Willamette Week, August 24, 2022 - Volume 48, Issue 42 - "Get In, Loser! We’re Going Back to School"

NEWS: Vikings Pillage FOOD: Tercet Keeps Kmart. P. 11 Prix Fixe Alive. P. 26 MUSIC: The Return of Robert Plant and Alison Krauss. P. 29

2 Willamette Week AUGUST 24, 2022 wweek.com

Willamette Week welcomes freelance submissions. Send material to either News Editor or Arts Editor. Manuscripts will be returned if you include a selfaddressed, stamped envelope. To be considered for calendar listings, notice of events must be received in writing by noon Wednesday, two weeks before publication. Questions concerning circulation or subscription inquiries should be directed to Jed Hoesch at Willamette Week. Postmaster: Send all address changes to Willamette Week, P.O. Box 10770, Portland, OR 97206. Subscription rates: One year $130, six months $70. Back issues $5 for walk-ins, $8 for mailed requests when available. Willamette Week is mailed at third-class rates. Association of Alternative Newsmedia. This newspaper is published on recycled newsprint using soy-based ink. BLITZEN TRAPPER. PAGE 30 ON THE COVER: Like the Mean Girls, Portland students return to school next week; art by Hangland-SkillMickand McKenzie Young OUR MOST TRAFFICKED STORY ONLINE THIS WEEK: A Southeast Portland church is left behind as Mormons leave Oregon. Masthead EDITOR & PUBLISHER Mark Zusman EDITORIAL News Editor Aaron Mesh Arts & Culture Editor Andi Prewitt Assistant A&C Editor Bennett Campbell Ferguson Staff Writers Anthony Effinger, Nigel Jaquiss, Lucas Manfield, Rachel Monahan, Sophie Peel News Interns Ekansh Gupta, Helen Huiskes, Ethan Johanson Copy Editor Matt Buckingham ART DEPARTMENT Art Director Mick Hangland-Skill Graphic Designer McKenzie Young-Roy ADVERTISING Director of Sales Anna Zusman Advertising Media Coordinator Beans Flores Account Executives Michael Donhowe, Maxx Hockenberry OUTREACHCOMMUNITY Give!Guide Director Toni Tringolo Podcast Host Brianna Wheeler DISTRIBUTION Circulation Director Jed Hoesch Entrepreneur in Residence Jack Phan OPERATIONS Accounting Director Beth Buffetta Manager Informationof Services Brian Panganiban OUR MISSION To provide Portlanders with an independent and irreverent understanding of how their worlds work so they can make a Thoughdifference.Willamette Week is free, please take just one copy. Anyone removing papers in bulk from our distribution points will be prosecuted, as they say, to the full extent of the law. WHAT WE LEARNED FROM READING THIS WEEK’S PAPER VOL. 48, ISSUE 42 Just 16% of Portlanders feel “very safe” walking in their neighborhoods at night. 6 Swastika Mountain will soon become Mount Halo 7 Real estate investors from Beijing pumped money into a weed patch in St. Helens. 9 Zygmunt Wilf owns the Minnesota Vikings and an empty Kmart. 10 Each year, Roosevelt High School students honor Trayvon Martin by wearing their hoodies up. 15 Prepare for backyard picnics if your kids bring home COVID. 16 Ms. Sternberg took Bri Pruett and her nerdy classmates to The Montage 18 An estimated 7,000 people showed up to watch the Portland Adult Soapbox Derby. 22 The Alibi is the second-oldest continuously operating tiki bar in the country. 25 Multicourse tweezer food in the heart of downtown Portland? Yes, there is still a place. 26 Oracle Wellness’ spritzable tincture is known as the EpiPen for weed users who get too high. 28 Alison Krauss might cover Merle Haggard this weekend at McMenamins Edgefield. 29 Blitzen Trapper has a brandnew lineup. Narratologist30is a real job. 31 BARRALLISON WEEKLYPUBLISHEDWEEKWILLAMETTEISBY CITY OF ROSES MEDIA COMPANY P.O. Box Portland,10770OR97296. Main line phone: (503) 243-2122 fax: (503) 296-2874 Classifieds phone: (503) 243-2122 fax: (503) 296-2874 3Willamette Week AUGUST 24, 2022 wweek.com FINDINGS

By 1943, World War II solved the demand problem and the program was canceled after just four years. Nevertheless, when the modern food stamp program was created, in 1961, people still insisted on calling the cashlike coupons “food stamps,” even though stamplike food stamps had been extinct for 18 years. And they still do it today! It’s been 80 years since food stamps were stamps, and 20 years since they were physical objects of any kind, but people still use the outdated term. It just shows how, once the public gets an idea in its head, it can be exceedingly hard to dislodge. (Ask Richard Gere about this sometime.)

CK, VIA TWITTER: “Simply shocking that a conservative lot would be moving to more conservative areas. Shocking and unexpected!”

BRAD SCHMIDT, VIA WWEEK. COM: “If published figures are accurate, and Oregon has about 155,000 Mormons, almost all 1.5% of the move-outs would have had to be in that same geographic area to account for the lack of need for a 2,000seat church. The explanation provided by the church official appears to rely on tropes cur rently pushed by the political right and accepted as a truism by folks who don’t know any better. Isn’t it likely that a fair proportion of the reduced need for chapels results from Mor mons who remain in Portland but simply no longer wish to attend church? This would be consistent with larger trends in the U.S. away from organized religion.”

This isn’t TikTok, so I assume most of you remember paper food stamps. But if you’re too young or too rich to be familiar with them, food stamps used to come as paper notes, in $1, $5, $10 and $20 denominations just like real money. Printed with mintlike care to foil counterfeiters, they may not have been as fancy as traveler’s checks (try explaining those on TikTok), but they were at least as well done as regular U.S. banknotes, which were even shittier back then than they are now. Until 1990, when electronic benefits transfer, or EBT, cards were introduced, every modern food stamp in America came in this form. (Even then, the transition was slow enough that Elliott Smith could still trade a smoke for a $1 food stamp in his 1997 song “Rose Parade.”) The program finally went all electronic in 2004, and in all that time, food stamps never once looked like anything you could stick on an envelope. To find a reason for the name we have to go all the way back to the Great Depression. In 1930s, due to reduced demand caused by the fact that nobody had money for groceries, agricultural prices were in the toilet. Many farmers had surplus crops that weren’t worth taking to market, even though regular people were starving. To address this, the Roosevelt administration created a program in 1939 where you could buy $1.50 in “food stamps” for a dollar—provided you spent the extra 50 cents on products made from the surplus crops. And yes, Virginia, they really did look like stamps.

Questions? Send them to dr.know@wweek.com. MARTY SMITH

—Fatboy Slim Pickens

JOELLE FOOTE, VIA FACE BOOK: “They pay zero taxes and their organization holds $16 billion worth in just land holdings, never mind the $100 billion in other investments. We need to start taxing all churches and religious organizations.”

Last week’s tour of Portland’s most baffling vacancies (“Chasing Ghosts,” WW, Aug. 17) drew plenty of response. But one property drew the most curiosity by far: an item considering the emptying of the Portland Stake Tabernacle of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-say Saints is already WW’s second-most-read story of the year. Perhaps that’s due to the explanation the church’s bishop gave for the closure: Mormons are fleeing Oregon. The numbers support his case.

@martysmithxxx 4 Willamette Week AUGUST 24, 2022 wweek.com DIALOGUE

BIG BISCUIT, VIA WWEEK. COM: “LDS authorities keep detailed records so I’m sure the migration numbers are pretty accurate. It’s sort of a ‘who cares’ story; right or wrong, the values of Portland’s government do not align with traditional LDS values, so there is going to be some movement. I also find it interesting that there was no time frame associated with when the stake used to have 2,000 people in attendance. Members I know were not meeting in person for a decent amount of time during the pandemic. Lastly, the growth of the LDS church is coming from outside of the United States as a trend. This reads like a real estate article to me with WW trying to put a political bent on it.”

FANNYSFORALGERNON, VIA REDDIT: “It’s zoned residential, which is a pity. I’d love to see this one become a McMenam ins. It’s a bit small for their usual setup but would be better than the little ones nearby on Hawthorne at least.”

Why are they called “food stamps”? Even back in the days before EBT cards, food stamps looked like Monopoly money, not stamps. Why not “food coupons” or “food scrip” or even “food credits”?

AGGIEOTIS, VIA REDDIT: “Church plus parking lot are 43,082 square feet. “It’s zoned as R5, meaning you get four units per 5,000-squarefoot lot, or six units if you have ADA and affordable units. So you’re looking at eight to nine lots with four to six units. So 35 to 52 units tops. Or, at a minimum, probably 17 units. “So for the land alone they want $11.4M, or $220K to $325K per unit for the dense four to six units per lot. And $670K per unit for something less ambitious. Or a whopping $1.4M if everybody wants a lot to“Ithemselves.thinktheprice is a bit high given the zoning. While it is a prime location, seems like the price is too high unless they can work with the city to rezone it. Could make an awesome co-op community if done right.”

Dr. Know BY

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: PO Box 10770, Portland OR, 97296 Email: mzusman@wweek.com

The church’s membership rolls statewide declined 1.5% in the past two years. “They’re moving to Utah and Idaho,” Bishop Dave Noble says. Here’s what our readers had to say:

THENERFVIKING, VIA REDDIT: “Since a church took over Portland’s historic pro wrestling venue my vote is…to rededicate the building to the noble art of sweaty, greasy men doing sweaty, greasy man hugs.”

SENATOR BLASTS NEW POLICY ON REMOTE EMPLOYEES: Senate Minority Leader Tim Knopp (R-Bend) reacted strongly to a story WW published last week that reported the Oregon Lottery was paying travel expenses for two senior managers who relocated to Sun Belt states (“Scratch-O s,” WW, Aug. 17). The story noted that in addition to avoiding Oregon income taxes, the agency has covered the two managers’ travel expenses back to Salem for meetings—at a total cost of about $2,000 for each manager so far in 2022. “In 2023, I will introduce legislation to end this wasteful practice,” Knopp says. State o cials told WW that about 500 employees have so far taken advantage of a new state policy instituted last year that allows employees to keep their jobs while permanently relocating elsewhere. The state policy says that “employees who work under the full-time remote work model must be reimbursed by the agency for travel to and from the central workplace.” Knopp says that’s wrong: “This is deeply unfair to thousands of public employees who do not get reimbursed to drive or take public transit to work.”

GROUND CONTROL: A top employee of the Oregon Lottery works remotely from Merritt Island, Fla.

ANOTHER DEADLINE APPROACHES WITH ONLY ONE SAFE REST VILLAGE OPEN: This spring, City Commissioner Dan Ryan told WW three safe rest villages would be open and serving homeless Portlanders by Sept. 5. Today, only one pod village is open, in Southwest Portland. Two others are under construction, and another three are still in the planning and design phase. Only one of the villages under construction—an RV site in Southeast Portland at Menlo Park—has identified a site operator. Ryan’s o ce has not yet found an operator for the other village. Bryan Aptekar, communications liaison for the villages, says Ryan “sets ambitious goals, and we’re trying to meet those.” He adds that unforeseen construction snafus— such as soft soil at the Menlo Park site that forced workers to dig deeper into the ground to place infrastructure—have resulted in further delays. The city allocated $44 million for the project, which is set to expire at the end of 2024.

WHEELER CHIPS AWAY AT CAMPING: Mayor Ted Wheeler has again used his emergency powers to ban camping along certain Portland streets—and is slowly chipping away at a larger goal mayoral aide Sam Adams circulated earlier this year to regional, state and city o cials. That goal: banning camping entirely in Portland. In that document, first reported by WW in February, Adams wrote: “Using a phased-in no camping approach, the city prohibits all unsanctioned camping. Starts removing camps that have the highest community safety impacts, such as all schools, medical facilities, shelters, ADA violators, and in camps located in higher-speed transportation locations.” Wheeler so far has banned camping along the city’s high-crash corridors, around pod villages, and along streets deemed “safe routes to school” by the Portland Bureau of Transportation. Wheeler made his latest declaration while the transportation commissioner, Jo Ann Hardesty, was on vacation. Hardesty faces reelection this fall against lawyer and small-business owner Rene Gonzalez, who supports the mayor’s declaration and has built his campaign on cleaning up the city. Bypassing Hardesty’s approval on a policy that almost exclusively impacts her bureau is seen by some insiders as a political snub.

SHUTTERSTOCK Jam on Hawthorne Thank you for 20 years of laughs, friendship, kindness, delicious food, patience, dedication, hustle, overall good times, and your ongoing support. We are thrilled to still be going strong because of all of you! 2239 SE Hawthorne jamonhawthorne.comBlvd 5Willamette Week AUGUST 24, 2022 wweek.com

OREGON DEATHS AGAIN OUTPACE BIRTHS: In 2020, for the first time ever, Oregon recorded more deaths than births. In a new analysis, the Oregon Employment Department noted this week that the trend continued in 2021, with 2,210 more deaths than births. Federal census numbers show half of all states had more deaths than births last year, but only three of 13 Western states did. Among those Western states, Oregon had the highest percentage of counties with natural population declines. That means the state is more dependent than ever on attracting in-migrants from other states and countries. Oregon did attract 24,979 net migrants last year, according to the Portland State University Population Research Center (i.e., more people moved in than out), but that’s down from the average of 31,000 a year for the past decade. “Migration in 2021 was no doubt hampered by COVID-19 pandemic restrictions and concerns,” an OED economist noted, “as well as limited housing supply and high housing costs.”

TOP CHILD ABUSE PROSECUTOR DEPARTS: The Multnomah County District Attorney’s O ce has lost another top child abuse prosecutor. John Casalino was one of three division chiefs until he was demoted by DA Mike Schmidt. He left last month, following in the footsteps of Amber Kinney another longtime child abuse prosecutor. Unlike Kinney, who criticized Schmidt’s leadership in a blistering resignation letter, Casalino appears to have left quietly. In an email to WW, Casalino confirmed he now works for the Oregon Department of Justice. A farewell missive distributed to o ce sta last month and forwarded to WW by Schmidt’s spokesperson noted Casalino’s expertise in prosecuting child abuse cases and thanked him for his service.

CORRESPONDENCE

“Are you saying that you told council offices that Clean and Safe requested this waiver? Clean and Safe did not request this waiver. So I am asking why was this requested on behalf of Clean & Safe? The letter you generated was sent to Clean and Safe but yet Clean and Safe did not advance a request for a waiver. I have enormous concerns about this process.”

Emails between the president of the Portland Business Alliance and a city sta er deepen the mystery behind a labor policy dispute.

Last fall, Downtown Portland Clean & Safe, a nonprofit that runs downtown’s enhanced service district, agreed to abide by the city’s new policy. (In an enhanced service district, business owners pay a fee to get extra security and cleaning services.)

