Willamette Week, June 30, 2021 - Volume 47, Issue 35 - Not Cool by Willamette Week Newspaper

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VOL 47/35 06.30.2021

WILLAMETTE WEEK PORTLAND’S NEWSWEEKLY

NEWS:

A Cove of Skaters. P. 10

HEALTH:

Nurses Without Vaccines. P. 12

ART:

A Year of Protests, Illustrated. P. 16

CANNABIS: Hot Vape Summer. P. 26

NOT COOL Dispatches from the hottest weekend in Portland history. Page 6

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FINDINGS WESLEY LAPOINTE

STREET, PAGE 20

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WHAT WE LEARNED FROM READING THIS WEEK’S PAPER VOL. 47, ISSUE 35 Don’t camp within 10 feet of a doorway. 5 One hundred sixteen degrees. Really. 6

The heat created mirages on Portland streets. 7 A person arrived at the Providence emergency room with a 106degree temperature. 9 The Lents Neighborhood Livability Association has doubts about Feral Cat Cove. 10

A local artist has created a Where’s Waldo?-style image visualizing Portland’s year of protests. 16 They’re showing movies at Lloyd Center again—on the roof. 22 Top Chef blew up Ota Tofu. 24 Richard Blais’ ever-changing hair was the second-best part of the Portland season of Top Chef. 25 One local dispensary will laserengrave your vape at no charge.

Oregon hospitals can’t make nurses get vaccinated. 12

Oregonians were briefly allowed to pump their own gas during the heat wave. 15

Runners. 27

Don’t sleep on Dexys Midnight There is a new documentary about the events leading up to the 2018 Hart family murder-suicide. 28

ON THE COVER:

OUR MOST TRAFFICKED STORY ONLINE THIS WEEK:

Cooling off in St. Johns, photo by Chris Nesseth.

We asked four ad executives what to make of a controversial Travel Portland campaign.

MASTHEAD EDITOR & PUBLISHER

Mark Zusman

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DIALOGUE On June 20, Travel Portland debuted a controversial ad in four major national publications, including The New York Times. Intended to inspire tourists to visit Portland, the $100,000, text-only ads start with: “You’ve heard a lot about us lately. It’s been a while since you heard from us. Some of what you’ve heard about Portland is true. Some is not.” It goes on to describe Portland as a place of “dualities, but never polarities” and home to “some of the loudest voices on the West Coast.” The ad promptly sparked debate and backlash on social media. WW asked four ad executives for their take on the campaign (“A Nice Place to Visit,” June 23, 2021). Some praised the ad’s honesty, while one called the ad an outright lie. Here’s what our readers had to say: Jerry Ketel, founder of CreateGood Studio, via wweek.com: “I had much more to say about this issue. First, it’s just an ad. What we need to do is fix our problems. Action matters more than communications. We got our reputation based on our values and how different we are compared to the rest of the country. It was all destroyed within a year. The only way to reclaim our position as one of the best cities in America is to address the anarchists and solve the homeless problem. AND we need to unleash Portland’s creativity in a downtown core that will otherwise take years to rebuild.” Bdbr, via wweek.com: “I completely agree with you, but there’s going to be a long lag between solving our local issues and convincing the country that the problems are solved. There hasn’t been a riot since May 21—over a month, yet in the past week one U.S. senator has referenced the riots happening ‘every other night,’ and the National Review has written about riots ‘every night since the death of George Floyd.’ I also saw a survey where 63% were afraid to visit Portland because of riots. We can fix our problems, but how do we overcome the conservative misinformation campaign that has decided to make Portland appear worse than it is?”

Dr. Know Need something to do? Got a special event to share? Check out wweek.com/calendar to find out what’s happening around town.

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@ElinorFrost14, via Twitter: “I have a home in Portland and I lived there for 35 years. The city has amazing waterfront parks, an array of top-notch restaurants, many parks, trails and bike paths, and Mount Hood and the Columbia Gorge are close by, and the coast is a few hours away. This ad says zilch.” @JeraldLynch1, via Twitter: “Who in their right mind wants to travel to and visit a city where violence and crime are up 550%?” Lisa Beaulauranek, via Facebook: “I used to live in downtown PDX when the crime rates were far worse in Portland and have been away for almost a decade now. My husband and I went back for a weekend a couple of weeks ago. We stayed in a super-nice hotel downtown and walked around getting takeout and enjoying the outdoor patios. Took the MAX by my old Rose Garden apartment. It was awesome because there were so few people. Felt just as safe as any major metro in the U.S.” V S, via wweek.com: “I went for a bike ride last night down Northwest Flanders, then through downtown, then inner Southeast, I was blown away by how many people were out. The Benson had bellhops outside greeting cars. Man, did it feel like Portland is coming raging back. Still lots of boarded-up places, but lots of new stuff as well. I was really surprised and encouraged.” Pat Boyer Wiggins, via Facebook: “I’ve lived in Oregon since 1975—most of that time in or around Portland. I still love living here. We will work through this tragic time and come out stronger. There is no one reason for what’s been happening, so there won’t be one easy solution. Lots of issues, but we love it here and need to be positive and work to fix it.” 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

I feel like I’ve made a deal with the devil by giving in and buying an air conditioner. Won’t using it just hasten global warming and bring forth hell on earth more quickly? —Becky C. You’re a human being, Becky. Short of killing yourself (or, I suppose, somebody else), everything you do is going to hasten global warming and bring forth hell on earth more quickly. And in spite of all the hand-wringing over what a wasteful and frivolous luxury it supposedly is, air conditioning is a relatively small part of that equation. “Small, my eye!” cries the straw man. (For some reason, my straw men always talk like Jimmy Stewart). “That darned window unit goosed my electric bill by 20%!” That may be true—for a few months. Over the course of a year, however, air conditioning accounts for just 6% of home electricity use. We use more than twice that on hot water and nearly as much (5%) on laundry—yet nobody ever gets judgy about the wasteful frivolity of clean clothes and hot showers. “That’s all fine and dandy,” you drawl, “but

a little honest sweat never hurt a fella, and a 6% dent in climate change is nothing to sneeze at!” Not so fast, George. Putting aside the suddenly wide-open question of whether hot weather can still be considered merely a harmless inconvenience, that was 6% of electricity consumption. But electric power generation itself accounts for only 25% of our greenhouse gas production (most of the rest comes from burning fossil fuels directly). Thus, your (and, more importantly, my) new, lifesaving air conditioner actually accounts for only about 1.5% of total U.S. greenhouse gas output. Compare this Tinker Bell-like footprint to that of tourism (8%), meat and dairy (14%), and, of course, private automobiles (29%). Finally, recall that, unlike the gas in your car and the jet fuel in your plane, the electricity to run your air conditioner can come from renewable sources, as indeed fully 62% of Oregon’s does. Given all that, I don’t think you have all that much to feel guilty about. Still, if you’re really set on making it up to the planet, there’s always murder. QUESTIONS? Send them to dr.know@wweek.com.

MURMURS BRIAN BURK

RIDING OUT THE HEAT WAVE UNDER A DOWNTOWN BRIDGE

CITY WON’T SWEEP CAMPS MORE THAN 10 FEET FROM DOORWAYS: As conversation heats up about Commissioner Dan Ryan’s plan to build six safe rest villages across the city, Portland’s protocols for sweeping homeless camps may be formalized at a June 30 meeting of the City Council. The aim is to codify sweep protocols, Ryan’s office explained to WW, for the first time ever. One proposed protocol: deprioritize sweeping encampments that are at least 10 feet away from entrances to residential or commercial buildings, so long as the building is not a school and the encampment doesn’t contain biohazardous waste, harbor criminal activity or consist of more than eight structures. “[This] ordinance is not intended to increase or decrease interactions between Portlanders experiencing houselessness and the Impact Reduction Program—our goal is to create clarity around the city’s approach toward houselessness,” spokesperson Margaux Weeke said. Weeke says Ryan’s office worked on the ordinance alongside the Oregon Law Center, Street Roots and all five commissioners’ offices to establish sweep guidelines. Another amendment would decree that campers could not be required to move to safe rest villages. That renews the question of whether people will go voluntarily. HARDESTY TAKES AUGUST OFF: City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty will take a summer vacation from Aug. 2 to Sept. 6. While such lengthy vacations aren’t unheard of for city commissioners, they are unusual. Hardesty’s chief of staff Karly Edwards wrote in a June 28 email that Hardesty’s staff are trying to give her a full-time vacation: “Commissioner Hardesty will be out and unavailable. That means she will not be available for feedback, council or check-ins. We do not make exceptions for this.” Among the Portland elected officials who’ve taken generous vacation time on the taxpayer dime was City Commissioner Charlie Hales, when he took 48 days of vacation and personal days in 2001. “Being inside in Portland, Oregon, in August is a sin,” he quipped, in a way that now seems anachronistic in one regard—being outdoors in June was hazardous to your health.

PRISON RIGHTS GROUP DESCRIBES DIRE HEAT CONDITIONS: On June 28, as Oregon temperatures climbed to a historic high, the Oregon Justice Resource Center penned a letter to state officials calling for a “robust and comprehensive emergency plan to be put in place and made transparent,” as well as immediate action following a blistering weekend that allegedly left some prisoners without air conditioning and cold water. “Quite simply, it should not take an unprecedented heat wave to remind prison administrators to clean their air-conditioning filters,” civil rights lawyer Juan Chavez wrote. “It is unacceptable, and possibly unconstitutional.” As WW first reported last week, two Oregon prisons in Salem do not have air conditioning. OJRC wrote that women incarcerated at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility in Wilsonville also communicated “dire news” about heat in the facility, and that 120 people incarcerated at Santiam Correctional Institution had to share one drinking fountain, which dispensed water ranging from lukewarm to hot. BLAZERS COACHING HIRE CAUSES ANGST: The Trail Blazers are in turmoil. On June 29, the team introduced its new head coach, Chauncey Billups, amid fan backlash over his alleged involvement in a 1997 rape. But that synopsis hardly conveys the outrage and dread swirling around the franchise, especially after civic icon Damian Lillard hinted he was so upset by front-office dysfunction that he might demand a trade out of Portland. Lillard had publicly endorsed Billups (“Dame Time’s Up,” WW, June 9, 2021) but tweeted last week that he didn’t know about the sexual assault allegation against the coach and he “doesn’t support those things.” The team’s president of basketball operations, Neil Olshey, laughed aloud when a reporter asked about Lillard’s dissatisfaction. “Dame’s happiness always revolves around winning,” he said, and declined to offer specifics of the organization’s inquiry into Billups’ past actions.

YOUR BACKSTAGE PASS TO THE WWEEK NEWSROOM Join the Dive podcast every Saturday as we quickly cover the week’s headlines, and then dive deeper into the big stories of the week. Host Hank Sanders sits down with the paper’s staff as well as the biggest names in Portland to discuss the city and the events that change lives. The Dive podcast by Willamette Week is the best way to stay up to date with Portland’s news, sports, arts, and culture.

Available anywhere you get your podcasts

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NEWS

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW THIS WEEK

WESLEY LAPOINTE

PORTRAITS

Arbor Lodge 5 pm | 93 degrees A confusing address posted on social media has left the Arbor Lodge cooling shelter almost empty. Inside the lights are dimmed and padded black mats lie in geometrically attractive lines. William is eating a banana. He’s on the phone with his daughter. He puts his phone down when we approach, but she seems to stay on the line, at one point interjecting to correct him about a detail. “My memory was real good before corona,” he says. “Now it’s nothing but one or two.” He can’t do more than one thing at a time without becoming distracted. He says lost his housing after being in the hospital for months. When he came back, much of his possessions were gone from the storage locker where they were held. His granddaughter is helping him fix up a motor home, but he worries he’s already asked too much. “I’ve been putting too much pressure on her,” William says. “She doesn’t know it, but I know it.” He wears a hat that reads “Korea Veteran” and shows us a photograph of the ship he served on, which he took himself, then shifts into a terse commentary on socialism. “I didn’t fight for that,” he says softly. SUZETTE SMITH. J U S T I N YA U

COLD COMFORT: Portlanders escaped the heat in the Oregon Convention Center last weekend.

