NEWS: A Year of Hate Clicks. P. 8 DRINK: On With the Queen’s Head! P. 24 GAME: Unpacking a Woman. P. 28 WILLAMETTE WEEK PORTLAND’S NEWSWEEKLY
LAST DAY TO GIVE AT GIVEGUIDE.ORG: DEC. 31. P. 5 WWEEK.COM
VOL 48/08 12.22.2021
6
PLACES IN PORTLAND CHANGED FOREVER BY WHAT HAPPENED IN 2021.
NEVER
PAGE 13
SAME
2
Addiction Counselor
Kiddie Rides
Animal. Plant. Mineral.
Kwoncept Entertainment
Auntie Anne’s Pretzels
Lloyd Center Ice
Bank of America
Lloyd Ecodistrict
Barnes & Noble
L. Lyon Distributing
Bath & Body Works
Lenscrafters
Beau Monde Academy
Lids
Braganza Bubble Tea
Mail & More
Carrington College
MaxSent
Cash Oregon
Memory Lane
Champs Sports
Metro PCS
Chicken Connection
NAACP
Children’s Community Clinic
Nail Studio
Cinnabon
OHSU
Claire’s
Orange Julius
Consumer Opinion Services
PacifiCorp
Cricket Wireless
Pepsi Bottling
CTM Group-Keymaster
Phone Fix Pro
Cultural Blends
Portland Bridge Club
Dairy Queen Express
Portland Chess Foundation
Dermatology Professionals
Portland English Language Academy
Dickey’s Barbeque
Portland NAACP
Euphoria Body Piercing & Tattoo
Portland Smash
Five O Tree
Project Lemonade
Fluid Systems
Providence Health & Services
Forever 21
Regal Cinemas
Gambits Cards & Hobbies
Ross Dress For Less
GameStop
Shiekh Shoes
Gentle Dental
Silver Castle
Gifts from Afar
Spencer Gifts
Golden Horn
Sprint
Good Intent
Stitchworks
H&M
Sunglass Hut
Happy Rides
Tamia
Harry Ritchie Jeweler
T-Mobile
Hatch
The Finish Line
Homeport Foot Massage
Torrid
Honey Baked Ham
Treasure Island
Hot Topic
Trend Shoes
Howard’s Heart
Vans
Innovative Foto
Visionworks
Joe Brown’s Carmel Corn
ViVi Massage
Journeys
Wells Fargo
Kathmandu
Zumiez
Willamette Week DECEMBER 22, 2021 wweek.com
Lloyd Center is open for business. More than 100 merchants strong, we are local shops and big brands here to connect the community and welcome all this holiday season and beyond. Urban Renaissance Group, a local real estate firm with deep ties to Portland, will lead Lloyd Center’s evolution. And will look to the community to help shape what’s to come. So come skate and stroll and shop for best-selling books and baseball caps, diamond rings and carmel corn. And visit with Santa Claus, too. We are here for you.
WA R N E R B R O S . F I L M S
FINDINGS
THE MATRIX RESURRECTIONS, PAGE 32
WHAT WE LEARNED FROM READING THIS WEEK’S PAPER
DALLAS DUNCANTELL
G N I K A M THEIR D N A L T POR
What’s it like to add a rigorous parttime MBA program to your already busy life? It's not easy, and it takes commitment. Married with four children, there is no way that I could be successful without my partner’s support. As I was entering my first year in the program, the school brought back past students’ partners from previous classes to speak to the incoming students’ partners about their experience. This was so helpful and important to help prepare my entire family for what to expect.
Erin Corbett, 39
VOL. 48, ISSUE 8
Facilities Operations Manager, Oregon Health and Science University
Twenty-five people were killed by cars while crossing a Portland street this year. 6 Lloyd Center’s new owners are keeping the ice rink . 7
ning standup night at EastBurn, to Lewis Sequeira. 23 Atlantic Seaboard-style drag
incorporates more singing and comedy setups, like cabaret. 24
A fired loss prevention specialist at Ross found work riding e-scooters in a Santa suit. 10
Portlander Ben Zabin created a magic show specifically for a stoned audience. 27
The food truck blamed for a runner’s failed drug test doesn’t serve uncastrated boar meat . 11
The best line in any Portland play this year was delivered by a talking goose. 30
Hazelwood saw 100 reported shootings through November. 18
Oregon continues its reign as producer of the best livestock-centered films. 31
Comedian Barbara Holm passed It’s Gonna Be Okay, her long-run-
ON THE COVER
OUR MOST TRAFFICKED STORY ONLINE THIS WEEK:
A pedestal without a monument on Mount Tabor, one of six places changed forever by 2021; photo by Mick Hangland-Skill.
1,140 cars were stolen across Portland in November. Mine was one of them.
MASTHEAD EDITOR & PUBLISHER
Mark Zusman
EDITORIAL
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celebrating 5 years with Collins and after several promotions with increased responsibility, I realized to continue my professional growth I needed to connect and learn from other high-achieving professionals. Also, leading cross-functional teams, I was focused on learning soft skills like influencing, collaboration, adaptability, and emotional intelligence as part of a graduate program. Currently in my second year at Oregon’s Executive MBA program - it has been an amazing experience learning how to master and deploy these skills from the industry leaders the program has brought in to teach us these skills.
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How three Portland professionals landed roles at the region’s top companies and what they’re doing to tackle the new challenges facing their industries. Sponsored Content Presented by University of Oregon Executive MBA • By Meira Gebel
The list of things that make Portland great is long. We know that. The city’s prestigious parks, rivers, and outdoor recreation make it a destination for visitors of all kinds, while its iconic food scene, arts, and nightlife are just the cherries on top. But what gets people to stay here? The answer is simple. The City of Roses is also home to a vast, diverse ecosystem of industries and well-known, name-brand businesses that draw professionals from all over the world from all kinds of backgrounds. Willamette Week spoke to three professionals who have leading roles at companies across the Pacific Northwest about the new challenges facing each of their industries and how University of Oregon’s Executive MBA program prepared them for a path to success. Answers have been edited for length and clarity.
Renata Ariane Melo, 41
Director of Global Planning, Oregon Tool
Tell us about your background and current role. I’m from Brazil and moved to the United States back in 2014 with my husband and two boys for a twoyear project assignment — now Portland is home. I've been working at Oregon Tool for more than 15 years, mainly in operations. We make equipment for the forestry, agriculture, and construction industries. As Director of Global Planning, I’m now responsible for global supply planning strategy, while balancing customer demand and profitability requirements. In short, I ensure we reach our financial targets across all lines of business. COVID must have really impacted your work. The post-COVID/pandemic effects, global supply chain constraints have been very challenging! Technology was the only way we kept working with no impacts to our operations over the past 18 months. Working remotely has in some cases made us more productive, increasing collaboration by sharing documents in real-time. But still - there are some opportunities to better leverage our technologies as we try to solve the problems of the future with tools of the past. Last year you graduated from the Oregon Executive MBA program. How has that changed your work at Oregon Tool? The program provided me the opportunity to earn my degree while working. The vast curriculum enabled
me to be a high-impact leader, respecting people but holding them accountable, as well as emphasized my analytical strength to support a fast-paced business in a constrained environment. I also learned a lot about finance, accounting, marketing, economics, and management and business ethics. During my second year in the program, I received a promotion.
Dallas Duncantell, 39
Value Stream Leader, Collins Aerospace
Tell us about your professional background and current role. I returned home in 2012 to Portland after serving nine years in the U.S. Marine Corps. I was not sure what I wanted to do next, but I knew I wanted to continue to serve. I spent the next year talking with other local veterans and was able to land an interview for an entry-level buyer role within Collins Aerospace. With little experience in the industry, Collins took a chance on me. Collins is a leader in technologically advanced and intelligent solutions for the global aerospace and defense industry. I am responsible for leading multiple customer-focused teams, ensuring the highest product quality and production consistency. This includes development of program plans, schedules, and budgets. I support strategic planning efforts, solutions for program problems, contract negotiations, and managing important vendors. In 2019, you decided to pursue a Master’s in Business. Why? After
Tell us about your professional background and current role. I began my OHSU journey in 2003 as a temp. I covered somebody's maternity leave at the front desk of the outpatient oncology clinic, and the rest is history. In my time at OHSU I've supported outpatient healthcare, research, medical and educational ethics, and now central services. It's a fabulous place to learn and grow and find out what you're good at! In my current role, I manage teams responsible for everything from human resources support to general construction. My job, in a nutshell, is to ensure the facilities staff and departments have the information, tools, and operations assistance to do their best work. How has the pandemic affected your work? From the Facilities side, we are continually challenged by supply chain issues. From paint to computers to lumber, everything is difficult to get right now and we are always looking for creative ways to keep our built environment safe and effective in the potential absence of the usual materials we need. I know our partners in Logistics are also challenged by similar issues around personal protective equipment and other supplies we rely on. Everybody involved is doing their best work to approach these challenges from new angles and come up with solutions! Why did you decide to pursue a business degree? What has it been like so far? I wanted to gain skills to be a more effective leader, and the UO Executive MBA program is highly respected regionally and nationally. I have several colleagues who went through the program and had great experiences, and also appreciated that it's in-person as opposed to online, as many MBA programs are. The connections I am making through the MBA program will be life-long, both personal and professional. What has it been like to be a single parent and full-time professional while also pursuing a graduate degree? My 7-year-old daughter Olive is my partner in this journey. She and I, and our dog Ruth, are a little family support system for each other. UO’s MBA team has also been incredibly supportive and understanding as I need to end meetings earlier to handle bedtime, or school drop-off, or anything else that comes up. I would encourage other single parents to explore this program, we need more voices at leadership tables from all sorts of family situations and backgrounds. It has been challenging, but incredibly rewarding.
Willamette Week DECEMBER 22, 2021 wweek.com
3
DIALOGUE
• •••• • • • •
TA R E B A LRO S ER E T A •••• E H T holiday caberet DEC 29
QUEER EYE FOR THE MAGI DEC 30
BEERANDLOATHINGPDX, VIA REDDIT: “You know, you watch
THE LOVE BALL
with Saloon Ensemble + Pink Lady’s “Cat’s Meow” Burlesque
MICHAEL NAMKUNG Consider Good Pain: The Art of Being Hurt with
Steven Gosvener
JAN 12
VIVIAN LEVA & RILEY CALCAGNO + CALEB KLAUDER & REEB WILLMS
Booklover’s Burlesque
JAN 11
This with
OMAR EL AKKAD an aerial celebration of Pink Floyd
JAN 14+15
DARK SIDE a piece for
assorted lunatics
cozy classics
JAN 29
COVERS & BLANKETS
FEB 10
FEB 5
David Archuleta
33rd Annual
OK, ALL RIGHT TOUR 2022
WINTERFOLK a benefit for JOIN PDX FEB 11
FEB 12+13
FALL IN LOVE WITH FLAMENCO UPCOMING SHOWS
•••••••••••••
2/14 • THE MYSTERY BOX SHOW VALENTINE’S DAY SPECIAL 2/19 • CLOWNS WITHOUT BORDERS BENEFIT SHOW 2/20 • THE CABARET SOCIETY: A THEATRICAL BURLESQUE REVUE 2/22 • 2022 BIAMP PDX JAZZ FESTIVAL - THE COOKERS
•••••
albertarosetheatre.com
3000 NE Alberta • 503.764.4131 4
Willamette Week DECEMBER 22, 2021 wweek.com
movies like Serpico, Cop Land, American Gangster…and you think, man, the ’70s and ’80s were pretty messed up. “Then you see a story like this in Portland and realize just how fucking dirty all police unions are. Get rid of qualified immunity, watch the pigs flee, start over with people who can be held accountable for their actions.” EX-PDXTEACHER, VIA WWEEK.COM: “The Portland
feat. LOVE GIGANTIC
JAN 22
JOSHUA MARQUIS, VIA WWEEK.COM: “Reports of
minor hit-and-runs are not state secrets. Disclosing a suspect is bad policy, but it is hardly the major crime the writer is making it out to be. “This case will NEVER go to trial. Instead, her sometime pals on the City Council will use it as a way of purging their guilt (and a lot of taxpayer money) as a form of a send-off to a politician who is clearly not going to be reelected. Where exactly has she been damaged?” DUE-PERSONALITY2383, VIA REDDIT: “This probably never
NYE party
JAN 8
On Dec. 13, City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty filed a $5 million lawsuit against the Portland police union, its former president, and another Portland police officer, alleging they played a role in the leak of information that falsely implicated Hardesty in a hit-and-run crash last spring (“Zero Hour,” WW, Dec. 15, 2021). The lawsuit offers one possible answer to the question why Portland Police Association president Brian Hunzeker resigned from his role as union head March 16. Hardesty alleges he leaked the allegation to The Oregonian and that he did so “in retaliation for plaintiff ’s years of opposing race discrimination by the [Portland Police Bureau] and members of the PPA.” Here’s what our readers had to say:
police are using public resources to do a political hit job on someone they disagree with. Is there anything about this that is ethical? Anything at all?”
GYMRAT, VIA WWEEK.COM:
“Commenting on this situation
by pointing to behavior by Hardesty that you disagree with or even think is unethical is definitely ‘whataboutism.’ She could be a terrible council member (and clearly some of you think so), and it has NOTHING to do with this case. This case is about whether it’s OK for the police to release unproven allegations, based on the report of one citizen, about her to the conservative press and The Oregonian.” PC-LOADLETTER, VIA REDDIT: “I think she deserves
a handsomely reasonable settlement based on her ordeal and the way she was treated. I also think she’s a poor councilwoman, and I wish she’d step aside. “These are not mutually exclusive ideals.”
Dr. Know
would have happened if she didn’t lie about seeing police light fires at Portland protests. She admitted to lying. They retaliated. What they did was wrong. But so was what she did. Can we get some adults in place across the board?” ELLIOTT YOUNG, VIA TWITTER: “Civil rights organizations
have found it more effective to bankrupt white supremacist organizations through civil rather than criminal litigation. “@JoAnnPDX is pursuing the same strategy with the Portland police union.” 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 MARTY SMITH @martysmithxxx
A few decades ago, a white Christmas in Portland was almost unheard of; now they seem to happen all the time. What changed? If the snow predicted for this weekend happens, it would be the third white Christmas in just 15 years. —Microsoft Bing Crosby If frogs had wings, they wouldn’t bump their ass a-hoppin’. I don’t mean to rain on your parade, Bing, but I’ve heard this one—pardon me if I don’t break out the mukluks quite yet. But even if Friday’s snow fails to materialize, you’re not wrong: White Christmases certainly seem to be coming more often. As reported in The Oregonian of Dec. 25, 1921, that year boasted “the first honest-to-goodness white Christmas in Portland’s history.” (Since 1892, anyway. There are no records before that, probably because it’s hard to write when bears are chasing you.) The next two were in 1983 and 1990. Both years featured late-December cold snaps, and while it didn’t snow on Christmas in either, there was a dusting of snow from the previous day that didn’t get a chance to melt. Maybe not a snow globe come to life, but it counts. The big one, of course, was 2008, when an
eye-popping 18 inches fell over eight days leading up to the holiday. (This once-in-a-lifetime weather anomaly may have been climatologically related to the fact that—as some Republicans predicted—hell froze over that year, shortly after Election Day.) Finally, there was 2017, a white Christmas so recent that even I sort of remember it. Now, depending on how long ago you ate that weed gummy, you may have noticed that in the first 90 of the 130 or so years we’ve been paying attention there was just one white Christmas. In the last 40, we’ve had four. WTF? What about climate change? Wasn’t it colder back then, to the point that the Willamette River froze solid enough in 1924 to drive a car on?* What is this shocking trend trying to tell us? In a word, bubkes. We tend to think that “random” and “evenly spread out” are the same thing, but they’re not. Real randomness often looks more like the “shocking” distribution above. For laughs, I just simulated 130 Christmases with a random number generator. Each had a 1-in-26 (i.e., five out of 130) chance of snow. I got only two hits—back to back, in 1930 and 1931. What are the odds? *Yup (Dr. Know, WW, Feb. 12, 2014). Questions? Send them to dr.know@wweek.com.
