Willamette Week, August 23, 2023 - Volume 49, Issue 41 - "Get Some Class"

NEWS: A Weed Giant Goes Bust. P. 11

MUSIC: Bluegrass Dreams. P. 26

THEATER: Fire Burn, Cauldron Bubble. P. 27

By Rachel Pinsky

14

This fall, even grown-ups can go back to school.

WHAT WE LEARNED FROM READING THIS WEEK’S PAPER VOL. 49, ISSUE 41

The mysterious cylinders along Southeast 17th Avenue are vault vents. 4

Slabtown residents don’t want Ursula K. Le Guin ’s favorite grocery to become condos. 8

High school football players could get concussions from the rubber-crumb field at Grant Bowl. 9

Cannabis companies can’t file for bankruptcy 11

Ross Island Lagoon’s toxic algae blooms could be cleared up with a flushing channel 12

Pip’s Original Doughnuts uses honey from Bridgetown Bees to sweeten its chai. 16

Stella Harris’ students can practice rope bondage on a teddy bear 17

John Kallas takes you to look for crab apples at Hoyt Arboretum. 19

Ugly scrubs are the new secret to a massive social media following. 21

Run a 5k , get a glass of wine at the finish line. 21

Only in Portland can you experience ax throwing, puttputt golf and Zumba in one place. 21

A magnet academy in Beaverton spawned a soughtafter bluegrass artist. 26

Even on a sweltering day in Pioneer Courthouse Square, Patti Smith’s voice can summon a storm. 27

Assassinations are an aphrodisiac at Salt and Sage. 27

Weird Al-inspired Twinkie Wiener Sandwiches changed the Clinton Street Theater forever. 28

JORDAN HUNDELT

ALBERTA ROSE THEATRE

Last week, WW listed 16 office buildings on Portland’s westside that are showing signs of distress (“The Death List,” Aug. 18). These towers lack tenants, they have more debt than income, and they can’t refinance their loans. In some cases, they are being auctioned—but no one wants to bid on them, so the lender makes a credit bid. This is bad news fore some big real estate players, and also bodes poorly for the future of the city. But is it also a possible solution to the housing crisis? Here’s what our readers had to say:

NICHOLAS KRISTOF, VIA TWITTER: “Sad article about the collapse of commercial real estate in downtown Portland, which already has a 31% vacancy rate—and is expected to get worse. This in a city that was once a leading example of successful urban planning.”

URBANLIFE78, VIA REDDIT: “We are going to see a huge shift in cities that have been office focused for so long. If you look at the parts of the city center that are doing well, they are full of residential buildings. If the office district portion of downtown is going to survive, it will require a shift to residential.”

KAIA SAND, VIA TWITTER: “Imagine a housing-rich downtown.”

STRONG_CONFECTION628, VIA REDDIT: “This is about to get really interesting, really fast. I’ve played enough Cities: Skylines to know what happens when your tax base shrivels up, and Multnomah County is getting hit by every direction.

“ You have high earners leaving the county to the suburbs, you have commercial property values plummeting, cost of services are going up; and, of course, the voter base has hardly seen a tax measure they don’t like. Hold on to your

hats, if you thought Multnomah County was inefficient before, they are about to take it to new levels.”

BEN KIZER, VIA WWEEK.

COM: “For a while, we were told that this is all the result of WFH.

Well, WFH is slowly becoming RTO or hybrid as COVID continues to recede, so that is bunk. I also live in Beaverton, where a ton of businesses are expanding their footprint, like Analog Devices.

I think it’s more of a fact that businesses increasingly don’t want all the headaches involved with doing business in Portland (high taxes, high crime, high regulations) and are looking at places like Beaverton, Tigard, Lake Oswego, Vancouver, Hillsboro and Wilsonville to do their business in instead.”

DR. FRANKENSTUPE, VIA

TWITTER: “Hmmm, and we have several thousand homeless folk living on the streets. No room for them, city and county governments say. Total bullshit. Lots of room in these empty office buildings.”

PIPER, VIA TWITTER: “WW with default sympathy for commercial real estate owners who are some of the richest people in the whole city. I celebrate all of their losses.

“It’s cool when the super rich

Dr. Know

BY MARTY SMITH @martysmithxxx

What can you tell us about the mysterious cylinders found along Southeast 17th Avenue? They’re about 10 inches in diameter, 36 inches high, and made of what appears to be steel set in a concrete base. Also, they’re hollow— you can tell by the vertical rows of 1-inch holes drilled all around them. Ventilators for an underground squirrel passageway? —Maurice

Don’t be ridiculous, Maurice. There’s no special passageway for underground squirrels; if you have any, just grind them a little longer and put them through the regular squirrel passageway.

Thanks, I’m here all week. Seriously, though, this question did something near-unprecedented: It got my fat ass out of the house for some honest-to-God field reporting. Comparing cues from the reader’s attached photo to Google Street View, I found the exact site pictured. (I’m not giving the address—if you think Jim Morrison’s grave is a mess, you don’t want to see what fans might do to the only known site

become less rich. I’m stoked these losers happened to have a lot of their wealth in an asset that’s becoming worth a lot less in this changing economy. They shoulda thought of that before becoming landlords.”

OMNICHORD, VIA REDDIT:

“Also, for anyone who’s like ‘fuck the banks, let them eat those loans,’ I get where you’re coming from but the tax base/knock-on effects of this sort of massive market correction basically mean that Portland really suffers for the foreseeable future (I’d say five to 10 years?). That just contributes to what will certainly be a prominent national narrative over how ‘progressive cities have failed,’ etc. The suburbs will win. Cities in red states in the Sun Belt will win. We will lose. Progressive policies will become more and more radioactive nationally. So, I’d hesitate to say that that is somehow going to be anything short of a disaster for anyone who cares about that kind of thing.”

VIENNA WAITS FOR YOU

Your articles suggest that Multnomah County has a backlog of funding that could be used for housing, and that there is a glut of unused buildings in Portland. On the cover, Montgomery Park looks remarkably like some of the affordable housing complexes built in Vienna to solve their problems. Can we learn from them?

Ken Cameron-Bell North Portland

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

where Dr. Know ever did any actual work.)

My verdict? Field reporting is overrated. I don’t know if you can see the photo, but I assure you that it’s not hiding any subtle nuances that can only be appreciated in person. I was still stumped. Luckily, sources at the city were able to give me some hints. (They would have given me more than hints if I hadn’t contacted the wrong bureau, but that’s life.)

I’ll end the suspense: What we’re looking at here appears to be a ventilation standpipe for an underground utility vault, also known as a “vault vent.” The words “underground vault” may conjure images of spacious subterranean chambers à la Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Sadly, real-life civil engineers largely ignore the needs of future screenwriters when designing these spaces—they’re no bigger than they absolutely have to be.

Still, over time even small spaces can accumulate hazardous gases (methane, hydrogen sulfide, carbon monoxide, etc.) that can be flammable or toxic or both. Good ventilation keeps the concentration of such gases low. Ventilation also reduces the risk of moisture condensation in the vault, which can result in damage to equipment.

So, there you have it. I couldn’t conclusively establish what this particular vault holds, but the vent’s design is a type sources say is often used in California for electrical wiring and telecom cabling. (There was also a footnote about “mole people,” but it looked boring so I didn’t read it.)

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

Steele + The Adrian Martin Sextet

SEARING AUDIT OUTLINES HOMELESS SERVICES DYSFUNCTION: A Multnomah County audit of the Joint Office of Homeless Services, a joint venture between the county and the city of Portland, rattles off a list of alarming deficiencies. Among the most damning findings by County Auditor Jennifer McGuirk: The office sometimes pays providers months late; it asks them to work before contracts are in place; it adjusts performance measures if providers cannot meet original goals; and it could not produce simple data on how many people it’s housed— even to the county auditor herself. McGuirk also reported a remarkably high turnover rate among staff (250 have left in recent years) and wrote that because the office could not furnish her with basic placement stats, she “decided we would best serve the public interest by not waiting any longer on data requests” and instead issue two reports. The next report, McGuirk says, will be on “data reliability.” In a response to McGuirk, County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson agreed with many of the findings and assured the auditor that much of the work to correct the deficiencies was “well underway.”

LATEST HOUSING FIGHT IS KOTEK VS. LORAX:

Gov. Tina Kotek’s housing agenda has drawn the ire of environmentalists—again. Earlier this month, WW broke the news that Kotek’s housing advisory panel had proposed scrapping state law to allow housing development on “marginal or degraded wetlands” (“Fill It In,” Aug. 9). Environmental advocates despised the idea, and their outcry is even louder now that Kotek’s Housing Production Advisory Council has placed trees in the path of the bulldozers. The latest draft proposal from HPAC would allow developers to skirt city tree codes so long as the trees are less than 60 inches in diameter. On Aug. 21, leaders of more than 20 environmental groups—including Friends of Trees, Portland Audubon and Willamette Riverkeeper—asked Kotek to reject the plan, saying it would only intensify the heat islands that broil residents of low-income places like East Portland. “This is a green light for developers to clear-cut lots without even paying for replacements the city could plant elsewhere,” the letter says. “The HPAC proposal seems designed with one goal in mind—to facilitate developers’ ability to build more, profitable, though not necessarily better or affordable, housing at all costs and at the expense of community health.” The governor’s office says HPAC hasn’t yet brought her any formal recommendations, but she’s willing to take bold steps. “The council’s charge is to have frank conversations about the opportunities and challenges to making urgent progress on Oregon’s housing supply crisis—and land availability is a key issue.”

CITY WANTS TO BEEF UP SECURITY AT

SMARTPARK GARAGES: The Portland Bureau of Transportation is asking the City Council for up to $2.7 million to hire more security guards at its four parking garages downtown. They’re currently relying on a temporary contractor, says PBOT spokesman Dylan Rivera, and the results have been less than encouraging. “We want to provide better security than we’ve been seeing in recent months,” Rivera tells WW. There’s been “a surge in crime and public drug use in SmartPark garages,” according to an item on the Aug. 23 council agenda. The money will be used to contract with additional security firms to pick up unfilled shifts. “Incidents, including vehicle break-ins, physical and verbal altercations, drug use, vandalism, and biological waste, pose significant ongoing public health and safety concerns,” the bureau noted in the agenda item. The new spending proposal comes as PBOT struggles to fill its downtown garages in the wake of the pandemic, and a decline in parking revenue has butchered its budget. Earlier this month, it was forced to close its little-used 830-space garage at Southwest 3rd Avenue and Alder Street, a few blocks from the open-air fentanyl market that has been the target of recent police crackdowns.

PROLOGIS LAWYERS UP: Prologis Inc., the company that plans to turn the vacant Kmart on Northeast Sandy Boulevard into a shipping warehouse, has hired a heavy-hitting white-collar lawyer to fight a class action lawsuit over the fire that consumed the building July 19. Local resident Stephen Vandervort sued Prologis over the fire, alleging the company had failed to properly maintain the hulk, creating conditions that led to the blaze. Prologis brought out the big guns, hiring Per Ramfjord, a partner at Stoel Rives who has spent time in court on cases involving the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, and the Endangered Species Act, according to the law firm’s website. And Ramfjord has fresh fire experience. He helped defend PacifiCorp against charges that the utility left power lines on despite warnings of high winds during Labor Day weekend 2020, leading to catastrophic fires when the lines blew down. PacifiCorp lost that case in June, and the jury awarded the named plaintiffs $87 million in damages. Because it’s a class action suit, damages apply to 5,000 survivors of the fire and could cost PacifiCorp billions. Prologis has a long-term lease on the Kmart site. It’s owned by an LLC controlled by Zygmunt Wilf, a real estate developer and owner of the Minnesota Vikings. In a letter to Vandervort’s attorney, Ranfjord said Prologis planned to start tearing down the Kmart on Aug. 28.

NOW STREAMING ON ALL MAJOR PLATFORMS

Organic Famine

A beloved Northwest grocery co-op approaching foreclosure faces dwindling options.

ADDRESS: 2375 NW Thurman St.

YEAR BUILT: 1938

SQUARE FOOTAGE: 7,596

MARKET VALUE: $4.5 million

OWNER: The Real Good Food Store Inc.

HOW LONG IT’S BEEN EMPTY: About 4 months

WHY IT’S EMPTY: The co-op couldn’t pay its bills.

On a recent Friday afternoon, a violinist in jeans stood outside the fenced front door of the shuttered grocery co-op Northwest Food Front playing “Simple Gifts,” the poignant Shaker hymn.

Food Front, the beloved grocery co-op in Slabtown that operated for five decades and was favored by the late science fiction writer

RIDING THE RAP

Amid a budget crunch, TriMet is making major public safety expenditures—as well as tactical changes in how it polices its trains, buses and platforms.

Ursula K. Le Guin, shuttered in April. It was falling behind on its payments to vendors, bank lenders and tax authorities.

Onlookers note an irony. The co-op is surrounded by multimillion-dollar homes owned by retired doctors and lawyers. And yet even a high-earning membership cannot compensate for a flawed investment in a complex industry. It didn’t help that a New Seasons Market opened just blocks away in 2015.

The membership of the co-op and the current board of directors that helps guide business decisions are facing dwindling choices for what to do next.

Last Tuesday evening, the three-member board—Mike Grivas, the president; Roman Shvarts, a tech guru; and Tom Russell, who oversees the finances—sat on stackable chairs facing a small collection of 10 co-op members

The agency has signed a new five-year contract, worth up to $108 million, with a private security company. It has also beefed up prosecutions and begun new overnight “code enforcement missions” at certain stations near homeless shelters, WW has learned.

The changes follow a series of shocking, high-profile crimes on TriMet that have undermined the agency’s efforts to lure back riders after the pandemic.

In January, a 25-year-old man suffering from schizophrenia chewed off a man’s ear on a Gresham MAX platform. Last month, a woman walking past

at a local community center. They walked the members through a menu of unappealing alternatives.

They could try to reopen Food Front, but that would require more loans and likely cost millions—and because Food Front is seen as a risk to any lender, banks would charge skyhigh interest rates. Plus, it’s nearly impossible to make a profit in the grocery industry these days.