Heat of the Moment BY S U ZE T T E SM I T H , J USTI N YAU

BRIAN BURK

As Portland broiled, residents searched for relief at cooling shelters. and

SOPHIE P E E L 5 03 - 24 3 - 21 22

FRIDAY, JUNE 25 Oregon Convention Center 12:30 pm | 90 degrees Thirty minutes before the Multnomah County cooling shelter opens, a figure darkens the doorway. “Is it open yet?” the man asks. A volunteer checks to make sure he’s well enough to wait outside. Later, people will show up 6

Willamette Week JUNE 30, 2021 wweek.com

FLOORED: Padded sleeping mats on the floor of the Arbor Lodge shelter. WESLEY LAPOINTE

On Friday, the heat dome descended. Portlanders were trapped inside. “Heat dome” is a term that now joins the expanding glossary of Oregon horrors nobody had heard of a year ago. Over the course of a sweltering weekend, Portland experienced what one climate expert told WW was a “diabolical” weather event that a bunch of meteorologists couldn’t have planned had they circled a table and conjured up every terrible contributing factor possible. The result? A 116-degree high on the afternoon of June 28, the third consecutive day Portland experienced temperatures never before reached in city history. Suddenly, the fact of climate change felt not only real but inescapable—as if we were a city of frogs boiling alive. MAX trains ground to a halt, their overhead wires heated to 140 degrees. Streetcar power cables on the Broadway Bridge melted. Stone slab roads in the Kenton neighborhood cracked in two. For three days, we went out in the heat—to meet the people trying to escape it. We spent much of our time in and around the cooling shelters set up by Multnomah County to provide relief to people without air conditioning—some 21% of the city. Here’s who we met.

with heat stress and lie on the cool, smooth concrete floor of the convention hall, while medical workers watch to see if they’ll need further attention. The Oregon Convention Center hasn’t hosted a convention for more than 17 months. In that time, it has been used for at least four emergency purposes: cold weather shelter, hot weather shelter, COVID testing site, and the state’s largest vaccination clinic. “[In the cold] you can always put on more layers,” Multnomah County health officer Dr. Jennifer Vines explains. She’s there to supervise the setup. “But in the heat, it’s very hard to cool off without getting to a cool space. Our bodies actually tolerate cold a bit better than they tolerate heat. So heat is more of an emergency, in terms of getting someone help quickly.” SUZETTE SMITH.

NEWS

J U S T I N YA U WESLEY LAPOINTE

J U S T I N YA U

Oregon Convention Center 1:30 pm | 95 degrees Draydon made his way to the cooling shelter after finding himself homeless—again—after moving into the area to live with a friend. Sitting at his feet is a large fur-covered mask that fits over his head. The mask has a personality called Zaphire, intertwined with Draydon’s own identity. “She’s a mysterious figure,” Draydon explains. “I’m still figuring her out.” Though Draydon is trans-masculine, he has been using the women’s restroom because the men’s is outfitted with automatic flush toilets. He explains that because he’s on the autism spectrum, certain sudden, uncontrollable sounds can cause him distress. But when we speak to him, he’s excited, having just posed for a photo with U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden. “I’ve never taken a photo with a senator.” Draydon says. “I’ve never been close to someone with that level of power. Holy moly, he patted my back!”

COME ONE, COME ALL: Visitors to the Oregon Convention Center shelter last weekend included U.S. Sen. Rob Wyden, who posed for a photo with Zaphire (center left), and Brandon, who brought his cat Moshe (center right). J U S T I N YA U

SATURDAY, JUNE 26

J U S T I N YA U

WESLEY LAPOINTE

Oregon Convention Center 7 pm | 90 degrees Brandon’s cats, Moshe and Gwennie, sit quietly in separate crates, provided by Multnomah County when he arrived at the cooling shelter. Their own carriers were soiled. He was making ends meet until recently—enough to afford $75 a night at a Motel 6 near Tualatin—but Brandon came up $9 short just as the heat wave started. He found himself pushing a shopping cart with his two cats in it, calling around to different help lines. An operator for 211 directed him to the Convention Center cooling shelter. He paid for his own cab ride. “Do you think someone from an animal hospital could come wash my cats?” he asks. “They both had accidents on the way here. Moshe is older so she has trouble sometimes. I was so worried about her. She was panting and limp.” The Oregon Convention Center doesn’t even have showers for people, though. In the restroom a woman calmly cleans up with some moist towelettes. She doesn’t seem bothered by the other person in the restroom—a woman mumbling fragmented thoughts, punctuating them with short screams. SUZETTE SMITH.

Wyden says he’s touring the cooling shelter to thank volunteers and listen to the people staying there. “I don’t think there’s any question that this temperature challenge is driven by climate change,” he says. SUZETTE SMITH.

Willamette Week JUNE 30, 2021 wweek.com

J U S T I N YA U

Sunrise Center 2 pm | 106 degrees Along Southeast 188th Avenue, a rotating sprinkler fountain sprays water in a glorious arc, working with fan-powered misting nozzles to create small rainbows suspended in the air. Working together is a theme here. “Over a dozen organizations!” boasts Caleb Tel Coder. “We have all these folks in our workforce helping the neighbors.” Coder uses “neighbors” as a default label for everyone at the center, and “workforce” to describe both volunteers and permanent staff. Behind him, pups belonging to residents run gleefully back and forth through the garden hose-powered fountain as Bernard “Beard’’ Hahm watches from the shade with satisfaction: job well done. Both wear faded T-shirts and work boots, with fluorescent yellow cooling towels around their necks. Both Coder and Hahm have been houseless. Both work for a neighborhood nonprofit, Cultivate Initiatives, that’s contracted by the county to help run the Sunrise Center cooling shelter. Though it’s near midday, most of the 40-person capacity shelter’s guests—currently around 30— are dozing on the county-provided black mats. Coder tells WW the sleeping areas are separated into two: “Women, couples, families here, and single men over there.” In contrast to the other shelters, couples and families have pulled their mats together, breaking the orderly lines. JUSTIN YAU.

RAINBOW CONNECTION: Misting fans cooled the Sunrise Center in Gresham.

Arbor Lodge 1:30 pm | 106 degrees Kevin heard about the cooling shelters on TV but never thought he would wind up in one. The silver-haired St. Johns resident figured he would not be at risk from the heat—aside from being diabetic—and planned to ride out the wave in his house, next to a fan. Then he started to feel lightheaded. He made his way to the St. Johns fire station, his common practice when he worries his blood pressure might be too high. They told him to get to a cooling shelter. He’s just finished a turkey sandwich. The Arbor Lodge shelter has around 15 people in it now, but most are sleeping. On this visit, William, the Korean War vet, now has a raised cot. The floor mats provided by the county are too 8

Willamette Week JUNE 30, 2021 wweek.com

Peninsula Park 4:33 pm | 111 degrees Just as Portland crosses into the 110s, wispy notes of “Turkey in the Straw’’—an anthem of frozen-confection peddlers nationwide—drifts through Peninsula Park’s heat-drenched air. Children and parents alike jerk their heads up and look around, trying to discern the direction and distance to an ice cream truck that would venture into this inferno. “I am the founder, the owner, the lunatic who’s out in 110-degree weather selling popsicles!” Michael “Mick” Shillingford says with bravado. Dressed in a sky blue uniform, Shillingford jumps off the truck, and opens the vending window. His sign—boasting over 30 flavors of “handcrafted, all-natural” popsicles, from Arnold Palmer to Strawberry Lemonade”—abruptly falls and he moves to tape it back on. The adhesive is melting. Having sold ice cream since 1994, Shillingford tells WW he bought the delivery truck at an auction three to four years ago, before converting it to the Future Pops truck. “If I have trouble staying cool, then there is a problem!” he declares in a thick South London accent. “What can a dollar buy me?” one dad asks. It can buy a bright red frozen Otter Pop. “Break that in half and you’ll have two!” Shillingford tells him. The dad—wearing a loose-fitting gray wife beater and a kippah—later tells WW his name is CJ and describes himself as a “queer Jewish park dad.” CJ and his son, as in many households in Portland, do not have central air conditioning. That day they’d borrowed a rotating tower fan from a friend and visited some friends with a pool. They are rounding out the day at the Peninsula Park splash pad. “Luckily, we are on the first floor,” CJ says. He gestures to his kid. “At night, this one sleeps with a fan straight on him.” The kid, now dappled with red Otter Pop stain, nods. JUSTIN YAU.

SUN AND SHADE: A taxi driver pushes a visitor in a wheelchair into the Sunrise Center cooling shelter. J U S T I N YA U

SUNDAY, JUNE 27

low, and once he’s on the floor, it’s difficult for him to stand back up. Asked about the persistent heat wave, William says softly: “People are reading the Bible and finding out it’s true….Christ will be coming and he will be ruling in time. We don’t know when. We don’t know lots of things about it. We do know that one-third of the world’s population will be gone, and one-third of the water. And I don’t remember the last one.” Outside, mirages in the street reflect sky in every direction. The wind doesn’t help. It’s like being inside a hair dryer on full blast. SUZETTE SMITH.

J U S T I N YA U

Rosemont Court 4:30 pm | 100 degrees Burma Thomas was watering her flowers in the courtyard of her North Portland apartment building when the temperature crested 100 degrees. So she used the hose nozzle to douse herself in cold water, fully clothed. It was part of a beat-the-heat routine. “Usually, I just take a shower with all my clothes on,” says Thomas, 68. “If it gets real rough, I’ll walk around in my underwear.” She’s now offering to douse her neighbors at Rosemont Court, an apartment complex for people over 55. But water comes as a suspicious gift here: 13 of its residents have fallen ill with Legionnaires’ disease in the past six months, and some are still scared of showering or drinking the water, even though the bacteria are only dangerous when inhaled. Rosemont Court has just under 100 residents over 55 living in its rooms. Those apartments don’t have air conditioning, unless residents footed a $250 bill to install a window unit in preparation for the weekend. Some did while others are relying on fans. Another resident, Marilyn, tells WW she learned to lay ice packs over her wrists to keep cool at a young age. She lies on her bed at 10 am on Saturday morning—it’s already reached 82 degrees in her room, and she’s feeling nauseous and dehydrated. Elizabeth Gonzalez, also 68, is taking the wet-clothing route, too: She tells WW she plans to strip down to her underwear the following day and get soaked in the shower, then hide out in her bedroom, which has a window AC unit. “My car has beautiful AC in it, but walking to the parking lot is a trip. It’s a bit of a walk,” Gonzalez says. “Where would I go? I’m not going to drive to the coast with a million other people.” SOPHIE PEEL.

GETAWAY: Kevin didn’t imagine he would need a cooling shelter. Then the mercury rose.

Overheated

BRIAN BURK

INDEX

OBJECT

The human toll of a superheated weekend, by the numbers. One hundred sixteen. That’s the number you’ll remember from this past weekend—the hottest in Portland history. For three days of a “heat dome” that turned the Pacific Northwest into something like a Bundt pan, each day brought a temperature higher than the last—until the thermostat peaked at 116 degrees at Portland International Airport on the afternoon of June 28. But other numbers also measured the effects of the unimaginable heat. We asked city, county and state agencies to share numbers that reflected just how dangerous the heat dome was for Portlanders. SOPHIE PEEL.

901: Emergency medical services calls made throughout the county Sunday and Monday. Of those, 558 resulted in transports.

97: Emergency department and urgent care clinic visits for heat illness in Multnomah County since Friday. 100: Number of emergency visits for heat-related illnesses that is typical for an entire Portland summer. 1: Heat-related deaths Portland Fire &

Rescue documented between Friday and Monday. The death occurred on Monday, the fire bureau says. The Oregon Health Authority said it could not confirm the death because there’s typically a lag in gleaning that information. “At this time, we don’t have confirmed reports of deaths but are seeking information from our local partners,” an OHA spokesperson said.

Gloves On

A protest medic alleges a Portland police officer punched him while wearing tactical gloves. Tyler Cox didn’t notice the gloves until after the officer punched him. Cox, a nurse in the intensive care unit at Oregon Health & Science University, was volunteering as a medic during a protest last August in the Pearl District, where he says a Portland police officer named Thomas Clark tackled him, forcibly removed his helmet and punched him in the face. As WW reported last week, the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office is reviewing the case against Clark for possible criminal prosecution, according to Cox’s attorney Joe Piucci. (The DA’s office has declined to comment.)

CLOCKED

Hunzeker Watch We’re keeping the spotlight on an investigation of a police leak. 106 DAYS:

of Homeless Services distributed to outreach groups to hand out over a four-hour span on Sunday from its downtown supply center.

That’s how long ago Officer Brian Hunzeker resigned from his role as president of the Portland Police Association due to what the union described as a “serious, isolated mistake related to the [Portland] Police Bureau’s investigation into the alleged hit-and-run by Commissioner [Jo Ann] Hardesty.” We still don’t know what he did. The mayor’s office says it doesn’t know what he did. Hunzeker has been on paid administrative leave since May 27.

106: Highest temperature of a patient

117 DAYS:

2,624: The number of 911 calls received on Monday alone. 18,000: Water bottles the Joint Office

treated by Providence Health. Over the weekend and into Monday, Providence’s four emergency departments treated at least 24 people for heat illness. “These include patients with symptoms ranging from dizziness to heat stroke to temperatures as high as 106,” said Providence spokeswoman Jean Marks. “Most patients are treated and released after they receive care with standard chilling protocols—which reduce body temperature slowly through chilled IV fluids and ice packs.”

BRIAN BURK

299: Heat-related incidents Portland Fire & Rescue responded to between Friday and Monday. Spokesman Rob Garrison tells WW that’s about three times the standard call volume—20 calls were coming in at a time pretty much continuously for the whole weekend. The calls included three fires, dozens of heat exposure calls, reports of people unconscious, heat falls and downed power lines. One call was identified as “Unknown problem – life status questionable.”

RIOT GEAR: Cox’s lawyer says the gloves pictured are an example of what the officer wore.

