41 12 willamette week, january 21, 2015 by Willamette Week Newspaper

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WILLAMETTE WEEK PORTLANDâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S NEWSWEEKLY

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A Portland radical GETS BANISHED by the group he once led. wweek.com

VOL 42/12 01.21.2015

By aaron mesh

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p h o t o b y L a u r i e l A r w e n / c c - S A - BY , text by Daniel Zender

NEWS THE WHITEST BLACK DANCE TROUPE. FOOD SOUTHERN BRUNCH TOUR. MUSIC AN AVANT-GARDE WEEZY.

Willamette Week JANUARY 21, 2015 wweek.com

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FINDINGS

pagE 45

WHAT WE LEARNED FROM READING THIS WEEK’S PAPER VOL. 41, ISSUE 12.

Aaron Ross (formerly Ed Forman) just landed the most coveted interview in Portland. 6 As they fight Uber, Portland taxi drivers maintain they do not want “a flooded market” because of “safety.” 10 This holiday season, a group of protesters at Peacock Lane sang a parody carol that included the line, “Deck the halls with rows of dead cops.” 13

ON THE COVER:

Sellwood is getting a shop that traffics primarily in traditional European and oddly flavored butters. 24

Thanks to Obamacare, one WW writer finally experienced the joys of sizzurp. 26 Detroit ruin porn is now being adapted for the stage. 47

Artist-musician-app creatorfilmmaker-actress Miranda July is now also a novelist. 53

OUR MOST TRAFFICKED STORY ONLINE THIS WEEK:

A bike activist gets redacted. Photo by lauriel arwen. Typography by Daniel Zender.

Ex-strippers are suing Casa Diablo for not paying them enough and subjecting them to butt grabs.

STAFF Editor-in-Chief Mark Zusman EDitorial Managing Editor for News Brent Walth Arts & Culture Editor Martin Cizmar Staff Writers Nigel Jaquiss, Aaron Mesh, Beth Slovic Copy Chief Rob Fernas Copy Editors Matt Buckingham, James Yu Stage & Screen Editor Rebecca Jacobson Web & Projects Editor Matthew Korfhage Music Editor Matthew Singer Books Penelope Bass Dance Kaitie Todd

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INBOX SMITH’S PLAN TO FIX PPS

The enrollment and transfer policies put in place 10 or so years ago in Portland Public Schools were meant to improve student equity, yet it appears they did not [“The Equalizer,” WW, Jan. 14, 2015]. Institutionally, PPS has struggled with this, and I see little sign Superintendent Carole Smith or her team is capable of making things better. She does not understand equity, and her leadership has made the district insular, unaccountable, evasive, incompetent, and a place where if you cover up problems or are a friend, you are promoted. Even if the work of the Superintendent’s Advisory Committee on Enrollment and Transfer made perfect sense, PPS under Smith would almost certainly muck it up. —“BruceS” High-school redesign was a failure. PPS ended transfers without addressing the inequalities between schools. They also closed Marshall High, which disenfranchised hundreds of students, mostly low-income. Ending transfers hasn’t actually worked even to balance enrollment (Roosevelt has less than 1,000 students while Lincoln has 1,600) since many students find ways around it. PPS needs to address the problems rather than the transfer policy and boundaries. —“Colin Jones”

Willamette Week JANUARY 21, 2015 wweek.com

What the hell is wrong with Portland? These ladies who work at strip clubs should be paid for the work they do. I don’t care if it’s a stripper or a plumber, work is work [“The Devil’s Due,” WW, Jan. 14, 2015]. So city of Portland, how much do the owners of these clubs pay you to look the other way? I support these ladies 100 percent and am sorry they had to deal with crap like this. I hope they get a ton of money from these snake-oil salesmen. —“Teapartier56” These women weren’t forced to work at Casa Diablo. They could have left and went to work at another strip club. If they were forced to engage in illegal activities, they should have immediately informed law enforcement. They made the choice to stay when there was nothing holding them there, so they should be responsible for their own actions. —“jimbo96”

AMERICAN SNIPER REVIEW: D

The fi lm is an excellent study into the world of PTSD [“American Sniper,” WW, Jan. 14, 2015]. The cinematography afforded the chance to be in the war, not just watching it. I thought Clint Eastwood made a film that was not pro-war, but pro-soldier. —“March”

Smith can revamp the district as much as she wants, but until she addresses poor leadership and awful administration, nothing will get better. —“Disappointed”

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.

I’ve tried to persuade countless business owners that their ceiling fans are going in the wrong direction. They all say, “It’s blowing the hot air down.” Is ignorantly suﬀering through another lousy winter just the way things are done in Portland? —A Cold Customer

well-informed, ideally with its own website and a federally funded interpretive center. Thus, it’s with a heavy heart that I must inform you that you’re right. Don’t get a big head; even a blind hog finds an acorn once in a while. Still, it’s true: Ceiling fans should provide updraft, not downdraft, in wintertime. Ceiling fans do two things: first, they mix up the air in the room so it’s all the same temperature, and second, they create wind chill on human skin. As even the densest Nelson Muntz impersonator recalls from high school, heat rises. In the winter, we want the warm air up by the ceiling distributed throughout the room. The ceiling fan will do this regardless of which direction it’s turning. However, if it’s blowing down, it’ll also wind-chill any person in its path, which is pretty pointless—unless, you know, it’s some whiny bastard you wish would stop coming into your shop.

I’d love to answer your question, but I’m a little freaked out right now. Apparently Mitt Romney is considering running for president again. I can’t help but imagine Mitt standing outside America’s window holding a boombox over his head, serenading the nation with Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes” until we change our minds. (It sounds cute, until you realize this is the reason God invented restraining orders.) Now, are we going to ignorantly suffer through another winter? I don’t know how long you’ve lived in Portland, Customer, but rest assured, ignorant suffering is not our strong suit. We like our suffering to be excruciatingly 4

DANCERS SUE STRIP CLUB

QUESTIONS? Send them to dr.know@wweek.com

Willamette Week JANUARY 21, 2015 wweek.com

POLITICS: A county commissioner stands accused of retaliation. HOTSEAT: Portland taxi industry advocate Noah Ernst. SCHOOLS: Why is the city’s black high-school dance troupe so white? COVER STORY: A prominent activist is purged from the group he led.

7 10 11 13

PERHAPS IT’S THE CRUST OF A NEW CAREER.

KENNETH HUEY

Dave’s Killer Bread cofounder Dave Dahl is giving his first interview since being found guilty except for insanity in November of ramming two Washington County sheriff ’s patrol cars with his Cadillac Escalade in 2013. The location of Dahl’s sit-down? “Who’s the Ross?,” a late-night comedy and talk show at Portland nightclub Dante’s on Jan. 27. Dahl has appeared on DAHL the show six times before. The show’s host, Aaron Ross, says Dahl agreed to the gig over lunch. “I was surprised,” Ross tells WW. “The first thing he said was, ‘I want breadsticks,’ and the second thing he said was, ‘Can I be on the show?’” After the interview, Dahl will perform at Dante’s with his band, Dave’s Killer Granddaddies.

Portland pollster Tim Hibbitts—who’s been asking Oregonians for their views since 1976 and has been an election-night fixture on local TV news—is stepping down as political director of Davis, Hibbitts & Midghall, the firm he co-founded. “I’m 61 and a half and in good HIBBITTS TAKES A HIKE shape, and I’d rather be hiking,” says Hibbitts, long considered the top pollster in state politics. He’ll return for the 2016 presidential cycle, which he says will be his last. His replacement is colleague John Horvick, who previously worked for Oregon Health & Science University and recently served as president of the City Club of Portland. The shrinking number of subscribers to The Oregonian have been told home delivery will cost $1 more a week starting in March. That pushes a typical weekly subscription from $5 to $6 for four issues. Based on The O’s most recent circulation numbers, that could mean an extra $7.6 million a year for the paper—give or take, assuming not too many subscribers cancel in protest over the higher rate. Meanwhile, the paper is picking up pocket change by selling off its photo archives—including mugs of former employees. Several were surprised to find their images on eBay. A 8-by-10 glossy of then-reporter Don Hamilton in 1985 goes for $22. “I can’t imagine who would want to buy a 30-year-old photo of me; I don’t,” says a bemused Hamilton, now an Oregon Department of Transportation spokesman. “I don’t know if this has reduced the value of my journalism career to $22.” Read more Murmurs and daily scuttlebutt. 6

Willamette Week JANUARY 21, 2015 wweek.com

DHM RESEARCH

Two incumbents on the board for Portland Public Schools are bowing out of bids for re-election. Ruth Adkins says she will not run for a third term but has endorsed a newcomer running to replace her: Julie Esparza Brown, an associate professor of special education at Portland State University. Andrew Davidson, a PSU freshman who was the student rep on the board during the 2013-14 school year, is also running for Adkins’ position. The May election could end the friendly majority Superintendent Carole Smith has enjoyed. Sources tell WW that board member Matt Morton has also chosen not to run. Education activist Paul Anthony is running for Morton’s seat.

NEWS

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A FORMER COUNTY LAND-USE INSPECTOR SAYS COMMISSIONER DIANE MCKEEL RETALIATED AGAINST HIM ON BEHALF OF HER ALLIES. By NIG E L JAQ UI SS

njaquiss@wweek.com

A former Multnomah County employee says Commissioner Diane McKeel had him fired last fall after he tried to stop her political friends from breaking land-use rules in violation of federal law. Officials have long suspected proprietors of a Corbett bed-and-breakfast were hosting events on the property in violation of the federal Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area Act. Michael Kennedy, the fired employee, worked as a code enforcement officer for the county. Brickhaven Bed & Breakfast is allowed under the rules to offer food and lodging, but Kennedy discovered last year that Brickhaven was improperly holding special events as well. And not just any events. Kennedy “uncovered and sought to end illegal political fundraisers and related events connected to Commissioner McKeel [and] took action that would limit potential fundraising sources for Commissioner McKeel,” he says in a tort claim notice filed with the county Jan. 5. Kennedy said he also “voiced concern that Commissioner McKeel’s office was exerting inappropriate and/or unlawful pressure on his job.” Kennedy further alleges that his firing Sept. 16 was a direct result of that pressure. Those are serious charges of political interference to lodge against McKeel, a second-term commissioner first elected to office in 2008. McKeel’s district encompasses most of the county east of 122nd Avenue, and she is well-known in East County, having served as executive director of the West Columbia

erty developer who served 20 years on the Gresham-Barlow School Board and chaired the board of directors at Moda Health. Kennedy ’s tort claim says McKeel also put pressure on him and others in the county’s Code Compliance Office to see things McKeel’s way on other zoning issues, including a parking lot for a religious organization and a new building involving the Corbett Fire District. McKeel’s husband chairs the fire district’s board. McKeel says she cannot comment on the specifics of Kennedy’s tort claim notice because of potential litigation. She did acknowledge the owners of Brickhaven are friends who have held two political gatherings for her races but says they got no special treatment. “I represent the constituents in my district. I’ve lived there for over 40 years,” McKeel says. “My constituents have the expectation that I will listen to their concerns.” McKeel also acknowledged that her husband had contacted county land-use officials more than once about the Corbett fire project but says he got no special treatment. “For me, it was if he was any other constituent,” McKeel says. Mu ltnoma h Count y Cha ir woma n Deborah Kafoury, who oversees county administrative functions, declined to comment on the tort claim notice. Kennedy declined to be interviewed for this story. According to his claim, he’s asking for $300,000 in damages from the county. If his complaints have merit, the consequences could be more serious than mere damage to McKeel’s political reputation: State ethics laws prohibit public officials such as McKeel from using their official positions to benefit their families or friends. Kennedy says he was fired from his $50,608 position despite strong job performance ratings.

“i represent the constituents in my district. i’ve lived there for over 40 years. my constituents have the expectation that i will listen to their concerns.” —DIANE McKEEL Gorge Chamber of Commerce for a decade before taking office. Her husband, Dr. Mike McKeel, is a prominent Gresham dentist and prop-

His personnel evaluation from June 30, 2014, attached to his tort claim notice, shows that Kennedy received the highest possible rating in six of nine criteria.

m u lt n o m a h c o . c o m m u n i c at i o n s

MCKEEL-HAULED

PUTTING CONSTITUENTS FIRST: Multnomah County Commissioner Diane McKeel, who represents east county, faces a claim that she pressured a county employee to back off enforcement of land-use rules against her friends.

“He is friendly and gets along with his external customers and continues to build solid relationships,” wrote his supervisor, Karen Schilling. (Schilling was on vacation and unavailable for comment.) Brickhaven, the bed-and-breakfast that Kennedy says cost him his job, is located on the Historic Columbia River Highway near Crown Point. Its website calls the B&B “a serene hide-away on the Oregon hills overlooking the Columbia River Gorge. Breathtaking views of the river and its gorge welcome you to this quiet retreat.” Brickhaven’s owners are Phyllis and Ed Thiemann. The Thiemanns have long been at odds with the Columbia River Gorge Commission and with Multnomah County officials, who help enforce the federal Columbia Gorge act. Since its passage in 1986, the scenic act has sharply restricted commercial activities within the gorge. In 1997, records show, the Thiemanns sought permission from Multnoma h

County to operate their home as a B&B. That’s an allowed use in the gorge, but holding events—such as fundraisers and weddings—is not. Minutes from a 2003 Gorge Commission meeting noted “even though events at Brickhaven have been blocked by Multnomah County, they have been happening anyway.” According to his tort claim, Kennedy joined Multnomah County on Dec. 30, 2013, as a probationary employee. In the middle of 2014, he was assigned to investigate complaints about Brickhaven. “Kennedy learned that Brickhaven’s owner was holding events that violated Brickhaven’s strict operating permit,” his tort claim notice says. “ Kennedy obta ined a list of specific dates and events going back several years—this list included a number of political fundraisers. After Brickhaven’s owner affirmed the activities had taken place, Mr. Kennedy issued a notice of volcont. on page 8 Willamette Week JANUARY 21, 2015 wweek.com

NEWS

POLITICS

untary compliance, seeking to end the unlawful events.” That’s when things starting going bad for Kennedy—and, he says, political pressure from McKeel and her office kicked in. “Diane McKeel’s chief of staff, Eric Zimmerman, called Mr. Kennedy to angrily demand an explanation as to why he had sent the compliance notice,” the tort claim says. “Zimmerman admitted he knew about the unlawful activities at Brickhaven because a number of the events for which Brickhaven had been cited were political fundraisers both he and Commissioner McKeel had attended.”

MCKEEL SAYS HER HUSBAND GOT NO SPECIAL TREATMENT WHEN HE CONTACTED COUNTY OFFICIALS OVER A LAND-USE ISSUE.

In June, records show, Kennedy emailed justification for his enforcement action to Zimmerman. The Thiemanns proceeded with a wedding planned at the B&B on July 12 despite the warning, and Kennedy then issued Brickhaven a $750 fine. Kennedy says the fine prompted Zimmerman to place a “furious” phone call to Kennedy’s boss, county planning director Karen Schilling. In his tort claim, Kennedy says Schilling told him about Zimmerman’s call. “Ms. Schilling confi rmed to Mr. Kennedy that he had handled the issue appropriately, but also stated that Brickhaven’s owner had gone directly to Commissioner McKeel’s office in an attempt to avoid the sanction.” Zimmerman declined to comment on specifics of Kennedy’s allegations. “Because our district is rural, we get more constituents with land-use issues,” Zimmerman says. “We just want to make sure that county policies are followed.”

HEADOUT P. 25

Willamette Week JANUARY 21, 2015 wweek.com

Brickhaven co-owner Phyllis Thiemann corroborates some of Kennedy’s story. She says she and McKeel are longtime friends whose paths have often crossed. While McKeel ran the chamber of commerce, Thiemann was marketing manager for the city of Cascade Locks and president of the Columbia River Gorge Visitors Association. Thiemann and her husband held two political gatherings for McKeel at Brickhaven and also held fundraisers for other elected officials there. Thiemann recalls that Kennedy wrote a letter last year notifying her that no more events could be held at the bedand-breakfast. But Thiemann says she’d already agreed to host a wedding for the grandson of the man who built Brickhaven. Despite the county’s warning letter, Thiemann says, she went ahead with the event. She says the gorge act is too restrictive. “The enforcement’s gotten really stupid,” she says. The B&B owner says she forwarded emails from Kennedy to McKeel’s office and has complained to the commissioner about the county’s overzealous regulation. “I did call her office about this,” Thiemann says. “She’s asked all the community to let her office know when a landuse issue comes up.” Thiemann says she was unaware Kennedy had been fired, however, and that she had nothing to do with it. “The nicest person to me throughout this whole process was Michael Kennedy,” she says. Thiemann says she wonders if the real issue might be between him and his supervisors. “I felt like he was the one trying to get to the bottom of the mess,” Thiemann says. “I guess he must have stepped on somebody’s toes in the land-use office.”

Willamette Week JANUARY 21, 2015 wweek.com

tranSportation p h oto s b y w w s ta f f

NEWS

NOAH ERNST THE SPOKESMAN FOR A NEW COALITION OF PORTLAND CAB COMPANIES WORRIES ABOUT UBER AND WHAT DUMBED-DOWN TAXI RULES WILL MEAN FOR PORTLAND. By WW Staff

243-2122

Noah Ernst is hacked off. He’s been in the taxi business four years—first as a driver and now as a superintendent with employeeowned Radio Cab. He’s also the spokesman for a new lobbying group called the Transportation Fairness Alliance, a coalition of five cab companies aimed at making sure the city of Portland stands up to Uber. Uber extracted a deal from city officials last month that will allow it and other so-called ride-sharing companies to operate in Portland. Ernst and the cab coalition say they don’t fear Uber, even though the app-driven giant has squashed other towns’ taxi businesses. The coalition wants Uber, Lyft and other companies to live under the existing taxi rules in Portland. Last week, the coalition parked 50 cabs in Pioneer Courthouse Square to demand a say in the new taxi standards—something they say the city has so far denied them. WW: What are you looking for? Noah Ernst: We welcome fair, open, legal competition in the market. What we’re against is a different set of rules for companies that do the same exact thing that we do. Individuals using their own vehicles is not a new idea. It happened in the 1920s, in the 1940s and ErNST the 1970s. We can learn from those experiences. We don’t want a flooded market that becomes a race to the bottom in terms of safety. Such as? We do a vehicle inspection on a yearly basis. Ride-sharing companies will tell you they do inspections. The inspections are done at the local brake shop. They cost $12. If you’ve ever had work done on your car, how long does a mechanic work for $12? About five minutes. We see instances where people are driving Uber vehicles using somebody else’s phone and then attacking passengers. That’s happened. We’ve seen people who have passed the background check that have major felonies on their record. How is their background check different from your background check? I don’t know how they do their background checks. We have cameras in all our cars, forward-facing cameras, rear-facing cameras. Seems like a no-brainer thing in terms of protecting the public. You don’t have to worry 10

Willamette Week JANUARY 21, 2015 wweek.com

HELL ON WHEELS: Taxis jammed Pioneer Courthouse Square on Jan. 13 as cabbies protested what they fear will be Uber’s unjust takeover of the market. The protest was organized by the Transportation Fairness Alliance, a coalition of five local cab companies. “We feel that Uber has been very good at getting their message across,” says spokesman Noah Ernst. “They have a lot of money to throw at it. They hire publicists and lobbyists, right up to the former head of Obama’s campaign.”

about Radio Cab saying that we apologize that we took you on an inefficient route or when an Uber driver rapes you in a parking lot. Also, it protects the drivers. We had drivers who had guns and knives pulled on them. Are you concerned about who gets served when Uber comes to town? The disabled, the people who are taking short trips from supermarkets, people who live in areas that might be underserved—we’re required to take all those people. Those people are not always profitable fares for us as a company. Wheelchair vans are expensive to purchase. Let’s say someone from Uber were sitting across from you. What question would you ask them? What regulations, specifically, do you think are these outdated, antiquated regulations that you shouldn’t have to comply with? What we hear is a very broad general statement: These regulations are antiquated. These regulations are protectionist. These are regulations we shouldn’t have to comply with. And I would ask them: If your insurance is as good as what we’re required to provide, then what is the problem with complying with the regulation? If your background checks are as good as the background checks done here, why do you have a problem with your drivers getting a driver permit in the city of Portland? It’s not just about wanting to protect real, living-wage jobs for working-class people. We would object to a broad open market with an unlimited number of cabs. I don’t think that leads to public safety. You say you can handle competition. But taxi companies protested 50 licenses to Union Cab in 2012—cabbies circling City Hall honking their horns angrily. [The city of Portland] has told us how many cabs we can have. Often, they have done it in a way that we think makes very little sense. We have companies who’ve shown a large rider base, a large number of calls and dispatched orders, asking for additional cabs. Instead, cabs will be awarded to some other company

“I could buIld houses very quIckly and very cheaply If you removed all the buIldIng-code regulatIons.”

based on the ethnicity of the people who are forming the company, or based on some other criteria. I’m just saying when we look at the reasons permits were issued, it often has very little to do with helping the cab companies actually serve their customers. City Hall is looking at lifting many rules that govern your industry. Doesn’t that untie your hands? If you do it in a way that compromises public safety, that’s not good for us as an industry, it’s not good for fares, it’s not good for customers. I tell people, as an analogy, that I could build houses very quickly and very cheaply if you removed all the building-code regulations and you didn’t require me to have inspections. One idea is to get rid of metered rates. It’s a terrible idea. The meters were not put in cabs to protect the drivers. Meters were put into cabs to protect the public from price-gouging. Uber [uses] surge pricing, which is not 5 more cents or 10 more cents or 30 more cents. It’s multiple dollars above fare-base rate. The meter rate is determined by the city of Portland, not by us. When you get in a cab, you pay the same price when it’s 2 in the morning and everybody wants a cab as you pay at 1 in the afternoon when nobody wants a cab. Nobody’s getting rich. WW interns Anna Walters and Gabriella Dunn contributed to this story.

NEWS

RONITPHOTO.COM

SCHOOLS

DANCING AROUND RACE: The Jeﬀerson Dancers performed Jan. 19 at a Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration. Some Jeﬀerson High students say it doesn’t make sense that a majority-black high school has a mostly white dance troupe.

SIDESTEPPED WHY ARE THE JEFFERSON DANCERS— FROM PORTLAND’S MAJORITY-BLACK HIGH SCHOOL—MOSTLY WHITE? BY BE T H S LOV I C

bslovic@wweek.com

The Jan. 19 Martin Luther King, Jr. Day celebration at Northeast Portland’s Highland Christian Center had all the trappings of a typical commemoration for the civil rights leader. Crowds filled the pews as Mayor Charlie Hales spoke of ending racial injustice. Church groups sang gospel songs. And dancers from Jefferson High School, Oregon’s only majorityblack high school, performed an African dance. But for many Jefferson students, parents and alumni, one thing stuck out—15 of the 19 Jefferson Dancers were white. “It’s confusing,” says Carolyn Brown, a 1963 Jefferson graduate. “You go, ‘What’s wrong with this picture?’” That’s a question Jefferson’s Black Student Union is asking, too. This school year, Portland Public Schools imposed a new policy that was supposed to make the dance troupe better reflect the makeup of Jefferson itself. It hasn’t worked—even though there are plenty of African-American students from Jefferson who want to dance. “The dance program does not create dancers,” says Lauren Steele, a 17-year-old senior and Black Student Union member. “It takes dancers from elsewhere and shows them off.” Give us a few years, says Steve Gonzales, the troupe’s artistic director since 1999 and a Jefferson Dancer from 1983 to ’86. “Do I want a more diverse company?” he says. “Absolutely.” The Jefferson Dancers formed in 1979 as the Northeast Portland high school prepared to launch an arts magnet program. At first, only Jefferson students could join the troupe. But eventually Jefferson’s enrollment plummeted. The school district made a switch: Starting in the mid-1990s, dancers could attend other high schools, then travel to Jefferson just for dance practice. Under that policy, the Jefferson Dancers included students from wealthier, whiter schools. Community activists started to notice. At a Martin Luther King Jr. celebration in the early 2000s, Lakeitha Elliott, a 1994 Jef-

ferson graduate, overheard an audience member say, “Jefferson Dancers? They look like the Jefferson Dalmatians—almost all white with a couple of black spots.” In 2008, PPS toyed with reinstating the requirement that Jefferson Dancers go to Jeff full time. But the district only recently phased it in. Another change was altering the makeup of Jefferson. In 2011, PPS launched a program with Portland Community College, allowing Jefferson students to earn college credit. Jefferson became whiter. Its white enrollment grew from about 13 percent for most of the past decade to 19 percent today. Most of the dancers are transfer students. Several students likened the shift to neighborhood gentrification. To get in, dancers have to pass a rigorous audition in a range of styles, including ballet, tap and modern. The students who succeed often have had dance training from an early age, making it difficult for neighborhood students who lack that leg up to compete, students say. Mary Folberg, the troupe’s founder and director until 1992, says the company looks for experience in its dancers regardless of race. “The years that I had a large number of black kids, some school administrator would be on my case because I didn’t have enough white dancers,” she says. “And the years I had a majority of white dancers, I’d be criticized for not having enough black dancers. All that is so political.” Jefferson has a second-tier troupe, Jefferson Dancers 2, which is supposed to give students who don’t make it into the top troupe a chance to improve. Students say the racial makeup of two groups perfectly illustrates the problem. The principal group is predominately white. The second group is predominately black. “They’re not taking the existing, amazing black dancers from our school,” says Aliemah Bradley, a 15-year-old sophomore. “They’re saying ‘Oh, you’re not ready,’ but why aren’t they?” Gonzales says that’s not the full picture. Some students elect to try out only for the second troupe because it requires a smaller time commitment. “The only divide right now is based on training,” he says. “It has nothing to do with race.” Bradley says part of the problem is that the Jefferson Dancers place great emphasis on classical dance, such as ballet, at the expense of other forms, like hip-hop or African dance. She says that’s a slap in the face. “It says to students, ‘We don’t value what you bring to the table,” she says.

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J O N AT H A N M A U S

A PORTLAND RADICAL GETS BANISHED BY THE GROUP HE ONCE LED. BY AA RO N M E S H

amesh@wweek.com

yrd Jasper sat at the center of concentric circles of folding chairs in the Musicians Local 99 Union Hall. More than 50 people— most of them part of the Portland activist community—gathered Jan. 6 and sat in the rows radiating out from Jasper. The hush was so complete that every rustle of spandex bicycle pants seemed loud. Jasper had brought them together. Nine days earlier, the 21-year-old grocery-store cook had posted on Facebook, claiming to be the victim of sexual and emotional abuse by a man named Hart Noecker. Noecker, 34, is one of the most recognizable figures in Portland’s activist community, a newsmaking leader in marches that jammed city streets to protest police violence and support progressive causes. Noecker was not in the room, but he was in effect on trial, in absentia. When Jasper spoke, men stared at the floor and women brought their hands to their mouths. Jasper told of being beaten, choked and raped by Noecker two weeks earlier. Most in the room had never seen anything like it: public allegations so personal, so violent. Jasper had not yet gone to police but had detailed the allegations in Multnomah County Circuit Court, seeking a restraining order against Noecker. In the filing, Jasper described the alleged rape and a fear that Noecker posed a threat to Jasper’s safety. Noecker has not been charged with a crime and is fighting the restraining order. What happened next—and what has happened to Noecker since then—became an improvised sort of justice that was as swift as it was subjective. Jasper’s allegations set loose a series of unexpected events that have roiled the radical groups that have become as much a part of Portland’s identity as food carts, beards and bicycles. The drama played out on Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr for anyone with an Internet connection to see. Noecker’s onetime allies have

publicly denounced him and erased him from their movements. He has been, in the words organizers use at meetings and on Facebook, “purged” from activist circles. Noecker had used the Internet as a weapon in his activism. Now he found it turned against him. WW asked Noecker to comment for this story. Through his attorney, Noecker tells WW he is innocent. “He denies wrongdoing,” says lawyer Jay Bodzin of Portland firm Bodzin Donnelly Mockrin & Slavin. He says Noecker—given the allegations that circulated on the Internet—has been advised not to speak out. “Someone accused of criminal conduct can’t get into details in a public forum, no matter how much they may want to,” Bodzin says. At the heart of these activist movements is not only the desire to rebel against authority, but a belief that society can be just. Portland’s activists protest on behalf of the powerless, women, black men and sexual minorities. Their idealism is sometimes messy and perhaps even naive, but their refusal to accept injustices silently speaks to a quality that sets this city apart from many others. They also distrust police and the courts. How they dealt with Noecker has become an improvised justice system of their own making, one that condemned him without getting his side of events. Portland’s protest community is grappling with an awful realization of hypocrisy: A leader may have committed exactly the kind of behavior they protest against, and others might have quietly tolerated it. “We’re reeling,” says Janice Leber, a 40-year veteran of protest movements who has known Noecker for years. “We’re still trying to work out how in the world to prevent this type of behavior in the future without squelching every bit of spontaneity and joy out of local activism.” CONT. on page 15

Willamette Week JANUARY 21, 2015 wweek.com

cont.

PURGED

n the summer of 2012, about 20 cyclists set off from the east end of the Steel Bridge on a 6-mile evening ride through Portland. Along the way, the cyclists, members of an activist group called PDX Bike Swarm, handed out fliers and stickers, stopping at surprise locales chosen by the ride’s leader, Hart Noecker. PDX Bike Swarm had grown from the Occupy Portland camps that took over two Portland parks 10 months earlier. The group, loosely organized on Facebook, attracted people who believed polluting, city-clogging cars could be defeated one person at a time. Leber recalls the trip ended around sunset at tiny Piccolo Park near Southeast Clinton Street. Noecker told the riders this green space would have been destroyed by the proposed Mount Hood Freeway had neighborhood leaders not stopped the project in the 1970s. “He gave a little speech about how people power stopped the highway project,” Leber tells WW. “It was a pretty wonderful evening.” Few people on the ride knew Noecker well. He’d appeared around activist groups only months before. No one was sure where he’d come from. Yet Noecker seemed a natural fit. Five-foot-8 and wiry, he showed up with a bicycle messenger’s cap and a camera—a perfect way to document the spontaneous gatherings. He was proud of the body he’d honed from riding: He wore cutoffs to show off his chiseled legs. “He had lots of energy,” says Nicholas Caleb, an original member of the PDX Bike Swarm. “We didn’t share a lot of personal details. He didn’t offer, and I never asked.” Noecker was raised near Lansing, Mich., and went to school in nearby St. Johns. His father was a schoolteacher, and Hart showed artistic talents at an early age. “He would draw stories first, then write them out,” recalls his mother, Jane Schneider. “Most people would do it the other way around.” After graduating from high school in 1998, Noecker attended a few community college classes. He worked as a restaurant cook but dreamed of becoming a filmmaker. In 2005, he drove a used Honda to Portland to attend the Northwest Film Center’s School of Film—a four-year program that would let him shoot movies on 35 mm celluloid. He released two short films. One was a video diary of his travels to mountains and deserts. The other, titled NYX, was a drama about a young woman who moonlights as a prostitute until she’s blackmailed. In Michigan, Noecker had shown little interest in activism. But his mother saw a change when Noecker told her he’d gotten rid of his Honda. “He donated it to charity and rode a bike,” Schneider says. She says Noecker now uses only bicycle and public transit—both for convenience and out of the principle of helping the environment. “When I visit him in Portland, I don’t ride a car out there,” she says, “I rent a bike.” Noecker had arrived at a quintessentially Portland intersection, where bicycles and social-justice campaigns meet. He plunged into bicycle culture, joining events like Pedalpalooza. Groups such as PDX Bike Swarm rejected the notion of formal leaders, but Noecker emerged as a prominent player. He posted regularly on two blogs—Rebel Metropolis and Mismanaging Perception—where he raged against highway projects and water fluoridation. He wrote for more mainstream sites, like BikePortland and BlueOregon, taking strong stances against the Columbia River Crossing and Portland Mayor Charlie Hales. “He positioned himself as an important and vital part of the community,” says an activist who dated Noecker last year and who asked WW to identify her only by her first and middle names, Katherine Rose. “Fantastic use of language. Massive amounts of photographs. I thought Hart was a doer, as opposed to people who talked the talk. He documented himself walking the walk.”

oon, Noecker surfaced as one of the city’s highestprofile provocateurs on a range of issues. In March 2013, the establishment Oregon League of Conservation Voters held a forum to boost support for a state carbon

top: vIvIan johnSon, bottom: janIS leber.

SWARM WARNING: PDX Bike Swarm (above) emerged at the 2011 Occupy Portland protests. Hart Noecker (below center, with sunglasses) became an organizer of the group.

“everyone needS to tell everyone that he haS been purged.” —nathan jones, on facebook tax, attended by then-Rep. Jules Bailey (D-Portland). Ironically, Bailey had been a backer of the Columbia River Crossing’s massive freeway expansion, a project many activists believed only encouraged more driving and that the OLCV had not fought hard enough to stop. Noecker interrupted the event, approaching the panel and handing Bailey a prank certificate called the “Cars Rejuvenating Carbon” award. The framed award cited Bailey for “courageously increasing the carbon and car capacity of the Columbia River Crossing freeway expansion mega-project.” Noecker read it aloud, and asked the audience to join him in mock applause. But other activists saw warning signs. As early as 2013, women posted on Web comment threads that Noecker allegedly was a “manarchist”—a man who takes part in activist movements but doesn’t take seriously the views of women. Members of PDX Bike Swarm sent him packing— for a while. “He was pushed out of the group after about six months of involvement for manipulative behavior and

disrespecting individuals,” says organizer Nathan Jones. “Then he came back.” “Three members of Bike Swarm told me they felt I was no longer welcome for personal reasons,” Noecker said in an email in response to WW’s questions. “This was not a group decision. In 2014 after becoming dormant, Bike Swarm held a meeting and decided it wanted to continue with my involvement. I chose to again be a part of this group.” Noecker made a point of outing people he believed might be undercover police trying to spy on protest movements. In October 2013, Noecker supported the public shaming and shunning of a local activist named Vahid Brown, a 36-year-old protester who that summer had joined protests against fossil-fuel exports. Activists learned that Brown—a respected author on radical jihadi movements—had once taught counterterrorism courses to FBI agents at the Combating Terrorism Center in West Point, N.Y. Based on that information alone, an anonymous blogger accused Brown of being an FBI mole (“Whack-a-Mole,” WW, Oct. 23, 2013). Brown denied being a snitch. Noecker told WW he did not write the anonymous post outing Brown, but he defended it. “There’s too much of a risk to have someone around who not only worked for the FBI but trained them,” he said. Brown says people emailed him in the week after the allegations, telling him Noecker was posting a flier detailing Brown’s FBI links. “Hart was active in trying to get the word out,” Brown tells WW now. “But I don’t know what role he had in making that flier. No one’s ever claimed responsibility for it.” Noecker played a public role in Portland protests over the killing of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown by a white Ferguson, Mo., police officer, Darren Wilson. In November, Noecker was the first activist to find and display screenshots of three Portland Police Bureau officers changing their Facebook profile pictures to a PPB badge wrapped in a bracelet reading “I am Darren Wilson.” Noecker’s reporting of the Facebook pages—which the news media picked up—led then-Police Chief Mike Reese to call the images “inflammatory” and order an internal investigation. A week later, police arrested Noecker and nine other protesters during a Nov. 30 march through downtown cont. on page 16 Willamette Week JANUARY 21, 2015 wweek.com

cont. rachelle hacmac

“Now and then we had a hope that if we lived and were good, God would allow us to be pirates” ~Mark Twain

PURGED

A coming of age surf adventure Available now at Powell’s Books and Online at Amazon.com Pier Rats: A Novel on FB

CALL-OUT: Byrd Jasper has alleged being sexually abused by Hart Noecker during a three-week relationship in December.

streets. Police charged him with disorderly conduct. They later dropped the charge. “They ran after people and were hitting people with their batons,” Noecker told KGW-TV. “I was hit seven or eight times on the back myself, and I was on the sidewalk at that time.” Activists claimed that—because Noecker had become such a prominent critic of cops—police had targeted him.

GUS MODERN

n Dec. 9, Mayor Charlie Hales agreed to talk with leaders of the Don’t Shoot Portland protests. Dozens of activists showed up, including Noecker and Byrd Jasper, a Zupan’s Markets cook and caterer who had joined the demonstrations in August. (WW does not disclose the names of victims of sexual violence. Jasper agreed to allow WW to print the name Jasper uses publicly; it’s not Jasper’s legal name. Born a woman, Jasper also asked WW not to use gender pronouns, because Jasper does not identify as male or female.) Jasper, who graduated from Cleveland High School, attended a protest for the first time at age 14. At 18, Jasper got caught shoplifting clothes from Macy’s, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor theft and had the charge dismissed after doing community service. Jasper took classes at Portland Community College and is now pursuing a cosmetology degree from Aveda Institute Portland. Jasper had seen Noecker at previous protests, and was drawn to him. “He spoke to me like there was so much about activism I could learn from him,” Jasper says. A day after meeting at City Hall, Jasper and Noecker met at downtown’s Yamhill Pub, and Noecker invited Jasper to his apartment. They spent two nights there, watching documentaries about dam removal and graffiti, and having sex. “I felt very comfortable,” Jasper says. “He spoke a language I was very familiar with. His résumé was great.” Jasper says they agreed to some elements of dominant/submissive sexual play. But on Dec. 20, Jasper says, Noecker forced Jasper to have anal sex. Still, Jasper stayed in the relationship. “I really believed him to be a good guy who didn’t realize he was enacting violence,” Jasper says. “I thought if I were to tell anyone what had happened to me, I would be the odd man out.” On Dec. 27, Jasper says, Noecker choked Jasper during sex and talked about having anal sex again. “I was face-down,” Jasper alleges to WW, “being choked, and afraid.” Jasper didn’t go to police, but would later describe the allegations in a petition for a restraining order against Noecker. cOnt. on page 20

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Thank you Willamette Week For defending freedom of speech

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PURGED

CONT.

