Willamette Week, January 26, 2022 - Volume 48, Issue 12 - "2022 Pets Issue"

THE PETS ISSUE

ONCE AGAIN, WE HONOR THE LOYAL COMPANIONS WHO HAVE COMFORTED US DURING COVID. PAGE 12 P R E S E N T E D BY:

WWEEK.COM

VOL 48/12 01.26.2022

NEWS

Fentanyl Overwhelms Oregon. P. 10

SHROOMS

But What About Microdosing? P. 11

FOOD

Tortellini Awesome! P. 26 WEED

THC Arrives in the Wellness Aisle. P. 29

Willamette Week Reporting Gets Results.

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FINDINGS THOMAS TEAL

PASTIFICIO D’ORO, PAGE 26

WHAT WE LEARNED FROM READING THIS WEEK’S PAPER VOL. 48, ISSUE 12 Oregon voters may not get to decriminalize sex work this year after all. 6

Sunday is often the busiest day at DoveLewis Emergency Animal Hospital. 18

Portland has purchased no sleeping pods for its Multnomah Village rest site. 8

Trap Door Brewing has an Instagram account devoted solely to its canine customers. 21

Three Oregonians a day die of overdoses from meth or fentanyl.

A roaming tableside magician will be the weekend brunch showpiece at a new diner in St. Johns.

10

Measure 109 did not mention taking tiny amounts of psychedelic mushrooms for several months. 11 An Overlook homeowner has created a sprawling network of feeders and bridges in his yard and dubbed it the Squirrel Highway. 13 Mangy foster kittens with explosive diarrhea are still surprisingly cute. 15

24

Two nights a week, you can get tagliatelle and tortelloni at Gracie’s Apizza. 26

1022 NW Marshall Street #450 Portland OR | (503) 226-6361 | paulsoncoletti.com

You can say good riddance to those puzzlelike childproof bags from the dispensary. 29 What would Westerns look like if they weren’t all made by old, white men? 30

ON THE COVER:

OUR MOST TRAFFICKED STORY ONLINE THIS WEEK:

The Pets Issue: Crown Champion of WW’s 2022 Pet Pageant Bandito, photo by Fontaine Rittelmann.

Hundreds of Portlanders are living in their cars. Here’s how they do it.

PORTLAND’S MOST IMPORTANT STORIES SENT DIRECTLY TO YOUR INBOX

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DIALOGUE

• •••• ••••

A T R E A LRBO S ER E T •••• A E H T

LAST WEEK, WW examined the growing number of people living in their vehicles parked on the streets of Portland (“Houseless on Wheels,” Jan. 19). Those numbers are growing, but local officials don’t have a recent count and have failed to open a single site for such vehicles to park. Among readers, the sight of ramshackle RVs and occupied cars summons feelings of pity, frustration and rage. Here’s what they had to say:

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from there. I mean, you could spend an hour coming up with different criteria and then rank them and just go down the list until you run out of resources.

Seems like we’d serve a lot more people and learn a lot more as a city/community doing that compared to just endlessly waiting for the planets to magically align in some better way.”

CAPTAIN HAMBURGER, VIA WWEEK.COM: “Problem: a P2P

meth and fentanyl epidemic.

“Solutions proposed by local politicians, homeless advocates, and biased news outlets: more affordable housing and taxpayer-funded parking lots.

“Makes perfect sense.”

SE RICO, VIA WWEEK.COM:

“Just once, I’d like to see a story on the impact these camps have on the neighborhoods they park themselves in. I write this as I watch the car campers across the street run their generators, smoke around their gas containers and generally lounge around all day. These people

Dr. Know

BEN HELMENSTEIN, VIA FACEBOOK: “I lived in a tent

off of Lombard and Interstate, which is just down the road from this place, for about six months. It went downhill fast in the very brief time I was there.

They cleared out Delta Park recently, which brought a lot of people to our camp. I witnessed multiple shootings, and saw and participated in a LOT of illicit drug use. Nonetheless, those people became my family for the time I was out there, and they’re not bad people at all.

“There are a few nonprofits that brought us supplies every week, and a couple social workers that went out of their way to help people. One of those people actually got me to Hooper, and by proxy got me to clean and sober living about a month ago. I’m doing well now. I’m trying to convince my friends that still live outside to follow my lead.”

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

Why doesn’t the city set up a thousand tiny houses on that big empty slice of riverfront on the westside between Tilikum Crossing and the Ross Island Bridge? Yes, it’s prime real estate and all that, but we’ve got a housing crisis on our hands!

—Befuddled in Puddletown

PETER ROWAN’S JUDY FREE MEXICAN AIRFORCE COLLINS feat.

“The stats mentioned in this article highlight a persistent frustration with city/county/ state response to this issue so far. It seems like they look at it and can’t find a perfect solution and so that means they then don’t do anything at all for what seems to be an unlimited amount of time.

“I think we have to embrace a sort of opposite approach, which is pulling the problem apart into the most approachable or urgent pieces—basically a triage approach but over a longer time scale.

“For example, you could get a lot going somewhere and say anyone who has children living in their vehicle with them get first priority, then anyone with medical issues after that (or whatever, just throwing something out there).

“Similarly, you could draw a much harder line around insta-towing anyone car camping near a stream/wetland/water source.

“Then you could just go

are not just going about their day. They plainly don’t give a damn about the effect their lousy conduct has on those who actually own homes in the areas they deign to gift their noise, pollution and drug use. C’mon, Portland. Enough.”

While I applaud your solutions-oriented enthusiasm, Befuddled, the reason we haven’t solved the housing crisis is not that nobody (until you!) has been able to think of a neat place to build shelters. Portland has plenty of open space; the real challenge is getting the neighbors to go along.

And if you think that’s tough, wait until you try getting buy-in from the people who actually own the site—it’s private property. Good luck!

There’s a reason all the city’s Safe Rest Villages are on public land—NIMBYs are pushovers compared to NITAYOMAHs (Not In The Actual Yard Of My Actual House).

To be fair, it’s a big ask—you might balk at a public restroom in your kitchen even if access to one is a human right. I wasn’t able to reach the owners of your would-be favela for comment, but given that a very similar brownfield next

door became the big-money South Waterfront, I suspect their reaction would be roughly that of someone who’s discovered a gold mine on their property and is now being asked if they would mind giving it up for conversion into a meditation center for exceptionally nervous yaks.

Why has the last undeveloped parcel in central Portland lain fallow for so long? For decades, the property was home to Zidell Marine, ship dismantlers and barge builders of distinction. In 2017, however—possibly noticing the killing the neighbors seemed to be making with that whole South Waterfront thing—the Zidell family closed the business, presumably to focus on pimping the site full time.

The next year brought an ambitious plan (a casual observer could be forgiven for describing it as “South Waterfront 2.0”), but sadly it fell apart amid squabbles with the city. So far, there’s been no follow-up.

Could their loss be our gain? Will the owners, embittered by the pettifogging planning process, throw off the shackles of crass capitalism?

Will they erect a cashless utopia on the banks of the Willamette? Will the yaks ever find peace?

Time will tell!* *Spoiler alert: No. Questions? Send them to dr.know@wweek.com.

NEWS JOSH RENTSCHLER

THE BOTTOM LINE

For the second year in a row, Give!Guide broke records in every corner. At $7.8 million, this is the most we’ve ever raised.

It’s also the most donors, nonprofits and community partners we’ve ever had.

• Goal: $6.5 million. Final results: $7,840,472 from 16,701 donors.

On the money side, that’s 121% of this year’s goal and an increase of more than 19% from 2020. And the number of donors increased by 5%.

A Big Thank You!

• More people chipped in with $10 donations this year than ever before: 12,198 donations at that level.

• Average donations were close to pre-pandemic levels: $120 in 2021, $104 in 2020, $122 in 2019.

• The median donation held steady at $50 for the third year in a row.

• The largest donation was $101,000. It was shared equally with all the nonprofits.

• Donors gave to an average of four nonprofits. This added up to 64,992 total donations.

• There was a significant increase in matching gifts from business partners and foundations that gave a dollar or more for every dollar donated by the public. This year, $759,725 was matched 1 to 1. That’s up from $575,900 in 2020 and $363,000 in 2019.

We’re shouting, “Thank you, Portland!” from the top of our blue boxes.

TOP 10 NONPROFITS ACROSS ALL CATEGORIES 1. Oregon Cultural Trust $611,671 2. Oregon Food Bank $246,295 3. The Pongo Fund $243,718 4. Friends of the Columbia Gorge $233,035 5. Planned Parenthood Columbia Willamette $139,145 6. Blanchet House of Hospitality $117,053 7. Transition Projects $103,952 8. Central City Concern $101,275 9. Outside In $98,899 10. Adelante Mujeres $97,320

T

o all who gave to local nonprofits through WW’s Give!Guide in November and December: You never cease to wow us.

In a year in which local giving had been down across the board, you supported Give!Guide’s nonprofits as never before: 16,702 of you gave $7,845,497 to 203 worthy local nonprofits.

That’s almost a 20% increase over last year.

On top of that, 3,227 of you are under the age of 36. With a little luck, Give!Guide will be the beginning of a lifetime of personal philanthropy. That, at least, was the original purpose behind this annual campaign—and remains our guiding light to this day.

It’s also why we celebrate four outstanding nonprofit professionals with Skidmore Prizes. Congratulations again to Kendra Johnson, cameron whitten, Lue Lé and Gerard Rodriguez.

Give!Guide takes more than a village to

function. For starters, we had more sponsors, business partners and participants this year than ever before. You can read about all of them (and see donation totals by nonprofit) at giveguide.org.

Two sponsors stand out: Morel Ink as the lead sponsor for the second year in a row—and Ken and Annie Edwards, who first helped fund the website rebuild (see more in the next paragraph) and then contributed $500 to each of Give!Guide’s nonprofits.

Then there’s that website rebuild. The folks at Roundhouse Agency (especially Tim and Vadim) repurposed giveguide.org pretty much from scratch. This made giving ever so much easier—and faster—and added important features for participants.

Everyone at WW pitched in, especially executive director Toni Tringolo and campaign assistant Josh Rentschler.

Then there’s you. We hear all manner of reports about the Give!Guide experience each year—from families who work with

their children to decide on recipients of their generosity to folks who can barely scrape together $10 donations but give anyway to folks who’ve made Give!Guide an annual event.

We aspire to be the easiest—and most enjoyable—way to do year-end giving in the Portland metro area. But we simply cannot do this without all the help we get from this amazing community. In a year of frustration for us all, WW’s Give!Guide offered a nice beacon of hope.

Thank you all. And may 2022 be better— way better—on all fronts.

Richard H. Meeker Founder, Willamette Week’s Give!Guide President, City of Roses Media Company P.S. If you have ideas for how we can improve WW’s Give!Guide in 2022, please email our executive director: ttringolo@ wweek.com.

THE 35 & UNDER CHALLENGE

The nonprofits with the most individual donors age 35 and under in each category are being awarded an extra $1,000 from our friends at Tandem Property Management.

Congratulations to the following winners!

• Animals: Portland Animal Welfare Team (97) • Civil & Human Rights: Street Roots (128) • Community: Native American Youth and Family Center (169) • Creative Expression: Friends of Noise (102) • Education: Children’s Book Bank (90) • Environment: Wild Diversity (161) • Health: Planned Parenthood Columbia Willamette (123) • Home: JOIN (86) • Human Services: Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization (74) • Hunger: Blanchet House of Hospitality (166) Willamette Week JANUARY 26, 2022 wweek.com

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SEX WORK DECRIMINALIZATION CAMPAIGN WITHDRAWS PETITION: An advocacy group seeking to decriminalize sex work through a ballot initiative withdrew its petition Jan. 21. “We are fully committed to decriminalizing and destigmatizing sex work in Oregon,” Anne Marie Bäckstöm, political director of the Sex Worker Rights campaign, tells WW. “We withdrew Initiative Petition 42 to take a chance and tweak and improve the policy. We have never been more committed to this work and to the community, and that is why we withdrew.” The group had filed its prospective petition with the state on Nov. 16 and, in mid-December, it qualified to draft a ballot initiative title.

It is unclear whether the campaign plans to refile again for the upcoming November election. Bäckstöm says Aaron Boonshoft, the chief petitioner whom the campaign describes as “an Oregon philanthropist, an advocate of human rights, and a client of legal, consensual sex work,” made the decision to withdraw. The withdrawal marks the second time in the past two years that advocacy groups have tried and failed to decriminalize sex work in Oregon. Last February, state Rep. Rob Nosse (D-Portland) filed House Bill 3088 at the request of an East Coast advocacy group called the Sex Workers Project. The bill died in committee in June during the 2021 session.

KRISTOF DECISION LOOMS: Democratic candidate for governor Nick Kristof’s appeal to the Oregon Supreme Court is nearing resolution.

Kristof filed his opening brief Jan 14. On Jan. 20, Secretary of State Shemia Fagan filed her reply brief with the high court, defending her decision to exclude Kristof from the ballot for not meeting the state constitution’s three-year residency requirement for gubernatorial candidates. On Jan. 24, six women of color, led by state Reps. Andrea Valderrama (D-Portland) and Wlnsvey Campos (D-Aloha) filed an amicus brief with the court, urging the justices to rule against Kristof. “Mr. Kristof in his argument to the court calls for the court to elevate above all other issues the fact that he owns a second home and several properties in Oregon, and has raised more than $2.5 million,” Valderrama said in a statement. “That is outrageous and would set a dangerous precedent.” On Jan. 25, former Secretaries of State Bill Bradbury and Jeanne Atkins also filed an amicus brief, arguing Fagan got it wrong and urging the court to put Kristof on the ballot. “Voters are the ultimate decision makers in elections,” they wrote. Kristof now has one final chance to buttress his argument for being included on the ballot. That filing is due Jan. 26.

Afterward, the court will rule.

JOHNSON CANDIDACY DIVIDES REPUBLICANS: Former state Sen. Betsy Johnson (D-Scappoose) is attempting to attract partisan loyalists to her independent run for governor, but among her Republican endorsers she’s navigating divided loyalties. The campaign has removed two Republicans from its official list of endorsers: Rep. Jeff Helfrich (R-Cascade Locks), who last year donated $250 to Johnson and $175 to Republican gubernatorial candidate Stan Pulliam and did not respond to requests for comment, and former Rep. Cheri Helt (R-Bend), who told WW she’s opted to wait for the general election. “I have had the honor and privilege of working with Sen. Johnson and Rep. Christine Drazan in the Legislature—two trailblazing women who fly with their own wings and have a history of defeating Tina Kotek’s bad policies by pushing back on the Portland elite,” Helt says.

“I have an incredible amount of respect for each of these women, and I’m reserving my endorsement until after the primary.” A third Republican endorser, former Secretary of State and onetime House Speaker Bev Clarno, is still among Johnson’s listed endorsements. But she tells WW she also endorsed Medford businesswoman Jessica Gomez in the Republican primary in addition to Johnson as an independent for the general election. “We’ll happily list people as donors, endorsers or let them just be silent well-wishers if they’d like,” says Johnson campaign manager Emmet Duff y. “In the end, it’s a secret ballot that matters.”