BY SOPHIE PEEL speel@wweek.com

10:09 AM From Hoan to Campbell

10:18 AM Campbell to Hoan and Wells

One day after the city clawed the waiver offer back, Clean & Safe sent a letter of intent awarding the security contract to GardaWorld.Hoansaysin a statement to WW: “Clean & Safe testified to City Council in support of the inclusion of sustainable procurement and labor peace as part of the commitments made during the renewal in 2021. We stand by our commitments.”

That offer lasted a mere four hours before Andrew Hoan, president of PBA, intervened and pressured a city employee to revoke the offer, which he eventually did. (That employee’s last day at the city was Aug. 8. It’s unclear whether he was fired or left voluntarily.)

2:24 PM Campbell to Hoan and Wells

It’s no secret downtown Portland is a shadow of its former self. Cellphone data tells the tale. As WW reported earlier this month on wweek.com, research ers at the University of California, Berkeley, used GPS data to see how many people were returning to businesses, bars and restaurants in 62 downtowns around the county as the COVID-19 pandemic ebbs. In the latest period, March through May of this year, Portland came in 60th, with a recovery value of 41% compared with pre-pandemic activity. Only San Francisco (31%) and Cleveland (36%) fared worse. Now, thanks to polling data paid for by the city and obtained by WW, we have a better sense of what’s keeping people away.

But WW has learned the heartburn caused by the policy was avoidable—as was the GardaWorld contract. That’s because the city offered Clean & Safe a waiver this spring to get out of the requirement that it obtain a labor peace agreement.

“Thank you—And 100% appreciate your work on this and getting it sorted out. I think this was a prudent decision.”

City Hall asked DHM Research to assess attitudes about downtown, city services in neighborhoods, homelessness, policing, and housing prices. DHM surveyed 500 Portland adults from May 2 to 16, asking them to com plete a 12-minute survey.

9:57 AM

“Who requested this waiver? When you say ‘the city,’ have you discussed this with City Council members and their staff?”

That agreement caused two local security companies, which did not obtain labor peace agreements, to lose Clean & Safe’s security contract this spring to GardaWorld, an international company based in Montreal (“Insecure,” WW, June 15).

“It was never stated or implied that this request came from Clean & Safe. The request came from the Office of Management and Finance given the uncertainty regarding the Labor Peace policy and how it might affect all enhanced service district programs.”

“I have spoken with the Mayor’s office which has notified me that they have elected to reverse course and not move forward with offering the waiver at this time.”

The offer of waiver was authorized by the Chief Procurement Of ficer and Mayor’s Office and discussed with the Council offices.”

“On or around May 24, 2022, a proposed waiver of the Labor Peace Agreement requirement in the Clean and Safe contract with the City was sent to Clean and Safe without the appropriate City authorization.…The proposed waiver was not authorized by appropriate City officials, including decision¬makers in the Mayor’s Office.”

6 Willamette Week AUGUST 24, 2022 wweek.com WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW THIS WEEKNEWS

Two years ago, the city of Portland required its contractors in specific industries to obtain from a union what’s called a “labor peace agreement”: a mutual pact that a company will not resist labor organizing so long as the employees don’t strike. But now that policy—approved by all five members of the Portland City Council at the time—is causing plenty of strife.

On Monday, Wheeler touted the arrest of graffiti tagger Emile Laurent, who turned him self in on a felony warrant for “tens of thou sands of dollars” in damage. Poll results showed many Portlanders were no fans of Laurent’s work, either.

1:40 PM Hoan to Campbell

2:34 Hoanpmto Campbell

10:00 AM From Hoan to Campbell

JUNE 27 Mayoral chief of sta Bobby Lee to Hoan and Wells. CC’ed was City Attorney Robert Taylor.

One of those companies, Northwest Enforcement, has since filed an unfair labor practice complaint with the National Labor Relations Board naming Clean & Safe, its close affiliate the Portland Business Alliance, and Service Employees Interna tional Union Local 49, alleging they struck a deal in which the employer agrees to hire only companies friendly to a particular union. SEIU denies the allegations.

ANTHONY EFFINGER. SURVEY SAYS Homelessness, trash, and crime are the top reasons for not visiting downtown and central city. DHM RESEARCH CITY OF PORTLAND 15 7%9% 15%17%19% 26%29%29% 50%51% 60% 66% Don't know aboutNotsales/promotionsWorkfromhomeawareofevents Worry about Covid-19Transitinfectionnotsafe Business closures do to Covid-19RiotsParking Violent crime against Vandalism and property crime Trash, Homelessnessgraffiti REASONS WHY PORTLANDERS WON’T GO DOWNTOWN Source: DHM Research

From Portland enhanced service district coordinator Shawn Campbell to PBA president Hoan and Clean & Safe director Mark Wells “This email is to inform you that with regards to the Clean & Safe’s Safety program subcontract, the City is willing to waive the Labor Peace portion of its Sustainable Procurement Policy in recognition of the uncertainty created by the ongoing litigation related to this policy… “The expectation of the City is that the Clean & Safe board of directors be notified of this offer.”

“The City chose to explore the offer of a waiver as an option given wider implications to the enhanced service districts program.

STAYING AWAY

“I personally spoke with Mayor no less than an hour ago at an event he attended at our office. He was joined by the staffer you briefed on this issue yesterday. I also spoke with [mayoral aide] Sam Adams early as well. Neither the Mayor, nor Sam, was aware that this was being contemplated. Both iterated their support for this provision and aspect of the contract and indicated that they would follow up on the matter.

(City spokeswoman Carrie Belding told WW in a statement that “staff in the mayor’s office initially signed off on a waiver to the labor peace policy. After further consideration, it was reversed at the leadership level within the mayor’s office.”)

The Portland Business Alliance isn’t known as a close ally of organized labor. But documents show its president went to great lengths this spring to protect a labor policy that favors contractors who are on good terms with unions.

It remains unclear why Hoan so badly wanted the waiver offer not to go to Clean & Safe’s board of directors. The offer took place in a May 24 email thread. The correspon dence suggests both the sway that the PBA holds over Mayor Ted Wheeler’s office, and the curious hold organized labor appears to have on the PBA.

ownscaredPollingCampaignPressureshowsPortlandersareofdowntown—andtheirneighborhoods.

The results? Almost 60% of respondents had a negative impression of downtown. Top reasons for avoiding visits downtown were homelessness (66%), trash and graffiti (60%), vandalism and property crime (51%), and vio lent crime (50%). Parking was next at 29%.

“I would advise that you consider discussing this matter with them directly. It is also my understanding that city is defending this provision and represented by counsel. Based on all the above—are you sure you would like me to inform the board that you sought a waiver today?”

10:03 AM From Campbell to Hoan and Wells

Even with all those problems, 57% of those polled said they were still willing to visit down town. Those most willing tend to be younger and richer, and they are more likely to live on the west side of the Willamette River. Older citizens who live farther out are least likely to visit.Some of the most chilling results in the poll had nothing to do with downtown at all: Only 41% of respondents felt “very safe” walking alone in their neighborhood during the day, and only 16% felt “very safe” walking alone at night. Almost half felt “somewhat unsafe” or “very unsafe” walking alone at night. Those who felt unsafe said they feared physical assault most of all (78%). The results might explain some of Mayor Ted Wheeler’s actions recently. On Aug. 19, he extended an emergency ban to block camping around school buildings and along some routes to and from schools. And he framed the decision in terms of hazards such camps posed to kids. (That’s a shift from previous rhetoric, which emphasized the dangers faced by unhoused people.)“School-age children should be able to walk, bike, and ride buses to get to and from schools without potentially dangerous hazards as a result of encampments, including trash, tents in the right of way, biohazards, hypodermic nee dles, and more,” Wheeler said in a statement.

Location: Douglas County Renamed: Jack Carson Creek Namesake: A Black resident who lived near Canyonville and became locally renowned as a horse trainer. He died in 1922 and is buried near Myrtle Creek.

Last year, Oregon instituted floor pricing for cheap booze. One producer found a way around it. An advocate for reducing substance abuse says a major liquor producer is gaming minimum pricing standards that the Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission es tablished last year. Mike Marshall, executive director of Oregon Recov ers, says Sazerac, the Kentucky-based distiller of Fleis chmann’s Gin, among many other brands, has figured out a simple way to offer its products more cheaply than the OLCC says it can: rebate coupons. In 2021, when the OLCC rolled out the policy, it used vodka rather than gin as the example, but the pricing was similar. At that time, floor pricing raised the lowest price of a 1.75 liter bottle from $12.75 to $17.95, a 41% increase.

BOTTOMS UP: OLCC’s price floors have encountered resistance.

“It discriminates against low-income residents and cost-conscious consumers, hurts bars and restaurants struggling to make ends meet, will drive business out of Oregon, and is misguided in its approach towards reducing social harms,” Brown wrote in March 2021 letter to the commission.Despitethose objections, the OLCC instituted price floors on Oct. 1, 2021. The agency expected a dual benefit of responding to the concerns of public health advocates and raising more money for the agency. Haley says the OLCC will evaluate results after the policy’s first year. Meanwhile, Marshall wants the agency to tell Sazerac and stores that net prices can’t be lower than minimum prices. And while Sazerac spokeswoman Kellie Duhr says coupons have long been part of the company’s business model, Haley says the OLCC will try to figure out how to close the loophole.

7Willamette Week AUGUST 24, 2022 wweek.com

NASHLEAH

“We don’t like it,” he says. “We are definitely going to figure out what to do about it.”

An Oregon board is renaming Swastika Mountain. Last January, a Lane County woman named Joyce McClain read in the paper that two teenage hikers had been rescued from a snowstorm on Swastika Mountain. She wondered why Oregon still had a Swastika Mountain. Soon, it won’t—thanks to McClain’s request to a volunteer board that it find a new moniker for the 4,197-foot butte outside Cottage Grove.Thecommittee in question is called the Oregon Geographic Names Board. It’s been around since 1908, naming and renaming various rises, dips and water bodies in the Oregon landscape. It still meets no more than twice a year, under the supervision of the Oregon Historical Society, but lately its agendas have been a little more crowded. OHS executive director Kerry Tymchuk says that’s thanks to proposals from citizens to consider substitutions for place names that are outdated orSwastikaracist. Mountain was more the former, McClain discovered. It predated Nazi Germany. “The mountain took its name from the extinct town of Swastika which was nearby,” she wrote to the board this year.

The OLCC believed, based on research in other markets, raising prices of bottom-shelf liquors would reduce con sumption.Marshall alleges—and OLCC spokesman Bryant Haley confirms—that Sazerac is offering a $4 rebate to pur chasers of a 1.75 liter bottle of Fleischmann’s Gin. That circumvents floor pricing as follows: Price of a 1.75 liter bottle of Fleischmann’s Gin: $18.95 Price floor for a 1.75 liter bottle set by Oregon: $17.95 Net price for Fleischmann’s Gin after $4 rebate: $14.95

MOUNT HALO

Here are four other name changes the board recommended last week. AARON MESH.

OLD NAME: NEGRO RIDGE Location: Douglas County Renamed: Malvin Brown Ridge Namesake: A smoke jumper who died fighting a forest fire near this ridgeline in 1945. The 555th Parachute Infantry Division was an all-Black paratrooper division, the first to jump out of planes to fight fires in Oregon.

Marshall says such rebates counteract public health efforts to reduce substance abuse. “It’s an intentional effort by Big Alcohol to circumvent the minimum pricing requirement put into place to address Oregon’s sky-high alcohol addiction rates,” he says. “And it’s predatory mar keting, targeting low-income folks who have the least access to information about the harms of alcohol con sumption.”InApril2021, the OLCC took an unusual action, dictat ing minimum pricing for liquor. At the time, the agency said the new minimum pricing would affect less than 2% of its brand offerings but 16.3% of the volume of booze it sold, because the new prices would affect large, low er-shelfSazerac,bottles.whose Fleischmann’s, Mr. Boston and Taaka brands were among the most affected, pushed back on minimumCompany’spricing.CEO Mark Brown told the OLCC in a letter that the new policy was misguided.

“The town was named after a cattle ranch whose owner branded his cattle with the swastika symbol. This happened in 1909.”

Location: Grant County Renamed: Columbus Sewell Knob Namesake: A Black man who worked as a miner and had a freight-hauling business in nearby Canyon City in the 1860s.

NIGEL JAQUISS. BARGAINS

Still, like any Great-Uncle Adolf, the name no longer felt suitable. McClain suggested calling it Umpqua Mountain, after the Indigenous tribe that first lived there. A tribal historian had another idea: What about Chief Halito, or Halo, who led the Yoncalla Kalapuya tribe in theThat1800s?was such a good idea that McClain attended the Aug. 20 meet ing of the Names Board to pledge her support. As soon as next year, pending tribal approval, the summit will be called Mount Halo. Tymchuk says the Names Board doesn’t go looking for offensive labels to remove—it just considers nominations from Oregonians. But the board does try to consider how place names are used to demean the people living there. Take, for example, the three places with “Negro” in the name that the board examined this month. Tymchuk believes those spots got their names because white people wanted to note that Black people lived there. (“In several instances, the local name before ‘Negro’ was…you can imagine what it was,” he says.) So the Names Board has renamed the geographic features to honor the actual names of those Black residents.“Therenaming is also reclaiming,” Tymchuk says, “reclaiming the honor and the dignity of the individuals who lived there.”

PLACES

OLD NAME: NEGRO CREEK

OLD NAME: NEGRO KNOB

Gin and Loophole

Haley says companies have offered rebate coupons before, but not like this. Consumers usually don’t bother to mail in the coupons because the rebates are so paltry, he says. “But this one being $4 is bigger than we’ve seen before.”

OLD NAME: NEGRO CREEK Location: Douglas County (yes, there are two in Douglas County) Renamed: Triple Nickle Creek Namesake: The 555th was also known as the Triple Nickles.

8 Willamette Week AUGUST 24, 2022 wweek.com

BY LUCAS MANFIELD lmanfield@wweek.com

In 2016, Jennifer Yruegas had a stellar résumé as a businesswoman and corporate lawyer. She’d worked in high-level legal positions at some of Oregon’s best-known brands: InFocus, Keen and Nike. A year later, Pacific University in Forest Grove hired her as its director of human resources and legal affairs. Soon after, the university promoted her to general counsel and, in 2021, dean of its business school. The provost cited her success in “building relationships and trust.” But back in 2016, Yruegas’ career took a sharp turn that Pacific University doesn’t cite, and perhaps never knew. Yruegas lined up investors, purchased an old strawberry farm in St. Helens, and started a new business: growing weed. Yruegas claims the business went belly up after tough weather decimated the crop. Her investors, however, say she misled them and pocketed half a million dollars of their money. They filed suit in settledCountyColumbiaCircuitCourtin2018demandingrepayment.Thetwosidesacouple of years later for

BLOWING SMOKE: Pacific University’s mascot is a long-missing qilin statue called Boxer.