“He anally raped me, threatened to do it again, told me he could shove a rag down my throat and duct tape it there faster than I would be able to scream,” Jasper wrote in the restraining order petition. “[He] threatened to beat me until I couldn’t sit, continued to call and text me after I left his house [and] physically threatened me if I did choose to leave his house.” Noecker denies Jasper’s allegations. WW repeatedly asked Noecker for comment on this story, and provided him a list of allegations. He responded primarily through his attorney. “This is not intended as any sort of rape apologism,” his attorney, Jay Bodzin, tells WW. “Sexual violence is abhorrent. He contends the allegation is false.”

fter that final night with Jasper, Noecker the next day helped organize “Cop-Free Christmas,” a police-violence protest at the Peacock Lane holiday-light display in Southeast Portland. A YouTube video shows demonstrators—mostly white—singing parody carols, including one with the lyrics, “Deck the halls with rows of dead cops.” Angered by the stunt, Don’t Shoot Portland organizers, most of whom are African-American, distanced themselves from Noecker. But Noecker’s downfall didn’t really start until the next afternoon, when Jasper took a smoke break while working at Zupan’s to post a Facebook update. “This is going to be a call out,” Jasper wrote Dec. 28, using the activist term for seeking to hold someone accountable. “I have gone over the past three weeks in my head so many times trying to make sense of what happened but I know it wasn’t safe[,] sane or consensual.” Jasper named Noecker but wasn’t specific in the allegations about his actions. “On several occasions he got me wasted and either did things I had said a hard ‘no’ to or told me of his

Willamette Week JANUARY 21, 2015 wweek.com

“MY QUESTION REMAINS, WHY DID SO MANY DUDES TOLERATE HIS BEHAVIOR TOWARD WOMEN?” —JANICE LEBER intentions to do them in the future.” Four days later, Jasper repeated the charges on Tumblr, this time describing Noecker’s alleged behavior as “rape, abuse, manipulation, coercion and threats.” Jasper sought the restrain order Dec. 30 but didn’t pursue criminal charges. Jasper says going to the police conflicted with “my anarchist values” and says sending Noecker to jail was never Jasper’s goal. “My intention here is not to make him miserable,” Jasper tells WW. “My intention is to bring to light what he’s done so he can get help and be a better person.”

asper’s decision not to go to the police with the allegations set off what can be described as an improvised pursuit of justice. Within hours, Jasper’s Facebook post was shared on a PDX Bike Swarm page, and at least three women wrote about their uncomfortable experiences with him. Some of the women agreed to meet, and they held something of a trial of Noecker at the Musicians Local 99 Union Hall on Jan. 6. PDX Bike Swarm leaders invited anyone who had information about Noecker to attend. Jasper and eight women who had stories to tell faced each other in a small circle called the “survivors’ fishbowl.” In front of 50 people gathered that night, six women told of sexual encounters with Noecker they acknowl-

edged were consensual but talked about Noecker’s alleged emotional abuse and pushy behavior regarding sex. Only Jasper described what, if true, would amount to sexual assault. “As each person’s testimony became known, the pattern became obvious and familiar,” Leber, who was there that night, tells WW. “These people who did not know each other could finish each other’s sentences. They pulled something really ugly out into the light and forced us all to look at it unflinchingly. It was pretty brutal, and we took our medicine.” PDX Bike Swarm members stayed late and decided that banning Noecker was necessary to make the group safe for women. Noecker soon found himself the target of a public shaming not unlike those he had encouraged against others. “Warn people near him, anyone you see associating with him either in person or online,” Nathan Jones wrote on the PDX Bike Swarm Facebook page Jan. 7 announcing Noecker had been shunned. “Everyone needs to tell everyone that he has been purged, reinforce what has been done and why.” At a Jan. 10 meeting, leaders of Don’t Shoot Portland also announced Noecker was “purged from Portland activist communities,” according to a tweet. The next day, the Portland Right to the City Coalition—a group organizing a slate of left-wing candidates to run for City Hall in 2016—met and decided Noecker was barred there, too. Some people wanted to go further. On Jan. 12, PDX Bike Swarm organizer Tori Cole linked to Facebook two fliers that warned Noecker was a “sexual predator.” The fliers used Noecker’s mug shot from his arrest at the November police protest. Cole asked the people making the fliers to stop. “Absolutely continue to call Hart out, but this meme

PURGED LAURIEL ARWEN / CC-SA-BY

CONT. has the potential to mislead given the use of an unrelated mugshot,” Cole wrote. “The truth is powerful enough without any hyperbole.”

oday, members of PDX Bike Swarm say they are proud of how they dealt w ith Noecker, and do not regret acting outside the legal system. But many wonder why they didn’t act sooner when women complained about Noecker making them uncomfortable. “Even though I understand I didn’t do anything wrong, it’s hard not to feel guilt that I helped that happen in any way,” Leber says. “My question remains, why did so many dudes tolerate his behavior toward women?” Caleb—who took part in the expulsion of Noecker— says he’s spoken to Noecker and says he hasn’t reached any conclusions about what to believe. “Bike Swarm and Right to the City are not courts of law,” Caleb says. “We have different tools at our disposal. Creating a safe space is our primary agenda.” Katherine Rose, who accused Noecker online of inappropriate behavior, says she doesn’t feel sorry for him. “My mom’s horrified,” Katherine Rose says. “She’s like, ‘You’re going to get sued for libel.’ But he has a lot of people he’s going to have to sue for libel. And it’s more every day.” On Jan. 16, Jasper says, the attorney representing Jasper called Portland police and alleged that Noecker raped his client Dec. 20. Jasper was scheduled to meet with a domestic violence detective Jan 20. Noecker continues to deny he assaulted Jasper, and is fighting the restraining order against him requested by Jasper. “Mr. Noecker disputes the a llegations against him,” says Bodzin, his attorney, “and will be contesting the restraining order.” Jasper has told the court the order is necessary because, as Jasper wrote, “I have outed him as a rapist,

FLAT TIRE: Hart Noecker (in hoodie and shades) has been ostracized by at least four Portland activist groups since allegations against him surfaced Dec. 28.

and he is being exiled from our social circles and he is very angry with me and our friends right now.” On Jan. 15, activists from at least six groups gathered for another meeting, this time in the basement of St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church in Southeast Portland, to talk about what to do next. The activist groups shouldered blame for not speaking out sooner against Noecker. One young man in a stocking cap said activists

should look inside themselves and evaluate their own worst impulses. “You need to be killing the Hart in your head,” he concluded. “Not killing. Killing is too far. Smashing the Hart in your head.” WW interns Gabriella Dunn and Anna Walters contributed to the reporting of this story.

Willamette Week JANUARY 21, 2015 wweek.com

CULTURE

TV E v E ly n H a m i lt o n a n d t o m C H a m b E r l i n , 1 9 8 6

PILLARS OF PORTLANDIA HOW A PROTO-PORTLANDIA BASED ON A WW COLUMN TURNED INTO THE BIGGEST DEBACLE IN LOCAL TV HISTORY. By jay h o rTo n

243-2122

On Dec. 14, 1983, Portland was poised for TV greatness: America’s first regional soap opera. Portland station KOIN pre-empted regular CBS programming for a locally produced original movie, Pillars of Portland. Based on a WW column and filmed on a shoestring budget by a largely green crew (including a young Gus Van Sant), the debut got fawning press coverage from across the country. The front page of that morning’s Wall Street Journal anointed Pillars the harbinger of a coming boom in episodic regional TV ventures. “It may have been a television first for a network affiliate,” they wrote. “It was a very nervy thing.” But by that night, the director had disappeared, the producer remained in seclusion, and the writer-creator fell into a deep depression. Pillars of Portland was both our city’s first mass-media success and the greatest debacle in Portland television history. No one’s seen it since 1983. Few have even heard of it. But we found a copy, and we’ll be showing it for free at the Clinton Street Theater at 7 pm, Thursday, Jan. 22. Here’s is the story of Pillars of Portland, in the words of the people who made it. “‘Pillars of Portland’ was my weekly column for Willamette Week. The characters were stereotypes of their neighborhoods. Wes Hills belonged to the MAC club. Grant Parks worked at a bookstore. Al Ameda was a lawyer, a snob. Sandy Burnside was…very confused.” —Author Larry Colton, writer-creator of Pillars of Portland, Wordstock founder, WW columnist (1978-83) “Pillars was a fairly well-known commodity, but I was just told the show was going to have a bunch of crazy characters in Portland. And this is before Portland was Portlandia. There was no hipster cachet.” —Jeffrey Kauffman, jazz musician, Pillars of Portland composer “I got approached by [director] Tom Chamberlin and a woman named Evelyn Hamilton. She was a dilettante ready to put up money to get the project going.” —Colton “[Hamilton] had no experience as a producer, but she had a lot of money. If I remember correctly, Tom’s only professional credits came from directing a couple of those old Encyclopedia Britannica educational films they used to show in grade school.” —Kauffman “The idea was to shoot this two-hour pilot, and if it was good, then we would make it into a weekly show. In a way, it was cutting edge. No Hollywood actors. No Hollywood technicians. Why do you have to go to Hollywood to get the talent there? If we can do this here, you can do it in Omaha. So, we were thinking: We’ll franchise it!” —Colton “The film community was just taking off. The claymation movement was starting. But the community itself was pretty small. Numbers-wise, there were only maybe 10 people in town doing film and making a name for themselves.” —Actress Jane “Laurel Hurst” Ferguson 22

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“By Portland standards, this was bigger than Ben-Hur.” —Colton Based on a 20-minute pilot about group therapy that used Colton’s characters, local station KOIN agreed to put up some funding and allow use of its equipment. Money nonetheless remained scarce. “We sold site sponsorships: We’ll come and film a scene in your place if you pay us $5,000. We don’t know what the scene’s going to be, but we’ll make something up. After we sold a location spot to Franz, we had the character Laurel Hurst bring her ESL class on a field trip to the bakery accompanied by her estranged husband, Grant Parks, and he’s putting the moves on her while 30 Vietnamese kids in little Franz hats watched loaves of bread come down the chute.” —Colton “The whole thing was a case of the blind leading the blind. Tom had no idea how to direct. Evelyn had no idea how to produce. I had never scored anything near this level before and decided to just prerecord the music and stick it in where it fit. Nobody knew, excuse my French, what the fuck they were doing.” —Kauffman “This was the worst-run project in the history of art…. Tom decided we needed something at the Rose Festival, and once he got the camera and the crew and an actor—dressed all eccentric as Northwest hipster gadfly character Marshall Lovejoy III—we end up shooting a chase through the Fun Center. Nobody knew who Marshall Lovejoy was, we don’t know what he’s running from or if anyone’s even chasing him, but Tom thought it would be cinematically interesting. That was pretty much how everything went.” —Colton Some scenes were filmed at the compound of the cult leader Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh—a year before his lieutenant, Ma Anand Sheela, and other members of the cult committed America’s first bioterrorist attack by attempting to poison every salad bar in The Dalles with salmonella. “KOIN wanted me to see if we could do a nude scene at Rajneeshpuram. The bigshots were thinking maybe we can sell rights to HBO. So, up near Bhagwanville, two buses unload about a hundred Rajneeshee who take off their clothes, go out canoeing on the lake, cavorting around while we’re filming them.” —Colton “I got to play cards at the casino with the Rajneeshees’ second-in-command, sloe-eyed, raven-haired Sheela, who was lots of fun until she decided to start killing people.” —Mark Christensen, co-author of the 1984 book The Sweeps: Behind the Scenes in Network TV

The show made back its money, and received a 23 share—better than Family Ties and The Facts of Life—but reception was mixed from critics and the audience. “The day it aired, I went over to the house of the actor who played Grant Parks, and about an hour into the show, his neighbor comes out on the driveway and cups his hands together and yells, ‘Boooooring!’ That was the first hint I had that it was a disaster.” —Colton “Pillars is like a ball of multicolored yarn, gathering as it rolls willy-nilly down a hill. But it all unravels in the end.” —Kristi Turnquist, “The Pillars of Portland: Pros and Cons,” WW, Dec. 20, 1983 “The premise was group therapy. You’re gonna go follow a character and come back to group therapy, and then go out again. But the director made a decision right toward the end not to use the [therapy] scenes, so there was nothing connecting.” —Colton “I don’t remember any through line. It was just a mishmash of vignettes: a scene at a baseball game, a scene at a hot tub, a scene at Rajneeshpuram, a scene in my kitchen. It was trying to walk a line between serious topics like immigration and these ridiculous names! How can anyone take Laurel Hurst and Grant Parks seriously?” —Ferguson “I still think it was a great idea. We had an opportunity. It was right there in front of us, and we blew it.” —Colton “It was disheartening for a lot of people who had very high expectations. At the same time, when people get together to talk about Pillars of Portland, they’re always laughing— there was something crazy about that project.” —Ferguson “I didn’t stay very long [after the premiere]. Evelyn and I went to San Francisco to do a soap opera called In the Shade of the Gate. Then I went to Lucasfilm and worked on The Battle for Endor and Howard the Duck.” —Chamberlin “It got done. It was on prime-time TV, it got written up on the front page of The Wall Street Journal, and we paved the way for Portlandia. I keep waiting for Carrie Brownstein to call me up and say, ‘Thank you very much, you took the bullets for us.’ At least, let me have a walk-on cameo in the background. You know, some old guy sitting in the corner mumbling into his coffee: ‘I could have been somebody! My Pillars of Portland could’ve been the best thing ever!’” —Colton GO: Pillars of Portland will be shown at the Clinton Street theater, 2522 SE Clinton St. 7 pm thursday, Jan. 22. Free.

STREET

PICKIN’ & GRINNIN’ AT THE PORTLAND OLDTIME MUSIC GATHERING. Photos by b r ia n a Cer ezo wweek.com/street

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FOOD: Southern brunch at Muscadine. MUSIC: Willis Earl Beal goes off the grid. THEATER: Hans Christian Andersen in Detroit. MOVIES: Beyoncé has some people to thank.

27 37 47 54

SCOOP DUDE, PASS THE COUGH SYRUP.

#WW #SMOKIE: Send us your shots to appear in next week’s weed issue.

IT’S LIKE BUTTER: Sellwood is getting a butter bar. Owner Melinda Woller will open a small food market and counterservice spot called Buttercraft at 6664 SE Milwaukie Ave. in the former location of Norman’s Shoe Service. Along with wine, charcuterie and macarons, the shop will offer a selection of handcrafted butters, which will be made in-house. Buttercraft plans European-style butters with higher butterfat content, plus Sriracha-flavored butter, tea-infused butter, and butters with fruit flavors such as strawberry. It is projected to open in April. FUTURE DRINKING: Late-night sandwich-delivery shop Devil’s Dill—savior to munchie-addled stoners, drunks and exotic dancers throughout Southeast Portland—has applied to add a bar next door to its sandwich window. The No Fun Bar will seat 45 and is scheduled to be open from 5 pm to 3 am nightly. >> Skyline Tavern, which WW previously reported was for sale, seems to have found a new owner. Scott Ray Becker—a local filmmaker whose most recent public work was Black Dog Trilogy, a series of films about depression—is listed on a liquor-license application as new owner of the bar. BUDAPEST SWEEPS: Want to get a jump start on your Oscar betting pool? The Portland International Film Festival will screen two nominees for Best Foreign Language Film: Argentine social satire Wild Tales will open the festival Thursday, Feb. 5, while Mauritania’s Timbuktu—a drama about Islamic fundamentalism—plays later in the fest. The full schedule, to be released Friday, Jan. 23, will undoubtedly include many films with grizzled old people, loyal animals and plentiful nudity. TRANSNORTHWESTICISM: Dave Depper has one of the most extensive résumés of any musician in Portland, including stints with Ray LaMontagne, Fruit Bats and Robyn Hitchcock. Now, he’s landed his biggest gig yet: playing guitar for Death Cab for Cutie. Last week, the emo luminaries announced a surprise show at a club in their hometown of Seattle, and that Depper would be joining the tour in place of longtime guitarist Chris Walla, who left the group last year. “This band has been a huge part of my life for a long time,” Depper wrote on Facebook, “and the opportunity to play music I love with some of the best people on Earth is basically the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to me.” Death Cab’s eighth album, Kintsugi, which features Walla’s final contributions, comes out March 31. SMOKIE: Wanna have your photo in next week’s pot issue? Smoke some weed, snap a selfie, and post the photo to Instagram or Twitter with the tags #WW and #smokie.

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HEADOUT L O VAT O O

WILLAMETTE WEEK

WHAT TO DO THIS WEEK IN ARTS & CULTURE

WEDNESDAY JAN. 21 AESOP ROCK WITH ROB SONIC [INDIE RAP] Bestiary, the second album from the Def Jux rappers’ Hail Mary Mallon project, is full of pithy satire, granting Rob Sonic a new platform to gripe about money grubbers and “these bedeviling times.” The collaboration isn’t likely to garner the attention another Def Jux artist recently sparked, but it’s a banger nonetheless. Hawthorne Theatre, 1507 SE Cesar E. Chavez Blvd., 233-7100. 7 pm. $20. All ages.

THURSDAY JAN. 22 RUSSELL MALIPHANT COMPANY [DANCE] British dancer and choreographer Russell Maliphant started his career perfecting arabesques and pirouettes at the Royal Ballet School. These days, he blends things like tai chi and capoeira with classical technique, as well as exquisite lighting and video animation. Lincoln Hall, 1620 SW Park Ave., 245-1600. 8 pm. $25-$30.

FRIDAY JAN. 23 ECCENTRIC SOUL: A NUMERO GROUP DANCE NIGHT [DEEP FUNK] Sometimes referred to as the “Funk Archaeologist,” Dante Carfagna has scoured the world’s vinyl bins for rare, esoteric R&B records, which he’s compiled for revival label Numero Group’s Eccentric Soul series. Tonight, he shares from his personal collection. Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison St., 2397639. 9 pm. $5. 21+.

MUPPET SEX

SATURDAY JAN. 24

THE WHOLE POINT OF MUPPET BURLESQUE IS TO GET YOU THINKING ABOUT IT. Everyone loves the Muppets. Then there are some people who love the Muppets. You see what I’m trying to say, son? When a Muppet and a Muppeteer love each other very much, they do a—a special kind of hug, OK? And the Muppeteer puts his—or her, or her—hand inside the Muppet, and something special happens. You know I want the best for you. Your mother and I both do. That’s why I put together this list of Muppets that some people find the most, ah, desirable. I’m not pressuring you—I don’t mean to pressure you. I’m just saying, if you are interested in Muppets, well, I pulled this stuff out of the cabinet in the garage, you know, the one I keep locked. These might be some things to…explore. While you explore yourself. I’m sorry! OK, OK, I’m leaving. Do you want me to shut the door? OK! Right. Leaving. Yeesh. JAMES HELMSWORTH.

Kermit

Gonzo

Sam the Eagle

He’s an assertive go-getter—he puts a whole show together every week. But he’s not arrogant, displaying his vulnerable side to the world in the show’s weekly anxieties and the—heh— seminal hit “(It’s Not Easy) Bein’ Green.” Oh, to feel those skinny green arms holding you tight at night.

Look at the size of that— uh, nose.

Who doesn’t love a man in uniform?

Statler and Waldorf

The Swedish Chef

Animal The wild intensity, the reckless abandon. And yet he has metronomic timing and an artist’s heart. Animal is sure to exhaust your body while nourishing your spirit.

Janice She plays guitar. Enough said.

Some people like a little bit of sour with their sweet. This pair is famous for being mean, but that could be just what you need. A must for those whose most-Googled terms include “mature” and “threesome.”

Rowlf the Dog Soft and squeezable for the most part, and hard and squeezable where it counts. What a dog.

Beaker It seems like he’s shaped… like something else. Here’s hoping he has some control over those explosions.

COFFEE BEER INVITATIONAL [CAFFEINATED BEER] Coﬀee, beer and Bud Clark’s bar—all together. It’s like beer’s answer to vodka Red Bull, but awesome. Make a beeline for the Weizendoppelbock with cocoa nibs and a cherry from Pints. Goose Hollow Inn, 1927 SW Jeﬀerson St., 228-7010, goosehollowinn.com. Noon. $15 entry and eight tasters.

ENTER THE NIGHT [THEATER] Portland Experimental Theatre Ensemble, known for staging some of the more adventurous work in town, presents a play by the proliﬁc but rarely produced Cuban-born playwright Maria Irene Fornes. Here, three friends navigate big issues—gender, sexuality, love, death—in formally spare ways. Shaking the Tree, 823 SE Grant St., petensemble.org. 7:30 pm. $15-$40.

You better believe he’s giving you a massage ﬁrst and making brunch in the morning. And all that hair. Rrrrrll.

Sweetums He’s got those big, soft lips. And he’s 9 feet tall.

Miss Piggy She’s aggressive? She’s vain? You try being the one woman in the show’s central cast, and see how you like it. No, Miss Piggy knows what she wants, and will karate-chop as many people as it takes to get it.

TUESDAY JAN. 27 WILLIE WATSON [OLD CROW] Willie Watson solidiﬁed his old-time chops as a founding member of Old Crow Medicine Show before departing in 2011. On his solo debut, Folk Singer Vol. 1, he rehashes traditional American folk songs with an acoustic guitar, and under his quavering voice, many of the themes ring just as true as they did 100 years ago. Doug Fir Lounge, 803 E Burnside St., 231-9663. 8:30 pm. $15. 21+.

GO: Muppets Burlesque is at the Star Theater, 13 NW 6th Ave., on Thursday, Jan. 22. 9 pm. $15 advance, $20 at door, VIP passes $25-$125. 21+. Willamette Week JANUARY 21, 2015 wweek.com

GLOSSY MAGAzine

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WEDNESDAY, JAN. 21 No Wheat? No Sweat

A beer dinner without gluten. Bazi will play host to a dinner pairing Green’s gluten-free beers or a nice selection of ciders with a threecourse meal. Bazi Bierbrasserie, 1522 SE 32nd Ave., 234-8888. $29.

FRIDAY, JAN. 23

OVERACHIEVING: Belgian chocolate and bananas on a Liège waﬄe.

Baker & Spice Pie Day

Dude. Pie day. That’s, like, the best day. And Baker & Spice, which is a very good pie bakery, will oﬀer a sliver of apple pie and a cup of coﬀee for 50 cents. Baker & Spice, 6330 SW Capitol Highway, 244-7573.

SATURDAY, JAN. 24 NW Coffee Beer Invitational

Three of the most Portland things in Portland come together: coﬀee, beer and Bud Clark’s Goose Hollow Inn. Goddamn, this is a good festival. Goose Hollow Inn, 1927 SW Jeﬀerson St., 228-7010. Noon-7 pm. $15 admission includes a festival glass and eight taster tickets.

Where to eat this week. 1. Stella Taco 2940 NE Alberta St., 971-407-3705, stellatacopdx.com. Killer brisket tacos and margaritas, El Paso-style. $. 2. Pollo Norte 5427 NE 42nd Ave., 287-0669 Rotisserie chicken, green sauce, pinto beans, coleslaw. Perfect. $. 3. HK Cafe 4410 SE 82nd Ave., 771-8866. Dim sum’s brightest light. $-$$. 4. Umai Southeast 33rd Avenue and Hawthorne Boulevard, 502-4428, umaipdx.com. A hidden ramen cart with bold ﬂavor down to the noodles. $. 5. Eb & Bean 1425 NE Broadway, 281-6081, ebandbean.com. The rare froyo shop you’d make a trip for. $.

OFF THE WAFFLE A good corner has useful things. Not just pleasant things, such as a book-themed cafe with bad food and occasional poetry readings, or a twee Italian bistro with live acoustic-guitar music, but businesses that maintain a purposeful existence by serving their neighborhood what is wanted yet not in ample supply. Things such as waffles. So let’s all welcome Off the Waffle to Clinton Corner, a pleasant intersection that has nonetheless housed too many businesses short on utility. If you are not on that corner for wacky films, chances are you are there for brunch. And if you want weekend brunch at Broder, there is a giant line. And so, waffles. Mmmm, waffles. That’s what you start thinking upon encountering Off Order this: A waffle, topped with things you like. the Waffle’s logo, a Simpsons-esque Best deal: The O.G. is only $3. (grown-up Rod Flanders?) headshot I’ll pass: Omelets. that captures the sensibility of this sunny space, where walls are covered with artwork titled Sometimes She Was Still Gone When She Was Still There, agave syrup is the most popular coffee sweetener, and kindergartners wear bow ties while grown women wear pajama pants. The menu is mainly waffles—the best kind of waffles, Liège waffles, sometimes called Belgian waffles. This shop, the third in a chain that began in Eugene, makes a tasty version using brioche dough and imported pearl sugar. They’re not quite as sweet as what you get at Waffle Window—pay 75 cents for B-grade maple syrup— but they do have that crisp-bordering-on-crunchy outer layer a waffle appreciator appreciates in the Liège. What should you get on top? What do you like? The savory ones are legit meals—the Caprese ($8) is fortified by half an avocado and surprisingly pleasant out-ofseason tomato, and the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy ($8.50) drips yolk onto maple-kissed bacon—while the sweet ones deliver the midday sugar coma you presumably want when ordering the Overachiever ($5.25) with Belgian chocolate chips and ripe banana. The omelets are tiny, lightly fried and even more lightly stuffed, but they come with a waffle. Mmmm, waffles. So useful. MARTIN CIZMAR. EAT: Off the Waffle, 2601 SE Clinton St., 946-1608, offthewaffle. com. 8 am-8 pm daily.

DRANK

SIZZURP (CODEINE AND CRATER LAKE SODA)

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Willamette Week JANUARY 21, 2015 wweek.com

For a certain sect of Southern rappers, cough syrup is a recreational pastime on par with mint juleps at the Kentucky Derby or Busch Light at the Indy 500. In Portland, it’s a medical necessity for suppressing hacking fits brought on by a winter bug spreading at a rate Michael Crichton would find alarming. There’s one thing we can all agree on: Codeine tastes gross, but is fun. Perhaps too fun— Lil Wayne and Rick Ross have allegedly been hospitalized for seizures related to sippin’ on sizzurp. Thanks to Obamacare, I was able to get codeine for my mild case of pneumonia. And thanks to the Internet, I have a recipe for chopped and screwed sizzurp: a bottle of Sprite, 4 ounces of

codeine-and-promethazine-based cough syrup, and a pair of Jolly Rancher candies. Looking for local alternatives to Sprite, I got bottles of Hotlips lemon soda and Crater Lake Soda’s lemon-lime to try masking the cloying, bittersweet goop. Hotlips lemon soda would be fine with cheap gin, but it did very little to dilute the pungent flavor of the key ingredient. Crater Lake’s lemon-lime sizzurp, however, was a real treat—the grapefruit-pink liquid was smooth and effervescent, with a sugary aftertaste you wouldn’t mind taking with an espresso and a slice of tiramisu at a bistro with a pretentious name. Imagine a chilled glass of Fernet-Branca with a cherry Freeze Pop melted at the bottom. It’s no wonder the feeling that follows—a strange body buzz akin to being wine drunk and completely sober at once—launched a subgenre of rap devoted to creating the perfect soundtrack for being couch-locked and coughfree. PETE COTTELL.

FOOD & DRINK

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They’re cooked slowly enough to allow their natural flavor to come to the fore: rich and deep as an old gospel song, a testament to patience. The sea island red peas are spiced gently to let the BY M AT T H E W KO R F H AGE mkorfhage@wweek.com peas’ richness come through with just a tiny snap at the skin; the breakfast potatoes are cooked to Brunch and Southern fare are the twin towers of crisp edge with a beautifully soft center. MuscaAmerican comfort. Combine them, and you might dine is a place where texture is carefully attended as well be auditioning as somebody’s replacement to. The fried catfish ($13) is as simple as it gets, mom. That womblike nexus of hospitality, famil- with a light cornbread crusting and a thick, teniarity and salty, fatty ’Merica regularly fills Mon- der moistness rarely found in Portland-cooked tavilla’s Country Cat and East Burnside’s Screen catfish, which is often overwhelmed with breadDoor with a perplexing Babel of tourists who seem ing and spice, then overcooked. But the star of the menu is Rhoman’s own to have found the places in airline magazines. But new Southern brunch spot Muscadine invention: The cochon ($12) is intended as a seems poised less to resemble the efficient tribute to the gravy-soaked cochon de lait dish of butter-driven churn of Screen Door than North Acadiana, but more resembles a North Carolina Portland’s preciously cozy breakfast nook pulled-pork sandwich crossbred with eggs BeneSweedeedee. It’s a boutique brunchery serving up dict. Smoked pork is fried into a lightly crisped the SEC territory’s meats and threes along with fritter atop a bed of slaw, topped with a poached egg and the vinegar-mustard kick choice flavors culled from the huge of Carolina Gold barbecue sauce. swath of America bounded by the this: Cochon or It’s a parade of texture, with the Atlantic, the Appalachians and the Order catﬁsh, and some fried okra. acidic kick of pickled cabbage and open range: shrimp grits, andou- I’ll pass: The biscuits and mustard sauce offsetting the egg’s ille sausage, catfish and mustard gravy disappoint. unctuous richness and the smoky barbecue sauce. That said, for such pork. My God, it’s terrific. a sweetheart of a place, it arrives However, not everything hits those heights. on the scene branded as a carpetbagger, having plunked itself into the former space of well-loved The biscuits ($10), a staple for any Southernindie-rock bar Tiga. But Muscadine didn’t push styled spot, are thick, dense and doughy—a them out. Tiga placed an ad to sell its business combination that leads to a lot of chewing. The last May, chef Laura Rhoman says. andouille omelette ($11) is merely functional. The little room still feels like Tiga, except And the Nashville hot chicken ($13) isn’t. It’s the lights are brighter and there are nicer chairs a light wash of cayenne and paprika added to and tables. But Muscadine quickly distinguishes the surface, about as much heat as a milk bottle itself with some singular comforts, enough to placed in a warmer. claim the space for its own. Rhoman is a chef A more interesting accent is the fried okra with eight generations of family behind her in ($4). It’s a perfect thing: cornbreaded nuggets Tupelo, Miss., and a decade logged in the kitch- about the size of popcorn but 18 times as satens of famed Southern chefs like Scott Peacock isfying. Muscadine offers a succession of little and Martha Hall Foose. Those roots have left her surprises packaged as something familiar: a little fundamentally at ease with cuisine that travels warmth, a little care, a little house seasoning salt from the Carolina coastline to Appalachia and in the batter. As Southerners have always known, Acadiana (but never to Texas or Alabama). it’s the smallest gestures that texture a life. In particular, Rhoman’s collard greens are a revelation—not because she tarts them up with EAT: Muscadine, 1465 NE Prescott St., 841-5576, muscadinepdx.com. 8 am-2 pm Wednesdayheavy garlic and vinegar, but because she doesn’t. Monday.

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Willamette Week JANUARY 21, 2015 wweek.com

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Willamette Week JANUARY 21, 2015 wweek.com

ADVERTORIAL

ANIMALS

ARTS

COMMUNITY

EDUCATION

Willamette Week’s

Welcome to WW’s 2015 Volunteer Guide. The idea here goes something like this: You were generous financially with our 2014 Give!Guide. Now, as the new year begins, you may want to invest some of your valuable sweat equity in a local nonprofit, but you’re not sure where to start. That’s why we publish this guide, to help you further the causes you support and to help make Portland an even greater city than it is now: a city that works for everyone. More than 60 worthy nonprofits have identified their needs in the pages of this guide. If you can fill one of them, terrific! If you know someone else who can, point that person in the right direction.

CAT ADOPTION TEAM WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH: Make purr-

fect matches as an adoption counselor, foster a litter of kittens, represent CAT at events, provide daily care for shelter cats, assist clients or help with office tasks all while knowing your work saves lives. You’ll get paid in “cat currency”—cuddles and purrs! IDEAL VOLUNTEER: If you’re passionate

about cats and care about people, we need you. Whether you’re great at customer service, skilled with animals or excellent at data entry, we can fi nd a volunteer position that’s right for you. Bring your compassion and skills to CAT and help save lives! CONTACT: Nancy Puro

nancyp@catadoptionteam.org 925-8903, ext. 258 catadoptionteam.org

FIDO—FRIENDS INVOLVED IN DOG OUTREACH WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH: We are a

100 percent all-volunteer organization that helps seniors and low-income families keep their pets at home by providing food and other supplies. We need people to package and deliver pet food, help

with fundraising, and work in our warehouse Wednesday mornings. IDEAL VOLUNTEER: A warehouse

worker must be able to lift 50 pounds repeatedly to unload pallets. Drivers must be insured and able to pass a background check. The love of dogs and cats and the willingness to help others is a plus. No skills necessary, but being a team player is a must. CONTACT: Linda Cloud

animeals.clackamas@gmail.com 971-678-6940 fido-clackamas.org

MUST LOVE DOGS NW WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH: Must Love

Dogs NW is deeply committed to ending pet homelessness in our community. We strive to educate the public on responsible dog ownership, behavior modification and training assistance. We work to re-home dogs that are abused, neglected, homeless or about to be homeless, and those in shelter settings. We provide spay/ neuter and microchip assistance to animals in need. We are seeking volunteers interested in fostering dogs, as well as those with an interest in community outreach events, event planning, fundraising, grant writing or marketing. IDEAL VOLUNTEER: We are seeking volunteers who are confident, reliable,

SOCIAL ACTION

WELLNESS

YOUTH

4th Annual

compassionate and patient. Those interested in community outreach events and fostering must be comfortable speaking to the public and have experience with dogs, including basic handling skills. Volunteers interested in fostering must also have a fenced yard or an apartment, and the time and willingness to assist in any socialization or training a foster dog may need. Interested volunteers are asked to complete an application available atmustlovedogsnw.org. CONTACT:

incoming@mustlovedogsnw.com 866-990-3647 mustlovedogs.org

THE PIXIE PROJECT WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH: Volunteers

are the backbone of the Pixie Project. We are looking for volunteers in the following categories: veterinarians, veterinarian technicians, lobby greeters, event volunteers, kennel assistants, foster homes.

Let’s get started.

ANIMALS

ENVIRONMENT

IDEAL VOLUNTEER: We are looking for caring, responsible, reliable animal lovers who want to have a positive impact on the Portland community and our pets. CONTACT: volunteer@pixieproject.org

pixieproject.org

PROJECT POOCH, INC. WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH: Be a Project

POOCH ambassador! POOCH ambassadors raise awareness about our work and the importance of re-homing shelter dogs. We are looking for animal-loving individuals interested in staffi ng Project POOCH information tables at area pet stores, street fairs and farmers markets, as well as at outreach and fundraising events. IDEAL VOLUNTEER: The right person is friendly, outgoing and comfortable speaking with the public. You must be able to lift lightweight displays and be available evenings and weekends. If you love animals, have time to share and want to help homeless dogs in need, we’d love to hear from you! CONTACT: DeVida Johnson

devida@pooch.org 697-0623 pooch.org

ARTS DISJECTA CONTEMPORARY ART CENTER WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH: We have

many ways you can get involved with Disjecta, including positions as gallery attendants, exhibition workers, technical sound and lighting personnel, special-event staff, and event bartenders. IDEAL VOLUNTEER: Applicants should have a background or interest in contemporary art, studio art or arts education. Candidates should be prepared to make time commitments and attend an orientation. CONTACT: Jessica Nickel

volunteer@disjecta.org 286-9449 disjecta.org

Specific positions include: festival event staff, compilation-selection listeners, grant writers, fundraising and sponsorship coordinators, fi nance and media coordinators, Web developers and volunteer coordinators. IDEAL VOLUNTEER: A self-motivated professional with a passion for music and learning, who understands how to communicate thoughtfully while also efficiently managing his or her time. The desire to analyze any issue from a leadership perspective and personal commitment to proactively improving some aspect(s) of the organization. CONTACT: Beth Martin

pdxpopnow.com volunteer@pdxpopnow.com

VIBE OF PORTLAND WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH: Vibe of

NORTHWEST CHILDREN’S THEATER AND SCHOOL WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH: From usher-

ing at our Mainstage theatrical productions to assisting with fundraising efforts, our volunteers are a welcome and vital part of NWCTS. We have volunteer positions for the whole family, including distributing programs at our shows, selling concessions, ushering, checking tickets, work parties and more! IDEAL VOLUNTEER: Individuals and families who understand the importance of creative expression and education. Our mission at NWCTS is to educate, entertain and enrich the lives of young audiences. An ideal volunteer shares these values and is patient in a customer-service environment with children and adults alike. CONTACT: Kat Shepard

Portland is looking for teaching assistants in our Vibe @ School classes in North and Southeast Portland. Commitment is 1-3 hours weekly for an 8-week session. Duties include helping teaching artist, encouraging and helping students with projects, and positively impacting a child’s life through the arts. IDEAL VOLUNTEER: Our ideal volunteer has some background in either art or music (or both) and is excited about working with children and working with a local teaching artist to make our classes exciting and fun for all involved. One area of great need is volunteers with experience in ceramics. CONTACT: Laura Streib

info@vibepdx.org 503.560.3592

COMMUNITY BICYCLE TRANSPORTATION ALLIANCE WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH: Volunteers

kat@nwcts.org 222-2190 nwcts.org

PDX POP NOW! WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH: As an all-

volunteer organization, PDX Pop Now! owes its success to the many individuals who have generously and enthusiastically donated their time. Areas for involvement include administration, development, fi nance, art, marketing, technology and events.

strengthen the work of the BTA every day. Volunteers get involved by helping at events, assisting in the office, researching bike legislation, attending meetings, stuffi ng envelopes, leading community rides, fi xing bikes for our youth classes, and more. IDEAL VOLUNTEER: Ideal volunteers

should be interested in helping us create healthy, sustainable communities by making bicycling safe, CONT. on page 30

Willamette Week JANUARY 21, 2015 wweek.com

advertorial

CONTACT: Amanda Lee Harrison

amanda@btaoregon.org 226-0676x24 btaoregon.org

COMMUNITY VISION, INC. WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH: Community

Vision’s Home Ownership Independence Program hosts work parties throughout the year to accomplish home-based repair and house painting for individuals with disabilities living in their homes. We also host a large cycling event, Harvest Century, each September, and we need more than 200 volunteers for that one-day event. IDEAL VOLUNTEER: The ideal volunteer

for Community Vision would enjoy working with a small group of community volunteers, in three-to-fourhour increments to make a difference in the lives of people with disabilities in Portland. CONTACT: Valerie Plummer valerie@cvision.org 292-4964, ext. 124 cvision.org

COMMUNITY WAREHOUSE WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH: Sorting and

redistributing donated home goods to low-income folks in our community who are transitioning into stable housing. Volunteers also sell higherend, nonessential items in our retail stores. Additionally, volunteers help with special events and community outreach. We are Portland’s only volunteer-driven, nonprofit furniture bank. IDEAL VOLUNTEER: If helping low-

income folks find furniture and goods to outfit their homes, checking out the one-of-a-kind treasures before they go to our estate store, and meeting lots of great people sounds like your idea of the perfect day, then this is the volunteer gig for you! We need positive, friendly volunteers who want to make a difference in the lives of our neighbors in need. CONTACT: Jessica Thompson

jessica@communitywarehouse.org 891-7400 communitywarehouse.org

HANDS ON GREATER PORTLAND WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH: Tutor a child.

