-so-distant future, strains like Jack Herer and Northern Lights will be as ubiquitous as imperial stouts and farmhouse ales. Our music will sound sweeter. Our food will taste better. Our nine months of gray will be far more bearable. And we’ll once again be able to give those Appleheads a good ribbing. WILLIE WEED: Wm. Willard Greene writes a column about marijuana for Willamette Week—oh, not necessarily every week, but when there’s a worthy topic.
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FOOD: Last-minute no-cook Thanksgiving options. MUSIC: Drake is harder than P.M. Dawn. THEATER: A new Scotch-fueled theater podcast. MOVIES: Spike Lee’s Old Boy.
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crunkenspin: It looks like the dirty-drawered people of Portland are finally getting a drunken laundromat. As reported last week at wweek.com, owner Morgan Gary has applied for a liquor license for Spin Laundry at 740 N Fremont St., near North Mississippi Avenue, advertised as an “eco-friendly laundromat, bar & cafe” with washing machines that text you when your wash is almost done. The tap list looks sincerely minimalist: a pair of brews. But that’s two more than usual. The buildout is under way, with an opening date set for this winter. Tube four: Looks like Tube (18 NW 3rd Ave.) will be getting yet another set of owners, its fourth since it opened 10 years ago as a shiny replica of the London Underground. The onetime punk-DJ dive will continue its transition into the Old Town Fun Zone as it’s taken over by new owners Eric Bowler and Karen Davanzo Bowler, who work for event-DJ procurers the Music Trust. The duct tape holding the place together is going away, however. Eric Bowler—who doubles as EDM spinner DJ Evil One—told WW: “The Tube’s current demographic is 21, 22. I’m 35, and a lot of my friends like to go out. We’ll make it nicer so a little older crowd feels comfortable.” pal To all: The Hollywood neighborhood’s oldest bar, Pal’s Shanty, has been closed since being damaged in a Nov. 15 fire. Now, chowderloving regulars are working to collect funds for out-of-work staff. Though the owners plan to rebuild, it will probably take pal’s shanTY six months because of the extent of the damage. A large slate of benefit auctions runs through Dec. 2, and donations are being accepted through U.S. Bank or online at gofundme.com. There’s more information at facebook.com/pals.shanty. laugh Track: Portland’s top five standup comics, as determined by a poll of the city’s comedy community, played to a capacity crowd at the Alhambra Theatre on Nov. 24. A highlight of the show was No. 1 comic Amy Miller first buttering up and then heckling a family who named their child Stellen. “That’s not even a real name,” she said. “That’s just two names mushed together.”
clickY-clickY: Online at wweek.com, posts about poet Mary Szybist’s National Book Award, reviews of Nov. 29 shows by Cat Power at the Hawthorne Theatre and Pearl Jam at the Moda Center, and a preview of the Civil War game in which the Ducks hope to salvage their season by at least beating the Beavers. 26
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What to do this Week in arts & culture
WEDNESDAY NOV. 27 norfolk & western [music] it’s been four years since anyone’s heard from this muchbeloved Portland indie-folk institution. The band never officially broke up, and no one’s quite sure if this is a sendoff or the indication of a new beginning. One thing we do know: No work tomorrow! Let’s party! With banjos! Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St., 231-9663. 8:30 pm. $12. 21+.
FRIDAY NOV. 29 rUDolPH: on stAGe [TheaTer] With riotously clever film-to-stage adaptations of Road House and The Lost Boys already under its belt, Bad reputation Productions has a track record that belies its name. This live-action version of the 1964 stop-motion animation classic should be an ideal antidote to all the eggnog-drenched schlock being dispensed elsewhere. CoHo Theater, 2257 NW Raleigh St., badreputationprods.com. 7:30 pm. $20-$24. CAt Power [music] chan marshall’s latest record, Sun, is not just another feather in her well-decorated cap but a career triumph, echoing her chilling powers as a singer-songwriter. here, she plays by herself, in a venue much more intimate than those she graces with a full band. Hawthorne Theatre, 1507 SE 39th Ave., 233-7100. 8 pm. $30 advance, $35 day of show. 21+. PeArl JAM [music] “Dude, that’s the best ‘Yellow Ledbetter’ i’ve heard since saskatoon ’02!” Moda Center, 1401 N Wheeler Ave., 235-8771. 7:30 pm. $69.50. All ages.
SATURDAY NOV. 30 Bike Mechanic Interests: Lubrication, pulling the crank off the bottom bracket, chain tugs, down tubes, quick releases, couplers, saddles, thumb shifters, racks, nipples, seatpost clamps, freewheel rear hubs. Theme song: “I’m a Cruiser” Archnemesis: Estacada Shitkicker Obliviously Racist Raver Girl Interests: Molly, pot, feather headdresses, leather fringe, neon face paint, furry things, fuzzy things, soft things, shiny things, bright things, the DJ, your eyes being so blue right now oh-my-god, glitter, spirituality, wishing it could be like this forever, totally respecting your traditions. Theme song: “Fire Island” Archnemesis: Neighborhood Associationista
Estacada Shitkicker Interests: Dodge Ram, tow hitch, lifted axles, hardtop, truck nuts, pump action, full-body Realtree camo, homophobia. Theme song: “Macho Man” Archnemesis: Bike Mechanic Hobo Pirate Interests: PBR, djembes, windless nights when the river smoothes to glass and the sky feels like freedom. Also, septic pumps. Does anybody have a septic pump? No, seriously, I need one. Theme song: “In the Navy” Archnemesis: Condo Developer Condo Developer Interests: Sustainable disposability, supporting the arts with $1,200 studio lofts, concrete masonry units, starting foodcart pods, closing food-cart pods, Portland Development Commission grants.
Theme song: “San Francisco (You’ve Got Me)” Archnemesis: Hobo Pirate Neighborhood Associationista Interests: Property values, the way things used to be, political terrorism, peace and goddamn quiet, community kale gardens, reserved streetside parking, Summer Fun Days, hating fun. Theme song: “Hot Cop” Archnemeses: Hobo Pirate, Obliviously Racist Raver Girl, Estacada Shitkicker, Condo Developer, Bike Mechanic. —Matthew Korfhage.
Go: The Village People play crystal Ballroom, 1332 W Burnside st., on saturday, Nov. 30. 8 pm. $35 advance, $40 day of show. 21+. crystalballroompdx.com.
BIkeCrAft [shOPPiNg] Your favorite fixie rider or beloved bike commuter doesn’t need any more tattoo-parlor gift certificates or padded spandex. This year, buy them something they really need: chain-ring earrings, fenders made from recycled skateboards, or a leather can-holder for their handlebars. Velo Cult, 1969 NE 42nd Ave., 922-2012. 11 am-6 pm. wAXAHAtCHee [music] You might think you’re over the ’90s revival, but just try resisting the fuzzed-out bliss of Katie crutchfield. if you’re too young to have fond memories of taping Belly and Throwing muses singles off the radio, consider this an effective primer. Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison St., 239-7639. 7:30 pm. $12. All ages. wIne CoUntry tHAnksGIvInG [WiNe] The weekend after Thanksgiving, pretty much every winery in the Willamette Valley—a Blooming hill through Z’ivo—opens its doors to visitors. For many, it’s the only time of the year. Tasting fees vary and, whatever you do, make a careful map before you get lost on the dirt roads and vine-covered hillsides of Newberg. continues through sunday, Dec. 1. willamettewines.com.
Willamette Week NOVEMBER 27, 2013 wweek.com
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FOOD & DRINK
HOLIDAY FAIR
= WW Pick. Highly recommended. By MATTHEW KORFHAGE. Editor: MARTIN CIZMAR. Email: dish@wweek.com. See page 3 for submission instructions.
& TREE LIGHTING PARTY
at Lincoln City Cultural Center 540 NE HWY 101, Lincoln City , OR
WEDNESDAY, NOV. 27 Sang Noir Release
Fri., Nov. 29 12:00 – 7:00
Get tasked with bringing the pie for Thanksgiving? Find a better use for the cherries and drink your dessert: Cascade is releasing its Sang Noir cherry sour just in time for the holiday. Impress your grandma with beer. Cascade Brewing Barrel House, 939 SE Belmont St., Portland., 265-8603. 4:30 pm. $25 per bottle; limit four per person.
30 Booth Artisan Fair with Great Crafts & Art Kids Free Make & Take Crafts
5:00-7:00 p.m. Tree Lighting Party, Holiday Music, Cake Walk, Food, Santa Arrives on Fire Truck and visits with kids.
THURSDAY, NOV. 28 Thanksgivukkah Dinner
Holy Adam Sandler stress spiral: Thanksgiving and Hanukkah collide! Moishe House is hosting an orphans’ dinner and Maccabee gift exchange for those too deeply afraid or geographically distant to cross a family threshold on this unlikely convergence of holidays. Moishe House, 3322 SE Brooklyn St., facebook.com/ MoisheHousePortland, 7 pm. $8.
Sat., Nov. 3 10:00 – 4:00
FREE ADMISSION FAMILY-FRIENDLY
MUSIC PG. 31
Artisan Fair Kids Crafts Booth 12:00-3 p.m. Visits with Santa
FRIDAY, NOV. 29 Wine Country Thanksgiving
The weekend after Thanksgiving, pretty much every winery in the Willamette Valley—A Blooming Hill through Z’Ivo—opens its doors to visitors. For many, it’s the only time of the year. Tasting fees vary and, whatever you do, make a careful map before you get lost on the dirt roads and vine-covered hillsides of Newberg. Multiple locations, willamettewines.com. FridaySunday, Nov. 29-Dec. 1.
541-992-5150
lincolncity-culturalcenter.org
Karaoke 9pm nightly Hydro Pong Saturday night
Blackstrap Friday I get HAPPY 4-6pm Tues-Fri $3 menu
Tuesdstaryy: Fun Indu Night!
Dragon Lounge
Chinese-American Restaurant
2610 SE 82nd at Division 503-774-1135 Ho Ti
Read our story: canton-grill.com
GET YOUR MULTI-STATE & OREGON CONCEALED CARRY PERMIT Try the small arms simulator used by Homeland Security • Great for team building • Private Parties • Fun Date night
Learn How to shoot properly, safely, & know the LAW 503-481-5847 | 12425-a NE Glisan St., Menlo Park Shopping Center | www.concealedsafetyclass.com
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PROFILE RONITPHOTO.COM
Annual 11TH HOUR SANTA
Willamette Week NOVEMBER 27, 2013 wweek.com
On this day of horrible viceclenched shopping and bad feelings, tiki bar Hale Pele takes advantage of its somewhat mall-adjacent location to offer a reprieve: a 2 pm opening for an equally mercantile-sponsored Cruzan rum cocktail showcase. Except, you know, the T-shirts and hats are free. See if you can get some of the single-barrel Cruzan. Because, oh man, it’s good. Hale Pele, 2733 NE Broadway, 662-8454. 2 pm.
Row
Black Friday on Distillery
New Deal Distillery, House Spirits, Stone Barn Brandyworks, Eastside Distilling, Vinn Distillery and Rolling River Distillery will all be serving up samples and selling liquors—essentially turning Distillery Row into a distillery singularity, which is to say the world might end! Might as well be drunk. Go to distilleryrowpdx.com for a registration link. Refuge, 116 SE Yamhill St. 11 am-5 pm. Free admission.
SATURDAY, NOV. 30 La Fete du Macaron
A raucous celebration of all things creamy and dainty, they’re making a macaronut at this event. They are deep-frying a macaron. They’re also stomping on cupcakes, but maybe just try a macaronut before you have to stand in line for one. Pix Patisserie, 2225 E Burnside St., 971-271-7166. 2 pm-2 am.
CREAM OF THE KEG POP: Charlie Van Meter (left) and George Dimeo with their winning beer.
SQUATCH WATCH Tom Sims built Sasquatch Brewing on Craigslist. He picked up a used lagering tank from the Vermont von Trapps, the family that inspired The Sound of Music. His mash tun is an old dairy tank he picked up online and had welded by Canby’s Practical Fusion. His brewing setup is stored in a space so hilariously cramped he keeps one of his fermentation tanks outside on his deck. They grind grain in the basement. “I come from homebrewing,” says Sims, owner and brewmaster at the Hillsdale brewpub. “You don’t need to spend a million bucks to make a high-quality beer.” Two years into the brewery’s existence, this seems to be in evidence among the brewpub’s 11 solid taps. The brewery doubled production to around 500 barrels in its second year, and expects to do so again next year. And this month, a vanilla bourbon cream nitro stout, made in collaboration between Sasquatch brewer Charlie Van Meter and Maletis Beverage rep George Dimeo, mopped up at Willamette Week’s Pro/Am Beer Festival, winning both the judges’ and people’s prizes. “We’d made it before,” says Van Meter, “and we tried making other brews but just kept coming back around to it.” To make it, Van Meter and Dimeo started with a cream ale and added special roast and honey malt before aging it with Evan Williams-soaked oak chips for a week and a half. Unlike a lot of bourbon beers, the vanilla cream doesn’t hit you with alcoholic heat that ascends straight into your sinuses—it’s smooth, rich and quaffable. The brewpub is busy enough that there’s a line out the door on weekends, often with families making use of the rack of kids’ toys. “We take reservations,” says manager Alex Beard. “We’re not like an eastside place. We want people to be comfortable.” Still, its location does make Sasquatch an outlier. Despite being home to the original McMenamins brewery, Portland’s Southwest hill country is a beer desert. The Sasquatch tap list is maybe a bit thick with hoppy brews, but its sock-to-the-face espresso stout—brewed with Sellwood’s Rose City coffee—is a welcome addition to the neighborhood. The brewery will be bottling its Celilo Cascadian Dark and Oregon Session ales by early next year. The bar will give up a table on its dining-room floor to add four more tanks this year, which Sims says will free up room to make “goofy beers.” Things have come a long way: They’re actually buying these tanks new. MATTHEW KORFHAGE. DRINK: Sasquatch Brewing, 6440 SW Capitol Highway, 4021999, sasquatchbrewery.com.
DRANK
GAMAY NOUVEAU (BOW & ARROW) Seven weeks ago, the grapes in Bow & Arrow’s gamay noir were on the vine. Four weeks ago, they were in the urban winery’s fermentation tanks in the basement of the Bindery building on Northeast Sandy Boulevard. Now, they’re in $15 bottles at the Woodsmen Market and other shops where strong young juice is sold. Oregon’s answer to France’s Beaujolais nouveau, this juicy red is meant to be uncorked as quickly as possible after the ceremonial release on the third Thursday of November. I sampled the French version at a Multnomah Athletic Club fete last week, but strongly preferred this local take: It’s boldly fruity, pleasantly loud and as gluggable as advertised. Recommended. MARTIN CIZMAR.
FOOD & DRINK FEATURE
C H R I S R YA N P H O T O . C O M
GIVING THX LAST-MINUTE THANKSGIVING OPTIONS, FROM UPSCALE TV DINNERS TO BK TENDERGRILLS. On Thursday, most Americans will celebrate the liberties secured by our forefathers by communing with loved ones to gorge on starchy food and pray that our righteous God smites the wicked Dallas Cowboys. Yet not everyone in Portland can live that dream. If you’re one of the thousands of young Portlanders with a dead-end job that won’t even give you all of Thanksgiving Day off, or one of those who drifted here with nothing but a car full of plaid shirts and a twinkle in your eye, you’re probably looking for the least-depressing way to enjoy some non-pathetic approximation of a holiday rooted in familial tradition. Here are a handful of alternatives to eating a pot pie alone in your darkened apartment with The Downward Spiral on repeat. PETE COTTELL. The Country Cat 7937 SE Stark St., 408-1414, thecountrycat.net $50 gets you a meal almost like home (if home is South Carolina). This down-home modern Montavilla restaurant was featured on the “Meat Lovers Paradise” edition of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, and is offering a farm-fresh fourcourse Thanksgiving dinner for just $50 per mouth hole. The price will put you out at least one shift of tips, but the visage of Guy Fieri watching you cram a salty hillock of mashed potatoes and gravy down your gullet is guaranteed to put a smile on even the saddest of Thanksgiving orphan faces. The Original 300 SW 6th Ave., 546-2666, originaldinerant.com $27 gets you a fancy reimagining of a TV dinner. If you come from a place where the lowbrow simplicity of a Banquet pot pie has come to define the dysfunction of Thanksgiving, head to this downtown “dinerant” for a TV dinner-style plate with locally sourced ingredients. This allows you to feast in style with maximum irony and minimum preservatives. If your inner Paula Deen is feeling neglected, Voodoo Doughnut sliders are on standby. Wildwood 1221 NW 21st Ave., 248-9663, wildwoodrestaurant.com $25 gets you mesquite-roasted turkey with mashed potatoes, chanterelle mushroom stuffing, cranberry sauce and gravy. Do you fancy an intimate evening with the cute girl from the bar next door who hasn’t seen her family since the
MY MOTHER’S MEAL: At My Father’s Place.
Clinton administration? This Northwest neighborhood bistro carefully toes the line between upright casual and dressed-down fine dining, which makes it equally inviting for hung-over 20-somethings and disenchanted emptynesters from the West Hills. Shari’s 1832 NE 122nd Ave., 252-9590, sharis.com $59.95 gets you a massive platter that serves five to six. On the menu is “all white-meat turkey breast,” gravy, stuffing, green-bean casserole, cranberry sauce, rolls, pumpkin pie and a choice of traditional mashed potatoes or mashed sweet potatoes. The only problem with assembling a ramshackle crew of acquaintances for a “Friendsgiving” dinner is the cooking. More often than not, such potlucks end with a fridge full of booze, a hefty bag of cannabis, and a buffet table that’s desolate besides the bag of Fritos your burnout friend found in his car. Instead, fi nd a sober driver to transport your posse to Cascadia’s favorite roadside dining attraction. Shari’s waitstaff is unpretentious and enthusiastic, the music is reminiscent of long car rides in the family station wagon, and the pie is downright indulgent. Relive your fondest memories of domestic implosion as a pair of teen moms scream at their children and stuff their faces full of turkey so they don’t get hungry while camping out in line for Black Friday deals at the adjacent Wal-Mart.
My Father’s Place 523 SE Grand Ave., 235-5494 $11 gets you turkey with stuffing, mash potatoes, gravy and green bean-and-mushroom casserole. If you consider yourself a loner, pull up a stool and sit a spell at this infamous inner-Southeast greasy spoon. As its name implies, this is the kind of place where your dad used to waste hours chain-smoking and sipping on a bottomless cup of coffee. If you’re feeling generous, poke your head into the homeless shelter across the street and see if anyone’s willing to listen to you ponder your solitude in exchange for a diner-style proxy of America’s favorite meal, all coated in a thin veneer of grease. It might be the one good thing you do for someone else all year. Burger King 1525 SE Grand Ave., 234-9240, bk.com $6.99 gets you a BK Tendergrill chicken sandwich, fries and access to the Coca-Cola Freestyle machine. Charbroiled hamburgers and free Wi-Fi have made this inner-Southeast eatery something of an Internet cafe for the wretched. Grab your laptop, order a BK Tendergrill sans bun, and watch episodes of Louie on Netflix all day while an endless stream of destitute street wraiths pop in for Seattle’s Best coffee and a warm place to charge their cellphones. If you have loved ones back home to call, consider how fortunate you are. This is a time to give thanks and enjoy a rubbery chicken patty with stamped-on grill marks.