MURMURS BRIAN BURK
PORTLAND POLICE OFFICERS REVIEW OF POLICE BUREAU’S RACIAL AND POLITICAL BIAS NEARS COMPLETION: Portlanders can expect the city to release an outside contractor’s review of possible political and racial bias at the Portland Police Bureau by the end of next month, according to the City Attorney’s Office. In April, a few weeks after police leaked an incorrect allegation that Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty was involved in a hit-and-run crash on March 3, the city signed a $150,000 contract with the California-based OIR Group to conduct an outside review of the community’s perception of racial and political bias and resistance to change within the bureau. The contract also says the review will probe “the root causes” of those three matters. It stipulates that the OIR Group will deliver a final report to the City Attorney’s Office “no later than Dec. 31, 2021.” City Attorney Robert Taylor says the report is near completion. “The cultural review by OIR Group remains underway, and we expect it to be completed and released by the end of January,” Taylor tells WW. This inquiry is separate from the outside investigation into the police leak itself, which is also being conducted by the OIR Group. That investigation is not expected to be complete until the Police Bureau concludes its own internal affairs investigation into the matter. KOTEK COLLECTS KEY ENDORSEMENTS: In her run for governor, House Speaker Tina Kotek (D-Portland) has secured the endorsement of the Oregon Nurses Association, the largest union of nurses in the state, representing 15,000 members. It’s a significant if not surprising endorsement for Kotek, who lags in fundraising behind two other candidates for governor: Betsy Johnson and Nicholas Kristof. Kotek, an ally of labor, is expected to rely heavily on union support for fundraising. She’s also received the endorsement of several trade unions; Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste, better known as PCUN, which represents farmworkers;
and the Oregon League of Conservation Voters, whose money and membership are highly coveted by Democratic candidates. “We know nurses can count on Tina,” said Bruce Humphreys, president of the Oregon Nurses Political Action Committee board of directors, in a statement. MALWARE HITS DINING AND DRIVING: Ransomware and malware attacks are hamstringing some major Oregon institutions. Last week, pub and hotel chain McMenamins suffered a ransomware attack that left its employees’ personal information potentially compromised. (Ransomware is the work of hackers who seize company computer systems and demand payment.) Headquarters today told WW that its email and phone systems are currently unavailable because of the attack. McMenamins told the newspaper last week that some restaurants were using credit card imprinters, or handheld devices that copy the face of the card, and storing the information until cards could be charged once systems were back up (they now are, according to a spokesperson). McMenamins said in an information sheet sent to employees Dec. 21: “The files impacted contained employee Social Security numbers. There was a potential that the thieves accessed files containing direct deposit bank account information, but we do not have a clear indication that they did so.” Meanwhile, the Oregon Department of Transportation says its Rose Quarter project site was attacked by malware. The agency is creating an interim site for the highway project. LAST CHANCE TO GIVE: Give!Guide has surpassed $4 million in donations from 12,554 donors. Give!Guide is Willamette Week’s annual effort to raise funds for—and draw attention to—the good works of local nonprofits. With 10 days remaining in this year’s campaign, G!G has raised 63% of its $6.5 million goal. The last day to give is Dec. 31.
MAKE 2022 YOUR YEAR Oregon Executive MBA in Portland
EO/AA/ADA institution committed to cultural diversity.
Willamette Week DECEMBER 22, 2021 wweek.com
5
NEWS
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW THIS WEEK
AT ISSUE
RUVIM-MIKSANSKIY
Make Your Riverbed Advocates want the EPA to force the city and state to get serious about cleaning up a key stretch of the Willamette River. BY N I G E L J AQ U I S S
njaquiss@wweek .com
Environmental and community groups have asked federal regulators to crack down on the city of Portland and the state of Oregon for allegedly dragging their feet on the cleanup of a prime piece of the city’s waterfront. “We are writing to formally request that the EPA initiate formal enforcement action,” reads a Dec. 7 letter to the Environmental Protection Agency, signed by the Audubon Society of Portland, Willamette Riverkeeper, the Portland Harbor Community Advisory Group, and the Portland Harbor Community Coalition.
WHERE:
The site in question is riverbed land adjacent to city-owned Cathedral Park, which sprawls across nearly 22 Willamette riverfront acres on either side of the St. Johns Bridge in North Portland. It is part of the Superfund site in Portland Harbor—a swath of waterfront polluted by industrial chemicals.
Portland homicides in 2021, as of Dec. 9. That is the highest single-year total in city history, eclipsing the previous record of 70 (set in 1987, when the city was substantially smaller). Sixty-three of the murders were committed with guns, police say. 6
WHAT:
The EPA named Portland Harbor a Superfund site in 2000, citing a century of industrial activity that left the river bottom and some adjacent uplands deeply contaminated. (The harbor comprises a nearly 10-mile stretch of the Willamette from Sauvie Island to the Broadway Bridge.) The Superfund designation meant those responsible for the contamination (about 150 different entities) would have to clean it up. The glacially paced cleanup process reached a critical point in January 2017, when the EPA issued a 3,012-page record of decision and ordered those responsible for 17 different project areas within Portland Harbor to submit designs for cleaning up their messes. The EPA gave the polluters, known as “potentially responsible parties,” two years to
CA S UA LTI E S
THE BIG NUMBERS
84
Much of the property within the Superfund site is privately owned. Cathedral Park is one of the few places the public can access the Willamette within Portland Harbor. The park includes a beach of sorts and a boat ramp.
59
Portland traffic deaths through Dec. 21, according to the Portland Bureau of Transportation. (The Portland Police Bureau has a higher tally: 65.) It’s the most in one year since 1987.
Willamette Week DECEMBER 22, 2021 wweek.com
59
“ This has already taken more than 20 years,” Sallinger says. “We want to see EPA step up and move things along.”
present designs. Bob Sallinger, conservation director for the Audubon Society of Portland, says EPA got 13 responses; three zones are “orphaned” because the responsible parties are defunct. There was only one area for which the responsible parties didn’t submit a proposed design: Cathedral Park.
WHO:
Sallinger says his group and other interested parties met repeatedly with the city and state over the past two years to discuss what form the cleanup should take. But nothing happened.
“They’ve had two years since the deadline,” Sallinger says. “That’s long enough.” Annie Von Burg, a manager at the city’s Bureau of Environmental Services, which oversees the city’s involvement in the Superfund process, says the city isn’t to blame. Portland is eager to move forward with the cleanup process, she insists, but wants to make sure industrial polluters that operated on either side of Cathedral Park share in the cost. “Over the years, there have been many companies that have had operations at these two neighboring sites that are known to have contributed to this contamination,” Von Burg says. “We do not believe the public should have to pick up the whole tab for companies that should step up and meet their responsibilities.” Von Burg adds that the EPA has made sure that the process continues to move forward so the delay in submitting a design for the Cathedral Park won’t impact the public. State officials provide a similar explanation. “The state has done more than almost any other party to address its responsibilities for remedial design at the Portland Harbor Superfund Site,” says Charles Boyle, a spokesman for Gov. Kate Brown. “No responsible party stepped forward to perform design work at the Cathedral Park cleanup area.” Sallinger doesn’t buy those stances, calling them “completely unacceptable.” “This is a public site,” Sallinger says. “The EPA process allows the city and the state to recover costs after the fact, if it’s determined somebody else is responsible.”
WHAT’S NEXT:
Audubon and other groups now want the feds to force the public entities to act. One option would be for EPA to bring an enforcement action against the public entities. That could result in protracted litigation. Another option: EPA could do the Cathedral Park cleanup itself and then bill responsible parties. Sallinger says that’s not ideal, however, because EPA has no incentive to do more than the bare minimum, while public agencies could do what’s best for Portland in the long term. He prefers that the city and state simply submit a cleanup plan. “This has already taken more than 20 years,” Sallinger says. “We want to see EPA step up and move things along.” An EPA spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
The extraordinary death toll of 2021.
Multnomah County residents who died from hyperthermia, or overheating, during 116-degree conditions in late June. These are the first Portland deaths directly linked to climate change.
14
Deaths in residential fires through Dec. 21, according to Portland Fire & Rescue. That’s one shy of the record, set in 1994.
25
People killed by cars while crossing Portland streets, the highest single-year total since 1972.
438
COVID-19 deaths recorded in Multnomah County in 2021.
IDEA OF THE WEEK
TRENDING
PORTLAND POLICE TRAFFIC STOPS BY RACE, 2021
Q1 (Jan.-March 2021)
Q2 (April-June 2021)
Q3 (July-Sept. 2021)
PERCENTAGE
COUNT
PERCENTAGE
COUNT
PERCENTAGE
18
0.4%
16
0.5%
10
0.4%
Asian
194
4%
162
4.6%
108
4.8%
Black
916
18.9%
646
18.3%
398
17.5%
Hispanic or Latino
546
11.2%
399
11.3%
269
11.8%
Middle Eastern
66
1.4%
37
1%
24
1%
Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander
30
0.6%
25
0.7%
20
0.9%
White
3,087
63.6%
2,242
63.6%
1,446
63.6%
Total
4,857
American Indian or Alaskan Native
3527
Traffic Jam
2275 SOURCE: PORTLAND POLICE BUREAU
A procedural change intended to reduce racial disparities in Portland traffic stops shows inconclusive results. In June, Mayor Ted Wheeler and Portland Police Chief Chuck Lovell announced a procedural change to the Police Bureau’s traffic enforcement protocols: Officers would no longer prioritize traffic stops for low-level infractions that don’t present an “immediate public safety threat,” like expired tags or a broken taillight. The updated protocol was intended to reduce racial disparities in Portland traffic stops. In 2019, for example, white Portlanders accounted for about 65% of traffic stops, despite making up about 77% of the population, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. Meanwhile, Black people, who represent about 5.8% of Portland’s population, accounted for roughly 18% of traffic stops that year. “The goal is to make our city both safer and more equitable, helping reduce the number of Black, Indigenous, and people of color who are disproportionately impacted by consent searches and traffic stops,” Wheeler said at the time of the policy change. But the most up-to-date data made available by the Police Bureau shows that, in the first three months after
the change in protocol, the racial disparities remained mostly the same. (Data from the fourth quarter has not yet been released.) According to PPB’s traffic stop data from the third quarter of 2021, which spans July to September, Black drivers made up 17.5% of traffic stops citywide. That’s a slight decrease from the second quarter (18.3%) and the first (18.9%). Meanwhile, traffic stop rates for white motorists have remained virtually unchanged: 63.56% in the first quarter, 63.57% in the second and, again, 63.56% in the third. “This is the first data we’ve received since I put out my guidance, and I’m happy to see the numbers moving in the right direction,” Chief Lovell tells WW. “They’re not exactly where we’d like to see them yet, but progress can take time and is a process.” Despite the meager changes to racial disparities, the overall number of traffic stops has decreased significantly: 4,857 in quarter one, 3,527 in quarter two, and 2,275 in quarter three. It is unclear whether that decrease is a result of the procedural change or other factors, such as a thinning Police Bureau workforce. T E S S R I S K I .
MICK HANGLAND-SKILL
COUNT
COLD WATER
Official plans emerge for Lloyd Center. The ice rink stays in the picture. The new owners of the Lloyd Center Mall are real estate barons of few words. In October, when KKR Real Estate Finance Trust announced its intention to foreclose on the crime-ridden cavern of broken retail dreams, it didn’t even dignify the place by saying its name. It called the mall the “Portland retail asset.” This week, KKR announced it had hired Urban Renaissance Group out of Seattle to figure out what to do with Lloyd Center. URG, as it’s known, has a history of remaking Portland. It turned The Oregonian’s old printing plant near Providence Park into an eight-story office tower with an “epic” (its word) beer garden on the roof. URG managing director Tom Kilbane didn’t say much about what Lloyd Center would become, calling it a “uniquely situated property” and saying URG “takes seriously our responsibility for making sure it continues to be a community gathering place.” Gathering place? Has anyone from URG been to Lloyd Center lately? One solid detail: The ice rink just might survive. “Our ambition is to embrace and preserve features of the property that make it special, including retail, creative work spaces and ice skating,” Kilbane said. Sounds like a mall with an ice rink, which is what’s there now. So much for Portlanders’ dreams, chronicled in these pages for the past eight weeks, of restoring the street grid or building affordable housing. A N T H O N Y E F F I N G E R .
“ Our ambition is to embrace and preserve features of the property that make it special, including retail, creative work spaces and ice skating.”
Willamette Week DECEMBER 22, 2021 wweek.com
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Tips to celebrate the holidays safely The holidays are a time of celebration. With vaccinations and boosters now readily available, the risk of infection is different for everyone. If you and the people you see this holiday season are all fully vaccinated, your risks will be lower. But some vaccinated people still get sick with COVID-19. So here are some ways to stay safe this holiday season, no matter who you visit with.
Gathering with friends and family Get vaccinated (or a booster if eligible) to protect yourself and those around you. It’s okay to ask if others are vaccinated before getting together with people you don’t live with. You can choose to stay home or find other ways to connect if you feel nervous. Wear a mask when indoors with others and try to stay 6 feet apart. Avoid poorly ventilated spaces, especially when in a crowd.
Travel Only travel once you are fully vaccinated (2 weeks after second dose of Pfizer or Moderna vaccine or single dose of Johnson & Johnson vaccine). Wear a mask (everyone 2 and older) on public transportation and while in airports and bus/train stations. Wash your hands often and stay 6 feet apart from others. Get tested 1-3 days before your trip if traveling unvaccinated, and avoid gathering in crowds before and during travel.
Keep the air flowing by opening windows or running a fan or air purifier if possible. Get tested if you have symptoms of COVID-19 or have been in close contact with someone who has COVID-19. Stay home if you’re feeling sick or unwell, and don’t host any gatherings.
Eating/drinking in a group Wash your hands often.
Underlying medical conditions or weakened immune systems Take extra care if you have an underlying medical condition that puts you at higher risk of serious illness from COVID-19 or if you take medications that weaken your immune system. Wear a mask that fits snugly over your nose and mouth whenever you’re around people, even if you’re fully vaccinated and have had a booster.
Wear a mask when not eating/drinking. Prepare your own plate and drinks. Stay 6 feet from each other if you can.
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Willamette Week DECEMBER 22, 2021 wweek.com
www.SafeStrongOregon.org We hope you’ll stay safe and healthy this holiday season. Call 211, your local pharmacy or doctor’s office, or visit GetVaccinated.Oregon.gov to find your vaccine.