“It was a wild, wild West back in 2016,” says Mark Pettinger, spokesman for the state’s recreational marijuana program. The result was many messy fallouts between business partners. “I hardly know any that have lasted,” says Andy Shelley, a former inspector for the OLCC turned consultant. “There are a ton of lawsuits out there right now with people who have lost money.” According to Yruegas, the business lost everything. Over the next year, Rittenberg and the two other investors would wire $580,000 to the company’s bank account, documents show. Yruegas used the money to buy the farm and transferred nearly all of the rest to a personal account shared with her husband, Michael Hopkins, a chiropractor, according to bank records obtained by Rittenberg’s attorney, Leslie Johnson. In legal filings, Yruegas claims her investors failed to appreciate the risks of the business and invested too little to see it through. In turn, Johnson alleged nearly all of that money was put to Yruegas’ “personal use.” Where the money actually went is unclear. The case settled for $150,000, a small fraction of the amount Rittenberg and his associates lost.By 2017, after Rittenberg and Yruegas agreed to cut their losses, she sold the property. The cash from the sale was wired directly to Yruegas’s personal bank account, documents show. After Rittenberg pressed Yruegas for cash from the sale, she ghosted him. According to the documents, her last text to Rittenberg was sent Sept. 8, 2017. Pacific University had announced her hiring the previous Rittenbergday.has been left bitter, his long friendship with Yruegas now over. In an email to WW, he calls Yruegas not only a “con artist” but also “shameless and malicious.” He adds, “We lost a lot of money.” As for the land, there’s no sign left of Yruegas’ business—or that it was ever used to cultivate cannabis. Terry Brooks, who bought the property from Yruegas, is sure it never did. There wasn’t much indication that Yruegas did anything with the land, he says, besides hauling in some rock and tearing out a septic tank.

YSETRUOCOFPACIFIC UNIVE R S I T Y YRUEGASJENNIFER 9Willamette Week AUGUST 24, 2022 wweek.com NEWS

Strawberry Fields Forever

A Pacific University dean’s past life growing weed is coming back to haunt her.

In a statement released by her attorney, David Elkanich, Yruegas denies the investors’ allegations and says she settled the case on the advice of counsel. “Unfortunately, the [cannabis] operation was not successful (as many aren’t) and the investors lost money. They brought this lawsuit against Ms. Yruegas in an attempt to recoup some of their funds,” the statement reads.The trove of documents unearthed during Pacific University’s ongoing legal battles, however, tells a more complicated story. In the early 2000s, Rittenberg and Yruegas crossed paths while working as executives at InFocus, once one of Oregon’s premier tech companies. The friends stayed in touch, trading texts of workplace gossip and startup ideas, documents show. Their paths crossed again in 2016. Rittenberg was dissatisfied with his current job. Yruegas, meanwhile, had begun a side hustle growing cannabis.Rittenberg was shocked. “I know, I’ve never even smoked it before,” Yruegas wrote back. “But I do have both a biology and botany degree.”Yruegas, documents show, claimed to have nearly tripled a “$30-35,000” investment in six months. With Rittenberg’s help, she said, she could scale the business up. Rittenberg, it turned out, had rich friends from Beijing who were buying up houses in Seattle’s suburbs. “I can get millions,” Rittenberg told Yruegas. So Yruegas put together an ambitious business plan forecasting profits within a year. Rittenberg was initially skeptical, saying the projected returns were “hard to believe.” But the two hammered out a deal, according to the documents, and Natural by Design Inc. was born.In2014, Oregon became the third state in the U.S. to legalize recreational marijuana. But it wasn’t until two years later that the Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission began issuing permits to legally grow the drug for recreational use, triggering a gold rush.

“There was never a marijuana farm,” Brooks says, “I guarantee you that.” $150,000. The Oregon State Bar Professional Liability Fund covered half. She’s paying the rest back in installments. But the case is coming back to haunt Yruegas as she steers Pacific University through a series of lawsuits filed in Washington County Circuit Court, involving former male professors at Pacific who say Yruegas pushed them out. The internal strife at Pacific, a 173-year-old private university with around 4,000 students, is now becoming public. And lawyers are attempting to discredit Yruegas because of what happened 30 miles north on that pot farm.

“Jennifer Yruegas was a con artist,” he tells WW Neither Rittenberg, his co-investors, nor Yruegas would answer specific questions about the 2018 case. When asked if administrators at Pacific knew of the allegations against Yruegas, a spokeswoman for the university released a statement, reading in part: “We were not involved in this matter and it would, therefore, be inappropriate for us to comment on it.”

In another lawsuit against Pacific, also filed last year but without Yruegas as a defendant, lawyers have attempted to discredit Yruegas using hundreds of text messages, emails and legal documents dug up during the cannabis investors’ earlier lawsuit. The relevance of the information to Yruegas’ personnel decisions is debatable, but it raises questions about her role as dean of the business school. One of the investors who claims he was bilked by Yruegas is now CEO of Jupiter Systems, a tech company based in Silicon Valley. And Sidney Rittenberg Jr. holds a grudge. “I can get millions.”

10 Willamette Week AUGUST 24, 2022 wweek.com aThatJournalismIndependentLocal,SupportMakesDifference. SCAN DONATE:PLEASEME! Willamette Week Reporting Gets Results.For more information, please visit: wweek.com/support

Most Portlanders probably visit just one address in Argay Terrace: the Costco on Northeast 138th Avenue. Or they know it as home to the abandoned Kmart on 122nd and Sandy with the sprawling parking lot where the Proud Boys gathered for a far-right festival in August 2021 that turned into a paintball and baseball-bat brawl with anti-fascists. That, as it happens, is where Vikings owner Zygmunt Wilf plans to build his tilt-up concrete warehouse and lease it to Prologis, the San Francisco-based company that helps companies like Amazon and Home Depot move merchandise around the world.

Viking Raid

Heatwise, Argay Terrace is just about the last Portland neighborhood that needs another flat-roofed warehouse teeming with trucks, says Vivek Shandas, a geography professor at Portland State University who maintains a “heat map” of the city. His map shows what he describes as an arc of heat that runs along the industrial zone on the Willamette River, north through St. Johns to the Columbia River, then back down along Interstate 205. “Argay Terrace is right in the center of the arc of heat,” Shandas says. “But we’ll probably never see the ground under this site again.”

The Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability released a climate emergency plan last month outlining all the steps the city had to take to curb the effects of climate change before it’s too late: ditch coal-fired power plants, promote bicycles, retrofit buildings, and plant trees, among other things. Special efforts must be made in communities of color in “outer east,” the plan says, where the impacts of urban heat islands are greater. To help there, BPS proposes to convert the East Portland Community Center into an energy-efficient “resilience center” where people can go during extreme heat, smoke, ice and cold.

“This industrial development is not fair to the residents who have lived here for years,” the Argay Terrace Neighborhood Association wrote to city commissioners in April. “It is going to devalue properties and do irreparable damage to the community values, livability, and walkability of our neighborhood.”

Every week, WW examines one mysteriously vacant property in the city of Portland, explains why it’s empty, and considers what might arrive there next. This week: 12350 NE Sandy Blvd.

“Argay Terrace is right in the center of the arc of heat.”

CHASING GHOSTS

11Willamette Week AUGUST 24, 2022 wweek.com NEWS

Argay Terrace residents say climate is only one of their concerns about the project. Wilf’s warehouse would be across 122nd Avenue from Parkrose High School, and a block north of Parkrose Middle School. The city approved an extra-big, 60-foot-wide driveway into the property just north of Northeast Shaver Street, which is designated a “safe route to school” by the Portland Bureau of Transportation. Residents worry that trucks coming west would try to dodge traffic on Sandy Boulevard by turning south on 141st Avenue and taking Shaver to 122nd, where it’s an easy right turn into the big new driveway. PBOT traffic maps show that somewhere between 101 and 500 trucks already rumble down Shaver each day, even though it is marked “no trucks.”

Commissioner Mingus Mapps has heard complaints from residents in Argay Terrace, Mapps’ spokesman Adam Lyons says. Residents can file a land use appeal. Otherwise, there is little commissioners can do because the zoning allows the warehouse to be built, he adds. Argay Terrace is bounded by 122nd Avenue to the west, the Columbia River to the north, 148th Avenue to the east, and Interstate 84 to the south. Development began in the 1950s when Art Simonson and Gerhardt “Gay” Stabney conceived a surburban neighborhood with ranch houses on curving, tree-lined streets. They combined their first names to get “Argay.” “Living’s really wonderful when you live in beautiful Argay Terrace,” said an advertisement in The Oregonian on July 19, 1959. “Gracious living…just minutes from town.” Today, the Portland Bureau of Transportation’s “equity matrix” shows that 41.5% of Argay Terrace’s population are people of color, including Hispanic. The median income is $61,806. On an income scale ranging from 1 to 5, where 5 is the lowest, Argay Terrace is a 4, PBOT says. And the northern half of the neighborhood is now crammed with warehouses—or worse. In 2017, the Metro regional government approved a waste transfer station at 138th and Sandy, now run by City of Roses Disposal & Recycling. Next door is Speed’s Auto Auction, where cars impounded by the city get sold to the highest bidder.Wilf’s new freight warehouse might be more of a blight because it’s going on the south side

Commercial zoning would not have precluded a freight warehouse, but it would have reduced its scope to no more than 10,000 square feet, says BPS spokeswoman Magan Reed. Prologis declined to say how many permanent jobs the freight warehouse would produce. The new building would be LEED Silver certified, Prologis senior vice president Ben Brodsky says in an email, and the paved area would shrink by 195,000 square feet. There would be beehives on the roof, native plants around the site, and spaces for food trucks, BrodskyOwnershipadds. of the Kmart site is cloaked in an entity called RFC Joint Venture. Following leads in property records, WW linked RFC and the property to Zygmunt Wilf, who, along with his brother Mark and a cousin named Lenny, owns a New Jersey real estate company called GardenWilf’sHomes.fatherJoseph, a Holocaust survivor who immigrated from Poland, started the company with his brother in 1954 to build single-family houses. Reached by phone, Mark Hoffman, director of development at Garden Homes, says the Wilf family has owned the Kmart property since about 1986, under various entities. A Garden Homes subsidiary, Garden Commercial Properties, manages 25 million square feet of retail and office space. At 260,000 square feet, the new warehouse in Argay Terrace would increase Wilf’s commercial holdings by a little more than 1%, making it a property he could probably do without.

BY ANTHONY EFFINGER aeffinger@wweek.com

The Viking conquest in Argay shows how well-intentioned places like Portland continue to conduct business as usual on climate, even as scientists warn that the old ways spell disaster. It also shows how low-income neighborhoods keep getting screwed, despite lofty talk about equity and the special burdens that climate change puts on people of color.

ATTENTION, KMART SHOPPERS: A freight warehouse is coming to 13 acres in the Argay Terrace neighborhood.

Other reasons, Kountz wrote, were pursuing “policies that advance social equity, including expanded growth capacity for widely accessible middle-wage jobs in East Portland” and “increasing income self-sufficiency for people without four-year college degrees.”

The residents of Argay Terrace, one of those “outer east” neighborhoods, have a question. If doom is truly impending—to the point the city must build some kind of climate refugee center—why is Portland letting the mega-rich owner of the Minnesota Vikings build a 260,000-square-foot freight warehouse that would draw even more diesel-powered trucks into a neighborhood that’s already blighted by them?“This would be the most awful use of this space,” says Megan Petrucelli, a marriage and family therapist who lives in Argay Terrace. “It’s dooming the neighborhood to be an industrial wasteland. It’s not strategic and it’s counter to all the goals the city says it wants to meet.”

BURKBRIAN of Sandy. That means there would be little separation between idling diesel trucks and the Hidden Oaks Apartments, a modest development just over a fence and a hedge from the old Kmart. Industrial properties on the north side are kept at a distance by Sandy and the rail line. The Kmart along 122nd Avenue closed in 2018, part of a nationwide purge of Sears-owned properties. That same year, the city of Portland opened the door to Wilf by changing the zoning for the 13-acre Kmart parcel as part of the 2035 Comprehensive Plan. The state has various planning goals, one of which is job growth. Job-creating industries require land, and Portland chose to change the Kmart lot from “commercial” to “general employment.” Planners had determined that there wasn’t enough “EG” land in the city and too much commercial, according to an email from Steve Kountz, senior economic planner at BPS to the neighborhood association.

Residents of Argay Terrace say they desperately need the property to be something else.

An NFL owner plans to build a freight warehouse in the last Portland neighborhood that needs it.

“There’s nothing walkable out here,” says Petrucelli, the therapist. “This space could provide a lot of resources. You could go there to get groceries or a meal. We had daydreamed about what could happen at this site.”

12 Willamette Week AUGUST 24, 2022 wweek.com

Maybe your kid isn’t sticking up weed shops. But nearly everyone now admits that virtual classrooms were a poor substitute for the real thing. The Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University estimates that every American student lost seven to 10 weeks of math learning in the 2020-21 school year. Kids in high-poverty schools missed twice that amount: half a school year. Still, it’s little wonder kids and parents alike are feeling a twinge of apprehension. School now comes with new perils—including the likelihood of bringing home a still-dangerous virus. Consider the following pages a fall orientation. We surveyed students at eight Portland high schools about where the cool kids get coffee and which cafeteria is the least disgusting (page 14). A mom whose family just endured a week of COVID explains what to do when your child brings it home (page 16). Out in deep East Portland, we found a school district experimenting with a new strategy to make sure that the kids who return to class stay there (page 21). And we asked a dozen Portlanders who achieved fame—in politics, comedy and drag clowning—to thank the teachers who inspired them (pageBecause18). if there’s one thing we’ve learned from a forced separation, it’s that we can’t thank teachers enough. Cheesy? Sure. But now we know there are worse things than being a nerd.

13Willamette Week AUGUST 24, 2022 wweek.com

CONTINUED ON PAGE 14

In less than a week, the children of Portland will enter a magical place that recently seemed impossible to reach: a classroom. This is the first August since 2019 that Portland Public Schools open with confidence that they’ll complete a full year of face-to-face instruction. Forget the “hybrid model” or distance learning. This fall, students can get shoved into lockers in person! All joking aside, two years of pandemic showed what a necessary pressure release school attendance is. Many of the social ills of the pandemic—from feelings of anxiety to the rising number of armed robberies at cannabis dispensaries—can be traced to the school closures forced by COVID-19.

BY VERONICA BIANCO veronicavvbianco@gmail.com

HIGH SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL

A few schools feature on the list more than others: Ida B. Wells High in Hillsdale was given the worst ratings for cafeteria food, school spirit, mascot and locker room. At the other end of the spectrum, Leodis McDaniel High on Northeast 82nd Avenue was reported as having the best mascot, colors and school spirit. (Do these school names seem unfamiliar? PPS schools saw several name changes over the past five years, you ancient millennial.) That could be a result of our complete disregard for established survey methods. Or maybe it’s a sign that we’ve identified some meaningful trends never before reported. Read on for some insight into what being a high school student looks like in the 21st century. Ekansh Gupta contributed reporting to this story.