Now pouring our own beer and selling burgers at all 3 locations. Pizza, full-bar, brewery and heated patio at our Fremont location.
Portland’s Best Wings! 1708 E. Burnside 503.230.WING (9464)
Restaurant & Brewery NE 57th at Fremont 503-894-8973
4225 N. Interstate Ave. 503.280.WING (9464)
Willamette Week NOVEMBER 27, 2013 wweek.com
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Willamette Week NOVEMBER 27, 2013 wweek.com
NOV. 27-DEC. 3 FEATURE
= WW Pick. Highly recommended. Prices listed are sometimes for advance ticket sales. At-the-door increases and socalled convenience charges may apply. Event lineups are subject to change after WW’s press deadlines. Editor: MATTHEW SINGER. TO BE CONSIDERED FOR LISTINGS, go to wweek.com/ submitevents and follow submission directions. All shows should be submitted two weeks or more in advance of event. Press kits, CDs and especially vinyl can be sent to Music Desk, WW, 2220 NW Quimby St., Portland, OR 97210. Please include show or release date information with all physical mailings. Email: msinger@wweek.com. Fax: 243-1115.
WEDNESDAY, NOV. 27 Jon Hopkins, Clark, Nathan Fake
[LIFE IN TECHNICOLOR] When it comes to recommending an electronic musician, stating that someone’s résumé includes credits with both Coldplay and Imogen Heap probably isn’t going to inspire an immediate trip to Resident Advisor. But for London producer Jon Hopkins, melody—and a background in, oh no, ambient music!—is just as important as groove. Hopkins’ wonderful new record, Immunity, is dance-floor fodder for poptimists, mixing squiggly, fouron-the-floor anthems with gorgeous swaths of piano and white noise. “Open Eye Signal” is the clear jam, but the whole album hangs together like a perfectly placed kick drum. Your move, James Blake. MICHAEL MANNHEIMER. Rotture, 315 SE 3rd Ave., 234-5683. 9 pm . $10. 21+.
THURSDAY, NOV. 28 Nightmares on Wax, Mr. Moo, Pumpkin
[NOT THAT SCARY] It’s funny, with a name like Nightmares on Wax, one would expect an aggressive hip-hop act or an EDM DJ spinning totally unlistenable music. In truth, producer George Evelyn does quite the
opposite. His mash-ups of funk and hip-hop rhythms are pretty tame, all things considered. His mostly instrumental sound draws from a number of influences, including Latin music, Motown soul and more. Touring on his latest album, Feelin’ Good, Evelyn has shown that a producer can build a career on variety as much as musicianship. GEOFFREY NUDELMAN. Refuge, 116 SE Yamhill St. 10 pm. $13. 21+.
FRIDAY, NOV. 29 The Next Waltz: Lewi Longmire, Kris Deelane, Steve Kerin, Adam East, Jeremy Wilson
[FOREVER WALTZING] For the third Thanksgiving in a row, a who’s who of Portland troubadours—including Lewi Longmire, Jenny Conlee-Drizos (the Decemberists), Ural Thomas, Kris Deelane, Zak Borden (Brazillionaires) and Eric D. Johnson (Fruit Bats), among others—will re-create the Band and Martin Scorsese’s 1976 concert-turned-rockumentary in full. BRANDON WIDDER. Alberta Rose Theatre, 3000 NE Alberta St., 7196055. 8 pm. $25 advance, $28 day of show. Donations of two nonperishable food items encouraged. All ages.
CONT. on page 32
COURTESY OF ADAM SELZER
FLASHBACK
FROM LEFT: Rachel Blumberg, Adam Selzer and David Welch.
Portland indie-folk institution Norfolk & Western is playing its first show in four years this week. Here, frontman Adam Selzer recalls the band’s 2002 European tour with Sparklehorse. “We had more instruments and luggage than arms, so we took turns doubling back through the Metro stations until we arrived in Montmartre and wound down at this cafe. We shared the tour bus with Sparklehorse, and it was our first time dealing with a more professional organization. Their tour manager was a complete asshole who treated us like second-class citizens even though we were paying for half of the bus. It was a double-decker, and I remember [Sparklehorse frontman] Mark Linkous would sit in the front seat of the top deck, chain-smoking cigarettes while looking out the window as we drove through the nights. We had some good conversations looking out that window. I never saw him sleep. Rachel [Blumberg] came down with the flu in Utrecht, and I remember looking back at her during the show as she was struggling to hold it together. She said her drum sticks felt like baseball bats. After the show, she rushed to take refuge in the cold, damp, smoke-filled bus. Oh, the glamour of touring.” —Norwolk & Western singer-guitarist Adam Selzer. SEE IT: Norfolk & Western play Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St., with 1939 Ensemble and Darren Hanlon, on Wednesday, Nov. 27. 8:30 pm. $12. 21+.
THE SOFT INDEX GRAPHING THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTWEIGHTNESS OF DRAKE. BY MATTHEW SIN GER
msinger@wweek.com
Drake contains multitudes. He is, after all, a halfblack, half-Jewish Canadian child actor turned ginormously famous rapper. In hip-hop terms, he’s quite the unique snowflake. It isn’t just his biography: On record, while he isn’t above indulging in typical hip-hop braggadocio, he’s more likely to rhyme about drunk-dialing his ex and lament failed
relationships with an unguarded emotionality most MCs wouldn’t dare approach. That openness has made him a polarizing figure in the rap world. In one way, he’s boldly redefining masculinity in a genre whose views on manhood are often troglodytic. In another way, he’s just a whiny bitch. The common slag on Aubrey Drake Graham— yes, his real first name is Aubrey—is that he’s softer than a newborn deer wearing a cardigan. That’s not totally fair. Sure, he’s a bit sensitive, but what does that mean in the grand scheme of things? To try and put Drake in perspective, we’ve compiled the following chart.
DRAKE IS SOFTER THAN… Early ’90s Ice Cube Well, duh, right? In his mean-mugging heyday, Cube was harder than 98 percent of the planet, including most minerals. He’s included here mostly for the purposes of scale, though it’s worth noting that if he were still “the Predator” and not the dad from the Are We There Yet? franchise, Drake never would’ve picked up a mic, for fear of Cube showing up on his doorstep in the middle of the night to express his displeasure. Miguel Drake’s tour partner is a pocket-sized singer of sensual R&B love jams, but even he isn’t trying to wife-up every woman who throws their bra at him.
LaMarcus Aldridge Like Drake, the L-Train has endured accusations of softness, but after two All-Star selections and averaging nearly a double-double the past few seasons, much of that talk has quieted. The lesson for Drake: If you want people to stop dissing you, quit following Rihanna around and get better at rebounding. A basket full of kittens That might sound like a cheap insult, but cats are the true players of the domesticated animal kingdom: affectionate but frustratingly aloof, manipulating emotions to get fed and have someone to open the screen door for them. They also have keen feral instincts, meaning their survival is ultimately not predicated upon another sentient being. If anything, Drake could stand to be more of a pussy, if you catch my drift.
COURTESY OF PRIORITY RECORDS, NOTION, NBA, LEONORA ENKING, GETTY IMAGES, STEVE EICHNER AND COORS
MUSIC
DRAKE IS … HARDER THAN… Mo Williams The entire city of Cleveland reacted like jilted lovers when LeBron James took his hairline to South Beach, but no one took the news harder than the former Cavalier and current Blazers guard, who spent the day after the Decision sending tweets like “I can’t believe this is really real” and “Love u Bron and always will.” If LaMarcus ever leaves Portland, expect to find Mo curled up in his bedroom next to an empty six-pack of wine coolers, trying desperately not to press “Send” on that “BUT I CAN CHANGE!” text.
P.M. Dawn The only rap group whose albums could’ve been sold at the Nature Company. Even Drake thinks sampling Spandau Ballet is a tad too emo. Current Ice Cube Say what you want about Drake, at least he hasn’t allowed a bottle of Coors Light to ejaculate frost in his face for a TV commercial. Yet.
SEE IT: Drake plays Moda Center, 1401 N Wheeler Ave., with Miguel, on Tuesday, Dec. 3. 7 pm. $49.75$99.75. All ages. Willamette Week NOVEMBER 27, 2013 wweek.com
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FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 29 9pm. 21 & Over
TIBURONA MOOSE PORTRAIT DEDERE ELBOW COULEE $5.00 at the door.
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 30 8pm. All Ages
THE HOONS DIVIDES DEAD REMEDY
$5.00 at the door.
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 1 6pm. 21 & Over
Grand Style Orchestra FREE!
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 1 8pm. All Ages
Portland Poetry Slam MONDAY, DECEMBER 2 8pm. 21 & Over
BINGO!!! FREE!
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 3 8pm. 21 & Over
Radio Cab Foundation Benefit WINTER IN THE BLOOD RED SHADOWS DUSTY SANTAMARIA AND THE SINGING KNIVES BUTTERCUP DJ BIG BEN Falafel House: 3 to Late–Night All Ages Shows: Every Sunday 8–11pm Free Pinball Feeding Frenzy: Saturday @ 3pm WITHIN SPITTING DISTANCE OF THE PEARL
1033 NW 16TH AVE. (971) 229-1455 OPEN: 3–2:30AM EVERY DAY
HAPPY HOUR: MON–FRI NOON–7PM POP-A-SHOT • PINBALL • SKEE-BALL AIR HOCKEY • FREE WI-FI
friday
Typhoon, Wild Ones, Lake
[oRcHEStRAL PoP] trying to write about a band as layered and versatile as typhoon means confronting a series of contradictions. How can double drums be so heavyhitting one moment then gentle and restrained the next? How are horn arrangements so pulsing and booming so easily sent swirling off into the background? Most importantly, how do all of those things actually work in a single song? typhoon’s most recent full-length album, White Lighter, skillfully answers each of those questions just as soon as they’re asked. It’s a study in how intricate layers of strings, horns, guitar, bass, piano and probably at least a dozen other things, when carefully arranged, can make for a very fun indie-pop album. KAItIE toDD. Crystal Ballroom, 1332 W Burnside St., 225-0047. 9 pm. $17 advance, $20 day of show. All ages.
Blitzen Trapper, Alialujah Choir
[GLAM AMERIcAnA] one presumes that, 10 years into its career, Blitzen trapper would’ve found its sense of direction by now. But on its seventh album, the band continues to experiment within its homespun folk sound. the chiming organ on the Dylan-ish “thirsty Man” and knockabout “Shine on” ache a la the Band’s “chest Fever,” while “oregon Geography” finds frontman Eric Earley rattling off his vocals like a redneck Beck against a taut backdrop of ambient rain and fitful banjo. “Earth (Fever called Love)” takes another turn, opting for slinky guitar, flute and synths that generate an almost hip-hop vibe, with undercurrents of dark R&B. Despite those deviations, much of VII sounds distinctly like the quirky, crunchy Americana most associate with Blitzen trapper. BRAnDon WIDDER. Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St., 231-9663. 9 pm. $25. 21+.
Cat Power, Nico Turner
[BLUESY conFESSIonS] Four years is a long time to go without cat Power. But when you’re writing, playing, recording and producing a record all by your lonesome, time is not on your side, even if you’re chan Marshall. Established with 2003’s stark and inventive You Are Free and solidifying her artistic prowess three years later with robust LP The Greatest, Marshall is an impressive— albeit occasionally tortured—individual with a stronghold on dimly lit blues rock. the newest record, Sun, released in 2012, is not just another feather in Marshall’s well-decorated cap, but a career triumph, in that it echoes both her chilling powers as a singer-songwriter and her mature, somewhat modernized new sound. Here, she plays by herself, in a venue much more intimate than those she graces with a full band. MARK StocK. Hawthorne Theatre, 1507 SE 39th Ave., 233-7100. 8 pm. $30 advance, $35 day of show. 21+.
The Dickies, Mean Jeans, the Decliners, Ruff Hausen
[PoWER PoP PUnK] opening their Satyricon set 17 years ago with the pointed jeer, “In case you haven’t noticed, we’re really fucking old,” the Dickies exhibit a sheer endurance that beggars reason. novelty covers and penis puppets are rarely pillars of longevity, after all. But with so many of their class of ’77 cohorts consigned to cautionary tales or miscast as elder statesmen, the venerable Los Angeles troupe has aged better than anyone could’ve dreamed. they always had a musicianship above and beyond their peers—snottily sped-up classic rock demands such—and, embracing caricature from the outset, had no relevance or cachet to lose. Maybe they never quite fit in with the teenagerebellion crowd, but middle-aged tastes and infantile humor are evidently forever. JAY HoRton. Tonic Lounge, 3100 NE Sandy Blvd., 2380543. 9:30 pm. $22 advance, $27 day of show. 21+.
cont. on page 34 32
Willamette Week NOVEMBER 27, 2013 wweek.com
PROFILE PHIL Knott
MUSIC
dates here
from lEfT: Solomon, Isaiah and Dee radke.
RADKEY SUNDAY, DEC. 1 Starting a band in a town like St. Joseph, Mo., is hard enough without being black and underage. The city isn’t exactly a music mecca, nor is it the kind of place inclined to embrace three African-American siblings playing high-octane rock ’n’ roll. So, when 18-year-old bassist Isaiah Radke and his brothers, singer-guitarist Dee, 20, and drummer Solomon, 16, decided to pick up instruments and bash out classic three-chord punk as Radkey, they were beginning at a distinct disadvantage. “People will give me shit for saying bad things about the city, but they didn’t give us a chance at all,” Isaiah says. “For instance, we wanted to play this place called Hammerjacks. They saw our picture and said they don’t book rap groups.” Hometown support isn’t something Radkey has to worry much about these days. In recent months, the band has received love from plenty of other places, including The New York Times, Spin and NME. It’s not hard to pinpoint what has sent the group barreling into the hearts of critics a generation or three older than its members: Its scrappy, melodic punk has become a conduit for nostalgia. With indie rock and EDM now the dominant sounds of millennial youth culture, Radkey recalls a time, not long ago, when being a teenager meant diving into the pit and screaming along to whoa-oh-oh choruses. Who needs St. Joseph when you’ve tapped into the shared adolescence of the entire country? Of course, the difference between Radkey and, say, your highschool punk band, is that Radkey is really, really good. Weaned on their father’s Misfits records—Dee’s demon bellow is a dead ringer for Danzig’s—the brothers got together in their shared bedroom three years ago and began writing speedy songs inspired by anime, comic books and the occasional real-world concern (see the raging semantics lesson “‘N.I.G.G.A.’ Is Not OK”). Their chemistry is remarkable, though not surprising: Aside from sharing the same DNA, all three Radkes were homeschooled, making them “abnormally close,” Isaiah says. “While we ended up weird, as most kids do, I think it’s working in our favor,” he says. “Weird is interesting.” With few opportunities in St. Joseph, the band crammed into the family minivan and headed for more welcoming scenes in Kansas City, Mo., and Lawrence, Kan. An appearance at the Afropunk Festival in New York led the group to record a pair of EPs, 2012’s Cat & Mouse and the recent Devil Fruit. In October, the trio flew to England, making its television debut on Later...With Jools Holland. Things are going so well, the brothers’ father, Matt, quit his job at Wal-Mart to manage the band full-time, making the siblings the primary breadwinners in their household. It’s an awkward position for three musicians still learning what it means to be a band. Like most kids their age, though, the Radkes aren’t too worried about the future. Maybe with good reason. “We’ve found a system that seems to work: Listen to good music, write songs you love, and accept nothing less,” Isaiah says. “Hopefully, us loving it will mean others do, and hopefully that’ll work for a good career.” MATTHEW SINGER. radkey is a lot like your teenage punk band—except way better.
SEE IT: Radkey plays Wonder Ballroom, 128 n Russell St., with Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears, on Sunday, Dec. 1. 7:30 pm. $18 advance, $20 day of show. All ages.
MUSIC MILLENNIUM’S IN-STORE PERFORMANCES THE ANNIKA FORREST PROJECT SUNDAY, 12/1 @ 3PM Singer-songwriter Annika Forrest has lifelong roots in folk, bluegrass, and old time music. Fusing styles that draw on many years of professional experience, Annika Forrest and her band seamlessly weave together styles ranging from bluegrass and reggae to blues and rock.
COMMUNITY DAY/SONGWRITERS CIRCLE FEATURING ALAN KANNING, JAIME LEOPOLD, JACK MCMAHON MONDAY, 12/2 @ 7 PM SPONSORED BY KZME
ALSO: LOVERS – THURSDAY, 12/5 @ 6PM
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 29TH AT 8 A.M. OVER 100 SPECIAL LIMITED RELEASES FREE GIFT BAGS TO FIRST 200 PEOPLE FREE COFFEE & MUFFINS AT 7 A.M.
SPECIAL HAPPY HOUR AT 5:30 P.M. COMPLIMENTS OF THE ROSELAND HUNTERS PROVIDED BY VOODOO DOUGHNUT, LAURELWOOD BREWING COMPANY, & PORTER’S SOUTHERN GRILL
ROSELAND HUNTERS RECORD RELEASE IN-STORE AT 6 PM
DOOR BUSTERS SALE OVER 50 TITLES AT JUST $6.99 (UP TO $12 SAVINGS) INCLUDING: Alabama Shakes – Boys & Girls Arcade Fire – Reflektor The Avett Brothers – Magpie & The Dandelion
Willamette Week NOVEMBER 27, 2013 wweek.com
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MUSIC
saturday-tuesday
SATURDAY, NOV. 30
[KALEIDOSCOPE ROCK] Three albums, several lineup changes and ample time have elapsed since Portugal the Man last played Doug Fir. In the time between, the band has shed a smidgen of its hazy prog-rock disposition, placing Brian “Danger Mouse” Burton behind the board on its latest LP, Evil Friends, and loading up on anthemic, brassdriven hooks. Local metallurgists Sons of Huns and electro-poppers Hustle and Drone open this typically eclectic installment of the Red Bull Sound Select concert series. BRANDON WIDDER. Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St., 2319663. 9 pm. $3 RSVP through redbullsoundselect.com, $12 day of show. 21+.
Waxahatchee, Swearin’
[FUZZ TONES] Before you cringe at the idea of another singer-songwriter rehashing the ’90s, listen to all 106 seconds of “Coast to Coast” and try as hard as you can to pretend you’re still allergic to the fuzzed-out bliss Katie Crutchfield churns out under the Waxahatchee moniker. If you’re too young to have fond memories of taping Belly and Throwing Muses singles off the radio, consider this an effective primer. If the scruffy, blown-out pop of opener Swearin’—led by Crutchfield’s sister, Allison—doesn’t knock down the wall of apprehension first, Waxatchee will certainly give it a steel-toed boot to the face. PETE COTTELL. Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison St., 239-7639. 10 pm. $6. All ages.