CENTER FOR COVID CONTROL’S HQ RAIDED

BY FBI: On Saturday, the FBI raided the Illinois headquarters of the embattled COVID-19 testing company that’s under investigation by the Oregon Department of Justice. The company operated three sites in the Portland area before closing them temporarily Jan. 13 (“Out of Control,” WW, Jan. 19). They have yet to reopen. The company has eluded government scrutiny since at least the fall. The Oregon Health Authority told WW two weeks ago it had received no test results from the company or its partner lab—which has received $124 million from the federal government for providing tests to the uninsured. Portlanders who shared their visits with WW had a myriad of complaints, including testing negative and then testing positive elsewhere, improper handling of test samples, and unprofessional conduct by site employees. CCC says it closed its sites due to staffing shortages, and did not respond to a request for comment.

YOUR BACKSTAGE PASS TO THE WWEEK NEWSROOM Join the Dive podcast every Saturday as we quickly cover the week’s headlines, and then dive deeper into the big stories of the week. Host Hank Sanders sits down with the paper’s staff as well as the biggest names in Portland to discuss the city and the events that change lives.

The Dive podcast by Willamette Week is the best way to stay up to date with Portland’s news, sports, arts, and culture.

AVAILABLE EVERYWHERE

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NEWS

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW THIS WEEK

SAFE REST SITE

JEROME F. SEARS ARMY RESERVE CENTER How one neighborhood is fighting the city’s plan to shelter homeless Portlanders near them.

BY S O P H I E P E E L

speel@wweek .com

J U S T N YA U

It’s been eight months since City Commissioner Dan Ryan pledged to open six “safe rest villages” across the city as an alternative to street camping. In that time, his office has selected only three locations. (Last week, WW first reported that members of the Portland Public Schools board would reject Ryan’s proposal for a safe rest village at the former Whitaker School campus in Northeast Portland.) As the clock ticks on Ryan’s pledge, we examine the status of one of the three sites Ryan has selected.

Site: SFC Jerome F. Sears United States Army Reserve Center Location: 2730 SW Multnomah Blvd. in Multnomah Village What’s there now: The U.S. Department of Defense gave City Hall the former Army Reserve training center in 2012 for emergency management. It was used as a temporary homeless shelter in 2015 and 2016. Since then, it’s been used sparingly for first responder training and as a staging area for construction.

Status: There’s no timeline for when the site might open.

Since Ryan announced it back in November, site operators have not yet been cemented, the city hasn’t obtained utility permits from its own bureaus, no sleeping pods have been purchased, and land survey work is ongoing.

Safe rest villages spokesman Bryan Aptekar says the city hasn’t yet requested permits because “we’re working on the final elements. We’re waiting on the survey work, which will give us all we need to put together the drawings, which we need for permits.”

Aptekar defends the speed of the process: “I’d say that this is not going slowly—or any more slowly than any other permit process,” and he added that “given the importance of this project for the entire city, we will get as expedited a review as possible.”

In January, the Federal Emergency Management Agency launched a review of its own to determine whether the proposal aligned with the intent of DOD’s deed. The feds tell WW no decision has been made, nor is there a timeline for it.

Who stands in the way: In addition to the slow pace of City Hall, the Multnomah Neighborhood Association has challenged the legitimacy of the site since Ryan announced it.

DONOR

a counterpoint”: “Neighbors are frustrated with Dan Ryan and his team’s public dishonesty.…His poor diplomacy is creating fear, distrust and anger among residents.”

The person added: “The people involved do not wish to be identified, as they expect to be threatened, intimidated or otherwise harassed over the work.”

Neighbors sent a list of more than 160 questions to Ryan’s office Jan. 20, which were reviewed by WW. Many of the questions asked how the sites would function, how crime would be managed, and what the city would require of people who lived there. Others, Aptekar says, were clearly meant to dissuade the city from placing a site there: “Some are intended to slow us down and demoralize us.”

One representative asked: “How are immediate neighbors compensated for their loss of property value? Perhaps property taxes could be waived for the duration of the Safe Rest Village’s operation.”

One person who’d been around when the site was used as a temporary shelter five years ago wrote: “It feels like this group of neighbors has ‘done our time.’”

What Ryan says: His office is moving forward with the project.

“Our team engages in dialogue with a wide range of stakeholders to address concerns surrounding future villages,” says Margaux Weeke, a spokeswoman for Ryan. “However, organized opposition of compassionate solutions to houselessness can factor into how quickly the Safe Rest Villages team can move forward on a potential village.”

CONTRIBUTION OF THE WEEK

HOW MUCH?

$50,000, to pay for signature gathering.

WHO GAVE IT?

Our Oregon, the 501(c)(4) nonprofit that gets significant funding from public employee unions and has historically been very active on ballot measures, but less so in recent cycles.

8

On Jan. 20, neighborhood association chair Moses Ross informed Ryan via email that the association board had passed a motion (which is largely symbolic) recommending that the city not open Sears and instead use the funding to increase services at the Bybee Lakes Hope Center, a shelter at the former Wapato Jail in North Portland.

“The homeless, instead of being relocated to temporary, inhumane metal boxes, should go to a facility with the full services that they desperately need to enhance their quality of life,” the email said.

Ross tells WW the vote was narrow (he supports the Sears site) and the neighborhood may have backed it if the city had spent more time explaining the plan. Instead, he says, the announcement came as a surprise: “The strategy energized those that were against it.” Ryan meets with the group this week.

Lobbying against the site has gone online, too. A handful of homeowners living near the Sears site apparently created a website, saferestvillage.com, encouraging Portlanders to contact city officials and voice their opposition.

“High risk ‘safe rest villages’ do not belong next to schools, parks, daycares or in your backyard,” it reads. The site asserts that “low barrier to entry” means village residents wouldn’t need to be sober or seeking treatment, could be sex offenders, or could “be explicitly recruited from communities with high rates of addiction and violence.” (Ross says the site is not representative of the entire neighborhood association, and he’s discouraged by it.)

When WW reached out to the website via email, an unidentified person responded the purpose of the website was to “offer

Willamette Week JANUARY 26, 2022 wweek.com

WHO GOT IT?

The political action committee Legislative Accountability 1.

WHY DOES IT MATTER?

Democrats got really angry when Republican lawmakers walked out of legislative sessions in 2019 and 2020 to block passage of climate bills and again in 2021 to make a point about COVID-19 policies. With Demo-

crats holding supermajorities, GOP lawmakers have taken advantage of Oregon’s high bar for what constitutes a quorum—twothirds of members of a chamber must be present.

Only three other states—Indiana, Tennessee and Texas—require two-thirds. Most only require half of members to operate. In 2020, Democrats set out to pass a ballot measure that would discourage the practice of walkouts, but COVID-19 killed signature gathering that year. Now Our Oregon and

its progressive allies will pay to gather signatures for a constitutional amendment that would disqualify any lawmaker with 10 or more unexcused absences from seeking reelection.

“We feel really confident that voters are sick of these walkouts and they are ready for there to be real accountability for politicians who walk away from their duties,” says Hannah Love, a spokeswoman for Our Oregon. N I G E L J AQ U I S S .

POLICY

Mask Mandate?

Hospitals warned about Omicron. But they haven’t adopted self-protection.

The latest surge in COVID-19 began with a warning from the state’s most prominent medical institution: Oregon was again on the brink of exhausting its supply of staffed hospital beds.

At a press conference with Gov. Kate Brown on Dec. 17, two Oregon Health & Science University officials warned of the coming wave and the hospitalizations that would ensue. “Once again, many Oregonians will need a staffed hospital bed, which, frankly, remain in drastically short supply even now around the state,” said OHSU chief medical officer Dr. Renee Edwards.

Two years into the pandemic, no one doubts that hospitals are struggling with staffing shortages. In the first 11 days of this year, at least 710 staff and students at OHSU tested positive for the coronavirus, according to the Oregon Nurses

Association.

While schools and businesses have closed when too many staffers were out sick, hospitals don’t have that option.

Curiously, though, hospitals themselves haven’t done all they could to protect their own workers from contracting COVID in the past month, even as they say staffing levels are the key to keeping health care functioning.

What Hospitals Aren’t Doing Oregon hospitals, including OHSU, have not required all frontline staff to wear N95 masks, which provide the greatest protection from airborne diseases.

The N95, also called a respirator, filters at least 95% of particles and is designed to fit snuggly to the face. They cost on the order of five times more than surgical masks, but before the pandemic could be obtained by big medical facilities for 30 cents apiece.

The state’s largest nurses’ union is calling for health care facilities to require all frontline staff to wear the higher-quality N95 masks.

“The reason we support this is health care workers are getting sick at a higher rate; they always have gotten sick at a higher rate,” says ONA spokesman Kevin Mealy. “There is an additional burden, but we are two-plus years into the pandemic.”

When asked whether hospitals view N95s as worth the cost to protect staff, hospital association leaders didn’t answer directly.

“Hospitals are following guidance produced by CDC and OHA around appropri-

ate masking,” Becky Hultberg, president of the Oregon Association of Hospitals & Health Systems, told WW on Jan. 20. “I have not heard [hospitals] are requiring staff to wear N95s.”

OHSU says it’s made N95 masks and free testing available to staff.

“Since the start of the pandemic, OHSU has implemented a number of protective measures [...] including providing eye protection and N95 masks to all patient care staff,” says spokeswoman Sara Hottman.

“It is strongly recommended that they use both methods of protection.”

What’s the Best Practice The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began recommending N95s and other high-quality masks to the public Jan. 14, though its guidance hasn’t changed for the medical field.

State officials have authorized hospitals to adopt crisis standards of care, meaning rationing key services like beds and surgeries.

“To work properly, N95s do need to be fit tested,” says Mealy, meaning every employee needs to be fitted for a mask and shown how to wear it correctly. “So there is some additional burden. But we’ve also been in the pandemic for two-plus years.

Certainly, there would be time to test all of your long-term staff.”

Mealy says the number of people wearing N95s has increased after the union recommended them at OHSU, and he hopes that will lead the employer to taking the additional step of requiring them.

R AC H E L M O N A H A N .

ONE QUESTION

GRADE THE COUNTY CHAIR ON HOMELESSNESS We asked the candidates seeking Deborah Kafoury’s job to grade her work on the streets.

Multnomah County Chair Deborah Kafoury’s most consequential task is reducing homelessness. So one way to differentiate the four candidates running for her job is to ask them: How is Kafoury faring in that work?

In May 2020, voters passed the nation’s most generous per capita tax aimed at finding people housing and keeping them in it. Kafoury led the way on that measure. But as the pandemic drags on, Portland sidewalks are full of tent camps and voters are dissatisfied. The metro-area-wide measure gives more resources to the county and created a more powerful role for the chair.

This campaign season will be marked by a continuing debate over how much of the funding should be directed to long-term solutions and how much to the immediate task of shelter.

Kafoury, who to her credit has overseen an expansion of shelter beds, has also long been a leading cham-

pion of the “housing first” model, which prioritizes permanent homes.

We asked the candidates seeking to succeed Kafoury to grade her on the issue of homelessness. R AC H E L MONAHAN .

D

Commissioner Sharon Meieran Despite unprecedented resources and community buy-in, the humanitarian crisis of people living unsheltered has dramatically worsened.

Chair Kafoury deserves credit for leading conversations around long-term homeless solutions and supportive housing.

But changing the conversation from short- to long-term priorities doesn’t eliminate the need to address immediate problems.

People are dying in increasing numbers on our streets, and this is a tragic failure.

In a crisis we need to act, and homelessness must be our top priority.

INCOMPLETE

Commissioner Jessica Vega Pederson The idea of reducing something as complex as homelessness, an issue spanning so many jurisdictions, institutions and causes, to a letter grade for one person seems a bit ridiculous. The crisis on our streets today took decades of policies at the federal, state and local level plus a pandemic to create.

The only appropriate grade for anyone working on these issues is “I” for incomplete.

I appreciate Chair Kafoury’s leadership in helping pass three housing measures and passionately working to stand up both immediate and long-term responses to these multiple crises. We also need to aggressively address the significant impacts COVID has had on our county in terms of scale and acuity. I am running as someone with a bona fide track record of working collaboratively, bringing people together, and handling big problems.

Under my leadership, we’ll better track our progress, work with and hold our partners accountable, and move people off our streets.

DECLINED TO ANSWER

Commissioner Lori Stegmann Multnomah County has seen the number of people served in permanent housing programs, emergency shelters, and prevention services increase dramatically year over year.

Between July to September 2021 alone, we served nearly 30,000 people in these programs, all during a pandemic. Is it enough?

Absolutely not. Can we do more? Absolutely yes. As the next chair, I am committed to scaling up resources to match the cadence, rate and severity of our growing houseless population.

Shannon Singleton The homelessness crisis isn’t the responsibility of any one elected official and to judge the Chair alone for the county’s approach to homelessness is irresponsible, only adding to the dysfunction we see in Portland. Let us not forget that she shares responsibility to govern with four other Commissioners.

The solution to homelessness is housing and requires intervention from all levels of government. We need to stop the narrative spin and collaboratively get to work.

RULES

Judge Not The Oregon Supreme Court will make a fundamental decision about democracy with help from two unelected judges.

As soon as Jan. 27, the Oregon Supreme Court will determine whether Democratic candidate for governor Nicholas Kristof may appear on the May ballot—and justices will decide what both sides portray as a fundamental question of democracy with the help of two retired judges whom the court, rather than voters, decided should hear the case.

What happened: On Jan. 13, court officials filed a notification that because one of the seven Supreme Court positions was vacant and one sitting justice, Chris Garrett, had recused himself, presiding Justice Meagan Flynn had appointed two retired justices, Jack Landau and Lynn Nakamoto, to fill the empty spots as “pro tempore” judges.

Nakamoto retired from the court Dec. 31, 2021.

The court then brought her back from retirement to hear the Kristof case, along with Landau, who retired from the court at the end of 2017 (his retirement allowed Gov. Kate Brown to appoint Justice Adrienne Nelson, who was then elected in 2018).

Some lawyers have noted an irony: The state’s highest court will, in Kristof’s case, interpret what the Oregon Constitution requires of candidates while itself only loosely obeying the constitution.

The rules: The requirements for Oregon judges— including those on the highest court—are stated clearly in the constitution: “The judges of the supreme and other courts shall be elected by the legal voters of the state or of their respective districts for a term of six years.”

“Shall” in legal terms means “must,” yet neither Nakamoto nor Landau is currently elected. In fact, the Oregon judiciary and the state’s governors long ago decided that the selection of judges was not something they always wanted to entrust to voters.

(The constitution does allow the appointment of temporary, or “pro tem,” judges.)

In practice, when judges on circuit and appellate courts determine their tenure on the bench is done, they often retire early so the governor, rather than voters, can choose their successors. Once on the bench, incumbent Oregon judges rarely lose elections.

Why it matters: Anyone who’s followed the controversy over whether Kristof meets the Oregon Constitution’s three-year residency requirement will have heard impassioned arguments about ballot access from his camp and about following the letter of the law from the state’s top elections official, Secretary of State Shemia Fagan.

Some lawyers watching the proceedings see an irony in unelected justices hearing the case; others think it’s simply a matter of expediency that harms nobody.

Subbing in retired justices wasn’t always the top court’s policy, says Todd Sprague, a spokesman for the Oregon Judicial Department.

“Before 2017, the court’s practice was to ask Court of Appeals judges to sit as pro tem judges on the Supreme Court when needed,” Sprague says. “Since 2017, however, the Supreme Court has experienced a higher number of retirements than in prior years, such that several retired Supreme Court justices have been available to sit as pro tems.”

