Can celebrity gossip be “art”? In the hands of Trash Report columnist Elinor Jones, the answer is a resounding “yes”!
Art Snaps
Portland’s comedy scene has a new “funniest person,” and Mother Foucault’s bookstore is looking to buy their building—if they can find the money.
Rothko Pavilion’s Glowing Premiere
After community outcry, the new Mark Rothko Pavilion finally links Portland Art Museum’s two buildings and adds a more central main entrance.
Put This Art in Your Mouth!
Our Andrea Damewood spotlights some of Portland’s most delicious looking (and tasting) plated works of art.
My Evening with Francis Ford Coppola
The acclaimed director made a stop in Portland to field audience questions—and after 90 minutes only answered three of them?
Dom Sinacola rounds up this fall’s most anticipated movies—and which ones you should avoid at all costs.
Linda Austin Looks Back
Performance Works Northwest turns 25 this year, and our Lindsay Costello talks to founder Linda Austin about the origins and current direction of the beloved FosterPowell arts space.
Is Bike Play Theater?
Can an annual bike ride also be considered “theater”? Of course it can, and our Suzette Smith reviews the refreshing chaos. Punchlines and Piledrivers
Local standups embody classic wrestling tropes in this recurring show that combines comedy with verbal body slams.
Non-Normal Q&A with Normal Gossip
The Mercury spills the tea with Rachelle Hampton and Se’era Spragley Ricks, the hosts of the wildly entertaining podcast, Normal Gossip. Jock Jams Turns 30!
Cameron Crowell explores the uneasy relationship between professional sports and ’90s hip-hop and gay anthems, as Jock Jams celebrates 30 years of weird existence.
Satyricon:
An Oral History
From 1984-2011, this downtown dive was a venue where, impossibly, musical legends, locals, and total unknowns shared a stage—as well as its disgusting bathroom.
Book Review: Wolf Bells by Leni Zumas
Leni Zumas’ new novel Wolf Bells is centered on people society would like to forget: older women, disabled people, the elderly, students, and others.
Portland Zine Meetup at the Mall
Gathering weekly at the Lloyd Mall food court, Roman Ruddick and Charlie Manzano founded the zine meetup as a way to foster fun, creativity, and community.
Li’l Lit Newsletter About Tennis
The creators of Tennis Courterly want to spread the gospel of the game, and turn Portland into “Tennis City, USA.”
Stacey Abrams Writes Fiction?!
Answer: Yes. (And not only does the famous political activist pen thrillers, but romance novels as well! �� ) Portland Book Festival Picks
All the authors you must see at the upcoming Portland Book Festival—at least according to us.
All the best upcoming arts and entertainment picks at a glance!
A little more about the Time-Based Arts Festival, PDX Pop Now!, Portland Opera’s latest, the Portland Book Festival, and lots of can’t-miss art happenings. Savage Love
Get your thorniest (and horniest) sex questions answered lickety-split in this “quickies” edition of Dan Savage’s advice column.
Chef Vedran Jordan is cooking up a playful and creative taste of Balkan cuisine through a menu of tapas and shared plates inspired by family recipes, Balkan, Turkish classics, and hyperlocal, seasonal ingredients of the Pacific Northwest –from rotating kebops, Adriatic Sea delights to Rakija flights.
THE TRASH REPORT
BY ELINOR JONES TRASH IS ART
Hello, Trash Pandas! I’m Elinor Jones
Welcome to this very special Trash Report for our extremely special Fall Arts Guide. Did you know that gossipping about celebrities and current events counts as “art?” It’s true! As such, this is basically art school. Congratulations on following your dreams. I’m your professor, Bob Ross, and we’re about to turn this dumpster fire we call reality into a bunch of happy little trees.
Jewelry is Art
The biggest news of the season is obvi ously the engagement of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce . Are you sick of hearing about it? Too bad! I have opinions! People are talking about what trends Taylor is setting with her ginormous engage ment ring—as if the only thing preventing a normal human from wearing a five million dollar rock is because a celebrity hadn’t suggested it yet. It’s the Kris Jenner facelift of jewelry—pretty on Instagram, but yikes out in the real world. The conservative manosphere is excited about the engagement because they think Taylor will stop supporting Democrats for political office once she settles down and has babies. This just shows how much they don’t talk to women, because every mom I know (myself included) has only become more rabidly leftist with every passing day of existence in a society that treats children and families the way that it does ours. These manosphere dummies are also calling her “the future Mrs. Kelce,” like it’s a given that she’ll change her name but he won’t. Listen, it’s a lot easier to change the name on a few football jerseys than replace a billion posters hung in girls’ bedrooms all over the world.
And that’s what I have to say about that. (For now.)
Speaking of jewelry, Jordan Hudson 24-year-old fiance of the famed football coach Bill Belichick (age 73), has filed to trademark the term “gold digger” so she can sell jewelry and keychains. If she is successful, would West have to split his Spotify money from people listening to the song “Gold
Digger”? More importantly, would this mean that prospectors have to start cutting her a check whenever they want to talk about what to do about the gold “up in them thar hills”? I am keeping my eye on this and I’ll get in on the ground floor; I can’t get my hands on a Labubu and I need something stupid and overpriced to clip to my purse.
The Economy is Not Art
has been on one lately, kind of becoming a Midas, in that everything he touches literally turns to gold because he has tacky taste. However, everything he metaphorically turns to shit, because he is evil and bad at his job. His disastrous tariffs have got us on the brink of a new recession, and as a millennial, whatever. Having been through a few of these already, we are grizzled and cynical and none of us actually believe that we’ll retire in any semblance of financial security anyway—so I say let that whole stock market piss itself away into oblivion and let us
spend our last $12 on avocado toast in peace. Mrs. Trash, Melania Trump , was recently in consideration to land the coveted cover of Vanity Fair, which reportedly had at least one editor blow up, saying “I will walk out that motherfucking door, and half my staff will follow me.” This has the MAGA crowd all worked up, because they love getting worked up. Melania responded to the controversy by saying that she was too busy for a magazine cover anyway. After all, we are nearing the holiday season, and she needs to start working on this year’s White House Christmas decor; this year’s theme is reportedly “Winter Woodland” and she’s got meetings set with Cruella de Vil and Kristi Noem on how to work adorable little critters into the arrangement.
Nostalgia is Art
This time of year also marks the beginning of “Fancy Movie Season,” when studios release their Oscar bait for consideration in the winter awards shows. If this is not your scene, fear not: the first of the Twilight film series is also being rereleased in theaters this year in honor of the 20th anniversary of the first book’s release, which makes no damn sense! I hate telling shameless capitalists how to do their cash grabs better, but they really
should be rereleasing the book now, and then the movie in three years! They’re missing a whole medium to exploit. Swear to god, the idiots in charge have no idea how to properly separate millennials from their meager savings. I already said, we have pretty much no hope for our economic future! Shut up and take our money!!
If you can’t make it to the movies, the longer nights and cooler temperatures are perfect for settling into your favorite comfort cooking show, Great British Baking Show, which has a new season out. Not only that, but former contestant Ruby Tandoh (the soft-spoken, curly-haired goddess from season four) is coming out with a new book called All-Consuming: Why We Eat the Way We Eat. Not only that, she released an essay in the New Yorker about her time on the program, saying that producers goaded the contestants on the canonically-kind show. I’m both extremely interested in reading it and fearful of any further revelations.What if it’s all a front? What if they aren’t actually nice?
What if they dub in all those bird chips and lamb baaaas to mask abusive producers and vicious screaming matches? I recently read You Wanna Be on Top by former America’s Next Top Model contestant Sarah Hartshorne, and while I was not surprised about how those hungry young women were treated, it still made me feel gross about having watched and enjoyed the show. The inherent goodness of Great British Baking Show is doing a lot of heavy lifting for us in these tumultuous times, and I don’t know what I’d do if all that is blown up.
Beautiful Bald Heads are Definitely Art
In other good news, the city of Chicago just hosted its first annual “Bald Off” competition, where dozens of hairless hotties competed for the title of “Baddest Baldie” and the honor of donning a crown on their otherwise unadorned domes. The winner was dressed as Mister Clean, but there were several other creative costumes, including Charlie Brown, Squidward, and even a few blue Tobias Funkes. I commend them all for their bravery in braving their bald heads on a sunny summer day. Maybe next year, instead of a crown, the winner could get a large sun hat?
Gossip is Art
Later in this issue I have an interview with the brilliant minds behind the hit podcast Normal Gossip, and I hope you read it! While you may not believe that gossip is art, cultivating community and relationships is art, and what are friends for if not whispering secrets about bitches you hate? You have to admit, I’ve got you there! Thank you for reading, for caring, for loving, and most of all, for talking shit. Yours Always,
DAVID EULITT-GETTY IMAGES
CHRIS JACKSON-GETTY IMAGES
SUMMIT ENTERTAINMENT
Taylor Swift & Travis Kelce
Melania Trump
Arts Snaps
Recent happenings in Portland’s arts and culture scene.
BY SUZETTE SMITH
Portland’s Funniest Person 2025
Nice guys finished first at Helium Comedy Club’s competition for Portland’s Funniest Person 2025, with judges awarding Jordan Casner the coveted title and $3,000 in prize money. The stand-up’s winning set explored gift competition with past romantic rivals, and what heights Luigi Mangione may have gone on to had he not allegedly shot and killed United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson. After all, in a comedy contest, all that is serious becomes fair game and everything relatable skews profane.
The multi-round series— held annually since 2011— tested the mettle of 250 local comics, judging them on timing, stage presence, original material, and audience response, eventually narrowing the jokers to just eight.
Casner performed second to last, and cleverly began his eight-minutes with a bid for sympathy, saying he wished he wasn’t the “first male comedian after Virginia.” He meant Virginia Jones who had just practically singed the stage with her devastating read of male comics, which also cinched her place as first runner-up.
making it more diverse in material than is typical for the PFP competition, which is generally 100 percent wife- and girlfriend-inspired. We would have liked to see Casner touch on Mangione’s UI contributions to strategy video game Civilization VI
attempt, based on being “200 pounds and fork-lift certified.”
Harkins has seemingly broadened his stage persona wheelhouse, slipping into the hushed tones of a quiz show host to deliver ideas so disturbing they received an unbidden “Jesus Christ” from someone
months before a similar Michigan “book brigade” went viral.
When the Mercury profiled the soonto-be reopened store, Florence joked about telling everyone he knows that he needed $1.5 million dollars. Now a team of shop supporters is working to make that happen, launching a crowdfunding campaign on GoFundMe and establishing a nonprofit to implement their dreams for a “space where misfits, dreamers, makers, radical readers, and visionaries collide.”
If anyone could survive and thrive on the heat from Jones’ wake, Casner was the comic to do it; he opened with a respectful, glowing description of his nonbinary partner being too hot for gender.
Casner’s rise has been long but steady, possibly interrupted by the time he spent outside Portland, refining his style in other scenes. In 2023, Casner regularly described himself a “soft-handed cowboy,” but has since trimmed his handlebar mustache back to Ned Flanders proportions. He won the honors wearing a down-to-earth baseball cap bearing the logo of a paint company in Forest Grove.
A sizable portion of the audience seemed to think Jones was a new Portland comedian, but she actually just moved back to the scene recently, after over a decade in LA. She performed the most put-together set of the evening, drawing from her extensive touring to riff about disgusting British proclivities that we don’t even have a name for in the US.
Grandmothers and Mangione were common threads in the night’s routines,
Host and 2024’s Funniest Person Ben
Harkins was in top form during the evening’s stalling-for-time set, which traditionally unfolds while the judges tally their votes. Harkins is truly the master of irritated deadpan crowd work, demanding at one point that the audience clap if they thought Thomas Matthew
[Casner] cleverly began his eightminutes with a bid for sympathy, saying he wished he wasn’t the “first male comedian after Virginia.”
Crooks’ attempted assassination of the President was staged. This evolved into a hilarious rant about how Harkins would simply have “handled it,” an unclear claim about diffusing the assassination
in the audience. We can only hope for similar successes for Casner, now taking up the mantle of Portland’s Funniest Person.
Bookshop Mother Foucault’s Crowdfunds to Buy Its Building Its shelves are filled, the stage is built, and now Mother Foucault’s wants to buy.
The vintage bookshop announced on July 22 that it’s seizing a chance to purchase the building it currently occupies, at 715 SE Grand. That opportunity expires on September 21, if it can’t raise $300,000 for a downpayment.
Built in 1892, the Nathaniel West building houses Mother Foucault’s on its first floor, artist studios on its second, and a finished third floor that bookstore owner Craig Florence wants to use for residencies and workshops. He has hoped to buy the building since his shop moved in—its inventory traveling just two blocks over from its longtime location on SE Morrison.
The move itself was an act of physical community, as over 100 people walked the store’s collection and furniture to its new space in approximately three hours—
The name of the new nonprofit—l’école buissonnière—translates to “bush school” or school of the outdoors/life. It’s a phrase that also connotes truancy in French, as when you skip school you are attending the school of life.
Mother Foucault’s is already a place of poetry readings, book releases, and acoustic (and punk!) concerts. A release from l’école buissonnière says it will work to grow those programs and expand into seminars, workshops, “a center for literary translation, and an incubator for launching small press publishing,” among other pursuits.
In the ‘90s, Florence lived at the Parisian bookstore Shakespeare and Company, and he’s said he tries to recreate some of that feel at Foucault’s. In the previous store, he hosted a writing residency in a cramped area behind his desk, and shop clerk Will Spray maintained a darkroom in a building bathroom.
Already, the second floor of the new building is home to several art studios and the gallery Society. Florence told the Mercury that the nonprofit plans to use the building’s third floor to host programming, like residencies, seminars, and workshops. The campaign had raised just under $16,000 at time of press.
