“SHOCKINGLY, STILL SINGLE AND WAY TOO BORED.” P. 21
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FINDINGS COURTESY OF EMMA BERGER
POWERED BY PEOPLE
EMMA BERGER, PAGE 12
WHAT WE LEARNED FROM READING THIS WEEK’S PAPER VOL. 46, ISSUE 45 The city ombudsman doesn’t trust a city investigation of city employees’ complaints. 5 The state of Washington has freed 6% of its prison inmates this year. 7 Portland is only towing cars that look too crummy to live in. 8 Oregon hasn’t raised taxes on
beer since 1977. 10
The Clinton Street Theater is continuing to screen The Rocky Horror Picture Show every Saturday to a mostly empty theater. 12 You can now watch elk lick a salt block shaped like a human foot for several hours on the Portland Art Museum’s website. 14
A local photographer’s aunts were once dubbed “the most arrested family of the civil rights movement.” 16
Protesters loved the elk statue, actually. 20 A local librarian got kicked off Tinder for using the app to remind people to fill out the census. 21 An abandoned lumber mill in tiny Vernonia, Ore., makes a cameo in a recent Green Day video. 22 A Japanese-inspired cafe on North Williams added avocado toast to the menu to appease the Portland market. 24 The best CBD balms are still the ones made at home. 25 Portland Opera’s new artistic advisor secretly wants to be a rapper. 26
ON THE COVER:
OUR MOST TRAFFICKED STORY ONLINE THIS WEEK:
Tazha Williams at Linneas Boland-Godbey’s art therapy event, photo by Sam Gehrke.
A Trump-supporting protester was shot to death outside a downtown Portland parking garage.
Tazha is an interdisciplinary artist, poet, musician, model, designer and equity advocate. View their work at tazhaworld.com and on Instagram @tazhathediviner.
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DIALOGUE In a press conference after a right-wing protester was killed in Portland on Saturday night, Mayor Ted Wheeler blamed President Donald Trump for the clashes between left-wing and right-wing protesters, saying the president has stoked hate and divisions that led to the violence. Trump responded almost immediately over Twitter, and Wheeler began to rebuke the president’s tweets in real time, leading to a back-and-forth that half took place on the president’s Twitter feed and half in Portland City Hall. WW reported the debate on wweek.com. Here’s what our readers had to say: @HannahSiberia via Twitter: “Spoiler alert: Wheeler won.” kjane via wweek.com: “Doing nothing other than blaming others isn’t leadership; it’s just a low character tactic. That speech solved nothing, helped no one.” Carmen Ford-Treacy via Facebook: “Wheeler is absolutely right. That occupier of the White House is pushing to get his goons back in Portland.” Jonathan Daniel Gonzales via Facebook: “The nation is burning because Trump is a proven white supremacist that promotes violence against BIPOC that threaten his fragile white ass.” BuckmanRes via wweek.com: “‘It’s hard for me to stand here, with a human being dead, and say that we did everything we possibly could.’ Ya think, Ted? Maybe if you had requested additional law enforcement, including the National Guard, way back in May or ordered a curfew, things might have settled down within a few days. Instead, you emboldened a criminal faction of the protesters to feel the law would not be enforced on them. This is the result.”
Dr. Know
FACEBOOK THE SEA MONSTER
Thank you for exposing Facebook’s pernicious and secretive efforts to ravage our beautiful coast at Tierra del Mar [“The Facebook Coast,” WW, Aug. 26, 2020]. Facebook is hardly a “utility.” It is a reprehensible, selfish and greedy monster. My Facebook account was hacked a month ago, and Facebook offers zero customer support: No email, no telephone number, and a snail mail letter to their corporate offices is unanswered. When people try to use it for “connections” during a pandemic, this cavalier lack of service is disgraceful. This, of course, is in addition to its willingness to spread pernicious lies which jeopardize lives and our very republic. Susan Elizabeth Reese Trial lawyer Newport, Ore. 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. Email: mzusman@wweek.com
If you think it sucks being stuck with two Fred Perry shirts, imagine what it’s like being Fred Perry. Still, the apparel company founded in 1952 by the British tennis great is hardly the first brand to be embraced by a subculture it would just as soon not be associated with. Doc Martens had to weather its association with skinheads. Burberry dialed back its famous tartan pattern to be less appealing to the British rednecks known as “chavs.” And at one point, Abercrombie & Fitch offered the Situation (of Jersey Shore fame) $10,000 to stop wearing its products. It happens. Fred Perry, for its part, has been at pains to dissociate itself from the Proud Boys’ Kristallnacht-meets-Animal House antics. The company’s chairman recently condemned the group as “counter to our beliefs,” and brand ambassador Irvine Welsh (author of Trainspotting) has pledged not to wear Fred Perry in the U.S. as a (not exactly stinging) rebuke. Willamette Week SEPTEMBER 2, 2020 wweek.com
PRESENTS: A LIVESTREAM PRESENTS: PRESENTS: A LIVESTREAM EVENT A LIVESTREAM EVENT EVENT
Q&A WITH NIGEL Q&AJAQUISS WITH
NIGEL JAQUISS
BY MART Y SMITH @martysmithxxx
I have two Fred Perry shirts. Unfortunately, the Proud Boys have adopted this shirt as their gang uniform. I am NOT a Proud Boy—I’m female, queer and a Democrat. Do I have to burn my Fred Perry polo because those Trump-supporting dipshits usurped it? —Fred Perry Fan
4
K_J_Pall via wweek.com: “Regardless of the political leanings of the man who was killed, the fact that his life was taken yesterday is a damn tragedy. We didn’t have a single fatality in 90-plus days of leftwing protests, when the [Portland Police Bureau] had the will to brutalize unarmed protesters night after night. We got the first fatality the day the PPB welcomed the Trump caravan of out-of-town agitators into downtown Portland and let them run rampant through town, assaulting, gassing and attempting to run over people they, and the PPB, don’t like. In allowing this behavior to continue with impunity, the PPB ensured that the tensions would reach their tragic boiling point. And now a man is dead. But hey, there wasn’t any graffiti!”
PRESENTS: A LIVESTREAM EVENT
In a way, you almost feel sorry for right-wingers.* I’m sure they’d prefer to get their curb-stomping uniforms and Nuremberg rally sing-alongs from their own kind (they do love their own kind), but for some reason their ranks don’t seem to include a whole lot of fashion designers and singer-songwriters. Perhaps that’s why the election year ritual of various musicians demanding that Republican candidates stop playing their songs at campaign events has become such a cliché. After all, if you try to make a playlist solely from artists who support Trump, you’re pretty much stuck with the complete works of Wayne Newton and whatever’s left of the Sonny Bono catalog after you take out everything involving Cher. As to whether to keep wearing your polos, I’d say it depends. Recently, some Proud Boys have vowed to boycott Fred Perry for the crime of featuring models of color in their ads. I think we all like where this is heading, so if your look will piss them off in a comparable way, I say go for it. (Just, you know, be careful out there.) * Just kidding, fuck ’em.
Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Nigel Jaquiss answers questions in conversation with former Pulitzer reporter WWPrize-winning reporter Beth Slovic.
Nigel Jaquiss answers questions in conversation with former Thursday WW September reporter Beth Slovic. 10, 2020 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM PDT
Thursday
Q&A WITH 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM PDT visit bit.ly/3jpYx3i NIGEL JAQUISS for tickets
QUESTIONS? Send them to dr.know@wweek.com
visit bit.ly/3jpYx3i September 10, 2020 for tickets
Pulitzer Prize-winning reporte Nigel Jaquiss answers questio
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“The entire city is ablaze all the time.” —President Donald Trump
CIVIC LIFE OFFICE IN TURMOIL: Portland City ombudsman Margie Sollinger this week released documents to WW showing an “unprecedented” number of complaints last year by employees at the Office of Civic and Community Life. Sollinger asked for an independent investigation but told employees in an email she’s now concerned the investigation has been co-opted by the bureau for its benefit rather than theirs. “Its purpose has changed to the point that I don’t believe it will be responsive to the many allegations you raised,” Sollinger wrote. Margaux Weeke, a spokeswoman for Commissioner Chloe Eudaly, whose efforts to remake the bureau have led to conflict with the neighborhood associations the bureau oversees, says the results of the investigation will be shared with the public soon. Weeke says Eudaly and OCCL director Suk Rhee “have been working together to improve the bureau’s culture and service to the community—but institutional change is difficult.” COUNTY CERTIFIES DAN RYAN’S VICTORY: As recently as Aug. 26, former Multnomah County Commissioner Loretta Smith continued to raise questions about her narrow loss to Dan Ryan in the Aug. 11 runoff to fill a vacant Portland City Council seat. But Multnomah County elections officials found no merit to her concerns and certified the election result Aug. 31. (Ryan defeated Smith 51% to 48%, a margin of 5,291 votes.) Ryan announced this week he has hired Kellie Torres, development director at Portland Parks & Recreation, to be his chief of staff. Ryan takes office Sept. 10, replacing late Commissioner Nick Fish, who died in January of abdominal cancer. REPUBLICANS FAIL AGAIN ON RECALL SIGNATURES: The Oregon Republican Party failed to gather sufficient signatures by Aug. 31 to put a vote to recall Gov. Kate Brown on the November ballot. This time, Republicans claim they fell 1% short of the necessary 280,500 signatures, although the claim is unverified. They cited COVID-19, Brown’s pandemic-related social distancing orders, and a Democratic bill restricting electronic signature gathering that made the recall effort more onerous. “It is the highest bar for petition signature gathering in our state’s
constitution and has definitely been an uphill struggle during the COVID-19 pandemic, along with other obstacles,” Republican Party chairman Bill Currier said in a statement. It was the fifth failed effort to recall Brown in two years and the second by the state’s GOP. AUDITOR DINGS CITY ON CONTRACTING EQUITY: A new audit released Sept. 2 found that while the city of Portland made progress on a 2012 policy to increase equity in construction contracting, it has mostly fallen short of expectations. “The result is dissatisfaction from top to bottom, inside and outside the government,” the audit said. Although the city wanted to direct more small contracts to firms owned by women and people of color so they could gain experience and grow, auditors found most small contracts went to white-owned companies. The audit also found the city did a poor job of investigating complaints about contracting practices and appeared to play favorites. “Council years ago delivered ambiguous policy direction to indifferent managers and then ignored warnings that its construction equity programs weren’t working well,” said City Auditor Mary Hull Caballero. “It takes more than good intentions to repair historical inequities.” HENDERSON NAMED TO TRANSPORTATION COMMISSION: Gov. Kate Brown has nominated Maurice Henderson, former chief operating officer of TriMet and chief of staff to Mayor Ted Wheeler, to the Oregon Transportation Commission, which guides statewide transportation policy, including the widening of Interstate 5 in the Rose Quarter. Henderson left Portland for a post at the e-scooter company Bird, where he is now director of government partnerships, and now lives in Bend. Henderson is Black, and the commission faces questions about the effects of the freeway widening on people of color. “Maurice has both federal and local experience with transportation issues, and also an understanding of agency operations, which will bring a thoughtful lens to the OTC,” says Brown spokeswoman Liz Merah. Henderson did not respond to requests for comment.
WINE PATIO WED-SAT 4-8PM 3201 SE 50TH PDX
LOCAL REPORTING THAT DRIVES
CHANGE After WW reported both outbreaks at Townsend Farms, Gov. Kate Brown and OHA announced a reversal in policy.
After WW revealed the outbreak, the Oregon Health Authority pledged to report clusters of cases at child care centers in its weekly reports.
Five members of Oregon’s congressional delegation are calling on the U.S. Marshals Service to disclose information following a June 15 report from WW.
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NEWS
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW THIS WEEK
WHERE WE’RE AT
Brown gave DOC a Sept. 18 deadline to identify all adults in custody who fit her new criteria. The announcement that Brown intends to commute more sentences lands near the end of the deadliest month in Oregon prisons during the COVID-19 pandemic. Four Oregon prisoners died in August: three at Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution in Pendleton, and one at Snake River Correctional Institution in Ontario. More than 600 inmates and nearly 200 staff currently have COVID-19, according to corrections data. Brown’s office says several factors prompted it to idenBY TE SS R I S K I tess@wweek.com tify more prisoners to release early. “Given what we know about the pervasiveness of On Aug. 25, Gov. Kate Brown asked Oregon Department COVID-19 in our communities—and particularly the chalof Corrections director Colette Peters to compile another lenges it presents to those who are medically vulnerable— list of prisoners whose sentences could as well as the limits to DOC’s ability be commuted because they are medto practice physical distancing inside ically vulnerable to contracting the correctional settings, the governor has coronavirus. asked DOC for an ongoing analysis of This is the second time Brown has adults in custody for consideration asked DOC to compile such a list. In of early release,” spokeswoman Liz of prison population the previous compilation, corrections Merah said in an email to WW. freed identified 61 inmates who met Brown’s Still, the number of prisoners criteria for release, which included released is likely to fall short of allowmedical vulnerability to COVID -19, ing for effective social distancing good conduct for the past 12 months, in Oregon prisons. The corrections and serving a sentence for a nonviolent report from April determined that, in crime. Of those 61, Brown commuted of prison population order to practice adequate social dis57 sentences on June 25. freed tancing, the department would need to That’s 1,043 fewer prisoners than reduce the state’s prison population by Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee 40%, or 5,800 inmates. released to mitigate the spread of Prison rights advocates see a grim COVID -19. Oregon incarcerated future if dramatic changes aren’t made. Following the fifth approximately 14,200 inmates before the pandemic, COVID-19 death of an Oregon prisoner on Aug. 26, Orewhereas Washington imprisoned 17,845. This means gon Justice Resource Center’s executive director said the Oregon has released 0.4% of its prison population while state has already failed to adequately protect the health of Washington released 6.16%. those who are incarcerated. In contrast to Brown’s criteria, Inslee in April commut“We are seeing the consequences of our state’s choice ed the sentences of all prisoners convicted of nonviolent to do as little as possible to mitigate the risk of harm from offenses, as well as those whose release dates fell prior to COVID-19 within our prisons,” OJRC executive director June 29, 2020. That seemed to increase the pool of candiBobbin Singh said in a statement. “Choices were available dates for early release significantly. Now, Brown has adopted similar criteria for the second that may have prevented the five deaths we have now seen list of prisoners: medically vulnerable, nonviolent offend- of incarcerated Oregonians who had COVID when they ers, as well as those within two months of release. That died.…We must accept reality, which is that Oregon is curmeans Oregon’s commutations could increase significantly. rently failing its incarcerated residents and their loved ones.”
Stay Inside
Jay Inslee released all nonviolent offenders to stem the spread of COVID-19. Kate Brown hasn’t yet.
6.16%
TRENDING
Crashing COVID-19 is good for traffic safety and bad for towing companies. After Gov. Kate Brown declared a statewide stay-home order in March, traffic dropped precipitously. Although it has since recovered to as much as 90% of normal in some parts of the state, months of reduced driving appears to have saved lives on Portland streets, at least compared to 2019, the deadliest year since 1997. A comparison of the past four years (through Aug. 28 of each) shows that the steep rise in traffic deaths last year has slackened, with deaths returning to the rate of previous summers.
TRAFFIC DEATHS
0.4%
Totals
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
11
10
8
17
13
6
5
6
5
4
7
11
9
12
8
4
2
1
2
2
28
28
24
36
27
Source: Portland Bureau of Transportation
HENRY CROMETT
Another major impact attributable to the pandemic: a significant drop in the number of reports of abandoned vehicles, which have become ubiquitous on city streets in parallel with the city’s housing shortage. Through two-thirds of the year, however, the number of calls and vehicles towed has been about half the total that would be expected, given the history of the previous three years. That’s because early in the pandemic, Commissioner Chloe Eudaly, who oversees the Portland Bureau of Transportation, ordered bureau employees to stop ticketing and towing abandoned vehicles, particularly those that appeared to be serving as shelter. “As the pandemic went on, we began to see an uptick in junk and hazardous vehicles on the streets and we began to tow these and only these,” PBOT spokesman John Brady says. “In these cases, the cars are obviously not being used for shelter because of their condition.” Here are what the numbers look like through Aug. 28. NIGEL JAQUISS. TOWED VEHICLES
AA REPORTS
AA TOWED
2020
10029
1009
2019
32395
2758
2018
30868
3188
2017
31881
2796
AA = Abandoned automobiles Source: Portland Bureau of Transportation
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Willamette Week SEPTEMBER 2, 2020 wweek.com
NEWS BRIAN BURK
THREE TO THE DOME: Pickup basketball in St. Johns.
