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“THE SOUND OF METH FIGHTING WITH COCAINE, WHILE DRUNK.” P. 18 wweek.com

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WILLAMETTE WEEK PORTLAND’S NEWSWEEKLY

P P S B oa r d M e mb e r S t e v e B u e l L a s h e s O u t  Capture or Asylum  “ Post No Bill s” Sign At tr ac t s M o r e Th a n 60 B i ll s  Th e Wo m a n Behind the Bridge  Beth Ditto Arrested in P o r t l a n d F r i day N i g h t  M i r ac l e o f 1 3 5t h Av e n u e  D r a k e R u i n e d P o r t l a n d ’ s M o r n i n g Co mm u t e  E x p l o d i n g H e a r t s 4 E v e r 

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Can Brian Libby Save the Gas and Coke Build i n g?  B r i d e s Den i ed  Dave ’ s Ki lle r B r e ad Fo u n de r Accus e d of R am m in g Th r ee Patrol Cars, Running From Cops  Where’s John Kuzmanich?  Cleveland High School Elects SameSex Couple to Homecoming Court  Top Five Tips For Ke e ping a Ban d Tog eth e r 30 Ye ars  Soft ware Millionaire Says He Is Now Calling Portland Home  Chew on This  The Oregonian Ends Daily Home Delivery  Best New Band Jeff Cogen’s Downfall  The Cake Wars

photo credit

NEWS More immigration injustice.

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STAFF Editor-in-Chief Mark Zusman EDITORIAL Managing Editor for News Brent Walth Arts & Culture Editor Martin Cizmar Staff Writers Nigel Jaquiss, Aaron Mesh Copy Chief Rob Fernas Copy Editors Matt Buckingham, Jessica Pedrosa Stage & Screen Editor Rebecca Jacobson Music Editor Matthew Singer Projects Editor Matthew Korfhage Books Penelope Bass Dance Aaron Spencer Theater Rebecca Jacobson Visual Arts Richard Speer Editorial Interns Ramona DeNies, Ravleen Kaur, Lyla Rowen, Alex Tomchak Scott, Savannah Wasserman

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Willamette Week DECEMBER 25, 2013 wweek.com

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INBOX NUCLEAR PLANT’S COSTS

“Energy Northwest—owned by a coalition of public utilities—also says the nuclear plant produces environmentally friendly energy.” [“The Not-SoGreen Machine,” WW, Dec. 18, 2013.]

So artificial, human-made nuclear pollution in the form of particles and gases, as well as the highly radioactive “spent” fuel produced that we have no solution for and will burden the planet and all life on it for the rest of time, is environmentally friendly energy? Ha! Nuclear is as far from environmentally or biologically friendly as you can get. I’d take a future invested in coal before I’d take a future invested in nuclear. That’s how bad nuclear is.

—“Deron Kosoff” You can bet if an anti-nuke says it, the opposite is true.

Everything nuclear is teetering on the edge of doom. Except it’s not. Time passes and, yawn, nothing happens.

Meanwhile, the coal and natural gas burn on, warming our planet, melting sea ice and causing real damage to the environment.

It’s about eliminating carbon, people. Wake up!

—“FreedomRules76”

BLAZERS RELEVANT AGAIN

Thank you for the article [“On the Rebound,” WW, Dec. 18, 2013]. My husband is a rabid Trail Blazers fan, rain or shine, but I quit on them years ago.

I appreciate the update and I’m happy they are doing so well.

I remember 1977 and what a fantastic time it was here in Rip City. I also like those Rip City uniforms.

—“Maggie O’Connor”

Why does your picture always look like you’re stoned? And what’s up with that pencil? Are you a Luddite, or have you simply not updated your photo?

—Curious, But Not in That Way For four years, I have borne the above illustration with the closest thing to good humor I can manage, which happens to be surly grunting. (Not to be confused with Surly Grunting, the minor recurring character in the works of Charles Dickens.)

This depiction could be considered flattering only if I were, in real life, literally a bucket of buttholes. When I first saw it, I was miffed: After all, I wasn’t completely bald. My hair was not white. I did not wear glasses. And most glaringly, my penis and testicles did not grow out of the middle of my face.

However, I re-examined the picture today and felt a coldness trickling down my spine that 4

Willamette Week DECEMBER 25, 2013 wweek.com

From a business perspective (which is what the Blazers are), a sellout means you priced your product too low [“The Fan Who Wasn’t There,” WW, Dec. 18, 2013].

The nosebleed seats are still cheap, but the price of the remainder of the seats have been raised to the point of being too expensive for most people. Watching the game on TV is better than sitting in the nosebleed seats.

The Blazers would rather sell 95 percent of the seats with a higher per-ticket price than sell out and make less total money.

—“disqus”

IS LANDMARK WORTH SAVING?

I hope this building is saved [“Wrecking Brawl,” WW, Dec. 18, 2013]. It’s quintessential Portland, and a beautiful, historic landmark in the St. Johns area. We need to be more concerned with preserving our past, rather than tearing down everything old.

—“Laborn3” It makes far more sense for Portland and the rest of the world to encourage cleanups rather than become sentimental over what we build. It is an industrial building. Is that really more important that cleaning up our waste and creating a cleaner environment?

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was only partly due to having just removed my head from a bucket of whiskey. I realized that I am gradually coming to resemble the picture.

Freelance illustrator Hawk Krall apparently has some satanic, precognitive ability to depict his subjects, not as they are, but as they will become. I tried to track him down to ask about it, but I was unsuccessful—probably because he is currently vacationing in the future.

Like some inverted version of The Picture of Dorian Gray, the sins of the portrait are gradually being visited upon my own suffering visage: I am, now, pretty bald. My fringe is definitely graying. And I now have glasses—with clear frames!

That’s practically white!

Thus, Curious, your surmise is correct. I have not updated my photo—my photo has updated me.

All I can do is sit here, wait for the end and touch my nose periodically to make sure it doesn’t get bigger when I rub it.

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

Willamette Week DECEMBER 25, 2013 wweek.com

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POLITICS: The real numbers behind the booze-border debate. 7 IMMIGRATION: A notario victim faces deportation.

9 COVER STORY: Our clickworthiest stories of 2013.

10

ALL THE NEWS THAT’S LEFT UNDER THE TREE.

W W S TA F F

Portland Public Schools spent $135,703 in October to send 79 employees, including Superintendent Carole Smith, to a national conference in St. Louis sponsored by one of its more controversial consultants, Pacific Educational Group. The consultant leads Courageous Conversations, racial-awareness training intended to help teachers and administrators recognize “systemic racism” in themselves and their schools. The travel costs, released to WW under a public records request, come on top of $1.2 million the district has already spent on no-bid contracts with Pacific. As WW reported this fall, the training has done little to improve the district’s persistent racial achievement gap and disparate discipline rates (“Expel Check”, WW, Sept. 25, 2013). PPS spokeswoman Erin Hoover Barnett says the investment is worthwhile: “The Courageous Conversations national summit was an outstanding opportunity for our teachers, principals and administrators to learn new strategies and share our strategies for closing the achievement gap.”

jensen

Anti-TriMet blogger Lane Jensen has deleted his website after being arrested for the second time this year in connection to charges that he harassed transit agency spokeswoman Roberta Altstadt with repeated text messages (“A Visit From the TriMet Squad,” WW, Oct. 31, 2013). Jensen was arrested Oct. 17 on 31 counts of telephone harassment of Altstadt. On Dec. 7, Jensen aired a podcast taunting transit officials. “Sorry, TriMet managers,” he wrote on his blog, Portland Transit Lane. “You might be able to tell me what I can type, but it’s totally different when I start a podcast.” It wasn’t. Transit police arrested Jensen again Dec. 17 for violating the terms of his release by talking obscenely about Altstadt in the audio.

Jensen was bailed out by fellow TriMet watchdog blogger Al Margulies the next day. Jensen tells WW he doesn’t know if he’ll ever reboot his blog.

Downtown: Burnside & SW 11th Ave Hawthorne District: SE 37th Ave north of Hawthorne

BuffaloExchange.com #iFoundThisAtBX

The abrupt October firing of Chris D’Arcy, longtime director of the Oregon Arts Commission and Oregon Cultural Trust, continues to generate waves. Last week, the Salem Statesman Journal reported that a state review of the firing had found D’Arcy’s boss, Tim McCabe of Business Oregon, didn’t follow proper procedures in letting her go. Now, House Democrats say they will introduce legislation in February aimed at moving the arts organizations out from under the state’s economic development arm. “We’d like to take a look at whether Business Oregon is the appropriate place to be managing the cultural trust and arts commission,” says House Majority Leader Val Hoyle (D-Eugene).

Give!Guide Update: G!G surpassed $1.35 million this weekend, ahead of schedule to meet this year’s goal of $2.1 million—and nearly one-third of our 5,269 donors are 35 and under. You have until midnight Dec. 31 to donate. Please go to giveguide. org and give!

Read more Murmurs and daily scuttlebutt.

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NEWS

PHOTO: Caption tktktk

PRICE CHECK ON FIREBALL OREGON VOTERS WILL SOON BE TOLD GETTING RID OF THE OLCC WILL LOWER LIQUOR PRICES. A SHOPPING TRIP TO VANCOUVER KILLS THAT BUZZ.

By R A M O N A D e Ni e s

rdenies@wweek.com

Forget free-market dogma and protecting the little guy: We just want to know whether getting government out of the liquor business will save us money.

It’s a key question facing Oregon voters as large grocers and big-box retailers push initiatives onto the 2014 ballot aimed at dissolving the Oregon Liquor Control Commission, the state agency that has monopolized the sale and distribution of spirits here since the end of Prohibition.

The debate in Oregon over the OLCC has been going on a long time. But last week, a group called Oregonians for Competition filed five initiatives that closely resemble Washington state Measure 1183, which voters approved in 2011, ending state control of liquor sales there.

That campaign spent an epic $22 million—financed almost entirely by Costco.

The opposition spent more than $10 million, making it the most expensive initiative campaign in the state’s history. Voters

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Oregon

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6 $1

Washington

We compared seven of Oregon’s top-selling liquors and found they cost 27 percent more in Washington than they would have at an OLCC store.

passed the measure with a 59 percent majority.

The pro-1183 campaign argued that the measure would bring down liquor prices.

But that wasn’t the case.

Seven months after 1183 went into effect, WW reported OLCC border stores

such as those in Jantzen Beach and Rainier had seen huge spikes in sales (“Driving to Drink,” WW, Dec. 12, 2012). And a year later, the OLCC says sales in its 12 border stores still remain about 30 percent higher than they were pre-1183.

With the new initiatives filed, WW decided to investigate further. We asked the OLCC for its most popular products and took our list of seven top-selling items across the Columbia River to Vancouver, where we split up our shopping among three big retailers.

In Washington, we paid $168.06.

The same liquor in Oregon would have cost us $132.65.

We found a wide variety in shelf prices, but most of the bottles at two of the stores, Fred Meyer and Safeway, were already priced higher than those at OLCC stores.

Both Safeway and Fred Meyer offered discounts—the clerk at Safeway knocked $11.40 off our purchase even after we declined to sign up for a club card.

But despite the discounts, the Washington booze was still pricier at checkout.

Washington has imposed two big taxes on liquor at the cash register: a 20.5 percent sales tax, and a per-liter tax that works

out to a flat $2.83 on each 750 ml bottle we bought.

And we could have paid more. Depending on how we split up our purchases, the same basket of booze at these stores could have cost us between $169.75 and $224.58.

The best prices were at BevMo!, a California-based liquor chain famous for its well-lit, aesthetically friendly stores with quotes on its walls extolling drinking from such sources as Thomas Jefferson, John Maynard Keynes and Ecclesiastes.

BevMo! beat the OLCC’s shelf prices for five out of seven products, but the Washington taxes taken at the till wiped out the savings.

Pat McCormick, a spokesman for Oregonians for Competition, says the campaign will focus on arguments other than lower liquor prices, including customer convenience, introducing competition, and eliminating the government agency go-between.

“I’m not trying to predict prices,” he says. “We’ve learned from the Washington process.”

Paul Romain, a lobbyist for the Oregon Beer & Wine Distributors Association, which opposes the initiatives to shut down the OLCC, says the price issue should be a campaign focus. The Washington case, he says, should give Oregon voters pause.

“When they ran ads, they said prices would fall,” Romain says. “But you can’t do that without eliminating the state’s take.

Needless to say, that didn’t happen.”

Willamette Week DECEMBER 25, 2013 wweek.com

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IMMIGRATION

NEWS C O U R T E S Y O F I B A R R A F A M I LY

BETWEEN ICE AND A HARD PLACE SALVADOR IBARRA PROVIDED EVIDENCE AGAINST IMMIGRATION CROOKS. HIS REWARD? LIKELY DEPORTATION.

BY NIG E L JAQ UI SS

njaquiss@wweek.com

Any day now, Salvador Ibarra could be deported from the United States. The Oregon resident sits in a federal immigration detention lockup in Tacoma and—barring a last-minute reprieve—will be flown back to Mexico when there are enough deportees to fill a plane.

Ibarra could be one of the strongest witnesses in what is probably the biggest immigration fraud in Oregon history, highlighted recently in a WW cover story (“Greed Card,” WW, Nov. 27, 2013). The scam, run by a pair of “notarios,” robbed Ibarra of $10,000 he thought would help him stay in the U.S. legally.

Ibarra’s testimony is potentially so valuable that law enforcement officials have asked he not be deported.

U.S. Attorney for Oregon Amanda Marshall, the state’s top federal law enforcement officer, recently told WW that prosecuting dishonest notarios, pseudo-lawyers who prey on undocumented immigrants, is a priority for her office.

But it has taken no action in the case of the now-defunct Immigration Solutions. Her office is sitting on mounds of evidence that Juvenal Vega and Patrick Snyder conned more than 80 immigrants out of as much as $1 million with bogus promises that they could solve the immigrants’ documentation problems.

Now, failure to bring charges in the case has left Ibarra and other witnesses exposed to deportation.

“It’s not right,” says Ibarra’s son, Jaime, a 21-year-old student at Rogue Community College. “My dad had the courage to step up and say something about this fraud.

He’s in jail, and they are still out there free like nothing happened.”

Under President Obama, deportations in the U.S. have soared to about 400,000 a year, but Ibarra’s case is unusual. Records show Ibarra, a Medford resident who came to this country in 1994, first attracted immigration authorities’ attention in 2005, when he was questioned by a forest-service officer while with a hunting party on federal land in southern Oregon.

Ibarra—who worked in construction and ran his own lawn-care business—raised four children in the U.S. with his wife, and two of their children were born here, making

FACING DEPORTATION: Salvador Ibarra (left, with son Jaime and wife Antonia in 2010) was the first person in the Immigration Solutions notarios fraud case to seek a special visa for crime victims, but his application has been turned down. “Nobody wants to speak up against [the notarios],” Ibarra wrote to immigration officials in 2012, “but I said I would.”

them U.S. citizens.

Ibarra explored all his options for staying in Oregon— including giving his money to Vega and Snyder, the notarios. Ibarra has told investigators the notarios offered to clear up his immigration paperwork but didn’t do what they promised. Ibarra also said he and his family were threatened with retaliation if he reported the scam.

While there’s no dispute Ibarra came to this country illegally, immigration law specifically carves out for immigrants like Ibarra something called a “U visa,” which allows victims of crime who are cooperating witnesses in a criminal investigation to remain in the country.

However, Ibarra’s attorney, Kevin Stout, tells WW that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services rejected Ibarra’s application for a U visa. Stout says Ibarra was the first witness in the Immigration Solutions case to apply for a visa, and other witnesses have since been approved.

Meanwhile, the Oregon Department of Justice has twice written to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, asking that Ibarra be allowed to stay.

“I am writing to strongly support Salvador Ibarra’s U Visa application,” wrote senior assistant attorney general Diane Schwartz Sykes on April 19, repeating a similar plea from a year earlier. “Mr. Ibarra has cooperated with both criminal and civil law enforcement agencies in the investigation of Patrick Snyder, Juvenal Vega and Immigration Solutions.”

Sharon Rummery, a spokeswoman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, said she could not comment on

the specifics of Ibarra’s visa application.

A spokesman for the sister agency responsible for deportation, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, says officials there are unaware of law enforcement interest in keeping Ibarra here.

“We have received no communication from federal or local authorities indicating Mr. Ibarra’s continued presence is required for an ongoing investigation or impending prosecution,” said the ICE spokesman, who was authorized to speak only on background. Ibarra’s 2006 deportation order has been stayed three times while appeals worked their way through courts, the spokesman added.

Stout says the feds are ignoring guidelines handed down in August to exercise prosecutorial discretion, particularly in cases where witnesses have no prior criminal record or record of deportation, as is the case with Ibarra.

Due to his confinement, Ibarra could not be reached for comment, but he wrote immigration officials Nov. 3, 2012, about his plight. “My family has gone though a very bad time for all of the fraud and threats that the notario has made, and my family doesn’t deserve to suffer.”

Now, though, it appears speaking up got Ibarra nothing. U.S. Attorney Marshall did not return calls seeking comment for this story.

Stout says if federal officials put Ibarra on a plane rather than use him to prosecute the notarios, it will send a curious message. “They have discretion to keep him here,” Stout says. “It’s tragic for this family to be destroyed while criminals operate with impunity.”

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CLICKWORTHY I DIDN’T KNOW HOW MUCH A NEWS STORY COULD CHANGE MY LIFE. UNTIL I READ THESE.

by WW Staff

Made you look.

We live in the golden age of clickbait—the manipulative Web headline that tempts readers with the promise of seeing something outrageous, inspirational or adorable. Sites like Buzzfeed and Upworthy have turned such “linkalism” into a shameless art form.

The term refers to the practice of journalists doing little more than posting links to other reporters’ stories on the Web. It points to the trend across all media of “aggregating” stories by others to draw more hits to their own sites. We know linkalism well: It was coined by Portlandia in an episode filmed in WW’s newsroom.

We laughed and scoffed at the time. But its seems everyone in the news media—WW included—is taking part. In the past year, our city has gained its 15 minutes of viral fame from posts about then-U.S. Senate candidate Cory Booker of New Jersey fl irting with a vegan stripper; Oregon Zoo otter Eddie dunking a tiny basketball; and oneeyed kitten Sir Stuffington donning a pirate costume, complete with eye patch.

As we prepared for our annual look back at this year’s most popular stories in WW, we were struck by the diversity and diff erences between Web-only stories and ones that started in print.

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Willamette Week DECEMBER 25, 2013 wweek.com

You wanted to read about rock singers in trouble, lesbian homecoming princesses and pranksters in Eastmoreland. But you also spent a lot of time with stories about our public schools, an upended county government, the ongoing cultural battle over the definition of marriage, and fluoride. Especially fluoride. (If WW’s news desk could have found a way to make Sir Stuffington drink fluoride, we would all be spending Christmas in Cancun.)

So this year we created two top-10 lists, so you could see for yourself how our top stories resonated on the Web. We ranked both Web-only stories and those that appeared fi rst in WWs’ print edition by the number of unique page views they received. Some stories (especially our coverage of changes at The Oregonian) did well no matter where they first appeared.

Some were in-depth and consequential. Others were linkalism at its best.

What did these stories have in common? They were the stories you wanted to read.

Let’s click on them again.

—Aaron Mesh

LEFT TO RIGHT: KEVIN MERCER, LEAHNASH.COM, MORGAN GREEN-HOPKINS.

neWs trimet’s boss talks. drank oreGon’s onlY chocolate Wine. movies the killinG of James chasse.

coNt. steve buel

No. 10, WWeek.com

PPS Board Member Steve Buel Lashes Out

buel

At 68, Steve Buel is by far the oldest member of the Portland Public Schools’ Board of Directors. But since winning election this year, he’s taken to social media like a teenager. The retired middle-school teacher’s Facebook page is a must-read for PPS watchers.

During the campaign, Buel said the board’s failure to hold PPS administrators accountable was one of the district’s biggest problems. Now a member, Buel says the board also helps the district’s bosses cover up the problems.

He took some of his sharply worded complaints public in a Nov. 19 message on Facebook called “Hiding From the Light.”

“The PPS board and our administration,” Buel wrote, “have many different ways in which we try to hide what is happening.”

It was an extraordinary blast of candor from a PPS board member. Buel went as far as to say School Board Chair-

CLICKWORTHY

man Greg Belisle and Superintendent Carole Smith have a stranglehold on the board’s agenda—only things they like, he says, ever see the light of day. “Unless it is vetted in the backrooms,” he says, “it can’t even be voted upon.”

Other Buel observations: “The budget is written in a manner which makes it pretty much indecipherable to the average citizen, preventing close scrutiny by the public.”

“Obtaining public records in PPS is astronomically hard and delayed beyond anything which is reasonable.”

“We restrict teachers from teaching, then hold them responsible for the outcomes.”

“Some administrators will lie by omission, and some will just dead-out lie.”

We reported on his comments at wweek.com, and the posts quickly drew a lot of readers—even though most Portland media ignored Buel’s post.

Buel—who was endorsed by the Portland teachers union, and says he is now working to avoid a teachers’ strike—tells WW he won’t stop trying to force the board to be more transparent. “I’m not afraid of conflict,” he says. NIGEL JAQUISS.

No. 10, print and Web

Capture or Asylum In July, WW published a 10-year update of some of the people and places covered in novelist Chuck Palahniuk’s popular Fugitives and Refugees guide to the offbeat parts of Portland.

Most of these are still approximately where we left them in July. But one landmark written about by Palahniuk has received a makeover. In September, the Vista “Suicide” Bridge added a 9-foot fence designed to deter people from jumping off the expanse. The move by the city of Portland came after media reports (especially a 2011 story in The Northwest Examiner that drew attention to the problem) about the numbers of people who kill themselves there.

Meanwhile, Palahniuk announced in July he’ll be working on a sequel to his novel Fight Club, which will be narrated by a bored, mentally “submerged” Tyler Durden.

MATTHEW KORFHAGE.

palahniuk

p o r t l a n d pa r k s & r e c r e at i o n

No. 9, WWeek.com

“Post No Bills” Sign Attracts More Than 60 Bills Neighbors in the tony Eastmoreland neighborhood had been complaining for a long time about the litter piling up whenever someone posted signs on the fence surrounding the Eastmoreland Golf Course. In August, the course’s owner, the city of Portland, put up a sign on the fence across from Reed College that said “Post No Bills.”

Soon, people had affixed photographs and images of many Bills—including Clinton, Cosby, Walton, Gates, Shakespeare, Shatner, Murray, and Nye the Science Guy— to the fence around the “Post No Bills” sign. We learned about it from our news partners at KATU. Internet monoliths George Takei and Reddit had already lit it up.

Portland Parks & Recreation took down the portraits after a local woman complained. Soon, pictures of Bobs went up (Marley, Dylan, Costas, Sponge-, the Builder).

“One neighbor sort of self-policed the fence after that,” Parks & Recreation spokesman Mark Ross says.

The sign has been cut down—only fragments of its four corners remain—with no plans for another one.

ALEX TOMCHAK SCOTT. cont. on page 12 Willamette Week DECEMBER 25, 2013 wweek.com

11

NEWS PORTLAND TIMBERS PREVIEW. DRANK WILL DOGS DRINK BEER? MUSIC JESUS’ FAVORITE PORTLAND BAND. P. 9

P. 21

P. 23

WILLAMETTE WEEK PORTLAND’S NEWSWEEKLY

“IT’S NOT QUITE AS BAD AS DRINKING ONE’S OWN BILE.”

ThE WOMAN BEhIND ThE BRIDGE

Hey, we’ve all been there: soused and shoeless at 1 in the morning, stumbling through the streets pretending to be an airplane, blocking traffic while screaming, “Obama! Obama!”

So no one should judge Gossip singer and lesbian icon Beth Ditto for her regrettable night out on North Mississippi Avenue back in March—except, of course, an actual judge. Police arrested her March 16 and charged her with second-degree disorderly conduct, and WW broke the news that day.

Four days later, the indie-rock frontwoman (real name: Mary Beth Patterson) pleaded no contest in Multnomah County Circuit Court and was ordered to pay a $435 fine. Ditto’s representatives did not respond to requests for comment. MATTHEW SINGER.

ThE fORcE bEhiND OREgON’S mASSivE fREEWAY PROjEcT WORKS fOR ThE gOvERNOR—AND A PRivATE cOmPANY ThAT WANTS iT buiLT.

!!!!

! CH

EAP

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NO. 9, PRINT AND WEB

The Woman Behind the Bridge Our Feb. 27 cover story by Andrea Damewood on the $3.4 billion Columbia River Crossing bridge project between Oregon and Washington sought to show how power really worked in the state’s biggest-ever public works effort. Everywhere we looked, we found Patricia McCaig.

McCaig—a longtime political insider—successfully led the effort to get the Oregon Legislature to approve $450 million for the CRC. It was no small feat, given the numbers for the bridge have never added up and the lobbying effort relied on several misleading claims. Still, the Oregon bill passed, with strings attached. Perhaps the biggest string: The Washington Legislature had to go along, but the Senate coalition in Olympia led by Republicans rejected the idea.

Kitzhaber declared the project dead and then, aided by McCaig, found a way to propose a plan for Oregon to shoulder the project largely without Washington. (McCaig, who declined to be interviewed for the story, also didn’t respond to questions for this update.) Oregon lawmakers in 2014 will be asked to look at re-upping based on this new strategy.

Meanwhile, McCaig faces charges before the Oregon Government Ethics Commission. The commission launched an inquiry after WW reported McCaig had billed for hundreds of hours of time pushing the CRC to lawmakers but had never registered as a lobbyist, as the law requires. The commission is also weighing whether McCaig had a confl ict of interest, given that she was Kitzhaber’s senior adviser on the project while she was a paid consultant to the CRC’s biggest contractor.

The ethics commission voted to launch an investigation in July after finding a “substantial objective basis” that ethics laws were violated. The commission was supposed to make a decision on the case next month, but its executive director, Ron Bersin, says it will probably put it off until February.

BRENT WALTH.

12

Beth Ditto Arrested in Portland Friday Night

Willamette Week DECEMBER 25, 2013 wweek.com

LEAHNASH.COM

P. 21 VOL 39/17 02.27.2013

NO. 8, WWEEK.COM

bY ANDREA DAmEWOOD | PAgE 10

INS

IDE

WWEEK.COM

M U LT N O M A H C O U N T Y

CONT. VIVIANJOHNSON.COM

CLICKWORTHY

NO. 8, PRINT AND WEB

Miracle on 135th Avenue

HAE NAY PAW

Hae Nay Paw appeared on the cover of our Feb. 13 issue after we spent time inside East Portland’s David Douglas High School to understand how a school can succeed when students there speak more than 55 languages.

We found David Douglas, the biggest high school in the state, has 2,893 students, high poverty rates, a low tax base and immigrant students struggling with language barriers, some having never attended school before.

The story showed how David Douglas functions with meager funding and many immigrant students facing multiple issues, including post-traumatic stress disorder for those just arriving from war zones. Yet the school gets zinged by the Oregon and federal departments of education for failing to meet benchmarks that do not take into account these challenges.

Meanwhile, the David Douglas School District (for which David Douglas is the only comprehensive high school) had the highest graduation rate—nearly 69 percent—of any district in the metro area except Riverdale, which is fed by the wealthy Dunthorpe neighborhood.

The story profi led Hae Nay Paw, then a sophomore from Thailand who had come to the U.S. as a refugee three years earlier. The story showed how the school had found motivated students such as Hae Nay to succeed, and she’s still thriving.

Now a junior, Hae Nay is taking a full, rigorous load of mainstream classes and enjoying them all, even biology, where she struggles because of the vocabulary. Twice a week after school, she attends College Possible, which provides SAT preparation and advice on filling out college applications, how to choose the right school and how to apply for financial aid.

“I feel so much safer at school,” Hae Nay says. “I feel like we have these teachers and students who are so nice. We don’t have anything sad happening at this school.” RACHEL GRAHAM CODY.

CLICKWORTHY

W W p h oto i l l u s t r at i o n ,

I L L U S T R AT I O N , W W S TA F F. P H O T O , C H R Y S TA E I B R A N C H AW.

p h oto : C h r y s t e a i B r a n C h aw

W W S TA F F

CONT.

NO. 6, WWEEK.COM

Can Brian Libby Save the Gas and Coke Building?

There’s nothing like an impending execution to bring out public sympathy—and it turns out plenty of Portlanders have an affection for a mysterious, crumbling 1913 office building near the St. Johns Bridge.

On Dec. 4, architecture critic Brian Libby used his blog portlandarchitecture.com to call out gas utility NW Natural for its plans to demolish the Gas and Coke Building, which sits on one of the most polluted industrial sites along the Willamette River.

WW wrote about his campaign in a Dec. 9 post, and interest took off. His post stirred up widespread concern and outrage that a landmark along U.S. 30 would soon be gone. Since then, preservation advocates have begun collecting signatures to save the building, with the hope of turning it into the centerpiece of a park.

NW Natural says the building is beyond salvaging and the utility has a financial duty to its shareholders and ratepayers to get rid of it.

Libby says the outcry is a chance for a company with millions of dollars in pollution liability to win community goodwill.

“Honestly, the degree of affection out there caught me off-guard,” he writes on his blog. “It may not be their role, but NW Natural has the opportunity to be a cultural savior.” AARON MESH.

NO. 6, PRINT AND WEB

Brides Denied NO. 7, WWEEK.COM

NO. 7, PRINT AND WEB

Drake Ruined Portland’s Morning Commute

Exploding Hearts 4Ever

A story about a truck accident tying up morning rushhour traffic is usually local TV news fodder—unless that truck is carrying gear to the Moda Center for a show by superstar rapper Drake.

A semi carrying stage equipment for his Dec. 3 performance overturned that morning, spilling diesel fuel and backing up Interstate 5 in North Portland for hours.

The accident (no one was hurt) becomes an excuse for outlets like this one to ponder what kind of stage props the famously sensitive artist could be hauling around. Giant scented candles? A swimming pool of potpourri?

Turns out it was a massive circular platform, which he used during his performance to hover above the crowd. Later, word got out that Drake had donated a significant sum of money to the Union Gospel Mission in Old Town, making us feel bad for having a laugh at his expense. Slightly. MATTHEW SINGER.

This year marked the 10th anniversary of one of Portland music’s greatest successes and one of its worst tragedies, both involving the same band.

Four months after the Exploding Hearts released their debut album, the widely acclaimed Guitar Romantic, three of the four members of the pop-punk act died when their van flipped over on Interstate 5 in July 2003 as the band returned from a sold-out show in San Francisco.

Writer Emilee Booher visited the lone survivor, guitarist Terry Six, in Oakland, Calif., to remember the band, the album and the night it all abruptly ended.

“A few people kinda came out of the woodwork: old bandmates, blasts from the past,” Six says of the March 27 cover story’s aftermath. “Jason Keebler from Dante’s called me and said, ‘Well, it’s about time, right?’”

The attention from our story spurred him to make a record with honorary Heart “King” Louie Bankston, scheduled for release in September on Six’s own label, Tuff Break, and to issue the first-ever officially licensed Exploding Hearts T-shirts. MATTHEW SINGER.

Even as gay marriage heads for the Oregon ballot and a courtroom battle next year, the idea still makes some people uneasy. (See our No. 1 print story on page 17.) But Michelle and Eidan Bray didn’t expect Old Town gay club CC Slaughters to be one of the places where their wedding dresses weren’t welcome.

In August, the Brays were barred from CC Slaughters on the night of their same-sex commitment ceremony—because their gowns violated the club’s ban on bachelorette attire. The policy is designed to keep straight brides from flaunting their nuptials in front of gay clubgoers who cannot legally marry in Oregon.