The incident was caught on video, gaining widespread attention on social media and in the local news late in the summer. But Cox recalls a detail from after the skirmish that stood out to him: Clark’s gloves. Cox says Clark escorted him to a police van, where he informed Cox that he would be booked for assaulting an officer. (The DA’s office has since filed a “no complaint” in the case against Cox, meaning he won’t be charged.) Cox says he was “floored” the officer had accused him of being the assailant in the confrontation. “I just looked at him and was like, ‘Excuse me?’” Cox now tells WW. “When I was standing there, that was when I really got to take a look at the officer and the gloves he was wearing.” Cox and his attorney allege that the officer was wearing punching gloves, also known as tactical gloves, in which the knuckles are reinforced with metal or hard plastic to deliver a more powerful blow. A bureau spokesman knew of no policy regarding whether officers were allowed to wear tactical gloves, also known as sap gloves and blackjack gloves. “I am not aware of any directive related to or permission related to such gloves,” says spokesman Lt. Greg Pashley. “Our directives are available to review online.” It’s also worth noting that Clark, the officer accused of punching Cox, has studied mixed martial arts, jiujitsu and taekwondo, and was previously deployed with the Army in Iraq, according to grand jury transcripts from 2015. Bureau spokesman Pashley says Clark has been with the bureau for over 11 years and that his current assignment is listed as “Personnel – leave of service.” Cox says he suffered a concussion from the incident and, in the long term, has experienced worsening depression, anxiety, difficulty concentrating, short-term memory loss and forgetfulness. Cox and Piucci say they met with District Attorney Mike Schmidt on June 24 to discuss possible criminal prosecution of Clark. If the DA’s office declines to file charges, Piucci says he is ready to file a civil lawsuit. “This was a particularly egregious criminal assault. It’s imperative that police officers face accountability,” Piucci says. “For better or worse, that responsibility rests on the DA’s office as the only effective mechanism for holding officers’ criminal conduct accountable.” TESS RISKI.

That’s how long it’s been since the Police Bureau opened an internal affairs investigation into the leak of information that wrongly implicated Commissioner Hardesty in a March 3 hit-and-run crash. It has released no results of its inquiry.

105 DAYS:

That’s how long it’s been since the city signed a contract to hire an outside investigative firm to probe the leak. TESS RISKI. Editor’s note: It is unusual for WW to track the timeline of such investigations, but the circumstances themselves are unusual: A veteran police officer and union president abruptly resigned from his union leadership role in con-

OFFICER FRIENDLY: Police helped with water bottles at a recent Timbers match.

nection with information leaked about an elected official. Meanwhile, he was assigned to work the patrol unit in the North Precinct until being placed on administrative leave. We believe Portlanders have a right to know what Hunzeker did that led to his resignation, and we believe it is critical to put pressure on public officials and law enforcement leaders who might prefer that the public forget about it. We will continue to publish this column until we know what Hunzeker did. Willamette Week JUNE 30, 2021 wweek.com

NEWS SEAN BASCOM

She worries about kids skateboarding in the street, saying she gets “one or two reports of [cars] almost hitting kids weekly.” She tells this reporter about two separate fires on the Springwater Corridor in the past year that required the fire bureau to come out with ladder trucks—and worries that the skatepark does not leave the minimum required 20-foot width for fire apparatus access. (Janega disputes this. Gesturing to the channel through the middle of the park, he says, “We still have access right here for rapid response cleanup crew or the city if they need to get in here.”) “I have been reporting this to the park bureau through their channels for two years,” Wilson laments. “Nobody took me seriously until about six or seven weeks ago.” Portland Parks & Recreation knows about the park but hasn’t decided what to do. Parks bureau spokesman Mark Ross says parks leadership “is working to assess potential next steps. There is no imminent action, and no decisions have been made.” For now, the park is open and expanding. “It’s a community,” says Josh, a 33-year-old stay-at-home dad who helped build the park but declined to give his last name. “We have plans to continue even further, and those ideas aren’t mine at all. Those are somebody else’s and like I’m super-stoked to start on, like, another brainchild of somebody else.” On an unseasonably rainy afternoon at Feral Cat Cove, several men in their 20s and 30s are at work on the ramps. As the rain picks up, they huddle under a large tree for cover. Janega points to a metal grate in the middle of a skate ramp. “At least we know our drains work!” he says, smiling out from under a camouflage hat from Lowcard magazine. A few minutes later, as the rain stops, the men make their way to the back wall of a newly poured concrete quarterpipe. This addition is noticeably smoother, appearing almost professionally built compared to earlier sections. The team works together to install swimming poolstyle coping at the top of the ramp. Everyone has a role: One guy mixes mortar in a bucket on the ground, Josh and another spread mortar and set pre-cut pool coping sections in place, and a third moves down the line cleaning up their work and smoothing things out. Around the back of the ramp, others are chatting about their day around a charcoal grill loaded with chicken thighs. At least one neighbor thinks Feral Cat Cove beats anything offered to Lents by City Hall. “City doesn’t come out and do anything,” says Wes Wolfe, a middle-aged man who says he owns a rental property around the corner, as he passes by the park on a stroll. “These guys, the skaters, they pick up the trash and they got a good attitude.”

Concrete

JUNGLE DIY skateparks are a proud tradition in Portland. Can this one survive an angry neighbor? BOWL OF LENTILS: Volunteers perform masonry work on Feral Cat Cove as people stroll by on the Springwater Corridor. BY S E A N B AS CO M

@baaascom

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SEAN BASCOM

hree years ago, an odd structure sprouted alongside the Springwater Corridor bike trail in deep Southeast Portland. Residents in the Lents neighborhood are bitterly resigned to sprawling encampments appearing between the bike path and Interstate 205. But this was different: a low-lying three-dimensional patchwork of concrete ramps, with a dirt and asphalt channel running through the middle. It was a skateboarding park—built by a guerrilla crew of Lents carpenters, masons and delivery drivers. And it kept growing. Each weekend, more people arrived to construct a roughly formed mini-halfpipe and bowl with steep and shallow embankments facing the street. They called the place Feral Cat Cove. The skatepark has transformed a neglected strip of land owned by the city. “It was really gnarly,” recalls Alex Janega, a 34-year-old carpenter and father of one who helped build the park. “You’d find needles, human feces, bullet casings. There were stolen cars and RVs up and down the entire block.” The founders of Feral Cat Cove opened the bowl to anyone: skaters, roller bladers, and kids on scooters. “My No. 1 rule is no cool-guy shit,” explains Janega. It has become a local gathering space in an area that was, until recently, strewn with trash. Yet the skatepark could be demolished by City Hall— after complaints from the very neighborhood monitors who organized against homeless camping and drugs. “I cannot stress enough that this is illegal,” says Penny Wilson, vice chair of the Lents Neighborhood Livability Association, an anti-crime group. She’s been contacting Portland Parks & Recreation for over a year, demanding that Feral Cat Cove come down. “No one has the right to just decide they want to build something on a piece of unincorporated or unimproved land and get away with it.” Well, maybe. Portlanders have a proud tradition of crafting civic landmarks without formal sanction. (Most recently, an anonymous artist erected a urethane bust of York atop Mount Tabor.) Perhaps the most iconic installations are DIY skateparks.

Burnside Skatepark, one of the city’s most famous landmarks and hallowed ground in skateboarding history, just celebrated its 30th birthday in 2020. The park under the Burnside Bridge arguably inaugurated a DIY skate culture that inspired the people behind Feral Cat Cove. Like Feral Cat Cove, Burnside Skatepark was constructed without permission. It is now so established it has its own nonprofit and is working with City Hall to preserve the skateboarding bowl while seismic upgrades are made to the bridge overhead. Since 1990, Portlanders have constructed countless skate spots across the city. Some as small as a patch of concrete at the base of a concrete barrier while others grow into entire neighborhood parks. Few get authorization. “It’s so much easier to ask for forgiveness, you know,” says Colin Sharp of the nonprofit Skaters for Portland Skateparks, which spearheaded the now-defunct Brooklyn Street Skate Spot. The project ran for three years on a similar sleepy neighborhood corner in inner Southeast Portland before being demolished to make way for the TriMet Orange Line. During that same period, at least five skateparks were leveled by the city and private developers. A DIY spot attached to the St. Johns Bridge was demolished last year after concerns were raised about effects on the bridge’s structural integrity. Another on Northeast Sandy Boulevard known as The Warf has been slated for demolition since winter and was recently fenced off by the property’s owners. Others survived. Portland State University recently reached a temporary agreement with skateboarders who in recent years have built a series of wood and metal features on a paved court. Sharp has advice for keeping DIY skateparks out of the crosshairs of city officials: “Just keep it small, keep it local, keep it clean,” he says. That’s not good enough for Wilson. The vice chair of a hardline group that demands a greater police presence in Lents, she says she objects to the project on grounds of safety and morality. (Other members of the association have been supportive of the project.)

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NEWS ALEX WITTWER

CLEAN QUARTERS: Hospitals are asking for the authority to require vaccinations of their staff.

Hypocritical Oath The highest-risk professions in Oregon are barred from instituting vaccine requirements. BY R AC H E L M O N A H A N

rmonahan@wweek.com

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M O T O YA N A K A M U R A

ast week, the Oregon Health Authority released data showing that just 62% of staff at nursing homes and other long-term health care facilities were vaccinated against COVID-19. That number is alarming because nursing homes and other care facilities for the elderly had the most significant outbreaks in the country. It’s also notable because employers have no authority to require licensed health care workers at any job to get the shots. In most industries, employers can mandate that their workers receive COVID -19 vaccines, at least within certain parameters, like making the shots a condition of returning to the office. But in health care—where the stakes are highest—employers cannot. That’s right: No Oregon hospital can require that its doctors, nurses or other licensed health staff receive vaccinations before entering the building. “Vaccines are safe and effective and are the best way to protect hospital patients and the hospital workforce from COVID-19, the flu, and other infectious diseases,” says Becky Hultberg, president and CEO of the Oregon Association of Hospitals and Health Systems. “Yet health care providers are the only organizations prohibited by Oregon law from considering vaccine requirements for their employees.” That’s thanks to a law passed in 1989. It added to a previous requirement that health care employers must provide free vaccinations to their workers. The additional clause, however, said bosses couldn’t mandate shots. “A worker shall not be required as a condition of work to be immunized under this section,” the law says, “unless such immunization is otherwise required by federal or state law, rule or regulation.” The law defined health care workers to include “employees of a health care facility,” as well as “firefighters, law enforcement officers, corrections officers,” as the

Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries noted in guidance issued earlier this year. Exceptions to vaccines also apply in cases where employees have a union contract that prohibits a vaccine mandate or where employees have a religious reason or a disability that prevents them from getting vaccinated. The long-standing existence of such a prohibition has created an odd dynamic in Oregon labor relations: In the jobs that care most intimately for the state’s most vulnerable people, employers have the least power to require safeguards. Industry groups representing hospitals and group homes say the prohibition is outmoded and raises the risk for patients as COVID-19 variants arrive in Oregon. “For the protection of health care workers, patients and their families, we should reconsider this needlessly restrictive policy,” says Hultberg. “This discussion is long overdue and is more important than ever as we move into the next phase of our response to the COVID -19 pandemic.” The Oregon Resource Association, a network of organizations that provide housing or services to intellectually and developmentally disabled adults, says employers would like that option—even if it comes at the risk of alienating vaccine-skeptical workers. “Very likely, some staff would choose not to continue if they had to get the vaccine,” says Lois Gibson, executive director of the Oregon Resource Association. “But I believe [employers] would like to have the option.” The key concern for the industry, she says, is staffing. The long-term care industry is perpetually short-staffed because wages are largely set by state reimbursement rates and are low—lower than unemployment benefits in some cases. Women, who make up most of that workforce, have had to stay home in greater numbers for the past year as schools remained closed. Such tight staffing means outbreaks, when they occur, result in staffing crises. “So, suddenly, you have 15 people

that can’t work when you already didn’t have enough people to work,” Gibson says. For the same reason—staffing shortfalls—employers would likely not institute across-the-board vaccine mandates, for fear of pushing workers out of their jobs, but the mandates could be a useful tool if applied only to employees in certain positions. Examples of places where a vaccine requirement might make the most sense for such employers? Homes for the medically fragile, Gibson says, as well as houses and programs that employ staffers who move between multiple locations. The industry group representing long-term care facilities, the Oregon Health Care Association, did not respond to repeated requests for comment. And labor unions representing health care workers declined to offer a defense of the prohibition on vaccine requirements. The Oregon Nurses Association declined to weigh in on mandates, but made an argument that employers should provide more incentives for vaccination, while noting nurses are already vaccinated in higher numbers than the general population. “Companies must ensure workers who want to get vaccinated can do so conveniently, including by providing paid time off for vaccine appointments,” says ONA spokesman Kevin Mealy. “In addition, companies should provide robust vaccine education, ensure paid sick time for all workers who need it due to vaccine side effects, consider worker incentives, and ensure that any and all future ‘boosters’ are supported in the same ways.” Service Employees International Union Local 49 did not respond to repeated requests for comment. No bill to reverse the 1989 law was introduced in the last legislative session. At least one lawmaker says that should change. Employers “should be able to require the COVID-19 vaccine for people who come into contact with patients in all health care settings,” says Rep. Lisa Reynolds (D-Portland).