BLACK AND WHITE IN OREGON
Who Owns a Home? Black Oregonians have the lowest rates of homeownership. In a December 2019 report, a state task force revealed that Black Oregonians had the lowest rates of homeownership, with 32.2% of households owning a home. More than double that percentage of white households own a home: 65.1%. Allan Lazo, executive director of the Fair Housing Council of Oregon, says since the Fair Housing Act passed in 1968, making it illegal to discriminate based on race, gender and disability, Black homeownership has remained the same. From high mortgage and loan denial rates to gentrification, a history of discriminatory practices has prevented Black Oregonians from buying a home. “Our city’s history of exclusion, redlining and displacement have left indelible impacts on our communities,” Lazo wrote in a Street Roots column, “molding a central core that continues to get whiter and more affluent while our communities of color are pushed to the less opportune edges of our city.” The Oregon Task Force on Addressing Racial Disparities in Home Ownership was created in response to these low homeownership rates, and the report attributes the disparities in part to the racial wealth gap between white and minority populations. WW has previously reported on the disproportionate rates of Black Portlanders and Oregonians facing extreme
Cliff Robinson, 1966-2020
COMMUNITY
RATE
American Indian/ Alaskan Native
44.8%
Asian
59.4%
Black or African American
32.2%
Hispanic or Latino
40.8%
Native Hawaiian or Another Pacific Islander
33.4%
Other Races
40.6%
Two or More Races
46.4%
White, Not Hispanic or Latino
65.1%
Overall Rate
61.1%
Multiple Choice Exam The next pandemic decision point could be whether to reopen Portland’s entertainment venues or its school classrooms. For the first time this week, Oregon began to meet the statewide criteria to reopen schools, with less than 5% of tests coming back positive for the coronavirus. (Three consecutive weeks of such results is required for schools to resume in-classroom instruction.) Multnomah County is not yet achieving low enough case counts to reopen local school districts, but case counts have been declining. To get case counts low enough to reopen kindergarten through 12th grade will require a significant decrease in cases. But a continuing drop in cases could mean that Multnomah County reaches the threshold to reopen movie theaters and other entertainment venues before it can reopen schools under Gov. Kate Brown’s Phase 2 guidelines. Ultimately, the county may need to choose between the two goals—that is, keep venues closed to lower case counts so school can resume. Right now, county officials say they’re focused on schools. “We’re evaluating our current standing regarding all the metrics the state has outlined for moving to Phase 2 and opening schools,” says Multnomah County Chair Deborah Kafoury. “I think we are all committed to driving down our COVID numbers so kids can go back to school as soon as possible.” RACHEL MONAHAN. OPTION A Phase 2 reopening Guidelines the county is not meeting: 95% of COVID patients contacted within 24 hours during last week, 70% of cases traced to another case, and a downtrend in the percentage of tests coming back positive. Current status: 89% of COVID patients contacted within 24 hours, 55% of cases traced to another case, and a slight uptrend in positive test rates. What could happen if the county qualifies: Movie theaters, bowling alleys, arcades and swimming pools could reopen. OPTION B Schools reopening Benchmarks the county still must meet: Less than 10 new COVID cases per 100,000 people for three consecutive weeks Current status: 40 new cases per 100,000 people for the past two weeks. What could happen if the county qualifies: All grade levels of schools could reopen. (At 30 cases per 100,000 people, kindergarten though 3rd grade classrooms could reopen.)
JULIE SHOWERS
IN MEMORIAM
rates of poverty, high unemployment and low household income levels. One of the biggest sources of wealth in America is homeownership—without it, Black households have a harder time getting ahead. “Homeownership is a huge opportunity for a family to build intergenerational wealth,” says state Rep. Mark Meek (D -Clackamas County), who co-chairs the task force. “It is alarming and disturbing to see the inequity and imbalance of homeownership for Oregonians of color.” LATISHA JENSEN.
POOLS VS. SCHOOLS
Cliff Robinson, the former Portland Trail Blazers star whose mix of skills and size made him a prototype for the modern NBA big man, died Aug. 29 from lymphoma. He was 53 years old. Known to fans as Uncle Cliffy, Robinson was drafted by the Blazers in 1989. During his eight years in Portland, he went to the NBA Finals twice, was named to the All-Star team in 1994 and is among the franchise’s all-time leaders in blocks, points, steals, threes and games played. After retiring in 2007, he became an advocate for legalized weed and even marketed his own line of cannabis products: Uncle Spliffy. “This was a natural fit for me,” he told WW in 2016. “Why not take something that’s been perceived as a negative in my life and through my career and turn it into a positive?” MATTHEW SINGER. Willamette Week SEPTEMBER 2, 2020 wweek.com
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9-Day Closure Interstate Bridge The northbound span of the Interstate Bridge will close from September 12–20, 2020. Traffic in both directions will share the current southbound bridge span. Expect delays and congestion.
INTERSTATE BRIDGE
TRUNNION REPLACEMENT
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Willamette Week SEPTEMBER 2, 2020 wweek.com
ALEX WITTWER
NEWS
the oxygen they’re receiving is from elected leadership. That’s the direct leadership of individuals like Donald Trump who have all but completely condoned vigilante violence against what has largely been nonviolent protests in our city. But it’s also through the neglect of elected officials who continue to fail to take this seriously and to do what is needed. Not in just directing resources to countering these armed vigilantes and paramilitaries, but reining in some of the underlying inequity that exists in Portland that left us vulnerable in the first place: overpolicing of communities of color. No one wants to roll up their sleeves and address the real crises that are happening in our communities. I’m enraged that a person was killed on the streets of Portland. I don’t care what their political ideology is. And elected officials carry the blame for that, particularly Donald Trump, but also those who have chosen not to take this problem seriously.
M O T O YA N A K A M U R A / M U LT N O M A H C O U N T Y
You’ve been in conversation with Ted Wheeler for more than three years on this issue. What advice have you offered him? Western States Center’s stance hasn’t changed over the last three years. The Portland Police Bureau needs to better understand what the white nationalist movement is and what the paramilitary right is: how it functions and how it operates. We think that’s critically important.
CALLING FOR PEACE: Eric Ward in 2019. DEATH DOWNTOWN: A conservative protester was killed along Southwest 3rd Avenue last weekend.
On the Brink
Eric Ward feared someone would be killed in Portland’s street battles. He’s more worried by what’s next. BY AA R O N M E S H
amesh@wweek.com
Eric Ward’s worst fears for his hometown have been realized. They took the form of a dying man splayed on Portland pavement this weekend, at the epicenter of three months of protests. For years, Ward, the director of progressive nonprofit Western States Center, has implored Mayor Ted Wheeler and other civic leaders to craft a strategy to help police officers recognize the tactics of right-wing extremists and to use the court system to block men with guns from marching in the streets. If the city did not act, he warned, someone could get killed. Last week, someone was. On Aug. 29, a caravan of trucks drove through downtown in a display of support for President Donald Trump. Passengers fired paintball guns and taunted left-wing protesters. Minutes later, a Portland man guarding the convoy—39-yearold Aaron J. Danielson—was shot to death outside a parking garage. Ward worries Danielson’s death could spiral into further bloodshed. “We are no longer talking about what’s coming,” Ward says. “It is now what is here. It is small, it is contained. But the potential for large-scale violence is very real right now.” Because Danielson was in downtown to support Trump— his baseball cap and T-shirt bore the stars-and-stripes insignia of the conservative protest group Patriot Prayer—his killing has intensified assertions by President Trump and nationalist groups that Portland is a lawless city that must be tamed. The conflict was on display Aug. 30, when Wheeler stood in City Hall to address the city. The mayor scolded Trump—
who responded by mocking him on social media in real time. Then Wheeler beseeched the president’s acolytes to refrain from seeking retribution. Yet the mayor has hardly demonstrated command of his own city. The Portland Police Bureau, which he directs, appears at war with Black Lives Matter protesters, tackling and punching regularly. The left-wing demonstrators have committed to a strategy of setting fires and defacing property. Now another familiar element has returned: Trump supporters, dressed for battle and carrying guns, challenging Portlanders to fight. Ward, 55, has worked for 20 years in civil rights strategy and philanthropy. Over the past three years, he has begged the city to take the potential for partisan violence seriously. He spoke to WW about why this moment is so perilous, how he would advise Wheeler, and what regular Portlanders can do. WW: Can you explain why this is a dangerous moment for Portland? Eric Ward: Portland has become a proxy for a reelection campaign, and for alt-right and white nationalist paramilitaries and vigilantes who want to live out their fantasy of racial war. Portland has become the United States’ version of Lebanon. Of Beirut. It is being used by those who have different agendas that have nothing to do with equity or safety in our community. And if we don’t respond seriously and in a unified fashion, we are going to watch Portland, Ore., get torn apart. Does the language now being used to describe Portland by paramilitary groups feel like posturing or incipient violence? The Oath Keepers have basically said that this is civil war. But
But police have repeatedly failed to arrest known brawlers in the streets—even when one arrives with a warrant out for his arrest. Has Wheeler lost control of his Police Bureau? Right now, it appears we have a rogue police force. This is not about individual police officers. This is about an institution, and that institution appears to be rogue. You cannot tell me that the Portland Police Bureau is not sophisticated and responsible enough to track down those individuals who are creating and committing acts of physical violence on the streets of Portland. I simply don’t believe it. And the fact that I don’t believe it says just how much trust has been broken in a moment where we need that trust most. A lot of Portlanders who may be sympathetic to Black Lives Matter are tired of the protests. There is a feeling of send the children home. What’s your response? These aren’t just children and they’re not just protesting what happened in Minneapolis. They are protesting how they have been treated for decades and sometimes generationally. It’s a hundred days of protests that mainly have been on maybe one or two blocks at most. It’s inconvenient. It can be frustrating. But we can’t equate a hundred days of protest to the decades of discrimination that African Americans and Indigenous and other people of color have experienced in our cities, or the overreaction that civil protesters have faced at the hands of police for nearly two decades. It’s just not a fair comparison. So I say this to middle America: We don’t have to like what’s happening on the streets. We can want something different, but we need to focus on two things. We need to focus on using our own freedom of speech. And we need to focus on reining in the physical violence that is happening on the streets of Portland. That is the point of no return. If we ignore it, we’ll continue to spiral out of control. We still have time. There is also a fear Portland could hand Donald Trump the election, because everyone is so worn down that we’ll take a boot heel over chaos. Is that a fair concern? We need to understand people are exhausted. People don’t want chaos, they want stability. And if we are out there on the streets, we do have to understand that if our answers don’t include a clear path of stability, folks will start to turn away. When there is a small element amongst us breaking windows and setting fires, that doesn’t get us where we need to go. It’s time to end the “burn it down” rhetoric. White supremacy was built on 500 years of “burn it down” rhetoric. And here we are, 500 years later, and too many on the left and progressive sides of this argument are too reliant on that. We aren’t white nationalists. Our answer should never be, “Burn it down.” Our answer should be: We know how to lead. Those who think of themselves as the middle or the center in Portland—business, religious leaders, and others—have been too silent and remain too invisible. They can stop serving individuals who they know have come into the community to create violence. We are not impotent in this moment. This is our community. And we need to speak up for the values that our community should hold in this moment.
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NEWS BRIAN BURK
TOUGH SELL: Advocates and the Oregon Health Authority will have to overcome powerful lobbying interests to hike alcohol taxes.
Wages of Sin After nearly 40 years on the wagon, the Oregon Health Authority is turning to alcohol for revenue. BY NIG E L JAQ UI SS
As COVID-19 lays waste to Oregon’s economy, OHA is looking ahead nervously to next year, when the state will face crushing budget deficits—and a highly addicted populace that lacks access to treatment. Marshall’s plan offers a partial solution.
njaquiss@wweek.com
W W S TA F F
In November, Oregonians will vote on Measure 108, which would raise the tax on a pack of cigarettes from $1.33 to $3.33, moving the state’s tobacco tax from 32nd-highest in the country to sixth. Not among the many tax measures on the ballot: new Mike Marshall rattles off stats like a play-by-play taxes on beer and wine, which have not risen in nearly 40 announcer: Oregon ranks third in the nation in untreated years and are among the nation’s lowest. addiction. Some 2,000 Oregonians a year Oregon Recovers, a nonprofit that is an die alcohol-related deaths. By comparison, emerging power in the state, thinks it’s time COVID-19 has claimed 465 in 2020. the state raised taxes on drinking as well. One statistic, in some ways, troubles him State health officials are listening. the most: The state has not raised taxes on On Aug. 27, Mike Marshall, executive beer since 1977 or wine since 1983. The last director of Oregon Recovers, outlined a plan time Oregon significantly raised the tax on to raise new money for the Oregon Alcohol a pack of cigarettes was a 60-cent increase and Drug Policy Commission, a once moriin 2002. bund panel that has become a player in the This year, both tobacco and alcohol tax Capitol under Gov. Kate Brown. hikes are being discussed—thanks in part Like a revival preacher, Marshall was in to a pandemic-related economic downturn front of the commission to describe the danthat has left state agencies scrambling for gers of the demon rum, which he notes is a new revenue. pandemic that never goes away. MIKE MARSHALL The hefty $2-a-pack increase on cigarette “It’s more deadly than COVID and worse taxes, which would put Oregon in line with than the worst year of the AIDS crisis,” Marshall says. Washington state, is on the November ballot. And on Aug. His presentation drew separate and sharp responses 31, OHA quietly indicated it wanted to harness Oregon from the Oregon Beer & Wine Distributors Association Recovers’ energy. and several leading players in the state’s alcohol industry. At WW’s request, the agency released a draft of its 2021“We urge you to support and protect jobs and the eco- 23 budget that shows it will seek alcohol taxes that would nomic viability of this critical industry by opposing addi- bring in nearly $150 million in new revenue next year. tional beer, wine and spirits taxes,” they wrote in a letter Marshall knows his plan faces a harder road than the to Brown and her commission. tobacco-taxing measure. He watched a similar proposal But on Aug. 31, the Oregon Health Authority released to raise taxes on alcohol disappear without a trace in the its budget proposal for 2021-23. In that proposal is what 2019 legislative session. Meanwhile, bipartisan votes Marshall is seeking: a nearly $150 million annual increase in both chambers referred the $2-a-pack cigarette tax in taxes on alcoholic beverages. increase and a first-ever tax on vaping supplies. “Oregon faces a great unmet need for behavioral health Those taxes are both part of Measure 108, which would services,” the OHA budget proposal says. “At the same raise $165 million a year starting in 2021. time, alcohol imposes large and avoidable costs on the The last time voters considered raising a tax on cigahealth of all people in Oregon, and on Oregon’s economy, rettes, in 2007, the tobacco industry outspent proponents communities and health care systems.” 3 to 1, stubbing out the tax by 59% to 41%. 10
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The world looks a lot different today. So far, Big Tobacco’s reaction to what would amount to a 150% tax increase on a pack of smokes is nonexistent. “We still expect them to spend big,” says Stephanie Vandehey, a spokeswoman for the Yes on 108 campaign. But nobody has established a campaign to defeat the tobacco and vaping tax, with just two months until Election Day. Lobbyists for the companies who killed the 2007 tax—Philip Morris and Reynolds American—didn’t respond to requests for comment or even bother placing statements of opposition in the Oregon Voters’ Pamphlet. Marshall and OHA, however, face one of the most formidable lobbying forces in Salem. Unlike the tobacco and vaping companies, the alcohol industry features homegrown farmers, brewers, vintners and distillers, who are popular in every legislative district and have enhanced Oregon’s reputation as a drinker’s paradise. On the issue of taxes, it also aligns with the state’s restaurant and hospitality industry. “Beer, wine and spirits are an essential part of Oregon’s economy and identity, producing billions in revenue, tourism and jobs,” says Danelle Romain, a lobbyist for the Oregon Beer & Wine Distributors Association. Romain says the industry she represents should not be compared to the tobacco industry. “These are local businesses, supporting local jobs— that’s why it’s different,” she says. “Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Oregon was home to 800 wineries, 1,144 vineyards, 73 distributors, nearly 400 breweries, more than 50 distilleries and more than 10,000 restaurants, creating thousands of family-wage jobs.” (It’s also worth noting that more than 75% of adult Oregonians drink while fewer than 20% use tobacco.) Romain’s arguments have been successful in the past, easily defeating a 2009 attempt to raise beer taxes. (Oregon’s excise taxes on beer and wine, which are paid by manufacturers, are among the nation’s lowest. Romain notes that retail prices, however, are relatively high, which she says means new taxes would punish consumers as well as the state’s alcohol industry.) Some observers say Marshall’s group brings a level of sophistication to the alcohol tax discussion that the industry here hasn’t encountered before. Over the past three years, he has systematically tapped into the prevalence of substance abuse disorder, capitalizing on the fact that few families are untouched by it. “Mike is building a very potent organizational force around recovery,” says Dwight Holton, executive director of Lines for Life, which works on mental health and addiction issues. “What Oregon Recovers brings to the table is the ability to mobilize hundreds of people at any time.” Holton, who sits on the Alcohol and Drug Policy Commission, says Marshall has correctly identified the problem with Oregon’s addiction treatment services. “It’s a failure of revenue,” Holton says. Romain disagrees. She notes that alcohol sales and taxes already constitute Oregon’s third-largest source of revenue (after income taxes and the Oregon Lottery). The problem, she says, is that nearly all of that cash is diverted to unrelated expenses. “Less than 3% of alcohol revenue is currently dedicated to these [behavioral health] programs,” Romain says. “It is inconsistent to talk about new taxes on Oregon’s vital, homegrown beer, wine and spirits without a thorough examination of why 97% of current funds are not being spent on these programs.” Neither the lawmakers who enthusiastically voted to raise tobacco taxes last year nor Gov. Kate Brown has weighed in on the alcohol tax yet. Romain thinks the governor will side with the alcohol industry. “Gov. Brown has been a great friend to Oregon’s beer, wine, spirits and hospitality sector,” Romain says. “We are confident that she is fully aware Oregonians overwhelmingly reject the idea of increasing [alcohol] taxes.” Marshall disagrees. “The governor declared addiction a public health crisis earlier this year,” he says. “It’s time to act on that.”