Kathleen Keogh Benefit: Pictureplane, Miracles Club, $kull$
[PAN-DANCE] Travis Egedy’s punk cred has always been a little overstated. The man behind Pictureplane did come up in Denver’s DIY warehouse venue Rhinoceropolis, but the grit and fuzz in his often duplicitous brand of EDM consistently punches through well-worn computer speakers. With his only track of 2013 thus far, “Pure War,” Egedy is beginning to molt the basement bong-party vibe of 2009’s Dark Rift and emerge with synths both deep and dark. His trademark emo whine still cuts through the beat, and “Pure War” probably won’t
[MATH ROCK SUPERSTARS] If an outsider didn’t learn about Portland music via the Decemberists, it was probably through Menomena. These giants of avant-pop (literally: giants—they’re built like stiltwalkers) make cut-up art-rock that never seems to go where it think you will. The band’s debut record, 2004’s I Am the Fun Blame Monster, ushered Portland into the modern indie era. The group has changed a bit in recent years, most notably losing founding member Brent Knopf in 2010, but its last record, 2012’s Moms, proves Menomena remains a puzzle worth figuring out. MATTHEW SINGER. Wonder Ballroom, 128 NE Russell St., 2848686. 8 pm. $16 advance, $18 day of show. All ages.
SUNDAY, DEC. 1 Fred & Toody Unplugged, Jenny Don’t & the Spurs, Freak Mountain Ramblers
[PUNK ROYALTY] After birthing Portland punk with the Rats, defining it with Dead Moon and then refining it with Pierced Arrows, no one would’ve begrudged Fred and Toody Cole if they retired to a little house in the country once they hit 60. But then, a little house in the country—otherwise known as Clackamas—is where they started, and it’s where they’ve stayed, so what’s the point of retirement? This acoustic show, a precursor to the long-anticipated Dead Moon reunion in January, is certainly a rarity, but if anyone deserves the Storytellers format, it’s the royal grandparents of the PDX underground. MATTHEW SINGER. LaurelThirst, 2958 NE Glisan St., 232-1504. 9 pm. Free. 21+.
MONDAY, DEC. 2 Foals
[ASPIRATIONAL INDIE] With the release of Holy Fire, Foals confirmed the notion that it’s no longer content with playing “songs for indie clubs.” While its first two records fused elements of NME-baiting post-punk and noodly math rock, this album finds the Oxford quintet setting its sights on arena-rock dominance. Hiring Flood and Alan Moulder—the production duo behind the Killers’ and Nine Inch Nails’ most ambitious works—adds the sonic undertones and outsized grandeur requisite for increasing one’s font size on festival lineups, but it’s certainly not too big to fail. Save your smoke break for the cuts from side B of Holy Fire, and count on deep cuts from debut Antidotes deferred to the tail end of the set to revive the slouching “indie club” set that’s not quite ready for Foals to turn into U2. PETE COTTELL. Wonder Ballroom, 128 NE Russell St., 284-8686. 7:30 pm. $25 advance, $30 day of show. All ages.
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Willamette Week NOVEMBER 27, 2013 wweek.com
COURTESY OF MARTIN CIZMAR
Menomena
earn him any more of that cred, but Pictureplane is finally ready for takeoff. This show benefits dancer and onetime Portlander Kathleen Keogh, injured in a mugging in San Francisco. MITCH LILLIE. Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison St., 239-7639. 8:30 pm. $8. 21+.
Suicidal Tendencies, Terror, Trash Talk, the Inspector Cluzo
[HARDCORE, THRASH PUNK, ETC.] Suicidal Tendencies have recently exploded with a kind of vengeance only pioneering crossover thrash-punk icons such as themselves could unleash, traveling all over the world in a matter of months. After more than 20 years of making music, and about a zillion lineup changes, the band still possesses inhuman amounts of energy. I saw them play in May, and they caused a mosh pit rivaling the fury inspired by much younger bands. And then they invited the entire crowd to join them onstage. As an example of just how wide a shadow ST casts, the openers here include L.A. hardcore outfit Terror, Sacramento spazz punks Trash Talk, and French funk-’n’-roll group the Inspector Cluzo. CAT JONES. Wonder Ballroom, 128 NE Russell St., 284-8686. 7:30 pm. $28 advance, $25 day of show. All ages.
CONT. on page 36
LETTER TO MY 13-YEAR-OLD SELF BY MARTIN CIZMAR
RE: PEARL JAM Dear 13-year-old Marty, You figure you’re going to be a lawyer, huh? People have been telling you that since you were, oh, 8 or so. You probably wouldn’t believe me if I told you Pearl Jam was going to change that. Yeah, I know, you’re lukewarm on the band. Yes, you bought Ten, but not until you owned the entire Nirvana catalog, Superunknown, Siamese Dream, Dookie, Smash, The Chronic, The Predator and AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted. But your buddy Tim is a Ten Club member who owns import singles boasting at least three versions of “Yellow Ledbetter” and bootlegs from before Pearl Jam starts making official recordings of literally every show it plays. In the summer of 1998, you and Tim will make road trips to see the band in Toronto, Cincinnati, Columbus and Pittsburgh. It will be amazing. The fact that two 17-year-olds drove a Ford Taurus across an international border to see a rock show will seem really weird just a few years later. In October 2000, the band will be on tour again and you will be broke because you have never had a job. Your friend Chip will tell you it’s possible to secure complimentary admittance to a wide variety of concerts and sporting events by agreeing to write about them for the University of Akron’s student newspaper. This will be your first job, and it will get you and Tim into Pearl Jam’s Detroit show for free. Emboldened, you will do this again and again. Your parents will think it’s just a harmless hobby until it’s too late. You will see so many free concerts that you’ll eventually discover you like writing about the concerts even more than you like seeing them for free. You will actually graduate from law school but you will never take the bar exam because you want to write for a living. And you will. In 2011, you’ll have followed this path to a newspaper in Portland, Ore. And it’s there your buddy Tim will fly to visit you and see the band in Seattle. I’m certain you’ll be very happy with how this all works out—even if, as your mother has been known to mention, lawyers can buy their own Pearl Jam tickets.
TUESDAY, DEC. 3
Sincerely, 33-year-old Martin
Red Bull Sound Select: Portugal the Man, Sons of Huns, Hustle and Drone
SEE IT: Pearl Jam plays Moda Center, 1401 N Wheeler Ave., on Friday, Nov. 29. 7:30 pm. $69.50. All ages.
Hottest Girls in CHinatown Portland’s Indie Rock Strip Club Magic Garden 217 NW 4th Ave Portland, OR 97209 (503) 224-8472
Willamette Week NOVEMBER 27, 2013 wweek.com
35
MUSIC
classical, etc.
CLASSICAL, JAZZ & WORLD Bridgetown Sextet, Phil Favorite
[RETRO JAZZ] As long as we’re entering the season of honoring traditions, how about celebrating the stomping, vintage jazz that was America’s first great contribution to music history? The local Bridgetown Sextet, featuring some of the city’s top jazzers, has lost trumpeter-pianist Andrew Oliver to London but welcomes new trumpeter Thomas Barber, who’s performed with Wynton Marsalis, Brian Blade, Paul Simon and other stars. BRETT CAMPBELL. Duff’s Garage, 1635 SE 7th Ave., 2342337. 9 pm Friday, nov. 29. $10.
Takacs Quartet
[SUPREME STRINGS] There’s a reason Friends of Chamber Music
invites the multinational Takacs Quartet—widely regarded as one of the greatest string quartets in the world—to town every year. Where too many upperechelon ensembles are content to coast on their reputations, every Takacs performance I’ve heard sizzles with real passion and commitment. It makes you feel like you’re hearing classics for the first time. Both concerts feature terrific midperiod Mozart quartets. Monday’s adds one of Bartók’s great quartets, “No. 2,” from 1917 and his countryman Smetana’s popular first quartet, “From My Life.” Tuesday features one of Beethoven’s early masterpieces and Dvořák’s ever-popular “American” quartet. BRETT CAMPBELL. Lincoln Hall, Portland State University, 1620 SW Park Ave., 725-3307. 7:30 pm Monday, Dec. 2. $30-$47.
CEETHREEDOM
PROFILE
SOFT METALS SATURDAY, NOV. 30 Soft Metals didn’t move to L.A. for the weather, or to get closer to the music industry. Ian Hicks and Patricia Hall, the couple who formed the moody synth duo in Portland in 2009, relocated to Southern California in 2011 to solve the problems of urban sprawl. Sort of. Hicks is going to grad school at Cal Poly Pomona for urban planning, and Hall has strong opinions on the subject, strengthened by the band’s extensive touring of North America. “There’s a long way to go for our country to be a greener place to live,” Hall says. You’d be forgiven for thinking there was little room in their heads for anything but love and music. Both of Soft Metals’ fulllength albums—2011’s self-titled debut and this year’s Lenses, released on tastemaker Brooklyn label Captured Tracks—feature two pairs of lips a split-second away from a make-out session. “I don’t know if people are expecting sex jams or something to play on your first date in a row boat,” Hall says. Expecting nothing more than that would be a mistake. Lenses ranges from the shimmering, acid-tinged title track to “Interobserver,” an instrumental spaceship ride through the krautrock galaxy. Matching their varied musical style, Hall and Hicks like to wax on everything from politics to psychology. But they’re romantics, too, loathe as they might be to admit it. In 2008, Hall was DJ’ing and promoting a monthly party at Rotture when a friend suggested Hicks—then visiting from San Francisco—as a guest DJ. When Hicks eventually moved to Portland, he invited Hall to sing with him, and the metals melded. The Lenses track “When I Look Into Your Eyes”—a dub-techno cut revamped with melancholy pop vocals—belies their romance. “When I look into your eyes/ I wonder if we’ll meld/ Your body piercing right through mine,” Hall croons in a smooth contralto. “Our music is always in between intentions,” Hall says. “We keep on trying to make songs that people will dance to. You can dance to them, but they end up being…” Hicks finishes her sentence: “Introspective.” MITCH LILLIE. an alloy of love, synths and urban planning.
PreseNts
ALL AgEs! ON sALE NOW
icona pop With k. flay
friday, december 20 2013
WONDER BALLROOm 128 N russell st
tickets at musicfestNW.cOm/tickets & ticketfly.cOm 36
Willamette Week NOVEMBER 27, 2013 wweek.com
SEE IT: Soft Metals play Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison St., with Nathan Detroit and Natural Magic DJs, on Saturday, Nov. 30. 10 pm. $6. 21+.
SOME OF THE BEST OF 2013
ROBBIE FULKS GONE AWAY BACKWARD ON SALE $10.99
RONALD ISLEY THIS SONG IS FOR YOU ON SALE $13.99
JOE BONAMASSA ACOUSTIC EVENING AT THE VIENNA ON SALE $11.99
DAWES STORIES DON’T END ON SALE $10.99
Gone Away Backward is a sneaky triumph. Hobos and miscreants rub shoulders with nostalgic old-timers and lonely lovers.
This album features 13 songs, showcasing the unique sound that has kept Ronald Isley in the spotlight for over five decades.
Varying from his predominantly electric blues shows, this presentation was an all-acoustic concert performance, making it a unique and very special show fans had been waiting years to experience.
Produced by Jacquire King (Tom Waits, Kings of Leon, Norah Jones, etc.), Stories Don’t End is the band’s first release on its own label, HUB Records.
THE GROWLERS HUNG AT HEART ON SALE $12.99
CLUTCH EARTH ROCKER ON SALE $10.99
BRYAN FERRY ORCHESTRA JAZZ AGE ON SALE $12.99
JOSH ROUSE THE HAPPINESS WALTZ ON SALE $12.99
The Growlers are back with a new album of sunburned, psychedelic beach goth! In 2013, they continue to stay true to their roots with a distinctly DIY approach.
Earth Rocker has received towering accolades from those that have heard it. Some tastemakers immediately notice that Clutch have gone heavier and faster than ever before.
The Jazz Age is a step back to the classic Jazz era of the 1920s. By re-recording hits with top Jazz musicians, Bryan Ferry has given a new sound to his back catalog and the album includes hits such as “Don’t Stop the Dance” and “Slave to Love.”
The Happiness Waltz is filled with Rouse’s thoughtful, delicate and infectious pop craft, a sound that has become his signature.
LAURA VEIRS WARP & WEFT ON SALE $11.99
BONOBO NORTH BORDERS ON SALE $11.99
BOARDS OF CANADA TOMORROW’S HARVEST ON SALE $11.99
STEVE MARTIN & EDIE BRICKELL LOVE HAS COME FOR YOU ON SALE $12.99
Beautiful, lush and at times deeply dark, Warp and Weft captures the intensity of motherhood, love and violence. Primarily electric-guitar driven, it is a fever dream of an album, and could be Veirs’ best work to date.
The North Borders is a long stride forward, both a natural evolution and a continuation of the electronic palette of Black Sands. Thematic, resonant, addictive and perfectly formed, it’s a thrillingly coherent statement piece.
The idolized and enigmatic duo is back. Musically, the album is somehow dark yet positive, with atmospheric dissonance and mind-bending melodic creations.
Love Has Come for You offers 13 eloquently rootsy Martin/Brickell compositions that combine the former’s inventive, expressive five-string banjo work with the latter’s heart-tugging vocals and vivid, detail-rich lyrics.
BEN HARPER & CHARLIE MUSSELWHI GET UP! ON SALE $7.99
SON VOLT HONKY TONK ON SALE $10.99
VALERIE JUNE PUSHIN’ AGAINST A STONE ON SALE $7.99
STEVEN WILSON RAVEN THAT REFUSED TO SING ON SALE $13.99
A striking mix of blues, gospel, roots and R&B, Get Up! features ten vivid musical character studies, skillfully rendered in cinematic detail, all written or co-written by Harper.
Pedal steel guitar and twin fiddles anchor a timeless music, in which the clear hard truths of the lyrics mine the emotional complexities of life and love, making Honky Tonk a landmark on a continuing journey.
Valerie June brings an eclectic mix of folk, soul, Appalachian, bluegrass, blues and gospel to the unique sound of this debut album.
This record was engineered by legendary producer/engineer Alan Parsons and consists of six songs, three of which are 10-minute-plus epics and are based on stories of the supernatural.
Offer good through 12/31/13 Willamette Week NOVEMBER 27, 2013 wweek.com
37
MUSIC CALENDAR
[NOV. 27-DEC. 3]
= WW Pick. Highly recommended. Editor: Mitch Lillie. TO HAVE YOUR EVENT LISTED, send show information at least two weeks in advance on the web at wweek.com/ submitevents or (if you book a specific venue) enter your events at dbmonkey.com/wweek. Press kits, CDs and especially vinyl can be sent to Music Desk, WW, 2220 NW Quimby St., Portland, OR 97210. Please include show or release date information with all physical mailings. Email: music@wweek.com. For more listings, check out wweek.com.
Secret Society Ballroom
116 NE Russell St. Boy & Bean
Slabtown
1033 NW 16th Ave. Tiburona, Moose Portrait, Dedere, Elbow Coulee
The Analog ALLISON KEREK
720 SE Hawthorne Lord Dying, Anciients, Nether Regions, Sioux
The Blue diamond
2016 NE Sandy Blvd. Ben Rice and the iLLamatics
The Blue Monk
3341 SE Belmont St. Northern Currents, Mr. Jones and his Visions of Pearl, Grand Lake Islands
The Know
2026 NE Alberta St. Sun Angle, Week of Wonders, Fine Pets
The Lovecraft
421 SE Grand Ave. Moon Mirror, Virgin Blood
The Press Club
2621 SE Clinton St. The Darlin’ Blackbirds, Tobias Berblinger
Tonic Lounge
3100 NE Sandy Blvd. The Dickies, Mean Jeans, the Decliners, Ruff Hausen
White eagle Saloon
836 N Russell St. Violent Psalms, Coastlands, Hart & Hare
SAT. Nov. 30 oRCHeSTRAL MANoeuvReS: Typhoon plays Crystal Ballroom on Friday, Nov. 29.