Very likely, some staff would choose not to continue if they had to get the vaccine. In a conversation with WW, Reynolds, a pediatrician, pointed to the Hippocratic Oath, which stipulates doctors must do no harm. “We are in a unique position,” she says. “When we take care of people whom we can make sick and we can prevent [it] with a vaccine, we have a special responsibility to do that. We still know that there are 30% of Oregonians who are not vaccinated, and if they’re unvaccinated, they’re at risk of making their patients sick.”

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Vegan-friendly dive bar Hungry Tiger Too reopens…

PORTLAND’S MOST IMPORTANT STORIES SENT DIRECTLY TO YOUR INBOX The Blazers hire Chauncey Billups as head coach, Dame is reportedly contemplating a trade request, and Neil Olshey is still GM.

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Read about this illustration on the next page. Willamette Week JUNE wweek.com Willamette Week JUNE 30,30, 2021 2021 wweek.com

17 17

Drawing Ire A guide to Luka Grafera’s

Portland: Year of Protest. From the artist: “Portland: Year of Protest is an illustrated map through the lens of the local protests between May 2020 and May 2021. The community that formed in Portland around the uprising following the murder of George Floyd has shared a whirlwind of profound moments that have reshaped the way we see the city. Many neighborhoods, intersections and buildings have taken on new associations, as they have become the backdrop for severe trauma and deep comradeship. I created this piece as a means to process and contextualize my own intense memories, as well as accounts by others that have stuck with me. It’s an expression of gratitude to every person who showed up for the struggle, in whatever way they were able to. I hope it helps protesters connect over their shared experiences, and better communicate those experiences to people who weren’t present.” —Luka Grafera Below, Grafera describes some of the notable individual scenes, in the order in which they occurred:

Marches From Revolution Hall Throughout June, marches originating at Revolution Hall drew crowds of thousands, who traveled along various routes, holding signs, chanting and drumming. Though the marches occasionally concluded downtown where police clashes took place, they more often ended with speeches in parks. On the edges of many marches, teams of bike corkers protected protesters from vehicles at intersections.

Back the Blue Counter-Protest

Tensions between antifascist protesters and various white supremacist groups escalated to a brawl in front of the Justice Center on August 22nd. Hours of intermittent fighting, which involved paintballs, smoke bombs, fireworks, and copious amounts of pepper spray, came to an end when antifascists advanced victoriously to push the disjointed adversaries out of the area.

Back the Blue Counterprotest Tensions between anti-fascist protesters and various white supremacist groups escalated to a brawl in front of the Multnomah County Justice Center on Aug. 22. Hours of intermittent fighting, which featured paintballs, smoke bombs, fireworks, and copious amounts of pepper spray, came to an end when anti-fascists advanced victoriously to push their disjointed adversaries out of the area.

Marches from Revolution Hall

Throughout June, marches originating at Revolution Hall drew crowds of thousands, who traveled along various routes holding signs, chanting, and drumming. Though the marches occasionally concluded downtown where police clashes took place, they more often ended with speeches in parks. On the edges of many marches, teams of bike corkers protected protesters from vehicles at intersections.

The Fed Wars Starting in July, federal agencies began to make appearances downtown near the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse. Though the first groups of protesters to face off against them were small crowds of dedicated nightly protesters, increasing public awareness of the violence and abductions by federal agents resulted in a massive wave of renewed engagement.

Night 100

Night On September 5th, 100 to celebrate the 100th consecutive night of protest in Portland, protestersOn gathered for speeches in Ventura Park. When they left to march toward Sept. 5, to celebrate the 100th the East Precinct, police quickly intervened with tear gas, impact munitions, and consecutive night of protest in violent bull rushes. Protesters responded with fireworks and misthrown Molotov protesters gathered cocktails.Portland, By the end of the night, 59 protesters had beenfor arrested. speeches in Ventura Park. When they left to march toward the Portland Police Bureau’s East Precinct, police quickly intervened with tear gas, impact munitions, and violent bull rushes. Protesters responded with fireworks and misthrown Molotov cocktails. By the end of the night, 59 protesters had been arrested.

The Fed Wars

Starting in July, federal agencies began to make appearances downtown near Mark O. Hatfield Courthouse. Though the first groups of protesters to face off against them were small crowds of dedicated nightly protesters, increasing public awareness of the violence and abductions by federal agents resulted in a massive wave of renewed engagement.

Willamette Week JUNE 30, 2021 wweek.com

North Precinct Mass Arrest As crowd numbers began to dwindle and the remaining community became more connected, opportunities emerged for new protest tactics. On Oct. 10, a group coordinated through secret channels to silently march to the North Precinct. Information about the plan was leaked publicly, and police were ready to attack protesters immediately upon their arrival. Members of the group struggled to hold on to each other as they were pepper-sprayed, violently pried apart and arrested.

Mutual Aid

Mutual Aid Mutual aid networks have been essential to sustaining the protests and beginning to build the kind of world that many protesters are fighting for. Community members came to depend on these groups for food, medical care, protective gear, mechanic work, jail support, firewood, clothing, prescription eyewear, and many other specialties.

Mutual aid networks have been essential to sustaining the protests and beginning to build the kind of world that many protesters are fighting for. Community members came to depend on these groups for food, protective gear, mechanic work, firewood, clothing, prescription eyewear, and many others specialities. The mutual aid groups that arose in response to the protests eventually provided necessary support to those displaced by unprecedented wildfires in September 2020.

North Precinct Mass Arrest

As crowd numbers began to dwindle and the remaining community became more connected, there were opportunities for new protest tactics. On October 10th, a group coordinated through secret channels to silently march to the North Precinct. Indigenous Peoples Day of Rage Information about the plan was leaked publicly, and police were ready to attack On the nightupon of their Oct. 11, The an group Indigenous-led march protesters immediately arrival. struggled to hold onto each otherfrom as they Waterfront were pepper sprayed, violently priedSouth apart, andPark arrested. Park to the Blocks

culminated in the toppling of two statues. The first, a statue of Theodore Roosevelt, an expansionist who sought to erase Native Americans from their ancestral lands, and the second, a statue of Abraham Lincoln, who signed off on the mass execution of 38 Dakota men.

Indigenous Day of Rage

On the night of October 11th, an indigenous-lead march from Waterfront Park to South Park Blocks culminated in the toppling of two statues. The first, a statue of Theodore Roosevelt, an expansionist who sought to erase Native Americans from theirLaurelhurst ancestral lands, andSweep the second, a statue Abraham Lincoln, who ordered the mass execution of 38 Dakota men.

As increasing numbers of Portlanders were affected by homelessness throughout the year, a disproportionate number of them being nonwhite, many people involved in racial justice protests also directed their efforts toward preventing homeless encampments from being demolished by city contractors. The protest in response to the sweep of Laurelhurst Park on Nov. 19 was one notable effort among many similar actions at various other camps.

Dan Ryan’s House

Dan House On the Ryan’s night of October 27th, protesters marched to Portland City Commissioner Dan Ryan’s home to urge to vote in favorprotesters of a 18 million dollar police budget to On the night ofhimOct. 27, marched cut. Despite the heartfelt stories protesters shared with him in support of their Portland City Commissioner Dan Ryan’s home pleas for defunding, and a prior stated interest in reallocating police funding to other programs, Commissioner Ryan cast his tie-breaking vote against the cut, to urge him to vote in favor of an $18 million prompting subsequent protests at his home. police budget cut. Despite the heartfelt stories that protesters shared with him in support of their pleas for defunding, and a prior stated interest in reallocating police funding to other programs, Commissioner Ryan cast his tie-breaking vote against the cut, prompting subsequent protests at his home.

Laurelhurst Sweep

As increasing numbers of Portlanders were affected by homelessness throughout the year, a disproportionate amount of them being non-white, many people involved in racial justice protests also directed their efforts toward preventing homeless encampments from being destroyed by city contractors. The protest in response to the sweep of Laurelhurst Park on November 19th was one notable effort among many similar ones at various other camps.

Red House Eviction Defense Early in the morning on Dec. 8, after months of community gatherings facilitated by the Kinney family to resist their eviction from the Red House, police initiated a long-anticipated raid. Despite several arrests, and efforts to render the Red House uninhabitable, the community responded by constructing their own barricades to defend the home and the surrounding encampment. Protesters occupied the fortifications for several days until a tentative agreement was reached to allow the Kinney family to keep their home.Red House Eviction Defense

Kettle in the Pearl On March 12, a group of over 100 protesters moving through the Pearl District were indiscriminately detained in a kettle by Portland police. Press and legal observers were asked to leave before protesters were singled out to be photographed and identified as a condition of their release. Many resisted and several were ultimately arrested.

Early in the morning on December 8th, after months of community gatherings facilitated by the Kinney family to resist their eviction from the Red House, police initiated a long-anticipated raid. Despite several arrests, and efforts to render the Red House uninhabitable, the community responded by constructing their own barricades to defend the home and the surrounding encampment. Protesters occupied the fortified area for multiple days until a tentative agreement was reached that would allowmore the Kinney family to keep their home. To see of Grafera’s work—and

download a coloring book version of Portland: Year of Protest—visit grafera. zone. Archival-quality prints are also available to order at buyolympia.com/Item/luka-graferaportland-year-of-protest-print.

Kettle in the Pearl

On March 12th, a group of over 100 protesters moving through the Pearl District were indiscriminately detained in a kettle by Portland Police. Press and legal observers were asked to leave before protesters were singled out to be photographed and identified as a condition of their release from the area. Many resisted, and several were ultimately arrested.

Willamette Week JUNE 30, 2021 wweek.com

STREET TOO HOT TO HANDLE How Portland cooled off—or tried to.

Willamette Week JUNE 30, 2021 wweek.com

Photos by Chris Nesseth On Instagram: @chrisnesseth

STREET

Photos by Wesley Lapointe On Instagram: @wlapointephoto

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GET BUSY

STUFF TO DO IN PORTLAND THIS WEEK, INDOORS AND OUT.

= IN PERSON

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TOUCHSTONE PICTURES

THE LIFE AQUATIC WITH STEVE ZISSOU

Church of Film presents Le Altre The movies are back, baby! After over a year deprived of the communal cinematic experience, it’s finally time to step into that huge, dark, air-conditioned room full of strangers again. This week, the Clinton is finally reaching into its film library and showing this unjustly underseen Italian drama from 1969, in which two fashionable women fall in love and live together in a pop-art apartment, where they long to have a child and build a family together. Italian censors in 1969 banned it for portraying lesbians too positively, sadly condemning the groundbreaking film to obscurity. Clinton Street Theater, 2522 SE Clinton St., 503-238-5588, cstpdx.com. 8 pm Wednesday, June 30. $6. 8 pm.

Cinema Unbound Open Air

Ain’t no fireworks, Brewers Fest or Pickathon this year, but at least one Portland summer tradition is making its return. Granted, the 2021 Waterfront Blues Festival is significantly different from the 33 editions that came before it. For one thing, it’s no longer taking place at Tom McCall Waterfront Park, instead moving upriver to the Lot at Zidell Yards, the socially distanced event space under the Ross Island Bridge where basically everything is happening in this post-pandemic transition season. Instead of thousands of people crowding the riverbank with towels and beach chairs, groups of up to six attendees can purchase tickets to sit inside fenced-in “pods.” And since the crowd will be stuck facing one stage, the total number of acts will also be drastically reduced, with four or five artists playing two separately ticketed shows each day. The lineup itself is also far more modest: no big headliners like Robert Plant or Buddy Guy, but plenty of local favorites, including Marchfourth, Hillstomp and Marc Broussard, plus the usual slate of killer zydeco acts. Your dad’s gonna be stoked regardless. The Lot at Zidell Yards, 3030 S Moody Ave., thelotatzidellyards.com. ThursdayMonday, July 1-5. See waterfrontbluesfest.com for schedule.

ABBY GORDON

Waterfront Blues Festival

Comedy in the

Park with Mohanad Elshieky Comedy and the outdoors typically don’t mix—ask anyone who’s tried to watch a standup set at a music festival (or seen a comic try to go for a jog. Amiright, folks?!). But the pandemic forced many clubs’ hands: Last summer, Helium Comedy Club started throwing shows in its parking lot, and it went well enough for the venue to bring the concept back as a weekly showcase this year. Now, Kickstand is going one better and hosting comics in one of Portland’s most picturesque parks. This installment sees the return of Mohanad Elshieky, a WW Funniest Five finalist currently living in New York writing for Full Frontal With Samantha Bee. Dylan Carlino, Dahlia Belle, Wendy Weiss and Andie Main will also join in, presumably to make a lot of jokes about dogs and pollen. Laurelhurst Park, Southeast César E. Chávez Boulevard and Stark Street near Concert Grove. 6:30 pm Friday, July 2. Free. See kickstandcomedy.org/laurelhurst for more information.

Michelle Ruiz Keil in Conversation with Laini Taylor Portland author Michelle Ruiz Keil’s debut, All of Us With Wings, was a young adult novel with punk rock edges, full of both magical realism and realistic trauma. Her follow-up, Summer in the City of Roses, is steeped in similar themes, interpolating both the Greek myth of Iphigenia and the Grimms’ fairy tale “Brother and Sister” to tell the story of two teenage siblings forcibly separated by their family one summer who try to find each other amid the landscape of ’90s Portland. There’s a “queer Robin Hood” on a bicycle, an all-girl punk band called the Furies, a pro-sex work undercurrent—basically, it’s the book you wish you’d had when you were a young adult and could probably still use now. Keil discusses Summer in the City of Roses with fellow YA author Laini Taylor. See powells.com/events-update for streaming registration.

