Willamette Week, November 9, 2022 - Volume 49, Issue 1 - "You can find Portland’s buried treasure!"

WHAT WE LEARNED FROM READING THIS WEEK’S PAPER

VOL. 49, ISSUE 1

A Portland landlord was stabbed to death after sneaking into a rental home wearing a Michael Myers mask 5

A campaign mailer supporting Rene Gonzalez misspelled his name. 6

Shaedon Sharpe is the most promising teenager on the Blazers since Jermaine O’Neal.

7

People are camping in an abandoned car wash that’s supposed to become affordable housing. 8

In April, someone stole a mini bus used to transport special needs students. 11

Someone named “Sims” or “Simes” buried $6,000 at two graves 2 miles from Portland. 14

Nathan B. Jones wanted to make Ziontown in Portland’s West Hills the new capital of the United States. 15

What has former Pix Pâtisserie owner Cheryl Wakerhauser been up to since she closed her dessert shop? Drinking sherry in Spain. 21

Homegrown rapper Aminé will share a stage with the Oregon Symphony this week for the first time. 21

A Will Smith Punch at Sissy Bar is a drink, not a blow to the head. 22

For the first time ever, you can now go on a gay bar crawl through inner Southeast Port land. 23

Are you a beginner Weed Mom? There’s a book to help you find your way. 24

Anna Diem’s new album has a Weezer-meets-Jeff Buck ley-vibed cover of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” 25

Dennis Nyback screened cartoons banned from VHS for their racist, sexist or violent content. 27

Last week’s cover story considered the steep increase in fires started in or near homeless camps, which now account for nearly half the blazes that firefighters respond to in Portland (“Camp Fires Everywhere,” WW , Nov. 2). Portland Fire & Rescue is responding to an average of six such fires a day—double the number just three years ago. Unhoused people described losing all their belongings and friends dying in the flames—which are often sparked by warming devices or the preparation of smoked drugs. Here’s what our readers had to say:

STEPHEN JUDKINS, VIA TWITTER: “I’m not sure how best to articulate it, but one of the most frustrating things about the Portland discourse is how many fellow left-leaning people have focused on how we should tolerate this awful situation instead of ameliorat ing it.”

JOHNQPUBLICTHE3RD, VIA WWEEK.COM: “I have a fire pit in my backyard, surrounded by concrete. The fire department was called when we had a fire (didn’t realize there was a burn ban). They put out the fire and said if it happens again, we might be fined…guess only the housed have to follow rules these days or pay fines. Wheeler’s house less campuses would solve this problem. People would have access to warming areas and there would be kitchens. Yet the homeless industrial com plex keeps equating them to internment camps. Something has to change.”

MICHAEL BRAND, VIA WWEEK.COM: “This shit is starting to destabilize the entire city. It is absolutely unacceptable that people have to live this way, despite millions budgeted that is sup posed to alleviate this human tragedy. In the meantime, homeowners and small-busi ness people are forced to deal with the fallout of government inaction.

“Be it city, county, state or federal level, our leaders are grossly incompetent and impotent.”

HAROLD METZGER, VIA FACEBOOK: “Just wait until Forest Park or the Hoyt Arbo retum go up in flames during a dry spell. There needs to be zero tolerance toward camping in those parks.”

COSMOSMOM, VIA TWITTER: “Look at the replies to see what kind of reader you are attracting with your fear porn.”

MARK F, VIA WWEEK. COM: “Do-nothing advocates are solely responsible for homeless deaths by fire and traffic accidents. It’s appalling that they continue to think unsanctioned camping near freeways and in fire-prone areas is the solution while we wait for 5,000 affordable housing units to be built. We need grown-ups to take charge of this problem, drown out the noise from the vocal advocates, and do something.”

JESSICA FOSTER, VIA FACE BOOK: “You know what would prevent this? Not having a houseless population. You know what would make that happen? Sufficiently funded and supported social programs and ending the stigma that the houseless are subhuman.

“Don’t forget you have more in common with the homeless than you do with the wealthy. How many missed paychecks would it take for you to be forced to join one of these camps for safety?”

BURGERBILL56, VIA WWEEK.COM: “This reminds me of a parable, something about incompetent leadership, a violin, and a city on fire?…It’ll come to me…”

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

BY MARTY SMITH @martysmithxxx

What’s the point of spending decades fighting for a livable minimum wage if inflation is going to wipe out all your

Ha! If only the powers that be had their act together well enough to organize a successful conspiracy. If there’s one thing I wish I could convey to QAnon types, it’s that the people in charge are just as stupid and disorganized as everybody else. Remember, kids: Not only is there no conspiracy, there isn’t even a plan. I get why you’re suspicious, though: Inflation certainly seems like it could benefit the Walmarts of the world at the expense of lowpaid workers. But things aren’t as nefarious as they seem.

When Oregon’s minimum wage law passed, in spring 2016, our minimum wage was $9.25. In July 2022, after the last of seven statutorily specified pay raises, the figure was $14.75. No wonder The Man is out to get us—we made him give us a 59% raise!

Well, not quite. Don’t forget, inflation has

been plugging along this whole time, albeit at a lower level than now. When you factor that in, the total raise is only 29%. It’s going in the right direction, but it’s not quite the “shake Jeff Bezos by the heels and catch the money in a bucket” move that would really drive the billionaire class to declare war.

However, the main reason inflation isn’t a conspiracy to roll back minimum wage gains is that there’s actually an inflation adjustment built into the law. You may not have paid much attention because at the super-low rate of inflation we used to think would last forever, that adjustment would have been a very boring 20 cents or so.

Suddenly, though, things are getting interesting. The adjustment will be based on the increase in the Consumer Price Index between March 2022 and March 2023. If that holds at the current level of 8.2%, Portland’s minimum wage will rise to $15.85 on July 1, 2023, smashing through the meaningless but psychologically important $15-an-hour mark. Take that, The Man!

gains in one year? Is inflation just a conspiracy between the powers that be to effectively pay minimum wage employees less? —Chairman Meow

OVER POLICE ACCOUNTABILITY: Portland’s elected watchdog, Mary Hull Caballero, is leaving office this January and pulling no punches on her way out. In a letter filed Nov. 8 in U.S. District Court, Hull Caballero told Judge Michael Simon she had no confidence in the City Attorney’s Of fice to “protect the interests” of her office—main ly, the authority to review body camera footage from Portland cops. The city and its police union are currently in closed-door negotiations over policies governing the use of the cameras, which have yet to be deployed, and the auditor says her office is being left out of the loop. “There is a high likelihood that the interest of the Audi tor’s Office in having unfettered direct access to body-worn camera information and recordings for performance audits and investigations will be overlooked or traded away, despite our charter authority,” she wrote. The U.S. Department of Justice has told the city it expects the auditor’s office to have access to the footage and sued the city for its excessive use of force against street protesters and citizens with mental illness. Federal and city attorneys will meet Nov. 9 at a public hearing in front of Judge Simon to discuss the city’s failure to comply with an 8-year-old settlement agreement resulting from that law suit.

CLEAN ENERGY REFORMS RAISE WAGE

QUESTIONS: When the Portland Clean Energy Community Benefits Fund was set up, it prom ised to follow state law and ensure that grantees paid their employees 180% of minimum wage, or $26.55 an hour, to install solar panels and heat pumps, build climate-friendly structures, and plant trees. But after City Commissioner Carmen Rubio’s revamp of PCEF, some advocates worry the pledge is in danger because of 13 new words in the code: “For purposes of this subsection, an employee is not a volunteer or trainee.” Ranfis Villatoro, a member of the PCEF grant commit tee, says those words could allow nonprofits to hire people at something less than a living wage just by calling them trainees, a term that is am biguous. “It’s a disappointing outcome,” Villatoro says. Jillian Schoene, Rubio’s chief of staff, says her boss is aware of the problem and she intends to clarify the language in rule-making sessions to be held in the future. Until then, she says, the PCEF grant committee won’t approve projects that “pay less than the wage standard.”

STABBING OF LANDLORD WAS NO CRIME, PROSECUTORS SAY: Justin Valdivia, 46, was fa tally stabbed in September in the living room of a squat four-bedroom house in Northeast Portland after sneaking into the rental he owned dressed as Michael Myers, the villain in the slasher flick Halloween WW obtained a memo Nov. 4 from the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office justifying prosecutors’ conclusion that the Sept. 15 killing was self-defense. The origins of the dispute that led to Valdivia’s death are not clear. Police reports document repeated incidents of violence by Valdivia toward his tenants in the weeks prior to his death—he appeared upset that a former tenant continued staying as a guest at the house after ending his lease. The night of the incident, that former tenant had taken precau tions. He armed himself with a “saberlike” sword and set a makeshift alarm on the door. When Valdivia snuck in to the residence at 1 am in a Michael Myers mask and “blue Dickie’s jumpsuit,” armed with a pellet pistol and a hammer, the former tenant stabbed him to death. Both the detective and county prosecutor assigned to the case agreed the killing was justified. Valdivia was committing burglary while “wielding what appeared to be two dangerous and deadly weapons,” the memo states.

APPEALS BOARD SLOWS COASTAL DEVELOP MENT:

The Tillamook County hamlet of Tierra Del Mar, just north of Pacific City, became a flashpoint for coastal development in 2020 when a Facebook subsidiary botched the landing of an undersea cable there. Another proposed devel opment in Tierra Del Mar has also generated con troversy. Last week, the Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals pumped the brakes on an 18-acre glampground proposed for a hillside above the town. Treehouse Partners LLC obtained permits earlier this year from the Tillamook County Board of Commissioners. But Tierra Del Mar residents and the Oregon Coast Alliance appealed, argu ing Tillamook County had failed to consider the stability of the project’s hillside location and im pacts on wetlands and wildlife. LUBA agreed and sent the project back to the county for reconsid eration. OCA’s Cameron La Follette says county commissioners erred: “They approved the overall permit for the campground without requiring any studies of the site.” Treehouse Partners manag ing partner Kevin Gindlesperger says the needed studies are underway: “The concerns outlined in the appeal will be addressed as we move forward with the conditional use permit process.”

AUDITOR SLAMS CITY ATTORNEY’S OFFICE

BODY: The scene of a 2021 police shooting.

LIES MY MAILERS TOLD ME

The Mailer Awards

BY NIGEL JAQUISS njaquiss@wweek.com

The results of the Nov. 8 general election unspooled after WW’s press deadline. You can find complete coverage at wweek.com. In print, we can’t predict the ends, but we can examine the means.

Record spending fueled the governor’s and legislative races that officially conclud ed Tuesday. Candidates for governor spent more than $68 million, and two state Senate races collectively cost more than $8 million. That paid for a lot of TV ads and filled voters’ mailboxes.

Even in Multnomah County, where cam paign spending limits in both city and county elections have sharply reduced paid commu nications, independent expenditure cam paigns generated hundreds of thousands of mailers.

Do they work? We don’t know. Will we en shrine their most interesting, annoying, and sometimes downright misleading claims for posterity? You bet. Here are some high- and lowlights from the biggest election until the next election. (Plus, three outright falsehoods we spotted.)

Best Use of an Insect: The cricket on a Democratic Party of Oregon mailer titled “Christine Drazan’s plan to end homelessness and crime in the Portland Area…Nothing.” (A cricket is pictured lower left.)

Laziest Fact-Checking: The Portland Ac countability PAC spent $500,000 on an inde pendent expenditure supporting Multnomah County chair candidate Sharon Meieran and Portland City Council candidate Rene Gonza lez…and spelled Gonzalez’s name “Gonzales.”

Most Annoying Get-Out-the-Vote Tac

tic: The smarmy Center for Voter Informa tion, an Olympia, Wash., dark money non profit that supports Democrats, crossed the Columbia to shame voters into casting their ballots with form letters warning they were irregular voters. Go away!

Sleaziest Virtue Stealing: We saw way too many attempts at guilt by association this election cycle. Even worse: stolen virtue, which is what we saw from groups such as Our Oregon, Ecumenical Ministers of Oregon and the DPO. All slapped the term “voters guide” on their propaganda, attempting to hitch a ride on the nonpartisan Voters’ Pamphlet the Oregon secretary of state publishes.

Most Disingenuous Smear: The Drazan campaign targeted Betsy Johnson, an outspo ken critic of Oregon’s drug laws, for voting yes

on a bill that implemented drug-decriminal izing Measure 110. Not noted: Republicans in both chambers also voted yes, while Drazan herself skipped the vote, being recorded as “excused for business of the House.”