Clean books for low-income kids. Spruce up a school. Hands On Greater Portland makes it easy to connect with volunteer opportunities that fit your schedule and interests—and that empower you to make a meaningful, rewarding change in the Portland area. Check our online calendar to find a one-time project, or dive deep 30

and explore an issue that shapes our region. Hands On Greater Portland is a program of United Way of the Columbia-Willamette, which works to break the cycle of childhood poverty in our region. Volunteering is a great way to make a difference and change the odds for kids and families living in poverty. Do good. Find a volunteer opportunity now at handsonportland.org.

courtesy of project pooch

convenient and accessible. Skills necessary include good attitude, attention to detail, and an enthusiasm for our vibrant bicycling community. Possible opportunities include office volunteer nights, wrench on bikes, special-event assistance, commuter stations, and outreach events. Join us and help make an impact for better cycling in Oregon. Visit btaoregon.org/join/#volunteer for more information.

IDEAL VOLUNTEER: All volunteers are

welcome! Most of our opportunities do not require prior experience. Special opportunity: Do you want to grow your leadership skills? Consider becoming a volunteer leader. You’ll take responsibility for one of the projects on our calendar and help other volunteers have a fulfilling experience. CONTACT: Dannon Raith dannon@handsonportland.org 200-3373 handsonportland.org

JOIN WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH: Volunteers

can (1) help in the JOIN Basic Service Center, open Monday through Friday, 10am-3pm; (2) help with administrative tasks like filing, data entry and mailings; (3) help with one-time projects as needed. IDEAL VOLUNTEER: We welcome all

kinds of people to volunteer at JOIN, and do not require any specific skills. The ideal JOIN volunteer should be comfortable working with people experiencing poverty and homelessness. CONTACT: Sydney Linden

slinden@joinpdx.org 232-7052, ext. 103 joinpdx.org

METROPOLITAN FAMILY SERVICE WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH: Volunteers

are needed to provide transportation services, shopping assistance or visiting support for older adults and people with disabilities, enabling them to remain independent in their own homes. If you can drive—even if it’s only for an hour or two a month— you can make a huge difference in the life of an isolated older adult. For volunteers wanting to develop a more meaningful ongoing relationship with a senior, consider serving as a community visitor or shopping assistant, meeting with the same person on a weekly basis. Visiting activities may include reading, playing games, walking or other shared interests. Our volunteers help make it possible for people to age with dignity and to feel connected to their community. IDEAL VOLUNTEER: Our transportation

volunteers can set their own schedules each week, are available during the workday, and can drive their own car or our van (on a set schedule). A good driving record is a must. Shoppers must be able to transport groceries and be personable. Our community visitors are able to commit to an ongoing regular schedule, have pleasant personalities, are patient and caring, and are dedicated to brightening the day of a senior. No

Willamette Week JANUARY 21, 2015 wweek.com

Project Pooch

experience is required: We provide full training and support. CONTACT: Deborah Shimkus volunteer@metfamily.org 688-1782 metfamily.org

ON-THE-MOVE COMMUNITY INTEGRATION WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH: Volunteers to

work as reading tutors for adults with developmental disabilities. Tutors support diverse students who are working to improve independence through increased literacy skills. Working in a celebratory environment, volunteers can form new relationships and discover the rewards of creating an inclusive community of Portlanders with and without disabilities. IDEAL VOLUNTEER: Our ideal volunteer

is fun, flexible, compassionate and reliable, and believes that the contributions of all unique community members are valuable. Volunteers should be good readers and able to make a two-month commitment. We provide disability/diversity training and guidance on best practices in special education and community integration. CONTACT: Leah Gagliano info@onthemoveonline.org 287-0346 onthemoveonline.org

PORTLAND MITZVAH NETWORK WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH: Volunteers

seeking a meaningful experience with a Jewish perspective can find exactly what they are looking for through the Portland Mitzvah Network. With a variety of short-term and ongoing volunteer opportunities and organizations seeking volunteers, PMN is your one-stop shop for doing good in the Jewish community and beyond.

IDEAL VOLUNTEER: Organizations can

use the network to seek volunteers and volunteer opportunities for their constituents. Individuals and families can learn more about one-time and ongoing volunteer opportunities. All users of the network can take advantage of the resources related to volunteering more generally and volunteering in a Jewish context more specifically. One-day and ongoing opportunities promoted and available for volunteers of all ages. CONTACT: Caron Blau-Rothstein caron@jewishportland.org 245-6449

jewishportland.org

REACH COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH: REACH is

looking for creative and energetic individuals to lead workshops and activities for residents in our affordable housing. Do you have a particular skill or talent you could share? Join REACH in our efforts to build community and create opportunities to help our residents realize personal success. Volunteers get hands-on experience by working one-on-one with our residents and homeowners, leading workshops in buildings, executing events, completing office projects, and performing home repairs for senior citizens. Residents have expressed an interest in the following activities, although we are open to any skills or talents volunteers bring to the table: art, drawing, sports, writing, reading, photography, music, cooking for kids, and computers. IDEAL VOLUNTEER: Experience working

with youth and/or families, and with diverse and disadvantaged populations. We’re seeking volunteers who are proficient in a skill or talent to teach, have strong communication and leadership skills, and are approachable and friendly. CONTACT: Cynthia Luckett

cluckett@reachcdc.org 971-277-7067 reachcdc.org

SILVER HOME REPAIRS WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH: Our mission

is to provide free, basic home repairs for lower-income senior homeowners. Repairs include plumbing, electrical and more. Volunteers can lend their expertise to perform repairs, provide materials or simply tell others about our mission. IDEAL VOLUNTEER: Ideal for a retired

contractor or handyman, or someone who networks with other seniors or senior programs. Also, we need people who have access to materials, or connections with those who do. CONTACT: Joe Russo jr@silverhomerepairs.com 810-5366 silverhomerepairs.com

STREET ROOTS WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH: Dedicated

volunteers needed for help with the vendor program and copy editing. Work the front desk and get to know the vendors or be a part of a great editorial team. For more information, go to streetroots.org/volunteer and fill out a volunteer application. IDEAL VOLUNTEER: Experience working

with people in poverty; good multitaskers; copy-editing experience. CONTACT: Grace Badik grace@streetroots.org 228-5657 streetroots.org

TOOLS 4 TROOPS WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH: T4T collects

tools both new and old, refurbishes them and distributes them to veterans at no cost. Vets use those tools as workers, entrepreneurs and hobbyists. You can help by donating tools, refurbishing tools, collecting tools, distributing tools, or by helping us get the word out.

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are provided. We are looking for volunteers who can support youth by encouraging development opportunities, actively listen to their ideas, and help them extend their understanding of the broader community. CONTACT: Tonya Parson Tparson@humansolutions.org 208-3618 humansolutions.org

“I HAVE A DREAM” OREGON WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH: We attempt to

match your talents, interests and time availability with a Dreamer student who would best benefit. Spend one-onone time tutoring students, aiding in the classroom and mentoring middleschool students. We also have exciting and engaging one-time opportunities. We are located in East Portland. IDEAL VOLUNTEER: No special skills

are needed—just be willing to jump in and help. One of the key factors of success for students is having a positive adult role model who gives their time. Your time and attention with students can make an enormous impact and difference in their lives. CONTACT: Emily Gaither

volunteer must be willing to take initiative, respond to challenges, and be positive. No tennis experience is needed. CONTACT: Izzy Borris Stephanie Haas program@pastande.org 823-3629 pastande.org

SMART (START MAKING A READER TODAY) WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH: Volunteer

with SMART and help children discover the joy of reading. We are an early-literacy nonprofit that engages community volunteers to help prekindergarten through third-grade children become confident readers by providing one-on-one literacy support, valuable adult mentorship, and books to take home and keep. IDEAL VOLUNTEER: Volunteers should

have an enthusiastic love of books and enjoy working with young children. They will need to be available to read for one hour per week during publicschool hours through mid-May. CONTACT: Staci Sutton

ssutton@getsmartoregon.org 971-634-1628 getsmartoregon.org

emilyg@dreamoregon.org 804-513-6586 dreamoregon.org

INNOVATIVE CHANGES WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH: Our volun-

Metropolotan Family Service IDEAL VOLUNTEER: Would you like the chance to help those who have served? Do you enjoy repairing tools? Do you love hunting at estate sales? Do you have a car? Do you have social-media expertise? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, give us a call! CONTACT: Patricia Bilow

patt@tools4troops.org tools4troops.org

TRANSITION PROJECTS WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH: Our largest

need is for groups to provide dinner for the men or women staying in one of our three residential programs. Volunteers can facilitate computerlab access, assist programs in an administrative capacity, or lead classes, activities and other opportunities to engage participants. IDEAL VOLUNTEER: Volunteers with

Transition Projects should have a desire to play a role in helping individuals while they pursue their path to housing. Knowledge of barriers to housing and factors leading to homelessness are beneficial. Consistent and reliable volunteers are crucial to ensure the success of the participants in our programs. CONTACT: Sam Haffey

volunteer@tprojects.org 280-4741 tprojects.org

UNITED CEREBRAL PALSY OF OREGON & SW WASHINGTON WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH: United

Cerebral Palsy of Oregon & SW

Washington has been advancing the independence, productivity and full citizenship of people with disabilities since 1955. We are pleased to announce the opportunity for volunteers to serve on our board of directors. Board service provides a unique opportunity to “give back” and use your professional expertise and personal experience to help shape the organization. IDEAL VOLUNTEER: The following

characteristics are desirable for our board: experience with committee work, comfort in communicating ideas in a group setting, a parent of a child experiencing developmental disabilities, and interest and dedication in working with persons with cerebral palsy and other intellectual and developmental disabilities. We have particular interest in gaining members who are competent in the following areas: accounting, law, financial management, community organizing, development/fundraising, and public relations/marketing. CONTACT: Ann Coffey acoffey@ucpaorwa.org 777-4166 ucpaorwa.org

VILLAGE GARDENS-FOOD WORKS FARM WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH: Village

Gardens welcomes volunteers to Food Works Farm, a youth-run farm on Sauvie Island. This business focuses on building leadership and job skills for youth as well as creating fresh and nutritious produce for the community. There is always work

to do on the farm! From transplanting seedlings in our greenhouse to weeding and harvesting vegetables, we can use your help to keep our farm running smoothly. IDEAL VOLUNTEER: We are looking for

individuals who are interested in youth leadership, farming and food security, and community engagement. Volunteers would work closely with our youth leaders and crew in farm tasks, which can sometimes be physically demanding. At Food Works, we like to play games and work hard. We are looking for volunteers who want to join the fun! CONTACT: Leslie Heimer lheimer@janusyouth.org 943-5633 janusyouth.org

EDUCATION HUMAN SOLUTIONS WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH: Guide youth’s

academic goals and support them in their quest to achieve them. Share knowledge, provide encouragement, and hopefully inspire a young learner. The LearnLinks tutoring program provides after-school academic assistance to low-income youth. Volunteer tutors assist with homework, support supplementary literacy, and help with math-skill building and language fluency. IDEAL VOLUNTEER: We need dedi-

cated volunteers to help our students achieve. Training and peer-to-peer coaching and support from staff

teers help people to become more financially stable. Financial-coaching volunteers work one-on-one with individuals to set and achieve goals related to budgeting, saving, debt management and credit. Other opportunities include co-facilitating financial-education workshops, writing for our newsletter and assisting with program administration. We provide training and support. IDEAL VOLUNTEER: A commitment to

our mission of helping people build their long-term financial health, a willingness to learn about financial education and resources, strong intercultural communication skills, flexibility, reliability, a sense of humor and an interest in working with diverse clientele. Spanish language skills are a plus. CONTACT: Andrea Kerwin andrea@innovativechanges.org innovativechanges.org

PASTE (PORTLAND AFTER-SCHOOL TENNIS & EDUCATION) WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH: Want to

impact a young child’s life? Learn from our experienced coaches/tutors how to use your skills to help at-risk children from low-income families in North Portland. Our volunteers mentor K-12 youth in year-round programs, building scholar athletes who are healthy, excel in athletics, and love learning! IDEAL VOLUNTEER: Volunteers play a

dual role as coach and tutor. Coaches/ tutors assist our certified coaches in tennis and fitness activities and help our scholar athletes stay focused on completing their homework. Every

ENVIRONMENT AUDUBON SOCIETY OF PORTLAND WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH: As one of the

Northwest’s leading conservation organizations, Audubon offers a wide range of natural history and environmental activities to members, the community and volunteers. Whatever your interests, there’s a volunteer position for you. These include weekly opportunities like those in the Nature Store and Wildlife Care Center, as well as special events and less frequent positions. Learn more at www. audubonportland.org, and complete a volunteer application. IDEAL VOLUNTEER: Volunteers are engaged in caring about and for the environment in a variety of capacities. Some benefit from an outgoing personality, but all volunteers should be detail-oriented and able to follow directions well. CONTACT: Deanna Sawtelle

dsawtelle@audubonportland.org 292-6855, ext. 108 audubonportland.org

EAST MULTNOMAH SOIL AND WATER CONSERVATION DISTRICT WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH: Volunteer to

help with our two biggest events each year—our native plant sale and our Naturescaped Yards Tour. In February, volunteers help package and sort thousands of native plants for our annual plant sale. In late spring (May, June), cont. on page 32

Willamette Week JANUARY 21, 2015 wweek.com

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IDEAL VOLUNTEER: Our volunteers are

enthusiastic and passionate about gardening and native plants, but no plant expertise or technical skill is necessary. Be prepared to get a little dirty, but you are sure to have fun! CONTACT: Angela Previdelli

angela@emswcd.org 935-5371 emswcd.org

FOREST PARK CONSERVANCY WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH: Forest Park

Conservancy volunteers preserve and enhance Forest Park’s trail network and native forest habitat. Stewardship projects include trail maintenance and repair, removal of invasive plant species, and planting of native trees and shrubs. IDEAL VOLUNTEER: Ideal volunteers are passionate about the environment and interested in getting to know Forest Park more intimately. A willingness to get dirty working and hiking in the great outdoors is a must. Forest Park Conservancy provides all necessary training and welcomes family participation. CONTACT: Mikala Soroka

mikala@forestparkconservancy.org 223-5449, ext. 106 forestparkconservancy.org

FRIENDS OF TREES WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH: Give back

to the community by planting trees! We plant every Saturday, October through April, from 9 am to 1 pm across the metro region. Simply show up dressed for the weather. We provide gloves, tools and guidance, as well as snacks and coffee. We’re family- and group-friendly—come join the planting-day fun! IDEAL VOLUNTEER: Our ideal volunteer

likes being outdoors in the Pacific Northwest winter, meeting new friends and neighbors, and laughing a lot, as well as learning about trees, how to plant them and why they’re amazing for our community. All ages are welcome. We can’t wait to work with you! CONTACT: Jenny Bedell-Stiles volunteer@friendsoftrees.org 595-0213 friendsoftrees.org

FRIENDS OF TRYON CREEK WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH: The mis-

sion of our volunteer program is to create ultimate access for members of our community to this unique green space, inspiring them to cultivate an appreciation for nature and giving them the tools to share that passion with others. There is a variety of ways to volunteer with the Friends, from stewardship and restoration to environmental education to office support to special projects. Jobs for volunteers include: everyday support; educational support; assistant counselor; event support; trails, ivy and restoration committees; special 32

projects; opportunities for youth; court-ordered community service.

courtesy of northwest veg

volunteers help welcome guests to the homes on the Naturescaped Yards Tour.

IDEAL VOLUNTEER: We are looking for enthusiastic nature lovers who wish to contribute to our mission of instilling a value of stewardship in the community. We have a variety of opportunities that suit many skill sets. From the loner who enjoys working on restoration in the forest to the most social of people, we have jobs for all types of interests! CONTACT: Sarah Kreisman

sarah@tryonfriends.org 636-4398 tryonfriends.org

HABITAT FOR HUMANITY RESTORE WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH: There are

short-term and long-term volunteer opportunities for those 16 and over. Most volunteer positions in our warehouse involve assisting with donation intake, stocking and pricing items, and keeping shelves organized and clean. Volunteer help at the customer service counter by answering phones, directing customers and running our cash register. We also have an extensive recycling program that is managed by volunteers, and a small deconstruction operation. There are opportunities to serve in our development department by representing Habitat at various community outreach events. If a volunteer has a specific skill (accounting, writing, design, research, public speaking), we are happy to find or create a project that will benefit the mission of our organization. IDEAL VOLUNTEER: No previous experience required. We are happy to train anyone who is willing to learn. The warehouse environment is ever-changing, so volunteers who are flexible and have a positive attitude tend to have a more successful experience. One-time volunteers are great, but we are looking for those who are willing and able to serve on a more regular basis. We also have on-call opportunities for individuals who are interested in our deconstruction and outreach programs. CONTACT: Janell Watt

janell.watt@gmail.com 517-0720 pdxrestore.org

METRO’S NATIVE PLANT CENTER WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH: Our volun-

Northwest Veg

319-8292 oregonmetro.gov

METRO NATURAL AREAS PROGRAM

interested in volunteers who have event-planning, tabling (a background in plant-based and vegan living preferred), public-relations, marketing, public-speaking and graphic-design experience.

cleaning up litter, removal of invasive species, planting native plants and more. No experience necessary. Join a project or start your own to improve our environment and build a legacy of stewardship.

WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH: Enjoy explor-

CONTACT: Chelsea Davis

IDEAL VOLUNTEER: SOLVE volunteers come in all shapes and sizes, young and old, in groups or on your own. From one-day events to leadership roles, SOLVE has a spot for you. The only qualification is a passion for Oregon and the environment. Get in touch today to learn more.

ing nature? Metro’s volunteer site stewards visit a natural area at least twice a month to ensure the area remains in good shape. Site stewards report any issues to Metro crews and can also report wildlife sightings or pull invasive plants. IDEAL VOLUNTEER: No experience is

needed; record-keeping training provided. Great for frequent hikers and walkers who want to explore natural areas whether close to home or far from busy neighborhoods and downtowns. A number of the sites are not officially open for public access, giving site stewards a unique opportunity to connect with nature.

teers care for rare seeds and plants that are used in restoration projects at regional parks and natural areas. Volunteers help with nursery activities, such as harvesting and cleaning seeds, harvesting and planting bulbs, repotting and maintaining seedbeds. Volunteers work Saturdays at the Native Plant Center in Tualatin.

CONTACT: Bonnie Shoffner

IDEAL VOLUNTEER: No experience is needed; gloves, tools, beverages and snacks provided. Great for gardeners or families with children who are able to work on projects together that require fine motor skills and patience. CONTACT: Jennifer Wilson

animals and the environment? Want to help encourage people to move to a healthy, plant-based diet? Visit nwveg. org/volunteer for information on how you can get involved with our large community events like Portland VegFest and other ongoing outreach projects.

jennifer.wilson@oregonmetro.gov

IDEAL VOLUNTEER: We are especially

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bonnie.shoffner@oregonmetro.gov Stacey Triplett stacey.triplett@oregonmetro.gov 797-1653 oregonmetro.gov

NORTHWEST VEG WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH: Want to help

volunteer@nwveg.org nwveg.org

OUR UNITED VILLAGES WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH: Volunteers

help with a variety of assignments at Our United Villages. The ReBuilding Center is actively seeking volunteer leaders to guide our newer volunteers. Volunteers also take part in skilled activities like writing, designing, editing, construction, deconstruction and more! Volunteer leaders work at the ReBuilding Center, and throughout Portland on various deconstruction sites. IDEAL VOLUNTEER: Volunteers leaders

are dependable and enthusiastic— past that, let your passions drive us! Volunteer leaders should be willing to take on a mentorship role and be able to maintain a steady schedule over a prolonged period or commit to short-term projects. CONTACT: David Lowe volunteer@ourunitedvillages.org 467-4985 ourunitedvillages.org

SOLVE WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH: Love Oregon?

Join 35,000 SOLVE volunteers who feel the same! Volunteer projects cover the entire state and include

CONTACT: Kaleen Boyle

kaleen@solveoregon.org 844-9571, ext. 332 solveoregon.org

SOCIAL ACTION ASSISTANCE LEAGUE® OF GREATER PORTLAND WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH: Assistance

League’s member volunteers serve the local community in various programs. Operation School Bell® will provide 2,900 children in need with new clothes this year. Assault Survivor Kits® offers emergency outfits for victims who surrender clothing as evidence. Life story books are crafted for foster children. At a residential treatment facility, we support the recovery of youth with enrichment activities. IDEAL VOLUNTEER: Assistance League

members put caring and commitment in action, working together to raise funds and operate community service programs. Members pay annual dues

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teaching diverse wellness classes, cofacilitating groups, assisting patients entering our clinics, or assisting with clerical duties, volunteers at CCC provide our housing, health and employment programs and staff with valuable time and flexibility, while they also allow our clients to receive the best care and attention possible. IDEAL VOLUNTEER: CCC’s ideal volun-

teer is flexible, friendly, able to commit for six months, 18 or over, and enthusiastic about helping. Whether you love interacting with others or like to stay “behind the scenes,” we want to find the best fit for both you and us so that everyone has a positive experience! CONTACT: Eric Reynolds eric.reynolds@ccconcern.org Paul Park paul.park@ccconcern.org 200-3893 ccconcern.org

CLACKAMAS VOLUNTEERS IN MEDICINE WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH: We are an

Metropolotan Family Service

and are invited to volunteer in our thrift and consignment shop and participate in one or more community service programs. Orientation is provided. Meet new friends and discover new talents. CONTACT: Debbie Coryell alpdxnews4u@aol.com 526-9300 portland.assistanceleague.org

BUS PROJECT WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH: The Bus Proj-

ect is the place for young people to get inspired, organized and empowered to participate and make a difference in local and statewide politics. We’re volunteer-driven democracy for the millennial generation. IDEAL VOLUNTEER: We’re looking for en-

thusiastic, excitable young folks who want to learn what it takes to win progressive public policy, from City Hall to Salem. Whether you like knocking on doors, doing research or making phone calls, we’ll have a use for you.

free, confidential services for Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans and their families across Oregon and southwest Washington. IDEAL VOLUNTEER: We welcome providers who want to work with us to help support and heal our veterans and their families. You must be insured, licensed and have a professional office space. Supervised interns working toward their licenses may be eligible. For more information and to apply, visit returningveterans.org/forproviders. CONTACT: Mike McCarrel

mail@returningveterans.org 503-954-2259

VOZ WORKERS’ RIGHTS EDUCATION PROJECT

RETURNING VETERANS PROJECT

IDEAL VOLUNTEER: Volunteers can help our organization in many capacities. They can assist in the worker center with checking in day laborers, managing database entries, and interacting with employers. They can teach ESL classes on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday or Saturday. They can intern in the main office under the executive director, development director or internal organizer. They will be entering data, helping with event planning, and assisting the directors with daily tasks.

WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH: Returning

IDEAL VOLUNTEER: They should have

CONTACT: Aaron Brown aaron@busproject.org 830-8577 busproject.org

Veterans Project asks licensed and insured mental-health practitioners, massage therapists, acupuncturists, chiropractors and naturopaths to open a pro bono slot in their practice to provide

experience working with different cultures, as well as data entry. Enthusiasm and interest in immigrant and day-labor rights are also crucial. Activism is an important part of our organization, as is dedication to our

mission as a worker-led organization. Spanish skills are a plus. CONTACT: Melissa Gittelman

volunteercoordinator@portlandvoz.org 233-6787 portlandvoz.org

HEALTH & WELLNESS ALBERTINA KERR: ALBERTINA’S PLACE WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH: From archi-

vists to zucchini slicers, your talents will always have a home with us. Make lifelong friends at Albertina’s Place volunteer-run restaurant and shops. Albertina’s Place supports the programs of Albertina Kerr, strengthening Oregon families and communities by helping children and adults with developmental disabilities and mental health challenges. Flexible schedules available. IDEAL VOLUNTEER: We offer fun and

meaningful volunteer opportunities, including; cooking, cashiering, serving, sales, display, leadership roles and more. The restaurant and shops are entirely staffed and managed by volunteers dedicated to supporting the mission of Albertina Kerr and providing the best customer experience. CONTACT: Meghan Anderson meghana@albertinakerr.org 262-0187 albertinakerr.org

CENTRAL CITY CONCERN WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH: Whether by

all-volunteer-operated free clinic for Clackamas County residents without health insurance or access to medical care. Active and retired doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners, medical or nursing students, lab techs and administrators donate quality care and education. We also need outreach volunteers at community events to publicize the clinic. IDEAL VOLUNTEER: If you are passion-

ate about building healthy communities, find meaning in serving those who have slipped through the cracks by providing compassion, resources and quality medical care. Licensed, active or retired medical providers wanted. Spanish speakers needed. Flexible schedules, events and special projects available. CONTACT: Karen Shimada karen.shimada@clackamasvim.org 722-4400 clackamasvim.org

GROWING GARDENS WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH: You can

help build garden beds, wait tables at summer fundraising dinners, stuff envelopes, do data entry, help design outreach materials or explore other volunteer opportunities. Spanishspeakers are needed to help with programs and translation needs. There’s something for every interest and schedule. IDEAL VOLUNTEER: Our volunteers want

to help people learn how to grow their own food and enjoy a healthier life. They should like digging in the dirt, have a passion for fresh, organic vegetables and want to make a difference in their community. Some opportunities require a two-to-three-hour, biweekly shift while others are more seasonal. New volunteer orientations happen monthly. CONTACT: Cristy Morales cristy@growing-gardens.org Lynn Fitch lynn@growing-gardens.org 284-8420, ext. 100 growing-gardens.org

HOUSECALL PROVIDERS WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH: Providing

companionship to hospice patients and homebound people in your area. A short weekly visit can make a huge impact in the lives of people who cannot easily interact with others. Be part of a team that is changing health care by caring for our most underserved neighbors in their homes. IDEAL VOLUNTEER: Strong listening

skills and compassion. Ability to be patient with people who have difficulties communicating or dementia. Must attend four training sessions and pass background check and tuberculosis test. Availability one to four hours a week. Volunteers are especially needed in Gresham, Milwaukie, West Linn, Beaverton, Lake Oswego and south Portland. CONTACT: Todd Lawrence tlawrence@housecallproviders.org 971-202-5515 housecallproviders.org

THE LOTUS SEED WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH: Volunteers

are the heart of our organization. The Lotus Seed’s volunteers teach classes, run reception, work events, clean and help with public relations. Volunteer hours are much appreciated. Help with putting up fliers, social media, and graphic and Web design are ideal ways to aid the Lotus Seed’s mission: to bring yoga, movement and art to underserved populations through outreach programs and continuing education. All volunteers have access to the daily yoga classes offered by donation. IDEAL VOLUNTEER: The most important

qualification of a volunteer at the Lotus Seed is an attitude of inclusivity. The Lotus Seed does not discriminate on the basis of age, color, creed, disability, marital status, national origin, race, religion, sex or sexual orientation. Various groups use the community space, which explains the importance of volunteers displaying compassion and understanding. In addition, we are always on the lookout for multimedia specialists who can help us achieve our print, website, video and audio goals. Grant-writing skills are always a plus! CONTACT: Wren deVous wren@lotusseed.org 839-4155 lotusseed.org

MEALS ON WHEELS PEOPLE WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH: Our single

greatest need is for Meals on Wheels drivers on weekdays. It takes just 90 minutes, and we have 22 pickup locations to choose from. IDEAL VOLUNTEER: Volunteers must

be at least 18 years old and have their own car, a valid driver’s license and insurance. Or deliver on a bike! Must like seniors. CONTACT: Diana Creitz diana.creitz@mealsonwheelspeople.org Julie Piper Finley julie.piperfinley@mealsonwheelspeople.org 953-9101 cont. on page 22

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WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH: We can end

hunger! Join one of our fun, energetic two-to-three-hour food-repack shifts. You’ll be amazed at how much we can do! Shifts run throughout the week in Portland and Beaverton, including weeknights and weekends. Volunteer instructors are also needed for our garden and nutrition education programs. IDEAL VOLUNTEER: No special skills are

required, and training occurs onsite for garden and food-repack shifts. Many shifts are available for ages 6 and up, and we can accommodate large groups. Passion, enthusiasm and willingness to sweat preferred! It’s easy to sign up. Visit www.oregonfoodbank.org to learn more and see the schedule. CONTACT: Jeff Horne

volunteer@oregonfoodbank.org 972-2993 oregonfoodbank.org

PORTLAND FOOD PROJECT WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH: Volunteers

can help in two ways. Neighborhood coordinators organize a group of their friends and neighbors to become food donors. Their job can be less than 1 hour per month. Food donors provide a bag of nonperishable food items every two months for the coordinators to pick up.

YOUTH BETTIES360 WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH: Betties360

is looking for a “few good women” to help achieve our mission of inspiring confidence, well-being and community in girls through action sports and outdoor adventure. Volunteers are needed in the following areas: assistant instructors for 10-session afterschool programs, board members, marketing and promotion, and trip volunteers (we typically run four to six daytime or overnight trips per year). IDEAL VOLUNTEER: Women with a

sense of adventure, a love for the outdoors, and a passion for seeing girls build strength and self-confidence. Volunteers should be enthusiastically committed to creating safe, positive and enjoyable outdoor experiences. No expertise needed, but humor, flexibility, patience and reliability required. CONTACT: Erin Fitzgerald info@betties360.org betties360.org

CASA FOR CHILDREN OF MULTNOMAH, WASHINGTON AND COLUMBIA COUNTIES WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH: Our trained

seniors and families struggling with issues of hunger? Convert your compassion into filling the empty shelves of local food pantries. Great activity for a family to do together on your own time schedule. Other opportunities are being a driver to pantries, doing tabling event @ Famers Markets and public relations.

and empowered volunteers advocate for the health, safety, stability and well-being of children who have been abused or neglected and are under court protection. CASAs (court-appointed special advocates) get to know each child and contact those involved in the case, providing an objective opinion to the court to ensure necessary safety, care and permanence for the children.

CONTACT: Richard Nudelman

IDEAL VOLUNTEER: Our most effective

IDEAL VOLUNTEER: Care about children,

info@portlandfoodproject.org 775-2110 portlandfoodproject.org

TERAS INTERVENTIONS AND COUNSELING INC. WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH: Volunteers

support executive and clinical staff by providing office help, board membership, fundraising and event planning, social media, recovery mentoring, outreach marketing and computer tech support. IDEAL VOLUNTEER: Ideal volunteers

have personalities and characters that naturally produce the compassion and motivation necessary to support people who are seeking recovery services. People who work as computer technicians, health professionals, musicians, artists, entrepreneurs, writers, accountants and those who work from home can easily transfer their skills to our mission. CONTACT: Phil Broyles

info@terasinc.org 719-5250 terasinc.org

advocates are conscientious, thorough, reliable, and able to maintain perspective, objectivity and confidentiality. They have strong written and oral communication skills and flexibility to attend daytime visits, meeting and hearings. No special professional background is needed, but volunteers do need to be 21 or older. CONTACT: Susan King

sking@casahelpskids.org 988-6528 casahelpskids.org

GIRL SCOUTS OF OREGON AND SOUTHWEST WASHINGTON WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH: Girl Scout

volunteers introduce girls to new experiences that show them they’re capable of more than they ever imagined. Whether you can give a day, a few weeks, or the whole year, it all starts with you. Be the role model she’ll always remember! IDEAL VOLUNTEER: The ideal Girl Scout

volunteer has a desire to help girls dream big and tackle new challenges. Whether you’re ready to be a troop leader who regularly meets with girls, or have a skill (like coding or bouldering) to share short-term, we’ll work

Willamette Week JANUARY 21, 2015 wweek.com

together to find the right opportunity for you.

courtesy of oregon food bank

OREGON FOOD BANK

CONTACT: Carol Hickman membership@girlscoutsosw.org girlscoutsosw.org 977-6800 girlscoutsosw.org

GIRLS INC. OF THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH: Girls Inc.

seeks enthusiastic female volunteers to facilitate our afterschool Girls Groups for ages 6 to 18. Groups meet once a week for eight to 10 weeks across the Portland metro area. Don’t worry, we provide training, curriculum and supplies—you make the magic happen! IDEAL VOLUNTEER: Our volunteer Girls

Guides are passionate about empowering girls to be strong, smart and bold. They are dynamic and diverse individuals who enjoy working with and making a difference in the lives of Portland’s girls. Our Girls Guides play a pivotal role in the impact of our programming. CONTACT: Grace Dyer grace@girlsincpnw.org 230-0054 girlsincpnw.org

MARATHON SCHOLARS

Oregon Food Bank

WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH: Marathon

Scholars serves the Portland metro area by helping to remove obstacles for low-income children striving for a college education by providing relationships with caring adults who serve as role models, coaches and cheerleaders to expand our scholar’s view of what is possible. Our volunteers change lives! IDEAL VOLUNTEER: Our Marathon

Coaches spend four hours a month creating and nurturing a mentoring relationship with a Marathon Scholar. These volunteer coaches/mentors make a four-year commitment to a child and typically work with that child from the fifth through eighth grades. Volunteers should ideally feel passion for educational access and a desire to work directly with children. Marathon Coaches should expect to remain in the Portland metro area for at least four years and have time to connect with their scholar either in person or via email or telephone at least monthly. Comfort with diverse cultures and backgrounds is a plus. CONTACT: Ulla Dosedal

ulla@marathonscholars.org 235-2500 marathonscholars.org

METROPOLITAN FAMILY SEVICE MENTORING AND AFTERSCHOOL PROGRAM WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH: Metropolitan

Family Service provides volunteers with a multitude of ways to help children succeed in school and life. Whether it is in our SUN or CAFE afterschool programs or our AARP Experience Corps intergenerational mentoring program, volunteers are actively engaged with children. Volunteers ages 50 and up are needed to work one on one with kindergarten-

through-third-graders, helping them become active readers. Adults of all ages are needed to lead enrichment activities in recreation, art, music or your special area of interest at all grade levels. Help is also needed in our onsite food pantries, school meal programs, special events and adult education classes. IDEAL VOLUNTEER: Our volunteers are

passionate about helping children realize their full potential. Being comfortable in the public school setting and able to commit to ongoing involvement is important. Mentors in our intergenerational program must be age 50 or older. We provide full training and support for all volunteers. No experience is necessary—just a desire to truly make a difference. CONTACT: Deborah Shimkus

volunteer@metfamily.org 688-1782 metfamily.org

NEW AVENUES FOR YOUTH WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH: Our volun-

teers make it possible for foster, atrisk and homeless youth to overcome barriers and realize their potential. Volunteers are needed for meal service in our drop-in day service center, tutoring and teaching in our education center, interviewing and résumé skill building in our employment programs, and providing artistic lessons in our artist mentorship program. We also have a variety of exciting annual events that serve as great one-time commitments. IDEAL VOLUNTEER: Direct service

volunteers work directly with our youth, building trust and functioning as an important role model in their lives. Support volunteer roles are great

opportunities for people wishing to gain experience in the nonprofit field, or simply share their talents in administration or development. Group and corporate volunteer opportunities like our Empower meals and Scooper Hero program are a great way to engage your employees in one-time or recurring volunteer service. Volunteers must be at least 23 years old and commit to at least two hours per week for six months. CONTACT: Sama Shagaga volunteer@newavenues.org 517-3900 newavenues.org

ROCK ’N’ ROLL CAMP 4 GIRLS WHAT WE NEED HELP WITH: Join Rock

Camp in our mission to build girls’ self-esteem through music creation and performance. Anyone interested in fundraising, gear repair, events, afterschool programming and more is welcome year-round. We are also looking for instrument instructors, counselors, workshop leaders and mentors for our 2015 summer camps. IDEAL VOLUNTEER: Our volunteers are

energetic, cooperative, empathetic, passionate about the Rock Camp mission, and put our campers’ physical and emotional safety above all else. No musical experience is necessary for many volunteer positions. Opportunities exist for responsible adults of all gender identities. Learn more and apply at girlsrockcamp. org/volunteer. CONTACT: Blue Crow blue@girlsrockcamp.org 445-4991 girlsrockcamp.org

THE HILL DOGS - TONIGHT JANUARY 21ST AT 6PM

Upcoming In-Stores BARBARA LUSCH

Saturday, January 24th at 3PM

Barbara Lusch has a unique and compelling way with a song that goes straight to your heart. Her new recording, “Rock Me Sweet”, is a surprising and magnetic reinterpretation of some of the best loved rock anthems of the 80’s. Barbara has transformed well-known hits of male rock icons such as Bruce Springsteen, Bon Jovi and Bono into sophisticated, sexy, and soulful songs.

