WILLAMETTE WEEK PORTLAND’S NEWSWEEKLY
T HE SPEED YOU CAT CH WILL MAKE YOU CRY. P. 21 WWEEK.COM
VOL 47/17 02.24.2021
HOMEMADE Five Portland artists let us peek into their quarantine creative spaces. Here's what we found. | Page 10
NEWS
Lost in the Gorge. P. 7 Frida Kahlo & Iris Apfel Puppets by Katy Strutz Page 11
HEALT H
The Pandemic's Groundhog Days. P. 9
fOOD
Pate and PB&Js. P. 24
ENDURING SKILLS FOR AN
EVOLVING WORLD
Julian Dunn, MBA ’21, credits the Oregon Executive MBA in Portland with the two promotions he earned during his first year in the program. Starting an MBA “demonstrated that I’m looking to take more of a leadership role,” said Dunn, who currently serves as director of product marketing at a software company.
EO/AA/ADA institution committed to cultural diversity
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Willamette Week FEBRUARY 24, 2021 wweek.com
FINDINGS
J O N AT H A N I N T H AV O N G
STREET, PAGE 16
WHAT WE LEARNED FROM READING THIS WEEK’S PAPER VOL. 47, ISSUE 17 Amazon workers in Troutdale are talking about a
A local arts organization is filming a “jazz opera” under a bridge in North Portland. 15
Applications for Multnomah County food cart
There’s a new monument on Mount Tabor, and no one’s sure who created it. 19
On day three of his ordeal in the Columbia River Gorge, a lost hiker started drinking his own urine. 7
Slovenia does not run on Dame Time. 20
union. 5
licenses increased 63% in 2020. 6
If COVID-19 variants outrace vaccinations, Oregon could see 600 hospitalizations on any given day. 9
Portland’s favorite rollerblading advice columnist is helping open a store dedicated entirely to, yes, rollerblades. 21
Willy Vlautin writes at a desk from a 1930s hotel that has “Slayer” carved into it. 10
You’ve heard of a CSA. Now Portland is getting a CSB —community-supported bakery. 23
Puppet maker Katy Strutz is very proud of her bins of doll hair. 11
A new food cart is serving both duck pâté and grilled PB&Js. 24
Filmmaker Alberta Poon’s home office has a “corner
The Roots emcee Tariq Trotter, aka Black Thought, declared that he is retiring in Oregon. 28
of hell.” 12
A company refused to print textile artist Vo Vo’s design because it didn’t want to support “ the situation there in Portland, Ore.” 13
ON THE COVER:
WILLAMETTE WEEK PORTLAND’S NEWSWEEKLY
MASTHEAD EDITOR & PUBLISHER
Mark Zusman
EDITORIAL
News Editor Aaron Mesh Arts & Culture Editor Matthew Singer Assistant A&C Editor Andi Prewitt Music & Visual Arts Editor Shannon Gormley Staff Writers Nigel Jaquiss, Latisha Jensen, Rachel Monahan, Tess Riski Copy Editor Matt Buckingham
WILLAMETTE WEEK IS PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY CITY OF ROSES MEDIA COMPANY
T HE SPEED YOU CAT CH WILL MAKE YOU CRY. P. 21
Frida Kahlo and Iris Apfel stop-motion puppets by Katy Strutz, photo by Christine Dong.
HOMEMADE
OUR MOST TRAFFICKED STORY ONLINE THIS WEEK: Forget Pompeii. Is Portland the next Detroit?
Five Portland artists let us peek into their quarantine creative spaces. Here's what we found. | Page 10
NEWS
Lost in the Gorge. P. 7 Frida Kahlo Iris Apfel & Puppets by Katy Strutz Page 11
HEALT H
The Pandemic's Groundhog Days. P. 9
fOOD
Pates and PB&Js. P. 24
WWEEK.COM
VOL 47/17 02.24.2021
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DIALOGUE Oregon
MARKETS R A T C E N D BY PRESENTE
) PM (PST 0 3 : 5 | 021 CH 12, 2 R A M | FRIDAY
Last week’s WW cover story examined the state of downtown Portland (“Knocked Down Town,” Feb. 17, 2021). The blocks surrounding the federal courthouse have become a fixation of national news pundits, who declared downtown a war zone during last summer’s protests, and now use images of a boarded-up shops as evidence for this city’s decline. So WW reporters spent days in the city’s heart, interviewing everyone from a contractor who covers up busted windows with plywood to cashiers at gas stations and convenience stores. Here’s what our readers had to say: Amber Linkh via Facebook: “Why is downtown the most important neighborhood? Because it has a mall? Local businesses are all over this city. There are neighborhoods that are full of a lot more art and culture than downtown.” Claire Eliese Luttmer via Facebook: “Bring back unique shops that are affordable if you want locals downtown. Otherwise, it’s just going to stay a highend tourist trap.” Ryan Kunzer via Facebook: “For those wanting to know why downtown is the most important neighborhood, it’s because of tourism. It brought in $5.6 billion to our city in 2019 alone. I know how many Portlanders think about tourists, but all those great restaurants, pubs, beautiful parks on the eastside wouldn’t exist without a downtown full of tourists bringing their money into our city.”
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Mitch Craft via Facebook: “We literally boarded everything up in March. It’s been that way since March! It’s not ‘riots,’ it’s not ‘protests,’ it’s the fucking global pandemic. I know, ’cause I remember when we and all of our neighbors hung the boards.”
Dr. Know
StuB, via wweek.com: “The obituary has been written as far as we’re concerned. My wife and I finally have been returning recently to downtown after many months staying away to get a feel for it as we soon need to re-up our Oregon Symphony season tickets for what will be our 23rd consecutive year. Three weeks ago, we went to Southpark Seafood near the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall and were sitting outside under the ‘tarp’ having a drink when a brazen young man walked up to us, grabbed my wife’s purse off her arm, and spirited away. The damage to downtown’s vibrancy and safe feel is here to stay until the people of Portland elect some leadership that is not feckless. That is a good decade away, in my estimation.” Nick Petersen via Facebook: “I see this as reinventing ourselves. I grew up here and I love this city, even when it drives me crazy. This is a wakeup call to do things better: to confront institutional racism and gentrification, investing in neighborhoods to make them livable, and to actually house the de-housed, rather than warehouse them. We need to stop focusing on making Portland a white hipster wonderland and invest in all populations equally, which requires local leaders brave to do so; sadly, most of ours lack the backbone. It’ll be tough. But we can do this.” @jochely3 via Twitter: “If you think the demographics and location of this city won’t be attractive to investment and development after COVID, you’re sorely mistaken. Seattle didn’t die in the ’70s even though many predicted it would. Portland has the same upside. No one I know is leaving.” 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
BY MART Y SMITH @martysmithxxx
We’re coming off of an historic power outage across the state, caused by an ice storm. It follows outages last year caused by high winds and downed trees. Why don’t we put our electric lines underground? —Hannah C. If you think underground power lines sound like a good idea for Oregon, Hannah, imagine how folks feel about them in California. After all, it was above-ground power lines that triggered the catastrophic (if poorly named) Camp Fire that leveled 19,000 buildings and killed 85 people in 2018. Liability for that (plus a similar fire in 2017, because apparently this happens all the time) cost PG&E $11 billion. We will generously assume that the human toll of these disasters also weighs upon the consciences of utility executives. You’d think that if anyone would be motivated to put their power lines underground, it would be fire-ravaged California. And yet it hasn’t happened. It also hasn’t happened in hurricane-ravaged North Carolina or, as you point out, in ice-storm-ravaged Oregon. The reason, I’m sure you’ll be shocked to learn, is money. Here’s the problem: Building a mile of overhead transmission line costs about $800,000. Building a mile of underground power line, meanwhile, costs
$3 million to $4 million. And, of course, leaving a mile of existing line right where it is and going out for a beer costs approximately $6, plus you get a beer. You don’t have to be Elon Musk to see how the incentives pencil out in this situation. Sure, the $11B settlement that sent PG&E to bankruptcy court (don’t worry, they’ll pull through) may sound brutal, but it’s chump change compared to the estimated $243 billion—that’s approximately $54,000 per customer—it would cost to underground the whole grid. I haven’t seen an estimate for doing the same in or around Portland, but proposals for other jurisdictions all seem to involve everybody’s electric bill doubling or tripling forever, which for roughly 363.5 days out of the year is a tough sell to ratepayers. But look on the bright side: It’s true that overhead lines are more vulnerable to wind, ice and fire, but those fancy underground lines are more vulnerable to earthquakes. Which kind is more vulnerable to Earth, Wind & Fire isn’t recorded, but you probably shouldn’t blast “Boogie Wonderland” during a natural disaster just in case. QUESTIONS? Send them to dr.know@wweek.com.
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REP. DIEGO HERNANDEZ
HERNANDEZ RESIGNS: After U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken on Feb. 20 rejected a plea from state Rep. Diego Hernandez (D-East Portland) to block a vote to expel him from the Oregon House, Hernandez resigned Feb. 21 rather than wait to see if 40 or more of the 60 members of the House would eject him. A couple of years ago, Hernandez appeared poised for higher office. But since WW first reported March 25, 2020, that a former girlfriend had filed for a restraining order against him—later withdrawn—other women came forward with complaints of harassment, leading the House Conduct Committee earlier this month to vote for his expulsion. Rather than face a floor vote, Hernandez, 33, told Oregon Public Broadcasting on Sunday night he would resign the seat he had just won for a third time in November. Multnomah County commissioners will now begin the process of selecting his replacement—a process that will likely not include the second-place finisher in the November election, community organizer Ashton Simpson. Although Simpson earned a slew of endorsements from Democratic interest groups eager to be rid of Hernandez, he ran as a member of the Working Families Party, not as a Democrat. He subsequently became a Democrat but not in time to meet the statutory requirement for consideration for the appointment. LIGHTS OUT AT MAHONIA HALL: After an ice storm swept across Oregon over Valentine’s Day weekend, the largest power outage in state history left 330,000 Oregonians without electricity. Among them: Gov. Kate Brown. The lights went out at the Oregon governor’s mansion (and in the surrounding neighborhood) at 1:55 am on Feb. 13. Power was restored at 12:48 pm on Feb. 20, Portland General Electric said. Brown slept elsewhere. “The governor and first gentleman stayed at a secure location, which for safety reasons we can’t disclose, while power was being restored,” says spokesman Charles Boyle. “From there and the Capitol, she continued with her duties, responding to the emergency and making sure state resources were being deployed to help Oregonians who needed them.” As of Feb. 23, 13,094 customers of PGE remained without power.
AMAZON WAREHOUSE WORKERS PROTEST CONDITIONS: More than 50 warehouse employees and community members joined a pro-unionization rally Feb. 20 outside an Amazon warehouse in Troutdale that has seen 217 COVID-19 cases. The employees alleged unsafe working conditions and argued they need union protections—the latest example of nationwide labor organizing at Amazon distribution centers. An employee of a North Portland Amazon warehouse, who identified himself as Keith, said he is a military veteran and formerly homeless. “None of that was as difficult as the year and a half I have spent working at an Amazon warehouse,” Keith said. “It is the worst.” Brian Denning, an organizer for the Amazon Workers Solidarity Campaign, said during the rally that social distancing inside the Troutdale warehouse was “virtually impossible” during the pandemic. Amazon defends its safety practices, and adds: “Amazon already offers what unions are requesting for employees.” As WW previously reported, the Troutdale facility requires employees to sign strict confidentiality agreements—a practice that labor lawyers describe as draconian. More than 450 Amazon employees at eight workplaces statewide have tested positive for the virus. BROKEN WINDOWS FOR CAP AND TRADE OPPONENTS: The Oregon Association of Nurseries got an unwanted surprise over the weekend. Executive director Jeff Stone says the first employee to arrive at the organization’s Wilsonville offices Monday morning found 11 windows broken, apparently by somebody with a large slingshot and a big pile of rocks—one rock was still embedded in a conference room wall. Stone says there was no sign of theft or other vandalism. Shaun Jillions, executive director of Oregon Manufacturing and Commerce, says somebody shot a hole in the window of his organization’s office in Salem a couple of weeks ago, also without any theft. Both groups have been outspoken opponents of cap and trade legislation proposed by Democrats in recent legislative sessions. Stone says he has no idea why his group was targeted or whether it had anything to do with OAN’s climate stance. “We’re very active politically,” Stone says, “but we haven’t received any threats or communication of any kind.” Jillions is more suspicious: “It’s probably the environmental stuff. Of course, I can’t prove that.”
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NEWS
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW THIS WEEK
MICK HANGLAND-SKILL
TRENDING
BLACK AND WHITE IN OREGON
Who Has Internet Access? When everyone was sent home, not everyone stayed connected.
CLOSING TIME: 2020 was rough on all businesses, especially restaurants.
As COVID-19 lockdowns crushed restaurants, chefs returned to their old takeout windows. BY NIG E L JAQ UI SS
njaquiss@wweek.com
The COVID -19 pandemic crushed Portland’s economy last year. One indication of how dismal things were: the sharp decline in the number of new business licenses issued by the city of Portland.
Business Licenses Issued by the City of Portland 2018: 24,837 2019: 27,792 2020: 12,643 Source: Portland Office of Management and Finance
The city’s restaurant industry, which faced some of the nation’s tightest pandemic restrictions, was particularly hard hit. The Oregon Restaurant and Lodging Association says that 500 Portland restaurants closed during the year. Balanced against those closures were 330 new openings. But the net loss of 170 and the fact that most eateries that remained open employed skeleton crews for takeout only explains why the restaurant and hospitality sector lost more jobs than any other business sector in the state and why unemployment in Multnomah County (7%) remains higher than the state average (6.4%). 6
Willamette Week FEBRUARY 24, 2021 wweek.com
Even when the news is good for restaurants, it’s bad. Gov. Kate Brown reopened Portland-area restaurants for indoor dining Feb. 12, albeit at 25% of capacity. That day, of course, was when a snowstorm paralyzed the city. So where’s the sunshine? At the bottom of the food chain: carts. These meals on wheels are where low startup costs have long been the incubator of the city’s nationally renowned restaurant scene. When running brick-andmortar restaurants grew impossible, many chefs returned to their roots. Food industry veteran Anthony Brown started his food cart Nacheaux the same week in March that Brown closed the state. “It was insane,” Brown recalls. But business was so good that Nacheaux is moving on March 5 to a brick and mortar space in the old Alameda Brewhouse, part of a new wave of restaurants that will redefine the scene. “I feel very, very fortunate,” Brown says.
Food Cart Licenses Issued in Multnomah County 2018: 103 2019: 122 2020: 189 Source: Multnomah County Health Department
BILL OF THE WEEK
House Bill 2980 Oregon considers a new approach to people in mental crisis. WHAT IT WOULD DO: HB 2980 would provide funding for three “peer respite centers”—short-term, homelike facilities for people experiencing mental health crises. Currently, people suffering such crises often end up in jail or emergency rooms, neither of which are equipped to handle them. This bill proposes instead to create safe places where people who’ve had mental health crises themselves—i.e., peers—would provide the services. There would be three centers: one in the Portland metro area, another in Southern Oregon, and a third in Eastern Oregon. The idea, says Kevin Fitts, executive director of the Oregon Mental Health Consumers Association, is to fill a big gap in current services: The state has few options short of locked psychiatric wards, which are extremely expensive and often not necessary. WHO SUPPORTS IT: The bill has the
bipartisan chief sponsorship of two well-placed lawmakers: state Rep. Cedric Hayden (R-Roseburg), a dentist and the House Republicans’ leading voice on health care, and Rep. Rob Nosse (D-Portland), co-chair of the Joint Ways and Means Subcommittee on Human Services.
