NEWS
“I BOUGHT PAJAMAS TO CELEBRATE NOT SCREWING IT UP.” P. 24 WWEEK.COM
VOL 47/23 03.31.2021
WWEEK.COM
VOL 47/20 03.17.2021
Brothers Invade the Capitol. P. 6
IN MEMORIAM
Beverly Cleary's Portland. P. 16
HIKES WILLAMETTE WEEK PORTLAND’S NEWSWEEKLY
Give Us Our Flowers. P. 20
SOME PEOPLE KEEP TELLING CHRISTINA MALONE SHE LOOKS UNHEALTHY.
SHE'S AN ELITE
ATHLETE. By Emma Pattee | Page 11
TELL POLITICIANS:
STOP THREATENING ACCESS TO INNOVATIVE TREATMENTS & VACCINES Government price setting means politicians can arbitrarily decide that some patients and diseases are worth more than others—potentially discriminating against seniors, those with a disability and the chronically ill. Politicians could put government in the way of personal health decisions that should be made by patients and their doctors. Medicines could be subject to a political process and priorities that change with elections. Investments in life saving research, patient access to medicines and future innovation could be at risk. Tell Oregon politicians:
Stop threatening access to innovative treatments & vaccines.
OPPOSE SB 844
Learn more at: www.ProtectOregonCures.com Week_9.639" 12.25"_PhRMA_OR_Innovation.indd 1 2 Willamette Willamette Week xMARCH 31, 2021 wweek.com
3/25/21 2:59 PM
FINDINGS personal injury wrongful death trucking accidents product liability
WILDFLOWERS AT JENKINS ESTATE, PAGE 20
WHAT WE LEARNED FROM READING THIS WEEK’S PAPER VOL. 47, ISSUE 22 Only 16 pilots are allowed to steer ships through the Columbia Bar. 4
New Jersey and Philly have a beef over emulsified pork . 21
Two brothers who stormed the U.S. Capitol grew up as Baptist missionaries to Patagonia. 6
The signature cocktail at Tulip Shop Tavern is named after Denver’s worst strip club. 22
Photos show a right-wing demonstrator pointing an M9 pistol at our photographer. 7
Portland author Patrick deWitt celebrated not screwing up his meeting with Michelle Pfeiffer by purchasing two new pairs of pajamas. 24
Nobody asked for dedicated bus
lanes on Interstate 5. 8
Christina Malone can squat 455 pounds in her garage gym. 11 One of Beverly Cleary’s books makes note of wildfire smoke filling the Portland sky. 17 That new store on Broadway that looks like a Blockbuster? Not a Blockbuster. 18 One of the best places near Portland to see blooming wildflowers is a historic graveyard. 20
It’s hard to find Purple Monkey Balls in Oregon. 26 You can now reserve a “germ pod” and watch a Portland
theatrical production in person. 28 Swiggle Mandela hates both
Willamette Week and the Portland Police Bureau. 28
YOU NEED WILLAMETTE WEEK, AND WW NEEDS YOU
ON THE COVER:
OUR MOST TRAFFICKED STORY ONLINE THIS WEEK:
Oregon record-holding powerlifter Christina Malone, photo by Christine Dong.
The FBI arrested two Oregon brothers who allegedly stormed the U.S. Capitol.
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DIALOGUE Proposed changes in city zoning code under a new policy, the Shelter to Housing Continuum, sparked intense debate among Portlanders about where city-approved, managed homeless camps should be allowed to go (“Whose Woods Are These?” WW, March 24). Last week, following public outcry, the Portland City Council said it never intended to allow housing in parks and pledged that open space zones affected by the policy would not include parks or natural areas. Here’s what our readers had to say:
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Coastrange, via wweek.com: “I was concerned when a formal homeless camping site was set up near me in Eugene. There had been a lot of camping along the bike path, and I thought this would make it worse. Since this site with Conestoga huts, a porta-potty and a kitchen has been set up, I haven’t seen any freelance camping in the area. Whatever the rules are, it is working so far.” Sam Haber, via Facebook: “Unacceptable! People without housing should sleep in a magical pocket dimension that is separate from all of spacetime so they can’t bother more important and housed Portlanders.” @rebensdo, via Twitter: “Letting people sleep in parks and on the side of the freeway is a Band-Aid stopgap. If there was a real willingness to help, then maybe they would be provided with basic income, safe housing and medical care. This is just internment.” Kierstin Fredrickson, via Facebook: “I live next to Laurelhurst Park and I’m cool with people living there. Me and my dog go to the park every other day. I bought a garbage picker and try to keep it clean. I can’t imagine being homeless right now. Everyone deserves a safe place to live right now.”
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Mt Hood, via wweek.com: “The problem isn’t lack of money. It’s lack of vision, business acumen and competency amongst elected officials. They only know how to raise revenue via taxes; they have no idea how to effectively deploy that revenue. But don’t blame the city leaders. Blame the voters who (1) keep approving these bonds and taxes without any credible plan for how those funds will be used or accountability/oversight for proposed outcomes
Dr. Know
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and (2) keep voting for the same politicians who come up with the ridiculous proposals in 1 above.”
FOCUS ON THE FACTS ABOUT SHELTERS
When it comes to our houseless neighbors and the Shelter to Housing Continuum, we all need to dial down the rhetoric and focus on the facts—advocates and media included. In recent weeks, we have seen public comments and statements printed uncritically in this paper that dehumanize our houseless neighbors and simply get the facts wrong. People have compared our houseless neighbors to mud, filth and trash, and falsely accused the city of intending to destroy our parks. Not only is this sort of rhetoric unworthy of our compassionate city, it is simply inaccurate. Despite the many times City Council and policy analysts have reiterated that this proposal does not allow unsanctioned camping in parks, the escalation of false, anti-homelessness rhetoric keeps reaching astonishingly vitriolic new highs. The truth is that Shelter to Housing would only legalize safe, decent and regulated outdoor shelters in limited sections of “Open Space” zones that are not park greenspace. We rely on Willamette Week to correct public misinformation, not amplify it. Especially when handling an issue as sensitive as homelessness, we need our media to focus on the facts—in this case that Portland has a housing and homelessness crisis; we need to take care of our neighbors; and the Shelter to Housing Continuum will save lives without sacrificing parks or open spaces. Trisha Patterson, Luke Norman, Henry Kraemer and Anna Kemper Portland: Neighbors Welcome
CORRECTION
The March 24 story on homeless shelters in city parks (“Whose Woods Are These?”) failed to include the fact that temporary outdoor and mass shelters proposed by the city would require management by a public or nonprofit agency and would have to obtain city approval before being erected in parks or natural areas. WW regrets the error. 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
The shipping route through the mouth of the Columbia River is famously hard to navigate. Could a ship ever run aground there and block it, doing to local shipping what the Ever Given did to the Suez Canal? —Columbia Bar Tender Upon receiving this question, Tender, I had two naps, confident it would be a slam dunk. Then I had a glance at the navigational chart for the Columbia Bar and quickly realized I might as well be looking at a schematic of the Large Hadron Collider. The mouth of the Columbia is widely regarded as one of the most difficult waterways in the world, which is why only 16 pilots are trusted to guide ships through the bar’s shifting, treacherous shoals. You heard me: Literally every time a 100,000-ton boatload of Instant Pots and Tickle Me Elmos rolls in from the Pacific, it has to park and wait until one of 16 specially licensed demigods can be helicoptered in to steer it across the bar. Still, they’re worth the trouble, since—as far as my research can determine—the Columbia’s shipping channel has rarely if ever been blocked by a wrecked vessel. “Of course not!” I hear you mewling. “The mouth of the Columbia is 6 miles wide!” (I’m generously
assuming you know it’s 6 miles; you’re welcome.) “No ship could block all that!” Exactly what I’d expect from a dirt-munching landlubber like you. Sure, the river is 6 miles wide, but the dredged navigation channel—the only path guaranteed deep enough for big ships to pass—is only about half a mile wide at the river’s mouth and narrows to as little as 600 feet farther upriver. A grounded ship in that lane would present a major challenge to navigation. Indeed, it was in one such stretch that the grain ship Gorgoypikoos (apparently they’re running out of ship names) ran aground a scant two years back, partially blocking the shipping channel and halting traffic for most of a day. Soon, however, the current and rising tide allowed it to free itself. The Gorgoypikoos was lucky; most of the ships that have run aground in the Columbia over the years were simply crushed into driftwood by the waves. A grounded ship might block the river—but the unruly waters make it unlikely the blockage would stay put for very long. QUESTIONS? Send them to dr.know@wweek.com.
MURMURS SUZETTE SMITH
Music Millennium Recommends LAURELHURST PARK
SENIOR VACCINATIONS LAG: Only two-thirds of Oregonians over age 65 have gotten at least one shot of a COVID-19 vaccine. That’s far less than the 80% by March 31 that Oregon Health Authority officials projected when they moved up the date that older Oregonians would become eligible for the shots. That rate is also below the national average of 73% for one dose. There’s a big difference in how many seniors have been vaccinated, depending on the county: 80% of seniors in Multnomah County have gotten at least a first shot while only 55% of seniors in Clackamas County have. “We have seen a slowing of vaccinations for seniors in some counties as more populations become eligible for the vaccine,” says OHA spokesman Tim Heider. “Obviously, we like to see 100% of our seniors to be vaccinated, and we have enough doses to accomplish that. Seniors can access vaccine through the existing sources.” OHA now says it expects close to 3 in 4 older Oregonians to have at least one shot by early April. SCHOOL DISTRICT DIDN’T SURVEY CLASSROOM WINDOWS: Portland Public Schools will open for two-hour sessions for all elementary school grade levels by next week. In advance of reopening, the district has made multiple COVID-19 preparations. But one thing it has not done: surveyed the district’s buildings to find out which windows can open—one key way to get fresh air into buildings. The district responded to a WW public records request for a list of windows that can open by saying it didn’t have such a document. “We do not have any documents surveying windows,” wrote Ryan Vandehey, PPS public records officer, on March 19. District spokeswoman Karen Werstein says PPS has other means of finding out about windows that won’t open: Faculty and staff can report problems to the district on a case-bycase basis. But the district did hire a contractor to analyze air quality through “a representative sample of classrooms in every school,” even though state reopening criteria do not require schools to meet specific air quality standards. PPS says the work began by March 18. “We are expecting a narrative report and a spreadsheet report for each school,” Werstein says, “and
we expect those reports to arrive as they write up the results, not all at once at the end. None have been received yet.” The district plans to post those results. STATE FINES BEND COFFEE SHOP MORE THAN $27,000: Oregon Occupational Safety & Health announced a $27,470 fine March 30 against Kevista Coffee in Bend for violating three workplace rules pertaining to COVID-19 safety. Nearly all of the fine—$26,700—was the result of one violation: The coffee shop owners, according to OSHA, opened for in-person dining on Dec. 3, 2020, at a time when indoor service was prohibited and Deschutes County was designated as “extreme risk” for the spread of the virus. “Most employers have chosen—and continue to choose—doing the right thing as we work to defeat this disease in Oregon,” OSHA administrator Michael Wood said in a statement. “As for the vocal few who insist on defying standards and putting their workers at risk, we will continue to bring our enforcement tools to bear.” It appears to be the second-largest COVID fine Oregon OSHA has issued. The agency said it has previously fined Kevista Coffee $8,900 in July, because the business “willfully fail[ed] to implement face coverings.” Kevista Coffee did not respond to WW’s request for comment by press deadline. ACTIVISTS PREPARE TO BLOCK PARK SWEEP: About two dozen activists gathered at Laurelhurst Park on March 30 to physically block city hazardous waste removal contractors from sweeping more than 15 tents from the curb strip along Southeast Oak Street. It’s the second time in six months that progressive activists have gathered to obstruct the removal of a homeless encampment from the iconic park in an affluent neighborhood. The last standoff lasted weeks, and activists say they’re willing to stick it out that long again. The city contractor, Rapid Response Bio Clean, arrived Tuesday morning but left soon after, its two workers outnumbered by a crowd of people in masks, hoodies and track pants. The activists set about cooking up a hot breakfast of pancakes, potatoes and eggs on camp stoves.
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CHRIS NESSETH
NEWS
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW THIS WEEK
BACKGROUND
Coming Home
The Oregon brothers accused of storming the U.S. Capitol spent much of their lives as the children of Baptist missionaries. BY TE SS R I SK I
tess@wweek.com
In less than two years, Matthew and Jonathanpeter Klein’s identities evolved from being sons of Baptist missionaries to criminal defendants facing years in federal prison for allegedly conspiring to defraud the United States in a failed insurrection. On March 23, federal agents arrested Matthew, 24, in Sherwood and Jonathanpeter, 21, in Heppner. They became the first Oregon residents charged in connection with the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol. Four days earlier, a grand jury handed down an indictment accusing both brothers of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, felony destruction of federal property and obstruction of law enforcement during civil disorder. Much of what we know about them comes from the pages of that indictment—and also from the blog posts and videos the family shared about their mission to Patagonia. Long before the brothers allegedly proceeded past law enforcement officers into the Capitol Building’s Crypt and ascended into the Rotunda (Jonathanpeter) and helped fellow rioters climb a wall onto the Capitol Building’s Upper West Terrace (Matthew), they had spent much of their lives as outsiders, spreading the Gospel at the southern edge of the world. Their upbringing: Around 2008, Jeffrey and Nanci Klein moved from Pendleton to Aluminé, Argentina, their mission sponsored by the Berean Baptist Church. They brought along their seven children—four boys and three girls. Jonathanpeter and Matthew would have been about 8 and 11 years old, respectively, at the time of the move. In December of 2007, according to an online blog post, the family of nine visited the Charity Baptist Church in Killeen, Tex., where Jeffrey Klein gave a sermon. “My heart was just drawn to Argentina,” Jeffrey Klein said. He told the congregation a story about how the family had recently gone camping. It was during the summertime, but it began snowing outside, and one of the children fell ill. The family then met a man who offered them a warm cabin to stay in. The kind stranger was a missionary to the Mapuche people, an Indigenous group. That’s when it clicked. “We’re not going there for the beauty of it. We’re not going there for all the enjoyable things of the mountain life,” Jeffrey Klein continued. “We’re going there to see Mapuche people get born again, get washed in the blood of Jesus Christ and get excited about Him.” The family remained in Argentina for 10 years before moving to Coyhaique, Chile, for two more. The pastor from their sending church, Berean Baptist Church in Pendleton, wrote in a December 2019 blog post that the Klein’s mission was struggling financially. The family moved back to the U.S. in February 2020— one month before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Some of the Klein brothers moved to Sherwood, court records show, and the parents moved to Baker City. Adjusting to Oregon: The month after the Kleins returned to the U.S., in March 2020, Jonathanpeter Klein posed for a photo in front of a Trump flag while gripping a black rifle with both hands. That photo now appears in federal court documents as evidence of his potential political motivations. 6
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DON’T TREAD ON THEM: These two men, who appear to be Matthew and Jonathanpeter Klein, joined a protest in downtown Portland last August.