Wed. Nov. 27 Alberta Street Public House 1036 NE Alberta St. The Fire Weeds
Ash Street Saloon
225 SW Ash St. Immortal Majority, Succor, Sarcalogos
doug Fir Lounge
830 E Burnside St. Norfolk & Western, 1939 Ensemble
duff’s Garage
1635 SE 7th Ave. Suburban Slim’s Blues Jam
Goodfoot Lounge
2845 SE Stark St. Scott Law Electric Band, Big E
Ground Kontrol
511 NW Couch St. TRONix: Logical Aggression
Hawthorne Theatre
1507 SE 39th Ave. Less Than Jake, AntiFlag, Masked Intruder, Get Dead
Ivories Jazz Lounge and Restaurant 1435 NW Flanders St. Dave Frishberg, John Gross
Lewi Longmire & the Left Coast Roasters, Rory James & the Majestic, Timberbound Project
Lola’s Room at the Crystal Ballroom
McMenamins edgefield
Chapel Pub
2126 SW Halsey St., Troutdale Kris Deelane
McMenamins Rock Creek Tavern
10000 Old Cornelius Pass Road, Hillsboro Billy D
Mississippi Studios
3939 N Mississippi Ave. Anna Gilbert, Chris Marshall and the August Light, Star Anna
Music Millennium
3158 E Burnside St. Diane Birch
Rotture
315 SE 3rd Ave. Jon Hopkins, Clark, Nathan Fake
Shaker and vine
2929 SE Powell Blvd. Seth Mytzel
Star Theater
Kelly’s olympian
The Blue diamond
Kenton Club
2025 N Kilpatrick St. Polst
Langano Lounge
1435 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Sharks from Mars, Wormbag
LaurelThirst
2958 NE Glisan St.
38
303 SW 12th Ave. Freedy Johnston
Andina
112 SW 2nd Ave. Pat Buckley 426 SW Washington St. An American Forrest, Northern Currents, the Iron Works
Al’s den at the Crystal Hotel
1332 W Burnside St. Marca Luna, the Hey Listen, Steph Infection & the Heebie Jeebies
13 NW 6th Ave. Johnny Fiasco, Richie Staxx, Doc Manny, NOMA, Michael Grimes
Kells
THuRS. Nov. 28
2016 NE Sandy Blvd. Billy D and the Hoodoos
The old Church
1422 SW 11th Ave. David Rothman
The Press Club
2621 SE Clinton St. Mitch Gonzales
White eagle Saloon
836 N Russell St. Mimi Naja, CyberCamel, Dunnoy, Brahnana
Willamette Week NOVEMBER 27, 2013 wweek.com
1314 NW Glisan St. Danny Romero, Jason Okamoto 430 N Killingsworth St. Steve Kerin
Ground Kontrol
511 NW Couch St. \Joystick/
McMenamins edgefield 2126 SW Halsey St., Troutdale The Begonias
Papa G’s vegan organic deli
2314 SE Division St. Thanksgiving Feast 2013: Michael Hurley
Plew’s Brews
8409 N Lombard St. Thanksgiving Potluck and Jam Session
Refuge
116 SE Yamhill St. Nightmares on Wax, Mr. Moo, Pumpkin
Sky Club at Ankeny’s Well
50 SW 3rd Ave. Soundscape Thursdays: Julius Major, Final Frequency, Ryan Frakes, PIA!!
The Knock Back
FRI. Nov. 29 Al’s den at the Crystal Hotel 303 SW 12th Ave. Freedy Johnston
Aladdin Theater
3017 SE Milwaukie Ave. The Storm Large Holiday Ordeal
Alberta Rose Theatre
3000 NE Alberta St. The Next Waltz: Lewi Longmire, Kris Deelane, Steve Kerin, Adam East, Jeremy Wilson
Alberta Street Public House 1036 NE Alberta St. Will Kinky
Alhambra Theatre
4811 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Josh Hoke, Shaena Stabler, Joseph
Ash Street Saloon
225 SW Ash St. Yo Adrian!, the Wobblies, Knox Harrington
Beaterville Cafe
2201 N Killingsworth St. Tuck and Daisy, Elliot Ross
Biddy McGraw’s Irish Pub
6000 NE Glisan St. Thermal Boogie, the Fire Weeds
Clyde’s Prime Rib
5474 NE Sandy Blvd. Norman Sylvester
Crystal Ballroom
2315 NE Alberta St. Cove, Pablo, Not From Brooklyn
1332 W Burnside St. Typhoon, Wild Ones, Lake
Tiger Bar
317 NW Broadway Karaoke From Hell
830 E Burnside St. Blitzen Trapper, Alialujah Choir
velo Cult
east end
1969 NE 42nd Ave. Hollywood Bluegrass Band
doug Fir Lounge
203 SE Grand Ave. Caldonias, Slim Fortune, DJ Brett Lyman
Foggy Notion
3416 N Lombard St. Dinosaur Heart, ChildChildren, You
Hawthorne Theatre
1507 SE 39th Ave.
Cat Power, Nico Turner Katie o’Briens 2809 NE Sandy Blvd. The Mormon Trannys, Insignificunts
Kells Brewpub
210 NW 21st Ave. Sami Rouisi
Kells
112 SW 2nd Ave. Grafton Street
Kelly’s olympian
426 SW Washington St. Mothertapes, the Ecstatics, Ryan Stively
Al’s den at the Crystal Hotel 303 SW 12th Ave. Freedy Johnston
Alberta Rose Theatre
3000 NE Alberta St. The Next Waltz: Lewi Longmire, Kris Deelane, Steve Kerin, Adam East, Jeremy Wilson
Alhambra Theatre
4811 SE Hawthorne Blvd. The Ian Fays, Happy Otherwise
Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall
1037 SW Broadway Jackie Evancho, Oregon Symphony
Artichoke Community Music 3130A SE Hawthorne Blvd. Cole Carr
Ash Street Saloon
Goodfoot Lounge
Ash Street Saloon
Hawthorne Theatre Lounge
Crystal Ballroom
2845 SE Stark St. Boys II Gentlemen
1503 SE Cesar E. Chavez Blvd. Big B, the Sindicate, Smash Bandits
Hawthorne Theatre
1507 SE 39th Ave. The Odious, Assyria, Southgate, Wayfarer, Of Fact And Fiction, Ocean of Mirrors
Holocene
1001 SE Morrison St. Waxahatchee, Swearin’
Jimmy Mak’s
221 NW 10th Ave. Curtis Salgado
Kelly’s olympian
426 SW Washington St. Kinked, Stan McMahon Band
Kenton Club
2025 N Kilpatrick St. Hong Kong Banana
Langano Lounge
1435 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Mike McKinnon
McMenamins edgefield 2126 SW Halsey St., Troutdale The Junebugs, Dickens Carolers
Mississippi Pizza
3552 N Mississippi Ave. Dina y los Rancheros, the Pale Players
Mississippi Studios
3939 N Mississippi Ave. Tony Furtado Band, Ruth Moody Band
Roseland Theater
8 NW 6th Ave. IAMSU, Sage the Gemini, Champagne James, Mikey Vegaz and Fliboe Moe
Secret Society Ballroom
116 NE Russell St. The Doubleclicks, Super Guitar Bros, Joseph Scrimshaw, Baby & the Pearl Blowers 1033 NW 16th Ave. The Hoons, Divides, Dead Remedy
Spare Room
4830 NE 42nd Ave. The New Iberians, DK Stewart
The Analog
720 SE Hawthorne Rosecity Underground and Serial Sickness
The Blue Monk
225 SW Ash St. Raise the Bridges, Kenchucky Darvey, Irie Idea
3341 SE Belmont St. Tender Deluxe, the Keplers
McMenamins edgefield
Branx
2026 NE Alberta St. See You in Hell, Reactor, Apocalypse Now
2126 SW Halsey St., Troutdale Joy Pearson, Dickens Carolers
Mississippi Studios
3939 N Mississippi Ave. The Cave Singers, Pollens
320 SE 2nd Ave. RA The Rugged Man, Potluck, Black Pegasus, Whitney Peyton, Saint Warhead, Bad Habitat, Portside
Club 21
1401 N Wheeler Ave. Pearl Jam
2035 NE Glisan St. Rolling Through the Universe, Breag Naofa, Lamprey
Music Millennium
Crystal Ballroom
Moda Center
3158 E Burnside St. Roseland Hunters
Pioneer Courthouse Square
701 SW 6th Ave. Tree Lighting Ceremony: Thomas Lauderdale, Pink Martini, Oregon’s Own 234th Army Band, Pacific Youth Choir
Plew’s Brews
8409 N Lombard St. No Tomorrow Boys
1332 W Burnside St. Village People, Ancient Heat
doug Fir Lounge
830 E Burnside St. Blitzen Trapper, the Parson Red Heads (9 pm); Blitzen Trapper, the Woolen Men (5 pm)
east end
203 SE Grand Ave. The Cry, Whiskey Dickers, Raw Dog and Close Calls
1332 W Burnside St. The Neighbourhood
doug Fir Lounge
830 E Burnside St. Thanks, Fault Lines, Cherimoya
Hawthorne Theatre
1507 SE 39th Ave. Proffess, Lucky B, Dopamine, Romeo, Kryptic, Alien Shipwreck (7:30 pm); Silver Remains, Jet Force Gemini, Il Maurzo, 9 Gauge, To Die Elsewhere (4 pm)
LaurelThirst
2958 NE Glisan St. Fred & Toody Unplugged, Jenny Don’t & the Spurs, Freak Mountain Ramblers
Mississippi Studios
3939 N Mississippi Ave. Vanport Square Studio Showcase
Music Millennium
3158 E Burnside St. Annika Forrest
Rontoms
600 E Burnside St. Wishyunu, Purse Candy
Slabtown
1033 NW 16th Ave. Grand Style Orchestra
The Lovecraft
421 SE Grand Ave. Eastside Industrial, Polemic Center, IAN
Trinity episcopal Cathedral
147 NW 19th Ave. Procession of Lessons and Carols
White eagle Saloon 836 N Russell St. Jeffrey Martin, Kevin Florence, Wesley Randolph Eader Jr.
Wonder Ballroom
128 NE Russell St. Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears, Radkey
Slabtown
Kenton Club
2025 N Kilpatrick St. Blind Lovejoy, the Golden Hour
225 SW Ash St. Bustin’ Jieber, the Know’s Nose, Pinkish
The Know
Trinity episcopal Cathedral
147 NW 19th Ave. Procession of Lessons and Carols
White eagle Saloon
836 N Russell St. Foxy Lemon, Cambrian Explosion, Fox and the Law
Wonder Ballroom
128 NE Russell St. Menomena
SuN. deC. 1 Al’s den at the Crystal Hotel 303 SW 12th Ave. There Is No Mountain
Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall
1037 SW Broadway Holiday Pops: Jeff Tyzik, Oregon Symphony
MoN. deC. 2 Al’s den at the Crystal Hotel 303 SW 12th Ave. There Is No Mountain
Crystal Ballroom
1332 W Burnside St. Alt-J
dante’s
350 W Burnside St. Karaoke From Hell
Jimmy Mak’s
221 NW 10th Ave. Ron Howard, Paul Mazzio, John Worley, Carlton Jackson, Clay Giberson, Dave Captein
Kells Brewpub
210 NW 21st Ave. Traditional Irish Jam Session
Kells
112 SW 2nd Ave. Danny O’Hanlon
Lola’s Room at the Crystal Ballroom 1332 W Burnside St. Youthbitch, Piss Test
Mississippi Studios
3939 N Mississippi Ave. Brendan Canning, Holly Miranda
Music Millennium
3158 E Burnside St. Jack McMahon
White eagle Saloon 836 N Russell St. Tonya Gilmore
Wonder Ballroom
128 NE Russell St. Foals
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Willamette Week NOVEMBER 27, 2013 wweek.com
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MUSIC CALENDAR
BAR SPOTLIGHT m at t i e k r a l l
TueS. deC. 3
Nov. 27-Dec. 3
Crystal Ballroom
1332 W Burnside St. The Mowglis, Said the Whale
dante’s
350 W Burnside St. Thee Four Teens, Needlecraft, ManX
doug Fir Lounge
830 E Burnside St. Red Bull Sound Select: Portugal the Man, Sons of Huns, Hustle and Drone
Holocene
1001 SE Morrison St. Kathleen Keogh Benefit: Pictureplane, Miracles Club, $kull$
Jimmy Mak’s
221 NW 10th Ave. Portland Woodshed Jazz Orchestra, Picante Latin Jazz
McMenamins edgefield 2126 SW Halsey St., Troutdale Hanz Araki and Cary Novotny
Mississippi Studios
3939 N Mississippi Ave. Bell Gardens, Dinosaur Bones, Gondola
Moda Center
1401 N Wheeler Ave. Drake, Miguel
roseland Theater
8 NW 6th Ave. Adventure Club, Dallas K, Hunter Siegel
Slabtown
1033 NW 16th Ave. Winter In The Blood, Red Shadows, Dusty Santamaria And The Singing Knives, Buttercup, DJ Big Ben (Radio Cab Foundation benefit)
The analog
720 SE Hawthorne S.Y.N.T.
Wonder Ballroom
128 NE Russell St. Suicidal Tendencies, Terror, Trash Talk, the Inspector Cluzo
A WELL-CUT COOKIE: The Matchbox Lounge was once an improvised haunt for off-shift bar staff, with stiff drinks, friends’ art on the walls and surprisingly good late-night food. Wholly by accident—before upwardly mobile rents tipped things—it became a storm drain for busy Pok Pok across the street. The Richmond Bar (3203 SE Division St., 208-3075, therichmondbar.com), which took Matchbox’s place last month, opens as a fully formed object. The back wall’s pressed-metal letter “R” with little light bulbs inside is a stamped trademark of both co-owner Nate Tilden and his favored build-out firm, OMFG Co. The neutral-and-red-hued bar has honed the refined, unshowy comforts now expected of a Portland bar—a model Tilden himself helped create at Clyde Common. The Richmond’s drinks skew to the sweetly medicinal, especially in the herbal Sassafras ($10), named after the dominant note in the Root spirit mixed with tequila, mezcal and Cynar; it’s like sarsaparilla with some heat in the nose. The cocktail menu rarely repeats an ingredient, whether Cherry Heering or the grapefruit shrub and jalapeño syrup of the crisp, lovely Paloma ($7). The beer list is deep with offerings from Oregon and Europe, with a $2 Old German tall boy to round things out. The wine is refreshingly far flung, and the crowd is a dead-even mix of creative class and service industry. The food, meanwhile, is upscale-casual, from beef tongue pasty ($7) to the obligatory double-digit burger. The cozy, tasteful little bar does absolutely nothing wrong—except, perhaps, do nothing wrong. MATTHEW KORFHAGE. Holocene
The Whiskey Bar
Lola’s room at the Crystal Ballroom
Tiga
1001 SE Morrison St. Snap!: Dr. Adam, Colin Jones, Freaky Outty
Wed. Nov. 27
THurS. Nov. 28
Beech St. Parlor
Berbati’s
dig a Pony
Black Book
412 NE Beech St. Left-Hand Path
736 SE Grand Ave. Pussy Control
Fez Ballroom
231 SW Ankeny St. Studyhall: DJ Suga Shane 20 NW 3rd Ave. Modern(ist), DJ Troubled Youth, Ryan Biornstad
316 SW 11th Ave. Heaven & Hell: DJ Deathtouch, DJ Playtime
dig a Pony
Gold dust Meridian
Harlem
3267 SE Hawthorne Blvd. A Very Special Thankgiving Eve: DJ Gregarious
Harlem
220 SW Ankeny St. DJ K.Marie, DJ Stray, DJ LionsDen, Valen
Holocene
1001 SE Morrison St. #TESTIFY: DJ Zack, New Dadz DJs, DJ Honest John
The Know
2026 NE Alberta St. DJ Radical Klavical, Alonzo Mourning Sickness
The Lovecraft
421 SE Grand Ave. DJ Horrid
Tiga
1465 NE Prescott St. KM Fizzy
736 SE Grand Ave. Newrotics 220 SW Ankeny St. Bounce: Tourmaline, Valen
Pix Patisserie
2225 E Burnside St. DJ Eric Beats
refuge
3552 N Mississippi Ave. Temporary Lesbian Bar DJs, Cedro Willie
Tiga
1465 NE Prescott St. Beacon Sound
valentine’s
232 SW Ankeny St. Deep Burn
SaT. Nov. 30 Beech St. Parlor
412 NE Beech St. DJ Shrimp Tempura, DJ Booty Futures
Church
2600 NE Sandy Blvd. DJ Drew Groove
The Lovecraft
736 SE Grand Ave. Mike Lixx and Dirty Red
421 SE Grand Ave. DJ Horrid
Fri. Nov. 29 Beech St. Parlor 412 NE Beech St. DJ L-Train
dig a Pony
736 SE Grand Ave. Anton 3267 SE Hawthorne Blvd. DJ Nate C
Willamette Week NOVEMBER 27, 2013 wweek.com
Mississippi Pizza
116 SE Yamhill St. Nightmares on Wax, Mr. Moo, Pumpkin
Gold dust Meridian
40
1332 W Burnside St. 80s Video Dance Attack
31 NW 1st Ave. Tydi, Evan Alexander, Eddie Pitzul 1465 NE Prescott St. Tony Lambright
valentine’s
232 SW Ankeny St. Laze Thru Life: Michel St. Michel, Coco Louie
SuN. deC. 1 Berbati’s
231 SW Ankeny St. DJ Linkus EDM
Ground Kontrol
511 NW Couch St. Black Sunday: DJ Nate C.
Star Theater
13 NW 6th Ave. Church of Hive
MoN. deC. 2 ash Street Saloon
dig a Pony
225 SW Ash St. DJ D Train
Gold dust Meridian
2035 NE Glisan St. DJ Bradly
Lola’s room at the Crystal Ballroom
Kelly’s olympian
Star Theater
Lodge
3267 SE Hawthorne Blvd. The Clap Trap: DJ Gregarious
1332 W Burnside St. 70s Night Fever
Club 21
TueS. deC. 3 426 SW Washington St. DJ Flight Risk
13 NW 6th Ave. Andaz: DJ Anjali and the Incredible Kid
6605 SE Powell Blvd DJ Easy Finger
The Lovecraft
421 SE Grand Ave. DJ Rhienna
421 SE Grand Ave. DJ Acid Rick
The Lovecraft
PERFORMANCE
Nov. 27–dec. 3 FEATURE
= WW Pick. Highly recommended.
MISHA ASHTON MOORE
Most prices listed are for advance ticket sales. At-the-door increases and so-called convenience charges may apply, so it’s best to call ahead. Editor: REBECCA JACOBSON. Theater: REBECCA JACOBSON (rjacobson@wweek.com). Dance: AARON SpENCER (dance@wweek.com). TO BE CONSIDERED FOR LISTINGS, submit information at least two weeks in advance to: rjacobson@wweek.com.
THEATER OPENINGS & PREVIEWS American Fiesta
Triangle productions presents a one-man show starring Gary Wayne Cash as a crazed collector of colorful dinnerware who’s also grappling with his parents’ objections to his upcoming same-sex marriage. Sanctuary at Sandy Plaza, 1785 NE Sandy Blvd., 2395919. 7:30 pm Thursdays-Saturdays and 2 pm Sundays through Dec. 22. $15-$35.
It’s a (Somewhat) Wonderful Life
Frank Capra’s classic movie is often performed as a 1940s radio play, but Bag & Baggage artistic director Scott palmer attempts to skewer it further by doing away with the schmaltziness and amping up the liquor-drenched slapstick. The Venetian Theatre, 253 E Main St., Hillsboro, 693-3953. 7:30 pm Thursdays-Saturdays and 2 pm Sundays through Dec. 22. Extra performance 7:30 pm Monday, Dec. 23. $18-$32.
Noir Ten Minute Play Festival
Monkey With a Hat On presents another festival of short plays written by locals, this time with a noir theme. Clinton Street Theater, 2522 SE Clinton St., 238-8899. 7 pm Friday-Sunday, Nov. 29-Dec. 1. $5.
Plaid Tidings
Tigard’s Broadway Rose Theatre mounts a holiday revue with a squeaky clean group of nerdy boys performing Christmas tunes from the ’50s and ’60s. Broadway Rose New Stage Theatre, 12850 SW Grant Ave., Tigard, 620-5262. 7:30 pm WednesdaysSaturdays and 2 pm SaturdaysSundays through Dec. 22. $30-$40.
Rudolph: On Stage
With riotously clever film-to-stage adaptations of Road House and The Lost Boys already under its belt, Bad Reputation productions has a track record that belies its name. This liveaction version of the stop-motion animation classic should be just the antidote you need to all the eggnogsoaked schlock being dispensed elsewhere. CoHo Theater, 2257 NW Raleigh St. 7:30 pm Fridays-Saturdays through Dec. 21. $20-$24.
The Twelve Dates of Christmas
Salt and Sage productions, which prides itself on female-forward productions, stages Ginna Hoben’s onewoman comedy about a struggling actress who discovers during the holidays that her fiancé has been cheating on her. The Back Door Theater, 4319 SE Hawthorne Blvd. 8 pm ThursdaysSaturdays and 3 pm Sundays through Dec. 22. $10-$12.
Xmas Unplugged
Artists Rep presents a double bill of short plays featuring plenty of foul language and festive debauchery. Artists Repertory Theatre, 1515 SW Morrison St., 241-1278. 7:30 pm WednesdaysSundays and 2 pm Sundays through Dec. 29. $25-$55.