Nastiest Hit Pieces: In a year when crime hit recent highs, Republican fearmonger ing reached new lows: Take, for example the

reproduction of a hand-drawn illustration of the “jogger rapist” Richard Gilmore that Hillsboro state Senate candidate Carolina Malmedal used to tar incumbent Sen. Janeen Sollman (D-Hillsboro). In that and other suburban districts, voters also got a nation ally funded race-baiting mailer seeking to pit white and Asian voters against all other ethnicities.

Lie #1:

Jan. 6 insurrection. The problem: The three bills cited in the mailer are routine GOP positions, not anti-demo cratic efforts. And more importantly, Dra zan led the charge to hold MAGA-loving former state Rep. Mike Nearman (R-Inde pendence) accountable for letting rioters into the locked state Capitol, making him the first Oregon lawmaker ever voted out by his peers.

Lie #2: “A ‘yes’ vote on Measure 111 this November requires the state of Oregon to make sure that everyone can access cost-effective, clinically appropriate, and affordable healthcare,” says a mailer from the committee that wanted Oregonians to enshrine a right to health care in the Ore gon Constitution. Not stated: The measure didn’t say how the state would comply, provided no funding, and specifically said other state services could not be reduced to pay for health care.

it used the word “Republican” four

in a

of Gonzalez, along with the names Marjorie Taylor Greene (four times), Christine Drazan, Ted Cruz, Kevin Mannix and “Right to Life” (three times). Gonzalez is certainly more conservative than Jo Ann Hardesty, but he’s a prochoice Democrat.

We sorted through the election flyers many voters probably just recycled.

“Christine Drazan wants to bring extreme MAGA Republican values to Or egon,” screams a DPO mailer, with three photos of the

Lie #3: The implication that Rene Gonza lez is a Republican. The bright red mailer from the Jo Ann for Portland Committee did not explicitly make that charge, but

times

silhouette

$141,659

That’s how much the Stoel Rives law firm billed the Legislature between February 2021 and October 2022. Some of the bill covers training, but most of it relates to the investigation of a complaint filed by Rep. Diego Hernandez (D-Portland) alleging retaliation by former House Speaker Tina Kotek (“Wheels of Justice,” WW, Oct. 5). After interviewing just five witnesses in a probe that lasted more than 600 days, Stoel Rives issued a nine-page report in late September clearing Kotek, a finding upheld by the House Conduct Committee last month. State Rep. Daniel Bonham (R-The Dalles) says the bill is excessive and tardy. “The state should dis pute that bill,” Bonham says. His co-chair, Rep. Tawna Sanchez (D-Portland), declined to offer an opinion on Stoel Rives’ bill. “A fair process requires thorough and detailed investigation,” Sanchez said in a statement. “If committee members have questions about the expenses, they’ll have an opportunity to get more details from investigators when the Joint Conduct Committee meets to accept the annual report.” Stoel Rives did not respond to a request for comment. NIGEL JAQUISS.

Shaedon Sharpe

Ron Artest says he’s better than Kobe Bryant. (Yes, Artest really did say that about Roy.) Or before he’s going shot for shot with Allen Iver son in a Game 7, like Carter did in 2001.

BY ERIC GRIFFITH griffith.eric@gmail.com

Welcome to the Shaedon Sharpe experience. The Blazers have played only 10 games, but one question has already been answered: Gen eral manager Joe Cronin made the right deci sion selecting Sharpe with the seventh pick of this year’s NBA draft.

The rookie has thrilled fans, alternating smooth stepback jumpers with gravity-defy ing highlight dunks. He’s creating a buzz in the Rose Garden and the team feels it too. Head coach Chauncey Billups has already compared Sharpe to Vince Carter and Brandon Roy. Let’s dig into what Billups is talking about and throw in a third comp for fun.

Vince Carter

Carter was a phenomenon. Dominique Wilkins’ ferocity combined with Michael Jordan’s ath leticism. There was a palpable buzz in every arena when Carter would touch the ball. Those moments were 2001’s version of Steph Curry putting a defender on skates just because he could.

Sharpe is starting to earn the same reaction in Portland (it’ll be a while before road crowds catch on). One-handed tomahawk dunks in traffic, soaring back-door alley-oops, pugna cious put-backs, fast-break rim-kissers that back down LeBron James.

Sharpe’s already pulled off just about every iteration of in-game dunk you can imagine, and we aren’t even a month into the season. The dude attacks the open court like a runaway freight train and has an insane vertical leap to

back it up. He’s so fun to watch, Ticketmaster is probably going to add another surcharge to Blazers tickets.

Brandon Roy Longtime radio announcer Brian Wheeler used to call Roy “The Natural.” The three-time AllStar’s game had a mesmerizing quality—he of ten played glacially slowly, lulling opponents out of position, before unleashing a flurry of crossovers and stepbacks. Roy’s body control plus an almost academic understanding of bas ketball movement left defenders befuddled and bamboozled (miss you, Wheels).

Sharpe has a similarly natural feel for the game. Despite not playing in college, Sharpe has shown flashes of Roy’s intellectualism from

the jump.

Example: In his first game as a pro, as Damian Lillard and Jusuf Nurkic worked a pick and roll, Sharpe caught both weak-side defenders ball-watching, made a hard cut to the block, received a perfectly timed pass from Lillard, and dropped in a dunk before De’Aaron Fox even realized he had made a cut.

Sharpe just knows how to play. He can read when a defender is off balance, knows how to sneak into open spaces, and gels with his team mates. For brief flashes, Sharpe seems to see the court in slow motion. Call him…preternatural.

Jermaine

O’Neal

OK, now it’s time for a reality check. The kid is only 19 years old. Sharpe has a ways to go before

For every thunderous slam and hand-inhis-face 3-pointer, there’s a missed defensive assignment or 2-points-in-21-minutes stumble. His defense, especially team defense, is a work in progress. We may all be dreaming of a 2027 NBA title but the reality is that there are going to be a bunch more pedestrian box scores before any parades are scheduled. There’s a decent chance Sharpe won’t even make the All-Rookie first team.

So what’s with all the hype? Why is Billups, a borderline Hall of Famer in his own right, comparing Sharpe to Brandon Roy and Vince Carter?

To be blunt, it’s because the Blazers haven’t had a player this young and with this much star potential since Jermaine O’Neal. Brandon Roy and Damian Lillard were both 22 years old when they debuted. All due respect to Anfernee Simons, but it took a couple of years before it was clear he would stick. Others like Travis Out law, Jerryd Bayless and Zach Collins had star potential only in the eyes of die-hard homers.

Sharpe is different. We can safely assume he has a long NBA career ahead of him. That alone is worth celebration. But the flashes of brilliance are so tantalizing there’s also psychic unity on ignoring mediocre stats. Numbers just don’t capture his vibes.

The feeling is that Sharpe has the highest ceiling of any Blazers teenager in 25 years. That’s the kind of draft luck that can make or break a franchise. It’s probably a bit unfair to pin this much on a teenager, but it’s hard not to be excited.

GO: The Portland Trail Blazers return to Moda Center at 7 pm Tuesday, Nov. 14. Tickets start at $11.

FIRST-YEAR PHENOM: Shaedon Sharpe.

How the Blazers’ dazzling rookie compares to past stars.

It’s a Wash

The owner of an abandoned car wash doesn’t have to pay property taxes because he pledges it will someday be affordable housing.

BY SOPHIE PEEL speel@wweek.com

The derelict car wash tucked behind a Kentucky Fried Chicken on Northeast Martin Luther King Jr. Boule vard gives no indication it’s about to become housing, unless you count the tents.

For nearly seven years it has sat fallow. Tarps are strung across the stalls, heaps of junk have been known to spill onto nearby properties, and people with no where else to sleep live in tents pitched in the concrete shells of the car wash stalls.

The owner of the property, 28-year-old California timber heir George Schmidbauer, says it will be an other two years before construction on a low-income apartment complex begins—and that’s only if he gets more financing from the state.

Meanwhile, he pays no property taxes.

The city of Portland says he doesn’t have to. That’s because Schmidbauer is reserving the land for afford able housing and has brought in a nonprofit to manage daily operations of the project.

According to the Portland Housing Bureau, there’s no limit on how long Schmidbauer can sit on the tax-ex empt lot before shovel hits dirt.

In a city where affordable housing is desperately needed, state and local governments play a delicate game: make affordable housing financially attractive to developers, but keep them on a delivery timeline.

The car wash along MLK lies in the middle of that balance—and appears stuck.

Miriam Hernandez has worked across the street at Boost Mobile for eight years. She’s seen cops and clean up teams come by periodically to sweep the campers,

but less so recently. She’s never seen the car wash as anything but a shell.

“It got a lot worse during COVID,” Hernandez says. “There didn’t used to be all those tents and trash.”

The car wash in Northeast Portland was Schmidbauer’s first Portland investment. It was relatively cheap—just over a million-dollar sale price—zoned correctly and seemed to be in a place where affordable housing was desperately needed, Schmidbauer thought.

But Schmidbauer quickly hit speed bumps. “I’m a young guy and this was my first project,” Schmid bauer says of the 2020 purchase. “I want to get this one in Portland done first, but it’s proving challenging enough. It needs to get done, and it’s tough to hold on to property with no end in sight.”

He’s applied for affordable housing loans from the state—specifically a low-income housing tax credit and a loan program called Local Innovation Fast Track, or LIFT—for two consecutive years. No luck.

Schmidbauer’s project received relatively low scores on its LIFT application this year and was elbowed out by other projects, according to scoring documentation provided to WW by Oregon Housing and Community Services.

But in 2023, Schmidbauer will have no chance at all of getting LIFT funding.

That’s because, WW has learned, OHCS and Metro this spring backfilled the budgets for affordable hous ing developments created by the 2018 Metro housing bond. A number of those projects are behind schedule and further burdened by high construction and labor costs due to stubborn inflation.

In an attempt to keep those voter-approved projects on track, they quietly rerouted all of the available Port land-area LIFT funding for the upcoming year—which is reserved for housing that will serve low-income people of color—to projects under the bond.

In other words, the state decided to backfill projects from the housing bond with $20 million that was sup posed to subsidize new projects.

That’s never been done before in the history of LIFT. “Metro’s top priority is ensuring that the region and each jurisdiction will be successful in following through on the timeline and production commitments, in spite of significant shifts in the landscape due to [private activity bond] volume cap and cost escalation pressures,” an internal Metro memo from September reads. “Unprecedented cost escalation is creating new risks that will require significant contingency planning moving forward.”

That was money Schmidbauer was expecting. “That’s what I’ve designed this project for,” Schmidbauer says. “Now it’s gone.”

Meanwhile, as Schmidbauer watches his state fund ing dry up, he has no incentive to move quickly. He doesn’t have to pay property taxes.

That’s because of a tax exemption, overseen and ap proved by the Portland Housing Bureau, for nonprofits that provide affordable housing.

It also grants the exemption to property owners so long as they reserve the land they own for affordable housing, and so long as they work with a nonprofit to manage the future development.

Schmidbauer is working with EngAGE Northwest, a Burbank, Calif.-based nonprofit that provides an array of creative classes and programming to elderly low-income communities, to eventually provide ser vices to the proposed 93-unit apartment building.

Schmidbauer initially told WW that depending on “how you look at it,” he was losing money on the prop erty due to taxes and the water bill.

When WW pointed out that he was not paying prop erty taxes and asked if there were any other taxes to be paid, Schmidbauer said, “None that come to mind.”

A list provided to WW by Multnomah County Assess ment & Taxation shows 717 properties enjoy the same

CHASING GHOSTS

Address: 5733 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.

Year built: 1995

Square footage: 2,832 square feet (car wash); 0.37 acres (entire lot)

Market value: Purchased for $1,005,000 in 2020

Owner: George Schmidbauer

How long it’s been empty: Since 2015

Why it’s empty: No financing and no taxes

Every week, WW examines one mysterious ly vacant property in the city of Portland, explains why it’s empty, and considers what might arrive there next. Send addresses to newstips@wweek.com.

tax exemption as Schmidbauer’s car wash, though most currently provide housing. Most of the properties are owned or operated by either the city or well-established nonprofits like Human Solutions and Rose Community Development Corporation.

WW asked the Portland Housing Bureau why there’s no expiration for the exemption, even if a property owner is sitting on vacant land for years with nothing but a promise to build housing.

“ While this has been identified as an issue for further consideration, in general, if projects have the funding available, they will move forward as soon as possible to bring units to market,” says bureau spokeswoman Martha Calhoon. “It can take years, however, for non profits to line up financing for a particular project, and an additional hurdle like an expiring tax exemption could put a whole project in jeopardy.”