Kristof and the state have filed their arguments with the court: Kristof now has until Jan. 26 to respond to Fagan’s brief. After that, the justices, including the two retirees, are scheduled to begin deliberations. N I G E L J AQ U I S S .

Willamette Week JANUARY 26, 2022 wweek.com

9

NEWS BRIAN BURK

NEEDLE PARK: Drug overdose deaths in Oregon are way up.

Over and Out

As meth and fentanyl tighten their grips on Oregon, the state scrambles to implement treatment services to replace jail.

BY N I G E L J AQ U I S S

njaquiss@wweek .com

The good news, Oregon State Medical Examiner Dr. Sean Hurst recently told lawmakers, is that the jump in Oregon’s alcohol-related deaths in 2020 flattened in the first half of 2021.

The bad news: Drug overdose deaths, particularly those involving fentanyl and methamphetamine, soared to new highs.

Deaths attributable to meth jumped from 2019 to 2020, and are on pace for a bigger increase in 2021, Hurst told lawmakers Jan. 13. Though slightly less numerous, fentanyl-related deaths are rising much faster: They more than doubled from 2019 to 2020 and are on pace to rise steeply in 2021 (see chart right).

Together, medical examiner figures show, the two drugs will account for the deaths of more than 1,000 Oregonians in 2021— that’s nearly three per day.

“Substance use disorder is prevalent and it’s everywhere,” says Tony Vezina, chairman of the Oregon Alcohol and Drug Policy Commission.

Hurst presented his dismal news on drug deaths as the state races to implement Measure 110, the 2020 ballot measure that forced two major policy shifts. It decriminalized the possession for personal use of many hard drugs, including heroin, meth, cocaine and some opioids. Measure 110 also shifted funding from Oregon’s cannabis taxes—well over $100 million a year—to fund new referral and treatment services for substance use disorder.

The rise in overdose deaths started well before the passage of the decriminalization measure. The federal National Survey on Drug Use and Health for 2020, released last month, paints a grim picture for Oregon. As a state, we are second in the nation, behind only Montana, in terms of the percentage of people with a substance use disorder and ranked dead last in terms of access to treatment.

Measure 110 is supposed to change both of those indicators for the better. But the toll that meth and fentanyl are taking on the state is making it challenging for supporters to demonstrate the benefits of Oregon’s first-in-the-nation decriminalization effort.

“This is a big experiment for our state,” says state Rep. Rob Nosse (D-Portland), vice chairman of the House Behavioral 10

Willamette Week JANUARY 26, 2022 wweek.com

Health Committee. Nosse supports Measure 110 but says Hurst’s death figures scare him.

He notes that decriminalizing drugs before referral and treatment services were in place created a costly gap: “I worry that we’re not getting our arms around fentanyl and the new kinds of methamphetamine that are out there.”

Many law enforcement officials opposed Measure 110 two years ago, warning of dire consequences if it passed.

In response to such concerns, the measure included a provision for police to write tickets for drug possession rather than make arrests. The idea was that those cited for possession could avoid a fine by calling a phone number on their ticket; that connection would open a gateway to evaluation and services—and get up to $100 of their fine waived.

DOUBLE TROUBLE

The state medical examiner produced alarming death totals for the first half of 2021 for meth and fentanyl.

2019

400

250

FH 2021

391

350 300

2020

298

291 230

200

237

150 100 75

50 0

METHAMPHETAMINE

FENTANYL

Data collected by the Oregon Judicial Department from February 2021 through Dec. 31, however, shows that avenue has not worked. Police wrote 1,826 tickets last year for hard drugs (nearly two-thirds for meth) but few—only 55 for the whole year—prompted users to telephone the number for services.

(The Oregonian first reported sparse use of the hotline last year.)

Most metro-area law enforcement agencies didn’t bother with the tickets. Police in Clackamas (11), Multnomah (108), and Washington (37) counties wrote fewer total tickets (156) than police in Douglas County and fewer than half the total citations in Josephine County.

Portland Police Bureau spokeswoman Terri Wallo Strauss says the state’s largest police agency simply lacks the staff to respond to the increase in violent crime and traffic fatalities, handle routine calls, and also write tickets for drug possession.

“Illegal drug use is a significant problem in our community.

We recognize the challenges faced by people who are addicted and those who are self-medicating and have mental health issues as well,” Wallo Strauss says. “But the truth is that we are not the police department we used to be, and some services we used to provide are not happening as much as they should.”

Ken Sanchagrin, executive director of the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission, which analyzes crime data, has looked at the ticket numbers. He’s heard a variety of explanations for the geographic disparities, including differing workloads and varying priorities from agency to agency. He’s also pondered whether there’s a connection between the big overdose death increases and Measure 110. He’s wary of drawing one.

“It is too early to tell, and it will take time to conduct a rigorous causal analysis on the data,” Sanchagrin says.

“While it is plausible (and certainly logical) to assume that at least part of the increase could be due to BM 110,” he adds, “the real question will be to what extent that relationship exists given the other trends that are occurring nationally.”

Hurst, the medical examiner, agrees, noting other states are also experiencing large overdose increases. “Oregon’s experience with drug-related mortality is consistent with trends in other jurisdictions and in the United States as a whole,” he says.

Rising overdose deaths are not a new phenomenon in Oregon.

The rate of fatalities from meth, for instance, has climbed steadily since 2016, more than doubling in that time.

Advocates of Measure 110 say it will take time for the benefits to become apparent, as was the case in Portugal, which decriminalized hard drugs in 2001 and saw its overdose death rate plummet­—but only after services were in place.

Tera Hurst, executive director of the Oregon Health Justice Recovery Alliance (and no relation to the medical examiner), says voters signaled they wanted an explicit shift away from treating people with substance use disorders as criminals and to instead direct energy and money toward treatment.

She says it’s unsurprising that citations are not driving drug users to seek help. She and other advocates did not expect they would. Even arrests rarely motivated users to seek treatment, they say—most go only when they are ready.

Hurst says the more important and beneficial outcome of Measure 110 is that cannabis tax money has begun to flow to harm reduction (such as needle exchanges, naloxone and wound care), housing and other services.

“That money has really allowed organizations to expand their reach,” she says.

So far, the Oregon Health Authority, which is overseeing the implementation of Measure 110, has distributed $31 million in grants to a variety of service providers. Hurst notes that about 9,000 people a year were getting arrested for drug possession before Measure 110 and more than 15,000 have voluntarily sought various kinds of help funded by the Measure 110 grant money.

So, she says, the measure is beginning to work.

OHA is now in the process of allocating $270 million more in funding for treatment of substance use disorder for the next two years.

Vezina, the Alcohol and Drug Policy Commission chair, says he’s pleased to see the health authority rapidly moving cannabis tax revenue toward new services, but he wants to see state officials treat substance use disorder with the same urgency as the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I get daily updates on COVID—down to the number of presumptive cases. But I don’t get daily updates on substance abuse disorder or overdoses,” Vezina says. “We need metrics to make sure we’re putting money in the right places.”

NEWS BRIAN BRENEMAN

Microcosm Oregon voters legalized psilocybin use.

But what about microdosing?

BY T E S S R I S K I

tess@wweek .com

As some of the experts chosen to usher Oregon into the age of psilocybin mushroom therapy sat down last week for a Zoom meeting, two of them had a bone to pick.

At issue: whether the Oregon Psilocybin Advisory Board would get to hear from the “Godfather of Microdosing” this week.

The exchange took place between two academic heavy hitters, both appointed by Gov. Kate Brown to the psilocybin board. Dr. Atheir Abbas is an assistant professor of behavioral neuroscience at the Oregon Health & Science University School of Medicine, while Dr. Mason Marks is an assistant professor at the University of New Hampshire School of Law and a senior fellow at Harvard Law School’s Project on Psychedelics Law and Regulation.

About 15 minutes into the two-hour public Zoom meeting, convened by the research subcommittee rather than the full board, Abbas called on Marks, whose hand was raised.

“So, in terms of speakers,” Marks began, “I’m not sure if this would require a vote of this committee or not, but I would like to have Dr. James Fadiman come to the—” Abbas interrupted: “I’m sorry, I’m going to cut you off, Mason. So that is not on the agenda.

You’ve been bringing this up—” Marks shot back: “No, I think this is quite relevant to what we’re talking about here, as you haven’t been returning my emails in the past 24 hours.”

The pair was arguing about James Fadiman, one of the country’s foremost psychedelics researchers and author of The Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide. He is often credited with bringing microdosing into the mainstream—hence his

“Godfather” nickname.

Microdosing, in fact, was the central agenda item of the Jan. 20 meeting. In 2020, Oregon voters approved supervised, therapeutic psilocybin trips. But the measure they passed doesn’t say anything about taking small doses of the same psychedelic drug on a regular basis over an extended period.

Last week’s argument over whether Fadiman would speak highlights a rift among board members—who are tasked with establishing the rules for the state’s psilocybin policy by the end of 2022—about a pivotal question that remains unanswered: Is microdosing allowed?

Fadiman, who happened to be present as a public participant at last week’s research subcommittee meeting, chimed in on the matter.

“There is going to be microdosing throughout Oregon regardless of what this committee does,” Fadiman said, about an hour after witnessing the argument between the subcommittee chairs. “The question is, can it also help people use it more safely and more effectively?”

Next year, Oregonians 21 and up will be allowed to trip on a psychedelic drug derived from “magic mushrooms” while under the supervision of licensed, state-sanctioned facilitators.

That’s thanks to Ballot Measure 109, which Oregon voters passed by a 12% margin in November 2020, making the state the first in the country to legalize the manufacturing, delivery and administering of psilocybin.

In general, Measure 109 is crafted around “macrodosing,” or taking a psilocybin dose intended to induce a psychedelic experience.

The measure’s backers have argued that two or three of these hourslong trips can lead to a healing, sometimes life-changing experience,

particularly for patients struggling to overcome trauma, addiction or both.

Those potential benefits are among the factors that helped sway more than 1.27 million Oregonians to vote yes.

“Microdosing was not a focus of ours during the development of Measure 109, which is why the term is not defined or used in the measure,” says Tom Eckert, the Psilocybin Advisory Board chair. He and his wife, Sheri Eckert, who died in December 2020, were the chief petitioners for Measure 109. The pair also founded the Oregon Psilocybin Society.

“Our intention was not to create a dispensary-type model,” Eckert adds. “Measure 109 supports science-based services at licensed facilities under the care and supervision of trained and licensed facilitators.”

Microdosing, generally speaking, is the practice of taking a fractional dose of a psychedelic—in this case, psilocybin—semi-regularly for a period of several weeks or months.

If done correctly, the dose should be small enough that individuals can go about their daily activities, like work and even driving, while simultaneously benefiting from the drug’s healing effects, Fadiman tells WW. “I have a recent report of a surgeon who said she microdosed before surgery,” he adds.

Microdosers are not seeking a “trip” or a transformative experience; rather, they are trying to treat certain ailments like depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, tinnitus or cluster headaches. “The research is clear that most people who microdose feel it’s beneficial. The research doesn’t find really any harm,” Fadiman says. “There are a number of studies that microdosing improves cognitive functioning, physical health, emotional stability and so forth.”

Microdosing of psilocybin has not yet made it past Phase 2 of clinical trials, which leaves some medical professionals skeptical.

One of those professionals is Abbas, the OHSU doctor who chairs the research subcommittee.

He says psilocin, the active metabolite of psilocybin, activates certain serotonin receptors, some of which are located in heart valves.

Activating these receptors “has been defini-

“ It’s true that microdosing is not mentioned in Measure 109, but neither is macrodosing. There’s no dosing mentioned at all.” tively linked to an increased risk of irreversible valvular heart disease,” Abbas tells WW. Some researchers, including Fadiman, say the data Abbas referred to is not applicable, because it originates from research into a weight loss drug called fen-phen, which the U.S. Food and Drug Administration pulled from the market in the late ’90s due to the heart valve risks. “[That drug] affects the same area of the brain that psychedelics do,” Fadiman says. “But it was given at a dose of 1,000 times the amount of a microdose, and microdoses aren’t given that often.”

Pros and cons aside, the ballot measure itself omits microdosing as a concept: “The term microdosing is not used or defined in the statutory language of Measure 109,” Abbas says.

Rather, the measure states that the Oregon Health Authority, following advisement by the Psilocybin Advisory Board, “shall adopt rules establishing: (a) The maximum concentration of psilocybin that is permitted in a single serving of a psilocybin product; and (b) The number of servings that are permitted in a psilocybin product package.”

For Marks, that language leaves the door open to microdosing.

“It’s true that microdosing is not mentioned in Measure 109, but neither is macrodosing.

There’s no dosing mentioned at all,” he tells WW. “People are going to be microdosing no matter what. Legalizing microdosing, and regulating it, is really a form of harm reduction from a public health perspective.” (Marks says he was speaking as an individual and not on behalf of the board.)

Dr. Rachel Knox, a member of the psilocybin board, said during Thursday’s meeting that it’s important for the state to include education about microdosing in its training curriculum.

“I think that all facilitators should be able to answer questions about microdosing because, guess what, the clients are going to come in and ask about it,” Knox said. “One hundred percent of facilitators in Oregon should have some competency around microdosing and administering it.”

Others were skeptical: That sounded like a lot to ask of facilitators.

“Not everybody is going to be able to be an expert on microdosing,” Regina Moore, co-founder of the Psychedelic Pharmacists Association, said during the Jan. 20 meeting. “I’m hearing lots of talk that is making this feel more and more like something that should exist in the medical system, which I personally don’t think was really the main intent of the measure.”

The clock is ticking while board members work to reach consensus: They have until the end of June to send their recommendations to the OHA, Eckert says.

And Fadiman? He says permitting microdosing presents Oregon the opportunity to collect important data on an underresearched subject.

“We would automatically get that research done without any work, which I admit I like,” Fadiman says. “I like it when the system allows you to kind of learn something and, in this case, it could.”

Willamette Week JANUARY 26, 2022 wweek.com

11

The Pets Issue Once again, we honor the loyal companions who have comforted us during COVID.

If 2021 had a mascot, it could have been Bandito, the one-eyed cat.

After a second year defined by the pandemic, we’re all feeling maimed, scrappy and worn down, but we’ve also become undeniably resilient while navigating this new world.

Bandito's short seven months of life, so far, have been similarly shaped by struggle.

The black and white domestic shorthair landed at Best Friends Veterinary Medical Center in South Portland as a young kitten after wandering onto a ranch looking pretty scruffy with just a single peeper. The rancher brought the stray to the clinic, and Bandito was quickly adopted by one of the technicians working that day.

“It looked like he had walked for a long while,” says Meghan Howard-Hakala, Bandito’s owner, “because the bottoms of his feet, even at 12 weeks, were all brown from his long journey from wherever he came from.”

Bandito received more votes than any of the other 702 pets that were nominated, and is the 2022 Crown Champion of WW’s annual Pet Pageant, presented by DoveLewis Veterinary Emergency Hospital. Portland, after all, always loves to root for the underdog—er, cat.

One of the small joys of COVID has been the great comfort our fur babies have given us.

In this issue, you’ll find a photo tribute to nearly two dozen of those pets—from fluffy bunnies to adorable ducks to a goat that Portlanders are pulling for to become the face of the next cryptocurrency.