Willamette Week JUNE 30, 2021 wweek.com

IMDB

Cinema last summer was all about the drive-in movie revival, for obvious reasons. This year, we’re getting out of our cars and stepping gingerly back into theaters. But for those who aren’t quite ready psychologically to sit in a dark room with strangers again, NW Film Center’s outdoor summer film series should help with the transition. Commandeering the rooftop parking garage at Lloyd Center, the series kicks off Fourth of July weekend with a triple shot of crowd pleasers: Wes Anderson’s The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou, Wonder Woman and reigning Best Picture winner Nomadland. 2201 Lloyd Center. 8:45 pm Thursday-Saturday, July 1-3. $20. See nwfilm.org/film-series/cinema-unbound-summer-movies-open-air-experiences for schedule and tickets.

Broken Harts new Discovery+ documentary Broken Harts certainly shares the same dose of forensic leering as other true-crime programs as it chronicles how a mother formerly from Oregon mother fatally drove her family over a California cliff in 2018. The disbelieving tone of the film’s questions is familiar: How could this happen? What kind of monster would do this? Yet the most interesting voices of Broken Harts interrogate the dynamics of the racially mixed Hart family—white mothers who adopted two trios of Black siblings and made themselves mildly internet famous sharing pseudo-inspirational content. Oakland, Calif., journalist Zaron Burnett III clearly emphasizes the systemic failures that led up to the tragedy during interview segments: Black children ripped from stable families and numerous claims of child abuse against the couple that went ignored for years. “The responses I got to this documentary made me know it’s still important to keep telling these stories because people are still at the shock-andoutrage stage,” Burnett says. Streams on Discovery+.

The

Willamette Week JUNE 30, 2021 wweek.com

FEATURE

OTA TOFU

D AV I D M O I R / B R AV O

FOOD & DRINK

THE REDD CHRIS NESSETH

KILLER TOFU: Top Chef: Portland contestants visit Ota Tofu headquarters in Southeast Portland.

The Bravo Bump

PALEY’S PLACE

OTA TOFU

Did Top Chef: Portland boost business for the city’s featured restaurants? It’s hard to tell. BY M E IRA G E B E L

@MeiraGebel

As the Top Chef: Portland finale approaches this Thursday, some of the local restaurants and businesses featured this season seem to be reaping the benefits of being showcased on small screens across the country. But it may just be a coincidence. This season happens to be airing at the same time coronavirus restrictions are lifting after a grueling 16 months. Are people populating patios because of television, or because they are sick of watching it? Either way, Portland’s presentation on a nationally beloved reality competition show comes at an advantageous time, as the city attempts to reassert itself as a tourist destination, and its stakeholders are cautiously optimistic about how long “busy” will last. We asked five restaurants featured on the show what effect their Top Chef cameo had on business.

AKADI

On Episode 3, judge Kwame Onwuachi took contestants to Portland’s only brick-and-mortar West African restaurant, which shuttered temporarily in December. Owner Fatou Ouattara plans to reopen in a bigger location later this year and has since returned to Ivory Coast to develop more recipes from her hometown to add to Akadi’s current offerings of peanut butter stew, fufu, spicy okra, and curried spinach. Since the episode aired, Ouattara recalls not wanting to take part in the show initially, saying it felt “too good to be true,” until “many conversations” with chef and series alum Gregory Gourdet. The experience, she said, was overwhelming at first, having so many cameras

filming her cooking in a small kitchen, but it ultimately ended up being rewarding. “Because we are closed, we have been receiving a lot of requests for reopening,” Ouattara says. “Our sauce sales did go up thanks to that feature, so we hope the hype is still there when we come back for the reopening.”

BAKE ON THE RUN

Episode 3 took a deep look at cuisine hailing from the African diaspora, but also those with African influences, among them Bake on the Run, a Guyanese food cart located in Southeast Portland’s Hawthorne Asylum pod. Guyana, located in South America, takes influences from all over, including parts of the Caribbean, Africa, India and China. Chef and owner Michael Singh and his mother, Bibi, run the cart and said filming their segment of the episode was “lightning fast”— crews showed up and, in less than an hour, were gone. It’s hard for Singh to tell if the feature on Top Chef yielded a bump in business because, fortunately, the cart has “flourished” amid COVID restrictions. “We were open the whole time, and it only benefited us because everything else was closed,” he says. “Because of the show, the whole entire pod is benefiting. Since we are in the back, people who come for us have to pass the other carts, too.” Not only has foot traffic increased, but the restaurant’s online exposure exploded. “After the episode, initially we were getting 60,000 views on Google a month,” Singh says. “We experienced a burst and are now getting over 130,000. I don’t know if that’s a lot.”

AKADI

Willamette Week JUNE 30, 2021 wweek.com

In Episode 12, Portland chef, restaurateur and local icon Vitaly Paley made an appearance as a guest judge. But just before filming the episode, Paley shuttered his classic downtown eateries Headwaters and Imperial. The sadness he felt was palpable, he said, but being on set for the Oregon Trail-themed challenge was reassuring. “The fact that they paid attention to folks like myself, [Gourdet] and Naomi [Pomeroy]— long-term food scene people—was nice to see,” he says. Paley and his partner Kimberley’s 25-yearold flagship, Paley’s Place, is going strong, despite last year’s profound hiccups. And it’s not like Paley’s needed a boost from the show, either. Reservations pre-pandemic had long been coveted. The restaurant made a push on its social channels and in its newsletter to promote the show, and since it aired, Paley has noticed an uptick in business. “We’ve been super busy, so it’s hard to say where that business is coming from,” he said. “People are just happy to be out.”

THE REDD ON SALMON

BAKE ON THE RUN

PALEY’S PLACE

It makes sense Top Chef: Portland would include an entire episode dedicated to tofu— the city is home to the oldest tofu manufacturer in America. The contestants headed to Ota Tofu for Episode 10’s “Tournament of Tofu” and met with owner Jason Ogata to learn how it’s been making tofu by hand for over a century. Ota Tofu is only available in a small selection of local grocers, and many restaurants here use it, but Ogata said the episode yielded dozens of emails asking when, and if, Ota could start shipping its signature nigari-style tofu beyond the Beaver State. “We’ve heard from businesses who want to use high-quality tofu and loved what they saw on the show,” Ogata says. “Even our social media blew up, and the clicks on our website went through the roof. It showed us we could definitely grow in other markets.”

In Episode 8, the show headed to Southeast Portland’s instantly distinguishable events space for the Top Chef fan-favorite challenge Restaurant Wars. If this season had taken place at any time other than in a pandemic, the Redd may not have even been available, says Tess Blessman, director of events. “The Main Hall had sat largely empty for months and was fortuitous for filming,” she says. “In a normal year, we would not have had the availability for the production team, so it actually worked out well.” Once the space could open once again at reduced capacity, Blessman said she fielded a number of requests from patrons who saw the episode, especially the aerial shots of the building, and the events calendar has since been filling up.

FOOD & DRINK TOP 5

THE TOP MOMENTS OF TOP CHEF: PORTLAND

HOT PLATES Where to get food on the Fourth of July.

1. Monster Smash Burger

Top Chef: Portland represents the 18th season of the finest reality show on television, and like with a maturing teen, there was a lot less drama and harshness than in some of the earlier seasons—but there was still drama to spare. Ahead of this week’s finale, here are the top five moments and themes from our Bravo TV glow-up.

At Belmont Station, 4500 SE Stark St., belmont-station.com/monster-smash. Noon-6 pm Thursday and Sunday, noon-8 pm Friday-Saturday.

Pandemic Portland has more smash burgers than doughnuts these days, and one of the best comes from Monster Smash. The OG Smash Burger comes on a lofty Dos Hermanos brioche bun, with two 2.5ounce patties of local grass-fed 80/20 beef from Fulton Provisions. The housemade pickles lean toward spicy bread and butter, while Loverde’s “Monster Sauce” is in the classic Thousand Island style—mostly ketchup and mayo, with yellow mustard and seasonings.

 Jamie trying to leave in place of

Maria: In the highest drama of Season 18, Maria is eliminated for her wing dish, and Jamie, who is also in the bottom, starts sobbing and asking the judges to give Maria a second chance. “This sounds like a Mexican telenovela,” Maria says. Ultimately, Maria hugs Jamie and asks her to “let me pack my knives with grace.”

5128 N Albina Ave., 971-279-2635, redfoxpdx.com. 3-11 pm daily.

A V

ID MO

One of 2020’s hottest food carts has hit the big time. Anthony Brown has brought his Mexicajun fusion to the former Alameda Brewhouse on Northeast 48th Avenue, sharing space with Blind Ox Taphouse. Hitching Southern food and Cajun-Creole flavors is not unheard of, but it’s a rare concept in Portland. The “Nacheaux nachos” start with a big pile of fresh-fried chips and also feature carnitas that could just as easily be cochon au lait, while a cheesy “crunchwrap” comes stuffed with red beans, dirty rice and fried chicken.

IR/

B R AV O

Where to hide from the heat this week.

1. Shanghai Tunnel

211 SW Ankeny St., shanghaitunnelbar.com. 4-10 pm Wednesday-Friday, 1-10 pm Saturday.

ID MO

IR/

B R AV O

Here’s some news: Portland’s dank, brick-lined basement bar Shanghai Tunnel is back! Named for Portland’s tunnels of urban legend, this gruff but lovable dive has pinball, poor cellphone reception, and friendship toilets in the women’s restroom—y’know, two toilets side by side so you can hold hands with your bestie.

2. Psychic Bar

560 N Mississippi Ave., psychicbarpdx.com. 4-11 pm SundayThursday, 4 pm-midnight Saturday-Sunday.

This concert venue, in the basement of the McMenamins Crystal Hotel, has been home to intimate comedy and music shows. There’s no programming on the board yet, but they’ll still let you downstairs. You can even bring your kids and make them sit with you until 8 pm—at which time you must send your children elsewhere.

5. Coffee Time

712 NW 21st Ave., coffeetimepdx.com. 7 am-4 pm MondayWednesday, 7 am-6 pm Thursday-Sunday.

While Coffee Time isn’t a bar and isn’t in a basement, this delightful ice-box cafe certainly has a grizzled, cavelike atmosphere. Pre-pandemic, Coffee Time’s hours were legendary for a city that doesn’t like to stay up late. As we live now, you’ll have to wrap up your chess game in the afternoon, right when the sun is out there doing its worst! AARON LEE

wilds: A few times, the Beaver State bit back. In Episode 4, Nelson tweaked his knee running through orchards in the Willamette Valley, then Gabriel got stung by a yellow jacket. In the penultimate episode, Gregory Gourdet finds himself on the business end of a Dungeness crab, and Shota cuts his hand open trying to open a clam. I can’t think of a season with more nature-induced injuries.

4765 NE Fremont St., nacheauxpdx.com. Noon-8 pm.

At Shady Pines, 5240 NE 42nd Ave. Noon-8 pm Thursday-Sunday.

BUZZ LIST

 Top Chef draws the ire of Oregon’s

5. Nacheaux

3. Dirty Lettuce

TOP 5

with sacred first foods: In this episode, the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla shared with the chefs their first foods: salmon, sturgeon, the rare duck potato, and elderberry. The dishes from that episode remain, to my eyes, some of the finest of the season. Sara and Shota made a smoked smelt-crusted rabbit, for goodness sake.

What’s a cheesesteak without cheese or steak? Vegan cheesesteaks are all over Philadelphia, but Buddy’s exists because co-owners Buddy Richter and Angela D’Occhio hadn’t found any meatless cheesesteaks that lived up to their own pre-vegan, Philly native memories. The “steak” is made in-house by Richter, and the cashew- and coconut-based whiz is available as either “provolone” or “cheddar,” which is an especially radioactive-looking orange.

An all-vegan food cart hub in Portland seems like a no-brainer, and the popularity of Shady Pines confirms it: Even on late afternoons in the middle of the week, there’s usually a constant flow of people picking up hearty vegan meals. Arguably the pod’s biggest breakout success is Dirty Lettuce. The Mississippi transplant serves up seitan versions of down-home favorites like barbecue ribs and fried chicken with a rotating array of classic Southern sides.

All of Episode 1: As a Portlander, I couldn’t help but get super giddy to see all the shots of Mount Hood, the Rose Garden, the city’s skyline—heck, even a reference to “put a bird on it.” Not to mention seeing hometown faves like Gregory Gourdet, Vitaly Paley, Akadi and Gabe Rucker. It truly felt like we had arrived.  The chefs cook

Hot dogs are thought of as the quintessential American food—but once you’ve had a bacon-wrapped Sonoran dog, it’s hard to go back to the sports stadium frankfurter. They’ve been on the menu at Red Fox, the friendly Humboldt neighborhood watering hole, for years. Do the dogs, which come dressed in mayo and crema and dusted with cotija cheese, measure up to those you’ll find most plentifully in Tucson? Close enough.

5235 NE Sandy Blvd., 215-694-8095, buddyssteaks.com. 3-8 pm Friday and Monday, noon-8 pm Saturday and Sunday, or until sold out.