Meanwhile, Schmidbauer has reserved other state and regional grants of $770,000 for his proposed apart ment building. One is a $450,000 grant from Metro for affordable housing close to transit.

Metro spokesman Nick Christensen says, “There’s no official expiration date, but if it fails to make prog ress, the steering committee could elect to cancel the award.” While Metro doesn’t cut the check until the project is completed, those funds are currently set aside for Schmidbauer—and available to nobody else.

That’s also the case for a $320,000 weatherization grant from the state. “The funds are reserved for the project,” says OHCS spokeswoman Delia Hernandez. “In about 90 days, [we] will make a determination to give more time or withdraw the application.”

The car wash hasn’t been functional since 2015.

Before Schmidbauer bought the property, it passed through the hands of several developers, one of whom planned a food cart pod.

Now, there’s little reason for Schmidbauer to make it anything at all.

Schmidbauer says he’s not exploiting the tax exemp tion or being complacent about the development: “I never thought about using it to hold land. Say I held land for five years, and then was like, ‘Ope! I’m going to have to build market-rate housing.’ You have to pay back all those taxes.”

That’s not the case, in fact. The city says that so long as the intent to build affordable housing was genuine, an owner who sells the property doesn’t have to pay back taxes.

Schmidbauer says he’s now considering selling the land if he can’t find another financing method.

WATERY PROMISE: A car wash along MLK Bou levard may one day be replaced with affordable housing, but right now it’s rudimentary shelter for unhoused Portlanders.

BY LUCAS MANFIELD lmanfield@wweek.com

Portland Public Schools keeps its fleet of yellow mini buses in the yard of an old grade school overlooking the Columbia River. The yard filled up long ago. Buses overflow into a nearby lot behind a city park.

The lots are secluded. Perfect for thieves, who for years have raided the buses for parts.

But it’s never been as bad as it is now. As vandalism skyrockets, emergency repairs are eating into the time that school district mechanics can spend maintaining the buses that transport Portland’s special needs kids to and from school.

Burglars strike almost daily, armed with saws, drills and rubber hoses, says Brandon Coonrod, the district’s assistant director of student transportation. They siphon gas, steal batteries, and hack off catalytic con verters. The chain-link fences ringing the lots have proved little deterrence.

The situation infuriates drivers, who have to walk the lots—often alone, in the dark—to pick up and drop off buses, which they regularly find ransacked.

A neighboring bus lot owned by a PPS contractor has reduced vandalism by installing 10-foot electric fences. A proposal to build one for the district is mired in bureaucratic delays.

Vandalism is a familiar problem in Portland in 2022. Graffiti dots the city’s walls, and catalytic converter thieves stalk neighborhood streets. But the plight of the district’s special education buses is particularly frustrating, drivers argue, because it is preventable.

The district owns its own minibuses so it can pro

vide superior service to its most needy students. But lax security at its bus yards is undermining that goal, drivers say. And because the district is self-insured, taxpayers are footing the bill.

“PPS yards are now an open house for thieves,” said Carol Heacock, one of the district’s bus drivers, at a recent school board meeting. “We need proper security to keep staff and students safe.”

Portland Public Schools has long contracted out most of its bus routes to a pair of private companies. But it has retained its fleet of school minibuses reasoning that special needs kids deserve drivers with special training.

For years, the district has been struggling with vandalism. It’s spent more than $200,000 on graffiti cleanup in the past two years alone, a spokesperson told WW in September.

The bus lots have been no exception. First, the target was batteries, a problem that “gradually increased” until the district began marking them with a unique identifier to “discourage resale,” according to an Oct. 13 district memo.

In 2019, the district conducted a “security audit” of its transportation facilities. According to the memo, it implemented many of the audit’s recommendations: improved lighting, overnight security and a “special ized mobile trailer” with surveillance cameras and motion detectors.

But, the district admits, none of these measures slowed the vandalism.

The surveillance tower wasn’t high enough to

over the roofs of the buses. Once, a thief stole

off a district van and walked out of the facility right under the tower’s nose.

“It’s been a joke for a couple years now,” Coonrod says. He’s a former FedEx truck driver who now helps coordinate student transportation for the school dis trict.

When COVID hit, the problem “escalated quickly.” Now, he says, “they’re cutting a new hole almost every night.”

Catalytic converters were a favorite target. Around 20 have been stolen this year alone. The district lost so many catalytic converters that it bought a $30,000 pipe bender to make repairs in-house.

After police cracked down on a major catalytic con verter trafficking ring, thieves found a new target: gasoline.

Jason Carr, the district’s maintenance manager, ducked under a bus to point out multiple patches in its exposed gas tank. Thieves drill holes and collect the spurting fuel in buckets.

The district spends $15,000 to $25,000 on hired security guards each month. “And we’re still getting hit,” Coonrod says. He proposed upgrading to electric fencing but was told it would expose the district to unwanted liability.

“As a public entity with active parks next to our property, it would have been irresponsible and against

code,” Sydney Kelly, a district spokeswoman, tells WW

So the brazen thefts continued. One night in late April, someone stole a bus.

A thief hotwired it and plowed it through the lot’s locked gate. District officials tracked the bus down the next day thanks to a tip on Nextdoor. It was parked in a nearby neighborhood.

The lot has no CCTV or other video surveillance. But the buses do. Coonrod reviewed the footage and watched the burglar joyriding around North Portland, occasionally stopping to shoot off a few texts.

That wasn’t the end of the ordeal. The thief stole the bus’s radio and began butting in on dispatchers with obscenity-laced rants as kids on buses listened in, the driver Heacock says.

Drivers began fearing for their safety. Arriving in the morning, they found their buses ransacked.

The buses’ emergency exits, by design, do not lock. Vandals made good use of the vulnerability, stealing safety blankets from underneath the seats. Christine Lafonte took to bringing pepper spray on her morning route, until she was told it was against district rules to carry a weapon on district property.

Lafonte, flanked by two other drivers, brought their fears to the Portland Public Schools Board at its month ly meeting in October. A dozen other members of their union were in the audience, wearing bright yellow “Solidarity” shirts and waving “Stop the Ransacking” signs.

“Searching for an intruder, drug paraphernalia, needles and possible human defecation has become an unfortunate addition to our everyday pretrip bus inspections,” Lafonte told the board.

Bob Foster, a retired engineer who has spent four years driving PPS buses, slammed district adminis trators for ignoring the issue.

“It feels like ‘it is what it is’ is the existing attitude,” Foster said, noting that the district seemed willing to pay for the costs of fixing the vandalism but not the measures needed to stop it.

“ What is the district’s tipping point?” he asked. “Hopefully, it’s not when someone is injured.”

Gary Hollands, the board’s vice chair, broke protocol to respond to the drivers’ concerns. “Yards across the state and the country are going through this same issue,” he said.

But not all of them, Coonrod says. First Student, a PPS contractor, operates a bus yard just down the street. It solved the vandalism problem by installing an electric fence, he adds.

The solar-powered fencing, designed by Amarok, certainly looks effective. The 10-foot fencing sits be hind traditional barbed wire and delivers “intense but nonlethal 7,000-volt” electric shocks. The system is rented out by the month.

Amarok CFO Nathan Leaphart tells WW the South Carolina company is growing in Portland as transporta tion companies with outdoor lots look for ways to stop catalytic converter theft. It has over 6,000 customers nationwide.

After the drivers’ presentation, district officials scrambled to come up with a response. Two days later, they sent an email to the board addressing “security and safety concerns.” (The district spokeswoman said “the district had already taken action to address van dalism” prior to the drivers’ presentation.)

The memo listed the district’s previous failed efforts and offered rationales for the ongoing vandalism: “It is clear that the individuals committing these crimes are clever and determined and there is an abundance of them,” the letter said.

It offered a list of “current efforts under review,” including electric fencing. But, it notes, “upgraded fencing is expensive and a high need across the district.” (Coonrod says the city zoning code is also a hurdle.)

If the fence is approved, Coonrod says he’ll find room in the transportation department’s limited budget to pay for it. “The funds will have to come from some where,” he says. “We’ll scrimp and save.”

BUSTED BUSES: Portland Public Schools mechanics have had to replace 20 catalytic converters in the past year.

7,000 VOLTS: First Student protects its buses with 10-foot electric fences.

YOU CAN FIND PORTLAND’S BURIED TREASURE

CHOOSE AN ADVENTURE THIS FALL! SEEK OUT SIMS’ GOLD IN JONES PIONEER CEMETERY.

Just a few decades ago, treasure hunting in the Pacific Northwest was a family pastime.

Load the kids and the pickaxes into the station wagon and hightail it into the hills, seeking lost mines on any given Saturday. Trek out to Manzanita to look for the fabled Neahkahnie beeswax shipwreck. Or make a car camping trip out of it: Spend a few days digging in the Eastern Oregon desert for forgotten gold caches.

The mid-20th century rise in weekend treasure hunting had a good bit to do with popular historian Ruby El Hult. Her 1957 book, Lost Mines and Treasures of the Pacific Northwest, offered readers a sweeping catalog of lost hoards hidden in old barns, down abandoned mine shafts, and under tree stumps across Oregon, Washington and Idaho.

BY JB FISHER and DOUG KENCK-CRISPIN ILLUSTRATED BY MCKENZIE YOUNG-ROY @mckenzieyoungart

So many of El Hult’s readers decided to leave their arm chairs and head out with their shovels that she published a sequel volume, Treasure Hunting Northwest, in 1971. This was filled with tips and updates from fans who had gotten the treasure bug from her earlier book.

Hidden treasure is the talk of Oregon again this year, after researchers found the sea cave where that beeswax shipwreck might rest (“Weird Summer Tales,” WW, Aug. 3).

But what if we told you another storied treasure lies some where in Portland?

One of El Hult’s stories focused on the Portland Treasure Chart, a map to a cache of Civil War gold purportedly buried somewhere in the Rose City. The fact that El Hult dubbed this one “Big City Treasure Most Popular of All” in her follow-up

book testifies to its allure.

Nobody ever found it. What we propose is: You can.

Over the summer, your correspondents—both local his torians—hit upon a new Portland location to search for the lost gold. It’s up in the West Hills just off Highway 26 in the historic Jones Pioneer Cemetery.

That’s right: treasure hidden in a cemetery! Who says Port land is over?

Before we tell you more about what to do when you get there (besides NOT digging in a fucking cemetery, of course!), let’s lay out the story.

If you choose to continue turn to page 14

WHAT’S BURIED:

$6,000 in two graves. Might be gold!

THE STORY:

In 1933, Seattle judge Everett Smith died. Among his possessions: a treasure chart, sometimes dubbed “Sims’ Gold.”

Drawn on waxed “kitchen paper” with pricey artist crayon (not the common Cray ola variety!), the chart likely dates from some time between 1890 and 1920, Portland paper expert John V. Henley tells WW. While some have observed that it looks like a kid’s rendition of a treasure map, the detailed and meticulous nature of the Treasure Chart indicates a more intentional design.

What the Chart Says:

Written across the chart in blue crayon is the following: “PORTLAND OR. SIMS MONEY is BURYEED 5 FOOT DEEP AT THE TWO GRAVES NORTH FROM BARN TEN FOOT EAST. KEEP THIS CHART TIL GET WELL ALL HAVE DIED PORT PIKE ROAD TOO MILES FROMROM PORTLAND OR GRAVES $3000 $3000 TO FIND OLD SIMES DIED IN THE ARMY 1864 KEEP CHART. CHART OFF. FEB 1862.”

On the left side of the chart around the word “PORT” are sketches of buildings, including several with spires and a small blue circle that some have interpreted to represent a pond or lake. From the left edge, extending across the chart, is a line, with the words “PIKE ROAD TOO MILES FROMROM PORTLAND OR.”

Moving toward the right side, a house appears above the line and below it, a barn—along with the word “GRAVES” and two points at the end of a dotted line each marked “$3000.” The barn, house, a big stump, and an orchard are labeled in yellow.

Because the treasure is labeled “Sims’ Gold,” the established thinking is that a Civil War-era soldier named Sims or Simes left the chart as a kind of last will. In one 1966 retelling of the tale, “the treasure had been buried by two men headed for the Civil War. The men died in action, but not before drawing the chart and writing the mysterious and cryptic legend.” Where they got all this information from the chart is beyond us, but it makes for a pretty kickass story. FACSIMILE OF THE CHART

PREVIOUS THEORIES ON THE TREASURE’S LOCATION:

Shortly after his father the judge died, Irving D. Smith grabbed a shovel and his inherited chart and headed for Northwest Portland’s Montgomery Ward building (today known as Montgomery Park and home to the Adi das store).