NEW REVIEWS Twist Your Dickens
Twist Your Dickens comes to portland Center Stage with a sparkling pedigree. Its writers, peter Gwinn and Bobby Mort, won Emmys for their work on The Colbert Report. Director Matt Hovde and a few performers hail from Chicago’s improv behemoth the Second City. portlanders with strong comedic records round out the seven-member cast. But from the first gag to the last, this
spoof of A Christmas Carol serves up nothing but coal. Jokes are alternately lazy (foul-mouthed nuns), pandering (Obamacare), insulting (“police Navidad”) and tone-deaf (JFK’s assassination). The overlong show is structured loosely like that Victorian story, with Scrooge (Craig Cackowski) meeting various ghosts as he learns lessons of generosity and goodwill. Along the way, he encounters everyone from George Bailey (John San Nicolas does an impeccable job with Jimmy Stewart’s nervous, nasal voice), to a Girl Scout who says she took a shit in his box of Thin Mints, to the entire peanuts gang, who turn A Charlie Brown Christmas into a profanity-laced pageant with Linus evangelizing about the rapture. And didn’t Portlandia long ago teach us that you can’t just put an actor in flannel, hand him a pBR tall boy and give him jokes about double-decker fixies? (“Abysmal,” my friend whispered.) When the performers are allowed to improvise, things improve marginally—on opening night, Cackowski and San Nicolas riffed on an audience member who’d once locked his brother in a sewing-machine case. But all told, it’s a stiff and unfunny cash grab with an aftertaste worse than that of spoiled eggnog. REBECCA JACOBSON. Gerding Theater, 128 NW 11th Ave., 445-3700. 7:30 pm TuesdaysSundays, 2 pm Saturdays-Sundays and noon some Thursdays through Dec. 22. $39-$67.
PHOTO CAP: tktktk
drAmS ANd drAmA: James Engberg (left) and Eric Gilgore drink and discuss.
STAGE WHISPERS A LOCAL PODCAST UNLEASHES NO-HOLDSBARRED THEATER CRITICISM, WITH A SHOT OF SCOTCH. BY R eBecca JacoB soN
ALSO PLAYING Foxfinder
British playwright Dawn King’s postapocalyptic parable, set in rural England, centers on an ascetic 19-yearold who has been tasked with annihilating foxes. The dreaded creature has been deemed responsible for destroying farmland—and for disturbing the weather, corrupting minds and fomenting anarchy. Dámaso Rodriguez’s direction plays up the sense of paranoia and foreboding, with an ominous soundscape and disquieting lighting design. But the symbol of the fox wears thin—it’s clearly a scapegoat for all the dangers and fears of an irrational world. Still, it’s hard not to see the specter of the surveillance state in Foxfinder—an argument about how we find what we’re looking for, no matter how scant, slippery or strange the evidence. REBECCA JACOBSON. Artists Repertory Theatre, 1515 SW Morrison St., 241-1278. 7:30 pm WednesdaysSundays and 2 pm Sundays through Dec. 1. $25-$55.
Inspecting Carol
Lakewood Theatre Company presents a backstage comedy about a haphazard production of A Christmas Carol. Lakewood Center for the Arts, 368 S State St., Lake Oswego, 6353901. 7:30 pm Thursdays-Saturdays, 2 pm some Sundays and 7 pm some Sundays. Through Dec. 8. $32.
It’s a Wonderful Life
After premiering this new musical adaptation of Frank Capra’s classic movie last year, Stumptown Stages brings it back for a second round. Brunish Theatre, 1111 SW Broadway, 248-4335. 7:30 pm ThursdaysSaturdays and 2 pm SaturdaysSundays through Dec. 22. $25-$40.
Naftali, Story Voyager
The Jewish Theatre Collaborative celebrates Hannukah with a family-friendly show about a storyteller in a shtetl. Miracle Theatre, 525 SE Stark St., 2367253. 11 am Sunday, Dec. 1. $5-$10.
Our Town
Our Town gets a bad rap. So does
CONT. on page 42
rjacobson@wweek.com
Deep in Happy Valley on a blustery Monday evening, in a room lined with posters of Katy Perry and Bruce Springsteen, James Engberg and Eric Kilgore are drinking Scotch and discussing Bertolt Brecht. A whiteboard propped up nearby has been scrawled with notes. “Fine cast,” one note reads. Another asks: “Directing: Where was it?” Shania Twain plays faintly in the background. This is where, each week, Engberg and Kilgore gather to debate—and frequently malign—the state of Portland’s theater scene. The two produce a weekly podcast called 5 Useless Degrees & A Bottle of Scotch, a show that allows the longtime friends, who met at the University of Portland in 1993, to gab about their mutual loves of whisky and theater. On this particular evening, neither the Scotch nor the play is faring particularly well. The Pig’s Nose Blended Scotch in their rounded Glencairn glasses tastes like either creamy pus or moldy cucumber, depending on which man you ask, and Lakewood Theatre Company’s Inspecting Carol “didn’t work really well,” in Engberg’s gentle words. That comment is an unusually charitable one. In the nearly 40 weeks that Engberg and Kilgore have produced the podcast, the two have stuck firmly to their mission to be fair but critical, something they think local criticism is often too soft to do. “A lot of criticism about Portland theater is boosterism,” says Engberg. “Criticism that’s just ‘rah rah rah!’ is actually doing theater a disservice.” Instead, they have no qualms about laying into a production, as they did with Portland Playhouse’s Detroit this fall. To Kilgore, that production represented “everything that is wrong with Portland theater.” Engberg and Kilgore’s no-holds-barred approach is refreshing, and it’s backed up by an impressive educational pedigree: The “5 degrees” in the podcast’s title refers to the five theater degrees they share, “useless” because they both now work in IT. On air, they’re affable and knowledgeable, inclined to name-drop playwrights or theater theorists but
with the lively rapport and frequent laughter of two guys who’ve known each other for 20 years. In a city with a crowded theater scene but just a handful of critics, the 40-minute podcast is a valuable little gem, enriching the dialogue about local performance. Engberg and Kilgore have also formed their own critical creed. For example, they don’t accept complimentary review tickets. “There’s an ethical reason behind it,” Engberg says. “We don’t want comps because it may lead to an air of bias. We have just raked some shows over the coals, and it seems like those companies are always the ones that ask us if we want comps.” “We also want to pay for the seats we’re occupying,” adds Kilgore. “We want to support the companies we’re going to see.” And, he notes, it allows them to discuss the cost of theater honestly, something that’s generally absent in local criticism. Prior to launching the podcast—their memories of its genesis are a little fuzzy, but they started it after ditching the idea of producing a Brecht play—the two hadn’t been attending much theater. The recent immersion has at times been rough. They have a flask rating system that goes against the star system: Fewer flasks are good, because it means they didn’t need to fortify themselves against schlocky acting or ham-fisted didacticism during a show. (And they do generally bring their flasks to the theater, though some companies—Third Rail Rep, for one—have warned them against it.) It’s rare that a production earns only one or two flasks. They point to a number of problems in Portland’s theater scene, but much of it comes down to complacency. Theater companies, they say, aren’t inquisitive enough. “There’s just so much mediocrity that I wonder what they’re asking themselves,” Kilgore says. “Many of these companies are just going through the motions. They pick a season and they do it, and they never stop to wonder why.” Nor, Engberg says, are they truthful with themselves about the results. “To get to a certain place in the preparation of a production and realize that it’s not up to a really high standard and yet to go forward with it—there’s not a lack of talent in this town, but there’s a lack of honesty,” he says. Yet they haven’t soured on the enterprise entirely. “Every show we go into, I’m hopeful that what I’m about to see is going to be inspiring,” Kilgore says, “and that I’m going to walk out feeling refreshed.” LISTEN: 5 Useless Degrees & A Bottle of Scotch can be heard at 5uselessdegrees.blogspot.com and on iTunes.
Willamette Week NOVEMBER 27, 2013 wweek.com
41
PERFORMANCE
Nov. 27–dec. 3
experimental theater. Thank goodness, then, for Liminal Performance Group’s production of Thornton Wilder’s 1938 play. It’s a production that started out as a joke—why would an avantgarde company stage a mainstay of high-school theater?—but in practice is more reminiscent of poetry. The performance begins casually, almost imperceptibly, with the actors and technical crew roaming the bare stage. As actor Leo Daedalus reads his first lines from a clipboard, it feels disarmingly unsteady. But these crude moments pair beautifully with the polished sequences, underlining the fact that Our Town is a play that shatters the fourth wall to call attention to itself as a piece of theater. Director John Berendzen inflects Wilder’s modernist manifesto with lovely touches: skillful use of closed-circuit video, rhythmic choreography and a metronome that ticks at different speeds (in the soda-shop scene, it flutters faster than a besotted teenage heart). Performances can be off-kilter, sometimes disorientingly so. The anchor, though, is Daedalus, who grows steadily more commanding. In one short monologue, he addresses the audience directly. As he asks us to remember being young and in love, he has all the power of a hypnotist. REBECCA JACOBSON. The Headwaters, 55 NE Farragut St., No. 9, 567-8309. 7:30 pm Wednesdays-Saturdays and 3 pm Sundays through Dec. 1. $12-$25 sliding scale.
The Santaland Diaries
For the umpteenth year in a row, Portland Center Stage presents the one-man stage adaptation of David Sedaris’ exploits as a Macy’s elf. Gerding Theater, 128 NW 11th Ave., 445-3700. 7:30 pm TuesdaysSundays, 2 pm Saturdays-Sundays and noon Thursdays through Dec. 29. $45-$60.
DANCE A-WOL, Circus Project, Polaris
A trifecta of Portland dance companies join forces to raise money through Willamette Week’s Give!Guide. Aerialist company A-WOL Dance Collective, circus act the Circus Project and contemporary dance troupe Polaris Dance Theatre perform in Thankful: A High-Flying Holiday Benefit. Drinks and hors d’oeuvres will be served at no extra charge. Arciform Warehouse, 2303 N Randolph. 6 pm Sunday, Dec. 1. $15.
Benefit for Kathleen Keogh
Kathleen Keogh, one-third of the former Portland modern dance group Wooly Mammoth, moved last year to the Bay Area, where a mugger attacked her in the Mission District. Her jaw and sinus were fractured and she underwent surgery. Now she’s back in Portland and her friends are welcoming her with a benefit at Holocene, one of her favorite performance spots. Performing are electronic musicians Pictureplane and Miracles Club as well as contemporary dancer Allie Hankins. Keogh is also featured in a performance by $kull$, a music group billed as a “somatic psyche/future Americana dance squad,” regrouping only for this night. Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison St., 239-7639. 8:30 pm Tuesday, Dec. 3. $8. 21+.
Cloud City Circus
Standup from a former winner of NBC’s Last Comic Standing, known as much for his unruly head of hair as for his jokes about growing up in East L.A. Helium Comedy Club, 1510 SE 9th Ave., 888-643-8669. 7:30 and 10 pm Friday-Saturday, Nov. 29-30. $20-$27.
Friday Night Fights
The Portland Ballet
Down and Dirty: A Dark Comedy Showcase
Patrick Thomas Perkins hosts a bunch of standup comics baring their sinister sides. Ash Street Saloon, 225 SW Ash St., 226-0430. 9 pm Tuesday, Dec. 3. $3.
Felipe Esparza
Competitive improv, with two teams battling for stage time. Curious Comedy, 5225 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 477-9477. 10 pm every first and third Friday. $5.
It’s Gonna Be Okay
Portlander Barbara Holm hosts a twice-monthly standup showcase featuring local and traveling comics. EastBurn, 1800 E Burnside St., 236-2876. 8:30 pm every first and third Monday. Free.
Script Tease
Using unfinished works by Portland playwrights, performers launch into staged readings—and then improvise once the scripted pages run out. Brody Theater, 16 NW Broadway, 224-2227. 7:30 pm Saturdays through Nov. 30. $10-$12.
Sketch Comedy Show
Sketch-comedy troupe the 3rd Floor presents an evening of (what else?) sketch comedy with potential subject matter ranging from Art Garfunkel to bad dates to Bigfoot. Miracle Theatre, 525 SE Stark St., 908-1141. 8 pm FridaysSaturdays through Dec. 21. $14-$17.
Willamette Week NOVEMBER 27, 2013 wweek.com
Because the zombie-apocalypse craze just won’t fade, here’s a fully improvised serial comedy about a small group of people doing their best to survive after the walking dead have taken over. Brody Theater, 16 NW Broadway, 2242227. 9:30 pm Saturdays through Dec. 7. $10.
The creator of Cloud City Circus, Queen Ruthie, says she lost her sanity and a whole lot of weight during a four-year legal battle with her neighbors who tried to build a driveway through her property. The trapeze artist says she weighed 95 pounds and spent $40,000 in legal fees. She’s since recovered her mind and body— studying quantum neuroscience helped, she says—but could still use some cash. So this Black Friday show, including stunts, a raffle and a kissing booth where you can kiss her newly plump ass, is a benefit for her. The Analog, 720 SE Hawthorne, 432-8079. 7:30 pm (all ages) and 10 pm (21+) Friday, Nov. 29. $5 at 7:30 pm, $10 at 10 pm.
COMEDY & VARIETY
42
The Strolling Dead
The teenaged dancers of Portland’s other ballet wear their dreamiest costumes for a Thanksgiving weekend double bill: John Clifford’s Firebird and The Enchanted Toy Shop. Clifford, a former Los Angeles Ballet director who was considered George Balanchine’s protégé, said working with the Portland Ballet lets him “take some weaker dancer and come up with something interesting”—something Balanchine advised him to do. His ballet The Enchanted Toy Shop is a shorter alternative to The Nutcracker, with poodles, can-can girls and Russian nesting dolls replacing the coffee and tea dancers and the Sugar Plum Fairy. In Firebird, a ballet originally by Igor Stravinsky based on Russian folk tales, the principal soloist is basically the Black Swan in red. Lincoln Hall, Portland State University, 1620 SW Park Ave., 725-3307. 4 and 7 pm Friday, Nov. 29; 1 and 4 pm Saturday-Sunday, Nov. 30-Dec. 1. $15-$35, $5 rush.
For more Performance listings, visit
VISUAL ARTS
NOV. 27–DEC. 3
= WW Pick. Highly recommended. By RICHARD SPEER. TO BE CONSIDERED FOR LISTINGS, submit show information—including opening and closing dates, gallery address and phone number—at least two weeks in advance to: Visual Arts, WW, 2220 NW Quimby St., Portland, OR 97210. Email: rspeer@wweek.com.
Ann Hamilton: a reading
Sometimes too much of a good thing is just too much. Ann Hamilton slathers the front and back galleries of Liz Leach’s expansive spread with a veritable mess of wall pieces, sculpture, text-based objects and digital videos. It’s all part of a pathologically heterogeneous, thoroughly all-overthe-place show, vaguely titled (and preciously uncapitalized) a reading. With the addition of (count ’em) four rotating projectors casting images of tall ships on the back gallery’s wall, the show is redundant Sturm und Drang without meaningful cohesion. The most satisfying piece is the simplest: a hollowed-out book with an intricately cut thimble inside. Its meaning is obscure but poetic, far removed from the overbearing grandiloquence of the rest of the show. Through Jan. 11. Elizabeth Leach Gallery, 417 NW 9th Ave., 224-0521.
Anna Gray + Ryan Wilson Paulsen: A Series of Rectangles
Impossibly precious and precocious husband-and-wife team Anna Gray + Ryan Wilson Paulsen present artworks made during a residency in Omaha, Neb. The work centers on political texts and poetry. Through Nov. 30. PDX Contemporary Art, 925 NW Flanders St., 222-0063.
Augustine Kofie
Augustine Kofie’s works on paper and panel are the highlight of an architectonically precise group show. Kofie uses disparate media such as paper, ballpoint pen, acrylic, screenprinting and spray paint to create abstract images that recall architectural blueprints or 1960s modernist designs. While his works on panel fairly ooze an impeccable cool, it’s his works on paper that intrigue the most. The paper’s heft and highly tactile surfaces play invigorating counterpoint to the fastidious rectilinear imagery, giving the works a zing and zip that’s a pleasure to behold. Through Nov. 30. Breeze Block Gallery, 323 NW 6th Ave., 318-6228.
Brenna Murphy and Birch Cooper: MHSR
Last month, Brenna Murphy created an invigorating installation at Upfor using wood, 3-D-printed sculpture, and other disparate media in an exhibition that seemed to reference Sanskrit calligraphy and Southeast Asian icons. This month, collaborator Birch Cooper mixes up Murphy’s program with sound- and light-specific installations that viewers can interact with. If you put on a pair of sensor-appointed gloves, you can make screechy noises blurt out of synthesizers and speakers. Touch a control panel, and lowpitched electric buzzes fill the room while strobe lights and LED panels light up in colorful patterns. You’re
the (wo)man behind the curtain—you control the great and mighty Oz—so step right up. Interactive art is all the rage in contemporary art, placing you squarely and thrillingly in the driver’s seat. Through Nov. 30. Upfor Gallery, 929 NW Flanders St., 227-5111.
Carolyn Cole
One of the Northwest’s best-known painters, Carolyn Cole subtly but pointedly changes her well-played tune in a suite of new acrylic and collaged paintings. A free, almost offhand use of graphite imparts a newfound sense of slapdash scrawl where before there was only glib perfection. And her use of color seems to be evolving away from the tried-and-true combinations that have made her work so imminently collectible, toward more intuitive palettes. This is Cole’s most inventive show in years. Through Nov. 30. Butters Gallery, 520 NW Davis St., 2nd floor, 248-9378.
Contemporary Northwest Art Awards
Expansive, thoughtful and dramatically installed, the biannual Contemporary Northwest Art Awards didn’t disappoint this year. Curator Bonnie Laing-Malcolmson has created a spectacular survey of artwork across a diverse field of practices, filling—but not overfilling—a generous exhibition space with work by artists from Oregon (Karl Burkheimer), Washington (Isaac Layman, Nicholas Nyland and the single-monikered artist known as Trimpin), Montana (Anne Appleby) and Wyoming (Abbie Miller). As heterogeneous as these artists’ works are, somehow Laing-Malcolmson makes them cohere spatially and thematically. Through Jan. 12. Portland Art Museum, 1219 SW Park Ave., 226-0973.
Jock Bradley: Time Sands Still
They have the same first name: Jock Sturges and Jock Bradley. Sturges may be famous (and in some circles infamous) as the photographic chronicler of the nude body, but Bradley has made a name for himself by photographically chronicling the landscape in ways that evoke the nude body. His images of sand dunes in New Mexico and Colorado capture the sands’ peaks and troughs with an astute sense of shadow play that underlines their formal and thematic ties with the human body. Dunes and bodies are mutable; they rise and fall by the caprices of weather and time. Bradley intuits this and captures it in sumptuous black-and-white. Through Dec. 31. Gallery 903, 903 NW Davis St., 2480903.