As a rule, shitty locker rooms, worse-than-average lunch food, and weird mascots are unavoidable parts of the high school experience. But each campus does them differently. For incoming freshmen, nothing is more terrifying than the possibility that they’ll violate some unwritten rule of high school life. This cheat sheet is for them. (Let’s be honest: It’s also for all the adults wondering what’s changed since they last set foot in the halls. Answer: Everything, you ancient millennial.)

—Henry Reuland, Lincoln senior If you eat lunch off campus, where’s the best spot?

Cleveland: Spielman Bagels & Coffee

WW conducted an extremely unscientific survey of students at Portland Public Schools high schools by interviewing a student from each school and asking them to rate different aspects of their campus on a scale of 1 to 10. The highest and lowest scores for each category are featured below, along with some reasoning for the rating.

—Keenan Gray, Roosevelt senior Worst Cafeteria Food

Jefferson: 7-Eleven

Kramer, Wells senior

Best School Spirit

Worst School Spirit Wells High School

Lincoln: Nara Thai

Best Locker Room Lincoln High School

Students at eight Portland high schools dish on where the cool kids sit.

“It’s3/10 pretty shit, pretty small, gross.” —Kramer

Worst Locker Room Wells High School

“One of the considerations was the Stubby Squids, and I would’ve transferred if that’s what we had become. I love mountain lions, so I’m really glad we became that.”

Cleveland: K&F Coffee McDaniel: Dutch Bros Wells: Gigi’s Cafe Franklin: 50th and Division food carts

Three-way tie: Lincoln, Wells and Franklin high schools

“Nothing5/10 special, bang average for a school, I would say.”

McDaniel: Rose City Food Park Wells: Basics Market Franklin: Namu Grant: New Seasons

—Gray Where do you go to get coffee?

Willamette Week AUGUST 24, 2022 wweek.com

Roosevelt: Daydreamer Coffee Lincoln: Coava Coffee

Lions

“It’s5/10 pretty bad. I have friends from other schools and it seems like they’re a lot more involved in anything than we are.” —Roey

“The10/10new locker room is unbelievable. I think it’s just ’cause of how bad our old locker room was.” —Reuland

Best McDanielMascotHigh School Mountain10/10

“People10/10 go to games to hang out. When it comes to cheering and supporting everyone, it’s really good. Multicultural Week and Spirit Week are really good.” —Canaday-Elliott

—Maleigha Canaday-Elliott, McDaniel junior Worst Two-wayMascottie:Wells and Roosevelt high schools Wells3/10 has a Guardian Owl, Roosevelt has a Rider. “Teddy Roosevelt liked to ride horses, so that’s what the mascot is, just someone who rides a horse. It’s dumb.”

Best Cafeteria Food Roosevelt High School 8 stars out of 10 “We have a nacho bar, which actually has fresh food. The regular cafeteria food is disgusting, as per usual.”

Jefferson: Atlas Pizza Roosevelt: Signal Station Pizza

Grant: Case Study Coffee

Two-way tie: Jefferson and McDaniel high schools

Best School Colors

—Gray

“In honor of Trayvon Martin, I think on his birthday, everyone wears a hoodie with their hoods up, because that’s technically against school policy and, like, part of why he was shot. It’s a really cool tradition.”

@MCKENZIEYOUNGARTYOUNG-ROYMCKENZIE

Cleveland: Homecoming McDaniel: Multicultural Week Wells: Singing at football games

Franklin: Arts Alive Grant: Toga Day Jefferson: Spirit Week Roosevelt: Hoodies Up Day

—Wrigley Scott, Franklin junior Best School Tradition Lincoln: Color Wars “People go all out, people spend three, four hours the day before after school, in the halls, putting paper all over the lights. You step into a hallway and it’s like a prism of one color.”

—Canaday-Elliott Worst School Colors

—Reuland

McDaniel High School Red10/10and light blue “I like the darker colors. It’s like three basic colors, not too complicated.”

Two-way tie: Franklin and Cleveland high schools Franklin’s4/10 are gray and maroon, Cleveland’s are Kelly green and yellow. “I personally don’t like Franklin’s. Some people do, but it’s better than Cleveland because Cleveland’s colors suck and they’re ugly.”

Willamette Week AUGUST 24, 2022 wweek.com

SOYOURKIDBROUGHTHOMECOVID

16 Willamette Week AUGUST 24, 2022 wweek.com

BY RACHEL SASLOW @RachelLauren12

Tell the school nurse your child is sick. Do this as soon as possible, both so the school can get a heads-up about possible exposure and so the nurse can help you set your return-to-school date. Portland Public Schools is following state guidelines that students or staff who test positive must isolate at home for five days. They may return after symptoms are improving and they are fever-free. They should then mask at school for an additional five days.

Protect everyone—and especially any elderly or immunocompromised relatives who live with you—by setting up your sick space. That’s the positive zone. Anybody who still has just one pink line on a test? They stay in the negative zone. That’s your best shot at preventing one case from spreading throughout the household. At least, that’s the theory. I convalesced in my bedroom with two fans, cracked windows and an air filter running 24-7. I wore an N95 mask whenever I left my zone and washed my hands whenever I had to prepare food, which was even on my sickest days because that’s motherhood. We split up and ate at positive and negative dinner tables. (Eating outside would have been even smarter.)

We all shared a bathroom, which was a no-no but unavoidable in our house. According to the CDC, we should have all been wearing masks and cleaning and airing out the bathroom between uses; we did none of that. I forgive myself because the CDC’s magical bathroom-cleaning fairy never arrived and I was too sick to do it. Hoard tests. Many of the iHealth Antigen Rapid Tests in the orange boxes that the government sent in the winter say they expire around now. However, the Food and Drug Administration has granted the iHealth tests a six-month shelf life extension so they’re good to go a while longer (you can check your new expiration dates at Still,ihealthlabs.com/pages/news).ourfriendsandfamilywere feeling very generous giving us extra tests, which we appreciated because we were going through five a day at peak infection.

“The best vaccine is the vaccine that goes into somebody’s arm,” says Lorne Walker, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Oregon Health & Science University. “It’s better than a theoretical vaccine in the future.”

For your teens, the White House is predicting that an updated COVID vaccine that targets omicron subvariants will be available by “early to mid-September” for everyone over the age of 12. As we have seen, though, vaccine rollouts can be unpredictable.

There are those two pink lines again. This time around, they’re promising a little bundle of joy Unfortunately,named…COVID-19.COVIDinfections are likely to be an unpleasant but common school nuisance this year, like the continuing bus driver shortage. Multnomah County health officials estimate about 150,000 of the county’s 800,000 residents have had the illness, which is likely an undercount with the ubiquity of in-home tests. The ’vid came for my family in early August (indoor family reunion of 17 people from four states, what could go wrong?) infecting me, my husband and one of our three children, all with mild symptoms. Here’s how to get your family through it.

It happened to my family. It will probably happen to yours. Here’s what you do.

@MCKENZIEYOUNGARTYOUNG-ROYMCKENZIE

Set up your positive and negative zones.

Get vaccinated and boosted.

Get Paxlovid if you can. There are a handful of treatments for COVID available, which are especially helpful for adults over 50, the

You still have six days until a morning bell rings at Portland Public Schools, which is plenty of time to make sure you and your offspring are up to date on your shots. Everyone age 5 and older should have at least one booster by now, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Ease back into sports if necessary.

17Willamette Week AUGUST 24, 2022 wweek.com unvaccinated or immunocompromised. I am none of those things, but I sweet-talked a doctor into a five-day course of Paxlovid and it stopped my infection in its tracks. It left my mouth tasting like metal with a hint of rotten grapefruit, but it allowed me to feel well enough to take care of my kids and I was extremely grateful. Go wild with screen time.

There are two times I let my kids watch unlimited television and movies: airplanes and sick days. Release the guilt, forget every American Academy of Pediatrics recommendation you’ve been trying to follow, and hand over the remote. My trio took my phone and started their first YouTube channel. We did balance this out with gentle walks every day.

About 20% to 25% of kids might have lingering symptoms after their acute COVID infections, according to Dr. Walker. He suggests if children are having difficulty breathing or are easily fatigued, they should slowly ramp activity back up. “But if you’re at day six and you’re feeling great and ready to go back to volleyball practice, go for it,” he says. “We want kids to be active and engaged.” Good luck, parents. You’ll probably get some March 2020 flashbacks when you bust out the jigsaw puzzles, queue up the Netflix and bake bread. But that’s also good news: We know how to do this.

Carmen Rubio, Dr. Thuy Tran, Democratic nominee for Oregon House District 45

MYFAVORITETEACHER

KLEKACZINGERBRIANAYBANEZ

GEHRKESAM

Vera-An Nguyen, Tran’s daughter “Ms. Lee is a teacher that always looks out for us. She has tough love, but she has single-handedly managed the band programs in Parkrose while still managing to engage with her students one to one. I always went to her to ask for guidance, even if it wasn’t for playing the clarinet. Even though she had hundreds of students, our relationship still felt personal. Ms. Lee coming to the band program was the one of the best things that happened during my time at Parkrose.”

Bri Pruett, comedian, writer

Willamette Week AUGUST 24, 2022 SAPUTOTIM

BY BRIANNA bwheeler@wweek.comWHEELER

A dozen prominent Oregonians thank the teachers who molded them. One day, she pulled me aside and asked for my college prep classes.”

Being a teacher has always been a thankless job. These days, it feels downright perilous. Active shooter drills occur right alongside fire drills. School libraries are being gutted by conservative extremists. And, for a career that requires the fortitude to advocate for hundreds of students in an often hostile environment, teachers collect abysmally low salaries. Yet it’s arguably the most essential and noble profession in Portland. No matter how deeply defunded, disrespected or seemingly discarded they are, good teachers are always going to teach. They’re always going to spark imagination, support inquisitiveness, and celebrate diversity.That’swhy we all have a favorite teacher. We asked a few of Portland’s leaders, culturCarla Rossi (Anthony Hudson), drag performer, writer, producer “‘High school theater transformed my life’ is such a gay cliché, but it really couldn’t be more true. Carla Rossi wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for my McNary High School [in Keizer] drama teacher, Linda Baker, and dramaturge Dan Hays. They taught me how to lip-sync, stage catfights, and how to properly put a diaphragm to use—all skills Carla relies on today!—on top of fostering a safe space to enact my imagination and do drag onstage for the first time as a gay kid in Keizer, Oregon. Every time I see Mrs. Baker in the audience at one of my shows today, my heart and eyes well up and I know I’ve made it.”

“Ms. Lee was hired as a band teacher as soon as Parkrose started receiving funding from the arts tax. Back then, she single-handedly restarted the middle school and high school band program for Parkrose School District. I am a proud mom and am grateful to Parkrose schools. These are my daughter’s thoughts about Ms. Lee:”

“My eighth grade science teacher, Ms. Sternberg, invited some of her nerdiest students and their parents to meet her at The Montage (RIP!) after we graduated from middle school. Ms. Sternberg was young with jet-black hair, checkerboard vans, funky thrifted clothes, and T-shirts of ska and punk bands that no one had heard of. We chosen few were so stoked to meet a teacher outside school, and as we ate our mac and cheeses (some of the braver 12-year-olds added rabbit legs and alligator bites to their meals), we saw our future as inner-Southeast Portland cool kids. As I grew up just east of 82nd, this meal inspired me to explore Portland in my teenage years, venturing west to visit all those thrift stores on Hawthorne Boulevard, or downtown to see bands play as far deep as gasp! Northwest 23rd Avenue. I’ve had dozens of late-night meals at The Montage through my decades in Portland, but that first time with Ms. Sternberg was the best.”

Ian Karmel, co-head writer of The Late Late Show With James Corden “I was lucky enough to have Bob Corey for fifth grade at Bethany Elementary School in Beaverton. Mr. Corey was an avid cyclist, a lover of backgammon, both a man of letters and a letterman who parlayed his high school football stardom into high school football coaching. And more important than all of that, he was a good fucking teacher. He celebrated the ways I was smart and soothed the ways I was stupid. He saw me being bullied for being the ‘wrong’ kind of fat, loud and funny—and now I do those things for a living. Mr. Corey died before I ever got to thank him as a man, but that doesn’t bother me. He made me feel special without that effort being anything special, because he treated every kid with that same respect, love and dignity.”

Elyse podcasterLopez,of True Crime Cat Lawyer

“Mrs. Taylor, fifth grade, Altamont Elementary School in Klamath Falls, was a wonderful teacher who had high expectations and went above and beyond to help students learn. She had our class perform Charlie and the Chocolate Factory for the school and gave me my first experience with the arts, which looking back I know connected me with adult mentors, improved test scores, stronger friendships and growth, and leadership opportunities I would not have otherwise had.”

SHADEFLAWLESSOFCOURTESYSAPUTOTIM

Flawless Shade (Tajh Patterson), drag queen, finalist on Painted With Raven “Mrs. Busby was my marketing teacher for both my junior and senior years at Camas High School. She taught me how important first impressions are. I look back and thank her for making us students do speeches every week without using notes.”

19Willamette Week AUGUST 24, 2022 wweek.com

“While in law school at Lewis and Clark, I had the great fortune to meet professor Jeff Jones. Professor Jones taught employment law and it quickly became one of my favorite classes. Professor Jones was an African American professor at a predominantly white law school, with a predominantly white student body. He spoke candidly to us students, particularly those few of us who were persons of color, about the legal community in Oregon and the lack of diversity. He encouraged all of us to persevere and pave the way for more young men and women of color to pursue the legal field, making it a more diverse and inclusive space. “The year I graduated from law school, Professor Jones was honored with the Leo Levenson Award for Excellence in Teaching. No professor was more deserving than Professor Jones. I remember how humble he was about the award and how genuinely honored he was to receive it. Professor Jones passed away in December 2020, and I’ll forever be grateful for the short time I was his student.”

Tina Kotek, Democratic nominee for Oregon governor

KARMELIANOFCOURTESYHUNDELTJORDAN FULGENCIODANNYEDKEENE HOWARDNATHANOREGONMSSOFCOURTESY

Khanh Pham, Oregon state representative, House District 46

“My experience at St. Helen’s Hall [now Oregon Episcopal School] was marked by two outstanding teachers: Isabel McCurdy, who taught history, and Ruth Rose Richardson, who taught English and language arts. These women set very high standards, expected the absolute best from us, took no excuses about anything and actually laid down the foundation for me to be successful, not only as high school student but as a college student and subsequently as a law student. I have used the skills imparted to me by those wonderful women throughout my entire adult life.”