“It was disappointing,” Eidan Bray says now. “CC’s that night was the one place we thought we could go to celebrate with the LGBT community.”

They haven’t returned since. A story on the Brays (“Brides Denied,” WW, Aug. 28, 2013) drew plenty of argument, but no policy changes from CC Slaughters yet. Kevin Hutman, the club’s marketing manager, tells WW the club’s owners will reconsider their policy if same-sex marriage is made legal in Oregon.

On Dec. 27, Michelle and Eidan Bray will wed again. This time they’re tying the knot at the home of Michelle’s parents in Connecticut—one of 17 states to legalize same-sex marriage before Oregon.

ALEX TOMCHAK SCOTT. CONT. on page 14 Willamette Week DECEMBER 25, 2013 wweek.com

13

FOLLOW YOUR FEET TO FOOTWISE FOR BIRKENSTOCK

Dave’s Killer Bread Founder Accused of Ramming Three Patrol Cars, Running From Cops On Nov. 14, a woman called 911 to report a disturbance at the home of a Cedar Hills investment banker.

Washington County sheriff’s deputies rolled and soon came into contact, literally, with Dave Dahl. The iconic ex-con president of Milwaukie bakery Dave’s Killer Bread allegedly rammed his Cadillac Escalade into two sheriff ’s cars, injuring three deputies before they shocked him DAHL with a Taser and arrested him.

The former meth dealer rose to the top of his family bakery thanks to a popular organic bread— his cartoon mug beaming from the wrapper of each loaf—and Dahl’s testimonial of overcoming depression and drug addiction. The story helped fuel the company, which was bought last year by a private equity fi rm with plans to distribute as far as Texas and Chicago.

Police reports show Dahl had been intimidating employees and customers at the company’s Milwaukie bread outlet the morning before his arrest. “We’re very scared,” an employee said in a 911 call. “He’s a big man. He’s having a breakdown.”

Dahl now faces charges of second-degree assault on a police officer. A hearing in Washington County Circuit Court is scheduled for this week. Dahl, through his attorney, Stephen Houze, declined to discuss the events. AARON MESH.

THOMAS JAMES

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CONT.

NO. 5, WWEEK.COM

M U LT N O M A H C O U N T Y

Comfort & Joy Comfort Joy

CLICKWORTHY

NO. 5, PRINT AND WEB

Where’s John Kuzmanich?

John Kuzmanich, chairman of the Oregon Tea Party, has demonstrated he can run and he can hide, but he’s going to have a tougher time avoiding paying.

As WW reported Oct. 16, process servers working for Kuzmanich’s mortgage lender tried dozens of times to serve him with foreclosure papers on his Beaverton home earlier this year. Finally, a Washington County judge allowed the lender to “serve” Kuzmanich through newspaper ads. (Kuzmanich did not respond to requests for comment.)

On Nov. 26, the lender, the Federal National Mortgage Association, entered a judgment against Kuzmanich for $369,000.

He’s retained the support of some Tea Party faithful, but the default judgment will hang over his head for 10 years—or until he pays it off.

Kuzmanich was too busy to show up in court, but he’s busy posting on Facebook—including a recent photo of him blasting away with a rifle. NIGEL JAQUISS. 14

Willamette Week DECEMBER 25, 2013 wweek.com

CLICKWORTHY

No. 4, wweek.com

Cleveland High School Elects Same-Sex Couple to Homecoming Court Teenage couple Sophie Schoenfeld and Laurel Osborne— elected Cleveland High’s homecoming princess and princess in October—knew their classmates had helped them set a precedent at the Southeast Portland school. They didn’t know they’d be international news.

In a Oct. 29 post, WW called Cleveland’s vote “another sign most millennials don’t think twice about sexual orientation” and linked to the original news story, published by the Cleveland student newspaper, The Clarion. “No one thought it was a big deal,” said Cleveland senior and student reporter David Mair, who broke the story. “But then we watched it blow up.”

Within days, the story ran in news outlets from Seattle to Great Britain, where the Daily Mail picked it up. Osborne and Schoenfeld emerged as school leaders—welcomed as examples by school administrators and invited to sing the national anthem at the winter assembly.

Not all the response was positive. Despite the support the young women received, they still learned a lesson about being on the forefront of social change.

“It’s made me think, I’m a normal 18-year-old. I never thought of the impact you can have on people,” Schoenfeld tells WW. “And that the community you live in is much smaller than you realize. Anytime this happens, you’re going to get people that aren’t happy.

As much as it’s made me happy, it did make me realize that we have a ways to go.” RAMONA DeNIES.

w w s ta f f

mike grippi

coNt.

mcafee

No. 4, print and web

No. 3 wweek.com

No. 3, print and web

Top Five Tips for Keeping a Band Together 30 Years

Software Millionaire Says He Is Now Calling Portland Home

Chew on This

Freelancer Mary Emily O’Hara had already proven herself as a determined writer willing to go for a tough story and getting her facts straight. On the evening of Jan. 9, she called to say she’d gotten a tip: The eccentric and fugitive anti-virus software millionaire John McAfee had washed up at Mary’s Club and was posing with strippers. Even coming from O’Hara, this seemed a bit unreal.

Two days later, O’Hara landed an exclusive interview with McAfee, in which he revealed he had moved to Portland after fleeing Belize ahead of a police investigation into the murder of McAfee’s neighbor, American expat Gregory Faull.

McAfee, who had recently been the center of big profiles in Wired, told O’Hara a convoluted story of how Belizean authorities had blackmailed him, poisoned his dogs and targeted him for assassination.

Over the next four days, WW posted segments of the interview (while other media couldn’t locate McAfee) in which he offered his ideas on money, women (“The more ugly the woman, the better the sex”) and his need to stay in the public eye, even though he disliked the way the media had treated him. (He was about to be the subject of profiles in Vice, The Sunday Times of London and on Dateline NBC.) “This is not fun,” he told The Times. “This is a necessary evil. I need your help so they don’t come and shoot me in the head.”

The last we heard of McAfee came Nov. 25 from The Oregonian, which reported the manager of McAfee’s Southeast Portland apartment was seeking a protective order against McAfee. The manager alleged McAfee made threats against him. McAfee denied it and told The O’s Mike Rogoway he had left Portland for good and had moved to Montreal. BRENT WALTH.

So much for our advice. WW’s special-election endorsements weighed in on Ballot Measure 26-151—the hotly argued effort by the Portland City Council to fluoridate the water supply—with the verdict, “most of the critics’ objections do not stand up to scrutiny.”

Voters promptly defeated fluoridation by 61 percent to 39 percent. Campaign spending didn’t matter any more than our endorsement: The pro-fluoride campaign outspent opponents by a 3-to-1 margin only to get thumped. The defeat brought unflattering news reports about Portland, summed up in one of wweek.com’s top posts of the year, “Rest of Nation Mocks Portland Over Fluoride Vote.”

But the defeat exhilarated anti-fluoride activists and helped open the floodgates for a summer of dissent against City Hall’s decisions on the Bull Run Watershed.

Many of the fluoride foes reunited at Occupy Mount Tabor in July, expressing outrage at high utility bills as well as the city’s plans to replace open-air reservoirs with underground tanks.

If you enjoyed that ruckus, we have good news: Another ballot measure is nearly finished collecting signatures for next May’s ballot. This one—which has divided the anti-fluoride crowd down the middle— would remove control of Portland’s water and sewer bureaus from the City Council altogether.

“The lesson is, you can only poke a bear in the nose so many times with a stick,” says water district campaign director Kent Craford, “before he takes a big swipe at you.” AARON MESH.

In August, we asked Melvins drummer Dale Crover to share his top five tips for surviving 30 years as a band.

His advice proved so popular on Twitter we had to ask him for this update to give tips Nos. 6 through 10: Be Nice! It doesn’t pay to be a jerk to people in this business. If you act like an asshole and treat people like shit, they won’t ever forget.

Sell Out! Hell, we sold out a long time ago. Nike even made a Melvins shoe a few years ago. We got paid in shoes!

Don’t Marry a Supermodel/Actress! Won’t these rock stars ever learn? Band dude marries a supermodel, has kids, then gets divorced a few years later because he’s hooked up with some chippy after the gig in Omaha. Hopefully, you have enough dough left over to pay for all the therapy your kids will need after you’ve destroyed their lives by being a dumbass.

Don’t Make Any Big Purchases! We operate like we’ll be out of business in six months. The wheels can fall off at any moment. So, not only should you not stand up in boats, you shouldn’t buy one, either.

Reinvent Yourselves! Only AC/DC can put out the same record over and over again and people will buy it.

We’ve worked real hard at putting a big twist on what we do musically but still sounding like the same band.

Last piece of advice to younger bands: If you can’t draw a crowd, draw a penis on the dressing room wall!

MATTHEW SINGER.

cont. on page 16 Willamette Week DECEMBER 25, 2013 wweek.com

15

Working for your Health

CONT.

JASON QUIGLEY

Portland,

CLICKWORTHY

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Willamette Week DECEMBER 25, 2013 wweek.com

Looking for the biggest change in the state’s media landscape this year? Check your driveway. You won’t find The Oregonian on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays.

In June, the New Jersey-based owners of the 163-year-old daily newspaper confirmed rumors circulating for more than a year of a move to Web-fi rst journalism—along with deep cuts in the newsroom. The paper reduced home delivery to four days a week, fired nearly a quarter of the paper’s news staff, and replaced the laid-off veterans with younger, cheaper hires to focus first on breaking news on the Web. Our posts on The O’s announcement got large numbers, in part because national media blogs such as romenesko.com picked them up.

So did our cover story on what went on behind the scenes (“Black and White and Red All Over,” WW, June 26, 2013).

The paper implemented the moves Oct. 1, much to the dismay of many Portlanders— including Mayor Charlie Hales, who mentioned the paper’s “downward spiral” at public events.

Inside the newsroom, the move to the Web has been divisive and bumpy. Reporters complain that what sells on the Web is now driving almost everything the paper does, and that unedited posts are often scraped from oregonlive.com and dropped directly into print editions.

Editor Peter Bhatia was the Newhouse family’s designated downsizer when it came to laying off reporters. He fi red an editor with advanced kidney cancer—and then laid off his wife, too.

Now Bhatia is looking to the exits. He’s a finalist for the deanship at the University of NebraskaLincoln’s journalism school.

“This place and our work here mean so much to me,” Bhatia told Oregonian staff in a memo explaining why he was looking to leave. “We have much more to do.” AARON MESH.

WILLAMETTE WEEK PORtLand’s neWsWeeKLY

Best

NEw Band 2

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1

3

10 LOCAL ACTS PORTLAND’S MUSIC INSIDERS THINK YOU SHOULD HEAR. Page 16

P. 29

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MNIL.GOV/SI Y TO YOURCK TI ME A F R U O M PO R TLFAN DO R EGO S RO

JASON QUIGLEY

Workers in Portland will now earn Protected Sick Time, effective January 1, 2014.

OUR ELECTION ENDORSEMENTS! wwEEK.COM

Page 8

VOL 39/26 05.01.2013

NO. 2, PRINT AND WEB

Best New Band There’s a joke among Portland music scenesters that topping WW’s annual Best New Band poll is a jinx.

So far, though, this year’s winner, singerproducer Dan Vidmar’s bedroom R&B project Shy Girls, is doing just fine.

At the time of our May 1 cover story, Shy Girls had just four officially released songs. In October, Vidmar released the Timeshare EP, raising the group’s total recorded output to nine songs and earning kudos from blogs like Stereogum and The Fader as well as The Oregonian, whose readers voted the record the best local release of 2013. In addition, “Perfect Form,” a song by Canadian EDM artist Cyril Hahn that Vidmar co-wrote and sang on, has over 1 million plays on Soundcloud and made the dance charts in the U.K. Vidmar, who’s on a West Coast concert tour, says he’s got other vocal cameos in the works and is also writing new Shy Girls material, along with “other exciting things on the horizon for 2014 that I can’t talk about yet.”

MATTHEW SINGER.

CONT.

Jeff Cogen’s Downfall He was a Multnomah County chairman with designs on higher office. She was an ambitious policy wonk with a zeal for stomping out sugary snacks. Together, Jeff Cogen and Sonia Manhas conducted a two-year secret affair between a boss and subordinate, spent public dollars to travel together, and plotted to get her a promotion in the health department.

Both of their careers were torpedoed July 15, when a disgruntled former county employee—smarting from Manhas berating him for choosing a white male guest speaker for a health department event—sent Cogen and his fellow commissioners an anonymous email exposing the affair.

Cogen quickly confessed in a joint meeting with WW and The Oregonian. In the wake of his admission, WW broke the news that Cogen had not told the truth when he said no county money had been used to conduct the affair and that he did nothing to advance Manhas’ career.

Especially damning: revelations that the couple worked

BYRON BECK

NO. 1, WWEEK.COM

CLICKWORTHY

around her supervisors and his staff, while he helped her get a promotion to director of policy and planning.

(One of the county officials they sought to subvert was health department director Lillian Shirley, subject of another popular wweek.com post, which reported she was arrested in May for fourth-degree domestic assault after she bit her husband in a domestic dispute. The charges were dropped. In September, Shirley was named director of the Oregon Public Health Division.)

Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum and the Oregon Department of Justice managed to find no laws were broken in the Cogen-Manhas case. The record revealed Manhas told investigators tales of how the “deadhead” Cogen liked to smoke pot before attending parades.

Former County Commissioner Deborah Kafoury is running against former City Commissioner Jim Francesconi for Cogen’s seat in the May 2014 primary.

Cogen is working for signature-gathering firm Democracy Resources, which is working to put marijuana legalization on the 2014 ballot. Manhas returned to her hometown of Vancouver, B.C. The county still hasn’t decided if it will fill her job. AARON MESH. COGEN

RONITPHOTO.COM

NO. 1, PRINT AND WEB

The Cake Wars In Februar y and May, t wo Oregon bakeries made national news by refusing to bake wedding cakes for lesbian couples planning to get married. The owners of both bakeries—Gresham’s Sweet Cakes by Melissa and Hood River’s Fleur Bakery—cited their religious beliefs as the basis of their refusal.

So WW decided to test the limits of their religionbased business model.

We dispatched a team of reporters to call the bakeries and order cakes that would seem to violate biblical laws: Would they, for example, bake a cake for a divorce party?

A non-kosher barbecue? A reception celebrating stemcell research? A pagan solstice celebration?

Sweet Cakes, owned by Aaron and Melissa Klein, offered price quotes for all the cakes. Fleur offered quotes for the divorce party and a baby shower for a couple having a second child out of wedlock before owner Pam Regentin stopped answering her phone.

The resulting story, “The Cake Wars,” blew up on the Web, attracting 131,433 unique readers and 1,238 comments.

Fleur owner Regentin didn’t respond to WW’s calls or emails for an update, but Fleur’s Facebook page reports the bakery had “the busiest year ever.”

In late August, Sweet Cakes closed its Gresham storefront and now operates out of the Kleins’ home. The Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries is conducting an investigation into possible civil-rights violations by the bakery. Meanwhile, the Kleins recently posted photos of several wedding cakes and a message of support for Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson, suspended from the show after making anti-gay comments and defending Louisiana’s Jim Crow laws.

In the aftermath of the Cake Wars story, the Kleins told a Christian news blog that the community initially rallied around them in February, resulting in a bump in business, but support soon waned. Aaron Klein told the blog he suspected WW was promoting “economic terrorism.”

“The only thing I can figure, the idea behind running an article in that way is not only to rally these activists,” Klein said, “but also to try to isolate us from the people who support us. It seems like it’s definitely trying to push an agenda and put us out of business.”

MARTIN CIZMAR. Willamette Week DECEMBER 25, 2013 wweek.com

17

PARTY

A NIGHT TO NOT REMEMBER RIFF RAFF, SUPERGROUPS, ELECTRO-CLASH AND ZOMBIE HUNTERS: THE NEW YEAR’S EVE SHAKES.

BY WW STAF F

243-2122

Ah, New Year’s Eve, when downtown hotels fill with interchangeable “balls” where 80 bucks grants access to an ’80s band, and your favorite local watering hole charges a $10 cover for the same DJ they had last week for free.

But you know what? Who cares? It’s New Year’s. As much as you wish you were the sort to just crack a cask of tawny port and cuddle up with The Very Best of Mantovani, the only thing worse than a New Year’s Eve celebration is watching one on TV. So go ahead and choose your NYE fest like a kid at a Baskin-Robbins, from a menu we’ve arranged according to no system whatsoever. Everything’s 21-plus unless we say so, like everything else that’s fun.

ODES TO THE HOLY FLAMING BATSHIT Neon New Year

You know what? Riff Raff’s eyebrows have racing stripes, his teeth have mirrors, and the sum of his cultural contribution seems to have been inspiring James Franco’s character in Spring Breakers. Hell, he might even be James Franco. But he’s also a young Andrew W.K.’s worth of nothing but party, and with a $299 “Neon Icon Experience” ticket, you can hang out with the man himself and eat chips or drink rubbing alcohol or something. This warehouse party is the NYE version of scorched earth. We have no more words. Odyssey Event Space, 521 N Tillamook St., neonnewyear.com. 9 pm. $40-$299. 18+.

Bass Odyssey NYE 2013

We can think of nothing more deliciously aggro than the combination of Roseland Theater security guards, Greshamite dubstep fans and a Texas DJ who calls himself Bro Safari. This is the sound of meth getting in a fight with cocaine, while drunk. This is the sound of dancing using only your fists.

Happy New Year! Roseland Theater, 8 NW 6th Ave., 971-230-0033, roselandpdx.com. 8 pm. $35. 18+.

DJ ELECTROPANTS DJ Khalif Diouf (aka Le1F), Shy Girls, Phone Call, PWRHAUS, Miracles Club DJs, DJ SPF666, DJ Kiffo, Radiation City DJs

This is a gripload of party. Le1f bends through both gender- and musicrelated stereotypes, with liberated takes on dance and hip-hop, with beats glitchy and mesmerizing—which is to say nothing of his local support, which includes alt-R&B troupe PWRHAUS; Phone Call, a spinoff of nudisco heroes Strength; and Portland’s Best New Band, Shy Girls. Oh, and the Miracles Club doing the house jams.

Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison St., 2397639, holocene.org. 8 pm. $25. 21+.

Reva DeVito, Hustle & Drone, Holler & Oats, Montel Spinoza

for a free set by DFA’s Woolfy at Langano Lounge. At Rotture’s PICA fest, though, Brooklyn’s Light Asylum sound like a darkwave Johnny Jewel project, while Unicorn Domination proves electro-clash never died. Plus a Magic Mouth DJ set, “imbibement rituals” and “surprises” in the name of arts funding. Rotture, 315 SE 3rd Ave., 234-5683, rotture.com. 9 pm. $20. 21+.

DREAM OF THE ’90s Built to Spill, Slam Dunk, the Apostrophes

From his family garage in Twin Falls, Idaho, Doug Martsch and his stack of pedals and Stax pretty much invented Northwest indie guitar. No matter how many times he’s threatened to quit, he’s now outlasted the whole damn Mayan Calendar. Stop the year if you must, but goddamn it, don’t stop the show. Mission Theater, 1624 NW Glisan St., 223-4527. 8 pm.

Sold out, suckers. 21+.

Rick Bain & the Genius Position, the Purrs, 1776

Rick Bain, like Gene Hackman, always seemed like he arrived into the world in midadulthood, complete with shiny head and mustache. For years, his deep-set eyes and 30-foot-tall rainbow scarf advertised the Gap on the side of a building near Powell’s, while his smart brand of psych rock advertised time spent reading the books. Kelly’s Olympian, 426 SW Washington St., 228-3669. 9 pm. Free. 21+.

THE DARKNESS! A Very Zombie New Year’s Eve Party

Free goths and geeks in makeup.

“Hunters,” apparently, are invited alongside zombies, but no mention is made of victims in the press release, which leaves us wondering: Since when do the humans want to eat the zombies? Jack London Bar, 529 SW 4th Ave., 228-7605. rialtopoolroom. com. 9 pm. Free. 21+.

Black Pussy, Gaytheist, Diesto

Reva DeVito, one of PDX’s most invigorating live acts, returns from her new home in Los Angeles with her futuresexy blend of hip-hop and R&B in hand. We should all take advantage of these appearances—we might not have many opportunities to get this close to her. Dig a Pony, 736 SE Grand Ave., digaponyportland.com. 8 pm. $15. 21+.

This show is a massive deal for a few reasons—but mainly, it’s because Black Pussy, Gaytheist and Diesto are all in one place. Also, it’s New Year’s Eve in Portland, and you know the rock-’n’-rollers are gonna go nuts.

World Famous Kenton Club, 2025 N Kilpatrick St., 285-3718, kentonclub. com. 9 pm. Free. 21+.

PICA New Year’s Art Drop

Lovecraft New Year’s Eve

Man, Southeast Portland is all Giorgio Moroder and electro-jams this new year—heck, you can even sneak out

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Easily the dark horse of the night.

With DJs like Horrid and Ghoulunatic, you pretty much know you’re in for

Willamette Week DECEMBER 25, 2013 wweek.com

THE PARTY NEVER STOPS: Portland soul survivor Ural Thomas plays Radio Room. a night of unicorns and rainbows.

Lovecraft Bar, 421 SE Grand Ave., lovecraftbar.com. 8 pm. Free. 21+.

PDX STANDBYS Weinland NYE Supergroup

The world at large rings in the new year with Ryan Seacrest’s big, weird smile. Here in Portland, we have the annual Weinland’s NYE Supergroup cover extravaganza, in which the beloved indie-rock band teams with a 20-plus-strong army of secret guests, who may or may not involve Neko Case or Blitzen Trapper, plus the cream of the local karaoke scene. So suck it, Seacrest! Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St., 231-9663, dougfirlounge.com. 9 pm. $25 door sales only. 21+.

Ural Thomas and the Keplers

Ural Thomas, 73-year-old badass and soul singer, built the North Portland house he lives in. And if you think about it, he built the house you live in, too. Radio Room, 1101 NE Alberta St., 287-2346, radioroompdx.com. 9 pm. Free. 21+.

Pink Martini, Chervona

Lauderdale and company have graduated over the years from virtuosic lounge act to revered institution, just like Paranoid Park and the original carpet pattern at PDX airport (RIP).

Every time a little girl is born without a father, her first tears taste just like Thomas Lauderdale, and her mother’s heart breaks like China Forbes.

Crystal Ballroom, 1332 W Burnside St., 225-0047, crystalballroompdx. com. 7:30 and 11 pm. $50-$55. 21+.

AM Gold ’70s Soft Rock Show

In terms of dress-up fineries, evergreen schtick and dogged longevity, Tony Starlight has got pretty much everyone beat short of the immortal Darcelle XV. His dinnerjacket supperclub remains the dinner-jacket supperclub, but this time it’s New Year’s Eve and it’s full of Jim Croce. Time in a bottle, man. Time in a bottle. Tony Starlight’s Supperclub & Lounge, 3728 NE Sandy Blvd., 5178584, tonystarlight.com. 8 and 10:30 pm. $30 cover, $20 food/beverage minimum. 21+.

PORTLAND GLOBETROTTERS Salsa and Afrobeat Dance Party

This concert from Nigerian band Jujuba and Cuban group Pa’lante represents a combined 20 musicians and a 6,000-mile swath through Afro-Cuban-beat-talking-drumjazz-juju music. Proceeds benefit Mercy Corps. Red Rose Ballroom, 1829 NE Alberta St., 415-285-1285, redroseballroom.com. 9 pm-1 am. $15 advance, $20 day of show. Includes Champagne toast. 21+.

DJ Anjali & The Incredible Kid

Also bhangra, this time in a ballroom, from longtime Portland stalwart DJ Anjali, with promises of “giddha bounce, Tamil and Telugu percussion riots, the best in urban desi, and maybe even some forays into other international club bangers.”

Bossanova Ballroom, 722 E Burnside St., 206-7630, bossanovaballroom. com. 9 pm. $17 advance, $22 day of show. 21+.

Melao de Cuba

What, you don’t like salsa with your pizza? Mississippi Pizza Pub, 3552 N

Mississippi Ave., 288-3231, mississippipizza.com. 9:30 pm. $15. 21+.

JAZZ AGE Old Church Jazz Standards

Chamber jazz of the 1930s followed by a Champagne and dessert reception, with suppers served in homes around town as a cozy or totally awkward pre-funk. The Old Church, 1422 SW 11th Ave., 224-9842, focm. org. 7:30 pm. $30 concert and reception. Add $70 for home cookin’.

A Gatsby New Year

A Gatsby-themed party at a beerbicycle bar, with a Champagne toast.

That a problem for you? BrewStop, 1425 NW Flanders St., 971-4005950, brewcycleportland.com. 9 pm.

Free. 21+.

LAUGHING LAST, THEN FIRST Helium New Year

Comedy from Nick Thune, magic from Hart Keene, plus jazz from Quartette Barbette. Shit, might as well be Ed Sullivan. With bubbly.

Helium Comedy Club, 1510 SE 9th Ave., 888-643-8669, heliumcomedy. com. 8 and 10:30 pm. $45-$199. 21+.

A Very Brody New Year

New Year’s Eve is a big deal at the Brody, and not just because it’s founder Tom Johnson’s birthday.

Each year, the entire Brody ensemble shows up for an extra-long show of improv, standup and sketch, with free food and Champagne at midnight.

Brody Theater, 16 NW Broadway, 2242227, brodytheater.com. 8 pm. $16 advance, $18 day of show. All ages.

JEREK HOLLANDER

CULTURE

Willamette Week DECEMBER 25, 2013 wweek.com

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CULTURE

Lavish Buffets of Indian Cuisine

WILLIE WEED

Exotic Dishes of Lamb, Chicken, Goat Gluten-Free, Vegetarian, Vegan Options

GET BREAKING

FOLLOW @WWE E K ON T WIT TER

GIFT GUIDE: 8 HOURS LEFT EDITION “HELLO, HOW LATE ARE YOU OPEN?”

BY W M . W I L L A R D G R E E N E

willie@wweek .com

Of course you forgot. Of course. And now it’s the day before Christmas, and you, my friend, are screwed. Well, kemosabe, you’ve still got a few precious hours to make things right. For the last holiday gift guide published in this or any newspaper in 2013, we present stoner gifts for the discerning weed enthusiast. If you’re reading this late—like, say, Thursday—roll it up and smoke it.

It’s too late, dude.

Namaste

Parkrose since 2009 8303 NE Sandy Blvd 503-257-5059 Vancouver since 2001 6300 NE 117th Ave 360-891-5857

NamasteIndianCuisine.com

For Readers and Greenthumbs: The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan, $9.95 at Powell’s City of Books, 1005 W Burnside St., 228-4651, powells.com.

Michael Pollan’s elegant exploration of four plants (apples, tulips, cannabis and potatoes) and the part they’ve played in satisfying key human desires put him on the national stage. His approach, which poses the question, “What if the plants are really in charge?” is novel and thrilling, and his prose has a giddy enthusiasm that will catch on like the Spanish flu. The section on marijuana— which the author holds up as a representation of humanity’s desire to get fucked up—is a crash course in cannabis history and the role it has played in our belief in worlds beyond our own.

Highly recommended, at least so you can give it to cannabis deniers and say, “Read this and get back to me.”

Vegan Dishes Available

Jobs for the Food and Drink Industry Staffing solutions for owners and managers NYC/ CHI/ SFO/ SEA /PDX/ AUS

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Willamette Week SEPTEMBER 4, 2013 wweek.com

6/10/12 9:41 AM

For Potheads who love Tolkien or Hawaii: Kona coconut and bamboo pipe, $55 at RoseBud Wellness Center, 2239 NE Broadway, 432-8937, rosebudportland.org.

These elegant pipes are hand-carved in Kona, Hawaii, by some pleasant gentlemen who most certainly appreciate their own handiwork. The bowls are hollowed-out coconut seeds, which the Incas used as candles since the nut doesn’t burn and absorbs the fragrance of whatever’s smoked.

The stem is a bent bamboo reed that allegedly

hardens over time. There are more efficient ways to smoke, but nothing evokes the same primal pleasure of breathing fire from a wooden bowl.

For Mainliners: The Atmos Raw, $90 at most reputable head shops.

What’s best about the Atmos Raw is its versatility. The pen feels hefty, like I’m holding good, oldfashioned American machinery. (I’m not. Atmos pens are made in China.) The ceramic chamber can vaporize a wide array of marijuana’s various forms, including shatter, wax and finely ground herb. I wouldn’t mind a prettier package, but Atmos pens are about form and function, two roles they act out in spades. This is a handy, discrete object to have around.

For Hungry People: A breakfast burrito with added bacon, approximately $6 at Meat Cheese Bread, 1406 SE Stark St., 234-1700, meatcheesebread.com.

It’s got melted cheddar, hash browns and green chile salsa, all blended together splendidly. The hash browns are nicely balanced. The bacon really sets everything off. A lot of breakfast burritos overdo the scrambled eggs. They’re a vehicle, not the star. Let the hash browns in. Let the salsa tickle your tongue. No one looks down at a gift burrito. No one.

For anyone under age 34: PlayStation 3, $200.

Maybe Trey Parker’s fi nal point in South Park’s three-part Game of Thrones-themed Console Wars was that we should all be playing together outside, and that’s a good point. But sometimes in Portland you need to play together inside, and sometimes you need to play with friends across the country. In that case, you should go with the Playstation 3 because you smoke a lot of weed, and having an all-seeing camera from one of the world’s most powerful corporations might not be such a great idea. So forget about fighting for the PS4—grab a PS3 and get in line behind the newly divorced dads.

P H O T O S C O U R T E S Y O F K O N A , AT M O S , M E AT C H E E S E B R E A D , A N D P L AY S TAT I O N .

NEWS FIRST

WHAT ARE YOU WEARING?

STREET

SURPLUS SHOTS FAVORITE SHOTS WITHOUT A THEME. PHOTOS BY VIN CEN T AGUAS, EIKO EMER SLEB EN , B ETHLAYN E HA N SEN , MOR GA N GR EEN -HOPKIN S, KAYLA N GU YEN , A N D AU TU MN N ORTHCR A FT wweek.com/street

Now pouring our own beer and selling burgers at all 3 locations. Pizza, full-bar, brewery and heated patio at our Fremont location.

Experience Lebanese cuisine at its best

Portland’s Best Wings!

Bring this ad in for $10 off with a purchase of two entrees

Belly dancing Friday and Saturday evenings 223 SW STARK STREET PORTLAND, OR 503-274-0010 ALAMIRPORTLAND.COM

*certificate has no cash value nor can be exchanged. Not valid with any other offer, promotion or discount.

1708 E. Burnside 503.230.WING (9464)

Restaurant & Brewery NE 57th at Fremont 503-894-8973

4225 N. Interstate Ave. 503.280.WING (9464)

Willamette Week DECEMBER 25, 2013 wweek.com

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SCOOP THE YEAR 2013, STATISTICALLY SPEAKING. FOOD AND DRINK: Little Big Burger flipped 520,340 cheeseburgers, 89,675 hamburgers and 72,040 veggie burgers this year. The most popular cheese was cheddar, though coowner Katie Camden says the newly introduced pepper jack should overtake it in 2014. Secret Aardvark used 9,855 pounds of habanero chilies in its hot sauces. Olympic Provisions made 31,000 pounds of hot dogs and 50,000 pounds of dry salami.

The best-selling beers at New Seasons Market were Full Sail Session lager in cases and Ninkasi’s Total Domination IPA in six-packs. The state’s top-selling liquor is again HRD vodka, an Oregon-made well that retails for $7.50 per 750-milliliter bottle. There are 3,168 licensed restaurants and 704 licensed food carts in Multnomah County. The lowest county restaurant inspection score of the year went to Mariscos Las Islas Marias on Southeast 82nd Avenue, receiving a 54 on Sept. 24. The restaurant was reinspected Oct. 4 and received a 95.