SAM GEHRKE
Change of Art A pandemic has crippled Portland’s biggest arts season. But that hasn’t stopped local artists from creating. Let’s not mince words: It sucks to be an artist right now. This is the time of year when we’d normally be telling you about all the ambitious theater productions, breathtaking dance performances and mind-bending gallery shows taking place over the coming months. Fall is normally the biggest season for Portland’s arts organizations, but for reasons that hardly have to be explained, it’s going to be a very different autumn for many of them. Due to the pandemic, most have been forced to reschedule events, move them online or cancel entire seasons. Venues are operating at limited capacity or closed entirely, and freelance creatives have mostly fallen through the cracks of COVID-19 relief packages. Artists and the groups that support them have little choice but to focus on surviving rather than thriving. But in this city, the drive to create cannot be stopped so easily. In this year’s Fall Arts Guide, we’re highlighting artists who’ve found new ways to keep making art without the traditional resources and platforms. That includes the photographer who got around the lack of open galleries by creating her largest public work yet (page 16) and the jazz musician
who started holding concerts in her driveway each week (page 16). Even the country’s longest-running weekly screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show has found a way to keep the streak going—without an audience (page 12). In some cases, Portlanders aren’t just looking for temporary solutions but working to create a new normal, whether it’s by redistributing wealth to BIPOC artists (page 13) or supporting activists through art-making meetups (page 13). And despite how it seems, there’s still plenty for you to do. We’ve included a calendar of the 20 best art events to stream or attend this fall, from a radio play about the ghost of a Kenyan elephant to a drive-in concert and a virtual reality program by the director of Iron Man (page 14). Make no mistake: For Portland’s arts organizations, the future—both long and short term—is uncertain. But if there’s one thing we know for sure, it’s that art will continue to happen one way or another. This issue is proof positive of that. —Shannon Gormley, Music and Visual Arts Editor CONT. on page 12
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COURTESY OF EMMA BERGER
AARON WESSLING
EMMA BERGER
Clinton Street Theater, SE Clinton St. and 26th Ave. The nation’s longest-running weekly screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show continues in an almost empty theater. For Nathan Williams, the show must go on. And on. And on. When the coronavirus forced the Clinton Street Theater to close—the second time a global pandemic has shuttered the century-old moviehouse—it didn’t just put staff out of a job and threaten the existence of a civic institution: It risked ending a tradition that stretches back 42 years. Since April 1978, the theater has screened the cult classic The Rocky Horror Picture Show every Saturday night, without interruption. Midnight showings of the hyper-campy musical, where fans dress up, play games and sing along, have taken place at theaters across the country for decades—but no place has done it longer than Clinton Street.
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Williams, 39, attended his first showing in 1999. A woman with voluminous cleavage drew a V on his forehead in lipstick, branding him a “virgin.” Sixteen years later, he took over as emcee, hosting screenings twice a month. It appeared the streak would end in March, as the governor ordered cinemas across Oregon shut down. But, at the behest of Williams and theater manager Pierce Anderson, the movie has continued to play at Clinton Street every Saturday— sometimes for private audiences of less than 10, but more often just for Williams and two friends. “We end up chatting in the back as the movie plays and sometimes get distracted,” he says. “Other times, I find myself in the back, watching it for the 78 millionth time.” For Williams, it’s not just about maintaining a record. “Rocky Horror at Clinton Street is a shining beacon that has lit up the lives of countless people who had no other place to go and be themselves,” he says. “We’re keeping that alive, even if just in spirit, so people know there’s a place that will always exist where they can go, let their hair down, and not worry about being judged.” Of course, the longer the pandemic continues, the murkier the future of the Clinton Street becomes. On Sept. 12, he’s hosting a livestream “telethon” to raise money for the theater. “People still need this space,” Williams says. “I need this space.” MATTHEW SINGER.
Portland Apple Store, SW 4th Ave. and Yamhill St. Emma Berger’s mural of George Floyd sparked a massive community art project. Over the past three months, the Apple Store at Pioneer Place has transformed into a mourning ground for the lives lost to police brutality. It began with a brushstroke. On June 1, artist Emma Berger took some of her paint supplies to the canvaslike black plywood lining the electronic store’s windows. With her favorite brush in hand, she began painting a portrait of George Floyd, the Minneapolis man killed by police on May 25, next to his last words: “I can’t breathe.” She completed the mural in about two hours. The next day, her mom called from California telling her she saw the painting on the news. “It’s a little bit out-of-body sometimes,” says Berger. “I personally feel that I only initiated it and there was a lot of work put in by many, many people. That’s really what made it awe-inspiring.” Berger moved to Portland a couple of years ago to help design sets at the stop-motion animation studio Laika. Although she’s done other artwork in the community (she painted the mural at Ben
& Esther’s Bagels), she didn’t have many connections in Portland’s local art scene. Her mural changed that. After Berger painted the first mural, the community quickly joined in. Some used chalk to write poetry, others brought candles. Local artists offered their own depictions of victims. Berger later organized a volunteer art event and has been helping local businesses connect with artists of color for contracted pieces. She also teamed up with a group of artists to paint murals around the city. Under the name Secret Mission Studios, the collective has painted murals at Bhuna Restaurant in Northwest Portland, the old Payless near the Selling Building downtown, and at the plaza just across the St. Johns Bridge. “It’s important that there’s free art everywhere that everyone can see. It’s not constricted to a gallery space or an online platform,” says Secret Mission artist Jamaali Roberts. “You don’t have to pay anything for it and it’s a larger-than-life presence.” It’s unclear what will ultimately happen to the murals of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery painted on the plywood when the boarded-up Apple Store reopens. Berger says that whatever happens to her work, whether it’s donated or brought down indefinitely, it’s hardly hers to stake a claim over. “I’m proud of what it’s become, but I don’t really hold its glory in what I did, I hold it in what everyone else has helped it become,” Berger says. “It’s not my words anymore, it’s a lot of people’s words and a lot of people’s effort. And for that, it would hurt my heart a lot to see it in a dumpster.” JORDAN MONTERO.
SAM GEHRKE
Irving Park, NE 24th Ave. and Fremont St.
Citywide LINNEAS BOLAND-GODBEY
Photographer Linneas Boland-Godbey hosts art therapy for activists. After months of protesting and dealing with drama within the activist scene, Linneas Boland-Godbey realized he needed a change of pace. He figured other protesters did, too. “It’s been really hard during the COVID season not seeing all your friends all the time or your family,” says Boland- Godbey. “So I was like, why don’t we do an art share? It will be fun.” On Aug. 12, Boland-Godbey hosted an art-making meetup for activists protesting against racism in Irving Park. Since it was intended to provide some respite, he called the event BLM Art Therapy. A photographer whose main creative outlet during the pandemic has been Masks of Color—a portraits series published on Instagram that highlights the experiences of Portlanders of color during the pandemic—Boland-Godbey has been a regular at the protests since the uprising started in June. Though it was much more impromptu, he led a similar art therapy event for houseless youth in Lownsdale Square in the middle of summer. But when
police raided and dispersed camps downtown, much of the artwork and donated supplies were stolen. The next time, Boland-Godbey wanted somewhere farther away from the Multnomah County Justice Center. “We wanted to have a safer space,” he says. “I found a place where people were more at peace with stuff.” That place was Irving Park. On a sunny Wednesday afternoon in the second week of August, nearly 200 people showed up at the Northeast Fremont Street park. Community members donated paint, markers, chalk, canvas and cardboard. There were activists who gave speeches, calming lo-fi music that played in the background, and food provided by Snack Bloc. Some people bedazzled masks, others painted on canvas or made cardboard signs. Some attendees were professional artists, like multidisciplinary musician, artist and model Tazha Williams, but most were just protesters looking for a different outlet for their frustration and a break from the tear gas. Boland-Godbey will hold his next BLM Art Therapy gathering on Wednesday, Sept. 23. Like last time, attendees can donate their work to go on display at Spin Laundry, where it will be sold to benefit local Black-owned businesses. “It was exactly what I wanted,” says Boland-Godbey of the first gathering. “Taking a break from all the anger and expressing your frustration through a piece of art is very, very therapeutic in my opinion.”
Two artist-run projects have teamed up to created an emergency relief fund for BIPOC artists. Amid the demand for Black art that’s followed the worldwide protests against police brutality, it’s often painfully apparent what’s still missing for Portland artists—a respect for Black art and the artists who make it. “As Black people living in Portland,” says Melanie Stevens, who is one half of curatorial duo the Nat Turner Project, along with mononymous artist Maximiliano, “we operate on this binary of both invisibility and hypervisibility.” So in May, before the uprising, NTP teamed up with a Black Art Ecology of Portland to provide $200 stipends to local BIPOC artists for financial relief during the pandemic. Initially, the two projects planned to give out 28 stipends. Instead,
they raised enough funds to give stipends to 36 artists. In June, NTP and BAEP handed out another round of 30-plus stipends and began fundraising for a third round last month. NTP and BAEP have been working to provide tangible support for Portland artists of color long before the pandemic. Since its inception in 2016, NTP has been awarding grants of $250 to $1,250 to Black and POC Portlanders through their Drinking Gourd Fellowship. Run by artist Sharita Towne, BAEP works with organizations around town to ensure that BIPOC artists have access to the resources they need. Both efforts are intended to help artists not only showcase their work in a space where it’s understood but provide spaces where their artistic prowess isn’t analyzed against white dominance and supremacy. “I know that I was frustrated with the kind of lack of care and rigor around which the artworks of artists of color was treated,” says Stevens of the founding of NTP. “We wanted to sort of counteract that by creating space to show the work of artists of color.” Though other local organizations are also providing COVID relief grants to artists, including grants specifically for BIPOC artists, the fact that NTP and BAEP aren’t 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations allows them to treat the fund more like a resources redistribution network than a traditional nonprofit. “We need more resources,” says Maximiliano. “More resources mean more visibility.” CERVANTÉ POPE.
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Fall Arts Calendar GO →
Too Reel Outdoor Cinema:
Night of the Living Dead
Held in Lakewood Center for the Arts’ parking lot, Too Reel’s drive-in screening of Night of the Living Dead will include some spooky scenery and reallife jump scares provided by entertainment team Creatures of the Night. Sure, Halloween isn’t for another two months, but we could all use a little campy fun and adrenaline-fueled escapism from the hellscape of modern existence right now. Lakewood Center for the Arts, 368 S St., Lake Oswego, lakewood-center.org. 8:45 pm Friday, Sept. 4. $35.
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Venice VR Expanded
While many major local events have been shut down, one of the biggest art events in the world is coming to Portland. The Venice Biennial—arguably the most prestigious every-otheryear art survey—is launching its first virtual reality showcase, and its only U.S. outpost will be here in Portland. Hosted by NW Film Center, the 44 different VR programs set up throughout the Portland Art Museum’s ornate ballroom will include an abstract void created by a French filmmaker, a Sweedish director’s take on Alice in Wonderland, adventures into space, and an animated game by Iron Man director Jon Favreau. Portland Art Museum’s Fields Ballroom, 1219 SW Park Ave., portlandartmuseum.org. Through Sept. 12. $25.
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Ungodly: The Spiritual Medium
Disjecta’s final exhibit by guest curator Justin Hoover is a small but impactful show that offers a multimedia meditation on spiritualism and mythmaking, including a quilt that reimagines mosques as spaceships, African walking sticks suspended from the ceiling, and an interactive virtual piece inspired by femme trans-futurism. It’s available as an online exhibit and for in-person visits. Disjecta, 8371 N Interstate Ave., disjecta.org. Through Sept. 20. Free.
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Hallowed Ground
Drive-in storytelling and music series Hallowed Ground debuts with an eclectic lineup of local musicians, from jazz pianist Darrell Grant to house music DJ Gila River Monster. The event will be held in an as yet undisclosed location. Tickets will be distributed via lottery to anyone 14
who makes a donation, and all proceeds go to the Black United Fund. If you can’t score a spot, the concert also streams online and will be simulcast on XRAY. fm. Visit portlandplayhouse.org for more informaton. Sunday, Sept. 20.
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Union PDX Dancer-run Union PDX held its first festival last year, mounting an ambitious schedule of new contemporary dance works, panels and classes. Organizers committed to holding the festival in November, though they haven’t announced a contingency plan if it can’t take place at Portland Opera headquarters as planned. Hampton Opera Center, 211 SE Caruthers St., unionpdx.org. Friday-Sunday, Nov. 13-14.
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Chanel Miller in Conversation with T t Madden
There is no longer an “Emily Doe” in the 2015 Stanford University rape case that called for a nationwide reckoning of on-campus sexual assault and the criminal justice system. Her name is Chanel Miller, and her award-winning memoir, Know My Name, is a thoughtfully crafted reflection on the pursuit of accountability at great personal cost. Miller is joined by author T Kira Madden. Streams on Zoom. Register at powells.com/ eventsupdate. 5 pm Thursday, Sept. 3. Free.