AARON LEE

 Richard Blais’ hair: From a truly magnificent pompadour in the first episode to all manner of cascading ginger wave lewks, the former conte tantturned-judge’s wacky hairstyles were a fun Easter egg in each episode.

2. Red Fox

4. Buddy’s Steaks

A much-beloved watering hole among Portland’s most eccentric and hopelessly hip, Psychic is located in a hot, hot house but will be looking out for its customers throughout the summer, turning its patio into a summer party zone, with full-coverage misting fans, boozy slushies and “electro tropic” DJ sets.

3. Life of Riley

300 NW 10th Ave., lifeofrileyportland.com. 3-11 pm Monday-Thursday, noon-midnight Friday-Saturday, noon-11 pm Sunday.

This downtown pub has a welcoming basement full of dark wood furniture, pool tables, and a cucumber gin and tonic that will really make you think about ordering quite a few gin and tonics.

4. Al’s Den

303 SW 12th Ave., mcmenamins.com /crystal-hotel/als-den. 3-11 pm Monday-Friday, noon-midnight Saturday, noon-11 pm Sunday. Willamette Week JUNE 30, 2021 wweek.com

POTLANDER

Hot Vape

PERSONAL OIL VAPES

Summer

For the Low-Maintenance, Spartan Smoker: KandyPen Slim ($20)

Instead of keeping a collection of freebie pen batteries to gather dust in your stash box until they meet their end at the bottom of a trash can, why not ditch the budget giveaways and invest in a high-quality vape pen with a lifetime warranty? KandyPens has a full suite of vaporizers, but the slim pens are arguably its best value. These functionally decorative batteries operate by draw alone, no button or warm-up necessary, and though they lack temp controls, the heating element does provide a consistent hit, regardless of the cart. Bonus: They come in enough colors and styles to match a wide range of vape aesthetics.

Even experienced stoners can get lost in today’s vaporizer options. Here’s the best of the best. BY BRIA N N A W H E E L E R

Get it from: kandypens.com

There is an overwhelming number of ways to vape nowadays. Yes, there are ubiquitous oil pen batteries that every concentrate aficionado has received as a piece of free dispensary swag, but there are also higher-end, limited-edition artist series vape batteries with a style and personality all their own. There are handheld flower vaporizers that cost hundreds of dollars and perform multiple functions, and dryherb, one-hitter vaporizers available for a fraction of the price. There are sleek, rechargeable dab rigs that elegantly harmonize with contemporary countertop tech at a number of price points, and there are slimline dab straws so discreet that users can slip them into their pencil protectors with no fanfare whatsoever. The options might overwhelm even a consummate professional, never mind a newbie who’s never smoked a Volcano. With that in mind, we tested a variety of oil, flower and concentrate vaporizers at a range of price points so we could recommend this assortment of extraordinary devices just in time for users to level up their summer vape game.

For the Contemporary Strain Connoisseur: Pax Era Life ($35)

This pared-down version of Pax’s Era Pro may not feature all the app capabilities of its predecessor, but its radical simplicity makes up for all the gratuitous bells and whistles it lacks. Pax partners with only the highest-rated farms for its proprietary oil pods, guaranteeing superb quality. The Pax Era Life functions with three distinct heat settings that can be navigated by popping the Pax cart in and out of its housing. The device is activated by inhale and charges with a micro USB. Pro tip: If you bring yours to an Oregrown store, they will laser-engrave it for you at no charge. Get it from: pax.com

DAB STRAWS For the On-the-Go Dabber:

ELECTRIC FLOWER VAPES

ELECTRIC RIGS

For the Single Toker on a Budget:

For the Puffco Defector:

Of all the devices tested, the G Pen Dash might take top honors. Not only is this device discreet, ergonomic and easy to use, it’s an absolute bargain. Typically, even handheld flower vaporizers start at over $100. That this charmingly compact instrument costs less than a half-ounce of top-shelf and still delivers silky sheer hits is remarkable. Despite a convoluted button routine requiring users to tap five times to start, and three more to lock into one of three low temps, and a heating chamber that holds less than a gram, this palm-sized unit is a must for anyone who feels priced out of the flower vaporizer market and also digs having a whole bowl to themselves.

Most gold standard e-rigs cost upward of $250, but for a few bucks less, users can get a handheld e-rig experience that is just as debilitating. When we tested the Roam, for example, we found it just as efficient and easy to use as its higher-priced counterparts. Added bonus: It’s spill proof. The Roam is essentially an electric water pipe with a self-contained, borosilicate glass hydrotube that snaps shut to prevent splashback. Its quartz housing heats up fast, holds heat evenly and delivers super-smooth inhales. Its tabletop appeal is increased by the handful of colorful limited-edition variations of the device, of which 1% of profits goes to a specific, color-coded charity.

Get it from: gpen.com

For the Tech Evangelist/Stoner Showoff:

For the Flashy Flower Power Dabber:

This top of the line handheld vaporizer features a 1.3-inch display that lights up to show battery life, precise temp and an adjustable auto-shutoff timer. The Airvape X is a lightweight, ultra-thin dry herb vape that also arrives with a pad insert so that the device can be used with concentrates, but the appeal of this unit lies almost entirely in how efficiently it vaporizes ground flower. Airvape X’s temperature scale is free to adjust anywhere between 200 and 428 degrees, so smokers can find the precise level of toastiness they prefer and stick to that exact temp—no fumbling with dials or compromising on a preset temperature. This not only ensures a consistent hit, it enables users to explore exactly what a perfect hit tastes like to them.

The Dr. Dabber Boost Evo is extraordinary for a few reasons. It supplies 150 hits on a single charge, with 25 distinct heat settings, some preset for peak flavor, others for peak effects. It reaches temp in approximately four seconds and, with the flip of switch, goes from oil rig to flower vaporizer. Inside those 25 distinct heat presets are temperatures chosen for ultra-rich oils or super-dense flower. In addition, the patent-pending induction heating tech is completely sealed off from the electronics of the device. According to the company, users could pour water directly into the heating element (not that we would—on purpose, anyway) and the water would simply boil off. The Boost Evo’s vibe is that it was designed by weed geeks for weed geeks. And as a certified weed geek myself, I think they nailed it.

G Pen Dash ($70)

Airvape X ($140)

Get it from: airvapeusa.com 26

Willamette Week JUNE 30, 2021 wweek.com

G Pen Roam ($200)

Dr. Dabber Boost Evo ($400)

Get it from: drdabber.com

Little Dipper Vaporizer ($30) Before dabs became an omnipresent consumption method, they were relegated to industry insiders who would use glass straws to inhale the vapor from concentrates heated up on titanium plates—or, in a more recent iteration, glass straws with the tips heated by torch. The spirit of that act, minus the freebasing sensibilities, is present in Dip Devices’ Little Dipper, a modern, electric version of the classic dabbing tradition that ditches the torch for a triple-setting, mobile hit that slides easily into a back pocket. The Little Dipper has the appearance of a bulky vape pen with a mouthpiece at one end and a vaporizing tip on the other. The tip is protected by a cap that pops off just like an ink pen. Users then press a button on the housing to power up the vaporizing tip during use and, while hovering the tip around a container of concentrate, simply draw vapor from the mouthpiece. It’s a simple, affordable, efficient and clean method of mobile dabbing that is so much more socially acceptable than its predecessor. Get it from: dipdevices.com

For the Noncommittal Pothead:

Lookah Seahorse Pro Electric Dab Straw Kit ($60) Committing to any device whose cost is more than negligible can be a feat, but the Lookah Seahorse is the stoner multitool that smothers any fear of commitment by performing the functions of a dab straw, bong attachment, and even a standard vape pen battery. Users can easily attach the device to their water pipes to create an instant e-rig by using an included attachment hose, and the unit also functions with everyday 510-thread vape carts. It may be small enough to fit in a pocket, but the housings are flamboyant enough to be attention-worthy, and with multiple temperature settings, users can explore the flavors and effects of various temps. Get it from: lookah.com

PERFORMANCE

Editor: Andi Prewitt | Contact: aprewitt@wweek.com BISI ADIGUN

MUSIC Written by: Daniel Bromfield | @bromf3

Now Hear This

Listening recommendations from the past, present, Portland and the periphery. SOMETHING OLD

IRISH TIMES: The newest play by Bisi Adigun (pictured) reflects on the immigrant experience in Ireland.

Blurred Bloodline Whose Child Am I Anyway? explores the intersection of racism and misogyny in Ireland. BY BE N N E T T C A M P B E LL FERGUS O N

Nigerian playwright Bisi Adigun, who lived and worked in Ireland from 1996 to 2019, says the country is a welcoming nation for Black playwrights—as long as they don’t want to write plays. “[Your] lane is to be a victim that needs a helping hand,” Adigun said in an interview with Portland’s Corrib Theatre. “So if I want to be in Ireland and I’m selling newspapers on the streets, that’s fine. People are happy about that. But when I want to realize my potential—when a Black man wants to become a playwright—oh my God, this is the exclusive preserve of the white elites.” The Black experience in Ireland is a defining theme in Adigun’s play Whose Child Am I Anyway?, which Corrib debuted this month as an audio production. It’s a family saga burdened by cumbersome exposition, but the performances by its actors and Adigun’s attentiveness to intersections of racism and misogyny are too potent to ignore. Whose Child Am I Anyway? was directed by Bobby Bermea and stars Don Kenneth Mason as Biyi, a Nigerian immigrant living in Dublin with his wife, Cathy (Danielle Weathers). Biyi has master’s degrees in drama and film and television as well as a doctorate in drama studies, but he can’t find a position as a lecturer, so he passes the time by cooking and watching Nollywood films on Netflix. While the play could have been solely Biyi’s story, a borderline soap-operatic twist transforms it into something stranger. Just before Biyi and Cathy’s daughter, Roisin (Celia Torres), come to visit, Cathy confesses she secretly used the eggs from a surrogate donor to become pregnant with Roisin—a revelation that Biyi confronts with shock and wrath. The scope of Cathy’s lie is staggering, and her justification of her decision—that she knew Biyi wouldn’t approve—is accurate but flimsy. Yet Adigun shows Cathy compassion by asserting that while the ravages of racism and the stigma surrounding in vitro fertilization are different, they both deserve narrative weight. When Julie Ann, the egg donor, legally challenges Cathy’s parental authority (she disapproves of Roisin’s

decision to go to college in Canada), she essentially declares that her personal desires matter more than the 18 years Cathy has spent raising Roisin. What Biyi can’t comprehend is that he and Cathy are both facing discrimination: He because of the color of his skin and she because of the choices she made regarding her health and her body. Despite Biyi’s anger, it is impossible to despise him. That is because he is played by Mason, a commanding performer whose achievements include his harrowing and haunting portrayal of a closeted gay preacher at a reading of James Webb’s The Contract at Fertile Ground in 2018. Mason’s performance in Whose Child Am I Anyway? is a spiritual sequel to his work in that play. In both, he was called on to embody a man being emotionally pulverized by the competing demands of tradition and reality. Mason shoulders that symbolic significance effortlessly, even as he handles intimate details with grace, like the warm way that Biyi greets Roisin (“how is my best girl?”). Whose Child Am I Anyway? has a lovely scene where Biyi and Roisin joke about people who pester her with questions like, “But where are you really from?” Their conversation is so wise and witty that some audiences may wish the entire play were about their relationship—especially since there are moments when Cathy seems less a character than a mouthpiece to convey a convoluted family history. The script’s flaws are frustrating, but it is still a compelling chapter in Corrib’s chronicles of contemporary Ireland. Together, Whose Child Am I Anyway? and Corrib’s recent production of Rosaleen McDonagh’s Pretty Proud Boy present a portrait of a nation that pits the marginalized against the marginalized in a cruel contest for prizes that are undefined at best and meaningless at worst. After Cathy comes clean, Biyi tells her, “It’s your mess.” Yet the point of Whose Child Am I Anyway? and Pretty Proud Boy is that no mess is the exclusive property of one person. That includes the systemic injustices that pollute Biyi and Cathy’s lives, even as they tragically battle each other.

Known tragically in the States only for “Come On Eileen”—admittedly one of their best songs—Dexys Midnight Runners are beloved in Britain for their three markedly different albums. Too-Rye-Ay is the one with “Eileen” and a Celtic flair, and Don’t Stand Me Down is the polarizing cult classic, but for our money the best is 1980’s Searching for the Young Soul Rebels, a horn-choked classic that proves big bands and tight arrangements aren’t necessarily antithetical to the bare-knuckle spirit of early U.K. punk. SOMETHING NEW Brooklyn artist L’Rain works in an increasingly popular style in experimental music: lots of samples from everyday life, few divisions between tracks, a sense of liberation from genre and structure. What makes her new album, Fatigue, stand out, even on one of the most crowded release days in recent memory, is how it approaches pop: No matter how dark and dense her soundscapes grow, she always sings like a folkie or a soul singer. It’s bold and expressionistic yet still somehow accessible. SOMETHING LOCAL Ripley Johnson’s Rose City Band has finally released its debut fulllength of rich, comfortable, deeply cosmic country. Earth Trip isn’t available in full on Spotify, but you can stream it on Bandcamp—then head to Johnson’s Twitter account to find the roots of some of these sounds. The fearsomely bearded guitarist’s scholarly interest in left-field music is as evident on Earth Trip as it is on his feed, which is as great a place to find country and folk obscurities as it is to find free jazz and classical music. SOMETHING ASKEW Once you’ve heard Jon Hassell, who died at age 84 last Saturday, everything starts to sound like Jon Hassell, from the wind blowing through the trees to the generations of experimental musicians influenced by his global-minded approach to composition. 1977’s Vernal Equinox is the classic, but the trumpeter’s best album is 2009’s Last Night the Moon Came Dropping Her Clothes in the Street, every bit as dusky and seductive as its title suggests.