THE LOVELY LOST

Sunday, January 25th at 5PM

Describing his musical approach, guitarist, songwriter, and lead vocalist Michael Collins says “I want them to feel like they are listening to something timeless, like when you’re listening to ‘(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay’ by Otis Redding.” As Collins puts it, “If you throw in a little bit of danciness, or indie, or soul, you can please everyone.”

WOVENWAR

Tuesday, January 27th at 5:30PM

A band born out of necessity, Wovenwar came to be just one year after the release of Awakened, the last studio album from metalcore giants As I Lay Dying, who at the time were reckoning with the fallout of losing their lead singer to a six-year prison term. The remaining members decided to move on, albeit under a different moniker and with a new vocalist, Oh, Sleeper’s Shane Blay.

Willamette Week JANUARY 21, 2015 wweek.com

MUSIC

jan. 21–27 PROFILE

= WW Pick. Highly recommended.

COURTESY OF HOLOCENE

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, JAN. 21 Haunted Summer, East Forest, Pinscape

[EERIE POP] A duo that creates eerie pop music with the professed goal of communicating the message of the “mystic forests” is one to invest time and money in. Bridgette Eliza Moody and John Seasons released their debut album, Birth, last year, and it is effectively intoxicating. “Something in the Water” projects vocals well above the minimal instrumentation, but it all comes together in the most convincing way. Their live performances have been described as ethereal, spooky, relaxing and chilled-out. So spend a proper Wednesday night connecting with nature—you won’t regret it. COLETTE POMERLEAU. Bunk Bar, 1028 SE Water Ave., 894-9708. 10 pm. $7. 21+.

Aesop Rock with Rob Sonic, DJ Abilities, Homeboy Sandman, Dark Time Sunshine

[PLEADING BUTLERS] Rob Sonic has been relatively silent since the release of his Definitive Jux albums during the first decade of the millennium. In 2011, the first Hail Mary Mallon album, a project featuring Sonic, Aesop Rock and DJ Big Wiz, was released to relatively little fanfare. Last year, though, saw the low-profile Bronx rapper issue a new solo album and record a second HMM disc, Bestiary. Pithy satire runs throughout, granting a new platform to gripes about money-grubbers and “these bedeviling times.” The collaboration isn’t likely to garner the attention another Def Jux alum’s recently sparked, but that’s not an indication that Bestiary is lacking in any ingredient. DAVE CANTOR. Hawthorne Theatre, 1507 SE César E. Chávez Blvd., 233-7100. 7 pm. $20. All ages.

Russian Circles, Mamiffer

[INSTRU-METAL] On fifth album Memorial, Russian Circles employs polar extremes of feather-light touch and world-smashing pummel to contrast different shades of post-metal darkness. Ever instrumental, the trio does welcome guest vocals from Chelsea Wolfe, who puts in an expectedly lovely and breathy performance on the album’s finale. It’s remarkable how far these three have come, from opening slots for luminary acts to headlining ballrooms and touring the world. Maybe we can thank the trickle-down from artists like Tool and Explosions in the Sky. More likely, though, it’s simply based on the talent and musical quality of Russian Circles itself. NATHAN CARSON. Wonder Ballroom, 128 NE Russell St., 284-8686. 8:30 pm. $18 advance, $20 day of show. All ages.

THURSDAY, JAN. 22 Mates of State, Fictionist

[SUGARY CHIC] You’ve got to wonder about Mates of State. Kori Gardner and Jason Hammel are creeping up on 20 years of a moderately successful indiepop career, which is longer than most bands or marriages typically last. The sound is exactly what you’d expect coming from two gorgeous people in love: upbeat, infectious and readymade for spasmodic pogoing. My question is: When do they finally turn into pure sunshine and take us all up to heaven? Because, guys, the shows are fun and all, but we’re getting tired. CRIS LANKENAU. Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St., 231-9663. 8 pm. $15. 21+.

Beacon, Lord Raja, Philip Grass

[DESKTOP R&B] The Brooklyn duo Beacon have managed to do something pretty unique in just a few years on the job—they’ve made the best Thom Yorke solo record yet. The outfit, comprised of vocalist and producer Thomas Mullarney and producer Jacob Gossett, create slick, jittery alt-R&B songs that, at least to my ears, fall more on the electronic side of the spectrum. That’s not a bad thing: 2013’s The Ways We Separate blips and bloops like prime Junior Boys, or Mr. Yorke with a bit of a head cold. “Overseer,” from The Ways We Separate, and “Fault Lines,” from the new EP L1, effectively take the Radiohead-lite template and add bits of overlapping percussion, creating a dense, heady web of rhythm that works equally well at both the club and the gym. MICHAEL MANNHEIMER. Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison St., 239-7639. 8:30 pm. $10 advance, $12 day of show. 21+.

Wale, Audio Push, Bizzy Crook, Rachel West

[RAP ABOUT NOTHING] Those who were into new hip-hop in 2008 probably know Wale’s excellent, Seinfeldsampling Mixtape About Nothing and its follow-up, More About Nothing. Wale, a punch-line rapper who talks soup, sports and drugs and claims to have seen every episode of Seinfeld, has made an Album About Nothing, too. The first two tapes sampled the show for various interludes, but were best known for his clean-flowing bars and anthemic beats. Although he hasn’t been making much worth listening to lately—you can most frequently find him dropping generic guest verses on tracks for guys like Rick Ross—we know that the old, entertaining Wale is still in there somewhere. PARKER HALL. Roseland Theater, 8 NW 6th Ave., 224-2038. 8 pm. $25. All ages.

The Wood Brothers, Mandolin Orange

[BLUESY BROTHERS] There’s no doubt the Wood Brothers are professionals. Brothers Oliver and Chris Wood can bust out solos on their respective instruments with the kind of ease that comes only with a lifetime of playing. For a number of years, Oliver honed his guitar and songwriting skills with the group King Johnson, and Chris played the upright bass in jazz-jam trio Medeski, Martin and Wood. In 2005, the two brought their bluesy folk roots together and began their own project, which now regularly includes percussionist-“shutter” extraordinaire, Jano Rix. Its last record, 2013’s The Muse, found the group leaning into territory previously occupied by the Band, blending various strains of Americana with a mystical sort of R&B. EMILEE BOOHER. Wonder Ballroom, 128 NE Russell St., 284-8686. 7 pm. $20 advance, $22 day of show. 21+.

FRIDAY, JAN. 23 Martha Davis and the Motels, Kris Deelane and the Sharp Little Things

[NEW WAVE] The Motels managed to be one of few acts coming out of the ’80s New Wave scene that charted several times but never entered into the now-shameful schmaltz or affected eccentricities associated with the times. OK, so Martha Davis isn’t Siouxsie Sioux, but there’s a catchy, palm-muted hook in almost every song that has more mass appeal. Having just finished up a year of almost ceaseless touring with a new record forth-

CONT. on page 39

GOING ROGUE WILLIS EARL BEAL DROPS OFF THE MUSIC-INDUSTRY GRID. BY jaMES HELMSWORTH

243-2122

Willis Earl Beal has bitten the hand that once fed him. Over the last decade, the avant-garde bluesman transitioned from being an occasionally homeless Army vet, living with his grandmother in his native Chicago and leaving CD-Rs of his music around town, to a critically lauded indie favorite. He signed to Hot Charity, a subsidiary of highly regarded XL Recordings, and picked up gigs at the Pitchfork Music Festival and on Later…With Jools Holland. Then, this past summer, Beal called it all off. He left his label and moved from New York to Lacey, Wash., a suburb of Olympia. Turns out, being another cog in the music hype machine didn’t suit an artist of his creative compulsion. “I don’t want to be sitting around waiting for some particular season when all the other artists release their stuff, and then that way all the reviewers can catch up and release everything at the same time,” Beal says. “In order to pull yourself up by the bootstraps and establish something for yourself, everybody wants you to kiss their ass. I don’t know how to form my lips that way.” The problem is that Beal wanted to operate more like Lil Wayne, releasing mixtapes at his leisure. Beal’s music is minimal and bluesy, full of pounding percussion and tinny guitars—not exactly Weezy F. Baby territory. But in the months since leaving Hot Charity, Beal has made good on those prolific aspirations. He’s put out two fulllength albums, Experiments in Time and Experiments in Time: The Golden Hour, via CD Baby, with another, titled Noctunes, on the way. The tiny, California-based vinyl label Electric Soul is pressing a limited run of 300 records. Noctunes is a world apart from Beal’s earlier efforts. There’s none of the droning guitar, nor the lo-fi tape hiss (he recorded his first tracks on a boombox). Instead, he’s using mostly cheap keyboards. It’s still anchored by Beal’s voice, but whereas the singer frequently pushed into anguished howls, he’s now utilizitng a gentle fal-

setto, which pairs well with the lush instrumentation. “Night” begins with electronic percussion and what sounds like a synthesized wind sound effect, and crescendos into a drum-machine pulse, full of swelling synths and cryptic lyrics. “The stairs flow down from the street to the hall,” he croons, “and now it’s time to let your image fall.” Beal credits part of his new sound to his Pacific Northwest relocation. Free of New York’s congestion, and of a label requiring he send his material to a producer, he’s been able to focus on creating richer soundscapes. “The people are kind of standoffish, but the trees are beautiful,” he says of his new hometown. “I’ve always liked geography better than people, anyway.”

“EVERYBODY WANTS YOU TO KISS THEIR ASS. I DON’T KNOW HOW TO FORM MY LIPS THAT WAY.” —WiLLiS EARL BEAL Of course, leaving your label does come with some drawbacks. Beal doesn’t have much money to tour, though he is continuing to play high-profile gigs: The night after his show at Holocene, he’s headed back to Chicago, then to Berlin. He doesn’t have a backing band anymore—it’s just him, a microphone and his iPod—which, he claims, he didn’t want anyway. “I performed at a lot of bigname college music festivals,” Beal says, “and, like, the people will be reacting positively to my show, but then I look at the newspaper and they’d be like, ‘Oh, yeah, Willis Earl Beal, he’s a good performer, but he needs a band.’ I’m like, ‘You fucking squares, you probably weren’t at the show.’” But Beal hasn’t totally broken free from the machine. He’s being represented by Brillstein Entertainment Partners, whose other clients include Selena Gomez. And he says he’s also in talks to sign with another label. This time around, though, Beal promises that working within the system will be different. “I’m only talking to these people because I like them as people very much,” he says. “I’m not against labels. I’m just against being told what to do.” SEE IT: Willis Earl Beal plays Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison St., with Dragging an Ox Through Water and Aaron Chapman, on Wednesday, Jan. 21. 8:30 pm. $8 advance, $10 day of show. 21+. Willamette Week JANUARY 21, 2015 wweek.com

Willamette Week JANUARY 21, 2015 wweek.com

FRIDAY coming later this year, the Motels are clearly not just playing for easy nostalgia dollars. CRIS LANKENAU. Alberta Rose Theatre, 3000 NE Alberta St., 719-6055. 7 pm. $22 advance, $27 day of show. Under 21 permitted with legal guardian.

Cult of Youth, Hive Mind, Caustic Touch

[POST-DOOMSDAY FOLK] Fusing the call-to-arms urgency of ’80s hardcore with the shimmering balladry of the Reagan era’s New Romanticism may seem like a sticky proposition, but no one has nailed the Buzzcocks-meetsBunnymen marriage as well as Brooklyn’s Cult of Youth. Final Days was an unsung masterpiece of 2014, with principal songwriter and guitarist Sean Ragon carefully laying anti-commercialist credos over blazing 16th-note backbeats and shimmering lead guitars that create watery yet danceable salvos about, uh, the government or something. PETE COTTELL. Beacon Sound, 1465D NE Prescott St., 3601268. 9 pm. $7. All ages.

Whitey Morgan and the 78s, Joe Fletcher

[HONKY-TONK] The bar for today’s country music bar is set at an alltime low, and ﬁnding something in the tradition of Hank Williams and Merle Haggard can be tough. But Whitey Morgan’s tough, alcoholsoaked Southern sound harks back to an older era. Coming from Flint, Mich., the guy deﬁnitely knows a thing or two about drowning bluecollar heartache in a twang-tinged ballad. LUCAS CHEMOTTI. Dante’s, 350 W Burnside St., 226-6630. 9 pm. $12. 21+.

MUSIC

La Luz, Prom Queen, Is/Is

[SEATTLE SURF] Playing wellcrafted pop songs with chilledout vocals and surf-rock guitars, La Luz can make most any show into a beach party, even those taking place in a log-lined bar in the middle of winter. The popular Seattle quartet has been a consistent live presence since the release of its ﬁrst EP in 2012, but hasn’t evolved much beyond its initial sound, a kind of rockabilly by way of Burger Records. Bands are often criticized for not showing signs of growth from their original vibe, but La Luz started life by hitting its sonic target dead center. In this case, there’s nothing wrong with consistency. PARKER HALL. Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St., 2319663. 8 pm. $12. 21+.

Eccentric Soul: A Numero Group Dance Night featuring Dante Carfagna, DJ Bobby D, DJ Cooky Parker, DJ Maxx Bass

[DEEP FUNK] Sometimes referred to as the “Funk Archaeologist,” Dante Carfagna has scoured the world’s vinyl bins for rare, esoteric R&B records, which he’s compiled into 19 volumes of revival label Numero Group’s awesome Eccentric Soul series. Tonight, he shares from his personal collection, and as XLR8R once wrote of him, “he really does play stuﬀ that won’t be heard anywhere else.” Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison St., 239-7639. 9 pm. $5. 21+.

Summer Cannibals, Hustle and Drone, Edna Vazquez/No Passengers [GARAGE POP] Last year was a good year for Portland’s Summer Cannibals. The band issued a stellar new EP, Make You Better,

CONT. on page 40

C O U R T E S Y O F A M O N LY

PREVIEW

RL Grime, Lunice, Tommy Kruise [TRAP LORD] In RL Grime’s “Core” video, giant black helicopters fly toward a gaping hole in the ocean, an image that probably holds many metaphors for fans. But we’re going to avoid those interpretations in favor of the one suggesting that, with hyper-advanced technology akin to the choppers’ crystalline black stealth armor and neon blades, the producer born Henry Steinway has invaded and captured Trap City, with EDM Land falling shortly thereafter. There was no drawn-out siege: The 23-year-old L.A. producer went from an outsider in 2011 to remixing Benny Benassi and producing Pitbull the next year. Now sitting pretty atop many festival bookers’ unreleased 2015 lineups, the world watches where RL Grime will take EDM after his 2014 debut full-length, Void. It’s an archetypical album for mainstream EDM, sacrificing unity for scatterbrained versatility, trading integrity—and yes, there is such a thing in trap music—for accessibility. In the “Core” video, a helicopter eventually gets obliterated by a red laser emerging from the oceanic maw. Here’s hoping Steinway’s piloting skills improve. MITCH LILLIE. Wonder Ballroom, 128 NE Russell St., 284-8686. 8 pm Saturday, Jan. 24. Sold out. 18+. Willamette Week JANUARY 21, 2015 wweek.com

friday–saturday

and toured behind the synthpop prowess of Chvrches before hitting the studio to record its fulllength follow-up, Show Us Your Mind, due in March. Vocalist Jessica Boudreaux’s snarl still sounds just as polished amid the fuzz-riddled guitars and bruising percussion of the band’s new lineup, which just goes to show that the unbridled angst of youth doesn’t always fizzle with maturity. BRANDON WIDDER. Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi Ave., 288-3895. 9 pm. $10. 21+.

PROFILE KIM SMITH MILLER

MUSIC

Cockpit: Flava D, Lincolnup, Knomad, Tabor Dark b2b E Fury, Art of Hot

[CLEAN GRIME] For grime heads, Butterz is more than just the name of a South Park character. It is also a blog and label that, since 2010, has been making wobbly waves in East London and beyond, and Flava D—known to her friends as Danielle Gooding—was a tsunami. Her 2013 single “Hold On/Home” managed to keep an insistent grime throb while jumping the gun on some 2014 trends such as eerily pitchedup vocals and wandering house basslines. Now it’s 2015, and everyone’s looking to Flava D for next year’s tastes. MITCH LILLIE. Rotture, 315 SE 3rd Ave., 234-5683. 9 pm. $10. 21+.

Famine Fest II

[METALFEST] For the second year in a row, Chris Nukala has assembled a sickening lineup of gore, grind, thrash and death-metal acts from across the country. This weekend’s infestation takes place at Tonic Lounge, lasting all day and into the night. Of local interest is Friday’s headliner, the recently reformed death-metal troupe Engorged, exhumed from retirement for its first show since 2009. Saturday’s bill is topped off by L.A.’s Terrorizer, a grindcore band that formed in 1987. This version of Terrorizer is led by original frontman Oscar Garcia and will perform the classic World Downfall album. And if you’re still festering for more, there’s an aftershow on Sunday featuring Dead Conspiracy at an undisclosed location. You’ll have to ask around about that one. NATHAN CARSON. Tonic Lounge, 3100 NE Sandy Blvd., 238-0543. 4 pm. $13 advance, $15 day of show Friday; $17 advance, $20 day of show Saturday. Through Jan. 24.

SATURDAY, JAN. 24 Brooke Fraser, Dark Waves

[HOUSE OF LORDE] Insofar as a recent teen phenom has rather broadened the ambitions of freshfaced antipodean chanteuses, it’s hard to argue against Brooke Fraser going electronica as a marketing gambit. But while attempting to wring “Royals” treatment from her new direction, did she have to title the first single “Kings and Queens”? If the digitized backdrops mark a decided change from the New Zealander’s suburban-pastoral strummed melancholia, recently released fourth album Brutal Romantic isn’t so slavishly beholden to her platinum compatriot, and with singer-songwriterly musings reflecting the darkened distortion, the resulting collection sounds all the more original. JAY HORTON. Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St., 231-9663. 9 pm. $20 advance, $22 day of show. 21+.

Love in This Club: Woolfy, Nathan Detroit, Ben Tactic, JPrez

[TIMELESS IBIZA] Without getting too academic about the differences between nu-disco and the Balearic beat revival, the two chilled-out yet upbeat forms have one thing in common: Plenty of people would rather have seen both left dead in the ’80s. Simon James, aka Woolfy, is not one of those people, having released a slew of records of Balearic beat for left-field standbys DFA and Permanent Vacation, including the seminal Return of

Willamette Week JANUARY 21, 2015 wweek.com

ROBIN BACIOR WEDNESDAY, JAN. 21 In the freezing waters of an Oregon lake in May, Robin Bacior, clothed in a red sundress, tried to stay submerged. Bacior’s friend, photographer Corinne Krogh, bobbed in the water as well, attempting to snap a photo for Bacior’s album, Water Dreams. But beyond the fact that Oregon lakes remain frigid until late summer, there was another complication. “I realized that I can’t even hold my breath underwater,” Bacior says. “We were out there for probably an hour, and at the end of it, my nails were blue, my teeth were chattering.” In the photo Krogh and Bacior selected, Bacior struggles gracefully in the haze of a murky, gray-green gradient of water, her face obscured by bubbles as it reaches for the surface. Water Dreams, released this month, is Bacior’s second full-length after a series of EPs, and it is among her most carefully composed music yet, adding classically inspired, cinematic overtones to her previously wispy brand of folk. And the cover image was nearly as important to her as the music. “I have a lot of water dreams, but a couple of years ago, when I was moving from New York to Portland, I was having them every night,” Bacior says. To Bacior, the dreams reflected a period of change in her life and “feeling like I had this whole idea of what I wanted, and then that turning out to not really suit me, and kind of coming to terms with that.” A California native, Bacior had been experiencing her lifelong dream of living in New York, until the city’s accelerated pace began wearing her down. So in 2012, she decided to move to Portland. Being in a new, less overwhelming place, with no job or friends, gave Bacior plenty of time to think, reflect and write. “When you’re in the thick of it, you’re in survival mode,” she says. “You’re not really thinking about what’s stressing you out. So once I got here, I started connecting the dots and writing more stuff down.” As a result of all that retrospection, Water Dreams sounds like a memoir, but with enough poetic vagueness that the narrative remains ambiguous. “I’m always really self-conscious about it because I feel like [the lyrics] are so straightforward,” Bacior says. “I started looking at the lyrics a little more, and was like, ‘Oh, I guess none of this makes sense to anyone.’ You just get so caught up in your own frame of mind, and suddenly you look outside of it and you’re like, ‘This is just a jumble of words.’” Still, Water Dreams has a weighty seriousness missing from her previous releases. The way she sings “I don’t care much anymore” on the single “If It Does” is less carefree than crushingly apathetic. While the groove-oriented percussion and bandmate Dan Bindschedler’s energetic cello give the songs a sense of movement, Bacior’s gentle, melodic piano adds a layer of melancholy. It’s a stretch to call Bacior’s music “angsty,” but this album comes close, particularly on the jarring “Under Knees, Understand.” At the end of the album, Bacior drowns. “I’ve sunk to the bottom,” she sings on the closing “Poolside.” It may sound like an eerie resolution, but it’s not a defeat. “Going to the shallow water/ Reborn in the deep,” goes the chorus. For all the music’s delicate sweetness, Bacior is resilient—her album cover alone is enough to tell us that. SHANNON GORMLEY. drowning yourself to live.

SEE IT: Robin Bacior plays Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi Ave., with Green Hills Alone, on Wednesday, Jan. 21. 8 pm. $8 advance, $10 day of show. 21+.

saturday–monday THE REGULARS

A n DY H At L E S tA D

Starlight in 2007. With 2014’s lustrous City Lights EP, James has shown his posi-jams are strong enough to brave the trendy musical tides, making music that could be from 2007 or 1987. MItcH LILLIE. Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison St., 2397639. 9 pm. $5. 21+.

MUSIC

Pacific Mean Time, the My Oh Mys, Amanda Breese

[BEDRooM RocK] Portland trio Pacific Mean time is led by former Little Beirut guitarist Edwin Paroissien. the group’s self-titled debut dropped last year, and it’s a pretty and patient record featuring atmospheric keys, hushed vocals and thematic guitar work. It’s very Ben Gibbard-informed, leaning more Death cab for cutie than Postal Service. one of the band’s best attributes is its restraint, remaining a bit of an enigma by not delving too deeply into either the electronic or acoustic ends of the spectrum. the result is a sincerity that is packaged soft but hits deep. MARK StocK. Secret Society Lounge, 116 NE Russell St., 493-3600. 9 pm. $8. 21+.

Appendixes, Cory J Brewer, Fog Father

[DREAM PoP] If cars could run on reverb and electric organ sounds, Portland dream-pop band Appendixes’ van could make it to the moon and back without stopping. Part of a small cadre of dreampop bands in town that don’t hide their music behind layers of reverb, Appendixes has been steadily releasing great recorded material since 2012. there is no reason to expect its new EP, Everyday Use, to be any different. PARKER HALL. The Know, 2026 NE Alberta St., 4738729. 8 pm. Call venue for ticket information. 21+.

SUNDAY, JAN. 25 The Vaselines, Loch Lomond

[InnUEnDo RocK] Has there ever been another band like the Vaselines? not in the literal sense— there are hundreds of jangly, twee-pop sweater-rock bands out there—but in the sheer perfection that is their combination of earworm melodies and winkwink eroticism. the group, led by former lovers Eugene Kelly and Frances McKee, hasn’t really changed much since its inception (and subsequent 16-year absence) in 1986. Last year’s excellent V For Vaselines could easily stand in for 1989’s Dum-Dum or 2010 comeback Sex With an X. If anything, new songs like “High tide Low tide” or “one Lost Year” are even more irresistible than anything else in the band’s deep, inspired, sing-along catalog. MIcHAEL MAnnHEIMER. Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St., 231-9663. 9 pm. $18 advance, $20 day of show. 21+.

MONDAY, JAN. 26 Trigger Hippy, Tango Alpha Tango

[H.o.R.D.E.-oEUVRES] considering how the jam-band realm fetishizes instrumental proficiency, trigger Hippy’s initial monsters-of-rootsrock assemblage—Black crowes drummer Steve Gorman, nashville studio all-star tom Bukovac and Widespread Panic guitarist Jimmy Herring (since replaced by singersongwriter Jackie Greene)—already qualified as something of a supergroup well before asking, “What if Joan osborne was one of them?” With osborne and Greene trading soulful vocals and countrified-bluesdappled songwriting split among the members, their pseudonymous debut fairly ripples with collaborative energies, and if the project at times seems made as much for the performers as listeners, the good times surely spill out when experienced live. JAY HoRton. Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi Ave., 288-3895. 8 pm. $22 advance, $25 day of show. 21+.

cont. on page 43

SKIP VONKUSKE EVERY MONDAY “A cellist walks into a bar” might sound more like a setup for a fish-out-of-water gag than a viable basis for a decade’s steady gig. But Skip vonKuske has long dedicated himself to bringing the cello into musical environments and before audiences where it might not previously have seemed to belong. As an in-demand accompanist bridging Portland’s classical and pop music worlds, and a key member of celebrated combos Vagabond Opera and Portland Cello Project, vonKuske has made variety a musical watchword. Amid all that variety, there’s been one constant in the past 10 years of the cellist’s career: His Monday-night residency at McMenamins Edgefield winery in Troutdale. Despite touring widely with the aforementioned outfits, vonKuske estimates he’s only missed, on average, about eight of the weekly shows per year over the past decade—and has only once called in sick. “At times,” vonKuske says, “I’ve literally gotten off the plane from another part of the country, been picked up at the airport and taken to Edgefield.” It was a 2002 performance by vonKuske’s eventual PCP colleague Gideon Freudmann that opened his eyes to new technological possibilities—and, thus, performance opportunities—for his instrument. “Gideon was the first person I saw using a loop pedal, and I immediately asked him about it,” vonKuske says. “And I was fortunate that he didn’t live here at the time, because my sense of propriety would have been, like, ‘Well, I can’t become a looper, because he’s playing here.’ Instead I was like, ‘I’m going to go buy that tomorrow.’” Expanding the cello’s sound appealed to vonKuske, who, while classically trained, was raised on rock. “I was jealous of guitarists having this big tonal palette, and I was more inspired by Pink Floyd and Robert Fripp than I was by Yo-Yo [Ma] and [Mstislav] Rostropovich,” he laughs. Almost immediately, vonKuske started booking solo gigs, labeling his new, loop- and effects-laden approach “cellotronik.” When McMenamins booked the cellist for a two-month run commencing in January 2005, vonKuske invited several female artists he’d previously accompanied in-studio for unrehearsed duo performances, under the title “The Diva Series.” Its success prompted the venue to extend the booking by another few months, then a few more, then another year and so on for a decade. Along the way, vonKuske’s roster of collaborators expanded to incorporate male performers as well, changing the series’ name to “The Guest List.” For the past two years, the residency has showcased a more permanent duo, Groovy Wallpaper, pairing vonKuske with Sneakin’ Out percussionist Don Henson. After their first show together, says the cellist, “we stood in a parking lot for about two hours, going, ‘Oh, my God!’” He says Henson’s playing on glockenspiel and xylophone “brings a melodic force into my music, and incredible rhythmic power.” The two are preparing their second duo album, featuring other Edgefield collaborators as guests. And, week in and week out, they continue to show the winery’s patrons just how sweet “a case of the Mondays” can be. JEFF ROSENBERG. need a cure for the monday blues? try “cellotronik.”

SEE IT: Skip vonKuske plays McMenamins Edgefield, 2126 SW Halsey St., troutdale, every Monday. 7 pm. Free. 21+. Willamette Week JANUARY 21, 2015 wweek.com

Are you reAdy? WillAmette Week presents

Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s back and better than ever. sundAy, mArCH 1 registrAtion for teAms of 5 begins februAry 4.

Willamette Week JANUARY 21, 2015 wweek.com

L.A. Witch, Cambrian Explosion

[SINISTER POP] The Los Angeles psych-punk band L.A. Witch is casting its spell over the flourishing SoCal garage-punk scene. The all-girl trio flaunts reverbladen tracks, intimate vocals and a ghostly bluesiness that allots them their own unique space within the expansive psych genre. As one would expect from its name, the group has a sonic and lyrical fascination with gothic American folklore and campy ’60s horror flicks. Tracks such as “Heart of Darkness” display the group’s shadowy, acoustic sensitivities, while the rest of its self-titled EP toys with dirty, noise-heavy jams. ASHLEY JOCZ. The Know, 2026 NE Alberta St., 473-8729. 8 pm. Call venue for ticket information. 21+.

Uli Jon Roth, Vinnie Moore, Craig Goldy

[GUITAR GOD] Long before the Scorpions rocked you like a hurricane, they made a suite of albums in the early ’70s featuring Uli Jon Roth, a guitarist often called “the German Jimi Hendrix.” It’s impossible to overstate his soul, skill and historical importance. It’s especially heartening to know that he’s not only still out there touring but willing to play intimate shows in tiny rooms like this one. Of course, his solo output was never on the radio— though you really should check out 1979’s Earthquake—and his voice is no better than Jimi’s, but when Uli plays the guitar, the sky cries. And lucky for us, the man has no issue digging deep into the Scorpions catalog live. NATHAN CARSON. Tonic Lounge, 3100 NE Sandy Blvd., 238-0543. 8 pm. $25. 21+.

TUESDAY, JAN. 27 Willie Watson, Mikaela Davis

[OLD CROW] Most people haven’t heard Willie Watson as a solo act. He solidiﬁed his old-time chops as a founding member of Old Crow Medicine Show before departing in 2011 and releasing an album of traditional, American folk songs dubbed Folk Singer Vol. 1, a plainspoken debut on which Watson rehashes classics such as “Midnight Special” and Utah Phillips’ “Rock Salt and Nails.” Watkins sings of coal mines and train cars with nothing but an acoustic guitar, yet many of the themes ring just as true under his quavering voice as they did 100 years ago. BRANDON WIDDER. Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St., 231-9663. 8:30 pm. $15. 21+.

The Toasters, the Sentiments, the Longshots

[THIRD-WAVE SKA] Commonly credited with bringing ska to the United States, Britisher Bucket Hingley formed the Toasters in 1981. He probably won’t take credit for where the genre wound up, but during the 1990s, Hingley’s Moon Ska Records served as the genre’s main publishing arm, issuing everything from traditional-sounding Jamaican stuﬀ to punked-up, mallbrat trash. After the imprint’s dissolution, the band leader founded Megalith in 2002, while continuing to release Toasters albums. Regardless of the label its been released on, the band has maintained a backward-gazing, ’60s-lionizing style, exempliﬁed by “Going Home,” the B-side to a 2014 single. DAVE CANTOR. Rotture, 315 SE 3rd Ave., 234-5683. 9 pm. $9. 21+.

CLASSICAL, JAZZ & WORLD Chamber Blast: Third Angle New Music

[HORNY THREESOMES] There’s a zillion string quartets and scores of piano trios, but for some reason, few classical composers followed Johannes Brahms’ lead in writing for the oddball combo of piano,

MUSIC

violin and horn. Maybe because his gorgeous 1865 trio, written in memory of his mom, was a hard act to follow, it took a more than a century for another great composer to write another immortal one: Hungarian composer Gyorgy Ligeti’s wild 1982 masterpiece, written in homage to Brahms. Portland’s veteran Third Angle New Music ensemble decided it was time for a 21st-century horn trio to ﬁll out a program with the other two, so it commissioned young Thai composer Narong Prangcharoen to write one. If it turns out to be as good as his dazzling “Phenomenon,” which electriﬁed the audience at one of the Oregon Symphony’s rare recent excursions into contemporary music, it may join the pantheon with the other two—and maybe make it more likely that all three will be performed more. BRETT CAMPBELL. Zoomtopia, 810 SE Belmont St., zoomtopia.com. 7:30 pm Thursday-Friday, Jan. 22-23. $10 for students, $20 for seniors, $25 general admission. All ages.

WWEEK.COM MOBILE SITE

MONDAY–TUESDAY/CLASSICAL, ETC.

• BREAKING NEWS • GEO-LOCATING BAR AND RESTAURANT REVIEWS • CITY GUIDES

Henry Kaiser, Dana Valatka, Fred Challenor

1 4 c o n c e r t s • 1 4 D ay s

[GUITAR GENIUS] Few musicians have worked with colleagues as diverse as Herbie Hancock, Diamanda Galás, Phil Lesh, Terry Riley, John Zorn, Bill Frisell, Nels Cline and Richard Thompson, but those and the many other musical visionaries San Francisco guitarist Henry Kaiser has collaborated with in more than 250 albums attests to his creative range. With a palette that broad, it’s hard to predict exactly what Kaiser’s solo and trio sets (with bassist Fred Challenor and Au percussionist Dana Valatka) will sound like in this Creative Music Guild concert, but they’re sure to involve free improv, looping and eﬀect pedals, and to be as fascinating as they are wide-ranging. BRETT CAMPBELL. Performance Works NW, 4625 SE 67th Ave., 777-1907. 8 pm Saturday, Jan. 24. $12-$20 sliding scale. All ages.

chamber blast chamberblast.org

Five of Portland’s premier arts organizations

Estelí Gomez

[NEW OREGON MUSIC] Even before she won a Grammy Award last year for her performance with Boston’s electrifying vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth, young soprano Estelí Gomez had won a national reputation as one of the rare indie-classical singers who could build a career around performing music by contemporary composers. In this concert, she oﬀers Portlanders the opportunity to hear the latest 21st-century music created by the next generation of Oregon composers, including Ramsey Sadaka, John Goforth, Justin Ralls, Alexander Bean, Dan S. Daly, David Sackmann and Matthew B. Zavortink. BRETT CAMPBELL. Zoomtopia, 810 SE Belmont St., zoomtopia.com. 8 pm Saturday, Jan. 24. $8 for students and seniors, $10 general admission. All ages.

band together to bring you a winter storm of exceptional, intimate, and live chamber music.

M Jan 19 T Jan 20

Takács Quartet

W Jan 28

Matthew Polenzani, tenor & Julius Drake, piano

Lincoln Performance Hall, PSU

Th Jan 22 “Blown Opportunity” F Jan 23 Studio 2@Zoomtopia

The Ensemble, Musica Maestrale, Canonici

[VENETIAN VESPERS] As the Portland Art Museum’s Golden Age of Venice exhibit recently showed, the Italian city’s position at the crossroads of trade and culture produced an artistic explosion. That also applied to music, when at the beginning of the 17th century what we now call Baroque music was born. The all-star Portland vocal group called the Ensemble joins the local early-music ensemble Musica Maestrale and Tacoma’s early-music vocal consort Canonici to perform music that might have been used in a vespers service from that artistically fertile time and place. BRETT CAMPBELL. St. Stephen’s Church, 1112 SE 41st Ave. 4 pm Sunday, Jan. 25. $10 for students, $10 for seniors, $20 general admission. All ages.

Su Jan 25

Camerata PYP •

Su Jan 25 M Jan 26

Denis Kozhukhin, pianist

Wieden + Kennedy Bldg

Lincoln Performance Hall, PSU

Jan 31

Rachel Kudo, pianist •

Jan 27

Beethoven’s Inner World

Th Jan 29

Portland Piano Company

Masterpieces for Piano, Four Hands

Jan 30

Dover and Friends

Jan 31

Mozart, Bartók & Schumann

Su Feb 1

Dvořák , Dohnányi & Brahms

For more Music listings, visit Willamette Week JANUARY 21, 2015 wweek.com

MUSIC CALENDAR

[JAN. 21-27] alhambra Theatre

= 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. 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.

3100 NE Sandy Blvd. Famine Fest II

analog Cafe & Theater

Valentine’s

For more listings, check out wweek.com.