Presumably, he based the location on the idea that Portland appears on the left side of the map and that the road across the doc ument doesn’t cross any river. Two (written “too”) miles from Portland would put him basically at Montgomery Ward. Whether he found graves there or the money, for that mat ter, is unknown since no record of his search has been located.

Smith passed his treasure chart on to the Oregon Historical Society, where it was filed away. But El Hult’s first treasure book in 1957 prompted all sorts of Portlanders to resume the search.

Many of these treasure seekers would write down their ideas, with pen or typewriter on paper, and mail these missives to El Hult. And she would often write them back! Many of these correspondences are collected in the archives of Washington State University in Pullman.

There was a husband-and-wife team, whose interpretation of the map took them to “the

new Zoological Gardens” in Portland’s West Hills.

There was the Burgess family, who, with their four kids, three dogs, pet monkey and pet tarantula (true story), geeked out on the possibility that the words on the chart had hidden meanings. They took “fromrom” to mean Roman Catholic and sought out a Cath olic church in Southwest Portland. They fol lowed Southeast Belmont Street to Lone Fir Cemetery exactly 2 miles from Mount Tabor, looking for graves marked “Sims,” “Simes” or even “Graves.” They couldn’t find any.

Then there was Ronald L. Gluth, who was convinced that the $6,000 was in the form of “Beaver Money.” (These were solid gold coins minted in Oregon City in 1849 to simplify financial transactions in an era when beaver pelts and sheafs of wheat were used for trade.) Gluth also set his sights on the Portland Zoo as a possible spot for the $6,000 treasure. As Glu th explained in a letter to El Hult: “It would appear that if I can’t pinpoint the exact spot in a very short time it will be impossible to get to as the country is blowing its cool trying to pave the whole area for a new freeway. So I had best get with it.”

It’s not clear if he got with it. The Portland Treasure Chart faded into oblivion.

OUR NEW THEORY:

In 2022, co-author of this story JB Fisher hit on a new lead while attending his stepfa ther-in-law’s funeral. Fisher noticed a Pike Road right here in Portland, leading up to a cemetery.

And that graveyard happens to be on the property of a zany old pioneer hermit who was brutally and fatally assaulted by men who were convinced that he had money hidden on his land.

On the day of the assault, he had just re turned from Portland, having completed a $6,000 property transaction. And get this: At the top of his cemetery, not far from where his house and barn once stood, one headstone marks two graves.

His name was Nathan B. Jones, and he arrived in Portland in 1847 with his father from Salem, New Hampshire. Jones took a 342-acre donation land claim at the head of Tanner Creek in the area today known as Sylvan in the West Hills.

Jones and his dad William had big plans for the Sylvan area. They named it “Ziontown,” and a community rose up com plete with saloons, a general store, a school house, and an 11-building property occupied by the Jones duo known later as the Hermit age.

William Jones died in 1854, and his son buried him on the property. But that didn’t stop the big plans. Nathan B. Jones wanted to make Ziontown the new capital of the United States. He hoped to request $10 million from the U.S. government and had large murals (in “psychedelic colors,” according to Oregon chronicler Ralph Friedman) painted on the outside of his buildings, showing what the glorious new U.S. Capitol in the West Hills would one day look like.

In reality, Jones couldn’t even get a Zion town post office. Instead, the community was renamed Sylvan after postal officials deter mined that the name Ziontown would be confused with similar names of other places

in Oregon.

Defeated and getting older, Nathan B. Jones lived out his days in his rustic Hermitage, buying drinks for young ruffians at the local saloons and reluctantly selling off very small parcels of his land, all the while stubbornly retaining much of his original donation land claim (which wasn’t exactly legal).

Thus, when he was brutally assaulted and died a week later in 1894, the community wasn’t too sad to see him go.

As The Oregonian reported following the assault, “Someone en tered his house and beat him over the head with… probably a club, inflicting a long, deep, and danger ous wound…” The paper also noted that Jones had sold some of his land for $6,000, and the belief among neighbors was “that it was this money that the robber expected to get.”

A local character named Charles Davey was tried but not convicted of Jones’ murder. Nathan B. Jones, unloved dreamer and would-be founder of a new em pire, was buried alongside his father, William Jones, in what would soon be known as Jones Pioneer Cemetery.

The treasure chart first surfaced 29 years later. It listed a Pike Road leading 2 miles from downtown Portland to $6,000 in two graves.

Is there such a road? In January 1851, work began on Canyon Road from Portland to the Tualatin Valley via Ziontown. It’s memori alized by a bronze marker in the South Park Blocks, right between the Oregon Historical Society and the Portland Art Museum—a smidge more than 2 miles east of Jones Pi oneer Cemetery.

To this day, there’s no evidence that any one has found any money on the Ziontown property.

But why give up hope when you can enjoy a weekend treasure trip?

“My object has been to keep the facts straight and not confuse the reader by fictionalizing, embroidering, dramatizing, or otherwise doctoring up the tale, even when it is bald, short and incomplete.”

—Ruby El Hult, Lost Mines and Treasures of the Pacific Northwest, 1957

GETTING TO JONES PIONEER CEMETERY:

Take the Sylvan exit (exit 71) from Highway 26 west from Portland or east from Hillsboro. Turn south onto Southwest Scholls Ferry Road. Turn left at Humphrey Boulevard just south of the highway and then right on Hewett Boulevard. Turn left into the Westside Vineyard Church parking lot. The cemetery entrance is at the end of the parking area. NOTE: DO NOT PARK IN THE CHURCH PARKING LOT. DRIVE INTO THE CEMETERY AND PARK ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD.

WHAT TO DO AT JONES CEMETERY:

Drive through the cemetery gates and park along the circular drive. Take a mo ment to look around. The area surrounding the circular drive is the newer Jewish cemetery established by Portland’s Havurah Shalom congregation in 1986. 1

Walk around the circular drive to a brick path heading into the old pioneer side of the cemetery. Turn right onto this path and head north (toward the traffic noise of Highway 26).

As you start, you will notice three obelisk markers to your left. One of these is for Ida Hansen, who at age 15 killed herself in 1909 by drinking carbolic acid when her parents told her she couldn’t go out with friends one night. 3

Continue about 20 paces (yes, we are using paces because this is a trea sure hunt!). Come to a large monument labeled “Aken” to your right. This is for Robert Aken, a friend and neighbor of Nathan B. Jones who accompanied him to Portland and back on the fateful day that Jones was assaulted.

Robert Aken’s son is also buried here (unmarked but confirmed by his 1950 obituary in The Oregonian). “Young Aken” was a local hoodlum who specialized in beating up and robbing old men in the area. 4

Continue on the brick path as it turns to the right and snakes its way east toward the top of the cemetery. 5

Before the brick path ends, take a right and cut across the cemetery about 30 paces toward the largest maple tree in the immediate vicinity. Beyond this, you will find a towering gravestone marked “Jones” at the base. 6

This is the shared marker of Nathan B. Jones and his father, William Jones, and it also commemorates the founding of Ziontown in 1850. 7

Head 10 paces northeast to find a small obelisk marked “Alva Elroy Hunter” on one side and “Oscar Hunter” on another. Oscar was born and died Aug. 3, 1875. Alva was born March 26, 1878, and died Aug. 23, 1879.

Look around. Notice the houses on the other side of the fences just beyond the graveyard. These stand on the location of Nathan B. Jones’ sprawling 11-building “Hermitage.” Now, notice the large hedge dividing the pioneer cemetery and the newer Jewish cemetery. Jones had a barn and an orchard, and they likely stood in this area.

The Portland Treasure Chart notes: “MONEY is BURYEED 5 FOOT DEEP AT THE TWO GRAVES NORTH FROM BARN TEN FOOT EAST.” Does this mean that the $6,000 is buried at the Hunter graves? Who knows, but it’s a pleasant view!

In 1894, the Hunter obelisk and only a few other stone monuments would have been present here.

The drawing on the left side of the Treasure Chart shows what appears to be a pair of obelisks and a building with a steeple on the opposite side of “Pike Road.” The steepled 1893 Sylvan Schoolhouse stood on the other side of Canyon Road (now Highway 26) where today’s Odyssey Program school building stands.

In 1894, there were far fewer trees and the steeple would have been clear ly visible looking northwest.

So maybe the drawing on the map shows the view from where the trea sure lies buried!

But maybe not. There is nothing in the Jones story to do with old soldiers named Sims or Simes dying in the Union Army in 1864.

For old Civil War-era soldiers, you would need to go elsewhere. Lone Fir Cemetery in Southeast Portland would be one option. Another would be the Grand Army of the Republic Cemetery off Southwest Boones Ferry Road. There are plenty of Civil War soldiers there, although the oldest grave dates from 1881.

We can’t emphasize this enough: Don’t dig up a cemetery.

Ruby El Hult reminded those naughty readers who may have contemplated digging up hallowed ground:

As

“I warn readers who may follow the clues and locate the graves that the jail sentence for disturbing this cemetery will be a long one—at hard labor, I hope!”

—Ruby El Hult, Treasure Hunting Northwest, 1971

WHAT YOU CAN DO INSTEAD OF GOING TO JAIL FOR DESECRATION OF A GRAVE SITE:

MAKE A GRAVESTONE RUBBING

Take a stroll through the graveyards listed in this sto ry and you’ll stumble across hundreds of eye-catch ing gravestone designs. While you can always take a picture of them, you could instead release your inner teenage goth and make some striking art.

WHAT YOU NEED:

• Lightweight paper, such as newsprint, rice paper, or vellum tissue paper

• Rubbing wax, a large crayon, charcoal or chalk

• Paint tape or masking tape

HOW YOU DO IT:

• Gently brush off the gravestone of any loose ma terials such as pine needles and leaves (Note: Don’t scrub or scour gravestones!)

• Affix the lightweight paper to the front of the grave stone with the paint or masking tape.

• With the wax, large crayon, charcoal or chalk, start rubbing in a side-to-side motion either from the outside of the gravestone toward the inside or from the top to the bottom.

• When finished, detach the paper, discard the tape, and voilà! Instant Halloween decoration for next October!

BRING A PICNIC

Pack your favorite pinot grigio or IPA (or both!), throw in some snacks, a blanket, and rain gear and you are good to go! Note: Be considerate of graveyard inhabitants. Don’t picnic on top of them!

GRAB SOME REFRESHMENTS AT A NEARBY ESTABLISHMENT

Not a fan of sitting on the ground fending off yellow jackets and raindrops? There are plenty of watering holes and eating establishments around each of these locations. Below are a few favorite featured ceme teries, a few tips that might place them within the Portland Treasure Chart, and some select eateries.

JONES PIONEER CEMETERY, 5763 SW HEWETT BLVD.

Skyline Restaurant: Since 1938, this place has been serving burgers, shakes and other drive-in favorites. The sign says “Best Burger in Portland” for good reason. James Beard proclaimed this when he ate here in 1975. 1313 NW Skyline Blvd.

Gigi’s Cafe : Formerly a food cart, Gigi’s boasts “the best waffles in the universe,” and its sweet and savory

selections live up to the hype. Can’t decide what to order? Try one of the impressive waffle flights. 6320 SW Capitol Highway

Cornell Farm Nursery & Cafe Not just a fourth-generation family farm and nursery, it’s also a delicious brunch destination. Biscuits and tasso gravy, right-out-of-the-oven cinnamon rolls, avocado toast and eggs Benedict. 8212 SW Barnes Road.

MONTGOMERY PARK 2741 NW VAUGHN ST.

Not a gravestone in sight, but one of the first loca tions searched for the Sims site. Worth a look.

Great Notion Brewpub: Love IPAs? Sours? An affinity for Ken Kesey? This is the place for you! Tasty smash burgers and other pub fare, too. 2444 NW 28th Ave.

Sasquatch Brewery and Taproom: Another great beer destination. 2531 NW 30th Ave.

Fuego Cart: Yummy burritos and bowls. We recommend the chicken bowl with cheese. 2701 NW Vaughn St.

GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC CEMETERY, 9002 SW BOONES

FERRY ROAD

Civil War veteran graves galore, as well as a few big stumps.

Boulevard Taphouse: Try the fish sandwich, some housemade chili tots, and one of the 14 rotating beers on tap. 7958 SW Barbur Blvd.

Spunky Monkey Coffee Kitchen: Stop in for great coffee, breakfast sandwiches and more, but bringing your family’s pet monkey is gauche. 7900 SW Barbur Blvd.

LONE FIR CEMETERY, 649 SE 26TH AVE.

Plenty of 1860s tombstones for you to consider, and a bevy of historic Portlanders lie here, including Asa Lovejoy and Daniel Lownsdale.