MUSIC: Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories was the bestselling album at both Music Millennium and Everyday Music.

Drumgasm, the album by the all-percussion supergroup featuring Sleater-Kinney’s Janet Weiss, Pearl Jam’s Matt Cameron and Death Grips’ Zach Hill, was Jackpot Records’ top seller, which surely elated the store’s owners, as it came out on their in-house record label. White Lighter, the second full-length by Portland-based chamber-pop group Typhoon, made it into Everyday Music’s top five, while Sallie Ford and the Sound Outside’s Untamed Beast outsold both Arcade Fire and the National at Music Millennium—a nice parting gift for WW’s Best New Band of 2010, which recently announced its breakup. The Lumineers’ “Ho Hey” was the most-streamed track in Portland on Rhapsody, proving that the Rose City still loves musicians who dress like 19th-century moonshiners.

STAGE AND SCREEN: Laurelhurst Theater’s highest-grossing film was Beasts of the Southern Wild. It ran for 17 weeks, with about 9,400 tickets sold. Laurelhurst’s longest-running film was Searching for Sugar Man, which played for 27 weeks, with about 7,700 tickets sold. The most popular movie at Movie Madness was The Hobbit, rented 512 times. Meanwhile, at the Multnomah County Library, Argo was the most checked-out DVD, followed

by The Descendants, The Hunger Games and the first seasons of Game of Thrones and Downton Abbey. Portland Center Stage’s most popular show was Fiddler on the Roof, which played 61 times and sold 28,513 tickets. It was the third-best-selling show in PCS history. Helium Comedy Club’s biggest draw was Mike Epps, who sold 1,600 tickets to his six shows in January.

503.477.8604 WWW.PEARLSPECIALTY.COM HOURS Monday~Saturday 9am - 10pm Sunday 12pm - 8pm

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Willamette Week DECEMBER 25, 2013 wweek.com

SD4EVER / CC

NW 9Th + LOVEJOY PEARL DISTRICT

BOOKS: The most popular book at the county library was Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl, checked out 2,381 times, edging out Cheryl Strayed’s Wild, which was checked out 2,349 times.

SPORTS: A total of 15,924 permits were issued to climbers hoping to summit Mount St. Helens—including only one WW staffer. There were an estimated 8,150 participants in the World Naked Bike Ride—including only one WW staffer. Meanwhile, there were 16,500 clothed participants traveling between Willamette River bridges in the Providence Bridge Pedal. So far this year, 1,835 bikes were reported stolen in Portland. Of those, only 189—about 10 percent—were recovered. The most popular game at Ground Kontrol was The Addams Family, which is also the most popular pinball machine manufactured in the last 80 years. The top score on the Ground Kontrol machine is 984,989,210. Portlanders have some work to do: The world-record score is more than 1.5 billion points.

DAFT PUNK R.A.M.

FOOD: The best things we ate.

MUSIC: The best things we heard.

BOOKS: The best things we read.

MOVIES: The best films we saw.

HEADOUT BUZZED-FEED OUR 14 FAVORITE WAYS TO GET DRUNK FOR NEW YEAR’S 2014.

1. The rum-punch drunk, which

feels a lot less like being punched than like woozily waking up after being knocked out.

You’ll be asking yourself: Where have I been all my life?

2. That hyper-jittery punch-yourfriend Red Bull-and-HRD vodka drunk that’s like cocaine without the sniffles.

3. The imperial barrel-aged stout

drunk where you don’t know how drunk you are until you stand up and can’t feel your feet.

4. The I-think-the-bubbles-went-

hic!-right-to-my-head drunk that comes from nabbing too many other people’s sparkling wine flutes off the platter at midnight.

5. The old-man, cheap-gin drunk

where your cheeks flush, your heart palpitates and everything you say and think is about a good old memory that’s a hell of a lot better than what’s happening in front of you right now. Go to hell.

I love you.

6. The André Peach Passion drunk where your mouth feels fuzzier than the fuzziest Georgia peach and you’re already developing phantom pains in anticipation of tomorrow’s soul-killing headache.

7. The raging Schlitz.

8. The highly literary, artistic,

Parisian-expat absinthe drunk that mostly involves knocking over a bunch of chairs and insulting attractive strangers.

9. The crappy light-beer drunk where your stomach is full because you had to drink so much to get drunk, and no matter how much you pee, you still have to keep peeing and your pee looks like the beer you just drank.

10. The tequila dr—WOOOOO!—unk.

11. The mom-pants, airy-headed, red-wine drunk that’s mildly forgetful and charming for being so unpracticed. It’s kind of like the first time you saw your grandma use the F-word.

12. The vaguely animalistic Old Crow

drunk that leaves your mouth feeling like the remains of a campfire, and nothing but piss and vinegar in your blood—probably from your kidneys not working.

13. The gilded-stomach Gold-

schläger drunk: You’ll look a lot better on the inside than you do on the outside, baby.

14. The 0.5-percent near-beer

drunk that comes only from persistence that is too terrible to imagine.

JEFFDREWPICTURES.COM

WILLAMETTE WEEK

WHAT TO DO THIS WEEK IN ARTS & CULTURE

FRIDAY DEC. 27 DARKEST, COLDEST TIME OF YEAR COMEDY SPECTACULAR [COMEDY] Oh look: It’s all those Portland comics who’ve abandoned our rainy city for the Los Angeles sun. But really, we’re glad to welcome back these three comedians, including headliner Matt Braunger, a Portland native who cofounded the Bridgetown Comedy Festival and whose self-deprecating, frenetic style has served him well as a MADtv cast member and Chelsea Lately panelist. Braunger is joined

by Ron Funches and Ian Karmel.

Mission Theater, 1624 NW Glisan St., 223-4527. 8 pm. $10-$12. 21+.

SATURDAY DEC. 28 HUMAN IDENTITY [THEATER] Christopher Vened acted in Poland’s legendary Wroclaw Pantomime Theatre in the 1970s and early ’80s, but he defected to the West after martial law was declared. Now based in Los Angeles, the 61-year-old brings his one-man show to the tiny CoHo Theater. It’s a comedic blend of mime and words that asks big questions about big topics. CoHo Theater, 2257 NW Raleigh St., 800838-3006. 7:30 pm. $17-$22.

TRAIL BLAZERS VS. MIAMI HEAT [BASKETBALL] A velociraptor, a balding man-child and Gabrielle Union’s boyfriend walk into the Moda Center. What happens? The biggest Blazers game of the year. Moda Center, 1401 N Wheeler Ave., 2358771. 7 pm. Sold out. Airing locally on KGW.

SUNDAY DEC. 29 REIGNWOLF [MUSIC] The Seattle one-man blues-punk band is proof rock stars still exist, and they still love to jump off drum kits, solo until their fingers bleed, and leave stacks of amps smoldering. Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St., 231-9663. 9 pm. $10$12. 21+.

BUILT TO SPILL [JAM] Night one! “Nowhere Nothin’ Fuckup.” Yeah! Mission Theater, 1624 NW Glisan St., 223-4527. 8 pm. $22$25. 21+.

MONDAY DEC. 30 BUILT TO SPILL [JAM] Night two! “Randy Described Eternity.” Yeah! Mission Theater, 1624 NW Glisan St., 223-4527. 8 pm. $22$25. 21+.

TUESDAY DEC. 31 BUILT TO SPILL [JAM] Night three! “You Were Right.”

Yeah! Mission Theater, 1624 NW Glisan St., 223-4527. Sold out. 21+.

RIFF RAFF’S NEON NEW YEAR [MUSIC?] His eyebrows have racing stripes, his teeth have mirrors and he has no discernible talent, but the Houston party rapper is such a shamelessly weird self-promoter that any criticism of his music is moot. Spring for the $299 VIP ticket.

Odyssey Event Space, 521 N Tillamook St., 999-0383. 9 pm. $40-$299. 18+.

Willamette Week DECEMBER 25, 2013 wweek.com

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FOOD & DRINK AUGUST LIPP

DRANK

Karaoke 9pm nightly Hydro Pong Saturday night

SPARKLE PARTY

I get HAPPY 4-6pm Tues-Fri $3 menu

Tuesdstaryy: Fun Indu Night!

Ho Ti

Dragon Lounge

TINY LOCAL BUBBLES TO FUEL YOUR FIRST TOAST OF 2014.

2610 SE 82nd at Division 503-774-1135

want to stay under $20 a bottle, this is your best bet.

TASTING NOTES: “Tight, tiny bubbles.” “Sweet, mild flavor.”

“Kinda oily.”

BY LYLA R OWEN

Wine By Joe “Joe’s Secco”

Chinese-American Restaurant

Read our story: canton-grill.com

lrowen@wweek.com

It’s the pop that does it. Even if you spend the rest of the night drinking Scotch or mead, when the clock strikes 12 on the last night of the year, you’re going to want to loose the cork on something fizzy, pale and—if you’re like us—local.

Champagne comes only from Champagne, in Northeast France.

But among Oregon’s vines, you’ll find a handful of wineries that make sparklers suitable for sipping as you search for your midnight kiss.

Some are takes on classic Champagne, some are just a little effervescent. We tested a diverse range of sparkling wine based on price and style to find a favorite. Ratings are on a 100-point scale.

2010 Argyle Vintage Brut

2011 Tualatin Estate Semi-Sparkling Muscat Frizzanté

Find it at New Seasons, $24 RATING: 86.7 points Argyle’s flagship sparkling wine is made with chardonnay and pinot noir from vineyards in the Dundee Hills. This is Oregon’s go-to sparkling wine for good reason. We found it dry, citrusy and very effervescent.

TASTING NOTES: “Beautifully dry, like an old farmhouse cider but with thousands of tiny bubbles.”

“Would be good for a first toast and a midnight toast.” “Smells like apple juice.”

Find it at Fred Meyer, $16 RATING: 60.6 At 40 years old, the 200-acre Tualatin Estate Vineyards in Forest Grove is among the old guard in Oregon wineries. The semi-sparkling muscat rings in at a modest 6.5 percent ABV, and will be found in the white wine section, rather than among the sparklers. There’s no cork, sadly, which blunts the festivities a bit: It’s a screw cap.

TASTING NOTES: “Tastes like grape Hi-Chew candy. This is not a bad thing, but it’s also not a good thing.” “Like soda syrup, undiluted and without carbonation. I could take a shot-sized portion at dessert, no more.” “Is this made by Kern’s?”

2009 Argyle Brut Rosé

Find it at Zupan’s, $45 RATING: 81.1 Argyle’s fancier take on sparkles is a delicious feat, lightly balanced between 30 percent pinot meunier and 70 percent full-hipped pinot noir. Though we preferred its less expensive cousin as a sipper, Argyle’s brut rosé would hold up much better against the odd midnight snack.

TASTING NOTES: “Walks nicely across the palate, dry in the back then moving forward across the front.” “Becomes more complex as it warms.” “Faintly rosé—light to the point of being barely there.”

Capitello Oregon Brut

Find it at New Seasons, $28 RATING: 80.9 Originally from New Zealand, founder Ray Walsh moved to Oregon 20 years ago and now makes a wide variety of wines at his Eugene vineyard where—if its

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Willamette Week DECEMBER 25, 2013 wweek.com

Find it at New Seasons, $15 RATING: 63.1 Joe Dobbes started his Dobbes family of wines in 2002, growing grapes on an ambitious 214-acre vineyard just west of Salem. He’s only been making sparklers since 2010, however, and some of us responded strongly to musty notes in the secco; this led to the fruits of Joe’s cellar receiving the lowest score among the non-muscat wines we tried.

TASTING NOTES: “Banana peel?”

“Better than André, but only barely.”

“Very clear color—sort of like a dirty diamond.”

Silvan Ridge Early Muscat SemiSparkling Wine website is to be believed—wine bottles are used for target practice.

Capitello brut had the most vibrant sparkle among the wines we tasted, with hearty bubbles.

TASTING NOTES: “Awesome.” “The more I drink, the sweeter it gets.”

“Quite sparkly.” “Really nice pop.”

Sokol Blosser Evolution Sparkling Wine

Find it at New Seasons, $19 RATING: 80.7 Evolution wine is a midtier spinoff of the pioneering Sokol Blosser Winery in the Dundee Hills. If you

Find it at Fred Meyer, $10 RATING: 41.6 The little Silvan Ridge Winery, southwest of Eugene, prides itself on the diversity of grapes grown in its vineyards, and its willingness to experiment with different barrels and yeasts. The muscat is priced at the bottom of its assortment, however, and even at 6.8 percent ABV, the wine’s sickly sweetness feels like a hangover waiting to happen.

TASTING NOTES: “This is a waste of time.” “Not even bubbly.” “The flat Sprite of sparkling wines.”

FOOD & DRINK LIZ DEVINE

LEAH NASH

LIZ DEVINE

BEST OF 2013

SEN YAI

OX

LELA’S BISTRO

THE BEST THING I ATE THIS YEAR

WW FOOD WRITERS PICK THEIR FAVORITE DISHES OF 2013.

Often the best thing is what surprises you.

On a cold day in October—in a drizzling, windswept food-cart parking lot with a trash-can-style campfire and an immobile school bus that serves as a dining hall—I ordered the inzimino from Burrasca. It arrived looking like a Louisiana duck circa 2010, or a three-day preparation of seaweed on the Oregon Coast: an inky, unparseable mess of brackish green.

But it was heaven in a to-go box: a warm, herbal, wine-soaked spinach dish studded with squid. The intensely rich Tuscan peasant stew tastes like nothing else in town—not even the other rendition of the dish across the river—blanketing the palate with startling complexity. I buy it regularly in a parking lot, but I’d be just as stoked if I got it at Ava Gene’s.

MATTHEW KORFHAGE. I’m too cheap to eat out much. My coworkers know this: They’ve stopped asking if I want takeout at lunch, well aware that I’ll instead be nuking my beans and rice. So when I do go out, I want something either extravagantly delicious or supremely comforting. For the former, that means mussels at St. Jack, bathing in a garlicky vermouth sauce that has just enough creme fraiche to make it rich but not so much that it’s heavy.

The dish comes with a hunk of crusty baguette, and I always ask for more. And when I just want some comfort food?

Then it’s Sen Yai’s phat sii ew, a plate of

thick wok-fried noodles, bits of pork and Chinese broccoli. When I had it the first time, loaded up with chili vinegar, I was exhausted and grumpy as hell. While it didn’t quite cure me, it went as far as anything could have. REBECCA JACOBSON.

If you figured one deep-fried animal skin tastes pretty much like every other deepfried animal skin, you figured wrong.

I realized this on my first bite into Sok Sab Bai’s fried chicken skins. Doused in the housemade sweet and fier y Da Sauce, this $3 appetizer from the Southeast 21st Avenue Cambodian restaurant was bet ter tha n a ny thing else I had this year. And while co-editing W W ’s Restaurant Guide, I had some pretty amazing food. The chicken skins were so crunchy, so hot, so sweet, so fatty, so wonderful. It punched down my pleasure receptors, a jolt that didn’t fade until the check was paid. The skins were a one-off at the time, so I almost told you about Le Pigeon’s beef cheek Bourg uig non instead. But a call to Sok Sab Bai confirms that it’s now permanently on the menu. Go and try—it’s the best $3 you’ll spend all year. MARTIN CIZMAR. W hen the waiter set down my bowl of clam chowder at Ox, I started screaming and flapping my hands like Paul Rudd at a One Direction concert. And I hadn’t even tasted it yet. In a restaurant whose signature dish is a giant pile of grilled meat, the relatively restrained chowder is the dish that, to me, signifies pure decadence—meaty and savory and spicy, with smoky bone marrow and jalapeños

lying atop delicate, fresh clams swimming in a buttery broth whose very dregs demand to be sopped up with the ends of Ox’s crusty bread. ADRIENNE SO.

The four bright-orange dollops of uni appeared as the umpteenth course in a $30 omakase journey at Tanuki. Chef Janis Martin won’t serve it unless she can get her paws on the best uni available—the stuff flown in from Japan. At this point, the room (and the tentacle porn playing on a flat screen above the bar) was blurry, but the explosion of briny, creamy, unadorned sea urchin snapped my palate back to attention. The uni itself was stellar, yet what it truly represents is a luminous moment in the most delicious, drunken and outrageous four hours I spent anywhere in 2013. ANDREA DAMEWOOD. When Levant opened on East Burnside Street in March, it wowed jaded restaurant regulars with a novel menu melding Middle Eastern, European and local flavors. The one dish that captured my fancy was chef and owner Scott Snyder’s simple rendition of deep-fried green almonds.

More precisely described as a lmond fruits, these fleeting treats are harvested in the short span just before the familiar kernel and shell inside have developed to nutlike maturity. Few farmers even bother. Resembling oversized olives in color and texture, their taste is pleasantly tart. Fresh from Levant’s fryer with just a sprinkle of salt and chili flake, the taste memory already has me looking ahead to next spring. MICHAEL C. ZUSMAN. Evoe has been one of my favorite Portland

restaurants since it opened in 2008—I reviewed it for WW back then—and I’m so excited that Evoe chef Kevin Gibson recently opened Davenport, though I haven’t been lucky enough to visit his new restaurant yet. I’ve never had anything at Evoe that I didn’t absolutely love. When I was going through a rough spell last year, it was one of my favorite spots to dine alone for a late, long lunch. Evoe’s Euro vibe invites that. Early in the year I had a beet salad at Evoe that I’ve re-created in various ways at home ever since. It was tossed with a light, tart, creamy vinaigrette, pistachios, some fresh herbs and I’m honestly not sure what else. Memory fades but the feeling does not. Every bite made me feel loved. Beet fucking salad. Usually it’s the simple things. LIZ CRAIN. Full disclosure: Lela’s Bistro, the Vietnamese lunch spot housed in a converted Victor ia n house on Nor thwest 23rd Avenue, is around the corner from WW’s office. As someone who’d eat nothing but Famous Stars were there a Carl’s Jr. nearby, my favorite dishes tend to be those closest to my mouth. That said, the fact that Lela’s pork belly banh mi sandwich is within biting distance from where I spend five days of the week is just about the most blessed fringe benefit of this job: The titular chunks of fatty meat hit a succulent sweet spot between chewy and crispy, spiced flavorfully and stuffed in a warm, thick baguette. Perhaps one of you food dorks out there is scoffing, but if you know a better sandwich, please deliver it to my desk, because that’s the only way I’ll bother with it. MATTHEW SINGER.

Willamette Week DECEMBER 25, 2013 wweek.com

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MUSIC BEST OF 2013

THE BEST THING I HEARD THIS YEAR: PORTLAND EDITION WW ’S MUSIC STAFF PICKS ITS FAVORITE LOCAL ALBUMS OF 2013.

BY NAT H A N C A R S O N, P E TE COTTELL, JAY H O RTO N, R EED JACKSON , CAT JON ES, MITCH LILLIE, GEOFF N U DELMA N , MAT T HEW P. SIN G ER, GRACE STA IN B ACK, MA RK A . STO C K , KA I TI E TO D D, BRAND O N WI D D E R

243-2122

Blitzen Trapper, VII

Lord Dying, Summon the Faithless

Red Fang, Whales and Leeches

Epp, Chrome Plated Chronicles

Natasha Kmeto, Crisis

STRFKR, Miracle Mile

A consistently suggestive blend of robust alt-country and catchy guitarpicking from Portland’s resident kings of genre-roving Americana. (GS)

For his solo debut, TxE rapper Epp made an album built for wintertime, brimming with thought-provoking lyrics and warm, static-drenched beats courtesy of producers Calvin Valentine and Lawz Spoken. (RJ)

Burly, teeth-gnashing, doomy thrash with enough shred skills to rip your head off and leave the riffs ringing in it for days. (CJ)

The perfect synthesis of soulful vocals and big beats, Crisis features singer-producer Kmeto at her career best and one of Portland’s catchiest singles in “Idiot Proof.” The only crisis she has is being way too big for Portland, so don’t be surprised if she’s on some national year-end lists in 2014. (ML)

The most diverse album yet from the most deserving band of heavy-music fame. It’s as brutal as it is catchy and impossible to get enough of. (CJ)

Dinky synths and massive dance beats remain an unbeaten formula for blogability these days, but the chromatic pulse of this electro-pop staple’s fourth album guarantees STRFKR won’t be pulling an MGMT and tanking before our gleaming eyes anytime soon. (PC)

Tango Alpha Tango, Black Cloud

Dark and ominous as its title suggests, Black Cloud growls, slinks and grooves its way through 13 tracks, led by deliciously dirty electric-guitar riff s, Nathan Trueb’s distinct growl and some seriously funky basslines. (KT)

Wampire, Curiosity

After years dicking around the Portland basement-party scene in their underwear, these psych-pop underachievers yanked up their big-boy pants for the group’s Polyvinyl debut, an album of shroomy surf guitars, stoney lyrical concepts, midnightmovie synths and totally hummable hooks, the smeary production making it all sound like a Strokes record left in the sun too long. (MPS)

Typhoon, White Lighter

The miniature orchestra’s sophomore LP is grandiose and optimistic, if not overly twee. Therein lies the appeal, though: It resonates far bigger than any one member. (BW)

The We Shared Milk, Lame Sunset

The second album in less than a year from these Alaskan expats adds keyboards, kraut punk and sax to its laidback pop haze, along with a case of the hung-over blues—the kind of melancholy that won’t cause you to slit your wrists, but will make you write a song about falling asleep on the bus and waking up in Gresham. (MPS)

Houndstooth, Ride Out the Dark

Twangy surf rock riddled with distortion, a touch of gritty Southern rock and breezy vocals come together on the Portland quintet’s stellar debut. (GS)

Pure Bathing Culture, Moon Tides

Throw Rumours-era Fleetwood Mac underwater and you have Moon Tides. Fluid, bubbling and ever swaying, this record makes the stubborn genre of soft rock a spectacle to be savored. (MAS)

Summer Cannibals, No Makeup

Not quite punk, not quite garage rock, this quartet put out a hybrid release Portland can be proud of. Clean guitars and simple drum patterns combine for one of the city’s most listenable releases of the year. (GN)

Unknown Mortal Orchestra, II

A psych-pop record so analog it defies space and time. Listen with your eyes closed and tell me it doesn’t feel like a priceless relic.

(MAS)

Wild Ones, Keep It Safe

Wild Ones didn’t rewrite the script with its debut, but it did manage to make a damn good pop record, full of dreamy melodies, catchy hooks and wistful lyrics sung by the tendervoiced Danielle Sullivan. (RJ)

Karmelloz, Bud Air

One of the few local albums that made this dude say, “Whoa.”

Homeboy has mastered late-night, midtempo pop, and channels it all through luxury mall speakers. (ML)

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Quasi, Mole City

Shedding the political preoccupations (and expanded roster) of recent releases, Sam Coomes and Janet Weiss celebrated 20 years of Quasi with a helter-skelter double album overstuffed with ideas and brimming with restless energy. (JH)

Willamette Week DECEMBER 25, 2013 wweek.com

Sun Angle, Diamond Junk

In the year’s most transcendent bout of cabin fever, the local electro-chic tastemakers behind Copy, Panther and Paper/Upper/Cuts brought along a Menomena member to oversee Mount Hood recording sessions for Sun Angle’s frenetic, free-flowing, fully realized post-punk psych tropicalia debut. (JH)

Usnea, Usnea

The post-doom quartet unleashed a highly original self-titled album of cosmic heaviness, lovingly packaged and priced cheap. (NC)

Your Rival, Here’s to Me

Frontman Mo Troper worked backward from Weezer’s “Green Album” and snatched up the best ideas from what us geezers consider to be emo’s golden days, like a navel-gazing magpie with a stack of Marshalls. (PC)

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Willamette Week DECEMBER 25, 2013 wweek.com

DEC. 25-31 = WW Pick. Highly recommended.

Prices listed are sometimes for advance ticket sales. At-the-door increases and so-called convenience charges may apply. Event lineups are subject to change after WW’s press deadlines.

COURTESY OF THE MOTET

Editor: MATTHEW SINGER. TO BE CONSIDERED FOR LISTINGS, go to wweek. com/submitevents and follow submission directions. All shows should be submitted two weeks or more in advance of event. Press kits, CDs and especially vinyl can be sent to Music Desk, WW, 2220 NW Quimby St., Portland, OR 97210. Please include show or release date information with all physical mailings. Email: msinger@wweek.com. Fax: 243-1115.

MUSIC

Built To Spill, Slam Dunk, the Apostrophes

[INDIE FOREFATHERS] Indie royalty Built To Spill affords one the opportunity to party like it’s 1999. The inland northwest outfit is entering its third decade of existence, with standout albums like Keep It Like A Secret and Perfect From Now On already under its belt. With trademark guitar hooks and gently buzzing experimentalism, there may not be a more qualified group to represent an entire era in this region. And while newest LP There Is No Enemy shows Doug Martsch and company riffing as good as ever, the guy next to you is still going to be requesting “Big Dipper” all night. MARK STOCK. Mission Theater and Pub, 1624 NW Glisan St., 223-4527. 8 pm. $22 advance, $25 day of show. Built to Spill also plays Mission Theater on MondayTuesday, Dec. 30-31. 21+.

TxE, Nu Era

MO’ BETTA FUNK: The Motet plays Wonder Ballroom on Tuesday, Dec. 31.

THURSDAY, DEC. 26 Year End Hip Hop Showcase: Stewart Villain, Donte Thomas, Marki$ Apollo, Cassow, Packard Browne, No Leader, Carmine, Slick Devious, Pyetti, Maxie, MATO

[HOMEGROWN RAP] Portland hip-hop had a tumultuous year.

The constant tug-of-war over Old Town venues left the genre with few places to call home, which hurt in a scene that produces some highquality emcees, no matter your opinion on that Vice article tearing up our city’s hip-hop scene. This truly is a showcase of Portland’s best emcees: Stewart Villain lent his production to a number of major tracks over the past 12 months, and Cassow’s Cold Winter mixtape is a great introduction to the talent hidden beneath all the shouting.

GEOFF NUDELMAN. Hawthorne Theatre, 1507 SE 39th Ave., 233-7100. 7:30 pm. $8. All ages.

FRIDAY, DEC. 27 Beats Antique

[AFRO-INDIAN BELLYWIGGLE] When most of us dance along to live music, our attempt to latch onto a rhythm leaves us looking like we’ve eaten some stale Mexican jumping beans. Not so with Beats Antique: Founding member, producer and belly dancer extraordinaire Zoe Jakes actively helps compose the group’s unique mashup of world fusion and electronica to suit her particular dance moves. Along with partner-producer David Satori and drummer Tommy Cappel, Beats Antique will present a two-night rendition of its Thousand Faces Tour, supposedly inspired

by Joseph Campbell. This version of the archetypal hero’s journey involves both intense belly-dancing and crunk. GRACE STAINBACK. Crystal Ballroom, 1332 W Burnside St., 225-0047. 8:30 pm. $25 advance, $30 day of show. Beats Antique also plays Crystal Ballroom on Saturday, Dec. 28. All ages.

SATUDAY, DEC. 28 Jonathan Toubin, DJ Beyonda

[SOUL TRAINING] Two years ago, celebrated New York soul DJ Jonathan Toubin almost died in Portland. While asleep in his room at the Jupiter Hotel on East Burnside Street, a Radio Cab

smashed through the wall, pinning him underneath. Everything—like, literally almost every part of him—was broken, fractured or damaged. As he slowly (and somewhat miraculously) recovered, benefits held across the country showed just how much an actual DJ is appreciated in an era where “everyone” is a DJ. Now, Toubin returns—along with Portland’s own deep-soul expert DJ Beyonda—bringing along a raft of the rare 45s that have turned his New York Night Train dance nights into one of the Big Apple’s favorite parties. MATTHEW SINGER. Dante’s, 350 W Burnside St., 226-6630. 9 pm. $6. 21+.

Machinedrum, Natasha Kmeto, Danny Corn, Mercedes, Nathan Detroit, Lincolnup, Ben Tactic, Graintable, SPF666, Commune, Break Mode, Ghost Dub, Shawn Don

[DANCE STASH] I’m not sure, but I think Travis Stewart—known for his textured dance creations as Machinedrum—has shaved his mustache off. Without it, his doughy visage betrays far more of his North Carolina roots than his residence in Brooklyn, or his signing to Ninja Tune, one of the hottest labels in underground dance. Even if some glitch-trance secret were stored and lost in his facial hair, it wouldn’t matter: This lineup is the deepest of any electronic event this year, a fusion of Dropping Gems, Bubblin’ and Club Chemtrail crews, with some serious veterans thrown in.

Mustache sold separately. MITCH LILLIE. Refuge, 116 SE Yamhill St. 9 pm. $14. 21+.

SUNDAY, DEC. 29 Reignwolf, Battleme

[RADIOACTIVE BLUES] As Reignwolf, Jordan Cook is a roughand-tough Norman Greenbaum, turning out raucous Southern rock reminiscent of “Spirit In The Sky.” The Seattle0based musician does so all by his lonesome, beside a stack of smoldering amps. Blues inspired and searing, Reignwolf is proof that rock stars still exist, and they still love to jump off drum kits and solo until their fingers bleed. His latest record, Are You Satisfied, is a fine enough listen at home, but it’s live where Reignwolf really hits his punishing stride. MARK STOCK. Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St., 2319663. 9 pm. $10 advance, $12 day of show. 21+.

[HIP-HOP] It’s no coincidence that Portland MCs TxE’s Tetherball EP starts with an homage to A Tribe Called Quest and shouts out Biggie and Outkast as it goes. As the group has transitioned from spitball rappers to scene mainstays, Tope and Epp have mellowed their beats and honed their flow, reaching out to influences beyond the hip-hop spectrum. Now, the group is poised to launch into a new galaxy with TxE vs PRTLND, a concept album that samples from Portland indie-rock staples ranging from Sallie Ford to Typhoon. Cuts from that album will take center stage at Mississippi Studios for a free show that solidifying TxE’s hold on the local hip-hop game. AP KRYZA. Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi Ave., 288-3895. 9 pm.

Free. 21+.

TUESDAY, DEC. 31 Reva Devito, Hustle & Drone, Holler & Oats, Montel Spinoza

[LOST SOUL] Last year, after scoring a spot on WW’’s Best New Band list and injecting the local neo-soul scene with some muchneeded slinky siren songs, songstress Reva DeVito left us for L.A., probably due to that whole soul-isunderserved-and-overlooked thing here. That robbed us of weekly ops to take in her future-sexy blend of hip-hop and R&B, but now, following some studio work in San Francisco, one of PDX’s most invigorating live acts returns with new material in hand. If things go as they should in the City of Angels, we should all really take advantage of these appearances—we won’t have many opportunities to get this close to her. AP KRYZA. Dig a Pony, 736 SE Grand Ave. 8 pm. $15. 18+.

Weinland NYE Supergroup, Old Light

[DANCE DANCE REVOLUTION] The world at large rings in the New Year with a big, glowing ball and Ryan Seacrest’s big, weird smile. Here in Portland, we have Weinland’s NYE Supergroup, in which the beloved indie-rock band teams with a 20-plus strong army of secret guests who may or may not play with the likes of Neko Case, the Dandy Warhols, Old Light and Blitzen Trapper to fire out an onslaught of familiar dance tunes.

In the past, that’s included hits from Stevie Wonder to Bowie, the Beastie Boys and Prince. In addition, the group has scoured the local karaoke scene and will give special amateur guests the chance to front the band. There are parties, and then there’s this. Which is to say: Suck it, Seacrest! AP KRYZA. Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St., 2319663. 9 pm. Advance tickets sold out, $23 day of show. 21+.