CHRIS NESSETH
Back to the Carts
This is the era of Zoom meetings, virtual doctor visits and remote instruction. That is, if you can get online. When the COVID-19 pandemic sent Oregonians home, it made technology an essential service. It also exposed existing racial disparities in access to computers. In Multnomah County, pre-pandemic data shows that 8.6 % of Black residents don’t have a computer and 9.5% have a computer but no internet subscription, according to a five-year data collection by the U.S. Census in 2019. Compare that to non-Hispanic white people: Just 3.4% of that population does not have computer access and only 4.3% has a computer with no internet. That matters when nearly every aspect of coping with the pandemic—from finding a job to filing for unemployment benefits—depends on access to the web. Jenny Lee, deputy director of the Coalition
of Communities of Color, says that while many of the households without computers may have a smartphone with data, that’s a poor substitute when trying to navigate a government website. “ Te c h n o l o g y a d v a n c e s h ave a l w ay s increased disparities between the haves and have nots, and that has also fallen along racial lines,” Lee says. “This mass of information and applications to navigate is not as accessible on a mobile device.” Plus, the populations with the highest need tend to rely on trusted community members and face-to-face interactions for their survival. This was stripped from them when everything switched online. “Really, you lost the meaningful outreach method to get information out and [in the pandemic] you had so much more information, it became so much more essential, literally for people’s lives: Information was lifesaving, was providing critical stability for families getting food on the table and helping folks stay in their homes,” Lee says. For one example, just look at COVID -19 vaccinations: Even people with desktop internet have found the state’s sign-up system challenging. Try it on a phone. “The vaccine rollout has been tough enough in fairness, but because we didn’t have the underlying connectivity, all of this became so much harder,” Lee says. “So many really determinative opportunities are only available online or only readily accessible online.” LATISHA JENSEN.
SEEKING RESPITE: House Bill 2980 offers hope.
WHO OPPOSES IT: There’s no formal
opposition. But as in every session, funding for mental health programs tends to get short shrift. The peer respite centers would each cost about $750,000 a year to operate, Fitts says. That’s real money in a time of tight budgets—but research shows such centers are a far more effective and cheaper solution than putting patients in jail or hospitals.
WHO ELSE HAS DONE IT: At least 14 states have some form of peer-supported mental health services.
WHY IT MATTERS: Oregon perennially
ranks among the worst states in the nation for providing mental health services. Dr. Jonathan Betlinski, head of public psychiatry at Oregon Health & Science University, testified Feb. 16 that peer respite is more effective, humane and efficient than the current alternatives. Respite programs, Betlinski testified, “can expand the help available to Oregonians experiencing a mental health crisis, result in significant positive outcomes for participants, and save health care dollars.” NIGEL JAQUISS.
NEWS WESLEY LAPOINTE
VOICES
What It’s Like to Get Lost in the Columbia River Gorge Morgan Bailey spent three days in January scrambling across cliff faces through half-burnt forest. BY AA R O N M E S H
amesh @wweek.com
Like many Oregonians, Morgan Bailey looked forward to hiking the Eagle Creek Trail after it reopened from wildfire damage. So he was disappointed to find it closed by washouts last month. But that was far from the low point of his Jan. 19 trip to the woods. Bailey tried the next trail up the Columbia River Scenic Highway, a path called the Gorton Creek Falls Hike. Trailkeepers of Oregon calls it “a pretty little hike in the Columbia River Gorge leading to an amazing, 115-foot secluded waterfall.” Not if you get lost. Bailey, 43, was a mile up the trail when it disappeared on him. He spent the next three days scrambling across cliff faces through half-burnt forest. On Jan. 22, two hikers found him, bleeding and hypothermic. Search and rescue crews described his ordeal as a cautionary tale of hiking the Gorge alone and with few supplies, especially in winter. “He was extremely fortunate,” said Hood County sheriff ’s deputy Chris Guertin. “Had those hikers not located him, he had a very low chance of survival through the night.” Bailey agrees, though he also thinks the Gorton Creek Falls trail wasn’t in good enough condition for the trailhead to be open. The U.S. Forest Service believes the trail Bailey took was a user-made trail, not one of theirs. “We don’t encourage people to use any social trails that aren’t official,” says Stan Hinatsu, the recreation officer for the Columbia River Gorge Natural Forest Scenic Area. “If you see a trail that’s not signed, some of these [trails] are just scrambles.” A Lyft driver and volunteer medic at last summer’s protests, Bailey sat down with WW to describe what it’s like when a day of hiking turns into four. “I hit the trail by 9:30 am at the latest. Around the halfway point—probably around 1:30—I already had to pull out my phone a couple of times and use GPS just to find the trail. There’s a lot of debris, there’s a lot of washout. It was getting harder and harder to stay on the
trail. Every now and then I’d be like, OK, there’s a saw-cut tree. There’s some tape. It was either turn back or complete the loop, and it seemed like the worst of it was behind me. So I was like, ‘Eh, screw it. I’ll just finish the loop.’ “About an hour before dark, the trails had not improved as they looked like they were going to. I was above the snow line at this point. There weren’t even any tracks for me to follow. I realized I was not anywhere near a trail, pulled the phone out again. And the battery was dead. That was about 45 minutes before dusk. “My mind was, ‘Oh, crap. It’s dark. I’m not very well layered.’ I figured my options were either to shelter in place where I was, above the snow line, and run the risk of hypothermia or an unpleasant wildlife encounter, or keep moving. I figured I’d just keep moving carefully downward toward the trailhead and follow water. And that ended up turning into just steep cliffs and waterfalls. And so I spent all night kind of carefully navigating that. I had a flashlight in my mouth. Then I slept in the morning, and then kind of rinse and repeat throughout the next day. “And then I started getting wet on the second day. I had to cross the stream a couple of times. I got fully submerged, like twice. I was stopping to take several ‘hypothermia breaks,’ I called them. Just kind of huddling up and pulling my arms under my sleeves and trying to get my core temp up. Shortly after sundown on the second night, I started getting more of the advanced, violent seizing and shivering and started hallucinating. The water sounds started sounding kind of like techno beats. I started seeing faces. I thought I saw like memorials to people’s pets, carved into rocks. “Fortunately, I had some jerky and some nuts, and some Simple Truth granola stuff, and I was nibbling on that. I had a full gallon of water and my little canteen, and a decent-sized carton of coconut water. That was gone the second night or the morning of the third day. I started drinking off the stream. “And then shortly after dark on the third night is when I ran out of water. And that’s when I decided to start drinking my own urine. Which I know is bad for dehydration, but my rationale was that it would help me
WRONG TURN: Morgan Bailey planned to hike Eagle Creek Trail, shown here. His detour nearby went badly.
swallow a little bit of the dry salty food that I had and help keep my core temperature up. When I started moving again on day four, I started getting just uncontrollable, explosive diarrhea. I don’t know if that was from urine or the river water. But had I not been found shortly after that, that probably was a sign that things were getting close to the end for me. I was kind of just laughing at it at that point. Like, what’s next? “Midway through day three was the first time I just sat and screamed for help. I couldn’t safely scale down the little tiny bit that I needed to get back to flat ground. So I chose to renegotiate a couple of the down drops that I figured were impossible. They’re only about 15, 20 feet, but it was all just hard, sheer rock. I was like, ‘I’m going to scale this as best I can until I inevitably lose control and fall. And I’m just going to roll with that as best I can.’ And the first time I did that, I cracked my head pretty good. I thought I was done for sure then, but I didn’t lose consciousness. I kept moving. I had to do one more drop like that. And that’s when I broke my left wrist. And that was the point where I just started yelling for help again. And thank God somebody found me. “I was kind of losing it at that point. After I broke my wrist, I sat there and yelled some more and I thought I heard somebody and I did. And they just came and got me. It was a couple, they were very seasoned backpacker types. “I had a nasty laceration behind my left ear, but my skull is intact. My right arm is broken. My T10 and T11 vertebrae are fractured. I had hypothermia. I was really dehydrated and I had rhabdomyolysis, which is when people just exert themselves really hard and their muscle cells kind of explode and certain fluids get out in the kidneys. I was in Emanuel Trauma Center for four days. “One of the huge rookie things was not telling anybody where I was going. My roommate knew that I did hikes on my day off. And my last Facebook post was that I found out the hard way that Eagle Creek was closed. But I didn’t say where I was going after that. I had a LifeStraw water filter in my car. I had space blankets, hand and foot warmers. I had a bunch of stuff in my worst-case emergency kit in my car, 2 miles from where I was. Respect nature.” Willamette Week FEBRUARY 24, 2021 wweek.com
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NEWS ALEX WITTWER
Widening Gulf Questions about the footprint of the I-5 Rose Quarter project intensify.
ROSE-COLORED GLASSES: ODOT and critics have different visions for I-5 at the Rose Quarter. BY NIG E L JAQ UI SS
L
njaquiss@wweek.com
ast month, City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty took over leadership of the Portland Bureau of Transportation. On March 1, she’ll have her first meeting with the Oregon Department of Transportation on a contentious subject: the proposed widening of Interstate 5 through the Rose Quarter. Hardesty will bring with her some firm views. “Freeway expansions are not going to get us to our climate goals,” she says. “In fact, freeways are a thing of the past.” Her skepticism cranks up the heat on ODOT, which already saw the neighborhood restoration nonprofit Albina Vision Trust walk away from the Rose Quarter project last June. That move led the city, Multnomah County and Metro to withdraw support from a project that community members say must address both climate concerns and historical racial injustices. Meanwhile, ODOT is sitting on funding appropriated for the $895 million project back in 2017 and getting direction from state lawmakers that is contrary to the desires of Portland critics. But when Hardesty sits down with ODOT, she’ll have leverage: fresh information uncovered by the group No More Freeways, which opposes the Rose Quarter expansion. Through public records requests, the group found two separate documents—one in a consultant’s report and another in a design drawing—that show the project’s right of way when it passes under the Broadway/Weidler interchange could be as wide as 160 feet but certainly no less than 126 feet. More Freeways says the crucial point is that ODOT’s design calls for a footprint that is significantly wider than the current freeway at the Broadway/Weidler interchange, which the group pegs at 82 feet. That opens the possibility for more lanes, traffic and emissions. When WW asked ODOT about the documents, an agency spokeswoman said the project, which is still in the early design phase, would indeed be significantly wider than the current freeway because, in addition to new auxiliary lanes, it would also have four 12-foot shoulders. Those shoulders are just extra space, ODOT says. “The shoulders are not proposed for use as new or future travel lanes,” ODOT spokeswoman April deLeon-Galloway explains. 8
Willamette Week FEBRUARY 24, 2021 wweek.com
But Joe Cortright, a Portland economist and member of No More Freeways says the new “shoulders” could easily be striped to create more lanes—which would generate more traffic and more emissions. Cortright notes that a wider footprint also complicates the other major community interest: placing caps over I-5 to reunite the Albina neighborhood, which was cut in two by construction of the freeway in the 1960s. A bigger footprint makes capping the freeway harder to engineer and more expensive. “ODOT is claiming this project will have very minor impacts on traffic,” Cortright says. “Research shows that when you widen a freeway, it induces more traffic. You are building a structure that can accommodate eight to 10 lanes. And the cost of building caps would increase dramatically.” If the highway footprint is, in fact, wider than previously disclosed, that could give new leverage to the project’s critics. ODOT conducted traffic modeling for the project’s environmental assessment based on four lanes of traffic and a new auxiliary lane on each side. “The traffic analysis in the environmental assessment modeled a six-lane facility,” deLeon-Galloway says. If critics and local officials can demonstrate that the highway is indeed wider than six lanes, they may be able to force ODOT to conduct a more thorough assessment of the project’s environmental impacts. Transportation is by far the largest source of emissions in Multnomah County, so concerns about whether ODOT’s project would increase them, contrary to local and state climate goals, are a big deal—as is trying to repair some of the damage done to Portland’s Black community when I-5 was built. Winta Yohannes, managing director of the Albina Vision Trust, declined to comment for this story, saying her organization was waiting to see new renderings of proposed freeway caps that an ODOT contractor will produce next month. But others are bubbling with questions. Metro Council President Lynn Peterson, who formerly served as transportation adviser to Gov. John Kitzhaber and secretary of transportation for the state of Washington, has been unsatisfied with ODOT’s answers about the project’s width. Peterson raised the issue at a January meeting of the
Rose Quarter Executive Steering Committee and again at a meeting Feb. 22. Peterson says ODOT’s response this week—that there would be four 12-foot shoulders, rather than two—was new information to her. “That was 24 feet wider than I had envisioned,” Peterson says. “That raises several questions. I would like to know more about why the inside shoulder width is necessary. I don’t think that’s there on other parts of the freeway.” (ODOT says it made the width plain in an environmental assessment for the project released in 2019, although the numbers were simply attached to a cross section of the highway rather than explicitly identified.) Another member of the executive steering committee, Julia Brim-Edwards, is on the panel because she’s a member of the Portland Public Schools board. PPS owns Harriet Tubman Middle School, located adjacent to the project. Brim-Edwards says the district still hasn’t gotten the answers it needs from ODOT about how the project would affect air quality for Tubman’s 700 students. A wider footprint isn’t likely to mollify the school district. “Our concerns remain unchanged. The proximity of the project to Harriet Tubman Middle School and the historical and current air quality remain unchanged,” Brim-Edwards says. “We disagreed with the air quality standards they proposed and remain concerned the project hasn’t addressed issues PPS has raised since the very beginning,” she adds. But state lawmakers recently signaled they want more driving rather than less. In a pending bill, the co-chairs of the Legislature’s Joint Transportation Committee propose to scrap congestion pricing in favor of tolls on Portland-area interstate highways—essentially giving the green light to as much car traffic as possible. So who’s in charge? Hardesty says with Joe Biden in the White House and Democrats fully in control of Congress, ODOT will find that putting climate and social justice first is the order of the day for a project scheduled to begin in mid-2022. She says the agency must listen to what Portlanders— the people the project would affect most—want. (She first offered her views on the Rose Quarter project to the news website BikePortland last week.) Hardesty plans to make sure local voices get heard. “My superpower is, I’m a community organizer,” she says. “There’s no path forward without congestion pricing, and I’m not excited about adding lanes.”
NEWS BRIAN BURK
The End Is Near Whether the pandemic goes out with a bang or a whimper depends on whether Oregon can outrace the virus variants. BY R AC H E L M O N A H A N
rmonahan@wweek.com
As the United States passed a grim milestone Feb. 22—half a million deaths from COVID-19—there was some bright news. Cases of the virus have fallen sharply over the past month in Portland and in Oregon, in a drop that reflects similar trends across the country and around the world. After a slow start, Oregon has administered the coronavirus vaccine at a faster clip than many states; more than 540,000 Oregonians have received at least one dose. That’s 13% of the state. And yet the pandemic is not over. Portland still has so many cases of COVID-19 it remains in a “high risk” category for the spread of the virus. There’s a new threat on the horizon: a highly contagious variant first found in the U.K. (Only nine such cases have so far been documented in Oregon.) In essence, Oregon now hosts a race between vaccines and how quickly the coronavirus can spread. If the state wants to emerge from COVID without another surge of deaths, it needs to inject vaccines faster than the virus’s mutations spread, or convince residents to respect the virus’s continued capacity to kill. What happens in the next few weeks, experts say, will tell whether Oregon succeeds. We spoke to four four academics and policymakers about what’s at stake in the coming weeks, and how smooth a journey out of the pandemic Oregon should expect. Here are the key questions we still face. When will you get the vaccine? Let’s start with the question that’s central for more than half of adults—those who aren’t COVID deniers, anti-vaxxers or people with concerns specific to the coronavirus vaccine. When Oregon finishes vaccinating its health care workers, teachers and seniors, who’s next? And how soon can most of us expect to enjoy a needle in our arm? The answer will come Feb. 26. That ’s when Gov. Kate Brown decides who goes next
after everyone over 65. The next group could amount to more than a million Oregonians, including those who have health risks, work frontline jobs, or live in low-income housing. They could get vaccinated as soon as April. But for healthy, young people, says Dr. Anthony Fauci, the White House chief medical adviser, it may take until the end of the summer. Oregon officials say they’re not ready to commit to that. They expect many healthy, low-risk adults will have to wait until autumn. “I’m really mindful of being careful with people’s expectations, but we’re very optimistic,” says Connie Seeley, chief of staff and chief administrative officer at Oregon Health & Science University, and Gov. Brown’s special adviser for COVID-19 vaccination implementation. The next key decision point? Whether the federal government approves the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, in addition to the two vaccines by Pfizer and Moderna already approved for emergency use. Approval of another vaccine could rapidly increase the nation’s supply. What dangers remain in the state right now? Peter Graven, lead data scientist at Oregon Health & Science University, whose forecasts last spring moved the governor to shut down the state, says he has modeled two divergent forecasts for the coming months. Which of the two fates we get depends on how quickly the virus’s mutations become dominant in Oregon—because if they arrive and take over before the most vulnerable people get vaccinated, the state is in for a spring surge of hospitalizations and deaths. If the more highly contagious variants dominate, Graven says Oregon will see another surge on an order of magnitude similar to this fall, meaning 600 patients in hospital beds on any given day. (He doesn’t project deaths.) “My instinct is that we should expect the same growth that they saw in the UK,” says Graven—which would result in a new peak in hospitalizations. The not-so-bad scenario would mean the new, more contagious variants of the coronavirus, including the one that overwhelmed the U.K. this winter, does not become the dominant strain, and we’ll get to June—when he proj-
FROZEN FOOD: After weeks of tent dining, Portland pubs can again offer indoor service.