Bare Bones Cafe & Bar: Halloween-themed cafe and bar just a stone’s throw from the cemetery. How convenient! 2908 SE Belmont St.

Bluto’s: The latest from the Lardo folks, serving tasty Greek-inspired classics and spot-on cocktails. 2838 SE Belmont St.

Canteen: If you need to reenergize with fresh juice, a smoothie, or a wholesome salad or bowl, this is the place to go. 2816 SE Stark St.

ForeLand Beer: More great beer. Oh, and it’s a 2021 Oregon Beer Awards Best New Brewery winner. Sit here and mull the mysteries that lie beneath Portland lost to time. 2511 SE Belmont St.

“I only wish I could figure out a few more things that puzzle me about that chart. I think there is probably just one thing in there that is the key to the whole thing and if a person finds that they will be able to figure the rest of it out. There is something about that chart that bothers me and I wish I could put my finger on it.”

—Ruth Burgess, amateur Portland treasure hunter, in a letter to Pacific Northwest history author Ruby El Hult, 1967

About the authors: Doug Kenck-Crispin is the Resident Historian for the podcast Kick Ass Oregon History. JB Fisher is author of Echo of Distant Water (2019) and co-author of Portland on the Take (2015). Together, they are working on a film about the Neahkahnie treasure tales.

WHAT DEMOCRACY

LOOKS LIKE

Photos by Tim Saputo

On Instagram: @tim_saputo

Election Day saw Portland progressives anxiously eyeing sluggish voter turnout numbers and hoping they were a sign of procrastination rather than apathy. As of 1:45 pm Nov. 8, less than 48% of Multnomah County’s registered voters had turned in their ballots—a number that needed to dramatically rise for Tina Kotek and her Democratic Party backers to retain control of Oregon. So the final hours of the election saw Kotek and compa ny hitting the streets to encourage laggards.

Wednesday, Nov. 9

LISTEN: Aminé With the Oregon Symphony

After forceful performances at Coachella, Lollapalooza and on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Adam Aminé Daniel, known mononymously as Aminé, brings his talents to the orchestral stage. As one of Portland’s most success ful homegrown rappers, Aminé teams with the Oregon Symphony for a world premiere concert. Try and snag a muchsought-after ticket to see what the mind behind the six-time platinum “Caroline” can do with a full complement of classi cal music pros. Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 SW Broadway, 503-248-4335, portland5.com. 7:30 pm Wednesday, Nov. 9. $29-$95.

Thursday, Nov. 10

WATCH: Rothko: Pictures Must Be Miraculous

For some, Mark Rothko’s abstract ex pressionist paintings are the essence of modern art’s absurdity—large canvases featuring straightforward shapes and

bright colors. Others, however, are willing to pay record-setting prices for the decep tively simple pieces. Whether you get it or not, Eric Slade’s documentary, Rothko: Pictures Must Be Miraculous, will shine some light on the paintings and the phil osophical questions behind them. Slade, the award-winning producer behind Ore gon Art Beat, will attend for a post-view ing Q&A. Eastside Jewish Commons, 2420 NE Sandy Blvd., eventbrite.com. 7:30-9:30 pm Thursday, Nov. 10. $5-$18 suggested donation.

Friday, Nov. 11

like Rogue Creamery and Olympia Provi sions, as well as up-and-coming business es. And dairy and protein aren’t the only items on the menu: There will be an as sortment of delicious cocktails, beers and other snacks that go well with meat and cheese (which is pretty much anything). Bonus: When you arrive, you’ll get your own charcuterie board and tasting glass that get to come home with you. Leftbank Annex, 101 N Weidler St., 503–937-1069, cheeseandmeatfestival.com. 11 am and 3 pm Saturday, Nov. 12. $85 per session, $199 for access to all.

GO: Acrylic Sip & Paint

Head westward to Central Beaverton for a chill night featuring a brush, a canvas and your beer of choice. Central Station Taps brings in a creative pro to guide a sip-andpaint session featuring Mexican folk art, which might actually be something you want to hang on your wall. The establish ment has 30 beers on tap, but staff won’t flinch if you order a glass of wine or even a soda. While the night’s still young, consid er a half-mile meander to the best of Port land’s suburban downtowns, which has a slew of lauded restaurants, food carts and bars, like BG’s Food Cartel, Boriken, Nak Won and Loyal Legion. Central Station Taps, 3925 SW Rose Biggi Ave., Suite 120, Beaverton, 503-430-8819, unwinedwith art.net/classes. 2-4 pm Saturday, Nov. 12. $39 for instruction and painting supplies.

Sunday, Nov. 13

DRINK: Sherry and Conservas Class



WATCH: Rayn: Flamenco for a New World

With Portland Opera’s season opener Car men and the upcoming performance by dancer Samantha Fuentes’ Seattle-based ensemble, it seems like the city is flamen co-themed this fall. Get in on the trend and get tickets to see Fuentes in action, along with singer and multi-instrumental ist Diego Amador Jr. (direct from Spain). The exquisitely designed costumes and Fuentes’ innovative, Pacific Northwest-in spired choreography promise to create an authentic and moving experience. The Headwaters Theatre, 55 NE Farragut St., #9, savannahf.com/performance. 8 pm Thursday, Nov. 10. $12-$40.



LAUGH: The Teacher Show: Period 2

Teaching is a profession that no doubt requires a good sense of humor. Real-life Portland educators bring that well-honed coping skill to Revolution Hall for a show that ranks among Portland’s funniest. It’s a chance to find out what the person behind the desk really thinks when they use the phrase “a pleasure to have in class” and other mysteries of the education system. Revolution Hall Showbar, 1300 SE Stark St., 971-808-5094, revolutionhall.com. 7:30 pm Friday-Saturday, Nov. 11-12. $15. 21+.

Saturday, Nov. 12

Sherry lovers, the next seven days are for you. International Sherry Week officially kicked off Nov. 7 but runs through the 15th, and Bar Vivant is celebrating with fortified fun. The highlight of the festivities might be this course, taught by former Pix Pâtisserie owner and local sherry expert Cheryl Wakerhauser. She’s back fresh from a sherry-fueled trip to Spain’s Sherry Triangle and full of self-proclaimed “sherry geekiness.” If you can’t make the in-person class, preorder a specially prepared At-Home Tasting Party Kit. Bar Vivant, 2225 E Burnside St., 971-271-7166, barvivant.com/sherry-week. 3-5 pm Sun day, Nov. 13. $95 for the class, $35 for the take-home kit.

Monday, Nov. 14



LISTEN: Faouzia



EAT: Portland Cheese and Meat Festival

We don’t really need to add anything to the description of this new-to-Portland event. If “cheese,” “meat” and “festival” didn’t already have you scouring the inter net for tickets, then you’re either vegan or you’ve lost your sense of taste to COVID. Expect samples from a variety of Oregon producers, including established brands

If you need more sexy pop music with Moroccan influence in your life, look no further than Hawthorne Theatre on Mon day. Faouzia’s talents have been widely acclaimed—she won the Grand Prize at the Nashville Unsigned Only competition in 2017 and has sung alongside John Legend and Kelly Clarkson. Expect fun, Eurovision vibes, youthful exuberance and maybe even plushies. Hawthorne Theatre, 1507 SE 39th Ave., 503-233-7100, hawthornethe atre.com. 8 pm Monday, Nov. 14. $25.

FACE THE MUSIC: Homegrown rapper Aminé performs with the Oregon Symphony this week.

FOOD & DRINK

Welcome to the Gayborhood!

Video lounge Sissy Bar and Crush Bar’s rebranded coffee shop, Opal’s, round out a new trinity of Southeast Morrison queer bars.

BY ANDREW JANKOWSKI PHOTOS BY ALLISON BARR

Southeast Portland is now home to a block of queer bars just a short stroll from one of the city’s busier entertainment ven ues: Revolution Hall. Sissy Bar opened in June, right after the Portland Pride Festival wrapped up, just one storefront from its established gay neighbor, Crush Bar, and its new adjoining all-ages coffee shop, Opal’s Night & Day Cafe, which launched in February.

Although run by different teams, Sissy Bar and Crush seem like sister bars, serving comparable menus and clients. Both dish out Instagrammable entrees and fruity cocktails, and play queer-friendly music from across the ages, but Sissy Bar’s crowd seems to trend younger than Crush’s.

Sissy Bar, which founder Derek Palmer characterizes as a “video lounge,” is heavy on moving images for aesthetics. Partly lit by cubes the color of panels on the electronic memory game Simon, the space is also illuminated by YouTube recordings of artists ranging from Megan Thee Stallion to City Girls to Grimes to Azealia Banks. Stationary visuals—photos of gay divas like Madonna, Jennifer Lopez and DJ Paris Hilton—also line the walls. The volume of the music videos is loud enough so that you can enjoy the songs, but not so noisy that conversations need to be yelled.

Over the course of two recent Saturday nights, Sissy Bar was comfortably busy—groups of friends of all orientations and a range of legal drinking ages were gathered. Some appeared to have just left the office, while others were dressed to impress— ready for wherever the night took them.

There’s no dance floor or recurring drag shows, which tend to lure customers to other gay bars in town, but Sissy Bar offers a space for unapologetically queer company and the pop music sustaining the community.

The cocktail menu at Sissy Bar is similar to that at Crush: classic drinks crafted with skill, but the newcomer seems to be fond of names with cultural nods (Will Smith Punch, $10; She’s All That, $11). There’s also the house-branded Sissy Mule ($11), Sissy MANhattan ($13), and the bittersweet Sissy Galore ($11), which mixes grapefruit and lemon juice with orange bitters and Ryan Reynolds-owned Aviation American Gin. Those drinks pair well with picturesque, savory Colombian dishes, such as sudado rice bowls ($11 vegan, $14 chicken), ajiaco stew ($15), and arepas sandwiches with avocado salad ($12 for the vegan and cheese versions, $14 with chicken). All are comfortably filling, but would benefit from a dash of additional seasoning.

Opal’s Night & Day Cafe served a handful of customers on two evening visits, catching spillovers from either bar next door. A towering, beige-colored painting of Cubist faces watches over the glittery pink bar here, which could either be interesting to gaze at or just plain creepy.

The space was once home to Woody’s Coffee Tavern, which was named after Woody Clark, co-owner of Crush and now Opal’s along with James Jackman. The Coffee Tavern tempo rarily closed its doors after Gov. Kate Brown announced initial pandemic restrictions more than two years ago.

Clarke memorably called the police on 12 of his former em ployees in March 2020 after they staged a sit-in. Once laid off due to the mandated shutdown, the group demanded accrued sick pay, half pay for the hours they’d been originally scheduled to work the following week, and a guarantee of rehire once business resumed. Initially, those requests were not met.

Employees at both of Clarke’s businesses started unionizing in late 2019, and while the National Labor Relations Board notes that Clarke settled with Crush’s former employees in August 2021, Woody’s Coffee Tavern permanently closed before those

TICKLED PINK: The glittery bartop is one of the centerpieces at Crush Bar’s newish cafe, Opal’s.

Editor: Andi Prewitt Contact: aprewitt@wweek.com

employees got their day in court.

Now rebranded as Opal’s, the cocktail menu offers an eclectic blend of sweet drinks, like the pomegranate juice, vodka and egg white Amaretto Fizz ($10) and the tropical Chartreuse Swizzle ($15). But this is also a coffee bar (the “Day” part of the name), so you’ll find the typical lineup of caffeinated beverages, includ ing Opal’s take on the seasonal cinnamon-sprinkled pumpkin spice latte. Diners have their choice of soup, salad, breakfast sandwiches and scratch-made casseroles.

While Opal’s wasn’t busy on either of my visits, the cafe has potential as an intimate date spot. For now, its shared sidewalk patio provides Crush with more outdoor seating on its busier nights.

With Sissy Bar, Crush and Opal’s all anchoring the same block, and nearby Rev Hall and Holocene hosting gay-friendly concerts and dance parties, the area now has all the makings for Southeast Portland’s first-ever gay bar crawl.

DRINK: Sissy Bar Portland, 1416 SE Morrison St., 503-206-4325, sissybarportland.com. 4 pm-midnight Wednesday-Thursday, 4 pm-2 am Friday-Saturday, 4-11 pm Sunday. Opal’s Night & Day Cafe, 1412 SE Morrison St., 503-235-8150, opalsnightanddaycafe. com. 7 am-5 pm Monday-Thursday, 7 am-10 pm Friday-Sunday.

Hot Plates

WHERE TO EAT THIS WEEK.

1. BAG O’ CRAB

Buzz List

WHERE TO DRINK THIS WEEK.