Matthew Klein, too, appears to have had an affinity for Donald Trump. He affixed a flag supporting the president to his red Ford F-350, prosecutors say. In November, he reported to police that his truck had been vandalized and that he believed it was because of the flag. Jonathanpeter worked as a roofer and also at a Domino’s pizza restaurant, their attorney Michelle Sweet said during a March 26 hearing, The Oregonian reported. In September, as the election neared, the brothers attended at least two separate far-right rallies. On Sept. 7, 2020, prosecutors allege, Jonathanpeter arrived at the Oregon Capitol in Salem as part of a proTrump caravan that began in Clackamas. Prosecutors say Jonathanpeter shot a paintball gun at “unidentified targets” during a clash with Black Lives Matter protesters. Separately, prosecutors allege, Matthew Klein attended the Sept. 26 Proud Boys rally in North Delta Park. According to federal and county prosecutors, he rode in the bed of a truck with two other men, including 19-yearold Philip Klein—another brother. Portland police pulled over the vehicle, prosecutors say. They recovered five paintball guns and five shields— one of which said “Fuck BLM”—three baseball bats, an ax handle and a loaded 9 mm handgun, which Matthew allegedly admitted was his, court filings say. In October 2020, the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office charged Matthew with two counts of possession of a loaded firearm in a public place. He pleaded not guilty in December and is scheduled for a trial readiness hearing April 2. Prosecutors charged Philip Klein with one count of possession of a loaded firearm in a public place. He also pleaded not guilty and awaits a hearing.
Their alleged role Jan. 6: Prosecutors allege that, in late December, the brothers purchased plane tickets to Philadelphia, and Jonathanpeter notified his boss he would be gone from Jan. 4 to 8. On Dec. 29, prosecutors allege, Matthew messaged another person on Instagram and asked if they were planning to go to Washington, D.C. The person responded yes and asked Matthew the same, court filings say. “Yep! Got the time off and am going with one of my bro’s. stoked af,” he allegedly responded. Federal prosecutors allege that, after exiting or getting ejected from the U.S. Capitol on the afternoon of Jan. 6, the brothers used a wrench to force open a door on the building’s north side. Jonathanpeter made his way into the Rotunda with a group of insurrectionists, prosecutors say. Federal prosecutors used the Kleins’ previous attendance at far-right protests as justification to hold the brothers in custody pending trial. “The defendants’ conduct on January 6th demonstrated a flagrant disregard and malice towards the rule of law and a willingness to confront law enforcement officers and use force to promote their political beliefs,” federal prosecutors say. “The defendants’ history and characteristics likewise support pretrial detention. Both have demonstrated a preparedness and willingness, if not eagerness, to engage in violence against those with whom they disagree, be it Black Lives Matters supporters or the United States government.” The judge denied the request for pretrial release, and the two Klein brothers remain in custody in the Multnomah County Detention Center in downtown Portland.
NEWS CLOCKED
Three Minutes in Salem An armed encounter between warring political factions shows how close protests come to deadly violence. On March 28, the streets around Oregon’s Capitol hosted the latest altercation between dueling protesters as anti-fascist demonstrators hurled rocks and flags at a right-wing truck parade passing in front of the building. One incident stood out: A man driving a red-white-andblue-striped Ford pickup pulled a pistol on protesters attacking his vehicle. This reporter was on scene. What happened shows how violent the encounters between opposing political groups have become, and how closely they skirt disaster. JUSTIN YAU.
4:04 pm Someone among the leftists maces the man. He winces, then pulls a Beretta M9 pistol from the waistband of his trousers. He pulls back the slide on the pistol, briefly sweeping the crowd with the muzzle of the weapon as he chambers a round. “He’s got a fucking gun!” someone yells. Most of the crowd retreats at the deadly metallic sound.
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3:39 pm Sunday, March 28 Oregon State Police chase leftist protesters north from the Oregon Capitol. The protesters walk toward the Safeway at the corner of 12th and Marion streets, where they suspect the right wing motorcade is stopped. After a minor clash with one right-wing vehicle involving an exchange of mace and paint in a nearby parking lot, the protesters return to the Capitol.
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4:05 pm An Oregon State Police senior trooper approaches the man from behind with Taser drawn. He fires the Taser. The man drops to his knees, laying down his gun.
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4:03 pm The returning crowd spots a white-haired man in a heavily decorated silver Ford F-150 at a stop light. (The same silver truck was spotted earlier driving by the Capitol; witnesses say the driver flipped off leftist protesters as he drove past.) Protesters throw a volley of paint and objects at the truck, obscuring its windshield with yellow paint. The occupant immediately exits the vehicle. (A press release by Oregon State Police later says the man disembarked to survey the damage, but the counterprotesters interpreted this as a sign of aggression.) “He’s got a gun!” someone in the crowd yells, although the man has yet to draw a weapon. More aggressive members of the crowd tighten their circle around the pickup. The right-wing motorist returns briefly to the cab of the pickup before walking around to the passenger side of the vehicle, facing the sidewalk, after anti-fascists with sticks smash lights and windows on the truck.
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Oregon State Police announce the man with the gun was detained and released. “He did not point the weapon at anyone and dropped it when ordered to do so by law enforcement,” the OSP statement says. (Photos show otherwise: He pointed the gun at people but didn’t appear to aim it.) “This person has a valid concealed handgun license.”
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NEWS
i-5 ROSE QUARTER IMPROVEMENT PROJECT
HOT SPOT
Magic Bus Lanes
ODOT proposes dedicated bus lanes on I-5 in the Rose Quarter. Nobody asked for them. BY R AC H E L M O N A H A N
WIDE LOAD: Oregon Department of Transportation presented designs for the Rose Quarter project that include a bus-on-shoulder option.
rmonahan@wweek.com
The latest effort by state transportation officials to justify ing on- and off-ramps, as it passes Harriet Tubman Middle Apart from skepticism that ODOT is sincerely adding the width of an expanded Interstate 5 through the Rose School in the Rose Quarter. bus lanes, Peterson says the problem is that a wider highway Quarter includes something your average Portlander might Restorative “That’s a 10-lane freeway; you can call those lanes makes it more expensive to build 12 Restorative Justice | Community Input | Mobility Focused |Justice Climate Action & Public Health 12 | Community Input | Mobility Focused | Climate Action & Public Healthcaps above the freeway. like: dedicated bus lanes. whatever you want, but it’s still a 10-lane freeway,” says Joe Such caps would restore Albina, a Black neighborhood that The Oregon Department of Transportation says it wants Cortright, an economist and critic of the project who is part was displaced decades ago. to build 12-foot shoulders along the existing highway so that of the advocacy group No More Freeways PDX. “It’s a long, “I want this project to stitch back the Albina community, buses can travel unimpeded in the center of I-5. long after-the-fact rationalization. If ODOT were serious not tear it apart,” Peterson says, “which means having a lid Just one problem: The idea caught some local governabout bus lanes, why wouldn’t they be talking about bus that can be a base for development in a seamless pedestrian ment officials by surprise, including a representative of the lanes the full length of I-5?” connection over I-5. Every added foot of width adds cost regional transit agency that runs buses. ODOT officials say they are working to improve the and, in this case, seemingly unnecessary cost. If ODOT is Steve Witter, the TriMet representative on the executive project and first raised the possibility of a bus-on-shoulder going to meet my expectations of restorative justice through steering committee for the Rose Quarter project, expressed project last May at an Oregon Transportation Commission this project, they need to do better.” bafflement. meeting. Adding caps to make room for a new neighborhood over “Frankly, two minutes before this meeting, my team gave The strongest evidence that Cortright is correct: At the the highway is an idea that has significant political backing me a heads-up that this interior 12-foot bus lane was going southern end of the Rose Quarter project, ODOT plans to in Portland, and it’s not yet clear how ODOT moves forward to show up,” Witter said at the March 22 meeting. “I’m not restripe the existing pavement: Four lanes will be turned in the face of such objections. sure why this is there.…We don’t operate a bus-on-shoulder.” into five by shrinking the width of some lanes and reducing ODOT officials say they’re continuing to work to improve That’s correct: TriMet doesn’t run its buses along the the safety shoulder. the project, including a decision not to widen the highway shoulders of highways—although C-Tran, the Clark County, In other words, once you pave a highway, you can use it in one portion but rather create more lanes with narrower Wash., public transit agency, does. In fact, TriMet rarely for any purpose you like with a little paint. Such purposes shoulders. “The project design has already incorporated places its bus routes on interstate highways at all. include one many Portlanders reject: room for more cars. several changes based on input from project partners and That meant ODOT’s unveiling of the lanes last week felt But politically more significant are the criticisms of the the community, including a change that reduces impacts like buying a birthday saddle for a kid who doesn’t own a proposed bus lanes coming from Metro Council President to the Eastbank Esplanade,” says Megan Channell, ODOT’s pony. Lynn Peterson, a traffic engineer who previously headed the Rose Quarter project director. And that means open season for critics who detest the Washington Department of Transportation. One possible problem for ODOT with revising the projwide expanse of highway that ODOT wants to run through “I haven’t heard anyone from C-Tran or TriMet ask for ect’s design now: Delays could cost the department more the center of Portland. As WW reported last month, the I-5 an inside shoulder wide enough for buses. It’s just not need- money. Rose Quarter project now spans at least 126 feet, not included as part of this project,” she tells WW.
ONE QUESTION
Wrong Way?
Leaders reviewing ODOT’s latest design for I-5 through the Rose Quarter all make the same demand: Cap it. On March 22, the Oregon Department of Transportation unveiled drawings that show what critics have warned for a month: State officials plan to make Interstate 5 more than 120 feet wide as it passes through the Rose Quarter. WW asked Portland-area elected officials: Is this design going in the right or wrong direction? The most newsworthy reply came from Metro Council President Lynn Peterson, who tore into the design for offering bus lanes no one had requested (see “Magic Bus Lanes,” this page). But another theme also emerged: Everybody wants caps above the highway to restore the Albina neighborhood. Here are four responses, edited for length. RACHEL MONAHAN. State Sen. Lew Frederick (D-Portland): “Not a traffic engineer. But first reaction: Not surprised by the on- or off-ramp lanes. The goal as I see it is to move 8
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vehicles, especially commercial traffic from the Willamette Valley and Eastern Oregon through the short area with little interaction with commuters. The bus lane helps that. Adding an auxiliary lane would seem safer for folks taking I-5 north from I-84. That is a dicey spot for vehicles coming north on I-5 and those merging to go north or to get off at Weidler. (It is my route to and from the Capitol and a real mess when there are events.) “I remain upset that the highway covers are so small. I expect much more cover for the connection of the Lloyd area to the river. Much more than a bike/pedestrian bridge as shown here. Several covers are needed north and south of the Broadway/Weidler crossings. I’ll not be supportive until the covers are adequately addressed.” Multnomah County Commissioner Jessica Vega Pederson: “Interstate 5 devastated the heart of Portland’s Black community when it was built, and the scars it left aren’t addressed in what ODOT presented last week. Under what was presented, the freeway moves closer to Harriet Tubman Middle School, and the spaces necessary to revitalize the area and begin to stitch the neighborhood back together are omitted from this plan. Until a plan is in place to address the impacts to air quality around the school and what this means for the overall vision for the neighborhood, it’s an incomplete plan. “ODOT is focused on the throughput. I’m focused on outcomes, rooted in community and social and environmental justice. We need that in full.”
Portland City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty, who oversees the Portland Bureau of Transportation: “While the installation of the auxiliary lanes and new shoulders are intended to improve freeway traffic flow and decrease the number of congestion-causing fender benders, these are not the main elements of the project that we are most concerned about. We remain focused on ODOT’s plans for the surrounding surface streets, including the highway caps—which are not included here. Our support for the project has been to ensure first-class pedestrian, transit and bike improvements and caps that are robust enough to support a variety of uses. We are also very much concerned with how the state intends to overcome the legacy of past decisions and actions that harmed Albina, Oregon’s historically Black neighborhood. This requires a clear and comprehensive plan to address racial equity and environmental justice.” Jim Middaugh, spokesman for Mayor Ted Wheeler: “At the end of the day, the mayor’s goal is to ensure any project results in significant pedestrian, transit, and bike improvements and that it include freeway caps that support a broad variety of future uses that benefit the surrounding area. More importantly, the Mayor believes the project must address the ongoing legacy of past decisions and actions that bifurcated the Albina neighborhood and harmed the community that lived there. Any successful plan must address the harms of the past and be part of preventing future harm. That work remains incomplete.”