They could sell the building, but co-op members fear condos would go up in its place, marring the atmosphere of the surrounding blocks. To prevent condos, they could put a clause in the purchase agreement that barred such a project, but that would significantly reduce the building’s value. They could also sell it and then lease it from the buyer, but that would require paying rent.

They could rent the building to another business—perhaps another grocery that’s already expressed interest—but that would mean it was no longer operated by the community.

“ When we get down to presenting opportunities to you folks,” Grivas said to the fewer than 10 Food Front members that showed up to the Tuesday meeting, “we’re vetting it out to give you a menu of options.”

Russell explained that Food Front currently owes $610,000 to various entities. Each month, the co-op has about $20,000 in regular bills, including utilities and property taxes. The coop has $40,000 in reserves, Russell said—and meager donations from members average $600 a month.

The co-op’s lender, Beneficial Bank, could begin foreclosure proceedings Sept. 30.

“ We’re running out of time and money, and that’s when the sharks will start to swim and swirl,” Grivas said, his notes typed on printer paper.

The current board is keen on getting a bridge loan to avoid foreclosure. It’s a last resort when an entity is in financial duress. A Food Front member offered the co-op a $400,000 loan on favorable terms, but the board explained on Tuesday that it’s not enough. They’d need at least another $200,000. But a hard money loan, the likely alternative, would bring with it a high interest rate.

The membership is set to take a vote on which

the Providence Park MAX platform was knocked unconscious when a man threw a metal water bottle that hit her in the head.

Meanwhile, facing a budget crunch, the agency plans to hike fares 12% beginning next year.

TriMet ridership is down almost 40% from prior to the pandemic. To get them to return, agency officials need to convince riders that public transit is safe.

“ We’re trying to make sure that we get the word out to passengers,” Keith Edwards, a member of the agency’s board of directors, said at its meeting last month. “They’ll have a

option to move forward with—sell the building, lease the building, try to reopen Food Front—in October.

Which brings up another pressing issue: Who, exactly, is the membership?

Shvarts, an eclectic entrepreneur who joined the board just three weeks ago after two board members resigned amid the swirling scenarios for the co-op’s future, said a 20-year-old spreadsheet lists 18,000 contacts. All, ostensibly, Food Front members. But the board knows that’s far from accurate. There are duplicates; Shvarts’ name, for instance, appears on the list three times. There are dead people (perhaps including Le Guin). There are people who haven’t been members for years.

A former board member named Alan made the list. “We need Alan from 2006 to come tell us what he did,” Shvarts said. (Shvarts tells WW he finally got in touch with Alan and is seeking his help.)

The board hired a grocery consultant. It’s also hired a governance lawyer who advises board members how to abide by the co-op’s bylaws throughout the process, especially since those bylaws don’t address what happens should the co-op fail. They may have to take out ads in local newspapers to find members, Grivas said.

As the deadline for the larger issue of finances approaches, smaller issues crop up. Chronic graffiti sprawls across the co-op’s windows. For a time, an unknown benefactor wiped it away during the night. But an especially large graffiti display installed last week is too much for a good Samaritan to tackle with a bucket of soapy water.

The inside of the building needs cleanup, but the co-op canceled its garbage service recently to pinch pennies, so a member will have to take a load of trash to the dump. “Our No. 1 priority is to keep the building,” Grivas assured members last Tuesday. “We’re not going to sacrifice that.” SOPHIE PEEL.

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

better feeling of safety when they’re riding on TriMet.”

TriMet has traditionally borrowed cops from neighboring law enforcement agencies to police its network. But right now, there’s none to spare. The transit agency has the budget for 65 cops, but has filled less than a third of those positions.

That’s a problem, TriMet director of safety Andrew Wilson told the board. “Increased law enforcement abilities and increased prosecution, in some cases, are really the best tools we have.” So, lacking cops, the agency is bringing on more prosecutors and unarmed secu-

rity guards.

The agency’s board voted last month to pay for an additional prosecutor from the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office to focus on TriMet crimes, as well as a pair of investigators.

And, it’s expanding a pilot program begun in 2021 that hires unarmed security guards to discourage criminal activity and connect riders in crisis to social services. The team began with eight members and, with the new influx of funding, can now grow to almost 250.

Strategies are shifting too. The agency began three-night-aweek missions by fare inspec-

STILL HERE: A violinist plays a Shaker hymn outside the shuttered Food Front grocery co-op.

CHASING

MAPPED

Hoping to assuage rider fears, TriMet amps up policing at certain transit stations.

DEGRADED ASSET

Grant Bowl

BY ANTHONY EFFINGER aeffinger@wweek.com

Just days before Grant High School’s sports teams were scheduled to start fall training, they got bad news: Some of them wouldn’t have a field to practice on.

“Dear Grant community,” principal James McGee wrote Aug. 16. “I write with some disappointing news: we will not be able to use the Grant Bowl for our fall sports. Last Thursday, the field failed a critical impact safety test.…I know many will be frustrated by this news, but we also cannot risk a possible injury to any of our student athletes.”

The field, made of artificial turf, was too hard because the crumbs of recycled tires that pad the playing surface had compacted. Getting tackled on it could cause a head injury.

Now, student teams are hustling to find other venues. The football team will play home games at the old Marshall High School, 6 miles away. Women’s soccer will schlep to Delta Park, also 6 miles. Practice schedules are up in the air.

Parents say they understand that things go wrong and fields need repair—this one is 10 years old, which is about how long a recycled rubber field lasts. What they don’t understand is why they have to scramble. Unlike most other school fields, Grant’s is owned and maintained by Portland Parks & Recreation, not Portland Public Schools. Why, parents ask, are they only hearing about this now?

tors and TriMet police officers targeting certain MAX stations from midnight to 4 am, TriMet spokeswoman Tia York confirms to WW. They check fares and enforce the agency’s code of

SOME OF THE LOCATIONS OF RECENT LATE-NIGHT TRIMET ENFORCEMENT MISSIONS

1. Goose Hollow/SW Jefferson St MAX Station

2. Rose Quarter Transit Center

3. E 102nd Ave MAX Station

GRANT BOWL

Address: 3301-3499 NE

US Grant Place

Owner: Portland Parks & Recreation

Year refurbished: 2013

Cost of improvements: $1.7 million

“ We found out the day before our official practices started,” says Stephanie Antipov, president of Friends of Grant Football, the team’s booster club. Her son, a sophomore, plays cornerback on the varsity squad. “It caught us all off guard.”

Local politicians are pissed off, too. “It’s extremely disappointing to get this news with no time to course correct,” says Portland School Board member Julia Brim-Edwards, who was elected to the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners last May.

The literal turf battle is the latest in a long war over Grant’s athletic fields. In a remodel of the school that began in 2017, the district planned to build a new turf field for the men’s baseball team and have the women’s softball team practice on the dirt at Wilshire Park. Softball coach

conduct, she says.

The locations were chosen

“to be near service providers,” but the missions don’t target unhoused riders, York adds.

“This is in response to chal-

Funders: - Ndamukong Suh ($250,000), - Nike ($350,000), - Friends of Grant Athletics ($317,000), - Portland Public Schools

McGair and others say PPS must be given control of Grant Bowl because PP&R bungled the maintenance so badly. Parents spent years raising money to build the new field and track. The parks bureau kicked in just $400,000 of the $1.7 million budget, even though it owns the property. The city was supposed to be the steward of the field, but the bureau didn’t plan for a replacement after about 10 years, the lifespan of these things, McGair says.

Records first obtained by The Oregonian show the parks bureau has been testing the turf since November, when it got a failing grade from an independent contractor. Attempts to fix it didn’t work; the field failed again in May.

Parks spokesman Mark Ross says the bureau has been in “constant communication” with PPS about the problem, but didn’t notify Commissioner Dan Ryan, who oversees the parks, because “the bureau hoped the commissioner’s involvement wouldn’t be necessary.”

($392,000), - Portland Parks & Recreation ($400,000)

Lifespan of new turf on field: 8 to 10 years

Debbie Engelstad had to sue Portland Public Schools to get the district to build a new field for her team.

A fight with neighbors over stray light and noise has kept the school from installing lights and stands at Grant Bowl, making it the only school of its size in the state where games must be played in daylight and spectators sit on dirt berms that surround the field.

Almost everyone agrees on a solution to the latest setback: Portland Parks & Recreation should turn the field over to PPS. Kim McGair, parent of a senior on the women’s soccer team, helped start the Grant Bowl Community Coalition. The group polled parents about solutions for the aging bowl and received more than 1,000 responses. Some 99% favor the school district taking ownership or signing a long-term lease.

lenges we’ve had with people who are misusing our transit system and refusing to get off vehicles at the end of the lines and, at times, have harassed and/or threatened our opera-

In an Aug. 12 release announcing the closure, the bureau blamed budget shortfalls, noting it had a $600 million maintenance backlog and that one in five park facilities would fail in the next 15 years without more money. As WW reported last month, the city has expanded its parklands despite lacking the funds to maintain current facilities (“Grand Canyon,” July 12).

Now the results of that gap are hitting the people least likely to quietly acquiesce: sports parents.

On Monday, the bureau put out a three-paragraph description of its repair plan, and it appeased no one. Commissioner Ryan and School Board chair Gary Hollands said they had committed to replacing the artificial turf field in time for fall sports in—wait for it—2024. In the meantime, the parks bureau and PPS would work together to find fields for Grant’s athletes. Antipov, parent of the cornerback, says she wants more details. Where is the funding coming from? Will PPS get a long-term lease on the field? Only two portions of the field are too hard, she says. Has the parks bureau looked into softening those up for this year?

“I think the community is owed actual answers,” she says. “This looks like a tactic to make the community believe the problem is solved when in reality it isn’t.”

tors, cleaning staff and contract security personnel or damaged our equipment.”

And it’s not just Portlanders who are commenting on the new security at TriMet.

“ The nation has taken note,” TriMet board president Ozzie Gonzalez says. “Other agencies are watching the work TriMet is doing right now.”

LUCAS MANFIELD.

Source: TriMet

A high school field made of recycled rubber is deemed too dangerous for football practice.

JORDAN HUNDELT

IF YOU BUILD IT: Rubber crumbs in the artificial turf at Grant High have become compacted, increasing the risk of head injuries.

Fade Away

Cannabis giant Chalice is hemorrhaging value, and could escape its creditors.

BY SOPHIE PEEL speel@wweek.com

Want to measure just how far the Oregon cannabis industry has fallen? Consider the fate of publicly traded Canadian company Chalice Brands.

The company, which until recently traded on the Canadian Securities Exchange, holds most of its assets in Oregon, including licenses for 16 dispensaries, of which 10 are currently operational. In December 2018, its market cap was $7.6 billion. Today, the stock is worthless.

In May, Chalice Brands sued its Oregon subsidiary companies in Oregon Circuit Court and entered into receivership—essentially appointing a financial babysitter to guide the company to a peaceful death.

The aim: to sell the company for as much as it can get, repay as many of its creditors as possible, and exit the state with little fanfare.

WW reported earlier this year that Chalice owed tens of thousands of dollars to small Oregon cannabis farms. Chalice’s entrance into receivership leaves those farms—and other small cannabis businesses—with little recourse to recover the money they’re owed.

What’s more, just last week the receiver presented a sale agreement to the judge. The bid: $3 million for nearly all of Chalice’s assets. That price, for 22 Oregon cannabis licenses, struck some in the industry as a terrifying omen—and others as a sweetheart deal.

The bidder? A Delaware LLC whose members include William Simpson, the founder of Chalice and an adviser to its board, and Gary Zipfel, a Chalice board member. Both are major shareholders in the company, according to recent company statements.

Creditors who believe Chalice owes them money are now inside a two-week window in which they can ask the judge to reject the purchase. The judge will then rule on the sale. If it goes through, the $3 million would go toward paying the receiver, attorneys, taxes and any other secured debts it could cover. Chalice’s remaining debts would be wiped out.

Chalice declined to answer WW’s questions, including how much it believes it owes in total to creditors. “Given the court has yet to approve the transaction,” says Scott Secord, the company’s chief restructuring officer, “we don’t feel it is appropriate to make any comment.”

Bobsled Extracts, a processing company, is owed more than $400,000 by Chalice for a processing machine it purchased in 2021, according to its CEO, Stephen Sweeney. He’s outraged at the proposed sale.

“ You’re giving the entire pie back to board members, debt free?” Sweeney says. “I am absolutely going to fight this.”

Eight years ago, Chalice was one of Oregon’s biggest cannabis success stories. Its founder, Simpson, was a young, handsome businessman from West Linn who said cannabis had helped him escape a potentially dark path of prescription pill abuse.

In 2017, Simpson sold the company to the publicly traded, Canadian-based cannabis company Golden Leaf for $19 million and 83 million shares in the company. The company renamed itself Chalice Brands in 2021. While its headquarters are technically in Toronto, nearly all of its operations are still run from its Portland offices.

Chalice continued to purchase brands and

dispensaries in 2020 and 2021, aided by a pandemic-year boost in cannabis sales. But cracks started to show in May 2022 when the Canadian Securities Exchange suspended Chalice from trading because it hadn’t filed its quarterly financials.

Then, last fall, a number of Chalice’s planned acquisitions fell through. Turnover in Chalice management and on its board of directors was constant.

When Chalice finally decided to throw in the towel this spring, its May court filings in Oregon Circuit Court laid out a desperate situation: Chalice Brands owed an undisclosed—but very large—amount of money to cannabis companies it had purchased product from, landlords, investors, companies from which it had pur-

States.

Only a number of Chalice’s creditors are secured lenders, meaning under normal circumstances they have material collateral they can seize if Chalice fails to pay. The smaller farms that are owed money are unsecured creditors— they have little recourse to recoup what’s owed to them.

Now that Chalice is under a receivership, all efforts to go after Chalice for unpaid bills are frozen.

Cannabis lawyer Matt Goldberg, whose law firm colleagues represent one of the few secured creditors in the case, says receivership is a cannabis company’s closest option to a bankruptcy, which it’s ineligible to declare because cannabis is still federally illegal.