“More than a bookstore, Mother Foucault’s has also been an incubator, a stage, a meeting space, a dream space (and a dream) for writers and artists of all stripes where the dream of Portland thrives,” reads a release accompanying the campaign announcement. “After surviving rising rents, economic upheavals, and a global pandemic, Mother Foucault’s now faces its greatest challenge—and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.” ■
Host Ben Harkins with the winner of Portland’s Funniest Person 2025, Jordan Casner.
SUZETTE SMITH
Growing Panes
The new Mark Rothko Pavilion links Portland Art Museum’s two buildings and adds a more central main entrance.
BY JOE STRECKERT
The Portland Art Museum (PAM) has grown steadily throughout its lifetime. The original building from 1932 had a major add-on in 1939 and expanded again in 1970. In 2005, the Masonic Temple next to PAM became the museum’s Mark Building, which houses offices, ballrooms, and the Jubitz Center for Modern and Contemporary Art.
Later this November, PAM will link its original building with the Masonic Temple expansion by way of the Mark Rothko Pavilion. The new structure will extend across SW Madison and add approximately 10,000 square feet of space to Portland’s flagship art museum, finally connecting the two buildings.
The Rothko solves a major problem for PAM. Previously, the original part of the museum and the Mark Building were linked via an underground passageway that a lot of guests completely missed during their visits. In exit surveys, many museum-goers reported not knowing that the Jubitz Center was even part of PAM because they couldn’t find the passage that linked one building with the other. When the new addition opens on November 20, it will connect the original PAM building and the Mark Building across four levels.
Architecturally distinct from both existing structures, the Rothko Pavilion contrasts with the two adjacent brick buildings. The 1932 museum building was designed by Pietro Belluschi, a Portland modernist architect known for clean, functional designs. The Mark Building is from 1926 and, as a Masonic Temple, was made to look faux-ancient, complete with fake arrow slits.
The Rothko’s exterior is almost entirely glass, and its open design is much more contemporary, reminiscent of an Apple store or a sun-filled open-plan office. It was designed by the Portland-based Hennebery Eddy Architects working with Chicago-based Vinci Hamp Architects.
Another major change: PAM’s admissions desk is moving into the pavilion, which will function as the new visitor entrance. While the existing entrance’s architectural elements, like the stairs leading up to the original doorway, will remain, the original foyer will be repurposed into a gallery.
Upgrades and additions at PAM aren’t limited to the Rothko Pavilion. The passageway that was once the only connection to the Mark is also getting a makeover, becoming the New Media
Gallery. That hall and series of rooms will open in November, presenting a video collage by Marco Brambilla, a contemporary artist also known for being the director of Demolition Man
“He’s probably the only artist who’s both collected by the Guggenheim and has directed Sylvester Stallone,” says Ian Gillingham, head of press and publications for PAM. Other new features include a Black Art and Experiences Gallery, a new loading dock, and changes to the museum’s cafe and gift shop.
Initial plans for the pavilion stirred up controversy. The city has allowed PAM to build on and use a segment of SW Madison since 1968, provided that the museum maintains an easement that lets pedestrians and bicyclists pass through freely. However, a 2016 design of the Rothko did not include that easement. The public would have been able to move through an open area during the museum’s business hours, but wouldn’t have had 24-hour access.
“They severely underestimated how mad people would get,” says Jonathan Maus of Bike Portland, who reported on the backand-forth between the city and museum during the planning process. “The public wasn’t willing to take any downgrade in access. The longer people had a chance to look at this, the more upset they got.”
Eventually, PAM altered the pavilion design to include a tunnel-like public area that would maintain the easement. Pedestrians and bicyclists will be able to use the thruway at all hours, and the museum still gets to connect its two buildings. “It was a pretty awesome example of the community expressing concern,” says Maus.
The new pavilion takes its name from Mark Rothko, a 20th century artist who spent much of his youth in Portland. Born
The Rothko’s exterior is almost entirely glass… reminiscent of an Apple store.
Markus Rothkowitz in 1903, in what is now Lithuania, Rothko moved with his family to Portland when he was eight years old. He attended Lincoln High School, took art classes with the museum, and had his first solo exhibition at PAM in 1933.
Rothko didn’t stick around to become part of the Portland art scene, though. He also had an exhibition that year in New York. Throughout his life, Rothko became famous for his large, abstract color field paintings. He died in 1970. The addition
to PAM will bear his name because of the insistence of an anonymous donor who wanted the structure to be named after an artist rather than a patron.
One artist notably absent from the new pavilion, though: Mark Rothko. “It’s made of glass,” says Gillingham. “There’s light coming through. That’s not a place where you can display Mark Rothko paintings.” The new addition will house art that can be in direct sunlight on a regular basis, like sculptures
However, Rothko’s work will still be on view at the museum. The Rothko family is loaning PAM several pieces, and they’ll be displayed over the next 20 years. “It’s like a globally significant Rothko exhibition, except spread out over two decades,” says Gillingham. According to him, the works in question aren’t just limited to Rothko’s famous abstract color fields. They also include several earlier works, many of which are much more representational.
The new pavilion ensures that Rothko will be a major presence at PAM in the future, just a few rooms over from the bridgeway that bears his name.
The Mark Rothko Pavilion opens at Portland Art Museum, 1219 SW Park, Thurs Nov 20. More info and updates on an associated free four-day community event at pam.org
A rendering of the finished pavilion., which opens to the public in November.
RENDERING BY HENNEBERY EDDY ARCHITECTS AND VINCI HAMP ARCHITECTS
Portland Art, Plated
Finally some fine art you can put in your mouth.
BY ANDREA DAMEWOOD
Food is the most immersive artform humans have managed to create–licking a Monet, for example, won’t tell you much and will probably get you arrested, but a big bite of burrata speaks volumes about life and beauty. While eating engages all senses, nothing primes the palate better than a presentation that pops with color, texture, and design. Like sculpture and watercolor, plating is an art.
There are countless gorgeous dishes in Portland, especially in fine dining. With all due respect to microfoam, we wanted to highlight some indulgences that even a starving artist could afford.
Cheesecake at Soro Soro Coffee & Dessert If “kawaii” (cute in Japanese) had a picture next to it in the dictionary, this little cheesecake from East Burnside’s Soro Soro Coffee & Dessert would be it. The little gluten free personal-sized cake features an adorable orange cat (or hamster? I dunno, but it’s
adorbs) smiling up at you. It’s almost too cute to eat, except that once you plunge your spoon in, the not-too-sweet cheesecake compels you to demolish the whole thing in one go. (2050 E Burnside, sorosoropdx.com)
A single piece of sushi from Kaede Watching Kaede’s sushi chef and co-owner Shinji Uehara work—his hands methodically forming perfect pats of sushi rice, moving in one motion with a sharp blade to slice fresh fish from Toyosu Fish Market in Tokyo—is like watching a master painter put brush to canvas.
The tasting menu rotates with the seasons—not just the vegetables but the fish as well. The kinme dai, or golden eye snapper, is cut on a bias to reveal a brilliant pink skin against soft pearly meat and sliced so fine it’s translucent at one end. (8268 SE 13th, kaedepdx.com)
Tres
Moles Enchiladas at Mole Mole
The most visually appealing configuration of sauces in our city is undoubtedly the tres moles enchiladas at Mole Mole. This Northeast Alberta cart specializes in Oaxacan flavors, particularly the many moles of the Southern Mexican state. The tres moles allows you to sample the floral pink mole, the bright verde mole and the rich, deep brown mole. This is optimal, as they’re all very different and very deli -
cious. Fuck Skittles, this is what tasting the rainbow is really all about. ( 2231 NE Alberta, molemolepdx.com )
Seasonal veg from Bar Nouveau
A year from now, Chef Althea Grey Potter will be a Portland household name. She’s long been your favorite food writer’s favorite chef, and she’s getting ready to open her first solo venture, Bar Nouveau, in St. John’s. Formerly of Ned Ludd and Oui, Grey Potter’s tiny, electric-only kitchen inside the former Southeast Wine Collective location, is poised to put out plates maximalist enough to make still life painters salivate.
The permanent Bar Nouveaux space is set to open on September 18, but at a spring pop up in Gracie’s Apizza, bright orange early season carrots formed a crown
A delightful strawberry salad from Chef Althea Grey Potter.
ANDREA DAMEWOOD
ANDREA DAMEWOOD
ANDREA DAMEWOOD
around green garlic zhoug dollops—so green the plate looked like the month of May personified. Crispy pita chips, green onion, and herbs rounded out the dish. Grey Potter described her style to Portland Monthly better than even the finest writer could: “It’s like if Julia Child did acid and lived on a commune for a while. A technicolor awakening.” (Scheduled to open on Sept. 18, 7415 N Leavitt, @barnouveaupdx)
Pineapple Express at Janken
Janken knows what it’s doing when it comes to looking good. The restaurant is dominated by a life-like blooming cherry tree, its pink blossom laden branches arching over the main dining room. Gold leaf makes several appearances across the menu, and the towering Korean shaved ice bingsu desserts are truly a sight to behold. Almost anything you order is going to be a looker, but if you want a quick hit with a big visual impact, grab a seat at the bar and order the Pineapple Express. The drink itself is a great riff on a tiki drink: grilled pineapple infused mezcal, cointreau, cane syrup, cardamom bitters, and lemon juice blend together with just the right amount of sweet and acidic. But the real clincher unfolds as it’s served with major flourish, arriving at your seat under a cloche filled with smoke that dissipates dramatically, and your drink appears before you. Voila. (250 NW 13th, jankenrestaurant.com)
Burrata at Arden
Arden’s chef Erik Van Kley is one of our city’s undersung heroes for the incredible work he does. Seasonal cooking can have its limitations, with some cooks leaning on repeats or well-trodden combos each year. However, Van Kley delivers both dynamic taste and stunning visuals. Always look to his burrata, which right now has pleasing pops of red heirloom tomato, bright orange heirloom melon, vermilion calabrian chili vinaigrette, and ample verdant green herbs. (417 NW 10th, ardenpdx.com)
Butterfly tom yum noodle soup at Nakhon Sawan
A good noodle soup is already a thing of beauty, but Thai restaurant Nakhon Sawan on Southeast Division said “hold my broth.” They took tom yum noodle soup, already a perennial favorite, and turned the noodles purple, steaming them in purple butterfly pea flower broth. The violet noodles are served with a painter’s palette of accompaniments: jammy boiled egg, red roasted BBQ chicken, Chinese broccoli, cilantro, onion, garlic, ground peanuts, minced pork, AND crispy wontons. It’s a soup that looks as good as it tastes. ( 4147 SE Division, nakhonsawanpdx.com)
Coconut cold brew with Ube Whip at Kalesa Coffee
Filipino-owned coffee shop Kalesa Coffee has you covered for all your matcha, pandan, and ube needs, but there’s a reason the coconut cold brew with ube whip is a permanent signature drink. The coffee takes on a milky tan color, denoting the sweet coconut flavors within, and the bright purple ube whipped cream on top makes it the cheeriest morning pick-me-up, even when it’s actually cold and grey outside. (722 N Page, kalesacoffee.com)
Heirloom Tomato Pizza at Double Mountain Brewery
Most pizza looks good—you’re going to want to eat gooey cheese and red sauce. However, not many pizzas are truly gorgeous. Enter the heirloom tomato pizza at Double Mountain Brewery. This baby has gained a cult following, with the seasonal pie getting an official launch date each year on the brewery’s Instagram page. (This year, they kicked off on August 15.)
Huge slices of orange, green, purple, and red tomatoes dominate the crust, laid over a fresh basil walnut pesto on their New Haven-style thin crust. It’s just the thing to celebrate late summer, with an ice cold Jiro’s Japanese style lager to wash it down. (1700 N Killingsworth, 4336 SE Woodstock, 84th St in Hood River, doublemountainbrewery.com) n
THOMAS TEAL
LEILANI BANAYAT
ANDREA DAMEWOOD
DOMINIQUE RODRIGUEZ
An Eternity Evening With Francis Ford Coppola
Inside the Portland stop of the iconic director’s national tour!
BY DOM SINCAOLA
Ihave a tendency to wander,” Francis Ford Coppola said, mid-anecdote.
An audience member had asked about the iconic director’s approach to history.
Coppola’s initial answer remembered his father, a flautist under Arturo Toscanini, then his travails with a script he doctored some 45 years or more ago, when Westerns were big business, how he could never get it made, but Clint Eastwood did—Coppola called the project The Cut-Whore Massacre , but we’d likely know it as Unforgiven. The second half of his answer, after an intermission to his answer’s intermission, focused on honesty and how he’s rigorously adhered to it all these 86 years he’s been alive.
I realized he was trying to address the question. Unadulterated honesty: That was the answer.
So went An Evening with Francis Ford Coppola at the Portland Art Museum’s Tomorrow Theater, the final night in a brief, national tour for Coppola’s recent, fully self-funded behemoth, 2024’s Megalopolis.
Compared to previous stops, our audience was tiny—just 265—an intimate crowd promised an “interactive audience discussion” about “how to change our future” to follow the film. The legendary director (to put it lightly) would address a few questions, extemporaneously speak about the film and the aforementioned “future,” then nightcap the gathering with a “rapid-fire Q&A.”
Debate is an ostensible theme of Megalopolis . Imagining a modern city with ancient Rome grafted over it, the story’s alternate timeline mostly gilds our current shitty America with Corinthian columns, Latin names, and the pall of death. Coppola’s $120million “fable” casts Adam Driver as Cesar Catalina, New Rome’s most famous architect, Bruce-Wayne-like playboy, and Randian figure of aggressive futurism.
When we meet Cesar, he has recently received the Nobel Prize for discovering a new indestructible organic building material he deems Megalon. That the substance is a wriggling golden soup of nanobot technology and
judaeo-christian magic concerns Coppola less than how Cesar contrived it, which is at the door of his dying wife’s passage to the afterlife. Coppola was all about doors and debates that night. Upon first entering the theater, we were handed a letter from the man who directed The Godfather(s), Apocalypse Now, The Conversation , Dracula …um, Twixt “Dear Audience Member,” it greeted, Coppola wielding capitalization wantonly, “When a Motion Picture begins the audience enters through a door. But which door? …my door is a new way in, not yet familiar and doesn’t develop in ways you’ve been taught to expect.” He implored, “laugh when you want, shout out at it, be moved to tears or even if confused for a minute, you can still learn from it.”