LETTER FROM THE PUBLISHER BRIAN BURK
To our readers: This is our final newspaper of 2021. So it’s a good time to reflect on the vital reporting our newsroom brings you every day. There is much to be proud of. Over the past 12 months, WW has published enterprise stories that changed how Portlanders viewed their city: identifying trends that affected people’s lives and holding powerful officials and institutions accountable for their decisions. We do so out of a belief that democracy will not survive without robust, fearless and trustworthy local journalism. A few of our stories in 2021 that demonstrated the power of good journalism: • In January, Nigel Jaquiss revealed that two city-proposed taxes on carbon emissions would have the unintended consequence of putting out of business the only plant in Oregon that recycles glass bottles. Because of our reporting, the Portland City Council sent the taxes back to planners for an overhaul, which is still ongoing. • In March, Tess Riski reported that more than 100 cannabis shops in Portland had been robbed, burglarized or looted in one year, a crime wave that resulted in the killing of a clerk on North Lombard Street. After the sto-
ry was published, Portland police arrested a suspect in the murder, and City Hall dedicated cannabis tax dollars to assist robbed shops. • For much of the year, our newsroom has held local officials accountable for their failure to act urgently to provide housing and shelter for people sleeping on the streets. We’ve also revealed the pressure that business groups are placing on City Hall to remove homeless campers from downtown sidewalks. Sophie Peel’s May reporting on a plan from Mayor Ted Wheeler’s office to create “safe rest sites” in Portland neighborhoods connected the dots between private demands and public promises—and she’s tracked all year whether those promises will be kept. • Rachel Monahan warned in January that several populations in Portland would be reluctant to get vaccinated for COVID-19. At the time of her story, most attention focused on whether Oregon had enough vaccine doses for Oregon arms; only Monahan warned that the impending problem was not enough arms. Months later, vaccine hesitancy fueled the Delta variant wave. • For more than a year, Latisha Jensen told
Portland uncomfortable truths about the racial disparities that make life strikingly different for the Black and white residents of this city. In June, she showed readers the biggest difference: Black Portlanders were injured or killed by gunfire at a rate eight times higher than their share of the population. Later that summer, WW reported that Black Portlanders were being murdered at a rate higher than in Chicago, Baltimore or Los Angeles. • No other news organization in the city gave Oregon voters such a clear look at the people who would be governor in 2022. Monahan and Jaquiss have published in-depth interviews with all of the significant Democratic candidates, pressing them to say how they are different from their opponents and the status quo. These introductions offer clarity in what looks to be the most wide-open governor’s race in a generation. • When Peel’s car was stolen on Thanksgiving Day, she responded like a reporter: She asked how many other cars had been snatched in Portland that month. She found that her Subaru was one of 1,140 vehicles stolen that month—the most in a single month since the city began tallying detailed figures. • In November, Jaquiss learned that Joe Gilliam, one of Oregon’s most powerful lobbyists, was in a vegetative state—and police believed
he had been poisoned twice with the toxic metal thallium. Jaquiss’ reporting led Oregon’s U.S. senators to call for law enforcement to bring the poisoner to justice. • And any accounting of 2021’s most important stories would be incomplete without noting the nine months Tess Riski spent watchdogging the Portland Police Bureau and its union, asking once a week what role now-former union president Brian Hunzeker played in an effort to discredit Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty. A possible answer was revealed last week when Hardesty filed a lawsuit accusing Hunzeker of leaking a false report about the commissioner to an Oregonian reporter. Riski broke the news of the lawsuit. This is just a sample of our work in 2021, work that starts with the premise that you readers are our reason for being. With your help (and we encourage you to join Friends of Willamette Week to do so) we will continue to fulfill this role. It is only because of your engagement and support that we can play our part in fighting for this bruised but unbroken city. Thank you,
Mark Zusman, Publisher Willamette Week DECEMBER 22, 2021 wweek.com
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NEWS
Sensitive Subjects Our most-read stories of 2021 show a city looking for someone to blame. 5 0 3 -2 4 3 -2 1 2 2 BRIAN BURK
BY W W S TA F F
In 2021, Portland was a raw nerve. It didn’t take much prodding to make people scream. The most-read stories on wweek.com in any given year rarely correspond with our most significant journalistic achievements. (For those proud moments, see page TK.) But reviewing them is useful in other ways: as a time capsule of ephemera that caught your eye as you went to work in your bathrobe, and as a bellwether of the city’s attitude. This year’s mood was sour. Reader interest always gravitates toward familiar subjects (a tendency accelerated by tech algorithms), but the clicks this year suggested a search for villains, or scapegoats, in a city that rarely worked. Also, Portlanders still want to know if it’s going to snow.
1. Jan. 30: Portland Is the New Pompeii, According to Forbes 269,246 pageviews
When Lake Oswego economist Bill Conerly kicked off 2021 with a Forbes op-ed predicting Portland would self-destruct from riots and homeless camping, the essay felt like an exercise in hyperbole. (He really did compare Portland to Pompeii, which was buried in volcanic ash in 79 CE.) It certainly drew mockery. But if Conerly was recycling stale Republican talking points, he proved prophetic on two counts. He anticipated that tent encampments would fracture the city’s self-image, thanks in part to dark-money campaign spending and social media accounts, including “Portland Looks Like Shit.” And he noticed that police were no longer responding to some 911 calls. Whether because of failed priorities, an understaffed Police Bureau or a work slowdown by the police union, Portland police were unable to protect this city from a wave of armed robberies at cannabis shops, gunfire in the doorway of Old Town nightclubs, and a record number of stolen cars. A A R O N M E S H .
2. May 27: Ross Fired a Portland Employee After He Went Viral on TikTok 208,547 pageviews
Jeffrey Stillwell, a loss prevention specialist at the Gateway Ross Dress for Less, was bored on the job. So he made a satirical video about just how seriously he took his job stopping shoplifters; it featured him sprinting down aisles and tackling the floor. It went viral on TikTok within hours. Ross promptly fired him. Today, Stillwell is working as a set decorator on a local film. He’s still making TikTok videos and gets paid by a zippered-stocking company (yes, that’s right—Christmas stockings, but with a zipper) to create content on the social media platform. “I was zipping around Portland on scooters in a Santa suit in 100 degrees in July,” says Stillwell, who adds he’s still “extremely proud” of the Ross videos. S O P H I E P E E L .
3. March 31: The Oregon Brothers Accused of Storming the U.S. Capitol Spent Much of Their Lives as the Children of Baptist Missionaries 172,784 pageviews
On March 23, brothers Matthew and Jonathanpeter Klein became the first Oregonians arrested and charged in connection with the Jan. 6 failed coup attempt at the U.S. Capitol. Family blogs revealed that Matthew and Jonathanpeter, 24 and 21 at the time of their arrests, were two of seven children raised in a family of Baptist missionaries who spent many years on mission trips in Argentina and Chile. The family had moved back to the U.S. by February 2020. Prosecutors say the pair departed from Portland International Airport on Jan. 4 and, two days later, attended the insurrection where they “worked in coordination to forcibly open a secured door” on the Capitol’s north side as police could 10
Willamette Week DECEMBER 22, 2021 wweek.com
WRITING ON THE WALL: A boarded-up downtown fueled doomsaying about Portland’s prospects.
be seen on the other side of the door. Matthew Klein then put on protective goggles and “advanced toward [police] and used a Gadsen flag affixed to a flagpole to interfere with efforts by law enforcement to disperse the crowd.” Charging documents say Jonathanpeter Klein was a “self-identified member of the Proud Boys” who, upon entry to the Capitol, “engaged in a celebratory exchange” with another Proud Boys member. The feds charged each brother with six counts, including conspiracy, the purpose of which was to “corruptly stop, delay, or hinder Congress’ certification of the Electoral College vote.” The brothers have both pleaded guilty to all counts. They now await federal criminal trial. T E S S R I S K I .
Whether because of failed priorities, an understaffed Police Bureau or a work slowdown by the police union, Portland police were unable to protect this city from a wave of armed robberies at cannabis shops, gunfire in the doorway of Old Town nightclubs, and a record number of stolen cars.
CHRIS NESSETH
4. Nov. 10: Oregon Officials Stand By as Dutch Bros. Founder Seeks to Take Revenue From Indigenous Tribes 159,424 pageviews
Oregonians love to gamble—the Oregon Lottery is the state’s second-largest source of revenue. In 2021, Gov. Kate Brown found herself besieged on several sides: by the lottery’s desire to expand gambling on mobile devices; by horse racing enthusiasts, led by Dutch Bros. Coffee co-founder Travis Boersma, who pushed for a new gambling operation at Grants Pass Downs; and by Oregon’s nine federally recognized Native American tribes, which depend on casino income and stood to lose from either or both enterprises. A bill the tribes requested would have halted all new gambling for a statewide review that included all stakeholders, but it got sidelined. The Grants Pass project galloped ahead in front of the Oregon Racing Commission, but after The Oregonian and WW highlighted tribal concerns late in the year, Brown reined in the commission, telling it to consult the tribes. Meanwhile, lawmakers plan to revisit the concept of a comprehensive gambling review in the 2022 legislative session. “The choice seems pretty clear,” says Justin Martin, a member of and lobbyist for the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde. “Hit pause on state gambling expansions and do the right thing by all Oregonians and study where we are as a state—or end up in court, which will cost millions for taxpayers, tribes and all parties involved.” N I G E L J AQ U I S S .
5. Nov. 20: Portland Crowd Eggs Justice Center, Clashes With Sheriff’s Deputies After Kyle Rittenhouse Verdict 150,858 pageviews
7. Oct. 10: Portland Comedian Dahlia Belle Responds to Dave Chappelle’s Comedy Special The Closer 125,900 pageviews
In response to Dave Chappelle’s Netflix special The Closer— which contained humor at the expense of LGBTQ people and also seemed to blame the queer community for the suicide of transgender woman comedian Daphne Dorman—Portlander Dahlia Belle penned an open letter to Chappelle, sharing her perspective as a Black transgender woman and professional comedian. Belle said she was a longtime fan of Chappelle’s work but that she thought his special was “formulaic” and “predictable edge-lord” stuff. Chappelle never responded. Belle didn’t think he would. Though the letter went viral, Belle says it didn’t impact her day-to-day life very much. “Things have mellowed out,” she tells WW. “I’m once again flying under the radar.” S U Z E T T E S M I T H .
6. July 7: Shelby Houlihan Says a Burrito Ended Her Olympic Career. We Set Out to Find It. 134,595 pageviews
Oregon middle-distance runner Shelby Houlihan missed competing in the Tokyo Olympics because she tested positive for the anabolic steroid nandrolone. Houlihan, a member of Nike’s elite Bowerman Track Club, offered a remarkable alibi: She said she had eaten a burrito tainted with pig offal, which can trigger a false positive for nandrolone. Freelance reporter Robin Donovan tested the explanation for WW and found that three food trucks within a 10-minute drive of Nike serve pig-stomach burritos and were open at the hours Houlihan described. Alas, the Court of Arbitration for Sport was unpersuaded. In a report released in September, the arbitrators said the cart Houlihan blamed only serves Tyson pork (not uncastrated boar meat), and the amount of nandrolone the drug test detected was three times what could be ingested by eating offal. Houlihan is banned from competitive running until 2025. A A R O N M E S H .
since tolling has not been part of Oregon’s highway landscape. The Oregon Department of Transportation has begun the formal process to analyze the impact of tolling on the Abernethy and Tualatin River bridges on I-205, which the agency expects to begin in late 2024. ODOT is also studying a plan to toll both I-5 and the rest of I-205 from the Washington border south to where they meet. It’s not clear how much tolls will cost or which stretches of highway will ultimately be tolled (pending federal approval), but expect to see more details on the proposal this spring. R AC H E L M O N A H A N .
9. Jan. 23: The National Weather Service Has Issued a Winter Weather Advisory for Portland on Sunday Morning 108,556 pageviews
Look, we don’t have a lot to add here. For a week in January, the National Weather Service forecast snow and no snow showed. “Snow is much like popcorn: If you spill it on the floor, do you know where those kernels will go and where they’ll stay?” NWS meteorologist Clinton Rockey told WW. “It’s very hit or miss.” Eventually it snowed “a dusting to 1 inch” on Tuesday, Jan. 26. Snow and freezing rain less than a month later would snap more than 4,000 power lines across much of the metro region, leaving some 240,000 households without electricity. S U Z E T T E S M I T H . AARON LEE
After a jury found Kyle Rittenhouse innocent of murder in Kenosha, Wis., about 150 police abolitionists took to the streets around the Multnomah County Justice Center. The crowd vandalized the Justice Center with spray paint and eggs and broke windows of a downtown business, leading to a small but intense clash between black-clad abolitionists and riot deputies. The scene was both reminiscent of and a far cry from the 100 consecutive nights of protests stemming from the murder of George Floyd, which in 2020 drew thousands into clashes with federal agents in downtown Portland. By last winter, those throngs had dwindled to a corps of about 200 hardline activists, who used property damage as a central tactic as public sentiment toward them curdled. If nothing else, the black bloc knew how to get the attention of police and the media: The Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office declared a riot that night, the only one in a major American city following the Rittenhouse verdict. J U S T I N YA U .
MATTHEW AND JONATHANPETER KLEIN
DAHLIA BELLE
8. Nov. 14: Now That Tolls Are Coming to Portland Roads, Should I Put Tinted Covers Over My License Plates? 114,492 pageviews
Almost nothing engages our readers more than the plan to make drivers pay for use of highways. (Exhibit A: this column by Dr. Know, which advised against breaking federal law by obscuring the view of traffic cameras.) Passed in 2017, the legislative directive to toll Interstates 5 and 205 has inspired much interest,
10. Feb. 17: Forget Pompeii. Is Portland the Next Detroit? 101,672 pageviews
Coming into 2021, doomsayers, most notably the previously mentioned Bill Conerly, forecast the city’s decline, saying it would join rust belt cities that have shrinking populations and tax bases. As the year ends, Portland’s economic signals are mixed. Plywood storefronts downtown, empty hotels, uncollected garbage, and sprawling homeless camps hark back to the Great Recession. But real data—such as record-high business income tax collections at the city and county levels, and booming home values—tell a different story. Like other analysts, state economist Josh Lehner keeps a close eye on Portland because it drives the state budget. Lehner took a deep dive into Portland’s economy in early December. His findings will satisfy neither the city’s boosters nor the pessimists who think Portland is the next Detroit. On a variety of economic indicators, Lehner found, Portland is recovering more slowly than peer cities such as Austin, Indianapolis, Nashville, Salt Lake City and Seattle. But compared to the country as a whole, Portland is OK. “Economically, the region is average,” Lehner says. “In terms of the economy, there is nothing fundamentally wrong with Portland.” N I G E L J AQ U I S S . Willamette Week DECEMBER 22, 2021 wweek.com
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Kelly William Colton August 30, 1955 – November 18, 2021
In Memory Of Kelly was born on August 30th, 1955 in The Dalles, Oregon. He had a very dry sense of humor. An example; My Mom asked Kelly to get her a butterfinger candy bar from the kitchen and He returned with a buttered finger. Some of his other passions were history and sports. He was very involved with a history club here in Portland, OR. Baseball was another love. As a child, he was an all-star pitcher for little league in Portland, OR He is survived by his daughter, Shawna, as well as three sisters, Debbie, Becky and Pam. There are also three nieces, Sarah, Heather and April. He would also want to share his great niece and three great nephews. We will always miss you Kelly and we will always love you greatly.
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Rest in Peace Dad and Brother.
Protect those who are protecting us. Get vaxxed. careoregon.org/vax 12
Willamette Week DECEMBER 22, 2021 wweek.com
COVID-19 has killed nearly four thousand Oregonians. And every day, doctors, nurses and other health care workers risk their lives to keep that number from rising. You can help. COVID vaccines greatly reduce your chances of hospitalization. That not only protects you, it protects health care workers and our community. Please get vaxxed today.
NEVER Events in 2021 THE changed six places in Portland SAME forever. PHO TO GR A PHS BY MICK H A NGL A ND - SK ILL If 2020 was the year everything seemed to shatter in Portland, 2021 was a time this city looked into the cracked mirror—and recoiled. The year began with plywood-covered windows; it ends with tent camps lining highway exits. Multiple candidates for governor next year will center their bleak campaigns on how the streets of Portland are in disarray. Lots of places in this city could use some love and some leadership. But some changed more fundamentally than others. As we reflected on a tumultuous year, we found our gaze straying toward a handful of places that will never look or feel the same way again. Places where the ideals and realities of this city collided—sometimes violently. In the following pages, we revisit a half-dozen specific locations where the currents of 2021 met. A baseball diamond where complaints about campers turned deadly. A convention hall that saved thousands of lives. A soccer field where illusions were punctured. A shopping center turned into a playground for would-be brownshirts. Sidewalks where this city could not stanch the bleeding. And a pedestal where an artist imagined a better history. When we think of these six places in Portland, we will always remember what happened there in 2021. Some of it was agonizing. Other moments gave us hope. But they are places where the struggle with a difficult year left a mark on the landscape.
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LENTS PARK
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If one place embodied a hurting city in 2021, it was Lents Park, a 38-acre leisure ground in one of Portland’s poorest neighborhoods. It was the location of some of the most preventable tragedies this year, and revealed some of the ugliest undercurrents in Portland. On April 16, a Portland Police Bureau officer named Zachary DeLong shot and killed Robert Delgado, an unhoused man who suffered from mental illness. The encounter began when a Lents resident called the city’s non-emergency line to report a man quick-drawing a handgun near the Pickles stadium. Minutes after DeLong arrived at the park, he shot and killed Delgado, believing the gun Delgado aimed at him was real (it was a replica). The shooting also occurred in the only neighborhood that Portland Street Response was allowed to respond to at that time, although it occurred outside the program’s designated hours, and the call was not coded as mental health-related by police or by the city’s Bureau of Emergency Communications. “A police force is not equipped or trained to mediate mental health issues,” says Raven Drake, a program manager for Street Roots. “We don’t ask our plumber to go arrest criminals; we don’t ask our psychiatrist to go in and solve a bank robbery.” Nowhere else in the city was the friction between homeowners, shop clerks and homeless people more obvious than in this neighborhood at the city’s southeast edge. The Lents Neighborhood Livability Association, an anti-crime group separate
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from the official Lents Neighborhood Association, held a heated meeting last April where multiple residents said tensions between the homeless and homeowners were at a boiling point: “We’re victims now and, at some point in time, we’re gonna be criminals…and we’re going to be the ones that go to jail for protecting our families,” one attendee said. In August, Burgerville declared it was closing its Lents location because of increased crime and vandalism connected to a homeless camp adjacent to the fast food restaurant. (Police reports did not substantiate the claims, and Burgerville did not share its incident log.) Shortly after the burger outlet’s closure, a portion of the camp was swept by the city. The campers moved back in just days later—emblematic of the persistence of our housing crisis. Lents was superheated in more than one way. The neighborhood transformed into a pressure cooker during the summer “heat dome” that killed 59 people in the Portland area. On any given day, climate scientist Vivek Shandas told WW, parts of Lents are up to 20 degrees hotter than the forested West Hills. During the heat dome, that meant the pavement surrounding Lents Park cooked to 180 degrees. It was a taste of how climate change disproportionately hurts the places and people our city has most neglected. “I think the city hasn’t paid attention to what’s happened in Lents,” Drake says. “I wouldn’t say they’ve knowingly failed it, but apathy is no excuse.” S O P H I E P E E L .