NEWS
PRICE CHECK
Nice Mask, Kid Will face masks be the latest disparity in Portland Public Schools? This year’s must-have back-to-school fashion accessory? A COVID-19 face mask. And some parents and teachers worry Portland Public Schools’ bring-your-own-mask policy will further distinguish low-income kids from their more-affluent classmates. David Scholten, a fifth grade teacher at Abernathy Elementary School, says face masks are “going to be another signifier of who has money and who doesn’t.” “Other schools around the city who might have stronger PTAs and foundations are actually able to buy their students masks that they can reuse or masks of better quality,” says Jaime Cale, who works in the front office at Rosa Parks Elementary School. “That’s an equity concern of mine.” As with most other school supplies, K-12 students will be expected to bring their own face masks to school each day. Portland Public Schools will keep disposable masks on hand for students who don’t. For parents, that means masks are another school supply to worry about as in-person classes resume this month. Kerri Melda has two children in PPS schools: one in middle school and one in high school. Their family of three has switched to using disposable masks and bought several boxes in bulk to last for months. Before switching, they used cloth masks purchased from Old Navy—they liked the quality, and it was one of the most affordable options. “We had enough to where we could wash them once a week and use one per day,” Melda says.
MOST EXPE
NSIVE $$$
Claire’s kitt y whiskers mask Sold at: Clai re’s Cost: $24.99
But that’s not likely to be the case for students in poverty. They’ll need to wash fewer reusable masks more often. Cat and Jack cheetah prin t mask “You have to wash your reusable mask, and that’s going to raise the Sold at: Targ et bills,” says Melda’s 13-year-old daughter Sidisse, who attends Ockley Cost: $10 fo r a pack of three Green Middle School. “I know some people might not have washing machines or don’t have the money to run it multiple times a week.” Cale at Rosa Parks is already anticipating the conversations she’s BEST VALU E $$ going to have with some students. Fa ir Haven Fash “There are some families that don’t have a washing machine, ion Hygiene mask Sold at: Ro and it’s going to get to a point where we’re going to have to tell kids ss Cost: $7.99 they’re going to have to wear a paper one anyway if it’s soiled,” Cale for a pack of three says. “That’s not a fun conversation to have with kids.” O rly m as ks Beyoung Yu, an English as a second language teacher at Rosa Sold at: Ro Parks, wonders if the staffing levels proposed in the district’s ss Cost: $3.99 reopening plan will be enough to keep replacement masks fully for a pack of three stocked. Disposable “It’s about having the person to put out the supplies or to refill N95 masks , which prov best protec ide tion from th the paper towels when they’re empty or refill the soap dispensers, e virus Sold at: Wal and when you’re understaffed, those things always happen,” Yu mart, Green Zebra Cost: $1 to $5 says. In an attempt to gauge the disparity between the kids whose parents can spring for the good masks and those who have to CHEAPEST make do with what schools provide, WW stopped by several $ Portland-area stores and priced the most expensive children’s Disposable blue medic al grade pa masks against the disposable ones. Here’s a price comparison. masks per LATISHA JENSEN. Sold at: Target, Wal greens, Fred Cost: Less th Meyer an 50 cents each when bought in bu lk
BLACK AND WHITE IN OREGON
Who Has Health Insurance? Many Oregonians lost coverage during the pandemic—the worst possible time.
Source: Oregon Health Authority
Health insurance has become more essential with coronavirus in the air. But as the COVID-19 pandemic hit, insurance coverage decreased for communities of color. An Oregon Health Authority report reveals that Black people saw the biggest decline in coverage: 2.2% from 2019 to 2020. Hispanic people saw the next biggest drop at 1.8%, and for the Asian population, it was 1.5%. White people only saw a 0.1% reduction. As community health navigator for the Coalition of Community Health Clinics, Denisha Brown assists those seeking to apply for the Oregon Health Plan intended for Oregonians who earn less than 138% of the federal poverty level. What she noticed was an increased enrollment among white Oregonians—becoming eligible for insurance intended for low-income families for the first time. “What I got from that is that Black folks already had OHP, even working their essential jobs, which means they’re under the federal poverty level even with working,” Brown says. “OHP was already established.” Others lost coverage altogether, as the pandemic led to massive job losses.
Between April and December last year, the uninsured rate fluctuated dramatically from month to month for Black people, reaching a high of 26.6% in the fall. (It’s currently at 10%.) But for white people, the uninsured rate remained relatively stable throughout those months, reaching a high of 9.2%. Black people losing coverage, while simultaneously facing higher rates of poverty even before the pandemic, places them further from getting out of that poverty. “If Black folks don’t have insurance, that equals outof-pocket costs and medical bills. That could mean bankruptcy or medical debt, and we know that can lead to poor credit,” Brown says. “It’s just a domino effect. It leads to more Black folks not being able to get credit cards, cars, not being a homebuyer.” Not to mention the fact that people without insurance are less likely to seek critical medical care, because they fear it will drive them further into debt. “The pandemic has highlighted how important it is not only to have good health, but how the social determinants affect that,” Brown says. “Being Black alone is the foundation of our health.” LATISHA JENSEN.
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PHOTO CREDIT
CHAMPION: Christina Malone, 35, in the home gym she built in her garage in Northeast Portland. She says the rise of fat phobia during COVID has only increased her competitive drive.
Some people keep telling Christina Malone she looks unhealthy.
She’s an Elite Athlete. By Emma Pattee Photos by Christine Dong
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n any night in the Beaumont-Wilshire neighborhood, you might hear the sound of groans and clanging iron coming from behind a garage door. That’s Christina Malone squatting 455 pounds. The wood-paneled Northeast Portland garage is filled with evening light. Malone’s corgi-Lab mix, Koko, watches from a safe distance. Latin pop plays on the radio and Christmas lights twinkle around the weight rack. Malone stares at the barbell in front of her: a thin round piece of metal holding six discs on either end, each nearly 2 feet in diameter. She ducks her head under the bar and then slowly stands up until the barbell lifts off the rack and the weight is resting completely on her shoulders. She steps back. She does a low squat, sinking down until her thighs are parallel to the floor, before standing back up. She is supporting a staggering amount of weight—the equivalent of an adult lion or a full-sized piano—yet nothing on Malone’s face gives that away. Her only reaction is a brief, focused exhale at the top of her squat. At the end of the set, she puts the weight down, steps back and shakes out her
arms, completely at ease. Then she breaks into a smile. “That felt good,” she says. Malone, 35, is not your average gym rat. She’s a competitive powerlifter. She holds the state record for the heaviest squat by any Oregon woman in the history of USA Powerlifting, or USAPL for short. She set that record in 2019 with a 413.5-pound squat. At the time, only 71 other women in the nation could squat over 400 pounds, according to USAPL, the most well-known powerlifting association in the United States. For the past year, as the pandemic raged, Malone has been training in her garage. This week, she’ll return to her training gym in Southeast Portland and start preparing to compete again in the fall. By the end of the year, she hopes to break her own state record with a 500-pound squat. Yet she is returning to a society where many of her fellow Portlanders refuse to recognize her as an athlete. Nearly once a week, someone tells her that the size of her body means she’s unhealthy, unsightly and more likely to die from COVID. Last month at the Concordia New Seasons, she recalls, Malone was putting her groceries on the belt
to check out when the two women behind her made a noise of disgust. “One woman said, ‘You really shouldn’t buy that. My friend is a nurse, and she said really obese people like you are more likely to get COVID.’” Malone’s Instagram messages are full of comments like “You won’t live to 60” or “Obesity kills.” This commentary isn’t a new phenomenon. Her partner, Will Lay, recalls numerous stories of harassment, including a time when a man on the sidewalk bumped into Malone and called her a “fat, ugly cunt.” “She will be walking down the street and people will just yell things at her,” her childhood friend Catherine Maurseth says. “People feel my body is their property to comment on,” Malone says, “that because I have fat on my body means that you can say what you want to me.” What is surprising to Malone, however, is how much COVID has amplified the harassment. Even though the “body positivity” movement has become mainstream, and the TV show Shrill presents Portland as a town where a woman can be plus-size and proud, the pandemic has highlighted how deeply embedded our fat bias is.
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TRAINING DAYS: Malone trains four times a week for two to three hours. She spends the other days on conditioning and mobility. 12
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Health officials’ linking of weight to COVID-19 deaths has given many people an excuse to view plus-sized people as unhealthy. Almost immediately after Gov. Kate Brown issued stay-at-home orders, memes started popping up about avoiding the #COVID15 or needing to “socially distance from the kitchen.” Search traffic on “coronavirus obesity” spiked, and calls to the National Eating Disorder Association increased by 40%. “You only need to take a quick look at public health messaging and social media advertising to see that COVID and quarantine have exacerbated weight stigma and fat phobia,” says Paula Brochu, a professor of psychology at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. “This sets the stage for fat people to be blamed, shamed and held responsible for their own and others’ health outcomes.” For Malone, 2020 has been yet another moment when her size—not her abilities, her health or her determination—becomes a reason to think less of her. “But,” she says, “with an added angle of ‘we’re just looking out for your health.’” This spring, all of Oregon is emerging from isolation and resuming old routines. For Malone, this return brings mixed emotions. She’s seen this past year only strengthen old prejudices—biases that Malone has spent more than a decade proving wrong.
“You only need to take a quick look at public health messaging and social media advertising to see that COVID and quarantine have exacerbated weight stigma and fat phobia.” —Paula Brochu, professor of psychology
T
he first time Malone was bullied for her size, she was in kindergarten: A classmate took her lunch and told her it was because she was too big. “It was constant,” Malone says, describing being poked at, harassed in the locker room, and having students put thumbtacks on her chair while she was in the restroom. “They were so cruel to her,” says Maurseth, who met Malone in kindergarten and remained her closest friend throughout her years at Holy Trinity Catholic School in Beaverton. At home, her parents were alarmed by doctors who told them Malone was certain to develop diabetes or die an early death if she didn’t lose weight. “We were going from doctor to doctor, trying to figure out what’s going on, and all the doctors were telling
us this is incredibly dangerous,” recalls her father, Alan Malone, a retired Winco executive. “They were blaming us, asking us what we were feeding her. We were frantic.” Malone and her parents spent most of her childhood and teenage years searching for an answer. Doctors put her on one restrictive diet after another. She was prescribed fen-phen (an anti-obesity treatment later banned for its lethal side effects). She was repeatedly recommended for bariatric surgery, and was even told by one doctor that “sleep-eating” was the only explanation for her weight. By the time she was in college at Oregon State University, Malone’s diet was so restrictive she started to develop early signs of liver failure. Malone has always been an ambitious athlete. She practiced dressage—competitive horseback riding—as a child, played volleyball throughout high school, and took up running while in college. Despite her obvious athleticism, Malone had to continually justify herself to coaches. “I was the biggest girl on every team,” she recalls. Halfway through high school, Malone gave up volleyball due to the stress she was feeling to impress her coaches, and then decided to stop horseback riding after spending years overhearing comments about being a “fat kid on a horse.” Malone met Lay, her partner, during college. They started building a life together. They rented a townhouse in Beaverton, and Malone got a job working as a certified veterinary technician for Banfield Pet Hospital. She soon shifted her focus to clinical informatics and took a job as an analyst working for Banfield’s corporate office. Malone has a passion for rescue dogs and adopted a boxer-pit bull mix. The couple spent summers camping by Mount Hood, taking trips to the coast and hiking in the Gorge. Throughout her 20s, running was Malone’s exercise of choice. “I fell deeper into the narrative of ‘I’m a big person, but I can run 5 miles, 10 miles…so I’m OK,’” Malone says. In 2016, Malone, 30 at the time, was running in the Alameda neighborhood when a couple of guys in a car started following her. “They catcalled,” she recalls, “and when I didn’t listen, they started verbally assaulting my body and my size.” Malone kept running, block after block. When she stopped, she saw her shoes were red with blood. In that moment, Malone realized she wasn’t running to make her body healthier. “I was running to punish my body for ‘failing’ me.” By the time she got home, she had decided to find a less-punishing form of fitness. She reached out to Jessica Wilkins, a powerlifter and nutritionist who specializes in body positive training. The first time Malone remembers lifting a significant amount was only a few months after first working with Wilkins in 2016. Malone was preparing to squat 245 pounds. “I was nervous, until the bar was on my back,” Malone recalls. To both of their surprise, the squat felt effortless. “She was just blowing our minds,” Wilkins says. “I have coached a lot of people, and she’s got something very special that very few people have.”
“She was just blowing our minds. I have coached a lot of people, and she’s got something very special that very few people have.” —Jessica Wilkins, powerlifter
C
ompetitive powerlifting started in the 1950s as an offshoot of Olympic weightlifting. In the Olympics, competitors perform two overhead lifts: the clean and jerk, and the snatch. Powerlifters perform a squat, a bench press and a deadlift, focusing more on maximum weights, while Olympic lifts focus more on dynamic movement. The most obvious connection between powerlifting and body acceptance is that larger-bodied athletes can lift more than their smaller-bodied counterparts. Ryan Stills, the Oregon chair for USAPL, explains that having a larger body can be a considerable advantage in strength sports. “Mass moves mass,” Stills says. Wilkins, who first trained Malone, says it’s more than that: Strength sports in general are less focused on how athletes look. Wilkins started out in bikini bodybuilding, where she was judged on her muscle build, on how feminine she seemed, even her hair and jewelry. “With powerlifting, it’s a completely different paradigm. The person who lifts the heaviest weights wins.” Ryan Carrillo, the spokesman for USAPL, says body acceptance is one of the reasons the association has grown so much in its women’s divisions. “We have thousands of women who can echo [Malone’s] sentiments.” Carrillo says. In 2010, there were about 800 women competitors. Ten years later, there were nearly 8,000. Malone, who is 5-feet-10 and weighs 388 pounds, competes in the 84-plus kg weight division, which is known as super-heavyweight. In powerlifting, Malone has found a sport where she excels because of her body, not despite it. That surprises her. “Powerlifting should push all my buttons,” she says. It involves weighing herself, wearing small tight clothes, and constant discussion of pounds and kilograms. In November 2017, Malone made the decision to enter a powerlifting competition. “Placing didn’t even matter to me,” Malone says. “It was about showing up, kicking ass and doing what my body is meant to do.” Since then, Malone has competed at numerous other powerlifting meets, including the 2019 USAPL National Championships and the 2019 USAPL Oregon State Championship, where she set a new state record for heaviest squat, lifting 413.5 pounds (the previous record was 408 pounds). Malone remembers how the crowd went wild.