Much of Megalopolis , wherein Cesar attempts to build the titular paradise over a demolished neighborhood of displaced working class families, is about that urgent need to talk it out. “We must have a great debate about our future!” Cesar hollers at a throng of citizens. New Rome, just like our
old Rome, is on the precipice of collapse, and Cesar believes his utopia will rise from the 9/11-coded graveyard of concrete and steel.
Unlike Mayor Franklin Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), who insists that the suffering people of the city need better jobs and functional civil services—not a glowing gold goopville with moving sidewalks— Cesar spends much of the film pushing for debate. “When we ask questions, when we have a dialogue, that is basically a utopia,” he proselytizes in a press conference. In a different press conference: “Utopias are not meant to offer great solutions, but to ask the right questions.”
No actual debates occur in Megalopolis , this film about the urgency of debate. So, choosing Coppola’s door, I rationalized that the evening would be just that: a debate with a maestro about the future we share. Turns out, the “debate” was just one person talking for most of the time, encouraging the audience to talk back but rarely pausing to let it happen.
Previous Carte Blanche series presentations at the Tomorrow Theater (which Coppola’s letter referred to more than once as a “Theatre”) have held the Q&A portion before the film, and as a result, plenty of people left those events early. For Coppola, theater lights rose upon an audience with the director’s 138-minute opus fresh in their minds—no one shouted out at the film, despite the man’s epistolary invitation. He entered to exuberant applause, wide grin adorned by a suit rumpled by regular wear, loafers, and flamboyantly-colored mismatching socks to contrast the work-
manlike cut of his outfit. With a voice practically stentorian, were it not for age creasing his words in the gurgly back of his throat, he began to talk.
Ninety minutes later, Coppola had only answered three audience questions.
He began by lamenting strife crossing centuries: “Why is it necessary that this enmity be repeated again?” Then he bemoaned falling birth rates, claiming that it must be because people no longer want to bring a child into this beleaguered civilization. “Kids should have something beautiful to live in,” he said. He failed to acknowledge parents who have no choice in the matter.
Coppola’s truth is that we are all “family,” all derived from the same early homosapiens, which means that “we”—everyone in that room—“are cousins.”
I leaned over to Oregon ArtsWatch critic Marc Mohan and whispered, “How very Italian.”
And thus Uncle Francis got to something of a point: Every human is born with the potential for greatness, and only exposure to education and experience can help people manifest their inherent gifts. “My gift is that I’m willing to work my head off,” he said, “to rewrite and re-edit” his films until they’re right. Yeah, no shit.
Enter the whiteboard, rolled out by actor and coach Austin Caldwell, who proceeded to scrawl 10 items in dry-erase marker, “EDUCATION” at #5. “Let’s make education not just for kids. Let’s make education for all human beings,” Coppola suggested, before he asked his attending stagehand to underline the word. Later he added hearts next to some
items, but I never really figured out why.
Other agenda items included “TIME” (#1), “WORK” (#2), and “POLITICS/GOVERNMENT” (#4). He revealed that these were “illusions,” or 10 “beliefs we accept as facts” that must be discussed and transformed to prevent our Rome from falling.
As we neared 11 pm, four hours since the start to our evening, we had merely made it to #5, only to double-back onto #3 (“MONEY”). I was settling in to be there until at least midnight, hoping we could get to #7 (“CASTE/WAR”), because I really
He began to talk. Ninety minutes later, Coppola had only answered three audience questions.
wanted to ask about Megalopolis the movie’s near complete dismissal of the suffering of displaced families under the progress of Megalopolis the elite conclave, and how that contrasts with Coppola funding the entire budget via his vineyard ownership.
However, right at 11 pm (mid-anecdote again) Coppola heard his time was up. “Time stop!” he blurted, mimicking one of Cesar’s most ubermensch-y lines. Everyone laughed, stood, and applauded.
The night as previewed was not the night we received, but to hear Coppola go off for so long, seemingly effortlessly, was
the perfect context in which to experience Megalopolis—a movie I still don’t really like, but I’m glad exists.
One of the three questions asked that night was about Coppola’s influences, particularly which ones appeared in Megalopolis He grinned and said he put “every movie [he] ever loved” into it. Which is how he held court, too, not only talking incessantly about film but name-checking countless authors (Davids Baltimore and Graeber), artists (Antoni Gaudi), architects (Neri Oxman, a designer and futurist who consulted on how the city of Megalopolis would actually look), and historical figures (Cleopatra, whom Coppola called “a total genius” even if she wasn’t as “attractive” as history would like you to think)... then crushing all those brainy references into an all-consuming paste.
If this was the debate Coppola had in mind, it wasn’t much of one. If this was supposed to be the chance to hear a grand explanation for a confusing movie from the writer-director himself, it wasn’t that kind of opportunity either. After all, according to Cesar, just talking about this stuff is good enough.
Instead, our Evening was something else, something incredibly singular. We shared an intimate space with one of cinema’s great masters, bathing in four solid hours of ebullient ego, relishing what it means for someone with his wealth and power to use it passionately for capital-A Art. Honestly, I came away with something resembling hope: that our time’s not running out, that Uncle Francis has one more in him, and that one day we’ll get to hear the rest of that anecdote. ■
How Many Stars?
A short list of films everyone will be arguing about for the next three months.
BY DOM SINACOLA
September
A Big Bold Beautiful Journey: In the yawning aftermath of After Yang , writer/director Kogonada tries again with Colin Farrell, this time welcoming Margot Robbie to another potential wad of corn, giving it a horrific title, and going for the tearjerking jugular.
I’m sorry, but it grows harder every year to cheer for the man who made Columbus One Battle After Another : Paul Thomas Anderson interprets Thomas Pynchon for the second time, casting Leonardo DiCaprio as fu-manchu’d Bob Ferguson. Anderson’s working with the biggest budget of his career, primed to hone Pynchon’s novel—the 1990 postmodernist thriller-romp Vineland —into what could be the closest the director’s come to an action-packed blockbuster.
October
The Smashing Machine: The Rock turns his face into a prosthetic meat-slab for Benny Safdie, playing MMA champion Mark Kerr. His artificially heavy brow cannot hide how desperately his sights are set on an Oscar nomination.
Tron: Ares: Jared Leto lands the easiest role of his lifetime—a synthetic humanoid who must learn how to be a real man—in the third film in a sci-fi franchise that seems “loosely planned” at this point.
The Mastermind : Kelly Reichardt mines a sumptuous ‘70s sheen for the story of an unassuming art thief (cutie-pie Josh O’Connor). No doubt we’re getting another hushed-but-devastating drama from an increasingly iconic American director.
A House of Dynamite: Little details are available for Kathryn Bigelow’s first film since 2017’s Detroit , except for a big castlist— including Idris Elba, Rebecca Ferguson, and teen heartthrob Tracy Letts—and a one-sen-
tence synopsis about an “unattributed missile” heading toward the US. Whatever. It’ll be on Netflix; you’ll get to it eventually.
Bugonia : Yorgos Lanthimos—popular director who makes weird, uncomfortable movies—is back with a movie that appears to be weird and uncomfortable. It’s his follow-up to last year’s Kinds of Kindness, a movie I’ve heard described as “weird” and “uncomfortable.” I wouldn’t know; I haven’t seen it. I’m not fond of feeling weird or uncomfortable.
November
The Running Man : Edgar Wright pimps out Glen Powell, the goddamnedest goodlooking man on god’s green earth, for the second cinematic attempt at adapting Stephen King’s 1982 book. Michael Cera could be playing a guy who electrocutes cops with a squirt gun full of his piss? I still need to confirm that.
Die, My Love: Grief and dissolution haunt Lynne Ramsey’s films (Morvern Callar, You We’re Never Really Here), and her latest— starring Jennifer Lawrence as a woman whose reality’s crumbling—will probably be a similarly intense ghost story.
Train Dreams : Filmed throughout northeastern Washington, Clint Bentley’s quietest of the quiet Pacific Northwest epics sold to Netflix for a reportedly record-breaking amount at Sundance, which is funny, because this gorgeous historical drama will make exactly zero dollars.
Hamnet : Bard-heads rejoice! Chloé Zhao (The Rider) goes back super-thirsty to the Oscar well for the story of sexy William Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) and his wife Agnes (Jessie Buckley) mourning the loss of their young son, her via being sad and him via writing Hamlet (duh). ■
Performance Works Northwest Turns 25
Dancer-choreographer Linda Austin reflects on a quarter-century in Portland’s experimental scene.
BY LINDSAY COSTELLO
In August, Performance Works Northwest marked its 25th anniversary with 25 hours of programming, a fitting tribute to the interdisciplinary spirit that defines the Foster-Powell arts space. The marathon weekend bounced from a dance aerobics workshop to a poets’ cabaret and a late-night karaoke party, underscoring Performance Works’ blend of artistic rigor and play.
Back in 2000, dance artist Linda Austin and lighting director Jeff Forbes transformed a former church on a residential street into an experimentation hub. A little east of Portland’s contemporary art orbit, it looks unassuming from the sidewalk. Inside, Performance Works incubates some of the city’s gutsiest art.
When we met in the venue’s back yard, Austin noted a new ADA bathroom underway as her cats sprawled in a sunlit catio nearby. The scene felt emblematic of her whole approach: grounded, warm, and community-minded.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
MERCURY : How was Performance Works Northwest founded?
LINDA AUSTIN: Well, I didn’t grow up dancing. I fell into it in the ’80s, after I moved to New York City. But I had physical training as an actor. I was a theater major at Lewis & Clark College. I first met [Performance Works co-founder] Jeff Forbes there, on the lighting crew. We didn’t date until we were in our 40s—I ran into Jeff at an Imago Theatre performance. The first thing he said to me was, “I just saw your picture in a book.”
How romantic.
I don’t know if he had a crush, but I thought, “Oh, you look at books about performance art…!” We started cross-country dating. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back to make me sell my East Village apartment. I bought it for $2,000 in 1978. By the ‘90s it was worth money, but not enough to buy a space for dancing in New York. In Portland, I could.
When I returned to Portland [in 1998], a realtor mentioned [the Performance Works building]. It was a Romanian Orthodox church. I thought, “Foster Road. Where’s that?!” At the time, it seemed far from the city center, but it was within our price range, so we bought it.
What was your first year of programming like? It grew organically. We had a fundraiser called Cabaret Boris and Natasha, our cats’ names at the time. It was salon style, with acts in various disciplines. Jeff and I got married in the space, too. Performance Works has operated for 25 years, but in October it will also be our 25th wedding anniversary. Everything happened for me in 2000.
For many years you were also an English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) instructor at Portland Community College while directing Performance Works. You were able to keep your creative spirit alive. Well, I wasn’t a parent. And I worked a two-thirds load, as opposed to full-time. Although I made less money, I figured out that I could survive on that and still do my work. When I retired from teaching ESOL with a tiny [Public Employees Retirement System] PERS pension, my creative time
increased. But my administrative time also increased—I took on more, added more programming.
Somehow, I figured out the jigsaw puzzle and was able to do things that might not be possible for younger people to do. I never had huge student debt. When I went to Lewis & Clark College, it was so much cheaper! So I benefited from the timing of when I was raised.
Looking back on a quarter-century of programming, what’s felt most powerful?
The Foreman Festival, which we held a new edition of as part of our 25th anniversary weekend. The last one was in 2012. It was based on the work of the avant-garde playwright Richard Foreman, who was very philosophical. He offered his raw writing drafts for people to use royalty-free and adapt however they wanted. For the Foreman Festival, artists got prompts based on a selection of his text.
How would you describe Performance Works’ role in Portland’s art scene over the years? Where would you like to see it go next?
When Performance Works started, I missed the East Village and New York’s downtown performance scene. So we held Holy Goats! Sunday afternoon improvisations, with bagels and coffee and performances in the daylight. That was basically replicating a program that I’d experienced at PS 122 [now Performance Space New York].
Conduit Dance was in Portland, which was my first entryway into the dance community here. Our space was similar, but also encompassed more of an interdisciplinary aspect. Over the years, that has developed further. We have a music series called Workshop. We’re one of the cheapest places to rent in town, so artists use the space for all kinds of things: installations, theater, music, film. Our residency program is one of our main ways of supporting artists. We’d like to keep doing what we’re doing, but with more support, which feels like a ridiculous thing to say in this climate of funding cuts.
What’s taking shape in your personal dance practice?
I have a new piece in the works called The Waves, loosely inspired by Virginia Woolf’s novel. There’ll be six performers, a couple musicians and some dancers. It’s [also referencing] the stream of consciousness of Woolf’s writing. I’m considering what we can do in a performance language that could be analogous. It probably won’t come to light for two years, although I may do a solo excerpt in the spring of 2026.
What can you share about Performance Works’ programming this fall?
Maya Dalinsky and claire barrera will be in residency for a week (October 5–11) with three workshops and a performance. Their work is partly about the value of friendship. For one of the workshops, you sign up with a best friend, and bring your archival objects or photos.
I’m also excited about hosting Bay Area artists for Beyond Gravity [featuring Allie Hankins] in November. There will be four different pieces by paired artists, sort of like a small festival!
Performance Works Northwest, 4625 SE 67th, pwnw-pdx.org
Linda Austin of 2025, dancing with Linda Austin of 2020.
ALLIE HANKINS
Putting the Play in Bike Play
The annual event is a bike ride, but is it theater?
BY SUZETTE SMITH
Bike Play is one of the city’s unsung artistic cuties. Since its start in 2009, the Bike Summer/Pedalpalooza ride has drawn healthy crowds to its annual one or two weekend runs, filling parks and lesser-known neighborhood green spaces with playfulness, charm, and cyclist humor.