For advice on how to help your dog cope with the slow return to the office, we spoke with two behavioral specialists about steps that will prepare Fido to get through an eight-hour workday alone (page 13).

We also asked local vets to explain why appointments are becoming scarcer than cream cheese (page 18).

If you’ve ever thought about fostering an animal, whether out of the kindness of your heart or you’re just afraid of long-term commitment, a woman who’s served as temporary guardian to dozens of kittens describes the process (page 15).

Finally, we’ve rounded up the best bar patios in each neighborhood, where four-legged friends are not just allowed, they’re embraced, and dog-friendly amenities abound (page 21).

A one-eyed cat may seem like a silly symbol of hope during a global health crisis, but these are unusual times. Now is his moment to shine.

— A N D I P R E W I T T, A R T S & C U LT U R E E D I T O R

Bandito Bandito may only have one eye, but that doesn't keep him from sharing all his love with you!

12

Willamette Week JANUARY 26, 2022 wweek.com

F O N TA I N E R I T T E L M A N N

WW COVER STAR

R O B I N J O N AT H A N D E U T S C H

HOME ALONE

BY C A L L E Y H A I R

Pets, if nobody else, have had a pretty good couple of years.

A large number of people transitioned to remote work during the pandemic, and if you were one of them, your animals got used to spending all day with their favorite person: you.

They’ve been living the good life, and pets acquired since 2020 might not even realize there’s any other way to spend the day—home alone with nothing but some old chew toys to keep them company.

Now, as more workplaces begin calling employees back to the office, some of those pets are in for a rude awakening.

To ease this transition, WW spoke with two local animal behaviorists who shared tips on how to reduce your pet’s chances of developing separation anxiety.

LOOK FOR SIGNS OF STRESS Full-blown separation anxiety is one of the hardest behavioral issues to overcome in pets, says Dr. Caroline Spark, director of behavior and training at Instinct Dog Behavior & Training.

“It’s like working with panic attacks in humans, or extreme anxiety. Those big feelings don’t change easily,” she explains.

“It’s better to intervene early, rather than wait until it gets to that really major panicky stage.”

Valli Parthasarathy, co-founder and behaviorist at Synergy Behavior Solutions, says cats, birds and dogs experiencing acute separation anxiety will all typically demonstrate some combination of three symptoms: vocalization, destruction, and urination/defecation.

While a gnawed-on couch or a puddle of cat pee outside the litterbox are pretty obvious signs of distress, indications of less severe anxiousness in your absence may be more subtle—but also an opportunity for early intervention once noticed.

Pay attention to your pet’s body language

We asked animal behaviorists how to prepare pandemic pets for their parents’ return to the office. Here’s their advice.

while you’re going through your departure routine, like putting on your shoes and coat and grabbing your keys.

“They might pace, they might have their ears back and their little brows furrowed, they might be hiding, they might be panting,” Parthasarathy says. “Sometimes a dog might go and sit by the door and stare.”

PLAY DETECTIVE If you’re worried about your pet’s mental state, set up a camera. Seriously.

It’s an invaluable investigative tool, Parthasarathy stresses. You really can’t interpret much about your pet’s emotional health or behavior without the ability to watch them.

Parthasarathy recalled a recent instance in which she was approached by a client with an elderly dog and a younger dog who’d started coming home to find accidents on the floor. The pet parent assumed it was a sign of separation anxiety in the pup, since that newer pet hadn’t spent much time alone before.

However, after installing a recording device, they discovered the younger dog was fine—chipper even. But the senior pooch could no longer navigate through the dog door. The problem wasn’t behavioral at all. Without the footage, the client would have wasted a lot of time and money trying to figure out a solution.

“The key way to diagnose, ideally, is to have videotape,” Parthasarathy says.

TRANSITION SLOWLY Let’s say your boss has summoned you to return to the office in June, and your 2-year-old pet has never been left home alone for an eight-hour workday. Use that advance notice to begin acclimating the animal as gradually as possible. Spark recommends drafting a timeline.

“The thing to know about separation stress or anxiety is that it doesn’t resolve quickly. It’s difficult to do it in a weekend,” she says. “It’s really much better worked

with slowly over time, because you don’t want to expose your dog to the experience of being alone as a bad experience.”

If you have a pet who likes to shadow you around the house, start by shutting the door behind you. Your animal will see that the world didn’t end just because they weren’t underfoot while you answered some emails or made a sandwich.

The next step is to work up to short bursts of total separation—leave your pet alone in the house for a few minutes at a time. Spark recommends grabbing your mail or running a quick errand.

“Your dog starts to learn, ‘I can be by myself and nothing bad happens,’” Spark says.

CREATE POSITIVE DIVERSIONS Who says you have to be above bribery?

Sweetening the pot with treats is fully encouraged. It helps distract your pet from their stress and replaces bad feelings with positive associations. Puzzle toys are a good distraction, too—as you leave, your pet is engaged in a solo, enriching activity.

“Practice picking up the keys and going out the front door,” Spark explains, “but while that’s happening, the dog is hunting down a handful of treats you threw on the ground.”

Not sure if your animal needs professional help? Ask an expert.

Not all situations require professional intervention. But for ones that do, it’s imperative to act as quickly as possible.

Extreme cases of anxiety that can’t be solved through behavioral therapy may require medication.

“If the dog has a true problem with being left alone, separation anxiety can take several months to see the effects of treatment,” Parthasarathy says. “Veterinarians are really backed up right now.

Trainers are really backed up right now.

Knowing there is a problem earlier is going to give you the opportunity to get some help earlier.”

HIGHWAY TO SQUIRREL HAVEN An Overlook neighborhood homeowner is turning heads with a jungle gym of feeders for squirrels and a mini condo for stray cats.

B Y S U S A N E L I Z A B E T H S H E PA R D

Long before squirrel picnic tables became a pandemic lockdown fad, Dave Beck was serving regular breakfasts, lunches and dinners to the critters living in and around his property.

Really, you could say that the lifelong Overlook resident’s entire yard is a giant squirrel picnic. Bright yellow signs mark the way to the Squirrel Highway he’s created—an impressive network of feeders, bridges and houses sprawling across the large corner lot, vying for space with metal sculptures.

“Twenty-five, 30 years ago, I used to leave seed out for the birds,” says Beck, a semi-retired financial analyst.

“Then I noticed the squirrels were eating it too because they were so hungry. So I started feeding them walnuts and hazelnuts.”

Beck’s filbert supply comes from a grower in Newberg, which is where he got the inspiration to install signs stamped with nut puns around his house after seeing similar displays at the farm’s office. One reads “Welcome to the Nut House,” while another states that “Squirrels are like fudge: mostly sweet with a few nuts!” There’s even a sign belting out (use your best Mötley Crüe voice) “SQUIRRELS/SQUIRRELS/SQUIRRELS.” The overall effect of this exhibit, which hangs from trees and dangles from utility lines that connect to Beck’s home, is chaotic and whimsical. And it definitely causes passersby to stop in their tracks and take photos. Beck says kids, in particular, like to hang around and watch squirrels run from feeder to feeder.

However, not everyone in the neighborhood finds the bushy-tailed rodents a delightful distraction. Right at the property line, precisely where the Squirrel Highway begins, there are squirrel-repelling spikes attached to the fence top. Beck says those particular neighbors don’t want the animals digging in their garden beds and burying nuts. And, of course, he’s heard some people refer to squirrels as “rats with furry tails.”

Squirrels can carry disease and disease-spreading parasites. According to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s squirrel fact sheet, that includes ringworm and rabies, but the agency also notes that “there is minimal documentation of disease transmission from tree squirrels to humans.”

Still, OFW and Portland Audubon do not recommend that you feed squirrels, in large part because it can habituate them to people. Beck agrees.

“It’s not a good idea to get these animals too friendly with humans,” he says. “Then they lose a bit of their distrust and they can get hit by a car.”

Squirrels aren’t the only animals that Beck tends to; he also provides food for stray cats. The Katnip Condo, a large shelter by the sidewalk in front of his property, looks more like a seedy motel thanks to the addition of signs that state there are “Weekly Rates” and “No minors allowed.” But the vibe is actually pretty chill. On a recent Sunday morning, a well-fed orange and white tabby emerged from the front door to rub up against Beck’s legs. He says the cats that show up tend to be abandoned pets left behind when their owners move away, and are accustomed to people.

The squirrels, though? Strictly wild animals.

“To me, they’re certainly not pets,” says Beck. “I think of them as just neighbors.”

“ To me, they’re certainly not pets.

I think of them as just neighbors.”

Willamette Week JANUARY 26, 2022 wweek.com

13

F O N TA I N E R I T T E L M A N N

FACE OF THE NEXT CRYPTOCURRENCY

Ruby Give goats their moment! You’re looking at the face of the next cryptocoin. Ruby is bold, quirky and confident enough to ride the stock market roller coaster. But beware, this 1-year-old Nigerian Dwarf goat loves to nibble and may take a bite of your jacket for lunch!

14

Willamette Week JANUARY 26, 2022 wweek.com

VERONICA BIANCO

loVe,

laUgHtEr &

CoMpAnIoNsHiP AwAiT YoU!

MOTHER KITTENS OF

BY V E R O N I C A B I A N C O

Fostering animals—especially baby animals—sounds like a great deal: You get to play with a bunch of pets during what is arguably their cutest, most energetic stage of life, and there’s not the yearslong commitment that comes with adoption.

On top of that, fostering is simply a great thing to do.

It frees up space for other animals in nonprofit, no-kill shelters, socializes pets for their eventual forever homes, and makes for plenty of great stories and memories.

Volunteer foster parents are an integral part of shelter operations, and shelters always need more help.

Anyone can foster—well, almost anyone. In order to start, shelters require would-be participants to fill out an application. In the Portland area, there are plenty of organizations that work with fosters, including Multnomah County Animal Services, the Oregon Humane Society and the Pixie Project.

The approval process can be a little time-intensive— agencies want to ensure that they’re sending kittens and puppies to safe, stable caregivers, so they’ll ask a lot of questions. Don’t expect to get accepted if you’ve been convicted of animal abuse. Shelters tend to strictly draw the line when it comes to that.

Once you become a newly minted foster parent, that’s when the real fun begins.

My expertise is in fostering kittens—I’ve taken in seven groups of two to six kittens over the last few years, and I learn a lot with each litter.

First, don’t expect to receive beautifully groomed, perfectly healthy, well-mannered animals. Fosters are generally a wreck when you get them, but don’t worry— despite the medical or behavioral issues, they always maintain their cuteness.

Animals need to be fostered because they require some extra TLC, so it’s understandable that they might be a little rough around the edges when they arrive. It’s your job to give them the care they need so they can return to the shelter healthy and happy. Responsibilities

Cat Adoption Team 14175 SW Galbreath Dr Sherwood, OR 97140 catadoptionteam.org Considering becoming a foster pet parent? A local woman who’s cared for dozens of young felines has tips on the challenging yet rewarding calling.

Retail open: Tue – Sun, 1 – 6 p.m.

All other services by appointment

could include everything from administering antibiotics to treat various diseases to being patient when it comes to socialization.

I’ve had to learn a few things the hard way, so read on to avoid making the same mistakes I did.

If you’re given fosters with giardia—a disease that causes digestive issues, including chronic, explosive diarrhea—make sure you put plastic sheeting on your walls preemptively, and have goat milk on hand. The protective covering will save you from having to scrape dried feces off your wainscoting after the cats are gone (projectile pooping is no joke, even when they’re little), and the goat milk helps promote gut health.

Next, if you get kittens with mange, buckle in. You’re in for a fun one. The skin disease caused by parasitic mites that live inside hair follicles and the skin’s oil glands causes hair loss, redness and itching. And while that all sounds pretty off-putting, the condition can be treated fairly easily by a variety of antiparasitic drugs.

I once had a group of three 3-week-old mangy kittens who had not yet been weaned from formula (getting them there was my job), and I didn’t know they had mange until after I’d returned them to the shelter.

When I introduced the trio to wet food, they decided to sit in it while eating. That was awesome. I then had food-covered, half-bald kittens running around, leaving a trail of Purina One chicken-and-salmon pâté behind them.

Moral of the story: If you get kittens that are even slightly bald and have some red spots, don’t wait to get them checked out. A diagnosis will save you a lot of trouble.

Fostering can be hard, but none of the aforementioned situations have deterred me from going back.

Spending time with kittens is therapeutic—if you’ve ever kitten-bathed, you understand. Lying on your back buried in a pile of purring felines is just about all you need to forget about the pandemic, the impending climate apocalypse, and explosive diarrhea—at least for a little while.

Willamette Week JANUARY 26, 2022 wweek.com

15

2022

Pet Pageant Winners

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Willamette Week JANUARY 26, 2022 wweek.com

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MAGGIE Willamette Week JANUARY 26, 2022 wweek.com

17

Is There a Veterinarian in the House?

Portland’s animal medicine shortage means dogs have to wait for a doctor.

BY A ARON M E S H

A M E S H @W W E E K . C O M

It was a typically busy Sunday on the emergency room floor of DoveLewis.

Two veterinary technicians were stabilizing a fluffy white cat who arrived with a urinary tract infection. A mixed-breed dog left a puddle of diarrhea on the linoleum. Two rats lay in an oxygen tank until a nurse carried them away to be euthanized. “They’re going to heaven now,” she said.

Sundays are often the busiest day at the Northwest Portland emergency animal hospital. Above the ER floor, two widescreen computer monitors tracked the status of each patient—like the arrivals board at an airport, but with the names and photos of people’s pets.

If the screen grew full enough, Dr. Ladan Mohammad-Zadeh would make the decision to restrict admittance to only the most critically ill animals.

“It is pretty hectic today,” said Mohammad-Zadeh, as she shaved a Wheaten terrier with a broken leg. “But is it our busiest day? It is not.”

The new ER protocols at DoveLewis are the end result of a Portland veterinary system that can no longer keep pace with demand. Pets wind up here because their owners can’t find room at any other animal hospital. Vet practices no longer accept new patients. Appointments for annual shots are booked for more than a month.

As dog moms and cat dads grow increasingly agitated, WW spoke to three industry experts over the past week to understand what’s driving the critter crunch.

AT CAPACITY: Critical care specialist Dr. Ladan Mohammad-Zadeh (top) oversees the emergency room of DoveLewis Emergency Animal Hospital (right and below).

ALL PHOTOS BY CHRIS CEARNAL

WHY ARE VETERINARY PRACTICES SO BACKLOGGED? They’re enduring many of the same pressures as other businesses during the pandemic.

“I think if we could point to one factor, it would be much easier to solve,” says Tess Payne, the marketing director for DoveLewis.

COVID protocols, such as curbside check-ins, have added complexity and time to every appointment. Meanwhile, the demand for vets has increased. Whether the purchase of pandemic puppies is driving the spike is a matter of some debate. But most vets agree that people working from home are more likely to notice their animal’s distress.

One factor, however, was cited by every person we spoke with: a labor shortage. Veterinarians are in exodus from the profession.

The scarcity is felt in every part of animal medicine—including Compassionate Care, a Portland-based at-home pet euthanasia practice run by Dr. Lori Gibson.

“Typically, we would have people come to us, wanting to work for us,” Gibson says. “And now we’re having more trouble finding them. It’s killing us, because sometimes people are calling and begging us for an appointment, and we simply don’t have anyone to send out to them.”