“It’s the only viable alternative,” Goldberg says. “If there’s no receivership, everyone continues to go after what they’re owed. With a receivership, all of that gets put on hold. It’s supposed to be a more civilized, rational way of making sure that creditors get paid.”

But Goldberg says that rarely happens: “The unsecured creditors get nothing. The shareholders get nothing.”

Chalice has plenty of unsecured creditors

A small Oregon processing company, which asked to remain unnamed, provided outstanding invoices for products Chalice purchased last year that amounted to more than $13,000. It’s one of Chalice’s unsecured creditors.

Bobsled Extracts sold an extraction machine to Chalice in 2021 for $315,000. The agreement: Chalice would pay a little over $8,000 a month.

But a year ago, Bobsled CEO Stephen Sweeney says, Chalice fell behind on its payments.

Wyld, an edible maker, is also owed money. Its in-house lawyer, Gabe Parton Lee, declined to specify how much the firm is owed, but said it’s “a lot more money than we’d like to lose.”

Creditors now have a two-week window in which they can ask the judge to reject the sale. That window opened earlier this month when the receiver, Kenneth Eiler, filed a motion with the court to approve a bid from a Delaware LLC named APCO for $3 million.

A purchase agreement included in court filings reveals who’s behind the bid by APCO: Simpson and Zipfel.

Sweeney of Bobsled—one of the last remaining secured creditors that hasn’t agreed to settle with Chalice—says he plans to fight the sale to APCO.

“I am absolutely going to fight this. I’m going to go full-on lawsuit,” Sweeney says. “And I’m probably going to lose.”

chased dispensaries, and tax authorities.

Chalice’s CEO at the time, Jeff Yapp, told WW that the receivership was necessary to “give it time to restructure and clean up its balance sheet, and potentially find parties to buy it.” Much of the money Chalice Brands borrowed to fund its Oregon operations—upwards of $35 million that the parent company claims its Oregon subsidiaries still owe, according to receivership documents—is due to institutional lenders and investors in Canada and the United

Based on August court filings, it would appear Chalice has whittled down the resolve of at least two secured creditors to oppose the sale. (The receiver is fighting the “validity” of a number of other claims—including Bobsled’s, according to filings.) One is Acreage Holdings, which sold its Cannabliss dispensaries to Chalice in 2021 for $6.5 million. The other is Homegrown, a company that Chalice bought four dispensaries from in 2021 and to whom it still owes $1.8 million.

Eiler wrote in Aug. 11 filings that he had reached “tentative agreements” with Acreage and Homegrown to be paid $150,000 apiece if they didn’t oppose the sale to APCO—pennies on the dollar of what they’re actually owed.

Simpson, in a text to WW, says he’s “excited to watch the legal process move forward” and is “hopeful to start working with all the amazing Oregon brands we know and love.” He now lives in Hawaii; Zipfel lives in Illinois.

BELLY UP: Chalice currently operates 10 Oregon dispensaries but threw in the towel earlier this year.

BLAKE BENARD

“You’re giving the entire pie back to board members, debt free?”

WAKE UP TO WHAT MATTERS IN PORTLAND.

HOTSEAT: Willie Levenson

Portland’s fiercest advocate for swimming in the Willamette River is declaring war on algae.

BY AARON MESH amesh@wweek.com

Last week, as scorching temperatures sent Portlanders searching for a swimming hole, the Willamette River turned a shade of neon green usually associated with the trim on Seattle Seahawks jerseys. That color was a warning: It signaled a toxic algae bloom, some of which started in Ross Island Lagoon. The flare-up of cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, made a dip in the river hazardous for people and potentially deadly for dogs.

For Willie Levenson, the algae bloom was especially wrenching. But it wasn’t surprising. The problem has been his priority for years.

Levenson, 53, is probably the person most associated with swimming in the Willamette. As Ringleader of the nonprofit Human Access Project, he launched and oversaw the Big Float, an annual summer tubing event intended to build Portland’s trust that it was safe to go back in the water.

But Levenson declared the 2022 Big Float would be his last. Few people knew it at the time, but he’d decided to turn his energy to finding a way to reduce toxic algae blooms in Ross Island Lagoon.

“Going around on tours on the Willamette this past week, seeing it just looking like a ghost town, it was eerie and sad,” Levenson tells WW. “That’s not the city I want to live in. I don’t want to live in a city where I’m afraid to bring my dog to the river.”

The lagoon, located at mile 15.4 of the river, was carved over decades by Ross Island Sand & Gravel, a subsidiary of the business empire overseen by textile and newspaper magnate Robert Pamplin Jr. (“Trader Bob,” WW, Feb. 23, 2022). Because the longtime gravel pit has just one outlet to the river, water that enters the lagoon stagnates—and when the temperature rises, it’s an incubator for algae. “The Ross Island Lagoon is a pond inside of a river,” Levenson says. “It’s a harmful algae bloom factory.”

A representative of R.B. Pamplin Corp. did not respond to a request for comment on this story.

When an algae bloom in July 2015 threatened to cancel the Big Float, Levenson took notice. In 2017, he started working with Dr. Desirée Tullos, a professor of water resources engineering at Oregon State University, on a plan to fix the lagoon. The solution they propose is neither novel nor difficult to grasp: Ross Island Lagoon needs a flushing channel, so river water flowing in can also flow out.

This week, Levenson dropped by WW ’s offices to talk about why executing that idea isn’t as easy as it sounds, how algae became the biggest barrier to public use of the Willamette, and what responsibility Pamplin has to the river. The interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

WW : HOW COMMON ARE THESE ALGAE BLOOMS?

Willie Levenson: Every year there’s an algae bloom in the Ross Island Lagoon. It’s just a matter of whether it gets exacerbated enough so that it leaves the lagoon. It’s probably been happening for the last 15 years or so. It just came to our attention in 2015.

HOW DID THIS GET ON YOUR RADAR?

I probably never would’ve started Human Access Project if I knew I was going to become an algae warrior. In 2015, we’re getting ready to do the Big Float. The lagoon turns green. It’s starting to migrate through the Holgate Channel. I get contacted by the state Department of Environmental Quality and Oregon Health Authority. You can get a sample of river water and ship it to the Midwest and they’ll tell you whether it’s toxic or not. We paid for it to be done, shipped to the Midwest, turned out was negative, and fortunately we were able to go on with the Big Float.

ARE THESE BLOOMS THE REASON YOU’VE TRANSITIONED FROM THE BIG FLOAT INTO THIS WORK?

Correct. In 2018, I started having this existential problem with doing the Big Float. I reached out to my board and told them: “We’re turning into a harmful algae bloom mitigation organization.” Our mission is transforming Portland’s relationship with the Willamette River. If we don’t solve the harmful algae bloom problem, all of this work that we’ve done is frivolous. It’s an environmental issue, but it’s also a psychological issue.

BECAUSE

IF YOU HEAR THAT THE WILLAMETTE

RIVER

IS FILLED WITH TOXIC

BLUE-GREEN ALGAE— You lose hope. It doesn’t matter what cause you’re working on, if

HOW GREEN WAS MY RIVER: A harmful algae bloom spreads out of Ross Island Lagoon on Aug. 16.

you lose the hope of the public, the battle’s over. I think of the broken window theory. You throw the first baseball through the window, you don’t fix it. And then another one goes through the window and it’s covered with graffiti. As climate change happens, and a lot of this stuff makes you want to curl into a ball and cry, all of a sudden the river turns green? We will lose the hope of the public.

But this is absolutely a solvable problem. And I’m hopeful that when we do solve it, it’ll give people hope that, as we address future climate change surprises, that humans may have some capacity to solve these problems.

WHAT’S THE BEST SOLUTION?

The best solution appears to be putting a channel through the lagoon. So, in 1926, Ross Island was four separate islands with a

flow in between. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers put in an earthen dam connecting the islands in 1926, effectively creating a lagoon, cutting off the water circulation. It seems fairly obvious, but we’re just basically looking to reintroduce circulation between the islands.

HOW MUCH WOULD THAT COST?

I have no clue. We’re going to find out. That’s what 30% cost engineering is going to do.

PART OF ME THINKS A DECENT-SIZED EXPLOSIVE COULD TAKE CARE OF THE PROBLEM FAIRLY EASILY.

I’ve heard people say that. Part of the complication is that Ross Island accepted materials from Portland Harbor that turned out to be contaminated. There’s two buried CAD cells, which is basically buried toxic stuff inside. The good news is, there is room between the cells to put this channel, but it does complicate things.

HOW OPEN HAS ROSS ISLAND SAND & GRAVEL BEEN TO YOUR RESEARCH?

The company has been very supportive. But what I would say is that Ross Island Sand & Gravel is owned by Dr. Robert Pamplin. Ross Island Sand & Gravel shaped the ecology of the lagoon. Dr. Pamplin’s legacy will either be the person who saved the ecology of the lower Willamette, or the person who destroyed it.

Our team would love to be able to visit with Dr. Pamplin to this point. We’ve had trouble meeting with him.

ARE YOU DONE WITH THE BIG FLOAT? WILL WE EVER SEE IT AGAIN?

In terms of my own personal capacity, I just realized we’ve got bigger fish to fry. But we are looking to bring it back next year. We’re exploring it with another nonprofit to take it over, whom it’s too early to name. I think there’s a very good chance it’s going to come back next year.

The first year that we did the Big Float, 99% of Portland thought I was nuts. The idea of swimming the river was crazy. We’ve normalized it. The Big Float, to me, was a movement disguised as a party. And 13 years later, what’s cool is that there’s clearly a stronger relationship, so people are feeling pain from this loss of the river.

My guide star with Human Access Project is Jacques Cousteau’s quote: “People protect what they love.” This sense of loss is that feeling of love for this river.

“Dr. Pamplin’s legacy will either be the person who saved the ecology of the lower Willamette, or the person who destroyed it.”

—Willie Levenson

Get Some Class This fall, even grown-ups can go back to school.

BY RACHEL PINSKY rachelpinsky@gmail.com

ILLUSTRATED BY MCKENZIE YOUNG-ROY @mckenzieyoungart

Lunch boxes are pulled down from cupboards. School buses circle the block. This week, the kids head back to class.

Be honest: Don’t you envy them a little?

Nobody knows it at the time, but there’s a thrill to school that workaday life can never match. Education is the opening of possibilities—it’s seeing what path your life could take, and getting the tools to walk it. Maybe that’s why the change of weather each fall carries such a pang. It reminds you of all the things you could have learned.

Well, stop sulking! You, a tired, stressed adult, can set foot on campus this semester and crack those books. Portland is brimming with affordable, accessible classes on autumn weekends and mornings.

Yeah, it’s night school. But it’s a lot more. In our search for the best of Portland’s adult education courses, we found programs designed by accredited colleges and local businesses to help you advance professionally, start a new business, or explore imaginary worlds. A few cost more than a thousand dollars. Most are much less expensive. Some are free.

The mother lode can be found at Portland Community College, which offers hundreds of noncredit and continuing education classes online and in person in five metro-area counties. PCC’s classes cover a vast array: hip-hop dancing, managing financial investments, artisan bread baking, metalworking jewelry, and Japanese language.

Toss in the courses offered by other institutions public and private, and it wasn’t easy to whittle our picks down to a dozen. So we added a sidebar of other interesting possibilities on page 19.

It’s a reflection of Portland’s DIY tendencies that so many of the classes offer assistance with home projects: gardening, sewing, even beekeeping. And it’s no surprise that local colleges seek to help Portlanders take the next step in their careers (by, say, getting their recipe on a grocery shelf). But it’s also possible to study Ursula K. Le Guin, Humphrey Bogart and the teachings of the Dalai Lama.

This author can vouch for some of the classes personally, having taken a film class with Elliot Lavine and cocktail classes at Straightaway. In the process of researching this story, I ended up registering for Sally Dubats’ nine-week tarot card class. (It’s good professional development: When I’m not writing articles, my other job is reading tarot cards.) When Dubats said the cards were part of a dream language, something in my mind switched on. Isn’t that the whole point of continuing education?

Here’s some classes to open the mind to new ways of thinking and dreaming and being in this world.

Replace Your Lawn With Native Plants

Lawn Be Gone! What Now? Oregon State University Extension Service at PCC Rock Creek, 17705 NW Springville Road, Bldg. 4, Room 103, extension.oregonstate.edu. 9 am Saturday, Sept 9. Free.

So your grass is dead and you’re secretly glad. But your garden gnome looks lonely, and your neighbors are giving you the stink eye. Consider this an opportunity: You can junk the lawn and replace it with trees, shrubs, clover, or a mix of these drought-tolerant plants.

That’s the advice of OSU Master Gardener volunteers Lisa Barnhart and Susan Albright, who for two hours on a Saturday morning will explain the logistics of transforming your lawn from a lifeless monoculture into a thriving environment with plants that are beneficial for pollinators, birds and passing critters.

Barnhart and Albright have credentials as long as a creeping vine; Albright contributes to the Xerces Society’s Pacific Northwest Bumble Bee Atlas, so she has a pretty good idea of what pollinators want.

“This class will focus on sustainability in our changing environment,” Albright says. As the climate changes, “water use is going to be important. People need to start thinking differently about what their lawns and gardens are for.”

Receive a Little Enlightenment

Tibetan Buddhist Community Programming, Maitripa College, 1119 SE Market St., maitripa.org. 11 am Sundays starting Sept. 3. By donation only.

In 2000, a group of students from all over the world gathered at the Tushita Meditation Cen tre in Dharamsala, India. They would spend two months receiving daily lessons in Tibet an Buddhism and meditation practice led by Yangsi Rinpoche, a tulku from Tibet. Among the acolytes: a newly ordained 24-year-old Buddhist nun from Portland named Namdrol Miranda Adams.

Five years later, Adams and Yangsi Rinpoche founded Maitripa College in Southeast Portland, a short walk south from the Cartopia food cart pod. In 2007, the school received legal authority from the state of Oregon to offer graduate degrees in Buddhist studies. That means the courses are available for college credit—and it’s a step toward becoming an accredited university.