The production flies under the radar of most cultural criticism. It’s been written about almost exclusively by Bike Portland’s Jonathan Maus for being part of the city’s cycling culture. But isn’t Bike Play theater? And shouldn’t we critique it? MerriamWebster defines—I’m joking! Of course Bike Play is theater, especially if you think of short comedy skits as meeting the criteria.
Bike Play is actually a very old kind of theater, the outdoors kind. And it contends with some of the most enduring puzzles of the form: How to be loud, and how to make movements that can be recognized at a distance.
As with anything that’s been going on for 17 years, the troupe contains a mix of longstanding players and fresh faces. It began as a project of the Working Theatre Collective, now defunct outside of Bike Play. After
the first three productions, founder Noah Martin moved out of Portland, and the show’s producer Noelle Eaton became its longest-running constant.
In mid-July the troupe staged its 16th iteration, Up Shift Creek , which followed a Magnolia -esque arc through several separate camping groups—each with their own dramatic circumstances—who
all eventually overlapped to fight a shark. Along the way, there were synchronized dances, musical numbers, and a secret religious sect that had been living in the woods since 1968.
The story and dialogue were light and refreshing—seemingly built to appeal to both young and older audiences, as Bike Play is a family-friendly ride. Still, sharply
smart lines jumped out unexpectedly from the easygoing script, contributing to the show’s overall feeling of pleasant surprise.
The structure of the ride is deceptively simple: A series of interconnected skits, broken up along a group bike ride route. Actors and audience traveled between six locations, along a five-mile loop, and each location brought a unique flavor to the different skits: A grassy divot, tucked beneath tall walls built to block Swan Island traffic sounds, felt like a hidden glade. A basketball court that offered a grand view from the Overlook neighborhood bluff became a sunset stage for tender family reconciliation. In the latter scene, longstanding troupe choreographer Kelsey Rankins broke out ballet moves—in sneakers—her dance with newcomer Isaac Ellingson creating an unusual energy that shifted from surprising elegance to goofy comedy and back again
Plenty of moments of Up Shift Creek were intentionally camp, made to telegraph easily to a large crowd—our audience had over a hundred. But what we felt most often was genuine entertainment at the ingenuity on display. One scene unwound a spool of cellophane to make an impassable river, another used traffic cones to represent campfires.
Even within such a simple idea, there’s so much chaos to work with. We were struck with the idea that Bike Play is so refreshing because its creators are still playing—still inventing and reacting to their shifting stages— and that’s leading them to bold, new flavors of mood. ■
Bike Play takes the theatrical action outdoors, and the result is both charming and refreshing.
SUZETTE SMITH
Gossip Queens
Normal Gossip can keep a secret. They just don’t want to.
BY ELINOR JONES
Astained chair. A disgusting stew. A girls’ trip where someone buys a dumb lamp. You may not think you need to hear the backstory of such innocuous things, but if it’s told to you in lurid detail by Rachelle Hampton on the hit podcast Normal Gossip , you will change your mind.
The premise of the podcast is simple: A listener submits an anonymous story from the regular world, which the host anonymizes to protect the (sometimes) innocent. Then the host salaciously tells the tale to a guest, who stands in for the audience by gasping, giggling, and yelling at these people to make better choices. (Spoiler: They won’t.)
Listening to the show feels like finishing a second glass of wine with one of your funner friends who then leans over conspiratorially, asking: “ You wanna hear something fuckin’ wild? ” Hampton took over as host after creator Kelsey McKinney warmly passed along the keys to the mess chest earlier this year, and says fans have been extremely supportive of the switch.
It warms my catty soul to hear from Hampton that the Portland date on Normal Gossip ’s national tour—September 18 at Revolution Hall—was the first to sell out. However, if you didn’t snag seats, [ StubHubbing for $448 at time of press -eds.] this Q&A with Hampton and producer Se’era Spragley Ricks is the next best thing.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity (even though I was sad
to do it because our whole talk was so fun.)
MERCURY : It’s tradition on Normal Gossip for the guests to bring a small bit of gossip for the host. I know that I am not a guest on your show, but I still wanted to bring you some gossip.
[RACHELLE HAMPTON and SE’ERA SPRAGLEY RICKS immediately perk up.]
Thank you, that means so much to me—especially since you really don’t have to promote your Portland show. It’s so sold out. I didn’t even get tickets, so I need to get as much out of you now as I possibly can. If I promise not to tell anyone, can you tell me what the story for the live show will be about?
RH: It is going to be about a [ canonically messy event] in [disaster location]. And there is a high likelihood that a version of the live show will appear in the Normal Gossip feed.
Normal Gossip has a devoted and ravenous fan base. You’ve said you all anonymize the submissions, but to your knowledge, has anyone ever figured one out?
RH: Normal Gossip has a pretty dedicated subreddit, which both of us avoid going into. I do think that people have found out the origins of episodes in the subreddit.
SSR: That’s one of the layers of anonymization we do, where once we get a story, we’re thinking like, what is the
logical lead? And then we go the opposite direction from that. And it’s happening at every step of the process. Even the stories that we choose are based on whether or not we can anonymize them. We get a lot of phenomenal stories where it’s like, this is incredible gossip, and it would be impossible to anonymize. So we just won’t do that story. We want to keep people that are sending us stories safe, and also, we want to keep ourselves safe.
Listening
to the show feels like finishing a second glass of wine with one of your funner friends who then leans over conspiratorially, asking: “You wanna hear something fuckin’ wild?”
Do the submitters participate in the anonymization process?
SSR: Not in the anonymization process, but we will go back to them when we let them know we chose their story, and then we will give them an update like, “hey, we changed this to that, is that okay?”
RH: Sometimes we’ll somehow end
up anonymizing something to the point that it’s true. Like, we’ll just add a detail, and they’ll be like, “actually, that’s what happened.” And it’s like, “well thank you, we’re gonna take that out now.”
How many submissions do you get?
SSR: We get a lot. Some of them are really, really good. But some of them can’t become anonymized, and we don’t use them.
I am so jealous someone gets to listen to all those. Do you ever get stories about famous people? It seems like that’s one that you can’t really anonymize.
SSR: We’ll be like, you can’t tell us that on the show, but also, thank you for feeding me.
So, my area of gossip is mostly celebrity gossip. I would like the Gossip Queens’ opinions on some things that are happening in that world, if it’s okay.
BOTH: Yes.
Do you think that Tom Cruise and Anna De Armas are actually dating?
RH: I have actually been thinking about this for a long time. I have so many conflicting feelings about Tom Cruise. Like, on one hand, he’s part of a cult. On the other hand, that man is more committed to the project of filmmaking than almost anyone except for, like, Martin Scorsese, and filmmaking is also going the way of the dinosaurs. Also, Top Gun: Maverick was great. He gave a lot to us. And so I’m, like, this gives PR relationship, but also, I well and truly have no idea what that man is ever thinking.
Do you think that Justin Trudeau and Katy Perry are actually dating?
RH: I hope not. I hope that’s a rumor. SSR: I was thinking the same thing.
Since these are obviously both PR relationships, don’t you think that Tom Cruise with Katy Perry and Justin Trudeau with Ana De Armas work better?
RH: Yeah, I agree. Vibes-wise, Tom Cruise and Katy Perry actually work together. If anyone can handle controversy, it’s Tom Cruise. He can help Katy Perry with that whole missile backlash, Blue Origin, whatever the fuck was happening. Ana de Armas, I feel like she’s too cool for Tom Cruise. And Justin Trudeau isn’t cool. Katy Perry is, I think, net neutral or net negative on Justin Trudeau’s reputation. All four of these white people are crazy though.
Normal Gossip hosts Rachelle Hampton and Se’era Spragley Ricks appear at Revolution Hall, 1300 SE Stark, Thurs Sept 18, SOLD OUT.
Hosts Rachelle Hampton (left) and Se’era Spragley Ricks from the Normal Gossip podcast.
SYLVIE ROSOKOFF.
Join us at the end of October for a weekend of cosplay, panels, and immersive experiences— don’t miss your chance to be part of the excitement!
Altonimbus Entertainment is proud to continue an annual tradition of bringing fans together for a jam-packed extravaganza of everything that it means to be a fan of anime and Japanese popular culture. Gaining its namesake (kumori) from the Japanese word “cloudy”, Kumoricon embodies the best parts of fandom and what it is to live in the Pacific Northwest. The Kumoricon family is growing with every passing year, making us the largest anime convention in Oregon.
OCT 31 – NOV 2, 2025
Portland, Oregon | Oregon Convention Center
Call It in the Ring
Punchlines & Piledrivers pits comics against each other for a wrestling-inspired improv battle.
BY COURTNEY VAUGHN
In an empty comedy theater, Mack Lee is strutting around in a diaper.
The local comedian moves toward a camera, sipping from a baby bottle filled with champagne. An unlit cigarette rests on Lee’s bottom lip.
It’s 10 weeks until the next installment of Punchlines & Piledrivers, and Lee, who performs as an infantile character dubbed Bad Baby, needs to cut a promo for the pro-wrestling-inspired improv comedy show before an upcoming battle in October.
The brainchild of Ally Ward, a local stand-up comic and lifelong pro wrestling enthusiast, Punchlines & Piledrivers embraces what Ward calls the “absurdity” of wrestling and pairs it with improvised comedy.
The result? Unserious characters standing in a mock “ring” hurling jabs at each other while Ward emcees. The participants don’t actually wrestle; they are comedians, not athletes. Instead, the comics go one-onone, calling out their opponents’ character flaws, while trying to win over judges, and charm the audience enough to advance to the next round.
The live show just might be the most Portland thing to hit the stage in years—a weird, low-brow production that is often as endearing as it is cringey.
Staying true to theme, the championship comes with a hefty, customized pro-wrestling-style belt.
Not every comic who participates is famil-
iar with the theatrics and machismo of pro wrestling, but most have at least a cursory grasp. That’s where Ward comes in, helping with character development and imparting just enough knowledge about the machinations of a traditional wrestling match to make the show’s mash-up format work.
“I think everybody naturally understands that wrestling isn’t a high level art. It’s just sort of campy,” Ward says.
“It is really basic storytelling sometimes.”
Some characters are built on parody. Others might come with a back story. For the most part, the character portrayal is the comedic element.
The cheeky format of Punchlines is a departure from the traditional stand-up routine most comedians are accustomed to. Improvised comedy is a challenge on its own, but throw in costumes and characters, and it ups the ante.
To attain the championship in October, Lee will need to win each round, before facing off against the current Punchlines & Pile Drivers World Champion, Amir Kat, AKA Mr. Roberts.
The reigning champ and current belt holder, Kat won over the audience at the last Punchlines show in April as Mr. Roberts—a persona derived from the Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood children’s TV show.
“There’s a huge passion for alternative comedy here and a huge passion for independent wrestling.”
“I get bored easily, so this show is so great for me. As a comedian I definitely lean toward character work,” Lee says, noting Bad Baby is inspired by the ridiculousness of a brash, mafia-inspired archetype—as a toddler.
“This is my character, I’m a Sopranos baby,” Lee adds. “I get to be a freak. I get to wear a diaper.”
“The quirk with Mr. Roberts is that he’s a little more morally updated; morally ambiguous,” Kat says. I want to be unsettling, a little. That’s part of the character.”
The comedian borrows from the signature wardrobe styling of Mister Rogers, layering sweaters over sweaters. He also sports a whimsical mustache he calls an ode to the Iron Sheik—an Iranian-American pro wrestler who rose to fame in the 1980s.
“I’ve been a fan of pro wrestling ever since I was little, and I love the amped up characters,” Kat says, recalling what it meant to him to see the Iron Sheik as a mainstay character on TV, yelling in Farsi.
With Punchlines, the local comedian gets to embrace a childhood nostalgia while also flexing a new comedic muscle.
The live shows can be rough around the
edges. Most of it is improvised, spur of the moment—meaning that, unlike pro wrestling, none of it is scripted. Comics in foppish costumes, at times, stumble to think of a quippy comeback.
For some in the audience, the unpolished, outlandish format is what draws them in. Thanks to a loyal local indie wrestling scene, Punchlines has been able to attract wrestling fans who know how to heckle and dial up the antics.
Is Stepdad Bill a good guy, AKA a babyface, or a heel (villain)? Even the performers don’t always know.
“What I found was the audience determines who’s the good guy and the bad guy,” Ward says. “Ultimately, I’m not telling [the contestants] which way to lean. Just present your character, and the audience will decide whether they like you or not.”
Ward is gearing up for the fourth Punchlines comedy showcase. She says the motivation for the concept was always to combine two distinct, yet not entirely dissimilar mediums. “There’s a huge passion for alternative comedy here and a huge passion for independent wrestling,” she notes. “I think the goal would be to create fans of comedy and wrestling and show them the connection of how they’re relevant.”
Punchlines & Piledrivers smashes up Curious Comedy Annex, 5225 NE MLK, Fri Oct 24, 7:30 pm, $12-15 and $5 to stream, tickets and info at curiouscomedy.org
Clockwise from left: Anna Janelle as Angel and Mack Lee as Bad Baby, Willow McCormick as Diana, Amir Kat as Mister Roberts.
JOHN RUDOFF
Jock Jams Vol. 1 Turns 30 & Flirty!
Y’all ready to think deep thoughts about an iconic sports music comp?
BY CAMERON CROWELL
Sports fans everywhere know Gary Glitter’s bumbling guitar riff from “Rock and Roll Part 2,” culminating in a “Hey Go [insert team name] Go.” And when 2 Unlimited asks, “y’all ready for this?” in their hip-hop/ jazzercise classic “Get Ready for This,” sports stadiums erupt in affirmation.