2021 was a year of deaths. More than 3,800 Oregonians died after contracting COVID–19. And Multnomah County, for the first time, saw its first climate deaths: 59 people perished during the record-high temperatures of late June. But an unlikely spot in town became a source of life. The Oregon Convention Center, which pierces the skyline with its glass towers, used to be a bit of a blank spot on the skyline of a vibrant city—a spot where out-of-town dentists met to discuss molars. But in 2021, with the convention and tourism business on life support, it became more like the heart of the city, the muscle keeping Portland alive. Most dramatically, it became the largest vaccination clinic in the state, where a quarter-million Oregonians got their shots. After federal and state leaders bungled much of the response to the coronavirus, the vaccine clinic was a show of competence, a massive undertaking gone right. At its peak, 1,100 people an hour stepped through the doors of the Convention Center for a dose. “I shudder to think what the COVID experience would have looked like 50 years ago,” says Joe Ness, senior vice president and chief operating officer at Oregon Health & Science University. A pharmacist by training, Ness set up pharmacy operations with the three other hospital systems at the Convention Center and at OHSU’s drive-thru vaccine clinics. He kept an empty vaccine vial as a token of that time. “To take a technology that’s been in development for a decade but still in the experimental phase,” Ness adds, “to take that technology and so quickly deploy what might
end up being one of the world’s most successful vaccines—how many people have gotten the vaccine, the safety profile, how fast it was deployed—it is really remarkable.” Visitors to the clinic were greeted by a logistical masterpiece of rope lines and socially distanced stickered dots on the floor. It had an air of bubbly joy, and weighty solemnity. People cheered and cried. Just weeks after it closed, as shots became more common than the arms to get them, the Convention Center became a cooling center for the record-high 116-degree weather, its space all the more important for Portlanders who lacked air conditioning. In February, it had served as a warming shelter against the extreme cold. That just added to the service at the center during the pandemic. In 2020, it was a homeless shelter, when county officials wanted more social distancing; then it became a evacuation shelter after record-sized wildfires. And it hosted COVID testing to boot. 2022 begins with more uncertainty. A new and potentially larger wave of COVID cases and hospitalizations approaches; the vaccinations that provided hope in the spring need a boost, health experts finally agree. But the Convention Center stands as a reminder of hope, that there are still things humans are capable of doing for one another. “At the time I was doing it, it was such a feeling of frenzy,” says Dr. Katie Sharff, who oversees infectious disease as Kaiser Permanente and worked to keep the vaccine clinic a safe experience. “As much as there’s so much on the horizon with COVID, as I reflect back on the last year, it’s amazing that we were able to offer that many Oregonians protection against COVID illness and do it in such an efficient and safe manner. That feels like something to be proud of.” R AC H E L M O N A H A N .
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Standing in this soccer stadium, surrounded by a throng of die-hard Thorns FC fans called the Rose City Riveters, feels as close as some Portlanders get to attending church. The National Women’s Soccer League team sets perennial attendance records because the team and its supporters forged a bond—something that felt like community. But in October, a long investigative story on sports website The Athletic made fans question whether the Thorns were really so exceptional. The bombshell: allegations that onetime coach Paul Riley had sexually harassed two Thorns players, Meleana “Mana” Shim and Sinead Farrelly, from 2012 to 2015. The story alleged that Riley had groomed both players, slept with Farrelly, and taken advantage of the power imbalance between himself and the players by asking them to kiss in exchange for easier drills at practice. Adding to the gravity of the revelations was Shim’s account that she had reported Riley’s behavior to the Thorns front office in 2015. Riley’s contract wasn’t renewed—but he was still able to go on to coach two other teams for six years before the investigative exposé resulted in his immediate firing and suspension of his coaching license. Thorns fans—and even cursory half-watchers—who saw Portland’s professional women’s soccer team as bar-raisers for equity in women’s sports had a rude awakening. Here was a game that seemed entirely devoted to the impressive athleticism and empowerment of women, and yet it appeared to be built, as one fan told WW, on “a pile of sand.” Continued pressure from both fans and Thorns players led to the removal of Thorns general manager Gavin Wilkinson from overseeing the team during an investigation in which he was implicated in the harassment—for allegedly telling Shim to stop talking about being queer—but it did not cost him his job with the Portland Timbers.
Willamette Week DECEMBER 22, 2021 wweek.com
The hiring of Karina LeBlanc as Thorns GM and Rhian Wilkinson (no relation to Gavin) as the team’s new coach in November were no doubt meant as signs of progress; both are women and former players. But at the press conference to welcome her aboard, Wilkinson admitted, “There’s a real bias towards female coaches, which I think the players have as well. And that’s because there’s not that many of us.” The queasy feelings inside Providence Park were echoed across the river at Moda Center, where Trail Blazers general manager Neil Olshey was fired for allegedly subjecting underlings to expletive-heavy rants (not to mention leading a team that’s fairly bad at basketball). But the Blazers have been through scandals before; this is hardly their low point. For Timbers and Thorns fans, the disillusionment was more fundamental. At best, the franchise was operated by hypocrites; at worst, owner Merritt Paulson placed players in the care of a predator rather than confront abuse. (A team investigation is ongoing.) It didn’t help that Timbers and Thorns management required COVID vaccinations for fans only after pressure from supporters’ groups. “Honestly, I feel so disheartened, so alienated by the leadership of my club that I can’t even discuss it anymore,” Timbers fan Richard Miller says. (Miller was part of a tifo group that, earlier this year, created banners of vaccine syringes in the shape of the Iron Front symbol—a previous point of contention between fans and the front office.) In some respects, Portland soccer fandom has returned to its old rhythms—like the thrill and heartbreak of a Timbers’ penalty-kick loss of a championship match in December. But the memory of wins and losses fades. What lingers is the impression that the walls of Providence Park are the heels of power dug in, only pushed toward progress with great force. S U Z E T T E S M I T H .
VACANT PARKROSE KMART Portlanders living on the eastside have long expressed feelings of neglect by City Hall. On Aug. 22, residents of the Parkrose neighborhood felt particularly abandoned. Two days before, Mayor Ted Wheeler and Portland Police Chief Chuck Lovell announced at a press conference that police would not intervene in violent brawls between Proud Boys and anti-fascist counterprotesters. Instead, Wheeler asked the city “to choose love.” The chief put a finer point on this tactical plan, or lack of one. “I just want to reiterate,” Lovell said, “we’re not going to deploy people to stand in a line or in the middle of violent groups to keep people apart where it doesn’t make tactical sense to do so.” For years, fights between opposing political factions on Portland’s streets have escalated into violence—in what experts say appeared to be training for a failed insurrection at the U.S. Capitol in January. More than seven months later, an outer eastside neighborhood became the arena for more political theater between the Proud Boys and their opponents. But unlike at past political clashes in Portland, police were nowhere to be seen. On Aug. 22, a Proud Boys rally moved suddenly from downtown Portland to a nearly 7-acre parking lot that surrounds an empty Kmart in the Parkrose neighborhood. Unsurprisingly, following speeches MC’d by right-wing brawler Tusitala “Tiny” Toese, anti-fascist counterprotesters pulled up in a white ambulance van, ready for a confrontation. A melee between the dueling groups ensued. The brawls spilled out onto adjacent 122nd Avenue, causing traffic to swerve out of the way and into the Parkrose High School parking lot. The groups shot off fireworks and paintballs, which splattered the streets
and nearby businesses, and one photojournalist was assaulted by what appeared to be a left-wing protester clad in black bloc. Neighbors told WW they felt terrorized. A nearby restaurant worker said they feared for employees’ and customers’ safety, causing the restaurant to shut down that day. Employees at the Wendy’s on 122nd said someone sprayed tear gas or pepper spray into the restaurant’s dining room. And as WW first reported, employees at the nearby Chevron gas station called 911 because they feared an explosion as protesters ignited fireworks within feet of the fuel pumps. “Yeah, so we have police monitoring the situation,” a Bureau of Emergency Communications operator told the employee who called. “If anything happens, like, if anything does catch a spark on your property, you can call us on 911 and we can send help. Police at this time are not intervening.” Police never showed up at Parkrose. Wheeler declared the day’s events a victory for public safety. (The mayor later walked back that statement.) East Portlanders heard the message loud and clear. For City Commissioner Carmen Rubio, this event crystallized the need for City Hall to prioritize East Portland and the people who live there. “Investing in communities—from strong schools and economic opportunities, to community services, affordable housing, and access to child care, parks, and recreation activities—all of these things are a violence prevention strategy, and the historic underinvestment in East Portland had very real, painful consequences across this year,” Rubio tells WW. “We took steps to begin correcting that, but our work must continue into 2022 and beyond.” T E S S R I S K I .
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Of all the Portland milestones set in 2021, two of the most tragic are new records for fatal traffic accidents and gun shootings. The epicenter for both may be the Hazelwood neighborhood, which runs east from Interstate 205 to 148th Avenue and is bounded on the north by Northeast Halsey Street and on the south by Southeast Division Street. Earlier this year, the advocacy group Oregon Walks released a study of three years of pedestrian fatalities. Its findings: 41 of the 48 deaths the group investigated occurred east of the Willamette River, and half of them east of 82nd Avenue. For traffic crashes, there’s no more dangerous place in Portland than Hazelwood. Over the past decade, according to the Portland Bureau of Transportation, crashes on outer Division have killed 20 people and seriously injured 107. Most were in or near Hazelwood. Oregon Walks found that’s because motorists drive too fast on poorly lit streets that are too wide and have too few crosswalks. The nonprofit’s executive director Ashton Simpson says there’s a new contributing factor this year—a third of the pedestrians killed in 2021 were unhoused. “You can’t allow people to sleep in such dangerous places,” Simpson says. “That’s a housing issue.” “So many places in East Portland were built for cars and not for people,” adds Mult-
nomah County Commissioner Jessica Vega Pederson. “We’re trying to change that perspective, but it takes time and a lot of money to do that.” PBOT has poured $120 million into its Vision Zero safety program, with much of it aimed at dangerous intersections in Hazelwood and nearby neighborhoods. But the crashes keep coming: The Portland Police Bureau has reported 65 traffic deaths through Dec. 17, the most since 1987. In a year that’s also seen more shootings and homicides than any period in Portland history, Hazelwood tops the list as well. Through the end of November, the Police Bureau has recorded 1,177 shootings, a new record—and more than three times the level it was just two years ago. The neighborhood with the most gun violence: Hazelwood, which saw 100 reported shootings through November. Vega Pederson, who lives in Hazelwood, says a neighbor who’s a frequent gardener recently discovered nearly 100 bullet casings in the street. “It’s different from before,” Vega Pederson says. She cites the pandemic, the loss of jobs, school time and social outlets and the jostling of people who have been pushed out of other parts of the city as contributing factors. “What’s happening in Hazelwood is a tragedy,” Vega Pederson says. “I think there’s a sense here that what happens in East Portland has been ignored forever.” N I G E L
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JAQ U I S S .
MOUNT TABOR
Early in 2021, a strange and wonderful visitor landed atop this extinct volcanic dome. A few hours after midnight on a late February morning, a then-anonymous sculptor carted a bust of York, the only Black member of Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery, up the hill and installed it without permission. The pedestal had previously held a monument to Harvey Scott, a former Oregonian editor and reactionary who opposed women’s suffrage. That statue had been yanked from its perch the prior October, part of a wave of felled monuments during racial justice protests. For a few months, York attracted curious and inspired onlookers to make pilgrimages up Tabor—finding on the mountaintop evidence that the people of Portland can create, not just destroy. For a while, anyway: Somebody knocked over the bust of York in July, hacking its face with a machete. At the end of last year, Mt. Tabor Park became the first location in Third Angle New Music’s immersive acoustic series called Soundwalks. During what had, at that point, become one of the darkest periods of the pandemic that saw soaring COVID cases and a second state-mandated freeze on businesses, the recording offered a one-hour respite from disease and despair.
Then, in the summer of 2021, once the widespread availability of vaccinations seemed to promise three sunny months of loosened restrictions and little to fear, a Portland Parks & Recreation-sanctioned pop-up concert took place at Mount Tabor. The agency, still acting out of caution, never announced that neo-soul group Moon Music would play live at the park, in order to keep the crowd size small. As for York: Its sculptor, Todd McGrain, later revealed his identity to WW, and has offered to create a new bust out of bronze (the original was polyurethane—a less durable material). That will require approval by both the Regional Arts & Culture Council and Portland Parks & Recreation. But the discussion about a permanent York can’t even begin until the fate of Harvey Scott—along with that of four other removed monuments—is determined. “Any decisions will have to wait for this community engagement process to play out,” says Jeff Hawthorne, the city’s arts program manager, “but I anticipate that we will get lots of community feedback.” In other words, making York an enduring part of Portland’s landscape will mean another rehashing of the past, another debate about what this city should look like. For now, the pedestal atop Mount Tabor will remain bare. A N D I P R E W I T T. Willamette Week DECEMBER 22, 2021 wweek.com
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STREET
IT SNOWED ON SANTACON Photos by Chris Nesseth On Instagram: @chrisnesseth
There was a true miracle on Southwest 3rd Avenue this weekend as fat, frosty snowflakes began falling on Saturday’s Stumptown SantaCon. It appeared that Santa, the god of Christmas, approved of the street closures and drunken Portlanders in Santawear—the women dressed disproportionately sexy to the men—dancing to Ariana Grande in his name. Let us never ridicule them again or risk his wrath.
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Willamette Week DECEMBER 22, 2021 wweek.com
STARTERS
T H E MOST I MP ORTANT P O RTLA N D C U LTU R E STORI E S OF T H E W E E K—G RA P H E D .
R E A D M O R E A B O U T TH E S E STO R I E S AT WW E E K .CO M .
RIDICULOUS
T R E E B E E R D S TA P H O U S E
See Holiday Hours at
Treebeerd’s Taphouse, a themed Lord of the Rings bar named for a tree giant, will soon open downtown.
www.footwise.com
COMFORT SHOES FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY under Store Locations
1433 NE Broadway St Portland • 503 493-0070
VISIT ECLIPTIC BREWING'S NEW SOUTHEAST LOCATION! S AG E B R O W N / B O TA N I S T
Botanist seemed to be doing everything right, but now the ginfocused cocktail bar is closing.
AW F U L
21+ TAPROOM & PATIO FEATURING CRAFT BEER, ARTISANAL SANDWICHES & COCKTAILS, PLUS AN EXTENSIVE GIN LIST.
AW E S O M E
The chef behind Authentica says he’s starting a burrito beer garden.
BREWERY 26
ECLIPTICBREWING.COM
JULIAN ALEXANDER
Powell-neighborhood Brewery 26 announces it will move to inner Southeast’s Ankeny corridor, providing yet another place to stop off for a beer on your way home.
930 SE OAK ST.
Ransomware hackers attack McMenamins!
J U S T I N YA U
PORTLAND’S MOST IMPORTANT STORIES SENT DIRECTLY TO YOUR INBOX
ODFW
Unionized Fred Meyer and QFC workers go on strike for a day and before reaching a tentative labor deal. The reward for information on who poisoned multiple Eastern Oregon wolf packs reaches $50,000.
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SERIOUS
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LITERARY HUB
GET BUSY
STUFF TO DO IN PORTLAND THIS WEEK, INDOORS AND OUT.