LISTEN: Whose Child Am I Anyway? streams at corribtheatre. org/whose-child-am-i-anyway through July 18. Free to $15. Willamette Week JUNE 30, 2021 wweek.com

screener

MOVIES

GET YO UR REPS I N Editor: Andi Prewitt / Contact: aprewitt@wweek.com

JON NASH/DISCOVERY+

The movies are back, baby! After over a year deprived of the communal cinematic experience, it’s finally time to step into that huge, dark, air-conditioned room full of strangers again. Here’s what’s playing this week:

Le Altre (1969) In this unjustly underseen Italian drama, two fashionable women fall in love and live together in a pop art apartment, where they long to have a child and build a family together. Italian censors in 1969 banned it for portraying lesbians too positively, sadly condemning the groundbreaking film to obscurity. Clinton, June 30.

The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou (2004) Wes Anderson’s whimsical marine dramedy follows scruffy oceanographer Steve Zissou (Bill Murray) as he sets out to hunt the shark that killed his colleague. Among his team are a pilot, who may or may not be his son (Owen Wilson), his estranged wife (Anjelica Huston), and a pregnant journalist (Cate Blanchett). Featuring a Bowie-heavy soundtrack sung in Portuguese by Seu Jorge. Lloyd Center Rooftop Cinema, July 1.

HEARTBROKEN: The Hart children were often portrayed on their adoptive mothers’ social media platforms as living in idyllic conditions.

Family Tragedy BY C H A N C E S O L E M - P F EI FER

@chance_s_p

Willamette Week JUNE 30, 2021 wweek.com

SEE IT: Broken Harts streams on Discovery+.

The Iron Giant (1999) When a gargantuan robot (Vin Diesel) crash lands on Earth, a young boy named Hogarth discovers and befriends him. But a paranoid government agent (Christopher McDonald) wants to use the Iron Giant as a mechanism for war, and it’s up to Hogarth and a beatnik artist (Harry Connick Jr.) to keep their new friend safe from the military. Clinton, July 3. MUBI

The 2018 murder-suicide perpetrated by Jennifer and Sarah Hart against their six adopted children falls squarely into a genre of surreal violence that’s been fodder for true crime podcasts, Nancy Grace, Dateline NBC and every generation of such media simultaneously reconstructing and gasping at real-life horror. The new Discovery+ documentary Broken Harts certainly shares a dose of that forensic leering as it chronicles how a mother formerly from Oregon fatally drove her family over a California cliff in 2018. The disbelieving tone of the film’s questions is familiar: How could this happen? What kind of monster would do this? Yet the most interesting voices of Broken Harts interrogate the dynamics of the racially mixed Hart family—white mothers who adopted two trios of Black siblings and made themselves mildly internet famous sharing pseudo-inspirational content. The doc explores how Jennifer Hart, in particular, weaponized her children, most especially Devonte, for clout within contemporary protest culture, both online and in the streets of Portland. Oakland journalist Zaron Burnett III clearly emphasizes the systemic failures that led up to the tragedy during his Broken Harts interview segments: Black children ripped from stable family members and numerous claims of child abuse against the couple that went ignored for years. “When I sat down [to be interviewed], I made sure my focus and my answers were on the children,” Burnett says, “and on the perspective of the children and what was done to them…and how that was allowed.” Burnett’s longform reporting on the Harts for MEL Magazine in 2018 was spurred by Black women in his Twittersphere who recognized a then-missing Devonte Hart as the boy who’d gone viral at Portland protests following the 2014 police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. Images of the boy carrying a “free hugs” sign and then embracing Portland Police Sgt. Bret Barnum were greeted in some media circles as a love-conquers-all tonic. Seven years later, and with a knowledge of how Jennifer Hart carefully curated and captured her children’s junior

activism, observers are confronted with the photos’ ghoulish artificiality. “As someone who once was a Black boy, the signals of [Devonte’s] body language said to me they don’t feel safe hugging this cop.” Burnett says. “These tears are not about this protest. Instead, you see what looks like stagecraft and theatrics from a white person’s understanding of a Black experience.” In Burnett’s view, the wielding of such powerful, entrenched narratives pervades the Hart saga, as both cover and giveaway: The same mothers who posted on Facebook about letting their son “step into his power” conveniently employed stereotypical crack-baby origin stories to explain away the children’s attempts to escape abuse and starvation. Burnett infers that Jennifer and Sarah’s white savior signals functioned effectively in largely white, liberal Oregon spaces where idealism could meld with guilt. “Portland culture seems to be really good on the symbolic, and I appreciate all they’ve been doing in the protests in the last year,” Burnett says. “I think Portland [doesn’t] necessarily, as a culture, understand that being skeptical of yourself and others is a better way to get to the place we want to get, rather than railing against things or telling somebody what is wrong or what is right.” For his part, Burnett has moved on to dozens of other stories since 2018 and currently hosts the iHeartRadio podcast Black Cowboys. But the story of the Harts remains present—not for its sheer horror so much as its cautionary value. After all, even the film Burnett is helping promote is magnetized slightly more toward seemingly singular killers than the state systems that repeatedly failed its six victims: Ciera, 12, Markis, 19, Hannah, 16, Abigail, 14, Devonte, 15, and Jeremiah, 14. “The responses I got to this documentary made me know it’s still important to keep telling these stories because people are still at the shock-and-outrage stage,” Burnett says. “I grieve both for [the Hart children’s] loss and all those [kids] in similar situations and that this story basically confirms for them that nobody is coming to help them.”

Winner of Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actress at the latest Oscars, this quiet drama explores the culture of modern-day nomads as they carve out their own lives, trying to escape the rampant hypercapitalism of America. The always excellent Frances McDormand plays protagonist Fern, a woman who travels the country in her van after losing everything in the Great Recession. Lloyd Center Rooftop Cinema, July 3. MEDIUM.COM

The new documentary Broken Harts examines the systemic failures leading up to the deaths of six adopted Black children at the hands of their white mothers.

Nomadland (2020)

Born in Flames (1983) Lizzie Borden’s genre-bending feminist sci-fi faux-documentary is set 10 years after a peaceful revolution that resulted in socialists gaining control of the U.S. government. Racism, sexism, classism and homophobia still run rampant, however, and two feminist pirate radio stations are determined to take the revolution even further. Keep an eye out for director Kathryn Bigelow in a rare acting role as a newspaper editor. Clinton, July 5.

ALSO PLAYING: Lloyd Center Rooftop Cinema: Wonder Woman (2017), July 2.

MOVIES TOP PICK OF THE WEEK

Summer of Soul Someone who attended the Harlem Cultural Festival, a series of free concerts held in Mount Morris Park in the summer of 1969, referred to it as “the ultimate Black barbecue.” That’s as good a description as any considering the celebratory vibe created by organizer Tony Lawrence and the more than two dozen artists—Stevie Wonder, Sly and the Family Stone, Nina Simone, Moms Mabley and former Temptation David Ruffin, among them—who performed at the event. Despite the estimated 300,000 attendees, the festival has been all but ignored in the wake of Woodstock, which went down weeks later. Questlove, founder of hip-hop ensemble the Roots, is jogging the world’s collective cultural memory with his directorial debut, Summer of Soul. Built from a wealth of footage captured at the Harlem Cultural Festival for a New York television station, this documentary perfectly contextualizes the event by weaving in news clips from the time and contemporary interviews with attendees and performers. But the true draw is seeing the kings and queens of R&B, funk, jazz and gospel, all of them at the peak of their considerable careers. They poured every ounce of themselves into their performances that summer and will be blowing minds anew thanks to this fantastic film. PG-13. ROBERT HAM. Cinema 21, Hollywood, Vancouver Mall. MASS DISTRACTION MEDIA

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 Luca

Luca (Jacob Tremblay) is a sea monster, but there’s nothing monstrous about him. That’s the premise of this buoyant adventure from Pixar Animation, a studio that specializes in telling profoundly human stories about nonhuman characters, from the tormented toys in the Toy Story films to the lovestruck robots in WALL-E. Like those movies, Luca is an allegory for kids. When Luca first emerges from the sea and sets foot on the Italian coast, he is horrified to find that coming ashore has physically transformed him into a human (his soul remains the same). If the ocean embodies the oppressive coziness of childhood, the land represents the seductive liberation of adulthood. When Luca becomes human, he protests, “I’m a good kid,” sounding like a boy taught to be ashamed of his sexuality. The ideal audience for the film will be interested in both the hints that Luca is gay and the kinetic pleasures of the plot, which include Luca and his best friend, Alberto (Jack Dylan Grazer), teaming up with a valorous human girl (Emma Berman) for a bicycle race. There is a winner, but the real winners are the young moviegoers who will learn that Luca respects and cares about them enough to challenge them while also delivering a good time. PG. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Disney +.

Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It “Damn the shadows and here’s to the light.” When Rita Moreno speaks those words in Mariem Pérez Riera’s excellent documentary Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It, she isn’t just talking. She’s revealing the inner strength that sustained her from her childhood in Puerto Rico to an acting career that led her to face the triumphs of stardom and the evils of discrimination and abuse. The documentary is a chronicle of her experiences and a corrective for moviegoers who have seen only her Oscar-winning performance as Anita in West Side Story. Did you know she won an Emmy for The Muppet Show? That she played a nun working in a prison on Oz? That she unleashed unscripted fury on her toxic former lover, Marlon Brando, in the 1969 film The Night of the Following Day? Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It revels in these victories, but it also listens to Moreno’s recollections of her most harrowing hours, from onset jellyfish stings to being raped by her agent while she was menstruating. Riera’s documentary is about how Moreno lived through those horrors and transcended them. A series of animations imagines her as a living paper doll, but the movie shows you that she was (and is) nobody’s plaything. PG-13. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Cinema 21.

F9 Vin Diesel is a lovably goofy badass, but he isn’t the hero of the Fast & Furious franchise. That honor belongs to Justin Lin, the hotshot director who solidified the series’ brand: deranged automotive action and devotion to the belief that if all of humanity could

barbecue with Diesel, the world would know peace. Lin keeps the faith in F9, a sequel that satisfies despite signs of wear and tear that have multiplied during the franchise’s 20-year reign at the multiplexes. Dom Toretto (Diesel) returns to battle his grouchy brother Jakob (John Cena), a rogue government agent hunting for a MacGuffin best described as a fancy soccer ball with apocalyptic potential. The action isn’t so clever or coherent as the merry mayhem Lin unleashed on Tokyo and Rio in previous Fast & Furious films, but the sweet camaraderie between Dom and his loyal cronies (including Michelle Rodriguez, Jordana Brewster, Tyrese Gibson and Christopher Bridges) endures. Best of all, F9 brings back Han (Sung Kang), an avatar of superhuman coolness who was apparently killed in an exploding Mazda several movies ago. When someone wonders how Han survived, he politely tells them to shut the fuck up and live in the moment. That’s good advice for anyone who goes to see F9. PG-13. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, City Center, Dine-In Progress Ridge, Evergreen Parkway, Fox Tower, Lloyd Center, Pioneer Place, Regal Movies on TV, Sherwood, St. Johns Twin Cinemas, Studio One, Tigard, Wunderland Beaverton, Wunderland Milwaukie.

The Sparks Brothers At first glance, the cult rock band Sparks seems a bizarre subject to receive the epic rockumentary treatment. Ron and Russell Mael’s long-tenured art pop group, whose visual impact John Lennon allegedly described as something akin to Hitler playing piano for English musician Marc Bolan, released 24 and counting chart-nudging albums that flirted with relevance during the glam and disco periods before retreating toward a decidedly niche appeal in the past few decades. Nevertheless, The Sparks Brothers wrings ecstatic appreciation from a murderers’ row of commenters, ranging from obvious acolytes (members of Erasure, Squeeze, Duran Duran) to

further afield well-wishers (Beck, Flea, Weird Al) to friendly faces perhaps just passing by the studio that day (Mike Myers, Neil Gaiman, Patton Oswalt). As multimedia homage to a deserving band, there’s a desperate allure to the hyperkinetic blend of monochromatic celeb testaments, sweaty ’70s concert footage and animated re-creations of what few stories emerge. Clearly a passion project for first-time documentarian Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Baby Driver), his all-encompassing ardor tries its best to breathe life into the inevitably less than compelling tale of talented brothers who overcame loving parents and SoCal golden-boy origins. At its best, the doc plays out like a star-studded listening party thrown by a manic superfan asserting the Sparks’ rarefied charms, and the sheer breadth of luminaries gathered diverts attention for a while. Well before minute 150, though, even the guests of honor might wish to hear something else. R. JAY HORTON. Bridgeport, Cascade, Cinema 21, Living Room, Laurelhurst, Vancouver Mall.