All this is prologue to the point: You can study Tibetan Buddhism at a divinity school a stone’s throw from the Jolly Roger on Hawthorne. And you don’t have to pay full tuition: Maitripa offers community programming, which means curious locals are welcome to attend.

“The main thing is to not be intimidated. Come with a relaxed and open mind and feel free to ask questions,” Adams says. Community programming events are by donation only; there’s no set fee to join.

A good starting point is the “Loving Kindness and Compassion” classes taught by Yangsi Rinpoche every Sunday at 11 am. At these gatherings, Yangsi Rinpoche, whose tulku status means he is considered the reincarnated custodian of generations of wisdom, shares teachings from The Thirty-Seven Practices of Bodhisattvas, a practical guide for those seeking the path to enlightenment. Not bad for 90 minutes a week.

Start a Bee Colony

Backyard Beekeeping, Portland Community College, pcc.edu/ community. 6 pm Friday and 2 pm Saturday, Sept. 29-30. $65.

Glen Andresen has been keeping bees in his Northeast Portland backyard since 1992—and in other people’s yards since 2002. He’s built a network of neighborhood beehives across the city. Last year, the city bees at his apiary, Bridgetown Bees, produced 3,600 pounds of honey, some of which he sold at Alberta Coop. Pip’s Original Doughnuts uses Bridgetown Bees honey for its sea salt and honey doughnuts and to sweeten its chai.

Andresen got into bees when a friend in his 70s wanted to get out of beekeeping. He asked if Andresen wanted to take his hives. “It took me about five minutes to decide,” Andresen says, “and it changed the course of my life.”

He can change yours, too. This two-part beginners class starts in the classroom and then moves to the Bridgetown Bees apiary (that’s a collection of beehives). Andresen teaches the basics of beekeeping, including where to find the equipment and the bees, what to do inside the hive, and organic treatment options for mites. Students don’t need any prior knowledge; all equipment and materials are provided.

Andresen cautions that someone occasionally gets stung during class, but that’s rare. They might as well get used to it: People who set up and maintain beehives will likely get stung in the pursuit. “If you have a sensitivity to bee stings,” Andresen says, “you may want to take up something safer, like skydiving.”

Explore Other Worlds

Speculative Fiction, Pacific Northwest College of Art, 511 NW Broadway, pnca.edu. 1 pm Saturdays, Sept. 9-Oct. 28. $400.

What do the handmaids of Margaret Atwood, the sorcerers of Ursula Le Guin and the apocalypse survivors of Octavia Butler have in common? They’re experiments with the parameters of reality—they imagine a world a little like our own, but with key changes.

In Kate McCallum’s course at PNCA, students read key works of speculative fiction—Atwood and Le Guin, but also Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein—and use prompts to create their own. These prompts are simple but radical scenarios, like “change one event in world history, large or small, and tell a story in that world,” or “a scientist is sent to investigate the site of a disaster and finds that it is inhabited by a strange new entity.”

McCallum is currently writing her own novel of speculative fiction and finds the prompts helpful. “Every time I write something completely weird from a prompt, it turns out to be completely useful,” McCallum says.

Topics include monsters and menace, dystopias, utopias, al-

ternate histories, leaving our planet, and time travel. McCallum wants students to know that this type of fiction doesn’t have to be all doom and gloom. After all, the startling prompts in our own reality are bleak enough. “We can also use [speculative fiction] to imagine hopeful futures in a changed environment,” McCallum says. “These changes in the environment are very real—as we’ve seen this summer.”

Watch the Original Scarface

Great American Crime Films: From Scarface to Reservoir Dogs, Stanford Continuing Studies, continuingstudies.stanford.edu. 7-8:50 pm Wednesdays, Sept. 27-Dec. 6. Live online, $490.

What’s a Stanford University class doing on this list? Its instructor, Elliott Lavine, is the film programmer at Cinema 21 in Portland where he hosts a popular Saturday-morning film series. Think of this Stanford course as Crime Film 102 for moviegoers

who enjoyed Badlands at the art house this spring.

“All my classes deal with genre films,” Lavine says. “They may not seem intellectual because they’re mostly B films, but to me they’re the most interesting. Crime films are among my favorites. They bring out the most interesting observations when shown in a class.”

The course focuses on memorable performances by icons like Humphrey Bogart, Robert Mitchum and Christopher Walken, as well as work by influential directors like Howard Hawks, Raoul Walsh and Quentin Tarantino. Lavine is most excited to show the Howard Hawks original 1932 version of Scarface starring Paul Muni. “It’s largely unseen by most people,” he says, and there’s plenty to see: It’s one of the most sexually explicit and violent movies before Hollywood’s self-censorship under the Production Code. (“And that’s saying a lot,” Lavine adds.)

He’s also looking forward to screening Abel Ferrara’s 1990 film The King of New York because it upended viewers’ perception of what makes a “good guy” and a “bad guy,” and it’s one of the most strikingly filmed crime pictures of the 20th century, with eye-popping visual design.

Master Some

Rope Tricks

Tied Up, Now What: Intro to Rope Bondage and Beyond, presented by She Bop, sheboptheshop.com. 1 pm Sunday, Oct. 15. Live online, $30-$50.

So you’ve decided to add a little kink to the bedroom. Good. But do you know how to tie a knot?

There’s no need to wait until sailors return for the next Fleet Week, not when intimacy educator and sex coach Stella Harris is teaching a three-hour rope bondage class on Zoom.

Rope, unlike other types of restraints, offers a variety of options. It can be used to create various sexual positions or to set an entire scene around binding and unbinding in many ways from slow and sensual to an aggressive display of dominance. This introductory class is for people who have never touched a rope. Students can attend with a partner or practice on themselves, a chair, or a teddy bear. (Harris’s 30-page e-book with full color photos is included with the class fee.)

“You don’t have to consider yourself to be kinky or into BDSM,” Harris says. “The way I do it is silly and playful. It’s just a fun activity like a wine and painting night or a knitting club.”

This is the first time Harris has combined her beginning and intermediate classes. Part one provides basic safety information along with tying single-column and double-column knots. Part two is a series of exercises that allow tying partners to focus on each other while learning more advanced ties like a chest harness. Students should bring an open mind and bondage-appropriate rope. “It’s not hardware store rope or the stuff you use to tie something to your truck,” Harris says. Bondage-specific rope is sold at She Bop in a variety of lengths and materials.

Bottle and Sell Your Grandma’s Secret Recipe

Getting Your Recipe to Market, Portland Community College, pcc.edu/community. 5-8 pm Tuesdays, Sept. 19-Dec. 5. Live online, $1,995.

Since 2006, New Seasons Market has worked with two academic institutions—PCC’s Small Business Center and OSU’s Food Innovation Center—to help home cooks get their concoctions on grocery shelves.

“Friends and family send us a lot of business,” says instructor Jill A. Beaman. “Yes, your friends and family love it, but now what?”

Beaman has taught the class for 17 years. Among her graduates: Better Bean Company (which sells chilled refried beans in the refrigerated aisle), Brazi Bites (Brazilian cheese bread and empanadas), and Kember’s Gluten Free (doughs and baking mixes). The class gave them a road map to transform their recipe to a commercially ready prototype.

A buyer from New Seasons Market reviews each student’s project and provides feedback. And Beaman troubleshoots the hurdles new food business owners commonly face, including tallying the cost of scaling up production, finding commercial kitchens, and labeling products to the satisfaction of state and federal regulators. The program is also geared toward helping cooks find their customers: PCC’s Small Business Development Center has a Global Trade Center that can spot markets all over the world.

The 12-week course is just the start. “Our most successful entrepreneurs are those that stay in touch and continue to work with us,” Beaman says.

Learn Ethiopian Cooking

Ethiopian Cuisine, Portland Community College, pcc. edu/community. Various dates and times. Live online, $49.

Eleni Woldeyes grew up in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where the aromas of simmering spices and freshly made injera filled her home. In 2012, she founded a company, Eleni’s Kitchen, catering stews and salads while selling jars of turmeric sauce and spices like berbere and mitmita at farmers markets in Milwaukie and Beaverton.

In the fall semester, Woldeyes offers three remote classes on Ethiopian cooking through PCC: One spotlights lentils, another veggies, and the third combines doro wat and veggies. (Doro wat is a slow-cooked Ethiopian stew made for special occasions and family gatherings.)

“Ethiopian cooking uses spice blends,” Woldeyes says, “[so] getting the right kind of blends is key to making a good Ethiopian dish.” That’s not a problem at PCC: Before the class, Woldeyes sends recipes and mails Ethiopian spices to each student.

Each one-hour, 20-minute class is designed for students to cook along with Woldeyes: She teaches about Ethiopian culinary culture and history while students cook with her in their home kitchens. “Students get to have hands-on experience cooking Ethiopian food using their own cooking materials that they are used to. That gives them the confidence that they will be able to re-create the dish again,” Woldeyes says.

The doro wat and veggies class comes with a bonus lesson: how to make injera, the spongelike flatbread that scoops and soaks up those flavorful stews.

Stir the Ultimate Negroni

Craft Mixology: Negroni Cocktails, Straightaway Cocktails, 901 SE Hawthorne Blvd., straightawaycocktails.com. 5:30 pm Wednesday, Sept. 20. $85.

The Negroni dates back 100 years. Jody Weinstein has been mixing them for 20.

The Italian cocktail, made with a core spirit, vermouth, and a bittersweet-style liqueur, is the world’s most popular—it reached No. 1 on the 2022 list of bestsellers compiled by Drinks International. What better way to celebrate National Negroni Week (it’s Sept. 18-24, in case you forgot) than to learn how to stir your own?

After years mixing cocktails for their friends and family, Casey Richwine and Cy Cain founded the company Straightaway Cocktails to supply the ingredients for home mixology. Straightaway has tasting rooms in Southeast Portland and Bridgeport Village where customers can order flights of cocktails featuring their liqueurs and vermouths.

Both locations also offer classes with drinks created by Weinstein. “I want the classes to be approachable so that everyone can enjoy drinking, making, and learning about cocktails,” she says. There are accessible ways for anyone to make something creative and beautiful.”

During the two hour mixology classes at Straightaway’s Southeast Hawthorne tasting room, students learn professional techniques and methods by preparing four cocktails. (Recipe cards

are placed at each workstation so students can replicate the cocktails at home.)

As for which four Negronis you’ll master: That’s a surprise, since Weinstein is still experimenting with the menu.

Sew a Custom Garment

Private sewing classes at Modern Domestic, 422 NE Alberta St.; 17660 63rd Ave., Lake Oswego; moderndomesticpdx.com/private-lessons. $150 for two hours one-on-one, $200 for two hours with two students and one teacher; group rates available subject to length of lesson and number of students.

Amy Karol has seen just about every sewing challenge imaginable. She’s worked with drag queens creating dresses for their shows, teenagers altering thrifted streetwear, men interested in creating more gender-fluid garments, and a woman who recently had a single mastectomy and wanted to alter garments and create lingerie to fit her new body. “She got teared up when we finished making clothes to fit her,” Karol says. “It was a very special moment.”

Karol is one of the instructors who teaches group and private classes at Modern Domestic, which opened in 2010 as a sewing studio and classroom space on Northeast Alberta Street. Over the past decade, the business expanded into dealing Bernina sewing machines, fabric, and thread, and opened a second location in Lake Oswego.

The Alberta Street and Lake Oswego locations offer private lessons for students to work on projects from garment making and alterations to quilting and accessories. A list of teachers can be found on the website with their bios and areas of expertise. Classes are scheduled by contacting the teacher to set up a date and time. Students can use Modern Domestic’s sewing machines, cutting tools, and go-to tools during their sewing lesson—and get a 10% discount on products at the shop on the day of their private lesson.

Interpret Tarot Cards Like Dreams

Arboretum, 4000 SW Fairview Blvd., wildfoodadventures.com/workshops. 9 am-noon Saturday, Sept. 23. $30-$60.

In the mid-1970s, John Kallas spent six months wandering through Europe and visiting with people he met along his journey. When he ate dinner at their homes, he noticed they ate food foraged from their neighborhoods. “All over the world, there’s a well-established cultural tradition of eating wild plants,” Kallas says. e returned to his home state of Michigan and began teaching a wild foods class at Michigan State University. Kallas moved to Oregon in 1989 where he continued teaching wild foods classes at Portland State University and Clackamas Community College, and founded his own school: Wild Food Adventures.

In this three-hour, in-person class, students will follow Kallas through Hoyt Arboretum, going from plant to plant to learn history, uses and identification. If there’s an edible part in its prime, the class will sample it. “Every plant has its moment,” Kallas says. “Four years ago, I could predict when plants would be maturing, but now it’s crazy due to climate change.”

This class focuses on wild fruits and edible plants from Northwest forests and fields, including blackberry, wild grape, and crab apples. But Kallas offers roughly 24 wild food workshops and two multiday events from March through October.

Keep Learning

A dozen more classes, quickly surveyed.

Make Cheese

Urban Cheese Craft, urbancheesecraft.com. Dates and tuition vary.

Claudia Lucero offers in-person courses at local wineries, teaching private groups how to make mozzarella, burrata and string cheese.

Sell a Puffer Vest Athletic and Outdoor Product Management Certificate Program, Portland State University Center for Executive and Professional Education, pdx.edu/professional-education. $2,495. Learn how to take a sportswear line from design to market (think: Nike for beginners).

Reduce Your Neighborhood’s Light Pollution Sustainable Light at Night, Oregon State University Extension Service, extension.oregonstate.edu. 7 pm

Tuesday, Sept. 5. Free.

Mary Coolidge of Portland Audubon outlines why artificial light is bad for both you and birds, and the efforts underway to preserve our night skies statewide.

Landscape a Terrarium

In-person classes at Roosevelt’s Terrariums, 1510 SE 44th Ave., #101, rooseveltspdx.com. Various times. $65 a person for parties of seven or less.

Plant your own jungle in a quart-sized Mason jar.