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Renaissance: Technically
Portland Center Stage’s inaugural digital play is intended as an exploration of the possibilities, rather than constraints, of digital theater. Experimental in more ways than one, the devised, stillin-process work will draw on the talents of actors, dancers and visual artists, led by Portland playwright Josie Seid. Streams on Zoom, pcs.org. 7:30 pm Friday, Sept. 4. Tickets are pay what you will.
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Poetry Reading with Gina Williams, Dan Raphael and Christopher Luna
Local poets Gina Williams, Dan Raphael and Christopher Luna come together for a virtual reading, bringing selections from their latest work. On the docket will be poetry on beautiful things, ugly things, cosmological babies and jazz quartets. Streams on Crowdcast. Register at annieblooms.com. 7 pm Monday, Sept. 14. Free.
Willamette Week SEPTEMBER 2, 2020 wweek.com
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Bad Citizen
Northwest Theater Workshop and Theater Vertigo’s series of eight new short works by local playwrights grapples with what it means to be a good citizen in a broken society. The first four free, online plays debut this month, the rest in October. Streams on Zoom, nwtw.org. 7:30 pm Friday, 2 and 7:30 pm Saturday, Sept. 18-19 and Oct. 9-10. Free, donations accepted.
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Ingenio
Milagro Theatre’s festival of new plays is a yearly highlight, offering imaginative, heartfelt full-length works by emerging Latinx playwrights. This year should be no different, even though the festival has moved entirely online. Sept. 20-28. See milagro.org for more details.
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Colson Whitehead and Mitchell S. Jackson
Acclaimed authors Colson Whitehead and Mitchell S. Jackson meet for an evening of conversation on literature, social justice and the nature of juvenile corrections. Whitehead’s most recent novel, The Nickel Boys, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, while Portland native Jackson’s recent memoir Survival Math earned widespread praise for its meditations on race, violence and masculinity. Streams via Literary Arts, literary-arts.org. 6 pm Thursday, Sept. 24. Sold out.
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Elisa Gabbert in Conversation with Samantha Irby and Sarah Rose Etter
Poet Elisa Gabbert is joined by authors Samantha Irby and Sarah Rose Etter for a timely discussion on disasters and our new virtual frontier of living—plagues, witch hunts, techno-paranoia, etc. Each author, through comedy, fiction or essay, gives fresh voice to the philosophical problem of what it means to exist online. Streams on Zoom. Register at powells. com/eventsupdate. 5 pm Friday, Sept. 25. Free.
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Mlima’s Tale
Rather than canceling or postponing its season, Profile Theatre has switched to audio plays. First up is Mlima’s Tale, which follows the ivory tusks and ghost of a poached Kenyan elephant named Mlima. In the hands of Profile Theatre, Mlima’s Tale—which debuted in New York two years ago with sparse staging—is unlikely to lose any of its spectral magic in audio format. Streams at profiletheatre.org. Oct. 7-Nov. 4. Tickets sliding scale.
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Soovin Kim
Chamber Music Northwest’s new artistic directors, Soovin Kim and Gloria Chen, are starting new jobs at a weird time, to say the least. But unlike most other Portland arts institutions, CMNW has essentially already made it through a season of digital programming—in June, the organization managed to pivot its popular five-week summer festival entirely online. Kim kicks off CMNW’s first virtual season with a free performance of Bach’s solo violin sonatas and partitas. Streams via Chamber Music Northwest, cmnw.org. 7 pm Saturday, Oct. 10. Free.
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Helen Macdonald
Naturalist Helen Macdonald is best known for writing about birds and, perhaps more impressively, convincing others they need to read about birds. Her latest book is Vesper Flights, a collection of essays about the human relationship to the natural world. Expect ruminations on ostriches, nests, swifts and the delicate art of swan-catching. Streams via Literary Arts, literary-arts.org. 7:30 pm Tuesday, Oct. 13. Series tickets $90-$355, individual tickets available closer to the event.
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Nearer Nature: Worth Your Salt
Like most of us during the pandemic, artist Malia Jensen has been itching to get out into nature. For her six-hour video Worth Your Salt—the first edition of the Portland Art Museum’s virtual resident series—the Portland artist created salt block sculptures that she placed in six different locations around Oregon. With the help of motion-triggered cameras, she recorded the elk, deer and pheasants who passed by or licked the salt sculptures, including one shaped like a human foot. Streams at portlandartmusuem.org. Through Nov. 7. Free.
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Essential Sounds Season Finale
Though the Oregon Symphony has canceled all its live performances for the rest of the year, it’s ramped up its free digital content. That includes Essential Sounds, a YouTube series that started in June in which musicians share stories and play musical tribute to essential workers. The five preceding episodes are already online, and the sixth and final installment, which features violinist Gregory Ewer’s ode to community,
debuts this week. Streams at orsymphony.org. Premieres 7 pm Wednesday, Sept. 2. Free.
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StreamingVox
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Church of Film TV
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CST CoVideothon
Like most Portland dance studios, BodyVox is closed to the public until further notice. In the meantime, four of the company’s past theatrical performances are available for streaming on its website, including the goofy, whimsical Urban Meadow. Streams at bodyvox.com. Free.
Before quarantine, Church of Film’s thrice-weekly, mostly free screenings were the best place to see unheard of, visually striking movies from almost every continent, dug up by series programmer Muriel Lucas. Now, Lucas’ labor-of-love finds are available for free on Church of Film’s regularly updated Vimeo page. Streams at vimeo.com/ churchoffilm.
Clinton Street Theater is hardly the only local movie theater to move online during the pandemic—Hollywood Theatre and NW Film Center’s streaming options are definitely worth paying attention to—but the Clinton’s online options are almost all local, DIY productions, including titles from the recent quarantine edition of local horror film festival Guignolfest. Streams at cstpdx.com.
→ Movies → Theater → Dance → Books → Visual arts → Music
COURTESY OF SNACK BLOC
Open Signal, NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. and Graham St. A media accessibility organization has launched an all-local online streaming service.
Da Vinci Middle School, NE 24th Ave. and Everett St.
IATSE Local 28, SE 32nd Ave. and Powell Blvd.
I AT S E
When Fran Bittakis founded Snack Bloc three years ago, she never imagined the protest support group would end up providing snacks and supplies for an uprising that’s continued for more than three months. Around Day 45 of Portland’s protests against racism and police brutality, Bittakis realized she had been working and protesting nonstop. She hadn’t even been out for a walk, other than to attend marches. “It’s really easy to disassociate,” says Bittakis, who handed Snack Bloc over to its current president, Masyn Wade, last year but still organizes with the group. “What does it look like now when I’m like, ‘Hey, ya’ll, want to go out?’ Before, that was like, ‘Let’s go to a show, let’s go to an art gallery, let’s go get dinner.’ Now, ‘Hey, you want to go out?’ means ‘Hey, we’re going to bloc up and go be chased around.’” So in early July—out of a concern for the well-being of herself and other activists, and out of nostalgia for pre-pandemic movie nights—Bittakis and Snack Bloc started hosting weekly screenings, starting with Disclosure, a documentary about transgender representation in the media.
COURTESY OF
Local activists hold free weekly movie nights, both to recover from the protests and as a form of activism on their own.
Held in Scapegoat Tattoo’s parking lot on Southeast Stark Street, the roaming duo Mobile Projection Unit provided the AV equipment and Snack Bloc provided vegan burgers for a handful of mask-wearing attendees who arrived with lawn chairs and blankets. It’s been happening every Tuesday since. By the third screening, the audience was too big for Scapegoat’s small parking lot. Now held at Da Vinci Middle School, the ad hoc infrastructure has grown with the crowd. There are medics, porta-potties and activists who give speeches and safety training for protesters. Bittakis, a filmmaker herself, helms the movie programming, but she’s also tapped the help of beloved local programmers like Church of Film and Fuck Film School, which have screened the documentaries like Sunrise Over Tiananmen Square and The Infiltrators, a docu-thriller about young immigrants working to stop deportations. Equitable Giving Circle gives out free plants to BIPOC attendees, Dial R for Revolution makes zines for the event each week, and Fingers Crossed provides American Sign Language interpreting. The newest collaborator is Herb Bloc, which gives out teas, tinctures and balms to frontline protesters. But the screenings aren’t just recovery for activists, they’re also a form of activism on their own—and not just because most of the movies so far have been documentaries about an international history of resistance. The guerrilla, permitless screenings also stand as an example of the community care and resource pooling that prison and police abolitionists advocate for. “It gives us a moment to be together and not always be trauma bonding,” says Bittakis. “It’s some little normal thing that we can all do together that’s not being on the streets together. We can’t just be grinding every single day.” SHANNON GORMLEY.
In case you didn’t get the memo, Rebecca Burrell has news for you: Portland is no longer putting birds on things. “I think, as a city, we’re way past the Portlandia stereotype now,” says Burrell, director of strategy for Open Signal. “I think people are trying to figure out what Portland is now that we’re getting a totally different type of media attention.” If you’re trying to understand what Portland is now—or what it could be—go to the Open Signal website and tune to the media arts center’s new digital network. There, you’ll find taped content and livestreams covering everything from activism and faith to art and comedy.
Launched in 2017, Open Signal evolved from the public access television nonprofit Portland Community Media. Since Open Signal’s video production studios have only partially reopened, the new network offers the organization a chance to extend its currently limited reach. “This new digital network is something that we’ve been talking about for years,” says Daniela Serna, Open Signal’s communications manager. “In a way, the pandemic gave us the time [to create it] and the need was super-pressing for it to happen.” The network launched Aug. 22 with a seven-hour fundraiser for the Our Stories, Our Lives Black Media Maker Response Fund. Other offerings include short films from Echo Productions—which has helped underrepresented young filmmakers create everything from cooking videos to a dreamy rumination on nature and injustice—and an upcoming video game designed by Colombia-born Portland artist Laura Camila Medina that Serna cryptically describes as “a walk” through Medina’s memory. What comes next for the network will depend on Portland. “As an organization,” Burrell says, “I would say we have no problem changing plans at the last minute if we feel like there’s something else we need to do that’s more relevant.” BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON.
Portland’s laid-off stage hands have formed a masksewing team. A ritual has developed at the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees Local 28’s union hall. Throughout the pandemic, members of Portland’s theatrical stage workers union have stopped by the union’s Creston-Kenilworth building and to drop off bags of homemade face masks in the parking lot. Since the start of the pandemic, the group has made about 2,000 masks, which are then donated to everyone from grocery store employees to transit operators to kids organizing Black Lives Matter protests. “Having something to focus on and doing something that you can feel good about was really important for a lot of us,” says Rebecca Lewis, chair of Local 28’s Good and Welfare Committee. “We come from an industry where we’re used to seeing each other all the time…and a lot of our sense of community is tied up with our jobs.” The mask-making brigade began with conversations between Lewis, who worked
as props carpenter at Portland Opera before the pandemic, and some of her laidoff co-workers. That led to the creation of a sewing team (which uses a pattern from Deaconess Hospital in Indiana) that included not only laid-off wardrobe department workers, but actors, audio engineers and more. The efforts of the ad hoc sewing team have reached beyond Oregon—they have sent masks to Washington and even Puerto Rico. It’s a project that has been profoundly meaningful to laid-off stage employees like Lewis, who doesn’t expect to return to her job at Portland Opera until May 2021. “Losing the opportunity to collaborate on something with other humans was a really big blow, and I think it’s that way for a lot of people,” she says. “And so even though we couldn’t be in the same place, I think having some outlet where we could sort of socially distance collaborate together was a really big help for a lot of people.” BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Willamette Week SEPTEMBER 2, 2020 wweek.com
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JOSEPH BLAKE JR.
JOSEPH BLAKE JR.
INTISAR ABIOTO
SE Grand Ave. and Ash St.
Photographer Intisar Abioto has added “muralist” to her résumé with a work that pays tribute to Black women and girls.
KERRY POLITZER (FAR LEFT)
SE 51st Ave. and Hawthorne Blvd.
With venues closed indefinitely, jazz musician Kerry Politzer has started hosting shows in her driveway. The best place in Portland to hear local jazz is no longer a wine bar, candlelit club or swanky restaurant. It’s a driveway in Southeast Portland. Every Friday night near Tabor Bread, you can hear everything from bossa nova, dueling Latin guitars and contemporary jazz emanating from the driveway outside local jazz musician Kerry Politzer’s house. “Music is something that brings people together,” says Politzer. “We’re so isolated and divided these days. I just want to bring—it sounds maybe hokey or corny—but I want to bring some love into the world.” 16
Willamette Week SEPTEMBER 2, 2020 wweek.com
Before COVID -19, Politzer taught in-person music courses at University of Portland and Portland State University and played piano around Portland with her group, Bossa PDX. “I almost didn’t even realize how important music was to me, even being a musician and a music teacher,” she says. “Not until all of this started.” So Politzer started hosting and livestreaming weekly jazz performances outside her bungalow home, a series called Driveway Jazz. Local groups and musicians perform in front of a small, socially distanced audience. (Politzer doesn’t post her address online but sometimes gives it out if asked via direct messaging on social media.) The sets are also livestreamed on Driveway Jazz’s Facebook page so anyone can enjoy the grooves and sambas. Politzer doesn’t have much experience with livestreaming or video production—she streams Driveway Jazz’s shows using just her iPhone. But in the driveway, audiences are more attentive than when she plays in a club. From inside her house, her children watch the “music customers” applaud after every solo. No one knows for sure when music venues will be safe to open up again. So Politzer plans to keep driveway jazz going for as long as necessary, and she’s considering the prospect of hosting the series next summer as well. “Hopefully, one day,” she says, “when things get back to normal—if they do—we will have served our purpose by keeping culture alive, keeping the arts alive and helping to keep the jazz community united.” JORDAN MONTERO.
Now more than ever, care—for one’s self and others—is incredibly important to put into action. It’s particularly important for Black people, and especially Black women. As a photographer, that’s something Intisar Abioto understands deeply. “I put my art first and I put my community work through art first, but I’m learning and have learned that I need to take better care of myself,” says Abioto. “Not just so that I can be able to do the work but because I’m valuable and important.” She realizes how valuable and important other Black women and femmes are as well. For years, Abioto has told the stories of Portlanders through her photo blog The Black Portlanders. But during the pandemic and protests, Abioto has created her largest, most public-facing work yet. BabeSis, Aunts Tenn, Ms. W, Miss Choomby…& in Our Company, Abioto’s photo mural located at Grand and Ash in Southeast, depicts Black women standing in their strength. Placed against a black backdrop, the six black-and-white photos are pulled from Abioto’s archives, including a portrait of her younger sisters, local eclectic artist Amenta Abioto, and another of the Lee sisters, Abioto’s aunts who were once dubbed the “most arrested civil rights family” during sit-in protests in Memphis, Tenn. There’s always been a beautiful brightness to Black beauty, and even though most of society chooses not to see it, Abioto’s mural tries to make sure people don’t forget it “Right now, we’re thinking about Black lives, but the history of Black women, femmes and girls in this country, how our bodies were used to build this country, while being dispensable, you know that’s a tradition,” Abioto says. “The information we’ve gleaned from being Black girls, from toddlers through being teenagers until now— there’s so much that we see that we’ve had to filter out to maintain ourselves.” Since the mural was put up with a wallpaperlike material, it won’t last forever. However, Abioto plans to touch it up for as long as she can to make sure the whole point of its presence is really driven home—that Black women and femmes matter and deserve to be seen. “Tending to Black girls is a gift—you would be so lucky,” she says. “If we’re safe right now, that’s the glory.” CERVANTÉ POPE.
COURTESY OF INTISAR ABIOTO
“Tending to Black girls is a gift—you would be so lucky. If we’re safe right now, that’s the glory.” —Intisar Abioto
Willamette Week SEPTEMBER 2, 2020 wweek.com
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STREET
AT THE DRIVE-IN Photos by Trevor Gagnier On Instagram: @trevorgagnier
Watching movies under the stars (and inside cars) at Zidell Yards. Willamette Week SEPTEMBER 2, 2020 wweek.com
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STARTERS
T H E MOST I MP ORTANT T H I N G S T H AT H A PPE N E D I N P ORT L AND C U LT U RE T H I S WE E K , FR O M B E ST TO WO R ST. ST .