“Ms. Nadine Miller taught world history and sociology at my high school [in York, Pa.]. She was no nonsense and strict. It was very clear she loved to teach. I learned so much from her classes, particularly how to understand the world differently (for example, The Autobiography of Malcolm X was required reading). During my senior year, with no advanced classes to take, she worked with me to set up a self-directed study program where I was able to study Gandhi’s practice of nonviolence and how it influenced Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s activism. She impacted my life in so many ways, making me feel seen and valued.”

“I loved professor Marty Hart-Landsberg, Lewis & Clark College. His economics classes taught me that economics is not a dry and ‘neutral’ science, and helped me to see the human impacts of different economic policy choices. Today, I use those same critical analysis skills he taught as I scrutinize agency budgets and megaprojects to make sure that we understand the values and choices that are embedded in our budgets.”

Mss founderOregon,ofDiversify Portland “My second grade teacher was Ms. Houston at Eisenhower Elementary in Hazel Dell. She had red hair just like Ms. Frizzle [of The Magic School Bus]—I mean just like Ms. Frizzle. We had pets in the classroom like sailfin dragons, geckos, even our own caterpillars that metamorphosed into monarch butterflies. My mom still has the picture of me with my butterfly. Being around all those different animals sparked my curiosity, and all my life it kept my curiosity sparked.”

Betsy Johnson, unaffiliated candidate for Oregon governor

Christine Drazan, Republican nominee for Oregon governor

20 Willamette Week AUGUST 24, 2022 wweek.com

BY SOPHIE PEEL speel@wweek.com

21Willamette Week AUGUST 24, 2022 wweek.com

The district is contracting with a Texas-based company for the training, which is a yearslong process. By state law, only severe incidents in elementary school warrant suspension or expulsion: if a teacher is harmed by a student or administration determines the student is a danger to other students or the school for, say, bringing a weapon to school. David Douglas elementary schools will still follow state law, but the aim is to tackle all the gray areas posed by less cut-and-dried incidents.Forinstance, changes will be made to the schools’ “minor” incident systems. In prior years, if students misbehaved in what a teacher deemed a minor incident, the student was sent home with a note that listed the misbehavior. The child would return the slip to the teacher with a parent’s signature. But this year, the teacher will meet with the student and talk through the incident, reinforcing expected behaviors rather than shaming the wrong behavior. “We’re turning it from a punishment to a conversation, and a reteaching opportunity,” Mill Park’s Crawley says. “The teacher will call a parent and talk through it, too. Much of this reorientation, she adds, will focus on reeducating teachers and administrators about how different cultures treat discipline and expectations: “BIPOC students are relationally and community oriented. The dominant culture is not. We have a siloed, individual accomplishment style of thinking.”

Now, emerging from a pandemic that ravaged the lives of just those kids, the district is again seeking to be a trailblazer. No other school district in the state dedicates an assistant principal solely to the task of reducing racial disparities in school discipline, says Vanessa Crawley, soon to be assistant principal at Mill Park Elementary.Evenso,suspension data provided to WW by the district shows that in the 2018-19 school year, Black students received 45% of all suspensions despite making up only 19% of the student body. At David Douglas High School that same year, Black students made up about 14% of the student body but accounted for 39% ofAndsuspensions.thedisparities are just as bad across Portland: In 2019, Black students at Portland Public Schools accounted for 46% of major discipline incidents reported. White students made up only Often,5%.disparate punishment between BIPOC and white kids doesn’t show up clearly in the data until middle and high school. The strategy here, Protopapas says, is to quash that disparity early—when kids are as young as 6—rather than waiting until middle or high school. “Our disparities don’t quite show up in elementaries, but they do in other levels,” Protopapas says. The David Douglas School District was given a big financial boost to reframe school discipline in 2019 with a $2.2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education aimed at transforming school culture. While the assistant principals are being funded by the district’s general fund, they supplement a districtwide restorative practices training program each teacher will undergo this year. (Much of the training was postponed after COVID-19 closed classroom doors.)

Students returning to nine elementary schools in East Portland will see a new face this fall. That person’s job is to keep kids from being sent home.

@MCKENZIEYOUNGARTYOUNG-ROYMCKENZIE

STAY IN SCHOOL

The aim is to ask both teachers and students to resolve disputes by trying to find a way to live in peace, rather than treating the classroom like a courtroom.

Elementary schools in East Portland have a novel plan to reduce racial disparities in student discipline.

Every elementary school in the David Douglas School District has added a new staffer called the assistant principal of restorative practices. Their job? To get student retention up by finding ways to talk with, rather than punish, kids who misbehave. The assistant principals will focus in particular on students of color who have historically been more severely disciplined in schools. The aim is to end racial disparity before it begins to show up in data during high school. “If a student doesn’t behave, we send them home. But in any other scenario, if a kid doesn’t know how to read, we teach them how to read,” says Florence Protopapas, assistant director of student services for the district. “We want to bring that into behavior, as well. Ultimately, our end goal is to get all of our kids toDavidgraduation.”Douglas, a district in East Portland with a diverse, lower-income population and one-fifth the students of Portland Public Schools, has long been a bright light in public education in Oregon. Sixty-eight percent of students are not white and, in 2020, 70% qualified for free or reduced-price lunch. A decade ago, WW wrote about how David Douglas High School students had exceptional outcomes, like a 69% graduation rate—with a student body that spoke 55 languages (“Miracle on 135th Avenue,” WW, Feb. 12, 2013).

Photos by Chris Nesseth

On Instagram: @chrisnesseth ALL DOWNHILL

22 Willamette Week AUGUST 24, 2022 wweek.com STREET

After launching a streamed shoebox version of the Portland Adult Soapbox Derby in 2020, and then canceling the event last year alto gether, the full-scale race finally returned, in person, to Mount Tabor on Sept. 20. The pandemic absence didn’t quell the creativity of participants, who made buggies paying homage to cultural icons like Pee-wee Herman and the Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog. In all, 42 teams hurtled down the giant cinder cone, and they were cheered on by an estimated 7,000 spectators.

23Willamette Week AUGUST 24, 2022 wweek.com

503-568-4090 FremontNE8226 PLAYHOUSE Odessa Sylvia’s Eliminate the loud & busy club scene! Step into a private time that is focused around your fetish & fantasy needs! Come get naked with us!!! 18+ VALID ID PLAYHOUSEPORTLAND.COM PRIVATE ADULT FETISH & FUN Get TonightBusy OUR EVENT PICKS, EMAILED WEEKLY. WAKE UP TO WHAT MATTERS IN PORTLAND. Willamette Week’s daily newsletter arrives every weekday morning with the day’s top news. Sign up! 24 Willamette Week AUGUST 24, 2022 wweek.com

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GO: The Alibi 75th Anniversary Outdoor Luau Everybody shows up to The Alibi with the same goal: get super-wasted on cocktails garnished with miniature umbrellas and then belt out go-to karaoke jams. The Overlook neighborhood staple is cele brating its 75th year this weekend, which means the songs will probably be a little louder, the patrons a little more drunk, and the party bigger than ever.

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LISTEN: Blossom at Knot Springs Summer Concert Series

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STUFF TO DO IN PORTLAND THIS WEEK, INDOORS AND OUT SEE MORE GET BUSY EVENTS AT WWEEK.COM/CALENDAR

Come for the aromatherapeutic River Mint Body Wash, stay for live music at Portland’s premier wellness-themed social club Knot Springs. Underground hip-hop artist Blossom is set to bring her jazzy neo-soulinspired vocals to the urban spa’s outdoor patio. Take a dip in the soak ing pool, dare to invigorate your body in the 47-degree cold plunge, and then warm back up in the sauna while you’re there. Knot Springs, 33 NE 3rd Ave., Suite 365, 503-222-5668, knotsprings.com. 6-8 pm Wednesday, Aug. 24. $79. 18+.

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This traditional Irish band, whose name translates to “strings” in English, released Coiscéim Coiligh ( As the Days Brighten) last spring—their first album in nearly a decade, which continues to draw inspi ration from folksy jigs, barn dance music and ballads. Téada has played in numer ous locations around the world, including in front of a crowd of 30,000 in France’s Brittany region (let’s hope Winona Grange #271 isn’t too much of a letdown for the band after that experience). The group is a favorite of actor John C. Reilly, who collaborated on one of the new songs, so what’s good enough for Wreck-It Ralph is sure to please the rest of us mortals. Winona Grange #271, 8340 SW Seneca St., Tualatin, teada.com. 7:30 pm Wednesday, Aug. 24. $15-$35.

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LISTEN: Volume Bomb Block Party 5 With 50 bands crowding into one block on a single Saturday night, there’s sure to be some commotion. Volume junkies are in vited to five bars near Southeast 48th Av enue and Hawthorne Boulevard, including Space Room Lounge, QuarterWorld, Bar of the Gods, Mighty Moe’s Tanker and The Trough for all the noise—er, music—you could possibly desire. Various locations, volumebomb.com. 4 pm-12:30 am Sat urday, Aug. 27. A $10 wristband gets you access to every performance. 21+.

REMEMBER: A Culinary Tribute: Forever Brophy Daniel Brophy was a beloved instructor at the Oregon Culinary Institute before he became well known outside of the culinary community for his tragic murder. Former students have organized a dinner in Brophy’s honor to benefit the Domestic Violence Resource Center in Beaverton. The five-course meal is inspired by Bro phy’s favorite foods, his recipes, and his students’ memories of the time spent in his class. Alumbra Cellars will provide the wine pairings. Alumbra Cellars, 12655 SE String Town Road, Dayton, Saturday,foreverbrophy.eventbrite.com.503-714-1300,5-8pmAug.27.$110. SIP: Silobration NW Take a short drive to idyllic Yamhill County for a full day of Silobration activities at Abbey Road Farm. The event promises a Maker’s Market with more than 25 local ar tisans, live music on the lawn, food trucks, a bouncy house and, naturally, wine tast ing. Admission to the event is free, with fees for the 5k Wine Fun Run, charcuterie workshop, and plant-potting class with the Whorticulturist. Abbey Road Farm, 10501 NE Abbey Road, Carlton, foram-5abbeyroadfarm.com/silobrationnw.503-687-3100,11pmSunday,Aug.28.Free.$30-$70theotheractivities. PLAY: Crawfish & Cornhole “BagGate” may have cast a long shadow over professional cornhole this month, but amateur enthusiasts can still enjoy the game surrounded by the late summer blooms of hydrangeas, Japanese anemo ne and purple aster at the Oregon Garden Resort. Cap o an evening of yard games with live country rock and a crawfish boil. Oregon Garden Resort, 895 W Main St., Silverton, 503-874-2500, oregongardenre sort.com. 6:30-9 pm Sunday, Aug. 28. $50. 25Willamette Week AUGUST 24, 2022 wweek.com

FYI: Over seven decades of continuous operation makes The Alibi the second-oldest tiki bar in the U.S. On top of all the kitschy tropical gloriousness you can imagine, there will be some non-kitschy attrac tions as well, including performances by Hawaiian dance troupe Hula Halau ‘Ohana Holo‘oko‘a and presentations by Native historians. The Alibi Tiki Lounge, 4024 N Interstate Ave., 503-287-5335, club21pdx. com/Alibitiki. Noon-8 pm Saturday, Aug. 27. Free. GO: Closing Soirée for Motherhood Gone are the days of Disjecta’s funky underground art scene housed in a somewhat hidden space found mostly by word of mouth. Today, the venue is known as Oregon Contemporary, and it’s located in a much more formal setting in the Kenton neighborhood, complete with manicured grounds and exhibitions curated by prominent locals like A.J. Mc Creary. Celebrate the end of the McCrea ry-curated Motherhood exhibition with a soirée and complimentary art-meets-food tasting experience by Black Feast. Oregon Contemporary, 8371 N Interstate Ave., 503-286-9449, oregoncontemporary.org. 2-5 pm Saturday, Aug. 27. Free.



LISTEN: Téada

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GET BUSY

SPRINGSKNOTOFCOURTESY ALIBITHEOFCOURTESY

BY ANDREA DAMEWOOD PHOTOS BY AARON LEE @AARONLEEPHOTO

Top 5 Buzz List

This feels weird to say about a restaurant that charges $150 a diner, but I’m rooting for Tercet. Located in the mezzanine of downtown’s historic Morgan Building, Tercet is the rebirth of beloved prix fixe seafood restaurant Roe, which closed due to the pandemic just as head chef John Conlin felt he was coming into his own. I’ve maintained that Roe (first opened under chef Trent Pierce; Conlin took the helm in 2018) would be one of the few Portland restaurants to get a Michelin star if the company handed those out in the Pacific Northwest, and its rebirth as Tercet maintains those highTercet,standards.which means three lines of poetry, expands somewhat from the fish-only Roe, adding a meat course or two to its menu, like a recent plate that capitalized on this year’s never-ending morel season, served draped over a tender beef tartare with a pond of hollandaise sauce, all meant to be assembled like little tacos in a bright green onion crepe. Conlin says that by adding meat dishes to the lineup, he can avoid ordering fish that has to be flown in from around the globe, ensuring that the proteins are all hyperlocal and seasonal. A beautifully, lightly poached wild Chinook was a pop of pink in a green sorrel sauce with toothsome English peas and a dusting of Dutch rye bread crumbles. And yet that will make way for a late summer poached sole dish with tomato dashi, grilled haricots and a chicken fatTercetcrumble.isalso hanging on in downtown, which is a very different place than it was four years ago—one of the doors to the Morgan Building was boarded up, and while waiting for our ride-share post-dinner, a man wandered the block screaming at the top of hisOnlungs.theone hand, it feels a little wrong to sip excellent sparkling wine and dine on dishes with tweezer-placed microgreens while Rome burns. Serious economic disparities and policy failures continue to plague our city. On the other hand, Tercet is one of a shrinking group of wildly creative fine-dining restaurants that serve only prix fixe meals: Erizo, Holdfast and Beast are all gone; Castagna has yet to reopen. When done right, such places push boundaries and bring together flavors that challenge and surprise even the most experienced

26 Willamette Week AUGUST 24, 2022 wweek.com FOOD & DRINK

Editor: Andi Prewitt Contact: aprewitt@wweek.com

The team that made Roe a world-class seafood destination returns with Tercet, one of Portland’s few remaining prix fixe restaurants.

WHERE TO DRINK THIS WEEK.

5. THE KNOCK BACK 2315 NE Alberta St., theknockback.com. 4-midnight Monday-Thursday, 4 pm-2 am Friday, noon-2 am Saturday, noon-midnight Sunday. Over the past two years, we’ve seen plenty of bars close, along with a slew of brave newcomers entering the market. But rarer is the resuscitation of any pandemic casualties. Now, the Knock Back, which shuttered in 2020 after an unsuccessful GoFundMe roof.GrillGrilledboomfoodalsofactthough,themenu.alocationtohascampaign,returneditsoriginalwithnewdrinkPerhapsbestpart,isthethatithasrevivedcartstandoutCheeseunderits

1. OLD PAL 3350 SE Morrison St., 503-477-9663, oldpalpdx. com. 4-10 pm Sunday-Monday and Thursday; 4-11 pm Friday-Saturday. The new Sunnyside neighborhood restaurant Old Pal wants to become your regular drinking buddy. You’ll currently find a lineup of eight cocktails, including its eponymous drink made with rye, Campari, and Dolin Dry vermouth, as well as beer, wine and zero-proof drinks. Pair your beverage with the flavors of late summer, like an heirloom tomato gazpacho.