Michael Flohr
Michael Flohr calls himself a “modern urban impressionist,” which means he paints cityscapes, interiors and
still lifes in a fuzzy, washy style that evokes the haze of idealized memory. His images of various cities, including Portland, are the sort you would conjure if you loved a town but had to leave it for good. In your memories, all the quotidian details would fade, and you’d be left with the contours of pure euphoria: a certain night when everything seemed perfect, and the lights on the marquee of the Schnitz reflected the gleam in your lover’s eyes. There’s something irresistably treacly about this kind of vision, which is simultaneously the strength and weakness of Flohr’s paintings. Through Nov. 30. Shaffer Fine Art Gallery, 308 SW 1st Ave., Suite 158.
REVIEW
LUCINDA PARKER, ALL CLOUDS CHOOSE THE LOFTIEST PEAK...
Rick Bartow: Bird Wings
Although Rick Bartow’s small paintings of birds seem arbitrary and remedial, most of them sported red dots (meaning “SOLD”) on the show’s opening night. Much more satisfying than these elementary studies were his larger works in acrylic on canvas. In the haunting piece Bear Mother, Bartow combines lilac, orange and periwinkle in a kachina-like figure that occupies the liminal boundary between matter and spirit. Bartow has a gift for naive, neo-expressionist figuration that transcends distinctions between “fine art” sophistication and Basquiat-esque simplicity. Through Dec. 13. Froelick Gallery, 714 NW Davis St., 222-1142.
Robert R. Dozono: Garbage Paintings
Instead of disposing of his garbage like the rest of us, Robert Dozono recycles it into his artwork. He’s been doing this for the past 22 years. While this is an admirable project in repurposing, it’s an execrable project in aesthetics. The pill bottles, ice-cube trays, toothpaste containers, candy wrappers, shoe inserts and other claptrap included in this veritable landfill of materials combines into a hodgepodge that makes a good case for the good old days, when “crap” was recognized as such and wound up, properly, in a dump. Through Nov. 30. Blackfish Gallery, 420 NW 9th Ave., 234-2634.
Tad Savinar: I Wonder
A lot of creative work these days passes for “eco-art,” but Tad Savinar has happened onto a potent symbol for environmental awareness in his latest show, I Wonder. In a bronze sculpture rather unimaginatively titled Sustainability, he shows a miniature tree growing out of a spoon. He repeats this motif in a series of digital prints in silver-and-black and in tomato-and-caramel. The image seems to connote a spoon meting out a measure of “green” awareness: not too much, not too little, just enough to effect a modicum of convenient change. The universality of the image and its symbolism counteracts its preciousness, leaving the viewer with a caloric smidgen of food for thought. Through Nov. 30. PDX Contemporary Art, 925 NW Flanders St., 222-0063.
For more Visual Arts listings, visit
I never bought into the cult of Lucinda Parker. Sure, the veteran painter is respected, she’s been CATCHMENT BY LUCINDA PARKER in a jillion biennials, and there are more paintings The many moods of Mount Hood. by her in West Hills mansions than there are SubZero refrigerators. But to my eye, her woodsy abstractions always seemed ploddingly composed, mannered and incohesive. In fact, I had never laid eyes on a Parker painting I actually liked until I walked into All Clouds Choose the Loftiest Peak to Pile Themselves Upon, her new show at Laura Russo Gallery. So virtuosic is this body of work, so self-assured, so goddamned heartbreaking in its sheer lyricism, I’ve been stunned into septic critical shock. The show consists almost entirely of paintings of Mount Hood, shown from different angles and in different weather conditions. Parker’s technique has always been grandiloquent—flashy gestures and sweeping brushstrokes loaded with gobs of acrylic paint—but for once, her melodramatic approach matches the majesty of her subject matter. In arcing wedges troweled on with wide palette knives, she renders glaciers, rocks and clouds in jaunty rhythms that lilt and lift and swing, a little bit Mozart, a little bit Ella Fitzgerald. In the showstopping Catchment, concentric half-circles crown the peak, backlit by sunlight, moonlight or some unnamed transcendentalist aura that shimmers on the waves of the lake below. It’s a sky mystical enough to warrant comparison to the one van Gogh painted in Starry Night. Another piece, From Owl Point, gives over the canvas’ top threequarters to sunshine and clouds, reminding us that even the state’s tallest mountain is dwarfed by the firmament above. Although Parker captures the mountain’s serenity, she never depicts it as static. In jittery slashes and stabs, she communicates the danger of a volcano that has killed legions of climbers and spawned rockslides, avalanches, earthquakes and, about 200 years ago, a major eruption. The artist fears and reveres this place, whose brute physicality jolts her style out of the preciousness that dogs her purely abstract works. The new paintings embody a power commensurate with art’s highest capacity: to communicate ecstatic experience. You owe it to yourself to see this astonishing, ennobling ravishment of a show. RICHARD SPEER. SEE IT: All Clouds Choose the Loftiest Peak to Pile Themselves Upon is at Laura Russo Gallery, 805 NW 21st Ave., 226-2754. Through Nov. 30.
BOOKS
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BOOKS
NOV. 27–DEC. 3
= WW Pick. Highly recommended. By PENELOPE BASS. TO BE CONSIDERED FOR LISTINGS, submit lecture or reading information at least two weeks in advance to: WORDS, WW, 2220 NW Quimby St., Portland, OR 97210. Email: words@wweek.com. Fax: 243-1115.
MONDAY, DEC. 2 Authors in Pubs
There’s nothing like holidays spent with family to spawn self-reflection, creative inspiration and heavy drinking. And so the monthly Authors in Pubs reading series, featuring a solid lineup of local writers (and artists) both established and aspiring, will offer a welcome respite to your gravyinduced coma. Jack London Bar, 529 SW 4th Ave., 228-7605. 7:30 pm. Free. 21+.
TUESDAY, DEC. 3 Julia Serano
Members of the LGBT community have long fought for acceptance and equality. But author, activist, performer and transexual Julia Serano (Whipping Girl) is shining a light on the exclusion found within the queer/LGBT community itself. Her new book, Excluded: Making Feminist and Queer Movements
More Inclusive, is a series of Serano’s essays that chronicle problems of sexism-based exclusion and increased marginalization. Powell’s City of Books, 1005 W Burnside St., 228-4651. 7:30 pm. Free.
The Soft Show
Celebrating the short story (or a variety of brief tales), the bimonthly Soft Show will host local writers Rob Yardumian (The Sound of Songs Across the Water), Leia Weathington (who writes about music and gravy), Michael Heald (Goodbye to the Nervous Apprehension), Portland Mercury arts editor Alison Hallett and Daniel Bullard-Bates (The Newer York). Each of the stories will be illustrated live via overhead projection by artists Pete Soloway, Emily Randazzo and Lucy Bellwood. The Blue Monk, 3341 SE Belmont St., 503-595-0575. 7 pm. Free.
For more Books listings, visit
REVIEW
MARK RUSSELL, GOD IS DISAPPOINTED IN YOU
HEADOUT PG 27
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In 1966, someone had the radical idea of publishing the Bible in the everyday American language. The translation technique was called “dynamic equivalence,” which holds that good translations smoothly conjure the same thoughts and feelings as the The gooder news Bible. original text. And lo, did the Good News Bible’s contemporary syntax make for a far kinglier tome than the wrathful words of ye olde James version. God Is Disappointed in You (Top Shelf Productions, 223 pages, $19.95), written by Portland-based author Mark Russell and illustrated by Shannon “Too Much Coffee Man” Wheeler, takes the same idea to new and joyful extremes. The book is a reasonably faithful and super-condensed retelling of the exploits of Jews up to and including Jesus in contemporary language. It perhaps sounds like the setup for fiery abomination-grade heresy, and yet it’s hard to imagine even a guy like Scott Lively, former Oregon Citizens Alliance leader, presently indisposed with a crimesagainst-humanity trial in Uganda, kicking up too much dust. Take the Christmas story you’ll be hearing or telling in the next month. Russell renders those few passages from Luke in elegantly simple fashion: “God decided he wanted kids. So he talked a young woman named Mary into having his son. Perhaps more impressively, he convinced her fiance Joseph that it was totally cool and nothing to worry about. The couple were traveling to a small town in Bethlehem when Mary suddenly had to drop. Since all the hotels were full, God’s son was born in a stable, among the cows, sheep and donkeys.” Russell and Wheeler tackle all 66 books of the Bible, culling some of their best bits from obscure chapters like Zephaniah, a missive from a jealous and angry God delivered in lyrical gore porn that would make for a great Tarantino monologue. Wheeler’s illustrations, in a style familiar from his work at The New Yorker, are continuously gratifying, and especially delightful in the story of David and Goliath and in the four Gospels. As the Good Book goes, this is a great version. Glory to thee who makes of it an auspicious holiday gift, even to those who subscribe to The New Yorker merely for the cartoons. MARTIN CIZMAR.
Nov. 27-DeC. 3
= WW Pick. Highly recommended. Editor: REBECCA JACOBSON. TO BE CONSIDERED FOR LISTINGS, send screening information at least two weeks in advance to Screen, WW, 2220 NW Quimby St., Portland, OR 97210. Email: rjacobson@wweek.com. Fax: 243-1115.
reckless romance, it’s so full of fauxpoetic mumbo-jumbo and so choppily assembled that the result is just frustrating and dumb. R. REBECCA JACOBSON. Living Room Theaters.
Delivery Man 12 Years a Slave
A Twelve Years a Slave was part of a literary tide. When the memoir was published in 1853, Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Frederick Douglass’ autobiography were bestsellers, helping to fuel the abolitionist movement. But Solomon Northup’s story was different. Born a free man, he led a comfortable life as a carpenter and violinist with his wife and children in upstate New York in 1841, when he was kidnapped and sold into slavery. Northup managed to regain his freedom 12 years later and soon published Twelve Years a Slave, which became a bestseller of its own. But at some point, Northup disappeared and his book fell out of print. Now, it’s little-known outside the halls of academia. All of which makes British director Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave an even more staggering revelation. The film is agonizing but not lurid, compassionate but not melodramatic, patient but still thrilling. While its instructive value is undeniable, this is also a rousing portrait, a morally complicated tale and a masterful work of art. R. REBECCA JACOBSON. Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Cornelius, Hollywood Theatre, Oak Grove, Bridgeport, Fox Tower, Lloyd Center, Movies on TV, Sandy.
20 Feet From Stardom
A Morgan Neville’s 20 Feet From
Stardom turns the spotlight on several career backup singers. Most are resigned to their roles in the musical ecosystem, content to have sacrificed their own aspirations for the sake of elevating the art itself. Whether that’s noble or a con, Neville never judges. MATTHEW SINGER. Living Room Theaters.
All Is Lost
B We all know Robert Redford too
well. We know that, after nearly 50 years on the big screen, Redford the man is not an investigative journalist, a gadabout sidekick or a dark-horse power hitter. He is, however, a mildly eccentric and reclusive celebrity, one who might very well undertake a solo sailing trip around the world. As the only actor in All Is Lost, he does just that. This is one man, alone, facing death. Redford is playing himself, and he’s not playing around. PG-13. MITCH LILLIE. Hollywood Theatre, Fox Tower, Tigard.
The Best Man Holiday
Nearly 15 years later, a sequel to 1999’s The Best Man finds most of the cast— including Taye Digs, Sanaa Lathan and Nia Long—reunited for Christmas. R. Eastport, Division, Fox Tower.
Black Nativity
C- Earnest, hopelessly confused
and ultimately condescending, Black Nativity is little more than a gussied-up Lifetime holiday movie with a few A-list stars. Based on Langston Hughes’ holiday play of the same name, it centers on angsty teenager Langston (one of many unsubtle monikers), who’s shipped off to his grandparents’ Harlem Brownstone after he and his mom are evicted from their Baltimore apartment. It’s the first time Langston has met this dignified couple, played by a detached Forest Whitaker and Angela Bassett, who’ve long been estranged from their daughter. There are some near-chuckles on the route to personal redemption and domestic reconciliation, including a moment when Whitaker prays for a belt to help hold up his grandson’s baggy jeans. But for the most part, director Kasi Lemmons is doggedly sincere, even fashioning a homeless, pregnant couple as a modern-day Mary and Joseph. Incongruous musical numbers pepper the film: In one hallucinatory scene, Langston stumbles through an Old World version of Times Square filled with camels and ads for iStones. Mary J. Blige sports wings and a silver Afro. Nas raps by the manger. It’s almost weird enough to be inter-
esting, but the patronizing tone sabotages any chance it had. Langston may blandly declare the final church service a “Christmas miracle,” but the movie is anything but. PG. REBECCA JACOBSON. Cedar Hills, Eastport, Clackamas, Bridgeport, Division.
Blue Is the Warmest Color
B As soon as Abdellatif Kechiche’s
Blue Is the Warmest Color premiered in Cannes last May, frenzied discussion engulfed the film. Whether people found it exhilarating or exploitative, it seemed no one could shut up about this three-hour French saga about first love between two young women. The seven-minute sex scene monopolized much of the conversation, with a video montage that captures the responses of real lesbians eventually going viral. But for all the hooting it’s unleashed, Blue Is the Warmest Color isn’t strident or demagogic. Instead, it slowly wrings you out like an old rag, until you’re finally tossed roughly over the line, depleted, devastated and stunned at what has just transpired. The film charts the evolution of the relationship between Adèle (Adèle Exarchopoulos, whose astounding performance will knock the wind out of you), and Emma (Léa Seydoux). From the initial moment the two lock eyes, their connection is as electric as the shock of blue through Emma’s hair. As much as response to Blue Is the Warmest Color has focused on the depictions of lesbian sex, the characters’ sexual orientation isn’t the crux of the film. It’s an epic tale of love between two people who just happen to be women, and that’s hopefully what will allow it to endure. NC-17. REBECCA JACOBSON. Cinema 21, City Center.
Blue Jasmine
B Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine cannot
reconcile its broad comedy and pathos into coherence, but all the more impressive, then, that Sally Hawkins’ and Cate Blanchett’s twinned performances still manage to pick up most of the pieces. PG-13. MATTHEW KORFHAGE. Academy, Edgefield, Laurelhurst, Mission.
The Book Thief
C Markus Zusak’s bestselling novel The Book Thief follows Leisel, an illiterate daughter of communists who is sent to live with caretakers in a German village during World War II. Her sympathetic adoptive father teaches her to read and initiates her into the vivid and polemic world of words, which becomes the central theme of the book. Unfortunately, Brian Percival’s film adaptation, starring Sophie Nélisse as Leisel and Geoffrey Rush as her father, gets bogged down by too many subplots that are never fully fleshed out: Leisel’s relationship with a Jewish boy the family is concealing in the basement, Leisel’s relationship with a young neighbor, Leisel’s relationship with the mayor’s wife. And then there’s the fact that a bemused, chortling Grim Reaper—yes, Grim Reaper— narrates the film, reminding viewers that they “are all going to die one day” in the same tender manner that a parent might tell their children that Santa Claus isn’t real. Indeed, the garish theme of death is too stark a contrast to the warm, fuzzy glimpses of childhood and innocence. The Book Thief does offer the fresh perspective of German civilians during Hitler’s Third Reich, but for the most part, this is yet another example of a brilliant book falling victim to the big screen. PG-13. GRACE STAINBACK. Cedar Hills, Eastport, Clackamas, Oak Grove, Bridgeport, City Center, Fox Tower, Lloyd Center, Movies on TV, Sandy.
The Counselor
D+ The Counselor, directed by Ridley Scott and written by Cormac McCarthy (it’s the author’s first original screenplay), is an unmitigated mess. A cautionary tale about drug trafficking and
C- There’s a simple reason improv factors so heavily in many big-screen comedies: After only a few takes, the existing material can start to feel stale for everyone involved. Imagine, then, the lifelessness that plagues Delivery Man, which is writer-director Ken Scott’s scene-for-scene, line-for-line remake of his 2011 French-Canadian film, Starbuck. Transferred to New York, this remains the story of David Wozniak (Vince Vaughn), a meat delivery driver who seems to be bad luck incarnate. A sperm bank severely mismanaged his deposits in the ’90s, resulting in him siring over 500 children. A new release has rarely felt so stillborn. PG-13. CURTIS WOLOSCHUK. Cedar Hills, Eastport, Clackamas, Mill Plain, Cornelius, Oak Grove, Cinema 99, Bridgeport, City Center, Division, Fox Tower, Hilltop, Lloyd Center, Movies on TV, Sherwood, Tigard, Wilsonville, Sandy.
Don Jon
A- “Condoms are just terrible,” whines
Jon (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a Guido beefcake who likes porn better than real sex. “But you gotta wear one because, unlike porn, real pussy will kill you.” Or rather, real pussy—with all its trappings of commitment—will kill your bachelor lifestyle. Jon is so immersed in Internet porn that it’s hard to tell whether his attitudes about sex and love are the product or the cause of his obsession. Gordon-Levitt brings just enough depth to the character to turn a schlocky premise into an honest and approachable exploration of how porn—and really, any other addictive simulation of reality—can cheat us out of the richness of actual experiences. R. EMILY JENSEN. Living Room Theaters.
a far easier explanation for the name change: Once again, it’s all about the princesses. Kristen Bell’s Anna takes center stage as a rambunctious royal eagerly awaiting the social possibilities accompanying her older sister’s imminent coronation. Orphaned at a young age and isolated by a sibling whose flourishes of wintry magic are only restrained through staunch emotional unavailability, Anna thrills at the prospect of first love: One lyric snickers, “Why have a ballroom without any balls?” Compared to the pandering messiness of most kids’ movies, there’s plenty to excite the family-friendly faithful. Widescreen 3-D visuals sculpt an endlessly inventive setting of ice palaces and snowcapped peaks, the original songs written by veterans of Avenue Q and The Book of Mormon soar and tickle as needed, and snowman sidekick Olaf giddily beats back the encroaching melodrama. It’s the sort of Disney film even Disney barely makes anymore, as majestic and problematic as a sudden snowfall, and, like all blizzards of youth, we’ll mourn its passing. PG. JAY HORTON. Cedar Hills, Eastport, Clackamas, Mill
Plain, Cornelius, Moreland, Oak Grove, Cinema 99, Bridgeport, City Center, Division, Hilltop, Lloyd Center, Lloyd Mall, Movies on TV, Pioneer Place, Sherwood, Tigard, Wilsonville, Sandy, St. Johns.
The Great Beauty
A The Great Beauty begins with a
cannonball, followed closely by a heart attack, and concludes with a 104-yearold toothless nun crawling on her knees up the steps of a church. Paolo Sorrentino’s luxuriously sprawling film is both enchanted and repulsed by the decadence it depicts, a tension that makes for one of the richest cinematic experiences of the year. At the center is Jep Gambardella (a wondrous Toni Servillo), a 65-year-old hedonist who wrote an acclaimed novel as a young man and now spends his days (and nights) living large in Rome. Toward the beginning of the film, he learns that his first love has died, which jolts him down a path of grief, nostalgia and, because he’s at times a pompous cad, pride. That journey is
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REVIEW H I L A R Y B R O N W Y N G AY L E
MOVIES
Elysium
B+ Elysium is what a sci-fi epic should
be: a fantastical machine fueled by our own dreams and fears. R. MATTHEW KORFHAGE. Academy, Laurelhurst, Joy Cinema, Valley.