Maybe you heard those tracks for the first time sitting courtside, at a Belgian techno party, or via an electrifying mashup of five-second snippets during TV commercials, an ad that did numbers in an era of actual album sales. Even with those signposts of yore marking the path, it feels a little shocking to realize Jock Jams Vol. 1 released in July 1995—has turned 30, flirty, and certifiably vintage
The compilation arose at a particular point in American media, born from a collaboration between ESPN and independent hip-hop record label Tommy Boy Records. While the songs now seem ubiquitously tied to the institution of American sports, this was a unique and novel effort in the ’90s. Hip-hop groups like Naughty by Nature and K7 were still a part of the East Coast underground. Italo house legends Black Box crossed the European rave scene with American hip-hop to make “Strike It Up” (a work of timeless perfection). Additionally, including innuendos like those found in K7’s “Come Baby Come” was a risky move for a growing sports media empire like ESPN, who was still trying to convince the general public that the 24-hour news cycle could be applied to sports, too.
In ESPN’s oral history of the birth of Jock Jams, 69 Boyz producer Jay “Ski” McGowan offered the network a way to deal with any fallout from the raunchier tracks on the album. “Hey, if anyone from ESPN asks about 69 Boyz, just say the guys were all born in 1969, and ‘Tootsee Roll’ is a candy and a fun dance and just leave it at that,” McGowan said.
Thirty years later, the sports media industry has collapsed and regrown into an entirely new regime. There’s less risk taking, less regionalism, and less cool . It’s hard to imagine ESPN taking a break from their regularly scheduled programming of Former Player Everybody Hates Yelling at a Guy Who Doesn’t Seem To Watch Sports and a Woman Trying to Get Them Both to Move On. Imagining mash-ups of independent dance and hip-hop artists to make workout music for suburban children is decidedly off the table.
The experience of doing jumping jacks to “Pump Up the Jam” by Technotronic in gym class was either a teamwork hype machine, inspiring us to get in a few extra
reps, or at the very least a collective groan. It’s not easily replaced by the workout playlist Spotify’s algorithm is trying to sell—come on, Ed Sheeran is not hyphy!
Being a sports fan now is less about tragically attaching your feelings to your local team’s Herculean efforts on the court or field, and more about NBA offseason grades.
The post-modern fan discusses Damian Lillard’s $42 million contract with the Trail Blazers as a business decision and asks how Jeremy Grant’s player-option will impact the Blazers’ salary cap.
evolved along with American culture is the Village People’s “YMCA.”
Originally written as an obvious double entendre ode to the beauty of homoeroticism in athletics, the lyrics of “YMCA” were seen by many to depict working-class, gay men receiving safety net services at a community-based sports complex.
“Hey, if anyone from ESPN asks about 69 Boyz, just say the guys were all born in 1969, and ‘Tootsee Roll’ is a candy.”
We aren’t imagining ourselves as the players executing physical feats; we now identify more with the nerds managing the team.
While the track list on Jock Jams flows between wedding reception bangers, goofy skits, and dance routine staples, perhaps the only song on the compilation that has
“YMCA” has since become the favorite rally song of President Donald Trump, drawing complaints from the gay community. In 2024, Victor Willis—co-author of the song and the Village People member who dressed like a police officer—revamped his longtime assertion that the song wasn’t written to be a gay anthem. For decades, Willis had acknowledged the dual meaning of the lyrics, but in December, Willis alleged he would sue “each and every news organization” that called YMCA a gay anthem. He
added that he didn’t mind “that gays think of the song as their anthem.”
Approximately a month later Willis performed the song at several inauguration events, receiving rebuke from the group’s former members. Willis’ willingness to sell out his gay fans to encourage the success of a song, fully spreads the ironic splendor of Trump pumping his tiny fists to “YMCA.”
Torn from notions of homoerotic athleticism, the song’s lyrics can only describe services that most American YMCAs no longer provide. It holds no meaning other than as a payday for its surviving lyricist. The man behind its music, Jacques Morali, died in 1991 of AIDS-related illness.
Looking back on Jock Jams Vol. 1 , we wonder what mix of genres could make the youth of today seize upon dusty barbells for renewed and vigorous reps. Facing crumbling infrastructure and cuts to bills written to create blue collar jobs and a new, greener world—thanks to the nerds in charge—what mash-up could inspire feats of strength on the court or in society? In a world run by nerds, we need jocks, and we need jams. ■
Satyricon: An Oral History
From 1984-2011, the downtown dive was a venue where legends, locals and total unknowns shared a stage.
BY MELISSA LOCKER
Before Michaela Watkins’s first shift behind the bar at Satyricon, the manager gave her the tour.
“He said to me: ‘Okay, here’s the taps, here’s the keg, here’s the bat.’ And I was, like, the bat? And he’s like: ‘Yeah, the bat.’ I was like, am I gonna use a bat? He nodded: ‘You might need to use a bat.’”
Watkins never did need the bat, but it was a sign of the place, the times, and the vibes of one of the longest-lasting and, arguably, best punk clubs in the country, Satyricon, which shuttered for good just over 14 years ago.
Named for Fellini’s surreal but glamorous 1969 film, the club was on a decidedly unglamorous stretch of NW 6th, in Old Town. It was founded in 1984 by George Touhouliotis, a former cab driver with no real experience in running a club, but with a fondness for music.
“The story was that his brother had a grocery where Satyricon was and George
had a bar on East Burnside and for some reason the Violent Femmes played there, in this tiny little place, and like 100 people came in, and George was like I’m in the wrong business,” recalls Mike King, a musician and the club’s poster artist . “Okay, I couldn’t swear to that story,” he admits, “but
“There was nothing like a Dead Moon show; it was true old-school Portland.”
it sounds good.”
That was part of the magic of Satyricon— if the story sounded good enough, it may as well be reality. Did Kurt and Courtney meet there? Maybe! Was it haunted? Probably! Was it shut down by a riot? Kind of!
Whatever people said about the place all fed into its lore.
Something definitely true, though, was that Satyricon quickly became a mandatory stop for touring bands. Through some magical alignment of timing (grunge was taking off) and geography (Portland is helpfully located between Seattle and San Francisco) Satyricon became an important place for bands to play. Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, the Replacements, and Mudhoney all made stops. Oasis played there on their way up to stadium-packing superstardom. The Foo Fighters had one of their first shows there.
King recalls his band Spike opening for the Minutemen: “We were waiting to get in the back door, and the Minutemen show up. And they ask us, ‘Are you guys hard-core?’ We said, no. And they said, ‘Good!” he recalls, laughing. “That was a fun show because we were not hard-core.”
While bands like the Minutemen or Mudhoney were sure to pack the place, Ben Munat—booker for Satyricon from 19931999—didn’t always know which bands would sell.
“I got offered Palace Brothers,” he remembers, “and I went to ask Mike Martinez, the chef at [next door restaurant] Fellini, ‘who’s this Palace Brothers? They want a lot of money.’ Well, a lot for us, like $500. He was like: ‘Oh my god, take it, take it’,” Munat says. “It sold out so far in advance.”
Touring bands could draw a crowd, but it wasn’t always a given, says Watkins. “I remember seeing Calexico, and there was nobody there. There were literally one or two people standing there watching this incredible band.”
Satyricon became the home turf of Portland favorites like the Wipers, the Dandy Warhols, Hazel, Pond, Crackerbash, and Dead Moon. Lizzy Caston started going
to remembers: shows, nothing old-school go people, they’d Munat. them nation underplays: they agent] something Lizard small then thing I’ll was more it didn’t were “Elliott come even venues, Satyricon.”
Clockwise from left: Stephanie Martin and Kyle in 1989, Chuck Mosley of Faith No More in 1986, Monica Nelson and Dave Johnson in 1988.
PHOTOS BY FIONA ORTIZ
to shows there in the very early ’90s and remembers: “I saw many Dead Moon shows, and I am so glad I did. There was nothing like a Dead Moon show; it was true old-school Portland.”
“Dead Moon and Napalm Beach would go to Europe and play festivals for 10,000 people, and then they come home and they’d play for 100 people at Satyricon,” says Munat. “But they were fun, and I would put them on whenever they wanted.”
Satyricon was known as a go-to destination for bands wanting to do so-called underplays: shows at smaller clubs than they could usually sell out. “[The booking agent] called me and said, ‘Ben, I’ve got something for you,’” recalls Munat. “‘Jesus Lizard is going out, and they want to do small clubs. They miss the small clubs.’ But then he told me the price, and it was something huge. I’m like, I don’t care. I don’t care. I’ll charge 20 bucks. I don’t remember if it was $20, but I had to charge significantly more than I would normally back then. But it didn’t matter. The place was packed.”
“You could name any band, and if they were cool, they played there,” Watkins says. “Elliott Smith and Sleater Kinney would come in and pop up every now and then— even though they could do much bigger venues, they would still come in and do Satyricon.”
“I definitely remember Sleater-Kinney
playing there,” says the band’s lead singer, Corin Tucker. “And what a big deal it was— how many famous bands had come before us. The high stage with the giant pole in the middle made the whole experience feel like a bit of a high-wire act.”
Tried-and-true acts filled the calendar, but Satyricon happily took risks with rising acts, too. “They were fine with booking up-and-coming bands,” recalls Tony Lash, who started going to Satyricon before he was legally allowed in the space. “I was 19 or 20 and doing sound for Nero’s Rome,” he explains. When his new band Heatmiser— fronted by a young Elliott Smith—started up, they were quickly booked to play at Satyricon. His next band, Sunset Valley, also booked an early gig there. Record labels used the space to highlight new bands, holding showcases of new acts. Caston recalls: “It would be literally five bands for five bucks.”
Rebecca Gates, singer and guitarist of the Spinanes, says an early version of the band played their first-ever show there. “It was before Scotty [Plouf] joined, but it was my first time playing under the Spinanes name,” she recalls. It was an apt setting, an earlier Satyricon show caused Gates to realize she could—and wanted to—be in a band. “I went to see Glass Eye and Scratch Acid” Gates remembers. “Kathy McCarty is the guitarist for Glass Eye, and I just watched her play and I related to it in a way.”
Over the years, a lot of bands played Satyricon. A lot of bands. “I added it up at some point after I made the documentary,” says Mike Lastra, who frequently played Satyricon with his band Smegma and made the 2013 Satyricon: Madness and Glory. “I calculated about 44,000 performances there.”
“The high stage with the giant pole in the middle made the whole experience feel like a bit of a high-wire act.”
Despite that incredible number of shows played there over the decades, Satyricon was much more than just a club. It was a community center and gathering place. “It was just like a punk rock Cheers,” says King, who was hired to make posters for the club. “I made posters for every goddamn band that ever came to Portland ever. I did them all.”
The club and the in-house over souvlaki shop became a hub for Portland’s creative community. “It was exciting to have a place to go hang out that was lively and had a lot of interesting music and people. I knew that
most nights I could just go down there and run into friends,” says Lash.
“It was known for being the CBGBs of the West Coast and it was not far off, but it was just a working rock ‘n’ roll bar. You get a shot; tickets were cash and cheap. They had souvlaki. The bathrooms were disgusting,” says Caston.
King points out, “the chances were very good that there were people you wanted to avoid as well.” Friends and enemies showed up at the club. “I don’t know if I can describe how oddly welcoming, not even oddly, but just how welcoming Satyricon was,” says Gates. “It was a place where so many different people would go.”
“There was no hierarchy at all, no table service, no bottle service, VIP section, no reservation. No anything.” Watkins says, comparing it to today’s common, tiered ticketing. “It just was for the people by the people. It was so integral to the community of Portland, you know? I don’t think they have many places like that anymore.”
“It was the greatest thing,” says King. “If only you had been there it would’ve been amazing. It was a magical time when everyone was in love and everyone got along.”
The one thing that can’t be viewed through nostalgia’s rosy lens: “The bathroom was disgusting,” says Lash. The building—and bathroom—were demolished in 2011. ■
Clockwise from left: Fiona Ortiz under the Satyricon marquee in 1987, Becki in 1988, Troy Stutzman of the Venarays in 1986, Tres Shannon and Kurtz Project in 1990.
FIONA ORTIZ SANDI LANGMAN
FIONA
Full House
BY SUZETTE SMITH
When Leni Zumas’ Red Clocks came out in 2018, the speculative novel was widely lauded, not just for Zumas’ quicksilver prose, but for the story’s dystopic setting: a United States of America where the practice of abortion has been criminalized. Now, in the space of seven years, that speculation has become reality for the residents of 12 states. Red Clocks struck a relevant chord for those who saw the tide shifting.
Zumas’ new novel Wolf Bells is an obvious step forward in terms of clarity and employs her ultra readable, highly-effective form—the merry-go-round of characters whirs to life. However, I wonder if it’s possible for the book to receive even a shadow of the same acclaim as her previous novel. Not only is it not about a hot button issue, but it’s centered on people society would like to forget: older women, disabled people, the elderly, and students, among others.
This time Zumas’ speculation is a nice idea about a house, an intentional community where young and old live together in a grand, three-story historic home.
Run by Caz—a successful musician past her heyday—and her bandmate/best friend Vara, the house has a lot of problems (they need to hire a nurse) and delights (someone always seems to be cooking).
Caz has tried to create a mutually beneficial set-up to keep elderly tenants out
of impersonal facilities by offering free rent to students in exchange for weekly chores and keeping company with their older housemates.
Zumas’ circling narrative flits between the residents’ respective histories and that of the home itself, beginning with the tragic circumstances under which it was originally built, in 1919, and returning at irregular intervals to tease out mysteries.
Like with Red Clocks , the method of Zumas’ storytelling may be the whole point.
That book drew readers in, then led them through an artfully designed tale about some of the physical and emotional stages women can traverse in their lives. The device shines even brighter in Wolf Bells It’s not hard to imagine the novel’s characters leading quiet lives together, leaning on one another to fill in the gaps society does not.
All might have been well had the house not received two runaways, a resourceful 13-year-old, Nola, and her younger cousin, James—together fleeing an intention to place James in a far off facility. Ten years old and autistic, James doesn’t speak, but he’s equally represented in Zumas’ cycling perspectives. She presents him as reasonable—simply following his own rationale. This could so easily stray into cloying, but it works. It all works. His narration is probably the riskiest part of Wolf Bells, aside from making the book about groups of people
Hot Topic
Portland Zine Meetup is crafting community, comics, and zines about “like, every topic ever!”