1. ABIGAIL HALL

3255 NE 82nd Ave., 971-716-8888, thebagocr ab.com. 3-10 pm Monday-Friday, noon-10 pm Saturday-Sunday.

Looking for a good time? Call Bag O’ Crab. There is no way to feel serious about any thing—except, perhaps, demolishing a large bag of Cajun-sauced crustaceans—the moment you step through the doors at this new restau rant, thanks to details like the giant lobster mural and a robot waitress. Keep the fun vibes going by ordering Combo 4: a lobster or Dungeness crab, shrimp, crawfish, clams, corn, potatoes and sausages. Use an order of garlic bread to sop up the spicy, buttery boil.

2. JOJO

902 NW 13th Ave., 971-331-4284, jojopdx.com. 11 am-10 pm daily.

A stationary version of the much-loved Jojo food cart has arrived in Northwest Portland. As with the truck, the highlights are smash burg ers and multiple permutations of fried chicken, plus the eponymous deep-fried potato wedges, served with a side of sauce of which there are 10. A small order of jojos is ample for two. But go ahead, gild the lily and get one of the loaded versions, with different combinations of cheeses, sauces and alliums.

3. THE SEA BREEZE FARM TRUCK

Pops up at Northwest 23rd Place and Thurman Street, seabreeze.farm. 5-7 pm Monday. The Sea Breeze Farm mobile butcher block is like a portal to a French street market that started appearing in Northwest Portland in late summer. Chock-full of fresh and cured meats, the customized truck sells everything from duck rillettes to pork cheek and belly to whole chickens raised by George Page and Rose Allred, partners in business and life. Their passion for their trade is evident in the quality of the products themselves as well as their enthusiasm for farm life. When you see the white Magic Meat Truck at 23rd and Thurman, do not pass it up.

4. URDANETA

3033 NE Alberta St., 503-288-1990, urdanetap dx.com. 5-10 pm Tuesday-Sunday.

If you’ve been waiting for chef Javier Canteras’ Bikini to return to the menu, your patience has just been rewarded. Urdaneta’s take on the classic ham-and-cheese sandwich is back and part of a seasonal offerings shake-up. A toast ed brioche bun stuffed with jamon serrano, American cheese and sofrito béchamel is what we’ve been longing to bite into once it actually felt like fall instead of a prolonged August.

5. HOLLER

7119 SE Milwaukie Ave., 971-200-1391, hollerpdx. com. Noon-9 pm Monday-Thursday, 11 am-9 pm Friday, 10 am-9 pm Saturday-Sunday. Doug Adams may no longer be in the kitchen at this Sellwood neighborhood chicken joint, but his popular poultry-focused offerings—a spinoff of his fried-bird Sundays at Bullard— are still on the menu. Holler also just added a football season menu, which includes pulled pork sliders smothered in barbecue sauce, chili cheese fries, housemade onion rings, and portobello wraps. With seven flat-screens and a buck off draft beer, it just got a little more tempting to abandon your couch on game day.

813 SW Alder St., abigailhallpdx.com. 5-11 pm Tuesday-Wednesday, 5 pm-midnight Thurs day-Saturday.

When Mariah Carey, aka the Queen of Christ mas, says it’s time to start celebrating the Yule tide—whether or not we’ve had our Thanksgiv ing feast—you oughta listen. And what better way to get into the holiday spirit than by drink ing cocktails inspired by the season? Abigail Hall’s beverage director, Derek Jacobi (formerly of New York’s Dead Rabbit and Black Tail), has created a new cocktail menu with some Christ maslike drinks, including a Brûleevardier (a take on crème brûlée) and Walnut Olivetto (a nod to lemon meringue pie).

2.

SMITH TEAMAKER

500 NW 23rd Ave., 503-206-7451; 110 SE Washington St., 503-719-8752; smithtea.com. 10 am-6 pm daily.

As we get closer to the holiday season—prime tea-drinking time—Portland’s renowned fullleaf tea company has partnered with Farina Bakery to create a pairing menu for both of its tasting rooms. You can now get a trio of colorful macarons (pistachio, rainbow sprinkle and lemon) to go with Smith’s Moroccan mint, black lavender and red nectar teas served on a charcuterie-style board that’s perfect for those days you long for Paris but are stuck in Portland.

3. WONDERWOOD SPRINGS

8811 N Lombard St., 971-242-8927, wonder woodsprings.com. 8 am-8 pm Tuesday-Sunday. Mike Bennett’s new cafe is mostly about the art: 400 hand-painted pieces, ranging from cute woodland creatures to a sleeping dragon. However, this isn’t just another of the prolific artist’s pop-up exhibits. You really can eat and drink at Wonderwood Springs. Expect to find two custom coffee blends personally selected by Bennett, along with a regular hot chocolate and another made with mushrooms.

4. OYATSUPAN BAKERS

16025 SW Regatta Lane, Beaverton, 503-9415251, oyatsupan.com. 8 am-3:30 pm daily. Though best known for its milk bread and sweet rolls, Oyatsupan also serves a variety of warm beverages to go with those baked goods. The newest menu item is a hojicha latte, a Jap anese green tea typically steamed to stop the oxidation process and then roasted, resulting in little to no bitterness as well as a low caffeine content. Oyatsupan promises it is the perfect drink to transition from summer to fall thanks to the nutty notes from the tea and the creami ness of the oat milk.

5. BAD HABIT ROOM

5433 N Michigan Ave., 503-303-8550, saraveza. com/the-bad-habit-room. 4-10 pm Wednes day-Friday, 9 am-2 pm and 4-10 pm Satur day-Sunday.

Bad Habit Room has technically been around for about a decade but previously opened only for weekend brunch and special events. After staying completely shuttered for two years due to the pandemic, it’s back and caters to a different crowd in the evenings. Cocktails take their inspiration from the pre-Prohibition era, and our current favorite is Moon Shoes, made with marshmallow-infused vodka, lemon, orgeat and a splash of Son of Man harvest ver mouth that acts as a grounding agent.

PUNCH IT UP: Sissy Bar leans into pop cul ture references when it comes to naming its drinks, like the pictured Will Smith Punch.

Book Smart

BY BRIANNA WHEELER

Whether it’s a coloring book, a cookbook or a lifestyle guide, cannabis literature belongs on every stoner’s bookshelf. Gone are the days of hastily downloaded and printed-out pages from the deep internet. Cannabis has outgrown counter culture status and is rightfully reclaiming its holistic heritage with gorgeously photographed, coffee table-worthy tomes brimming with valuable information. From therapeutic recipes and candy-making tips to inspirational words from successful cannacreatives and mom-centered lifestyle guides, there really is a piece of cannalit for every bookshelf.

This week, as we put Portland Book Festival in the rear view and slide toward gifting season, keep these titles in mind: They’ve all earned spots of honor on my own bookcases, and each would make a thoughtful gift for the cannathusiast book worm in your life, especially if that bookworm is you.

If you don’t have at least one bookshelf, never talk to me or my son again.

Weed Mom by Danielle Simone Brand

(Ulysses Press, 288 pages, $15.95)

Subtitled “The Canna-Curious Woman’s Guide to Healthier Relaxation, Happier Parenting, and Chilling TF Out,” this breezy read is a guide to all things weed for the parent new to cannabis therapy. The book would be a great addition to any stoner parent’s library, but perhaps most useful to novice pot moms who’ve yet to find their place in cannabis culture.

Weed Mom has the levity of a novelty lifestyle guide but delivers information as effectively as a Cannabis 101 textbook, covering everything from terminology and medicinal uses to sexual health and harm reduction.

The Art of Weed Butter by Mennlay Golokeh Aggrey

(Ulysses Press, 96 pages, $14.95)

There are many cookbooks in the weedosphere, but Mennlay Golokeh Aggrey’s is distinct in its focus on the foundation of cannabis kitchen exploits: butter.

Infused oils and fats made on a kitchen stovetop are the cor nerstone of quality edibles. From savory dishes to the sweets that line dispo shelves, the best products (imho) start with infused butter (or virtually any oil).

Golokeh Aggrey’s book includes dosing breakdowns, ter pene effects, and even tips on how to curb a too-intense high. Once readers complete the curriculum on infusion, there are a number of surprisingly straightforward recipes like shrimp and grits, West African chicken and, of course, brownies to round out the book.

The Cannabis Apothecary

by Laurie Wolf

(Black Dog & Leventhal, 256 pages, $35)

Regarded by many in the cannabis industry as the Martha Stewart of weed, Laurie Wolf has been writing cannabis recipes long before she founded the popular edible brand Laurie + MaryJane. The Cannabis Apothecary is a gorgeous mashup of cannabis photo essay and comprehensive lifestyle, recipe and health-and-wellness opus. Consider giving this to the domestic deities in your life who would enjoy adding chic cannabis art to their homes and making edibles with new recipes.

Cannabis for Creatives

by Jordana Wright

(Rocky Nook, 365 pages, $25)

By conducting in-depth interviews with more than 30 working

artists, author Jordana Wright was able to mine a certain class of creatives to determine what makes cannabis so valuable to their work. Conversations with authors, art directors, musi cians. interdisciplinary artists and others make this a compel ling read for any artist who’s been judged for their consumption habits instead of their bodies of work. From composers to chefs to metalsmithing sculptors, there’s plenty in these pages for creative stoners to both relate to and be inspired by.

The Weed Gummies Cookbook by Monica Lo

(Ulysses Press, 128 pages, $17.95)

One of the slimmest books in this roundup is also the brightest, punchiest and sweetest of them all. Monica Lo’s Weed Gummies Cookbook covers all the need-to-knows for someone new to the art of creating cannabis edibles, but it’s also sumptuously designed, with glittering photos of confections far more impres sive than your everyday 5-milligram gummy cube. Readers can learn to make not only gummies, but also nougat, milk candy, caramels, boba balls, marzipan, lollipops and more. There’s even a chapter on sugar candy alternatives, like fruit leathers and spiced nuts. For the culinary cannathusiast gearing up for the holiday season, this book could be a game changer.

These are the essential cannabis publications you need in your home library.

READING RAINBOW: It’s not too early to start plan ning your holiday gift list, and cannabis books make great presents for the weed enthusiasts in your life.

WHAT TO SEE AND WHAT TO HEAR

BY DANIEL BROMFIELD @bromf3

THURSDAY, NOV. 10:

Hello, Hello Oregon

Anna Diem returns to the Portland music scene with an album that combines alt-pop, queer pop and soul.

BY MICHELLE KICHERER @michellekicherer

“Why do you do what you do?” That was the first thing Anna Diem said to me when I met her at an event for MusicPortland, a grassroots nonprofit that advocates for local music. I’d soon learn that speaking straight to the heart of the matter is what Diem is all about.

Diem won’t touch projects she doesn’t care about—and the ones she does take on, she takes on completely. That includes her sophomore album, Hello Oregon, which she wrote, record ed, produced and released herself on Nov. 1. It’s an ambitious collection with touches of alt-pop, queer pop, and even soul as it dips its toe into synth-kissed hip-hop waters.

Title tune “Hello Oregon” feels like a soundtrack for someone leaving behind where they came from. It’s a feeling a lot of relo cated folks can relate to—like Diem, who left Portland in 2015 to give herself the time and space to focus on music.

“I wanted to really get to know myself as an artist and to have the space to not work so much so I could really hone my craft and make the kinds of recordings I wanted to make,” she tells WW. As a sound recordist, she wanted to capture the wide range of sonic information surrounding her at the time and to thread those sounds within the fabric of each track.

From a crackling fire to a rumbling thunderstorm to jangling dog collars, the album paints an auditory portrait of Diem’s life at the time. When listening to the tracks now, she says she can pinpoint exactly where she was when she made each recording: “I’m just right back there.”

“There” refers to Sunny Valley, the rural town in Southern Oregon where Diem spent the past seven years or so. “The move supported a very inward time in my life,” she says. “I was able to go really far within—but so much so I hit a point where I needed to have connection with other people. It taught me the lesson that you can’t actually survive without community. Which is

something I really rejected for a long time.”

Each track shares a deeply personal moment. Opening song “Lucky” is about falling asleep and waking up in a peaceful, woodland atmosphere. “Hang On” speaks to a time in which Diem’s sister was battling suicidal ideation. “Deep Sea Diver” is an empowering love song for Diem’s wife, Rosa, which encourages her to open up and connect with the people around her more, with the promise that a strong hand is there to hold hers.