WHY ARE VETERINARIANS QUITTING? Animal medicine has always been a high-stress profession. Vets are asked to make life-or-death decisions for creatures who cannot communicate what’s wrong with them.

“I’ll be honest: It’s very stressful,” says Mohammad-Zadeh. “Breakdowns don’t have break times. We move 18

Willamette Week JANUARY 26, 2022 wweek.com

“ A constant refrain we hear is, ‘You’re just a money-grubbing vet. All you want is money. I don’t know of any veterinarian who goes into veterinary medicine for the money, because there isn’t any.”

through it and continue with our day.”

But two things have changed. First, workers in every field are confronted with more job openings than at any time in recent memory. Veterinarians have the option to join the Great Resignation.

Second, animal owners are behaving horribly, refusing to cooperate with COVID protocols, leaving vicious online reviews and being verbally abusive. Many of the angriest people are furious because they can’t afford the cost of care for a beloved pet.

“A constant refrain we hear is, ‘You’re just a money-grubbing vet. All you want is money,’” says Gibson. “I don’t know of any veterinarian who goes into veterinary medicine for the money, because there isn’t any.”

HOW CAN YOU GET AN APPOINTMENT FASTER? First, get in line for a primary care veterinary practice.

Yes, they’re booked now—but having an established relationship with a vet will be crucial in the event of an emergency. (For similar reasons, consider pet insurance: If a car hits your best friend, that’s not the time to ask if you can afford to save it.) Know the hours of your vet and, if seeking emergency care, call ahead: DoveLewis now handles patient triage by phone to reduce bottlenecks in the waiting room.

Most of all, break the vicious cycle that’s making veterinarians too stressed to stay in the profession.

“We all went into veterinary medicine because we love animals,” says Gibson. “We didn’t go into it because we love people. We’re having to interact with people who are representing their family, representing their pet, and not always in the best way.”

In other words: Remember that you are the ambassador for your pet. Your conduct, no matter how frustrating the medical shortage, is what speaks for a creature who can’t advocate for itself. When your animal is sick, that’s the time to be the most human.

MOST “AWHH” FACTOR

Elliot

It doesn’t get much cuter than a newborn duck. Elliot has been a sweetie since the day he was born, and loves to snuggle up against your face. His fun fact is sharing that he was raised by a kindhearted chicken that took him and his siblings under her wing.

F O N TA I N E R I T T E L M A N N

Willamette Week JANUARY 26, 2022 wweek.com

19

BEST COIF

Earl

F O N TA I N E R I T T E L M A N N

Earl likes to keep it short on the sides, long on top.

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Willamette Week JANUARY 26, 2022 wweek.com

Gone to the Dogs Looking for a patio that’s both pet-friendly and heated for winter?

Here are our favorite bars where you can sit and stay for a drink or two with Fido.

BY C A L L E Y H A I R

A good dog bar needs to meet the needs of its canine and human patrons alike.

For the former, that means plenty of outdoor space, water bowls on deck, and staffers who love to fawn over their furry visitors. The latter needs good energy, delicious food, a wide beverage selection, and heaters (especially in winter, when the urge to hole up with your pup and drink at home is strong). These local favorites fit the bill.

DOWNTOWN

Momo’s 725 SW 10th Ave., 503-478-9600. 3 pm-2:30 am daily.

As one Momo’s staffer neatly articulated over the phone, “If your dog is friendly, we’re dog-friendly.” She may have been underselling the joint’s pet-loving panache, because on a recent Saturday afternoon, visitors were greeted by a giant poodle chilling on a chaise lounge near the entrance. Momo’s is best known for its arcade games, moody lighting and classic, red vinyl booths, but the patio is the real draw for dog lovers. The deck is spacious, broken up into elevated nooks, and covered in blessedly powerful heat lamps, making it a wintertime go-to for pet owners who can’t drink without their pooches. It’s the kind of place where an overzealous border collie can jump onto a picnic table and nobody will bat an eye.

NORTH PORTL AND

Prost!

4237 N Mississippi Ave., 503-954-2674, prostportland. com. 11 am-2:30 am daily.

Prost! is a Portland classic for a reason. There’s the triple-threat outdoor heating system: a fireplace, overhead lamps and tabletop space heaters. There’s the location— the patio opens up to a Mississippi food cart pod that includes Bloodbuzz, Fried Egg I’m in Love and White Elephant. Then there’s the outdoor bar, which is helpful for those anxious pups who want to keep an eye on their person while they order, and an owner-friendly pet station stocked with bowls and giant Igloo water coolers. It’s the perfect spot for anyone who wants to feel like a Bavarian tavern wench with their dog in tow.

No judgment.

StormBreaker Brewing St. Johns 8409 N Lombard St., 971-255-1481, stormbreakerbrewing. com/st-johns. 11 am-9 pm Sunday-Monday, 11 am-10 pm Tuesday-Saturday.

If you’re sick of cooking under patio lamps that blast your face with direct heat, rejoice. StormBreaker’s outdoor space is enclosed by a screen, and heated gently and consistently by radiators mounted high along the wall.

The result is pleasant—mild, even—and likely to lull your dog to sleep while sprawled across one of the picnic table’s wide, smooth benches. This spot is for pet owners who value classic pub grub, modern rock and a lengthy draft list. Private parties can also book an ax-throwing session, though you may want to leave the dogs at home for that one.

NORTHEAST PORTL AND

Hi-Top Tavern 5015 NE Fremont St., 503-206-4308, hitoptavern.com.

3-11 pm Monday-Friday, 2-11 pm Saturday-Sunday.

This infinitely Instagrammable cocktail bar boasts an outdoor patio entrance, which as any owner of an excitable pet knows comes in handy when you’re trying to keep your dog from lunging at other patrons. The atmosphere is laid back but elevated—the deck is adorned with string lights, speakers play a soothing soundtrack of R&B and plenty of outdoor space heaters keep things toasty. It all comes together to enhance an impressively lengthy food and cocktail menu that includes massive hand pies that will warm your bones in winter.

Mad Hanna 6127 NE Fremont St., 503-288-2944, madhanna.com. 11 am-2:30 am daily.

In case the giant mural of a dog hoisting a pint of beer on the side of its shed doesn’t tip you off, Mad Hanna is cool with canines. It’s not, however, cool with COVID-19, so the bartender checks vaccination cards upon entry. While the old-school dive’s mismatched furniture and signature pudding shots are what gets most of the attention here, the outdoor space is perfectly serviceable thanks to its patchwork of awnings and umbrellas to protect drinkers and their dogs from the elements. There’s a bowl of water already set out for Fido’s arrival, and one quiet corner with a fireplace and television for you.

NORTHWEST

Lucky Labrador Beer Hall 1945 NW Quimby St., 503-517-4352, luckylab.com. 4-9:30 pm Monday-Thursday, 2-10 pm Friday, noon-10 pm Saturday, noon-9 pm Sunday.

It’s right there in the name—the owners of Lucky Lab picked their mascot because they thought it was “the

perfect symbol of what we were trying to accomplish: a friendly, faithful neighborhood pub.” The Slabtown location boasts a massive patio that’s half covered and basically looks like a dog park if the concrete slab were covered in grass. But if outer Northwest isn’t convenient to get to, Lucky Lab fortunately has locations with outdoor seating in every other quadrant.

SOUTHEAST

Barrio 7238 SE Foster Road, #9, 971-808-8212. 2-9 pm Monday-Thursday, noon-10 pm Friday-Sunday.

Barrio is part of the Portland Mercado, a collection of brightly painted food trucks, a market and a butcher.

The indoor space is tiny, but the sprawling covered patio has picnic tables with plenty of space for your pup to hang out underfoot. It’s a popular pet-owner spot, and the bartenders love to come outside and dole out scratches. During December, Barrio also hosted a photos-with-Santa session for doggos instead of kids. If your fur baby happens to be a music lover, check the bar’s Facebook page before you go to coordinate your visit with its frequent live performances.

VANCOUVER

Trap Door Brewing 2315 Main St., Vancouver, Wash., 360-314-6966, trapdoorbrewing.com. 3-10 pm Monday-Wednesday, 11 am-11 pm Thursday-Saturday, 11 am-10 pm Sunday.

This spot requires a trip across the Columbia, but Trap Door offers an extensive menu of beer, cider and kombucha as well as a partially covered patio with cozy fire pits. There’s even a conveniently located food cart pod right next door. It’s a Vancouver gem and a pet haven—the business has an Instagram account, @dogsoftrapdoorbrewing, devoted solely to its canine customers.

Willamette Week JANUARY 26, 2022 wweek.com

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APOCALYPSE READY

Pete

F O N TA I N E R I T T E L M A N N

Pete is a 5-year-old pit bull who suffered a herniated disc this past April and now needs wheels to help him get around. He is the sweetest, most chill dog. Never met a bed or lap he didn’t want to cuddle in. Time for disabled dogs to get a chance to shine!

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Willamette Week JANUARY 26, 2022 wweek.com

STREET

“WHAT IS YOUR PET’S FAVORITE TOY?”

Photos by Brian Burk On Instagram: @bpburk

Dog: Jade Owner: Chabeli Favorite toy: “She's got this little teddy bear she's had since she was a pup. It's all raggedy now.”

Dog: Scooby Owner: Cheyenne Favorite toy: “Squeaky lamb chop.”

Dogs (left to right): Ina, Soma and Shia Owners: Kiyo (left) and Katcha Favorite toys: “Soma eats everything, Shia likes Frisbees, and Ina loves her stuffed sloth.”

Dog: Mingus Owners: Merlin (left) and Tiah Favorite toy: “Mud.”

Dogs: Bob (left) and Phoebe Owner: Maddie Favorite toy: “Kong with peanut butter.”

Dogs: Olga (left) and Fritz Owners: Colin (left) and Colette Favorite toys: “Tennis balls (Olga) and Tweetie cat toys (Fritz).”

Dog: Eva Owners: Adam (left) and Destini Favorite toy: “Squirrels.”

Willamette Week JANUARY 26, 2022 wweek.com

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STARTERS

2022 Walters Performances

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

Eugenie Jones

February 4 | $18/$22 O R E G O N B R E W E R S F E S T I VA L

Singer-Songwriter, Jazz, Great American Songbook Don’t miss the chance to hear this “Jazz Week Review Top-50” artist and cleverly gifted lyricist!

Hillsboro-Oregon.gov/ WaltersConcerts The Oregon Brewers Festival returns to Waterfront Park this July following two years of pandemic-related cancellations.

N E G AT I V E S PAC E

Mon-Sat 10-6pm Sunday 11-5pm

1433 NE Broadway St Portland • 503 493-0070

Rockabilly Cafe, a ’50s-themed diner with authentic showpieces and a roaming, tableside magician, is scheduled to open in February.

T H E A C T O R S C O N S E R VAT O R Y

21+ TAPROOM & PATIO FEATURING CRAFT BEER, ARTISANAL SANDWICHES & COCKTAILS, PLUS AN EXTENSIVE GIN LIST.

Acadia, one of the finest restaurants in the city demonstrating the brilliance of food from the Southern bayou, serves its last crawfish.

The Actors Conservancy announces that founder and managing director Beth Harper will retire in June, prompting a nationwide search for her replacement.

ECLIPTICBREWING.COM 24

Willamette Week JANUARY 26, 2022 wweek.com

930 SE OAK ST.

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AW F U L

D AV I D L I B E R M A N

VISIT ECLIPTIC BREWING'S NEW SOUTHEAST LOCATION!

AW E S O M E

COMFORT SHOES FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY

A University of Oregon alum is the genius behind Wordle, the online puzzle that has become a cultural phenomenon.

GET BUSY

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

OREGON HISTORICAL SOCIETY

�GO: Oregon’s Botanical Landscape With COVID infection rates mounting and a general sense of unease persisting into the new year, we could all use a little more serenity before declaring 2022 a bust. Find peace of mind right now at the Oregon Historical Society, where local artist Frances Stilwell’s stunning depictions of our state’s native plants are on display. The 81 pastel-bathed images provide a look at the varied regional landscapes absent any sign of human development, allowing the viewer to travel from the coast to the high desert to the canyonlands without distraction. Oregon Historical Society, 1200 SW Park Ave., 503-222-1741, ohs.org. 10 am-5 pm MondaySaturday and noon-5 pm Sunday, through May 1. $10, free for Oregon Historical Society members and Multnomah County residents.

�GO: Janeane Garofalo Few performers have had as varied a career as Janeane Garofalo. From her breakout role as the wiseass, Gap-employed roommate in the Gen-X classic Reality Bites to becoming a cast member on Saturday Night Live, the actor-comedian even managed to try to counter the conservative dominance of talk radio by co-founding Air America. Garofalo drew huge crowds at the 2015 Bridgetown Comedy Festival, so her cynical, left-leaning wit seems to resonate with Portlanders. Helium Comedy Club, 1510 SE 9th Ave., portland.heliumcomedy.com. 8 pm Thursday, 7:30 and 10 pm Friday-Saturday, Jan. 27-29. $25-$33. 21+.

N O T I C E . R E F L E C T. H E A L .

�VIRTUAL: Fertile Ground Festival

It may be virtual for a second straight year, but the Fertile Ground Festival should still be vibrant. The 13th annual celebration of eclectic productions gets underway this week, and the projects range from fully staged world premieres to theatrical workshops to play readings to immersive installations. While the festival was curated last year, Fertile Ground is returning to its roots by allowing any artist to participate as long as they are based in Portland and the work is new. Although it may last 11 days—seemingly enough time to see it all—there is no way to take in every single show. Better start planning your schedule now. Fertile Ground Festival, fertilegroundpdx2022.org. Thursday-Sunday, Jan. 27-Feb. 6. Prices vary.

COURTESY OF LAN SU CHINESE GARDEN

�GO: Chinese New Year Opening Day The pandemic has proven to be as stubborn as an ox—which coincidentally, is the animal that represents the most recent year, according to the Chinese zodiac. Starting Feb. 1, you can welcome the Year of the Tiger and hold out hope the wild cat symbolizes positive change. The Lan Su Chinese Garden is holding a 15-day celebration to mark the occasion, starting with a lion dance at the attraction’s entrance—a tradition said to bring good luck. Lan Su Chinese Garden, 239 NW Everett St., 503-228-8131, lansugarden.org. 9:30 am Tuesday, Feb. 1. Free.

ON STAGE THROUGH FEB. 13, 2022 503.445.3700 | PCS.ORG SEASON SUPERSTARS

Tommy Bo in The Great Leap.

Photo by Owen Carey.

Willamette Week JANUARY 26, 2022 wweek.com

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FOOD & DRINK Pasta Factory Pop-up Pastificio d’Oro will transport you to Northern Italy with its delicate, hand-made tagliatelle and tortelloni.

BY J A S O N C O H E N

Pastificio d’Oro is a restaurant inside another restaurant in St. Johns.

But its heart—and thus, your stomach—is in Bologna, the Italian city known for its handmade pasta, meat ragù (aka “Bolognese”) and mortadella (which America turned into, yes, “bologna”). It also happens to be one of Portland’s sister cities.