ects something like half the adult population will be vaccinated and the coronavirus will spread less readily. “I think we’re going to be fine by summer,” Graven says. He projects half of adults will have vaccines by then, which would help halt the spread. “So I’m not worried about that. I’m worried about the next period of time.” In other words, Oregon and the country are racing against the coronavirus variants, both those we know of and ones that may yet come. “Given the nature of the virus, it will continue to mutate, and the speed of mutation will be faster when you have more people infected,” says Chunhuei Chi, director of Oregon State University’s Center for Global Health. “We are racing against time.” The next three to five weeks could show how fast the variant is picking up, says Graven. “If we’re getting any sequences back,” he says, “we should be able to see if it’s popping up.” What can Oregon do to stop another surge? In December, after a freeze, Oregon adopted a system to set the level of social activity—whether, say, restaurants could reopen—based on the prevalence of the virus within a county. That system allowed indoor dining and movie theaters and gyms to reopen a little on Valentine’s Day weekend. No one, not President Biden or Gov. Brown, is willing to talk freeze, lockdown or a new stay-home order, at least not yet. “You can only put up the fight so many times, so that’s hard,” says Graven. “I do think we have a good policy in place in terms of a framework.” The governor’s advisers say Oregon’s “framework” for risk will help identify a problem if a more contagious version of COVID-19 takes over the state, because the state system monitors how widespread the disease is. So if the variants get to Oregon before enough people are vaccinated, the governor’s system will be stress-tested to see if it can spot another surge fast enough to stop it. “If we were to see cases go up,” says Tina Edlund, Brown’s health care finance adviser, “as soon as we see them cross that threshold for extreme risk, those restrictions kick into place.” Willamette Week FEBRUARY 24, 2021 wweek.com
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AUTHOR AND MUSICIAN WIL L Y VL AU T IN PHOTOS BY CHRISTINE DONG
HOMEMADE
Five Portland artists let us peek into their quarantine creative spaces. Here's what we found.
It’s easy to assume Portland is in a creative rut right now. Normally, spring is when local arts organizations unleash their most ambitious programming on the public. It’s the big finale before the summer hiatus, the time when the rain stops, the clouds part and stir-crazy Portlanders flock to galleries and theaters to see what everyone was working on while in hibernation. After a year in quarantine, though, and leaving the house still considered a health risk, the presumption is that most artists have simply chosen to take the season off. But in this city, creativity never stops. It adapts. For this year’s Spring Arts Guide, five Portland artists let us into their personal workspaces and told us the stories behind the tools and trinkets that have allowed them to turn isolation into art. Acclaimed author Willy Vlautin, for instance, has been watching St. Johns from the window of his second-floor office space for over a decade, and turned what he’s seen into a stunning new novel (page 10). Textile maker Vo Vo spent the beginning of quarantine amassing a collection of free yarn, then weaved free blankets for anyone in need of a little extra comfort (13), while puppet maker Katy Strutz has a whole corner of her basement studio dedicated to tiny monsters she’s built for an upcoming stop-motion film (11). And, of course, we also give you a heads-up about the most compelling arts programming this season (15). Sure, in-person events remain canceled, but there’s still plenty to look forward to, from a “jazz opera” filmed under a bridge in North Portland to Oregon’s most famous theater festival going virtual. A year ago, the thought of only getting to interact with art through a screen for the foreseeable future sounded like a total bummer. But the ways in which artists are finding ways to reach an audience is inspiring in itself. We hope the following pages inspire you to engage with what they’re offering. Even if it’s happening at a distance, it’s still an act of connection. —Shannon Gormley, WW Music & Visual Arts Editor
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For over a decade, Vlautin has watched St. Johns from his office. Now, he’s written a book inspired by what he’s seen. BY MATTHEW SIN GER
msinger@wweek.com
Willy Vlautin has watched Portland change from his window. For about 11 years, the author and musician has kept an office in St. Johns, a small, bedroom-sized space situated above a vegan cafe on North Lombard Street. When he’s not on the road, Vlautin, 53, spends a few days a week here, driving down from his house in Scappoose to polish new tunes or plug away at a writing project. It’s an ideal creative environment for an artist whose fascinations tend toward the midcentury—he says working there makes him feel like a private eye, like Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon. It has also, over time, allowed him to witness a neighborhood in transition. Once one of the city’s dwindling blue-collar holdouts, St. Johns has in the past decade gone the way of the rest of Portland, and Vlautin has watched the transformation happen right on his block. He’s seen vacated storefronts left empty for years. A tent city has popped up across the street, while a new apartment building is still in the process of being built next door. All of that was before COVID, but
of course that’s changed the view further—for one, he no longer gets to watch the old-timers going into Slim’s for a drink first thing in the morning. “I just started thinking about how St. Johns was such a working-class part of Portland, and all the houses were built for working-class people,” he says with the distinctive twang of his hometown of Reno, Nev. “And now these houses are unaffordable for the working class.” In his upcoming novel, The Night Always Comes, Vlautin tells the story of one working-class Portland family in particular. It focuses on Lynette, a 30-year-old with bad credit working three jobs to scrape together the down payment to buy the rental home she shares with her mother and disabled brother before it can be sold out from under them. It’s a simple story, taking place across two desperate days and told in just 200 pages. But it’s a slice of life reflective of a larger conversation Portland has been having with itself for two decades. “It was just kind of my way of talking about gentrification and how neighborhoods change,” Vlautin says. “Because I look out my window every day, and it’s remarkable that the change is so dramatic and so fast. It’s just kind of jaw-dropping.”
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➊ Desk
“I bought an old desk from this guy that used to sell furniture out of his garage. I don’t know if he stole them or what. It’s from the Hamilton Hotel—I don’t even know where that is. Some kid scraped ‘Slayer’ into it. So had I had to buy it because of that.”
➋ Couch
“There’s this really cool writer I know named Barry Gifford. He wrote Wild at Heart, if you’ve ever seen the movie. He’s an old pal of mine, and he just said, ‘You have to have a couch so you can take a nap. That’s one thing a writer’s got to have.’”
PUPPET MAKER KAT Y ST R U T Z
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➌ “Marge”
“I wrote a book called The Motel Life, and one of the guys’ dream girls was a gal named Marge. It’s a woman sitting on a lawn chair from like the ’20s, and it’s an ad for a cruise line that goes to Hawaii. She looks like a schoolteacher, just really fucking cool and smart. So I’ve always had her. It gives me inspiration.”
➍ Photo of Boxer Ernie “Indian Red” Lopez
“He fought this guy and the guy knocked him out, and the [trainer] is holding him, begging him not to die. When Lopez woke up, he was so devastated he just kind of disappeared. He gave up on everything, he left his wife and three kids and hopped a train. He became, like, a hobo for the rest of his life. Eventually, one of his daughters had to find him to let him know that he made it into the Boxing Hall of Fame of California. The daughter hired a detective who liked boxing, and the guy tracked him down in a halfway house in Florida. I always look at that as the idea of, if you try so hard at something and you don’t get it, like this guy, it’s not a reason to give up.”
➎ Willie Nelson in Portland
“I’m a big Willie Nelson fan. I grew up in a pretty right-wing home. My mom was really straight that way and not a big fan of the arts, but for whatever reason she liked Willie Nelson. I could never understand why, because she didn’t like longhaired hippies but she loved his voice. So Willie, to me, has always been the guy that can bridge the gap. This is an article from when he played at the Wishing Well in St. Johns—I can almost see it from my window.”
➏ Hurley’s Used Auto Hamlet Sign
“They made a movie of one of my books called The Motel Life, and I became friends with the guy that did all the set design. There was a used car lot in the movie, and they gave me the sign. It’s like 6 by 4 feet.”
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Strutz’s basement studio is full of miniature monsters, recycled objects and multiple bins of hair. BY BE NNETT C A MPB ELL FER GU SON
Katy Strutz doesn’t want to be defined by a single style. As an animator and a puppet maker, she likes invoking disparate influences, whether that means being inspired by the Ziegfeld Follies, ’80s movies or Henri Matisse. “I try to take it project by project, I guess,” she says. “I’ll always have something that I’m trying to emulate, but it ends up looking totally different when it goes through my brain.” Strutz is known for her work at Laika, ShadowMachine and Hornet. Yet the core of her creativity is a studio in the basement of her Portland home, a quirky wonderland overflowing with hair, collages, recyclables and character designs. With contagious wonderment, Strutz—who is currently working as a character sculptor on director Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio— revealed some of the secrets of her happily cluttered workspace during a Zoom conversation. “Nobody comes to [my studio] but me,” she says. “I think it’s beautiful, but it’s not necessarily meant to be anything but what I need it to be.”
➊ Iris Apfel and Frida Kahlo Puppets
After Strutz posted a picture of an Iris Apfel puppet that she created on Instagram, it was reposted by the fashion icon herself. The Apfel puppet now sits on Strutz’s desk next to a tiny version of one of her other inspirations, Frida Kahlo. “Just as a person and as an artist, I think she was really incredible,” says Strutz. “Really resilient, of course, and she wore incredible textiles, which were fun to re-create.” Not far from Apfel and Kahlo is an aluminum wire sculpture that was given to Strutz by Disney veteran Kent Melton. “He was working at Laika when I first started, and I went upstairs to introduce myself to him, and I was hoping that we’d really hit it off and he’d be like, ‘What a cool girl, I want her to be my friend,’ and think I was really fun and impressive,” Strutz says. “And it’s one of the few times in my life when I’ve just totally frozen and just been like, ‘Hi.’”
➋ Hair
Strutz is a hair connoisseur of the highest order. “I’m always very proud of my bins of hair—doll hair, dyed goat hair, people hair, plastic hair, animal furs,” she says. “Mohair, which is from goats, is definitely my favorite. I’ll usually just buy it on Etsy. Mohair is what I used to make miniature Katy’s hair. It was from a goat, and I dyed it with fabric dye.” “Miniature Katy” is Strutz’s puppet avatar. She has been photographed everywhere from California to North Carolina—and always rocks a cloud of billowing blond curls that looks strikingly like Strutz’s own coiffure.
➌ Recyclables
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Mundane but malleable objects—like mesh bags that once held oranges and assorted pieces of plastic—are a fixture of Strutz’s studio. “My friends know that I like to collect these recyclables and plastics,” she says. “If you need to make a futuristic environment, like I’ve done sometimes, you start to use them as architectural shapes or things that could be part of a car or a building.”
Strutz has also turned a pink-andwhite dollhouse she found on a street in her neighborhood into a storage space for foam. “I like the idea of making a dollhouse, and so finding an existing structure was really exciting,” she says. “So we’ll see if I do anything with it or if I just end up giving it to an actual child who might appreciate it more.”
➍ Concrete Floor
The floor of Strutz’s basement isn’t just a surface to stand on—it’s a stage. “If you’re shooting an animation over a long period of time on a wooden floor or something else that can, even on a microscopic level, swell or bend, you can end up having your stop-motion stage move around,” she says. “It’s one of the things that you would never think about until you’re halfway through an animation and you’re like, ‘Wait a minute, why is my stage moving?’”
➎ Monster Workspace
Strutz is collaborating on a short film about monsters and prepackaged food
with Jeff Riley and Thibault Leclercq. An entire section of her studio has been designed as a “monster workspace”—and it’s filled with designs for strange yet cuddly-looking creatures. One of the highlights of the monster workspace is a pair of gray monster feet. “They’re like turtle feet with a little bit of extra pointiness,” Strutz says. “I’ll probably cast them in either latex or silicone.” She has also cobbled together character collages from old issues of National Geographic, after “either ripping things out or cutting them out if there was a larger patch of color or texture on a page or something that looked like a complete shape.” The monster workspace is an embodiment of Strutz’s beautifully tactile approach to animation. “I think that’s why stop-motion and fabrication work well for me,” she says. “It’s always about assembly—starting by collecting the materials and then figuring out how to combine them in a way that creates a functional, engineered tiny machine.”
Willamette Week FEBRUARY 24, 2021 wweek.com
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FILMMAKER AL BER TA POON
➊ Whiteboard
Though Poon does most of her work digitally, she has a massive whiteboard she wheels with her from room to room. “It’s important to have a physical, tangible thing you can touch to step out of the digital world,” she says. “It makes it seem like less work. When you’re sitting at a computer you’re like, ‘This is work.’” Right now, her whiteboard is covered in notecards for a pilot she’s working on, with cards for a log line, concept and theme, the setting, heroes, and “wants vs. needs.” “This is very typical narrative storytelling elements that you need to tell a good story,” she says.
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➋ Library Books
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At home, Poon is as much of a “moodslash-light psycho” as she is on set. BY S O P H I A J UN E
When you watch an Alberta Poon film, the first thing you notice is the color. The hypercolorful, vivid palette of amethyst, shimmery coral and lime green of her short film It’s Lit has the aesthetic of a stoner Lisa Frank sticker book, while a satirical PSA that she directed for protest support group Snack Bloc has a bold palette of royal purple, goldenrod and ruby. The first thing Poon notices is the lighting. Poon is a self-described “moodslash-light psycho.” On her first date with her boyfriend, the pair were hanging out in a hotel room lit by a lamp with an LED light bulb. “I was like, ‘I can’t even sit in this room,’” she says. “I made him make a makeshift, like, fire hazard of jackets and coat hangers to block the lighting from my face. That natural attraction to mood and tone just came through with my filmmaking.” Her favorite light in her house is a midcentury globe lamp hanging over her couch, where she edits. It’s turned on a lot these days, as Poon is spending more time at home. She’s currently working on a TV pilot and is in post-production for Crouching Comic, a film she wrote with Katie Nguyen, Willamette Week’s 2021 Funniest Person. Inspired by Poon’s and Nguyen’s own lives, the film is about a woman switching careers and
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trying to enter the standup comedy world. The film was made over Labor Day weekend with an entirely Asian cast and crew. Its release date was pushed back because of COVID-19, but it’s set to come out in the fall of 2021 or early next year. “When I realized I had met so many cool, creative Asian people, I started being like, well what do they all do?” she says. “I was like, dang, I think I have a film crew here.” Poon fostered her friends’ talents, hiring people she thought were stylish as stylists, for example. As a result, she ended up with a crew with a range of experience: Some had never been on a set, while production designer Adri Siriwatt had been nominated for an Emmy. “Being on set was like nothing we’ve ever experienced. We’ve never been in a space like that. I’ve been in a lot of BIPOC-only spaces recently,” she says. “But an all-Asian space— which we are the least-represented demographic in film and television—to come together and make this short, it was really magical. We had boba sent to set and literally everyone, like, freaked out.” Advocating for and employing more people of color in the film industry are two of Poon’s missions. “I think it’s important that the people that tell a story should be the people’s story that it is,” she says.
“When I realized I had met so many cool, creative Asian people, I started being like, well what do they all do? I was like, dang, I think I have a film crew here.”
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“I love the library, because I love returning them, because I hate stuff so much,” says Poon. “I’m damaged by my mother, who’s an immigrant. Immigrants that hoard is a common cliché, which I didn’t know as a kid. I thought it was unique to my parents, but it’s not. Because my mom did that, I have both sides. I could see myself having the same issue as her, but then I do what she never did, which is to get rid of everything.” Poon always has a stack of books that are either works of fiction or “literally how to be a filmmaker,” she says, laughing. Among the books she’s currently has: Fleabag: The Scriptures, Now Write! Screenwriting and Dear Girls by Ali Wong.
➌ Midcentury Lamp
Poon is obsessed with the prized lamp that hangs over her couch. “It’s this vintage, cool midcentury lamp, but the light in there is so soft and warm,” she says. “I will die if I enter a room if it’s just overhead fluorescent lighting.” Before becoming a filmmaker, Poon spent years as a musician, fronting the band Reporter. “I remember going to people’s houses in the 2000s, going to punk houses. There’d be a lamp with an exposed light bulb, and I’d be like, ‘Where are my sunglasses? This is disgusting,’” she recalls. “Even though I don’t have a lot of money, like I buy the right light bulbs.” So much of filmmaking, Poon says, is mood, tone and “painting with light.”