BY SHAY MIRK
Under the fluorescent lights and cool air conditioning of the Lloyd Center mall food court, two dozen people spread collage supplies, paper, and pencils over tables that typically hold pretzels and cheap chicken chow mein. On Sundays, the Portland Zine Meetup gathers here to layout pages and share in-progress works about everything from a favorite punk band to lovingly illustrated fursonas.
At this particular meetup, Roman Ruddick, 30, has brought a new zine about the emotional process of changing their name. For that folded mini-zine, Ruddick hand-wrote reflections about their name change over collaged photos of themselves as a child.
Ruddick and Charlie Manzano, 26, started the weekly meetup in 2023, after they moved to Portland from Ashland, where they’d launched the Southern Oregon Zine Festival.
One of the big appeals of Portland was its zine scene—and Multnomah County Library’s policy of allowing anyone 100 free black-and-white photocopies a day.
“Zines were really important to me. They were like this method of expressing a desire to be heard in the way I wanted to be heard.”
“We did partially move to Portland for the free photocopies,” says Manzano. “It was a big draw.”
The weekly Portland meetup (@portlandzinemeetup on Instagram) eventually grew too popular for just once a week, so comics zinester Sophie Danner, 25, volunteered to run an additional Thursday night session at Rose City Book Pub.
Over the past two years, the free, twiceweekly meetups have blossomed into a staple of Portland’s zine community—a warm and welcoming space for anyone looking to self-publish. They’ll even have a dedicated table featuring members’ zines at this year’s Portland Zine Symposium, held November 8-9, the biggest event of the year for Portland’s zine community.
“The entry point for zines is non-existent. Anyone can make them, and you don’t need anything fancy. They provide tangible proof of someone’s lived experience,” says Danner, who this year is attempting to draw 100 diary comics before her next birthday (she’s at number 45). “And it’s
really cool to see people be introduced to zines and then to be like, ‘I can do anything with this!” adds Ruddick.
Both Manzano and Ruddick met because of a shared difficulty: As teenagers, they were both diagnosed with cancer. In 2017, Manzano started a Tumblr about being a trans cancer patient—Ruddick became his only follower. The two became internet friends, then friends IRL. In 2018, Manzano’s cancer came back and Ruddick moved to the Bay Area to be with him. It was there that they stumbled across a zine festival in the San Jose public library.
“We were like, ‘Wow, these people are writing about, like, every topic ever! This would be a great way to find other trans cancer patients,” says Ruddick.
“I was really interested in reading more from patient perspectives, and not, like ‘I survived by eating kale,’” says Manzano. “I was looking for more earnest, personal stuff.” Luckily, earnest and personal are where zines excel. The duo started making their own zines about their experiences with cancer. They started up a website, TransCancerZine.com, featuring downloadable PDFs of zines, which they still run. Both Ruddick and Manzano are now in remission and make zines about all sorts of things they care about.
“Zines were really important to me. They were like this method of expressing a desire to be heard in the way I wanted to be heard,” says Ruddick. “I really liked how honest I could be in zines and how honest I found other people’s writing. I liked the vulnerability.”
The group plans to continue the popular twice-weekly meetups and have started publishing anthology zines, taking submissions from the meetup regulars. The first publication, Something Good Happened Here, shares personal memories from 40 contributors about good things that have happened to them in specific places in Portland—a sweet and sincere counterpoint to the national narrative that Portland is a crime-ridden dumpster fire.
Published in March, to coincide with the Reed Zine Fest, copies of the anthology will be available at the Zine Symposium too, along with those from meetup members. That’s part of the thrill of zine-making, says Ruddick: finding new stories and new friends.
“Every time I go to a zine fest, especially where there’s zinesters I’ve never met, and getting zines I’ve never seen, it’s inspiring.”
Portland Zine Symposium takes place in Smith Memorial Ballroom at Portland State University, 1825 SW Broadway, Nov 8-9, 11 am-5 pm, FREE, all ages.
The weekly Portland Zine Meetup at the Lloyd Center mall food court.
Roman Ruddick (left) and Charlie Manzano, the founders of the Portland Zine Meetup.
Zinesters sharing and working together on their projects.
Roman Ruddick holding a zine titled, “Mom Number Two.”
ALL PHOTOS BY SHAY MIRK
Making a Racquet
Tennis Courterly’s editors insist it’s not a secret literary magazine—it’s about tennis.
BY TAYLOR GRIGGS
Portland might not have professional tournaments or world-class tennis academies, and many of the city’s public courts have seen better days. But Portlander Tyler Pell sees potential in the city’s community tennis culture. He wants to make sure other people see it, too.
Enter Portland Tennis Courterly: The stylish, quarterly (get it?) newsletter devoted to all things Portland tennis.
The Courterly’s first issue, published in spring 2023, was short and straightforward. It was printed on white, tabloid-size paper—Pell used the Multnomah County Library printers for the fi rst few issues—and featured a tennis advice column, an interview with the director of the Portland Tennis Center, and a brief news update about the center’s recent weatherrelated woes.
That first newsletter’s design was neat but stylized, foreshadowing the Courterly’s coming evolution. Pell, who came up with the idea for the Courterly with a friend from college, sought out more contributors and collaborators. By the following spring, he was printing using a risograph technique and had secured a few advertisements. Today, over two years in, the Courterly features a masthead with more than a dozen names, and its coverage goes well beyond tennis basics.
In February, Tennis Courterly published a 30-page issue focused on pickleball (the Courterly is firmly against it), supported by a $5,000 Portland Arts Project grant from the Regional Arts and Culture Council (RACC). It contained an in-depth, reported feature by Pell about an Irvington couple fighting the rise of pickleball in their neighborhood, an anti-pickleball manifesto originally published by a leftist tennis club, a paper doll “fun section,” and an essay titled “Beyond Pickleball,” which featured the scathing pull quote: “To be good at tennis is to be beautiful. To be good at pickleball is to be good at pickleball.”
Normally, the Courterly is presented as a newsletter—one long piece of paper, with text on both sides, folded to create three panels. Pell drew inspiration from the Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability’s Curbsider mailer, which contains information about the city’s garbage and recycling systems and is distributed free of charge. Pell said he chose the newsletter style because he thinks it’s “the perfect way to present something as serious and worthy of reading.” This is in contrast to the zine for-
mat, which he thinks is unfortunately not as well-regarded by the masses.
mat, which he thinks is unfor-
’s manag-
Jay Boss Rubin, Tennis Courterly’s managing editor, is a writer and Swahili translator. He’s also a longtime tennis enthusiast and was excited to find an outlet to combine his passion for the sport with his literary background. Rubin says the newsletter isn’t
Swahili sport with his literary says the newsletter isn’t
already know about it.”
already know about it.”
Tennis Courterly
Portland parks. In July, the
Open, their biggest event yet.
in-person events make up an
In addition to the publication, Tennis Courterly has begun hosting community tournaments at Portland parks. In July, the Courterly team staged the Mt. Tabor Open, their biggest event yet. Pell said the tournaments and in-person events make up an important part of the whole project’s mission, which is to encourage real-world participation and engagement with Portland’s tennis courts and public spaces.
“a secret literary magazine, nor is it just for tennis people.”
This has allowed the publication to find a diverse set of contributors, from professional writers to people who had never been published before. Rubin compared this
Pell’s
goal with the Courterly has been to “rebrand tennis in Portland,” and build on the groundswell of enthusiasm he sees for the sport.
range of writing experience to the di erent levels of tennis expertise a person might experience on Portland’s courts.
“There’s something really special hap-
pening where it’s not just about always trying to play up and play better. We’re in community with players of many di erent levels and di erent ages,” he said. “There’s a nice way we could all play together.”
From the beginning, Pell’s goal with the Courterly has been to “rebrand tennis in Portland,” and build on the groundswell of enthusiasm he sees for the sport. “Tennis Courterly began in an attempt to change perception, to bring people together and build a political consciousness around tennis and public resources in Portland,” he said.
Pell also hoped the publication would help introduce and acclimate new people to Portland’s tennis scene, which he said can be “very opaque, with all these di erent rules and barriers to entry.”
“It didn’t seem like anybody else was trying to encourage other people to understand and get into tennis,” he said. “It feels like a lot of Portland’s tennis clubs are really just talking to themselves and to people who
project’s mission, which is to in our lives, and I think a lot of it
“There’s been a tremendous void of meaning in our lives, and I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that everything feels gray and homogeneous and the same when we live online,” Pell said. While the publication has a noticeable Instagram presence, which Pell said helps get the word out about the newsletter and events, it’s “sort of antithetical to the whole point.”
“The whole point is to go to the park and pick up a physical copy, and read it and hopefully enjoy it,” Pell said. To reinforce that physical engagement, only some of the Courterly ’s stories are available online. The best way to read the newsletter is to pick up a print copy, which you can find at some tennis courts, as well as Players Racquet Shop and Old Town magazine store Chess Club.
There’s more going on for the Courterly , too. The publication recently supported the release of a photobook, “Full Western,” by newsletter contributor Jake Arvidson, which celebrates Portland park tennis. They’re planning their next tournament, the H2Open, for the end of October, and their next issue, “The Wet Issue,” for release in November. Pell is also working to schedule a production of the play Bimbo Tennis , a Chekhov adaptation written by Emma Gardner, for next spring or summer.
But in the end, Pell said, it’s all about tennis.
“People can be coaxed to the tennis court if there’s something bringing them out. You don’t have to be really good at tennis to like to play tennis,” he said. “It’s just a great way to engage with your friends, or to meet new friends, or you know, rivals or enemies. All of this is possible on the tennis court. If there’s something fun at the center of it to bring people out, people will come out to play.” ■
Trying to make Portland “Tennis City, USA,” one banner and newsletter at a time.
TYLER PELL/TENNIS COURTERLY
Stacey Abrams Has the Write Stuff
She’s explaining artificial intelligence through the lens of Coded Justice.
BY MELISSA LOCKER
Former Georgia State Representative and two-time gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams may be best known as a political activist, but when she’s not ticking off Republicans, she’s writing novels.
Coded Justice , the third book in her Avery Keene series continues to follow Abrams’ heroine through the insular world of Washington politics, this time bringing her up against a potentially deadly side of artificial intelligence. One of the great draws to this year’s Portland Book Festival, Abrams chatted with the Mercury about her fiction writing and the ways she sees it as an extension of her political service— in particular, she hopes this new work can help audiences learn about artificial intelligence (AI) in a way that is more palatable than waiting for X’s built-in chatbot Grok to go Mecha-Hitler again.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
PORTLAND MERCURY: How do you keep coming up with new adventures for Avery Keene?
STACEY ABRAMS: I try to think about issues that are in the public domain that aren’t getting a lot of attention, or that are getting attention, but people don’t necessarily understand how they work. It’s a really good excuse for doing lots and lots of research, because I’m a nerd. It also helps me think about what communities want to understand—whether it’s biogenetics or how the energy grid works or cryptocurrency. In Coded Justice , it’s artificial intelligence. This is one of those looming conversations that we need to know more about, but we don’t always feel either qualified or entitled to more knowledge,
AI is a constant part of the cultural conversation these days. When you first started exploring a new book, did you kind of immediately know AI was going to be involved? I knew that the third book was going to transition Avery out of the Supreme Court and into her next phase of life. Thinking about it, AI just kept coming back to me as a question. In my previous books, there’s been a clear villain or an anti-hero. I wanted to grapple with the question of what happens when there’s no clear right or wrong, but there are still important questions and decisions. AI was the perfect foil because it’s a technology. It’s not good or bad. It’s capable of great good, and it is absolutely something that can be used for tremendous problems and to cause harm.
Were you trying to maintain a certain level of neutrality?
Less neutrality and more that I wanted to understand it better. People are not wrong to be concerned about this technology. For example, there was a recent executive order that forbids the use of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in AI models, and I want people to understand the consequences of that. It can deprive those populations of the very privilege that AI provides: faster understanding, connecting dots we don’t see, being able to accelerate possibilities. This would disallow communities from having access to that information or even being included in how that research is done. By the same token, we have seen what happens when AI is trained on the wrong models and given bad information, and that is a possibility we need to understand, so we can guard against it. Ultimately, AI can’t do anything on its own. We have to pay attention to who’s making the tools. That’s really the question Avery confronts in the book. She enters into navigating this extraordinary technology by dealing with a man who’s well-intentioned but who stands to make billions, depending on the choices that he makes and those of
his team, who all have their own reasons for how they approach their job. People make the technology, and people decide whether the technology is a tool or a weapon.
So many of the people currently involved with AI—the ones who are creating the guard rails— seem determined to make money despite the risk to the rest of the world. One of the best ways to disempower a community is to make sure they feel outmatched by the knowledge. That’s part
of the reason I wrote this book. I’ve been using this series and my life to tell stories so that the reader feels not just empowered but armed—ready to engage.
I love that Coded Justice has been described as a primer for how the average person can understand AI. It’s giving you a little bit of a thrill, but also I want us to be able to say: Oh, when you mentioned LLM, I now know what that means. The way I wrote Coded Justice , I spent time working with models and doing deep research on what’s actually possible today. I don’t want anyone to have to do all the research I did—although it was fun and interesting and terrifying. You just have to read the book, so you can feel better armed for the next conversation.
So it’s kind of a Mary Poppins approach, a spoonful of sugar helping the medicine go down.
Exactly. Only, you know, there might be car chases.
Mary Poppins needs a few more car chases, if we’re being honest. The first books of yours that I read were romance novels, technically written by Selena Montgomery. What made you decide to start publishing under your own name? When I first started writing romance, I was also publishing tax policy articles. So when Rules of Engagement came out, so did a piece about the operational dissonance of the unrelated business income tax exemption. As a lawyer, you can write romance under a pseudonym, but you can’t write tax policy under a pseudonym. So Selena Montgomery got to write romance, and Stacey Abrams got to write tax policy. Once people got more comfortable with it, I was able to merge the lanes. And now it’s Stacey Abrams writing as Stacey Abrams.