The verses come out in a fire-whisper, with oceanic synth keeping our ears afloat: “Lamp on like a deep sea diver/Hold your hand like a backseat driver/Make you look when you wanna shrink back/When your hope falls flat/When the room goes black.” And it all leads to a Weezer-meets-Jeff Buckley-vibed cover of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” a song Diem’s dad used to sing to her at bedtime.

In an interview she conducted with herself on her website, Diem says at some point along the way, she made it to the top of a “metaphorical mountain of musical exploration.”

And when she got there? “I saw that it was all actually very simple,” she says. “I saw that the first take is usually the best take. That less is more. That I had done my best to overcomplicate things, but in the end, for me, it’s all about feeling. In my music, I strive to capture a feeling.”

Hello Oregon welcomes an ambitious, genre-spanning artist back to the Portland music scene. As Diem wrote in a recent newsletter, it is “the most me thing I’ve ever made.”

COMING UP: Anna Diem plays on 99.1 FM at 6 pm Friday, Nov. 18. She also plays in person as part of Listen Up!, a series curated by Portland Radio Project and Artichoke Music, 2001 SE Powell Blvd., 503-232-8845, artichokemusic. org. 7 pm Friday, Dec. 16. $15. Hello Oregon is available online and at Music Millennium.

Since forming in 1960, Los Dug Dug’s have started trends only to buck them. After influencing fellow Mexican bands to sing in English, they recorded their 1972 magnum opus Smog in Spanish. After their hermitlike look spawned a fashion trend, they cut their hair and went to tailors. Their unpredict ability is matched only by their longevity—and though they haven’t made an album since 1975, their dedicated following of garage punks has allowed them to continue flying their freak flags on tour. Star Theater, 13 NW 6th Ave., 503-284-4700, startheaterportland.com. 8 pm. $15. 21+.

SUNDAY, NOV. 13:

More than 50 years ago, Brazil’s Os Mutantes exist ed at the center of Tropicália, the left-wing pop art movement that became the bane of Brazil’s thennew military dictatorship (in fact, their song “Panis et Circencis” gave its name to the compilation of young Brazilian bands that served as the move ment’s manifesto). Though 71-year-old Sérgio Dias is the only remaining original member of the band, Os Mutantes is still one of the most mind-twisting, transgressive, psychedelic touring groups in the world. Aladdin Theater, 3017 SE Milwaukie Ave., 503-234-9694, aladdin-theater.com. 8 pm. $20. All ages.

SUNDAY, NOV. 13:

Black musicians have been crucial to country mu sic’s evolution since the beginning—yet musicians of color made up less than 4% of country radio airplay in 2021, the year writer Holly G. founded the Black Opry Revue tour to promote lesser-known Black country musicians. Featuring sets by a selection of Black Opry artists, the revue is one of America’s most promising incubators of young tal ent. You never know who you’re going to hear, but they might just become your new favorite artist. Show Bar at Revolution Hall, 1300 SE Stark St., 971808-5094, revolutionhall.com. 8 pm. $15. 21+.

INVENTING ANNA: Anna Diem.

COURTESY ANNA DIEM

Editor: Bennett Campbell Ferguson | Contact: bennett@wweek.com

Strange Renaissance

With his dungeon synth and doom project WHIMZ, Cameron Spies once again broadens his sweeping musical horizons.

BY ROBERT HAM

Without really trying to, Cameron Spies is leading a quiet revo lution within the Portland pop music community.

It’s a position the multitalented artist was well prepared for. Spies has built an impressive résumé within the local scene, starting from his days co-founding the record label and collec tive Apes Tapes to his nearly decadelong stint as a member of celebrated indie group Radiation City.

Since that band split in 2016, Spies has kept busy while slow ly retreating into the shadows. He’s cultivated a career as an in-demand recording engineer and producer, working with garage-psych group The Shivas and heavy-rockers Blackwater Holylight. And through his new label Literal Gold Records, Spies is amplifying the work of city pop-inspired duo Seance Crasher and neo-soul artist M A N E.

As for his own creative output, Spies may feature prominently in the promotional photos for both Night Heron (one of WW’s recent Best New Bands) and WHIMZ, his current pop project, but he doesn’t want to be the center of attention in either.

“I know my own limitations in terms of singing and playing,” Spies tells WW. “I think I’m a good songwriter and producer, but I don’t necessarily want to be the one out front all the time. It’s nice and liberating. And I feel like when I’m telling people about the projects, I feel less bashful about it ’cause I’m like, ‘That’s not really me.’”

Instead, Spies likes to direct focus toward his collaborators. In the case of WHIMZ, it’s Sunny Faris, his longtime friend best known for her work as bassist and vocalist in Blackwater Holylight. The two met when Spies worked on that band’s 2018 debut album and kept in contact after those sessions wrapped. He later sent her the first Night Heron album. She was an instant fan.

“She was like, ‘Oh my God!’” Spies recalls.“‘Let’s do something fucking sexy, but also doomy.’ We chatted over the phone a little bit and then we got in the studio for a couple of days with no preconception except that we wanted to have fun and we wanted it to be sexy and listenable.”

The pair ticked both boxes with ease. The five tracks on WHIMZ’s first release, PM226, ooze sensuality and skin-tin gling vulnerability via low synth drones, stodgy rhythms, and plenty of atmospheric sound. Guiding the listener through it is Faris, who downshifts her vocals into the mode of a goth diva à la Siouxsie Sioux and Dead Can Dance’s Lisa Gerrard.

The only limitation the pair put on themselves was making sure that WHIMZ had an end date. Faris’ Blackwater Holylight responsibilities keep her on the road or in the studio for much of the year, and Spies has multiple recording projects he’s in the thick of. The fact that WHIMZ is playing a pair of live shows

(Nov. 10 at Doug Fir Lounge and Nov. 12 in Seattle as part of the Freakout Fest) with a full band that includes members of Spoon Benders and YOB feels like a small miracle.

“This is something that’s completely fun and completely spon taneous and has no preconceptions,” Spies says. “We didn’t even think it was going to be more than one song. Then the one song we started working on became an 11-minute song, and we were like, ‘This is actually two songs. Now we need a B-side!’ So we made three more songs and here we are!”

While WHIMZ may not survive past this month, Spies has plenty more to keep himself occupied. There’s another Night Heron album in the last stages of completion, which he hopes to have completely wrapped up by the end of this year. It is a little more uptempo than the group’s first full-length, Instructions for the Night, Spies says, but still bathed in melancholia and laid-back grooves. Though the studio versions aren’t completed, fans will have a chance to hear some of this new record live as, through sheer happenstance, Night Heron will also play at Doug Fir Lounge this week on Sunday the 13th.

If that weren’t reason enough to hit this Night Heron gig, there’s also a good chance that this will be the last time the cur rent lineup of the band plays together. All of the members have other creative work they’re involved in, and it helps Spies bring in some fresh blood to add new twists to the group’s sound.

“I’ve been pining to make this more of a collaborative thing,” he says, “but the reality is that people have their own projects that they’re going to have a little bit more passion about. As much as I want everybody to love this as much as me, I know it can’t be that thing right now.”

SEE IT: WHIMZ plays at Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St., 503-231-9663, dougfirlounge.com. 8:30 pm Thursday, Nov. 10. $15. 21+.

BONES AND ALL: Cameron Spies.

MOVIES

The Days of Dennis Nyback

STREAMING WARS

YOUR WEEKLY FILM QUEUE

BY BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON @thobennett

HOLLYWOOD PICK:

BY RAY GILL JR.

On Oct. 2, esteemed film archivist Dennis Nyback quietly passed away from cancer at age 69. He was a true renais sance man and storyteller who lived a life as iconoclastic as the films he rescued—a collection of features, cartoons and short subjects, numbering in the thousands, that became known around the world.

Nyback (whose legacy will be celebrated at the Clinton Street Theater’s Nov. 15 event Dada Dada Dada: A Tribute to Dennis Nyback) began collecting films in 1979 while he was working at the Rosebud Movie Palace in Seattle, which he would eventually own. The small theater spe cialized in films from the ’30s and ’40s, but Nyback took it a step further: He screened films in their original context, including newsreels, cartoons, short subjects, and even travelogues that preceded the feature presentation.

When the theater closed in 1981, Nyback took his show on the road, working around Seattle as a projectionist and slowly accumulating prints of old films and cartoons from as far away as Paris. After eight years, he was hired to help run a monthly film series at the Jewel Box Theater.

Three years later, Nyback and Elizabeth Rozier opened the Pike Street Cinema, where some of his most popular shows featured cartoons banned from television and video collections for their racist, sexist or violent con tent—drawing the ire of Turner Entertainment and the Walt Disney Company (and leading to a bomb threat). Yet word of Nyback’s collection of eclectic films spread, becoming the catalyst to screen programs, like his famous “Bad Bugs Bunny,” at theaters as far away as Europe. Nyback would eventually end up on New York’s Lower East Side, where he opened the Lighthouse Cinema in 1996. He ultimately accepted a buyout offer from landlord Mike Glass, who would later be charged with attempted murder and arson against tenants who had turned down his buyout offers.

In 1999, Nyback relocated to Portland, where he part nered again with Rozier (to whom he had once been mar ried) to take over the Clinton Street Theater for a reported $2,000. There was a good reason the theater was so cheap.

“It was in such bad shape that the McMenamin brothers had refused to buy it,” says Steve Tenhonen, the theater’s current co-manager. “The plumbing was shot to hell. The seats were older than God, complete with springs that often poked viewers in the ass.”

Tenhonen and Nyback headed up a massive renovation, while Nyback elevated the programming with as many new and independent features as possible—and brought in his own unique material to fill empty slots (he also went on to found the Oregon Cartoon Institute with his late wife, Anne Richardson, in 2007).

“Being one of the new owners who just took over op erations in April,” says co-owner Aaron Colter, “I marvel at how unique Dennis was in his programming at the Clinton Street Theater and in places like Seattle and New York. I hope Portland still has some of that weirdness and audiences who want to experience peculiar events. It’s my hope that we can revive some of that energy and pay tribute to someone who forever left a mark on the community.”

That energy will live on at Dada Dada Dada: A Tribute to Dennis Nyback, at which audiences will be welcome to play their own acoustic musical instruments. Confused? Allow radio host S.W. Conser, who often worked with Nyback on Oregon Cartoon Institute events, to explain.

“Dennis loved to create screening events at the Clin ton Street that were more than just screenings,” Conser says. “One of his favorite events, which he scheduled on a somewhat random basis, was Dada Dada Dada, where he would unearth some of the more surreal silent films in his collection, then invite the audience to bring instruments to the theater and provide a live soundtrack to the films.”

Conser adds, “Initially, the effect would be cacophonous, but then over the course of the show, a strange collective harmony would often emerge from the chaos. We’re hop ing to bring back some of that spirit on the 15th.”

SEE IT: Dada Dada Dada: A Tribute to Dennis Nyback plays at the Clinton Street Theater, 2522 SE Clinton St., 971-808-3331, cstpdx.com. Tuesday, Nov. 15. $8.

I couldn’t care less that Henry Cavill (the most joyless Superman in cinematic history) is preparing to don the Last Son of Krypton’s crimson cape again. But he’s suave and delightful in Guy Ritchie’s The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015) as CIA agent Napoleon Solo, who teams up with a Russian spy (a humorously humorless Armie Hammer) and the daughter (Alicia Vikander) of a Nazi scientist for a series of colorful misadventures. Based on the ’60s tele vision series, it’s refreshingly unfrenetic for a Ritchie film. Rent on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Google Play, Redbox, Vudu, YouTube.

INTERNATIONAL PICK:

When Azadeh Masihzadeh accused her former mentor, the Oscar-winning filmmaker Asghar Farhadi, of stealing her ideas for his film A Hero, she inadvertently embarked on a journey that may ultimately change Iranian cinema forever. For anyone who wants to understand the scope of the allegations (Farhadi has faced similar claims from others), Rachel Aviv’s article in The New Yorker is a mustread—and Masihzadeh’s documentary All Winners, All Losers (2018) is a must-watch. It’s about a prisoner who finds a purse full of money and attempts to return it to its owner (the story of A Hero, which was released in 2021, is uncannily similar). YouTube.

WESTWORLD PICK:

HBO shocked everyone when it recently canceled West world, the android saga inspired by Michael Crichton’s 1973 film and created by spouses Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan (who co-wrote The Prestige, the Dark Knight trilogy and Interstellar with his brother, director Christopher No lan). If you’re bummed not to be getting a fifth season of the show, cheer yourself up by checking out the Joy-di rected, Jonathan Nolan-produced sci-fi romance Reminis cence, which stars Hugh Jackman as a master of virtual reality who is ensnared in a noirish mystery in a futuristic, flooded New Orleans. HBO Max.