➍ Her Dog Terpene
Poon’s dog Terpene usually sits on the couch with her while she edits, but last spring he was the star of a short film she entered in an Oregon Film contest, where people could submit films about being stuck at home. In Poon’s video, she tries to teach Terpene to skateboard.
➲ “Corner of Hell”
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Poon uses her home office for storing equipment. “This is technically my office, but I never sit in here. This is where everything goes to die,” she says. In what she calls a “corner of hell,” film equipment, such as a camera kit, lighting and a camera grip, is stashed with a director’s chair that Annie Tonsiengsom, producer of Crouching Comic, brought to the set for her as a gift. There’s also musical equipment from her decade playing in Portland bands. “When I shoot bigger projects, I’m not the shooter, I’m the director,” she says. “But when I do small projects, that’s a oneman band.”
TEXTILE ARTIST VO VO ➋
Like their art, Vo’s workspace is informed by their life experiences and anarchist philosophy. ➊ ➊ Sewing Machine
BY SHANNON GORMLEY sgormley@wweek.com
After working four months with a tapestry company to create a textile for an upcoming show, Vo Vo ran into a problem: The company refused to print the design. The tapestry depicts a stately building with Roman columns alight with squiggly, pastel-colored flames. On a corner of the blanket is the phrase “Burn it down.” After months of back-and-forth, the company balked, saying it couldn't support the “situation there in Portland, Ore.” It’s a fitting, if ironic, backstory for the New Zealand-born, Portland-based artist’s new show, on display through April 1 at Fuller Rosen Gallery. Things that have to do with fire was partially inspired by last summer’s protests, and the misconceptions about Portland anarchists—and anarchism in general—that revealed themselves on a national level. Comprising video installations and cloth banners covered in illustrations and slogans, the gallery show is a response to the idea that anarchists are primarily devoted to destruction. But the exhibit isn’t exactly a condemnation of Portlanders who have wagged their fingers at Vo and their peers for the past year. Rather, it’s intended as a bridge. “I do want to meet people at an entry point that feels accessible to them,” says Vo, who has worked for
years as a radical educator. “A lot of [the show is] jokes and signals to my fellow anarchists, and then some are for people who haven’t maybe critiqued liberalism, who haven’t looked at where liberalism comes from, and the idea of U.S. exceptionalism and individualism.” Despite its controversial subject matter, Things that have to do with fire isn’t preachy. It’s warm, discursive and heartfelt. And, like Vo themself, it’s full of sly humor. “I’m just a complete scumbag that likes free shit or stuff that’s been thrown out,” says the artist. “Almost everything I’ve made is from that stuff.” Vo sews and weaves much of their work. Looms, sewing machines and quality materials usually don’t come cheap, but all the materials in their home work space were either gifts or bought at a discount. “I’m someone who’s experienced houselessness myself as an adult and as a child. I’m constantly making work as a survivor, and someone who’s experienced these systems as a participant,” says Vo. “I think that’s been a struggle for people to understand, because they assume that when they walk into a space—especially a very nice looking space with art displayed—they kind of assume that the person who’s making it comes from a specific position.”
When Vo started their MFA at the Pacific Northwest College of Art two years ago, they thought they’d study illustration. Then they found a sewing machine on the side of a road. As a kid, Vo worked in a sweatshop with their parents, but they hadn’t sat at a sewing machine since. “Me and my parents were part of a wider network of Vietnamese refugees who were employed illegally to make things in Australia for North American fashion companies,” says Vo, who is Vietnamese. Not long after they took home the abandoned machine, Vo shifted their focus from illustration to textiles. “I do feel so comfortable when I’m at the machine making stuff, and it’s because I did it for hours as a kid,” says Vo. “But this time, I’m doing it for me and not for another company.”
➋ Yarn Collection
Vo’s towering stash of yarn is stocked with luxurious skeins of wool from Uruguay, Lithuania and Australia. It’s an astounding amount of high-quality yarn, but it took them less than a year and relatively little money to accumulate. “I think honestly my coping mechanism after COVID hit was to look at really cheap lots on eBay,” says Vo. “I know what I like, but I’ll only get it if it’s free or if they’re selling it on eBay for a really low price.”
➲ Storage Closet
Stuffed into a closet in the corner of Vo’s workroom is two years’ and dozens of hours’ worth of work. A jacket might take an hour and a half—a surprisingly short period of time considering the clean lines achieved from cobbled-together, reclaimed fabrics. A weaved piece can take weeks. It’s not uncommon for them to spend 12 hours a day in front of the sewing machine or the loom. “I get in the zone,” says Vo. “That’s why I chose to do what I’m doing, because I enjoy it.”
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“I do want to meet people at an entry point that feels accessible to them.”
➌ Uniform Couch
Across from Vo’s loom is a couch upholstered with U.S. Army uniforms from the Vietnam War, a piece from a show about immigration that Vo curated before the pandemic. Now, it almost blends into what Vo refers to as the “man cave” aesthetic of their basement workspace. “Even in the Southern Hemisphere, you’re still bombarded with U.S.-specific films about the Vietnam War that center white dudes,” says Vo. “All that this does is visualize that, even though that’s an experience that I’ve had since I was a kid. My experience is always pushed aside for the Tom Cruise or the Charlie Sheen or whoever.”
➍ Loom
Last March, Vo came across a fortuitous Craigslist post: A woman in Ridgefield, Wash., was looking to get rid of a 3-foot tapestry loom. The loom was sitting in a barn, so it was rickety and caked with grass and horse manure. Vo fixed it up themself, and it now looks sturdy and elegant—you’d never guess it was salvaged from literal shit. Though Vo attributes their resourcefulness to their experiences with homelessness and as an immigrant, it also seems essential to the philosophy behind Things that have to do with fire. “When I used to mask up and protest before COVID, wearing a mask would immediately attract so much insults from older white women,” says Vo. “I do hope those same women that would scream at us from across the road with disgust would drop that accusation for a second to try to understand that anarchists are not trying to destroy their world, they’re trying to build better things.”
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JAZZ MUSICIAN EZRA WEISS
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Weiss has gone from leading big bands to playing an electronic keyboard alone in his home. BY M O L LY M ACGI LBE RT
A little over a year ago, jazz composer and pianist Ezra Weiss was leading a 17-piece ensemble of woodwinds, trombones, trumpets and flugelhorns. “I like to work in large ensembles,” he says. “My favorite thing is big bands, and [now] that’s just, like, off the table.” The Ezra Weiss Big Band’s debut album, We Limit Not the Truth of God, was released in the summer of 2019 and addressed to Weiss’ kids, with messages about togetherness and the then-current state of the world. Shortly thereafter, of course, the band became an unexpected health hazard. These days, Weiss tends to operate as more of a one-man band. On a typical day, he homeschools his kids until 2 pm before diving into a few hours of “emails and schoolwork and prepping lessons and grading” for the piano classes he teaches at Portland State University. Writing music comes last, if he has the time. His recent shows have been stripped-back, virtual affairs. The night before his interview with WW, he played piano for a livestreamed gig funded by donations. “[It] was maybe my third time performing with people in the past year,” he says. “[It] was a quartet, which is the biggest-sized group I’ve played with in the past year. Everything’s changed…I felt very out of shape.” Weiss’ pandemic workspace is a standard blend of home comforts and professional tech, with a futon, a desktop Mac, and a Yahama keyboard. “There are some things that actually work way better in this environment,” he says, “and then some things that are literally impossible.”
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➊ Ring Light
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Weiss has been spending an unforeseen amount of time recording videos. His PSU teaching process has become an asynchronous exchange of videos with his students, so he invested 20 bucks into a webcam-friendly ring light. “I finally got really sick of me looking dark and just, invisible, basically,” he says. “I keep [my office] a lot cleaner than I used to because I spend a lot more time in it. It’s gotten way more tech-savvy.”
➋ Custom Keyboard
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Weiss’ keyboard is decked out with extra MIDI controllers, studio monitors and a microphone for audio recording. “I keep talking to musician friends of mine, and we’ve all gotten more into music tech stuff and kind of nerding out,” he says. “That’s kind of the new fun thing to do, because you can’t really play with other people, so you try to get all of these sounds another way.”
➌ Musical Tempest (Red Orchestra) by Salvador Dalí
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Weiss’ walls bear a striking print of Salvador Dalí’s Musical Tempest (Red Orchestra). The 1957 painting features a figure playing an instrument that can only be described as a hybrid of a grand piano and a stone water fountain, while another figure plays a warped cello that, upon second glance, is actually a third figure, all against a backdrop that resembles a matador’s muleta. “I’m just kind of drawn to it. It feels very passionate,” Weiss says. “It’s two beings creating music, and it’s pretty trippy. It’s an inspiring sort of energy.”
➍ “The Most Famous Photo in Jazz”
For a bygone birthday, a friend gave Weiss a collage print of one of the most iconic photos in jazz history. Snapped by Bob Parent in 1953, the photo shows bebop masters Thelonius Monk, Charlie Parker, Charles Mingus and Roy Haynes playing at Open Door on West 3rd Street in New York City. In contrast to the current, virtual pandemic jazz scene, the photo was taken in a cramped, presumably droplet-splattered, and now-defunct jazz joint, and no known recordings of the performance survive.
➎ The Golem’s Gift
A current fixture on Weiss’ keyboard music rack is a copy of Benny Zelkowicz’s contemporary Jewish fable, The Golem’s Gift, about a clay creature and his efforts to heal the world. Prior to the pandemic, Weiss and Zelkowicz—former peers at Oberlin Conservatory of Music—planned to develop the book into a musical to debut in May at the Northwest Children’s Theater. With the theater’s in-person performance season scrapped, Weiss has been taking his sweet time on the project. “I’ll manage to get a day or two—and by that I mean, like, a couple hours over the course of a day or two—[to] work on it,” he says, “and then I won’t have another opportunity to mess with it for a week or two.”
Your guide to the most exciting arts events of the season.
released recordings of three past performances online and will periodically release new digital works on its website, from short films to a reimagining of Cymbeline, one of the Bard’s lesser-known tragedies. Oregon Shakespeare Festival, osfashland.org. Tickets start at $15.
FEBRUARY
The Mineola Twins
Spring Arts Calendar
Hard and Soft
Backyard exhibition space Congress Yard Project started last year as a way to keep art shows going during the pandemic. Rather than shutting down for the winter, the outdoor gallery decided to make use of Portland’s rainy season. For Hard and Soft, more than two dozen local artists created works designed to either withstand, wither or bloom after staying outside all winter. Each work is an experiment onto itself—who knows what Misha Davydov’s papier-mâché sink is going to look like by the time the show closes in March. Congress Yard Project, congressyardprojects. wordpress.com. Email congressyardprojects@gmail.com to RSVP. Through March 21.
Refuge Shaking the Tree’s spring show falls somewhere between immersive theater piece and art installation. The theater commissioned 12 artists and performers to design 11 8-by4-foot panels dedicated to goddesses from an array of cultures and traditions. The installations will be displayed around the company’s warehouse space, like shrines in some kind of otherworldly New Age church. Shaking the Tree Theatre, 823 SE Grant St., shaking-thetree.com. Viewing time slots available Thursdays-Sunday through April 24. Free, donations accepted
Figments
If you missed the drive-in screenings of BodyVox’s new dance film, you still have a chance to stream the movie online. Figments combines footage from the company’s most acclaimed works, including the whimsical “Urban Meadow.” BodyVox, bodyvox.com. Streams through Feb. 28. $25.
Oregon Shakespeare Festival
For Portland theater fans who’ve never been able to travel to Ashland, the first virtual iteration of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival is something of a blessing. The nationally renowned festival has already
Though the theater has been pumping out radio plays during the pandemic, Profile Theatre’s production of The Mineola Twins will be the company’s first live show in almost a year. Profile’s first foray into livestreaming is a darkly funny play that follows two identical twin sisters on opposite sides of the political spectrum navigating the women’s liberation movement. It’s the fourth work by Paula Vogel that Profile Theatre has produced in its two seasons dedicated to the playwright and is sure to be just as unflinching as the others. Profile Theatre, profiletheatre.org. Live shows 7:30 pm Friday-Saturday, Feb. 26-March 6; 2 pm Saturday, Feb. 27, and Sunday, March 7. On demand March 8-21. $15.
MARCH Myles de Bastion
Rebecca Solnit in Conversation With Jia Tolentino
Though she’s best known for her book of essays Men Explain Things to Me and for coining the term “mansplaining,” Rebecca Solnit has written an exhaustive number of poetic books about everything from Yosemite and the Manhattan Project to the history of walking. Here, she discusses her new memoir with New Yorker writer and beloved cultural commentator Jia Tolentino. Powell’s Books, powells.com/eventsupdate. 5 pm Tuesday, March 9. Ticket includes $16 preorder of Solnit’s book.
Unquiet Objects
Disjecta’s upcoming mixed-media exhibit is a meditation on cultural objects that have been removed from their original context, whether as a result of colonialism, forced migration or even digital technology. The show will display work by an extensive and exciting list of artists, including Iranian new-media artist Morehshin Allahyari and Portland Institute for Contemporary Art artistic director Kristan Kennedy. Disjecta, 8371 N Interstate Ave., disjecta.org. March 12-May 2.
In 2014, Portland musician Myles de Bastion founded CymaSpace, which strives to make concerts more accessible to deaf and hard-of-hearing attendees through the likes of lighting matched to sonic frequencies. Even without in-person concerts, though, de Bastion has kept busy the past year, producing a virtual CymaSpace show and completing a virtual programming fellowship with Epic Games. His online new-media art show for Open Signal promises to be just as inventive. Open Signal, opensignalpdx.org. 5 pm Friday, March 5. Free.
Single Pink Klaud
Portland International Film Festival
OBT Raw
Last year, Portland International Film Festival managed to hold most of its programming just before the pandemic hit Oregon. This year’s festival will be held mostly online, but the lineup is of the same quantity and quality we’ve come to expect from PIFF. Plus, a few drive-in screenings have been scheduled of titles that are sure to sell out fast, from newer favorites like Snowpiercer and Sorry to Bother You to genre film classics like Dune and The Matrix. NW Film Center, nwfilm. org. March 5-15. $9-$350.
Portland choreographers Linda Austin and Allie Hankins have always pushed the boundaries of dance, so it’s no surprise that they continue to create abstract, idiosyncratic work during the pandemic. Austin and Hankins’ collaborative, virtual piece is inspired by surrealism and attempts to grapple with our strange, liminal existence over the past year. Performance Works Northwest, pwnw-pdx. org. 7:30 pm Friday-Sunday, March 26-28.
APRIL For the company’s second set of intimate livestream shows, Oregon Ballet Theatre’s dancers will perform works by classic choreographers like Bournonville and Balanchine, and more contemporary works by the likes of Nacho Duato. COVID-19 might’ve forced the company to cancel its big-ticket, fully staged shows, but these stripped-down virtual performances have highlighted what OBT’s dancers do best—emotive, athletically astounding movements. Oregon Ballet Theatre, obt.org. 7:30 pm Wednesday-Sunday, April 8-17. $20.
Joy Harjo
Joy Harjo was named U.S. poet laureate in 2019, the first Native American to hold that title. An American Sunrise, her ninth and most recent collection of poetry, is full of powerful invocations of ancestral knowledge and tender, quotidian details. At this lecture, Harjo discusses When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through, the Norton anthology of Native American poetry she edited. Literary Arts, literary-arts.com. 6 pm Tuesday, April 20. Series tickets $90$355.
Crying in H Mart
In 2018, Michelle Zauner, aka indie musician Japanese Breakfast, penned a New Yorker article titled “Crying in H Mart,” which grapples with the loss of Zauner’s mother and the Oregon musician’s Korean heritage. Now, Zauner has expanded that essay into a memoir of the same name. Filled with enviable descriptions of Korean food and touching meditations on grief, Crying in H Mart is also a deeply Oregonian book. Much of it is set in Eugene, where Zauner grew up and cared for her terminally ill mother. Coming April 20 from Penguin Random House.