CONT. on page 34 Willamette Week DECEMBER 25, 2013 wweek.com

33

MUSIC

TUESDAY

LE1F, Shy Girls, Phone Call, PWRHAUS, Miracles Club DJs, DJ SPF666, DJ Kiffo, Radiation City DJs, Four Eels

[QUEER HIP-HOP] Le1f has a demanding presence. Playing with his own identity, he bends through both gender- and music-related stereotypes. His uninhibited personal attitude creates liberated takes on dance and hip-hop, with beats glitchy and mesmerizing. He is not for the prudish at heart, and should make for an excellent passage into 2014—which is to say nothing of his local support, which includes alt-R&B troupe PWRHAUS; Phone Call, a spinoff of nu-disco heroes Strength; and Portland’s Best New Band, Shy Girls. LYLA ROWEN. Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison St., 2397639. 8 pm. $25.

Surfer Blood, Wild Ones, AgesAndAges

[INDIE SURF-ROCK] Riding the wave to fame with the release of its 2010 LP, Astro Coast, Surfer Blood has spent the past few years in the festival circuit, gaining widespread attention for its dreamy, Pavementmeets-surf hooks. Teaming with producer Gil Norton (Pixies, Foo Fighters) for its second album, Pythons, the West Palm Beach rockers maintain the sunny, floating layers of guitar that made them famous in the first place, only this time adding touches of grunge and revealing a darker underside in its lyrics—which, along with the vocals, often plead and yearn in a way that is decidedly not sunny at all. KAITIE TODD. Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi Ave., 288-3895. 9 pm. $30 advance, $35 day of show. 21+.

Neon New Year Featuring Riff Raff

[NEON HIP-HOP] “Our reality has become experimental. Without destiny, modern man is left with an endless experimentation of himself.”

While they’re the words of another transgressive theorist, Mr. Jean Baudrillard, hip-hop’s “neon icon” Riff Raff would agree. The Houston party rapper is such a shamelessly weird self-promoter that any criticism of his music is almost moot.

Via an intermittently accented social media alter ego named Jody Highroller, Riff effortlessly makes his life into such a meme that his music—which is very hit or miss and experimental, in a sense—is supplemental. Case in point: Riff has released 18 official music videos so far in 2013, all strange, many bad. In the rap game, if at first you succeed, try, try and try again. MITCH LILLIE. Odyssey Event Space, 521 N Tillamook St., 999-0383. 9 pm. $40$60. 18+.

Ural Thomas

[PAIN-LESS SOUL] There is a significant chance that a 73-year-old man will be voted 2014’s Best New Band.

This was the year Portland rediscovered Ural Thomas, a soul singer who began his career singing on street corners back in the late ‘50s and who’s been living in the same house off North Mississippi Avenue for the last four decades. His recent, high-energy shows with his young backing band, the Pain, have been nothing less than life-affirming for those who’ve witnessed them.

Thomas has more buzz behind him than almost any other artist in town right now, which makes this gig a New Year’s Eve highlight despite the irregular venue. Word to the wise: This show is not with the Pain, but guys Thomas played with a few years before his rediscovery. No matter, though. It’s Thomas’ voice, and indelible presence, that’s most crucial. MATTHEW SINGER. Radio Room, 1101 NE Alberta St., 287-2346.

9 pm. Free. 21+.

The Parson Red Heads, Giant Bug Village, Car Wash

[FOLK-ROCK TRIBUTE] New Years is about looking behind as much as it is ahead—in this case 40

CONT. on page 36 34

Willamette Week DECEMBER 25, 2013 wweek.com

BEST OF 2013

THE BEST THING I HEARD THIS YEAR: NON-PORTLAND EDITION OUR FAVORITE MUSIC FROM OUTSIDE THE CITY. Ancient Warlocks, Ancient Warlocks

Pure, unadulterated, feel-good, sexy, heavy, singable, headbangable stoner-rock bliss. An absolutely perfect debut album from a band with no sign of slowing down. CAT JONES.

Arcade Fire, Reflektor

A continued exploration of the postmodern dichotomy of loneliness and chaos, but this time with more persistence (not to mention percussion) than ever, due to the group’s Caribbean musical inspiration and James Murphy’s production.

GRACE STAINBACK.

Big Sean, Hall of Fame

The rapper has always been criticized for being stylistically crude, but Hall of Fame shut those critics up. “MILF,” “Mona Lisa” and “Toyota Music”—to say nothing of the album’s singles—hit hard, fast and crass all the way through. MITCH LILLIE.

Black Sabbath, 13

Despite having the wrong drummer, Black Sabbath returned after 35 years of stumbling with its first No. 1 album. Great songs, heavy vibe and no AutoTune—it’s a triumph in doom. NATHAN CARSON.

Bonobo, The North Borders

The notable downtempo producer taps into trip-hop roots with soulful female guest vocals and multilayered instrumental-electronic blends. GRACE STAINBACK.

Chance the Rapper, Acid Rap

Chicago’s Chance the Rapper captured hip-hop’s heart on his second mixtape via his croaky sing-song voice and taste in playfully soulful instrumentals. REED JACKSON.

Chelsea Wolfe, Pain Is Beauty

Not quite scaling the heights of her acoustic record, Pain Is Beauty nonetheless continues Wolfe’s impressive young career.

More electronics inhabit the space, along with her chilling voice and minimal arrangements. NATHAN CARSON.

Chvrches, The Bones of What You Believe

Despite its bright, sickly sweet synth-pop surface, the Swedish trio’s lyrics, combined with singer Lauren Mayberry’s vocals, reveal a dark, don’t-fuck-with-me underside that is at once surprising and scary yet oh-so-catchy. KAITIE TODD.

Danny Brown, Old

On the follow-up to 2011’s XXX, Brown shows off a variety of influences, from trap to soul, with rhymes more organized and clearer than ever, especially on tracks like “25 Bucks,” where his bars mesh perfectly with supernatural production from Purity Ring. GEOFF NUDELMAN.

Daft Punk, Random Access Memories

Enlisting a murderer’s row of collaborators and boasting a multimillion-dollar budget, our Gallic robot lords of the dance turned against their EDM programming to forge an ambitious, ecstatic, deeply eccentric ’70s-styled prog-disco fantasia. JAY HORTON.

Dawes, Stories Don’t End

The outfit’s third bout of rangy, Laurel Canyon-gazing Americana ensures CSNY-esque harmonies, twangy distortion and songs about window seats in coach that are still as relevant as they were in 1972. BRANDON WIDDER.

Deafheaven, Sunbather

As far as metal records go, Sunbather is a lot like a caramel frappuccino: dense, saccharine, universally despised by the purists, but it’s still got the goods to bang heads, with relentless blast-beats, anguished yowling and shimmering layers of tremolo-picked guitars. File this in the extreme end of postrock and turn it up. PETE COTTELL.

MUSIC

DATES HERE

Deerhunter, Monomania

Bradford Cox has always been an enigma wrapped in a mystery wrapped in an, um, dress, but Deerhunter’s singular vision on Monomania is astounding: No pretense, no ridiculous origin story, just a set of rousing garage-pop tunes that burn brighter than the neon-pink sign on the cover.

MICHAEL MANNHEIMER.

The-Dream, IV Play (Deluxe Version)

There is no voice in hip-hop or R&B like The-Dream’s, and no album even remotely like IV Play. Jaded with the music industry and both overtly sexual and sexy, The-Dream will croon his way into your heart via your panties. MITCH LILLIE.

Drake, Nothing Was the Same

On his third album, Drizzy Drake returned to his proven pop formula of mixing clever one-liners and heartfelt coos with minimalist production. But he took it all to the next level with “Hold On, We’re Going Home,” which will be played at bar mitzvahs and weddings for years to come. REED JACKSON.

Haim, Days Are Gone

Pop music has never lacked safe ports of entry. And yet we still wonder: How does one welcome an elitist back to the pedestrian world of polished, hook-laden soft-rock gold?

The answer lies within Days Are Gone, a record so clean and shiny you mustn’t give in to the urge to shout along while operating a vehicle, lest you’re prepared to drive headfirst into a telephone pole. PETE COTTELL.

Kanye West, Yeezus

In which Chicago’s prodigal dropout trades his engorged ego for a rampaging id, going #nofilter and sharing thoughts better kept to himself over scathing electro-industrial production that’s nearly as brazen. How much does Yeezy not give a fuck? This much. MATTHEW SINGER.

Kurt Vile, Wakin on a Pretty Daze

Arguably the most complete album in years, armed with rich and resonating classic rock touches, panoramic 10-minute tracks and the proper amount of psychedelics.

MARK STOCK.

Neko Case, The Worse Things Get…

Swelling indie-country bliss with buzzing guitar, balls-out choruses and brash questions of identity. The phrase “get the fuck away from me” never sounded so tender or sweet.

BRANDON WIDDER.

Parquet Courts, Light Up Gold

You’d think dudes with a jam called “Stoned and Starving” would be chill bros, but nah: The weed’s just made the vocals nervier, the slacker-punk guitars more on-edge and everyday life more epically confounding. In these guys’ sticky hands, the search for the one munchie to rule them all is rendered with Tolkien-esque gravitas. MATTHEW SINGER.

Pusha T, My Name Is My Name

In a year when most rap records opted for pillowy opulence, King Push and a sea of collaborators (Kanye, Kendrick, Hudson Mohawke, old buddy Pharrell) simply went hard for 40 minutes. The beat for “Numbers on the Boards” alone is enough to place it in my top 10. Radio coke-rap at its finest.

MICHAEL MANNHEIMER.

Queens of the Stone Age, …Like Clockwork

Rock’s sleaziest choirboy swings his, uh, tail around, slithering, swaggering and sledgehammering through the most salacious grooves his mercurial group has ground out in years. MATTHEW SINGER.

Snakadaktal, Sleep in the Water

Eerie guitars and soft background beats are only the tip of this Australian iceberg. “Fall Underneath” showcases the band’s fusion of XX-style instrumentation coupled with haunting, Phantogram-esque vocals. The best album you didn’t hear this year. GEOFF NUDELMAN.

Vampire Weekend, Modern Vampires of the City

They might have traded the African-inspired guitar hooks that made them famous, but they’ve replaced them with cleverer lyrics and eccentric instrumental flourishes that make it simultaneously fun and more mature. KAITIE TODD.

Waxahatchee, Cerulean Salt

On this second volume of bedsit recordings collected under the Waxahatchee imprimatur, buzz-band casualty Katie Crutchfield pumps up both feedback and candor whilst lashing her finely wrought reminiscences to a succession of slow-burning riffs. JAY HORTON.

MORE: Yeah, we know. “Yadda yadda, hipster hipster.” So what were you listening to this year? Let us know at wweek.com.

Willamette Week DECEMBER 25, 2013 wweek.com

35

MUSIC

TUESDAY

years behind. Sporting a ninepiece lineup, retro rockers the Parson Red Heads—along with members of Blitzen Trapper, Pure Bathing Culture and Ryan Sollee of the Builders and the Butchers— are culling the covers. Sollee is donning his best, gravel-throated Tom Waits impression, Car Wash is tackling the Joe Walsh repertoire, and the Red Heads are set to play J.J. Cale’s classic debut, Naturally, in full. DAVE CANTOR. White Eagle Saloon, 836 N Russell St., 2826810. 9:30 pm. $12 advance, $15 day of show. 21+.

The Motet, Juno What

[FUNKY 2014] It’s surprising that Boulder’s beloved Afrobeatfunk-jam institution, the Motet,

will pass the new year west of the Rockies. Portland must have made a good impression during the Motet’s summer appearance at the Wonder, because the multisection beat machine will be back to welcome in 2014. While not jaw-droppingly progressive, the Motet—with a celebrated sound, avid fan base and a new album on the way—is a great musical celebration of the past and surely the future. Oh yeah, and its tagline is “Dance your ass off!” GRACE STAINBACK. Wonder Ballroom, 128 NE Russell St., 284-8686. 8 pm. $26 advance, $28 day of show. 21+.

MORE: See wweek.com for this week’s classical, jazz

COLIN MCLAUGHLIN

BEST OF 2013

JANELLE MONAE AT ROSELAND THEATER

Due To Popular Demand

AD D ED D SH OW SE C ONSa AM 10 y le Frida On

THE BEST THING I HEARD THIS YEAR: LIVE EDITION THE MOST AWESOME CONCERTS WE SAW THIS YEAR. Lady Gaga @ Rose Garden, Jan. 15

The mechanical horse! The threestory castle! The raw-meat sofa!

However bloodless and derivative her music, La Gaga’s flair for curated scandal does lend itself to epic stagecraft. JAY HORTON.

Disclosure @ Branx, April 18

We later realized the British vocal-house duo skipped Seattle because they’d be playing at Sasquatch a few months later.

But for one night, Portland’s electronic music scene shone at a soldout, tuned-in and turnt-up Branx.

MITCH LILLIE.

Prince @ Roseland Theater, April 21

I mean, c’mon. A once-(well, twice)in-a-lifetime opportunity to see the best live performer of all-time (yup) in an intimate setting in Portland.

Unfuckwithable. KENNY FRESH.

Big Boi @ Roseland Theater, May 13

FRIDAY JAN 24 EARLY SHOW SOLD OUT! 7:30 & 9:45 PM X Steve Litman Presents 36

Tickets: portland5.com • Portland’5 Box Office TicketsWest outlets • 800.273.1530

Willamette Week DECEMBER 25, 2013 wweek.com

Smartly packaging the Outkast songs in medleys between his thwomping solo material, the Southern rap ambassador delivered a show with enough pimpedout energy to render the question of whether he and Andre 3000 will ever get back together moot. Wait, there’s a reunion slated for 2014?

We’ll take it, I guess. MATTHEW SINGER.

Diarrhea Planet @ Mississippi Studios, Sept. 13 One would imagine seeing Nashville’s Diarrhea Planet in

concert would be a total shitshow (pun intended). But the meticulous sonics of Mississippi Studios made true the band’s certain destiny: to fly high in the rafters of an arena.

PETE COTTELL.

Father John Misty @ Aladdin Theater, Oct. 7

Josh Tillman’s scrappy folk-rock meditation on Hollywood life was even more hair-prickling live than on record, thanks to an added hipswaying coyness and sarcastic banter. GRACE STAINBACK.

Goblin @ Hawthorne Theatre, Oct. 19

Beneath projections of Italian actresses being slashed to bits, the ’70s horror soundtrack purveyors—on their first-ever American tour—absolutely rocked a capacity crowd of gushing synth-prog enthusiasts. NATHAN CARSON.

Janelle Monae @ Roseland Theater, Oct. 29

Monae’s futuristic, tour-de-force R&B show simmered before it scorched, then it literally brought the entire Roseland to its knees— with the exception of three unwavering assholes in the middle.

BRANDON WIDDER.

Typhoon @ Crystal Ballroom, Nov. 29

It’s hard to re-create songs as carefully arranged as those found on White Lighter in a live setting, but Typhoon did so easily, delivering energetic renditions before creating a wonderfully tense moment of silence leading into the middle of “CPR/Claws pt. 2.”

KAITIE TODD.

Now Get What You Wanted For Christmas FRED HERSCH & JULIAN LAGE

TANTRIC

FREE FLYING ON SALE $11.99 CD

37 CHANNELS ON SALE $12.99 CD

WE CAME AS ROMANS

MIKE DOUGHTY

TRACING BACK ROOTS ON SALE $10.99 CD

PIERCE THE VEIL SELFISH MACHINES ON SALE $10.99 CD

BLUE OCTOBER

CECILE MCLORIN SALVANT

WOMANCHILD ON SALE $13.99 CD • ALSO ON LP

HIATUS KAIYOTE

TAWK TOMAHAWK ON SALE $8.99 CD • ALSO ON LP

GRAMMY NOMINEE FOR BEST R&B PERFORMANCE

LORD HURON

GRAMMY NOMINEE FOR BEST JAZZ VOCAL ALBUM

APPEARING AT THE WONDER BALLROOM ON 1/ 22

LONESOME DREAMS ON SALE $8.99 CD • ALSO ON LP

WHITE DENIM

ANBERLIN

DEEP FOREST

CORSICANA LEMONADE ON SALE $10.99 CD • ALSO ON LP

DEVOTION ON SALE $10.99 CD

DEEP AFRICA ON SALE $9.99 CD

AWOLNATION

FIT FOR RIVALS

THE WINERY DOGS

APPEARING AT THE DOUG FIR ON 2/2

MEGALITHIC SYMPHONY DELUXE ON SALE $8.99 Reg. CD/ $13.99 Deluxe CD ALSO ON LP

KASKADE

JANIS SIEGEL

GRAMMY NOMINEE FOR BEST DANCE / ELECTRONICA ALBUM

NO PLACE ON SALE $10.99 CD

CIRCLES ON SALE $11.99 CD ALSO ON LP

SWAY ON SALE $11.99 CD ALSO ON LP

ATMOSPHERE ON SALE $10.99 CD

A LOT LIKE BIRDS

NIGHT SONGS ON SALE $11.99 CD

STEADY DAMAGE ON SALE $9.99 CD ALSO ON LP

SNOOP LION

REINCARNATED ON SALE $10.99 Reg. CD/$13.99 Deluxe CD ALSO ON LP • GRAMMY NOMINEE FOR BEST REGGAE ALBUM

THE WINERY DOGS ON SALE $10.99 CD ALSO ON LP

FATES WARNING

DARKNESS IN A DIFFERENT LIGHT ON SALE $13.99 CD

Offer good through 1/21/14 Willamette Week DECEMBER 25, 2013 wweek.com

37

MUSIC CALENDAR

[DEC. 25-31] FRI. DEC. 27

= WW Pick. Highly recommended.

Al’s Den at the Crystal Hotel

Editor: Mitch Lillie. TO HAVE YOUR EVENT LISTED, send show information at least two weeks in advance on the web at wweek.com/ submitevents or (if you book a specific venue) enter your events at dbmonkey.com/wweek. Press kits, CDs and especially vinyl can be sent to Music Desk, WW, 2220 NW Quimby St., Portland, OR 97210. Please include show or release date information with all physical mailings. Email: music@wweek.com.

303 SW 12th Ave. Scott Fisher, Stephanie Schneiderman, Ben Fuller

For more listings, check out wweek.com.

CO U R T E SY PA A N AC H E B O O K I N G

Alberta Rose Theatre

WED. DEC. 25 Al’s Den at the Crystal Hotel

303 SW 12th Ave. Scott Fisher, Kris Deelane, Jake Oken Berg

East End

203 SE Grand Ave. Xmas Cover Night: Larry Yes, Osama Sinatra, Dubais

3000 NE Alberta St. The Bobs After Christmas Holiday Show, Verbal Absurdities

Alberta Street Public House 1036 NE Alberta St. Brownish Black

Andina

1314 NW Glisan St. Borikuas

Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall

Hawthorne Theatre Lounge

1037 SW Broadway Straight No Chaser

Kells

225 SW Ash St. The People Electric, Needles and Pizza

1503 SE Cesar E. Chavez Blvd.

Rockstar Karaoke

Ash Street Saloon

112 SW 2nd Ave. Pat Buckley

Beaterville Cafe

2201 N Killingsworth St. Amber Sweeney, Joe Little

Landmark Saloon

4847 SE Division St. Jake Ray & the Cowdogs

Biddy McGraw’s Irish Pub

Lodge

6000 NE Glisan St. Thermal Boogie, Switchgrass

6605 SE Powell Blvd Pete Ford Band Jam

McMenamins Edgefield

Brasserie Montmartre

2126 SW Halsey St., Troutdale Steve Bradley, Scott Akers

626 SW Park Ave. Trash Can Joe

Buffalo Gap Eatery and Saloon

Sky Club at Ankeny’s Well

6835 SW Macadam Ave. Ken Hanson

50 SW 3rd Ave. Gaea Soul

Camellia Lounge

510 NW 11th Ave. French Twist X3: Mitzi Zilka, Carol Rossio, David Boicourt

The Blue Diamond

2016 NE Sandy Blvd.

The Fenix Project

The Lovecraft

Clyde’s Prime Rib

421 SE Grand Ave. Psychopomp: Black Mass

5474 NE Sandy Blvd.

Norman Sylvester

Crystal Ballroom

THURS. DEC. 26

1332 W Burnside St. Beats Antique

Al’s Den at the Crystal Hotel

Dante’s

350 W Burnside St. Sleep For Sleepers, Workday Release

303 SW 12th Ave. Scott Fisher, Bart Ferguson

Doug Fir Lounge

Alberta Rose Theatre

830 E Burnside St. The Quick and Easy Boys, Acorn Project, Moorea Masa

3000 NE Alberta St. Bachxing Day: Classical Revolution PDX

Andina

Duff’s Garage

1314 NW Glisan St. Jason Okamoto

1635 SE 7th Ave. Rae Gordon

Andrea’s Cha Cha Club

East End

832 SE Grand Ave. Pilon D’Azucar Salsa Band

Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall

1037 SW Broadway Concert-At-Christmas: Portland Youth Philharmonic

Ash Street Saloon

225 SW Ash St. Mentes Ajenas, Hines Zemanovic Duo

Beaterville Cafe

2201 N Killingsworth St. James Faretheewell’s Songwriter Showcase

Biddy McGraw’s Irish Pub 6000 NE Glisan St. Lowell J. Mitchell

Brasserie Montmartre 626 SW Park Ave. Paul Paresa and the People

Buffalo Gap Eatery and Saloon 6835 SW Macadam Ave. Soul Progression, CoLoSo

Camellia Lounge

SPIRIT IN THE SKY: Jonathan Toubin spins at Dante’s on Saturday, Dec. 28.

Boyd Small

Pat Buckley

Goodfoot Lounge

Landmark Saloon

Robert Richter, Aarun Carter

LaurelThirst

8105 SE 7th Ave. Jack Dwyer

2845 SE Stark St. Tokyo Death Stare

Hawthorne Theatre

1507 SE 39th Ave. Year-End Hip-Hop Showcase: Stewart Villain, Donte Thomas, Marki$ Apollo, Cassow, Packard Browne, No Leader, Carmine, Slick Devious, Pyetti, Maxie, MATO

Ivories Jazz Lounge and Restaurant 1435 NW Flanders St. Tom Grant Vocal Showcase: Tom Grant, Toni Lincoln

Jade Lounge

2346 SE Ankeny St. Pacific Oceans: Colin Fisher

Jimmy Mak’s

510 NW 11th Ave. Caili O’Doherty Group

221 NW 10th Ave. The Mel Brown B3 Organ Group

Duff’s Garage

Kells

1635 SE 7th Ave.

38

112 SW 2nd Ave.

Willamette Week DECEMBER 25, 2013 wweek.com

4847 SE Division St. Zoe Muth & the Lost City High Rollers

Muddy Rudder Public House

2958 NE Glisan St. Reverb Brothers, Ashleigh Flynn & Sneakin’ Out (Rose Haven benefit)

O’Connor’s Vault

Lodge

Sellwood Public House

6605 SE Powell Blvd Ben Rice B3 Trio

McMenamins Edgefield 2126 SW Halsey St., Troutdale The Stomptowners

McMenamins Rock Creek Tavern

10000 Old Cornelius Pass Road, Hillsboro Wil Kinky

McMenamins’ Kennedy School 5736 NE 33rd Ave. Boxing Day Hooley: Geraldine Hooley

Mock Crest Tavern 3435 N Lombard St.

7850 SW Capitol Highway Kathy James Sextet 8132 SE 13th Ave. Open Mic

Shaker and Vine

2929 SE Powell Blvd.

Amy Steinberg&Laura Berman

Sky Club at Ankeny’s Well

50 SW 3rd Ave. Soundscape Thursdays: Julius Major, Final Frequency, Ryan Frakes, PIA!!

The Analog

720 SE Hawthorne Grizzly, Still Region, Toy Gun Conspiracy, Pops Couch, Atmos

The Blue Diamond

2016 NE Sandy Blvd.

Ben Jones

The Old Church

1422 SW 11th Ave. Christmas at the Old Church: Michael Allen Harrison

The Press Club

2621 SE Clinton St. Coconino Trio

Tiger Bar

317 NW Broadway Karaoke From Hell

Velo Cult

1969 NE 42nd Ave. Hollywood Bluegrass Band

Velo Cult

1969 NE 42nd Ave. Hollywood Bluegrass Band

West Cafe

1201 SW Jefferson St. Alan Jones Academy Jazz Jam

White Eagle Saloon 836 N Russell St. Fire Weeds

203 SE Grand Ave. Bang Bang Bullet

EastBurn

1800 E Burnside St. CarHart & the Romeos, DJ Problemsolver

Ford Food and Drink 2505 SE 11th Ave. Laura Dunn

Ivories Jazz Lounge and Restaurant 1435 NW Flanders St. Picante Latin Jazz

Jack London Bar 529 SW 4th Ave. Decadent 80s

Jade Lounge

2346 SE Ankeny St. Missi & Mr. Baker, Matt Johnson, Sam Densmore

Jimmy Mak’s

221 NW 10th Ave. Ty Curtis, Terry Robb

Katie O’Briens

2809 NE Sandy Blvd.

42 Ford Prefect, Stumblebum, Mormon Trannys, Black 33

Kells Brewpub

210 NW 21st Ave. Sami Rouisi

Kells

112 SW 2nd Ave.

Grafton Street

Kelly’s Olympian

426 SW Washington St. Lil Ass Boom Box Festival: Psychomagic, Olivias, Damn Librarians

Kenton Club

2025 N Kilpatrick St. The Last 45’s

Landmark Saloon

4847 SE Division St. Countryside Ride

LaurelThirst

2958 NE Glisan St. Lynn Conover & Gravel, Ducky Pig

Tony Starlight’s

3728 NE Sandy Blvd.

The Best of the Tony Starlight Show

Vie de Boheme

1530 SE 7th Ave. Tommy Hogan Band

White Eagle Saloon 836 N Russell St. Garcia Birthday Band

Wilfs Restaurant & Bar 800 NW 6th Ave. Tony Pacini Trio

Wonder Ballroom

McMenamins Edgefield

128 NE Russell St. Red Fang, Bison, Drunk Dad

McMenamins Rock Creek Tavern

Al’s Den at the Crystal Hotel

2126 SW Halsey St., Troutdale The Old Yellers

10000 Old Cornelius Pass Road, Hillsboro A Crab’s Life

McMenamins’ Kennedy School 5736 NE 33rd Ave. Butterfly Breakdown

Mississippi Studios

3939 N Mississippi Ave. Jerry Joseph and the Jackmormons, I Can Lick Any SOB In The House

Mock Crest Tavern

3435 N Lombard St. DC Malone & the Jones

Muddy Rudder Public House 8105 SE 7th Ave. Brooks Robertson

SAT. DEC. 28 303 SW 12th Ave. Scott Fisher, Ben Fuller

Alberta Street Public House 1036 NE Alberta St. Los Es Stupidos

Andina

1314 NW Glisan St. Sonasi

Ash Street Saloon

225 SW Ash St. Slow the Impact, This Fair City, Subterranean Howl, Sawtell

Beaterville Cafe

2201 N Killingsworth St. Danielle & Jade, Patoirlove

Original Halibut’s II

Biddy McGraw’s Irish Pub

Peter’s Room

Brasserie Montmartre

2527 NE Alberta St. Duffy Bishop

8 NW 6th Ave. Wax, Dumbfounded, EOM, Anderson Park

Ponderosa Lounge at Jubitz Truckstop

6000 NE Glisan St. Gravel, Fire Weeds Duo 626 SW Park Ave. Side Street Reny

Buffalo Gap Eatery and Saloon

10350 N Vancouver Way Lead & Lace

6835 SW Macadam Ave. Rockin’ Piano Party: Jorge Ramirez

Rock Bottom Brewery

Bunk Bar

Rotture

Camellia Lounge

206 SW Morrison St. Euphonius Thump

315 SE 3rd Ave. Hello/Hello: Jinkx Monsoon, Ben De La Creme, Shitney Houston, Kaj-Anne Pepper, Artemis Chase, DJ Kasio Smashio

Secret Society Ballroom

116 NE Russell St. The Supraphonics, Trixy and the Nasties (9 pm); Pete Krebs & His Portland Playboys (6 pm)

Slabtown

1033 NW 16th Ave. Luck and Lana, Grape God, Anechoic, NorthernDraw

Starday Tavern

6517 SE Foster Rd. Muriel Stanton

The Annex

5264 N. Lombard St. Too Long Sparks, Coloring Electric Like

The Blue Diamond

2016 NE Sandy Blvd.

Billy D and the Hoodoos

The Blue Monk

3341 SE Belmont St. Foreign Talks

The Firkin Tavern

1937 SE 11th Ave. Not From Brooklyn, Allan Boothe, J. Martin

The Know

1028 SE Water Ave. Jenny Don’t & the Spurs 510 NW 11th Ave. Laura Stilwell Quartet: Laura Stilwell, George Mitchell, Kevin Deitz, Ron Steen

Club 21

2035 NE Glisan St. PDX Punk Rock Collective

Clyde’s Prime Rib

5474 NE Sandy Blvd.

Party Code

Crystal Ballroom

1332 W Burnside St. Beats Antique

Doug Fir Lounge

830 E Burnside St. Miracles Club, Threads

Duff’s Garage

1635 SE 7th Ave. Robbie Laws

Goodfoot Lounge

2845 SE Stark St. World’s Finest, Asher Fulero

Ivories Jazz Lounge and Restaurant

1435 NW Flanders St. Rebecca Kilgore, Dave Frishberg, david evans

Jack London Bar 529 SW 4th Ave. SPUN!

Jade Lounge

2346 SE Ankeny St. Craig Burk

2026 NE Alberta St. Raw Nerves, Broken Water, Recessions

Jimmy Mak’s

Tonic Lounge

Katie O’Briens

3100 NE Sandy Blvd.

Zinnie for Short, the Northern Currents, Ellis Pink

221 NW 10th Ave. Linda Hornbuckle 2809 NE Sandy Blvd.

Minty Rosa, Poe and Monroe, the Vacilitators

MUSIC CALENDAR

DEC. 25-31

CAMERON BROWNE

BAR SPOTLIGHT

HAPPY HOLIDAYS! FIFTY PROOF: Long before opening his ice cream cart, Chad Draizin, owner of Fifty Licks (2021 SE Clinton St., 954-2948868, fifty-licks.com), brewed beer. Now that he’s moved up from a cart to a proper building on Clinton Street, Draizin is getting back into booze. He’s not making it—and he isn’t licensed to sell the hard stuff—but Draizin has concocted a wide-ranging menu of boozy sorbets using plum wine, mead and Cocchi Americano, an Italian aperitif (all $8). They’re grown-up floats—restrained in sweetness, with citrus or bitters to balance them out—served in little cocktail glasses. They’re a pleasant sip while listening to Yo La Tengo or Huey Lewis at little tables in or outside of this little shop of wood, tile and coffee cans. Our staff enjoyed them even on a crisp, cold day—how long until summer 2014?

MARTIN CIZMAR.