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SUPPORT: Malone squats 440 pounds at Ironside Gym in Southeast Portland. She hopes to set a new squat record later this year.
“I’ve never felt that much energy,” Malone recalled. “It was incredible.” After she broke the record, she looked in the crowd and saw that both of her parents were crying. In the four years since she started lifting, Malone has found a type of body acceptance that she didn’t think would ever be possible. Alan Malone points out that after a lifetime of being told there was something wrong with her body, his daughter has now found a sport where her body is considered an asset. “Everything about her was built to lift weight,” her father says. “The density of her muscles, the size of her bones. She was born to do this.” Malone has internalized this acceptance to the point she says she carries it with her everywhere she goes. She recounts training at a gym in Miami and hearing another lifter tell his buddies, “That fat bitch can’t do that.” The group kept shit-talking, until Malone squatted 395 pounds three times. Then the men fell silent.
B
uilding a competitive-level powerlifting gym in your garage is not a simple task, especially during a global pandemic when everyone else is also trying to build a home gym. But Malone didn’t have much choice. In March 2020, she was training for the USAPL Oregon State Championship, where she was hoping to again qualify for the national championship later that year in Florida. Then COVID-19 happened. The world shut down. The state championship was canceled. Soon after, gyms closed
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and Malone had to start training in her garage. Malone and Lay put down rubber mats on the floors and purchased a squat rack and a barbell, along with a cable machine and kettlebells. They converted their spare bedroom into a conditioning room with an elliptical machine, yoga mats and foam rollers. Where they struggled was finding heavy enough weights for Malone. “I could not get iron or steel plates to save my life,” she says. Eventually, she found a steelworker and fellow powerlifter in Alabama who was cutting custom steel plates and shipping them around the country. On nice days, Malone lifts with the garage door open. On rainy or cold days, she brings a space heater in and warms up in her bedroom slippers beforehand. Her neighbors have gotten used to hearing her train. “We had to explain what the loud clanging and banging was,” Malone says. “They think it’s great.” When you’ve lived your whole life in a body that gets commented on, one of the benefits of training at home is not having to worry about other people’s reactions. Malone started to experiment with wearing outfits that were more comfortable and allowed more mobility. “I didn’t realize the extent to which my clothing was inhibiting me,” she says. Being able to feel the bar on her back helped her stabilize the weight. “I started wearing a crop top, then a shorter crop top, then a tank top, then a sports bra.” Last September, she posted a video to Instagram of herself in shorts and a sports bra squatting 405 pounds. In the caption, she wrote: “Being a bigger body athlete, I’ve been taught to compromise my comfort, sometimes even
OFF THE BENCH: Malone bench-presses 150 pounds during warmup before her training session begins. While working out at home, Christina surpassed a 200-pound bench-press lift, something she’d struggled to do at an in-person gym.
my performance, to make it more comfortable to look at my body doing fitness. Guess what? I’m over it. Uncomfortable? You’re free to look away.” The responses were positive, mostly fellow powerlifters congratulating her on a well-executed squat. Shortly after, Malone was contacted by an Instagram account that featured powerlifting videos. The account managers asked if they could repost the video and Malone agreed. The hate-filled comments were immediate: “Covid risk factor,” said one. Another said, “If you’re ok with dying young, that’s fine, but stop encouraging others to give up trying to lose weight.”
“Uncomfortable? You’re free to look away.” —Christina Malone
I
t is always hard to be fat in America. This past year was especially so. As COVID-19 spread around the world, researchers reported a link between body weight and the likelihood of a severe case of COVID. While the data is nuanced, the cultural narrative is not: Fat people are unhealthy. “It is frustrating to see the chronic blame of weight as a COVID risk factor, without controlling for social disparities, weight discrimination and access to quality care,” says Jamie Lee, a private-practice dietitian in Southwest Portland. Professor Laurie Cooper Stoll of the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse says the data linking weight and COVID needs to be reviewed with caution. “Pervasive in research on fat bodies is the desire to draw causal links between variables, when, if links exist at all, they are most likely correlative.” For Malone, this past year has created a stark contrast. On the one hand, she’s an accomplished, healthy competitor with a promising athletic career, according to her coaches, doctors and nutritionists. On the other hand, she’s being told her body makes her much more likely to die of COVID. “In our society, body size is so tied to morality,” Malone says. “When someone with a big body gets COVID, there’s this unsaid sentiment of ‘It’s still your fault because you were fat in the first place.’” Malone’s greatest fear about contracting the coronavirus is infecting her parents or being unable to help care for her 97-year-old grandfather. Her other concern: how she would be treated by the medical system. “Are they going to focus only on my body size,” she wonders, “or are they going to treat what’s actually wrong with me?” After a lifetime of being ignored, questioned and mocked by doctors, Malone has little faith she would be given access to quality health care. That’s a rational fear, experts say. “Fat phobia has been documented in all major institutions, such as education and media, but it is particularly pervasive in healthcare,” says Cooper Stoll, who points out there’s ample evidence that fat people experience discrimination in medical settings. That’s part of why Malone is returning to her gym later than many of her lifting peers: “I wasn’t willing to go when the risk was higher.” Like many of us, Malone is excited to get back to the gym. She’s missed the camaraderie and getting to cheer her friends as they work on their own lifting goals. But Malone is also anxious about the transition. After
SWEET HOME GYMNASIUM: Malone’s gym in her Northeast Portland garage took a call to Alabama to complete.
STAY STRONG: Malone prepares before a 440-pound lift at Ironside Gym in Southeast Portland. Before each lift, she visualizes each movement in detail.
a year, she will be reentering a world with old prejudices and new excuses for them. And while her gym—Ironside in Southeast Portland—is known for being accepting of all shapes and sizes, Malone can’t help but wonder if the dynamics might have changed. “As a bigger-bodied person, I’m always justifying my right to be places,” she says. “The gym and powerlifting has been a space where I’ve never had to do that.” Will that change? Malone has heard enough to know that some Oregonians will never believe she’s healthy. She no longer cares. “It isn’t my problem if people can’t exist in a world where I exist without trying to tear me down,” she says.
“At some point, I needed to stop justifying my body.” For Malone, the surge of fat phobia caused by COVID has shifted her focus. She’s launching a podcast and has started coaching people struggling to feel comfortable in fitness. While winning is still a huge motivator for Malone, she says she now wants to focus on being the person she needed to see when she was young. “If I saw this article as a 15-year-old after I got chased out of the gym,” she says, “I would have printed it and put it on my wall and looked at it every day.” Emma Pattee writes about feminism and climate change for such news outlets as The New York Times, The Cut, The Washington Post, Wired and CNBC. She lives in Portland.
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STREET: BEVERLY CLEARY, APRIL 12, 1916-MARCH 25, 2021 Beverly Cleary, the Oregon-born author of some of America’s most beloved children’s books and creator of Ramona Quimby, died March 25 at age 104. Fans in Portland paid tribute near where she grew up, placing flowers at the Beverly Cleary Sculpture Garden in Grant Park, which features bronze statues of her most popular characters.
photos by Mick Hangland-Skill
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STREET: BEVERLY CLEARY, APRIL 12, 1916-MARCH 25, 2021
RAMONA AND HER CITY BY C H R I ST E N M CCURDY
Beverly Cleary’s readers sometimes wrote to tell her they liked her books because “they don’t have any description.” While Cleary is inextricably linked with Portland—her most famous books are set on Northeast Klickitat Street, blocks from where she grew up—it’s true that her work contains few references to the setting. There is, of course, the constant rain: As a kindergartner, Ramona Quimby delights in stomping through puddles on her walk home from school, and by second grade she’s already tired of adults joking that the winter rains are merely “good old Oregon sunshine.” One book even notes that the sky on Ramona’s first day of school is hazy due to wildfire smoke. But Portland’s landscape is mostly a place Cleary’s characters move through. Still, the specificity stood out to me as a kid, when a lot of what I read took place in nebulous suburban Anytowns. A lot of the books seemed deliberately written as if they could take place just about anywhere—anywhere it got hot enough in summer that kids wanted to set up lemonade stands, or where it snowed in winter and everybody celebrated Christmas. Cleary always said she wanted to write books about ordinary children. In her memoir, A Girl From Yamhill, she writes that as a kid, she wanted to read books that reminded her of the Our Gang movies, which in turn reminded her of the children in her neighborhood. (The neighborhood, of course, was the Sullivan’s Gulch-Grant Park area, and she notes that she saw those movies at the “new” Hollywood Theatre, which opened when she was 10.) But the more
forgettable writers of my childhood were playing at the universal, and I don’t think Cleary was interested in that. Instead, she was interested in the ordinary. I downloaded A Girl From Yamhill on the library’s app Friday after I learned Cleary had died at her home in Carmel, Calif., at age 104. I tore through it as quickly and hungrily as I tore through her books as a child. The memoir is, of course, written for Cleary’s older fans. While describing her first-grade year, she notes that she sang about “the dawnzer lee light” while singing the national anthem. This is a wink at readers who will remember Ramona’s mangling of the words to “The Star-Spangled Banner,” but the author respects us enough not to explain the joke. Cleary’s writing about being a teenager during the Depression foregrounds some of the more poignant conflicts in her books, including her anxieties about her family’s finances and her parents’ marriage. Ramona’s father loses his job and takes part-time work at a supermarket. Her parents fight, albeit rarely, and quickly reassure their children they are staying together. A whole chapter is devoted to the death of the family’s beloved tabby. But these are not dreary books. They’re often very funny. The victories are just small. Beezus, ever envious of her sister’s imagination, is delighted when she gets the idea to paint a cotton candy-breathing dragon in art class. Ramona is relieved to hear her mother say she doesn’t know what she’d do without her. These kids aren’t anointed, they’re not here to save the world—they’re just trying to get through the day. In Cleary’s world, winning means simply growing up, and that’s hard enough.
Of course, Cleary’s writing contains nearly no characters of color—offhand, I remember only a Chinese neighbor in the semi-autobiographical Emily’s Runaway Imagination. I don’t think it’s sufficient to shrug and say, “Well, that’s Oregon.” But if you know the state’s history, the whiteness of her work isn’t surprising. Cleary writes that her ancestors came to Oregon to claim land granted by the Donation Land Act, which explicitly prohibited nonwhite people from making land claims. The people who lived on the land before her family arrived are not mentioned, nor is the Klickitat tribe for which Ramona’s street is named. Cleary’s most famous books take place at the height of redlining, at the edge of a redlined neighborhood. That Cleary meant to tell ordinary stories, not universal ones, is what makes most of the books hold up. She’s arguably not sufficiently curious about what made some aspects of her ordinary life possible, but in that respect she differs little from lots of other white Oregonians—including me, for much of the time I’ve lived here. I can’t excuse my own prior lack of curiosity. I care too much about the idea of Portland as a welcoming place for everyone. That’s also why it matters that Cleary wrote about Portland, Ore.—not about Anytown, USA—and about experiences that are ordinary, but not necessarily representative. I suspect I’m one of thousands of transplants whose first meaningful exposure to Portland was through Cleary’s books. It felt like a place where one could happily lead an ordinary life, with ordinary joys and ordinary difficulties. And she made it available to everyone, everywhere. Willamette Week MARCH 31, 2021 wweek.com
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STARTERS
THE MOST IMPORTANT PORTLAND CULTURE STORIES OF THE WEEK—GRAPHED.
R E A D M O R E A B O U T TH E S E STO R I E S AT WW E E K .CO M .
RIDICULOUS
MSCHF
Nike is forced to deny involvement in the creation of rapper Lil Nas X’s limited-edition “Satan Shoes”—modified Air Max 97s that contain drops of human blood in the air bubble…
…and then sues the creator, art collective MSCHF, for copyright infringement. RO
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No, that’s not a Blockbuster on Northeast Broadway—it’s a Lockbuster, a hybrid video store and escape room. ER
A strange fireball seen over Portland turns out to be one of Elon Musk’s rockets.
AWFUL
Doug Adams’ fried chicken restaurant Holler finally opens for indoor dining. Saturday Market—the country’s largest continuously operating outdoor shopping emporium—launches a crowdfunding campaign to secure its future as operations resume.
The Portland Children’s Museum announces it will close after 75 years.
Construction finally begins on a permanent Better Naito bike path. CHRIS NESSETH
As vaccines roll out, and warmer weather is on the horizon - we're celebrating with an issue all about PATIOS. Where to eat,
C L E A R Y F A M I LY A R C H I V E
drink and socialize this spring!
Get your restaurant and/or bar patio featured in this issue, and in a dedicated Newsletter to our 95k subscribers for just $300.
advertising@wweek.com for more information. 18
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Buzzy vegan restaurant Mama Dut announces a second location on Northeast Alberta just months after the first opened.
Oregon-born author Beverly Cleary, who set some of America’s most beloved children’s books in Portland, dies at age 104.
SERIOUS
305 SEAHILL-FLICKRCOMMONS
PATIO ISSUE Publishes on 4/21
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STEVE MORGAN VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
AWESOME
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GET INSIDE
WHAT TO DO WHILE YOU’RE STUCK AT HOME THIS WEEK.
C O U R T E S Y O F B R AV O T V. C O M
EAT: Gabriel Rucker’s Burger Pop-Up Gabriel Rucker is one of Portland’s most inventive superstar chefs. But the throughline of all his various enterprises—Le Pigeon, Canard and the late, lamented Little Bird—is his burger. Rucker has hustled to stay afloat during the pandemic, offering his unpretentious interpretations of French fine dining in a couple of different forms, but his signature item has remained elusive. As the straightforward name implies, the burger is the star at this pop-up, held picnic-style right around the corner from Le Pigeon, but it’s joined by another Rucker trademark: his foie gras profiteroles. Meals are $25 and also come with a butter leaf salad. First come, first served. Southeast 8th Avenue and East Burnside Street. Noon-6 pm Friday, April 2.