The beloved cuisine of Emilia-Romagna, a region that includes Parma (as in prosciutto di Parma and Parmigiano) and Moderna (as in the balsamic vinegar), appears on the menu at a number of Portland restaurants serving a variety of Italian dishes. But at Pastificio, you’ll find only food with origins in the north-central province. For chef Chase Dopson and his partner Maggie Irwin, this is both a deliberate choice and practical reality since Pastificio is a pop-up operating out of Gracie’s Apizza just two nights a week.

While you were learning to bake sourdough at the start of the pandemic, Dopson caught “the pasta bug,” cracking eggs and rolling out dough for tagliatelle and tortelloni with a 100-centimeter mattarello (a particular style of rolling pin).

“It’s very meditative,” he says. “It’s just really fun to use no machines, and make something with literally a wooden stick and a board.”

Dopson had never actually worked in an Italian restaurant or cooked this type of food before—prior to the 2020 lockdown, he spent several years at Jacqueline—but he loved to eat it, and looked to Evan Funke, of L.A. restaurant Felix Trattoria, as well as the YouTube series Pasta Grannies, for inspiration. He started Pastificio selling home kits, and in September 2021 decided to give it a go at Gracie’s, where Irwin had previously worked.

With just a single induction burner to boil water and Gracie’s wood-fired oven, Dopson generally builds his menu around just two pastas, most frequently a tagliatelle ragù ($17) and a filled pasta in the tortellini family. The deeply flavored ragù has all the meats: beef chuck, pork shoulder, mortadella, prosciutto, pancetta and lard, plus mirepoix, meat broth, red wine and just a hint of tomato. The beef, pork and lard comes from Canby’s Revel Meat Co., while the cured components are sourced from Cowbell in Southeast Portland.

Other weeks you might find lasagna and the occasional primi special—most recently a breaded and fried pork cutlet with prosciutto di Parma and Parmigiana-Reggiano in cream sauce ($20). Light eating, this is not—even the simplest ricotta tortelloni ($15) with perfectly crisped sage leaves and browned butter is rich, while a dish called balanzoni, made with spinach tortelloni, doubles down on the denseness by incorporating mortadella in the filling.

“It is super-obviously very heavy food,” says Dopson, “but it’s very soul-soothing.”

“Nurturing,” Irwin adds.

“It’s this fine line between wanting to embody that Italian grandma who just wants to shovel food down your throat versus how much can someone eat?,” Dopson says.

To cut the richness are seasonal pickled vegetables ($5) and a simple insalata of escarole, radicchio and Little Gem ($9), both sourced from Wild Roots Farm. But the best thing to do is bring an extra-large appetite and order the entire menu. There’s always one dessert, while antipasti include a salumi plate ($9, or $12 with Parmigiano-Reggia26

Willamette Week JANUARY 26, 2022 wweek.com

no and balsamic vinegar) and Emilian fried bread with mortadella mostarda and squacquerone ($9), a creamy, extremely fresh cheese that Dopson makes in house because there’s really no way to import it.

“We had a guy who came in, he grew up in Bologna,” says Irwin, “and he was like, ‘I have never been able to have this [in America].’”

Dopson and Irwin have not been to Bologna themselves but hope to change that soon, and not just for a work trip—the two have been engaged since October 2020 (Irwin proposed).

“We want to go for our honeymoon,” says Dopson. “We want to go there and just like, eat and get drunk and look at all the beautiful architecture.”

EAT: Pastificio d’Oro, 8737 N Lombard St., doropdx.com. 5-8 pm Monday-Tuesday.

Top 5

Top 5

Buzz List

Hot Plates

WHERE TO DRINK THIS WEEK.

WHERE TO EAT THIS WEEK.

1. HOLY GHOST

1. SEBASTIANO’S

THOMAS TEAL

THOMAS TEAL

411 SE 81st Ave., 503-841-5905, sebastianospdx.com.

11 am-3 pm Wednesday-Saturday.

As we continue to ride the Omicron crest, Montavilla’s Sicilian deli, Sebastiano’s, has launched a take-and-bake dinner program to keep you cozy through winter. Specials rotate, but the extra-large, Catanese-style arancini are a must-have. Each order includes two goose egg-sized fried balls of rice mixed with Olympia Provisions mortadella, Tails & Trotters ham and mozzarella. Add a radicchio salad, a bottle of wine, and a slice of olive oil cake, and you’ve got yourself a nice little weeknight meal.

2. UNICORN CREATIONZ

4765 NE Fremont St., 971-319-1134, nacheauxpdx. com. 4-8 pm Wednesday-Thursday, noon-8:30 pm Friday, 10 am-4 pm Saturday-Sunday.

Despite its name, Unicorn Creationz is more of a tricera-corn. The bar/restaurant is split into three concepts inside the former Alameda Brewhouse space: food cart favorite Nacheaux—whipping up breakfast, lunch and, if you make it there in time, weekend brunch—as well as a bakery/dessert shop called Karnival Kreations, and Bourbon St. Bar. The cart is the heart of this food hall, so get there early on a Saturday to ensure owner-chef Anthony Brown has a spicy chorizo burrito left for you.

3. XINH XINH VIETNAMESE BISTRO

970 SE Morrison St., 971-229-1492, xinhxinhbistro. com. 11 am-8 pm Monday-Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday; 11 am-9 pm Friday-Saturday.

Tucked inside a small strip of businesses on Southeast Morrison, Xinh Xinh is best known for its banh mi and soups. It makes some of the best vegetarian pho in town. Bowls overflow with fresh broccoli, carrots, bok choy, mushrooms and green onions. When packed to go, it’s like Christmas morning—so many presents to open!

4. SARI RAMYUN COURTESY OF SARI

4101 SE 28th Ave., holyghostbar.com. 3 pm-late daily.

This may be the fifth entry in Ezra Caraeff’s bar portfolio, which includes long-standing favorites like Hi-Top Tavern and Paydirt, but Holy Ghost has its own personality, which can be found in everything from the goddesslike blue-and-gold color scheme to the impressively deep selection of agave spirits.

Make it a point to always order at least one gin fizz while you’re here. A machine behind the bar named “Shake Gyllenhall” agitates the New Orleans classic for at least five minutes—a manual task that keeps the drink off many other menus.

2. BRASA HAYA

412 NE Beech St., 503-288-3499, brasahayapdx.com.

5:30-9 pm Tuesday-Thursday, 5:30-10 pm Friday-Saturday.

Though only open since June, Brasa Haya serves a traditional Spanish coffee that’s already one of the best in town. Rich chocolate vies for dominance with locally roasted Junior’s brew and a cool cloud of amaro whipped cream. Start your meal with a glass and have a second at the end—you’ll be justified because the decadent drink appears on the dessert menu, too.

3. PINK RABBIT

232 NW 12th Ave., 971-255-0386, pinkrabbitpdx. com. 4 pm-midnight Monday-Thursday, 4 pm-2 am Friday-Saturday, 6 pm-midnight Sunday.

Even before Pink Rabbit transformed its curbside patio into an outdoor discotheque, the Pearl District bar’s collection of picnic tables were consistently full. But now, there’s a weather-fortified patio full of mirror balls, string lights, additional speakers, and living plant installations. The flamboyant vibe is balanced by a lineup of warm cocktails, including the top-shelf toddy, which drinks like counterprogramming—it is restrained, mellow and deeply comforting.

ENDLESS PASTABILITIES: Chef Chase Dopson began handmaking pasta at home during the pandemic, a hobby that’s since evolved into a pop-up.

2713 NE Sandy Blvd., 503-841-5149, sari.smartonlineorder.com. 11 am-8 pm Sunday-Thursday, 11 am-9 pm Friday-Saturday, 11 am-8:30 pm Monday.

Typically, “ramyun” refers to instant noodles in Korea, the peninsular answer to Top Ramen. But chef Tommy Shin’s stall in the Zipper food court specializes in a chicken noodle soup—well, technically chicken and beef broth, with melt-in-your-mouth brisket slices floating on top. This is a heretical opinion, given the proximity of Basilisk, but Sari makes the best chicken in the Zipper.

5. HAPA PDX RAMEN & WHISKEY

3848 SE Gladstone St., 503-376-9246, hapapdx.us.

11:30 am-2 pm and 5-9 pm Wednesday-Friday, 5-9 pm Saturday and Monday, 5-8 pm Sunday.

Lots of food carts make the leap to brick-andmortar, but rarely is the effect quite so sexy as it is at Hapa. The soup here is a blend of two beloved cuisines: In the “G-Special” ramen, you’ll recognize elements of a Hawaiian plate lunch and a Tokyo ramen. But this is very much an izakaya, and drinks are as much the attraction as the soup: The ginger ale-sake highball is worth the trip.

4. WEDGEHEAD

3728 NE Sandy Blvd., 503-477-7637, wedgeheadpdx. com. 4-11 pm Monday-Saturday, 3-10 pm Sunday.

It isn’t on any of the delivery apps, but Wedgehead is still working a solid takeout cocktail game. Thanks to canned cocktail brand Little Hands Stiff Drinks, the Hollywood neighborhood bar has some of the best mobile sippers around. Case in point, the Hot Teddy: a deft mixture of Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey, housemade ginger-turmeric syrup, cinnamon honey and fresh lemon. It will cure what ails, every time.

5. NALU

722 N Sumner St., 503-519-3415, nalukava.com. 5-11 pm Thursday-Monday.

Up a steep flight of stairs reached through an alley behind Cherry Sprout Produce, you’ll find an intimate, homespun tearoom. It’s a small operation, but under the right conditions, there might be red lentil soup. There’s always plenty of elixirs on the menu or a shot of fire cider to chase away the winter blues.

But what you really need right now is probably Sun on the Mind, a loose leaf tea blend with turmeric, ginger, black pepper and coconut flakes.

Willamette Week JANUARY 26, 2022 wweek.com

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Delphon “DJ” Curtis Jr. in Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Photo by Owen Carey.

Willamette Week JANUARY 26, 2022 wweek.com

POTLANDER

Passing the Puff

BY B R I A N N A W H E E L E R

The Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission has passed a slew of new rules affecting the weed industry that take hold this year.

On Dec. 28, while many of us were enjoying a well-deserved post-Christmas chill, the Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission was busy approving a new slate of rules that have not only changed what’s available at your local dispensary, but also what’s stocked in the wellness aisle at Oregon grocery stores.

Based on the industry’s growth, potential for interstate cannabis commerce, and regulations that apply to other states that have legalized recreational sales, the new rules are intended to curb manufacturer violations, increase product choices for the consumer, and establish a testing and regulation framework for an ever-broadening spectrum of cannabinoids and their derivatives. Overall, these regulations have the potential to lower prices, improve working conditions, and advance the general quality of Oregon cannabis.

Many of the changes won’t necessarily affect the buying experience for the average cannabis user, but the ones that do, oh honey, you’re going to want those recapped. Here are a few highlights:

ERIC CHRISTIANSEN

Flower Buying Limits Have Doubled Customers can now purchase 2 ounces of weed at a time—up from 1 ounce, as of Jan. 1. Home bakers, amateur extractors and high-tolerance patients can streamline their dispensary shopping by going to one vendor, rather than double-dipping along the Green Mile or, in some cases, spending an afternoon in the car trying to get to multiple stores all across town.

So Have the Maximum THC Level for Edibles and Concentrates Edible THC limits will increase from 50 mg to 100 mg per package on April 1, a date that frankly could not arrive sooner. High-tolerance edible enthusiasts can finally reach their peak without having to eat multiple brownies, cookies, gummies and other blood-sugar spiking confections. Similarly, the maximum THC level for concentrates and extracts has doubled from 1,000 mg to 2000 mg per package, pushing the maxim “A little dab’ll do ya” to its maximum limit.

Edibles Get Another Big “Score” Those nebulous, single-serving portions of bite-sized edibles now must have clear scoring to make the portion sizes accurate and obvious—a necessity with what’s sure to be an influx of high-dose, small-package edibles like caramels and gummies. If you still want to share nibbles of an edible with your boo thang, just keep in mind many of those scored single doses now have a maximum of 10 mg of THC. So, if you’re low-tolerance, nibble responsibly.

DOUBLE THE FUN: You can now purchase 2 ounces of weed at a time—up from 1 ounce, as of Jan. 1.

New Cannabinoids Need Old Tests Non-intoxicating cannabinoids like CBN, CBC and CBG have swept the market, appearing in wellness products from all manner of both fly-by-night and highly reputable companies. However, the regulations around them were vague. With this new rule, any novel

cannabinoid is required to meet the standard for the Food and Drug Administration’s New Dietary Ingredient notification, Generally Recognized as Safe. As such, expect a thinned but vetted selection beginning next year.

Oregon-licensed brands will have 18 months to bring their products into compliance.

Viva Cross-County Delivery For those whose residence and/or mobility kept a robust recreational market just out of reach, home delivery is now permitted across city and county lines.

However, this rule has a caveat: Local authorities must give it their stamp of approval. Dispensaries were previously limited to deliveries in the city or county where the retailer was located.

Easier Grower Reporting Reducing the time and cost for Oregon cannabis license holders to log all of their plant tagging and harvests into the state’s tracking system means fewer cut corners in an effort to meet a regulatory deadline. More time and less financial burden for our gifted farmers means engaged cultivation and an overall improvement to the process of distribution, which ideally should trickle down to us, the users, in the form of even higher-quality herb.

An End to Innovative Childproofing and Exit Bags This rule change hits differently for the manicured and/or less dexterous stoners among us—the OLCC is no longer requiring products to be so intensely childproofed that they effectively become a brain teaser puzzle. This also greatly improves access for users with limited mobility. The language of the rule is plain: “Usable marijuana and hemp (including plain pre-rolls) are no longer required to be in child-resistant packaging before leaving a retailer.”

This also applies to those unwieldy exit bags dispensaries were required to both hand out and charge for, leading many stoners to hoard them like grocery totes, forgetting them at home about half the time.

THC Arrives in the Wellness Aisle Starting July 1, hemp edibles in grocery stores and quickie marts will be permitted to exceed the federally imposed THC limit of 0.03%, instead allowing a single serving of a hemp edible to contain up to 2 mg of THC. While that rule applies to the 21-plus crowd, minors can actually get in on this action too—just keep in mind that products allowed for youths cannot exceed 0.5 mg of THC per serving.

Willamette Week JANUARY 26, 2022 wweek.com

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PERFORMANCE

MUSIC

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

C O U R T E S Y O F C H A P E L T H E AT R E

Budding Works of Art Fertile Ground, the annual festival of new productions, brings love, sex and puppets to a screen near you.

BY B E N N E T T C A M P B E LL FE RG U SO N

If there’s one word that describes Fertile Ground, it’s “raw.”

Since it was founded in 2009, the annual festival of new works has become the best place in the city to experience theater, film and dance that hasn’t been workshopped into oblivion—art that exists at the intersection of imperfection, vitality and risk.

Fertile Ground has never lacked nerve— it’s the festival where a naked performer covered themselves with dirt in front of an audience at the Clinton Street Theater—but the pandemic demanded a different brand of courage. An event built on the bustle of live audiences packing venues across the city was suddenly faced with the daunting prospect of forced reinvention.

By going virtual in 2021, Fertile Ground risked becoming small and shriveled. Yet the festival was buoyed by visionaries who dreamed up everything from a therapeutic baking podcast to a profoundly moving reading of a play about Fezziwig, an often overlooked character in A Christmas Carol.