SEE | Christmas in Space (1977-78)
For the 10th anniversary of the Hollywood’s signature Re-Run Theater series, the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special (1978) and A Cosmic Christmas (1977) will screen as a retro-TV double feature. You can also expect plenty of outlandish ’70s and ’80s ads throughout the showing and special prize giveaways. Hollywood Theatre, 4122 NE Sandy Blvd., 503-493-1128, hollywoodtheatre.org. 7:30 pm Wednesday, Dec. 22. $8-$10.
�GO | Festivus at Hey Love
Frank Costanza, the patron saint of Festivus, would undoubtedly hate the bastardization of the holiday’s traditions, but any fan of Seinfeld should get a kick out of Hey Love’s gussied-up take and references to the nowiconic episode. The Feats of Strength will not involve any actual grappling—instead, you’ll eat and drink your way through that ritual, which includes dishes like “I was in the pool! There was shrinkage!”—a Nathan’s Famous all-beef kosher wiener wrapped in an egg roll. And live music by the Newrotics serves as the official Airing of Grievances. There will, however, be an actual Festivus pole, which by Costanza’s prescription, has a very high strength-to-weight ratio. Hey Love, 920 E Burnside St., 503-206-6223, heylovepdx.com. 4 pm Thursday, Dec. 23.
MUSIC Millennium WHERE SANTA SHOPS!
THOUSANDS THOUSANDS OF OF GREAT GREAT GIFT GIFT IDEAS IDEAS INCLUDING: INCLUDING:
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☛ DO | Feast of the Seven Fishes
This customary Italian Christmas Eve dinner started popping up in restaurants serving all sorts of cuisine in the past several years, exposing a greater number of curious diners to a meal centered on seafood. Campana’s version veers more traditional, with dishes like garlicky prawns, baked oysters and fried calamari in red sauce. There are modern preparations as well, such as a delectable crab-filled ravioli. Reserve two hours for this feast, which ends with olive oil cake and gelato. Courseby-course wine pairing is also available. Campana, 901 NE Oneonta St., 503-841-6195, campanapdx.com. 5-9 pm Friday, Dec. 24. $125 plus gratuity, $48 per person for the wine pairing.
Put a Bow under the tree. Priced from $45
Tired of cereal? We'll make you some eggs!
�GO | It’s Gonna Be Okay Free Comedy Show
S I R E N T H E AT E R
Over the summer, Barbara Holm passed her Monday EastBurn standup torch to Lewis Sequeira, who has kept the taphouse stage full of the area’s best standup talent. It’s Gonna Be Okay is one of those weekly shows where you can see Portland talent trying on new material and seeing what works—if it’s not working, EastBurn also serves dinner and craft beer. EastBurn, 1800 E Burnside St, theeastburn.com. 8 pm Monday, Dec. 27. Free.
�GO | Pussyfoot: A Standup Comedy Show
This baller little standup show looks to be one of those passion projects formed when comedians come home to visit family. Sean Jordan, Kirsten Kuppenbender, Milan Patel, Shelley McLendon, Julia Corral and Belinda Carroll pack the stage with star power to salute Carroll in style. This is her last show in Portland before moving to Atlanta. The Siren Theater, 315 NW Davis St., siretheater.com. 7:30 pm Thursday, Dec. 30. $12-$15.
969 SW Broadway ● 503-223-4976 Open daily at 8am. Mon-Sat 10 - 5, Sun 10 2239 - 5, Christmas SE HawthorneEve Blvd10 - 4 www.johnhelmer.com www.JamOnHawthorne.com
Open for indoor & Now accepting online outdoor dining! pre orders for 7Mother’s days a week - 2pm Day8am Brunch! Check out our menu at jamonhawthorne.com
Put a Bow under the tree. Priced from $45
☛DO | Movie Madness University: Revenge of the Flop
With the coming of the new year, don’t you think it’s time to get more serious about B movies? Movie Madness University has you covered. It jumps bright and early into self-actualization season with Revenge of the Flop: a series of screenings and lectures by Kia Anne Geraths dedicated to B movies and the greater films they inspired. Movie Madness, 4320 SE Belmont St., hollywoodtheatre.org. First class 7 pm Tuesday, Jan. 4. Register on the website. $60-$75.
969 SW Broadway ● 503-223-4976 Mon-Sat 10 - 5, Sun 10 - 5, Christmas Eve 10 - 4 www.johnhelmer.com Willamette Week DECEMBER 22, 2021 wweek.com
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FOOD & DRINK Long Live the Queen’s Head A new pub in Ankeny Alley serves up British hand pies and Atlantic Seaboard-style drag. J U S T I N YA U
EAST COAST STYLE: The Queen’s Head’s owner encourages Atlantic Seaboard-style drag, with more of a cabaret flair.
@andrewjank
Drag is different on the Atlantic Seaboard, according to Daniel Bund, owner of downtown Portland’s newest lounge, the Queen’s Head. Originally from Portland—cousin to Wayne Bund, a local artist and WW contributor—Bund spent several years living on the East Coast and in the U.K. There he performed drag with what he describes as a more cabaret flair. “The drag environment I grew up in was really eclectic,” he says. “You had to be really creative. You had to be clever, which is not to disdain anyone performing here.” All total, Bund has been performing drag for almost 20 years. He describes a fondness for theatrical drag performance, with live music and comedy bits, but generally defers to his network of producers to book live entertainment at the Queen’s Head. Just opened at the end of November, the Queens Head is an English-style pub and lounge occupying the space once home to Tryst and, before that, Berbati’s Pan. Bund sees the Queen’s presence as an overt return of the LGBTQ+ community to Ankeny Alley—a stretch of Portland’s downtown closed to car traffic and home to bars, restaurants and clubs like Shanghai Tunnel, Dan & Louis Oyster Bar, and Kit Kat Club. “[Our new neighbors] are all really happy that we’re open because we bring a different energy and a different kind of mentality back to that area,” Bund tells WW. He says success will look different for the Queens Head than it does for fútbol bars and across-the-pond rock clubs. Bund noted that LGBTQ+ audiences seem more hesitant to go out and stay out late due to the coronavirus’s Delta and Omicron variants, 24
Willamette Week DECEMBER 22, 2021 wweek.com
so making people who do come out feel welcome is especially important. “I feel like this is worth it,” Bund says. “I’m getting a lot of people coming up to me and being appreciative of the space and what we’re doing, and that feels good. It feels like we’re doing the right thing.” Queen’s Head hosts drag shows and burlesque performances five nights a week, but Bund also hopes to create a pub atmosphere—though he also jokes that Portland doesn’t lack for pubs. He hired chef Antha Hansen to write a shifting menu of bar snacks and comfort food drawn from across the U.K.’s Commonwealth. Hansen’s menu boasts coronation chicken sandwiches (roasted chicken with sliced grapes and sweet and spicy chutney), cucumber and watercress sandwiches, baked Brazilian coxhina dumplings, curry hand pies, and customizable charcuterie boards with chicken and lamb skewers, roasted mushrooms, and fresh cheeses served on tiered high tea trays. The Queen’s Head also serves supper club specials, with Hansen ready to switch out with vegan substitutes. A recent queer prom party plated marinated pulled pork or fresh oysters, which Hansen says could have been swapped with sautéed mushrooms or smoky-marinated shredded veggies. “This is not an insult, but a lot of the [queer] bar spaces in town, the food is an afterthought,” Bund said. “There’s a legal requirement to serve food at a bar, and some places will do the bare minimum. That’s great if that works for them, but we wanted to actually go for it on the food and try to fit into that hole in the market.” While the lounge doesn’t have a signature cocktail yet, Bund
J U S T I N YA U
BY A N D R E W J A N KO S K I
and Hansen plan to include a range of gin-based drinks as well as tequila and vodka concoctions—they’ve noticed a demand from their clientele. “Some things might work, some things might not work,” Bund says, “so it’s going to be a process of trying stuff out, figuring out what sticks, and adjusting and growing from there.” GO: The Queen’s Head, 19 SW 2nd Ave., 503-206-6293, thequeensheadpdx.com. 5 pm-midnight Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday; 5 pm-1 am Friday, 5 pm-2 am Saturday.
Buzz List
Hot Plates
10 DRINKS WE’RE STILL SIPPING ON FROM 2021.
10 MEALS WE’RE STILL THINKING ABOUT FROM 2021. HENRY CROMETT
THOMAS TEAL
almost anyone could appreciate following a tense year. Need to lick your way into a sweet, blissful oblivion? There’s whipped-toorder ice cream blasted with liquid nitrogen. Want to spend the afternoon knocked out on the couch? One of Nacheaux’s fried-andsmothered odes to both Mexican and Cajun cooking will induce a nap. And if you simply need a beer to take the edge off, there is also a well-curated, 20-deep tap list.
6. PORTLAND CÀ PHÊ
2815 SE Holgate Blvd., 503-841-5787, portlandcaphe.com. 8 am-3 pm daily. If you follow the Portland food scene, you’ve surely seen what’s already become a signature snap of the Southeast Holgate coffee shop on your socials: Portland Cà Phê’s perfect purple ube latte held aloft in front of a wall-sized map of Vietnam. The ube latte features a subtly sugary, bright purple ube root extract—it’s not nearly as sweet as the grape hue might lead you to think. Same goes for a rose matcha, which hits the right bitter green tea notes, but with a delicate floral finish. They both taste as good as they look.
1. PUSH X PULL
821 SE Stark St., pushxpullcoffee.com. 8 am-2 pm Monday-Friday, 8 am-3 pm Saturday-Sunday. Coffee may be ubiquitous in our city, but Christopher Hall, the 37-year-old co-founder of coffee roaster and cafe Push x Pull, possesses a singular focus on natural process beans. “Natural process” refers to fermentation of the entire coffee cherry after harvesting. In Push x Pull’s capable hands, the results are flavorful espresso shots and captivating cortados.
2. SMITH TEAMAKER
500 NW 23rd Ave.,503-206-745, smithtea. com. 9 am-6 pm daily. Located on Northwest 23rd Avenue, the first-ever Smith Teamaker cafe is a quiet space on the busy boutique street. The cafe serves 30 kinds of hot tea, but the curious come in for colorful lattes and aromatic tea mocktails. The Golden Light Latte is a major favorite and can be served iced or hot. It’s made by pulling Smith Golden Light tea— with turmeric, sarsaparilla root, and black pepper—through an espresso (or “teapresso”) machine, then adding maple syrup and dousing the blend with oat milk. The result is a beautiful, complex, sweet and softly spiced drink that goes mind-bendingly well with one of the pastry case’s sea salt-sprinkled miso-peanut butter cookies.
3. BELLWETHER
6031 SE Stark St., 503-432-8121, instagram. com/bellwetherbarco. 4-11 pm daily. The climb up Southeast Stark Street to 60th Avenue is steep. But that just makes the little pub at the top of the hill tastier for the effort. From the hazy, romantic back patio to the roaring front room, Bellwether feels like a pub that fell into the world fully formed. The cocktails are named in an egalitarian manner, numbered from 1 to 8. The 1 is perfect for summer: rye whiskey, sweet vermouth, cranberry grenadine and salt, served with a curled lemon rind. Not overly sweet, the tangy little number is like a loud, talkative friend whose energy you can’t help but find cheerful. Where Bellwether’s cocktails eschew clever titles, its wines pick up the slack. The selection includes an Orange Wine for Beginners and an Orange Wine for the Brave.
4. TINY BUBBLE ROOM
2025 N Lombard St., 503-208-2660, tinybubbleroom.com. 3-10 pm daily. Growing up in Northeast Portland, Jeremy Lewis remembers family dinners at the Lung Fung Chinese restaurant. Now, the place is his. His new bar, Tiny Bubble Room, is named for Lung Fung’s adjoining old-school lounge, and gives Arbor Lodge and Kenton a “not-sodivey dive” similar to Roscoe’s in Montavilla, which Lewis also owns.
5. BLIND OX
4765 NE Fremont St., 503-841-5092, blindoxpdx.com. Noon-10 pm Sunday-Thursday, noon-11 pm Friday-Saturday. Portland’s Beaumont-Wilshire neighborhood is home to a micro version of the ever-popular food hall. Divvying up the building means that Blind Ox has a unique array of painkillers
8. LITTLE BEAST BREWING
412 SE Division St., 503-208-2723, littlebeastbrewing.com. 1:30-10 pm Monday-Thursday, 1:30-11 pm Friday, noon-11 pm Saturday, noon10 pm Sunday. Fans of farmhouse ales have been flocking to Little Beast’s cozy bungalow since 2018, where you’ll find some of the city’s most captivating yeast-focused beverages crafted by Charles Porter, who made a name for himself in the beer industry at Deschutes and Logsdon before starting his own brand. Now Little Beast has a new partner in the kitchen: Lawless Barbecue. Kansas transplant Kevin Koch has gifted Portlanders a taste of his home state in the form of a 13-hour smoked prime brisket, burnt ends, spare ribs and pulled pork. Don’t sleep on these meats—Koch regularly ran out of food when he launched Lawless at the beginning of the year as a takeout-only joint, and he promises they pair perfectly with Porter’s beer.
9. MIDNIGHT SOCIETY
3341 SE Belmont St., themidnightsocietypdx. net. 4 pm-midnight Tuesday-Thursday, 4 pm-2 am Friday-Saturday. When it’s an option, vermut de la casa is the best and cheapest vermouth choice you can make—and is assuredly the least FDA approved. Midnight Society co-owner and bartender Estanislado Orona makes two secret-menu blends. The white combines Dolin Dry and Padró & Co.’s Myrrha Blanco with saline to give the sweet and nutty mix a tang, like sour verjus. The red is a mix of Dolin and Cocchi Storico reds, set over cacao nibs for a week. The first sip is cherry cola and fudge. As it mellows on ice, clove and banana come out.
10. COOPERATIVA
1250 NW 9th Ave., Suite 100, 503-342-7416, cooperativapdx.com. 7:30 am-9 pm Wednesday-Saturday. New to the menu at the Pearl’s Italian market, the World Vermut Tour flight comes with three 3-ounce pours to remind drinkers that— to quote bar manager Joel Schmeck—“really killer vermouths” are made internationally and domestically. Alongside Spanish Lustau vermut rosé and Cnia Mata red vermouth, Cooperativa features Son of Man’s “Someday” vermouth. Made with the Basque-style Sagardo cider, brewed in Cascade Locks, this dry white warps the vermouth category—a category known to have few requisites other than being made with wine. The cloudy yellow bottle carries tart sips of kumquat and rhubarb.
1733 NE Alberta St., 503-975-5951, gumba-pdx.com. 4:30-8 pm Wednesday, 4:308:30 pm Thursday-Monday. As a food cart, Gumba punched above its weight, serving fresh pastas, handmade burrata and ambitious snacks that made you want to linger at an outdoor table. Now it’s a brick-and-mortar in a time of takeout only— but you’ll still want to break out the candles, placemats and cloth napkins once you get the food home: No meal in 2020 provided more of a “this feels like we are in a restaurant” frisson than Gumba’s beet, cabbage and endive salad, pappardelle with braised beef sugo, pan-roasted steelhead trout, and eggplant olive oil cake.
6. TOKI
7. NALU
722 N Sumner St., 503-519-3415, nalukava. com. 5-11 pm Thursday-Sunday. Up a steep flight of stairs, through an alley behind North Portland’s Cherry Sprout Produce, you’ll find an intimate, homespun tea room. The interior sports a few tables and a canopied pillowed nook, but the second-story patio is the real draw. Nalu makes its kava tea using real roots. “Squeezing the roots,” owner Holland Mulder says. “It’s a beautiful process.” The kava tea is especially important to Mulder, and it’s the main drink she wanted to serve when she opened the small secret tea bar in March 2018.
5. GUMBA
1. BAON KAINAN
4311 NE Prescott St., baonkainan.com. 5-8 pm Thursday-Monday, 11 am-3 pm Saturday-Sunday. The biggest standout dish at this hot new Filipino food cart located in the Metalwood Salvage lot is its kare kare fries. The classic braised beef peanut stew is thickened and poured over fries, aided by a dollop of shrimp paste and bright red pickled Fresno chiles. The result puts poutine to shame, but be sure to eat them as soon as they come out of the cart’s window—the fries hold up, but they’re best when eaten hyperfresh.