Course by Course

2. MIGRATION BREWING AT WASHINGTON SQUARE 9585 SW Washington Square Road, migrationbrewing.com. Noon-8 pm Monday-Saturday, 11 am-7 pm Sunday. Migration is making it cool to be a mall rat again. The 12-year-old company just opened a beer garden inside Washington Square with four taps as well as multiple packaged options, including cider and wine. The bar is surrounded by food court staples, which means you finally have the opportunity to pair a Migration classic like Straight Outta Portland IPA with a plate of piping hot orange chicken from the nearby Panda Express.

4. NORTH 45 517 NW 21st Ave., 503-248-6317, north45pub.com. 4 pm-midnight Monday-Thursday, 2 pm-1 am Friday, noon-1 am Saturday, 2 pm-midnight Sunday. You never know exactly what you’ll find on North 45’s rear patio, but it’s the promise of a rollicking scene tucked out of street view that keeps people waiting for a seat. But like a mullet, the party in the back is balanced by a measure of refinement. The drink list circumnavigates the globe, from renowned Belgian Trappist beers to a booklet of spirits that’s almost two dozen pages long.

3. THE SUNSET ROOM 100 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., kexhotels.com/eatdrink/thesunsetroom. 4-10 pm Friday-Sunday. The rooftop oasis that once held Kex’s Lady of the Mountain has a new occupant. Renowned bartenders Je rey Morgenthaler and Benjamin “Banjo” Amberg opened the Sunset Room in late July after launching the hotel lobby’s watering hole Pacific Standard. The top-floor perch has a menu that’s more whimsical and experimental, which goes well with views of the riot of color that is the neighboring Fair-Haired Dumbbell.

Willamette Week AUGUST 24, 2022 wweek.com

1. TITO’S TAQUITOS 3975 SW Beaverton Hillsdale Highway, 503-4065935, titos-taquitos.square.site. 11 am-6 pm Wednesday-Saturday. At Tito’s, the taquitos are neither an appetizer nor an afterthought but an elaborate—and elaborately composed—entree. They’ve got a spectacularly crispy crackle, strong corn flavor, and chunky-soft potato filling, plus an assortment of vegetable garnishes and your choice of proteins laid on top.

5. DESI BITES 16165 SW Regatta Lane, #300, Beaverton, 971-3712176, desibitespdx.com. 11 am-2:30 pm and 4-9 pm Tuesday-Sunday. Desi Bites is one of the Beaverton’s newest South Asian markets with a full restaurant. Beware, however, the dining area is tiny (while the store is huge) and it fills up quickly. Plan for takeout, at least as a contingency. Don’t be afraid to try the fiery tomato- and coconut-based Telangana curry, a specialty of Hyderabad. For a more mainstream repast, try the kati rolls or kebabs wrapped in paratha bread, which are messy but delicious. eaters, such as Tercet’s pine nut ice cream served with a pine cone syrup and spruce tip powder that tastes how a walk in a Pacific Northwest rainforest feels. I’d hate to lose that.

mainstream repast, try the kati rolls or ke27

3. CHAMPAGNE POETRY PÂTISSERIE 3343 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 503-265-8834, champagnepoetry.biz. 9:30 am-7 pm Tuesday-Thursday and Sunday, 9:30 am-9 pm Friday-Saturday. This new bakery is a pink wonderland of colorful macarons, airbrushed tarts and sou é pancakes. Chef-owner Dan Bian is dedicated to infusing classic French desserts with exciting ingredients—from yuzu to guava to ube. The real stars here are the hyperrealistic cakes, including one that looks like a perfect Homer Simpson doughnut.

EAT: Tercet, 515 SW Broadway, #100, 971-865-2930, tercetpdx. com. 5:45-10 pm Wednesday-Saturday. Wine pairings $85 per person, $135 for two. Reservations and proof of vaccination required.

2. CHENNAI MASALA 2088 NE Stucki Ave., Hillsboro, 503-531-9500, chennaimasala.net. 11:30 am-2 pm and 5:30-9:30 pm Tuesday-Sunday. Chennai Masala has been a South Indian standard for more than a decade. After the dining room was remodeled, it gained the feel of a midscale restaurant, shedding the cafeterialike vibe. South Indian food leans heavily vegetarian, so order accordingly. We suggest one of the dosas, a scrolled crispy crepe made with fermented lentil and rice flours. Good plain with just a side of aromatic sambar or filled with potatoes, chutney, egg, cheese, meat and more.

4. RUKDIEW CAFE 2534 SE Belmont St., 503-841-6123, rukdiew.com. 11:30 am-3 pm and 4:30–9 pm Monday-Thursday, 11:30 am-3 pm and 4:30-9:30 pm Friday, noon-9:30 pm noon-9Saturday,pmSunday. The most sought-after Thai appetizer in Portland these days might just be chicken wings, since the fall of Pok Pok has many hoping to discover an adequate replacement. Look no further: RukDiew’s hot wings are not only heavenly, the dish is secretly two great snacks in one. Flats and drums are tossed in a light chile-garlic sauce and served on a bed of fried basil leaves and egg noodles.

Conlin is joined by two other Roe alums—chef Wyatt VandenBerghe and sommelier Michael Branton, who all take turns running out the plates, while Branton offers a globe-trotting wine list that strays from Tercet’s local-food-only ethos but is the right call to get the perfect pairing. A dish called simply “egg” on the one-ingredient-per-course menu turned out to be a perfectly jammy yolk spooned over cherry tomatoes at the height of their acidic sweetness along with a dollop of caviar that popped with salty delight. Diners are also greeted by an array of “snacks,” my favorite of which was a raw oyster with a frozen cucumber granita on the top, and…more caviar.

With the end of summer in mind, Conlin says he’s got big plans for peach season, including making noyaux out of the pits and infusing it into ice cream or pastry filling and making sure the “perfect chanterelles” that just came in get into a dish with sweet corn. That’s the kind of future we can all hope for.

Top 5 Hot Plates

“

When done right, places like Tercet push boundaries and bring together flavors that challenge and surprise even the most experienced eaters.”

Riding (Too) High

BY BRIANNA WHEELER

On the flip side of all the recent advancements in cannabinoid therapy is a culture of cannabis breeding that feels like a never-ending race to develop strains with THC percentages high enough to melt a user’s face off. I certainly appreciate the determination, but it can be a little much, even for the varsity stoners among us. Ultra-high THC cultivars often sacrifice a more nuanced, full-spectrum high for a less-dimensional, heartstopping rocketship ride. And sometimes, the result is that users, particularly novices, simply get too damn high. But there are remedies for greening out, going cannatonic, or being violently baked. For generations, learning how to temper an out-of-control high required advice from a mature pothead or witchy stoner auntie, but today users can easily prepare their stash boxes and kitchen pantries with remedies both natural and human-made. The next time you overindulge in edibles or smoke a strain that’s more potent than expected, try any of these seven methods to come back down.

Chew a Peppercorn While some swear that simply taking a few strong whiffs of peppercorns is enough to temper an anxious high, a more common trick is to crush a single peppercorn between your teeth when your high begins to spin out of control. Black pepper is rich with the terpene caryophyllene, which enhances the sedative qualities of THC. That alone could be enough to curb a high that’s become too spacey. Suck a Lemon Just as black pepper’s caryophyllene works with THC to produce relaxation, lemon’s chief terpene, limonene, could have similar therapeutic effects. Limonene’s potency is such that when the aroma combines with the shock of a mouthful of tart juice, it’s enough not only to shake the rough edges from a jagged high, but also wash away the hallmark of a rough sesh: an uncomfortably dry cottonmouth.

Break a Sweat Engaging in some manner of low-key physical activity can often ease the dizzying effects of a potent cultivar. Even light movement can help lower blood pressure, relieve stress and anxiety, and burn off that intense, chest-tightening surplus of energy. If you’re still functional enough to shake a tail feather, a familiar yoga flow, a quick spin with a hula hoop, or even a freak-out dance attack will help readjust your mind and body. Take a Cold Shower While a warm shower might push your high over the edge and leave you too foggy to do anything other than take a nap, a cold shower will reinvigorate you. But there’s no need to jump into an ice bath. Instead, slip into a lukewarm shower and slowly dial down the temp until you find it cold enough to shatter the fuzz. Then shake it off, chug some ice water for good measure, and go about your day.

East Fork Cultivars Blue Orchid Organic CBD Oil Just as peppercorns and lemon peels have a reputation for calming highs, so do potent, therapeutic CBD products. East Fork Cultivars is a notably holistic brand, from seed to counter, and many of its therapeutic strains can do double duty as cannabinoid therapies and THC cushions for established users. Blue Orchid is a favorite not only because of its grassy, herbal mouthfeel and quick activation, but also for the added dimension it offers to the psychotropic effects it dampens.

Unlike other cannabinoid tinctures, Oracle Wellness’ Hi-Ject was formulated specifically to curb THC highs that have become too intense. The proprietary fluid is a spritzable blend of cannabinoids and terpenoids that reportedly lessens the effects of THC in 15 to 45 minutes. Oracle calls it the “EpiPen for weed users,” and for newer users still navigating the effects of contemporary superweed, Hi-Ject could indeed be a critical stash box component.

Paranoid and panting after trying a potent new strain? Here are seven ways to come back down quickly.

28 Willamette Week AUGUST 24, 2022 wweek.com POTLANDER

Cookies Lemon Pound Cake CBD Cartridge If you prefer a velvety vape to drops under the tongue, consider keeping a cartridge of the popular Cookies CBD strain Lemon Pound Cake in your stone zone. A hit from a CBD vape is the quickest way to tamp down a high that’s intensifying past comfortable levels, and Lemon Pound Cake is quite tasty. This strains’ skunky, lemon-sweet exhale and smooth, mood-easing effects make it remarkably pleasant to use.

Oracle Wellness Hi-Ject

BY MICHELLE KICHERER @michellekicherer

It’s been almost 15 years since Raising Sand, the five-time Grammy-winning album by a surprising but mesmerizing partnership: rock superstar Robert Plant and bluegrass legend Alison Krauss. Plant, of course, was Led Zeppelin’s frontman, while Krauss is the most Grammy-decorated country singer of all time (and at 27 wins, she’s in fourth place for most Grammy-winning artist inOnstage,history).

At long last, the chips have landed. And as with the duo’s first album, their second, Raise the Roof (released last November), became a collection of covers they felt were worth revisiting and reimagining.Yearsbefore deciding to create the record, Plant and Krauss started sending each other songs that would be fun—and challenging—to record together. The songs range in genre from bluegrass to barroom country to R&B and soul. Every track on the album is a cover, aside from “High and Lonesome,” a song Plant and producer T Bone Burnett co-wrote for the album (which explains why it has the most Plant-y vocals in the collection).

TUESDAY, AUG. 30: Remember when rock ’n’ roll used to be fun, freaky and sexy? Platform boots, lipstick, spandex and leather jackets were in, and you couldn’t just cut it by going up in a flannel and caterwauling about your breakup. Yves Tumor cut a striking figure even when they were making avant-garde sound collages like Serpent Music and Experiencing the Deposit of Faith, but the Miami-born, Italy-based artist is truly in their element as the front-goblin of a smoldering psych ensemble known only as “Its Band.” Wonder Ballroom, 128 NE Russell St. 8:30 pm. $24. 21+. WHAT TO SEE AND WHAT TO HEAR BY DANIEL BROMFIELD

@bromf3 29Willamette Week AUGUST 24, 2022 wweek.com MUSIC Editor: Bennett Campbell Ferguson | Contact: bennett@wweek.com

Roof Raisers How super-duo Robert Plant and Alison Krauss created their latest album.

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In the album’s press release, Plant says it was both difficult and fulfilling to push himself into genres and moods he doesn’t often“Theexplore.BettyHarris song ‘Trouble With My Lover’ was always in the air,” he says of the R&B deep cut. “To hear Alison sing that is such a great way of her turning her gift around. And Bobby Moore’s ‘Searching for My Love’ is something I used to sing at school, another nugget of beautiful lost soul music which has been ricocheting between us for a long time.” “I’ve heard Lucinda Williams sing ‘Can’t Let Go’ forever, and I sent that to Robert at least 10 years ago,” Krauss adds. “I remember riding around listening to it and thinking it would be so much fun to do together.” On Raise the Roof, “Can’t Let Go” is revisited with a Cash-esque bluegrass bassline, making it one of the more upbeat tracks on the album. Meanwhile, songs like Merle Haggard’s midcareer “Going Where the Lonely Go” and Hank Williams’ twangy, heartbroken “My Heart Would Know” are completely reinterpreted under Burnett (whose extensive catalog ranges from being Bob Dylan’s guitarist to providing music direction for films like The Big Lebowski, Inside Llewyn Davis and O Brother, Where Are Thou?). “Fun” is a word that comes up a lot for Plant and Krauss. Their energies bounce off each other to create beautiful vibrations in the studio and onstage, enriching songs that Plant has described as having “gone into our hearts way back in time, but got lost in the twists and curves of the passing years.” Plant isn’t following the path of (insert name of aging musician playing greatest hits tours). He’s exploring and learning and collaborating to create music that feels authentic to who he is now, capturing and redelivering the work of artists whose work he admires. And for the record, he has no interest in some form of John Bonham-less Zeppelin reunion. Why would he? As Plant has observed, time is always moving. And he and Krauss are moving with it.

SHOWS WEEK THURSDAY, AUG. 25: The excitement around the ragtag Connecticut quintet called Goose has as much to do with their expansive but catchy music as the possibility that we might just be seeing the next Phish or String Cheese Incident blossom into view before our very eyes. Counting tastemakers like Vampire Weekend and Father John Misty as fans, Goose is the perfect band for a universe in which the divisions between the indiesphere and the jam-band circuit are disappearing faster than ever. Dancing bears, meet Pink Rabbits. Pioneer Courthouse Square, 701 SW 6th Ave. 6 pm. $45. All ages.

SEE IT: Robert Plant and Alison Krauss play McMenamins Edgefield, 2126 SW Halsey St., Troutdale, mcmenamins.com/ edgefield. 6:30 pm Saturday, Aug. 27. $79.50. All ages.

Plant and Krauss, who perform at McMenamins Edgefield this Saturday, have showcased a dynamic so powerful and sweet that people have wondered if they are romantically entwined (they’re not). After the 2007 debut’s success, fans expected another Plant-Krauss album would arrive shortly, but they didn’t want to just put out another album for the sake of doing it. In fact, they would wait until 2021 to unleash the second act of their collaboration.