Ender’s Game
B- There’s no denying that Orson
Scott Card’s political and anti-gay views are worse than cockeyed. Still, Gavin Hood’s adaptation of Card’s 1985 sci-fi novel deserves notice: It makes clear how salient and eerily prescient the author used to be, back before he was equating Obama with Hitler. In Ender’s Game, Earth is at war with an alien insectoid race, and children have become the military’s best shot at victory. The fact that the complex computer games and zero-gravity exercises leave the kids increasingly desensitized doesn’t seem to cost their commanding officers (Harrison Ford and Viola Davis) any sleep. Ford’s Colonel Graff uncovers a potentially sociopathic Skywalker in loner Ender Wiggin (Asa Butterfield). Hood keeps a firm handle on the film’s somber tone, ensuring we’re never once at ease with the sadistic environment. PG13. CURTIS WOLOSCHUK. Cedar Hills, Eastport, Clackamas, Forest, Cinema 99, Bridgeport, Fox Tower, Movies on TV, Sherwood, Tigard.
Filmage: The Story of Descendents/All
[ONE DAY ONLY] A new documentary about the California punk-rock band that was shaking garages well before Blink-182 or Green Day came around. Clinton Street Theater. 1 and 3 pm Sunday, Dec. 1.
Frozen
B Widely hailed as a return to the
classic animated features of yore, Frozen arrives as an uncomplicated triumph of traditionalism, for better or worse. A musical-theater retelling of classic Hans Christian Andersen tale The Snow Queen, hidebound Disney preservationists were worried the decidedly modern title foretold the goofy revisionism of 2010’s Rapunzel fan-fic Tangled. But there’s
HammER TImE: Josh Brolin.
OLDBOY Spike Lee’s botched, uninspired remake.
There’s something immediately dispiriting about the very thought of Spike Lee—once one of American cinema’s most original voices—reduced to helming an unnecessary remake. With Oldboy, Lee shifts Park Chan-wook’s dizzying vengeance film from South Korea to New Orleans. Abandon any optimism: This update proves only business. It’s a flagrant bid for a hit from a filmmaker who could use one, shot in a location seemingly selected for tax credits. As scripted by Mark Protosevich, the story marches to beats almost identical to those of Park’s 2003 film. Joe Doucett, an ad man who could drink Roger Sterling under the table, suddenly and mysteriously winds up trapped in a hotel room that might as well be a prison cell. Taunted by televised updates about his ex-wife and daughter, Joe (Josh Brolin, stoic even by his stone-faced standards) decides that instead of rotting away, he’ll bulk up and plot payback against his jailers. After 20 years, he’s unceremoniously released and befriends a young nurse (Elizabeth Olsen). She, strangely, has no aversion to her new bestie bludgeoning people with hammers as he hunts down the puppet master responsible for his torment (a shrill and flamboyant Sharlto Copley). While Park conjured a decidedly odd, darkly comic milieu in which his Grand Guignol could unfold with the eeriness and grace of a lucid dream, this calculated exercise is tripped up by an oppressive atmosphere and overly self-conscious set pieces. Rather than orchestrating their own chaos, Lee and Protosevich simply rework the original melees so revered by genre fans. An entire second floor has been added to the legendary hallway brawl, resulting in some impressive choreography: Joe crashes through an army of henchmen with the fluidity and ferocity of a rogue wave. But too often the filmmakers seem preoccupied with ensuring that they neither embarrass themselves nor incur the wrath of Park’s fanboys. Ultimately, there’s little perverse pleasure to be found in a revenge tale that’s told without a trace of passion. CURTIS WOLOSCHUK. D+ SEE IT: Oldboy is rated R. It opens Friday at Clackamas, Cinema 21, Bridgeport, Lloyd Center.
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a sensuous feast, scored by haunting choral music and techno mariachi, and marked by appearances of washed-up socialites, a blue-haired dwarf, vanishing giraffes and dreadful performance artists, including a woman who runs naked and blindfolded into a stone wall. The loosely connected vignettes can meander, but taken together they compose a fascinating portrait of Berlusconi’s Italy, one that is too consumed by orgiastic terrace parties and neverending conga lines to realize how stagnant it’s become. REBECCA JACOBSON. Living Room Theaters.
Homefront
After Spring Breakers, the thought of James Franco as a meth kingpin doesn’t seem so far-fetched, even if he’s starring opposite Jason Statham and dealing with a screenplay adapted by Sylvester Stallone. Not screened for Portland critics. R. Cedar Hills, Eastport, Clackamas, Mill Plain, Cornelius, Oak Grove, Cinema 99, Bridgeport, City Center, Division, Fox Tower, Hilltop, Movies on TV, Sherwood, Tigard, Wilsonville, Sandy.
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
B While other young-adult novel
adaptations preoccupy themselves with knockoff magic and chaste vampires, The Hunger Games series instead caters to the “adult” part of the equation. Taking what initially seemed like a watered-down version of Battle Royale, it has created a sprawling and very grown-up world for young audiences. With Catching Fire, director Francis Lawrence further expands this postapocalyptic universe where children are forced to slay one another in an annual gladiatorial event designed to tamp down discontent. This film finds heroine Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) and her milquetoast co-champ Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) on a “victory tour” through a country where the rich bathe in luxury while the poor undergo flogging and execution in what resembles WWII-era Russia. As with the first film, Catching Fire goes slightly flat once the actual Hunger Games commence. But in the lead-up, the director crafts a dense dystopia full of political allegory and media satire. PG13. AP KRYZA. Bagdad, Cedar Hills, Eastport, Clackamas, CineMagic, Mill Plain, Cornelius, Oak Grove, Cinema 99, Bridgeport, City Center, Division, Hilltop, Lloyd Center, Movies on TV, Sherwood, Tigard, Wilsonville, Roseway, Sandy, St. Johns.
In a World...
A- Lake Bell’s In a World… takes us
into the idiosyncratic and competitive realm of voice-over artists. Bell plays Carol, an aspiring voice-over artist. The movie is overstuffed, but its unassuming tone, its generosity of spirit, and Bell’s skillful performance redeem the uneven pacing and bumpy storytelling. R. REBECCA JACOBSON. Living Room Theaters.
Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa
B+ Older but no wiser, and still obsessed with seizing the easy laugh with lunatic aplomb, Bad Grandpa isn’t quite art, and it’s not quite growing old gracefully. This, though, you may want to try at home. R. JAY HORTON. Eastport, Clackamas, Oak Grove, Cinema 99, Division, Movies on TV, Tigard.
Last Vegas
C- John Turtletaub’s film thrusts four 60-something besties (Michael Douglas, Robert De Niro, Morgan Freeman and Kevin Kline) into Sin City for a bachelor party/last hurrah in hopes hilarity will ensue. If that premise sounds familiar, so are the ensuing shenanigans: fanny packs, bikini contests, Viagra jokes, unearned nostalgia and shopworn musings on aging. So much screen time is devoted to defusing the longstanding tension between Douglas’ and De Niro’s characters that their would-be romp is ultimately something of a downer. Which would be fine if the film’s thoughts on friendship and mortality were especially poignant, but they’re as hackneyed as the jokes about boners, transvestites and 50 Cent, who at one point is mistaken for a member of the Jackson 5. PG-13. MICHAEL NORDINE.
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Cedar Hills, Cinema 99, Bridgeport, Division, Movies on TV, Sherwood, Wilsonville, Sandy.
Lee Daniels’ The Butler
D It isn’t hard to see why director Lee Daniels wanted to tell this story, which is based (very) loosely on truth. It’s kind of irresistible: A black White House butler, Cecil Gaines (Forest Whitaker), serves closely with every U.S. president during the civil rights era and lives to be invited back to the White House by Barack Obama. The film’s full title is Lee Daniels’ The Butler, and the subject of the movie doesn’t matter, because Lee Daniels has decided that Lee Daniels is going to make you cry, and he’s going to hit you over the head until you do. PG-13. MATTHEW KORFHAGE. Academy.
Life Is Beautiful
[ONE WEEK ONLY, REVIVAL] Remember when Roberto Benigni climbed over the seats after winning an Oscar for his 1997 Holocaust movie? That was pretty great. PG-13. Laurelhurst Theater.
MarchFourth Marching Band in China
[ONE NIGHT ONLY] Portland’s favorite stilt-walking band goes to rural China. A documentary results. Hollywood Theatre. 5 pm Sunday, Dec. 1.
Nebraska
C Alexander Payne has built his bril-
liant career on examinations of pathetic characters—and I mean that literally, not pejoratively. In the black-and-white Nebraska, a combination Valentine and fuck-you to his home state, he continues this project, but to dishearteningly flat results. You can predict the emotional arc based on the premise alone: David (Will Forte) decides to accompany his near-senile father, Woody (Bruce Dern), with whom he has a fractious relationship, on a road trip from Montana to Nebraska to claim the million-dollar magazine sweepstakes prize Woody believes he’s won. Payne’s typically trenchant observations on humanity’s soft underbelly feel broad, perhaps due to his non-involvement in the script, a first. Instead, the film rests on lazy humor (get your overweight, mouth-breathing Midwesterners here!), forced provocations (crotchflashing at a cemetery!) and ingratiating moments of father-son bonding (David and Woody recover lost dentures near the train tracks!). After unsparing takedowns of self-delusion in Citizen Ruth and Election, more forgiving assessments in About Schmidt and Sideways and the line-walking of The Descendants, it’s disappointing to see Payne succumb to sentimentality untempered by insight or depth. R. KRISTI MITSUDA. Living Room Theaters.
Nicky’s Family
B+ Lady Milena Grenfell-Baines is
an entrepreneur in Great Britain. Tom Schrecker is a publisher in Australia. Alice Masters works for the International Monetary Fund in the U.S. And all most likely would have been dead before adolescence were it not for the efforts of Nicholas Winton, a complete stranger to all three. Nicky’s Family charts the story of Winton, who organized the rescue of 669 Czech and Slovak children from refugee camps just before the outbreak of World War II. The director and narrator of the film, Joe Schlesinger, is one of those children; he is now a television producer in London. In a homage to his mysterious benefactor, he weaves a chronological narrative of Winton’s work and the experiences of the children who fled the looming war to start new lives in Great Britain. Campy historical reenactments that don’t capture the reality of wartime peril bog down the film, but Nicky’s Family is just as much a collection of memories as it is a celebration of Winton, with dozens of the rescued appearing in the film as adults to recall their journeys in painstaking detail. GRACE STAINBACK. Living Room Theaters.
Philomena
C- The hardest part about watch-
ing Philomena, a film based on the true story of an Irish woman’s search
Willamette Week NOVEMBER 27, 2013 wweek.com
for the son she gave up for adoption 50 years previous, is accepting the amazing Judi Dench as a bumbling simpleton in the title role. “We don’t have Mexicans in England—we have Indians,” she excitedly explains to the Mexican-American cooks. If you can get over Dench as Grandma Goof—a role she plays as best she can—then Philomena stands on its own two feet. One of those feet is the enthralling, often emotional storyline. Philomena and Martin Sixsmith (Steve Coogan), a political journalist who’s taken on his first human-interest story, uncover secrets both cloistered in the nunnery where Philomena’s child was born and spread across America, where her son was taken as a child. Unfortunately, the other foot is the waiter-my-soup humor that Fawlty Towers made irrelevant four decades ago. A stuffy Martin plays off the oblivious Philomena and vice versa. After suggesting that Martin not print her real name in the story, Philomena asks, “What about Anne…Anne Boleyn? It’s a lovely name!” After the film ends, it’s Philomena’s story that sticks. Director Stephen Frears and company should be given credit only for staying out of the real Philomena’s way. PG-13. MITCH LILLIE. Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Birdgeport, City Center, Fox Tower.
Prisoners
B Like Clint Eastwood’s sadistically
bleak Mystic River, Denis Villeneuve’s Prisoners presents its protagonists with an unimaginable horror: the abduction of their young daughters. But unlike Mystic River, this film wrings pulp out of the proceedings. That’s not to say Prisoners is better than the overrated Mystic River, but it’s engaging and gut-wrenching, without diving into an abyss of emotional torture in the name of entertainment. R. AP KRYZA. Academy, Laurelhurst.
Rush
B- Right off the bat, let’s address the query that’s inevitably posed of all sports movies: Must one have a vested interest in the sport to enjoy said film? In the case of Ron Howard’s Rush, the answer is, “Of course not.” Instead, the movie, based on the sixyear battle for F1 supremacy between stern Austrian Niki Lauda (Daniel Brühl) and walking British hard-on James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth), deals with much more familiar (one might say tired) themes: the nature of professional rivalry, the sociopathy of competition and the definitions of masculinity. Ninety percent of the film takes place on racetracks and in press conferences, and the moments meant to underscore the personal relationships driving (ahem) these two diametrically opposed men feel, ahem, rushed. The screenplay is by Peter Morgan, but his dialogue can’t turn what’s essentially an intermittently entertaining actioner into the character-driven, ’70s-style talkie Howard envisions it being. R. MATTHEW SINGER. Academy, Kennedy School, Laurelhurst, St. Johns.
Thor: The Dark World
C Thor is Marvel’s most unidentifiable character, but his first solo cinematic outing worked because of how hilariously batshit it was. 2011’s Thor was part goofball sci-fi epic, part fishout-of-water comedy set in smalltown New Mexico, anchored by Chris Hemsworth’s charmingly boyish performance. Thor: The Dark World is the God of Thunder’s first post-Avengers romp, and it reverses the formula, transporting Thor’s scientist girlfriend (Natalie Portman) to his psychedelic space kingdom. It shows us a world of rainbow roads, elves with bazookas and giant rock monsters…only to make us long to be back in New Mexico. Director Alan Taylor sucks all the fun out of the picture, creating a cornball drama that plays a lot like one of his episodes of Game of Thrones, minus the incest but with spaceships. PG-13. AP KRYZA. Cedar Hills, Eastport, Clackamas, Mill Plain, Cornelius, Indoor Twin, Oak Grove, Cinema 99, Bridgeport, City Center, Division, Hilltop, Lloyd Center, Movies on TV, Sherwood, Tigard, Wilsonville, Sandy.
AP FILM STUDIES DEADPLACE / CC 2.0
MOVIES
ART OF THE SALE
DECODING THE REAL MEANING OF PRESTIGE PICTURE ADS. BY A P kRYz A
apkryza@wweek.com
It’s prestige picture time, that magical time of year for middlebrow film snobs, when the sounds of gigantic robots and Adam Sandler farts fall silent, replaced by gentle string music and Meryl Streep speaking in some weird accent. Awards season is also a transitional period for advertising. In the summer, all a PR agency needs to do to get asses in seats is slap “Marvel,” “Michael Bay” or “Part II” on a poster. Middlebrow audiences need more careful nudging, but that’s not to say they’re smarter. Here’s a glossary to help you decode the sneaky ad rhetoric. “[INSERT NAME] gives a tour de force performance”: Some actor did really well in a middling movie. See: Robert Redford in All Is Lost. “Argo”: As in, “Not since Argo….” This is classic bait-and-switch. It typically means a movie is going to suck, but as a distraction, the studio wants you to be thinking of a film that swept previous awards. “Meryl Streep”: These words result in a collective “Goddamnit” among other actresses and ensure a decent box-office return because every filmgoer over 40 would pay to watch Streep nap. “Tom Hanks’ best performance since…”: We’ll see this on every Hanks film, since it’s always his best performance since something. Especially since Larry Crowne. That Hanks charm could even elevate a film about a tobacco-free, Jew-lovin’ Walt Disney into a contender. “A bold, new vision”: A big blockbuster that critics also liked. Alfonso Cuarón should probably get this tattooed on the small of his back. “The inspiring true story”: A good person will suffer terribly—12 Years a Slave or Dallas Buyers Club, anyone?—and for some reason you will be inspired by said suffering. “From the visionary director of…”: Something psychedelic and psychosexual this way comes. Or something quirky. As if Darren Aronofsky, Charlie Kaufman and Zooey Deschanel had a three-way. Actually, I’d watch that. Someone call Lars von Trier. Also showinG: Speaking of psychosexuality, how has Secretary not become a lateblooming mommy porn hit? Oh, that’s right…because it’s smart. Hollywood Theatre. 7:30 pm Wednesday, Nov 27. With Eddie Vedder and company rolling into town this weekend, now’s the perfect time for Cameron Crowe’s Pearl Jam Twenty, an intimate look at the best band spawned in the ’90s. Clinton Street Theater. 7:30 pm Wednesday, Nov. 27. Fun fact: Famous feminist Gloria Steinem led a boycott of the book American Psycho. A few years later, her stepson Christian Bale hacked up hookers in Mary Harron’s brilliant adaptation. 5th Avenue Cinema. 7 and 9:30 pm Friday-Saturday and 3 pm Sunday, Nov 29-Dec 1. In a bit of universal wish fulfillment, B-Movie Bingo returns with Zero Tolerance, in which the question “What would happen if the T-1000 got into a fistfight with a ponytail-sporting Mick Fleetwood?” is finally answered. Hollywood Theatre. 7:30 pm Tuesday, Dec 3.
NOV. 29-DEC. 5
C O U R T E S Y O F L I O N S G AT E
10:10 DELIVERY MAN FriSat-Sun-Mon-Tue 11:30, 01:50, 04:20, 07:00, 09:30 THE BEST MAN HOLIDAY Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue 12:00, 03:45, 07:30, 10:10 DALLAS BUYERS CLUB Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue 11:30, 02:00, 04:30, 07:10, 10:00 12 YEARS A SLAVE Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue 12:40, 03:40, 06:40, 09:40 ENDER’S GAME Fri-Sat-Sun-MonTue 02:20, 09:00 ABOUT TIME Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue 12:30, 06:15 KILL YOUR DARLINGS Fri-Sat-SunMon-Tue 03:30, 09:10 ALL IS LOST Fri-Sat-Sun-MonTue 11:50, 04:50, 06:30 CAPTAIN PHILLIPS Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue 12:20, 03:20, 06:20, 09:20
HORSIN’ AROUND: Secretary plays at 7:30 pm Wednesday, Nov. 27, at the Hollywood Theatre.