720 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Damage Bouquet, Brown Erbe

LAST WEEK LIVE

arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall

ANTHONYPIDgEON.COM

1037 SW Broadway Beethoven’s Fifth

ash Street Saloon

225 SW Ash St. Dirty Kid Discount, Rum Rebellion, Juicy Karkass, Hammered Grunts, The Whiskey Dickers

Bunk Bar

1028 SE Water Ave. The Woolen Men, Wimps, G. Green

dante’s

350 W Burnside St Whitey Morgan and the 78s, Joe Fletcher

doug Fir Lounge

830 E Burnside St. La Luz, Prom Queen

duff’s Garage

2530 NE 82nd Ave Mitch Kashmar, Alicin Rices Singer/Songwriter Hour

Hawthorne Theatre

1507 SE 39th Ave. Powerman 5000, Hed PE, Knee High Fox

High water Mark

TOO MUCH, MAGIC SWORD!: Since its last Portland show at Rotture about six months ago, the fantasy electro-metal duo Magic Sword has evolved into a revelation. We still don’t know who resides behind the masks, but the Boise band continues to carve its niche deeper with every show. At Doug Fir Lounge on Jan. 16, the Keeper and the Seeker— as the two are known —played from their stellar debut album, Volume One, in front of an animation reel culled from the LP’s accompanying comic book. Part post-Internet gamer culture, part future rock, part delightful corniness, Magic Sword delivered highly cinematic, heavy-hitting dance music that miraculously marries John Carpenter with Ratatat. MARK STOCK. See more photos at wweek.com/lastweeklive. wed. Jan. 21

Landmark Saloon

al’s den

4847 SE Division St. Miller and Sasser’s Twelve Dollar Band

andina Restaurant

LaurelThirst Public House

303 SW 12th Ave. The Punishment Brothers 1314 NW Glisan Toshi Onizuka

ash Street Saloon

225 SW Ash St. Stein, Mana Machines, The Antelopers, Ransom Party

Bunk Bar

2958 NE Glisan St. Lowlight, Stars of Cascadia, Matthew Lindley Band (9 pm); The Student Loan (6 pm)

Mississippi Studios

3939 N Mississippi Ave. Robin Bacior

1028 SE Water Ave. Haunted Summer, East Forest, Pinscape

Music Millennium

doug Fir Lounge

The Old Church

830 E Burnside St. Alice Peacock

duff’s Garage

2530 NE 82nd Ave Arthur Moore’s Harmonica Party

Hawthorne Theatre

1507 SE 39th Ave. Aesop Rock with Rob Sonic, Homeboy Sandman, Dark Time Sunshine

High water Mark

6800 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. Oro Azoro, Tyrants, Love Fuck and Brown Sleeves

Holocene

1001 SE Morrison St. Willis Earl Beal, Dragging an Ox Through Water, Aaron Chapman

Jimmy Mak’s

221 NW 10th Ave. The Christopher Brown Quartet, Mel Brown Quartet

3158 E. Burnside St. The Hill Dogs 1422 SW 11th Ave. David Eby

Trail’s end Saloon 1320 Main Street Big Monti

white eagle Saloon 836 N Russell St. Reverb Brothers

wonder Ballroom

128 NE Russell St. Russian Circles, Mamiffer

THuRS. Jan. 22 al’s den

303 SW 12th Ave. The Punishment Brothers

andina Restaurant 1314 NW Glisan Jason Okamoto

arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall

1037 SW Broadway Beethoven’s Fifth

Willamette Week JANUARY 21, 2015 wweek.com

ash Street Saloon

225 SW Ash St. Pediment, Agents of Ecco, Crime Wit

dante’s

Roseland Theater 8 NW 6th Ave. Wale, Doja Cat

Rotture

350 W Burnside St Greyman Clinic, Why Know, Josh Langbecker

315 SE 3rd Ave. Juke Bounce Werk, J-Drago, DJ Noir, Neuropunk

doug Fir Lounge

Sandy Hut

830 E Burnside St. Mates of State

duff’s Garage

2530 NE 82nd Ave The DK Stewart Sextet, Tough Love Pyle

Hawthorne Theatre

1507 SE 39th Ave. Sisyphean Conscience, Hail the Artilect, nimus, The Diggers, As Death Comes Calling, Of Fact And Fiction

Holocene

1001 SE Morrison St. Beacon

Jade Lounge

2342 SE Ankeny St. This Fair City, Lord Pennington, Joseph Fisher

Jimmy Mak’s

221 NW 10th Ave. Mel Brown B3 Organ Group

LaurelThirst Public House

2958 NE Glisan St. Tin Silver, The Tipsy Ramblers (9 pm); Lewi & the Left Coast Roasters (6 pm)

Mississippi Studios

3939 N Mississippi Ave. Ill Lucid Onset, Jackson Jackson & The Citizens, Sungold

1430 NE Sandy Blvd. The Cry

The GoodFoot Lounge 2845 SE Stark St. Sophistafunk, Tubaluba

The Know

2026 NE Alberta St. Hope Grooves, Honey Bucket

The Secret Society

116 NE Russell St. The Super Saturated Sugar Strings, Ezra Bell, Bevelers, the Lonely Teardrops

white eagle Saloon 836 N Russell St. South Saturn Delta

wonder Ballroom

128 NE Russell St. The Wood Brothers

Zoomtopia

810 SE Belmont Chamber Blast: Third Angle New Music

FRi. Jan. 23 al’s den

303 SW 12th Ave. The Punishment Brothers

alberta Rose Theatre 3000 NE Alberta St. Martha Davis and The Motels

The Tonic Lounge

4811 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Ethan Tucker

6800 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. Spare Spells, Bobby Peru & Faith Twain

Jimmy Mak’s

221 NW 10th Ave. Jacob Merlin, Sarah Billings, Mac Potts

Kelly’s Olympian

426 SW Washington St. Tramps

Landmark Saloon

4847 SE Division St. The Neon Stars, the Pickups Bluegrass Quartet

LaurelThirst Public House 2958 NE Glisan St. Austin Quattlebaum, James Wallace (9:30 pm); The Reverb Brothers (6 pm)

Mississippi Pizza Pub.

3552 N. Misssissippi Ave The Tara Novellas

Mississippi Studios

3939 N Mississippi Ave. Summer Cannibals, Hustle and Drone, Edna Vazquez/No Passengers

Plews Brews

8409 N. Lombard St. Colin Trio, Peter & The Chair

Ponderosa Lounge

10350 N Vancouver Way Flexor T

Rock Creek Tavern

10000 NW Old Cornelius Pass Rd. Butterfly Breakdown

Sandy Hut

1430 NE Sandy Blvd. My Life in Black and White, Hilltop Rats, Wild Bill and Alden Glinert

The Firkin Tavern

1937 SE 11th Ave. Th-Thunter, Aleck Woogmaster & Ivy Estelle, Third Seven

The Ranger Station PdX

4260 SE Hawthorne Blvd Aarun and Jonathan

The Secret Society

116 NE Russell St. The Supraphonics, Pete Krebs and his Portland Playboys

232 SW Ankeny St Tigerface, Laura Palmer’s Death Parade, el com hom

white eagle Saloon 836 N Russell St. Rich Layton and the Troublemakers, The Martindales

winningstad Theatre 1111 SW Broadway Spanish Brass

SaT. Jan. 24 al’s den

303 SW 12th Ave. The Punishment Brothers

aladdin Theater

3017 SE Milwaukie Ave. Portland Soundcheck III

alberta Rose Theatre 3000 NE Alberta St. Casey Abrams

alhambra Theatre

4811 SE Hawthorne Blvd. RAF Mod Band, Original Middle Age Ska Enjoy Club, DJ Mikey Oh!

arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall

1037 SW Broadway Concertmaster Sarah Kwak

Sandy Hut

1430 NE Sandy Blvd. The Exacerbators, The Ransom and Vodka Wilson Overdrive

MOn. Jan. 26 alhambra Theatre

4811 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Nappy Roots

Star Theater

dante’s

The GoodFoot Lounge

Hawthorne Theatre

13 NW 6th Ave. Mad Caddies & The Aggrolites 2845 SE Stark St. Jujuba, Cascadia 10

The Know

2026 NE Alberta St. Appendixes, Corey Brewer, Fog Father

The Muddy Rudder Public House 8105 SE 7th Ave. Paul Chasman & The Gatleys

The Old Church

1422 SW 11th Ave. Keys To Brazil

The Ranger Station PdX

4260 SE Hawthorne Blvd Sloe Loris

The Secret Society

116 NE Russell St. Pacific Mean Time, The My Oh Mys, Amanda Breese, The Jenny Finn Orchestra

white eagle Saloon 836 N Russell St. Garcia Birthday Band, DoveDriver

350 W Burnside St Karaoke From Hell (10 pm); Kyle Cregan (9 pm) 1507 SE 39th Ave. Silverstein, Hands Like Houses, Beartooth, Major League, My Iron Lung

LaurelThirst Public House

2958 NE Glisan St. Kung Pao Chickens (9 pm); Portland Country Underground (6 pm)

Lincoln Performance Hall 1620 SW Park Ave. Portland Piano International: Denis Kozhukhin

Mississippi Studios

3939 N Mississippi Ave. Trigger Hippy

The Know

2026 NE Alberta St. LA Witch, Cambrian Explosion, Hats Off

The Tonic Lounge

3100 NE Sandy Blvd. Uli Jon Roth, Vinnie Moore, Craig Goldy

white eagle Saloon

wilf’s Restaurant & Bar

836 N Russell St. Singer Songwriter Showcase, Eric John Kaiser

2035 NE Glisan St. Fireballs of Freedom, Crush Hazard, The 63 Fremonts

wineup On williams

alberta Rose Theatre

dante’s

810 SE Belmont Estel Gomez

ash Street Saloon

225 SW Ash St. Calabrese, Toxic Zombie, The Bone Snatchers

Club 21

350 W Burnside St Crazy Train (Ozzy Tribute), Unchained (Van Halen Tribute) & Lovedrive (Scorpions Tribute)

doug Fir Lounge

830 E Burnside St. Brooke Fraser, Dark Waves

duff’s Garage

2530 NE 82nd Ave Dave Edmunds Tribute

Hawthorne Theatre

1507 SE 39th Ave. Dark Tranquillity, Insomnium, Barrowlands, Boudica, Zorakarer, Damage Overdose

800 NW 6th Ave. Mia Nicholson, Steve Christofferson, David Evans 3037 N Williams Ave David Friesen Trio

Zoomtopia

Sun. Jan. 25 arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall

1037 SW Broadway Concertmaster Sarah Kwak

ash Street Saloon

225 SW Ash St. SkullDozer, Chainbound, City

doug Fir Lounge

830 E Burnside St. The Vaselines

duff’s Garage

TueS. Jan. 27 3000 NE Alberta St. Chamber Music NW: Beethoven’s Inner World

ash Street Saloon

225 SW Ash St. Demented Carousel, Urban Sex Legends

doug Fir Lounge

830 E Burnside St. Willie Watson, Mikaela Davis

duff’s Garage

2530 NE 82nd Ave Mac & Dub, Wingtips

Hawthorne Theatre

1507 SE 39th Ave. Periphery, Nothing More, Wovenwar, Thank You Scientists

Holocene

Jimmy Mak’s

2530 NE 82nd Ave The Rhythm Renegades

1001 SE Morrison St. MSHR, the Tenses, Matt Carlson, Noor

edgefield

Jimmy Mak’s

Kelly’s Olympian

2126 SW Halsey St. Red and Ruby

Hawthorne Theatre Lounge

LaurelThirst Public House

221 NW 10th Ave. Paul Creighton Project 426 SW Washington St. Tramps

Landmark Saloon

4847 SE Division St. The Redeemed

LaurelThirst Public House

2958 NE Glisan St. Alexa Wiley & the Wilderness, Troy Stewart & Tim Sproul (9:30 pm); The Yellers (6 pm)

Mississippi Studios

3939 N Mississippi Ave. Thanks, Just Lions, Us Lights

Music Millennium

3158 E. Burnside St. Barbara Lusch

Ponderosa Lounge

10350 N Vancouver Way Aaron Crawford

Rock Creek Tavern

10000 NW Old Cornelius Pass Rd. Lewi Longmire & The Left Coast Roasters

1503 SE Cesar E Chavez Blvd. The Matt Bacnis Band

LaurelThirst Public House

2958 NE Glisan St. Open Mic (9 pm); Freak Mountain Ramblers (6 pm)

Lincoln Performance Hall 1620 SW Park Ave. Portland Piano International: Denis Kozhukhin

Music Millennium

3158 E. Burnside St. The Lovely Lost

St. Stephen’s Catholic Church 1112 SE 41st Avenue The Ensemble, Musica Maestrale, Canonici

white eagle Saloon 836 N Russell St. Rob Johnston

221 NW 10th Ave. Joe Manis and Siri Vik

2958 NE Glisan St. Jackstraw

Music Millennium

3158 E. Burnside St. Wovenwar

Roseland Theater

8 NW 6th Ave. Pierce The Veil, Sleeping With Sirens, PVRIS

Rotture

315 SE 3rd Ave. The Toasters, The Sentiments

The GoodFoot Lounge 2845 SE Stark St. Radula

The Know

2026 NE Alberta St. Sloths, U Sco, Toim

The Tonic Lounge

3100 NE Sandy Blvd. Skullfist, Spellcaster, Maniak

jan. 21–27

MUSIC CALENDAR cameronbrowne.com

BAR REVIEW

Where to drink this week. 1. Bazi Bierbrasserie 1522 SE 32nd Ave, 234-8888, bazipdx.com. It’s hard to argue with the food and drink pairings this belgian spot has been trucking out lately, from a new Year’s party with chef Paul Kasten serving roast, to a gluten-free beer dinner this week. 2. Sandy Hut 1430 NE Sandy Blvd., 235-7972. behold the surprising resurgence of the Handy Slut: The dive bar chucked the pool table and threw down a stage to become a place where the Dwarves might play a new Year’s eve eve show, with even more punk the next day. 3. Wilder Bar Cafe 5501 NE 30th Ave., 704-8332. This little “bar cafe” has aged into a lovely hangout and 31st-date spot. The cozily domestic bar offers a curated array of elevated comfort food, craft beer and cider—and has perhaps the best TV placement we’ve seen in a bar, with no seat quite facing it. 4. McMenamins Edgefield 2126 SW Halsey St., Troutdale, 669-8610, mcmenamins.com. of all the mcmenamins, this is the one you should make a pilgrimage to: Its vast array of little cigar bars, distillery bars, pubs, restaurants and weird adjunct bars all have different seasonal, nitro, and especially barrel-aged beers courtesy of the edgefield brewmaster. It’s like a treasure hunt and a bar crawl at once, in an english countryside. 5. Loowit 507 Columbia St., Vancouver, 360-566-2323, loowitbrewing.com. Vancouver has really blossomed as a beer town in the last year, and downtown’s most happening spot on a Saturday night is this cavernous brewery, which smells like a hop farm and has live music.

SAY WAT: Habesha Lounge (801 NE Broadway, 284-4299) is either a party on top of an Ethiopian restaurant, or it’s a bar that stumbled into a patio party. Loosely open Tuesdays through Saturdays, it mostly just comes into being when something’s going on. Tuesday night is an open mic. Thursdays the room packs with indie-rock kids and comedians for a raucous karaoke night with deep tracks missing from most binders. The music shows—booked by the bar’s sole employee, Brandon Nikola—range from underground to just plain weird, with the occasional high-profile Eternal Tapestry or Grammies record-release show. Their events only sometimes show up in newspapers, but are instead passed around on personal Facebook pages, a whisper campaign that sometimes reaches deafening levels. But if someone texts you to say they’re at Habesha, you know what you’re in for: a packed party room that spills onto a two-level patio overlooking Northeast Broadway, with nearly all of its seating on the deck. Inside, sweat. Outside, cigarettes. Five vegetarian Ethiopian items are available from the restaurant downstairs; these are eaten almost exclusively before 10 pm. The bar itself has a mere three taps and the liquor cabinet of an eccentric homeowner, a bare-bones list of standards supplemented with Fernet-Branca, nicer-than-average vermouth and Disaronno. The room is decorated equally sparsely and idiosyncratically, with a smattering of ceiling-hung tree slices and a 5-foot-tall picture of JFK hobnobbing with Haile Selassie. In the Year of the Pop-Up™®, when every restaurant from Toro Bravo to Ned Ludd is showing up with event spaces custom-made for “parties” that cost $100, Habesha is a beautiful throwback to the days when such things were actually improvised, rather than meticulously crafted by PR teams. MATTHEW KORFHAGE.

The rose Bar

111 SW Ash St Gran Ritmos V, DJ Chilly, Cuica, Michael Bruce, Coast2c

The whiskey Bar

wed. Jan. 21 Moloko Plus

3967 N Mississippi Ave. King Tim 33 1/3

The Lovecraft

421 SE Grand Ave. Event Horizon

The whiskey Bar 31 NW 1st Ave Dr. Fresch

Thurs. Jan. 22 Moloko Plus

The Tonic Lounge

3100 NE Sandy Blvd. House Call: Jesse Saunders

fri. Jan. 23 Branx

320 SE 2nd Ave. Paradise: Benny Rox, Drexler, Davo, DVST, Lord BB, Portia

holocene

1001 SE Morrison St. Dante Carfagna, DJ Bobby D, DJ Cooky Parker, DJ Maxx Bass

3967 N Mississippi Ave. The Central Experience with Gulls & Mr. Peepers, Morganixx and Friends

Lovecraft Bar

The Lovecraft

315 SE 3rd Ave. Cockpit: Flava D, Lincolnup, Knomad, Tabor Dark b2b E Fury, Art of Hot

421 SE Grand Ave. Shadowplay

421 SE Grand Ave Turnt Up with DJ Pavone

rotture

31 NW 1st Ave Styles & Complete

saT. Jan. 24 Cruzroom

2338 NE Alberta St. Vinylogy

dig a Pony

736 Southeast Grand Ave. Freaky Outty

holocene

sun. Jan. 25 The Goodfoot Lounge

2845 SE Stark St. MOM (Motown on Mondays) on Sunday

Mon. Jan. 26 ash street saloon

225 SW Ash St. The Underground Resistance, DJ Blackhawk

The Lovecraft

421 SE Grand Ave. Departures, DJ Waisted and Friends

Tues. Jan. 27

1001 SE Morrison St. Love in This Club: Woolfy, Nathan Detroit, Ben Tactic, JPrez

analog Cafe & Theater

The whiskey Bar

dig a Pony

31 NW 1st Ave Jaytech

wonder Ballroom

128 NE Russell St. RL Grime, Lunice, Tommy Kruise

720 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Boombox

736 Southeast Grand Ave. Team Atkins

The Lovecraft

421 SE Grand Ave. Bones with DJ Aurora

Willamette Week JANUARY 21, 2015 wweek.com

MUSIC PG. 37

Willamette Week JANUARY 21, 2015 wweek.com

jan. 21–27 PREVIEW

= WW Pick. Highly recommended.

ALLEY PEzANOSKI-BROWNE

PERFORMANCE

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: KAITIE TODD (dance@wweek.com). TO BE CONSIDERED FOR LISTINGS, submit information at least two weeks in advance to: rjacobson@wweek.com.

FERTILE GROUND FESTIVAL The festival of world-premiere theater and dance returns for its seventh year, with more than 70 full productions, readings and workshops over 11 days. Fertile Ground productions are . Through Feb. 1. marked with a Full pass $50; individual tickets vary. Visit fertilegroundpdx.org for details.

BOX: A Live Science Fiction Trilogy

THEATER OPENINGS & PREVIEWS The Adventures of Baron Munchausen

A reading of a new musical by Mark LaPierre about a showboating baron and the dandy who doesn’t believe his tales of carnivorous plants and talking walruses. Lakewood Center for the Arts, 368 S State St., Lake Oswego, 635-3901. 2 pm Sunday, Jan. 25. $10.

Alan’s Confectionery

An in-progress presentation of Alan Alexander III’s new musical, based on his family’s experiences during the Great Depression and the years leading up to World War II. Hipbone Studio, 1847 E Burnside St., 358-0898. 6 pm Sunday, Jan. 25. $10.

Alice’s 1-Woman Wonderland: The Original Adventure

Anne Rutherford puts on a familyfriendly solo performance of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Multnomah Arts Center , 7688 SW Capitol Highway, 823-2787. 2 pm Saturdays-Sundays through Feb. 1. $12-$15. FRIDERIKE HEuER

Always Without Warning

As part of Fertile Ground, Spring 4th Productions presents an unscripted show that co-writers/directors Tobin Gollihar and Ian Paul Sieren assert is not improv, but rather something “living, growing” and “unexpected.” Make your own wagers. Y Arts Center, 6036 SE Foster Rd., fertilegroundpdx.org. 7:30 pm Thursdays-Saturdays through Jan. 31. $10-$15.

Pulp Stage presents a three-part sci-fi serial written by Tina Connolly and Matt Haynes. The story, set in the future, follows a high-school student who’s arrested and sent to a detention center, where the government tries to prove her guilt by putting her into a virtual-reality program. Each week features a new hourlong installment. Hipbone Studio, 1847 E Burnside St., 358-0898. 7:30 pm Mondays, Jan. 26-Feb. 9 and 7:30 pm Sunday, Feb. 8. $10.

Bruté

Gorilla Bomb Productions reimagines Julius Caesar as a mafia drama in ’50s New York. The Hostess, 538 SE Ash St., fertilegroundpdx.org. 7:30 pm Thursdays-Sundays through Feb. 1. $15.

Cottonwood in the Flood

A staged reading of a new play by Rich Rubin about African-Americans in Oregon in the ’40s, focusing on the city of Vanport. Performance Works NW, 4625 SE 67th Ave., 777-1907. 7:30 pm Thursday-Friday and 2:30 pm Saturday, Jan. 22-24. $5.

CONT. on page 49

TOP THREE BEST BETS FOR FERTILE GROUND ID[ea] Back in August, participants in Third Rail’s mentorship program were given 36 hours to make a piece of theater. What emerged is a play about how we create, transform and strip apart our identities in the digital age. The subject matter might sound familiar, but count on Third Rail for strong performances and irreverent style. Echo Theater, 1515 SE 37th Ave., 231-1232. 8 and 10 pm Fridays and 8 pm Saturdays, Jan. 23-31. $10. Time, a Fair Hustler Hand2Mouth—one of Portland’s more intrepid theater companies— offers an in-progress glimpse of its newest project, inspired by Gus Van Sant’s landmark film My Own Private Idaho. The show, which will have its full premiere in July, explores the chasm between the Portland depicted by Van Sant in his 1991 film—a decidedly gritty place—and the city’s current image as an artisanal playground. Artists Repertory Theatre, 1515 SW Morrison St. 7:30 pm Monday, Jan. 26. Free. I’d Rather Goya Robbed Me of My Sleep Than Some Other Son of a Bitch Boom Arts presents a solo show, written by Argentine-Spanish playwright Rodrigo García and performed by Ebbe Roe Smith, about a beleaguered middle-aged man who decides to break into the Prado and hang out with Goya’s Black Paintings. There will also be two piglets onstage, because what’s fringe theater without the porcine contingent? Disjecta, 8371 N Interstate Ave. 7:30 pm Wednesday-Thursday, Jan. 28-29. Continues 7:30 pm Thursday-Saturday, Feb. 5-7. $15. REBECCA JACOBSON. Go: Fertile Ground runs through Feb. 1 at multiple venues. Full pass $50. Visit fertilegroundpdx.org for details.

for deer life: laura dunn on southeast Powell Boulevard.

A DARK DETROIT NIGHT A NEW FOLK OPERA REIMAGINES THE SNOW QUEEN IN THE MOTOR CITY. By R eBecca jacoB son

rjacobson@wweek.com

A few years ago, while traveling through Detroit, musician Laura Dunn stepped into an abandoned ballroom. On the floor was a shattered chandelier— a small one, but in memory it grew to wondrous proportions, its glinting crystals strewn across the vast, dusty dance floor. That image—and those memories of Detroit as a place of desolation but also unexpected beauty— stuck with Dunn, and helped inspire The Snow Queen, premiering as part of the annual Fertile Ground festival of new works. The show, which Dunn calls a “folk opera,” recasts Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale amid the empty warehouses and scrappy community gardens of contemporary Detroit. For Dunn, Andersen’s story—of loss and redemption, of decay and preservation, of the power of imagination—fits well in a postindustrial wasteland. “How do you create magic out of devastation?” asks Dunn, a fine-featured 31-year-old with a day job teaching poetry to elementary-school students. “Where is there space for that in adult life?” In Andersen’s original “Snow Queen,” Kai and Gerda are best friends who live next door to each other. When Kai gets a shard of glass in his eye—a broken fragment of a magic mirror—his heart turns cold and he mysteriously disappears. In this adaptation, which Dunn is co-directing with Alley Pezanoski-Browne, Kai and Gerda are neighbors who work at a bottling factory in Detroit—and, naturally, live across the way from an abandoned ballroom. Gerda, played by Dunn, is the dreamier and more childlike of the two. But sheer imagination isn’t enough for Kai, and he falls into a heroin addiction that pulls him away from Gerda. That’s an autobiographical detail: Dunn’s older brother is a recovering addict. But growing up on a turkey farm outside Corvallis (Dunn confirms the birds are just as mean as you’ve heard), the siblings would spend hours playing make-believe. When her brother grew out of the games, Dunn, like Gerda, felt abandoned. “He’s three years older, so he started to turn away,” Dunn says. “He

would always say to me, ‘I just gotta go meet up with some people.’” In the fairy tale, Gerda embarks on a search for Kai, along the way encountering all variety of characters—some helpful, some unsavory. Here, much of this unfolds through song. Dunn sings and plays banjo with the Ghosts of Xmas Past, which makes eerie, whispery folk music. For The Snow Queen, she’s written 11 original songs, to be performed by an onstage band that includes glockenspiel, ukulele, oilcan drum and theremin. Dunn’s voice—highpitched and haunting—can be singular to the point of distracting. But if you listen closely to the lyrics, you’ll pick up on references to Andersen’s tale: a flower-pot garden, a splintered mirror, arthropods melted on the stove. Dunn says the songs help establish a bridge between the wintry Scandinavia of Andersen’s original tale and the bleakness of modern-day Detroit. “The music sets the mood,” she says, “conveying us into a cold night.” The setting helps, too. The show is being held in a converted warehouse in the shadow of the Hawthorne Bridge. The small space, known mostly for dark-wave dance nights, experimental burlesque shows and erotic rope-bondage performances, seats only 40, and Dunn says it’ll be kept spare. “This is a postindustrial show, and this is a postindustrial warehouse,” she says. “The point is emptiness.” Dunn knows she has a dark sensibility: “I was in a marketing meeting, and people were like, ‘Stop talking about heroin!’” she says. Even so, she’s injected The Snow Queen with some comic relief. The character of the crow—a confidant for Gerda on her quest to find Kai—has been transformed into an aging punk rocker with a crusty exterior but a soft, romantic core. The show also pokes fun at the ways disillusioned people make stabs at connection. “Gerda ends up at a community garden and is roped into volunteering,” Dunn says. “That’s like Portland, where you’re searching for ways to engage with your community and get too caught up in one thing. And then you stop seeing your friends because you’re too busy making your own cheese.” see it: The Snow Queen is at the Steep and Thorny Way to Heaven, 1464 SE 2nd Ave. 7:30 pm Saturday-Sunday, Jan. 24-25; 9 pm FridaySaturday, Jan. 30-31; 2 pm Sunday, Feb. 1. $15. Willamette Week JANUARY 21, 2015 wweek.com

Willamette Week JANUARY 21, 2015 wweek.com

JAN. 21–27

Daisy Dukes Shorts Night

As part of Fertile Ground, PDX Playwrights puts on readings of 10 short plays, all written on the theme of...wait for it: “fertile ground.” Hipbone Studio, 1847 E Burnside St., 358-0898. 7 pm Saturday, Jan. 24. $10.

Deception

Portland Civic Theatre Guild presents a reading of a new play by Nancy Moss that follows an AfricanAmerican woman in Portland in the 1880s, a time of exclusion laws (and also railway expansion, which somehow factors into the show as well). The Old Church, 1422 SW 11th Ave., 222-2031. 10:30 am Tuesday, Jan. 27. $8.

Post5 Theatre, 1666 SE Lambert St., 971-258-8584. 9 pm ThursdaysFridays and 8:30 pm SaturdaysSundays through Feb. 14. $15; Sundays “pay what you can.”

Genuis

Sean Bowie performs a one-man show that may or may not include his thoughts on video stores, midwives, ecstatic dance and having sex in ﬁelds. The Headwaters, 55 NE Farragut St., No. 9, fertilegroundpdx. org. 7:30 pm Thursdays-Saturdays through Jan. 31. Donation.

Ghost Town

Action/Adventure’s Aubrey Jessen presents a workshop performance of her new play, which promises music, humor and possibly an atmo-

PERFORMANCE

sphere of dread. Action/Adventure Theatre, 1050 SE Clinton St. 7:30 pm Tuesday, Jan. 27. $8.

Greg and Lauren and Bereavement

PDX Playwrights presents staged readings of two plays: Sally Stember’s Greg and Lauren, a comedy about two 70-year-olds who fall in love, and AJ Franks’ dark comedy Bereavement, following a man who’s tired of being a pushover and crafts a plot to change his situation. Hipbone Studio, 1847 E Burnside St., 358-0898. 8 pm Sunday, Jan. 25. $10.

CONT. on page 50

Down

REVIEW BRUD GILES

Overunder Arts—four Reed Collegeeducated young’uns who aim to challenge privilege in the local theater scene—present an original, experimental work that explores depression through various performance techniques as well as video projection. Museum of Modern Life, 4504 SE Milwaukie Ave., overunderarts.com. 7:30 pm Thursday-Monday, Jan. 22-26. $10.

Dreams & Ghosts: A Family Album Retrospective in Story and Song

Singer-songwriter Avery Hill puts on a family-friendly program featuring stories and acoustic songs about her family’s history. Hipbone Studio, 1847 E Burnside St., 358-0898. 7:30 pm Thursday-Friday, Jan. 22-23. $15.

Echoes, a Cabaret Response to the “Disappeared”

Jewish Theatre Collaborative, in partnership with Latino writers’ group Los Porteños, presents a cabaret-style show reﬂecting on Argentina’s Dirty War. The evening—featuring poetry, readings and songs—is part of JTC’s yearlong adaptation of Nathan Englander’s novel The Ministry of Special Cases. Each performance will be held at a diﬀerent venue: Jan. 25 at Milagro Theatre (525 SE Stark St.), Jan. 26 at the Mittleman Jewish Community Center (6651 SW Capitol Highway) and Jan. 27 in the studio theater at PSU’s Lincoln Hall (1620 SW Park Ave.). Multiple venues. 7:30 pm Sunday-Tuesday, Jan. 25-27. $10-$20.

Enter the Night

Maria Irene Fornes has written more than 40 plays—she’s currently 84 and suﬀering from Alzheimer’s disease—but the Cuban-born playwright is rarely produced outside avant-garde circles. Portland Experimental Theatre Ensemble, known for staging some of the more adventurous work in town, presents 1993’s Enter the Night, about three friends navigating big issues— gender, sexuality, love, death—in formally spare ways. In a promising move, PETE has brought in New York director Alice Reagan, who’s skilled at energizing challenging material and harnessing strangeness to her advantage. Shaking the Tree, 823 SE Grant Ave., 971-258-2049. 7:30 pm Thursdays-Sundays through Feb. 8. $15-$40.

The Essex

Lawrence Howard, probably best known for his solo storytelling performance about Sir Ernest Shackleton’s attempt to cross Antarctica, presents a new one-man show based on the true events that inspired Moby Dick. It’s 1820, and a Nantucket whaling ship has been sunk in the Paciﬁc. Eight sailors would eventually make it to South America, and Howard recounts what happened during those 93 days at sea. Alberta Abbey, 126 NE Alberta St., 897-7037. 8 pm Friday-Saturday, Jan. 23-24. $15-$18.

Gender Tree

In this new play written by Cassandra Boice and presented by Post5, two actors explore the cultural construction of gender, especially through the lens of fashion.

CHILD’S PLAY: Elisha Henig (right) as Pavel.

THE SNOWSTORM The Snowstorm begins with an intense concert. Sitting at a piano in the darkened theater, Eric Nordin looks calm and serene, but that belies the torrent of sound he’s producing. As the final, furious notes die in the air, the actors marvel and applaud. “Why so many notes?” asks one. “Why in such a hurry?” Maybe because The Snowstorm tears through 18 piano solos by Sergei Rachmaninoff in just under 2½ hours. For those unfamiliar with the Russian composer, his music is both beautiful and relentless, and The Snowstorm—part of this year’s Fertile Ground festival—might leave you out of breath. But with such an impassioned blend of live music, dance and theater, that’s hardly a bad thing. An original work by local composer Nordin and director-choreographer Jessica Wallenfels, The Snowstorm takes Rachmaninoff compositions and pairs them with abstract choreography—sweeping arm movements, rigid shoulder shrugs. Set in Russia in 1910, the story follows a grieving father, Dmitri (Chris Harder), his imaginative son Pavel (young actor Elisha Henig), and a woman named Anna (Jamie Rea) who is painfully haunted by her past. Often, the play slips into imagination or memory, with nonlinear moments—which feature dueling animals, arms deals and ghosts— slowly revealing how the three characters are connected. The eight performers are excellent—most notably Matthew Kerrigan, who plays both a sad specter and an over-the-top gypsy entertainer—and they’re at their best during the show’s more physically dynamic moments. A scene called “Ice Dancing” is straight out of a rom-com, in the very best way: As Dmitri and Anna slip and slide across a frozen lake, he shuffles awkwardly and she moves with graceful balance. Even though it’s obvious how the scene will progress, it’s still utterly charming—and, accompanied by one of Rachmaninoff’s more cheerful tunes, one of the first bits of fun in an otherwise dark and wistful evening. That’s not to say the show is without fault. Some of Pavel’s scenes drag, as his imaginary animal friends chase each other repetitively. And the ending ties things into a neat bow when a messier conclusion might have been more satisfying. For the most part, though, The Snowstorm finds a wonderful harmony between story, sound and movement. As Anna tells Pavel, “If you allow yourself to fall in, grand adventures await.” KAITIE TODD. From Russia with love.

SEE IT: The Snowstorm is at CoHo Theater, 2257 NW Raleigh St., 220-2646. 7:30 pm Thursdays-Saturdays and 2 pm Sundays through Feb. 7. $15-$25.

Are you reAdy? WillAmette Week presents

It’s back and better than ever. sundAy, mArCH 1 registrAtion for teAms of 5 begins februAry 4. Willamette Week JANUARY 21, 2015 wweek.com

jan. 21–27

How To Stop Dying

Noah Dunham’s new play has dark themes—ghost hunting, death, the great beyond—but a comedic slant. In advance of its full production in May, Action/Adventure puts on an inprogress showing for Fertile Ground. Action/Adventure Theatre, 1050 SE Clinton St. 2 pm Sundays, Jan. 25 and Feb. 1. $8.

ID[ea]

The mentorship company at Third Rail puts on an evening of original short plays about creating and changing our identity. Echo Theater, 1515 SE 37th Ave., 231-1232. 8 and 10 pm Fridays and 8 pm Saturdays through Jan. 31. $10.

If the Fates Allow

A free noontime reading of Steve Patterson’s new play, which finds four American soldiers and a wounded civilian together on Christmas Eve in Belgium during the Battle of the Bulge. Artists Repertory Theatre, 1515 SW Morrison St., 241-1278. Noon Monday, Jan. 26. Free.

In Search of the Red Skull

A staged reading of a new play by Katie Bennett, a romantic caper involving pirates, kidnapped babies and mysterious maps. Hipbone Studio, 1847 E Burnside St., 358-0898. 1 pm Sunday, Jan. 25. $10.

La Fenêtre (The Window) and Perpetual Wednesday

The Defenestrators Clown Troupe presents a double bill of original plays, the first about a butler struggling to communicate with his mistress, and the other about a magician and sidekick who’ve become immortal. Friendly House Community Center, 1737 NW 26th Ave, 484-5482. 10:30 pm Fridays, 8 pm Saturdays and 9 pm Sundays through Feb. 1. $10-$12.

The Last Starship From Earth

A noontime reading of Steve Coker’s new play, based on John Boyd’s 1968 sci-fi novel about a dystopian future, the chance meeting between a mathematician and a poet, and the discovery of a startling secret. Artists Repertory Theatre, 1515 SW Morrison St., 241-1278. Noon Sunday, Jan. 25. Free.

MacDeath

A reading of Cindy Brown’s new backstage murder mystery, about an actor in a circus-themed production of Macbeth who winds up dead on opening night. O’Connor’s Vault, 7850 SW Capitol Highway, 244-1690. 7 pm Thursday, Jan. 22. Free.

Miserere

In this new play by Wayne Harrel, presented as a staged reading, it’s the eve of World War I as three travelers in the desert swap stories of genies, angels and Mozart. Blackfish Gallery, 420 NW 9th Ave., 234-2634. 2 pm Sunday, Jan. 25. $10.

“Mom?” A Comedy of Mourners

New ensemble Box of Clowns presents a slapstick- and acrobatics-filled clown show about three siblings wrestling with their memories of their mother. Friendly House Community Center, 1737 NW 26th Ave, 484-5482. 9:30 pm Fridays; 7 pm Saturdays and 8 pm Sundays through Feb. 1. $10-$12.

New Work Preview

Risk/Reward artistic director Jerry Tischleder moderates a conversation among local artists and performers about the projects they’re working on for 2015. Artists Repertory Theatre, 1515 SW Morrison St., 241-1278. 6 pm Monday, Jan. 26. Free.

The Noisemaker

A staged reading of Ciji Guerin’s new play, about some kind of monster that confronts a weed-smoking guitarist and his sister’s irritating boyfriend. Blackfish Gallery, 420 NW 9th Ave., 234-2634. 5 pm Sunday, Jan. 25. $10.

No Room of Her Own

Circle Theatre Project presents a staged reading of Desiree Hellegers’ play, which draws from women’s experi-

ences of homelessness across the U.S. TaborSpace, 5441 SE Belmont St. 7:30 pm Friday-Saturday, Jan. 23-24. $10-$15.

Nobody’s Business

An in-progress showing of a new work devised and directed by Vivien Lyon, about a mother-to-be looking back on her past as a sex worker. Blackfish Gallery, 420 NW 9th Ave., 234-2634. 7:30 pm Sunday, Jan. 25. $10.

holiday musical, which follows a traveling troupe of 19th-century British performers as they put on several bawdy one-acts. Lakewood Center for the Arts, 368 S State St., Lake Oswego, 635-3901. 2 pm Saturday, Jan. 24. $10.

Want Fries With That?

One Weekend in October

A reading of a new comedy by C.S. Whitcomb (whose play The Seven Wonders of Ballyknock is currently running as a full production) about a thoroughly nutty family. Lakewood Center for the Arts, 368 S State St., Lake Oswego, 635-3901. 7 pm Monday, Jan. 26. $10.

Please Validate Your Identity

A workshop performance of a new comedy by Cassie Keet in which a wedding (surprise!) doesn’t actually happen. Act Now Studio, 232 SE Oak St., Ste. 100. 5 pm Saturday-Sunday, Jan. 24-25. $12.

A staged reading of a new play by Rich Rubin, following the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill’s testimony against him. Post5 Theatre, 1666 SE Lambert St., 971-258-8584. 7 pm Monday-Wednesday, Jan. 26-28. $10.