AN ODE TO ELK
STAY SAFE, STAY INFORMED. WE ARE IN THIS TOGETHER. WWEEK.COM
Music Millennium
Before it was removed in early July after protesters lit fires around its base, the elk statue formerly located between Chapman and Lownsdale squares had become one of the more unexpected symbols of the protests against racism and police brutality in Portland. Now, the statue, officially titled Elk, has received a public love letter. The Portland Architecture blog published an ode to the bronze icon last month titled “The Elk statue is just fine” after visiting it in storage. Longtime Portland architecture critic Brian Libby checked up on Elk at Regional Arts & Culture Council’s indoor storage facility, where it will remain indefinitely. The blog includes a close-up of paint flecks on the statue and notes a soot stain but concludes the elk “seemed to be in very good condition” and that its removal was premature. The Portland Police Bureau pointed to the elk as an example of the protests’ aimless destruction and equated such property damage with violence. Libby’s article suggests yet another meaning, positioning the elk as a paragon of unity. “When it was removed, everybody suddenly was talking passionately,” he writes. “A silent majority revealed itself. We may not have talked about it much in the past, but we all love Elk.”
CITY OF LIGHT RAIL
When TriMet retires its original MAX cars in 2022, you probably never considered what might happen to them. But that’s exactly what has occupied the minds of participants in the MAX Reuse Design Challenge, who’ve envisioned ways to repurpose the trains rather than simply sending them to the scrap heap. The winner, titled MAX Village, would turn the old light rail carriages into a miniature city at Holladay Park in Northeast Portland’s Lloyd District, with a community kitchen and cafe, warming shelter, health clinic and learning center. The People’s Choice award went to a similar setup: the Afro-Village Movement, which features moving trains that provide shelter, lockers, a kitchen with shelves for fresh produce, showers, laundry facilities and more. TriMet still has yet to decide whether it will actually implement any of the winning concepts.
Sidewalk Sale Friday - Monday Sep. 4th - 7th
IN THROUGH THE OUTDOORS
10 am - 6 pm Daily
The U.S. Forest Service is extending the traditional period when overnight stays are allowed on its lands in several districts. The agency says unprecedented demand and need to provide the service to the public led to the decision. Depending on the area, some campgrounds will close in mid-September or October, particularly around Diamond Lake in Douglas County. Others, including all Cottage Grove and Tiller overnight areas, will remain in operation through November, weather permitting.
1000’s of
Vinyl, CD’s, & DVD’s
up to 80% Off BLUE IN THE RED
Tons of Used Vinyl under $5
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Willamette Week SEPTEMBER 2, 2020 wweek.com
Blue Star Donuts, one of Portland’s most successful food franchises, has declared bankruptcy as a result of the financial fallout from COVID-19. The gourmet doughnut chain will undergo Chapter 11 debt reorganization to “help us weather the storm, survive and emerge as a stronger business,” CEO Katie Poppe said in a press release. Since the start of the pandemic, the brand has downsized significantly, permanently shuttering four of its eight Portland locations, including its downtown flagship. According to bankruptcy filings, the company received a $545,900 loan as part of the federal Paycheck Protection Program, which probably kept it from filing for Chapter 11 earlier.
Lost Cause
WESLEY LAPOINTE
GET...OUTSIDE?
WHAT TO DO—AND WHAT OTHERS ARE DOING—AS PORTLAND REOPENS.
LOST BUT NOT FORGOTTEN: Daniyel (center, in red) on the set of the “Lost Ones” video.
Eight months ago, Portland rapper Daniyel recorded a song for and about his family. Now it’s getting a video by one of hip-hop’s buzziest directors.
Can I Get Your Numbers? A Portland woman is using dating apps to spread awareness about the 2020 census. MACKENZIE ROSS
MACKENZIE ROSS
A few days ago, MacKenzie Ross got kicked off Tinder. Most of the time, if someone gets banned from a dating app, it’s probably not for something they’d readily admit to in public. But Ross, 33, insists she didn’t do anything skeezy. “All they said was I violated their terms of service,” she says. “It might be because of ‘political activity.’” Even then, though, Ross would dispute the
and thought the track hit its peak when he played it for his mom, who cried when she heard the tribute to her late sister. But unbeknownst to Daniyel, a mutual friend sent the track to Bennett, who’s fresh off directing a video for Eminem. Enamored with Daniyel’s song, the Chicago director reached out on social media and offered to make the video for “Lost Ones.” Working with a director like Bennett—who’s also made videos for Juice WRLD and Lil Xan—is a career-defining moment for an artist who’s just getting his start. But for the 18-year-old rapper, the achievement is mostly personal. “I really hope we can create something that the families in this video can cherish forever,” says Daniyel. “This song is already very special for me and my family.” SHANNON GORMLEY.
characterization: She wasn’t canvassing for a partisan cause, or leading a “get out the vote” campaign. She was just reminding people to fill out the census. Ross, who works as a librarian in Washington County, recently read that the response rate for the 2020 census in Oregon was 67%—not nearly high enough for a statistics nerd such as herself. And as a single woman, she figured the most efficient way for her to get the word out would be through online dating. So she reinstalled Bumble, Hinge and other popular apps, and set up profiles for the sole purpose of getting the link for the 2020 census form in front of as many strangers as possible, answering prompts like “A Shower Thought I recently had” with “Creating dating profiles with the census link: www.2020census.gov. Shockingly, still single and way too bored.” It’s only been two weeks, but other than getting flagged by Tinder, responses have mostly been positive, with many respondents thanking her for the reminder. Ross says the project is purely about upping the state’s response rate. That said, she is single. And if she gets to chatting with someone who feels as strongly about stats, school funding and the other benefits of an accurate census, that’s a bonus. “With COVID, dating is not a high priority for me right now,” she says. “But if I meet someone who is amazing and gets me, I’m not going to pass them up.” MATTHEW SINGER.
How the Blazers won by losing. After a nail-wrecking set of qualifying games, three playoff rows, one unlikely win, a Damian Lillard knee sprain, a whole heap of bizarre Mario Hezonja plays, a brief wildcat strike, and a Dameless contest where they left it all on the court, the Portland Trail Blazers’ season is over. In a way, it was a metaphor for the whole season: They came, they tried, they threw out all the gambits they had—including signing Carmelo Anthony—but they just didn’t have the players they needed to make the magic happen. The Blazers’ brief playoff berth is probably the strangest in history, earned only because of the colossal failure of the modern American state coming to a head when a once-every-100-years global health crisis left the entire country reeling and gave them time to get Jusuf Nurkic back and reduce Hassan Whiteside’s minutes in the qualifiers. The Blazers might have lost, but it’s hard to be too sad. First off, they were playing with house money. Every extra game they managed in the bubble was bonus content, freebies. All emotional upside. Proof of concept, showing the world that, yes, they actually would have been good if they were giving Nurk’s minutes to Nurk. Through the whims of fate, they achieved way more than could have been expected in, like, February. B R U C E E LY/ P O R T L A N D T R A I L B L A Z E R S
A year ago, Portland rapper Daniyel tweeted about his ambition to have a music video directed by buzzy videographer Cole Bennett. That only made it more surprising when, out of the blue, Bennett recently reached out to Daniyel on Instagram asking the Portland artist to collaborate. “Honestly, I was just starstruck,” says Daniyel. “When he DM’d me, I was pinching myself, like, ‘Is this real?’” Last week, Bennett shot a video for Daniyel’s “Lost Ones,” a song in honor of Daniyel’s aunt, who died of cancer, and his uncle, who drowned. The video will star other Portlanders who have been affected by loss, including the family of Aja Raquell Rhone-Spears, a Black transgender woman who was recently murdered at a vigil for another homicide victim, Tyrell Penney, who was killed in a shooting last month. Daniyel recorded “Lost Ones” eight months ago
Bust a Bubble
STAY MERLOT: The Blazers’ Carmelo Anthony returns to Portland.
The Blazers failed to win at basketball, but in a much larger way, they have won, because they get to leave the bubble, see their families again, and order takeout from somewhere that isn’t owned by all-time rent-seeking douche Houston Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta. Sure, their names won’t be cast in gold in the history of the game. They won’t be remembered as heroes who brought joy to Portland in dark times. But they get to leave, and finally opt out of the nightmare they’ve been shoved into. And so, I come here not to bury the Blazers but to celebrate their exit from their own personal dystopia. Hopefully, someday, we can all follow their example and lose the games in our lives and leave the bubble we are all trapped in—day after day, horror after horror. CORBIN SMITH.
Willamette Week SEPTEMBER 2, 2020 wweek.com
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GET...OUTSIDE? MICHELLE HARRIS
HIKE OF THE WEEK
Lake Placid Vernonia Lake makes for a quaint, easy summer stroll. But there’s more to the locale than meets the idyll. BY M IC HE L L E H A R R I S
TAG, YOU’RE IT: All that’s left of the OregonAmerican Lumber Mill in Vernonia is a fuel shed now marked with striking graffiti art. MICHELLE HARRIS
With every weird abandoned building comes an even weirder story. In the quaint town of Vernonia, Ore., about an hour northwest of Portland, there are basically two options for outdoor activity: cycling the Banks-Vernonia State Trail, or taking a casual 1-mile stroll around Vernonia Lake. It might not sound particularly exciting, but the latter, um, “adventure” includes a distinct landmark—the abandoned Oregon-American Lumber Mill. Again, on the surface, that probably won’t get too many hearts palpitating with excitement. But there’s more to this crumbling agricultural edifice than meets the eye. A sign at the trailhead tells the tale. Beginning operations in 1924, the mill was once one of Oregon’s largest. It closed down in 1958, but that’s when the real action began. Vernonia was one of the film locations for Ring of Fire, an obscure 1961 melodrama about a gallant sheriff who saves the residents of a small village from a forest fire. Part of the defunct mill was actually set on fire for one of the scenes, sending it out in a literal blaze of glory. The only remaining structure is a fuel shed, now marked with colorful and striking graffiti, which itself had a brush with fame four years ago when Green Day filmed part of the music video for the song “Still Breathing” inside the ruin. What is it about this idyllic country pond that keeps attracting out-of-state film crews? Beats us—but it’s certainly not a bad spot to spend a lazy late summer afternoon. From the trailhead, you can go either direction for the 1.1-mile loop around Vernonia Lake. The surrounding shore is lined with cattails—bring binoculars to get a closer look at the many water birds in the area. A few picnic tables and benches are scattered around the lake in case you want to bring lunch and make a day of it. The lake is also popular for fishing and there are docks along the way. While part of the lake loop is shaded, a good portion more is exposed, so wear a hat and pack sunscreen. For a longer hike, there’s a path that leads to Nehalem River, which is an extension of the 21-mile VernoniaBanks State Trail. Before turning off from the lake, though, make sure you also visit the lake’s primitive camping ground, complete with an old-timey vault toilet. In Vernonia, the thrills never cease.
LIQUID ASSETS: Vernonia Lake is surrounded by cattails and full of water birds.
Vernonia Lake Loop Hike Distance: 1.1 miles Difficulty: Drive time from Portland:
50 minutes
Directions: From Portland, take US 26 west for about 20 miles and then veer right onto OR 47 north—you’ll see signs for Vernonia/Clatskanie. Drive along 47 north for almost 15 miles and then make a right onto Bridge Street. Drive another mile, cross Rock Creek, and then make a right into the parking area for Vernonia Lake. HIKE DIFFICULTY KEY Parks Scare Me Dirty Boots Weekend Warrior Sasquatch
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Willamette Week SEPTEMBER 2, 2020 wweek.com
Vernonia Lake 47
Buxton North Plains
26 Hillsboro
Portland Beaverton
FEATURE
FOOD & DRINK
Let’s Have a Toast
TOP 5
HOT PLATES Where to eat this week.
Kimura Toast Bar shows Portland a world beyond avocado toast. BY JAS O N CO H E N
@cohenesque
Kayoko and Matt Kaye’s main motivation as chefs and restaurateurs has always been simple: to eat the food they missed from living in Japan. First, it manifested home cooking, for themselves and their now-grown children. Then, they began serving the public with the opening of Kayo’s Ramen Bar in 2016. And now, the couple celebrates shokupan—Japanese milk bread—and the cafes known as kissaten. Only, the homage is done entirely in toast form. At Kimura Toast Bar—Kimura is Kayoko’s maiden name— thick slices of shokupan can be the stuff of a light breakfast, a savory lunch or a meticulously composed dessert. Open since early August, it’s right next door to Kayo’s Ramen Bar in the former Ristretto Roasters space. Ristretto’s espresso machine is still in service—the beans come from Proud Mary—and there’s also flash-brewed Japanese ice coffee, matcha and green tea. Matt Kaye says the original idea for Kimura was to do a “dumbed-down kissaten,” albeit with more upscale, all-natural ingredients, as well as Kayoko’s cheffy touch. A kissaten is something like a small-town cafe crossed with a dive bar, most often found in rural areas. The signature item is typically pizza toast, which is exactly what it sounds like. “They’re kind of a dying breed,” Kaye says. “They’re dark and smoky, and you have Japanese iced coffee and dessert, or curry rice, or pizza toast—coffee and comfort food.” But with no oven hood in the Ristretto space, a full menu wasn’t really possible. So they decided to make it all about Kayo-
Late Shake
ko’s bread. The shokupan at Kimura is thicker and more flavorful than you’ll find in even a high-quality Japanese convenience store sandwich. It is not at all like Wonder Bread, but still lighter than brioche. “What makes shokupan different from white bread is the texture,” says Kayoko Kaye. “It should be dense but fluffy. Soft and moist, but not doughy. It’s the type of bread that you want to eat every day.” The key to shokupan is the tangzhong starter method: a cooked slurry of flour, water and/or milk, not unlike a roux. Having made her bread at home for many years, Kayoko had to adjust the recipe and cooking times for commercial baking. The loaves are actually made for Kimura at Dos Hermanos Bakery, just a few blocks up North Williams, with Kimura providing not only the recipe but 50 loaf pans. You can get your toast simply, with French Isigny St.-Mere butter, including such flavors as bacon-cheese or yuzu ($3.50). You can get a cheese toast, with white cheddar or brie ($4.50). You can even get it under a hot dog ($5), adding another wrinkle to the “Is a hot dog a sandwich?” debate. There are also five different kinds of avocado toast, a straightup concession to the Portland market, Matt Kaye admits. “It’s kind of like vegan ramen. It’s not remotely Japanese,” he says. “But if we’re going to have toast, might as well have avocado toast, right?” But the heart of the Kimura menu is its more elaborate items. Here’s the lowdown on three of them. TREVOR GAGNIER
Nacheaux 8145 SE 82nd Ave., 971-319-1134, nacheauxpdx.com. Noon-7 pm Wednesday-Thursday and Saturday, noon-8 pm Friday, 9 am-3 pm Sunday. At Anthony Brown’s garishly teal-colored food truck, Mexican favorites get hitched to Southern food and CajunCreole flavors. You can find “Mexicajun” food in both Louisiana and Southeast Texas, but it’s a rare concept in Portland, if not entirely unheard of. The “Nacheaux nachos” start with a big pile of fresh-fried chips and also feature carnitas that could just as easily be cochon au lait, while a cheesy “crunchwrap” comes stuffed with red beans, dirty rice and fried chicken.
Eem 3808 N Williams Ave., Suite 127, 971-295-1645, eempdx.com. 11 am-9 pm daily. The most talked-about Portland restaurant of 2019 had difficulty adjusting to the reality of COVID-19, but it looks to have found its footing in Phase 1 with a new grab-and-go window focused on its world-beating curries. The white curry with brisket burnt ends is a dish so rich and nuanced it’s almost without precedent. And if you manage to snag one of its still-in-high-demand outdoor tables, ’tis the season for co-owner Eric Nelson’s hyper-creative cocktails.