TWO OF A KIND: Robert Plant and Alison Krauss.

SATURDAY, AUG. 27: Even the ugliest sounds in metal are meant, to some degree, to push the listener toward transcendence. The two bands co-headlining Star Theater on Saturday understand this. Amenra has called most of their albums Mass up to this point (Mass I, Mass II, etc.), and their live show indeed can feel like a spiritual communion. “Transcendental black metal” band Liturgy, meanwhile, has an entire mythology and cosmology spelled out in very arcane terms—which you luckily don’t need to understand to let their music lift you up. Star Theater, 13 NW 6th Ave. 8 pm. $25. 21+.

“It just had to feel right and natural,” Plant said on his podcast Digging Deep, adding that a huge part of his creation process is feeling the energy in a room. When Robert Plant is on, he’s on, though he admits he can hardly ever create the same moment twice—which is part of what makes their performances so dynamic.“Ithink why it has worked is because we had the same attitude we had last time, which was: Well, let’s see what happens!” Krauss said on Digging Deep. “Nothing was contrived…you’re throwing good chips up in the air, but you are still seeing where they fall.”

“This“Oregon.”isagood place to look for UFOs,” Earley said at one point, scanning the sky before telling a story about seeing one during his semi-homeless, warehouse-recording Wild Mountain Nation and Furr days. “I’ve been in Portland 25 years. It always changes and gets weirder. I still love it, though.”

Earley himself also works full time. He recently joined the houseless services agency Greater Good Northwest in Washington County, after first being with Do Good Multnomah (that Nov. 2019 show was a Veterans Day benefit for them). When I interviewed him for Street Roots at the end of 2020, he was focused on helping his clients, being with his family, and making visual art while barely even picking up a guitar, let alone writing orSincerecording.then, he has obviously picked up a guitar, but there’s not yet any hint of future music or extended touring (the band’s last currently scheduled show is another date with Modest Mouse in Idaho on Aug. 29). It’s not melodramatic to say that any Blitzen Trapper show could be their last, because in this day and age you could say that about any veteran band. So I wasn’t going to miss even an opening slot. With the sun pounding down on Pioneer Courthouse Square at the start of the 6 pm set, Koch wore sunglasses, shorts and a straw hat—while Earley, in a tropical green St. Croix T-shirt, looked like he was ready for a gig at the new Margaritavilla resort in Medford. “It’s an honor to play with Isaac and the boys,” he said of Modest Mouse’s Isaac Brock before kicking things off with the stalwart “Fletcher,” featuring Benson on slide guitar. There were also five excellent songs from Holy Smokes Future Jokes, a less jammy (i.e., opening band-abbreviated) but still choogling “Thirsty Man,” and three songs off of 2008’s iconic Furr It’s a slightly thankless task, playing to what was essentially an outdoor happy-hour crowd, but amid the drinking and the chatting you could see the Blitzen Trapper die-hards scattered at the front: smiling, swaying, singing and pumping their fists (or holding up a phone) to “Furr” and whooping in recognition of Earley’s guitar-strummed opening (after a flamenco-ish introduction) to “Black River Killer.” It was, however, the first time I’ve ever been at a Blitzen Trapper show in Oregon where Earley sang “the sheriff let me go with a knife and a song/so I took the first train up to Oregon” and wasn’t greeted by at least a single cheer or woo-hoo when he got to

“ THIS IS A GOOD PLACE TO LOOK FOR UFOS.” 30 Willamette Week AUGUST 24, 2022 wweek.com MUSIC Editor: Bennett Campbell Ferguson | Contact: bennett@wweek.com

With a new lineup, Eric Earley and company played Portland for just the third time since 2019, opening for Modest Mouse at Pioneer Courthouse Square.

Blitzen Trapper Are Dead. Long Live Blitzen Trapper!

We’ve all got that one concert from the end of 2019 or the first two months of 2020. The one you didn’t go to. Too tired. Too busy. Still not caught up on Succession. “I’ll catch ’em in the spring or summer,” you probably thought. Oops. For me, that show was on Nov. 10, 2019: Blitzen Trapper at Revolution Hall, because it would be another 19 months before they played a show of any kind (a distanced outdoor “pod” concert at Zidell Yards), and almost two and a half years before a truly proper gig (at Rev Hall this past April). On top of that, it was the last time Blitzen Trapper’s classic lineup—the band as Portland has known them since 2003—would play a show. Post-pandemic, only frontman Eric Earley and drummer Brian Adrian Koch remain, with founding members Erik Menteer, Marty Marquis and Michael Van Pelt all moving on. Few band lineups last forever (see also: The Wipers, Everclear, Sleater-Kinney). And whether you’re talking an early record like Wild Mountain Nation or 2020’s Holy Smokes Future Jokes, Blitzen Trapper’s music, sound and some 300 songs are almost solely Earley. But the same five guys—six until Drew Laughery left the band in 2010—brought those songs to life for more than 20 years (dating back to the band’s days as, wait for it…Garmonbozia).Thegroup that took the stage Aug. 19 to open for Modest Mouse as part of the PDX Live concert series at Pioneer Courthouse Square was Earley, Koch (who remained musically active during the pandemic in the duo Dead Lee with Kara Harris), keyboardist-guitarist Chris Benson (of The Beautiful Clarks and Benson Amps) and prodigiously mutton-chopped guitarist-bassist Nathan Vanderpool (Fruit Bats), who was also Blitzen Trapper’s longtime sound engineer. With or without a pandemic, sustaining a band financially is tough. Menteer and his wife are now renovating a mountain lodge in Rhododendron (where they’ve also had a coffee cart), Marquis is getting a master’s degree in geographic information sciences at Portland State, and Van Pelt is a Los Angeles-based freelance digital producer for an ad agency.

BY JASON COHEN @cohenesque

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SEE it: Three Thousand Years of Longing opens Thursday, Aug. 25, at Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, Cinema 2, City Center, Clackamas, Division, Eastport, Evergreen Parkway, Fox Tower, Hollywood, Laurelhurst, Lloyd Center, Progress Ridge, Tigard and Vancouver Plaza.

INDIE PICK 1: At 94, James Ivory, is still making movies (he co-directed the upcoming documentary A Cooler Climate). Celebrate his endurance by revisiting A Room With a View (1985), his rapturous portrait of a 1900s Englishwoman (Helena Bonham Carter) who has a momentous encounter with a freethinking railwayman (Julian Sands) in Italy. Based on E.M. Forster’s novel, the film is a testament to Ivory’s collaboration with the late producer Ismail Merchant, who was his partner in both art and life. HBO Max.

INDIE PICK 2: It takes a true optimist to keep the faith in the face of despair—someone like director Patty Jenkins, who plunged into the psyche of serial killer Aileen Wuornos (Charlize Theron) with Monster (2003), then unleashed the gleaming hopefulness of the Wonder Woman films. In retrospect, Monster is a fitting prelude to Jenkins’ superhero work. Her fearlessness in the dark gave her unique credibility when she embraced the light. Netflix, free on Amazon, Crackle, Plex, Roku, Tubi.

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CLASSIC PICK: A spaghetti-covered tennis racquet. A tilted hat. A broken mirror. The indelible images of Billy Wilder’s The Apartment (1960) are upstaged only by its funny, furious, heartfelt words. It’s hard to find Hollywood films this slick and smart in any era, but Wilder made one for the ages: a tale of tyranny toppled by the tender chemistry between Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine. Rent on Amazon, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu, YouTube. YOUR WEEKLY FILM QUEUE BY BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON @thobennett

Editor: Bennett

Campbell Ferguson Contact: bennett@wweek.com

BY BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON @thobennett Early in Three Thousand Years of Longing, Alithea (Tilda Swinton) declares to a crowd that stories are nothing but metaphors. Her audience accepts this pronouncement quietly—with the exception of a bearded, white-robed apparition in the front row. “Lies!” he shouts. The bellower is in sympathy with the film’s director, George Miller (Mad Max, Babe: Pig in the City). Miller is a master of metaphors, but his work is built on the belief that a story must be more than a symbol. For him, it is not enough for art to only represent a thing. It must be a thing, and preferably a beautiful and bracing one. Based on A.S. Byatt’s short story “The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye” and written by Miller and Augusta Gore, Three Thousand Years of Longing doesn’t quite fulfill that ideal. Miller’s phantasmagorical visuals are as beguiling as ever, but a frustrating, retrograde conclusion may leave some moviegoers doubting his feminist bona fides. Alithea certainly would. As a narratologist (which is a real job!), Alithea decodes common elements of stories across cultures. She’s a modern Joseph Campbell, but without his rambling, ruminative style. Even when she acknowledges the DC Comics pantheon in a presentation on myth, she refuses to be bogged down in superhero arcana (incidentally, Miller almost made a Justice League film). Alithea becomes an unlikely companion to the Djinn (Idris Elba), a towering, chatty genie who has spent several millennia imprisoned in a brass bottle. Upon appearing in Alithea’s hotel room in Istanbul, he asks her to help him gain his freedom by making three wishes, but he’s begging the wrong gal. “There’s no story about wishing that is not a cautionary tale,” Alithea claims. Implicit in her words is a challenge: Can the Djinn (and the movie) convince Alithea to fall for the seductive prospect of dreams made real? Alithea spends most of Three Thousand Years of Longing listening while the Djinn reveals his past lives, which are envisioned in hallucinatory flashbacks. With their shadowy palaces, colored smoke and smoldering desires, his stories have a maximalist allure, but his most intimate tale—about Zefir (Burcu Gölgedar), the restless wife of an elderly merchant—is his best. Zefir, a scientific genius who dreams of human flight, wishes for nearly limitless knowledge. Smitten, the Djinn obliges, but there’s a cost: Zefir feels suffocated by his adoration. Love and sex, it turns out, aren’t always as soul-enriching as intelligence.

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George Miller, director of Mad Max: Fury Road, returns with Three Thousand Years of Longing.

TWO LOVERS: Idris Elba and Tilda Swinton.

STREAMING WARS “THERE’S NO STORY ABOUT WISHING THAT IS NOT A CAUTIONARY TALE.” 31Willamette Week AUGUST 24, 2022 wweek.com MOVIES

HOLLYWOOD PICK: Jonah Hill published an open letter last week stating that due to anxiety attacks, he would not promote his films for the foreseeable future (he added that he was “hoping to make it more normal for people to talk and act on this stu ”). In honor of his heroic frankness about mental health, we recommend Moneyball (2011), in which he plays Peter Brand, a quietly revolutionary compatriot of Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane (Brad Pitt). Hulu.

There’s a spiritual kinship between Zefir and Alithea, who informs the Djinn that she doesn’t regret being single and childless. We learn that her ex-husband had an affair, but she recounts the betrayal in a brisk, businesslike manner. She may be isolated, but she says she’s content. The problem is that Three Thousand Years of Longing doesn’t believe Alithea. Despite starting out as a seemingly radical fairy tale about the difference between loneliness and aloneness, the film abruptly reduces her to a mopey spinster at the end of the second act, insisting that she wanted to be wooed by the hunky genie all along. It’s enough to make you wonder what happened to Miller. His last film, Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), was a cornucopia of cinematic joys, but none could compete with the defiant spectacle of women of all ages banding together to conquer a bloated patriarch. That’s why it’s so sobering that Three Thousand Years of Longing falls back on one of the most toxic of tropes: the woman whose salvation lies in coupledom. It’s yet another instance of what Whit Stillman’s The Last Days of Disco (1998) called “ferocious pairing off,” an enduring false god that damages people of all gender identities. Three Thousand Years of Longing is at its most persuasive when it recognizes that the Djinn’s power doesn’t come from wishes—it comes from being the one who grants them. That’s why he looks so vexed when Alithea sly wishes for a sip of tea, something she’s thoroughly capable of obtaining on her own. Miller seems to think Alithea is being glib—that tea is code for some secret yearning. But Swinton, with all her imperious poise, convinces you that her character just wants a cuppa.

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The Adventures of Mark Twain represented a “high bar” or that the California Raisins were a “really successful project”). He’s portrayed more as a being in perpetual motion than as someone whose imagination can be unpacked. Granted, that appears accurate, according to the many interviews conducted by director Marq Evans (who also made The Glamour & the Squalor about another Pacific Northwest institution, Seattle DJ Marco Collins), but it leaves frustration behind. The film’s most cogent narrative is of a business’s rise and fall, set to ominous courtroom-drama music. ClayDream is a melancholic Vinton primer that capably chronicles what they made at Will Vinton Studios, just not why. NR. SOLEM-PFEIFER.CHANCE Cinema 21. MOVIE IS EXCELLENT, ONE OF THE BEST OF THE YEAR. MOVIE IS WATCH MOVIE IS ENTERTAINING BUT FLAWED. THIS MOVIE IS A STEAMING PILE.

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EASTER SUNDAY Jo Koy’s standup translates seamlessly to film in Easter Sunday, which captures his signature blend of humor and sentimentality. Written by Ken Cheng and Kate Angelo (and based on Koy’s life), the film centers on an Easter family gathering dominated by Susan Valencia, a matriarch exquisitely embodied by Lydia Gaston. Koy plays a version of himself named Joe, a struggling actor attempting to balance the ever-present demands of career and family. Due to a poverty of time, Joe often finds himself neglecting the most important people in his life, including his son Junior (Brandon Wardell), whom he struggles to connect with, and his mother, whom he struggles to please. Even as the film reaches for bigger and bigger jokes, its relatability makes it work—the essence of the story is Joe’s family and the sacrifices they’re willing to make for one another, along with Koy’s wit. Tapping into the devastating honesty of Valencia elders who emigrated from the Philippines to America, Easter Sunday reflects on the realities of generational assimilation, but it never loses sight of the inherent humor that only family can expose. PG-13. RAY GILL JR. Bridgeport, Cascade, Cedar Hills, Cinema 99, City Center, Clackamas, Division, Eastport, Mill Plain, Movies on TV, Oak Grove, Stark Street, Vancouver Plaza.