While Fertile Ground 2021 may have set towering standards for virtual performance, 2022 has the potential to top it. It’s hard to think of a topic that isn’t addressed by this year’s edition of the festival, which will unleash works about sex, love, politics, puppets and even pirates.

Narrowing down the festival’s offerings to a list of can’t-miss events is never easy, but here are some of the shows that look likely to keep that raw Fertile Ground spirit alive.

Alma’s Wish Anca Hariton and David Woodin, masters behind Leaven Dream Puppets, return to Fertile Ground with a fable that is molded in the Czech tradition of socially engaged 30

Willamette Week JJJJANUARY 26, 2022 wweek.com

IN HARMONY: TriptheDark is putting on a new musical called The Belongings, which explores radical inner peacemaking.

puppetry—and ruminates on communism in Eastern Europe. Streams 5 pm Thursday, Jan. 27, through 8 pm Sunday, Feb. 6. Donations accepted.

Apple Hunters! and Dorothy’s Dictionary Few things are as thrilling as the prospect of a new E.M. Lewis play, especially for fans of her Antarctic saga Magellanica. This year, she’s bringing two new works to Fertile Ground—Apple Hunters!, which chronicles a hunt for a lost variety of apple, and Dorothy’s Dictionary, about an unlikely friendship between a high school student and a librarian.

Apple Hunters! streams 7 pm Tuesday, Feb. 1. Free. Dorothy’s Dictionary streams 7 pm Thursday-Sunday, Jan 27-Feb. 6. Donations accepted.

Landscape There’s nothing quite like the writing of Sara Jean Accuardi—it’s clear-eyed and unafraid of heartbreak, but bold in its embrace of compassion and optimism. For this audio drama, she teamed with Theatre Vertigo to tell a tale of a single mother set during the last days of the 2020 U.S. presidential election. Streams Thursday-Sunday, Jan. 27-Feb. 6. $20.

The Knowledge of Good and Evil Legacy, spirituality and morality—those are the themes that define this short film about a clash between two African American brothers, written and directed by poet and playwright Valerie Yvette Peterson. Streams 6 pm Friday-Saturday, Jan. 28-29. Donations accepted.

The Belongings Fans of the Milwaukie dance company TriptheDark should seek out this musical by Chad Dickerson, which is choreographed by TriptheDark’s ingenious co-creative director, Corinn deTorres. Streams Thursday-Sunday, Feb. 3-6. $10. Also plays at Chapel Theatre, 4107 SE Harrison St., Milwaukie. 7:30 pm Thursday-Saturday and 2 pm Sunday, Feb. 3-6. $20.

The Misadventures of Missy Black: A Pirate Play Who isn’t craving some seafaring action?

This play promises to satisfy our collective appetite for piracy—with a twist. Riley Anna wrote the script about a young woman who defies an arranged marriage and joins a mutiny to become a pirate queen. Streams 7 pm Sunday and 7:30 pm Wednesday-Thursday, Jan. 30 and Feb. 2-3. Free.

Cosmogonos Milagro legend Ajai Tripathi created and directed this two-part showcase, which uses shadow play to chronicle the origin of the universe. Streams Thursday-Sunday, Jan. 27-Feb. 6. Donations accepted.

Ro & Jo: A Tale of Woe The daughters of two rival politicians fall in love in this contemporary riff on Romeo and Juliet. Streams 7 pm Tuesday-Friday and 4 pm Saturday-Sunday, Feb. 1-6. Sliding scale $5-$25.

The Cult of Cunnilingus Sex-positive superstar Eleanor O’Brien is back with an erotic comedy that stems from her sensual, soulful and uproarious ensemble show Sex We Can! Streams 8 pm Thursday-Saturday and 3 pm Sunday, Feb. 3-6. $20.

The Town of Many Names—Digital Wild West Edition Never underestimate the exhilaratingly experimental theater of Hand2Mouth.

This Western, created by students of the company’s Youth Summer Devising Residency Program, sprouts from an intriguing question: “What would Westerns look like if they weren’t all created by old white men?”

Streams 7:30 pm Friday, Feb. 4. Pay what you will.

Crossroads at Chambersburg Playwright and director Fred Cooprider dramatizes a real-life encounter at an abandoned stone quarry in Chambersburg, Penn., between Frederick Douglass and martyred abolitionist John Brown. Streams Thursday-Sunday, Jan. 27-Feb. 6. Donations accepted.

SEE IT: Fertile Ground Festival, fertilegroundpdx2022.org. Thursday-Sunday, Jan. 27-Feb. 6.

Now Hear This Listening recommendations from the past, present, Portland and the periphery.

BY DANIEL BROMFIELD // @BROMF3

SOMETHING OLD

Elza Soares, who died Jan. 20 at 91, spent her 60-year-career at the vanguard of Brazilian music.

The singer’s 1960 debut, Se Acaso Você Chegasse, is so confident it’s almost unsettling, and the records she made in her 80s, starting with 2015’s A Mulher do Fim do Mundo, found her absorbing sounds from the Brazilian underground and reinventing herself as a sort of elder arch-punk. Some of her final performances were delivered from a throne, and she deserved no less.

SOMETHING NEW

Shinichi Atobe put out one brilliant EP in 2001, disappeared for more than a decade, and since 2014 has released nearly an album a year of eerie, crudely assembled, corroded, and hauntingly beautiful electronic music. Love of Plastic is his most accessible album yet, leaning toward the pianos and pistoning chords of early Chicago house music.

It’s also his best-sounding work by miles; while his earlier music felt thrown together by the elements, this stuff was produced.

SOMETHING LOCAL

Portland producer Whysopod is releasing a beat tape every day this month, each named for the date, and most of them over in a few minutes. Whysopod’s rugged style is less “chill beats” and more akin to pre-algorithm tapes like Metal Fingers’ Special Herbs—all right angles and nuts and bolts. And by releasing them in three- or four-track packages, there’s no way to just put them on in the background and vibe into oblivion. You have to pay attention.

SOMETHING ASKEW

Jake Muir brings a squishy tactility to his ambient music, and his new album Mana is his spongiest and spermiest release yet, slithering right up the listener’s ear like a tongue.

Muir sampled pieces from the short-lived NYC “illbient” scene of the ’90s, and while Mana has little to do with illbient’s fusion of hip-hop and zero-gravity atmosphere, it does have a peculiar rhythm of its own, always fiercely present, prodding and poking the listener rather than simply floating in the distance.

MOVIES

Editor: Andi Prewitt / Contact: aprewitt@wweek.com

N AVA LTA M E D I A

SCREENER

MOMENT IN THE SUN: Nataki Garrett’s film You Go Girl! was one of 59 shorts selected from more than 10,000 submissions to screen at Sundance.

She Persisted As the artistic director for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival prepares for a full season of in-person theater, a short she executive-produced is screening at Sundance.

BY CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER

@chance_s_p

Last week, as her short film You Go Girl! was about to premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, Nataki Garrett had another quick appointment. On Jan. 19, the artistic director of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival addressed Congress.

“We’re just pushing them to go ahead

and refocus,” Garrett says of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Small Business Committee and its three prospective bills to rebuild the creative economy. “The creative economy is worth more GDP than agriculture and mining combined, so it’s a huge financial loss across the country.”

Congressional testimony, Sundance premieres—these are the high-profile moves

that have defined Garrett’s whirlwind, three-year OSF tenure. Stories in The New York Times and Playbill have recognized Garrett as leading the transformation of American theater. She’s the first Black woman to shepherd OSF and one of only a few currently guiding large national companies. Then, there’s the crisis management side. Garrett’s inaugural season in 2020 lasted six days before COVID hit, and she’s “still haunted” by the decision to lay off 500 employees, about half of whom have been gradually rehired.

“OSF doesn’t belong to itself,” Garrett says. “It’s important to this town, to this region. It’s an economic driver. It’s important to the industry. We are a flagship theater.

We change the course of the field. From that platform, the rebuild is mostly about, how can we be emblematic of our values? It was humbling these last couple of years.”

After a 2021 that saw OSF embrace virtual reality and other immersive technology, film takes center stage this month as You Go Girl! screens at Sundance through Jan. 30, one of 59 shorts selected from more than 10,000 submissions. Helmed by acclaimed theater director Shariffa Ali, it follows a New York City comedian named Audrey (Tiffany Mann) navigating the physical and spiritual challenges of hiking Mount Ashland alone. Following last year’s Ash Land, this film marks the second of Ali’s OSF shorts exploring Black women’s vulnerability, freedom and catharsis in the Oregon wilderness. Garrett executive-produced both.

“Shariffa Ali uses [Southern Oregon] as a canvas to build on this idea of reconciliation and longing and regeneration,” Garrett says.

“It’s a good metaphor for my last three years at OSF.” When she was hired in April 2019, the Oakland, Calif., native and former artistic director of the Denver Center for the Performing Arts inherited OSF’s national influence, legacy of evolution and years of financial devastation stemming from wildfires and a “huge structural deficit.”

The 2022 season begins paving the road

to recovery. The company will stage seven live plays beginning in April and debut a new ticketing model with lower prices ($35 to $75) and greater accessibility for Rogue Valley residents.

Though OSF was by no means some traditionalist Globe Theatre tribute troupe before Garrett’s arrival, she has prioritized contemporary artists of color and their work. While Garrett is quick to point out Ashland’s welcoming reception and touching patron feedback, some programming pivots—particularly the 2021 decision to stage only the one-woman Fannie Lou Hamer production Fannie—yielded vitriol.

Despite OSF lacking the personnel to safely produce any in-person Shakespeare last year, a group of OSF patrons identifying themselves as the “Old White Guard” (member numbers and all) sent letters suggesting that, as a Black woman, Garrett was merely preaching to the choir with her programming “teaching about racism,” that she didn’t understand Shakespeare and even feared it.

“It actually made me feel really threatened, that I could be harmed for the work that I was doing,” she says. “Even with that, I had to find my humility and use that as motivation. When people write incendiary, racist, sexist language, at the base of it is some fear and longing and a need to be seen.”

This cavalcade of invigorating and gutting experiences in and around Ashland resonates clearly within You Go Girl! The film’s heartbeat shifts between peril and power when Black women carve paths where they’ve historically been absent or unwelcome. Garrett, of course, wants to talk through the art. She’ll direct Dominique Morisseau’s Confederates this autumn and seeks to continue fostering projects like You Go Girl!

“The film says, ‘We’re here. I am rural Southern Oregon. I am my town. I am this area. It’s important that I’m here,’” Garrett says. “‘We belong here, and we also bask in the glory of what it’s like to live here.’”

Get Your Reps In CRITERION

Le Samouraï (1967)

French dreamboat Alain Delon stars as stoic hit man Jef Costello in Jean-Pierre Melville’s sleek neonoir. When Jef is accidentally seen by several witnesses during a hit gone wrong, his efforts to provide himself with an airtight alibi only get him into further trouble with both the gangsters

who initially hired him and the unconvinced police hot on his trail. Clinton, Jan. 29.

My Own Private Idaho (1991)

An Oregon staple from Gus Van Sant (alum of Catlin Gabel!), this loose adaptation of Shakespeare’s Henry IV follows two gay street hustlers (Keanu Reeves and River Phoenix) as they turn tricks in Portland. It’s a simultaneously gritty and tender exploration of friendship, identity and unrequited love. Cinemagic, Jan. 30.

La Ciénega (2001)

French for “The Swamp,” this drama from Argentine auteur Lucrecia Martel follows a self-pity-

ing bourgeois family as they languidly vacation at their decaying country estate in Salta (Martel’s hometown), where the summer heat and claustrophobic atmosphere cause long-simmering tension and resentment to boil over. Clinton, Jan. 31.

Paper Moon (1973)

When a con man finds himself saddled with a 9-year-old girl (real-life father-daughter duo Ryan and Tatum O’Neal), they quickly find a way to make the most of it: by forming an unlikely partnership and swindling their way across Great Depression-era America. Screens as a tribute to the late, great New Hollywood director Peter Bogdanovich.

Hollywood, Jan. 31.

Se7en (1995)

“WHAT’S IN THE BOoOoOoOoX?!?!” In one of crime-thriller king David Fincher’s several masterpieces, a hotheaded junior detective (Brad Pitt) and his seasoned partner (Morgan Freeman) work together to solve a series of gruesome murders, each based on one of the seven deadly sins. Cinemagic, Jan. 31.

ALSO PLAYING: 5th Avenue: Amores Perros (2000), Jan. 28-30. Academy: The Road Warrior (1981), Jan. 26-27. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005), Jan. 26-27.

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome

(1985), Jan. 28-Feb. 3. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007), Jan. 28-Feb. 3.

Cinemagic: Pacific Rim (2013), Jan. 28. Trancers (1984), Jan. 28. Inception (2010), Jan. 29.

Dunkirk (2017), Jan. 29. The Iron Giant (1999), Jan. 30. Dumb and Dumber (1994), Jan. 30. Clinton: Wings of Desire (1987), Jan. 26. Pather Panchali (1955), Jan. 27. Dead Man (1995), Jan. 28.

The Vanishing (1988), Jan. 28.

Monterey Pop (1968), Jan. 30.

Man Is Not a Bird (1965), Feb. 1.

Hollywood: Battlestar Galactica double feature, Jan. 26. Purple Rain (1984), Jan. 29. Night of the Kickfighters (1988), Feb. 1.

Willamette Week JANUARY 26, 2022 wweek.com

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MOVIES APPLE TV+

NOW PLAYING TOP PICK OF THE WEEK

Swan Song

When one performer plays identical characters in a movie, it’s often a contorted acting showcase: from Dead Ringer (1964) all the way to Dead Ringers (1988). But rarely, if ever, has it been done with the nuance and composure of Mahershala Ali in Swan Song. In this Apple TV+ sci-fi drama, the two-time Oscar winner double-embodies Cameron Turner, a terminally ill husband and father debating whether to clone himself (consciousness included) for his family’s benefit. In the frosty, minimal calm of Benjamin Cleary’s directorial debut, Ali’s performance sets the entire tone with each conflicted breath, working out the exact variation between the two Camerons. The original aches to control a process beyond his control (nod to Glenn Close as the preeminent should-we-trust-her cloning scientist), while the genetically unsick version pines to build on the memories of Cameron’s wife (Naomie Harris) and son (Dax Rey) they now both share. At a distance, Cleary has trouble balancing whether we’re watching an almost hokey tech-overreach thriller or almost maudlin memory piece (some discomforting mix of Alex Garland’s Ex Machina and Never Let Me Go), and it’s sometimes unclear from shot to shot with whom we should identify. But the genre particulars hardly matter. It’s a Mahershala Ali movie—twice over. R. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Apple TV+.

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 A Hero

Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi seems poised to become a household name among film buffs around the world following the release of this latest project. He’s already snagged two Academy Awards and most recently won the Best Director Award at the Asia-Pacific Film Festival in November 2021, and A Hero is now a leading Oscar contender in the Best International Feature Film category. It begins simply with the main character, Rahim, played with a quiet grace by acclaimed Iranian theater and film actor Amir Jadidi, walking out of prison and into the Iranian urban landscape. Over the course of two days, we learn Rahim was incarcerated because he couldn’t repay a debt and, upon his release, he attempts to start fresh and even performs a good deed. Of course, as the saying goes, such righteous actions never go unpunished. Farhadi never insults his audience with obvious exposition. The viewer is left to discover who Rahim is, the various characters’ motivations, and who the stories’ villains and heroes are. All of the film’s atmosphere and emotional drive is delivered with naturalistic faithfulness by the actors, and ambient street noise replaces a contrived score to emphasize that tone. The story unfolds exactly how it’s introduced by the main character.