Broder HILARY SANDER
JAPANESE PIZZA TOAST ($7.50) You can get your pizza toast with Olli salami, slices of a Fletcher’s all-beef hot dog, or corn. Tomato sauce, cheese, red onions and green peppers are the default toppings, and a splash of Tabasco is also standard. “I wanted to serve authentic Japanese pizza toast,” Kayoko Kaye says. But only to a point: M a ny k i s s a te n s j u s t u s e ketchup—which they also put on what’s known as Napolitan spaghetti—but Kayoko Kaye says she prefers “a richer, more flavorful sauce.”
Inside Upper Left Coffee Roasters, 1204 SE Clay St. Next pop-up is 5-9 pm Friday, Sept. 4. See lateshake.com to preorder. For their milkshake-based pop-up Late Shake, Taylor London and Grahm Doughty put a lot of time and thought into technique, ingredients, temperature and milk-to-ice cream ratio, resulting in a product solid enough for funky toppings but also thin enough for slurpability. Its top seller is usually Woodblock Mocha, though the staff ’s favorite is Double Gold, a turmeric, ginger and apple shake finished with a crown of Fruity Pebbles.
BOSTON CREAM BANANA ($7.50) Kayoko’s housemade custard is flavored with three different types of chocolate: French and Colombian cocoa powders and semisweet solid. It’s then topped with sliced bananas and a big sprinkle of “chocolate dukkha”: coconut, chocolate and nuts. It’s effectively banana cream pie and chocolate cream pie in one.
BEEF CURRY AND CHEESE ($7.50) At a kissaten, you might get curry rice. At a Japanese bakery, it’s karepan—keema (ground beef) curry inside a savory pastry, either baked or deep-fried. “Ours is the shokupan version,” says Kayoko Kaye. “It is my husband’s favorite.” For this one, the toast is slightly hollowed out, allowing the curry to nestle under organic white cheddar, making for a gooey middle surrounded by a crispy crust.
EAT: Kimura Toast Bar, 3808 N Williams Ave., 971-266-8087, kimuratoast.com. 8 am-3 pm Tuesday-Sunday.
BRODER 2508 SE Clinton St., 503-736-3333, broderpdx.com. 9 am-3 pm Thursday-Sunday. Charming aesthetics are just part of what makes Broder— with three locations in Portland and one in Hood River—such a popular breakfast destination. A Swedish hash of potatoes, beets, beer-braised beef, ham and eggs arrives in a steaming cast-iron skillet, and decadent cream-poached eggs are served under a Parmesan-panko crust. The block where its original Clinton Street location resides has been converted into a dining plaza, making it all even more worth the inevitable wait.
Taquería los Puñales 3312 SE Belmont St., 503-206-7233, lospunales.com. 11 am-10 pm daily. This tacho shop is not yet 2 months old, but it feels like it’s been serving the Sunnyside neighborhood for years. Every tortilla is made in-house that day, stuffed with an array of guisados—complex braises of meats and vegetables, including carnitas, barbacoa and chicken tinga. If you want innovation, there’s unique, Argentine-inspired pesto carne asada. But the classic tinga is a perfect gateway to the guisado style, and chef David Madrigal’s version is subtly excellent.
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FOOD & DRINK M AT T D AV I D S O N
PATIO REVIEW
TOP 5
BUZZ LIST
Where to drink outside this week. Zoiglhaus 5716 SE 92nd Ave., 971-339-2374, zoiglhaus.com. 4-9 pm daily. If the E-Z Ups are out, that’s a sure sign a good time is being had. At Zoiglhaus, they’re one of the defining features of the brewery’s new pop-up beer garden. The setup is bare-bones, but it’s enough to transform the oil-stained patch of concrete off 92nd Avenue into a breezy block party. Sadly, the outdoor cooking portion of the shindig has come to an end, but the jägerschnitzel is still on the menu. And then, of course, there’s the beer: Cans of Hop on Top—the brewery’s sassy, seasonal dry-hopped Pilsner—sit in a galvanized tub, adding to the feeling that you’re at a neighbor’s summer hang.
Lady of the Mountain 100 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 971-345-2992, kexhotels.com/ eat-drink/rooftop. 5-10 pm Wednesday-Sunday; last reservations taken at 8:30 pm. Brunch 10 am-1 pm Saturday-Sunday. Icelandic boutique hotel Kex is one of those rare gems in the city with a rooftop oasis. At four stories up, Lady of the Mountain feels a bit like being nestled in a fjord made of glass and concrete. The list of wine, beer and cocktails is long, but to make things easy, just order the Pimm’s Cup: It’s like an adult snow cone, made with cucumber-infused gin, and it’s the most refreshing thing you could possibly order on a Portland rooftop in September.
Migration Rooftop
Havana Nocturne Cuban food hits the Pearl. BY MIC H A E L C .
ZUSMAN @mczlaw
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TopWire Hop Project 8668 Crosby Road NE, Woodburn, 503-982-5166, topwirehop.com. 11 am-8 pm Thursday and Sunday, 11 am-9 pm Friday-Saturday. The state’s most secretive beer garden is hidden among the crops at Crosby Hop Farm in Woodburn. Follow the half-mile gravel road that runs between the bines and you’ll wind up at a 40-foot-long shipping container repurposed as a serving station pouring from 10 rotating taps exclusively featuring batches made with the hops growing around you.
Victoria Bar EMMA BROWNE
Cuban dishes, says chef Pablo Portilla, are strikingly simple. It’s mostly just the food families eat at home. That might explain why Cuban restaurants, outside their native turf and nearby Miami, are hard to find. Portilla tries to remedy that with the new Havana Cafe, an unmissable rooftop experience in Northwest Portland. It’s not Portilla’s first attempt at offering his heritage cuisine in Portland: More than a decade ago, he operated a food cart, also called Havana Cafe, but closed up shop to work for the past nine years at the now-shuttered Mi Mero Mole. His new digs are about as far from the confined quarters of a cart as you can get. Located in the former home of Pearl District sports bar On Deck, the restaurant is an expansive, 8,000-square-foot rooftop venue shared with gin bar the Botanist. Tables are spaced more than 6 feet apart and spread over two dining areas. The exposed roof can be hot when the sun is high, but once the orb drops behind the late summer skyline, it is hard to imagine a mellower vibe. The main dining area is farthest west, just as patrons emerge from the short stairway that leads up from the street to the second floor. To the east of it is another massive dining space with a stage setup at one end. On Fridays and Saturdays only, Latin jazz and a variety of other musical stylings accompany the food and drink. After settling in, diners’ phones hover over a tabletop QR code that reveals cocktail and dinner menus. The food offerings are short, sweet and rustically delicious. Start with a starch: either tostones ($6)—deepfried, smooshed slices of green plantain—or yucca frita ($6), a sliced tuber that also gets a turn in the fryer. Next are traditional platters served with deceptively non-boring black beans and rice. Among
a handful of choices, lechon con mojo ($13.75) may be your power move. It’s a mound of ultra-tender, deeply flavored slow-roasted pork infused with garlic. Also compelling is the distinctively flavored picadillo ($12.75), made up of spiced ground beef cooked together with olives and raisins. As an alternative to a full platter, try a lechon sandwich ($12.75) or the better known Cubano (ham, Swiss, pickles, and yellow mustard pressed together until gooey; $12.75). In the future, expect an expanded menu, including Portilla’s family favorite, quimbobo, a Cuban African mashup of slow-roasted pork chunks and okra in a Cuban-seasoned tomato sauce, and plantain soup, shredded green plantain in vegetable stock seasoned with Cuban spices. The anticipated additions are exciting, but don’t wait to visit—though “packing them in” isn’t quite the right description, Havana Cafe’s formula of fine Cuban food, drinks and lively music on the weekends is already proving popular.
817 SW 17th Ave., 9th floor, 971-291-0258, migrationbrewing.com. 1-10 pm Thursday-Sunday. In the Before Times, Migration’s sun-drenched front patio was one of Portland’s great summer evening beer-drinking spots. That’s continued to be true in Phase 1, but apparently it wasn’t enough: The ascendant brewery has gone and launched a rooftop taproom at the freshly opened Canvas building. The ninth-floor views are new, but the brews remain reliably the same, ranging from sweet and tart to rich and hazy.
PATIO SPECS Number of tables: 50 four-seaters Space between tables: 7 feet Additional safety measures: Digital menus; markers on steps for social distancing; dedicated host on Fridays and Saturdays monitoring compliance. Peak hours: 7-10 pm EAT: Havana Cafe, 901 NW 14th Ave., 970-400-8887, havanacafepdx.com. 11 am-10 pm Tuesday-Saturday. Tickets for a music-side table are available at tickettomato.com.
VICTORIA BAR 4835 N Albina Ave., victoriapdx.com. Noon-10 pm Monday-Friday, 10 am-10 pm Saturday-Sunday. Victoria is famed for its usually packed patio, parlor-inspired bar area, and extensive yet reasonably priced food and drink menus that feature locally sourced ingredients. Because Victoria appeals to such a wide range of Portlanders, it’s a great place to people watch—especially on the patio during the warmer months.
POTLANDER Empower Bodycare CBD Infused Topical Oil ($30 for a third of an ounce) Good for: Joint stiffness, targeted relief,
Problem Salved
precise applications
A blue-collar test of CBD-infused balms.
BY B R I A N N A W H E E L E R
The current super-abundance of commercial cannabis topicals can be overwhelming—not to mention expensive. It wasn’t terribly long ago that medicated salve formulations were DIY affairs only shared in the utmost confidence. And still, for every $40 jar of CBD-infused balm on store shelves, there are a dozen or more chronically ill homies who’ve been making topicals in their kitchen since the ’90s and are more than willing to share a sample with a friend in need. Medicated salves are a cornerstone of home remedies, but in a market flooded with both commercial and homemade products, finding the right balm is an exercise in patience. Recently, my partner took a part-time shipping gig that is exceedingly demanding physically. Monday through Friday, he spends about five hours lifting and stacking hundreds of items, some over 100 pounds.
Peak Extracts CBDa Rescue Rub ($35 for 2 ounces) Good for: Nasty bruises, pre- and post-workout, massage lube
He’s a physically fit fella, but the intensity of the gig often leaves him with saucer-sized bruises, overworked major muscle groups, and specific pain points in the hands, fingers and knees—all symptoms that should be handily remedied by the same CBD salves, lotions and curative potions sparkling from retail counters everywhere. While my partner auditioned four popular topicals and one DIY salve over the course of a month, I took nightly data on four specific criteria: how well the topical worked as a preventative treatment in minimizing muscle fatigue when applied pre-workout; whether or not it delivered as a restorative treatment; how it performed as a targeted relief balm; and how agreeable the application was. Each product performed well across the board, but each had its own specific strengths as well. And, perhaps unsurprisingly, we found that sometimes the best treatments aren’t available for purchase at all.
Medicine Farm Botanical 1:1 Dragon Stick ($30 for a half-ounce) Good for: Targeted relief, soothing the occa-
sional tension headache
The newest addition to Peak Extracts’ line of Rescue Rubs features 350 mg of full-spectrum, hemp-derived CBDa—the raw, acidic, unprocessed precursor to CBD. CBDa interacts with the endocannabinoid system by inhibiting a specific enzyme associated with post-injury inflammation. Rescue Rub’s aromatic herbal formula is based on a centuries-old salve recipe meant to treat blunt-force trauma, but with the addition of CBDa, this variety was deemed useful for more than bruise control. When used on the entirety of my partner’s back before his shift, his shoulder muscles and back were elastic and responsive for the rest of the night and mostly restored after a full night’s sleep. Similarly, when slathered on his knees before his extended squat session, he found he could avert midshift stiffness and latenight aches. The salve is similarly effective for targeted relief, but what Rescue Rub delivers most effectively is a panacea for the type of swampy, midnight-blue bruises my husband kept coming home with. Daily, pea-sized applications of Rescue Rub to the traumatized areas managed to evaporate even the worst of his bruising in one to three days. As far as application, the salve’s texture is a very soft solid, like stiff coconut oil left out on a warm day. Though absorption happens relatively quickly, it does require a bit of massaging. Otherwise, it’s oil slick versus back sweat all night long.
The Dragon Stick is another buttery herbal medley whose sum is greater than its parts— parts that include both THC and CBD as well as turmeric, angelica and arnica. Together, these herbs and spices are designed to specifically provide post-workout relief, but the user instructions suggest a hot soak before application. Applying a salve to muscles that have already enjoyed a thorough soaking seems like a bit of a cheat to me, so I spread a liberal layer of it on my hubby’s back, wrists and knees both before work and after his nightly cold shower. The aromatherapeutic qualities of this stick are pronounced, but not so much to cause sensory overload. Rather, it’s the application that led to a feeling of goopy discomfort. The balm is packaged as a fun-sized stick of deodorant, with a dial that pushes the product up through the top as it’s worn down. On typically cool Portland days, the stick maintains its integrity. But with warm weather like we’ve had lately, the balm spills from its housing like partly congealed cheese. As a pre-workout balm, the Dragon Stick was less effective than the Rescue Rub, but for targeted relief, it quickly and completely soothed morning-after finger and hand cramping. Plus, when applied to the temples, the nape of the neck, and across the forehead, it relaxed—but did not entirely eliminate—a tension headache, which felt like a nice bonus.
Where to get it: PeakExtracts.com
Where to get it: The New Amsterdam, 2201 N Killingsworth St., 503-558-5678, thenewamsterdam.com
That this oil is packaged in a container no larger than a tube of lipstick limits its uses, but not to a lamentable degree. Yes, it’s a labor to spread it across an expanse of back flesh—manipulating the tube over a major muscle group was a bit like painting a wall mural with an eyeshadow brush—but it glides between fingers and around wrists with ergonomic ease. When applied with restraint, the oil absorbs remarkably quickly. But like most oils, too much will leave you dripping like a sweaty hot dog. The fragrance is a sharp balance of medicinal and herbal that reads as a savory assortment of woodsy floral and cutting herbal perfumes. Any notes of hemp are buried in aromatics, but the product still boasts 68 mg of CBD in an exceedingly small container. Large muscle group application might have been a bust, but the packaging does say, “Put it where it hurts,” not “Put it where it might hurt later,” and for targeted relief, this oil roller stick delivered as advertised. After a particularly vigorous shift, my hubs woke up the next morning with hands so stiff he could not make a fist. About 10 minutes after applying this oil, he had regained mobility and was julienning vegetables for breakfast. By the end of the morning, his hands were all ready for another round of gripping, tossing and methodically stacking.
Where to get it: New Seasons Bloom Farms 600 mg CBD Sport Stick ($50 for 1.5 ounces) Good for: Pre- and post-workout, smooth application, smelling vaguely butch
The sleeper hit of this experiment was Bloom Farms’ sports stick, an extra-firm balm in a container substantial enough to tackle larger expanses of flesh and compact enough to navigate tight corners behind the knees and around the feet and ankles. The product is also housed in a deodorant-style container, but the integrity of this butter is unyielding, allowing the product to glide across the skin, absorbing quickly without leaving a snail trail or dragging skin along the container’s rim. The fragrance has a savory profile similar to Empower’s, but the earthiness of hemp features a bit more strongly, making for a more full-bodied, less sharp perfume. Of all the commercially produced CBD topicals, this was the product that my husband requested the most. He used it on his back, shoulders and knees before work nearly three times as often as the other commercial topicals, largely because the application was so easy. As a pre-workout salve, he reported an elastic endurance from major muscle groups in his back, chest and legs similar to the Peak Extracts Rescue Rub’s effects. As a morning-after targeted balm, the stick was found to be too burly to gracefully caress the tender joints between his fingers, but otherwise it delivered, soothing inflamed major muscle groups.