Draw a Zine

Making Comic Zines, Pacific Northwest College of Art at Willamette University, pnca.willamette.edu. 10 am Saturdays, Sept. 30-Nov. 18. $400.

Students emerge after eight weeks with their own zine— drawn, printed and bound.

Start a Microbrewery Business of Craft Brewing, Portland State University Center for Executive and Professional Education, pdx. edu/professional-education.

$1,897.

Established brewers offer a road map to launching the next Wayfinder or Ruse.

Melt a Glass Platter

Fused glass platter project workshop at Melt Glass Art Supply, 502 Washington St., Vancouver, Wash., meltglass. com. 6 pm Wednesday, Sept. 13; 11 am Saturday, Sept. 16; or 2 pm Thursday, Oct. 26. $68.

Using strips, squares, and various shapes of pre-cut glass in an array of colors, students indeed create a glass platter.

Go to Budtender School Budtending workshop at Portlandsterdam, 9123 SE St. Helens St., Clackamas, portlandsterdam.com. Various times. $420.

The school guarantees its graduates will pass the state’s Marijuana Workers Permit test.

Make Math-Based Art Pacific Northwest College of Art at Willamette University, pnca.willamette.edu. 9 am Saturdays, Sept. 9-Oct. 28. $400.

Kate McCallum (the same instructor teaching speculative fiction on page 16) looks for the places where math and art overlap, then helps students create their own works.

Learn Hip-Hop Dancing Street-Style Hip Hop, Portland Community College Rock Creek, pcc.edu/community. 7:30 pm Tuesdays, Oct. 3-Nov. 14. $55. Build and practice your own hip-hop dance routine.

Get Way Too Into Dams Energy Resources Policy and Administration, Portland State University, pdx.edu. 6:40 pm Tuesdays, Sept. 26Dec. 5. $1,389.

An examination of Northwest energy policy, with a particular focus on hydropower on the Columbia River and the problems posed by power lines.

Gear Up for Retirement

How to Know Your Retirement Readiness, Portland Community College, pcc. edu/community. 1:30 pm

Tuesday, Oct. 10, or 6 pm Wednesday, Oct. 11. Remote class, $39.

PCC has a bevy of retirement-planning classes, but this one is for people within five years of the gold watch—with an eye on making sure you have the money.

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Online Class date: July 10, 2024, Field Day dates: July 13, 20, 27, 2024

FEE: Single Module: $295 members / $395 non-members, All 3 Modules: $835 members / $935 non-members * fee covers all classes and field days

LEARN MORE: https://audubonportland.org/event/ deepbirdingmarch24/

Build Your New Website with Google Sites

GOOGLE SITES PDX

Google Sites is free and easy to use. No experience with website design or coding required. Sites is responsive and collaborative and integrates fully with all of your Google Apps & Workspace. Share your website with friends and family, colleagues, or the world! $75 for three classes via Zoom: September 11, 18, & 25. 7:00 - 8:00 PM. More classes available.

FEE: $75 for three 60-minute classes via Zoom.

DATES: September 11, 18, & 25. 7:00 - 8:00 PM.

LEARN MORE: googlesitespdx.com

Groundwork: Live and Work with Clarity and Joy BREITENBUSH HOT SPRINGS

Groundwork is an innovative mindset approach and productivity system that will bring clarity, massive success, and immense peace to your work and life. Transform your stress and overwhelm so that you can be a peacefully productive powerhouse. Join us from October 16 - 20 for a masterclass in a wilderness setting with hot springs soaking and meals included.

FEE: $395 + Lodging for 4 nights

DATES: October 16 - 20

LEARN MORE: http://breitenbush.com/workshops

Deep Birding Through the Seasons

PORTLAND AUDUBON

Nature immersion is an integral part of our well-being and a place to step away from our busy lives, building a sense of wonder and respect for a world much bigger than ourselves. From March through July, we’ll dive deep into our senses, focusing on awareness and intention, careful observation, inspired field journaling and basic illustration and mindfulness. This is a 3-part Module Series.

DATES:

Online Class date: March 20, 2024, Field Day dates: March 23, 30, April 6, 2024

Online Class date: May 8, 2024, Field Day dates: May 11, 18, 25, 2024

Intro to Carpentry: Tables & Benches

REBUILDING CENTER

Take reclaimed lumber, add some basic carpentry skills, and come away with a new garden bench, plant stand, or catch-all by the front door! In only 3 hours, you will learn to use a chop saw, drill, driver, and more, while gaining skills and confidence for future DIY projects. Offered monthly, tuition is only $90. Scholarships are available.

FEE: $90 (Scholarships available)

LEARN MORE: http://www.rebuildingcenter.org/ education

Learn to Khöömei (Throat Sing)

SORIAH

Learn the ancient art of Tuvan Throat singing with world-renowned vocalist Enrique Ugalde (Soriah). Learn to produce this centuries-old animist, harmonic overtone singing technique with teachings passed down for generations. You’ll also learn the cultural context and traditional melodies of this beautiful Central Asian culture. Available in person or online Wednesday through Fridays $70 per hour session.

DATES: Online or in person, Wednesday through Friday

FEE: $70/hr

LEARN MORE: http://soriahmusic.com

Adult + Youth Dance Classes For All NW DANCE PROJECT

Open, welcoming, fun+fit dance classes for all adults and youth in styles including ballet, hip hop, contemporary, and fitness in Portland’s best-equipped and accessible studios taught by a variety of instructors and coaches with years of professional experience in their dance disciplines. All are welcome – dance for everybody and every body. Pre-register or drop in!

Save with a class card!

LEARN MORE: http://nwdanceproject.org

Yin & Tonic

MODO YOGA PORTLAND (LOGO)

The perfect cocktail of deep, restorative yoga postures (Yin) paired with registered massage therapists to knead away stress and sore muscles, and tonify mind, body and spirit. Join us for this 90-minute candlelit practice, which concludes with lavender essential oils for a send-off into total relaxation. $30 for members/ students and $35 for non-members.

FEE: $30 for members/students and $35 for non-members.

DATES: Sunday, September 24th from 7:30 – 9:00 PM.

LEARN MORE: https://modoyoga.com/portland/

Growing up doesn’t mean growing boring. Below you’ll find an ensemble of exciting new skills to acquire, just one class away. From nailing downward dogs to serenading with throaty tunes, get ready to build websites, wardrobes, and maybe even some wisdom. Let’s dive into the glorious chaos of life’s extracurriculars!

GET BUSY

LAUGH: Nurse Blake Shock Advised Tour

Not unlike Ken Jeong, the physician turned standup who then rose to fame as an actor, Nurse Blake began mining his profession for humor, initially to help cope with on-the-job stress. His jokes about everything from ugly scrubs to being on call have not only resonated with fellow medical professionals; Blake’s social media videos have helped him amass a wider following. Take advantage of his swing through Portland to see why the former trauma nurse’s 55-city PTO Comedy Tour sold out every venue on the lineup last year. Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 SW Broadway, 503-248-4335, portland5. com. 8 pm Friday, Aug. 25. $39.50$84.50.

RUN: Hood to Coast

Known as “the mother of all relays,” there’s a good reason why Hood to Coast attracts participants from more than 40 countries and all 50 states: The journey from mountaintop to oceanside is breathtaking. It’s also not easy. If you didn’t already sign up to take on this 196-mile race with varied terrain (the registration deadline has passed), be sure to cheer on those runners and walkers if you happen to see them passing through town. Plus, you could always meet those athletes at the finish line in Seaside for the after-party even though you didn’t break a sweat getting there. Timberline Lodge, 27500 E Timberline Road, Government Camp, 503292-4626, hoodtocoast.com. Friday-Saturday, Aug. 25-26.

DRINK: Viking Beer Fest

Due to high demand at last year’s inaugural Viking Beer Fest, the event has been

expanded to two days with even more Nordic-themed features, including double the number of reenactors and vendors, even more live combat demonstrations and additional Scandinavian food options from food carts and Broder Söder. But, let’s face it, you’re here for the beer. There will be more than 30 to choose from, including many that were custom-brewed for the festival, along with mead by Wyrd Leatherworks and Oran Mor. To top that all off, a 20-foot Viking ship replica will transform into a DJ stage after sunset, when things should start to get really weird. Nordic Northwest Campus, 8800 SW Oleson Road, 503-977-0275, nordicnorthwest.org/viking-beer-fest. 3-10 pm (2 pm VIP entrance) Friday-Saturday, Aug. 25-26. $39 early bird, $44 advance, $59 full price.

GO: Bon-Odori, Summer Festival

Traditional bon-odori dance festivals are some of the most colorful and lively events in Japan—a true highlight of summer that we get to experience here in Portland. Each region of the country has its own version of the performance, which welcomes ancestral spirits during Odon. The Portland Japanese Garden will feature three dance sets during its festival, where you can watch artists dressed in yukata (think of it as a summer kimono) moving to the sound of taiko drums. Portland Japanese Garden, 611 SW Kingston Ave., 503-223-1321, japanesegarden.org. 1-4 pm Saturday, Aug. 26.

DRINK: HayDay!

Back for the first time since 2019 and at a new venue, HayDay! has relocated from the grassy event venue near The Wayfarer

to the source of some of the beers that will be poured at the fest: Public Coast Brewing. In all, there will be more than 40 taps from producers across the state as well as live music from Nervous Jenny. If it’s on, be sure to try the ’67 Blonde Ale— Public Coast’s 2018 gold medalist at the prestigious World Beer Cup. Public Coast Brewing, 264 E 3rd St., Cannon Beach, 503-436-0285, publiccoastbrewing.com/ hayday-fest. 3-7 pm Saturday, Aug. 26. $40 general admission, $100 VIP. 21+.

GO: Silobration NW

Abbey Road Farm’s biggest event of the year just grew: Silobration now takes up the whole weekend instead of just one day, and there are even more activities this year, including a 5k (with a glass of wine waiting for you at the finish line), lawn games, ax throwing, putt-putt golf, and even a Zumba class should you feel compelled to immediately work off the calories from the booze being served. You can also expect no fewer than seven food trucks—resident chef Will Preisch’s smash burgers are always a hit—as well cocktails from Ewing Young Distillery and beer from neighboring Crowing Hen, 2021’s surprise silver medalist at the World Beer Cup. Abbey Road Farm, 10280 NE Oak Springs Farm Road, Carlton, 503-6873100, abbeyroadfarm.com/silobrationnw.

11 am-5 pm Saturday-Sunday. Aug. 26-27. Free. $35 for the Oregon Brewery Running Series Fun Run.

GO: Soul2Soul: Building Bridges

Celebrate the beauty and diversity of the Black community in Oregon and learn more about the rich history of the African Diaspora at Soul2Soul. This two-day

festival will inspire, energize and empower with spoken-word performances, live music, as well as African dancing and drumming. Keep in mind there are two different venues for this event: The African & African American Summit takes place at Alberta Abbey while the Cultural Celebration will be held at Alberta Park. Alberta Abbey, 126 NE Alberta St. 6-8 pm Friday, Aug. 25. Alberta Park, 1905 NE Killingsworth St. 11 am-4 pm Saturday, Aug. 26. Free.

LISTEN: Stop Making Sense: A Multimedia Concert Tribute to Talking Heads

Experience a multimedia rock-’n’-roll event inspired by the legendary Talking Heads’ 1984 concert film, Stop Making Sense Students at PHAME, a performing arts school for people with disabilities, make up the bulk of the cast. They’ll be joined by special guests, like singer-songwriter Laura Gibson, rock duo Lost Lander, and Blitzen Trapper drummer Brian Koch. Expect plenty of Talking Heads classics, original choreography and inventive video projections that should all add up to an experience that’s more than just a show; it’s a celebration of art and inclusion. Revolution Hall, 1300 SE Stark St., 971-8085094, phamepdx.org. 7:30 pm Saturday and 2 pm Sunday, Aug. 26-27. $30 general admission, $50 VIP, $5 Arts for All with Oregon Trail Card.

JONATHAN LEY / PORTLAND JAPANESE GARDEN

COMIC EFFECT

More than 4,000 Portlanders filed into Laurelhurst Park last Friday for Comedy in the Park, Kickstand Comedy’s summer standup series. This season’s performers include Jordan Cerminara, Jeremiah Coughlan, Blair Dawson, Gabe Dinger, Milan Patel, Brodie Reed and Neeraj Srinivasan—and two veterans of WW’s Funniest Five, Julia Corral and Jaren George, are hosting. If you missed the show, no problem: It runs 6:30 pm every Friday through Sept. 1.

Photos by Chris Nesseth

On Instagram: @chrisnesseth

FOOD & DRINK

Hot Plates

Editor: Andi Prewitt

Contact: aprewitt@wweek.com

Buzz List

1. PAPI SAL’S AT WHITE OWL SOCIAL

CLUB

1305 SE 8th Ave., 720-708-9152, papisalspdx.com. 4-10 pm Tuesday-Thursday and Sunday, 4 pm-1 am Friday-Saturday, through the end of the month.

Since winter, Papi Sal’s has been pumping out some of Portland’s best bar food from the kitchen at White Owl Social Club, but the business is preparing to move yet again. You have until the end of August to order a popular “jawn” from that location (our favorite is the Tender version with spicy long hots, golden chicken tenders, sofrito and provolone). Luckily, Papi Sal’s tenure at White Owl has not been in vain as it has grown in recognition while also evolving to a new culinary level, adding dishes to the menu like mallorca sandwiches as well as rice and meat platters.

2. WHITE PEPPER BURGER THURSDAY

7505 NE Glisan St., whitepepperpdx.com/burger-thursday. 5-9 pm Thursday.

Most of the week, the kitchen at this 10-year-old Northeast Portland catering company is a quiet prep space by day, while some evenings its tasting room hosts weddings and corporate dinners. But on Thursday nights, White Pepper transforms into a neighborhood hangout serving burgers. We’ve sampled them all, and the standout of the bunch is the Classic Burger. The stack is everything you want a Big Mac to be but never is: two housemade patties, American cheese, iceberg lettuce, mustard and mayo with ketchup on the side. No one element stands out; it’s just a harmonious combination that makes for the perfect summer meal.