So can we expect more romance books from you?
Maybe. Right now I am focusing on Avery and building out her world. I just actually penned a deal to do two more Avery Keene novels. Hopefully people will notice Avery has a little bit of a love life, and in Coded Justice, there is competition for her affections. So I love that. I try to meet all of my audiences, wherever I am.
Stacey Abrams appears as part of Portland Book Festival in a special ticketed event at Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 SW Broadway, Sat Nov 8, $35, tickets at literary-arts.org
KEVIN LOWERY
Get Your Nose Out of That Book!
Take a break from reading by listening to people talk about reading at this year’s Portland Book Festival.
BY NED LANNAMANN
Reading can be a solitary pursuit. Therefore, getting out of the house for the Portland Book Festival isn’t just a fun way to spend a Saturday in November— it’s probably good for your mental health.
Every year, nonprofit Literary Arts brings a passel of writers, publishers, and booklovers to the Portland Art Museum
Omar El Akkad
and South Park Blocks to mark the start of cozy-nights-in-with-a-good-book season—on the other side of summer’s debaucherous beachread bacchanals.
This year marks the 20th anniversary of what began as Wordstock—renamed in 2018—where attendees get to interact (no touching) with authors from all genres and backgrounds, hawking
The name of Omar El Akkad’s book One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This comes from a 2023 tweet of El Akkad’s that went viral in the weeks after Israel’s initial assault on Gaza. The tweet has become a perfect encapsulation of the passivity of Western onlookers, growing in incisiveness as that assault has metastasized into an undeniable genocide. The Portland-based novelist and journalist—a longtime reporter for Toronto’s Globe and Mail and author of American War and What Strange Paradise —reckons with the impotence of America’s empty promises and the responsibility of fatherhood in a society where the privileged continue to dehumanize and, in some cases, destroy those they deem expendable.
Craig Thompson
Portland graphic novelist Craig Thompson has returned to the memoir form that made his Blankets such a breakthrough, but Ginseng Roots is much more than a recounting of Thompson’s memories of working as a child on a Wisconsin ginseng farm with his siblings. The book is also a multi-dimensional immigrant tale and a document of the ginseng industry in America, amid the shifting labor, agricultural, and immigrant policies of the United States over the past few decades. Like so many American tales that began in 20th-century optimism, this particular ginseng farm collides with 21st-century institutionalized racism and corporate greed. And yet Thompson makes it all personal and effortlessly page-turn-able; the New York Times called Ginseng Roots “a shaggy, imperfect, often beautiful almost-diary.”
Susan Orlean
Susan Orlean has no shortage of accolades, but for my money her most prestigious credit is as a writer on the excellent HBO series How To with John Wilson. That show gave investigative journalism a brilliant new form, something Orlean has done several times over her career with nonfiction books like The Orchid Thief and The Library Book. Her new one, Joyride, is a memoir about her life as a writer, exploiting her global adventures and detailing the nuts and bolts of her craft. It might be the most useful volume for aspiring authors since Stephen King’s On Writing
Reginald Dwayne Betts
Poet and prison reform advocate Reginald Dwayne Betts is the founder of Freedom Reads, which gives prisoners access to literature—something that changed Betts’s life when he was incarcerated as a teen. He named his latest collection of poems Doggerel , but it’s anything but: These are poems about the moments of gentle truth and beauty that come from a freedom hard won.
their words in the most enjoyable way possible: via talks and readings that’ll give you way too many good ideas of what to read next. Bring a tote, because you’re going to take home an armful of new things to stack on the nightstand.
Hot on the recent announcement of this year’s lineup, here are eight authors, poets, and comics artists we’re excited to see:
Lidia Yuknavitch
Following up The Chronology of Water with her second memoir, Reading the Waves , prolific Portland author Lidia Yuknavitch explores the power of writing as not just a craft but as a method to process past trauma and reshape memories. Yuknavitch is brutally honest with her words, and Reading the Waves has received widespread accolades for the way it bursts through the boundaries of the memoir format.
Angela Flournoy
Following up her acclaimed debut novel The Turner House , Angela Flournoy’s The Wilderness depicts a group of five Black women during the first two decades of their young adulthoods. Using each character as a different lens to view the social, economic, and political upheavals of the 21st century, Flournoy has attempted something you just don’t see on new-release bookshelves all that often: a modern American epic, driven by emotion, personality, and the realities of contemporary life.
Pádraig Ó Tuama
As host of the Poetry Unbound podcast, Pádraig Ó Tuama doesn’t just present some of the finest examples of contemporary poetry (delivered in his irresistible Irish accent)— his subsequent decompression and illumination of the texts provides sparkling literary analysis that conveys his joy at the power of the written word. Ó Tuama often uses an inspirational approach to his readings, delivering insights that listeners can apply to their own lives and relationships. Chances are good he’ll read from his own recent collection of poetry, Kitchen Hymns, which reckons with theology, queerness, and the undeniability of the natural world.
Jon Raymond
Updike or Mailer never dared to title a book God and Sex, but Portland author Jon Raymond did—showing sly awareness of the current state of straight-white-male-protagonist narrative fiction. Raymond’s story is about an unsuccessful woo-woo West Coast writer schtupping his buddy’s wife, but when she goes missing in a forest fire, the writer begins some serious spiritual bargaining. God and Sex packs an emotional punch even as it skewers its protagonist’s pretensions—no surprise when you remember that Raymond co-wrote several of Kelly Reichardt’s best films.
Portland Art Museum and neighboring venues, 1219 SW Park, Sat Nov 8, 10 am–6 pm, admission $18 and up, free for youth 17 and under, tickets at literary-arts.org, all ages
KATESHIA PENDERGRASS MILES MINGO
MIRANDA BARNES PHOTOGRAPHY
DAVID PUGH
KENNETH DIXON
PHIL THOMPSON
COREY HENDRICKSON
JAMES ADOLPHUS
FALL ARTS GUIDE
That’s Camp! ft. Ry Bred, Tomboy, Peachy Springs + more @ Clinton St. Theater
DO THIS, DO THAT
Amanda Lepore
September 25, X-Port Lounge
The city’s grandest, thinkiest, mostengaging displays of art and culture!
BY LINDSAY COSTELLO, WM. STEVEN HUMPHREY, NOLAN PARKER, AND SUZETTE SMITH
Storywork: The Prints of Marie Watt
THROUGH DECEMBER 6
(VISUAL ART) Marie Watt’s balance of technical precision and expansive vision melds in larger-thanlife textile processes and multimedia explorations. Storywork centers stories from her Seneca Nation ancestry, pairing them with references to everything from Greco-Roman myth to Star Trek. The selection of narrative prints appears alongside a sculptural tin jingle cloud. Programming includes an October 2 performance by champion jingle dancer Acosia Red Elk and a campus native plant tour led by the Indigenous Traditional Ecological and Cultural Knowledge team on October 14. (Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at PSU, 1855 SW Broadway, FREE, pdx.edu, all ages) LINDSAY COSTELLO
Time-Based Art Festival— TBA: 25
THROUGH SEPTEMBER 14
(THEATER & PERFORMANCE) Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA) turned 30 this year, making it both a millennial and the creator of the city’s shiniest experimental performance jewel, the Time-Based
Art Festival (TBA). This year’s fest brings a full-force two-weekend lineup packed with multimodal poetry, queer opera, and shape-shifting dance. You’ll find programming at four venues—PICA’s cavernous Hancock headquarters, Pacific Northwest College of Art, Winningstad Theatre, and Reed College—featuring a lineup that leans West Coast, with artists hailing from Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, and Los Angeles. (PICA Annex, 15 NE Hancock and other locations, pica.org) LC
Black Matter
SEPTEMBER 5–NOVEMBER 7
(VISUAL ART) This traveling exhibition features Black Oregonian perspectives you should make time to engage with—works by heavy hitters like Intisar Abioto, Jeremy Okai Davis, Sadé Duboise, and Master Artist Michael Bernard Stevens Jr. appear together, culminating in a diversity of perspectives that “challenge the expectation that Black art must be political.” Curated by Tammy Jo Wilson (who also curated this summer’s Terrain: A Land Art Experience), Black Matter’s programming includes an opening night sculptural sound performance by Sapata and Santigie Fofana-Dura, and spoken word by MOsley WOtta on September 18. (Patricia Reser
Center for the Arts, 12625 SW Crescent, Beaverton, FREE, thereser.org, all ages) LC
Anna Buckner & Meredith
Morrison: As Above, So Below
SEPTEMBER 6–28
(VISUAL ART) Side by side, Anna Buckner and Meredith Morrison’s artworks are visual ASMR: Buckner’s mounted textile pieces transform applique and log cabin quilt techniques into painterly compositions, while Morrison’s sculptural forms embody a synthetic, iridescent nostalgia. The title of this exhibition nods to a familiar phrase and charts the “slippages,” investigating “points where logic breaks down, where systems fail to contain emotion, and where abstraction begins to feel personal.” If you tend to get lost in the vocabulary of exhibition statements, this one’s still worth it for the elegant material exploration. (Well Well Projects, 8371 N Interstate #1, FREE, wellwellprojects.com, all ages) LC
HUMP! Film Festival
SEPTEMBER 11–13
(FILM) As you undoubtedly know, HUMP! is America’s sweetest li’l porn festival—supporting this very publication for a number of years!—featuring short, oh-so-
dirty flicks made by your horny friends and neighbors from the PNW and beyond. Plus, unlike those bro-centric porn sites, HUMP! films spotlight every conceivable body type and sexual flavor, making it much more interesting and FUN… particularly when viewed in a theater filled with sexy people like yourself. And if you loved the spring installment of HUMP!, wait until you see this fall’s “part two,” featuring 22
Black Matter
Sept 5–Nov 7, Patricia Reser Center for the Arts
JOSEF JASSO
BRAND NEW FILMS for your horny, drooling pleasure. Miss at your peril! (Cinema 21, 616 NW 21st, $20-$25, humpfilmfest.com, 18+) WM. STEVEN HUMPHREY
PDX POP Now!