Kells Brewpub

Shaker and Vine

Kells

Starday Tavern

Kelly’s Olympian

The Analog

210 NW 21st Ave. Sami Rouisi 112 SW 2nd Ave. Grafton Street 426 SW Washington St. The Autonomics, NTNT, Mufassa

Landmark Saloon

4847 SE Division St. Rocky Butte Wranglers

LaurelThirst

2958 NE Glisan St. Jimmy Boyer Band, Peter Pants

McMenamins Edgefield

2126 SW Halsey St., Troutdale Matthew Price

McMenamins Rock Creek Tavern

10000 Old Cornelius Pass Road, Hillsboro Mondgrens

Mississippi Pizza

3552 N Mississippi Ave. Salsanova

Mississippi Studios

3939 N Mississippi Ave. Jerry Joseph and the Jackmormons, Jeff Crosby and the Refugees

Mock Crest Tavern 3435 N Lombard St. Blueprints

O’Connor’s Vault

7850 SW Capitol Highway Lex Browning, Brad Price

Original Halibut’s II 2527 NE Alberta St. Carlton Jackson

Ponderosa Lounge at Jubitz Truckstop

10350 N Vancouver Way Sacred Road

Rock Bottom Brewery 206 SW Morrison St. Slow Children

Secret Society Ballroom

116 NE Russell St. The Ukeladies, Three For Silver (9 pm); Jenny Finn Orchestra (6 pm)

2929 SE Powell Blvd.

Paul Mauler and Friends 6517 SE Foster Rd. Freddy Trujillo Trio 720 SE Hawthorne Dementia

The Annex

5264 N. Lombard St. Foreign Talks

The Blue Diamond

Al’s Den at the Crystal Hotel 303 SW 12th Ave. Anna Tivel

Alberta Rose Theatre 3000 NE Alberta St. Cloverdayle 1314 NW Glisan St. Danny Romero

Ash Street Saloon

The Firkin Tavern

320 SE 2nd Ave. Leftover Crack, Juicy Karkass

1937 SE 11th Ave. Coma Serfs, Unkle Funkle, Free Weed

The Know

Branx

Clyde’s Prime Rib

5474 NE Sandy Blvd.

Ron Steen Jazz Jam

Doug Fir Lounge

2026 NE Alberta St. The Gutters, Hornet Leg, Rockoon

830 E Burnside St. Reignwolf, Battleme

The Lovecraft

2505 SE 11th Ave. Tim Roth

421 SE Grand Ave. Funeral Pomp, DJ Maxamillion

The Press Club

2621 SE Clinton St. The Love And Stress Compound

Tonic Lounge

3100 NE Sandy Blvd.

Gilby Clarke, Bitch School, Ruff Haüsen

Tony Starlight’s

3728 NE Sandy Blvd.

Neil Diamond Tribute: Tony Starlight

Trail’s End Saloon

1320 Main St., Oregon City Thrill Ride

Vie de Boheme 1530 SE 7th Ave. Chris Baum

White Eagle Saloon

836 N Russell St. Hutson, Violet Isle, Half Way There

RAMENS RAM N

Ford Food and Drink

Hawthorne Theatre

1507 SE 39th Ave. Common Catastrophe, For Those Alive, Upon A Broken Path, Against The Raging Tide, Harken

Ivories Jazz Lounge and Restaurant 1435 NW Flanders St. Javier Nero Quartet

Jade Lounge

2346 SE Ankeny St. Moorea Masa, Allison Hall

Kells

112 SW 2nd Ave. Pat Buckley, Irish Sessions

Landmark Saloon

4847 SE Division St. Ian Miller

LaurelThirst

2958 NE Glisan St. Freak Mountain Ramblers

Wilfs Restaurant & Bar 800 NW 6th Ave. Devin Phillips Quartet

think it’s just trivia? think again.

Andina

The Conga Club

4923 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., Suite 102 Tropical Saturday Salsa

503-288-6950 3904 NE Martin Luther King Blvd. www.rhythmtraders.com

SUN. DEC. 29

225 SW Ash St. Taint Misbehavin’, Wormbag, Nuclear Salt, Erik Anarchy

2016 NE Sandy Blvd.

The Jim Mesi Band

• The Region’s Largest Cymbal Vault • Drum Sets from $299. Cymbals from $25 • Congas, Djembes & Kids’ Drums • Oregon’s ONLY Five-Star Drum Shop

CONT. on page 40

Monday

Thirsty Lion (Portland ) — 7:00 PM Hawthorne Hideaway (Portland) — 8:00 PM Rose & Thistle (Portland) — 8:00 PM (Starts Jan 6)

Thursdays @ 8pm Redwing Bar & Grill Tuesday

Wednesday

Saturdays @ 8pm Kelly’s Pub

Cheerful Bullpen (Portland ) - 8:30 PM Concordia Ale House (Portland ) - 8:00 PM Space Room (Portland ) - 7:00 PM Tonic Lounge ) — •7:00 Town OldPM Diego Ave 2222 San(Portland Buffalo Gap (Portland) — 7:30PM (Starts Jan 8)

h Park NortPM 2 30th St The Dugout401 (Hillsboro) — •7:00 Biddy McGraw's (Portland) — 7:00 PM Cheerful Tortoise (Portland) — 9:00 PM 21st Avenue Bar & Grill (Portland ) - 7:00 PM Shanahan's (Vancouver) — 7:00 PM 14th Belmont Inn (sta (Portland ) - st 7:00 PM) rts Augu Laurelwood Public House (SE) — 8:00 PM (Starts Jan 7) The Ram Restaurant & Brewery — 8:00 PM (starts Jan 21st) (Wilsonville) 4612 Park Blvd - University Heights

Mondays @ 9pm Bourbon Street Bar & Grill

Thursday Tuesdays @ 8pm

South Park Abbey

1946 Fern Street • South Park www.geekswhodrink.com @geekswhodrink

facebook.com/geekswhodrink Willamette Week DECEMBER 25, 2013 wweek.com

39

MUSIC CALENDAR

DEC. 25-31 JAKE MOORE

McMenamins Edgefield

2126 SW Halsey St., Troutdale Julie McCarl

McMenamins Rock Creek Tavern

10000 Old Cornelius Pass Road, Hillsboro Hanz Araki, Cary Novotny

Built To Spill, Slam Dunk, the Apostrophes

Ground Kontrol

3552 N Mississippi Ave. Mr. Ben

511 NW Couch St. Metal Monday

Muddy Rudder Public House

Jimmy Mak’s

Star Bar

221 NW 10th Ave. Chris Brown Quartet

Kells Brewpub

5736 NE 33rd Ave. June Bugs

Mission Theater and Pub

1624 NW Glisan St. Built to Spill, Slam Dunk, the Apostrophes

3939 N Mississippi Ave. TxE, Nu Era

5403 NE 42nd Ave. Open Mic

FLUORESCENT ESSENCE: Le1f plays Holocene on Tuesday, Dec. 31.

Rock Bottom Brewery

Rontoms

600 E Burnside St. Dramady, Regular Music

Slabtown

1033 NW 16th Ave. Grand Style Orchestra

Starday Tavern

Kevin Selfe and the Tornadoes

Gary Smith’s Mardi Gras All-Stars

The Conga Club

White Eagle Saloon

4923 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., Suite 102 VYBZ Reggae Night

The Conga Club

4923 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., Suite 102

6517 SE Foster Rd. Eddie Santos

VYBZ Reggae Night

The Blue Diamond

2016 NE Sandy Blvd.

Kelly’s Olympian

The Blue Monk

626 SW Park Ave. The Tritones

Tony Starlight’s

3728 NE Sandy Blvd.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 27

LUCK AND LANA GRAY MATTERS GRAPE GOD ANECHOIC NORTHERN DRAW LIVING LEGENDS $5, All Ages, 9:30 pm

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 29 6pm. 21 & Over

GRAND STYLE ORCHESTRA FREE!

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 31 9pm. 21 & Over

NEW YEAR’S EVE WHISKEY’S LAMENT

ON TOUR AND COMING SOON...

1/4 – THEO HILTON (DEFIANCE, OH) 1/9 – LA DRUGZ 1/18 – SPEED OF SOUND IN SEAWATER 1/21 – CALABRESE 1/24 – MAD THE CONDUCTOR 1/27 – RED CITY RADIO 1/28 – SELF-DEFENSE FAMILY 2/1 – DESPISE YOU

Falafel House: 3 to Late–Night All Ages Shows: Every Sunday 8–11pm Free Pinball Feeding Frenzy: Saturday @ 3pm WITHIN SPITTING DISTANCE OF THE PEARL

1033 NW 16TH AVE. (971) 229-1455 OPEN: 3–2:30AM EVERY DAY

HAPPY HOUR: MON–FRI NOON–7PM POP-A-SHOT • PINBALL • SKEE-BALL AIR HOCKEY • FREE WI-FI

Willamette Week DECEMBER 25, 2013 wweek.com

836 N Russell St. The Defendants

MON. DEC. 30 Al’s Den at the Crystal Hotel 303 SW 12th Ave. Anna Tivel

Andina

1314 NW Glisan St. Pete Krebs

Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall

1037 SW Broadway Ode To Joy: Oregon Symphony, Thomas Lauderdale, China Forbes, the Von Trapp Family Singers, Ida Rae Cahana

Ash Street Saloon 225 SW Ash St.

Chronic Vitality, Galatea, Thistle-Stalk

Camellia Lounge

510 NW 11th Ave. Vocalists’ Jazz & Blues Jam: Joe Millward

Dante’s

350 W Burnside St. Karaoke From Hell

East End

203 SE Grand Ave.

6517 SE Foster Rd. Foster Children 2016 NE Sandy Blvd.

Sumo

zBiddy McGraw’s Irish Pub

Brasserie Montmartre

Camellia Lounge

Landmark Saloon

3341 SE Belmont St. Bunker Sessions, Open Mic

White Eagle Saloon

Clyde’s Prime Rib

LaurelThirst

836 N Russell St. Tonya Gilmore

1332 W Burnside St. The Iron Works, Foxy Lemon

NEPO 42

206 SW Morrison St. Scott Gallegos

6000 NE Glisan St. Shafty

Lola’s Room at the Crystal Ballroom

8105 SE 7th Ave. Irish

225 SW Ash St. NYE Throwback Prom 2013: Raise the Bridges, Bad Habitat, Proper Knocks

The Blue Diamond

2958 NE Glisan St. Kung Pao Chickens, SPUR!

Muddy Rudder Public House

Ash Street Saloon

Kells

4847 SE Division St. High Flyer Trio

Mississippi Studios

639 SE Morrison St. Metal Monday: DJ Blackhawk

1037 SW Broadway Ode To Joy: Oregon Symphony, Thomas Lauderdale, China Forbes, the Von Trapp Family Singers, Ida Rae Cahana

Starday Tavern

426 SW Washington St. Eye Candy VJs

3552 N Mississippi Ave. Smut City Jellyroll Society (9 pm); Wicky Pickers (6 pm)

8105 SE 7th Ave. Lloyd Jones

Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall

210 NW 21st Ave. Traditional Irish Jam Session 112 SW 2nd Ave. Danny O’Hanlon

Mississippi Pizza

Mississippi Pizza

Jade Lounge

2346 SE Ankeny St. Drew Tucker

McMenamins’ Kennedy School

40

Rowland S. Howard Tribute Night: DJ Chris Lee

McMenamins Edgefield 2126 SW Halsey St., Troutdale Cellotronik

McMenamins Rock Creek Tavern

10000 Old Cornelius Pass Road, Hillsboro Bob Shoemaker

McMenamins’ Kennedy School 5736 NE 33rd Ave. Resolectrics

Mission Theater and Pub 1624 NW Glisan St.

TUES. DEC. 31 Al’s Den at the Crystal Hotel 303 SW 12th Ave. Ana Tivel, the Resolectrics, Poison Waters

Alberta Rose Theatre

3000 NE Alberta St. David Grisman Folk Jazz Trio, Darol Anger, Scott Law, Tony Furtado (7 and 10 pm)

Alberta Street Public House

1036 NE Alberta St. Ashleigh Flynn, Sneakin’ Out, Kathryn Clair

Andina

1314 NW Glisan St. Toshi Onizuka Trio, Danny Romero, Nat Hulskamp Trio, JB Butler

510 NW 11th Ave. The Nancy Curtin Duo 5474 NE Sandy Blvd.

Cool Breeze

Crystal Ballroom

1332 W Burnside St. New Year’s Eve Dance Spectacular: Pink Martini, Chervona (7:30 and 11 pm)

Dig a Pony

736 SE Grand Ave. Reva DeVito, Hustle and Drone, Holler and Oats, Montel Spinoza

Dig a Pony

736 SE Grand Ave. Reva Devito, Hustle and Drone, Holler and Oats, DJ Montel Spinozza

Doug Fir Lounge

830 E Burnside St. Weinland NYE Supergroup, Old Light

Duff’s Garage

1635 SE 7th Ave. Soul Vaccination (6 and 9:30 pm)

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Willamette Week DECEMBER 25, 2013 wweek.com

41

MUSIC CALENDAR east end

courtsy of txe

WIN A PAIR OF VIP TICKETS TO THE

dec. 25-31

203 SE Grand Ave. Defiance, Deathcharge, Long Knife, Wild Mohicans, Reactor

eastBurn

1800 E Burnside St. Milky Justice, Carmine, DJ Jesse Espinoza

Goodfoot Lounge

2845 SE Stark St. Scott Pemberton Trio

hawthorne Theatre

1507 SE 39th Ave. Poison’us, Same Ol’ Situation, Sir Psycho Sexy

DEC. 31 @ THE HILTON PORTLAND & EXECUTIVE TOWER!

GO TO WWEEK.COM/PROMOTIONS

HEADOUT

holocene

1001 SE Morrison St. Le1f, Shy Girls, Phone Call, Pwrhaus, Miracles Club DJs, DJ SPF666, DJ Kiffo, Radiation City DJs, Four Eels

ivories Jazz Lounge and restaurant 1435 NW Flanders St. Tom Grant, Shelly Rudolph, Mac Potts

pG 23

Jade Lounge

2346 SE Ankeny St. Djo Fortunado

Jimmy Mak’s

Three WiSe Men: Txe plays Mississippi Studios on Sunday, dec. 29. read a review of their new album, TxE vs PRTLND, at wweek.com.

221 NW 10th Ave. The Mel Brown Group (7:30 pm, 10 pm)

Katie o’Briens

2809 NE Sandy Blvd.

The Mentors, Fornicator, Pre Embalmed, God Bless America

Kells

112 SW 2nd Ave. Coming Up Threes

Kelly’s olympian

426 SW Washington St. Rick Bain and the Genius Position, the Purrs

Kenton club

2025 N Kilpatrick St. Black Pussy, Gaytheist, Diesto

LaurelThirst

2958 NE Glisan St. Tree Frogs

McMenamins edgefield

2126 SW Halsey St., Troutdale The Roseland Hunters, Sassparilla, Will West

McMenamins rock creek Tavern 10000 Old Cornelius Pass Road, Hillsboro Old Elbows

McMenamins’ Kennedy School

Urban Sub All-Stars, Mosley Wotta, Tony Smiley, Redwood Son, Freak Mountain Ramblers

Mission Theater and Pub

1624 NW Glisan St. Built To Spill, Slam Dunk, the Apostrophes

Mississippi Pizza

3552 N Mississippi Ave. Melao d’ Cuba, Mr. Ben

Mississippi Studios

3939 N Mississippi Ave. Surfer Blood, Wild Ones, AgesandAges

o’connor’s Vault

7850 SW Capitol Highway Jack McMahon Band

odyssey event Space

521 N Tillamook St. Neon New Year Featuring Riff Raff

original halibut’s ii 2527 NE Alberta St. Jim Wallace

Ponderosa Lounge at Jubitz Truckstop

10350 N Vancouver Way Carrie Cunningham

radio room

The Blue diamond

rotture

The Blue Monk

315 SE 3rd Ave. Light Asylum, Chanticleer Tru, Magic Mouth DJs

The old church

1101 NE Alberta St. Ural Thomas

Secret Society Ballroom

116 NE Russell St. The Satin Chaps, Brownish Black, DJ Hippie Joe (9 pm); Pete Krebs & His Portland Playboys (Ethos Music benefit, 6 pm)

Slabtown

1033 NW 16th Ave. Whiskey’s Lament

Spare room

4830 NE 42nd Ave. The Caleb Klauder Country Band, Copper and Coal

Star Theater

13 NW 6th Ave. Jerry Joseph and the Jackmormons, Water Tower

The Analog

720 SE Hawthorne Otis Heat, Speaker Minds, S.Y.N.T.

5736 NE 33rd Ave.

Branx

320 SE 2nd Ave. Blowpony: DJ Airick X, Stormy Roxx, Kasio Smashio, Fingerbang, Just Dave

cc Slaughters

Wed. dec. 25 Andrea’s cha cha club 832 SE Grand Ave. Salsa: DJ Alberton

Berbati’s

231 SW Ankeny St. DJ Seleckta YT

Bossanova Ballroom 722 E Burnside St. Wednesday Swing

cc Slaughters

219 NW Davis St. Trick with DJ Robb

Moloko

3967 N Mississippi Ave The Diamond Stylus: King Tim 33 1/3

The Firkin Tavern 1937 SE 11th Ave. Eye Candy VJs

ThurS. dec. 26 Berbati’s

231 SW Ankeny St. Studyhall: DJ Suga Shane

Black Book

20 NW 3rd Ave. Modern(ist), DJ Troubled Youth, Ryan Biornstad

42

Willamette Week DECEMBER 25, 2013 wweek.com

cc Slaughters

219 NW Davis St. Hip Hop Heaven with DJ Detroit Diezel

harlem

220 SW Ankeny St. Bounce: Tourmaline, Valen

Pix Patisserie

2225 E Burnside St. DJ Eric Beats

Fri. dec. 27 Berbati’s

231 SW Ankeny St. Cloud City Collective

cc Slaughters

219 NW Davis St. Sound Glitter with DJ Peter Calandra

Moloko

3967 N Mississippi Ave 21st Century Rhythm and Soul Review: Hans Fricking Lindauer

SAT. dec. 28 Berbati’s

231 SW Ankeny St. DJ Mellow Cee

219 NW Davis St. Revolution with DJ Robb

dante’s 350 W Burnside St. Jonathan Toubin, DJ Beyonda

refuge

116 SE Yamhill St. Machinedrum, Natasha Kmeto, Danny Corn, Mercedes, Nathan Detroit, Lincolnup, Ben Tactic, Graintable, SPF666, Commune, Break Mode, Ghost Dub, Shawn Don

Star Theater

2016 NE Sandy Blvd.

Gretchen Mitchell Band 3341 SE Belmont St. Boyfunk 1422 SW 11th Ave. All That Jazz and More: Rebecca Kilgore, Randy Porter, John Wiitala

Tonic Lounge

3100 NE Sandy Blvd.

The Metal Shop New Years Eve Bash

Tony Starlight’s

3728 NE Sandy Blvd.

AM Gold ‘70s Soft Rock Show: Tony Starlight

Vie de Boheme

1530 SE 7th Ave. Ken deRouchie Band

White eagle Saloon

836 N Russell St. The Parson Red Heads, Giant Bug Village, Car Wash

Wonder Ballroom

128 NE Russell St. The Motet, Juno What

Sun. dec. 29 Berbati’s

231 SW Ankeny St. DJ Linkus EDM

Star Theater

13 NW 6th Ave. Church of Hive

Mon. dec. 30 Berbati’s

231 SW Ankeny St. DJ Henry Dark

cc Slaughters

219 NW Davis St. Maniac Monday with DJ Robb

TueS. dec. 31

13 NW 6th Ave. Andaz: DJ Anjali and the Incredible Kid, Gopika and Nadaka

Berbati’s

The conga club

Bossanova Ballroom

The Whiskey Bar

cc Slaughters

4923 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., Suite 102 Tropical Saturday Salsa 31 NW 1st Ave. Myon and Shane 54, Eddie Pitzul and Evan Alexander, Jay Stone

231 SW Ankeny St. Soundstation Tuesdays: DJ Instigatah, Snackmaster DJ 722 E Burnside St. DJ Anjali and the Incredible Kid 219 NW Davis St. Girltopia with DJ Alicious

eagle Portland

835 N Lombard St DMTV with DJ Danimal

Dec. 25–31 BEST OF 2013

THEATER OPENINGS & PREVIEWS Human Identity

Writer and performer Christopher Vened acted in Poland’s legendary Wroclaw Pantomime Theatre in the ’70s and early ’80s, but he defected to the West after martial law was declared in his home country. Now based in Los Angeles, the 61-year-old presents a one-man show, a comedic blend of mime and words that asks questions about identity, self-knowledge and (you guessed it!) human nature. CoHo Theater, 2257 NW Raleigh St., 800-838-3006. 7:30 pm FridaySaturday, Dec. 27-28. $17-$22.

ALSO PLAYING Beauty and the Beast

Pixie Dust Productions presents a stage version of the Disney musical.

Newmark Theatre, 1111 SW Broadway, 248-4335. 7:30 pm Thursdays-Fridays, 2 and 7:30 pm Saturdays and 2 pm Sundays through Dec. 29. $36-$65.

A Christmas Carol

Traditional plays are tricky: Without a good bit of je ne sais quoi, they tend to plod along predictably. Lucky for us, this rollicking version of A Christmas Carol has more than enough, managing to find surprises and intensity in a well-known story. From the moment viewers enter Portland Playhouse’s converted church, they’re enveloped in 19th-century London, with cast members acting as cockney-accented ticket-takers and concessions vendors, making this production all the more attractive for those seeking some kidfriendly theater. Director Cristi Miles blends the story of greedy Scrooge with light-hearted Christmas tunes and fun choreography, making for a fast-paced, intermission-free show that feels shorter than its 90 minutes.

The entire cast is impressive, but the leads edge ahead: Drew Harper plays a colorful Scrooge, and the chameleonic Jen Rowe portrays Marley and all the ghosts. When Marley, dragging clanky chains, appears in Scrooge’s bedroom and wails at him menacingly, it’s deliciously creepy. But there are plenty of merry moments to calm the goosebumps, including a sweet song

by Tiny Tim (Bella Freeman-Moule) and Bob Cratchit (Jeff Painter), and a lively finale of “Joy to the World.”

JENNA GILROY. Portland Playhouse, 602 NE Prescott St., 488-5822. 7:30 pm Wednesdays-Fridays, 2 and 7:30 pm Saturdays and 2 and 5 pm Sundays.

Through Dec. 29. $17-$38.

Frogz

Imago’s long-running extravaganza, which has toured the world and spent time on Broadway, returns for the holidays. It’s a family-friendly, fantastical show featuring elaborate costumes and impressive acrobatics. If you’re raising your kids in Portland, it’s basically required viewing. Imago Theatre, 17 SE 8th Ave., 231-3959. Many showtimes through Jan. 5. See imagotheatre.com for schedule. $16-$31.

The Hullabaloo Red Goes Green

Jane a Theater Company presents a family-friendly update of Little Red Riding Hood, adding not only songs but somehow messages about global warming, too. LaSalle High School , 11999 SE Fuller Road, 659-4155. 7 pm Fridays and 2 and 4 pm SaturdaysSundays through Dec. 29. Free.

Irving Berlin’s White Christmas

Few theater companies love Christmas as much as Lakewood, which presents its second seasonally appropriate production of the year, a reprisal of the song-and-dance extravaganza.

R u SS E L L J YO u N G

Editor: REBECCA JACOBSON. Theater: REBECCA JACOBSON (rjacobson@wweek.com). Dance: AARON SPENCER (dance@wweek.com).

TO BE CONSIDERED FOR LISTINGS, submit information at least two weeks in advance to: rjacobson@wweek.com.

J I M LY K I N S

= WW Pick. Highly recommended.

Most prices listed are for advance ticket sales. At-the-door increases and so-called convenience charges may apply, so it’s best to call ahead.

Lakewood Center for the Arts, 368 S State St., Lake Oswego, 635-3901. 7:30 pm daily (no shows Dec. 24-25) and 2 pm Saturdays-Sundays through Dec. 29. $36.

The Lion in Winter

Northwest Classical Theatre’s production of The Lion in Winter might as well be called Game of Thrones: Christmas Edition. Director Elizabeth Huffman has given James Goldman’s play modern scenery, an upscale living room decked out with cheerful Christmas décor. But don’t let that fool you. The story, set circa 1183, centers on King Henry II of England as he and his queen Eleanor battle over which son will inherit the throne. There’s Richard, the warrior; Jeffrey, the forgotten; and John, Daddy’s favorite and the fool, right down to his untucked shirt and rainbow-colored vest. Tensions rise and fall as brother betrays brother, mother betrays son, father betrays everyone— but the real fun comes in watching Marilyn Stacey weave Queen Eleanor’s web as deliberately and gracefully as a spider intent on a big and delicious payoff. At one moment despondent at Henry’s latest move and then smiling the next, Stacey’s performance constantly surprises, and she cries, smirks and bickers her way through the play’s most dangerous and emotional moments. All the manipulation and backstabbing can grow overwhelming in the 2½-hour runtime, but The Lion in Winter should still tide over hungry Game of Thrones fans until the spring. KAITIE TODD. Shoebox Theater, 2110 SE 10th Ave., 971-244-3740. 7:30 pm Thursdays-Saturdays and 2 pm Sundays through Jan. 5. $20.

Noises Off

When I first saw Noises Off as a 14-year-old at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, I didn’t know theater could do that. A dozen years later—and after watching dozens and dozens of plays— I’m still not quite sure how Noises Off does what it does. What’s clear, though, is that Michael Frayn’s 1982 backstage comedy is perhaps the world’s most exactingly constructed play, and certainly one of its funniest. It centers on a third-rate British theater troupe staging an abysmal bedroom farce, and it’s essentially the same thing three times over—just with snowballing levels of lunacy as the company’s disastrous personal dynamics and dubious talents collide in hellish but hilarious ways. This production is Third Rail’s first farce in years, and a departure from its usual sharp-tongued or politically tinged fare.

While it can’t eclipse my first fling with Noises Off, director Scott Yarbrough’s rendition is more than serviceable, even if the second act could use some polish. It’s a mostly solid cast, but a few actors stand out. Damon Kupper, in a garish orange shirt and (not orange) Carrot Top wig, has a command of physical comedy that’s simultaneously smarmy and daffy. Even daffier is the black bustier-clad Kelly Godell, who spends the play unflappably barreling ahead with careful line readings, even as everything around her crashes into smithereens. And we’d be nowhere without Maureen Porter as the de facto mother hen: She’s the glue holding together both the play and the play within the play. Despite some questionable casting (Isaac Lamb exudes far too much teddy-bear cuddliness to play the beleaguered, snarky director), these performers bring method—and, surprisingly, humanity—to the madness.

REBECCA JACOBSON. Winningstad Theatre, 1111 SW Broadway, 235-1101.

7:30 pm Thursdays-Saturdays and 2 pm Sundays through Jan. 11. $20-$43.

One-Man Christmas Carol

Post5 Theatre brings back its one-man retelling of Charles Dickens’ yuletide

CONT. on page 44

invasion!

OWEN CAREY

PERFORMANCE

alchemy

CURTAIN CALL THE BEST THEATER AND DANCE OF 2013.

BY WW STA FF

The aliens

ing at various speeds. Kudos to Liminal for challenging audiences while proving that “avant-garde” needn’t be synonymous with “awful.”

Runners-up: The Huntsmen (Portland Playhouse), The Lover (Imago Theatre), Clybourne Park (Portland Center Stage). REBECCA JACOBSON.

243-2122

Theater and dance don’t obey the calendar year: Companies usually run their seasons September to May and then take the summer off (lucky bastards).

But all the other critics get to spend December playing favorites, and we wanted in on the fun. Here are our picks for the best shows of 2013.

THEATER 1. Invasion! (Badass Theatre Company) Badass Theatre Company’s inaugural production boasted the year’s most surprising moment, a scene that screwed with audience expectations while spurring genuine panic. But that’s not the only reason it tops this list. Invasion! is a wondrous shapeshifter: It zings from lowbrow comedy to raw emotion, all the while excavating issues of national, ethnic and religious identity, and Badass’ quartet of actors absolutely devoured it. John San Nicolas deserves special mention for a torrential monologue that left him—and us—gasping for air.

2. The Aliens (Third Rail Repertory Theatre) San Nicolas wasn’t the only actor delivering crazy monologues in 2013. Isaac Lamb had one that consisted of a single word: “ladder,” which he repeated over and over and over again, in a manner hypnotic, horrifying and heartrending. This haunting production was light years ahead of other companies’ bumbling, uninventive attempts at naturalistic theater.

3. Something’s Got Ahold of My Heart (Hand2Mouth Theatre) This sucker punch of a show made me want to dance and cry. An original non-narrative work exploring love at all its stages, it harnessed performers’ ingenuity to exuberant and poignant effect.

4. Our Town (Liminal Performance Group) Upending all notions of Our Town as sentimental schlock, Liminal staged a deeply unusual production of the classic play, featuring imaginative touches such as closed-circuit video and a metronome tick-

DANCE 1. Alchemy (Lindsey Matheis) Portland has no shortage of young creatives looking to collaborate with each other, but not all have the necessary technical chops. That’s why Alchemy

by Lindsey Matheis, a Northwest Dance Project member, stood out for both its nerve and mastery.

Matheis assembled dancers from Portland’s best companies and turned the city’s typical dance show on its head. The audience sat in a circle and was encouraged to interact with the dancers—even to take pictures. The result was a show that abandoned stuffiness and embraced Portland’s spirit of revelry.

2. Botanica (MOMIX) Dance presenter White Bird brought in several companies this year, from the confounding Maguy Marin to the underwhelming Illstyle & Peace. But perhaps no show was as well-received as MOMIX’s stunning fantasy. Performers took the shape of flora and fauna and interacted with towering puppets, including a triceratops skeleton made by Portland’s Michael Curry. Though more about illusion than technical skill, the visual buffet was captivating.

3. American ME (Mizu Desierto) Much dancerly performance art in this town borders on lazy. Sure, audiences should derive their own meanings from abstract performance, but dancers are often overly reliant on ticket buyers’ open-mindedness. Desierto took things in the other direction with this uber-literal critique of America’s underbelly. Packed with star-spangled accoutrements and pop-culture references, it was a brazen take on the usually minimalist dance form of butoh.

The literalism was intentionally absurd, but others should still take note: Sometimes instead of giving audiences credit, you should give them some help.

Runners-up: Campo (Pieter Ampe and Guilherme Garrido), American Music Festival (Oregon Ballet Theatre), Swan Lake (Oregon Ballet Theatre).

AARON SPENCER. Willamette Week DECEMBER 25, 2013 wweek.com

43

BEER GUIDE February 5th • 2014

PERFORMANCE

Dec. 25–31

tale, with Phillip J. Berns again at center stage. Ticket price includes a three-course dinner. Picnic House, 723 SW Salmon St., 729-3223. 7 pm Thursday, Dec. 26. $30; $50 with wine pairings.

BRUD GILES

Willamette Week’s

Peter Pan

Peter Pan and Wendy fly back to Northwest Children’s Theater for the holidays. NW Neighborhood Cultural Center, 1819 NW Everett St., 222-4480.

Many showtimes through Jan. 5. See nwcts.org for schedule. $13-$22.

Ruckus in the Lobby

Traveling Lantern Theatre Company, a touring troupe that presents interactive children’s theater, brings Saturday-morning performances of A Christmas Carol to the Artists Rep lobby. Performances last about 45 minutes and are recommended for kids in kindergarten through sixth grade. Artists Repertory Theatre, 1515 SW Morrison St., 241-1278. 10:30 am Saturday, Dec. 28. $5.

The Santaland Diaries

For the umpteenth year in a row (sorry, we’ve lost count), Portland Center Stage presents the one-man stage adaptation of David Sedaris’ exploits as a Macy’s elf. The morethan-capable Darius Pierce returns.

Gerding Theater, 128 NW 11th Ave., 445-3700. 7:30 pm TuesdaysSundays, 2 pm Saturdays-Sundays and noon Thursdays through Dec. 29. $45-$60.