Aiyana Cunningham directs a devised show about identity and self-discovery in the digital age. Multnomah Arts Center , 7688 SW Capitol Highway, 823-2787. 7:30 pm Jan. 23, 24, 26, 28, 30 and 31; 5 pm Jan. 25 and Feb. 1. $10-$20 sliding scale.

Prime

In advance of a full production at Wilson High School in February, a reading of Ellen Margolis’ new play exploring teenage love in its manifold forms. CoHo Theater, 2257 NW Raleigh St., 220-2646. 7:30 pm Tuesday, Jan. 27. “Pay what you will”.

Renaissance

A staged reading of George Taylor’s new play, set in 1504 when Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci were simultaneously commissioned to paint battle scenes on opposite walls. Blackfish Gallery, 420 NW 9th Ave., 234-2634. 11 am Sunday, Jan. 25. $10.

Roots, Reality & Rhyme

An in-progress presentation of a new multimedia project, written by Turiya Autry and directed by Kevin Jones, about the experience of being a poor black woman in the United States. Conduit Dance, 918 SW Yamhill St., Suite 401, 221-5857. 2 pm SaturdaysSundays through Feb. 1. $10.

Summer Jams Forever

A reading of a new play by Eva Suter about five friends who happen upon the world’s greatest beach spot, which might be some sort of alternate universe. Action/Adventure Theatre, 1050 SE Clinton St. 7:30 pm Monday, Jan. 26. $8.

Time, a Fair Hustler

Hand2Mouth, one of Portland’s more intrepid theater companies, gives an in-progress peek at its newest work, a show inspired by Gus Van Sant’s landmark film My Own Private Idaho. The show, which will premiere in July, explores the chasm between the Portland Van Sant depicted in the 1991 film—a decidedly gritty place—and the city’s current image as a hipster playground. Artists Repertory Theatre, 1515 SW Morrison St., 241-1278. 7:30 pm Monday, Jan. 26. Free.

Tramps

Annie Rimmer and Jayne Stevens put on a clown show focused on exaggerated physical comedy and pantomime. Kelly’s Olympian, 426 SW Washington St., 228-3669. 8 pm Friday-Saturday, Jan. 23-24. $10.

Under the Influence

Fuse Theatre Ensemble presents a reading of a new musical by Ernie Lijoi about marketing, vices and addiction. Funhouse Lounge, 2432 SE 11th Ave., 841-6734. 8 pm Sunday, Jan. 25. Donation.

Unmediated

Brad Bolchunos’ new play follows a journalist whose investigation of a cultlike organization has harrowing consequences. Presented as a staged reading. Hipbone Studio, 1847 E Burnside St., 358-0898. 3 pm Sunday, Jan. 25. $10.

Upon a Winter Road

Wait, it’s January? Not in this in-progress presentation of Kurt Misar’s new

Willamette Week JANUARY 21, 2015 wweek.com

REVIEW PAT R I C K W E I S H A M P E L

PERFORMANCE

The Wedding

What Is Erotic?

The phrase “sex-positive theater” isn’t a particularly, well, sexy one. But Eleanor O’Brien of Dance Naked Productions has a knack for making theater about sex that’s buoyant, candid and refreshingly devoid of preachiness. For this year’s Fertile Ground fest, she workshops a cabaret-style show of original performances that all attempt to answer the same question: What is erotic? Expect standup, spoken word, storytelling, dancing, singing and probably some puppets (because Portland). The Headwaters, 55 NE Farragut St., No. 9. 7:30 pm Tuesday-Wednesday, Jan. 27-28. $15.

Word.Voice.

A free showcase of short performances—spoken-word pieces, oneacts, character sketches—presented by at-risk youth who’ve participated in workshops with PlayWrite. Gerding Theater, 128 NW 11th Ave., 249-5800. 7 pm Sunday, Jan. 25. Free.

NEW REVIEWS The Sexual Neuroses of Our Parents

Though its title might suggest something adorably uncomfortable, Lukas Bärfuss’ The Sexual Neuroses of Our Parents is downright anxiety-inducing. For years, Dora (Shawna Nordman) has taken medications for an unspecified condition, and they’ve kept her heavily sedated. But when her mother (Lisamarie Harrison) decides she no longer needs the drugs, Dora’s libido suddenly goes into overdrive. Dora directs these awakened desires toward her doctor (Mario Calcagno), who tries to explain sexual mores to her, and toward a perfume salesman known only as the fine gentleman (Nathan Dunkin), who visits the fruit stand where she works. This would all be well and good—hooray sexual liberation!— if it weren’t so clear Dora was pretty mentally unwell. She answers most questions with a listless “dunno” and changes moods on a dime, speaking half in echoes of things others have said to her. Is this because she was overly medicated? Does this affect her ability to give consent? These are legitimate questions, and this Theatre Vertigo production, directed by Bobby Bermea, treats them with the sensitivity they deserve. But also with a bunch of weird blocking. When actors come onstage, they make a motion that looks like someone sleepily taking their head off their desk, and they announce the location and number of every scene. Nordman and Dunkin spiral around each other in an impressionistic dance sequence under pink lights. On top of the play’s harrowing plot, loaded dialogue (“she’s kind of like my hobby horse if you know what I mean,” says Dora’s boss at the fruit stand), and Nordman’s compelling performance—one moment wide-eyed and catatonic, the next arms akimbo in imitation of a nonchalant man— these affectations feel unnecessary. It’s already fucked-up enough. JAMES HELMSWORTH. Shoebox Theater, 2110 SE 10th Ave., 971-244-3740. 7:30 pm Thursdays-Saturdays and 2 pm Sundays through Feb. 14. $20; Thursdays “pay what you will.”

ParTy TImE: (From left) Nick Ballard, Carol Halstead, andrew Sellon and Sharonlee mcLean.

VANYA AND SONIA AND MASHA AND SPIKE (PORTLAND CENTER STAGE) Christopher Durang has likened his latest play, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, to Chekhov put through a comic blender. It’s a comparison that puts me in mind of those Will It Blend? videos, in which iPhones, garden hoses and rotisserie chickens get tossed into a Blendtec and pureed. The problem is that Durang doesn’t have a $300 machine—he’s working with a decades-old Osterizer that’s been gathering dust at Goodwill, and the result is a slight, self-congratulatory comedy. It’s the most-produced show in the U.S. this season. Durang’s 2012 play, directed by Rose Riordan at Portland Center Stage, introduces us to three middle-aged siblings whose names bear the burden of their deceased parents’ Russophilia. Vanya (Andrew Sellon) and Sonia (Sharonlee McLean) lead a melancholy, resentful life (because Chekhov) in the family’s ancestral country home in Bucks County, Pa. Vanya has a touch of aristocratic weariness from his lack of exertion; Sonia moans about having been adopted; together they bicker about coffee and being single and when the blue heron will make an appearance outside their window. When movie-star sister Masha (Carol Halstead) shows up with her newest boy toy—a strapping specimen named Spike (Nick Ballard)—Vanya and Sonia’s rabidly dull existence is briefly interrupted. But rather than a satirical send-up of Chekhov’s satirical send-up of Russian melodrama, what follows is a string of set pieces—some amusing, some annoying, none surprising—that never coalesce into a satisfying play. The dialogue is like a worn-out rubber band: Stretch it too far, and it crumbles rather than snaps. Beneath the Snow White outfits (because costume party), rants about postage stamps (because Twitter) and reverse stripteases (because abs!), it’s all defiantly, frustratingly safe. Which is a shame, because these actors are game. McLean too often defaults into a high-pitched, whiny register, but she slays a Maggie Smith impersonation, and she’s also touchingly vulnerable during a phone call with a prospective manfriend. Ballard—who exists in an uncanny valley between mortal and mannequin—hams up the cheerfully idiotic eye-candy shtick, particularly when re-creating his audition for Entourage 2 (a role he almost got). And up until Vanya’s god-awful harangue about texting and Twitter, Sellon balances selfpity with delicate, forlorn humor. And then there’s prophetic housekeeper Cassandra. Described in the script as “cleaning lady and soothsayer, any age, probably AfricanAmerican,” the character has been criticized as a magical Negro. But here, played by Olivia Negron, she’s more of a curandera, bringing a vaguely south-of-the-border accent to her voodoo curses and warnings about “Hootie Pie.” Does that make it better? Would I care if she were a mystical nun? An enchanted babushka? A full-on fairy godmother? I don’t know. Maybe I’d care more if her character did more than make histrionic references to Greek tragedy and rescue her caffeine-depleted employers by running out on emergency coffee trips. REBECCA JACOBSON. a chunky Chekhov smoothie, spiked with voodoo curses and Snow White.

SEE IT: Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike is at the Gerding Theater, 128 NW 11th Ave., 445-3700. 7:30 pm Tuesdays-Saturdays (excluding Feb. 3); 2 pm select Saturdays and Sundays; noon select Thursdays. Through Feb. 8. $20-$69.

jan. 21–27

The Man Who Could See Through Time

The Nutz-n-Boltz Theater Company, which usually performs in Boring, travels to the big city to present a show about the clash between science and art. In the 1984 play, by Terri Wagener, a physics professor and a sculptor go head-to-head in a philosophical debate. Expect polarized conversation about love and reality—and apparently several actual physics lectures. The Back Door Theater, 4319 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 593-1295. 7:30 pm Fridays-Saturdays and 2 pm Sundays through Jan. 25. $11-$15.

The Seven Wonders of Ballyknock

The Seven Wonders of Ballyknock aren’t too impressive. “The eighth is my arse!” says Mag (Marilyn Stacey), proprietor of the Cap ’n’ Bells pub. But her lumbering, amiable son Jonty (Heath Koerschgen)—the only boy from this sleepy Irish town to return from the recently ended World War II—is obsessed with them. So when Cordelia (Louise Chambers), a New York blue blood with a mysterious connection to Ballyknock, shows up, Jonty jumps at the chance to play tour guide. As you might expect from a play about Ireland by an American—in this case, Oregonian C.S. Whitcomb— there are a lot of jokes about drinking and a lot of grating pronunciations of “tea.” But there’s also another Irish tradition: quick wit. Set entirely in the bar—the lights go dim for the outdoor scenes—with a fairly small cast, this Lakewood Theatre production is carried instead by expert timing and sassy punches. Director Stephanie Mulligan helps the cast find a careful balance between jaunty humor and the play’s darker elements. Jonty’s geniality betrays the scars he bears from war, and Cordelia harbors dark secrets of her own. Maybe the eighth wonder is the townspeople themselves. Or, y’know, Mag’s ass. JAMES HELMSWORTH. Lakewood Center for the Arts, 368 S State St., Lake Oswego, 635-3901. 7:30 pm ThursdaysSaturdays; 7 pm Sundays, Jan. 11, 18 and 25; 2 pm Sundays, Jan. 18, Feb. 1, 18 and 25; 7:30 pm Wednesdays, Jan. 21 and Feb. 4. Through Feb. 15. $30$32.

Sidekicks: Season 2

Action/Adventure presents a second season of its semi-scripted serial comedy about those who play second fiddle to the big-shot superheroes, set in a comic book-inspired land called New Cascadia. Each weekend features a new episode, but it’s pretty easy to catch on if you miss a show. Action/ Adventure Theatre, 1050 SE Clinton St. 8 pm Thursdays-Sundays through Feb. 8. $12-$16.

Skippyjon Jones

Oregon Children’s Theatre stages a musical about a Siamese cat who realizes his alter ego is a sword-fighting Chihuahua named Skippito Friskito, who must contend with a humongous bee, Alfredo Buzzito El Blimpo Bumblebeeto Bandito...because this play is nothing if not linguistically and culturally unimpeachable. (Parents, don’t worry too much: The show apparently offers up some feminism alongside its over-the-top accents.) Best for ages 4 and up. Newmark Theatre, 1111 SW Broadway, 228-9571. 2 and 5 pm Saturdays and 2 pm Sundays through Feb. 15. $15-$30.

Woman on the Scarlet Beast

Post5 Theatre presents a drama, based on a novel by local author Caroline Miller, about three generations of Catholic women grappling with guilt, love and forgiveness. Post5 Theatre, 1666 SE Lambert St., 971-258-8584. 7 pm most Thursdays-Fridays and 5 pm most Saturdays-Sundays through Feb. 8. For additional showtimes see post5theatre.org. $15.

COMEDY & VARIETY Chris Hardwick

As CEO of Nerdist Industries, Chris Hardwick has been instrumental in fueling the current boom in comedy

podcasts. He hosts that company’s flagship podcast, as well as Comedy Central’s super-popular @midnight. His standup tends toward nerdy— big surprise there—and he delights in recounting tales of adolescent mortification. Aladdin Theater, 3017 SE Milwaukie Ave., 234-9694. 8 and 10:30 pm Friday, Jan. 23. $35. 8 pm show sold out.

WA R R E N D U P R E E Z A N D N I C K T H O R N TO N J O N E S

ALSO PLAYING

PERFORMANCE

Curious Comedy Showdown

Curious Comedy’s improvisers duke it out, in hopes of winning audience votes and advancing to the next round of competition. Curious Comedy, 5225 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 477-9477. 7:30 pm every Friday and Saturday. $12-$15.

David Saffert’s 40th Birthday—The Liberace Edition

David Saffert presents his fifth annual (and evidently his last) birthday variety show, this time costumed as Liberace. Guests include dancers from TriptheDark, drummer Jason Miranda and Jillian Snow Harris wearing many hats (er, wigs?) as Liza Minnelli, Judy Garland, Bernadette Peters and Eartha Kitt. Someone, apparently, will also play Scott Thorson. Curious Comedy, 5225 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 477-9477. 7:30 pm Fridays-Saturdays through Jan. 31. $12-$15.

LEAN BACK: The Russell Maliphant Company performs Jan. 22-24 at PSU’s Lincoln Hall.

Diabolical Experiments

Improv jam show featuring Brody performers and other local improvisers. Brody Theater, 16 NW Broadway, 2242227. 7 pm every Sunday. $5.

Down to Funny

Katie Brien hosts this installment of the twice-monthly standup showcase, featuring sets from Randy Mendez, Becky Braunstein, Anthony Lopez and Robbie Pankow. Analog Cafe, 720 SE Hawthorne Blvd. 9 pm Thursday, Jan. 22. Donation. 21+.

Earthquake Hurricane

An army of impressive Portland comedians—Curtis Cook, Alex Falcone, Bri Pruett and Anthony Lopez—host a weekly standup showcase with some of the funniest people you’ll ever see in the basement of a bike shop. Kickstand Comedy Space, 1969 NE 42nd Ave., 937-219-1334. 8:30 pm every Wednesday. $5 suggested.

Funny Humans vs. the Wheel

If you go to enough shows around town, you start to memorize comedians’ sets. Think of this weekly show as an antidote to all that repetition: Comedians start out with a planned set, but halfway through, they have to spin a wheel to determine what comes next—crowd work, one-liners, maybe even a heckle battle. Bar of the Gods, 4801 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 232-2037. 9 pm every Sunday. Free. 21+.

Hell or Highwater

Curtis Cook hosts a monthly standup showcase featuring a consistently good lineup of comedians. Up tonight: Neeraj Srinivasan, Danny Felts, JoAnn Schinderle, Anthony Lopez and Gabe Dinger. The High Water Mark, 6800 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 286-6513. 9 pm every last Monday. Free. 21+.

Here’s the Thing...

All-lady improv ensemble Girls! Girls! Girls! puts on a performance combining off-the-cuff comedy with personal stories. Brody Theater, 16 NW Broadway, 224-2227. 7:30 pm Saturdays through Feb. 7. $9-$12.

Impulse

Teenage performers from Oregon Children’s Theatre’s Young Professionals program craft improvised scenes based on audience suggestions. Oregon Children’s Theatre Young Professionals Studio Theatre, 1939 NE Sandy Blvd., 228-9571. 7 pm FridaysSaturdays through Feb. 7. $10-$12.

Jake Johannsen

With his off-kilter comedy, Jake Johannsen is one of David Letterman’s favorite standups. He hits Helium for a one-night stand. Helium Comedy Club, 1510 SE 9th Ave., 888-643-8669. 8 pm Sunday, Jan. 25. $15-$23.

John Caparulo

You Are Here

The Menagerie

DANCE

One of the stars of Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy Show—arguably the funniest one—hits the Helium stage. Helium Comedy Club, 1510 SE 9th Ave., 888-643-8669. 8 pm Thursday and 7:30 and 10 pm FridaySaturday, Jan. 22-24. $18-$30.

The Brody hosts a mix of music and improv from music group Soul Supernova, improv group Afternoon Delight and (wait for it) musicalimprov group Sound Asylum. Brody Theater, 16 NW Broadway, 224-2227. 7:30 pm Thursday, Jan. 22. $5.

Minority Retort

A standup show produced by Jeremy Eli and Jason Lamb that gives the spotlight to comedians of color. Tonight’s lineup includes Nathan Brannon, Katie Nguyen, Crystal Davis, Anthony Lopez and David Mascorro. Curious Comedy, 5225 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 477-9477. 9:30 pm every fourth Friday. $7.

Random Acts of Comedy

A freewheeling show that brings together sketch, standup and improv. Curious Comedy, 5225 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 477-9477. 9:30 pm every Saturday. $7-$10.

Seven on 7

Brody presents a prime-time installment of a show that mashes standup and improv, with several comics each doing seven minutes and improvisers then riffing on that material. Brody Theater, 16 NW Broadway, 224-2227. 7:30 pm Friday, Jan. 23. $8.

Theatresports

Two improv teams riff on audience suggestions, attempting to outwit each other and impress the panel of judges. Brody Theater, 16 NW Broadway, 224-2227. 9:30 pm Saturdays through Jan. 31. $8.

True Brew Comedy Revue

Standup from Lucia Fasano, Becky Braunstein, David Mascorro, Andie Main and Grace Sadie Cejas, as well as from a few surprise guests. True Brew, 3370 SE Milwaukie Ave., 231-9992. 8 pm Saturday, Jan. 24. Donation.

W. Kamau Bell

He hit Portland twice in 2014, but if you didn’t catch W. Kamau Bell then, see him for a mere $15 at this Funny Over Everything showcase. Bell hosted FX’s much-missed Totally Biased, and he has a way of riffing about race and politics that’s at once generous and incisive. Hollywood Theatre, 4122 NE Sandy Blvd., 281-4215. 8 pm Wednesday, Jan. 21. $15.

The Brody ensemble puts on a weekly improv showcase, generally featuring a ton of audience participation. Brody Theater, 16 NW Broadway, 224-2227. 8 pm every Friday. $9-$12.

CoLevity

CoLevity—formerly known as Eclectic and run out of the Cami Curtis Performing Arts Center—debuts That’s How We Roll as part of the Fertile Ground Festival. An hourlong bout of musical theater that includes tap, jazz, contemporary and hip-hop influences, the show is centered around the eccentric Guttenburg family, an eclectic mix of fictional characters who all happily get along—at least some of the time. Featuring dances choreographed by Polaris alum Stephen Diaz as well as current Polaris dancer Blake Seidel, the show is a blend of Big Love and Portlandia, according to Curtis. Acts include a hip-hop number set to Weird Al’s “White and Nerdy,” as well as a tap dance aptly set to Wild Cub’s “Thunder Clatter.” Polaris Contemporary Dance Center, 1501 SW Taylor St., 380-5472. 5 pm SaturdaysSundays, Jan. 24-Feb. 1 and 1 pm Saturday-Sunday, Jan. 31-Feb. 1. $15.

Groovin’ Greenhouse: Polaris Dance Theatre, Muddy Feet Contemporary Dance, PDX Dance Collective

At each year’s Fertile Ground Festival, Polaris Dance Company brings local up-and-coming dance companies to its annual showcase, Groovin’ Greenhouse. This time, the contemporary dance company teams with PDX Dance Collective and Muddy Feet Contemporary Dance for its first weekend of world-premiere performances. PDX Dance Collective debuts two new works: Cycle and Seek, a contemporary piece by Hannah Downs, as well as an unnamed experimental work by Rachael Brown. Downs explores how humans fall into ruts and rise out of them with the help of others, while Brown collages together contemporary movements, set to an a cappella tap dancing score. Later, Muddy Feet Contemporary makes its Portland debut. A freelance-focused company founded by Rachel Slater and Suzanne Chi, the troupe shows off three new works about happiness, partnership and relationships. Polaris Contemporary Dance Center, 1501 SW Taylor St., 380-5472. 7:30 pm FridaySaturday, Jan. 23-24. $15-$18.

Muppets Burlesque

Maybe you’ve dreamt about seeing Fozzie Bear stripping down or Miss Piggy twirling tassels. That fantasy

is finally becoming a reality with Portland’s first-ever Muppets-inspired burlesque. Thanks to Go Go Rocket Productions, burlesquers will take on the roles of some of Jim Henson’s most beloved characters. Needless to say, expect things to get weird. Fancy a pants-less Swedish Chef? You’ve got it. Viewers will also be rewarded with an almost-nude roller-skating Gonzo and a guest appearance by show producer Rocket, who’s sure to bring some feathery fabulousness to the role of Big Bird. The lineup includes other local favorites—Vera Mysteria, Baby Le’Strange and the Infamous Nina Nightshade—as well as Mister Fogues, Hezzy Tayte and Ivizia Dakini. Proving how easy (or not) it is to be green, Wanderlust Circus’ Noah Mickens hosts the evening as Kermit the Frog, with backup by stage kitten Nikki Lev. Star Theater, 13 NW 6th Ave. 9 pm Thursday, Jan. 22. $15 advance, $20 at door, VIP passes $25-$125. 21+.

Rose-Colored Tassels: A Burlesque Alumni Showcase

Over the last five years, Rose City School of Burlesque has introduced more than 100 dancers to the world of burlesque. The school, directed by local burlesque favorite Zora Phoenix, celebrates some of its latest graduates: Domino Leroux, Holly Hardon, Miss Doe and Lolo LaRoux. Later, seasoned burlesquers and former graduates take the stage, with performances by Lily Le Fauve, Bettie Velo, Maddie McFly and Millie Gables. Crush, 1400 SE Morrison St, 235-8150. 9 pm Friday, Jan. 23. $10. 21+.

Russell Maliphant Company

British dancer and choreographer Russell Maliphant may have started his career perfecting classical arabesques and pirouettes at the Royal Ballet School, but today he’s better known for his independent and experimental style. Since forming his own company in 1996, he’s blended things like tai chi or capoeira with classical technique, frequently teaming with lighting designer Michael Hull to create expressive, moving stories. The two, who have won many awards together, are visiting Portland and for the first time. The show, Still Current, consists of five different works, including the fluid lines of Afterlight (Part One), which won the Critics’ Circle National Dance Award in 2010. Another notable act, Two, premiered in 1997 and is being brought back to showcase the strong, graceful movement of company dancer Carys Staton. Lincoln Hall, Portland State University, 1620 SW Park Ave., 245-1600. 8 pm ThursdaySaturday, Jan. 22-Jan. 24. $25-$30.

For more Performance listings, visit

Willamette Week JANUARY 21, 2015 wweek.com

VISUAL ARTS

JAN. 21–27

= 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.

anous fabric. Antemann accents the ﬁgures’ white skin with delicate golden lines. Although her revelers, with their powdered wigs and rouged cheeks, are a little too onenote in their appearance to sustain the viewer’s attention, perhaps that is on purpose. After all, 24-hour party people, whether in the 18th century or the 21st, begin to all look the same after the ninth or 10th ﬂute of champagne. Through Feb. 8. Portland Art Museum, 1219 SW Park Ave., 226-0973.

Hap Tivey: Surface of Light

Pillars of Portland was both our city’s first mass-media success and the greatest debacle in Portland television history. No one’s seen it since 1983. Few have even heard of it. We’ve got a copy. Writer/creator Larry Colton will be in attendance. TITLED 1 BY CHRISTAL ANGELIQUE

Christal Angelique: The New Eve

After a three-year run and a total of 30 exhibitions (the majority of which were superb), Nisus Gallery will close Feb. 15. Its ﬁnal show is Christal Angelique’s The New Eve, a moody meditation on natureworship. In 35-millimeter photographs and images projected on the gallery walls, Angelique stages self-portraits in which she climbs ladders, poses exultantly on a tree stump and lies back soulfully on a log spanning a creek. These paganﬂavored pictures combine soft focus and dappled sunlight searing through forest clearings. It’s a rhapsody on a woo-woo witchy woman who’s in touch with her primal side, and while we’ve seen this subject before, Angelique makes us care about it again through a combination of self-assured technique and sheer sincerity. This makes for a strong close for Nisus, which will be missed on the local gallery scene. Through Feb. 15. Nisus Gallery, 8371 N Interstate Ave., Suite 1, 806-1427.

Constructs

Free Screening Pillars of Portland Thursday, January 22 7:00 pm | Clinton Street Theatre

Constructs is curator Rachel Adams’ inspired solution to the quandary of how to fill Disjecta’s massive exhibition space. This clean, elegant show is a kind of “etude on the wall,” a series of strategies for filling the space without actually plopping anything down in the middle of it. Three artists pull the trick off with élan. Nathan Green’s earthtoned mural recalls the abstract patterns of the late minimalist Sol LeWitt, and Pablo Rasgado’s strips of vertical wall coverings are excavated from buildings he’s seen around the world. Most impressively of all, Laura Vandenburg’s cut-paper sculptures have obsessive detail that complement their gigantic scale. The show’s coup de grâce is Adams’ ballsy decision to leave a large section of the north wall empty. The negative space lends an off-kilter dynamism that perfectly sets off the three artists’ works. Through March 1. Disjecta, 8371 N Interstate Ave., 286-9449.

Dark Ecologies

The ﬁrst thing you see when you walk into Bullseye’s three-artist show, Dark Ecologies, is Carolyn Hopkins’ beautiful and disturbing sculpture, Cascade. It depicts a strung-up dog with stylized entrails spilling out of its belly and looping over a tree limb. Glass beads link the dog to an eviscerated bird

Willamette Week JANUARY 21, 2015 wweek.com

underneath it, which appears to leak blood into a red pool on the ﬂoor. This violent, virtuosic piece is left wide open to each viewer’s interpretation. Emily Nachison’s Diver is equally allusive, with its succession of oysters opening up to reveal crystals and geodes inside. Finally, Susan Harlan’s kiln-formed glass panels are diminutive masterpieces of exquisitely nuanced textures and wave forms in blue, beige, black and orange. Dark Ecologies is a strong, haunting show. Through March 28. Bullseye Projects, 300 NW 13th Ave., 227-0222.

Dark Paradise

Ecologically themed art tends to be dull and sanctimonious, but not so in the hands of Wesley Younie. His idylls of environmental paradise lost abound with equal parts whimsy and intelligence. In the paintings Timeshare and All Inclusive, he updates Audubon-style bird illustrations with images of garish resort hotels and cruise ships—a droll commentary on civilization’s relentless encroachment upon the natural world. Natural History I and II counterpose a decorative illustration of a bird, cherry tree, and waterfall with a decidedly un-decorative assortment of mosquitoes, poisonous mushrooms and a bat hanging upside down. Wild West, a fantasia on Manifest Destiny, fills the picture plane with buffalo, deer, a California condor, tepees and a stream snaking through an idealized landscape. As if this portrait of the American West were not hyperbolic enough, Younie adds a rainbow, mountains made of crystal, and abstracted clouds and foliage in shimmering gold leaf. The paintings draw our attention to the ways in which we love to deify nature, then promptly desecrate it. Through March 15. Mark Woolley Gallery @ Pioneer, 700 SW 5th Ave., 3rd floor, Pioneer Place Mall, 998-4152.

Forbidden Fruit: Chris Antemann at Meissen

In a long-overdue follow-up to her delightful installation at the 2011 Contemporary Northwest Art Awards, Chris Antemann stages a rococo bacchanal in the Portland Art Museum. Her porcelain ﬁgures ﬁll a mirrored antechamber, engaging in all manner of languid frivolty. In the sprawling sculpture Love Temple, they sit around—and in some cases, crawl on—a lavishly appointed dining table, some of them naked, some clad only in the skimpiest suggestion of diaph-

The LED lights in Hap Tivey’s sculptures seem to reach out beyond their aluminum contours to claim the wall behind them. They seep into your own personal space, too, until you begin to feel all woo-woo, like you’re becoming one with the light. The colors are delectable—soft greens, pinks, yellows and blues. Most of the pieces are triangular in conﬁguration, such as Bella Donna and Corner Flavor, while the rectangular sculpture RGB Goldbogen basically looks like a Barnett Newman painting that somebody plugged into the wall socket. The metal armatures in which the lights are embedded are not smooth, as one might expect; they’re nubby and distressed, making for a powerful contrast between the lights’ cool modernism and the surfaces’ organicism. Through Jan. 31. Elizabeth Leach Gallery, 417 NW 9th Ave., 224-0521.

Jay Humphreys

Jay Humphreys’ quirky mixedmedia piece is the strongest PDX Window Project has had in a long time. Called Untitled #2 (Mandala Series), it’s made out of acrylic, string, glass and wood, and has a big electric cord hanging out of it. With the suave geometry of its concentric circles contrasting with cheesy wood paneling, it looks like a vintage 1970s TV cabinet that got time-warped into a 1950s tiki bar. The piece is an agreeable mashup of kitsch and geometric rigor. Through Jan. 31. PDX Window Project, 925 NW Flanders St., 222-0063. NW 8th Ave., 227-7114.

Passage

There’s a new gallery in Northeast Portland called Verum Ultimum (Latin for “ultimate truth”). It’s a humble space open only on weekends (12-5 pm Saturdays and Sundays or by appointment), but this kind of decidedly nonslick exhibition space is the sort of small gallery that makes Portland so delightfully, well, non-San Francisco. The January exhibition, entitled Passage, is a juried show with work by 30 artists. The opening reception is from 6-8 pm on Saturday, Jan. 10. So hey, come out and support a brand spankin’ new gallery that’s the freshest blip on the city’s cultural radar. Through Jan. 31. Verum Ultimum Art Gallery, 3014 NE Ainsworth St., 493-4278.

Victoria Haven: Subtitles

Victoria Haven’s arid conceptual show has some moments that make you scratch your head thoughtfully, but not much of anything to entertain your eyes. In about a hundred works on paper, Haven counterposes two words atop or beside one another. These words were randomly lifted from Haven’s text conversations, then arbitrarily linked by a computer program. It’s mildly interesting to imagine stories that would connect the words: “opposable/friend,” “dog/pathos,” “monologue/over,” and my personal favorite, “vanquish/blueberries.” But the idea loses steam pretty quickly, and it’s hard to imagine that anyone would linger in such an exhibition, much less want to buy any of these pieces. Through Jan. 31. PDX Contemporary Art, 925 NW Flanders St., 222-0063.

For more Visual Arts listings, visit

jan. 21–27

= 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.

FRIDAY, JAN. 23 Boyfriend Mountain

Poets Tyler Brewington and Kelly Schirmann co-authored the full-length book of poetry Boyfriend Mountain essentially by splitting the book in half and writing individually. Brewington shares a collection of moments that become a sort of disjunctive wisdom, while Schirmann follows the tragedy and beauty of her own experiences. As a whole, Boyfriend Mountain becomes an exploration of the pervious nature of our relationships. Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison St., 239-7639. 6 pm. $5-$10 donation. 21+.

SATURDAY, JAN. 24 WEDNESDAY, JAN. 21 Neal Adams

Legendary comic artist Neal Adams may have single-handedly rescued Batman from campy oblivion with his modern interpretations of the Caped Crusader, as well as illustrating runs for X-Men, Green Lantern/Green Arrow and Deadman. Adams will be signing and sketching copies of his work. And if you want to drop up to $2,000, he will even draw your head onto the body of your favorite superhero. Cosmic Monkey Comics, 5335 NE Sandy Blvd., 5179050. 4-7 pm. Free.

Anya Kamenetz

Not all of us are good test takers, with the stress leading to profuse sweating and nervous vomiting. And yet we continue to subject children to ever more rigorous standardized testing, particularly with the implementation of the new Common Core State Standards Initiative, which will introduce longer mandatory testing up to five times per year. NPR education blogger Anya Kamenetz examines the impact of these tests both monetarily (costing taxpayers $1.4 billion per year) and mentally on the children who take them in her new book, The Test. Powell’s City of Books, 1005 W Burnside St., 800-8787323. 7:30 pm. Free.

THURSDAY, JAN. 22 Kaia Sand

Portland poet and teacher Kaia Sand sees poetry not just in text on pages but in the world around us, from housing foreclosures to magic shows. As the month’s featured writer at Glyph Cafe, a collection of her broadsides and writing ephemera will be on display, and she will read a selection of her work. Her newest book is A Tale of Magicians Who Puffed Up Money That Lost its Puff. Glyph Cafe & Arts Space, 804 NW Couch St., 719-5481. 5:30-7 pm. Free.

Miranda July

Filmmaker, artist, writer, former Portlander and certified kook Miranda July has added another chapter to her bio with the release of her debut novel, The First Bad Man. The story stars Cheryl, a vulnerable, obsessive woman having a mental affair with a superior and whose world is knocked out of order by a sexy and selfish young woman. July will read from the book, which has been described as both dazzling and disorienting. Go figure. Powell’s City of Books, 1005 W Burnside St., 800-878-7323. 7:30 pm. Free.

Back Fence PDX: Russian Roulette

Returning November champ Shannon Balcom will once again spin the wheel-o’-storytelling prompts alongside Portland writers, comedians, musicians and other about-towners, including Wm. Steven Humphrey, Brian S. Ellis, Bri Pruett, Brian Koch and more. Each storyteller will have five minutes to tell a true story based on their prompt for the Back Fence PDX version of Russian roulette. Disjecta, 8371 N Interstate Ave., 286-9449. 8 pm. $15 advance, $18 door. 21+.

WEED

BOOKS

Advertise in WW’s annual homage to all things herbal! We’ll cover the ins and outs of legalization, an update on local ganjapreneurs, extensive strain reviews, and more!

Miriam Kominkowska Greenstein

In 1939, Miriam Kominkowska was 9 years old and living with her family in Poland. After the German invasion, she witnessed the destruction of her community and the loss of her family and was subjected to internment in Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. But her story is one of survival and hope. Miriam Kominkowska Greenstein will share her experiences and read from her memoir In the Shadow of Death: A Young Girl’s Survival in the Holocaust. Tualatin Public Library, 18878 SW Martinazzi Ave., Tualatin. 2-3:30 pm. Free.

FEATURING THE CANNABIS COLLECTION

TUESDAY, JAN. 27

CONT.

Marilyn Sewell

For 17 years, Marilyn Sewell served as senior minister for the First Unitarian Church in Portland, where she was also named Minister Emerita after retiring in 2009. Though her life took her through several religions from Catholicism to Southern Baptist, her refuge was always education: She holds master’s degrees in English literature, social work and divinity, as well as a Ph.D. in theology and literature. Her new memoir, Raw Faith: Following the Thread, explores her life story at deeper length from the recent documentary of the same name. Broadway Books, 1714 NE Broadway, 284-1726. 7 pm. Free.

Oregon Encyclopedia History Night

Whether you’ve still got a train set in your basement or you just get a thrill each time you ride MAX, you can’t deny that trains are cool. For this installment of the Oregon Encyclopedia History Night, Edward J. Kamholz will explore Oregon’s private, public and urban/interurban railroads for the Oregon Historical Railroads Project. McMenamins Edgefield, 2126 SW Halsey St., Troutdale, 6698610. 6:30 pm. Free.

For more Books listings, visit

CONT.

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jan. 21–27 REVIEW

= WW Pick. Highly recommended.

D I A N A D Av I E S

MOVIES

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.

OPENING THIS WEEK The Boy Next Door

J. Lo is back, this time in a psychological thriller about a one-night stand gone terribly wrong. Screened after WW press deadlines, but look for John Locanthi’s review at wweek.com. R. Clackamas, Cornelius, Oak Grove, Cinema 99, Bridgeport, Evergreen Parkway, Lloyd Center, Movies on TV, Pioneer Place, Sherwood, Tigard.

The Humbling

Al Pacino plays a washed-up stage actor who nearly dies after falling into the orchestra pit (ouch!) and then has a steamy, stormy relationship with Greta Gerwig (oops). R. Kiggins Theatre.

It’s Gonna Blow!!!: San Diego’s Music Underground, 1986-1996

[ONE NIGHT ONLY] A new documentary about a decade in San Diego’s music scene, featuring performances and interviews from Blink 182, Fishwife, Drive Like Jehu and others. Hollywood Theatre. 9:30 pm Friday, Jan. 23.

Mortdecai

Johnny Depp plays an art dealer on the hunt for a stolen painting that might lead to Nazi gold. Yes, he does wear a dramatic mustache, and yes, Gwyneth Paltrow does play his blond bombshell wife. Not screened for Portland critics. R. Clackamas, Cornelius, Oak Grove, Cinema 99, Bridgeport, Evergreen Parkway, Hilltop, Lloyd Center, Movies on TV, Sherwood, Tigard, Wilsonville.

Spike & Mike’s Festival of Animation

[TWO NIGHTS ONLY] As part of the Wizard World Comic Con, the longrunning animation festival hits town for a two-night run. Oregon Convention Center, 777 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. 6 pm Friday and 7 pm Saturday, Jan. 23-24.

Strange Magic

An animated film inspired by A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In other words, time to introduce your babies to the Bard. PG. Clackamas, Cornelius, Oak Grove, Cinema 99, Bridgeport, Evergreen Parkway, Hilltop, Lloyd Center, Movies on TV, Pioneer Place, Sherwood, Tigard, Wilsonville.

The Throwaways

[ONE NIGHT ONLY, DIRECTOR ATTENDING] This new documentary about police violence and mass incarceration of black Americans focuses on Ira McKinley, who’s experienced homelessness, drug addiction and prison. McKinley, now an activist, codirected the film with Bhawin Suchak. The latter will be in attendance for a post-screening Q&A. Clinton Street Theater. 7 pm Sunday, Jan. 25.