SEPTEMBER 12–14
(MUSIC) The most honorable Snoop Dogg once said: “Pop it like it’s hot,” and every year PDX Pop Now! does just that, with a line-up of the city’s local music heaters. The 2025 festival lineup is stuffed to the gills with the likes of Alienboy, Rango, Franklin Gothic, Friends Friends, the Prids, the Apricots, Femme Cell, Spiderling, Swiss Army Wife, and more. In past years, sets crawled the alleys of SE industrial, but this year’s location is legit: Westside Portland favorite Midtown Beer Garden. That means the food and family-friendly activities are on lock; all we have to do is rock. (Midtown Beer Garden, 431 SW Harvey Milk, FREE, pdxpopnow.com, all ages) NOLAN PARKER
Freddie Robins: Apotropaic
SEPTEMBER 13–DECEMBER 14
(VISUAL ART) UK textile artist and Royal College of Art professor Freddie Robins fuses kitsch, gender exploration, and a rebellious sense of expression into tapestries, tactile sculptures, and assemblages. Adding a little insight into what this show might investigate: its name, Apotropaic, means “designed to avert evil.” It’s less “Keep Calm and Carry On” and more ritualistic, comprised of knitted horses and studio remnants, among other curiosities. Curated by Stephanie Snyder, Robins’ solo exhibition brings her to Portland as Reed’s Stephen E. Ostrow distinguished visitor, and she’ll deliver an artist talk on September 30. (Douglas F. Cooley Memorial Art Gallery, Reed College, 3203 SE Woodstock, FREE, reed.edu, all ages) LC
Karen Slack: African Queens
SEPTEMBER 13–14
(MUSIC) Iconic soprano—and winner of the 2025 Grammy for Best Classical Vocal Solo—Karen Slack opens the Portland Opera 2025-26 season with a survey of story and style. Her curation of African Queens, draws from songs already familiar and new compositions from contemporary composers Jasmine Barnes, Jessie Montgomery, Shawn Okpebholo, Dave Ragland, Carlos Simon, Joel Thompson, and Portland Opera’s Music Director Damien Geter—sometimes referred to as “the “Blacknificent 7.” Each commissioned work drew inspiration from a great African woman in the past; the collected evening draws a line through history via Slack’s impressive musical range. (Patricia Reser Center for the Arts, 12625 SW Crescent, Beaverton, $36 – $56, portlandopera.org, all ages) SUZETTE SMITH
The Elixir of Love
SEPTEMBER 19–20
(THEATER & PERFORMANCE) Nicknamed POGO, Portland Opera’s “to go” company travels around the state—with portable scenery and costumes— performing 50-minute opera productions for students in school gyms and neighborhood community centers. The shows are created to be approachable to youthful audiences, which also makes them perfect for anyone dipping their toe into opera for the first time and worldly fanciers looking for an opera snack. On an educational level, Elixir of Love by Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti is a textbook example of the bel canto style he was influential in popularizing; on a theatrical one, it’s a messy little drama about snake oil salesmen and the strongest romantic love potion: affected indifference. (Winningstad Theatre, 1111 SW Broadway, $15, portlandopera.org, all ages) SS
Sasha Fishman: Shad Mode
SEPTEMBER 20–NOVEMBER 15
(VISUAL ART) For Sasha Fishman, the extraction of marine biomaterials is both a research-driven investigation and a sculptural gesture, an inquiry shaped by the sea itself. The fittingly surnamed artist
Wynne: Tour Next Door
SEPTEMBER 18–27
(MUSIC) Buckle up, Portland hip-hop fans! It’s been almost two years since hometown hero, rapper, and certified baddie Wynne packed Wonder Ballroom at the finale of her Hot On Their Heels Tour, and the artist is now playing six new September shows—all of them in Portland! Dubbed the “Tour Next Door,” the prolific Rose City rapper will headline a slew of dope local venues: Starting at Specks Records on September 18 and closing out the local run at Alberta Street Pub on September 27. (Various dates and venues, sinawynne. com) JENNI MOORE
is a Columbia sculpture grad who has collaborated with laboratories on “salmon, fountains, and carbon capture materials.” She’ll show for the first time at ILY2; expect a slick, watery sensibility in Fishman’s
Shad Mode, whose material explorations include hagfish slime, algae, and cicada shells. (ILY2, 925 NW Flanders, FREE, ily2online.com, all ages) LC
Paradise Blue
SEPTEMBER 24–NOVEMBER 2
( THEATER & PERFORMANCE) A jazz club in 1949
Detroit is the setting of Paradise Blue, the kickoff production for Portland Playhouse’s 18th season. The Black Bottom neighborhood, which is home to the Paradise jazz joint, is on the precipice of gentrification, as the protagonist Blue—a deeply troubled trumpeter— fights to retain control over the club and come to terms with his own tortured history. Acclaimed playwright Dominique Morisseau’s immersive script is one of a cycle of productions documenting the Black experience in Detroit, and how the city and its residents are haunted by the decisions and mistakes of the past. (Portland Playhouse, 602 NE Prescott, $25-59.95, Arts for All passes available to those receiving SNAP benefits, portlandplayhouse.org) WSH
Amanda Lepore
SEPTEMBER 25
(THEATER & PERFORMANCE) Amanda Lepore graces the faggots, faeries, dykes, and daddies of Portland with her club kid glamour for one night—giving face,
showing off the “world’s most expensive body,” and oozing downtown cool with every pose. This “Backto-Werk” show sees Lepore invite the city’s buzziest queens to share the stage, like Mona Chrome, Ry Bred, Tomboy, and Mercury favorite Violet Hex. Those willing to splurge on VIP afterparty tickets can enjoy the homo DJ collective Jacques Strappe at a secret location only disclosed to buyers of the very VIP tickets. (X-Port Lounge, 1355 SW 2nd, 8 pm, $25-50, posh.vip, 21+) NP
Yoshida Chizuko
SEPTEMBER 27–JANUARY 4
(VISUAL ART) Pioneering Japanese modernist Yoshida Chizuko gets her due in this first-ever major retrospective, which spotlights Chizuko’s paintings, woodblock prints, and rare monotypes, among other print mediums. Described as “quietly prolific” by exhibition organizer and curator Jeannie Kenmotsu, Ph.D., Chizuko’s avant-garde contributions to both the modernist movement and 20th-century Japanese printmaking have long been undersung in favor of male artists of the period. Featuring optical art, naturalist works, and experimental pieces, the exhibition traces the full arc of her career and restores overdue recognition to her legacy. (Portland Art Museum, 1219 SW Park, FREE–$25, portlandartmuseum.org, all ages) LC
Primary Trust
SEPTEMBER 28–OCTOBER 26
(THEATER & PERFORMANCE) Awarded the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Primary Trust by Eboni Booth tells the story of Edward, an introverted Black bookstore employee who spends much of his free time with an imaginary drinking buddy. After Edward is suddenly laid off and ejected from the bubble of his solitary, comfortable life, he’s encouraged to get a job at a local bank, where his life is slowly transformed in unexpected, and ultimately positive, ways. Produced in multiple cities across the country, Primary Trust has received tons of terrific press, which bodes well for Portland’s version of this good-natured and funny meditation on the importance of human connection. (Portland Center Stage, 128 NW 11th, $25-98, pcs.org) WSH
The Bed Trick
SEPTEMBER 30–OCTOBER 26
(THEATER & PERFORMANCE) Tired of dusty Shakespeare revivals? Then you may fall in love with Seattlite Keiko Green’s sparkling, modern version of All’s Well That Ends Well—now called The Bed Trick which updates the farcical tale with a sexy, youthful, and thoughtful spin. Three college freshmen engage in a wild plot of revenge and trickery when they discover that one of their boyfriends is a cheater—leading to a hilarious series of events that include catfishing, deception, and romantic betrayal. While hilarious, this effervescent story also promises to be an eye-opening treatise on consent, modern romance, and the “problematic” plays of the Bard. (Artists Repertory Theatre, 1515 SW Morrison, $5-$60, artistsrep.org) WSH
Lambrini Girls / Edging
OCTOBER 4
(MUSIC) At their Mississippi Studios gig earlier this year, Brighton, UK’s Lambrini Girls tore it the fuck up, easily facilitating one of the absolute best shows of 2025—forging community in the shape of a 10-person human pyramid that a circle pit immediately formed around. The radical, all-femme outfit plays fast, witty punk for those interested in Palestinian liberation and queer and trans rights. It’s Cuntology 101, bitch! (Revolution Hall, 1300 SE Stark, 8 pm, $38.11, revolutionhall.com, all ages) NP
Dancing on the Sabbath
OCTOBER 11–NOVEMBER 8
(THEATER & PERFORMANCE) Shaking the Tree’s season opener sounds promising on a number of levels. It’s a reimagined fairytale—12 Dancing Princesses—told on a topical slant, which has become
YVANNA RAMOS
Karen Slack Sept 13–14, Patricia Reser Center for the Arts
something of a specialty for the theater company that brought us _____ the Wolf in 2018 and The Brother and the Bird in 2024. Some of the city’s finest talent are at Dancing on the Sabbath’s creative center: with the company’s Samantha Van Der Merwe directing and a notable cast that includes Sammy Rat Rios and Kai Hynes. ProLab’s Laura Cannon choreographs “12 ritual dances” to convey “silent resistance and rebellion.” (Shaking the Tree, 823 SE Grant, $12-48, shaking-the-tree.com, 16+) SS
Via Mardot / Pillow Spiders
OCTOBER 24
(MUSIC) You know and love Detroit heavyweights J Dilla, the Stooges, MC5, the White Stripes, and the Supremes, now get ready to fall for Motorcity thereminist Via Mardot. But don’t get it twisted, the composer and multi-instrumentalist also plays guitar, chimes, marzolin, and the makeup brushes—among others. And she sings! Mardot’s music exudes eerie soundscapes that might make you fall in love or question how you came to be in this remote European cemetery at three in the morning. (Polaris Hall, 635 N Killingsworth Ct, 8 pm, $26.05, polarishall.com all ages) NP
Carmen+
OCTOBER 24–25
(THEATER & PERFORMANCE) In 2017, choreographer Ihsan Rustem debuted a commissioned work for Performance Works NW, a take on the 19th-century opera Carmen that infused the drama about passion with wry absurdity and set it partially in a ’50s barbershop. The work was a hit, earning a Readers’ Choice Award from Dance Magazine and furthering Rustem’s already commendable reputation for collaboration. Now Portlanders have a real treat on their hands: another chance to see Rustem’s Carmen, with the original cast members, Andrea Parson and Franco Nieto. The “+” is a brand new work from UK choreographer Caroline Finn,
which rounds out the show, treating audiences to an evening of dance that is new, boundary-pushing, and beloved. (Newmark Theatre, 111 SW Broadway, $35-74, nwdanceproject.org, all ages) SS
Portugal. The Man / Ya Tseen
NOVEMBER 6–7
(MUSIC) Portugal. The Man’s first three albums— Waiter: “You Vultures!” It’s Complicated Being a Wizard, and Church Mouth—still go so hard to this day, Yet, the early work feels rather remote when lined up side-by-side next to their newer, more radioready releases. Will the band’s new album—slated for a fall release—return to their deeply experimental roots, or will it be a further exploration of pop music’s groovier outer reaches? One thing we do know: P.™ are primed for their back-to-back hometown and tour sendoff shows. (Revolution Hall, 1300 SE Stark, 8 pm, $60.44, revolutionhall.com, all ages) NP
Portland Book Festival
NOVEMBER 8
(READINGS & TALKS) Every year, nonprofit Literary Arts brings a passel of writers, publishers, and book lovers to the Portland Art Museum and surrounding South Park Blocks to mark the start of cozy-nightsin-with-a-good-book season—on the other side of summer’s debaucherous beach read bacchanals. This year marks the 20th anniversary of what began as Wordstock—renamed in 2018—where attendees get to interact (no touching) with authors from all genres and backgrounds, hawking their words in the most enjoyable way possible: via talks and readings that’ll give you way too many good ideas of what to read next. Bring a tote, because you’re going to take home an armful of new things to stack on the nightstand. (Portland Art Museum, 1219 SW Park, 10 am–6 pm, admission $18 and up, free for youth 17 and under, along with veterans and active military, Arts for All passes available, literary-arts.org, all ages) NED LANNAMAN
Portland Art Museum, Sept 27–Jan 4
Yoshida Chizuko
COURTESY OF THE ARTIST
Savage Love
BY DAN SAVAGE
Quickies!
I’m a gay male in San Francisco. I’m a bit of a show-off and need some advice on easy and appropriate ways to share my content. OnlyFans feels too elaborate and “Close Friends” on Instagram comes with content restrictions and consent questions. What’s the best way to share my spicy pics/vids with an interested audience?
I keep reading that BlueSky is dying or dead—or that’s what I keep reading on Twitter—but BlueSky seems to be the “showing off” app of choice for gay men who are sick of Mark Zuckerberg’s puritanical bullshit and don’t wanna be associated with Elon Musk’s fascistic bullshit.
Have you heard the term “sparkle straight”?
Straight men who hung out with gay men— and seemed a little faggy themselves—used to be called “fruit flies.” But “fag hags” and “fruit flies” were considered derogatory, and they’ve been phased out in favor of the less interesting but more inclusive (and gender-neutral) “sparkle straight.”
How do I make more precum?
Keep your bulbourethral glands well-hydrated, take supplements that promise to increase the amount of precum for their benefits and/or their placebo effects (which, when they occur, are actually beneficial), and hope for the best.
How do I know if I’m ready for a threesome?
Picture your partner fucking the shit out of someone else—right in front of you—the same way they fucked the shit out of you when you first met. Picture your partner desperately swallowing another person’s tongue, picture your partner eating some other person out like they haven’t had a meal in weeks. If those pictures turn you on, you’re ready. If those pictures do nothing for you, you’re not ready. If those pictures enrage you, you’ll never be ready.
Sex life with new partner is completely unsatisfactory. How do I tell them?
You’ve hesitated to tell your new partner the sex is bad because you’re worried about derailing the relationship. But you’re not going to wanna stay in this relationship—you’re not going to wanna fuck this person for the rest of your life—if the sex doesn’t improve. So, you have nothing to lose by telling your new partner that the sex isn’t working for you. Right now, your partner is guessing at what you want and they’re guessing wrong. If you tell them what you need and what you want, they won’t have to guess and you might actually get what you need and want.
What do I say to be more vocal as a very shy girl in bed?
Here are my trademarked tips for dirty talk beginners: Tell ’em what you’re gonna do (“I’m going to fuck the shit out of you”), tell ’em what you’re doing (“I am fucking the shit out of you”), tell ’em what you did (“I fucked the shit out of you”). People get self-conscious about dirty talk because they think they need to spin out some elaborate fantasy. You don’t have to pull A Song of Ice and Fire out of your ass. Simple statements of fact are all you need.
Best sites for newbies to get into online sex work? I’m up for selling used panties, no photos or camming.
Very few people are interested in buying used panties or sweaty jock straps from someone they haven’t seen. So, if you’re not willing to post photos or do cam work, there’s not going to be much of a market for your panties.
My boyfriend wants to stop using condoms because we’re monogamous and I should trust him. Thing is, I don’t trust him.
DTMFA.
My girlfriend and I love mutual masturbation. Is it cheating if we livestream a session for strangers? We wouldn’t show our faces.
If you don’t think it’s cheating… and your girlfriend doesn’t… then it’s not cheating whether your faces can be seen or not. But I have a hunch your girlfriend thinks it’s cheating (or an unacceptable “soft”
opening of your relationship) because if you were on the same page—if you were in agreement that it wasn’t cheating—you’d be livestreaming a mutual masturbation session right now and not sending an email to a sex-advice columnist.
I’m a 34-year-old woman, married for the last seven years. Lately, I’ve lost all interest in sex. My husband still initiates it, but I decline—and I can see him getting discouraged. I love him, I’m still attracted to him, but how do I fix this aspect? Help!
“Our personal interest in sex is based on the amount of reward we get from it,” said Hannah Johnson, a sex educator and coach who specializes in helping women in relationships increase libido and enjoy sex. “If you’re not interested in it anymore, it’s because it’s not rewarding enough for you to want it. Ask yourself, ‘What would need to happen in sex to make it worth doing over everything else?’”
My partner wants me to spit in his mouth during sex. It grosses me out. Help me get over it.
Your partner is already spitting in your mouth—assuming you make out with him during sex—it’s just that he’s spitting into your mouth very, very slowly. Keeping that in mind might help you get over the disgust you feel when he wants to spit in your mouth very, very quickly.
Do women ever like dick pics?
Very few women like dick pics. So, you should only send dick pics to women who have expressed an interest in receiving your dick pics. And don’t assume a woman who has received your dick in person—and has expressed interest in receiving your dick in her person again—would enjoy receiving your dick pics. If you wanna share your dick pics and you can’t find a woman who wants to receive them, you can share your dick pics on Reddit.
Is sharing anal toys something we should avoid? How to do it correctly and safely?
You can share anal toys so long as you’ve cleaned them between uses; you can also use condoms with anal toys and put a new condom on before shoving that toy into a new hole.
I’m mostly gay but I have a robust fetish for women’s feet. Am I crazy?
You’re complicated and you’re gonna be hard for one man to please—unless you can find a man with lady feet—but I can’t say you’re crazy based on this one fact about you alone.
GOT PROBLEMS? YES, YOU DO!
Email your question for the column to mailbox@savage.love! Or record your question for the Savage Lovecast at savage.love/askdan! Podcasts, columns, and more at Savage.Love