Regal Lloyd Center 10 & IMAX
1510 NE Multnomah St., 800326-3264 THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE -- THE IMAX EXPERIENCE FriSat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 12:00, 03:25, 07:00, 10:25 THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 12:45, 01:30, 04:20, 05:30, 07:45, 09:00 FROZEN Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 06:50, 09:40 FROZEN 3D FriSat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 12:35, 03:40 THE BOOK THIEF Fri-Sat-Sun-MonTue-Wed 12:25, 03:35, 06:45, 09:55 OLDBOY Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 01:15, 04:30, 07:30, 10:10 THOR: THE DARK WORLD Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 12:55, 03:55, 07:10 THOR: THE DARK WORLD 3D Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 10:00 GRAVITY 3D FriSat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 02:35, 04:55, 07:20, 09:45 GRAVITY Fri-Sat-Sun-MonTue-Wed 12:15 12 YEARS A SLAVE Fri-Sat-Sun-MonTue-Wed 12:10, 03:15, 10:05 DELIVERY MAN Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 01:05, 03:50, 06:35, 09:20
Regal Lloyd Mall 8
2320 Lloyd Center Mall, 800-326-3264 FROZEN Fri-Sat-Sun-MonTue-Wed 05:45, 08:45 FROZEN 3D Fri-Sat-SunMon-Tue-Wed 11:45, 02:45
Bagdad Theater and Pub
3702 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 503-249-7474 THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE FriSat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 11:45, 03:15, 07:00, 10:45 PACIFIC RIM Fri-Sat-SunMon-Tue-Wed 06:00 THIS IS THE END Fri-Sat-SunMon-Tue-Wed 09:00 TURBO Sat-Sun 02:00
Cinema 21
616 NW 21st Ave., 503-223-4515 BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR Fri-Sat-Sun 01:15, 03:15, 04:45, 06:45, 08:15 OLDBOY Fri-Sat-Sun 01:45, 04:15, 07:00, 09:25
Clinton Street Theater
2522 SE Clinton St., 503-238-8899 THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW Sat 12:00 FILMAGE: THE STORY OF DESCENDENTS/ALL Sun 01:00, 03:00 AN EVENING WITH AUSTRALIAN EXPERIMENTAL FILMMAKER RICHARD TUOHY Mon 07:00 NIGHT TRAIN TO LISBON Tue 07:00
Laurelhurst Theatre & Pub
2735 E Burnside St., 503-232-5511 THE WORLD’S END Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 09:45 LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 07:15 BLUE JASMINE Fri-Sat-SunMon-Tue-Wed 07:00, 09:10 DESPICABLE ME 2 Fri-SatSun 01:40, 04:15 RUSH Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 06:45 ELYSIUM Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 09:20 CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS 2 Fri-SatSun 01:20 PRISONERS Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 06:30 THE WAY, WAY BACK Fri-Sat-Sun-MonTue-Wed 09:35
Mission Theater and Pub
1624 NW Glisan St., 503-249-7474-5 Fri-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed DESPICABLE ME 2 Sat 05:30 BLUE JASMINE Sat 07:45
Moreland Theatre
6712 SE Milwaukie Ave., 503236-5257 FROZEN Fri-Sat-Sun-MonTue-Wed 05:30, 08:00
Roseway Theatre
7229 NE Sandy Blvd., 503-282-2898 THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 01:00, 04:30, 08:00
St. Johns Cinemas
8704 N Lombard St., 503-286-1768 THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 01:30, 05:00, 08:25 FROZEN Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 05:30, 07:55
CineMagic Theatre
2021 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 503-231-7919 THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 05:30, 08:30
Century 16 Eastport Plaza
4040 SE 82nd Ave., 800-326-3264-952 GRAVITY Fri-Sat-Sun-MonTue-Wed 02:45, 10:05 GRAVITY 3D Fri-Sat-SunMon-Tue-Wed 12:05, 05:10, 07:40 CAPTAIN PHILLIPS Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 04:55, 10:30 THE BEST MAN HOLIDAY Fri-Sat-SunMon-Tue-Wed 01:30, 04:30, 07:30, 10:30 JACKASS PRESENTS: BAD GRANDPA Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 12:15, 02:40, 05:05, 07:35, 10:00 ENDER’S GAME Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 01:55, 04:40, 07:25, 10:20 FREE BIRDS Fri-Sat-Sun-
Mon-Tue-Wed 12:10, 05:15, 07:45 FREE BIRDS 3D Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 02:50, 10:15 THOR: THE DARK WORLD Fri-Sat-SunMon-Tue-Wed 01:40, 07:30 THOR: THE DARK WORLD 3D Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-TueWed 04:35, 10:35 THE BOOK THIEF Fri-Sat-SunMon-Tue-Wed 12:20, 03:40, 07:00, 10:10 THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 12:00, 01:10, 02:20, 03:30, 04:40, 05:50, 07:00, 08:10, 09:20, 10:30 DELIVERY MAN Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-TueWed 02:00, 04:45, 07:20, 09:55 BLACK NATIVITY Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 12:00, 02:30, 05:05, 07:50, 10:25 HOMEFRONT FriSat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 02:05, 04:50, 07:35, 10:35 THE CHRISTMAS CANDLE Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 02:10, 08:00 FROZEN Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 12:25, 03:15, 06:05, 08:55 FROZEN 3D Fri-Sat-SunMon-Tue-Wed 01:50, 04:40, 07:30, 10:20
NW Film Center’s Whitsell Auditorium
1219 SW Park Ave., 503-221-1156 FRESH FRENCH SHORTS Fri 05:00 LADY SNOWBLOOD Fri-Sat 04:30, 07:00 KILL BILL: VOL. 1 Sat 07:00
Regal Pioneer Place Stadium 6
340 SW Morrison St., 800-326-3264 FROZEN Fri-Sat-Sun 04:45, 07:30, 10:15 FROZEN 3D Fri-Sat-Sun 11:15, 02:00
St. Johns Theater
8203 N Ivanhoe St., 503-249-7474-6 DESPICABLE ME 2 SatSun-Tue-Wed 06:30 RUSH Sat-Tue-Wed 01:00, 09:00 THE WALKING DEAD Sun 06:00, 08:00
2126 SW Halsey St., 503-249-7474-2 DESPICABLE ME 2 Sat-SunMon-Tue-Wed 06:00 BLUE JASMINE Sat-Sun-Mon-TueWed 09:00
Kennedy School Theater
Living Room Theaters
5736 NE 33rd Ave., 503-249-7474-4 DESPICABLE ME 2 Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 02:30 RUSH Fri-Sat-Sun-MonTue-Wed 07:45 RIDDICK Fri-Sat 10:15
5th Avenue Cinema 510 SW Hall St., 503-725-3551 AMERICAN PSYCHO FriSat-Sun 03:00
Hollywood Theatre
4122 NE Sandy Blvd., 503-281-4215 12 YEARS A SLAVE FriSat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 06:45, 09:15 ALL IS LOST Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-TueWed 07:15 CHINATOWN Fri-Sat-Sun 07:00 THE SHINING Fri-Sat-Sun-MonTue-Wed 09:30 WALKING THE CAMINO: SIX WAYS TO SANTIAGO Sat 02:00 MARCHFORTH MARCHING BAND IN CHINA Sun 05:00 B MOVIE BINGO: ZERO TOLERANCE Tue 07:30 WILD AND SCENIC FILM FESTIVAL Wed 07:00
Regal Fox Tower Stadium 10
846 SW Park Ave., 800-326-3264 PHILOMENA Fri-Sat-SunMon-Tue 11:40, 02:10, 04:40, 07:20, 09:45 THE BOOK THIEF Fri-Sat-SunMon-Tue 12:50, 03:50, 06:50, 09:50 HOMEFRONT Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue 12:10, 02:30, 05:00, 07:40,
BREAKING
NEWS FIRST FOLLOW @WWE E K ON T WIT TER
Academy Theater
7818 SE Stark St., 503-252-0500 CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS 2 Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 02:40, 05:00 RUSH Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 02:00, 09:45 PRISONERS Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 06:45 BLUE JASMINE Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 07:15, 09:25 LEE DANIELS’ THE BUTLER Fri-Sat-Sun-MonTue-Wed 04:20 ELYSIUM Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 09:10 PERCY JACKSON: SEA OF MONSTERS FriSat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 04:30 DESPICABLE ME 2 Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 02:15, 07:00
Edgefield Powerstation Theater
GET
341 SW 10th Ave., 971-222-2010 20 FEET FROM STARDOM Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-TueWed 09:10 DEAR MR. WATTERSON Fri-Sat-SunMon-Tue-Wed 12:25, 04:40 DON JON Fri-Sat-SunMon-Tue-Wed 11:55, 02:40, 07:45 IN A WORLD... Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 02:50, 07:15 NEBRASKA Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-TueWed 11:45, 12:15, 02:00, 02:30, 04:30, 05:00, 07:00, 07:30, 09:20, 09:50 NICKY’S FAMILY Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 12:00, 02:20, 04:50, 06:50, 09:00 THE COUNSELOR Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 05:10, 09:40 THE GREAT BEAUTY Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 12:40, 03:40, 06:40, 09:25
SUBJECT TO CHANGE. CALL THEATERS OR VISIT WWEEK.COM/MOVIETIMES FOR THE MOST UP-TODATE INFORMATION
STREET PG 25
MOVIES
FRIDAY-THURSDAY, NOV. 29-DEC. 5, UNLESS OTHERWISE INDICATED
Willamette Week NOVEMBER 27, 2013 wweek.com
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1416 SE Morrison Street Portland, Oregon 97214 503-238-1955 www.inner-sound.com
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Hey friends! The name is Joey and I am a good hearted, easy going dude! I am a well trained lab/golden mix who is a favorite of all the staff and volunteers here at the Pixie Project! I am friendly and goofy and know lots of tricks and I am a great family dog and do well with kids and kitties. I’d like to be an only pooch and can do without dog parks. I am a lover and will cuddle the day away with you then hit the trails for a run if you’re up for it! If not…more cuddles please! I’m fine either way! I would love a home with a nice fenced yard and someone who wants a new best friend! I am fixed, vaccinated and microchipped my adoption fee is $200.
503-542-3432 • 510 NE MLK Blvd • pixieproject.org
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Week of November 28
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ARIES (March 21-April 19): Thinking inside the box will be a crime against your nature in the coming weeks. The last place you want to be is in a pigeonhole. I advise you to stay far away from tight squeezes, claustrophobic “sanctuaries,” and “convenient” confinements. If you’re in a one-size-fits-all situation, you simply won’t be able to access your highest intelligence. So then where should you be? I am rooting for you to wander into the wild frontiers where unsanctioned wonders and marvels await you. I’d love for you to find virgin terrain and uncharted territories where the boring old rules don’t apply. TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Mike Finnigan is a veteran keyboardist and blues vocalist who has toured with more than 20 major acts, including Jimi Hendrix, Etta James, Leonard Cohen, and Los Lonely Boys. There’s a primal quality to his singing. It’s gritty and fluid and tempestuous, almost feral at times. I understand perfectly why Bonnie Raitt has called him a “tall drink of bacon.” The sound he makes with his voice is that lush and tasty. Can you guess his astrological sign? It’s Taurus, of course. I’m naming him your patron saint this week because you yourself are as close as you have ever come to being a tall drink of bacon. GEMINI (May 21-June 20): French painter Henri Matisse thought highly of his own work. He tended to ignore critics because he didn’t think they understood his art well enough to produce intelligent critiques. There was one person whose opinion he was willing to heed, though; a single colleague who he said had earned to right to evaluate and assess his art: Pablo Picasso. I encourage you, Gemini, to come up with your own short list of people whose judgment you totally trust and respect. It’s a good time to seek out their feedback on how you’re doing. CANCER (June 21-July 22): How is it possible that you have come so far and worked so diligently only to be resigned now to hanging out in limbo, waiting around for the lucky break that may or may not ever arrive? I’m here today to escort you out of this infernal place. If you resist, my assignment is to drag you out. Why am I so adamant? Because I am sure it’s a mistake for you to be passive and hope for the best. You need to resume working diligently, focused for now on what’s right in front of you without worrying too much about the big picture. In my opinion, that approach will lead you to unforeseen help -- and a clarification of the big picture. LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Your levels of personal magic are high. The radiance beaming out of your eyes is extra sparkly. There’s an artistry to the way you are expressing yourself. Without even trying, you’re exuding natural charisma and animal magnetism. In light of all these advantages, I suspect you will have an elevated capacity for both giving and receiving pleasure. In fact, I predict that your ability to feel really good and make other people feel really good will be at a peak. I hereby designate this the Week of Supreme Bliss. VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): The BBC reported on an expert who combs Switzerland’s Risoud Forest to find the spruce trees whose wood can be made into the highest quality violins. After years of experience, Lorenzo Pellegrini knows which few trees will produce instruments with the most resonant tones. They grow slowly and have few knots. They need to have had enough water to grow strong, but not so much water that they’re mushy. Your task in the coming weeks, Virgo, has a certain resemblance to the master treepicker’s work. It’s time for you to start selecting and gathering the raw materials you will use to craft your own lyrical story in 2014. LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Here’s the bad news: For all of us, including you, there is a gap between our intentions and our actual effects. Here’s the good news: Now is your special time to narrow that gap. More bad news: All of us, you included, are periodically guilty of sending out mixed messages. We confuse people with our ambivalence; what we say is sometimes different from what we feel. More good news: Now is your special time to reduce your mixed messages to as close to zero as possible. One more taste of bad news: Like all of us, you are a bit hypocritical. You engage in behavior that you
criticize in others. You don’t practice what you preach. One last piece of good news: Now is your special time to work on being forthright, genuine, and consistent. SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): “I am very fond of strawberries and cream,” said author Dale Carnegie, “but I have found that for some strange reason, fish prefer worms. So when I went fishing, I didn’t think about what I wanted. I thought about what they wanted. I didn’t bait the hook with strawberries and cream. Rather, I dangled a worm or grasshopper in front of the fish.” That’s a good teaching story for you, Scorpio. In order to get your desires fulfilled by the people who have the power to do that, you should give them what they actually long for -- not what you long for, nor what you wish they would long for. This is always true, of course, but it’s especially applicable to what’s going on in your life right now. SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Touted as a prime source of “kick-@ss spirituality,” author Danielle LaPorte has advice that’s good for you to hear. “You will always be too much of something for someone,” she says, “too big, too loud, too soft, too edgy.” But that’s exactly as it should be, she adds. It would be a mistake to “round out your edges,” because then you would “lose your edge.” And I’m here to tell you that you need all of your edge right now, Sagittarius. It’s time to ignore people’s mediocre expectations and push past their limits. To be true to yourself, you will probably have to be too much of something for several someones. CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Going into my spiritual mentoring session with the priestess, I had the intention of discovering truths about myself I didn’t know before. That meant stirring up revelations about my ignorance as well as my potentials. I wanted assistance in facing my flaws as well as in tapping into my dormant powers. It worked. Her guidance was a potent catalyst. I was able to shed the debilitating nonsense stories I’d been telling myself about who I am. I awakened strengths that had been asleep. What I wish for you, Capricorn -- indeed, what I predict for you -- is a comparable experience. To expedite matters, go out in search of a person, adventure, or breakthrough that can help provide you with the kind of prod I received. AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): I bet people will be gossiping about you more than usual. Is there anything you can do to ensure that it’s mostly benevolent gossip? Yes, there is. First, make sure that when you gossip about others, you are unfailingly positive in your comments. If you don’t have anything good to say about someone, don’t say it. Second, be on your best behavior. Communicate clearly and don’t even think about taking unethical shortcuts. Finally, contribute more inspirational energy than usual to every group you’re part of. Be an effervescent team player. PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Maybe your ego isn’t big enough. I’m serious. Is it possible that you could benefit from being more proud of yourself? Would it be healthy for you to give yourself more credit for the struggles you have weathered and the skills you have mastered and the beauty you have managed to forge out of the chaotic raw materials that life has given you? I’ve got a good feeling about this, Pisces. I can imagine you summoning the playful courage you will need to express more confidence. I can even picture you beginning to fantasize about embarking on certain stirring adventures you’ve never believed you were strong enough to try before now. [Editor: Here’s this week’s homework:]
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Homework
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RENTALS
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EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES
Electrician/Instrument Technician
The Electrician/Instrument Technician perform general power electrician work as well as instrument technician work including installing, maintaining, repairing, modifying, and developing specifications for precision/process control instrumentation systems, and user interfaces, and to monitor, analyze, control and meter processes, and HVAC and SCADA systems. This position will be working on the operation and maintenance of the 19 City interactive and decorative fountains. View full announcement by visiting www.portlandoregon.gov/jobs.
“Spaces In Between” by Colibri $1200 Acrylic on canvas 30x36 for sale at: www.colibrilovesyou.com or colibrilovesyou@hotmail.com
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53 Cool, daddy-o 54 Prickly bush 56 “Bang and Blame” band 58 “Yup, that’s the sound a stream makes”? 64 Pick-up capacity? 65 E.B. White output 66 Haleakala’s island 67 Players who only bat, briefly 68 Monica that raised a racket 69 Bank features Down 1 Casino transaction 2 “___ du lieber!” 3 Bright lipstick choice 4 Jorge’s hi 5 Detective Adrian Monk’s condition 6 Retiring 7 The Red October, e.g. 8 401(k) relatives 9 Che Guevara’s real first name 10 “None of the above” relative 11 King or queen 12 Robot’s jobs 15 Bob Ross’s art medium 18 Tax mo. 19 Kill 22 Moneys owed 23 Nunavut native 25 Twitter’s was on November 7th, 2013 26 “Roseanne” surname
27 Start of some search engine queries 30 George Harrison’s “All Those Years ___” 32 Plundered 34 Cast often seen together 35 Newbs 36 Ring bearer’s path 37 Ready to pour 41 A grand slam gets four 44 Of a noticeably smaller amount 45 Before, to Donne 46 Bausch & ___ 48 Went out 49 Teen infatuation 50 Ball field covers 52 Exist 55 Cushiness 57 Stone on the big screen 59 ___ pal 60 “Marble” bread 61 Letter before tee 62 ___ Lock (computer key) 63 Antiquated affirmative
last week’s answers
Across 1 Composer with a clavier 5 “Grumpy Old Men” actor Davis 10 Be choosy 13 ___ & the Bunnymen 14 Dessert dipped in coffee 16 Aunt, in Avila 17 What a forceful noblewoman often does? 20 Genre for Jay-Z 21 “Magnum, P.I.” star 22 SSW, e.g. 24 Having great balance? 28 Gets on Halloween 29 Grammy winner for “Shepherd Moons” 31 Noodle or beach ball 33 Command for a sheep’s fleece to grow bigger? 35 Toy magnate Schwarz 38 Attach, as string to a package 39 Cpl. or sgt. 40 Hatch of politics 42 Normal: abbr. 43 Five knit in one day, perhaps? 46 Permit holder, often 47 Actress Fisher of Season 4 of “Arrested Development” 48 Surgery suffix 51 “Hey, what’s the big ___?”
©2013 Jonesin’ Crosswords (editor@jonesincrosswords.com) For answers to this puzzle, call: 1-900-226-2800, 99 cents per minute. Must be 18+. Or to bill to your credit card, call: 1-800-655-6548. Reference puzzle #JONZ651.
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