Tess on an Alien Planet

Echo Theater Company—one of two nonprofits into which Do Jump! recently split—stages its first live show. An all-ages original show incorporating acrobatics, aerial dance and physical theater, it’s a story about a scientist who winds up stranded in an unfamiliar world.

Echo Theater, 1515 SE 37th Ave., 2311232. 7:30 pm Fridays, Saturdays and Mondays and 1 and 4:30 pm Sundays through Dec. 30. $15-$22.

Xmas Unplugged

All Deanna (Foss Curtis) and James (Chris Murray) want is a nice Christmas gift for their son, and to keep up their holiday spirits by eating the cookies supposedly destined for Santa. But then Santa (Steve Coker) actually arrives, and, seeing no cookies, tries to leave. So Deanna and James piledrive and waterboard him until he dies. That battle comprises the majority of Matt Pelfrey’s The Reason for the Season, one half of Artists Rep’s R-rated Xmas Unplugged. We’re warned to leave the kids at home, and for good reason: F-bombs explode like chestnuts in the fire. Yet children are perhaps the only ones who would enjoy such a campy and drawn-out fight scene. In Anthony Nielson’s The Night Before Christmas, the plot is much tighter.

A limey lowlife (Murray) catches an alleged elf sneaking around in a warehouse, so he ties him up and calls a very cynical friend (Coker). “I’m just an employee of an international gift distribution company!” the elf protests, and the two friends, joined by “scrubber” (read: prostitute) Cherry, start to believe him. When Cherry (Luisa Sermol) wistfully explains she only started turning tricks to give her son a better life, she excuses her own outburst: “Well, boo fuckin’ hoo.”

It’s a far more ideological critique of Christmas than the first short play, and with such comments coming from smarmy mouths like Cherry’s, the result is darkly amusing. Like all good holiday plays, Xmas Unplugged ends happily—twice. You just might have to strangle Santa to get there.

MITCH LILLIE. Artists Repertory Theatre, 1515 SW Morrison St., 2411278. 7:30 pm Wednesdays-Sundays and 2 pm Sundays through Dec. 29. $25-$55. 18+.

SPACE RESERVATION DEADLINE - JAN. 15 CALL: 503.243.2122 • EMAIL: ADVERTISING @WWEEK.COM 44

Willamette Week DECEMBER 25, 2013 wweek.com

COMEDY & VARIETY The 1st Darkest, Coldest Time of Year Comedy Spectacular

Hey look! It’s all those Portland comics who’ve abandoned our rainy

A christmAs cArol city for the Los Angeles sun! But really, we’re glad to welcome back these three comedians, including headliner Matt Braunger, a Portland native who co-founded the Bridgetown Comedy Festival and whose self-deprecating, frenetic style has served him well as a MADtv cast member and Chelsea Lately panelist. Braunger is joined by Ron Funches and Ian Karmel, two very talented dudes themselves. For an interview with Braunger, visit wweek.com. Mission Theater and Pub, 1624 NW Glisan St., 223-4527. 8 pm Friday, Dec. 27. $10. 21+.

New Year’s Eve Extravaganza

Curious Comedy celebrates New Year’s Eve with a smorgasbord featuring sketch, standup and improv—and some aerial arts tossed in for good measure. A ticket gets you hors’doeuvres and a champagne toast, and it all ends with a dance party from midnight till late. Curious Comedy, 5225 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 4779477. 8 pm Tuesday, Dec. 31. $50$60.

Rory Scovel

Family-friendly competitive improv comedy. ComedySportz, 1963 NW Kearney St., 236-8888. 8 pm Fridays-Saturdays. $15.

The ad-libbing South Carolinian brings his zanily unpredictable standup to Helium. Helium Comedy Club, 1510 SE 9th Ave., 888-6438669. 7:30 and 10 pm FridaySaturday and 7 pm Sunday, Dec. 27-29. $20-$27.

Diabolical Experiments

Seven on Seven

ComedySportz

Improv jam show featuring Brody performers and other local improvisers. Brody Theater, 16 NW Broadway, 224-2227. 7 pm every Sunday. $5.

Dom-Prov

If your idea of fun is playing improv games with a leather-clad dominatrix as an audience hurls marshmallows at you, this Unscriptables show is for you. Funhouse Lounge, 2432 SE 11th Ave., 309-3723. 10 pm every Saturday. $10.

Dwight Slade

Those who talk about Portland’s recent comedy boom often forget about Dwight Slade, who was doing standup in this town before some of today’s comics were even born.

That’s not to say, though, that he’s become irrelevant—his breezy style and command of physical comedy still draw crowds. Harvey’s Comedy Club, 436 NW 6th Ave., 241-0338.

7:30 pm Thursday; 7:30 and 10 pm Friday-Saturday; and 7:30 pm Sunday, Dec. 26-29. $15. 21+.

Firkin Funny Night

World champion palindromist Mark Saltveit headlines a night of comedy with opening sets by Andy Schanz and Sean Connery. The Firkin Tavern, 1937 SE 11th Ave., 206-7552. 9 pm Tuesday, Dec. 31. Free. 21+.

Golden Girls Live Christmas Special

’Tis the season for men to don fluffy wigs and oversized glasses to play the four Miami gals for this live stage adaptation of two holiday episodes of the TV show. Funhouse Lounge, 2432 SE 11th Ave., 841-6734. 7:30 pm Fridays-Saturdays through Dec. 28. $15-18.

Mixology

Late-night comedy show with improv, sketch and stand-up. Curious Comedy, 5225 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 477-9477. 10 pm every second and fourth Saturday. $5.

Brody presents a show that mashes standup and improv with seven comics each doing seven minutes and then a seven-member improv troupe riffing on the material.

Brody Theater, 16 NW Broadway, 224-2227. 9:30 pm Friday, Dec. 27. $8.

A Very Brody New Year

New Year’s Eve is a big deal at the Brody, and not just because it’s founder Tom Johnson’s birthday. Each year, the entire Brody ensemble shows up for an extralong show of improv, standup and sketch, with free food and champagne at midnight. Brod y Theater, 16 NW Broadway, 224-2227. 8 pm Tuesday, Dec. 31. $16-$18.

You Are Here

The Brody folks present a new weekly improv showcase. Brody Theater, 16 NW Broadway, 2242227. 7:30 pm every Friday. $12.

DANCE Cloud City Circus

The comic-book-geek theme has been done to death in the bar performance circuit, but math geek?

That’s just catching its stride.

The newest show from Cloud City Circus has all the intrigue of a Magic the Gathering tournament atReed College. Quantum Circus has aerialists, belly dancers, ballerinas, jugglers, acrobats and burlesque performers presenting routines that attempt to channel science, quantum physics, fantasy and math. The limit does not exist with this bunch. Alhambra Theatre, 4811 SE Hawthorne Blvd. 9:30 Saturday, Dec. 28. $10. 21+.

For more Performance listings, visit

VISUAL ARTS

Dec. 25–31

= WW Pick. Highly recommended.

By RichaRd SpeeR. TO Be cONSideRed FOR LiSTiNGS, submit show information—including opening and closing dates, gallery address and phone number—at least two weeks in advance to: Visual arts, WW, 2220 NW Quimby St., portland, OR 97210. email: rspeer@wweek.com.

is otherwise a neurotically subjective hobby. The photos are even stronger for being created the old-fashioned way, rather than digitally composed. Through Jan. 31. Pushdot, 2505 SE 11th Ave., Suite 104, 224-5925.

Melange

The sometimes sexy, sometimes fleshmortifying allure of figure drawing endures among the six artists exhibiting in Melange. Braeden cox, Kelsey Bunker, Scott W. duff, patrick Kernan, christopher St. John and erin Leichty finesse the divide between figuration and abstraction, sometimes with the addition of encaustic (wax-based) media. This art form stretches back to Rembrandt and beyond, with more recent exemplars including the great John Singer Sargent and the brilliantly perverse Willem de Kooning. it’s great to see young, emerging artists essaying this form with contemporary perspective and vigor. Through Jan. 11. Gallery @ The Jupiter, 800 E Burnside St., 230-8010.

Ryan De La Hoz: Fragments

beachcomber by jim golden

Ann Hamilton: a reading

Sometimes too much of a good thing is—too much. ann hamilton slathers the front and back galleries of Liz Leach’s expansive spread with a veritable mess of wall pieces, sculpture, text-based objects and digital videos. it’s all part of a pathologically heterogeneous, thoroughly all-over-the-place show, vaguely titled (and preciously uncapitalized) a reading. With the addition of (count ’em) four rotating projectors casting images of tall ships on the back gallery’s wall, the show is redundant Sturm und drang without meaningful cohesion. The most satisfying piece is the simplest: a hollowed-out book with an intricately cut thimble inside. its meaning is obscure but poetic, far removed from the overbearing grandiloquence of the rest of the show. Through Jan. 11. Elizabeth Leach Gallery, 417 NW 9th Ave., 224-0521.

Anne Appleby: Woods

among the highlights of the portland art Museum’s contemporary Northwest art awards are the coolly minimalist paintings of anne appleby. at first, these works appear monochromatic color fields, but on closer examination they betray subtle layering and variations in hue. appleby lives in Montana.

The show at pdX is her first solo exhibition in portland. it will be interesting to see whether her work in the gallery is as quietly compelling as her work currently up at the museum. Through Dec. 28. PDX Contemporary Art, 925 NW Flanders St., 222-0063.

Ben Buswell: We Live Only Through Ourselves

Ben Buswell’s show gets our vote for Most Flatulent press Release of 2013.

For unfathomable reasons, it mentions the artist’s recently deceased grandfather, only to say that his death provided “a lens through which the artist examines how meaning arises from physical processes.” What physical processes, we are left to wonder—decomposition?

The release blathers on about the artist’s “doubling of images and objects, surface violations, abstraction and material choices” and his “use of emergent processes, where a multitude of insignificant marks and gestures accumulate into seemingly complex systems.” The release concludes by maintaining that “Buswell’s purpose is to undermine a sense a narrative and eschew the symbolic meaning of the imagery, collapsing the distance between perception of the object and apprehension of its meaning.” Writing like is endemic of an attitude that if you use big enough words in a long enough sentence, you can convince yourself and hopefully others that an artwork is worthwhile. The photographic and sculptural work in Buswell’s show actually is worthwhile. The pieces have a witty minimalist elegance, but you’d never know that from the show description. Through Jan. 25. Upfor Gallery, 929 NW Flanders St., 227-5111.

Bling Boutique

With a title like Bling Boutique, Mark Woolley Gallery’s 20th anniversary show was bound to be an exercise in glitz, and that’s just what it turned out to be. Some of the sparkliest works in this sprawling group show come courtesy of Wesley Younie. his sculpture of a miniature black volcano appears to be coated in glittery flecks of mica mixed with obsidian. Less majestic and more whimsical is his painting of a droll frog, sitting implacably on a background of shimmering gold leaf. it walks a delicate line between whimsy and opulence, irony and post-irony.

Through Jan. 25. Mark Woolley Gallery @ Pioneer, 700 SW 5th Ave., third floor, Pioneer Place Mall, 998-4152.

Contemporary Northwest Art Awards

expansive, thoughtful and dramatically installed, the biannual contemporary Northwest art awards didn’t disappoint this year. curator Bonnie LaingMalcolmson has created a spectacular survey of artwork across a diverse field of practices, filling—but not overfilling—a generous exhibition space with work by artists from Oregon (Karl Burkheimer), Washington (isaac Layman, Nicholas Nyland and the single-monikered artist known as Trimpin), Montana (anne appleby) and Wyoming (abbie Miller). as heterogeneous as these artists’ works are, somehow Laing-Malcolmson makes them cohere spatially and thematically.

Through Jan. 12. Portland Art Museum, 1219 SW Park Ave., 226-0973.

Deborah Luster: Tooth for an Eye: A Chorography of Violence in Orleans Parish

photographer deborah Luster is originally from Bend, but now she lives and works in New Orleans, a city with one of the highest homicide rates in the nation. For her latest show, she photographed homes where murders happened, using an antique 8x10 view camera. The resulting images are round (the technical term is “tondo”), and looking at them is eerily reminiscent of looking through the scope of a rifle.

These are elegant, haunting images.

Through Dec. 29. Blue Sky Gallery, 122 NW 8th Ave., 225-0210.

Jim Golden: Collections

a collection of keys—hundreds of them. dozens of obsolete cameras. collections of scissors, musical instruments, rifles, plastic Santa claus figurines, cassette tapes and cassingles…there is nothing, apparently, americans won’t collect. photographer Jim Golden catalogs our obsession with collecting in his dramatic tableaux, lining up objects in vast rows, then climbing a ladder and shooting them from an extreme high angle.

The finished images look as if an airplane were looking down at landscapes of assembled junk. This point of view imparts a sense of objectivity to what

in a time when “new media” are all the rage in art and culture, Ryan de La hoz is something of a throwback. he uses traditional materials in a way that emphasizes analog technology and the handmade. his imagery—TV static and ancient Greek iconography—combines the new and the old in ways that are incongruous but piquant. his works are exhibited alongside art by Russell Leng in the latest Breeze Block show organized by english curator Sven davis.

Through Jan. 4. Breeze Block Gallery, 323 NW 6th Ave., 318-6228.

The Art of Musical Maintenance

Some of the most dynamic poster art in the world graces the Goodfoot this month, as more than 40 artists exhibit in the venue’s 10th annual exposition, The Art of Musical Maintenance. Using a continuum of techniques ranging from hand-drawn to computer-generated, artists from across the country fill the Goodfoot’s cavernous but still inexplicably cozy space with some 300 posters. david Welker designed the show’s promotional banner, which features a nude angel, legs turned outward in provocative contrapposto, standing beside a hellish bonfire. Kudos to the Goodfoot for continuing to commingle the worlds of popular music and visual art. Through Jan. 27. Goodfoot Lounge, 2845 SE Stark St., 239-9292.

The Big 400

Four hundred artists showing pieces priced at $40 a pop. if that’s not incentive for holiday gift-buying, we don’t know what is. The brainchild of artistimpresario chris haberman, this annual exhibition originated in 2007 as The Big 100, later became The Big 300, and has now metastasized into the current gargantuan open-call extravaganza.

To make life more interesting for collectors, the artworks are hung randomly, without any title cards divulging artists’ names. So you’re not distracted by the reputation of a “name” artist; everybody’s equalized in a vast orgy of imagery, from representation to pure abstraction. exhibited with the additional participation of the adjoining Mark Woolley Gallery, this is aesthetic democracy in action. Through Jan. 12.

People’s Gallery, Pioneer Place Mall, 700 SW 5th Ave., third floor, Suite 4005.

Vlatka Horvat

London and New York artist Vlatka horvat fills the ever-invigorating disjecta exhibition hall with an integrated show of installations and works on paper.

The artist uses mixed media to create the impression of overlapping fences.

She asks us to reconsider the idea of the cordon: What is it, historically, to be allowed or disallowed entry, whether it be to the fabled velvet rope of disco-era nightclub Studio 54 or, more sinisterly, through the Berlin Wall that defined the cold War? although the fences and barriers in this exhibition meander through the space, with miniature towers poking up within rubber-bandlike enclosures, the exhibition’s conceptual focus is refreshingly tight. Through Jan. 12. Disjecta, 8371 N Interstate Ave., 286-9449.

For more Visual arts listings, visit

BEST OF 2013

THE BEST THINGS I SAW RICHARD SPEER’S PICKS FOR THE YEAR’S BEST VISUAL ART. When you look back over the year, it’s kind of like that segment on the Academy Awards where they flash pictures of all the movie people who died. That’s the way Portland gallerygoers feel when they remember from owl point the galleries we lost this year. The by lucinda Parker superb Pulliam Gallery closed, although it has since reopened with radically curtailed hours in a new location. Backspace shuttered after a protracted swan dive, although supposedly it’s reopening next summer on the east side. And Chambers Gallery, which excelled in installation-based shows, also gave up the ghost. Happily, 2013 offered plenty of developments to offset the losses, foremost among them the opening of Upfor, a promising new gallery dedicated to new media. Even more importantly, Portland artists charged forth with ever-more-daring explorations of materials and processes. Here, then, are our picks for the year’s best shows.

Best show: Painter Lucinda Parker’s rapturous hymn to Mount Hood, All Clouds Choose the Loftiest Peak to Pile Themselves Upon, at Laura Russo Gallery.

Best painting: Tom Cramer’s Continuum, a tour de force spanning painting, wood relief, wood burnings and drawing, at Laura Russo Gallery.

Best photography: Ron van Dongen’s super-saturated, thrillingly composed floral still lifes at Froelick Gallery.

Best sculpture: (tie) Ellen George and Jerry Mayer’s enormous hanging sculpture, Off Black, at Nine Gallery; and We Are the Landscape of All We Know, a showcase of 22 sculptures by Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988) at the Portland Japanese Garden.

Best public art: Lead Pencil Studio’s Inversion: +/- , a dramatic suite of COR-TEN steel structures beside the east ramps of the Morrison and Hawthorne bridges.

Best new media: Liquid Hand, a flashing, honking, interactive phantasmagoria by the collaborative duo MSHR (Brenna Murphy and Birch Cooper) at Upfor Gallery.

Best conceptual show: Marne Lucas and Jacob Pander’s Incident Energy, a metaphoric narrative of lust, love and desolation, filmed in eerie infrared, at Disjecta.

Best installation: Lucy Skaer’s expansive meditation on limestone and terra cotta at YU. Best group show: The collective Paintallica’s celebration of all things lowbrow and vulgar, Smell the Bar Oil..., at Rocksbox.

Best mixed media: (tie) Dinh Q. Lê’s sliced-and-woven photographs, Fixing the Impermanent, at Elizabeth Leach Gallery; and Brenda Mallory’s wax-and-metal sculptures, Reiterations and Rifts, at Butters Gallery.

Best works on paper: Augustine Kofie’s architectonic rhapsodies at Breeze Block Gallery.

Best glass: Bullseye Gallery’s 15-artist show, Chroma-Culture, celebrating black, white and the glorious universe in between.

Best museum show: The Portland Art Museum’s spectacular Contemporary Northwest Art Awards, nimbly curated by Bonnie Laing-Malcolmson.

Here’s to even more daring, thought-provoking, beautiful and terrifying work in 2014! RICHARD SPEER. Willamette Week DECEMBER 25, 2013 wweek.com

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BOOKS

Dec. 25–31

BEST OF 2013

THE BEST THING I READ THIS YEAR FROM MEMOIR TO NONFICTION TO POETRY, PORTLAND’S LITERARY COMMUNITY WEIGHS IN ON THE BEST BOOKS OF 2013.

My pick—Antidote by Corey Van Landingham—is unabashedly biased. Van Landingham was my student at Lewis & Clark College, and, for me, part of the thrill of reading this book comes from my knowledge of the journey behind it. That is, however, only a small part of the thrill. Antidote is a heady, haunting new collection of poems filled with strange and seductive proposals. Van Landingham takes us on an endlessly inventive, exhilarating journey that transports us past conventional perception and language, past “the airspace for all the monologues worth f lying from.”

These poems hold us close and throw us far, plunging and soaring without turning away from the disasters at their hearts. This is the real thing: unf linching, urgent, luminous work. I will turn to it again and again. MARY SZYBIST, author of Incarnadine.

28,654 Like This facebook.com/

WWE E K

In the past few years, I’ve become a comedy junkie. I need it and get it however I can—live standup, TV specials, books. I went through a very rough spot in late 2012, and 2013 was all about shaking that off, letting the love back in, getting crazy and laughing as much as possible. Marc Maron’s Attempting Normal is a smart, sad, dark and if-you-can’t-laugh-you’llcry hilarious book that helped me on my mission. If you listen to his podcast, you’ll love it. If you’re human and have even an ounce of humor in your cold, fucked-up heart, you’ll dig it. In it he writes: “I was thinking about how temporary disappointment can be if you don’t linger on it too long and how there are beautiful things in the world if you look up. It’s up to you to find them for yourself.” Aye aye. This book happens to be one of them. LIZ CRAIN, co-author of Toro Bravo: Stories. Recipes. No Bull and editor at Hawthorne Books.

Oh, man, Alice McDermott’s Someone. Masterpiece. Lean and amazing and deft and you emerge blinking and a little awed. There are writers who absolutely own a place and time, and McDermott ow ns Irish-Catholic New York 1940-1970. You wouldn’t think someone could write a book every bit as good as her own Charming Billy and After This, but she did. She might be the best novelist in America, period.

BRIAN DOYLE, author of Mink River.

My favorite book of the year scared the daylights out of me for the way it suggests war is

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Willamette Week DECEMBER 25, 2013 wweek.com

imminent this century in the Middle East.

S cot t A nderson’s Lawrence in A rabia details the controversial exploits of T.E. Lawrence—known as Lawrence of Arabia—during the Hashemite uprising against the Ottoman Turks during World War I. The consequences of the Arab Revolt led to the creation of contemporary Jordan, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Israel. Distrust toward the West, which was at the heart of the conf licts of that era, have hardly lessened. I learned that today’s Middle East powder keg was packed 100 years ago in the Hejaz during the Great War. DAVID BIESPIEL, author of Charming Gardeners.

The best book I read in 2013 was The End of Eve by Ariel Gore. It’s a wonderful story about a mother and daughter—and oh brother what a mother! The depth of insight often took my breath away. Not to mention the book’s drop-dead humor, sadness and rage. Gore’s memoir is in its essence a how-to book: in the face of death, our grief, how to breathe, how to be brave, how to be funny, how to be authentic. How to make it through. (The End of Eve from Haw thorne Books won’t be out until March, but you can order copies now.) TOM SPANBAUER, author of I Loved You More.

My pick: Sexual Boat (Sex Boats) by James Gendron. I’ve been reading more poetry the past couple of years, and this collection was my favorite. It has a sneaky quality to it, like a shapeshifter. Sometimes it’s funny, sometimes it’s sad and other times it’s odd and disturbing.

This Portland poet writes lines that get under your skin and inf luence your dreams. I felt transformed and almost drugged by this cool little treasure chest of deep thoughts. KEVIN SAMPSELL, author of This Is Between Us. Typically, my literary genre of choice is fiction.

While I enjoy poetry in snippets, an entire book of poems can feel a bit unapproachable.

But Mary Szybist’s collection Incarnadine flows from page to page like a letter from an old friend. Recurring themes of love, faith, motherhood and aging are grounded in precisely realized settings. I was delighted, though not surprised, when Szybist was awarded the National Book Award for poetry. It’s well worth the deviation from your regular reading to bask in the rosy glow of Incarnadine. PENELOPE BASS, WW books editor.

MOVIES

dec. 25–31

mandela: lonG walK to freedom

the seCret lIfe of walter mIttY

47 ronIn

GrUdGe matCh

the wolf of wall street

IT’S RAINING MEN HALLELUJAH, IT’S A CINEMATIC SAUSAGE PARTY.

BY WW m ov i e s sta ff

243-2122

Apparently, the holidays this year are all about the men.

That’s what you’d gather, at least, after browsing the list of holiday film releases. The Wolf of Wall Street might have some women, but most of them are naked hookers.

Otherwise, we’ve got men in the boxing ring, men in prison, men fighting giants with samurai swords, men doing cocaine on giant yachts, and men getting lost in their stupid daydreams. Given that Christmas itself is all about men—whether of the sandal-wearing or sleighdriving variety—we can’t say we’re entirely surprised.

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty D+ The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is a movie for anyone prone to existential crises during soft-drink commercials. Based on James Thurber’s 1939 short story about a teenage punk rocker-turned-graying office drone with severe delusional psychosis (because one can only assume director-star Ben Stiller remained totally faithful to the source material), the film adopts a long-winded motto from Life magazine as its motivational taglinecum-greeting card message that can be easily distilled down to “Do the Dew, brah!” Spurred by a shitty new boss (Adam Scott with General Zod facial hair), love interest (Kristen Wiig, less phoning in her performance than texting it while in line at the post office) and spirit animal (Sean Penn), Stiller’s Mitty sets off to make his vivid daydreams into reality. Soon he’s bounding through airports to the tune of Arcade Fire, leaping out of helicopters, fighting sharks and skateboarding toward erupting volcanoes. The thing quickly blows up into an extended Super Bowl ad break—complete with promotions for eHarmony, Papa John’s, Cinnabon and whatever cellphone carrier has coverage in the Himalayas—with all the heart and genuine emotion that suggests. PG. MATTHEW SINGER. The Wolf of Wall Street A Martin Scorsese’s best picture since Goodfellas and his fifth with Leonardo DiCaprio is at once hilarious,

terrifying, hallucinogenic, infuriating, awe-inspiring, meandering and, at three hours, utterly exhausting. It’s also (in this critic’s opinion) the best movie of the year, possibly DiCaprio’s finest work and the bitch slap that Wall Street deserves—even if the true but ludicrous story of financial criminal, stock-market juggernaut and rampant drug addict Jordan Belfort could inspire others to aspire to his level of douchebaggery. This is a man who makes Gordon Gecko seem like Mother Teresa. With his buddies, he runs roughshod over the financial well-being of rich and poor alike and creates for himself a world of drug-addled debauchery that makes Hunter S. Thompson’s escapades seem like a college freshman’s. Some may scoff at the runtime, or at the film’s episodic look into Belfort’s debauchery, but both just serve to further pummel you into submission as our “hero” glides through a privileged life with a steady diet of Quaaludes, cocaine, hookers, alcohol, sushi and hubris. Every moment counts. Every scene is frontloaded with hysterics and backloaded with dread. It is a modern masterpiece of excess, style and lunacy. R. AP KRYZA.

ludicrous. These include, but are not limited to: an attack from a roving beast that might generously be described as “mythical”; a shape-shifting witch helping a court official usurp his rival’s power, thereby springing the masterless samurai of the title into vengeful action; and a pep talk beginning with the words, “W hat I propose ends in death.” Keep in mind that Carl Erik Rinsch’s $175 million film is based on actual 18th-century events, happenings that presumably did not resemble Mortal Kombat or Princess Mononoke in the slightest. These fantastical elements are never acknowledged as such, which is probably a good thing.

Any in-depth explanation of how and why the “halfbreed” played by Keanu Reeves ended up exiled to a Dutch island, forced to fight a giant to the death, would only distract from the goofy spectacle of it all. All of which is a long way of saying that Rinsch’s take on one of Japan’s most famous stories is a curious folly, albeit an almost endearingly sincere (and strange) one that seems to revere its legendary source material as much as it distorts it. PG-13. MICHAEL NORDINE.

Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom C Arriving with morbidly perfect timing, this by-thenumbers biopic about the recently deceased South African leader tries for Gandhi greatness but fails to hit any sort of mark. Dutifully marching through a highlights reel of Nelson Mandela’s life—coming of age in the bush, practicing law in Johannesburg, helping establish the military wing of the African National Congress, enduring 27 years in prison—Justin Chadwick’s film isn’t savvy enough to investigate any of the more compelling narrative threads. Why did Mandela’s second wife, Winnie, grow increasingly radical even as her husband moved away from such tactics? How did political ideals butt up against pragmatic concerns during the negotiations for Mandela’s freedom? Instead, Chadwick cuts between stirring speeches and soft-focus flashbacks, with occasional context-free bursts of archival footage tossed in seemingly for the hell of it. Idris Elba, despite looking far too much like a linebacker to bear much of a physical resemblance to the real man, successfully adopts Mandela’s commanding presence and distinctive speech patterns, but he can’t save a film so hagiographic and uninspired. PG-13. REBECCA JACOBSON.

Grudge Match D During the enfeebled showdown that caps Peter Segal’s “grumpy old men come to blows” dramedy, television announcers remind us that old rivals Henry “Razor” Sharp (Sylvester Stallone) and Billy “The Kid” McDonnen (Robert De Niro) both walked away from boxing while at the height of their powers and with virtually unblemished records. Having endured almost two insufferable hours of punishingly lame gags and limp training montages (rest assured, raw eggs are as disgusting as ever), viewers can’t help but be taunted by a “what if?” scenario in which these screen icons demonstrate a similar desire to go out on top. With Stallone moping nobly and De Niro mugging shamelessly, their demeanors rarely suggest that 30 years of resentment are reaching a simmer, much less a boil. The other relationships are similarly unconvincing, with Stallone’s romance with Kim Basinger (seemingly in an opioid haze) proving spectacularly anemic. In turn, the seniors’ climactic bout might be the most dispiriting scene to unfold in a boxing ring since a broken-down Mike Tyson surrendered to Kevin McBride back in 2005. At least Tyson had the decency to admit it was just a cash grab. PG-13.

CURTIS WOLOSCHUK.

47 Ronin C 47 Ronin’s most enjoyable moments are also its most

see it: All films open Wednesday, Dec. 25. See page 51 for theaters and showtimes.

Willamette Week DECEMBER 25, 2013 wweek.com

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T W e n T i e T h C e n T u r y F o x , P A r A m o u n T P i C T u r e S , T h e W e i n S T e i n C o m P A n y, u n i v e r S A l P i C T u r e S , WA r n e r B r o S . e n T e r TA i n m e n T i n C .

REVIEWS

dec. 25–31 BEST OF 2013

= WW Pick. Highly recommended.

2013 - IFC FILMS

MOVIES

Editor: REBECCA JACOBSON. TO BE CONSIDERED FOR LISTINGS, send screening information at least two weeks in advance to Screen, WW, 2220 NW Quimby St., Portland, OR 97210. Email: rjacobson@wweek.com. Fax: 243-1115.

Note: Due to early press deadlines, theater listings may be incomplete.

Please call ahead.

AKA Doc Pomus

B [THREE NIGHTS ONLY] Chances

are good you’ve heard a Doc Pomus song but never realized it. Peter Miller and Will Hechter’s documentary gathers musicians, writers and producers to pay tribute to Jerome Felder, aka Doc Pomus, who wrote more than 1,000 songs in his lifetime.

Felder contracted polio at age 6 and was something of an anomaly as a teen: a disabled Jewish boy singing RandB songs in Greenwich Village.

After a record deal flopped, he began writing songs for the likes of Ray Charles and Elvis Presley, including such standbys as “This Magic Moment” and “Save the Last Dance for Me.” But Felder’s life wasn’t all about music, and the film fittingly includes emotional interviews with Felder’s daughter and ex-wife. KAITIE TODD. Clinton Street Theater. 7 pm Friday-Sunday, Dec. 27-29.

All Is Lost

B well. We know that, after nearly 50 years on the big screen, Redford the man is not an investigative journalist, a gadabout sidekick or a dark-horse power hitter. He is, however, a mildly eccentric and reclusive celebrity, one who might very well undertake a solo sailing trip around the world. As the only actor in All Is Lost, he does just that. Then, wood cracks and water rushes in. A shipping container has punched a hole in the hull, destroying the GPS and radio. He does his best to patch the hole, but it’s Redford vs. the world from here on out. The autobiographical parallels are striking, which is perhaps the reason Redford is out of the director’s chair and working with newbie J.C. Chandor, who became a rising star after 2011’s Margin Call. That movie thrilled with 24 hours inside an investment firm’s meltdown; All Is Lost does the same with much less. This is one man, alone, facing death. Redford is playing himself, and he’s not playing around. PG-13. MITCH LILLIE. Living Room Theaters, Academy, Laurelhurst.

American Hustle

A Director David O. Russell’s

vision of America has always been Winesburg, Ohio, hopped up on trucker speed: a place of frantic grotesques distorted by their own need.