Where to get it: BloomFarmsCBD.com One Small Tupperware of Homemade Salve (free) Good for: Pre- and post-workout, targeted relief, supporting
your local kitchen witch
Several months prior to this experiment, a friend gifted my partner with two small containers, each filled with a homemade salve she’d developed for her chronic pain. The salves were the most successful of all those we collected data on over five weeks, and what set them apart was the inclusion of menthol and capsaicin, commonly found in Tiger Balm and Icy Hot. Menthol and capsaicin both work as counterirritants, not necessarily relieving pain, but disrupting pain signals. When folded into a full-spectrum, whole-plant salve, the combination seemed to prevent muscle fatigue, relieve painful morning-after inflammation, and quickly loosen stiff joints all in equal measure. The smell and application were what one might expect from a DIY salve—messy and pungent—but the results were indisputable. It was the clear favorite, even though it smelled like a spicy nightmare and looked like lumpy pumpkin butter.
Where to get it: If you don’t know, then you don’t know.
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PERFORMANCE
Editor: Andi Prewitt | Contact: aprewitt@wweek.com
R O N I E LY
1. My husband He was my childhood sweetheart. We grew up in Philadelphia together, literally around the corner from each other. He’s like, “I knew you were going to be my wife.” I’m like, “Oh please,” but I guess he was right. I love him, of course—I’m in love with him—but he’s also my best friend. He’s the greatest guy I’ve ever met outside of my dad. 2. YouTube YouTube is the very first thing I turn on in the morning, because I get to catch up on all the political drama that I missed during the day—MSNBC, CNN, PBS, whatever. I get to catch up on all my reality shows, because, of course, when I’m working, I don’t get to see everything. I like it all…all the trash. I love it, because it’s not my life.
THE SOPRANO: Sure, Portland Opera’s new artistic adviser can sing, but she also wants to rap.
My Essential Seven: Karen Slack An opera star talks Starbucks, YouTube and wanting to be a rapper. BY BE N N E T T C A M P B E L L FE RGUS O N
Karen Slack is an opera star who secretly wants to be a rapper. “My husband says I’m the worst rapper on the planet,” she says. “[He] keeps saying, ‘You are ridiculous, you need to stop.’ It really takes a brilliant mind to be able to put words together in that way—the flow, how they do it, the clever hook.” If there’s anybody who knows about musical flow, it’s Slack, a soprano with a singing voice as smooth as glass and as rich as gelato. At 18, she became the youngest-ever winner of the Rosa Ponselle International Competition for the Vocal Arts at New York’s Alice Tully Hall, which is just one of the many accolades she has accrued. Her incandescent talents have also illuminated Tosca, Aida and Porgy and Bess, and she recently accepted a new role— serving as an artistic adviser to Portland Opera. Slack, who lives in Philadelphia, has plans for PDX: “I hope to help [general director] Sue Dixon and the organization move into the 21st century, and to be reflective of what the community would love to see on the stage.” WW spoke to Slack about her on and offstage passions, covering everything from poetry to caffeine.
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3. The ocean I love the sea. Through my travels, I’ve been able to put my toe in the Mediterranean Sea and been able to swim in the Caribbean. My birthday is Sept. 22, and so that’s way after Labor Day, when all the beach bums from Atlantic City and Wildwood are gone. I just like to sit on the beach for my birthday and reflect on my year and feel fall in the air. It’s very reflective of how we should think. We are all one. We are all connected, just like the water. 4. Museums Everywhere I go, I try to visit a museum. I love history. That was always my favorite class in school. Being an opera singer, it all makes sense now. You’ll be thinking of going to a town and just singing with a symphony, and then you get there and you learn the history of the place and go to these local museums, and you get a better gauge of what that place meant—and means—to people. 5. Live opera and hip-hop There’s nothing like live music, and I think that that’s why so many people are mourning the time that we’re in—we can’t get together, we can’t sing together, we can’t perform together, we can’t be together in that space. There’s nothing that can replace the sound of a human operatic voice coming out, pouring out from somewhere—the stage, the orchestra. We must get back to the theater. 6. Black female poets Nikki Giovanni, Alice Walker, Audre Lorde, Lucille Clifton…I mean, I could just go on and on. I feel connected to them and I feel proud. Specifically, because of the kind of world that we’re in right now— with Black Lives Matter and all the movements and Say Her Name—as a community of women, we need to be uplifted. And when I read poetry and words by Black female poets, it helps me understand who I am, what I want to say and have the courage to speak truth—my truth—and to speak freely. 7. Starbucks Caffè Verona coffee It’s essential. It saves lots of lives. It complements chocolate cake, and that’s exactly what I love. My day’s not going to go well unless I’ve had a little bit of Caffè Verona. You say you like Starbucks, it’s like sacrilege to many people…but there’s something about Verona I like.
BOOKS
Written by: Scout Brobst Contact: sbrobst@wweek.com
FIVE BOOKS FOR MANIFESTING FALL Autumn, Ali Smith Yes, a book called Autumn is low-hanging fruit. But Ali Smith’s novel is less about yellowing leaves and seasonal baking than it is about change— personal, social and systemic. Daniel Gluck and Elisabeth Demand are an unlikely, mismatched pairing: He is 69 years her senior, quietly dying and wedded to the past. She is in her 30s, aged out of greenness and firm in her commitment to Gluck. Meanwhile, the world itself is shocked into consciousness by Brexit. “That’s the thing about things,” Smith writes. “They fall apart, always have, always will, it’s in their nature.”
The October Country, Ray Bradbury Sixty-five years after publication, Ray Bradbury’s grisly collection of short stories still sets the precedent for gothic horror and seasonal indulgence. For some unknown reason, stories about bodies in lakes and jars that can sever the ties of marriage just don’t hit the same in the sunny months. For Bradbury, The October Country is left to the people who think only autumnal thoughts, who live in the spaces where the “hills are fog” and the “rivers are mist.” Portland, in all its oppressive heat, has not arrived at October Country yet, but enough wishful thinking may hurry the process along.
August, Romina Paula Not for the faint of heart—or the world weary— Romina Paula’s August is an especially candid walk through loss, grief and the frailty of the human spirit. Private and confessional, Paula writes of a 21-year-old woman burdened by the death of a friend, coming of age in reverse and reluctantly returning home to the foothills of Argentina. “Freeing the monster wouldn’t offer me more than two possible fates,” Paula writes. “Either it would devour me or it would request my hand in marriage.”
Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro The world Ishiguro constructs in Never Let Me Go is not our own, but it is well worth taking the weekend to sit down and imagine that it is—that there are diseases that can be cured with human costs and technologies that reduce the body to its smallest parts in the name of the greater good. The book is haunting, but the immersion is cathartic. It is almost too easy to fall into Ishiguro’s imagery of the idyllic English countryside, watching the seasons shift on a pastoral estate. Summer, fall, winter and spring each bring the characters closer to a life beyond recognition.
The Shepherd’s Life, James Rebanks As for alternative lives in alternative universes, James Rebanks has established the model. The son of a shepherd who was himself the son of a shepherd, the Rebankses have lived and worked in the Lake District of Northern England alongside sloping hills, reflective water and an abundance of sheep for more years than records can grant. Here, the sheep guide the seasons, ordering life and allowing those who tend to them to dissociate from modern demands. The memoir is timely, as romanticizing ruralism from afar is all the rage these days.
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ART AND RACE MATTERS The Career of Robert Colescott Through December 13, 2020
Robert Colescott, 1919, 1980, Acrylic on Canvas, 71 3/4 x 83 7/8 inches. © 2019 Estate of Robert Colescott / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Courtesy of the Estate and Blum & Poe, Los Angeles/New York/Tokyo.
portlandartmuseum.org
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MOVIES
GET YO UR REPS I N
Editor: Andi Prewitt / Contact: aprewitt@wweek.com A L LY S O N R I G G S / N E T F L I X
SCREENER
While local rep theaters are out of commission, we’ll be putting together weekly watchlists of films readily available to stream. This week, in honor of the great actor Chadwick Boseman’s passing, we highlight some of the most memorable and under-the-radar roles of his all-tooshort career.
42 (2013) In his breakout role, Boseman plays the groundbreaking Jackie Robinson, chronicling his myriad struggles and triumphs that pepper his journey to becoming the first Black Major League Baseball player. His layered, tenacious performance was cited by Marvel execs as being a key factor in his casting as T’Challa in Black Panther (2018). Amazon Prime, Google Play, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube.
Get On Up (2014) A TROUBLED TRIO: The kleptos from Trinkets face more challenges in Season 2.
Larceny and the Real Girls The heroines of Netflix’s Portland-set shoplifting saga Trinkets keep swiping right…and wrong. BY JAY H O RTO N
@hortland
When Trinkets was renewed for a second season shortly after its June 2019 premiere, few industry insiders seemed surprised. While only its streaming masters knew for sure just how many viewers were actually watching, the high school rom-dram met the usual criteria for survival: adoration from a desirable demographic (teenage girls), star-kissed source material (the show was adapted from Legally Blonde screenwriter Kirsten “Kiwi” Smith’s YA novel), and the greater Portlandia setting evidently preferred for Netflix tales of frustrated adolescence (see: Everything Sucks!, American Vandal, All Together Now). If anything, Trinkets’ unique plot about a group of kleptomaniacs who bond because of their shoplifting habit appeared to be an automatic green light for continued renewal. But the latest string of 10 episodes, released in late August, will be the last. Truth be told, this particular series began coasting soon after Shoplifters Anonymous brought our mismatched trio together. Last summer’s distinctly meandering deep dive inside the pockets of three none too especially complicated teen thieves left few questions hanging. Even the climactic episode’s cliffhanger—when blossoming wallflower Elodie (Brianna Hildebrand) runs away from home to follow her indie songstress crush on tour—didn’t tease coming revelations, which are simply a return to dreary squabbling and court-mandated recovery programs. Season 2 begins a couple of days after the first one left off and sees the heroines slowly returning to form. Discovering that life on a tour bus isn’t all tickle fights and giggles, Elodie drifts away from the eternal after-party to pluck out tunes on a pilfered ukulele. Back in Lake Oswego, Tabitha (Quintessa Swindell) and Moe (Kiana Madeira) have mostly escaped punishment for boosting, crashing and then sinking the beloved car of Tabitha’s abusive ex, Brady (Brandon Butler), and she celebrates her newfound freedom by seeking out the company of brooding bartender Luka (Henry Zaga). Meanwhile, Moe 28
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takes to day drinking her way through a brief suspension from school for hitting Brady when he threatens to go to the police about the car unless Tabitha starts dating him again. Hardly the first show to adopt an adolescent’s point of view, Trinkets perhaps uniquely relishes the blinkered perspective and skewed risk assessment teenage self-obsession affords. We root onward each crime spree. We ignore all hints of dependency issues. We bristle against every sign of parental dominance by imperfect guardians, no matter how benevolent their intentions are. Also, importantly, we forget just how young these girls are supposed to be. While the second batch of episodes is flawed, Hildebrand (Deadpool, The Exorcist) gives a bravura performance, trading in aggrieved sorrow, active bitch face and smoldering bemusement. In the rare instances her character does lose her cool—lashing out at her harmless stepmom for modifying a family sweet potato recipe—the effect is less like roiling teenage pettiness than a hot flash of spinster aunt judgment. Trinkets, once again, references its Portland settings so weirdly often that the Rose City feels utterly intrinsic to some underlying vision. However seriously we’re meant to take the relentless upsell of Puddletown as woke Narnia for sulky “creatives,” the show is an unfailingly gorgeous travelogue that throws a spotlight on the shiniest aspects of a storied cityscape colonized by younger, sleeker, steelyeyed careerists. At the end of the day, capping its run at 20 episodes might have made the most sense, simply because the heroines grew progressively less likable. The sort of profound egotism forgivable during a first relationship reads as worryingly corrosive by the second. To a certain extent, the show always worked best as dreamily pleasant wish fulfillment: a consequence-free glide through the late wonder years where the angles always flatter. SEE IT: Season 2 of Trinkets streams on Netflix.
Another biopic, this one centers on the life of funk singer James Brown (Boseman), is told nonlinearly, jumping around sporadically from the 1930s to the 1990s. Boseman performed all of his own dancing and even some of the singing, earning critical acclaim for his dynamic portrayal. HBO Go, HBO Max.
Message From the King (2016) After learning his younger sister Bianca is in danger, Jacob King (Boseman) is drawn from his home of Cape Town, South Africa, all the way to Los Angeles to save her. When he arrives, he embarks on a bloody tour of vengeance. In addition to starring in this tense revenge thriller, Boseman also served as executive producer. Netflix.
Marshall (2017)
Boseman co-produced and starred in this legal drama as the titular Thurgood Marshall before he became the very first Black Supreme Court Justice. Here, he’s an NAACP lawyer in the 1940s, tasked with navigating one of the most complex cases of his career. The film premiered at Howard University, where Boseman earned an honorary degree and delivered a compelling commencement address. Amazon Prime, Google Play, Vudu, YouTube.
Da 5 Bloods (2020) Spike Lee’s epic follows a group of Vietnam War vets who return to the country in order to recover the remains of their late squad leader: the valiant Stormin’ Norman (Boseman). While it’s not technically his final performance (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is slated for release on Netflix later this year), it’s nevertheless a fitting farewell. Netflix.
C N T R AV E L L E R . C O M
MOVIES TOP PICK OF THE WEEK
The Personal History of David Copperfield Bonk! Bonk! Bonk! Bonk! In a single scene from The Personal History of David Copperfield, David (Dev Patel) bangs his noggin four times, channeling the deliciously manic energy that director Armando Iannucci (The Death of Stalin) brings to this adaptation of Charles Dickens’ novel. Tales of orphans looking for love and profit are ripe for slick sentiment, but Iannucci amplifies the story’s comedic absurdities without sacrificing its emotional force. At 119 minutes, the film is too trim—an extra half-hour would have allowed Iannucci to more credibly chronicle David’s transformation from a child laborer in a bottling factory into a gangly yet graceful gentleman. Yet there’s no resisting the cast (especially Peter Capaldi as the merry charlatan Mr. Micawber and Ben Whishaw as the pious swindler Uriah Heep), and while Iannucci revels in the story’s goofier episodes—including the theft of a concertina from a pawnshop—he captures David’s growth with moving sincerity. “Don’t worry,” David tells his younger self in a fantasy scene. “You’ll make it through.” At a moment when too many of us are wondering if we’ll make it, that message of resilience is at once inspiring and comforting. PG. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Virtual Cinema. OUR KEY
: T H I S M O V I E I S E XC E L L E N T, O N E O F T H E B E S T O F T H E Y E A R. : T H I S M O V I E I S G O O D. W E R E C O M M E N D YO U WATC H I T. : T H I S M O V I E I S E N T E R TA I N I N G B U T F L AW E D. : T H I S M O V I E I S A P I E C E O F S H I T.
ALSO PLAYING Boys State Politics makes strange bedfellows, and as the new VOD release Boys State showcases, large-scale political simulations bring about some weird-ass dormmates. The documentary by Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine, the married couple behind 2014’s Sundancewinning The Overnighters, follows an engaging quartet—Reaganobsessed double-amputee Ben, loquacious Chicago expat Rene, hunky silver-spooner Robert, and progressive Mexican American Steven—among the 1,100 teens invited to participate in Texas’ 78th annual Boys State. Remarkably, apart from some sneering glimpses of a young Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh and other members of the literal old boys’ club, the camera rarely stops to relish the scenes of future policy wonks at the peak of teenage awkwardness. Considering that the documentary opens with a George Washington quote warning us about the tyranny of political parties and features spliced footage of a raccoon sifting through garbage, the filmmakers appear helplessly drawn to the nihilist joys of rooting on participants as they fashion fake platforms to sell fake campaigns for a fake governorship in a manner that is troublingly real. And while Robert’s exceedingly electable brand of swagger is surely intended as a cautionary tale, there’s no reason why natural charisma should be any worse a qualification for leadership than instinctive talents for demagoguery or manipulation. Even if this game isn’t rigged, the best players feel inherently suspect, nevertheless. PG-13. JAY HORTON. AppleTV+.