2. YĀYĀ PDX
1451 NE Alberta St., 503-477-5555, yayapdx. com. 4-9 pm Wednesday-Sunday. Chef Steven Chin calls Cantonese barbecue his soul food, and you really feel that. The streamlined menu focuses on serving meat over rice with hot mustard, dipping sauce and pickled cucumber and carrot. It’s simple and it’s great. YāYā particularly nails the duck and char siu pork. Of all the duck we’ve sampled (and it’s been many; sorry to our avian friends), Chin’s is the most five-spice forward. The ducks he selects also have more meat on the bone than many others, leading to luscious full bites of bird. As Cantonese duck is served chopped and bone-in, this means a bigger and better payoff as you nibble.
3. DERBY
8220 Denver Ave., 503-719-7976, derbypdx. com. 9 am-2 pm Wednesday-Sunday, 5-10 pm Thursday-Sunday. Judith Stokes’ Derby is both a work in progress and an act of imagination: an all-in-one restaurant, bar, cafe and market with a patio for outdoor dining and events like live music and drag bingo. For now, Derby is first and foremost a brunch restaurant offering up the classic paralyzing choice: sweet or savory. If you’re dining in a group of four, no problem: You can split the cardamom custard French toast, mini macadamia nut waffles, massive (20-ounce) breakfast burrito, and the white cheddar, arugula and mustard aioli breakfast sandwich. You may also want some sides, like pandesal sweet rolls—not unlike Hawaiian sweet rolls, but with a more substantial crust and crumb—and longanisa sausage, a nod to Stokes’ Filipino heritage.
4. THE SOOP
1902 W Burnside St., 971-710-1483, thesoopportland.com. 10 am-8 pm Monday-Friday, 11 am-8 pm Saturday. The Soop has certainly been mistaken for a kitschy soup spot more than once. However, soop is a Korean word for forest, and when you visit, you’ll see why the name fits so well. Especially in the evening, the cozy restaurant glows with shades of warm magenta emanating from lamps that hang over microgreen planters in the kitchen. It’s strange to imagine fresh lettuce could make such a difference, but everything on Ann Lee’s somewhat eccentric menu—dishes as dissimilar as bibimbap, chicken and microgreen nachos, and even a BLT— benefits from the microgreens treatment.
580 SW 12th Ave., 503-312-3037, tokipdx.com. Dinner served 4-8 pm Wednesday-Sunday, brunch 11 am-3 pm Friday-Sunday. At the moment, Toki is for all intents and purposes Han Oak, with a menu that includes both greatest hits and revised versions of other old favorites. But there’s also food that chef Cho was not inclined to cook much in the past, including bibimbap and a steamed bao burger, maybe the world’s first reheating-friendly cheeseburger. The star item, though, is the Gim-bap Supreme, which takes its inspiration from both Taco Bell and the TikTok “wrap” trend, in which a tortilla is partially cut into four quadrants, topped with four different ingredients, folded into layers, and griddled.
7. BOCCI’S ON 7TH
1728 SE 7th Ave., 503-234-1616, boccison7th. com. 4-9 pm Friday-Sunday. Bocci’s on Southeast 7th isn’t hip, but it avoids being stodgy. It’s not gourmet but is still wonderfully delicious. Walking in, you’ll be greeted by super-warm staff, and possibly the sounds of Bob Dylan floating from the kitchen, before being set up with free housebaked bread—dense and soft with a crusty, salty edge—served with olive oil and vinegar. Their star dish is the chicken Marsala: a generous chicken breast lightly breaded and still very moist, served piping hot over spaghetti and a Marsala wine sauce that was buttery and rich without being painfully decadent.
8. BUDDY’S STEAKS
5235 NE Sandy Blvd., 215-694-8095, buddyssteaks.com. 3-8 pm Friday and Monday, noon8 pm Saturday and Sunday, or until sold out. 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.
9. EVERYBODY EATS
138 NW 10th Ave., 503-318-1619, everybodyeatspdx.com. 3-10 pm Monday-Friday, 11 am-10 pm Saturday, 10 am-6 pm Sunday. Launched as a catering service on the outer eastside, Everybody Eats has moved into the heart of the Pearl District, bringing a menu inspired by co-owner Johnny Huff Jr.’s family roots in Texas and Louisiana. The showstopper is the Ultimate Seafood Mac-and-Cheese: shrimp, lobster and crab mixed in with cheese sauce and noodles, with half a lobster tail, two prawns and lump of crab meat on top.
10. CHAYO
3601 SE Division St., instagram.com/chayopdx. Lunch 11:30 am-2 pm, dinner 4:30-8 pm dinner Thursday-Saturday, 11:30 am-6 pm Sunday. When he dreamed of opening a loncheria in 2018, David Lizaola imagined serving classic Jaliscan lonches on lime- and beer-enriched birote. When he couldn’t find birote in Portland, he pivoted to ciabatta—and while it may not be traditional, it’s still damn good. In the Hot Oli, Lizaola gives his pork loin an adobado treatment by massaging the cuts with a blend of guajillo pepper, herbs, alliums, and warming spices. It’s a perfect sandwich.
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Willamette Week DECEMBER 22, 2021 wweek.com
POTLANDER COURTESY OF SMOKUS POCUS
The Year in Weed Here’s a refresher on 2021’s cannabis milestones. BY B R I A N N A W H E E L E R
This year, two major sports associations finally admitted they were way overreacting to weed. A bunch of new cannabinoids dropped—one was three times stronger than THC. And Rihanna slayed an editorial photo spread dressed as a whole-ass joint. These were bright spots in a year when violent robberies and disciplinary disparities laid bare the Wild West realities of the modern cannabis industry. Unprecedented heat waves threatened users and farms alike, and fires once again swept through fertile Southern Oregon valleys and broad eastern plains, painting the skies apocalypse orange. Even though this industry is still untangling itself from both a clandestine past and an inhospitable future, it’s capable of changing cultural and ecological landscapes for generations to come. So let’s look back and celebrate the highlights of 2021.
MARCH
N.Y. Goes Rec Using, having and growing (up to 12 plants per household) all became legal in New York in 2021, but the state likely won’t see its first recreational dispensaries until 2022—when the brandnew Office of Cannabis Management and the Cannabis Control Board hand down the state’s regulations. A bonus: New York intends to distribute a number of on-premises consumption licenses for dispensaries as well. New Amsterdam may be dead, but I’m booking my New New Amsterdam vacation ASAP.
APRIL
NFL Stops Testing for Weed in the Offseason The NFL finally backed down from requiring compulsory THC drug testing during the offseason, and players can no longer be suspended for testing positive for cannabis.
JUNE
Sha’Carri Richardson Qualifies for the Olympic Games and Then Is Suspended for THC Sha’Carri became an instant icon for her record-breaking speed, flawless lace fronts, glittering stiletto nails and captivating authenticity well before her unfortunate test results. Richardson consumed an edible in Eugene, where she was competing in her first Olympic trials. It showed up on her test and she was suspended for a month, leaving her ineligible to join the U.S. team. Still, the subsequent backlash prompted the World Anti-Doping Agency to reexamine its antiquated stance on marijuana, which was a huge step forward for the normalization of therapeutic cannabis, particularly in regard to mental health. The World’s First Cannabis-Themed Comedy-Magic Show Launches in Portland Ben Zabin, a lifelong magician (and former weed dealer of the skinny, white college-dorm variety), launched Smokus Pocus, a first-of-its-kind, one-man comedy-magic show created specifically for a stoned audience. Now tourists can add weed comedy to their must-do lists, alongside bookstore spectating and coffee sniffing.
PUFF OF SMOKE: Portland-based magician Ben Zabin unveiled Smokus Pocus, a comedy-magic show for stoners.
East Fork Cultivars Opens Portland’s First Low-THC Cannabis Cafe Taxonomically, there is no difference between low-THC hemp and cannabis. It’s all just weed, so East Fork Cultivars’ Hemp Bar is technically just a cannabis cafe that exclusively sells hemp. The shop’s opening, however, was groundbreaking with its super-accessible, neighborhood juice bar vibe. Order your CBD juice mocktails, coffee drinks and teas at the Gatsby-esque bar. Smoking is on the patio only.
JULY
Connecticut Goes Rec The tri-state area continues its march toward total legalization as Connecticut becomes the newest state to approve cannabis for recreational use. In personal news, I will no longer be buying weed behind a gas station when visiting my in-laws. Delta-8 Gains in Popularity An old cannabinoid caught the attention of a new generation of users when delta-8 THC, a mildly psychoactive minor cannabinoid isolated from federally legal hemp, became available via mail order. Unlike its cousin delta-9 THC (the cannabinoid that gets us stoned), delta-8’s effects skew therapeutic. Data and time will tell what users can consistently expect from delta-8, but in 2021, every mail order CBD company had at least one vaguely described delta-8 gummy in its inventory.
AUGUST
Weed Returns to Apple’s App Store Apple previously banned apps that facilitated cannabis sales
or use, but as of August, apps like Weedmaps and Leafly—both of which let users to order weed delivery—and the Pax, which facilitates vape control on a user’s phone, were officially available for download once more. N.J. Goes Rec And just like that, the tri-state completes its transition from recreation holdout to full cannabis legalization.
SEPTEMBER
THC-O Arrives THC-O, the cannabinoid three times stronger than THC, made headlines as a synthetic cannabinoid that—because it is derived from hemp—was federally legal. Perhaps someday soon we’ll all have the cojones to give it a try. Rihanna Dresses as a Joint for Dazed Mag Our queen, Rihanna, showed up for the culture once again, wearing an inconceivably chic, impossibly editorial, unreasonably camp joint dress for Dazed magazine’s 30th anniversary issue.
OCTOBER
USPS Says No More Vapes Due to federal legislation that primarily targeted the mailing of nicotine vaping devices, the United States Postal Service issued a rule that prohibits sending vaping products through the mail, including hemp cannabis products. Alternative cannabinoid companies that operate online only can still ship flower, edibles, tinctures and capsules. We’ll have to wait till the next regulatory overhaul to legally order THC-O vapes (which is just as well because we are still low-key afraid of them). Willamette Week DECEMBER 22, 2021 wweek.com
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GAMES
Best Video Games of 2021 Here are the worlds we explored indoors. BY N O L A N G O O D
We spent a lot of 2021 indoors, insulated from ice storms or heat waves or just playing it safe from new strains of the coronavirus. It was quite a year for video games and for wide masses of fans to be moved by this truly unique art form. Thanks to online gaming, space collapsed and the world found passion for an Australian puzzle narrative about unpacking a woman’s clothes. But the Pacific Northwest got a few nods in there too. Here’s our list of our favorite worlds explored indoors in 2021. WITCH BEAM
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Resident Evil: Village The Resident Evil series contains an entire spectrum of quality. As often as Capcom revolutionizes a genre with a masterwork, it drops a dud that even dedicated fans end up split on. Village, the eighth mainline game, could have gone either way, but it luckily stuck the landing with a synthesis of the game’s eras that hits just about every note. The up close and personal horror of 7, the high-octane madness of 4, the international super-spy absurdity of 6, the gamey puzzle box of 1—it’s all here and somehow coherent. Pure, triple-A luxury gaming that lets you turn your brain off, laugh and have an incredible time.
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Hitman 3 The Hitman games are like clockwork puzzle boxes: intricate, interlocking things that beg you to push and prod at them to see what happens. Within those spaces, your goal is simple. Kill the target. Because the levels are so layered and nuanced—not just spatially but in the way characters move and work within them— Hitman 3 becomes a game of outwitting the target and manipulating the circumstances in your favor. Though it fails to hit the highs of Hitman 2’s brilliance, it’s more of what the series does best with a new coat of paint. Its levels are as pretty and exotic as ever, its villains as dastardly, and its childish, fun fantasy of sticking it to the rich and powerful about as fine tuned as it can be. EGGNUT
uncover. Sable is, to date, the game that most thoroughly understands and iterates on that paradigm shift. Ditching the combat of its inspiration, Sable laser-focuses on the feeling of freedom and personal expression that Breath of the Wild near perfected, but improves on it with a more meaningful sense of progression, a more believable and intriguing world, and a sense of scale and place not dependent on differing biomes. When coming of age, the people of the titular Sable’s nomadic tribe receive a sand-speeder-like bike and embark on a journey to find their calling. The world, wide and full of disparate but connected peoples, embraces these travelers and hopes to help them in their soul-searching. Sable asks no more of players than to explore its beautiful lands and do whatever they find interesting. Its cel-shaded art imbues a surrealist, mythic quality— its Japanese Breakfast-composed score infuses a melancholic reflectiveness. Beyond those qualities, it’s also just a damn fun game to play, with well-designed puzzles and environments rivaling Nintendo’s own.
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Lost Judgment Continuing the experience set up by previous Judgment games (and the Yakuza series before that), Lost Judgment is unsurprisingly a veering crime drama full of absurdNESTER: Unpacking’s gameplay unfolds as a series of puzzles ist humor in equal measure wherein the player helps a woman organize her room. to its dramatic gravity. One moment you’ll discuss systemic bullying and the flaws Unpacking ality and choices. We choose whether her of the Japanese legal system, and the next Such wide possibility exists in video childhood art is prominently displayed or you’ll hang out with a detective dog and ride games, yet time and time again the packed away. We struggle to find space for all a skateboard. At the end of it all, you’ll wonmost prolific titles opt to explore different her clothes in a new boyfriend’s closet. We der how it worked so well. ways to fight. Unpacking instead follows the nervously place her personal effects alongThe games beneath the Yakuza umbrella indie tradition of gamifying the mundane side a roommate’s on the common shelf. have a unique knack for creating believby placing players in the shoes of a woman Unpacking quietly fabricates nostalgia and able, dense worlds full of life and detail that, a sense of change, and we meditate on our long after you finish playing, linger in your as she unpacks and furnishes living spaces own things: what they mean to us, and what mind as real places. There’s a willingness through various stages of her life. It’s notable not just for its emotional resthey might mean to someone else playing to gamify things that are almost objectively onance, beautiful art, and stunning audio through our own moves, sifting through pointless within the context of the game— work, but for how strongly it struck a chord our stuff and inferring our thoughts and picking your blend of coffee at a cafe, playing with general audiences despite its premise. aspirations through them. darts in the bar after a shot of Glenfiddich It’s not hard to see why: Unpacking’s word12, taste-testing your landlord’s cooking— less tour of its protagonist’s life does not Sable that creates a sense of stepping briefly into contain much drama or explicit story, but In 2017, The Legend of Zelda: Breath someone’s life. Play enough of these games rather fragments of time and the flavor of of the Wild shook up the genre of and you’ll feel like a local. Quality can vary life itself. We see only pieces of someone, open-world games and reframed our colwith each entry, but the whole series feels which illustrate and allude to her personlective thinking on what such worlds could like home.
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onorable Mention, Pacific Northwest Game: Backbone Backbone, a game about systemic violence, power structures and class disparity, is perfectly suited to its Vancouver, British Columbia, setting. In it, the city is equal parts post-Soviet decay and the earthy, rain-slicked port town familiar to anyone who has spent time in the Pacific Northwest. In the manner of an old film noir, Backbone covers its dystopian city of anthropomorphic animals with a layer of dread and greed. While exploring the various districts of future Vancouver, players experience what, at first, appears to be a “what if Zootopia were rough” riff, but in the end explore a great deal of meaning while characters share their thoughts on collectivism, community and greed alike. The gloomy, gray rain of the region reinforces the melancholy, but the beautiful vistas of the Salish Sea and all the foliage framing it throw some hope and beauty into the mix. Backbone is a strange game, but undoubtedly one which “gets’’ its setting and wouldn’t have worked as well anywhere else.
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Willamette Week DECEMBER 22, 2021 wweek.com
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PERFORMANCE
Editor: Andi Prewitt | Contact: aprewitt@wweek.com C L AC K A M A S R E P E R T O R Y T H E AT R E
MUSIC Now Hear This Listening recommendations from the past, present, Portland and the periphery.