How the former owner of the Clinton Street Theater, who died in October, became one of the most prolific film programmers in the world.

COURTESY OF S.W. CONSER

FAREWELL

Editor: Bennett Campbell Ferguson Contact: bennett@wweek.com

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014)

Set in the fictional ghost town of “Bad City,” director Ana Lily Amirpour’s Iranian Western is about a lonesome vampire who skateboards, listens to music, and feeds on depraved denizens. Amirpour is enjoying a resur gence right now, unleashing a new film (Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon) and her own episode of Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities (“The Outside”) within the same season. Cinema 21, Nov. 11-12.

In the Mirror of Maya Deren (2001)

This underseen documentary chronicles the life and work of actress, dancer, poet, film theorist, and pio neer of avant-garde filmmaking Maya Deren. Screens in 35mm, along with Meshes of the Afternoon, a 1943 experimental short (and discernible influence on David Lynch) that Deren directed with her then-husband Alex andr Hackenschmied. 5th Avenue, Nov. 11-13.

Kubo and the Two Strings (2016)

Hillsboro’s own Laika produced this stop-motion ad venture, focusing on a 12-year-old boy in feudal Japan who—with the help of a magical stringed instrument, a monkey (Charlize Theron), and a beetle-human hybrid (Matthew McConaughey)—sets out to defeat vengeful spirits from his past (Rooney Mara and Ralph Fiennes). Academy, Nov. 11-17.

The Big Heat (1953)

Metropolis’ Fritz Lang directed this acclaimed film noir starring Glenn Ford as a homicide detective who gets in over his head (don’t they always!) after taking on a powerful crime syndicate. Screens as part of Cinema 21’s “Film Noir in the 50s” series, hosted by film programmer Elliot Lavine. Cinema 21, Nov. 12.

The Hours (2002)

“Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.” Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, and Nicole Kidman star in this Oscar-winning drama as three women from varying time periods, all tied together by Virginia Woolf’s novel Mrs Dalloway. Screens in honor of the film’s 20th anni versary, and as part of the Hollywood’s “TGIQ (Thank God It’s Queer)” series. Hollywood, Nov. 14.

ALSO PLAYING:

Academy: The Boxtrolls (2014), Nov. 9-10. The Killing (1956), Nov. 9-10. High Sierra (1941), Nov. 11-17. Clinton: The Mad Fox (1962), Nov. 9. Hollywood: Comics and Comix on 16 mm, Nov. 15.

This Filmmaker’s Life

In Armageddon Time, director James Gray remem bers what he loved and lost growing up in 1980s Queens.

BY BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON @thobennett

When sixth grader Paul Graf (Banks Repeta) dreams, he imagines him self as a legendary artist. Maybe he’ll be poised before an easel wearing a beret, his pale features set in a tastefully pretentious expression. Or maybe he’ll be basking in raptur ous applause, with a crowd heralding a painting of his self-created super hero Captain United.

The life Paul grows into looks noth ing like that, but he does become an artist. We know that because he is the alter ego of James Gray, the writer and director of Armageddon Time Gray has beamed his soul into count less characters—from Tim Roth’s tormented hit man in Little Odessa (1994) to Brad Pitt’s ruminative as tronaut in Ad Astra (2019)—but Ar mageddon Time marks the first time he has more or less directly adapted his own story to the screen.

prospect. Like many young friend ships, his relationship with John ny is as complex and ferocious as a crush (when they flee a class field trip to the Guggenheim and sprint through Central Park, cinematog rapher Darius Khondji imbues the sequence with the wild, fantastical glee of first love).

After the two boys share a joint, Paul’s father makes good on his threat to send him to Forest Man or, a pampered prison of a school whose patrons include a lurking Fred Trump (John Diehl). It’s a fate Paul meekly accepts at first, then defiantly rejects, concocting a plan to steal a computer to pay for a trip to Florida with Johnny.

Gray loves a desperate, thwarted escape. In Two Lovers (2008), Joa quin Phoenix dropped a travel bag out the window of his parents’ apart ment, then rushed to the courtyard to meet the fickle neighbor (Gwyneth Paltrow) he had deluded himself into adoring. Yet while Lovers overflowed with pure, lustrous pleasure, Arma geddon Time is constantly pierced by painfully real physical and emotional wounds—both Paul’s and Johnny’s.

he was. This is what he did. This is the friend he loved and failed—the friend who collected Apollo mission patch es, worshipped his stepbrother in the Air Force, and felt his future die as handcuffs were clamped around his wrists.

While details of Gray’s life have been tweaked to suit the ephemer al language of cinema, to witness his soul searching is to behold his childhood yearnings, passions and regrets becoming present tense. At times, it’s a frightening experience, like looking at a photo album of both public joys (spaghetti dinners, toy rocket launches) and private trau mas (nighttime arrests, bathroom beatings).

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The place is Queens and the year is 1980. Presidential candidate Ronald Reagan is warning America about the coming of “another Sodom and Gomorrah,” but a nation’s supposed moral decline is small fry to a tween. Far more disturbing to Paul is a plot by his parents (Anne Hathaway and Jeremy Strong) to transfer him to a private school, wrenching him away from his best friend, Johnny Davis (Jaylin Webb).

To Paul, this is an apocalyptic

Paul’s family is white, middle class and Jewish; Johnny is Black and lives alone with his ailing grandmother (Marjorie Johnson). Both boys face bigotry, but Paul is slow to realize the game isn’t rigged against him the way it is against his friend. Nothing in the film is as horrifying as the scene in which he eagerly enlists Johnny in the computer heist, tragically un aware of how different the conse quences will be for the two of them if they’re caught by the police.

Armageddon Time isn’t out to preach, teach or scold. Gray has no interest in the self-serving concept of “white guilt”; he simply tells his story cleanly and clearly. This is who

So why watch? Simply put, because a brilliant and compassionate film maker is asking you to—and because Armageddon Time gazes at America with neither hollow hope nor per formative pessimism. Gray may not like what he sees, but he still insists there are things worth fighting for, like clubhouse chats with friends and jelly beans fresh from Grand pa’s pocket (a quietly fierce Anthony Hopkins plays Aaron Rabinowitz, the father of Paul’s mother).

Some moviegoers may argue that what Armageddon Time has to say about class, race and growing up in New York is hardly revelatory. Yet the film isn’t meant to be. Gray speaks seemingly simple truths and asks you not only to hear them, but to feel them. That’s what great artists— and human beings—do.

SEE IT: Armageddon Time rated R, is now playing at Bridgeport, Clackamas, Eastport, Evergreen Parkway, Fox Tower, Lake Theater, Laurelhurst, Living Room, Lloyd Center and Vancouver Mall.

by Jack Kent

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Virginia Woolf wrote a passage that I suspect will apply to you in the coming weeks. She said, "There is no denying the wild horse in us. To gallop intemperately; fall on the sand tired out; to feel the earth spin; to have — positively — a rush of friendship for stones and grasses — there is no getting over the fact that this desire seizes us." Here's my question for you, Aries: How will you harness your wild horse energy? I'm hoping that the self-possessed hu man in you will take command of the horse and direct it to serve you and yours with constructive actions. It's fine to indulge in some intemper ate galloping, too. But I'll be rooting for a lot of temperate and disciplined galloping.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): "The failure of love might account for most of the suffering in the world," writes poet Marie Howe. I agree with that statement. Many of us have had painful episodes revolving around people who no longer love us and people whose lack of love for us makes us feel hurt. That's the bad news, Taurus. The good news is that you now have more power than usual to heal the failures of love you have endured in the past. You also have an expanded capacity to heal others who have suffered from the failures of love. I hope you will be generous in your ministrations!

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Many Geminis tell me they are often partly awake as they sleep. In their dreams, they might work overtime trying to solve waking-life problems. Or they may lie in bed in the dark contemplating intricate ideas that fascinate them, or perhaps ruminating on the plot developments unfolding in a book they've been reading or a TV show they've been bingeing. If you are prone to such behavior, I will ask you to minimize it for a while. In my view, you need to relax your mind extra deeply and allow it to play luxuriously with non-utilitarian fantasies and dreams. You have a sacred duty to yourself to explore mysterious and stirring feelings that bypass rational thought.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Here are my two key messages for you. 1. Remember where you hide important stuff. 2. Remember that you have indeed hidden some important stuff. Got that? Please note that I am not questioning your urge to lock away a secret or two. I am not criticizing you for wanting to store a treasure that you are not yet ready to use or reveal. It's completely understandable if you want to keep a part of your inner world off-limits to certain people for the time being. But as you engage in any or all of these actions, make sure you don't lose touch with your valuables. And don't forget why you are stashing them.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): I know I don't have to give you lessons in expressing your sensuality. Nor do you need prods and encouragement to do so. As a Leo, you most likely have abundant talent in the epicurean arts. But as you prepare to glide into the lush and lusty heart of the Sensuality Season, it can't hurt to offer you a pep talk from your fel low Leo bon vivant, James Baldwin. He said: "To be sensual is to respect and rejoice in the force of life, of life itself, and to be present in all that one does, from the effort of loving to the breaking of bread."

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Many Virgos are on a lifelong quest to cultivate a knack described by Sigmund Freud: "In the small matters, trust the mind. In the large ones, the heart." And I suspect you are now at a pivotal point in your efforts to master that wisdom. Important decisions are looming in regards to both small and large mat ters. I believe you will do the right things as long as you empower your mind to do what it does best and your heart to do what it does best.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Social media like Face book and Twitter feed on our outrage. Their al gorithms are designed to stir up our disgust and indignation. I confess that I get semi-caught in their trap. I am sometimes seduced by the temp tation to feel lots of umbrage and wrath, even though those feelings comprise a small minority

of my total emotional range. As an antidote, I proactively seek experiences that rouse my won der and sublimity and holiness. In the next two weeks, Libra, I invite you to cultivate a focus like mine. It's high time for a phase of minimal anger and loathing—and maximum reverence and awe.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Scorpio author Sylvia Plath had a disturbing, melodramatic relation ship with romance. In one of her short stories, for example, she has a woman character say, "His love is the twenty-story leap, the rope at the throat, the knife at the heart." I urge you to avoid contact with people who think and feel like that—as glamorous as they might seem. In my view, your romantic destiny in the coming months can and should be uplifting, exciting in healthy ways, and conducive to your well-being. There's no need to link yourself with shadowy renegades when there will be plenty of radiant helpers available.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): I like Sagittarian healer and author Caroline Myss because she's both spiritual and practical, compassionate and fierce. Here's a passage from her work that I think will be helpful for you in the coming weeks: "Get bored with your past. It's over! Forgive yourself for what you think you did or didn't do, and focus on what you will do, starting now." To ensure you make the most of her counsel, I'll add a further insight from author Augusten Burroughs: "You cannot be a prisoner of your past against your will—because you can only live in the past inside your mind."

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): How would you respond if you learned that the $55 t-shirt you're wearing was made by a Haitian kid who earned 10 cents for her work? Would you stop wearing the shirt? Donate it to a thrift store? Send money to the United Nations agency UNICEF, which works to protect Haitian child laborers? I recom mend the latter option. I also suggest you use this as a prompt to engage in leisurely medita tions on what you might do to reduce the world's suffering. It's an excellent time to stretch your imagination to understand how your personal life is interwoven with the lives of countless others, many of whom you don't even know. And I hope you will think about how to offer extra healings and blessings not just to your allies, but also to strangers. What's in it for you? Would this bring any selfish benefits your way? You may be amazed at how it leads you to interesting connec tions that expand your world.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Aquarian phi losopher Alfred North Whitehead wrote, "The silly question is the first intimation of some totally new development." He also said, "Every really new idea looks crazy at first." With these thoughts in mind, Aquarius, I will tell you that you are now in the Season of the Silly Question. I invite you to enjoy dreaming up such queries. And as you indulge in that fertile pleasure, include another: Celebrate the Season of Crazy Ideas.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): We all love to follow stories: the stories we live, the stories that unfold for people we know, and the stories told in mov ies, TV shows, and books. A disproportionately high percentage of the entertainment industry's stories are sad or tormented or horrendously painful. They influence us to think such stories are the norm. They tend to darken our view of life. While I would never try to coax you to avoid all those stories, Pisces, I will encourage you to question whether maybe it's wise to limit how many you absorb. The coming weeks will be an excellent time to explore this possibility. Be will ing to say, "These sad, tormented, painful stories are not ones I want to invite into my imagina tion." Try this experiment: For the next three weeks, seek out mostly uplifting tales.

Homework: Is there something sad that you could ultimately become grateful for? Newsletter.FreeWillAstrology.com

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