3. SMOKEHOUSE CHICKEN AND GUNS

mas-like countdown clock. Not so for Chicken and Guns. The Cartopia pod staple very quietly launched its first full-service restaurant this past spring, and did so in Gales Creek—miles away from any of its regulars. The trek to the roadhouse-style diner is worth it. You’ll, of course, find the cart’s famed wood-fired birds and crispy potatoes (the guns), but also an expanded menu that includes burgers, locally grown vegetable-based sides, and weekend brunch.

4. CHAAT WALLAH

1. MIGRATION

BREWING

WELLS FARGO

POP-UP

1300 SW 5th Ave., migrationbrewing.com. 3-8 pm

Tuesday-Thursday.

Migration Brewing has proven that it’s the master of the pop-up by opening temporary bars in places as varied as a dying mall, a bustling mall and Saturday Market. The company’s latest seasonal project has taken over the just-renovated first floor of downtown’s Wells Fargo Center. While most of that structure is home to offices, you certainly won’t feel like you’re in a cubicle farm at the taproom, which seats 40 and features black matte subway tile and a sprawling outdoor patio. There are also 10 taps for beer and wine as well as canned cocktails. Why drink in an office building? Because it’s weird and you can—for a limited time.

2. MCMENAMINS BARLEY MILL PUB

1629 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 503-231-1492, mcmenamins. com/barley-mill-pub. 11 am10 pm Sunday-Thursday, 11 am-11 pm Friday-Saturday.

Joe Brown’s Carmel Corn and Joe Brown’s Lounge. (Yes, we’re talking about the same Joe Brown’s that pioneered “Oregon-Style” popcorn at Lloyd Center.) If a stiff drink is what you seek, head to the bar, which has a straightforward cocktail menu with minimum mixological bluster and maximum “naming a drink for the regular who always orders it” spirit. Both a mango margarita and vodka lemonade ordered at the bartender’s suggestion were made with a heavy pour, so prepare accordingly.

4. DIVISION WINEMAKING COMPANY’S WINE YARD

2005 SE 8th Ave., 503-2082061, divisionwineco.com. 11 am-5 pm daily.

55660 NW Wilson River Highway, Gales Creek, 503-359-9452, smokehousecng.com. 9 am-9 pm Friday-Sunday.

When a beloved food cart finally goes brick-and-mortar, the opening is usually surrounded by a great deal of fanfare and a Christ-

7157 NE Prescott St., 971-340-8635, chaatwallah.com. 3-9 pm Monday-Friday, noon-9 pm Saturday-Sunday.

Deepak Saxena’s food cart has found a new home outside Upright Brewing’s second location in the Cully neighborhood. Chaat Wallah began operating out of 503 Distilling’s lounge inside the Iron Fireman Collective building, but that arrangement only lasted a few months. Thankfully, the business reemerged and is now offering a killer happy hour deal: $2 off all sandwiches and $1 discounts on Upright beer from 3 to 6 pm Monday through Thursday. Now you have a tough decision to make: masala pulled pork, tandoori tuna salad or lamb smash burger?

5. DOLLY OLIVE 527 SW 12th Ave., 503-719-6921, dollyolivepdx.com. 11 am-3 pm and 5-9 pm Sunday-Thursday, 11 am-3 pm and 5-10 pm Friday-Saturday. This month, The Wall Street Journal declared we’re “becoming a nation of early birds,” and it’s hard to argue with that point since Portland’s nightlife has never really rebounded from the pandemic. If we are all turning in earlier these days, might as well make the most of lunch, a meal that’s never been as leisurely as brunch nor as elegant as dinner, yet you can apply both of those adjectives to the midday meal experience at downtown’s Dolly Olive. Lunch service began in May and includes items that would suit just about anyone’s tastes, from a farro salad to a slow-roasted rosemary prosciutto-and-Gruyère panini to a crispy chicken confit. You can even pretend you’re at a fancy dinner and order a salted caramel cannoli for dessert—a move we highly recommend.

McMenamins, the brewery that introduced countless drinkers in the Pacific Northwest to craft beer, turns 40 this year, and while the company isn’t throwing a big party, smaller celebrations are underway—particularly this month. While 1983 Lager will be on tap at multiple locations, you should go to the original McMenamins Barley Mill Pub to order a pint of this special-release birthday beer made with 2-row flaked corn malt and Tettnanger Cascade hops. And, on Aug. 14, all McMenamins draft beers will be 40% off no matter which property you visit.

3. JOE BROWN’S LOUNGE

5601 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 503-206-5308, joebrownslounge.com. 1-10 pm Tuesday-Thursday and Sunday, 1 pm-midnight Friday-Saturday.

This year, the space that used to house iconic barbershop and beauty salon Geneva’s Shear Perfection got two new occupants:

After producing wine for nine years on Southeast Division Street, Division Winemaking has left its namesake stretch of pavement for larger digs. The newly dubbed Wine Yard not only gives the team more square footage for fermentation and packaging; customers also benefit thanks to a more spacious tasting room, 2,500-square-foot courtyard, and multiple event spaces. Now that we’re officially in the dog days of summer, cool off with the 2022 Polka Dots Pétillant Naturel, a sparkling rosé that can be enjoyed any time of day (Division claims it could take the place of a morning mimosa).

5. SMITH TEAMAKER

500 NW 23rd Ave., 503206-7451; 110 SE Washington St., 971-254-3935; smithtea.com. 10 am-6 pm daily.

Now that we’re enduring what’s often the hottest part of the summer season, you’ll need to find ways to cool off. Smith Teamaker has an idea: a new Summer Chill Down menu. The lineup includes five iced teas along with three seasonal flavors (blackberry, coconut swizzle and agave sunshine), an iced matcha latte, mocktails, and even two different varieties of ice cream floats. Get ’em through Aug. 31.

COURTESY MIGRATION BREWING

COURTESY PAPI SAL’S

COURTESY CHAAT WALLAH

COURTESY SMOKEHOUSE CHICKEN AND GUNS

SHOWS OF THE WEEK

WHAT TO SEE AND WHAT TO HEAR

BY DANIEL BROMFIELD @bromf3

THURSDAY, AUG. 24:

With its spacious city plan and its thousands of college students, Eugene has long been a ripe place for young bands to form—and yet its nature as a transient town means many of these bands disband or splinter once one or more members move away. Growing Pains and Novacane are two bands from the Eugene scene that have stuck around long enough to accumulate some serious clout, and their co-headlining set at the Doug Fir Lounge (with another promising young band, Bory, opening) is for anyone interested in the new wave of Northwest rock. Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St. 9 pm. $15. 21+.

SUNDAY, AUG. 27:

When lead singer Isaac Wood quit Black Country, New Road days before the release of their critically acclaimed second album, Ants From Up There, the art-rock crew associated with London’s ambitious Windmill scene suffered a setback from which few bands return. Yet the new communal version of BCNR is no less of a force, with almost every member of the massive collective taking lead vocals on songs that lean even further into the prog-rock side of their sound. Given their restlessness and penchant for reinvention, they’ll likely be working out something totally new and different on the road. Crystal Ballroom, 1332 W Burnside St. 8:30 pm. $22. All ages.

MONDAY, AUG. 28:

American Picker

PDX expatriate Jeff Picker, designated bassist for the stars of bluegrass, has the world on a string.

BY JAY HORTON @hortland

A favorite son of Portland’s jazz community who left for New York not long ago, Jeff Picker has put down roots in Tennessee. The double-bass prodigy recently married longtime girlfriend and Grammy-winning Americana songbird Sarah Jaraosz, formally joined the all-star roster of next-gen phenoms East Nash Grass, and landed a touring gig with progressive bluegrass-bloods Nickel Creek.

Speaking to WW outside a local luthier, Picker—who can be heard on East Nash Grass’ buzz-steeped new album, Last Chance to Win, which is out now—talked over his recent career upswing, as well as the peculiar annoyances of a life spent tethered to that most unwieldy of instruments, the bass.

“Getting weird looks showing up places with the bass has been a constant my entire life. Starting out, I’d take any opportunity to play, and I found myself in a few situations,” Picker laughs. “At this point, I don’t even take the bass out of the house unless there’s a paycheck involved.”

WW: You’re from Portland?

Jeff Picker: I moved to New York at 18, but Portland feels like home. My family’s still there, and that’s where I discovered music and launched my career.

In seventh grade—so, [when I had] passion for music but hardly any skill—I went to this arts and communication magnet academy in Beaverton. The band director there, Thara Memory, introduced me to jazz, and he brought in all kinds of different people from town as artists in residence.

Patty Loveless, Reba…there was this mainstream explosion I liked as a boy, but then that lay dormant for 10 years or so.

Then, moving to New York for jazz, I discovered string band music, and the roots Americana world kind of scratched an itch for me. It filled a bit of the void I was feeling in jazz, and, playing gigs around New York, I started to really dig into it, branching out with some touring acts and nationally known people. I just became part of that scene, and the rest is history. Ever since I was 23, my main source of professional activity has been the string band world.

How’d you get affiliated with East Nash Grass?

I moved to Nashville and was just freelancing session work when I met the guys and girls of East Nash sort of organically through the scene. There’s the bar in East Nashville where they’d play, where we’d play when I was in town, and I always got a kick out of them. They’re great players, very steeped in the traditional bluegrass style that I love, and they make me laugh. I’d sub in sometimes and kind of hang around. We got along as friends and clearly had similar rhythmic sensibilities. Right now we’re just following the muse, you know? Doing what we do and seeing where it takes us. About half the [new] record’s purely original music and half’s covers but, you know, obscure—adapted from other styles or things. There’s an old blues song called “Papa’s on the House Top” from the ’30s, so it’s not original in the truest sense, but it’s new in the bluegrass vernacular, if you know what I mean?

You have your own band, too?

Os Mutantes was one of Brazil’s most scandalous rock-’n’-roll bands in the late ’60s, infuriating the country’s military dictatorship with screeching feedback, sound collages, dissident lyrics, and an aesthetic that subverted foreign perceptions of Brazil as a tropical paradise. Bandleader Sérgio Dias remains a nimble guitarist and a fiercely funny stage presence—and even with no other original members, the band of pros that backs him up is one of the best psych-rock bands currently touring.

Aladdin Theater, 3017 SE Milwaukie Ave. 8 pm. $30. All ages. 26

Randy Porter, to this day one of the best musicians I’ve had the chance to play with, started calling me for standards gigs at the Heathman. Obo Addy, this Ghanaian master drummer, had moved to Oregon to set up a cultural organization and Afropop-style group, and I got to play with him around the northwest. So, early seventh grade, I was exposed to jazz just learning from these guys. And, by 15 to 16, I was playing professionally—great way for a young bass player to cut his teeth.

The bluegrass started later on?

As a little kid in Texas, I was sort of enamored with country music, and the early ’90s was a fun time for that—Garth Brooks, Alan Jackson,

I’ve put out two records under my own name that are all original instrumentals. In the future, my plan’s at least 10 to 15 gigs a year with my own band. I’d say my music has bluegrass sensibilities and some jazz intrigue but doesn’t stray too far from the front porch. That’s kind of my boilerplate, there.

Any thoughts on including vocals, veering more mainstream?

Probably not. I do sing a little bit in our show to give some dynamism, but I stay focused on the compositions and improvisation. You know, I get a ton of that type of thing working as a hired musician. I’m lucky enough to be surrounded by the best singers in the world—including my wife—so I think the best I can offer as a composer and bandleader is in the instrumental realm.

SHOW REVIEW

Toil and Trouble

Salt and Sage finds freshness in the familiarity of Macbeth

BY LINDA FERGUSON

PATTI SMITH AT PIONEER COURTHOUSE SQUARE

BY ROBERT HAM

At one point during her 90-minute set at Pioneer Courthouse Square, Patti Smith wished aloud she could conjure up thunderstorms over downtown Portland. Not so much as a reprieve from the triple-digit temperatures we were all enduring that evening, but mainly to keep us humble. To remind us how fragile we are in the face of the primal forces of nature.

Truth be told, we were already thinking about the frailty of life as we stood at the feet of this venerable songwriter and poet. Smith’s face and gray hair and sometimes tentative movements were stark reminders of her age (76). And during her and her band’s cover of Television’s “Guiding Light,” a tribute to Tom Verlaine, one of her fellow New Yorkers who passed away earlier this year, she briefly forgot the words to the second verse. All reminders that she’s closer to the end of her days than the beginning.

That was reason enough to endure the heat and the occasional hyper-exuberant fan—to honor this force of nature in human form while she is still with us. And goodness knows, for much of the set of proto-punk classics and art-rock invocations, the years disappeared from Smith’s voice and body, leaving her looking and sounding ageless.

The overarching message, as spelled out in her stage banter, was one of immediate action. Smith urged us to help rebuild our city, to use our voice to fight back against the powers that be, to vote, and to protect our delicate planet. It was a point she drove home most acutely with her one-two punch of an encore: a gorgeous rendition of Neil Young’s “After the Gold Rush” and her own anthem “People Have the Power.” A week later and that moment has me still inspired to storm the halls of Congress with some metaphorical thunderstorms of my own.

Clanging swords, a bellowing ghost, gleaming blood. As directed by Asae Dean, Salt and Sage’s production of Macbeth is sobering, with its vicious battles and high body counts, but it’s also wicked fun.

For one thing, Macbeth (a hypnotic Bobby Bermea) and his wife (a ferocious Allison Anderson) clearly have the hots for each other. Even when they’re plotting murder, they engage in a lot of squeezing, grabbing and stroking.

Their frank sexuality emphasizes the pleasures of Shakespeare’s dark 400-year-old tale, which begins with a prediction. Three witches, or “weird sisters,” as they’re also called, tell Macbeth, an honorable enough general, that he will be king of Scotland. The prophecy awakens the hunger for power in both Macbeth and his wife, who hounds her vacillating husband until he resolves to kill the current king.