In his new film, American Hustle— loosely based on the Abscam federal bribery scandal of the 1970s—everyone from New Jersey’s mayor to federal agents to small-time con artists are so warped by ambition that integrity and even identity become expensive luxury items. The film is a balls-to-the-wall, unbridled love affair with homegrown bullshit and piss-taking. American Bullshit was, in fact, the working title of the film, and in bullshit, it would seem Russell has finally found his true subject matter. From the sincerely insincere, American Hustle builds genuine characters. The film’s establishing shot is brilliant in this regard: a humorously long sequence of Christian Bale’s potbellied con man, Irving Rosenfeld, gluing a toupee to his head. When meticulously permed federal agent Richie DiMaso (Bradley Cooper) makes a move on Rosenfeld’s girl almost immediately thereafter, it’s an insult. When he musses his rug, it’s an unforgivable violation. It’s a wild pretzel of a plot: Rosenfeld and mistress Sydney Prosser (Amy Adams) have been caught by DiMaso in an undercover sting and are forced to run confidence rackets for the feds in order to nab other grifters. Halfway through the film, it’s unclear who’s conning whom, but it’s clear everybody’s conning themselves. This is the high wire that makes American Hustle so exhilarating, with the quick turns of a

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David Mamet or Howard Hawks fasttalkie. It’s the sort of flick we’ve rarely seen since the ’40s: a farce with a heart. R. MATTHEW KORFHAGE. Cedar Hills, Oak Grove, Cinema 99, Division, Evergreen Parkway, Fox Tower, Lloyd Center, Movies on TV, Sherwood, Tigard.

Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues

B- It’s been nearly a decade since Ron Burgundy and the Channel 4 News Team graced the silver screen, but you’d be forgiven for thinking they never left. As soon as Ron himself announced the character’s return on Conan last year, he’s been everywhere. After a year of anticipation, we’d be forgiven for being sick of the hype. But oh, does Anchorman 2 contain some serious belly laughs, and the instant Ron (Will Ferrell) hits the screen reading nonsense news and exclaiming, “By the hymen of Olivia Newton-John,” goodwill returns. Where the first Anchorman marveled at the foreign-seeming world of ‘70s network news, director Adam McKay’s sequel takes its cue from his buddy-cop flick The Other Guys, and he peppers the screwball, surrealist comedy with an actual message, taking aim at the decline of real journalism. This time, Burgundy and his team try to conquer the 24-hour cable-news cycle of the ’80s.

They’re basically ushering in a protoFox News—there’s even a scheming Aussie owner—and it works like gangbusters because, unlike the original, most of the laughs are derived from what we see every day. Anchorman 2 does contain some misses, particularly a bizarre and overlong second act in which Ron leaves the business for some soul searching. But keep in mind that this is still a milea-minute comedy that includes a man bottle-feeding a shark, investigative reporting that involves tastetesting street drugs, condoms made of mongoose hair, and the theme song from Xanadu as an aphrodisiac. It’s good to have Ron Burgundy back, even if he kind of overstays his welcome. PG-13. AP KRYZA. Cedar Hills, Oak Grove, Cinema 99, Division, Evergreen Parkway, Lloyd Center, Lloyd Mall, Movies on TV, Pioneer Place, Sherwood, Tigard.

At Berkeley

[TWO DAYS ONLY] Frederick Wiseman’s widely lauded documentary about the California university spends four hours observing all those who participate in campus life: the students, the professors, the administrators, the artists, the scientists, the activists and the janitors. NW Film Center’s Whitsell Auditorium. 7 pm Saturday and 2 pm Sunday, Dec. 28-29.

Blue is the Warmest Color

A- As soon as Abdellatif Kechiche’s

Blue Is the Warmest Color premiered in Cannes last May, frenzied discussion engulfed the film. Whether people found it exhilarating or exploitative, it seemed no one could shut up about this three-hour French saga about first love between two young women. The seven-minute sex scene monopolized much of the conversation, with a video montage that captures the responses of real lesbians eventually going viral.

But for all the hooting—laudatory or incensed—it has unleashed, Blue Is the Warmest Color isn’t strident or demagogic. Instead, the film spends its 179 minutes slowly wringing you out like an old rag, until you’re finally tossed roughly over the line, depleted, devastated and stunned at what has just transpired. The film charts the evolution of the relationship between Adèle (Adèle Exarchopoulos, whose astounding performance will knock the wind out of you), and Emma (Léa Seydoux), who is a few years older.

From the initial moment the two lock eyes, their connection is as electric as the shock of blue through Emma’s hair.

Willamette Week DECEMBER 25, 2013 wweek.com

POPPIN’ BOTTLES: Mickey Sumner (left) and Greta Gerwig in Frances Ha.

THAT’S A WRAP 2013 WAS A GOOD YEAR AT THE CINEMA.

BY R eB ecca jacoBson

rjacobson@wweek.com

We live in a time of tyranny. Our oppressor?

Choice. You think all those Netflix options are improving your quality of life? Think again. That’s why our brains love lists. Not only are they easily digestible—a simple numbering system! So much white space! Ooh, baby-animal GIFs!—but they also alleviate how lousy and overwhelmed we feel when faced with too many choices. Want to be a happy shopper? Avoid the cereal aisle. Want to be a happy moviegoer? Read a top-10 list.

1. Frances Ha Noah Baumbach’s portrait of a young woman flailing about in a daunting world is a disarming and exuberant piece of filmmaking, and it’s grounded by a performance by Greta Gerwig that bucks the noxious manic-pixie-dream-girl trend. In his own 2013 roundup, New York Times film critic A.O. Scott called it “a sweet bedtime story for anxious millenials.” Bullshit. Frances Ha made me fear for my generation—for our self-indulgence, our selfabsorption, our flakiness, our way of clinging to all that’s bad for us. I adored it anyway.

2. American Hustle A hyperbolic and freewheeling caper, you might call American Hustle this year’s Argo, hopped up on steroids and speed. But even as the story whirls and the camera whooshes, David O. Russell’s firm command over the storytelling—and his uproarious sense of humor—never slackens.

3. Blue Is the Warmest Color While I’m comparing 2013 to 2012, Abdellatif Kechiche’s three-hour film was this year’s Amour: a portrait of love and loss that renders you thoroughly depleted after the end credits roll. Blue Is the Warmest Color gave us far more nudity (and fake rubber vaginas), but for all the tongue-wagging about the sex scenes, it’s a movie about lesbians that doesn’t reduce itself to a gay-rights drama.

4. The Act of Killing Proving that truth is stranger than fiction, Joshua Oppenheimer’s documentary found aging Indonesian thugs re-creating their slaughter of accused communists. This was 2013’s scariest movie, with grandfatherly men dispassionately describing how, decades ago, they used wire to decapitate their victims.

5. Before Midnight We met Jesse and Celine nearly 20 years ago, back when he was a rakish American boy and she a spirited French girl. Richard Linklater brought them back for a third go-around last summer, which meant talking, talking and more talking—not that I wanted Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy to shut up.

6. 12 Years a Slave What could have felt like an educational or moral obligation instead pulses with vitality and manages scenes of breathtaking patience.

7. Stories We Tell Like the best nonfiction writing, Sarah Polley’s documentary draws on techniques of fiction to convey the truest story possible. That might seem counterintuitive, but Polley’s blend of interviews, archival footage and staged Super 8 films creates a narrative that unfolds with suspense and heart.

8. Alien Boy: The Life and Death of James Chasse Brian Lindstrom’s film about Chasse, a mentally ill Portlander who was beaten by police and died in custody, plays out as an enraging procedural and a stirring portrait of a life lost.

9. The Sapphires A big-hearted, hypersaturated disco ball of a film, this story about an Australian Aboriginal girl band in 1968 Vietnam unapologetically encourages finger-snapping rather than head-scratching.

10. Neighboring Sounds Brazilian director Kleber Mendonça Filho’s debut feature is a plotless thriller, which sounds like an oxymoron until you let its slowly creeping sense of paranoia and menacing soundscape overtake you.

Runners-up: Cutie and the Boxer, Blue Jasmine, Caesar Must Die, The Great Beauty, Wadjda, No, The Bling Ring, Inside Llewyn Davis.

dec. 25–31 M M X I I I PA R A M O U N T P I C T U R E S C O R P O R AT I O N

actually worked, he returned to Texas and opened a “buyers club.” Operating out of a fleabag motel, he skirted federal regulations by selling “memberships” at a rate of $400 per month and doling out the banned substances for “free.” To the credit of writers Craig Borten and Melisa Wallack and director Jean-Marc Vallée, Dallas Buyers Club has no weepy epiphanies, no soliloquies about newfound understanding. Woodroof may have been an asshole, but he was an asshole whose instinct for self-preservation eventually helped extend the lives of millions of better people. And, in the face of a plague, that’s worth more than one jerk’s enlightenment. R. MATTHEW SINGER. Cinema 21, Fox Tower.

Despicable Me 2

C Gru, the lead character of DThis sequel to 2010’s blockbuster adds Kristen Wiig as high-spirited love interest and expands the animated repertoire to encompass 3-D thrills, but the story itself, which shoehorns Gru into the service of a global super-spy league for the flimsiest of reasons, arrives packed with exposition and shorn of coherency while allowing precisely no opportunities for expression of the dastardly hubris that named the franchise. PG. JAY HORTON. Vancouver, Academy, Laurelhurst, Avalon.

Don Jon

A- “Condoms are just terrible,”

AnchorMAn 2: The Legend conTinues Sometimes that connection plays out explosively, as in the aforementioned sex scene, but there are far more scenes devoted to quotidian routines and banal conversation. Minutes after exiting the theater, you’re unlikely to recall much of what Adèle and Emma talked about. But you’ll remember the frantically searching expressions on Exarchopoulos’ face, the looks of cool composure on Seydoux’s, the unrelenting urgency and desperation that infuse their exchanges. As much as the response has focused on the depictions of lesbian sex, the characters’ sexual orientation isn’t the crux of the film. It’s more than incidental, but this isn’t a gay-rights drama. It’s an epic tale of love between two people who just happen to be women, and that’s hopefully what will allow it to endure.

Nc-17. REBECCA JACOBSON. Living Room Theaters.

Blue Jasmine

B Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine isn’t

so much a fish-out-of-water movie; it’s a horse-with-a-broken-leg-inwater movie. You know how this thing’s going to end. Cate Blanchett’s Jasmine is a rarefied, half-delusional socialite tossed roughly down the slopes of her husband’s financial pyramid scheme after he is arrested.

She lands in a strangely Bronx Guido version of San Francisco inhabited by her low-rent sister Ginger (played with wonderful sympathy by Sally Hawkins). Blanchett’s performance is fascinating. She’s an Ingmar Bergman figure yanked straight out of Tennessee Williams: brittle, highbred, well-guarded against reality but wretchedly vulnerable, snapping back and forth between high-class snob and raving drunk. Blanchett can, in the span of seconds, transform her face from well-composed regality into a grim slur. Jasmine adapts to the poor life, needless to say, badly.

Blanchett’s often-harrowing portrait bumps heads with a loose screwball comedy of no-manners. She is groped by a bumbling dentist and trades insults with Ginger’s goombah fiance Chili (Bobby Canavale). In an effective side plot, Louis C.K. plays a seemingly self-effacing stereo technician who briefly steals Ginger away from Chili. C.K., it should be noticed, also picked up Allen’s old film editor, the incomparable Susan E. Morse, for his TV show, Louie. Maybe Allen should steal her back. Because while Louie drifts beautifully between absurdity and sentimentality, Blue Jasmine cannot reconcile its broad comedy and pathos into coherence.

All the more impressive, then, that Hawkins’ and Blanchett’s twinned performances still manage to pick up most of the pieces. PG-13. MATTHEW KORFHAGE. Laurelhurst.

Captain Phillips

A- You probably already know the

story behind Captain Phillips, because you heard it first from the helmethaired hagiographers of cable news.

Back in 2009, four Somali pirates boarded a freighter and kidnapped its captain, Richard Phillips (played in the movie by Tom Hanks). They kept him for five days on a lifeboat, demanding a ransom of $10 million, then got their brains blown out of their skulls by Navy SEALs. In outline form, the politics of the plot are problematic for a film: It is the heroic triumph of superior, mostly white American forces against amateurish, violent African criminals. But Paul Greengrass’ film is no Black Hawk Down. Whenever the Navy SEALs emerge, they are seen in blank silhouette, accompanied by the ominous music of alien assault.

They look like a machine built only for death. Though shot with an eerie, disciplined neutrality, this is perhaps the most compassionate piece of filmmaking I’ve seen this year. PG-13.

MATTHEW KORFHAGE. Cinema 21.

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2

Cheeseburgers, falling from the sky!

Again! PG. Vancouver, Laurelhurst, Avalon, Edgefield.

Dallas Buyers Club

A The first time Matthew McConaughey appears onscreen in Dallas Buyers Club, the reflex is to gasp. That carved-from-amber beach bod has been whittled down to a toothpick. It’s a transformation mirroring that of McConaughey’s career over the past year: The rom-com lothario has withered away. In his place arrives a performer at his peak, in a role that better damn well win him an Oscar, as an AIDS activist the movies have never seen before: a shit-kicking, homophobic redneck. That redneck actually existed, too. In 1985, Ron Woodroof, a Dallas electrician, bull rider and pussychasing, coke-snorting degenerate, became one of the rare straight men in the early years of the AIDS epidemic to contract HIV. Frustrated by the grinding inertia of Big Pharma, Woodroof went to Mexico, where, with a cocktail of natural supplements and non-FDA-approved meds, he was nursed back to health. Figuring there was a great racket in AIDS drugs that

whines Jon (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a Guido beefcake who likes porn better than real sex. “But you gotta wear one because, unlike porn, real pussy will kill you.” Or rather, real pussy— with all its trappings of commitment—will kill your bachelor lifestyle.

Jon doesn’t have time for that. He is so immersed in Internet porn that it’s hard to tell whether his attitudes about sex and love are the product or the cause of his obsession. GordonLevitt brings just enough depth to the character, and to the film overall, to turn a schlocky premise into an honest and approachable exploration of how porn—and really, any other addictive simulation of reality—can cheat us out of the richness of actual experiences. R. EMILY JENSEN. Laurelhurst, Kennedy School.

Elysium

B+ In the year 2154, we’re told, the

rich don’t care about the poor. Neill Blomkamp, whose debut film was the alien-apartheid fantasy District 9, pretty much takes this for granted.

His sophomore film, Elysium, is essentially a political metaphor gone fiercely rogue in the physical world. Not only do the rich not give two flying figs about the poor, but they live in a utopian space station in the sky, constantly bathed in heavenly light. Below, on Earth, the abandoned residents of Los Angeles languish in a dreamily intricate slum that has fallen into apocalyptic steampunk, a world of shit and piss and dirt. Blomkamp’s cinematic vision may be stunning, but Elysium’s plot and characters are pure Hollywood camp. But goddamn if it isn’t good, solid, hardworking Hollywood camp—with absolutely brutal, inventive action sequences that include swords, hovercraft, force fields, exploding bullets and acrobatic killer robots. The film is what a sci-fi epic should be: a fantastical machine fueled by our own dreams and fears, made believable by its absolute devotion to these dreams. R. MATTHEW KORFHAGE. Laurelhurst.

Ender’s Game

B- Much in the same vein as The Hunger Games—and, of course, The Lord of the Flies long before it— Ender’s Game taps into the brutality and ruthlessness of which children are capable. In this speculative future, Earth is at war with an alien insectoid race, and children have become the military’s best shot at victory.

The fact that the complex computer games and zero-gravity exercises leave the kids increasingly desensitized doesn’t seem to cost their commanding officers any sleep. Director Gavin Hood keeps a firm handle on the film’s somber tone, ensuring we’re never once at ease with the sadis-

tic environment. PG-13. CURTIS WOLOSCHUK. Vancouver, Edgefield.

Enough Said

A- Watching Nicole Holofcener’s

Enough Said is a bit like watching any romantic comedy—provided you’re hung over and bleary-eyed and vulnerable, a little raw from the weight of life. Which is to say, it’s a bit less like the comedies of film and a bit more like the comedies that occur in life, with laughter a balm for tart failure and for the embarrassment of naked hope. In Enough Said, you’re going to get a huge sitcom-caliber calamity: Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ new best friend (Catherine Keener) turns out to be the embittered ex-wife of her new lover (James Gandolfini). But the ridiculous triangle—though unnecessarily protracted—is drawn with lines so jagged and tentative it feels formed to the shapes of the characters, rather than vice versa. The film is a rare thing: a portrait of middle-aged romance that feels genuine in its baby steps and lurches, the hesitations of people out of practice. Louis-Dreyfus’ comedy is rooted in missed opportunity and sudden regret, Keener’s often in the brittle judgment of the alpha female.

Gandolfini’s? Apparently it comes from love. In his final role, he shows a tenderness and good-natured humor that imbues the film with an extra layer of pathos: that we will not know him this way again. One of his last lines in the film is “I’ve missed you.” Well, I’ll miss him, too. PG-13. MATTHEW KORFHAGE. Laurelhurst, Academy.

Free Birds

B While we wouldn’t quite call Free

Birds a good idea, there are so many children’s pics waiting to collide at the Christmas line of scrimmage that any cartoon set during November (even a mismatched pair of turkeys traveling through time to steer the first Thanksgiving away from poultry) seems, well, smart business. Helmed

by Horton Hears a Who! vet Jimmy Hayward and voiced by an enviable troupe of A-listers, the resulting feature arrives with sweeping inoffensiveness and large personalities. If we must watch another iteration of an adorably feckless fellow wooing an officious overachiever, Owen Wilson and Amy Poehler know the roles pretty well. For a production so strictly manufactured, there’s an addled comedic sensibility given blessedly free range. PG. JAY HORTON. Vancouver, Avalon.

Frozen

B Widely hailed as a return to the classic animated features of yore, Frozen arrives as an uncomplicated triumph of traditionalism, for better or worse. A musical-theater retelling of classic Hans Christian Andersen tale The Snow Queen, hidebound Disney preservationists were worried the decidedly modern title foretold the goofy revisionism of 2010’s Rapunzel fan-fic Tangled.

But there’s a far easier explanation for the name change: Once again, it’s all about the princesses. Kristen Bell’s Anna takes center stage as a rambunctious royal eagerly awaiting the social possibilities accompanying her older sister’s imminent coronation. Compared to the pandering messiness of most kids’ movies, there’s plenty to excite the familyfriendly faithful. Widescreen 3-D visuals sculpt an endlessly inventive setting of ice palaces and snowcapped peaks, the original songs written by veterans of Avenue Q and The Book of Mormon soar and tickle as needed, and snowman sidekick Olaf giddily beats back the encroaching melodrama. It’s the sort of Disney film even Disney barely makes anymore, as majestic and problematic as a sudden snowfall, and, like all blizzards of youth, we’ll mourn its passing. PG. JAY HORTON. Cinema 99, Division, Evergreen Parkway, Lloyd Mall, Movies on TV, Pioneer Place, Sherwood, Tigard.

Gravity

A- Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity begins

with a staggeringly brilliant and mesmerizingly staged 17-minute single take, which manages to encapsulate

MOVIES

every single feeling the rest of the film will instill in its viewers: tranquility, warmth, peace, trepidation, nervousness, endearment, wonder and, most of all, fear. With Gravity, Cuarón and his screenwriter son, Jonas, take on the most primal fear possible, that of being lost in an abyss of nothingness. The film features only two actors, Sandra Bullock and George Clooney.

Their simple space-station repair mission turns into a nightmare as debris from a destroyed satellite tears their shuttle to shreds and they’re left hopelessly adrift with a dwindling supply of oxygen. We, like the characters, are stuck, watching the events as they unfold, mostly in real time, and gasping for our collective breath as the oxygen meter slowly runs out. It is perhaps the most stressful experience to be had in a movie theater this year, and as such it’s nearly perfect.

Bullock exudes terror and strength in her difficult role. Clooney, here playing a supporting piece of space debris, becomes the film’s sense of calm and functions as much-needed comic relief.

It’s impossible to even consider relaxing as the characters drift from one scrape with death to the next over the course of 90 unrelenting minutes.

But it’s in the brief lulls that Cuarón manages his most amazing feats, allowing us to stop and stare in awe at the beauty of the images onscreen.

The film is as haunting and beautiful as it is brilliant. PG-13. AP KRYZA. Cinema 21, Empirical Theatre at OMSI.

Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction

A- [THREE NIGHTS ONLY] Just who is Harry Dean Stanton, anyway? You might think you know the 87-yearold character actor from his work in films like Paris, Texas and Repo Man, but Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction suggests you think again.

Sophie Huber’s documentary, the second out on Stanton in less than two years, attempts to make sense of the Kentucky native’s life through interviews with longtime friends David Lynch, Sam Shepard and Kris Kristofferson, as well as clips from some of Stanton’s most celebrated movies. And while the clips are enticing and could spur a number of movie marathons, the real star of the show is Stanton himself, who walks the line between tragic and heroic. Is he, as his assistant puts it, “the Forrest Gump of Hollywood,” an unassuming man who, because of talent and luck, knows everyone who’s anyone in the film industry? Or is he, as Kristofferson’s ballad “He’s a Pilgrim” would have us believe, a poetprophet-picker-pusher? In one of the documentary’s best scenes, Stanton tells Lynch that he couldn’t care less who he is or how he is perceived by future generations. All of us, regardless of fame and fortune, are staring into an endless void. Even with that thesis at its heart, Partly Fiction is no bummer. The whole truth is that it’s a sweetly funny ride, a song-filled study of a born artist. DEBORAH KENNEDY. NW Film Center’s Whitsell Auditorium. 7 pm Thursday-Friday and 5 pm Saturday, Dec. 26-28.

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

B+ When last we saw Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) and his band of dwarves, they were headed to confront a dragon. But along the way, they also took an awful lot of time to do the dishes and sing songs seemingly stolen from Led Zeppelin. That was a central complaint about Peter Jackson’s first entry in his Hobbit trilogy, and it made fans wonder whether swelling J.R.R. Tolkien’s shortest book into three films would result in stagnation. That fear goes flying out the window like a decapitated orc head in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, which justifies its nearly three-hour runtime not by cramming in tons of story, but by allowing the action pieces to play out with the lunacy of an ultraviolent Looney Tunes short. And so we have our heroes floating downriver in barrels as a battle between elves and orcs rages overhead, and a freaky

CONT. on page 50 Willamette Week DECEMBER 25, 2013 wweek.com 49

dec. 25–31

showdown with an army of spiders.

It all leads up to a confrontation with the titular dragon, who instantly becomes the most terrifyingly beautiful winged beast ever put to film. It wouldn’t be a Tolkien film without the self-seriousness, but The Desolation of Smaug never loses its sense of fun, forgoing the confusingly labyrinthine setup of its predecessor in favor of watching its heroes escape ridiculous peril time and time again. PG-13. AP KRYZA. Bagdad, Oak Grove, Cinema 99, Division, Evergreen Parkway, Fox Tower, Lloyd Center, Movies on TV, Sherwood, Tigard, Roseway.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

B Taking what initially seemed like

a watered-down version of Battle Royale, The Hunger Games series has created a sprawling and very grown-up world for young audiences.

With Catching Fire, director Francis Lawrence further expands this postapocalyptic universe where children are forced to slay one another in an annual gladiatorial event designed to tamp down discontent. This film finds heroine Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) and her milquetoast co-champ Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) on a “victory tour” through a country where the rich bathe in luxury while the poor undergo flogging and execution in what resembles WWII-era Russia. As with the first film, Catching Fire goes slightly flat once the actual Hunger Games commence. But in the lead-up to the most violent episode of Survivor imaginable, the director crafts a dense dystopia full of political allegory, media satire and other elements that most YA films consider their core audiences too dumb to handle. PG-13. AP KRYZA. Cinema 99, Division, Evergreen Parkway, Lloyd Mall, Movies on TV, Pioneer Place, Sherwood, Tigard.

Inside Llewyn Davis

B+ Lovable losers abound in the

films of Joel and Ethan Coen. Even the most ardent admirer of Raising Arizona’s H.I. McDunnough or The Big Lebowski’s the Dude would be hardpressed to call either man conventionally successful. But that’s kind of the point: The old adage about loving someone for his flaws holds true in these cases. Keep that in mind when you meet the title character of Inside Llewyn Davis. A down-on-hisluck folk musician in 1961 New York City, Llewyn (Oscar Isaac) crashes on friends’ squeaky couches, gigs at the Gaslight Cafe and mills about while waiting for his big break. It isn’t much of a spoiler to say he’ll be waiting awhile. Witnessing all this unfold is, in a word, lovely. That may seem an odd way to describe such a bittersweet portrait of failure and disenchantment, but the Coens are experts in drawing out the bitter and the sweet in nearly equal measure. Inside Llewyn Davis continues in the sincere, unironic register established by their 2010 remake of True Grit, but that’s not to say it lacks their signature black humor. When Llewyn eventually sees the words “What are you doing?” written on a restroom stall, he seems genuinely taken aback. As the viewer, getting to share in Llewyn’s struggle to answer that question in any meaningful way is more than worth the accompanying sorrow. R. MICHAEL NORDINE. Fox Tower.

Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa

B+ As this narrative begins, Johnny

Knoxville’s newly widowed, 86-yearold Irving Zisman is driving his grandson across the country to be dropped with his deadbeat dad. The farther they travel across America, the further Knoxville and talented child actor Jackson Nicoll press their man-onthe-street badinage toward creepiness. Nicoll’s unilateral decision to be adopted by friendly strangers probably wrings the most laughs, but Knoxville’s addled ferocity attains more intriguing dimensions. Older but no wiser, and still obsessed with seizing the easy laugh with lunatic aplomb, Bad Grandpa isn’t quite art, and it’s not quite growing old gracefully. This, though, you may want to try at home.

R. JAY HORTON. Vancouver, Kennedy School, Academy, Laurelhurst.

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Last Vegas

AP FILM STUDIES

C- John Turtletaub’s film thrusts

F O C U S F E AT U R E S

MOVIES

four 60-something besties (Michael Douglas, Robert De Niro, Morgan Freeman and Kevin Kline) into Sin City for a bachelor party/last hurrah in hopes hilarity will ensue.

If that premise sounds familiar, so are the ensuing shenanigans: fanny packs, bikini contests, Viagra jokes, unearned nostalgia and shopworn musings on aging. Though intermittently funny and not entirely without their charms, Turteltaub’s halfhearted attempts to create a new Rat Pack mostly fall flat. PG-13. MICHAEL NORDINE. Vancouver, Academy, Avalon.

Philomena

C- The hardest part about watching Philomena, a film based on the true story of an Irish woman’s search for the son she gave up for adoption 50 years previous, is accepting the amazing Judi Dench as a bumbling simpleton in the title role. “We don’t have Mexicans in England—we have Indians,” she excitedly explains to the Mexican-American cooks. If you can get over Dench as Grandma Goof—a role she plays as best she can—then Philomena stands on its own two feet.

One of those feet is the enthralling, often emotional storyline. Philomena and Martin Sixsmith (Steve Coogan), a political journalist who’s taken on his first human-interest story, uncover secrets both cloistered in the nunnery where Philomena’s child was born and spread across America, where her son was taken as a child. Unfortunately, the other foot is the waiter-mysoup humor that Fawlty Towers made irrelevant four decades ago. A stuffy Martin plays off the oblivious Philomena and vice versa. After suggesting that Martin not print her real name in the story, Philomena asks, “What about Anne…Anne Boleyn? It’s a lovely name!” After the film ends, it’s Philomena’s story that sticks. Director Stephen Frears and company should be given credit only for staying out of the real Philomena’s way. PG-13. MITCH LILLIE. Fox Tower, Movies on TV, Living Room Theaters.

Saving Mr. Banks

C Disney movies walk a fine line between warm-and-fuzzy feelgoodery and all-out cheese, but few straddle the line as frustratingly as Saving Mr. Banks. This is, after all, a film that casts Tom Hanks as Walt Disney himself, struggling to get Mary Poppins made by awakening the inner child of prim, proper and persnickety British author P.L. Travers, played with eccentric hilarity by the great Emma Thompson. There’s considerable joy to be had in The Blind Side director John Lee Hancock’s depiction of 1960s Hollywood, and in watching Travers slowly seduced by the infectious songs that made Poppins a classic. Alas, Travers suffers more flashbacks than Timothy Leary. Each time the film hits a stride, we’re forced back to turn-of-the-century Australia to witness her upbringing with her whimsically alcoholic dad (Colin Farrell, definitely playing to character). These endless flashbacks take the wind out of the film like a rip in a kite. For all its considerable joy and fantastic performances, Saving Mr. Banks gets greedy: It starts out tugging at the heartstrings but, with its strained sentimentality, eventually tears a ventricle. PG-13. AP KRYZA. Cedar Hills, Oak Grove, Cinema 99, Division, Evergreen Parkway, Fox tower, Lloyd Center, Movies on TV, Sherwood, Tigard.

Tyler Perry’s A Madea Christmas

The pistol-packing, cantankerous grandma goes to the country for the holidays. PG-13. Division, Lloyd Mall, Movies on TV.

Walking With Dinosaurs

Giant dinosaurs POKING YOU IN THE EYE. PG. Oak Grove, Cinema 99, Division, Evergreen Parkway, Lloyd Mall, Movies on TV, Pioneer Place, Sherwood, Tigard.

Willamette Week DECEMBER 25, 2013 wweek.com

bottoms up, mate: The World’s End was the best drinking movie of 2013.

THE AP FILM AWARDS

NOT ANOTHER TOP-10 LIST.

BY A P kRYzA

apkryza@wweek.com

AP Film Studies is not immune from the urge to make year-end lists. But rather than churning out another boring-ass top 10, I’m holding an alternate awards ceremony, one that encompasses more than just Gravity, 12 Years a Slave and whatever Meryl Streep did. Which certainly didn’t include clubbing giant monsters with ocean liners (but Jesus, imagine if it did!).

Best Damn Movie, Period: The Wolf of Wall Street Scorsese and DiCaprio out-gonzo Hunter S. Thompson to create the year’s funniest film. And the scariest.

And the most infuriating. It’s a masterpiece.

Smartest Stupid Movie: Pacific Rim On the surface, Guillermo del Toro’s blockbuster is the story of big-ass robots punchin’ big-ass monsters. But simmering below is…well, robots punchin’ monsters.

But damn if they don’t do their punchin’ in a gorgeous, fully realized world—a world containing genius, for those willing to look for it.

Dumbest “Smart” Movie: Elysium Nothing—not the amazing special effects, not the stellar production design, not the insane battle sequences—could mask the fact that Neill Blomkamp’s Elysium was the most ham-fisted response to the Occupy movement ever. This man made District 9, one of cinema’s most thoughtful actioner-as-politicalallegory films. Then he basically made Occupy: Space.

Best Oddly Romantic but Still Highly Disturbing Scene: Sightseers Ben Wheatley’s underrated thrill-kill movie climaxes with a jilted woman dropping her boyfriend’s new friend off a cliff. The lovers fight. They make love. She dupes him into killing himself. It’s heart-melting.

Grossest Sex: The Wolf of Wall Street When Leonardo DiCaprio declares, “I fucked her brains out…for 11 seconds,” it plays like Lord Byron compared to the sight of Hollywood’s most gorgeous leading man tag-teaming his assistant with Jonah Hill.

Best Nerd-Out: Room 237 A bunch of conspiracy theorists talking about all the hidden meanings of The Shining? Sploosh.

Best Drinking Movie: The World’s End It runs through all the motions of a drunken night out—excitement, nostalgia, sadness, the urge to punch somebody in the face—while offering up an actual nar-

rative about dudes drinking. When somebody makes a drinking game based on this film, alcohol poisoning will run rampant in Britain.

Worst Drinking Movie: 12 Years a Slave Hey, bro, wanna go to the beer theaters and watch Steve McQueen’s dissection of slavery?

Biggest Horror: V/H/S 2 Everyone flipped out over The Conjuring, but the great anthology flick V/H/S 2 pulled off something incredible in a fever-dream sequence about journalists who infiltrate an Indonesian cult on Kool-Aid day.