WATCH: Top Chef
It’s here—finally, Portland gets its time in the Top Chef spotlight. Of course, the glass-half-empty way to look at it is that Bravo’s acclaimed reality TV cooking competition decided to come here at a time when COVID was decimating the food scene. But either way, the attention is long overdue. Two of the 15 contestants are locals: Mama Bird’s Gabriel Pascuzzi and Soter Vineyards’ Sara Hauman, while Departure chef and Season 12 finalist Gregory Gourdet will appear as a guest judge. What else to expect? Well, based on the trailer, there will be cameos by Oregon Health & Science University employees, tap handles and blocks of Tillamook cheddar in the set design—and an appearance by Fred and Carrie, because of course. Season premiere 8 pm Thursday, April 1, on Bravo.
Livestreamed DJ sets and acoustic shows have become commonplace during the pandemic, but virtual hip-hop shows have been few and far between. Thankfully, long-standing local hip-hop showcase the Thesis is back, after more than a year off, with its first livestream. Headlined by confessional rapper KayelaJ, helmed by resident DJ Verbz and broadcast from Kelly’s Olympian, it’ll be as close to back to normal as possible. 8 pm Thursday, April 1, at thethesispdx.com. Free, donations accepted.
WATCH: Smiley Face
This Thursday is April Fool’s Day, so why not put on a film that focuses on a lovable goofball? In this supremely underrated 2007 stoner comedy from Gregg Araki, a slacker actress (Anna Faris) eats her roommate’s cupcakes without realizing they’re laced with pot. Now, she has to complete a list of tasks (replace the cupcakes, get to an audition, pay the electricity bill, etc.), all while stoned out of her mind. Adam Brody and John Krasinski co-star. Streams on Amazon Prime and other platforms.
⚯ SEE: French Exit
Whether bickering bandits or moneyed layabouts, characters by Portland author Patrick deWitt have leapt off his pages and onto screens for 10 years now, attracting actors from John C. Reilly to Joaquin Phoenix to Jake Gyllenhaal and now, in the adaptation of 2018’s French Exit, Michelle Pfeiffer and Lucas Hedges. Dubbed a “Tragedy of Manners” in its subtitle, French Exit follows a codependent mother and adult son, once wealthy but now hard up. Like a more cultured version of Arrested Development’s Lucille and Buster Bluth, Frances and Malcolm Price have little left but each other’s company and their considerable wit. From a borrowed Paris apartment, the Prices make their last stand, pouring their remaining funds into comically absurd yet personally resonant goose chases. Opens Friday, April 2, at Century 16 Cedar Hills, Century 16 Eastport and Liberty.
GO: Sketchy People at Cult
Full disclosure: This art show exhibits the work of the person who designed this page. But there’s a reason this newspaper employs Jack Kent, and that’s best understood through his comics series Sketchy People. The name says it all, or most of it: Kent keeps his eye out for interesting characters wandering around Portland and sketches whomever catches it—a pierced and tattooed punk asleep on the MAX, a father and daughter on an e-scooter, a man in a horsehead mask panhandling for “hay” on Southeast Hawthorne. Think of it as Bill Cunningham by way of a boardwalk caricaturist. Kent will be showing (and selling) 10 of his favorite prints at Pearl District curio shop Cult. Cult, 1204 NW Glisan St. 4-8 pm Thursday, April 1.
NINTENDO
STREAM: The Thesis
PLAY: Ori and the Will of the Wisps A true testament to the storytelling power of video games, Ori and the Will of the Wisps is a tearjerker. In the sequel to Ori and the Blind Forest, players control the same tiny, lemurlike spirit, this time on a quest to find a baby owl and save a poisoned marsh. Without giving away any spoilers, the plot includes some heartbreaking twists that are made all the more devastating by the lush, luminous animation and wonder-inducing score. A single-player adventure game that sometimes requires frustratingly precise maneuvers to advance the plot, Will of the Wisps does take some patience. But hey, you can’t really go anywhere for spring break this year, so you might as well spend it wandering around a magical, gorgeously rendered virtual landscape. Orithegame. com. Available for Switch, Xbox and Windows.
LISTEN: Promises by Pharoah Sanders, Floating Points and the London
Symphony Orchestra Promises, Pharoah Sanders’ new album with Floating Points and the London Symphony Orchestra, is a marvel. The 80-year-old saxophonist solos—first sedately, then grandly—over florets of harpsichord and bells that eventually swell into the sweeping majesty you hire symphony orchestras for in the first place. It would’ve been ballsier, though, to credit the album just to Sanders: Most orchestral jazz albums have a legion of goons backing up a leader, and there’s no question who’s in charge here. Stream on Spotify.
EXPLORE: Chinese Cooking Demystified In any other epoch, delving into Chinese Cooking Demystified’s hours of cooking videos would seem incredibly intimidating. Many of the YouTube channel’s recipes—which range from regional street food favorites to oldschool Cantonese dishes—require extensive prep work, obscure ingredients and seemingly every pot and pan you own. But during the pandemic, most of us have a lot of time to kill, and the uncommon ingredients are a great excuse to explore the wonderful Asian supermarkets that line 82nd Avenue. If you want an easy place to start, we recommend Chinese Cooking Demystified’s recipe for highly addictive, hand-pulled biang biang noodles. Aside from the two-and-a-half hour cumulative resting period—which isn’t all that annoying when you’re working from home anyway—it’s a pretty simple recipe and requires only standard American pantry items to make the silky, chewy noodles. Watch on YouTube. Willamette Week MARCH 31, 2021 wweek.com
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HIKES OF THE WEEK
Here Comes the Bloom
In spring, wildflowers are everywhere, from graveyards to waterfalls. Here are four hikes to give you your flora fix. BY MICHELLE HARRIS
Winter is finally over, and you know what that means: It’s wildflower season! And that, of course, also means clogged trails and cars lined up down the road at popular sun-soaked spots like Dog Mountain. But the Columbia River Gorge is not the only option for viewing a floral fantasia—from the Coast Range to the sprawling ’burbs of Beaverton, colorful blooms are happening all over our corner of Oregon.
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Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, Jenkins Estate is a 68-acre park located on the slope of Cooper Mountain in Beaverton. The site was purchased by Ralph and Belle Jenkins in 1912 as a summer home, though it became too expensive to keep up once the couple died. It was then bought in the 1970s by Tualatin Hills Park & Recreation District in an effort to restore the grounds, gardens and the early 20th century house and stable while “preserving a look at the early 20th century genteel lifestyle.” There are only 2 miles of trails to explore here, but the property is well maintained, and the tranquil vibe immediately makes you feel at ease when entering. Take an afternoon to walk through the gardens, enjoy views of the Tualatin Valley, and absorb all kinds of wildflowers, namely orange daylilies and coneflowers.
Canemah Bluff Nature Park
With so many old houses and that decrepit, abandoned paper mill, Oregon City likely has more than a few resident ghosts, particularly in Canemah Bluff Nature Park, which has a cemetery that dates back to 1864. Along with a creepy graveyard, the park, which sits on an ancient landslide above the Willamette River, has around 2 miles of trails that take you past an overlook of Willamette Falls, the largest waterfall by volume in the Northwest. While walking the trails be on the lookout for Camas lilies, Oregon sunshine and rosy Plectritis. It’s possible that the Canemah Historic Pioneer Cemetery, which has graves of early pioneer families, will be gated. Though you can still take a peek through, please, no séances or “Thriller” dance parties.
Directions: From US 26 west, take exit 69A for OR 217 south toward Beaverton/Tigard. Drive for 1.7 miles, then take exit 2A for OR 8/Canyon Road and OR 10/Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway. Turn right onto OR 10, drive 5 miles west on Farmington Road, and turn left onto Southwest Grabhorn Road. After less than a half-mile, turn right onto a restricted usage road, then left and another right.
take exit 9 for 99E toward Downtown/ Oregon City/Gladstone. Use the left two lanes to turn left onto 99E/ McLoughlin Boulevard. After almost 2 miles, turn left onto Hedges Street and then left onto 3rd Avenue. Go 300 feet before turning right onto Ganong Street. Curve right onto 4th Avenue for another half-mile and pull into the lot by the playground.
At 3,290 feet, Saddle Mountain is Clatsop County’s tallest mountain. With an elevation gain of almost 2,000 feet, it’s a great alternative to Dog Mountain for those looking to get in a proper leg workout. Located in Oregon’s Coast Range, the climb up Saddle Mountain State Natural Area is rigorous and steep, so prepare to wind up a good number of switchbacks that take you through a forest of Douglas fir and Sitka spruce. Also be prepared for the false summit as you near the end. The good news is, you’ll be rewarded with rolling meadows cloaked in wildflowers once you reach the summit, as well as a panoramic view toward the ocean, with views of Nehalem Bay, Tillamook Head, and the AstoriaMegler Bridge. You can see all kinds of flora, such as the Pacific bleeding heart, pink fawn lily and the Saddle Mountain bittercress, which, as the name suggests, is pretty much exclusive to the area. Though many wildflowers begin to pop out in April and May, those on Saddle Mountain don’t come out till June.
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Jenkins Estate
IT’S GROW TIME: Wildflowers at Jenkins Estate.
Directions: From I-205 south,
Saddle Mountain State Natural Area
Directions: Take US 26 west for 64 miles and make a sharp right onto Jubilee Road. Drive another 7 miles and you’ll reach Saddle Mountain State Natural Area.
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Silver Falls State Park
Silver Falls State Park is known for, well, its waterfalls. But in the spring, the park is also home to lots of wildflowers, like Oregon grape, wood violet and fireweed. Be sure to keep an eye out while hiking the park’s extensive trail network. In addition to wildflowers, the park is especially green and lush in spring due to the rainy season, and the waterfalls are gushing in full force. The park also was the setting for a strange historical event: On July 1, 1928, “Daredevil Al” Faussett drew in thousands of spectators who paid money to watch him ride a small boat over South Falls, the 177-foot waterfall located near the park’s entrance. The boat was attached to a cable, but it snapped on his way down, causing the boat to flop into the water pool below. Faussett survived but suffered multiple injuries.
Directions: From I-205 south, take exit 10 for OR 213 south toward Molalla. Drive 28 miles and turn left onto Valley View Road Northeast. After about a mile and a half, turn right onto Evans Valley Road and then left onto Madrona Heights Drive. Go another mile and a half before turning right onto Forest Ridge, which eventually becomes OR 214 south. Take OR 214 south for almost 10 miles and then pull into the main lot for Silver Falls State Park. There’s a $5 day use fee to park.
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FOOD & DRINK FEATURE
My Bologna Whatever you want to call it, the New Jersey pork roll is having its Portland breakfast sandwich moment. BY JAS O N CO H EN
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The Jersey Special at Dimo’s SPK
@cohenesque
You can call it what you want. That’s the position of Chazz Madrigal and Doug Miriello, the respective owners of Lamotta’s Handmade and Dimo’s SPK, both of whom are feeding Portland a specific type of East Coast breakfast sandwich built around a certain type of processed meat. Their weekend pop-ups—at Water Avenue Coffee for Madrigal and Dimo’s Apizza for Miriello—drew immediate long lines and rapturous Instagram stories, as well as pushback in the comments. Because as with oversized Italian sandwiches and pizza, there’s no way to sell a pork roll, egg and cheese without an argument over culinary etymology. See, if you’re from Philadelphia—which I am—or South Jersey, “pork roll” is what you call the product that’s labeled “John Taylor’s Pork Roll” and is officially known in full as “John Taylor’s Original Taylor Pork Roll.” In North Jersey and New York, the same product is called “Taylor Ham.” You can see the discrepancy in pop culture: On the one hand, you’ve got Ween, from New Hope, Penn., with their 1991 song “Pork Roll Egg and Cheese.” On the other, comedian Chris Gethard, from West Orange, N.J., issued his album Taylor Ham, Egg, and Cheese in 2019. The Taylor Ham misnomer—in your face, West Orange!—is based on the fact that when John Taylor first packaged the product in 1856, he called it “Taylor’s Prepared Ham,” only to see his vision dashed by the Upton Sinclair-inspired Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, after which the product no longer met the federal government’s legal definition of “ham.” So what the hell is pork roll, and why are two places in Portland serving it? “It’s a delicious, quintessential East Coast non-delicacy sort of thing,” says Miriello, who is from Connecticut but always heard about the stuff from Philly and New Jersey friends. “I’m like, ‘What is this disg usting-sounding thing called pork roll?’ And then I finally tried it, and it’s pretty revolutionary.”
“I would liken it to something akin to Spam: It’s processed and pressed, chipped and chopped into a roll,” says Madrigal, a longtime local bartender, DJ and restaurant vet. Among many other spots, he used to work at Creepy’s, which may have been the city’s pork roll pioneer, serving a “Jersey Breakfast Sandwich” on an English muffin. As an emulsified forcemeat, pork roll in no way resembles actual ham. But what Spam is to jamon, pork roll is to mortadella or bologna. “It’s breakfast bologna,” Miriello says. “Bologna with a little extra salinity to it that just crisps up beautifully. Am I plating it on anything other than a Taylor Ham, egg and cheese? Probably not. But in that combo, it’s perfect.” Madrigal is from, as he puts it, “the Oakland Bay area,” and claims “absolutely no spiritual connection” to the sandwich. That came from a friend with New York City roots, Phil DeGennaro, with whom he first dreamed up the idea of opening an Italian American-style deli. As a one-man, part-time kitchen, Madrigal bakes his own sesame rolls for LaMotta’s take on an Italian sub. But the “Badlands” sandwich—if you hold it up to your ear, you can hear it softly calling, Broooooce—piles Taylor Ham on a squishy An Xuyen seeded burger bun, with scrambled eggs and American cheese. For his “Jersey Special,” Miriello more actively sought authenticity and memory. To him, a proper pork roll, egg and cheese has to have a fried egg and Kraft American cheese. But most of all, you’ve got to have a proper East Coast hard roll—something softer than a baguette, but more resistant than a bun. Bunk Sandwiches, the home of Portland’s OG bacon, egg and cheese, has long gotten its rolls from Fleur De Lis Bakery. At Dimo’s, Miriello toyed with several options, including baking the rolls himself (too hard), shipping them from back East (no one took him seriously) or using Grano Bakery in Oregon City, which supplies Dimo’s Apizza with its sesame baguettes (too artisan). Ultimately, Dos Hermanos, which, like Dimo’s, is backed by the omnipresent ChefStable restaurant group, came up with a custom choice. Neither Madrigal nor Miriello really knew or cared about the name thing. At LaMotta’s, Madrigal calls it Taylor Ham. Dimo’s, meanwhile, went with “Taylor Pork Roll,” thereby displeasing partisans on both sides. “If I called it Taylor Ham and anyone from the Pacific Northwest ordered it, they would send it back,” says Miriello. “‘I ordered a ham, egg and cheese! Why are you giving me this weird bologna?’” The other thing that both restaurants agree on, which just might be a harder sell than mystery meat: SPK, or “salt pepper ketchup.” The acronym is right there in the Dimo’s name, and that’s also how LaMotta’s dresses the sandwich, with no substitutions. Add some hot sauce if you must, but the ketchup’s cloying sweetness balances the salty pig and yolky-cheesy fat. “Salt, pepper, ketchup. That’s just the way it’s done,” says Miriello. “I think a lot of us, especially during the pandemic, are cooking through nostalgia. So even if there’s not a pure, reasonable explanation as to why, that’s how it’s gotta be.”