The witches have always been a highlight of the play, stirring a newt’s eye and frog’s toe into a potion and repeating the deliciously familiar incantation, “Double, double, toil and trouble; fire burn and cauldron bubble.” Although Shakespeare gave them just a handful of scenes, in Dean’s production, we get to see more of the three sisters (played to eerie perfection by Laura Bouxsein, Carissa Chu and R. David Wyllie), who are often lurking in the background even when they have no lines. Whether they’re on the stage or on the stairs and platforms of the metal scaffolding that ingeniously serves as a set, the trio, dressed in long, body-hugging knits, slink and ooze like modern dancers performing under water.

Movement speaks as loudly as words throughout the production. Both Macbeth and his lady kneel at times, suggesting they’re praying to an evil deity, and Dean has staged some spellbinding pantomimes accompanied by cello, banjo, and drum to reveal the underbelly of the story. When King Duncan (played by Wyllie, who seamlessly transitions from playing a

weird sister) arrives with his entourage at Macbeth’s castle, the entire party stands in a circle as they raise their glasses and embrace, bringing home the horror of a host and hostess plotting the demise of their honored guest. And in another wordless scene, Lady Macbeth frantically rearranges the gleaming silverware laid out for a banquet as a musician (Elliot Lorenc) plays the banjo, echoing the jangling nerves brought on by her growing conscience.

The scarred metal scaffolding adds a music of its own as it audibly shifts and trembles whenever the actors move up and down its stairs. When the blue-lit ghost of Macbeth’s murdered friend Banquo (Peter Schuyler) appears on the platform, he releases a storm of sound by vigorously rattling the upper railing, and as Macbeth debates whether to kill Duncan, we hear the creak of his wife’s footsteps above, symbolizing her influence over him.

There’s one scene before the final battles where more movement—or sound or lights, which are used so effectively elsewhere—might have been useful. The dialogue between Duncan’s son Malcolm (Lorenc) and the general Macduff (brought to powerful life by Paul Susi) is a pivotal scene, but it’s also talky, making it easy to miss that Malcolm is actually testing Macduff’s loyalty, a fact that adds drama to the lengthy exchange.

Throughout the production, though, the entire cast is sublime. The intimate theater space brings them just feet from the audience, and Bermea, whose delivery is so natural you almost forget he’s acting, isn’t afraid to look intensely into the eyes of individual audience members as he speaks his iconic lines.

Salt and Stage says its mission is to “foreground the female experience,” which we see when Bouxsein, as a witch, begins the play by singing. Her lyrics are not from Shakespeare but pop songs and include lines like “Watch me make them bow” from Billie Eilish’s “You Should See Me in a Crown” and “I am no mother, I am no bride, I am king” from Florence and the Machine’s “King.”

After all the battles between the men have been fought, the lights go out and Bouxsein sings “I am no mother…” again, a creative decision that raises questions about gender. Is Lady Macbeth purely evil or is she an ambitious woman tired of being stuck behind the scenes? Either way, this production, like a gritty Halloween party, lets us all briefly dance with the devil without fear of consequences.

SEE IT: Macbeth plays at Shaking the Tree Theatre, 823 SE Grant St., saltandsagepdx. com. 7:30 pm Friday-Saturday, Through Aug. 26. $15. Masks required.

HAIL, KING OF SCOTLAND: Bobby Bermea.

HEATH HYUN HOUGHTON / COURTESY OF SALT

MICK HANGLAND-SKILL

Thelma & Louise (1991)

“Something’s like…crossed over in me, and I can’t go back,” confesses

Thelma (Geena Davis) as she careens toward the end of her iconic, outlaw road trip with best friend Louise (Susan Sarandon).

While that line sounds a little like the character reading a journal entry aloud, that’s part of Thelma & Louise’s power. Our protagonists— long unappreciated and lonely in their Arkansas housewife and waitress roles—experience internal liberation made manifest across an unlikely fugitive saga.

Bringing polish and maximalism to Callie Khouri’s screenplay, director Ridley Scott lays the oppression of the masculine world on thick—roaring helicopters, swaggering cops, phallic big rigs, steel-blue coloring every time the story flashes back to the cops (namely Harvey Keitel) and husbands (namely Christopher McDonald) back home. Some critics have called Scott’s “MTV” visual style incongruous with Thelma and Louise’s story, but that incongruity speaks volumes.

Every time the film cuts to the front seat of Louise’s 1966 Thunderbird, you experience an oasis of feeling, possibility and self-realization. These two veritable soulmates can depend only on each other, and their journey could so easily be more flippant (certainly, their chemistry is beautifully silly at times).

But Thelma and Louise’s introspection and their “crossing over” is an antidote to a world that is hyperbolically, squelchingly bearing down. In the end, they’re chasing oxygen. Hollywood, Aug. 25-27 and 29-31.

NOW PLAYING:

Academy: Hook (1991), Aug. 25-31. Blue Velvet (1986), Aug. 25-31.

Cinemagic: Carrie (1976), Aug. 24. Cinema 21: Shiva Baby (2020), Aug. 24. Rear Window (1954), Aug. 26. Hollywood: Red-Headed Woman (1932), Aug. 24. Cruel Intentions (1999), Aug. 25. A Room With a View (1985), Aug. 26. My Winnipeg (2007), Aug. 27. Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979, director’s cut), Aug. 29.

Pulse Pictures

Portland’s independent movie theater programmers reflect on the movies that reshaped their cinemas.

BY CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER @chance_s_p

Some qualities are mandatory for movie theater programmers: film knowledge, good taste, rallying enthusiasm. But what about perceptiveness, that sometimes nebulous ability to study the grosses, poll the evening’s emptying lobby, and detect a core audience’s evolving pulse?

In a city where a half-dozen independent movie theaters—most of them a century old—harmoniously compete for Portland cinephiles’ attention, simultaneously creating and gauging your theater’s niche is a job unto itself. We asked four Portland programmers about the movies that have shaped and reshaped their booking paradigms.

ACADEMY THEATER: THE NEW BLOOD AND “THE NEW FLESH”

Anyone who’s seen David Cronenberg’s 1983 body-horror classic Videodrome knows how insistently its title lodges in people’s minds—and it took similar contagiousness from Jon “Doorman” Pape to book the film at the Montavilla neighborhood theater in 2016.

Then 25 years old and “ lowly floor staff,” Doorman was vocally pushing for weirder movies at a time when Academy’s repertory screenings skewed down the middle. “When a film booking fell through, my boss remembered me saying the word ‘Videodrome’ a lot,” Doorman recalls. “It stuck in his head, and he booked it.”

The film proved to be Doorman’s “first big hit” as a programmer. Now, the Academy’s Revival Series is a house staple…and its Deep Cut series delves a fair bit deeper than Videodrome

CINEMA 21: COUNT YOUR WESSINGS

Barbenheimer has treated Cinema 21 to a special midsummer, and manager Erik McClanahan has a theory as to why Greta Gerwig’s and Christopher Nolan’s latest films have played like gangbusters at the theater when other blockbusters don’t.

“That kind of auteur mixing with the mainstream is an automatic [win] at our theater,” McClanahan says. What’s more, he has sifted through the receipts and discovered no one embodies the arthouse/ mainstream crossover like Wes Anderson.

Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) was the Nob Hill theater’s biggest hit of the past decade by what McClanahan considers an uncatchable margin—thanks to a multiweek exclusivity window and a five-month engagement.

Recently, in a harsher exhibition climate, Anderson’s The French Dispatch became Cinema 21’s highest-grossing movie of the COVID

era. And Anderson’s most recent film, this summer’s Asteroid City, only cleared out so Barbie and Oppenheimer could swoop in.

“If we ever don’t get one of [Anderson’s] movies, I’d be shocked,” McClanahan says.

CLINTON STREET THEATER: GENERATION WEIRD

The Clinton is renowned for its unstoppable weekly Rocky Horror Picture Show tradition, but programmer and co-owner Susan Tomorrow was reminded of the theater’s versatility at its first screening of 2023.

After one year under new ownership with “lots of ups and downs,” the Clinton played UHF (1989) on a freezing January day. Tomorrow had no idea whether it would draw, but a packed house ensued for the Weird Al cult classic, enjoying live songs and indulging in the film’s famous Twinkie Wiener Sandwiches.

“They ’re horrible; they’re against God,” Tomorrow laughs about the hot dog-Twinkie-Easy Cheese combination. Still, the screening was so successful that kids joined in, she says, a rarity at the Clinton.

“It reminded everyone on the block that we are for Rocky Horror and midnight blood and guts, but we’re also for watching a kid slam a hot dog and sing ‘Amish Paradise,’” Tomorrow says.

CINEMAGIC: ESCAPE FROM PORTLAND

When longtime employees Ryan Frakes and Nicholas Kuechler assumed ownership of Cinemagic in 2021, they immediately sensed that COVID-era audiences wanted escapism. That philosophy guided the theater’s staple programming—culty VHS Nights, a Hong Kong film series, John Carpenter tributes, first-run horror titles.

“These [movies] are meant to work a crowd,” Kuechler says.

But maybe, he speculates, Oppenheimer’s recent staying power signals a crowd’s willingness to be worked differently. Cinemagic enjoyed a month of audiences exiting the theater shaken by Nolan’s opus but returning for more.

Similarly, bundled with Starship Troopers and Pacific Rim in a recent monster miniseries, Shin Godzilla (2016)—with its commentary on nuclear tragedy and bureaucratic debates—handily outdrew its more raucous, better-known counterparts.

While that doesn’t mean Cinemagic is pivoting to Saló Fridays or political documentary Saturdays, Kuechler wonders whether audiences might be signaling a higher tolerance for heft.

“I suspect we’ll probably start folding in one or two more serious-minded films every week and see where people’s heads are at,” he says.

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

BLUE BEETLE

Instead of falling into the trap of big team-ups, multiverses, and turgid action scenes, Ángel Manuel Soto’s small-scale superhero film Blue Beetle keeps its focus on family, humor and Latino culture. The charming Xolo Maridueña plays Jaime Reyes, a college graduate who returns home to Palmera City and is tasked with protecting a device called “the Scarab,” a piece of tech that attaches itself to Jaime and forms a powerful exoskeleton around him. It isn’t long before military-minded baddies show up looking for the Scarab, with businesswoman Victoria Kord (Susan Sarandon) wanting to take her corporation to the next level by harnessing the device’s energy. Blue Beetle has formulaic plot elements and a C-grade villain in Kord, and some of the jokes fall flat (such as when a bug vehicle farts on Kord’s henchmen). It overcomes its weaknesses with well-rounded supporting characters (George Lopez is a hilarious standout as Uncle Rudy), heartfelt scenes of family bonding, and well-framed action sequences. Blue Beetle is one of the last films in the soon-to-be-defunct DC Extended Universe, which began a decade ago with Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel. It’s too late to salvage the series, but Soto deserves credit for creating one of the more charming entries in a mixedbad franchise. PG-13. DANIEL RESTER. Bridgeport, Cascade, Cedar Hills, City Center, Clackamas, Division, Eastport, Fox Tower, Lloyd Center, Mill Plain, Oak Grove, Pioneer Place,Progress Ridge, Studio One, Vancouver Plaza.

OPPENHEIMER

At the start of Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, raindrops fall; at the end, fire rages. You’ll feel it burn long after the end credits roll. Nolan has made violent movies before, but Oppenheimer is not just about physical devastation. It submerges you in the violence of a guilt-ravaged soul, leaving you feeling unsettled and unclean. With agitated charisma and vulnerability, Cillian Murphy embodies J. Robert Oppenheimer, the theoretical physicist whose mind birthed the atomic bomb. When we first meet him, he’s a curly-haired lad staring at a puddle, but he swiftly evolves into an excitable visionary leading a cadre of scientists into the deserts of New Mexico, where they will ultimately build and test a plutonium device (referred to as “the gadget”) on July 16, 1945. What saves the film from becoming a connect-the-dots biopic is Nolan’s ingenious chronicle of the post-World War II rivalry between Oppenheimer and Atomic Energy Commission chair Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.). The more Oppenheimer fights to put “the nuclear genie back in the bottle,” the more Strauss seethes and schemes, thrusting the movie into a maze of double-crosses that echo the exhilarating games of perception in Nolan’s 2001 breakout hit Memento Of course, the thrill can’t (and shouldn’t) last. As many as 226,000 people were killed when the U.S. bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and they haunt the film like ghosts—especially when Oppenheimer imagines a charred corpse beneath his foot. A man dreamed; people died. All a work of art can do is evoke their absence.

R. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, Cinema 21, City Center, Clackamas, Division, Eastport, Empirical, Fox Tower, Hollywood, Laurelhurst, Living Room, Lloyd Center, Oak Grove, Pioneer Place, Studio One.

BARBIE

Once upon a time, Barbie dolls liberated all women from tyranny. The end… at least according to the first few minutes of Barbie, a sleek and satirical fantasia from director Greta Gerwig (Lady Bird, Little Women). Set in the utopian kingdom of Barbieland, the movie dramatizes the

existential crises of the winkingly named Stereotypical Barbie. She’s played by Margot Robbie, who was last seen battling a rattlesnake in Damien Chazelle’s Babylon and her misadventures in Barbie are hardly less bizarre. Plagued by flat feet, cellulite and fears of death, Barbie seeks the source of her ailments in the real world, bringing along a beamingly inadequate Ken (Ryan Gosling) with catastrophic consequences: Awed by images of Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan, Ken becomes a crusading men’s rights activist, leading a revolt against the government of Barbieland and instituting bros-first martial law. And they say originality is dead! With its absurdist wit, glitzy musical numbers, and earnest ruminations on whether matriarchy and patriarchy can coexist, Barbie is easily one of the most brazen movies released by a major studio. Yes, its tidy ending betrays its anarchic spirit—after insisting that empowerment can’t be neatly packaged in a doll box, the film seems to say, “No, wait! It can!”—but it would be churlish to deny the charm of Gerwig’s buoyant creation. In an age when genuine cinematic joy is rare, we’re all lucky to be passengers in Barbie’s hotpink plastic convertible. PG-13. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Academy, Bagdad, Century Eastport, Cinema 21, Clackamas, Fox Tower, Lake Theater, Laurelhurst, Living Room, Lloyd Center, McMenamins St. Johns, Oak Grove, Pioneer Place, Studio One, Wunderland Milwaukie.