BY DANIEL BROMFIELD // @BROMF3
SOMETHING OLD
If you’re still ambivalent about Bob Dylan after hearing “Visions of Johanna,” you’ll never be persuaded otherwise. The third and best track on 1966’s Blonde on Blonde is far from a standard, perhaps because it’s so obtuse that the only way to cover it convincingly is to know what it’s about. But what it’s about is entirely irrelevant: This is Dylan at the peak of his writing, with some of the most intense imagery ever found in a rock-’n’-roll song (listen in particular to how the ending seems to tie up all the loose ends while leaving nothing resolved whatsoever). SOMETHING NEW
What happens when a really good guitarist ventures into the coffeehouse-cliché world of looping pedals? Jeff Parker’s Forfolks is one answer. The Tortoise guitarist doesn’t just improvise over snippets of his own playing, he takes individual tones and loops them into ambient blurs, creating a real sense of momentum rather than simply building layers. His solos, meanwhile, are sweetly melodic. There’s one line on “Four Folks” that’s reminiscent of Billy Idol’s “White Wedding” and an old Boy Scouts song. It’s both, it’s neither—it’s jazz. SOMETHING LOCAL
SOMETHING ASKEW
Jana Rush’s Painful Enlightenment must be one of the most harrowing electronic albums ever made, a stark and uncompromising visualization of the artist’s depression. Opener “Moanin’” has us thinking the Chicago producer’s third album might just be a five-finger exercise, so deftly does it flip its central freejazz sax sample, but the next track, “Suicidal Ideation,” dispels that thought: nine minutes of arrhythmic drums, belligerent male voices, and what sounds like violence with a machete. Not for the faint of heart. 30
Willamette Week DECEMBER 22, 2021 wweek.com
7 THE SUNSHINE BOYS: Tom Walton (left) and Mark Schwahn were a bright spot in Popcorn Falls during a year that featured often-somber local theater productions.
The Top 10 1 Portland Plays of 2021
Popcorn Falls (Clackamas Repertory Theatre) Performed outdoors on the grounds of Clackamas Community College, this delightfully deranged political satire starred Tom Walton and Mark Schwahn as miscreants trying to save their community from being turned into a sewage treatment plant.
During the second year of the pandemic, virtual theater thrived even as in-person plays returned. BY B E N N E T T C A M P B E LL FE RG U SO N
Theater as we know it was back in Portland in 2021. Or was it? Yes, there were in-person plays, sumptuous sets and curtain speeches that seemed to last as long as Hamlet, but something was amiss. Maybe it was fear of the Delta and Omicron variants. Maybe it was the abundance of ruthlessly realistic plays in a year when we were desperate for escapism. Maybe it was that multiple theater companies thought that checking vaccine cards made it safe to pack audiences dangerously close together. I won’t lie—the state of Portland theater in 2021 sometimes left me disheartened. Yet even as I grew frustrated by misreadings of the public mood and cavalier attitudes toward social distancing, I was thrilled by the innovation I witnessed on both stages and screens. While many theaters reopened their doors, virtual work endured and flourished. The lifting of restrictions may have allowed for old joys—getting to see the giant yellow moon with a face at Twilight Theater Company warmed my weary heart—but it was also invigorating to see brilliant artists continue to experiment with film. As I ranked my 10 favorite Portland plays of 2021, I felt the trauma of the pandemic shaping my choices. In the past, I might have saved the top spot for a somber drama about the human condition. This year, my No. 1 pick is one of the silliest plays I’ve seen in my entire adult life. Some would call the play in question a comedy. I call it a public service.
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Chosen (Fertile Ground Festival) Alissa Jessup’s virtual one-woman show about meeting her biological mother was devastating and moving. With her performance and a camera, she did more than most theater companies do with an ensemble and a stage.
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Capax Infiniti (The Theatre Company) What do we really mean when we call a woman “a Karen”? That question was the soul of this scorching short film, which was written by DeLanna Studi and starred Laura Faye Smith as a bigoted, grief-stricken entrepreneur.
The Mineola Twins (Profile Theatre) I’m obsessed with Paula Vogel’s politically provocative plays, so I dug her tale of two warring twins, one liberal and one conservative. I was also impressed with how Profile used virtual sets to create gorgeous, collage-style images
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Today Is My Birthday (Artists Repertory Theatre) A story of isolation and connection told mostly through phone calls, this audio production of Susan Soon He Stanton’s poignant play made my heart ache in the best way possible. Don’t worry if you missed it—it’s still available on Artists Rep’s website.
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Professor Jekyll and Miss Hyde (Theatre Berk) A crafty mix of film noir, slasher horror and post-#MeToo revenge fantasies.
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Bojangles of Harlem (Stumptown Stages) Pure joy. To watch Jarran Muse tap dance atop a staircase was to be reminded of the power of feelgood theater. S H AW N T E S I M S
If you love the aesthetic of a driver peering out from under dark sunglasses while whooshing through a neon cityscape to the throb of a synthesized bassline, you have Italians Do It Better to thank. The Portland label founded in 2006 by producer and sonic mastermind Johnny Jewel helped refine the ’80s-worshipping synthwave genre into a phenomenon. Its latest offering is an album of Madonna covers, also called Italians Do It Better, that brings a little of the actual ’80s into a sound that’s more about the decade’s mythos than real revivalism.
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The Ballad of Aurelie the Bold: A Grimm Brothers Story of Iron and Gold (Bag&Baggage Productions) Elliot Lorenc wrote and starred in this virtual musical, which reconfigured the Brothers Grimm saga of Iron John for the 21st century. Among its many charms, it gave us the most uproarious line in any Portland play this year: “Hello, lowly village peasants. My name is Skyler and I am a talking goose.”
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Refuge (Shaking the Tree Theatre) Goddesses, assemble! In this beautifully surreal multimedia installation, 11 deities united to deliver wisdom and warnings for a post-Trump, post-COVID-19 America.
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Distancias (Hand2Mouth Theatre) Theater about the pandemic created during the pandemic risks feeling instantly dated, but in this wondrous film series, Geo Alva, Robi Arce and Michael Cavazos imagined a ripped-fromthe-headlines dream world that felt both strange and true.
H
onorable mentions: Barbecue (Portland Playhouse), Becoming Understood (Fuse Theatre Ensemble), The Carlalogues (Artists Rep), Family (Shaking the Tree), Fezziwig’s Fortune (Fertile Ground), The Last Five Years and Loch Lomond (Broadway Rose Theatre Company) and The Vertical City (Artists Rep).
APPLE / A24
MOVIES
Editor: Andi Prewitt / Contact: aprewitt@wweek.com
Best Animated First nod goes to The Mitchells vs the Machines. This Lord and Miller-produced romp feels like it was written by an exploding joke machine yet tenderly captures family chaos before and during a robot uprising. (See also: Flee, Luca.) Best Cinematography Joel Coen’s first solo directorial outing, The Tragedy of Macbeth, owes everything to its astounding visual language. Cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel often shoots the Scottish Play from towering heights, as though Macbeth were unfolding in shadowy, limestone pits. (See also: The Power of the Dog, The Killing of Two Lovers.)
Best Films of 2021 Despite the ongoing pandemic, quality movies returned to the screens this year. Here are our favorites. BY C H A N C E SO L E M - P FE I FER
Best New Face Let’s be literal and just talk about Mike Faist’s face in West Side Story. The 29-year-old theater star pops from moment one as Jets gang leader Riff, with an angular, vulpine visage that morphs fascinatingly from playful to dangerous. (See also: Ariana DeBose, Kodi Smit-McPhee.) Best Actor Turned Filmmaker It’s a Rebecca Hall-Maggie Gyllenhaal tie. The former directed Passing, a complex racial period piece featuring two of the year’s most effective yet difficult performances by Tessa Thompson and Ruth Negga. Then, the elder Gyllenhaal cleverly adapted The Lost Daughter, a split-timeline Elena Ferrante novel about the scars of parenthood.
The Velvet Underground? Though dwarfed in scope and discourse by Peter Jackson’s Beatles behemoth, Haynes’ latest is a masterful ode to the Velvets—formally matching their ambitious, elusive and singular impact. (See also: Summer of Soul.) Best Ridley Scott Movie Despite losing $70 million, The Last Duel boasts one of the year’s best scripts—a Rashomon-esque story of rape and revenge, with medieval brutality both damning and energizing. (See also: House of Gucci, if you prefer overacting to storytelling.) Artist of the Year No one was busier and more acclaimed than Ryusuke Hamaguchi, the Japanese auteur behind love-and-loss epic Drive My Car and the vignette triptych The Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy. And if that’s not enough, he also co-wrote Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Wife of a Spy. Best Car Sex (With Car, Not in Car) It’s easy to write about Titane as shock cinema, but look past the insanity of its automobile erotica, and Julia Ducournau’s body horror extravaganza (like 2016’s Raw) offers deft execution of a perversely humane story. Purest Adrenaline Hit Measured only by octane, this one goes out to Janicaza Bravo’s Zola, a thrilling adaptation of a tweet thread into an unpredictable sex-work odyssey. Hang on.
Guiltiest Pleasure There’s no good reason to like Jungle Cruise. It humanizes conquistadors, the Rock’s conception of movie stardom remains bafflingly lame, his romantic chemistry with Emily Blunt is laughable. But director Jaume Collet-Serra’s keen sense of pacing both through and between action set pieces, mixed with Jesse Plemons’ bugnuts turn as Kaiser Wilhelm’s son, makes this a million times more watchable than good.
Best Oregon Feature May the livestock run be unbroken. Last year belonged to Kelly Reichardt’s First Cow. This year, it’s indisputably Nicolas Cage and Pig. How do we lure another genius to Oregon to make the preeminent alpaca picture? (See also: Luz.)
God’s Loneliest Man of 2021 Forty-five years after Taxi Driver, Paul Schrader still searches the soul of his Travis Bickle archetype. In The Card Counter, Oscar Isaac crafts a new career highlight as the journaling, whiskey-slurping gambler amid a crisis of faith. The key to Schrader’s latest living hell? Just watch that light in Isaac’s eyes flicker off and on, off and on.
1. The Green Knight 2. Licorice Pizza 3. The Power of the Dog 4. The Last Duel 5. The French Dispatch 6. Bergman Island 7. The Worst Person in the World 8. Petite Maman 9. Zola 10. West Side Story
@chance_s_p
Don’t call it a comeback…because that might be too optimistic for 2021 as a movie year. Theaters still teeter, and the highest-grossing domestic list largely ranges from unoriginal to anonymous. Nevertheless, bright spots shone through. Top-flight directors—from Steven Spielberg to Jane Campion to Paul Thomas Anderson—roared back, and the best of midpandemic productions finally came to the fore. Even if it’s more confusing than ever as to where, how soon and at what cost you can watch new movies, quality projects returned to the screens. So to close out the year, let’s hand out some homemade film accolades.
Best ’60s Music Documentary Featuring Troves of Untold Footage How soon before we can *get back* to talking about Todd Haynes’
Your standard Top 10 list:
Get Your Reps In B LO O DY D I S G U ST I N G
R O T T E N T O M AT O E S
Paul Thomas Anderson’s acclaimed historical epic charts the rise and fall of insatiable oil baron Daniel Plainview, played pitch-perfectly by Daniel DayLewis, who deservedly won Best Actor for his menacing performance. An honorable mention goes out to co-star Paul Dano for his dual roles as twin brothers Eli and Paul Sunday. Cinemagic, Dec. 22.
N E LVA N A
H O L LY W O O D R E P O R T E R
There Will Be Blood (2007)
Christmas in Space (1977-78)
For the 10th anniversary of the Hollywood’s signature Re-Run Theater series, the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special (1978) and A Cosmic Christmas (1977) will screen as a retro-TV double feature. You can also expect plenty of outlandish ’70s and ’80s ads to run throughout the showing and special prize giveaways. Hollywood, Dec. 22.
The Master (2012)
Another Paul Thomas Anderson pillar, this one a psychological drama starring Joaquin Phoenix as a hypermasculine World War II veteran and Philip Seymour Hoffman as a charismatic philosopher who takes advantage of his vulnerability to lure him into his religious cult. Partly inspired by L. Ron Hubbard and the “church” of Scientology. Cinemagic, Dec. 23.
Black Christmas
(1974)
Madagascar (2005)
Sacha Baron Cohen’s rendition of “I like to move it, move it” as King Julien forever altered a generation of young minds. Honor the regal lemur’s legacy by “moving it” to the Academy Theater for a screening of this animated comedy about a posse of animals that escapes New York’s Central Park Zoo and winds up in Madagascar. Academy, Dec. 24-30.
ALSO PLAYING:
Cited as one of the earliest slasher films (John Carpenter has credited it for influencing Halloween), the original Black Christmas follows a group of sorority sisters who receive a series of threatening phone calls before being killed off, one by one, during the holiday season. Clinton, Dec. 24.
Academy: A Christmas Carol (1938), Dec. 22-23. White Christmas (1954), Dec. 22-23. It’s A Wonderful Life (1946), Dec. 24-30. Clinton: The Big Lebowski (1999), Dec. 22-26. Dakota 38 (2012), Dec. 26. Hollywood: 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Dec. 23.
Willamette Week DECEMBER 22, 2021 wweek.com
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MOVIES
A24
NOW PLAYING TOP PICK OF THE WEEK
Red Rocket Red Rocket opens in July 2016, as adult film actor Mikey Saber (Simon Rex), bruised from recent misadventure, returns to his hometown on the refinery coast of Texas. A compulsive con man, Mikey pries a fingernail of trust from his estranged wife, Lexi (Bree Elrod), and her addict mother, Lil (Brenda Deiss), hustling to get back on his feet in a brisk, comic opening act before the film reveals what it’s really about. Cinematographer Drew Daniels’ 16 mm photography conjures the sweat of an East Texas summer, and director Sean Baker (The Florida Project, Tangerine) excels at casting local nonprofessionals—although Mikey has somehow irrevocably code-switched himself into a SoCal boy. Baker treats even the most flawed of his characters with nuance and empathy. Less nuanced and more questionable are the glamorized sex scenes between 40-something Mikey and the high school junior he grooms, Strawberry (Suzanna Son, an adult at the time of filming). Nods to Trump’s looming ascendancy are a smokescreen—the relentlessly exploitative Mikey is no demagogue in the making and may instead be an avatar of Baker’s own instincts. How different is Mikey “discovering” Strawberry at a doughnut shop than Baker recruiting Son at a Gus Van Sant screening? How different is a director from a “suitcase pimp” after all? Mikey and Baker may not have the answers, but their struggle makes for compelling viewing. R. NATHAN WILLIAMS. Fox Tower, Hollywood, Laurelhurst.
OUR KEY
: T H I S M O V I E I S E XC E L L E N T, O N E O F T H E B E S T O F T H E Y E A R. : T H I S M O V I E I S G O O D. W E R E C O M M E N D YO U WATC H I T. : T H I S M O V I E I S E N T E R TA I N I N G B U T F L AW E D. : THIS MOVIE IS A STEAMING PILE.
ALSO PLAYING The Power of the Dog When Phil Burbank (Benedict Cumberbatch) sees Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee) watching him bathe outdoors in The Power of the Dog, he shouts and calls him a little bitch. It’s a terrifying moment, but it’s also the start of a twisted friendship that defines this triumphantly suspenseful Western directed by Jane Campion (The Piano, Top of the Lake). Based on a novel by Thomas Savage and set in 1925, The Power of the Dog takes place on a Montana cattle ranch where the stench of resentment is equal to the odor of manure. Seething over the marriage of his brother (Jesse Plemons) to a widow named Rose (Kirsten Dunst), Phil torments them both. His ultimate revenge on Rose? Grooming Peter, her teenage son, to be his protégé—and perhaps something more. Violence is inevitable, but Campion is more interested in the tragic erosion of Rose’s dignity and the anguish that Phil experiences as a closeted gay man in a tyrannically heteronormative world. By capturing Phil’s dangerous petulance and haunting vulnerability, Cumberbatch makes the character worthy of both our revulsion and our compassion. If you see the film, you may despise him, but like Peter, you won’t be able to look away. R. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Hollywood, Netflix.