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32 Willamette Week AUGUST 24, 2022 wweek.com MOVIES

BODIES BODIES BODIES Somewhere between crackling Gen Z dialogue and director Halina Reijn’s vivid cinematic vision lies the dead corpse of a fun idea. Bodies Bodies Bodies opens on a close-up of Bee (Maria Bakalova) and Sophie (Amandla Stenberg) making out in a scene that hints at an edgy Harmony Korine vibe that the film coasts on throughout its first act (unsurprisingly, both Reijn’s film and Korine’s Spring Breakers were released by the ultra-hip indie studio A24). Things get edgier still when they and a group of affluent 20-somethings and some random older guy (Lee Pace) gather at a remote mansion where they end up playing a series of twisted parlor games during a hurricane party. Predictably, the lights go out and the movie goes off the rails—especially when Sophie suggests they play Bodies Bodies Bodies, a seemingly innocent detective game. It’s an intriguing premise, but the clever generational dialogue (“you are so toxic”) and comedic twists give way to schlocky satire as more dead bodies turn up and people begin pointing fingers. Reijn’s avant-garde style is striking and the layered characters are full of intrigue, but we never really get to know them—and the lack of clues as to the culprit turns a whodunit into a less interesting game of Guess Who? R. RAY GILL JR. Cedar Hills, Cinemagic, City Center, Clackamas, Eastport Plaza, Evergreen Parkway, Fox Tower, Hollywood, Laurelhurst, Living Room, Lloyd Center, Pioneer Place, St. Johns Twin, Studio One, Tigard.

Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997) When shagadelic ’60s playboy spy Austin Powers (Mike Myers) is cryogenically frozen on a mission, he awakens in the strange new world of the ’90s. Now, it’s up to him and his partner (Elizabeth Hurley) to stop Dr. Evil (also Myers). Screens in honor of its 25th anniversary and as part of the Hollywood’s Mondo Trasho series. Hollywood, Aug. 26. Apocalypse Now: Final Cut (1979) This new 4K restoration of Francis Ford Coppola’s Vietnam War masterpiece follows a captain (Martin Sheen) up the Nùng River on a rocky mission to assassinate the mad Col. Kurtz (Marlon Brando). Not to be confused with Apocalypse Now: Redux, which clocks in at 202 minutes, Coppola’s preferred Final Cut (released in 2019) is a comparatively trim 183. Hollywood, Aug. 27-28.

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ALSO Academy:PLAYING:Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), Aug. 24-25. Wings of Desire (1987), Aug. 24-25. Conan the Barbarian (1982), Aug. 26-Sept. 1. Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984), Aug. 26-Sept. 1. Cinema 21: The Room (2003), Aug. 26. American Gra ti (1973), Aug. 27. Clinton: Shadowplay—Women in Experimental Animation, Aug. 24. The Big Boss (1971), Aug. 29. Game of Death (1978), Aug. 30.

Kill Bill: Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 (2003, 2004) Bask in the Bride’s (Uma Thurman) entire bloody path to vengeance against the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad (Lucy Liu, Darryl Hannah, Michael Madsen, Vivica A. Fox) and the titular Bill (David Carradine) with this kickass double feature. Fist-pump at Vol. 1’s action-packed stunts, then weep at Vol. 2’s layered exploration of a mother’s unconditional love! 5th Avenue, Aug. 26-28.

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“Interesting characters often have a simple goal…but it’s in great conflict with the world around them,” narrates the late, legendary Portland animator Will Vinton in ClayDream, a documentary about his life. Thematically, it’s a perfectly chosen quote, but it also spotlights the film’s limits. ClayDream frames a pioneering creator primarily as a combatant—against Nike co-founder Phil Knight (to whom he lost his company), against Bob Gardiner (his former (likeofton’sreallysaryagainstbusinessmentor),collaborator-turned-tor-againsthisownflawedacumen,andeventheintrospectionneces-tomakethisdocumentaryresonate.Seenhere,Vin-self-analysesaresomatterfactthey’realmostexpositorythathis1985film

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The Way of the Dragon (1972) Bruce Lee’s sole directorial e ort stars him as a Hong Kong martial artist sent to Rome to stop gangsters from terrorizing his cousin’s restaurant. It all leads up to a glorious showdown in the Colosseum, where he faces o against an American champion (Chuck Norris!). Screens as part of the Clinton’s Bruce Lee Film Festival. Clinton, Aug. 25. The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972) Spanish surrealist Luis Buñuel directs this biting social satire, loosely arranged around a group of bourgeois friends who attempt to dine together with increasingly bizarre interruptions. This new 4K restoration celebrates the Best Foreign Language Academy Award winner’s 50th anniversary. Cinema 21, Aug. 26.

A LOVE SONG Historically cast for their hard-bitten gravitas, Wes Studi (The Last of the Mohicans, Hostiles) and Dale Dickey (Winter’s Bone, Leave No Trace) boast well over 200 screen credits between them. But freshman director Max Walker-Silverman is the first filmmaker to find romantic vulnerability in the grooves of Dickey’s and Studi’s unforgettable visages. A Love Song finds Faye (Dickey) idling away at a Southwestern Colorado campground, awaiting a letter from high school friend Lito (Studi). With some Moonrise Kingdom-influenced camerawork, the film is a playful exercise in simplicity, as Faye catches crawdads, cracks Busch Lights, and spins the dial on her lightly magical radio, which always plays the perfect lonesome country tune. When Studi arrives, the movie becomes a sublime two-part harmony—both actors wear their age as armor, delicately juxtaposing late-stage puppy love with their characters’ very real fear of starting over after age 60. More akin to a short story than a novel, the movie is a mere 81 minutes, but in every dusty frame, it features some of 2022’s finest acting. PG. CHANCE-SOLEM-PFEIFER. Fox Tower, Living Room.

@sketchypeoplepdxstreets!thefromscenesTruekentcomics.com by Jack Kent 33Willamette Week AUGUST 24, 2022 wweek.com

JONESIN’ MATT JONES letters not just for the Teletubbies. ARIES (March 21-April 19): In his poem "Autobio graphia Literaria," Aries-born Frank O'Hara wrote, "When I was a child, I played in a corner of the schoolyard all alone. If anyone was looking for me, I hid behind a tree and cried out, 'I am an orphan.'" Over the years, though, O'Hara underwent a marvelous transformation. This is how his poem ends: "And here I am, the center of all beauty! Writing these poems! Imagine!" In the coming months, Aries, I suspect that you, too, will have the potency to outgrow and transcend a sadness or awkwardness from your own past. The shadow of an old source of suffering may not disappear completely, but I bet it will lose much of its power to diminish you.

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WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 1 © 2022 ROB BREZSNY FREE WILL last week’s answers ASTROLOGY CHECK OUT ROB BREZSNY’S EXPANDED WEEKLY AUDIO HOROSCOPES & DAILY TEXT MESSAGE HOROSCOPES freewillastrology.com The audio horoscopes are also available by phone at 1-877-873-4888 or 1-900-950-7700 34 Willamette Week AUGUST 24, 2022 wweek.com

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): To be the best Aquar ius you can be in the coming weeks, I suggest the following: 1. Zig when others zag. Zag when others zig. 2. Play with the fantasy that you're an extraterrestrial who's engaged in an experi ment on planet Earth. 3. Be a hopeful cynic and a cheerful skeptic. 4. Do things that inspire people to tell you, "Just when I thought I had you figured out, you do something unexpected to confound me." 5. Just for fun, walk backward every now and then. 6. Fall in love with everything and everyone: a D-List celebrity, an oak tree, a neon sign, a feral cat.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): "Now that I’m free to be myself, who am I?" Virgo-born Mary Oliver asks that question to start one of her poems. She spends the rest of the poem speculating on possi ble answers. At the end, she concludes she mostly longs to be an "empty, waiting, pure, speechless receptacle." Such a state of being might work well for a poet with lots of time on her hands, but I don't recommend it for you in the coming weeks. Instead, I hope you'll be profuse, active, busy, experimental, and expressive. That's the best way to celebrate the fact that you are now freer to be yourself than you have been in a while.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Capricorn novelist Marcia Douglas writes books about the history of her people in Jamaica. In one passage, she writes, "My grandmother used to tell stories about women that change into birds and lizards. One day, a church-going man dared to laugh at her; he said it was too much for him to swal low. My grandmother looked at him and said, 'I bet you believe Jesus turned water into wine.'" My purpose in telling you this, Capricorn, is to encourage you to nurture and celebrate your own fantastic tales. Life isn't all about reasonableness and pragmatism. You need myth and magic to thrive. You require the gifts of imagination and art and lyrical flights of fancy. This is especially true now. To paraphrase David Byrne, now is a perfect time to refrain from making too much sense.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Blogger Scott Williams writes, "There are two kinds of magic. One comes from the heroic leap, the upward surge of energy, the explosive arc that burns bright across the sky. The other kind is the slow accretion of effort: the water-on-stone method, the soft root of the plant that splits the sidewalk, the constant wind that scours the mountain clean." Can you guess which type of magic will be your specialty in the coming weeks, Leo? It will be the laborious, slow accre tion of effort. And that is precisely what will work best for the tasks that are most important for you to accomplish.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Author Zadie Smith praised Sagittarian writer Joan Didion. She says, "I remain grateful for the day I picked up Joan Didion's Slouching Towards Bethlehem and realized that a woman could speak without hedging her bets, without hemming and hawing, without making nice, without sounding pleasant or sweet, without deference, and even without doubt." I encourage Sagittarians of every gender to be inspired by Didion in the coming weeks. It's a favorable time to claim more of the authority you have earned. Speak your kaleidoscopic wis dom without apology or dilution. More fiercely than ever before, embody your high ideals and show how well they work in the rhythms of daily life.

"Eh-Oh!"--two

CANCER (June 21-July 22): "My own curiosity and interest are insatiable," wrote Cancerian author Emma Lazarus (1849–1887). Inspired by the wealth of influences she absorbed, she created an array of poetry, plays, novels, essays, and transla tions—including the famous poem that graces the pedestal of America's Statue of Liberty. I recommend her as a role model for you in the coming weeks, Cancerian. I think you're ripe for an expansion and deepening of your curiosity. You will benefit from cultivating an enthusiastic quest for new information and fresh influences. Here's a mantra for you: "I am wildly innocent as I vivify my soul's education."

Homework: What bold dream may not be beyond your power to NewsletterFreeWillAstrology.comachieve?

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): In her book Tales From Earthsea, Libra-born Ursula K. Le Guin wrote, "What goes too long unchanged destroys itself. The forest is forever because it dies and dies and so lives." I trust you're embodying those truths right now. You're in a phase of your cycle when you can't afford to remain unchanged. You need to enthusiastically and purposefully engage in dissolutions that will prepare the way for your rebirth in the weeks after your birthday. The process might sometimes feel strenuous, but it should ultimately be great fun.

©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. 1.ACROSS Quicker way to "count by" 5. LBJ's veep 8. Most proficient 14. "Are you kidding?" 15. "All applicants welcome" letters 16. "___ King" (Burger King spoof in a 2000 "Flintstones" movie) 17. *Current Maori-language name for New Zealand 19. *North African curvyhorned wild sheep that was released in Texas in the 1950s 20. Cul-de-___ 21. Egyptian Christians 23. Ghana's neighbor 24. Alternative to a business meeting, so to speak 26. Storefront coverings 29. *Series of heart structures that lead to the neck and head arteries 32. Fawns' mothers 33. Iron Maiden song that's also an instruction for some card games 37. Strand in a lab 38. *New York Times film critic whose Twitter name is still "32 across" six years after his name appeared in the crossword 41. "There's ___ in 'team"' 42. Grueling workplace 44. "Konvicted" hip-hop artist 45. *Tagline distinguishesthataconcert or convention from a fullweekend a air 49. Hargitay of "Law & Order: SVU" 52. "Like a Rock" singer Bob 53. Hebrew phrase meaning "to the skies" 54. Musician/producer Ty ___ $ign 56. Indie singer DiFranco 59. *Honshu city deemed one of the world's snowiest major cities (averaging 26 feet per year) 62. *Items containing free trial software, dubbed "history's greatest junk mail" by a Vox article 64. Actress Charlize who guested on "The Orville" 65. 37-Across counterpart 66. Unkind 67. "MMMBop" band of 1997 68. Pvt.'s boss 69. "Animal House" group, for short 1.DOWN "___ the night before Christmas ..." 2. "Easy there!" 3. Quaker boxful, maybe 4. Sault ___ Marie, Ontario 5. Valiant 6. Overblown publicity 7. Use a microwave on 8. "Defending liberty, pursuing justice" org. 9. ___-country (Florida Georgia Line genre) 10. Ill-mannered 11. ___ a good note 12. Amos Alonzo ___, coach in the College Football Hall of Fame 13. Hullabaloos 18. Berry that makes a purple smoothie 22. Anarchist defendant with Vanzetti 25. Chain members (abbr.) 27. Perk up, as an appetite 28. Home in the sticks? 29. Throws in 30. "Game of Thrones" actress Chaplin 31. Competed with chariots 34. Back end of some pens 35. "Keep talking" 36. Vaguely suggest 38. "To Venus and Back" singer Tori 39. "Old MacDonald" noise 40. Sam with 82 PGA Tour wins 43. Clothes experts 44. 1600 Pennsylvania ___ (D.C. address) 46. Covering the same distance 47. Chew out 48. Edwardian expletive 49. County north of Dublin 50. Word on Hawaiian license plates 51. Soup that may include chashu or ajitama 55. Rowboat rowers 57. March Madness org. 58. Ceases to be 60. marsupial"Winnie-the-Pooh" 61. Quaint motel 63. Global currency org.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): "The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time," said philosopher Bertrand Russell. I will add that the time you en joy wasting is often essential to your well-being. For the sake of your sanity and health, you peri odically need to temporarily shed your ambitions and avoid as many of your responsibilities as you safely can. During these interludes of refresh ing emptiness, you recharge your precious life energy. You become like a fallow field allowing fertile nutrients to regenerate. In my astrological opinion, now is one of these revitalizing phases for you.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): In his poem "Augu ries of Innocence," William Blake (1757–1827) championed the ability "to see a World in a Grain of Sand. And a Heaven in a Wild Flower. Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand." According to my reading of the astrological omens, Taurus, you are primed to do just that in the coming days. You have the power to discern the sacred in the midst of mundane events. The magic and mystery of life will shine from every little thing you encounter. So I will love it if you deliver the following message to a person you care for: "Now I see that the beauty I had not been able to find in the world is in you."

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): As a Scorpio, novel ist Fyodor Dostoyevsky was rarely guilty of oversimplification. Like any intelligent person, he could hold contradictory ideas in his mind without feeling compelled to seek more super ficial truths. He wrote, "The causes of human actions are usually immeasurably more complex and varied than our subsequent explanations of them." I hope you will draw inspiration from his example in the coming weeks, dear Scorpio. I trust you will resist the temptation to reduce col orful mysteries to straightforward explanations. There will always be at least three sides to every story. I invite you to relish glorious paradoxes and fertile enigmas.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): A blogger who calls herself HellFresh writes, "Open and raw com munication with your partners and allies may be uncomfortable and feel awkward and vulner able, but it solves so many problems that can't be solved any other way." Having spent years study ing the demanding arts of intimate relationship, I agree with her. She adds, "The idea that was sold to us is 'love is effortless and you should commu nicate telepathically with your partner.' That's false." I propose, Pisces, that you fortify yourself with these truths as you enter the Reinvent Your Relationships Phase of your astrological cycle.

35Willamette Week AUGUST 24, 2022 wweek.com

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