Under the Overpass: Episode 4
Last fall, Resonance Ensemble started Under the Overpass, a series of short concerts performed and recorded under Portland bridges. This episode will offer a sneak peak of Sanctuaries, a much-anticipated, in-the-works “jazz opera” by veteran pianist Darrell Grant. Plus, it’s a collaboration with Third Angle Music, another organization offering some of the most innovative local pandemic programming. Resonance Ensemble, resonancechoral.org. Premieres April 28 on YouTube.
MAY Shrill Season 3
It’s a bummer that this season will be its last, but Shrill has already established its place in Portland television history. In the post-Portlandia era, it’s arguably the show most associated with our city, and for good reason. The program immediately gained a cult following for its lovable characters and smartly written episodes. And along with the fact that it’s based on the life of famed Pacific Northwest author Lindy West, the production made a point of hiring local crews and populating sets with works by local artists. Oh yeah, and Portland now has a day dedicated to the show. Premieres Friday, May 7, on hulu.com.
Kenari Quartet
Chamber Music Northwest has managed to keep up an impressively prolific virtual programming schedule during the pandemic. The classical music organization is capping its first digital season with a distinctly modern instrument. The all-saxophone Kenari Quartet will play everything from Bach to French neoclassical and contemporary music. Chamber Music Northwest, cmnw.org. 7 pm Saturday, May 15. $20.
Visual Arts Theater Dance Film Books Music
Mt. Hood Jazz Festival
In a year when just about every concert has been canceled or postponed, one local institution is actually making a return. This spring, Mt. Hood Jazz Festival will hold its first event in over a decade. Organizers haven’t announced a lineup yet, or the specifics of a contingency plan if they can’t hold in-person events. They have announced, however, that it’s happening no matter what, unlike last year’s attempted revival that was canceled for obvious reasons. April 30-May 2. Visit mhcc.edu/ NorthwestJazzBandFestival for updates.
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STREET AFTER THE THAW Photos by Jonathan Inthavong @jonny_street_
Scenes from a post-snow weekend on Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard.
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A S S I S T E D L I V I N G • M E M O RY C A R E
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STARTERS
New This Friday Feb 26
THE MOST IMPORTANT PORTL AND C U LT U RE STORIES OF THE WEEK—GRAPH E D..
RIDICULOUS K AT U J U S T I N K AT I G B A K
A guest on a popular British comedy show sings a tribute to Oregon’s exploding whale. BABY DOLL
Gov. Kate Brown issues an executive order warning against price gouging at hotels following mass power outages across the state.
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Following the ice and snowstorms, Oregon faces increased threats of floods and avalanches due to heavy rain. O R E G O N D E PA R T M E N T O F T R A N S P O R TAT I O N
Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Way Down In The Rust Bucket
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Old Town Pizza buys Southeast Portland pizzeria Baby Doll—but other than putting more Old Town beer on the taps, nothing will change.
Curtis Salgado - Damage Control
Ilani Casino Resort hosted an in-person beer festival last weekend.
The U.S. Geological Survey rolls out its ShakeAlert earthquake warning system in Oregon next month.
COURTESY OF ILANI
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An unknown artist replaces the toppled Harvey Scott statue at Mount Tabor with a monument to York, the only Black member of the Lewis and Clark expedition.
The Hollywood Fred Meyer calls the cops to guard a dumpster of expired food.
SERIOUS Willamette Week FEBRUARY 24, 2021 wweek.com
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CATCH UP ON: New Girl Everybody needs a 30-minute comedy in their television diet. It’s a wonderful palate cleanser, especially if you’ve been bingeing on true crime and cult dramas. New Girl is a delightful to revisit or watch for the first time. Look past the obnoxious “adorkable” tagline pinned to Zooey Deschanel’s character: The show’s screwball humor is much more clever than that, and in the same vein as Parks and Recreation, it leaves you feeling lighter with optimism at the end of each episode. There’s even a “local” connection: Deschanel’s Jess is from Portland, and her love interest, Nick, played by Jake Johnson, starred in Portland-set Stumptown. Need further motivation to tune in? Prince was such a big fan he asked for—and received—a cameo. Streams on Netflix, Hulu and other services.
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WATCH: Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar What if gal pals Romy and Michele partied at a pastel-painted hotel in Vista Del Mar, Fla., instead of their high school reunion? What if Austin Powers was written by and starred Bridesmaids screenwriters Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo? And what if these two distinctly separate ideas combined into one whimsically absurd feel-good comedy? Barb & Star is a whirlwind of friendship, romance, espionage and random musical numbers. It’s about time we got more risk-taking studio comedies like this one. Streams on Amazon Prime, Google Play and Vudu.
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WATCH: Blazers vs. Lakers It’s officially Snub Season for your Portland Trail Blazers—that time each year when Damian Lillard gets overlooked for some kind of honor, and goes on a tear as a result. In this case, it’s getting passed up for a starting spot on the AllStar Team thanks to a few thousand Slovenians blindly voting for fellow countryman Luka Doncic. Blazer fans will act very upset at the disrespect, but deep down everyone knows the annual Dame Revenge Tour is a lot more satisfying to watch than some meaningless exhibition game. It’s hitting at an ideal time, too: While Lillard’s next-level play has miraculously kept the team in the top half of the Western Conference despite being down their next two best players, the schedule has them going through a gauntlet of upper-echelon opponents this week, ending with the defending champion L.A. Lakers. No player needs extra incentive to step up against LeBron James, but in the minds of many fans, he’s the only guy standing between Dame and the MVP award. He might go for 82 here. 7 pm Friday, Feb. 26, on ESPN.
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STREAM: Ash Land Like so many live events, Oregon Shakespeare Festival pivoted online in 2020, launching myriad digital programming under the banner of O! One of its most recent additions to that content is Ash Land, a short created by OSF’s 2020 artist-in-residence Shariffa Ali inspired by her immediate surroundings in the eponymous city last
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year: nature, pandemic loneliness and the bittersweet reality of being a Black visitor in a state she was coming to love while simultaneously confronting its white supremacist history and contemporary racial disparities. The resulting 20-minute film finds a woman called only “She” languishing alone in a trailer. Meanwhile, an ambiguous figure from her past, “Her,” pursues the despondent older woman across the Southern Oregon wilderness. “We have been rewired by the time we spent in Oregon,” Ali says. “Our atoms had been rejiggered anew, but we look the same.” Streams at osfashland.org/ productions/2020-digital/ash-land.aspx. Free.
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WATCH: Illusions As we close out Black History Month, track down this critically acclaimed 1982 short. Written and directed by Julie Dash, this 34-minute revisionist drama explores how “the influence of that screen cannot be overestimated.” Set in a fictional 1940s film studio, a biracial producer (Lonette McKee) presumed to be white by her co-workers oversees a Black woman dub the singing voice for a white woman, and reflects on her community’s inexcusable invisibility in the industry. Streams on Criterion Channel and Kanopy.
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HEAR: Angel Tears in Sunlight by Pauline Anna Strom Sadly, San Francisco synth sorceress Pauline Anna Strom passed away before she could see the release of her swan song, Angel Tears in Sunlight. It’s her first album of material in 30 years, and it feels strikingly modern, in part because Strom was a master of her form, and also because echoes of her playful, burbling sound can be heard in scores of latter-day bands and producers. Stream on Spotify.
HEAR: Winterreise Schubert’s Winterreise is a mix of truly beautiful and truly depressing. The 1820s song cycle follows a forlorn man wandering through a cold, wintry landscape—very relatable in February 2021. The voice-and-piano piece is usually sung by a male tenor, but Chamber Music Northwest’s livestreamed performance will be sung by British Singaporean mezzo-soprano Fleur Barron. And if you’re looking for an access point to the almost two-centuries-old work—or just to decompress after experiencing a pretty haunting piece of music—CMNW published a conversation with music lecturer Michael Parloff about Winterreise earlier this week. Streams Saturday-Sunday, Feb. 27-28, at cmnw.org. $20.
� EXPLORE: Paris Ballroom TV
While nothing can truly capture the energy of actually being at a ball, Paris Ballroom TV comes pretty close. The YouTube channel is essentially an archive of competitions thrown by French voguing legends Lasseindra Ninja and Nikki Mizrahi. There are hours of basically unedited footage from years of balls. Some of the best dancers in Paris’ thriving ballroom scene walk in every video, whether it’s at the glitzy Cleopatra Ball, held at a historic Parisian covered market, or the all-black outfits at the Black Lives Matter Ball. Sure, it doesn’t totally make up for not being able to be there in person, but you’ll still find yourself cheering along with the audience every time a dancer hits a dip. Streams at youtube.com/c/ParisBallroom.
� STREAM: Literary Arts presents Heather McGhee If Americans refuse to confront the corrosive nature of systemic racism from a standpoint of basic human decency, then maybe it’s best to hit them where it hurts most: their wallet. In The Sum of Us, author and economic policy expert Heather McGhee looks at the literal cost of prejudice in this country and makes a compelling argument that not just people of color are impacted. McGhee discusses her book in a livestream event co-presented by Literary Arts, the Loft in Minneapolis, the Black Mountain Institute in Las Vegas, and the Wisconsin Book Festival. 5 pm Tuesday, March 2. Free. Register at crowdcast.io/e/wbf-sum-of-us/register.
OUTDOORS
CAESY ONEY
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A Peace of Blading
Carlos the Rollerblader on the Zen of skating through Portland. Hello, Portland: It’s been a while since the city’s heard from me in large format, and that’s not accidental. When you think Carlos the Rollerblader, you might think of the Free Advice Hotline, my standup comedy, Magic Mondays or me getting annually sonned by the Unipiper in this paper’s Best of Portland polls. I’m also hard to miss on the streets—skating jubilantly, clad in pink, with more groove than Bootsy. Lately though, I’ve been putting my efforts into opening Disco’s Skate Shop, which will be Portland’s sole rollerblading-centric shop. We’ll have quad skates, classes and even strollers! But we’ll talk about that more at a later date. And if you’ve never heard of me at all before right now, that’s completely OK—I just want to talk about rollerblading real quick. It’s not lost on me that we’re coming up on a year of living and dying (and skating) with COVID19, which makes writing this that much more salient. I actually attempted to submit this piece in the late summer—somewhere between federal occupation and the fires—but found myself distinctly unable to find the kind of peace I’d hope to describe because of how compromised my safety felt when I left my home. My life is already threatened in several ways without the pandemic, so in this new world, I go to even greater lengths to soothe and regulate myself. There have been several moments in the past year, both personally & universally, that have felt like The End. But if the end is really nigh, then I’m not actually fighting it. I’m instead trying to experience as much joy as I can get my hands on, amidst the loudness of the world. Sometimes, that means just throwing it all in the street. Sometimes, you have to max out on the noise instead of trying to drown it out or ignore it. And sometimes, you just need to leave the house with nothing in your pockets but a phone and an Allen wrench. Skating is essentially a full-time, full-contact kind of activity that scratches all the main sensory itches in one fell swoop, all while inherently being a great aerobic exercise. I won’t even lie to you: My ideal outing doesn’t include pads, a helmet or even headphones. I won’t recommend that you follow my example, but the point remains: When I go out, I want to be open to every single, accessible thing. The more I accept, the better my odds of survival. Being that tuned in means my body is acting as
CARLOS THE ROLLERBLADER’S RECOMMENDED BLADING SPOTS
Inner Southwest Portland The combination of ºthe mini-city grid, lower motorist count, pedestrian-only bridge and newly paved everything makes for a scene where every kind of skater can get their kicks.
a giant conduit—wheels on my literal feet, hyperstimulated, aware of every moving and audible object nearby. Being that exposed to the cityscape means being optimally careful about who or what is around me, so that I don’t get myself or anybody else hurt. Understanding body language and microexpression is an essential part of playing it safe. If anyone knows the risks of distracted movement, it’s me: having to avoid your averted heads on the sidewalk, or drivers more interested in Facebook than the road. Accommodating the general human experience is a constant part of my ride, giving me great opportunities to practice compassion, patience and observation for my fellow Portlander. But also, kindly pay attention and please get the fuck out of my way—you’re ruining my line. At no point, though, does it feel overwhelming to be courted by that much stimuli. It’s actually quite comforting! The most satisfying thing about rollerblading is the purity of city noise, the ever-present combination of everything happening at once all around me. The sounds of the city—sirens, voices, chimes, exhaust pipes, phone vibrations, construction, wheels on the asphalt, my own breathing, helicopters, fireworks, crosswalk indicators, children shouting, trucks reversing, bridges raising, car radios, Bluetooth speakers, AirPod yuppies, etc.—coalesce into a single hum, akin to mixing all colors to make black pigment. That becomes a unique soundtrack of pure kinetic energy that gives me all the information I need to enjoy my skate and make it home safely. Of course, it’s not just about listening, watching and making it home all hunky-dory. I still have to contend with varied human experiences on the street, navigating the quirks of the city, doing field repairs, documenting my rides, adjusting my face mask, deciding what to do with found items or deciding how I’ll respond to being asked, “Have you ever seen Brink?” for the sixth time that day. It’s all worth it, though. The amount that I can learn about the city and it’s people in a half-hour skate is absolutely incredible. The list of tiny dogs that absolutely hate my skates is ever growing. The pool of gratitude that I have to my wheely boots is absolutely endless. Honestly, if there’s one thing I think other people should learn, it’s how to skate. Maybe you’d get a peace, too. Sincerely,
Carlos the Rollerblader
The Entire Rose City Golf Course Area Great for full-stride, big-wheel and even casual group skates, complete with Northeast 72nd Drive’s hidden, steep and thrillingly short hill leading into the course.
North Willamette Boulevard and Greeley Avenue Travel south on Willamette and Greeley from University of Portland to Going Street and you will have a new appreciation for inner North Portland. This is for experts only, though: The speed you catch will make you cry.
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FEATURE
C A R LY D I A Z
FOOD & DRINK
4. Langbaan
TOP 5
HOT PLATES Where to get food this week.
1. Berlu
CHRISTINE DONG
605 SE Belmont St., berlupdx.com. Order in advance at exploretock.com/berlupdx. The soups at Berlu are elusive, with chef Vince Nguyen making just two per week, but absolutely worth seeking out. They come in returnable takeout containers with a list of instructions on how best to heat and prepare your bowl at home. The bun mang ga—made of shredded organic chicken breast, chicken hearts, bamboo, sprouts and herbs—was deeply rich and gingery, with medium-thick rice vermicelli noodles. It is, as Nguyen writes in the instructions, a warm embrace by way of noodle soup.
6 SE 28th Ave., 971-344-2564, langbaanpdx.com. 3-9 pm Wednesday-Sunday. Once the most inaccessible restaurant in Portland—you had to make reservations months in advance—Langbaan has gone the takeout route, pivoting to Thai drinking snacks and noodle soup, including a hearty beef noodle curry topped with grilled short rib. The beef perches on thick egg noodles like a ship adrift on the tastiest ocean, and you will wind up very full if you try and eat it all in one go. Which, you know, go for it— YOLO and all that stuff.
2. GrindWitTryz
Get Baked
SWEET LOAF: La Reinita conchita bread made with local organic flour and leavened with sourdough starter.
La Reinita’s “community supported bakery” will bring seasonal baked goods to your doorstep. BY E L I Z A R OT H ST E I N
@saltynectar
ORDER: Sign up for La Reinita delivery at lareinitapdx.com. The CSB launches May 5. Reservations now open.
3. Toki
580 SW 12th Ave., 503-312-3037, tokipdx. square.site. 4-8 pm Friday-Sunday. Anything Han Oak chef Peter Cho does is worthy of intense anticipation. In this particular case, he’s moved across the river, into the former Tasty n Alder space, and uses it to craft the classic, traditional Korean meals—bibimbap, bulgogi, kimbap—he’s generally avoided at his main spot. It’s open now for takeout-only weekend dinners. Order through the website.
BUZZ LIST
Where to get drinks this week, one way or another.
4. Palomar
2377 NW Wilson St., 971-254-8982, hsbrew. co. Noon-6 pm Wednesday-Thursday and Sunday, noon-8 pm Friday-Saturday. A visit to the Hammer & Stitch taproom will remind you of an earlier era of craft beer, when breweries often popped up on the industrial fringes, and tracking them down felt like a scavenger hunt. The brewery’s motto is “Keep it simple, stupid,” but “simple” does not equate to dull. The Lager stands out for its bracing minimalism—each straw yellow sip is light, crisp and offers a quick burst of bubbles.