The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard With a title resembling an SAT question on the possessive form, this sequel to 2017’s The Hitman’s Bodyguard follows up one of the least-discussed studio hits of the past five years. This round again pairs Ryan Reynolds, a rule-abiding bodyguard, with Samuel L. Jackson, a hitman who loves to yell “motherfucker,” this time on a mission to save that little old world. Reynolds, we’re reminded, is one of Hollywood’s most reliable stars in any context, with a comedic bounce that bolsters this chaotic sequel’s surprisingly strong bones. The delight of Reynolds’ relentless thwarting, drugging and battering from hyperactive and hyperviolent Jackson and Selma Hayek (the hitman’s wife who was foretold) is so thorough that the rest of the movie can mostly be as loud, crass and ridiculous as it likes. That said, director Patrick Hughes’ action is

dreadfully incompetent. Frank Grillo and Antonio Banderas spearhead a nonsensical world-domination plot that delivers some of the shoddiest visual effects in recent memory. Though placating 2021 attention spans might explain the film’s needlessly panicked clip, The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard looks warmer through the lens of action-comedy ancestors like Midnight Run and The In-Laws. God knows why it’s shot and edited like a drunken Bourne movie. R. CHANCE SOLEMPFEIFER. Cedar Hills, Evergreen Parkway, Pioneer Place, St. Johns Theater & Pub, St. Johns Twin Cinemas, Tigard.

La Dosis Like a giant shouldering the weight of the planet, Marcos (Carlos Portaluppi) lumbers through this Argentine thriller, which is simultaneously sinister and lethargic. Marcos is a nurse in an intensive care unit, but he doesn’t just heal the sick—he quietly puts them out of their misery when he believes it is necessary. He’s a murderer, but not like Gabriel (Ignacio Rogers), a slick nurse who kills not out of compassion, but for kicks. La Dosis is essentially a morbid duet performed by these two men. One considers taking lives to be a solemn duty, and one revels in the unholy thrill of playing God, but they are both symbols in writer-director Martín Kraut’s medical parable. La Dosis is a portrait of health care workers who are so brutally demeaned and exploited that they can’t feel in control unless they shatter their most sacred oath. It’s a perverse and audacious idea, but the film built around it is punishingly slow and lacks conviction. Kraut seems afraid to decide whether the psychological battle between Marcos and Gabriel is a showdown between good and evil or if they are just devils in slightly different disguises. Despite its impressively dark premise, La Dosis doesn’t end with a shock. It ends with a shrug. NR. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. On Demand.

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JONESIN’

Week of July 8

by Matt Jones

"Pretty Cool"--from the outside.

ARIES (March 21-April 19) Poet Joshua Jennifer Espinoza writes, "i name my body girl of my dreams / i name my body proximity / i name my body full of hope despite everything." I love her idea that we might give playful names and titles and descriptors to our bodies. In alignment with current astrological omens, I propose that you do just that. It's time to take your relationship with your beautiful organism to a higher level. How about if you call it "Exciting Love River" or "Perfectly Imperfect Thrill" or "Amazing Maze"? Have fun dreaming up further possibilities!

TAURUS (April 20-May 20) The English language, my native tongue, doesn't ascribe genders to its nouns. But many languages do. In Spanish, the word for "bridge" is *puente*, which is masculine. In German, "bridge" is *Brücke*, which is feminine. A blogger named Tickettome says this is why Spanish speakers may describe a bridge as strong or sturdy, while German speakers refer to it as elegant or beautiful. I encourage you to meditate on bridges that possess the entire range of qualities, including the Spanish and German notions. In the coming weeks, you'll be wise to build new metaphorical bridges, fix bridges that are in disrepair, and extinguish fires on any bridges that are burning.

GEMINI (May 21-June20)

ACROSS

61 It gets spilled, so to speak

1 "25" singer

62 Singer Rita

6 "No thanks"

63 Colorful final track in most Mario Kart games

11 "Awesome!" (and the letters seen on the outside of each theme answer) 14 Cartoon cat with a "bag of tricks" 15 "Same here" 16 Fight of the Century participant 17 They're coming to save the day 19 Downside

68 Make a dent in 69 Kemper who plays Kimmy Schmidt

30 "Semper Paratus" org. 32 Cereal box activity, maybe 33 Easy two-pointers 36 Tire filler 39 "Carmen" composer 41 "La _ _ _" (Debussy opus) 42 "Gandhi" character 44 "Angry Anymore" singer DiFranco 45 "The Wizard of Oz" setting 48 Illuminating gas 49 Financial subj. 51 _ _ _ souchong tea

72 "Black Velvet" singer Alannah _ _ _

46 Deviation

73 Suffix with poly

2 River in Scotland that sounds like a letter 3 See 57-Down 4 Franchise operator 5 Gives off 6 Proofs of age 7 Raise, as curiosity 8 Carry _ _ _ 9 Compare 10 Vending machine drink

43 Gets tangled up 47 Handled, as a matter 50 "Hockey Night in Canada" broadcaster 52 TV "Playhouse" name 53 Lawn figurine 54 Put on TV again 56 Brecht's "Threepenny Opera" collaborator 57 With 3-Down, golf legend from South Africa 60 City NNW of Provo 64 Wanna-_ _ _ (copycats) 65 On vacation 66 Sports drink suffix 67 "Dawson's Creek" actor James Van _ _ _ Beek

11 Leaving competitors in the dust 12 Privately 18 Automotive disaster of the 1950s 22 Sinbad's giant egg-layer 23 "La _ _ _" (Ritchie Valens hit)

55 Come up short

24 At full speed, on the sea

58 "Sir, this is a _ _ _" (fast food-based meme response)

25 What "Dolittle" won in the category of Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-off or Sequel, in 2021

©2021 Jonesin’ Crosswords (editor@jonesincrosswords.com) For answers to this puzzle, call: 1-900-226-2800, 99 cents per minute. Must be 18+. Or to bill to your credit card, call: 1-800-655-6548. Reference puzzle #JNZ990.

CANCER (June 21-July 22) Cancerian author Vladimir Mayakovsky wrote a poem about how one morning he went half-mad and conversed with the sun. At first he called the supreme radiance a "lazy clown," complaining that it just floated through the sky for hours while he, Mayakovsky, toiled diligently at his day job painting posters. Then he dared the sun to come down and have tea with him, which, to his shock, the sun did. The poet was agitated and worried—what if the close approach of the bright deity would prove dangerous? But the visitor turned out to be friendly. They had a pleasant dialog, and in the end the sun promised to provide extra inspiration for Mayakovsky's future poetry. I invite you to try something equally lyrical and daring, dear Cancerian.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) A blogger named Bunny-Gal writes, "I almost completely forgot who I was there for a while. But then I dug a hole and smelled the fresh dirt and now I remember everything and am okay." I recommend you follow her lead, Leo—even if you haven't totally lost touch with your essence. Communing with Mother Earth in the most direct and graphic way to remind you of everything you need to remember: of the wisdom you've lost track of and the secrets you've hidden too well and the urgent intuitions that are simmering just below the surface of your awareness.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22)

13 Fender flaws

53 Get hold of

59 Rookie

37 O. Henry's specialty 40 Ring decision

1 2nd-largest continent, for short

28 Gathered

35 Mountain range separating Europe and Asia

71 Button on some flip phones

DOWN

27 Fivesome on a clock face

34 Positive feedback

38 Ladder parts

21 Hardly sympathetic 26 "A ... crawly thing!"

31 Taxpayer's no.

70 Avoid skillfully

20 Announcer Hall 23 Noble partner?

29 2017 Kendrick Lamar album

Académie Française is an organization devoted to preserving the purity and integrity of the French language. One of its ongoing missions is to resist the casual incorporation of English words, which the younger generation of French people is inclined to do. Among anglicisms that don't have the Académie's approval: podcast, clickbait, chick-lit, deadline, hashtag, marketing, timelapse, and showrunner. The ban doesn't stop anyone from using the words, of course, but simply avoids giving them official recognition. I appreciate the noble intentions of the Académie, but regard its crusade as a losing battle that has minimal impact. In the coming weeks, I advise you to refrain from behavior that resembles the Académie's. Resist the temptation of quixotic idealism. Be realistic and pragmatic. You Geminis often thrive in environments that welcome idiosyncrasies, improvisation, informality, and experimentation— especially now.

last week’s answers

I can't understand the self-help gurus who advise us to relentlessly live in the present moment—to shed all awareness of past and future so as to focus on the eternal NOW. I mean, I appreciate the value of doing such an exercise on occasion for a few moments. I've tried it, and it's often rejuvenating. But it can also be downright foolish to have no thoughts of yesterday and tomorrow. We need to evaluate how circumstances will evolve, based on our previous experience and future projections. It can be a deadening, depleting

act to try to strip ourselves of the rich history we are always embedded in. In any case, Virgo, I advise you to be thoroughly aware of your past and future in the coming days. To do so will enhance your intelligence and soulfulness in just the right ways to make good decisions.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22) Psychotherapist and author Clarissa Pinkola Estés poetically refers to the source of our creativity as "the river under the river." It's the deep primal energy that "nourishes everything we make"—our "writing, painting, thinking, healing, doing, cooking, talking, smiling." This river beneath the river doesn't belong to any of us—is potentially available to all— but if harnessed correctly it works in very personal ways, fueling our unique talents. I bring this to your attention, Libra, because you're close to gaining abundant new access to the power of the river beneath the river.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21) In formulating personal goals, Scorpio author Brené Brown urges us to emphasize growth rather than perfection. Trying to improve is a healthier objective than seeking flawless mastery. Bonus perk: This practical approach makes us far less susceptible to shame. We're not as likely to feel like a failure or give up prematurely on our projects. I heartily endorse this strategy for you right now, Scorpio.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21) In a letter to Jean Paul Sartre, author Simone de Beauvoir described how she was dealing with a batch of challenging memories: “I’m reliving it street by street, hour by hour, with the mission of neutralizing it, and transforming it into an inoffensive past that I can keep in my heart without either disowning it or suffering from it." I LOVE this approach! It's replete with emotional intelligence. I recommend it to you now, since it's high time to wrangle and finagle with parts of your life story that need to be alchemically transformed and redeemed by your love and wisdom.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) In one of his poems, Capricorn-born Kenneth Rexroth complains about having "a crooked guide on the twisted path of love." But in my view, a crooked guide is the best kind. It's unwise to engage the services of a love accomplice who's always looking for the simplest, straightest route, or who imagines that intimate togetherness can be nourished with easy, obvious solutions. To cultivate the most interesting intimacy, we need influences that appreciate nuance and complexity—that thrive on navigating the tricky riddles and unpredictable answers. The next eight weeks will be an excellent time for you Capricorns to heed this advice.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18) Aquarian singer Etta James (1938–2012) won six Grammy Awards and is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Grammy Hall of Fame, and Blues Hall of Fame. She testified, “Most of the songs I sing have that blues feeling in it. They have that sorry feeling. And I don’t know what I’m sorry about.” Wow! I'm surprised to hear this. Most singers draw on their personal life experience to infuse their singing with authentic emotion. In any case, I urge you to do the opposite of Etta James in the coming weeks. It's important for the future of your healing that you identify exactly what you're sorry about.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20) "Sometimes you win, sometimes you learn," writes Piscean self-help author John C. Maxwell. His statement is useful, but it harbors a problematic implication. It suggests that you can experience either winning or learning, but not both—that the only time you learn is when you lose. I disagree with this presumption. In fact, I think you're now in a phase when it's possible and even likely for you to both win and learn.

HOMEWORK: Send word of your most important lesson of the year so far. Newsletter@freewillastrology.com

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PORTLAND’S NEWSWEEKLY

People are more likely to catch COVID east of 82nd Avenue.

NEWS: BLOODSHED ON THE SIDEWALK. FOOD: PIZZA! AT THE STREET DISCO. MOVIES: MARCHING WITH JOHN LEWIS.

Drive new cars weekly pay day and swing full and part time Men and women 18 yrs up STAY SAFE, 360 718 7443

WILLAMETTE WEEK

NEWS

FEDS VS. A FIRESTARTER. page 9

“IT'S A CATFIGHT, MAN. THE FUR WILL FLY.” P. 52

We do it all! Trimming, hedges & shrubs, pruning, bark dust, gutter cleaning, yard debris pickup & weeding, blackberries and ivy removal, staining, pressure washing & water sealing 503-235-0491 or 503-853-0480

PORTLAND’S NEWSWEEKLY

“I WANTED THEM TO SEE WHAT THEY'RE SHOOTING AT.” P. 20

“WE’D SPRAY AND VACUUM, BUT NOTHING’S PERFECT.’’ P. 28

Complete Yard Service Senior Discounts

WILLAMETTE WEEK

WWEEK.COM

VOL 46/34 06.17.2020

"THEY A KILLING AND Y'A MISS A PARADE

Seven queer black Portlanders speak out on what Pride means to them. Page 12

Willamette Week, June 30, 2021 - Volume 47, Issue 35 - Not Cool

Articles inside

Nurses Without Vaccines

+ NEWS: A Cove of Skaters