The Matrix Resurrections When the fourth installment of The Matrix franchise begins, we join white rabbit-inked hacker Bugs (Jessica Henwick) as she scrutinizes the epochal 1999 blockbuster’s still-breathtak32
ing opening footage from wholly new angles just before inadvertently reanimating Laurence Fishburne’s Morpheus within a faux FBI drone/sentient malware (Yahya Abudul-Mateen II). In the first feature directed without her sibling and lifelong collaborator, Lana Wachowski has a surprisingly droll touch and truly shines during trademark bursts of balletic shoot-’em-ups seemingly plucked from some near-future, zero-gravity fashion week. Now that the franchise has granted our heroes unlimited lives (and the world has proven itself to be all too eager to repurpose anti-authoritarian sloganeering for crypto-fascist ends), it’s hard not to notice the film drifting away from super-chic ultra-violence absent any semblance of consequence. In the weirdest way, though, the de facto immortality of Neo and Trinity renders their autumn romance all the more meaningful. However daft the narrative, which demands that Keanu Reeves, reborn as a celebrity game designer, spend each morning gazing wistfully at Carrie-Anne Moss’s latte order as a Bay Area supermom, his unconditional yearning echoes her eroticized devotion that defined the original. That should push the buttons of every aging cynic holding out hope that their first love might yet prove savior. There is spooning. Take the little blue pill. R. JAY HORTON. Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, City Center, Clackamas Town Center, Cornelius, Dine-In Progress Ridge, Eastport Plaza, Evergreen Parkway, Lloyd Center, Laurelhurst, Movies on TV, Pioneer Place, Sherwood, Studio One, Tigard.
Encounter Narratively and thematically, this sci-fi drama from
Willamette Week DECEMBER 22, 2021 wweek.com
Amazon Studios is one big backward walk into a corner. Soon after Malik (Riz Ahmed) initiates a surprise road trip with his two estranged sons and a massive conspiracy theory about alien parasites in tow, a showdown with law enforcement and an audience screaming, “Well, is it true?!” seem imminent. On the way to the painted corner, though, there’s plenty to appreciate. Morphing from exciting young actor to über-committed awards candidate with last year’s The Sound of Metal, Ahmed capably disguises himself with a roughneck accent and an ex-Marine’s twitchy defensiveness, and he’s compellingly unhinged while trying to play the cool dad. But the gestures toward elusive, Jeff Nichols-esque genre fare are often undone by miscalculated drama. With a script bent on Malik’s salvation and doom, up-and-coming director Michael Pearce gives Malik’s parole officer, played by Octavia Spencer, precious little to do and the child actors playing his estranged boys (Lucian-River Chauhan and Aditya Geddada) far too much. No matter how much rubber they burn across the Nevada desert, they can’t outrun the film’s overwrought unpleasantness—a would-be family movie defined by fringe terror. That’s probably why The X-Files motto isn’t “regardless of whether the truth is out there, endanger your kids.” R. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Amazon Prime.
Licorice Pizza Imagine a teenage boy telling one of his parents about a woman he has a crush on. “She’s in her 20s,” he sighs. “I think I’m in love.” “It’s never going to happen,” the parent sternly replies. “Oh, I don’t know,” the boy says. “She did show me her breasts.” That conversation never happens in Licorice Pizza, but it could have. Set in 1973, the film rambles and roams through the San Fernando Valley, where 15-year-old Gary Valentine (Cooper Hoffman, son of the late Phillip Seymour Hoffman) sells water beds, opens a pinball parlor, and falls for 25-yearold Alana Kane (Alana Haim of the band Haim). While Gary and Alana never officially date,
director Paul Thomas Anderson (There Will Be Blood, Phantom Thread) repeatedly presents them as a potential cute couple, unable or unwilling to admit he’s made a movie about an adult preying on a child. There may be debate among moviegoers about whether Anderson understands the sinister nature of their relationship, but there’s nothing in the film to suggest he does. Despite a gloriously strange subplot involving Sean Penn, a motorcycle and a wall of fire, Licorice Pizza isn’t cinema. It’s gaslighting on an epic scale. R. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Bridgeport, Cascade, Cedar Hills, Cinemagic, Clackamas Town Center, Eastport Plaza, Fox Tower, Hollywood, St. Johns Twin Cinemas, Studio One, Vancouver Mall.
Nightmare Alley As Guillermo del Toro’s sole feature between 2017’s Oscarwinning The Shape of Water and next autumn’s long-delayed Pinocchio, remaking studio-era crime yarn Nightmare Alley seemed an especially curious choice for the fantasist auteur’s victory lap. The remake of the 1947 classic about traveling sideshow grotesques and the predatory mentalist Stanton “Stan” Carlisle (Bradley Cooper) who joins their act holds clear contempt for the supernatural. And, bereft of his usual tropes, even del Toro’s breathtaking visuals— lurid midway attractions and crystalline art deco interiors— threaten to overwhelm the wispy narrative and cavalcade of familiar faces fleshing out underwritten roles. Cate Blanchett alone seems sufficiently aware of the surrounding silliness to turn her psychotherapist co-conspirator into a femme fatale emoji, all cheekbones and gall, while our supposed antihero Cooper wanders through their scenes together with a slackjawed gawp of pained confusion. Although few modern stars could replicate the weaponized swagger fueling Tyrone Power’s heel turn as the original Stanton, Cooper’s hesitant, mawkish, perhaps concussed interpretation reveals a fundamental misreading of the material. Already burdened by clunky dialogue showcasing
the era’s corniest catchphrases, del Toro and Kim Morgan’s leaden screenplay delves headlong into laborious exposition of the methodology employed for each telepathy routine and fixed séance. For all del Toro’s gifts, the leading monster sympathist of his generation evidently cannot understand the beasts men make of themselves. R. JAY HORTON. Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, Cinema 21, City Center, Clackamas Town Center, Cornelius, Dine-In Progress Ridge, Eastport Plaza, Evergreen Parkway, Fox Tower, Hollywood, Movies on TV, Tigard.
West Side Story “You’re not thinking I’m someone else?” “I know you are not.” Those beautiful words were exchanged by Tony (Richard Beymer) and Maria (Natalie Wood) when they first met in the 1961 film adaptation of West Side Story. Yet Steven Spielberg, the latest director to adapt Leonard Bernstein’s musical riff on Romeo and Juliet, has apparently decided that banality beats beauty. With a surgeon’s precision, he has transformed West Side Story into an epic so bloated and unmagical that even its sublime dancing scenes can’t make it worth seeing. The overall story hasn’t changed—once again, the romance between Tony (Ansel Elgort) and Maria (Rachel Zegler) is rocked by a showdown between white and Puerto Rican gangs in 1950s New York—but it’s burdened by Tony Kushner’s painfully literal screenplay. The new Tony and Maria don’t use the quasi-poetic verse of the original film—they trade excruciatingly obvious lines like “You’re not Puerto Rican” and “Is that OK?” It doesn’t help that Elgort is too insincere and uncharismatic to play an exuberantly optimistic character like Tony, but the real culprit is Spielberg. The entire film is steeped in his folly—the folly of a filmmaker who put his faith in a soulless leading man and who foolishly believed that a classic could be improved upon. PG-13. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Bridgeport, Cornelius, Dine-In Progress Ridge, Evergreen Parkway, Fox Tower, Lloyd Center, Movies on TV, Studio One, Tigard.
JONESIN’
FREE WILL
B Y M AT T J O N E S
"Something Strange"--it's their calling.
ASTROLOGY ARIES (March 21-April 19): Historians disagree
about the legacy of Jimmie Carter, who was President of the United States from 1977 to 1981. Was he effective or not? Opinions differ. But there's no ambiguity about a project he pursued after his presidency. He led a global effort to eliminate a pernicious disease caused by the guinea worm parasite. When Carter began his work, 3.5 million people per year suffered from the parasite's debilitating effects. Today, there are close to zero victims. Will 2022 bring an equivalent boon to your life, Aries? The banishment of an old bugaboo? A monumental healing? I suspect so.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): In 2022, I hope you
will express more praise than ever before. I hope you'll be a beacon of support and inspiration for the people you care for. The astrological omens suggest this could be a record-breaking year for the blessings you bestow. Don't underestimate your power to heal and instigate beneficial transformations. Yes, of course, it's a kind and generous strategy for you to carry out. But it will also lead to unforeseen rewards that will support and inspire and heal you.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): If you search Google,
ACROSS
yield a bunch
1 "The Lord of the Rings" army members
57 Can't pay up
5 Hosp. employee 8 "First Blood" figure
59 Bollywood actress Aishwarya ___
13 Spring's opposite, in tides
60 Get higher
14 "I'm onto your scheme, forwards and backwards!"
61 "The Silence of the Lambs" director Jonathan
15 "The Miracle Worker" subject
62 Causes of some EMT calls
16 Vesuvius's Sicilian counterpart
DOWN
17 Mix-and-match 19 City where the Demon Deacons play home games 21 Wine bouquet 22 "SNL" cast member who plays Dionne Warwick 26 Strong longing 27 Okra unit 29 Grammy winner Erykah 30 Prepare eggs, in a way 32 Title words preceding "Cooking," "Painting," and "Missing Out" 33 Prokofiev orchestral work often played at children's concerts 38 Angelic instruments 39 Slander counterpart 40 Fabric or liquid finisher? 41 Acronym for a dronelike robotic unit used for underwater research
58 Perfect examples
63 Piano layout
32 Valet in P.G. Wodehouse novels 33 "___ Lap" (1983 racehorse film set in Australia) 34 "I'm hungry enough to ___ horse!" 35 Hall of Fame QB Aikman 36 Edge that sits on a car wheel
2 Leave some work?
37 "And Just Like That ..." network
3 "1812 Overture" sound effect 4 Hiccup, for example 5 Totally unhinged 6 Did with minimal effort, so to speak 7 Disclaimer for some seasoning blends 8 Get more InStyle, e.g. 9 Game scheduled for December 29, 2021 (Ducks vs. Sooners) 10 Orioles' org.
42 Cartoon kid who says "What the deuce?" 43 Doctrinal rejection 44 Affirmative votes 46 Violin aperture shaped like a curvy letter 47 Red-___ (cinnamon candies) 48 CIA forerunner during WWII 49 Prefix with dactyl 51 Long-legged bird
11 Actress Powley of "The King of Staten Island"
53 Big name in gluten-free bread
12 ___-Ida (Tater Tots maker)
54 El ___ (Spanish national hero)
15 Potter's appliance
55 Suffix with lime
42 Far from outgoing 45 Reason for optimism
20 Becomes narrower
50 Lauder of cosmetics fame
23 "Banana Boat Song" shout
54 Burpee item that may
31 The "bad" cholesterol, for short
1 Like many downtown streets, directionally
18 Chinese dumpling, or a 2018 Pixar short named for one
52 Movie (with a 2021 sequel) that features the characters in the circles
30 Restore from brainwashing
24 Object of devotion 25 Hand-warming tube 28 Plant gametes
©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.
56 "Orange Crush" band
last week’s answers
WEEK OF DECEMBER 30
© 2021 ROB BREZSNY
ment encourages you to imagine that expressing personal freedom exempts you from caring for the well-being of your fellow humans, it's fake. If your quest for enlightenment allows you to ignore racism, bigotry, plutocracy, misogyny, and LGBTQIA-phobia, it's fake. Everything I just said about enlightenment is equally true about your quest for personal success. If it doesn't involve serving others, it's meaningless. In this spirit, Libra, and in accordance with the astrological omens, I invite you to make 2022 the year you take your compassion and empathy to the highest level ever.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Two mating rabbits
could theoretically engender 11 million relatives within a year's time. Although I suspect that in 2022 you will be as metaphorically fertile as those two hypothetical rabbits, I'm hoping you'll aim more for quality than quantity. To get started, identify two projects you could pursue in the coming months that will elicit your most liberated creativity. Write a vow in which you state your intention to be intensely focused as you express your fecundity.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): A blogger named
you'll be told that the longest biography ever written is the 24-volume set about British political leader Winston Churchill. But my research shows there's an even more extensive biography: about Japan's Emperor Hirohito, who lived from 1901 to 1989. His story consists of 61 volumes. In the spirit of these expansive tales, and in accordance with 2022's astrological aspects, I encourage you to create an abundance of noteworthy events that will deserve inclusion in your biography. Make this the year that warrants the longest and most interesting chapter in that masterpiece.
Soracities writes, "The more I read, the more I feel that a good mark of an intelligent book is simply that the author is having fun with it." Sagittarian author George Saunders adds that at its best, "Literature is a form of fondness-forlife. It is love for life taking a verbal form." I will expand these analyses to evaluate everything that humans make and do. In my opinion, the supreme sign of intelligence and value is whether the creators had fun and felt love in doing it. My proposal to you, Sagittarius, is to evaluate your experiences in that spirit. If you are doing things with meager amounts of fun and love, what can you do in 2022 to raise the fun and love quotient?
CANCER
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Microbiologist Al-
(June 21-July 22): One of the 20th century's most famous works of art was Fountain. It was scandalous when it appeared in 1917, since it consisted entirely of a white porcelain urinal. Marcel Duchamp, the artist who presented it, was a critic of the art market and loved mocking conventional thought. Years later, however, evidence emerged suggesting that Fountain may not have been Duchamp's idea—that in fact he "borrowed" it from Cancerian artist and poet Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven. There's still disagreement among art scholars about what the facts are. But if definitive proof ever arrives that von Freytag-Loringhoven was the originator, it will be in 2022. This will be the year many Cancerians finally get the credit they deserve.
LEO
(July 23-Aug. 22): Author Carson McCullers wrote the novel The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. Early in the story, the character named Mick Kelly has a crisis of yearning. McCullers describes it: "The feeling was a whole lot worse than being hungry for any dinner, yet it was like that. I want—I want—I want—was all that she could think about—but just what this real want was she did not know." If you have ever had experiences resembling Mick's, Leo, 2022 will be your year to fix that glitch in your passion. You will receive substantial assistance from life whenever you work on the intention to clarify and define the specific longings that are most essential to you.
VIRGO
(Aug. 23-Sept. 22): After careful research, I have concluded that one of your important missions in 2022 will be to embody a perspective articulated by poet Rand Howells: "If I could have but one wish granted, it would be to live in a universe like this one at a time like the present with friends like the ones I have now and be myself." In other words, Virgo, I'm encouraging you to do whatever's necessary to love your life exactly as it is—without comparing it unfavorably to anyone else's life or to some imaginary life you don't actually have.
LIBRA
(Sept. 23-Oct. 22): If your quest for spiritual enlightenment doesn't enhance your ability to witness and heal the suffering of others, then it's fake enlightenment. If your quest for enlighten-
exander Fleming discovered penicillin in 1928. It was later described as "the single greatest victory ever achieved over disease"—an antidote to dangerous infections caused by bacteria. But there's more to the story. Fleming's strain of penicillin could only be produced in tiny amounts—not nearly enough to become a widespread medicine. It wasn't until 1943 that a different strain of penicillin was found—one that could be massproduced. The genius who made this possible was Mary Hunt, a humble researcher without a college degree. By 1944, the new drug was saving thousands of lives. I mention Hunt because she's a good role model for you in 2022. I believe you'll have chances to improve on the work of others, generating excellent results. You may also improve on work you've done in the past.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Catherine Pugh
wrote a series of children's books collectively known as Healthy Holly. Later, when she became mayor of the city of Baltimore, she carried out a scheme to sell 100,000 copies to hospitals and schools that did business with the city. Uh-oh. Corruption! She was forced to resign from her office and was arrested. I'd love for you to be aggressive and imaginative in promoting yourself in 2022, but only if you can find ethical ways to do so. I'd love for you to make money from doing what you do best, but always with high integrity and impeccability.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Piscean Vaslav Nijinsky is regarded by many as the 20th century's most brilliant dancer. He had a robust relationship with beauty, and I want you to know about it. Hopefully, this will inspire you to enjoy prolonged periods of Beauty Worship in 2022. To do so will be good for your health. Memorize this passage from Nijinsky: "Beauty is God. God is beauty with feeling. Beauty is in feeling. I love beauty because I feel it and therefore understand it. I flaunt my beauty. I feel love for beauty.".
Homework: Name your greatest hope for the person you love best. Newsletter.FreeWillAstrology.com
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For a long time I’ve dealt with socalled “normal” people who many times don’t know anything about this. It’s been very challenging, and I’d like to meet someone suffering from the same environmental ailments. The situation is already unhealthy since WIFI, cell phones and smart meters are in our homes, apartments, and businesses instead of fiber-optic cable wiring. Cell phone towers foisted on us throughout our neighborhoods and getting worse with 5G rollout requiring antennas on every street corner. Would like to correspond with other Canary’s in the coal mine. Please write: Paulina at 2000 NE 42nd Ave., Box 243, Portland, OR, 97213.
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