2. Swift Lounge
1932 NE Broadway, 503-288-3333, swiftloungepdx.com. Call to confirm current hours. The hip Irvington-area hangout is known for its Mason jar cocktails, but with glass jars being hard to come by since Oregon legalized cocktails to go, the owners decided it was best to hoard its collection for on-premises service. Its solution? Plastic cups that look straight out of 7-Eleven. “It’s not the most elegant vessel, but it gets the job done,” says owner Paul Francis, “and people enjoy walking them out in carriers like a fistful of Big Gulps.”
1733 NE Alberta St., 503-975-5951, gumba-pdx.com. 4:30-7 pm Wednesday (chicken sandwiches only), 4:30-8:30 pm Thursday-Monday. As a food cart, Gumba punched above its weight, serving fresh pastas, handmade burrata and ambitious snacks that made you want to linger at an outdoor table. Now it’s a brick-and-mortar in a time of takeout only—but you’ll still want to break out the candles, placemats and cloth napkins once you get the food home: No meal in 2020 provided more of a “this feels like we are in a restaurant” frisson than Gumba’s beet, cabbage and endive salad, pappardelle with braised beef sugo, panroasted steelhead trout, and eggplant olive oil cake. Drinks. The Sleep Witch, a tart, neon fuchsia-colored drink, features local Dogwood Distilling vodka infused with Washingtonbased Tea Hunter’s Blue Valentine lemon-ginger tea, while the Cha Cha is made with homemade vegan horchata.
TOP 5
1. Hammer & Stitch
5. Gumba
959 SE Division St., No. 100, 971-266-8276, barpalomar.com. 4-10 pm WednesdaySaturday. By reservation only. A reflection of owner Ricky Gomez’s Cuban American heritage and his hometown of New Orleans, the drink menu at Palomar is just as colorful as the décor, full of piña coladas, daiquiris and all things slushy and beachy—and to-go orders come in cups that change colors when cold.
5. Botanist House
1300 NW Lovejoy St., 971-533-8064, botanisthouse.com. 4-10 pm TuesdaySaturday. In November, the Pearl District gin bar threatened to go rogue and start selling mixed drinks to go as an act of “civil disobedience” but called off the protest once legislators announced a special session to consider changing the law. So how much credit can we give them for the takeout cocktail revolution? Hard to say, but it deserves some patronage just for sticking its neck out. WESLEY LAPOINTE
Each Friday, Portlanders receive deliveries of conchas, doughnuts, empanadas and marranitos, all made by hand from a baker who doesn’t know how to use commercial yeast. Cortney Morentin, founder and owner of La Reinita panadería urbana, fell in love with naturally leavened baking when she was gifted a sourdough starter 10 years ago. She followed that joy from Los Angeles to Portland and, in 2016, opened a pop-up bakery. Now, a decade after she made her first English muffin, she plans to bake hundreds more to deliver across Portland as part of her community supported bakery, or CSB. From May through early August, subscribers will receive fresh-baked, fermented goods delivered to their doorstep once every two weeks. La Reinita’s seasonal CSB will have the grab-bag charm of it’s better-known cousin, the CSA. Those familiar with community supported agriculture programs will understand the thrill of receiving an unknown assortment of produce each week, but the question of what to do with 20 rutabagas is either a challenge or simply a drag. Morentin’s CSB deliveries will also remain mysteries until opened, but promise variety and carb-filled pleasure every time. For $200 up front, subscribers will receive $25 worth of baked goods every two weeks to scarf down immediately or freeze for later. As is the case with her weekly deliveries and semi-monthly pop-ups, Morentin’s CSB will be rooted in seasonality. “I use local ingredients to support the local economy, to support the local farmers, to keep the dollar here,” she says, “supporting our own city and our own people.” For Morentin, seasonality also reflects where she is in the moment—what she’s wondering, remembering, listening to, dancing to. The assortment of baked goods in the CSB deliveries will tell these temporal stories. One week, curiosity and experimentation will come through “Sesame and Its Many Forms.” The next, notes
of nostalgia from “A Day at the Panadería,” an homage to sweet memories of trips to the bakery with her grandfather. Morentin is driven by “feelings” in their many forms. It’s why she posts videos of herself dancing cumbia in her apron on Instagram, and why the cookie crust that tops her sourdough brioche bun conchas will be spiced with cardamom one week and purpled with powdered wild blueberries the next. It is also the reason she is a baker. “I was very happy when I baked—the crust, the tenderness, how it made the house smell,” she says. “It’s just a love story.” Like the good love stories, hers has grown truer with time. Morentin began baking professionally in 2016, when she moved to Portland and created Wyld Bread. As she built her community in Portland, she connected with other small business owners, many of whom shared her Mexican heritage. They asked her why she wasn’t baking pan dulce, the bread she remembers eating with her grandfather. With reflection, reconnection and time, Morentin changed the name of her venture. Two years ago, Wyld Bread became La Reinita, or “little queen” in Spanish. Morentin clarifies that the name does not refer to her. “The reason I named it La Reinita was to put a crown on my heritages,” Morentin says. “This is a coming back to my identity and my bloodline and being connected to my family again.” It’s important to Morentin that she celebrate both her heritage and her reverence for local, organic, naturally leavened products. As such, she knows that her pan dulces veer from what one would traditionally find in a panadería. This is intentional. “‘Urban bakery,’ to me, means being unexpected in the world of panaderías,” she says. “Not better or worse, just unexpected.”
2017 NE Alberta St., 971-865-5160, grindwittryz.square.site. Instagram: @grindwittryz. Noon-8 pm Tuesday-Saturday. As a food cart, GrindWitTryz was a near-instant sensation, its crowds and wait times harking back to the early days of Salt & Straw or Apizza Scholls, and the lines have only grown longer since owner Tryzen Patricio moved into the former Bunk space on Alberta. The most popular dish by far is the ono chicken: 12 pieces of crispy, sweetglazed fried chicken thighs—more than a pound of meat— piled onto a double-portion bed of furikake-topped rice.
3. Wedgehead
3728 NE Sandy Blvd., 503-477-7637, wedgeheadpdx.com. 4-10 pm Wednesday-Sunday. Surrounded by pinball tables, KaCee Solis-Robertson swizzles and shakes double-batch cocktails behind the bar at Wedgehead. Hers are the self-described “freakishly small hands” seen clutching rosary beads on the logo of her new canned cocktail brand, Little Hands Stiff
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FOOD & DRINK CHRIS NESSETH
FEATURE
SUPPORT
LOCAL
INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM BRAISED BRISKET SANDWICH
COUNTRY DUCK PÂTÉ
Big Poppy
WWEEK.COM/SUPPORT EAT:
Poppyseed,
Duck pâté meets PB&J at a new food cart from alums of Le Pigeon and Baker & Spice. BY JAS O N CO H E N
@cohenesque
What kind of food cart serves a duck country pâté with roasted hazelnuts, cranberries and parsnip puree, and also a grilled peanut butter and jelly sandwich? The kind of food cart started by a trained pastry chef and a Le Pigeon alum. Open since mid-January at the Killingsworth Station Food Carts, Poppyseed makes fancyish, local and seasonal food that’s both to-go friendly and affordable. Owners Tim Willis and Lissette Morales Willis come from fine dining, including various jobs and stages in Colorado, Chicago and the San Francisco Bay Area. Since moving to Portland, Tim cooked at Nomad PDX and then Le Pigeon, while Morales Willis worked the 4 am-to-noon shift at Baker & Spice. And, then, as with so many current restaurant stories: COVID-19. Restaurant shutdowns. Layoffs. So why not open your dream restaurant, albeit scaled down, sped up and with no employees? The name Poppyseed was almost random inspiration: They spilled some actual poppyseeds they were saving to plant in the garden, and that became a metaphor: “How such a big, beautiful flower can come out of this impossibly small seed,” Morales Willis says. Plus, she and their son, Eliah, have been reading the children’s book Poppyseed by Stephen Cosgrove. While overall there’s a division of labor between the Poppyseed menu’s “sweet” and “savory” categories—Lissette trained at Chicago’s French Pastry School, while Tim also has a background in salumi— certain plates are still collaborative. That duck pâté is accompanied by Lissette’s Seville whiskey mar24
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GRILLED PB&J
BECOME A FRIEND OF WILLAMETTE WEEK
1331 N Killingsworth St., 503-489-7449, poppyseedpnw.com. Noon-8 pm Thursday-Sunday.
malade and lavash crackers, while Tim’s version of that old Portland restaurant standby, the kale salad, becomes a composed dish atop a sunchoke puree and caramelized onion galette: his filling, her pastry. The leading player on the menu is brisket, which has been available both as a sandwich, on a Dos Hermanos potato roll, or as an entree with a Parmesan potato cake and vegetables. Inspired by a similar dish at Le Pigeon, the brisket is coated in a version of quatre épices seasoning—in this case, clove, cinnamon, nutmeg and black pepper—sits for 24 hours, gets braised in red wine, tomato paste and vegetables, and then sliced and seared. It’s brisket by way of beef bourguignon, rather than Texas BBQ or Jewish grandmothers. As for the grilled PB&J, made with marionberry jam and Adams chunky peanut butter, that’s meant to be a less obvious, kid-friendly menu item from Tim’s own childhood. “My Dad would make me a grilled peanut butter and jelly, and I just remember it kind of blowing my mind,” he says. “I had grilled cheese for so long and I had cold peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but never a hot peanut butter and jelly.” It’s fancied up with two thick slices of Lissette’s fresh-baked pain de mie—though you can also trash it down with marshmallow, which was on Poppyseed’s opening menu and is now more or less a secret menu item. That came about because Morales Willis was making marshmallows for dessert anyway, and it just seemed like the kind of quirky thing a food cart ought to do. “I had the idea in my head that we weren’t ‘fun’ enough,” she says. “Just something people will maybe try if they don’t like what we have to offer on the refined side.”
PERFORMANCE
MUSIC
Editor: Andi Prewitt | Contact: aprewitt@wweek.com
Written by: Daniel PDX CONTEMPORARY BALLET
FOOTLOOSE: Helbert Pimenta created a series of dance videos for PDX Contemporary Ballet.
My Essential Seven: Helbert Pimenta
The Brazilian choreographer talks dance, family and adventures in Lebanon and France. BY BE N N E T T C A M P B E LL FE RGUS O N
COVID-19 has killed over 2 million people, but it hasn’t killed Helbert Pimenta’s creativity. “For dancers, life is almost like a novel,” says the Brazilian dancer and choreographer. “We go through many things, many adversities, many times of struggle—and we adapt and we change and we grow. So COVID is just one more thing we are dealing with as artists.” Pimenta is probably best known as a member of the Brazilian dance company Grupo Corpo, but he has also brought his talents to PDX Contemporary Ballet. When he was invited to choreograph a piece for the company, an unusual symbiosis was born. Communicating from Brazil with the dancers, Pimenta helped create A Morfose, a multipart film that translates the themes of Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis into movement. For Pimenta, who goes by Nem (pronounced like “name”), A Morfose is an ambitious new chapter in a life of adventure. Speaking through a translator, he revealed seven stories from his epic journeys as a choreographer, dancer and traveler. 1. My mother’s participation in my work Her influence was very important to me—and it was very important to have her supporting me. I would say to myself, “I will someday take my mom to watch me dance, and she will see that I am doing the right thing, that I am really working hard to become a dancer—and that all this work, all her trust in me, was worth it.” And then the day came and she was coming to a show and all of the crew and all of the Grupo Corpo company were like, “Oh my God! Your mom is here!” 2. Maria Gabriela Correia A friend of mine once said, “Let’s go take this [dance] class.” When I was in the studio I heard, “Five! Six! Seven! Eight!” It was Maria Gabriela’s voice, and I said, “Oh my God, I want to take classes with this woman who sounds very crazy, but also exciting.” 3. Lebanon One time we were performing in a city in Lebanon. There was this woman who showed up in the afternoon or early evening in front of the hotel with a big, baby blue car. We drove, drove, drove. Then it
was night and she said, “Lie down [on top of the car] and stare at the sky.” The car rolled through the desert without a driver for a long time. And it was a very unusual, special occasion for me that I can’t forget. 4. White Night in Paris There’s this night where the moon stays out longer in the night that they call White Night in Paris. They have many, many exhibitions and people doing art and performances in every corner, in every place that you can go in Paris. There is a church by a museum at the end of a street with very high ceilings. People would be hanging from the ceiling with this horn and they would whisper things…and people would go and listen to the whispering. People went so crazy because it was kind of angelical, like it was from heaven. 5. Travel Right before COVID, we were here. We were doing Alaska, Canada, Seattle and Portland. But the place that’s very special to me is Budapest, because that is a very crazy, beautiful and unique city. We climbed this mountain there. And then we decided to go down, but I couldn’t because I got dizzy from being scared of the height. I said to myself, “Get it together, Nem!” I decided to come down doing zigzags so I wouldn’t have to face straight down. So, I faced my fear of heights in Budapest. 6. Social work I was invited many times to speak about being a Black male dancer. I gave a lot of talks to kids to show them that it’s possible—that life is possible outside of violence, criminal acts and everything like that. The majority of the time, I’m not paid to do that kind of social work. But it’s my pleasure to help those kids. 7. Walking Many times, people are inside the train or the bus and watch through the window, and I’m walking and they’re like, “Oh, look! It’s Nem!” It’s all about new experiences—how you see life, how you go through life without thinking too much about how you get there. SEE IT: Chapters 1 through 3 of A Morfose stream at pdxcb. com/amorfose. Chapters 4 and 5 will be released in March. $5.
Bromfield
| @bromf3
Now Hear This
Listening recommendations from the past, present, Portland and the periphery. SOMETHING OLD Creedence Clearwater Revival has all but sworn off their final album, 1972’s Mardi Gras, released without rhythm guitarist Tom Fogerty and recorded at the height of the tensions that would break up the band that same year. It’s spotty, not least because bassist Stu Cook and drummer Doug Clifford wrote and sing most of the material rather than Tom’s bandleader brother, John. But it’s not as bad as its reputation—and when it’s good, it’s really good. “Lookin’ for a Reason,” in particular, is one of the best country pastiches of an era crammed with them.
SOMETHING NEW Sadly, San Francisco synth sorceress Pauline Anna Strom passed away before she could see the release of her swan song, Angel Tears in Sunlight. It’s her first album of material in 30 years, and it feels strikingly modern, in part because Strom was a master of her form, and also because echoes of her playful, burbling sound can be heard in scores of latter-day bands and producers.
SOMETHING LOCAL Rose City Band is led by the impressively hirsute Ripley Johnson, and if you’re familiar with his work in the spacerock bands Moon Duo and Wooden Shjips, you might be surprised what a straight-ahead country song “Wide Open Spaces” is. But the psychedelic edge is still there: A pedal steel performance by Barry Walker nods both to the instrument’s storied C&W history and to Walker’s more ambient work with North Americans. Full album Earth Trip comes out May 21.
SOMETHING ASKEW If you saw the Mars rover footage and wished you could be there in person, of1000faces’ Astronomica is the next best thing. The solo project of drummer Matt Walker (Smashing Pumpkins, Morrissey and others), of1000faces inhabits the sound of Brian Eno’s earliest ambient albums and shoots it into the stratosphere. The first concert in space will probably feature Grimes, given her partner Elon Musk’s Mars-conquering ambitions, but it’s hard to think of a better candidate for the gig than Walker.