JULES

Like clockwork, solitary widower Milton (Ben Kingsley) makes two testimonies at his weekly city council meetings. One statement amounts to senile nonsense about the town motto (“a great place to call home”); the other is a genuine concern regarding a much-needed crosswalk. Through this dichotomy, we understand Jules ’ take on Milton (whose grumbling sounds like Kingsley meets Dustin Hoffman): Yes, he’s slipping mentally, but his everyday experience shouldn’t be discounted. So when Milton believes a flying saucer has crash-landed in his azaleas, Jules presents the kind of earthbound sci-fi usually reserved for movies about children and their supernatural discoveries—only

here, the heroes are a Western Pennsylvania town’s septuagenarians, including alien caretakers played by Jane Curtin (SNL) and Harriet Sansom Harris (Frasier), being instructed by their adult children to stop imagining things. Heartfelt to the end, Jules has no ambitions to ascend to the alien-encounter movie canon, but by toying with the E.T. formula, it makes clear a gentle point well taken: Before life ends, the need for childlike wonder comes back around. PG-13. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Bridgeport, Cascade, Clackamas, Evergreen Parkway, Fox Tower, Living Room.

PASSAGES

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: A German filmmaker announces to his British husband that he’s just had sex with a woman—and that he’d like to tell him about it. Thus commence the erotic games of Passages, a caustically witty fable from director Ira Sachs (Love Is Strange). Franz Rogowski stars as Tomas, who, when not making films, is busy being a needy, self-pitying nogoodnik. Lucky for him, his oily charisma hypnotizes seemingly everyone who should know better, including his husband, Martin (Ben Whishaw), and his French mistress, a teacher named Agate (Adèle Exarchopoulos). Good news for fans of Exarchopoulos’ quietly explosive performance in Blue Is the Warmest Color : Sachs gives her plenty of opportunities to dance, gaze silently and power through Agate’s private anguish even as her students demand every ounce of her attention. So entrancingly familiar are these motifs that Sachs could almost be making a Blue sequel, though it’s often Whishaw who commands the screen. As Q in the recent Bond films and the titular marmalade-loving bear in the Paddington series, Whishaw was miraculously sensible and sensitive, a feat he repeats for Sachs. A lesser film might have become overly besotted with Tomas’ morbidly fascinating manipulations, whereas Sachs lets Whishaw cut through the gaslighting with five simple words: “I want my life back.” Who needs Q Branch gadgets when you have some fucking self-respect? NR. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Bridgeport, Cinema 21, City Center, Movies On TV.

BETWEEN TWO WORLDS

In the opening scene of Between

Two Worlds, French acting icon Juliette Binoche is seen applying for low-level cleaning jobs. Her character, Marianne, is mannered, vulnerable and observant— almost the opposite of her often genuine, sometimes coarse, unselfconscious coworkers. Based on French journalist Florence Aubenas, Marianne is undercover

and researching a book on laborers who work tirelessly yet teeter on society’s edge. They’re paid minimum wage to perform herculean invisible tasks, like turning over 60 beds in 90 minutes on a ferry from Northern France to England. Visually, director Emmanuel Carrère strikes the right pose, a docu-realist style that puts the viewer in supply closets, break rooms, and even toilet bowls. But the need to manufacture drama often feels patronizing to the workers and ironically misfocused. At one point, Marianne announces in voice-over that her book is becoming a portrait of Chrystèle (Hélène Lambert)—a co-worker, friend and single mother to three boys—but that doesn’t remotely bear out in the film. Instead, it remains centered on the awkwardness of a journalist being found out by subjects with whom she’s behaving far too familiarly. In film and in life, the road to poserdom is paved with good intentions. NR. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Living Room.

THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE DEMETER

There’s a refreshing simplicity to The Last Voyage of the Demeter, the latest horror film by director André Øvredal (Troll Hunter The Autopsy of Jane Doe). Based on a single chapter from Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the film follows a crew of seamen who become captured prey on a voyage to London with an unexpected, bloodthirsty stowaway. After reading the brief plot description, you’ve practically seen the movie. Imagine you’re stranded in a desert, having gone days without food or water, and you see a faded neon sign in the distance. As you drag your dehydrated body through the hot sand, you get closer and closer to the sign, with the buzzing neon lights guiding you to your destination. Once you arrive, you see a single sand-covered peanut butter and jelly sandwich resting on a dirty plate. Obviously, with no other options, you eat it. But with each begrudging bite your heart fills with more and more contempt while your stomach fills nonetheless. This scenario is an exact parallel to the viewing of The Last Voyage of the Demeter. In the middle of August, you assuredly won’t find many horror films in theaters, but with each gritty bite, your annoyance with the sheer mediocrity of this one grows. R. ALEX BARR. Bridgeport, Cascade, Cedar Hills, City Center, Clackamas, Division, Eastport, Evergreen, Parkway, Fox Tower, Lloyd Center, Mill Plain, Oak Grove, Progress Ridge, Vancouver Mall, Vancouver Plaza.

JONESIN’

"Convent-ional

BY MATT JONES

across answers hide a figure.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): None of the books I’ve written has appeared on the New York Times best-seller list. Even if my future books do well, I will never catch up with Aries writer James Patterson, who has had 260 books on the prestigious list. My sales will never rival his, either. He has earned over $800 million from the 425 million copies his readers have bought. While I don’t expect you Rams to ever boost your income to Patterson’s level, either, I suspect the next nine months will bring you unprecedented opportunities to improve your financial situation. For best results, edge your way toward doing more of what you love to do.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Addressing a lover, D. H. Lawrence said that "having you near me" meant that he would "never cease to be filled with newness." That is a sensational compliment! I wish all of us could have such an influence in our lives: a prod that helps arouse endless novelty. Here’s the good news, Taurus: I suspect you may soon be blessed with a lively source of such stimulation, at least temporarily. Are you ready and eager to welcome an influx of freshness?

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Humans have been drinking beer for at least 13,000 years and eating bread for 14,500. We’ve enjoyed cheese for 7,500 years and popcorn for 6,500. Chances are good that at least some of these four are comfort foods for you. In the coming weeks, I suggest you get an ample share of them or any other delicious nourishments that make you feel well-grounded and deep-rooted. You need to give extra care to stabilizing your foundations. You have a mandate to cultivate security, stability, and constancy. Here’s your homework: Identify three things you can do to make you feel utterly at home in the world.

ACROSS

1. Formally renounce

7. "Supposing unavailability

..."

14. Apply messily, as sunscreen

15. 2015 crime film with Emily Blunt and Benicio del Toro

16. Blue Ribbon beers

17. Parent's much cooler kidspoiling sibling, maybe

18. "All in the Family" character

19. Venti or XXL, e.g.

20. "___ dead, Jim"

21. Go without being played, at the end of some board games

25. Happy expression

26. Give the appearance of

30. Garment parents want to make sure their kids always have on, lest they be embarrassed

34. "But what ___ know?"

35. Neither partner

36. Music genre that asks you to "pick it up pick it up"

37. Cartoon title character seen with Diamond, Amethyst, and Pearl

44. Chinese laptop brand

45. Ireland, on old coins

46. Big company in 19thcentury communications

52. Andrews or Maxwell, for short

55. Notable periods

56. AC___ (auto parts manufacturer)

57. Frank Zappa's daughter

60. Character that visits Owl

61. Back, as a candidate

62. Remington played by Pierce Brosnan

63. Confounded

64. Martinez and Pascal, for two

DOWN

1. "___ your instructions ..."

2. Piece of grass

3. "The Girl From Ipanema" composer Antonio Carlos

4. Overshadow, in a way

5. 401(k) alternative named for a senator

6. Tennis partners?

7. Japanese car brand that somehow gets a long vowel in Australian ads

8. Maneuver delicately

9. "ER" setting

10. What an opener opens

11. Foot support

12. River at Khartoum

13. Water testers

17. "Jaws" sighting

19. Bush Sr.'s chief of staff

John

22. "Ladders to Fire"

novelist Anais

23. Mountain suffix

24. "Do the ___" (soft drink slogan)

27. Untidiness

28. Point of view

©2023 Jonesin’ Crosswords (editor@jonesincrosswords.com) For answers to this puzzle, call: 1-900-226-2800, 99 cents per minute. Must be 18+. Or to bill to your credit card, call: 1-800-655-6548. Reference puzzle #JNZ990.

29. Singer Rita

30. Dove shelter

31. A property may have one on it

32. Prefix with fiction

33. Hand towel users

34. Broadband initials

38. Wedding promise

39. Penultimate day

40. What gibberish makes

41. Diesel of "Guardians of the Galaxy"

42. Knowledgeable

43. Went back (on)

47. Put in the effort

48. Do a mukbang, e.g.

49. Not as healthy

50. Sponge by 3M

51. "10/10, no ___"

52. Iowa State's location

53. Garamond, for one

54. Word before builder or pillow

58. ___ de plume

59. Debunked spoon bender

Geller

60. Handheld Sony console of the mid-2000s

CANCER (June 21-July 22): On Instagram, I posted a favorite quote from poet Muriel Rukeyser: "The world is made of stories, not atoms." I added my own thought: "You are made of stories, too." A reader didn't like this meme. He said it was "a nightmare for us anti-social people." I asked him why. He said, "Because stories only happen in a social setting. To tell or hear a story is to be in a social interaction. If you're not inclined towards such activities, it's oppressive." Here's how I replied: "That's not true for me. Many of my stories happen while I’m alone with my inner world. My nightly dreams are some of my favorite stories." Anyway, Cancerian, I'm offering this exchange to you now because you are in a story-rich phase of your life. The tales coming your way, whether they occur in social settings or in the privacy of your own fantasies, will be extra interesting, educational, and motivational. Gather them in with gusto! Celebrate them!

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Author A. Conan Doyle said, "It has long been my axiom that the little things are infinitely the most important." Spiritual teacher John Zabat-Zinn muses, "The little things? The little moments? They aren’t little." Here's author Robert Brault's advice: "Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things." Ancient Chinese sage Lao-Tzu provides a further nuance: "To know you have enough is to be rich." Let's add one more clue, from author Alice Walker: "I try to teach my heart to want nothing it can’t have."

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): "I don’t believe that in order to be interesting or meaningful, a relationship has to work out—in fiction or in real life." So says Virgo novelist Elizabeth Curtis Sittenfeld, and I agree. Just because a romantic bond didn't last forever doesn't mean it was a waste of energy. An intimate connection you once enjoyed but then broke off might have taught you lessons that are crucial to your destiny. In accordance with astrological omens, I invite you to acknowledge and celebrate these past experiences of togetherness. Interpret them not as failures but as gifts.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): The amount of rubbish produced by the modern world is staggering: over

2 billion tons per year. To get a sense of how much that is, imagine a convoy of fully loaded garbage trucks circling the earth 24 times. You and I can diminish our contributions to this mess, though we must overcome the temptation to think our personal efforts will be futile. Can we really help save the world by buying secondhand goods, shopping at farmer’s markets, and curbing our use of paper? Maybe a little. And here’s the bonus: We enhance our mental health by reducing the waste we engender. Doing so gives us a more graceful and congenial relationship with life. The coming weeks will be an excellent time to meditate and act on this beautiful truth.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): I hope that in the coming weeks, you will wash more dishes, do more laundry, and scrub more floors than you ever have before. Clean the bathrooms with extra fervor, too. Scour the oven and refrigerator. Make your bed with extreme precision. Got all that, Scorpio? JUST KIDDING! Everything I just said was a lie. Now here’s my authentic message: Avoid grunt work. Be as loose and playful and spontaneous as you have ever been. Seek record-breaking levels of fun and amusement. Experiment with the high arts of brilliant joy and profound pleasure.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Dear Sagittarius the Archer: To be successful in the coming weeks, you don’t have to hit the exact center of the bull’s-eye every time—or even anytime. Merely shooting your arrows so they land somewhere inside the fourth or third concentric rings will be a very positive development. Same is true if you are engaged in a situation with metaphorical resemblances to a game of horseshoes. Even if you don’t throw any ringers at all, just getting close could be enough to win the match. This is one time in your life when perfection isn’t necessary to win.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): I suspect you are about to escape the stuffy labyrinth. There may be a short adjustment period, but soon you will be running half-wild in a liberated zone where you won't have to dilute and censor yourself. I am not implying that your exile in the enclosed space was purely oppressive. Not at all. You learned some cool magic in there, and it will serve you well in your expansive new setting. Here's your homework assignment: Identify three ways you will take advantage of your additional freedom.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Though my mother is a practical, sensible person with few mystical propensities, she sometimes talks about a supernatural vision she had. Her mother, my grandmother, had been disabled by a massive stroke. It left her barely able to do more than laugh and move her left arm. But months later, on the morning after grandma died, her spirit showed up in a pink ballerina dress doing ecstatic pirouettes next to my mother's bed. My mom saw it as a communication about how joyful she was to be free of her wounded body. I mention this gift of grace because I suspect you will have at least one comparable experience in the coming weeks. Be alert for messages from your departed ancestors.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): "Those who know the truth are not equal to those who love it," said the ancient Chinese sage Confucius. Amen! Seeking to understand reality with cold, unfeeling rationality is at best boring and at worst destructive. I go so far as to say that it's impossible to deeply comprehend anything or anyone unless we love them. Really! I'm not exaggerating or being poetical. In my philosophy, our quest to be awake and see truly requires us to summon an abundance of affectionate attention. I nominate you to be the champion practitioner of this approach to intelligence, Pisces. It's your birthright! And I hope you turn it up full blast in the coming weeks.

Homework: Cross two relatively trivial wishes off your list so you can focus more on major wishes. Newsletter.FreeWillAstrology.com

Wisdom"--six

TO

MICHAEL DONHOWE

503-243-2122

mdonhowe@wweek.com

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