STILL SHOWING American Sniper

D Chris Kyle (Bradley Cooper) lies with his gun on a rooftop in Iraq. In his sights is a boy holding a grenade, approaching American troops. It’s up to him: kill a child or see his friends slaughtered. Before he decides, director Clint Eastwood cuts away to Kyle as a child, hunting with his father. The real-life Chris Kyle killed more than 250 people as an “overwatch” sniper— he sat on roofs and shot people who posed threats to U.S. troops. In February 2013, at a gun range in his home state of Texas, a Marine with PTSD—whom Kyle was trying to help rehabilitate—shot and killed him. American Sniper provides a chance to explore the man behind these facts, starting with Kyle’s childhood, moving to the anger and patriotism that drove him from being a reckless rodeo rider to a Navy SEAL, and exploring the struggles of being a married man

serving abroad. But Eastwood is uninterested in nuance, and the result is an irresponsible movie that steamrolls its themes: Military training is hard. Americans are righteous. Iraqis are bad. Kyle is very good at shooting. In one scene, higher-ups tell Kyle a man he shot was carrying a Quran. “I don’t know what a Quran looks like,” he says, defiantly. It looked like ammo to him. A scene like this offers the perfect chance to explore war’s moral ambiguities. Eastwood doesn’t bother. As with the opening scene, the movie resolves every complication as soon as it’s raised. Kyle pulls the trigger every time. R. JAMES HELMSWORTH. Clackamas, Cornelius, Lake, Oak Grove.

Annie

C+ Rebooting a franchise can shed new light on a story. Take Annie: In director Will Gluck’s version, the plucky, white orphan is now a plucky, African-American foster kid, played by 10-year-old Oscar nominee Quvenzhané Wallis. Cruel orphanage caretaker Miss Hannigan (Cameron Diaz) is now an abusive ex-C C Music Factory member/foster-home runner. Daddy Warbucks is Michael Bloomberg—er, a wildly wealthy cellphone mogul named Will Stacks (Jamie Foxx) who’s running for mayor of New York. Stacks and Annie run into each other (literally), she falls down, and he pulls her out of the street. His campaign team persuades him to take Annie in to pad his paltry polling numbers. Such references to the Machiavellian state of American politics make this Annie feel necessary—don’t miss the oblique references to current Mayor Bill de Blasio’s “two New Yorks” rhetoric, either. There’s also plenty to titillate tired parents: “silk sheets and Ambien,” says a scumbag campaign staffer when asked how he sleeps at night. At the end of the day, however, Annie needs to entertain kids. Whether the fault of the director or her own inexperience, Wallis’ performance is one-note, and she delivers every line with the same stiff cadence and twee defiance. And save “It’s the Hard Knock Life,” which borrows the beat of Jay-Z’s 1998 version, the singing and dancing are lukewarm. “You’re Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile” sounds like it belongs in an iPod commercial. Annie’s updates are smart and fun, but with the iconic songs whittled to husks of their former selves, they’ve got nothing to stand on. PG. JAMES HELMSWORTH. Clackamas.

The Babadook

A- Dressed in a flowing trench coat

and tattered black hat, the apparition in the superb Aussie creeper The Babadook immediately lodges itself in your nightmares. First glimpsed in an Edward Gorey-esque pop-up book, the titular monster is like an unholy combination of a vaudevillian clown and Jack the Ripper. But what sets director Jennifer Kent’s debut film apart from standard creature features—and elevates it into the realm of horror art—is that even if this ghostly menace never appeared, The Babadook would still be a gorgeous, heartbreaking exercise in dread. The spare, haunting and often tragic horror drama centers on Amelia (Essie Davis), a nerve-jangled nurse still reeling from the death of her husband, who was killed while driving her to the hospital when she was in labor. Seven years later, Amelia and her son, Samuel (Noah Wiseman), lead a lonely and sleepless existence. They find solace in nightly bedtime stories, until a mysterious pop-up book—Mister Babadook—appears. That kicks off a harrowing series of events, with the book’s villain insinuating himself into their lives. It becomes obvious early on that Kent is working in allegorical mode, with Mr. Babadook representing the madness Amelia risks succumbing to. It’s a metaphor that could have come across as ham-fisted, yet Kent handles her story with patience and

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aRmS LINkED: marching through manhattan in august 1970.

A WOMAN’S WORK SHE’S BEAUTIFUL WHEN SHE’S ANGRY PAYS TRIBUTE TO SECOND-WAVE FEMINISTS. BY ReB ecca jacoB son

rjacobson@wweek.com

Think back to Beyoncé’s performance at the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards—her rock-solid command of the stage, her spangly leotard, those heartmelting cuts to Blue Ivy on Jay Z’s lap. Recall the moment Beyoncé slid out on a conveyor belt, legs akimbo, the word “FEMINIST” glowing behind her. Remember how the crowd roared with approval. Now, travel back to 1969. That year, activist Marilyn Webb took the podium at an antiwar rally and began to speak about women defining their own issues. Men—anti-Nixon leftists—booed and catcalled her. “Take her off the stage and fuck her!” some yelled. “Fuck her down a dark alley!” Yes, it’s an imprecise comparison. For one thing, Webb wasn’t a pop megastar in bedazzled spandex, rather a 26-year-old with a mop of curly hair. But Beyoncé’s performance is still testament to the progress women have made over the past halfcentury—not just in terms of publicly proclaiming themselves feminists, of course, but also in terms of workplace equality, reproductive rights and sexual violence. This is one of many accomplishments of She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry, a wise and fiercely watchable documentary about second-wave feminism: It makes plain the immense debt we owe the activists of the late ’60s and early ’70s. With its blend of archival footage and new interviews, it’s a stirring, illuminating and sometimes upsetting portrait of a movement. Most of all, the film reminds us change isn’t inexorable: People make it happen. For those less familiar with their history, Mary Dore’s film serves as an excellent primer. It roams from the electrifying impact of The Feminine Mystique to the founding of the National Organization for Women to the massive marches for equality in August 1970. Dore tells the origin story of women’s health manual Our Bodies, Ourselves. She recounts how a scrappy abortion-referral service sprang up in a Chicago dorm room. There’s some delightful footage of the “First National OgleIn,” when women strolled Wall Street and whistled at bankers. Prominent activists—Ruth Rosen, Rita

Mae Brown, Portlander Judith Arcana—appear in present-day interviews, and Dore cuts poignantly to footage of these women as impassioned 20-somethings. (Less successful are some of the awkward—but mercifully brief—re-enactments.) As Dore shows us protests, street theater and consciousness-raising meetings, the effect is to be thoroughly transported back to a heady time when “the personal is political” was a revelatory statement rather than a bumper-sticker slogan. This is another success of the film: It makes clear how new and tenuous this all was. Racial schisms arose, often around issues of reproductive justice—for Puerto Rican women who’d faced forced sterilization or black women who feared abortion as an instrument of genocide, the right to have children was just as vital as the right not to. There were concerns about the “Lavender Menace”—lesbians—making the movement unpalatable, as well as discord between more conservative and radical factions. It’s a lot for a single film to contain. Yet Dore does an admirable job of not oversimplifying, even if her film could splinter off into a half-dozen other documentaries. I, for one, nominate local filmmaker/former rock star Beth Harrington to dig into the history of the Chicago Women’s Liberation Rock Band, which belted songs about lascivious bosses, rejecting marriage and wearing pants to work. Speaking of music, the generation-spanning soundtrack here is excellent and feisty: Janis Joplin, Cat Power, Nico, Bikini Kill. For all the gains, there’s no pretending the job is done. “The bitter lesson is that no victories are permanent,” says one of the activists. As grateful as we should be that The New York Times will never again advertise for a secretary “with good figure,” Dore bookends her film with recent protests against rollbacks of reproductive rights in Texas. It’s hard not to watch and think about areas where we still lag: comprehensive child care, or trans rights, or the widespread mishandling of sexual assault cases on college campuses. Like the new civil rights drama, Selma, She’s Beautiful is both a celebration and cautionary tale. And like Selma, She’s Beautiful gives credit where it’s due: to the radical thinkers and fearless organizers and on-the-ground activists who persisted against the odds. “You can’t convince me you can’t change the world,” says former NOW leader Mary Jean Collins. “I saw it happen.” A- SEE IT: She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry opens Friday at Living Room Theaters.

jan. 21–27

Big Eyes

B- For Margaret Keane, “eyes are the window to the soul.” At least, that’s the drivel the artist (a blond-wigged Amy Adams) has to deliver in Tim Burton’s Big Eyes, a biopic that winds up wanting for both vision and soul. It’s got the makings of a rich story: In the late ’50s and early ’60s, Keane churned out hundreds of paintings of sad, saucer-eyed waifs. Art critics lambasted the work as sentimental kitsch, but the public adored it. And Margaret got none of the credit. Her husband, Walter (Christoph Waltz) presented himself as the artist. It wasn’t until years later, when Margaret sued Walter for slander, that the truth emerged. As he did in Ed Wood 20 years ago, Burton has fashioned a portrait of an earnest artist producing work of dubious value. But unlike in that film, the director won’t let himself sink into strangeness. PG-13. REBECCA JACOBSON. Living Room Theaters.

Big Hero 6

A Shelving wordy cleverness for its

own sake, ignoring parental intrusion, and allowing moral lessons to develop organically through a simplified storyline, Big Hero 6 is that rarest thing: an animated children’s adventure designed purely to delight its target audience. Substantial swaths of the picture are devoted to nothing loftier than portraying just how unstoppably cool soaring on the back of your own robot would feel. Based on a Marvel comic about repurposed Japanese mutant-villains, this Disney feature drops all references to a larger Marvel world and scales back the well-worn superhero textures to best serve the needs of a slightly harder-edged kids’ cartoon. Big Hero 6 opens in the mean streets of San Fransokyo, where Tadashi narrowly saves his little brother Hiro from a beating after the 14-year-old prodigy wins fistfuls of cash during back-alley ‘bot fights. The first third of the film concerns itself solely with the orphans’ attempts to land Hiro enrollment at a whiz-bang university. The appeal of superherodom isn’t even suggested until an explosion kills Tadashi, but, upon discovering a nano-tech project has been stolen for shadowy ends, what’s a boy to do but weaponize his brother’s adorably puffy health care robot and outfit his goofball lab mates as newly minted misfit warriors of science? You’ll believe unadulterated tweener dreams can fly. PG. JAY HORTON. Clackamas, Empirical Theater at OMSI.

Birdman

B- In Birdman, our protagonist is Riggan Thomson (Michael Keaton), a washed-up actor who once wore wings as the titular superhero. But in this film, directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu, the real thing with wings is the camera, which soars and swoops through narrow stairwells and bustling Manhattan streets. The effect is that of a single, continuous take. It’s balletic and bravura. But just as the camera floats along, so too does much else in this self-consciously clever film skate along the surface. Decades ago, Riggan struck gold as a Hollywood superhero, and he’s now trying to rebuild himself by adapting, directing and starring in a Broadway play, based on Raymond Carver’s short story “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.” It’s of course a wink-nudge role for Keaton, 63, who wore the Batman suit more than 20 years ago and whose career has wobbled since. The actor works himself into a fidgety lather as he stomps through the theater, bleeding insecurity, self-pity and wounded arrogance. But the screenplay—a committee affair, by Iñárritu and three others—is creaky and self-satisfied. If Birdman’s message is that the theater, specifically Broadway, is the home of high art and Hollywood a place of

debased, greed-driven entertainment, Iñárritu doesn’t make a convincing— or even amusingly satirical—argument. There’s a cringe-worthy scene with a New York Times theater critic who, before she’s even seen Riggan’s play, promises to destroy him, simply because she hates everything he represents. Easy bait for critics assigned to review Iñárritu’s film? Perhaps, but it’s damn unlikely a critic would say such a thing out loud, or wouldn’t get the pink slip if someone overheard her. R. REBECCA JACOBSON. Clackamas, Forest, Hollywood Theatre, Lake.

Blackhat

C- Never mind Thor’s ability to fly and channel lightning. In Blackhat, Chris Hemsworth puts his previous role as the God of Thunder to shame by portraying a dude who can type, like, 250 words per minute. As Nicholas Hathaway, Hemsworth types so hard and so passionately that, half the time, he’s too distracted to finish buttoning his shirt, the neon glow of his computer screen glistening against his chiseled chest. Sequences of aggressive typing and pensive Web-searching have been the bane of cyber thrillers since their inception. So what happens when you put a cyber thriller in the hands of Michael Mann, one of the most kinetic filmmakers of his generation? Well, all that Googling and 10-key mayhem gets treated like a gunfight. And it’s…well, it’s pretty stupid, actually. Why is Hemsworth typing? An anonymous cyber terrorist has struck a nuclear reactor in China and a futures exchange in the U.S. When a joint task force—led by Barrett (Viola Davis) and Chen (Leehom Wang)—can’t track down the culprit, Chen remembers his brilliant college roommate, Hathaway. The only trouble is that Hathaway has been in prison for 15 years. An agreement is reached, and soon the U.N. of sexy nerds is traveling the globe, with Hemsworth bedding Chen’s sister and growling unintelligible dialogue that sounds like Sylvester Stallone reading Hacking for Dummies. At no point is any of this particularly interesting. On the plus side, if that whole God of Thunder thing doesn’t work out for Hemsworth, at least he has a promising career in data entry. R. AP KRYZA. Clackamas, Cornelius, Oak Grove.

The Boxtrolls

C+ Last summer, Portland animation house Laika turned heads with a trailer full of same-sex couples materializing and evaporating next to a rosy-cheeked toddler. “Families come in all shapes and sizes,” the narrator crooned. The resulting feature film, The Boxtrolls does away with any of these loving gay parents—actually, it does away with most loving humans, full stop. It also takes a surprisingly long time to get to this message about family, which gets muddled in a narrative that encompasses class envy, political corruption and (of course) how it’s what’s on the inside that counts. As in Laika’s previous two efforts—the fantastical Coraline and playfully supernatural ParaNorman—The Boxtrolls boasts a scrupulously crafted world. But its overstuffed screenplay lacks humor, and it could use a great deal more fun. The film’s titular monsters are misunderstood insect-eating beasts who live underground, where, for reasons not explained till relatively late in the film, they’re raising a human child. Above ground, they’re seen as bloodthirsty child-gobblers, with evil social climber Archibald Snatcher (voiced by a growling Ben Kingsley) committed to a campaign of boxtroll extermination. Visually, The Boxtrolls is as textured as we’ve come to expect from Laika. Cheesebridge is a Victorianesque town of vertiginously steep cobblestone streets and copper-colored roofs. Underground, the boxtrolls live in a steampunk wonderland of twinkle lights and Rube Goldberg machines. Yet all this 3-D stop-motion wizardry is deadened by a stubbornly brownish color scheme that further dulls what’s already a muddy tale. PG. REBECCA JACOBSON. Academy Theater, Laurelhurst Theater.

Boyhood

A Boyhood took 12 years, in film as

in life. For 12 years, director Richard

Linklater shot the movie for a few weeks each summer as both the main character, a boy named Mason, and the actor, Ellar Coltrane, came of age, from 6 to 18. The epic undertaking has resulted in one of the most honest and absorbing representations of growing up ever put to film: all the tedium, all the wonder. We see Mason in a series of moments, and they blend into each other without announcement. New haircuts appear. Obama runs for president. We see a teen girl awkwardly saying that “a friend” has a crush on Mason, and then we see her as Mason’s first girlfriend. The passage of time amounts to a special effect more powerful than CGI. How did this wistful kid become a lanky, zitty teen with an ill-advised mustache? When did he get so handsome? Who bought him that skateboard? As in life, the moments pass naturally, effortlessly, but in their accumulation we see—with all the suddenness of epiphany—that we have changed. At its heart, though, Boyhood is less about boyhood than parenthood. Much of the viewer’s empathy lies with Patricia Arquette, who plays a mother struggling to raise two kids mostly on her own, with the occasional incursions of men, including absentee dad Ethan Hawke. When Mason leaves for college, his mom suffers a breakdown. But we are being abandoned, too. An entire world of possibility will stretch out in front of Mason, but we who watched him grow will be left behind as the credits roll, grateful and a little brokenhearted. R. MATTHEW KORFHAGE. Laurelhurst Theater.

Citizenfour

B History happens in real time in

Citizenfour, a behind-closed-doors account of Edward Snowden’s decision to reveal the dizzying extent of U.S. government surveillance programs. Much of Laura Poitras’ documentary consists of long interviews with Snowden in the Hong Kong hotel room where he was holed up in June 2013, divulging everything he knew to Guardian reporter Glenn Greenwald. The result is a portrait of the whistle-blower as neither hero nor traitor. Citizenfour’s ground-level vibe and Poitras’ necessary cloak-and-dagger tactics make the documentary like a ’70s paranoia thriller with realworld consequences. Yet there are also instances of near-levity. In one scene, we see Snowden fuss with his hair in the bathroom mirror while a story about him is broadcast on CNN in the background. He’s reached a point of no return, and watching him jump willingly into the unknown is as terrifying as it is thrilling. Those familiar with Snowden’s story may complain at the paucity of new details, but what Citizenfour lacks in revelatory information it makes up for with insight into its subject’s motivations. Snowden is meek and articulate, touching on everything from worries about his loved ones’ safety to how he’s more willing to risk imprison-

ment or “any other negative outcome” than surrender his intellectual freedom. R. MICHAEL NORDINE. Living Room Theaters.

Foxcatcher

B If Michael Scott had been born dis-

gustingly rich, with a crooked beak for a nose, he would’ve been John du Pont. A lot has been made of Steve Carell’s dark turn as the heir to one of the grandest fortunes in American history. But really, the actor just traded a passion for selling paper for an obsession with Olympic wrestling, and his already prominent proboscis for a bent prosthetic schnoz. He didn’t even leave Pennsylvania: The du Pont estate is only two hours south of Dunder Mifflin’s Scranton office. This might seem a belabored comparison, but there’s a reason Carell got the role. He understands the desperate loneliness that drove the real-life du Pont’s dangerous self-delusions, because he played it for laughs for seven years. The difference, of course, is that unlike The Office, absolutely nothing in Foxcatcher is played for laughs. It is a brutal grind of a movie, which fits the subject matter. In 1987, du Pont contacted Mark Schultz, who’d won an Olympic gold medal three years earlier, and offered him room, board and a hefty paycheck to assemble a team of wrestlers to compete in the upcoming world championships in Seoul. What unfolded over the next decade was so bizarre that a grayscale mood piece of the sort crafted by director Bennett Miller is the only way it would translate to the screen. It is an unpleasant two hours, spent with two impenetrable, broken characters. There are moments that should register as comic relief, and that, on paper, would read like deleted scenes from The Office. Foxcatcher allows no humor to penetrate. But it is also too intense, and too profoundly strange, not to recommend trudging through it at least once. R. MATTHEW SINGER. Clackamas.

Gone Girl

B+ Gone Girl might be David Fincher’s

battiest work. The director has taken a lurid suspense yarn—the wildly popular novel by Gillian Flynn—and emerged with a film that deftly straddles the line between brilliant and stupid. It’s a media satire and a meditation on a volatile marriage that masquerades as the kind of plop you’d find Ashley Judd starring in back in the ’90s. It’s mesmerizing. The film centers on Nick and Amy Dunne (Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike), a couple whose relationship is dying, though who’s to blame is a matter of debate. Following Amy’s disappearance, the couple’s story is told in flashbacks via Nick’s interrogation sessions and Amy’s diary entries. According to Nick, Amy is a cold, friendless sociopath. She says he’s an abusive, adulterous asshole. Her vanishing sparks a national media circus, but what starts as a procedural mystery goes bonkers

after a midfilm twist that transforms the tale into perhaps the most expensive, well-acted Lifetime movie ever. Naturally, Fincher plays it straight, eschewing visual flourishes for a drab beauty similar to that in Zodiac. Affleck is perfectly cast as a charismatic slimeball who earns empathy despite myriad flaws. Pike, meanwhile, is a revelation. Gone Girl’s dark themes could prove too heavy for some mystery fans, and the subversive handling of satirical elements might be mistaken for schlockiness. But that’s Fincher in a nutshell. He’s such a meticulous craftsman you never know when he’s screwing with you, which is exactly what he does here, for 150 gleeful minutes. R. AP KRYZA. Academy Theater, Laurelhurst Theater.

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

B+ Prior to The Battle of the Five Armies, it would have been fair to say the Hobbit movies at their best were inferior to the Lord of the Rings films at their worst. This may not have been much of an issue for anyone whose fictional universe of choice is Middle-earth (read: this critic), but even apologists had to admit the first two installments were often sluggish, if enjoyable. There’s finally a genuine sense of breathless urgency to the concluding chapter, which pits man against dwarf against elf against orc in an elegantly crafted, altogether glorious skirmish for supremacy over the Lonely Mountain. If you have only a vague idea of what that means, fret not. The particulars of said battle may at first be lost on those who didn’t see The Desolation of Smaug last year, but one thing is certain from the outset: Power corrupts. Also: Shiny objects containing untold power corrupt absolutely. Peter Jackson links this trilogy back to LOTR in seamless fashion, reminding us why this is such an immersive cinematic world. Did The Hobbit need to be a trilogy? Absolutely not. Did it work as one anyway? Yes, precious. PG-13. MICHAEL NORDINE. Clackamas, Cornelius.

The Homesman

B+ Mary Bee Cuddy is an eligible

bachelorette, and not just for the 1850s. She owns land in the Nebraska Territory, has a fine singing voice and can fry up a delicious chicken dinner. But, as cruelly noted by a man she proposes to in the opening minutes of Tommy Lee Jones’ The Homesman, this frontier woman is also “too bossy and too damn plain.” So Mary (Hilary Swank) remains single. When her town needs an intrepid volunteer to transport three mentally ill women to Iowa and none of the men step forward, she takes on the task. Mary is what you might call a good Christian woman, and when she tries to process the harsh world through her particu-

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COURTESY OF UNIVERSAL PICTURES

confidence. She allows much of her film to play out in the shadows, creating a sense of claustrophobic paranoia and lunacy that would make a young Roman Polanski proud—and makes The Babadook one of the most emotionally affecting pieces of macabre cinema in years. AP KRYZA. Living Room Theaters, Academy Theater, Laurelhurst Theater.

MOVIES

JENNY FROM THE BLOCK: The Boy Next Door opens Friday, Jan. 23. Look for a review at wweek.com. Willamette Week JANUARY 21, 2015 wweek.com

jan. 21–27

L I N DA M O N TA I G N E

MOVIES

GET PUNKED: It’s Gonna Blow!!!: San Diego’s Music Underground, 1986-1996 plays at 9:30 pm Friday, Jan. 23, at the Hollywood Theatre. lar moral prism, the cognitive dissonance is often too much to bear. This comes largely thanks to George Briggs (Jones), a miscreant whom Mary finds in a noose after he’s angered the wrong people. When she offers to free him on the condition that he help her, he immediately accepts. His gruffness plays well off her resolute morality; it’s a familiar dynamic, but one that Jones and Swank enliven considerably. As a director, Jones captures stark and disturbing moments with a matterof-factness that’s neither overstated nor flippantly casual. Gone Girl has inspired much debate over its particular brand of feminism and the twists and turns of its narrative, but the more low-key Homesman outshines that pulpy thriller in both aspects. It proves there’s still more to explore within the well-trod Western genre, and what it finds is as strange as it is dolorous. R. MICHAEL NORDINE. Academy Theater, Laurelhurst Theater.

The Imitation Game

B As geniuses often are, British math-

ematician Alan Turing was an odd duck. And, as Oscar-season biopics often are, The Imitation Game is a resolutely traditional film. Full of childhood flashbacks, handsome sets, sharp zingers and a careful dash of devastation, it takes a prickly prodigy—Turing pioneered the field of computer science and helped crack Nazi codes— and places him in an eminently (and sometimes overly) palatable picture. But the story packs natural dramatic wallop, and Norwegian director Morten Tyldum tells it with the brisk pacing of a thriller. During World War II, Germany put military transmissions through a complex encoding machine called Enigma. To break it, the British government gathered the country’s best cryptological minds at a country estate near London, a kind of protoSilicon Valley. It’s here that most of the film unfolds, with the 27-yearold Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch) talking himself onto the team by coolly bragging about his crossword skills—and then exasperating everyone with his egotism and social awkwardness. Today, we’d probably place him somewhere on the autism spectrum. Cumberbatch, the screen’s preeminent player of brilliant weirdos, is detached but pained—it’s a wonderful performance. We also get scenes set after the war, when Turing was interrogated for homosexuality, an illegal activity at the time. Tyldum, though, presents Turing as a gay martyr but never as a gay man, an elision more frustrating than the film’s many historical tweaks. And yet there’s something to be said for a drama as sturdy and watchable as The Imitation Game. With a story this compelling and a cast this good, it’s difficult not to play along. PG-13. REBECCA JACOBSON. Clackamas, Cornelius.

Inherent Vice

A In Inherent Vice, Paul Thomas Anderson’s rollicking adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s 2009 novel, the beaches of ’70s Los Angeles are populated with human flotsam. Hippies, Nazis, bikers, junkies, whores, Manson acolytes, dentists, cops, criminals and all manner of freaks commingle in the grimy tide pools. It’s a magnificent film. It’s also not for all tastes, but hey, that’s Anderson—he’s always defied genre. Here, though, Anderson is working in one of the most timeworn genres of all: the detective story. Only with Inherent Vice, said private detective is less Sam Spade than Wavy Gravy, a pot-addled former doper named Doc Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix) whose ex, Shasta (Katherine Waterston), disappears before tipping him off about a plot to overthrow a powerful construction magnate. That takes Doc on a journey through the stony underworld of the 1970s. All the while, he’s feverishly dogged by police detective Christian “Bigfoot” Bjornsen (Josh Brolin) a flat-topped wannabe actor who takes great pleasure in stomping over hippies and brags about his myriad civil rights violations. It takes very little time for the core mystery to take a backseat to the lunatic characters that Doc—played with ethereal charisma by a never-better Phoenix—encounters. This might prove frustrating to some, as the film meanders from scene to scene with the giddy weirdness of a teenager with a head full of chronic, but the key to enjoying Inherent Vice is to roll with the punches. This is a director riding high on a wave he himself created by cannonballing into the deep end. Let’s hope it never crests. R. Cinema 21.

The Interview

A Some people take a strong dislike

to Katy Perry. There are a variety of stupid reasons for this, and it’s mostly pointless to argue with anyone who believes such a perspective indicates you’re a wizened iconoclast rejecting useless pink fluff. There’s some symmetry between Perry and The Interview, the new movie from Pineapple Expressionists Seth Rogen and James Franco. A lot of symmetry, actually. Enough that I don’t think it’s a stretch to call director Evan Goldberg’s use of “Firework” in the movie’s memorable death scene a masterstroke of meta-narrative. As you’ve heard by now, The Interview follows Franco’s douchebaggy talk-show host and Rogen’s Columbia-educated producer into North Korea, where they’ve been assigned to assassinate newish dictator Kim Jong-un. After all the studiohacking and release-pulling, it’s not easy to unfreight the film of the controversy. So is The Interview funny? I laughed, hard. To be sure, the jokes are better if you read international news.

Willamette Week JANUARY 21, 2015 wweek.com

Grocery stores full of fake fruit and an anus-less leader aren’t absurdity but real pieces of the shared narrative in a nuclear-armed nation with more people than Texas. Are Rogen and Franco likable? Not as likable as Kim (Randall Park), who becomes the most brutal real-life dictator ever developed into a relatable character before being melted into wax. Like so much of Ms. Perry’s work, The Interview’s best moments are about the universal thirst for validation. The moral, too, is plain: Ignite the light, and let it shine, or else evil wins. R. MARTIN CIZMAR. Academy Theater, Kennedy School, Mission Theater.

Into the Woods

B+ Stephen Sondheim’s much-loved

musical has finally made it to the big screen, living somewhere between the stage original, with its shattered happy endings and higher death count, and the more sanitized, shortened version that’s long been making the rounds in school productions. As in those versions, the film is divided into halves: the first full of payoffs and the second full of inescapable relationship truths and romantic boredom. Though timid—it waters down forest sex to an agonized make-out scene in the pines—Disney’s long-shelved adaptation is still a beautiful compromise. And hell, the mash-up of cautionary fairy tales is fun, with the Witch (Meryl Streep) pushing a young couple (James Corden and Emily Blunt) to undo a family curse they inherited. Along the way, the two first manipulate, then aid, the major players from the stories of Cinderella (a confident Anna Kendrick and a handsome, hammy Chris Pine), Little Red Riding Hood (Lilla Crawford and an inexplicably zoot-suited Johnny Depp), Jack and the Beanstalk (a sweet if staid Tracey Ullman, and Daniel Huttlestone), and Rapunzel (Mackenzie Mauzy and Billy Magnussen). And it’s Sondheim! Meaning that, for the most part, this production—which, like most of its characters, stays faithful enough—is scored by show tunes more erratic than earworm. PG. SAUNDRA SORENSON. Clackamas, Oak Grove, St. Johns Theater.

Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb

Ben Stiller spends more time sprinting through a museum. PG. Oak Grove.

Nightcrawler

B+ With eyes bulging from his gaunt

skull like a Chihuahua trapped in an industrial vise, Jake Gyllenhaal is an unnervingly strange sight to behold when he walks onto the screen in Nightcrawler. And that’s before his character, Lou Bloom, even opens his mouth. Once Lou starts chattering—and boy, does Lou chatter—what

emerges is one of the slimiest, most disarming sociopaths to hit theaters in some time. Gyllenhaal’s character is terrifying. Not so much for what he does, but for what he represents: He’s sensationalistic and exploitative media personified. The title of Dan Gilroy’s debut feature refers to the lecherous freelance cameramen who prowl city streets, their ears trained to police scanners so they can get to gruesome crime scenes before help arrives and shoot the carnage, tragedy and response as it all unfolds. After witnessing one particularly soulless photographer in action, petty thief Lou invests in a camcorder and a scanner, and promptly crosses police lines in order to tape a grisly accident. He rushes to a trashy TV station to sell the footage, quickly striking up a professional relationship with an equally emotionless TV exec (Rene Russo). What makes Lou such a fascinating and terrifying beast isn’t rooted in traditional cinematic tropes of violence. In reality, he’s quite docile. No, it’s his extreme disconnect and lack of conscience: He sees nothing wrong with moving a still-breathing victim into better light to improve his shot. The film is as funny as it is unsettling…and it’s plenty unsettling. R. AP KRYZA. Academy Theater, Kennedy School, Laurelhurst Theater.

Paddington

The cuddly, floppy hat-wearing bear gets his own live-action feature. PG. Clackamas, Cornelius, Oak Grove.

Penguins of Madagascar

The besuited birds are back, trying to prevent an evil octopus from taking over the world. Sorry, WW was too hung over to make the Saturdaymorning screening. PG. Academy Theater, Empirical Theater at OMSI, Kennedy School, Laurelhurst Theater, Mission Theater.

Selma

A- Movies about humanity’s failures tend to flatter their audiences. Look at yesterday’s folly, they say, and be proud of our relatively democratic present. Too rare are movies that shine a retrospective light strong enough to throw long, cold shadows into the now. Such is Selma, Ava DuVernay’s drama about three 1965 civil rights marches in Alabama. It’s not perfect, but it arrives at a historic moment that will leave only the most blinkered viewer feeling chuffed about the superiority of the present to the past. Selma is not only a vital missive, though. It is also expertly crafted entertainment. The film begins with a quiet moment of domestic dillydallying between Martin Luther King Jr. (David Oyelowo) and Coretta Scott King (Carmen Ejogo). While DuVernay returns to such pensive stretches, her film is mostly intent on examining the nature of collective action. When the canvas expands, Selma truly sings. Violence here is never aestheticized for its own sake, but brought to life so that we might understand its escalation and impact. The sudden blast that kills happy girls in church, the sneering disdain of a thuggish cop, the deep breath preceding an act of defiance that is sure to bring a beating—Selma magnifies these moments to subvert the notion that the civil rights movement was some monolithic, autonomic historical force whose time had simply come. The film is transfixing, but not easy to watch. And it should not be easy to watch. PG-13. CHRIS STAMM. Living Room Theaters, Clackamas, Hollywood Theatre.

The Skeleton Twins

C Some twins can finish each other’s sentences, or guess what number the other is imagining with to-the-decimal-point accuracy. In The Skeleton Twins, Maggie and Milo’s sibling ESP manifests in simultaneous suicide attempts. Despite living on different coasts and having had no contact in 10 years, the twins, played by Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader, try to take their own lives at practically the same moment: She swallows a handful of pills; he cuts his wrists while blaring Blondie in his L.A. apartment. Neither succeeds—in fact, Maggie’s attempt is interrupted by a call from the hospital about Milo—but the incident brings

them back under the same roof, in the town in upstate New York where they grew up. That gives them the opportunity finally to deal with their father’s suicide, their absentee mother Maggie’s unhappy marriage and chronic cheating, and the inappropriate relationship that drove the wedge between them a decade earlier. If this sounds like typical Sundance-baiting indie stuff, well, it is, from the water metaphors to the sepia flashbacks to the Sonic Youth shirts Milo wears to suggest otherness (he’s gay, y’see). But if there’s one thing writer-director Craig Johnson gets right, it’s the casting. As former Saturday Night Live castmates, Hader and Wiig come with built-in brother-sister chemistry. And while the “comedy,” such as it exists, is meted out mostly via desiccated sarcasm, it pokes enough holes in the generally flat, affectless tone that some have taken to calling the film a “dramedy.” Tellingly, the only moments that stick are those in which the stars are allowed to loosen up, in particular one scene involving nitrous oxide. Such scenes don’t come frequently enough to elevate the film above its clichés and unpleasant demeanor, but one can only imagine how insufferable it would be with anyone else. R. MATTHEW SINGER. Laurelhurst Theater.

Slaughter Nick for President

B Canadian actor Rob Stewart didn’t

make much of a splash when his TV series, Baywatch-wannabe Tropical Heat, aired between 1991 and ’93. The goofy detective series, starring Stewart as the impossibly bronzed, impressively ponytailed Nick Slaughter, disappeared almost instantly from the public consciousness, while Stewart himself disappeared into his parents’ suburban home…until he discovered, two decades later, that the country of Serbia basically considered him its version of David Hasselhoff. Since it first aired, Tropical Heat has been a cult hit in the Balkan republic, with fans considering Slaughter a hero. Slaughter Nick for President follows the charming and humble Stewart as he visits Serbia, where he’s greeted by mobs of adoring fans, appears on a game show, plays guitar with a punk band and is generally worshiped as royalty. Like the singer Rodriguez, who was profiled in the recent Oscar-winning documentary Searching for Sugar Man, Stewart also came to represent political struggle (in the uprising against Slobodan Miloševic, his character even became a symbol of the opposition). Stories of B-list actors or artists who discover fame can showcase the worst in people—just look at the way the cast and crew of Troll 2 behaved in Best Worst Movie—but Slaughter Nick offers a loving portrait of a man suddenly confronted by immense fame and reverence. Stewart spends what he calls the best two weeks of his life humbly thanking fans with a giant smile on his face, which makes watching his journey a joy. Archival clips of the ponytailed and orange-skinned Stewart doing somersaults while holding a gun don’t hurt, either. AP KRYZA. Clackamas, Cornelius, Oak Grove.

St. Vincent

B- Freshman director Theodore Melfi is a very, very lucky man. Under most circumstances, his debut, St. Vincent, would be blasted for its contrived, overwrought plot. Does the world really need another story about a mean old bastard who finds redemption and purpose thanks to a kid? But luckily for Melfi, that crusty bastard is played by Bill Murray, who takes what could have been a geriatric riff on About a Boy and turns it into a showcase of his ever-evolving comedic prowess. Murray plays Vincent, a chain-smoking, whiskey-chugging Brooklynite. When an overworked single mother (a subdued Melissa McCarthy) moves in next door, Vincent is quickly and reluctantly enlisted to babysit Oliver (newcomer Jaeden Lieberher), a bullied, meek and (ugh!) precocious child. Will Oliver break through Vincent’s tough veneer? Will his Catholic school project eventually give the movie its title? Will Vincent’s tendency to take Oliver to dive bars and the horse track put him into conflict with Oliver’s mother, forcing a split that will eventually be mended in a heartwarming finale? Duh.

JAN. 21–27 On its own, St. Vincent would be a cross between melodrama and a sitcom, complete with Naomi Watts as a pregnant Russian prostitute whose accent makes Natasha Fatale’s sound understated. But Murray makes the material sing. And while Melﬁ hits familiar beats, he throws in a couple of tragic midﬁlm twists that help to draw out one of Murray’s best-ever performances. PG-13. AP KRYZA. Academy Theater, Laurelhurst Theater.

Taken 3

Somehow, there are still some ambiguously ethnic throats left in the world that Liam Neeson hasn’t chopped. He completes his hammer-punching campaign in this ﬁnal (praise be!) chapter in the Taken franchise. PG-13. Clackamas, Cornelius.

The Tale of the Princess Kaguya

From Studio Ghibli cofounder Isao Takahata comes a hand-drawn adaptation of a 10th-century Japanese folk tale about a girl who emerges from a stalk of bamboo. PG. Laurelhurst Theater.