The Badlands sandwich at LaMotta’s Handmade
EAT: LaMotta’s Handmade at Water Avenue Coffee
1028 SE Water Ave., instagram.com/lamottashandmadepdx. Premade sandwiches served 7 am-1 pm Thursday-Friday, full menu 8 am-2 pm Saturday-Sunday. (On vacation Thursday-Friday, April 1-2.)
Dimo’s SPK at Dimo’s Apizza
701 E Burnside St., 503-327-8968, dimosapizza.com. 9 am-2 pm Saturday-Sunday.
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ORDER:
Tulip Shop Tavern,
825 N Killingsworth St., 503-206-8483, tulipshoptavern.com. Noon-10 pm daily.
WESLEY LAPOINTE
DRINK MOBILE
TOP 5
BUZZ LIST
Where to get drinks this week, one way or another.
1. Buddy’s Lounge
8220 SE Harrison St., Unit 125, 971-288-5186, buddys-lounge.business.site. 1-11 pm daily. Like chocolate and peanut butter, Mary Kate and Ashley, or Twitter and bad hot takes, Buddy’s Lounge has brought another iconic duo to Portland: booze and boba tea. The best so far is also the classic: milk tea boba—black tea, milk and chewy tapioca balls—with a kick of whiskey for just $8. Subtly sugary, with just the right amount of chew to the tapioca, this is the kind of drink that could sneak up on you if you had more than one.
2. Fizz Pop-Up Bar at Imperial Bottle Shop & Taproom 2006 NE Alberta St., 503-954-2021, imperialbottleshop.com/fizz. 4-10 pm Wednesday-Friday, noon-10 pm Saturday-Sunday. It’s beginning to feel a lot like springtime, and in Portland, that means taking advantage of the random breaks in the drizzle to quaff some bubbly cocktails outdoors in 60-degree weather. Imperial’s Alberta location is hosting a seasonally appropriate pop-up on its sidewalk patio, with a wide selection of farmhouse ales, ciders and sparkling wines, plus low-proof cocktails like the Purple Nurple, a blend of Baird & Dewar Barrel-Aged Farmhouse Cider, lavender bitters and brandy wine from Finnriver Farm & Cidery. Reservations encouraged.
Tulip Shop Tavern’s Paper Tiger
3. Known Associates Social Club
615 SE Alder St., Suite B, 971-334-4997. 5-11 pm Wednesday-Sunday. As spring arrives and herd immunity no longer seems a far-off dream, it’s time for an energy cleanse. Known Associates Social Club, a new bar, restaurant and, someday, music venue across from Loyal Legion on Southeast Alder, has got your chakras covered. The
Inspired by the worst strip club in Denver!
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HOT PLATES Where to get food this week.
1. Mama Dut
1414 SE Morrison St., 503-954-1222, mamadut.com. Noon-6 pm Thursday-Sunday. A year ago, Thuy Pham was a self-employed hairstylist with a dedicated clientele. When the pandemic made it impossible for her to do business, she started posting cooking videos on Instagram, making vegan interpretations of Vietnamese staples. Then she began hosting pop-ups. Within six months, she opened her first restaurant—and just last week, she announced the impending opening of her second. It’s the definition of a meteoric rise, but it’s easy to see why customers and Portland food media have been so quick to rally around Mama Dut: Pham employs long-established techniques to create vegan food that’s as comforting as it is decadent.
2. Gabriel Rucker’s Burger Pop-Up
SETH
Southeast 8th Avenue and East Burnside Street. Noon-6 pm Friday, April 2. Gabriel Rucker is one of Portland’s most inventive superstar chefs. But the throughline of all his various enterprises—Le Pigeon, Canard and the late, lamented Little Bird—is his burger. Rucker has hustled to stay afloat during the pandemic, offering his unpretentious interpretations of French fine dining in a couple of different forms, but his signature item has remained elusive. As the straightforward name implies, the burger is the star at this pop-up, held picnic-style right around the corner from Le
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Months before Oregon legalized cocktails to go, Tyler Treadwell had a hunch and placed a bet. “I could just feel in the air that it was going to happen,” says the co-owner of Tulip Shop Tavern, “so I bought a can seamer.” Machines that seal aluminum containers—also known as crowlers—are more common at breweries. But Treadwell instantly found two uses for the one at his bar. First, it allowed him to package draft beer in 16-ounce cans instead of the jars he’d been relying on. Then he began experimenting with spirits in preparation for the influx of customers tired of playing bartender at home. Tulip Shop’s menu of to-go cocktails offers pretty much every classic concoction you can think of, each coming in a canister about the size of a Red Bull and wrapped in a custom black label splattered in white squiggles. But if you’d like a break from tradition, you’re not wrong if you end up selecting the Paper Tiger ($11) based on name alone. Bartender Darren Polak had a similar impulse when he first saw a
strip joint that went by the same name in his hometown of Denver. “It was like a grimy old man bar that served $2 Coors and had no cover—a rough place,” Polak says. “But I always thought that the Paper Tiger was a cool name.” After pouring the porcelain-colored liquid over ice at home, a calming herbal aroma fills your nose as you lift the glass. The bright essence of grapefruit spins alongside lime cordial and a dash of salt, then warming notes of anise and ginger begin to crest courtesy of a somewhat rare spirit native to the Czech Republic called Becherovka. According to Treadwell, the liqueur is more often used at the Tulip Shop as a “bartender handshake,” but he and Polak are pleased to have worked it so seamlessly into a mixed beverage. “No one would ever order [Becherovka] because nobody knows what it is. But it’s one of those things that I really like to show people,” Treadwell says. “It’s cheap and it’s delicious.” It’s also now part of the best tribute to what was once the lousiest place to catch a striptease in Denver—barring the absence of $2 Coors.
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Excommunicado is a take on an old fashioned via Central America, which comes with a stick of fragrant palo santo to burn and “infuse” into the drink. It’s not just a gimmick: The sweet pine flavor really does stay and heighten the spirits.
4. Bit House Collective
727 SE Grand Ave., 503-9543913, bithousesaloon.com. 4-11 pm Tuesday-Saturday, 2-9 pm Sunday. Pandan is the little leaf that could. At the new Bit House Collective, the tropical Southeast Asian flavoring is being stirred into the inventive cocktails by Natasha Mesa, formerly of acclaimed cocktail bar Deadshot. When ordering takeaway, go with Mesa’s twist on an old fashioned: the Padam, Pandan, Pandan O.F. ($11), a stiff little elixir in a square bottle with cork top. Mixed with vodka, bourbon, blueberry, galangal root and bitters, the green of the pandan is beaten out by the violet blueberry, but the flavor is still very much there.
5. Blind Ox Taphouse
4765 NE Fremont St., 503-841-5092, blindoxpdx.com. Noon-9 pm Monday-Thursday, noon-10 pm Friday, 10 am-10 pm Saturday, 10 am-9 pm Sunday. Portland’s Beaumont-Wilshire neighborhood is home to a micro version of the ever-popular food hall. Divvying up the building means that Blind Ox has a unique array of painkillers almost anyone could appreciate following a tense year. Need to lick your way into a sweet, blissful oblivion? There’s whipped-toorder ice cream blasted with liquid nitrogen. Want to spend the afternoon knocked out on the couch? One of Nacheaux’s fried-and-smothered odes to both Mexican and Cajun cooking will induce a nap. And if you simply need a beer to take the edge off, there is also a well-curated, 20-deep tap list.
Pigeon, but it’s joined by another Rucker trademark: his foie gras profiteroles. Meals are $25 and also come with a butter leaf salad. First come, first served.
3. Toki
580 SW 12th Ave., 503-312-3037, tokipdx.com. Dinner served 4-8 pm Wednesday-Sunday, brunch 11 am-3 pm Friday-Sunday. At the moment, Toki is, for all intents and purposes, Han Oak, with a menu that includes both greatest hits and revised versions of other old favorites. But there’s also food that chef Cho was not inclined to cook much in the past, including bibimbap and a steamed bao burger, maybe the world’s first reheating-friendly cheeseburger. The star item, though, is the Gim-bap Supreme, which takes its inspiration from both Taco Bell and the TikTok “wrap” trend, in which a tortilla is partially cut into four quadrants, topped with four different ingredients, folded into layers, and griddled.
4. Piccone’s Corner
3434 NE Sandy Blvd., 503-265-8263, picconescorner.com. 11 am-8 pm Tuesday-Sunday. When the Portland restaurant scene first heard about Piccone’s Corner, the year was 2019, and the hope was that the Italian-style butchery would fill the void left by the closure of Cully neighborhood meat palace Old Salt. Of course, that was a long time ago in real time, and even longer in pandemic time. But namesake Austin Piccone, who raises hogs at Wallow & Root Farm in Sandy, didn’t let the dream die. The market finally opened in February, and the butcher case is all stocked up for Easter, with fresh ham, porchetta and sausage-stuffed lamb.
5. Noodle Gang
Order via instagram.com/chuckdanger. Just like his other industry comrades, Isaac Ocejo found himself reeling when his job at Jackknife evaporated and his catering business with his wife also dried up. Ocejo got to thinking about the year he spent working at dearly departed Wafu, learning ramen at the hip of sous chef Jane Hashimawari. When the owners of Jackknife offered the use of their kitchen, he jumped in, making chewy wheat noodles by hand, curing his own pork belly and building out the tare, or flavor base, all himself. Bowls run $20 for pickup, or he’ll deliver for an extra $5.
WESLEY LAPOINTE
FOOD & DRINK
AU REVOIR: Frances (Michelle Pfeiffer), her son Malcolm (Lucas Hedges) and their cat leave New York for Paris in French Exit.
An eccentric mother-son duo is at the center of French Exit, the latest novel-turned-film by Portland author Patrick deWitt. BY C H A N C E SO L E M - P F E IFE R
@chance_s_p
Lucas Hedges’ Malcolm struck me as younger and warmer than the book character. Did Malcolm evolve in the screenplay? I don’t think there’s a way to bring a literary character to screen in the one-to-one sense, and I don’t know if that should even be an aim. But there is the question of, “How far back can you take it before the original character is disappeared?” Lucas is in his early 20s, a full 10 years younger than the original Malcolm. This changes the character significantly, but Lucas was thorough and careful in considering the source material, and so the character of Malcolm, for me, is represented and intact. You’ve said that French Exit is a book that “wants to be a film.” What does that mean? I think I meant I wanted it to be a film. Like when a parent says, “My child is going to be a doctor.” I probably just meant that the book is chatty and gossipy and there are a couple decent visuals in there. When did you realize waiters would be such constant and sometimes volatile figures in French Exit? I never did realize it, at least not until you pointed it out. Once a reader approached me and told me, “I want you to know that I know what you’re doing— with water.” I asked what he meant, and he named several scenes from different books where water played a key role. I appreciated the sentiment, and that he’d taken the time to think it out, but I didn’t know what he was talking about.
The pandemic year seems to have WW: What was your reaction to impacted writers’ artistic lives so Michelle Pfeiffer coming on board to PATRICK DEWITT differently. How’s it been for you, play Frances? creatively speaking? Patrick deWitt: Aza [Jacobs] and I met with Michelle at her offices in Los Angeles. She hadn’t The last year was the same as the years before, only more agreed to take part in the film but had read the script and so. The lack of typical distractions allowed me to conquer wanted to discuss it. I’m somewhat of a homebody, and I the agonizer part of my new book in half a year. This remember thinking that the reality of the task (going to would have been a year’s worth of work under normal visit Michelle Pfeiffer to try to convince her to be in our circumstances, and it’s nice to have saved some time, but movie) was a bit of a stretch in terms of what I’m capable I fear I’ve done lasting damage to my eyeballs, which are of socially. But she was great, and Aza and I had a sense permanently bloodshot and never not burning. she was seriously considering the part. I bought two pairs SEE IT: French Exit is scheduled to open Friday, April 2, at of pajamas just after the meeting to celebrate my not Century 16 Cedar Hills, Century 16 Eastport, and Liberty. Check listings for updates. screwing it up. 24
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While local rep theaters are out of commission, we’ll be putting together weekly watchlists of films readily available to stream. This Thursday is April Fool’s Day, and to celebrate all things foolish, we’re highlighting comedies centered on lovable goofballs and farcical dinguses.
Smiley Face (2007) In this supremely underrated stoner comedy from Gregg Araki, a slacker actress (Anna Faris) eats her roommate’s cupcakes without realizing they’re laced with pot. Now, she has to complete a list of tasks (replace the cupcakes, get to an audition, pay the electricity bill, etc.)—all while stoned out of her mind. Adam Brody and John Krasinski co-star. Amazon Prime, IMDb TV, Tubi, Vudu.
With lines like “Did you drink to the brink of sound reasoning?” do you think Frances Price views conversation as a sport? I think she, like a lot of my characters, enjoys the medium of language more than the normal amount. I keep writing this type of character because I enjoy the medium of language more than the normal amount, and making up lines like the one you quoted is my idea of fun.