With a quiet grace. PG-13. RAY GILL JR. Amazon Prime, Living Room.

The Tragedy of Macbeth At once dignified and

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deranged, Denzel Washington’s Macbeth is just one of countless pleasures to be found in The Tragedy of Macbeth, director Joel Coen’s gorgeously austere adaptation of Shakespeare’s spooky saga about power and madness. The hurly-burly is the same—once more, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth (Frances McDormand) plot to murder the rightful king of Scotland—but with the help of cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel (Amélie) and production designer Stefan Dechant (The Call of the Wild), Coen brings a fresh sheen of grim beauty to the Bard’s text, using stark shades of black and white and eerily barren sets to deliver a master class in menacing minimalism. Even better are the performances, with Washington playing Macbeth as a creepily affable chap—“if there’s power to be had, why shouldn’t I have it?” he seems to wonder—and McDormand singeing the screen with steely terror. She understands that Lady Macbeth’s defining characteristic is her impatience with her husband’s pesky conscience, which makes it all the more haunting when she discovers a conscience of her own. She, Washington and Coen comprehend the play through and through, which is why The Tragedy of Macbeth is more than a movie. It’s a proper Macbeth. R. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Cinema 21, Laurelhurst, Studio One.

The Matrix Resurrections

When the fourth installment of The Matrix franchise begins, we join white rabbit-inked hacker Bugs (Jessica Henwick) as she scrutinizes

Willamette Week JANUARY 26, 2022 wweek.com

the epochal 1999 blockbuster’s still-breathtaking 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’ 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, Cornelius, Dine-In Progress Ridge, Evergreen Parkway, Fox Tower, Lloyd Center, Movies on TV, Studio One, Tigard, Vancouver Plaza.

Salt in My Soul

If you plan to see Salt in My Soul in theaters, bring Kleenex. The heartwrenching documentary follows the life of Mallory Smith, a young woman who was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis as a child. As a teenager, she contracted B. cepacia, a bacteria in her lungs that is often deadly for CF patients.

The movie weaves together home footage, diary excerpts,

and interviews with her friends, loved ones, and doctors to bring to life Smith’s remarkable story. The film is decidedly lo-fi, with long underwater shots of the sun filtering through ocean waves. It’s often gutting, from the revelation that an experimental phage therapy that attacks bacteria might have saved her life, if only she’d received it earlier, to home videos of Smith as a 4-yearold undergoing the exhausting and painful daily exercises necessary for her to breathe.

Despite suffering from chronic pain, she was a star athlete in high school and went on to produce a book of poetry while studying at Stanford. She kept a 2,500-page diary from the age of 15 until her death at 25.

The writing highlights in lyric and often wrenching prose the pain of her medical journey and the wisdom and zeal for life that she developed as a result of her experience with CF. I challenge anyone to finish Salt in My Soul with dry eyes. NR. GRACE CULHANE. On Demand.

The Tender Bar

Ever since Uncle Charlie (Ben Affleck) flatly declared his little nephew hopeless at sports and pointed him toward a bookstuffed closet instead, J.R. Moehringer (Daniel Ranieri) was set on the path toward writerdom. And when The Tender Bar is about J.R. living a life worthy of its namesake 2005 memoir, the film is irresistibly charming. Abandoned by his radio DJ father, J.R. and his mother (Lily Rabe) move into the tough-loving extended family’s Long Island home, cramped with outsized personalities like Grandpa (Christopher Lloyd) and Uncle Charlie. Helmed by George Clooney, who has been on a directing cold streak dating back to 2005, The Tender Bar wisely tunes itself to the avuncular wit that a nearly 50-yearold Affleck inherits from leading men just like Clooney—quick with a line, a wink and (in this case) a free round at the family bar. While Tye Sheridan (as college-age J.R., flirting quite well at Yale) is by no means to blame for the movie’s short-

comings, its homestretch unwisely fixates on J.R. planning to write The Tender Bar and—even more bizarrely—on the memoir’s industry viability. That self-reflexive turn is nearly soul-sucking, presuming we cared about J.R.’s book more than J.R.’s family. Luckily, the soul-sucking isn’t fatal; this one’s all heart. R. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Amazon Prime.

Parallel Mothers

There’s little Pedro Almodóvar adores more than intoxicating accent colors, single mothers and Penélope Cruz. All three factor prominently in the Spanish auteur’s 22nd feature film, hinging on a soap opera plot treated with soulful seriousness. Cruz’s seventh collaboration with Almodóvar sees her play Janis, a 40-something magazine photographer who unexpectedly welcomes a baby after hooking up with the archaeologist helping locate her grandfather’s Spanish Civil War gravesite.

Janis shares a delivery room with Ana (Milena Smit), a teen mother far less certain about her present and future.

To keep it vague, their parental destinies intertwine in ways traumatic, erotic and emotionally confounding. Employing deep-focus close-ups, primary color splashes, and a score of weeping strings, Almodóvar begins experimenting with how humanely a filmmaker can treat a preposterously knotty story. Yet down the stretch, he becomes too enamored of themes like hereditary and historical trauma, painting over Janis and Ana in brushstrokes too sweeping, too neat and dragging audiences away from the characters they’d invested in. Respect to Cruz: She’s as stunning and self-possessed as ever. But in Almodóvar’s illustrious canon, Parallel Mothers is minor. Its heart shatters for mothers stranded by fate, men and nations, but surely it could do something more attentive with the pieces. R. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Cinema 21, Netflix.

JONESIN’

FREE WILL

B Y M AT T J O N E S

"Wordle Has It"--when _everyone_ is posting results.

ASTROLOGY ARIES

(March 21-April 19): Aries actor Bette Davis said that if you want to improve your work, you should "attempt the impossible." That's perfect advice for you right now. I hope to see you hone your skills as you stretch yourself into the unknown. I will celebrate your forays into the frontiers, since doing so will make you even smarter than you already are. I will cheer you on as you transcend your expectations and exceed your limits, thereby enhancing your flair for selflove. Here's your mantra: "I now have the power to turn the impossible into the possible and boost my health and fortunes in the process."

TAURUS

(April 20-May 20): Ancient Chinese philosopher Sun Tzu wrote, "Opportunities multiply as they are seized." You'll be wise to make that your motto during the next five months, Taurus. Life will conspire to bring you more and more benefits and invitations as you take full advantage of the benefits and invitations that life brings. The abundance gathering in your vicinity may even start to seem ridiculously extravagant.

Envious people could accuse you of being greedy, when in fact, you're simply harnessing a crucial rule in the game of life. To minimize envy and generate even more benefits and invitations, be generous in sharing your plenitude.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): "'Because there has been no one to stop me' has been one of the principles of my life," wrote Gemini author Joyce Carol Oates. "If I'd observed all the rules, I’d never have got anywhere," said Gemini actor Marilyn Monroe. "Play the game. Never let the game play you." So advised Gemini rapper and actor Tupac Shakur. "Who I really am keeps surprising me," declared Gemini author Nikki Giovanni. I propose that we make the previous four quotes your wisdom teachings during the next four weeks.

ACROSS

1. West African amulets (and bad word to open a certain game with) 6. Smoke detector noise 10. Frozen waffle brand 14. Backspace over, maybe 15. Pac-12 powerhouse 16. "Moonraker" villain Hugo 17. Entry at the top of some crossword grids, or a good description of the game's dimensions?

19. Spice Girl who got a 2022 honor from Queen Elizabeth 20. Phobia 21. "Except ..."

23. Chess rating system 24. Make a choice 25. "You don't have to tell me" 27. "In Living Color" acting family 31. Malfunctions, like a printer 34. "Easy On Me" singer 35. Radiant glow 36. Light bulb unit 39. Advanced H.S. math class 40. Blend thoroughly (and bad word to open with) 41. Highlight at The Met 42. Norway's largest city 43. "Sorry, can't" 44. Snarly kitten, maybe 45. "The Gift of the Magi" writer 47. Goat-legged revelers 48. Shows signs of tiredness 50. Complete collection 51. City area, briefly 52. Spirited gathering?

56. 1% alternative

60. It's protected by a pad 62. Representation of a synthesizer sound, or the onslaught of game solutions people are posting on social media?

64. "To _ _ _ a Mockingbird" 65. Door word 66. Ending with way or sea 67. Cryptozoological giant 68. "The Lion King" lioness 69. Wood-related isomer derived from coal tar used to make tear gas and dyes (and a *terrible* word to open with)

DOWN

1. "Survivor" host Probst 2. "Ugly Betty" actor Michael 3. Morning mugful 4. Operator 5. Coral or Caspian, e.g.

6. In the toaster for too long 7. Earth sci.

8. Contrarily 9. "Yeah, I'm out this round" 10. Dubstep or techno, e.g., for short 11. Eco-friendly bloc also seen when you win the game?

12. Ernest or Julio of winemaking 13. U-shaped bend in a river (and bad word to open with) 18. Baking measures 22. "Pretty sneaky, _ _ _" (Connect Four ad line) 24. Free throw value 26. Iraq neighbor 27. Home of Baylor University 28. "Law & Order" figures, for short 29. Beginner's karate wear,

©2022 Jonesin’ Crosswords (editor@jonesincrosswords.com) For answers to this puzzle, call: 1-900-226-2800, 99 cents per minute. Must be 18+. Or to bill to your credit card, call: 1-800-655-6548. Reference puzzle #JNZ990.

CANCER

or clump you may see when letters are in the wrong places?

30. Tenor sax player who worked with Zoot Sims 31. Nervous from caffeine (and bad word to open with) 32. Indy champ Luyendyk 33. "Mad _ _ _: Fury Road" 35. Love, in a telenovela 37. Stadium section 38. Road materials 40. Tavern 44. Mammal in a cave 46. Snaky letter 47. Fortune teller 48. Bad-tasting (a variant spelling ... and worse word to open with because of that) 49. Schwarzenegger, informally 50. Milan's Teatro alla _ _ _ 53. "2 Minute Drill" channel 54. Bluish color 55. _ _ _ and void 56. Move back and forth 57. Designer Lagerfeld 58. Judith of "Brighton Beach Memoirs" 59. Jerry Garcia collaborator Saunders 61. Peyton's brother 63. Das _ _ _ (1990s hip-hop group)

last week’s answers

(June 21-July 22): Your animal symbol is usually the crab. But I propose we temporarily change it to the tardigrade. It's a tiny, eightlegged creature that's among the most stalwart on planet Earth—able to live everywhere, from mountaintops to tropical rainforests to the deepest parts of the sea. In extreme temperatures, it thrives, as well as under extreme pressures.

Since it emerged as a species half a billion years ago, it has survived all five mass extinctions. I believe you will be as hardy and adaptable and resolute as a tardigrade in the coming months, Cancerian. You will specialize in grit and resilience and determination. PS: Tardigrades are regarded as a "pioneer species" because they take up residence in new and changed environments, paving the way for the arrival of other species.

They help create novel ecosystems. Metaphorically speaking, you could be like that.

LEO

(July 23-Aug. 22): I regularly ask myself how I can become more open-minded. Have I stopped being receptive in any way? What new developments and fresh ideas am I ignorant of? Have my strong opinions blinded me to possibilities that don't fit my opinions? In accordance with astrological omens, Leo, I encourage you to adopt my attitude in the coming weeks. For inspiration, read these thoughts by philosopher Marc-Alain Ouaknin: "If things speak to us, it is because we are open to them, we perceive them, listen to them, and give them meaning. If things keep quiet, if they no longer speak to us, it is because we are closed."

VIRGO

(Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Like all the rest of us, Virgo, you have limitations. And it's important for you to identify them and take them into consideration. But I want to make sure you realize you also have fake limitations; you wrongly believe in the truth of some supposed limitations that are, in fact, mostly illusory or imaginary.

Your job right now is to dismantle and dissolve those. For inspiration, here's advice from author Mignon McLaughlin: "Learning too soon our limitations, we never learn our powers."

LIBRA

(Sept. 23-Oct. 22): "Develop enough courage so that you can stand up for yourself and then stand up for somebody else," counseled poet and activist Maya Angelou. Author Toni Morrison said, "The function of freedom is to free someone

WEEK OF FEBRUARY 3

© 2022 ROB BREZSNY

else." Author and activist Nikki Giovanni wrote, "Everybody that loves freedom loves Harriet Tubman because she was determined not only to be free, but to make free as many people as she could." I hope the wisdom of these women will be among your guiding thoughts in the coming weeks. As your own power and freedom grow, you can supercharge them—render them even more potent—by using them to help others.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): "Man, sometimes it

takes you a long time to sound like yourself," testified Miles Davis, one of the most unique and talented jazz trumpeters and composers who ever lived. Popular and successful author Anne Lamott expressed a similar sentiment: "I'm here to be me, which is taking a great deal longer than I had hoped." If those two geniuses found it a challenge to fully develop their special potentials, what chance do the rest of us have? I have good news in that regard, Scorpio. I believe 2022 will be a very favorable time to home in on your deepest, truest self—to ascertain and express more of your soul's code. And you're entering a phase when your instinct for making that happen will be at a peak.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): In the course of

human history, three million ships have sunk to the bottom of the Earth's seas. At one extreme have been huge vessels, like the Titanic and naval cruisers, while at the other extreme are small fishing boats. Many of these have carried money, gems, jewelry, gold, and other precious items.

Some people have made it their job to search for those treasures. I believe there could and should be a metaphorical resemblance between you and them in the coming weeks, Sagittarius. Now is a favorable time for you to hunt for valuable resources, ideas, memories, and yes, even treasures that may be tucked away in the depths, in hidden locations, and in dark places.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): "It is astonishing

what force, purity, and wisdom it requires for a human being to keep clear of falsehoods," wrote author Margaret Fuller. That's the bad news.

The good news is that your capacity for exposing and resisting falsehoods is now at a peak.

Furthermore, you have a robust ability to ward off delusions, pretense, nonsense, inauthenticity, and foolishness. Don't be shy about using your superpowers, Capricorn. Everyone you know will benefit as you zero in and focus on what's true and genuine. And you will benefit the most.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): "All things are inven-

tions of holiness," wrote poet Mary Oliver. "Some more rascally than others." I agree. And I'll add that in the coming weeks, holiness is likely to be especially rascally as it crafts its inventions in your vicinity. Here are the shades of my meaning for the word "rascally": unruly, experimental, mischievous, amusing, mercurial, buoyant, whimsical, and kaleidoscopic. But don't forget that all of this will unfold under the guidance and influence of holiness. I suspect you'll encounter some of the most amusing and entertaining outbreaks of divine intervention ever.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): The year 1905 is re-

ferred to as Albert Einstein's "Year of Miracles."

The Piscean physicist, who was 26 years old, produced three scientific papers that transformed the nature of physics and the way we understand the universe. Among his revolutionary ideas were the theory of special relativity, the concept that light was composed of particles, and the iconic equation E = mc squared. With that information as a backdrop, I will make a bold prediction: that in 2022 you will experience your own personal version of a Year of Miracles.

The process is already underway. Now it's time to accelerate it.

Homework: What is the wisest foolishness you could carry out right now?

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