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FLASHBACK
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THIS WEEK IN 1977
POTLANDER
The ABCs of CBG The granddaddy of cannabinoids is making its way onto the market. Here’s what it does and where to get it. BY BRIA N N A W H E E L E R
Therapeutic hemp and super-stoney dank weed are both, by definition, cannabis. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Though each cultivar is distinguished by its unique concentration of cannabinoids, all 120 known cannabinoids are derived from one master cannabinoid: cannabigerol, or CBGa. Typically, however, by the time a cannabis plant is bred for a specific therapeutic (hemp CBD) or recreational profile (big-stoner-energy THC), very little CBG remains. That’s starting to change. The mother of all cannabinoids might have been a rare commodity a decade ago, but these days CBG can be found not just in dispensaries but drugstores, supermarkets and via USPS delivery. And while recent studies suggest that CBG and CBD share many of the same therapeutic effects, findings also suggest that CBG is the superior anxiety extinguisher, muscle relaxant and sleep aid—and might get you a little bit high as well. CBG interacts with both the CB1 and CB2 receptors of the endocannabinoid system, producing euphoric and therapeutic effects, respectively. (CBD and THC mingle only with one or the other.) Since the CB1 receptor is associated with the intoxicating effects of cannabis, CBG may present a touch of blissful psychoactivity, but more than that, it affects production of noradrenaline ,which quashes the hypervigilance associated with anxiety and potentially encourages REM sleep. Furthermore, CBG is the only cannabinoid known to affect noradrenaline uptake in muscle tissue, potentially making CBG the superior muscle-relaxing cannabinoid. CBG also shows significant promise as an antibacterial, an appetite stimulant and colon-cancer fighter. Cannaisseurs interested in exploring the effects and varieties of CBG might consider starting their journey with one of these Northwest canna brands:
For the Dedicated Joint Smoker: Lady Jays CBG Orange Peels Pre-Rolls Ladies of Paradise, the femme-first agency behind Lady Jays pre-roll packs, has been producing CBG joints since 2019. Their strain-specific CBG flower is just as lush-smelling as Ladies’ other boxed offerings, and is also available as a CBD-CBG blend. These pre-rolls are smooth, even smokes with a dank floral perfume. When toked the morning after a particularly intense weightlifting workout, we found almost immediate relief from sore biceps and triceps. The slight mood elevation that accompanies the pain relief is not quite intoxicating, but did certainly cast a rose-colored spell over the rest of the morning. Get them from: shopladyjays.com
For the Combustion Averse: Angel Hemp Zoom Formula CBG Drops Angel Hemp incorporates citrus terpenes to boost the effervescent effects of its CBG-CBD tincture. A serving consists of 25 mg of CBG and 7 mg of CBD blended to capture the vitalizing effects of each cannabinoid. Not specific to any strain, this tincture is created using hydrocarbon cannabinoid isolate. Without botanical impurities, users can experience Angel Hemp’s cannabinoid combos free from entourage effects, which some users might celebrate and others might frown upon. Either way, this product is a fine introduction to the therapeutic potential of CBG, presented as a low-stakes, lemon-scented tincture that users can drop under the tongue or across their morning toast. Get it from: Oregrown, 111 NE 12th Ave., 503-477-6898, oregrow\n.com.
For the Career Candy Crusher: Mr. Moxey’s Ginger Mints Seattle’s Mr. Moxey’s Mints have been dispensary faves since recreational use went legal. Their thoughtful botanical blends are formulated to harmonize with cannabinoids, creating an experience heightened by a calculated terpene balance. Mr. Moxey’s flagship CBG product is a Ginger Mint tin featuring confits with 5 mg each of CBD
and CBG—300 mg of each per package. These mints also feature the medicinal herbs holy basil, chamomile and lemongrass, and unlike other CBG products, feature full-spectrum cannabis extract for an intact entourage experience. Get them from: Kind Heart Collective, 8217 N Denver Ave., 503-512-6136, kindheartcollective.com.
For the Vape Lords: OM Extracts 1:1 Ogre Cartridge For folks who keep a few different vape cartridges in rotation, or prefer vape pens to other consumption methods, adding this oil cart to the collection will ensure therapeutic cannabinoids stay in the cipher without making them the center of attention. This extract’s balance of THC and CBG can be attributed to Ogre’s unique genetics: a phenotype of ultra-relaxing Sensi Star and perky, upbeat Hawaiian Haze. Whether you puff your vape to dissociate or medicate, this cartridge’s 6.6% CBG, 24% CBD and 28% THC deliver on all fronts. Get it from: Uplift Botanicals, 5421 NE 33rd Ave., 971319-6118, upliftbotanicals.com.
For Flower Enthusiasts Exhausted by Astronomical THC Percentages: Plain Jane Delta 8 CBG Hemp Flower Medford Plain Jane produces some of our all-time favorite mail-safe smokables, so it stands to reason that its CBG flower would be just as dense, sugary and stanky as the rest of its hemp products. What sets this hemp flower apart is the inclusion of delta-8 THC. Delta-9 THC is intoxicating, but delta-8 is chemically different and not yet recognized as an intoxicant, placing it in a kind of legal gray area. Yes, it can result in feelings of intoxication, but those effects are far milder than what one might experience after smoking even the lowest bargain dispensary flower. Bottom line: Plain Jane’s CBG delta-8 flower makes for a very appealing, low-tolerance smoke. Snatch it up while you can still get it by mail order. Get it from: plainjane.com Willamette Week FEBRUARY 24, 2021 wweek.com
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SCREENER
MOVIES
Editor: Andi Prewitt / Contact: aprewitt@wweek.com
GET YO UR REPS I N
O R E G O N S H A K E S P E A R E F E S T I VA L
While local rep theaters are out of commission, we’ll be putting together weekly watchlists of films readily available to stream. As February is Black History Month, we’ve highlighted five narrative and documentary films that celebrate the Black experience while simultaneously exposing, confronting and interrogating America’s cruel and violent history.
Judas and the Black Messiah (2021) In Shaka King’s immensely powerful biopic, we follow Black Panther Party chairman Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya) and the man who sold him out (LaKeith Stanfield) in the months leading up to the FBI’s villainous assassination of Hampton in 1969. He was just 21 years old. Featuring masterful performances all around, it’s everything last year’s muddled The Trial of the Chicago 7 thought it was. HBO Max.
Illusions (1982) PANDEMIC POD: The characters in Ash Land are amalgams of four Black women artists who bonded after COVID-19 canceled last year’s OSF.
She & Her
BY C H A N C E SO L E M - P F E I FER
@chance_s_p
For nearly 90 years, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival has been one of the state’s landmark artistic institutions, drawing both international theater talent and audiences to Ashland. But last July, OSF artistic director Nataki Garrett called Shariffa Ali, hoping the acclaimed New York stage director and the festival’s 2020 artist-in-residence could help “save” it. At the time, Ali had sheltered in Ashland for months after COVID-19 shut down her production of The Copper Children almost as quickly as it began. “I remember feeling on opening night [Feb. 29] a little weirded out that everyone had been hugging me,” Ali says. “We had no idea what was in store.” Like so many live festivals, OSF pivoted online in 2020, launching myriad digital programming under the banner of O! In response to Garrett’s request, Ali sought artistic inspiration from her immediate surroundings: nature, pandemic loneliness and the bittersweet reality of being a Black visitor in a state she was coming to love while simultaneously confronting its white supremacist history and contemporary racial disparities. Ali set about making Ash Land with those themes in mind. “We came to the realization that, wait a minute, what we’re doing is actually quite radical,” she explains. “We are defying the design of how [Oregon] was set up just by going on a walk, just by choosing to be joyful, just by eating from the local market.” The result is a 20-minute short film available via OSF’s website and selected for this month’s Los Angeles-based Pan African Film Festival. Ash Land finds a woman called only “She” (Kamilah Long) languishing alone in a trailer. Meanwhile, an ambiguous figure from her past, “Her” (Cyndii Johnson), pursues the despondent older woman across the Southern Oregon wilderness. Ali’s storytelling keeps the women’s relationship initially vague, but there’s clearly a mountain of history between them, as She and Her hike to swimming holes, discuss Northwest honey, and navigate difficult questions of identity. In Ali’s first full-scale cinematic outing as a director, she found a particularly crafty way to suggest the women’s connection. 28
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“I tried as much as possible to get [Johnson and Long] to breathe in synchronicity with each other,” Ali says. “The actors have been directed to actually complete each other’s breath cycles.” If She and Her feel more symbolic than literal at times, perhaps it’s because they were created in composite fashion. Ali says the two characters are amalgams of four Black women artists—Ali, Long, Johnson and playwright Banna Desta, Ash Land’s screenwriter—working and bonding in a pod after the canceled festival. “We have been rewired by the time we spent in Oregon,” Ali says. “Our atoms had been rejiggered anew, but we look the same.” Though she’s since moved back to New York, the Northwest immediately calls Ali again. As part of OSF’s 2021 hybrid lineup of live and digital programming, Ali will direct another Oregon short this spring: You Go Girl! by writer Zoey Martinson. Once again, her work will focus on a Black woman—this time a standup comedian—coming to terms with her solitude in the forests of Southern Oregon. Ali, who grew up in South Africa and currently teaches at Princeton University, isn’t the lone artist in her creative circle appreciating the state from afar. It turns out The Roots emcee Tariq Trotter, aka Black Thought, is also an Oregon admirer, which Ali discovered while collaborating on Trotter’s forthcoming Broadway musical, Black No More. That connection led Trotter to become Ash Land’s executive producer, but more significantly contribute an exclusive song by The Roots, which plays in its entirety to close the film. Ali hopes “Push for Me” could serve as an anthem to help Oregon own and dismantle its history, as one of hip-hop’s virtuoso emcees references both sundown towns and the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde in its lyrics. “Tariq loves Oregon,” Ali says. “He has declared that he will be retiring in Oregon. We need to go house-hunting for him, find a nice place for him with greenery and a creek.” SEE IT: Ash Land streams at osfashland.org/productions/2020-digital/ash-land.aspx. Free.
LA TIMES
Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s new short film reflects on race and the difficult questions surrounding identity.
Written and directed by Julie Dash, this 34-minute revisionist drama explores how “the influence of that screen cannot be overestimated.” Set in a fictional 1940s film studio, a biracial producer (Lonette McKee) presumed to be white by her co-workers oversees a Black woman dub the singing voice for a white woman, and reflects on her community’s inexcusable invisibility in the industry. Criterion Channel, Kanopy.
LA 92 (2017) Using rare archival footage collected from over 1,700 hours of recordings, this critically acclaimed National Geographic documentary chronicles the events of the 1992 Los Angeles uprising, which was ignited after a jury acquitted four police officers who publicly and excessively beat Rodney King. Amazon Prime, Apple TV+, Google Play, Hulu, iTunes, Netflix, Vudu, YouTube.
Black Is…Black Ain’t (1994) As filmmaker-activist Marlon Riggs was dying from AIDS at age 37, he decided to make one last documentary about Black identity and experience. Featuring interviews with Angela Davis, bell hooks and other prominent Black figures, Riggs demonstrates how the rigid expectations of “Blackness” play into colorism, sexism, homophobia and more. Criterion Channel, Kanopy.
One Night in Miami… (2020) Academy Award-winning actress Regina King steps behind the camera for her directorial debut based on Kemp Powers’ eponymous play. One Night in Miami is a fictional account of the real-life February 1964 meeting between Malcolm X (Kingsley Ben-Adir), Muhammad Ali (Eli Goree), Jim Brown (Aldis Hodge) and Sam Cooke (Leslie Odom Jr.). Amazon Prime.
MOVIES A24
TOP PICK OF THE WEEK
Minari Director Lee Isaac Chung’s breakout film ponders American dreams by way of a pasture. Ask the father of the Yi family—Korean immigrants settling in rural 1980s Arkansas—and his new farm plot is rich with promise: Jacob (Steven Yeun) has purchased a literal slice of America, all set for cultivation. Or will the pasture suck dry the family’s labor, its savings, its cultural identity, its wellspring of love? By contrast, Jacob’s wife, Monica (Han Ye-ri), misses Los Angeles where the Yi family had Korean neighbors; hell, any neighbors. Despite its miscategorization by the Golden Globes as a “Foreign Language” film, Minari is quintessentially American, neither a strict cultural study nor an assimilation drama. Chung deftly centers his loosely autobiographical story on family mechanics, hews to the setting’s specifics, and allows Minari simply to unfold. Scenes of 7-year-old David punished with Korean stress positions and learning the card game Go-Stop happen right beside American experiments in Mountain Dew and chewing tobacco. When cultural conflicts do arise, they’re organic and spark unexpectedly hilarious trash talk between little David and his nonconformist grandma Soonja. Fully deserving of its nearly full year of acclaim since Sundance 2020, Minari is the rare immigrant story to seek meaning almost entirely beyond immigration itself. PG-13. CHANCE SOLEMPFEIFER. Living Room, On Demand, 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 Nomadland Filmmaker Chloé Zhao’s work has always sought to uplift voices that have been pushed to the margins. Her previous features, The Rider (2017) and Songs My Brothers Taught Me (2015), both focused on Native American reservation culture, and she now sets her sights on documenting the lives of older Americans who travel in campers across the country in search of employment. The result is an awe-inspiring, dexterous hybrid of impromptu documentary and scripted drama, of nature and nurture, of ethos and pathos. Nomadland is anchored by multi-Oscar winner Frances McDormand, here playing Fern, a widow who lost her job at a gypsum plant in Empire, Nev., two years after the Great Recession officially came to an end. With nothing left to lose, Fern decides to sell her belongings, buy a van and hit the road in search of work. Along the way, she meets a litany of real-life nomads, most playing semi-fictionalized versions of themselves. These characters ground the film in a sober reality, reminding us it’s possible to live and thrive in a community outside of traditional society. Though the story is technically manipulated for narrative purposes, it never once feels manipulative, emotionally or otherwise. It feels human. It is human. And it’s the best film of the year. R. MIA VICINO. Hulu.
Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar What if gal pals Romy and Michele partied at a pastel-painted
hotel in Vista Del Mar, Fla., instead of their high school reunion? What if Austin Powers was written by and starred Bridesmaids screenwriters Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo? And what if these two distinctly separate ideas combined into one whimsically absurd feelgood comedy? Barb and Star are middle-aged best friends who do everything together. So when they both lose their mundane jobs and their uptight friend group (led by a hilarious Vanessa Bayer), the pair decide to take a rejuvenating Florida vacation. Of course, they fall for the same ridiculously handsome stranger (Jamie Dornan), but little do they know he’s a secret agent working under the sinister Dr. Lady (also played by Wiig), tasked with u n l e a s h i n g a d e a d l y swa r m o f genetically modified mosquitoes against the denizens of Vista Del Mar. What follows is a whirlwind of friendship, romance, espionage and random musical numbers—in a standout solo performance, Dornan gets to shed his steely, stiff star persona and get loosey-goosey in the sand, singing about the agony of love. Though Barb & Star hits some overly familiar beats, it maintains enough originality for several laugh-out-loud moments. It’s about time we got more risk-taking studio comedies like this one. PG-13. MIA VICINO. Amazon Prime, Google Play, Vudu.
Malcolm & Marie Malcolm (John David Washington) makes movies, Marie (Zendaya) is his lover/muse and they make mincemeat of each other in this slick anti-romance directed by Sam Levinson. Last summer, Levinson filmed Washington and Zendaya raging at each other inside
a glass-walled house in Carmel, Calif., betting their charisma would infuse its sterile interior with life. That wager bloomed into Malcolm & Marie, which begins with the couple returning home after the premiere of Malcolm’s new movie about addiction. The audience was enraptured, but Malcolm failed to thank Marie in a speech (his film is partly based on her life). She retaliates with scorching mind games that torment and delight her pompous paramour, making you wonder whether their relationship is a toxic mess or an idyllic union between two people who crave conflict. Levinson lets the camera dance through Malcolm and Marie’s home, capturing their tantrums with gloriously vivid blackand-white cinematography. He goes heavy on style and light on soulfulness, but who cares? The pleasure of watching godly thespians play characters who make war over everything from film to cigarettes to mac ’n’ cheese is too savory to ignore. Levinson will never stand as tall as the cinematic giants he namechecks (Malcolm is a big William Wyler fan), but he has made a beautiful-looking movie about two very entertaining assholes. R. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Netflix.
Saint Maud Hospice requires a special kind of caretaker. After all, the patient’s destination is set; they just need a shepherd for a difficult journey. Rose Glass’ new A24 horror movie is unreliably narrated by a young caretaker who elevates shepherd status to a calling. Maud (Morfydd Clark) excels at managing meds and stretching atrophying legs, but she also believes she can save the soul of her dying patient (Jennifer Ehle). Clark carries this frosty death march, seldom masking Maud’s earnest pursuit of “goodness” behind performative zealotry. With a dose of First Reformed and a dash of Black Swan, Saint Maud trades in stiff-lipped body horror where the real suffering is miles beneath the skin, but rest assured, the skin still takes a beating. Though
the script is too withdrawn to maximize Maud’s recited prayers or the bland side characters in her life, Glass proves herself an immediate visual and tonal talent. Honestly, the whole English town of Coney Island appears to need palliative care, rotting in a scheme of yellows and browns that contrast with the vibrant gothicism of Maud’s inner vision. It’s neither the most nuanced nor involving example of religious fervor as movie horror, but Saint Maud delivers—souls and all. R. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Amazon Prime, Philo, Sling TV.