DA N N Y PA L M E R L E E
If three makes a trend, Patrick deWitt’s writing is movie catnip. Whether bickering bandits or moneyed layabouts, characters from the Portland-based and Man Booker Prize-shortlisted deWitt have leapt off his pages and onto screens for 10 years now. They’ve attracted actors like John C. Reilly for Terri (2011), Joaquin Phoenix and Jake Gyllenhaal for The Sisters Brothers (2018) and now, Michelle Pfeiffer and Lucas Hedges for the movie adaptation of deWitt’s 2018 novel, French Exit (out April 2 from Sony Pictures Classics). Dubbed a “tragedy of manners” by its subtitle, French Exit follows a codependent mother and adult son, wealthy once but hard up now. Like a more cultured version of Arrested Development’s Lucille and Buster Bluth, Frances and Malcolm Price have little left but each other’s company and their considerable wit. From a borrowed Paris apartment, the Prices make their last stand, pouring their remaining funds into comically absurd yet personally resonant goose chases. WW spoke with deWitt about adapting his novel for director Azazel Jacobs (Terri, The Lovers), pitching Michelle Pfeiffer, and how the pandemic impacted his writing.
GET YO UR REPS I N
YO U T U B E
Exit Strategy
Editor: Andi Prewitt / Contact: aprewitt@wweek.com T O B I A S DAT U M A S - S O N Y P I C T U R E S C L A S S I C S
screener
MOVIES
After Hours (1985) Martin Scorsese followed up his 1982 hit The King of Comedy with another dark satire, this one about a computer data entry worker (Griffin Dunne) in New York City who, after meeting a beautiful woman (Rosanna Arquette) in a cafe, finds himself tangled in a series of absurd misadventures and misunderstandings during his nightly commute home. Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Google Play, HBO Max, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube.
Dick (1999) Kirsten Dunst and Michelle Williams star as 15-yearold girls living in 1972 Washington, D.C. After accidentally learning confidential secrets during a White House tour, President Richard Nixon appoints them as his official dog walkers in an attempt to keep them quiet. Through this gig, they unwittingly influence major historical events, unintentionally give Nixon weed cookies, and expose the Watergate scandal. Amazon Prime, Apple TV, fuboTV, Hulu, iTunes, Showtime, Sling TV, Vudu, YouTube TV.
Listen Up Philip (2014) A self-obsessed writer (Jason Schwartzman) anxiously awaiting publication of his second novel seeks refuge at the isolated cottage of his mentor (Jonathan Pryce) to work on a new book about his favorite subject: himself. Alex Ross Perry’s dry dramedy proves that even intellectuals can be fools. Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Crackle, Google Play, iTunes, Kanopy, Peacock, Plex, Tubi, Vudu, YouTube.
Party Girl (1995) Known for being the very first film to premiere on the internet, this comedy from Daisy von Scherler Mayer features Parker Posey in her breakout leading role as a carefree party girl. After getting arrested at an underground rave, she gets a job as a library clerk to repay her bail loan—a stark contrast from her formerly flashy lifestyle. Amazon Prime, Kanopy, Peacock, Pluto TV, Sling TV, Tubi, Vudu.
MOVIES TOP PICK OF THE WEEK
French Exit
SONY PICTURES CLASSICS
The Parisian take on the Irish goodbye, a French exit amounts to quickly and silently ditching a party. That’s the Price family’s move when their New York accounts run dry and mother Frances (Michelle Pfeiffer) and son Malcolm (Lucas Hedges) flee to France. There, they can hole up and spend their last cash stacks while the movie around them cycles through genres. Based on a 2018 novel by Portland author Patrick deWitt (The Sisters Brothers), French Exit is mostly a roving gabfest, and a wonderful showcase for lioness-in-winter Pfeiffer, who savors Frances’ boozy Lucille Bluth-esque contempt in dialogue exchange after exchange. By contrast, a kindly naturalist at his acting core, Hedges can’t quite handle the playful yet biting artificiality. Still, French Exit simply tries on enough hats (love triangle, supernatural mystery, mannered comedy) that no one weak spot sinks the ship. Azazel Jacobs’ film is by far at its best in skewering wealth’s absurdity, namely when Frances overpays a private detective to find a psychic to find a cat. Its more serious elements tend to drag, but there’s a curiosity and empathy toward the Prices’ ridiculous position. A onetime trophy wife (with no husband) and her trust-fund son (with no trust fund) are free of most everything: the good, the bad and any definition but mother and son. R. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Century 16 Cedar Hills, Century 16 Eastport Plaza, Liberty.
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. : THIS MOVIE IS A STEAMING PILE.
ALSO PLAYING The Father The play-to-film transition often lacks formal ingenuity. Regardless of quality, you know the type: static cameras, actors gnawing on scenery, wordy dialogue carrying protracted scenes. But French playwright Florian Zeller adapting his acclaimed dementia drama to cinema has the opposite effect. The Father either eludes or busts multiple movie norms of perspective, setting and unreliable narrators, and then cinches into a harrowing but not exploitative puzzle box. As the dementia-ridden Anthony, 83-yearsyoung Anthony Hopkins resists the pleas of his daughter Anne (Olivia Colman) to accept an in-home caretaker and grant the family some freedom. That’s as much plot as can be said for certain, as scenes loop, rooms mutate in almost imperceptible ways, and basic facts aren’t what they were five minutes ago. Robbed of truth but not his showy, sparring personality, Anthony isn’t an unexpected character from Hopkins, but the performance is a gauntlet and his best in 10 years. Unfortunately, The Father doesn’t offer Colman anywhere near the same material, but it does allow the audience to see things from her perspective, as well as Anthony’s. You’re fighting for understanding one moment, sure you’ve got it the next, rebuffed just after that, and then mercifully, fittingly ready to give in. PG-13. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. AMC Vancouver Mall 23, Bagdad, Century 16 Cedar Hills Crossing, Century 16 Eastport Plaza, Liberty, Living Room.
F.T.A. According to director Francine Parker, the White House itself called up American
International Pictures in 1972 and, poof, this vérité document of Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland’s anti-war variety show evaporated from theaters. The presumed reason for the censorship is still the most important historical detail within F.T.A. (standing alternately for “Free” and “F*ck the Army”). Those were the flames Fonda, Sutherland (both fresh off Klute), songwriter Len Chandler and their touring troupe tried to stoke with this satirical counterprogramming to the USO. We witness thousands of soldiers thwarting their base commanders to attend, and concurring with the vaudevillian skits and musical numbers skewering a war that would “flatten” Southeast Asian nations “to save” them. While the unearthed documentary’s chief drawback is its sense of preciousness for the actual live show—maudlin folk ballads deserve their own wing in the Diminishing Returns Hall of Fame—it also demonstrates a real-time attentiveness to the Vietnam War’s countless exploited parties: Black GIs, women in the Air Force, unionizing Okinawan workers, Filipino independence movements. Even if the harmonies and high kicks didn’t turn the Hueys around, F.T.A. is a convincing testament to the theater kid’s particular tools of discord. R. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Cinema 21, Hollywood, Virtual Cinema.
Boogie The debut film directed by Fresh Off the Boat creator (and then disowner) Eddie Huang follows a Chinese American basketball star, Boogie (newcomer Taylor Takahashi), who’s shooting for a college scholarship. Replete with sports drama clichés—a needlessly dickish crosstown rival (played by late rapper Pop Smoke), parental pressures, a befuddled coach preaching teamwork, a blooming
romance bigger than sports—it’s the finer strokes that still merit Boogie a watch. Not just a vessel of his parents’ professional dreams, Boogie is the evolution of their specific cultural expressions; he’s portrayed as the product of a marriage (Dragon + Dog = Snake on the Chinese zodiac chart) destined to distress the son. Making sense of that legacy— explaining both this movie’s swagger and genuinely foul mood—is more important than Boogie learning a pat American lesson about claiming his own path. To his credit, Takahashi can genuinely ball, though he looks about 12 years too old for high school and routinely falls flat in emotional scenes. It’s Taylour Paige (star of the forthcoming Zola) as Boogie’s beloved and Perry Yung as his ne’er-do-well father who shoulder the humanity. Ultimately, if most every other variation on these hoop dreams has been told, Boogie at least deserves the court time. R. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. AMC Vancouver Mall 23, Century 16 Cedar Hills Crossing, Century 16 Eastport Plaza, Living Room, On Demand.
The Courier During the Cold War, British businessman Greville Wynne had a secret life. While exporting industrial engineering products, he worked as a courier for Col. Oleg Penkovsky, a Soviet military intelligence officer who was an informant for MI6 and the CIA. Wynne’s espionage career ended with his capture in 1962, but he survived 18 months in a Moscow prison and later wrote two memoirs, The Man From Moscow and The Man From Odessa. It would take more than a facile film to diminish his heroic legacy, but it’s still dispiriting to watch The Courier, a movie so bland it’s barely fit for the BBC. Under the direction of Dominic Cooke (The Hollow Crown), a tale that should have been scary and suspenseful turns into a stately British period piece, complete with a surprisingly shapeless score by the brilliant Polish composer Abel
Korzeniowski. As Wynne, Benedict Cumberbatch is exquisitely vulnerable—the prison scenes are haunted by images of his increasingly skeletal frame—but The Courier’s cheery conclusion obscures painful realities, including the real Wynne’s MI6 training, which he said was more brutal than the KGB beatings he endured. Greville Wynne risked his life to prevent nuclear war. The least The Courier could have done was risk being honest. PG-13. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. AMC Vancouver Mall 23, Century 16 Cedar Hills, Century 16 Eastport Plaza, Living Room.
Nobody His centrality to this hyperstylized shoot-’em-up notwithstanding, Bob Odenkirk shares one other crucial trait with the Bruce Willises and Dolph Lundgrens of the world—his head. That Easter Island chin. Those granite cheekbones. Stubble the color and texture of iron filings. Every time Odenkirk growls, broods or ironically luxuriates in the battering he takes in this half-comedic John Wick knockoff, that mug draws all attention away from the stunt men overselling his unremarkable punches and gunplay. Ilya Naishuller’s debut feature is essentially Death Wish with dads who collect vinyl and cultivate man caves they would never deign to call man caves. The spree of (maybe righteous?) violence by suburban accountant Hutch Mansell (Odenkirk) begins when he freezes up during a home invasion, much to the chagrin of his wife and teenage son. From there, Hutch is on a collision course with the criminal underworld as Nobody becomes a bloody romp but skirts questions of wounded modern masculinity raised by the inciting incident. Nobody can’t get over the fact that it cast Bob Odenkirk instead of letting the incredibly versatile actor tangle with the meaning of all this carnage. If only it took its own
premise more seriously. R. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. AMC Vancouver Mall 23, Century 16 Cedar Hills, Century 16 Eastport Plaza, Cornelius 10 Cinemas.
Zack Snyder’s Justice League A death in the family. Dueling directors. Wrathful fans. Zack Snyder’s Justice League may be a slab of bloated mediocrity, but the story of its creation is a saga of epic, tragic proportions. In 2017, Snyder surrendered his superhero mashup Justice League to director Joss Whedon (The Avengers), who reshot multiple scenes while Snyder grieved for his daughter, Autumn, who had died by suicide at age 20. Enraged by Whedon’s revisions, some fans demanded to see Snyder’s version of the film, unleashing a campaign that included a Times Square billboard and an airplane banner. Zack Snyder’s Justice League is the answer to their prayers: a restoration supervised by Snyder himself. It is also a four-hour bore that subjects us to a lifeless Batman (Ben Affleck), an apathetic Superman (Henry Cavill) and an appallingly clichéd screenplay (sample line: “The great darkness begins!”). The Justice League’s more charismatic recruits—Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot), Aquaman (Jason Momoa), the Flash (Ezra Miller), and Cyborg (Ray Fisher)—provide spark and spunk, but not enough to elevate the interminable action scenes, which are clogged with sluggish slow motion, a Snyder trademark. None of this will faze Snyder’s fans, who care about him so passionately they have donated half a million dollars to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. There are plenty of reasons to loathe Zack Snyder’s Justice League, but it is important to acknowledge that it has meaning beyond its artistic failures— and to hope that finishing it brought some solace to a bereaved father. R. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. HBO Max.
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YOUR BACKSTAGE PASS TO THE WWEEK NEWSROOM
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PERFORMANCE
Editor: Andi Prewitt | Contact: aprewitt@wweek.com GARY NORMAN
MUSIC Written by: Daniel Bromfield | @bromf3
Now Hear This
Listening recommendations from the past, present, Portland and the periphery. SOMETHING OLD TAKE REFUGE: Meet the goddesses at the center of Shaking the Tree’s new production. Each painted panel represents one of the deities.