Best Sucker Punch: Iron Man 3 Fanboys were up in arms when it was revealed that Tony Stark’s nemesis was a drug-addled cockney actor.

But in upsetting expectations, Shane Black managed to sidestep the inherently racist and ridiculous qualities of the Mandarin character and allow Ben Kingsley to mold him into something terrifying and hilarious.

Most Stressful Experience: Gravity Sandra Bullock spends a whole movie running out of air. The audience spends the whole movie forgetting to breathe. All the while, we see the cinematic landscape changing around us. It’s not the strongest narrative. It doesn’t need to be—it’s a game-changer of pure cinema.

Best Villain: The Iceman The movie sucks, but Michael Shannon is the year’s scariest bastard. His performance makes his General Zod seem like a kindergarten teacher.

Best Cameo: This Is the End In a film that’s basically a feature-length parade of cameos, the sight of Channing Tatum gimped up as Danny McBride’s sex slave might be the best pop-up appearance since Bill Murray in Zombieland.

Biggest Goddammit Moment: Only God Forgives Following the insane Drive, Nicholas Winding Refn and Ryan Gosling reteam for a gorgeous and utterly boring film that at least seems to promise an epic showdown between the Baby Goose and a man who might be the Angel of Death. They fight for a minute. He pouts. The movie proves itself a bust. Goddammit.

Also showinG: Wait, the Academy actually got its new digital projector? INCONCEIVABLE! Celebrate by watching The Princess Bride. Academy Theater. Dec. 27-Jan. 2.

Grindhouse Film Fest continues its New Year’s Day tradition of showing a secret movie. It’ll probably include violence, boobs, awesome music, boobs, violence and boobs. Hollywood Theater. 3 pm Wednesday, Jan. 1.

MOVIES

dec. 27-jan. 2

1987 - MgM

NW Film Center’s Whitsell Auditorium 1219 SW Park Ave., 503221-1156 HaRRY dean STanTOn: PaRTLY FIcTIOn Fri-Sat 05:00 RePO Man Fri 08:45 aT BeRKeLeY SatSun 02:00

Regal Pioneer Place Stadium 6

BLONDES DO IT BETTER: The Princess Bride plays Dec. 27-Jan. 2 at the Academy Theater.

Regal Lloyd Center 10 & IMAX

1510 NE Multnomah St., 800326-3264 THe HOBBIT: THe deSOLaTIOn OF SMaUG: an IMaX 3d eXPeRIence Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-TueWed 11:15, 03:00, 06:45, 10:30 MandeLa: LOnG WaLK TO FReedOM FriSat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 12:00, 03:30, 07:00, 10:20 SaVInG MR. BanKS FriSat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 12:10, 03:20, 06:40, 09:50 THe WOLF OF WaLL STReeT Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 11:40, 12:20, 03:40, 07:40, 09:45 THe SecReT LIFe OF WaLTeR MITTY Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 01:00, 04:20, 07:20, 10:15 47 ROnIn 3d Fri-Sat-Sun-MonTue-Wed 12:40, 07:10, 10:20 47 ROnIn Fri-Sat-Sun-MonTue-Wed 03:55 aMeRIcan HUSTLe Fri-Sat-Sun-MonTue-Wed 11:50, 03:10, 06:30, 09:55 ancHORMan 2: THe LeGend cOnTInUeS FriSat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 12:50, 03:50, 04:30, 06:55, 07:30, 10:25 THe HOBBIT: THe deSOLaTIOn OF SMaUG Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 12:30, 04:40, 08:30

Avalon Theatre & Wunderland

3451 SE Belmont St., 503238-1617 FRee BIRdS Wed 07:00 cLOUdY WITH a cHance OF MeaTBaLLS 2 Wed 05:30 LaST VeGaS Wed 04:45, 08:45 caRRIe Wed 07:20, 09:15

Bagdad Theater and Pub

3702 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 503-249-7474 THe HOBBIT: THe deSOLaTIOn OF SMaUG Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 12:00, 03:45, 07:30

Cinema 21

616 NW 21st Ave., 503-2234515 caPTaIn PHILLIPS Wed 04:00, 06:45, 09:15 daLLaS BUYeRS cLUB Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 01:45, 04:15, 07:00, 09:20 GRaVITY 3d

Clinton Street Theater

2522 SE Clinton St., 503238-8899 THe BIG LeBOWSKI Wed 07:30 a.K.a. dOc POMUS Fri-Sat-Sun 07:00 THe ROcKY HORROR PIcTURe SHOW Sat 12:00 jUMP Mon 07:00

Moreland Theatre

6712 SE Milwaukie Ave., 503236-5257 THe HOBBIT: THe deSOLaTIOn OF SMaUG Wed 05:30, 08:35

Oak Grove 8 Cinemas

16100 SE McLoughlin Blvd., 503-653-9999 THe HOBBIT: THe deSOLaTIOn OF SMaUG Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-TueWed 12:20, 03:40, 07:00, 10:15 aMeRIcan HUSTLe Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-TueWed 01:15, 04:15, 07:10, 10:05 ancHORMan 2: THe LeGend cOnTInUeS Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-TueWed 01:45, 04:25, 07:20, 10:00 WaLKInG WITH dInOSaURS Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 01:25, 03:30, 05:35, 07:40, 09:40 SaVInG MR. BanKS FriSat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 01:10, 04:00, 06:45, 09:30 GRUdGe MaTcH Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 02:05, 04:45, 07:25, 09:55 THe WOLF OF WaLL STReeT Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 12:40, 04:20, 08:00 47 ROnIn Fri-Sat-Sun-MonTue-Wed 01:25, 04:05, 06:50, 09:35

Roseway Theatre

7229 NE Sandy Blvd., 503282-2898 THe HOBBIT: THe deSOLaTIOn OF SMaUG 3d Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-TueWed 04:00, 08:00 THe HOBBIT: THe deSOLaTIOn OF SMaUG Fri-Sat-SunMon-Tue-Wed 12:00

St. Johns Cinemas

8704 N Lombard St., 503286-1768 THe HOBBIT: THe deSOLaTIOn OF SMaUG Wed 05:00, 08:30 ancHORMan 2: THe LeGend cOnTInUeS Wed 05:25, 07:55, 10:25

CineMagic Theatre

2021 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 503-231-7919 THe WOLF OF WaLL STReeT Wed 05:30, 09:00

Century 16 Eastport Plaza

4040 SE 82nd Ave., 800326-3264-952 THe WOLF OF WaLL STReeT Wed 10:00, 02:00, 06:05, 10:00 THe HUnGeR GaMeS: caTcHInG FIRe Wed 11:55, 03:30, 07:05, 10:30 SaVInG MR. BanKS Wed 10:15, 01:20, 04:20, 07:20, 10:20 THe SecReT LIFe OF WaLTeR MITTY Wed 10:30, 01:30, 04:30, 07:30, 10:25 THe HOBBIT: THe deSOLaTIOn OF SMaUG Wed 09:50, 01:30, 05:10, 08:50 THe HOBBIT: THe deSOLaTIOn OF SMaUG 3d Wed 11:40, 03:20, 07:00, 10:40 TYLeR PeRRY’S a Madea cHRISTMaS Wed 11:00, 01:40, 04:25, 07:15, 09:55 FROZen Wed 10:50, 01:50, 04:40, 07:25, 10:15

FROZen 3d Wed 09:55, 12:35, 03:15, 06:10, 08:55 aMeRIcan HUSTLe Wed 12:20, 03:40, 07:00, 10:20 GRUdGe MaTcH Wed 10:00, 01:00, 04:00, 07:00, 10:00 ancHORMan 2: THe LeGend cOnTInUeS Wed 10:25, 01:25, 04:30, 07:30, 10:00 WaLKInG WITH dInOSaURS Wed 12:30, 05:30, 10:25 WaLKInG WITH dInOSaURS 3d Wed 10:05, 03:00, 08:00 47 ROnIn Wed 10:15, 04:15, 10:15 47 ROnIn 3d Wed 01:15, 07:15

Edgefield Powerstation Theater

2126 SW Halsey St., 503249-7474-2 cLOUdY WITH a cHance OF MeaTBaLLS 2 Wed 06:00 endeR’S GaMe Wed 09:00

Kennedy School Theater

5736 NE 33rd Ave., 503-2497474-4 cLOUdY WITH a cHance OF MeaTBaLLS 2 Wed 05:30 jacKaSS PReSenTS: Bad GRandPa Wed 07:40 dOn jOn Wed 02:30

Empirical Theatre at OMSI

1945 SE Water Ave., 503797-4000 MYSTeRIeS OF THe UnSeen WORLd Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue 11:00, 03:00 jeRUSaLeM Fri-Sat-SunMon-Tue 01:00, 04:00 GReaT WHITe SHaRK Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue 12:00, 02:00, 05:00 eLF FriSat-Sun 06:00 GRaVITY 3d Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue 06:00, 08:00

Hollywood Theatre

4122 NE Sandy Blvd., 503281-4215 daLLaS BUYeRS cLUB Wed 03:30, 07:00 IT’S a WOndeRFUL LIFe Wed 03:15 THe WOLF OF WaLL STReeT Wed 03:00, 06:45, 07:30

Regal Fox Tower Stadium 10

846 SW Park Ave., 800326-3264 THe WOLF OF WaLL STReeT Fri-Sat-Sun-Wed 03:30, 05:30, 09:30 47 ROnIn 3d Fri-Sat-Sun 03:20, 06:50, 09:40 47 ROnIn Fri-Sat-Sun 12:10 GRUdGe MaTcH Fri-SatSun 11:15, 01:50, 04:45, 07:30, 10:10 aMeRIcan HUSTLe Fri-Sat-Sun 12:00, 01:00, 03:00, 04:00, 06:00, 07:00, 09:00, 10:00 InSIde LLeWYn daVIS Fri-Sat-Sun 11:30, 12:30, 03:00, 06:10, 07:10, 09:15, 10:15 SaVInG MR. BanKS Fri-Sat-Sun 11:00, 01:45, 04:30, 07:15, 10:00 PHILOMena Fri-Sat-Sun 02:10, 07:10 daLLaS BUYeRS cLUB Fri-Sat-Sun 11:20, 04:20, 09:20

340 SW Morrison St., 800326-3264 THe SecReT LIFe OF WaLTeR MITTY Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 11:15, 02:00, 04:50, 07:45, 10:40 WaLKInG WITH dInOSaURS 3d Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 02:40, 05:00 WaLKInG WITH dInOSaURS Fri-Sat-SunMon-Tue-Wed 11:30, 08:00, 10:20 ancHORMan 2: THe LeGend cOnTInUeS Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 11:45, 02:15, 05:10, 07:30, 10:30 THe HOBBIT: THe deSOLaTIOn OF SMaUG 3d Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-TueWed 11:00, 10:00 THe HOBBIT: THe deSOLaTIOn OF SMaUG Fri-Sat-SunMon-Tue-Wed 02:30, 06:15 FROZen Fri-Sat-Sun-MonTue-Wed 12:15, 03:45, 07:00, 10:10 THe HUnGeR GaMeS: caTcHInG FIRe Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 12:00, 03:00, 06:45, 09:45

Regal Cinemas Bridgeport Village Stadium 18 & IMAX

7329 SW Bridgeport Road, 800-326-3264 THe WOLF OF WaLL STReeT Fri-Sat-Sun-Wed 11:15, 11:45, 02:45, 03:15, 06:45, 07:20, 09:10, 10:10 GRUdGe MaTcH Wed 10:10, 12:50, 03:50, 06:40, 09:30 47 ROnIn Wed 03:40 THe SecReT LIFe OF WaLTeR MITTY Wed 10:10, 02:00, 04:50, 07:10, 09:50 47 ROnIn 3d Wed 12:10, 07:45, 09:40 aMeRIcan HUSTLe Wed 10:45, 01:15, 04:00, 07:30, 10:45 WaLKInG WITH dInOSaURS 3d Wed 10:00, 04:15 WaLKInG WITH dInOSaURS Wed 01:45, 06:50, 09:20 ancHORMan 2: THe LeGend cOnTInUeS Wed 10:15, 12:20, 01:00, 03:20, 04:30, 07:00, 07:40, 09:55, 10:30 SaVInG MR. BanKS Wed 10:30, 12:30, 03:45, 07:15, 10:00 THe HOBBIT: THe deSOLaTIOn OF SMaUG: an IMaX 3d eXPeRIence Wed 11:00, 03:00, 06:55, 10:45 jUSTIn BIeBeR’S BeLIeVe Wed 10:50, 01:30, 04:20, 07:05, 10:35 THe HOBBIT: THe deSOLaTIOn OF SMaUG Wed 12:00, 03:30, 07:25, 09:45 InSIde LLeWYn daVIS Wed 11:05, 01:55, 04:45, 07:35, 10:20 PHILOMena Wed 10:00, 11:40, 02:10, 04:40, 07:10 FROZen Wed 10:00, 12:35, 03:25, 06:20, 10:50 THe HUnGeR GaMeS: caTcHInG FIRe Wed 11:20, 03:55, 06:35, 10:40

Academy Theater

7818 SE Stark St., 503-2520500 LaST VeGaS Wed 07:15 jacKaSS PReSenTS: Bad GRandPa Wed 03:00, 09:30 aLL IS LOST Wed 02:35, 07:00 cLOUdY WITH a cHance OF MeaTBaLLS 2 Wed 05:10 enOUGH SaId Wed 04:55, 09:20 deSPIcaBLe Me 2 Wed 04:30 a cHRISTMaS STORY Wed 02:20, 06:45, 09:00

SubjecT To change. call TheaTerS or ViSiT WWeek.coM/MoVieTiMeS For The MoST up-TodaTe inForMaTion Friday-ThurSday, dec.

27-jan. 2, unleSS oTherWiSe indicaTed

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CLASSIFIEDS DIRECTORY 52

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STUFF

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BULLETIN BOARD

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SERVICES

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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY

54 JONESIN’

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JOBS

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REAL ESTATE

55

MUSICIANS’ MARKET

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ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE

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MEN’S HEALTH

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TREE SERVICES

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Week of December 26

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Edmund Kean (17891833) was one of the most famous British actors of his time. But a contemporary, the poet Samuel Coleridge, was frustrated by Kean’s inconsistency, regarding him as a great artist who on occasion lapsed into histrionics. “To see him act,” said Coleridge, “is like reading Shakespeare by flashes of lightning.” Now and then I get that feeling about you, Aries. You have bursts of brilliance that you sometimes don’t follow up on.

You’re like a superstar who loses your concentration.

But I’ve got a strong feeling that in 2014 you will at least partially overcome this tendency. Your word of power will be consistency.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Ernest Rutherford (18711937) is known as the father of nuclear physics not just because he won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry. He was also a superb teacher. Eleven of his students won Nobel Prizes. That’s the kind of teacher or mentor or guide I urge you to connect with in 2014, Taurus. The coming months will potentially be an optimum time for you to learn deeply, and at a rapid rate. One of the best ways to fulfill that promise will be to apprentice yourself to adepts who have mastered the skills and savvy you want to acquire.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Your last best hope to get rich was back in the latter half of 2001 and the first six months of 2002. From July 2025 to June 2026, the cosmos will again conspire to give you a big fat chance to expedite your cash flow to the max. But why get bogged down dreaming of the past or fantasizing about the future when fertile opportunities to boost your prosperity are in front of you right now? Financial luck is flowing your way. Viable ideas for making money are materializing in your subconscious treasure house.

The contacts that could help you build your wealth are ready to play with you. (This offer is good until July 2014.)

CANCER (June 21-July 22): French poet Edmond Jabès had this to say about the birth of big creative ideas that dramatically transform one’s life: “For the writer, discovering the work he will write is both like a miracle and a wound, like the miracle of the wound.” Regardless of whether or not you’re an artist, Cancerian, I expect that you will experience a wrenching and amazing awakening like this in 2014. The opening you’ve been hoping and working for will finally crack its way into your destiny. It may be one of the most pleasurable disruptions you’ve ever had.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): In the coming months, I’m betting that you will exit a confined place or shed cramped expectations or break off your commitment to a compromise that has drained you. It may happen suddenly, or it could take a while to complete. How the escape unfolds will have to do with how thoroughly you extract the lessons that your “incarceration” has made available. Here’s a ritual that might also expedite the process: Give a gift to the people you’re leaving behind, or offer a blessing in the spot where your difficult teachings have taken place.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): “Now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good,” says a character in John Steinbeck’s novel East of Eden. I suggest that you make this your rallying cry in 2014, Virgo. In fact, why not begin right now, wherever you are? Say “Now that I don’t have to be perfect, I can be good.” Free yourself of the pressure to be the polished, ultimate embodiment of everything you’d ever hoped you would be. That will allow you to relax into being more content with the intriguing creation you have already become. You may be surprised by how much mojo this affords you.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): In 1972, English folk musician Nick Drake recorded his album Pink Moon. He finished it in a mere four hours, singing all 11 songs and playing every instrumental track himself. It took years for anyone to appreciate his artistry, but eventually the magazine Melody Maker selected Pink Moon as number 48 on its list of the “All Time Top 100 Albums.” Here’s one way I suspect your efforts will be similar to Drake’s in 2014, Libra: You will have the ability to get a lot done in a short time. Here are two ways your fate will be dif-

ferent from Drake’s: First, you will have a big pool of trustworthy allies to call on for help. Second, what you produce won’t take nearly as long to get the appreciation it warrants.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Eierlegende Wollmilchsauis a colloquial German term for a mythical pig that lays eggs like a chicken, provides milk like a cow, supplies wool like a sheep, and ultimately becomes bacon and pork chops. Metaphorically, it may refer to a fanciful device that performs many functions. Imagine, for instance, a futuristic smart phone that could interpret your dreams, trim your unwanted hair, fix you a perfect cup of coffee, tell you you’re beautiful in ways you actually believe, and cure your little health problems. In the real world, there’s no such thing, right? Not yet. But there’s a chance you will find the next best thing to an eierlegende Wollmilchsau in 2014.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): “We don’t accomplish our love in a single year as the flowers do,” says Rainer Maria Rilke in the Duino Elegies. Do you promise to take that truth into consideration in 2014, Sagittarius? Will you pledge to diligently devote yourself to creating the right conditions for love to flourish?

In the past, you may not have been fully able to carry out this slow-building marvel; you may not have had quite enough wise perseverance. But you do now.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): In 1588, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the ruler of Japan, confiscated the swords, daggers, and spears belonging to every citizen. He announced they would be melted down and used to make a giant Buddha statue. I’d love to see you undertake a comparable transformation in 2014, Capricorn.

You shouldn’t completely shed all your anger and pugnacity, of course; a certain amount is valuable, especially when you need to rouse yourself to change situations that need to be changed. But it’s also true that you could benefit from a reduction in your levels of combativeness. What if you could “melt down” some of your primal rage and use the energy that’s made available to build your personal equivalent of a Buddha icon?

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): The period between last July and next June is prime time to find or create your dream job. That might mean simply upgrading your existing gig so that it serves you better. Or it could involve you rethinking your relationship with work and going off in quest of a new way to earn a living. So how are you doing on this project, Aquarius? If you are proceeding on schedule, you should be halfway there by now. The goal should be clear, and you should be more disciplined, organized, and determined than ever. If for any reason this isn’t the case, start playing catch-up.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): “Singing teaches two skills that are essential for any creative process,” says author and vocalist Rachel Bagby, “the ability to listen and the ability to be flexible and spontaneous.” I bring this to your attention, Pisces, because 2014 could potentially be a Golden Age for your creativity. It will be a time when you will benefit even more than usual from exploring and enhancing your imaginative originality. That’s why I’m encouraging you to sing more than you ever have before. Make a list of your 50 favorite singable songs. Be aggressive about expanding the music you get exposed to, and learn the melodies and lyrics to a lot of new tunes. Cut loose with your vocal stylings whenever you have a chance, and take a vow to propel yourself out of funky moods with the creative energy of your singing.

Homework Send me your New Year’s resolutions.

Go to RealAstrology.com and click on “Email Rob.” For extra credit, send your anti-resolutions: weird habits and vices you pledge to continue.

check out Rob Brezsny’s Expanded Weekly Audio Horoscopes & Daily Text Message Horoscopes

freewillastrology.com

The audio horoscopes are also available by phone at

1-877-873-4888 or 1-900-950-7700

PETS

Dudley

Hey there! I’m Dudley, and I’m one coooooooool dude. I’m 2 years old, and I’m settling into being a happy, relaxed and super, duper snuggly little guy. My parents were a beagle and chihuahua, so I’m a beagluahua! Ha!! Are you really asking yourself if that is that actually a thing!?! Of course it is. It’s ME! I like other cats and dogs, so would be fine with some new brothers and sisters.

I’m just looking for a family to call my own. Could it be you?! To schedule a meet and find out, fill out an application at pixieproject.org. I’m microchipped, fixed and I have all of my vaccinations.

My adoption fee is $250, and I am currently living in foster care.

503-542-3432 • 510 NE MLK Blvd • pixieproject.org

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JONESIN’

by Matt Jones

Full Houses–a pair plus three of a kind, and no Uncle Jesse.

62 Rapper who dropped part of his name after 2001’s “Doggy Bag” 64 Fireplace nook 66 City of central Florida 67 Ginger ___ 68 “Wall Street” theme 69 SATB section 70 Gen-___ (Millennial) 71 Disgusting

Portland’s Indie Rock Strip Club

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HOTTEST GIRLS IN CHINATOWN 217 NW 4th Ave (503) 224-8472 magicgardenportland.com

Across 1 Camera setting 6 Play around with some music 9 Bar display 14 1986 Indy 500 champ Bobby 15 Prefix with scope or sclerosis 16 Last in a Greek series 17 Hill in a 1991 hearing 18 Howard Stern’s producer/sidekick 20 Emmy-winning scientist Bill

21 Leachman of “Young Frankenstein” 23 “Go back” computer command 24 Ground-water separator?

27 Since 28 Go to brunch 29 Day, to Don Quixote 32 Abbr. on a mountain peak sign 35 Fresh, in Frankfurt 37 “Bye Bye Bye” band, 2000

39 Pest 43 Language that gave us “kiwi” 44 Phoenix-toVancouver dir.

45 Photographer Geddes 46 2013 and 2014, e.g.

47 Curvy shape 50 Phobia 52 Appetizer trays at a luau 57 Bravo preceder 60 Kindle buys 61 Dennis’s sister on “It’s Always Sunny”

Down 1 Swiss cash 2 Big name in consumer electronics 3 Man of steal?

4 Cereal grain 5 Yell on the set before “curtain up” 6 Posting sought by some seekers 7 “Asteroids” game company 8 Cell 9 Melodramatic sound 10 Love, French-style 11 Kings of ___ 12 Like some cheddar 13 “The Banana Boat Song” opening 19 “The Thin Man” dog 22 “Jurassic Park III” star Tea 25 Noisemaker or party hat 26 Mountain on the Mediterranean 29 Bob Dylan’s “In

My Time of ___” 30 Get ___ the ground floor 31 Face trouble 32 Soap-making award?

33 “I don’t believe you!”

34 “Dukes of Hazzard” deputy 36 Tea server 38 Begin 40 Modern waltz violinist Andre ___ 41 Blooming 42 Make a slight adjustment to 48 Gush 49 Chain pitched by Michael Phelps 51 Punctuation in an e-mail address 52 Nobel-winning poet Neruda 53 Good surname for a lifeguard?

54 They may be sanded down 55 Get new tenants 56 Broken-down 57 “I get that ___” 58 Hair scare 59 Dessert after paella 63 Paddle cousin 65 Org. for shooters last week’s answers

©2013 Jonesin’ Crosswords (editor@jonesincrosswords.com) For answers to this puzzle, call: 1-900-226-2800, 99 cents per minute. Must be 18+. Or to bill to your credit card, call: 1-800-655-6548. Reference puzzle #JONZ655.

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MAN to MAN

Free chat 3-9pm daily! 503-222-CHAT 54

Week Classifieds DECEMBER 25, 2013 wweek.com

TO PLACE AN AD CONTACT:

MATT PLAMBECK

503-445-2757 • mplambeck@wweek.com

BACK COVER CONTINUED... ww presents

I M A D E T HIS

TO PLACE AN AD ON BACK COVER CONTINUED call 503-445-2757

AN URBAN FARM IN NE PORTLAND PROVIDING RESTAURANTS WITH LOCAL PRODUCE AND THE COMMUNITY WITH FOOD, EDUCATION AND OPPORTUNITY SINCE 2009.

NOMADIC SUPPER CLUB - CATERING - DIY WORKSHOPS - KIDS CAMP thesideyardpdx.com

Locally Owned & Operated Since 2001

Fresh, local produce, from area farms

Convenient & Flexible, Pay as you go, Lots of options, home/office delivery 503-236-6496 • 2030 N. Williams

organicstoyou.org

by Alan Scally $100 For sale through artist scally8@gmail.com 971-258-8863 scallysmashmouthart.weebly.com

JOBS

GENERAL

MUSICIANS MARKET FOR FREE ADS in 'Musicians Wanted,' 'Musicians Available' & 'Instruments for Sale' go to portland.backpage.com and submit ads online.

Ads taken over the phone in these categories cost $5.

EMPLOYMENT SERVICES

INSTRUMENTS FOR SALE

MCMENAMINS GRAND LODGE RUBY SPA

is now hiring LMTs! Qualified apps must have an open & flex sched including, days, eves, wknds and holidays. We are looking for applicants who have prev exp related exp and enjoy working in a busy customer service-oriented enviro. We are also willing to train! We offer opps for advancement and excellent benefits for eligible employees, including vision, med, chiro, dental and so much more! Please apply online 24/7 at www.mcmenamins. com or pick up a paper app at any McMenamins location. Mail to 430 N. Killingsworth, Portland OR, 97217 or fax: 503-221-8749. Call 503-952-0598 for info on other ways to apply. Please no phone calls or emails to individ locs! E.O.E.

TRADEUPMUSIC.COM

www.ExtrasOnly.com 503.227.1098

RENTALS ROOMMATE SERVICES ALL AREAS - ROOMMATES.COM. Browse hundreds of online listings with photos and maps. Find your roommate with a click of the mouse! Visit: www.Roommates.com. (AAN CAN)

Buying, selling, instruments of every shape and size. Open 11am-7pm every day. 4701 SE Division & 1834 NE Alberta.

MUSIC LESSONS Learn Piano All styles, levels

With 2 time Grammy winner Peter Boe. 503-274-8727.

VOICE INSTRUCTION Anthony Plumer, Concert Artist/Voice Teacher. www.naturalvocalarts.com 503-299-4089.

W

IL

LA

M E T TE WE

SAM CHURCHILL

“Visionaries”

EK

GIVE! GUIDE 2013

space sponsored by

One weeks left to GIVE.

giveguide.org

Submit your art to be featured in Willamette Week’s I Made This.

For submission guidelines go to wweek.com/imadethis

Willamette Week Classifieds DECEMBER 25, 2013 wweek.com

55

DUII TO ADVERTISE ON WILLAMETTE WEEK’S BACK COVER CALL 445-2757

BANKRUPTCY

Do you want to be debt free?

Call Now: 503-808-9032 FREE Consultation. Payment Plans.

Scott Hutchinson, Attorney www.Hutchinson-Law.com

$BUYING JUNK CARS$ $100-$2000 no title required ,free removal call Jeff 503-501-0711 jeffsjunkcarspdx@yahoo.com

AA HYDROPONICS

9966 SW Arctic Drive, Beaverton 9220 SE Stark Street, Portland American Agriculture • americanag.com PDX 503-256-2400 BVT 503-641-3500

In stock today!

PROFESSIONAL QUALITY Accurate • Reliable • Fuel cell Calibrated • One year warranty

503-747-0580 www.pdxinterlock.com

ROSE CITY GUN & KNIFE SHOW

Jan 4th and 5th Portland Expo Center Sat. 9-6, Sun 9-4. Admission $10. 503-363-9564 wesknodelgunshows.com

Portable Breathalyzer

Willamette Week’s

A FEMALE FRIENDLY SEX TOY BOUTIQUE EXPLORING BURLESQUE: STRIPTEASE SALON / WED, JAN 8 - 7:30 - $15 BACK THAT ASS UP! ANAL SEX 101 / THURS, JAN 23 - 7:30 - $15 THE JOY OF TOYS / THURS, FEB 6 - 7:30 - $15 HOW TO DRIVE A VULVA / SUN, FEB 16 - 7:30 - $20

SHEBOPTHESHOP.COM 909 N BEECH STREET, HISTORIC MISSISSIPPI DISTRICT 503-473-8018 SU-TH 11–7, FR–SA 11–8

Bankruptcy Attorney

It’s not too late to eliminate debt, protect assets, start over. Experienced, compassionate, top-quality service.

Christopher Kane, 503-380-7822 www.ckanelaw.com

$Cash for Junk Vehicles$

20% Off Any Smoking Apparatus With This Ad! BUY LOCAL, BUY AMERICAN, BUY MARY JANES Glass Pipes, Vaporizers, Incense & Candles

Ask for Steve. 503-936-5923 Licensed/Bonded/Insured

7219 NE Hwy. 99, Suite 109

$$$ CASH FOR DIABETIC TEST STRIPS $$$

(360) 735-5913

Paying up to $30/box. Help those who can’t afford insurance. Free pickup in SW WA and Portland Metro.

Call 360-693-0185

Vancouver, WA 98665

212 N.E. 164th #19 Vancouver, WA 98684

(360) 514-8494

1425 NW 23rd Portland, OR 97210 (503) 841-5751

6913 E. Fourth Plain Vancouver, WA 98661

Comedy Classes

Guitar Lessons

Personalized instruction for over 15yrs. www.danielnoland.com 503-546-3137

North West Hydroponic R&R

We Buy, Sell, & Trade New & Used Hydroponic Equipment. 503-747-3624

WWEEKDOTCOM

Vancouver, WA 98664

(360) 213-1011

1156 Commerce Ave Longview Wa 98632

Resource Center

*971-255-1456* 1310 SE 7TH AVE

Open 7 Days www.ommpResourceCenter.com

BACK COVER CONTINUED INSIDE

1825 E Street

Washougal, WA 98671

(360) 695-7773 (360) 577-4204 Not valid with any other offer

Improv, Standup, Sketch writing. Now en- Opiate Treatment Program Evening outpatient treatment rolling program with suboxone.

The Brody Theater, 503-224-0688 www.brodytheater.com CRCHealth/Dr. Jim Thayer, Addiction Medicine Community Law Project http://belmont.crchealth.com Sliding-Scale Nonprofit Attorneys 1-800-797-6237 Bankruptcy - Tenants Small Business - More Oregon Medical (503)208-4079 www.CommunityLawProject.org Marijuana Patient

Interested Non-profits Call 503-445-2757 or go to wweek.com/volunteerguide

8312 E. Mill Plain Blvd

(360) 844-5779

Oregon Wage Claim Attorneys

Helping Oregon employees collect wages!

Free consultation!

Schuck Law (503) 974-6142 (360) 566-9243 http://wageclaim.org

OVERWHELMED BY DEBT?

Get a fresh start! Call today for free consultation.

Debt relief agency, Attorney, Amber Wolf 503.293.8482

WHERE SINGLES MEET Browse & Reply FREE! 503-299-9911 Use FREE Code 2557, 18+

W W E E K D OT C O M W W E E K D OT C O M

Medical Marijuana

card Services clinic

New Downtown Location!

503-384-Weed (9333) www.mmcsclinic.com 4911 NE Sandy Blvd, Portland • open 7 days

1501 SW Broadway www.mellowmood.com

4119 SE Hawthorne, Portland ph: 503-235-PIPE (7473)