Supernova Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci playing a loving couple on an RV trip in the English countryside is exactly as tender and intimate as it sounds. Their palpable chemistry is bolstered by Firth’s frosty naturalism and Tucci’s balmy theatricality; good thing, too, because this romantic drama’s scant plot is almost completely dependent on the casting of actors up to the task. The tale itself is one that’s (tragically) familiar: A long-term relationship is tested by early onset dementia. However, writer-director Harry Macqueen finds room to break new ground by making the couple in question gay. An overabundance of art has been made that revolves around LGBTQ suffering, though it’s usually derived from homophobia. While that’s most certainly a worthy topic to explore, sometimes it’s refreshing to see gay people allowed to have other conflicts, too. Here, the characters’ sexuality is almost never an issue—their family is openly supportive of their relationship. Instead, the tension revolves around regular, old-fashioned trauma. The couple is given space to deal with their own very real crises without the simultaneous weight of bigotry crushing them. While Supernova’s melodrama would have doubtlessly been more compelling as a stage play, at least its meaningful story is much more publicly accessible in film form. R. MIA VICINO. On Demand.
Days of the Bagnold Summer In an understated yet painful exchange that opens Days of the Bagnold Summer, single mother Sue Bagnold (Monica Dolan) tells son Daniel (Earl Cave) that plans for the sullen teenage metalhead to visit his father’s new family in Florida have been canceled. Instead, he’ll be spending the next six weeks moping around the house with “boring old Mom.” Alas, so do we. While their affection for each other seeps through in often startling rude exchanges, Sue’s fitful efforts to rouse the boy from determined misanthropy largely serve as a halfhearted distraction from either a lingering resentment toward her remarried ex or sadness at the prospect of a life alone. You’d expect the elongated trudge through a peculiarly British celebration of awkward silences to get old quickly, but Simon Bird’s directorial debut rages against the bleakness thanks to zippy rhythms and sumptuous visuals. Bagnold Summer bounces around like a teen rom-com while also resembling a Wes Anderson flashback or an iPod commercial. Or, more to the point, it has all of the aesthetics of a Belle and Sebastian video—the Scottish indie pop band’s mostly original soundtrack serves as a counterpoint to the leads’ songs of quiet despair. The film is based on Joff Winterhart’s 2012 graphic novel of the same name, and its overarching affection for the source material may best explain where it went wrong. More effective adaptations of seemingly unfilmable comics— Ghost World, notably—replicated the atmosphere of meaningful scenes, allowing familiar characters to drift outside the panels. Excessive loyalty to even the most beloved text isn’t always the right decision. After all, if forced to tell what happened during a profoundly uneventful summer vacation, why not just make something up? NR. JAY HORTON. On Demand, Virtual Cinema.
Willamette Week FEBRUARY 24, 2021 wweek.com
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ART N’ COMICS!
JACK KENT’S
Jack draws exactly what he sees n’ hears from the streets.
insta @sketchypeoplepdx kentcomics.com
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30
JONESIN’
Week of Week of March 4
©2021 Rob Brezsny
by Matt Jones
"Re:Re:Re:"--better than a long email thread.
ARIES (March 21-April 19)
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22)
In late April of 1969, Cambridhgeshire, UK hosted the first-ever Thriplow Daffodil Weekend: a flower show highlighting 80 varieties of narcissus. In the intervening years, climate change has raised the average temperature 3.24 degrees Fahrenheit. So the flowers have been blooming progressively earlier each year, which has necessitated moving the festival back. The last pre-Covid show in 2019 was on March 23-24, a month earlier than the original. Let's use this as a metaphor for shifting conditions in your world. I invite you to take an inventory of how your environment has been changing, and what you could do to ensure you're adapting to new conditions.
"How much has to be explored and discarded before reaching the naked flesh of feeling," wrote composer Claude Debussy. In the coming weeks, I hope you'll regard his words as an incitement to do everything you can to reach the naked flesh of your feelings. Your ideas are fine. Your rational mind is a blessing. But for the foreseeable future, what you need most is to deepen your relationship with your emotions. Study them, please. Encourage them to express themselves. Respect their messages as gifts, even if you don't necessarily act upon them.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20) Author Leo Buscaglia told us that among ancient Egyptians, two specific questions were key in evaluating whether a human life was well-lived. They were "Did you bring joy?" and "Did you find joy?" In accordance with your current astrological potentials, I'm inviting you to meditate on those queries. And if you discover there's anything lacking in the joy you bring and the joy you find, now is a very favorable time to make corrections.
GEMINI (May 21-June20) At age 11, the future first President of the United States George Washington became the "owner" of ten slaves. A few years later he "bought" 15 more. By the time he was president, 123 men, women, and children were struggling in miserable bondage under his control. Finally, in his will, he authorized them to be freed after he and his wife died. Magnanimous? Hell, no. He should have freed those people decades earlier— or better yet, never "owned" them in the first place. Another Founding Father, Benjamin Franklin not only freed his slaves but became an abolitionist. By my count, at least 11 of the other Founding Fathers never owned slaves. Now here's the lesson I'd like us to apply to your life right now: Don't procrastinate in doing the right thing. Do it now. ACROSS
62 Barbera's animation partner
30 Ending for million or billion
1 Harry's partner in crime in "Home Alone"
63 "The Joy of Cooking" author Rombauer
31 Bit of bird food
5 Draw forth
64 "Oh, drat"
10 Fledgling's home
65 Prodded, with "on"
33 Group that got the geography of Africa wrong
14 "Scratch a lover and find _ _ _": Dorothy Parker
66 Barbecue leftovers?
34 Trade
67 Dark gemstone
36 California's La _ _ _ Tar Pits
68 "_ _ _ lift?"
39 Where hip-hop originated
69 Prince hit of 1986
40 Savory turnover
During World War II, the Japanese island of Ōkunoshima housed a factory that manufactured poison gas for use in chemical warfare against China. These days it is a tourist attraction famous for its thousands of feral but friendly bunnies. I'd love to see you initiate a comparable transmutation in the coming months, dear Cancerian: changing bad news into good news, twisted darkness into interesting light, soullessness into soulfulness. Now is a good time to ramp up your efforts.
41 Antique photo tone
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22)
46 Pupil's place
"Scars speak for you," writes author Gena Showalter. "They say you're strong, and you've survived something that might have killed others." In that spirit, dear Leo, and in accordance with astrological omens, I invite you to authorize your scars to express interesting truths about you in the coming weeks. Allow them to demonstrate how resilient you've been, and how well you've mastered the lessons that your past suffering has made available. Give your scars permission to be wildly eloquent about the transformations you've been so courageous in achieving.
15 Ephron and Dunn, for two 16 Italian city known for sparkling wines 17 "The Avengers" star Diana 18 Bed covering 19 Sandcastle shaper 20 Late-night monster movie, maybe 23 Existential boredom 24 Institute in "Contact" and "The X-Files"
DOWN 1 Soft Cell lead singer Almond
49 His skull is held in "Hamlet"
3 Seth of "Future Man"
51 Play place?
4 Aquafaba users, e.g.
53 Poet Jones (aka Amiri Baraka)
28 Deadly snakes 32 Dollar divs.
6 Gloomy
35 Paparazzi subject
7 Michael of "Ugly Betty" or Brendon of Panic! at the Disco
37 Lake source of the Niagara River 38 Reason for a dashboard warning light 42 Idaho's neighbor 43 "Okay, so I was wrong"
54 Feet for poets 55 Overhaul 56 Longtime Indiana senator Bayh 57 Booker in the Senate
8 _ _ _ liver (butcher shop option)
58 "Natural Affection" playwright William
9 Appreciation
59 Linear, for short
10 Afternoon breaks of a sort
60 Insolence
44 Cartoonist Rall
11 Genesis twin
45 Nursery rhyme loser of sheep
12 Recipe directive 13 Do some floor work
48 Poopdeck _ _ _ (Popeye's dad)
21 "Stanley _ _ _: Searching for Italy"
50 Tournament exemptions
22 _ _ _ standstill
52 Fish wrap spread
26 Hoppy drinks
55 Places designated for biking, camping, etc.
27 Energize
61 Cooking acronym
47 Female fowl that doesn't have that ornate tail
2 Glowing
5 Controversial "National" tabloid that had a TV show in 1999
25 Throw out
32 Multi-level sandwich
last week’s answers
CANCER (June 21-July 22)
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) According to novelist Doris Lessing, "Everybody in the world is thinking: I wish there was just one other person I could really talk to, who could really understand me, who'd be kind to me." She implied that hardly anyone ever gets such an experience—or that it's so rare as to be always tugging on our minds, forever a source of unquenched longing. But I'm more optimistic than Lessing. In my view, the treasured exchange she describes is not so impossible. And I think it will especially possible for you in the coming weeks. I suspect you're entering a grace period of being listened to, understood, and treated kindly. Here's the catch: For best results, you should be forthright in seeking it out.
HOMEWORK: HWhat's your theme song for 2021 so far? FreeWillAstrology.com
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21) You may never wander out alone into a dark forest or camp all night on a remote beach or encounter a mountain lion as you climb to a glacier near the peak of a rugged mountain. But there will always be a primeval wilderness within you—uncivilized lands and untamed creatures and elemental forces that are beyond your rational understanding. That's mostly a good thing! To be healthy and wise, you need to be in regular contact with raw nature, even if it's just the kind that's inside you. The only time it may be a hindrance is if you try to deny its existence, whereupon it may turn unruly and inimical. So don't deny it! Especially now. (PS: To help carry out this assignment, try to remember the dreams you have at night. Keep a recorder or notebook and pen near your bed.)
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21) "What damages a person most," wrote philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, "is to work, think, and feel without inner necessity, without any deep personal desire, without pleasure—as a mere automaton of duty." Once a year, I think every one of us, including me, should meditate on that quote. Once a year, we should evaluate whether we are living according to our soul's code; whether we're following the path with heart; whether we're doing what we came to earth to accomplish. In my astrological opinion, the next two weeks will be your special time to engage in this exploration.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) What are your edges, Capricorn? What aspects of your identity straddle two different categories? Which of your beliefs embrace seemingly opposed positions? In your relations with other people, what are the taboo subjects? Where are the boundaries that you can sometimes cross and other times can't cross? I hope you'll meditate on these questions in the coming weeks. In my astrological opinion, you're primed to explore edges, deepen your relationship with your edges, and use your edges for healing and education and cultivating intimacy with your allies. As author Ali Smith says, "Edges are magic; there's a kind of forbidden magic on the borders of things, always a ceremony of crossing over, even if we ignore it or are unaware of it."
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18) According to intermedia artist Sidney Pink, "The idea of divine inspiration and an aha moment is largely a fantasy." What the hell is he talking about?! That's fake news, in my view. In the course of my creative career, I've been blessed with thousands of divine inspirations and aha moments. But I do acknowledge that my breakthroughs have been made possible by "hard work and unwavering dedication," which Sidney Pink extols. Now here's the climax of your oracle: You Aquarians are in a phase when you should be doing the hard work and unwavering dedication that will pave the way for divine inspirations and aha moments later this year.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20) For you Pisceans, March is Love Yourself Bigger and Better and Bolder Month. To prepare you for this festival, I'm providing two inspirational quotes. 1. "If you aren't good at loving yourself, you will have a difficult time loving anyone, since you'll resent the time and energy you give another person that you aren't even giving to yourself." —Barbara De Angelis 2. "Loving yourself does not mean being self-absorbed or narcissistic, or disregarding others. Rather it means welcoming yourself as the most honored guest in your own heart, a guest worthy of respect, a lovable companion." —Margo Anand
29 Aftershave brand Check out Rob Brezsny’s Expanded Weekly Audio Horoscopes & Daily Text Message Horoscopes
©2021 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.
freewillastrology.com The audio horoscopes are also available by phone at
1-877-873-4888 or 1-900-950-7700 Willamette Week FEBRUARY 24, 2021 wweek.com
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WILLAMETTE WEEK PORTLAND’S NEWSWEEKLY WILLAMETTE WEEK
P. 26
Steve Greenberg Tree Service
People are more likely to catch COVID east of 82nd Avenue.
That’s also where Portland's housing is the most overcrowded.
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NEWS: REMEMBER TERESSA RAIFORD’S NAME. P. 9 RESTAURANTS: WHO’LL STOP THE RAIN? P. 21 CANNABIS: WHAT WE LOST IN THE FIRES. P. 25
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“DO I WANT TO DROP DEAD NEXT WEEK? NOT REALLY.” P. 29
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Night after night, Portlanders confront Trump’s violent police in downtown. It feels like a party, and the end of the world.
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NEWS: Ted Wheeler Still Wants This Job. P. 9 • KAYAKING: Holy Toledo! P. 22 • CANNABIS: Strains for Late Summer. P. 25
PORTLAND’S NEWSWEEKLY
OUTDOORS
P. 6
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WILLAMETTE WEEK PORTLAND’S NEWSWEEKLY
By Aaron Mesh | Page 12
VOL 46/48 09.23.2020
WWEEK.COM
VOL 46/46 09.09.2020
| Page 13
P. 8
“GOOD THING CLIMATE CHANGE IS A HOAX LIKE COVID.” P. 4
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Beyond Avocado Toast. P. 23
Sarah Iannarone?
WAR MOVIES
NEWS: OREGON IS ON FIRE.
A cadre of helmeted guerrilla filmmakers is coming to you live from Portland’s flaming streets.
WWEEK.COM
FOOD
Portland voters are fed up with Ted Wheeler. But are they ready for
CANNABIS: WHAT WE LOST IN THE FIRES. P. 25
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Drive new cars, get paid weekly. Day/ Swing positions open. Part & full time men & women 18 yrs up call 360-718-7443
“DO I WANT TO DROP DEAD NEXT WEEK? NOT REALLY.” P. 29
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Will Oregon Hike Wine Taxes? P. 10
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COPS: TRUMP'S POLICE OCCUPY DOWNTOWN. NEWS: REMEMBER TERESSA RAIFORD’S NAME. P. 9 NEWS: AN ELECTION? THIS ECONOMY? RESTAURANTS: WHO’LLIN STOP THE RAIN? P. 21
“WE’D SPRAY AND VACUUM, BUT NOTHING’S PERFECT.’’ P. 28
THE MAGIC IS IN MEL’S HOLE. page 22
“I WANTED THEM TO SEE WHAT THEY'RE SHOOTING AT.” P. 20
OUTDOORS
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NEVER MISS INTO AN BROTHERS CANNABIS SELLWOOD THE GAS JAMMED ISSUE 1639 SE FLAVEL ST, PORTLAND
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The Worst-Case Scenario Is Here. P. 9
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Now more than ever, we’re grateful to Damian Lillard.
NEWS: Ted Wheeler Still Wants This Job. P. 9 • KAYAKING:Page Holy Toledo! 10 P. 22 • CANNABIS: Strains for Late Summer. P. 25
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“WE’D SPRAY AND VACUUM, BUT NOTHING’S PERFECT.’’ P. 28
Tradeupmusic.com SE 503-236-8800 NE 503-335-8800
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NEWS: OREGON IS ON FIRE.
A cadre of helmeted guerrilla filmmakers is coming to you live from Portland’s flaming streets.
“DO I WANT TO DROP DEAD NEXT WEEK? NOT REALLY.” P. 29
CASH for INSTRUMENTS
MISS AN ISSUE RESPECT NEVER MISS AN ISSUE Mark Zuckerberg is despoiling a tiny coastal village and Oregon’s natural treasures. The state invited him. 13
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By Nigel Jaquiss | Page 13
“WE’D SPRAY AND VACUUM, BUT NOTHING’S PERFECT.’’ P. 28
503-243-2122 mdonhowe@wweek.com
Portland voters are fed up with Ted Wheeler. But are they ready for
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Seven queer black Portlanders speak out on what Pride means to them. Page 12
10 ARTISTS
PORTLAND
LOCAL MUSIC INSIDERS
In a nation succumbing to COVID-19, where does Oregon stand? These 9 charts will show you.
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BEST NEW BAN "THEY ARE KILLING US. AND Y'ALL MISS A PARADE?"
By Rachel Monahan Page 13
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