The Goddesses Speak Deities deliver wisdom and warnings in Shaking the Tree’s Refuge. BY BE N N E T T C A M P B E L L FERGUS O N
In Refuge, a scorching fusion of theater and visual art from Shaking the Tree Theatre, Our Lady of the Primordial Fire (Nicole Virginia Accuardi) takes a torch to the idea of likability. “Fuck! That!” she bellows, stabbing at each word with brutal emphasis. “Time to burn it down.” Her declaration is an attack on the misogynistic branding of female politicians as “unlikable,” but it also embodies Shaking the Tree’s mission: to burn theatrical conventions to the ground. No genre, style or set of ideas can contain the mind of the company’s founding artistic director, Samantha Van Der Merwe—she is a master of mind-expanding experiences that leave you discombobulated and intoxicated. With beauty, dreaminess, wrath and even wit, Refuge continues Shaking the Tree’s tradition of untamed innovation. It is also a rare pandemic production that audiences can see in person. In small “germ pods,” groups can experience the show’s paintings, vocal performances and filmed dances, which invite the viewer to see the COVID-19 outbreak not as a singular horror but as part of an ecosystem already unbalanced by humanity’s destructive domination over nature. “It’s a very stern and loving voice that comes through— and it feels larger than life,” says Van Der Merwe. “If I have to think about putting a face or a personality onto this goddess energy or this wild mother energy, it’s not soft. It can
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be in places, but there’s an authority that comes through, which is really quite lovely.” Refuge emerged from the ennui that characterized the early months of the pandemic. “I think I was sitting at the same table I’m sitting at right now, staring out the window, wondering what to do with myself and with my days,” says Van Der Merwe. “It was about a week after lockdown, and I had this idea to create a sacred space.” Van Der Merwe decided to structure Refuge around 11 goddesses who could both comfort and provoke. She painted panels with brash acrylic shades to represent each goddess, then recruited writers and performers to incarnate the characters with either their voices or their bodies. The artists invoked influences that ranged from classic to contemporary. Josie Seid, who plays Our Lady of the Primal Waters, was inspired by the African goddess Yemaya, while Kayla Hanson, who brings Our Lady of Essence and Exchange to life, says she was influenced by Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” music video. “She has one outfit where you see just her mouth,” Hanson says. “And I thought, ‘Oh, that’s so cool, and that kind of works perfectly for this, because we’re focused on breathing, breath, voice exchange.’” While Refuge is entertaining—especially when two of the goddesses start chatting about The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills—it also calls audiences to confront climate crisis. “The soundscape pulls in a lot of elements: wind and rain, water and whatever is connected to each goddess,” says Van Der Merwe. “Nature will always regenerate. It’s the humans who need to get on board, because we’re in danger of eliminating ourselves.” Rousing the citizens of a demoralized world may be daunting, but Van Der Merwe is heartened by the liberating effect that Refuge has had on audiences. “Some people get up and get close to the paintings and some people sit, or some people lie down,” she says. “It’s really beautiful. They just feel free to do whatever they want to do in the space.” Making people feel intellectually and emotionally free is what Shaking the Tree does best—and so do contributing artists like Josie Seid, whose metaphorical description of her part in the production sounds like a company manifesto. “You’ve got the ocean rocking you real gently and it feels nice, but you might hit some waves and it might get a little scary and it might get a little dangerous,” she says. “But then you make it through that storm and you get to the water on the other side and it calms down, but you’re going to be different. What you went through is going to change the way you look at the ocean.” SEE IT: Refuge is at Shaking the Tree Theatre, 823 SE Grant St., through May 22. 6, 7:30 and 9 pm Thursday-Saturday; 2, 3:30 and 5 pm Sunday. Sold out, but you can join the waitlist in case of cancellations at shaking-the-tree.com/refuge.html. Donations accepted.
Brian “Buckethead” Carroll wears a horror-movie mask and an upside-down fried chicken bucket on his head, and he was once in Guns N’ Roses. Like John Frusciante, whom he auditioned to replace in the Red Hot Chili Peppers, he keeps one foot planted on the arena stage and another in the art world. He’s released literally hundreds of albums, but an obvious highlight is 2002’s Electric Tears, a lovely collection of both acoustic and electric guitar self-duets that suggests vacant lots, deserted roads and endless skies. SOMETHING NEW Promises, Pharoah Sanders’ new album with Floating Points and the London Symphony Orchestra, is a marvel. The 80-year-old saxophonist solos—first sedately, then grandly— over florets of harpsichord and bells that eventually swell into the sweeping majesty you hire symphony orchestras for in the first place. It would’ve been ballsier, though, to credit the album just to Sanders: Most orchestral jazz albums have a legion of goons backing up a leader, and there’s no question who’s in charge here. SOMETHING LOCAL Failure Is the Feeling seems a distressing title for an album, but for longtime local rap ambassador Cool Nutz, failure “gives a n— heart.” Sumptuously produced and guestheavy, Failure finds the 48-year-old showing off both his supremacy on the mic and his dense web of connections. There are three remixes of “Pain” with rappers from different West Coast hot spots, including a “Bay Area remix” with Mistah F.A.B. And Swiggle Mandela shows up for another song-asopen letter, this time directed at the Portland Police Bureau instead of Willamette Week. SOMETHING ASKEW Tokyo drone artist Celer has dozens of albums to his name, and the process of getting into his vast archive entails hurling yourself into a dense personal mythology. Like Jandek (or Buckethead), his albums are more pages in an ongoing diary than individual statements. Much of his work is available only through a Bandcamp subscription, but there are plenty of highlights available for streaming. One of the best is Xièxie, an audio log of a train journey through China.
FLASHBACK
THIS WEEK IN 2010
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ART N’ COMICS!
JACK KENT’S
Jack draws exactly what he sees n’ hears from the streets. IG @sketchypeoplepdx | kentcomics.com
FIRST THURSDAY ART SHOW! Get yer limited edition special prints of your favorite Sketchy People! April 1 (no foolin’) 4-8 PM at CULT! 1204 NW Glisan St.
ARE YOU AN ARTIST? Be a Willamette Week featured artist! Any art style is welcome! Let’s share your art! Contact us at art@wweek.com. 30
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JONESIN’
Week of Week of April 8
©2021 Rob Brezsny
by Matt Jones
"Sandwiched"--it's a matter of taste.
ARIES (March 21-April 19) Author Susan Sontag defined "mad people" as those who "stand alone and burn." She said she was drawn to them because they inspired her to do the same. What do you think she meant by the descriptor "stand alone and burn"? I suspect she was referring to strong-willed people devoted to cultivating the most passionate version of themselves, always in alignment with their deepest longings. She meant those who are willing to accept the consequences of such devotion, even if it means being misunderstood or alone. The coming weeks will be an interesting and educational time for you to experiment with being such a person.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20) In the 1930s, Taurus-born Rita Levi-Montalcini was a promising researcher in neurobiology at the University of Turin in Italy. But when fascist dictator Benito Mussolini imposed new laws that forbade Jews from holding university jobs, she was fired. Undaunted, she created a laboratory in her bedroom and continued her work. There she laid the foundations for discoveries that ultimately led to her winning the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. I foresee you summoning comparable determination and resilience in the coming weeks, Taurus.
GEMINI (May 21-June20) Religious scholar Karl Barth (1886–1968) wrote, "There will be no song on our lips if there be no anguish in our hearts." To that perverse oversimplification, I reply: "Rubbish. Twaddle. Bunk. Hooey." I'm appalled by his insinuation that pain is the driving force for *all* of our lyrical self-revelations. Case in point: you in the coming weeks. I trust there will be a steady flow of songs in your heart and on your lips because you will be in such intimate alignment with your life's master plan.
CANCER (June 21-July 22) Across
56 "Tickle Me" doll
1 Bowling locale
57 Brooding music genre
6 Fixes typos
58 Tequila brand since 1886 whose name means "Old Town"
31 Director Duplass
62 Tiny bite
37 Bleachers sound
11 Supporter 14 Grasp 15 When to see la luna 16 "Where's the _ _ _?" 17 It's got a point to it 19 "Much _ _ _ About Nothing" 20 Oratorio part 21 Sis's counterpart
63 First name in cosmetics 64 Let go 65 6-point football scores 66 Beloved ones 67 Paintball mementos
30 "From hell's heart, _ _ _ at thee" ("Moby-Dick" quote) 32 Bitter drink 36 Modifying wd. 38 Places to be let on 39 Central or Hyde, e.g. 40 Twist out of shape 42 "The Living Daylights" singers 43 "Famous Potatoes" state
22 Frequently
Down
45 Looked slyly
24 "Owner of a Lonely Heart" rock band
1 Chemistry test
46 English, in Spanish
2 "The Elements" satirist Tom
47 White of "Family Matters"
25 Astronaut Jemison
3 Be a go-between
26 Not qualified
4 Cornell who founded Cornell University
48 "Roger _ _ _" (1960s cult cartoon hero)
28 Island country north of New Zealand 33 Singer LaMontagne 34 35mm camera choice
5 "Uh-huh" 6 Pharmaceutical for rheumatoid arthritis
52 They're raised by mechanics 53 Time to give up? 54 Included with
7 Martial arts facility
55 Lyft competitor
36 "Downton _ _ _"
8 It may be crushed
56 County Kerry's isle
39 "Harper Valley _ _ _" (1968 hit)
9 Active chemical in cannabis
59 Manipulate
10 Light, as fireworks
60 Pilot's calculation
40 "Byeeee"
11 Reason to pull over
61 Group for ex-GIs
41 "_ _ _ all a favor ..."
12 Helper
42 1.5-volt battery size
13 Bar sign light
43 Actor Barinholtz
18 1994 Siouxsie and the Banshees single
35 "The Parent _ _ _"
44 His Secret Service code name is "Celtic" 49 Skulk about 50 "Uh-uh" 51 "Feels great!" 53 Part of PSL 55 "Oh, nasty!"
23 Highest number on a billiard ball 25 _ _ _ Thai (martial art) 26 John Wooden's team 27 Neither go-with
“It is not easy to be crafty and winsome at the same time, and few accomplish it after the age of six,” wrote Cancerian author John W. Gardner. But I would add that more adult Crabs accomplish this feat than any other sign of the zodiac. I'll furthermore suggest that during the next six weeks, many of you will do it quite well. My prediction: You will blend lovability and strategic shrewdness to generate unprecedented effectiveness. (How could anyone resist you?)
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) Staring at flames had benefits for our primitive ancestors. As they sat around campfires and focused on the steady burn, they were essentially practicing a kind of meditation. Doing so enhanced their ability to regulate their attention, thereby strengthening their working memory and developing a greater capacity to make long-range plans. What does this have to do with you? As a fire sign, you have a special talent for harnessing the power of fire to serve you. In the coming weeks, that will be even more profoundly true than usual. If you can do so safely, I encourage you to spend quality time gazing into flames. I also hope you will super-nurture the radiant fire that glows within you. (More info: tinyurl.com/GoodFlames)
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) Physicist Victor Weisskopf told us, "What's beautiful in science is the same thing that's beautiful in Beethoven. There's a fog of events and suddenly you see a connection. It connects things that were always in you that were never put together before." I'm expecting there to be a wealth of these aha! moments for you in the coming weeks, Virgo. Hidden patterns will become visible. Missing links will appear. Secret agendas will emerge. The real stories beneath the superficial stories will materialize. Be receptive and alert!
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22) last week’s answers
Jungian psychoanalyst and folklore expert Clarissa Pinkola Estés celebrates the power of inquiry. She says that "asking the proper question is the central action of transformation," both in fairy tales and in
psychotherapy. To identify what changes will heal you, you must be curious to uncover truths that you don't know yet. "Questions are the keys that cause the secret doors of the psyche to swing open," says Estes. I bring this to your attention, Libra, because now is prime time for you to formulate the Fantastically Magically Catalytic Questions.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21) In April 1933, Scorpio-born African American singer Ethel Waters was in a "private hell." Her career was at an impasse and her marriage was falling apart. In the depths of despondency, she was invited to sing a new song, "Stormy Weather," at New York City's famous Cotton Club. It was a turning point. She later wrote, "I was singing the story of my misery and confusion, of the misunderstandings in my life I couldn’t straighten out, the story of the wrongs and outrages done to me by people I had loved and trusted." The audience was thrilled by her performance, and called her back for 12 encores. Soon thereafter, musical opportunities poured in and her career blossomed. I foresee a parallel event in your life, Scorpio. Maybe not quite so dramatic, but still, quite redemptive.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21) I love to see you enjoy yourself. I get a vicarious thrill as I observe you pursuing pleasures that other people are too inhibited or timid to dare. It's healing for me to witness you unleash your unapologetic enthusiasm for being alive in an amazing body that's blessed with the miracle of consciousness. And now I'm going to be a cheerleader for your efforts to wander even further into the frontiers of bliss and joy and gratification. I will urge you to embark on a quest of novel forms of rapture and exultation. I'll prod you to at least temporarily set aside habitual sources of excitement so you'll have room to welcome as-yet unfamiliar sources.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) Capricorn poet John O'Donahue suggested that a river's behavior is worthy of our emulation. He said the river's life is "surrendered to the pilgrimage." It's "seldom pushing or straining, keeping itself to itself everywhere all along its flow." Can you imagine yourself doing that, Capricorn? Now is an excellent time to do so. O'Donahue rhapsodized that the river is "at one with its sinuous mind, an utter rhythm, never awkward," and that "it continues to swirl through all unlikeness with elegance: a ceaseless traverse of presence soothing on each side, sounding out its journey, raising up a buried music." Be like that river, dear Capricorn!
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18) "Is life not a thousand times too short for us to bore ourselves?" wrote philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. In response to that sentiment, I say, "Amen!" and "Hallelujah!" Even if you will live till age 99, that's still too brief a time to indulge in an excess of dull activities that activate just a small part of your intelligence. To be clear, I don't think it's possible to be perfect in avoiding boredom. But for most of us, there's a lot we can do to minimize numbing tedium and energy-draining apathy. I mention this, Aquarius, because the coming weeks will be a time when you will have extra power to make your life as interesting as possible for the long run.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20) I know of four different governmental organizations that have estimated the dollar value of a single human life. The average of their figures is $7.75 million. So let's say, for argument's sake, that you are personally worth that much. Does it change the way you think about your destiny? Are you inspired to upgrade your sense of yourself as a precious treasure? Or is the idea of putting a price on your merit uninteresting, even unappealing? Whatever your reaction is, I hope it prods you to take a revised inventory of your worth, however you measure it. It's a good time to get a clear and precise evaluation of the gift that is your life. (Quote from Julia Cameron: "Treating yourself like a precious object makes you strong.")
HOMEWORK: Send brief descriptions of your top three vices and top three virtues. FreeWillAstrology.com
29 Roll call response Check out Rob Brezsny’s Expanded Weekly Audio Horoscopes & Daily Text Message Horoscopes
©2020 Jonesin’ Crosswords (editor@jonesincrosswords.com) For answers to this puzzle, call: 1-900-226-2800, 99 cents per minute. Must be 18+. Or to bill to your credit card, call: 1-800-655-6548. Reference puzzle #JNZ990.
freewillastrology.com The audio horoscopes are also available by phone at
1-877-873-4888 or 1-900-950-7700 Willamette Week MARCH 31, 2021 wweek.com
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