The Theory of Everything

B- A brief history of Stephen Hawking’s 30-year marriage to Jane Wilde, The Theory of Everything fits a tad too snugly into the biopic tradition. Anyone who’s seen Errol Morris’ expressionistic 1992 documentary on Hawking knows a conventional approach isn’t ideal for the ALSafflicted genius—which isn’t to say James Marsh’s new film doesn’t succeed on its own more modest terms. Here, Hawking’s contributions to the fields of physics and cosmology take a backseat to the story of his and Wilde’s courtship, marriage and eventual divorce. That’s no surprise: The Theory of Everything is based on Wilde’s memoirs, so anyone expecting a disquisition on Hawking’s theories should seek out the Morris doc instead. Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones do a superb job bringing Hawking and Wilde to life, like two shining stars revolving around the same tragic center of gravity. Hawking’s mind never slows as he deteriorates physically, nor does his wife’s resolve to stick with him—until it does, that is. The film glosses over the inconvenient details of their parting, making it clear that Hawking married his nurse while declining to say much more. The Theory of Everything might not live up to its ambitious title, but there’s still much to admire in this visually arresting portrait of a long and unique relationship. PG-13. MICHAEL NORDINE. Clackamas.

Top Five

A- Chris Rock took way too long

to play himself in a movie. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say he took far too long to make a movie that sounds like he does. That’s the immediate thing to leap out about Top Five, the third film the comic has written, directed and starred in but the first to come across as a true Chris Rock joint: The dialogue has the tone, pacing and detonation of his standup. For most of the film, it’s a loose, engaging walk-and-talk, something like Before Sunrise meets Seinfeld, energized by interjections of hip-hop brashness. R. MATTHEW SINGER. Fox Tower.

Unbroken

B Early directorial efforts from movie stars typically exploit every advantage of the Hollywood filmmaking apparatus, so it should come as no surprise that Angelina Jolie’s second feature, Unbroken, looks terrific. Some would argue that the harrowing story of former Olympian Louis Zamperini’s torturous ordeals—40-plus days lost at sea and the unending abuse of a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp—needn’t resemble a Tom

MOVIES

Ford catalog. But Jolie still proves herself an engaged student of telling anatomical details: the ear damaged beyond repair, the athlete’s coltish calf muscles, and, especially, the piercing iris of a bombardier. Breezing through listless childhood reveries, the wartime heroics unfurl with understated grandeur while shark-boxing lifeboat scenes manage genuine laughs. But the gruesome slog through ever-worsening horrors seems intent on reversing Louie’s older brother’s insistence that a moment’s pain is worth a lifetime of glory. Only after we arrive in Tokyo and are introduced to the effete sadism of a POW camp commander does the film come alive. As the cruelties grow more playful and more barbarous (and the psychosexual underpinnings more overt), a keening note of tragic romance nearly transcends the leaden structure throughout the, um, climactic coal-mine quasicrucifixion. Too long by half and perhaps fatally cluttered by forgettable characters and trivial sequences, Jolie nonetheless stirs up a darkly passionate, powerfully strange love story within an otherwise boilerplate docudrama. PG-13. JAY HORTON. Clackamas, Living Room Theaters.

The Wedding Ringer

D+ Weddings are one of life’s defining moments—a moment when two people pledge their everlasting love to each other in front of family, friends and their parents’ business associates. They are also, it turns out, when men realize they have no friends, and thus no groomsmen. That’s the conceit of The Wedding Ringer, a new Kevin Hart vehicle that follows the grand tradition of using a wedding as the framing device for male bonding, hot chicks and totally not being gay. Doug Howard (Josh Gad) is a lonely milquetoast just 10 days away from marrying the woman of his dreams—or, at least, the hot girl he never thought he’d have a chance with (Kaley CuocoSweeting, in a thankless role). The hitch: He doesn’t have any groomsmen, let alone a best man. Enter Jimmy Callahan (Hart), who runs a best-man service from the basement of a family fun center. Director Jeremy Garelick is mostly concerned with providing a steady stream of déjà vu, with moments here that recall Wedding Crashers, Pretty Woman and I Love You, Man. Those films, though, lacked the overt homophobia of The Wedding Ringer. “This is so fucking gay!” shouts Gretchen’s father after dealing with the wedding planner. “Tell me you didn’t make me fucking gay!” hollers a terrified Callahan after learning his invented backstory might get in the way of his poonhoundery. It’s worse than tasteless—and that’s not to mention the moment Cloris Leachman gets set on fire, the revelation that one of the groomsmen has three balls, or the time a basset hound bites someone’s dick. R. JOHN LOCANTHI. Most major Portland-area theaters.

Wild

A- On the Paciﬁc Crest Trail, hikers

speak of the “green tunnel” that greets you in Oregon. This tunnel— lush layers of moss and ferns and Douglas fir—rarely breaks for views and drenches those who enter. As Reese Witherspoon trudges north in Wild, the film adaptation of Portlander Cheryl Strayed’s bestselling memoir about hiking 1,100 miles from scorched California to soggy Oregon, it’s hard not to anticipate this green tunnel—and its accompanying downpours— like a kid counting down the days till summer vacation. Here’s some good news for Oregonians: Wild gets our state right. It’s also a rich and affecting piece of filmmaking, independent of any book. For those who’ve been, uh, in the

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wild, Wild recounts how in 1995, a 26-year-old Strayed undertook a solo trek on the Pacific Crest Trail, the track that wends itself from Mexico to Canada. Her mother had died of cancer a few years earlier, her marriage had crumbled, and she was self-destructing with the help of heroin and promiscuous sex. Like the book, the film—directed by Jean-Marc Vallée of Dallas Buyers Club—is punctuated by flashbacks. What keeps us engaged isn’t fear about whether Strayed will survive, but the alchemy of physical toil and emotional turmoil, and the way past traumas and current challenges illuminate one another. Vallée doesn’t traffic in nature porn, and the score is wonderfully evocative. That’s not to say Wild is perfect. The screenplay, by Nick Hornby, allows too many voice-over intrusions. Vallée could have stood to cut a few close-ups of Witherspoon looking pensive. There’s some heavy-handed symbolism surrounding a fox that keeps appearing on the trail. But the film—in large part thanks to Witherspoon’s nervy, funny and emotionally rich performance—transcends such flaws. And the Oregon rain, of course, helps to wash some of the others away. R. REBECCA JACOBSON. Clackamas, Edgefield, Hollywood Theatre, Lake.

Winter Sleep

Paddington (PG) 11:15AM 1:55PM 4:25PM 7:05PM 9:40PM Selma (PG-13) 10:45AM 1:40PM 4:40PM 7:40PM 10:40PM Mortdecai (R) 11:25AM 2:10PM 4:55PM 7:45PM 10:30PM Wild (R) 10:55AM 1:45PM 4:35PM 7:25PM 10:15PM Into The Woods (PG) 10:45AM 1:40PM 4:40PM 7:35PM 10:30PM Spare Parts (PG-13) 11:20AM 2:15PM 5:00PM 7:50PM 10:35PM Unbroken (PG-13) 4:00PM 10:20PM Wedding Ringer, The (R) 11:55AM 2:35PM 5:15PM 8:00PM 10:45PM Theory Of Everything, The (PG-13) 12:50PM 7:20PM Strange Magic (PG) 11:10AM 1:55PM 4:30PM 7:05PM 9:45PM

Taken 3 (PG-13) 11:30AM 2:20PM 5:10PM 8:00PM 10:45PM Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies (PG-13) 12:20PM 3:40PM 10:20PM Annie (2014) (PG) 11:00AM 1:50PM 4:40PM Big Hero 6 (PG) 10:50AM 1:30PM 4:20PM 7:10PM 9:55PM Imitation Game, The (PG-13) 10:50AM 1:35PM 4:25PM 7:15PM 10:10PM American Sniper (R) 11:40AM 3:00PM 6:20PM 9:30PM Birdman (R) 10:55AM 1:50PM 4:45PM 7:35PM 10:25PM Foxcatcher (R) 7:30PM 10:35PM Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies 3D (PG-13) 7:00PM Cake (2015) (R) 11:50AM 2:25PM 5:05PM 7:40PM 10:05PM Blackhat (R) 10:45AM 1:45PM 4:45PM 7:45PM 10:45PM Boy Next Door, The (R) 12:25PM 2:55PM 5:25PM 7:55PM 10:25PM

Selma (PG-13) 1:05PM 4:05PM 7:05PM 10:05PM Strange Magic (PG) 11:30AM 2:00PM 4:30PM 7:00PM 9:30PM Wild (R) 11:05AM 1:50PM 4:45PM 7:30PM 10:25PM Paddington (PG) 12:10PM 2:35PM 5:00PM 7:25PM 10:00PM Taken 3 (PG-13) 11:20AM 2:00PM 4:40PM 7:20PM 10:00PM Wedding Ringer, The (R) 12:00PM 2:35PM 5:10PM 7:45PM 10:20PM Whiplash (R) 10:45AM 4:50PM 10:30PM Theory Of Everything, The (PG-13) 1:25PM 7:30PM Unbroken (PG-13) 4:00PM 10:10PM Into The Woods (PG) 10:50AM 1:45PM 4:40PM 7:35PM 10:30PM

Birdman (R) 4:25PM 10:20PM Blackhat (R) 1:00PM 7:10PM Mortdecai (R) 11:35AM 2:15PM 4:55PM 7:35PM 10:15PM American Sniper (R) 11:15AM 12:50PM 2:25PM 4:00PM 5:35PM 7:10PM 8:45PM 10:25PM Boy Next Door, The (R) 12:05PM 2:30PM 5:10PM 7:40PM 10:10PM Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies (PG-13) 12:20PM 7:00PM 10:15PM Imitation Game, The (PG-13) 11:15AM 2:00PM 4:45PM 7:30PM 10:20PM Foxcatcher (R) 1:15PM 7:15PM Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies 3D (PG-13) 3:40PM

Into The Woods (PG) 10:50AM 1:45PM 4:40PM 7:35PM 10:30PM Mortdecai (R) 11:15AM 2:00PM 4:50PM 7:40PM 10:20PM Wild (R) 10:55AM 1:45PM 4:30PM 7:20PM 10:15PM Inherent Vice (R) 6:30PM 10:00PM Paddington (PG) 11:05AM 1:40PM 4:20PM 7:00PM 9:40PM Taken 3 (PG-13) 11:20AM 2:00PM 4:55PM 7:45PM 10:25PM Wedding Ringer, The (R) 11:15AM 1:55PM 4:35PM 7:25PM 10:05PM Selma (PG-13) 12:30PM 3:45PM 6:55PM 10:10PM Strange Magic (PG) 11:30AM 2:15PM 5:00PM 7:45PM 10:15PM An Ode to My Father (CJ Entertainment) (NR) 4:40PM 7:30PM 10:30PM

Annie (2014) (PG) 11:00AM 1:50PM Imitation Game, The (PG-13) 10:50AM 1:35PM 4:25PM 7:15PM 10:10PM American Sniper (R) 10:50AM 12:15PM 2:05PM 3:40PM 5:15PM 7:05PM 8:30PM 10:20PM Big Hero 6 (PG) 12:45PM 3:30PM Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies 3D (PG-13) 3:25PM Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies (PG-13) 12:05PM 6:50PM 10:05PM Blackhat (R) 12:45PM 4:00PM 7:15PM 10:25PM Boy Next Door, The (R) 12:00PM 2:30PM 5:00PM 7:30PM 10:00PM

American Sniper (XD) (R) 1:00PM 4:15PM 7:30PM 10:40PM

FRIDAY 58

Willamette Week JANUARY 21, 2015 wweek.com

B- If you’re itching to spend three hours with a misanthropic mansplainer, Winter Sleep is just the ticket. A 196-minute meditation on marriage, class politics and narcissism, Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Palme d’Or-winning film is an exercise in endurance: both in its sheer length, and in viewers’ ability to withstand the prick at the center of it all. That would be Aydin (Haluk Bilginer), a former actor who now runs a hotel carved into the craggy landscape of Cappadocia. Much of the film unfolds in turgid conversation, with a few hibernation-inducing exchanges stretching longer than the average sitcom (but you don’t have to read Seinfeld). The cast is formidable—Melisa Sözen gives a finely tuned performance as Aydin’s wife, and Bilginer, with his derisive snorts and haughty laughs, is justifiably infuriating. His character doesn’t scream or rage or hurl cruel epithets: He’s a justbelow-boil asshole, which is definitely the worst kind of asshole. But the script, inspired by two Chekhov stories, spells out every bit of moral minutiae. It fights itself for the last word—as unable as its characters to let anything be. REBECCA JACOBSON. Living Room Theaters.

Zero Motivation

C Israeli comedy Zero Motivation has been breathlessly hailed in reviews and promotional materials as everything from M*A*S*H* meets Orange Is the New Black to an episode of Broad City as directed by the Coen brothers. But Talya Lavie’s debut feature earns these comparisons only by virtue of portraying young women who fabricate entertainment and drama in a restrictive institutional setting. (New York City not excepted.) Lavie’s story, inspired by personal experience and presented in three separate “episodes,” chronicles the adventures and misadventures of female soldiers—in particular, best friends Zohar (Dana Igvy) and Daﬃ (Nelly Tagar)—working the administrative department on a remote military base. They play Minesweeper on a bulky desktop PC. They lobby for transfers. They try to get laid. There’s a subplot about a ghost, and some genuine drama involving both a paper shredder and a staple gun, but for the most part we care no more about the women after 97 minutes than we did when they ﬁrst stepped onto the base with their pink backpacks and shared earbuds. Still, it’s worth watching if only for a glimpse at life in a country where compulsory military service plays as much a role in coming of age as pop songs and dorm posters. KAT MERCK. Living Room Theaters.

AP FILM STUDIES COURTESY OF TOUCHSTONE PICTURES

MOVIES

WOO WOO With 1989’s The Killer and 1992’s Hard Boiled, John Woo made two of cinema’s best-ever action films. In both movies (screening as a double feature at 7:30 pm Tuesday, Jan. 27, at the Hollywood Theatre), Chow Yun-Fat double-fists pistols and lays waste to sunglassesclad henchmen while doves fly around in slow-motion. They’re perfect—and they damn near ruined action movies for a decade. Everybody “want to be ‘The Killer,’” says Samuel L. Jackson in Jackie Brown. That went for all action films in the ’90s. It’s easy to see why. Woo’s breakouts present violence as a highly stylized ballet of carnage—characters slide across rails and soar through extended shootouts like acrobatic servants of death. His worlds are populated with noble badasses, from the honorable assassin trying to do right by a wounded bystander in The Killer to the shoot-first-ask-questions-never cops in Hard Boiled. Also, doves. Yet for every good actioner Woo influenced—The Matrix, Bad Boys, Desperado—a dozen atrocities followed. Marky Mark pingponged around explosions in The Big Hit. Bruce Willis sailed through the air while firing dual pistols in Last Man Standing. Direct-to-video schlock overflowed with awkward shots of doves. Everyone from Jean-Claude Van Damme (who worked with Woo on Hard Target) to Steven Seagal tried to out-Woo Woo. Hell, Woo became a cheap imitation of himself with trash like Broken Arrow and Paycheck. Thankfully, Hollywood has found new styles of action to emulate, such as the parkour craze and the shaky-cam aesthetic of the Bourne franchise. Now removed from a sea of impostors, we can appreciate Hard Boiled and The Killer for what they are: masterworks by a true innovator. AP KRYZA. How John Woo nearly ruined action ﬁlms.

ALSO SHOWING: Legendary post-punk super-couple Toody and Fred Cole are set for a rare performance following Unknown Passage: The Dead Moon Story, a documentary about their trailblazing band and its place in a Portland long gone. Hollywood Theatre. 7:30 pm Thursday, Jan. 22. The NW Film Center puts a spotlight on the late, great Alec Guinness with four films showcasing the actor’s spectacular range (if not his ability to manipulate the Force). The lineup includes 1951’s The Man in the White Suit, in which Guinness plays a chemist who creates a miracle fabric; 1955 black comedy The Ladykillers (the remake of which remains the Coen brothers’ worst effort); 1951 heist flick The Lavender Hill Mob; and cheeky murder farce Kind Hearts and Coronets. NW Film Center’s Whitsell Auditorium. Jan. 23-26. See nwfilm.org for full schedule. In 2013, Jodorowsky’s Dune showed us what might have happened had the surrealist Mexican director had his way with Frank Herbert’s book. But that would have denied us the weirdness of David Lynch’s Dune. Hollywood Theatre. 7 pm Friday, Jan. 23. In School Daze—Spike Lee’s second feature—Morpheus and Gus Fring are coeds sparring over race relations. It’s also a musical comedy. Pass the blue pills. 5th Avenue Cinema. 7 and 9:30 pm FridaySaturday and 3 pm Sunday, Jan. 23-25. The Academy’s sequel series wraps with Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, which seems a hell of a lot better now that we’ve had Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Academy Theater. Jan. 23-29. Author and podcaster Colin Marshall presents Portland and Los Angeles: The Cities in Cinema. Obviously, L.A. wins. But thanks to the Ice Cube family romp Are We There Yet?, Portland is a close second. Hollywood Theatre. 7 pm Sunday, Jan. 25.

MOVIES

COURTESY OF NW FILM CENTER

JAN. 23–29

THE GOOD OL’ DAZE: As part of an Alec Guinness series, The Ladykillers plays Jan. 24-25 at the NW Film Center’s Whitsell Auditorium.

NW Film Center’s Whitsell Auditorium

Regal Lloyd Center 10 & IMAX

1510 NE Multnomah St. AMERICAN SNIPER: THE IMAX EXPERIENCE MORTDECAI Fri-Sat-Sun 01:00, 03:50, 06:40, 09:30 STRANGE MAGIC Fri-SatSun 11:30, 02:10, 05:00, 07:40, 10:20 THE BOY NEXT DOOR Fri-Sat-Sun 11:50, 02:20, 04:50, 07:20, 09:50 BLACKHAT THE WEDDING RINGER TAKEN 3 AMERICAN SNIPER INTO THE WOODS SELMA THE HOBBIT: THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES INHERENT VICE THE IMITATION GAME BOLSHOI BALLET: SWAN LAKE Sun 12:55

Clinton Street Theater

2522 SE Clinton St., 503-238-8899 THE STORY OF AMERICA’S SIDECAR DOGS Fri 07:00 THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW Sat 12:00 THE THROWAWAYS Sun 07:00 LUNAFEST Mon 07:00

Laurelhurst Theatre & Pub

2735 E Burnside St., 503-232-5511 GONE GIRL Fri-Sat-SunMon-Tue-Wed 06:45 BOYHOOD Fri-Sat-SunMon-Tue-Wed 06:15 STRIPES JOHN WICK THE SKELETON TWINS FriSat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 07:00 THE BABADOOK Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 09:45 ST. VINCENT FriSat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 09:05 THE HOMESMAN Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 06:30 NIGHTCRAWLER Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 09:30 FANTASTIC MR. FOX Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 09:15 THE BOXTROLLS FriSat-Sun 04:00 THE TALE OF THE PRINCESS KAGUYA Sat-Sun 01:00 PENGUINS OF MADAGASCAR Sat-Sun 01:15

Mission Theater and Pub

1624 NW Glisan St., 503-249-7474-5 THE MATRIX EXODUS: GODS AND KINGS BLADE RUNNER Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 06:50 THE INTERVIEW Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 09:35 PENGUINS OF MADAGASCAR Fri-Sat-SunMon-Tue-Wed 04:30

Moreland Theatre 6712 SE Milwaukie Ave., 503-236-5257 THE IMITATION GAME

Edgeﬁeld Powerstation Theater 2126 SW Halsey St., 503-249-7474-2 WILD Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-TueWed 03:45, 07:00, 10:15

Kennedy School Theater

5736 NE 33rd Ave., 503-249-7474-4 PENGUINS OF MADAGASCAR Fri-SatSun-Tue-Wed 05:30 THE INTERVIEW Fri-Sat-SunMon-Tue-Wed 07:40 NIGHTCRAWLER Fri-SatSun-Tue-Wed 02:30, 10:15

Empirical Theatre at OMSI

1945 SE Water Ave., 503-797-4000 WALKING WITH DINOSAURS 3D Fri-Sat-Sun 12:00 WILD OCEAN FriSat-Sun 02:30 FLIGHT OF THE BUTTERFLIES Sat-Sun 10:00 JAMES CAMERON’S DEEPSEA CHALLENGE 3D Fri-Sat-Sun 11:00, 03:30 ADRENALINE RUSH: THE SCIENCE OF RISK Fri 10:00 LEWIS & CLARK: GREAT JOURNEY WEST Fri 01:00 D-DAY: NORMANDY 1944 Fri 05:00 BIG HERO 6 Fri 06:30 BEARS SatSun 01:00 PENGUINS OF MADAGASCAR Sat 04:30

5th Avenue Cinema 510 SW Hall St., 503-725-3551 SCHOOL DAZE Fri-Sat 07:00, 09:30 Sun 03:00

Hollywood Theatre

4122 NE Sandy Blvd., 503-281-4215 SELMA Fri-Sat-Sun-MonTue-Wed 06:45, 09:15 WILD Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-TueWed 09:20 BIRDMAN OR (THE UNEXPECTED VIRTUE OF IGNORANCE) Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 07:00 THE BABADOOK DUNE Fri 06:30 IT’S GONNA BLOW!: SAN DIEGO’S MUSIC UNDERGROUND 1986-1996 Fri 09:30 RACE FOR YOUR LIFE, CHARLIE BROWN! Sat-Sun 02:00 PORTLAND & LOS ANGELES: CITIES IN CINEMA Sun 07:00 GRIDLORDS Sun 09:45 THE MOVIE QUIZ Mon 07:00 JOHN WOO DOUBLE FEATURE Tue 07:30

1219 SW Park Ave., 503-221-1156 OUT OF THE ARCHIVES: YOUTH-MADE FILMS FROM ACROSS OREGON Fri 05:30 KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS Fri-Sun 04:30 THE LAVENDER HILL MOB Fri-Mon 06:30 THE MAN IN THE WHITE SUIT Sat-Mon 08:30 THE LADYKILLERS Sat-Sun 07:00 BACK THE WAY WE CAME THE KING AND THE MOCKINGBIRD Fri 06:30, 08:30

Regal Pioneer Place Stadium 6 340 SW Morrison St. STRANGE MAGIC Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 01:00, 03:45, 06:45, 09:30 THE BOY NEXT DOOR Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 01:45, 04:30, 07:30, 10:10

St. Johns Theater

8203 N Ivanhoe St., 503-249-7474-6 INTO THE WOODS Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 01:00, 04:00, 07:00, 10:00

Regal Cinemas Bridgeport Village Stadium 18 & IMAX

7329 SW Bridgeport Road AMERICAN SNIPER: THE IMAX EXPERIENCE MORTDECAI Fri-Sat-Sun 11:45, 02:25, 05:05, 07:25, 10:05 STRANGE MAGIC FriSat-Sun 11:35, 02:05, 04:35, 07:10, 09:40 THE BOY NEXT DOOR Fri-Sat-Sun 12:10, 02:35, 05:00, 07:45, 10:10

Academy Theater

7818 SE Stark St., 503-252-0500 THE BABADOOK Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 02:15, 09:30 THE HOMESMAN Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 01:55, 07:05 ST. VINCENT Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-TueWed 04:15 GONE GIRL Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 06:30 THE BOXTROLLS Sat-Sun 11:45 THE SKELETON TWINS BACK TO THE FUTURE PART II THE INTERVIEW FriSat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 09:15 PENGUINS OF MADAGASCAR Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 04:40 NIGHTCRAWLER Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 02:05, 06:45 INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 04:30, 09:40

Century Clackamas Town Center and XD 12000 SE 82nd Ave. FOXCATCHER Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 10:35 WHIPLASH BIRDMAN OR (THE UNEXPECTED VIRTUE OF IGNORANCE) Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-

Wed 10:55, 01:50, 04:45, 07:35, 10:25 BIG HERO 6 Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 10:50, 01:30, 04:20, 07:10, 09:55 INTERSTELLAR THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY, PART 1 PENGUINS OF MADAGASCAR THE IMITATION GAME Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 10:50, 01:35, 04:25, 07:15, 10:10 WILD Fri-Sat-Sun-MonTue-Wed 10:55, 01:45, 04:35, 07:25, 10:15 THE HOBBIT: THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 12:20, 03:40, 10:20 THE HOBBIT: THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES 3D Fri-Sat-SunMon-Tue-Wed 07:00 NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM: SECRET OF THE TOMB ANNIE FriSat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 11:00 INTO THE WOODS Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 10:45, 01:40, 04:40, 07:35, 10:30 UNBROKEN Fri-Sat-SunMon-Tue-Wed 04:00, 10:20 PADDINGTON Fri-Sat-SunMon-Tue-Wed 11:15, 01:55, 04:25, 07:05, 09:40 SELMA Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 10:45, 01:40, 04:40, 07:40, 10:40 AMERICAN SNIPER Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-TueWed 11:40, 03:00, 06:20, 09:30 TAKEN 3 Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 11:30, 02:20, 05:10, 08:00, 10:45 THE WEDDING RINGER Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 11:55, 02:35, 05:15, 08:00, 10:45 BLACKHAT Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 10:45, 01:45, 04:45, 07:45, 10:45 THE BOY NEXT DOOR FriSat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 12:25, 02:55, 05:25, 07:55, 10:25 MORTDECAI FriSat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 11:25, 02:10, 04:55, 07:45, 10:30 STRANGE MAGIC Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 11:10, 01:55, 04:30, 07:05, 09:45 INHERENT VICE THE WOMAN IN BLACK 2: ANGEL OF DEATH SPARE PARTS Fri-Sat-Sun-MonTue-Wed 11:20, 02:15, 05:00, 07:50, 10:35 THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 12:50, 07:20 CAKE Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 11:50, 02:25, 05:05, 07:40, 10:05 BOLSHOI BALLET: SWAN LAKE Sun 12:55 HOW THE WEST WAS WON Sun-Wed 02:00, 07:00

SUBJECT TO CHANGE. CALL THEATERS OR VISIT WWEEK.COM/MOVIETIMES FOR THE MOST UP-TO-DATE INFORMATION FRIDAY-THURSDAY, JAN. 23-29, UNLESS OTHERWISE INDICATED

WANNA HAVE YOUR PHOTO IN NEXT WEEK’S POT ISSUE? Smoke some weed, snap a selfie, post the photo to Instagram or Twitter with the tags #WW and #smokie or email smokie@wweek.com. Willamette Week JANUARY 21, 2015 wweek.com

END ROLL

THE FLYOVER STATES, PART I It’s not every year one’s home state football team competes to be the best in the country, so last week I booked a fl ight down to Dallas to watch the Buckeyes run through the Ducks like a wire through fresh Tillamook cheddar. And of course, since I was traveling to watch the final game of possibly the best college quarterback ever to live, I considered bringing some weed. Now, I’m no expert in Sky Law, but I do have an active imagination, and one of the rare downsides of marijuana is active imaginations quickly consider everything that might go wrong. My first concern, for instance, was to avoid Internet searches. If I was caught, wouldn’t the trail lead directly back to my Google search for “noncavity edible smuggler”? After that, I imagined the TSA agent waving me to follow him and my mumbled responses under interrogation. According to the world of comment threads, traveling with edibles is about as foolproof as smuggling gets. The TSA is looking for different chemical combinations altogether. If you’re subtle—striking a balance between plain sight and discretion—it’s theoretically simple to fly bombed out Werther’s Originals anywhere you

please. Edibles are rarely tested and emit low odor. Although nose-down K-9 units can cause even the stoutest hearts to cringe, they aren’t looking for weed. But then there’s this: I’ve traveled to Dallas twice. Memories of my fi rst visit consist of: the low-battery alarm on my hotel room’s smoke detector, which beeped every 8 seconds and couldn’t be fixed until morning; Dealey Plaza; eating at a Bennigan’s for the first time; the pastor who proposed building a giant tower in Deep Ellum “just so everyone could see it.” My second visit I don’t remember because of severe food poisoning. Perhaps Hunter S. Thompson would risk spending the national championship game in a subterranean holding pen under DFW. But I am not Hunter S. Thompson, and he was headed to Vegas. And then I wondered whether Hunter S. Thompson would’ve been willing to go cold turkey. So that’s what I did. After well over a year of near-daily use—I spent 88 hours cannabis-free, far from home, in a city charmingly nicknamed either the Big D or the City of Hate, depending on whom you ask… NEXT WEEK: What I learned about tolerance in the Lone Star State.

Are you reAdy? WillAmette Week presents

It’s back and better than ever. sundAy, mArCH 1 registrAtion for teAms of 5 begins februAry 4. 60

Willamette Week JANUARY 21, 2015 wweek.com

For more information on John Callahan’s memorial, see ﬀojohncallahan.tumblr.com.

CLASSIFIEDS DIRECTORY 61

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LEGAL NOTICES Estate of ROBIN BALMER NOTICE TO INTERESTED PERSONS Case Number: 14PB02670 Notice: The Circuit Court of the State of Oregon, for the County of Multnomah, has appointed the undersigned as Personal Representative of the Estate of Betty Jean Sanford, deceased. All persons having claims against said estate are required to present the same, with proper vouchers to the Personal Representative at the address of her attorney, 312 NW 10th Ave., #200B, Portland OR 97209 within four months from the date of first publication of this notice as stated below, or they may be barred. All persons whose rights may be affected by this proceeding may obtain additional information from the records of the court, the Personal Representative, or the Attorney for the Personal Representative. Dated and first published January 7th, 2015. PERSONAL REPRESENTATIVE Hailey Byers ATTORNEY FOR PERSONAL REPRESENTATIVE Maret Thatcher Smith 312 NW 10th Ave #200 B 971-284-7129 maret@thatchersmithlaw.com OSB # 105103

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CHATLINES

Find your Flame on

JONESIN’

by Matt Jones

Freestylin’–no theme, but big words everywhere.

45 Place for December purchases 47 Some small businesses, for short 49 “Let me at ‘em!” 53 Big earthenware jar 54 1988 Bruce Hornsby hit, with “The” 55 “No can do, Dostoyevsky” 56 “The Two ___” (Martha Finley children’s book) 57 Weightlifter’s abbr.

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Across 1 Cartoon father of octuplets 4 Ironic nickname for a hairy guy 10 Taj Mahal’s setting 14 Slides, handouts, etc. for a speaker’s audience 16 Street ___ (rep) 17 Aquarium fish 18 Mecca trekker 19 “Huuuuuuuh?!” 20 Little toy, for instance? 21 Head honcho

24 Baseball and football star Sanders 25 London music producer Yoad ___ (reverses to something in the kitchen) 26 “Uncle!” 28 Art lovers 30 Shield behind a wheel 32 1994 hit off Live’s album “Throwing Copper” 33 Is uncertain to, in a fancy tone

34 With “The,” 2012 Jessica Biel thriller 35 “Community” actress ___ Nicole Brown 36 Share a facility 37 “Cold as Ice” and “Hot Blooded” group 39 Appeases, as hunger 40 Having a pH below 7 41 Heart link 43 Simple pretzel shapes 44 It folds in a chair

Down 1 Mag that covers blue material (hidden in KAVNER) 2 Key lime, e.g. 3 Org. that’s hosted Errol Flynn, Wayne Newton and Stephen Colbert 4 ___ salts 5 Follow up on ___ 6 Image created before drinking? 7 Got the carpet all gross 8 Potatoes named for their state 9 Must-have 10 “Oh!” in Osnabruck 11 Tiny red salad item 12 How you feel after a much-

needed rest 13 Quality of some body tissues 15 Like some GPAs 21 He’s often seen up late 22 In an ambiguous way 23 Light and dark ice cream flavor 25 Star of “Gimme a Break!” 27 All together, musically 29 Religious circles? 31 Rare blood type 34 Carla’s surname on “Cheers” 36 Total assortment? 38 “Is this ___?” 42 French lane 46 Lord ___ Baratheon (“Game of Thrones” character) (anagram of ROSY) 48 Posed for pics 50 Company that merged with TimeWarner 51 Dollop 52 NFL gains

last week’s answers

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Week of January 22

BACK COVER CONTINUED...

PETS

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PETS FOR SALE ARIES (March 21-April 19): Is there a patron saint of advertising or a goddess of marketing or a power animal that rules publicity and promotion? If so, I’m going to find out, then pray to them in your behalf. It’s high time for your underappreciated talents and unsung accomplishments to receive more attention. And I am convinced that the astrological moment is ripe for just such a development. Help me out here, Aries. What can you do to get your message out better? What tricks do you have for attracting the interest of those who don’t know yet about your wonders? Polish up your self-presentation, please. TAURUS (April 20-May 20): During his 67 years of life, Taurus-born Leonardo da Vinci achieved excellence in 12 different fields, from painting to engineering to anatomy. Today he is regarded as among the most brilliant humans who ever lived. “His genius was so rare and universal that it can be said that nature worked a miracle on his behalf,” said one observer. “He towered above all other artists through the strength and the nobility of his talents,” said another. Yet on his death bed, Leonardo confessed, “I have offended God and mankind because my work did not reach the quality it should have.” Typical for a Taurus, he underestimated himself! It’s very important that you not do the same, especially in the coming weeks. The time has come for you to give yourself more of the credit and respect you deserve. GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Where you have been and what you have done will be of little importance in the coming weeks. Both your mistakes and your triumphs will be irrelevant. In my estimation, you have a sacred duty to spy on the future and reconnoiter the pleasures and challenges that lie ahead. So I suggest you head off toward the frontier with an innocent gleam in your eye and a cheerful hunger for interesting surprises. How’s your Wildness Quotient? If it’s in a slump, pump it up. CANCER (June 21-July 22): Will you ever find that treasured memento you misplaced? Is there any chance of reviving a dream you abandoned? You are in a phase when these events are more likely than usual to happen. The same is true about an opportunity that you frittered away or a missing link that you almost tracked down but ultimately failed to secure. If you will ever have any hope of getting another shot at those lost joys, it would be in the coming weeks. For best results, purge the regret and remorse you still feel about the mistakes you think you made once upon a time. LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): In the early 1300s, the people of the Mexica tribe had no homeland. They had wandered for centuries through the northern parts of what we now call Mesoamerica. According to legend, that changed in 1323, when their priests received a vision of an eagle eating a snake while perched at the top of a prickly pear cactus. They declared that this was the location of the tribe’s future power spot. Two years later, the prophecy was fulfilled. On an island in the middle of a lake, scouts spied the eagle, snake, and cactus. And that was where the tribe built the town of Tenochtitlan, which ultimately became the center of an empire. Today that place is called Mexico City. Have you had an equivalent vision, Leo? If you haven’t yet, I bet you will soon. Go in search of it. Be alert. VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): By the end of the 16th century, nutmeg was in high demand throughout Europe. It was valued as a spice, medicine, and preservative. There was only one place in the world where it grew: on the Indonesian island of Run. The proto-capitalists of the Dutch East India Company gained dominion over Run, and enslaved the local population to work on plantations. They fully controlled the global sale of nutmeg, which allowed them to charge exorbitant prices. But ultimately their monopoly collapsed. Here’s one reason why: Pigeons ate nutmeg seeds on Run, then flew to other islands and pooped them out, enabling plants to grow outside of Dutch jurisdiction. I see this story as an apt metaphor for you in the coming months, Virgo. What’s your equivalent of the pigeons? Can you find unlikely allies to help you evade the controlling force that’s limiting your options? .

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Have you triggered any brilliant breakthroughs lately? Have you made any cathartic departures from the way things have always been done? Have you thought so far outside the box that you can’t even see the box any more? Probably not. The last few weeks have been a time of retrenchment and stabilization for you. But I bet you will start going creatively crazy very soon -- and I mean that in the best sense. To ensure maximum health and well-being, you simply must authorize your imagination to leap and whirl and dazzle. SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): The cassava plant produces a starchy root that’s used as food by a half billion people all over the planet. No one can simply cook it up and eat it, though. In its raw state, it contains the poisonous chemical cyanide, which must be removed by careful preparation. An essential first step is to soak it in water for at least 18 hours. I see this process as a metaphor for the work you have ahead of you, Scorpio. A new source of psychological and spiritual sustenance will soon be available, but you will have to purge its toxins before you can use and enjoy it. SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Italian composer Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868) didn’t like to work hard, and yet he was also prolific. In fact, his desire to avoid strenuous exertion was an important factor in his abundant output. He got things done fast. His most famous opera, The Barber of Seville, took him just 13 days to finish. Another trick he relied on to reduce his workload was plagiarizing himself. He sometimes recycled passages from his earlier works for use in new compositions. Feeling good was another key element in his approach to discipline. If given a choice, he would tap into his creative energy while lounging in bed or hanging out with his buddies. In the coming weeks, Sagittarius, I recommend you consider strategies like his.

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La Vie en Rouge

Starring Siri Vik

a cabaret honoring edith Piaf & the French chanson

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Each hour of every day, the sun offers us more energy than oil, gas, and coal can provide in an entire year. Sadly, much of our star’s generous gift goes to waste. Our civilization isn’t set up to take advantage of the bounty. Is there a comparable dynamic in your personal life, Capricorn? Are you missing out on a flow of raw power and blessings simply because you are ignorant of it or haven’t made the necessary arrangements to gather it? If so, now would be an excellent time to change your ways. AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): According to my analysis of the long-term astrological omens, 2015 is the year you can get totally serious about doing what you were born to do. You will be given the chance to slough off all that’s fake and irrelevant and delusory. You will be invited to fully embrace the central purpose of your destiny. If you’re interested in taking up that challenge, I suggest you adopt Oscar Wilde’s motto: “Nothing is serious except passion.” Your primary duty is to associate primarily with people and places and situations that feed your deepest longings. PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): “Give up all hope for a better past,” writes Emily Fragos in her poem “Art Brut.” That’s generally sound advice. But I think you may be able to find an exception to its truth in the coming weeks. As you work to forgive those who have trespassed against you, and as you revise your interpretations of bygone events, and as you untie knots that have weighed you down and slowed you up for a long time, you just may be able to create a better past. Dare to believe that you can transform the shape and feel of your memories.

Homework Name something you feel like begging for. Then visualize in great detail that this something is already yours. Report results to FreeWillAstrology.com.

check out Rob Brezsny’s Expanded Weekly Audio Horoscopes & Daily Text Message Horoscopes

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