THE PERSONAL HISTORY OF DAVID COPPERFIELD
A Girl Missing With the revenge preoccupations of Park Chan-wook but the no-frills living-room style of Ken Loach, Japanese writer-director Koji Fukada makes movies about the echoes of guilt. The successor to his 2016 high-water mark Harmonium, A Girl Missing witnesses the unraveling and transformation of a devoted nurse named Ichiko (played by Fukada favorite Mariko Tsutsui) into a lonely woman about town. Her character shift is brought on by Ichiko’s nephew dispassionately abducting the granddaughter of a patient, but this kidnapping mystery is only the initial thread in one of 2020’s knottiest films. As with Harmonium, Fukada entrenches audiences in the darkest possible subject matter but omits violence or action that could rack up points for shock, style or catharsis. His tastes are unflappably drab. Meanwhile, Mariko is outstanding as a trusting woman realizing too late that accusations about the kidnapping are rippling her way. For the most part, A Girl Missing is a writing achievement. At only 40, Fukada seems a whisker away from resounding international acclaim, but he keeps stiff-arming audiences back from any version of narrative or experiential gratification. Still, if you dig a fathoms-deep script about guilt coming home to roost, consider this a loud but conflicted endorsement. NR. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Virtual Cinema.
She Dies Tomorrow Amy (Kate Lyn Sheil) knows for a fact she’s going to die tomorrow. She’s seen things. Heard things. She knows. Obviously, her best friend Jane (Jane Adams) doesn’t believe her at first. But then Jane begins having the same
ominous visions. Now, Jane knows for a fact that she’s going to die tomorrow. As does Jane’s brother (Chris Messina) and his wife and her friends, etc., etc. In most mainstream thrillers, we’d probably see the characters team up to fight death, but writer-director Amy Seimetz is detached from narrative convention, and her kaleidoscopic sophomore feature is, honestly, a lot less thrilling than it sounds. This is by no means a negative— it’s contemplative and challenging, harnessing dread from the fatal contagion of existentialist-fueled anxiety. In Seimetz’s neon-soaked world, death is a natural process, something to resign to instead of futilely resist. Though some viewers may find the aimless ambiguity baffling, this is a film to fully feel with all senses—to marinate in—rather than agonize over the intentional lack of logic and answers. Anxiety itself is often irrational, so this is Seimetz’s impressionistic response to that all too ubiquitous frustration. Embrace it. R. MIA VICINO. Google Play.
Martin Margiela: In His Own Words No matter how often haute couture may borrow from Hollywood imagery, the silver screen rarely flatters our more fashion-forward designers. Films about the people behind the big-name clothing labels tend to accentuate their most cartoonish eccentricities—showing so-called visionaries leaning into the silliest flourishes of their own branding with a grim determination that borders on self-parody. The same cannot be said about the new documentary Martin Margiela: In His Own Words, which examines the career of the famously private avant-garde Belgian style icon, who abruptly
left his own studio after his final 2008 show. The film does present an engaging opportunity to evade Zoolandrian caricature when fleshing out a designer known for his deconstructive strategies steeped in found-object whimsy—he has turned everything from a leather butcher’s apron to a broken dish into high fashion. And Margiela’s participation as narrator allows for thoughtful reflection and, since only his hands are shown, keeps the fashion world’s answer to Banksy wrapped in an air of mystery. However, director Reiner Holzemer never bothers to speculate how his subject’s guiding passions interrelate, resulting in a portrait that’s never quite as lively or unconventional as Margiela’s creations. For all but the most hardcore fashionista superfans, less really isn’t more this time. NR. JAY HORTON. Virtual Cinema.
Measure for Measure If you ever wanted to see a Shakespeare movie with a mass shooting, now is your chance. The Bard may have written Measure for Measure as a comedy, but director Paul Ireland has reimagined it as a grim crime flick. The film updates the story (and the dialogue) for modern-day Melbourne, where two young lovers, Jaiwara and Claudio (Megan Hajjar and Harrison Gilbertson), are wrenched apart by a false accusation. Their last hope is Duke (Hugo Weaving), a slovenly gangster whose imperious beard is matched only by his power in the Australian underworld. Weaving (who also played the sinister Agent Smith in The Matrix) is as lordly as ever, and Hajjar and Gilbertson are sweet as two kids whose towering passions belie their tender ages. Yet their performances can’t conceal the film’s failure to answer the questions about love, loyalty and religion
that it raises. Jaiwara is a Muslim immigrant, but Measure for Measure callously dismisses faith as an annoying obstacle to her love life. It’s enough to make you wonder if the film believes in anything at all, or if its pretensions are as flimsy as Duke’s signature burgundy bathrobe. NR. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. On Demand.
Words on Bathroom Walls Adam Petrazelli (Charlie Plummer) is, for the most part, an average teenager. He dreams of being a chef, cooks for his divorced mother (Molly Parker), and crushes on his cute tutor, Maya (Taylor Russell). At the same time, he has chronic hallucinations caused by schizophrenia. His new medication seems to be working at first, but when he begins to experience detrimental side effects, Adam must decide what’s most important: his sanity, his relationship with Maya, or his culinary aspirations. Based on Julia Walton’s eponymous novel, this coming-of-age drama is at its best when it’s poking holes in the self-flagellating and false ideation that those who struggle with mental illness don’t deserve love. It’s an all-too-common burden to bear and quite an interesting one to explore, even if it occasionally feels crafted by and for people without mental disorders. For example, the over-the-top visualization of schizophrenia reads as inaccurate, and the three people Adam constantly hallucinates (a bohemian hippie girl, an often-shirtless playboy, and a raging bodybuilder) are stereotypical archetypes. Despite these trite flaws, the saccharine story itself is a valiant effort that could provide much-needed validation for alienated teens grappling with similar issues. PG-13. MIA VICINO. Virtual Cinema.
Willamette Week SEPTEMBER 2, 2020 wweek.com
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ART & COMICS S T E P H A N I E C H E FA S P R OJ E C T S
FEATURED ARTIST: JEREMY OKAI DAVIS Jeremy Okai Davis (b. Charlotte, NC) received a BFA in painting from the University of North Carolina. Davis relocated to Portland, OR in 2007 where he has continued his studio practice in addition to working as a graphic designer and illustrator. His work has shown nationally. Davis’s work resides in the Lonnie B. Harris Black Cultural Center at Oregon State University and the University of Oregon’s permanent collection.
FAVORITE THINGS curated by JEREMY OKAI DAVIS
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Jack draws exactly what he sees n’ hears from the streets. IG @sketchypeoplepdx kentcomics.com
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Willamette Week SEPTEMBER 2, 2020 wweek.com
JONESIN’
Week of September 10
©2020 Rob Brezsny
by Matt Jones
"Join Up!" -- Two and two are indeed four. [#215, Aug. 2005]
ARIES (March 21-April 19)
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22)
"It’s not that some people have willpower and some don’t," observes author James S. Gordon. "Rather, it’s that some people are ready to change and others are not." Lucky for you, Aries! Your willpower is even more potent than usual right now, and your willingness to change is growing stronger. And so very soon now, I expect you will reach the threshold that enables you to act crisply and forcefully. You will become so convinced that it's wise to instigate transformation that you will just naturally instigate transformation. Adjust, adapt, improvise, improve!
"The more unintelligent people are, the less mysterious existence seems to them," wrote philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. I agree with that idea, as well as the converse: The more intelligent people are, the more mysterious existence seems to them. Since I expect you to be at the peak of your soulful intelligence in the coming weeks, I am quite sure that life will be exquisitely mysterious to you. It's true that some of its enigmatic qualities may be murky and frustrating, but I suspect that many of them will be magical and delightful. If you ever wanted your life to resemble a poetic art film, you're going to get your wish.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20)
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21)
Psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi is an expert on the mental state known as being in the flow. He defines it as what happens when you're completely absorbed in what you are doing: "immersed in a feeling of energized focus," with "full involvement and enjoyment in the process of the activity." According to my reading of the astrological omens, you are extra likely to enjoy such graceful interludes in the coming weeks. But I hope you will be discerning about how you use them. I mean, you could get into a flow playing video games or doing sudoku puzzles. But God and Life and I would prefer it if you'll devote those times to working on a sublime labor of love or a highly worthy quest.
Comedian and actor Aubrey Plaza bragged about the deal she made. "I sold my soul to the devil," she said. "I’d like to thank the devil." Plaza is quite popular and successful, so who knows? Maybe the Prince of Darkness did indeed give her a boost. But I really hope you don't regard her as a role model in the coming weeks—not even in jest. What worked for Plaza won't work for you. Diabolical influences that may seem tempting will not, in the long run, serve your interests—and may even sabotage them. Besides, more benevolent forces will be available to you, and at a better price.
GEMINI (May 21-June20)
ACROSS
49 Wind dir.
24 Outdo in
1 Starts the golf game
50 Mass _ _ _ (Boston thoroughfare, to locals)
26 Pt. of ESL
51 Play cowritten by Mark Twain and Bret Harte
28 Shat this clue has
According to researcher Rosalind Cartwright, "Memory is never a precise duplicate of the original. It is a continuing act of creation." Neurologist Oliver Sacks agrees, telling us, "Memories are not fixed or frozen, but are transformed, disassembled, reassembled, and recategorized with every act of recollection." Reams of additional evidence also suggest that our experience of the past is always being transformed. In accordance with astrological potentials, I invite you to take advantage of this truth. Re-imagine your life story so it has more positive spins. Re-envision the plot threads so that redemption and rebirth are major features. Engage in a playful reworking of your memories so that the epic myth of your destiny serves your future happiness and success.
29 Took on, as a burden
CANCER (June 21-July 22)
8 Steel worker of sorts 15 All pointy and line-y 16 Season division 17 Yell directed at a muchhated portal? 18 Speedo bunch? 19 Org. 20 "Classic Concentration" puzzle type 22 Word before Moines or Plaines 23 Target of crunches 25 "Charlotte's Web" author White and namesakes 26 In _ _ _ (actually) 27 Voicemail message opener, if you know someone well 30 Georgia airport code
53 Prepare the day before 57 Drink Mencken called "The only American invention as perfect as the sonnet"
27 "If _ _ _ be so bold ..."
30 Redundant-sounding cash dispenser 31 Dominant figures
60 Library's attempt at copying milk ads?
33 "_ _ _ of Me" (1993 PJ Harvey album)
62 Like leftovers
34 Auction grouping
63 Ripken's team
35 Capital home to a Viking Ship Museum
64 He's a little froggy 65 Keep in check DOWN 1 Fanfare noise 2 Deputy played by Michael Weston in the "Dukes of Hazzard" movie
36 Ultra-bright 41 Go quickly 42 Muscle that makes things stand upright 46 Entire range 47 Trump's ex 48 Dashboard
31 One-named comedian and host of "Celebrity Fit Club"
3 They're stroked but not seen
49 Annoy your bedmate, in a way
32 "What'll break if I break up with you" response, for a thuggish couple?
4 Sarkisian, for Cher, once
52 Composer Stravinsky
5 Gathering dust
54 Part of a reversal, maybe
37 Where letters are sent to the mil.
6 County gatherings 7 Like some refills
55 Actor Ed in a famous "Tonight Show" tomahawkthrowing stunt
38 Futuristic van Damme flick of 1994 39 Sweet suffix 40 Vegetarian's "Duh!" response to why they hate their formerly vegan pal? 43 Brit or kiddie follower 44 Actress Jillian 45 Illegal lighting 46 Early gay rights advocate AndrÈ 48 Campus comedy with a cameo by George Clinton
8 Lincoln or Grant, e.g. 9 Not-quite-ready-to-fold remark 10 Tayback who played Mel on "Alice" 11 Lang. that doesn't really contain that many words for "snow" 12 Forest floor growth 13 Blurry area, maybe 14 Witherspoon who played an angel in "Little Nicky" 21 Confidential phrase
©2005, 2020 Jonesin’ Crosswords (editor@jonesincrosswords.com) For answers to this puzzle, call: 1-900-226-2800, 99 cents per minute. Must be 18+. Or to bill to your credit card, call: 1-800-655-6548. Reference puzzle #JNZ990.
56 Pigsty 58 Phone line invasion 59 Lance of the O.J. trial 61 Leave change on the table
last week’s answers
All of us are susceptible to fooling ourselves and lying to ourselves. And all of us are susceptible to the cowardice that such self-sabotage generates. But the good news is that you Cancerians will have an expansive capacity to dissolve and rise above self-deception in the coming weeks—and will therefore be able to call on a great deal of courage. As Cancerian author and Buddhist teacher Pema Chödrön says, "The essence of bravery is being without self-deception."
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) If you like, I will give you the waning crescent moon and the dawn breeze. Do you want them? How about sudden bursts of joy for no apparent reasons and a warm greeting from a person you thought had a problem with you? Would you be interested in having those experiences? And what about an unexpected insight into how to improve your financial situation and a message from the future about how to acquire more stability and security? Are those blessings you might enjoy? Everything I just named will be possible in the coming weeks—especially if you formulate a desire to receive them and ask life to provide them.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21) Many of you Sagittarians specialize in generous breakthroughs and invigorating leaps of truth. Often, you make them look easy and natural—so much so that people may not realize how talented you are in generating them. I hope you adjust for that by giving yourself the proper acknowledgment and credit. If this phenomenon shows up in the coming weeks—and I suspect it might—please take strenuous measures to ensure that you register the fullness of your own accomplishments. To do so will be crucial in enabling those accomplishments to ripen to their highest potential.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) Holocaust survivor and author Elie Wiesel wrote, "When you die and go to heaven, our maker is not going to ask, 'why didn't you discover the cure for such and such? why didn't you become the Messiah?' The only question we will be asked in that precious moment is 'why didn't you become you?'" I hope that serves as a stimulating challenge for you, Capricorn. The fact is that you are in an extended phase when it's easier than usual to summon the audacity and ingenuity necessary to become more fully yourself than you have ever been before.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18) Years ago, comedian Lenny Bruce observed, "Every day people are straying away from the church and going back to God." His statement is even truer today than it was then. Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan think tank, has gathered the concrete evidence. Church attendance was way down even before the pandemic struck. Now it's even lower. What does this have to do with you? In my astrological opinion, the coming months will be prime time for you to build your intimate and unique relationship with God rather than with institutions that have formulaic notions about who and what God is. A similar principle will be active in other ways, as well. You'll thrive by drawing energy from actual sources and firsthand experiences rather than from systems and ideologies that supposedly represent those sources and experiences.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22)
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20)
Virgo poet Mary Oliver was renowned for giving herself permission. Permission to do what? To become a different person from the self she had been. To shed her familiar beliefs and adopt new ones. To treat every experience as an opportunity to experiment. To be at peace with uncertainty. I think you'll be wise to give yourself all those permissions in the coming weeks—as well as others that would enhance your freedom to be and do whatever you want to be and do. Here's another favorite Mary Oliver permission that I hope you'll offer yourself: "And I say to my heart: rave on."
Psychologist Carl Jung wrote, "The function of dreams is to restore our psychological balance by producing dream material that re-establishes the total psychic equilibrium." According to my reading of the astrological omens, you especially need this kind of action right now. To expedite your healing process, meditate on what aspects of your life might have become too extreme or one-sided. Where could you apply compensatory energy to establish better equipoise? What top-heavy or lopsided or wobbly situations could benefit from bold, imaginative strokes of counterbalance?
HOMEWORK: What's the best possible commotion you could stir up—a healing commotion that would help heal and liberate you? FreeWillAstrology.com. Check out Rob Brezsny’s Expanded Weekly Audio Horoscopes & Daily Text Message Horoscopes
freewillastrology.com The audio horoscopes are also available by phone at
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